Burntown

by Jennifer McMahon

  He shakes his head, clucks his tongue. “A terrible thing, that fire. Halloween night, it was. Hell of a trick, having Miles show up and douse the place in the gasoline.”

  Necco speaks slowly, as if trying to put the pieces together. “My father set the fire?”

  “Now you’re catching on,” he says.

  Theo looks at the gas can in the man’s hand. When he first came in, she thought she smelled smoke, but there’s no doubt about it now. It’s getting stronger. She looks up at the ceiling, spots some smoke crawling through the top of the doorframe.

  Shit. She thinks. She tries to remember the layout of the house, the doors in and out of the first floor. But if there’s only the one set of stairs, and if the fire blocks that, there’s no way out. Theo tries to reassure herself that the man with the gas can would have planned for this. He may want to scare, or even kill, everyone here, but he must have an exit plan for himself. The very fact that he’s standing here, looking perfectly calm and determined, gives Theo a strange sense of comfort. Maybe it’s all an act. Maybe he fired up a smoke bomb of some sort and came waltzing in with the gas can just to terrorize Necco, and make her tell him whatever he wants to know.

  But then again, maybe the guy is just nuts and intends to turn this whole fucked-up family reunion into a murder-suicide marshmallow roast.

  “Jesus, is that smoke?” Errol asks, turning his head and craning his neck to look at the doorway. “What have you done?”

  “Fitting, isn’t it?” the man says. “Symbolic, even. For Miles’s house to go up in flames.”

  “You’ll kill us all!” Errol says.

  “Maybe,” the man says, glancing out the door at the smoke. “But maybe not.”

  Theo turns her attention back to Errol, but it’s too late—Necco’s brother grabs her right wrist, pushes the knife away, and bucks up, causing Theo to topple off of him. He scrambles to his feet, but Uncle Lloyd already has the gun on him. Theo stays on her knees on the floor, still clutching the knife, eyes darting between Lloyd and Errol.

  “Easy there, son. I’ll shoot if I have to. Go stand in the corner. Bring your new girlfriend with you. Oh, and no need for the knife. Let’s just leave it on the ground, right?”

  He gestures to Theo with the gun, then back to Errol, who is backing up into the corner near the closet. There’s no question in Theo’s mind now that this psycho will shoot her. She drops the knife and goes to Errol.

  “Take a seat, kids,” he orders. “Make yourselves comfortable.”

  They sit side by side on the floor, almost touching.

  “Lloyd,” Necco says. “I don’t understand. Everyone thought you died in that fire.”

  “It wasn’t my body they pulled out of the torched garage. It was a poor old bum that had no one, nowhere to go. I let him sleep in the garage when it was cold out. He was passed out drunk in the back, and your father didn’t know he was there. Just like he didn’t know my little boy, Eddy, was in the office that night playing Nintendo, stuffing himself full of Halloween candy.”

  “Eddy?” Necco says.

  Lloyd gestures to Errol. Errol looks up at Necco, watching for her reaction.

  “You?” Necco says, looking down at him. He nods.

  “Wait a sec,” Theo says. “So how’d you go from being Cousin Eddy to Brother Errol?”

  “Miles felt horrible about what happened. I almost didn’t make it out. The roof came down. That’s how I got my scar. I was blamed for the fire, sent away to a special school, but Miles and Lily got me out of there, brought me home, gave me a new name, raised me as their son.”

  “But what about your mother?” Necco asks.

  “She was fine with the arrangement,” Errol says. “She didn’t want to see me—was happy to get the occasional photo from Uncle Miles and notes saying how well I was doing. She couldn’t look me in the eye after what happened. She blamed me for the fire. Thought I was a killer.”

  “She didn’t know it was my dad who set the fire?” Necco looks at Lloyd. “And she thought you were dead?”

  Lloyd nods. “She didn’t know the truth until later, when I came back looking for my son, only to find out he was being raised by Miles, of all people.”

  “So you’re the Chicken Man,” Necco says, looking at her uncle. “That’s why my father tried to kill you. Because you killed his mother. But why?”

  “Ancient history,” Lloyd says.

  “Tell her,” Errol says. “Don’t you think she deserves to hear the whole story?” He waits a beat, sees Lloyd isn’t going to start talking, so he begins. “He was eighteen,” Errol says. “Working at Chance’s garage. Elizabeth would bring her car in all the time.”

  “She had an old car,” Necco says. “A convertible. I’ve seen pictures.”

  “It was an MG,” Errol says. “Pretty much an exact replica of the car Lloyd has now. How’s that for twisted?”

  “Shut your mouth,” Lloyd says, turning the gun on Errol. “You don’t know a damn thing.”

  “I know you killed Miles’s mother. You had an affair with a beautiful older woman, she dumped you, and you were pissed off, so you slit her throat while her son watched.”

  “I loved her!” Lloyd roars.

  “But you couldn’t have her. Then, as an extra twist in the gut, little Miles grows up and marries your sister.”

  “Maybe I wanted it that way,” Lloyd says. “Maybe I’m the one who kept sending Lily over to check on the poor new kid in the neighborhood, the one whose parents had died. I kept Miles close. He was the only piece of Elizabeth I had left.”

  “Right,” Errol says. “You loved him in your own fucked-up way. And you were all one big happy family until Miles found out the truth.”

  “How’d he find out?” Necco asks.

  “Elizabeth told him,” Lloyd says. “He’d built the machine, from Edison’s plans, and she spoke to him through it. Told him who’d killed her.”

  “I was there, in the office on that old ripped couch playing Nintendo,” Errol explains. “I heard the whole thing. I’d been out trick-or-treating, was still in my Batman costume. Uncle Miles came in, furious, crying, yelling, ‘It’s you. You’re the Chicken Man.’ I heard him order my dad to lift up his shirt so he could see his back. I always wondered about that, but now I understand. I read what happened in Uncle Miles’s book: how he shot the Chicken Man with an arrow. And that night in the garage, he was looking for the scar, final proof that the voice on the machine had told him the truth.”

  “Seriously?” Theo says. “The machine really worked. Dead people could talk through it?”

  “Yeah, it worked,” Necco says. “But the machine is gone. Errol destroyed it the day of the flood. Daddy told him to because he knew Lloyd was coming.”

  Lloyd nods. “I’d been out of the country for years, playing dead, and when I came back, I went looking for my son. That stupid cow Judith told me Miles and Lily were raising him. My son. How fucked up is that? I watched the house and waited. At last, one day, that spring, he was walking down the road, along the river. I talked to him. He told me about the invention in the workshop, that the box Miles had heard Elizabeth through was still there under a tarp.”

  Necco looks at Errol. “You’re the reason he came back. The reason he came to the house that day.”

  Errol is crying now, his body trembling. He’s crouched into a tiny ball like he’s trying to make himself disappear. “I’m sorry,” he says. “It’s all my fault. Everything that happened that day. Daddy drowning. Lloyd came back for revenge. And because he wanted that damn machine.”

  “What for?” Necco asks, turning to Lloyd. “Why do you want it so badly?”

  “So I can talk to her,” Lloyd says, voice soft and low. “Elizabeth. So I can tell her I’m sorry.”

  Necco’s eyes are filled with a fiery rage. “And are you going to tell her you’re sorry for killing Miles, Lily, and Hermes, too? I’m sure she’ll be real forgiving.” She glares at him. “Why Hermes? Why kill him and lea
ve me there, alive?”

  “I didn’t need your fucking knight in shining armor getting in my way.”

  Necco snorts disgustedly. “A lot of good it did you. You’ve got me now and I don’t have what you need.”

  “Yes, you do. This is your last chance. Don’t you see, it’s my last chance, too.” He looks desperate, pleading. A man out of options. “It’s all or nothing. You’ve left me no choice.”

  Theo sees a shadow on the hall floor through the open doorway. Is it a trick of light? Caused somehow by the flames moving ever closer? No. There is someone out there.

  The room is starting to fill with smoke. Theo looks around. If the hallway becomes impassable, the only way out is the window behind her. She’s thinking about a jump from the second story; it’s dangerous, but a few possible broken bones beats being burned alive.

  “Like I told Errol, I don’t have any plans,” Necco says.

  “Your father said you did. He told Errol they were safe with you.”

  “Well, he lied. Or maybe he got bumped on the head, too, and his memory was gone. I’ve got nothing.”

  He starts to approach, swinging the gas can as he stops in front of the old twin bed. His gun is trained on Necco. Slowly, he holds the gas can over her head.

  “Are you sure about that?” he asks.

  “I don’t have the plans. I don’t know where the plans are. Nothing you do will change that, Lloyd.” Necco’s voice is calm, rhythmic, almost a chant. “You will never get that damn machine.”

  He tips the can, she closes her eyes and mouth as the gasoline pours down over her head, soaking her wig, the blue suede jacket. She doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t scream. When the can empties, she keeps her eyes closed and says, in a low voice, “In the beginning, the Great Mother laid an egg and that egg became our world.”

  Errol jumps up from his spot against the wall on the other side of the bed, and Lloyd trains the gun on him. “Sit down!” he bellows. Errol backs against the wall, drops to a crouch.

  Lloyd tosses the empty gas can on the floor.

  “You can’t do this!” Theo screams. “She’s pregnant!”

  Lloyd pauses, looking at Necco, clearly thrown by this news. Then, he takes in a deep breath, pushes on. “One last time, Eva,” he says, voice a little less sure of itself now. “And remember you’re answering to save not just your own life, but the life of that little baby inside you. Where are the plans?”

  She doesn’t answer. Just continues her strange chanting. “Imagine it, a bright and blazing orb, spinning through space.”

  Lloyd reaches into his pocket for a lighter.

  “Fire is life,” Necco says.

  That’s when the strongman bursts into the room with a terrific roar, throwing his full weight on Lloyd, pushing him over sideways. The silver Zippo lighter falls from Lloyd’s hand, skitters across the floor. The two men struggle, wrestling, fighting for the gun, all four hands wrapped around it.

  When it looks like Mr. Marcelle is winning, pinning Lloyd to the floor, Errol charges into the fray. Lloyd thrashes his left leg out, tripping him. As Errol collapses into the two of them, knocking Mr. Marcelle off balance, Lloyd takes control, flipping Mr. Marcelle over. Someone is screaming, a high-pitched, incoherent scream, until Theo realizes it’s her and slaps a hand over her mouth.

  Errol is flat on his back on the floor at Necco’s feet, but he rights himself quickly and starts to scramble across the room on all fours, away from the fight. Theo almost shouts “Get the knife!” but manages to stop herself, because she sees that’s where he’s headed, to the spot where Theo dropped Necco’s big, beautiful knife. Lloyd finally wrests the gun out of Mr. Marcelle’s grip, brings it up over his head, and swings it down in a short, swift arc, bashing the strongman right in the temple with it. There’s a dull thunking noise. Mr. Marcelle’s eyelids flutter.

  Lloyd stands, breathing heavily. Scooping up his Zippo, he steps toward Necco, flicks the lighter, the flame glowing in his hand.

  “Last chance, kid,” he says. “Don’t make me do this.”

  She closes her eyes, face calm and peaceful. “Fire redeem me.”

  Lloyd holds the burning lighter a few inches from Necco’s face. Theo thinks: The fumes oh shit the fumes are gonna blow, I’ve got to—

  Leaping forward, Errol plunges the knife into the center of Lloyd’s back, forcing all six inches of blade in. The lighter and gun fall from his hands. Lloyd turns, looks at Errol, Edward, his son, then drops to his knees, falls forward. Says one word in a raspy whisper: “Elizabeth.”

  Then all is silent.

  “Oh, Jesus,” Theo says. “Is he dead?”

  Errol feels Lloyd’s neck, searching for a pulse for a moment. In that moment the bloodstain on Lloyd’s back seems to double in size. “Yeah, I think so,” he says. Then he turns to Necco. “You okay, Little E?”

  Her eyes are bright red, burning from the gasoline, and maybe those are tears, too? She nods. Theo runs to her, yanks off her wig and suede jacket, mindful to throw them well away from the door, away from the fire. She grabs the bedspread and uses it to try to clean the gas off Necco’s face and skin.

  Mr. Marcelle is groaning, heaving himself to his feet. Blood runs freely from his temple, dripping onto his collar. He staggers into the hall, comes back coughing. “The fire’s reached the stairway,” he says. “There’s no getting out that way.”

  There’s a banging sound from downstairs, someone knocking, pounding on the front door. Pru Small’s voice pierces through the wooden door, travels up the stairs to reach them, muffled, but frantic.

  “Theodora! Necco! Mr. Marcelle! Fire!”

  Pru

  Pru is pounding on the door.

  “Mr. Marcelle!” she screams again. She can see the flames cover the wall behind the couch, and back in the hallway. The whole kitchen is engulfed.

  She knows about fires. How quickly they spread. How deadly they can be. Fire is death to the circus. She has read about what happened down in Hartford before she was born—how the whole tent was engulfed. There is a famous picture of Emmett Kelly carrying a bucket of water to throw on the flames in full clown makeup.

  Pru slams her shoulder into the front door, putting the full force of her weight behind it, feels the rotting frame give a little. She wishes for more strength. For one of the circus elephants; Priscilla the golden queen of the elephants could knock this door down with one nudge.

  Then, she thinks of her strongman, Mr. Marcelle. If only he were out here. Mr. Marcelle, with his carefully curled mustache, his shirts straining at the shoulders from the muscles beneath. She wishes for his strength, then tries to channel her own, to concentrate on how it must feel to be so strong as she throws herself into the door once more. She thinks of her vision last night—Mr. Marcelle in a burning house. The snuff was trying to warn her.

  “Pru! Up here!” comes a cry from just above and behind her. Pru turns to see Mr. Marcelle leaning out of a second-story window.

  “Are you hurt?” she cries.

  “I’m okay, Pru. We’re all okay.”

  “You’ve got to get out!” Pru shouts up, breathless, shoulder and side aching intensely. “The fire’s spreading fast.”

  Smoke is pouring out the open window. She hears the girls coughing inside.

  “The stairs are gone!” Mr. Marcelle calls. “The window’s the only way!”

  He’s looking down at the ground, too far below to safely jump. Size and strength can’t protect anyone in a fall.

  “There’s a ladder!” Necco shouts, her head coming out the window beside Mr. Marcelle’s. “On the side of the workshop. The little shed in the yard.”

  And Pru is running, running faster than she thought she could, and she’s thinking, absurdly, of the circus. Of the comical act the clowns do with the burning building, the slapstick comedy of knocking each other down with ladders, spraying each other in the face with water, the audience roaring with laughter, but still worried for the girl clown who is trapped at t
he top of the burning tower. But they need not worry, because, at the end, she’ll jump and they’ll catch her with the net and everyone will applaud.

  No net here and no team of clowns to hold it, but Pru’s found the ladder and lifts it off the hooks. She expects it to be heavier than it is. She’s thinking of the clown act again, of working herself into it: the fat lady coming in at the end and surprising everyone with her daring rescue, with her grace amid the clowns’ klutzy antics. It’s up to the fat lady to save the day. This is what she’s thinking as she pulls on the rope to extend the ladder (she’s never done this before, but she understands how a pulley works) and gently places the ladder against the wall of the house, just below the window Necco and Theo are leaning out of, red faced and choking.

  “Come on, now,” Pru says. “I’ve got the ladder. I won’t let you fall.” She holds on firmly, has her own feet braced against the feet of the ladder, using her great weight to stabilize it.

  She thinks of her father again, swooping her up and carrying her on his shoulders, how frightened she’d get. The way he’d promise, “I’ve got you. I’ll never let you fall.”

  Necco comes first, Pru talking to her the whole way, saying, “That’s it, you’re doing great. A few more steps to go.” But really, Necco needs no reassurance: she scurries down the ladder effortlessly. The girl climbs like a monkey, like an acrobat, fearless, speedy. Theo is next, Mr. Marcelle helping her climb out the window. She moves more slowly and carefully than Necco. “Hurry now,” Pru says, “I’ve got you.” Behind her, she hears sirens in the distance. It’ll be too late by the time they get here. The whole place will be engulfed soon.

  Mr. Marcelle helps a young man through next: black jeans and shirt, blond hair, arms circled with tattoos. Is this Necco’s brother? He practically skids down the length of the ladder, leaps off gracefully.

  Last comes Fred Marcelle. Pru tightens her grip, feels the thrum of vibration he makes climbing down, so much more substantial than the smaller ones before him, feeling connected to him. “Almost there, Mr. Marcelle,” she says. When he gets to the bottom, she steps away as he finishes his descent. Then, once on solid ground, he turns to her and embraces her, kisses her on the cheek, his soft mustache brushing her damp skin.