Bentley Little - The Burning

Ned and the FBI agents had formed a ring around the trapdoor, their drawn weapons pointed at arm's length at the wooden hatch. Saldana nodded to the agent closest to the handle, indicating that he was to pull the door open. He was Asian, Jolene noticed for the first time. She wondered if he was of Chinese descent.

As before, the spring-hinged door came up fairly easily, and for a brief moment she saw the top of the primitive ladder.

Then the agent was gone.

She could not tell if he fell into the opening or was somehow drawn in. All she knew was that one second he was standing next to Saldana and the next he was tumbling into the blackness with a short surprised scream.

The trapdoor slammed shut.

The screaming continued.

Grew worse.

Jolene yanked Skylar's arm, pulling him the rest of the way up the stairs. They had to get out of here. Now.

"We have to destroy the house!"

She stopped. Her son's declaration was so loud, so authoritative, so unlike his usual quiet voice, that for a brief second she thought he might be possessed, thought something else might be speaking through him. But when she peered down at his face, illuminated by the light from the kitchen above, she saw only Skylar, and while the look of determination on his features was far more intense than usual, it was definitely his own.

A hint of exasperation crept into his voice, as though he knew ahead of time that he wouldn't be taken seriously because he was a kid, but when he spoke it was with the same strength. "Trust me. I know what we have to do."

"We can't-" Saldana began, his eyes never leaving the closed trapdoor.

"It's the only way to stop it!"

Muffled laughter sounded from the lower cellar, a deep evil chuckle that was accompanied by a strange juicy sound she could not quite recognize. The screaming had stopped.

"We have to destroy the house!" Skylar's voice was more whiny now than authoritative. "We have to burn it down!"

Jolene pulled him into the kitchen. She didn't care what the rest of them did, but she was taking her son and getting out of this fucking building.

The two of them dashed through the kitchen, out into the first-floor hall, through the foyer and out the front door.

"Jolene! Skylar!"

It was her mother's voice.

Jolene pulled her son down the steps, running into the drive. She squinted against the patrol car searchlight until she found her mom. And Leslie. The two had driven here in Leslie's Toyota and were waving them over.

"Jolene!" Leslie called, her voice filled with relief.

"Is everything all right, ma'am?" It was the officer who had remained outside. Jolene had no idea how to answer that-so she didn't. She continued running.

"Skylar!" Her mother took him from her, hugging the boy and holding him close.

He pulled away. "We have to destroy the house!" he repeated in a tone of supreme frustration. He was almost crying. "It's the only way! We have to!"

"He's right. He knows."

Jolene looked at her mom. Was this the same woman who'd angrily told her and Skylar that they hadn't seen anything at the window? How could she have come around so quickly-and without even having seen what was inside the house? Jolene wasn't complaining, but she didn't understand. She loved her son, but even she hadn't been entirely persuaded until only a few moments before.

Leslie opened the trunk of the car. In it was a pile of dirty rags and a case of whiskey she had obviously brought from the restaurant. "We can make Molotov cocktails."

Leslie had been convinced, too.

"Chief!" the policeman shouted.

Jolene looked up as Ned emerged from the front door, battered and bloody, his clothes torn.

He was alone.

He staggered down the porch steps, leaning on a post for balance as the waiting officer rushed to offer him assistance. No one came out of the house behind him, and Jolene knew without having to ask that the four FBI agents were dead.

"Stay here!" she ordered, and started across the drive to help. She changed her mind halfway over and quickly hurried back. "Stay together!" She grabbed Skylar's wrist. He was already holding his grandmother's hand, and with Leslie running alongside, the three of them made their way over to the patrol car. Within the house, lights seemed to be flicking on and off at random.

"Are you okay?" Jolene asked the police chief.

His eyes were filled with agony. "They didn't make it."

"We have to destroy the house!" Skylar shouted.

"He's right," Ned said, breathing heavily and with difficulty.

"I brought a lighter and rags and bottles of alcohol," Leslie offered. She seemed to realize that what she was proposing was illegal, was in fact arson. And premeditated arson at that. She glanced quickly from the police chief to his underling.

"Then let's burn the place down," Ned said.

The chief was in pain and seriously injured, but through sheer determination he hobbled across the drive to Leslie's Toyota. He looked into the open trunk and nodded approvingly. "Joe," he said to the other officer. "We have five gallons of gas in those emergency canisters in the trunk of the car. Get them out."

The policeman hurried off. Ned tried to lift up the carton of whiskey bottles but couldn't do it, so Leslie lifted it out for him "Go take it over to Joe," he said. "Set it down in front of the porch. I'll get a couple of rags. All we need is one incendiary device. We'll douse the place first, then set it off."

Jolene found herself wondering what would happen once this was all over. // it was all over. There would be four murdered FBI agents in a house burned by an arson-set fire. Under Ned Tanner's orders, the Bear Flats Police Department might not come to any conclusions, but with feds involved, she had the feeling that there would be outside investigations into the deaths.

They couldn't worry about that now. The important thing was to destroy the house.

She watched with her mother and Skylar as Joe hauled out the gas cans and Leslie began unscrewing the caps on the bottles. They worked fast. Under Ned's instructions, Joe dashed briefly into the Williams house carrying two canisters of gasoline. Jolene held her breath until he emerged empty-handed a moment later. He then went over to the north side of the building, broke one of the windows, poured gasoline inside and threw the can after it. He did the same thing in another ground-floor room on the south side (of the house.

Ned tried throwing a bottle through the open doorway but succeeded only in tossing it onto the porch. It didn't even break. He quit instantly, not wanting to waste their limited resources, and Joe began pitching bottles through the doorway and then through an open window on the upper floor.

The house was dark now, no lights were on, and it felt to Jolene as though the building lay there waiting, | like a predator preparing to pounce. She pulled Skylar back a few steps.

There were only two bottles left. The police chief took a long swig out of one, handed it to Joe, who did the same before passing it back, then pressed one of the rags through the bottle neck. He took the lighter from Leslie. "Stand back!" he ordered.

Joe held the bottle while Ned lit the rag.

"Now!" the chief yelled.

The policeman threw it through the doorway, and there was a whoosh of hot air and a sudden roar as the foyer went up in flames. Jolene didn't know what Joe had done on his quick trip inside the house, where he had dumped the gasoline, but he'd obviously known what he was doing because the building was instantly ablaze. There was a loud metallic thump, then the tinkling shatter of glass as one of the gas cans smashed through the picture window in the sitting room and came shooting out toward them, hitting a pine tree and bouncing to a stop next to the police car.