Lost (46 page)

On air. Empty air.

He came up, thrust himself around. Her image was gone from the glass. Only the thin curtains hung behind the window-pane, gossamer, white as fog. “That goddam door,” he muttered. Every damned thing had turned against him. All his frustration, all his hatred, attached itself to that door. Heaving his body into it, he caught its edge and hurled it shut against the snow.

And there she was!

All at once … there, behind the door.

He saw her hands drawn up, glimpsed the flash of a knife plummeting toward him. He pitched back, weaved sideways to avoid it. But there was no time. With a hard, grinding rip, the kitchen knife sank into him, just below his collarbone. Leona could feel the blow vibrate upward through the wooden handle and out through her arms.

The boy screamed.

She clung to the knife as if it were something solid that had roots in the ground, and when he drew away, the bloody end of the knife slipped out of him. For a startled split second their eyes caught. Horror-struck, breathing very fast, Leona thought, as she had before, He's just a boy, and felt sickened.
No. Think of Emma
. Unable to strike at him again, she tore away and hid from the sight of what she had done.

Again Sherman cried out. The pain struck him, staggered him in waves. He fell back, covering the wound with his hands, the pain erupting sharper and sharper in his body. Blood spilled through his fingers. “
Mamie!
” he screamed, “
Mamie! Mamie!
”

In the kitchen doorway, still clutching himself, he nearly collapsed. Burying his mouth in the crook of his arm, he could feel his strength seeping away, but his rage flared as never before.
She tried to kill me!
His hatred restored him. In the pantry he saw something gleam. Driven by his fury, he reached for it. A can of gasoline.

Leona was drowning in panic and remorse. I did it, she thought. He's hurt really bad. She found it hard to think. Should I … What should I do? Go to him? But just the thought of it intensified the horror within her. She realized she was still clutching the bloody knife and threw it aside. “Think,” she muttered aloud. “Get the kids.” She had reached the stairs when she remembered she had already looked up there. They must be … where? They must be in the cellar. She turned back. But he was in the kitchen. It meant she would have to go by him, look at him, and she didn't want to.
I have to
. Forcing herself to move, she was passing the bookcase when the boy came through the doorway.

He was pulling tight sips of breath from the air. Blood stained one side of his shirt. He stared at Leona, his eyes filled with passionate rage. “You … you,” he mumbled. In that dark end of the room, it took a moment for Leona to realize what he was carrying in his hands. And then it was all too clear.

Holding the bottom of the gas can in his stiff left hand, Sherman tipped it and swung it in an arc before him. The gasoline sloshed and flew in a wide crescent near her. Leona swallowed her breath. “What're you doing?” Again he swung the can and splashes of gasoline flew toward her. She stepped back to dodge it. “
My God, stop it!
” she shouted. “
You'll set the house on fire! There's children in here! Mamie's here!
”

The swinging motion did not stop. The gasoline gurgled and slopped and flew toward her again. She whirled away from it. “Please!” she cried.

“Shut up,” he said. He lifted his head. “
MAMIE
!” he yelled, advancing into the room. “
MAMIE
,
COME HERE
!”

Then he slung the gasoline again.

On the balcony, Mamie watched Sherman raise his head and call for her, but she was trembling uncontrollably, afraid to move, afraid to go to him. Without knowing it, she was moaning to herself.

The air was full of gas
.

In her arms, she carried the sack of Funny Grandma's Christmas presents and she flung it down. One after another, she threw the presents out into the dark until she found the one she wanted, the one she had put there herself, and then her hands were flying, tearing the wrapping away.

The moment the gas can was empty, Sherman cast it aside and turned swiftly toward the fireplace where the thatch of twigs lay burning. “Please!” Leona cried. “You can't! You'll set us on fire!” Desperately she ran at him, grabbed the back of his shirt collar, and spun him back.

Off balance, Sherman swung at her with his good fist.

A shot cracked the air.

The bullet spanked a fireplace stone, spewing grit, and sang off into the night. The concussion spread through the depths of the house. It froze the moment. Everything stopped. Before either Sherman or Leona could recover, a small shrill voice yelled, “
No-o-o, Sherman
,” and footsteps raced along the length of the balcony. Mamie darted down the stairs, reached the landing, and turned, looking down at them. The air stank with fumes.

“
Sherman!
” Mamie screamed. “
No, Sherman, don't do it again. Don't burn us up!
” In her hands, she clutched the Browning automatic.

The muzzle of the gun drifted and steadied on Sherman.

Sherman stared in disbelief. “Mamie, whataya doin' with that?”

Stunned, Leona looked up at her. “Mamie, it was you. You took the gun.” She gasped for air. “You know him. Mamie, who is he?”

“He's my brother,” Mamie said, not once removing her gaze from him, her voice so small it hardly carried.

“Point it at her,” Sherman demanded. “She did it.” He stepped toward her. “
Kill her, Mamie! She did it
. She caused everything!”

“No, Sherman,” Mamie said. “You did it.” Holding the gun very still, she came down the remaining stairs. “You killed 'em all. You did it, Sherman.” And her wrath shattered the night. “You killed Mommy! Daddy! You killed Toddy!
The Chinaman
…” She stepped toward him, bringing the gun closer. “
You burned us up!
”

Sherman shrank back.

Suddenly he looked strange. Terror swarmed into his face.

Something had come up behind him. There was something climbing on his back.

The fire
.

He tried to reach for it. He screamed. It was feeding on him, spreading all over him, bursting through his gas-stained clothes, curling on his fingers—flickering white leaves of fire.

It made a hissing noise at first. Before he could stop it, before anyone could do anything, a towering white scallop of fire engulfed him completely. It caught Leona and Mamie like a camera flash, trapping them in light. Spontaneously the fire on the floor shot from him in runners, eating through the room, flying in zigzags from one splash of gasoline to another. They were all snared in it, screaming, casting about for something to help him, but there was nothing they could do. And then Sherman screamed again, an agonized cry so full of pain it shook the air.

“The kids!” Leona cried, above the circling white roar. “They'll burn up! Mamie!
Where are they?
”

“I don't know!” she shouted as Leona reached for her. “
He took them!
”

“
Where? Mamie, where? What'd he do to them?
”

Sherman emerged from the fireball engulfing him, the stench of his burning flesh hideous, beyond imagining. In a fluttering white nimbus of light, he stretched out his hand in a hopeless gesture. “May-mie,” he said from the depths of his withering. “May-mie.”

In flames, he reached for her.

“
Sherman!
” Mamie screamed, and tore herself from Leona. “
Sherman!
” She stumbled toward him, lifting her hands.

“
Mamie, get back!
”

Leona swept Mamie up and pitched back through the rim of fire so fast she hardly felt it lick at her legs. She could hear them then—the children, banging in the cellar. She grabbed her coat from the rack, threw it around Mamie, and ran through the kitchen.

With Mamie screaming and fighting in her arms, Leona ran down the rickety wooden steps to the cellar. The red light of the fire showed through the guttering floorboards above them, casting thin smoky shafts of light into the moldy room. She could hear Patsy and Walter kicking, could hear muffled crying out in the potato bin.

Clutching Mamie to her, Leona slid the latch open. The children's hands had been tied, handkerchiefs knotted across their mouths, and they were huddled together in the cramped box. With one arm still around Mamie, Leona hurriedly untied them and helped them out.

“Quick!” she shouted. “Let's go! We can still get out. Let's go! Let's go! Run!”

“Sherman!” Mamie was screaming. She never for a moment stopped screaming his name. They started up the cellar stairs. From the kitchen there came a quiver of radiant light.

He was there!

All at once, in flames, Sherman's fire-ravaged arms opened, reaching out. The children screamed and clung to Leona, drawing back. Scraps of burning matter fell from him, tumbling at them down the stairs, and the door frame blazed up, a bright flickering all around him.

“This way!” Leona cried. “This way. Go out the back!” And she pushed open the creaking, slanted doors onto a sky full of stars. Mamie broke away from her and ran back toward the stairs and her brother. “Sherman, I'm sorry,” she wailed. And then she screamed, “
I love you, Sherman!
”

“Mamie!” Leona gasped, running after her. “Oh, Mamie, please, you can't …” She snatched her up, and Mamie clawed at her so violently that Leona had to pin her arms against her body. Then she grabbed Walter in her other arm. “Hold on! Hold on tight!”

At the top of the stairs, Sherman was slowly bending to his knees.

The light from the fire stormed over the waterway like a malediction. It was as if the dark texture of the air itself were ablaze. Behind them, with a loud, staccato crack, the cottage roof caved in and a platinum brightness exploded around them, scorching their backs like a rocket's tail. The ice, catching the vast reflection, magnified the white convulsion a thousand times over. And then, moments later, a pulsing red corona of light rose from the gutted stone shell. Nothing escaped its eerie glow.

They fled from it, their shadows jutting in long, violent streaks across the frozen plain. On the riverbank, the effect of the red light was no less vivid. Shadows stretched behind the flame-stained trees and the new black Pontiac was alive with the reflected burning. And, finally, they were in the car.

Then they were flying backward toward the place where the car could turn around. “Please!” Mamie cried. “Let me go. He's my brother!” It would never be the same, and it would never be over. It was happening all over again. Once again she was being taken away.

Mamie flew wildly inside the car, sliding up and over the front seat, her pale hands beating at the glass, reaching for the flashing red flickers that sliced through the car and beckoned to her. She called his name, hurling herself from window to window like a bird inextricably trapped in a forgotten room.

The red light seemed to stalk after them as they pulled away, seemed to wink and reach for her through the trees. The Pontiac quickly gained speed, weaving through the bogs and curves near the cliffs, leaving him—leaving her Sherman—in his fiery red glow.

She could no longer scream. Her mouth still carried the shape of her immense desolation, but the sound in her throat had constricted to a small, repeated shriek. And even that was getting weaker.

Leona looked at her. Oh, Mamie, she thought. I'm losing Mamie, and she started to sob. I'm losing her. And Mamie's sob answered her own. The sound of their pain rebounded in the other two children, who had begun, once again, to cry.
Losing her
. I must do something.

Leona wanted to stop the car and comfort her, but she knew the fire would be visible for miles. They'll be coming, she thought, and yielded to her first concern—to get them to a place of safety.

They drove through the night up the high hill street of Brandenburg Station, past houses she remembered from that other, happy time. She took remote river roads. It was midnight before she noticed the blinking motel sign on the horizon and pulled the car in across gravel.

Leona signed someone else's name and carried the children into the room like all the other rooms, so many lives ago. In her pocket, she felt the paper envelope of sedatives and Walter's medicine and she drew water in a glass. She looked at Mamie, who was standing by herself, alone, alone in the world. And Mamie looked at her. The set of the little girl's shoulders, the terrified loneliness in her eyes were heartbreaking. They had lived through a burning hell and now stood on the far side of it, smoke-drenched, weak with exhaustion. Mamie was sobbing, gulping dry, shallow breaths.

Patsy and Walter had stopped crying, but they were still upset, still terrified. Leona broke one of the sedatives in two, giving them each a half, and then she gave Walter his medicine. Without losing sight of Mamie, she told them just to sleep in their underwear for the night and she helped them undo their clothes.

Then she put them to bed with a warm hug and a kiss, telling them not to worry. “Good night,” she said softly, going from one to the other. “Sleep tight.” Drawing the covers up around them, she straightened and turned. Mamie was gone; the door stood ajar.

With the last of her strength, Leona ran outside and saw Mamie stumbling slowly away through the night. She was weeping uncontrollably, her small shoulders heaving. It tore at Leona. Not knowing what to do or say, she followed after her, pulled along by Mamie's grief. The pain, the desolation were unbearable and she began to weep with Mamie and for her, for her suffering and for the terrible boy Mamie had loved so dearly.

“I'm sorry,” Leona said. “Oh, Mamie, I'm sorry. I'm sorry,” unable to stanch her tears.

Still grieving, Mamie turned, and from the depths of her despair, she gave voice to what would haunt her forever. “He wasn't”—she choked and her voice rose, fluttering out on a wail—“he wasn't my Sherman any more.”