Raining Fire

The forest was ablaze on both sides of the road. Embers flew wildly across the windshield. He slammed the pedal to the floorboard and the engine roared like some mechanized demon that howled above the asphalt passing beneath it. The black of night and of the road coalesced with the red glow of a world on fire. He could see in his side mirrors the flames reaching out to lap at the sides of the old muscle car, the paint peeling atop scorched metal, and he wondered if he’d come upon the underworld he’d heard of as a child. Heat pushed in around him and sweat beaded at his hairline until it ran along his face. Without lifting his hand from the shifter, he wiped with his forearm the sweat from his brow.

Up ahead, there was something in the road aflame and he narrowed his eyes to see. A van was overturned across both lanes, burned down to its frame. He swerved the car to the edge of the road and the tires screamed across the blacktop, and he could feel the rear of the car slide down into the side ditch, the tires spinning without traction like a clawing animal. He carefully adjusted the wheel and juggled the pedals with his foot, and when the tires met with asphalt, the car lurched forward and was back on the road again. In the rearview, he could see in the burning van behind him the remains of those it had carried. Some were far smaller than the others, and he prayed for their souls as he drove toward a fate of his own.

The car had broken free of the forest when it ran out of gas. The world still burned all the same. He walked for half a mile and sat upon a hill overlooking the great vastness of the city below. It was without power, and the light by which he bore witness to the destruction below came only from flame and starlight. All was quiet, save for the steady drone of the fires. He sat there entranced in the unusual calm and saw in his last moments the solar flares rain down again from the sky and he watched in terror as they grew closer. Still, he couldn’t help but smile.