cool ground with my elbows, knees, and the toes of my boots. Its main job, besides keeping the fire from burning me alive, was to trap breathable air. There was about to be a severe lack of oxygen down here. I needed a good supply of air if I was going to live through this.
For a second, everything went silent. Nothing but the sound of my breath echoing inside the shelter.
Then the roar.
Holy shit, it was so fucking loud. Gritting my teeth, I held the shelter down with my hands, elbows, knees, and feet. Hot wind buffeted me, like a tornado was ripping through the valley. I wondered if I’d be able to stay on the ground. The heat was intense, even through the protective layers of the shelter.
Bits of debris hit me and a nearby tree—or something—burst into flame with an ear-splitting boom. It sounded like the fucking apocalypse out there.
I didn’t know how long the burnover would last. Could be fifteen minutes. Could be longer. I decided to be ready for the worst and hope for the best. That a rescue team would be down here before I’d even peeked outside to see if it was safe yet.
The flames roared over me, hellish and loud. I could just hear Chief’s voice over my radio. Telling me to stay calm. Stay put. Don’t move. Breathe.
I listened to him, my only link to the world of the living, while the inferno raged mere inches from my skin. Glad I wasn’t completely alone.
This sucked, but at least I was going to live.
I was pretty sure, anyway.
Contrary to what my brothers liked to say, I didn’t have a death wish. I just liked to have fun. Hell, I had the opposite of a death wish. I wanted to live big. I knew all too well how easily life could be taken away. I wasn’t going to waste mine.
Fuck that.
Sweat dripped off my nose, landing in the dirt. The air was starting to feel stale and close. It was hot as fuck in here. I felt like a baked potato. Probably looked like one, too.
Would the oxygen last long enough?
It fucking better.
The wind kicked up again, blasting over me in hot waves. The noise drowned out whatever the voices in the radio were trying to tell me. I thought I caught the word bucket. Hopefully that meant the helitack crew was overhead with a bucket drop. They’d douse the area with fire suppressant, which would mean getting to me sooner.
More debris rained down on me. I shifted my legs to keep the shelter pinned down tight. My throat was dry and scratchy, but there wasn’t anything I could do about that. I just coughed into the dirt and hoped nothing big landed on me.
Gradually, the hellish noise receded. The air outside seemed to still, or at least stop whipping over me like a fucking tornado. I knew it was too soon to check conditions, but damn, I wanted to. It was hard to keep from jumping up to look around. But if I moved too soon, I’d get a lungful of hot ash and die in seconds.
I’d come this far, I wasn’t going to die now. Not when all I needed was a little patience.
Next time one of my brothers called me impulsive, I was totally pulling out this story.
Thinking of my brothers made me think of Gram. I hoped she didn’t know what was happening. I’d tell her later, and watch while she shook her head and breathed out a sigh of relief that, once again, her youngest cub had defied the odds.
Not that she’d be surprised. I always did.
The roar of the inferno didn’t return. Either it was burning itself out or the bucket drop had worked to dampen the intensity here. It was probably safe to break the seal on the shelter and peek out at ground level, but I decided to wait a little longer, just in case.
“Gav, check in when you can.” Chief’s voice was monotone, all business. Professional. But I knew him. I could hear the worry he was trying to hide.
Time was hard to judge with my heart pounding and my limbs tingling from all the adrenaline coursing through my system. So I counted backward from three hundred. Five minutes, give or take, and I’d check my surroundings.
I got to four hundred, no new sounds.
Three hundred. No debris.
Two hundred. The air seemed still.
One hundred. Nothing new.
Down to sixty and I was pretty sure a second wall