Flash Fire Read online

  He didn’t even mind gridlock. He knew the city well, had his favorite local routes, and could bypass anything. Freeway blocked? So what? He knew five surface routes.

  But today he knew nothing: not where the fire was, not where it had been, not where the roads were blocked. It was not acceptable to Aden Severyn to know nothing.

  They were going thirty miles an hour, then twenty, then a crawl, and then nothing. Traffic closed, stitching the cars up like sutures on a wound. Mr. Severyn’s car was not his best friend, but a monster, sealing him tightly inside with his favorite music.

  Grass Canyon Road

  4:09 P.M.

  CHIFFON LOVED THE NOISE. It was like a great rock concert that had taken huge crews all night to set up. Fire kept hitting gas lines and propane tanks, and then tremendous explosions would send flame and shrapnel into the air.

  The colors were stunning. Who could go back to a mere Fourth of July fireworks after a display like this? This was the kind of thing you wanted to see every year.

  Chiffon was still provoked with the fireman who paid no attention to her, but he was still cute, so she was still working on him. “Get out of here!” the guy kept yelling, half at her and half at everybody else. He was cute when he was mad. “It’s dangerous!”

  Nobody even pretended to listen. They were mesmerized by the danger. It was impossible not to stare into the flames and the wreckage. The fire looked right back into Chiffon’s eyes, willing her to stay. Chiffon was so hot she felt cooked. Poached. Done. Ready to serve. But she was in the center of the action now and would not consider backing off.

  Fire reached the edge of the lawns.

  The road would stop it. Asphalt would win.

  Chiffon kind of admired the fire, over there on its side of the pavement. The fire acted like a tennis champ waiting for the first serve. On the far side of the road, the fire swayed and rocked, kept its ankles light and its legs limber.

  At the exact moment it chose — with no regard for firefighters nor sightseers — it crossed the road. It ignored humans as the soles of shoes ignore ants. It left its droppings everywhere, like some huge hideous beast.

  An ember the size of a doughnut fell into Chiffon’s cupped fingers. She flung her hands up against her face, trying to protect herself, but had not yet dropped the ember, and she branded her own cheek. She screamed, and jerked back, but in the cacophony of the fire nobody heard the scream, and with the running and pivoting and wrestling everybody else was doing, nobody saw. The curtain of fire passed right over her, it felt as if it passed right through her, and yet she didn’t burn, she was just knocked over, as if it had slugged her. What was the matter with the firefighters? They were supposed to keep the fire over there!

  The fire, having crossed the road, progressed with an odd efficiency, skipping this house, grabbing that one, taking the top of one tree, leaving the next green and untouched. The burned side of the road was left black and twitching, like a corpse with a single living muscle left. Smoke rose to reveal houses that were already black skeletons, with a single garage, utterly untouched, its hanging baskets of ruby red geraniums still blooming in a friendly down-home way.

  The firefighters regrouped, trying to cope with a new battleground.

  “My face!” screamed Chiffon. She needed a doctor, an ambulance, immediate attention. “My face! I’m going to be an actress! I can’t have scars on my face!”

  Nobody listened.

  She grabbed the cute fireman’s arm, but instead of helping, he brushed her away like an insect and went on wrestling with a huge heavy hose.

  She grabbed the arm of a woman leading dogs away from the conflagration and the woman snarled, just like her dogs.

  People were so cruel. Chiffon couldn’t believe it. There were ambulances someplace. She had to have one. She began running, trying to find an ambulance, she knew they were parked around here somewhere, but the smoke changed its mind and lowered itself back down, a thick stage curtain of smoke, and it was difficult to know where to run. She was no longer sure which way was out, and the faster she ran the deeper the smoke became, and the harder it was to breathe, and the more her burns hurt. She tripped hard over a curb, and fell into a little bonfire. Her bare kneecaps landed in charcoal briquettes, and she was seared, as if she were nothing but a steak on a grill. She managed to roll off, screaming, but nobody heard her, because the fire had gotten into somebody’s gun cabinet, and hit the ammunition, and the neighborhood was literally being shelled, and everybody else was screaming too.

  Grass Canyon Road

  4:10 P.M.

  MR. EIGHT CARS HAD DRIVEN a romantic ancient battleship gray Rolls-Royce to the edge of his driveway. He couldn’t get it out of the driveway because a firetruck blocked him. He was trying to get the firefighters’ attention so they’d move their truck, but since the firefighters were using that truck to fight the fire on Mr. Eight Cars’ own house, it seemed unlikely that they were going to drive off.

  Mrs. Eight Cars had meanwhile packed a cute little teal blue pickup truck with stuff. Wrapped in towels or crammed in cardboard boxes, you couldn’t tell what it was, but given the house it had come from, it had to be worth a lot. On top of it, she was throwing, loose, an enormous collection of photograph albums.

  It was so hot, Swann felt like an ironing board, with somebody pressing her on the highest setting. The smoke was very annoying, the way it clouded up everything, so you could hardly see at all, or even breathe very well.

  From the teal blue pickup, Mrs. Eight Cars screamed at her husband, telling him to abandon the Rolls and its contents, to get in the truck with her, and they’d drive over the low brick walls and get out of here.

  Hysterical people were such a kill. It seemed like the more money and possessions they had, the quicker they reached hysteria.

  The contents of a Rolls-Royce, thought Swann, wondering what that might include.

  Swann wondered for a moment if she and her parents ought to head back to the rental car. She had a funny uncomfortable feeling. What if fire trucks had blocked their car in? “Pop?” she said, but he’d already thought of it, and was backing their car closer to Eight Cars’ to pick Swann up and get out of there.

  The fire hopped the road.

  “Hop” was perhaps not the word. Hop was a bunny word, a dance word.

  This fire crossed the pavement as thick and rich as velvet drapery, embroidered in every flaming color. It was still burning even when there was nothing there but asphalt, which didn’t burn. The fire maybe lay down on the road in order to cross it, Swann couldn’t tell.

  The piles and stacks of photograph albums that Mrs. Eight Cars had heaved into her pickup caught fire. Seconds later, she, her truck, and its gas tank were also on fire.

  The Aszling House

  4:10 P.M.

  ELONY SOAKED THE PURPLE blankie in water and wrapped Geoffrey in it. Geoffrey liked this: a bath without the tub. He was dripping and giggling. Even in this nightmare, Hall loved hearing Geoffrey giggle.

  Hall held the wet kid in his wet blanket and he and Elony trotted down the twisted drive past the Luus’ house. Danna would have the horses down at their house by now. Egypt and Spice couldn’t have been half the trouble Elony and Geoffrey’d been.

  There was so much noise. Windows breaking? Screams of glass? Tree trunks splitting? Bolts being yanked out of houses as burning decks fell a hundred feet down?

  Worse than the noise by far was the heat. Hall doubted if the thermometers on his house even registered this high a temperature. They’d be dead if it got any hotter.

  Halstead Press saw his own house start to burn. Fire on both sides of the driveway had eaten the burlap bags full of sand, leaving the sand in bag shape. Now it was joyfully consuming the trees that should not have been there because the Presses should have allowed nothing to grow so near the house.

  Because of the air-conditioning, all windows were closed and the fire should have taken a while to establish itself. But no — Danna and Hall
had left the doors open. Packaged their house and handed it over.

  He could not believe they had been so dumb! Who did they think Nature was? Some enfeebled old bag lady?

  In only seconds, the preheated wood burst into flame.

  The house was fully involved in barely a minute.

  My home! he thought. Hall felt stabbed. The burning of his house smelled awful. He could taste poison gas. His contact lenses rasped cruelly on his corneas.

  Danna was not there, so she’d given up her idea of saving the house, which was good, since there was no longer a house to save, and she and the horses must already be down in the road, waiting.

  The box of kittens rocked back and forth as they struggled to free themselves. Hall motioned to Elony who grabbed it, and the handy six pack of Cokes on top. They rushed around the final hairpin turn. Below them, Pinch Canyon Road was empty. No Danna. No horses.

  She wouldn’t have ridden on ahead, would she? Danna, who wanted to stay with the house? She’d wait for Chiffon and the car and her own brother, wouldn’t she? She couldn’t know yet that there was no Chiffon and no car.

  Elony said, “Geoffrey and I, we go.”

  “Wait,” he said nervously. Smoke sat down over the shared hillside. Nothing was visible. It might have been an ocean of fog. “Danna!” he yelled, as if anybody could possibly hear anything in this din. “Danna, get down to the road! Hurry up!”

  Elony wasted no more time. She set the kitten box down. She took Geoffrey, slinging the wet purple burden over her shoulder, ignoring any noises Geoffrey might be making. She set out for Pinch Canyon Road, or Grass Canyon Road, or the Pacific Coast Highway, or wherever she would have to go to get wherever she was going.

  How solid her walk. As if she’d gone through fire in another life, and knew fire. Knew that if you just kept going, you would come out on the other side.

  Hall ran back and forth, made stupid by the situation, not knowing whether to run after Elony or up to the Luus. Where was Danna? She should have left a note, or something.

  He was swamped by panic.

  This was how sons let their parents down; this was how sons did not end up doing great things.

  Glass Canyon Road

  4:11 P.M.

  SWANN AND HER PARENTS did not even have to discuss it. They simply offloaded the contents of the Rolls into their rental car and drove away. In the chaos of the fire, the fire that weirdly spared this building or vehicle, and completely destroyed the one next to it, Swann’s family was fine.

  Mr. Eight Cars saw them.

  He knew they were looters.

  He knew he would recognize them again if they were caught.

  He knew it didn’t matter.

  His wife, whom he had adored for forty-four years, was going to burn alive.

  Grass Canyon Road

  4:11 P.M.

  MATT THOUGHT A CIVIL WAR battle, with cannon and muskets, must have sounded like this. He was deafened by horns and sirens, helicopter engines, house alarm systems going insane, and the fire itself, chewing, snapping, charring, breaking. Still, his ears registered a shriek of terror. Keeping the hose aimed at the roof, he turned only his head to see the source of the scream. Halfway through the turn, he saw the fire leap the road. Saw his own death.

  The rest of the way through the turn he saw, swirling behind smoke, a white-haired woman in a blue truck enveloped in fire.

  Matt pointed the nozzle toward the truck, trying at the same time to move toward her. He couldn’t both handle the dragon of the hose and walk forward. That was a three-man task. He needed to signal his partners, but it turned out not to be necessary. The hydrants ran out of water.

  The Severyn House

  4:12 P.M.

  BEAU’S THOUGHTS WERE RIPPING out ahead of his actions. I have to be sensible, he told himself, I have to do the right thing.

  He could think of nothing either sensible or right.

  He hung onto Elisabeth’s hand so hard he was afraid he would snap it off, and have only a hand, and no Elisabeth.

  It was such a nightmarish vision that he almost let go of her.

  He tried to wet his lips, but his mouth was too dry. They were on the cliff edge. From this spot, they could not go around the house. Only through.

  Through fire?

  “We have to go through the house, Lizzie,” he said, picking her up.

  “It’s on fire!” she cried, fighting him, trying to get back down and run. “We can’t go in.”

  He tightened his arms on his sister to imprison her.

  A window pane popped. The heat was too much for the glass and it exploded, sending glass splinters like shrapnel. Beau was stunned to see cuts on his bare arms. They just appeared. He saw nothing and felt nothing, but blood ran heavily. “Are you okay, Lizzie?”

  Her tears made wet spots on his chest. “Beau, how are we getting out of here?”

  He was so aware of her total dependence on him; if he did not make it, she would not make it. If he did not pull this off, she would not pull this off.

  His mind was loose. It felt like a pack of dangerous wild animals that had gotten away. It wasn’t doing anything civilized like thinking things through and making plans, it was just screaming fire-fire-fire and get out — get out get out.

  Bizarrely, his thoughts rushed to Michael, instead of fire or Lizzie or himself.

  Stop this. Do something intelligent.

  He could not tell if his mind or Michael’s had issued that instruction.

  “It’s only smoke, no fire yet,” he said. “We have to go that way. It’s that or jump off the cliff. Take a deep breath and don’t breathe until I tell you to.” Pressing his sister to his chest, he raced into the house.

  No flames. At the ceiling, smoke floated like fog.

  Beau was a car person. He could not imagine walking, jogging, running, or climbing except in a fitness center. In the outdoors, the real world, you drove. If they had a fire to escape, they also had a vehicle in which to do the escaping.

  Either we make it by car, he thought, or we won’t make it.

  Not making it was not acceptable. He, Beau Severyn, was not going to burn to death. That was final.

  Through the house he stumbled. It had never seemed so pointlessly large. Not breathing was a ridiculous order. Lungs didn’t hold that much air. He made it to the kitchen just fine, though, and there among the white stretch of cabinets and counter, everything seemed completely ordinary. Everything except the ceiling, which was not flaming, but which was blackening, and curling up, and turning into charcoal as he stood beneath it.

  No key hung on the hook at the back door, where they stuck tennis rackets, car keys, and messages. Feverishly he patted the counter. Magazines, mail, pocket calculator, pencils, videos, books.

  No keys.

  Vaguely, from safety lectures on television, he recalled that smoke was more dangerous than flame. He had to get Elisabeth where she’d be breathing good air.

  “We’ll jump the car going downhill,” he said briefly, and shoved Elisabeth ahead of him into the garage. He flung her into the passenger seat and reached over her to the remote control clipped to the visor.

  The remote didn’t work.

  The automatic doors did not move up.

  Beau couldn’t believe it.

  The doors didn’t open.

  If he had a car key, he’d just back the Suburban right through the doors, but he had to get the vehicle on a slope in order to jump it, had to get it rolling, couldn’t do that in the garage.

  Elisabeth was like a stick figure on the big front seat. She was looking at him with huge terrified eyes, waiting for him to save her, expecting him to save her.

  He had to find those car keys. Praying that he had another few minutes to play with, Beau fumbled for the knob of the connecting door between the garage and kitchen. He had forgotten to adjust the lock.

  They were locked out.

  Sealed in the garage.

  NO OUTLET

  Grass
Canyon Road

  4:12 P.M.

  MATT WAS HORRIFIED.

  One moment he had water, the next moment he didn’t.

  One moment the hose was a living, bucking animal of tremendous strength, and the next moment it was just limp canvas.

  He shook it, as if that last drop of water were the one that would put the fire out.

  The little truck was still on fire.

  The husband, forgetting his cars, figuring the truth out at last (possessions don’t matter a lot if your life is over) was unable to reach his wife. The fire was far, far too hot to thrust his bare arm through the flames to grab a handle, which was actually changing color as it heated.

  Dropping the worthless hose, Matt Marsh moved forward into the searing oven of the fire to grab the handle of the teal blue truck.

  His huge thick gloves were protection, but not as much as he expected them to be. He felt the heat enough to want to scream and let go, but he didn’t. My fingers are burned, he thought. Please, God, don’t let me lose my fingers. He yanked the door open and reached in for the woman. She was ready and climbed on him like a monkey to a tree. Staggering back, grateful that she was light and slender, Matt looked through filthy goggles to see where to go.

  The fire was roaring on all sides, eating everything except what it melted. The tires on the pickup were melting.

  Nice, thought Matt Marsh.

  The fire had circled them. In the great wrestling bout, it was going for the final round. They were going to roast like meat.

  Desperately distributing themselves among trucks, while houses on each side burst into flames of inky black and evil orange, June and his partners had made it into the cabs, hoping to wall the fire off at least a little bit. Everybody knew stories of firefighters who had been burned right through the metal doors.