Hellfire

by John Saul

  What was it, and why was it here?

  She had no ready answer for either question, but suddenly, with the certain knowledge born of instinct, she knew that whatever the little book was, it was directly connected with the girls’ absence.

  She picked it up and began reading, desperately deciphering the crabbed handwriting that filled the pages. After reading only a few lines she was certain she knew where Beth and Tracy were.

  She went to the door, calling out her husband’s name. Then, as she was about to call him again, she saw him appear from the back stairs.

  “They’re not up—”

  “Phillip, I know where they are! They went to the mill!”

  Phillip stared at her. “The mill?” he echoed. “What on earth are you talking about? Why would they go down there?”

  “Here,” Carolyn said, holding the old journal out to him. “I found this on Beth’s desk. I don’t know where they got it, but they must have read it.”

  Phillip reached out and took the book from her. “What is it?”

  “A journal. It tells about the mill, Phillip, and I know that’s where the girls have gone. I know it!”

  Phillip stared at his wife for a moment, then made up his mind. “I’m calling Norm Adcock,” he said at last. “And then I’m going down there.”

  “I’ll go with you,” Carolyn said.

  “No. Stay here. I … I don’t know what I’ll find. I don’t even know what to think right now—”

  For a moment Carolyn was tempted to argue with him, but then she changed her mind. For already, in the back of her mind, she knew that something terrible had happened in the mill. Something out of the past had finally come forward, reaching out for an awful vengeance.

  Tracy’s laughter slowly subsided until it was little more than a manic giggle.

  She glanced around the room once more, furtively now, like an animal that was being hunted.

  Then, in the soft glow of the lantern light, she dragged Beth’s body over near the far wall. High up, beyond her reach, there was a small window. Tracy placed Beth’s body beneath the window, one arm leaning against the wall, stretched upward as if it were reaching for the window above.

  She returned to the place where Beth’s corpse had first fallen, and knelt down to dip her hand into the still-warm blood. When her hand was covered, she went back to the wall, and began smearing her bloodied hand over its blackened surface, leaving crudely formed marks wherever her fingers touched. Over and over she gathered more blood, until at last the message was complete.

  Still giggling softly to herself, she went back to the lantern, and bent to pick it up.

  And then, suddenly, the lantern light seemed to fade, and the darkness closed in around her.

  She was no longer alone in the room. All around her, their faces looming out of the darkness, she saw the faces of children.

  Thin faces, with cheeks sunken from hunger, the eyes wide and hollow as they stared at her.

  Tracy gasped. These were the children her grandmother had seen. And now she was seeing them, and she knew they could see her too, and knew who she was, and what she had done. They were circling her, closing in on her, reaching out to her.

  She backed away from them, and her foot touched something.

  She gasped, knowing immediately what it was. She bent down once more, but it was too late. The lantern had tipped over, its chimney shattering.

  The cap of the fuel tank had been knocked loose, and the kerosene had spilled out, running quickly in all directions. And then it ignited, and suddenly Tracy was surrounded by flames. She stared at the sudden blaze in horror, and then, dimly, heard the sounds of childish laughter. All around her the faces of the children—the children who couldn’t possibly be there—were grinning now, their eyes sparkling with malicious pleasure. She turned to the door, and started toward it. And then, as she came close to it, she saw another child.

  A girl, no more than twelve years old.

  She was thin, and her clothes were charred and blackened, as if they’d once been burned. Her eyes glowed like coals as she stared at Tracy, and then, as the flames danced close about her feet, she backed away, through the door.

  The flames, fed by the spreading kerosene, followed her.

  As Tracy watched, the door slowly began to close.

  “No,” Tracy gasped. She took a step forward, but it was too late.

  The door slammed shut.

  She hurled herself against it, trying to push it aside, but it was immovable. Then she began pounding on it, screaming out for someone to help her, someone to open the door.

  But all she heard from beyond the door was the mocking sound of the girl’s laughter.

  Behind her, she could feel the spirits of the other children gathering around, waiting to welcome her.

  The flaming kerosene spread rapidly across the floor of the basement, oozing under a pile of lumber, creeping around the pilings that had for so long supported the weight of the floor above.

  The lumber caught first, and now the fire spread quickly, tongues of flame reaching out to find new fuel. Then the pilings began to catch. Tinder-dry after more than a century, they burned with a fury that filled the basement with a terrifying roar. Then the floor itself began to ignite, the fire spreading through its hardwood mass, turning into a living thing as it ranged ever wider.

  The temperature rose, and cans of paint thinner began to explode, bursting into new fires that quickly joined the main blaze.

  The heat reached the level of a blast furnace, penetrating even the metal door that sealed off the room beneath the stairs.

  Tracy was surrounded by blackness now, the kerosene having burned itself out.

  But she could feel the fire, and hear it raging beyond the metal door.

  And then, as she watched, the door itself began to glow a dull red.

  She backed away from it, whimpering now as terror overwhelmed her. Then she tripped, and fell heavily to the floor. Dimly, she was aware of Beth’s body beneath her.

  Then, as the brightening glow of the door began to illuminate the room once more, she remembered the window.

  She stood up, and tried to reach it.

  And the sound of that awful laughter—Amy’s laughter—mocked her efforts.

  She began screaming then, screaming for her father to come and save her.

  Each breath seared her lungs, and her screams began to weaken.

  She slumped to the floor, her mind beginning to crumble as the heat built around her.

  Her father wouldn’t come for her—she knew that now. Her father didn’t love her. He’d never loved her. It had always been the other child he’d loved.

  With the remnants of her mind, Tracy tried to remember the name of the other child, but it was gone. But it didn’t matter, because she knew she’d killed her, and that was all that was important.

  Her grandmother.

  Her grandmother would save her. It didn’t matter what she’d done, because her grandmother was always there.

  But not this time. This time, there was nobody.

  She was alone, and the heat was closing in on her, and she could feel her skin searing, and smell her singeing hair.

  She writhed on the floor, trying to escape the death that was coming ever closer, but there was nowhere to go—nowhere to hide.

  The whole room was glowing around her now, and she was afraid, deep in her heart, that she had already died, and would be confined forever to the fires around her—the fires of hell.

  Once again she called out to her father, begging him to save her.

  But she died as Amy had died, knowing there would be no salvation.

  Her soul, like Amy’s, would be trapped forever, locked away in the burning inferno.…

  27

  By the time Phillip reached the mill, it was already clear that the building was doomed. Three fire trucks were lined up along the north wall, and two more stood in the middle of Prospect Street, their hoses snaking across the sidew
alk and up the steps to the shattered remains of the plate-glass doors. But the water that poured from the hoses into the building seemed to evaporate as fast as it was pumped in.

  The roar of the blaze was deafening, and when Phillip found Norm Adcock, he had to put his mouth to the police chief’s ear in order to be heard at all.

  “It’s no good,” he shouted. “There’s no way to stop it.”

  Adcock nodded grimly. “If they can’t get it under control in ten minutes, they’re going to give up on the building and just try to keep the fire from spreading.”

  But they didn’t have to wait ten minutes.

  The main floor had burned through now, and the fire was raging through the new construction. The heat and flames rose upward, and suddenly, as Phillip watched, the great dome over the atrium seemed to wobble for a moment, then collapse into the firestorm below. The gaping hole in the roof combined with the shattered front doors to turn the entire structure into a vast chimney. Fresh air rushed into the vacuum, and the blaze redoubled, lighting the sky over the town with the red glow of hell. Over the roar of the inferno, the wailing of sirens sounded a melancholy counterpoint, a strange dirge accompanying the pageant of death the mill had become.

  “The girls,” Phillip shouted, straining to make himself heard over the deafening crescendo.

  Again Adcock shook his head. “By the time I got here, there was no way to get inside. And if they were in there …” There was no need to finish the sentence.

  The firemen had given up on the building now, and the hoses were turned away, pouring water onto the ground around the mill. And yet there was really little need for this. Always, the mill had stood alone between the railroad tracks and Prospect Street, the land on either side of it vacant, as if no other building wished to be associated with the foreboding structure that had for so long been a brooding sentinel, guarding the past.

  Prospect Street itself was filling now as the people of Westover, hastily dressed, began to gather to witness the last dying gasps of the mill.

  They stood silently for the most part, simply watching it burn. Now and then, as a window exploded from the pressure of the heat within, a ripple of sound would roll through the crowd, then disappear, to be replaced once more by eerie silence.

  It was a little after two in the morning when the brick walls that had stood solid for well over a hundred years finally buckled under the fury of the fire and the weight of the roof, trembled for a moment, then collapsed.

  The entire building seemed to fall in on itself, and almost immediately disappeared into the flames.

  All that was left now was a vast expanse of flaming rubble, and once more the fire fighters turned their hoses toward the blaze. Clouds of steam mixed with smoke, and the roar of the inferno suddenly dissolved into a furious reptilian hissing, a dragon in the final throes of death.

  Now, at last, the crowd came to life. It stirred, murmuring softly to itself, drifting closer to the dying monster.

  It eddied around Phillip Sturgess as if he were a rock dividing a current. He stood alone as the mass of humanity split, passed him by, then merged once more to flood into the street.

  And then, finally, he was alone, standing silently in the night, facing the ruin that had once been the cornerstone of his family’s entire life.

  Carolyn stood on the terrace with Hannah, watching the flames slowly die back until all that was left was an angry glow. She could see the black silhouettes of people, looking from Hilltop like no more than tiny ants swarming around the remains of a ruined nest.

  It should have happened a hundred years ago.

  The thought came unbidden into her mind, where it lodged firmly, until she finally spoke it out loud. For a moment Hannah remained silent; then she nodded abruptly.

  “I expect you’re right,” the old woman said softly. Then she took Carolyn’s arm in her gnarled hand, and pulled her gently toward the house. “I won’t have you standing out here in the night air, not when there’s nothing you can see, and nothing you can do.”

  “I have to do something,” Carolyn objected, but nevertheless let herself be guided inside. She followed Hannah into the living room, then sank into an overstuffed chair.

  “You just stay there,” Hannah said gently. “I’ll put some tea on so it will be ready for Mr. Phillip when he comes back.”

  Carolyn nodded, though the words barely penetrated her mind.

  Slowly, she relived the short time since Phillip had left the house.

  She’d followed him downstairs, the strange book she’d found in Beth’s room still clutched in her hand. Only when he was gone had she taken it into the living room, and read it through carefully.

  Just as she had finished, Hannah had appeared, to tell her the mill was burning.

  Even before she’d gone out on the terrace to look, she’d come to the certain realization that both Beth and Tracy were dead. And in the numbness following the first overwhelming wave of grief for her daughter, she’d also come to understand that there was a certain unity in what had happened.

  It was as if the tragedy that had occurred in the mill a century ago—a tragedy that had never been fully resolved—was finally seeking its own resolution, and exacting a terrible revenge on the descendants of those who had for so long avoided their responsibilities.

  Except for Beth.

  For the rest of her life, she knew, she would wonder why Beth had had to die that night.

  Now she sat alone in the living room, waiting for Phillip to come home, trying to compose her thoughts, preparing herself to explain to her husband what had happened in the mill so many years ago.

  At last, just before three, she heard the sound of his car pulling up in front of the house. A moment later the front door opened and closed, and she heard Phillip calling her. His voice sounded worn out, defeated.

  “In here,” she said quietly, and when he turned to her she could see the anguish in his eyes.

  “The girls—” he began. “Tracy—Beth—”

  “I know,” Carolyn said. She rose from her chair, and stepped out of the dim pool of light from the single lamp she had allowed Hannah to turn on. She went to her husband, and put her arms around him, holding him tight for a moment. Then she released her grip, and drew him gently into the living room. “I know what happened,” she said softly. “I don’t understand it all, and I don’t think I ever will, but I know the girls are gone. And I almost know why.”

  “Why?” Phillip echoed. His eyes looked haunted now, and there was a hollowness to his voice that frightened Carolyn.

  “It’s in the book,” she said softly. “It’s all in the little book I found in Beth’s room.”

  Phillip shook his head. “I don’t understand.”

  “It’s a diary, Phillip,” Carolyn explained. She picked the small leather-bound volume up from the table next to Phillip’s chair and put it into his hands. “It must have been your great-grandfather’s. Hannah says she’s seen it before. Your father used to read it, and Hannah thinks he kept it in a metal box in his closet.”

  Phillip nodded numbly. “A brown one—I never knew what was in it.”

  “That’s the one,” Carolyn replied. “Hannah found it in Beth’s closet right after you left.”

  “But how did it—?”

  “It doesn’t matter how it got into Beth’s room. What matters is what was in the diary. It … it tells what happened at the mill. There was a fire, Phillip.”

  Phillip’s eyes widened slightly, but he said nothing.

  “There was a fire in a workroom downstairs.”

  “The little room under the loading dock,” Phillip muttered almost to himself. “The one behind the stairs.”

  Carolyn gasped. “You knew about the fire?”

  “No,” Phillip breathed. “No, I’m sure I didn’t. But one day I was down in the basement with Alan. We were looking at the foundation. And right at the bottom of the stairs, I smelled something. It was strange. It was very faint, but it smelled s
moky. As if something had burned there once.”

  “It did burn,” Carolyn whispered. Now she took Phillip’s hand in her own. “Phillip, children died down there.”

  Phillip’s eyes fixed blankly on his wife. “Died?”

  Carolyn nodded. “And one of the children who died there was your great-grandfather’s daughter.”

  Phillip looked dazed, then slowly shook his head. “That … that isn’t possible. Tracy is the first girl we’ve ever had in the family.”

  Carolyn squeezed his hand once more. “Phillip, it’s in the diary. There was a little girl—your greatgrandfather’s daughter by one of the women in the village. Her name—the child’s name—was Amelia.”

  “Amelia?” Phillip echoed. “That … that doesn’t make sense. I’ve never heard of such a story.”

  “He never acknowledged her,” Carolyn told him. “Apparently he never told a soul, but he admitted it in his diary. And she was working in the mill the day of the fire.”

  Phillip’s face was ashen now. “I … I can’t believe it.”

  “But it’s there,” Carolyn insisted, her voice suddenly quiet. “Her name was Amelia, but everybody called her … Amy.”

  Phillip’s face suddenly turned gray. “My God,” he whispered. “There really was an Amy.”

  “And there’s something else,” Carolyn added. “According to the journal, Amy used her mother’s last name. It—Phillip, her name was Deaver. Amy Deaver.”

  Phillip’s eyes met hers. The only Deavers who had ever lived in Westover were Carolyn’s family. “Did you know about this?” he asked now. “Did you know all this when you married me?”

  Now it was Carolyn who shook her head. “I didn’t know, Phillip. I knew how my family felt about yours; I knew that long ago they’d lost a child in the mill. But who the child’s father was—no, I never heard that. I swear it.”

  “What happened?” Phillip asked after a long silence. His voice was dull now, as if he already knew what he was about to hear. “Why didn’t the children get out?”

  Carolyn hesitated, and when she finally spoke, her voice was so quiet Phillip had to strain to hear her. “He was there that day,” she said. “Samuel Pruett Sturgess. And when the fire broke out, he closed the fire door.”