Remember me? If you’re there, please pick up.”
I waited a few seconds. Nothing.
“I’m sorry I’m calling so late. This is an emergency.”
Nothing.
I gave her my cell phone number and asked her to call me. Then I dialed the second number. The phone rang seven times. The Trembleys apparently didn’t have an answering machine. I let it ring a few more times, then hung up. I kept driving.
It was almost one o’clock in the morning when I saw the Super Stack looming in the distance. It was over twelve hundred feet high, the tallest freestanding smokestack in the world, with the lights at the top so planes wouldn’t hit it. I drove through the great slag heaps that dominated the western part of town. In the eerie light it looked like the surface of the moon. I had read that Sudbury was coming into its own lately-it wasn’t just a big hole in the ground anymore, but it looked like it still had the heart of a mining town. Most of the new houses were being built to the north, up by the lake, but down here by the highway it was still mostly working-class neighborhoods with small houses and a bar on every corner. I cut in off the highway, passing a big ice arena, and then off that road to another, leaving any traffic behind me.
I rolled down a residential street, past dark, quiet houses. I saw two men walking on the sidewalk. They opened the door to a bar and the light made a long fan on the street and then it was gone as they stepped inside.
I stopped for a minute, switched on my interior light, and looked at the maps. The Trembleys’ house was closest. I hit the light and kept going south, looking for a street on the right. A streetlight was out and I almost missed it.
When I turned, I started looking for the numbers on the houses. It was after one-thirty now. The street was deserted.
Two-twelve, two-fourteen, two-sixteen.
I pulled over in front of the house and got out. The air was cold, and it had a slight metallic taste. Around here you probably got used to it.
The house was dark. I went up to the front door. Why the hell not, after driving all the way up here. A dog barked in somebody’s backyard, a few houses away.
The front door was slightly open, just a couple of inches. I knocked lightly.
Nothing.
“Hello,” I said. “Anybody home?”
Silence.
Why was the door open? I pushed on it. It swung open a few more inches. There was a light on inside, in the back of the house.
I smelled gasoline. And something else. A smell I knew.
I should have left then. I should have turned and gone back to my truck and driven all the way home.
I didn’t. I stepped into the house. A small table was turned over on its side. A plant was lying sideways on the floor, dirt all over the carpet. I walked through the room, saw a single tiny red light in the kitchen. A coffeemaker, sitting there keeping the time as if everything was quiet and normal in the house. My eyes were adjusting to the dark. A hallway. A thin stream of light under a door.
The smell.
Where are you, Vinnie? Are you here?
I went down the hallway. Quiet and normal.
Vinnie, please.
I stopped at the door. The smell, the smell.
I put my shoulder against the door and slowly pushed it in. It opened a few inches and then stopped. I pushed a little harder, felt something give way. It was something heavy, leaning against the door.
There was just enough room to poke my head through the door. I knew what I was going to see in that room. The second I had opened the front door, the second that smell had hit me, I knew what I’d find. So why did I go in?
“Oh, sweet God,” I said as I looked around the door. “Oh, no, please.” If I thought I was ready for the sight, I was wrong. Not in a million years.
It was a bathroom. The lights were on. It was so bright it hurt my eyes after the dark hallway, the cruel whiteness of it all, the unholy sight of burned flesh on the white, white floor.
I saw the wallpaper half burned off the wall, hanging in strips. The scorch marks on the ceiling. The remains of draperies, thin as spider webs. Smoke in the air.
Two bodies. One in the bathtub, the woman, her head on the edge, one arm hanging. The other body right below me, by the door. I was pushing against his legs.
He had been trying to get out. He had made it this far.
I backed away from the door. It closed slightly, not all the way. I turned and went down the hallway, to the front door. I was blind now, after the bright light in the bathroom. I walked into one wall, and then another.
Careful, Alex. Take it easy. The door is this way. Get to the door.
I made it to the front room. I felt the dirt under my feet, from where the plant had tipped over. I kicked something hard, then I was out the door and onto the front walkway, stumbling over something else I couldn’t see, then finally to the truck, opening the door, the light coming on, closing the door, putting the key in the ignition and turning it. The engine came to life with an explosion of noise. I dropped it into gear with a heavy clunk, lurched away from the curb.
Drive. Drive slowly. And breathe. I kept the lights off, driving by the dim light of a half-moon covered by clouds, a street lamp burning in the distance. I drove straight to it. Breathe, Alex.
Dead end.
“Shit shit shit shit,” I said, turning in the cul-de-sac and going back the way I had come. I passed the house again, that evil house. I tried not to look at it as I rolled by it one more time.
God, get a hold of yourself. What do I do now? Do I call 911? Do I call them anonymously and tell them what’s in that house? Can they trace 911 calls from cell phones? Fuck, do they even have 911 in Canada?
I can’t call it in. What’s the use, anyway?
Yes, I’ve got to. I can’t let somebody find that by accident.
I’ll go to Helen’s place first. Then I’ll call it in.
When I got back to the main road, I stopped the truck and sat there for a moment. I pulled out the other map and turned on the light. My hands were shaking. Helen’s house was on the other side of town, maybe five or six miles away. I knew I had to go there. Instead of taking a left and driving back to the highway and all the way back to Michigan, I took the right.
Finding her house gave me something to do, at least. It was something real and almost mundane, looking for the street signs, instead of thinking about what I had just seen in that house.
Ron and Millie. Together they had said maybe ten words to me. But I could see them at the lodge, standing out on the dock, Ron putting his arm around his wife’s shoulder.
Somebody made them get in the bathtub. He soaked them with gasoline and set them on fire.
Take this street, Alex. Watch for the next one. Keep watching.
No, they didn’t just get in. Who would do that? They had to fight back.
Where is the street? Where is it?
Blood. There was blood on the floor. I had seen it, but it didn’t hit me until now. Were they shot first? Were they cut?
Another street. Not the right one.
Ron tried to get out of the tub. Or maybe not. He was facing the other way, away from the door. The door hit his feet.
Is this the street? No. Keep going.
A towel. There was a towel on the floor. Another detail. Something else my mind didn’t have time to process.
This street. Turn here. I’m getting close.
A towel on the floor, under his hand. He tried to get out and grab a towel. He tried to save her. He tried to
