Strangers

by Michaelbrent Collings

  DO IT.

  Jerry kicked the Killer’s prone form. The other man’s body was wracked by automatic spasms of pain, but Jerry ignored his distress, though it went against everything he had ever trained for in his personal or professional life. Instead he just jerked the other man half-upright, pulling him by his hair alone across the floor and leaning him against the bed.

  Then he slashed the madman’s own knife against him, dragging it against his chest, scraping it deep enough he felt it jitter along the other man’s ribs.

  The Killer screamed.

  “You know everything about us, right?” said Jerry. He turned the knife, running another furrow along the lunatic’s ribs. “So you know I’m a surgeon. I know how to do this for a long time without killing you.”

  And the Killer started to laugh.

  89

  The laugh was one of the ugliest things Jerry had ever heard, a rasping, madly dancing thing that brought to mind the image of a prima ballerina set ablaze in the middle of a performance, twirling madly into the most painful of oblivions. Sheri grabbed her chest again, as though the sound alone might drive her into another attack. Jerry held her arm, trying to impart a calm he did not feel.

  “You can do this a long time?” said the Killer, jerking his chin in the direction of the knife that still rested against his chest. “I don’t think so. None of us have long. Not long at all.”

  He nodded over Jerry’s shoulder. Jerry didn’t look, but he realized: the room was growing brighter. Sheri was holding the only flashlight to survive the melee in the living room, but the illumination wasn’t coming from its weakening bulb. No, the brightness entering the room was a flickering, flashing, yellow-gold light.

  The fire. Here already.

  Out of time. What do we –

  Sheri erupted in a shriek, rushing at the Killer. Jerry had a horrible vision, suddenly fearing that this was part of some master plan on the part of the madman and that in a moment Sheri would be in his clutches. He tried to stop his daughter’s mad attack, but was too tired, too spent, too slow. She ripped past him and hit the lunatic like a bullet train gone off its rails, knocking the Killer down and bashing his head against the floor as Jerry had done only a few minutes before.

  “How do we get out?” she screamed in a voice that Jerry hardly recognized. Slam, slam, slam. “How do we get out, you sick bastard, HOW DO WE GET OUT?”

  Jerry tried to stop her, but he could barely reach past the flailing mass of movement she had become. As though his daughter had ceased to exist, replaced by a creature with no mass, only heat and kinetic energy.

  Then she stopped. So suddenly it looked painful. Her eyes rolled back, the whites showing. She slumped. Jerry caught her.

  And the Killer laughed again. He propped himself back up against the bed, smearing blood from the back of his head against what remained of the covers. He wasn’t trying to flee, Jerry could tell instantly. He just wanted to see. Just wanted a better view.

  He was enjoying this. Savoring their pain. Luxuriating in the desperation of their destruction.

  Jerry turned his attention to Sheri. He moved her to the opposite edge of the bed, out of the Killer’s immediate line of sight. Her eyes rolled forward again… and she yanked out of his grasp.

  “Get away from me!” she shouted, as though he were nothing but a stranger in a bar who had invaded her space.

  For a moment Jerry wanted to strike back, to scream at her, to ask why it mattered if he held her and brought her to safety when she had –

  (say it, Jer-Jer, WHORED herself out)

  – allowed so many strangers so much more intimate access to her. He even opened his mouth to say it.

  And the Killer laughed. Enjoying their continued dissolution. Jerry didn’t know whether it had been part of the madman’s plan to be captured. He didn’t think so – he hoped not, or God save them, because nothing else could. But if he kept carping at Sheri he’d certainly be playing into whatever part of the Killer’s game called for them to be at each other’s throats.

  Crackles. The dry decrepitation of wood and plaster heated to a thousand degrees and beyond. The sounds of a house in distress.

  Sheri was weeping, not pushing him away anymore, but not letting him draw closer either. “What are we going to do?” she was murmuring. “What are we going to do?”

  Jerry listened to the sounds. A wall of noise washing over him, making it hard to think, to feel.

  He touched his daughter’s shoulder. She pushed him away again. “Don’t touch me! I don’t even know you!”

  Another long moment passed. Something popped below them as the heat burst it open. Sweat pooled on Jerry’s brow then ran in a thick line down the bridge of his nose, to the tip. Drip, drip. He wiped it off.

  The Killer laughed. Like he was winning.

  Because he was.

  “I was driving,” Jerry finally said. “I was driving.”

  90

  Jerry didn’t know if Sheri was listening or not. It didn’t matter. All that mattered was that he was saying it. Was saying the words that he had never said to anyone (save only Socrates on one drunken night). He was opening a part of himself that he had kept sealed tight for so long.

  So long….

  “Your mother and I had been fighting,” he continued. “I don’t remember about what. Something stupid. We always fought a lot, but we always made up. At least before….” He drifted off. Almost didn’t start again. Made himself continue. “Anyway, I drove forever. Just clearing my head. And I fell asleep. Hit something.” His breath hitched. He inhaled deeply, coughing as a thick cloud of smoke moved into his lungs. “It was a woman. Out walking. Pregnant.” He coughed again, though this time it was as much to cover up the tears that threatened as to clear his body of smoke. “I left. I ran. But someone saw. I never found out who, but I’ve been paying blackmail since then. Trying to keep it secret.”

  Jerry paused. The heat was wafting in from the hall in dry waves, flickering tongues licking into view. He felt like he was at the edge of a furnace, the edge of tolerance. “What’s my secret?” he said. “Nothing much. I just killed a girl.”

  He closed his eyes. He had nothing left. No ideas. No family. No will to survive. All was gone. He was dry and empty, a parched husk that would burn well in the coming flame.

  Annihilation would be a relief. Nothing to give meant nothing more to take. The Killer’s hold over him was gone. He would embrace the flame and smile.

  Then, a feeling. A touch.

  Jerry opened his eyes. Sheri had rested a hand on his. And as he watched she reached out with her other one and did the same. Her fingers curled around his.

  The fire peeked in at the doorway. The sound of wood splintering surrounded them. The entire structure of the house seemed to groan like an old man getting ready to lay down one last time.

  Jerry looked from the smaller hands that had curled around his own to the fingers of fire curving through the doorway of the bedroom.

  He was a husk. He would take the flame. But could he do more in his last moments than simply expire?

  Yes.

  91

  Jerry’s own fingers responded, gripping Sheri’s. Not like he was holding onto some possession – she was not his, never had been – but like he was protecting a rare and fragile object before handing it off to its rightful owner.

  Something fell in the hall. Glass tinkled. Metal buckled.

  Jerry looked at his daughter. “Sweetie, the fire is almost here. When it gets in the room….” He took a deep breath. Could he do this?

  I have nothing left to give. And so nothing that can be taken from me. Not even my fear. Not even my pain.

  “I want you to lay down in the bathtub, and I’m going to lay on top of you. And no matter what you hear or see or smell, just don’t move. Stay beneath me. And maybe you’ll survive.”

  Sheri stared at him blankly, as though he had suddenly begun speaking ancient Greek. Then: “What…? No! That’s insane!
That won’t –”

  “It might. It happens in forest fires all the time – baby animals covered by their parents until the fire burns out.” He closed his eyes. “Please don’t argue this, Sheri. There’s not a lot of –”

  “No.” Her voice was firm. She looked around the room, her eyes searching. “There has to be… the fireplace!”

  She got up and stumbled to the small fireplace at the wall. Jerry shook his head. “It’s ornamental,” he said. “You know that.”

  “So? Maybe it’s enough.” Sheri pulled the grate off the fireplace and looked in. Jerry knew what she would see: a small flu, really suitable only as a vent, maybe fifteen inches square. Still, Sheri reached in. And then yanked her hand out with a yelp, sucking at her fingers. The metal must have superheated from the house fire already. Going in would be suicide.

  But Sheri squared her shoulders. “I can get through. I can get us help,” she said. “I can save you.” She took a shaking breath then added a single, musical word: “Dad.”

  Jerry could see that she knew. Knew going in the flu would be a painful death. And that she didn’t care; was still willing to try.

  For her family.

  His vision blurred. Smoke all around them, sweat dripping from the heat.

  And tears.

  I do have something to give. I do have things that can still be taken.

  Jerry took his daughter in his arms. Coughing, choking, they stood together in the face of the flame. And there was nothing between them.

  They would die together, but at least they would never again be alone.

  92

  The fire was loud now. It sounded strangely like a thunderstorm, like the tic-tic-tac-tic of huge drops of water pounding on a roof. Jerry held his girl and tried to empty his mind of the fear that was creeping up in him.

  “Let’s move,” he said, wondering if he would really be able to do what he had said he would and hold his daughter beneath him while he cooked alive.

  Then his eyes opened so wide he felt like the eyeballs might drop right out of their sockets.

  “What is it?” said Sheri.

  “There’s a place we never looked.”

  Sheri’s eyes lit up.

  “Where?”

  Jerry grabbed her hand. “Come on!”

  He pulled her toward the walk-in closet. Then in. Started throwing things out of the way, moving toward his goal. He did so one-handed for a few seconds, holding to the knife with the other, but then abandoned the weapon, dropping it at his feet so he could work faster. Shoeboxes and clothing got thrown haphazardly over his shoulder as he moved in like a burrowing tick. Some of it hit Sheri but there was no time to worry about that.

  “It’s got to be here.”

  93

  The man watches Sheri and Jerry disappear, and he frowns. What’s going on in there? He didn’t expect to be captured like this, but he can adjust. He can adapt. He can roll with it. Especially since capturing him – truly capturing him – is impossible. He’s here because he wants to be here. Because he is curious how this will play out. But he just has to say the magic word and freedom will be his immediately. So nothing has really bothered him so far.

  Until now. He doesn’t like seeing Jerry and his daughter go into the closet. Doesn’t like them out of his sight.

  He thinks about saying the word. The magic word.

  But then he realizes he doesn’t have to. The fire is here. Fire is help enough. He prefers to do things himself if he can. Because if he says the magic word, he’ll have freedom, but then… his turn might end.

  The fire has rolled in through the door, and now curtains one of the walls. The man rolls over to the wall, tumpety-tumpety-thump, each roll over his slashed chest causing stinging stitches to weave across his front, each roll over his side causing agony to roil through him as his body shifts the deep knife wound in his shoulder.

  He ignores it all. Pain is nothing new. Pain is how he was taught. How he learned that there is a place and time and turn for everything.

  How he became who he is.

  Finally he is at the fire. He manages to stand, then thrusts his still-bound wrists and arms behind him into the fire. He hears something sizzling and realizes it is him only an instant before the smell of scorched meat wafts up to his nostrils.

  He is suddenly very concerned that the burns on his arms will cause them not to match. This makes him angry.

  He feels the sleeves on his shirt burn away. Something flitters to his feet, a long sheet of black. He thinks it is another piece of his shirt, then realizes it is not. Nor is it the bedspread with which Jerry bound him. No, it is his flesh, his skin.

  His arms are definitely not going to match now.

  He is very angry.

  He pulls at his bonds. They have not burnt away. Not completely.

  But soon.

  94

  Jerry pulled down a final trio of hatboxes, standing on his tiptoes to do so, and revealed what he had been looking for: a small attic hatch. He let go an explosive breath, wondering how long he had been holding it, then turning to Sheri.

  “We have an attic?” she said incredulously.

  “Not really. More just a storage space. I’d forgotten about it,” he said. “Most of the house is loft ceiling, except this one small spot.”

  Sheri looked suddenly terrified, staring at the two foot square hatch as though it were a ticking time bomb. “Wouldn’t… he… know about it?”

  Jerry shook his head. “I doubt it. It’s never been used, as far as I know, so it wouldn’t have been on any of the surveillance videos he took. I mean… none of us even really knew about it. The only time I ever saw it was the day we were shown the place by the realtor, years ago.”

  “Is there a way out through there?”

  Jerry shrugged. “I don’t know. But we have to try.”

  He swung back to face the hatch. It was in the ceiling of the closet. There was no way he could reach it. Problem. There were a few shelves under it, but they weren’t going to be sturdy enough to support him, not even Sheri.

  He turned to face his daughter and bent down, making a cradle of his hands, then nodded to her to climb up.

  “What about you?” she said. She still looked like she didn’t trust this option.

  “We’ll figure me out in a second.”

  Sheri bit her lip, a curiously childlike gesture that made Jerry feel sick. She shouldn’t be here. She should be with friends or at the mall or a movie. Anywhere but here.

  Sheri stepped forward. At the same time a cloud of thick smoke rolled in the room behind her, forcefully reminding him that they didn’t have much time. She put a hand on each of his shoulders, then her foot in the stirrup of his hands. She stepped up, and he hoisted at the same time.

  His vision swum spectacularly, and he felt like he might vomit. His body clearly didn’t want to keep doing this.

  How about a nap, Jerry?

  Just a little longer. Just a little longer and then you can lay down as long as you want. Forever.

  His vision cleared. Sheri had her hands on the attic hatch and was pushing. Terror seized him: what if the attic door was locked somehow, or even simply nailed shut?

  Then those concerns evaporated as Sheri pushed the beige-painted board that served as the hatch’s door up and over. She hoisted herself up a bit and looked around.

  “What’s in there?” said Jerry.

  “Lots of dark.”

  “Good enough.”

  Jerry lifted with all his strength. His vision swam and then blurred. Fireflies gathered at the edges of his sight, then were joined by strange insects he had never seen, a kind of bug that brought an absence of light with it. Sparks and darkness mingled and soon he could see nothing but a dizzying display of flashes crawling across a black background.

  Don’t need to see to lift. Just keep lifting, Jerry.

  Sheri groaned. As she pulled herself up, Jerry could feel her bodyweight diminishing. She coughed: the attic must be fu
ll of smoke.

  As her weight went to the floor of the attic instead of his own overstressed muscles, Jerry’s eyesight returned. Though at first he didn’t even realize it because the closet was so dark, so thoroughly choked with smoke.

  He looked up and could vaguely make out his daughter leaning out, reaching down for him. He jumped. Missed. Jumped again. Grabbed her hands. Held.