Shadow of the Past

by Thacher Cleveland

  She looked up just in time to see the padlock click into place.

  “There we go. Now we can really get some work done.”

  He turned away from her to look down at Mark. “Time to wake up, little traitor. I want you to get a good look at what you’ve done.”

  “He didn’t do anything!” she said, tugging at the chain. For all the age it showed, it was strong, not giving at all even with her full weight on it.

  “You have no idea,” Jack said, turning back to her. “This is all his fault. Everything that I’ve done has been because of him, and now he’s going to suffer for turning his back on us.”

  “Wake up,” he said, turning back to Mark and giving him a kick in the ribs. Mark groaned and turned away from him.

  “Oh, no you don’t,” Jack said, leaning down and turning Mark over to face him. “I want you awake for this. I want you to get a good look at this and see that there is no escape. Not for her, not for the Detective, and certainly not for you.”

  “Look at this,” Mark said, thrusting the sheath of the cane up and into the hole in Jack’s head. With a yell Mark pulled, toppling Jack’s corpse headfirst into the furnace.

  Jack gave a surprised howl of anger, his legs sticking out from the furnace chamber and kicking wildly. Mark slapped away at them until he got a good grip and forced them into the fire. The fire roared out from around Jack’s squirming and thrashing body that just barely fit into the fuel chamber. He was trying to turn himself around, and Mark ducked out of the way as the sword blade stabbed out from the flames at him.

  “The door!” Christine screamed. “Shut the door!”

  Mark swung the door shut as hard as he could. It landed on Jack’s flaming wrist with a loud snap, the impact forcing him to drop the blade. Jack’s body pushed against the door, almost knocking Mark onto his back.

  Mark braced his shoulder on the door and planted his feet as much as he could on the blood-slicked cement floor. Blackened fingers peeked around the edge of the door amidst the smoke and fire escaping into the air. Mark pressed his back against the door as hard as he could and forced it shut. He’d managed to find a tiny patch of the floor that wasn’t wet, but it was almost too far away to be of any help.

  Mark turned to look through the chamber’s window and found himself eye to boiling, flaming eye with Jack. The Darren-smoke swirled around the chamber, almost blacking out the flames behind it. Even through the glass he could hear Darren’s scream of anger and the hiss of the flames as they burned away not just as Jack’s body, but the smoke that had been Jack’s form.

  Mark reached over to latch the furnace door shut, but there was nothing there. All that was left of the locking mechanism was two loops of metal. Jack’s body pushed against the door again, and Mark could see a tiny tendril of black smoke escape from the gap that had been made before Mark forced the door shut again.

  “Fuck, it won’t latch!” he yelled, looking back at Christine. She was swinging her legs at him and pulling at the chain on her wrists.

  “The sword! Use the sword!” she said, and he realized that she had been kicking it towards him with each swing of her legs.

  He stretched out, keeping one arm pressed against the door and the other reaching out for the sword handle. Christine swung again, kicking the blade up against the tips of his fingers. He managed to get a fingernail hooked into a bit of the detail work on the dragon head and dragged the thing fully in his grip.

  Twisting around, Mark jammed the blade through the metal loops all the way down to the hilt. The door rattled as Mark got up and made sure the blade wouldn’t shake loose. The door shook, but not enough to open a crack even big enough for smoke to get through. On his knees in front of the window, catching his breath, Mark watched the flames and the darkness swirling in them. The roars of anger had been replaced with a high pitched squeal, and the furnace was shaking as the power of the flames grew.

  It’s eating him. Whatever is in there is so blind with hunger it’s devouring whatever power it had given him. Not too shabby, kiddo. I’m going to take back some of the things I said about you.

  “Is he . . ?” she asked, looking over his shoulder at the tiny window.

  “Yeah,” Mark said, getting to his feet and wiping his hands. He walked over to the gauge on the furnace and turned all of the dials up as far as they could go. “But let’s make sure that bastard cooks.” Looking over the various levers and knobs, he had a twinge of memory. It was someone explaining to him how the furnace worked, and reminding him that he had to make sure that the valves on all the pipes leading up into the house were open if the heat was going to come through.

  The furnace is very old, Justin, and has a lot of quirks to it. It’ll be sure to keep us warm, though. Lord knows it can burn hotter than any other thing I’ve seen.

  Mark reached up, shutting each valve and making sure that whatever was left of Darren was trapped in the furnace until he burned away into nothingness. The furnace rumbled again, vibrating with the intensity of the heat now trapped in its chamber.

  “Mark?” Christine said, bringing him back to his senses.

  “What?” He said, turning back to face her.

  She jangled the chains around her wrists. “A little help?”

  “Oh,” he said, running over and peering at the twisted knot of chain and lock. “Geez, it’s padlocked.”

  “I know,” she said. “He got it from your jacket. Is there a key?”

  “No,” Mark said, squinting up at it. “Jesus! This is my lock from junior high. Where the hell did he find this?”

  “What’s the combination?”

  “I . . . oh, shit,” he mumbled. “36 . . . 24 . . . I dunno, 36, maybe.”

  “Mark!” she yelled. “That’s from a song! Can’t you remember?”

  “I’m sorry!” he yelled back. “I’ve taken a couple of blows to the head in case you haven’t noticed, and the yelling isn’t doing anything for the ringing in my ears!”

  “Jesus, I’m sorry, okay? Can you pull it, without tearing off my wrists? I think I might’ve weakened it.”

  “I’ll try.”

  He pulled at it until he was almost purple in the face. There was a slight bend in the bar above, but that was it. He tried again, this time pulling himself off his feet and hanging in the air. Again, nothing.

  “Ow, ow, ow!” she said, wincing as it tightened the chain around her wrists.

  “Sorry,” he said. “I’m going to try to fin--” he started, but then furnace exploded.

  She shrieked with surprise, and he winced as tiny bits of metal pelted his back. They looked back and saw that one of the pipes had ruptured under the pressure and was now shooting flames upwards and into the ceiling, which was already beginning to catch fire.

  “Oh god!” Christine screamed, joined by high-pitched hissing as one of the other pipes began to give. He turned and kept tugging, hoping the explosion had done something to loosen the chain or the crossbar holding it up. The only thing it had done was make it hotter and harder to breathe.

  “Mark!” Christine said. “Get out of here! Get help!”

  “No, there’s no time!” he said, yanking and pulling at the chain also. “I’m not going to leave you here.”

  “Mark,” she took a deep breath. “Don’t! Just go before it’s too late.”

  “No. This is my fault, and I’m going to get you out of here.”

  She opened her mouth to say something, but there was another explosion. Not the furnace this time, but a gunshot. The chain spilled off the bar it had been wrapped around and down onto the floor.

  “We’re all getting out of here,” David said, down on one knee, using his knee to steady his gun arm.

  “The gun . . .” Christine said as the three rushed up the steps.

  “Spare clip on my belt,” David said.

  They sprinted through the kitchen and when they got to the front door they found it open. Whatever had been keeping it shut was hopefully too busy being burned out of e
xistence. On the first floor smoke was already pouring up through the floor boards. Regular smoke, Mark noted before he left. Not the black and evil kind.

  “Go,” David said, waving them on after they left the yard. “Don’t stop running until you get down the block.”

  “What are you--” Mark said, looking back over his shoulder as he ran.

  “I need to radio this in, get some fire crews here. Go!”

  They did as they were told, stopping and leaning against a tree across the street at what they hoped was a safe distance. David ducked into his car for a few seconds, and then went over to the houses on either side of Corwin’s, which was now producing a steady stream of smoke from the basement and ground floor windows.

  Christine looked over at Mark, who was watching the scene with a blank face.

  “We can go further down the block and wait, if you want,” she said.

  “No,” Mark said, not looking away. “I want to watch it burn. I want to see it burn to the ground.”

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  “We need to come up with something,” David said softly.

  They were in a small, curtained off exam room at the hospital, waiting for a nurse to come back with a doctor to put stitches in David’s head. After running to warn the neighbors, he’d almost fallen over from exertion.

  “What do you mean?” Christine said, rubbing her wrists where the chains had chaffed them raw.

  “We can’t exactly tell them the whole truth,” David said.

  “Why not?” Mark said. “I’ll just tell them everything, and they can just do whatever. I don’t really care.”

  “Mark, I know you’ve had a hard day, but that’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard,” David said.

  “Why?” Mark snapped, and then lowered his voice. “I did it, remember? This whole thing is my fault. I don’t need to drag you guys into this any further than I have. I don’t care if they--”

  “Stop it,” Christine said. “If you let them take you away, if you tell them that you did those things then Corwin will win.”

  “Christine, it wasn’t like that. It . . . it wasn’t like that.”

  “What do you mean?” David said. “That’s what I thought this thing was about too.”

  “It was, and it wasn’t.”

  “You better talk fast,” David said, “because I can only stall answering questions for so long.”

  Mark took a deep breath and he told them everything.

  He couldn’t bring himself to look up when he told them what Darren had revealed to him and how he knew it was true. They didn’t question him at all, just stayed quiet.

  “Mark,” David said, coming close and putting a hand on Mark’s shoulder. “This doesn’t change anything. This wasn’t your fault and you didn’t actually do any of those things. He used you, and I’m not going to blame you for something that may have happened in a past life.”

  “I guess.” He looked over at Christine.

  “You’re right,” she finally said, looking up at the two of them. “It doesn’t change anything. Not really.”

  “Okay,” David said. “Let me think, and as hard as it is, we need to remember exactly what happened, as quickly as possible. I think I can fix this.”

  It turned out that fixing it was easy, because everyone wanted it fixed. Neat, tidy and packed away so that Cedar Ridge was a nice place to live again. All they needed was a story, and Detective Prescott and Mark were happy to give it to them.

  All they had to do was pin it on Jack, and his unhealthy fixation with Mark. It was a fixation that ran so deep that, after reading about Cedar Ridge’s one and only serial killer in a book from his father’s rather extensive local history collection, he decided to investigate it for himself. In doing so, he found Corwin’s murder weapon and what he thought would be the perfect way to terrorize Mark.

  Jack targeted Mark’s friends and the school guidance counselor who had, on several occasions, called Jack “trouble” and “dangerous.” It was also at this time that Jack’s friends noticed his increased interest in Mark, and they even believed that Jack had been involved in a traffic incident and assault in the following weeks, perhaps with some other group of boys they didn’t know.

  On the final day of his life, Jack snapped and killed his father, and then headed for Mark’s house. Mark wasn’t there, but his Uncle Joe was. He and Jack fought, and Jack pushed the man down the stairs, killing him. When Mark came home he found a note from Jack telling him to call him or more of his friends would die. When he did he demanded that Mark meet him at Justin Corwin’s house. Panicked, Mark called Christine to warn her. She called Steve who then called Detective Prescott and all of them made their way to the house.

  When Christine and Mark arrived, Jack took them hostage. When Steve and Detective Prescott showed up Jack disarmed him, executed Steve and beat Detective Prescott into unconsciousness. After that, Jack and Mark struggled, Jack was shot, and the three of them escaped before the fire that Jack started in the old furnace got out of control and burned the house down.

  The details the three of them cobbled together all checked out. They thought they’d lucked out when they found that Jack’s Dad had the same book that Mark had checked out of the library, but the real nail came when they found a sheet stained with Ryan and Mr. Baker’s blood. None of Jack’s friends were eager to associate themselves with him after what he’d done to his father came to light. After a talk with David they were more than willing to corroborate the group’s story. It was thin and far-fetched, but it was all the Cedar Ridge police had and they were more than willing to put a close to the case that had put them in an uncomfortable spotlight.

  Mark went over their amended version of events in his head so many times that in the following weeks when he was telling it to police officers, lawyers and child services agents, it felt more real than what had actually happened.

  Christine’s brother’s funeral was the day after their ordeal in Corwin’s house, but Mark didn’t go. Christine’s father woke up the following day and didn’t say anything coherent enough to damage the official version of what happened.

  Mark didn’t go to Jack’s funeral, which he was told was very small and organized by relatives from out of state who dealt with the matter with as much speed and little fanfare as they could muster.

  He did go to Steve’s funeral. David went with him, and Mark insisted that they stay as far away as they could from Steve’s parents. That didn’t keep Steve’s mother, hysterical with grief, from spitting at Mark and cursing at him at the top of her lungs as they were leaving. At least now she has a real reason to hate me, Mark figured.

  Joe’s funeral service was small and put together by most of his friends down at work. Mark had known so few of them he hadn’t stayed at the service long, not wanting to hear them extolling Joe’s virtues as a friend and drinker.

  After that, Mark decided he had enough of funerals.

  “But things are getting better, right?” David said, passing Mark the gravy.

  “I guess,” Mark said. “I mean, I guess it’s not like prison, but . . .”

  “It’s still a group home. I know. It’s not exactly the best place to be.” David said.

  “What’s a group home?” David’s son Eric asked.

  “It’s a place where boys and girls go who don’t have a family, sweetie.” Monica, David’s wife said.

  “Oh,” Eric said, forgetting all about Mark and digging into his turkey.

  “Thanks again, Mrs. Prescott,” Mark said around a mouthful of food. “This is really nice. It’s been a long time since I had a Christmas dinner like this.”

  “Well, it’s the least we could do Mark, and please, call me Monica. I’m still too young to be called ‘Missus’ all the time.”

  David opened his mouth to say something, but the phone rang. “I’ll get it. And if it’s telemarketers on Christmas Eve, I’m going for my gun.”

  They all laughed and Mark took another bite of food. David
pulled a couple of strings and got Mark a pass to spend the holiday with his family, which definitely beat the alternative of sitting around waiting to be assigned to a foster family. Christmases with his Uncle had always been kind of dour, but even though he was going back to the home later in the afternoon Mark figured this one was going to seem like a picnic in comparison.

  “Mark,” David said, hand over the mouthpiece of the portable phone. “It’s for you. You can take it into the study.”

  “Oh,” Mark said, getting up and taking phone. “Thanks.”

  “Hello?” he said when he got in the study.

  “Hey,” Christine said.

  “Hey yourself,” he said.

  “How’re things?”

  “Good. You?”

  “Good. It’s kind of weird here, but my Dad is home and it looks like he’s going to be getting better.”

  “That’s really good to hear. I was worried about him.”

  “Yeah, we all were. I can’t talk long,” she said. “My folks would . . . well, I don’t think they’d approve.”

  “I understand.” They paused, and, grasping for something to say, added. “How’s the new school?”

  “Okay, I guess. Kind of like every other private school I went to. Strict with terrible dress code but other than that it’s school.”

  “Cool, cool.”

  “Look, Mark,” she said. “I just . . . I just wanted to wish you a Merry Christmas and say sorry about things getting weird. Y’know, after.”

  Mark nodded. Aside from a couple of hearings they hadn’t seen each other at all since that day, and every time they’d been close she hadn’t so much as glanced in his direction.

  “No,” he said. “I’m . . . I’m real sorry about everything. I wish you had a chance to not have things be so--”

  “It’s okay.”

  “I mean, if you hadn’t met me, then--”

  “Mark,” she interrupted. “Even with everything that happened I’m glad I knew you. Everything that he said, even if it was true, wasn’t really true. It took me a while to really digest everything but I know it wasn’t your fault no matter what your past life might have been.”