Into The Fire jb-4

by David Wiltse

  Aural gasped at the unforgiving nature of the traumatized skin. I'll look like that, she realized, and tears of sorrow welled up in her eyes.

  But there was no self-pity in Swann's face as he pushed forth the other foot to be examined and admired. He looked proud, even smug.

  "Your mother?" Aural asked.

  "Mother was a Christian," Swann said approvingly. As if she had given her son her own version of the stigmata to prove it.

  "I can make it better," she said.

  "Can you?"

  "I can make it all better," she said. She extended her fingers towards his legs, and then up, towards his head, to indicate his heart, his mind, his past, his memories. "I can heal your very soul."

  "God be praised," he said.

  "Help me up," she said. He looked at her dully. "On my feet," she said.

  "I can't do it sitting down."

  Swann extended a hand and helped her stand, then delicately traced his finger down her chest to a point just below the sternum, probing gently to find the point where the bone gave way to the soft tissue and muscle of the abdomen. He placed the point of the knife on the precise spot.:'You won't hurt me again, will you?" he asked.

  'I'm going to heal you," Aural said. "I am a healer; but you got to trust me.":'I trust you," he said, not moving the knife.

  'You got to have faith," she said.:'I do." 'Faith in me, not just Jesus, but faith in me."

  "I do," Swann said sincerely. "I surely do." Then his face slowly crinkled into a grin. "But I ain't stupid, neither."

  Aural raised her manacled hands. "Let us pray," she said, and her voice took on the reverentially inspiring tone of the show tent. "Sweet Jesus, dear sweet, sweet Jesus, this man is a terrible sinner, this man has the blood of his fellow human beings on his hands, this man has tortured and killed defenseless people, and he will do it again, dear Lord, he will do it again and again because there is no true repentance in his soul.

  His soul is as black as this hole in the ground, his soul is twisted and warped and unholy, Lord, he is the worst of your children, he is the lost and forsaken and most despised of all your children here on earth.

  Men have given up on him, men hate and revile him… but you love him, Lord.":'Hallelujah," said Swann.

  'You love all your children, even the worst of them, even those that crawl and slither like the reptiles are beloved in your sight, Lord, and that's a miracle in itself, that's a blessing that passes all understanding. But you know what we have forgot, sweet Jesus, you remember that even the slimiest of your children has an immortal soul, and that soul can be washed clean, that soul can be washed as clean as if it never was drenched in the blood and the fear and the agony of other human beings' painful dying. You can wash that soul clean, Lord, wash it in the blood of the Lamb until it comes out as sparkling white as snow. Praise be!"

  "Praise him!"

  "If you can wash this soul clean, sweet, compassionate, Jesus, you can do anything. And we know you can, we know you can. Take his pain, Lord, take away the hurt from his-eye and the blisters from his legs and wash away the filth from his spirit and make him like a newborn babe.

  He loves you, Jesus, he believes in you, and that's all you care about.

  He believes you are the son of god and you promised us that whosoever believeth in you will be born again in purity and joy forever."

  Aural paused to breathe deeply, preparing herself for the moment for which everything else was but a prelude.

  She could fake belief and feign the fervor, but the courage had to be real.

  She edged closer to him, lifting her hands to place them on his head. He winced at the movement, then settled, allowing her to do what he had seen her do before at the healing meeting. She put her hands high on his forehead, avoiding his stricken eye. She didn't want him to make any involuntary movements and stab her in reaction. The knife snuggled up against her abdomen as she moved to him.

  "Take the pain away," she said, her voice rising in intensity towards the incantatory peak. His breath smelled of charred rubber.

  "Take it away, sweet Jesus, and HEAL!" She pushed hard against his forehead, at the same time sliding her foot behind his heel. Swann tilted backwards, tried to shift his feet, but was caught by Aural's foot and he fell, instinctively swinging his arms out for balance. The point of the blade sliced across Aural's stomach, barely pinking the skin as it dropped away and clattered on the stone. In three hobbled steps Aural was atop the candle. She hurled it into the cavern and its light blinked out, casting them into darkness.

  She had heard his head land on the stone but knew she could not count on his being seriously injured. She was depending on confusion and the darkness. She hobbled and hopped towards the side of the cavern where the vertical wave formations offered her a hiding place. There was no time for anything else, no chance of getting as far as the tunnel. If he was injured in the fall, it was a bonus, but all she really hoped for was a chance to get to hiding before he figured out what to do. She staggered forward as quickly as she could, her hands held in front of her, aching to touch the wall. She knew the way, she had rehearsed it in her mind over and over when she could see, and she knew how long it should take her. If only she had enough time-she had to have enough time. She fell suddenly, crashing forward as her foot hit an outcropping.

  The burns on her legs raged furiously at the contact with the stone but she scrambled up again, hopping and hobbling and reaching blindly in front of her for salvation.

  She heard him moaning, heard him scrabbling around on the stone, wasting his time by feeling for the knife first. She heard the metal scrape against the rock as her own fingers found the edge of the wave shape.

  She reached around it and her hand groped into empty air.

  There was a space behind it. Aural slipped behind the sheltering rock and tried to quiet her breathing. She knew she couldn't have much more time before Swann was in control of things again.

  "Bitch," Swann yelled. "Cunt bitch."

  He pulled the lighter from his pocket, snapped it on and held it high, the knife in front of him, half expecting the crazed woman to launch herself at him.

  She was gone.

  "Cunt," he raged. "Filthy cunt bitch." Then he realized his own noises had betrayed him. If he had been quiet he might have heard where she was going, but he had been too loud, groaning and cursing. He should have gotten the lighter first but he had been afraid she would get the knife and attack him in the dark.

  Swann swung in a slow circle, holding the lighter in front of him as if it were a beacon, but it was a pointless exercise. There were too many shadows, too many areas where the light didn't reach. He would have to search for her foot by foot. And when he found her-when he found her.

  His imagination carried him no further than that. It would depend upon her. If she resisted, he would probably need to kill her right then… but he did want to finish, oh, he longed to finish her the right way, the slow way, the only way that would satisfy his demon.

  Oddly enough, his eye had stopped hurting him. Maybe she did heal him after all, he thought, no matter how deceitful her intent. He took two candles from the golf sack and lit them both, then used their flames to burn a hole in two empty cigarette packs. He inserted the base of the candles in the holes so that the wax would not drip on his hands, then began his search.

  Aural could see the light flickering and jerking off the walls with his movements, but when she looked down at herself her legs and hands were still in darkness. The nook behind the stone was deep and secure from anything but direct light. He would have to be standing behind the recess himself before he could see her. And eventually he would be, she knew that, but she would hear him coming, she would see him coming by the approach of the candle, and she would be ready. She would have surprise and she would… she realized with horror that she had forgotten her own knife. It was still tucked away in the niche by her boots, useless, lost to her. A wave of despair washed over her and it was all she could do to ke
ep from crying aloud in anguish.

  Claustrophobia clamped down on Becker and shook him.

  Uncontrollable tremors racked his body and he shivered as if he were freezing to death. His skin was cold and clammy but sweat sprang out all over it and grunts of panic burbled from his throat despite his efforts to remain quiet. He couldn't move, he could not force his body to take him either forward or back, and he squeezed his eyes closed, trying to escape the encompassing darkness of the tunnel for the safety of his mind. But his mind was no haven. He felt the walls of darkness close in ever more tightly around him, the stone seemed to be growing together, closing over him like a scar, encasing him forever in eternal blackness.

  Entombed, buried alive, but not alone, for the blackness of his crypt was peopled by the monsters of his youth. The cavern gave way to the lightless cellar where he cowered as a boy, imprisoned for transgressions more imagined than real, awaiting with dread through the interminable night and day for- the heavy, drunken tread upon the stair that would signal the beginning of his long, long punishment that ended only with his father exhausted and unable to scourge him any longer.

  Becker's ears filled with his own youthful cries and fruitless begging, his father's muttered curses and imprecations of damnation, the grunts of exertion that accompanied each swing of fist or belt or shoe; and with his mother's voice assuring him it was for his own betterment, acting as monitor to her husband's severity, never to ameliorate but only to judge and assess the limits of flesh and bone, calling all the while for Becker's repentance and self-improvement, as if a boy of five and six and seven were nothing but obstinacy and willful disobedience.

  Afterwards, the sound of his own sobs making barely audible the creaking of the cellar stairs as his parents left him alone in the darkness-the better now to contemplate his behavior-his terror of being left alone in the blackness again surmounting even the pain of his tortured body.

  Abandoned in the lightless hole while those he loved, those who professed to love him, moved about above him, not indifferent to his fate, worse, the agents of his fate, the architects of his misery.

  Becker could hear again the sounds of their footfalls over his head, their voices in normal conversation, muted by floorboards and carpet, and occasionally laughter, the cruelest sound of all. They were happy above while he cringed in terror below, waiting intern-iinably for the shaft of light at the head of the stairs that would signal his release, the light that would seem never to come, the light that would be denied him until he screamed and screamed with the horror of his abandonment only to be chastised and punished again for such impertinence.

  Eventually he learned to bear his torment in silence, listening for the weakness in others.

  He heard the voice coming from the radio, filtered and distorted by distance as his mother moved about in the kitchen, turning to music to drown out the sounds of his whimpers, perhaps. Bluffed by its passage through the walls and floors, the voice was nonetheless sweet and pure, a voice filled with love and religious serenity… and Becker returned to himself and realized that he was not in the cellar of his tormented youth and the singing voice was not from a radio. Someone living, distant but alive, was voicing the old hymn, and the sound beckoned him like a siren's song.

  Pegeen saw the light, at first not daring to believe her eyes. The tunnel passage had seemed so long that she had all but abandoned hope of ever getting out of it. Becker had vanished in the hole behind her. She had heard noises from him at times, muffled groans, and she had thought she should return to him, but then she knew that the real crisis lay ahead. Whatever Becker's torments, she knew they would not kill him; she had no such confidence about the woman who was somewhere in front of her. She heard the voice singing, incredibly singing in the blackness of the cave and shortly thereafter Pegeen saw the light, scarcely more than a pinprick at first, but it grew as she hurried towards it.

  The singing stopped and Pegeen heard a drone of voices which also ceased abruptly and then the light vanished along with the sound. Pegeen pressed forward, hearing a man's voice calling out to someone, elevated and angry. Then light again, first the flickering light of a flame, then soon something steadier. She could see she was at the end of the tunnel, that the walls gave way and opened out and she hurried even more. Just as she reached the end of the tunnel the lights went out again and the man's voice lapsed into silence.

  She paused at the end of the tunnel, not knowing what lay beyond, sensing only the hush of a crowded room that falls into quiet when a newcomer enters and all eyes shift to him.

  Swann had put on his miner's hat and switched on the lamp. He left the candles several yards apart so they would illuminate as much of the cavern as possible, then began his search in the section of the cave that served as the latrine, thinking that Aural might have gone that way since it was the only place she had been before the light went out. He scoured that area, then returned to the area lighted by the candles and scanned the walls. He noticed a peculiar pattern of wave-shaped rock formations and started towards them when he heard something and froze in his tracks. There had come a noise from the tunnel and he knew immediately that it wasn't Aural. Incredibly, someone was there. Someone was coming into the cavern.

  Swann doused his headlamp and rushed to blow out the candles. When he stood abruptly from extinguishing the second candle, the pain in his eye struck him so severely that it nearly knocked him off his feet.

  Aural heard Swann gasp with pain. He was only a few feet from her,just the other side of the protective formation that shielded her from his view. She would go straight for his eyes, she told herself. If he found her, she would strike at his injured eye with all she had and simply forget about his knife. If she ran into it, what did it matter, she would die anyway if she didn't get away from him.

  She would lunge before he realized he had found her; if he had the knife in front of him, then she would skewer herself on it, but at least she would be trying, she would be doing her best to ruin him in the process.

  His light snapped off abruptly, then the candles went out. Aural could hear him panting with pain, then she heard something else. It sounded like-she knew it couldn't be, it was a cruel trick of her imagination, but still it sounded like someone else entering the cavern… but where was the light? No one would come without light.

  Blessedly, Pegeen was able to stand. She rose to her feet, stretching her back after the long journey, trying desperately to orient herself.

  She reached her arms out to her sides and felt nothing. Nothing to either side, nothing above her. The tunnel had been horrible, but at least she knew where she was in relation to her surroundings; now she felt as if she had stepped into the emptiness of outer space. Her feet told her which way was down, but that was all she knew.

  She silently cursed Becker. He had abandoned her, sunk into himself, and she had neither light nor weapon.

  Swann knew where she was, he had heard her coming and doused the light, he had had time to prepare, he knew where the tunnel was in relation to his position, he knew what lay between it and himself. Pegeen knew nothing.

  For all she could tell, he stood within a foot of her. She felt her skin tighten at the, thought.

  Pegeen bent her knees, sinking into an athletic crouch, elbows out, hands ready. Beyond that, she didn't know what to do but wait.

  The silence of the cave seemed ominous as she strained every nerve to hear some human sound. It took several minutes for her mind and heart to quiet enough before she could make out a distant trickle of running water and, somewhere closer, an occasional drip.

  Finally, she had no choice but to act. It was why she was here.

  "Federal agent," she said. She was surprised by the strength of the echo. "Swann, you're under arrest." She hoped the threat didn't sound as foolish to Swann as it did to her.

  She heard a low sound, a moan, then silence. Pegeen moved forward, towards the sound, walking in the crouch, securing one foot before creeping forward tentatively with the
next. Her boot slipped out from under her and she fell, catching herself with her hands. He can take me anytime, she thought desperately, anytime. I could walk right onto him and never know it. When she had calmed herself, she started forward again, no longer certain after the fall if she was heading in the right direction or not. But the girl was still alive, she knew that-she had heard her groan.

  Pegeen used the girl to draw her forward.

  "You don't have any light," Swann said incredulously.

  He couldn't believe it, but hearing the woman stumble' about in the dark left him no other conclusion. They had sent a woman to catch him, and she came without light.

  He could not have asked for more.

  He heard her footsteps stop. She would be orienting herself, he thought.

  She wouldn't know how hard it was to pinpoint the source of a sound because of the echoes; she would need help. Swann smiled to himself. He would help her right onto the tip of his knife. He could hear her coming; she would never know where he was until it was too late.

  "Are you afraid of the dark?" he asked. Her steps resumed, heading in the right direction now. She moved quickly at first, then slowed as she lost her bearings.

  "Most people are afraid of what they'll find in the dark," Swann said.

  "I'm not… It's me." He tittered, then listened to the steps hurrying towards him again.

  Aural could hear Swann edging slowly towards her hiding place, moving when the woman moved. Maybe he wanted his back to a wall when the woman got to himshe didn't know, she only knew that he was coming closer. He was within a few steps now. If only Aural could move silently, if only her slightest movement wouldn't be betrayed by the clink of chains, if only she could help in some way… The woman was coming to her death;

  Aural could hear every step that brought her closer.

  Swann felt the rock of the wall with his hand and eased his back against it. He was ready now. The agent was closer, soon she would be within striking distance. He controlled his breathing, keeping it as shallow as he could.