you can make it real.”
“Okay, but this thing is still gross.”
“I’m not going to debate that with you,” I replied as I motioned to the vessel. “But, now you know what a Witch jar is.”
“Wunnerful,” he muttered. “I feel sufficiently educated now.”
“So, Carl, you said there was something in the back?” I ignored my friend’s sardonic tone and directed my question to Detective Deckert.
“Yeah.” He pointed to the doorway at the other end of the divided room. “He got a little artistic on the walls back there.”
“Monogram of Christ?” I mentioned the wreath-encircled X bisected by a P because it had been one of Porter’s calling cards the last time he had gone on a killing spree. I had even been on the receiving end of a series of ethereal stigmata of the same shape each time he claimed a victim. Unconsciously I reached my right hand over to massage my left forearm, as it had been the canvas for the bloody signs. Fortunately, there were no indications of a repeat performance at the moment.
“Yeah, there’s a couple of those.” He nodded affirmation as he spoke. “But there’s some other stuff. Star kinda things. Not sure what they’re s’posed to be. You’ll just have to look at ‘em.”
I shuddered for a moment and looked around as the hairs on the back of my neck rose painfully to attention. The tickle of gooseflesh serpentined down my spine and spread out from there, making me tense my muscles in pure reflex.
“You okay, white man?” Ben asked.
“I’m not sure,” I replied without looking at him. “I feel…”
I allowed my voice to trail off very simply because I couldn’t find words to describe the feeling that had come over me.
“You feel what?” my friend pressed after a moment of expectant silence.
The tingle that was prancing about on my skin oozed down my arms and welled in my hands, making them feel as though circulation was only now returning after an extended absence. Painful pricking sensations needled my fingers in a rapid-fire assault. I looked down at my hands and rubbed my thumbs against my fingertips. The pain intensified with each pass, and my hands began to burn as if they were on fire.
I’ve never been a big fan of Shakespeare, so I don’t quite know why I picked his work to quote other than the fact that it seemed to fit. I looked up at them, and the line of prose exited my mouth before I could even think. “By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes.”
CHAPTER 15:
“That’s Shakespeare, ain’t it?” Ben asked.
“Macbeth,” Deckert offered. “Act four, scene one.”
Ben looked over at him and raised an eyebrow.
“Gimme a break, Mona’s a high school English teacher.” Deckert shrugged as he referred to his wife. “I’ve seen the play a few hundred times.”
Ben turned back to me. “So is this some kinda Twilight Zone thing, Row?”
“Yeah,” I said as I nodded. “You could say that.”
“Okay.” He gave me a questioning gaze to match his tone. “What’s it mean?”
“How many times do I have to tell you…” I began.
“Hold on,” Deckert interrupted and motioned for us both to be quiet. “Did you hear that?”
“Hear what?” Ben asked.
“I don’t know,” he replied. “It sounded like it was coming from upstairs.”
Ben shook his head. “I didn’t hear anything.”
We stood in relative silence, gazing up at the drop ceiling over our heads and listening intently. Detective Deckert still held his hand up, frozen in place as we waited.
“Listen.” His eyes grew wide as the noise filtered down to us. “There it is again.”
To me, it sounded akin to a screaming hiss, coupled with a dull roar, and occasionally punctuated by a popping sizzle. It was muffled by the walls and ceiling above us, but it was definitely growing louder by the second. There was something frighteningly familiar about the sound, and I was searching my memories as fast as I could, trying to place a cause with the effect.
Before I managed to make the connection, my friend spoke up. “Hear something hell, I can smell it.”
He wasn’t the only one. The acrid bite of burning wood and synthetic materials now mixed with the earlier odors in the basement and wafted through on a thin layer of smokiness.
“Seems a bit strong to be someone’s fireplace,” I observed.
Suddenly, the piercing wail of a smoke detector lanced its way through the basement from the direction of the stairs.
“Holy Jesus, Mary Mother of God,” Deckert muttered.
Ben skipped past any semblance of muttering and went directly to exclamations. “Sonofabitch!”
He was already moving when he bellowed the expletive, hooking around me and heading for the stairs. Deckert and I followed close on his heels.
This particular staircase was positioned such that it formed a steep angle diagonally against the far wall. Due to the structural design of the foundation, in order to keep that angle from being far too oblique, it reached a small landing near the bottom, then made a ninety-degree turn, and continued down for another short flight of steps. The stairwell, in and of itself, had been a part of the remodeling project and was now enclosed by thin sheets of paneling applied directly to the wooden studs.
Ben was several steps ahead of us and hit the bottom stair at full speed, launching himself past the other two and onto the landing. By the time we reached the opening, we could hear him bounding upward and coughing violently.
Deckert urged me ahead, and I stumbled for a moment, raking my shin against the edge of the stair. I groped for a handrail and found none, so I pushed off and started upward again, ignoring the pain in my lower leg. As I hit the landing with the older detective puffing hard behind me, I made the turn and was immediately enveloped in a thick haze of smoke.
The detector in the stairwell was still screaming at full volume, echoing from the paneled walls and drilling an intense pain deep in my ears.
The cloud of smoke was increasing at an alarming rate, and it easily began to overtake the narrow space as it billowed in from beneath the door. I came to a sudden halt as my eyes began to water and burn. Partially blinded, I held my arms outstretched, trying to feel my way up the staircase, and lurched forward.
My heart was racing, and I involuntarily sucked in a deep breath of the polluted atmosphere then immediately hacked it outward, sputtering and choking as I fell once again on the stairs. I could hear Ben up ahead of me barking out his shallow breaths and then the heavy sound of a body against solid wood as he threw his weight against the door. The thud was followed by my friend’s choking voice. “Owwww! Shit! Jeezus! Goddammit!”
I pulled the neck of my shirt up over my nose and mouth and dragged myself upward. Deckert was immediately to my rear, and he grabbed my arm in an attempt to help me up, but he was already breathing so hard when we hit the landing that the sudden rush of smoke was taking a far quicker toll on him.
The din of the fire was echoing from the walls, and dangerous sounding creaks and groans were now beginning to insinuate themselves into the fray.
I squinted hard in the darkness of the thickening atmosphere and saw a pinpoint of reddish-orange appear above me. It started to grow, and I realized that I was standing directly beneath it. I threw myself backwards, barreling into Deckert, and propelling us both into the wall at the bottom of the landing. The slab of paneling that angled up over the stairs suddenly erupted as flames ate through, fed by the noxious gases the treated laminate was expelling. The smoke detector began to warble sickly as the blaze lapped at it with an arcing fan of orange. A moment later, there was a loud snap followed by a crash as the sheet of paneling broke apart and fell across the stairs.
