Arnold stood for a few minutes, eyeing the setup and trying to figure out what would be his best option, then walked all the way down to the far end of the building to see how much room they had there.

A couple of sacks had slid sideways off their stack, and he crawled up onto the pile to straighten them. When he did, a big rat leaped out, hitting him square in the chest before running off into the shadows.

Startled, Arnold lost his footing. He knew as he was falling backward that it wasn’t going to be a good landing because there was nothing back there but concrete. He hit the floor on the back of his head, then his body followed. His chin popped forward against his chest as his neck snapped. It was the last thing he heard.

The sacks started falling then, slowly sliding down from the pile onto Arnold’s body, and onto the frayed wiring that the rats had been chewing. One wire sparked, and then another, and then it flared. Sparks landed on the paper sacks and began to smolder.

It wasn’t until actual flames began rising that one of the employees smelled smoke and ran back inside.

“Fire! Fire!” he yelled, and grabbed his phone and called 911.

* * *

It was midafternoon, and Hunt was nailing down loose boards on the front porch when he heard a siren. He paused, then stood up and looked toward the sound.

All of a sudden, Ray was standing on the edge of the roof above him shouting and pointing.

“Something is on fire! It looks like it’s up by the feed store, and Birdie’s not answering her phone.”

That was not a good sign, and Hunt was worried.

“I’m going to see,” he said, and ran back into the house long enough to get his bike helmet and the keys to his Harley. Moments later, he shot out of the driveway and disappeared up the street.

Ray was still on the roof and hitting Redial on Birdie’s number over and over, but now it was going to voicemail.

Hunt wasn’t thinking past getting to the site of the fire. He wouldn’t let himself consider Birdie being in danger, but someone was or this wouldn’t be happening.

Police cars were speeding up Main Street as he turned at the light. He could see the smoke now, a boiling pillar of black rising high into the sky. People were running up the street, while others like him were coming out of side streets onto Main.

It wasn’t until he passed the hardware store that he saw the actual structure fire and knew it was, in fact, the place where Birdie worked. The fire appeared to be confined to the east end of the building where the loading dock and the feed and seed were stored, but he didn’t know where she was.