Cautery
The bedroom was silent at last. They stood there for a moment, wiping their hands nervously, not quite believing that their desperate plan had really worked. Someone gave a faint cheer, but their leader silenced it with a shake of his head.
“It’s not over yet,” he said.
He turned in a circle until his eyes fell on a homemade slingshot lying on the dilapidated bureau. The others held their breath as he reached a hesitant hand towards it, and then they all gasped as he snatched it up.
“We can touch them again,” he said, tucking the slingshot tenderly in his back pocket. “Quick, everyone, find your things. We can’t leave them here with him.”
All of their gazes settled on the bed; even now they didn’t like to look at it.
“I thought you said he’d never be back,” someone whispered.
“He won’t,” the leader said firmly, “But only if we finish what we’ve started. Now, get your things.”
They scattered around the room, opening drawers, sifting through rubbish and looking under furniture. Their murmurs filled the air.
“Hey, my milky-green taw!”
“My Lloyd Waner card!”
“Is that my red pumper truck?”
“Has anyone seen my glasses? They’re real thick, with black frames.”
“My Roy Rogers holster and pistol!”
“My B-17 Flying Fortress!”
When the room was quiet, they followed their leader to the head of the stairs.
“You know what to do,” he said quietly. He looked at them all for a second, and then nodded. “Let’s go.”
They piled the dripping rags anywhere the old man’s actions still lingered: on the dining room table, in the kitchen closet, in the parlor, in the library. The second floor was spared because no one wanted to climb the stairs to where the bedroom was. The leader shrugged uneasily.
“No big deal,” he said. “The fire’ll get there eventually.”
Some of them had been coming to the old house longer than others, but they had all been coming forever, or nearly: a month, a summer, a year. As they moved through the familiar downstairs rooms, the air now thick with the stench of coal-oil, they realized that this was the last time, and that forever was about to end. Their leader struck a match.
The fire caught faster than they were expecting, and they fled into the yard, the cuffs of their overalls smoldering and their eyebrows singed. Between the boards on the windows, they could see the parlor already engulfed in flames, the rotting draperies and upholstery burning fiercely. Glass shattered in the dining room, and they stepped back, staring at their handiwork in awe.
“It’s over now,” their leader said. “He can’t hold us anymore. We’re free!” And he laughed, a long sob of relief and anger.
There was a pause, and then someone said, “Where’s that kid, the one who was looking for his glasses?”
“He was behind me in the bedroom,” another voice replied.
“Did he leave already? Did he go home?”
An anonymous murmur arose: “He must’ve kept looking. He’s still inside. The old man’s still got him.”
They stared at each other in horror, and then at their leader. He looked back at them, his face grave beneath the dark smears. Behind him, inside the house, flames crackled.
“Wait here,” he said at last. “I’ll be back.”
He bounded up the porch steps, kicked the heavy front door open and vanished into the smoke-filled entryway.
They waited anxiously in the overgrown yard, watching through the smoke as the fire spread into the downstairs hall. Even when the porch caught, they still expected their leader to burst through the front door, the lost kid in his arms. But the only thing that moved was the flames. Someone started sobbing, and they gathered closer together. All of a sudden there was a bang, and something flew through the air above their heads. They looked up and saw their leader kick away another of the boards at the old man’s bedroom window. When the opening was wide enough, he leaned out, gasping and coughing.
“The kid’s unconscious,” he called in a hoarse voice. “We gotta get him down. The fire’s spreading up the stairs.”
They watched him struggle to lift the boy’s dead weight up to the sill. He almost had it when the sound of an approaching siren made them all freeze.
“Get out of here!” he hissed. “Run!”
They shook their heads mutinously.
“Drop him,” one of them called. “We’ll catch him.”
“We’re not leaving you,” someone else added.
But the boy was heavy and their leader’s hands were slick with sweat and blood. Suddenly, the firemen appeared, already unlooping heavy hoses and lifting down ladders and axes.
“There’s a boy on the second floor,” the fire chief shouted, pointing. “Get back,” he ordered them, and they retreated slowly, their stomachs in knots.
While a group of firefighters broke the windows out on the first floor and readied the pumper truck, another group slammed a ladder against the side of the house and were lifting the boys out of the bedroom window.
“Is there anyone else inside?” a fireman asked.
They shook their heads, and their leader said no, it was just them, but the fireman at the top of the ladder gave a shout.
“There’s someone on the bed,” he called. “Going in.” He was most of the way inside when he stopped. “Oh, dear sweet Jesus,” they heard him moan, and then he was half-falling down the ladder to vomit in the grass.
