The smell of the creature's flesh burning is what keeps my sleep troubled. The events surrounding that smell, the many and various circumstances that led up to it, are equally encapsulated in my every thought, but the smell…On the other hand, it was these strange circumstances that brought me into contact with Brittany. It was an affair marked equally by unspeakable horror and deep, abiding joy.
I need not tell you that I had not willingly involved myself in these matters. Owing to a natural curiosity on my part, I was there when they investigated the face in the window in the tall, haunting remains of the house, but I had not intended to be mixed up in such diabolical affairs. Nevertheless, I was there, and my story is too fiery in my poor breast to keep from telling.
Leading up to these events had come several odd occurrences. The house was on a long, sloping hill near the east side of Lima, with the northern side of the structure sagging visibly, window frames gaping and glass-less and an explosion of roofing shingles sprayed all across the yard on that side. No part of the house had retained paint, and the paint chips had themselves largely disintegrated. The land supposedly belonged to a man living in the far away city, but nothing indicated that anyone was taking an active interest in preserving either the land or the home propped up on it. The grass on the lawn was tall enough to hide an upright child.
In fact, the investigation and subsequent horrors began with a child. Although the house had no doubt been picked clean of anything of worth many years prior, the inherent inquisitiveness of youth brought ten year-old Jason Leroy to poke around aimlessly one afternoon. Jason lived about a half mile from the house, and few people lived between, but those who did remember the sound of him screaming in terror as he ran home full-tilt. Besides his screams, the fact that his fear had allowed him to forget his bicycle and run madly home stood as a testament to his fear. The broad wet patch across the front of his trousers likewise spoke volumes.
Jason Leroy's tearful and anguished description of a white face in the one of the upper windows was dismissed almost immediately as a figment of the boy's imagination. Public safety concerns, however, compelled a patrolman from the Lima Police Department to investigate, lest there be squatters or some other malcontents occupying the dwelling. Officer Talvaro would never completely describe what he saw, but the gist was that Jason Leroy had neither consciously fabricated nor intentionally imagined the face in the window. Left unspoken was the fact that the sight so unnerved the veteran police officer that not only did he not enter the house with the intention of further investigation or possible arrests, but he also fled the scene.
It was at this point that a good friend of mine, one Lucy Fabray, entered the situation. Lucy and I had been close since our time together at William McKinley High School. Where my path took me to law school and participation in a practice devoted to human rights and the betterment of society, Lucy's journey was far more esoteric. Her interest was in linguistics, in hidden or lost texts, works known more from rumor and speculation than from actual tangibility.
How she found out about the face in the window was easy to understand—Lima is not a big town and strange things stick out. When she invited me to join her on the trip across town, I readily accepted. Although not generally of a scientific mindset, I nonetheless saw nothing in the story that could not be explained away by nerves and prevailing circumstances. I was sure that it would all come to nothing; I joined her solely to keep her company and to hear her recent stories. Lucy had been in Egypt for almost three months, trying in vain to find a certain Codex that whispers told was obtainable there. Her lively story-telling technique greatly enlivened the drive through the rougher end of town, known as Lima Heights Adjacent (where, I hesitate to record, I myself was raised), and into the more sparsely populated areas.
I was not surprised that Lucy made no overtures towards the police department or any other town authority notifying them that we were going to look at the abandoned house. Her disinterest in having any sort of check put on her plans meant most of her actions were designed to avoid detection. Lucy Fabray is a sneaky one indeed.
Surprise definitely flushed across my face, though, when she pulled the car over next to a vast, weed-riven field. As she did, a figure stepped out from brambles. I must confess that my breath was taken away at that moment and I found my heart beating surprisingly hard. She was tall, with a graceful and lithe build. Gorgeous blond hair framed a face deserving of an angel of The Lord and her eyes, her eyes were an electric blue that pulled at me relentlessly. I found myself nearly swooning. She wore a dark blue peacoat, buttoned tight over faded slacks, with black boots on her light, nimble feet. Her graceful beauty strongly contrasted with the fact that she was standing in a field without any visible means by which she had arrived. No vehicle was parked nearby, and she was perhaps three miles away from town, at least.
Stepping lightly and quickly and with exquisite, luminous grace, she stepped down the little hill. Lucy introduced me as a long-time friend, and the angelic beauty as Brittany Pierce. As to the captivating lady's background or reason for being there, Lucy remained silent. Brittany carried a small duffel bag, which she deposited neatly in the trunk. The rental car was far from roomy, but Brittany fit her long legs in the back seat without complaint and, indeed, with a smile. I found myself blushing against my will under the quiet force of her gaze.
Lucy and Brittany idly chattered about all manner of things (I was struck dumb by the presence of Brittany in the back seat) until we rounded a corner and came upon the winding driveway to our destination. The description I had been given concerning the house had not done it justice—the elements had not been kind. Windowless and slanted slightly on the grounds, pieces of house sprawled all across the front, back, and side yards.
Lucy parked her car with its nose pointed back towards the street, the result of a few words of suggestion from Brittany. Brittany's voice was low and almost whisper-quiet, but infused with both energy and purpose.
No faces peered out from upper windows, and we made a full circuit of the outside of the house. Oddly, despite the broken windows and general decay, the front door, side door, back door, and bulkhead were all securely locked and sturdily built. One could climb through a ground level window easily enough but keys or a crowbar would be necessary to gain entrance through a door.
Neither Lucy nor Brittany made any overtures towards entering the house, and I made no suggestions to the contrary, given that I was only along for the ride. The three of us walked back to the car and leaned against it, examining the house from a small distance. Time passed and the sun began to drop down behind the trees. Jason Leroy and Officer Talvaro had each seen the face around dusk.
We saw it when the dark had settled even further than that. I will not attempt description of the face—mere words cannot convey the terror that blazed a cold trail through my heart. I felt numb, like my skeleton and my consciousness were swimming about in my flesh, untethered. The face…All I will say is that it was neither skeletal nor fleshy, and far worse than the most expansive nightmare Goya ever had. One moment the window frame was empty and the next this horror was peering out of it.
I was frozen in shock, unable to look away or even to move. Lucy was in a similar condition, all of the color gone from her face. Brittany, however, was in movement the instant the face appeared. She crossed the lawn with long, graceful strides, and did not slow at the front of the house. She leapt through the open ground-floor window, hanging from her fingers by the window frame for a bare moment before swinging into the house, disappearing from view.
What followed was, if possible, more fantastic than anything so far. Almost simultaneous with Brittany's agile maneuver, the face disappeared from the window and something came flying out of the side window. Unable to look away, I saw the fleshy, grayish creature leaping out of that window, a window on the third floor, and yet before the creature had even fallen halfway to the ground, Brittany's taut form flew out the same window, so that both hit the ground outside at nearly the same time. How any person could have climbed three flights of stairs, stairs most likely worn and perhaps nonexistent due to the passage of time, in literally the blink of an eye, I will never know. Nor will I ever understand how Brittany landed neatly next to the creature and took hold of it before it had scrambled three feet.
Brittany's back was to us and the set of her body mostly obscured what happened next, but the crack of bones was audible even from forty feet away. She seemed to bend forward until she was almost kneeling, and then stood up straight again. The thing at her feet was, from our vantage point, just a hump of flesh.
When Brittany came over to us, we saw that her pea coat and the dress shirt beneath had been savagely ripped to shreds by something near to claws, huge claws, but the flesh poking out from behind the tatters was smooth and uninjured and…tantalizing. I looked away in fear of appearing to leer but to my embarrassment I was aware that Brittany had seen me looking. A sly smile flitted across her face, I think, but then she solemnly extracted her duffel bag from the trunk and removed from it a gas can. Walking over to the fleshy lump on the ground, she splashed it liberally with the gasoline, stepped back, and touched the lighter she had produced from somewhere to the mound of gas-wet flesh.
And so, we come to that awful, horrid smell, the scent that no amount of perfume or cologne or life will ever come close to eradicating from my senses. I saw a terrible creature that drove me to heights of fear I hope never to attain again, and I saw that creature's destroyer, a woman capable of extraordinary deeds far past that of normal humans. These things haunt and intrigue me. Brittany intrigued me almost as much (or more) than the strange happenings to which we had been a party.
We watched as the creature became ashes, and then we got back into the car and drove away, dropping Brittany off in the field. Before our car pulled away, Brittany stepped over to the open passenger side window and took my right hand in both of hers and squeezed for a moment before turning and walking away. I just about steadied my heart after the feel of her warm hands on mine before I realized there was a scrap of paper in my hand. My heart nearly ceased beating as my eyes traced the flowing script—just her name and a phone number.
As I recount this tale, four years have passed since that day, and Brittany lies in bed behind me peacefully sleeping. She is the most beautiful woman I have ever seen and tomorrow I will have the indescribable privilege of becoming her wife. On this, the eve of our wedding day, I can still smell that burning creature and it still awakens me in the night sometimes. It was worth it, though. For when I do wake shivering from cold, ragged dreams, it is into Brittany's warm, strong arms that I turn.