Primal Threat - Earl Emerson [133]
By the time Zak caught him, they were only yards from exiting the charred section. “Stop,” Zak shouted. “Stop right here.” He knew that there was no fuel here, that the fires had already consumed everything they could. Kasey was not going to stop.
Pulling alongside, he overlapped his handlebars with Kasey’s hips and began leaning against him until they both veered toward the right-hand side of the road, wobbling and tilting. Together, they went over in a heap, Zak’s bike on top of the mess. “What the hell are you doing?” Kasey screamed, as he fought to extricate himself.
“Stay here!”
“Like hell. Are you nuts?”
“Are you?”
“Did you see those bodies?”
“They got cooked from the burning trees. You see any trees here with the potential to flare up?”
Kasey ceased struggling. “Trees?”
“There’s nothing left to burn here. We go up where all those live trees are and we’ll end up looking like charcoal briquettes. This is perfect. It’s like we set our own back burn.”
“What?”
“There’s no fuel here. Nothing left to burn. Now sit still, and maybe you’ll live through this.”
60
Six hours later
He’d been dozing, drifting in and out of consciousness, in one of those patient gowns with the open back. His left shoulder had enough white Silvadene cream on it that he could just glimpse it with his peripheral vision. He hadn’t been here long, because there were no get-well cards or balloons, just a half-open door. For a long while he lay still, taking in his surroundings, listening: visitors traipsing up and down the hallway, a wheeled cart rolling past the door. He knew he’d taken a helicopter ride. He knew men in brown uniforms had asked questions and he knew he’d closed his eyes without replying. Vaguely, he remembered that the doctors and nurses at Harborview had been fussing over him because he was a firefighter. Somebody had asked if he needed pain meds. He couldn’t remember how much he’d taken, but it was enough that he could barely feel his burns. He could barely feel anything.
He was wondrous and grateful to be out of the mountains, even more wondrous that he was still alive. He’d never been so grateful, and questioned whether it all hadn’t been somehow enhanced by the drugs freewheeling through his bloodstream. It took many long minutes to realize he had a line in his left arm and a nasal cannula pushing oxygen through his nostrils. Down the corridor he heard a television playing the evening news. Somebody turned the sound louder. The story involved people being rescued from the mountains in the middle of one of the worst fire seasons in western Washington history. He knew he was one of those people. The only part he caught before a car commercial was “officials have verified at least two deaths. There may be more.”
Which bodies had they found? he wondered. There was no telling how many died in the end. The fact was, he couldn’t recall for sure whether Muldaur and Giancarlo had made it. He knew they’d reached the top of the mountain, but that didn’t mean they were alive now. The fire had been so entirely unpredictable.
A dark figure stood in the doorway for half a minute before Zak took cognizance of it. The figure had Silvadene smeared over various parts of his body and was draped in an oversize hospital gown similar to Zak’s. “Hey, buddy. Through with your nap?”
“They must have doped me,” Zak said, tasting the dryness in his throat. He wondered how long it had been since he’d spoken.
“If I remember right, you were asking for the formula so you could mix up a batch at home.”
“Was I?”
“You were dopier than hell. You and Kasey, I guess, ended up hiding in some hot rocks when it blew over the last time.