Behind the Fire: A Dark Thriller

by Susan May

  Could it mean something?

  He glanced up to see the knotted, stretched appendages pulling on the air as though grasping for handholds in the empty space. The thing heaved its head forward; the face now clear enough for him to see the definite outline of a nose, but a hollow, inverted, sickly looking thing. It looked vaguely human, but nothing about the eyes was human.

  Like the hole from which it emerged, the eyes were dark pits; the difference being they were filled with flickers of a churning red glow. If the hole could suck all light and sound into its blackness, these eyes could devour all reason.

  Later, when Bobby looked back on this moment, he never could understand why he did what he did next. In that instant, he did think of the kids and Em safely tucked up at home. He did remember feeling anger at this thing with no business entering their world. He wondered if it was indeed a latent instinct to act, to fight, even though he might be in terrible danger.

  Whatever the reason, he was compelled forward when his next move should have been to get as far away as possible. Before he’d clearly thought it through, he left the safety of the curb and stood before the house, only mere feet from the thing.

  Up close it looked like one of those fancy holograms, he’d seen at last summer’s traveling carnival. Parts of it, though, were almost solid. Somehow he understood if it became whole, it would be too late to stop it from coming through. It seemed oblivious to him, consumed with freeing itself into this world like a furious butterfly emerging from a hellish cocoon.

  The curtains blew wildly, shredding themselves as the force of the wind beat them against the window frame. Surely any moment now they would fly off their rods. The wind whipped savagely about him, tearing at his clothes.

  He didn’t know why he did it or, even more importantly, how he knew to do it, but Bobby grabbed hold of one of the curtains, just to the side of the thing. The material flailed in his grip like a trapped wild animal. His heart pounded at being so close to this alien thing even if it didn’t seem aware of him. He didn’t know how long it would ignore him and he didn’t want to find out.

  Holding the curtain taut, he brought the lighter up to the bottom edge and flicked the starter. The flame faltered, and he wondered if the wind would extinguish his plans. His fears were correct. Each time he ignited a flame, the current of air snuffed it out.

  Frantically he looked around, searching the yard, until he spotted a trashcan to the side of the house. Within three strides, he stood over it and whipped the lid away. Inside were several large plastic bags of litter. He heaved two bags up and out, pulling them open to peer inside to find a mixture of paper and scraps. It would have to do.

  Flicking the lighter again, he placed the flame against some balled-up paper inside one bag. It caught immediately. He did the same with the other. Turning back, he rushed toward the window holding the two bags out from his body as the flames, fed by the combustible trash inside, caught and grew.

  Back in front of the window, he placed one of the bags in the sill under the curtain and threw the other inside the house. Now, instead of working against him, the wind fanned the flames. Within seconds, yellow-white licks of fire began crawling up the curtains.

  The black thing seemed oblivious to the small fires, while it only took moments for the flickering buds to bloom into larger flames. The wooden window frame quickly caught alight. Then the fire danced across to the curtains on the other side. In moments, the entire window was ablaze, the wood crackling and fizzing with the unexpected heat. With each second, the blaze grew stronger and more intense.

  That was when the thing reacted.

  To Bobby it gave the impression of backing away. Its black, bulky body, which had been desperately attempting to move through the dark hole, began to melt.

  Bobby raced across the street, his footfalls echoing loudly up the silent street. Every few steps he glanced over his shoulder. In his haste, he tripped on the gutter, dividing the house’s front lawn from the road. He felt himself begin to topple over, but just managed to rebalance himself. He wasn’t certain how safe he was on this side either, but the distance gave him some sense of security.

  His mind raced.

  What if it was backing up into the hole only to launch itself through?

  What if the fire transformed it into one big, ugly, unpredictable version of an angry hornet?

  What if it realized he was the one who had scuttled its plans and it wasn’t happy?

  Of course, the biggest question—what the hell had he just seen?

  If a heart could beat itself right out of a chest, his would be on the ground in two seconds. His breath came in short, painful pants, his throat so constricted from fear and smoke he could barely pull enough oxygen into his lungs. Bobby braced himself, ready to run if the thing came at him.

  The face, which now rapidly expanded and contracted, shrank and merged back into the dark hole. With each second, it lost more definition and the face and body of the thing quickly faded into the dense darkness from which it had sprung.

  A sudden roar, like a steam engine passing by at full speed, rushed toward Bobby. He could neither dodge the blast nor prepare for its impact. It knocked him backward onto the grass. He hit the ground hard. His first thought was the black thing or the house had exploded. His right arm flew up to cover his face and shield his head against an attack.

  Nothing came. When he slowly pulled his arm down and looked toward the house, the face was gone. All that remained was a normal house and a normal window.

  The only difference from before was the insatiable fire. Fueled by the house’s dry timber, the flames leaped wildly, quickly spreading to the roof.

  A fire now out of control.

  A fire Bobby had lit.

  He watched as the flames consumed twenty-six Connolly Street—which only thirty minutes ago for him was a random address on a piece of paper. His heart pounded even more wildly than the advance of the fire.

  Who would believe this story?

  A swirling black hole. A giant face. Mr. Average and a mysterious scrap of paper. As he stared bug-eyed at the havoc caused so quickly by the fire, it even sounded crazy to him.

  He needed to get away. Figure out what to do, and what to say if he’d been seen and the police should come knocking on his door. He jumped to his feet and began to run, faster than he’d ever run before in his life. Until he stood at his front door, bending and panting and clutching at the aching stitch in his side, he hadn’t realized blood dripped from his hand and red smears stained his shirt.

  Unfurling his palm he saw he still clutched the lighter, now smeared with his blood. He’d gripped it so hard the metal cover had broken, leaving a sharp edge above the flint. The jagged edges of the metal had dug right into his skin, leaving a deep gash in his palm. As the adrenaline drained from his system, the wound began to throb.

  The pain and blood didn’t bother him, and neither did the ache in his side from running a mile with barely a breath. What bothered him, what filled him with dread as he placed his key in the lock, was the list, which had led him to twenty-six Connolly Street.

  Thirteen addresses were on the list and, including tonight, only four were dated in the past.

  Chapter 10

  Bobby stared at the sheet of paper. It had been over two weeks since he’d encountered the black thing, as he now thought of it. Two weeks of his brain replaying those moments outside that house. No matter which way he ran the events—backward, forward, and around again—none of it made sense.

  He’d tried to contact Mr. Average—Scott Bennett was his name. He’d left a wrong number and a fake address. No surprises there.

  So here he was again, at almost two-thirty in the morning—pretending to Em he was at a colleague’s send-off—outside an address written on that cursed piece of paper. If only he’d thrown it away like he usually did with customers’ trash, he’d be none the wiser. He certainly would not be sitting out here in the dead of night waiting to see if the black thing w
ould show up.

  This time he was at the end of West Road, which turned out to be a twenty-minute drive from town to the site of an abandoned mine.

  He had climbed a ten-foot mesh fence to get to the exact co-ordinates from the paper. A notice board perched on a rusted, worn metal post near where he’d landed on the other side of the fence, warned of the dangers of entering the mine area. A hefty fine would be imposed if you were caught.

  Yeah, right, who patrolled out here?

  If not for the sign, nobody would even suspect it was a mine. Scattered about the area, dozens of weathered and eroded wood boards made it look more like a dump than anything else. This, he realized after a reconnaissance, was mostly due to the collapse of the mine entrance, blocked partially by rocks and debris. Now, little more than a hole in a small hill. The coordinates led him just a few yards shy of the opening.

  After more than one hundred years of digging into the ground for the coal that ran in long seams below, these were reminders of the hard slog endured by men decades before. A couple of sites had become tourist attractions. What was attractive about walking around in an underground blast hole remained a mystery to him.

  Mining, once a backbreaking operation performed by gangs of soot stained, weary men, had become mostly automated. The new underground work groups were small. As technology evolved, megacorporations found new ways to reach isolated pockets and recover minerals, which only a few years before had been unreachable.

  Tonight the moon shone like a big bright torch, which was of great assistance in Bobby’s scouting mission. He checked the surrounding area thoroughly, but he wasn’t certain what he was actually looking for. Still it gave him something to do. Took his mind off the knot growing in his stomach every time he checked his watch.

  What would happen here at 2.32:51 a.m.?

  The same thing, which occurred at twenty-six Connolly Street?

  He hoped not.

  He dropped down on a large flat rock a short distance from the mine entrance and spent the remaining few minutes checking and rechecking his equipment.

  His father—who had profound words for everything—would say, “Common sense, determination, and ‘Heaven’s Luck’ are all you need.”

  Bobby wondered if “Heaven’s luck” stretched to alien, black things.

  As he sat waiting, he compulsively patted his watch and wondered why the black thing picked these destinations. What did a house in the suburbs have in common with an abandoned coal mine? Why was middle-of-nowhere Karlgarin the perfect spot to touchdown or crossover or whatever that thing was trying to do?

  Again he checked his bag. Wrenching the zipper open, he cringed as the sound of it seemed frighteningly like a siren in this empty, rock-strewn space where nature was slowly reclaiming its property, bush by bush, tree by tree.

  Quietly as he could, he pulled out his weapons, nervously wondering if any of these items could be called a defense. Cigarette lighter times two. Box of matches. Box of Heat Beads. Old newspapers, rolled. Two-liter bottle of kerosene. Small fire extinguisher (which he really wished he’d had at Connolly Street).

  He also carried a troubling thought with him. It had been eating at him since the encounter with the black thing.

  What if this time the creature brought friends?

  He checked his watch. 2.32.

  That question, if anything happened—and he prayed it wouldn’t—was about to be answered.

  Bobby stood and moved forward toward the mine entrance, toward the exact co-ordinates. There, he paced back and forth on the spot, scanning the area and checking the fence line. The solitude was unsettling. It took a lot to unnerve him, but the night and the isolation, and the thought he was out of his depth by a hundred miles had taken its toll.

  He could not rid his gut of the sick, churning feeling. He thought he might even wretch if this went on much longer.

  At 2.32 exactly, according to his watch, he took another step closer to the mine entrance. He was hesitant to move too close in case the thing appeared on top of him. Statue-like he stood listening, barely breathing, and regretting not leaving a message for Em in case this all went wrong.

  Nothing happened. Again. Just like at Connolly Street.

  He swiveled to the left. Then the right. Behind, looking to the fence. He checked his watch again. 2.34.

  He felt a fool. Of course nothing would happen. This was crazy. He was crazy.

  A list with the times of strange creature appearances was just about as out there as it got. He didn’t know what he’d seen at Connolly Street, but it’d be his secret to file under strange, unexplained, and get-more-sleep. Thank God, he hadn’t told Em.

  Stretching forward, he listened. Wind? Nope. Black hole? Nope. Nothing. Not even the scuttle of insects.

  Perhaps the fire had scared them off. That one gone back to tell its buddies: They got fire over there, best make a wide berth of planet Earth. Or he really was under too much stress. Whatever the reason, this adventure was over. He turned away and headed back to his bag, shaking his head at his foolhardiness. Like there really could be black creatures climbing through whirling holes in his veritable backyard.

  Perhaps one day—somewhere distantly in the future—he would tell Em. She’d find it funny considering his pragmatic nature. Then again, he’d have to admit he’d set a house on fire. Okay then, that story could wait until he was so old they wouldn’t jail him on compassionate grounds.

  As he leaned down to reach for his bag, he sensed the barest movement of air against his skin. The night had been whisper-still until this moment. The swish of air came from behind, and felt as though someone had waved a large object or turned a fan on to low. By the time he turned to face it—his heart deciding it would kick up a storm, too—the wind had increased as though a floodgate holding back a tempest had been flung open. Gusts of air caught his shirt and shoved against him.

  Only feet from the mine entrance, where he had just stood, the same shimmer he’d seen at Connolly Street appeared. The image folded in on itself like a mirror held against the sky, reflecting just the blackness of a star-less space.

  The air felt instantly warm, as though he’d walked into a heated room. The descending gale picked up dust and leaves, which swirled around Bobby, flinging dust and grit into his eyes, causing him to squint. He hadn’t thought to bring goggles. Why would he, for Christ’s sake? He hadn’t truly expected anything to happen. Opening his eyes, he resisted the urge to close them against the onslaught of churning debris.

  Through watering eyes, he saw the faint outline of a dark-blue face appear out of the blackness and become a head, then an arm, then two arms. It followed the exact transformation as the black thing he’d previously encountered.

  This time, though, the head appeared longer, the face larger, and more an oval-shape; these altered features seemed far more intimidating. The mouth moved, creating impossibly stretched shapes as though it were speaking. But there was no voice or noise.

  This one was markedly different from the Connolly Street creature, with its elongated features, and a depth to the nose he hadn’t seen in the other one. Then again, he could barely see for all the dust and wind, so it could be an optical illusion created by the disturbance. Were they related, part of a team, or an invasion crew?

  For the second time he reached for his bag, crouching down next to it. Rummaging through it, he kept his stare ahead, never leaving the creature, until his fingers fastened around the lighter. Pushing it into his shirt pocket, he then retrieved several rolls of newspaper and the container of kerosene.

  The black thing was growing rapidly, morphing into something solid and frighteningly real. He cursed himself for not having everything ready. He’d gone as far as collecting his weapons, but the absurdity of it had made him hesitant to go the whole way and treat this like an all-out mission. That was sure dumb now.

  The size surprised him; it was that of a bus. In the few seconds it took him to rifle his bag it had doubled in size and manage
d to free half of its head from the black hole.

  The edges of the entry point had seemed ragged at Connolly Street, but he saw now they’d only appeared that way. They were, in fact, fluid—growing, and shrinking like an expanding and contracting heart muscle. This constant movement made the smooth edges appear uneven.

  Now as the thing contorted and squirmed before him like a huge, blue-black genie, Bobby realized he had a problem. He hadn’t thought this whole thing through very well at all.

  What was he actually going to do?

  Run toward it waving the lit paper as though it were a wild animal afraid of fire? He’d had some vague idea he would have time to build a fire or light a bush. His luck, of course, meant it hadn’t appeared near any bushes or trees. He didn’t think it would wait for him to utilize his Boy Scout knowledge, either.

  Bobby looked around again, noting the scattered pieces of wood left decades ago by the miners. They might work, but gathering those would not only take time, but involve running around directly in front of the thing.

  What if it took exception to him building a bonfire? What if it carried weapons? For all he knew it could breathe fire.

  Bobby wanted to do something; he wanted to fight it, send it away, and prove he was as brave as all the movie heroes he admired. The reality was, though, he was just a guy who worked in a rental yard. What did he know about fighting things from beyond earthly realms?

  The wind whipping up the sand and soil didn’t help either. That was another unanticipated problem. He could barely see. Each time he tried to open his eyes a little wider, grit and dust attacked his vision.

  In the end, his courage proved as scattered as the dust flying about him. His best plan became: wait and watch. From watching could come knowledge. Knowledge could, also, be a weapon. A nearby largish rock offered some cover. Lowering himself to the ground, he lay sideways behind it, so it concealed most of his body. Pulling his jacket over his head, he tied the arms around his neck to form a kind of protective hood for his mouth and face.