Steve Hamilton - Blood is the Sky

“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 grab that towel and wrap it around her burning body.

I rolled the window down, let the fresh cold air slap me in the face. I was in a little better neighborhood now. The houses were a little bigger, with longer driveways and more dead grass between the houses and the street. I passed the Beer Store. The red sign glowed in the dark, although the store was closed. It was coming up on two in the morning now.

Where are you, Vinnie? Where are you right now? I know you didn’t kill those people. No matter what happened to your brother, you are not capable of doing something like this. But where are you?

One more left. Then a right. I turned my lights off again, rolled slowly down the street, looking for house numbers. Seventy-one, seventy-three, seventy-five.

I stopped in front of seventy-seven. It was a ranch house with tall, barren trees on either side of the walkway. It would have been a nice house on a normal day. I slipped out of the truck and pushed the door closed. I looked both ways down the street as I went to the front door.

There were a lot more porch lights on in this neighborhood. I felt exposed standing there at the front door. I didn’t bother to knock this time. I tried turning the doorknob, but it was locked.

I rang the doorbell. I heard it chime two notes, somewhere deep in the house. Nobody answered.

If somebody was going to break into this house, they wouldn’t stand here at the front door and do it. It wasn’t nearly as dark as the last house. So I went around to the side door, hidden from the street by a tall wooden fence. There was a metal storm door that had been practically torn off the hinges. The door inside that was open.

I stepped inside. The smell of gasoline came to me again.

But no, it wasn’t like before. I could just barely smell it. If it happened here, it was somewhere in the back of the house.

I walked through the house. The only sound was my own breathing. There was a sudden flash of light as a car drove by outside. The headlights swept across the wall and then they were gone.

The front room had bookshelves on every wall. There were thousands and thousands of books. I walked through to the back hallway, poked my head around each door. In the darkness I could barely make out the shapes of beds and dressers and tables.

I went into what had to be the master bedroom. There were framed pictures all over the room, but it was too dark to see the faces. I could make out a faint light from another door. It had to be the master bathroom.

I went to the door and slowly leaned against it. It creaked open. There was a small night-light glowing above the sink. No bodies to see. No horror in this bathroom.

I left the master bedroom, walked back down the hallway, through the room with all the books and back into the kitchen. The smell of gasoline got stronger.

There was another door I had walked right by. I shouldered it open. It was a small guest bathroom. It was empty.

I stood in the darkness, in the middle of the kitchen, trying to figure it out. Then I noticed a piece of paper on the table. I bent down and tried to read it. I could barely make out the letters.

“Millie, I’ve gone to the lodge, back in a couple of days. Helen.”

It made no sense to me. I was there when she was packing up. I heard her say how much she wanted to get out, how much she hated that place. Like a sickness, she said. Why would she go back up there?

I didn’t have an answer for that. But I knew one thing. It came to me all at once. Whoever killed Ron and Millie came here next. That’s why I smelled the gasoline. They brought the smell with them, into this house. But Helen wasn’t here. I didn’t know why she’d gone to the lodge, but whatever the reason, it had saved her life.

At least for now. If they knew where the lodge was, they’d go there. They’d find her.

They. Who were “they”? The same people who burned the men at the lake? Was this more of the same?