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FEAR OF FLAMES
BY ALEATHA ROMIG
“Nothing in life is to be feared. It is only to be understood.” ~ Marie Curie
CHAPTER ONE
Michelle’s body trembled as she hunched down, hidden among a row of pine trees, her bare feet buried deep in the snow and her body wedged between the heavy branches. It wasn’t only the temperature or her lack of clothes—she’d run from the house in only her nightclothes and panties—the trembling came with the growing terror that someone was out there, the same someone who struck the match and sparked the flames now engulfing the house where she’d been sleeping.
“Michelle. Shelly.”
The deep voice carried on the cold wind confirmed her fear, taunting and stretching her nerves. Her breath caught, filling her lungs with chilled, smoke-filled air as the person walking around the perimeter of what remained of her father’s house came into view. While she hadn’t recognized the voice, there was no mistaking the person calling out to her.
In the light of the flames, she saw the man’s boots stepping in and out of the snow accumulation, his breath crystalizing in the air, the rifle in his hand, and most importantly the badge on his heavy coat.
Closing her eyes, she wished for invisibility. It was a childish wish for a grown woman, but there was something about losing your last remaining parent that had a way of sending your thoughts into childish dreams.
“Michelle, I know you’re out here. Come on, honey. Denny wouldn’t want you to freeze.”
A lump of emotion caught in her throat. Denny, or Dennis Holdcroft—her father, would never again be concerned with Michelle or anyone. That was undeniable. The other fact that solidified in her chest with steely determination was that Sheriff Perkins didn’t want to save Michelle from freezing.
His presence was due to what she’d witnessed.
If Michelle made it to morning alive, she would have a story to tell, one that, no doubt, the sheriff wanted silenced.
When she opened her eyes against the harsh flames, she saw the silhouette of a second man standing with and speaking to Sheriff Perkins. With the crackling fire yards away and the rustling of the branches above, Michelle couldn’t make out exactly what the two men were saying, nor did she recognize the second man. It wasn’t that she knew every person in this godforsaken town. Her father had moved to Iron Falls in the middle of nowhere Massachusetts eight years ago after the passing of Michelle’s mom.
Rarely did Michelle visit, yet she and her father spoke often via phone or video calls.
Trying to ignore the pins and needles in her freezing feet, Michelle kept watch on the two men. Every now and then, they would turn a full circle, their heavy boots trampling the melting snow near the flames.
She thought back to fleeing the fire.
Would they be able to follow her prints in the snow?
Or had the heat of the blaze melted the evidence away?
As the two spoke, the sheriff maintained his grip of the long gun, the heel butting against his shoulder. It was the second man who seemed more animated, his head shaking and his hands gesturing.
If only she could hear their words.
Perhaps it was her hope manifested, yet by the way the two men appeared, it seemed the second man was trying to convince the sheriff to leave. Michelle knew why he should leave and also why he wanted to find her. She was the last person to see Dennis Holdcroft, her father…
She would have liked to have said alive.
One of the two men before her, whichever one shot her dad, was the last person to see him alive.
Less than an hour earlier, the blast of the gunshot had awakened her. In her tired state, she thought the sound was a transformer blowing, a result of the heavy snow. Never had she imagined a gunshot. When Michelle descended the stairs, she found her father bleeding out on the living room floor. It was almost too much for her mind to comprehend.
As it was, Michelle wasn’t supposed to be in Iron Falls tonight.
Her trip to surprise her father was supposed to last one day—come and go.
Despite the snowstorm warning, even her dad had encouraged her to leave.
She assumed he didn’t want to spend time with her. Whenever they were together in person, he always remarked how much Michelle looked like her mother, Tracy, the love of his life and the woman he couldn’t get over.
Now Michelle reasoned that maybe it wasn’t that her dad didn’t want her close—maybe instead he was trying to protect her.
