Page 47 of A Wilderness Within

“Get the engine started!” he bellowed. Caroline got in the passenger side and started the ignition. Lincoln threw himself in the driver’s seat, and they shot out of the parking lot into the streets. Ellie started screaming in distress.

“Lincoln…” Caroline turned around in her seat, watching the houses and businesses half a mile down the road being devoured by the flames. It was a sea of fiery horror behind them.

“I know, I know,” Lincoln hissed as he swerved around dead cars on the road. The wildfire raced behind them like a gathering storm. Caroline was torn between trying to keep her eyes on the flames and the now darkened streets as smoke suffocated the last of the sunlight. The car jolted to a stop as they hit a deadlock of cars blocking a tunnel.

“Goddammit!” Lincoln shouted and slammed his hands on the steering wheel. Kirby barked and then whined.

Caroline placed a hand on his arm. “Breathe, Lincoln.” She had no idea how she was calm in that moment, but something inside her told her that they couldn’t die today, not after everything they’d been through.

“This is not where it ends, or how it ends.” She nodded at a side street to the left. It looked wooded, which wasn’t good, but it had no sign of cars. Lincoln swerved the wheel over, and they shot down the forested road, bumping over cracked asphalt. The fire was ever closer, pacing its cage like a tiger, seconds from breaking free. Caroline tried not to think about what would happen if the road they were on curved back straight into the blaze.

The fire started to catch up with them, catching trees along the road on either side. Thick smoke began to cloak the roadway, and Caroline was terrified they would crash into something. But they couldn’t afford to slow down. The acrid smell of the wildfire seeped inside the car, and Caroline grabbed a spare coat to cover some of the vents, but she couldn’t reach them all.

Orange embers began to shower down like glowing raindrops as the branches above them caught fire and the dry dead limbs turned to fiery dust. The street ahead was now invisible. The smoke was thicker than fog but lit with a dull glowing orange like hot coals in a blackened fireplace. The world outside seemed full of a heavy roar.

Caroline put a hand on Lincoln’s arm, and their gazes locked for half a second.

“I love you.”

“I know,” he growled and slammed his foot on the gas, and they drove into the murky road ahead.

Lincoln was sure they were dead. But then the skies cleared, and there was an open road free of cars and fires. They shot across a bridge, and a wide, fast-moving river flowed far below them. He lifted his gaze to the rearview mirror and saw the fire and smoke growing more distant by the second.

What the…?

He jolted out of shock and checked on Caroline in the passenger seat. Her eyes were closed, and she was whispering a prayer, one hand still gripping his arm. Checking the plastic mirror attached to the headrest of the backseat which reflected against the car seat, he saw Ellie was sitting wide-eyed in her car seat, her little pink cheeks covered with tears. Kirby was panting, his head darting all around the cabin. The two chickens stirred but made no other sounds.

“Jesus…we made it.” He stretched his hands along the steering wheel and felt each of his knuckles crack from the tension.

“Honey, it’s okay. Open your eyes.”

Caroline slowly looked around in shock and then turned halfway in her seat to look through the back of the car window at the inferno far behind them. “How…?”

“A river—we crossed a fucking river.” Lincoln let out a pent-up breath, his lungs itchy from the smoke.

“A river,” Caroline echoed and then buried her face in her hands. Lincoln wanted to pull the car over and hold her in his arms, but there wasn’t time. They had to keep driving. If the embers crossed the river and started a new blaze, they could still be in trouble. They had to keep going. He’d drive all damn night to keep his unit safe. He closed his eyes half a second, hearing Adam’s voice in his head.

“You always need a unit, Lincoln. A family to protect. Never let go of that instinct.”

He hadn’t. Having had a dick of a father and few friends in the town he grew up in, he’d come into the army unsure what it meant to be a part of something bigger than oneself. Once he’d discovered that higher purpose, he’d known he would be in a unit for the rest of his life. When Adam had fallen ill in the bunker, Lincoln had felt his world ending. The last life he had been trusted to protect had been ended by his own hand.

Now he and Caroline, Ellie, Kirby, and hell, even the chickens fell under his protection. They were his unit now.

“Caroline.” He placed a hand on her thigh, giving it a gentle squeeze. She dropped her hands and wiped her eyes. She checked on Ellie again before she looked his way.

“I’m okay,” she said, her face getting some of its color back.

Lincoln focused on the road again and then said the words back to her that she deserved to hear.

“I love you too.” He cleared his throat and kept his eyes on the road.

He’d never said that to anyone except his mother. He’d been around, but always kept things casual. That had been how he’d lived. But there was nothing casual with Caroline. She was making him break every rule he’d created to survive.

Neither of them spoke for a long while as they drove through the fields and forests of Missouri and entered Tennessee. They passed through small towns, stopping for food, supplies, and gas. By nightfall there were no motels in sight, but Lincoln saw a sign, and he knew Caroline was going to love his choice of improvisation. She was asleep as they stopped in front of the building. When he woke her and she opened her eyes, she grinned in delight.

“A library!”

He nodded. “It’s as good a place as any to settle down without a hotel nearby.”

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