The Burning

Her mother shifted in her sleep, muttered something unintelligible, then sank again into deep slumber.

Her mom had been doing very well. She'd found a small liqueur bottle in Leslie's cabinet yesterday that she'd polished off, but that had been it, and when they'd all gone to the store this morning, she hadn't even gone down the liquor aisle. Jolene was proud of her, and she wished she knew how to tell that to her mother without sounding patronizing.

She straightened, massaging her stiff neck with one hand, and glanced around Leslie's living room. Her friend was at work. She had been great through all of this, and though Jolene had not seen her in years, had not even bothered to keep in touch, the two of them had picked up exactly where they'd left off. It was as though she'd never moved away. Once best friends, always best friends, Jolene thought, and the sentiment brought her close to tears. She hadn't had a friend since to whom she'd been anywhere near as close. Part of it was due to the demands of being an adult. With work and family and the responsibilities of life, there just wasn't the free time to hang out together that there had been in high school. But part of it was also the mysterious chemistry that had brought them together in the first place, that had led them to bond over their shared disdain for jocks and cheerleaders in the back of Mrs. Wilson's social studies class. They'd been kindred spirits back then, instantly attuned, and connections formed at that pivotal age were always much stronger than those created later.

She or Leslie or both of them might move away in the future, but Jolene knew that they would not lose touch this time. They were bound together, friends forever.

Her throat felt dry, and she made her way to the kitchen to get a drink of water. Although the drapes were drawn, Jolene avoided looking at the windows. Leslie's curtains were frilly and sheer, and she was afraid of what she might see. Outside these walls, normal life went on for everyone else in town, but more and more she felt trapped within the house, barricaded against evil forces she could not hope to fight against. She knew that wasn't healthy, knew it was fostering an attitude of fear and paranoia, but she was afraid. For her son as much as herself. And after reading those diaries and seeing what she'd seen, she knew that there were evil forces.

Evil was not an abstract concept or metaphoric construct. It was real. And it lived.

They want revenge.

She wished Leslie would hurry up and come home.

Jolene walked back out to the living room, turning on the television but keeping the sound low. Jerry Maguire was on. She'd seen that movie with Frank. Before Skylar was born. Although the film itself still seemed recent, that period of her life felt like a long, long time ago, and thinking about it now made her sad.

She turned off the television.

There was the sound of movement from within the bedroom. It was probably nothing, but she couldn't afford to ignore it. She walked over to the bedroom doorway to check.

And Skylar awoke screaming.

In his dream, Skylar was himself, but he was also a marionette. His strings were being worked by the ancient Chinese man who'd spied on him and his mom through the window and who'd kidnapped him in the school bathroom. The wrinkled face grinned down at him as knotted fingers tilted and twirled the strings to make him dance. He didn't want to dance-he wanted to run-but his own will and muscles were no match for the overpowering force of the strings.

Suddenly there was another puppet approaching him. It was being controlled by a scowling bearded white man in an old-fashioned suit and hat. This marionette was made from the body of a mummified child, and its eyes and mouth were sewn shut with black suture that gave its face the appearance of a shrunken head. The strings made its skeletal arms and withered legs move up and down in a grotesque approximation of walking. Skylar's instinctive reaction was to run, and he tried to do just that, but the old Chinese man holding his strings started cackling and forced him to approach the other puppet with arms outstretched, as though inviting a hug.

Skylar wanted to scream but couldn't. He had no voice.

All of a sudden, there was a knife in his right hand, and with a hard, painful yank, the string attached to that arm made it thrust forward. Within seconds, he was jabbing at the other puppet, stabbing the mummified child in its shriveled stomach, in its bony chest. No blood emerged from the slices and tears in the dried skin, only puffs of dust, but despite the furious machinations of the bearded puppeteer, the marionette began to slow down, like a toy whose battery was dying. Another hard yank on the string connected to his right arm, and Skylar was stabbing the puppet in the face. Sutures ripped open, and opaque eyes glared out at him. The toothless mouth screamed silently.

Then he was being hoisted into the air, his feet scrambling up the collapsing skull of the marionette, his hands grasping the strings attached to the mummified child and climbing to the top, where he leaped upon the bearded man's hands.

His Chinese controller was laughing loudly now, no longer cackles but full-out guffaws. The bearded man at first let out a grunt of surprise, but Skylar sliced the muscle of his arm and then he was crying out in pain and fear, cries that turned to whimpers as Skylar moved up to his shoulder and began stabbing his neck and cheek and ear, the blood spurting out and covering him in a spray of crimson.

He could not see, and he fought against the strings with all of the strength he had, just so he could wipe

the blood from his eyes. The straining paid off and he finally overcame all resistance. He used the backs of both hands to wipe off his eyes-

And he was back in that cellar, lying naked on the hard dirt ground. Only he was not alone. The same bearded white man was unwrapping a piece of folded wet linen on a wooden workbench. He was not dressed in suit and hat this time but was clothed only in his underwear, which was stained red with blood, some of it dried, most of it not. There was blood on his skin as well, and when Skylar sat up, he saw that the man was withdrawing from the dirty wet linen a human hand. The stump of the wrist was ragged, as though the hand had been yanked off an arm rather than cut, and in the middle of the red was a circle of white bone.

Chester Williams, he thought. The man's name is Chester Williams. The old Chinese man had told him that. He remembered it from last time.

Williams picked up a long knife from the workbench and lovingly used it to sever a finger from the hand. A thin trickle of blood dribbled out.

Skylar gagged, throwing up on the ground next to him, and that captured Williams' attention. The bearded man turned around, and Skylar saw with horror that he had an erection.

He pointed to Skylar with the dripping knife. 'Don't worry, sweetums. You're next.'

And then Skylar was in a dark place that didn't seem like anyplace at all. He couldn't tell if his feet were on the ground or if he was floating in some limitless space, because there was no resistance against the soles of his shoes or any other part of his body. He put his hands out in front of him and tried to walk, but the darkness was so complete that he had no idea if he was moving forward or remaining in place or spinning in the open air. He sensed that he was not alone-although he was not sure of it until he heard the voice speak to him.

'Skylar.'

It was not the same voice as before, the voice of the Chinese man, the puppeteer. There was something inhuman about it and vaguely snakelike, especially in the way it drew out the sibilance of his name.

He did not answer, tried to make himself small, tried to hide, though for all he knew the entity could see in the dark and was watching him right now.

'Destroy the house. It is the key.'

Images accompanied the words. But more than imiges. Understanding. He understood what he was noelng, comprehended the reasons behind it.

And what he saw was the mansion where he had been taken, the one with the secret cellar that he knew now to be the Williams place. Chester Williams had been a bad man, an evil man, and much of that evil had been brought to the house. He'd heard his mom and his grandma and Ms. Finch talking about Chester Williams and his diaries when they thought he was asleep, and he remembered seeing the scalps and toes and other severed body parts when he'd been brought into that hidden cellar, but that was only part of it. Chester Williams had done much, much worse within those walls, and though Skylar saw some of it, he knew he was being shielded from the worst atrocities, and for that he was grateful.

And still the house stood, its secrets protected through the generations by Chester Williams' son and then his