Campfire

by Shawn Sarles

  “Why—why are you doing this?” Mitch’s voice shook as he tried to understand.

  “Why?” Charlie looked at his father in disbelief. “You want to know why?”

  “Yes.” Maddie’s dad balked at being mocked.

  “Someone had to take out the garbage,” Charlie spit out viciously. “Cheaters and liars. Murderers. They all deserved what they got.”

  “But Mark—and the antlers—” Maddie’s dad sputtered, still trying to make sense of it all, still trying to find a way to believe that his son hadn’t killed all those people, even though he’d just seen Charlie shoot Julie and Bryan point-blank. “The Mountain People—”

  “Stories.” Charlie cut him off. “All stories that we brought to life.”

  “Don’t look so shocked,” Tommy chimed in. There was a lilt in his voice. He was toying with Maddie’s father. “The stories made the cleanup fun. And it freaked all of you out. I could barely keep it together when you came across our camp and found Jason’s body. And the whole time you thought I was dead, too.”

  Tommy performed a little jig in his excitement.

  “I only wish my dad could have been here, too. But he’ll get what’s coming—him and his shiny, new family. I’d love to carve a pair of antlers into their foreheads.”

  “But don’t worry, Dad,” Charlie cut in, pulling everyone back to the moment. “We didn’t forget about you. In fact, we saved the best story for last.”

  “But—but what did I do?” Mitch’s dad wondered aloud, which was the absolute wrong thing to say. Charlie’s head snapped to the side in disbelief.

  “I should shoot you right now for saying that,” Charlie snorted. “What did you do? WHAT DID YOU DO?”

  Charlie shouted the words at his dad, his anger bubbling over for the first time.

  “You have the nerve to play innocent? Still? When I have a gun pointed at your head?”

  Charlie shook with anger, but his firing arm remained steady.

  “You think I know about everyone else’s indiscretions—their affairs, their child abuse—and I don’t know what you did? What you and Kris did? You think we’d have done any of this if we didn’t know that?

  “Why do you think Uncle Ed had to die? Sure, he was a bully and an asshole. He beat his son and wife. But that’s not even the worst of it.”

  Charlie paused, flashing with rage still.

  “Are you listening over there, Maddie? I don’t want you to a miss a single detail.”

  Maddie’s whole body shook. She didn’t want to hear what her brother had to say. But he didn’t give her a choice as his anger carried him on.

  “Ed was blackmailing you,” Charlie yelled at his father. “He’d found out about you and Kris. What you’d done. You’d think he would have gone to the police. But no. The scumbag didn’t care about justice. He wanted to make an easy buck.

  “If I’d found out that my sister had been murdered, her killer sure as hell wouldn’t have gotten off so easily.”

  Maddie froze as she realized what Charlie was saying.

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” her dad protested. He had a wild look on his face.

  “Don’t I?”

  “No. No. You don’t.”

  “Then why don’t we have any money saved up? Why couldn’t you afford to pay for college after I lost my scholarship?”

  Charlie dared his father to come up with an answer, any excuse. But the man could only sputter, his face growing red, sweat beading his forehead.

  “How pathetic,” Charlie scowled at his father. “To think you almost got away with it. But when I lost my scholarship and you didn’t have the money for school, I knew something was up. I started poking around and found out all your dirty secrets.

  “Why do you think I asked to go on this camping trip?” Charlie laid it all out.

  His father looked up at him and began to understand.

  “I’ve known about you for months. About what you and Kris did.”

  Charlie’s eyes flashed dangerously.

  “And now, finally, it’s time for you to come clean. No more secrets. No more lies. It’s time for you to confess. It’s time for you to tell your daughter what you did. To tell her how you and Kris killed our mother.”

  THIRTY-THREE

  MADDIE’S WORLD HAD UNRAVELED AROUND HER. She tried desperately to grasp at the threads and keep them from pulling apart, but Charlie’s accusations tore at her.

  Her mother had died in a fire. A terrible, accidental fire. Maddie had witnessed it all. Her dad hadn’t been there. He couldn’t have killed her. He wouldn’t have.

  It was the fire.

  The fire had ruined everything. Faulty wiring. Or just horrible luck. Not her father.

  “It’s time you heard the truth, Maddie,” Charlie said. “Tell her.”

  Maddie’s gaze slid to the side and met her father’s. Tears filled his eyes. His face had turned bright red.

  “I didn’t—”

  “Stop lying,” Charlie growled. “Confess and we can be done with this.”

  He pulled the hammer back on the handgun for emphasis.

  “I—I—I—”

  Her dad’s face fell, and Maddie could see the years of fear and sadness and regret suddenly weighing him down.

  “I never meant to hurt her. You have to believe me. She wasn’t supposed to be there.”

  Maddie sucked in a breath. She shook her head as tears bubbled up in her eyes, too.

  It couldn’t be. She didn’t want to hear it. She covered her ears but then felt hands prying hers away from her head.

  “You can’t run away from this,” Charlie said to her. He still had the gun trained on their father as he pulled Maddie up and led her closer to the fire. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw that Tommy had grabbed Chelsea, too, keeping her from interfering.

  “You need to hear this,” Charlie went on. “You need to know what he did.”

  Maddie trembled. The last five years of her life were coming undone.

  “Kris came to me,” her father sputtered, his face pathetic, streaming with sweat. “She—she had some bad business deal that she needed to make disappear. A fire would destroy the paperwork. But she needed help. And she knew I needed the money.

  “I was in debt back then. I had—I had a gambling problem. I didn’t know how I was going to come up with the money. And then there was Kris, offering me a way out. We’d torch the real-estate office and collect the insurance. We just couldn’t tell your mother. She didn’t know about the bad deal or my gambling problem.”

  Maddie’s dad paused, but Charlie kept his gun pointed at his father’s head and gestured for him to continue.

  “It was supposed to be simple. We weren’t going to get caught.

  “But then, that night the police called and I was sure they knew we’d set it up. I panicked. I began making up excuses. And then—and then they told me they were calling to inform me that my wife had died. She’d been killed in a fire.”

  Mitch stared blankly into the dark woods, unable to look his daughter in the eye as he confessed, lost in the past, lost in that night all those years ago.

  “When I realized that I’d killed my wife—your mother—I called Kris. I freaked out over the phone. We had to come clean. But Kris talked me down. She convinced me that the best thing to do was to say nothing. Let the police figure it out. It was their job, after all.”

  He shook his head, remembering his mistake.

  “I lived in fear every single day. Every time the phone rang or someone knocked on the door, I was certain it’d be the police, ready to storm in with an arrest warrant.

  “But as each day passed, the police didn’t come. And the guilt slowly became easier to live with. After a couple of months we knew we’d gotten away with it. They’d officially closed the case. The insurance payout came through.”

  “Except that Uncle Ed knew,” Maddie whispered. She didn’t know why this was what she chose to say. There were a thousand o
ther things she could have said.

  “Right,” Maddie’s dad said somberly. “Somehow your uncle found out and blackmailed us.”

  No one spoke as Mitch’s words sank in. He was a murderer. And a liar.

  Maddie’s ears burned with the truth. She couldn’t look at him. She had almost died in that fire. Would he have confessed then? If he had killed both his wife and his daughter?

  “I didn’t mean to do it.” Mitch groveled for his life. “I never meant to hurt her. I swear. It’s been torture, keeping it a secret all these years.”

  “Torture?” Charlie turned on his father. “Torture? You think getting away with murder is torture?”

  He gripped Maddie’s arm tighter and shoved her in front of their father’s face.

  “Look at your daughter. Look at what you’ve done to her. And you think your life’s been torture?”

  Maddie squirmed in Charlie’s grip as he laughed cruelly.

  “Please, please, please,” Mitch begged. “Please don’t shoot me. Not like this. Not in front of Maddie. Please, show some mercy.”

  Charlie smirked and then looked down at his sister.

  “What do you think, Maddie? Does he deserve to live?”

  “What?” She startled out of her daze. Did she really have a say in this?

  “Do you think he deserves to live? Or die?”

  “Maddie.” Mitch shifted his attention. “Listen to me, honey. You don’t want him to do—”

  “Shut up!” Charlie barked. “You’ve had your chance. Now let her decide.”

  The night grew quiet, the campfire crackling behind them as Charlie asked the question one last time.

  “Maddie, do you want him to die?”

  Charlie’s words echoed in Maddie’s ears. Was it really up to her?

  Her father had lied to her for five years. He’d killed her mother. And he’d gotten away with it all. Did someone like that really deserve forgiveness?

  But how could she pass judgment? How could she sentence someone to death? He was her father. The only one she had.

  But he was also a murderer.

  She didn’t know what to do.

  “Well?” Charlie waited for her answer.

  Slowly, she shook her head. Did she really want to be like her father? Like her brother?

  “No,” Maddie said clearly, making sure her brother understood. “I don’t think he should die.”

  Reluctantly, Charlie lowered his gun. Relief washed over Mitch’s face. His daughter had spared him. Maddie trembled in her brother’s grip. Had she made the right decision? Could it really be that simple?

  “Hmm…” Charlie reconsidered Maddie’s decision and then in one fluid motion raised the gun back up and shot his father in the leg.

  “You’re right, Maddie,” Charlie shouted so she could hear him over their father’s howls. “We shouldn’t kill him just yet. After what he did, he deserves to suffer.”

  THIRTY-FOUR

  MADDIE SQUEALED AS HER FATHER WRITHED on the ground, howling like some felled animal. The bullet had gone right through his shin, shattering it in an instant. He wasn’t going anywhere on his own. She tried to get loose, to go to her dad and help him, but Charlie held her tight, his grip a vise she couldn’t break free of. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Chelsea fighting against Tommy as well, her best friend having just as little luck.

  “Look at him, Maddie,” Charlie said, pulling her around so that she couldn’t help seeing her poor father. “You deserve to see this. This is justice. Five years in the making.”

  Maddie squeezed her eyes shut, but she couldn’t block out her father’s pained screams.

  “I said look at him,” Charlie shouted, jerking her arm. Reluctantly, Maddie opened her eyes. She saw her father there on the ground, whimpering now, an animal knowing its time had come.

  “You don’t have to do this,” Maddie whimpered. “It’s not too late, Charlie. You don’t have to kill him.”

  “He’s a monster,” Charlie spat out. “He brought this on himself. It’s time for him to get what he deserves.”

  Charlie let Maddie go, and then stomped closer to their father. He bent down and shined his flashlight directly into the man’s eyes.

  “Oh, don’t act so pathetic. You’re not dead yet.”

  And then Charlie grabbed Mitch by the scruff of the neck and hauled him up to his feet. A groan escaped the man’s mouth.

  “Please—please—you don’t have to do this, son.” Maddie’s father squeezed the words out between pained breaths. Fearful tears ran down his cheeks.

  “Ah, there’s the dad I know,” Charlie toyed with the man. “Sniveling. Useless. Mom was always stronger. It should have been you in that fire.”

  He let go of his father, dropping him like a sack of potatoes. Maddie watched it all, crawling away slowly, terrified. Her arm hurt where her brother had grabbed her. She could see the red outline of his fingers still there on her skin. She wanted to turn and run away. To escape all of this.

  Fight or flight. Her legs were tired but strong. Charlie would never be able to catch her in these woods, not if she got a head start.

  If she ran now, she knew she could get away. She could make it back down the mountain. She could survive.

  But what about Chelsea?

  Maddie’s eyes flitted over her shoulder and she saw her best friend still struggling in Tommy’s grasp.

  No. Maddie couldn’t leave. If she left, Chelsea wouldn’t make it. And Maddie had a pinkie promise to keep.

  “You’re not going anywhere.”

  Maddie’s shoulders tensed. She spun back around, but Charlie had meant the words for their father, who hadn’t managed to crawl far. Her brother was already on him, bent low to look him in the eye. He took his handgun and rubbed it against his father’s face.

  “See how he squirms, Maddie? Pathetic, isn’t it?”

  “Stop it,” Maddie cried, but fear rooted her to the spot, kept her from running to help him.

  Charlie only laughed as he made a show of placing his finger around the handgun’s trigger. He pushed the barrel right up under his father’s chin, felt the man’s pulse racing.

  “Any last words?”

  Tears flowed down Mitch’s cheeks. His teeth chattered uncontrollably as he shook his head. He squeezed his eyes shut and prepared for the end. Charlie pressed the gun deeper into his neck. His finger danced against the trigger.

  But he didn’t pull it.

  Instead, he stood up. He ran his fingers backward through his hair, leaving a streak of blood on his forehead, though Maddie couldn’t have told you whose.

  “A bullet’s too easy,” Charlie chided his father. He took a step back and then spun around and kicked the man in the stomach. Mitch’s eyes bulged as his breath shot out of him.

  Charlie fished in his back pocket and pulled out a little canister. It looked like a flask, but Maddie knew it must contain something worse than liquor. She watched with wide-open eyes as her father tried one last time to get away from Charlie, to escape the inescapable. Charlie only shook his head.

  “Didn’t we already do this?” he asked solemnly as he tipped the canister over his father’s head, dousing him with its contents. “You burned my mother. Now let’s see how you like the fire.”

  The gas’s chemical stench seared Maddie’s nose. She didn’t want to watch, but she couldn’t turn away as Charlie threw the canister down and took two steps back toward the campfire. He reached in and lifted a single, smoldering stick from its fiery bouquet. He turned back around and held it up like a torch.

  The flame danced in front of Maddie’s eyes, so small but so powerful. It hypnotized her. She couldn’t turn away as Charlie lowered his hand slowly, making sure his father saw.

  “This is for Mom.”

  Charlie touched the flame to his father’s shirt.

  “No!” Maddie shouted. But it was too late.

  The fire leaped from the stick, snaking across her father’s body, gobbling u
p the gasoline and growing larger, but also hungrier. The flames raced up his arms, taking bites out of his clothes and hair and flesh.

  Maddie watched, petrified, as the fire spread, engulfing her dad in a white-hot blaze. He shrieked and squirmed on the ground, his nails scratching at his shirt, trying to get it off. When that didn’t work he tried rolling in the dirt.

  But the fire had already grown too large. There was no escaping it.

  Her father’s screams grew rabid. He hollered at the top of his lungs, knowing his end had come but fighting it nonetheless. Maddie couldn’t bear to hear it. But Charlie remained unmoved, standing steadfast just out of reach of his father’s burning body.

  The death cries grew weaker as the seconds passed. They sank into a pathetic mewl and then died down altogether.

  Through squinted eyes, Maddie watched her father’s body smolder. The heat of the fire still pressed against her face, the smoke filling the air with the acrid smell of burning flesh, but her father wasn’t with them any longer.

  Maddie’s eyes pricked, but no tears fell.

  Another minute passed and Charlie finally moved. He turned around to face Maddie. His skin had turned bright red from the heat of the blaze and he practically glowed. He reached out his free hand and touched Maddie’s cheek. She flinched, but he held her there. Maddie heard a commotion behind her and turned to see Tommy pushing a reluctant Chelsea over to join them.

  “Shh,” Charlie whispered to both of them. He spoke smoothly, his voice calm and unworried, like he hadn’t just poured gasoline over his father’s head and set him on fire. “You don’t have to look so scared. Everything is going to be okay now. There’s just one more thing that—”

  But whatever that one thing was, Maddie and Chelsea didn’t hear it as a grunt echoed through the night. They turned their heads just in time to see a blur racing toward them, moving impossibly fast. It took Maddie another second to realize that that blur was Caleb. Somehow he had managed to break through his restraints. He’d finally gotten free.

  THIRTY-FIVE

  CALEB FLEW AT THEM, BUT BEFORE he could reach Charlie, Tommy had thrown Chelsea to the ground and flung his body in the way. The two collided and crashed to the ground. Caleb yelled out as he attacked the younger boy, his voice primal, a wild animal making one last desperate fight for survival. He balled up his fist and punched Tommy in the face, breaking the boy’s nose in an instant. Caleb grabbed Tommy’s head between his hands and smashed it against the ground.