Running Away - A Post-Apocalyptic Novel (The Ravaged Land Series Book 4) (8 page)

Penn sat by the window in a chair that had a broken armrest. Dean and I sat on the bed. Carter glanced at the door but then slid down to the floor and stared at his feet. Sienna lowered herself down next to him and smiled.

“Well take turns keeping watch out of this window,” Penn said mostly for Carter’s ears, but after our night at the river he probably already had how we did things all figured out. “I’ll go first.”

Dean tossed Sienna one of the two flat pillows and a ripped up blanket. I laid down on the mattress and felt instantly warmer when Dean laid down behind me. He wrapped his arm around my waist and I smiled.

I closed my eyes and tried to sleep, but as I often did, I struggled to relax my body. Sleep wasn’t finding me as easily as I had hoped it would.

Sienna was whispering something to Carter. I watched them between the narrow slits of my semi-closed eyes. Every once in a while a smile would appear on one of their faces and I knew what was happening.

I knew she had felt it practically the minute she saw him, but now I saw he felt it too. His smile would fade and he’d turn towards the door every time the bed in the other room squeaked or creaked, but once it settled again, his attentions would return to Sienna.

The last thing I saw happen before sleep finally found me, was Carter twining his dirty fingers into Sienna’s equally dirty fingers. They couldn’t hold one another’s eyes for long before they’d look away with big smiles on their faces. It was obvious… they had it bad.

I wasn’t sure how long I had been asleep when I woke up to the smell of smoke.

I
had been dreaming
. I was inside a large building and was walking down a long, dark, empty hallway. The feeling of aloneness was so strong that after I had woken it still lingered.

In the dream I walked past rooms, each one containing something different. Some of them I couldn’t see inside, but I still knew that what was inside of them was scary. Not something I even wanted to see, necessarily.

One of the rooms was filled with doctors and nurses moving around. I couldn’t see the patient, but I knew they were preforming surgery. I could see the patient’s unmoving feet. Then one of the nurses pushed the door, and it swung shut.

At the next room, the door had been open just a crack and I could hear the whispers of the people inside. It was like they were talking another language. None of it made any sense.

Before I could look inside the next door, I saw an orange glow coming from the last room at the end of the hallway. I ran towards it, sensing someone was inside and needed help.

When I looked inside the door, Seth was standing there smiling at me as the fire surrounded him. I started to back away as his flaming body moved closer to me. My back was against the wall as he stopped in the doorway and stared out at me.

I wanted to scream but I couldn’t. My lungs felt like they were filled with smoke and I felt like I was struggling to take in a breath. That’s when I must have woken up, because I was staring at the walls trying to make sense of where I was and gasping for air. I could still smell the smoke lingering in the air.

I saw Penn sleeping in his chair and I knew I wasn’t in the cold building with the strange rooms any more. I remembered we were in some random house, but I couldn’t shake the sense something wasn’t right.

I sat up and looked around the room. Everyone was still asleep and there was a strange yellow and orange glow that flickered and danced on the walls. What was going on?

“Penn!” I whispered loudly, but when he didn’t answer I forced myself to get up and look out the window even though I felt scared. I pressed my palms against my scalp hard. It was like I wanted to make sure I wasn’t still dreaming. Outside of the house, all the dead trees and shrubbery that surrounded us were engulfed in flames.

It crossed my mind, if only for a second, that maybe I should just go back to bed and let this be the end. I was tired. All we every did was fight and struggle, and maybe I was ready to be done with it. But I shook the thought away. Even if I could make that choice for myself, I couldn’t do that for the others. It just wasn’t my call.

I shook Penn awake, and he looked at me with wide, unblinking eyes. He stared at me as if he had no idea who I was.

“Look!” I said, pointing out the window towards the burning trees. He blinked hard several times and rubbed his eyes before he turned to the window.

“Oh, shit!” he said standing up so fast he knocked the chair over onto its side. The noise caused the others to stir.

“What’s going on?” Sienna said with a yawn.

Dean swung his legs over the side of the bed and rushed to the window. He looked around the room, “Is the house on fire too? I smell smoke!”

“I don’t think so. The smell is just slowly filling the house,” I said, even though I wasn’t completely sure the house wasn’t on fire. But it seemed like a fair assumption, considering the amount of grass, between the house and the trees, that wasn’t in flames. At least for now it was just the surrounding trees and shrubs, but it would eventually take over the house as well.

“So are we surrounded?” Dean said glancing towards Sienna, noticing how close she was to Carter. He kept his eyes on them until Carter stood up and came to look out the window. Sienna narrowed her eyes at Dean and crossed her arms.

“I think so,” I said watching the fire outside the window get bigger and brighter. I looked down at my feet, hoping that when I looked back up the fire would be gone. But it wasn’t. And if we didn’t do something soon, we’d be cooked alive. “Someone go get Alice?”

“I’ll wake her,” Carter said, and disappeared from the room.

“The water,” Penn said solemnly as he looked at the water. He walked over to the jug and started filling the glass as if it might be the last time he’d see water.

“Penn, we have to get out of here,” Dean said pulling on Penn’s shirt. Penn chugged down the water and dropped the cup as he reluctantly left the jug of water behind. It was far too heavy and bulky. We wouldn’t have been able to carry it easily. It would have slowed us all down too much.

“There’s time! We should each have one more glass,” Penn said pulling himself away and moving back towards the jug. I could see the flames rising up in the trees. The blazing limbs looked like fiery beasts reaching out their arms towards us.

“There’s no time!” Dean said as Carter and Alice joined us in the hallway. Dean walked around me to go back for Penn.

Alice looked frightened. It almost looked as though she thought she was dreaming. Carter held onto her tightly, as if he was afraid she might run away.

We walked down the hall and Dean stopped at the window. He pointed down at the ground, “Look!”

I looked over his shoulder and saw what appeared to be a shadowy figure running away from the fire. It looked as though he was carrying something. Something like a gas can.

“What the…? Why would someone do this?” I asked quietly. Yeah, people were jerks, but usually they ruined your day because they wanted your supplies, not because they wanted to set you on fire for fun.

“What did you see?” Sienna asked as she grabbed onto the railing and walked down the stairs.

Dean shook his head as if he wasn’t sure he’d even seen it, “It looked like a person… maybe… I’m not sure. We need to get out of here.”

“Ugh! I could have had like six glasses of water by now,” Penn complained as Dean practically pulled him along. I followed behind, half expecting Penn to burst free and run back to the jug of water.

They had struggled to get the water up the stairs, I knew it wasn’t feasible to carry it along. The heat from the fire might melt the plastic anyway. It just wasn’t something we could manage in our condition. We could barely carry ourselves in our weakened state.

Once we were outside I saw how bad things really were. The smoke was thick in the heavy air and I could feel the heat the minute we stepped outside. The burning trees were almost a perfect circle around us.

“What are we going to do?” I asked coughing as the smoke entered my lungs. Sweat started to drip down my forehead, and I felt as though I was being cooked.

Penn’s instincts finally kicked in and he started looking around. “Over there… there is a small break in the flames. I think we can get through.”

I looked over to where he indicated but I didn’t see what he saw. All I saw were hot flames jutting out from everywhere. There was no break in the flames anywhere that I could tell.

Penn faced the burning trees, “Here’s what we are going to do—”

“Maybe we should go back inside and douse ourselves with water first,” Carter said his eyes darting around from Alice to the fire to the house.

“There’s no time for that. And probably not enough water for everyone anyway,” Penn said quickly. He got down and pressed his palms to the ground. “Everyone down to the ground. As low as you can get and still move quickly. Hold your shirt over your nose and mouth like this,” he said pulling his shirt upwards to demonstrate.

Dean looked at me and I shook my head side to side, “Are you sure about this?”

“Do exactly as I do and you’ll be fine. Stay low. Move fast. It’s going to be very hot,” Penn warned as he crouched lower and started to maneuver his way between the branches. “Let’s go!”

Dean took a breath and got down just as low as Penn had. He looked at me and then Sienna, “Follow right behind me.”

Once he was moving, I nudged Sienna forward and gestured for her to go. She glanced back at Carter but then turned to follow Dean. I crouched down and followed her, maybe even too closely.

I could hear crunching as someone walked behind me. If I had to guess, it was probably Alice behind me and Carter behind her. The sweat poured off of my face as I made my way through.

I was about halfway when I knew I was going to make it alive. The noise of a tree branch cracking nearby startled me but not enough to stop me. I could feel a whoosh of hot air pass by as it fell towards the ground, missing us by a foot or two. We were lucky it didn’t fall in front of us and trap us inside the trees. We would have been cooked to death in minutes.

Sienna stood up and started running from the trees. Even though there was smoke around I knew she was out in the clear. It would only be a few more steps and I could run for it too. I may have been cooked medium-rare, but that was far better than being well done… or burnt.

When I stood up my leg cramped and I stumbled to the side. The only thing there to stop myself from falling face first in the flames was a branch burning so hot it crackled.

My hand automatically grabbed onto it so I could steady myself. I wanted to scream, but I couldn’t. My mouth opened, but nothing came out. I quickly pulled back my hand but the sleeve of my shirt caught fire.

“Ahhh! Help me!” I shouted as I moved towards the others with the flames dancing on my arm. I stopped when I saw the looks on their faces. I couldn’t think straight. My arm was so hot. The skin felt like it was tightening and any minute it would just pop open and melt.

Dean stepped towards me and started swatting at my arm but it didn’t help. He was burning his hand trying to save me and with each swat the panicked expression on his face scared me more and more.

“Get down!” Penn shouted as launched himself at me and tackled me to the ground. He pushed and rolled me around while he scooped up dirt and threw it at my arm.

“Ohhh nooo,” I said. My eyes felt wet. I was either crying or sweating so badly it was dripping into my eyes. None of what was happening felt real. The world around me started to spin and fade away. “I can’t….”

* * *

I
must have passed
out because we were a fair distance from the burning trees. It felt like I was in a dream but then, when the searing pain reminded me what had happened, I knew it hadn’t been.

“Owww!” I cried out, afraid to look in the direction of my own arm. I held it out away from me as if I didn’t want it any more. What I wanted right now was a new arm. This one was ruined.

It felt like someone was holding it. I could hear their voices. Someone asked if it was bad. Another said to rip the fabric of my shirt away. A third, in a hushed voice which almost magically seemed amplified, asked if the shirt was burned into my flesh.

“I can hear you!” I said pounding my good fist against my thigh. If I could make my leg hurt, maybe I’d stop thinking about my cooked arm.

“I can get it off,” Penn said softly, and I wasn’t sure if he was talking about the shirt or my arm.

“Take it off!” I shouted, and I meant my arm.

Dean was crouched down in front of me. He raised my chin up so I was forced to look into his eyes. He moved his mouth and instead of hearing his voice it felt like I was lip reading him, “Ros, it’s not as bad as you think.”

“It’s not that bad?” I asked grimacing. “It hurts like hell!”

He half-smiled as he stroked my cheek with his thumb, “Oh, I believe you, but it’s just bright red. No blisters, no broken skin… Penn got it out quick enough.”

“No blisters yet,” I said feeling my eyes fill up with water. I wasn’t sure if I felt relieved by the news or if everything was just overwhelming. The skin felt tight and hot… it had to be worse than what he was telling me.

I closed my eyes hoping it would help me focus, but all I could think about was the pain from my elbow down to my wrist. I felt the cool tears leak out of the corners of my eyes and run down the side of my face.

“You’re going to be fine,” Penn said as I heard the ripping of another shirt. I wanted to scream when I felt the cloth touch my burned skin. Penn was trying to carefully wrap it around, but it was close to torture.

“No! Stop! You’re killing me!” I shouted at him. I tried to swat at him with my other arm but I couldn’t get it anywhere near him.

“I’m trying to help you. This will protect it. If it blisters you definitely do not want to get infected,” Penn said as he tucked the end of the fabric inside itself. “We’re going to have to find something better than that, but it’ll do for now.”

I tried to stand up, but I had trouble getting myself upright using just my good arm. Dean grabbed me and pulled me to my feet. He held onto me as if he was afraid I’d tip over … and maybe I would have.

“What do we do now?” Sienna asked looking at the house, which was now also covered in flames. If we would have stayed inside, we would have died.

Penn followed her gaze and shook his head. “Ros I’m so sorry,” he said taking my good hand into his. His eyes were glassy.

“For what?”