Page 118 of Combust (Everyday Heroes 2)
My back feels like it’s on fire again, itchy and slick with sweat that burns in rivulets as it slides over my skin. A branch cracks somewhere overhead and I wait for it to fall on me. I brace for the impact.
For the weight of the beam as it pins me down.
You’re not there, Grady.
I strain to hear Drew’s screams. I brace for the words he’s going to say next.
But there’s nothing. Just the whoops of the guys around me as anxious adrenaline takes hold. Just the roar of the fire as it eats the vegetation and sucks the oxygen.
One hundred twenty seconds left.
I’m not going to die.
Drew, I’m not going to die.
I tense when the explosion hits. The water truck’s gas tank just went. And then I scramble through the shock to hold the fire blanket around me. Pin it to the ground with me between it and the ground that’s heating underneath me.
The wind howls. It’s the eeriest sound I’ve ever heard.
My fingers burn in my gloves as I pin the blanket down.
Eighty seconds left. I’m not going to die.
Someone shouts out a curse to combat the feeling of suffocation.
But it has nothing on my pulse pounding in my ears.
My adrenaline coursing through my blood.
My breath labored and desperate.
Forty seconds. I’m not going to die.
Dylan.
I repeat her name over and over and over. I use it like a second hand on a clock as I wait out the terror. As I pray for the fire to blow through. As I put my faith in these blankets protecting us. As I tell myself, that when I see her again, I’m going to put it all on the line.
I’m not going to die.
There’s a whoop of excitement. Someone yells, “Fuck you, bitch,” to the fire. Another shouts, “Go back to hell, you cunt!”
I laugh. We’re sick fucks.
And then the words, “All clear.”
Motherfucking music to my ears.
I shove the blanket off me and gulp in air. It’s hot and thick, because everything on the edges of the clearing is still on fire. Bright oranges and deep yellows and hues of blue on the burning metal of our vehicle . . . but I’m alive.
I’m alive.
So is the rest of my crew.
We did it, Drew.
And so I lie on my back in the middle of the High Sierras and try to stop my body from trembling. The ground beneath me is hot and the ashes suffocate what’s left of the vegetation, but I don’t move. The adrenaline takes over, owning every part of me as I stare at the small glimpses of stars in the night sky above trying to break through the smoke. As the eerie orange glow lights up everything around us.
I know I need to get up. I understand the fire is still raging around us and we have a job to do. I realize that our tanker—our only transportation—is now gone, and so we have a shit-ton of work and trekking to do before we’re in the clear.
