Chapter 42 - "it will become unbreakable,

That camping guy is in big trouble. I turn and chase after the completely gone Jackson. Ash floats on the air in random flakes and breathing becomes hard. The crackle of cooked pines replaces the sound of birds or bugs or life, still distant, but coming. The hazy sky circles the entire campus as I get closer. An alarm sounds through the PA system. “Stay calm and proceed to The Bunker or the nearest evacuation bus.”

Across the complex, a new plume appears in the sky. I look behind me. Smoke still billows in the east. In front of me, gray clouds rise from the ground in the west. Two forest fires in opposite directions. I stand frozen. A panorama of startled kids stumble out of the buildings. At the parking lot, a couple hundred people squeeze onto already crowded buses.  

Few stand around stunned and confused. This isn’t a normal disaster drill. Counselors and guards have hurried conversations. Words rumble through the riot of running people.

“Surrounded by fire.”

“The first bus has left.”

More words cascade through the crowd like a game of telephone.

“We’re going to die.”

“The buses are full.”

The dawning truth jerks me into action. Waves of kids move toward The Bunker.

The PA announces, “Three more buses have just arrived from the entrance where the fire has been contained. Proceed with caution.”

Inmates swirl around like the smoky air. They change direction. Then change again. None of the staff seem concerned about the buildings. The log orientation room. The sun-shaped chapel. I can’t breathe, but not because of smoke. My heart hurts at the thought of losing The Center. I’d just fallen in love and now, it’s going to burn. As I hurry toward The Bunker I swallow my sadness. For a detention center, this is the best. I don’t want the trees and cabins destroyed. They have to save it. They have to. But no one is spraying fire extinguishers or squirting water from hoses. Escape is the plan.

Save the humans.

Lose the trees and classrooms and barn-turned gym.

“This is not a drill,” Rowena’s voice rumbles from speakers. “This is NOT a drill. Please make your way toward an evacuation bus or into The Bunker. No pushing or shoving.”

I’m focused on The Bunker. Based on the number of people, other buses will fill fast. The Bunker can hold thousands. I hurry with a group committed to not turning back.  At the top of the hill, the crowd thickens. A couple guys slide to their bottoms and attempt to make the two-story descent without using the narrow and now overcrowded stairs. I stay in the elbowing mass as we get closer and closer to the edge.

At the top of the staircase, people cling to each other to keep from falling. Most jump halfway down where the distance is safer. As I begin my descent, I see Dee Dee leap from the halfway point, only to land unbalanced. I hear the pop of her ankle as it twists at an unnatural angle.

She screams in pain while other inmates hurry past her to the lines of people waiting to enter the pyramid.

“Look!” The shout hushes the crowd.

At the bottom of the stairs, I turn my head toward the northern horizon. Humongous billows of gray smoke cover the blue sky. Impossible. A third fire from the south. First east where I saw the camper. Then west. Now south. The drill horn sounds again in three rapid successions. Kids push across the yard in panicked frenzy to get into one of three narrow doors.

I make it to the bottom of the stairs as three rapid successions repeat. I don’t want to look north. I don’t want to believe that this world is coming to an end. Surrounded by fire on all sides. A tree cracks in the distance and crashes against others.

The wind whips dust into the air.

I push past a large boy and plan to continue my fight for life when I remember Dee Dee. I puff out a breath and find myself frozen in the riot moving forward. I can’t leave her. The idea of getting zapped for Mario was one thing, but potentially dying for Dee Dee is another. I shake my head. It’s not in my character, but the memory of joy has me fighting the crowd looking for the young black girl.

This is more than stupid, it’s dangerous, but suddenly living with the knowledge that I’d left the one person who’d been kind without reason would kill me. In the tussle of legs and arms, I find Dee Dee still on the ground near the stone stairs.

“Can you limp?” I ask her.

“Yeah.”

I bend over and pull her arm over my shoulder. She stands with me and we join the moving body of humans. Inmates have taken to jumping from one bench to the other, while we are stuck weaving between the alternating, cement design. Losing ground.

Ahead, like water weaves around rocks in a stream, people flow to the two entrances in the back. As we near The Bunker, the crowd becomes dense. We are forced with the flow to one of the back doors. A wave of people push us toward the metal structure. The closer we get, the longer we wait.

“What’s the problem?” Someone shouts behind me.

“It’s the stupid entrance.”

“We won’t fit.” Elbows nudge.

People shove.

I hold my own as Dee Dee balances on one leg.

We’re stuck in the thickest part of the crowd, a couple feet from a steel door. The crackling fire competes with the sound of fear. Panic fills the eyes of kids around me. A counselor with an uncharacteristic look of terror pushes his way past us knocking Dee Dee off balance.

With the help of another inmate, we pull her upright before she can be trampled. Behind us, the fire is visible on the cement perimeter. Kids scream as torched trees glow in the near distance. The brush around the cement platform ignites as red ashes drop from the sky. The heat rises like an oven.

“Go!”

“Fast!”

“Now!”

Someone screams. Kids beat against their clothes. A hot cinder sizzles on my arm. It sears through my khaki sleeve. The pain reaches past my skin, I flick it away but not before the wind can toss another onto my shoulder.

Flames devour limbs and leaves as they climb a tall Cottonwood. I can’t watch. Dee Dee and I join the pushing and shoving. We need to get underground. From the back of the line I hear at distant shout, “They’ve turned off the fence. Run. Let’s get out of here.”

The pressure behind me subsides.

Smoke chokes oxygen from the air. Across the meadow, flames scorch the ground like lava. They lick and beg for more, glowing with anger and purpose. The wind whips and changes. A small gap of relief.

“Cover your face.”

“Cover your mouth.”

“Crouch low.”           

We reach the dark entrance as The Center collapses. People shove us deeper into The Bunker. According to the information given at orientation, each door to the pyramid could hold twenty people at a time. Plenty of room until we get inside.  People crowd around ten small metal rails. The descent is slow. Single-file ladders descending into the earth cause the bottleneck.

Outside inmates screech and smoke enters the building.

A light above the big doors begins to spin. “The doors are closing. Do not enter. The doors are closing. Do not enter.” Those of us inside crush tighter together. Inmates in the way begin to move in our direction.

Shouts of “Wait!” and “No!” come from those outside.

The computer voice continues its monotone, “The doors are closing. Do not enter.”

Human complaints are futile.

Those closest to each entrance pull people through the grinding steel. There’s no automatic stop mechanism because the doors continue to move even with people standing in the gap. Inmates climb on top of each other to yank on the door from the outside.

I recognize the chain-clipped fingernail just as it slips from the door as the heavy locks click closed.

No elevator-type bumper bounces the door back open.

External screams are silenced.

Dee Dee buries her face in her hands.

I do not celebrate the loss of dreadlocks.