Primal Threat - Earl Emerson [117]
Still breathing almost as heavily as they had been while they were climbing, Muldaur and Zak stood astride their now motionless bicycles and rested their forearms on their handlebars. They were safe, at least for a few minutes. Zak propped his forehead on his arms and stared at the ground. They’d both shot up over the top of the mountain, ridden fifty yards farther, then turned around and pedaled until they were close enough to see the grade.
Even though saving his own butt had been the number one priority during the dash to the top, Zak felt now as if his life depended on how Stephens and Giancarlo fared. For six years Giancarlo had been one of his best friends, and he couldn’t imagine how bad it would be to lose him like this; nor could he imagine telling Giancarlo’s wife how they’d left him to the flames, or what it would mean to Giancarlo’s family. Surely this would haunt Zak for the rest of his life in the same way that his sister’s death haunted him. And even though Stephens continued to irk him at every turn, Zak certainly didn’t want to see him hurt. It was all too horrible to contemplate.
“He’s coming,” Muldaur said, gasping for breath.
“Who’s coming?” Zak was too tired to lift his head off his forearms.
“I don’t know. It’s still too smoky to see for sure.”
Zak looked up for the first time since they stopped and in the distance recognized Stephens by the subtleties in his riding style. It took a painfully long time for the man to reach them, casting glances back over his shoulder to see if the fire was closing in. Zak couldn’t believe how relieved he felt. When Stephens reached the flat part of the road, he pushed only hard enough for his bike to glide to a halt next to Muldaur’s, then unclipped, put a foot down, and sipped from his hydration pack, gasping for breath. “You didn’t wait for one second.”
“We didn’t wait for Giancarlo, either,” said Muldaur. “But that doesn’t mean we don’t care.”
Stephens coughed up some phlegm and spat onto the road, “I don’t get it. I thought it was overtaking us. I mean…uh, I really thought we were finished. Like it was going to jump up through those trees and grab us.”
“It almost did,” Zak said. “We were lucky. You get mixed up in something this screwed up, half the time it’s luck that saves you.”
“Or doesn’t save you,” added Muldaur.
“There he is,” said Muldaur. All three of them peered down the mountain at a figure riding out of the smoke, Giancarlo being chased up the mountain by a wall of orange. Maybe they had outrun it, but Giancarlo hadn’t, at least not yet. It was hard to tell how close the flames were to him, but they could see the effect the heat was having on his efforts. Flames were consuming trees and brush on either side of the road now, but, in addition to the burning vegetation, a sheet of yellow seemed to be running up the road on its own.
“Don’t die, Giancarlo,” pleaded Zak, “just don’t die.”
He was 150 yards from the top now—the fire right behind him—riding like a demon, head low, pulling up on the pedals with his cleats as well as pushing down, working the handlebars with his muscular arms and shoulders, using every part of his body to get more power into the cranks.
“I think it’s going to get him and us both,” Muldaur said, making motions as if to ride.
“I’m not leaving.”
They waited for what seemed like half a lifetime, watching Giancarlo compete against a wall of flame three times taller than man and bike. Zak knew there was some point at which, if they didn’t leave, it would be too late, that Giancarlo might go down and they might go down, too. He didn’t know where the point of no return was, and although he tried his damnedest to calculate where it might be, his brain simply refused the assignment.
“Come on, Giancarlo,” Muldaur screamed, his voice hoarse from the smoke they’d been inhaling all afternoon.
Together they cheered Giancarlo up the last hundred feet, then turned and began riding with him. Zak pushed him from one side, while Muldaur stretched out a hand and pushed from the other. Giancarlo was heavy, and to make it harder he ceased