Sharon Looked Back

The Fifth Day

By the fifth day of the heatwave, the air felt like it was holding a grudge.

Everything was slower. The cicadas buzzed like a faulty transformer. The dog had stopped barking. Even the flies seemed too tired to land, hovering in place like drunk helicopters. In the small town of Bailey’s Ridge, the usual rhythm — church bells, lawnmowers, kids on bikes — had gone quiet, smothered under 110 degrees of unforgiving sun.

George Conway stood on the porch of his single-story ranch, shirtless, sweat pooling in the waistband of his jeans. The boards beneath his bare feet were so hot they could’ve fried an egg. He squinted toward the street, where the asphalt shimmered like oil in a skillet. Across the road, Mrs. Steadman's American flag drooped like a damp rag. The only thing moving was the heat.

His daughter, Sharon, cracked the screen door open behind him. “Power’s still out.”

“Yeah,” he said, not turning around.

“We got maybe a third of the ice left.”

He nodded.

“You think it’ll come back today?”

“No.”

She was sixteen and pissed about everything, but this time she didn’t say anything back. The screen door creaked closed, and he heard her retreat inside, probably to press her face against the cool patch of tile behind the fridge. That trick wouldn’t last much longer. The fridge was just a box now, same as everything else.

George wiped his face with the corner of his shirt. The heat wasn’t just uncomfortable — it bit. Sank into your skin, then deeper, until your thoughts frayed and your body stopped listening. He’d seen it before, back in Iraq — how men unraveled not just from war but from sun. Guys would peel off their armor and wander into the dunes like they were answering a call. That same look was showing up here now. Hollow-eyed. Jumpy.

Three houses down, a car engine cranked and stalled. Again. Then again. The fourth time, it caught, coughing like an old man with a chest infection. George watched the white SUV back out of the driveway. Inside, the Goodman's looked like they were heading to the beach, windows down, sunglasses on. They weren’t going to the beach. There was no beach. Only Interstate 14 and a gas station thirty miles west that maybe, maybe still had bottled water.

They were running.

George didn’t blame them.

Inside, the house smelled like unwashed laundry and melted plastic. Sharon had set bowls of water on every table, a folk trick she’d read online when the internet still worked. The air inside was swampy and heavy. George stepped in and grabbed a paper towel off the dwindling roll, pressing it against his neck. “Where’s your brother?”

“In the tub,” Sharon said from the couch. “With the fan.”

George looked. Sure enough, Jason was sprawled in the empty bathtub, wearing only his boxers, a battery fan buzzing weakly next to him.

“He drink anything?”

“He had some of the Gatorade.”

“Orange or blue?”

“Blue.”

“Okay. That’s good.”

George walked into the kitchen, checked the cooler. Not much left. One jug of water, a few bottles of Gatorade, and the rest of the ice they’d salvaged on Day Two. He closed the lid quickly, trying to trap the cold inside like it was a butterfly he could catch.

He glanced at the clock on the microwave — blinking zeros. Time didn’t matter anymore. The sun told you everything you needed to know. Too hot to be morning. Too bright to be evening. Just… Now.

He sat at the table. Sharon was fanning herself with a People magazine. “How long can this last?” she asked, voice flat.

George didn’t answer.

Because the truth was- he didn’t know.

No one did. The radio said record temperatures. Grid failure. Rolling blackouts that became permanent. Water restrictions. Then the radio stopped talking.

Day One, the power went out. People barbecued what was in their freezers. It felt like a snow day. Kids played in sprinklers. People laughed about it.

Day Three, the stores closed. The shelves had been empty since the first afternoon.

Day Four, someone broke into the pharmacy.

Now, Day Five. Heat index of 122. No more laughing.

George got up and opened the cabinet over the stove. Top shelf, behind the cereal- Glock 17, fully loaded, safety off. He didn’t like guns in the house, not with kids, but he hadn’t put it back in the safe since the second night, when a guy tried to break into the garage. George scared him off with a warning shot. Hadn’t seen him again. Hadn’t seen anyone, really. Just car tracks in the dust.

He checked the magazine, then slid the gun into the back of his waistband. Sharon noticed.

“Why are you carrying that now?” she asked.

“Just in case.”

“In case what?”

“In case someone gets desperate.”

She stared at him, face pink from heat. “We’re desperate.”

He looked away. “We’re not the only ones.”

Later that afternoon, the sky went yellow-gray. Not clouds. Smoke.

George climbed onto the roof and saw it clearly- brushfire, at the edge of the ridge. Miles off, but not enough to relax. The wind was picking up, pushing the smoke toward town.

Back inside, he made the call.

“We’re leaving,” he said.

Sharon's eyes widened. “What? Where?”

“North. There’s a lake up near Bell Quarry. Twenty miles. Should still have water. Trees for cover. Maybe cooler.”

“We can’t walk twenty miles.”

“We’ll drive. I saved gas.”

She was already shaking her head. “And if it’s not better there?”

“Then we keep moving.”

George had prepped for hurricanes before. Storm kits. Go bags. But this was different. Heat like this didn’t just knock things down — it baked the world until it stopped working. Roads melted. Tires blew. Cell towers overheated. No FEMA trucks were coming.

They loaded the Subaru with what they had- cooler, flashlights, water, clothes, tools. Jason was groggy but compliant. Sharon looked back at the house like she was leaving her own funeral.

They made it six miles before the car died.

Not the engine. The tires. The rubber had softened in the heat, and one of the rear tires ruptured like a balloon, sending them skidding to a stop in the middle of County Road 78.

George popped the trunk, pulled out the spare. It was already warping.

“We can’t use that,” Sharon said.

He knew. He could feel the panic starting to leak in, like water under a door.

They stood on the side of the road, the heat pressing down like a body.

“Okay,” George said, more to himself than to them. “We walk.”

The next five hours were a blur of motion and heatstroke. They walked along the shoulder, heads down, gulping water, wrapping shirts around their faces to keep the sun off. Jason cried at one point. Sharon's lips cracked. George started to see things at the corners of his vision — flashes of green, the shimmer of imagined water. The fire smoke followed them like a rumor, never close, never gone.

They reached the quarry at sundown.

It wasn’t a lake, not anymore. A pit of dust and bones. George stood at the edge and stared into it, unable to speak. Sharon dropped to her knees, not crying, just stunned.

Jason sat down and whispered, “What now?”

George didn’t know.

He looked up. The sky was a strange shade of red. Not the good kind. A warning. The fire was closer now. He could smell it.

“We dig,” he said finally.

“Dig what?” Sharon croaked.

“Shelter. Shade. A hole.”

“In the dirt?”

“Yes.”

And they did. That night, with their bare hands, they scraped a shallow trench into the earth and lay in it together, covered with a sheet, breathing dust and smoke, waiting.

For morning.

For something to break.

For the heat to end.