George watched the crowd attack Lorelle's house. Broken glass crunched under stomping feet. The gardenia bushes in front of the house were trampled and the rectangular black mailbox on the wall by the front door was ripped off and thrown down the porch steps. The front door was pounded and kicked and angry voices clashed together as they shouted for their children, spouses and, loudest of all, for Lorelle.
Flashlight beams crossed like swords as they cut through the darkness. Occasionally, light flashed into one of the broken windows and fell on pale bare flesh and long grinning faces. Mocking laughter came from inside the house.
George spun around to see Weyland moving toward the house with a blue ten-gallon polyurethane kerosene can, its cap dangling by a thin chain from the two-inch spout.
"No, stop!" George shouted, throwing himself toward the man.
Weyland lifted the can before him and George slammed into it. The fluid splashed sloshed inside and splashed up out of the spout, slapping onto George's left cheek and shoulder, dribbling down his neck and stinging his skin. George staggered backward, coughing and sputtering.
Weyland grinned. "You want some more, Pritchard?"
"Please… please don't."
"Then stop me!" He stepped around George, shouting into the crowd, "Okay, who's gotta light?"
George winced at the biting odor and sting of the kerosene that had spilled on him, but -
– it did not smell like kerosene.
George ran after Weyland, shouting his name. He grabbed the man's arm and spun him around. "That's gasoline, you idiot!" he snapped. "You're gonna kill yoursel -"
Weyland's fist struck George's jaw, clacked his teeth together and knocked him to the glass-strewn lawn. Turning his back on George, Weyland was swallowed by the crowd.
George sat up slowly, rubbing his jaw. How could Weyland not know that the can carried gasoline and not kerosene? Perhaps he knew, but wasn’t aware of the difference between the two – that, unlike kerosene, gasoline fumes were flammable and could detonate the very air around a fire. But George doubted that. He didn't have time to figure out why Weyland would endanger his own life and the lives of everyone outside Lorelle's house. He had to get Karen. He stood and rushed back to the window, crying, "Karen, where are you? Karen come out here noowww!"
She popped up from beneath the window, naked and grinning, and said "Boo!" Her eyes were half-closed and she laughed drunkenly at her little joke as she swayed back and forth.
"Karen, get out of there now!"
"But I don't have a thing to wear," she giggled. She waved a hand back and forth in front of her face and wrinkled her nose. "You stink."
"Karen, you've got to get out of there! They're gonna torch this place and everyone in it and -"
"It won't matter," said a voice from behind her.
George moved the flashlight until its beam fell on Lorelle. She was naked… and beautiful. Her former pale, sickly appearance was gone. She had a healthy, lustful glow.
"Nothing really matters anymore, does it, George?" she asked.
Or had she spoken at all? Suddenly, George was uncertain if the words had come from her or had floated silently through his head.
"Your family is no more, George," Lorelle went on – definitely out loud now – in a low, throaty voice. "It's finished. You've lost your wife – or should I say you’ve lost another wife – and your children will inevitably follow when they see what a failure you were in saving their mother."
The furious voices around him, the sounds of the front door cracking under the battering it was getting from the savage crowd, and the thick crunch of chunks of the house being broken away all faded as George listened to Lorelle. His pain was forgotten and he felt a growing tightness in his pants which, after a few hazy moments, he realized was due to his arousal at the very sound of Lorelle's voice.
"Why don't you come inside, George?" she purred, her voice the only sound in the world. "Come inside… relax… with your wife… and me… the three of us, George… together… "
It wouldn't be too difficult to climb through the window. He'd just have to avoid the spikes of glass stuck up in places. Then he'd be inside… he’d be a part of the comforting darkness that surrounded Lorelle and Karen… and all of the horrible things that had been happening would be over… all the confusion and anxiety and anger and pain would end… but -
– he smelled the gasoline again and jerked his head back with a gasp as the mad voices and sounds of destruction rushed in on him once again. He turned from Lorelle to Karen again, held out his hand and pleaded with her, "Come with me, Karen, please, the kids need you, I need you, please Karen, I love you and I'm not gonna leave you here, now come out the window right now Karen, right now right -
He stopped because he saw her eyes brighten for a moment. They opened wider and the dull, drunken look left them and she looked at the pieces of glass sticking up along the bottom of the window and said, "But I… I’ll cut m-myself." Her voice was weak but clear and, suddenly, afraid.
George saw that as a good sign and moved forward quickly using the butt of his flashlight to knock the pieces of glass out of the way.
He put an arm on the ledge and prepared to hoist himself up through the window so he could bring Karen out, but -
– Lorelle grinned and hissed, "Yes, George, come in. Come inside with us."
He froze, watching her as she took a few steps to stand behind Karen. She wrapped both arms around Karen's midriff, placed one hand over her groin, the other over one breast, and smiled at George over Karen's shoulder. But that wasn't the worst of it.
Karen smiled, too, then threw back her head and laughed hard.
George slid away from the window, horrified and sick. He felt as if the center of him had been hollowed out. In a heartbeat, all the events of the past days ran through his memory and he thought about what he'd done to Karen, about his infidelity and cruelty, his hateful thoughts toward her, and he felt crippled with regret. Suddenly, it didn't matter that Karen had been guilty of some of the same things. In fact, it didn't even occur to George.
“Please, Karen," he said, his throat thick with gathering tears. "I'm sorry for the things I've done and I promise that if you just come with me, I'll make up for all of it. We'll be fine. I swear. Please, we need you, honey, we -"
"I couldn't bear to look at your ugly cock one more time," she sneered.
George's words crumbled into a small, pathetic sound in his throat as he stared in open-mouthed horror at his wife.
"Dad! Dad!"
He heard Robby's voice but didn't turn. He couldn’t. He knew he was looking at Karen for the last time… and she was laughing.
The smell of gasoline was thick in the air and George glanced to his right and saw Weyland walking toward him along the front of the house, splashing gasoline onto the front wall.
"Dad," Robby shouted, grabbing George's arm, "we've gotta get outta -"
"Mom!" Jen cried, hurrying past George toward the window, but -
– George swung an arm out and pulled her to him.
"Let me go!" she snapped. "Mom! Mommy, what're you doing in there, you've gotta come out right now you've gotta -"
All three of them were shoved out of the way by arms that snaked out of the small mob like tentacles. George and Robby fell to the ground, but Jen just stumbled backward, still calling for her mother.