The Burning

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Monday. Nineteen hours in the dark.

The dead man lived up the hill. We could have walked, if the world wasn’t ending and we didn’t have to bring him back.

But it was and we did, so Harkless and I suited up and went out to the parking lot. As we exited the building a stunning fist of heat descended on us. The nearest wildfire was thirty miles away. Gritty sky and roaring air gave the illusion it was right over the ridge, climbing fast.

The apocalypse smells like a campfire and glimmers gold.

Through fierce raking wind we hurried to the body van, got in, and slammed the doors.

Above his respirator mask Harkless kept blinking. “God.”

He pulled the mask down over his chin and wiped at the sweat ringing his lips. “You know where we’re going?”

I nodded and started the van.

We climbed a steep, peaceful residential neighborhood crammed with split-level wood-frame ranch homes built in the late fifties. Long before anybody could imagine that million-acre fires, killing winds, and weeklong blackouts would become a season unto themselves. The houses weren’t under direct threat, but tight spacing and a uniform color scheme made them look like rows of matchbooks ready to ignite.

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