The Firebug of Balrog County

by David Oppegaard

  “Funny guy, but Reggie did have a temper. I think something real bad happened to him once and he never let it go. You could hear it in his voice sometimes. Late at night, when we’d all stayed up one round too long, he’d get a nasty edge that made his jokes sound mean.”

  Grandpa scratched his nose with the sleeve of his coat.

  “One day, when we were out on patrol, a little Vietnamese kid popped out of the weeds and ran in front of our squad. Not at our squad, mind you, but in front of it, about fifty yards off. The kid couldn’t have been more than five years old and was skinny as a goddamn mule.

  “Reggie raised his rifle and sighted the kid. The rest of us thought Reggie was joking, but he fired. One shot and the kid dropped like he’d been knocked on the head with a mallet. Reggie turned and looked at us. ‘How’d y’all like that one?’ he said and then winked like the whole thing was a big joke. Our staff sergeant, who’d been standing beside me the whole time, pulled out his pistol and shot Reggie right between the eyes, like the whole thing was a Western on TV.”

  Grandpa wet his lips. A whippoorwill called out from the rows of broken corn stalks and we started walking again, following the dog and listening to the wind rustle the high grass. Finally Chompy, who must have lost the bird’s scent, bounded out of the ditch and ran back down the road to rejoin us. Grandpa Hedley scratched the dog behind the ears, telling him he was a good boy.

  “What do you think Reggie couldn’t let go of?” I asked. Chompy rolled onto his back, showing us his white belly.

  “Hell if I know, Mack. But it didn’t really matter, did it? Not after Reggie was lying in that field with a bullet between his eyes.”

  I knelt and scratched the beast, picturing a skinny little kid running across the field, scared as hell and about to die.

  “What about your staff sergeant? Did he get court marshaled for shooting Reggie?”

  “Shit no. It was Vietnam, kid. We took fire the next day and Sarge bought the farm, too.”

  I stood up and looked at my grandfather. I saw the canny glint in his eye and I realized he suspected me of … something. Maybe he thought I was the county firebug, maybe he just thought I’d been stepping out in other unseemly ways. Maybe he could just sense all the crazy jumping beans inside my head and thought he could freak me out before I went down The Wrong Path. He’d already gotten me a second job on the weekends—the time for making trouble—and he was always studying me like I was one of his bonsai trees. Maybe he thought he could be both my hunting grandpa and my new mommy, all rolled into one bristly war vet package. And if Grandpa Hedley thought that … well Jesus, he was in for a big-time case of disappointment.

  A critter, unseen, rustled in the distant weeds. Chompy rolled back onto his feet and shot forward. The hunt was back on but we didn’t see another bird until dusk, when two beautiful ring-necks flew up on the edge of the road. Grandpa brought them down with one arrow each, smiling as they fell from the sky and Chompy ran out after them. Then we threw the dead birds in the bed of the pickup and headed for home, the dog happily snoring in the back seat while Grandpa and I watched the road in companionable silence, thinking about whatever the hell it is men think about in Ernest Hemingway stories.

  The Attic

  After Grandpa Hedley dropped me off at home, I worked my usual Saturday evening shift at the Legion. The crowd was a sparse collection of old men and divorced ladies, most of them with skin resembling teriyaki beef jerky, but Ox Haggerton wasn’t one of them. Actually, the old coot hadn’t returned to the bar once since I’d torched his woodpile. Folks said he’d grown even stranger and more isolated since the fire at his place and had taken to driving around the county day and night without stopping to speak to anyone or having an apparent destination.

  After we closed the bar, I drove back to town. The night was clear and crisp with plenty of stars and I didn’t feel like going home. I let the steering wheel guide me and after some slow drifting, including one close call with a parked car, I found the Oldsmobile leading me to Katrina’s rental house and parking itself across the street, stakeout-style. It was past midnight but I was still surprised to see the big house dark on all levels. Didn’t college students live here? Was it not Saturday night?

  I leaned back into the crushed velour depths of the Oldsmobile’s front seat. I closed my eyes and must have dozed off for a while, because the next thing I knew somebody was tapping on my window and I was pitching forward against my seat belt, startled as shit.

  A girl laughed. It was Katrina, a pale specter in the streetlight.

  I rolled down my window.

  “Hey,” I said. “What’s up?”

  Katrina stuck her hands into her jacket pockets and gave me the once-over. “You tell me, buddy. You drunk parking?”

  “Nope. I’m sober as a Mormon.”

  Katrina snorted. “Well, I’m not. I was just at the worst party, like, ever.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Some frat thing in Thorndale.” Katrina winced and scrunched up her nose. “I let my roommates drag me to it and ended up fending off all sorts of baseball cap lechery while my roomies vanished on me. It was like going to a party with the three ghosts of unwanted pregnancy future. I took off without them. They can find their own greasy ride home.”

  She flapped her jacket pockets. “Anyway. You stalking me or what?”

  I set my hands on the steering wheel. “I let my car guide me on my way home from the Legion and it led me here, to your darkened door. Then I conked out.”

  Katrina looked back at her house. “My door is darkened, isn’t it? Fuck. It’s downright creepy.”

  “Have you had the basement fumigated for giant spiders, or vampires? Also, the attic. Have you checked the attic for murderous hobos?”

  Katrina shivered. “I was going to have it checked out but, you know, classes started.”

  “Maybe you should have a friend investigate it with you. Someone who can watch your back.”

  Katrina nodded, making a serious face. She didn’t seem drunk. “You know, that might be a good idea. Why don’t you come in and lend a hand?”

  “I could find time in my schedule,” I said, opening my door. “We should have a cocktail first, though. It’ll help with our bravery.”

  Katrina’s rental house appeared even bigger on the inside. All high tin ceilings, wood trim, and lead-framed windows, it had a basement as well as three complete aboveground stories and an attic. It must have been the house of a Hickson lumber baron once, or a big-time fur trapper. No matter how many lights Katrina flipped on, I had the strange sensation that within the house there existed some spaces light could not, or would not, reach.

  We gravitated to the kitchen. Katrina fixed us drinks while I searched for a flashlight and any other ghost hunting equipment we might need. I found a battery-operated plastic lantern, a can of bug spray, and a wooden tenderizing mallet that had a reassuring heft to it. I spread everything on the table and considered the possibilities. Katrina handed me a glass tumbler filled with ice and a murky concoction she’d garnished with a maraschino cherry.

  “It’s an Old Fashioned.”

  I took a sip. Little sparks popped along my tongue. I tasted bourbon, sweet orange, and a stunning Other.

  “Wow. This is the perfect concoction to drink before venturing off to face supernatural foes.”

  We clinked glasses and drank. The house was so cold it felt as if we’d stumbled into an ancient Victorian tomb with a well-stocked liquor cabinet.

  “I like this place,” I said. “It’s unsettling.”

  Katrina wiped her mouth. “I like it too, but sometimes I think I might not be goth enough for it. You know, like I’m a poser and this shit is the real deal.”

  “Like H.P. Lovecraft might be buried beneath it. Waiting to rise once again when summoned by the great space demons.”

  Katrina tucked a st
rand of hair behind her ear and stepped forward. She lifted onto her tiptoes, held my gaze for a moment, and kissed me. Her lips tasted like sweet orange.

  “You’ve read Lovecraft?” she asked.

  I licked my lips. This I had not expected. “Yes I have. I love Lovecraft.”

  “That’s kind of hot, Mack. I love old H.P. I love ancient Elder gods and weird shit from outer space.”

  “Lonely bookish male scientists, slowly going mad while investigating areas in rural New England.”

  Katrina slapped my arm. “Exactly. I love shit like that.”

  I nodded. My lips were still tingling and this girl liked her Lovecraft. The universe did indeed contain a multitude of possibilities.

  “You taste good, Katrina.”

  “Yeah, I know.” Katrina picked up the plastic lantern from the table and turned it on. “Where should we start first: the basement or the attic?”

  “Basement. That way, nothing can sneak up on us from below while we’re searching the rest of the house.”

  “Yeah, dude. I like the way you think.”

  We descended the basement stairs and I said a silent prayer to the gods of good luck, ghost hunting, and eroticism. I’d left the bug spray on the kitchen table but had taken the wooden mallet for good luck. Katrina led the way with the lantern and refused to turn on any additional lights, not wanting to scare the haunts away.

  The basement was filled with junk. Previous tenants had ditched whatever the hell they’d felt like ditching—A/C units, box fans, floor lamps, moldy rugs, wicker chairs, library books, old Penthouses, plastic tubs stuffed with clothes, boxes full of random mechanical stuff, an enormous CRT monitor, antifreeze, car oil—and the result was a maze of shit nobody would ever need to use again, not in a hundred years, not if there was a goddamn zombie apocalypse. The layered mess reminded me of my grandparents’ cluttered backyard, though with one key difference: every object in the Grotto had been placed lovingly, with great forethought, while all the shit in Katrina’s basement appeared to have been dumped as swiftly as possible.

  We inspected the premises and decided nothing supernaturally depraved was holed up among the boxes and discarded furniture.

  “It’s the Basement of Misfit Crap,” I said.

  “I know, right? It’s sad down here, but Charlie doesn’t care.”

  “Your landlord?”

  “Yeah. He’s lazy as hell. Check out the way back room, though.”

  Katrina led the way through the maze of junk and stepped through a narrow doorway I hadn’t noticed before. She reached above her head and pulled on a cord, flooding the small room with light.

  “Welcome to my laboratory, Mack-Attack.”

  I stepped inside the way back room. It was narrow and long with a work bench lining the entire rear wall. Unlike the rest of the basement, it was refreshingly clear of random junk. The only items in sight were a collection of tools on the bench, stacks of squared exterior plywood, and about two dozen small wooden houses lined up in a row, some finished and some still under construction. Sawdust coated the floor and the workbench, giving off a pleasant woodsy smell.

  “Wow,” I said, genuinely stunned. The bird houses were painted all kinds of crazy colors, everything from lemon yellow with a lime green trim to a kaleidoscopic of punchy blues, purples, and reds. I stepped closer to examine a lilac-colored house and noticed a small white shape perched inside its opening.

  “What the hell?”

  It was a tiny white skeleton.

  The skeleton of a bird.

  “You like it?”

  The skeleton was held together with a fine, bendy kind of wire. Exquisitely small, the bird’s bone beak was glued open, as if it was singing, and its bony wings were cocked backward. You could see the bird’s tiny vertebrae, its tiny rib cage, its blade-like sternum, its tiny phalanges. It looked so fragile and small, like it was begging to be held in your hand and crushed into powder.

  I felt a lump in my throat. My eyes dampened and I wondered if I was going to cry right the fuck there. The dead bird looked so … vulnerable.

  “I order the skeletons from a guy online,” Katrina said. “He’s a weirdo, but he does good work.”

  I moved on to the next bird house. This one had a skeleton bird too, though its head was down and it was staring at its feet.

  “It’s sleeping,” Katrina said. “It’s a nightingale.”

  I went from house to house. Different colors, different skeleton birds. It was like a housing development in the bird afterlife. I counted thirteen finished birdhouses and three still under construction. I ran a hand through my hair and looked at Katrina.

  “Holy fuck, these are sweet.”

  “You like them?”

  “Hell yes.”

  Katrina crossed her arms. “My roommates think I’m a freak, but the houses are sort of like my … dark therapy, I guess.”

  “I have dark therapy,” I said. “I write short stories. They’re really weird.”

  “You do?”

  I nodded, still mesmerized. The skeleton birds really set the houses … off.

  Katrina picked up a hacksaw, thumbed the blade, and set it down again. “Okay,” she said, reaching out and yanking on the light bulb cord. “Let’s keep hunting.”

  We went back upstairs. We preformed a sweep of the second and third floors, which were filled mostly with bedrooms. Katrina’s room was downright spartan. Other than clothes, she only had a laptop, a Salvador Dalí print, and a few art books.

  “You don’t have much stuff, do you?”

  “I don’t want it. I travel light in case shit goes down.”

  “Like what?”

  “I don’t know. Bad shit.”

  Katrina scratched her face with her lantern hand, sending waves of light rippling across the walls. Nobody spoke as she twisted the lantern back and forth and we watched shadows move across the room.

  “All right, dude,” Katrina said at last. “It’s time for the final, spookiest room of all.”

  “The attic?”

  “You bet your sweet tits the attic.”

  The attic was accessible only via trapdoor. Tall as I was, I still had to stand on a chair to reach the door’s hook and pull down its accordion ladder.

  “Gah!”

  Dust poured out the attic’s hatch and sifted down into the hallway. I coughed and waved it off, which only made the dust angry and churn with rage.

  “Yeesh. Just stop swatting, would you?”

  I calmed myself and allowed the dust to settle. Katrina raised the lantern toward the darkened hatch, her forehead furrowing. I gestured grandly up accordion stairway and smiled.

  “After you, m’lady.”

  Katrina glanced at the tenderizing mallet in my hand. Her pale skin was extra luminous in the lantern’s light and she stood balanced on the balls of her feet, as if ready to lunge in any direction at any moment.

  I held the mallet out to her. “You want the smasher?”

  Katrina paused, thinking. “You know, what if you’re the serial killer? What if this is all an elaborate setup to get me in the attic where no one can hear me scream?”

  “Do I look like a serial killer?”

  “No, but that’s the point, right? It’s always the normal-looking ones that are really fucked up. The button-downed, polite young men with the squeaky clean hairstyles that open the door for you and help you with your groceries.”

  “That’s a good point,” I admitted. Katrina stepped closer and held the lantern to my face.

  “I think you’ve got some kind of secret, Mr. Mack. Something you haven’t told me yet. Something big.”

  I smiled and the firebug bumped inside my chest. “Okay,” I said, raising my hands in the air. “I’ll admit it. I have a crush on you.”

  “Hmmm,” Katrina said, lowering
the lantern and starting up the accordion stairs. I followed behind, careful to keep my distance. The stairs held beneath our weight and soon we were standing in a big, empty attic.

  “Nothing’s up here?” Katrina said, head swiveling. “Are you freaking kidding me? Nothing?”

  The attic had two rectangular windows, one at each end. We looked out the front window and saw our cars parked across from each other. We looked out the other window and peered into the backyard, which was too dark to see much of anything.

  Our survey complete, Katrina sat down on the attic floor and crossed her legs beneath her. “That’s the problem with life, Mack-Attack. You hope for something cool, something magical and out of the ordinary, but you usually get nothing but an empty attic without even one murderous hobo in it.”

  I sat across from her and tapped on the floor with the mallet. The kiss in the kitchen, combined with the Old Fashioned and the ghost hunt, had warmed my blood. I felt good. At ease. It was time for an unburdening.

  “You know those fires people have been talking about? The arsonist?”

  Katrina’s eyes widened. “Yeah?”

  “That’s me. I’m the firebug.”

  Katrina slapped her hand over her mouth. “Get the fuck out. That was you?”

  I shrugged, smiling. The firebug did a little dance inside my heart, warmed by the unexpected attention.

  “I started with the fires a couple of years ago, after my mom died. It’s been mostly little stuff out in the country until lately, I guess. It’s weird, but somehow the fires help, you know? Like it helps to destroy something. To step back and watch it all burn.”

  Katrina lowered her hand from her mouth and grinned, her dark eyes gleaming. “Fuck yes. I do know how that feels. I know exactly.”

  “You do?”

  Katrina turned off the lantern and the attic went dark, lit only by a faint scrim of starlight coming in through the windows. I heard rustling and my own breathing magnified. I thought of the skeleton birds roosting in the basement, propped up by modeling wire for all eternity. Did the skeleton birds dream? Had the birds dreamt while they were alive?