Page 115 of Stay Buried

No one but Uncle Thomas ever called Aunt Margaret “Maggie.” I myself would never dream of it.

“Sorry… for what?” Uncle Thomas croaked out.

I felt a weight pressing down on my chest; an invisible hand with strong fingers, taking hold of my heart and squeezing. Then the fingers worked their way up, picked at my skull, at my own thoughts and memories.

“I’m sorry I won’t be able to meet her again on the next full moon.”

Uncle Thomas swayed slightly. Opened his mouth, but no words came, just a wheezing rasp.

My mind spun. I thought of Charlotte’s visit to our home just yesterday. Of my aunt’s little bag of bones, the moonlight walks she took—couldn’t sleep, Frankie, but don’t bother your uncle with it, he wouldn’t enjoy hearing that I was out wandering in the wee hours, but it calms me so, to look at the moon. Then she was with child and moved into the spare room across the hall upstairs, insisted on sleeping in separate beds, worried, she’d told me, that Uncle Thomas’s affection would harm the child growing inside her.

“That’s enough, demon!” Luther shouted. He snatched a lantern off its hook on the wall of the barn and flung it into the hay and paper beside the knackerman’s chair, where it exploded in a shower of glass and flame.

“No!” I cried, jumping forward, trying to stomp out the fire with my boot, but it moved too fast. The flames sprang to life, dancing their way through the crumpled paper and straw, catching the bits of twigs and kindling. Smoke curled up like dark phantoms rising to the apex of the barn’s roof, gathering there to watch what played out below. I jerked my leg away before my trousers caught fire.

My uncle stood frozen beside me, staring at the man in the middle of the fire, in the middle of all the chaos in recent days.

“And tell her I’m sorry that I won’t be able to see the child born!” the knackerman roared over the crackle of the fire.

Uncle Thomas pulled the pistol out of his pocket. But instead of turning it on Luther and his band of townspeople, instead of setting the burning man free, Thomas trained the gun on the knackerman.

“It isn’t true!” he said. “She would never…”

“Uncle Thomas!” I cried. “Put the gun—” Before I could finish, he shoved me away without looking me in the face.

The knackerman gave him a hideous smile.

“Burn!” Michael Knapp shouted.

“Burn, devil!” the men and women of Boone’s Ferry chanted, again and again. “Burn. Burn, devil, burn!”

The flames crackled and popped, catching the pieces of wood beneath the chair, the legs of the chair.

Sparks shot out, and the heat grew so intense the tears on my cheeks were drying as soon as they fell. The smoke felt thick in my lungs and I began coughing. I covered my face and stepped back.

I looked to my uncle, to reason with him to leave immediately. As I squinted through the smoke, I could see his lips were moving, in unison with the chorus around us.

“Burn. Burn, devil, burn.”

“You’ll all pay for this,” the knackerman promised as he thrashed desperately against his bindings, rocking the heavy chair. “I’ll be back for each and every one of you! And the generations that come after you! You can burn me alive but you can’t kill the knackerman!”

The knackerman’s skin sizzled and burned and he kicked furiously, writhing, screaming; a high-pitched whinnying screech that didn’t sound human.

I let out a sob and covered my ears as I watched him twist and thrash as the flames took him. The flames were a living thing, reaching out with orange and yellow fingers, catching the hay on the barn floor on fire, and within seconds, the back of the building was engulfed, flames racing to the hayloft, which went up like a tinderbox.

This is hell,I thought.We are all standing in hell. A hell of our own making.

“Everyone out!” Luther shouted. The townspeople ran, scattering, choking on smoke as the knackerman whinnied and screamed, as chunks of ash rained down like ruined snow.

Uncle Thomas stayed where he was, still clutching the gun, aiming it at the screaming man.

No one deserved this. No one. No matter what they had done.

“Shoot him, for God’s sake!” I begged, turning from my uncle to the figure in the flames.

Uncle Thomas fell down to his knees, toward the inferno. I got down with him, wrapped my arms around his chest, pulling him away.

I felt the scorching heat on my face—we were too close, the fire too hot. Sparks were landing on our clothing, in our hair.