White Fire

61

The vile, rotting odor in the air seemed to intensify as Ted waved the burning stick about. The flames licking at its end began to die back into coals, and he pushed it back into the stove.

“Love is the Fire of Life; it either consumes or purifies,” he quoted as he slowly twirled the stick among the flames, as if roasting a marshmallow. There was something awful — after his fierce and passionate ranting — about the calm deliberation with which he now moved. “Let us prepare for the purification.” He pulled the stick from the stove and passed it again before Corrie’s face, with a strangely delicate gesture, gingerly, tentative now — and yet it hovered so close that, although she twisted away, it singed her hair.

Corrie tried to gain control of her galloping panic. She had to reach him, talk him out of this. Her mouth was dry, and it was hard to articulate words through her haze of pain and fear. “Ted, I liked you. I mean I like you. I really do.” She swallowed. “Look, let me go and I’ll forget all about this. We’ll go out. Have a beer. Just like before.”

“Right. Sure. You’d say anything now.” Ted began to laugh, a crazy, quiet laugh.

She pulled against the cuff, but it was tight around her wrist, securely fastened to the pipe. “You won’t get in trouble. I won’t tell anyone. We’ll forget all about this.”

Ted did not reply. He pulled the burning brand away, inspected it closely, as one would a tool prior to putting it to use.

“We had good times, Ted, and we can have more. You don’t have to do this. I’m not like those others, I’m just a poor student, I have to wash dishes at the Hotel Sebastian just to pay for my room!” She sobbed, caught herself. “Please don’t hurt me.”

“You need to calm down, Corrie, and accept your fate. It will be by fire — purifying fire. It will cleanse you of your sins. You should thank me, Corrie. I’m giving you a chance to atone for what you did. You’ll suffer, and for that I’m sorry — but it’s for the best.”

The horror of it, the certainty that Ted was telling the truth, closed her throat.

He stepped back, looked around. “I used to play in all these tunnels as a kid.” His voice was different now — it was sorrowful, like one about to perform a necessary but distasteful service. “I knew every inch of these mine buildings up here. I know all this like the back of my hand. This is my childhood, right here. This is where it began, and this is where it will end. That door you came out of? That was the entrance to my playground. Those mines — they were a magical playground.”

His tone became freighted with nostalgia, and Corrie had a momentary hope. But then, with terrible rapidity, his demeanor changed utterly. “And look what they did!” This came out as a scream. “Look! This was a nice town once. Friendly. Everyone mingled. Now it’s a fucking tourist trap for billionaires…billionaires and all their toadies, bootlickers, lackeys. People like you! You…!” His voice echoed in the dim space, temporarily drowning out the sound of the storm, the wind, the groaning timbers.

Corrie began to realize, with a kind of awful finality, that nothing she could say would have any effect.

As quickly as it had come, the fit passed again. Ted fell abruptly silent. A tear welled up in one eye, trickled slowly down his cheek. He picked up the gun from the table and snugged it into his waistband. Without looking at her, he turned sharply on his heel and strode away, out of her vision, into a dark area behind the pump engine. Now all she could see was the burning end of his stick, dancing and floating in the darkness, slowly dwindling, until it, too, disappeared.

She waited. All was silent. Had he left? She could hardly believe it. Hope came rushing back. Where had he gone? She looked around, straining to see in the darkness. Nothing.

But no — it was too good to be true. He hadn’t really left. He had to be around somewhere.

And then she smelled a faint whiff of smoke. From the woodstove? No. She strained, peering this way and that into the darkness, the pain in her hand, ribs, and ankle suddenly forgotten. There was more smoke — and then, abruptly, a whole lot more. And now she could see a reddish glow from the far side of the pump engine.

“Ted!”

A gout of flame suddenly appeared out of the blackness, and then another, snaking up the far wall, spreading wildly.

Ted had set the old building on fire.

Corrie cried out, struggled afresh with the handcuffs. The flames mounted upward with terrible speed, great clouds of acrid smoke roiling up. A roar grew in intensity, until it was so ferocious it was a vibration in the air itself. She felt the sudden heat on her face.

It had all happened in mere seconds.

“No! No!” she screamed. And then, through her wild cries, she saw Ted’s tall figure framed in the doorway to the dingy room from which she’d first emerged. She could see the open door to the Sally Goodin Mine, the dewatering tunnel running away into darkness. He was standing absolutely still, staring at the fire, waiting; and as it grew brighter and stronger she could see the expression on his face: one of pure, unmitigated excitement.

Corrie squeezed her eyes closed for a moment, prayed — prayed for the first time in her life — for a quick and merciful end.

And then, as the flames began to lick up all around, consuming the wooden building on all sides, bringing with them unbearable heat, Ted turned and vanished into the mountain.

The flames roared all around Corrie, so loudly that she couldn’t even hear her own screams.