Well, she’d test it out first. See how hard it was to drag him.
She seized him under the armpits and started to pull. She pulled as hard as she could.
It wasn’t any good. He moved about an inch, his body sliding just a little against the wall.
The flames were closer. It felt like they were closing in around her.
She needed to get out of there.
It was one of the most difficult decisions she’d ever made, but there were no tears in her eyes when she let go of her uncle and turned her back to his unconscious body, ready to face the flames herself, ready to escape with her own life intact.
The smoke was filling the room now, plumes and clouds of dense gray stuff that she could barely see through.
Aly’s mind didn’t dwell on her uncle. Instead, now that she directly faced the flames, her body kicked into survival mode. Her body was flooded with adrenaline.
She barely remembered that she was injured. She pushed her way through the flames, coughing intensely, trying to ignore the intense heat that her body was desperately telling her to avoid.
She knew that she needed to get out quickly. The smoke was too thick now.
She had to keep pushing. She had to ignore the coughing. Her lungs were burning. The air was intensely hot. She felt like she couldn’t breathe at all.
She couldn’t see. The air was nothing but red and gray. Nothing but smoke and flames. But she kept going.
It felt like an eternity, but finally, her hands found the door.
The door handle was as hot as a burning coal. But she had no choice. She grasped it and turned it, yelling involuntarily in pain as she did so.
She was halfway out the door when she took one last look inside, thinking, hope against hope, that her uncle was somehow behind her.
But he wasn’t. She could see nothing but the smoke and the flames.
That last look only took a second. But it felt like a long time. But he wasn’t. She could see nothing but the smoke and the flames.
She burst into the fresh open air, doubling over as she coughed instinctively.
Aly saw stars as she started to vomit, the entire contents of her stomach coming up and spewing onto the ground. And she kept coughing.
She felt weak, and the burning in her lungs wouldn’t let up.
She was a safe distance from the house now, and she collapsed to the ground. She simply lay there on her side, gasping for breath, too weak to move or stand up.
She was gazing back at the house, which was quickly becoming engulfed in flames.
Those flames were engulfing not just her uncle, but all of their possessions. All that food. All those supplies. Everything that they’d worked so hard to obtain and hang on to.
It wasn’t just terrible. It might mean the line between life and death.
And then she remembered the stolen supplies. If they were recovered, maybe there was still a chance.
Her thoughts turned to her husband. She felt a yearning for him, a longing, an intense hope that he was safe and alive, ready to return soon.
From behind her, she heard a sound. The low rumbling of an engine. But not a car engine. Something bigger.
Struggling, she flopped herself over so that she could face the driveway and the road.
There were just a couple trees in between her and the road. She was basically out in the open.
Her hand instinctively dug into her pocket, trying to find her pocketknife. But it wasn’t there. Maybe it’d been on the bedside table. Or maybe it’d fallen out of her pocket. She didn’t know.
The vehicle was a familiar one. It was a single, large RV. Maybe one of the ones that had driven by earlier. Maybe not. But chances were that it was.
What did they want? Had they seen the smoke rising to the sky from across the lake? Had they come to help or to take advantage of those in distress?
Whatever they wanted, Aly didn’t want to deal with them. On a day like today, at a time like this, strangers didn’t mean good news. Everyone was a potential threat.
The RV pulled partly into the driveway and crawled to a stop.
Aly waited. She wanted to run. She wanted to hide. She wanted to do anything but be there, simply waiting.
But she couldn’t. Getting out of the house had taken everything out of her.
With the house burning behind her, she watched as the door opened, and two people stepped out and onto the driveway. They pointed to the house and then began scanning the surrounding area. It didn’t take them long to spot Aly. They pointed to her, and then began walking towards her.
“Shit,” muttered Aly, clutching the knife tighter.
“Hello there!” called out the man, speaking in a jovial way that somehow seemed completely fake. He stopped near her. A woman about his age stood next to him. “Now what do we have here?” He leaned forward, as if to get a better look at Aly.
“Looks like we’re going to have some fun after all,” said the woman, chuckling to herself.
“I told you not to give up hope. When there’s disaster, there’s hedonism.”
Hedonism? What were they talking about? They seemed like strange people. Very strange. They gave off a weird vibe, and something looked strange about their eyes, as if their pupils were somehow too small.
“Don’t come any closer,” shouted Aly, using all her energy to raise the knife, brandishing it towards them.
“There’s no need for that,” laughed the man. “Come on. We’re not going to hurt you.”
“Not yet, at least,” said the woman, smiling wildly. “But plenty of people find that they enjoy BDSM. I know I do.”
“We practice a variation,” said the man. “It’s more painful.”
“And more dangerous.”
“But a lot more fun.”
“For us, at least.”
They approached her together, taking steps towards her.
Aly was simply too weak. As they got closer, she was overtaken with a coughing fit. Her lungs still burned.
She wasn’t even able to swing the knife before strong arms seized her arm and held it in place. Before she knew it, the knife was wrenched from her hands as the man and woman laughed.
They kept laughing all the way back to the RV. They carried her, and she was too tired to do much more than kick a single time at one of them. But it was a weak blow and it merely glanced off the man’s side, making him laugh all the harder.
“It’s more fun when they fight back a little, isn’t it?” he said.
“That’s right. Now get the rope.”
“I think it’s behind the driver’s seat.”
“No, don’t you remember? It’s hanging up by the bathroom.”
“I’ll get it.”
“Get me my pills, while you’re at it.”
“You’ve had enough.”
“I didn’t know we were rationing now? I thought we were going out in style.”
“Fine, I’ll get them.”
Aly was overtaken again by a coughing fit as the woman held her down on the floor of the RV. The man tied ropes tightly around her.
Her face was pressed against the floor. She heard the RV engine start, and felt the RV back up.
She hoped someone would find her. Though maybe it was too much to hope for.
23
Jim was more than exhausted, but as he neared the lake house and saw the plumes of gray smoke in the sky, he quickened his pace.
He didn’t know how long he’d been walking for, or for how long he’d been away for. He still had his watch, but to his tired brain, the hands on the dial didn’t seem to mean anything. What’s more, he had no idea what time he’d left.
He only knew that he’d been away for a long time. Long enough, apparently, for something serious to happen.