Page 5 of Haunted

Everything is sort of slowing down. I feel dizzy and disjointed. I can’t catch my breath because I can’t stop coughing. I sink onto my knees on the sun-warmed asphalt and my empty stomach begins to heave.

“Parker? Parker!” Lance pounds my back as I retch onto the road. It doesn’t help.

He loads me back into his truck. I’m shaking so hard that I can’t make the seat belt connect. Lance gently takes the end of the buckle out of my numb fingers and clicks it in. “We can’t wait here. I’m taking you to the high school,” he says. “There are tents for survivors. I think you’ll need to go to the hospital.”

Survivor.

The word rings in my head as he puts the truck into drive and turns right, taking us toward the high school.

If I’m a survivor, then there are people who aren’t.

Lance pulls over to let five fire trucks pass, and I read the logo of the Lynchburg Fire Department on one of them. Lynchburg is about forty-five minutes away, and I realize, dimly, how bad this must be if they’re having to get fire trucks in from there.

I look behind us and put my hand on the latch. If I see Mom’s car, I’m getting out right now and flagging them down, but the road is empty except for the receding trucks.

I call my mother’s phone again. It goes straight to voicemail. I fight the tears. Not yet. I have to keep my head together so I can find them.

“Hey,” Lance says. He puts his hand on my knee. I turn and look at it and it seems so strange. Lance Broussard. Handsome, funny, athletic Lance Broussard, nine miles out of my league. He drove through fire for me. And now his hand is on my knee. How is that possible?

“Do you have some other family here?”

My throat seizes up briefly. “I have an aunt. She works for the University.”

He withdraws his hand and I feel the residual warmth on my leg. “Can you call her?” His voice sounds even.

“I don’t have her number. Mom and Aunt Shelley don’t get along.”

We’re deeper into town now. A man is out mowing his lawn. The horizon behind his house is solid black. Whole streets are gone, and he’s out cutting his grass.

Lance drives with one hand on the wheel. His knuckles are scraped raw. I don’t know when that happened.

I can still feel him wrapping his arms around me and hauling me back into the truck. I can still hear myself screaming. I don’t know how to sit next to somebody after that. I don’t know what you say.

“Why did you come for me?” I say. It hurts to talk, like I’ve been gargling glass and sand, but I can’t stop myself from asking. “You don’t even live in this part of town.”

“We’re friends, right?” he says easily.

“Right.” The last half of the word stops having any voice to it, like my vocal cords just decided to say, enough.

“Actually, no.” He pulls the truck into a drugstore parking lot and swivels to face me. He takes a deep breath. “Because I like you. I like you a lot. And I have for a long time now.”

I can’t answer. I can’t even take it in. I don’t know for sure what it means when he says he likes me. I nod stupidly, and he exhales in pure relief.

“Okay,” he breathes. “Okay. Could have picked a better time for that.” He flashes me a goofy smile and then turns back to the driver’s seat. He swallows. “Just sit tight. I’ll take care of you.”

I don’t look at him. I just look at my knee and cover it with my hand. When I look up again, we’re at my high school, only it looks like a scene from a movie. The back lot is swarming with cars even though it’s Sunday. A big white tent has been put up in front of the cafeteria. Whole families are sitting on the pavement waiting to be seen. Lance puts two wheels up on the sidewalk and cuts the engine.

“Help him!” he calls out to the people at the tent, crossing over and wrenching open my door. “Come on, Parker,” he whispers to me. Then he reaches over and rubs my face with the cuff of his sleeve, smudging the tear tracks on my cheeks. He gives me a tiny, shy smile.

When I step onto the asphalt, my legs won’t support my weight. I feel lightheaded and when I try to suck in more air, I start coughing again. He puts his arm around me and pulls me up.

It’s chaos at the tent. An EMT with a buzz cut is attending to a man with sandy blond hair. Blood trails down the side of his face and onto his singed coat. The man holds his shaking hands in front of him, palm up, and I realize that they’ve been burnt.

“Daniel,” the EMT is saying. “Stay with me.”

“Rig’s out on Jefferson,” a Black woman with a clipboard says.

“I’ll take him,” a man wearing a Volunteer Firefighter T-shirt says. “He’s shocky as hell.”