It was with the smoke smell in mind that they finally noticed the fine particles of ash settling over the trail in front of them. They drifted through the gap in the limbs of the trees, almost imperceptible in the air, but laying in a thin dusting on the gravel and on their clothes. The haziness of the air around them became glaringly obvious. Jeremy could smack himself in the face for missing it for so long.
“The park is on fire,” he concluded. After spending so much time in the hazy, burning city, he’d hardly thought anything of the smell or the film in the air.
“That’s not good.” Zanie kicked the toe of her boot through the gravel and looked at the strip of vibrantly colored pebbles uncovered. The transition into an area coated in ash had been so subtle that they did not notice the colors becoming muted beneath the gray layer.
Zanie looked over at them with a frown. “If the ash is landing here, that means that the wind is blowing in this direction. It’s probably blowing the fire in our direction, too.”
“Is it possible for us to go anywhere that is not literally going down in flames?” Caleb threw his hands into the air and asked the sky, “I mean…come on!”
“It’s best if we head back, then. Rather than heading straight into a forest fire.” Zanie scrunched her nose up and glared back at the trail behind them. They would have had to return past the dead mini goblins at some point anyway, but the nasty scent still lingered in their noses. Jeremy’s stomach turned at the thought of going past them again.
The melty corpses had oozed into the ground for the most part when they walked past them, leaving dark, wet spots on the gravel. They held their shirts over their noses and shuffled past as quickly as they could.
“We need to get our stuff and head out of the park.” Jeremy lowered his shirt once they were away from the stench. “We haven’t seen anyone over here, so they probably have it contained somewhere else, but just in case...”
“Maybe that's why nobody was around. Because they already evacuated.” Zanie pulled her backpack around to the front and rifled through the pockets as she spoke. “God, I can’t get that stench out of my nose.”
“Blow your nose,” Jeremy suggested. “That usually helps get rid of the smells.”
“Wouldn’t they still have somebody patrolling over here if they’d evacuated it?” Caleb argued, “Or at least have the entrance to the park closed and signs up?”
“Who knows?” Zanie blew her nose into a handkerchief, then folded it up and stuffed it into her backpack.
An hour later, they burst out of the line of trees at the trailhead, onto a road crossing, and nearly into the grill of a large, lifted park truck. They stumbled back as the truck swerved around them. It screeched to a halt, leaving black skid marks across the asphalt and bouncing a little on its struts. Jeremy stood frozen with his heart hammering away in his throat, both arms thrown out to hold Zanie and Caleb back. Atticus had been knocked off his shoulders and prowled around by his feet.
The window rolled down. “What the hell are you kids doing?”
The woman inside looked every bit a park ranger. She had thick blonde hair braided down her back and a ballcap with the State Park emblem patched on it. Her t-shirt looked smudged with dirt and sweat like she’d been working in the woods, but she wasn’t dirty enough to have come from a fire. She stared them down. Everybody was still too busy catching their breaths to answer. So, she leaned into the center of the truck and picked up a walkie hooked to a radio by a curly black wire.
“Duty ranger, this is Teddy.” She held the mic near her mouth, one finger on the button so she could speak.
“Go ahead, Teddy.” A voice crackled from the interior of the truck.
“I’m up along Sky Ridge by the Post Oak Trail crossing. Ran into a group of hikers.” Her finger lifted off the button. She looked at Jeremy, who she’d pegged as the ring leader. The fact that he still stood with his arms outstretched in front of Zanie and Caleb like a dad holding his kids back might have something to do with that. He lowered them and straightened to his full height. She clicked her tongue, then spoke in a less formal and more annoyed tone than she had over the radio. “I have to escort you out of the park. Do you have a vehicle?”
“No,” Jeremy answered.
“No.” She muttered to herself, then held down the button to talk, “I’m going to give them a ride to the command center.”
“Copy that.”
She reached over to hang the mic back up, then glanced at them with an expectant expression, eyebrows raised and mouth all twisted up in annoyance. “Well, hop into the back of the truck.”
“We have to go back to the cabins for our stuff,” Jeremy told her.
She put both hands on the wheel, thumbs tapping against the leather, and rolled her eyes skyward like she was praying for patience. There were bags under her eyes, and she looked absolutely exhausted. That, along with the dirt smudged all over her, led to the conclusion that she was having a pretty long day. Jeremy didn’t begrudge her for being a bit gruff, but in their defense, nothing had been posted to tell them they could not go into the park. And also, who wasn’t exhausted at this point? He looked at her in her nice air-conditioned truck and lifted his chin stubbornly.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.
“That’s fine.” She waved her hand to shoo them into the bed of the truck. “The campground is on the way out anyway.”
Jeremy pressed his lips together and looked at the official park emblem on the side of the truck. He looked at Teddy’s hat again. She sighed, eyes hardening.
“Okay. Alright.” Jeremy held his hands up in surrender. He went around the back of the truck to let down the tailgate. He and Caleb hopped into the back while Zanie climbed over the side, using the back tire as a step-up. She swung her legs over the side of the bed as Jeremy slammed the tailgate shut again. There was barely time to settle among the rakes, shovels, and dusting of mulch covering every surface before Teddy swung the truck around in a three-point turn.
They clutched the side of the truck bed as she got what must have been mere inches from the edge of the road. The bed hung over the downslope, a hair's width from scraping against a tree. But Teddy executed the turn perfectly, then they were flying down the road. The wind whipped away the dank, earthen mulch smell.
Jeremy climbed toward the cab, then slid the little center window aside. “What is going on?”
“Fire got loose in the park.” Teddy’s eyes flashed in the rearview mirror, “Did you see any other hikers while you were out there?”
“No.”
Teddy didn’t look surprised. She kept her eyes on the road and shook her head, “What the hell were you guys doing out there? Haven’t you heard that parks are hubs for monsters now? It’s dangerous to be on the trails.”
“We’ve heard.” Jeremy braced himself as they careened around a corner and came to a stop at the intersection with the main road traversing the park. “That’s why we were there.”
Teddy muttered under her breath at that, too low for Jeremy to hear as they turned onto the main road and sped along the bottom of the ridge to the campground. She zoomed around the cabin loop and stopped when Jeremy rapped on the window to let her know which one they had dropped their stuff off at. Then Jeremy and Caleb climbed down to go grab the bags.
Inside, Jeremy looked longingly at the bunk beds. The mattresses weren’t much to look at and were undoubtedly uncomfortable, but it had been nice for a few hours to know that they were going to return from their little adventure hike to a place where they could shut out the monsters and lay their heads down on a bed to sleep. His feet ached from all the walking, and now he had no idea where they were going to stay tonight.
He tossed the bags into the back of the truck with a little more force than was necessary and hauled himself over the tailgate, not bothering to lower it this time. The sky had begun to bleed red from the setting sun or the fire or both.
“Might not be a bad thing to go to their command center,” Zanie offered as they lurched into motion again. “Maybe we can learn a little more about what is going on from them. If they’ve been here dealing with the mini goblins all week, they must know some stuff about them.”
“Maybe.” Jeremy sighed. Originally, he had intended to ask the rangers what they knew about the creatures coming out of their park. Then, there hadn’t been any around. Now, he was irked from being ordered about, having his plans all disrupted, and being carted from one place to another. He clung to the side of the truck bed and glowered.
Zanie pressed her lips together like she was trying not to laugh at him for being ridiculous. He was being a little ridiculous. They intended to leave the park as soon as they got back to the cabin anyway. If anything, getting a ride in the back of the pickup was a nice break on their feet and a whole hell of a lot faster than walking their way out.
Caleb crawled toward the cab and poked his head through the window to make conversation with Teddy. Jeremy did not listen in, unable to hear their voices well over the wind whipping past anyway. He was getting tired of trying to make plans to do something, only to have them derailed by some catastrophic event that set him onto a different course. His life had worked like that even before the apocalypse, and it was even worse now. He wished he could get used to it, but he just felt more irritated and unhinged each time. He rubbed between his eyebrows, blew out a breath, and looked at the trees whipping by. Zanie was right. This was not a bad thing.
The command center was set up in a large grassy area of the nearby town. Probably the same place where they usually hold a farmer’s market on Saturday mornings. Now, lines of tents filled the space, with trucks and equipment parked all along the edges. Extension cords ran every which way over the ground from generators on the outskirts of the tents. Bright white lanterns hung from the tents, which ranged in size and color. People milled about in camp clothes, comfortable and clean, their hair wet and eyes tired. It looked like this had been a long day for everyone.
As Teddy pulled up along the curb, Jeremy looked toward the red sky. The glow came from the fire, not the sun, which had already sunk below the horizon. It was going to be a long night for a lot of people as well.
Teddy spilled out of the truck and crossed her arms while she watched them gather their stuff and climb out of the truck. She was probably wishing she was in the shower by now. Jeremy wondered how much longer she had to work before going home. He waited for Atticus to curl up in her new designated spot on top of the duffle bag with their clothes in it and then slung it on his shoulder. She had taken to napping there as they walked.
“Wow.” Caleb looked around the camp when he got his feet on the ground, “You guys set all this up really quick. When did the fire start?”
“Only part of this is from the fire.” Teddy led the way through the tents, “They set up the tents yesterday, but before that, the command center was already here to deal with the monsters coming out of the park. The National Guard is set up in one of the hotels.”
“Oh.” Caleb looked and peered around some more. Jeremy noticed now that there were a few people in fatigues walking around.
“They didn’t put the firefighters up in the hotels?”
Teddy snorted. “They tried. Apparently, everything is a logistical nightmare because the National Guard is already here. You'd think that would make it easier, right?" She shook her head like they should definitely know better than that. "Some of the hotels in the area were even willing to put them up for free, but for whatever reason, incident command couldn’t accept that offer. It’s a big to-do. Lots of people are upset. I don’t really know anything because I just work for the park.”
“That doesn’t make any sense.” Zanie glanced to the side as a woman emerged from the tent they passed. She was toweling her hair dry as though she just stepped out of the shower. The whole area smelled like shampoo. Jeremy shook his head. He could not imagine how getting portable showers out to a camp would be less of a logistical nightmare than putting up in a hotel.
“Nothing the government ever does makes any sense,” Teddy said sagely. She would know. She worked for the state. They stopped at a large tent with a little orange sign posted out front, labeling it as the command center. The flap over the entrance was pinned back. Inside, a couple of battery-powered LED lanterns sat on tables or hung above them, casting light over a dizzying amount of paperwork.