Solomon Creed. Simon Toyne

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СКАЧАТЬ fire in the night as shells pounded a foreign city in a different desert. It was the sound of something big hitting the ground and his mouth felt dry because of it.

      He picked up speed as he headed downhill and pushed the comms button on the steering wheel to activate the radio. ‘This is Morgan. I’m heading north on Eldridge en route to a possible fire about three miles out of town, anyone else call it in?’

      There was a bump and a squeal of rubber as his truck bottomed out and joined the main road, then the voice of Rollins the duty dispatcher crackled back. ‘Copy that, Chief, we got a call from Ellie over at the Tucker ranch, said she heard an explosion to the southwest. We got five units responding: two fire trucks, a highway patrol unit, an ambulance from County and another heading from the King. Six units, including you.’

      Morgan glanced in his rear-view mirror, saw flashing lights behind him on the road. He stared ahead to where the column of smoke was growing much faster than his speed could account for. ‘We’re going to need more,’ he said.

      ‘What is it, Chief?’

      Morgan studied the wall of smoke. ‘Well, I ain’t there yet but the smoke is rising fast and high, so there’s gotta be some heat in the fire, burning fuel probably. There was the explosion too.’

      ‘Yeah, I heard it.’

      ‘You heard it in the office?’

      ‘Yessir. Felt it too.’

      Rollins was a mile or so further away than he had been. Some explosion. ‘Can you see it yet?’ Morgan listened to dead air and pictured Rollins leaning back in his chair to catch a view out of the narrow window of the dispatch room.

      ‘Yeah, I got it.’

      ‘Well, it’s coming your way so you better get busy. Call the airfield, get the tanker in the air. We need to step on this thing before it gets out of hand.’

      ‘I’m on it, Chief.’

      Morgan clicked off the comms and leaned forward. The top of the smokestack was several hundred feet high and still rising. He was closer now, close enough that he could see something burning at the centre of the fire each time he crested a rise in the road. He was so fixated on it, wanting to see it and confirm what he already knew it must be, that he didn’t notice the figure running down the middle of the road until he was almost upon him.

      His reaction was all instinct and panic. He threw the wheel hard right and braced himself for a thump that didn’t come, then jerked the wheel left again. The rear wheels caught the soft dirt of the verge and he started to slide. He stamped on the brakes to stop the wheels then back on the gas to give him some traction. He was in a full sideways skid now, wheels spinning and throwing grit into the air. He hit the brakes again and clung to the wheel, steering into the slide until he slammed into a bush or something that stopped the truck dead and made him bang his head against the window.

      He sat perfectly still for a moment, hands on the wheel, heart pounding in his chest, so loud he could hear it above the roar of the burning desert and the patter of grit on the windshield. The first fire truck roared past, throwing more grit over him and a crackle of static flooded the car. ‘Chief? You there, Chief?’

      He took a breath, pressed the comms button. ‘Yeah, Rollins, I’m here.’

      ‘How’s it lookin’?’

      The second fire truck thundered by and he followed its path towards the wall of flame, the burning plane twisted at its centre. ‘Like the end of the world,’ he murmured.

      He glanced back to the road and was half-surprised to see the running man still there, rising from the ground where he had thrown himself. He looked strange, extraordinary, his hair as white as his skin.

      Morgan had heard all the stories about how this road was built on the old wagon trail and was supposed to be haunted. People had seen plenty of things out here, especially at night when the cold hit the ground like a hammer, releasing wisps of vapour that drifted through the headlights and imaginations of people who had heard the same stories he had. He’d had reports of everything from ghost horses to wagons floating a foot above the ground. But he had never seen anything himself until now.

      ‘Chief? You still there, Chief?’

      Morgan snapped to attention, his eyes fixed on the stranger. ‘Yeah, I’m here. What’s the word on those tankers?’

      ‘You got the unit from the airfield on its way and two more possibles inbound from Tucson. They’re dragging their asses a little, but I’m working on it. If they get the go-ahead they should be with you in twenty.’

      Morgan nodded but said nothing. In twenty minutes the fire would have doubled in size, tripled even. More sirens wailed closer, everything the town had to send but not nearly enough.

      ‘Call everyone you can,’ he said. ‘We’re going to need roadblocks on all routes in and out of town. I don’t want anybody riding out into this mess, and we’re going to need to set firebreaks too. Anyone with a truck and a shovel they can swing needs to report for duty at the city-limit billboard if they want this town to still be here by sundown.’

      He disconnected and fumbled in his pocket for his phone. He found a contact and opened a new message. His fingers shook as he typed: ‘Clear out now. Funeral finished early. Find anything?’

      He sent the message and looked back at the stranger. He was gazing up at the fire with an odd expression on his face. Morgan held up his phone, snapped a photo and studied it. The man seemed to glow in the midst of all the grit. It reminded him of the pictures he’d seen in the books and on the websites devoted to the town’s ghosts. Only those all seemed fake to him. There was nothing fake about this. He was there, large as life, staring back at the crashed plane with pale grey eyes the colour of stone. Staring into the fire.

      The phone beeped in his hand. A reply: ‘Nothing. Leaving now.’

       Goddammit. Nothing was going right today. Not a damned thing.

      He grabbed his hat and opened the door to the roar of fire and the heat of the desert just as the pale man turned and started to run.

       4

      I stare into the heart of the fire and feel as if it’s staring back at me. But that can’t be right. I know that. The air swirls and wails and roars around me like the world is in pain.

      The first fire truck stops at the edge of the blaze and people run out, pulling hose from its belly like they are drawing innards from some beast in sacrifice to a burning god. They seem so tiny and the fire so big. The wind stirs the flames and the fire roars forward, up the road, towards the men, towards me. Fear flares inside me and I turn to run and almost collide with a woman wearing a dark blue uniform, walking up the road behind me.

      ‘Are you OK, sir?’ she says, her eyes soft with concern. I want to hold her and have her hold me but my fear of the fire is too great and so is my desire to get away from it. I duck past her and keep on running, straight into a man wearing the same uniform. He grabs my arm and I try to pull free but I cannot. He is too strong and this surprises me, as if I am not used to being weak.

      ‘I need to get away,’ I say in my soft, unfamiliar voice, and glance back СКАЧАТЬ