He struck the wheel again. This time the lighter worked. "Thank you. Thank you."
Holding the flame to the puddle at his feet, Mike barely had time to jump back as the cleaning solvent he had splattered about burst into flames. The flames climbed the walls, and roared down the hallway to his office.
Grabbing the remaining full cans, he ran back into the living room. "Everybody out. Now. Holly, take the kids and get by the front door. Only don't go outside until I tell you."
"What about you?" she asked.
"I'll be there in a minute." Mike waited for his family to get out of the way, then entered the living room and began splashing everything with flammable liquid. He doused the carpeting and the walls, the curtains and the furniture. He repeated the process in the library, and in the kitchen, and then set fire to all three rooms. As the rooms ignited in flames, an eerie hissing, screaming sound filled the air around him.
It's working. They don't like the fire.
Mike watched in delight as dozens of boogers ran from the fire, disappearing back into the cracks from which they had come. As the flames spread, the faces adorning the walls, ceilings, and floors began to fade and disappear, and the cracks in the ceilings and walls closed.
Knowing he had to be sure the opening was closing, Mike reentered the burning kitchen and hurried to the basement door. Opening the door, he stepped onto the stairs and aimed his flashlight at the room below. The shaft leading down to the world below was still there, but it was smaller now than it had been earlier. As he watched, the opening grew even smaller until it was no more. The boogers had returned to their world, closing the door behind them.
"Mike!'
He turned away and started back up the stairs, panicked by the sight that lay before him. The fire had spread faster than anticipated. A wall of flames nearly separated him from the rest of the house. He had to hurry, because in a few minutes the whole house was going to come crashing down on top of them.
Dodging the flames, he raced across the kitchen and out into the hallway. Turning right, he hurried along the hallway toward the front door. The smoke was so thick, the heat so intense, Mike thought it might already be too late. He thought he wasn't going to make it. But then he was at the front door, hugging Holly and the kids.
"It's working. The fire is driving them away." He fumbled to open the front door. "Hurry. We've got to get out of here."
"What about the boogers outside?" Holly asked.
"Let's hope they aren't there anymore." He pulled the door open and ushered his family outside. They crossed the front porch at a dead run, stopping when they were far enough from the burning house to be safe. Mike almost expected to be attacked when he stepped outside, but nothing rushed at them from the darkness.
Reaching into his pants pocket, he pulled out the set of keys that had once belonged to the sheriff. He tried several of the keys until he found the one that unlocked the patrol car. Mike waited until Holly and the children were safely seated, then started the patrol car and pulled away from the house.
At the edge of the driveway he paused, watching as their new home went up in flames. He should have been upset, saddened by the loss of the house and everything they owned, but he wasn't. They still had each other, and that was far more precious than material items. Nor was he upset about the prospect of moving back to New York City, which is exactly what they would do. There were dangers to living in a big city, any big city but at least those dangers were of the known variety. Besides, anything the Big Apple could throw at him now paled in comparison to the challenges he had faced in the less than peaceful countryside.
Mike pulled out of the driveway and started slowly down Sawmill Road
. Behind them the house continued to burn, the shadows dancing around it nothing more than those caused by the flickering flames. The boogers were gone, returning to their world. Baptized by flames, the doorway to the lower level was once again closed.
THE END
Author's Note:
In August 1971 in the village of Belmez, nor far from the city of Cordoba, in southern Spain, an image of a human face appeared on the kitchen floor of an elderly woman's home. No recognizable pigment of any kind had formed the strange image which appeared in the pink tiles.
Upset and bewildered, the owner of the house tore up the floor and replaced the tiles with concrete. But three weeks later a second face emerged.
A third face appeared, then a fourth, then a series of faces all together. The local authorities were called in, and the kitchen was locked and sealed. Four more faces, including that of a woman, appeared in another part of the house. But they were the last, for the phenomenon melted away as inexplicably as it had begun.
To this day no one yet has come forward with a satisfying explanation for what happened. The Faces of Belmez remain a mystery.
Darker Than Night Page 28
