Pyrophobia Read online

  Honored to have been invited to the private party, Jason had bought a new Armani suit for the occasion. Later, when Kayla was returning from the bar with two glasses of white wine, she tripped on a cable for the garden lights, spilling the contents of both glasses down the front of his expensive suit. His immediate reaction was anger, but his anger quickly faded when he saw his wife’s face turning beet red.

  It didn’t take long to drive the eight miles toward the dirt lot at the foot of Saddle Peak. From there, it was a climb of about three miles to the thick of the foliage. The path continued farther up for a few more miles before it branched off, giving hikers a choice of trails to take, each with its own name. Ocean High Trail was their favorite.

  They weren’t the first visitors today: a few cars were already in the lot. After exchanging their Top-Siders for hiking shoes, they set out.

  During their walk, each remained engrossed in private thoughts, and the silence between them was as palpable as it was unusual. As they approached their destination he felt a chill, despite the warm California sun.

  Ahead they saw the tall grass where they had made love near an ancient oak tree.

  And there, a few dozen yards farther up the trail, where it made a sharp turn, were the thickets. He stopped.

  ‘And?’ Kayla prodded.

  He took a few more steps, his reluctance mounting, as if he were inching toward the side of a cliff. When he reached the bushes, he found that they were just foliage; nothing more. Leafy canopies, branches, tree trunks, growing from perfectly ordinary forest soil. He was almost afraid to touch the plants, but at length he managed to carefully push some of the branches aside and sniffed them, like a house cat on its first foray outside.

  There were bare patches between the bushes – what he had been thinking of as black holes. Although the thickets looked exactly as they had during his session with Mark, he was now unable to determine which of the openings he had walked through to find, first, a strange darkness and then a hellish fire.

  ‘Funny thing,’ he mumbled.

  ‘What?’ Kayla asked.

  ‘I don’t know where it is.’

  ‘Where what is?’

  He retreated a step and clasped her hand. ‘This is the place, all right. This was where I went during my session with Mark. But …’ He squeezed her hand. ‘I don’t know what I did next. I went through somewhere, through one of these openings. But which one was it?’

  None of the holes in the foliage formed a passage into another realm. On the sandy ground beneath the bushes were dry bracken, dead leaves, gray pebbles and a few rocks. That was all. Kayla said nothing.

  He looked up, tuning in to his senses. He heard twittering birds, the quiet rustle of leaves and the caress of a soft wind as he breathed in the sweet smells of the forests. Nothing else came to mind. Nothing at all.

  But still …

  Still the fire was sizzling somewhere. Inside him.

  He turned to Kayla. ‘Something did happen to me.’ Even though the words came from his own lips, they held no meaning for him yet. ‘Inside me … something has died.’

  Her face tightened and she gave him a cold stare. It was a look he had never before seen in her eyes. He realized what was going through her mind – too late. He had said something very, very wrong – something she did not want to hear.

  ‘I didn’t mean I’m not alive … I don’t know what I meant,’ he said tentatively. ‘I’m sorry. Forget what I said.’

  He looked beseechingly into her eyes. She averted her gaze and pulled back her hand.

  ‘If you’re done here, can we go?’ she said coldly.

  ‘I think I’m done, yes.’

  She turned her back to him and started walking back down the pathway. He waited a moment, and then followed her, pondering what he had said. No, what had come out of his mouth. He hadn’t said it. It was …

  It came from somewhere inside me, but it wasn’t me.

  Another shiver crawled down Jason’s spine.

  But what hurt him was Kayla.

  She was stalking away from him at an ever more rapid pace.

  The atmosphere between them hadn’t improved by the time they arrived home. Kayla walked straight into the small study and, from the living room, Jason heard her talking on the phone. It was obvious she needed to blow off steam by chatting with one of her friends. He left her alone, and sat down in the hanging chair on the porch to think. After half an hour he went back inside. Kayla was still in the study, but no longer on the phone. She was just sitting there, staring off into space.

  ‘Hey,’ he said cheerfully. ‘I’m here on a peace mission.’

  He clumsily waved a half-clenched fist, mimicking a white flag of truce. ‘Can we talk about this?’

  ‘We can always talk,’ Kayla snapped.

  ‘Good. What will it take to make this right?’

  Just like that her anger melted away like an ice cube set out under a hot sun. Her voice assumed a beseeching tone.

  ‘Jason, I want to help you,’ she said. ‘You know I do. I think it’s a good thing that you’re trying to make sense of your nightmares, no matter how awful they are. But one thing is certain: you are alive. You exist. I see you standing here, and you’re no ghost.’

  He grinned. ‘Not a ghost? Are you sure?’

  ‘Huh?’ she said, taken aback.

  ‘Shouldn’t you check? To see whether I’m really all flesh and blood?’

  She smiled at that. Finally. He had not seen her smile for too long. Her eyes softened.

  ‘OK,’ she whispered, extending a hand. ‘Let me check you out.’

  Later, lying naked side by side on their bed, she again brought up the events of the last few days.

  ‘There seems to be something you’ve repressed,’ she began. ‘That’s what Mark said. I wonder …’

  ‘What it is,’ he finished for her.

  ‘Yes. And this fire thing …’ She shook her head as if in denial. ‘This creature, as you call it. What is that?’

  ‘I haven’t a clue,’ he said. ‘In my dream last night I heard this sound. Mawkee. Key. What key?’

  He turned toward her and circled her right nipple with his fingertip. ‘And still, I keep insisting that I was never actually in a fire,’ he said absently. ‘So where did my phobia come from? And why are my dreams suddenly getting weirder?’

  ‘It could be something else,’ she said.

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘What’s your earliest memory of fire?’

  ‘Jesus, Kayla, how should I know?’

  ‘You don’t necessarily have to have been inside a fire yourself,’ she continued, growing convinced of her own interpretations. ‘Maybe you were a witness, saw the victims; people who died in a fire. It’s a possibility, isn’t it? Maybe the fire and that thing you keep mentioning have something to do with that.’

  ‘I see where you’re going with this.’

  ‘Did anything like that happen? Could that be it?’

  Jason searched his memory. Then he shook his head. ‘Not as far back as I can remember.’

  ‘Still, you must have had a horrible experience with fire,’ she pressed on. ‘Everything is pointing in that direction. Maybe it happened a very long time ago. So long that you’ve forgotten it. Or you’ve shut the memory out.’

  Again he searched through his memories. ‘I can see why it would be reasonable to think so. You know what, let’s get this straight once and for all. I’ll call the one person who should know.’

  She frowned as he swung his legs over the side of the bed, sat on the wooden bed frame and picked up the phone. He dialed a number, and the phone was answered almost immediately.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Hello, Dad, it’s me,’ Jason said. ‘Everything all right?’

  ‘Excellent, son. Tyler and Roger are on their way over. They should be here any minute.’

  ‘That’s great. Where are you guys headed?’

  ‘Nowhere. We’re going to have a beer. Mor
e than one, I suspect. And we’re probably going to play some cards.’

  ‘So it’s an afternoon with the guys,’ Jason said.

  ‘That’s right. Keeps me young,’ Edward quipped.

  ‘Good for you,’ Jason said. He breathed in, preparing to get to the point. ‘Listen, Dad, I want to ask you something. We’ve talked about this before, but I need to make sure. It’s about my … well, you know how I hate fire.’

  ‘Yeah?’ Edward said, his voice lowering. This was not his favorite subject.

  ‘I’ve asked you this before, I know. But I’m going to ask you again.’ He took a deep breath. ‘Dad, have I ever been through anything that might explain it, a long time ago? Have I ever been up close to a big fire? Could I have seen something that, well, gave me a scare? A hell of a scare?’

  ‘Come now, son,’ Edward said. ‘If that were true, I would have told you about it. Your mother and I used to worry so much about this ah … you have a fancy word for it. What is it?’

  ‘Pyrophobia,’ Jason whispered.

  ‘That’s it. Has it come back?’

  ‘It’s never really gone away,’ Jason said, keeping his tone light. ‘I was just wondering how on earth it might have started.’

  Edward sighed audibly. ‘Jason, please believe me, if I knew anything of the kind, I would have told you about it a long time ago.’

  ‘OK, one more try, then. Have you ever heard Pete McGray say something about it?’

  Edward said nothing for a few seconds. In the silence, Jason could sense that his father was not happy that he had involved Pete in this. But he had no choice. He had to look under every stone, from every angle.

  ‘No, son, I’ve never heard him talk about it either. Believe me.’

  Jason leaned back and brushed a lock of hair from his eyes. ‘I understand, Dad. I just needed to hear that confirmation one more time.’

  He ended the conversation.

  ‘That was a no,’ he told Kayla. ‘Dad doesn’t have anything new to add, either. Not that I had expected him to.’

  ‘Then what is going on?’ she murmured. She shook her head. ‘Maybe it doesn’t matter and you should just tuck it away and stop thinking about it.’

  He seriously doubted if that would be possible.

  Until several days ago he had been Sunday’s child. It had been smooth sailing all the way. He was blessed with a good brain and good looks, he’d had a happy childhood, he had always gotten good grades in college, and he’d found a nice job and a loving wife. Nothing had veered off course. Nothing at all.

  My past appears to be clean, he thought. No scorch marks there.

  Except that perhaps his assumption was wrong. More and more, he was beginning to think it was.

  The night was balmy, young and full of promise. He tasted her soft mouth, and his lips roamed from her slender neck to her full breasts, down to her tight belly and beyond, where his tongue explored her most intimate parts. She moaned softly, pushed herself up a little and draped her arms across his shoulders. He kissed her, she smiled seductively and lowered herself back into the pillows. He entered her and thrust deeply, closing his eyes with the ecstasy of it all. When he gave her a loving gaze, he was surprised to see her grinning. The familiar dimples on her cheeks remained, but the sparkle in her eyes had become a dark flash, as dark and forbidding as the underworld.

  A gray, ashy spot appeared on her right cheek. Flakes of skin started peeling off and he detected the acrid stench of smoke. Her left cheek caught on fire. Then, her right cheek. Bursts of flame erupted from her mouth, as from a dragon. Fire smoldered in her hair; flames crept along her arms, her upper body and her legs.

  Jason recoiled in shock. The fire was consuming her. Blinding panic gripped him. But in the next instant he realized that this couldn’t really be happening. Kayla was disappearing, and he sat staring at a creature that consisted of nothing but furious flames. Flames that should be setting the whole room on fire, but didn’t. Kayla, alone, burned. Nothing else. But she wasn’t Kayla any more; she was the fire creature. Had he truly made love to that demonic thing?

  The creature reared up. Blazing arms reached out for him, and from the heart of the roaring flames he heard the hissing again, making the same awful heart-wrenching sounds as in his previous nightmare.

  Mawkee … Mawkee …

  The creature of fire crawled toward him. He scrambled back in abject horror and fell off the bed.

  He started awake.

  He flailed his arms. He was still in bed; he hadn’t fallen out. Beside him Kayla slept peacefully. It was night, dark; there was no fire. It had been a dream, another horrendous, ghastly, satanic dream.

  His heart was racing. He felt beads of sweat coursing down his face. He was gasping for breath. And he smelled the stench of burning flesh.

  Jason could still vividly picture the flames, hear that awful voice echoing in his ears.

  It took a long time before his breathing finally evened out and his heart rate returned to normal. Beside him, Kayla slept, the very image of serenity and innocence. He crept outside to the porch, sat down in his hanging chair and buried his head in his hands.

  They hadn’t discussed his anxieties since yesterday afternoon. They had gone out to dinner at the Malibu Palm and had enjoyed a wonderful, intimate dinner together.

  When they went to bed, he had been happy and tired, and convinced he would get through the night without incident. But no such luck.

  His despair gnawed at him. That very first Polaroid photograph had ignited a chain of events that had branched off in strange scenarios and perilous pathways. Now it was focused on his anxiety over anything to do with fire. It was a very old terror, from the time he had been a little boy.

  Then he remembered something else.

  Something that hit him like a steel fist.

  EIGHTEEN

  Mapeetaa

  At three o’clock in the dead of night, Jason sat wide awake on the porch. He arose from the chair he was sitting on and walked inside the house to his study, where he flicked on the light and opened the twin doors of his oaken cabinet. On the top shelf was a box he had kept with him every time he moved, because its content spoke directly to his past.

  Jason placed the box on his desk and stood staring at it. The silence in the room calmed him. He was at peace, at least for the moment. At length, he opened the box and removed a powder-blue photo album containing his childhood pictures. This album he placed next to the box. Then he removed a number of notebooks from the box, along with more photos and sheets of paper with writing on them. As a little boy, he had enjoyed drawing almost anything. Now he searched for his old drawings and found them. Immediately his brief period of inner calm abandoned him.

  The subject of many of the drawings involved a fire of one kind or another. A house going up in flames. A burning tree. A blazing sun, even.

  He had to admit, looking at the drawings after all this time, that he had not been endowed with an artistic genius. The drawings were crude, abstract, childish.

  His obsession with fire, however, had clearly started at a tender age.

  One drawing had a number of graves in it. Headstones, sticking up from the ground at odd angles, maybe in some cemetery. He put the sheet of paper on his desk and flattened it. More flames, capturing the gravestones in a big red cloud that was intended to represent a fiery glow. The middle headstone had a word inscribed on it, scribbled in his youthful hand.

  Mapeetaa

  That was what he had remembered. This drawing, with this word in it.

  He dragged his fingers through his hair, and massaged his temples. Mawkee. Mapeetaa.

  The words were different, but at the same time similar. ‘Mapeetaa’ was a word he had written himself, a quarter of a century ago.

  What did this mean? Where had it come from?

  Suddenly, in his mind’s eye, Uncle Chris appeared, the man who had fooled them all. He had never told anyone that he had been diagnosed with incurable cancer; he had also
hidden the fact that he was suffering from depression as a result of that diagnosis. Most importantly, he had said nothing about the pain that was fast becoming too difficult to bear. He had ended his life by hanging himself, and all he had left was a note. Jason would have tried to help him, but Chris had never given him a chance. He had given no one an opening to offer him any type of emotional or physical support. Now Chris appeared in his mind, alive and kicking, and about twenty or thirty years younger. His beard was not as full or long back then, and his hair not as gray. And it bore no resemblance, as yet, to Santa Claus out of costume.

  Chris’ lips were moving, he was saying something, but Jason couldn’t hear him. Still, he thought he knew what word Chris was mouthing. It shot up forcefully from Jason’s memory, like a dolphin beneath the ocean surface propelling itself upward for a graceful leap into the air.

  In the bedroom Kayla woke up to find Jason gone. It was Sunday, usually not a day for him to be up and about at the crack of dawn. She yawned and stretched leisurely, gathering her courage to leave the comfortable warmth of the bed. At length she got up, donned a housecoat, and went in search of Jason.

  She found him in the study at his computer. She made a show of picking up the clock from the oak desk. ‘Five past eight on a Sunday morning,’ she said, as if in a mock reprimand. ‘You’re supposed to still be in bed. Any chance you getting up so early involved making me a cup of tea?’

  He smiled at her. ‘Cup of tea, coming right up.’

  Leaning in, she kissed his stubbly cheeks. She then peered at the monitor. ‘What’re you doing?’

  ‘Research,’ he replied.

  ‘What kind of research?’

  ‘You’re way too curious for this early in the morning.’

  ‘That’s your fault. You’re making me curious.’

  ‘How about I fill you in over breakfast. Is that a plan?’

  ‘Sure.’

  Over a vegetable omelet and French rolls he told her about waking up during the night and not being able to go back to sleep. And then something had suddenly hit him: a new and enigmatic word. He did not mention to her that the reason he had awoken was because of a bad dream he had had in which she had turned into a living torch while he made love to her. He also kept to himself both the mystery of his drawing he had uncovered and the memory of his Uncle Chris, mouthing the same weird word that Jason had seen on the drawing. He desperately wanted to avoid any topic that could send her spiraling down a slippery slope of depression. More and more, it seemed, this mystery of his was taking on elements of the occult.