Feathers

18. Trouble

Michael didn't know if they'd been laying on the beach for five minutes or five hours. Once the adrenaline had started to recede, bone tiredness took its place. Kobie had curled up against his chest and was snoring quietly. He felt the water start to lap at his feet, which meant the tide was rising again, and soon they and the carpet laying near them would get wet.

They couldn't let that happen. It would make it impossible to burn. He didn't want to have to wait until morning for the sun to dry out their blood-stained carpet so they could start the fire.

"Guys, we've got to keep moving," Michael said, gently nudging Kobie awake.

"I'm awake" Kobie mumbled.

Gretchen stood up, stretched and yawned, "I agree, let's get this over with."

She tapped Spencer with her foot, "Come on brainiac, time to teach us how to make fire."

Spencer's eye's snapped open "I'm not asleep, I was just resting my eyes."

"Sure, and I'm a virgin who doesn't drink and says her prayers every night before bed." Gretchen snarked.

Spencer ignored Gretchen's jab and stood up brushing sand off himself. Michael helped Kobie up and the four of them half walked half-dragged themselves back up the beach towards the dark outlines of the coastal shrubs that separated the ghostly white sands from the car park.

Michael and Spencer took one corner of the carpet each and pulled it behind them, leaving a smooth slipstream pattern in their wake.

When they had dragged the carpet within a few feet of the bushes, Spencer dropped his end of the carpet and started collecting handfuls of dried seaweed and beach grass. The others followed suit and at spencer's instruction covered the carpet with whatever dry plant material and occasionally small pieces of driftwood that they could find.

"Do you have the WD 40 still?" Spencer asked Gretchen.

"Does the pope shit in the woods?" Gretchen said pulling the spray can out of her back pocket.

"Spray it all over the kindling and the carpet as well," Spencer directed.

Michael and Kobie watched as Gretchen walked slowly around the perimeter of the carpet spraying a steady stream of grease over the carpet and it's covering of detritus until each dry twist of grass and splinter of wood shone wet in the moonlight.

"What do we do now, just light it?" Kobie asked

"We need to roll it first, but not too tightly," Spencer warned, "we want to let plenty of air through but create a pocket of semi-enclosed space to contain the heat so that it burns through the carpet itself"

Trying not to get grease on his hands, Michael helped Kobie and Gretchen carefully roll the carpet into a giant, loose burrito shape while Spencer watched carefully. Once they had the carpet arranged to Spencer's liking he used Gretchen's liker to light the kindling at both ends.

The WD40 caught alight instantly and the fire spread quickly through the centre of the carpet roll. It was still dark and there was no-one else at the beach. Michael wanted to go home, and he was sure the others did too, but he knew they had to stay until the carpet was gone, until all the evidence of the night just gone had either burned or washed away.

The four of them sat down with their backs to the car park and the carpet fire in front of them. They watched as the flames slowly crept from the openings of the tube to the outside of the roll. Michael looked across at the faces of his friends and lover and for the second time that night was struck by the uncomfortable thought of how normal this moment could seem if he managed to block out the memory of the horrors that had unfolded in his kitchen only hours earlier.