Nite Fire: Flash Point

by C. L. Schneider

A couple of minutes later, Evans came back down the hall. “All clear.” He tucked his gun away. “No killers, no squatters, no ghosts.”

  He’s wrong, I thought. There were always ghosts.

  I hovered in the doorway. Our eyes met. I pictured his body burning, and the words blurted out. “Go home, Evans. I’ll be out of here in ten minutes. Barnes will never know.”

  “Oh, he’ll know.” He dropped his voice a foreboding octave. “That man has radar like I’ve never seen. He can sense a screw-up, before you’ve even thought about screwing up.”

  I pursed my lips at his theatrical tone.

  “Besides,” he sniffed. “I’ve got nothing better to do.”

  “No hot date tonight?”

  “Does this count?”

  Arm’s length, I reminded myself, struggling to stifle a laugh.

  It came out as an unbecoming snort. “Sorry,” I said.

  “Don’t be. If you make a girl snort on the first date, there’s bound to be another.”

  Before I could remind him firmly this wasn’t a date, Evans moved down the hall. By his posture, I knew his amusement had dried up. As I closed the front door behind me, so did mine.

  I made a conscious effort not to breathe deep. The bodies had long since been removed, but with the house shut up tight, the air inside was anything but pleasant. I wasn’t sure Evans was sensing it as sharply, until I saw him flinch. He stopped at the edge of the living room. Staring at the floor where the family was murdered, his breathing was fast in the quiet. It was the only sound in a place that should have been filled with giggles and running feet.

  As I approached him, I couldn’t shake the impression that we were intruding. Each step of my boots on the tile felt like I was stomping on their graves. Each shadow seemed to press in, darkening and lengthening like the house was growing its own ghosts.

  Not yet. I studied the shapes more closely. But maybe soon.

  Like the exits, there was no predicting their formation. It could take minutes or years for the violence on a place to fester into a permanent scar. Either way, it was ugly. There was a rapidly rising, claustrophobic sense of pressure. Despair and misery would taint the air with the taste of rot. A flow of black sludge would bubble up out of nothing. Sometimes, the membrane ‘between’ would tear open and the black would seep through the cracks, widening the hole, reaching into the next world with the impatience of an eager newborn. As it spread, the edges of the gap would break off. Glowing, they would spin, like they were trying to put themselves back together. Their surfaces would reflect not only what was in this world, but swift glimpses of what lie in the one beyond.

  If an exit were to open right now, Evans wouldn’t even notice. Some species might detect the unique smell, but they wouldn’t know what caused it. They might see a shimmer or an odd distortion, but only if they were directly upon the tear. True dragons were the only ones who saw an exit as clearly as I did. But even they couldn’t see the pain that created it.

  “Come on,” I said. “Let’s sweep the basement and get out of here.”

  We turned left off the hallway and into the kitchen. It was clean and sparsely decorated. White was the common theme for the walls, floor tiles, countertop, and the blinds over the bay window. An explosion of yellow daisies decorated the lacy curtains over the sink. More dotted the runner across the table. Its surface was empty but for four placemats. Two were daisy yellow. The third was green and covered in race cars. The fourth, pink with ballerinas.

  I’d seen families murdered before. I’d examined bodies in worst shape. I’d been to (and created) all manner of disturbing crime scenes. Why did this one bother me so much?

  Evans cleared his throat. “It’s over here.” He moved to the unassuming door on the other side of the fridge. Popping open the metal latch, he gave the door a gentle push. It creaked inward over a set of old wooden stairs. Only the first four steps and a portion of the unfinished railing were visible. The rest of the staircase was indiscernible; lost to the dark, quiet mustiness of the basement.

  An exposed bulb hung from the sheetrock ceiling above the first stair. The switch was on the wall just inside the door. Reaching past him, I flipped it up, down, and up again. Nothing happened. “Looks like the light is out.”

  “Course it is. The light’s always out in the creepy, dark basement of a deserted house when a killer is on the loose. That way we can’t see him until he jumps out to slit our throats. Or, in this case, scorches our bodies to a crisp.”

  I gave him a look.

  He gave it right back. “What? You know I’m right.”

  “This isn’t the movies, Evans. It’s just a burned out bulb in a…”

  “Yes…?” he said with an obnoxious grin.

  “In the creepy dark basement of a deserted house.”

  “With a…?”

  “Killer on the loose,” I muttered grudgingly.

  He leaned in and whispered, “Ten bucks says he’s in the basement.”

  “That’s not funny.”

  “Scared?”

  “Yeah, I’m scared—of how much of an ass you are.”

  “At least there’s a silver lining. If I get barbequed, you don’t have to pay up.” With a wag of his eyebrows, Evans pulled a slender flashlight from his back pocket and headed down.

  Eighteen

  Dust danced in the round beam of my flashlight as I swept it over the endless dark maze of clutter. It was organized clutter, at least, with the multitude of shelves, cabinets, tables, barrels, pallets, bins, and boxes, all labeled and stacked in neat rows. The outer walls were cement and windowless. Sheetrock partitions had been erected, creating dividers and corridors that made it difficult to get a true measure of the basement’s dimensions. It clearly went well beyond the perimeter of the house, though, and the yard. Maybe even beyond the empty lot out back.

  Insulation filled the gaps in the unfinished wood ceiling. Here and there a bulb dangled from the beam above our heads. Insufficient light for the large room that smelled of— Nothing. I cocked my head, shifted a bit in the dark, and tried again. What the hell?

  Nothing smelled like nothing. Not without help, anyway.

  I shined my light on Evans. “It will go faster if we split up.”

  “Anything in particular I should look for?”

  “Something that doesn’t fit.”

  “Besides the department store stockroom under the house?”

  “How about within the department store?”

  “You got it.” Following the glow on the floor in front of him, Evans disappeared in the labyrinth of metal shelving.

  I stayed to inspect the stacks of bins around the bottom of the stairs.

  Not five minutes had gone by before he hollered at me from deep within the maze. “Which one do you think was the hoarder?”

  I raised my voice to reply. “I’m not sure that’s what this is.”

  “Garage sale addict, then?”

  “Maybe.” But it wasn’t that, either.

  Moving to the first row of cabinets, I opened the one on the end. The shelves inside were full of clothes. There were options for all seasons, all female in a size small. The next cabinet held the same in medium, the next in large. The cabinet beside that one contained a variety of wigs, costume jewelry, wallets, and purses. The next: shoes. Most everything still had price tags.

  Someone had a shopping bug. But was the stockpiling uncontrollable or calculated?

  I took out my phone and sent Creed a message. I reminded him about the deed and asked him if there was any mental illness in the Chandler family. He responded right away with a curt: In a meeting. Call you in twenty.”

  Making sure I didn’t miss his call, I turned up the volume and shoved it back in my pocket. “So tell me, Evans,” I said, moving onto a row of boxes. “What made you want to become a cop? Family business?”

  “Nope. Dad’s a lawyer. Mom’s a doctor. I’m your typical disappointing son that didn’t follow in their footsteps.”

>   “That’s harsh. I’m sure they’re proud of you.”

  “They’ve got my sisters for that. Jenn is some big time genetic expert out west. She’s got lots of letters behind her name and lots of awards on her shelf. Mom and Dad moved out there a couple of years ago to watch their equally perfect grandkids grow up.”

  “And your other sister?”

  “Marnie’s the youngest. She’s a dancer. Plays, musicals; stuff like that. Nothing big yet, but she’s got a lot of talent. She’s more like me. Marnie’s the baby, though, so all is forgiven.”

  “Okay,” I surrendered, “you’re a blue collar screw up.”

  “Thanks,” he grumbled.

  “But you still didn’t answer my question. Why a cop?”

  “Why not?”

  Coming out to stand between the rows, I shined my flashlight in the direction of his voice. The beam didn’t find him, but I knew he was there. “You don’t want to talk, say so. I’m just passing time. But you should know I’ve been trained in the art of interrogation. Tequila and I will get it out of you eventually.”

  Hearing him chuckle, I lowered the light and went back to my search.

  After a few minutes, he said, “I lost someone. My best friend. Back in high school.”

  My shoulders slumped. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have pried.”

  “It’s all right. It was years ago. It just feels like yesterday.”

  “I know what you mean.”

  “What bugs me was how random it all was. How fast it happened. It was a wrong-place-wrong-time kind of thing. You can’t prepare for something like that.”

  “No, you can’t. What happened?

  “He stopped for gas and walked in on a robbery. The guy had his finger on the trigger and when the door opened and that damn bell jingled, he panicked. He turned around firing. Shot Mark twice in the chest without even looking at him.”

  “Did they catch him?”

  “He was wearing a ski mask, so it took a while. Eventually, he was identified and arrested. And then my father defended him.”

  I nearly dropped the pile of clothes I was rifling through. “Why would he do that?”

  “The piece of shit who murdered my friend was the son of an investment banker. A wealthy investment banker who offered the great Robert D. Evans, Esquire, a ridiculous sum of money to keep his only son out of jail.”

  I had to say it out loud for it to make sense. “Your father defended the man who shot your best friend?”

  “It’s just business, son. That’s what he told me. Greedy bastard.”

  “That must have been some trial.”

  “He tore the witnesses apart on the stand. Made the cops doubt their statements. Said the evidence was improperly collected. The son of a bitch even managed to implicate Mark in the robbery. Made it out like he was driving the getaway car.” Anger clenched his words. “By the time Dad was done, Mark’s own parents believed he was involved.”

  “The killer walked, didn’t he?”

  “He did.” Evans came out from the maze and stood in the open aisle. Tension gripped his silhouette. “I knew it was only a matter of time before the prick fucked up again. And I wanted to be there. So after college, when Dad thought I was going to law school, I signed up for the academy. It wasn’t a lifetime commitment. I joined for one reason. I was going to stay long enough to see it through.”

  “And did you?”

  “Eighteen months after I graduated they pulled his body out of the river.”

  “You killed him?”

  “No. And I was pissed. I’d wanted it to be me for so long. I went to the funeral. Thought it would help if I watched him sink into the ground, but…” Evans spread his arms in a wide helpless gesture. “He had a little sister. She was eleven years old, and she bawled like a baby through the whole service. And all I could think of was Marnie, and how it didn’t matter to that girl what mistakes her asshole brother had made. He was still her brother. He was a person. A person who fucked up like any one of us could. Until then, I hadn’t thought of him as anything but a killer. I never imagined anyone grieving over him. Just how good I’d feel when he was dead.”

  “But you didn’t.”

  “No. I didn’t. I felt sad. For his sister, for his rich parents who had tried to help their son the only way they knew how.”

  I stared at him in the dark; proud of a man I barely knew. “If Mark’s killer was dead, why didn’t you quit?”

  “I signed up for the wrong reason, but I stayed for the right one. I stayed, so maybe some other little girl wouldn’t have to grow up without her brother.” Evans turned away. He moved off, and I watched until the shadows ate his light as he moved to the far end of the basement.

  Deciding I’d crassly opened up enough cans of worms for one night, I let the conversation drop and returned to my unproductive rifling. I sifted through bins of wallets and umbrellas, boxes of underwear, and a cabinet of small suitcases. I’d moved onto a shelf of raincoats and boots, when I heard Evans talking to himself. His muffled words were interrupted by the scraping of something on the floor.

  After a moment of silence, then more scraping, he cried out an exuberant, “Bingo!”

  I kept my amused reply to myself. Arm’s length was growing shorter by the minute.

  “Hold on,” I said, “I’m coming.”

  Maneuvering my way to an empty aisle, I followed the intermittent glimpses of his flashlight. When I found him, he was examining a rectangular panel on the wall. I assumed it was a fuse box, until I realized he’d moved two shelving units to get to it. The door of the panel was painted to make it appear part of the concrete wall. If it weren’t for some chips in the paint, no one would even notice it was there.

  “Nice catch,” I praised.

  “Thanks.” He reached a hand up.

  “I wouldn’t…” But he was already pressing his palm against the panel.

  The door, clearly on a spring, popped open. Inside was a rusted metal lever in the shape of a horseshoe. Electrical in nature, the lever (in the up position) was fastened to a square of grayed wood that looked older than I was.

  Evans was studying it, grinning ear to ear.

  I eyed the switch with far more wariness. As he went for it, I put a hand on his arm. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

  “Are you crazy? Mr. and Mrs. Perfect Middle Class have a hidden Frankenstein lever in their basement, and you want me to ignore it?”

  “Frankenstein?” I echoed. “I don’t think they were reanimating corpses down here.”

  “How do you know? They were stockpiling clothes for someone…or something.” I shook my head, and he whispered excitedly, “This is cool as hell, Nite, and you know it.”

  “This is dangerous as hell, Officer. It could be what got them killed.”

  “It damn sure better be.”

  Before I could stop him, Evans gripped the lever and pulled it down.

  Both of us holding our breath, we waited.

  When nothing happened, his face fell. “Damn.”

  I was about to offer my condolences on the death of his childhood fantasy, when a large section of the concrete wall directly to our left shimmered out of existence. My first, quick thought was how I might explain the illusion. As it gave way to reveal an ancient floor-to-ceiling metal grate, I gave up.

  At least fifteen feet wide, the bars of the gate were as thick as my arm and constructed from a reflective greenish metal that was not found on this world. A metal ladder was affixed to the basement wall to the right of the gate. The rungs led up, seemingly straight into the ceiling. I knew better. Based on our location, above the ladder, was a small windowless shed in an empty lot.

  The corridor beyond the bars was long and full of shadows. The walls were curved, like the old sewer tunnels I used to sleep in when I first arrived in the city. A string of lights were fastened to one wall. Automatically, the bulbs flickered on, one at a time, progressing down the strand, smelling of hot dust and casting wan go
lden circles that barely lit half the width of the cracked concrete floor.

  If it was a sewer tunnel, it hadn’t been used in a long time, if at all. There was no stench of waste, only a stale mustiness. The wire stringing the lights together looked too old and frayed to even work. The bulbs were spaced far apart, creating pockets of gloom that kept large chunks of the corridor in the dark.

  As the last bulb turned on, the gate in front of us opened on its own. It swung inward like an invitation, and Evans whispered in excited reverence, “Holy shit.”

  “I know,” I said patiently. “Frankenstein.”

  “No. This is better than Frankenstein. This is awesome. This is…Batman awesome.”

  I took a calm breath, hoping it would rub off on him. “We should go upstairs and call Detective Creed. See if we can get some city records. We don’t know how big this is or where it goes. There could be countless connecting tunnels. I don’t want to get lost down here.”

  “You do that.” Pulling his weapon, he aimed his light into the gloom.

  I reminded him of the prediction he made upstairs. “There could be someone in there.”

  “There could be someone in there that needs help,” he countered.

  “Evans…”

  “You’re right. And I can’t put you at risk. Lock yourself in your car and call the station. Tell them we need backup and a forensics team. In the meantime...” He flashed me a child-like grin. “I’m going into the Bat Cave.” He stepped into the tunnel.

  I stood my ground. “It’s not a Bat Cave.”

  He moved farther away. Watching him, I thought if I held out, he might realize I was serious, and he was stupid, and come back. But Evans was a little boy in a candy store who’d just laid eyes on the most gigantic lollipop ever. He wasn’t coming back.

  “Dammit,” I hissed. “This is why I work alone.”

  Shining my light side to side, I checked the floor and the roof inside the threshold before stepping into the tunnel.

  Evans glanced back at the soft sound of my steps. The grin on his face was obscene. “It’s like that horror movie,” he said as I caught up.

  “You mean the one where the nice couple pokes their noses in where they don’t belong?”