by George Wier
“Upstairs,” Howard said, before I could.
“Yeah.”
The stairs were at the opposite end of the hall where the foyer opened up into the Great Room. The lightning became our friend, revealing in fleeting glimpses the path before us. We moved toward the stairs and up.
*****
There was faint, flickering light at the top of the stairs.
Candle flame, coming from somewhere further on up there.
“Weird,” Howard said. “I’m ready to shoot something.”
“Me too.”
Whispers came to us, echoing off the high walls and filling the black and empty spaces around us. They were muffled, either by walls or some other obstruction I had no way of knowing.
I shuddered, and found myself glad for the darkness.
The flickering light grew.
Five more steps before us, possibly less. We felt our way up on the wide staircase. Howard Block, massive presence that he was in the dim glow, became more silent than an illusive mouse. I became conscious of my own breathing, of the thrum of my heartbeat in my ears.
As my eyes crossed the level of the upper floor a door appeared at the end of a long hallway, half open. Flickering yellowish light playing from it.
The whispers grew louder, their muted, muffled quality more distinct.
There was another thump, this one was louder, more insistent.
Ranger Block sprang forward down the hallway and I moved in synch with him. He hit the half open door and it slammed open.
There, on a spacious bed, hog-tied and gagged, eyes wide and staring with fright, was Perry Reilly.
And not another soul.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
The storm ceased as abruptly as it had begun.
I made the mistake of getting Perry’s gag off before undoing the knots in the rope that held him. Gag gone, he rapidly began talking and wouldn’t shut up long after he ceased to blab potentially useful information. One thing, though, one refrain he kept repeating: “She’s crazy. She’s totally nuts.”
The lights came back on after a few minutes. I pictured a lineman on a cherry-picker somewhere, rerouting power around a blown transformer. Who really knows how the lights work?
“Her?” Ranger Block showed Perry the photo he’d shown me at the hospital.
“Sarah,” Perry said. “Yes.”
“Alright,” Block said. “Shut up.”
“She’s crazy. She’s totally nuts.”
“We know,” I said. “Always thought so. Boy, your taste in women.”
That did it. Perry clammed up. He stood, shakily.
“We need to find her,” Ranger Block said.
“Where did she go?” I asked him.
“They. Where did they go?”
“Who was with her?” I asked. “Did you see him?”
“No. He wore a cloak.”
“And hood?”
“Yeah. Weird. Like in the horror movies.” Perry rubbed his wrists, shook his hands, trying to get life back into them.
“Where did they go?” I asked him again.
“I think...I’m not sure. Somewhere close is all I know.”
“Burnet’s house,” I said. “It’s three blocks from here.”
We quitted the house, taking the time to check every room first. By the time we got outside to the dark and wet world I was sorry we did.
My car was there, but Jessica, the apple of my eye, was gone.
*****
I should never have taken her along with us. I allowed myself that one instant only of self-blame, and then I was in a rage.
“Slow down, Mr. Travis,” Ranger Block said.
I snatched the car door open so quickly it gave a loud pop, as if I had damaged the hinge.
“It’s three blocks,” he said, and the words barely penetrated my awareness. A red curtain had descended over my world, and anyone in my path was liable to find themselves wishing they were any place else. “We walk. Or, if you prefer, run. Let’s not announce our arrival.”
“Fine,” I said, and slammed the door. “We run.”
*****
Three blocks when you are hoofing it is nothing, or next to nothing. I never even felt it. When we came to the house I was just aware enough to notice the two men with me. Perry was the only one of us out of breath. Ranger Block, for all his status as curator and his large belly paunch, looked as though he could have taken a 5K run in stride.
“Front for me and Mr. Reilly,” Block said. “Bill, go in the back way. Don’t kill unless you have to, and don’t fire in the dark.”
The large house was lit only from the second story, yet another dim, wavering light source.
“Fine,” I said.
“You’re deputized,” he said. I didn’t understand the sounds he was making, the words. They meant something, but I had to get in that house.
I sprinted up the long driveway to a board gate and flung it open.
I plunged into the darkness of Phil Burnet’s back yard.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Every man has his own personal demons. Mine have always been chiefly the things I could have or should have done, and didn’t. Jessica was foremost in my thoughts. My girl, my adopted girl. Had I been a good father to her? Had I lived up to my responsibilities to her?
As I sprinted toward the rear door of the house, a door I had only before seen from the inside, these were my thoughts, and images flitted through my mind there in the darkness: Jessica when I had first met her on Archie Carpin’s ranch in North Texas in what felt like was a lifetime ago, Jessica nudging me awake from my snoring during yet another rerun of her favorite movie, Legend, the Tom Cruise fantasy classic, Jessica on her first day at Junior High School, resplendent and very dissatisfied in her new jeans and shirt—she had demanded jeans with holes in the knees. She was mine, she was Julie’s, and I was not going to lose her.
The back door was unlocked. I shivered. It was an invitation to come in. I had been anticipated, utterly.
To hell with it. I turned the knob and stepped into the kitchen. A single light was on over the cook stove, casting strange shadows behind the island butcher block and into the narrow hallway to my right. I moved from the doorway, through the kitchen and into the dimness of the hallway in one fluid motion. I paused there and listened.
I sensed another presence, not far away. It had to be Ranger Block, or Perry, or likely both.
The gun felt heavy in my hand. I tried to remember what Ranger Block had told me. Something about shooting in the dark. I heard a squeal from upstairs and a sharp slap.
Jessica!
I sprinted down the hall, past a very surprised Perry Reilly and gained the staircase, bounding up it.
“Wait!” Block commanded, soft but stern.
I almost hesitated, but plunged on upward anyway, and an instant later heard footfalls behind me.
An iron hand clamped on my shoulder as I reached the top of the stairs. I very nearly took a swing at him, but when I turned he released me.
“We go in together,” he whispered quickly.
I nodded.
Perry stopped behind us, but then we all three surged forward to the door to Phil Burnet’s study.
*****
We didn’t bother with the knob but instead crashed forward into the door, sending the hasp flying, still connected to a large chuck of wood.
Candles winked out from the sudden wind, but there were dozens more scattered about the room that merely flickered.
Jessica sat at Phil Burnet’s desk. Behind her stood Sarah Banks, one hand covering Jessica’s mouth and the other holding a very large, very sharp dagger pointed at Jessica’s throat.
I raised my gun out of reflex, pointing it at Sarah.
“Don’t,” she said.
Jessica’s wide eyes were on mine.
“Yeah,” Perry said. “Don’t, Bill.”
“Wise man,” Sarah said. “I really liked you, Perry.”
“Walt is still alive,�
� I said. “You screwed that one up royally, Esperanza.”
Sarah Banks’ mouth gaped.
I took very careful aim at her.
“I’ll...I’ll kill her,” she said.
“No you won’t,” I said. “She has tickets to Pearl Jam.”
I knew what I was going to do. It was simply a matter of judgment at this point. My eye was on the blade hovering over Jessica, but my gun tracked a millimeter, perhaps two upwards.
An instant before the crack of fire, Sarah Banks spun to the left. The dagger leapt from her hand and she hit the bookcase behind her and fell to the floor.
I heard sounds, possibly words, but they were strange and muffled, as if spoken from the bottom of a deep well. My hearing wasn’t working. Gunfire indoors can do that. Perry was talking, either to himself or to me, I didn’t know.
I raced around the desk and crushed Jessica to me and pulled her away.
Ranger Block moved past me and knelt to see to Sarah Banks. I rounded the desk with Jessica clutched tightly to me and moved past Perry, who stood there looking at the smoking gun in his hand. I sat Jessica in a chair and knelt in front of her.
“You okay?” I asked her.
She nodded.
She burst into tears and threw her arms around my neck.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
“Did you give him a gun?” I asked Ranger Block and gestured toward Perry, who stood there in the middle of the room, stock still. Candle flames danced around us.
“No,” Block said.
“Is she alive?” Perry asked.
“Where did you get the gun, Perry?” I asked him. His back was still towards us.
“Did I kill her?” Perry asked again.
Ranger Block strode around the desk and took the gun from Perry’s hands. He broke the chamber open and smacked the gun into his palm. Bullets sprinkled onto the floor, including one spent cartridge.
Ranger Block handed the gun back to Perry, who regarded it again as a strange gift.
“Is she dead?” Perry asked.
“Hell no,” Ranger Block said. “Shut up, Mr. Reilly. Go find a phone and call an ambulance.”
Perry stood there a moment longer, then turned and walked around the desk and looked down.
“You two okay?” Ranger Block asked Jessica and me.
“We’re fine,” I said.
“Yeah,” Jessica said. And then she said something that startled both of us. “Where’s the other one?”
“Who?” I asked her.
“The man. The man in the black hood.”
*****
There was a phone on Burnet’s desk. Perry picked it up, listened, and then dropped it back on its cradle.
“Doesn’t work,” he said.
“We’ve got to get out of here,” I said.
Ranger Block stood up. He sniffed once. Twice.
“I think,” he began, then his voice trailed off. “Too late, maybe,” he said.
I smelled it then.
Fumes. Intense fumes.
“Gas!” I said. “Close that door! Perry! Put out those candles!”
All four of us were suddenly in motion.
Jessica raced to a window and tried to open it.
“Stuck!” she yelled.
Perry grabbed one candle after the next, turning each in turn upside down and snuffing them out against desks, tables, furniture, anything.
Ranger Block was holding the door closed. He pressed his hand against the hole left by our hurried entrance.
“Prop it closed,” I said. “Fill the hole with something.”
“Daddy?” Jessica said, fear apparent in her voice.
A moan came from behind the desk. Sarah Banks.
“I smell smoke now,” Ranger Block said.
I looked where Jessica was pointing.
In the reflection from the windows in the house across the street, I saw it. Fire. The entire downstairs was engulfed in flames.
“We’re getting out of here,” I said.
I moved Jessica out of the way, picked up a large chair and held it over my head like Hercules and faced the front windows.
“Do it!” Ranger Block said.
And with all my strength, I hurled the chair forward.
The front windows shattered, the glass flying outward in a rain, each piece turning over slowly, offering a thin sliver of reflection from the fire below us. The rush of air inward whistled past me.
“Out!” Block shouted. The roar from the other side of the door grew, like a wild animal thrashing in its death throes.
I helped Jessica out the window without a glance backward.
Ranger Block offered his hand to steady me on the sloped roof of the front porch.
We were still a dizzying twenty feet or so up. Jessica moved down the slope ahead of me and to my left, her movements fast and sure.
“Leave her!” Ranger Block shouted behind me. I turned to see Perry dragging the dazed and bleeding woman toward the window.
“No way!” he said.
I looked to Jessica, who had turned back toward me.
“Any way down?” I asked her.
“Drain pipe,” she yelled.
At that moment the door to the room crashed inward. A billow of black smoke swept into the room.
Ranger Block cursed while helping the woman of many names and Perry Reilly through the window. I watched as he gashed his arm on the jagged glass there. Smoke engulfed them and I pinwheeled away from it towards Jessica.
There was heavy coughing behind me and the unmistakable sound of roaring flames. Farther down on the same level another set of windows blew outwards in a billow of glass, black smoke and con-suming flame.
I cursed, turned and went back into the smoke, squinting my eyes nearly shut and feeling forward. Ranger Block nearly bowled me over as he rolled past me, fingers and arms clutching at the composite shingles. His fingers dug in and he stopped, but then the smoke and the heat robbed the remainder of my vision.
I heard a loud crack and felt the sting of something against my leg. Gunshots? From whom? Then I remembered. Ranger Block had emptied the bullets from Perry’s gun onto the carpet in a room that was now engulfed in flames. One of them had blown a hole through the wall close by me. I wondered how my legs were doing, absently, as I tried to peer through tearing, squinting eyes to find a shape in the hot smoke.
I clutched an arm and pulled backwards. The arm came with me. I pulled past the smoke and into the clear, drew a quick breath and almost choked. It was Perry Reilly, holding the woman and barely hanging on himself. I steadied them as we pinwheeled slowly down the steep slope.
Ranger Block was gaining his knees at the edge of the house.
We were going to make it. We were all clear.
And then the house exploded.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
The explosion was the palm of a great hand, lifting me up and out, as a bit of fluff is lifted by a breeze. The force of it came from inside the house outward, distorting the space around me. I felt suspended for an instant, and then gravity took hold and I was rolling, but through soft grass instead of the air.
I came to rest, momentarily stunned. I looked up into a field of purplish black with pinpricks of light spread across it.
A face appeared before me.
Jessica.
Her mouth was open. She was speaking, but I couldn’t hear anything. She was in distress. Me? Was she concerned about me?
I nodded to her, fumbled for concepts, symbols, and eventually words, but couldn’t think of any that fit.
Air was the problem. No air. I felt a pain deep down inside. A vacuum of sorts.
Purplish spots appeared around about. I looked at them and when I did, they tried to grow.
I was going out, losing consciousness.
And this made me extremely angry.
I remembered I had an arm. I commanded it to move and it pistoned across and struck my stomach.
A sharp pain and then air rushed in.
/> *****
Jessica helped me to my feet.
My hearing was coming back and I felt as though I had been six months on the rodeo circuit riding only the saltiest, meanest bulls.
The fire was out. The house lay in thousands of pieces all around. A crowd of neighbors were picking their way through the wreckage. One of them came and stood beside Jessica and me and began babbling. Fortunately, I couldn’t understand a word he said.
I looked around to see Ranger Block on his feet. He was listing to port. An arm caught him before he fell—a Point Venture neighbor.
Perry Reilly was twenty feet away. He was on his knees and holding the hand of the woman who lay before him. Even in the night I could tell that she was dead. Jessica helped me over to him.
Perry had a gash across his forehead and trickles of blood running down his cheek.
“Perry,” I said. He didn’t seem to notice us.
“Perry!” I shouted, and I could faintly hear my own voice.
He looked up at me. In the eerie light cast by the neighbor’s lamp post I could tell that he was alright. He looked down at the body of the woman he knew as Sarah, then back up to me.
I held out my hand to him. He looked at it. After a moment he took it and stood.
“I’m okay,” he said.
Perry tried to press something into my hand. I looked down.
“What’s this?” I asked.
He didn’t say but instead insisted I take it.
I turned it over in my hand.
A black object. I held it up in the faint light.
“Hooded figurine,” Jessica said.
“Yeah,” I said.
“Where did you come by this, Perry?” I asked.
He shook his head.
*****
I heard the sound from far away. At first I thought it was a distortion in my hearing, then I recognized the pattern. Fire trucks, coming our way.
There was a young woman in our midst. I didn’t recognize her. She was trying to say something.