by A. I. Nasser
Kyle took a few deep breaths, and with as much effort as he could muster, rolled himself onto his stomach. Bracing himself, he began to drag his body towards the bedroom door. He could feel the burnt skin latching onto the floor, peeling off painfully as he edged closer and closer to his destination. The threshold to his room could not be any further, and with every inch he was able to drag himself across, the pain only intensified, bolting up and down his body, threatening to pull him into unconsciousness.
Behind him, the springs of his bed creaked, and soft footsteps made their way to him. Jennifer bent down on her knees beside him, her red dress hanging in shreds over her burned body. She rested a cold hand on the back of one thigh, and Kyle screamed.
"Stop fighting it," Jennifer said, keeping her hand in place. "Just give in. We've missed you so much."
Tears rolled down Kyle's cheeks, and for the briefest of moments, he contemplated doing just that. Part of his mind wrestled with the notion of life, trying to understand just why he was still struggling against the inevitable. His life had become nothing more than a set of routines, carefully measured blocks of instances that had little to no purpose. How many more nightmares would he have to experience before he finally realized that there was no point in fighting anymore?
"Come home," Jennifer whispered, and from the side, he could hear the door to his bathroom creak open.
Michael. You can be with Michael again.
Kyle looked up at Jennifer. She was smiling at him, nodding at him to let go, to close his eyes and slip away. They could be together again, a family forever, and isn't that just what he wanted?
Jennifer's face suddenly shifted, her features cracking for the briefest of instants before returning to their previous state. It was hardly noticeable, but Kyle had seen it clearly. He had seen the beast underneath, the beast from his dreams, wearing Jennifer's face like a mask. Panic overwhelmed him once more, and he instantly began crawling towards the bedroom door again. He ignored the pain in his legs that screamed at him in agony and frustration, his mind now fixated on one thought, and one thought only.
He had to get out.
"Honey?"
Kyle didn't answer, forcing himself to move faster despite the ache searing through him. The threshold to his room seemed to extend further away, and despite his efforts, he couldn't seem to get any closer.
"Honey, listen to me."
Kyle didn't. Instead, he pushed onto his hands and knees, crying out as he rushed forward.
"Kyle!"
Kyle threw himself forward across the remaining distance, landing heavily and painfully outside his bedroom. He could feel talons scratch at his legs in an attempt to stop him, and he rolled across the hallway until he slammed against the opposite wall and came to an abrupt stop. He looked back at his bedroom, Jennifer standing angrily at the threshold she could not cross, her hands now claws latched onto the frames of the door. Her eyes burned bright, and her face peeled back with an angry snarl that revealed rows of razor sharp teeth.
"Come back here!" she screamed at him. Her voice was deeper, more menacing, and there was no love or concern there. Her body burst into a ball of flames and her eyes widened until they were orbs of pure black. Kyle pushed as far back against the wall as he could, staying out of reach of the flames. He couldn't move, pinned down by fear, eyes wide as he gazed at the beast that had somehow found its way out of his nightmares and into the waking world.
"I'll find you, Kyle!" the beast hissed. "I'll find you no matter where you run!"
Kyle pushed away from the wall, crawling towards the living room and away from the screaming monster. He could feel the flames reaching out after him, trying to ensnare him and pull him back into the bedroom, but he was out of its reach. Kyle didn't stop until he was at his apartment door, and only then did he turn around.
The beast was gone.
Kyle's breathing came in short gasps, and his heart pounded in his chest. The throbbing in his temples and neck was incessant, like drums beating in his ears. His eyes were glued to the empty entrance of his bedroom, half expecting the beast to return in a fresh Jennifer-suit. Maybe even Michael. Anything that would mess with Kyle's head.
He waited for a few more seconds, and when nothing happened, his breathing slowed and his heart stopped trying to break through his ribcage. He closed his eyes, counted to ten, and sighed heavily when he opened them and still saw nothing.
You're safe.
Kyle scoffed, slowly pushing himself to his feet. The pain in his legs had subsided, and he realized that he was still wearing his jeans. He fought the urge to check whether or not the burns were still there, knowing that if they had been, he wouldn't be able to stand the way he was right now. He ran a hand through his hair and wiped beads of sweat from his brow, throwing a final furtive look towards his bedroom.
His cellphone began to ring. He pulled it out of his pocket, Tracey's name flashing fervently on the screen, and cancelled the call.
He was going to have to come up with an excuse as to why he wouldn't be showing up to work this morning.
***
Sheriff Jeffrey Gadge had always hated fires.
His father had been a fire fighter, and he remembered clearly how every night his mother would spend hours sitting by the window, waiting for his return. There was an unspoken notion that any day his old man left the house could very well be his last, and for eighteen years, his father had proven the fates wrong.
Three weeks before graduation, though, Jeffrey had attended his father's funeral with his distraught mother hanging on his arm. She had been too weak to stand on her own feet, her shades covering bloodshot eyes that had not stopped crying since they had gotten the news. His father died a hero, they had told him. Saved a child from a burning building.
Jeffrey remembered wishing that child had burned instead.
It wasn't a thought he was particularly proud of, but at the time it had seemed quaint enough. He had, after all, given up on his dreams of becoming a lawyer to stay behind and take care of his mother. She was never the same after his father's death, and to her dying day, Jeffrey couldn't remember a moment she had spent away from the seat by the window, staring out at the driveway, waiting for a husband who would never come home.
Now he had three burn victims down in the morgue, one of which was a child, and he could feel his stomach turning. He had always tried to steer clear of arson cases, and luckily for him, Kent wasn't prone to spontaneous fires. People here were usually careful, and two fires in one night were more than anyone could have expected. In his mind, he could still see his mother sitting by the window, and he wondered who had been made into widows by last night's fire.
A knock on his door brought his attention back to the real world, and Deputy Adrian Brimstone strolled into the office, holding a case file up and waving it at Jeffrey.
"Identification's come in," Adrian said. "We got a confirmation on Steven Lint and his son, Brian. The third victim's name was Jack Tucker. He was a senior accountant at the firm and had apparently been working late when the fire broke out."
Jeffrey sighed and nodded. He didn't know the accountant, but he had crossed paths with the Lint family on several occasions.
"Have you found Mrs. Lint?" Jeffrey asked. The memory of the night before was still clear in his head. He had been half-asleep when he got the call that had him racing out his front door to his cruiser. The Victorian was a charred skeleton of its former self by the time the fire had been dealt with, and when Jeffrey had pulled up to the curb, the gurneys were already being pushed to the ambulance. The neighbors had grouped within their own front yards, thankfully with enough common sense to have had left their own homes in case the fire had spread. Adrian had been waiting for him with updates, one of which had to do with the absence of Helen Lint.
"Nothing yet," Adrian replied. He opened his mouth, then closed it again.
"What is it?" Jeffrey asked.
"The coroner's report came in."
"And
?"
"It's …" Adrian started, then stopped, struggling with what he had to say.
"Get to it, Adrian," Jeffrey signaled to the officer impatiently.
"The report says that Steven Lint's neck was broken," Adrian explained. "And the boy's heart and lungs were punctured several times. Coroner says they were clean cuts. Probably a knife."
The churning again, and this time, Jeffrey felt bile shoot up his esophagus and burn his throat. "He thinks they were killed before the fire."
Adrian nodded. "One of the neighbors swore she saw Mrs. Lint's car in the driveway before the fire started, but no one else confirmed it."
Jeffrey leaned back in his chair and scratched his beard, his mind racing. He hadn't considered the possibility of murder, let alone a probable kidnapping as well. Why else would Helen Lint be missing?
"And it gets even weirder," Adrian continued. "The second fire, the one at the accounting firm downtown?" Jeffrey nodded. "Yeah, well, apparently Helen Lint is an employee there. I made a few calls, and Tucker's secretary told me that Helen was supposed to be working late last night."
A small ringing began in Jeffrey's ears, and he felt the onset of a faint throbbing in his temples. Even more scenarios popped up in his head, none of which were good.
"Which of the fires started first?" Jeffrey asked.
"The one downtown," Adrian replied. "At least that's what the 911 transcripts show."
Jeffrey stood up, ran a hand through his hair, and walked to the large window beside his desk. He looked out at the expanse of woodland behind the station, noting the first signs of autumn in the red and orange tint of the leaves. Usually the scenery calmed him down, but not today.
"Get an ID on Helen Lint's car and fax it out to the neighboring towns," he said.
"I already did," Adrian replied. "Do you think she could have done all this?"
Jeffrey didn't turn around, his body stoic as he stared out the window at nothing in particular. "I'm not sure," he finally replied. "But we need to find her."
***
"He's not comin', sweetheart."
Aley blinked and looked over at the cash register where Maureen was watching her with a wide smile on her face. The older woman had been watching her carefully over the past hour as Aley went about her morning ritual of stacking and organizing the shelves. Every few minutes, Aley would look towards the convenience store door, then at the clock, then back to the door before returning to her work. It took Maureen a few minutes to understand what was happening, and it was only after Aley asked about the morning papers did the older woman finally put two and two together.
To say that she was amused would be an understatement.
"What?" Aley asked.
"You've been starin' at that door for the past hour," Maureen said, returning to the receipts from the other day that she had been reviewing. "Just because you're lookin' at it doesn't mean Kyle's gonna miraculously walk in."
Aley felt the heat rapidly rise in her cheeks, and she quickly turned away to hide her embarrassment. She aimlessly reorganized the cereal boxes with shaking hands and jumped back when one of them toppled off the shelf and crashed by her feet. Maureen laughed.
"It's sweet to see how smitten you are," the older woman said between chuckles.
Aley bit her lower lip and shook her head in embarrassment. She bent down, picked up the cereal box and returned it to its place on the shelf, then unconsciously looked at the door again. She caught herself doing it this time, and her eyes quickly shifted to where Maureen was smiling and shaking her head at her.
"Okay, okay, you got me," Aley said with a smile.
"No need to go all red on me," Maureen said, opening the register and counting the money inside. "But let me give you a little advice that you can take to the bank and cash in. That man's hurtin', and badly. Get yourself involved, and that's a heartbreak waitin' t'happen."
Aley sighed and leaned against the shelving. "I bumped into him last night," she said.
"Oh?" Maureen raised an eyebrow but kept her eyes glued to the money she was counting.
"At Kinglsey's," Aley nodded. "It was an interesting couple of hours."
Maureen smiled and nodded, her fingers expertly flipping through the bills in her hands. Aley walked over to the counter and leaned across it, her eyes fixed on the door and the pedestrians outside. A slight wind had picked up, and leaves danced across the pavement before disappearing into the gutters.
"Did I ever tell you that he was the reason I got the editor's job at Pippen's?" Aley said, her voice soft, almost as if she were speaking to herself.
"Is that so?"
"Yeah," Aley smiled, remembering her first interview and how excited she had been when she got the phone call telling her that she could start on Monday. "I was one of thirty or forty applicants. They asked for an essay on why we wanted to work in editing, and Kyle was the key reason in mine. Back then he was at the top of his game, and every publisher was trying to sign him."
Maureen closed the register and turned to the cigarette stand. Aley's eyes were fixated on the line of Lucky Strikes.
"I ended up working for a woman called Caroline Bennings," she continued. "A shark of a woman. Everyone hated her, but she was excellent at what she did. It was common knowledge that if Caroline Bennings called and offered you a book deal, you were expected to jump through hoops to accommodate her. I've seen authors break contracts when they got her call."
"Sounds like a hard woman," Maureen said.
"She was," Aley replied. "Still is, actually. I always hated that about her, and had little respect for the authors who bent to her will. I said something along those lines during a lunch break once. I was naïve, I guess. I didn't think that having an opinion was frowned upon when it came to Caroline."
Maureen turned to her, folding up an empty carton then tossing it into the recycle bin by the register.
"So one day, Caroline brings me into her office. She calls Kyle and puts the call on speaker," Aley continued. "This was right after his book Tremors made number one on the New York Times bestseller list. It was his fourth number one in a row. I don't know why she did it, but I have a feeling it had something to do with how much I idolized him. It was a power game, her way of showing me that she could get whatever she wanted, that no author was beyond her reach.
Aley chuckled. "I will never forget what happened next. Kyle answers, Caroline lets him know who's calling, and gets right to the point. She offers him a ridiculous deal, something that no author in his right mind would say no to. And all the while, she's looking me right in the eye. And you know what Kyle says?"
Maureen shook her head.
"He says, 'I'm sorry, Miss Bennings, but I've already sold my soul to one devil in this lifetime', and he hangs up."
Maureen broke into laughter, and Aley laughed along with her. She could still see the look on Caroline Bennings' face after Kyle had hung up. The red cheeks, the rage in her eyes, the sound of the dial tone coming from the speaker and echoing across the silent office. Aley had a newfound respect for Kyle that day. She doubted anyone had ever embarrassed Bennings that way before, and to have a witness to it must have driven the woman insane. She had made Aley's life miserable ever since.
Maureen leaned on the counter as her laughter wound down, wiping a tear from her eye. "That sounds like somethin' Kyle would say," she remarked, shaking her head in amusement.
"You've known him for long?"
Maureen shrugged, her eyes squinting as she searched her memory for an answer. "Couldn't say, really. The Ashfelds lived down the street from us back in the day. I only really got to know him when he signed up for the Book Club at school. I ran the club, and I think he was one of a handful of the members who actually knew what he was talkin' about. Always had that look in his eyes, like he knew somethin' the rest of us didn't."
"Didn't know you had one of the greatest authors of our time in your club, huh?"
Maureen chuckled. "Oh, honey, he was a sensation eve
n before the rest of the world stumbled upon him. Writin' those stories for the school magazine and all. His mother used his stories in English class sometimes."
"She must have been proud."
"She sure was," Maureen nodded, a look of peaceful reminiscence on her face. "A real wunderkind, that one. I still remember the first day of school and the surprise we all felt when we saw him, all wrapped up in his cute blue blanket."
"Why surprised?" Aley asked with a smile.
Maureen blinked, pulled back from her brief trip down memory lane, and looked at Aley in confusion. "Sorry?"
"You said you were surprised," Aley repeated. "Why?"
"Oh, well, we never knew she was pregnant," Maureen replied. "No one did."
"Some women don't show until the last few months."
"I know that," Maureen said with a wave. "I guess it was just a little strange for us as kids, you know? I mean, it was almost as if Kyle had just popped up out of the blue."
Chapter 6
The coffee burned his tongue and left a bitter aftertaste.
Kyle set the mug down in front of him and looked about the coffee shop. In another life, during one interview or the other, he had once been asked where he got the inspiration for his characters. Kyle's answer had been simple; coffee shops. There was so much you could learn about a place from the clientele of its busiest cafés. Kyle had argued that if you could find a secluded corner where no one would bother you, and just watched, you would have enough material for hundreds of books.
Of course, the fact that the interview had been taking place in a coffee shop had prompted a small demonstration. Kyle couldn't remember the interviewer's name, but he remembered the sparkle in her eyes when he had shown her what he was talking about.
Luckily, that had been enough to quench her curiosity, and the ring on his finger had made sure that sparkle didn't lead to anything else. But, Kyle had just been happy that he didn't have to share the truth as to where his characters really came from. He doubted anyone would be comfortable if he were to tell them that most of his protagonists and antagonists were voices in his head that would not shut up until he had written their stories down.