Amelia nodded, and her ghostly superimposed face looked at Ruth with infinite regret in her eyes.
‘“They’re looking for me. I used to live in this house once. My husband, and me, and our young son Paul.”’
‘Who are you?’ asked Martin. ‘What’s your name?’
‘“Jennifer Steadman. The late Jennifer Steadman.”’
‘Why are they coming here, these people? Why are they looking for you?’
‘“Because of what I did,”’ said Amelia, in the same soft voice. ‘“One day my husband Peter found out that I had been having an affair with his brother Greg. I told him it had been over for more than a year but he still couldn’t forgive me, and he beat up on me so bad he broke my fingers. I took Paul with me and I got into my truck and I left. I was drunk. I was angry. I was in pain. I didn’t know where I was going.”’
Ruth wanted to hold Amelia’s hand, but she knew that if she took her fingertips away from her forehead, the Liébault circle would be broken.
‘What happened?’ she asked.
‘“There was a pile-up on Route Thirty-five. Some girl had jumped off the overpass and three or four cars had all collided. I wasn’t looking where I was going and I drove straight into them. My truck caught fire. My door was wedged tight, and Paul’s seat-belt was jammed. All we could do was sit next to each other and scream.”’
‘My God,’ said Ruth. ‘That sounds like the accident that Doctor Beech was telling us about.’
‘“We’ve been burning ever since,”’ said Amelia, although her words were fuzzier now, like a badly-tuned radio. ‘“Paul and me, we’ve been sitting in those seats together for day after day, week after week, month after month, burning. It has to end, please. You have to let us go.”’
The rippling mask of light that covered Amelia’s face now faded away, and Ruth was sure that she could feel Jennifer Steadman’s spirit slip past her, only a few inches away, the faintest warm current in the air. Amelia opened her eyes wide and looked at Ruth and then at Martin and said, ‘What?’
At that instant, however, they heard tornado sirens wailing, all across the city.
Ruth immediately broke the circle and stood up and went to the window. ‘What the hell is going on? This isn’t tornado season.’
Martin and Amelia came up behind her, and Amelia put her arm around Ruth’s waist and hugged her tight. Off to the east, toward the center of Kokomo, Ruth could see an orange glow in the sky. A few seconds later, she saw flames leaping up – flames that must have been at least a hundred feet high. The tornado sirens continued to wail, and then she heard fire trucks honking and warbling, and police squad cars scribbling, and the panicky whoop-whoop-whoop of paramedics.
‘It looks like the whole goddamned city’s on fire,’ said Martin. He didn’t even say ‘excuse my French’.
‘They’ve come through,’ said Amelia. ‘They’ve come through and they’re coming this way. Hundreds of them.’
Even as they watched, the flames rose higher and higher into the sky, waving in the wind like gigantic banners of fire. It looked to Ruth as if a fifty-block area in the center of the city was burning, including Main Street and Union Street and City Hall. A thick column of smoke was rising up into the darkness, infested with orange sparks.
As they watched, they saw what looked like people carrying torches, walking along the road toward them. It was only when they came nearer that Ruth realized what they were: not people carrying torches, but people who were burning. These were the same people who had appeared to them as a vision in Doctor Beech’s clinic, but now they were no longer a vision. They were real, and they had returned from hell, and they were all on fire.
‘Jesus,’ she said. ‘Hell pays us a house call.’
There must have been over 200 of them, probably more. Men with their clothes on fire, their faces reddened, their eyelids burned off. Women with flames instead of hair. Children charred by electrical fires or blinded by chemicals. They trailed cloaks of smoke behind them, and when the wind gusted across the street, clouds of fine gray ash blew up from their shoulders.
‘Martin – why have they come here?’ said Ruth. ‘What do they want with us?’
But Amelia suddenly clutched her arm and said, ‘Look! He’s arrived! This is why!’
She pointed across the driveway. Standing underneath the basswood tree was Andrew Jackson, the Creepy Kid. His face looked even paler than it had before, and his curly hair was standing up in a fright wig. His lips, however, were a bright red bow, and he was smiling.
Close behind him stood three men. They were all wearing long black coats and white papier mâché masks: one of them expressionless, one of them angry, the third one laughing hysterically.
‘What do we do now?’ asked Ruth. The street was filling up with more and more burning people. The smell of burning flesh began to blow in under the door, and Ruth covered her face with her hand. The sickening thing was that it smelled almost appetizing, like a hundred hog-roasts.
Amelia said, ‘He wants Jennifer. I know he does. He wants to take Jennifer out for a drive, on Route Thirty-five.”
‘He wants you, Ruth,’ said Martin. ‘He’s not Andrew Jackson any more, even though he’s made up of Andrew Jackson’s ashes. He’s Paul – the boy who used to live here – and he needs to punish his mother for burning him alive. You live here, you look like Jennifer. He wants a ritual re-enactment, so that he can have peace, and his mother can too.’
Ruth stood by the window, staring out at the Creepy Kid and his three older brothers. Further along the street, she saw that two houses were alight. Flames were licking out from under the eaves, and thick smoke was pouring out of their chimneys. She could hear shouting and screaming and glass breaking. Another house caught fire, and then another. The people from hell were taking their revenge, even if it was going to do them no good.
‘Mommy,’ said Amelia. ‘I’m so scared!’
‘You and me both, sweetheart,’ Ruth told her. But then she turned to Martin and said, ‘What did your Susan tell you?’
Martin frowned. ‘I don’t understand. What does that have to do with anything?’
‘Didn’t she say something about the water being churned up, and all the drowned people screaming to be saved?’
‘Yes, she did.’
‘Do you think you could talk to her again? Do you think you could talk to her now?’
‘I guess I could. But why?’
‘Couldn’t you tell her that she could come through, and that everybody who had ever drowned, they could come with her?’
‘I don’t know. Maybe. But if that happened, it would be just like a dam bursting. The eighth circle of hell, it’s like an ocean, with thousands of people drowning in it. The whole city would be flooded.’
‘Yes,’ said Ruth. ‘Exactly.’
‘I hope you realize what you’re asking me to do. Drowning isn’t any less unpleasant than burning, believe me.’
‘Let’s take that chance, shall we?’ said Ruth. ‘We can swim, can’t we? But none of us are fireproof.’
‘I’ll need to fill up the bathtub,’ said Martin.
‘Then fill it up! We don’t have very much time.’
Martin ran upstairs. Outside the window, flaming embers were drifting across the driveway, and some of the branches of the basswood tree had already caught alight. It wouldn’t be long before the roof caught fire, and they would be trapped.
Amelia said, ‘They’re outside! They’re standing in the porch! Oh, Mommy, they’re right outside!’
As soon as she had said it, there was a thunderous knocking on the door.
‘Open up, Ruth!’ shouted a hoarse, catarrhal voice. ‘Come on, Ruth, baby, don’t keep us waiting! You know what we want! We want your body, baby! And this young boy here, he wants your soul!’
Amelia’s eyes were wide with terror. ‘What shall we do?’ she whispered. ‘What shall we do?’
Ruth said, ‘You go upstairs, see how Martin’s getting on. Go
on, there’s a good girl.’
‘I don’t want to! I want to stay with you!’
‘Ammy – do as you’re told! Just this once! Please!’
Amelia gave Ruth a hug, and then she reluctantly climbed up the stairs. When she reached the landing, she turned around and said, ‘Don’t let them hurt you, Mommy! Please don’t let them hurt you!’
Ruth blew Amelia a kiss with the fingertips of both hands. She waited for a moment, until she was sure that she had gone through to join Martin in the bathroom. Then she went across to Craig’s desk, took the key out of the ceramic ink-pot, and unlocked the left-hand drawer. Inside, neatly wrapped in a chamois leather, was Craig’s Glock 17 semi-automatic.
Pimo Jackson hammered at the front door yet again.
‘Ruth, baby! If you don’t open up this door right this minute then me and my brothers, we’re going to bust it down! You hear me!’
Ruth unwrapped the pistol, picked up the magazine that was lying next to it, and loaded it. Then she took off the safety catches and approached the front door, carrying it in both hands.
‘This is your very last chance, Ruth, baby! We’re going to be coming in there whether you like it or not, and we’re going to give you the time of your life, believe you me! The time of your life!’
‘Don’t panic, Pimo!’ Ruth called out. ‘I’m coming!’
‘You will be, baby, you will be!’
Ruth reached out with her left hand and unlatched the front door. She opened it just a few inches and the wind whirled in, smelling of smoke.
There was a long pause, and then Pimo cautiously pushed the door wide open. He was standing on the Welcome doormat in his white laughing mask, with Freddie on his left and Karlo on his right, one expressionless and one angry.
Ruth said nothing at all, but raised the Glock two-handed and pointed it directly at Pimo’s mask.
‘Hallo, Pimo,’ she said. ‘What are you laughing about?’
‘Hey, Ruth, you wouldn’t,’ said Pimo, and he started to cough. ‘That would be manslaughter, at the very least.’
‘Not really,’ Ruth retorted. ‘Manslaughter is when you kill a human being.’
She squeezed the trigger. There was a deafening bang and Pimo flew backward and landed in the middle of the porch with a thump. Ruth had blown his laughing mask apart, and it lay in two empty pieces on either side of his head. Underneath, his face was a patchwork quilt of beige skin transplants, with a lumpy nose fashioned out of fat from his buttocks and a dragged-down mouth.
Freddie stumbled toward the open door, and Ruth glimpsed a knife flash. She took one step back and shot him between the eyes. He spun around and tumbled down the steps, all arms and legs.
Karlo was already running back down the driveway. The Creepy Kid was still standing under the basswood tree, pale-faced, motionless, watching him. Ruth took a shallow breath, held it, and shot Karlo in the head. There was nothing more than a small nine-millimeter hole in the back of his mask, but his brains came blasting out of his eyeholes like a cartoon character. He fell forward, twitched, and then lay still.
Ruth stood in the open doorway. Almost every house in the street was burning now, and the road was crowded with smoldering people. In the distance, the tornado sirens were still groaning, but there was no sound of fire trucks or police cars.
Smoke blew across the driveway and Ruth realized that it was coming from her own roof.
The Creepy Kid walked toward her. He was smiling.
‘What have you done, Jennifer?’ he piped up. ‘You were supposed to be taking care of me, weren’t you? You’ll have to pay the price for that, believe me.’
‘I thought you loved me. My daughter thinks you love me. My daughter thinks you love both of us.’
‘I do, Jennifer. I surely do. I wouldn’t hurt you, not for the world. Not my sister, neither. I want you to take care of me. I need taking care of, like you never did before. But first you have to pay the price.’
‘You don’t want me, do you? You don’t want my daughter, either. All you want is our souls.’
‘Oh come on, Jennifer. Don’t let’s go splittin’ cows’ hairs.’
Ruth said, ‘I’m not Jennifer. But I know who you are. More to the point, I know who you’re not. You’re not a real boy. You’re not Andie or Billy or Paul or any of those kids. They’re all dead. And you – what are you? Who knows. Nothing but a greedy spirit, who wants as many human souls as he can gather together.’
The Creepy Kid said, ‘You don’t know nothin’ about heaven, Jennifer, and you know even less about hell.’
‘I think I’d prefer to leave it that way, until I get there. Now why don’t you take all of these poor souls back to where they came from?’
The Creepy Kid turned around and looked at the burned and burning people in the street. By now, the smoke was choking, and all the trees were on fire, like rows of chandeliers. The Creepy Kid said, ‘Don’t think they’ll really want to, to tell you the truth. All they got to look forward to is pain and suff’rin’. Would you go?’
He climbed the steps and stood in the porch.
‘What do you want?’ Ruth demanded. ‘Whatever it is you came for, you’re not getting it.’
‘Jennifer, you shouldn’t say things like that. You should take care of me!’
Ruth slammed the door in his face, locked it and bolted it and slid back the safety-chain.
‘Jennifer!’ called out the Creepy Kid. ‘What you do that for?’
Ruth ignored him and ran upstairs. Martin and Amelia were in the bathroom, both of them kneeling by the bathtub, which was filled to the brim with cold water. Martin had both of his arms in the water, up to his elbows.
‘You’ll have to hurry,’ said Ruth. ‘The Creepy Kid’s right outside, but I doubt if he’ll stay there for long. Apart from that, I think the house is on fire.’
‘She’s here already,’ said Martin. He had tears in his eyes. ‘She’s here, I can feel her.’
Ruth knelt down by the bathtub, too. She looked into the water, and there, barely visible, she saw a dark-haired young woman lying under the surface. The woman was almost completely transparent, but Ruth could see her brown eyes, and her lips, and the faintest rose-petal smudge of her nipples.
‘Susan,’ said Martin. ‘I’ve told her that she can come through, and that everybody else in the eighth circle of hell can come through. I don’t know if they will. I don’t know if they can, even. But I’ve tried my best.’
He leaned over the bathtub and touched his lips to the surface of the water. Susan’s glassy face rose up to meet his, and to kiss him. Then, without warning, the water started to churn and splash, as if it were boiling. Martin sat back, and then pulled out the plug.
‘Do you think it’s going to work?’ asked Ruth.
Martin shrugged. ‘I have absolutely no idea.’ He stood up, and watched the last swirl of water disappear down the waste pipe.
Amelia stood up, too. ‘I know it’s going to work! I can hear them already! The drowning people. They’re coming through, too.’
Ruth walked along the landing to the top of the stairs, with Amelia and Martin close behind her. The front door was wide open, and the Creepy Kid was standing at the bottom of the stairs looking up at her.
‘Jennifer, that wasn’t very nice, shutting the door on me like that. I thought you wanted things back the way they were, when we were happy. Before you went with Greg, and all those other men.’
He took a step up toward her, and then another one. For some reason, he looked larger than he had before, and he seemed to grow with every step upward.
Ruth lifted the Glock and pointed it at him. ‘Don’t you come up any further. I’ll blow your head off.’
The Creepy Kid gave her an absurd falsetto titter, like a girl, and pressed two fingertips to his lips. ‘You’re going to blow my head off? You don’t think I’m real, do you, so how could you do that? I’m nothing but ashes, Jennifer! Ashes and memories! Ashes and pain! You can’t blow the he
ad off ashes!’
He took another step upward, and then another.
‘Shoot him,’ said Martin. ‘Shoot the little bastard.’
‘Go on, then!’ said the Creepy Kid. ‘Shoot the little bastard! I dare you!’
Now he was more than halfway up the stairs. Ruth had a terrible feeling that shooting him would be the worst mistake of her life; he wasn’t a real boy, she was sure of that, but what was he?
‘Shoot him!’ Martin shouted at her.
She fired. The instant she did so, the Creepy Kid burst into flames – flames so hot that Ruth had to back away from the top of the stairs, her arm lifted to protect her face.
‘Mommy!’ screamed Amelia.
All three of them retreated along the landing as the blazing boy trudged slowly up the stairs. He was gripping the banister rail with his right hand, and every time he touched it, the varnish blistered. On his left side, the pale pink-and-green wallpaper was scorched brown, and beneath his feet, the stair-carpet was burned with black footprints.
He reached the top of the stairs, and by now the flames that poured out of him were roaring so loudly that Ruth couldn’t hear what Martin was shouting at her.
He reached across and lifted her gun hand, and it was only then that she realized that he wanted her to shoot the Creepy Kid again. She fired, right into the center of the flames. She saw a momentary flare, but that was all. The Creepy Kid kept on shuffling toward them, and with every step he grew hotter and brighter, until he was incandescent.
Ruth tried to push Amelia into her bedroom, but as she did so she heard a sharp barking sound. She stopped where she was, thinking, no, it can’t be. But when she turned around she saw a bundle of fire racing up the stairs, and when it reached the landing she could see what it was: Tyson, on fire. His eyes were scarlet and there were flames pouring out of his mouth – a hound from hell – but she could see clearly that it was Tyson. He barked again, and then again, and then he launched himself at the Creepy Kid as if he had been shot out a catapult.
There was a dazzling explosion of fire. The Creepy Kid toppled over the banister-rails with Tyson on top of him, and they both landed in the hallway like a napalm bomb, with shock-waves of flame rolling out across the floor and up the walls. Ruth rushed over to the banister and looked down, and there lay the both of them, blazing furiously.
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