Speak of the Devil

by Shari Shattuck

  Tentatively, afraid that he would have no voice or that the effort of speaking would cause excruciating pain, Simon managed to croak, “Joshua, is that you?” His voice sounded like an emaciated rat crawling from a dry, dusty hole.

  “Yes, it’s me,” Joshua said. “Listen, we’ve got to get down to where I left my car. Can you walk?”

  Simon’s head flopped to one side and moved in a slow circle as he tried to get control of it. “You have a car?” he managed to rasp.

  “Yes. Come on.”

  As the taller young man reached down and started to help Simon to his feet, the smoke in the air cleared just enough for Simon to see a few dozen yards. With the glimpse of the war zone, and a massive effort, he began the process of returning to earth. Joshua was here, there had been a fire, somehow they had survived it, so far . . .

  “How did you find me?” Simon asked. Each word felt like a razor slicing at his raw throat.

  Still holding Simon around the waist with one hand, Joshua slipped a water bottle out of a carrier and held it to Simon’s mouth. Simon drank, sputtered, the first of the warm liquid stinging his tortured throat, but then the sensation eased and he gulped greedily until the bottle was empty.

  “Better?” Joshua asked.

  Simon nodded and repeated his question with a voice still not his own, but human at least. “How did you find me?”

  Joshua’s face was expressionless as he said, “Your dog showed me the way.”

  “I read your little book,” Simon told him as he swayed and tried to find his balance enough to move forward. “You’re a freak.”

  A blaze of pain shot through Joshua’s eyes but he said, “I know.”

  Simon grasped Joshua’s shoulder and forced himself to take a first step. “But right now,” he said through gritted teeth, “I’m really glad you’re my freak.”

  He couldn’t hear much through the banging pain in his head, but Simon felt a vibration go through the other boy’s body that he thought might be the spasm of a laugh.

  “Okay,” Joshua was saying, “one step at a time. I’ll help you. It’s only about a quarter of a mile. You can do it.”

  They struggled forward, progressing only slightly, Joshua pausing often to try to get his bearings in the smoky, hellish environs. The landscape was unrecognizable from his journey up less than an hour ago. He kept checking the line of smoke and fire that was still burning away from them, up across the ridge to their right. On his left, he could also make out a line of smoke, but it was more distant and worried him less.

  By guessing from the lay of the land, Joshua chose a route more or less straight down the hillside; he could sometimes make out where the path had been, though there were places that it was obscured by charred shrubbery or fallen, still-steaming limbs of scrub oaks.

  Simon seemed to gain a bit more strength as the water rehydrated his system, though he was still leaning heavily on Joshua, and they began to move a bit faster when Joshua could make out the road up ahead. Almost to keep his sanity and to hear something other than the rasp of their breathing, Joshua began to speak. First he told Simon how he had found the map and known that Simon would be there, and that led him to the question he wanted—and hated—to ask.

  “Did you do this, Simon?”

  Perhaps he hadn’t heard, or maybe he was in too much pain to speak, but Simon did not answer.

  Then, before he knew it and after an eternity, their feet stopped crunching and slipping on the dry, slack ground and hit solid pavement. Joshua scanned both directions for his car, trying to make a guess in which direction it lay. But even as he came to the conclusion that he had no idea without any remaining landmarks, he heard the sound of a vehicle approaching.

  Both he and Simon turned to look, and around the corner came Jenny’s jeep, with her at the wheel, Greer in the passenger seat, and someone in the back. In his exhausted state, Joshua couldn’t remember her name, but the back of his brain labeled her as “that good-looking brunette from the bank.” The car screeched to a stop in front of them, and Joshua was glad to hand over the support of Simon to the other two women and put his own arm around his mother’s neck as she led him to the car.

  She put him in the passenger seat and paused to push his filthy, damp hair back from his forehead.

  He smiled weakly at her. “Hi, Mom,” he said. “I found him.”

  Greer’s eyes shone with love and what he recognized as unrealized, unbearable fear of loss as she said, “You did good, honey. You did good.”

  Leah was wiping Simon’s head with a shirt she seemed to have taken off herself as she was only wearing a very light silk undershirt. “Verdugo Hospital, I think,” she said with authority.

  “No,” Simon muttered, seeming to come to life. “No hospitals.”

  “We’re not giving you a choice,” Jenny told him. “Let’s go.”

  Greer climbed up into the backseat and bit down hard on her lip to keep from screaming. Every nerve in her body was drunk with adrenaline, and relief flooded through her anxiety-ridden brain with such engulfing intensity that it took every ounce of sense and strength she had not to be reduced to a quivering mass of hysterical Jell-O. Between watching her son with grateful, almost unbelieving eyes, she stole glances at the destruction on the hillside above them, and at the evidence of its growing threat—an unnatural, dirt-colored mushroom that darkened the sky overhead. She bit down harder, until she could taste blood, trying to distract herself from the horrific thought that in this gathering inferno, Joshua and his friend Simon were the lucky ones.

  The survivors.

  Chapter 46

  The helicopters had been flying overhead at regular intervals, but they were so far above and so intent on delivering their loads of soapy water to the fire that Sheldon had been unable to attract their attention. The wind was gusting strongly toward them from the direction of the fire, bringing flakes of ash, some as large as his fist, floating eerily down around them.

  It was one of these, a remnant of a sycamore leaf, that landed a few yards from the truck, its edges still rimmed with red lace, living fire that transferred its dangerous mission to the submissive ground cover that had lain for months waiting for this message, this whisper of rebellion on the wind.

  It took very little, a gentle nudging, a subtle argument fueled by the breath of the wind, to incite the frenzy of combustion. The thin line of heat pressed against the willing dry grasses, and with an almost silent intake of oxygen, it exhaled words of flame. Then, like a rumor spreads through a small town, the conversation quickened and swelled until a large area just behind the truck was burning steadily.

  Sheldon had kept his eyes fixed on the rim of the hill and had seen the flames begin to crest it, so he did not notice the more imminent threat until it was high enough to be seen in the side mirror of his cab.

  “Holy shit!” he exclaimed, coming bolt upright in his seat. Without stopping to respond to Tyler’s terrified question of what was wrong, he leapt from the truck and ran to see how close the encircling fire was: only a couple of yards and burning fast. For a moment he considered grabbing Tyler and running, but he knew that was hopeless. The fire on the ridge would hit the road soon enough, and this new outburst was only one of many that could flare up anywhere at any moment.

  He ran back to the open cab door, climbed up, and cranked the key in the ignition to start the engine that would enable him to access the water. As he did, he said as calmly as he could to Tyler, “Stay in the truck. We’ve got a new fire behind us, and I’m gonna water down around us.”

  “Can I help, Grampa?” Tyler asked. His eyes were huge with fear, but his small face was set with determination.

  Sheldon thought about the amount of gasoline in his fully loaded truck and caved. “Okay, but you do exactly what I tell you. If I tell you to run, you do it, boy. You hear me? You run and you don’t look back.”

  “Yes, sir,” Tyler said.

  “On the tank,” Sheldon ordered. Tyler didn’t even bother
to open his door. He just climbed right out the open window, reached a hand to the metal ladder, and was up in ten seconds.

  Sheldon ran to the back of the truck and unrolled a short length of fire hose, attaching it to the out spigot at the base of the tank. Then he fired the generator and waited for pressure.

  But even as he did, the flames were at his feet. He hopped sideways and slapped at the sparks that landed on his pants and burned through to his skin. “Run the hose into the tank, Tyler!” he shouted up. “And get ready to jump if I say so!” With the fire at his feet and inches from climbing up under his truck, he ignored the intense heat at his ankles that he knew meant his jeans had caught fire, and threw the lever. Water began to rush from the hose. He sprayed in a tight, controlled circle around him and then the truck, creating a ten-foot barrier on one side, but the fire was moving quickly around him now. Crouching, and willing himself not to feel the pain on his calves where the material had burned away and his skin was scalded, he sprayed underneath the truck, saturating the ground beneath it.

  The fire had traveled to a group of dry sycamores and willows that stood at the edge of the dry creek bed, forty feet from where he stood. The smoke was choking him now.

  We need this water, we need the tank, Sheldon thought. It’s our only chance. “Tyler!” he shouted up. “Open the hatch!”

  Coughing, his eyes streaming from the smoke and unable to see more than a few feet ahead, Sheldon gave one last spray around him and shut off the valve. Then, discarding the hose, he started for the ladder on the tank.

  The first movement almost brought him to his knees. Looking down, he could see the frayed fragments of his now-wet jeans where they had burned just below his knees, and the skin on his right shin looked like something that was not his.

  “Grampa!” He heard Tyler’s terrified cry from somewhere above him in the swirling ash and smoke. Gritting his teeth to keep from crying out, Sheldon forced himself to make the agonizing climb, favoring his right leg and pulling himself up each rung with the strength in his wiry arms.

  “Tyler, get in the tank!” Sheldon shouted when his head cleared the top of the truck. He could see the trees, crisp as tinder but rich with combustible sap, burst into flame with explosive rapidity, and the burning leaves began to fall, whipped by the wind into willing and eager virgin patches of bracken and shrubbery.

  “Are you all right? Grandpa?” Tyler’s voice trembled with fear as he started toward Sheldon. “I’ll help you.”

  “No!” Sheldon shouted, the pain and the effort of maintaining making his head swim and his whole body shake with weakness. “Get in the tank. I’m coming,”

  “I’ll help you, Grandpa,” Tyler repeated, reaching out a small hand to grasp at the hot metal of the cross ladder.

  Sheldon stopped where he was and focused his streaming eyes on the young boy, who was still ten feet away. The smoke was so thick now that he could hardly breathe, but he commanded himself to speak calmly and clearly. “You promised me you’d do what I told you, Tyler. You get in that tank, and shut the lid. I’m coming. I’ll be right behind you.”

  “But—”

  “Do what I’m telling you, boy!” Unable to keep his eyes open any longer, Sheldon put his head down and started to drag himself forward along the length of the tank. Above the crackle of flames, he could hear the creak of the hatch and then the echoing splash as Tyler’s thin body dropped into the water.

  Sheldon’s grasp on his consciousness was growing tenuous, and he was finding it harder not to succumb to the excruciating pain in his leg. Yet even as he slipped farther from reality, he felt an overwhelming new understanding about what it was to love someone more than yourself.

  It is a gift. Not to them, but from them.

  Sheldon laid his face against one of the stinging-hot rungs and let his body hang limply as he gathered the last of his strength; then, with a Herculean effort, he lifted his head and looked the last five feet along the ladder to the hatch covering. It was cracked open, and through the two-inch space he could see the eyes of his grandson. But the smoke was moving around them like a predatory thing, seeking out openings and stealing the clean air.

  This is my fault, Sheldon thought desperately. I never should have brought him. Praying that his voice was loud enough to carry, Sheldon whispered, “Shut the hatch, Tyler. It’s gonna be all right. Shut the hatch.”

  Chapter 47

  The visibility was close to nil, and Weston was relying primarily on his instruments. He estimated the distance to the ground, focused on the orange glow in the gray gloom, and pushed the stick forward as he dropped his altitude. Just over the line of fire, he released the load of extinguisher, maneuvering the control stick with experienced finesse to compensate for the sudden weight change and the buffets of unpredictable wind. Sweat was beading and running down his forehead as he lifted away, banking sharply and fighting for altitude.

  It was when he cleared the smoke that he saw the new fire. He gestured to the young female firefighter who sat beside him and then spoke into the microphone in his helmet. “Command Center, this is chopper one. We’ve got a breakout.” The woman checked their coordinates and quickly reported the exact location. Weston changed his course to circle the blaze so that they could make a more detailed report.

  As he came opposite the windward side, he spotted the truck, lost as an abandoned ship in a flaming sea, and he circled lower. There was something on top of the truck, something he couldn’t quite make out in the haze. Urging his craft forward and down, he squinted at what he now realized was one of the water tankers, closer, closer, until he could make out the . . .

  “Holy shit,” his partner, Jonni, muttered under her breath. “Command Center, we’ve got a victim down.”

  “This is Command. Hold for the IC,” crackled over the airwaves.

  As Weston waited impatiently for the incident commander to get to their frequency, he hovered fifty feet or so above the truck. The wind from his rotors flattened the flames nearest the rig and they danced insanely before leaping up stronger than before.

  “Chopper one?” came a gruff voice. “Report.”

  “We’ve got a stranded water tanker, and it looks from here like the driver is unconscious on top of it. I can’t make it out, but he’s definitely injured, possibly dead. Request permission to attempt a rescue.” It was Weston who spoke, but he got a quick nod of agreement from Jonni, who turned questioningly to look at a third firefighter.

  “You in, Eddie?”

  The man, a veteran, nodded grimly. “I’m in.” There was no hint of hesitation in his commitment.

  “Negative,” snapped the IC. “I’ve got a ground unit on the way.”

  But even before the IC’s directive was out, Weston’s partner had gasped and pointed.

  “Oh my God, there’s a kid in there!”

  Weston swung the helicopter to one side so that he could peer down at the top of the tanker. And there, just as Jonni had said, was the torso of a small boy, half-out of the tanker’s hatch, waving furiously at them and pointing at the prone figure of the man. From his jump seat, Eddie was craning his neck to look down on the scene.

  “There’s a child in the truck,” Weston spoke into his mike, “and the fire is closing in. It’s only a matter of a few minutes until it’s up under that truck, and if there’s any gas in it, it’s a bomb waiting to go off. We’ve got to drop in.” Years of flying in extreme conditions kept Weston’s voice calm, but his heart was pounding as he looked from the flames to the boy’s flailing arms.

  “What do you think, Eddie?” he asked over his shoulder.

  “I think the guy sprayed the area around them, but in this heat and wind, that shrubbery will be dry in no time, maybe already is. And your assessment is accurate. Five minutes, maybe less.”

  “Command Center, can we get an ETA on the ground unit?” Weston said firmly.

  “Estimated to arrive in seventeen minutes,” came the dispatcher’s voice.

  Weston l
ooked at Jonni’s face. She looked grimly back at him, then said the two words that decided them. “Too long.”

  “Command Center,” Weston said, “request permission for an immediate evacuation. The situation is extreme. We’ve got a man down and child surrounded by active fire.”

  There was a pause, a crackle, and then the merciful response. “Proceed with extreme caution.”

  Weston switched the stick to his left hand and held up his right, palm toward Jonni. “Let’s do it.”

  She smacked his palm with her own as she unbuckled her belt and got up out of the seat. Eddie was already sliding open the helicopter door. They were both dressed in protective suits, but she quickly donned gloves and a helmet, and strapped on a harness as Eddie hooked a long, wired ladder into two eyebolts riveted to the floor of the helicopter. Jonni kneeled, looking down as Weston positioned the helicopter only a few feet above the stranded vehicle.

  “Go!” Eddie ordered, and Jonni dropped the ladder. It unrolled partially and landed with a thud on the top of the tanker, near Tyler. He reached out for it, but Weston’s voice boomed out on the PA system.

  “Hold on, son. We’re coming to get you.”

  Jonni swung herself out with practiced ease and slipped down the few feet until she was standing on the horizontal ladder. She moved quickly to the prostrate figure of the man and checked for a pulse. Then she moved to the boy and lifted him out of the tank. He struggled to get to the man, but Weston could see Jonni’s lips moving fast as she held on, and the boy seemed to wilt. She pulled a second harness from her belt, quickly strapped him in, and then gave Eddie a thumbs-up. He lowered down a safety line, which Jonni hooked to the boy’s harness, and then they climbed the ladder together, Jonni’s body behind his like a net. He made it close enough for Eddie to grab him under the arms and heave him in.

  “Grampa,” he shouted. “Help my grampa!”