Apocalypsis 04 - Haven

face her. “Never fear. Flick is here.” He winked at her and sparked the match under his face. It lit up his masked features, giving him a sinister air. He tossed the little flame into the space over his shoulder, I think planning on making a super-cool exit. But the fire had other ideas.
    A big whoof of flames came out behind him, along with a rush of air. Flick came flying out towards us, smoke coming off the back of his suit.
    All of us screamed or yelled, but none of us moved at first. I was so freaked out and confused I didn’t know what to do.
    Bodo jumped into action, slamming the door shut.
    “No!” yelled Derek. “Open it back up!”
    “Why?!” I screamed, thinking he’d lost his mind and for some reason wanted to burn us all down.
    “The fire needs oxygen! Open it!”
    He was right, but I couldn’t agree. It seemed wrong. I just stood there, jerking my head around, trying to get feedback from everyone else.
    “Get back!” Bodo yelled.
    Once everyone was clear, he cracked the door open, staying well behind it.
    Flames boomed out, throwing the door open all the way.
    “Aahhhh!” Bodo flew through the air after getting whacked by the door, landing several feet away on his side.
    The percussion and heat wave blew me back too, along with everyone standing next to me. We went down in a tangle of arms and legs, all of us screaming in muffled gasps in our masks.
    “Backdraft!” yelled Derek. “It’s only temporary! Get up! Get your extinguishers!”
    I looked up towards the entrance to the kitchen and saw Peter standing there, his face as white as a sheet.
    “No, Peter!” I yelled, waving my arms like crazy. “Get out!”
    He turned around and fled in the opposite direction.
    I was so relieved he was out of danger I just laid back, waiting for everyone else to get off me before bothering to get up. I could see the flames licking out of the doorway but mostly staying inside, so I was no longer worried we were about to get roasted alive.
    Once we were all on our feet again and sure we weren’t singed anywhere, we started laughing. It must have been some weird reaction to not dying or something. My rational mind told me I should be standing guard with my extinguisher, but all I could do was cross my legs and hope I didn’t have an accident in my hazmat suit.
    “Whoa. I think I might have wet myself a little on that one,” said Jamal.
    “There’s no think about it, brother,” said Ronald, reaching down to squeeze his man parts.
    “That was awesome,” said Winky, her eyes alight with excitement. “Did you see that? Wall of flames. Busted our asses, totally.”
    Flick was back on his feet, limping a little.
    “You okay, Flick?”
    “Yeah. Just landed funny on my knee. Wasn’t expecting that blow back at all.”
    “It’s a backdraft, dope. Didn’t you see the movie?” asked Derek.
    “I sure didn’t,” I said. “Next time if you’ve seen a relevant movie, tell us the important parts before we light the match, okay?”
    Derek smiled. “Yeah, sure. No problem.”
    “Did you hear dat?” asked Bodo, coming over to put his arm over my shoulders. I could hear the smile in his voice. “It’s not a problem.”
    ***
    We waited for the fire to burn out. It took over an hour and ended up requiring several more containers of various chemicals to finish the job. Bones didn’t like to burn or stay burning, apparently. We finally decided that the only thing that really needed to burn was the goo and left a lot of the bones intact. Everything else could just get bagged up and buried.
    Our brilliant idea to finish the job today went down the tube when we attempted to shovel the burned out remains into the plastic bags; the first batch we tried melted completely through. The ashes hadn’t yet cooled down enough to be handled or transported, even by cart.
    “Well, that sucks,” I said, looking at the smoking mess. I nudged the melting bag away with my boot, shaking my leg a little when it acted like it wanted to stick to me.
    “Yeah. I thought we were going to be completely done with this today,” said Gretchen. “How depressing is that? Two days of being undertakers instead of just one. I always thought that was such a weird profession, and today has done nothing to change my mind about it, I can tell you that.”
    “We can go dig the disposal site,” said Ronald. “We’re not going to just lay these bodies out on top of the ground, right?”
    “He’s right,” said Derek.