Where There's Smoke - SCP Foundation

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Violence and disturbing imagery; reader discretion is advised

« First Part - Burning Scarlet

The sun was only barely above the horizon, when I left to enter into the coolness outside my hotel. I followed behind Bill, to a small crowd ganging around a building I couldn't see. It took me a moment to realize it was the newspaper building, the one I had pass a dozen or so times on the way to the town hall. The Kenning-Tribune was the only paper in town. Soon it would be under new management, as its current editor and owner, Mr. Clark, was dead.

We talked past the Sheriff and his ten deputies outside, struggling to keep the thronging group of newly awakened townspeople. Behind the Sheriff, was an older woman, late 30s minimum, staring a thousand miles into space. A little boy was in her arms, another standing right beside her. They looked confused. We walked inside, past them.

The first thing we saw was a desk, a small typewriter in the middle with endless white towers surrounding it. Some of them spilled onto the floor. Here and there on the white/yellow canvases were drops of blood. They stained the wooden floor and trailed deeper into the building. Here and there on the walls fire made its mark, ever so subtly.

"I'll check it out. You guard the entrance."

Bill nodded.

The spots of blood were random and small. They got progressively wetter the further along I went, until I looked up, and saw iron and steel.

Printing presses. Two of them. As I followed I saw that they had been melted. Rollers and gears had lost their smooth edges, solidified air-bubbles covering its surface. Some of it had gotten onto the floor - and yet, it hadn't melted through the wood. It was just there, a mass of steel and iron imbedded into the floor.

I bent down, touched it. Cold.

It was there that I began to smell, and I stopped moving as I noticed the familiar scent of burning meat. It turned my stomach, as I remembered the aroma, the sickly sweetness that mixed in with iron and sulfur, and I felt bile rise up in my throat. Refined instinct overpowered the sensation, pushing it back down and forcing myself to not react. I didn't gag. I didn't have a right to.

I moved forward. My heart was beating against my chest, and I remembered the same sensations I had felt a lifetime ago, the same taste of the roof of my mouth and the scent of my nostrils and the sensations of the hairs on my body gently rubbing against my clothing. I conjured up the images I associated with them. They steeled me.

And then it was there, laying upright, against a burned wall that still remained upright somehow, was a mass of charred flesh, arms and knees flexing upward. I took it in. My heart beat faster, the blood pumped, weakness in my legs and twitching of fingers, all things I had almost forgotten.

I pushed the bile down and turned my attention to the ash and soot that surrounded his body. There was no other fire damage that I can see. Aside from him, the fire only singed, and in many places you couldn't tell anything was out of place at all. I hoovered my hand over his knee, right until my hand was above his flesh. I took a deep breathe, and pressed down.

Charred. And cold. As if it had gone out a couple days ago rather than just a couple hours ago. Even now I could see, however slightly, my own breathe, and yet nothing came from from this.

I got up, stumbling backwards as turned away, leaving, moving past the machinery and into the better ventilated part of the building. The stench had left me, and the overwhelming sickness disappeared. It always did, once I looked away.

Bill was there. He didn't react. That wasn't surprising.

"When did they find the body?"

"An hour or so ago."

"It's cold. Dead cold."

"I'm afraid you got more than one of those things kicking around here, Mr. Crane."

"We, Mr. Underwood."

Bill rolled his eyes. His face betrayed nothing as he dropped the next detail.

"Mrs. Clark saw the man who did it."

I told the Sheriff to disperse the crowd. He nodded, and, in a loud, deep voice that I hadn't heard him speak in before, ordered them to return to their business. They did, slowly disappearing into their own lives in their homes or their stores or wherever else.

One, however, didn't - an older woman, talking with Mrs. Emma Clark. The baby in her hands had been transferred to the older woman, along with the boy, who was holding her hand. Mrs. Clark was saying something as I approached.

I saw her eyes dart to me before returning to look at her children. "Please behave for nanny, alright?"

Desperation bled through her voice.

The boy nodded violently, afraid.

The baby boy blurted out, "Papa," in a tired, slurry voice.

"Please," said Mrs. Clark, trying to smile even as her voice cracked.

The older woman was off. The boy followed, looking behind as Mrs. Clark waved a shaking hand.

For a couple seconds I said nothing. It was her that spoke up first.

"Please don't let them see him. Not like this."

"I promise."

"Please don't let me see him like that."

"I'll try."

The deputies exited the building through the back. They scrambled out, Bill said, vomiting and gagging at the sight. After they were done, they'd wrap the body up in white sheets and bring him to the carpenter. His casket was already picked in advance, she said.

"Georgie is like that," she said. "Always preparing for everything."

Her voice croaked. She tried to smile.

We sat in her living room above the newsroom. It was comfortable. A radio was in the corner, silent. White and blue clothe dotted the place. She sat on the couch, and I opposite to her in a chair near the door.

She held a coffee in her hand. She had picked it up off a tiny table in the middle of the room when we had entered, and I was sure it was cold. She sipped from it anyway, as if afraid to be left without something to do, something to distract. She looked off to the side. Her eyes glazed over. I knew she wasn't here, but somewhere else, far away from here, thinking of the future or the past or some other present that wasn't this one.

"He died screaming."

I felt a slight lump develop in my throat.

"I heard him. From upstairs. I heard him scream and then stop, and for a moment, I thought I had imagined it. The baby screamed, and I was about to go to it when I smelled something burning."

She held the cup to her lips. She sipped at non-existent coffee at the top. She continued to stare off into space.

"What did you do, Mrs. Clark?"

"I went to check on my husband. He gets up early to start up his editorials and letter writing." She laughed, smiling, voice cracking. Her red eyes were staring past me, maybe even through me. I wonder if she even saw me.

"I went downstairs and I wanted to be quiet because he hates being interrupted before breakfast, and then I heard the boots."

"Boots?"

"And I saw him. And he was holding a….a giant weapon. On his back. And it spat fire. I saw him, burning the machines. Burning them until they melted and for a moment I thought it was him - no, I prayed it was him, but I knew it wasn't because he was young."

"How young?"

"He could have fought in the war. He was hiding his face. And then the fires stopped. Just like that. And then he looked at me. I didn't move. I was so scared, sir. I don't think I've ever been so scared before in my life. He walked until we were face to face. I couldn't move. I couldn't breathe. He looked at me, and he….and he…."

She stopped. She looked away, to a spot to the right of me, and I saw her eyes rest on a small cabinet near the windows. She looked back to me, hesitatingly, and then, as if making up her mind, went to it. She opened it and removed a bottle and something else. She sat back down, placing two shot glasses down with a trembling hand. She offered me the bottle, and I held up my hand.

She took my shot glass, and poured brownish-amber liquid into one. Her hand shook as she did it, spilling it onto the table, flowing down and onto the carpeted floor, seeping out and spreading. If she noticed she didn't care. She gulped the shot down in an instant.

She took another before she continued.

"I am sorry."

"It's alright."

"It calms me."

I patted the matches in my coat pocket.

"I understand."

"He wouldn't have liked me doing that."

We sat in silence for a couple moments.

"What did he do, Mrs. Clark?"

She bit her lip, and went back to staring at me, through me, and into another world I couldn't see.

"He….he apologized."

"He what?"

"He….he apologized! I didn't understand, not then, not until I realized I couldn't see Georgie. I asked him, 'What did you do? What did you do?', and he simply hung his head in shame. He then reached for something in his pocket, and I thought he was going to kill me. That was until I saw he had an envelope in his hand. He gave it to me. And told me to not open it until he left. And then he walked out, that….that thing on his back clanking all the way. I heard hooves pounding. Imagine that, huh? A man wearing that on horseback."

She let out a pained laughed.

"I saw him in there. I couldn't even move, sir. I could only stare and hold the envelope."

"Did you see any defining features? Anything that marked him? Anything I could use to identify him?"

She shook her head. Her head swayed slightly, barely noticeable if she hadn't been completely upright and rigid throughout our conversation.

"A short man. Nothing else I could see."

"And the envelope, what was in it?"

She said nothing. She pulled something out of pocket, and unfolded it. It was a thick, brown envelop. She slowly handed it to me, across the table. I took it, and noticed how light it was.

"I didn't want to open it. I….I don't want to know."

I tried asking more questions. She tried answering as best she could - about any enemies, about friends, about his business and his beliefs and his everything - but I could tell her thoughts always returned to that moment, those seconds that seemed to stretch out into eternity, face-to-face with something you could never in a million years begin to comprehend, replaying them, over and over again.

I asked if there was anything else I could do for her, to give her a little time to rest. She said nothing as I got up, and straightened my jacket.

"No, but…but you could pick up my children. From Miss Perkins."

I stopped, heart skipping a beat, mind stopped mid-thought.

"Pardon?"

"Miss Perkins. The woman I was talking with. Down there."

I returned to the moment, remembering it, analyzing it — rearranging it, fitting it with new knowledge. The face morphed, shifting, mouth into a smile, and I placed her and the black-veiled woman side by side. By the time I was done, I realized it could be no one but her, the woman, in the flesh, that I had been looking for.

"It doesn't have to be you. I know, its a lot to ask, but I'm afraid, because I don't—"

"I promise, Mrs. Clark. I will. You have my word. I'll station a sentry outside too. We won't let the bastard get away, ma'am."

She strained a smile. She told me her address, and then stopped speaking. "Thank you."

She said nothing else. She stayed on the couch. She didn't even try to look up at me, only staring past my legs and at the wall behind me. There was nothing else to be said that could get her out of that. Certainly not from me.

I made my goodbye. I closed the door, and for a couple seconds, I stayed there, and began to think.

It was punctuated by a horrible, agonized scream behind the door, muffled by two inches of wood and a thousand miles of distance between its crier and the world around her.

I whistled for my horse, and got on as soon as she arrived. My left foot wasn't even in the stirrup before I flicked the reins. She neighed violently, almost bucking me off before she began to move. I flicked the rope again and again until she was galloping down the road. The street quickly disappeared as I went down the outlet that would take me to Perkins home.

Hooves pounded the dirt, tossing it up, clouding the road behind me. I raised myself off the saddle, just a bit, to allow her to more freely run, to move faster, and I held onto the reins for dear life as I felt the bile rise up in my throat from nervousness and fear and excitement.

I pushed it down. I always did. I was good at that.

The plains were punctuated by the forests, all seemingly connected to one another in a small unbroken chain. They were like rivers, flowing in streams, perfectly cut by generations of settlers until little remain but what they had allowed too. But even here, on the road, with my heart beating against my chest like a maxim gun's kickback, I could see just a little of that patchwork of trees and logs and grass and animals and streams that lay beyond the manicured edges.

How far did it go? How easy was it, for a man with a flamethrower on his back, to hide in there? How easy was it to travel through it? Clanking metal in the twilight of dawn would not have been easy to muffle. Horseback was the easiest answer - but that would require someone with exceptional skill. It wasn't easy to remain calm when a thousand trees and bushes were coming at you all at once. Who had that?

And how did she fit into this? How?

Young man. Old man. Old woman. Two dead men. Two monstruous weapons - no motive. The puzzle grew larger without any connecting pieces. I was drowning in a sea of questions and there was no hope that I was rushing towards the surface or to the abyss.

She began to slow down. I let her, as I knew that we were close. I knew the place Mrs. Clark spoke of. I had passed it on my way into town, further past Hendrick's mansion, a small house on a little hill. I hadn't looked at it too closely, hadn't even really thought much of it, as mundane as it was compared to any other farmhouse on the side of the road.

I reached for my belt. I felt for the holster, pulling out a .38 Colt, feeling the cold metal that sent a shiver up my arm and down my spine. It was like a bolt of electricity, traveling up and down my body, and I loved it. I popped out the cylinder, and saw the six bullets snugly in, ready to fire. I popped it back in and shoved it into the holster, and felt my knees go a little weak at the thought of using it.

Suddenly, as I finished strapping it in, I saw it, to the right, and I could see it. It was on a little hill, just as I had remembered, surrounded by an couple acres of swaying corn. I remembered what I had read at the county archives, and remembered how many acres she sold in the past two years. It was strange, to image that it was once bigger. Outside, I could half a dozen children in the yard, congregating, running, shouting.

I held the reins back fully. She slowed, and began to walk at a slow trot. She was tired. She deserved a break.

A little girl was the first to notice me. She waved to me, smiling, as I road up to the foot of the hill. The other children were too busy playing to notice me yet. I pushed the nervousness down, and tried my best to smile.

"Heya mister."

"Morning. Is this Miss Perkins place?"

The little girl nodded.

"You got a reason to speak to her, mister?"

She smiled, but I saw a little glean in her eyes.

"A friendly visit."

"I ain't ever seen you around here."

"I'm a visitor."

"Where ya from?"

She walked alongside my horse as I approached the hill. The children were starting to notice, stopping what they were doing and pointing to me. I tried to put up a smile, and waved my hat at them.

"Out east, my dear," I said.

"Like the Mississippi?"

"Yes."

She kept asking questions. I smiled and evaded. Yes, I'm from east. No, I am not from the South - Ohio, born and raised. Yes, I've been to the west coast. California is, indeed, pretty country. Yes, I fought. Yes, we whipped them.

She asked questions about the war. She asked questions about the places I'd been. She asked what the people were like. In the three minute trot she must have shot off three or so dozen questions, and before I knew it, I had given her a little geography course. By this time, the children had begun to meet at the front building in little groups, always looking back to me every couple of seconds, even as they spoke.

I got off my horse.

" — and France? How was France? What'd you do there? Was it fun? Was it? Must have been. I wanna see France. I wanna see Germany, too. I'd have to learn how to speak German and Francey. Can you teach me? I hope that I can maybe live there, it seems -"

I looked at the kids, and tried looking for Clark's boys. I couldn't see them, which I should have expected.

"Can you take me to her? Miss Perkins, I mean."

She stopped speaking, unusually. It took her a moment to think. She began to grin.

"Hmmm….maybe….if you teach me how to speak Francey."

"French?"

"Yeah!"

"I'll teach you a couple words, if you can take me to her How would that sound?"

She smiled.

"Follow me! She's inside taking care of the babies! And I'm Mary! What's your name?"

The inside was a ramshackle thing, a single small living room with a corridor connecting to what I presumed was a bedroom. Mary began to whisper her little questions as we moved further inside, to the living room. I took everything in as fast as I could, searching for anything of note, anything suspicious, even as her questions about the proper way to say hello in French were clogging up my thoughts. Children's toys littered the floor. Flashes of charred flesh and bleeding wounds popped into my mind and I wondered if I would have the courage to arrest her in front of all those kids.

What if I had to kill her?

She wouldn't. She's a smart woman.

But I couldn't be sure. Desperate people did desperate things.

But she certainly wouldn't kill, not in front of the children. Too many witnesses, even if they did have the desire. They just wouldn't.

Would they?

I patted the matches in my pocket as we got closer. I imagined the flame swaying in the darkness of a cool, windy night, growing larger with each and every second. I repeated, unconsciously, to myself that there was safety in the light, safety in the light, safety in the light, over and over again, just as we approached our destination, what I presumed to be the bedroom.

Mary knocked on the door. She looked up at me, smiling. I tried to smile back. Safety in the light, safety in the light.

"Who is it?" asked a voice behind the door.

"It's Mary, Miss Perkins! I have a visitor!"

"Oh, who could it be?"

I heard her giggle on the other end. I felt my heart race as the locks began to click, and it started to swing open, and I saw her, the woman, smiling, aged but still beautiful. Her eyes were big and blue, and her hair was flowing down behind her. She looked at me, and for a split second, I could have sworn I saw recognition in them. But it was gone just as soon as it appeared. I tried to speak, but before I could, she spoke first.

"Oh, Mary, who is this?"

"He's Mister Crane! He said he wanted to talk to you!"

She looked to Mary and back to me.

"Oh! Looks like I have another suitor! Oh, Mary, what will Mr. Denny say?"

Mary giggled.

"I, um, am sorry, Miss Perkins, to intrude but -"

She cut me off, and spoke to Mary.

"Go off and play. This is adult business - can I trust you to tell the others that?"

She nodded, and was about to run off before she turned to me, smiling.

"You better teach me some French!"

The door slammed behind her.

I looked at her, expecting her expression to change. It didn't.

"So, Mr. Crane, you'd like to talk, eh?"

She laughed. I laughed too, nervously.

"I'd love to, but, I am afraid I have some wood that needs some cutting. Help a poor widow out, would you?"

I chopped and I asked. She sat and answered. I was near a stump, and she on the back of her porch, in a rocking chair.

I introduced myself, and she in turn. I told her my real business, although I knew that she knew that wasn't the whole truth. I don't doubt she did the same thing to me.

"The boys are just fine, dear," she said, when I asked about the Clark boys. "Just taking a nap, is all."

I nodded, slamming the axe into the log. It split in two. I lowered the axe and put another one on. I hadn't done this in a long time, so I was surprised to see how naturally it still came to me.

We kept going back and forth, talking about mundanity, even as I knew that a man had been burnt to death not less a mile from here. I also knew, in the deepest, darkest depths of my mind and soul, that she had something to do with it. And yet I was here, talking with her, smiling, laughing.

"A detective isn't a common sight around here," she said, rocking back and forth.

"I'm taken all over. Here, there, everywhere."

"Must have seen a lot."

"Mary was asking about that."

"She's such a curious girl. She wanted to fight in the war, you know. Always liked playing soldier with the boys."

"Hopefully they won't be playing soldier in the future."

"You fight in the war, Mr. Crane?"

"Yes. Near Meuse."

"My son was killed in the Argonne Forest."

"I'm sorry."

"It wasn't you who did it, Mr. Crane."

I wondered who did. And who she blamed.

"He wanted to go so badly, you see. I didn't. But it's a mother's duty to support her son, isn't it?"

I looked over at her, studying. The sun was overhead and I was tired, but even so, I could see her eyes had wandered off, towards something I couldn't see. Suddenly, she shook her head, and looked over to me.

"But enough about that. Tell me, Mr. Crane, how long do you think you'll be in town?"

I looked over at her, biting my lips. I stabbed the axe into the wooden stump I was chopping on, and wiped away some of the sweat from my brow. "For as long as we need to find the criminals responsible for this."

"Well, I do hope that you find them soon. It will frighten the children."

I picked the axe back up, and put another log on top.

"I hope so too."

"They can say such frightening things. And sometimes I think its true….is what the Granger boy says true, Mr. Crane?"

I was halfway through raising the axe before the name clicked. The axe handle almost slipped through my hands before I quickly grasped it, and I quickly looked over to her as it chopped the log in two. She was smiling.

"The boy who saw the old man - that was him, wasn't it?"

My fingers shook a little as my grip tightened on the lodged axe handle. The wood dug itself into my skin.

"That's — well, it's —it's confidential."

She continued smiling.

"I suppose so, Mr. Crane. He had just said something about it the other day to me, after a nap. He's a truthful little boy, but I wanted to see if it was true."

(SHE KNOWS SHE KNOWS)

"I just worry for the children, is all. Some of them are getting scared, on account of their parents. Children see and hear a lot of things, Mr. Crane."

(SHE KNOWS THAT I KNOW THAT SHE KNOWS)

I stood there, my back arched and the axe head still in place on the stump. She just stared at me, smiling. I knew it was her. I knew it, somehow, with dead certainty, that it was her, in spirit if not in fact, who killed those two men in cold blood.

But why?

Why?

"Mr. Crane? Are you alright? You look a little worn for wear."

I straightened my back, never taking my eyes off her. I smiled as best I could, and stumbled forward to the porch, struggling to keep the anxiety bleed into my face and body.

"I just…need a moment. I haven't done this awhile."

"City living must be easy, to get you tired like that so quickly."

"It can be."

"Washington is a strange place, Mr. Crane."

I was about to agree, until I realized, I hadn't told her that.

"Yes - wait, how do —"

Suddenly, I heard a voice calling from inside. Perkins turned her head around, and I with her. I felt relief, at knowing that I wasn't the only other person here anymore. She got up.

"That's Denny, my hand. He should be able to finish this up. Now come, come! He should have some lemonade prepared."

I stared, my head dizzy, thoughts jumbled: how did she know? How could she know? Who told her? Why did she let it slip? Why did she talk to me? Why? Why? Why?

My thoughts went deeper, deeper into my mind. I thought. I analyzed. I replayed.

Every moment of every day I went through in those couple of seconds, thinking of what I could have said, what I could have done, to reveal it. Maybe it was an assumption. But she sounded so sure. How? Who?

A spy. It must be a spy, of some sort. There's a mole. That had to be it. Someone was feeding her information. The children were spies too, unintentionally so. Perfect cover story: a poor widow and childless woman, taking care of children, living a peaceful quiet life. No one would suspect anything. No one. No one.

But how could I know?

I couldn't. I had no evidence. Nothing but a gut feeling. Nothing. Delusions masquerading as convictions.

But it had to be her. It had to be.

But why?

Because she knows where I'm from!

Educated guess.

She asked about the Granger boy!

She probably takes care of him, and he told her.

The smile!

A nice, happy smile - is that a crime?

The thoughts went back and forth, as I sat there, until, suddenly, I felt something on my shoulder, and I felt something I could never experience again, even now, decades later, even if I wanted too. And I don't want to.

Agony rushed up my shoulder and into my brain. Pressure building in my skull and my bones and nerves, all along, and I felt like I was on fire, and it hurt, hurt in a way that left you wishing, in that tiny part of your brain, you were dead. It was like my brain was pressing up against my skull and my skull my skin. My teeth were rattling inside my mouth, and I could smell the inside of my nose, feel particles on my skin, taste the roof of my tongue, feel the blood coursing through my veins and electrical nerves pulsating inside me and —

Then it went black.

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