As we got closer to his house, something moving on the side of the road caught my eye—a hand rising up from the ground. “Oh, no.”
I ran toward the hand and froze inches from Courtland. My heart skipped several beats and my stomach curdled. Courtland lay sprawled out in the dirt, his leg and arm badly burned. I gasped at the sight of his clothing sticking to his charred skin.
I stooped down next to him.
“Courtland? Can you hear me?”
“Yes ... my leg is on fire!”
I looked at his leg. Red, blistered skin peeked out from the singed dark material of his jeans. “The fire’s out. You’ll be okay.”
Court tried to sit up but Max came and crouched beside us and gently pushed him back down. “Dude, don’t move. You got some serious burns.”
“You’re going to be okay. Your leg and hand are in bad shape, but we’ll take you to Max’s. His mom and dad will be able to help you.” I looked to Max, hoping he agreed and to my relief, he nodded.
“I don’t think I can walk. I’m pretty sure I sprained my ankle trying to put the fire out.”
“You’ll have to lean on us, then,” I said.
“Crap! Dude, do you think you can stand?” Max asked.
Court nodded. We each took one of his arms and tried to pull him up to stand, but Court slunk back down and something slipped out of his hand into the dirt. “I can’t. Hurts too much.”
Max glanced toward the rubble that used to be Court’s house and took off running toward it.
“Max, where are you going?” I shouted before focusing on Courtland again as his hand groped out beside him for the thing he dropped. I picked it up, studying the photo of his mom and dad before handing it to him. “Here. I’m sorry.”
Courtland didn’t say anything as he took the frame from me.
My eyes searched in the direction Max went, trying to figure out what he was up to, when he picked up a large flat board and carried it over.
“This is a little charred but we can put him on this and drag him.”
“Good idea. Courtland, can you shimmy yourself onto this?”
Court opened his eyes and squinted at the board. “Yeah, I think so. Maybe if you help.”
Max grabbed Court under the arms, I lifted his feet, and we pulled him onto the board.
Courtland let out a loud groan with the movement, which startled me and I almost let go, but managed to tighten my grip on the back of his calf muscles, steadying his legs. Dropping his feet now would only make his pain even greater. It was hard but I managed to lower his legs to the board before letting go.
I straightened and stared at Max. “Now what? How are we supposed to drag him?”
“Wait,” Max said, and ran off again, but came back lickety-split, straightening some sort of wire.
“What is that?” I asked.
“Not sure—probably part of the construction in the wall. Here, hold this.” He took out his pocketknife and picked up a rock from the road. Max placed the tip of the knife on the board right next to Court’s shoulder ready to pound the knife into the board when Court reached up with his good hand and grabbed Max by the arm.
“Better not miss, MacGyver.” Court glared at Max.
Max’s lips curled into a devilish grin, the kind he would put on when he knew he was being a brat. He pounded the knife through the wood, twisting it so it made a little slit wide enough for the wire to go through. He did the same on the other side of the board and stuck the wire through the holes, twisting each end tight to keep them from slipping back though. He then wrapped his jacket around the loop of the wire. “Grab on and pull, Adela.”
We yanked the board and Courtland almost fell off. “Hold on, will you? This is hard enough without us having to pick up your sorry ass again,” Max barked out.
I glared at Max.
“What?”
I shook my head; Courtland lay still with his burnt hand crossed over his chest, the picture clutched under his arm. The other hand gripped the side of the board, his eyes closed, his brows scrunched, and his lips together in a tight, straight line. I could only imagine the amount of pain he must be experiencing.
I’d only been burned once in my life, a minor burn, nothing like Court’s. About a year ago, the iron skimmed my wrist while I was pressing one of my blouses, barely singeing me, but it hurt a lot. I had to hold my wrist under cold water from the kitchen faucet forever until the burning stopped. With the outside of Courtland’s calf and his hand and fingers blistering, I didn’t think a kitchen faucet running with cold water would do the trick, even if we found a faucet we could use. I cringed at the sight of the fabric from his pants sticking to parts of the burn. That was going to hurt like a son-of-bitch when it had to be unstuck. I prayed Mr. or Mrs. Wendell knew what to do and would be able to help.
We walked on for what seemed like miles. Max lived only a short distance from Courtland, but undertaking the uphill journey weighed down by Courland made it seem like ten miles. With each step I took, my fingers ached from pulling the wire connected to the pseudo travois Max fashioned to transport Court. Max’s thin jacket didn’t shield the wire much and I felt sure the indents on my fingers would become permanent as I tried to keep the part of my hand with the cuts away from the wire. The sooner we got Court some attention, the better off he would be and the sooner I could search for my sister and brother. Confident that the daycare center had a basement and an escape plan in place for the kids, I worried that, if they had gotten out okay, where would they be now? I hoped the school would find suitable shelter for any of the kids whose parents didn’t show up for them. Then the light bulb switched on. It couldn’t have been clearer in my head if someone had shown me a picture, and I smiled. That had to be where my mom was. She’d gone to the school to get the twins.
We tugged Courtland along until we reached Max’s long driveway. Two cars sat in it, one behind the other, but the house didn’t seem to have fared any better than Court’s or mine.
“Both their cars are here. Come on!” Max dropped his side of the wire holding the board and Courtland tumbled off onto the ground with a grunt.
“Max!” I shouted, but he kept running toward the ruins. I crouched down to help Court back onto the board. I didn’t want to know, couldn’t bear to see if they were dead, if Max’s parents lay at the top of the hill, dead. I couldn’t look.
I stared down at Courtland. His face contorted in pain, but he wasn’t making any noise. He seemed okay for the moment. I looked back at Max standing outside the smoldering rubble, not moving. I ran up the driveway and stopped beside him. The smell of ash assaulted my nose for the umpteenth time that day and I covered it and my mouth with the palm of my hand. I reached out with the other to touch him on the shoulder. He didn’t make a sound, didn’t move an inch. He stood as still as a statue, staring at the pile of cinders and charred brick.
“Max?”
He didn’t seem to notice me as he turned and walked the other way. He circled the house and I followed. When he reached the back yard, he fell down on his knees and cried, pounding his fists on the dirt. I stopped a few feet behind him not sure what to do, afraid to touch him, afraid not to touch him. Would he send me away or welcome my comforting arms? At that moment, I didn’t think he wanted me or anyone watching him cry, so I walked back to the front of the house, sat on a piece of broken cement and waited.
Chapter 9
~~ Adela ~~
“Adela!”
“Max?” I jumped up at the sound of banging and the sweet music of Max calling my name and rushed toward the commotion he was making.
The air smelled of burnt wood, furniture, fabrics and plastic. Max’s life. Warmth from the fire that consumed everything Max owned rose from the ground. It appeared he and I were in the same boat.
“Max?”
He stood in front of the wine cellar, banging against the door.
“The door is jammed. Help me,” he pleaded.
I had to admit, it took me a
minute to figure out what was actually going on and Max looked at me as if I’d suddenly been struck deaf and dumb.
“Come on. They must be down here, help me!”
I nodded, realizing he was talking about his parents. “Yes, I bet that’s where they are.” I tugged at the door alongside him, praying they’d be standing right on the other side of the door when we got it opened. But a certain kind of logic, some hateful kind of reasoning in my brain kept repeating … if they are alive wouldn’t we hear them? Wouldn’t they be yelling back?
“The handle’s jammed. The earthquake must have jarred the entrance off balance and the door is stuck.” Max pounded on the door some more. “Mom? Dad? Are you down there?”
No one answered and Max bent to the ground, picked up a large rock, and hit it against the handle. It didn’t budge, so he banged at the stubborn metal again and again until finally, it broke and part of it fell to the ground. He pulled the heavy doors open and called out again, but still, no answer. He jumped down the stairs, missing most of them and I followed him, though a little bit slower, intimidated by the darkness. Max tried the light switch but nothing happened.
“Wait here,” he said, holding up his hand in front of me in the universal “stop” signal.
He got no argument from me as I stood stiff, afraid to move. He shuffled around some then I heard a match strike and a tiny glow came from the other side of the cellar. I stood in the middle of the stairs and my heart sank in my chest as I listened to Max’s muffled whimpering sounds.
“Max? Is everything okay?”
He didn’t answer so I crept down the stairs, unsure of what I’d find. The light from a candle cast a flickering shadow on the wall. When I reached the bottom, I surveyed the area. The room looked like someone threw a fit and tossed everything out into the middle of it. Dozens of wine barrels came into view, taking up most of the cement floor along the wall, along with several more in the middle of the room that must have rolled there during the quake. A metal shelf lay toppled over on its side with several cans of food and water jugs scattered about. Some other items that didn’t belong there took up space on the floor. There was a bar to my left covered with broken bottles. The smell of wine permeated the air as I noticed all the liquid spilled over the top and down the front of the bar. Max sat on one of the barrels at the other end of the room, his face in his hands. Max’s parents were nowhere in sight.
“Oh, Max.”
He glanced up at me, wiped the tears from his cheeks, and sniffled. “I really thought they would be down here.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“I guess I’m an orphan now.”
“Maybe we both are,” I managed, trying not to start sobbing with him. I shook my head at my lack of tact. How stupid. “Maybe we both are,” was the most comforting thing I could come up with?
“It was cold this morning,” Max said in such a soft voice that I almost didn’t hear him.
“Huh?” At first, I thought he’d lost his mind from the trauma. What did the cold have to do with anything?
“It was cold this morning,” he repeated in that same soft voice. “I was sitting in the back yard trying to think why the house burned down. It was cold this morning.”
None of this made sense to me. I still didn’t know what he was getting at, so I just listened, thinking he must be in shock, babbling incoherently.
“My mom had the fireplace blazing when I left for school,” he continued in that soft voice. “I remember her commenting about the first fire of the season, how much she loved the smell. The scent of burning wood always made her happy. She said the first autumn fire signaled the beginning of the holidays and always made her feel warm and cozy, like a new beginning. I don’t know, it didn’t make sense to me, but she had the fireplace lit when I left for school.
“The earthquake must have broken the gas pipe and with the flames …” He placed his face back in his hands and cried. “I guess my dad didn’t get the gas turned off soon enough.”
After a minute or so he whispered, “Do you think she died happy?”
I nodded, then realized his face was still hidden in his hands and he couldn’t see me.
“Yes,” I whispered in an attempt to hide the lie. I didn’t think she died happy. I thought she probably died scared. She would have been. I would have been. Burning to death had to be the worst way to die, unless you were lucky enough to die from smoke inhalation first, which I’d read was usually the case. But the fear would still be there, along with desperation, terror over the fate of family members, and the hysteria of trying to escape.
I wanted to find my brother and sister even more now. My worry and fear for them increased with each passing minute, but my fear was most likely minuscule compared to what theirs must be. Two little four-year old kids not knowing what was going on, being without their parents after a … what did they call it? A megathrust earthquake. More like a monsterthrust if you asked me. The most horrible monster this world had ever seen, much greater than Godzilla or aliens.
“I don’t think I’ve ever cried in front of you before. I suppose between crying and my fear of heights my Superman image is ruined.”
I almost laughed in spite of everything. Leave it to Max to make a joke to try to hide his weaknesses, even when he had the perfect reason to cry. “Yeah, well, even Superman has bad days.” I swallowed, trying to get my saliva to coat that little spot at the back of my throat, wishing I had a drink of water. “If you didn’t cry at a time like this, I would think you were nothing more than stone cold S.O.B. and that’s worse than losing your Superman image.”
“If my dad were here he’d say, “Son, men don’t cry, so buck up.”
“He would also tell you to be strong because he loves you and has faith in your ability to survive.”
Max looked at me; our eyes held each other’s for a few seconds. “You’ve always been there for me Adela. I’m glad you’re here now.”
My heart skipped at least twenty beats. It was at times like this, when Max said something so sweet and wonderful to me, that had me believing there had to be something between us … something more than just friendship.
“We can stay down here. There’s a little food and water, enough for a few days anyway. My mom started to stock this place last week after the first quake. She had planned to put a whole lot more stuff down here, but she never got the chance to finish,” Max said, hanging his head and staring at the floor. “I really thought she’d be down here.”
I nodded even though I knew he wasn’t looking at me, because I knew exactly how he felt.
“We’ll need to go out and search for food soon, but we don’t have to worry about that yet.”
I wondered if Max had considered that Courtland would be down here with us.
“We should go get Court.”
“What?”
“Courtland. We left him at the end of the driveway, remember?”
“Oh, yeah,” he sighed. “Okay. Let’s go get the freak.”
I frowned at Max, but kept quiet. The last thing we needed to do right now was fight. Courtland never did anything to harm anybody and needed our help. Sure, Court was different, but the idea he could somehow communicate with animals had intrigued me ever since he managed to calm Big Blue down to keep my horse from bucking me to Timbuktu. Besides, the guy was obviously in a great deal of pain. Now that I thought about it, I supposed I should have stayed out there with Courtland. He was probably baking in the heat.
~~ Courtland ~~
The sun beat down on my leg and hand, intensifying the pain. I wondered if Adela and Max were going to come back and get me or just leave me to bake in the sun. If Maxen had his way, he would have left me on the side of the road when they first found me, but Adela actually seemed to care … I hoped.
In my wildest dreams, I never thought I would ever be in the position of needing help from Max Wendell. I never really believed we’d speak to each other again after the fourth grade. Max wanted nothing to do with
me and I wanted nothing to do with him. However, Adela wanted Max. That was something I needed to change.
The pain shooting through my leg and hand heightened, almost as if they were still on fire. I opened my eyes and peeked down at them just to be certain. I wasn’t sure if the fact that they weren’t in flames was good or not, considering how much it hurt. At least if there were flames, I could maybe put them out and feel better.
I glanced around at my surroundings. About fifteen feet away from me stood a tree over ten feet tall with large branches full of leaves and shade double its size covering the ground below. I wished they’d left me under the tree instead of out in the sun, but I guessed when they discovered the condition of the house, their priorities changed. I couldn’t really blame them.
I inched my way off the board, doing a one-leg, one-arm crab-crawl across the grass. The pain intensified with each inch I moved and I thought I’d lose consciousness before I reached the shade. I stopped halfway, winded, my breath speeding like a sprinter’s in a hundred-yard dash. Sweat dripped into my eyes so I swiped my hand across my forehead. My vision blurred a little and I blinked, trying to focus on the tree. God, don’t let me die here in the sun. I felt so helpless. Out of breath. Out of strength. Out of will. I pictured Adela’s beautiful golden brown eyes as my own closed, seeing her as the angel she truly was.
Chapter 10
~~Adela~~
When Max and I came up from the cellar, we headed back down the driveway where we’d left Courtland.
A small gasp escaped from my throat when I noticed the empty board. “Oh my God, where is he?”
Max frowned. “Your guess is as good as mine. Why do you care so much?”
“Because he’s a person! Why don’t you care?”
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