“Nana, we’re starving. Do you have anything we can grab very quickly to eat?”
“Yeah, go help yourself. There’s a couple bowls of salads in there that we were supposed to eat last night.”
Meagan ran into the kitchen and I hobbled behind her, but as I opened the fridge door and pulled out the huge blue bowl that was filled with potato salad, she wandered onto the porch. I filled three plates with the salad and then went out to see what she was looking at.
“Look how close it is, Sarah. Nothing but smoke right up to Heaven. It’s covering the whole area across the back down by the water, see it?”
“Yeah, that’s from the amber that shot across it before. It’s close but I think we should stay in the house and wait for Ali. There’s no way we’re going to get Nana to walk on the road. I just hope he gets here soon.”
“Me, too. I just can’t get over how fast it’s spreading.”
“Meg, let’s get back in and grab some of that salad while we’re waiting.”
We grabbed the salad plates from the counter and took them into the sitting room and it only took seconds for the three of us to eat it. Brad jumped up to look out the window a few times for Ali. Meagan and I sat there restless as well, and that’s when I figured that if we were going to just make ourselves nervous waiting, we should do something.
“Come on, Meg. Let’s go upstairs and get our stuff so we don’t have to leave it behind.”
Meagan agreed and Brad said he’d stay with Nana so we went upstairs to grab our things and stuff them into our duffle bags. It took us only seconds to yank our clothes off the hangers and shove them in the bags, but as we did the remorse of what was happening began to set in.
“It’s all going to burn, isn’t it, Meg? All of this will be gone in about an hour, their whole life, their home, everything.”
“Not everything. Most of their stuff is in storage, remember? And this old house is in need of some serious repair so it’s not all lost. And besides, they have a new house waiting for them back home.”
“I know, but I wish we could save all this stuff. So many memories are here, all the things we did on holidays.”
Meagan zipped her bag and headed for the door.
“I know, I know. Are you done? We have to go now.”
It felt as if I was standing on death’s doorstep. Everything here would soon be reduced to ashes and there was nothing we could do to prevent it. I picked up my bag to follow her and that’s when we heard what sounded like a siren.
“Sarah, is that an ambulance? Wow, they came for Nana after all. Come on. Let’s go see.”
I was about to follow her but instead I sauntered to the window to take one last look, and my heart fell to my feet.
“Oh my god, Meg! That’s not a siren. A shooting amber just landed on the back porch.”
Chapter 19
When Dreams Come True
We raced down the stairwell and my ankle stung but I didn’t care. Meagan slammed open the kitchen door at the bottom of the stairs just as Brad pushed in from behind us. My heart pounded inside my chest as we all froze and stared at the back porch through the open door. Brad gasped and I tried to speak without crying.
“Meg and I saw the amber hit it from upstairs. This is a wooden house and it’ll burn fast.”
Brad pulled us both backwards and through the kitchen doorway.
“Come on. We have to grab your grandmother and get out of here now.”
We darted back into the sitting room and Brad grabbed Nana’s hands and pulled her to her feet.
“Come on. We have to go.”
“I smell smoke – and fire. It’s close by, isn’t it?”
Meagan and I pleaded with her to hurry but she kept saying she was dizzy and wanted to sit and rest just for one more minute. I was so scared that my own head began to feel dizzy and my voice shook when I tried to talk to her. Brad ran back to the kitchen and Meagan took over pulling at her arms as I tried to coax her to move.
“Nana, you have to stand up. Come on. We have to get out of here.”
Brad returned a second later and said the back wall of the kitchen was totally in flames and that it was burning faster that we thought.
“We have to get out now. Let’s go through the front door. Come on, grab her arm.”
Nana’s eyes welled up and she wiped the tears away with her hands.
“You’ll have to go without me, girls. I can’t walk fast enough to beat that fire.”
I pulled on her one arm as Meagan pulled on her other one.
“Don’t talk like that. We’re all going to get out together.”
I listened to my own words and tried to stay calm but my thoughts drifted back to the dream for a few seconds and icy chills shot up my back. The smoke was seeping under the door and now invaded the hallway and the sound of the sharp cracks of the fire a few feet away quickly filled my insides with panic. I realized that we were going to have to fight to get out alive.
Brad pushed me aside and grabbed Nana’s arm and forced her out of the chair.
“Now! We have to get out now. This house is on fire and we need to get out of it now.”
He wrapped Nana’s arm around his neck and Meagan took her other arm and together they practically dragged her out towards the front door. Nana tried to walk and then began to yell.
“Misty. Where’s Misty? We can’t leave her here. We have to get her.”
“Mrs. Davies, there’s no time to get anything. We have to get you out of here now.”
Nana continued to cry as they hustled her towards the front door, and I grabbed the duffle bags that were on the floor in the hallway and followed closely behind them. In that few seconds, the smoke had filtered through most of the house. The sound of the inferno behind us was deafening and yet through it I could hear the distinct sound of things burning and crackling. I looked back as I waited for Brad to open the front door and it scared me so badly that I pressed against them in a panic to get out. The entire kitchen was caught up in flames.
Brad flung the front door open and he and Meagan pushed Nana through it and onto the front doorstep, and within seconds he was dragging all of them down the front steps. I was right behind them and the fire was right behind me. The horrifying sound of things burning was so mesmerizing that my legs were filling with pins and needles and I couldn’t even tell if I was moving or not.
Nana screamed for Misty non-stop and then suddenly, I heard Misty’s cries over the sound of the fire. I wasn’t sure what to do but I knew that I couldn’t just ignore her. I stepped back and peaked into the sitting room and there she was, a ball of orange and black fur hiding on the floor in the corner between the couch and the wall. She was too scared to come to me even when she saw me.
I called her several more times but she still wouldn’t move so out of frustration I ran to the front door and tossed the duffle bags onto the doorstep. The smoke was getting heavy and there was an threatening crash from the kitchen. I looked back quickly and saw part of the ceiling cave in as the flames took it over.
I just wanted to run out the door behind the others but I couldn’t leave Misty here to die. It wasn’t fair to her and so I scooted across the room and picked her up and held her close to my chest. A second later there was another crash and the fire was in the hallway. Suddenly, the one side of the living room burst into flames.
It startled me and I gasped in fear as I looked all around. In just those few seconds, the fire had spread through to the hall and was at the doorway so that I couldn’t get out of the room. The smoke came at me fast, almost as if I was its sole target. I screamed for help. No one came. I called out to Meagan but she didn’t answer. The fire roared and yet all I could hear was my own heart beat pounding in my ears.
The dream. This was my dream. I yelled again for Meagan but she couldn’t hear me. I had to get out but there was no way out. Everything around me was on fire and its roar shook my insides. I stood there in a panic looking around the room. There was only
one way to go and that was through the window.
I looked around for something to throw at the glass to break it but Nana had packed everything small and there was nothing around me to throw. Nana and Grandpa didn’t have modern electronics so there wasn’t even a DVD player or anything that I could get to. I looked back at the doorway that was now overtaken with smoke. It was my only option. I just had to take a few steps to the door way and turn right and then dive out the front door. It seemed easy enough but my legs had turned to rubber and I couldn’t move.
The smoke was closing in on me and it was becoming difficult to breathe so I grabbed the bottom of my shirt and pulled it up to cover my mouth. I knew that if I didn’t get Misty out soon, she’d suffocate, too. Although the doorway was just a few feet away, it seemed like the greatest challenge in my life just to get to it.
I forced myself to focus on getting out through the door but the smoke was everywhere and it was stifling my nerve to run into the hallway. I knew that I would have just do it, that I’d have to fight the smoke and dart the flames but I had to do it.
The tears streamed down my face and I couldn’t stop them and that just added to my frustration and burned my eyes even more. I swallowed hard and held my breath. Now! Go now! I held Misty tight and ran.
The flames raced me to the doorway and I could feel the heat permeating from them. My legs prickled and my chest pounded. I stepped into the hallway and headed to the front door. The dream had become real and I was terrified.
And that’s when I felt Brad’s hand snatch the shirt at my shoulder and pull me towards the front door. My head was dizzy and everything was dark from the smoke. Seconds later I was outside and he rushed me down the front steps.
He dragged me to the road and the whole time I coughed and gasped for air. Meagan hugged me and then yelled at me for going back in as she took Misty from me. I was so overwhelmed by what had just happened that I collapsed into Brad’s arms.
“Why didn’t you just follow us out?”
“Misty. She was crying. I had to get her.”
Meagan came back and put her arms around me and we stood in a group hug for several seconds. Brad had both his arms around me and still I couldn’t stop shaking.
“Sarah, are you okay? Can you walk?”
I saw the concern in Brad’s eyes and I knew that he had been worried about me. But I felt safe and I didn’t want it to end and I didn’t know how to answer him. I had to go back for Misty and I was almost positive that if he had been me, he would have done the same thing.
“Sarah, sweet Sarah, what am I going to do with you?”
The sound of the fire was like a mighty thunder and Brad raised his eyebrows at me and then motioned for us to get onto the road.
“We have to get away from this now. Ali will be a few more minutes and we can’t wait here for him. We have to start walking. Ready?”
Nana struggled to walk with her injured knee and we knew that we would have to really support her. That’s when I noticed Grandpa’s wheel barrel at the front of the road by the ditch. Grandpa was always doing something in the yard and he must have left it there when he was working on the ditches by the road.
Brad didn’t miss a beat and he had it on the road right away.
“This is perfect. Help me get her in.”
Meagan held the wheel barrel as steady as she could while Brad and I helped Nana to get inside it. She was angry at us and said that no one should have to travel this way. I wasn’t sure if she was really upset or if it was just the emotions of watching her home burn that got to her, but there was no time to discuss it.
Brad took hold of the wheel barrel handles and Meagan and I picked up our bags that had been flung onto the road and the three of us walked as briskly as we could down the middle of it. It was a paved road, two lanes wide, which made the journey more tolerable than if it had been a gravel road. But it was outlined in wilderness bush and trees and it wouldn’t take long for the fire to get to it, and we knew that we were literally in a race against time. And so far the fire seemed to be winning.
A minute later Brad’s cell phone rang but he said we didn’t have time to stop to answer it. I reached into his pant pocket and answered it because I knew it would be Ali, and it was.
“I’m on my way back and should be there in about five minutes if the tire doesn’t blow first.”
“What do you mean? What’s wrong with the tire?”
“Well it has almost no tread on it and it’s low in air, and when I asked in town no one seemed to know which gas station had an air pump. So, I’m driving on a partially flat tire – just hope it makes it with what it has.”
I explained to Ali what had happened and he said he’d be looking for us. I hung up and told the others what he’d said and Brad groaned. He was already huffing and puffing from wheeling Nana whose weight was challenging his arms.
“So, what you’re saying is, as soon as he gets here we’ll be changing the tire?”
“I don’t know, I guess so. I’m sorry, Brad. This has been a nightmare for you.”
Brad was never lost for a come-back remark, and he turned to me with a big smirk.
“Yup, dating you is becoming hazardous to my health.”
I was tired and scared and I’m not sure if Brad was kidding or if there was actually a bit of truth behind his words. He was very special and I admired and respected him more than anyone I’d ever met in my life outside of my dad. Sometimes it was hard to know if he was kidding or not, though, and this was one time that I really hoped he was. I just wanted to have a normal date with him where I could dress up, maybe go to a movie and a treat afterwards, and laugh.
I kept up the pace with him and Meagan even though my ankle hurt a lot, but it was the least of my worries. We seemed to be doing good time on the road but the fire behind us was doing just as well. I looked back through the smoke and the fire and I knew that Nana’s and Grandpa’s home was gone forever. Meagan looked over at me and her eyes welled up.
“We made it, Sarah. Ali will be here in a second and it’s over. What a trip this has been.”
We continued along the road for a few more minutes until Brad yelled out that he could see Ali coming and that’s when we cheered. Seconds later, Ali came at us and turned the truck around so it was heading back into town. He and Brad lifted Nana out of the wheel barrel and into the passenger seat of the truck.
Meagan slipped into the cab through the driver’s door and Ali climbed in beside her as Brad and I climbed into the back.
“You two going to be okay back there?”
Brad yelled out that we were fine and then we crawled to the front and leaned against the front wall. Part of me was so relieved that we were leaving but the other part of me began to panic. The window of the cab was opened and I yelled through it.
“Ali, can you beat this? The fire is all on the one side and behind us. I can’t believe this. It’s spreading so fast.”
“Just hold on tight. This baby is going to burn rubber.”
Ali shifted the truck into high gear which was probably low gear compared to trucks that were made after the 1900’s. The ride was bumpy and hard and yet was a welcome relief because it was our escape. Brad was in the one corner and I was in the other and he yelled to me as he pointed to the inferno that we were leaving behind.
“Amazing how fast this thing is going. We’re clearing it now but if we had to stop for five minutes it would over take us. I’m just glad you’re okay, Sarah.”
For one second I felt as if we had made it and I could tell by the way he spoke that Brad was as stressed out as I was. I closed my eyes and pictured us back at home, safe and sound.
And that’s when there was a loud bang and the truck jerked forward and Ali slammed on the brakes. My heart raced ahead in fear just as my head slammed against the back of the truck, and that’s when my thoughts went all cloudy. What had just happened?
Ali jumped out of the truck the same time Brad did. He wiped his sweaty for
ehead with his hand and then looked back at the fire that was now coming towards us with a vengeance. Ali growled furiously as he kicked the front of the truck with all his might.
“I don’t believe this! The tire blew!”
Chapter 20
Great Balls of Fire
The taunting drone of the fire burning up everything in its path just a mile or so behind us was making my skin crawl. The air was hot and dry and difficult to breathe, and as I stared at the dry brush beside us, I knew that it would soon become the fuel for the fire’s unquenchable appetite.
Meagan stuck her head out of the driver’s window and yelled out that Nana said he keeps the spare tire in the back under a wooden board. Brad hopped into the back of the truck even before she finished talking, and pulled off the board and then yelled out that there was a rusted well with a tire in it. It took him a minute to wiggle it loose from the box that it was attached to and then he yanked it out and rolled it to Ali who caught it and dropped it on the ground by the blown tire.
“It’s just a donut. How can you drive a truck like this and just have a donut?”
I wanted to answer and say it’s because Grandpa always only did what he had to do unless it was something he really enjoyed. He didn’t travel far, was never anxious about anything and so likely was never bothered about the spare tire. But the frustration on Ali’s face was enough to make me bite my lip and say nothing.
“Okay, well it’ll have to do. Brad, is there a jack in there?”
Ali hung over the side of the truck and stared at the inferno coming towards us while Brad searched for the jack. I stood beside him and stared at the wheel as my insides churned and made me feel nauseous. I wanted to look back to see the fire too, but somehow it seemed less threatening if I didn’t.
Brad yelled as he jumped out of the truck.
“Ali, here’s the jack. At least I think that’s what it is. This better work.”
Ali took the jack and put it in place as Brad tried to unscrew the wheel nuts.
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