Fire Spirit (34 page)

‘Hard to work it out, ain't it?' said a reedy voice, close to Craig's left ear.

Craig twisted around in shock. Sitting in the back of the car, his thin elbows resting on the back of Craig's seat, was the Creepy Kid. Jeff turned his head and saw him too and the Grand Prix lurched violently sideways.

The boy's eyes were black and glittering and his bright pink lips were moist, as if he had been licking them. He looked grubby, as if he hadn't had a bath in a very long time, and he smelled like the inside of a charity clothing store.

‘How in the name of God did
you
get in here?' Craig barked at him. ‘Jeff, stop the car! He gets out right now!'

‘No! Don't stop yet!' said the Creepy Kid. ‘You have to give a message to your dearly beloved wife, and your dearly beloved daughter, and I'm here to make sure that you do.'

‘Jeff! Stop the darn car!'

Jeff drew the car into the curb and stopped, but the Creepy Kid stayed where he was. Suddenly, unexpectedly, he smiled at them, first at Jeff and then, even more winningly, at Craig. ‘Don't you want to find out what's really going on? Don't you want to know who my friends are? They're real scary, aren't they? I think they're the scariest friends I've ever had. You never know what expression they've got on their faces under those masks. Brrrrrr! Don't that just give you the willies?'

Craig said, ‘Get the hell out of this car before I drag you out.'

‘Don't you think your dearly beloved wife will want to know what's going on? If you throw me out now, she'll never ever know. Unless she's a stupid dumb bitch, of course, and carries on trying to find out for herself.'

Craig took a deep breath. Every muscle in his body was tensed up, ready to jump out of the car, open the rear door, and throw the boy bodily on to the sidewalk. But he knew that Ruth was desperate to find out why and how all of those people had been incinerated, and how Tyson had died. If the Creepy Kid could give her some clue, maybe it would bring her some closure, even if it never led to any arrests.

‘OK,' he said, so quietly that the Creepy Kid obviously didn't hear him.

‘I'll get out then, shall I?' the Creepy Kid asked him. ‘Just don't blame me for what happens next, man. My friends . . . they don't have much in the way of self-control, if you understand what I'm saying.'

‘I said,
OK
!' Craig repeated. ‘You can come back home with us and you can explain to my wife who's been causing these fires, and why. Then you can listen while I give her your friend's message about closing her investigation, and while I tell my daughter to ignore any noises or voices or whatever makes her think that people are coming through from underneath. Will that satisfy you?'

‘It might. It depends.'

‘Will you then go away and leave us alone and stop hanging around outside of our house?'

‘I might. It depends.'

Craig looked across at Jeff. Jeff made a face which meant that he didn't really know what to think.

‘Come on,' said Craig. ‘Let's go home and sort this out once and for all.'

Jeff drove very slowly along the next three blocks, reluctant to reach home. The Creepy Kid sat perched on the edge of the back seat with both elbows on the front seats and whistled ‘Lazy Bones' in a breathy, high, irritating pitch.

At last they reached the Cutter house and turned into the driveway, parking next to Ruth's Windstar.

Craig said, ‘You wait here, you got it? I'll go fetch Ruth. There's no way I want you in the house.'

The Creepy Kid smiled and said, ‘That's OK. I understand. Lots of my friends' moms didn't want me in their houses. They said I smelled funny.'

‘That's because you do,' said Jeff.

The Creepy Kid lowered his head. ‘It weren't my fault. She never gave me a bath or washed me none. Only Belinda ever did that, until Belinda went away and never came back.'

Craig said, ‘I won't be a minute.' He went up to the porch and opened the front door and called out, ‘Ruth! Ruth, do you want to come out here?'

Ruth appeared, still rubbing moisturizing cream on her hands. ‘You got Jeff's car! That's wonderful! But you were such a long time. What happened?'

Craig took hold of her arm to stop her from pushing her way past him. ‘Hold up just a second, honey. We ran into some trouble.'

Ruth frowned, and tried to look over his shoulder. ‘Trouble? What kind of trouble?'

‘We were almost home when we got rear-ended by this Buick. We tried to lose them because we thought they were crackheads trying to jack the car.'

‘Go on,' said Ruth. She didn't like the sound of this at all.

‘We gave them the slip, but we had to stop because there was some kid standing in the middle of the road and Jeff would have hit him otherwise.'

Ruth said nothing, waiting for him to continue.

‘Actually,' said Craig, ‘it wasn't just any kid. It was
him
.'

Ruth felt as if she were sinking very fast in a high-speed elevator. ‘Oh, my God. So he's back already. Martin was right. He gets burned up, but then he comes back, over and over. There's no getting rid of him.'

‘There's more than that, Ruth. When we stopped, the Buick caught up with us, and there were three guys in it. They were all wearing white masks, with different expressions. The one who spoke to me, he had a laughing mask.'

‘Like the mask I saw at Doctor Beech's clinic?'

‘That's exactly what
I
thought, yes.'

‘What did he say? Did he tell you who he was?'

‘No, he didn't. But he said I should give you a message. You and Ammy, both.'

Ruth said, ‘What message? What's going on, Craig? What's Jeff doing?'

‘He's sitting in the car, waiting.'

‘What's wrong, Craig? Something's wrong, isn't it?'

‘Yes. It's the Creepy Kid. He's in the car, too.'

Ruth stared at him, aghast. ‘My God, Craig, you have to get Jeff out of there!'

She forced her way past him and out on to the driveway. Jeff was still sitting in the driver's seat and the Creepy Kid had his hand on his shoulder.

‘Jeff, get out!' Ruth shouted at him. ‘Get out of the car right now!'

Jeff tried to open his door but it seemed to be locked. He stared out through the windshield and shook his head. Ruth went around to the side of the car and yanked at the handle, but she couldn't open the door either.

‘
Craig
!' she shouted. ‘Help me get the doors open!' Then she hammered on the window with her fist and said, ‘Let him out, you little bastard! Do you hear me? Let him out!'

Craig tried the doors on the passenger side of the car, but they were locked, too. Jeff turned around in his seat and tried to punch the Creepy Kid, but the Creepy Kid kept ducking, and when Jeff turned the other way, he grabbed a handful of Jeff's hair and jerked his head back.

Ruth hammered on the window again. ‘Let him out, or so help me . . .'

‘You want to see him
burn
?' the Creepy Kid screamed at her. Ruth could only just hear him. ‘You want to see him burn the same way your dog did? 'Cause if you don't, you'd better
back off
!'

At that moment, Amelia came out on to the porch, wearing her pale blue bathrobe and fluffy slippers, her hair tied up in pale blue ribbons. ‘
Mom
?' she said. Then she shaded her eyes with her hand and peered into the interior of the Grand Prix and said, ‘I thought he was here. I thought I heard him.'

‘Ammy,' said Craig, putting his arm around her, ‘you'd better get inside. Call nine-one-one and tell them we have an emergency.'

‘No,' said Ammy, vigorously shaking her head. ‘We mustn't do that. If the police show up, there's no telling what he'll do.'

Ruth said, ‘Craig, break the windows. I'm going to drag out that little runt and strangle him myself.'

‘No, Mommy, no!' said Amelia. ‘He wants to
talk
to us, that's all.'

‘If he wants to talk to us, this is not exactly the way to go about it, is it?
Let my son out
of there, you miserable little bastard
!
Do you hear me
?'

Craig went over to his SUV, lifted the tailgate and took out his tire-iron. He went back to the passenger side of the Grand Prix and lifted up the tire-iron so that the Creepy Kid could see it.

‘You got three!' Craig shouted. ‘Then I'm coming in to get you!'

The Creepy Kid gave him a slow, sly smile. He kept his grip on Jeff's hair, but he stretched forward with his left hand so that he could put down the driver's-side window.

‘Jeff?' asked Ruth. ‘Are you OK?'

‘Kid's stronger than he looks,' Jeff panted, and said, ‘Ow! Fuck!' as the boy gave his hair another sharp tug.

‘Try opening the door again,' Ruth told him.

Jeff jiggled the handle but the door remained locked.

‘All right,' said Ruth. ‘My daughter says you have something to say. Let's hear it.'

The boy was still smiling. ‘Your dearly beloved husband has to give you a message first.'

Craig came around and stood next to her. ‘The guy in the laughing mask said that he wanted you to drop all of your recent arson investigations. Put them all down to natural causes, and close the book on them.'

‘Now why would he want me to do that?' asked Ruth. She was trembling with anger, but she was trying very hard to control herself. She had seen what the Creepy Kid could do, if he was crossed.

‘Because people are sufferin', Ruth, and they sorely need their sufferin' to come to a close.'

‘Maybe they do. But they're dead. Just like
you're
dead. And you can't expect to relieve one person's pain by killing another.'

‘Sorry, Ruth. That's the deal. It's been like that for ever and ever amen. Some people get good fortune, others get ill. That's the nat'ral way of things. But bargains can be struck, and the gods don't mind
whose
life they take, so long as the books stay straight. Life and fate, they're all about numbers, Ruth. And those people I take, they don't suffer none. They don't go to hell. They're innocent, after all. That's the whole point.'

‘Are you going to take
more
?' Ruth demanded.

‘Of course I am. But when I do, you're going to put all of
them
down to natural causes, too.'

‘But what about the people coming through from underneath?' said Ammy. ‘There are
hundreds
of them.'

‘That's right. I showed them the way through and now they're all getting themselves ready to follow. Not just kids, like me. But anybody who got burned in a fire and can't find any peace. People who died because of other people's carelessness. People who were burned up in auto wrecks. People who fell into acid, or got scaldified by superheated steam. Old people whose beds caught fire and burned them alive. They're on the move, Ruth. They're all in desp'rate agony and they all want an end to it, no matter how they get it.'

‘What's your name?' Amelia asked him. Her tone was surprisingly gentle. ‘Are you Andie?'

The boy looked away, and then he looked back again, but he didn't answer.

‘Andie's ashes,' Amelia persisted. ‘Are they
your
ashes?'

But the boy pulled at Jeff's hair harder and said, ‘I need to hear you promise. Both of you.'

‘All right,' said Ruth. ‘I promise.'

‘Me, too,' said Amelia.

‘Swear to God and spit in the sky?'

‘Yes.'

‘
Say
it, then. Swear to God and spit in the sky.'

At that instant, Craig swung his tire-iron back and smashed the car's rear window. Immediately, he lunged inside and made a grab for the Creepy Kid's arm. The Creepy Kid let out a shrill whinny and twisted away from him, but he still wouldn't relinquish his grip on Jeff's hair. Craig pulled him across the passenger seat but he clung on.

Jeff yelled, ‘Jesus, man! You're pulling all of my fucking hair out!'

Ruth tugged frantically at the driver's door handle. ‘Jeff! Get out of there! Unlock the door!'

Jeff scrabbled to find the locking switch on the armrest, and jabbed at it frantically, but it had no effect. It was then that the boy burst into flames. There was a soft, explosive thump, and for five searing seconds the whole interior of the car was filled with billowing orange fire. Craig toppled backward on to the rockery with both of his shirtsleeves alight, knocking the back of his head on a lump of red granite. He lay there for a few moments, stunned, but then he managed to roll over on to his side and struggle up on to his knees, clapping at his sleeves to beat out the sparks.

Ruth was shouting, ‘
No
!
No
!
Open the door
!'

Although he was blazing, the Creepy Kid had put up the driver's window again, sealing himself and Jeff inside the car.

‘
Jeff
!
Get out of there
!
Jeff
!
Get out
!' Ruth screamed at him, and Ammy was screaming, too, in a voice so high it was almost a whistle. Lights were going on in bedroom windows all the way along the street.

Craig picked up the tire-iron, climbed up on to his feet, and lurched around the back of the Grand Prix. He pushed Ruth away from the driver's door and hit the window as hard as he could. Inside, Jeff was staring at him wildly, his hair blazing, his face blistering, and his mouth stretched wide open in agony. His entire seat was shriveling. The foam headrest was alight, and dripping molten plastic on to his shoulders. Behind him, the back seat was filled with a mass of fire, in the middle of which Craig could vaguely make out the figure of the Creepy Kid, both arms raised as if he were a drumming monkey.