Chapter 25. Remains
“Whoever said ‘fire is the source of life,’ was a little confused.”
– Kody’s Notebook
“No!” Lorena shouted.
Kody jumped to his feet, wincing from the pain in his ribs. He was quickly overtaken by Adelais, who rushed to grab Lorena. Adelais pulled her back into the bar, trying to restrain her as she fought to get to her dog.
“Lore, the dog’s gone. We gotta get outta here, now.”
Adelais threw the combative Lorena over his shoulder. He carried her through the kitchen out to the truck. Kody rushed outside the bar, trying to figure out what happened. Most of the town had already caught fire. He focused his gaze on a home burning just down the street. Alma followed close behind him, trying to drag him back to the truck.
“Kody, what’re you doing?”
“There’s a little girl that lives here! I wanna make sure she’s okay.”
“That’s sweet, really, but if she could’ve made it out, then she made it out. We gotta go.”
“I’m not leaving anyone behind again!”
Kody broke free of Alma’s grasp and ran across the street, to the outside of young Elvia and Josue’s home. As he got there, the roof was already on fire. He whipped the door open, burning his hand, and catching a face full of smoke for his trouble. He called out for the children, but couldn’t distinguish sounds over the immense crackling of the flames. Kody dropped onto his stomach, knocking the wind out of himself as he hit the dirt. Once he caught his breath, he crawled into the home, keeping himself as low to the ground as possible.
Kody tried to find Elvia, but couldn’t make anything out with all the smoke. He accomplished little other than burning his eyes. Grabbing around blindly, he tried to find something, but had no success.
“Huh… help…”
He thought he heard someone coughing out through the blaze. He scrambled further in, toward the source of the voice. He felt around, grasping at what he thought to be a foot. Pulling on it, he felt a small jerking response. He pulled the limb closer, trying to get the person out, but found himself too lost and confused to navigate the smoggy inferno. He wrapped his arm around the leg, trying to bring the person with him as he searched for an exit. He tried to shout, but only managed to fill his lungs with more smoke. Something caught his ankle as everything went dark.