The Guardians

As Randy unfastens the clasp and raises both arms to hook it up at the back of his neck, I slide the wrench out of my other pocket. He blinks down at it, amazed, as though it is a talking bird. I swing the wrench wide and strike it square against the side of his head.

He fals in two distinct motions: slow to his knees, then a formless slump onto his back. I fal to my knees too, bending at his side to feel his stil-beating heart, his stale breath a whisper in my ear. I'd seen hockey players in this state before, unlucky puck chasers who'd gone headfirst into the boards. Unconscious, but not necessarily for long.

I scramble over to Tracey on al fours, slip my arms under her and forklift her up. Using the wals to keep her cradled in place, I get to my feet and swing around.

Shuffle past Randy to the bottom of the celar stairs. There is only my own breath. And the fire working its way through the house. Licking and swalowing.

You won't make it.

I hear this so clearly I assume at first it is the boy. But it belongs instead to someone who wishes only to point out some salient facts that might be escaping my attention.

If you think you're carrying this girl up those stairs, you're crazier than Ben ever was.

So I'm crazy. Ben would have long known what I've come to recently learn, and have confirmed as I take the first step up. Sometimes, crazy helps.

It gets me al the way up to the kitchen, where I'm forced to lay Tracey down again. There's the serious heat now, doubling itself, cooking the air so that each breath is like swalowing oil. Through the archway I can see that the fire has already claimed most of the living room. A widening throat of orange and black. The plaster wals colapsing. A carbon skin it is halfway to shedding.

A cold finger touches the back of my neck.

I spin around expecting to see the boy. And for a second it is the boy. Glaring at me, flushed and threatening tears.

'Stay with me,' Randy says.

I charge at him.

My legs fluid, powerful. The fist that aims at Randy's head and lands a solid blow feeling swift and Parkinson's- free, breaking the line of his jaw with a tidy, audible pop. I'm a Guardian again. Young and fuly armoured, meeting some Sugar King or Winterhawk thug with unhesitating violence.

Stay with me.

I can't hear Randy anymore, but those are the words his already sweling lips are working around. It's not the fire that frightens him; it's not even death. It is the immensity of his loneliness opening wide inside of him.

I charge again. Driving my palms into Randy's throat. It pushes him over the linoleum edge and down the celar stairs. For a moment he is a writhing outline against the dark. And then, without any sound of impact, he's gone.

I stand over Tracey, staring down at her as though trying to understand what she is.

Go!

I bend and lift Tracey over my shoulder. Hold her there, caught in an Atlas pose. Unable to step forward or back, disoriented by the smoke, the dizziness that came with lifting her.

NOW!

My knees start to fold, but I lean into it, turning their failure into a hopscotch march. The back door frame has already colapsed, forcing me through the kitchen, then into the halway. The wals busy with fire. There is nowhere to turn where the heat doesn't take burning swipes at our skin. Tracey's hair swaying over my back.

Halfway down the halway I stop. It's the cramping muscles, what feels like some kind of cardiac episode. It makes it impossible to carry her another foot, but in fact it is only the sort of thing that would be difficult for me even under the most uncomplicated circumstances.

But I got Tracey out of the crawlspace. Somehow I managed that. I got her out.

And if I did that, why can't I do this?

So I jerk ahead, waist first, a statue with one last, unhardened part. Lurch toward the front door.

This is me. I'm doing this. And with this thought comes a dangerous elation. Not yet. If I get out of here, I can sit on the curb and laugh my guts out. Just not yet.

I open the door with a single twist of the knob. A rectangle of smooth night appears. Then the cool air on my face, the porch steps groaning under my weight as I make my way down and tumble onto the lawn. Tracey Flanagan roling off my back to lie on the grass, face up, eyes open and blinking. She looks as surprised by the stars as by the fact she is alive.

Then she turns my way. A shared recognition between us, as though we have known each other for uncountable years.

Randy.

I'm already working my way to my feet, crawling back up onto the porch.

The heat again. A line between the autumn night and the fire so defined it feels like passing into a different world altogether. Walking through something as solid as brick or stone.

The fire has encircled me now. I'm not sure if I'm in the halway, the kitchen, or if I took a wrong turn into the living room. There is nowhere to go even if I had the capacity to move, which I don't. The brief reprieve from symptoms has already passed, leaving me rigid and faint.