Chapter thirty-seven

I heard him then, too, moving upstairs. Right above us, in the kitchen. His step was not slow and methodical the way it had been before. He seemed to be sliding swiftly from spot to spot now, pausing, moving again.

“He’s not coming down,” Susannah whispered.

“No.”

I stood still and listened. My mind came clear as I focused on the sound.

Susannah’s hair brushed my face as she cocked her head. “He’s doing something,” she said. “What’s he doing?”

“Ssh.”

I moved forward a step, away from her. She came up beside me quickly, put her hand on my arm. We moved together toward the stairs, reaching out in the darkness, groping.

I touched the banister. I drew myself to the bottom of the stairway. I peered up. I could hear him plainly: his footsteps and other sounds, sounds that were at once metallic and liquid. It sounded as if he were washing something.

I lifted my foot and placed it tentatively on the stair. The stair groaned under the weight of it.

“Don’t,” Susannah whispered.

I tried the stair again. It groaned again. It was old and rotten. If I tried to climb—if I tried to take him by surprise before he finished whatever it was he was doing–I’d get about halfway. Then the door would fly open, his silhouette and the silhouette of the gun would rise out of the dark above me. There’d be a flash, maybe a sense of falling …

I came off the stairs and Susannah gripped my arm. I hated to just stand there waiting for him to make his move.

But I didn’t have long to wait.

There was another second of silence. And then there was a second in which I smelled the gasoline and understood. I pulled my arm free from Susannah’s hold and bolted up the stairs.

Then he torched the place.

It wasn’t violent. The gas did not explode. It simply crawled up and all over everything like a nightmare of spiders. Some of the gas had seeped beneath the door, and the top steps went up at once. The flames sprung up out of the dark, blinding me with sudden light. I raised my arm before my eyes. I tried to push forward to the door. But the fire grabbed hold of the ancient stairway wood and began to devour it. The white light lifted higher and higher. It danced down the stairs, closer and closer to me. The first heat of it stung my face. I staggered back a step; another. And I felt the entire stairway giving way beneath my feet.

Everything was roaring. The flames were. The stairs were as they crumbled underneath me. And I roared as I leapt and tumbled, blind, into the pit of blackness beneath the flames.

I couldn’t time my fall to catch the shock. I just hit and crumbled as the stairs caved in. Sparks showered over me. Smoke billowed up around me.

Susannah shouted. I shouted back. She was there, grabbing at my shoulders, trying to lift me. I grabbed back at her and pulled myself to my feet. With my arms around her, I stumbled from the burning rubble.

We fell against the far wall. We sank to the floor together. I heaved at the air there and swallowed tendrils of the drifting smoke along with it. I hacked and spit. Moaning, I turned to Susannah.

I could see her face by the firelight. Her cheeks were streaked with soot and tears. Her blue eyes reflected the orange glow as she watched the stairway burn.

Above us, the door caught. It went like paper. It was a rectangular silhouette bordered by flame. Then it was flame only, roaring and rising.

I sat up against the wall, choking, feeling the heat parch my skin, sear the sweat off me.

“Help me,” I said.

We stood together. We stood side by side, watching the flaming door where it seemed to float and grow in the surrounding smoke. I watched it, and I understood.

I hung my head, coughing.

Susannah’s voice was suddenly quiet, calm. “What is it?”

I waved her off.

“You know a way out,” she said.

I nodded. “The window. I didn’t remember.”

“And now he’s waiting there.”

“That must be it.”

“With the gun.”

“Yes.”

I looked at her, saw her with her face raised, her lips parted. She looked like someone staring at a vision. She stared up at the burning door.

“I don’t want to burn,” she said.

“No,” I said. “Neither do I.”

The window was directly above my head. I could see it now by the firelight. The glass was broken clear out of it. It was a small space, but I judged it large enough for us to get through. I would give her a boost, then drag myself over. A slow process. Plenty of time for him to take aim and pull the trigger. Nice and easy.

“Damn it!” I ran my fingers through my hair.

“It’s all right,” she said softly.

“Damn it, damn it.”

“I’m not afraid,” she said. “Really.”

“I should’ve beat him.”

She wrapped her arms around me.

“I should’ve had him beat.”

“Next time,” she said.

There was a loud tearing sound. The flaming door ripped from its hinges. It spiraled through the air above us, swirling and blazing. It hit the ground with a crash, fell into the pile of embers that had been the stairs. The embers flew up around us. I felt pieces of them bite at my arms and my face. Susannah and I both pressed back against the wall with our arms raised in front of us. The heat battered at my palms, my cheeks, my brow. The smoke washed over me, stripped my throat raw. When I looked again, the rubble was ablaze, the flames curling toward the ceiling.

I turned away from it, to the window.

And what happened next was a gift.

Across the small rectangle of darkness in the wall above us, I caught the sweep of headlights. I was amazed. I half expected them to go by. They didn’t. They grew brighter. They peeled off.

Someone had just pulled into the drive.

I was afraid to move. I was afraid to believe it. I said: “Susannah?” The two of us just stood there, unable to move or believe.

The headlights went out. I thought: Marks. He was the only one who knew we were here.

And as I thought it, I heard the scarred man’s rifle go off in the near distance. I moved.

“Go,” I said.

I grabbed her by the arm, pushed her toward the wall. I stooped, made a brace of my hands, and she stepped into it. I hoisted her and she was at the window. I drove her up and over the sill, and she was gone.

I leapt. Caught hold of the rim. I pulled, my feet scrabbling for purchase on the concrete wall. The heat seemed to eat into me, weaken me, drag me back. My vision dimmed and faded with smoke. I stuck my head through. I sucked at the air and got nothing but ash. I gagged. My hands shot forward. My fingernails dug into the cool earth.

And Susannah had me under the arms and was yanking at me. I was through, I was outside. Still coughing, I stood and wheeled, looking for the way to go.

Flames. I hadn’t known there would be so much fire. The house was blazing away into the sky. The roar of it was overwhelming. The windows spit flame, the plasterboard buckled and the flames shot out; parts of the roof had collapsed and released the fire within. The place was a single rage of red light and thunder, and the heat was washing out from it, wave after wave, driving me away.

I stumbled back. Everything was blotted from my sight by the blaze. Susannah cried out, and I turned to find that she had fallen.

I reached for her, pulled her to her feet.

“It’s going to come down,” I said. I couldn’t hear myself. I shouted: “Run. For the car.”

She ran. We were at the side of the house. The driveway and the car were directly before us. She ran and I went after, my eyes drawn back over my shoulder, mesmerized by the old house as it torched the night and burned the stars to nothing.

Susannah reached the car, grabbed the passenger door. I ran toward her. I saw Yardley’s old Chevy pulled up on the grass to my right. To my left, just in front of the porch, I saw another car—a big one, American made—that had not been there before.

I saw Susannah pull the car door open. I ran past her, past the front of the car, toward the driver’s side. My hand went out, clawing for the door handle. The door came open and I turned to get in.

I saw Susannah turn. I saw her turn, with her eyes wide and her hand lifted to her mouth. I shouted at her, screamed at her to get into the car, but she didn’t move. She was paralyzed with fear.

The scarred man rose up in front of her, his face red with the flames.

His mouth hung slack. His eyes danced crazily in the crazy light. The gash that split his face in half seemed to be burning with reflected fire. He gripped the rifle in his right hand.

I had no time to get to her. No time. And she was motionless before him as he came toward her.

He never reached her, though. Howard Marks was there to stop him. He stepped up behind the scarred man, wrapped his arm around his throat and yanked him back, away from Susannah. I ran around the car again, back to her.

I saw the silhouettes of Marks and the scarred man, the rifle gripped between them as they struggled for it. I saw them staggering toward the burning house. The scarred man was lean and wiry, but so was Marks, and I was surprised by the lawyer’s sinewy strength.

I turned, bent into the car. Slapped my hand against the glove-compartment door. It opened and the pistol fell out into my hand.

I swiveled. I raised the gun. My finger tightened on the trigger. My sight found the scarred man. I followed him as he battled with Marks.

I had a bead on him. I had him nailed. I had him right in my sight.

But I could not fire.

I could not. I was no longer there.

Somewhere, far away, I heard Susannah screaming. Somewhere, some other place, the fire burned. But I was far away now, far away and long ago. I was crushed into a dark room, shivering. I was drenched in my little boy’s urine and cold with my little boy’s fear. I was trying not to scream don’t scream only don’t scream he’ll hear you if you scream don’t scream for mommy and daddy because they’re dead heck they’re all dead anyway I seen em didn’t I and man they were all they were all my mommy and daddy they were all dead you know what dead is like Buck the setter like they’re not in their bodies anymore mommy mommy don’t scream don’t let me scream.

I was there, I was there again. I was there in that little so-dark place, clutching the little girl I’d tried to save, and they were gone my parents and I was all alone and he—oh, he was out there, coming for us, out there, calling to us, pretending to be nice, but he’s not nice, he’s not nice at all he made my mommy and daddy dead he’s mean he’s just pretending to be nice calling to us like that getting closer and closer and closer step by step by step …

But it seemed to take forever before he finally came. Or did he come, the scarred man? I remembered. I remembered he found us. The broom-closet door flying open. That horrible nightmare of a face pushing in at us. Oh yes, oh yes, he found us all right.

But if he found us …

If he found us, why are we still alive?

The silhouettes of Marks and the scarred man wrestled before me against a wall of flames. Before me, and yet far, far away in the netherworld of the present where I was no longer. The house had begun to crumble inward, the fire to strive upward from it till even the clouds seemed to be burning. All around me the wild, blowing trees were etched in the red light. And yet I—I alone remained at the dark center of things. I could not feel my hand upon the gun. I could not feel my finger on the trigger.

He had found us. But it was later, somehow. It was later and he was coming again, coming again, oh God, don’t scream. What did I do? Where am I? Did I fall asleep? I must have. I must have. Oh God and now he’s coming. How could I fall asleep, but he just kept coming for us, coming for us, out there in the cellar looking for us, getting closer, closer, and then …

I remembered. I remembered now. The foot-steps and the voice of him getting closer as I clutched Susannah in my arms, as I clutched her and whimpered and pissed and cried. But after a while they began to recede, that’s right, they grew softer, he’s going away, up the stairs I could hear and there was silence, there was silence for ever so long and I waited, afraid to move, don’t move, afraid, I waited, every muscle tense, my eyes wide, and then slowly, slowly relaxing, bit by bit …

I fell asleep in there, I must have. Fell asleep or fainted. And then I was awake again, suddenly. Suddenly he was coming again, he was calling us again oh god mommy daddy daddy. And then he was there, there at the door, at the broom closet door, and while I watched wide-eyed, unsure if I was awake or asleep, the doorknob turned, the door flew open. The closet door flew open …

And he was there. At last. The bogeyman come to get us. The scarred man, with his face twisted and torn down the center. With his hands reaching for us, grabbing us, as I screamed and screamed and screamed and he shouted:

“It’s all right. It’s over now. I’m here now. I’m a police officer. A policeman. I’m here, I’m here.”

I remembered. I remembered how I came to the top of the stairs. How I saw him gun down Susannah’s mother. How he turned to me—not the scarred man, not the scarred man at all, but the other—he turned to me as I looked down. He turned to me from Laura’s murdered body and I saw his face, and he knew I’d seen it. And he looked at me then with an expression of calm and musing. As if I were a puzzle. That’s all. A puzzle he would have to solve.

But he couldn’t. Not quite. Not then.

Not now.

Because now, two things happened at once. First, I came back to myself, back to the present. It felt as if my soul had run out from me to the limit of an elastic distance, as if that distance had suddenly snapped and I now came hurtling back into myself through a roaring vortex of wind. The fiery house was there, right before me. The porch was collapsing in a blinding red flash that made me squint. The scarred man and Marks were there. They were maybe ten yards away. Fighting for that gun. Their screams and cries and curses rising in counterpoint to the roar of the flames.

And then, at the same moment, the same moment I returned to myself, just then, one of the struggling men let out a guttural shout. It was the scarred man. He fell backward, away from Marks. He stumbled, dropped to the ground. Marks stood over him, gripping the rifle. He leveled it at the scarred man.

I shifted my arm and the pistol swung from one of them to the other.

My voice seemed to be torn from my throat.

I shouted: “Marks!”

He wheeled toward me and fired.

I saw him. I saw all of it. I saw him spinning around through stopped time, the. rifle in his hand. I saw the spout of flame erupt from the barrel as the flames erupted upward from the roof behind him and the old Turner inn came tumbling down. I heard the sound—the muffled thunder—of the shell exploding. And I saw him: Marks. I saw his thin, lined, sweet, almost angelic face wild and gleeful, terrible and twisted in the red flamelight. I saw his face as I had seen it all those years ago. I saw the face of the man who had murdered my people. And I watched it as he took his best shot at me.

I watched it calmly. I wasn’t afraid. He couldn’t kill me. I knew that. He could fire and fire till damnation came and the bullets would whistle by me forever. It had been ordained in the soul of revenge from the beginning. Etched in my child’s heart with a hatred too awful even to know. Oh yes. He could fire. But I would never die—not until I’d done what I had come for. That was written. It had been in the Big Book all along.

So Howard Marks turned to me with the house alive with burning behind him. He turned to me and lowered the black bore of the rifle at my chest. He turned to me and the bore exploded with death and flame.

And then I squeezed off a single shot and killed him.