The place was just off Canon Road, one of the lesser travelled streets in the city. In fact, only a handful of people lived on the street, as well as there being no shops or businesses of any kind. The street was quiet, deserted. Dead.
It was an old patch of empty ground in the middle of the street, between two of the old, deserted houses with their cracked, faded paint that was probably once white in what felt like ancient times. ‘Surprising no one has built anything on it’ Jonathan Webber thought, pushing his ungloved hands deeper into his overcoat pockets to try and stave off the November cold. The place filled him with dread. There was just something about it, the emptiness of the ground, the absence of anything at all apart from an old pile of dusty bricks that had probably once been part of the house’s below ground foundations. They must have filled the basement in after the house came down. Yeah, that’s probably what they did.
He took a deep breath, held it. Held it until he thought his chest would burst, then let it go, watching it billow up past his face in a thick cloud of winter steam. Or smoke. Black, oily smoke. The smell. The smell of death, Jonny.
He hated reminding himself of what happened, but the word smoke reminded him. Screamed at him. The day. Oh, the day Jonny! The day! The day! Calloo! Callay!!
Smoke made him think of the day his parents had died.
Whilst Jon and his little sister Sarah were outside, playing in the park on the other side of town, a fire had started at the Webber family home. The fire officials later said that it was caused by ‘an electrical fault’ and that it ‘spread too quickly for either parent to stop it effectively’. The fire had started in the wall plug of the old stereo that Jon’s father insisted on keeping even though they all knew it was unsafe and would probably start a fire someday. Oh, you got that right Jonny boy!!
Creedence Clearwater Revival. Jon’s dad had been playing Creedence when the fire started. Just a spark, a single spark had jumped from the plug and landed on the carpet, igniting it. The fire spread along the carpet incredibly quickly, consuming it, eating it. The darkness will eat you, Jonathan, will eat you all up! The fire then climbed the wall and consumed the whole room in under a minute, spreading to the other rooms of the house, as well as climbing the stair carpet and destroying the upstairs of the house as well. Peter and Lauren Webber had been in the living room on the ground floor when the fire made itself apparent, and by then there was nothing they could do to escape. Escaping through the windows was impossible, as Jon’s dad had insisted they install bars on the ground floor windows (even though the neighbourhood was one of the safest in town) to keep them from being burgled. They were trapped. Trapped like animals in a cage that’s slowly sinking into the river. Nothing to do but to wait. Wait to die. Jon’s mother had smashed the window and called for help through the bars, but the calls for help soon turned to screams of agony as the flames consumed the two people within minutes. Eyewitnesses later said that they could see the parents’ charred, blistered arms thrusting through the bars, desperately clutching the empty air, grasping and clawing at nothing. Witnesses also said that just before the house collapsed they could hear Mrs Webber screaming Jonathan’s name over and over. Screams that sounded more animal than human, screams of pain and suffering unknown by most and vilified by others. She thought of me as she died. She thought of ME.
The worst part was the smell. Good God, the smell. The smells of burnt timber and charred wallpaper and melting plastic and glass mixed into one horrific cacophony of nightmarish smells. There was something else as well, wasn’t there Jonny? Yes. There was something else. He tried to convince himself otherwise, but he knew for a fact what the other smell was, and the thought of it still made him vomit as though it had happened only yesterday. Burning flesh. He had smelled his parents being cooked alive in their own house, writhing in agony as they were slowly roasted on the living room floor.
The memory was a terrible, nightmarish one that Jonathan prayed to forget but knew that he never would. I’ll take it to my grave he thought, morbidly.
But that was then, he tried to convince himself, that was then and this is now they’redeadandyou’realivebutsarahohsarahwhathappenedtoyoumylittlesarahthey’redeadandyou’realiveohbutsarahwhathappenedtoyoumylittlesarah. NO. STOP IT. SARAH’S DEAD AND SO ARE THEY, BUT YOU’RE ALIVE, YOU’VE GOT TO GO ON, BECAUSE IF YOU DON’T THEN NOONE ELSE WILL.
But why Sarah? Why her? I loved Sarah, she was the last of my family and she was snatched from my fingers in that fucking foster home off to new parents, a new life, a new beginning. Yes, a new beginning. I’ll bet that’s what they all thought until they were hit by that truck out on Route 88 on the way back from the home. Sad to leave little Jonny behind, but so happy to be moving on in the world with new parents and a new house and a new life hey I think things will be alright from here o-SMASH. One small candle rudely snuffed out by callous, blistered fingers. Like your parents’ fingers, maybe? GOD NO. PLEASE, GOD, NO MORE.
Trying his best to push these black thoughts aside, Jonathan, the last of the Webbers, took the first step onto the ancient, cracked drive of 36 Canon Road. His childhood home and the place where his parents had burned to death all those years ago.
Hello again, old friend.