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and smiling and he looked happy. Chris was smiling too.
And Tommy decided he had been right this morning after all. It was a pretty-good-almost-perfect
day.
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In an Orange Glow
~Picture prompt: The smooth, calm surface of the sea reflects the brilliant sky, a wash of gold and
orange light across the scene. Side by side, thigh-deep in the water, silhouetted against the glow, two
young women hold hands and face the light.
It was like a vision of Hell. Like the Inferno painted on the south wall of our church, that I'd stared
at every Sunday all through my childhood. Flames, licking upward, hungry white-orange many-
fingered hands reaching to turn the world to ash and cinders. I ran.
It came on so fast. I'd been aware of the tang of smoke in the air that morning, but that was nothing
new. It'd been that way since Monday. Fires two counties over had dumped ash and haze our way for
days now, until it had begun to feel more like a nuisance than a real threat. Mom had driven Bobby in
to the ER last night, when his asthma got so bad from the particulates. But she'd left me home. There
wasn't supposed to be real danger around here.
We kept a day-pack for each of us, in her car and in mine, just in case, but the radio said the fires
were far away. I'm seventeen and independent. Still, she'd kissed me as she went, told me to be a
sensible girl and keep the radio on, and the car gassed up and ready to go. She'd have taken me with
her, but my immune system sucks and a hospital ER full of coughing people was absolutely the wrong
place for me to be. At 2 AM, leaving me in our clean, air-conditioned house was the safer choice. I'd be
fine at home. I'd spent a restless night, worrying about Bobby more than anything, and I left the house
at dawn.
Early mornings have always been my time, for walking, for daydreaming although I might not
have braved the smoky air for that. But mornings were also for meeting Nicola, when she could get
away, and last night she'd texted me that she'd be here for sure. I lived for those mornings. Ironic that I
might die for this one. One moment I was standing waiting in the dimness under the trees, thinking of
the day that was coming. Then the world fell apart. And now I ran.
The fire had leaped out of nowhere. At first it was a brightening I mistook for the rising sun, as I
waited on the trail for Nicola to come by. The next minute, with a crackle and a roar, it came charging
through the trees like a live beast, driving reality before it.
Home and the car were back there, somewhere, on the other side of that flame monster. No hope
there. But ahead of me was the sea, if I could reach it. I coughed, choking on ash as I ran. My chest
burned. My feet hit the trail hard, but the noise was hidden in the crackle of the flames. I couldn't even
hear my gasping breaths. It was like something out of a dream, a nightmare, silently flying through a
world gone mad.
I took the roar behind me for the fire at first, and sobbed as it drew near. Momma, I'm so sorry.
Bobs-a-lot, I loved you. Nikki...
Then the noise resolved into a familiar growl and I whirled. The bike appeared out of the smoky
dimness, flamelight flickering off the neon green sides and the black shiny helmet of the rider. Nicola
skidded as she came up to me and stopped. "Get on!" She threw my helmet at me.
I slammed it over my head without fastening it and struggled onto the pillion seat behind her. As
soon as she felt my arms around her waist, she gunned that bike.
It was still hell. To my right, where town and safety should lie, the smoke rolled thick and black,
shot through with flickers of red. To the left was a haze of light through the darkness. But my arms
were around my best friend, and we plunged forward down the trail toward the beach.
Talking was impossible. I buried my face against Nikki, and held on tight. If I closed my eyes, the
whine of the bike revved high masked the fire. I could imagine this was just another stolen morning, an
hour of time before Nicola's job watching the twins began, an hour before the school bus came. No
school today. I choked a laugh.
The bike lurched, and I was almost thrown off. I clutched Nikki harder and opened my eyes. We
had reached the beach. Ahead of us, the water lay, dark and serene as if nothing was happening. The
beach stretched out along it, a pale strip of hard-packed sand. Nikki swung right along it, and we
sprayed sand in a fan through the air.
But our favorite private beach was a small one, short and narrow. Half a mile down, a spit of rock
and trees extended to the water and as we neared it I saw the crown of a fifty-foot pine burst into
flames. With a crack like the stroke of doom, it sent a cascade of sparks skyward and began to fall.
Nikki slammed us in a circle so tight my knee scraped the sand.
The beach was getting crowded. A deer leaped from the forest, its coat smudged and scorched along
one side. Its eyes were wild and white. It ran back and forth along the sand and then plunged into the
water. Another followed it and they swam out, angling past the spit. I saw a rabbit do the same.
Nikki stopped the bike. The trees along the edge of the forest were silhouetted now against the
flames behind. One tipped and crashed to the sand thirty feet away. Smoke swirled thicker and hotter,
and we both coughed behind our facemasks.
Nikki drove the bike forward to the water's edge, and then slowly deeper, until the little waves
lapped up the tires. Then she stopped, took off her helmet, and unclasped my hand from her waist. "We
have to go in deeper."
I got off and took off my helmet too. "But the bike..."
"Isn't important." Only the raging inferno made those words possible. Nikki loved that bike. "You
are, though. Come on."
She grabbed my hand and tugged me into the water. Behind us the fire sounded like an oncoming
train. It was a strange sound, full of fury. I imagined I could hear the trees screaming as they fell, and
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