Mountain Rampage

by Graham, Scott

  “Jim, Officer Hemphill, wants me to be here when he…” The professor fell silent, looking everywhere but at Clarence.

  Chuck turned to Hemphill. “Be here for what?”

  The officer rose from Sheila’s side. “For Clarence’s arrest,” he said. He turned to face Clarence. “I’m here to arrest you for the assault and murder of Nicoleta Barstolik.”

  Clarence’s face was ashen. “I’m innocent.”

  “The test came back positive for Nicoleta’s blood on your knife. In addition to her fatal neck wound, she had a leg wound, sustained sometime before she died.”

  Clarence took another backward step. Hemphill waved his hand at the fire to the south and west, the firefighters surrounding the log buildings, the guests on the grassy expanse. “There’s nowhere for you to go.”

  Chuck stepped to Clarence’s side. “You’ve got it all wrong. You had Clarence’s knife in your possession twenty-four hours before Nicoleta was killed, remember?”

  The officer hesitated. “Doesn’t matter.”

  “It damn sure does.”

  “There’s plenty of knives out there.”

  “What is it you’re alleging? That Clarence didn’t manage to kill her the first time, so he left his bloody knife on the ground, called you on the emergency phone so you’d be sure to find it, somehow got hold of another knife, and used it to kill her the next night? And in the meantime, Nicoleta stuck around after he assaulted her—and kept his attack a secret—just to be sure he’d be able to finish the job? Is that seriously what you think? What are you, crazy?”

  The officer hesitated. “It’s…we…I’m…”

  “You haven’t even got a case,” Chuck told Hemphill. He laid a hand on Clarence’s arm and made no attempt to hide his disgust. “Don’t worry. You don’t have to go anywhere. They’ve got nothing on you.”

  Clarence yanked his arm away from Chuck. Hemphill reached reflexively for the handgun at his waist. The officer’s eyebrows shot upward as his hand grasped at an empty holster where his gun should have been.

  Chuck looked past Hemphill to find Kirina backing away from the group, Hemphill’s pistol held before her in both hands, her finger on the trigger.

  FIFTY

  Officer Hemphill spun to face Kirina, who sighted down the barrel of the gun at his chest, her face twisted in torment. “No,” she said. She wiped tears from her eyes with her hand and resettled it on the gun. “Not Clarence.” She choked back a sob. “Not him.”

  Janelle put her arms around the girls, pulling them to her.

  Sartore raised a placating hand. “Kirina,” he said from where he stood among the students.

  She swung the pistol, centering it on the professor. “No,” she said, her voice suddenly fierce. “Don’t you dare speak to me.”

  “We’re here for you,” Sartore soothed, his voice barely carrying above the roar of the flames consuming the dining hall and eating through the forest behind the dormitories. “I’m here for you.”

  “No, you’re not. Not you,” she said, backing away, the gun still aimed at the professor. “You, least of all.”

  Sartore’s back straightened. “Okay,” he said, his voice firm and unyielding. “That’s enough.” He held out a hand and stepped toward Kirina. “Give me that,” he ordered.

  The pistol wavered in Kirina’s hands.

  “You heard me,” Sartore barked. “I’ll have no more of this.” He took another step toward Kirina. He was only a few feet from her now, his hand outstretched.

  “No!” she cried, lifting the barrel until the gun was pointed at Sartore’s face.

  “Kirina,” Clarence said. He had not moved from where he stood at Chuck’s side.

  Kirina swung the gun past Chuck, aiming at Clarence.

  Rosie ducked under her mother’s arm. “Not my uncle!” she screamed. She bolted across the patch of grass separating her from Kirina and threw herself at Kirina’s legs.

  Kirina jerked, spinning away as Rosie slammed into her. A loud report sounded and a burst of flame leapt from the mouth of the gun as the barrel swept in an arc in front of her.

  Rosie tumbled to the grass at Kirina’s feet. Kirina, still standing, stared open-mouthed at the discharged pistol in her hands.

  Hemphill grunted and fell forward, clutching his shoulder.

  A strangled sound came from deep in Kirina’s throat. She turned and sprinted toward Raven House, dropping the gun. The pistol bounced once in the grass, spun up and over the concrete curb separating the fields from the road. The gun settled out of sight in the gutter as Kirina crossed the road and disappeared through the dormitory’s open front door.

  Janelle scrambled on her hands and knees to Rosie. Assured her daughter wasn’t hurt, she crawled across the grass to Hemphill. The students fell back, their mouths agape. Gregory knelt with Janelle at Hemphill’s side. Together, they rolled the officer to his back.

  Sartore turned to Chuck. “I’m sorry.” He looked at Hemphill and Sheila, broken and bleeding on the ground. “This is my fault. All of it,” he said, his face downcast. “It’s up to me to make things right.” He set off after Kirina, his pace deliberate.

  Chuck crouched at Hemphill’s feet. “Say something. Can you talk?”

  Hemphill squeezed his eyes closed. “Sure,” he said through colorless lips. “I only got shot, that’s all.”

  Gregory followed the slope of Hemphill’s shoulder with his fingers. The officer winced.

  “Entrance and exit wounds,” Gregory said. “Not a lot of blood.”

  Janelle handed bandages to Gregory. Rosie huddled behind Janelle, a panicked look on her face. Carmelita put a reassuring arm around her little sister.

  Parker said from Sheila’s side, “Her eyes are open. She’s trying to talk.”

  Chuck went to her. “Hey, there,” he said. He wasted no time. “Do you know who did this to you? Do you remember?”

  Sheila’s mouth moved, but she made no sound.

  Parker asked her, “Was it Clarence?”

  Chuck glared at the resort manager.

  Sheila’s eyes went to Parker. She neither nodded nor shook her head.

  Chuck crouched at her side. “You’re going to be okay.” He took her hand. “Just a name. That’s all we need.”

  Her eyes fluttered and began to close.

  “Let us know when you can,” he told her.

  Beyond the dormitories, the cafeteria roof fell in on itself with a loud whoosh. Smoke billowed from the building. Flames, rising from the forest, backlit the dorms on either side of the dining hall.

  Chuck said to Parker, “You got her?”

  The resort manager nodded.

  Chuck stood and addressed the students, gathered a dozen feet away. “Keep at it with your phones. We need more police.” He pointed at Jake, hogtied on the ground. “And keep your eye on him.”

  He turned to where Gregory and Janelle worked together, applying pressure to both sides of Hemphill’s shoulder. He caught Janelle’s eye and aimed his chin at the front door of Raven House. “Kirina didn’t mean to do what she did. I’ll see if I can get her to come back out.”

  “It wasn’t entirely an accident,” Janelle said.

  “I worked with her all summer. She’s not a murderer.”

  Janelle gripped Gregory’s first-aid kit. “Could’ve fooled me.”

  Chuck looked away, thinking of “Peeping Tom” Parker, guntoting Anca, and, finally, with grudging acceptance, Kirina.

  He turned to Clarence. “You’re in charge of the students.” He set out for Raven House, remembering what Sartore had said: This is my fault. All of it.

  Chuck glanced down as he stepped over the curb to cross the road to the dormitory.

  Hemphill’s gun was gone.

  FIFTY-ONE

  Heat from the collapsed, blazing dining hall rolled between the dormitory buildings and struck Chuck full in the face as he crossed the road, walking away from the empty gutter and reasoning Sartore must have retrieved Hemphill
’s gun.

  Black smoke speckled with red sparks lifted behind Raven House as Chuck hustled up the walk to the dorm. He stopped in the open front doorway. Fixtures hanging from the ceiling on long wires lit the common room. He took in the gear and tools piled in the corner, the boxes of finds on the wooden tables, his pack against the far wall. An open stairway climbed to a balcony cantilevered from the rear of the room. A closed door at the back of the balcony led into the second-floor hallway.

  He stepped through the front door. The instant he entered the room, a loud pop sounded from the rear of the building and the lights blinked out.

  He spun to face outside. The streetlights lining the fields went black. Seconds later, phones held by the students created small domes of light over the places where Sheila and Hemphill lay.

  Chuck turned back to the common room and pulled out his flashlight. Lit only by the single, small beam and the light of flames from the burning dining hall flickering through side windows, the room was forbidding in its shadowy darkness.

  The muffled sound of voices came from the second floor. Chuck slipped between the tables and crept up the stairs.

  He turned off his flashlight and paused on the balcony, his back to the room below, facing the door to the second-floor hallway. He inched the door open. An invisible river of heat coursed through the doorway from the back of the building. A muffled conversation came from Kirina’s room, halfway down the hall, its door open.

  Eerie light from the blazing cafeteria building made its way through several open doors into the corridor. Chuck put his flashlight in his pocket and tiptoed down the hall, stopping just shy of Kirina’s door.

  Smoke curled along the ceiling from the rear of the building. He stifled a cough, his hand to his mouth, and turned his ear to the open doorway.

  “…don’t understand,” Kirina said. “You can’t understand. You’ll never know what I feel for him, what he means to me.”

  “He’s nothing but a creature of his own desires.” A commanding voice. Sartore.

  Kirina’s response was sharp. “You don’t know who or what he is.”

  Sartore’s voice softened. “I know I wasn’t there for you. I’m sorry for that. But these last months, I’ve worked hard to make it up to you.”

  “Don’t give me that,” Kirina said. “Your taking control of my life was never about me. It was always about you, your parents, your mommy.”

  “It was never what you think,” Sartore retorted. “And as for you, it’s not too late, even now. We can get back to where we were at the beginning of the summer. I know we can.”

  “No, we can’t,” Kirina responded. “For good reason.”

  “I wouldn’t call that…that…brute a reason.”

  “He’s kind. He’s funny. He’s real.”

  “He’s an animal, and you know it, addicted to his own base instincts. You’re nothing to him but another conquest. You should have done to him the same thing you should have done—but didn’t—when you locked Chuck in the mine.”

  “What? I was supposed to kill Chuck?”

  “He’d served his purpose. He was a danger to us.”

  “It looked like he was doing what you’d hoped,” Kirina said. “I followed him in my car and hiked in to the mine behind him. I was afraid he’d come back out and see me. I did what I had to do; I locked him in so I could get away.”

  “You stopped thinking of your future, our future.”

  “I called you, didn’t I?”

  “Not until a few hours ago. Not until everything was out of control.”

  “He’s the one who figured out what the floor collapse meant. I didn’t even know until everyone started talking about it this afternoon. Don’t you see? It was what you hoped, what you needed. He found what you wanted because I was smart enough not to kill him.”

  “But for Clarence, your lover, you were more than willing to kill, weren’t you?” Sartore said.

  The heat in the hallway was almost unbearable now, the smoke growing thicker. Sweat dripped from Chuck’s brow, stinging his eyes and rolling down his neck into his shirt. He remembered the way Kirina, along with the other members of Team Paydirt, had looked at Clarence earlier in the summer—her eyes had been hungry. And just yesterday she’d told Chuck, “I like Clarence. I like him a lot.”

  Kirina spoke, barely whispering. Chuck leaned close to the doorway. “He isn’t my lover,” she said. “He wasn’t my lover. Ever.”

  “Nicoleta. Wasn’t that her name?”

  Kirina said angrily, “She should have stayed away from him. But she claimed he was hers.” Her voice turned bitter. “All she wanted was a green card. She was willing to do anything, with anyone, to get it.”

  “You put everything—everything—we’ve been working toward at risk.”

  “She was insane. Slashing her own leg, soaking his knife with her blood. She was going to threaten to tell the police he’d done it if he refused to marry her. It would have worked, too. I know it would have. She actually bragged to me about it, said there was nothing I could do.”

  A heavy silence carried from the room into the hallway. Chuck hung his head. Kirina. “The other girl,” the professor said. “Her, too.”

  “Sheila,” Kirina spat. “I spotted her leaving his room, her shirt half-buttoned. She saw me and ran. I chased her up into the woods and hit her with a tree branch. I had a length of cord from the dig in my pocket. I wrapped it around her neck. I could have finished her off. I should have. But…but…” She choked back a sob. “I’m not a killer. I’m not a killer. But what choice did I have?”

  “What choice?” the professor erupted. “I’ve given you the opportunity to fulfill your grandmother’s legacy, but you’ve turned into your grandfather instead.”

  “No,” Kirina shot back. “I’ve turned into you, doing what’s necessary to get what’s mine.”

  “And now look what you’ve brought us to.”

  “Wrong. Look what you’ve brought us to. This fairy-tale idea of yours.”

  “I was right. What Chuck found proves it.”

  “It doesn’t matter anymore. It’s too late.”

  “No, it’s not. No one knows anything yet. Everyone saw your shooting the officer for what it was: an accident. All you have to do is go back out there and say you’re sorry. As for the girl, even if she thinks it was you, the cops will convince her it was Clarence. We’re so close, Kirina.”

  “I can’t do that. I won’t.”

  “Clarence doesn’t love you. He never has loved you. This is perfect, don’t you see? He’ll get what he deserves, what you know he deserves.”

  “I won’t see him rot in prison.”

  “You’ll be far away. We both will. And rich, fabulously wealthy.” A brief silence passed. “We’re almost there,” Sartore said. “It’s actually better this way. They’ll take Clarence, and we’ll be free to take what is rightfully—”

  “That’s all you can think about, isn’t it?”

  “It’s what my mother, your grandmother, wanted—for herself, for me, for you.”

  “But Clarence—”

  Sartore broke in, his voice harsh. “He doesn’t love you. He never loved you.”

  “No! No!” came Kirina’s anguished cry, thick with heartbreak, startling Chuck. She flew into the hallway, her hands clamped over her ears, and came up short at the sight of him. “You,” she breathed, lowering her hands.

  Chuck stepped back. “I wasn’t…I didn’t…”

  Before he could say anything more, a fireball launched up the rear stairwell and a blast of superheated air rolled down the corridor, punching him backward to the floor.

  FIFTY-TWO

  Kirina stumbled, thrown forward by the blast of wind. She found her footing, her back to the wave of heat, her hair blowing around her face.

  The fireball dissipated at the head of the rear stairs. In its wake, a wall of flames climbed from the stairwell, setting the end of the corridor ablaze. The flames ate past the closed doors t
o the bathrooms at the far end of the hall and reached a pair of open dorm-room doors. The fire split in two, sucked into the facing rooms.

  Chuck crab-walked backward down the hall away from the fire. Above him, long wisps of smoke gathered around Kirina’s head like a witch’s garland.

  Kirina looked down at Chuck with sorrowful eyes. She turned and strode away from him, headed straight for the flames.

  Chuck pushed himself to his feet. “Kirina! No!”

  He charged after her, but the heat pumping down the hallway forced him to stop. He backed away as Kirina increased her pace, sprinting into the wall of fire.

  She disappeared, swallowed by the inferno. The flames shifted and she reappeared, still running, her hair trailing, ablaze, behind her. Then the fire closed around her once more, this time for good.

  Chuck fell back, mouth agape, as the fire resumed its march down the corridor. He stumbled backward through the thickening smoke, past Kirina’s room, transfixed by the oncoming wall of flames.

  Sartore stepped from Kirina’s room into the corridor. He turned his back to the flames and aimed Hemphill’s gun at Chuck’s chest.

  “Kirina,” Chuck said, struggling to breathe the hot, smoky air. He pointed at the flaming hallway behind the professor. “She…she…”

  Sartore spoke without emotion. “She was weak. She didn’t understand.”

  Chuck backed out of the hallway, retreating from the gun in Sartore’s hand. He came up against the balcony railing. The professor followed Chuck onto the balcony.

  “She was your daughter?” Chuck asked.

  Sartore leaned his back against the door to the upstairs corridor, closing it against the smoke and hot air. He spoke with a slow, even cadence, as if time was of no importance. “In name only.”

  With the door shut, the relative coolness of the common room replaced the intense heat of the upstairs hallway.

  Chuck wiped perspiration from his eyes. How long would the door hold back the flames? And what was the fire doing below, in the first-floor hallway? He glanced down from the balcony. Smoke poured through the open doorway leading from the lower corridor into the common room, but, at least for the moment, no flames ate into the room.