Rank 6

by Barry McDivitt

  “I think I’m just going to wear my underwear,” she said. Although Emily was modest by nature she recognized there wasn’t much difference between her underwear and the bathing suits many girls wore. If anything, her undies probably covered up more than their bikinis did.

  She folded up her pants, sweatshirt, and the jacket she’d found at the shack and put them inside the cooler. Experience had proven the cooler would keep her emergency supplies dry and it wouldn’t sink if it ended up in the lake again. It would do the same for her clothes.

  Just one day earlier the thought of trying to get to the other side of the lake in a leaky canoe, and without a proper paddle, would have been terrifying. Now, having crossed that same lake with nothing more than a cooler and chunks of wood to keep afloat, she felt an unfamiliar sense of confidence. There was no doubt in her mind she’d be able to pull it off.

  The canoe leaked badly, but at least she now had a big bailing can. The waterski would make a decent paddle. Emily also had a life jacket to wear and several more tied together. She thought a life jacket raft should be more than enough to keep her afloat in an emergency. The wind didn’t look as though it was going to be a factor. There was only a gentle breeze, not enough to blow the canoe off course.

  Emily stood up and squinted through her one good eye at the blood-red sun. The smoke hadn’t thinned as much as she’d hoped. She picked up the poodle and put him in the canoe. Then she pushed off from shore and tightly gripped the ski.

  On the opposite side of the lake, shrouded in smoke, was the boat access where she’d first entered the water to flee the wildfire. There was a primitive road leading from the boat launch. If she could find that road it should be possible to hike out. Emily knew she wouldn’t get very far walking across a forest of hot coals in bare feet, but a dirt road would probably have cooled off by now. At the very least she’d be on the side of the lake where search crews were likely to look first.

  “Here goes nothing,” said Emily.

  She noticed that Buttons didn’t seem happy. His previous trips in the canoe had not ended well. He looked around anxiously and sighed.

  Seventeen

  The ski did not make a good paddle after all. It was too wide to hold on to comfortably. It was also too short. Emily had to lean uncomfortably far over the side to thrust the ski into the water. It wasn’t long before her arm muscles, still sore from the previous day’s exertions, were causing her to cry out in agony.

  The leak seemed to be getting worse every minute. She could only paddle a minute or two before having to stop and bail. Then the wind completely disappeared. There was nothing to blow the smoke away, so it blanketed the lake in layers that grew steadily thicker. By the time Emily reached what she thought was the middle of the lake it was no longer possible to see either shore. She wasn’t even positive she was still going in the right direction. Her arms were rubbery, the water level inside the canoe was halfway up her calves, and even if she’d still had enough energy to bail there was no way she could keep ahead of the leak.

  Emily sat morosely on the wooden seat and watched the inside of the boat steadily fill up with water. The poodle scrambled onto the pile of life jackets and barked angrily. He seemed to blame Emily for the fact he was getting wet again.

  Exhausted, Emily felt her earlier sense of optimism evaporate. There was no way she’d be able to finish the journey in the canoe. It was heading slowly but surely toward the bottom of the lake. Even if there’d been one person to bail steadily, and another to do nothing but paddle, the leak was too bad to overcome. Two-thirds of the vessel was now underwater and it was too heavy to paddle. It looked like water would soon start pouring in over the sides.

  Emily was reluctant to leave the canoe until she had some idea of which direction to head. She looked around forlornly, seeing nothing but smoke. Then Buttons stuck his head over the bow of the canoe and stared into the general direction where Emily thought the far shore might be.

  “Is that the way to land? Maybe you can smell something that I can’t see.” She sighed. “There’s no point in staying in the canoe. My bum is getting wet anyway.”

  Emily cut off a short piece of her rope and tied the cooler to the life jackets. She carefully lifted the makeshift raft out of the canoe, picked up the poodle, and slowly leaned over until the boat tipped onto its side and she slid into the lake.

  The cool water once again brought temporary relief to her throbbing muscles and various burns, although she knew that wouldn’t last. Experience had taught her that, before long, the water would start sucking the last reserves of energy and warmth from her body.

  The life jacket was designed to keep a person’s head out of the water, even if they were unconscious. Experience had taught Emily that the easiest way to swim in one was to lie on her back and kick. She held the poodle to her chest with one hand, grabbed onto the raft with the other, and hoped she was headed in the right direction. There was a real risk of going around in circles.

  “Can you die from hypothermia in a heat wave?” asked Emily. “I now believe it is possible. I nearly froze last night. I read somewhere that freezing to death is peaceful, but it sure didn’t feel that way to me. I would have given anything for dry clothes and a blanket.”

  Every once in a while Buttons would raise his head, stare into the distance, sniff, and bark. Emily would immediately adjust her course to head in that direction. She had no idea if the dog knew where shore was, but she hoped that Buttons was being guided by instincts and senses that humans lacked.

  She didn’t want to ask her sore and weary body to do more than it could, so Emily tried to pace herself. She would kick thirty times and then take a break, counting slowly to sixty. Buttons became increasingly fidgety and it was getting harder to hold onto him. After a while the poodle’s teeth started chattering. Emily couldn’t tell if it was because of fear or the cold water. She patted the dog’s head and talked soothingly in hopes of calming him down. Then, totally unexpectedly and with astonishing speed, the dog launched himself into the lake.

  “Buttons!”

  Emily turned onto her stomach and saw Buttons splashing through shallow water.

  Eighteen

  They’d made it to land, although a more desolate and uninviting stretch of shoreline would be hard to imagine. The lake bottom was gooey mud, which Emily knew from experience was very hard to walk on. She decided to swim across it instead, lying flat on her stomach and using her hands to push herself to shore. Buttons was sitting on a large, flat rock. It seemed like as good a place to land as any, so Emily followed the poodle’s tracks through the muck.

  After pulling herself out the mud flats and onto the rock Emily sat for several minutes and pondered her next move. The fire had burned right up to the shoreline and turned a lush forest into a black wasteland. The ground was littered with smoldering tree trunks. A large stump glowed red hot. It had been turned into charcoal. Walking along the shoreline wasn’t an attractive option because most of it was nasty-looking marsh and Emily didn’t have any shoes. Cutting through the forest didn’t look any easier. Judging from the plumes of smoke she could see rising from the forest floor, there were still lots of hot spots.

  Emily felt as if she were trapped on her rock. Despondent, she pulled the raft of life jackets onto shore. She was starting to feel that bringing it along had been a waste of time and energy. She opened the cooler and took out her clothes. Once again the container had proven its usefulness. Everything inside was perfectly dry.

  She waited long enough for her underwear to mostly dry before putting on her clothes. Her injured foot still throbbed, although it was no longer bleeding. She couldn’t reach clean water, and washing it in the mud seemed pointless, so she simply covered the cut with the biggest Band-Aid she had left. It made her feel a little better, even though it wasn’t likely to stay in place for very long, once she started walking across burned ground in bare feet. Buttons stayed beside her on the rock, although he constantly cocked his head and l
istened intently. Emily hoped the dog wasn’t hearing something dangerous, such as another bear. She cut off the dog’s primitive life jacket, which was obviously starting to annoy him.

  Emily looked through her meagre possessions, wondering if there was anything she no longer needed. In the end she decided to take everything. It seemed doubtful she’d need emergency candles again, but she wasn’t prepared to take the risk. She decided she’d continue to wear a life jacket. It might provide some protection from sparks if the wind picked up again. The bright orange colour could also make it easier for rescuers to spot her. There was no doubt in her mind that search parties would soon start looking for survivors, if they weren’t already.

  She opened up the package containing the blue tarp, wondering how to make use of it. It was made out of thick plastic. As she played with the tarp an idea popped into her head.

  “Yes!” she shouted. “I think this could solve my biggest problem.”

  Buttons stared into the distance, distracted.

  Emily read the label of the package the tarp had come in. It was made of something called polyethylene. It certainly felt durable. Excited, she took the knife and used it to cut out pieces of tarp that were roughly the same shape, and just a little bigger, than her feet. Then she cut out a series of long, thin strips.

  She stepped onto the foot-shaped pieces and used the thin strips to tie them onto her feet. Before long her feet looked like they belonged to a blue mummy. It wasn’t pretty, but her feet now had some protection. As long as she walked carefully, and avoided hot spots, she figured her wrapped feet might take her to safety.

  “Hopefully the road to the recreation site runs right along the lake,” said Emily. “If it does we probably won’t have to walk too far to find it.” Having some foot protection had caused her spirits to rise.

  With the poodle under one arm and the cooler balanced on her shoulder, she stepped gingerly off the rock and into the dismal remains of the forest. Every time she set her foot down it made a crunching sound and stirred up a small cloud of ash. The polyethylene wasn’t thick enough to provide protective padding. She certainly felt every rock she stepped on. Still, it was better than walking through the apocalyptic wasteland in bare feet.

  After walking for several minutes Emily came across something very disturbing. At first she wasn’t sure what it was. Then she recognized the badly burned carcass of a young buck. It may have been the same deer that had shown her the way to safety the previous day. It was terrible to think the animal had almost made it to the lake, and possible safety, when the smoke and flames brought it down. It occurred to her that birds and animals of many species, especially the very young, would have perished in the inferno. She stood over the deer for a moment, thinking of what her own body might look like if she hadn’t escaped.

  Emily was very careful about where she stepped and progress was slow. Buttons was extremely restless, complicating the task of carrying him. The poodle clearly wanted to be put down, but Emily could occasionally feel the hot forest floor through the primitive footwear and knew the dog’s sensitive paws would be badly damaged if he accidentally stepped on some coals.

  Finally, after walking further than she’d originally thought she’d have to, she stepped out from between two huge blackened trunks and onto a dirt road. “We found it!” she cried, causing the poodle to start squirming again.

  Emily ran a hand over the surface of the gravel roadway. It was cool to the touch. Except for some brush and grass along the sides there had been nothing for the fire to burn. As the angry camper had said to his wife back at Beaver Creek, “The road is made of dirt and dirt doesn’t burn.” The road promised the safest route out of the forest. It was rocky, and walking on it with poorly protected feet would be a challenge, but at least there didn’t appear to be any danger of stepping on a hot spot.

  Emily tied a piece of rope to Buttons’ collar and put him on the ground. It seemed unlikely the dog would try to run away, but there was no point in taking chances.

  “Which way should we go?”

  Buttons yanked on the rope.

  “I’m not sure why you want to go toward the boat launch,” said Emily crossly. “That’s where the access road ends. If we go there we’ll have to find the path that leads to the campground and it may still be hot. I think we should go in the other direction, where the guys in the SUV were headed. I’m guessing the road leads straight to a highway. I’d rather walk on a road than a path.”

  Buttons barked and pulled hard. He hadn’t changed his mind about which direction to go. Emily started pulling on the rope but the dog dug his paws into the dirt. Exasperated, Emily gave up.

  “Well, when we were in the lake you did seem to know where the shore was. Maybe you’re right about this too. If we do find the boat launch we’ll know for sure the campground isn’t far away. There probably won’t be much left, and I don’t think there will be any people around, but your guess is as good as mine, maybe better.”

  Something was troubling the poodle. He would pull on the rope, then suddenly stop and cock his head, listening for something. Then he’d bark frantically for a few seconds. It seemed to Emily that the dog instinctively realized they were headed toward the campground where he’d been separated from his beloved owners.

  “Hopefully we’ll get you there soon,” said Emily.

  Although the road was easy to follow it was extremely rocky, making it hard to walk on with sore feet. Emily was very careful where she put every step, which slowed her progress.

  Nineteen

  There was something strange on the road ahead. Emily stood and stared for a moment, trying to figure out what it was. Then she realized it was a windshield

  reflecting one of the brief rays of sunlight that occasionally burst through the smoke. She’d found the vehicle that had sped away from the boat launch during the fire, leaving her behind to face the flames. Emily had heard a crash, but assumed it was just the boat flying off the trailer. Now she could see the accident was far worse than she’d imagined.

  The SUV had gone off the road, rolled down an embankment, and landed on its roof. Emily knew enough about vehicles to recognize the chrome letters on the front grill. The Range Rover was now a burned-out wreck. An empty boat trailer lay near the rear of the vehicle. It had been ripped off the hitch by the impact.

  A short distance away was the fishing boat. It had flown off the trailer and landed upside down, partly blocking the road. An outboard motor lay on the ground a few metres away.

  Emily was filled with horror. She’d heard the voices of two men. There may have been other people inside the vehicle, terrified women or children waiting for the men to finish their argument and get out of there. It now seemed obvious that the men had taken too long to pack up. They’d driven right into the firestorm and crashed the vehicle. The end must have been terrible.

  As she stared at the SUV it dawned on her that the driver’s and front passenger doors were both open. Perhaps everyone inside had managed to escape, just as she had. There was only one way to find out for sure.

  The last thing on earth Emily wanted to do was look inside the vehicle. Seeing the dead deer had been bad enough. Just the thought of seeing badly burned human bodies was enough to make her gag.

  “I have to do this,” she whispered. “The only way to know for sure if there’s somebody inside is to look.”

  Trembling, holding tightly onto Buttons, she slid down the embankment on her backside. Then she got on her knees and peered inside the vehicle. The interior was a complete mess. The smell was terrible. All the upholstery was gone. There were springs, metal frames, and other assorted pieces of metal that flames couldn’t consume. But there were no bodies. Emily sat down, fought waves of nausea, and wearily climbed back up the embankment. She was glad there wasn’t a charred corpse inside the vehicle. Then it occurred to her that nobody would look forward to finding her body either, no matter how she’d died. A person hanging from a tree or washed up on shore probabl
y looked pretty gross.

  “I wanted to be in that SUV,” she said to Buttons. “When it took off without me I thought I was a goner. Now I’m glad I was left behind. It would have been awful to be inside the Range Rover when it rolled.”

  The dog wasn’t paying any attention to her. His head was cocked to one side, and he appeared to be listening intently for something.

  “You found me just after the SUV took off. Then we went into the lake together. I guess that was actually the safest thing to do. Anyway, we’ve made it this far.” Emily managed a weak smile as she gave Buttons a gentle pat. “Do you believe in fate?”

  Buttons began barking and for a moment it seemed to Emily that he was answering her question. Then it occurred to her that he might be calling to someone.

  “Nobody can hear you way out here,” said Emily firmly. She was about to say more, but something caused her to stop and listen. Was she hearing things, or was that really a human voice? Buttons continued to bark, drowning out all other sounds, so Emily picked up the poodle and tightly held his jaws shut.

  There was no sound and Emily had convinced herself that her mind was playing tricks on her. Then she heard it again. A faint cry for help. It came from the direction of the lake. The voice was so weak it was impossible to tell how far away the person was.

  Emily let go of the dog’s muzzle and Buttons immediately started barking again. His nose pointed straight toward the lake.

  “Somebody’s in trouble,” said Emily. “You’re in charge of getting us there.”

  Twenty

  The forest along the road had once been a thick tangle of tree trunks, branches and brush. The fire had turned all the living trees into thin black poles. Emily left the relative safety of the road and slowly worked her way through the ranks of dead trees, always heading toward the faint cries for help. She was already regretting her decision to bring the cooler along. It was heavy and awkward to carry.