Firebaby - Chapter 2
Agent Jack Smith yawned and took another sip from his coffee. He was afraid his body was building up an immunity to caffeine, since it no longer did what he wanted it to do. He'd probably consumed more coffee on this last assignment than in all his life put together.
Two years in Army Intelligence and he'd been scooped up by the CIA. He came with impeccable test scores and outstanding remarks from his superior officers. Immeasurably proud of the title "Agent," Smith had dreamed of playing deadly chess against Communist Block spies.
And then the whole Cold War had ended and Smith found himself reassigned to watching high-value domestic persons of interest, and he'd begun drinking coffee by the gallon. Today he was staking out a house from the boring comfort of his car. Sometimes he watched from a park bench,pretending to read a newspaper. Sometimes he ordered lunch at a restaurant and watched from his table. Sometimes he actually got a climb a tree and watch through a pair of binoculars. That was at least slightly more exciting.
Smith took another sip of his coffee as he gazed disinterestedly at the Wheeler household a short distance down the street. He glanced down at the note he'd jotted down a few minutes earlier. "3:15 PM. Mike Wheeler arrived home." He'd written that same sentence five days a week for months now. It seemed that Mr. Wheeler was a creature of habit. He was a creature of boredom, as far as Smith was concerned.
There was a tiny hint of movement at the house. One of the Wheelers must have walked past a window. It didn't much matter to Smith. As far as his orders were concerned, it didn't matter what they did, as long as they were where they were supposed to be when they were supposed to be there. Months of experience had taught Smith that routine was unlikely to be broken.
Paradrop insertion training. Active service in Kuwait. Higher test scores than General Robert E Lee himself. And he got assigned to watch an all American nuclear family live out their lives at the end of a cul-de-sac.
He took another sip from his coffee...
...And chocked, spitting it all over his steering wheel. Fire. He could see fire through the Wheeler's living room window.
Smith snatched up his radio from the passenger seat.
"This is Agent Smith at the Wheeler residence. There seems to be..." It was unmistakable now. He could see bright orange flames dancing behind the glass. "There's a fire," he said into the radio. "The house is on fire."
There was a short hiss of static before the reply came. "Agent Smith, this is control, what is the status of the subjects?"
Smith opened his car door and half stood with one foot on the ground and one foot still in the car to get a better look. His hand on the door frame tensed, ready to move if he had to.
"Agent Smith, please advise," the radio squawked.
Smith saw the front door explode, literally explode, off its hinges as the Wheeler family ran outside.
"I have a visual on all three subjects," Smith said into the radio.
"Acknowledged," Control said. "What is the situation?"
The house was going up like fireworks before Smith's very eyes. He'd never seen a fire spread that fast, not even when he'd watched a Kuwaiti oil field get hit by a misfired scud missile. He swept his head around to take in the surroundings, half expecting to find a Communist spy with a shoulder fired rocket launcher, but there was nothing. The neighborhood was as quiet and tranquil as any other day, except for that one house blazing away like Chernobyl.
"Agent Smith, what is the situation?"
He made one last sweep of the area to reassure himself. The Wheelers were standing at the edge of their front lawn, watching their house go up like a box of matches, but nothing else seemed to be out of place in the peaceful little neighborhood. All his senses and combat instincts told him that the danger, whatever it had been, was past.
"Stable," he said into the radio. "Situation is stable."
Someone must have called the fire department, but by the time they arrived, Mike's house was a pile of charcoal and ash. He was no firefighter himself, but he was pretty sure houses didn't burn down that fast. When the big red trucks did show up, they'd had little to do except hose down the embers and make sure the fire didn't spread to any other houses. They'd been eager to check on the Wheeler's health, but aside from the few lungfuls of smoke they'd breathed in, they were fine, especially Allie. Mike still had trouble believing that the baby gotten out untouched by the fire, but she had. The medics had given them a blanket to wrap the baby in, and El sat on the tailgate of one of the ambulances, rocking the baby and talking and humming to her in the odd half spoken language that only they shared.
The whole fire department had shown up, because it was Hawkins, and what else were they going to do. The fire chief trudged over to Mike in his heavy rubber jacket.
"Still have no idea what caused it," the chief said. "It wasn't a gas explosion, and there's no electrical fire or kitchen fire that would go that fast. You sure you weren't keeping a couple dozen gallons of gasoline in your living room? Or a pallet of firecrackers?"
Mike shook his head distantly.
"You'll want to call the State Farm guy straight away," the chief went on. "As long as they can't prove it was arson, they'll pay up. This... wasn't some insurance scam, was it?"
"What?" Mike said, alarmed. "No! We barely made it out alive."
"Alright, alright," the chief said, waving a calming hand. "I've just seen it a few times in my day, you know. So, you folks have a place to stay for now?" Mike told him that they did, and the chief went to round up his people and take them back to the station. Mike had already been considering his options with El. They could go to his parents' house, of course, which was only just across town, but he was honestly afraid to put them in danger like that. Until today he didn't know such a thing was even possible, yet it had happened, and with almost no warning at all. He had no idea if or when it might happen again, and he didn't want to risk turning his parents' house into a fireball, too. They could get a hotel room, but he wasn't sure how long it would be before they could get the insurance money and move into a new house. He couldn't afford weeks and months in a hotel, and he was also a little afraid of what kind of legal trouble he'd be in if they burned down the whole hotel. Mike had been wringing his hands and tossing out different options to El for the past half hour. They couldn't sleep in the forest, but he was honestly afraid of bringing baby Allie inside any wooden structure at the moment. His mind began to wander to other problems, as well. He'd need to call State Farm, which wouldn't be too hard, since he knew the local agent, Steve, pretty well. He'd need to call Principal Clark and arrange for a substitute teacher for Monday, and tell him that this past week's worth of homework papers to be graded had been in his briefcase, which had been in the house, which was now nothing but ashes. Maybe he could give the kids a really easy pop quiz to make up for it. Luckily he hadn't had the time to take his wallet out of his pocket when he'd gotten home, so he still had his driver's license and credit card. Even their car was gone, for which Mike cursed himself for parking too close to the house.
As the fire trucks began to pull away, he sat back down next to El and put a hand on her shoulder. "What do you think about Dustin's house?" He asked.
She looked up from the baby and considered the question for a moment, then nodded in agreement.
"Hi guys!" Dustin said, throwing his front door open wide and looking out at Mike, El, and the baby. "If you'd told me you were coming over, I would have ordered a pizza."
"I'm really sorry to show up like this Dustin-" Mike began, but Dustin had already wrapped him in a bear hug. He did the same for El, but was careful not to squish the baby.
"Come on," he said, pulling Mike inside by the sleeve. "Let me show you what I've been working on."
"I'm sorry about this," Mike tried again, but Dustin wasn't listening.
"Sorry about the mess," Dustin said, sweeping his hand around the living room, which was decorated with a few pizza boxes, empty VHS cases, candy wrappers, and more than a few used paper plates. "Do you want a Mountain Dew?" He asked, waving in the general direction of his kitchen. "Here it is," he patted the top of his huge, 12 inch computer monitor. "Windows 3.1," he told Mike proudly. Scooping up a few scattered papers from the computer desk, he handed them to Mike with a big grin. "I've been working on some new business models. I'm telling you, this internet thing is going to change the world. I need to be on the ground floor." He ejected a floppy disk from its drive and waved it at the two of them. "If even one of my ideas pays off, it could be worth millions. Millions."
"That's great Dustin," Mike said. "I need to talk to you about why we're here."
"Oh yeah, sit, sit," Dustin said, drawing them over toward his couch. He took an old T shirt off of the couch's arm and tossed it in the direction of a laundry basket. "You guys don't come over much these days. The last time I saw the princess she was about half this size." Dustin leaned closer to the baby. "Hi Allie," he said, waving a finger in front of her eyes as if she was a cat that he thought was going to chase after the finger.
"Dustin, we came here to ask you for help," Mike interrupted, realizing that his friend wouldn't slow down enough for him to approach the subject gently.
"What's wrong?" Dustin said, his eyes going wide.
"Nothing," Mike said, trying to bring Dustin's reaction to a lower level. "I mean, we're all OK. But we need somewhere to stay."
"Are you hiding from someone?" Dustin asked, his eyes going wide. "Are you guys on the run?"
"No," Mike said, annoyed that he was going to have to be direct, or risk leading Dustin down a million different wild possibilities. "We... There was a fire at our house."
Dustin gasped. "So you guys are homeless?"
"No," Mike said. "I mean-"
"Yes," El said, her quiet voice catching Dustin's attention.
He flopped down on the couch, raking his fingers through his mop of hair. "Whoa," Dustin said.
"Yes, I guess we technically don't have a house right now," Mike amended. "We need somewhere to stay, just for a few days. Just until we straighten things out. We were wondering-"
"Mike! Of course you can stay," Dustin interrupted. "Consider this your new home." He took his fingers out of his hair and touched his chin thoughtfully. "I only have the one bedroom, but you guys can have that. I'll take the couch."
"We couldn't-" Mike tried, but Dustin didn't seem to hear him.
"We'll need to get a crib for the baby," Dustin said, and began counting items on his fingers. "Some more groceries. You guys will need new clothes. I can rent some movies for us. I should start making dinner. No, that'll take too long. I'll order a pizza."
"Dustin, you don't have to-" Mike tried again.
"Mike, will you give it a rest?" Dustin said in exasperation. "I'm HERE for you. Now that you're under my protection, it's my sword duty to render all the assistance I can. Party rules."
Mike sank deeper into the couch, some of the tension going out of his muscles for the first time in hours. "Thanks," he said, looking down at the carpet. El leaned over and put a hand on Dustin's arm.
"Thank you, Dustin," she said.
He beamed at them.
Jack Smith squinted into the setting sun, lost in thought. He had a very narrow window of time to work with. He glanced back at the handful of techs who were collecting samples from the pile of ashes that had once been the Wheeler house. The Higher-Ups wanted to know exactly what had happened in the sleepy little town of Hawkins after a decade of peace and quiet. Of course, it was just like them not to take notice until something went catastrophically wrong. Yesterday, the Wheeler family had been on the back burner, as far as the Higher-Ups were concerned. Suddenly they were among the top priorities. They needed to know how a house with modern fire safety standards had burned to the ground in a handful of minutes, and more importantly why, of all places, it happened to be the home of a family designated as "high value domestic persons of interest." Smith had his theories, but he would keep them to himself until the scientists analyzed their data. For now, it was enough for him that the Higher-Ups wanted to know things, and they were finally willing to throw men and money at the situation to find the answers.
Smith himself had finally been taken off of surveillance duty and put in charge of the task force. Men in suits and men in camouflage and men in lab coats were already en route. He often remarked that the big and bulky federal government could move FAST when they wanted to. They just didn't want to all that often. But here they were, and it had only taken a minor explosion to get them moving. His window had opened up. For a short time he would have all the resources he needed. It was up to him to make sure they were used the right way for the right reasons. It was up to him to learn exactly what had happened here, and exactly what the Wheeler family was capable of that the Higher-Ups didn't already know about.
"This is my Celestron Powerseeker," Dustin said with immeasurable pride, as he unfolded the tripod legs. "I'll show you guys Mars when it gets dark later." He patted the long black tube lovingly. "Did you know the moon was at Perigee back in March? I swear, it looked this big," he spread his hands in a big circle above his head. "I wish I'd had it two years ago so I could have seen the Smith-Thompson comet that hit Russia. That was a once in a lifetime thing. Sorry, let me get you those Mountain Dews I promised." Dustin disappeared into the kitchen for a moment, and Mike took the moment to survey El and the baby. They both seemed oddly calm to him, given the situation. Dustin reappeared and handed them the bright green cans. Mike accepted his politely, but didn't open it. El did.
"So a fire, huh?" Dustin asked. "Weird. What started it?"
"Electrical fire," Mike lied. He glanced sideways at El, but she didn't call him out on it.
"I should probably get batteries for my smoke detectors," Dustin said to himself. Then he looked back to Mike. "How is Hawkins Middle?"
Mike shrugged. "The same as ever, I guess."
"And Mr. Clarke?" Dustin asked.
"He's gotten a lot done since becoming the new Principal," Mike said. "He's created the first ever Indiana State AV club, and to honor its first year, they're going to let Hawkins host the Indiana Science Fair next year."
"Man," Dustin said, shaking his head. "The kids these days don't know how great they have it. Make sure you tell them what it was like for us. Remember that year we had to go all the way to Hammond for the state science fair? That was the year we gave a presentation on the probability of other dimensions." He looked over to El. "They graded us down because our premise was, and I quote, too theoretical. If they only knew."
The baby squirmed in El's arms for a moment, and then settled back down.
"Did she just point at my home video library?" Dustin asked.
"I don't think so," Mike said.
Dustin twisted around to look at his shelf. "I think she might have been pointing at the Star Wars trilogy," he said. He crossed the room and plucked the trilogy boxed set off his shelf and held it out toward the baby. "Hey, Allie, is this what you want?"
"She doesn't know-" Mike started.
"Have you shown her Star Wars yet? Are you bringing her up right, Mike?"
"One year olds don't understand movies, Dustin," Mike told him.
Dustin leaned in closer to the baby. Suddenly his eyes lit up. "I'm going to get her a stuffed Ewok," he announced. "She needs to know about Ewoks."
Jim Hopper found Sam waiting right outside the Sacramento airport, thankfully. The man looked to have put on about twenty pounds and had gone fully gray at the temples since Hopper had seen him last. Aside from that, Sam needed a shave, looked like he hadn't slept in two days, and was wearing plain clothes instead of his uniform. Hopper could sympathize.
"Thanks so much for... for coming," Sam said, shaking hopper's hand. He leaned awkwardly as if he'd intended to offer a hug, but changed his mind half way through. They'd been that close once, but it had been a long time. Hopper tried to ease the moment a little.
"You look almost as old and tired as me," he said.
Sam laughed, which did a little to brighten his bloodshot eyes. "You actually look better than I expected. You must like being retired."
"I don't have to climb trees to save cats anymore," Hopper said. "And I don't have to pick up teenagers trespassing at the Sattler Quarry. So I guess the retired life is pretty good."
"You don't miss the excitement?" Sam asked.
"Not really," Hopper told him. "I've had enough excitement."
"In Hawkins?"
"You'd be surprised," Hopper said, reaching in his pocket to take out a cigarette. He was down to just a few a day, but the plane ride had been long and cramped, with a crying kid behind him. He offered one to Sam who took it and waved a hand toward his truck. "Come on, let me buy you a drink."
"You on duty?" Hopper asked with one eyebrow raised.
"I'm only gonna have have one," Sam said. "And no, I'm not on duty."
"So what made you move out to California?" Hopper asked as he slid into the passenger seat of Sam's own truck. Not his squad car, Hopper noted.
"Sacramento pays way better than Indianapolis," Sam told him. "Way better than any place in Indiana."
"It's the taxes," Hopper grumbled. "What do they make you pay for gas over here? A dollar ten?"
"A dollar twenty," Sam told him.
"Robbery," Hopper said.
The drive to Sam's grill-and-bar of choice wasn't far, but he seemed unwilling to bring up the big issue, so Hopper did his best to make small talk. It was an odd feeling, riding shotgun with Sam again. They'd done it every day of the week for a few years, except that it had been in a squad car instead of an F-150. They'd been a great pair until Hopper had left the force and tried to drink himself to death. If his liver hadn't been so freakishly robust, he might have succeeded, too. But that had been before taking the job as Hawkins police chief. Since he'd left Indianapolis fifteen years ago, he hadn't spoken to Sam except for a single phone call when he'd needed an address for one Terry Ives. At the time, Hopper had been focused on the task at hand, and sort of on the run from Hawkins Lab, so he hadn't wasted any time on small talk.
Once they'd been given a table at the grill-and-bar and served their drinks, Sam seemed at last ready to really talk.
"Thanks again for coming. I mean it," Sam said.
Hopper shrugged as graciously as he could and sipped his beer. He sipped rather than chugged, which was another improvement he'd made over recent years.
"And I'm sorry about all that stuff on the phone about... what happened in Hawkins... then years ago..." Sam grew quieter with each word, hunched his shoulders and leaned in close, as if he thought there were agents right behind him.
Hopper waved his beer in dismissal. "Don't worry about it. And don't mention it. I mean really, don't mention it. What happened then is supposed to be dead and buried. No sense in bringing up the dead."
Sam still looked a little puzzled, and maybe a little too curious, but he didn't press any harder.
"So I'm here now," Hopper said. "Give it to me. WHY and I here?"
"Where should I start?" Sam said, partly to himself. He ran his fingers nervously through his hair. "Like I said, there's this case. It's crazy. It sounds crazy. They all think I'm crazy. The Chief. The boys at the station. Well, the ones I told, anyway. The Chief told me to stop spreading this around-"
"Is there some kind of cover up?" Hopper asked.
"No, I don't think so. Nothing like that," Sam said. "I told you, it sounds crazy. If somebody told me what they saw, I wouldn't believe 'em. If I hadn't seen it with my own eyes-"
"Come on," Hopper said, starting to get impatient.
"So I responded to this call," Sam said, staring down at his hands as he spoke. "Somebody had called 911 and said they heard gunshots. The dispatcher called over the radio, and it turns out I'm only a few blocks away. By the time I get there, the whole building's on fire. Now, this building, we've had our eye on it for a while. We were pretty sure a major gang banger was using it to store drugs. But here it is, going up like a bonfire. So I call all available units to the scene, and the fire department and everybody else. But before they get there I go take a closer look, cause maybe there are people still alive inside. So when I get close enough to look in a window-" Sam's hands clenched around his beer as he spoke. "So inside I see this guy. He's walking through the fire. I mean walking right through it, like it isn't even there. The whole building is going up. Flames ten feet high, and he's walking around in there. And he's-" Sam finally let go of his beer to stretch one arm out point it at Hopper with the fingers tense and claw-like. "He's got his hands like this and he's setting the place on fire. I mean, he wasn't carrying a napalm gun from Vietnam. It's just his hands, his bare hands, and he's... throwing fire all over the place."
"Nobody else saw him?" Hopper asked. "When the other squad cars and the firefighters showed up?"
Sam shook his head. "I couldn't stay close enough to watch him for long. The fire was getting worse every second, once the building started falling apart, I had to get back, so I lost track of him. We couldn't send any officers inside to look for survivors or perps or anything, not with the whole place coming down. The firefighters did what they could, but the whole building was basically gone before they could get to work."
"And then?"
"Then I went back to the station and wrote my report," Sam said. "I wrote down exactly what I saw. And the chief said I was out of my mind. He ripped it up and told me to write it again, this time without the comic book stuff. When I argued with him, he started talking about putting me on medical leave."
"Nobody else saw it happen?" Hopper asked.
"Just me," Sam said. "I started asking everybody who responded to the call that night. They all thought I was crazy, too. Pretty soon, the Chief told me to stop spreading it around. Then he started talking about medical leave again. He seemed to think I was coming up with delusions. That I was unstable. But I know what I saw."
"Well, I don't think you're crazy..." Hopper said grudgingly.
"Have you ever-"
"No, Hopper said with a short laugh. "I've never seen a guy move fire around with his hands. But..."
"But you believe me?"
"If you saw it, then you saw it," Hopper said.
"That's not weird to you?" Sam said in surprise.
"No, it weird," Hopper allowed. "But I've seen weird before. Listen, if you really did see this guy-"
"I did," Sam insisted.
"Are you sure you really want to keep chasing this thing?" Hopper asked. "It might be easier for you and the Chief and everybody else if you just forget it ever happened."
"Eight people died in that building, Hop," Sam said. "Burned to death. At the very least, we have an arsonist on the loose who should be charged with eight counts of murder."
"There's no way he could have been one of those eight bodies they found in the building?" Hopper asked.
"That's what the chief thinks," Sam said unhappily. "He thinks the eight bodies all belonged to the guys who used the warehouse to store their product. He thinks all the chemicals they were warehousing for their drug operations just spontaneously ignited and that's why the building burned down so fast."
"That sounds pretty good to me," Hopper said.
"There was at least one more person in that building before it was safe for us to start searching for bodies," Sam insisted. "And I know he didn't die in the fire. He was just fine with it, like a fish in the water."
"Sometimes, with these things, it's just best to close your eyes," Hopper told him. "Pretend it never happened."
"Now way," Sam said, shaking his head. "What if it happens again?"
Mike had been wrestling with his conscience all evening. He kept looking uneasily from Dustin to El, though neither seemed to be laboring under the same weight he was. El was spreading here attention between the baby, Dustin, the TV, and a book in her lap. Dustin was offering commentary on the TV, which Mike only heard as background noise.
"I don't know about this Leno guy yet," Dustin offered to El. "He's funny, but I don't know if he has the staying power that Carson did. I'll be right back, I'm gonna get another Mountain Dew. You want one?"
As soon as Dustin had left the couch, Mike decided he couldn't put it off any longer, so he took the opportunity to get Dustin alone and followed him out of the living room.
"Dustin, I need to tell you something," Mike said, taking the other's arm and gently pulling him further into the kitchen where they could talk. He didn't bother turning on the light, so they stood there in the half darkness for a long moment with the quiet murmur of the living room TV covering the otherwise awkward silence.
"What is it?" Dustin asked, as Mike struggled for the right words to begin his confession.
"You deserve to know," Mike began, then stopped. "I should have told you when we first got here," he tried again. "Or maybe I should have told you a long time ago... It just isn't fair that we're here, in your house, and I haven't told you yet..." Again he stopped, struggling with how to bring up such a subject.
"Spit it out," Dustin encouraged, his face inviting Mike to go on.
"It's about baby Allie," Mike began.
"Does she have superpowers, too?!" Dustin gasped, his eyes going wide and bright. "Is that what happened to your house?"
"Will you keep your voice down?" Mike hissed in a loud whisper, pulling Dustin even further away from the living room and then interposing himself as if his body could block the sound from traveling. He glanced over his should at El, who was still sitting on the couch and holding the baby. She gave no indication that she could hear the two of them talking, but that didn't mean much. With a resigned sigh, Mike decided there wasn't much point in worrying about it. El would probably know anyway, if not now, then whenever she talked to Dustin next. She had a way of knowing things that people said, even if they weren't in the same room, or sometimes in the same building.
"It's not like that," Mike insisted, returning his attention to Dustin. "I mean, it is. Kind of. But it's not like that."
"I always guessed you'd have a baby with superpowers," Dustin said, grinning from ear to ear. "With El's... I mean, the way El is... you know. I just always guessed if you two had a baby-"
"She doesn't have superpowers," Mike said. "She's a normal, happy baby girl. And she's going to grow up to go to a normal school and have a normal, happy life."
"Normal?" Dustin protested. "Mike, that's not what you want. She can't be normal. She'll be better than normal. Way better."
"This is serious, Dustin," Mike scolded him.
"I AM being serious," Dustin insisted. "Listen, did you have a normal childhood?"
Mike shrugged his shoulders, suddenly looking off toward an empty space on the wall.
"We stayed after school for AV club," Dustin lectured. "When the other kids were playing football or baseball or whatever, and then we went over to your house to play D&D in your basement. Did we turn out so bad?"
Again, Mike shrugged, still not meeting Dustin's eyes.
"And then our friend got kidnapped by a monster and El," Dustin pointed with his chin toward the couch where she sat "saved our lives with her superpowers. It was great. I wouldn't trade it for anything. What's so great about a normal life?" Dustin curled his fingers in the air in mock quotation when he said "normal."
"I don't know," Mike said, now staring darkly at the floor. "I just want Allie to grow up nor... Happy. I don't want her to feel different from everyone else. I want her to have friends. I want her to be... to not be like an outsider or anything."
"I think she'll be just fine," Dustin said. "Just look at us. We turned out OK. Besides, I think she'll be pretty happy with herself and have lots of friends if she saves some kids from a monster. Or from government agents. With her superpowers."
Mike scowled at him.
Dustin raised his eyebrows questioningly.
"Stop that," Mike said, trying to sound more annoyed than he was.
"So she has pyrokinesis?" Dustin asked, that kiddish grin threatening to split his face in two again.
"What?" Mike asked.
"That's the official term," Dustin explained. "It's what you'd call someone who can control fire with their mind. Does she have any other powers?"
"No. At least, I don't think so," Mike said. Realizing that he didn't have the energy to resist anymore, he gave in to Dustin's enthusiasm. "Yeah, I guess she has pyrokinesis." Saying the words out loud, about his own tiny, innocent, baby girl, felt very weird.
"When did her powers first manifest?" Dustin asked, as matter-of-fact as if he were asking when a car's check-engine light had come on.
"When she was really young," Mike told him. "Almost right away. If she got sick, or sometimes just if she was upset and crying, or even if she had a bad dream, I think. She'd start tiny little fires, nothing big. It was scary, though. Really scary. Her bed sheets, her teddy bear, her favorite blanket... We had to watch her constantly. That's why El stayed home with her. We never knew if we'd turn around and find her whole crib going up in flames. We hardly got any sleep. Taking her to the doctor was nerve wracking, cause that's when she was most likely to start a fire. I don't know how we would have explained it if she'd ever started a fire in a hospital. That would have been really hard to hide. It was... rough. We had fire extinguishers in every room, we couldn't ever turn our backs, even for a second."
"You probably didn't need to worry about the baby," Dustin said, thoughtfully stroking his chin. "Your house, sure. But not the baby. Pyroketes can't be burned by their own flames."
"Oh, you're making that up!" Mike said. "How would you even know that?"
"It just makes sense," Dustin said, holding his hands up, palms out.
"Anyway, it got a lot better after a while," Mike continued. "It happened less and less as she got older. And El really knows how to keep her calm and happy. They have a connection, like more than a regular mom would."
Dustin nodded, as if that made perfect sense to him, too.
"After the first few months, we really started to relax," Mike said. "And she hasn't had a... she hasn't started a fire in long time, not for months. Until last night."
"What do you think happened?" Dustin asked.
"No idea," Mike said. "It wasn't like any of the other times. Those were little fires. This time... this time the whole house went up in a few minutes. We barely made it out. I've never seen anything like it, ever."
"I wonder what caused it." Dustin's hand had again gone to his chin, and he was staring up at the ceiling, his eyes lost in thought. "It could be chemical changes in the brain as a natural part of her growth. It could be some outside stimulus that triggered a reaction."
"I have no idea," Mike said. "And neither do you, so stop guessing. It's not like this kind of thing happens all the time, or ever."
"I don't know," Dustin said. "I've read a couple of things."
"No, you haven't," Mike replied. "This isn't a comic book. There aren't superheroes with superpowers running around. El is one of a kind. And Allie is... she's special. Unique."
"Dark Phoenix," Dustin protested. "The Human Torch."
"Stop," Mike said, rolling his eyes. "This is different. This is real."
"You really need to get back in touch with your inner child," Dustin told him. "Ever since you went off to college, you've gotten pretty stiff."
Mike folded his arms defensively. "I'm just more practical now, that's all."
"You're stiff," Dustin insisted. "And a little self absorbed, and a little boring. I hate to say it, but you need to hear it. Maybe you need to run a D&D campaign again. You know, remember your roots. Do you still run a campaign for those kids in your class?"
"Not since the baby," Mike said. "I've been busy."
"You see?" Dustin waved his hands as if playing to a jury. "You've got your perspective all warped, somehow. El has superpowers, and that's AMAZING. You're baby is going to be amazing. You should be happy. You shouldn't be pretending it isn't real."
Mike kept his face impassive as he stared off toward empty space. Maybe...
"So, we're gonna need some fire extinguishers, aren't we?" Dustin asked, breaking Mike's dark silence.
"A lot of fire extinguishers," Mike agreed, happy to have the focus off of him and his stiffness again. "Maybe ten. Or twenty, I don't know. Two for every room in the house, or something."
"I'm on it," Dustin said happily. "You stay here with the baby. I'll drive over to Donald's General Store- Wait, no, I'll go to the Kmart in Cartersville. They'll have more in stock. Uhh..." Dustin suddenly looked a little sheepish. "I'll need you to spot me a couple of bucks. Those things aren't cheap."
Mike gladly took out his wallet and handed Dustin a credit card. "Thanks for doing this," Mike said. "And thanks for... for letting us stay here. It's kind of a big risk you're taking."
Dustin shrugged without a second thought and practically bounced out of the dark kitchen, full of eager purpose. "Bye El," Dustin waved as he crossed the living room. "I'm going to Kmart for some things. Want me to bring you back a slushie?"
She turned her head to stare over her shoulder at him. After a long and unreadable moment, she nodded her head emphatically.
"Cool, I'll be back," Dustin said, and slipped out the front door.
Mike crossed the room slowly and sank onto the couch next to El. He felt like the Earth's gravity had doubled or tripled since the fire, since his sense of normalcy and security had been derailed. He should have felt better, now that Dustin knew the truth and knew what kind of danger he was in. But, somehow, saying all those words out loud had only made them more real for Mike, and more frightening.
He swept his eyes around Dustin's living room and tried not to imagine the walls dancing with bright orange flames. Blinking hard to clear the unwanted vision, he reached over and gently grasped the baby's hand. El was holding Allie in one arm and had a book in her other hand. She was whispering and humming and talking to the baby in that weird half-verbal language that only she and the baby could understand. Little Allie looked over at him, as calm and docile as she'd ever been. There was absolutely no visible hint of what she had inside of her. Mike tried very hard not to think of her as a stick of dynamite. Was it possible to love a stick of dynamite with all your heart, he wondered?
Yes. Yes it was.
Without warning, in her uniquely abrupt manner, El reached over the baby and thrust the book she'd been reading toward Mike. He glanced down at the cover: The Call of Cthulhu and other Strange Tales.
"What does Cthulhu want with humans?" El asked him matter-of-factly. "And why does he call to them?"
Mike's eyebrows knitted together. "Where did you find THAT book?"
El inclined her head toward Dustin's book shelf.
"Oh," Mike said. "Well, it's kind of hard to explain..."
Hopper sat next to Sam in his truck in the parking lot of a Burger King, working on his fries as they listened to the every-day chatter the police radio. Sam had been buying Hopper food whenever possible, it seemed, in some small token of thanks for coming all the way out there.
"They have these back in Hawkins?" Sam asked, patting the police radio with the hand that didn't hold his half eaten burger.
Hopper glanced down at it. "An older model," he said defensively.
"You should see the inside of the squad cars we have over here," Sam said proudly. "Full of toys."
"You're missing the big picture," Hopper told him. "Why would Hawkins PD buy the newest radios just to talk to the three other officers on duty?"
Sam shook his head with an amused smile.
"Listen, one time I picked up this teenager, Troy was his name," Hopper recounted. "He'd been driving around with a baseball bat taking out mailboxes."
"Sounds like a real Al Capone," Sam said.
"When I pulled him over, the kid cried," Hopper continued. "Actually broke down and cried. Begged me not to tell his parents. That's the kind of hardened criminals we deal with in Hawkins. You understand why a guy might want to live there?"
Sam snorted. "What do you guys do for fun?"
"Knitting and sewing, mostly," Hopper said, keeping a straight face. "You know, bonnets, zipperless pants, horse blankets..." He glanced over at Sam, who had choked on his burger and had started to cough. "We even have a movie theater we made out of tree bark and animal hides."
When Sam had recovered and swallowed the bite of burger, he asked "How old are the squad cars over there?"
"Well when I was Chief they were all 75s," Hopper told him. "The guy I left in charge when I retired, name's Powell, wanted to organize a millage to buy all new ones. But that year the state inspectors threatened to shut down the city water treatment plant because they weren't chlorinating or something like that, so the money had to go there. In the end, Powell bought some newer used squad cars from Cartersville PD."
"What a paradise," Sam said. "I always wondered-" He shut his mouth as something on the police radio caught his ear.
A fire. The dispatcher was calling out all the fire trucks at once.
Hopper and Sam's eyes met for a single beat before Sam sprang into frenzied motion. Tossing the last of his burger out the window, he threw the truck into gear and peeled out, his tires spraying gravel.
Without regard for the traffic lights, Sam made great time getting them there. Hopper was briefly able to admire the really upscale neighborhood as Sam took some of the corners almost on two wheels. They had beaten most of the first responders to the site. Only a few fire trucks, and no police, were there ahead of them.
The house, the three-quarter-million dollar house, Hopper guessed, was blazing like a furnace when they pulled up. Sam threw the truck in park and jumped out, leaving it still running. The fire fighters had only just begun to hose it down, but there was no hope of saving the place. Even from across the street Hopper wanted to recoil from the oppressive heat. Sam was moving around toward the side of the house in a wide circle, and Hopper tore his eyes away from the enchanting flames, which he realized had grown even higher in the few seconds he'd been standing and staring, and followed after his friend.
Sam broke into a jog as he came around where he could see the side of the house. Tightening his circle, he started to move faster. Hopper thought about telling him to slow down and wait for the other cops to arrive, but he knew the other wouldn't listen.
"Hey!" Sam shouted. He was further around the perimeter than Hopper, who guessed he could probably see the back door of the house by then.
"Hey! Police! Stop!" Sam gave chase, sprinting as fast as he could. For about the first eight seconds, Hopper was right on his heels. Then his body remembered that he wasn't 40 anymore, and he started to fall behind. He could see Sam's quarry now, a man up ahead wearing dark clothes, running for all he was worth. After a few more seconds, the other two drew even farther ahead. Hopper slowed to a jog, and then a full stop. It was clear to him that Sam had kept his lungs, or maybe all of him, in better shape in recent years.
"You keep on him, I'll bring the truck," Hopper called out, doubting that Sam would even hear him. He doubled back and jumped in Sam's truck, which was still running. He had time to notice that the burning house had turned into something out of a Godzilla movie with flames reaching twice as high as the tallest trees in the cul-de-sac. That was weird, but it wasn't his priority.
The truck bounced a little as he drove over a few garden gnomes on his way across the lawn. He cut over onto the next street in the direction Sam and the suspect had been running. He had no way to know which side street they might have turned down, so he slowed at each intersection, swinging his head left and right.
They turned out to be easy to find. Bright orange flames caught Hopper's eye, and her jerked the steering wheel around and burned rubber down the little 25 mile-an-hour road to catch up.
He'd barely had time to get up to speed when his eyes fully took in the situation and he had to slam on the brakes before plowing through a literal wall of fire.
The wall stretched left to right across the road and across the lawns on either side, completely cutting off any pursuit. Sam paced back and forth like an angry panther unable to chase his prey. Hopper put the truck in park and jumped out, marveling at the bright orange, dancing barrier. Somehow the fire was holding its shape, perfectly straight, twice as tall as a chain link fence, neither dying down nor spreading.
What is it burning? He wondered, looking at the part of the fire-wall that sat atop plain asphalt.
"You see?" Sam shouted, not looking at Hopper, craning his neck as if he'd be able to see over the fire-wall and catch a glimpse of the fleeing arsonist.
"Do you see it?"
"I see it," Hopper said in a level voice, still fascinated by the fire that didn't behave like fire.
"I'm not crazy," Sam declared to the open air. "I'm not crazy!"
"You're not crazy," Hopper agreed, in a much calmer tone than the other. "Come on, we might be able to circle around and cut him off a couple streets down."
Wordlessly, his face a wild mask of emotions, Sam got behind the wheel and backed his truck down to the first cross street and headed off. They searched for more than twenty minutes down every road in the development with no luck. Sam didn't respond to any of Hopper's questions, his eyes locked ahead with an expression that might have fit a hunting dog. Finally, when his adrenaline had died down and he admitted to himself that they weren't going to pick up the trail, Sam pulled onto the side of the road, put the truck in park, and slumped back against the head rest.
"Did you get a look at his face?" Hopper asked.
"No," Sam said in frustration. "He was about 5 foot 8, medium build, tan skin, dark hair. That's all I got. You saw him, though, right?"
"I saw him," Hopper agreed.
"And you saw the..." Sam waved his hand, lost for words.
"I saw the fire, yeah," Hopper said.
"I'm not crazy," Sam repeated.
"Never thought you were," Hopper told him.
"I've got to make the Chief believe me," Sam said, to the steering wheel as well as to Hopper. "We need to get the whole force on this guy. He could have at least a dozen counts of murder on his hands now."
"You so sure he's a murderer?" Hopper asked, frowning.
"Hop, that's wasn't just a random house back there," Sam said, turning away from the steering wheel to face him. "It belongs to one of the major crime bosses in this whole area. First a drug warehouse, now this. We could have some kind of cartel war going on."
"So you think this guy, who makes fires with his hands, works for drug dealers?" Hopper said rhetorically.
"Whoever he is, he's already killed enough people to get the chair. If we don't catch him, he'll kill again."
"Maybe," Hopper said in a quieter tone.
"Maybe?"
"Well, he let you live, didn't he?" Hopper asked. "What was that wall of fire back there? It seems to me the guy could have just roasted you and gotten away clean."
Sam turned back to scowl at the steering wheel and didn't answer. Hopper let the silence linger for a long time before he said what he was thinking.
"Sam, I'm gonna tell you something. You're a big city cop, and there's one big problem with that. You only ever get to see the worst in people, day after day after day. I remember how it was. You see murders and rapes and abused wives and drug dealers. You see this little slice of the world, the worst of the worst, and it makes you cold and dead. You forget that most people are basically good."
Still not looking over, Sam took a deep and slow breath. Hopper went on.
"I treated people like trash for years," he said quietly. "I made people hate me. I wanted people to hate me. Cause I couldn't handle losing my little girl. I didn't know how to deal with it, so I acted like an ass to everyone. Doesn't make it right... But maybe this guy, our arsonist, maybe he does what he does for a reason."
"Your heart bleeds for people now?" Sam asked darkly. "Everybody's got a story, is that it?"
Hopper took the jab without comment.
"Maybe he's a little more complicated than we know," Hopper said. "Like I said, maybe there's a reason he does what he does."
Sam shifted a little uncomfortably in his seat, so Hopper decided to let it rest for the time being.
"You want to use me as an eye witness when you talk to the chief?" Hopper offered. "I'll help corroborate your story."
"The chief wouldn't be happy that I brought an outsider into this," Sam said regretfully.
"Then I won't tell him you did," Hopper said. "I'm not bad at talking my way out of things. I'll just tell him I happened to be in town... to catch a game. I came to see the... to see the ah... Who's your NFL team again?"
"We don't have one," Sam said, rolling his eyes as he put the truck back in gear and pulled back onto the road. Hopper hid his evil grin from the other.
"At least Hawkins has the Tigers," Hopper said proudly. "They tore up the Cartersville Cavaliers last week.
Sam smiled, at last, and shook his head.
"Can you stop at a pay phone before we get to the station? I need to call Joyce and let her know that I won't be back as soon as I'd planned on."