Weeks of dry weather ensured the rapid spread of fire. Incredible heat emanated from the flames and sweat poured off Prosper as though he was melting. He took another step back. The fire reached the edge of the trees and licked at the trunks, painting them with orange and yellow wraiths.
Unable to stay put any longer, Prosper ran to the other side of the clearing. Smoke followed him, trailing across the ground like a ghostly fog. He coughed as the smoke rose up, starting to billow around him like nebulous curtains. The trees lost definition, became strange and ethereal. Branches metamorphosed into claws, patches of leaves became wicked, leering faces. Prosper rubbed his eyes to try and stop them watering and covered his nose and mouth with his hand. Maybe starting the fire had been a mistake.
Unable to see clearly, he stumbled and reached out to steady himself when something materialised out of the smoke, grabbed his arm and squeezed.
CHAPTER 57
Prosper gasped and choked on the smoke. He coughed and tried to snatch his arm back, but the figure held him in a vicelike grip. Wafting the smoke away, he stared into Jerel’s cold eyes.
Prosper slashed at Jerel’s arm, but Jerel grabbed his hand and twisted it back, making him drop the knife and scream in pain.
“Is that the best you’ve got,” Jerel said.
Prosper grimaced. “Fuck you.” He spat in Jerel’s face.
Ignoring the spit dripping from his chin, Jerel put an arm around Prosper’s throat and dragged him through the trees.
The smoke around them grew thinner as they moved further away from the source, wisps drifting across the ground like an ethereal blanket.
Prosper struggled, but Jerel flexed his bicep, making it bulge into Prosper’s throat, throttling him.
“Now who’s the fucking daddy?” Jerel said with a sneer.
Prosper gagged. “You’re crazy,” he said between choking breaths.
“Crazy. I’ll tell you about crazy. My mother, she was crazy. The bitch had a bottle latched to her lips twenty-four hours a fucking day. Do you remember when she died in her own vomit before I joined the army? I showed her, didn’t I. Fucking showed her all right. It was me that made her sick.” He chuckled. “Shoved my fingers down the bitch’s throat when she was passed out, then when she threw up, I put my hand over her mouth. Made sure she fucking choked on her own vomit.”
Prosper couldn’t believe what he was hearing. That would mean Jerel’s murderous seed had been sown long before the recent murders that held the city in a grip of fear. Had he killed Wolfe too?
Prosper scurried his feet across the ground, trying to keep up with Jerel and alleviate the pain in his throat. A sudden idea forced him to move faster, pushing Jerel back and causing him to falter on the uneven ground.
Jerel stumbled and Prosper fell on top of him. Emitting a loud grunt, his grip on Prosper relaxed as he cushioned his fall with his other hand. With no time to lose, Prosper levered his hand between Jerel’s bicep and his own throat, and squeezed his head down to sink his teeth into Jerel’s forearm.
Protected only by the sleeve of his jacket, Jerel hardly blanched. Prosper bit deeper and felt his teeth sink into flesh. Warm blood oozed out of the cloth. To reinforce his attack, he started punching Jerel in the face, relishing in each blow until Jerel released him.
Once free, Prosper rolled clear, ignoring the fallen pine needles stabbing his hands, and jumped to his feet. Now only a slight twinge afflicting his knee, he back peddled as Jerel sprung to his feet like a dark gazelle.
He stared at Prosper, a smirk etched across his face.
“That the best you can do?” he said. Blood dripped down his arm and trickled down his hand.
Prosper didn’t want to wage a war of words, so he turned and ran towards the dark and the smoke, hoping to lose himself within the choking cloud.
Heat from the flames sucked the sweat from his pores. Smoke billowing all around, he covered his mouth with his sleeve, trying to breathe through the woven fibres.
Intent on losing his pursuer, he didn’t look back. Something snagged his foot, causing him to stumble, his arms wind-milling in the air as he managed to stay on his feet.
Eyes streaming with smoke induced tears, he continued running, the improvised mask doing little to stop him inhaling the smoke that made him cough and retch.
He used his free arm to feel his way forwards, brushing past trees and through undergrowth. Shapes materialised, the innocent and natural made sinister and unnatural by the flames and smoke.
Moments later, he found himself on the track. Unsure which way to go, he turned left and breathed a sigh of relief as Wolfe’s Jeep materialised up ahead through the smoke.
Prosper grabbed the door handle, jerking his hand back as the hot metal burned his skin. He blew on his fingers to relieve the pain and then wrapped the bottom of his shirt around his hand, opened the door and jumped into the driver’s seat before closing the door behind him.
Unsure what to do, he bit his fingernail and peered at the cloud of smoke creeping through the trees. It circled the vehicle, cloying, wisps rising out of the Jeep’s vents.
The sky became a grey canvas painted with orange flickers; the moon a silver smudge in the veil that draped the land, creating a surreal landscape.
The temperature in the car rose. Prosper rubbed his cheeks and wiped sweat from his brow.
It was like being cooked alive in an oven. Flames danced around the trees, crept up the trunks and ignited leaves. Seedpods exploded, raining down on the car. It looked like a scene from hell.
An eerie orange and red glow pervaded through the trees. The smoke twisted and curled, a ghostly entity that reflected the raging fire. Prosper put his face against the window to peer out and recoiled in shock as the glass burned his flesh. He put a hand to his cheek to soothe the pain and winced as it smarted.
Looking down, Prosper saw that Wolfe had left the key in the ignition. He turned it and the engine whined in protest.
Thumping the steering wheel, he stared out at the raging inferno. The flames danced about ten feet away and the Jeep’s paintwork appeared to be bubbling and blistering. Somewhere within the conflagration he heard an explosion and a tree crashed to the ground as its trunk exploded. Producing a domino effect, other trees erupted, sending burning sap and wood chips shooting into the air. Some of it sprayed the Jeep and continued burning. The driver’s window cracked and Prosper flinched.
Smoke drifted through the crack in the window, slight wisps that curled and trailed over the roof above his head. Palms sweating, he turned the key again, rewarded with a throaty grumble as the engine fired up.
Another explosion roared through the trees, rocking the vehicle in the blast. Flames jettisoned from the smoke like rocket boosters and a burning branch hit the bonnet and clattered off.
A tree started to fall.
It leaned towards the vehicle. Teetering like a drunk.
Prosper put the vehicle into gear, let the clutch out, pressed the accelerator and the Jeep lurched forwards. He watched in the rear-view mirror as the falling tree landed where the jeep had been parked, sending phoenixes of flame into the dark sky.
He exhaled a sigh of relief, his hands shaking.
Burning sap coated the bonnet. Rubber bubbled around the windscreen and the windscreen wipers burst into flames, making him worry that the rest of the vehicle could follow suit.
He fumbled to put the seatbelt on.
Hardly able to see where he was going, he trusted the vehicle not to stall. Pillars of fire lined his path.
Dark curls of smoke obscured the road and he switched the headlights on. One of the bulbs popped, but the other stayed lit and he flicked it onto main beam, then he dipped it again. Although it didn’t do much, it illuminated the road. The tyres were losing their grip, the rubber melting. Driving carefully, he navigated the inferno towards the pumping station.
Hopefully, Wolfe was still alive. And if he was, he needed help.
CHAPTER 58
Jerel wafted smoke from his eyes. His arm throbbed where Prosper had bitten him and he grimaced. This was not how he had envisioned events taking place. Prosper setting fire to the forest was anything but predictable and he was unprepared for it, something to which he was unaccustomed. He lived his life by a set of rules, that every action had a reaction that could be predicted. When those rules were broken, anarchy ensued.
He recalled Prosper’s expression when he revealed himself as the killer. Priceless! It was one of those moments he would never forget.
But he had more pressing matters to attend to. Smoke swirled around him, choking, and he had to think, to predict Prosper’s next move. He knew his adversary well, and he would return to the pumping station to rescue Wolfe. His compassion would be his downfall. If he had any sense, he would run away while he had chance, but that wasn’t in Prosper’s nature. Memories of his corpulent past would haunt him, had made him into the person he was, a former victim who now wanted to help people; a profession he dedicated his life to.
Jerel felt no remorse at having killed his old friends. They had betrayed him, and so they deserved everything they got.
Burning branches crackled through the smoke, a faint orange smudge indicating where the flames flickered. With the help of his army training, he knew that except where the vegetation was thick and sunlight didn’t penetrate, moss generally grew on the north side of the tree trunks, the bark was thicker and the cracks closer together on the north and west sides, the branches were thicker on the south and east sides, and more trees tended to lean to the southeast than any other direction, all of which allowed him to get his bearings.
Hopefully, Prosper wouldn’t get lost, or succumb to the smoke, which was a bigger killer than fire. No, Jerel wanted the satisfaction of killing the bastard. He would make it look like suicide, but he’d make him suffer in the process.
That would only leave one loose end, Natasha, but her testimony would be proved worthless when the police were faced with all the facts. Prosper was her husband, and so of course she would want to vouch for him. That’s why she would appear to take her own life too. There was no evidence of her abduction, apart from a broken phone and a set of crutches, so all they had was her word. No evidence of anything linked Jerel to the crimes. He had it all planned. Because that’s what he was good at.
He had excelled in the army, and had racked up a high kill ratio during his tours in the Middle East, conflicts in which he was ironically paid to kill. Those skirmishes had nurtured the dark side to his nature; he hadn’t felt any remorse about what he did and had actually enjoyed the thrill, the adrenaline rush of having the power of life over death – perhaps too much, which was when it all became too much for him. From that point, his life had been on a downward spiral. Leaving the army and having another baby was supposed to be the turning point. But his recent killings had reawakened that adrenaline rush, that feeling of power, intensifying it now that it was on a more personal level.
He planned to kill Wolfe with Prosper’s knife, slitting his throat. Of course his own prints were masked by using a fine grit sandpaper to remove the dead skin from his hands until they didn’t leave a distinct fingerprint. It was a painful process, but the effects lasted a few days. Now he needed to act quickly. No doubt the police, however inept they sometimes were, would be on their way.
Following nature’s signs on the trees, he proceeded through the smoke, the thought of the coming kills making him shiver with delight.
CHAPTER 59
Prosper leaned forwards and peered through the flames. The road looked like molten lava. All of a sudden, the front offside tyre exploded and the vehicle skewed across the track. Then the nearside one burst and Prosper fought to keep control.
With the tyres gone, and driving on the wheel hubs, he eased up on the accelerator, praying the vehicle wouldn’t bed itself in the dirt. An explosion rent through the inferno and glass rained down as a blazing branch crashed through the passenger window like a rocket. The branch came to rest across the dashboard and the flames singed Prosper’s hair.
Unable to pick the bough up or to stop the vehicle for fear of not getting it going again, Prosper leaned back and continued driving. He tried not to think about the fuel tank, but couldn’t help it. He imagined the petrol bubbling; the vapours ready to ignite, a bomb situated underneath where he sat. He kept glimpsing down between his legs as he hoped and prayed that the vehicle didn’t erupt.
Smoke from the burning branch began to fill the car and Prosper coughed, his eyes starting to water.
Through a gap in the conflagration, he saw the pumping station. Flames encircled it like vultures picking at a carcass. Trees bristled in the breeze raining a shower of fiery leaves.
As he approached the building, the ground sloped down and the car began to slide. Prosper fought to keep it under control. He eased off the accelerator, but the vehicle didn’t slow, so he pressed the brake pedal. Nothing happened. He pulled the handbrake. Still nothing. The building loomed closer. Panic flowed through his body.
He turned the steering wheel, but travelling too fast and having lost traction with the tyres gone, the vehicle wouldn’t respond. It started rolling faster and he was heading towards the blazing front doors. Unstoppable. Two tons of primed explosive on a collision course with a burning fuse.
He covered his face with his hands. A second later, the Jeep struck the building. The seat belt snapped tight across his chest as he flew forwards, pain radiating where it dug into his body. Wood splintered and snapped, metal screeched, brickwork rumbled. It painfully reminded him of the crash that left Natasha a cripple, making him fear that he was going to end up in the same condition.
The sound of grating metal made him cringe and he lowered his hands as the Jeep smashed through the door, bringing half the surrounding brickwork down in a rumbling cascade. The windscreen exploded and hot glass rained into the vehicle. Flames gushed in, filling the void and Prosper felt the heat sear the back of his hands; the hairs singeing and burning along his arms like light bulb coils burning out with little orange flares.
He saw sparks shooting from the wheel rims in the side mirrors. Up ahead, Wolfe sat sprawled against the wall, his hands clutching his stomach to stem the flow of blood. He stared at Prosper, wide eyes reflecting the flames that danced outside.
The vehicle bore down on him, relentless. Two tons of squealing tortured metal careering out of control.
Prosper pumped the brake and turned the steering wheel as far as it would go. With the speed slowed by the collision, he managed to wrestle control and the vehicle went into a sideways slide and came to a stop inches from Wolfe. Prosper jumped out and rushed around to help his friend. Flames flickered inside the vehicle and smoke poured out of the engine; the wheel rims glowed red, and black smoke curled like a dragon from the burning remains of a tyre. A flaming branch jutted from the back bumper where it had become lodged.
Then he noticed petrol dripping from the tank and the breath hitched in his throat. A multicoloured stream trickled slowly towards the red-hot wheels and the puddle of burning rubber, a moving fuse.
“Looks like you’ve saved me the job of setting fire to the bodies,” Jerel said.
Prosper spun around, teeth and fists clenched as he stared at Jerel standing in the doorway.
The building groaned as though in pain. Beyond the doorway, the inferno raged, the forest brought to life in hues of orange and red as explosions of flame rent the air. With the place so remote, Prosper doubted anyone would have reported the fire yet, so there was no chance of the fire brigade turning up, and despite having called them, he knew it would take a while for the police to mobilise a force.
For the time being, they were on their own.
Wolfe coughed. He sounded in a bad way.
Bricks tumbled from the demolished doorway and crashed to the ground as though the building was decomposing, sloughing its brickwork skin.
Ignoring Jerel, Prosper crouched down and helped Wolfe to his
feet, then helped him stagger around the Jeep.
Jerel approached, an inane grin splitting his thick lips.
The knife jutted from his waistband, a Zippo lighter in his hand.
Prosper frowned, wondered why Jerel didn’t just attack, then as Jerel struck the lighter, Prosper looked down and saw the petrol underneath his feet.
CHAPTER 60
Jerel tossed the lighter through the air. Prosper watched it fly as though in slow motion. It turned end over end and hit the jeep’s bonnet, then bounced, juggled by an invisible hand.
“Shit,” Prosper whispered, his pulse going through the roof. He watched the lighter come to rest. It teetered on the edge of the bonnet, slid down a couple of inches, the flame flickering. Any abrupt movement and it would fall into the stream of petrol.
Jerel growled in disappointment and moved towards Prosper and Wolfe.
The metal walkways above creaked loudly and something somewhere snapped.
Prosper tried to remember the layout of the building, stepping back in time in his mind. The large flywheel was still in place, and the metal walkways above still appeared intact, but he didn’t think proceeding up them would be a good idea. To his right, past the corpses, a short passage led to the boiler room, and with every other route barred, he steered Wolfe towards it.
“How you doing?” he asked.
“I’ve had better days,” Wolfe replied.
“You and me both.”
“One minute being shot at, the next … stabbed.”
Prosper grimaced. “Can you blame me? Jerel set us all up.”
“I know. But you shouldn’t have come back. Now you … should just leave me.” He winced. “Get out while you can. Make a run for it. And this time, don’t come bloody back.”
Prosper Snow Series Page 25
