by Hixon, Wayne
“Hey!” she called, a little more forceful this time.
The man grunted again, staggering toward them, coming into the ring of the fire’s light.
He wasn’t right.
Charlotte and Autumn seemed to observe this at the same time, both of them gasping.
It looked like he was either rotting or had been very badly beaten. Badly beaten and then maybe dragged through the mud.
“This isn’t good,” Charlotte said.
“No,” Autumn agreed.
“Get the fuck away,” Charlotte said.
Hoping it would startle him into leaving, Autumn broke the bottle off on a tree, feeling like she was ready to get into a bar fight.
“Hello,” the man managed to grunt out, raising his arm up in the air.
And then he burst into flames.
There was an audible whoosh as he expanded outward before being drawn back into the flame that had come from the inside of his body.
Charlotte screamed. Autumn jumped, grabbing hold of Charlotte’s arm.
The man collapsed into a charred heap on the ground in front of the fire. The girls surrounded him, looking down at him, still wondering what the hell was going on. Still terrified but now for completely different reasons. People did not just burst into flame. It was impossible. It didn’t happen.
Then again, people didn’t disappear.
“What’s going on, Charlotte?”
“I don’t know.” Charlotte was crying now. This was all too much for her to handle.
“What do we do?”
“What do you think we should do?”
“I don’t know.”
They looked down at what remained of the body, just a few crackling embers and, after a few moments, even that was gone. Now there was just a pile of ashes that could have been left over from any fire.
“Do we call someone? The police?” Autumn asked.
“I think that’s a bad idea.”
“Okay, well then what the fuck are we supposed to do?”
Now Charlotte did not look so much terrified as excited.
“Don’t you see?” she said. “This is a mystery. This is something we’re supposed to figure out. I think our lives just got a lot more interesting.”
“Well, I don’t know about you, but I think my life just got a lot scarier.”
“Certain things make sense now.”
“Oh, shit. Like what?”
“Come on. I have an idea.”
“Where are we going?”
“Have you ever heard of the Sad House?”
“Of course I’ve heard of the Sad House. But I’ve never seen the Sad House. No one has ever seen the Sad House. And they’ve never seen it because it’s just a stupid made-up myth like the Devils and everything else in this town that’s supposed to be scary. Christ, if all this shit were true, who in their right mind would live here?”
“I’m going to the Sad House. Are you going to come with me?”
“I don’t see what that has to do with any of this.”
“Maybe it doesn’t have anything to do with this but I want to see Zack. I want to ask him a few things and I think I know where to find him now.”
“Great. So, let me get this straight. Not only does he disappear but he lives in a house that doesn’t really exist? And you just came to this conclusion after seeing some guy... fucking spontaneously combust right in front of us?”
Charlotte cocked her head, as if thinking about this and said, “Yeah, I guess... if you want to put it that way. Coming with me?”
“Do I have any choice?”
“Yes. You do. You have a choice. You can go home if you want to and leave me to face all the awful creatures of the night alone,” Charlotte pouted. “Me, your bestest-estest friend.”
“You know I really hate you.”
“How else are you going to make the exploding man make any sense?”
“I don’t think any of this is going to make any more sense in the morning.”
“But we have to go just to find out, don’t we?”
“Whatever you say. I’m listening to you now, remember?”
“That’s a good choice.”
Autumn half-expected Charlotte to go through the back yard and head out to the street. She was surprised when she began going back toward the woods until she remembered the Sad House was supposed to be on the other side of the reserve, out on Barker Road, and it made just as much sense to go through the woods as it would have to circle all the way through town.
The shock of what they had just seen still lingered within them and yet it was almost outside of them. Maybe that was what shock was. Some numbing sensation to keep them distanced from what really happened. To keep it from sinking in. And that, in the end, was why Autumn followed Charlotte. She was hoping to see something that would make everything make sense. She was hoping to see something that proved the burning man didn’t exist or maybe just to prove the burning man was another hallucination on a night of hallucinations. Or maybe she even secretly hoped to see sights even worse than the burning man, just to drive that initial image out of her head. She had woken up this morning dreaming about wolves and now she was with her best friend, on the way to a most likely nonexistent haunted house after hearing her boyfriend might be a Devil. It was a strange day and she didn’t think it showed any signs of letting up.
Twenty-eight
Bones guided the body of Daniel Clock out of the reserve and back into his fancy neighborhood. It had one of those expensive signs at the entrance. An elaborate brass carving between two pillars of brick. “The Oaks,” it said. There he stumbled across the back yards, hoping he wouldn’t be seen until he came to the people who were supposed to see him. He heard Ernst (or was it Ilya, or was it both of them) whispering in his brain. They would tell him what to do once he reached those who were supposed to see him.
It was just two teenage girls sitting around a campfire, filling the night with banal chatter and Bones couldn’t see what Ilya or Ernst would possibly want with them but it wasn’t his job to question. He was only there to serve the master. If he served the master correctly then he could claim his rightful spot. He was still wondering what that spot would be. He didn’t know what they wanted him to do but it seemed like they wanted him to get rid of the body he was in.
It was a test.
It had to be.
Bones didn’t know how he was going to go about it. At first, he tried to just exit the body, imagine his spirit somewhere else, but this didn’t work.
Then he imagined destroying the body. He imagined it burning from the inside and the body swelled out, catching on fire he did not feel. And then he was outside of the body. Above the body. Looking down at it. Watching it burn.
Once outside the body, he heard the masters’ commands even more clearly. They were calling him back to them and they wanted him to enter his own body. They had it laid out and prepared for him, washed in the mysterious fire and hopefully stronger than before.
Bones soared above the twilight trees of the reserve, going back to the small valley.
Twenty-nine
By the time Zack reached the woods from the house, he was no longer invisible. He didn’t know if the three people who had seen something leave the house, saw him become more substantial again or not. Grateful for the coverage of the woods, he raced along a path, hoping the three wouldn’t see him and start after him. He doubted he would be able to outrun them.
When he heard the wolves behind him, crawling across the ground and stalking toward the edge of the woods he had just left, he knew he was safe for now. Ilya and Ernst had called the wolves. They had called them to protect him and that made him feel something like one of them.
He stopped running and slowed down, catching his breath and regaining his composure.
He had never really seen Ilya and Ernst in action. Had never seen their powers on anyone other than him and that other creep, Bones. He wanted to watch the wolves. Zack stopped and turned s
o he could look out at the wolves, careful to stay behind a large tree. He stared at the haunches of the black wolves, watching them spring into action. They went for both of the girls and for a second Zack seized up, hoping the boy would stay and try to fend them off rather than making a dash into the woods after him. Zack knew the boy had played the Devils’ game before and he wasn’t exactly sure how he would react. One of the wolves went after the girl on the left, grabbing her around the wrist and coming back into the woods.
Coming toward him.
He started to run away before stopping.
The wolf brought the girl to rest about five feet in front of him.
Was she dead?
He approached them. The girl looked up, saw him, and screamed. The wolf looked at him, looked into him, as though expecting some kind of order.
Zack knelt down beside the wolf.
“Take her deeper into the woods,” he said. “But leave her alive. Don’t hurt her any more.”
He stroked the back of the wolf, running his hands along the coarse greasy hair.
The girl’s eyes were livid, insane, darting around in their sockets.
“You have to help me!” she screamed. “You have to!”
“You are not mine to help,” Zack said, turning his back on her, disappearing deeper into the woods.
Thirty
Ilya followed Ernst up the narrow stairway leading from the lower level, the Low Church. His hand trailed out behind him and she clutched it delicately. Outside, the sun fell rapidly and they both knew what they were going to do. Her throat grew thick with the thought of it, as it did every night.
Together, they entered the ground floor of the house that could not be seen from the outside. The only thing that could be seen from the sagging windows was the milky white fog. They crossed the rooms until they reached the staircase at the back of the house. There, they ascended that staircase as well, going to the bedroom on the top floor.
This room was the same as it was two-hundred years ago. Maybe a bit more aged. The wallpaper was peeling in places. The bed sagged in its old wood frame. But the setup of the room was the same. And the feeling was the same. Ilya felt the same giddiness she had when Ernst had first taken her virginity in this room so very long ago, when they were both alive, when they were both human.
It amazed her. The human body amazed her. Even though hers had not been technically alive in so many years, it still yearned for all those things that had made her feel most alive before she had experienced her unnatural death.
A breeze blew in through the windows, bringing the sadness of late summer with it. The breeze always hinted of late summer. Even in the winter, it carried that scent, that dying heat. Ernst laid her down on the bed and her head was alive with the scent of old wood made fragrant by the humidity and the clean linen of the bed clothes.
“This might be the last time we do this here,” Ernst said.
“Tomorrow we might not even need to use our bodies,” she said. “Can you imagine what that will be like?”
He leaned over the bed and kissed her. It was a deep, loving kiss, his tongue sliding in her mouth. Together, they generated their own kind of warmth. He untied the string holding her black dress up above her breasts, sliding it down, exposing her fully. Then he removed his clothes and climbed in the bed with her.
Time became irrelevant as they moved against each other. They made heat out of coldness. They put moisture where there wasn’t any. No area of their bodies went unexplored. This was how it had always been. And while there had been nights filled with frivolities involving other men and women, those were just amusements, some exercise of the flesh that ended in death. But those were the nights and this was twilight, this was sunset, and that had always been their time. That was the time Ilya knew she had Ernst. And not just that she had him against her, filling her, but the time she knew she had his mind and something as close to love as he could come. As most people grew more tired, they grew stronger as the day birthed the night. Through everything, she often thought this was the most important time for her, Ernst holding her, inside of her. This was the time that meant everything and she didn’t really care if it took place in this house or if it took place beyond the Dark Fire, it meant the same thing. It meant that, wherever she went, she would have this other soul to look out for her and protect her.
Each of them climaxed as the sun sank below the horizon.
Ilya lay against Ernst, in the soft spot of his shoulder, smelling the same man she had smelled all these years. He absently played with her hair and stared at the ceiling.
“We shouldn’t be doing this,” he said.
“Doing what? We’ve done this every night.”
“No. Not that. We shouldn’t be simply lying here, enjoying ourselves. There is too much that needs to be done.”
“We can’t prepare any more than we already have.”
“You know there are more people out there, don’t you? People who want us gone.”
“One of them is the girl. I can sense that. My replacement. Rachel.”
“And here she is, wanting to kill you.”
“Is that irony?”
“Not sure. You think Zack’s a good one?”
“I think so.”
“You know he has someone else in mind, don’t you?”
“Yes. But I think he’ll warm to our choice.”
Ernst took in a deep breath. “She is beautiful.”
“Which one?”
“All of them. Except that shit that fucked everything up last time.”
“I thought we had him on the ropes.”
“Thought he was going crazy, didn’t he? Voices. Depression. Sacrifices right there on the television. If I had another week, his brain would be jelly.”
“We were focused on other things.”
“We’ll be able to handle him. Getting the girl will be the important thing. Getting Zack away from the other girl will be something else. What’s her name?”
“The blood on Zack’s tongue says ‘Charlotte.’”
“Think she’s dangerous?”
“Could be. But I also think she’s in love. We both know what that will do.”
“Yes,” Ernst said. “Yes we do.”
“Tonight, we will be drank to death.”
“Drained completely.”
“Maybe the boy... what’s his name?”
“Jacob.”
“Maybe he’ll come in handy when Zack tries to make Rachel drink your blood.”
“Perhaps.”
“Maybe Charlotte was meant to be the replacement.”
“No,” Ernst said. “We cannot trick the Dark Fire. It was very clear about that. It has to be Zack and Rachel. We can’t lose her again. She’s the challenge. Not everyone comes to us as easy as Zack. Everyone else has to die. They can’t know anything about what goes on here.”
Outside, the milky fog lifted, replaced with the purple of the sky. Already, even as the sound of the insects was dying off, the singing of the dead began. A sad lament that sank into the bones. Both Ilya and Ernst knew that if they looked outside, they would be able to see the dead, emerging from the ground, emerging from trees, emerging from animals—thin spirits, blue-white, nearly transparent, that almost no one else would be able to see. If needed, he knew, he could draw them to him. He could bring them to do his bidding. Those that wanted to help him would come and those that did not would stay away. Those that did not want to help him were the dead who had not yet seized upon this unique power he had to offer them—the power of a parasite. It was really only common sense. If a dead person wants to feel more alive, they must feed from the living. To be dead was to be beyond morality, beyond good and evil.
He drew Ilya closer to him, bracing himself for the night ahead and waiting for the end because he, of all people, knew that every end heralded some wild and mysterious beginning.
Thirty-one
While Jacob and Rachel were not gathered around the house to see it emerge, i
t did. More than emerge, it became a substantial thing, carved out of the air. Like watching a Polaroid develop from the slate gray background, the images became more colorful and clearer. It took only a matter of minutes once the sun disappeared from the sky. Once, where there was nothing, there now stood a house, looming over the wild grass of the valley.
“Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!” Jacob shouted. “She’s fucking nowhere. Just... gone. I don’t even... what the hell are we doing here, anyway?”
They had reached a clearing in the woods. Darkness loomed above the canopy of the trees. Already, they had looked for Rain longer than they had agreed upon.
Jacob continued. “Why does everything have to be so fucked up? You know, everything was going along okay until last night when everything was just shot to hell. Blown to pieces. We need to go back. Why don’t we just go back home? Why can’t we just go back home?”
Rachel placed a hand on his arm. “Let me take you back about twenty-four hours, Jacob. I was sleeping peacefully when somebody came through my closet to kidnap me with every intention of bringing me here because someone that lives here told him to do it. You were at your house when you saw something on the TV that caused you to smash it into little pieces and the last time we were at your ‘home’ there was a gutted dog on the floor and a rather ominous slogan written in blood on the wall. Of course, now that I think about what was written there, it seems to be more prophecy than slogan. Do you still wonder why we can’t go home?”
“No. As usual, you have placed things into a very cheery perspective.”
“Glad I could be of service.”
“We need to go back to the van. We need to see if that fucking house is there.”