In a Heartbeat - Elizabeth Adler [62]
He reached the clearing, saw the men throw more gasoline on the flames and the tarpaper-covered cabin explode in a ball of fire.
He was screaming. He saw the men silhouetted against the fireball as they turned and looked at him. Heard their hoarse cries of alarm. Saw one lift a rifle.
Paralyzed with shock, he let out a blood-curdling yell of fear and anguish, before instinct sent him fleeing deep into the forest.
That forest was his backyard, he knew every inch of it, all its secrets and hiding places. He found the tiny cave where he and his sisters had played hide-and-seek. He tucked his large bony frame into it, clutching his arms over his head, hiding like a hunted animal. He was six feet tall, but he was still only a fourteen-year-old kid, terrified and alone. Fear sent shudders through his body. He could scarcely breathe. A terrible feeling of desolation overwhelmed him as he waited for his family’s murderers to find him.
A name zapped like an electric shock through his brain: Mitch.
His brother was not one of the men who had set fire to the house and murdered his family. But he knew for sure that Mitch had something to do with it.
Now he could hear the men crashing through the forest, hear their muffled curses as they tripped over fallen branches, heard them when they called it quits.
“Aw, fuck this,” one grumbled.
“Whoever it was won’t dare say nothin’ anyways,” the other yelled, so close it made Theo flinch.
“Whole family’s gone. We did our job,” the first agreed. “Let’s call it a night and git outa here.”
The sounds diminished as the men made their way back to their truck. He heard faintly the sound of the pickup disappearing into the night. Numb with shock, he clambered from his hiding place. He ran back to the clearing, stood gazing at the smoldering ruins of his home. Ruins that held the remains of his entire family. Except for Mitch.
Tears coursed down his face, as thick as the night’s rain. He choked on his sobs as a deep sense of shame overwhelmed him. He had run away, hidden in the woods, while his family burned to death. Even though he had seen the fiery explosion and knew that they had already been dead and there was nothing he could have done, it brought no respite from the shame. He should have tried to help. He should have strangled the men, broken their necks, run them through with a pitchfork. He should have killed them. And now he would kill Mitch.
He sat for a long time on the stump of the big mountain ash his daddy had cut down the previous year when it became too tall, thinking black thoughts of despair. Anguish lay heavy as a stone in his chest as he planned how he would go into town and find Mitch, imagining the dozen different ways he might kill him.
As dawn broke, he rose wearily from his seat and walked toward the still-smoking ruin. “God bless you, Ma, Daddy,” he whispered. “God bless you, Jared and Jesse, Honor and Grace. You are in heaven now and safe from all this. The Lord will take care of you. And I will take care of Mitch.”
At that moment, he could have sworn he heard his mother’s voice: calm, rational, speaking directly to him, telling him that he must not kill Mitch. That if he did, he would be a murderer too, and she wanted no blood on his hands.
He lifted his head, looked around, wondering. But of course she was not there. The voice in his head was his own conscience, telling him that he was no killer.
There was only one thing to do. Hefting the small pack containing his birthday jeans and new flannel shirt, he set out through the forest for the top of the mountain. He couldn’t see the peak because it was wreathed in mist, but the rain had stopped and a weak beam of sunlight struggled through the clouds.
South Carolina lay on the other side of that mountain, and he intended to put as much territory between himself and Tennessee, and his murdering brother and Michael Hains, as possible. He guessed the killers were right. They would assume the entire family