by Rachel Rust
“Is it much farther?” I ask.
“No.” He points to a cluster of trees just off the road. “It’s right through here. There used to be a clearing leading to the building, but I guess there’s not anymore.”
“When was the last time you were here?”
“1912. By the time I remembered it in my second life, it had been shuttered. Which was fine by me. I didn’t want to have anything to do with it, or with any memories of Tommy.”
I follow David down a ditch, where weeds and sticks crack under our feet. Tree branches full of big, green leaves block our view. He’s right in front of me and tries to keep branches from snapping back at me as he pushes his way through the vegetation, but it doesn’t work. They lash at me like little brown and green whips. A thin branch flicks my face, making me flinch and yelp. I put my hand to my cheek and draw back blood.
“Chessie?” David says. He’s ahead of me but lost in the thick of trees.
“I’m coming,” I say and push forward.
He startles at my cut face. “We’re almost there.”
The ground slopes back up, and we climb out of the ditch. The trees thin, revealing an old building, brown and green from rot and moss. I wonder what color it was in its heyday.
“This is Hell’s Pot?” I ask.
David is stopped, hands on hips, defiantly staring back at his past. “This is it.”
“Looks a little different than in 1912 I bet, huh?”
David scoffs. “No, it was a piece of shit back then, too.”
“Well, at least you don’t have to drink awful whiskey this time.” I try to laugh, as though this is some sort of enjoyable adventure. As though I could delude either of us that we’re merely on a fun hiking date.
David’s hand flies up. “Shhh.” He moves a few steps forward and I follow. “Did you hear that?”
I hear nothing.
Not at first anyway, but as I concentrate on the ambient noise of the woods around us—the rustling of trees and soft whisper of wind—something distinct hits my ears. Higher pitched and more sporadic.
“Crying,” I whisper.
“That’s what I heard, too.” He puts a hand out. “Stay behind me.”
We make our way to the building. The stench of mildew and moss grows stronger with every step. The front door is in the middle of the building, and there are two windows on either side. All the windows are busted out, and the building stares back at us with blackness, not unlike The Axe Murder House. The roof sags in the middle, looking like it will cave in with the next big rainfall. David peers into the closest broken window.
“I can’t see much. We’ll have to go in.”
My stomach churns with fear. He tries the door handle, and nothing moves. He jams a shoulder into the door. It doesn’t open, but there’s a splintering of wood. He rams into it one more time, and when the door opens, he stumbles inside.
“David?” I call out quietly when he doesn’t reappear.
“It’s okay, come in,” he says.
Inside, the smell of rot is even stronger, and I gag on my next breath. There are old chairs and tables scattered everywhere, covered in thick dust. Everything is damp. There’s a bar at the back of the room with a few wooden stools still sitting in front of it.
David is stone still, looking around, no doubt with a flood of rowdy memories flickering through his mind. Who did he used to talk to here, besides Tommy? Where did he sit? Did he have a usual spot? What must it have sounded like? How much gross whiskey did he drink?
I touch his forearm, and he looks down at me. “You okay?” I ask.
“Yeah, it’s just weird being here. That’s all.”
A soft cry makes us both jump.
“The back room,” he says.
We weave our way through a maze of chairs and tables to the doorway next to the bar. David motions for me to get behind him. He peeks in.
“Holy shit,” he says.
“What?”
He moves so I can take a look. I crane my neck and look around the corner into the back room. It’s dark and dingy, with the only light coming from a hole in the soggy ceiling. But directly under that hole, as though in a spotlight, is a metal cage. Inside the cage lie three little bodies.
Including one in a blue dress.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
I rush into the dark room, ignoring David’s plea to stop because it might not be safe. But I’m not thinking of any dangers—not Mateo, not weak floorboards, not anything. My entire focus is on the limp little girls lying in the cage in the corner.
The air in the back room is thick, dense with moisture and decay, and I wonder how they’ve managed to breathe it in for all the days they’ve been here.
The back room is an old kitchen or supply room of some type. I sidestep a table in the middle of the room but don’t move far enough and the corner catches my hip, causing me to wince, but I push forward. The closer I get to the metal cage, the stronger the scent of decay grows, and along with it, my fears. Are they hurt? Are they dead? I’m not prepared to stumble upon dead children.
I slam into the cage full force and pound on the crisscrossed metal. “Wake up.” The little girl in the blue dress is lying next to the other two. Her eyes flutter a couple of times, then close. My head whips around to look behind me. “David! Hurry.”
He’s already halfway through the room and manages to do a better job than I did in avoiding the table. My fingers claw at the metal. I look all around. Up, down, left, right. I can’t find a door of any kind.
“How do we get in?” I ask, frantic and afraid. I pound on the metal bars again. “Wake up!” The girls do not move.
David steps beside me and inspects the cage, running his fingers over the metal in all directions.
I pound again and the girls don’t move. “Oh god, what if they’re dying?”
David ignores my question; he searches for an opening. My fear grows with every second. What if we’re too late to save them? And if they die, then we’re too late for David, too. There’d be no one here to save, and he’ll be dead in twelve hours.
“How do we get in?”
“I’m looking!” he snaps. He stoops lower, to the far left corner. “Here, I found something.”
I kneel beside him, and in the bottom corner is a small hinged door, and suddenly the cage looks like a large dog kennel. There’s a padlock hooked around the metal bars, locking the door shut.
“Son of a bitch,” David says. “We sell this exact lock at the hardware store.” He stands and jams the heel of his shoe down against the padlock. Again and again, he tries to break the lock with his foot, but we both know it’s futile.
David spins and looks around. “We need to find something heavy. Search the room and—”
The sound of a chair being knocked over in the front room freezes David and me in place. My heart thumps harder. Mateo is in the building with us. I reach out to David’s arm, but he moves before I can touch him. Slowly, quietly, we tiptoe through the room the way we came, back to the doorway leading to the front bar area.
David peeks around the door first. He moves forward and I follow. After being in the dark back room, the front room is bright and airy in comparison. There’s no one out there. At least no one we can see.
Tables and chairs are scattered, and it’s impossible to know which chair had been knocked over because most had been on their sides to begin with.
I cling to David’s arm because something isn’t right. A chair was knocked over, but whoever did it isn’t around; they fled right away. Mateo probably kicked a chair over on purpose. He wants to get our attention. He wants to draw us out.
“David, it’s a trap.”
I pull on his arm to stop him, but he doesn’t stop. I grab him again and pull him back, but he yanks out of my grip and continues walking forward to the front door. I want to scream for him to stop, that it’s not safe. But I don’t because it’s also not safe to make a lot of noise and broadcast our location.
/> I stop halfway through the front room and watch as he moves forward. He’s almost to the front door when I smell it for the first time. He turns and looks at me. He smells it, too.
Gasoline.
Its crisp, familiar smell overpowers the scent of old wood and dust. David’s eyes widen, and he motions for me to move toward the front door. His message is clear: we need to get out. Now.
I run forward, jumping over the chair right in front of me. David peers out the front door and takes a step outside. From behind him, a hand appears and jams a syringe into the side of his neck.
David doesn’t even have a chance to react. He drops to the ground.
“No!” I yell, not giving a damn who might hear me. I rush forward but stop short at the door. David is lying on the ground right in front of me. I hesitate, not wanting to feel the prick of a needle in my own neck…then we’d all be as good as dead. I wait and listen. No footsteps. No shuffling. No breathing.
I glance around the corner of the door.
No sight of Mateo.
The vapor of gasoline dissipates as I step outside, and I use the opportunity to take several deep breaths. Because I’m going to have to go back inside. For the girls.
I kneel down and tap David’s cheek. He doesn’t move. I nudge my fingers under his jaw, and there’s a strong pulse.
A branch snaps under a near-silent footstep behind me. Shivers trail up my spine. My head slowly rotates. Mateo stands at the corner of the building, a smile on his face. The left side of his cheek is red, with a slight purple hue developing under his eye, courtesy of David’s right fist.
“David’s not dead,” Mateo says. “But he’s not going to be much help saving those girls, is he?”
“You were supposed to be his friend.”
Mateo smirks. “Now you sound like David. He says that in every life—you were supposed to be my friend. Wah, wah, wah.” Mateo takes a step toward me and I hunker down. He stretches his jaw and runs a hand over the redness on his cheekbone. “David’s not my friend. Not anymore. He knows if he saves himself, he’ll doom me to hell. What kind of friend does that?”
I glare at him. “You sealed your own fate when you killed all those people. You doomed yourself, asshole.”
“You call me all the names you want. I warned you that evil could be anyone. It’s not my fault you were too stupid to recognize it.” From his pocket, he takes out a green Hernandez Garage lighter, similar to the one he had given me when he showed me how to use the sage. He glances at the sky. “Day’s moving on. David doesn’t have much time.” He flicks the lighter and a small flame wavers in the wind. “Neither do those girls.”
“Don’t,” I say, still catching whiffs of gasoline from the building.
Mateo smiles and says, “Good luck.” He disappears around the corner of the building—lighter in hand.
“Shit,” I mutter, looking all around as though an easy answer to this messed up situation is going to magically show up. I have no idea what to do. Should I move David first before going back for the girls? What if I go back for the girls first and Mateo drags him away while I’m gone?
But then David’s previous words ring in my head. If I die, I’ll be back. I glance back at the open door of the bar. If the girls die, they don’t get to come back. Guilt and fear flood every inch of me. I have to leave David and try to free the girls. I hate myself for it, but I have to do it.
The sight of his limp body cracks me in half, but then I spot something that gives me a sliver of hope. Nestled among the weeds in front of the building is a large rock, shaped like a lopsided bowling ball. I grab it. It’s heavier than anticipated and will slow down my movements, but it might work.
I take one last look at David before disappearing back into the bar and into the stench of gasoline and decay, mentally telling him that I’ll be back. I’m not giving up on saving him.
In the back room, I position the rock over the padlock and jam it down. Nothing. Over and over again, I crack the rock down onto the metal padlock. The rock scratches into my hands with every blow, and a few times, I miss the lock all together and it hits my knee, leaving a random pattern of scrapes and red spots which are sure to turn black and blue.
The stench of gasoline is making my head spin, and every breath is like I’m drowning. I strike the lock once more and then collapse, my arms exhausted, my mind warped from fumes. It’s no use. I should go back to David and get us the hell out of here and call the police when we get closer to town. But a blur of blue moves in my peripheral vision. In the far corner of the cage, the little girl in the blue dress is standing up, staring at me.
“Oh my god,” I whisper. “You’re alive.”
She stares at me with her fingers in her mouth. There’s no expression and she’s probably dizzy from the gasoline. But it doesn’t matter; the only thing that matters is that she’s alive and I need to get the damn lock broke off. I stand and pound the lock again. She’s alive; I have to do this. I pound the lock again. I hit it again and again.
With the next slam of the rock, the lock breaks and clatters onto the floor by my feet. I laugh deliriously and yank open the door. The hinges creak and the little girl steps back.
“It’s okay,” I say. “Come with me.” I hold out my hand, but she ignores it and wraps her little arms around my neck. With a cry, I wrap my arms around her and rush her out of the cage. Maneuvering around the mess of tables and chairs in the front room is more difficult with a forty-pound child in my arms, but we make it to the front door and relief washes over me—David’s still here, lying on the ground where I’d left him. I plop the little girl down next to him.
She stares at me. I don’t want to leave her out here with Mateo lurking somewhere nearby, but I can’t carry all three kids at the same time. If only David was awake to help. I put his hand in hers. “He’s your friend. Hold his hand and stay here with him. I’ll be right back with the other girls, okay?”
She nods and squeezes David’s thumb in her itty-bitty fingers that are covered in grime. The sight nearly makes me cry, but I can’t. There’s no time for that. I take a deep breath of fresh air and head back inside.
I’m only ten feet into the bar when a sickening sound fills the building. Crackling, burning wood. A split second after the sound hits my ears, the smell infiltrates my nostrils. Gasoline is giving way to smoke. It billows from the doorway leading into the back room. The girls! Going against every natural instinct to run out of a burning building, I rush into the back room. The far wall is totally engulfed, and the air is thick with smoke.
Hooking the inside of my elbow across my nose and mouth, I rush forward. Cautiously, I enter the cage, watching the space behind me. The last thing I need is to be locked in with them. I grab the first girl, dressed in a white T-shirt, by the arm and fling her up over my shoulder. She’s younger and lighter than the blue dress girl. The third girl, wearing a pink dress, is about the same size as the blue dress girl, and I attempt with one hand to lift her up, but I can’t do it. She’s too heavy. I’m too weak.
I place the white T-shirt girl back on the ground and then scoop up each girl under one arm, like I’m carrying large footballs. They’re both limp, hanging at my sides. I don’t even know if they’re alive or dead. I squeeze out of the small cage door, having to go sideways to fit.
Flames drip from the roof and the table is now on fire. I hug the far left wall, holding my breath, unsure how much longer I can go before my body betrays me and gulps in a fiery breath of hot air. I force my feet to keep moving, trying to ignore the pain in my chest and the exhaustion in my arms threatening to drop the girls at any moment.
The smoke is thickening, my vision is gone, and I am going by feel—shimmying down the wall, trying to find the doorway to the front room. The thick wall of smoke is thanks to the rotted, damp wood of the old bar. When I was little, my dad and I would go camping and he’d always tell me not to burn anything wet. “Makes too much smoke,” he’d say.
I think of my
dad, my parents, and grandparents. I think about what David told me…If you die, that’s it. I don’t get another life. The girls don’t get another life. I wrap my arms tighter around them and move faster. The ceiling is sinking in, bringing raging orange flames down with it.
My back bumps against the frame of the doorway and I pivot left. The front room isn’t as smoky as the back room, but I don’t breathe yet. Through the haze of smoke, the light from the broken windows filters through.
My knees, thighs, and hips run into chairs and tables. It’s like a maze with passages I can’t see until they’re only a foot in front of me. I push on, nearly falling over a chair, and having to climb over others. As the door approaches, the smoke thins and I cautiously sip in a tiny breath. The harsh air makes me cough. I don’t want to breathe again, but my body instinctively draws in a large breath. It needs air. But it gets two lungs full of smoke instead, and I collapse onto the floor in front of the door.
The girls fall to the floor next to me. I’m on my hands and knees, coughing and gagging on the air. I have to get out. The girls—if they’re breathing—can’t breathe this. We all have to get out.
I crawl out of the doorway, then turn and grab each girl by the wrist and drag them out. Once in the fresh air, I collapse onto my side next to David.
Holding his hand is the girl in the blue dress. She smiles at me.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
I drag the two limp girls away from the smoke, leaving them near the edge of the trees. Flames shoot up from the building, and the sides are totally engulfed. It’s only a matter of time before the front of the building is fully consumed by fire—right where David still lies.
The little girl in the blue dress stands next to me. She still hasn’t spoken but occasionally puts her hand on my arm when I cough the remnants of smoke from my lungs. I rush back to David with a blue dress on my heels.
I kneel next to him, cupping his face in my hands. “David!” I move his head back and forth. “David! Wake up!”
