Firebug: A Short Story Read online

  FIREBUG

  A Short Story

  Michael McBride

  Firebug copyright © 2015 by Michael McBride

  All Rights Reserved.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from Michael McBride.

  For more information about the author, please visit his website: www.michaelmcbride.net

  Also by Michael McBride

  NOVELS

  Ancient Enemy

  Bloodletting

  Burial Ground

  Condemned

  Fearful Symmetry

  Innocents Lost

  Predatory Instinct

  Sunblind

  The Coyote

  Vector Borne

  NOVELLAS

  F9

  Remains

  Snowblind

  The Event

  COLLECTIONS

  Category V

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  FIREBUG

  FIREBUG

  A Short Story

  Michael McBride

  Dedicated to the Thunderstorm faithful

  Special thanks to Paul Goblirsch, Leigh Haig, NateSouthard, the incredible team at Thunderstorm Books; Shelley Milligan; Andrea Rawson; Jeff Strand; Kimberly Yerina; my amazing family; and all of my friends and loyal readers, without whom this book would not exist.

  PROLOGUE

  Twenty Years Ago

  “Don’t shake it!”

  “Why not? It’s just a firebug, Amelia. It can’t feel anything.”

  “Yes it can. It feels just like we do. It even has a soul so it can go to heaven.”

  “That’s not true. Who told you that?”

  “It’s practically a fact, Emma. Look it up in the dictionary.”

  “Encyclopedia, dummy.”

  “Mom said not to call me names. And it’s a firefly, not a firebug.”

  “They’re beetles, not flies. Besides, Dad says they’re ‘firebugs.’”

  “He also says not to catch them in jars.”

  “You’re not going to tell him, though.” The older girl leaned over the edge of the top bunk and glared at her younger sister. “Are you?”

  “’Course not. We stick together.”

  “That’s right. Sisters always stick together. Don’t forget it.”

  The older girl shook the jar and set it on the windowsill. A brilliant yellow light flashed from the firefly’s rear end as it tapped against the glass.

  “What do you think makes it glow, Emma?”

  “Probably fire. Why else would people call them firebugs?”

  “Fireflies. And the color’s too pretty for fire. I’ll bet that’s their souls. All fire does is burn.”

  I

  One Year Ago

  Colorado Springs, Colorado

  July 22nd

  “Damn it, Carol! There’s no time to pack!”

  She sobbed as she shoved everything of personal value into her suitcase. Jewelry, photo albums, sentimental trinkets. Anything that couldn’t be replaced. Her hands shook so badly that most of what she tried to take fell to the floor, which only served to make her cry even harder.

  “Listen to me!” Raymond took his wife by the shoulders and turned her to face him. Her eyes were wide and wild. Tears streaked her mascara down her cheeks. He spoke as calmly as he could, carefully enunciating each word. “We need to get out of here right now or we aren’t going to make it.”

  “This is all your fault!” She pounded her fists against his chest, his shoulders. He pulled her close and pinned her against him. Felt the fight drain out of her. “All your…fault…”

  “We’re going to get through this.” He stroked her hair as he whispered into her ear. Struggled to hold her upright. “You and me, Carol. We’ve made it through hard times and we’ll do so again. Right now. Shh. Shh…Right now, though, we have to leave or we won’t be able to get out of here at all.”

  She pushed out of his grasp and grabbed her bag.

  He glanced back over his shoulder at the second-story window. Deep black smoke boiled against the sky. He could already see the brilliant glare of the advancing flames, working their way across the valley and up the slope toward his neighbor’s house. The fire was chewing through the dry weeds and pines like a runaway thresher.

  Raymond turned and ran for the stairs. He caught up with his wife at the bottom. Ushered her toward the door to the garage. Looked back. Everything. Everything for which he had worked so hard. The house. The furniture. The books. The paintings. The pictures of his children. The memories. All of them were going to burn.

  Carol opened the door and screamed.

  Raymond pulled her away from the garage and slammed the door. He caught a fleeting glimpse of a silhouette in the darkness beside their SUV before it vanished behind the closing door.

  It was already too late.

  He took his wife by the hand and pulled her toward the sliding glass door in the family room. A carpet of flames swept across the back lawn. He slid the door open and a cloud of smoke billowed into the house. Rushed up the walls. Gathered near the ceiling. He coughed and covered his mouth and nose. Watched the flames race up the posts supporting the balcony above him.

  No escape would be found through there.

  He heard the wail of sirens in the distance.

  Glowing embers gusted into the house, settled upon the carpet, and started to smolder.

  Raymond dragged his wife away from the open door.

  They ran up the stairs again. Through the living room. Into the foyer and toward the front door. He grasped the knob. Turned. It twisted in his palm but wouldn’t open. He put his shoulder into it. Quietly. No give. Harder. A thumping sound that made him cringe. Still no movement. It was somehow sealed from the outside.

  The garage door burst inward with the sound of cracking wood. Struck the wall behind it.

  Raymond opened the hall closet and shoved Carol inside, down on the floor, below the hanging coats. He ducked down out of the smoke and crawled across the tiled floor. Peeked down the stairs.

  The silhouette stood framed in the back door as cinders gusted into its face. It stared through the smoke, the fire reflecting its bulky silver form. He could hear it breathing. Heavy. Labored. Mechanical.

  It reached for the handle on the door.

  Paused.

  Raymond’s heart beat so hard in his chest it made his vision tremble.

  Slowly, it slid the door closed. A fiery breath of cinders and ashes gusted through the narrowing gap until it latched with a click.

  They were going to die in here.

  He scurried back to the hall closet. Looked at his wife. So small, crouching there in the shadows. Tears streamed from her closed eyes. Her lips quivered.

  Thump.

  A heavy boot struck the bottom stair.

  Thump.

  Another. One step higher.

  Raymond ducked into the closet. Pulled the door closed. Softly.

  Thump.

  Turned the handle until the tongue slid silently into the groove.

  Thump.

  A creak of the handrail, just on the other side of the wall.

  Thump.

  He scooted closer to his wife and pulled her into his arms.

  Thump.

  Smoke crept through the crack beneath the door. Burned his eyes, his throat.

  Thump.

  He tried not to cough. Kissed his wife’s hair.

/>   Thump.

  A shadow passed across the gap. The floorboards groaned. Large boots, scored black with carbon. Deep tread. They stopped in front of the door.

  Again he heard the mechanical breathing.

  Carol whimpered and he pulled her face to his chest. Felt the dampness of her tears. Prayed her death would be quick and merciful.

  The shadow passed from beneath the door and Raymond wept in relief.

  Maybe they had a chance after all.

  The door swung open.

  Carol screamed.

  II

  July 25th

  “At times the smoke has been so thick we can’t see beyond that ridge over there to the west. Now I want you to look back this way, where you can see the flames rising from the roofs of the houses over the trees. So far, more than a hundred homes have burned and the fire remains zero percent contained…”

  “…learned from the National Weather Service that there was no lightning data recorded within the last seven days in this part of Southern Colorado. Priority number one is getting a handle on this fire, but in the backs of their minds, though, they do want to know what started this destructive blaze…”

  “…expanded—just within the last few hours—the evacuation zone to include an additional eighteen hundred homes.”

  “As you can see behind me, these police vehicles racing past—We’ve just been informed we need to wrap this up and get out of here. Because of these high winds, the fire’s moving fast and becoming more and more unpredictable…”

  “…investigators suspect arson as now more than one hundred and fifty homes have been consumed by the fire and upwards of thirty-five hundred evacuees remain in shelters around the city. Hotlines have been set up to help…”

  “…saddened to report the first confirmed casualties of the blaze as firefighters and relief workers sift through the rubble left in the fire’s wake.”

  III

  Four Months Ago

  Provo, Utah

  March 4th

  “You’re wasting your time coming all the way down here,” the medical examiner said. He was younger than most in his position and much better looking. He applied lip balm with his pinkie while he talked. “There’s not a whole lot left to see.”

  “There’s really only one thing I need to see.” Special Agent Emma Behrent wore her auburn hair in a ponytail threaded through the back of her FBI ball cap and the customary blue and gold windbreaker and jeans. She carried a Glock 23 .40 caliber in a sling under her left shoulder and a plastic grocery bag in her right hand. “And I should be able to find it regardless of the physical condition of the remains.”

  “You’re the boss. I’m telling you, though, this is by far one of the worst I’ve seen.”

  “I appreciate your concern, Dr. Doleman, but you’d be surprised what I’ve seen in the last eight months.”

  She followed him down the corridor, past the autopsy suites, and into the morgue. She’d grown accustomed to the smell of formaldehyde and sawed bones, a scent that reminded her of getting a cavity filled as a child, and yet she would never be adequately prepared for the scent that emerged from the locker when the ME opened it and slid the body out on its tray. A cross between thawed, freezer-burnt meat and bloody stool.

  Doleman drew back the plastic sheet covering the remains, which came away glistening with greasy, suppurated fluids.

  “She’s all yours, but don’t take too long. I want to get this one done before it gets any riper.”

  Behrent removed a mini LED Maglite and a stainless steel probe from her jacket pocket and leaned over the body. Carefully, she used the probe to pry the bared teeth apart.

  “If you let me know what you’re looking for, I’d be happy to help you find it.”

  She pretended not to hear and directed the beam through the gap she’d created.

  “What can you tell me about the physical condition of the decedent?” she asked.

  Behrent already knew the woman’s name was Cassandra Hopkins and the first responders had arrived at 11:32 p.m. last night to find her horse barn in flames. The neighbor from the adjacent ranch had called 911 eighteen minutes prior, when she first smelled smoke and noticed the orange glow on the horizon. It took less than ten minutes to extinguish the fire and even fewer to find Ms. Hopkins’s burnt remains in the wreckage of what was left of one of the rear stables, beneath the charred rubble of the wooden roof. While the fire marshal’s report had yet to be released, Behrent had no doubt the fire would be ruled accidental in origin, as she’d seen so many times already.

  “Fourth-degree burns over the entirety of her body. Significant eschar on her digits and face. Fixed rigor places her time of death within the last twelve hours. Lack of pustules and hypostasis indicates she was already dead before the fire consumed her. I’d lay odds the cause of death was asphyxiation—the most common cause of fire-related deaths—but until I crack her open, I won’t be able to tell you for sure.”

  “You’re saying she was overcome by the smoke?”

  “That’s how it works. The smoke first makes the victim cough, then, as it intensifies, limits their oxygen intake. As the brain receives less and less oxygen, it passes from dizziness and disorientation to outright loss of consciousness. They’re generally dead before the fire reaches them, or at least well on their way.”

  “Nothing else you can think of that might have caused asphyxiation other than the smoke?”

  Behrent pried the teeth as far apart as she could and angled the beam from side to side to better see into the dead woman’s blackened throat.

  “You can tell by the tissues in her mouth and oropharynx—right there—that she was breathing the smoke. In my field, you quickly learn that the obvious explanation is nearly always the correct one.”

  “Did you notice the puncture wounds on her wrists and ankles or the ones on her cheeks?”

  “Like I said, I have yet to perform a thorough examination.”

  “Have an obvious explanation for them?”

  He made no reply.

  “How about the lacerations in the back of the throat?”

  She leaned aside so he could see where the light struck the back of the dead woman’s throat. The small cuts were barely visible behind the bulge of her desiccated tongue, but were readily apparent as the heat and smoke had caused the edges to darken and peel apart.

  “That’s not the kind of thing you just happen to find. You’d have to know they were there to look for them. What aren’t you telling me?”

  “Here. You hold her mouth open and I’ll show you.”

  Dr. Doleman took the probe from her and applied traction to the mandible. Behrent opened the plastic bag and removed a canister of whipped cream. Shook it. Acknowledged the confusion on the ME’s face with a half-smile.

  Within an hour of Ms. Hopkins’s death, Behrent had been on a plane from Las Vegas to Salt Lake City, where a rental car had been ready and waiting to take her down I-15 to Provo. She’d used the time in the air to learn everything she could about Ms. Hopkins, what little there was, anyway. She was a single, twenty-eight year-old horse trainer, who’d never gotten so much as a parking ticket and whose Facebook account was about as uninteresting as they came. She inherited the Whispering Glade Ranch from her grandfather two years earlier and appeared to have no ambition when it came to the business itself. She had been a reasonably attractive woman, in a plain sort of way, with a slender, athletic build, pale white skin, and—most importantly—natural flame-red hair.

  “What do you intend to do with that?” the ME asked.

  “She may have asphyxiated from the smoke, doctor, but she had a little help.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Where are the lights in here?”

  “By the door, why…?”

  Behrent killed them before he could finish his sentence. A bank of emergency lights on the other side of the morgue remained on, but it was dark enough to see what she’d flown four hundred miles and driv
en another sixty to see.

  She stood beside Doleman, removed the cap from the whipped cream, and inserted the nozzle between the dead woman’s teeth.

  “Are you familiar with the Lampyridae family of beetles?”

  “They secrete a toxin called lucibufagin when threatened that can cause hypertension and cardiac symptoms in large quantities, but there’ve been no reported cases of respiratory symptoms, let alone death, in humans.”

  “This particular family also has another unique trait. It has a specialized organ in its abdomen called a lantern, in which a combination of enzymes—luciferase and luciferin, specifically—produces a complex chemical reaction that’s converted to bioluminescence.”

  “Fireflies.”

  “Exactly. And each different species of firefly produces a slightly different reaction so as to create a unique color, but all of them require nitrous oxide to trigger the reaction and oxygen to turn it off. They accomplish this through a specially adapted means of breathing, but it can also be artificially stimulated by other means.”

  She pressed the nozzle on the canister. Pressurized gas hissed into the victim’s mouth and down her throat. The reaction was instantaneous. Green spots glowed from the dead tissue. And faded every bit as quickly.

  “What the hell was that?”

  “You’ll find traces of the lucibufagin toxin in the scratches from the firefly’s legs. When it was forced down her throat, it triggered her gag reflex, which made her muscles spasm and start crushing it, squishing out some of the fluid from its abdomen, including its lantern. Just enough for one final glow.”