THE FIRE FRONT by Todd Guilmette

CHAPTER ONE: AND NOW, THE WEATHER.

1

Jack MacGregor wondered whether the world was coming to an end. He had just seen the beginning of the end, he thought as he watched the local news program. Some idiot in charge had just passed NAFTA. So, logically, the end was surely near.

Jack had just returned to the sports section when that goddamn tone came on the TV. He looked up briefly, and saw the familiar EBS logo. Emergency Broadcast System. Stupid system, he thought. If a real emergency came up, the government would never broadcast it. The media would get it first, and congress would spend a year thinking about it and screwing around with committees and boards and lobby-jiggers and would be too late to do anything about it.

A voice came on: if this was a real test, and all that. Ha, Jack thought. Told ya. The last to know.

Shut up, another voice said. Read your sports crap.

Jack had just finished this particular line of inner-banter when a commercial, the one with Mark Lenard telling you to taste a whole new feeling of clean, was interrupted by Tom Brokaw.

2

"We interrupt this program for a special news bulletin from NBC news," the TV said. Jack put down his paper again. Oh, shit, He thought. We're bombing someone again.

Tom Brokaw's perfected plastic face appeared against a backdrop of TV monitors and various office-scum. "Good evening. We have a special item of news that is of major and immediate importance to every citizen in America. We will allow a bit of time so that everyone in reach of a television or a radio can tune in now."

Jack started to call his wife, but she was already in the doorway. "Look at this," he said.

"I heard," she answered softly.

Jack waved her over, and she sat on the couch beside him. Close beside him, he noted. He put an arm around her, and they listened.

"Of course," Tom continued. "A broadcast of similar content will be made on every public channel in the next half-hour. You will get the news first-hand. We recommend that every person who has a neighbor who they think might not be listening or might not have access to a radio or television inform them of this news and/or ask them to tune in. Once again, this announcement is of extreme importance."

Jack looked at his wife. "You ever heard anything like that before?"

"No," she shook her head. "Never."

The broadcast continued.

"Are we ready?" Tom asked someone off-camera. He was handed a sheet of paper. He looked up. "You are hearing this as I am."

Tom Brokaw made the following statement with complete control and style. Jack considered it to be a tribute to the man's professionalism and polished image. Jack did not believe he could have done it so well.

"This statement comes directly from the executive office: 'To be read without censor or edit,' and we assure you that is is as such. I quote:

"'An atmospheric disturbance of immense proportions has been tracked with visual records by several scientific stations in the central Alaskan area. The nature of this disturbance will be revealed later in this statement, but for informative purposes, we will give a small background.

"'At Seven Fourty-five p.m. last night, a scientific team stationed just north of Nome, Alaska reported seeing something which looked like nothing they had seen before. Doctor Reynold Thompson, director of the facility at Nome, made this observation over secured frequency radio: "It looks like the sun is coming up again, but it's from the north, not the east. It looks like a large white aura above the mountains, as if somebody ran a detonation test. And.. [to a colleague] Charlie, is it- yes, it's getting brighter. By the minute, the light is growing more intense. And I can feel it getting hotter in here.. Yes, it's getting hotter. The sun is coming up in the north, base, the sun is.. coming up."

"'Fourty minutes later, the last transmission was made from the base before the disturbance hit them. There is no person in or around Nome that has answered a call since then. The last transmission is too graphic to relay here, but before Doctor Thompson was cut off, he reported seeing what looked like a wall of fire about to envelope his station. Three Air Force crafts have attempted to land near Nome, and all have turned up missing.

"'Similar transmissions and reports have been received from several other stations and small towns. The reports are distinct in all ways. This conclusion can be drawn: that there is an atmospheric disturbance working its way south, east and west into west-central Canada, southern Alaska and the Pacific ocean. Nothing that has been assaulted by this disturbance has survived. The cause of this disturbance is unknown at this time, but, even now, aircraft have been sent in behind the front to investigate.

"'At this time, rapid evacuation of all populated areas in the immediate path of the disturbance is taking place, and all efforts to combat the disturbance are being considered. The United States government is working closely with the Canadian government to assess this situation. We ask that all citizens stay tuned to the most convenient TV or radio for further information as it develops. Further statements will be issued accordingly.' Signed, The Office of the President of the United States."

3

It took a moment for the newscaster to recover from his own realizations before he could summarize the statement in simpler terms. A minute later, he had transferred the microphone over to a resident political analyst, who discussed possibilities and reprocussions.

Jack looked over at his wife. He then realized that he had been ignoring her proddings for some time, for she had a slightly annoyed look of expectation ready to hurl at him.

"Jack, are you listening?"

"Uh," Jack said. "Yeah." He sat up and faced her. "Yeah, I'm listening."

"What are they talking about?" she asked. "Is it what I'm thinking?"

"I think so," Jack said after slight hesitation. "You think it's a military screw-up or something?"

Karen MacGregor shrugged, and stood up. She walked toward the kitchen. "Who knows? With the morons in those offices, anything's possible."

"Hey, where are you going?" Jack asked.

"I think something's burning," she said, and dissappeared around the corner.

"But Alaska's blowing up." Jack threw up his arms in exaggerated frustration. "The only thing you can think about is the roast?"

Karen peeked around the corner. "With this oven, the whole goddamn house could go up." She retreated again into the kitchen. "Fuck Alaska!"

Jack snorted. One of the many things they shared was a dislike and general distrust for all things bureaucratic. The news was a convenient way to express their feelings, if only just to each other, about various political happenings. Talking to the politicians on the tube never got anything accomplished in the real world, but it did satisfy the need to complain. Neither one had ever considered a short letter to a congressman, for Karen believed that they all ended up in the trash anyway.

Jack soon grew tiresome of Tom Brokaw, and flipped through the channels. Every network was reporting the top story, and several cable channels had opted to broadcast CNN, for your informative purposes, of course.

Bits of reports came as he pushed the channel buttons: "the storm is reportedly made of pure fire... Anchorage is expected to receive the storm within three hours... the Canadian government has sent in several combat squadrons, but none has been successful..."

The speculation was never-ending, and the interviewing of specialists and scientists came to no profitable avail. Nevertheless, one refreshingly blunt scientist who held a strong resemblance to George C. Scott caught Jack's ear as he went by:

"I have absolutely no doubt," he was saying. "that every conceivable method to combat this disturbance will fail. There has not been a disturbance like this in history. Therefore, it must be man-made. And man has been known to start fires he could not put out." The man paused for effect, and the whole newsroom seemed silent. "Well, this one is a very big fire, indeed."

Karen called from the kitchen. "Dinner is served, as it is!"

Jack answered back, and turned off the TV. He walked into the dining room, where Karen had placed a conservative but eloquent setting. He sat down.

"So," Jack said, carving a slice of beef. "What do you think about all that?"

Karen sighed. "It's the end of the world, no doubt."

Jack laughed.

"But someone will fix it in time. Someone always does."

Jack agreed, and served her a slice. And then, as only civilized man can do, all thoughts of importance were pushed to the back of their minds, and small talk and daily matters replaced them. Jack and Karen MacGregor enjoyed their last home-cooked meal in false security, but enjoyed it nonetheless.

The roast was perfect, and the night was better.

CHAPTER TWO: ALASKAN SUMMER COMES EARLY

4

The shadows on the nylon walls of Stephen Gregory's tent danced around like multicoloured lights in a danceclub. He realized that he had been watching them for some time, but had only now taken real notice of them. He sat up in his sleeping bag, and frowned. What the hell could be causing lights like that, he thought.

"Jim?" Stephen called out to the next tent. There was no reply.

"Jim!" he repeated, and this time got a groan and muffled shuffling of fabric. "Wake up, you asshole!"

Jimmy Grovers opened his eyes and saw what appeared to be a lazer light show on the wall of his tent. At first, he had mistaken the wall for his big screen television, which he had more than once come awake before after a sustained drinking session.

"Steve?"

"Do you see this shit, Jim?"

Jim blinked, and wiped his eyes more than once. "Yeah." He blinked again. "Yeah! What is it?"

"I don't know!"

Steven Gregory pulled up the protective covering and the zipper. He looked outside.

The snow had fallen heavily the day before, and had covered the ground with fresh powder. The tall treeline was reduced to a dark barrier under the moonless sky, but the tops of the pines were illuminated with a ghostly aura. The sky, which was, by all accounts, still supposed to be dark, pulsated and blurred with faint red and orange colours.

Steven would have known about a freak aurora, and ones which passed his scrupulous eye were rare. He had been mystified as a child, camping out with his father in the middle-Alaskan woods, by the patterns of green and white which frequented the skies of northern latitude lands. Steven had even seen St. Elmo's Fire once, and it didn't look like this.

A voice from the other tent startled him out of his private musings.

"Steve?" It was quiet, and very childlike. "What's going on?"

Steve narrowed his eyes. The light was growing brighter. "I don't know, man." he said, and then he suddenly wanted to know. He dressed quickly, and made his way to the Jeep. He opened the door, already unlocked to prevent freezing shut, and switched on the radio.

Scanning the dial for long-range chit-chat, he found only static, and a persistent high-piched modulating squelch. He turned back to see his friend approach in minimal wear through the powder.

"The hell is that?" Jim asked.

"Atmospheric disturbance," Steven answered. "Mabe aurora. Mabe whatever that is." He nodded his head toward the north.

Jim looked up. He had only visited his friend a few times, and had seen the northern lights twice. But the lights which came from the faraway sky seemed distinctly unnatural to him. Jim didn't like those lights at all.

"Please answer my call, Loghead," Steven was saying. "Loghead Patrol, this is Steven Gregory near Itachi pass. Please respond on channel eleven."

There was no response from any channel. Mabe it was the disturbance. Mabe it was those lights.

Steven sighed.

"Mabe we should go back to the lodge," Jim suggested hopefully.

Steven pursed his lips, then stretched and shivered. "Mmmm," he said. "Let's wait a bit. Mabe they'll go away." He shut the Jeep's door and shuffled off toward the dimly lit tents.

Jimmy Grovers looked at his friend. After a moment, he shrugged, and followed him back to the campsite.

5

"Shit," Steven said. He sucked air through his teeth. "It's getting brighter."

Jim stood, and joined his friend. "I think so," he said.

"It's gotta be a forest fire," Steven said, gazing at the orange glow. "That has to be what it is."

"Well," Jim said. "At any rate, we should probably get back to the lodge. If only just to see what they know."

"Yeah," Steven said. He had rarely struck camp before the planned time on any campout, even in the face of particlarly unfavorable weather. But, he had a strange feeling about the glow. Something in his head was yelling at him. He just couldn't quite hear what it was saying. Mabe it was an ancient and forgotten hidden sense from the past. Or mabe it was just too much fresh air. Lord knew, that old stuff got to him after a while.

"Let's take down the tents," Steven said.

Twenty minutes later, the glow was brighter.

"It has to be a fire," Jim said as he tossed the last of their equipment into the rear of the Wrangler. "Nothing else could be that bright."

"It better be," Steven said. He climbed into the driver's seat. "If it isn't, I'd hate to venture a guess."

Jim shut the passenger side door. "Why's that?"

The car started easily, and Steven worked the gearshift a bit. "If it isn't a fire, what else could it be?" he said, and opened his eyes wide. He wriggled his fingers at Jim. "Ooooweeeeeooooh!" he raised his voice in the traditional spooky-movie sound effect.

"Oh, shit," Jim said. "You're an asshole."

Steven laughed. He put the Jeep in gear, and pulled off slowly down the hill.

Fourty minutes later, they pulled up at the Loghead Lodge. Steven turned the Jeep off, and looked up at the three story log structure. It seemed that he was frowning a lot lately, and he took no particular pleasure in doing it yet again.

"Jim," he said.

"Yah."

"Notice something wierd?"

Jim scrunched his face up. "Noooo," he said.

"What time is it?" Steven asked.

"It's, uh," Jim rolled up his thick coat sleeve. "Three twenty-five."

"Why are all the lights on?" Steve asked.

They stepped out. It seemed like not a single lamp in the Loghead Lodge was not on.

Steven Gregory and Jimmy Grovers looked at each other. A moment passed of complete silence.

"Let's see what's going on."

6

Jim stood, holding the lobby door open, and taking in the night. He took a deep breath and panned his head back and forth. The forest and snow had taken on a dim orange tint. He could see his reflection in the nearest car's windshield.

He stood for a while, breathing in the air. It smelled now faintly of burning wood. Forest fire, he thought. It has to be. "Jim?" A call from inside. "Where the fuck are you?"

Jim paused, and took a last deep breath. He stepped inside the lobby, and was blinded by the many lamps.

"Jim! There's no one here."

Jim stared at his friend blankly. "No one?"

7

"I can't find a single person here," Steven said.

"Then why are all the goddamn lights on?"

"I don't know, dammit!"

Steven sighed. "Shit. I'm sorry. This is wierd."

"Yep," Jim answered shortly. "But it can't be this wierd. Let's try to find someone."

"Alright," Steven said. He watched Jim walk down the nearest hallway, trying some doors. "Alright."

The first floor appeared to be deserted. As far as they could tell, they had knocked on every door that was locked, and looked over every room that wasn't. There were many personal articles left in some of the unlocked rooms.

"There was someone here," Jim said. "Look at all this." He held up a couple watches and a wallet.

"Hmm," Steven said. "Mabe they had to leave quickly."

"If they had to leave so fast, then why are we hanging around?"

"Let's check the second floor."

Searching the remaining two floors came to no appreciable avail. More doors were unlocked, more items were left, many of them valuable.

"Where could they be?" Jim asked. He looked around the lobby. He noticed by chance a cheap portrait of someone who looked like Nostradamus hanging above the check-in counter.

"They all left quickly," Steven said. "Quickly enough to forget about their money and their jewelry. Not many things could do that."

Steven walked behind the check-in counter and opened the cash register. Fitting the general logic about the lodge, it was full of bills. Frustrated, he hit his fist on the desk. He didn't hear the startled voice until he convinced himself that he had heard it.

"Did you hear that?" Steven asked quietly.

Jim nodded. He looked at a door under the staircase. "Over there."

Steven walked carefully over to the door. He made almost no noise as his boots scruffed the carpet. He carefully tried the doorknob, turning it slowly.

"It's locked," said a voice, and they both jumped through the roof.

8

Jim leaned against the check-in desk, catching his heart. After a few breaths, he was able to manage a few words of inquisition.

"Who the hell are you?" He asked the man.

"Who the hell are you?" the man asked.

Jim studied the man. He wore a bulky yellow-brown jacket with a fuzzy hood and sported a disgusting lime-green wool hat. He was perceptibly pushing the retirement years, and his face showed more than age. His features were in a twist of assertive confidence, but the underlying stress and knowledge of things extraordinary painted onto his face like a Rembrandt.

Stephen spoke up.

"We were looking for a phone," he said.

"Don't work," the man stated in a fast clip. He worked his jaw like he was chewing tobacco. "They're all out. Interference."

"From what?" Jim asked.

The man breathed loudly through his nostrils.

"From the fire?" Stephen prompted.

The man looked at Stephen, his face thinning, his eyes wide. He said nothing.

"Look," Stephen said. "We just want to find out what it is. We were camping up in the Itachi Hills, and we saw a light."

The man tensed, and all at once Stephen noticed that a double-barrel shotgun hung from the man's left hand. It raised a bit, making itself noticeable.

Stephen let his tone become less threatening. "We just want to know what it is."

The man let the gun down a bit. He looked both visitors in the eyes in turn. Then he spoke, and the words did sound like a cheap movie, but they weren't so amusing in real life.

"It's the end of the world," he said.

9

The room was silent, and the brilliance of the lights could not warm the palatable mood that had encompassed the place like a cloud of dense gas. Or, an aurora.

"What?" Jim asked.

The word was spoken loudly, and should have echoed in a room such as this. But the words halted in the air just short of the wooden walls, and ended without fanfare. It was impossibly still in the Loghead Lodge, and the blood flowed loudly in Stephen's ears.

"The fire's coming," the man said. "And it's gonna eat up everything it wants to. Including this lodge."

"But I haven't heard any fire trucks or anything," Jim said.

"Yeah," the man said. "And you won't. Nothing's gonna stop this fire."

"How do you know that?" Stephen asked.

"I saw it on the television. It's a wall of fire as high as the moon." The man's voice had a singsong tone to it now, as if he were telling an old tale around the campfire. "And it's gonna eat up all the Earth. We're all dead."

Stephen and Jim met each other's eyes, and more than a bit of skepticism was noted. Mabe this old man was just ranting. Or mabe he wasn't. But he had a shotgun, and the man with the gun is always right.

"A what?" Stephen asked. "A wall of fire?"

The man smiled, and his eyes drew into slits. "They called it an 'atmospheric disturbance.'" He tittered.

"From what? What started it?"

The man's cold smile was widening. "Who knows. They said they didn't know what it was. Mabe it was a big plant blowin' up, or one of those frickin' reactors that they got now. Or mabe it was some secret government experiment."

Jim snorted. He started toward the phone on the desk. "Right. Well, I'm calling the police."

"I ain't fuckin' around, boy," the man said, with an edge that made Jim turn to face him. His shotgun was pointing at Jim's chest.

"Hey," Stephen stuttered. "Cool it down, man."

"Both of you," the man said. "Take your asses out of here, now, before the fire takes out this whole lodge. I ain't kiddin' around. I can hear it burnin'."

Stephen froze. The room was still ever quiet, but now there was a new, quiet sound in the distance, surely at the limits of human hearing. And it did sound like crackling firewood.

"LEAVE," the man shouted.

"Jim," Stephen said. "Let's get the hell out of here."

Stephen started backing up toward the doors. The shotgun aimed at him. Then, it aimed at Jim. At him again, and while it was there, he saw a quick movement in his periphery.

Jim lunged toward the man, and the shotgun fired. Stephen located the shell hole in the ceiling a bit later, and tried to imagine a similar hole in his chest. He had no doubt that the man was going to shoot to kill if things went wrong.

Jim grabbed the gun with both hands, and lifted the butt into the man's head with sudden force. The man fell back. Jim readied the gun for another shot, and took aim.

Stephen said, "Don't shoot him, Jim!"

"I'm not gonna shoot him," Jim said, as if that were the dumbest thing in the world to do at that moment.

"He's gonna tell us where everybody's hiding."

10

When a man places all hope in one thing, and that thing is taken away, a man is helpless, and ready for anything. The old man lay on the floor, trying to sink into the carpet. His hands were pulled near his head, and they were shaking quite visibly.

Sure, the tables had been turned on this guy, but Stephen could very clearly remember his oversight earlier concerning the shotgun. He might not have seen the danger until it was too late. Things must really be getting to me, Stephen thought. I've never been like this before.

"Now where is everyone?" Jim demanded.

"There ain't no others!" the man half-yelled. "They all left for town!"

Jim sniffed. "Oh, yeah? Then why didn't you go?"

"It's my place! I ain't gonna leave it to get burnt up!"

"Bullshit!" Jim cocked the barrel.

The old man stuttered. He was shaking violently.

"Jesus Christ, Jim," Stephen said plaintively. "He's gonna have a heart attack or something."

"I don't give a fuck what he has." Jim glared at Stephen, and Stephen saw a lot in that look, any one of which could have been deadly to cross. "As long as he opens that door."

"What-what-what door??" The man glanced nervously at the small door under the stairs.

"That one!" Jim yelled. "Open it, unless you want me to shoot it out, and I don't want to hit anybody by accident."

The man shook himself to his feet, and spent several seconds fitting the key into the lock. The door opened, and Jim followed.

Stephen glanced at the massive viewing windows, and saw a dim orange glow amongst the timber. Just in time, he thought. Oh, god, please let me get through this.

The three stepped through the small door, and unlatched two more a bit down the narrow hallway. The last one thuumped shut with a sealing sound. It sounded like a coffin being closed.

CHAPTER THREE: THE SOUND OF BURNING PINE

11

Martin Hampstead had noticed a sharp increase in the incidents of shoplifting that had occured in the last three days at his store. He had no doubt as to the reason behind this mild criminal conspiracy. The reason why people were just taking whatever they needed off the shelves and into various trunks, back seats and truck beds was not as a result of indignant disrespect for some aspect of government, but directly because of it. The people of Anchorage, Alaska, had collectively come to the conclusion, despite media propaganda to the contrary, that no one but their own sacred and benevolent government could have concocted such a disasterous effect as the one which threatened to destroy their city, and then perhaps the world.

A family of four made their way toward the checkout counter, each pushing a full shopping cart of non-perishable foodstuffs and supplies. The older man, which Martin presumed to be the head of the family's soon-to-be-ashes household, spoke to Martin.

"How much for all this?" he asked in a hurried tone, pulling out his wallet.

Martin had decided that morning what the answer was going to be for each and every one of those questions, and he promised himself that he would stick to it until his store was either cleaned out, or burned out.

"Nothing, man." Martin said. "Go ahead."

The father, who looked like he was half-expecting such an answer in the first place, nevertheless verified that he was actually hearing it, for who would have expected such uncompromising generosity from a businessman, even in these trying times?

"You mean-" the father started.

"I mean," Martin said. "Take it. If the fire comes here, it'll be gone anyway." And the unspoken conclusion to that line of reasoning was clear to both of them: that if the fire just kept going, the United States dollar would become valueless, as each inhabitant would in turn. Martin chose not to voice this, in respect for the two young children who stared up at Martin with vaguely worried but mostly shocked faces.

Young enough to remain ignorant of the far future, Martin thought, but old enough to sense the immediate crisis. Undoubtedly, their world, as with every other child in Anchorage, was being rudely stripped from them, and the world of uncertainty replaced it. Martin didn't consider it a fair trade-off at all.

The father nodded slowly, hesitantly. As he helped his family out of Martin's store, Martin returned to his tiny five-inch television. The news was on all the time now, but Martin had stopped believing it after the first day of The Burn. That's what people were calling it, The Burn, with a capital B. Martin thought it definitely deserved to be designated as a proper noun. It certainly was a proper disaster.

There were a few other shoppers in the store, but they moved with a speed somewhere between hurried panic and mild urgency. The news had given the storm another three days to reach the city, so people were evacuating at a respondent pace. Martin planned to stay until the last day, to help other people stock up for travel. And then, he might go. Or, he might not. Martin saw no positive gains to be made by prolonging the inevitable. And that's what he saw this fire storm as: inevitable. Perhaps that old prophet had been right about the end-of-the-millennium apocalypse. But, it would not come from nuclear consumption and global winter. One science lab experiment gone awry would do the trick quite nicely.

More customers came to the checkout counter, and Martin waved them through. They protested, and pulled out wallets, but he assured them that he wouldn't be able to salvage his inventory in time anyway, so they might as well take it. The customers left the store with blank features. Martin had never seen such widespread dispair before, and he reckoned that this was just the beginning. From this, there would be far worse. Martin Hampstead did not want to live to see it.

12

Martin shut all the lights off, and closed the door. He stepped outside his small grocery, and pulled his hood tighter. The wind was pretty bad tonight, and it was from the north. From the fire.

Martin breathed in the clear air, and thought he smelled burning wood. Not the wood that had been treated and marketed for homes in the city, but living leaf and bark that would continue to be consumed through the night. His usually bright features were sagged in emotionless age, and he walked slowly down the walk towards his street. If he would have seen the faces of his customers utterly echoed in his own at that moment, he thought he probably would have found the nearest high precipice, and found his arms did make good wings. Martin thought that his parka would have made a decent parachute-- for a while.

As it was, Martin found his way. A single lamp illuminated his small apartment, and did its best to welcome him home. He threw off his jacket and fell on the couch. Closing his eyes, he fell asleep in minutes. He didn't wake until the next morning. The Fire Front was fourteen hours away.

13

Martin awoke to blaring, insistent car horns and yelling. He stretched out and sat up. Twisting his neck from side to side, he slowly worked out the cramps. He sighed, and decided that he was hungry. He was about to answer his stomach's call when more yelling outside drew him to the window.

There was a traffic jam outside Martin Hampstead's window. Several drivers were yelling at cars up ahead, and most cars' horns were busy wearing themselves out. It seemed panic had finally set its formidable hands about the city, and therefore most of the inhabitants were doomed.

Martin turned on his television. He wasn't too surprised to find that the fire storm was here sooner than expected. It had been sighted on the horizon in the mid-morning darkness, and was expected to reach the city in ten hours. The Burn was travelling at twenty miles an hour.

Martin was surprised that the people had not gone crazy earlier, but he assumed that the people had just been stunned, and disbelieving, in reaction to the news. People didn't evacuate immediately because they couldn't believe what their television was telling them. After watching countless disasters and mayhem on the national news and in movies and made-for-TV productions, it was indeed difficult to believe that the disaster that everyone on the planet was watching was yours, and that all eyes were on you. With that realization must have come an unconscious responsibility to hold up the standards of news media that had been set by the reporters countless times. The thought of being interviewed on an international news program, red-eyed from crying and the sound of insanity in people's voices, must have kept the people in check. Because, when you're on the news, you have to perform. Or else, the viewers lose interest. In the news world, if your ratings go down, you die. Mabe it was the same in real life.

The people had finally awaken from their limelight-induced slumber to find that everything that they held necessary was being ripped from under their feet. And, finally, the people realised the futility of their desperate positions, and started to move. But Martin thought that because of Anchorage's delayed reaction, most of the people would not make it out. After all, there wasn't exactly a six-laned superhighway to ferry everyone to safety. People were going to die, simply because society wouldn't let them go fast enough. Martin found this saddening, but refused to dwell on it.

There are room for heroes in this world, Martin thought. But this war is going to use up a lot of them.

Martin paused. He had named this situation as a war. And it was a war. But this time, man was fighting the most dangerous foe he had ever known. If man was truly the expert on anything, it had to be the art of self-decimation. And this cure-all was the world bummer.

Martin closed his curtains and walked into the kitchen. Whatever happened in the next few minutes outside did not matter at that moment. The great call of the hungry stomach was pressing. And he had no intention of dying hungry.

At three o'clock, the city was dark again, and the television had gone out. Evidently, the technicians had finally realised that their lives were more important than reporting the news, and had abandoned the station. After all, you couldn't report the news if you were dead.

Martin figured that everyone who had tried to leave anytime after noon would die in their cars, trapped in the slow jam. He thought that that was an ironic and pitiful way to die, fleeing from your enemy, your useless protests utterly ignored by the inferno.

The power had not gone out yet. Martin assumed that the power generators could operate for a few hours unattended, giving light to the people who had stayed until the fire was completely on them. Martin was glad about this in the end, for he would have had more time to consider his situation if the lights had been out. For, a red-orange glow began to invade his living room, shining through the curtains.

Martin threw the outside door aside, and switched the porch light off. The fire front was there. It looked like the earth was being rapidly devoured by a terror that looked somewhat like hell.

14

It smelled like burning air. Martin found that sensual experience to be the most fearful one in his life. He hoped that he would not smell it again. And he never would, after this.

His skin was tingling with electric-static charges, arm, chest and scalp hair standing on end. In the far distance, a wave of churning incineration was working its way toward him. The wall extended upward into the sky, obscuring half the stars. The bottom of the wall swallowed each landmark on the hillside like lava coating a field. The top of the wall just faded into space, the orange light slowly decaying into the atmosphere.

Martin then had the only second-thoughts about his decision to stay that he was to have. But then any logical reasoning he tried to follow became secondary to the extraordinary sight before him, and died where it started.

Martin was indeed mesmerised. He stood on the porch for the remainder of the show, unmoving, eyes blinking only when they dried and started burning. Martin could feel the heat from the wall already, although the wall must be still at least ten miles away. The Burn was closer now, the flames advancing into the valley. He could see each tree flame up in an instant cloud of heat as the wall closed in.

Martin closed his eyes. He half-smiled. Slowly, he sat into his chair near the cabin wall, and observed now from a relaxed, peaceful position. His face was utterly calm, his acceptance of what was surely to be enveloping him in serenity.

The Burn was an abstract layer of color, even this close, a consistent layer of orange. Then, in the last ten seconds, Martin could see the churning patterns and smooth swirls of flame reaching out for him. In the last seconds, Martin's face again showed fear, as the realization of impending doom finally set in, and then, a millisecond later, he was gone.