“Norm! Norm!” I shouted. “Get up!” Running out into the short hallway, I kicked his door.
He barreled out of his bedroom, wild-eyed and disheveled. “What? What?”
“The wood’s on fire! Town Hall is burning!”
His nervous eyes darted to the window in my bedroom. Then he spun on his heels, headed for the main room, the one closest to the flames.
I left him to his curses, and ran back into my room. I hadn’t unpacked much more than my toothbrush, so it took no time at all to gather my belongings. If the fire could leap the distance from the wood shed to Town Hall, it wouldn’t take anything at all for Sat’s place to catch.
Out Sat’s front door into the street. I dropped my bag, then put my computer on top. As I straightened, turning, a gust of wind whipped the dry, powdery snow across the ground. The flames crackled greedily, sucking in fresh oxygen as they reached along the joints between the boards. Already, flames were licking at the rear corner of Sat’s house.
I snatched at the first long thing I saw, a shovel, and began to jam at the boards covering the narrow alley, trying to knock them loose before Sat’s house caught. They were nailed at both ends—had to be in order to stay in place against the wind—but it was working against me. I stopped to beat against the outside wall of the house.
“Get out here and help me! Your house is catching fire.”
I thought I heard a reply, but couldn’t make out the words. Just then, a man came and grabbed at my sleeve. I’d been introduced to him, but couldn’t remember his name. “Come help,” he yelled, pointing at the wood shed.
I shook him off. “Forget the shed—it’s gone. You’re wasting your time. We’ve got to keep the other buildings from catching fire.” I went back to smashing at the boards over my head, finally knocking the first one loose. It crashed to the ground, sparks swirling down behind it. Then the wind gusted again, blowing the sparks onto me and I started dancing, trying to knock them off. When I was sure that I wasn’t on fire, I went at the second board. It came easily. The third wouldn’t let go and the flames burning Town Hall were driving me back.
Now the rear corner of Sat’s house was burning briskly. I backed out into the town’s central street and reentered Sat’s house through the front door. He had the lights on and was grubbing in a box for something.
“Norm, your house is burning. You’ve got to get out.”
“Can’t find Silas!”
“Norm, come on, it’s too late! You’ve got to get out now, while there’s time. These houses are going up like tinderboxes.”
“Gotta find Silas, dammit! Can’t leave him here, he’ll burn.”
“You idiot, you’ll burn if you stay. Now, come on!”
He pointed at a cardboard box by my feet, full of his adaman faces. I could see Greta on top. “Take that out. I’ll be there in a minute.”
Folly is humankind’s middle name. I shook my head, grabbed the box, and ran for the door. As my foot hit the second step, a giant hand slapped me in the back, driving me face forward into the snow. An enormous concussion squeezed my body from all directions at once.
Norm Sat’s house had exploded.
Rolling over, coughing raggedly, I staggered to my feet. There was no thought of rushing in to save him. The entire rear half of the house was demolished. The front door had blown off its hinges and I could see straight through the roiling flames into the forest behind.
Seizing the box, I dragged it back away from the flames, next to my bag and computer. I collapsed next to that small pile of belongings and held my head. My ears were ringing so loudly that I couldn’t hear anything when someone ran up and started yelling at me.
“I can’t hear,” I bellowed, or thought I did. I couldn’t even hear myself. When I brought my hands down from my head, my right was bloody, whether from a cut or a bleeding eardrum, I had no idea.
The silhouette jerked at me. This time, I got the message. They wanted me on my feet. Groggily, I pushed myself into a standing position. Hands started tugging me away. I fought back long enough to lean down and pick up my bag, my computer, and Sat’s box, then allowed them to lead me away.
No sooner had we turned than Town Hall blew, in much the same manner as Sat’s house. Finally, it dawned on me—the methane tanks were exploding.
When the house on the other side of Town Hall went off with a blast even I could hear clearly, I started running. I turned to make sure my companion was still with me.
The face within the hood was that of a young woman, her face lit by the raging flames. Tears streaked smudged cheeks below staring, horrified eyes. We made it to the end of the street, just past the last of the houses. Others were there with pathetic piles of whatever they had been able to grab quickly. My guide let go of me and turned back towards the flames. Before she had taken three steps, the house this side of Sat’s went, hurling a seething ball of tormented flame towards the sky.
Something deep within me rebelled at letting a woman go back into a self-destructing village in search of survivors while I stood rooted in the snow like a fence post. I dropped my belongings and started after her.
I caught up and tried to communicate by gestures that I was going to help her. She either didn’t understand what I was trying to get across or was shell-shocked and just didn’t care. I staggered up to the first door and, without bothering to knock, jerked it open and entered. They were already coming out. I reached out my arms, offering to carry something… anything. I ended up with a child, perhaps two years old. I turned to go, but something made me duck into a door on the left, guessing correctly that it was a bedroom, and, holding the child cradled in my left arm, I swept the blankets and covers from the bed with my right. No matter what else happened, the kid would need to be kept warm.
After depositing the child and its mother at the end of the street, the father and I went back. I caught a look at his face by firelight. Charlie Elmore. He worked a different tree from either Kellerman or Sat, so I knew little about him. Now I knew him to be a married man, a father, and barring a miracle, one soon to be homeless.
While he made another run with clothes and more blankets, I went to the next house. No one there. Hopefully they were already out. The next house was already smoldering as I mounted the steps. Just as I reached for the door, Ruby came bustling out as though all the hounds of hell were on her heels. She ran straight into my chest, then backed up, clearly surprised to find someone in her way.
“Anything I can carry?” I shouted. I could almost hear myself. Perhaps I wasn’t permanently deafened, after all.
She shook her head, then changed her mind. Taking me by the hand, she led me back into the house. I couldn’t quite hear her words, but her gestures told me what I needed to know. There was a shelf above the sink with china on it. With no time to be delicate, I hurriedly stacked the plates in descending order of size, then balanced as many teacups as I could on top. She grabbed one more and stuck it in a capacious pocket in her wrap, and away we went, down to the end of the street. We managed another trip and got the rest, plus her silver. Then her house was gone.
It became a routine. I worked just ahead of the flames, helping people gather as many belongings as we could save. The end of the street began to resemble a rummage sale. At some point, I realized that I was working the other side of the street. Somehow the fire had jumped over to the other row of houses. I hadn’t really noticed. I had just taken for granted that they were all in danger of burning.
The heat from the fires had melted the snow in the street, turning it into a quagmire. I was wet and muddy, hot one moment while near the flames, freezing the next while at the end of the street depositing an armload of salvaged clothing.