Behind the Fire: A Dark Thriller (23 page)

Kendall gagged. Something thick and nasty had lodged in her throat. She didn’t need that image in her mind. She’d honestly expected Beverley would be too distressed to talk, and she would give Kendall a few quotes along the lines of being grateful to be alive and that she now had a new perspective on life. Beverley’s gusto in sharing the events was almost as disturbing as the images conjured.

Beverley actually laughed. “For just a second, I thought,
This is one of those show setups.
 
Someone’s going to leap out from somewhere and yell ‘You’re all punk’d.’
 Then I thought, 
No, this blood looks too real. The screams are too real.
 Then Roy grabbed my arm and yanked me toward the door. He’s such a quick thinker. By then, everyone had the same idea. Even though we were near the front at the register, we couldn’t get out. Everyone was trying to get through one little door. I fell over. When I looked up, Roy was gone.”

“Oh, no. How awful.”

“Oh, yes. It 
was
 awful. Roy’s quick thinking rubbed off on me, thank goodness. I managed to clamber behind the reception desk. There was just enough room for me to hide. I thought, 
If I try to get out now, well, he could be behind me.
You know what they say? When being chased by a lion, you only need to run faster than the other guy. More coffee, Karen?”

Call me what you want. Karen, Carmel, whatever. Just keep talking.
 She hated hearing the gruesome details, but already the story was written in her head.

“Um, no … thank you. I’m good.”

As if she could eat or drink after hearing this story.

“Cookie? Have another cookie.” Beverly picked up a cookie for herself, then leaned forward and pushed the plate toward Kendall.

Surreal, that was the word for this moment. Maybe it was Kendall being punk’d. Cookies and mass murder. Coffee and killings. 
Wow.

Kendall reluctantly took one of the proffered cookies and bit into it, eliciting a satisfied smile from Beverley. The sickly sweet cream cookie felt disgusting in her mouth. She wanted more than anything to spit it out. Instead, she swallowed and palmed the remainder, hoping Beverley wouldn’t notice.

“Now where was I?” asked Beverley, after munching on another cookie and vigorously swiping the crumbs from the corner of her mouth, so that they fell like grains of sand into her lap.

“You were hiding?”

“Oh, yes, 
hiding
. Well, you can imagine, I was thinking there was me, done for. In that moment, I even thought ahead and hoped Roy would find someone else after I died. Go on with his life. Honestly, that’s what I thought. Then I heard them.”

Beverley stopped, looking off toward a wall to the left of Kendall. When Kendall follower her gaze, she saw that Beverley stared at a poster-sized wedding photo of her younger self and presumably Roy.

“Heard who?”

“The police, of course. Thank God for the police. They were so … so … You know a lot of people don’t like the police. It’s hard to believe what they did. Don’t you think?”

“Ah … yes … haven’t had a lot to do with them.”

Kendall searched for an ambiguous answer. Was Beverley impressed or disgusted by the police actions? “But, yes, they certainly were incredible from what I hear. What did they do, exactly?”

“They shot him. So brave. Otherwise, who knows? He might have got me.”

“Did you see them shoot him?” Kendall ventured.

“Oh, yes, I saw everything. Soon as I heard them arrive, I popped my head out to see what was happening. See if I could run. They were just normal police, you know. The ones you see on the street every day. Not the SWAT ones. They came later, in case he had accomplices. But it was just the one guy and his axe.”

“Do you think they 
had
 to shoot him? Or do you think they panicked?”

“That’s a good question, Karen. A really good question, because I had a very good view of him. If I hadn’t been there, I would have thought they did the right thing when they shot him. After all, he killed all those people. You know, I saw him chop four people with that axe. But the more I think about it, I’m not sure.”

It was an odd statement considering the brutal events Beverley had just described, even with the woman’s peculiar attitude.

“What do you think they 
should
 have done, Beverley?”

“Well, I’ve thought about this a lot since, because it was so strange. I think maybe they should have waited, because, well … because the axe man 
did
 ask for help.”

“Help?”

“Yes. When the police called out to him to stop, he did stop, as if he recognized that they 
were
 the police and he was in trouble. He stood there, staring at them, a weird look in his eyes. That was the other thing … his eyes. He blinked a lot, as if the light hurt. Then when they yelled at him to put down the axe—no, that’s not right. ‘Weapon,’ they said. ‘Put down your weapon.’ When they said that, his face changed. It was like, you know, a mask coming off. Oh, what do they call it? How they do it in the movies? Starts with 
M
.”

Kendall shrugged.

Beverley’s eyes sparked. “I know. I’ve got it … morphing. Yes. 
Yes.
 His face morphed. For a few seconds he looked like a desperate person, someone trying to get out of somewhere they’ve gotten stuck. Then he said, ‘Help me.’ Funny way to ask for help, I thought.”

“Help me? Are you sure he said 
help me
?”

“Yes, he said it twice. Then he looked down at the axe like he’d never seen it before in his life. The two police just stood there, guns out in front of them. You know, they were all ready to shoot him, but it looked like he was giving himself up. Realized the terrible thing he’d done. Then he morphed again. The killer face came back: blank, with those horrible, blinking eyes. A woman lay at his feet, who wasn’t dead, who started to move. Poor thing. He looked down at her and suddenly pulled back the axe. That was that. Awful.”

Kendall put her hand to her mouth, dropping the concealed half-eaten cookie into her lap. Beverley was too engrossed in her storytelling to even notice.

“They shot him?”

“So many times I couldn’t count. Both of the policemen just went for it. The noise was so loud it hurt my ears, even with my hands covering them. They’re still ringing today. The guns clicked when they ran out of bullets. I really don’t know how witnesses can count bullets. In 
Law and Order
, when they say the criminal fired so many times. I don’t know how you keep count of the bullets. It’s so fast.”

“How horrifying, Beverley. You must be very distressed to have witnessed that.”

“Oh, yes, it was 
aww-ful
. I couldn’t find Roy for a long time. He thought I’d died. The poor darling.”

Beverley’s expression changed—in her own words, morphed—from wide-eyed horror storyteller to a smiling belle of the ball.

“All the TV show people are calling me now. I don’t know how they got my number, but they want to know what happened. Like I told Roy, ‘cause he doesn’t 
want
 to talk about it, I need to be strong, so everyone can see how violence hasn’t affected me. For the victims, you know.”

Kendall listened for another fifteen minutes to Beverley discussing her excitement at her picture in the paper and now, thanks to Kendall, a magazine. Kendall finally extricated herself from the woman’s company despite being kept on the doorstep another five minutes, while Beverley asked if she could read the article first and did they need a picture of her. Kendall took a few shots with her phone, not having thought to organize a photographer. She hadn’t actually expected to even get an interview.

On her walk back home, Kendall felt as though she were wading through mud. Beverley’s descriptions whirled in her mind. She couldn’t help but place herself in the shoes of the victims, the police officers, and the survivors. That kind of experience—unless you’re Beverley Sanderson—must scar you for life, invade your nightmares forever.

It wasn’t until Kendall was almost home, waiting at a crosswalk, that she realized she’d forgotten the most important question, the one she’d been sent there to have answered. How sloppy of her. That was her inexperience with these types of stories for you.

She didn’t ask Beverley if she felt any survivor’s guilt. As she began to cross the road, she realized, she already knew the answer.

BENITO TAVELL STARED AT THE match. The tiny piece of wood felt loud in his hand, as though it were pulsing on the skin of his fingertips. He knew this was the wrong description, but they were the best words he could find. When he struck it, he wondered if the feeling would change into something else, become louder, sharper? Even hurt like a throbbing bruise when pushed? The longer he paused, the more the pulse grew, until it began to travel from his fingers into his palm, through his wrist, then up through his arm.

He would have waited to discover what would happen once the feeling reached the top of his arm, but he had an insatiable urge, an itch that needed to be scratched. The match demanded to be struck.

He ran the head against the side of the matchbox, the sound like a roaring jet. The flame flared, then settled into a burn, the yellow and white intensely bright even against the overhead fluorescent lights.

Interesting
.

Benito imagined the unnatural white light would wash out the intensity of the flame. The flame had taken on properties of supernatural power. He watched it flicker and hold, flicker and hold, moving in tiny increments down the stem of wood. It took an hour, maybe, or so it seemed, before a thin, black end of burned wood formed.

Beautiful. A work of art.

He wanted to climb inside the white-yellow glow. Beckoning with warmth and a fiery life force. Feel the burn on his skin. Maybe later. Right now, things needed doing. He and the match had a destiny to fulfill. He held the half-burned match over the wastebasket carefully stuffed to overfull with toilet paper.

Now. Do it now.

He stretched his neck to the side until he heard a slight crack sounding like snapping, burning wood. Left. Then right. The joints popped as the action stretched the tendons and pulled them to release. His body flooded with a feeling of euphoria, of utter and total bliss.

Yes, I will do it now.

The thought rushed into his head as though pushed by the hand of God. He obeyed and dropped the match into the basket with a flick of his fingers. The paper caught instantly.

Wonderful. Truly wonderful. Even magnificent.

He’d accomplished the first part of his mission.

Within seconds, little licks of orange and yellow climbed over each other, consuming the fuel he’d gathered. He was feeding a pet. He wanted to reach in and touch it, feel the burn on his cool, fragile skin. Watch his skin peel back and wither to black. Instead, he moved back toward the doorway, a better vantage point to take in the scope of his good work.

In thirty seconds the curtains above the wastebasket ignited. The flames licked up the wall, eager to travel along the path he’d constructed, consume the meal he’d prepared. The bed he’d pushed against the other side of the window would alight shortly. He was proud of his assembly order. Wastebasket, curtains, bed. The room would succumb quickly.

Nobody would come in time. He knew this because he’d worked the skeleton-staffed two-to-ten shift many times. Early morning, events rarely happened. Nurses would only attend to patients when called or during their rounds every ninety minutes. If they even bothered with the rounds. Sometimes they didn’t, falsifying the activity sheets.

This room had been empty. Empty no longer, now filled with color and life, beautiful to behold.

Benito reluctantly turned from his work, the sound of the growing flames music to his ears. Closing the door, he walked down the empty hall. The pale green walls needed paint; scuff marks crawled along and up their surface, giving the appearance of pale tiger stripes. Soon, the wall would require 
more
 than paint.