The sky over the lake burned orange.

On the back porch, Lily trembled. Heart jack hammered her breast bone. A moist tongue swept over dry lips. Aluminum mesh screening in the camp's rear deck separated her from flames that licked the pier. Ember-flecked smoke floated heavenward in a bonsai shaped cloud. Intense heat buffeted her cheeks and chest. Mind raced.

Get up. Get up. Get. Up!

Hands slapped onto a bed of jagged shards from the shattered windows. A bit of glass stabbed Lily's left palm. She hissed as she inspected it. On a count of three she yanked the fragment out then positioned her hands and knees carefully on the glittering mess and pushed up.

Blood pooled around the wound in her palm. Going lightheaded, she squeezed her injured hand. She backed into the camp, away from the flames and smoke. Cool shadows swallowed her.

With the wreckage out of sight, Lily's shock faded. Burning pain pulsed her left hand in time with her fluttering heart. She tore into the kitchen. All the fishing and barbequing and jet-skiing her family did here caused endless cuts, scrapes, and burns. First aid kits were tucked in the corners of every room. She found one of the metal supply chests under the sink.

The kit hit the counter with a loud clank. Lily tore a few paper towels from a roll next to her groceries and balled them. While she pressed the coarse wad of paper to her wound, she flipped open the kit then grabbed the ancient phone fixed to the wall. She punched in nine-one-one and pawed through the kit's contents. Someone else had to have seen or heard the crash. The phone at the nearest police station probably jumped in its cradle.

Or not.

The phone sandwiched between her shoulder and ear was dead. There was no ring tone. No dial tone. While she mummified her sterilized palm in bandages and half a roll of medical tape, she clicked the hook tab and hollered into the transmitter for someone, anyone, to pick up. No one did. With the head of the receiver, she beat the wall mounted cradle.

"Shit, shit, shit!"

Each time she struck the cradle she shouted. The plastic case housing the device's guts finally split. Another loud crack punctuated the phone's destruction. Dust and a smattering of rubble dropped onto her head. She glanced up. The roof split too. She'd canted up her head as a big chunk of the ceiling broke away.

Darting back, Lily dodged a hail of plaster, charred wood, and shingles that caved from the ceiling. The meteor must have skimmed the roof before it crashed. A zig-zaggy crack spider veined from the new hole above her. The jagged line crept towards the front and the back porch. Debris rained from the growing fissure. The whole place was about to come down on her head.

With no time to collect any of her stuff, Lily pelted through the kitchen and up the narrow hallway to the front room. The ceiling crack chased her. Smoke hazed her surroundings. Polluted air tickled the back of her throat and scorched her lungs. A step away from the front room, the roof collapsed.

The ceiling caved inches away from Lily. Blackened and flaming wood, boxes and equipment from the attic above, toppled on each other. A squall of embers, like a cloud of angry horseflies, tornadoed around her. Crossed arms shielded her face. Bits of fiery ash singed the hairs dusting her limbs. The camp groaned. What remained of the ceiling creaked a rusty-hinge creak. A great, jagged, puzzle piece of sheet rock overhead started breaking away.

Whipping around, Lily dashed for the kitchen. Exertion burned already aching calves. The camp crumbled at her back. Bangs and crashes herded her from the hall to the dining area. She pushed her cramping muscles harder, mentally pleading with them.

Come on, guys, come on. All we have to do is get to the pier. Just get to the pier.

From there she could call to one of her neighbors for help. Or she could shimmy down one of the pilings and swim for the shore and wait for emergency response on the levee.

Just get there. Lily commanded her body as chunks of the camp pounded the ground.

She burst through the first screen door and onto the back porch then through the second and skidded to a stop on what was left of the pier. Lily whirled. The rest of the roof fell in seconds later. Smoke billowed from the doors and blown out windows. Brilliant flame belched from the skylights and licked the ruined roof. Lily gaped at the destruction of her family's summer home, the camp's black skeleton visible in the blaze.

A gust of heat at her back brought her to herself. Two fires, one in front and one behind, trapped her on this small section of soon-to-be-ruined pier. Pivoting this way and that, she searched the haze for neighboring camps.

She cupped her hands around her mouth and hollered, "Hey! Anyone there?! Can anyone hear me?!"

All the smoke obscured the other camps. When Lily inhaled for another shout, she choked on hot, filthy air. She stumbled right as she pounded her chest. The pier swayed.

"Is anyone there?" She screamed as she caught her balance.

A low wail answered her; the cry of someone in pain. She edged further right, towards the sound. Weathered boards underfoot complained at her weight. The pier shifted dangerously again.

"I hear you! Where are—"

Lily's foot came down and broke through a deteriorated plank. She shrieked. Splinters scratched and stabbed into her calf and thigh. The rest of the walkway crumbled. She dropped, stomach flip-flopping at the suck of gravity. She pin-balled off wood scaffolding that bruised her limbs and back. Her body smacked the lake. Breath whooshed from her lungs. Warm, wet darkness pulled her down. Brackish water filled her mouth. She paddled and kicked frantically, unaware if she propelled herself up or down.

Finally, Lily clawed some of the submerged pier. She barnacled to the solid support and used it as a guide. Neck strained, she climbed and scissor kicked for the surface, lungs burning for oxygen.

Lily's head broke the water's surface. She gulped air and gagged up some of the dirty lake she'd swallowed. Clinging to the broken pilings, she swiped away hair matted over her eyes. She blinked. Coughed. Wreckage boxed her in. As she plotted the least hazardous path out of her pen, the baritone wail she'd heard on the pier rose from behind her. Its low pitch grew shrill. Goose pimples stippled her skin. Whatever uttered that terrible note lurked right behind her.

Using the wreckage like a jungle gym, Lily twisted herself around. She faced the crash site. Light from the fires above glittered on the rippling wavelets. A black shadow humped from the water. The shape was too deliberate, curved and elegant, to be natural. Waters around the shape's perimeter bubbled. Heat rolled off it, toasting Lily's cheeks and forehead. She squinted.

Suddenly, the object's sloping contours blazed with violet light. Veins mapping the thing's surface fluoresced in neon threads. Wailing deafened her, the sound vibrating her skull. Covering her ears meant releasing the pier. She clung to the wood and cringed.

Jets of steam vented from splits that opened along the object's surface. Cool air blasted back Lily's hair, rippled her cheeks and snatched away her breath. She shut her eyes against the gust until it dissipated and the wailing died. Silence spun out.

Lily opened one eye then the other.

Violet radiance illumed the object. Lily's eyes stretched wide. Lips formed a blow up doll circle. What dropped from the sky wasn't a meteor.

It was a ship.