“No!” I shout. “Absolutely not!”
He’s done with this conversation. He grabs my arm and shoves me forward. “Go! Now.”
I gulp as I shuffle forward, wishing just for once that something in my life would go my way. Just fucking once.
It’s like every single thing in this universe is stacked against me and determined to see me fail. I don’t know what I did in the last life to deserve all of this misfortune, but it must have been pretty diabolical.
“Good luck,” the driver grunts as I walk by. He’s smoking a cigarette that smells so freaking good even though I don’t smoke.
“Can I have one of those?” I ask with a pathetic look.
He laughs and pushes me down the stairs. “You’re going to have enough smoke inhalation for a lifetime today. No need to waste a cigarette on you.”
The heat of the summer day mixes with the heat of the wildfire, and within seconds, I’m dripping in sweat.
“Grab your shit and go!” another correctional officer with a bald head and a thick neck shouts at everyone. He has the storage area of the bus open and women are grabbing axes, helmets, bags, and goggles before running toward the blaze.
“You!” he shouts as he points to me with a fierce glare. I guess my plan of standing here awkwardly hoping no one notices me isn’t going to work. “Get over here!”
My stomach is rock-hard as I shuffle over. “Yes?”
He shoves a bag into my stomach, dumps a helmet on my head, and pushes me toward the forest.
The sound of the fire is louder than you’d expect. It’s roaring in my ears as the fire consumes the forest, cracking branches and tumbling trees.
“What are we supposed to do?” I yell to the CO.
“Follow your training,” he yells back.
“I didn’t have any training!”
Oh shit, was I supposed to have training?
“Not my fucking problem!” he shouts as he gives gear to the woman behind me.
She grabs her stuff and runs forward. I catch up to her with my heart racing.
“Did you have training?” I ask her as she twirls her axe in her hands.
“Barely,” she says as she looks me over. “Only two weeks and we spent most of it watching outdated videos.”
“I didn’t have any!” I say, wishing I got to see those videos. They might have been outdated, but I don’t think much has changed when it comes to not getting burned alive.
“Help me,” I say desperately to her.
She swallows as she looks at me with pity for a moment before moving on. “I’m sorry, I can’t.”
My feet stop moving as she keeps charging forward.
“But what am I supposed to do?” I shout to her back.
She shrugs as she turns around and looks at me. “Don’t catch on fire.”
Oh great. “I already knew that!” I shout back at her, but she doesn’t turn around. She joins the women at the trees that aren’t on fire yet and begins cutting one down.
“What the hell?” I whisper to myself as I look around in a panic. Where are the firetrucks? Where is all of the water?
I thought I was going to be surrounded by hot hunky firemen, serving them lunch and giving their muscular shoulders some much needed back rubs. I wasn’t expecting this.
“What the fuck are you doing?” the bald CO shouts as he comes charging over.
Uh-oh.
“Get to that tree line and start chopping down trees!”
“Why those trees? They’re not even on fire?”
“Go!” he shouts as he shoves me hard.
He doesn’t look happy, so I rush over to the tree line, gripping my axe with white knuckles as I head toward a tiny tree that I can definitely chop down.
I hit the trunk but the blade ricochets off and lands right beside my foot, nearly taking a few of my toes off.
I’m seriously in over my head.
A big muscular woman grabs the back of my jumpsuit and starts dragging me into the forest toward the fire. “Hey!” I shout as I try to thrash around and get away from this maniac. It’s impossible. She’s so strong. I’m going wherever she wants to take me.
“You’re not doing anything over there but getting poison ivy,” she grunts as she drags me deeper into the forest.
“There’s poison ivy in here?” I ask with a gulp. Great. One more thing to worry about.
She’s silent as she drags me deep into the forest. There are huge thick redwoods all around us and I nearly pee myself when we come up to the fire. It’s right there. Right freaking there and she keeps dragging me toward it!
“Are you crazy?” I holler as I thrash around.
“Stop it!” she shouts in my face. “We’re here to save lives, understand?”
I shake my head. “I don’t.” The only life I can possibly save is my own and that requires me running out of here as fast and as far as I can.