Black Rite

by Allen Caraway

  It was the wrong decision.

  I cannot forgive myself, even now.

  The fire was spreading with alarming and unnatural speed and I struggled to put out the flames. By the time I had beaten out one patch of fur, they had spread to another, my attempts complicated by my yelping sixty-five pound puppy writhing on the floor. I looked around for something that was more effective than my hands, saw a coverlet that Lizzy had kicked off while asleep, threw it over Mick and eventually smothered the flames, then stood up, turned and grabbed the corpse’s ankles. It turned its upper body towards me and jabbed its hard bony fingers into my hand. I yelled and let go as a bolt of hot, excruciating pain screeched up my arm. Minute orange-blue flames burst through my pores, burning the hairs, the flames making a whoomph! sound as my arm erupted into a column of fire.

  ‘FUCK!’

  I ran towards Lizzy’s bathroom, noticing in my peripheral vision that she was sitting up and holding a book in both hands, her arms raised above her head. As I hurtled through the doorway, intent on putting my arm under the faucet, I heard a dull, thudding, cracking sound: the book making contact with what sounded like the corpse’s skull.

  At first, the cold water had little effect on the flames and only provided marginal relief from the pain, as if they were fighting to stay alive, fighting nature, the water turning into steam the moment it touched my flesh. The basin filled quickly and I immersed my arm, which was already beginning to swell, the skin red and blotchy, until finally, deprived of oxygen, the flames died.

  Lizzy’s screams and the sounds of fighting began to move away, then there was a loud, hard crack! sound and Lizzy abruptly went silent.

  ‘LIZZY?! LIZZY?!’

  I yanked my arm from the basin, water splashing onto the floor, and sprinted across the bedroom - Lizzy’s hardcover edition of Mansfield Park lying on the floor, pieces of bone and charred skin lying around it – and found the corpse dragging itself along the landing with one hand, jagged nails leaving long scratches in my polished floorboards, the other hand wrapped around Lizzy’s left wrist, pulling her unconscious body behind it, a deep gash on her cheek. There was a large hole in the corpse’s skull and its right lower leg was broken in two, the bones barely held together by a strip of skin. To my surprise and tremendous relief, I saw that Keith was not only conscious and on his feet but also trying to free Lizzy, Mick beside him, a red, blotchy bald patch running from his neck down to his left shoulder where the fire had burned off his fur. Their jaws were clamped onto Lizzy’s pajama bottoms, the drawstring barely holding them to her hips, allowing me to see far more than I expect she’d want me to, the pups trying to pull her free with deep-throated growls, muscles bulging and straining. Just as I reached them, the corpse yanked Lizzy forward, her pajamas freeing themselves from Mick and Keith’s grip with a loud rrrriiiipp! and a combined weight of 130 pounds fell against my legs. I lost my balance and landed on my back, my head hitting the bare boards, hard, and I blacked out.

  When I drifted back into consciousness, Keith was licking my face, his tail low and only the end wagging, a clear sign of anxiety. I sat up, wincing at the sudden bellowing pain in my head that was competing with the throbbing pain in my arms, dizziness and nausea overwhelming me, my vision blurred as if I was looking through fogged glass. For a moment, I felt utterly confused, wondering where I was and why I was lying on the floor with a dog slobbering over me, then I remembered.

  The corpse.

  Gary. It could only be Gary.

  Sweet Jesus, how? I thought. It’s impossible.

  Just like Lizzy coming back was impossible?

  Lizzy. Oh God, no!

  Planting the least burnt hand on the floor, I pushed myself to my feet. Bad idea. The pain in my head and arms increased, screamed, and the dizziness thickened. My balance abandoned me and I suddenly felt incredibly old and helpless.

  ‘Shit!’ I said, sitting down heavily, unable to judge how far from the floor I was, sending a jagged sheet of pain up my spine. ‘SHIT!’

  I sat there for a moment, urging the dizziness to pass, growing angrier and more frustrated with each second.

  Concussion, I thought. You’ve got concussion. Can’t walk this off, bro.

  Fuck that. Need to get up. Now. C’mon, up, UP.

  Keith whined, staring at me with his head cocked.

  I pointed towards the reception hall. ‘Go and find Lizzy, Keith. Go on, go and find Lizzy.’ He barked once, turned and scampered down the stairs.

  I pushed myself to my feet again, leaning against the wall for support, each movement causing my head and arms to bellow in protest, then took a few tentative, uncoordinated steps towards my bedroom.

  Gun. Gotta get my gun.

  Like that’s going to do any good, another voice countered. He’s already dead.

  Yeah, but blowing his head off should slow the fucker down.

  I could barely open the drawer. Taking out and holding the Glock was even harder. The pain was immense and my hands were shaking. Pointless trying to use it. I wouldn’t be able to aim the damn thing. Cursing, I carefully put it back and then went downstairs as quickly as I dared, praying I wouldn’t miss a step and fall on my face. When I reached the hall, I turned and headed towards the sound of Mick and Keith’s frenzied barking, which appeared to be coming from the backyard. By the time I reached the kitchen, my eyesight was a little better, enough to see that the back door was lying on the porch, ripped from the doorframe as if someone had taken a battering ram to it.

  ‘Gary you cunt,’ I said, stunned that he, it could do such a thing. Using my elbows, I turned on the security lights, the powerful beams illuminating the entire yard. As I stepped over the door, I couldn’t see Gary or Lizzy, but I was able to pinpoint their location via the pups’ barking. They were about eighty yards away, hidden among the trees and beyond the reach of the lights. I returned to the kitchen and looked at my Maglite. Trying to hold that would be as difficult as holding the Glock. I scanned the shelving unit where it stood next to my household tools, my eyes falling on the strap-on headlamp that I’d bought for working on Dad’s Camaro.

  Bingo.

  Wincing, I put it on, cursing repeatedly as the strap rubbed against my raw skin, then stepped over the door and sprinted towards the forest. I found Gary propped up against a tree. The pups had cornered him. Mick was charging Gary repeatedly, stopping just short of his reach, Mick snarling and barking, his ears flattened, the fur on the back of his neck sticking up, tail held high while Gary swiped at him with his right hand, his left arm wrapped around Lizzy’s neck in a chokehold. Once again, Keith had clamped his jaws to her pajama bottoms, his body angled backwards as he pulled as hard as he could. Lizzy had regained consciousness and was frantically struggling within Gary’s grip, kicking his legs, striking him with her elbows and fists while gasping for air, her face red, eyes wide and terrified.

  As I approached, I shouted, ‘LET GO OF HER!’ the words coming out with such force it felt as if they were shredding my throat.

  Gary turned towards the sound of my voice and I could feel him staring at me, his hatred palpable. I stared back, unable to believe that this … thing was once my brother.

  When Lizzy heard my voice, her attempts to free herself intensified. She tried to speak but only managed a guttural croaking sound, her eyes locking onto mine, pleading with me to free her. I have never seen such terror in another person’s face before and I hope I never will again.

  I was within three feet of them when Gary drew his right forefinger across Lizzy’s cheek with a swift, slicing motion. Tiny flames spurted from her pores, following the line drawn by the finger, then her entire body abruptly ignited with a whumph! as if Gary had doused Lizzy in gasoline, turning her into a writhing ball of fire. I instinctively leaped back, almost falling over, as intense heat billowed towards me, the flames reaching out like tentacles, their reach falling short by a few inches, the fire burning with a hellish fury that refused t
o obey the laws of physics, ignoring the trees and plants and only burning flesh. Imbrued with agony and terror, Lizzy’s screams echoed across the lawn, a horrific sound that still comes to me in my nightmares where I relive the entire moment in vivid detail. And the smell. Oh God, the smell of her burning: a nauseating, sweet, acrid, charcoal-like smell akin to burnt roast pork, so thick and rich I could almost taste it. A stench I have never entirely gotten out of my nose, even now. Ignoring an inner voice that screamed at me to stay back, I ran forward with the intention of rolling Lizzy across the ground in an attempt to smother the fire, but the heat was too fierce and I heard myself cry out in pain and anguish. Abruptly, she stopped moving, ceased screaming, and Gary threw her to one side like a discarded toy. Lizzy lay on her back, smoke and flames rising towards the black night sky, as charred as the demonic living corpse that had set her alight, Lizzy’s hair, eyebrows and eyes burned away, curvaceous body reduced to a blackened, skeletal form barely covered by a thin layer of flesh, the once beautiful woman now unrecognizable.

  Dead.

  I had to put out the flames. Had to. There would be nothing left of her soon, just ash.

  The fire extinguisher in the kitchen.

  Oh Jesus sweet Jesus why hadn’t I thought of that before!?

  I ran back to the house and grabbed it from the wall near the gas range, trying to ignore the bark of pain when my hands touched the metal cylinder. From the porch, the fire looked like a tiny sun, bright and fierce, illuminating a large section of forest. Fumbling, cursing, I gripped the safety pin between my fingers and pulled it out. The pain that erupted in my hands was so intense I almost screamed. Biting it back, I gave the extinguisher a quick test fire, then approached Lizzy from upwind and covered her with a layer of white powder, eventually smothering the flames.

  In the final years of what I had come to think of as her first life, Lizzy had sought the dark, peaceful silence of death, eventually succeeding by her own hand. Lizzy told me that after Gary had brought her back, she had prayed for death again, right up until our first shopping trip to Wickham. Now in the cruel, ironic way that fate frequently chooses for us and at a time when she wanted life, those prayers were answered and at the hands of the person who had resurrected her.

  I dropped the fire extinguisher. It landed on the ground with a muffled clang, barely missing my foot. Turning my face to the sky, I howled with pain, rage and grief, as I would in the nightmares to come and as the howl turned into a roar, I spun around to face the thing that had murdered Lizzy, intent on stomping the abomination into the ground, but Gary had vanished. It was too much. The combination of my physical and emotional pain broke something inside me. I fell to my knees and raised my face once more to the dark sky and bellowed every curse I knew.

  I must have knelt beside Lizzy, sobbing, for over an hour until exhaustion, cold and pain drove me back to some kind of operational consciousness. I looked at her, then quickly looked away and stood up shakily with one thought on my mind. I had to bury her. At least cover her body with something. I looked at my arms. They were a mess and my God, the pain.

  So how are you going to bury her, I asked myself, when just holding the fire extinguisher was torture?

  I’ll cover them with antibiotic cream, then a thick layer of bandages. So thick they’ll be like gloves. I can’t just leave her there. Then I’ll call nine–one-one and get myself fixed up.

  I went inside and slowly and with great difficulty bandaged my arms and then returned to the backyard. Using a shovel was out of the question, but there was a large pile of rocks and old bricks behind the garage. I carried them over one by one and covered her body, my arms screaming at me to stop, the movement of picking up, carrying and dropping the rocks causing the bandages to rub against my raw flesh. It took me until dawn to finish. A twenty, maybe thirty minute job that stretched into three painful hours. At first, I thought it would be a temporary grave until I could dig Lizzy a proper one and give her a decent burial, but after working for an hour, I stood back and scrutinized my work and realized that I’d actually done a decent job, the pile of rocks reminding me of the pioneer graves that I‘d seen in magazine articles and in movies. When I had finished, it rose four feet into the air and by then looked nothing like a grave, which I had intended. It was enough, I hoped, to prevent any of the local predators from getting at her. I looked at it for a long time, glad that I had managed to give Lizzy a decent burial after all. However, as soon as my burns were healed, I’d move her deeper into the forest. Murphy’s Law dictated that someone would wander to the edge of the yard, see it and start asking questions. I doubted that I could come up with an excuse that would convince a jury.

  What happened after that is a jumbled mess of hazy, fragmented memories, the effects of shock finally kicking in, I guess. Daniel Harding, the vet, attending to Mick. Getting my wounds cleaned and bandaged at the hospital. Jack arriving, calling Cole and then Aurelio. Taking me home. Telling Jack an edited account of Gary’s visit and leaving the rest to his imagination. As with Lizzy’s resurrection, telling him the truth was out of the question. He wouldn’t believe me.

  When we reached North Oak, we found Aurelio and Pierro - one of Stefano’s five brothers - taking measurements for a new back door, Cole, who Jack had asked to keep an eye on the house, working nearby.

  Aurelio glanced at us over his shoulder, gave us a nod by way of greeting and said, ‘Looks like someone took a battering ram to your door. Gonna need a new frame as well.’ He pulled off a chunk with his hand, showed it to us and then let it fall to the floor. ‘This one’s had it.’

  I told him what I wanted and then as Jack and I watched him drive off to a building center in Kerorso, Jack said, ‘Would you like me to stick around while they fit the new door?’

  ‘I’m keeping you from work.’

  ‘Heather’s got that covered. I’ll call her again, tell her the latest. She’s worried sick.’

  I was on my third cup of coffee and listening to Aurelio swear in Italian when a sheriff’s deputy rang the doorbell. Presumably, Jack had spoken to the sheriff’s office because I hadn’t. I was still too dazed to think straight and the medication that the doctor in the burn unit had prescribed wasn’t helping. The deputy took in my bandaged arms with one impassive look, wandered around, asked questions and kept his impassive expression in place when he saw my massacred back door. In his line of work, I expect he had seen much worse. I was the burglars’ latest victim, he concluded, although setting fire to a pet and leaving empty handed was a first for them.

  After he’d gone, I retreated to my office, lowered myself wearily into my chair and stared at the wall while the pups stared at me, both acutely aware of my distress and clearly wondering where Lizzy was. With bowed heads and tails tucked between their legs, they nuzzled and licked me and I wondered if dogs had any understanding of mortality, if over time they would come to realize that Lizzy was dead. Perhaps I needed to comfort them as much as they were attempting to comfort me.

  Lizzy.

  Oh God …

  Grief coursed through me like a swollen river that had broken its banks, submerging my hopes, dreams, the sense of bone deep happiness I had felt whenever I looked at her.

  ~

  More time passed without me being aware of it. As the light began to fade, an engine started up and then pulled away. Aurelio and Pierro. They must have finished. A few minutes later there was a knock on my door.

  ‘Bruce?’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘You okay, Son?’

  No.

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Can I come in?’

  ‘I’ll come out. Take a look at the door.’

  ‘Okay.’

  When I walked onto the landing, I saw that concern had etched deep lines into Jack’s forehead.

  ‘You sure you’re okay?’ he said.

  ‘Yeah. How’s the door?’

  ‘All good. Exactly as you asked for: a big heavy compos
ite thing that’ll be more secure than the last one.’

  ‘Good.’

  We went downstairs and I nodded in approval at Aurelio and Pierro’s handiwork and then studied the bill on the countertop.

  I’ll write him a check and then mail it, I thought and then remembered my hands. I looked at them. How, exactly, did I propose to do that? I could ask Jack to write it out, but how was I going to sign it?

  Shit.

  Bank transfer. But then Jack would have to log on to my account and do it for me.

  Fucking hell.

  ‘I phoned Heather,’ Jack said. ‘She‘s going to … Bruce?’

  ‘Huh?’ I looked up from the bill. ‘Oh. Sorry.’

  ‘I was saying that Heather is going to come over and fix you a meal, run any errands that need running. Whatever you need doing.’

  Like forging my signature on a check, perhaps?

  He couldn’t really spare her, but there was no point arguing over it. Not with Jack.

  ‘Thanks. It’s really appreciated.’

  Jack shrugged. ‘No big deal. In the meantime, I think I can fix you some sandwiches, if you’re hungry.’

  Until then, I hadn’t thought about food. I didn’t feel hungry, despite not eating since yesterday, but knew that I needed to make an effort to correctly manage my grief. Making sure that I got enough sleep, ate properly and took regular exercise would help me to heal, emotionally as well as physically.

  I nodded. ‘That’d be good. Thanks.’

  After he’d gone, I lay on my bed feeling exhausted, hot, sticky and in need of a bath, but unable to do so until the nurse I’d hired arrived. My dressings only needed changing once a week at the burn clinic, which was some consolation, but being unable to wash myself was a pain in the ass and the thought of a stranger putting their hands all over my naked body made me cringe.