The Burning

by Jonas Saul

  THE BURNING

  by

  Jonas Saul

  Chapter 1

  Monday, October 18, 2011…

  Jared Tavallo stood in the clearing as his gun’s echo reverberated off the mountainous walls surrounding the valley. The sun shone bright on the bushes into which the doe had scurried, making it impossible to see blood on them from where he stood.

  His heart raced and his breathing rasped as Jared ran after his kill. He was certain the doe had taken the bullet about the neck. No way did he miss. Not from that range.

  The bushes were thick in the area where the deer had entered. Jared hit them hard and fast in the hopes of finding and securing his kill before anyone could see how close he’d gotten to the city of Banff.

  The National Park strictly prohibited hunting. He had a dilemma: he was too close to the park’s border, but the deer was too tempting to let go.

  He would locate his prize, cover it in the recently received snow, and that evening, his hunting partners would come and help him haul the carcass out.

  No one in the National Park had to know.

  The kill was his and his alone. He’d worked too hard for it — fought the cold temperatures and stumbled a long way from home to let the deer go simply because it didn’t follow man’s rules on geography.

  He pushed harder through the brush and stumbled, dropping to one knee in the foot-high snow.

  “Damn!”

  Back on his feet, he slung his rifle over his shoulder and trudged on through the white powder. The deer tracks led deep into the thicker foliage. A line of lodgepole pines were on his right. The fawn’s tracks turned toward them.

  A light snow began to descend from the dark gray clouds. Jared stopped and examined his surroundings. A tall tree to his left sat beside a boulder the size of an SUV. He would use that as a marker to find his way back. He had no way of telling how much snow would fall in the next hour and getting lost would only move him one step closer to hypothermia. All he needed to do was get back to the clearing where he had taken the shot. Then he could find his way back to the cabin.

  But first he had to locate the wounded deer. The cold had worked on Jared all day, but he was just now starting to shiver. He collected himself, took a deep breath and started toward the line of pines.

  The deer’s tracks disappeared beyond the scatter of bark and needles, leading into the darkness beyond. Jared struggled with his left sleeve, lifting it far enough to see his watch. Thirty-five minutes to sundown.

  “Shit.”

  A slight breeze brought with it the smell of something burning. Jared let his sleeve fall back into place as he looked around to see what was on fire. He stopped breathing and listened. He couldn’t see anything or hear the familiar crackle of a fire.

  Maybe it’s a nearby cabin’s wood stove or fireplace.

  He released his pent-up breath and inhaled heavily, taking in the acrid smell of something that wasn’t just wood.

  “What the hell is that?”

  He sniffed again. His stomach rolled. It smelled like burning hair or flesh.

  “What a putrid smell.”

  He brushed it off. He’d leave the area within minutes whether he found the stupid deer or not. He would never call the fire department. Even if he saw a house on fire, unless he could block his number and make an anonymous tip. He couldn’t allow any officials to see him on park property with a rifle. The fines would be too much and the uproar ridiculous. Whether he shot the deer a kilometer away or where he stood made no difference to Jared, but the powers that be always had an ear of corn up their asses for someone just like him.

  He stepped into the relative darkness of the tall pines and tried to follow the tracks. Ten minutes later he entered another small clearing.

  The burning smell intensified.

  It was time to turn back. If he’d hit the deer, it would’ve dropped long before.

  Then it hit him.

  “What a fucking waste of time.”

  There had been no blood in the white snow or on any tree. Absolutely none. If he’d hit the animal, there would’ve been blood. All he had followed were white tracks in undisturbed snow.

  Amateur fucking hunter.

  Something banged against a tree. Jared jolted and looked to the right where the noise had come from. He could just make out the edge of a shack or cabin. The animal’s tracks had turned that way.

  Maybe that was the deer falling over.

  He stepped around a tree and took a closer look at the cabin wall. The chimney lay dormant, no smoke.

  That’s weird. Then what’s burning?

  He stepped forward, intrigued. He covered his mouth with his glove and breathed through the cloth, the smell intensifying with each step.

  Fifteen meters from the cabin, he could see that it was once a large house. The wall he had walked up to was a small part of the garage area left over after a recent fire. He stepped toward the front and took in the immaculate features of a beautiful two-story wooden chalet. It had the traditional look of many of the resort homes in the area. Someone had taken great care to keep this one in top shape. Many hours of labor had gone into the intricate detail surrounding the windows and doors. Cherubs and angels acted as trim. Gargoyles framed the roof’s edge along with a crazy-looking weathervane in the shape of a beast he couldn’t identify.

  He had never seen such a contrast. A modern wooden chalet half turned into Gothic architecture.

  “Fuckin’ weird.”

  There were no tracks in the snow except for the deer’s. If no one had come or gone in the last twenty-four hours and there was no vehicle in the driveway, then who started the fire? Had there even been a fire?

  The deer tracks led to the front porch of the chalet. Jared held the glove over his nose tighter as he walked toward the door. The smell of burned flesh and hair was as powerful as a fine pepper spray, served with a side dish of bear spray. He wondered if he would vomit from the pungent odor.

  The deer tracks stopped at the edge of the closed door.

  What the fuck? Where did it go?

  The white button on the doorbell was quite small. He held his breath, pulled the glove away from his face and yanked it off to use his bare finger for the bell.

  “Holy shit,” he shouted and jerked back the second he touched it. The tip of his finger turned red and began to blister.

  “I just got burned by a doorbell,” he said out loud. “Payback for all those years of nicky nicky nine doors.”

  He examined the doorbell. It was plastic. But that was impossible. To burn his finger as badly as it did, the plastic should have melted.

  Maybe it was an electrical burn. A short in the wiring. Making sure to protect his finger, Jared closed his hand into a fist and knocked on the door. He wanted to ascertain whether a fire raged inside the cabin’s walls or not. If anyone was home, would they need help?

  And where was the deer he’d shot?

  His knuckles rapped the door again and began stinging the second he pulled them away.

  What the fuck!

  He examined his burnt knuckles.

  How could that happen?

  The wooden door didn’t have electrical wires attached to it like the doorbell did. There had to be a very hot fire raging just beyond the door with an enormous amount of heat radiating through it.

  He waited for a response from within and looked at his hand. He slid his glove back on and walked along the porch until he could see inside the front bay window.

  The furniture inside appeared normal. A couch and a love seat completed the living room ensemble. A gorgeous marble coffee table sat in the middle. Near the rear of the house, beautiful high-backed chairs surrounded a long wooden table in the dining area.

  Everything appeared intac
t and he could detect no sign of a fire.

  As he stepped away from the window, something moved on the floor by the base of the three-seater couch. The edge of someone’s hand, charred and still smoking, dragged away from sight.

  He covered his face with the glove again, this time to keep down the sandwiches he’d had for lunch.

  Someone was in trouble and needed his help. He now had no choice but to make an anonymous call to the police.

  But first, he wanted to see what the problem was.

  Jared pulled his weapon off his shoulder and leaned it against the wooden railing that framed the front veranda. Then he stepped back to the front door and knocked on it with the tip of his boot. Little puffs of smoke rose from where his boot touched the door.

  With no answer, he lifted his boot higher and kicked at the door. It gave way and opened wide. The smell was instant and overwhelming, hitting him like cow manure permeating the air.

  With his glove firmly in place over his nose, Jared stepped into the house. From where he stood, the back of the couch sat exposed.

  There was no one behind it, burned or otherwise.

  The hand had been attached to something, but that something was gone now.

  Outside, heavy clouds darkened the sky and brought an early dusk. He had followed the deer too far and waited too long to head back. He stood in the foyer of someone else’s house as it grew dark outside. He figured he had ten minutes left with any source of light.

  “Hello? Anybody here?”

  A light smoke filled the air, like fog floating throughout the main floor. He tried to detect the source, but since there wasn’t a breeze inside, it only floated, not moving left or right.

  “Hello?” Jared called again.

  He moved farther into the house. Could the person from behind the couch have the strength to drag themselves into the kitchen? There were no pictures on any of the walls. Nothing adorned the cabinet to his right. It was like no one lived here and cared for the home — but yet it seemed in top shape.

  Could be a vacation home for skiers, he thought.

  At the archway to the kitchen, he stopped and waited for his eyes to adjust to the darkness. A red light glowed from inside the stove. He leaned closer to get a look, but from the doorway, with little to no light coming in from the outside, he couldn’t see much.

  It was time to leave. Evidently someone was home and cooking something in the oven. No lights were on and it got harder to see with each passing second, but Jared didn’t want to touch anything. He didn’t want to get burned again.

  The heat rose under his feet. The rubber soles of his hunting boots were melting. Little bits of smoke rose off his feet to add to the already dense foggy air.

  Time to leave. Fuck the deer.

  He pivoted on the spot but his boots stuck. He’d left part of his rubber sole behind.

  “That is fucked up. The whole place is going to go.”

  The front door slammed shut. He searched in the dim light for who closed the door. Nothing moved. Jared stood stock still.

  A game? Someone was playing a game with him? His hunting partners, maybe?

  “Okay, Mr. And Mrs. Fuck Off. You know what you can do.”

  He stepped toward the door and left the rest of the sole of his right boot on the wooden floor behind him. When the thick winter sock on the underside of his foot touched down, Jared yelled out. The cloth couldn’t hold back the searing heat from the floor. He pitched to the side and landed on the back of the living room sofa.

  “Son of a bitch!”

  He twisted up to examine the wound, but in the dimming light could barely make out the shape of his foot.

  “What the hell is this? Where are you guys? What the fuck did you do to the floor? You fucked up my boots, man.”

  He hauled himself upright on the couch. At least the couch wasn’t hot.

  How come the house isn’t burning up and falling apart with this much heat?

  He tapped the pockets of his jacket and found a purple Bic lighter. A fast flick of the ignitor and a flame shot out. He held down the tiny black tongue and turned the lighter in all directions to see who was setting him up. He couldn’t make much out past the limits of the small flame and the smoke floating by.

  “Where the hell are you?” he called out.

  The fog he’d seen when first entering the house began to collect around the flame of his lighter. At first, it moved slow and then increased in speed. He watched, fascinated by the intense movement of air, or whatever was in the air, toward his little lighter. The flow intensified, rushing toward the flame. One moment the fog was simply moving toward the light and in the next it overwhelmed it.

  The Bic went out.

  “Shit.”

  He tried to restart it but couldn’t. Every flick with his thumb brought nothing but pain to his skin.

  Outside the window lay only darkness.

  Inside the rank house that smelled of burned hair, Jared sat in almost absolute darkness. There was a very tiny amount of light coming from the kitchen.

  The stove.

  He had to get out of the house.

  But how?

  He looked around. Everything he touched was too hot. It felt like everything was on fire but without the flames. He couldn’t walk on the floor. His boot had all but melted off his foot, and he couldn’t touch anything.

  But maybe he could walk on the cushions of the sofa.

  He grabbed each cushion on either side of him and tossed them to the floor. Then he slid sideways and pulled the one out from under his butt. He held on to that one to use when needed.

  On his feet now, favoring the burned foot, he stood on the arm of the couch and got ready. His eyes had adjusted to the darkness enough to make out the faint outline of the square cushions.

  They can play their jokes, but I won’t be a part of it.

  He leapt off the couch and landed solidly on the first cushion where he waited and balanced himself for the next jump toward the front door.

  Something moved underfoot. He looked down but in the darkness couldn’t make out what he was seeing. It appeared the cushion was also melting — becoming one with the floor of the chalet.

  What the fuck?

  He couldn’t believe this. Wood couldn’t be that hot. Decayed wood ignited at 150 degrees. It was a stupid fact he’d looked up because of the burns he’d received at a campfire cookout years ago. There was no way the wood on the floor was below 150 degrees, which meant he should see flames. To melt his boots it had to be higher. He was sure of it.

  Something very wrong is happening at this house. I need to get the fuck out. Now!

  He jumped from the first cushion to the second one and realized his mistake. The first cushion, as well as the second one had been melting into the floor the whole time, just as his boots had.

  The second cushion had shrunk to less than half its size and was almost no comfort when he landed on it. Standing on his good foot, he was down to seconds before his other boot would start to melt and he’d be left standing on two sock feet.

  Jared tossed the cushion he held in his hands and jumped on it at the exact second his boot began melting into the floor. He was still four feet from the closed door. The same door that someone had slammed shut just minutes ago.

  Fucking assholes.

  He’d make them pay.

  He reached for the knob but couldn’t touch it from where he stood. He would have to take one step on the burning wooden floor. Why hadn’t he stayed on the couch and used his body weight to shift it along the floor? On second thought, why wasn’t the couch burning? How were the couch’s legs withstanding the heat?

  Before leaping at the door, he turned around one more time to look at the couch, but in the darkness, he couldn’t see it anymore.

  Jared squinted and stared as hard as he could into the living room. As far as he could tell, it was completely empty.

  “Now that’s messed up, man.”

  All the furniture was gone.
If the couch wasn’t there and had never been there, then the cushion was also not there.

  Slowly, he looked down at his feet. The square cushion he thought he stood on had disappeared. The wood below his socks turned a deep shade of red. The heat coming through his skin registered, and for every sense his mind had understood since he was born, he couldn’t understand this one. He rejected it. Denied it. There was just no possible way to explain what was happening.

  Then the pain was too much.