Arise (Book Three in The Arson Saga) (12 page)

“Whoa, whoa, little lady,” Ruth spoke, still coming closer. “What are ya doin’?”

“You plan to kill us, is that it?” Emery didn’t flinch. “I told you the truth, and you’re gonna off us? Not today.”

“From where I’m standing it looks like the opposite.”

“Don’t take another step. I swear, I’ll put a bullet in your head if you come any closer.” She pictured that filthy agent with the nasty mouth and crude sense of humor holding that shotgun, pictured him loading it, pointing it at her chest. But before he had the chance to nudge the trigger, she’d plant three of her own bullets in his bloated gut and one between his eyes—that is, if she could get her wrist to stay still.

“This game again? I know you’re on edge. You have every reason to be cautious o’ me. But Emery, dear, put down the pistol and stop shaking. No one is goin’ to hurt you, not as long as Ruth’s around. Scout’s honor. It still counts even if you dropped out, right?”

Emery stood rigid, perplexed. Should she chuckle or tempt the trigger? A second turned to a minute. Unsettled, she relaxed her arm and wondered when her heart would decide to beat again at a reasonable pace.

“This isn’t mine. It was Herb’s. But trust me, I didn’t get the gun because I mean to hurt
you
. I got the gun to protect you. To protect us. If what you said’s true, and I believe it is, then we best be prepared for whatever comes. Let’s assume your sadistic pals plan to drop by and pay us a visit. Well, then there’s gonna be a reckoning, tell ya the truth. I’ll send their sorry butts to kingdom come.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m good with a shotgun, that’s why. Because Herb taught me a thing or two. I ain’t fired it in a good while, that’s for sure. But it seems the good Lord might just give an old crow a reason to get reacquainted.”

“I mean, why do you want to help us? We don’t even know you. You don’t owe us anything.”

Ruth opened the chamber and dropped two shells inside before forcing it shut. “Never start somethin’ you don’t plan to finish. I took you in. This is my home. And you’re my guests for the time bein’. It’d be cruel—hell, shameful—of me to turn my back when you needed my help. Herb wasn’t a coward. And neither am I.”

“Was Herb your son?” Emery asked, just as Adam’s leg twitched.

Ruth shared her amazement at the sudden movement, the abrupt sign of life; then she calmly, warmly replied, “No, child. He was my husband.”

Chapter Fifteen

Distant screams called him
back.

No, not the screams. It was the touch. The touch of a child. The touch of innocence.

Arson knew he hadn’t died. He was beyond death. But this visage of a boy was not an evil apparition, and it was not here to harm him; he intuited that. Coming to, the sensation returned to his thighs, his chest, almost immediately to his entire being. The pain was immeasurable. Sore and wounded, he almost wished the corpses had made him one of their own.

Breathing. He was barely breathing. Choking. It was his blood coming up and spilling out over weak, tired knuckles.

“Adam! Adam, help me!”

Nothing but the groans. Nothing but the sound of ripping meat. He’d been to a butcher once, years ago. A friend of Grandpa’s, that was all he knew. He was just called the Butcher. His actual name was Quentin something, and Arson always questioned if the names were phony. But what he wondered more was who and what the Butcher cut up. He’d never spoken a word about the meeting, not even to Grandma. The mind remembered so much, even sounds.

“I’m not dead. I’m not dead. I’m not dead.” After saying it three times, he uttered a curse and continued. “I’m not dead! I’m not dead!” Arson said it seven times, and on the seventh utterance, a new sensation rippled through him. He looked down, and the blood began to seep back into his body from cracks in the floor.

Directly in front of his eyes was the boy, looking down at him from his knees. Their foreheads touched. These undead creatures could not harm him.

“He’s fixing it,” the cruel little girl seethed. “Cut him again. Devour him. Crush his bones. Eat him now!”

An almost deafening boom thickened the air. And then a strobe of light penetrated the circus of the undead. It must have been Adam’s wall of energy collapsing. Arson had toyed long enough. It was time to annihilate the swarm. He doubted now if he’d ever reach the door in time.

“You will,” whispered the boy, some of his curls tickling Arson’s eyes.

“I’m not strong enough.”

In reply: “Yes,
we
are. We always were.”

A slow blink.

“Arise, Arson. I believe in you.”

Arson slid his head to one side and saw a thin trail of blood that followed his lethargic body. He realized then that the boy had already dragged him nearly forty feet. It was unbelievable; the swarm was powerless to this image of his younger self. He couldn’t understand it. They followed lamely, blindly, trying to feed.

“How did you keep me alive?” Arson had to know.

“You don’t believe. But I told you so. We are strong enough.”

With tears dripping from his eyes, Arson mumbled, “My powers are dark. I
am
darkness. I thought I could be more. I fought it my entire life. But I fear that the dark in me will always win.”

“Choice. We make a choice.” The boy touched the leg of one of the undead, and it disintegrated. Whatever corpse stood within proximity to the boy’s hand also disintegrated. Ashes and soot covered the ground after they passed. “See? I made a choice. You made a choice in me to kill what’s ugly in you.
I
am you, Arson, before your mind got all messed up with guilt and hate and sadness. You locked me inside here years ago. But I didn’t die.”

The undead pulled at Arson’s feet. “This is a dream, and time is running out. You can be more, but you have to wake up,” the boy said.

Arson finally realized that his feet could move, but he noticed some of his toes had been chewed off and that he was missing chunks of meat from his abdomen.

“We
are
the arson. The fire is not evil. It doesn’t have to be that way. The powers—
you
possess. They don’t possess you. Arise and step forth. Become who you always were. One soul. One mind. Let all of this go.”

The boy’s request was a melody.

“Arise,” the boy pleaded. “Quickly.”

Adam screamed as a corpse tore into his neck with jagged teeth. Black blood popped from a vein. “This is it!”

“I am alive!” Arson spoke, and when he did, light erupted from his chest, consuming nearly twenty groaning, undead men. Arson arose, holding his stomach, his shirt soaking up much of the blood. His vision was almost perfect.

“Arise,” the boy chanted again. His younger self; his true self.

“What is that noise? I hate it. Make it stop! Make it stop!” shrieked the little girl who had stabbed him. “I hate you! You’re a pathetic boy, Stephen. A meddler. You’re a demon, just like us. You’ll never be free. We’ll never let you go!”

The girl’s head rotated from side to side and shook violently, becoming a myriad of faces, eyes, and mouths—some familiar.

In one swooping motion, Arson stiffened his open hand, and—as if it were a blade—slashed the air in a sudden wave. Turning in a complete circle, he unleashed a new fire, and it shot forth from his fingertips. The dead ones reflected in his eyes as they were instantly eviscerated. They could touch him no more. Their fleshly forms, mutilated and perverted, turned to dust. And their leader—the young, militant child—coughed a nursery rhyme.

“Ashes, ashes, we all fall…”

Her eyes were the last to be consumed. He absorbed the fire once more. The vein in his hand, his wrist, felt a surge of energy and power return. The fire wasn’t evil. It never had been. It was a gift, a perceived curse when manipulated, if in the wrong hands. But he could use it to defend as he had done with Emery that night on Mandy’s beach. When they tried to hurt her.

He could be more. He
was
more.

Arson turned to where the boy had been. But he was gone. It had been a little weird seeing himself, a part of himself, reflected. He only wished there had been time to express his gratitude.

The door baited him, trapped in the center of a great wall in the distance. But the wall shed its skin now. Arson glanced to his left then to his right, looked all around this hall. It was dissolving. The fire licked its edges, turning it into the likes of aged, forgotten paper. It peeled, revealing another layer. Concrete walls were covered with past secrets. Past sins. Past hopes. Past dreams etched there by an undeveloped mind. Endless episodes, inked, as if forever. But Arson did not continue reading them. They were dead. And this prison that housed so much of his torment was collapsing. Perhaps time did not exist here, but if these walls were no more, if this realm were closed completely, his essence might run the risk of being lost forever.

He ran toward Adam, catching his breath as much as he could, considering his gaping wound. He was thankful his feet had returned to normal. It was a rapid process. Once he’d slain the undead, the devoured flesh on Arson’s feet had begun to materialize. His belief had made it so. Faith and the human mind had always been connected, he now realized. And the belief that his body could be made well again, in spite of the flesh-eaters, was a miraculous truth to confess.

Arson reached Adam finally. His friend heaved, barely alive. Blood pooled behind his neck where he lay. Arson placed his companion’s head in his lap. “Adam, if you die in here…”

“You’re not…gonna let that…happen, right?” was all he said with his words. His facial expression, however, yearned for salvation. His eyes directed Arson toward the door. “What do you say we walk down the rabbit hole together? I’m ready to get outta here.”

Arson groaned, ignoring the stinging pressure culminating at his center. He felt blood leak down to his leg, drip onto his now bare feet. His vision blurred momentarily before coming back into focus.

“Don’t…puss out, kid,” Adam said, his eyes a whirlwind of fatigue.

They were just a few steps away from the entrance. Arson hoped they’d reach it in time, hoped nothing else lurked about. He saw the wall to his left fold and then collapse. Merciless concrete smashed the lockers and shattered glass. The fire raced across the ceiling. A split-second thought of trying to control it, only for Arson to realize such efforts would be futile. This realm would end. There was no stopping it. But would any powers he might have tapped into also be lost?

Why was it collapsing? Why couldn’t he stop it?

He limped. His strength should have increased by now, but with a quick glance down, he realized the blood still drained from his stomach, and the wound remained. He didn’t understand why. “Stay with me, Adam! We’re gonna make it out. I swear.”

It wasn’t just the vow in his voice but the peril his words were attached to. He’d made this prison cell for himself, and he’d loathed it so, yet such a strange feeling lingered now: how he wished it would not die. He wished it could be better. If only he could create a world in which he existed as the hero, and harm could not come to him or the girl he loved. If only Adam were not hanging onto every breath like death might come and steal him away. If only his world hadn’t shattered. He could’ve made a world of fire and frost and inscribed the fearless lyrics of a boy who stepped between.

A wave of smoke blew toward them from the right. Brick and stone and concrete and drywall crumbled, shooting debris wildly at them. Arson guarded his eyes and turned. Adam held up his hand and said, “Enough!” and the smoke obeyed.

“Could still teach you a thing…or two,” Adam gasped, rolling his head back.

“Don’t even think about dying! Adam! Come on! We made it! Stay with me! Stay with me!” Panic fled from his throat as he stepped to the door. He looked up, and it was like he was frozen. A drop of sweat took years to fall from his eyelid. A breath trembled as it retreated from frantic lips. He reached out his palm to touch the door, to force it open any way possible, but his hand passed through it instead. It was already melting, already breaking down.

There was no movement in Adam. There were no words. He shook the body in his arms and, for the first time, didn’t care for his own survival. He wanted Danny to live.

Not Danny. Adam. He wanted
Adam
to live. Like the boy he’d forgotten, the friend who left him behind—or was it the other way around?

“Breathe…just breathe,” he uttered. Calamity, chaos, collapse. Arson walked through the door, and the wall behind him caved in.

Once inside the portal, he nearly forgot to inhale, so concerned with whether Adam was still alive. There were cracks in this box, lines of color. It was only a matter of seconds before those lines of color exploded and tore through his being. It had never occurred prior to this moment, yet he knew it would happen. He wasn’t even sure how he knew. But he did.

He hobbled and dragged Adam’s body and his own. The struggle. The tears. Alarm swelled in his gut as he pressed his shaking hand against the surface. Suddenly, it all culminated. His father—the murderer. Salvation Asylum—the beast, the machine that fed a twisted kind of human madness. His love, his Emery—forever. His mother and Grandma. Danny, and the mistake that could never be made right. Cold fog slipped from his mouth. Then heat. Then a mixture of his new identity. “Adam! Stay with me!”

All the memories collide and the soul is powerless
. The escape code now existed inside him, but he couldn’t help his curiosity, couldn’t help the fear that maybe there were other powers in here that might die before he could obtain them.

Be fearful of the thoughts of men. Be wary of the traps of the end.

What would become of humanity? What would become of him?

“Arise,” the boy echoed from inside of him. Then the boy’s voice ricocheted off the walls. “Arise, fearless, and face it!”

Arson felt a pull. The walls fell down as if to crush them. But there was a light, a faint light, and a whisper from a familiar world.

Chapter Sixteen

Someone was smacking her
face.

Emery forced her eyes open and stared back into the blur that was Ruth. The kind woman searched for readiness and dilated pupils. It was a good nine seconds before any lively response came.

“Come on back to me, child. You gotta wake up now. Come on.”

Dry fingers prodded her chin up. Ruth’s hands felt tested, aged by so many experiences, she imagined—the cost of living.

“Adam…Adam…” she panted.

“He’s right here, next to us. I pulled his scrawny behind off the sofa. Now, tell me you’re alert. You rested some, thank heaven, but now you must listen to me carefully, sweetheart.”

Emery was still coming awake, but she dipped her head in acknowledgment. “How long was I asleep?”

“Not long. But listen, there’s no time for messin’ around. No time at all. We’re about to get visitors.”

“What!” Emery said in a panic, just about leaping off her uncomfortable spot in the chair. Her backside was sore, and her legs had fallen asleep a little. The circulation took longer to drift back than she was ready for.

“I don’t know who’s coming, Emery, but in a storm like this, I got me half a mind to make a good guess. And there ain’t time for us to risk playin’ diplomatic chit-chat. You two need to get outta here and get safe.”

“What about you?”

Ruth glanced down at the shotgun in her grip and smirked halfheartedly. “If they came for war, they’ll get it.”

Emery raised her head, peeking out the wide living room window. A car slowly eased up the drive, plodding through nearly five inches of snow. It was then that Emery noticed there was no heat left from the fireplace. The flame had died during her rest.

“This isn’t your fight, Ruth,” Emery tried, with tears in her eyes. She reached out and touched Adam’s abdomen, silently praying for him to wake. No change occurred.

“In unsure times as this, child, it takes more than prayers to put this world back together. Sometimes we gotta get our hands dirty, stand for something…something bigger than our fears.” She stroked Emery’s forehead, and there was love in the touch. She double-checked the magazine in the gun Emery had been carrying and plopped it once more into cold hands. “This is our war. We were born into the struggle, sweetie. There isn’t room for fear. We gotta fight until the time comes when we can’t no more.”

Emery’s teeth tugged at her bottom lip, no longer wondering what might happen, but knowing. And that knowing created a void at the root of her soul. She swallowed hard, torn between fleeing and staying. “But they’ll—”

“No. Don’t do that. Don’t let your thoughts wander down that road. There’s no hope in it. I’m not your mama, I’m not your gramma. I’m just a stranger to you, but I believe, you understand? I believe in you both. I believe in what may be. What men mean for darkness, the light can turn right again.”

The old woman’s cheeks moved up her face, and for a blink, Emery swore she meant every word.

“Thank you,” Emery returned, wiping her eyelids dry.

“Stand up, sweetheart. We haven’t got more than a minute or so. They’re pullin’ up mighty quick.”

Emery staved off her anxiety and fear.

“Look out that back door. See the shed?”

A trembling nod.

The shed Ruth spoke of was barely a speck in the distance. “There’s a truck inside. Haven’t used that thing in years, but she’ll start. It was Herb’s ride. She’ll get you outta this mess. The key’s under the driver’s mat. Drag Adam out there, and you ride like the devil’s after you, you got it?”

“No. I can’t.” Emery paced, unable to distract herself from the car that eerily made its way up the long driveway. “It’s too far. I’m not strong enough.”

“Yes, you are. You have to believe you can do this. Now move your butt!”

Ruth put her weapon aside and helped draw Adam’s limp body to the end of the house and out the back door. Snow swirled around their damp eyes. Ruth slipped out of her jacket and put it around Emery’s small frame, but the chattering didn’t cease. It was unlikely it ever would.

“No matter what you hear, don’t you dare look back.”

Emery brought Adam down the concrete steps, hating every second and wishing Ruth hadn’t said that. Her hands were already starting to turn stiff, and doubt—real, pure doubt—was busy inside her brain, searching for reasons why this wouldn’t work.

“Godspeed,” she heard the gentle but tough host murmur before shutting and locking the door.

Was this real? Was any of it? It couldn’t be. This couldn’t be what her life had become. Like some outlaw on the run. Was this the new world?

Her nose dripped, and as gross as she felt for not wiping above her lip, she tried to put it all out of her thoughts. Trudging through the snow, Adam’s body like a burden she wasn’t sure she was capable of carrying, she hoped that long black car had pulled up to the cabin alone and that no one else was watching. Ruth’s casual smirk lit her imagination, and Emery created a fierce depiction of her, defending the cabin home with all her strength. A proud wife and mother, maybe even guardian angel. Her heart sank at the notion that Ruth might…

No, Emery, you can’t think like that. You…just…can’t.

Silence surrounded her. The woods, the air, the earth were painfully still. A devastating and numbing quiet.
Just keep pushing. Just keep going.

Her muscles screamed. Her fingers seemed like they might split off from each knuckle. She released Adam, counting every lethargic breath that swam around her face. It was so icy cold. She scanned the area. Ruth’s home was now about sixty yards away, and she was only halfway to the shed. But her body didn’t have the power to continue. She dropped to her knees. The unkind, slippery snow invaded her jeans. “Adam, please wake up.” She pressed her head against his temple, kissing it, letting her tired lips linger atop his skin for a long moment. “I can’t do it. I can’t. I need you. You have to come back. Please.” Her muscles were tense. She tried to pull him farther, but she couldn’t stop shivering, and weakness left her defeated. Energy drained. If she were to scream, those who had come for them would surely hear. Ruth had told her—warned her—not to look back, but that was all she wanted to do. She felt like a coward letting someone else, some wonderful stranger, fight on their behalf. Undeserved. Unwarranted. So many of her dad’s long-winded sermons became clear. Grace—a concept she had only ever half-grasped—now made perfect sense, and at the most uncertain moment of her life.

Emery ground her molars and slammed each fist into the snow, frustrated and confronted with a disturbing revelation. “I’m gonna die.” She sniffed. “We’re gonna die.” She kissed Adam’s forehead, knowing that every drop of hopelessness now drifted across her veins.

The wind seemed to cut her cheek. It should’ve caused pain, but it soothed instead.

“No, we’re not.”

Were those words her thoughts? They couldn’t be. She’d
heard
them. She swore she’d heard those words as the falling snowflakes melted against her lids and nose.

She opened her eyes, and shock consumed her. “Adam? You’re awake. You’re…alive,” she said, kissing him a second time.

The sound of a gunshot exploded.
Oh no.
Who had been hit? Ruth, or one of the menaces from the asylum?

“Where are we?” Adam asked with a shiver, searching the perimeter.

“No time. They found us.”

He nodded.

“There’s a truck inside. We need to get as far away from here as we can.”

Adam was alert almost immediately. With a grunt, he sprang to his feet, and she knew his leg muscles must be sore, but he fought their weakness anyway. Emery threw his arm around her shoulder for assistance, but he said he didn’t need it. She, on the other hand, still felt weak. Very weak.

A second shot blistered across the space between the cabin and her ears. The dreadful sound shook her brain. Should it have seemed so loud?

The shed was close. She absorbed a long drag, and the fibers and muscles in her esophagus constricted and quivered. She thought her pulse might stop altogether, but that was just her mind, she realized. They ran toward the rundown shed, toward a glimpse of something like…like what?

Seeing Adam awake again brought a new kind of hope, but had that small glimmer of light come at the cost of Ruth’s life? That didn’t seem right.

Adam pulled open the door to the large shed. Emery was still working through the exhaustion, grabbing her gut. Shouts echoed from the cabin.

She lied to herself, said it would be all right. If only she could get her mind to believe the lie that Ruth might endure beyond this day. If only. Emery covered her ears.

“No,” Adam said to her. “Feel it. Know it. That’s the sound of corrupt humanity. It’s the only sound it knows. Chaos.”

Emery nodded, silent, knowing full well that was the only answer he’d accept. And she accepted it too, wiping the tear away before it hit her cheek.

Adam removed the truck’s cover, and a cloud of dust lifted off with it, blurring her vision for a blink or two.

“Key’s under the mat,” Emery said with a shaky voice when Adam opened the driver’s side door.

“Get in,” he ordered, locating the key.

She was frozen.

“Emery, what are you waiting for? They might still be tracking me. We have to go. Now! I can’t beat them like this!”

She groaned, tucking several strands of hair behind her ears and opening the passenger door. This was wrong on so many levels. The aged metal creaked, the movement aggravating its decaying hinges. “I can’t,” she admitted. “I can’t just abandon her like this. Adam, they’re gonna kill her.”

“Kill who!” he asked, irritated.

“Ruth! She risked her life to help us. We can’t just forsake her when she needs us.”

“We don’t have a choice.”

“There’s always a choice.”

“Emery, get in. It’s just one life. You mean more to me than a hundred of them.”

Them?
Them who? Humans? Didn’t he know she was a human? How could he be so harsh, so heartless?

A final gunshot sounded. It might as well have ruptured her chest because, for a split second, she thought she might be dying. She searched for usable weapons. Something, anything. On the floor of the truck there was a flathead screwdriver and a rusted hammer covered in webs.

“My powers haven’t returned yet,” Adam told her. “What are you doing?”

“Making a difference.” Emery grabbed the tools and raced out of the shed.