“Mommy!” Kendra screamed outside, screamed at the top of her lungs. “Mommy! The sky’s on fire! Mommy, come quick! The sky’s on fire!”
Reznick’s back slid down the refrigerator and he landed on his ass with his legs splayed out before him, the knife sticking out of his middle.
“Oh, my God!” Anna said when she got outside.
Hell had been unleashed overhead. The wind blowing through the trees had turned into flames. Burning branches were starting to fall as the flames roiled and whirled through the trees above. It spread rapidly in all directions, blown by the wind, until it covered the entire trailer park in a fiery sheet.
Anna hurried back to the trailer door. She went halfway up the steps, pulled the screen open, pushed the door open, and grabbed her purse off the floor. She reached into the purse for her keys as she went around the car.
“Kendra, get in the car!” she cried.
Holding the dogs, Kendra hurried to the passenger side of the car and got in.
Anna started the car and backed out of the carport.
It was like the end of the world. Fire rained down from the sky.
Other people were running for the trailer park’s entrance on foot, and some were getting in their cars to drive out.
As Anna neared the exit, driving the wrong way on the right side of the road, she saw a police car with its lights flashing parked just outside the trailer park.
A BMW came out right behind her.
“What’s happening, Mommy, what’s happening?” Kendra said.
“I don’t know, sweetheart, but we’re gonna be okay.”
“What about Marc? Where’s Marc?”
“Marc’s on his own.”
Reznick crawled on hands and knees to the door, the steak knife still jutting from his middle.
He heard screaming outside, a lot of cars.
He grabbed the doorknob and pulled himself to his feet.
Blood dribbled from his cut arms and hands and neck. It ran down his belly under his T-shirt and gathered at the waistband of his shorts. He made a grunting sound again and again as he pushed the screen door open and went out on the porch. He stumbled down the steps.
The night was a shimmering orange outside. Reznick wondered if he was hallucinating. As he stumbled along the carport toward the road, he saw that it was raining fire, and he was certain he was dying and having some kind of near-death religious experience.
He staggered out into the road and looked up.
The sky was in flames. They danced and swirled and swelled overhead. They rained down on the ground.
People were running and screaming, and cars were rushing out of the trailer park.
Reznick waved at a passing car and cried out for it to stop, to help him. It drove by. Another came along and he tried to step out in front of it to get it to stop. The car simply swerved around him.
There was an explosion to Reznick’s right, another to his left, and a rush of flame shot into the air from each one.
Reznick fell forward on the broken pavement and landed flat, driving the knife deeper into him.
He cried out, then retched. He coughed and sputtered and spat up blood. He pushed himself up on his arms.
Fire hit the pavement all around him and sparks spattered in all directions from it.
He coughed up more blood as he tried to crawl forward.
Something landed on his back. It quickly burned through his shirt. Reznick screamed in pain and rolled over to get it off his back. He rolled on the pavement, trying to stop the burning.
A pickup truck sped by and swerved at the last second to avoid him, but not quite enough. It rolled over his legs, and Reznick screamed again.
He saw the branch coming. It was a large branch, roiling with flames, big as he was. It grew larger and larger as it fell toward him.
It was followed by a whole tree.
Reznick did not feel them fall on him. One second he was screaming at the falling branch, and the next, he was unconscious, on fire, bleeding to death, broken in the road.
He did not live much longer.
Twenty-Seven
Nine people died in the fire. Propane tanks and water heaters exploded. Trailers went up in flames.
An entire flaming oak tree fell on the trailer in unit five, and the trailer burned to a crushed black skeleton.
The Snodgrass’s barn-red house quickly burned to the ground with Hank and Muriel Snodgrass in it.
A shelter was set up in the meeting hall in Anderson River Park.
Anna and Kendra sat at a table drinking ice water. The building was crowded and noisy and hot. Dexter and Conan were on the bench beside Kendra lying side by side.
Kendra’s face screwed up and she started to cry. “I’m so sorry, Mommy. I feel like this is all my fault ‘cause I was so bad, Mommy, I’m so sorry.”
Anna put an arm around her, stroked her back. “Don’t worry about it, sweetheart. We got a lot to forget, that’s all.”
Kendra turned to her, tears coursing down her cheeks. “What happened to Marc?”
“Don’t worry about Marc. Marc is one of the things we’re gonna forget. We’re gonna forget all about Marc, and Steven, and all that stuff, you hear me?”
Kendra flinched, stared at her mommy a moment, then nodded.
“We’re gonna forget all about ‘em,” Mommy said. “We might have to stay with Aunt Rose for a little while, but we’ll get back on our feet, and we’ll start over. We’ll start over clean. That’s what we’ll do.”
“But what about Marc? I didn’t see him when we – “
Anna turned to her with her lips pulled back, clenched teeth bared. “I said you’re to forget about Marc. I don’t want you to mention his name ever again, you understand me? Ever.”
“O-okay, Mommy.”
Anna relaxed a little, took a collecting breath. Then: “You’re to stay away from boys. And men. You understand me?”
“Yes, Mommy.”
“They’re all alike, and they’re all bad. All of them. They all want one thing, and that’s all they want. You’re to forget all about them, you understand me, Kendra?”
“Yes, Mommy, I – “
”You understand me?”
Kendra’s eyes widened a little. “Yes, Mommy. I understand.”
“Good. Now. We’re going to think new thoughts. And we’re going to start over again.”
Even at ten-forty-six at night, the wind was still hot as it whistled around the corners of the building, wailing like some pathetic creature, hungry, lost, and desperate.
Ray Garton
