Lost

by Devon, Gary;

  I know this house.

  Slumped against the bedroom wall, Sherman drew a long, staggered breath. He pressed his thumb against the veins in his wrist to ease the throbbing in his torn hand. On the bed, across the room, white pillows gleamed with dull moonlight.

  Quickly, with his knife, he cut the pillowcase lengthwise in three horizontal strips, then ripped them loose at the ends. She won’t go nowhere without Mamie, he thought. And Mamie won’t go with her. Not now that I’m here. He took the first strip of cloth and wound it tight around his hand. Blood soaked through it in an instant. He wound the next strip even tighter, to stop the pain and the bleeding. With his teeth, he tore the end of the third, wound part of it, and tied it with his good hand. He was trembling. He gripped his hand a few times until he could hold it in a fist, then took up his knife and went out the bedroom door.

  The house was as still and hollow-sounding as a cave. The front door had been left standing open. Gusts of wind blew through it, snow flying halfway across the room. Where is she? The open door bothered him, the possibility that she’d gone. But she wouldn’t go, he told himself, not without the kids. She’s still down there. He drew back from the railing and started down the stairs.

  The room seemed to rise to meet him. His eyes hurt, his heart was pounding, yet desperately he studied the depths of the room. Things were somehow getting out of control. He was being drawn deeper and deeper toward some place where he had never meant to go. Why had she left the door open? It made no sense. Uncertainty moved inside him like nausea.

  Soundlessly he stalked down the stairs and the living room unreeled around him. He took another step. Shadows lay cluttered in his path like bottomless holes. He stood very still, listening, but heard nothing, not even a breath. Her disappearance only doubled his rage.

  Where’d she go?

  Coldly, like a machine, Sherman analyzed the room. To his left stood a tall wooden secretary filled with books; beyond that was the entrance to the kitchen. Directly ahead of him, twenty feet or so, loomed the open front door, a rectangle of hard blue light, snow blowing through it. Next to the door was the one uncovered window, shot through with faint moonlight. To his right, beyond the chairs and couch, was the stone fireplace. On either side of it were bookcases and windows and cabinets. He glanced back over his shoulder. Behind him, under the staircase, was the linen closet.

  He turned on his toes. He wiped his sleeve across his forehead, and then, in a streak, darted to the closet, threw the door open, and raised his knife. Shelves of towels and sheets met him. He stared, took a deep breath, and pivoted. A long, weaving cry of wind blew snow toward him, and running through it a voice—a very cold, very angry voice. Sherman couldn’t make out what it said. His skin was tingling and clammy.

  It was as if the wind had created the voice. It hung on the air like a lingering shred of sound. He ran a few steps into the room. It was her! That woman! Her voice! His mind repeated the sound; he heard it again, like an echo against the back of his brain. He still couldn’t make out the words, but the unexpected ominous tone of her voice chilled him. Suddenly he spun, gazing, searching the balcony, all the time knowing it was impossible for her to be there. But she was somewhere. Close. The balcony was dark, empty. Only dead silence drifted back to him. She’s watching me, he thought. He could feel her eyes hovering on him, wanted to slash at them. He shrank back into the stairwell, then stepped even deeper in until the protecting shadows surrounded him.

  And then the same voice came again, very cold, very hard, ringing against the walls.

  “What did you do to my sister!”

  Sherman swallowed.

  He couldn’t move. A feeling like ice, like a fine cold spray of ice, spread outward from his chest. The woman was alive with hatred; he could feel it radiating from her voice. Sweat ran into his eyes and he squeezed them shut, dragging his sleeve across his face. He stared through the bannister supports, but he knew before he looked there was no one out there. The living room was empty. Snow blew across it—over chairs, couch, the rug. Where was she? Where was the voice coming from?

  Suddenly the voice said, “You bastard.” Still hard, iron hard.

  Then: “You murderer!”

  The darkness coiled and closed on him like a fist. He straightened, stood bolt upright, twisting his head toward all the blackest shadow places. The voice had been quieter this time, chilling, spoken under her breath. She’s right here someplace. Watchin’ me. But why? This is crazy! She had to be right there in front of him, watching everything he did without being seen. It wasn’t possible. He could feel his control crumbling away.

  Suddenly he ran from the stairwell, tore wildly across the room, past the dark shapes of furniture to the blue rectangle of night. He flew out onto the moonlit porch, and the night wind hit him like a barrage of ice, ruffling his shirt, freezing his sweat. The snow-covered planks had been touched by nothing but his own shoes. I knew it, he thought; she didn’t come out here. He hurled back through the doorway, his shadow leaping and disappearing in the room. “Say somethin’ now!” he yelled.

  He ran through the kitchen doorway, throwing doors open, slamming them shut, pitching out anything he could grab—dishes crashing, exploding on the floor and walls, utensils flying. “Talk to me now!” he yelled. “Say somethin’ now!” It seemed to him that somehow she was always behind him, invisible, hovering very close in the dark, whispering, whispering. Still tearing about, he ran past the sink. On the counter, in a neat even row, was a row of kitchen knives—six or eight of them, all laid out. They drew him to a halt. It was very strange, knives laid out like that. She did this, he thought, to rattle me. With a vicious lunge, Sherman swept them off into the air, heard them clatter away. Treading on broken china, gasping for breath, he rushed back to the doorway, his eyes searching the gloom. And the wind blew. And that voice rose through it, not loud, but there, fierce and alive, hard as metal.

  “You can’t hurt us. I won’t let you.”

  “THEN STOP ME!” he yelled. “STOP ME, GODDAM YOU!” His voice pierced the room, the gusty snow flying around him.

  As if the night itself had shifted, something stirred in the fabric of air immediately in front of him. His concentration gathered, grew sharp. Very slowly he lifted his head and turned; his eyes peered through the quivering flashes of firelight. Something was wrong about that door. Two or three steps away, swung back from the opening to the porch, the front door stood, its glass windowpane facing him, thin curtains backing it. Reflected on the glass he could see his own faint image, and there was something else there, too—her ghostly shape, taller than he was, looming over him. Behind me! The realization struck him. She’s crept up behind me! He plunged, twisted sideways, slashed out with his knife.

  On air. Empty air.

  He came up, thrust himself around. Her image was gone from the glass. Only the thin curtains hung behind the window-pane, gossamer, white as fog. “That goddam door,” he muttered. Every damned thing had turned against him. All his frustration, all his hatred, attached itself to that door. Heaving his body into it, he caught its edge and hurled it shut against the snow.

  And there she was!

  All at once … there, behind the door.

  He saw her hands drawn up, glimpsed the flash of a knife plummeting toward him. He pitched back, weaved sideways to avoid it. But there was no time. With a hard, grinding rip, the kitchen knife sank into him, just below his collarbone. Leona could feel the blow vibrate upward through the wooden handle and out through her arms.

  The boy screamed.

  She clung to the knife as if it were something solid that had roots in the ground, and when he drew away, the bloody end of the knife slipped out of him. For a startled split second their eyes caught. Horror-struck, breathing very fast, Leona thought, as she had before, He’s just a boy, and felt sickened. No. Think of Emma. Unable to strike at him again, she tore away and hid from the sight of what she had done.

  Again Sherman cried out. The pain str
uck him, staggered him in waves. He fell back, covering the wound with his hands, the pain erupting sharper and sharper in his body. Blood spilled through his fingers. “Mamie!” he screamed, “Mamie! Mamie!”

  In the kitchen doorway, still clutching himself, he nearly collapsed. Burying his mouth in the crook of his arm, he could feel his strength seeping away, but his rage flared as never before. She tried to kill me! His hatred restored him. In the pantry he saw something gleam. Driven by his fury, he reached for it. A can of gasoline.

  Leona was drowning in panic and remorse. I did it, she thought. He’s hurt really bad. She found it hard to think. Should I … What should I do? Go to him? But just the thought of it intensified the horror within her. She realized she was still clutching the bloody knife and threw it aside. “Think,” she muttered aloud. “Get the kids.” She had reached the stairs when she remembered she had already looked up there. They must be … where? They must be in the cellar. She turned back. But he was in the kitchen. It meant she would have to go by him, look at him, and she didn’t want to. I have to. Forcing herself to move, she was passing the bookcase when the boy came through the doorway.

  He was pulling tight sips of breath from the air. Blood stained one side of his shirt. He stared at Leona, his eyes filled with passionate rage. “You … you,” he mumbled. In that dark end of the room, it took a moment for Leona to realize what he was carrying in his hands. And then it was all too clear.

  Holding the bottom of the gas can in his stiff left hand, Sherman tipped it and swung it in an arc before him. The gasoline sloshed and flew in a wide crescent near her. Leona swallowed her breath. “What’re you doing?” Again he swung the can and splashes of gasoline flew toward her. She stepped back to dodge it. “My God, stop it!” she shouted. “You’ll set the house on fire! There’s children in here! Mamie’s here!”

  The swinging motion did not stop. The gasoline gurgled and slopped and flew toward her again. She whirled away from it. “Please!” she cried.

  “Shut up,” he said. He lifted his head. “MAMIE!” he yelled, advancing into the room. “MAMIE, COME HERE!”

  Then he slung the gasoline again.

  On the balcony, Mamie watched Sherman raise his head and call for her, but she was trembling uncontrollably, afraid to move, afraid to go to him. Without knowing it, she was moaning to herself.

  The air was full of gas.

  In her arms, she carried the sack of Funny Grandma’s Christmas presents and she flung it down. One after another, she threw the presents out into the dark until she found the one she wanted, the one she had put there herself, and then her hands were flying, tearing the wrapping away.

  The moment the gas can was empty, Sherman cast it aside and turned swiftly toward the fireplace where the thatch of twigs lay burning. “Please!” Leona cried. “You can’t! You’ll set us on fire!” Desperately she ran at him, grabbed the back of his shirt collar, and spun him back.

  Off balance, Sherman swung at her with his good fist.

  A shot cracked the air.

  The bullet spanked a fireplace stone, spewing grit, and sang off into the night. The concussion spread through the depths of the house. It froze the moment. Everything stopped. Before either Sherman or Leona could recover, a small shrill voice yelled, “No-o-o, Sherman,” and footsteps raced along the length of the balcony. Mamie darted down the stairs, reached the landing, and turned, looking down at them. The air stank with fumes.

  “Sherman!” Mamie screamed. “No, Sherman, don’t do it again. Don’t burn us up!” In her hands, she clutched the Browning automatic.

  The muzzle of the gun drifted and steadied on Sherman.

  Sherman stared in disbelief. “Mamie, whataya doin’ with that?”

  Stunned, Leona looked up at her. “Mamie, it was you. You took the gun.” She gasped for air. “You know him. Mamie, who is he?”

  “He’s my brother,” Mamie said, not once removing her gaze from him, her voice so small it hardly carried.

  “Point it at her,” Sherman demanded. “She did it.” He stepped toward her. “Kill her, Mamie! She did it. She caused everything!”

  “No, Sherman,” Mamie said. “You did it.” Holding the gun very still, she came down the remaining stairs. “You killed ’em all. You did it, Sherman.” And her wrath shattered the night. “You killed Mommy! Daddy! You killed Toddy! The Chinaman …” She stepped toward him, bringing the gun closer. “You burned us up!”

  Sherman shrank back.

  Suddenly he looked strange. Terror swarmed into his face.

  Something had come up behind him. There was something climbing on his back.

  The fire.

  He tried to reach for it. He screamed. It was feeding on him, spreading all over him, bursting through his gas-stained clothes, curling on his fingers—flickering white leaves of fire.

  It made a hissing noise at first. Before he could stop it, before anyone could do anything, a towering white scallop of fire engulfed him completely. It caught Leona and Mamie like a camera flash, trapping them in light. Spontaneously the fire on the floor shot from him in runners, eating through the room, flying in zigzags from one splash of gasoline to another. They were all snared in it, screaming, casting about for something to help him, but there was nothing they could do. And then Sherman screamed again, an agonized cry so full of pain it shook the air.

  “The kids!” Leona cried, above the circling white roar. “They’ll burn up! Mamie! Where are they?”

  “I don’t know!” she shouted as Leona reached for her. “He took them!”

  “Where? Mamie, where? What’d he do to them?”

  Sherman emerged from the fireball engulfing him, the stench of his burning flesh hideous, beyond imagining. In a fluttering white nimbus of light, he stretched out his hand in a hopeless gesture. “May-mie,” he said from the depths of his withering. “May-mie.”

  In flames, he reached for her.

  “Sherman!” Mamie screamed, and tore herself from Leona. “Sherman!” She stumbled toward him, lifting her hands.

  “Mamie, get back!”

  Leona swept Mamie up and pitched back through the rim of fire so fast she hardly felt it lick at her legs. She could hear them then—the children, banging in the cellar. She grabbed her coat from the rack, threw it around Mamie, and ran through the kitchen.

  With Mamie screaming and fighting in her arms, Leona ran down the rickety wooden steps to the cellar. The red light of the fire showed through the guttering floorboards above them, casting thin smoky shafts of light into the moldy room. She could hear Patsy and Walter kicking, could hear muffled crying out in the potato bin.

  Clutching Mamie to her, Leona slid the latch open. The children’s hands had been tied, handkerchiefs knotted across their mouths, and they were huddled together in the cramped box. With one arm still around Mamie, Leona hurriedly untied them and helped them out.

  “Quick!” she shouted. “Let’s go! We can still get out. Let’s go! Let’s go! Run!”

  “Sherman!” Mamie was screaming. She never for a moment stopped screaming his name. They started up the cellar stairs. From the kitchen there came a quiver of radiant light.

  He was there!

  All at once, in flames, Sherman’s fire-ravaged arms opened, reaching out. The children screamed and clung to Leona, drawing back. Scraps of burning matter fell from him, tumbling at them down the stairs, and the door frame blazed up, a bright flickering all around him.

  “This way!” Leona cried. “This way. Go out the back!” And she pushed open the creaking, slanted doors onto a sky full of stars. Mamie broke away from her and ran back toward the stairs and her brother. “Sherman, I’m sorry,” she wailed. And then she screamed, “I love you, Sherman!”

  “Mamie!” Leona gasped, running after her. “Oh, Mamie, please, you can’t …” She snatched her up, and Mamie clawed at her so violently that Leona had to pin her arms against her body. Then she grabbed Walter in her other arm. “Hold on! Hold on tight!”

&
nbsp; At the top of the stairs, Sherman was slowly bending to his knees.

  The light from the fire stormed over the waterway like a malediction. It was as if the dark texture of the air itself were ablaze. Behind them, with a loud, staccato crack, the cottage roof caved in and a platinum brightness exploded around them, scorching their backs like a rocket’s tail. The ice, catching the vast reflection, magnified the white convulsion a thousand times over. And then, moments later, a pulsing red corona of light rose from the gutted stone shell. Nothing escaped its eerie glow.

  They fled from it, their shadows jutting in long, violent streaks across the frozen plain. On the riverbank, the effect of the red light was no less vivid. Shadows stretched behind the flame-stained trees and the new black Pontiac was alive with the reflected burning. And, finally, they were in the car.

  Then they were flying backward toward the place where the car could turn around. “Please!” Mamie cried. “Let me go. He’s my brother!” It would never be the same, and it would never be over. It was happening all over again. Once again she was being taken away.

  Mamie flew wildly inside the car, sliding up and over the front seat, her pale hands beating at the glass, reaching for the flashing red flickers that sliced through the car and beckoned to her. She called his name, hurling herself from window to window like a bird inextricably trapped in a forgotten room.

  The red light seemed to stalk after them as they pulled away, seemed to wink and reach for her through the trees. The Pontiac quickly gained speed, weaving through the bogs and curves near the cliffs, leaving him—leaving her Sherman—in his fiery red glow.

  She could no longer scream. Her mouth still carried the shape of her immense desolation, but the sound in her throat had constricted to a small, repeated shriek. And even that was getting weaker.