Primal Threat - Earl Emerson [130]
He stared for much longer than he probably should have, trying to identify the body without touching it. Eventually, he recognized the leather sandals. He looked for and could barely see the tattoo of a dollar sign on his ankle. Scooter. All of his crap had finally led to his own death. Had Scooter been willing to take Zak’s advice about slowing down, he might have made it out on foot, but in the end even the hideously out-of-shape Bloomquist had overtaken him.
It was hard to believe how far down the mountain he had to coast in the violent winds to find the Porsche. The area around the SUV was untouched, the trees covered with soot and tinted by smoke, but still ripe and awaiting ignition. Ironically, had Scooter and Bloomquist hunkered down here, they might still be alive, because this area was relatively unscathed.
The vehicle was in the ditch where he’d last seen it, both passenger’s-side doors ajar. Because of the extreme tilt, he couldn’t see in the passenger’s-side windows, nor through the windshield, which was starred and partially buried in the dirt and rocks.
Faint music flowed from inside.
Dropping his bike in the center of the road, Zak called out, “Anybody in there?”
He lifted the front door, propping it open with one arm while he peered into the cockpit, which appeared to be empty. An air bag had deployed out of the steering wheel. “Jesus,” Zak said aloud as the implications of this fiasco struck home. He never should have come down the mountain. There were loud crackling sounds nearby as the woods began exploding. The fire, which had skipped over this area on its first pass, was beginning to nudge it again, and the odds of outrunning the flames a second time were infinitesimal.
Just as he was pulling away, he saw what appeared to be a pile of clothing in the driver’s foot well.
The pile began moving.
Kasey was bent almost double, prying at something near his feet with a large, bone-handled knife. His face was stained with tears, and he looked as despondent as anybody Zak had ever seen. “I thought you guys were gone.”
“We thought you were gone.”
“My foot’s jammed.”
“Think two of us can get it out?”
“I don’t know.” Suddenly Kasey looked like a kid on Christmas morning. He was twenty and had been facing this alone, and now he had help.
“Just a minute. I need to get something to prop this door open.” Zak clambered off the side of the Porsche and looked around for a limb or a rock. Below their position he could see flames leaping over the tops of trees, dying down, then leaping up again. It was the same fire that had chased them up the mountain, returning now to complete the chore.
All he could do now was pray he had the guts to dive in and get Kasey out, pray that the panic that had paralyzed him at the earlier wreck didn’t return. He knew he was stalling, and every minute he stalled was putting him and Kasey a minute closer to death. He was all too aware that this wasn’t a fire department operation, that he didn’t have people backing him up, that he wasn’t wearing any protective gear. He felt so unbelievably vulnerable with his arms and legs bare. He knew that, should the fire overtake them, nothing burned faster or hotter than the interior of a modern vehicle with its plastic dash and console and synthetic carpets and seats. Even without the gas tank, which almost never exploded except in movies, car fires were hot