BEFORE her, fire raced forward, devouring grass and dead-fall in its wake.
Madeline ran along the granite perimeter, trying to find a break. Acrid smoke filled her lungs. It was no use. The cliff was uncompromising, smooth, tall, and hopeless. Still the fire advanced. She was trapped.
She looked to where she’d clubbed the creature and saw that fire had already consumed that part of the meadow. She only had maybe two minutes before it would sweep over where she stood and then burn itself out against the cliff face.
She leapt at the wall, clawed it, tried to run up it, grab it. Nothing. The angle at which it leaned in toward her made it impossibly steep. She fell flat on her back. It was too late. The fire was coming.
Scorching smoke seared her lungs, and she couldn’t get a breath. She spun all the way around, not seeing a single escape route. Panting, she stood there, ready to bolt in any direction, not knowing where to go, her mind reeling and eyes streaming.
And then she heard her father’s words, clear and loud, as if he were standing right next to her, just like he was that day when she was five.
“If you’re caught in a wildfire, there are three things you can do. Look for a natural firebreak, like a ridge of rocks or water, and get on the other side of it.”
She looked at the unforgiving granite cliff and bit her lip.
“If fire is on both sides of you, submerge yourself completely underwater, like in a river or creek, while the fire passes overhead.”
No water in sight.
“If there is no water or climbable fire break-”
Madeline gulped for air.
“Bury yourself.”
Immediately she stripped off her coat and laid it flat on the ground, then dug into the ground with her bare hands, dumping handfuls of dirt onto the coat. The lack of summer rains made the soil loose and easy to dig into. She dug handful after handful, using her fingers like scoops.
But it wasn’t enough. The fire crept closer, and the space she’d dug wasn’t nearly big enough to cover her. Nearby lay a large, flat piece of sturdy bark. Grabbing it and using it as a shovel, she piled more and more dirt on the coat. Then it suddenly hit her that the coat was made of synthetic material. If the fire swept over her, the heat would melt the coat right into her flesh. She couldn’t use it. She stripped off her long-sleeved cotton shirt, poured the dirt from the jacket onto it, and then flung the jacket away. With the shirt covered, she piled the dirt up next to the hole itself. Desperately she dug faster, sweat dripping off her body and stinging her tearing eyes. Her lungs felt on fire, mucus streaming from her nose.
When the hole was deep enough to partly cover her, she lay down in it and scooped the dirt over her legs. Then as the fire leapt and devoured leaves, closing in on her, she turned on her belly and pulled the dirt-covered shirt up over her torso and head. Quickly she cupped her hand over her mouth. The instant the fire swept over her, she knew. It sucked the oxygen right out of her little hiding hole. Heat swarmed over her body, and the unbreathable air under the shirt grew searingly hot. She cupped her hand tighter around her mouth and squeezed her eyes shut. The heat was so intense that she imagined her shirt had caught on fire and would soon burn into her back, setting her jeans and skin on fire. Desperately she clung to thoughts of her father and his words. “Cup your hand. Try to keep the air cool in there. Wildfires pass quickly. Just keep calm. Keep calm.” She repeated the mantra in her head over and over as the heat became intolerable. Keep the air cool? she wondered. There was no air. Sweat trickled over her back and dripped from her chest. Had the fire passed over yet? How long had she been lying there? She was dying for a breath. Panic set in as the air became hotter. Involuntarily her lungs gulped for air, but found none. How would she know when the fire had passed? Wait for the heat to dissipate? For the oxygen to return? The air to become cooler? She couldn’t remember.
The heat remained intense. But suddenly, a flood of cool air filled her hiding hole. She gulped the air in, her lungs grateful and her head pounding. Did this mean the fire had passed? Why was the heat still so intense? Cool air continued to seep into her. The fire must have passed.
But then the heat turned from intense to painful. Crying out, Madeline involuntarily threw the shirt off herself. Rolling over, she saw that it had caught on fire, igniting the waistband of her jeans, too. Panicking, she rolled in her little hollow, extinguishing the flames. Beyond, the fire had moved on, feasting on the grass at the cliff’s edge. Farther out, all the way to the road, the meadow lay blackened and smoldering. Getting to her feet, she checked herself over for flames again, paranoid they were licking up the back of her jeans. Heat burned through her soles, and she realized they were melting quickly. She stamped the flames out on her shirt, which lay a few feet away. Picking it up, she saw that half of it was unsalvageable. One sleeve and part of the front were completely burned, the stench of singed cotton intermingling with the smoke and smell of burnt grass.
The jacket wasn’t so lucky. It had completely melted, the sleeves now stuck together. She grabbed it and looked toward the road. To her utter relief, her VW was still there, the road having acted as a firebreak. It hadn’t exploded. There it was, covered with twisted metallic debris and charred pieces of plastic from the ranger’s car, but it was still intact. Grabbing her shirt by the unburned sleeve, she ran across the blackened meadow. When she reached her car, the melted soles of her shoes slid on the asphalt.
Mucus rattled in her lungs, and then a fit of coughing overtook her. Leaning over, she hacked and hacked, spitting out vile, black strings of phlegm.
Placing her hands on the hood of her car, she burst into a fit of hysterical laughter that ended in another coughing fit. She clutched her car, pressed her face against it, feeling the cold, friendly, familiar metal against her skin.
Ahead on the road, Steve’s vehicle sat burning and smoldering, huge plumes of black smoke spiraling into the sky. The stench of charred plastic stung her dripping nose and eyes. The last rollicking flames in the meadow demanded her attention. What of the creature? She scanned the smoking meadow. A few lumps broke its evenness, but they were old tree trunks and stumps. She didn’t see the creature’s charred remains.
A flash of hopelessness overtook her as she thought of the sheer undefeatable power of an animal that couldn’t even be killed by fire. The sense of her own mortality, so recently tested, shook her. And this creature, this thing, had no such concerns. It just traveled from country to country, from year to year, feeding on whomever it chose with no consequences.
And what of Steve? She remembered Noah telling her it could look like anyone it had killed. He’d been kind to her, and she had cost him his life. She thought of Steve’s sister in Missoula, and how she’d never get a visit from her brother again.
A sudden anger swelled up within as she realized the unfairness, the advantage this creature had over all its victims, past and future. They had no chance. It had been killing for at least two hundred years, and no one had stopped it yet.
Yet.
She had the ability to know where people were going before they were there, to know their motives, their thoughts. So far Noah had only been able to follow along in the aftermath of the creature’s killings, racing from country to country but always too late. He needed an advantage if he was going to catch the beast, needed to anticipate the creature’s next move.
She could be that advantage… touch things the creature had recently touched, know where it was going, whom it had chosen as its next victim. She knew then what she had to do. She had to go back.
She had to help Noah stop it.