David Hill pulled himself from Jane’s body. He walked to Mabel’s side, sparing a look for the other survivors, but when he leaned in close to his friend, his words were whisked away.
He spoke only briefly. Mr. Hill said something to make Mabel smile, and even though John could not hear the words exchanged, the expressions on their faces told him the conversation was private.
He smiled at the pleasure on Mabel’s face, but he turned away and watched the Lady.
Everybody else, too, was focused on Jane’s mutilated hand, the extent of her injuries apparent now that Mr. Hill’s influence had left. Her fingers were just nubs, healed, but gone nonetheless.
The Lady leaned down and kissed the stubs. Jane cried, but the Lady stilled her by stroking her hair. Then she pulled her own fingers off, one by one, and placed them where Jane’s fingers used to be. Jane’s hand glowed brilliant white, and suddenly the fingers were her own.
She wriggled them and looked at the Lady with awe.
The Lady said something to her, something with her mind that was just for Jane. Jane looked at John. She turned back to the Lady and nodded. Determined.
John smiled. Even the Lady was trying to look after him. But he didn’t mind. Not anymore.
The Lady spoke in the same way with Smiley and Mandy and Mabel in turn. She breathed new life into them and took their pain.
Then she pushed David Hill forward.
The ghost kissed John on the cheek.
“Thank you, son,” he said, and then whispered something else. John nodded.
The Lady took the ghost in her arms and kissed him. They faded, and then they both were gone.
*
Chapter Sixty-Three
The five companions stood on the gravel, looking at the day dawning around them. After a night of death, they should have been shaking and shivering. They should have gone insane after what they had seen. But the Lady had washed away their pain and their fear.
They were renewed.
John March looked around at his friends. He included Jane in that number. She had tried to save his wife. Of all of them, she had been alone.
Or had she?
He remembered looking at her and seeing the ghost inside. She was no longer the woman he remembered. The friendly, plain woman whom he’d known but ignored for so long was gone. She was vibrant, her eyes dancing and bright.
Mabel stood a little straighter, perhaps. She stared at the road, lost in though. What thoughts, John could not fathom.
Smiley and Mandy … strange that he thought of them together, always. Smiley was free, but chained. Would he be shunted around various care homes until he was ruined beyond repair?
John didn’t think so. But …
A thought formed in his mind. He wasn’t sure it was his own.
Smiley wouldn’t break. They had all been forged this night. Nothing could break them. Never again.
But … why take the chance?
“What do we do now?” Smiley asked. He asked them all, but he looked at John. “I don’t know … I …”
He did know.
Five companions.
He thought back to Friday morning, when this all started. The strange bequest from Mr. Hill … his father-in-law.
Five-point-two million pounds. Give or take.
John was willing to bet every last penny that it was closer to five. Damn close. He wouldn’t be surprised if it was dead on.
“I think we need to meet again. I have something that I want to discuss with you. All of you. We all need to be there.”
“Why not now?” Jane asked.
Would Mr. Fincher be in the office on a Saturday? Of course he would. For a client worth five million and change? John imagined pretty much anyone in the world would hit the office on a Saturday for that.
“I need to disappear. I can’t go,” said Smiley.
“Why ever would you want to do that, honey?” Where John was feeling his way, still careful, Mabel didn’t have to. She was an old woman. She could say whatever was on her mind.
“Don’t pretend like you don’t understand, young man,” she said to Smiley. “We’re all new. You too. What came before has passed. The Lady saw to that. Move on, Simon. Move on. Right now. No more looking back. She’s given you that. Don’t waste it. I’m here to tell you, and I’m eighty-two years old, life’s too damn short.”
“Don’t leave,” said Mandy, softly.
“I’ve got nowhere left here.”
Softly, thought Jane.
She took John’s hand in her right hand. Shocks travelled up his arm, and he jumped. He dropped her hand and stepped away as she spoke into his head without moving her lips.
He saw her. Jane. Putting her feet on a glass counter and picking up a book.
The small bell above the door rang with a kind of ‘ting-ng’ sound. She could swear the bell rang all day long. It wasn’t like they needed the money. She hardly got any reading done anymore.
She sighed, but then she smiled when she saw who was interrupting her flow.
“Hi, honey,” she said.
“Hey,” said Simon. He dumped his school bag on the counter.
“Glass, Simon. Glass.”
He kissed her cheek. Winked.
“What’s for dinner?”
John stared at her. She pinched his arm and gave him a look. Like, come on. Come on and wake all the way up, for Christ’s sake.
Was it real? Was that real?
It could be.
A new voice. An old voice. Familiar.
“Smiley,” he said. Jane was looking at him. He wanted to laugh. He couldn’t, though. Was that how you raised a child? Was that the trick? He thought maybe it was. Teach them when to laugh and when not to.
“I’ve got a … friend … He’s a solicitor. I think he’d know what to do. Set up something. Like a guardian. You know what a guardian is?”
“Yeah, I do.” Smiley fell silent. Stared off into space. Mandy took his hand and whispered to him.
He kissed her on the cheek, and she blushed.
“Is he all right? This solicitor?”
“Yes, he’s nice … hang on. Not him. Me.”
“You?”
John nodded. “If that works for you …”
Jane nudged him. The voice spoke in his head.
Shut up, now, it said.
He didn’t know if it was Jane or the Lady or David … but it didn’t sound like any of them.
It sounded like his wife.
“I guess …”
John nodded. He guessed too. It was a pretty good philosophy. He was wiser than he had been yesterday morning. Wise enough to know that guessing was far better than knowing. Wise enough to take an old man’s last words to heart.
He breathed a sigh out into the beautiful air. It was turning into a lovely day already. A new day.
“Good,” he said. “That’s good.”
It’s up to you now, honey.
He put his head back and stared up at the sky. Could he do it? Could he make them new? He looked at Jane. She looked back at him, her eyes steady.
Smiley … no, Simon, he had Mandy.
Mabel? Mabel would be around.
And him? Could he let himself start over again? Something different, a new kind of life? One where he wasn’t alone?
A siren sounded in the distance. Life, coming back. Years ago, a four-by-four with a bull bar had stopped the clock of John’s life. Now he could feel it ticking again. He wasn’t immortal.
“It’s time to start living,” Mr. Hill had whispered in his ear.
John thought it was damn good advice.
The sirens closed. The whole range of emergency vehicles seemed to be converging on their little town. There would be questions.
But he wouldn’t be there to answer them. None of them would.
“Come on,” he said.
The five of them walked back toward town. It wasn’t a day for driving.
It was a turning into a beautiful day. The k
ind you only get when a real bastard of a storm has passed. The kind of day that demanded walking. Overhead, a solitary cloud passed the sun before it blew away. Then the sky was clear.
Crisp and blue, like an old man’s eyes.
The End.
DAMNED
TO
COLD FIRE
by
Craig Saunders
To Sim,
For my tennis ball.
Abide with me; fast falls the eventide; the darkness deepens; Lord, with me abide. When other helpers fail and comforts flee, Help of the helpless, O abide with me.
Henry Francis Lyte, 1847
Part One
-
Cold Fire
1.
Frank pours petrol on himself, turning the bottle upside down and tipping it over his head. He looks like a hot man cooling down on a summer’s day, but he’s not. He’s cold, and fire is the cure.
He flicks his thumb over the wheel on his lighter. At first his thumb’s slick and slips then the flame catches and runs along his arm, up first, to his face and hair, then down, flames dripping to the grass.
The damned are all around him. He stumbles, blind now. The fire leaps from his face and arms, his legs, catching them where they reach out and grasp at him.
They burn and crackle with true fire, purifying heat.
‘I feel their fire, Sam,’ he says. I can barely hear him over the sirens and the crack of timbers exploding as the estate burns around us. He says something else, the last words I hear. It sounds like, ‘...it has an old feel.’
He’s laughing by then, as his face melts, but by then his lips are gone and the hardest thing is that finally, whirling and burning as they surround him, he smiles. I think it’s a smile. It’s hard to tell, with his face messed up and his lips shrivelled into black worms.
I cry as I watch him die, because by then I love him, a little. But then it’s not a sad sight. I think maybe he was always dead.
I turn away because the job’s not done and he gave himself, maybe saved himself, so I can finish it.
Maybe it’ll never be done, because I’m damned, too, just like the ones with the cold fire dying as they surround my friend.
I’m damned, like Frank. Like my wife and my dead daughter.
I watch the houses burn for a second, and while I watch the stranger’s there in me, watching too, and he’s a dark man, so dark sometimes I can’t see what he is doing.
The estate’s burning, the sirens are wailing. But it’s not done, not yet. Because there’s one house left. One more house that’s got to burn.
But I’m wrong. So wrong.
That was the end, or near enough it doesn’t matter to the dead.
It’s hard to pin down the start. I once thought it was three minutes past midnight when I died, or maybe my little girl, Samantha. It could have been the kettle. It could have been when the stranger returned.
But really, it begins and ends with the estate.
*
2.
The first time I see one of them, the burning ones, I’m on my way home from the hospital.
I spent nearly a month in a cold boring ward, sometime with a catheter in, sometime in a wheelchair, in rehab, in bed, dribbling like a baby over sausage and mash.
A stroke and a heart attack’ll do that to you.
It’s a story, but it’s not the story.
Let’s just say 19 stone addicts aren’t built to last.
It’s a Sunday when I get out. My wife, Helen, wheels me out of the ward. She says thanks to the nurses, to the porters, to the cleaner. She’s over the moon. She’ll be thanking the other patients before long.
‘Come on, honey,’ I say, just to move her on. ‘Come on. Before they change their minds.’
Me and Helen are solid again, in a way we’d been before the coke and pills and beer and every other thing I could get my hands on shy of sticking a needle in my arm.
I think if I’d gone down that road there really wouldn’t have been any second chances.
We’re solid, but not all the way. Like a wooden house, sturdy enough, but built on mud or sand. A heavy rain and it’ll slide. It still felt like that in the early days, just after I died.
The nurse on the desk smiles at me as Helen thanks every damn one in the hospital. I’d wink at the nurse, but I’m pre-winked at the moment, what with a droopy eyelid from a stroke. I settle for what’s probably a disquieting grin.
After a stroke, crazy blind eye and my whole right side fucked, I’m well aware I’m no catch.
The nurse gives us a little wave as the door to the ward closes behind us. I don’t say anything more. I’ve said all the thanks I need to say. At least I think I have.
We go down two floors in a glass elevator. I haven’t been in this one before. Usually, on the way to see Seetha, my physio, I go in a dull metal elevator with walls that look something like brushed steel.
I’m tired already and I just want to get home, but Helen needs the toilet. Maybe it’s the excitement getting to her. You know, having your crippled husband come home. Maybe some people get excited about things like that. I’m not too happy about it but I’m not complaining. Helen’s giving me a second chance I’m sure I don’t deserve.
Helen goes into the toilet and leaves me in my chair.
We’re on the ground floor. I look up at one of the signs that let people know they’re in the wrong place entirely for what they’re looking for. It says ‘Chapel’. There’s no hint of any kind of denomination.
I wonder if I’m done here, done with the hospital, the rehab, done with Seetha. I wonder for a while, just sitting there like a cripple in my chair. It’s not like I’ve got anything better to do than watch the people go by with my one good eye, my one dead one.
Apparently I’m lucky. Don’t feel so lucky when I walk into a half open door in the dead of night. Still, it’s better than being dead.
People look at me as I sit there in my chair. Some people do that look; the look away, look back sideways thing. It doesn’t matter to me. I don’t care if people stare at me all day, because there’s probably only three or four a day rude or curious enough to do it, and on average I only see half of them.
I sit there, wondering. It’s good, all the wondering I’m doing. It’s keeping me busy. Helen’s still gone. Must be long times.
I kind of feel I should stop at the chapel but at the same time like I don’t care either way. I’m not really religious. I used to be a Catholic, as far as I was ever anything. I’m pretty shaky on religion as a whole. But maybe I should stop off and say thanks. Thank someone. I’m not sure who I should thank. I’ve got this vague feeling I should offer up a prayer to whatever deity resides in there, but then I figure a chapel in a hospital is more like a telephone booth where a prayer is just a pound coin. I don’t know, though. Maybe God only takes cards these days.
Whatever. It won’t matter either way. I don’t believe in God. I believe in Helen and I believe in Seetha and the best present I ever got – a yellow tennis ball.
I used to believe in myself, but I know now I was wrong.
I can’t wheel the chair. My right hand doesn’t work. It’s as shit as my right eye. I don’t need my right eye for pretty much anything. I can manage without that. I’m royally fucked off about my hand, though.
I’m in a wheelchair, but I might as well be in a straightjacket. I’d be just as mobile.
But I do want to go into the chapel. I haven’t been in a church since my wedding day. I want to go. See if he’s there, maybe. Just say a little prayer, something simple. It doesn’t matter what. I feel I should.
I’m sitting by a big glass window, stuck, waiting for Helen. There’s a ton of glass in the hospital. It probably saves on lighting. It’s not for the view, that’s for sure.
An old guy and his wife walk toward me. You can tell they’re married. There’s something in the set of their walk. The way they mirror each other, like they’re opposite, but connected, too.
> I catch the old guy’s eye. Give him a little nod of my head. He takes a diversion from whatever course he was on.
‘Do you need some help?’ he says. He’s got a twinkle in his eye. His wife looks sick, but he looks spry. He’s got a good walk. His legs are bowed out so he rolls when he walks.
‘I’m sorry, but you wouldn’t wheel me into the chapel, would you?’
‘Sure,’ he says. He looks around. It’s right there, but people don’t see what’s right there. He looks at the sign, even though if he looked he’d see the door with the stained glass window. Same as me. I didn’t see the door. I saw the sign.
The stained glass is in the shape of a cross. So is the frame for the glass, I suppose.
‘Stroke?’ he says.
‘I hardly know you,’ I say.
He laughs like he’s barking.
I just smile at his laugh, a smile that’s wasted on him because he’s behind me, but it feels good to me. I’ve smiled more since being in the hospital than I did the whole time before. You think drugs’ll make you happy, but it didn’t work that way for me. I think maybe you get too deep, you forget to smile and just concentrate on getting back to the surface.
Now I’m at the surface, it’s still fresh, and I feel like I’m just gasping for air and that’s enough.
‘Sorry, son,’ he says. ‘Shit luck, init?’
‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘That’s about the sum of it.’
He wheels me in. He turns me so he can open the door with his back then he pushes me into the aisle, which is the only place the chair will fit.
‘OK?’ he says.
I don’t reply. Just nod dumbly.
He puts his hand on my shoulder. Softly, he says, ‘I wish you well, son. You’re young. You’ll bounce back.’
But I don’t reply. No…it’s more like I’m not aware of him leaving or me saying anything in reply. That’s more accurate.
Because of the woman kneeling at the front of the chapel in front of a brass figure of Christ on the cross.
RAIN/Damned to Cold Fire (Two Supernatural Horror Novels): A RED LINE Horror Double: Supernatural Page 21