Firestorm (4 page)

We all began
shouting for Grandpa and Don as loudly as we could. I knew that
they had to be somewhere ahead of us and we quickly edged our way
along the path on the bank towards the clearing. But when we got to
where we thought they might be, there was no one.

Ali took off
his sunglasses and wiped his face with his hand.

“Okay, let’s
think like an old man. You can’t run up these paths so you walk
slowly, which means we should be able to catch up to them. Would
they be carrying anything or would they leave their things
behind?”

Meagan and I
looked at each other and she raised her eyebrows as she
shrugged.

“Grandpa
wouldn’t leave anything behind. He’s probably lugging his catch,
his tackle case and his duffle bag.”

Brad was
focusing on a little area to the west of us but turned to Ali when
Meagan finished talking.

“Well actually,
there was something that looked like a duffle bag caught under the
boat but I didn’t see any tackle gear or anything. It likely
sank.”

Brad turned
away again and Ali moved in closer to see what he was looking
at.

“Geez, Ali,
it’s so hot out here and I can’t picture two old men moving that
fast in this heat, even though they were probably cooled down a bit
from the water initially.”

“Yeah, I know.
And the heat has dried up any wet marks so we can’t even see where
they came up out of the water. And I assume they came out because
his message said something about a hole in the boat and that’s
likely why his message was short and choppy – they were in a hurry
to get out of it.”

“For sure –
they’d be scrambling to get the heck out of there.”

Ali motioned
for us to follow as he and Brad led the way with Meagan and I right
behind them. The trail was unusually quiet and then suddenly, a
rupture of birds came screeching above us as they flew over and
away from the forest. There were hundreds of them forming a massive
dark cloud above us that made Meagan and I both jump.

“Wow, that
happened this morning, too. Remember, Meg? We were seeing Grandpa
off when the birds did the same thing.”

Meagan looked
up as she yelled over her shoulder.

“And there were
so many animals, too, like deer and ground critters. It was like
they were running for safety or something.”

We continued
along the narrow path and talked about the outburst from the
wildlife as we ran. When we caught up to the guys Meagan moved in
close to Ali while Brad grabbed my hand and we edged closely along
the riverbank.

“I’ve seen that
before, Sarah. Usually means there’s something wrong like a

hunter in the
forest or something. The sound of gunfire scares them enough to
stampede out like that, although I didn’t hear a gun shot.”

As we climbed
the weedy slope, Ali signalled for us to be quiet.

“Listen! Do you
hear that?”

We all froze in
our tracks as our eyes scouted the area in every direction. I
held

my breath and
waited and then I heard it.

“Yeah, I hear
it. It’s whimpering and it’s coming from over there.”

We edged our
way back down towards the riverbank and my insides jumped

when I saw Don
laying facedown with his feet dangling in the water. The guys ran
ahead of us and squatted to speak to him without moving him.

“Don. I’m Ali.
Are you okay? Are you hurt?”

Don began
moaning loudly and then he lifted his head off the ground slightly
to

look at
Ali.

“I’m okay, just
sore. Really sore.”

“Don, can we
move you? We need to move you away from the water.”

“Yeah, don’t
touch my hands. They’re sore.”

Ali and Brad
gently pulled Don forward and then rolled him onto his back. A few
seconds later they helped him to sit up and Don held his hands in
front of him. His face was etched with agony and I felt sorry for
him as he stared at his cut and bloodied hands. I leaned in to him
and tapped his shoulder.

“Don, where’s
Grandpa?”

Don didn’t
answer me. He just kept turning his hands and complaining that they
hurt. I moved in closer to him and sat beside him.

“Don, where’s
my grandfather?”

“They hurt,
that’s what happened.”

The tension was
rising inside me and I had to contain myself from getting angry
with him.

“How did you
hurt them?”

Don lifted his
arm to show us a cut that stretched from his wrist to his elbow and
then shook his head as brought his knees up to his chest.

“Can’t explain
it. The animals went crazy. We finished fishing and Luke drank his
usual gallon of water and had to go, you know. Well, he has to do
it on land so we brought the boat close to the bank and he climbs
out.”

Don’s
methodical words were making my insides churn. He seemed to take
forever to just tell us what happened and I just wanted him to get
to the part where he’d tell us where Grandpa was. Both Meagan and I
were restless and hung on his every word but my impatience grew and
I cut him off.

“Don, where’s
my grandfather?”

Don looked up
at me and shook his head.

“You city kids,
you’re all alike. You have no respect for anyone except yourself.
I’m trying to tell you what happened but you’re rude and don’t even
care that I’m hurt. Look at my hands! They’re bleeding. I’m trying
to tell you what happened. Why won’t you let me talk?”

For a split
second I felt like a child being chastised by an adult for doing
something wrong, and I jerked backward out of reflex as I
instinctively bit my lower lip. But my insides were aching and I
needed to know where Grandpa was. Ali stayed beside me while I
tried to get Don to tell us where Grandpa was or even what
happened. Meagan and Brad wandered around and called out for
Grandpa as they searched the nearby area.

“Look, Don. I’m
sorry if I appear rude. I just want to know where Grandpa is.”

“I’m telling
you where he is. There were two wolves – well, first I had to wait
for him to finish and then when he was walking back to the boat,
two wolves chased him right off the bank.”

My heart fell
to my feet and my hands became clammy.

“What happened?
Did they hurt him?”

“Yup, got his
leg. But he was okay, dove into the water and pushed the boat out
but it hit one of the sharp rocks and made that hole even bigger. I
told him to be careful but he was really scared of those
wolves.”

Ali rubbed
Don’s shoulder as he looked around.

“And that’s
when it sank.”

“Yup, that’s
when she started to sink. Luke was in the water and he grabbed the
walkie-talkie to call for help but it didn’t work and we had to get
out so I dove in after him.”

“Don, where are
the wolves now?”

“The wolves?
Oh, they took off with the rest of the pack. They were all running,
never seen them run like that before. They were scared of something
before they saw us and I think Luke just got in their way. But he
just had to go, couldn’t wait to get home.”

Just then Brad
and Meagan came running back to us and Brad squatted beside
Ali.

“There’s a
blood trail that leads over there. We gotta grab Don and get going
in that direction.”

I saw the
anxiousness in Meagan’s face and my chest pounded with the same
anxiety, but Don’s words were echoing in my ears.

“What about the
wolves? What if they come back? I mean, if Grandpa is bleeding,
won’t they smell the blood and come back?”

Ali turned to
me and raised his eyebrows.

“That’s not
even an issue, Sarah. We have to find your grandfather and we’ll
just have to take it one step at a time. Let’s just get to him
first.”

Brad and Ali
helped Don to his feet and practically carried him up the riverbank
to the ridge above us. There were sporadic drops of blood that we
followed but when we got to the top, they disappeared. The guys
helped Don to sit on a broken tree stump while we searched the area
for more clues.

We spent
several minutes searching every possible nook and cranny where
Grandpa might have gone, but there weren’t even any blood spots to
show that he’d been there. Don began to moan as he looked up at the
descending sunset.

“It’s going to
be dark soon and we don’t have any way back home. We’re going to
have to camp out here for the night.”

His words
echoed in my ears and as I looked at the sky and realized that dusk
really was setting in, I began to ache for Grandpa.

“We have to
keep looking for him and then we’ll camp out together if we have
to, but we have to find him first.”

Just then Brad
yelled from a small cave about fifty feet away. Ali told Meagan and
me to stay with Don while he checked it out, and I didn’t want to
wait. I wanted to go and find Grandpa but I knew he was right. We
couldn’t just leave Don alone, especially when he seemed a bit
insecure, and I knew if we left him that he’d just wonder off and
get lost.

The next few
minutes felt like hours as I watched anxiously in the direction of
the cave. Ali came barrelling back towards us and stopped just
short of running off the riverbank.

“Okay, we’ve
found your Grandfather. He’s in the cave but he’s been bitten and
he’s bleeding bad and we need to get him out of here now.”

Part of me
wanted to shout with joy but the other part wanted to break down
and cry. Ali lifted Don’s good arm and propped him up with his
right shoulder and I did the same to his left shoulder. Meagan
walked ahead of us looking back constantly. A few minutes later we
were at the top and in the cave.

I helped Ali to
sit Don as gently as we could onto the ground so he could lean
against the cave wall, but my eyes were on the back of Meagan. I
scurried over to where she was squatted and as I gazed upon my
grandfather, I felt as if I’d been punched in the chest.

He was awake
and cognisant but he was in pain as his right leg had a huge bite
in it with torn skin and blood was dripping from it. Meagan pulled
the first aid box out of the backpack and poured some rubbing
alcohol over the wound. Grandpa yelped and cursed at the same time
as Brad wrapped his arms around Grandpa’s chest to hold him
still.

For the next
few minutes Meagan and I tried to clean the wound but it was just
too open and gory to do it any good. We wound the gauze tightly
around it to stop the bleeding and keep the skin in place, and then
turned to see what the guys were doing. Ali was digging through his
backpack.

“Okay, Brad,
did you bring your cell? Seems like mine fell out when I dumped my
bag back at the house.”

Brad searched
his backpack and shook his head.

“Same here. But
hey, what about the walkie-talkie?”

Ali asked Don
where the walkie-talkie was and Don flung his hand in the air and
said he threw it in the water.”

“It didn’t work
so why keep it?”

“Well, that’s
great. We can’t call for help and there’s no way we’re going to get
these guys out of here before it gets dark which is like, in
minutes from now. Looks like we’ll be spending the night here.”

Ali sat on a
short boulder beside Meagan and huffed.

“Brad’s right.
We need a boat to get across the river and even if we had one, we
can’t see a thing in the dark, anyway.”

Just then Don
began to whine.

“I don’t want
to stay here. I want to go home.”

Grandpa hadn’t
said anything and was just watching us while he rubbed his wounded
leg. I curled in beside him and he put his arm around me, giving me
a bit of security, but I knew that he was in more pain than he was
letting on. It was as if he read my mind and then squeezed my
arm.

“I’m okay,
Sarah. The one guy got me but I gave them our catch and they took
them and ran off. I was hurt way worse than this in the war.”

I smiled at
Grandpa and then remembered that he’d never met Brad and Ali so I
introduced them and I could tell by the gleam in his eyes that he
liked them.

“Thanks for
coming out here with my girls, fellas. Looks like we’re here for
the night so you might as well make yourself as comfortable as you
can. Nana will be insane by now with worry, but there’s not much we
can do about that right now.”

Poor Nana. I’d
forgotten that she must be sick with worry. But again, Grandpa was
reading my thoughts.

“She’ll be
fine. This isn’t the first time that I got lost out here. We’ve
been through this a few times and she’ll be okay.”

We sat inside
the small cave and made a campfire on the rocky floor in the middle
to keep us warm from the cool damp air that lingered inside the
cave. The smoke went straight up and through an opening above us
and as the sun went down, so did the temperature. Brad and Ali had
gathered a pile of heavy branches and logs to block off the
entrance and keep strange animals out during the night. They found
two short branches that looked almost like baseball bats to use as
a weapon in case we got unwanted guests.

Brad took the
blankets out from his backpack and curled in beside me so that we
were all covered, and Ali squeezed in beside Don with Meagan on his
other side and spread the other blanket over them.

I held on to
Grandpa’s arm but I couldn’t stop shaking. I’m not sure if it was
from the cool night air or from the anxiety of being lost in a
forest we didn’t know, surrounded by wolves that might be lurking
outside the cave, or if it was from knowing that Grandpa was in
pain. The only peace I had was in knowing that Brad was there with
me.

But the goose
bumps crawled slyly up my arms anyway and the shivers kissed the
nape of my neck. I knew that there was something waiting for us up
ahead and that my nightmare was only just beginning.