by Joe Hart
“Who’s the brains behind it all? It can’t be you, even though you think you’re smart enough to orchestrate this whole thing. Who’s pulling your strings?”
Darrin walked close to him, the younger man stopping a pace away. He was three inches shorter than Gray and had to look up slightly to meet his eyes.
“And it’s definitely not Adam over there, I’m guessing you still have to help him tie his shoes in the morning.”
“Shut your mouth.”
“Couldn’t be Ryan either, that boy didn’t have it in him to do real harm. I could see he didn’t have a backbone the first time I met him.”
Darrin whipped his arm around and slapped him with the pistol. Gray’s head rocked to one side and his lip split against his teeth. Blood flooded his mouth and ran down his chin in a thin stream. Darrin’s jaw was clenched, the muscles beneath his cheek bulging. Gray brought his hand up and wiped the blood away.
“Oh, I see. Ryan’s dead, isn’t he? That’s why he’s not here.”
Something moved behind Darrin’s eyes. There and gone.
“Joseph got him, didn’t he?” Gray began to chuckle. “Good boy.”
Darrin swung again and Gray was ready.
He ducked, the gun whistling an inch over his head, and pistoned his fist in an uppercut that connected with Darrin’s chin. The younger man staggered back, fighting to remain upright and failing. He fell to his ass, skidding a foot before coming to a stop. Gray dove for the Colt and heard the crack of Adam’s rifle.
There was a plunging ache in his side and all the strength went out of his arms as he landed near his gun. His face connected with the floor, his nose breaking in a dry crunch. The room spun and nausea crashed over him in a sickening tide. There was a baritone yell and then Lynn’s voice beginning to sob words clouded by her crying. Gray reached out and fumbled with the grip of the pistol but then it was gone, kicked by a booted foot that sat level with his gaze. The boot reared back and then barreled at his face.
The pain was exquisite. It detonated and rolled out from his nose before coming back to the center of his head where it nestled itself in a cocoon of pain.
“You okay, Darrin?”
“Yeah, fucker surprised me.”
“I got him. I got him while he was in the air. Did you see?”
“Yeah, I saw. Good shot.”
Their voices slithered in through Gray’s eardrums and he raised his head, opening his eyes to a mist of red that covered them.
Darrin and Adam stood over him and Lynn hung limply from Adam’s arm, her legs buckled, her face a mask of spider-webbed blood.
“Mac?”
Her eyes sought his, trying to hold his gaze and he blinked, steeling his focus into an iron rail. The burning pain in his side came again in a lancing wave. He curled into it, sliding in blood that covered the floor. His blood. Darrin knelt beside him, grabbing a fist of his hair and turning his head up to face him.
“Nice shot, old man. I’ll give you that. Won the battle, lost the war though. I’d love to carve you up, that’s my specialty, it’s what gets me hard. You saw my handiwork over at the Jacobses’. Cut them up so nice. But I don’t have the time I’d like to spend on you, so we’ll be going, but we’re gonna take your pretty here. Hope you don’t mind.”
He leaned in close to him and even through the fog that threated the edge of his vision, Gray could smell the younger man’s fetid breath.
“I’m gonna fuck her, Sheriff. Gonna get her pregnant and she’s going to bear my child, not yours. You couldn’t keep the one you had alive anyway. I’ll be doing her a favor and with time she’ll prefer my cock over yours. I want you to think about that as you slip into the void.”
Darrin released his hair and Gray reached out, trying to grab hold of him but he slapped his hand away.
“Adam haul her out to the van and then bring me the gas. The good sheriff here needs a bath.”
Lynn cried out again but she sounded far away, getting farther away each second. Gray pushed against the floor and managed to almost sit up. Blood pattered down from his nose, splashed in the growing pool around him. The hot pain in his side flared as he sat up further, and he slumped beneath the weight of it. The room carouselled, tipping and wavering before steadying. Footsteps came toward him again and he swiped at his eyes, clearing them of more blood.
Gasoline washed over his head, flowed into his nostrils and mouth. He gagged and choked, sliding down to an elbow as the gas burned into every cut and wound.
“There you go, Sheriff, nice hot bath,” Darrin said. More gas drizzled over his legs and feet and then it was gone. He coughed and finally vomited, his stomach a cauldron filled with red coals. His vision blurred and then cleared, the blood washed free by the gas. Darrin was pouring a trail as he backed out of the house. A fuse. He shook the can as it emptied and then tossed it into the kitchen. Adam stepped inside behind him and threw a look at where Gray lay.
“She’s all set, Darrin.”
“Good. How much gas did you spill outside?”
“I don’t know. Some.”
“It smells like you tipped over a whole damn can out there. Pull the van away from the house and I’ll light this.”
“Okay.”
Gray heaved himself up again and finally looked down at his stomach. A round hole six inches to the right of his belly button oozed blood. The wet shine of intestine rolled into and out of sight as he slid down to the floor again. Darrin walked into the living room holding a small, silver Arclighter in one hand. He knelt by Gray, balancing on the balls of his feet.
“Gotta run, Sheriff. You were fun to play with and I’m sure your ex will be too. You didn’t know how close you were to this or how big it really is. Thing of beauty.”
Darrin gave him another grin before standing and walking out the front door.
Gray flipped onto his stomach and began to crawl. It felt like a bear trap was closing over his right side every time he moved and blood kept rolling down his throat, a river that wouldn’t stem. He spit and managed to get to his knees, the cloying smell of gas spinning his brain within the walls of his skull. There was a soft whump from the entryway and then light bloomed across the living room wall, the high windows reflecting an angry orange. He struggled to his feet and staggered to the hallway leading to his office, but stopped at the first door instead of continuing down the corridor. His hand found the doorknob as a line of fire raced into the living room and traced a path toward him, moving like liquid.
He spun the knob and tumbled down the open stairway to the basement.
The cool concrete at the bottom welcomed him by sending lightning across his vision, the dancing strikes mixing with the fire that leapt near the doorframe but didn’t follow down the treads. He lay there listening to the gnashing mouth of flame eating his home above him as the dark of the basement tried to close in.
Gray slapped his smashed nose with a bloody palm and the darkness was swept away by a blinding white pain. He shuddered and vomited again as he rolled onto his hands and knees and crawled to his workbench. His legs held him when he pulled himself up and through the blood that was hardening to a crust on his eyelids, he looked out the small window above him.
The outside was a world of twirling flames.
The ground crackled with heat and the air leapt with lashing tongues of fire. Smoke poured across the window, obscuring his view and the floor above leaked its first ember, a tiny comet trailing to the concrete before winking out.
He moved around the end of the bench and looked up the stairway. A solid wall of flames burned there, its face that of red and orange rage that twisted like a snake constricting itself. He sidled to the far end of the basement and stopped beneath the last window. An electronic water pump hummed on the floor beside the mop sink. He stared at the pump for a moment and then looked at the window again. There was no fire directly outside.
Without hesitating, he bent low, issuing a grunt of pain as he doubled over, and turned on both spig
ots. Water poured from the faucet and he sat in the sink, letting it wash over his head and down his back. He sat there, the agony pulsing across every inch of him, and sloshed water over his legs and feet until his body was wet. Then he stood and flicked the water pump’s control to high.
The heat from above became palpable. It pushed against the top of his head as he found a stool beside the bench and dragged it beneath the window, resting every few feet. Blood gouted from the bullet wound on his side every time he moved and dizziness assaulted him after each step. He positioned the stool below the window and heaved himself onto it, steadying a hand against the warm wall. His fingers fumbled with the latch and finally opened it, folding the glass upward to where it locked against the ceiling.
Hot air billowed into the basement followed by a stream of smoke. He coughed, the effort to stay upright on the stool making his legs shake. Gray placed his hands on the sill, gripping the edges until he thought his fingers might break and counted to three in his head.
He launched himself up toward the window, pulling hard as his abdomen struck the frame. He screamed, the plastic casing biting into his belly and it felt as if something were uncoiling from him, lengthening where it shouldn’t. He shoved once, and tipped himself forward onto the waiting ground outside.
The heat struck him full force, pummeling his face, his back, his lungs. When he was able to rise to his knees he saw that the entire yard was alight, the fire running in lapping swaths that grew closer and closer to the trees as he watched. The wind fanned the flames, gusting them forward with billowing breaths as the waiting dryness offered itself to the inferno. The smell of gasoline was still on his skin and he searched through the cascading smoke for what he knew was there.
Carah’s stream ran strong between the banks, the pump in the basement doing its work. The water was a rippling orange serpent reflecting the fire on its surface like molten glass scales. He made it to his feet and hobbled toward it, one hand clutching his side, waiting for his guts to roll out between his fingers. The fire was closer than he’d thought and as the flames reached toward the far bank, he flung himself down, the water coming up to meet him.
Its embrace was electrically cold. The water raced into his ears and eyes, his open mouth as he tried to gasp, and sent stinging needles into his flesh. He turned to his back and sucked in air, paddling as well as he could with one hand. The muddy bottom scraped his heels as he kicked feebly like a harpooned fish. The bank passed by, the fire growing so fierce in one place, he submerged, holding his breath for as long as he could before returning to the flickering air. Even with his ears below the water the crackle of burning ground was still audible, the flames eating up the dry tinder that waited to give itself up in sacrifice.
He drifted to a bend where the stream left the yard and entered the woods in earnest and dug shaking fingers into the bank, stopping his progress. He crawled up with one hand and managed to stand, swaying in the wind. The entire yard and house was engulfed. It burned, releasing greasy rings of smoke into the night sky where they became one.
Gray flanked the fire, crossing within a dozen yards of it and still the hairs on his chest and arms blazed away in singeing curls. He made his way to the garage, coming around its corner to see that his cruiser was still there, the driver’s side within a stone’s throw of the inferno. He limped across the distance and wrenched the passenger door open, clawed the glove compartment wide and drew out the first aid kit inside.
With the kit beneath his arm, he stumbled into the wind, sucking at the cleaner air until he could no longer feel the heat at his back. His legs gave out and he fell to the dry grass, the stars overhead mixing with the fluttering white moth spots in his vision.
When his breathing slowed he sat up and opened the kit, turning it over on the ground beside him. The pack he was looking for was inside a clear plastic bag that he tore through with his teeth, doing it again to the white, perforated strip at its top. He tipped the pack over on his palm and a silicate dust poured out. Without waiting he pressed his hand against the wound on his side, hissing and tipping his head back until his skull nearly touched his shoulder blades. He held the powder there until he couldn’t stand it anymore. When he looked down the bullet hole was a mound of crystallized blood, black and speckled brown where the dust had done its work. The pain was less, numbed by the chemical agent in the powder. With a shaking hand he reached around his back, waiting for his fingertips to encounter a ragged exit wound, or worse yet, none at all.
Instead he felt a hole that matched the front almost exactly. He traced its edge, the stickiness of it beginning to clot. With a cough that sent runners of pain through his midsection, he laughed.
“Stupid bastards were using full-metal jackets.”
He chuckled again and winced, pouring another handful from the pack before applying to the hole in his back. When the bubbling pain eased he released his hold and turned himself so that he could see the house.
It held its shape wrapped in flames. The windows were gone, exploded outward and fire licked out the holes and onto the roof. The walls were consumed and all that held the structure up were the large support beams that hadn’t succumbed yet. The immolation of everything he had, there before him.
He stood, his legs barely holding his weight as he walked away from the fire. His head throbbed in time with his heart and his feet cut on the rough gravel of the drive. His head swam lolling first to one side and then to the other. He stumbled and managed not to fall. The air wavered in front of him. It shimmered, elasticizing and shrinking the landscape beyond. His eyes watered from trying to focus and he swiped at them.
Gray’s feet touched grass and he saw that he’d wandered off the corner of his driveway to where the dried bramble and wilted grass took over. The slight decline caught him off guard and he fell, crumpling to his knees before rolling over and over. Branches and poking thorns tore at him before he came to a stop, the new wounds welling blood. He tried to rise again but his strength was gone, tapped out and dry as the ground he lay on.
He managed to raise his head one last time thinking the moon had finally appeared since the night looked too bright. But then his eyes closed, and all he heard was the static hiss of fire.
Chapter 39
When he awoke the sky beyond the trees was murky.
It hung like a mildewed sheet above him, blanketing the clouds and cataract sun in a yellow gloom. Gray swallowed, sand and shards of glass covering the inside of his mouth and throat. He tried to sit up and volcanic pain erupted in his side and he lay back down, breathing shallow breaths that tasted of smoke. A small sapling grew beside him and he used it to haul himself upright, blinking at his nakedness and the blood that streaked his abdomen and upper thigh. He swayed in the ditch beside his drive letting his bearings return. Eventually they did.
He moved up the little rise and found the dirt drive crisscrossed with so many tire tracks it looked like an entire army had ground its way through his property. He gained momentum coming around the bend and caught sight of his house.
Or where it used to be.
The land past the drive was a smoldering ruin, the ground scorched a midnight black interspersed with burning piles of trees that had fallen over one another. His house was a sunken hole of wreckage. It smoked in a pit of burnt timbers and ash that once had been his basement. Beyond it lay a wasteland of monochromatic destruction. The flames had grown and stretched their legs to the east and west, devouring the dry underbrush before cutting down the majority of the trees. Some larger oaks and towering pines still stood devoid of any leaves or branches, like used matchsticks twisted into the earth. The fire itself was miles away enshrouded by a veil of smoke so heavy it looked like the world ended and a void began past its shadowed border.
He stared at the devastation for a time only registering that a truck was parked before his untouched garage when a figure moved near its front, the titan-like shape walking toward the edge of the basement.
Danzig stop
ped with his back to him, a gas mask covering his mouth and nose, a long prodding bar held in one hand. He peered into the basement and shuffled through the slag, pausing to poke with the steel rod every few steps. Gray walked down the drive and made it within a dozen yards of where his friend stood before the giant heard him. Danzig’s eyes widened above the seal of his mask and Gray leaned against the truck’s tailgate for support.
“If you’re looking for booze, I don’t think any made it through,” Gray said.
Danzig dropped the rod and rushed to the truck in time to steady him with a hand on his shoulder.
“My God, Mac, what the hell happened to you?”
“Hell of a party that got a little out of control, sorry I didn’t call you.”
Gray tried to smile and began to shiver, his muscles quaking beneath his skin.
“Holy shit, let’s get you in the truck.”
Danzig half supported, half carried him to the passenger seat and buckled him in. A moment later a rough blanket fell over him and then they were moving, bouncing over rough patches and potholes at high speed.
“I thought you were dead you stupid sonofabitch. An emergency broadcast was sent out to everyone in the county this morning warning about a possible forest fire. I tried to call you but there was no answer so after a bit I called the station and Mary Jo told me you were let go yesterday. She’d been trying to get ahold of you too and when she said that, I came to find you. There were a dozen fire units in your drive when I got here, lights blazing, water spraying, and not even making a dent in the flames. It was something like I’d never seen before.”
Gray shifted in his seat, reaching up to touch his broken nose.
“Do you have any water?”
“Yeah, here.”
A cold, steel canister was thrust into his hand, the top already off. He tipped it up, the water so frigid it tingled on the way down. He drank until the container was dry and then set it on the truck’s console.
