Pyrophobia

by Jack Lance

  The subject of fire was therefore not one he was inclined to talk about. If the subject came up, Lou’s face twitched, causing his scars to become even more prominent.

  Jason rang the doorbell and the door clicked open. Lou had installed remote controls for nearly everything inside his house, including the door. Sitting in his wheelchair, the frail, disfigured man greeted him jovially. Jason returned the greeting and walked into the living room where he found a cream-colored couch, upholstered chairs in the same color, a glass coffee table and two white cupboards on an immaculate, sand-colored tile floor. In addition to a flat-screen television, the room contained three large computer screens, placed side by side on a long, whitewashed wooden table in front of a window overlooking a small backyard typical of homes in the area.

  Jason sat down on one of the chairs and placed his three Polaroid photographs on the coffee table. Lou picked them up and studied each one in turn.

  ‘I’ll come right to the point,’ Jason said. ‘I’m here because of the three photos you’re holding. You’re probably wondering why I brought them to you.’

  ‘Yeah, but I have a hunch you’re about to tell me,’ Lou responded, absently rubbing his right hand.

  Jason started talking. He was completely frank about everything that had happened to him since Monday. His eagerness to tell Lou every detail related to the photographs surprised Jason, since he had yet to tell Kayla anything about them. But he knew and trusted Lou, whereas he feared Kayla would be unable to cope and would fly off the handle. While Jason was talking, Lou slid a bottle of beer across the table toward him and took one for himself. Jason gratefully swigged from the bottle.

  ‘What it comes down to,’ he concluded, ‘is that I don’t know what this all means or what I should do about it. My apparent date of death is August eighteenth, or at least that’s what the person who sent me the photos wrote on the last one. And it could very well be that this same person rammed my car and pushed it off the road. He also claims that I’m already dead, that I only think I’m alive. When is he going to strike again? When will the next picture arrive? Are Kayla and I being watched? What can I do?’

  Before Lou could respond, Jason said, an edge of exasperation in his voice, ‘I came here because I thought maybe you could extract something from the photographs. The second Polaroid has a tomb in it. If I could identify that tomb, I’d know which cemetery this is. And I’m convinced that the M in the third picture was put there in Photoshop. I’d sure like to know what is really inscribed on the headstone.’

  Lou picked up his bottle of beer, drank deeply and gently laid it back on the table.

  ‘Why don’t you start at the beginning? Give me those photos. I’ll slide the third one into my scanner.’

  That sentence sequence was quintessential Lou. He never let himself be fazed by anything. He simply acted. Jason handed him the three photographs. Lou slid the picture with the M under the lid of his HP, and then opened a program on his computer; not Photoshop, but some other tool. Lou had an extensive collection of software.

  ‘So what do you think of my story?’ Jason asked.

  ‘It’s fierce,’ Lou said simply.

  ‘You can say that again,’ Jason sighed.

  ‘Who have you talked to about this?’

  ‘You’re the first one I’ve told. Even Kayla doesn’t know.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘You know about her problem. And we just had that whole affair with Chris. And now this …’

  He shook his head.

  ‘But I’m going to tell her. When the time is right. I know I have to.’

  ‘Why don’t you go to the police?’ Lou asked.

  ‘I had cops over at my place just yesterday, because of the accident. An Italian detective by the name of Guillermo. A wannabe stud, if you ask me. Kayla liked him, I think. He asked …’

  Jason caught his breath as the third Polaroid appeared full screen on Lou’s monitor. From what he could tell, the M had been smeared on to the headstone with red paint.

  ‘He asked all kinds of questions,’ Jason went on after a moment, ‘but because Kayla was there with me, I kept my mouth shut.’

  ‘There’s nothing stopping you from going to see him now.’

  Jason rubbed his chin. ‘No, you’re right.’

  ‘Look,’ Lou said, motioning toward the screen, ‘I’ve managed to separate the layers.’

  Jason glanced up and saw that the grave marker had been separated from the red M. The letter now sat beside the stone on the screen.

  ‘Christ. How did you do that so quickly?’

  ‘I’m good,’ Lou grinned. ‘I’m really good.’

  All that was visible on the gray stone were traces of erosion, lichen, cracks and scratches.

  ‘I had hoped …’ Jason started. He cleared his throat. ‘I had hoped that there would be another name underneath the M. The original name on the headstone.’

  Lou shook his head. ‘This is the only layer I can peel off. This is all there is.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘I could fiddle around with it some more, but yeah, I’m pretty sure.’

  Jason sighed. Lou turned his wheelchair around and gazed at him intensely.

  ‘What did you think? That your own name would be on it?’

  ‘No,’ Jason responded quickly, as if to emphasize that the very thought of it was ridiculous. Except, he was not at all convinced it was ridiculous.

  ‘No, of course not, but …’

  Then he decided, what the hell; he’d confess what was on his mind. ‘I’ve had a few days to think about it,’ he said. ‘On the one hand, this may be a threat. On the other hand, that’s not how it’s phrased. I’m supposedly dead, and apparently I died on August eighteenth. From that perspective, these messages could be interpreted as statements of an accomplished fact. And since grave markers have names on them, I thought …’

  Lou gave him a pensive look. ‘I see,’ he said, nodding. ‘That would be my thought as well. Technically, as you know, the photographer could have erased the original name, but there’s no way to tell without the source files. Or maybe he used a piece of blank stone for this image.’

  Jason rubbed his chin thoughtfully.

  ‘So I should try to find the original images that were used to make this photograph. That’s what you’re telling me, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes,’ Lou said. ‘Better still, the actual headstone.’

  Jason nodded in agreement. ‘But that means I’d have to find out which cemetery this tomb is in. I’ve done some research, but I’ve come up empty so far.’

  ‘Want me to help find it for you?’ Lou offered.

  ‘I would, Lou. Thanks.’

  He got up and started pacing back and forth.

  ‘Let’s take a step back. So you agree with me that I should interpret these messages literally? But I assure you, I’m very much alive.’

  Lou smiled as he rubbed his bald head. Because he had no lips, his teeth already looked unnaturally large. His smile therefore made him appear more macabre than friendly.

  ‘I can see that,’ he asserted.

  ‘And the accident? It was a close shave, and it could have ended a lot worse. If the photographer was driving the car, he certainly is not acting as though I’m already dead. In fact, he’s trying his damnedest to make sure I am dead.’

  Lou shrugged. ‘I can’t explain this either, Jason. If you ask me, your first step is to find that cemetery. I’ll get right to work on that for you.’

  When Jason returned home, he took two aspirin to relieve a headache and sat down in his hanging chair on the porch to wait for Kayla, who was later than usual. Maybe she was catching up after missing work yesterday.

  No other manila envelopes had arrived in the mail. Not at Tanner & Preston’s and not at the house. Kayla came home and told him about having to put in overtime compiling appendices for the annual report. In turn, he shared with her his progress with the Tommy Jones project. They did not discu
ss the car accident. As if by unspoken agreement they had decided to put that nightmare behind them.

  They heated a frozen dinner, watched television for a while, and went to bed early. The night was uneventful. No dreams, no fire. He craved sleep, and sleep is what he got. The next morning he woke up at nine, a rarity for him. Kayla was outside, smiling as she puttered around in the garden. The sun stood high in a cloudless sky; this morning death and fire seemed not part of their life.

  With the good life continuing on Sunday, Kayla again broached the subject of children. The words she used were as warm and excited as her expression, and the prospect of soon starting a family of their own embraced them in a tight emotional bond. They decided to take it easy that day. Jason spent time in front of the computer, and Kayla relaxed on the porch hammock to read the book she had started.

  Later, as the afternoon was quietly slipping into the shadows of early evening, he still hadn’t summoned the courage to tell her about the Polaroid photographs. The day had been perfect, and he was loath to upset her. The photos and handwritten messages would affect her deeply because they would stir up mental visions that were best forgotten. Her issues with her previous boyfriend Ralph bore an uncanny similarity to what was happening to him now.

  As it turned out, however, Kayla forced him to confess. At eleven o’clock, just before retiring, she suddenly stormed into his study. He was dressed in a bathrobe and sitting in his desk chair, still scouring the Internet for the pyramid-shaped tomb. He had tried several times during the day to dredge up a web image of the structure, hoping at the same time to uncover the name and location of the burial site where it was located. But his efforts had proved fruitless.

  ‘What’s this?’ Kayla suddenly cried out. She was standing in the door to his room, dressed in a sheer, short white nightgown, and her voice was laced with anger.

  In her right hand she held the three photographs.

  TEN

  Confession

  Jason slowly rose to his feet, a grim expression on his face that matched her own. Her eyes flashed disgust; she was glaring at him as though she had caught him in flagrante delicto with another woman.

  ‘Where did you find those?’ he asked her quietly.

  ‘In your pants,’ she said in no uncertain terms. ‘I wanted to run the washer before I went to bed. What’s going on, Jason Evans?’

  Adding his last name usually signaled that she was really angry. He would have to remain calm and proceed carefully. ‘I’ve been meaning to tell you about them,’ he said somewhat lamely. ‘Come, sit down.’

  ‘I don’t want to sit down!’ she fumed.

  He walked around his desk and put a hand on her shoulder. She brushed it off.

  ‘No! Explain this first!’ she yelled hoarsely, waving the photos before his face.

  He started talking, struggling to keep traces of fear and doubt from his voice. He needed to keep as much fat from the fire as he could. At the same time, he wanted to kick himself for keeping this secret from her for so long. That, and the fact that he had forgotten to take them out of his pocket and hide them somewhere safe when he had undressed and put on his robe.

  The time for subterfuge had passed. He had to come clean – for her and for his peace of mind. So he told her everything to date, including his visit to Lou Briggs, his own attempts to determine the location of the cemetery, and how he had tried to deduce a name from the headstone in the third photograph. His main defense for not telling her was that he didn’t want to worry her.

  Kayla listened to him, her eyes seemingly growing larger with every sentence he uttered. A range of complex emotions crossed her face. After he finished his story, she said nothing for several moments.

  ‘So it could be a threat,’ he finished, ‘although the words don’t indicate that, exactly.’

  Kayla took another look at the photographs and the messages. Then she looked up at him. ‘Do you have enemies, Jason?’ she asked tentatively. ‘I can’t imagine that you would or who they would be, but do you? Could there be someone who’d want to hurt you? Somebody who is that angry with you?’

  Her anger remained, but slowly it was morphing into concern for him.

  Jason shrugged. ‘Beats me, Kayla. I didn’t think I had any enemies.’

  ‘But what in God’s name is all this supposed to mean? Who would do such a thing?’

  ‘I haven’t a clue.’

  ‘Why would anyone want to see you dead?’

  ‘I’m not sure that they do,’ Jason insisted. ‘It’s what I told Lou. The words don’t expressly imply a threat. They just say I died on August eighteenth, and that I’m not really alive.’

  Kayla again studied the photos and their cryptic messages. She crossed her arms and flicked her thumb across her forefinger, as if playing with an invisible cigarette lighter. It was a nervous habit of hers. ‘And you think the accident was no accident?’

  ‘What do you think?’ he asked her.

  She waved that away. ‘Why haven’t you reported this to the police?’

  ‘Lou asked me the same thing. But I can always do that later. I’m not sure what I’d be reporting. As I keep saying, there is no explicit threat. Maybe the accident was simply that: an accident. I have no proof that it was anything more than that. Who knows? Maybe this is just some freak trying to scare me. If so, he has succeeded.’

  ‘Me as well,’ Kayla added. She stared ahead. ‘What do we do now?’

  ‘Good question,’ he sighed. ‘What does the sender want us to do? Every road I take to try to make sense of this has led to a dead end. I need to figure out which cemetery the photos were taken at, but that’s another riddle. I haven’t been able to find anything, and I haven’t heard from Lou yet.’

  ‘You own two Polaroid cameras yourself,’ she remarked.

  He did indeed. An ancient, nostalgic model 95B and a fairly new TL234 12,0 megapixels. Just recently he had sold his TL031 on eBay.

  ‘Yes, I do. What’s your point?’

  She shrugged. ‘You’re a Polaroid fan. You even joined one of those online clubs. But Polaroid cameras aren’t exactly hip any more. They’re passé.’

  ‘Says you.’

  ‘Yeah, says me. Think on it: why weren’t you sent digital images?’

  ‘I don’t know, Kayla. Maybe that’s a message in itself. Or do you think that these photographs were sent by one of my Polaroid buddies? Jack, maybe? Ricky? Shaun Reilly?’

  Kayla shifted her gaze from him and then shifted back.

  ‘Why didn’t you say anything to me about this?’ she asked bitterly.

  ‘I told you. I didn’t want to worry you. I needed to think about it for a while before I discussed it with you.’

  Suddenly, something inside her seemed to snap. She shuddered, and the photographs slipped from her grasp and fell to the floor. She started to cry.

  ‘Not again,’ she whispered through the tears.

  Jason came to her, his hands on her hips.

  ‘I’m not Ralph,’ he said softly.

  She pressed her face against his chest.

  ‘You’re not dead,’ she sobbed. ‘You can’t die. You can’t.’

  ‘I’m not going to,’ he said, with more conviction than he truly felt.

  ‘Don’t leave me,’ she begged him, sniffling.

  ‘I will never leave you,’ he said firmly. ‘We’ll get through this. You and I will get through this together and we’ll grow old together. And we’ll be good parents too, I promise. I’m not going to die – at least not anytime soon.’

  He picked up the photographs from the floor.

  ‘But in the meantime we have to deal with this. I … We have to try to understand what the messages mean. Help me, Kayla. Let’s do this together.’

  She took a few deep breaths and looked up at him, her eyes glistening.

  ‘Of course we’ll do this together,’ she stressed. ‘Just promise me you won’t keep secrets from me again. Never again, do you understand? Don’t do that to me.’
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  He held her face gently in his hands.

  ‘Together. You and I. Together we will figure this out.’

  ELEVEN

  Torches

  When Kayla slid behind the steering wheel of her Chrysler Sebring sedan the next morning to set off for work, her face looked drawn. Her chic brown jacket and matching skirt did nothing to boost her appearance. And the sun washing over her smooth caramel skin served only to emphasize her pale complexion.

  Even so, she was a beautiful young woman. She was just not the type to take advantage of her natural assets, such as her sea-blue eyes set in the perfect symmetry of her face. Kayla wanted to be judged by her performance, not her looks. She would never admit that her alluring physical appearance had sometimes opened doors for her, but of course they had. Jason smiled at her and waved goodbye as she drove off.

  That morning, they did not discuss the photographs either before, during or after breakfast. He did not want to cause a scene by broaching the subject again. And he assumed that because she was unable to talk about Ralph, she was unable to come to terms with this new horrifying development.

  Ralph Grainger had been Kayla’s fiancé before she met Jason. She would have married him and perhaps even had children with him if the man hadn’t suffered a premature and tragic death. She had been with him when it happened, in the tent they shared while climbing in the Rocky Mountains bordering Nevada and Arizona. He had suffered a cardiac arrest just a few weeks before his twenty-sixth birthday. Kayla had been in deep shock. Ralph’s death had seemed a mystery, but then a post-mortem revealed that he had been born with a deficiency in his pulmonary heart valve. For most of his truncated life he had been walking around with a time bomb ticking inside of him, and not a single doctor had correctly diagnosed the problem. Had that problem been caught in time, Ralph would still be alive. Doctors could have replaced his defective valve in open-heart surgery. It was not a life-threatening procedure; the risk of complications was small. Ninety-nine percent of patients were discharged from the hospital after only eight days. Ralph should have been one of them. Unfortunately, congenital defects are not normally detected during routine medical exams.