Fire Boy

Excerpt from Chapter 1

It was a dark and stormy night, all right. Another hour on these treacherous Adirondack roads would just about do her in, not to mention her poor 14-year old Honda, Harold. What the heck was the deal with the streetlights? As in, why weren’t they on? Bad enough that it was pouring, and the roads full of potholes and puddles, but relying only on her headlights for sight, Heidi really did feel like she was searching for a pine needle in a forest of towering hemlock trees.

A pine needle: that’s what Pine Lodge felt like. Her anticipated six-hour drive was going on eleven hours at this point. She’d been counting on her GPS to get her there. She had not been counting on getting no cell phone reception. Or on her phone battery dying. She finally found a gas station that sold maps. Then her spatial relations skills, which had never been all that functional, went completely AWOL.  

“I know, Harold. I have to stop beating up on myself.” She had to be almost there. In fact, the road seemed to be clearing. For the first time in what felt like forever she saw the outlines of buildings. Her headlights lit up a sign: Pine Lodge: Welcome to Your Home in the Woods. 

Well, Praise the Lord. Two AM, according to her watch. Mrs. Hodges had told her someone would wait up for her if she arrived late. The darkened building suggested otherwise. Not even a candle in a window. Warm welcome, check.

“Never mind that, Harold.” Heidi pulled into what she thought might be a parking space in a small parking lot—time would tell—and turned off the engine. “We made it here alive. That’s what matters.”

Pulling on the hood of her windbreaker, she opened her car door and stepped first one foot and then another into an ankle-deep puddle. She let the water soak through her sneakers. She had no energy left to protest. It was just that kind of night. Could be worse. 

Something she actually didn’t want to consider as she stood there up to her ankles in the puddle, in the middle of the night, torrential rain pouring down on her. Looking at the outlines of the unlit buildings. Seeing no other cars in the parking lot. Hearing no signs of human life. A shiver ran up her spine. This place was creepy. 

“Don’t remind me, Harold. I know I’m the one who thought it would be a good idea to get away from civilization for a while. And yes, I know, this is really and truly not the time for a freak-out.” She tried to let her eyes adjust to the darkness. Someone has to be here. Preferably someone alive. Who wasn’t carrying an axe. After having escaped from a maximum-security prison for serial killers. 

She smacked herself on the cheek. “Not the time for a freak-out,” she muttered through gritted teeth. 

Lifting her water-logged feet, she traipsed through puddles to the largest building and knocked on the side door. Hearing nothing, she turned the knob. The door opened for her. Good security system, check. Her sneakers squished as she shuffled into the dark room, arms stretched forward until she knocked her hip against a chair. Groping, she discerned other chairs around a table. Worst-case scenario she could sleep on one of those chairs. 

“Hellooo. Hellooo.” Her voice sounded strange in her ears. “This is Heidi. Is anybody here?”

She heard an inarticulate, deep throated shout from upstairs. After a moment, feet pounded on the hall above her head and thudded down a staircase, which, from the sound of it, was on the opposite end of the room. Those heavy feet did not belong to Wanda Hodges, that much Heidi knew. The person stopped at the bottom. Heidi pressed against the counter she’d discovered. Mystery man, check. Her hands searched the surface for some kind of weapon and grasped what had to be a pencil. 

“Is anyone actually here or am I dreaming the new cook finally deigned to show up?” An arrogant male voice. 

“My welcome keeps getting warmer and warmer,” Heidi snapped, hoping anger covered the tremor in her voice. “Do you not use lights around here?”

“Power’s out.”

“I tried to call over and over, whenever I got reception, until my phone died. No one ever deigned to answer.”

“Power’s out.”

“Oh. Okay.” She wanted to add that she was soaking wet and bone tired, and she’d never been to the Adirondacks before and this whole experience so far unnerved her, but she had a feeling he wouldn’t be interested, whoever he was.  She kept her back against the counter. Her hand tightened around the pencil. She wished she could see something. Anything. It seemed darker inside than it had outside.

“Sorry to be grumpy. Just my assignment to wait up for you and I fell asleep. It’s okay. I have to get up in a couple hours anyway. I’m Doug Barrett, fire boy, at your service.”

“Fire boy? What does that mean? Professional arsonist?”