کتاب 09-15

15

John and Allie strapped a tow chain to the hitch at the front of the fire engine and led the other end to the eighteen-wheeler. While they were hooking the line to the rear of the semi, Harper had a look inside the long Walmart container. The interior smelled of burnt metal and burnt hair, but there was a stack of wooden pallets against the back wall. Harper dragged one out, to see if she could break it up and feed pieces to the bucket of coals.

Renée brought her a crowbar and an ax. Harper leaned the pallet against the fire-blanched guardrail and began to whack at it. Chunks of pine splintered and flew.

Renée squinted into the bright afternoon at the bucket welded behind the cab.

“I’ve been meaning to ask—” she said.

“Probably just as well not to.”

“Okay.”

Harper carried an armful of shattered wood to the truck, climbed on the running board, and looked inside the pail. Coals pulsed. Harper fed pieces of wood, one by one. Each stick ignited in a fluttering hiss of white fire as it went in. Harper had jammed in four or five sticks, then paused, holding another stick over the pail, trying to figure out where to put it.

A deformed red banner of flame, shaped like a child’s hand, reached up and snatched at it. Harper let go with a soft cry and jumped off the running board. Her legs felt watery and loose beneath her. Renée put a hand on her elbow to steady her.

“I’ve heard of tongues of flame,” Renée said mildly. “But not arms.”

Harper shook her head, couldn’t find her voice.

The Fireman slammed the driver’s-side door and put the fire engine into reverse. The towline was yanked taut with a snap. The fire truck’s tires spun, smoked, found purchase, and dragged the rear of the eighteen-wheeler aside with a shriek of metal.

When the big rig was out of the way, Harper could see up the road for the first time. Less than twenty feet beyond the semi, a crater the size of a compact car had swallowed one lane. Not far after that was another crater, but in the passing lane. Half a mile down the highway, Harper saw an enormous tree across the interstate, a vast larch that had somehow been crystallized by fire. It looked as if it were made of burnt sugar. The road was long and straight, and heat distortion climbed off the softened, buckled ruin of the blacktop.

“We’ll have to take it slow from here on out,” the Fireman said.

He had that one wrong.