Crucible of Fire Read online

  “I’ll do it. I can get there and get back pretty quickly.”

  Ernie squinted up at Matt. “You sure?”

  Matt held up the compass. “I can find my way.” He welcomed the chance to cut loose from the group and have a look around for Mr. Dark. The sooner he found the clown, the sooner maybe he could find a way to end this.

  “You want to watch yourself over there. Incident commander says the helicopter pilot thinks new fires are springing up down around that area.”

  Matt nodded. That was even better. The trail to Mr. Dark was getting hotter.

  “Just make sure them houses is empty. Then get on back here.”

  “Shouldn’t someone go with Matt?” Angie asked. “Nobody should be alone in this.”

  Ernie shook his head. “He’ll be fine. He won’t be gone long.”

  Matt nodded. “Those people are probably long since evacuated, but it’ll be good to know that for sure if the fire is headed that way. I’ll be fine.” He turned and started jogging, knowing that Mr. Dark was somewhere up ahead of him.

  6

  Three houses sat in a cul-de-sac deep in the forest. Two of them were dark inside, with only a couple of security lights on outside. The third one, the one at the deepest end of the cul-de-sac, had lights on inside.

  Matt glanced back at the fire. The whole time he’d been running towards the area, the wildfire had been closing in. Fire department and park services helicopters had been making bucket runs, scooping up water from Rogue River and hauling it back to fight the blaze. They were joined by the local media helicopter teams buzzing at a slightly higher altitude.

  He clambered through the fence and crossed the blacktop road. He sprinted to the first porch and banged on the door with his fist. “Hello! Anybody in there?”

  The only response was a loud bark. Maybe nobody human was home, but they’d left the dog. Frustrated by the locked door, Matt put down his chainsaw and drew his grandfather’s ax from his pack, then stepped back. He swung twice. The sharp blade bit deeply into the wood beside the locks. The door shivered and splintered.

  Stepping closer, he drove his foot into the door and it sprang open. He swiveled his head, lighting up the interior with the headlamp. A German shepherd stood revealed, crouched down in attack mode, white fangs gleaming. The proximity of the fire had traumatized the animal.

  “It’s okay.” Matt spoke soothingly but held the ax nice and easy in front of him in case he had to fend the animal off. “Just wanted to make sure you had a way out, pooch. That’s all.” He slowly backed off the porch. “Now, c’mon, boy. You don’t want to be in this house if that wildfire comes calling. At least out here you’ll have a chance.”

  The dog stopped barking and edged forward cautiously. Orange coals gleamed in its eyes, reflecting the fire.

  “C’mon, boy. C’mon outside.”

  Tentatively, the shepherd left the house and ran to the side. Its eyes rolled white with fear. The animal halted at the edge of the porch and watched Matt.

  “Get on out of here, boy.” Matt turned his attention to the second house and beat on the door. No one answered. He broke in and scouted around quickly, finding the premises empty.

  Then he heard a little girl scream in the third house. The one with the lights on.

  In the living room, Daddy didn’t seem to have heard the warning. He was still yelling at Mommy, the cords in his neck standing out, his fat, unshaved cheeks quivering because he was so mad. “Admit it! Admit that you’re sleeping with him! Just be honest!”

  “All right, I’m sleeping with him, and he’s better than you’ve ever been!”

  Howling in his mad voice, Daddy threw himself at Mommy, his hands reaching for her neck. Mommy got a two-handed grip on the poker and swung. The iron bar smacked Daddy in the side of the head and left a dent. He stopped and fell down, eyes staring blankly at the ceiling.

  Penny stifled a scream.

  Beside her, the clown was laughing. She’d never before been scared of clowns, but she was afraid of this one.

  Mommy dropped the poker on the floor and walked over to the liquor cabinet. She kept wine there. Daddy kept his beer in the fridge. Mommy poured herself a glass.

  “You don’t appreciate me, Howard. You never did. You don’t even want to know what I have to do to keep this crummy job so we can have a roof over our heads.”

  In front of the fireplace, blood dripped from Daddy’s broken head.

  Daddy’s dead. Penny knew that was the truth, but she didn’t feel sad or anything. Like she was supposed to. In cartoons, when somebody died, everybody else felt really sad. Penny didn’t. She felt the same way she did when Sylvester the Cat kept dying in that Looney Tunes cartoon, watching each one of his nine lives grow angel wings and fly away.

  Daddy didn’t grow angel wings.

  But he did blink a couple of times. Then he stood up stiffly, looked around for Mommy, and walked over to her while she stood there pouring herself another glass of wine and talking in her mad voice.

  “I tell you, until I got this job, I thought you were sick and perverted, Howard. But this guy? This guy has read Fifty Shades of Grey. Just the sex parts, though, because there’s nothing nice about him. I was just telling you that. He went out and got his own paddle, and he loves swinging for the fences. If you ever got a look at my ass, which is never going to happen again in this lifetime, you—”

  Mommy stopped talking and dropped her wineglass when Daddy’s hands closed on her throat from behind.

  The clown looked down at Penny and winked. “See? I told you this was getting good.” He reached under his jacket and pulled out a lollipop. “Want a pop?”

  Matt started up the steps and the little girl’s screams ripped loose inside again.

  “No, Daddy! Don’t hurt Mommy!”

  Matt glanced around and spotted a few kids’ toys lying there. Sickness twisted in his stomach, but he steeled himself against it. He reached for the door, tried it, and discovered it was locked.

  The little girl screamed again, and this time there was a loud smack of flesh striking flesh. The screaming stopped.

  Matt gripped his ax, set himself, and swung. The ax bit down through the wood veneer and stopped suddenly when it reached the steel security core. He yanked it free and swung again, aiming for the doorframe.

  Wood splintered. Another blow and the door swung inward. Matt followed it, heart climbing to the back of his throat when he saw Mr. Dark standing near the closet on the other side of the room.

  “Hiya, Matt.” Mr. Dark waved a maggot-infested lollipop in greeting. “You missed the warm-up act, but it looks like it’s going to be a killer ending.”

  A little girl lay crying at Mr. Dark’s feet. The left side of her face was red and bruised. The closet door was open, revealing a small boy lying curled in a fetal position inside.

  To the left, a man and a woman—the parents, Matt guessed—stood locked in combat. The man had his hands around the woman’s neck from behind and was choking her, but she still reached around and was clawing his face. Her fingernails caught his eyes and popped them like grapes. Blood and viscous fluid tracked down his rotted face. He roared in pain and a cloud of blue bottle flies poured from between his lips. Then he bit her ear, grabbing hold of her earring and tearing the entire ear away.

  Strands of cartilage hung from the ear. They quivered and shook, then reached out to caress the man’s lips. When he yelled again, the ear clung to him, then reached up and caught hold of a nostril. As Matt stared in horrified disbelief, the amputated ear folded itself and crawled up the man’s nose, packed tight one moment, gone the next.

  The woman managed to pull one of his hands free. She bit into his palm, then sucked his thumb into her mouth and worked at chewing it off. The man didn’t release his grip on her throat. Her head turned dark and started rotting, caving in from the top.

  Matt darted forward to get the little girl.

  “No! Those are our kids!” The man growled and release
d the woman. Faces rotting, maggots stirring in their eyes and eyeholes, they stared at Matt. “You’re not taking our kids!”

  The boy was in no shape to walk. Matt hoped it wasn’t true of the girl. He picked her up and placed her on her feet. “Can you walk, sweetheart?”

  The girl nodded. Blood trickled from the corner of her mouth.

  “Good. See if you can get your brother out of here, okay?”

  “Okay.” The girl took the boy’s hand and pulled him to his feet, then towards the door.

  The woman pointed at the girl. “Don’t you even think about leaving, Penny! You know better than to go off with strangers!”

  “Stranger danger! Stranger danger!” the man squawked, staring at them with his bloody eyeholes. Something moved in behind one of them. Matt wondered if it was the wandering ear, but he didn’t know.

  Mr. Dark laughed and twirled the lollipop in his mouth. “Overprotective parents. You gotta watch out for those.”

  Matt took a fresh grip on his ax. “Get your brother out of here. Do it now.”

  The little girl started moving, hugging the wall and heading for the door as she pulled her brother after her.

  “Those kids aren’t going anywhere!” The woman set herself and leapt.

  Unable to swing the ax, Matt blocked with the wooden handle instead, popping the ghastly woman in the face and driving her back. She howled in anger and agony as she stumbled back. Recovering, she spat out a mouthful of teeth, which hit the floor and bounced. By the time the teeth hit the floor again, they’d sprouted legs and stinging tails. They rushed at Matt, tails poised to sting.

  Controlling his fear, knowing he needed to buy time for the kids to get away, Matt raised a boot and started stomping the bug-teeth. They squashed flat and broke open like beetles, but some of them had silver fillings inside.

  “You can’t just bust my wife in the mouth, mister! If anybody’s going to do it, it’s going to be me!” The man circled around like a pro wrestler, arms waving wildly.

  Mr. Dark laughed. “Even if you get by Mr. and Mrs. Dysfunctional, you still have that wildfire out there waiting on you, Matt. And it’s churning and burning, turning even as we speak. Not all of your little friends are going to get out of this alive. What a predicament.”

  Not all the people Matt met got to live. That was one thing Matt knew and didn’t want to accept. He didn’t know what had set him and Mr. Dark at odds, but he was determined not to lose any innocents if he could help it. The problem was that he couldn’t always help it. Innocent people died every time Mr. Dark showed up.

  Since the man wasn’t getting any closer at the moment and the woman seemed to be still stunned, Matt went after the woman. He swung a horizontal blow at her head, but she ducked, moving faster than he thought she’d be able to. The ax struck the wall and stuck there for a moment, embedded in a stud. By the time Matt freed the ax, the woman had a poker in her hand and was thrusting at his groin.

  Matt swung the ax handle down, succeeded in knocking the poker aside just before it touched him, and spun towards the woman along the outside of her arm. As he moved, he switched hands with the ax and brought it down in a vertical blow that split the woman’s head down to her shoulders. The two halves quivered and shook as she continued standing there.

  Yanking the ax back, Matt turned, set himself, and kicked her in the center of the chest, knocking her backward through the window behind her. She crashed through the glass and disappeared.

  Breath burning hoarsely, Matt spun to face the man, getting the ax up just in time to keep his opponent’s teeth from his throat.

  “I’m going to kill you!”

  Matt kicked the man in the crotch hard enough to lift him off the floor. Unbelievably, the man wasn’t incapacitated, staying focused on getting to Matt. Another two kicks produced the same lack of results. The man pushed hard, leaning into Matt with all his considerable weight, forcing him back towards the wall by the fireplace.

  From his periphery, Matt saw that the roiling orange cloud of flames and smoke had crawled closer to the cul-de-sac. The wildfire was gaining speed and changing direction.

  The man pinned Matt against the wall with his bulk, then started trying to bite Matt’s face, jaws snapping so hard they splintered teeth. Bracing himself, Matt butted his head into his attacker’s face, then heaved with his shoulders like he was bench-pressing the man. When there was enough space, Matt slipped to the side, eluding the man’s grip, then rammed the ax handle into the back of the man’s neck and knocked him to the floor.

  Putting one foot on his fallen foe, Matt lifted the ax high and brought it down, splitting the man’s skull. The man quivered and quaked and lay still.

  7

  Inside the garage, Matt looked at the two vehicles housed there. One was a newer-looking midsized sedan. The other was a king cab Ford pickup with two four-wheelers in the back. The kids stood next to the pickup.

  “Do you know where the keys are?” Matt asked.

  She pointed at the pickup. “Daddy keeps them behind the sun visor.”

  “What about keys for the car?”

  “Mommy has those in her purse.”

  Matt tried to remember everything in the living room. He didn’t remember seeing a purse, and he didn’t want to go back inside the house. He opened the pickup door, tipped down the visor, and caught the keys when they spilled down into his hands. There were three key rings. Two of them were to the four-wheelers.

  “Okay, let’s take the truck.”

  Matt strapped the girl and the boy into the pickup’s backseat, then dropped his gear into the pickup bed and clambered behind the wheel. He turned the key, listened to the engine turn over slowly for a moment as the wildfire coasted closer and closer, then breathed a sigh of relief when the pickup roared to life.

  At the same moment, the wind shifted and the whole top of the hill seemed to ignite. Flames raced around the cul-de-sac, heading for the house and the garage.

  Slipping the transmission into gear, Matt let off on the clutch and shot out of the garage. He stayed on the manicured yards, roaring past the houses, stopping at the first one, where he’d freed the dog. Setting the emergency brake, he slipped the transmission into neutral and jumped out. He sprinted over to the porch and picked up the chainsaw, knowing he was going to need it again before the night was over.

  A shadow rushed at him out of the darkness, and he wheeled to meet it. At the last minute, he recognized the dog, panicked and frenzied. Unwilling to try to pick the animal up until he absolutely was forced to, Matt lowered the pickup’s tailgate. The dog leapt up into the pickup bed, shivered, sneezed, and wagged his tail.

  “Good boy.” Matt petted the dog on the head when it came over to him, endured it licking the side of his face as he closed the tailgate again, and raced for the truck cab. Behind him, the wildfire surrounded the kids’ house, swarmed up it, and started devouring the structure.

  Matt stabbed the transmission back into gear and let off the clutch once more. They roared down the blacktop.

  “Mister,” the little girl called from the back.

  Matt looked at her in the rearview mirror. She had her arms wrapped around her little brother. “Yeah?”

  “Are Daddy and Mommy dead?”

  God, I hope so! Matt didn’t know what to tell her for a moment, then decided the truth was the best way. Kids generally knew when they were being lied to about something big. “I think so.”

  “Okay.” The girl seemed happy about that and snuggled down in the seat with her brother, wrapping them both in a blanket she’d found back there.

  Matt drove, knowing that if the wildfire had turned so quickly over the houses that it might have overrun the Lombard Lumber team.

  A figure stepped out in front of him and he swerved to miss Angie, tromping hard on the brake. The pickup skidded to a halt and Angie quickly caught up and opened the passenger door.

  “What are you doing?” Matt asked.

  “I came to check on
you. You were gone longer than you should have been.” Angie looked over the seat into the back. “Hi.”

  “Hi,” the little girl said.

  Angie looked back at Matt, a concern on her face. “Where are their parents?”

  Matt put the truck back in gear and his foot on the accelerator. “They didn’t make it.”

  There was no warning when the wind shifted, and when it did, everything changed.

  “Hey, Harv. Ease up. We’re just clearing the ground. Not digging to China.”

  At that moment, hearing Jimmy’s whiny voice, Harvey almost exploded. He was ready for someone to bear the brunt of his misfortune. Then he spotted the wildfire suddenly racing across the forest canopy like it was jet-propelled.

  “Look out!” Harvey roared, feeling the sudden heat almost hot enough to blister his face.

  The fire line broke and the team scattered as the flames rushed through. The wildfire moved so fast that it sounded like a locomotive. The noise was eerie, like a pulling engine and railroad cars should show up at any minute. Somebody had told Harvey that the sound was caused by the displacement of regular air with superheated air. He didn’t know if that was true or not, but it sounded logical to him.

  Then the sky seemed to open up and fire rained down on them. Smoke whipped through the trees and ripped away vision and air. Harvey couldn’t breathe and suddenly couldn’t see three feet in front of him. And that was only when he could bear to keep his eyes open while they bled tears.

  He ran, not certain if he was sprinting towards the blaze or away from it, obeying that primeval instinct that twitched through him from the dim recesses of his brain. The smoke choked him down quickly, robbing him of his breath. He tried to call out for his father and felt guilty the instant he did it. His father had plenty of problems himself trying to get away from the fire. If anything, he should be trying to help his father.