Still Lake - Anne Stuart [107]
The basement kitchen looked grim and eerie, like some kind of pagan altar. No, not pagan. There was a tarnished silver crucifix on the old cast-iron stove. Grace and Marty were nowhere in sight, but the door to the walk-in cooler was tightly shut, when Sophie had carefully left it propped open. They had to be in there. The question was, were they already dead? Could they even breathe in that closed interior? Was she too late?
And then she heard it. The sinister crackle of flames, licking through the dry timber overhead. The smoke was rising, sucking the air from the cellar with it. Doc must have started it as he followed her down the narrow stairs, and Sophie turned to look at him in sudden panic.
“It’s all right,” he said in his soothing voice. “It will all be over quickly. Sin must be punished, so that you may find eternal life. Any pain or torment will simply bring you closer to heaven.”
“Where are Grace and Marty, Doc?” She didn’t know how she managed to keep her voice so calm. Maybe she was just numb. She could already feel the heat from the fire, and it was just a matter of time before it traveled down the rickety stairs to engulf them.
“They’ll be joining you, Sophie,” Doc said. “On your knees, child.”
“Why?”
“You need to repent of your sins so you can meet your Maker with a clean heart.”
“But if I repent of my sins why do I have to die?”
Doc frowned, as if she’d posed a complicated theological question. “Because you have to,” he said finally. “Pray with me, Sophie.” He sank to his knees, dragging Sophie along with him, and began praying in a loud, eerie voice, his head bowed.
She thought she could hear the faint cry of voices beneath the increasing crackle of the fire, beneath Doc’s loud exhortations. They must still be alive, she thought, clutching the heavy flashlight in her hand as Doc clutched her other one with clawlike fervor.
The flames danced down the rough wood banister, bright and cheerful, bringing death.
“Bow your head and pray with me, Sophie,” Doc shouted above the noise of the flames.
And Sophie looked at Doc’s bowed head, the vulnerable nape of his neck, and brought the flashlight down with all her force.
The sound would stay with her the rest of her life. The sickening crush of bone. The blood.
He collapsed in an ugly sprawl, as the flames moved toward him. She didn’t stop to think, she simply stepped over his body and ran for the walk-in cooler. She struggled with the huge latch, but finally it opened, revealing Marty and Gracey huddled in one corner, hugging each other.
“It’s about time!” Marty scrambled to her feet, struggling to help Grace. “What the hell is going on? Where’s that old psycho?”
“I think I killed him,” Sophie said.
“Good. Let’s get the hell out of here. Grace needs help. He drugged her, and her knees are still wobbly.”
Sophie moved into the cooler, coming up on Grace’s other side. Her mother gave her a woozy smile, looking saner than she had in months. “I tried to warn you,” she said. “But you wouldn’t listen.”
“But how did you…”
“Now isn’t the time for talking, Sophie!” Marty said irritably. “Come on!”
The smoke was beginning to fill the cellar, thick plumes of it snaking down the stairway. “Cover your mouth and keep down,” Sophie said. “And follow me.”
She half expected Marty to argue, but for once she didn’t. She simply helped drag Gracey through the billowing smoke, out into the swirling darkness.
“If you get us trapped I’m going to be really pissed off,” Marty said between choking coughs.
“Me, too,” Sophie said. She was running her hands along the wall, looking for the bulkhead. It was covered with tarpaper, and she hadn’t bothered to nail it shut. She could only hope that Doc hadn’t, either—it was their only way out with the stairs awash in flames.
Her hands found the thick wood plank that ran across the door, and she shoved it up, ignoring the pain in her hands. She kicked things out of the way as she dragged the other two up the short flight of stairs, and began banging against the door overhead.
It didn’t move.