The Stone Serpent, page 18
Her father grabbed her roughly by the arm and pulled her out of the sitting room. He slammed the door shut.
“You see?” he said. “That’s what happens to non-believers, Meredith. They are corrupt even in death. Is that what you want for yourself?”
Meredith yanked her arm out of his hand and glared at him.
“The snakes are bringing divine justice to all who turn their backs on the Church and challenge our ways,” he said. “Think on that before you decide to disobey me again.”
Meredith stomped back toward her bedroom, all thoughts of calling Rebecca gone from her mind. What her father said wasn’t true. It couldn’t be. After all, a snake had bitten Sharon, and Sharon would never turn her back on the Church.
The dead man in the sitting room was melting like ice cream on a hot day. Did it have something to do with the snake bite? Did that mean the same thing was happening to Sharon’s body? She paused outside the door to Mal’s bedroom, where her father had put Sharon’s body until she could be buried. Meredith tried the door, but her father had locked it. She knelt and peered through the keyhole. She only saw a corner of the bed and a bit of the sheet he’d put over Sharon. Maybe it wasn’t happening to her. Meredith sighed with relief. She didn’t want to think of Sharon like that. It was too disturbing. Too awful.
From inside the room came the sound of something wet and heavy falling to the floor. Meredith ran into her bedroom and slammed the door.
23.
* * *
Fritz Ruggen watched Laura’s house from inside his car. He’d been parked across the street all day, waiting for her to come home, obsessively going over the details of his plan. The items he’d brought with him waited in the trunk, more patient than he was. He wanted to get on with it. Not because he wanted it over with. Quite the opposite. He was going to relish eliminating this bothersome woman.
There was an angel inside him, a righteous burning angel like the one that guarded Eden after Adam and Eve were expelled. It yearned to be let out. Fritz had let it out on occasion when he was young, to let it feed on wood and tinder, but he learned quickly that it was best to keep the angel hidden. Other people didn’t understand. They couldn’t, because unlike him, they were empty inside. Their bellies were cold ovens, while his burned with holy fire. The Shepherd was the only one who understood. It was why he’d recruited Fritz into the Order of the Faith. The Shepherd gave Fritz permission to let the angel out, to let its divine burning light engulf the sinners and heretics the Shepherd unleashed him upon.
Laura’s house was dark. The Black man had left over an hour ago. Fritz didn’t know who the man was and was angry that his unexpected appearance pushed back his timetable. Probably, she and the Black man had been fornicating. The thought disgusted him. All the more reason to let the angel loose upon her.
The thought of them fornicating had another effect on him as well, one that shamed him. He clasped his hands into fists until it went away. When he loosened his fingers again, both his palms were adorned with red crescent moons where his nails had dug into the flesh. The pain focused him. It was important he remain alert, undistracted by sinful thoughts.
It was time. He glanced up and down the street. Lights were turning off in all the houses. Fritz got out of his car and opened the trunk. Inside were two plastic gas cans, each holding two gallons of gasoline. Taking one in each hand, he hurried across the darkened street and around to the back of the house. As he expected, there was a back door. Through the door’s window, he could see a darkened kitchen with empty Chinese food takeout containers on the counter. He tried the doorknob. It was locked.
Smart woman. How many houses had he entered where the owner had foolishly left the doors unlocked? It was almost as if they’d invited him in. This woman was no fool, but the angel would not be denied its chance to shine.
Fritz took off his shirt, exposing a patch of burn-scarred skin on his bare chest. A remnant of his first communion with the angel. He folded the shirt into a thick square and placed it over the door’s window. Then he drove his elbow into it, breaking the glass while the shirt muffled the sound of the impact. Glass shards tinkled to the floor inside. He froze and waited for a sound or light from inside the house. When none came, he moved quickly, using the shirt to safely brush away any sharp bits of glass that remained in the window frame. He reached through and unlocked the door from the inside.
He slipped his shirt back on and brought the two gas cans into the house. It didn’t take long to find the stairs to the second floor. He left the gas cans at the base of the stairs and made his way up quietly, testing each step for noise before putting his full weight on it. On the second floor, the door to the bedroom was open. Laura lay curled on her side on top of the covers. The sound of her breathing told him she was fast asleep.
He stood next to her bed and gazed down at her sleeping form. It would be so easy to strangle her in her sleep. She wouldn’t even be aware until his hands were crushing her throat. The thought excited him. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d strangled someone, but it would be the first time he’d strangled a woman, and that excited him in a different way. His gaze moved over her body. The curve of her hip. The soft swell of her breasts beneath her pajama top. The hint of cleavage visible in her neckline.
Shame flooded through him. He clenched his hands into tight fists again, feeling his nails dig into the tender skin of his palm, until the thoughts went away.
Shepherd Eliezer had instructed him to make it look like an accident. Strangling her—or doing anything else to her—would endanger that. It was best to stick with the original plan.
Outside the bedroom, Fritz spotted the smoke alarm on the ceiling. He climbed nimbly onto the stairway railing, pulled a flathead screwdriver from his back pocket, and jammed it into the smoke alarm in the way he’d learned long ago would quickly and silently disable it.
He disabled the smoke alarms downstairs the same way. Then, taking his time to avoid excessive noise, he poured out the contents of the gas cans all over the first floor—the living room, the dining room, the kitchen, the bottom stairs, even the coat closet. The smell of gasoline was overwhelming. He tied a bandana he’d brought with him over his nose and mouth, and paused occasionally to listen for any sign that the smell had woken up Laura. So far, so good. She slept like the dead.
When he was done, he brought the empty cans out into the cricket-filled stillness of the backyard. His fingerprints were all over them, and since Shepherd didn’t want anything to be traced back to Valley Grove, he would have to take the cans with him. The fire would look like an accident so long as there was no investigation to find traces of the gasoline. But why would they investigate? Houses burned all the time, especially here in Sakima, where dozens of them had gone up in flames last year. The Shepherd would be pleased.
Fritz returned to the kitchen and took a book of matches from his pocket. He lit one and watched it flare to life. Deep within him. the eyes of the angel opened. He touched the lit match to the others in the book. They erupted into glorious flame. He tossed the book to the gasoline-soaked floor and left.
He threw the empty gas cans into the trunk of his car and drove away. In the rearview mirror, he saw the angel’s flickering form dance in the windows. Free from its shackles, it cleansed everything it touched with its divine fire.
“God be praised,” Fritz said.
24.
* * *
The smell of smoke caused Laura to stir in her bed. Her mind, still half asleep, told her it was nothing to worry about. It was winter, and she’d fallen asleep with the bedroom window cracked, letting in the smoke from a neighbor’s chimney. If it were an emergency, surely the smoke alarms would go off…
Another, more urgent part of her mind countered that it wasn’t winter but the thick of summer, and none of her neighbors had a fire going. Laura’s eyes snapped open. Dark, formless phantoms moved in the hallway outside her bedroom door. As her eyes adjusted, she saw it was smoke, billowing heavy and dark from downstairs. She leapt off the bed and ran to the bedroom door. Flickering orange flames burned at the foot of the steps. Waves of heat blasted up at her, hot enough to push her back. The smoke thickened by the second.
Shit!
What happened to the smoke alarms? She looked up at the ceiling. The small green light that indicated the smoke alarm outside her bedroom was operational was out. The pipes in the walls rattled as the sprinklers suddenly burst into life, dousing her in a blast of cold water.
The sprinklers wouldn’t be enough to stop the fire. She had to get out of the house while she still could. Going downstairs was out of the question. She ran back into her bedroom, yanked her phone off the charger, and hit the Emergency Call button that connected directly to 911. She held the phone in the crook of her neck and worked to unlock the bedroom window. More smoke drifted the room, burning her eyes and lungs.
“911, what’s your emergency?” a female operator’s voice said.
“There’s a fire. My house is on fire.” She struggled to stay calm and get the words out.
She got the window open, the fresh air giving her a momentary reprieve from the thick smoke. She glanced back to the bedroom doorway. The fire was already halfway up the stairs, burning its way toward her like a relentless assassin.
“There’s a fire in your house, is that correct?” the operator asked.
“Yes, please hurry!”
Laura climbed out the window onto the shingled roof of the verandah. It was a warm night, but she shivered in her water-soaked pajamas. The operator asked for her address and assured her the fire department was on its way.
“Would you like me to stay on the line with you until they get there?” the operator asked.
“I’m not going to be able to stay on the line. Just make sure they get here fast!”
Laura ended the call and tucked the cell phone into the elastic waistband of her pajama bottoms. She made her way carefully toward the edge of the verandah roof, but one wet, bare foot slipped out from under her. She regained her balance quickly, but her foot dislodged one of the wooden shingles. It tumbled to the lawn below with a disquieting thud.
Okay, she thought, trying to keep herself calm, it’s not that far down and the grass is soft.
That was a lie. How many broken ankles and legs had she set where the patient thought grass was enough to safely break their fall? She shook her head, silencing the thought. It wasn’t helpful.
Her chest felt like someone was sitting on it. Behind her, the fire had reached the door of her bedroom. Adrenaline spiked through her system. It was now or never.
Just focus on getting to the ground. Forget everything else. You’ve got to keep it together.
She took a deep breath to calm herself, but the smoke billowing out of the window made her cough. She sat and dangled her legs over the edge. She’d read somewhere that when you fell from a distance, you were supposed to relax your body and bend your knees slightly to better absorb the impact. Land on the balls of your feet, it said, and when the downward momentum carries you, try to fall to your side instead of on your back. Don’t roll, just fall, or you could injure your spine. It all sounded easier said than done.
The flames crackled behind her. She was out of time.
Here goes nothing, she thought, and pushed off. She plummeted through the air for only a second before her feet struck the ground, a jarring impact that made her jaw click shut. She let herself fall to her right side on the grass. Her right knee and shoulder ached, but she was alive and no bones were broken. She couldn’t ask for more than that.
She stood and looked at the house she’d called home for years; the house she’d so proudly purchased for herself with money she’d made from her medical practice. Now, all she could see through the windows was fire. The antique cherrywood clock—the only thing of her mother’s Laura still owned—was gone, eaten by the fire. Laura’s chin quivered. Her eyes stung. An intense heat radiated from the glass. At any moment, the thermal stress could cause them to break.
You need to get away from the house. Keep it together. Now’s not the time to lose it.
Laura retreated to the street. In the distance, she heard approaching sirens. Lights snapped on in some her neighbors’ houses. She pulled the phone from her waistband, relieved to see it had survived the fall about as well as she had, and called Booker.
There was a part of her that wanted to rage, to cry, to scream, but she held it all in check. Now isn’t the time, she told herself again, but as soon as Booker picked up and she heard his voice, she finally let herself break down.
“We’re going to get to the bottom of this, I promise you, Dr. Powell,” Chief Morales said. The lights from the fire trucks flashed against one side of her face. “We’re going to find out exactly what happened.”
“Thank you,” Laura said.
Booker had his arm around her, and she leaned into him for comfort. They stood on the lawn across the street while the firefighters blasted her house with water. The fire was still burning, but not as strongly, and it had already been extinguished in some spots. What she could see of the interior now wasn’t as bad as she’d imagined. There was fire damage, but her home wasn’t the smoldering pile of ashes she’d expected. The house was still standing. That was something, at least.
Her neighbors stood on their lawns to watch the spectacle. Laura felt strangely embarrassed, as if it were her fault all this commotion had come to their quiet street in the middle of the night. Part of her expected to get a handwritten note from her busybody neighbor Melanie Elster, reminding her that raging house fires were frowned upon by the Homeowners Association—but she reminded herself Melanie died last year during the spore outbreak. Christ, Laura’s house had survived the fires back then only to burn now, stupidly, when the danger was long gone. Heartbroken, she turned her face to Booker’s chest.
“I’ve got you,” he said.
“Does she have a place to stay tonight?” Morales asked him.
“She can stay with me,” Booker said. He looked down at Laura. “Does that sound okay?”
Laura nodded. She wiped the tears from her face. “I’ve got some things there I can wear.”
“Try to get some rest,” Morales said. “I’ll get in touch tomorrow, and we’ll send a report to your insurance company.”
Insurance. Laura couldn’t even imagine handling something like that right now. She just wanted everything back the way it was. She wanted to wake up in her bed and discover it was all a bad dream, but as she rode silent and dazed in Booker’s car to his house, she kept not waking up.
It was real. It was all real. She’d lost her home.
When they got to his house, he sat her down on the living room couch, wrapped a throw blanket around her shoulders, and made a cup of peppermint tea to soothe her nerves. In the safety of his house, with warm tea in her stomach, she finally stopped shaking and felt more like herself.
Booker sat next to her and put his arm around her again. “You’re sure you’re okay?”
“I’m sure.”
He was sweet for being so worried about her, but she didn’t want to talk about it. It was too new, too raw. She couldn’t find the words to describe everything she felt. None of the words felt big enough, or painful enough. She took a sip of tea from the mug and wished it were whiskey instead.
Booker’s laptop was open on the coffee table. A webpage on the monitor showed a shallow opening in some rocks. Within the opening was a tangled mass of copperheads.
“What’s this?” Laura asked, putting down her mug to bring the laptop closer.
“Just more research,” he said. “We don’t need to talk about it now.”
“No, it’s okay. I need something to take my mind off the fire.”
“Well, I found out that while most snakes lay eggs, copperheads give live birth to their young,” he said. “Females give birth communally in special places in or near the den called birthing rookeries.”
Laura looked at the picture again. The copperheads in the rocks looked swollen in their lower halves. Pregnant.
“Honestly, I don’t know if this is helpful, or if I was just trying to keep busy.” Booker looked at the picture and shook his head. “I can only imagine what happened to the nest after the first batch of basilisks were born.”
“What do you mean?”
“Mother snakes don’t take care of their young,” he said. “The snakelets are on their own to find food from day one. I suspect the first prey the basilisks killed were the original copperheads themselves.”
“They…ate their mothers?” The thought was horrifying.
“Unfortunately, it’s not that unusual in evolution for a new species to eliminate the old,” he said. “Anthropologists think there used to be as many as nine distinct human species on Earth. Now there’s only one. The prevailing theory is that Homo sapiens came along and killed the rest.”
She didn’t want to think about it. She couldn’t think about anything right now, not the fire, not this. It was all too much. She felt full up, and any new bit of information bounced off her. She finished her tea, and they climbed the stairs to Booker’s bedroom. There, she had the surprising presence of mind to change into the fresh pajamas she kept there so she wouldn’t have to spend the rest of the night in wet ones that smelled of smoke. In bed, Booker held her as she tried to relax enough to sleep, but even after he drifted off, she was still wide awake and staring into the blackness of the room.
Her mind fired into overdrive, reviewing every cause of house fires she could think of, trying to piece together what could have happened. She hadn’t turned on the oven or any other heating appliance; Booker had brought takeout for dinner. She certainly hadn’t made a fire in her fireplace in this sweltering summer weather. There was no faulty wiring in her house. She wasn’t a smoker, and she hadn’t left any candles burning.
