Chapter 58 Section ten

Hearing the deafening rumble, Decker and Esperanza looked at each other, frowning. "What's that noise?" The windows rattled and the dishes clinked.Decker felt a change in air pressure, like cotton balls in his ears. "Something exploded!" Esperanza said, "like from—" "It's the other side of the street! Gosh, you wouldn't think it was—" Decker rushed to the front door and yanked it open just in time to see Sanchez, who was waiting outside, run into the yard. "It's the house next door!" Sanchez said, pointing anxiously. "That's—"

There was another loud bang, shaking them from side to side.Decker almost fell over from the shock wave of the second explosion. "Beth!" He straightened up and ran past Sanchez through the open gate and down the driveway.The dwarf pines and larches on the right hid Beth's house, and all he could see was black smoke rising into the air and fragments of the explosion cascading down.Decker heard the roar of flames, even though it was a hundred yards away. "Beth!" Decker was vaguely aware of Esperanza and Sanchez following behind him.He couldn't care about the police car or watch the road, he was going to save Beth.He called Beth's name, his throat was about to burst.He took the shortest path and sprinted to the right, across the driveway and into the scrub pines.

"Beth!" The branch cut his arm, and the sand crunched under his feet.Esperanza yelled at him, but Decker could only hear his own rapid breathing.When he made a sharp turn around a tree in front of him, flames mixed with thick smoke loomed in front of him. The bushes disappeared.Decker ran to the waist-high wooden fence, grabbed a post, and jumped over the fence, onto Beth's yard.The wreckage of a house shrouded in flames and smoke loomed before him.The choking smell of burnt wood penetrated his nostrils, scorched his throat and lungs, and made him cough. "Beth!" the flames roared, and Decker could barely hear himself shouting.There were broken adobe bricks everywhere on the ground, and he stumbled as he walked, the smoke piercing him so hard that he couldn't open his eyes.Suddenly a breeze cleared the smoke, and he saw that the house was only partially on fire, and that a corner in the back half of the house, where Beth's bedroom was, had not yet been engulfed in flames.

Esperanza grabbed Decker by the shoulders, trying to hold him back.Decker wrenched his hands free and rushed toward the back of the house.He climbed over a waist-high low wall and across the wreckage-strewn yard to a bedroom window.The window panes had been shattered by the blast, leaving only jagged edges.He found an adobe brick at his feet and smashed the broken glass from the window frame. He was panting with exhaustion.A thick smoke rolled over, and he couldn't help swallowing a few mouthfuls.Fighting to control his cough, he stuck his head through the window and looked around. "Beth!" Esperanza grabbed him again and he broke free again.

"You let me in!" Decker yelled. "Beth needs me!" He climbed in through the window and fell to the ground, his shoulder on the rubble, the smoke surrounding him.He stumbled to the bed, only to find it empty.He coughed harder.Maybe Beth had fallen, he thought, and he got on his stomach and groped his way to the bathroom door, where he bumped against the closed door.He thought Beth must be hiding in the bathroom, and he couldn't help feeling excited.But when he opened the door forcefully, his heart sank again.Before the smoke poured in, he saw that the bathtub and shower cubicle were empty.

His vision blurred.He felt very hot, so he had to retreat from the bedroom door where the flames were flying.At the same time, the raging fire from the ceiling was pressing down on him.He fell to the ground and crawled forward, panting with difficulty.He touched the window, struggled to stand up, stuck his head out of the window, and struggled to get out.Something collapsed behind him, the heat searing his legs.Immediately afterwards, something else broke and fell to the floor.He realized with horror that the beams must have snapped and the roof was about to collapse.The heat scorched his hips.In a panic, he stood up and jumped out of the window, rolling and crawling.

Two big hands grabbed him.Just as the flames rushed out of the window after him, the two huge hands dragged him out of the burning house.It was Esperanza, and he grabbed Decker by the jacket and pulled him off the ground and pushed him across the waist-high low wall. Decker felt light all over.He fell hard on the other side of the wall, rolled on the spot, and hit the root of a dwarf pine.Esperanza jumped beside him.The flames chased and ignited the dwarf pine.Branches snapped and snapped, and the flames shot higher and higher.Esperanza dragged him outside. Another tree was caught in the fire.

"We've got to go a little further!" Esperanza yelled. Decker looked back at Beth's house, in the flames and smoke, the ruins were faintly visible, exuding human heat. "Beth's still in there!" "You can only help so far! We have to stay far away!" Decker turned sideways, breathing heavily for air.Fighting back his vomiting, he staggered and followed Esperanza out of the smoke and down the wooded hillside behind Beth's house.He turned his head again, looking at the horrific sight. "My God, what should I do? Beth!" he kept calling, "Beth!"