Sam and Edilio broke into a run. Across the highway onto the access road. Past the rusting hulks of cars that had crashed into one another or into storefronts or simply stalled in the middle of the highway on that fateful day when every driver disappeared.
They ran down Sheridan, passing the school on their right. At least it wasn’t on fire. Once they reached the cross-street at Golding the smoke was much thicker. It billowed toward them, impossible to avoid. Sam and Edilio choked and slowed down.
Sam pulled off his T-shirt and bunched it over his mouth, but it didn’t do much good. His eyes stung.
He crouched low, hoping the smoke would pass overhead. That didn’t work, either.
Sam grabbed Edilio’s arm and pulled him along. They crossed Golding and in the lee of houses on Sheridan they found the air was clearer but still reeking. The houses on the west side of Sheridan were black silhouettes cut out of the sheet of flame that soared and danced and curled toward heaven from Sherman Avenue.
They started running again, down the street and around the corner on Alameda, trying to stay on the sweet side of the very slight breeze. The smoke was still thick but no longer blowing toward them.
Fire was everywhere along Sherman. A roaring, ravenous, living thing. It was more intense north of Alameda, but it was moving fast south toward the water down the rest of Sherman.
“Why is the fire moving against the breeze?” Edilio asked.
“Because someone’s setting new fires,” Sam said grimly.
Sam glanced left. Right. At least six houses burning to their right. The rest of that block would go up, no stopping it, not a thing they could do.
“There are kids in some of these houses,” Edilio said, choking from emotion as much as smoke.
At least three fires burned to their left. As they watched Sam saw a twirling firework, a spinning Roman candle that soared and arced downward and crashed into the front of a house far down the block. He couldn’t hear the Molotov cocktail smash over the roar of fire around him.
“Come on!” Sam yelled, and ran toward the newest fire.
He wished he had Brianna with him, or Dekka. Where were they? Both could have helped save lives.
Sam barely missed plowing into a group of kids, some as young as three, all huddled together in the middle of the street, faces lit by fire, eyes wide with fear.
“It’s Sam!”
“Thank God, Sam is here! Sam is here!”
“Sam, our house is burning down!”
“I think my little brother is in there!”
Sam pushed past them, but one girl grabbed his arm. “You have to help us!”
“I’m trying,” he said grimly, and tore himself free. “Come on, Edilio!”
Zil’s mob was backlit by a sheet of orange that consumed the front of a colonial-style house. They danced and cavorted and ran with burning Molotov cocktails.
“Don’t waste them!” Hank shouted. “One Molotov, one house!”
Antoine screamed as he waved a lit bottle. “Aaaaarrrggh! Aaaaarrrgh!” Almost as if he were the one burning. He threw the bottle high and hard, and it soared straight through an upper floor window of an older wood house.
Immediately there were cries of terror from inside. And Antoine screamed back, an echo of their horror, twisted into savage glee.
Kids came pouring out of the door of the house as flames licked the curtains.
Sam did not hesitate. He raised his hand, palm out. A beam of brilliant green light drew a line to Antoine’s body.
Antoine’s berserk cries ended instantly. He clutched once at the three-inch-wide hole just above his belt. Then he sat down in the street.
“It’s Sam!” one of Zil’s thugs cried.
As one they turned and ran, dropping gas-filled bottles behind. The gasoline spread from the shattered bottles and caught fire instantly.