“Linx? Linx!” The metal was still too hot totouch.
He went back to the Pulaski andshovel.
If Linx were fighting the fire, she definitely would not have stayed inside the trailer. She knew how dangerous it would be to be high up off the ground when a fire overshot her position. One of the chiefs had died when he tried to shelter himself in the cab of his firetruck.
However, if she’d gotten into his supplies, she could have found the fireshelter.
Grady pointed the beam of the flashlight at his storage bin. It had beenopened.
His heart drove him forward as he scanned the ground for a lower depression away from the pine trees and their flammableneedles.
A ledge of rocks led down to a hollow where he had planned on building a carport. He’d cleared the bushes and laid down a bed of sand, but hadn’t gotten around to putting inasphalt.
Grady slid down from the rock face and almost fell onto a blackened tarp—a burnt fire shelter that was charred to acrisp.
“Linx!” he screamed and pulled at the shelter with his gloved hands. It was still hot to the touch and he dreaded what he’dfind.
A woman’s body lay face down, still holding tight to the straps. She could be dead already, with rigor mortis setting in, and she wasn’t letting go of the hold-downstraps.
Grady ripped what was left of the shelter from her and wrapped his arms around her, moving her from the ground. “Linx, say something. Say something, Linx. Tell me I’m an ass. Tell me to get lost, but saysomething.”
“Mommy, Daddy, Linx, Grady, Mommy, Daddy, Ginger, Betsy,” a small voice was muffled underneath Linx’s stiff, but still hotbody.
“Woooo!” another small voice howled andsneezed.
Grady moved Linx aside and looked straight into the eyes ofJessie.
“I want my mommy and daddy,” the little girl cried as tiny paws scrabbled out from her side and a little dog barked, her voice raw anddry.
“Oh, Jessie, you’re safe.” Grady hugged her tight. “You’re safe, and your mommy and daddy are coming rightnow.”
“But what about Miss Linx?” Jessie rolled over and shook Linx’s body. “Miss Linx is also my mommy. I asked God and He says it’s true. God won’t let my mommy die, willHe?”
“No, He won’t.” Tears rolled down Grady’s face as he cradled Linx’s blistered face, shaking her. “Wake up. Wake up, my love. God knows I loveyou.”
She sputtered and coughed, then gasped. Her arms clenched tight as if still holding onto the straps of the fire shelter. “Is Jessie okay? Is Jessie going tolive?”
“Yes, Jessie’s okay, but you don’t look so good,” Grady said. He fumbled with the canteen to get water into her cracked and rawlips.
“I’m dead, aren’t I? I burned to death so Jessie can live.” Her eyes rolled back and she passed out, relaxing her hold onhim.
* * *
If she died,she most certainly had gone toHell.
Linx was stuck in a forever loop of fire. Her body was ablaze and every nerve ending stabbed her with excruciating pain. She was trapped in the fire shelter, fighting to keep it over her and Jessie, while voices in her head told her to let go. To let it all fly away and run, run,run.
She flung the shelter from her shoulders and stood up, leaving Jessie and the puppy. Raising her arms, she took a hot breath and sprinted down the hill, her skin melting. Pain chased her, and a whoosh of white heat seared into her lungs, burning her from the inside out while evil, orange sparks charred her to the core of herbones.
“Jesus, save me, please,” she gasped as fiery tongues scraped her skin off and set her blood boiling. “I’m a sinner, but save me, please. I believe you. I trustyou.”
But it was toolate.
Why hadn’t she listened to Pastor Mark? Why hadn’t she gone forward to have her sins washed away? Why had she held back while Miss Jean had pleaded with her to receive Christ as her Saviour?Why?
Because she still held evil in her heart. Evil and vengeance against GradyHart.
She didn’t deserve Heaven, and now, she was doomed to forever inHell.
