Hellfire

26

Carolyn rolled over in her sleep, then slowly began to wake up. At first she resisted it, rolling over once more, and keeping her eyes resolutely closed.

It did no good. In a moment she was fully awake, and she sat up, listening, trying to decide what had disturbed her sleep. But there was nothing. The sounds of the crickets and frogs were drifting through the window as they always did, and the faint creaking of the old mansion still complained softly in the background. She glanced at the clock.

One A.M.

She flopped back down on the bed, and felt Phillip stir beside her at the unexpected motion. Once more she tried to go back to sleep. Once more she failed.

Slowly, almost imperceptibly at first, a strange feeling began to grow in her. An uneasy feeling that something was wrong.

The house felt incomplete.

Abigail, she told herself. It’s just that Abigail isn’t here anymore.

But it was more than that, and she knew it.

She got out of bed, slipped into a robe, then stepped out into the corridor and turned on the lights.

Halfway down the long hall, Beth’s door stood open.

Beth’s door, she knew, was never open at night.

Frowning, she hurried down the hall, and switched the light on in Beth’s room.

She saw the covers piled at the foot of the empty bed.

Even though all her instincts told her it, too, would be empty, Carolyn crossed the bedroom and checked the bathroom. There was no sign of Beth.

She felt the first flickerings of panic beginning to build inside her, and firmly put them down. Beth might only have gone down to the kitchen to raid the refrigerator. She left the room, and started toward the stairs, but instead of going down them, she went past them, stopping at Tracy’s closed door. She hesitated, then turned the knob and pushed the door open just far enough to see inside.

Tracy’s bed, too, was empty.

Now Carolyn hurried down the stairs, and searched the house, finally coming to Hannah’s bedroom off the kitchen. She rapped softly on the door, then harder. At last there was a stirring from inside the room, the door opened a crack, and Hannah peered out at her, her eyes still red with sleepiness.

“Hannah, I need your help. Something’s happened to the girls.”

“Our girls?” the old servant asked, opening the door wider, and wrapping her robe tightly around herself. “What do you mean, something’s happened to them?”

“They’re not here,” Carolyn replied. “They’re not in their rooms, and they’re not down here, either.”

Hannah’s head shook, and she made a soft clucking sound. “Well, I’m sure they’re here somewhere,” she said.

“They’re not,” Carolyn insisted. “I’d better get Phillip. Will you look downstairs?”

Hannah nodded, saying nothing as she started shuffling toward the basement stairs.

Less than a minute later, Carolyn was back in her bedroom, shaking Phillip awake.

*

Tracy stopped at the bottom of the stairs, and looked around. The lantern’s faint glow was quickly swallowed up by the maze of pillars supporting the main floor, and her mind began to play tricks on her as she gazed into the darkness beyond the lantern’s reach. There could be all manner of things lurking there in the darkness.

She could almost feel eyes on her, watching her.

Tendrils of fear reached out to her, brushing against her so that her skin began to crawl. When she heard Beth’s voice, she turned quickly away from the threatening darkness.

It’s back here,” Beth was whispering. “Behind the stairs.”

Tracy held the lantern up once more, and its orangish glow spread out in front of her. She saw a large metal door, hung from a rail, standing partly open. And beyond that was the room where Beth was so certain that a ghost dwelt.

To Tracy, the room looked perfectly ordinary. It was empty, and its walls were blackened as if there had been a fire here sometime long ago. In fact, she thought as she stepped inside, she could still almost smell it. There was something in the air, a faint smokiness, that made her wrinkle her nose.

“Where is she?” she asked, still whispering despite the fact that they were alone.

“She’s here,” Beth said. “I always just came down here and waited. And after a while, she sort of — well, she just sort of came to me.”

Tracy set the lantern on the floor, then looked up at Beth.

In the light of the lantern, Beth could see Tracy smiling at her. The way the light struck her face, the smile looked mocking, and Tracy’s eyes seemed to have the cruel glint in them that Beth hadn’t seen for months.

But that was silly.

Tracy was her friend now.

And then Tracy spoke.

“You really are crazy, aren’t you?” she asked, reaching into her pocket and fumbling with something.

Beth’s breath caught in her throat. “Crazy?” she asked, her voice barely a whisper. “I thought — I thought—”

“You thought I believed you, didn’t you? You thought I was dumb enough to think there was really a ghost down here.”

Beth froze, her heart pounding. As she watched, Tracy pulled the rusty jackknife out of her pocket, and unfolded its blade. “Wh-what are you doing?” Beth whimpered. She started to back away, but then realized that Tracy was between her and the door.

“You killed him, didn’t you?” Tracy asked, her eyes sparkling with hatred now. She moved slowly toward Beth, the knife clutched in her right hand, its blade flashing dully in the light of the lantern. “You killed him just so you could come back and take my father. But I’m not going to let you.”

“No,” Beth whispered. “I didn’t do anything. Amy — it was Amy—”

“There isn’t any Amy!” Suddenly moving with the speed of a cat, Tracy leaped at Beth, the knife flashing out.

A stinging pain shot through Beth’s left arm, and she looked down to see blood oozing out of a long deep cut. She stared at it for a moment, almost unable to believe what she was seeing. And then she felt a movement close by, and looked up. The knife was arcing toward her, and behind it was Tracy’s face, contorted with fury.

“I hate you!” Tracy was screaming. “You’re crazy, and I hate you, and I’m going to kill you!”

Beth ducked, and the knife glanced off her shoulder, then ripped down through her right arm. She tried to twist away, but Tracy’s left hand was tangled in her hair now.

“No!” she screamed, the word almost strangling in her throat. “Please, Tracy! Nooooo!”

But it was too late.

Tracy’s right arm rose, and then the knife came down once more, plunging into Beth’s chest. Tracy twisted at it, then yanked it free, only to plunge it in again.

“Noo …” Beth moaned. “Oh, please, no …”

Tracy suddenly let go of her hair, throwing her to the floor. Bleeding from both arms and her chest, Beth tried to scramble away, but Tracy’s foot shot out, kicking her in the stomach.

As she doubled up, the knife came down again, ripping through her back. Tracy jerked it out, then dropped to her knees, grabbing Beth’s hair once again.

Pulling Beth’s head back, she tightened her grip on the knife, then pulled it with all the strength she had across Beth’s exposed throat.

The knife cut deep, and suddenly there was nothing left of Beth’s screams but a sickening gurgling sound as the blood, pumped from a severed artery, mixed with the air being exhaled from her lungs.

For a moment Tracy froze where she was, staring down into Beth’s open eyes, etching in her mind every detail of the fear and pain that had twisted Beth’s face in the last seconds of her life. Then she dropped the corpse, letting it roll away from her as she rocked back on her heels.

The bloody knife dropped from her hand.

And then, in the flickering light of the kerosene lantern, her clothes stained with her victim’s blood, Tracy Sturgess began to laugh.…

Phillip came awake slowly, then stared up at his wife’s worried face, shading his eyes against the brightness of the chandelier. “What is it?” he asked. “What time is it?”

“Early. It’s a little after one-thirty. Phillip, the girls are gone.”

Phillip came instantly wide-awake, and sat up. “Gone? What do you mean?”

“They’re gone.” Quickly she explained what had happened. “Hannah’s looking in the basement, but I’m sure they’re not there. When I woke up, I had a funny feeling that something was wrong, that something was missing. It’s the girls. I haven’t searched the whole house, but I’m almost certain they aren’t here at all.”

Phillip, already out of bed, was pulling on a pair of khaki pants and a golf shirt. With Carolyn at his heels, he strode down the hall, first to Tracy’s room, then back to Beth’s, where Carolyn was waiting for him.

“They’ve got to be here,” he said.

“But they aren’t!” Carolyn insisted.

“Did you look upstairs?”

Carolyn shook her head. “No, of course not. It’s all closed up. There’s nothing up there—”

“Well, they have to be somewhere. They wouldn’t just take off. Not in the middle of the night.” He started down the hall toward the back stairs that led to the long-empty third floor of the old house. Carolyn was about to follow him, when something caught her eye.

On Beth’s desk, there was an old leather-bound book.

She stared at it. She’d never seen it before, and she was positive it didn’t belong to Beth.

What was it, and why was it here?

She had no ready answer for either question, but suddenly, with the certain knowledge born of instinct, she knew that whatever the little book was, it was directly connected with the girls’ absence.

She picked it up and began reading, desperately deciphering the crabbed handwriting that filled the pages. After reading only a few lines she was certain she knew where Beth and Tracy were.

She went to the door, calling out her husband’s name. Then, as she was about to call him again, she saw him appear from the back stairs.

“They’re not up—”

“Phillip, I know where they are! They went to the mill!”

Phillip stared at her. “The mill?” he echoed. “What on earth are you talking about? Why would they go down there?”

“Here,” Carolyn said, holding the old journal out to him. “I found this on Beth’s desk. I don’t know where they got it, but they must have read it.”

Phillip reached out and took the book from her. “What is it?”

“A journal. It tells about the mill, Phillip, and I know that’s where the girls have gone. I know it!”

Phillip stared at his wife for a moment, then made up his mind. “I’m calling Norm Adcock,” he said at last. “And then I’m going down there.”

“I’ll go with you,” Carolyn said.

“No. Stay here. I … I don’t know what I’ll find. I don’t even know what to think right now—”

For a moment Carolyn was tempted to argue with him, but then she changed her mind. For already, in the back of her mind, she knew that something terrible had happened in the mill. Something out of the past had finally come forward, reaching out for an awful vengeance.

Tracy’s laughter slowly subsided until it was little more than a manic giggle.

She glanced around the room once more, furtively now, like an animal that was being hunted.

Then, in the soft glow of the lantern light, she dragged Beth’s body over near the far wall. High up, beyond her reach, there was a small window. Tracy placed Beth’s body beneath the window, one arm leaning against the wall, stretched upward as if it were reaching for the window above.

She returned to the place where Beth’s corpse had first fallen, and knelt down to dip her hand into the still-warm blood. When her hand was covered, she went back to the wall, and began smearing her bloodied hand over its blackened surface, leaving crudely formed marks wherever her fingers touched. Over and over she gathered more blood, until at last the message was complete.

Still giggling softly to herself, she went back to the lantern, and bent to pick it up.

And then, suddenly, the lantern light seemed to fade, and the darkness closed in around her.

She was no longer alone in the room. All around her, their faces looming out of the darkness, she saw the faces of children.

Thin faces, with cheeks sunken from hunger, the eyes wide and hollow as they stared at her.

Tracy gasped. These were the children her grandmother had seen. And now she was seeing them, and she knew they could see her too, and knew who she was, and what she had done. They were circling her, closing in on her, reaching out to her.

She backed away from them, and her foot touched something.

She gasped, knowing immediately what it was. She bent down once more, but it was too late. The lantern had tipped over, its chimney shattering.

The cap of the fuel tank had been knocked loose, and the kerosene had spilled out, running quickly in all directions. And then it ignited, and suddenly Tracy was surrounded by flames. She stared at the sudden blaze in horror, and then, dimly, heard the sounds of childish laughter. All around her the faces of the children — the children who couldn’t possibly be there — were grinning now, their eyes sparkling with malicious pleasure. She turned to the door, and started toward it. And then, as she came close to it, she saw another child.

A girl, no more than twelve years old.

She was thin, and her clothes were charred and blackened, as if they’d once been burned. Her eyes glowed like coals as she stared at Tracy, and then, as the flames danced close about her feet, she backed away, through the door.

The flames, fed by the spreading kerosene, followed her.

As Tracy watched, the door slowly began to close.

“No,” Tracy gasped. She took a step forward, but it was too late.

The door slammed shut.

She hurled herself against it, trying to push it aside, but it was immovable. Then she began pounding on it, screaming out for someone to help her, someone to open the door.

But all she heard from beyond the door was the mocking sound of the girl’s laughter.

Behind her, she could feel the spirits of the other children gathering around, waiting to welcome her.

The flaming kerosene spread rapidly across the floor of the basement, oozing under a pile of lumber, creeping around the pilings that had for so long supported the weight of the floor above.

The lumber caught first, and now the fire spread quickly, tongues of flame reaching out to find new fuel. Then the pilings began to catch. Tinder-dry after more than a century, they burned with a fury that filled the basement with a terrifying roar. Then the floor itself began to ignite, the fire spreading through its hardwood mass, turning into a living thing as it ranged ever wider.

The temperature rose, and cans of paint thinner began to explode, bursting into new fires that quickly joined the main blaze.

The heat reached the level of a blast furnace, penetrating even the metal door that sealed off the room beneath the stairs.

Tracy was surrounded by blackness now, the kerosene having burned itself out.

But she could feel the fire, and hear it raging beyond the metal door.

And then, as she watched, the door itself began to glow a dull red.

She backed away from it, whimpering now as terror overwhelmed her. Then she tripped, and fell heavily to the floor. Dimly, she was aware of Beth’s body beneath her.

Then, as the brightening glow of the door began to illuminate the room once more, she remembered the window.

She stood up, and tried to reach it.

And the sound of that awful laughter — Amy’s laughter — mocked her efforts.

She began screaming then, screaming for her father to come and save her.

Each breath seared her lungs, and her screams began to weaken.

She slumped to the floor, her mind beginning to crumble as the heat built around her.

Her father wouldn’t come for her — she knew that now. Her father didn’t love her. He’d never loved her. It had always been the other child he’d loved.

With the remnants of her mind, Tracy tried to remember the name of the other child, but it was gone. But it didn’t matter, because she knew she’d killed her, and that was all that was important.

Her grandmother.

Her grandmother would save her. It didn’t matter what she’d done, because her grandmother was always there.

But not this time. This time, there was nobody.

She was alone, and the heat was closing in on her, and she could feel her skin searing, and smell her singeing hair.

She writhed on the floor, trying to escape the death that was coming ever closer, but there was nowhere to go — nowhere to hide.

The whole room was glowing around her now, and she was afraid, deep in her heart, that she had already died, and would be confined forever to the fires around her — the fires of hell.

Once again she called out to her father, begging him to save her.

But she died as Amy had died, knowing there would be no salvation.

Her soul, like Amy’s, would be trapped forever, locked away in the burning inferno.…