Inside the Fire

The house burned in the night. The firefighters hung back, kept at bay by the ferocity of the inferno. They didn’t want to just sit there. There was someone inside, someone trapped in the flame-choked house. All their humanity pulled at them, asking them to rush in and save the little girl in the second story bedroom. But the flames were far too hot, the first floor becoming a very dangerous place. So they sprayed their hoses as best they could and hoped they could drive the fire down enough to attempt a rescue.

But Sherwin Skinner knew that all the water in the world wouldn’t make any difference in this fire. He’d lived on this street for thirty years, and he knew just what this house was. It was old and black, built back at the turn of the century by a particularly unsavory businessman. And it had kept dark company in the years since. From Prohibition gangsters to a kiddie porn dungeon, many black things had taken up residence in this house. Many evil deeds had taken place within its walls. And the house remembered, and built upon the memories, and was tainted by them.

Sherwin bolted from the gathered crowd and rushed towards the blazing house. Almost immediately he heard the voices of the firefighters and other emergency workers calling out, yelling at him to get back. But he didn’t pay any attention to them. He knew what needed to be done, knew that someone had to do it, and knew that if no one else would do it, then it might as well be him. Sherwin reached the opening where the front door had been and entered the burning house.

The heat hit him as soon as he stepped inside and he began to sweat right away. The flames swirled around in strange forms; balls and pillars of rolling fire. He looked around for a moment, trying to pick a way through the inferno. The noise of the fire, a hellish roaring and screaming, dazed and confused him. But he soon saw the stairs. They had not yet been consumed.

He took a few steps towards the stairs. A nearby wall collapsed without warning. Sherwin moved away from the sudden onslaught of burning wood. The loud crash growled at him, murmuring of doom and flame if he should proceed. Sherwin shook his head, cleared his mind, and pressed on. Someone upstairs needed him. He couldn’t back down now.

Sherwin got to the stairs. He began the ascent. Something shifted beneath his feet and a board began to crack. He began to run up the stairs as they fell away behind him. They crashed with a horrible cacophony of noise, almost as if some gigantic troll was ripping them to shreds. Sherwin ran as fast as he could, fighting to stay ahead of the collapsing stairs. He made it to the landing and threw himself forward as the stairs were consumed in flame.

Sherwin took a few deep breaths. His muscles ached from the sudden rush up the stairs. The fire around him seemed to have entered his lungs; they burned as hot as the house. Sweat was now pouring off of him, stinging as it ran into his eyes. He wiped them off and stood up. Now the smoke stung his eyes, distorting his vision.

“Hello?” he called out through the confusion.

He heard a scream through the inferno. It was faint, but enough of one for him to figure out where it came from. Sherwin pushed through the rolling smoke and fire. The floor shook beneath him several times as underlying sections of the house succumbed to the fire.

He came to a door. The girl was behind it, he was certain. He busted the door down with a swift strong kick. There was a sudden shriek. Sherwin looked around the room, searching for its occupant. Then, in a corner, he saw her. She was huddled up, sooty, scared to death. Sherwin walked over to her. She shrank away, but he reached out and took hold of her.

“Don’t worry, I’m getting you out of here,” he said as he picked her up in his arms.

“It’s here!” she cried out. “It’s coming!”

Sherwin was about to ask what she was talking about. Then there was a loud, thunderous crash. A wind began to rush around him and the girl. Murmuring and screeching began to fill the air. Flame began to filter in under the door. But it did not burn anything. Rather, it began to gather together in the center of the room. Sherwin watched as the flame began to form a sinuous, twisting shape. All along the shape holes began to open and close, like sinister mouths. The fiery shape pointed itself towards Sherwin and the little girl.

“What’s that?” Sherwin asked as he turned the girl away from the sight.

A loud droning noise filled his ears, like a swarm of bees. Sherwin tried to cover his ears and stifle the maddening sound. Then he realized that there were voices in the droning. They were dark, maybe human once, but not any more. They said one word over and over.

“Legion.”

The shape curled closer and closer. Sherwin looked around for a way to escape from this thing. There was a window on the other side of the room. He could use that, if he could get to it without this thing destroying him.

Sherwin took a deep breath and began to sprint towards the window. The writhing thing of fire lunged for him. The girl screamed in sheer terror. Sherwin’s footsteps pounded on the floor as he pushed himself ahead. He could feel the heat from that horrifying thing behind him, singing the cloths on his back and the hair on his head. It roared behind him, and spewed itself out like a dragon’s fire.

Now the window was right in front of him. The fiery, many-mouthed thing was not giving up its onslaught against him and his precious cargo. Sherwin planted his feet for one fleeting second. Then he threw himself forward. He smashed through the window, shielding the girl from the glass. They hit the roof outside. Sherwin kept his arms around the girl and rolled towards the edge of the roof. As he rolled head over heels he saw that the thing had followed after them. Its many mouths ate at the shingles behind Sherwin and the girl.

Sherwin allowed himself to fall off the roof. It could be bad. There was about twenty feet of air before the ground came rushing up. But he positioned himself to cushion the girl’s fall and hoped for the best. His right shoulder hit the ground first and made a sickening crunch. He screamed in pain. But the girl was all right.

A pair of strong arms grabbed the shoulder that Sherwin had just broken. He screamed again as the pain knifed into him. His would-be rescuer apologized as he released the bad shoulder and grabbed the other one. Someone else took the girl from him. He let her go, she was safe now.

As Sherwin was pulled to his feet, he took one final look at the house. The thing, whatever it might have been, was gone. Now the flames ate away at the last of the structure. With a last crash, the second floor fell through into the first one. Sherwin almost thought he heard another sound mixed in the crunch of burnt wood; a scream of despair and defeat.