Gary’s unfocused eyes didn’t react, but he pulled his arm away from Mike’s touch.
“Gary? It’s time to go,” said Mike. He felt uneasy and spooked by the cold, but couldn’t determine a cause for Gary’s sudden stupor. He wondered if his friend could hear him at all. The color had left Gary’s face.
Mike shoved the radio in his pocket and moved behind Gary, guiding his shoulders and pushing him back towards the stairs.
“It’s huge,” slurred Gary, a line of drool escaping the side of his mouth. Mike felt another chill as he regarded the profile of Gary’s empty expression. The lights flickered twice, coming back on just as the filaments of the bare bulbs glowed red, and then powering back up even brighter than normal.
“Let’s get going, Gary,” said Mike. His shoves only elicited shuffling steps from the unresponsive man. “Come on Gary. We need to get back out to the van.”
Gary froze and pushed back against Mike’s prodding. When he looked him in the eye, Mike wished Gary had stayed catatonic: his eyes were wild, and filling with tears.
“Mike, we can’t leave now. It will kill us both,” said Gary. His mouth stayed open; his lips peeled back, baring his teeth.
“What are you talking about? We’ve just got an equipment failure and we’re going back to the van to fix it,” said Mike. He tried to sound convincing.
“But it’s huge,” Gary responded. He clamped his jaw shut and shook his head sending spit flying. When he looked up the intelligence had returned to his eyes. “Mike, we have to get out of here.”
“Yes,” said Mike, taking a deep breath for the first time since Katie’s last transmission. “Stairs,” he said, pointing through the rough-framed door opening and down the short hall.
They rushed together through the door and out to the hall. Gary reached the steps first, but pulled up and stopped again, turning to face Mike. “Hey Mike?” he asked.
“What, Gary? Let’s go,” said Mike.
“But remember when I said it was huge? I think it might have bit me,” he said, as he looked down to his own side.
Mike followed Gary’s gaze down, but veered off to glance at his friend’s crotch, where a dark wet spot was spreading across his jeans. The acrid hot smell of Gary’s urine stung Mike’s nose and then another wet spot caught his eye.
It was a dripping pool of blood forming under Gary’s right hand. Actually, Mike corrected himself, it was a dripping pool of blood forming under the stump where Gary’s hand had once been attached.
Mike gagged back vomit as Gary slowly raised his stump, pumping thick ropes of blood to the floor through a tangle of sheared bones and glistening gore.
“I think I might…” Gary didn’t finish his sentence.
Mike’s puke burst up his throat just as he tried to drag in a breath. Most of the retch became redirected out his nose, but a fair amount flowed into his lungs, dropping Mike to the floor in a coughing, vomiting mess. He looked up between spasms to see that Gary still stood between him and the stairs and still regarded his own stump thoughtfully as blood gushed down his arm. Mike choked on a fresh torrent of recycled lunch and clawed a wide arc around Gary to reach the stairs.
“But Mike,” said Gary. “He loves hands.” His voice was low and threatening, but that’s not what caused Mike to look back over his shoulder. What drew his attention was a popping, crackling sound. His eyes confirmed what his ears had already guessed—rolling flames had engulfed the rafters, flowing around the insulation and wiring. The fire licked down the bare studs, dripping like water down the knotty pine.
Mike flipped over on his back, pushing himself away from Gary. He only had a few feet separating him from the stairs, but what he saw drained the strength from his limbs. Flames dripped down and touched Gary’s head, turning his hair into a torch. Gary stared at Mike’s eyes and a sinister smile passed across his lips.
Gary didn’t acknowledge his burning and smoking hair. As he spoke, the flames reached Gary’s collar and flames moved down to his shoulders—“It’s time for us to join him Mike,” said Gary. “Down in the crawl space.”
Mike could barely hear him over the crackle of the flames.
Gary reached out his stump as if to help Mike to his feet, but instead a fresh glob of blood jetted out, hitting Mike’s waist.
Mike watched in horror, unable to scream or move away from his possessed friend or the searing heat. Gary’s body stiffened and his face curled, as if he suddenly smelled something disturbing. His jaw dropped open and a guttural, ripping scream tore from Gary’s throat. His legs pumped and Gary ran over Mike’s prone body, around the stairs and towards the front of the house. Mike’s eyes followed the flaming man. Gary’s run fanned the flames and his shirt burst into flames just as he hit the window at the front of the house.
Momentum alone would have carried Gary through the window, but he leaned forward and thrust himself through, launching himself and taking his scream out into the night.
Fresh air burst through the window and the fire exploded down at Mike. He could smell his own hair and clothes smoldering, so he pulled towards the stairs and tumbled down the treads, rolling, crashing and banging to the landing. A whooshing sound preceded the crash of exploding windows above on the second floor. Mike rose to his knees and spit out a mouthful of upchuck.
The doorknob grew in size as he reached for it. By the time his hand reached it, the handle was the size of a softball; he had to grab it in both hands to make it turn. Several things occurred to Mike simultaneously: the knob was at eye-level, but he was no longer on his knees. He wore his favorite green pajamas from when he was a child, and this knob belonged to inside of the bedroom he’d shared with his brother, Charlie.
“Don’t leave me, Mike,” sobbed Charlie.
Mike turned around but already knew what he would see—his brother’s bruised and fragile face. Charlie’s balled fist was pressed against his temple. He was about to cry.
“You died of leukemia, Charlie. It already happened,” said Mike. He tried to sound confident, but his little-boy voice sounded tentative.
“You made me go to the crawl space,” pouted Charlie. Fat tears rolled down his drawn cheeks.
“You didn’t catch it from the crawl space,” Mike protested. “Mom said so.”
“She said prolly,” corrected Charlie. “You know it’s true.”
“I can’t stay,” said Mike. “You’re trying to trick me.”
“You owe me, you said so. Just stay until I fall asleep.”
“No, Charlie,” said Mike. He turned back to the doorknob and exhaled with relief to see that it had returned to its normal size. When he touched the knob, Mike heard the splintering crash of the roof collapsing. He turned and pulled, collapsing through the door and away from the devastating heat, into the night.
Rough hands plunged under Mike’s armpits and he blinked against the heat of the burning building as he was dragged down Bill’s driveway. Katie and the news crew clustered in the lawn. Both Leslie and her producer had their cell phones clamped to their ears. The cameraman looked naked with nothing on his shoulder.
“What happened?” asked Mike, looking up at Bill.
“You tell me,” said Bill.
Conversation was impossible for the next minute—an explosion from the house pushed warm air over the group and showered down glowing debris. The ringing in Mike’s ears was replaced with the sound of distant sirens as he regained his hearing.
“Where’s Gary?” Mike yelled, coughing and choking, still spitting out chunks of lunch. He blinked several times to clear his eyes and propped himself up to look at the house. The top half of the house looked like a bite had been taken from the roof. Flames flowed up through a ragged, burned hole that stretched from the two outer dormers. The center window, the one Gary had plunged through, was completely gone, burned away with the surrounding roof.