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He sucked in another hesitant breath, and his chest burned. He wasn’t sure if it was the air itself or the lack of oxygen. His thoughts drifted to the conversation they’d had about the end of times and the need to prepare.

  For some reason unknown to Sam, Loretta had become obsessed with dystopian literature. It had begun with Orwell, Huxley, and McCarthy, and had grown to include Hopf, Rudolph, Craven, and some series of books about a cartoonish alpha male named Marcus Battle.

  She’d insisted they start preparing for the inevitable. He’d resisted at first but came around. They stocked up on canned goods, water, were planning to go solar so they could escape the grid, and joined various Facebook groups to learn more about the process.

  Then they were invited to a secret group that did all the prepping for them. They had, for a hefty price, supplied that golden ticket. It was tucked into a metal lockbox in their master bedroom closet. It was useless now, at least for him.

  For a moment, he reconsidered his decision and thought about trying to chase his wife down the path toward possible safety. Sadly, it wasn’t an option now. The flames had jumped past him in the canopy above his head and blocked any possible escape. This was it. This was where it ended. In that instant, Sam made a decision to end his life on his terms, as much as he could negotiate with an all-consuming inferno bearing down on him.

  He sucked in a deep breath of hot, toxic air, filling his lungs with acrolein, a gas heavier than air. Sam gagged and reflexively coughed. His eyes teared and he grabbed at his chest. His throat began to swell and spasm as he took a final breath. His chest burned, and his lungs began filling with fluid while his trachea closed.

  The pain in his leg, and everywhere else in his body, evaporated into the ether as he lost focus and then consciousness. His final coherent thought was of his wife. He envisioned her in the arms of a rescuer, safe and free from harm.

  Sam McNeil was dead before the flames returned his body to the ground, leaving only his blackened bones behind.

  CHAPTER 7

  Friday, October 17, 2025

  Brentwood, California

  Ritz was conscious. Each breath brought with it a jab of pain from his ribs, but he could move and was fighting through the discomfort. There was too much to do to think about his own injuries.

  Three firefighters and two civilians were dead. They’d died when an explosion from the liquor store launched them from the roof they were trying to ventilate. Punching holes in roofs was frequently a necessary part of fighting a fire. By giving the smoke and flames a place to go, up through the roof and into the air, it could prevent them from spreading horizontally and lessen the ultimate damage. But in that instant when a new source of oxygen met the flames seeking fuel, there was the danger of a quick burst of energy.

  Ritz took a last breath of oxygen and yanked the man from his face. He pulled on his mask, his gloves, and set his helmet back on his head. Phyllis was standing in front of him with her hands on her hips.

  “You should rest,” she said. “It’s getting worse.”

  Ritz shook her off. “That’s why I’m not resting.” He winced as he stood and adjusted his regulator, moving past her toward the thicker gray smoke that obscured the long block of burned and melted buildings stretching a long city block. He carried a pack over one shoulder with first aid gear.

  He found White, who was directing the final attack on the strip of businesses. Most of the flames were out. The attack teams were hitting hot spots with their lines, putting out intermittent flares. It was as much a hellscape as anything Ritz had seen in his decade in the department. Sirens wailed in the distance.

  While the attacks team worked the lines, other men and women were taking oxygen, dousing themselves with cold water, kneeling in prayer. The bodies of the dead were still on the ground, covered in tarps. Ritz counted six.

  “I thought there were five dead,” he said to White, motioning toward the collection of tarps.

  Surprised to see Ritz standing next to him, James White shook his head. “Three of ours, and three civilians. There were two women in the nail shop a few feet from each other. One probably never knew the other was there.”

  Ritz exhaled slowly. “What can I do?” he asked. “And don’t tell me to go rest. That’s not happening.”

  White frowned, the arc of his mustache accentuating his displeasure with Ritz’s obstinance. His radio squawked, and he held it to his ear. He eyed Ritz and held up a finger.

  “The fire jumped,” he said after listening. “It’s burning another strip on the opposite block. There might be people trapped. Power is compromised. Substations are popping. You want to help, follow command and get back in there.”

  Ritz shrugged the gear higher onto his shoulder and headed off toward the thicker smoke beyond the engines parked in front of him.

  He stepped over a supply line, his boots splashing in a puddle of water collecting underneath the line’s connection to a truck. Someone tugged on his arm, and he shifted awkwardly to find Phyllis at his side.

  “You’re not waiting for your partner?” she asked, her voice hoarse but loud enough to carry over the rumble of the engines.

  “I didn’t think about it,” he said. “I’m working.”

  There was a scream ahead of them, piercing the dingy yellow haze that hung at eye level. Ritz checked his locator alarm again and waded through the smoggy air and found himself in front of another strip of adjoined buildings.

  A firefighter was holding a woman back from the curb. She was reaching for the building, her body weak at the knees, calling out for a name Ritz couldn’t understand amongst all the other noise. The firefighter seemed to be doing a somewhat good job of calming her. Ritz knew that confusion and panic was contagious at fire scenes. Order within the chaos was paramount to survival.

  He pivoted to the left and saw three paramedics prepping to enter one of the businesses. It was a poke restaurant. Ritz waved Phyllis to follow him to the group. As he approached, he searched for overhead power lines.

  “We’re with you,” he said to one EMT. “You got someone trapped?”

  The lead, a firefighter with a hand line, nodded through his mask. He pointed directions to Ritz, Phyllis, and the other two firefighters. “Power’s off,” he said. “Gas too.”

  The group moved toward the entrance to the restaurant. Smoke was pouring through the open front door.

  The lead hesitated. “We’ve got two or three in here,” he said. “Intel is that they’re in the kitchen. That’s in the back of the space and to the left. Remember, God gave firefighters ears so they know when to back out. You feel the heat on your ears, back out. Got it?”

  The others nodded. Ritz adjusted his respirator and made sure it had a good seal around his face. The adrenaline was amped enough now that he couldn’t feel the pain in his sides. He was focused and ready to deploy. He checked to see Phyllis was on his hip, and he nodded at her.

  Together, the team filed into the building. They stayed low, hunched over at the waist. The lead was spraying a path with his handline. But the heat and smoke intensified nonetheless. Everything more than three feet off the floor was enveloped by the smoke.

  Ritz knew they had only a few minutes to find the victims. Much longer than that and the toxic fumes would kill them if the flames didn’t. He checked his respirator. It showed twenty-seven minutes. That meant he had seventeen until he’d need a bottle change. He was good to go. They’d be out in the street long before that if they could help it.

  Although he’d done this countless times in the last decade, the blackness of a search never got easier. His pulse thumped in his neck and in his ears. He worked to breathe slowly and evenly, but it was tough. He searched in the dark with fifty pounds of gear on his body in an uncomfortable position, focusing on his training.

  Their ears straining to listen for coughs or cries, the five firefighters stuck together, moving methodically in a left-hand search. They crept along the perimeter, feeling with their hands and their boots. />
  “Table!” one firefighter yelled, loud but muffled.

  “Chair!” yelled another.

  Phyllis shone a flashlight in the space in front of her. It did little but illuminate and reflect the thickening smoke. Ritz had one on the top of his helmet. It was useless.

  Three minutes into the sweep, the lead called, “Doors!”

  Visibility was slightly better once Ritz pushed through the swinging kitchen door. His mask was fogged, but through the smoke he made out a wide kitchen prep table. Beyond his field of vision someone was coughing. No, two people. The coughs were overlapping.

  It was to his right, but the lead was maneuvering to the left. Ritz split from the group.

  “Going right,” he called out, and Phyllis stayed with him, as good partners did, until the coughing was next to them. It was next to them, wasn’t it? Maybe it wasn’t. He couldn’t tell now. Ritz spun around in confusion. Had he lost his sense of direction?

  “Hello!” Ritz called out. “We’re here. Do you see us?”

  He didn’t see the man or woman coughing, but something tugged on his leg. It startled him at first and he jerked away. Then he squatted to the ground and saw a man curled into the fetal position, trying to cover his mouth. His body spasmed when he coughed again. Next to him was another man, an older one, who was unconscious.

  “I’ve got two!” called Ritz. “One is unresponsive.”

  Phyllis crouched beside him and pointed to the conscious man. “I’ll get him.”

  They helped the man to his feet, and Phyllis wrapped her arm around the man’s back. She lifted one of his arms over her shoulder and gripped it with her free, gloved hand.

  “I know my way out,” she said and moved toward the swinging kitchen door.

  Behind him, Ritz could hear another firefighter approaching. He reached out and grabbed the man’s slight wrists. He was slender. His face was long and gaunt, his jaw slack, and his mouth was open. Still, he wasn’t easy to pick up. Ritz managed to lift the man up around his waist and essentially lift him over his shoulder.

  He wrapped his arms tightly around the backs of man’s legs, which hung over the front of his body, and he turned to find his way out. The other firefighter was there.

  “I’ll guide,” he said, his voice clear despite the mask.

  Ritz nodded and moved forward. The man, despite being lean, was still heavy. Dead weight was exponentially more difficult to carry than someone who was conscious.

  Ritz pushed through the swinging kitchen door, standing upright. The smoke was heavier in his face and made the movement more difficult. He banged his knee into the side of a table and nearly lost his balance. The firefighter in front of him steadied him and helped readjust the victim on his shoulder. It was darker in the restaurant now, the smoke heavier. Strobes of orange and red light flickered through the veil. It was hotter too. There was fire above them now, licking at the ceiling like a tidal surge on a beach. They were running out of time.

  The two firefighters left in the kitchen called out they’d found someone, a third victim. They were on their way.

  Ritz tried keeping his focus on his task, on fighting through the now searing pain in his chest. He hadn’t noticed it before. But now, as he moved closer to the exit and began thinking about the tasks ahead, the pain swelled.

  His guide reached back and touched his shoulder, then gripped the thick fabric and tugged before letting go. He was barely close enough for Ritz to see him through the smoke. The heat was on his ears now. There was fire close and to his left. Glass popped and shattered. Ritz could hear his own breathing in his ears, taste the beads of sweat that had dripped from his nose into his mouth.

  Although he could barely see the reflective tape on the back of the guide in front of him, he trudged forward, banging into another table. They worked the edge of the room, retracing the path they’d taken to get to the kitchen. The others called their positions as they entered the dining room. They weren’t far behind.

  A sudden burst of flames shot toward him from one side, bursting through the curtain of black smoke, startling Ritz. He tightened his grip around the back of the victim’s thighs and steadied himself. His legs were jittery and his lower back ached. A sudden, jabbing pain at his ribs took his breath away, and he seized. He stood still for a moment to catch his breath and exhale into the mask, but he had to keep moving. The man he was carrying was dying.

  Another wave of heat blasted him from his left, and tendrils of flames curled out from within the black plumes of smoke that undulated above him. Something bounced off his helmet and to the floor. His vision blurred for an instant from the shock of it, and he glanced up. The ceiling was disintegrating. More chunks rained down on him, hitting his boots and his arms. He swung around, trying to keep his unprotected charge free from the falling debris. The shouts from the two firefighters behind him were louder now. They were moving more quickly than he.

  “Get out!” one of them called out. “We’ve got to move!”

  Ritz winced and grunted toward the hazy bright light ahead of him. The dark, backlit outline of his guide stood a few feet ahead of him at the entrance. Ritz leaned forward, letting his momentum carry him the rest of the short distance to the exit. He maneuvered past a chair and stumbled free of the building. The two firefighters behind him knocked into him as they emerged from the restaurant. The lead firefighter still had the hand line. He was spraying any threats in front of him, and clouds of steam billowed from the targets. The pressure from a blast of the water hit the back of Ritz’s legs when he cleared the threshold, a final nudge toward safety.

  As soon as he was in the smoke-shrouded daylight, two firefighters helped peel the unconscious man from his shoulder. They laid him flat on the ground and immediately began the rhythmic procedures of resuscitation.

  The other victim, a woman, appeared worse off. She had burns on her face and hands, and she wasn’t breathing. From the looks of the work a medic was performing, her pulse was absent too.

  Ritz bent over at his waist, breathing in what was left of the oxygen in his tank. His gloved hands were on his knees. The tank was heavy on his back. His ears stung. He peeled the mask from his face and stood up. The rumble of the engines and hiss of spraying attack lines were suddenly deafening.

  Using the front of an engine to balance himself, he walked away from the scene and into cleaner air. He found a cooler on the side of the truck and pinched the valve to pour Gatorade into an empty plastic cup. His side ached, and his lower back was tightening. He stepped over another five-inch supply line and removed his gloves. His fingers were stiff, and he flexed them, one hand at a time, trying to loosen the joints.

  Clear of the smoke, he took a deep breath of air and arched his back. His muscles tightened and stretched. He was exhausted; breathing deeply caused him to hitch. His ribs, if not broken, were definitely bruised.

  Ritz raised the cup and gulped until it was empty. The chill of the fruit-punch-flavored drink traveled down his throat, providing relief. He glanced to his left and saw a half dozen others recuperating. They were taking more oxygen, dousing themselves with water. They’d pulled off their jackets to cool their sweat-drenched bodies.

  Ritz freed himself of his tank, unbuttoned his jacket, and shrugged it from his shoulders. He sank onto the curb and used the back of his arm to wipe the grime from his face. He closed his eyes and took another breath. A voice interrupted his moment. It was Lardie.

  “Hey,” said the tall, prototypical first responder. His face was streaked with char, his helmet loosened at his chin, and his coat was open. He carried an axe in one hand and a cup of Gatorade in the other. The red juice sloshed and spilled over the plastic rim as Lardie strode across the pavement.

  Ritz nodded but said nothing. His teeth hurt; his jaw ached; his head pounded. He didn’t want to talk.

  Lardie held out the cup. “You okay? Heard you got hurt.”

  Ritz shrugged and took the drink, which he downed in a couple of swigs. “Thanks
.” His throat hurt when he spoke. His voice sounded alien, scratchy and barely louder than a whisper.

  “White said we’re getting a handle on it,” said Lardie. “Turning a corner, I think. We got guys on the far block trying to stop the flames from jumping again.”

  Ritz followed Lardie’s eyes and saw the heavy spray of water dousing the corner of another strip. Lardie was still talking, but the sound of rotor blades overhead was drowning him out now.

  News helicopters hovered in a flock a thousand feet up. He could only imagine what the local reporters and anchors were saying about the fatalities. Unlike a lot of scenes, he hadn’t noticed any cameras on the ground. He imagined the perimeter was wider than normal.

  He thought about telling Lardie he couldn’t hear him, but he was too exhausted to make the effort. He swallowed, tasting the sick combination of artificial flavoring and ash.

  Then the radio blared. He could hear that. It was close to him, loud, and the call was urgent. The expression on Lardie’s face changed, and he knew his colleague had heard the call too.

  The fire had jumped again.

  CHAPTER 8

  Friday, October 17, 2025

  Santa Monica, California

  Danny was the last one out of the restaurant. He held the door for Arthur and let it slam behind him as he stepped back outside. Before he saw the smoke, he saw the crowds of people staring at it.

  A granite-colored column of smoke rose into the sky, thickening from the rocketing plume that rose from a power substation two blocks away. The underside of the widening mushroom of smoke glowed a fiery orange that appeared to strobe and shift.

  All the surrounding buildings were dark, and the occupants had spilled onto the sidewalks and street to watch the growing inferno that had snapped off the power.

  Sirens blared in the distance, and hovering in the sky above the fray, Danny counted six helicopters. It reminded him of the live feed on his phone’s news application. He thumbed his phone to life, tapping open the app.