When the hole was deep enough to partly cover her, she lay down in it and scooped the dirt over her legs. Then as the fire leapt and devoured leaves, closing in on her, she turned on her belly and pulled the dirt-covered shirt up over her torso and head. Quickly she cupped her hand over her mouth. The instant the fire swept over her, she knew. It sucked the oxygen right out of her little hiding hole. Heat swarmed over her body, and the unbreathable air under the shirt grew searingly hot. She cupped her hand tighter around her mouth and squeezed her eyes shut. The heat was so intense that she imagined her shirt had caught on fire and would soon burn into her back, setting her jeans and skin on fire. Desperately she clung to thoughts of her father and his words. “Cup your hand. Try to keep the air cool in there. Wildfires pass quickly. Just keep calm. Keep calm.” She repeated the mantra in her head over and over as the heat became intolerable. Keep the air cool? she wondered. There was no air. Sweat trickled over her back and dripped from her chest. Had the fire passed over yet? How long had she been lying there? She was dying for a breath. Panic set in as the air became hotter. Involuntarily her lungs gulped for air, but found none. How would she know when the fire had passed? Wait for the heat to dissipate? For the oxygen to return? The air to become cooler? She couldn’t remember.
The heat remained intense. But suddenly, a flood of cool air filled her hiding hole. She gulped the air in, her lungs grateful and her head pounding. Did this mean the fire had passed? Why was the heat still so intense? Cool air continued to seep into her. The fire must have passed.
But then the heat turned from intense to painful. Crying out, Madeline involuntarily threw the shirt off herself. Rolling over, she saw that it had caught on fire, igniting the waistband of her jeans, too. Panicking, she rolled in her little hollow, extinguishing the flames. Beyond, the fire had moved on, feasting on the grass at the cliff’s edge. Farther out, all the way to the road, the meadow lay blackened and smoldering. Getting to her feet, she checked herself over for flames again, paranoid they were licking up the back of her jeans. Heat burned through her soles, and she realized they were melting quickly. She stamped the flames out on her shirt, which lay a few feet away. Picking it up, she saw that half of it was unsalvageable. One sleeve and part of the front were completely burned, the stench of singed cotton intermingling with the smoke and smell of burnt grass.
The jacket wasn’t so lucky. It had completely melted, the sleeves now stuck together. She grabbed it and looked toward the road. To her utter relief, her VW was still there, the road having acted as a firebreak. It hadn’t exploded. There it was, covered with twisted metallic debris and charred pieces of plastic from the ranger’s car, but it was still intact. Grabbing her shirt by the unburned sleeve, she ran across the blackened meadow. When she reached her car, the melted soles of her shoes slid on the asphalt.
Mucus rattled in her lungs, and then a fit of coughing overtook her. Leaning over, she hacked and hacked, spitting out vile, black strings of phlegm.
Placing her hands on the hood of her car, she burst into a fit of hysterical laughter that ended in another coughing fit. She clutched her car, pressed her face against it, feeling the cold, friendly, familiar metal against her skin.
Ahead on the road, Steve’s vehicle sat burning and smoldering, huge plumes of black smoke spiraling into the sky. The stench of charred plastic stung her dripping nose and eyes. The last rollicking flames in the meadow demanded her attention. What of the creature? She scanned the smoking meadow. A few lumps broke its evenness, but they were old tree trunks and stumps. She didn’t see the creature’s charred remains.
A flash of hopelessness overtook her as she thought of the sheer undefeatable power of an animal that couldn’t even be killed by fire. The sense of her own mortality, so recently tested, shook her. And this creature, this thing, had no such concerns. It just traveled from country to country, from year to year, feeding on whomever it chose with no consequences.
And what of Steve? She remembered Noah telling her it could look like anyone it had killed. He’d been kind to her, and she had cost him his life. She thought of Steve’s sister in Missoula, and how she’d never get a visit from her brother again.
A sudden anger swelled up within as she realized the unfairness, the advantage this creature had over all its victims, past and future. They had no chance. It had been killing for at least two hundred years, and no one had stopped it yet.
Yet.
She had the ability to know where people were going before they were there, to know their motives, their thoughts. So far Noah had only been able to follow along in the aftermath of the creature’s killings, racing from country to country but always too late. He needed an advantage if he was going to catch the beast, needed to anticipate the creature’s next move.
She could be that advantage… touch things the creature had recently touched, know where it was going, whom it had chosen as its next victim. She knew then what she had to do. She had to go back.
She had to help Noah stop it.
12
MADELINE sat in her car, coughing black-lined mucus out of her lungs. She rolled down the window and spat, then leaned her head against the headrest. Its familiarity was comforting, like an old friend cradling her head. For a moment she closed her burning eyes and exhaled deeply.
Immediately an image of the creature, half-burned and desperate, clawing at her window snapped her eyes open. Furtively she glanced out all the windows of the car, the sides, the back. The fire was now smoldering out at the far edges of the meadow, and the air was filled with thick, acrid smoke that drifted lazily with the faint breeze.
Though it was partially burned, she put her shirt back on and shivered in the night air.
The full moon, now risen, set the smoke aglow, giving the eerie impression of a gathering of spirits, floating and ethereal, mingling and drifting by each other, intent on taking over the world of the living.
Beyond the meadow rose the impassive granite cliff, disappearing into the darkness. On the other side of the road lay forest, dense and dark. Madeline reached down and closed her hand around the keys in the ignition. The car sprang to life. She pulled out on the road and did a U-turn. She had only driven a few feet when she saw movement in the back of her car.
Slamming on the brakes, she threw open the car door and leapt out, then ran to the back of the car to peer into the backseat and hatchback. The backseat was empty, but she had a tarp in the hatchback, and beneath it lay a large lump.
She staggered back, not sure what to do, and then remembered. It was an extra spare tire. She’d bought one before she drove up to the mountains. Once she’d been stranded on a remote road with a flat tire and a flat spare, and for this trip she’d brought along an extra.
Even still, for several minutes she started at it intently, waiting for it to twitch or breathe. No movement occurred. Gingerly she approached the car and removed her keys from the ignition. Crept around to the back of the car. Inserted the key in the trunk lock. Pressed the button. Raised the hatchback. Again she stared at it for several minutes. When it still didn’t move, she ripped the tarp away. The spare tire lay beneath, along with jumper cables and an oil funnel.