by Matt Drabble
The three of them began backing away from the figure of Tolan as he moved menacingly towards them under the smoky sky. Michael suddenly became aware that Tolan’s healing had somewhat stalled. It seemed that the more the town burned, the more energy he lost.
“You got any more of those cocktails?” he shouted towards Thom, who was staring at the slowly approaching town manager. Tolan’s face was contorted with pain and anguish; his eyes were full of rage and maybe just a little fear. The gaping hole in his neck caused by the axe had stopped healing altogether and the skin flaps hung loosely and bloodily.
“Huh?” Thom said, from seemingly a great distance.
Michael didn’t bother to explain and roughly snatched the backpack away from the young man. The bag clinked joyously and he reached in and checked for ammunition.
“THOM!” he yelled again. “THOM!” He slapped the boy hard across the face, regretting the action but doing it anyway. After several murders, what was a little slap after all? “We have to burn the town, the wood, the trees. It’s what feeds him.”
The trees that had so lovingly framed the picturesque town square, offering gentle welcoming shade from the sun, were now all screaming with fire, the wind blowing the flames from branch to branch.
“Give me a bottle,” Emily shouted as dark silhouettes ran around them beneath the canopy of thick smoke. The townsfolk who had greeted them so warmly now ran for their lives as the town burned for its sins.
Michael looked to his wife and loved her more than ever. Despite everything, she was still fighting for them all. He handed her a bottle and a matchbook as another explosion ripped through the air. Michael looked back to see Morgan’s Deli being swallowed by the fire. The flames had now spread alarmingly quickly and almost all of the store fronts were now being slowly devoured, as the wooden frames were quick to burn.
Finally, Thom returned to the world. Emily grabbed his hand and Michael thrust the backpack back into his small arms. Michael pointed to the surrounding quaint colonial buildings on the square. “Burn them, Thom,” he snarled. “For your father, Thom; burn them all.”
Michael watched as Emily and Thom ran across the square towards the town hall. If nothing else, at least they were away from Tolan. Emily suddenly stopped and turned back towards him; he could see her clearly through the stampeding townsfolk and her eyes were bright, clear, and brave. She carried their child within her and he knew that she must survive this night, no matter what. He raised a fist to his chest and pounded it hard twice. My heart beats twice now, he had told her years before; once for me and now once for you.
He turned away from her quickly before he succumbed to his instincts and ran to join her; instead, he gave his full attention back to Tolan. The town manager was a revolting mess. His head leant drunkenly to the right as the axe that Sarah-Jane had buried had severed the tendons that should have kept his head upright. Blood no longer spurted, but now softly leaked from the open wound. White bone poked through red torn flesh and Michael’s stomach lurched at the sight. Tolan’s eyes were still alert and still burned with fervor. His mouth flopped like a fish on the floor and his words formed but could not exit due to the damage. Michael could see the axe still hanging limply in Tolan’s grasp from when he had wrenched it free of his own neck. Michael felt tired; his whole body ached from the physical and mental assaults that his senses had suffered. His head was still dizzy and his breath rasped worryingly through possibly broken ribs. He had no strength left to talk, and none to process and understand the unfolding events. He had brought his family here; he had brought them to be safe, to begin a new life under the sun, and to live in happiness and safety. But all he had brought them was misery and near destruction. The blood of others was on his hands; just how many, he would thankfully never know. All he had left was to fight, so he put his head down and charged. His last attack on Tolan had ended as swiftly as it had begun, as he had been thrown aside with contemptuous ease through a store window. But at least he could buy Emily enough time to get away.
He hit Tolan with his shoulder as hard as he could muster. To his surprise, Tolan gave ground and staggered backwards. A clumsy swing of the axe narrowly missed Michael’s head as he ducked, more through luck than judgment. Tolan tottered around him in an awkward circle, holding the axe in his right hand, his left hand gripping his hair in an attempt to straighten his own loose head. To Michael’s horror, the wounds seemed to be closing slowly; the gaping hole in Tolan’s neck no longer gaped quite as widely as the flesh knitted. The axe swung again, only this time the swing was more controlled and accurate as though more of Tolan’s senses were returning. Tolan opened his mouth to speak again, but whatever words came out were drowned out by the noise of exploding glass as another Main Street store exploded. Michael took the opportunity as Tolan visibly sagged and he ran at the town manager, launching a clumsy dropkick. He connected awkwardly and they both fell to the muddy floor. Michael scrambled in the darkness for the fallen axe; the flaming trees immediately around them had now burnt to the ground and the light had faded with them. His hands searched desperately for the weapon as a sudden powerful kick caught him in the shoulder and he rolled away from the painful blow. He could just see through the smoky gloom that Tolan had already regained his feet. He scrambled around on his knees, still searching for the missing axe. Another, more carefully coordinated, kick caught him in his damaged ribs. This time it was much harder and he was punted a few feet away. He rolled onto his back and stared up at the blackened heavens, clutching his tormenting sides. Just a little help he thought bitterly towards the heavens, just a little. He could see Tolan making for him again with murderous intent when the town hall suddenly went up; the explosion was smaller than the others but it seemed to have a larger impact on Tolan.
“No,” Tolan rasped through his slightly repaired throat.
Michael stood on shaky legs and staggered forward; he didn’t thank the heavens for the assistance, as it had been provided by his wife, a skinny 14 year old, and a bottle of flammable liquor. He stumbled and his foot hit a heavy wooden stick on the floor. He bent down through the thick plumes of smoke and grasped the axe - alright, he thought, looking up, that one’s all you. He looked back at Tolan who was now limping slowly towards him; the rage in the town manager’s eyes was now replaced with a pleading pity. Michael hefted the axe; the weight was balanced and comforting and the sharp blade glinted in the flame light.
“Please,” Tolan whispered through parched lips,
“I heard what you told Emily,” Michael said in a tired voice. “You arranged the accident back in the UK. You had Emily struck with a car. You nearly killed her and you took our child, our baby, our son.”
“It’s not too late; you can still stop this, Michael,” he pleaded. “I can give you anything … anything.”
Michael loomed over the staggering preacher. He raised the axe high and his arms shook with power fuelled by retribution. “Then give me back my son,” he roared, bringing the axe down again and again and again.
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Emily grabbed Michael’s arm and pulled him violently; he was standing over a pulpy mess that had once been the town manager. His eyes were vacant and distant and his mind was finally shutting down. She had thrown the Molotovs until they were all gone and redundant. The whole night sky was now a thick fume-colored blanket and the smoke burned her eyes and throat. The whole town around them seemed to be on fire and her feet repeatedly stumbled over bodies lying crushed in the mud; she was glad of the thick fog that obscured her vision.
She felt fuelled by a sense of power. There was a light that suddenly illuminated the now fume-filled clearing, showing a path to safety. A hand suddenly grasped her elbow and she swung around in the dark, ready to claw the eyes of her attacker, only to recognise Sarah-Jane’s desperately miserable sob-filled face. Whatever malevolence that had filled her friend was now gone, leaving only a crushing weight of guilt. Despite Sarah-Jane’s striking down of Tolan when all seemed lost,
she still felt a stab of hatred towards her, no matter what influence she had been under. Her friend had almost taken her life and that of her unborn child; it was an unforgivable betrayal and one that she could not forget. But along with the stab of anger there was also a slither of pity; Sarah-Jane had taken the life of Samuel Creed, the one hope for love that she had ever found.
“Thom!” she shouted, desperately looking for the boy. She spotted him through the hazy light. “Grab SJ,” she pointed. He grabbed the teacher and Emily was relieved to see that he was thinking clearly.
With her dragging Michael and Thom pulling SJ, she led the way. She followed the shaft of light that showed her the way. She was not sure why she trusted this sense, but she did. Something good was guiding her now; it may have been largely absent through their struggles, but it was helping them now. She knew that they were blind in the fire; the smoky air engulfed them, and they had to get out from under the choking fumes. She led the way strongly as her legs burnt with muscle and potency. She pulled Michael as he coughed and spluttered, but her throat was clear and her mind sharp.
“Do you know where you’re going?” Thom yelled through the darkness.
“I’m following the light,” she called back.
“What light?” SJ mumbled, her voice distant and confused.
“The light … the light in front of us,” Emily said irritably.
“I don’t see any light,” Thom yelled.
Emily pushed on regardless; she could see the light and she knew instinctively that it was there, and it was there for them.
Eventually, they passed out into the fields beyond the town. Emily turned back and looked at the rising inferno; the sky was black with smoke as the night was choked by the fire. As far as she could see, the flames rose and touched the sky; it seemed like every building was burning and the heat even at this distance was unbearable. She turned to Michael. His face was bewildered and blackened and she looked deeply into his eyes and saw him slowly return. “Are you okay?” she asked, knowing that the question was questionable, to say the least.
“I think so,” he said, before he began coughing violently and spat out a black mucous lump onto the floor.
She thumped him on the back until he got himself under control. “Are you okay?” she asked again.
“I’ll be bloody better if you stop thumping me!” He sat laughing on the outskirts of hysteria until he began coughing again.
“Thom?” she asked. “How about you?”
“I’ll live,” he said bravely.
“Sarah-Jane?” she asked reluctantly.
“I’m alright,” came the shamed response.
“You saved us,” she said to Thom. “We wouldn’t have gotten out of there if it wasn’t for you … either of you,” she added, looking towards Sarah-Jane
Thom looked tired, but proud; SJ merely looked at the ground.
“I don’t know what you have done over the years, Sarah-Jane, and I don’t want to. But somehow you are going to have to live with your actions. I only pray that Tolan took your memories to the grave with him,” Emily said. “But there is a town down there that is going to need you and a lot of good honest people. Not everyone was under a murderous spell; I think that most people were just living under a fog that meant that they just couldn’t see the woods for the trees, so to speak. We can only hope that Tolan’s spell is broken and that the power died with him.”
“What about the others still there?” Michael asked. “What if someone else wants to take over from Tolan or Casper, or whatever the hell his name was.”
“If Sarah-Jane has her faculties back again, I’m guessing that hopefully others will too,” Emily answered.
“You guess? That’s not exactly very comforting,” Michael replied.
“I have faith; faith that this town can rise from the ashes and live again,” Emily replied, looking out over the fire.
“Faith?” Michael asked inquisitively.
“It’s all any of us can ever have,” Emily said, turning and looking deeply into his eyes.
“Is that enough?” he asked, placing his hand on their unborn child.
“Yes,” she said, smiling.
“What’ll happen now?” Thom asked them both curiously.
Michael looked to him, his imagination shaking off the cobwebs and ticking again. “Are all the old folks going to drop dead? Will they revert to their real ages and crumble to dust on the town square without the protection of Tolan and the forest?” he asked Emily.
Emily looked at him with a well-worn grin. “How am I supposed to know?”
“You’re the one that led us out of there somehow. How exactly was that, by the way?” Michael asked.
“Honestly, I’ve no idea,” Emily said, sitting down heavily on the ground; the strength that had been bestowed upon her during the escape was now waning fast. “Something just came to me. One minute I was feeling about ready to lay down and die, and the next I could see a bright shaft of light that I just knew we had to follow.”
“You don’t think…,” Thom said, pointing up at the sky.
“Honestly, I don’t know,” Emily replied. “It does seem a little convoluted that we were all brought here, all together at the same time. Maybe someone up there was tired of Tolan and fancied a change of management.”
Michael and Emily looked at each other. “There’s only one thing that I know for sure,” Emily said. “We’re moving.”
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The fires raged throughout the town. They leapt from building to building, destroying as they went. Raging infernos burned through the night, aided by the fortuitous wind that carried the flames to the wooden structures built with blood sacrifice timber. Main Street was decimated; the pretty trees that lined the streets only served to carry the fire with effective and efficient ease. The fire was insatiable and burned with an intensity that seemed to act with an intelligent design. Town council buildings were destroyed, the commercial district was gone, as was the older residential areas. All of the areas that had been constructed solely with timber taken from the surrounding woods were ravaged and eaten by the fire.
By the time that the dawn light arrived, the flashing blue and red lights of emergency vehicles had finally arrived from the towns within driving distance. The first responders encountered a town gutted by the fire, and the surviving residents staggering around dazed and confused. There were over a hundred bodies on the town square, and many others were dragged from burnt-out buildings. Over the next few weeks, the fire investigators were shocked to find that some buildings had been left untouched. Somehow, the fire had just simply bypassed some houses. The flames had spread along whole streets, but had left odd houses untouched, yet destroyed neighbors on either side. One fire-fighter from nearby Hanton commented that the devastation could have been much worse if not for the downpour of rain that suddenly materialised out of nowhere. He remarked that he could not ever remember the weather in Eden being anything other than perfect sunshine; the rain, he’d said, had seemed heaven sent.
Eventually, word spread nationally and the press coverage grew. The locusts descended and every corner of the town was illuminated. A picture emerged of a wonderfully quaint American town; picture box buildings and small town sensibilities untouched by, and untainted by, the modern world. As is the way of the modern world, jealously soon turned covetous voices into cynical ones; Eden began to be viewed with suspicion and derision, and they became a subject for snide jokes and sneering. They became known as a real life Stepford, inhabited by inbred hicks and stuck out in the middle of nowhere. Rumors of everything from cults, to right-wing extremists, survival nuts and everything in between permeated the national culture as many sought to justify their own lifestyles.
As the national spotlight beamed brightly, answers were firstly sought and then demanded, but none were ever satisfactorily found. In time, the interest dwindled as the modern day attention waned and Eden began to pick up the pieces again, but the town was never the same. T
he weather suddenly seemed changeable and seasons returned, as did the cold and the damp. The economy began to take on the aspects of the outside world as investments fluctuated for the first time and the town found itself having to adjust to life in the real world.
They were no longer the protected and the blessed; they were no longer the chosen and the righteous. Soon, the unimaginable exodus came, as families moved out of Eden for the first time that anyone could remember; normally, they were the desired and the sought after.
One June, after the fire, a small skinny fourteen year old ran for class president. He lost in a landslide to the captain of the football team. He was derided and scorned for the defeat and found himself on the unpopular side of school. But strangely, he was able to smile about his humiliation and subsequent mocking. It was almost as though he relished the everyday politics and genuine emotions of an everyday school.
EPILOGUE
Malcolm Pegg looked in disbelief at the images on screen: the mansion homes, the crystal blue lakes, the laughing smiling faces of happy families parading for the cameras, and all beneath the hot sunshine. Malcolm looked away from the computer and stared out of the window, depressed as the rain lashed against it, regardless of the summer season.
His wife wandered into the room. She had her hands placed in the small of her back. Her stomach was already swollen with the pregnancy and she walked awkwardly with obvious discomfort.
“Take a look at this email,” he told her excitedly. “It just came through, and it looks almost too good to be true.”
One Last Thing. . .
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