Chapter 11

Harry knocked three times, waited thirty more seconds, then kicked down Mrs. Charlene Whitley’s front door. If he’d been more patient and given it more time, he might have been able to pry the door away from the jamb enough to minimize the damage, but he wasn’t in the mood for that. He was in a hurry and he wanted answers now.

The house sat empty. He flicked on the light switch by the door and surveyed the room. It was a typical home, nothing out of the ordinary. A woven throw rug with a mixed brown and gray design covered the floor near the front door and two sets of pumps, one navy blue, one black, were lined neatly along the edge. A padded rocker with polished oak and green paisley fabric faced a meager television propped up on a makeshift stand.

A tiny radio sat atop the television and Harry figured she probably used the living room as a sitting room and listened to the radio.

Framed embroidery of mish-mashed design adorned the abode. One of them was a stitched old Victorian house with trees out front and blue shutters over the windows. Another was a Cupid with his bow drawn and aiming downward. The walls were covered with brown faux wood paneling. The rug was a pristine white.

“Is anyone here?” he called out. Noting but silence.

He closed the door behind him, picked up the broken wood from the door jamb and leaned it in the corner. He’d have to come up with something creative to explain that one, he thought, if any of this turned out false. He considered making it look like a break-in to avoid any legal issues later on. His own car was parked outside under the shade of several evergreens and he was probably not noticed. He could easily slip away if needed.

The kitchen was as clean and orderly as the living room. Not a speck of dust or dirt touched the bluish tile lining the counter, nor the avocado hued stove that looked like a throwback from the 1950’s, one of those hulking beasts that tin collectors long to get their hands on. White, self-stitched curtains covered the tiny windows that overlooked the front yard.

It all felt out of place. It was perfect; too perfect, actually, more of a stage presentation, a façade. Did anyone actually live here?

“Hello?” he called again. Nothing. He gripped his gun in both hands.

Through the kitchen he came to a tiny room with a cherry wood desk and matching chair. Thin stacks of paper neatly covered the left side of the desk, student English papers, with a plastic flower-print cup propped on the far edge, holding a dozen or so red pens.

To the right sat a bookshelf containing a number of books, mostly English language classics: Hemmingway, Poe, Lawrence, Cather, the Brontes, everything you’d expect.

He paused and crossed his arms over his chest, tapping his foot. There had to be something there. What could he be missing? Part of him wished Rosa Martinez would reappear to him to tell him where to look and what the hell to look for. Oh hell, it wasn’t like any of this was real, right?

He shook his throbbing head. He thought of talking himself out of this, but he couldn’t. He knew he wasn’t any crazier than…he couldn’t think of anyone who hadn’t been a little crazy the last few years. No one inside of Devonshire, anyway.

“What does this old woman have to do with the murders?” he asked himself, foot still tapping.

The front door slammed opened. Harry whirled toward it, gun at the ready.

I’m in trouble now, he thought. How the hell am I going to explain this? He stepped through the office, in line-of-sight of the front door.

A hand reached inside and hovered over the door jamb. A moment later, Mrs. Whitley stepped into view and shut the busted door behind her. Harry saw her, but she didn’t see him yet. Her face scowled with bewilderment as she scanned the room.

“Hello?” she called. “Who is here?”

Harry lowered his gun but kept it handy. “It’s me, Mrs. Whitley. Harry MacGreggor.”

He had known of Mrs. Whitley since he came to Devonshire. She had never caused any trouble, always paid her taxes, always attended town events. He knew her to be an upstanding model citizen. Then why would a ghost tell him different?

“My Goodness.” Her hand rose to her mouth in surprise. Did it seem forced? Melodramatic? “Is something wrong, Chief? Did you find a burglar?”

Harry loosened the grip on his weapon. “No, ma’am. I don’t know…” He stammered and couldn’t help it. “I don’t really know why I’m here.”

They stepped toward each other, into the kitchen, into the moonlight where he saw her more clearly. Such a tiny woman, well into her sixties and not more than five feet tall. It defied common sense to think this little old lady could be responsible for or have anything to do with the Devonshire murders.

“You don’t look well.” Mrs. Whitley slid out one of the kitchen chairs for him. “Please, Chief, have a seat and let me make you some tea.”

He reluctantly took the seat and holstered his gun while she went about the stove preparing hot herbal tea.

“I apologize for your door,” he told her, and then, not knowing exactly why, he added “there’s something funny going on in this town.”

Mrs. Whitley turned the knob on her gas stove and the flames burst to life, licking the bottom of her tea kettle. She turned to Harry with a kindly, sympathetic look.

“What exactly do you mean? Is it anything I can help you with?”

“I don’t think so…”

A horrible smell invaded his nostrils and he sneezed. Sickness filled him. He felt confused.

“Why, what’s wrong?” Mrs. Whitley asked, grinning sweetly.

“I’m sorry, I don’t know…”

Mrs. Whitley reached into a cabinet, stretching as high as she could, and removed a tin container of green tea. “I’ll have your tea ready in a moment.”

The smell didn’t dissipate. It emanated from the woman. It burned him, whatever it was.

She turned from the counter, holding a plate of finger cookies. She leaned toward him with it, polite, benevolent.

“Perhaps you need to eat something.”

He reached for one but froze when he saw her thumbs on the edge of the plate. They were black and blue, as if battered and smashed, damaged beyond repair. He looked up at her face.

“What…?”

She had changed. She wasn’t Mrs. Whitley anymore, yet … she was. Her face had taken on the same bruised quality of her hands and her teeth had gone black. The fetid odor billowed like smoke from her pores and her tight gray hair fell in loose strands over her head, like the dry hair of a corpse.

“What’s the matter, Chief?” she asked through her blackened grin. “Are the spirits talking to you as well? They’ve been rather chatty lately, more than I expected.”

Harry shoved himself away, smashing the kitchen table against the refrigerator. His chair toppled and he drew his gun again.

“Get the hell away from me? What the hell are you?”

Mrs. Whitley advanced on him slowly, grin intact, growling.

“Don’t you find it ironic how you give your heart and soul to a cesspool like Devonshire,” she said, making Harry cringe from the horrible smell of her, “yet so many people die regardless? Don’t you see there’s nothing you can do to stop it? I’ve been waiting forty years for this night and when I’m done there will be nothing left. Nothing left to burn.”

Harry aimed to pull the trigger but the gun flew from his grip, yanked by some invisible force. Here it is, he thought. My own death is coming.

“Do you even know what I am?” she continued. “Do you have any idea?”

“You don’t have to do this,” he tried to reason with her. “You could stop everything now and just walk away.”

His foot nudged one of the overturned chairs. She continued her advance. A new heat emanated from her, a ravenous burning. He understood what happened to the others, and what was to become of him. He would be burned, no, consumed, like the others.

“Why do you do it?” he asked. “Why like this?”

She giggled. “Because it’s fun, and it’s what you all deserve. There’s nothing more painful than death by fire, the way the stink of your bubbling flesh lingers in the nostrils, the way it eats into you like a hungry beast. Oh…”

She quivered with ecstasy as she relished the thoughts.

“…I just love the flavor of a rotted soul.”

The teapot on the stove whistled with steam. It happened so quickly, and Harry was on. For an instant, Mrs. Whitley, or whatever the hell she was, turned her head to it, distracted for the briefest of moments. Harry took the last opportunity he’d ever have. He dipped for the chair at his foot, snatched it up and swung it in a wild arc. He struck the old woman across the head and left shoulder. The force of the blow threw her out of the kitchen. She landed with a thud in the foyer near the busted front door. The back of the chair charred with heat from the blow. Harry didn’t hesitate. He smashed his way out through the kitchen window with Mrs. Whitley not far behind.

“Damn you!” Mrs. Whitley shrieked.

Harry rolled from Mrs. Whitley’s thorny rose bushes and into the yard. Her head poked out from the window as she screamed at him, her voice the screech of the damned.

“I’ll watch you burn, you son of a bitch! I’ll eat your soul!”

Harry scrambled through the yard, dashing for his car, expecting the transformed Mrs. Whitley to be right behind him. He didn’t look back. He yanked his keys from his pocket and unlocked the car, and only then did he dare a glance.

And it turned out good timing for him.

A ball of flame burst into existence. It shot straight through the house, straight for him. He dropped and barely avoided the blast. The heat seared as it stretched only inches over him where he lay sprawled in the grass. It barreled into the side of the gray two-flat across the street, which caught fire immediately.

Harry remembered the twelve-gauge shot gun in the back seat of the car, but didn’t dare reach for it. Another fireball like the last one and he’d be toast for sure. He didn’t risk retaliation. He leapt behind the wheel of his vehicle, jammed the key into the ignition and slammed down the accelerator. It was a newer model Ford, not exactly the fastest car on earth but quick enough when you got it moving. The tires spun, kicking out gravel and evergreen needles behind it. As he peeled away he felt another blast of heat emanate behind him. Sweat poured through his skin.

Fire. His car was on fire. He didn’t care. He only wanted to get the hell out of there, away from that…thing! He felt like the lead in a sick and twisted B-grade horror flick.

Harry squealed around the corner onto Main Street as he gunned it, almost losing control twice and slamming into a row of parked cars.

He snatched up his radio, out of breath. “Bucky! Buck! Talk to me!”

Seconds later, Bucky came on. “Chief! I’ve been looking everywhere for you! Where the hell you been?”

“It’s a long story…”

“We got a huge problem,” Bucky shouted, not hearing anything Harry was saying. “The church is burning down!”

“Damn!”

Harry slammed the breaks and cut into a U-turn.

“What the hell is going on!” he screamed out the window.