“I wonder what we’re going to find at the campground? Maybe there are people around, or maybe everything is gone.”
Emily was deliberately talking out loud. The silence of the forest once again unnerved her. Everything that had once called it home had fled or perished in the flames. The stench of ashes smelled like death.
It was hard to believe, but the original inferno hadn’t completely burned everything. Smoke was still rising from a hundred different places. Stumps and logs smoldered, like campfires abandoned in a hurry.
Emily’s throat was raw and dry, partly from the smoke and partly from thirst. She was beginning to regret not drinking from the lake when she’d had the chance. Even muddy water would taste good at that moment.
Twenty-Five
The quiet was shattered by a loud crack. Emily froze, not sure where to turn. Directly in front of her was a large pine tree. Flames had eaten almost all the way through the base of the trunk. The pine slowly toppled over and then crashed into a row of smaller black sticks, the remnants of what had once been a grove of young trees. The sound of crashing trunks and splintering wood echoed through the dead forest. Just moments earlier the trail ahead offered clear and easy passage. Now the path was blocked by a tangled mass of blackened branches and trunks. A sinister-looking cloud of ash rose high into the sky.
It dawned on Emily that if she had been walking just a little faster the falling trees might have hit her. On the other hand, if she’d left the boat launch a couple of minutes earlier, she would be well past the danger zone and walking on a clear path.
Now she had to find a way around the barrier of broken trunks and branches. The detour forced her to leave the relative safety of the trail and walk through deep piles of ash and uneven ground. The grey powder could be hiding hot spots or deep holes. Emily walked slowly, testing the ground with a foot before putting any weight on it. Every step kicked up a small, dirty cloud of ash. Her shoes were soon filthy, but they protected her feet.
When she reached the end of the tangled pile of deadfall Emily sighed in relief. The way back to the path looked clear. Then she heard a familiar and unwelcome crackling sound. The falling trees had exposed a massive knot of roots, some of which were red hot. As soon as they were yanked to the surface and exposed to air some of the roots burst into flames. Emily decided to give the newborn fire a wide berth. Ominously, some of the smoke seemed to follow her as she walked. It caused her good eye to water.
As she picked her way through the desolate wasteland Emily noticed a plume of smoke rising out of a hole in the earth that was no bigger than a quarter. She sensed she was in a dangerous area and was glad to see the path to the campground was dead ahead.
Eyes stinging, eager to reach the path, she moved away from the deadfall and the growing flames. Her route took her close to a smoldering tree trunk. As her right foot touched the ground it broke through the surface and Emily toppled forward. Instinctively she reached out with both hands to break the fall, dropping Buttons. The startled dog landed with a yelp.
Emily’s right leg was trapped inside a deep hole. She shrieked in pain and horror. It felt like hot pokers were being pushed into her flesh. Off balance, in a panic, she struggled to pull her leg free. She reached for the nearest tree trunk and saw at the last possible moment that the trunk was speckled with coals that would burn her hands. Next to the trunk was a thin black stick, all that was left of a sapling. Emily grabbed it and pulled with all her strength. As she felt her foot start to come free her weight wrenched the sapling’s roots out of the earth. Emily barely got her leg out of the ground before the pole she was holding onto broke in half.
She rolled away from the hole, yelled in pain, and grabbed her leg. Two holes had been burned through her pant leg. She couldn’t tell how bad the burns were, just that they hurt. Then she noticed her shoe was gone. It had come off when she’d pulled her foot out of the hole.
The prospect of trying to walk out of the fire zone with one bare foot was horrifying. Emily carefully crawled on her belly to the hole. She peered down and saw a tangle of roots and small flames. Her shoe was at the bottom. She reached in as far as she could, brushed against the shoe with a fingertip, felt a lace, and pulled. To her profound relief the shoe came out of the earth. There were several scorch marks on it, but it had not been badly damaged. She gave it a shake, just in case there were hot coals inside, and put it on. It was only then she realized the dog had disappeared.
“Buttons!” There was no response.
She wondered if he’d been hurt when she stepped into the hole and dropped him. It would be a disaster if he was injured and lost in the ruined forest. Fighting through the pain of the new burns she tried to follow his trail through the thick ashes, frantically calling his name.
To her profound relief the poodle stuck his head up from behind a rock and barked.
“Come here, Buttons.”
The dog obeyed, limping badly. Emily picked him up and held him tight. “I don’t think I’ll be able to go on much longer,” she said. “We’d better make it to that campground soon.” The exhausted dog didn’t make a sound.
As soon as she was back on the path Emily picked up the pace, trying to ignore the jolts of pain that shot through her right leg with every step. The combination of smoke, painful burns, and stress made her eyes water, making it even harder to see where she was going.
Twenty-Six
“We made it,” whispered Emily, hardly daring to believe.
She was standing at the edge of the Beaver Creek Campground. There wasn’t much left. Emily limped onwards, passing burned-out vehicles and melted camping gear. After a couple of minutes she reached the ruins of a cinderblock building. The walls had survived, but the roof was gone. It was still possible to read a sign that marked the entrance to the women’s washrooms. Water dripped from an outdoor tap. Buttons started licking the spout, reminding Emily of how parched she was.
To her surprise and delight the water system was still working. When Emily turned on the tap a steady stream of cool and clear water poured out. She put her head next to the spout and drank deeply. Then she caught water in her cupped hands for the poodle to drink.
When Buttons had drunk his full she splashed water on her filthy and burned face. It brought almost instant relief. Then Emily took off her jeans so she could see how bad her new injuries were. There were two burns on her calf and one on her ankle. The largest wound was about the size of a bottle cap. They were extremely painful.
She washed her feet and legs and walked gingerly to a plastic lawn chair that had somehow survived the fire. Someone had left a beach towel on the chair. Emily shook off the ashes and saw the towel was undamaged. Rolling around on the forest floor had left her jeans covered in soot. There were also numerous holes and scorch marks on the right leg. She didn’t want to put the filthy and tattered jeans back on, so she simply wrapped the towel around her waist.
Somewhat rejuvenated Emily set off in search of Big Jim’s van. If it still existed she could retrieve her bag, get clean clothes, and maybe find a cell phone to call for help.
It was a very large campground and the section she was walking through had been the most heavily forested. Emily could tell the fire had been intense. Every vehicle, tent, and RV she walked past had been badly damaged or destroyed.
Then she came across an SUV that was still intact. Oddly, it looked like a vandal had poured red paint over it. The vehicle, including the windows, was now almost completely crimson, although you could still see splotches of the original colour.
Puzzled, Emily stopped for a moment. Then it dawned on her what the red stuff really was. She’d seen television news clips about forest fires. The stories often featured video of large planes dropping clouds of a red chemical on fires to put them out. She thought she might have heard it described as fire retardant.
She tried the door of the SUV, in case something useful had been left behind, but it was locked, so she walked on. Buttons had also been revived
by the water break. He was still limping, although not as badly, and didn’t ask to be picked up. The small dog was more alert than he had been in hours.
Emily now reached a part of the campground where most of the vehicles and camping equipment had survived the fire, although there were still a few scattered burned-out wrecks. Almost everything that hadn’t been destroyed was covered in retardant.
As she walked slowly through the campground, unsure of exactly where she was and where Big Jim’s van was parked, Emily realized that visibility was gradually improving. The smoke was finally lifting.
While passing a large van that had apparently been abandoned in the middle of the road Emily noticed that one window had been left open a crack. She peered inside and hooted in delight. A cell phone had been left on the passenger seat.
She wasn’t an expert on cell phones, but was pretty sure that she didn’t need a passcode to make an emergency call. Emily figured that if she got the phone she should be able to call 911, assuming there was cell service in the area.
The opening at the top of the window was almost, but not quite, wide enough for her put a hand through. She struggled for a few minutes before frustration got the better of her. At one time she simply would have given up and walked on. That was before she’d watched a log cabin filled with valuable supplies go up in flames. She’d played that night over in her mind countless times and realized she should have broken into the cabin.
Emily looked around for a moment and saw exactly what she was looking for. She picked up a baseball-sized rock from a fire pit and threw it as hard as she could. The window dissolved into thousands of tiny pieces. She reached inside, opened the door, and grabbed the phone. It was dead. She opened the glove compartment, hoping to find a charge cord. No luck.
Emily felt a wave of regret at breaking the window. If there’d been pen and paper she would have left a note. Since there was no writing material she simply put the phone back and hoped insurance would pay for the broken window.
Minutes later she saw the entrance to the campsite. The sign welcoming visitors to Beaver Creek Campground still stood, although nothing remained of the registration building except for its foundations. Not far away, in the empty field they’d had to pretend was a campsite, was the charred hulk of Big Jim’s van. It was in an area that hadn’t been hit by the airborne retardant.
Emily walked morosely to the van. At first she couldn’t figure out why it had been destroyed. There was nothing flammable nearby. The field was mostly hard-packed dirt with small clumps of grass. Then it dawned on her that some of the windows had been left open when Jim and the other campers had fled. It was possible sparks had blown into the vehicle and set the contents alight. Everything inside the van was gone, including any cell phones that might have accidentally been left behind.
She was staring at a charred piece of fabric that had once been her backpack, cursing her luck, when she realized Buttons wasn’t there. The dog had been obediently following her through the campsite and had shown no inclination of wanting to wander off.
More puzzled than alarmed, Emily looked around. Not seeing the dog she called his name. An answering bark came back immediately. Buttons sat in front of a motorhome that was coated in red retardant. He looked at Emily expectantly and barked again.
“You made it home!” Emily called, delighted. “That’s the motorhome that belongs to your mom and dad.”
At first she couldn’t remember their names. Then it came to her. Eric and Anne Rossi. Buttons hadn’t been fooled by the change in the motorhome’s colour. He knew exactly who it belonged to.
The euphoria of reaching the campground and finding fresh water for drinking and bathing had largely worn off. Emily was once again feeling the effects of the past day and a half. She could still only see properly through one eye, every muscle in her body was aching, and her new burns hurt terribly.
Buttons started barking desperately, obviously keen to get inside the RV as quickly as possible.
“I’ve already broken into a boathouse and a vehicle,” said Emily, hoping the sound of her voice would help calm the poodle down. “Hopefully I don’t have to break into the motorhome as well. Your owners seem like very nice people and I don’t want to damage their property.”
Emily ran awkwardly toward the motorhome, conscious that she was becoming lightheaded and wobbly on her feet. She was out of breath when she arrived and had to grab at the door handle for support. To her relief the door wasn’t locked. She opened it and Buttons immediately scurried up the metal steps and went inside. Emily followed, unsteadily, a few seconds later.
Twenty-Seven
Most of the windows were covered with retardant, so there wasn’t a lot of light inside the motorhome. Emily noticed a light switch near the door, touched it, and a nearby wall lamp came on. The RV’s batteries were still good.
Buttons sat on the floor, staring intently at a cupboard. When Emily didn’t pick up on the clue right away the dog whined and sat on his haunches, demanding food. Emily got the message, opened the cupboard, and found a stack of canned dog food.
There was a small but well-equipped kitchen area near the door. Emily opened a drawer that looked like a logical place to put utensils and discovered that her guess was correct. She quickly found a can opener. Buttons barked excitedly.
Emily began opening cupboards, looking for a dish to put the dog food in. She saw a stack of soup bowls and decided one of them would work just fine. Buttons was famished and attacked the food when it was put in front of him.
Watching the poodle eat reminded Emily that she’d hardly eaten anything in nearly two days. She took a can of fruit salad from the same cupboard where she’d found the dog food, opened it, took a fork out of the cutlery drawer, and ate out of the can.
She looked through all the cupboards and discovered that Eric and Anne didn’t believe in travelling light. They had enough canned food to last for weeks. The couple also had a fondness for snacks. Emily opened a large bag of potato chips, a calorie-heavy treat she usually avoided.
After checking all the cupboards and storage compartments Emily opened the fridge. It was no longer cool, indicating the power to it had been turned off. There were some packaged luncheon meats, which Emily wasn’t about to risk, and a wide variety of canned drinks. The cans were no longer cold to the touch, but their contents would be safe to drink. Emily selected an iced tea; it tasted simply amazing to her. After draining it she took a second. She sat at the RV’s dining table, which was large enough for four people.
Buttons had licked his dish clean and jumped onto the neatly made bed at the rear of the vehicle.
“It looks like you’re usually allowed up there,” said Emily. “But they may change that rule when they see the mess you’re making.” There was hardly any white fur visible on the dog. Because of all the soot and mud his colour ranged from light grey to black. Astonishingly, there was still a pink bow on one bedraggled ear.
Emily picked up the dog’s dish, put it in the small sink, and froze. In front of her, attached to the wall, was a first aid kit. How had she missed it earlier?
She unsnapped the kit from its wall mount and carried it to the table. The Rossi’s kit proved to be very well stocked, unlike the one she’d found at the shack on the far side of the lake. There was a wide variety of bandages, a bottle of extra strength ibuprofen, antiseptic towels, and even packets of burn cream.
It seemed unlikely that over-the-counter pain medication was going to be strong enough to relieve her throbbing wounds, but it was better than nothing and she swallowed a couple of tablets. Then she cleaned her cuts with antiseptic, applied the burn cream, and put bandages over various burns and cuts.
The combination of food, drink, and painkillers had a strange effect on Emily. At first she felt a huge energy burst. Then she became lightheaded and found it difficult to concentrate. To make matters worse her stomach cramps returned. An emergency visit to the RV’s tiny washroom left her feeling miserable. Her legs wer
e so rubbery that she was hardly able to make it to a bench in the dining booth. Even after laying her head on the table for a few minutes she was barely able to concentrate again.
Emily wondered if emergency crews had already searched the campground, looking inside every vehicle and motorhome as soon as it had been safe to do so. If so, she understood they’d probably been looking for her.
Emily figured that other people would be anxiously waiting for the highway to reopen so they could return to the campground and recover whatever vehicles and camping gear that had survived the fire. She had no idea how long it would take for the first visitors to arrive. It may be just a matter of hours or it may take a day or two. It wouldn’t matter much either way, if all she had to worry about was herself and Buttons.
The motorhome offered a safe, comfortable space to wait for help. It contained a large supply of food and drink. Emily was pretty sure her wounds, while extremely painful, weren’t life threatening. Buttons was exhausted and had a sore paw, but otherwise he appeared to be in good health.
Unfortunately, Matt wasn’t so lucky. His injuries were serious. She worried that if he didn’t get medical attention soon he might die. There was no way he could be left by himself on the picnic table for a day or two. Every minute he spent alone was probably agony.
As she thought about Matt she began to feel guilty about the time she’d spent in the motorhome. Then she realized that she might be allowed to cut herself a little slack. There was no doubt she’d been in dire need of food, water and first aid when she’d arrived at the ruined campground. Emily still felt woozy whenever she stood up.
Rescuers could still be a long way off, or they might be around the next corner. She wouldn’t know until she started hiking. At least there would be no more stumbling along rocky paths and squeezing between smoldering tree trunks. To the best of her recollection the road leading into the campground wasn’t very long. Less than a kilometre. Then she’d be at the highwaywith its smooth asphalt, easy walking, and the possibility of being found by a passing motorist.
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