by Adele Huxley
Bryan had his hand on me as he rose. I’m not sure if it was to hold me back or to keep himself rooted. When he spoke, I didn’t recognize his voice at all. It was so dark and full of venom. “Give me my son.”
The man holding Jack laughed maniacally. “Straight to the point, huh? No wonder you’re such a savvy businessman. But I’m afraid that’s not going to be possible unless you have some way of giving me my son back.”
I looked at him closer, picking apart the details. He wore expensive snow gear, a jacket that easily cost a few hundred dollars. His refined way of speaking… that he knew us by name. A son for a son… After a moment, I realized I recognized him. Thirty pounds heavier, a graying beard, but it was definitely him.
“Mr. Richards…”
I’d been transported into a horror movie. It couldn’t have been more than thirty seconds from when we smelled smoke to the first wave of people slamming against the front door. I’m ashamed to admit I froze. It was too much. My brain couldn’t connect the pieces. They were inside… we were out, but we had no way of getting them out to safety. So I stared at their terrified faces, immobilized by the deepest fear I’ve ever felt. It was only when Walt shook me I finally came to.
“We need to get these people out of there,” he said earnestly. I blinked at him, summoning my brain to work again. He patted down the pockets of his jacket, mumbling something about missing a gun.
“We have to find a way to break the door down,” I said dreamily. How must they feel seeing us out here?
Walt pulled me a little away from the door, as if the panicked people inside could hear us talking. “If we aren’t careful, they’ll trample each other. Maybe I could find something to smash that glass door, but it means sure death to anyone in the front. We need to find another way of getting them out of there.”
The answer tickled the back of my mind, dodging and popping loose any time I touched on it. And then the obvious solution hit me. “The back is open!” It was like suddenly regaining memories I’d long lost, a fog lifting from my vision. “We can go open it!”
He resisted me, pulling my hand away from his arm. “You go do that and I’ll figure out a way to get this door open.”
I rushed back down the narrow path, slipping and skidding several times, my shoulder slamming into the wall of snow. A few people had found the exit and pushed against me in their panic. I grabbed a middle-aged guy by his collar, shaking him a few times until he focused on me. Remembering what Walt had just said, I realized it would be all too easy for them to trample each other in the narrow path.
“I need you to help me,” I said in a clear voice, looking into his eyes. He nodded blankly, blinking past me like a trapped animal. He was hearing me but wasn’t listening. “These people need your help or they will all die. I need you to stand here,” I said, pointing to the corner, “and make sure they come out of here calmly and quickly. Do you understand me? Don’t let anyone fall and keep them moving.”
I could tell this man was the sort who wouldn’t normally be pleased with taking commands from a teenager, but my tone demanded obedience. He looked down the path again, and I resisted the urge to slap him.
“Tell me you understand me!”
“Yeah, I get it.”
I glanced back over my shoulder only once to make sure he remained in place. I repeated the process three times along the way back into the kitchen, placing people at choke points where I thought the crowd might bunch. All I could do was trust they’d stay put.
The rolling black smoke nearly overwhelmed me after stepping just a few feet into the kitchen. If I hadn’t just spent a full day sitting with Miah in those four walls, I wouldn’t have recognized the room. I held the sleeve of my sweatshirt to my nose and mouth while blinking away stinging tears.
As the kitchen door swung open, I caught my first glimpse of the inferno beyond. The air was thick with smoke and horrifying screams. The same thoughts circled through my head: Get these people out. Find Jack, Liz, and Bryan. Find Jack. Save people. Find Liz. Save people.
The increasing current of bodies bounced me back more than a few times as I fought through. Just as I pushed to the swinging doors, I came face to face with Miah, his arm around Marie’s mother’s shoulders as he guided her to safety.
“There you are!” He looped his free arm around me and tried to pull me toward the door. I shook free, resisting. “Where are you going?”
I could barely drag my eyes away from the chaos inside. Every newly hung curtain spat flames, pieces of blackened fabric falling from high above into the crowd. The wooden walls had caught and flames licked the exposed beams stretched across the ceiling. It was like stepping into a burning fireplace, the logs about to crumble and collapse above you.
Miah grabbed me again, probably thinking I was acting out of panic. “Dani, please!”
I allowed myself to be pulled back into the kitchen, the wall of heat diminishing as the door swung shut. I grasped for the right words to explain the entire situation, but came up short. We didn’t have time. We had to act. I reverted to the technique I’d used on the others.
Forcing my voice to remain confident and level, I held him steady with one hand. “Miah. I need you to help me. These people are going to kill each other if they don’t stay calm.”
I felt a little surge of pride as I saw the realization flicker across his gaze so much quicker than any of the others. I knew I could trust him. He nodded firmly. “Okay, what we do?”
“I need you to stand here and make sure everyone gets through the kitchen to the hallway. I have people in there leading to the outside. We have to move quickly,” I said as I pulled away.
“Wait! Let me go in there, and you stay here.”
“I need you to do this.” I stood on my toes and kissed him quickly, not wanting to hang around and argue while the whole place burned down around us. “I’ll meet you outside,” I yelled as I plunged into the Great Hall.
I couldn’t see the actual exits I’d come to know so well, but I could tell where they were by the swell of people pressing to get out. Every door was locked from the outside. The crowd had managed to bust down two. The hallway leading to the main entrance was filled to the brim and backing into the large room. Shattering the huge windows wouldn’t do any good either. Over ten feet of snow stretched up the tall glass, blocking any hope of escape.
The faces of those pressed against the doors flashed in my mind and Walt’s warning at what might happen to them if we didn’t move quickly. I charged through screaming at people and pointing them in the direction of the kitchen. The small outlet could easily be overrun, but it was the only exit I knew that was open. If they moved fast enough, maybe we could get everyone out in time.
I looked up, the horror overwhelming. Orange and yellow flames rippled across the ceiling. It was eerily beautiful, like standing under a wave in the ocean. I couldn’t stop coughing. Every breath tasted more like smoke than air. The worst part was the growing heat. I’d spent the last day wishing for the cold to be driven from my bones and now I faced the prospect of cooking alive. I searched each face and still saw no sign of Bryan, Liz, or Jack.
“Go back there! There’s a way out,” I yelled in a woman’s face. “Go that way, to the kitchen!” I screamed to another. Over and over, I pushed and shoved and yelled and shouted. A few of them looked at me as if I were crazy. A few listened. And like a flock of birds turning in midair at a split second, something shifted in the crowd. It was as if they collectively discovered the exit at the kitchen. The majority of them turned, rushing towards the tiny space with such speed and urgency that I feared the guides I had in place wouldn’t be able to calm them.
“No! You have to slow down,” I shouted, grabbing a man by the arm. The look in his eye was inhuman, panic-driven. He was running purely on an instinctual need to survive. I saw all this in a microsecond before he pulled away, swept into the flood of people rushing towards the door.
I tried to fight against them. Putting
my hands up and making myself as big as possible, I screamed. “Stay calm!”
I wanted to laugh. The notion of anyone being able to stay calm in this situation was absurd. It was like I could see myself from their perspective, this young girl asking them to do the very opposite of what the adrenaline-spiked flight response was screaming for them to do. Every cell in their body shouted, DANGER! RUN!
Someone knocked into my shoulder, which sent me careening into the thick of it. I bounced around a couple times, pushed back closer to the kitchen door. I fought as hard as I could but it was impossible, a leaf caught in a raging river. Twisting and spinning, I hoped to pop out the edge, and free myself from the current. I turned to the side for a split second as a hard elbow came down on my temple.
Before I even registered the hit, I was on my hands and knees. I gave a pained shout as a foot trampled my fingers, but the sound was lost in the chaos. No one stopped. No one thought to hold back and help me to my feet. I struggled to stand, true panic swelling in my chest for the first time.
A knee connected with the side of my face, the dizzying stars of unconsciousness sprinkling across my vision. As I sank into the darkness, the noise and worry slipping away, I clung to an idle thought.
I’m going to be trampled to death because I was trying to save people from being trampled. Ironic…
He turned his gaze on me. He lifted his chin as a wicked smile spread across his face. It was almost the face of a proud father. “I wasn’t sure if you would remember me, Elizabeth.”
I was quickly trying to put the pieces together, almost impossible with my world unraveling in front of me. I put a hand over Bryan’s hand and continued in a slow voice. “Of course I remember you. Noah talked about you all the time. And we met once?”
My fingers tightened over Bryan’s and I looked towards him, hoping that he could put it all together as rapidly as I had. I couldn’t recall if he’d ever met Noah’s father face to face…
Mr. Richards spoke in a disturbingly calm voice, almost as if we were old friends meeting up at a coffee shop. “I do remember that. You know what I remember better? The bruises around my son’s neck from where he was strangled to death. You could make out the strands of the rope.”
“Sir, we had nothing to do with…” Bryan started to say.
Richards’ expression was fluid, morphing from serene to violent in a matter of seconds. He pointed the gun straight at me but spoke to Bryan. “If it weren’t for this cunt, he’d still be alive. When I heard about your little bundle of joy,” he said, rocking Jack in the crook of his arm, “I finally figured out how I could make things right. Balance the books, so to speak. Of course, I had a few other debts to collect first. The people who helped drive me out of town needed to pay up first.”
The arsonist’s notes made sense. They were values, monetary estimates he calculated had been taken from him. He targeted people who he felt had wronged him… us, Walt, other town members. The man only ever cared about money.
Bryan moved to step around me, but there was at least six feet between us. Richards returned the gun to Jack’s head. The baby began to wake up, each gurgle and coo breaking my heart piece by piece. I grabbed Bryan as he lunged forward. He carried me a few feet before I could dig my heels in. I tried to pull him back, knowing we had only one chance of saving Jack.
Richards had a plan he wanted to act out… maybe that would buy us enough time to get Jack away. I could throw myself in front of him or…
A scream upstairs. A stampede of feet thundered across the ceiling. Richards tilted his head to the noise with an expression of glee. More screams and the unmistakable smell of smoke.
“Is that…” I started, looking at Bryan in confusion. “I think there’s a fire.”
“Don’t worry,” he said with a creepy smile. “I’ll make sure you watch your son die before we all burn to death.”
Nothing in the world would’ve been able to hold Bryan back that time. He pulled free from my grasp and took two steps before Richards shot him.
The gunshot was louder, heavy with implication. The shout was genuine this time, my voice hollow in my own skull as I fell to the ground where Bryan lay in a heap. “Bryan! Bryan!” I screamed. His groan was music to my ears because it meant he was at least still alive. Feeling all over his body, it was only by the dim light of my forgotten flashlight I saw the wound in his leg.
Bryan’s head was closest to the door and Richards, having fallen forward when the bullet hit his calf. He groaned a little as he struggled to stir but fell back with a thud.
“Little pussy passed out from the pain,” Richards sneered. “Doesn’t matter. He wasn’t supposed to be alive now anyway.” He pointed the gun at his skull, aiming to finish the job. I slid between them, guarding Bryan with my body.
Jack was screaming in his arms now, fighting to get away from the strange man. My mind went blank. My whole world in the hands of this sick bastard and all I could say was, “Mr. Richards! Didn’t Noah tell you about the two of us?”
Richards’ crazy eyes darted back and forth between Bryan, who was unconscious on the floor, and me. I tried to shield him as best as I could while pulling Richards’ attention. The room filled with a hazy, choking smoke and the screams upstairs grew louder. I knew I had to think of something fast. In the past, I relied on my looks and figure to get what I wanted from most men, but I was smarter now. I’d developed other forms of manipulation, though I didn’t use them often anymore.
“He told me you were trouble,” he spat back. I tried not to notice his grip tighten on the gun.
“No, I mean,” I paused and made a dramatic look towards Bryan. I summoned every little bit of my acting skills. You’re making me talk about this in front of my husband. “Noah and I were together,” I said with meaning.
I crept along, holding his gaze while I inched my way up to standing. “We were so close. I mean, he was so charismatic, I didn’t stand a chance.” I forced myself to chuckle and it sounded as inauthentic as you might imagine.
“He hated you.”
“At first, yes.” I gestured casually, turning and slowly stepping to my left. “But hate is so close to affection.” I knew I had to keep talking, keep his mind off the situation at hand. If I could take him mentally back a few years ago to when I’d first met his son, it might buy me enough time to think of something clever. “But our affair started shortly after I moved to Tellure Hollow. It was an instant connection.”
“He would’ve told me.” He shook his head and shifted on his feet. “He was with that Asian bitch.”
“Well, sir… with all due respect, we knew you had something going on with Kayla at the same time.” I chanced a look at Bryan, still motionless on the floor. I nearly cried out as I noticed the growing puddle of blood around his leg and had to force myself to look back to Richards. “She was my best friend, you’re his father. You can understand why we had to keep our relationship a secret.”
I’d taken a gamble pulling out his affair with Kayla. I’d always had my suspicions, but the flicker I saw cross his face when I mentioned it was proof enough. It gave the rest of my story the shred of validity it needed. I was in the opposite corner now, my hand resting on the shared wall beside us.
“I’m not going to lie and say I loved Noah,” I said slowly with a bat of my eyes. Demure, shy. Mr. Richards, you’re making me reveal so much! “We didn’t know each other long enough for that. But he was very special to me. I would’ve never hurt him, sir.”
He squinted at me, trying to decipher the truth. “You’re lying. You’re…” He shifted the muzzle of the gun so it rested right on Jack’s chest. He was squirming now, face wet with tears but otherwise silent. He’d spotted Mommy and didn’t like the strange man. When he reached out for me…
I pulled up every single sad memory I’d experienced in my lifetime to summon a tear for Noah, all the while praying it would work. “Mr. Richards, I don’t know if you know this but… I was the one who found Noah.” I forced
my voice to crack a little and pretended to feel weak at the thought. My gaze was distant as I tried to recall the details.
“I didn’t notice him at first. I’ve had to live with that for years now. Almost every night I have the same dream. I walk into the kitchen, turn to the left, and immediately spot him. I’m able to lift him up and untangle the rope from his neck and he’s alive.” I peered into Richards’ cold eyes as I repeated myself, the stomach bile just barely staying down. “In my dreams, I save him, sir.” In my dreams, it’s my hands that close off his air.
In a twisted turn of events, the smoke helped sell my mourning. With stinging eyes, it was surprisingly easy to blink out a few tears. I kept my focus on him, sliding along the wall as I drew closer. I still didn’t know how I was going to get Jack away, but I seemed to break through the guy’s insanity. That was a start.
“He was a good boy,” Richards sniffed. “Caring, smart…”
“So smart,” I nodded as I wiped my tears with the heel of my hand. Are we even talking about the same person? “Sir, I’m sorry I never reached out to you before this. I couldn’t go to the funeral because I was still in the hospital,” I lied.
He blinked slowly, his gaze going soft as he remembered back to that day. I took a brave step forward, finally closing the distance between us. I put a comforting hand on his shoulder, the arm holding the gun, but made no other move. “It rained that day. It rained so hard…” I saw Bryan twitch from the corner of my eye, giving him the tiniest of nods while rubbing Richards’ arm.
“I’m sure it was beautiful,” I whispered. My hand slipped down his arm with every stroke until I was sure I could at least grab at his elbow. The gun was still so close to Jack, I couldn’t risk a sudden move.
“The water… it poured down the sides of the grave. I remember being afraid that he’d drown down there. He nearly drowned when he was a boy, you know.”