Page 4 of Haunted

I check the mirror. The sedan has turned right, heading back down Hemingway toward Morris Mountain Road. Toward the intersection I’ve just told her isn't safe.”

“No. No, no, no—” Parker fumbles with his seatbelt.

I slam on the brakes as he opens the door. He’s out before the truck’s even stopped, running and screaming after his family. He waves his arms. In response, Elliott sticks his whole head out the back window and waves at us, grinning. “Na-na-na-naaaaaa-na! We beat you!” he singsongs. The sedan doesn’t slow down.

I slam the truck into park and run after Parker. He’s still sprinting down the middle of the road, screaming himself raw. I catch up to him and grab him around the waist. He fights me and then, as the car pulls away with no brake lights, he sinks to the asphalt.

“Parker—”

“We have to go after them!” he says.

I drag him to his feet. He fights me harder than I would have thought his skinny body could manage, kicking and clawing at my arms.

“Let go of me! Lance, let go! I have to—Elliott’s in that car! My grandmother’s in that car! Please, just follow them. They need to know how to get out.”

“Parker, listen to me—”

“Turn around! Please! Please, Lance! Please!”

I’m dragging him backward toward the truck. He’s sobbing and thrashing and I can barely hold him. Behind us, down Denning Court, I hear something that sounds like a muffled explosion—another propane tank, maybe—and when I look, the roof of the house next to Parker’s, the one with the abandoned car, has started to smoke.

The fire isn’t coming. It’s already here.

I look down the road where she went. The air over there looks clearer. Three minutes to town, she said. She’s an adult. She’ll hit the block and turn around.

I look the other way, toward Brendon Farm Road. Toward the only way out that I know is still open. For now.

“Parker.” I pin his arms. He’s still trying to twist free. “Parker, listen. There’s a cop sitting at that intersection. He’ll turn her around. It’s three minutes. She said so herself. But if we follow her and the road is gone, then nobody gets out. Nobody gets help. You understand? The radio announcer said it’s still okay, so maybe it is.”

He stares at me. His face is streaked with tears and smoke.

“We get out, and we send help back. That’s the fastest thing we can do for Elliott right now.”

His mouth opens but nothing comes out. His voice is already wrecked from screaming.

I don’t give him time to argue. I shove him into the truck and buckle him in. He grabs the dashboard and turns to stare into the wing mirror as I floor it down Brendon Farm Road.

She’ll hit the block and turn around. Three minutes. She knows these roads, and her car can outrun the fire. They’ll be fine. We just have to survive right now.

He looks out the passenger window. The forest is on fire on his side now, and the few hundred yards of tree line between us and the flames are going fast. I tear down Brendon Farm Road, jerking the wheel to avoid an abandoned car. The truck is sweltering. Parker looks at me, nostrils flared in fear, face streaked with soot. A burning branch falls and he shrieks as we swerve.

“It’s okay,” I say. The air tastes like ash and hot metal, thick enough to chew. I’m worried that the tires will start melting soon. The engine is straining into the red.

I twist the wheel so hard that the truck takes the turn on two wheels and only barely manages to avoid a ditch. When it lands again, I have to take a second to calm the fuck down because if we lose this truck, we can’t outrun this. The scene around us is hell, with fire crackling on both sides. Curtains dance as the rooms behind them ignite. The windowpanes shatter from the heat. Something chemical and sweet—melting siding, maybe—seeps through the vents.

We shoot down the road at double the speed limit. The smoke closes in until I can’t see past the hood. I slam on both the gas and the horn as we roar down the road, slowing only to take hard turns. The air begins to get clearer, and the visibility improves. This whole neighborhood has been blockaded from all sides. Ahead, I can see the cop car, and I lay on the horn again to get their attention. I reach over and squeeze Parker’s hand as we slide to a stop just past the roadblock and look back. His fingers are bony and cold in mine.

“Sir!” the cop shouts, banging on my window. “You need to move on.” It’s a different cop from the first one, but still the same attitude.

“Just a second. Please,” Parker begs in his hoarse voice, opening the truck door so that he can look down the empty road. “My family is still there. They went down toward Morris Mountain.”

I get out with him and stare out where we’ve just come, but all I can see is a wall of flame and smoke in the distance where his neighborhood should be.

The cop looks back up the empty road. “I’ll call it in, son,” he says to Parker, but his expression is grim as he pats me on the shoulder and walks away.

Chapter two

Parker