Behind the Fire: A Dark Thriller

by Susan May

  Kendall listened for another fifteen minutes to Beverley discussing her excitement at her picture in the paper and now, thanks to Kendall, a magazine. Kendall finally extricated herself from the woman’s company despite being kept on the doorstep another five minutes, while Beverley asked if she could read the article first and did they need a picture of her. Kendall took a few shots with her phone, not having thought to organize a photographer. She hadn’t actually expected to even get an interview.

  On her walk back home, Kendall felt as though she were wading through mud. Beverley’s descriptions whirled in her mind. She couldn’t help but place herself in the shoes of the victims, the police officers, and the survivors. That kind of experience—unless you’re Beverley Sanderson—must scar you for life, invade your nightmares forever.

  It wasn’t until Kendall was almost home, waiting at a crosswalk, that she realized she’d forgotten the most important question, the one she’d been sent there to have answered. How sloppy of her. That was her inexperience with these types of stories for you.

  She didn’t ask Beverley if she felt any survivor’s guilt. As she began to cross the road, she realized, she already knew the answer.

  Chapter 8

  BOSS17 WATCHED THE NEWS REPORTS.

  It had begun.

  He smiled at the thought.

  Chapter 9

  BENITO TAVELL STARED AT THE match. The tiny piece of wood felt loud in his hand, as though it were pulsing on the skin of his fingertips. He knew this was the wrong description, but they were the best words he could find. When he struck it, he wondered if the feeling would change into something else, become louder, sharper? Even hurt like a throbbing bruise when pushed? The longer he paused, the more the pulse grew, until it began to travel from his fingers into his palm, through his wrist, then up through his arm.

  He would have waited to discover what would happen once the feeling reached the top of his arm, but he had an insatiable urge, an itch that needed to be scratched. The match demanded to be struck.

  He ran the head against the side of the matchbox, the sound like a roaring jet. The flame flared, then settled into a burn, the yellow and white intensely bright even against the overhead fluorescent lights.

  Interesting.

  Benito imagined the unnatural white light would wash out the intensity of the flame. The flame had taken on properties of supernatural power. He watched it flicker and hold, flicker and hold, moving in tiny increments down the stem of wood. It took an hour, maybe, or so it seemed, before a thin, black end of burned wood formed.

  Beautiful. A work of art.

  He wanted to climb inside the white-yellow glow. Beckoning with warmth and a fiery life force. Feel the burn on his skin. Maybe later. Right now, things needed doing. He and the match had a destiny to fulfill. He held the half-burned match over the wastebasket carefully stuffed to overfull with toilet paper.

  Now. Do it now.

  He stretched his neck to the side until he heard a slight crack sounding like snapping, burning wood. Left. Then right. The joints popped as the action stretched the tendons and pulled them to release. His body flooded with a feeling of euphoria, of utter and total bliss.

  Yes, I will do it now.

  The thought rushed into his head as though pushed by the hand of God. He obeyed and dropped the match into the basket with a flick of his fingers. The paper caught instantly.

  Wonderful. Truly wonderful. Even magnificent.

  He’d accomplished the first part of his mission.

  Within seconds, little licks of orange and yellow climbed over each other, consuming the fuel he’d gathered. He was feeding a pet. He wanted to reach in and touch it, feel the burn on his cool, fragile skin. Watch his skin peel back and wither to black. Instead, he moved back toward the doorway, a better vantage point to take in the scope of his good work.

  In thirty seconds the curtains above the wastebasket ignited. The flames licked up the wall, eager to travel along the path he’d constructed, consume the meal he’d prepared. The bed he’d pushed against the other side of the window would alight shortly. He was proud of his assembly order. Wastebasket, curtains, bed. The room would succumb quickly.

  Nobody would come in time. He knew this because he’d worked the skeleton-staffed two-to-ten shift many times. Early morning, events rarely happened. Nurses would only attend to patients when called or during their rounds every ninety minutes. If they even bothered with the rounds. Sometimes they didn’t, falsifying the activity sheets.

  This room had been empty. Empty no longer, now filled with color and life, beautiful to behold.

  Benito reluctantly turned from his work, the sound of the growing flames music to his ears. Closing the door, he walked down the empty hall. The pale green walls needed paint; scuff marks crawled along and up their surface, giving the appearance of pale tiger stripes. Soon, the wall would require more than paint.

  He walked to the very end of the hall and turned toward the fire escape, pushing open the door, which complained loudly in the silence of the hour. He took the stairs, two at a time, downward to the first floor, the sound of his steps unnaturally loud, like tap shoes on the concrete.

  Exiting on the first floor, he turned left. The cafeteria lay to his right, but someone could be in there at the food dispensers or the coffee machine. He’d leave there until last. Left would do for the moment.

  The matches felt heavy in his pocket; tiny pieces of innocuous wood, which held such potential. Just like him. He was ordinary, but he would change the destiny of the world. Even though he couldn’t remember why, that knowledge was within his soul. He knew it as a certainty.

  He entered Mr. Jacob’s room. Age eighty-two. Dementia.

  Yes. Mr. Jacobs would do very well.

  He moved through the darkened room to the bathroom, switching on the overhead light as he entered. The light flickered alive, the sound of buzzing electrons filling the air.

  Minutes later, he’d gathered the wastebasket from the bathroom and filled it with paper. He spilled lighter fluid over it from the small tin he’d carried in his jacket pocket. Back in the room, the sound of Mr. Jacobs’ loud snores rhythmically breached the black silence like a homing beacon.

  He placed the wastebasket on the floor near the bed and held a match above it. Now, the match must do its work; the sound of the strike, a thrill to his fingertips. A sizzling flare filled his sight, causing him to squint, until it settled to a bright white flame.

  He casually dropped the match into the receptacle. To him, it took forever to fall. Once among the paper, it began to quickly consume the waiting fuel. Benito moved the crackling, flaming, metal bucket beneath the bed. Better this way. Mr. Jacobs wouldn’t understand, though he felt certain the elderly man would be happy knowing his death would have meaning.

  Turning back toward the door, a twinge shot through his neck. Again he stretched the muscles, turning his head, as he extended them first to the left, then to the right.

  At the exit he paused, watching the flames lick hungrily beneath the bed of the sleeping man. To Benito it appeared a work of art, a beach bonfire, good memories, distant and untouchable, as though they were no longer part of his history. Something blocked them, held them hostage.

  The voice urged him: Complete the mission, stay straight and true.

  He pulled the door shut and walked across the hall to Mrs. Simpson’s room. She was blind. He pitied her. The flames were really something to see. He had a vague memory of helping Mrs. Simpson with flowers and changing her bedclothes. Then the images vanished.

  This time, he wouldn’t use the electric lights; he knew the layout of the room. A sliver of moonlight marked the floor allowing just enough light to see. He walked through the gray darkness, his body slicing through the space as though he was made of sharp edges. She had no light, so neither would he. He honored and respected these people who would shortly die for a noble cause.

  One foot after the other. One match after the other. One vict
im after the other.

  Benito opened the bathroom door, but the wastebasket wasn’t there. Frustratingly, this forced him to flick on the lights. There was the basket, behind the door.

  He picked up the wastebasket and rifled through the contents. Yes, enough fuel there. Inside, a folded newspaper and scrunched up toilet paper with fruit peel scraps scattered between.

  Now where?

  He’d used curtains; he’d used a bed; where else could he place his work of warm art? He moved to the bathroom doorway and stood at the threshold between the small, lit room and the darkened bedroom.

  Reaching into his pocket for the matches, the resonance of his hand against the fabric of his pants was of a rushing wind before a storm. The sound meant he was on the right path.

  “Who is it there?”

  Mrs. Simpson’s dry, raspy voice stopped him. Her eyes would be open but unseeing. A shame this beautiful sight stolen from her.

  “Is that you, Sophia? What time is it, dear?”

  Benito left the bathroom to stand by her bed, the wastebasket clutched in his hand along with the matches. They itched in his palm to be struck.

  One moment. One more moment.

  He stood, listening to her struggling breath.

  “What are you doing there? I can’t see.” Her voice was cracked and hesitant from age and sleep.

  The dark felt pleasant on his skin, creeping inside him, filtering through his pores and into his cells, filling him with desire to strike the match and illuminate the room.

  Benito placed the basket at the end of the bed, nestled between the folds of the bedcovers. Mrs. Simpson’s frame, so shrunken from age and decay, took up only half the bed. Her mind was good but cell-by-cell time had whittled away her body.

  Her voice, more urgent now: “What’s going on? I was asleep. You woke me!”

  Somehow she sensed this wasn’t normal, that something was wrong. If he spoke, she would recognize Benito’s voice, the cadence of his accent, although he’d lived here all his life. His father was from India; his mother met her husband there on a sabbatical in her twenties.

  Now the match.

  Oh, God, the match would be such a blessing. He struck the beautifully shaped wood, so perfect for the task, the design unaltered for centuries. The sound came again, the stinging hiss, a roar, then a warm glow. Magnificent. A tumult of beauty licking into the darkness, wearing away at the darkness. So small. So delicate. So perfect.

  He dropped the glowing match into the basket to meet its paper partner. They began their mating dance. The flame rushed along the paper’s edges, digging in deep, looking for more, its hunger for fuel insatiable.

  “What’s that s-s-sound?”

  Mrs. Simpsons’ voice came out a hiss. She smelled it now and began to understand. This wasn’t a visit to check her vitals or tuck in her bedclothes. This was a visit by a friend, come to take away the pain, take away the blindness. The view was achingly beautiful. Tiny shreds of golden-white and orange licked gently upward.

  Benito pulled the bed cover across the basket, careful to leave a gap, so as not to stifle the flames. He dipped the material’s edge in so it could catch like the wick of an explosive. The fire liked the bed cover. Cotton breathes and burns. How it burned. In magnificent, leaping flames, travelling quickly up the bedclothes, it burned. Benito backed away toward the door, never taking his gaze from the vision.

  Mrs. Simpson began to scream, so he couldn’t stay.

  One more.

  The thought traveled through his mind. One more. Just to be sure. Just to seal the deal. Four people dead meant something important. A necessary number.

  He exited the room. A squealing fire alarm suddenly filled the air, earsplitting and annoying, a relentless rhythm. As though the sound was suddenly muted, his focus returned to the mission, and it became just a sound in the background.

  Someone was in the hall. Andrea almost slammed into him hurrying past.

  “What’s going on?” she yelled, through the screech of the alarm. “Is that Mrs. Simpson screaming?”

  Andrea, two kids, a single mom always volunteered for night shift, because it suited her lifestyle. “What life?” she often said, to which Benito always nodded, not truly understanding her meaning.

  She stared at him, awaiting a reply. When there came none, she shook her head and hurried past him into Mrs. Simpson’s room.

  Before entering, she stopped and turned back. “Benito, are you okay?”

  He couldn’t answer, wouldn’t answer anyway, because the need for one more pulled him away. He needed to keep moving. Strings of thoughts attached to his will. He couldn’t resist them. Didn’t want to resist them.

  Benito turned from Andrea to travel up the hall, as he imagined her running toward Mrs. Simpson in her room, running toward the screams. It would be too late. Even these few minutes would have given the flames all the time they needed to find their way. The flaming bed in the deep darkness would greet her with its beauty and life. And death.

  Someone else ran past: a middle-aged nurse. He didn’t look at Benito, didn’t stop. The man was new, only starting last week. Benito couldn’t remember his name. Now he would never know his name.

  The buzz sizzled into his spine, travelling through him, under his skin like a wave. It was a vibration in his teeth and in the membranes of his eyes. This time it hurt. He stopped and gathered himself, resting his palm flat against the cool, smooth wall. Then, in the beat of a second, the buzzing and sound were gone. He looked around, his head swinging from side to side, suddenly surprised. His gaze fell on his hands as he held them up. They didn’t look as though they belonged to him as if he was an alien inside his own skin. Fear shimmied through him. Something was wrong.

  Should he be here?

  How had he gotten here? And why? He couldn’t remember. His last memory, a wisp of a thing, was of the end of his shift, saying goodnight to co-workers, then heading off for a meal before home.

  “Goodnight Mr. Berry,” he’d said to a long-term resident in the lounge playing solitaire. Mr. Berry always had a game or two before bed. “Helps me sleep,” he would say.

  “Goodnight, Carol.” He liked working with her. She got his jokes; her laughter brightened his day.

  “Goodnight, Jack Backer,” he’d said, as he passed the octogenarian’s room. A sweet old guy. WW2 veteran. Always good with a story. Man, those guys suffered.

  “See you tomorrow, Alan,” he’d said, after handing over the shift’s charts to his colleague, high-fiving him on the way out. He’d reminded Alan who to check on and who to leave sleeping. There’d been talk of promoting him to assistant supervisor, so he showed even more care than usual.

  “Goodnight—.”

  They were gone. All thoughts of before vanished, as though a veil came down like a theatre curtain. He couldn’t see, couldn’t hear them anymore.

  Goodnight everyone. Goodnight.

  He knew every one of their names, Jack Backer, Mr. Berry, Mrs. Wales, Fred Day, all of them, the sixty-two people in his care—joint-care with the other nursing home workers. They all worked diligently to ensure their charges were comfortable.Comfortable and happy until they died.

  He couldn’t feel them anymore. Suddenly all he felt was alone. The voice and him and the mission that must not fail. This was all he had. Straight and true was all he had.

  The supply room was to the right. He jiggled his key in the lock and the door sprung open. Five wooden shelves, beginning at waist height, worked their way up the three walls. Below, standing at attention, were three buckets with mops. He wondered if the metal in the handles would color the flames.

  He pulled the mops from the buckets, resting them against the opposite wall. From the shelves, he pulled cloths and paper towels, scrunching them together into small balls and shoving them into the buckets.

  They would be here soon. He must hurry. Benito shoved his hand into his pocket and pulled out the matches. He would never use all of them, the shame that it wa
s. The muscles in his neck screamed at him again. He tilted his head, attempting to ease the burn now inside his tendons. Ten more minutes were all he needed.

  Plastic containers of blue and green liquid perched in neat rows, along the shelves. Would they burn a different color? He pulled one of the three methylated spirits bottles from the shelf and twisted open the lid. He moved the container to his nose, drawing in a deep, long breath. The noxious smell sharpened his anticipation.

  Quickly, he upended the bottle into the first bucket. Fumes filled the room, hitting his olfactory glands with the sweet smell of peril and possibility, sweeter than if roses filled the room.

  Afraid he’d lose himself in the exquisite potency, he covered his mouth and poured the remaining two bottles into the buckets. The liquid turned the balls of white paper dark vanilla.

  Reaching for one of the mops, he shoved it inside the bucket and pushed down the paper. The bucket’s wheels gave way with the pressure, skidding the container against the door.

  Benito leaned forward to pull back the bucket as though it were an eager dog he needed to heel. He was ready to go. Clasping the silver metal door handle, he pushed the door ajar, allowing the bucket to move to the edge of the threshold and nestle there. It would hold the door open.

  Benito turned and reached for another bucket. With the mop sticking out, it looked like a potted tree, naked of foliage. He stepped behind it, grasped the handle tightly, and pushed against it, wheeling it forward. Benito passed by his little metal partner still holding the door and swung his bucket into the middle of the hall.

  Since he’d entered the closet, people had filled the hall. Cries of help came from all directions. Elderly, bewildered patients wandered lost as though they’d never before traveled outside their rooms. Confusion and fear filled the air, along with the scream of the alarm.