Chapter 6 - INFERNO ON ELM STREET
Panic hit me like an electric shock.
"MOM! OPEN THIS DOOR!" I screamed, slamming my fists violently against the thick oak paneling. "GRANDMA IS DOWNSTAIRS! JULIA WILL BE HOME FROM SCHOOL IN TEN MINUTES! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!"
Through the door, I heard Eleanor’s terrifying, breathless laugh echoing up the stairwell.
"They're not here, Megan," Eleanor’s voice echoed sinisterly. "Richard took your grandmother to her doctor's appointment twenty minutes ago. The house is completely empty. Just you... and the memories."
I heard the distinct, metallic FLICK of a Zippo lighter.
A second later, a deep, horrifying WOOSH sound echoed through the ceiling joists.
Thick, yellow smoke began pouring through the cracks under the attic door, carrying the overwhelming heat of an accelerating chemical fire. She had poured lighter fluid all over the second-floor wooden hallway and set it ablaze.
"MOM! ARE YOU CRAZY?! YOU'RE GOING TO BURN THE ENTIRE HOUSE DOWN!" I screamed, choking on the sudden surge of smoke entering my lungs.
There was no response. Just the sound of rapid footsteps sprinting down the stairs, followed by the heavy slam of the front door.
She had set the house on fire with me locked in the attic, leaving me to burn alive along with the fortune and the house she couldn't possess.
The smoke turned thick and pitch-black within seconds, rising quickly to the sloped attic ceiling. Coughing violently, my eyes burning with tears, I dropped to my stomach on the floorboards where the air was slightly cooler.
Think, Megan! Think! I told myself frantically.
The attic door was solid oak—I couldn't kick it down. The main stairs were already engulfed in flames.
I turned around, crawling on my hands and knees through the blinding smoke toward the far end of the attic. There was only one other way out: the narrow, octagonal window that looked out over the steep asphalt roof above the driveway.
I grabbed the heavy brass candleholder from the floor, dragged myself to the window, and smashed the glass with all my remaining strength.
CRASH!
Cold, fresh winter air rushed into the attic, temporarily clearing the black smoke near my face. I stuck my head out the window, gasping for air, and looked down.
The fall was thirty feet down to the concrete driveway. Slipping on the sloped, icy roof meant tumbling straight to my death.
Below me, orange flames were already licking out of the second-story bedroom windows, sending clouds of thick black smoke billowing into the gray winter sky.
In the driveway below, I saw Eleanor’s sedan.
She wasn't driving away. She was standing next to her car, holding her designer purse, watching the roof burn with a terrifying, vacant look of satisfaction.
At that exact moment, a yellow school bus pulled up to the curb at the end of the driveway.
The folding doors opened, and six-year-old Julia stepped out, holding her tiny pink backpack.
My heart shattered in terror.
"JULIA! RUN! GET AWAY FROM THE HOUSE!" I screamed from the third-story window, my voice hoarse from smoke.
Julia looked up, seeing the raging flames pouring out of the second floor and her mother hanging out of the broken attic window. Her small pink backpack dropped from her hands onto the snowy grass.
"MOMMY!" Julia shrieked in absolute horror.
Eleanor turned slowly, seeing Julia standing near the mailbox. A twisted look came over her face. She began walking slowly toward my six-year-old daughter.
"JULIA! RUN TO THE NEIGHBORS! DON'T LET HER TOUCH YOU!" I screamed at the top of my lungs.
Julia, terrified, turned and began sprinting down the sidewalk toward Mrs. Gable’s house three doors down, screaming for help.
I knew I had seconds before the attic floor collapsed beneath me. The heat under my knees was becoming unbearable; the wooden joists were cracking like gunshots beneath the floorboards.
I gripped the wooden window frame, pulled my body through the narrow octagonal opening, and dragged myself out onto the narrow, icy copper gutter running along the edge of the roof.
The metal gutter groaned under my weight. My shoes slipped on the black ice covering the shingles.
I can't die here, I thought, tears streaming down my smoke-stained face. My daughter needs me.
I looked down. Below the gutter was a thick, old oak tree whose heavy branches stretched within eight feet of the third-story roof line.
Without giving myself time to think, I pushed off the icy roof with all my strength and threw my body through the open air toward the oak tree.
CRASH!
I slammed hard into the thick branches, wood snapping, leaves tearing at my clothes and skin. I grabbed frantically for a major branch, my fingers catching the rough bark just as my body swung wildly over the drop.
Pain exploded in my shoulder, but I held on with everything I had.
Breathing heavily, bleeding from scratches on my face and arms, I scrambled down the thick trunk of the oak tree, dropping the final eight feet onto the snowy lawn.
I hit the ground hard, rolling onto my shoulder, but I scrambled back up to my feet immediately.
In the distance, the loud, wailing sirens of approaching fire trucks echoed through the neighborhood.
I rounded the corner of the house, sprinting toward the front driveway.
Eleanor was standing by her car, holding a gas can she had taken from the garage. She looked like a demon under the flickering orange light of the roaring blaze.
When she turned and saw me standing there—covered in soot, blood dripping from my forehead, but very much alive—her eyes went wide with pure horror. She looked like she had just seen a ghost rise from the ashes.
"You..." Eleanor choked out, dropping the gas can onto the concrete. "How... how are you alive?!"
"It's over, Mom," I said, my voice deep, raspy, and filled with absolute steel as I stepped toward her.
At that moment, two police cruisers and three massive red fire engines slammed their brakes in front of the house, lights flashing red and blue against the snow.
Four armed police officers vaulted out of their cars, weapons drawn, shouting over the roaring flames: "POLICE! DON'T MOVE! DROP TO THE GROUND!"
Eleanor panicked. She grabbed the handle of her car door, trying to jump inside, but two officers tackled her onto the snowy lawn, pinning her arms behind her back.
"GET OFF ME! THIS IS MY HOUSE! I OWN THIS HOUSE!" Eleanor screamed insanely, thrashing frantically against the cold concrete as the handcuffs clicked tightly around her wrists.
I stood in the snow, watching them pull my mother to her feet. Her hair was matted, her face smeared with dirt, her expensive wool suit ruined. She looked entirely broken, screaming incomprehensible curses as the officers shoved her into the back of the police cruiser.
Moments later, Julia came running down the sidewalk, sobbing hysterically.
"MOMMY! MOMMY!"
I dropped to my knees in the snow, opening my arms wide. Julia threw herself into my chest, burying her small face in my shoulder, weeping uncontrollably.
"I thought you were gone! I thought you were gone!" she sobbed.
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I held her tight, kissing her hair, my own tears washing paths through the black soot on my face.
"I'm here, baby," I whispered softly, holding her as tightly as I could while thirty feet behind us, the old family house burned into the winter sky. "I'm never leaving you. Never."
