by Brian Harmon
The Man in the Fire
By Brian Harmon
Copyright 2011 by Brian Harmon
Originally published in Mindmares Magazine, Summer 1999
Visit this author at www.HarmonUniverse.com
The Man in the Fire
By Brian Harmon
A hazy moon, just a day shy of full, shined down through the bare tree limbs, onto an old and fire-blackened cabin. Embers still glowed in the darkness, the last dying soldiers on a battlefield already fought upon and deserted. The air was thick with bitter smoke and the ground was blanketed with ash. A single, yellow flame danced in the stillness within the shadow of the cabin that stood in this smoldering wasteland. Inside, a single, kerosene lamp flickered tiredly behind one smoke-stained window, casting an eerie luminance upon the black ground.
Inside, a man sat silently at an old wooden desk, breathing the hot, acrid air in loud, labored wheezes, his eyes black and empty in the dismal lamplight. His clothes were torn and ragged, blackened with soot and bloody from his butchered palms and gashed shins. His hair was long and singed and clotted with blood. A twig from a maple that now stood smoldering in the back yard was tangled in his filthy locks. On his right cheek, covering his face from the corner of his mouth to his ear, was a painful scar from another fire that had burned long ago. The expression on his face was cold, calculating determination, the expression of a man who has nothing to lose and is preparing for one final gamble.
Only the sound of his rasping breath and the occasional whistle of the wind through the burned forest could be heard above the thick and unnatural silence within the room. The air reeked with the heavy smell of smoke. All around him, the world seemed tinted with a strange and hazy darkness. But the strongest presence was below the air and beneath the silence. Strange and unholy eyes watched and waited from every black and ash filled crevice. Of this, the man was certain, but he was not frightened. Nothing would harm him. Not now.
At last, he straightened in his creaking chair and stared up at the flame-gutted walls around him. The nightmare that had nearly killed him had passed hours ago, the chaos replaced by stillness. There was nothing left to burn. Not even Daniel Covey’s soul.
He drew a deep and shaky breath as almost forty years of terrible memories played cruelly through his troubled mind. His hands trembled with a pain that numbed not only his body, but his very soul.
If anyone but Daniel had been sitting in this room, he would likely have wondered how the walls and the ceiling could be so badly burned that one could even see the moonlight through them in places—the roof and the attic were nearly gone overhead, and the ceiling was riddled with empty, starlit holes—and yet other parts of the room, such as the old wooden desk and the unbroken window were singed, but hardly damaged. Daniel, however, did not wonder these things. He already knew. The desk had been left for him, just as the lamp had also been left for him. The fire had not wanted to take these things. That was the only reason the fire ever had for leaving things. It simply did not want them.
Daniel’s eyes fell to the desk again, and to the single scrap of burned paper that lay there. Wincing at the pain in his body, he reached under the desk and pulled open a drawer. Inside, a large, gleaming knife awaited him. He picked it up and held it in his hand, feeling the warmth of the blade. The metal had been smudged by heat and smoke, but the knife was unharmed by the fire…perhaps purposely, or perhaps because it could not destroy the knife without destroying the desk or the paper. He could never really know for sure.
He held the knife up to his bloodshot eyes and stared into the blade. For a moment, he was still as the lamplight danced upon his rough, loveless face. Every emotion a human being could feel was battling among those thoughts. His had been a terrible life, full of sorrow, guilt, shame, fear and hatred. Even he did not know where this night would lead…but he knew the consequences, and he knew what he was fighting for.
He turned the knife over, holding it much as a murderer would hold it to plunge it into the heart of his victim, and pinned the blackened scrap of paper to the desk.
This done, he stood up and walked from the room, his face still blank, his blood still poisoned with hate, and his heart still empty.
Upon the paper was all that remained of the suicide note he had written the night before, the one that had been meant to be found with his body after he cut his veins with the very knife that now held the page in place upon the desk. Only six words remained, barely legible in the smoky darkness of the room:
BEWARE THE MAN IN THE FIRE.
Daniel collected the old twelve-gauge from the wobbling kitchen table. It had been safe in the gun cabinet when the fires began. And yet, he wondered if perhaps the fire might have left it for him even if he’d left it out. The fire was arrogant, after all.
The rest of the house was much like the room where he had left the note. Most things destroyed, but many things remaining. There was a huge hole burned in the north wall of the living room, and the two outer walls of the kitchen were gone but for a few, smoldering studs, leaving the kitchen itself a smoldering mess of broken glass and warped metal. And yet the kitchen table still stood, as did the couch in the living room, though it was singed and smoldering. The fire worked strangely. It was selective, without any reason for what it took and what it left, like a child picking playthings from a toy box.
Now armed, Daniel stepped through the open door, into the empty and smoldering night. He had lost everything in his lifetime. Now it was his turn to collect. He was filled with a hatred that had been building up inside him all his life, and now it was time to do something with that dark power.
He walked across the bare yard, among the scorched trees to the driveway. His eyes drifted to the fire-ravaged bronco which still smoked atop its melted tires. At the sight, his hand instinctively raised to his side where a fresh and painful burn whimpered under his shirt. His teeth ground together, making a sound that was, to him, like the growl of a dog who is about to bite the master who has abused him all his life. It was not a reaction driven by pain, but by fury.
He remembered how quickly the bronco had gone up. How the flames had seemingly charged him from the cabin, racing with unnatural speed and ease across the yard as though the summer grass had been drenched with gasoline. He had barely managed to leap away from the vehicle before the flames engulfed it.
Now he raised his hand to the scar upon his cheek. Throughout his lifetime, he had acquired many of these scars. His body was riddled with burns. The man in the fire had not let him forget that he was there. Nor would he let him forget who was in charge of things.
He crossed into the woods, where the fire still glowed through the once thick brush. He could hear it crackle as he waded across the black and shallow sea of ash. It was still alive out here. He could feel it watching him. He could feel it reaching for him, teasing and threatening. It wanted to taste him, as it had so many times before. Every now and then, a yellow flame would reach up through the ash at his feet as he stepped, never strong enough to bite, yet bold enough to try.
His heavy boot fell upon a single, flickering flame, and he thought he could almost hear it’s tiny, whispery screams as it was dashed into oblivion. The thought brought a morbid smile to his face. He hated the fire with all the passion that his smoldering heart would allow. He had known for years that it was possible to hurt the fire, just as it was possible for the fire to hurt him, but unlike himself, the fire could never be destroyed. If it was doused, it would simply spring up somewhere else. He could never defeat the fire. But the man who lurked within the fire…he could be defeated. Daniel felt sure of that. Furthermore, if he could defeat the man in the fire, th
en the fire itself would also be defeated. It would not be destroyed, but it might leave him alone. He would know for sure very soon.
He stepped down through the ashes and stumbled over a smoldering log, which rolled beneath his weight. One of its limbs, still red with heat, was forced up from beneath the smoldering ash as he stooped forward to catch his balance and it’s smoking tip slashed the air just before his eyes.
He stumbled backward in startled shock. Suddenly, he was six again…
* * *
Daniel screamed in terror as the fiery beam cut past his small face. He cried out for someone—anyone—to come to him, but no one could hear him. The smoke which filled his living room stung his watering eyes as he tried to find a way out. He could neither see nor breathe.
He dropped to the floor and began to crawl away from the flames that clutched at his bare feet. There had to be somewhere he could go. There had to be a way out.
Again he cried out.
Where were his parents? Had they escaped the fire and left him to burn? Or were they, too, trapped in this nightmare inferno?
He had to close his eyes as a wave of heat and smoke forced itself into his face. Blindly, he crawled forward, trying desperately to outrun the heat. He heard something crash beside him, but did not dare to slow down, nor did he dare to open his eyes. He could feel the doorjamb as he brushed past it and knew that he was now in the kitchen. In his panic, he did not register the heat before him until he ran into one of the burning kitchen chairs. His soft cheek fell against the melting vinyl, wrenching a painful scream. He pulled quickly away, but the flames came with him. He stood up, screaming in agony, a mask of bubbling fire eating the tender flesh of his face, and ran across the floor, down the narrow hallway until he tripped over the small table his mother kept in the hall.
Through the smoke and the tears, he caught sight of a familiar door. It was the door to his parent’s bedroom. Surely it would be safe in there. It was always safe in there. The fire would not dare to invade such a sacred place.
Certain that the flames would try to stop him, he leapt to his feet and ran as fast as his legs could carry him to the place he believed to be his sanctuary. He wrapped his fingers around the doorknob and shoved the door open before his hands could register the pain from the glowing-hot knob. He cried out in agony as he fell to the floor again, clutching his blistered hand.
“Mommy!” he screamed, but as he raised his head, he found that no one could answer his cry. This room was also engulfed in flame. He saw his mother’s cedar chest as the blaze ripped up its sides, and his father’s gun cabinet, which seemed to breathe it in soft, whimpering breaths.
In the center of the room, his parent’s bed stood beneath a furious tower of flames. The stomach-wrenching scent of burning flesh surrounded him.
He remained motionless as he watched it burn, unaware that the flames had crept up around him. He no longer felt the pain. In that moment of shock, he felt nothing at all. It was sad and horrifying, but it was almost hypnotizing. It was a heartless beast that had his parents, but it somehow fascinated him.
It was his first real glimpse at how awesome the fire could be, how terrible it could be. Before this night, he never could have believed how terrifying this simple element of nature really was.
At last, his eyes drifted to the corner, where a man stood watching him from the flames. His face and hands were badly burned and his clothes appeared to be melted to his body. It was an indescribable sight, an unspeakably terrible vision, yet it filled Daniel with nothing more than dull and emotionless interest. He thought for a moment that he was looking at a dead man, but as he watched, the man in the fire gave him a wide and toothless grin.
“Hello, Danny,” the man said in an awful, strangled voice.
Daniel said nothing. He only continued to stare at the man as the fire caught the legs of his pajamas and wrapped around his legs. He could not feel the pain. He was far too fascinated by the man in the fire.
“No,” the man said, as though reading his thoughts. “This isn’t hell. But it’s close.”
From somewhere in the other room, a loud crash exploded over the roar of the fire and somewhere, so very far away, he heard voices.
“My god!” cried one of those voices, and he was suddenly scooped up off the floor.
He stared up into the fireman’s mask, not really seeing him.
“It’s gonna be all right, Kid,” the fireman promised as he pushed back through the thickening flames and rushed him out of the burning house.
* * *
Pain tore through his hand and pulled him from his nightmarish flashback. He had been clutching the side of a burning tree, and his hand had blistered badly. The pain was terrible, but it was something which no longer troubled him. He had learned to forget about pain. He hurt too much on the inside to care about the pointless pain he felt with his skin. Blisters went away, after all…even if they became scars.
He turned and faced the north, where he could still see the glow of the fire. He was not far from it. It was just over the hill. It would go no farther. The man in the fire would wait for him.
Flames now danced all around him, lighting up the smoky forest where he walked, springing up from the ground before him and dying away behind him. Anger boiled within his guts. He knew that they were mocking him. He knew that they were teasing him. He hated them, those little, golden, flickering things. And yet there was never more than one. Every flame was just a finger or a hand or an arm that was all a part of the one beast that was the fire. He had discovered what the fire really was. The fire was not something physical. The fire was beneath him, within the earth, within everything. The fire was a living, breathing, feeding thing. It was also a cruel thing and a playful thing. Right now it was playing with him.
Let it, Daniel thought. Let it come. Let it tease. Let it anger me. His dark eyes glared down at the laughing flames and he smiled at them, his scarred face widening in a grim, lunatic grin. The angrier it makes me, the more I’ll enjoy killing you, you son of a bitch. He stomped down upon another flame, his ears filling with that whispery screaming that was so very soft, so very tiny. Only one who knew the fire as well as he did could ever learn to hear those screams. He was glad he could hear them. Those sounds made him feel good.
As the hungry blaze grew in the distant shadows, and the flames tickled his ankles all around him, his mind drifted back to his own, painful past. He could remember perfectly each time that the man in the fire had taken everything that he ever loved from him, how he tore it all to pieces before his very eyes, like a selfish child might break another’s toy, just because he could not have it for himself.
Every detail was so perfectly clear. He only had to allow himself to remember and he could smell the strangling smoke and feel the stinging fire. His heart raced and his teeth were clenched against pain and fear.
* * *
“Not again,” he breathed. “God, please not again!” He raised his foot and kicked open the door. He had to close his eyes against the heat which rushed out at him. “Sherry!” he screamed through coughing gasps.
Ignoring the intense heat which ravaged his skin, he stormed through the flames and into the room. “Sherry!” he screamed again. His eyes washed over the bed as the ever-present memory of his last look at his parents filled his mind.
Squinting his watering eyes, he peered though the smoke and at last saw the shadow that was curled up in the corner. “Sherry!” he cried again and ran to her. “Sher—” His last breath faded away like smoke in the breeze and he stopped. There was nothing left. “No…” he whimpered as he looked upon his young wife. Her face and hands were badly burnt. Her fair and sensitive skin was now black and cracked like the flesh of a hog cooked over an open flame. Like his parents so long before, she was dead. In her arms, she still cradled his tiny daughter.
“No�
��” he managed again. His emotions were quickly growing, choking out the angry fire and smothering smoke around him.
“Pity,” came a cracked voice from behind him. It was a voice he had often heard in his dreams. It was the voice of the man who had found him so many years before and had been stalking him ever since.
He blinked away the tears as his sorrow was almost instantly replaced by a wicked hatred. Slowly, he turned to face the man in the fire.
There was no question this time as he looked into his hunter’s boiling eyes. He knew exactly what was before him.
“Such a beautiful family.” His cracked and blistered lips curled into an evil grin. “So sweet…so innocent.”
Daniel lunged at the heartless creature, wrapping his hands around his throat. Fire shot from between his fingers and forced him back again. He could feel his skin blistering from its contact with the monster.
“You can’t kill me, Danny,” he explained. He was still smiling his evil smile. He was still mocking him.
“Watch me.” Daniel grabbed a ceramic pot from the bookshelf and hurled it. It struck the man’s face and exploded into a ball of fire. Blood boiled from the new wounds and burned down his disfigured face. Never did the man in the fire lose his mocking grin.
“Now look what you’ve done, Danny. You’ve broken Sherry’s favorite decoration.”
Daniel’s expression faltered for a moment, then flared. “Why me?” he screamed at last.
“You?” asked the man in the fire. “Why you? Just what do you think I feel like?” He stared at the man who stood trembling before him. His grin had faded away, leaving a hollowed expression of anger. “I envy you, Danny. You’ve had everything that I could ever have wanted. But by now you should know that what I can’t have…neither can you.”
“What are you?” Danny demanded.
“Me?” the man in the fire asked shyly. “I’m just a poor, soulless man, cursed to spend the rest of eternity walking on charred earth.”
