roofs.
Natalie and Michael stand in their room, looking out the window and watching the fire come toward them. They can't see the flames from where they stand; what they see is an orange sky turning blood red as the sun sets. They can smell the smoke, the acrid burning sensation in their eyes and noses, and they're scared.
Mommy is all burned up.
Daddy is gone again.
Even Grandma is nowhere to be seen.
There's nobody there but the men that Daddy has around and they're busy spraying water on the roof and they're paying no attention and the sirens are screaming and people are yelling and voices from unseen loudspeakers are commanding in stern voices to 'evacuate' and there's a yell from a dozen voices as a wood-shake roof ignites, and Natalie struggles to remember if she knows what 'evacuate' means as Leo hops and twirls and barks. The fire crackles in the tree outside the window like a voice from a bad dream, and what Natalie is thinking is, This is how Mommy died.
Out on the street Letty tries to get in but a cop stops her at the gate and tells her no entry to civilian vehicles, and she yells, I have children in there! but they won't let her through so she gets out and leaves the car there and heads in on foot.
Toward the house.
She runs toward the house as the trees hiss and pop over her head. People in cars and on foot stream the other way past her. Here and there a house has gone up now, the smoke is thick, it would be dark but for the flames, and then she's at the house.
It's on fire.
Flames dance on the roof.
'Natalie! Michael!'
A fireman stops her from rushing in. She fights him, screaming, 'There are two children in there!'
'There's no one in there!'
'There are two children in there!'
She wrests herself free and runs toward the front door.
Inside it's all smoke, heat, and darkness.
133
Jack's crawling through hell.
On his stomach on the floor, down where there's a little air, below where the fire's burning on the counters, he crawls. Feels his way on the walls, praying he remembers where the door is. The smoke, the noise, the heat…
Then he feels the doorway.
It has to be an exterior door.
It has to be because if it isn't, when he opens it the fire will blast back and blow him away, but there isn't a choice so he pushes it open and then he's outside.
The grass is on fire.
Shit, it seems like all of California is on fire.
Through the smoke he can just make out a figure.
Nicky running down the bluff.
Jack runs after him.
Coughing, struggling for breath, Jack chases him down to the beach, runs after him along the beach. He can feel his heart pounding, hear the surf pounding almost in rhythm. Nicky's starting to slow down and then Jack catches him.
Nicky whirls and throws a finger strike at Jack's eye.
Jack turns his head and the strike catches him off the side of his left eye, opening a gash, and for a second Jack can't see but he lunges for where Nicky's neck should be and throws Nicky down into the surf.
Lands on top of him, holds on to Nicky's throat and pushes him under.
A wave comes in, breaks close to shore and sends a rush of swirling white water into Jack but he holds on. He feels Nicky's hands around his wrists, pulling and jerking. Nicky's legs kick out and up, trying to get away, but Jack has him by the throat and isn't letting up, even as another wave breaks and smashes into him. He holds on, holds Nicky under. Nicky's bucking and thrashing as Jack thinks about the Atlas Warehouse fire and Porfirio Guzman and the two dead teenagers and George Scollins and his own fucked-up life. And he pushes Nicky down harder until he can feel Nicky's back hit the rocks rolling in the trench. The white water recedes and Jack can see Nicky's face, can see his eyes bulge, and Jack hears himself yelling, 'You want a deal, Nicky?! Here's your fucking deal!'
Hears himself yell that.
Hears himself.
And lets up.
Drags Nicky out of the water by the back of his neck and drops him on the beach. Nicky coughing and sputtering and gasping for air.
And Jack swears he can hear a damn dog barking.
He looks up the beach where the Monarch Bay community juts out from the coastline.
The trees are on fire.
Chimneys going up.
Jack starts running.
134
Natalie holds Michael tight.
Keeping him warm.
Shielding him from the cold salt spray coming off the waves.
Evacuate, the voice had said. Evacuate, she remembered, meant to get out, so she grabbed Michael and got out of the house even before the fire had spread from the tree to the roof.
Out onto the lawn and then the street, and all the people were headed out toward the highway, the Pacific Coast Highway, but Natalie decided that all the people were wrong, because they seemed to be heading into the fire.
So Natalie stopped and thought about it for a few seconds and decided that the safest place to be in a fire would be by water, by the ocean, and that way even if the fire burned all the way down to the beach, they could always jump into the ocean and swim until the fire went out.
So she took Leo under her arm and Michael by the hand and led them down toward the beach. Down the steps toward Salt Creek Beach where Aunt Letty had taken them Boogie boarding and they had gone for picnics and looking for crabs and snails in the tidal pools.
Because Aunt Letty will be looking for us, Natalie thinks, and she will know to come here.
Jack's running along the beach, the bluffs above him on fire, the peninsula of Monarch Bay smoking, and the smoke is thickening. It's hard to see and he doesn't know how he's going to find Michael and Natalie and he's just hoping that they got out of there, and then he hears this dog yipping.
The kids recognize him.
Go to him because he's an adult they know here.
'Where's my daddy?' Michael asks.
Black eyes big and full of tears.
Natalie asks, 'Where's Aunt Letty?'
'I don't know,' Jack says. 'Has she been here?'
