Help! he screamed in his mind. Please help me for the love of God!
“Do it now,” her mother said. “Before you lose your nerve.”
“He’s not a bad guy.”
“He’s a man and all he wants is your cunt. He doesn’t respect your power to make life. If your child is to be blessed, you must make the sacrifice.”
“My hand’s shaking.”
Silence for several moments with the faint sound of crinkling paper coming from somewhere distant. Was she touching his testicles, choosing which one to remove? Was she cutting into him now? Was his blood soaking the carpet?
“What’s that noise?” Sasha asked.
“It’s nothing, just—”
A loud bang almost like an explosion but not quite as forceful came from the left. Both women shrieked. The crinkling sound from before was now louder, much louder. The sound of fire. What was going on?
“It’s a sign?” Sasha’s mother said.
“Mom, we have to get out—”
Another burst, this from the opposite side of the house, maybe at the front door, echoed through the house. This bang was bigger, more like an actual explosion. They were under attack. Maybe he was hallucinating—a side effect of the drugs. Maybe my testicle is in a pool of blood on the carpet.
Sasha and her mother spoke rapidly, on the verge of panic.
“It’s the Earth Goddess.”
“It’s fucking fire, Mom! It’s not a goddamn sign!”
“We must pray.”
“We have to get out of here!”
“The whole house is burning. We must pray.”
“The window!”
There was a clashing and clattering of objects and Sasha’s desperate heaving breaths. Her mother had said the whole house was burning. Was that true? He felt the heat. Or was that a trick of his mind?
Sasha’s voice farther away: “It’s stuck!”
Her mother, closer, right next to him: “We ask you oh merciful and wise Goddess of the Earth to show us the way in this our hour of need.”
Glass shattered and Sasha yelled again. It was a cry of pain. She had cut herself trying to escape. “Help me, Mom!”
“We acknowledge your power and commend your brilliance. You have lit the fires that now burn at my doors. You are coming. We await you eagerly.”
“Get up!” Sasha screamed. More crashing objects, the floor vibrating with the clatter. She had knocked over the altar. “I said,” Sasha said now right on top of Tyler, “GET UP!!”
Sasha’s mother released a barbaric howl that was supposed to sound like a prayer but which reverberated around the room like the dying screech of a slaughtered animal.
The scream ended with the sudden swap of a hard smack. Then the two women were grunting and cursing and yelling and rolling on the floor in a brawl. Meanwhile, the house was burning down, and Tyler’s dick was out in the open.
The knife. If he could grab it.
Wake up, he told himself. Open your damn eyes.
Another sound, possibly at the window. “Oh, Jesus, Tyler!”
Dad. How the hell did he know where Tyler was? What difference did it make? He tried to scream and couldn’t. The heat pushed closer. Soon, the room would be boiling.
“I’m coming,” Dad yelled from the window. The sound of the fire eating the outside of the house was almost deafening.
Hurry, Tyler tried to say. Please hurry.
Sasha and her mother continued their battle next to him, unaware perhaps of Tyler’s dad’s arrival. Sasha’s mother released a deep gut-sound like she were about to vomit or had been hit hard in the stomach.
Barely audible, Sasha whispered, “I’m sorry, Mom, but you’ve lost your fucking mind.”
Speak for yourself, Tyler thought and then realized: she just killed her mother.
A moment later, she was screaming for Mr. Williams to help her, please help her. Tyler summoned all his power and felt his mouth open and unleashed a deep, panicked cry that was so loud it knocked his eyelids open.
11
God must hate me, Anthony thought. Why would He do this to him? Why had He taken Anthony’s baby, his Delaney, poisoned his Chloe, let him kill Dr. Carroll, helped maniacs brainwash his son, and now try to burn his Tyler to death? What kind of a god did that?
A cruel one.
And lo, did Misery, the god of all, lay waste to everything Anthony loved, for Misery is a mean and angry god, and cares not for justice and peace, but for pain and ruin.
Tyler lay half-naked on the floor of this house, dead. He’s not dead, he can’t be. He wore a black robe of some kind, but it had been pulled up to reveal his crotch. Next to him, a large woman and a younger, smaller woman were clawing at each other’s faces, screaming.
Anthony knocked away pieces of jagged glass remaining in the window frame. One of the pieces sliced into his knuckles but he barely felt it. “I’m coming!” he shouted to his son.
He started to climb through the window but it was more narrow than he thought. If he went any further, he’d get stuck at the shoulders. He might be able to force his way through, but then how was he going to escape? He backed out of the window.
The large woman grunted loudly and then fell back flat on the carpet next to Tyler. The younger one leaned over her for a moment and then turned around. It was a teenage girl, her hair a mess, her face streaked with dirt and blood. “Mr. Williams,” she cried, “Please help me, please!”
He had never seen this girl before. How did she know who he was? Was she Tyler’s girlfriend? Why was she wearing a black robe, too?
The handle of a knife stuck out from the larger woman’s gut. This girl had just stabbed someone. Not someone—her mother.
The girl ran toward the window, her face bent at weird angles and her teeth like arrowheads. Anthony stumbled backward into Paul.
“The police?”
Paul snapped his cellphone shut. “Yeah. Where’s Ty?”
The girl was at the window, which was set up high on the downstairs wall, so she could only get her forearms across the ledge without help. “Mr. Williams, save me. I’m pregnant with your grandchild!”
“Who the fuck is this girl?” Anthony asked.
The girl’s hands flayed for something, someone, to grab. “She’s fucking nuts,” Paul said.
Tyler screamed, loud and forceful. The shock of his sudden scream froze everything, though only for a second. He was alive. Tyler was alive.
Anthony reached down, grabbed one of the girl’s arms and told her to push. After a moment, Paul grabbed the other arm and together they pulled her out through the window and onto the grass. She was breathing frantically and mumbling words Anthony couldn’t understand.
“You have to get my son,” Anthony told Paul. “I can’t fit through the window.”
Paul didn’t hesitate; he dropped to his knees and dove headfirst through the open window frame and crashed to the floor. Anthony waited with both hands stuck through the window while Paul ran to Tyler, tried to slap him completely awake.
But he’d just screamed. He was just awake. Why the hell wasn’t he awake now? What was happening to his poor boy?
Paul wedged one arm under Tyler’s shoulders and the other under his knees. He stood on unbalanced legs and walked with heavy, slow steps toward the window. He squinted his eyes and clenched his jaw against the pain.