Calamity

alone.”

“We can’t do that.”

Ellis nodded to Dwayne, who moved toward them. Dad raised the hammer. “Back off or I swear I will kill you.”

Dwayne paused, glanced at Ellis.

“Don’t be stupid,” Ellis said to Dad. “You can stay here if that’s what you really want, but Brendan comes with us.”

Dad’s lips pulled back from his teeth like a dog about to attack. “You will never take my son.”

Ellis started to respond but a car pulling up alongside him killed his words. All heads turned as the car slowed, slowed, stopped. At first Brendan thought it was more of Ellis’s people. If that were true, Dad would have to run. There’d be no way he could fight off more than two. Brendan would have to sacrifice himself to save his father. He knew right now and with complete certainty that he would do just that.

But the car belonged to Paul, Tyler’s friend. He sat in his car, glancing at everyone, dumbfounded. He slowly got out of the car. “Mr. Williams?”

Dad took a moment to respond. “What are you doing here, Paul?”

He shook his head as if this scene were not comprehending. “What are you doing here?”

“Call the police, Paul,” Dad said. “Call them now.”

Paul’s eyes set on the fire, which was now raging across most of the front of the house. Sasha and her mother might have escaped through a window; this fire could be for nothing.

At least I did it, Brendan thought. I proved I was strong.

“Oh, shit!” Paul yelled. He ran straight past Dwayne toward Dad. He meant to push past him but Dad grabbed him by the shoulders. The hammer clattered on the street.

“What?” Dad said. “What is it? What’s so important about that house?”

For a moment, the words could not escape Paul’s mouth. “Tyler! He’s in there! ”

Then they were both running toward the burning house and Brendan was alone with Ellis and Dwayne.

10

Darkness. Yet, sounds very clearly, and voices.

“Be sure to make a clean cut,” Sasha’s mother said. “The sacrifice must be clean.”

“They’re so hard,” Sasha said. “What if I damage the other one?”

She was going to cut off one of his testicles. Oh, Jesus Christ shit fuck shit fuck no. Tyler tried to will himself out of his paralysis. He had to move, to get away from these psychotic women before they cut him and—

Help! he screamed in his mind. Please help me for the love of God!

“Do it now,” her mother said. “Before you lose your nerve.”

“He’s not a bad guy.”

“He’s a man and all he wants is your cunt. He doesn’t respect your power to make life. If your child is to be blessed, you must make the sacrifice.”

“My hand’s shaking.”

Silence for several moments with the faint sound of crinkling paper coming from somewhere distant. Was she touching his testicles, choosing which one to remove? Was she cutting into him now? Was his blood soaking the carpet?

“What’s that noise?” Sasha asked.

“It’s nothing, just—”

A loud bang almost like an explosion but not quite as forceful came from the left. Both women shrieked. The crinkling sound from before was now louder, much louder. The sound of fire. What was going on?

“It’s a sign?” Sasha’s mother said.

“Mom, we have to get out—”

Another burst, this from the opposite side of the house, maybe at the front door, echoed through the house. This bang was bigger, more like an actual explosion. They were under attack. Maybe he was hallucinating—a side effect of the drugs. Maybe my testicle is in a pool of blood on the carpet.

Sasha and her mother spoke rapidly, on the verge of panic.

“It’s the Earth Goddess.”

“It’s fucking fire, Mom! It’s not a goddamn sign!”

“We must pray.”

“We have to get out of here!”

“The whole house is burning. We must pray.”

“The window!”

There was a clashing and clattering of objects and Sasha’s desperate heaving breaths. Her mother had said the whole house was burning. Was that true? He felt the heat. Or was that a trick of his mind?

Sasha’s voice farther away: “It’s stuck!”

Her mother, closer, right next to him: “We ask you oh merciful and wise Goddess of the Earth to show us the way in this our hour of need.”

Glass shattered and Sasha yelled again. It was a cry of pain. She had cut herself trying to escape. “Help me, Mom!”

“We acknowledge your power and commend your brilliance. You have lit the fires that now burn at my doors. You are coming. We await you eagerly.”

“Get up!” Sasha screamed. More crashing objects, the floor vibrating with the clatter. She had knocked over the altar. “I said,” Sasha said now right on top of Tyler, “GET UP!! ”

Sasha’s mother released a barbaric howl that was supposed to sound like a prayer but which reverberated around the room like the dying screech of a slaughtered animal.

The scream ended with the sudden swap of a hard smack. Then the two women were grunting and cursing and yelling and rolling on the floor in a brawl. Meanwhile, the house was burning down, and Tyler’s dick was out in the open.

The knife. If he could grab it.

Wake up, he told himself. Open your damn eyes.

Another sound, possibly at the window. “Oh, Jesus, Tyler!”

Dad. How the hell did he know where Tyler was? What difference did it make? He tried to scream and couldn’t. The heat pushed closer. Soon, the room would be boiling.

“I’m coming,” Dad yelled from the window. The sound of the fire eating the outside of the house was almost deafening.

Hurry, Tyler tried to say. Please hurry.

Sasha and her mother continued their battle next to him, unaware perhaps of Tyler’s dad’s arrival. Sasha’s mother released a deep gut-sound like she were about to vomit or had been hit hard in the stomach.

Barely audible, Sasha whispered, “I’m sorry, Mom, but you’ve lost your fucking mind.”

Speak for yourself, Tyler thought and then realized: she just killed her mother.

A moment later, she was screaming for Mr. Williams to help her, please help her. Tyler summoned all his power and felt his mouth open and unleashed a deep, panicked cry that was so loud it knocked his eyelids open.

11

God must hate me, Anthony thought. Why would He do this to him? Why had He taken Anthony’s baby, his Delaney, poisoned his Chloe, let him kill Dr. Carroll, helped maniacs brainwash his son, and now try to burn his Tyler to death? What kind of a god did that?