Creepers (23 page)

“Jesse…” Terri had managed before she broke out into a fit of coughing.

“I know,” Jesse replied without turning around.  “I just need to move this last little bit.”  He pried off the last tenacious tendril and then started pushing the vines aside with the front of the rake.  “We’re through!” he exclaimed.  “By the grace of God, we’re through.”  There was little time for celebration though; the flames were advancing, and they had no idea of how bad it was inside the house. 

Only then did Jesse wonder if this would all be for naught.  Only then did Jesse wonder if when they opened the door Jack and Yancy would be dead.  Had they succumbed to the smoke, the creepers?  No, Jesse decided.  God would not have let them achieve this victory only to find two dead men.  Fortified by his faith, Jesse pulled open the screen door and grabbed the front door knob.  He yanked his hand away in an instant, burned.

For Jack, the heat was unbearable.  He couldn’t even imagine how bad it must be for Yancy.  Jack only hoped that he had passed out.  The one good thing about the fire, Jack decided, was that it took his mind off the creepers.  If the heat he was feeling was any indication, Jack surmised there was no way the kudzu could still be active in the living room.  Even so, Jack felt the need to check for himself.

Jack took a deep breath of the air from under the house and then turned his head to peek out from beneath the rug.  When he did, he could see the cloud of steam that encompassed Yancy and him.  “My God,” he mumbled to himself, “we’re being cooked alive.”  Jack pushed that thought aside and raised the edge of the wool rug.  As he did, he was rewarded with a blast of super-heated air right in the face.

Jack closed his eyes to protect them, and then slowly opened them into small slits so that he would still be able to see.  From what he could tell, Jack figured there was still a couple of feet from the edge of the rug and the nearest flames.  The rest of the room, however, seemed to be entirely engulfed.  Eventually, Jack could take it no more and let the rug drop to the floor.  He quickly turned back to the hole in the floor and exhaled.

“Damn Jack.” He said to himself.  “What were you thinking?”  He took a deep breath from the hole and answered his own question.  “You thought you would rather burn to death than die like Sheila Eckers must have.” He said aloud.  Jack took another breath and this time he could taste smoke.  A few more breaths and he started coughing.

Before long every breath that Jack pulled in would burn his lungs and cause a fit of coughing.  He tried to pull his shirt up so that he could breathe through it, but that barely did anything.  Soon, Jack’s head began to spin, and he found it difficult to concentrate.  The crackling of the fire around him became a buzz in the back of his mind.  Soon the buzz grew and drowned out everything else.  The last thing that Jack could remember before his world went black was how Terri tasted when he last kissed her.

***

“Damn!” Jesse exclaimed.  “The knob is too hot to touch.”  Jesse bit his lower lip and took the untucked tail of his shirt in his hand.  Using it as an oven mitt, Jesse reached for the door knob again.  He managed to turn it before the heat penetrated the thin fabric of his shirt, and then let go of the knob as quickly as he could.  With a solid kick, he pushed the door inward until it slammed against the door stop.

The heat from within the house hit him squarely in the face, and Jesse was forced to take a step back.  “It feels like a furnace,” he remarked.  Jesse looked inside the room, and it was fully engulfed in fire.  He brought his gaze quickly to the lump of carpet to his left.  The fire was all around it however the rug itself was only steaming.  Jesse realized that the carpet must be wet.  He only hoped the two men lying under it had not succumbed to the heat or the smoke.

While Jesse was contemplating the fate of Jack and Yancy, Terri had come up beside him.  “We have to get them out of there.” She said as she looked past him at the lumps beneath the old rug.

“I know,” Jesse replied, “and we need to be quick about it.  Can you pull back the rug by yourself?  It’s wet, so it’s heavier than usual.”

“I’ll manage,” Terry said.  “You get Jack out of here, and I will follow with Yancy.”

Jesse only nodded and took a deep breath.  He headed into the fiery room and stopped just next to the steaming rug.  “Here.” He said as he started kicking up the nearest edge of the carpet. 

Terri had also taken a deep breath and followed him.  She reached down to where Jesse had kicked up the side and grabbed the rug with both hands.  “I got it.” She said as it burned her, but she would not let it go.  Instead, Terri pulled the heavy rug backward.  Like peeling a banana, Terri exposed the two men beneath the carpet.  They were lying on their stomachs with a wet bed sheet draped across them.  Neither one moved.

Jesse reached down and flipped the bed sheet off of the two men.  The nearest to him was Jack, so Jesse hooked a hand under each of his arms and started to drag him toward the door.  As he moved him, Jesse saw the hole in his living room floor.  Jesse smiled and thought ‘so that was what he was up to’.  He noted then how hot to the touch Jack was and wondered again if he was just recovering a body.  Jesse shook that thought off and started dragging the limp man out through the front door.

Terri quickly followed suit, although she struggled more with the dead weight of Yancy’s limp body.  Eventually, she had made it out to the porch, but then she had to stop.  With Yancy still half in the doorway, Terri took several deep breaths and found a better grip on Yancy.  She continued to drag him out of the house and off of the front porch.

No sooner had Yancy’s feet hit the ground when the entire roof of the porch fell down in a burning heap.  If Terri had taken any longer both she and Yancy would be dead.  When the porch roof fell, so did Terri.  She landed hard on her butt and dropped Yancy.  Terri let out a scream of surprise, and before she knew it, Jesse was beside her.

He threw a burning timber off of Yancy’s legs and continued to drag him away from the fire.  “Get away from there.” He said to Terri, who was already moving backward.

Terri crawled a few feet away and said “I’m okay Jesse.  I can get him from here.”

Jesse glanced over at her and asked “are you sure?”

“Yes.” She replied.  “I got it.  Go and help Jack.”  With that, Terri stood and grabbed Yancy under the arms and started dragging him across the lawn.  Before long, Jesse had come up beside her again.  She was about to protest, but then she realized that her strength was gone.  So Terri let Jesse take Yancy, and she turned to look for Jack.

Terri saw him lying beside Jesse’s Buick, and she tried to run to him, but her legs were rubbery.  In a wobbly half run, Terri made her way to Jack.  “Jack!” she called out as she came up to him.  “Jack, are you okay?”  There was no answer and Terri dropped to her knees beside him.  She put her ear close to his mouth and nose, and could hear him breathing.  It was raspy and wet, but he was breathing.  “He’s alive.” She reported as Jesse finished dragging Yancy up on the other side of her.  “He’s alive Jesse.” She said again.

Jesse dropped Yancy to the ground as gently as he could and then nearly collapsed down beside him.  Jesse was breathing heavily and couldn’t seem to catch his breath.  His chest burned and his heart felt like it was going to jump right out of it.  Terri looked at him, concerned, and he waved her off.  Eventually, he said “I’m okay, just trying to catch my breath.  You check on Yancy.”

Terri knelt down and did the same to Yancy as she had to Jack.  “He’s alive too.  I don’t know how, but they’re both alive.”  Emotionally and physically spent, Terri plopped down next to Jesse.  She regarded him with love and concern.  Terri leaned her head against Jesse’s shoulder and exhaled a heavy sigh.  She was going to say something, but couldn’t quite come up with the words.  So she just sighed again.

Jesse raised one hand and brushed her hair from her forehead.  “I know.” He said, “I know.”  Neither of them spoke for a while, taking the opportunity to recover from what they had just been through.  They both sat there and stared at the house, its flames arcing high into the night sky.  The entire house was ablaze, and they could feel the heat from it even at this distance.  Finally, Jack broke the silence in a fit of coughing.

Terri moved quickly to him as he was trying to sit up.  She helped him and leaned him against the front wheel of the old Buick.  Eventually, his coughing eased, and so did Terri’s concern.  “There, there,” she soothed.  “You’re safe Jack.  Both you and Yancy are safe.”

Jack gave her a weak smile in between fits of coughing and said “thank you.”

Terri returned his smile and kissed him on the forehead.  With mock sarcasm she asked, “and what the hell did you do to my house?”

“My house,” Jesse interrupted, teasingly.

“Our house,” Terri corrected.

“I’m sorry about your house.” Jack managed.

“Not to worry Jack,” Jesse replied.  “I thought it was time to move anyway.”  He thought for a moment and then added “besides, the insurance should do me pretty well.”

“Insurance?” both Terri and Jack asked in unison.

“Insurance,” Jesse confirmed, “you don’t live in this part of the country without insurance on your property.”  Jesse gave them both a wry smile and a wink.

The three of them looked up at the blaze before them.  The night sky was an orange glow and smelled of smoke.  The old dry house was fed upon by the fire like some ravenous monster.  Once it had consumed the house, it started going after the dry underbrush in the kudzu.  Soon, the entire field behind Jesse’s house was on fire.  With it, the kudzu itself began to burn.  The blaze worked its way over to the church and set that on fire as well.

In silence, they continued to watch the fire.  It slowly worked its way to the woods behind the church.  With the drought, the woods were a tinder box.  They ignited quickly and soon there was a forest fire for the three of them to watch.  All of the kudzu that was draped over trees and shrubs, old fences and telephone poles, began to burn.  The three of them continued to watch it all, in silence.  In the distance, coming nearer, they could hear sirens.  Fire engines they supposed.  In the end, they were all thinking the same thing, let it burn.

EPILOGUE

In the weeks that followed the ‘Great Homochitto National Forest Fire’ as it has come to be known, nearly sixty thousand acres were destroyed.  The Lusaoka Sherriff’s Department reported a total of seventeen deaths attributed to the fire, including four firefighters that are missing and presumed dead.  The majority of Lusaoka citizens that died all lived on the outskirts of town, back in and around the woods. 

Most notably, the list of the dead included Toby and Tom Unger, Donald and Ricky Dixon, Sheila Eckers, Evvie White, and Isaiah Jones.  In addition to this, resident Yancy Clower was severely burned but is recovering in a hospital in Memphis.  Several buildings were destroyed as well, including a few homes, the White Apple Baptist Church, the White Oak Tavern, and the Homochitto River Mill.  Of all of these, the one that would be missed the most by the townsfolk would be the bar.

There are already plans to rebuild the mill and the church, but no such plans have been announced for the destroyed homes or the bar.  The main reason it seems is that only the mill and the church were insured.  Reverend Jesse Johns has stated that his new church will be brick, and will be built in the town.  Reverend Johns has said this would make his church more convenient for his congregation.

On a side note, Reverend Johns has also opened up his new home to Evvie White’s daughter.  Precious White’s mother and only living relative was also killed in the great fire, and Precious would have ended up in social services had it not been for Reverend Johns.  She has been staying with the Reverend and will be organizing the choir for his new church.

While there have never been any reports about creeping vines, the government has stepped up its program of controlled burns in the area.  Rumor has it they have been focusing on clearing out the invasive non-native kudzu, among other creeping vines.  They have also set up a special task force to study invasive plant species in the area, and in an unprecedented move, have selected a local woman who is just finishing her degree to head the project.

Terri Dixon will begin the project immediately following her graduation from the University of Memphis.  Another resident, former Deputy Jack Fisher was also appointed to the project as the head of security.  Based out of Memphis, the task force is said to be concentrating on invasive plant species and how to control them.  While predominately attenuated to the southern United States, the task force will also be studying invasive species of the rest of the country.