Fires Rising (13 page)

He shuddered.
My god.

It was there. He could hear it. A voice. Barely a whisper, but still registering in his ears. And he knew, it was
significant
.

Rosary…rosary…rosary…

A
ll those present followed Jyro's lead downstairs into the lobby of the rectory. He felt, despite wanting to remain close to the rosary (none of them in their right minds were willing to try and get it from Larry), that it would be best to assemble everyone in a more 'open' space so they could discuss their options.

Two emergency lights jutting from red fire boxes in the walls lit the lobby, each providing a hazy glow on either sides of the room. In the center of the ceiling, a sole dome light supplied a dim splay of light, the attached sprinkler dry and still, coated with dust. The vagrants milled about like gnomes in a cave, feet shuffling heavily against the dusty carpet as they examined the bare room.

From somewhere outside the walls of St Peter's, a woman screamed. The men fell silent and listened as it went on and on and on…
 

"We're gonna die! We're gonna die!" the vagrant with the broken glasses screamed. His face was as red as a tomato. The tendons stood out in his neck, nearly as thick as bungee cords. He bolted across the room and launched himself at the closed door that offered access to the church. Timothy roared, "
No!
" but the warning fell on deaf ears.

The vagrant grabbed the doorknob and a sickly blue light hissed out. He howled out in pain. A pungent stench saturated the room, of ozone, and then of cooking flesh. He collapsed to his knees, wailing in a hysterical panic, holding his hands up in front of his face and staring disbelievingly at the tendrils of smoke spiraling up and away from them.

The vagrants staggered back, pushing and shoving against each other. A few frantic discussions rose up. Wrath and Weston moved to within a few feet of him, but no closer, knowing they could do nothing to relieve his pain.

"It doesn't want us to leave!" Jyro shouted with a slight tone of revelation. He gazed incredulously at the burned man, promising himself to keep away from anything with a doorknob on it. "Whatever…whatever
it
is."

The vagrants looked back and forth between the injured man and Jyro, some nodding in defeat, the others too scared to do much more than tremble and hope the blue light didn't get them too. As Jyro looked at the men, he thought,
We are a throng of hopeless saviors, most of us with long straggled hair and beards, with dazed and peculiar looks in our eyes. Take away the bald guy, and it's darn safe to assume we all resemble Jesus Christ…

"Now what?" Weston blurted, looking back and forth between Jyro and Timothy; despite his intimidating size, the big blonde man looked apprehensive, the blue of his eyes seeming to have paled into an ill-looking gray. Jyro looked at Timothy. The boy was staring at his hands again, this time with a look of fear on his face, as if he'd just woken from a witch's spell to find claws there instead.

"We wait," Jyro said.

"Wait for what?" Weston's head was bobbing so much Jyro thought it might detach from his neck and plunk to the floor.

"I don't know." For a moment there was total silence in the rectory, and it was here that Jyro realized how frightened he was. He tensed up, thinking that their only logical course of action was to stay put and try to find out
why
they were all there. Perhaps then they could figure out what steps to take to get out.
It won't let us out
, Jyro thought with dismay,
until it's good and ready.

The dreadlocked man said, "This really sucks, man. I ain't digging this one little bit."

Jyro nodded. "You think I like this? All I know is that we have to remain calm. As long as we don't go near the doors, then we'll be safe…at least for the moment." He twisted his head and looked at the man with the taped glasses; the injured vagrant was sitting on the floor, crying like a child, burned hands perched out before him as if accepting a host.

Jyro went to him and kneeled down. "What's your name, brother?"

The burned man gasped in pain, and managed to utter, "Seymour."

"Seymour—my name's Jyro. The boy is Timothy. The two big men are Weston and Wrath. The guy with the bible, his name's Rollo. And his buddy with the smoking habit is Marcus." He peered over at the man with the dreadlocks. "If we're going to work together, then we should at least know what to call each other."

The vagrant with the dreadlocks shook his head and spit on the floor. Digruntled, he muttered, "Wilson."

Jyro looked at the old man with the tattoos, sitting on a folding chair, elbows on his knees, bearded face rutted with sharp wrinkles. He was shaking terribly, as though connected to a charge of volts. "You with the tattoos…what's your name?"

The vagrant peered up at the men, eyes wet and rheumy. "Dallas."

Jyro looked at the albino. He was leaning against the wall and staring at the ceiling. His lips were trembling and a long line of spit wavered from them like a web in the wind. He seemed to have paled further, if that was even possible. Jyro decided not to drum up any conversation with him, and let him be.

Wilson, tugging nervously on his dreadlocks, said, "Okay, now that we're all acquainted, why don't you tell us all how the fuck we're supposed to get out of here.

"If there's a will, there's way," Rollo replied, tapping the tattered bible in his hands.

"Yeah, you can keep to your book of faith if you want," Wilson said, frowning with contempt and frustration. "The only way I see us getting out of here is through that door, and as far as I can tell, we can't even touch it."

"I think we need to figure out what the hell is going on first," Jyro said. "
Why
we're all here."

Wilson opened his mouth to protest, but remained silent. Everyone else remained quiet as well—a strange and rather instant conformity amongst them all, given the unstable circumstances. Perhaps there was no other course of action after all.

Jyro turned toward the altar boy. "Timothy, when you got here, your hands…they were burned like the others. But now they're not." His voice sounded oddly muted in his ears, as though something was trying to restrain him from making this observation.

Timothy looked grimly at Jyro, face still soiled with patches of waste, despite having tried to wipe it away with his hands. "The rosary…it must've healed—"

From the second floor came a scream, very long and razored with pain and terror. The men startled and jerked their gazes toward the ceiling. It went on and on, seeming to vibrate the floor beneath their feet.

It was one-eared Larry, thief of tools (and now the rosary). He was still upstairs, trapped behind the closed door of the bathroom. The scream ended and a succession of banging noises followed: Larry's feet perhaps, kicking against the door.

After endless seconds, the banging stopped, and then there was nothing but silence in the room.

The albino staggered toward the lobby's only window. He bumped against the wall, gripped the sill, and gazed out into the dark alley, mumbling incoherently to himself.

Jyro could see that it was dark outside now.
How…

"How can it be night already?" Timothy blurted, echoing Jyro's thoughts. The boy was trembling, fists clenched tightly at his sides.

"Christ, it can't be…" Jyro jerked his gaze around the room, wondering where the hours had gone. He looked at Weston. "You said we were in that bathroom for three hours…" He trailed off, feeling unconvinced as a shallow throb of pain settled into his head.

"That's right." Weston's head was practically gyrating on his neck now. He looked like a bobble head doll.

Jyro gazed out the window, past the lingering albino, whose face was pressed against the frame. "Well how can it be night already? It was morning when the kid and I went in there."

The boy shook his head back and forth. He looked overwhelmed and weary. Thick tears carved wet lines into the filth on his face. "It f-felt like we were in there for only fifteen minutes."

Jyro tugged nervously at his beard, eyes rolling around the room. He looked at the men, at the stairs, at the door leading out into the church. "Time is not on our side right now..."

"And we are at its mercy," Rollo said.

"So what the hell do we do?" Wilson shouted, voice breaking. "How the hell are we supposed to get out of here?"

The albino raised a determined finger to the glass pane. "Through here…"

Timothy shouted, "No!" and with his right hand outstretched, lunged toward the window. The albino, buried in his own inconsistent little world, reached up and gripped the latch on top.

There was a sharp popping sound, as if someone close by had pulled a party noisemaker. At the same instant a flash of blue light, a
fire
, branched out from the window and doused the albino's hand. The sleeve of his tattered shirt went up in flames. He screamed piercingly. His legs buckled and he collapsed down on his knees, waving his injured hand back and forth like a rain-drenched man trying to hail a cab.

Weston grabbed a tattered towel from the floor and smothered the fire before it could spread any further. A hideous stench filled the room, of singed hair and roasting flesh. Wrath shouted, "Oh God! Holy Jesus!
What the fuck is going on?"

Still on the floor, Seymour skittered back against the wall in a panic, burned hands held up high. His head bobbed forward, and he threw up on the floor between his legs, nearly missing Marcus, who performed a lopsided jig in an effort to avoid getting splattered.

Feeling a strange sense of loss,
as though my army is dwindling
, Jyro shouted, "Already too many injuries! Too…many! We need to gain control of the situation!"

Everyone in the room fell silent. Except the albino. He was screaming hysterically. He was lying on his back, feet rapping the floor like crazy, straggly hair falling into his bulging, red eyes. He looked up at Jyro, bottom lip quivering, saliva bubbling from his mouth in suds.

Jyro paced back and forth, arms flailing, heart driving a heavy rhythm in his chest. "We need to stop making rash moves! We need to start thinking about why we are here, and what we can do to get out!" His words carried volume, but very little weight.

Wrath shouted out, "You keep saying that, but you're doing nothing about it!"
 

"Okay…okay…" He stopped pacing. Breathing heavily, he said, "We have to remain calm, all of us, myself included. We need to think this out…"

Wrath looked at Jyro closely, dark eyes narrowed. "Man, how can you expect any of us to stay calm? Do you see what's going on in here?"

"Of course I do!" He paused, composed himself, and said, "Look…I'm scared. We're all damn scared. But it's here, and we're stuck in the middle of it." He considered Wrath's size, and grew almost as scared of him as he was the unexplained circumstances. The big man had a glimmer in his eyes, the kind he'd seen too many times in the streets from those threatening to make off with his belongings. "I really believe we're here for a reason. And the sooner we find out what that reason is, the sooner we can make an attempt to get the hell out of here."

Wrath peered down at Jyro, face painted with mixed contempt and understanding. After a moment, he nodded, the harsh light in his eyes fading.

A moment of uncertainty followed where the men could only listen to the choking, sniveling sounds of the albino. He continued writhing on the floor like a soldier left for dead in a battlefield, burned hand red and wet like a peeled tomato.

"Same thing happened to me," Timothy said, stepping into the loose circle that had formed, swollen eyes pinning the wounded vagrant. Weston and Wrath grimaced beneath the pain of their injuries, as though reminded of having suffered them, and the others rubbed their palms with nervous shock, feeling their comrades' pain. Seymour remained on the floor, seated against the wall amid his puddle of vomit. He was looking toward the group, body arched to one side. His glasses sat crookedly on his nose. They had specks of puke on them.

"What happened, kid?" Jyro asked.

Eerie silence filled the room; even the pained grumbles of the albino had tapered down. Jyro peered over at the pale man. His eyes were shut now, his tongue lolled like a dog's. Unconsciousness was knocking on his front door.

Timothy said, "I've been here for three days." The splay of the emergency beacon above bathed him in colorless light, making him look like a ghost as he pitched his gaze back and forth between the men.

"Three
days
?" Jyro said.

"It seems that long ago, although I've lost track of time. The days and nights have come and gone more quickly than usual."

When no one spoke up, the boy continued, speaking in a quick and anxious manner, as if a gun were pointed at his head. "I woke up in my bed and remembered that I'd left a duffle bag full of clothes in my locker. It'd been more than three weeks since the church was locked up, but for some reason I felt an inexplicable need to get my bag back. I tried hard to ignore this feeling, but it ate and ate at me until I saw no choice but to come here and get it. It was almost as if something was calling me here, using my recollection of the gym bag as a lure."