Fear Itself

by Jeff Gelb

  “Why?”

  Nick smirked, like a bad boy caught looking where he shouldn’t.

  “Leave her alone.”

  “It’s a free country, right? Nobody owns her.”

  “Isn’t there any woman you can keep your hands off?” He fought to keep from shouting.

  “She’s not married. She’s not attached,” Nick said. “I’m not cutting in on anybody’s turf, am I?”

  Quinn felt twinges of heat radiating up from his belly. “No, I guess not.” He fought the fire, bit back the foul taste. “Look, Nick, I’ve been feeling pretty shitty these days. I have the same thing that everybody has. I haven’t been sleeping very well.”

  “I understand.”

  “Things have been pretty bad between me and Melanie. I don’t know what’s going on with her. I mean, we haven’t…” His voice trailed off. “You think we could get together some time, you and me? Just talk, have a couple of beers, shoot the breeze?”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  “How about tonight?”

  “No. Sorry. Tonight’s not going to work.”

  “I’ve got a lot on my mind. Things have been bad, really bad. I need to …”

  “Maybe this weekend. Come over on Sunday and we can watch the game.” Nick backed away. “Give me a call. Maybe we can do it this Sunday.”

  He disappeared down the long line of cubicles.

  Quinn spent the next few hours in a daze. He tried to work, and got nowhere. His screen hissed at him. His face—reflected in the glass—was a mess. Green, bent, pocked by scars of light.

  Near quitting time, he went to the personnel office and asked Lorraine for Jeanette’s address. “She took some contract riders home with her yesterday. I thought I’d pick them up on my way home. We’ll be needing them tomorrow.”

  He could just as well have said, “I want the address. I’m going over there right now and burn her house down.” Lorraine wouldn’t have noticed or cared. She scribbled the address on a scrap of paper and went back to her screen without making eye contact with Quinn.

  After the office had emptied, Quinn emerged from his cube. Clutching the address like the relic of a saint, he went down to the car and headed for Jeanette’s place. He’d expected a house, an ordinary suburban street. However, Jeanette lived in a three-story building in a huge apartment complex. Countless identical brick buildings. Neatly trimmed grass, parking lots full of cars.

  He went to her door and pressed the buzzer. A long wait. He tried again and a faint voice answered. “Who is it?”

  Quinn hesitated. He could still turn around. He could go home and she’d never know.

  “Who is it?”

  “Quinn. I need to talk to you.”

  Another long pause.

  He pressed the button again.

  Finally the door buzzed open and Quinn went down the long cinderblock corridor. Jeanette was waiting for him at her door. She had on a ratty pink bathrobe. Her hair was pulled back in a short pony tail. No makeup, her nose red and runny. Her eyes looked swollen, bloodshot. Quinn liked her even better this way. No pretense whatsoever. No acting. The real thing.

  “Can I come in?”

  “I guess so.” She didn’t sound very eager.

  Her couch was heaped with pillows and blankets. A vaporizer squatted in the corner, sending out weak jets of steam. The room smelled of coughdrops and stale flesh. A man on the TV was rattling on about “instantaneous relief.”

  “What did you want to see me about?” Jeanette said.

  “We need to talk.”

  “About what?”

  “You and me.” He closed the door. He went to the TV and shut it off. Silence flooded the room. And with it, the fever returned. No flames licking and crackling this time however. No hiss of smoke. It was as though he’d been suddenly submerged in lava. Every movement was a huge effort, every word was a struggle to get out of his mouth.

  “Maybe we’d better talk about this at the office,” Jeannette said. “Or we could have lunch again sometime. I’m not feeling very well right now. Maybe this weekend we could—”

  “No. We need to talk. Now. It’s happening right now. Here. Tonight. I can feel it.” His blood was getting thinner, turning to vapor. He saw an orange-red glow around his hands. “It’s starting.” He reached for her and she backed away. The glow was spreading quickly, fire eating his flesh, the ember of the fuse crawling toward the explosive.

  “I need somebody,” he said. “I have to have—”

  “We’ve got to take this slower, Quinn. I mean, we hardly even know each other.”

  He grabbed her hand. The skin was damp and far too hot. Beads of sweat clung to her lip. She had the fire too; he was sure of it now. He pulled her close and kissed her, tasting salt on her lips.

  She struggled out of his arms and backed away, staring. “What’s happening to you?” She was trying to hold her panic in, but the wildness in her eyes gave it away.

  He grabbed at her again. She pushed him away. “I’ve been thinking about you non-stop for weeks. I can’t think of anything else.”

  “Get out. Please.” She held her robe tight to her throat. Her hands were pale as egg white.

  “Feel this,” Quinn said, and touched her face. She drew back, scorched by his fingers.

  “Get out! Just get away from me!”

  He put both hands on her face and she screamed. The sound was like a siren: police, fire truck, ambulance. Quinn raked his hand down Jeanette’s face, caught in the collar of her robe and pulled it open. Her screams were unbearable now, rising and falling, an air raid siren as the incendiaries fell to earth. “Please!”

  He could take her with him; wrap her in his arms and let the fire loose. They could go up together, bodies and souls united in the pyre.

  “Please!”

  He grabbed her nightgown and ripped it from her shoulders. Then he paused, stricken by the sight of her that way. Head down, sobbing, fingers clenched in ice-white fists. Her tears were real, the shakes that wracked her body were real. He thought of Melanie and the night before.

  Jeanette had the fire too—he was sure of that. But she couldn’t or wouldn’t admit to it yet. She wasn’t ready.

  Quinn turned and bolted from the apartment. He headed in the opposite direction he’d come. And though he knew it would just give more oxygen to the fire, he ran down the deserted hallway. By now, there was no point in fighting it. He wanted it to come. He welcomed it. If he was going to die, let it be this way, rather than bit by bit in bed.

  He sucked in air, stoking the blaze. He looked down at his arm; it was already swathed in red light. He found a stairway, slammed through the emergency door and took the steps three at a time. As he came to the top, the flame reached his shoulder.

  He stopped, closed his eyes, and went up.

  The explosion was too loud to hear, an overpowering blast of sound. Quinn stood there and let the fire consume him. He was lighter than air now, pure flame, free of his body, brighter than any angel.

  A new sound penetrated: the fire alarms. He wailed back, as if a rut-crazed animal returning a mating call. This wasn’t to express his agony though; his nerves were too overloaded to feel any pain. It was a cry of release, surrender.

  The asphalt tile curled and blackened at his feet. The paint on the walls bubbled up. Whorls of soot obscured the ceiling. His flesh remained intact though. The fire erupted from him, out of him, leaving his body unscathed.

  Quickly, the fuel—his panic and desire—was used up. He watched the last flickers die back. His breath came in sulfu-rous blasts.

  He knew he had to get away quickly. They’d see the blackened trail on the ceiling, the burnt footprints on the floor.

  He went out the back exit and skirted the building to get to his car. Red lights were throbbing in the parking lot. People milled about, dazed, angry to be rousted out of their apartments.

  Quinn started his engine and pulled out. Cleansed now, there were no questions anymore in his mind. He tr
aveled like a pure arrow of light—calmly, swiftly, with absolute assurance. He drove out of town, a half hour on the expressway, and easily found the country road where Nick Platt lived. There were two cars in the long gravel driveway. One was Nick’s. The other was Melanie’s.

  He told himself: I feel nothing, nothing can touch me. He sat a while, staring with no thought or emotion at the cars. Then he backed out and parked down the road a short distance. He walked around the side of Nick’s house. Most of the windows were dark. He peeked in one, another, then went around the corner to the back. One window was lit, though faintly. He crept up to it and looked inside. By the glow of the TV set, he saw two figures in bed. The shifting blue-green light painted them cold ghosts. A voice from the TV muttered about “amazing deals” and “limited offers.”

  Quinn watched. This was the thing he’d tried for months to keep out of his conscious mind, yet here it was so banal, so vapid. There was no passion in the figures on the bed. They moved against each other like two snakes trying halfheartedly to crawl out of their skins.

  Eventually the listless movement ceased, and the TV, as if in response, lost its channel. The room was bathed now in flickers of static, a sullen hum.

  Quinn went back the way he’d come. But instead of getting into his own car, he used his key to unlock Melanie’s. He got in the back and hunched down behind the seat.

  The wait was long, though Quinn hardly noticed. His knees ached, his thighs cramped, his back stung. This wasn’t pain anymore, however, but raw fuel.

  He crouched in a fetal ball, waiting for Melanie, waiting to be reborn again in fire.

  She came. She unlocked the door and slid in. But before she could put her key in the ignition, Quinn rose up behind her and put his hands over her eyes. “Guess who?” he whispered. She knew better than to scream.

  He saw a fragment of his face in the rearview mirror. It was happening already. He had the glow, a halo of red-orange light flickering from his scalp.

  He jerked her backward against the seat. “Guess who?” he growled.

  “Quinn, listen, I can explain. Really, it’s not what—”

  “I don’t want to hear it. No more lies. I’m sick of lies.”

  Her hands came up and tried to peel his away from her face. Quinn was stronger now. There was nothing she could use against him anymore—body, voice, the past—that could really touch him. Though hand in hand, though his mouth was almost touching her ear, Quinn was invulnerable now.

  “You didn’t believe me. But now you’re going to see. I was telling the truth all along.” The light shone around his hands. His arms flickered on and off like a fluorescent bulb that can’t quite get started. He smelled the sweet tang of a snuffed match. “I believed you, but you didn’t believe me.” Still he held his hands tight over her eyes. He wanted her to have it all at once. He wanted her to wake there, move in an instant from absolute blackness to unbearable light.

  “Quinn, please, listen to me. It wasn’t anything. It didn’t mean a thing. I just—”

  “You just have to sit here a little while longer. That’s all.”

  He breathed deeply, sucking in her scent, sucking in oxygen to stoke the coals in the furnace. Inhale, exhale. Melanie squirmed like a little girl. She was afraid; she felt the heat at last. He’d finally made a believer out of her. “It’s happening. I’m going up.” It was the last second before orgasm, the last inch before going over the precipice. “You believe me now, don’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  It happened. The fire came roaring out of its hiding place. He exploded into a cloud of flame and immediately the stench of melted vinyl, scorched flesh, bubbling plastic filled the air. He was the god, the priest, and the burnt offering. He was the altar and the knife. Melanie was the virgin. Her screams could barely be heard above the fiery roaring.

  He let go of her. She twisted in the seat, trying to reach him. There were two black handprints on her face, like a child’s Halloween mask. Quinn smiled and new flame erupted from below.

  The car thrashed like a frenzied animal. Rubber melted, paint writhed, glass buckled and sagged. The smell of burnt hair blended with the gasoline smoke.

  Quinn threw the car door open and rolled onto the driveway. Already his fire was dying. He staggered to his feet, and ran across the dewy lawn, leaving a trail of smoking footprints.

  He flickered and flared. In the few moments it took to reach his car, darkness had returned to his flesh. He didn’t mind though, because he knew it wasn’t permanent. As long as there was fuel to burn inside him, as long as there was the fuse and the match to light the fuse, the fire would return.

  He passed a police car on the way to Jeanette’s, then an ambulance. Their sirens seemed to call to each other, lonely as ghosts.

  Quinn parked in Jeanette’s lot and sat quietly staring as the dawn light painted her windows. Eventually she’d see the truth too—she had the fire. He’d wait for her. He had all the time in the world.

  He sat enjoying the colors of sunrise. His hands were folded, his head was bowed slightly, like a monk at morning prayer.

  Home For The Holidays

  Elsa Rutherford

  It is not a very long walk from my little house in the village to the graveyard out here in the countryside. And as I draw closer to the graveyard I can see Grandmother’s house just down the road, the windows aglow with flickering lamplight. Rather convenient, her living so near the graveyard. Only a little farther for me to walk in the dark.

  By now her dining room table is piled high with turkey and all the trimmings, and most of the family is already there. I catch glimpses of their silhouettes as they drift past the windows, milling about, a mite anxious, I expect. Aunts, uncles, cousins. All waiting for me to get on with it and fetch Grandfather home for the holiday. It is my duty, as I am the eldest grandson. But it is a duty that is almost more than I can bear.

  This is only the eve of the holiday. Thanksgiving will not arrive until tomorrow. But our family observes the holiday on the night before, after the sun has set and darkness has fallen and there are many long hours before the light of dawn ushers in the coming day. This is how we keep all the major holidays now: Easter, Thanksgiving and Christmas. We begin the festivities, if they may be called that, on the preceding night and by the time the actual day arrives it seems a letdown, the way the day after a holiday used to seem. But it is a relief, too, when what must be done is done. At least until the next time.

  This was not always our way. Not so long ago, we celebrated holidays on the prescribed day, like any other family. But that was before everything changed: Before Grandmother had her dream. Before we began to bring the dead home for the holidays.

  I’m coming up to the graveyard gate now, shovel in one hand and lantern in the other, and the unnerving silence of this place washes over me like a cold mist, colder than the November wind that ripples past me. And it’s dark. Too dark. Even the lantern’s soft glow is swallowed up by the darkness, providing only the most meager, limited pool of hazy light to guide my steps. Certainly the pale swatches of lamplight emanating from Grandmother’s windows are too distant to cast any illumination here. It is no exaggeration to say I am in a state of mortal terror. Though my trade as a blacksmith has strengthened my naturally well-set form, tonight my flesh feels as weak as water. My body is soaked in an icy sweat, my legs shake so badly I can hardly walk and my heart is pounding loudly enough to wake the dead. Yes, tomorrow is Thanksgiving and, therefore, the horror has begun.

  My own slumber was fitful last night as I knew it would be. I awoke hours before dawn, the sickening terror that had hounded me during sleep leaping into my throat as I opened my eyes. So ill was I that I wanted to hang my head from the bed and retch, but I knew it would not lessen the awful strain afflicting me.

  I’ve tried to tell myself that I must conquer this ghastly repulsion I feel, and steel myself for what I have to do. Get hold of yourself, man. Buck up. Just do it. That’s what I say to myself. After
all, I’ve done it before and am unalterably obliged to do it again. But the very thought of the task before me fills me with unholy dread.

  I can’t help wishing that we could have gone on celebrating our holidays just as we used to, in a perfectly regular fashion. It’s long been our custom for everyone to gather at Grandmother’s house for the holidays, and perhaps we make a bit more fuss about such things than some others might do, but that’s because Grandmother has instilled in us the importance of family unity, and she sets such store on renewing family ties during the holidays. One might say that is what she lives for—bringing all the family together on these special occasions. It is a deep-rooted tradition with us; it is how we hold on to who and what we are. From near and far the kinsfolk come. They still do. In spite of what has come to pass. On foot and on horseback. By buggy and by cart. But of course it isn’t the same anymore.

  I remember what splendid times we used to have, laughing and joking and feasting on good food and drink. A most gregarious assemblage we were, all of us bound together by lineage and proud of it. But that was before Grandmother had her dream.

  When she first told us of the dream we were sympathetic, quite naturally attributing it to her continuing sorrow over Grandfather’s death which had occurred six months earlier. (We all love her so dearly, and cannot bear it when she is down-hearted; it wounded us deeply to see how she’d lost her zest for life, how she languished beside the window day after day, gazing out toward the graveyard with such a melancholy countenance and who knew what thoughts preying upon her mind.) At the time of the dream, Thanksgiving was fast approaching, and we knew how keenly she would feel Grandfather’s absence on that day—it would be the first time in more than fifty years that she’d spent a holiday without him. So we surmised the coming holiday had a great deal to do with the dream. But the dream was only that, a sad, sad dream, we said. Nothing more. Grandmother, however, insisted we were quite wrong.

  Her veined hands trembling, her aged, china blue eyes brimming with tears not of sorrow but of resurrected hope, she insisted that Grandfather had called out to her from his grave, communicating a strange but wondrous message. He had told her, she said in a voice quaking with amazement, that it was possible for him to be with us again at certain times. On holidays, to be exact. Yes, that was definitely what he’d said, she insisted. Holidays. Wasn’t it wonderful? He could come home for the holidays.