Do crazy people realize they're crazy?
The arsonist didn't know; couldn't tell. She hadn't thought she was that far gone, not yet. But no matter how many times she replayed her memories of the man in the blue suit, they all ended in him disappearing. Like a hologram, or something out of science fiction. She was left with three cigarettes and a growing sense of panic.
The cigarettes, the cigarettes were real. The paper was smooth against her fingers, the little indents her nails left in the cylinders were visible and stayed put. And she'd gotten them from the masked man, ergo, he must have existed. But Dell had one, too—and she'd hit her head just hours ago … and real people didn't wander around in the middle of spring dressed in suits and ski masks. They didn't show up unannounced in the empty Texas countryside with eloquent European accents. They didn't vanish into thin air.
But she still had three cigarettes, and when she demanded to know where Dell had gotten his he just shrugged and said, "Guess I had some 'round here after all." The bruise she had given him earlier was flowering into a broad splash of purple and green. She thought about slugging him again, on purpose this time. But she just stared at him, turned on her heel, and stormed back to the couch.
She thought about it, thought in circles for God knew how long. Nothing made sense.
And then, she was outside.
She didn't notice it until some wild bird screeched loudly into the night, jarring her from her thoughts. Thrown from her slowly mounting panic, she blinked owlishly into the cool air.
It was dark. The lights in the house were out, and she had the Zippo in her hands, still stained with her blood from a few hours ago. The door stood open behind her, and she could feel the cool air against her face.
This last startled her. Her mask had somehow gotten pushed up to rest on her forehead. She reached up to yank it back down, and her hand bumped against something smooth and papery. When she cursed in surprise, the remains of the cigarette that had somehow found its way to her mouth fell to the ground.
She didn't remember doing that. She didn't even remember getting up from the couch and walking out the door. Shit. She was burning through her precious little evidence of sanity without even realizing it. The thought chased away any soothing effect the tobacco might have had.
Stamping out the cigarette with more force than strictly necessary, she pulled the mask back over her face and sank down to sit in the cool grass. Her nerves screeched for more nicotine.
She was losing time again. How reassuring.
It had been happening more frequently. At least, she thought it was. Maybe not. Who could say? But the gaps in her memory felt like they were widening. She didn't know how she'd come to the conclusion that clambering up the rickety barrels and bins outside the garage earlier would be a great idea, for example. That was why she'd fallen, she'd rubber-banded back to reality while on top of the damn things. It had startled her so much she'd lost her footing. Now she had a concussion! Head trauma could only help in this situation.
She'd lost time between burning down the hockey stadium and arriving at Conagher's, too. The last thing she remembered was staring up at the holy beauty of a monstrous building aflame, bright against the dark night sky. She'd listened to the snap of falling supports and the crackling explosions, and the shrieks of gas that sounded almost human. Almost. Not quite. Couldn't have been. Then sirens in the distance drowned it out anyway, and she couldn't tell anymore.
And all at once she'd been moving raggedly through vast fields of white and brown at sunset, nauseous with hunger, dizzy with thirst and exhaustion. She had to burn something. She had to get away.
Her own mind was playing with her. Staying at Conagher's had dulled it, just a little. Regular food and a safe place to sleep would do that, probably. Then he'd gone and ruined it by saying that word, that one word that made her nerves seize up and her gut clench.
Firebug.
A wave of nausea flooded through her at the memory.
She curled into a ball, pressing her masked face to her knees. For a while she stayed that way, flickering in and out of awareness, willing the feeling to go.
When she came to again, the dying ember of a used-up cigarette lay in the grass between her feet.
For a long time, she just stared at it. It took her a whole ten seconds to remember, and then she cursed again, and loudly. She scrambled for her pocket, for the smokes from the masked man, and found just one left. One, only one, hadn't she had three?—and then she remembered, no. She'd used up the first just a few minutes ago.
Damn it. Damn all of it! She didn't even get to remember enjoying the damn things! With an angry noise she snuffed out the glowing paper and shoved it back into her pocket.
And now she was sore from how she'd been sitting. Lovely.
Back inside, then. Maybe she'd be able to make herself ask Conagher about the man in the morning, but she wasn't hopeful. It was all spiraling downward anyway.
She stood, and turned, just in time to see a light come on in Conagher's garage.
It was a fuzzy, soft light, easily visible in the empty countryside but still dim. Beneath the mask, her brow furrowed, and her gaze cut to the second story of Conagher's home. What time was it?—wasn't he usually in bed by now?
She looked back to the garage just as another light went on, and then went off again. Before she really realized what she was doing, she was moving toward it.
Nights in the countryside were something else. She'd grown accustomed to the soft rumbling song of city nights, the occasional buzz of a car or raccoons rummaging in dumpsters nearby. Snatches of late-night conversations caught through windows, drunken young men ambling by, sometimes. There was nothing like that here. Not to say it was quiet, God, no. It was the animals, the birds. The insects. She'd never be able to identify any of them, but there were constant churring rattles, hooting things. Sometimes an unholy, bestial cackle would pull her from her baseless nightmares (rainbow explosions, floods of black and red, an infernal orchestra playing on and on and on), and she would be glad of the interruption.
The sounds were no different now, as she picked her way to the garage. Crickets (she assumed they were crickets) chirruped endlessly at her feet. Some kind of bird was calling over and over in the distance. Once she thought she saw yellow eyes watching her from a long way off, but they vanished as soon she noticed them.
The garage's door was still shut fast, locked. When she listened, she heard nothing from within, but the light stayed on. Perhaps there was another way in. Making her way around to the back of the building, she found she was right: a gray little door stood open, just a hair. Soft light trickled through it, casting a yellow haze on the grass. Within, she saw nothing. Suspicious, she hung in the doorway a moment: maybe it was a trick. A trap.
Because that made sense.
She shook herself, frustrated with her relentless paranoia. It did nothing but send a shudder of dread through her bones. To spite it anyway, she stepped inside.
It was a monstrous place. Support beams sprouted up from the ground like tree trunks. All around her she found machinery, tools, hardware. Shovels and rakes leaned haphazardly in corners. A half-dismantled something sat on one of the many workbenches lining the walls. Blueprints were pinned to almost every free vertical space, and what was not taken up by blueprints was taken up by tools and cramped rows of shelving. Everything imaginable lined the latter: scrap metal, wiring, soldering kits, lighter fluid, balled-up pieces of paper. Wrinkled white tarps as textured as snakeskin were slung over dozens of mysterious objects, some taller than she was. The outfit as a whole could be best described an organized mess.
It was nothing like her—
Like her—
She paused midstep, staring at nothing. The thought had come to her quite unbidden, and now that she had noticed it she could not complete it for the life of her.
She waited. But it never finished itself. It just lay there in her mind, still and dead and unmoving, like a bird that hit a window. Nothing more came of it.
With a nasty hiss, she pushed the thought away, and slunk further in.
The place was a maze of standing shelves and sawhorses, all sunk into shadow. If someone was in here, they could be anywhere. Anything could be in here.
Shark was in here, she remembered with a sharp inhalation. If she could get Shark she could leave, or at least she'd have it back, anyway. It would be worth the concussion.
Quite soon she found herself in the middle of it all, peering around cautiously. There was no one, nothing she could see or hear. No sign of her flamethrower. There was just the hum of the lights above and the endless calls of the countryside.
Wait.
There.
Footsteps.
She jerked to look behind her, and found nothing. She turned back and startled so badly she nearly fell over. Hands in his pockets, head a bit to one side as he leaned against a shelf a few feet away, someone was watching her. "Conagher," she blurted, more relieved than she had any right to be.
It was him, all right. He had his goggles and a hardhat on, and an outfit she'd never seen: brown overalls, kneepads, a light blue work shirt with rolled-up sleeves. A yellow circle with a blue wrench within was embroidered on the shoulder. It took him a moment to respond. "Naturally," he said at last. "Now jus' what are you doin' in here?"
Oh, hell. The arsonist glanced off to one side. "Door was open."
"Mighty late," he observed. She looked up at him again. "Look, why don't you get on back to bed?"
Something felt off. He'd been too damn adamant about her not getting in here earlier, and now … she peered at him for a few seconds in the dim lighting. "… Where's my flamethrower?"
"Your—?" He gave her a strange look before he trailed off. God, something was out of place but she couldn't find it. The darkness wasn't helping her, the screaming anxiety in the back of her head was driving her insane. She slipped a hand into her pocket and found the comforting surface of the Zippo. "It's fine, a'course. Here now, it's late. I'll …"
That was all she heard before it registered, though he kept talking. Conagher's shadowed jawline was evenly-colored, all one shade of dull beige and five o'clock shadow. There was no sign of the massive purple bruise she'd laid into him earlier, and that, that …
Her knuckles were still sore. She hadn't imagined that. Something's wrong, something's wrong, something's wrong.
It wasn't until Conagher cut himself off, bristling, that she realized she'd begun advancing. He'd held up a hand as if to stop her. "Whoa now, what d'you think y—"
She slugged him. Again.
With a terrific clatter he jerked backward, colliding with the shelves he leaned against. A dozen tools and parts clattered to the ground, and he lost his legs. She stood over him, her breathing suddenly heavy, waiting—waiting for what?—
His whole body wavered, like some great heat separated them. She went stock-still, staring as Conagher stopped being Conagher. His image rippled and changed and then he was not Conagher at all. He had become the masked man, his eyes screwed shut and his teeth clenched in pain.
Every ounce of rationale she had managed until now was drowned out by instinct. She threw herself at him with a wild snarl, driving him to the ground. They landed on the cement with an awful crack, and the man cried out in pain. Good.
Whatever shell of a human she'd been was gone. Now there was nothing but mad-dog rending and tearing, clawing at anything she could reach, going for the face and throat, pulling out every dirty trick she had ever learned. She felt his suit rip, his collarbone bruise, all this until he finally got his legs up beneath her and drove both knees squarely into her gut. With a winded grunt, she felt herself go limp.
Then something slammed hard into her side; she felt a sharp, cold pain that grew dull quickly. Startled, she froze. The man's clenched fist was pressed against her abdomen, and she choked down a hideous cry when he pulled whatever he held out and away. Then he slammed it between her ribs, and she couldn't stop the wail of agony that followed.
Without further preamble, he kicked her off. Too shocked to do anything else, she fell back onto her knees, clutching her side. Her hands were rapidly growing wet.
"That was extraordinarily unwise," the man said in a gravelly voice. He'd gotten up, she realized, and something long and sharp and dripping hung from his fingertips. "Though I suppose I must commend your instincts."
His words barely registered. Something hissed its way out of her mouth, but she didn't even know what she'd said. The man was dusting off his suit. He tugged at a few dark spots on the end of his jacket, scowling. "You simply had to bleed on me, didn't you?" As he spoke, she trying to struggle to her feet, desperately wishing for her flamethrower. The man snorted, and stepped on her shoulder, forcing her to the ground. "No, please! Don't get up. I suppose I'll show myself out, now you've gone and made things hard for me." He paused. "I don't suppose you know where the blueprints might be, do you? No? Ah, well. Do enjoy your last few minutes of life, then."
Her rage was being drowned in mute, empty noise, the sound of a dead phone line, the hum of a television channel after broadcast hours. Her mouth tasted like iron. Her vision faded, and for how long she couldn't tell. When it came back, the man was gone.
But somehow she'd gotten to her feet. Her legs were shaking violently, but she'd managed to grab onto a nearby workbench for support. Everything hurt. She couldn't think properly.
The back door still stood open, though it seemed a lot further away than she remembered. She could walk that far, to the outside, surely. Maybe even to the house. She couldn't just stay here, bleeding.
Her heart seemed to be beating awfully fast.
The arsonist took a step, and felt all the blood rush from her head. She nearly fell. Okay. Okay, no. Probably not to the house, then.
There was a pole in front of her, one of the support beams keeping the roof stable, standing just a few yards away. More lead past it, a series of them toward the garage's front door. She could make it that far. Of course she could. She took another step and could not stop the pained gasp that forced its way past her lips.
Her temper flared brilliantly, egged on by her own mortality. Bright flashes of agony were lighting up her nerves with every motion, but by God, she would not be bound by the confines of anything so mundane as her body.
Just to the pole.
It took far too long, forcing one lead-weighted foot in front of the other. When eventually she got to it and let herself rest, her head was spinning, and something like tears were fogging one eye. The next pole looked like it was a million miles away.
Standing there, she let her gaze flicker about the cavernous space as she tried to catch her breath. Everything looked dark around the edges. More shelves, more hardware. Little lights, miniature radar dishes, a gas pump handle sticking out from under a tarp, parts, parts, and more parts—
Oh. Oh God. She jerked her eyes back up to the handle, staring. It was an ancient-looking thing, scuffed and ugly, once painted and now faded to a muddy not-color. Her flamethrower.
Any other thought fled from her, drowned out by a need, an overwhelming need to get it back, protect it, fix it. Without thinking she pushed away from the pole, all pain forgotten, and staggered toward where it sat atop a shelf a few yards away.
She was halfway there when something to her left went BEEP. It was so loud and so jarring it yanked her from her fixation. She stopped mid-limp to stare between two deep rows of free-standing shelves, into the darkness.
Something tall and mechanical stared back at her. BEEP, it said again, and it twisted to line her up between its pair of black barrels.
There were twin muzzle flashes and a terrific series of bangs. In the same instant she was on the ground a few feet away.
She lay there almost thirty seconds, limp and stunned, before the pain came back. Oh, did it come back. It brought friends this time. It cut through her like a blunt saw, turned every breath into a fight, she couldn't move. All she could do was stare at the ground directly in front of her. A spray of blood painted the cement where she'd been a moment ago.
There was blood in her mouth. There was more every passing second. What if she drowned in it, in her own blood? What if it pooled up in the mask and choked her? She couldn't breathe. She couldn't breathe.
The thing in the darkness issued another, quieter beep. Then there was no noise at all.
You go bustin' in there, Conagher said, you're in for a world of trouble.
The arsonist's vision faded to white, and then to nothing.