They reached another clearing—a wide patch of bare, rocky ground. No trees within a hundred-foot radius. Hardly any shrubs or even grass. Not much that would feed the fire when it passed through.
This spot might be her best chance.
“Guys,” she said, “listen. I’m not going to make it to the lake.”
11
Elijah
Marco still hadn’t moved.
“Mrs. Lucas hasn’t left yet!” he called to Elijah. “Ask her if she needs a ride.”
Elijah ran next door.
He pounded on Mrs. Lucas’s front door until she answered. “Mrs. Lucas, you heard that we got the evacuation order?”
“Yes. My daughter’s on her way, but—”
“How far away is she?”
“It’ll be another half hour before she gets here.”
Elijah drew in his breath. “That settles it, then. You’re coming with us.”
***
Elijah heaved Mrs. Lucas’s two suitcases into the trunk of Marco’s car. He might have to sit on the trunk lid to close it . . .
The smoke had followed him into the garage. He coughed. Mrs. Lucas was already wearing a paper face mask. She held a lightweight blanket in her arms. “This is one hundred percent cotton,” she told him. “Cotton and wool are the most fire-resistant fabrics. If worse comes to worst, we throw this over our heads and cross our fingers.”
Elijah thought about throwing the blanket over Marco’s head. Maybe that would confuse his uncle long enough for Elijah to drag him to the car.
“You really are prepared for this,” he said to Mrs. Lucas. “Way better prepared than we are.”
“Young man, I’ve lived in the Southwest all my life. Even before I met my husband, I’d seen my share of fires.”
Elijah grinned. As terrified as he was, Mrs. Lucas seemed impossibly calm. He hoped some of that calmness would rub off on him. “And I bet those fires were smart enough not to mess with you.”
She winked at him. “Most of them.”
***
Serafina didn’t want to leave. The moment Elijah clipped her leash to her collar, she sat down firmly. Her expression reminded him of Marco’s.
“Come on, girl,” said Elijah. He tugged on the leash with one hand, clutching his phone and charger in the other hand. If they were lucky, it would be a matter of minutes before the fire reached their house.
And if they weren’t lucky . . .
“Seriously, Serafina,” he said, getting desperate. He didn’t dare try to pick the dog up. He’d tried that once, months ago. She’d head-butted him hard enough to give him a concussion. “We’re running out of time. And I still have to convince Marco to leave. Work with me here.”
The dog’s ears rose at the sound of her owner’s name.
“Yeah. Marco. He’s outside. We need to get him. Trust me, girl, you don’t want any of us to be here when that fire shows up.”
Serafina stood up and followed him.
***
Elijah pulled the car out of the garage, into the driveway. With Mrs. Lucas and Serafina in the backseat, he just had one more passenger to pick up. “Marco! You can’t beat that thing back! The firefighters will do everything they can to save the house. We gotta go! Now!”
“You go ahead with Mrs. Lucas. I’ll be fine—”
“Marco, it’s not worth it!”
“Don’t you dare tell me what’s not worth it!” Marco yelled.
Something snapped, deep inside Elijah’s chest. In his mind, he saw firefighters setting their own fires, backfires that were supposed to stop the main blaze in its tracks—fires that succeeded only in creating more destruction. Lines of defense that failed, leaving people in more danger than ever. “Do you want to die? Because that’s what will happen if you stay here. I bet you’ll feel like a real hero then, when you burn to a crisp. That’s not brave, Marco. That’s just stupid. And leaving isn’t cowardly. It’s just what we have to do.”
Marco glared at him with a look of pure rage. “You didn’t work for this! You didn’t sacrifice for this! I don’t abandon the things I care about! I’m not a quitter like—”
He didn’t finish, but he didn’t have to.
I’m not a quitter like your parents. Like you.
Elijah took a deep breath. Smoke snaked down his throat and into his lungs, burning the whole way. “Marco, I know this house has always been your dream. Of course you don’t want to lose that. But what matters more—this house, or our lives? We need you, Marco. You’re not going to abandon us, are you? You’re not going to leave us in the lurch, right? Because I don’t know what we’ll do then. I really don’t. Please. We’re counting on you, man.”
Marco stared at Elijah like he didn’t recognize him. Then he looked back at the house. Then back at Elijah.
Serafina let out a whimper. Elijah had hardly ever heard her make a noise. First that growl when he was looking for the documents, and now this.
Marco’s eyes swiveled back to the car. Without a word, he set down the hose and climbed into the passenger’s seat.
Elijah didn’t gun the engine, in case it stalled. Instead he eased the car forward and gradually added speed. He had a feeling Serafina’s whimper had done more to change Marco’s mind than his own speech. He’d have to remember to give Serafina one of those dental treats she liked.
If they made it out of this alive.
12
Brenna
Brenna dropped to the ground and crawled to the center of the clearing. It was a little easier to breathe closer to the ground. That helped her think. In her head, she marked off the size of the hole she would need.
Three feet wide, a little more than five feet long.
About the size of a coffin.
“Keegan, I need your shovel.”
“What?”
“Your shovel!” she shouted over the thunder of the oncoming fire. “From your backpack! Give it to me!”
Keegan just gaped at her. Nicole stepped behind Keegan, unzipped his backpack, and found the shovel. She handed it to Brenna, her eyes confused. “Why do you need this?”
“Don’t worry. Just head for the lake.”
Nicole finally registered what Brenna meant to do. Her face flashed with the same disbelief and horror that already filled Keegan’s eyes. “What? We’re not leaving you behind! We’ll carry you!”
Brenna started digging. The dirt was hard-packed and dry from the months without rain, but Keegan’s shovel cut through it easily. “Dragging me will slow you down. We’ll all get caught by the fire. You need to run. Now.”
“No way!”
“Look, I might be okay here. This space right here is pretty open. There’s not much vegetation. The fire won’t have much to eat when it gets here.”
“Except you!” shrieked Nicole. Brenna didn’t look up, but she could tell from Nicole’s voice that her friend was starting to cry.
“I’m going to dig a hole and cover myself with dirt,” Brenna explained. “People have survived that way.”
“That’s a long shot,” said Keegan. “Come on, if you just let us help you walk—”
“There’s no time!” Brenna shouted. She dug with fierce speed, tossing mini-mounds of soil off to the side. Spikes of pain shot through her leg, but she couldn’t afford to slow down.
Nicole knelt and started clawing at the ground with her hands. Frantically, she tore up clumps of parched dirt and flung them off to the side.
“This is insane!” yelled Keegan. Not like before, when he’d disagreed just for the sake of it. Now he meant it. Still, he too got down on his knees and started scooping out fistfuls of dirt. “You can’t dig a hole deep enough—”
“Simple math.” Brenna huffed out the words between stabs of the shovel. “The lake is a mile away. You’re both average runners, so if you run, you can get there in less than ten minutes. With me, it’ll take you closer to twenty minutes. The fire’s got to be traveling at about ten miles an hour, and it’s half a mile a
way at the most. So it’ll be at this spot in about three minutes. It’ll get to the lake in less than ten minutes. In other words, there’s enough time for you two to get to the lake, but not me. But if I dig nine inches deeper each minute for three minutes, I’ll have a hole that’s more than two feet deep. Which is deep enough for me to fit into.”
“You didn’t factor in the extra time you’ll need to cover yourself with dirt,” Keegan pointed out. Even now, he couldn’t seem to help himself. “And nine inches per minute doesn’t seem realis—”
“Shut up and RUN FOR THE LAKE!”
“Brenna—” Nicole started.
Brenna gave her a shove. “GOOOOOOO!”
With his good arm, Keegan pulled Nicole to her feet, and they both ran.
Brenna was relieved.
Because she was pretty sure she was going to die in two and half minutes. And if they started running now, they probably wouldn’t hear her scream.
13
Elijah
Elijah was driving through fire.
Pockets of flame licked the rain-starved grass on either side of Park Drive. But those little clusters weren’t the whole fire. They were just sideshows started by drifting embers. The main attraction was behind them, sounding like Godzilla piped through loudspeakers. And by the sound of it, Elijah could tell it was gaining on them fast.
Ahead of them, shapes materialized through the smoke: sawhorses straddling the road. “Great,” growled Elijah. “A roadblock. Guess we’re going with the backup route.”
He turned right on Drexel and then headed up Rochester, through the center of town. But the situation didn’t improve much. Even with the headlights on, he was losing visibility. A dull reddish haze of smoke swallowed the street.
With a jolt, the car’s front right tire slammed into something.
“Gahh!” Elijah stepped on the brakes.
“You hit the curb,” said Marco tensely.
“Sorry.” He’d had no idea he’d veered that far from the center of his lane.
Elijah rolled back off the curb and moved to the left. At this point he was driving so slowly that a kid on a scooter could’ve outpaced him. Not to mention the wildfire. Any second now, the main front would be right on top of them.
I need to get off the road, Elijah realized. Ideally, in a spot where we won’t be prime fire bait.
Through the smoke he spotted the outline of a familiar brick building up ahead. The post office. The building itself would be closed and locked up because of the evacuation, so there was no chance of taking shelter inside. But the parking lot was a little oasis of asphalt—no trees or grass to feed the approaching flames. And almost anywhere was safer than the middle of the road.
Elijah guessed at the location of the parking lot entrance and pulled over off the road. He must’ve estimated well, because he didn’t hit the sidewalk curb. Or anything else. He pulled up close to the building, figuring the brick wall might help block some of the heat. Then he hit the brakes.
“What are you doing?” shouted Marco.
“I can’t keep going! I can’t see anything! Who knows what we might hit if I try to drive blind? Anything could be on the road ahead of us—a downed power line, a fallen tree, parked cars . . . It’s way too dangerous.”
“But what other option do we have?” demanded Marco.
Elijah glanced back at Mrs. Lucas. “The cross-your-fingers option.”
He engaged the parking brake.
“What are you doing?” Marco demanded. “We can’t outrun this thing on foot!”
“Definitely not,” Elijah agreed. “We’re dead if we step out of this car. We need to stay in here.”
“I agree,” said Mrs. Lucas, sounding as unfazed as ever.
Elijah shot her a grateful look. “Let’s get on the floor. We’ll be able to breathe better closer to the ground. Come on! Hurry!”
“Leave the engine running,” said Mrs. Lucas. “That’s what my husband always said to do if I ever found myself in this situation.”
“What if the gas tank explodes from the heat?” said Marco.
“That doesn’t usually happen,” Mrs. Lucas assured him, as if she did this all the time.
Elijah crawled out of the driver’s seat and into the back. “Mrs. Lucas, do you think you can lie down on the floor? I’ll help you.”
“No problem,” said Mrs. Lucas, unbuckling her seatbelt.
Elijah grabbed the blanket Mrs. Lucas held in her lap. He tossed it to his uncle. “Marco, get back here!”
Elijah steadied Mrs. Lucas as she lowered herself to the floor. Then he crouched down beside her. “Lie on top of me, Marco. And put the blanket over all of us.”
Marco scrambled to join them in the space between the seats. Serafina, who was still sitting in the backseat, let out a whimper. “Hey, girl,” Elijah murmured. He reached up, over Mrs. Lucas, and stroked the dog’s fur. “Lie down on the seat for me. Down, girl.” Serafina stretched herself out across the length of the backseat. Her head rested between her paws, a few inches above Mrs. Lucas’s frizzy hair. “Good girl,” Elijah said. He kept his hand on the dog’s back.
A moment later, the blanket blocked his sight.
Elijah felt the weight of his uncle’s body on top of him. He might suffocate just from that. Marco was a heavy guy.
Elijah’s hand was still resting on Serafina’s warm body. The dog started to shake. “It’s okay, girl,” Elijah said. “We’re here. We’re all here.”
And one way or another, they weren’t going anywhere.
14
Brenna
The earth shook beneath Brenna. The wind was so hot and so strong that she pictured it peeling the skin off her face. And all she heard was the roar of the flames.
She stopped digging and threw her shovel aside. As carefully as she could, she rolled into the trench she had dug. It was more of a shallow dent in the ground, like a flowerbed. She reached up to sweep her arm over the displaced dirt outside the hole. It showered over her in clumps. It didn’t feel like much—especially considering that it was the only thing standing between her and a wildfire.
The heat was practically crisping the hair off her outstretched arm. She tucked both arms around her head and tried to make her body as small as possible. Through her bandanna, she tried to breathe somewhat normally. Her leg throbbed with a dull pain that would’ve been unbearable under normal circumstances.
All around her, she could hear the fire, surging forward with the wind, eating everything in its path.
And then it felt as if a giant vacuum had sucked all the oxygen out of the air. So much for trying to breathe.
I hope Nicole and Keegan make it to the lake, she thought.
I hope my family is okay. I hope they forgive me for getting myself killed out here.
I hope this doesn’t hurt too much.
15
Elijah
Smoke seeped through the car’s closed windows. Even with the blanket over him, Elijah fought for breath. He could feel Mrs. Lucas breathing shallowly next to him—more shallowly with each minute. In his head, he apologized to Mrs. Lucas’s daughter for not leaving sooner.
It was so hot. Unbearably hot. Elijah felt as if his sweat was evaporating the moment it formed. He worked his phone out of his pocket and dialed 9-1-1.
“Hey, yeah, I’m trapped in a vehicle somewhere near the corner of Drexel and Rochester. The northeast side of Hayden, yeah. We’re surrounded by the wildfire . . . And I’ve got an elderly lady with me . . . yes, ma’am, we’re staying right here . . . ”
Serafina whimpered again—a high-pitched whine that cut through the low drumroll of the flames and the wind. Elijah mentally apologized to her too. His hand was still buried in her fur—not petting her anymore, just holding on. The same way Marco was gripping Elijah’s shoulder.
The car rocked back and forth, pummeled by the wind.
So hot.
“We’re gonna roast to death in here!” yelled Marco. Elijah had never heard so
much terror in his uncle’s voice. “I’m getting out!”
Elijah felt Marco’s weight shifting, moving off him. The blanket slipped to one side. Elijah raised his head just in time to see his uncle lunge toward the side door.
“Marco, no!” Elijah dropped his phone and grabbed his uncle’s arm as Marco reached for the door handle. “You can’t get out now! You’ll die out there for sure!”
Marco could easily pull away from him if he wanted to. The guy regularly bench-pressed twice Elijah’s weight. “Listen, Marco, the 9-1-1 lady says we’ll be okay if we just stay calm. The important thing is not to panic. Here—talk to her. Get the phone for me. It’s on the floor in front of you.”
Marco was breathing hard, and his eyes had a wild look. But slowly, almost unwillingly, his gaze drifted down to phone on the floor.
“Yeah, right there. Pick it up, Marco. Talk to the dispatcher.”
Marco picked up the phone and put it to his ear. Elijah gently pulled him back down onto the floor and threw the blanket back over their heads.
The heat grew more intense with each second, like a giant invisible fist that squeezed him more and more tightly. Without the 9-1-1 dispatcher speaking into his ear, Elijah had to imagine what she would say.
Do not pass out. Do not pass out. Breathe in. Breathe out. You can do this.
Just like Marco said. We do what we have to do.
16
Brenna
Brenna’s mouth tasted of ash. Her lungs burned. She was shaking all over.
But she was alive.
Simple math and a lot of luck.
She’d lost track of how long she’d been lying on the ground, trying to breathe through the searing heat. It could’ve been five minutes or half an hour. Now, finally, the horrible pressure of the scorching air had faded. Brenna waited until the temperature dropped to a bearable level. Then she sat up and pulled herself out of the hole, ignoring the pain that shot through her leg. The air was easier to breathe once she raised herself a couple of feet off the ground. Weird, considering that the opposite would’ve been true a few seconds ago.
Backfire Page 4