Envenonmate

11

The hornets' blitz seemed to go on forever. Sour venom and pungent smoke mixed and disconnected Shelly thoughts, stupefying her. The ripping buzz became a somnolent background noise.

Then she was coughing. Smoke had caught in her throat, choking her, forcing coughs that sucked in more smoke. The stimuli stirred her mind, joined her thoughts and logic again, brought her back aware. Her eyes watered and her nose ran. Her lungs became desperate for fresh air but she knew the thick smoke, while awful for her, would drive off the hornets if she could just endure it.

Her throat burned for air. Spots began to dance behind her tightly shut eyes. Her hands trembled to tear away her hood so she clutched them into fists.

The hornets departed just as she was on the point of suffocation. Shelly counted to three to make sure, then rolled onto her right side, pulled the eye-slit down to free her nose and took a deep breath that ending in wracking coughs. The air scorched the back of her throat, but it was better than stifling to death.

Heat and orange light jumped up on the left-side trail. Shelly fixed back the eyeslit to have a look. The hillside had become a low blazing wall of climbing flame. Shelly realized she was at risk of not just asphyxiation, but plain burning to death. The hornets were flying in the watery, heat-shimmered air, or had retreated to the further nests. A few of the closer nests were going to cook soon. The smoke poured off in curdled waves.

Nice, Shelly thought dizzily. Now get the hell out of here.

She sat up and her head went right into the flowing smoke. She lay back down at once, coughing. The air near the ground was better. She had no choice. She'd have to stay low and crawl out.

Shelly rolled over and wormed a u-turn. Her right foot dragged and every little vibration jarred the bones of her broken shin right up to her knee. She worked her way along then stopped, hearing one odd flaring noise, then another.

The flames had reached the grotesque balloon nests on the hickory. Shelly smiled tiredly under her hood. The hornets were circling above the tree in a loose, disorganized way. She dropped her eyes.

The thyme had not just burned up the trail, but lengthways too. Flames were caressing the old dead tree. Ominous cracks exploded from it and the trunk tipped forward a few inches.

It would trap her here if it fell.

She began to pull herself forward at once, aided by dragged kicks from her left leg. Smoke burned her throat. She kept bobbing her head up to check the dead burning tree. A rising curtain of flame began rippling from it and her scrabbling crawls were so damned slow. Knowing her luck, it would fall right on her, break her back and burn her alive.

Move, move, move!

Over and over Shelly grabbed the ground, wrested herself forward, scrabbling frantic kicks with her left leg. Her right leg dragged and jagged, long needles of pain flashing in the bone.

The dead tree cracked loudly and leaned to forty-five degrees. Heat washed over the path, seeping through the winter coat. Shelly scrambled forward harder, tears of pain running down her face. Now next to the tree, hot embers falling on her fingers, burning tiny black flecks, frantic clambering—and then clear.

Final crackling punchy sounds ended in a hot whumpf and heat flooded over her, baking her legs, sneaking up her coat so that it felt her lower back had been exposed to summer sun. Embers floated ahead and landed on the low brush.

She'd made it. Shelly dropped her head on a gloved hand and groaned. The sweat-drenched hood lining was suffocating. She wedged a gloved finger into the opening for her eyes and tugged it wider and down to her nose again. She took a tentative inhale of smoky air, singed her throat and nasal passages and coughed hard. She coughed up ashy sputum and spat.

Shelly leveled her eye-slits and crawled on, head up, dragging the ground towards her eight inches at a time. Her shoulders and back muscles throbbed and wanted to spasm and lock up, but now the wind had lifted and if she stopped, she'd be surrounded by fire. She eyed all the trail-side trees and branches that could fall. Almost sobbing, she pushed on and slowly, slowly, she left the inferno behind, gasping, stopping to cough out mucus, eyes stinging, the world a view through a runny window.

She intended to crawl until she was either on the road, or lost consciousness, but when she arrived to the natural step where her crutches lay like broken bones themselves, Shelly's strength failed her. She sagged. The woods were smoky, she craved water with every thudding beat in her temples and she was surprised her hot body wasn't cooking the jacket's sweat-soaked lining into steam.

Christ, she didn't care, she couldn't take it. Shelly flung back the hood and sucked wind. She managed to pinch the zipper with the gloves and yanked it down. Her face, neck and upper chest welcomed the cooler air. Her chest hitched with each ash-dry breath, but the worst of the torture was gone. She could appreciate what she'd done. The air wasn't merely smoky—it was pungent with thyme. She imagined the dead tree would have spanned the trail when it fell and ignited the thyme on the downhill slope. Good. The more the merrier.

The hornets would either be dead, drugged or irritated. In the first two cases, they were no threat. In the third, they'd likely be in the airborne and plain to see. She'd increased her dad's chances of living.

And that of anyone else coming in. Hopefully the fire-service gets here before the whole town goes up. There wasn't a whole lot of flying embers yet, but that would come.

She froze.

Three hornets were watching her the other side of the trail. They sat on tree roots just inches from her left crutch and their evil faces studied her. One had a dented wing, two askew legs and a twisted feeler. With a cold heartbeat, Shelly recognized the hornet who had landed on her arm.

The trio zipped towards her exposed face and throat without warning.