He left the words to hang, leaving us to assume the worst. I stared down the barrel of the gun once again. If it were daylight, I would probably see my reflection in the cold metal.
“What are you going to do with us?” I asked him. We were totally powerless in this situation.
His voice portrayed his smile. “The same as what I did to Samantha. And maybe then you could really help her, all being in Limbo, as you called it.”
My gut twisted. Sweat began to push its way from my pores, my mouth completely dry. I understood that the gun was merely an insurance policy, an enforcement measure. Peter’s Plan A wasn’t to shoot us. But he would certainly not risk us escaping death. Not at all.
“After all,” Peter continued, “you’re the only ones who know what I did. If I deal with the three of you in the same way that I dealt with her, then who will be around to accuse me?”
Aaron’s face contorted with rage. He spat, “You can’t do this.”
But Peter pushed the gun forward. “Up against the stake.”
For a moment, I thought Aaron might refuse, might tell Peter to do his worst. I felt a shuddering in my chest. Now wasn’t the time to do anything stupid. But, after a moment’s hesitation, he joined me in backing up to the stake, our feet crunching on the kindling beneath us.
“Good,” said Peter, his face still indistinguishable. “Now, you see that cannister of petrol by your foot?”
My eyes found the petrol can, near Aaron. It was a gun-metal grey, stained with brown splodges of fuel.
“I want you to pour it over yourselves.”
Aaron looked to the petrol cannister, back to Peter. He emitted a short, raspy laugh. “Are you kidding me? You want me to pour fuel over myself?”
“No, I’m not kidding you.” Peter flexed his thumbs around the gun. “Pour it over yourself. Now!” His final word was a bark, and Aaron didn’t hesitate. He knew the alternative; it was staring him right in the face. He lifted the petrol cannister in both hands, looked into its contents. His nose wrinkled.
“Hurry up,” said Peter. He looked from side-to-side. Surveying the area, checking there were no onlookers. I prayed internally that a guard might wander down from the main site. That maybe they’d see Peter’s torch light, would come down to investigate.
Aaron lifted the petrol cannister and, after inhaling deeply, sloshed it over his head. Globules of brown caught in his hair, trickled down his face, drenched his clothing. It furrowed his cheeks, formed a sticky mass in his beard. Normally, I liked the smell of petrol. But now it smelled evil. It only made me think of Samantha. Of death.
When Peter was finally happy, he raised a hand from the gun. “Stop. Now, your friend. Pour it over him, too.”
We turned to each other. Aaron’s mouth was tight, his eyes broad with regret. “I’m sorry, Jonny.” And then I closed my eyes, as Aaron tipped the brown liquid over my head, too. It attacked my skin, clung to my eyebrows, formed pools in my ears. My mouth tasted as if someone had plugged a car exhaust into it.
It felt like an era had passed before Peter finally said, “Stop.” I spat fuel from my mouth in a horrid rasp. My eyelids flickered open, petrol sticking to my eyelashes, my eyes already sore.
After lowering the petrol cannister to the ground, Aaron spread his arms wide. “Is this what you want?” he shouted. “You want to kill three innocent people?”
“If I were you, I’d stop shouting.”
Aaron laughed, a brief, dumbfounded chuckle. “Why don’t you just turn yourself in? You really think you’re going to get away with killing the three of us?”
“Yes,” said Peter, though I swore I heard a slight quiver to his voice. “First I’ll need to burn the diary. I was foolish holding onto it for so many years. It’s in your hotel room, I presume?”
“Why the hell would I tell you that?”
Peter stepped forward. “Pass me the key.”
Aaron did hesitate this time. After all, that and the finger were the only things nailing Peter to the crime. If he took them and destroyed them, all our work would have been for nothing.
But staring into the barrel of that gun and knowing the unhinged man at the trigger was enough to force anyone to obey. Aaron pulled the hotel card from his pocket, and held it out for Peter to take. Peter reached and snapped it from his hand. My soul deflated.
“Thank you very much.”
So this was it. I had reimmersed myself in the world of spirits, only to have my life at threat for a third time. Only, on this occasion, there really was no way out.
My mind started on Mum. She would never have known that, as I left for my train, she would never see me alive again. Only my blackened, burnt corpse. I pictured her identifying my body, tears pouring down her cheeks. I pushed it away. Too painful.
Instead, I thought of Dad. How we’d been at the start of something great again, after so much time apart. Only now, it wouldn’t happen. He would return home to find his son had been killed. Bella wouldn’t get better. We had failed them. I had failed them.
Finally, I thought of Cassy. If only she’d returned my text. Maybe she’d just needed more time. Maybe my text had shocked her. Maybe that was why she hadn’t replied straight away.
But now, I would never know. I would never know if Cassy and I had truly been meant to be.
Weird what goes through your mind, when you’re about to die.
I waited for Peter to pull a lighter from his pocket. To get this whole thing over with. For the flames to lick my body, devour me in one.
But, just as I saw his leading hand leave the gun, I heard a giggle from behind me. I creased an eyebrow. Peter stopped moving his hand, a sign that he must have heard it too.
“What’s so funny?” he asked, his voice a bullet.
“Oh, nothing. It’s only ‒ I’ve just remembered that I called my friend yesterday. We talked about you, actually. I said I was going on a date with you. I never told her I was helping out these guys, but I did joke that if anything were to happen to me, she should call the police. Guess I never saw this coming, hey?”
Peter remained silent for a long moment, before saying, “Why is this funny?”
“I guess it’s funny because she was meant to be coming over for a glass of wine tonight, and when she finds me away, and I don’t answer my phone, she might well call the police.”
“Especially seeing as all your windows were left open, too,” Aaron interjected. “And we left them that way.”
“Good point. She’ll definitely get suspicious when she sees the windows left open, seeing she knows how much of a freak I am about security, being an ex-police officer and all. And I’m sure either her or the police will take a look at my laptop, right? When they see the half-drunk cup of coffee, all my notes everywhere? Unless you cleaned the study, of course?”
Peter said nothing.
“Didn’t think so. And did I mention that I left your dating profile open on my web browser? All our messages open for the world to see?”
“You bitch.” He spat the words, venom behind every syllable.
“That’s right. And when the police come knocking at your door, and you don’t have an alibi, who do you think they’ll investigate? You, of course. They’ll find my texts with Aaron on my phone records, and CCTV will put me at Aaron’s hotel in the morning. And if they check the CCTV at the restaurant we went to, I’m fairly sure that they’ll see your car driving by this morning, considering you followed me to my home. Am I right?”
Peter’s continued silence was enough to tell us that he hadn’t thought of this. That he wasn’t the criminal mastermind he thought he was.
Alicia seemed to sense that Peter was on the back foot. She sounded as if she were enjoying every second as she continued. “After all, you really think I wouldn’t leave a trail, going on a date with a creep like you? Someone who was accused of abusing women? Like on that Facebook review?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Oh, so you haven’t seen it,
huh? A girl left a review on your Facebook page saying you touched her up. You might want to check your Facebook a bit more. Glad she posted though, because otherwise I might not have been smart enough to cover myself. Guess it’ll be more evidence for the courtroom, too.”
Peter exploded, gesticulating madly with his arm. “Fine! Fine! You’ve set me up then, hey? I’m the fool, right? Well, guess what! If I’m such a fool, if I’m such a bad person for giving that bitch Samantha the justice she deserved, then why don’t I just burn myself too? Maybe I deserve it anyway, after everything I’ve done! Then we can all go to that Limbo place together! I can hang out with Samantha, ask her how she’s been this past twenty years! Doesn’t that all sound so great?”
Listening to Peter was like to listening to the yammering of a madman. I watched as he strode forward, no longer seeming to be paying much attention to his gun. For a second, I wondered if I could tackle him, try and get control of the gun. But that might put Aaron and Alicia at risk. And, as he grasped the fuel cannister with his free hand, his other at the trigger, I knew my chance was gone.
The gun still pointing at us, Peter moved backward until he’d returned to his original spot. Then, he upended the fuel cannister. Brown fluid poured over his body. For a second, it attached to the torchlight, so that the whole scene was blurred.
Once the cannister had reduced to a trickle, Peter threw it to the ground. It rolled away, closer to the lake, producing a metallic clanging sound as it went. I felt a ball of angst in my stomach, seeing Peter like this. The way he’d suddenly just broken showed how unhinged he was. Would he burn himself, though? Or was it all an act? A game?
As if to give my fear a reason, he started pointing the gun at each of us, saying, “Or, maybe I should just shoot you all now, then burn you. Shoot, then burn. That way there’s no chance for you to stop me. Yes, why didn’t I think of that before? Shoot first, then burn the evidence. Burn myself. I am the evidence after all, am I not?”
Peter moved towards us, waving the gun again. Every time I saw the black mouth of that barrel, something caught in my throat.
It was Aaron that tried to reason with him. “Peter, you do know that it doesn’t have to be like this? You could untie Alicia, let us go. You could hand yourself in. Don’t you see that you’ll be saving four lives? Four, precious lives Peter. Think about it for a moment. Do you really want to burn like Samantha? Do you really want that fate?”
Peter stepped a little further forward still. I eyed the gun. He was closer now, perhaps a few strides away. “You know, I always wondered how it must have felt for Sam, burning alive like that. I never thought I might find out.”
He came even closer still as his hand went to his pocket. He pulled out a dark, square object, which I initially couldn’t distinguish in the darkness. It was as soon as he flipped the object open, and fire emitted from it, that I knew it was a zippo lighter.
For a moment, Peter’s face was visible, illuminated by the flickering firelight. His long teeth bared, like a hyena ready to inflict death upon its prey. The tightness around his eyes, signalling his fury at having been found out by us: a paranormal investigator, a private investigator, and a kid. But, for a second, I saw something else buried in his eyes, buried deep. And it took me a second to realise that the emotion was pain. Maybe even guilt. That Peter had really meant it when he said that he was going to burn himself alive, that it wasn’t just some maniacal joke. If Peter’s life had worked out differently, then maybe he could have been with Samantha right now, maybe they could have been happy. But instead, here he was, inflicting death upon more people, lengthening the bloody, gruesome trail that had grown from his own misguided love. And maybe, deep down, he didn’t want to be that person. Not anymore.
The muscles in Peter’s hand twitched, mirroring the twitching of my heart as I stared into that flame. I pictured my body being licked by unextinguishable fire, the petrol catching and igniting my entire body. My skin crisping and melting and flaking, as the stake went up like a pyre. The sheer agony and pain that all of this would bring.
Not to mention, now, I had realised what I would be leaving behind. All this time I had been moping, depressed because I had lost Stephen. But what else did I still have? I had a wonderful mum; a stupid but well-meaning dad; a best friend who had stood beside me, who was standing beside me right now, and would do through thick and thin. Somewhere, I had an ex-girlfriend who I still loved, and I wasn’t prepared to give up on yet.
It was with all these thoughts that I looked from the flame, back to Peter’s face. From his face, to the gun hanging loosely in one arm. From the gun, to Peter’s legs, a few steps from my own.
I roared, and lunged towards Peter. All the time, keeping my gaze on his face. Watching as his expression turned from a muddy picture of anger and guilt, to a portrait of surprise and shock. He lifted the gun, though had little control of it with only one hand. Through some instinct, hidden deep in his brain, he fired it. The gun exploded in a burst of light. I was merely one step from Peter. My eyes snapped shut, the brilliant light staining my retinas.
I hit Peter as an uncoordinated mess, a sprawl of limbs. A pot of terror that I had been shot or that, even worse, either Aaron or Alicia had.
I had no time for fear, though. I hit Peter with such force and surprise that we were sailing through the air, before we thudded against the floor, Peter’s body a shock absorber beneath me. The gun skittered off beside us, clattering against the dirt as it went.
I opened my eyes, saw nothing. Peter’s torchlight was swallowed by my chest, and my eyesight was still a contortion of colour from the gun blast. That was when I remembered the other light I should see.
The zippo.
It was also then that I felt Peter’s hands moving under my stomach.
I rolled off of Peter, just as flames erupted from my t-shirt, as well as his. Peter screamed, yelled, perhaps for the first time realising what burning alive truly meant. He beat at his t-shirt with both of his gloved hands, began to roll around in the mud.
I was already doing likewise, already feeling the intense heat licking at my stomach, waiting to devour my body. I rolled around in the wet mud frantically, hoping it would cover the fire.
I heard footsteps behind me, heard Aaron shouting, “Roll, Jonny! Roll!” There was nothing he could do, of course, being covered in petrol himself. I just had to roll. Roll and roll and roll. Losing my breath. Each one becoming a desperate pant.
Meanwhile, beside me, Peter was losing his battle. The fire had spread to his shoulder, down one leg. I remembered how long he’d doused himself with the petrol. It had been far longer than me and Aaron. He must be covered in the stuff, whereas I was covered in random splodges, splodges that were ultimately saving some of my body.
Worse still, he was beginning to shout, scream in pain. Agony. I couldn’t resist a shout either, as the fire attacked my stomach. I’d never felt a pain like it. It was like someone was peeling off my skin with a knife.
“Run in the lake, Jonny!” Aaron shouted. I didn’t need a second invitation.
I rose from the ground, flames still protruding from my stomach, even if they were lesser than at first. I sprinted across the mud, before pebbles crunched beneath my feet. I dove into the lake like a dolphin, shouting as I felt the searing heat of the flames against my stomach. The water welcomed me with a slap against my front, before I was fully submerged, water in my eyes, in my nose, ears, hair.
It was like putting a hot pan into water. I heard a hiss. Couldn’t see what was happening as my eyes were scrunched.
Once the hissing had stopped, I stood, gasping for air, still feeling the intense pain around my stomach. My chest an explosion of fear. But, after blinking water from my eyes, I looked down. I was able to breathe a little. The fire had extinguished. I was alive. I was okay.
I looked back to the beach as I heard the guttural roar. When I saw him, I had to squint. Peter had become a human torch, every part of his body on fire. He was j
ust one, big flame. And to watch it only made me feel sick, made me want to vomit. Seeing him struggle, thrash against the beach. Watching him burn in the same way that Samantha had burned gave me no feeling of justice.
He stood up, perhaps some final instinct still firing in his brain. He, too, ran for the lake, not that it would do him any good. If he managed to survive this, there would be nothing left of him, I was sure. And, as if God had decided it was for the best, Peter fell to his knees when he was still some distance from the water. Fell flat against his face.
Peter was dead.
The fire, however, was not.
It raged on, making sure that Peter would be unidentifiable when all this was over.
Trudging back to the beach was like walking through molten lava. Every step was a near impossible effort. My whole body was weary, my stomach feeling like someone had taken a cheese grater to it. I didn’t want to look at it. I would probably be able to see the damage, with Peter illuminating the lake.
Instead, I looked before me, to the trees rustling, whispering in the wind, their leaves moving with distant voices in the flickering, orange light. At this lake, a long time before, witches had burned and drowned for their ‘crimes’, the innocent wrongly convicted by the guilty. And it was now, now I had been so close to death myself, that I heard them, watching over this strange place. Watching Peter burn, ready to welcome another soul into their fold.
Making it onto the beach, I saw two shapes rushing over, realised my vision was becoming fuzzy. That I’d fallen to my knees. I watched as the shapes came closer. Maybe it was the witches, come to take me too. Maybe the fire had killed me, or I’d drowned. Maybe this was what Limbo looked like, that same strange darkness that had eaten Devil’s Lake.
But when I felt that familiar hand on my shoulder, that familiar voice, asking me if I could walk, I realised that I was very much still alive. And, somewhere inside of me, I felt a tingle of hope, that I would still get to live the life I wanted to live. That I would still get the chance to be around those who mattered.
The Witch Hunt (Jonny Roberts Series Book 3) Page 18