Flames licked high to the ceiling, orange and yellow tongues flickering like the insides of a furnace as they engulfed my bedroom. I tried to scream, but no words came out. On the floor, I saw Uncle Zeke passed out, his head thrown back, his mouth opened wide.

I rolled off my bed and dropped to the floor, like they taught the kids at school. Keep your head down, stay close to the floor where there’s oxygen and the air is still clear enough to see through. I crawled forward, screaming my uncle’s name above the roaring of the flames as I moved towards him over the carpet. God, it was hot in here, hot like I’d been roasting myself next to a giant bonfire all night.

“Zeke! Uncle Zeke!” I tried to scream as I shook my uncle, still unconscious on the floor. My voice came out like a dusty croak, my throat parched, my lungs breathless as I began to cough violently. I looked back at the bedroom windows behind me—I could get escape through those. I only had to awaken Uncle Zeke, to somehow get him alive and moving.

A great crack of lumber as one of the support beams in the ceiling came crashing down, just like in a Hollywood movie, blocking my exit from my bedroom windows.

I grabbed Uncle Zeke and tried to tug him across the floor to the bedroom door.

Before I’d moved him even a few feet, I heard another crack of lumber, a sound like someone splitting wood.

I glanced up.

An ax! A fireman’s ax, coming right through the door, its gleaming metal head chopping through the wood like a knife through butter.

“Help!” I tried to scream, a puff of smoke and dust the only thing that escaped my throat. No air, no wind. I coughed again, trying to wave it away.

“Rebecca!” screamed a voice. More door-chopping followed, the shining red firefighter’s ax flashing in the yellowish flames. “Rebecca!”

I knew that voice. Matthew!

He kicked the door in with a heavy boot, came trundling in in his heavy fireman’s coat, the heavy fire-retardant cloth hanging down to his knees. He tossed the ax aside and reached down, sweeping me into his arms like I was nothing more than a sack of feathers.

I’d never felt so safe in all my life as when his strong arms wrapped themselves around me in their protective embrace and scooped me up to his chest.

“Oh, Matthew! You saved me!”

His dark eyes tracked down my face and glanced down at my lips. “Not yet, I haven’t.”

I closed my eyes as he began to lean in, lips slightly parted. “Oh, Matthew,” I sighed.

I awoke with a start to the sound of thunder or a car backfiring. Still groggy and feeling hungover, I looked around my bedroom, struggling with the comforter and blankets that had swaddled me in their not-so-manly embrace. I kicked against the quilt as I heard another blast just outside my bedroom window. Jesus Christ! Was that a gun? Who was hunting inside the neighborhood?

“That’s it, you sumbitch!” yelled Gladys, one of my neighbors, an old lady from across the street. “You fucking run, you hear!”

I sucked in a sharp breath, my head throbbing. What the hell was she shooting at? Or who was she shooting at? I rolled as I tried to get out of the blankets, my feet still kicking as I went over the edge.

I heard another shotgun blast as I face-planted on the carpet, sending my headache flaring again with a ripple of sharp pain through my cranium. I really, really shouldn’t have drank so much last night. “You stay away!”

I groped at my face, but didn’t feel any blood. Frantically, I struggled to get up, to get to the window and look outside and find out just what the hell was going on. “Gladys!” I yelled as I clamored across the carpet, just like in my dream a few moments before. “Gladys! What’s wrong? What are you shooting at?”

Gladys stood out on the edge of my front yard, her smoking shotgun still raised and pressed to her shoulder as her diaphanous nightgown fluttered around her chubby knees in the cool breeze. Her long, brown hair with streaks of gray flowed out behind her as she looked down the gun’s sights with one eye.

“Gone now,” Gladys yelled back in reply as she lowered her shotgun and brought it to a rest over her shoulder like a Continental soldier. “Big ol’ fucking wolf, Rebecca, just sitting there in your lawn.”

“No way,” I said through the open window, shaking my head gingerly so as not to aggravate my headache, “wolves haven’t been around here in decades. That’s crazy!”

“Sure as shit was one,” she said. “Big as your goddamned house, too. Biggest one I’ve ever seen, and I watch Nat-Geo.”

“Well, thanks,” I sleepily slurred, “I guess?”

“Hell yeah, you should say thanks,” she replied, swinging the shotgun down from her shoulder so it hung loosely in her grip. “Big ol’ bastard was looking right in your window when I came up on him.”

My window? I blinked a few times, shocked and not sure what to say.

“Could practically hear him licking his chops.” Then she broke into a grin. “You ain’t got a niece on her way to drop off some baked goods or nothing, do you?”

I laughed despite the situation. “Not quite. A student, maybe, but no niece. Well, thanks for scaring him off for me, Gladys. Guess I owe you one.”

She nodded sagely then padded off across the street, not even flinching as her bare feet crunched the gravel of the old asphalt road.

I went back to my bed and sat down on the edge, looking out my two front windows. Another cool breeze came blowing in, down from the mountains and across my face. It felt heavenly on my hungover face, a literal breath of fresh air.

But, if Gladys was right, I’d just had a giant timber wolf staring up at my windows, licking its chops. That thought was, honestly, a little unsettling. Not that I disliked wolves or anything. I didn’t feel one way or another about them, since I’d never really encountered one.

Sure, I thought they were beautiful creatures, but I still didn’t particularly like the idea of them watching me while I slept. I got up and went over to the double-hung windows, pulled them down, and latched them into place. I went into the bathroom and inspected my face.

My nose was a little red, but not swollen, from the earlier fall. My eyes, though, were bloodshot and ringed in dark circles. No, I definitely shouldn’t have drank last night. Damn, Derrick. I knew it wasn’t his fault I’d had so much to drink—it wasn’t like he’d held me down and poured whiskey down my throat—but he had been egging me on. But, like I always tell my kids when they tried to place the blame on the peer pressure, ultimately, the responsibility falls on your shoulders. The power is inside you, not anyone else.

Admonishing myself some more, I found some ibuprofen and washed down a couple pills with some water. Hopefully that would take care of the headache before morning. And maybe this time, I’d be able to get some actual sleep without my neighbors opening up an impromptu gun range outside my bedroom window.

I headed back to bed and tucked myself back in, not even thinking about the next morning.

Unfortunately, I’d completely forgotten about my trying to kiss Matthew. Or that I’d agreed to go see Uncle Zeke with him.