by A. E. Rought
My hair slides forward when I nod, and let him slip the ring onto my left hand. Lost so long in the shadows of loss, only to be shoved headlong into unnatural horror and heartache, I can’t turn him away. He’s a kindred soul. Broken, remade, and my perfect match.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
The oven timer dings, signaling my Thanksgiving dinner-for-one is done. I grab a towel, fold it in half and plop Mom’s special turkey pot-pie on it. The single-serve casserole dish heaped with a pie crust, turkey and vegetables in gravy, topped with piped garlic mashed potatoes. A homey, humble dish, and with all the stress lately, it’s all I want.
I cradle the hot dish in the towel and carry it through the quiet house. Mom apologized a hundred times for leaving me home alone—I reminded her one hundred and one times that it was my choice.
I hardly know who I am anymore. I’m in no mood for a flashy party filled with loud people. Last year, Daniel and I had eaten dinner with his family. What are they doing this year? I can’t imagine a holiday meal with ashes in an urn one room away. And Alex? How can he eat a meal with the monster who murdered to make his son live again? What kind of a holiday can he have knowing Daniel will never have another because of him?
For a few minutes I stand and watch the snow falling, heavy and wet, casting the world into melancholy tones of icy blue. The newscasters had been breaking into my holiday programming to report closings and delays. And the white stuff keeps falling.
The snow softens the world’s edges, buries its sins under a powdery blanket. Too bad it can’t work the same with life.
Renfield curls next to me on the sofa. His eyes track my spoon. Up and down. He makes a sound somewhere between a purr and a meow. Up and down. Heat throbs in my fingertips, and the pearl ring shimmers in the light when I pluck a piece of white meat from the casserole dish for him and blow it off. Then the cat has the nerve to glare at it like it’s not an acceptable offering before he begrudgingly takes it.
“You’re a wonderful dinner companion,” I tell him.
He yawns, flashing all his teeth, stretches, then pads a circle and lays down again.
With dinner done, I check the weather channel. Beneath the ticker constantly scrolling with closings, another announcement runs, saying the main highways are now closed to all traffic. The full list of roads includes the two main roads my parents need to come back home. The excited weatherman claims it’s the biggest significant November snowfall in recent West Michigan history.
Minutes later, the shrill ring of the house phone stabs into the relative calm.
“Emma,” Dad says after I answer. “We’re snowed in and your mother’s having a fit. We’re trying to find a way home to you.”
“Don’t worry about me.” I pace to the front door and lock it. “I’ll batten down the hatches, hunker down, and all those other weather-the-storm sayings. You guys just stay where you’re safe.”
“Safe and trapped with your mother aren’t necessarily the same thing.” A muffled thump broadcasts clearly over the phone connection—Mom whacking him with her purse, most likely. He covers the mouthpiece and I can still hear him arguing with her. “Your mom said we’ll keep our ears open and come home if we can.”
“No rush. Renfield will keep me company.”
“Okay, Arlene, I’ll tell her,” Dad snaps. “Mother says don’t burn any candles and make sure the Emergency Pack is loaded.”
“Fine. If she’ll stop nagging you.”
“Not sure that will ever happen. See you soon, Emma.”
“Love you, Dad.”
After hanging up the phone, I pull the Holy Grail of Preparedness from the closet. A military surplus backpack Mom keeps loaded with whatever the TV says to: blanket, medicines, dried food, cat food (on my insistence), water bottles, flashlight and batteries. I stuff a couple of granola bars into the front pouch, and then leave it on the counter. It’ll make her feel good to see it when she comes home, and maybe save me some lectures.
With the pack checked and a long night ahead of me, I put Alex’s Dracula DVD in, pile pillows in the sofa corner, then get comfy. Between my stomach full of food, a warm cozy corner and familiar movie, I doze off before Vlad and Mina ever meet.
Around 10pm, I wake up to a dark, empty house, the windows full of the weird directionless light of a blizzard. The DVD player shut itself off, and the TV’s talking to itself. One click on the remote shuts it off, then I pad around the house and turn lights off, too. The cat races me up the stairs, where I skip the shower and head directly to my bedroom. I pull on warm flannel pajama pants, followed by Alex’s hoodie first, then Daniel’s. It makes me feel closer to both of them, and on a very sensible level, my room is the coldest in the house.
I might’ve convinced my dad I was fine, but being alone in this drafty old Victorian with a blizzard raging outside scares me. It’s easy for the awful things I’ve seen to come flooding back. Is the doe freezing? Are reanimated animals affected by the cold? Every creak or house groan sends chills skittering up my spine.
Renfield needles me with a frosty glare when I displace him from my pillows. Tail up and butt at me, he paces around the end of my bed before coiling his sinuous body into a knot by my chest.
Blankets shift away from my face when I loop an arm around my cat. Muttering against the cold, and wishing errantly for Alex to keep me warm, I pull up both hoods. The snow driving outside my window obliterates any moonlight through my curtains. I stare at the alien blue light until my eyes slip closed.
Sleep is elusive, teasing as I dip in and out before crashing into the black.
I awake with a violent start to a roaring heat, and the choking smell of fuel and flame. Red and yellow splash in manic flashes beneath my door. Blinking, I wipe sweat from my forehead and try to piece together the smell and the colors.
Only one thing makes any sense.
Fire.
Panic flashfloods me, seizing my lungs and squeezing my heart. Heat comes in waves through the wall by my bed. I lurch away, the cat uses my stomach as a launch pad and then runs for the shadows of my closet.
“Renfield!” I scream.
He never listens to me on a good day. Why would he listen now?
I run to the door, the colored light licking beneath the panel and hitting my toes. Throwing it open only shows me how close the flames are. Fire spews through the crack around my parent’s door and gnaws at the carpeting. I fling a look down the hall. Waves of heat and light coat the back wall. And the roar outside my bedroom is worse.
A sound pulses in the din. I can’t risk trying to hear it.
I slam my door, rip the faery quilt from my bed and cram it in the crack underneath. My heart hammers in my ears and panicky terror turns my legs to rubber. I have to get out of here, I think, get my cat and escape.
A shuddering groan rocks the house, then a boom follows. My floor buckles and heaves, and the heat builds. Sweat runs down my back, collects in the hollows of my body. Pale icy light taunts me from the window, a hollow promise. More air will only feed the flames. The sound repeats in the din, closer.
“Renfield, you stupid cat!” I shout. “Come here!”
Bubbles erupt in the paint on my wall, growing and pulsing. Spots darken from white to brown to black and my hopes for escape sink. The fire is at my wall, chewing through to me. I grab my backpack, run into the closet and shove in whatever I can grab. The repeating noise grows closer when I drop to my knees and sob my cat’s name. I can’t lose Renfield, he’s my link to Daniel.
Every suck of air brings the taste of smoke. My lungs itch. My eyes burn.
“Renfield!” I croak, at the same time someone screams, “EMMA!”
“Here!” I cry, my voice no match for the roar. “Here!”
My bedroom door explodes inward, and the voice yells my name again.
“HERE!” I scream one last time, hand still reaching for Renfield.
A hand touches my back, grabs Daniel’s hoodie and hauls me upright. I struggle. I w
ant my cat. “Emma,” he says, “Hey.”
One word is all it takes. The fight leaves me, and I sob, “Alex!”
He wrests the backpack from my hand and drags me toward the door.
“No,” I plead. “Get my cat!”
I breathe shallow, smoke tainting the air, as he pushes me against the wall. Alex pulls off his leather jacket, flings it at the cat, then bundles the snarling beast in it. Another groan rocks the house, and I grab my backpack and fling myself at Alex, trusting him to keep us safe. Balefire winds hit me when the fire breaks through my wall. My bed plummets into the bowels of the fire devouring my house.
A wild thought rambles through my mind. Mom’s kitchen is gone.
And we’re going to be next.
Eyes burning, I blink and can hardly see as Alex jostles the growling, hissing bundled cat in one arm and guides me with the other.
Amazingly, the staircase is intact. A descent into hell. Flames have covered everything below us, only spots of flooring untouched.
“You ready?” Alex shouts.
I nod, and cling desperately to him. The cat still struggles in his leather jacket, and he hugs it to him. Then, the floor buckles and sinks underneath us. Fire and house and Alex spin in my vision and I think the struggle is lost. Until his shoulder hits my gut, and my hair hangs past my eyes. Alex’s uses a fireman’s carry to get me down the stairs, and rides the collapsing floor until it slams into the staircase midway to the first floor.
Melting carpet rushes at my face when Alex stumbles to his butt on the steps. He clutches me tighter, and by the yowling screech, Renfield, too.
Pressure threatens to dislodge everything in my stomach when Alex heaves to his feet, and hurtles to the first floor.
A massive explosion jolts through what’s left of my house and then a rain of fire begins as the upper floor disintegrates and flies at us in pieces. Loosing a crazed yell, Alex flings us at the front door. The panel gives way, dumping us out onto the porch as more of the house collapses.
Outside, the blizzard still rages. The world is an odd mix of frozen white and savage red.
Dully, I’m aware of sirens wailing in the distance. Alex lifts to his knees, drags me and leather-bound Renfield on a tumbling trek off the porch. We land in a tangle of stinking, smoky limbs. The frigid air burns my lungs, my eyes and skin. Steam rises from our bodies, obscuring the red wash of escaping taillights.
“You saved me!” I fling my arms around him, sandwiching the writhing cat between us.
“Of course I did.” He kisses my hair, then grabs a handful of snow and washes my face. His eyes are amazingly bright when he says, “I love you.”
He tips his chin closer, giving me a chance to refuse. I meet him halfway, heedless of the sirens, the emergency vehicles screaming to a stop, or the growl of a familiar engine a few houses down. All that matters is I’m alive, and I’m with Alex.
He kisses me as if he’s never kissed me, and as if he’s kissed me a thousand times and knows how to make me dizzy. I surrender, trusting him to hold me as what’s left of my life falls down in a ruin of flame.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
I stand, freezing outside and numb inside, watching the firefighters put out the remnants of the blaze that devastated my house. Snow swirls around black timbers stabbing up through the wreckage. Sooty water, thick with slush, gushes past us. It’s gone—my stuff, Mom’s pictures and kitchen, Dad’s handmade furniture. Destroyed. And I’m all cried out.
Alex’s arms circle me, he whispers promises that it will be okay.
Such an ugly lie.
Okay was home. Okay was Alex before we discovered the sins his father committed.
Okay vanished.
According to the first responders, the authorities suspect arson. First piece of evidence is where the fire started. The second is the gasoline can and book of matches found in the trash can by the remains of our garage. Someone set that fire on purpose. Someone wanted to hurt me, and my family.
“Yes, sir,” the paramedic says into his cell phone. “Your daughter’s cognizant, answering questions, and refusing treatment.” He pauses, eyes me and Alex, and the cat carrier Mrs. Wendell carried over for Renfield. “I need your permission to release her.”
A minor ruckus comes through the earpiece; Mom, I’m sure, arguing that I should go to the hospital, or they come back, despite the half dozen accidents reports I’d heard over the paramedics’ squalling radio. I can’t say ‘come home,’ because there isn’t one.
Then the paramedic nods, and says, “Yes, Mr. Gentry.”
He snaps the phone closed and says, “Okay, you’re free to go. Keep an eye on her, Mr. Franks.”
“I will,” Alex vows and pulls me closer.
After signing papers saying we refused treatment by the paramedics, Alex takes Renfield’s carrier and my backpack, and carries them to his car with me ghosting behind in his wake. Memories leap out when he pops the trunk, and I can’t help seeing the doe. He’d placed her there once. Her death has been trivialized by the atrocities Alex’s father committed to reanimate her.
It seems small with my house—my house—a smoking steaming mess.
The backpack displaces the echo of the doe’s carcass when he puts it in the trunk. Warmth rolls from the inside of the car when Alex opens the door and wedges the cat carrier in the back seat.
“Come on,” he says, and points to the passenger seat.
I sat there before, ended up at the clinic. It’s stupid to recoil, but I feel like I’m devolving to gut reactions whenever numbness isn’t a good enough buffer. “Where are we going?”
“Just trust me, okay?”
Fate leaves me with few choices: throw myself on the mercy of the paramedics and their needles and facemasks, or trust the boy whose life hurts my heart with every stolen heartbeat.
“Fine,” I mutter, slump to the seat, and burrow deeper in my sweatshirt.
The car jiggles a little when Alex climbs in behind the steering wheel and shuts the door. Renfield lets out a low growl-yowl, plainly saying he’s had enough stress for one life time and further upset, of any kind, isn’t appreciated. He’s named after a crazed man in a Gothic novel but, right now, I have to agree.
I wish my brain and mouth could come to a compromise and not make things worse.
“I should be dead right now,” I say, voice as hollow as I feel. “How’d you know to come?”
He exhales a breath, blowing the smell of smoke around the car. His knuckles whiten on the steering wheel. I think Alex is going to talk when he flicks me a quick look, but then he sputters a cuss word, clutches the steering and steers out of a skid. Drama and blizzards don’t mix.
Underneath a stoplight on the way out of town, he turns to me, face as serious as the death he cheated. “I couldn’t let my father hurt you.”
“Your father?” How can I feel stunned when I’ve been slammed so many times? “Why would he—?” I can’t even finish the question.
“We argued,” he says, white-knuckle driving through the blizzard. “He kept throwing you, and my ‘unhealthy infatuation with you’ in my face. When he stormed out, I followed. I knew he was going to do something bad.”
“Like what he does in his lab?” Now that I’ve roughed up the wound, I jab him in a tender spot.
“You saw the animals?” He lays on the horn and narrowly avoids a car sliding out of its lane.
“And I overheard your argument last weekend,” I remind him, then add, “and I’ve done some research on my own.”
“Research?”
“Internet, Alex,” I say and tighten my seat belt. “After you were hurt, a string of suspicious accidents and missing person reports hit the news. All guys. Daniel was the last one. Considering nothing as perfect as you happens by accident…”
A smile flirts with his lips before he pulls them into a frown. “You think my dad killed them all,” he finishes for me.
I nod, though I’m not sure he sees it with his defensive
winter driving skills being taxed.
“I’m not sure what he’s capable of anymore,” Alex continues, turning onto a snow-choked country highway. The world has turned to white—he must be driving on instinct now. “I always thought the animals were his way of giving me back what was broken.”
“Broken isn’t dead.” If it is, my heart would be hanging limp in my chest.
“I know.” He scrapes at the frost on the windshield, then guides the car off the road and into a seeming field of nothing. A sea of white washes in front of us. Headlights hit a stand of trees acres back and an old farm house. The house looks empty, but too well-taken care of to be abandoned, when the wheels churn to a halt in the driveway. “We’re here.”
“Where’s here?” I leave the seat belt buckled.
“The only safe place I could think of.” The car shudders a little when he puts it in Park, and then kills the engine. “My grandparents’ house.”
“Are you crazy?” My voice hits a sharp pitch. He’s feeding me to the wolves. “You brought me to your grandparents’ house?”
“No, and yes.”
Infuriatingly, Alex unhooks his seatbelt, and climbs out. Discussion over. The trunk opens, then closes and Alex appears at my door with two bags in his hand. My brain is locked on the fact that he’s driven us out into the middle of nowhere where his crazy father can come and murder me in my sleep. “That’s it,” I tell Renfield. “We’re going to die.”
The cat doesn’t respond.
I lock gazes with Alex when he opens my door. His lips curl down, mismatched eyes radiating hurt that I don’t trust him. I can’t help it; too much bad has happened. Even though he came to my rescue, his dad tried to end my life. A tickle follows his fingers across my stomach when he unhooks my seatbelt. “You’ll freeze to death out here.”
Huffing a sigh, I climb out into knee-high snow. Bone deep chill burns my bare feet and sopping wet legs. I yank up both hoods to ward off the blizzard winds. The farmhouse watches us through dead, curtain-covered windows. I take the handles of both my backpack, and a leather carry-on sized suitcase while he ducks into the back seat and coos to Renfield as he lifts the carrier out.