As she had done a gazillion times in training, she unzipped the rectangular carry case, yanked the thick red tape, and pulled the ring tab. She pulled the tightly packed shelter out and shook it. Ryan’s countless drills with this familiar routine offered her an illusion of control—until the wind whipped the silver shelter like a sail on a boat, determined to wrench it from her grasp.
“Stop it, dammit!” she sobbed, squeezing her fists tight as she tussled with it. The stupid thing wouldn’t cooperate. “I’m putting my shelter over both of us. Roll onto your stomach.” Tara couldn’t let go of the shelter to position Angela’s face to the ground.
Her crewmate remained still.
Tara kicked her in frustration. “Roll over!”
“Ow!” Angela cried out, struggling to roll over. “My knee’s out of joint.”
“We don’t have time, Angie.” She panted.
The fire galloped up the slope, radiant heat cooking her skin. Her Nomex felt like tissue paper as she struggled to position the wind-blown shelter to insert her foot inside a corner strap. Instead, it wrenched free, whipping frenetically with a mind of its own. She watched, horrified, as it flew from her hand and blew against a tall rock wall behind the outcrop.
“No-o-o-o!”
Tara stumbled over Angela, frantic in her haste to catch it before it flew away. She cried out as the winds slid it up the craggy, gray wall. One end flapped to break free. She heaved herself at it, her shoulder slamming into granite.
“Aagghh!” she cried out in pain.
Winding a corner of the shelter around her fist, she folded it into her body so the winds couldn’t snatch it again. She choked back sobs and stumbled back to Angela, face down on the rocks. With one hand clutching the shelter, she bent to grab hold of Angie’s shirt collar, dragging her to where she’d cleared the rocks. She straddled her friend, kicking one foot inside a corner strap and inserted the other in the opposite corner. Making sure the end would cover Angela’s boots, her eye caught something scurrying toward them. A squirrel. Welcome to our nightmare.
She fell on top of Angela while gripping the handles of each top corner, and wriggled them under the shelter, like a cocoon. The wind jerked the shelter like a kinetic force. With all her strength, she pressed the four corners to the rocks. Dear God, please give me the strength to hold this down.
“Press your mouth and nose to the ground,” Tara ordered against the din of crackle, snap, and roar.
Angela wriggled, making it difficult for Tara to hold the corners down.
“Stop moving. I can’t hold it!” yelled Tara.
“I want out. I can’t stay here.” Angela continued squirming.
“If you do, we die!” Tara pressed her taller body against her friend with sheer force of will. Despite Angela’s frenetic, yet weak attempts to wiggle free, Tara struggled to hold the four corners in place. “Lie still, Angie, please,” she pleaded, burying her face in her friend’s shoulder.
Relentless, tornadic winds whipped their only shield between life and death: A thin piece of aluminum foil laminated to a thin sheet of silica, Kevlar and Nomex. The winds were at least seventy miles per hour.
Please God, let it be enough, prayed Tara as the obdurate sides of the shelter pulled away and flapped. If hot gases were to leak in, their lungs would sear. Sure death.
Tara strained every muscle to press all four corners of the obstinate shelter to the ground.
“Angie, help me hold this. Tuck the sides under your elbows and knees.” Tara’s voice competed with the inferno’s roar sounding like a rocket lifting off.
Angela tucked the side under her right knee, then pressed her elbows to the ground to anchor the sides. Tara couldn’t tuck anything, her arms and legs splayed like Da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man, pressing the four corners to the earth with such force she’d surely push through to Antarctica. A polar ice cap would be a godsend after this holy hell.
Armageddon rained embers and burning debris on the shelter. Tara prayed they wouldn’t burn holes in it. She knocked stubborn debris off by shifting her weight, while holding down the edges. Trees snapped and broke, becoming airborne missiles, vibrating the earth when they crashed. Please don’t let a burning tree fall on us.
“I’m scared. I can’t stay here,” cried Angela.
Tara pressed her mouth to Angie’s ear. “It’ll be over soon…it’ll be okay, it’ll be okay…okay…okay…” She rambled, saying anything to soothe her friend.
The inferno’s main push surged like a tsunami, thundering like a thousand DC-10s. The momentum lifted Tara’s boots as if someone yanked them with a rope. She fought to keep the shelter from flipping over.
Here it comes. The Burnover. “Hail Mary full of grace—oh God, oh Ryan…”
She forced her boots to the ground as the flame wave hit their shelter like a tornado. Her flesh felt as it were broiling on a high oven setting. This is what cremation feels like. Hail Mary Our Father I don’t want to die…
The sound of flames disemboweling timber terrified her. Branches crashed, resin snapped, rocks cracked. A leviathan intent on obliteration.
The end of their world.
She squeezed her eyes closed. Foil rippled and snapped as wind bent flames close. Fear replaced oxygen, consuming every cell in her body. The gloves weren’t enough. Her hands trembled from relentless tension and she couldn’t hold the shelter down any longer. But she’d be damned to let hell’s fury have it.
“No way, bitch! You’ll have to come and get us!” she raged, defiance bleeding out her veins. She wouldn’t go down without a fight. But she was losing the battle.
I’m going to die.
At least she wouldn’t die alone. Part of her cried don’t give up and the other half shrieked, get it over with. Her heart foundered as pieces of life flickered a steady stream of people, places, and the love she’d take with her; Mom, Dad, Travis, her friends, her crew, Angela…and Ryan. Next to Jim Dolan,
