Chapter 5: Embers and Lies
Chapter 5: Embers and Lies
The world became a roaring, searing tunnel of orange. The makeshift flamethrower had worked with terrifying efficiency, turning the bathroom doorway into the maw of a furnace. The creature’s agonized howl was a symphony of pain that was almost beautiful, a brief, victorious moment before the consequences crashed down on her. The fire wasn't contained. It licked up the doorframe, tasting the dry wood, and in seconds, the whole structure was engulfed.
Her desire, raw and absolute, was to live. The fire she had created was now the obstacle, a ravenous beast blocking her only path to safety.
Thick, black smoke, smelling of burnt chemicals and roasting monster, billowed into the tiny bathroom, stealing the air from her lungs. She dropped the now-useless can and lighter, her eyes streaming. Coughing, choking, she stumbled to the sink and cranked the handle, stuffing a plush hand towel under the faucet. It wasn't enough, but it was all she had.
Wrapping the sopping towel around her head and mouth, she took one last, shallow breath of clean air from near the floor. Her action had to be now or never. She braced herself, her eyes squeezed shut, and charged.
She burst through the wall of flame and into the master bedroom. The heat was a physical blow, a solid wall that blistered her skin. The creature was a writhing pillar of fire in the center of the room, a screaming, thrashing inferno of black limbs and burning ichor. It made no move toward her; its agony was its entire world. She kept her eyes averted, fixed on the floor, the rule still a frantic mantra in her head even amidst the flames. Don't look, don't look.
The fire was everywhere. It raced across the carpet, devoured the heavy curtains, and climbed the walls like a living thing. The ceiling groaned above her. The whole house was dying.
She ran. Adrenaline and terror were the only things keeping her on her feet. The pain in her cut foot was a dull, distant throb, but as she scrambled for the hallway, a sheet of burning curtain fell from the window. She tried to leap over it, but her bare leg caught the edge. The fabric, sticky with melted synthetics, clung to her skin.
A new kind of pain, white-hot and blinding, screamed up her leg. She shrieked, falling and rolling on the floor, beating at the flames with her bare hands until they were extinguished, leaving behind a horrific, blackened burn that stretched from her ankle to her knee.
Sobbing, she hauled herself up, using the wall for support. The house was groaning around her, the death rattle of timber and plaster. She stumbled down the stairs, each step a fresh agony. The living room was a hellscape of smoke and shadow. The gaping hole where the back door had been was a promise of cool, clean air. She limped across the floor, the crunch of shattered glass under her feet a perversely familiar sound, and finally, finally, she was out.
She collapsed onto the dew-soaked grass of the back lawn, gasping the cold night air into her scorched lungs. Behind her, the magnificent glass house was a funeral pyre, roaring its defiance at the silent, starry sky. She had survived. That was the result of her desperate fight.
She couldn't stay here. She had to get to the road. She forced herself to her feet and began a painful, shuffling run down the long, gravel driveway. The world was a dizzying blur of pain and exhaustion. Her vision swam, black spots dancing at the edges. She reached the end of the driveway, the dark asphalt of Clark's Creek Lane a welcoming void, and her strength gave out. She collapsed in a heap, her cheek pressed against the rough, cold ground.
As unconsciousness began to pull her under, she saw them. This was the turning point, the moment the nightmare bled into a horrifying new reality. At the edge of the woods, across the road, figures were standing. Just standing. There were three of them, tall and silent, their forms indistinct in the flickering firelight. They wore dark, heavy robes, and their faces were obscured, lost in shadow or hidden behind the pale gleam of simple, featureless masks. They made no move to help her. They didn't call out. They simply watched the house burn and its sole survivor bleed onto the pavement. They were the silent audience to her private horror show. Her last conscious thought was a jolt of chilling recognition: they were the figures from the nightmare that had started this night, hours or a lifetime ago.
She woke to the color white and the steady, rhythmic beep of a machine. The smell was antiseptic, sterile, a world away from the smoke and rot she had escaped. A thin blanket was tucked around her, and a dull, throbbing ache radiated from her bandaged left leg. An IV tube was taped to the back of her hand, feeding a clear liquid into her veins. A hospital. She was safe.
A nurse with a kind, tired face noticed she was awake. "Well, hello there, sleepyhead. You gave us quite a scare. A firefighter found you on the road."
The memories came rushing back, a chaotic flood of horns and hooves, of a voice made of stolen sounds, of black ichor and a pillar of fire. She flinched, her heart monitor beeping a little faster.
Her new desire was simple: to make it all go away. To bury it.
The obstacle arrived an hour later in the form of a county detective with a notepad and a deeply skeptical expression. He introduced himself as Detective Miller and asked her to tell him what happened.
This was the moment. The truth was a wild, screaming thing that would get her locked in a different kind of white room, one with padded walls. It would destroy what was left of Jimmy's memory, branding him a lunatic who caused the death of his friends, the Hendersons, and a troubled young woman's breakdown. She remembered his final, whispered words: I'm so, so sorry, Jen. He hadn't just been apologizing for passing the curse. He was apologizing for this. For the choice she would now have to make.
So she lied.
Her action was to build a cage of words around the truth and lock it away. "The lights were flickering," she began, her voice raspy. "The house is old... I mean, it looks modern, but the agent said some of the wiring was original." She stared at her hands, twisting the thin hospital blanket. "I was in the living room... I heard a pop from behind the TV. I saw a spark. A big one."
She let a tear roll down her cheek. "It happened so fast. The curtains... they went up like a match. The smoke was everywhere. I panicked. I ran for the back door, but I couldn't get it open. I... I had to break it." She held up her bandaged hands. "I broke the glass and ran. I don't remember much after that."
She looked at him, her eyes wide with what she hoped looked like pure, unadulterated trauma. "My friend, Jimmy... did you find him? He came by earlier, he was... he wasn't well. He ran off into the woods before the fire started." She was protecting him, giving him an alibi, a head start from whatever came next.
Detective Miller scribbled in his notepad, his expression unreadable. "Faulty wiring," he said, more to himself than to her. "We'll have the arson team look, but it sounds open-and-shut. Tragic accident."
The Ellisons arrived later that day. They stood at the foot of her bed, their faces a mask of contained grief and anger at the loss of their beautiful home. She repeated the lie, the words tasting like ash in her mouth. They listened, nodded, and told her their insurance would handle everything. There was no sympathy in their eyes, only the cold calculus of loss. She was just another liability, a loose end in the destruction of their world.
She was alone with it. The lie, the memory, the burns. The official story was accepted. Jennifer Miles, the lucky housesitter who narrowly escaped a tragic electrical fire.
But that night, as she tried to sleep in the sterile quiet of the hospital room, a new surprise, a new horror, took root. Every time she closed her eyes, she wasn't back in the fire. She was on the cold asphalt of Clark's Creek Lane, looking across the road. And the three silent, masked figures were still there, watching from the edge of the woods, their featureless faces bathed in the ghostly light of the embers. They weren't a dream. They were real. And they had let it happen.
Characters

James 'Jimmy' Foster

Jennifer 'Jen' Miles
