Tomorrow, he thought as sleep took, he’d tell her tomorrow that they were leaving.
18
When Matteo began to snore softly, Marie rolled over and tried to keep her mind blank. She tried counting, then tried to think of nothing, but that took too much thought, and when she got tired, her mind drifted. Places she wanted to add to their list of places to go popped into her head, then she thought about things like how they’d be so happy traveling around together.
When she remembered she needed to see the doctor, she finally gave up and got out of bed. Gently, she got out of the bed and walked downstairs, her socks padding the sound of her steps. She went to the window to see the night was lit up by a full moon. Moonbeams reflected from the snow to light up the night brightly, almost enough to see the trees in the distance. Some movement caught her eyes, and she stared at it for a long time, but the movement didn’t come again.
She looked around the rest of the yard that she could see and decided the raccoon must be back. Little scamp. She moved away from the window, settled down on the couch, and picked up the remote. It wasn’t so late that she couldn’t watch another movie. She’d just put a movie on when the power went out.
The snow had stopped the day before, there was no wind, but maybe a tree had fallen on a line somewhere out there. Or a car accident further down the mountain. She waited for the generator to come on, it was supposed to all be automatic, but nothing happened.
The sound of steps drew her to Anton as he came down the stairs. “What’s going on?”
“I don’t know, the generator should be on by now.” He slid into a coat and put gloves on his hands. With a flick of his wrists, the hood of his coat came up over his head and he tied the strings at his throat. Stay in here, I won’t be long.”
Marie nodded, not sure it was a good idea for Anton to go outside on his own. The more she thought about it, the more she worried. There’d been movement outside, a movement that was too big to just be a raccoon, even if she’d told herself that’s all it was.
Maybe she should go wake Matteo up. He should go out there with Anton, to keep an eye out. Marie bit at her lip, then started to click her fingernail against her teeth as worry consumed her. Anton had been out there far too long. Yeah, he had on enough clothes to stay warm, but it shouldn’t take long to fix the generator. She’d started to rise, to go wake up Matteo when Anton came back in.
“I don’t know what’s wrong with the stupid thing, it won’t start.” He shivered as he took off his coat and gloves, then walked to the fire in the living room. “I’ll go back out in a few minutes, I just needed to warm up.”
“Just leave it until the morning.” She tried to get him to change his mind. “It’s too cold to be out there messing around in the dark.”
“Are you kidding? It’s nearly daylight out there with the full moon, I can see everything fine. I just can’t get it to come on for some reason.”
“Please, Anton? Just stay in here, okay? I’ve got this creepy feeling that I can’t shake.” She’d had it a few times in the night the last couple of days. Like someone was watching from the woods, only she hadn’t wanted to admit it. Tonight, though, she felt like there was something evil nearby, something so bad she could actually feel it.
In Louisiana, they’d call it her gut, and tell her to listen to it. They weren’t necessarily believers in the supernatural, but people in her town knew how to survive, and gut was one thing you followed. Her gut was telling her there was something bad out there and if he went back out it would get him.
“It will only…” his words faltered as she gave him a pleading look. “Alright, fine, but if Matteo gets mad you better tell him it was your idea.”
“I will, I promise.” She reached up quickly, pecked his cheek, and then stepped away, her cheeks red. “Sorry, didn’t mean to invade your space.”
He ducked his head, but she saw the grin on his face. “It’s okay. I’ll go back up then, keep an eye out.”
“Alright, I think I’ll try going back to bed. Maybe without the hum of electricity in this place, I can get to sleep.”
When she crawled into the bed Matteo turned to her, still half asleep. “What’s wrong?”
“The power went out and Anton can’t get the generator to start. I told him to leave it until the morning. It will probably need two pairs of hands and a lot of light to find the problem.”
“Okay,” he said and promptly started to snore again.
A pleased smile crept across her face as she held him to her. The house was really quiet, and she felt safer here with him. Maybe she’d overreacted, she thought as she began to relax, and sleep came to take her. It was probably just an animal outside, nothing more than that. She’d see in the morning, when the light was bright and warm, that there’d been nothing to be afraid of.
Large pools of water stood between her and Matteo, and her feet were already cold. How was she going to get across all of that water to get to him? He beckoned to her from the other side, so far away, and she wanted to run to him, but the water was in the way. She moaned in helplessness just as she smelled smoke.
When she turned around, she saw a wall of fire behind her, ready to consume her if she didn’t run into the water. A lick of flame reached out for her, turned into the shape of a human hand as the first tendrils of heat burned wisps of her hair and warmed her cheek, she started to scream, turned, and tripped as the flame came even closer. Another scream woke her up and she opened her eyes as she realized it was only a dream.
Her heart still thudded in her chest and it took her a moment to calm down. The dream had felt so real, she could still smell the smoke. She took one final breath and tried to close her eyes, but she frowned. That smoke wasn’t just from the dream. Was Anton refilling the stoves? No, this was too strong.
“Matteo, wake up, I think something is wrong.” She shook him just as Anton came racing down the stairs to bang on their door.
“Fire, wake up everybody, the house is on fire!” Matteo woke up and grabbed a robe and some shoes, while Marie did the same.
“What the fuck is happening?” Matteo demanded, still half asleep but functioning.
“I don’t know. I woke up, smelled the smoke, and thought it was my nightmare, or Anton filling the stoves. I decided to wake you and then he came down. Hurry, grab your phone and wallet. Let’s get out.”
“Fuck, where are the keys?” He looked around on his nightstand, found them, and put them in his pocket. He grabbed the clothes they’d had on yesterday, and then ushered her out of the door.
She had her bag in her hands and her phone was already in the pocket of her robe. She’d scooped her medicines into her bag in one fell swoop, slipped on her snow-boots, and was ready. The smoke was getting thicker the longer they were inside, and Anton was all but breaking the door down banging on it. “Let’s get out of here.”
“Wait, I forgot something.” He went to a dresser drawer, pulled out a pistol, and put that in his other pocket. “Let’s go.”
Marie stayed quiet about the weapon, she didn’t care right now, she just wanted out of the house. They came down the stairs in a rush, the sound of the fire a raging roar that scared her shitless. She looked around as they came down the stairs and saw that the fire was at the front door too.