At least he could also use that if they tried to stop him, he reasoned. Rory felt around the trunk trying to find something to jimmy open the lid, settling on a tyre iron. The fire, he said, was only 3 miles from town, and just about everybody would be on hand to battle the blaze. Not just the bank, one insisted – they’d knock over every business while the community was taking care of this threat to McGulliver. It seems the fire was a diversion for them to rob the bank in town. He knew he had to escape or never see his parents or schoolfriends again. Rory listened intently, hearing the duo talking about what to do with him, and in between the banging of the rusted old car on the rough forest tracks, he clearly heard them say they would have to get rid of the kid. They’d dragged him to the East, thrown him into the trunk of their beat-up old Buick, and slammed the lid, shutting him in darkness. He’d led the men through the forest for a good ten minutes before they’d caught him, dragging him out of a foxhole he had tried to hide in. The men gave chase, but not before they had ignited the blaze, and even as Rory ran, he could hear it taking hold in minutes. He knew that when he was old enough he’d become a Ranger, just like them. He’d called out to them to stop, just like he knew his parents would have. He’d been out checking their traps that morning, when he had seen the two men laying down a gasoline trail on the edge of the tree line that marked the start of the Arrowhead State Park. He wished he had told them how much he loved and respected them more often. Rory thought of his Mum and Dad, somewhere on the other side of this out-of-control blaze, fighting the fire like the heroes they were. He had wounded them and slowed them down, but their adult legs were still far longer than his, so all he could do was try to carry on and hope for a miracle. He kept running, even though he knew that they would catch him soon. He tried to keep to one side of the track, hoping the trees would shield him from their sight, but it didn’t work, and within minutes he heard them yelling as they saw him. He realised that he was exposed on this natural pathway, that as soon as the men chasing him made their way to the track, they would have him in plain sight and not be hampered by having to follow his tracks through the undergrowth and brittle forest debris. Rory knew that anywhere safe and sound was the last place they were going to get him to, so he breathed in deeply, exhaled shakily, and kept running forwards, towards the intense heat and unnatural glow. The child had every right to be skittish: behind him, he knew, were the two men who he had caught starting the fire, and who were now chasing him.Ĭome on kid, let’s get you safe and sound, one hollered through the trees. He heard the cracking of boots on branches back the way he had come, and he jumped with fear, snapping out of his wishful reverie. He waved his arms as if frantically beckoning to the angels, praying that the helicopter’s inhabitants would see him from on high, even though he knew the canopy of trees would make it almost impossible. Massive helicopters swooped in above the flames to drop their benign payloads of water in a vain attempt to calm the intensely hellacious beast, but so far they had barely made a dent. He strained his ears to hear, even further away, every firefighter for miles doing their best to extinguish the monstrous blaze. With every step forwards he had felt the heat rising, could hear the distant growling of the inferno as it feasted on the forest, dry as tinder after a long summer. It was an impossible choice.Īhead of him the wide path through the forest glowed with the eerie yellow and orange light of the massive fire that was trying to consume the entire region. The child hesitated, losing valuable moments.
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