Playing with Fire

by April Henry

  “Blueberries!” Zion shouted.

  “No, um, they’re buckle … buckle harries.”

  Wyatt helped her out. “Huckleberries.”

  “Right!” Susan looked relieved. She held out the hat to Darryl, who put a few berries in his mouth with a trembling hand.

  Natalia’s elation was over almost before it began. How much time would the huckleberries actually buy? Berries were certainly better than sugar water, but they still were mostly fruit sugar, which would break down quickly. Huckleberries weren’t the fuel Darryl needed to keep his internal fires burning. And once those fires were reduced to coals and ash, he really would have to lie down, because he wouldn’t be able to walk. Which would be followed by seizures, coma, and finally death.

  “Are you guys sure you don’t have any kind of food left?” she pleaded. “Something you might have forgotten or were saving for later?”

  Lisa cleared her throat. Ryan put his unburned hand on her shoulder as if to caution her, but she shook it off. “Actually, there’s an Uncrustables in Trask’s pack.”

  “What’s that?” Natalia couldn’t even be mad. If Trask were her kid she might have “forgotten” about food for him, too.

  “It’s like a small kid’s sandwich with peanut butter and jelly. They call it that because they cut off the crusts.”

  The jelly would only provide Darryl with additional sugar. The bread would be a slightly more complex carbohydrate. But the peanut butter would be the big log. Its protein and fat could give Darryl the endurance he needed.

  Wyatt turned his back to Lisa to give her access to the child carrier. Trying not to wake Trask, she gingerly unzipped the pocket holding the wrapped sandwich. Meanwhile, Susan showed the others what to look for, and they began to search for more huckleberries.

  The smoke had thickened, and now it rolled down the hill toward them like fog. They were all coughing now, but at least Marco wasn’t coughing any more than anyone else.

  Lisa ripped open the packaging and handed the sandwich to Darryl. It was no bigger than the palm of his hand. But Natalia thought it might be just enough.

  It was going to have to be.

  While Darryl chewed and swallowed, Beatriz came up to Natalia with cupped hands and red-stained lips. “Here, try some.”

  Natalia popped a berry between her lips. She let it rest on her tongue for a second, dusty and warm. Then she pressed it against the roof of her mouth until it exploded on her tongue, sweet and sour and a little grainy. Saliva flooded her mouth. Meanwhile the others were popping berries in their mouths as quickly as they were plucked.

  Darryl was already looking better. They were going to make it. Her shoulders relaxed.

  Wyatt and Ryan were bent over the map while Wyatt traced a path with his finger.

  “So you think three hours tops?” Ryan asked.

  “Um, guys…,” AJ said in a shaky voice. At his tone, Natalia’s heart jolted in her chest. She turned and looked up.

  The fire had reached the top of the ridge above them. Flames leapt from one tree to the next, roaring hungrily. The breeze carried the rank smell of burned-out ground and charred forest.

  Showers of orange sparks began to streak past them. Lisa cried out as a burning windblown piece of moss hit her shoulder. She batted it out.

  The tallest of the trees on the ridgeline became a torch, orange against the smoky-gray sky. Then it swayed, creaked, groaned, and began to tip. Toward them.

  “It’s coming down!” Wyatt yelled. “Hurry!”

  “But it’s too far away,” Natalia protested. Even if it did fall, wouldn’t it just land on the loose rocks covering the hill?

  She didn’t have it in her to run. She barely had it in her to walk. Still, she managed to pick up her pace to a shuffling jog.

  With a sound that eclipsed even the hungry roar of the flames, the burning tree crashed with a bang on the steep scree slope behind them. Even through the soles of her boots, she felt the impact. Behind her, Beatriz swore in Spanish.

  Natalia turned to see why. Her stomach bottomed out. No, she thought. No, please, God, I’m not seeing this.

  The tree, still coated in flames, had landed pointing downhill. But instead of coming to a rest, it began to slide with a terrible grinding noise. The two thousand feet of loose rocks, which had been like a no-man’s land the fire couldn’t cross, now became a liability as, one by one, the burning tree’s branches caught and then were torn off.

  Each time a branch was ripped away, the tree’s trunk moved faster, until finally it was just a giant burning wooden missile.

  And it was coming straight toward them.

  “Run!” Wyatt shouted, grabbing her hand! “Run!”

  CHAPTER 27

  CRASHING DOWN

  7:13 A.M.

  “RUN!” WYATT YELLED AGAIN.

  Crack! Clack! On the scree slope above them, the burning log was shoving rocks out of its path with a sound like thunder.

  With shouts and screams, everyone scattered. They weren’t running to anything, just away from the deadly missile bearing down on them.

  Pulling Natalia behind him, Wyatt veered off the trail to the left. On Wyatt’s back, Trask was wailing as he jostled up and down.

  Natalia ran at a slant, looking back over her shoulder. With horror, she saw the burning log cleave through the underbrush, cutting across the trail they had just been on, leaving fire in its wake. Through the smoke, she saw some of the others trying to scramble out of the way just before the trunk reached them.

  AJ was close behind her. A dozen feet farther back, Marco was screaming, “B! B!” as Blue barked frantically.

  But Beatriz was nowhere in sight.

  Neither were Ryan or Lisa. Or Susan. Or Darryl or Zion.

  Far ahead of them came a bang. The burning log had finally run into something big enough to stop it. But it had already done its damage. Only a few hundred feet away, the flames that had sprung up in its wake began to nibble here, take large mouthfuls there.

  The forest fire was no longer behind them. It was here.

  Hurrying back to Marco, Wyatt grabbed his wrist. “Beatriz must be on the other side of the new fire. We’ll catch up with her later. But right now, we all have to get out of here.”

  Marco gave him a wild-eyed look. But something in Wyatt’s words or expression must have gotten through to him, because he turned his back on the flames and started running away.

  The fire was already growing. Watching the flickers skitter and flow, swirl and twine, Natalia felt as frozen as she had six years earlier, when she had watched the fire race up the kitchen curtains.

  “Natalia! We’ve got to go! Come on!”

  Wyatt’s words helped break the spell. She tore her gaze away to turn and follow Wyatt, Marco, and Blue, with AJ at her heels.

  Hurtling through the prickly undergrowth with outstretched hands, she tried to protect her face as branches slapped against her palms. Under her feet, small sticks snapped like tiny bones breaking. Her heart was a hammer in her chest and her mouth filled with the flat metallic taste of adrenaline.

  Bouncing on Wyatt’s back, Trask was kicking and flailing. She reached out to pat him, but he was too wrought up for a random touch to soothe him. A branch whipped her face but she barely felt it.

  What had happened to his parents? With their injuries, had Ryan and Lisa been too slow to get out of the way of the log or the fire it had left behind? Was Trask now an orphan? At his age, he would surely grow up with no memory of his parents.

  If he grew up at all.

  And what about Zion? Had Darryl and Zion moved fast enough?

  At the thought of one or both boys dying, it all came crashing down on Natalia. They had come so far and survived so much, and for what? Just to die a few miles short of their destination?

  Ahead of her, Wyatt threaded through trees and swerved around clumps of brambles. Now he squeezed between two trees only to be confronted by dense underbrush. He started to back up, then looked over hi
s shoulder, past Natalia, and swore.

  Already feeling hollowed out, she turned. The flames were just two hundred yards away. Some were spot fires not much bigger than a human hand waving a frantic warning. Some were jagged lines creeping ever closer, flaring up when they found a new source of fuel. All of them sizzling, snapping, and getting louder by the second. All of them gradually merging into a single conflagration.

  With renewed energy, Wyatt turned back and forced his way through the closely packed ground cover. Natalia was following close on his heels when tendrils snagged the laces of her boot. She went sprawling headlong, scratching her face and arms. A big hand appeared in her field of vision. AJ’s. Without a word, he pulled Natalia to her feet and they were off again.

  Embers trailing thin plumes of smoke began to fall all around them. Some landed on her clothes, peppering them with tiny holes. The roar was rising. Now blizzards of orange sparks flew past them, and then bunches of needles lit up like flares. The air was as hot as a pottery kiln. Natalia’s tongue felt fat and swollen against her dry lips, while sweat streamed down her spine. When she wiped her stinging eyes, her palm came away smeared gray with ash.

  And then a new smell was layered over the scent of woodsmoke. The sickening stench of burning hair.

  A hand slapped her head from behind. Hard. Natalia turned, startled.

  “Sorry!” It was Marco. “Your hair was on fire.”

  “Oh.” She hadn’t felt a thing. “Thanks.”

  They raced on, picking their way through a gauntlet of spot fires. The air was starting to tremble. Burning sticks, pine cones, and even branches began raining down all around them. They broke into a thrashing run, stumbling on rocks and brush. Blue galloped alongside, barking as if to encourage them.

  Their pace was a compromise between two identical agonies. Too slow and they would burn to death. Too fast and they would trip and fall—and then burn to death.

  Natalia imagined what it would be like, their lungs searing, their pack straps melting on their backs as they stumbled their last steps before the fire ate them up.

  Finally, they burst through a line of trees. Natalia saw what Wyatt must have been making for. A lake, with a rocky shore.

  Ahead of them was a long stretch of water. Behind them a horseshoe of fire.

  “Take off your boots, tie them together, and hang them around your neck,” Wyatt said between gasps. “We’ll need them on the other side of the lake. AJ and Natalia, you’re going to have to ditch your packs.”

  This close to the water, the air had a colder, cleaner sent. Natalia tried to pull it deep into her lungs as she shrugged off her backpack and pulled off her boots. She tied them together and put them around her neck, staring out at the long expanse of smooth water. But every move was just delaying the inevitable.

  In his Teva sandals, Marco splashed in. AJ was the first out of his boots and into the lake. Blue launched himself into the water, which was rippling from the wind created by the fire.

  “Can you tighten the straps on Trask?” Wyatt asked her. His face was smeared with ash. “I don’t need him to go floating off.” He said floating but she knew he meant sinking.

  As she tightened the straps she murmured reassurances, her lips close to Trask’s ear. He had finally stopped screaming.

  “You’re okay. It’ll be okay.” She was saying it as much for herself as she was for him.

  But Trask didn’t seem to believe her any more than she did. His breathing didn’t slow. His chest kept rising and falling in the same too-rapid rhythm. His eyes were swollen, and he seemed too exhausted to cry.

  “They’re tight.” Natalia clapped Wyatt’s shoulder.

  “Thanks. Now get in the water. Hurry!”

  Even though she could feel the hairs on her arms crisping, she wanted nothing more than to collapse. Instead, she shouted the truth.

  “I can’t swim that far!”

  CHAPTER 28

  EVERYONE ELSE IS DEAD

  8:06 A.M.

  WYATT’S EYES WIDENED. “CAN’T you dog-paddle? That’s what I’m going to do, to keep Trask’s head out of the water.”

  Just looking at the wide expanse of water made her feel like the ground was falling away from beneath her feet. “I’ve never been a good swimmer,” she said miserably. “I can’t even swim the length of a pool without having to hold on to the side or stand up. And that shore is way farther away than that.”

  AJ was about twenty feet from shore, moving his legs like egg beaters. Marco was closer in, the water up to his waist. Both of them were looking at her with worried expressions.

  More and more embers were falling around them. “We can’t stay here, Natalia,” Wyatt said. “I know you’re scared, but you have to at least get into the water.” He held out his hand. “Come on, we’ll do it together.”

  She took his hand and stepped in. The shock of the cold water, such a contrast to the oven-hot air, took her breath away. The rocks under her feet had been worn smooth. Together, they took another step and then a third. Some kind of grasslike plant slid across her calves.

  “Everyone else is dead, aren’t they?” she said, pitching her voice for Wyatt’s ears alone.

  “We don’t know that.” Somehow his voice was still calm. “They ran. We ran. We just picked a different direction, that’s all.”

  “They’re probably fine,” Marco said in a shaky voice. So much for Natalia thinking the other two hadn’t heard.

  Another step and another. They were now even with Marco, the water up to their waists. When the water touched his toes, Trask let out a whimper and pulled his knees up higher on Wyatt’s back. Smoke was beginning to roll over the lake now, peppered with more flying sparks that hissed when they hit the water. One landed on Marco’s bleached hair. He ducked his head and came up coughing.

  Behind them, a long limb crashed down, half on the beach and half in the water. Natalia let out a shriek as the very tip of a burning branch traced a path down her upper arm. At first there was just a feeling of surprise. Only when the bright pink line changed to red did she feel the sting of it.

  Natalia turned. There were dozens of trees ringing the lake. Maybe hundreds, which meant thousands of tree limbs that could fall. The whole length of the shore was on fire.

  She wanted to cry. She couldn’t stay here, but there was no way she could make it that long distance.

  Above the trees, tongues of burning gases licked fifty feet into the air, topped with coils of black smoke. The flames whipped back and forth as if trying to tear themselves free. Another burning branch fell into the water.

  “Natalia!” AJ called. He was still efficiently treading water a dozen yards away. “Take off your pants!”

  Had she heard him right? “What?”

  “Take off your pants. There’s a way to turn them into a life jacket.”

  Absurdly, Natalia was reminded of high-level math, of how in topology a doughnut was the same as a coffee cup. “I don’t understand.”

  He was swimming back to them, his head out of the water. “It’s something they teach in the navy. Hurry!”

  The determination in his voice was enough to make her start undoing the button. “You’re in the navy?”

  “No. But I watch a lot of videos about it. Now stop talking and take off your pants.”

  AJ believed whatever he was having her do would work. But he had also believed he was having a heart attack, and he’d been wrong about that. Still, what were her choices? Try to swim and drown halfway across? Force the others to leave her and hope to survive long enough for the fire to burn itself out, for the earth to cool down?

  Steadying herself on Wyatt’s shoulder, Natalia slipped one leg and then the other out of her pants. She was trusting AJ. Trusting him based on a YouTube video.

  “Wait, I’ve heard about this,” Marco said. “How you can turn your pants into a flotation device, right? Some German tourist fell off a cruise ship and managed to keep himself alive for three hours in the ocean.”
<
br />   “That’s right,” AJ said. “Now hand them over.”

  Natalia did. Even though the guys were probably all past caring, she was glad the water hid her polka-dot underwear and scarred legs.

  AJ knotted the ends of the legs twice, then pulled to tighten the knot. Next he buttoned and zipped them. Then he held the waist open between his hands, lifted it over his head, and rapidly brought it down. Like magic, the pants caught air along the way until both legs were swollen with it. Natalia was reminded of the tall windsock cloth tube characters that sometimes danced in front of businesses.

  “Yes!” Marco pumped one fist in the air while AJ smiled proudly.

  Careful to keep the waistband under the surface of the water so that the air couldn’t escape, AJ helped Natalia slip the makeshift life vest over her head. Once the knot was behind her neck, the legs on either side, he passed her the waistband. “Hold this. Then you can float on your back and kick.”

  Tentatively, Natalia let her head rest on the air trapped inside the pants. When her legs started to float up in front of her, she felt equal parts fear and pride. “Just start kicking,” Wyatt said. “I’ll tell you if you start moving in the wrong direction.” He looked at all of them. “And just to double-check, when I dog-paddle, Trask’s head is still out of the water, right?”

  He demonstrated for a few strokes, but the toddler’s head was well above the waterline. Trask looked too tired to be scared.

  “You’re good, dude,” Marco said. “We’ll keep an eye on both of you.”

  “If something goes wrong, you guys should just think about yourselves,” Natalia said. “Not me.”

  “It’s a little late for that,” AJ said. “We’re a team now.”

  Tentatively, and then a little harder, she started kicking. What if the air leaked out? What if she accidentally let go? The others, even Blue, kept close to her, although she was sure they could go much faster.

  They were facing toward where they were going, but she was looking back to where they had been. The slowly receding shoreline looked more and more like a hellscape. Whole burning trees were toppling into the water where they had been standing not that long ago.