The halfway house was burning down around him.
Chapter Nine
Fire, Cat & Rats
Jack had been jogging for almost three hours when he reached the end of Miller’s Forest. He’d seen the smoke from miles away and immediately assumed the worst. The settlement was nothing more than a smouldering mess. Jack climbed down the same hill that the Dwarf had bounced down and where he’d almost died not too long ago. The followers who had inhabited the settlement had already moved on to find shelter for the night. A light rain fell, causing steam to rise from the smouldering rubble surrounding the charred statue. Followers of the Witch. He hadn’t seen the body of the Dwarf, so Veszico must have failed in her vengeance. Jack felt relief and sadness all at once. He quickly checked himself, pushed his emotions deep down as he had a hundred times before, and started searching for the remains.
After an hour of searching and digging, he found the small body of Veszico buried beneath what remained of the statue. Jack lifted her to his ear and heard nothing. He let out a sigh, dropped to his knees, and began to dig a hole in the dirt beside the burned statue. After he had dug a foot deep, he dropped Veszico’s body in and covered it over. He muttered a small prayer to the Jabberwocky, stood, and brushed himself off.
A single thought rang through his mind. Find the Dwarf.
Robert was panicking. And not just panicking, he was close to hysterical. Back in the normal world, in Othaside, sometimes bad things would happen. His alarm wouldn’t go off and he’d be late for work so he’d panic. He would forget his adoptive mother’s birthday and he’d panic. Even during one of the many weird events of his life, like when he was seventeen and he’d fallen asleep in his own bed and had woken up on his neighbour’s kitchen table with no memory of anything. His neighbours were members of a local militia group known for their short tempers and large guns. He’d panicked.
Yet even during any of those times, he’d never felt hysterical. But being in Thiside and feeling the ease with which he was sliding into this new world, hysterical didn’t just feel like the right thing to do; this world felt comfortable. Like a pair of warm socks on a cold day. There was a prime example; the building was burning down around him and all he could think of was warm socks!
He grabbed the stack of clothes from the chair, which wasn’t completely on fire just yet, and assessed the situation with a hint of insanity playing on the edge of his mind. The walls were on fire, the ceiling was looking precarious, the heat and smoke blinded almost all his senses, the floor creaked beneath him, but somewhere in the chaos he heard Lily’s voice screaming, “Get away from the door.”
Robert, in his hysteria, stood in his pyjamas holding a pile of clothes and waited patiently for his brain to comprehend the words.
Melvin obviously wasn’t operating on the same wavelength as he kicked open the door with a strong hoof, smacking Robert in the head. Melvin ducked his head through the door.
“Don’t just stand there, Robert,” said Melvin, “the whole building’s on fire!”
Robert let out a tiny laugh that seemed a little inappropriate, considering the situation. “Yes, I had noticed.”
Melvin pulled him to his feet and dragged him out through the door. Lily was pulling on a pair of pants underneath her nightdress as Melvin grabbed her hand and pulled her down the tight hallway. The far end of the hallway was already consumed by fire and the smoke was so thick that it was almost impossible to see. Robert and Lily were dragged down the stairs into the barroom where Melvin stopped and shielded his eyes. The room was an inferno. The flames twisted and contorted in ways that Robert had never seen, swirling here, zigzagging there, climbing the walls, and shooting along the ceiling, eating at the rough woodwork that made up the halfway house.
Melvin began to make his way toward the door, letting go of Robert and Lily to fend for themselves. Robert assumed that his job as their host had abruptly come to an end. Lily grabbed his hand and kicked over a nearby table, flattening some of the flame and taking them a few feet closer to the exit. Melvin had vanished from view.
“This is ridiculous,” shouted Robert. “We’re not getting out of here.” The fire flared up around them in agreement.
“Don’t be hysterical,” shouted back Lily.
“And why not? This seems like the perfect time to be hysterical!”
The beam above them cracked. Robert hit the ground and assumed the foetal position. He was mildly surprised when he wasn’t crushed like an egg, as was his expectation. He looked up to see Lily, the short woman he’d spent most of the day with, holding the beam over her head as if she was competing in the Olympics. The beam must have weighed the same as a small car.
“Uh,” was all Robert could come up with.
“Move, Robert! I can’t hold this forever,” said Lily as her stance weakened slightly. She bent ever so slightly and threw the beam into the air. Robert scrambled back the way they had come and Lily dove forward, toward the exit, as the massive piece of wood crashed down, raining cinder and a good chunk of the upstairs into the barroom.
Fire surrounded Robert as he edged his way around a pile of rubble and crawled into the large stone fireplace that wasn’t on fire. The irony of the situation made Robert laugh inappropriately again and he began to wonder what was wrong with him.
“Meow,” said the kitten.
Robert had crawled as far back into the fireplace as he could and was surprised when he looked down to find a tiny kitten brushing up against his leg. The kitten was coloured an unusual orange and black, with fluffy fur and deep yellowish-green eyes. The kitten blinked at Robert.
“Huh,” said Robert. The kitten chased a couple of loose embers and seemed completely at home with the building burning down around it. It crouched, twitched its little tail, and dived after a rampant ember as it drifted out of the fireplace into the inferno.
“No!” shouted Robert, but his concern was unfounded. As the cat scampered toward the fire, the flames moved away from it, as if they were afraid of the tiny creature. Robert reached forward and grabbed the kitten by the scruff of the neck. He held the cat out in front of him, stood up, and left the safety of the fireplace. The flames backed away from him as if running for cover and a pathway quickly revealed itself. It took a while to get around some of the debris, but soon enough he was through the billowing smoke and stumbled out the front door into the cold night air. He made his way to where the Goatheads stood holding each other while Maureen sobbed quietly as their home burned down.
“Robert?” said Lily.
Robert coughed in reply.
“How did you make it out of there? The fire was everywhere; we sent the Gnomes back in after you.”
As the adrenaline flowed away, Robert realized his lungs were heavy and his throat felt as if he’d swallowed a handful of gravel.
“Cat,” was the only reply he could come up with as he coughed again and held up the kitten as if to prove the point.
Lily turned back to the halfway house and let out a loud whistle. In reply, the two Gnomes crashed out of a second floor window and landed smoothly on the ground. The tip of Gnick’s pointed hat was on fire, making him look like a giant novelty candle. General Gnarly blew it out.