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Part 6: A Sequence of Unfortunate Attacks
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“What do we do?” Audrey questioned, still clinging onto her cactus.
“Maybe the balcony door would be better?” I suggested, running back into the apartment to find that the fire had made its way inside. It was still moving in, but it was coming from Holly’s room. I peeked my head into the living room and saw that the balcony door was likewise engulfed in flames.
“No good,” I reported back to the girls, who were by the doors talking with a number of other residents.
“The fire department are on their way,” Holly informed them before her eyes drifted over to me. “If you’ll excuse me.” She pushed past them and met me in the hallway outside of her apartment. “We have to get them out of here. The fire is going to spread,” she told me in a distressed tone.
“Your apartment’s mostly on fire now,” I informed her with a sigh. I shook my head. “Other than dropping down from the second story, I don’t have many ideas.”
“That’s it,” she exclaimed quietly as she looked up at me with bright determined eyes. “Come on, if we can drop down, we might be able to break the doors down from outside. It’ll depressurize the room without someone being in it.”
“That’s risky,” I said in mild protest.
“What other option do we have? Sit and wait for someone to save us? Come on, we have to move.”
We ran up the stairs to a still-open door in the apartment that would be across from Holly’s. We entered. It was a family’s home. Kids toys littered the ground, and the two of us tripped over them a couple times. We headed to the balcony.
“Thank god these balconies are mostly cement,” Holly said as we made our way outside. We could see the light of the fire flashing below us, and onlookers in the parking lot behind the building watching in curious horror. We peered over. It wasn’t a short drop, but it seemed manageable.
“Alright, let’s go,” Holly said as she hopped the railing. She turned around and hung her feet from the balcony. “Ouch, fuck,” she exclaimed before jumping. I followed after her, and realized why she said ouch. Her feet were a little too close to the fire, as were mine.
We landed just barely out of the fire itself and immediately rolled away. Once we were okay, and clearly not on fire, we ran to the parking lot.
“I have an emergency kit in my car,” she yelled at me as we ran.
“Do you have your keys on you?” I questioned.
“No,” she said with a sigh, shaking her head. “Check the dumpster for something to break the window with!”
I jumped into the dumpster and shuffled it around until I came across a broken titanium hockey stick. I wasn’t sure if it would do, but we didn’t have time to look for a perfect solution. I hopped out. “Think this will do?”
“Depends on how hard you can swing it,” she told me. “Aim for the middle of the window, it has the least support. I think.”
“How would you know that?” I questioned as I ran up to the car, weapon in hand.
“Not now!” she screamed.
I swung as hard as I could. The hockey stick hit the window and bounced off. It flew out of my hands, which were sore along with my forearms. That hurt.
“There’s a crack!” she screamed. “Try it again!”
“Wouldn’t it be easier to break down the door with this?” I questioned as I grabbed the broken hockey stick and readied for another blow. Screams cried out from the apartment building, and there were sirens in the air, but they were still distant.
“Just trust me!” she screamed. “Now!”
I swung as hard as I could again, and this time the window shattered. I nearly fell forward as the hockey stick flew into the car. I caught myself, let the hockey stick fly from my arms and jumped back. Without a moment’s hesitation, Holly unlocked the door and climbed in, as if there wasn’t broken glass everywhere. She pulled down her backseat and pulled out the emergency kit she had referred to.
She spun around with a small sledgehammer in her hands.
“Why was that in your emergency kit?” I questioned, surprised with no idea how that could be useful in an automobile emergency.
“Not now!” she replied in a rushed tone as she ran for the front door of her apartment building. “Grab the blanket!” she called back to me.
I snatched the blanket that had been wrapped up with the emergency kit and chased after her. I hadn’t caught up with her yet before she took her first swing through the flames onto the glass door. It shattered immediately. Broken glass fell to the ground. She kept swinging though, breaking down every part of the door until it was just a metal frame. The flames stopped her from moving forward. Her roommate and neighbours stood trapped on the other side.
She snatched the blanket from my hand and tossed it onto the fire in front of her. It didn’t catch immediately. She stepped on it and grabbed the handle of the second door with her hand. She swung it open and held it open with her shoe. “Go, go, go!” she cried out to everyone who was still inside.
Once everyone was out, the fire department came running and pulled her free from the building.
They hosed it down the best they could, but there was no saving some of the apartments affected first, like Holly’s. The three of us sat on the side of the road in silence while the rest of the neighbours talked in worried tones among themselves. Police arrived and set up a perimeter. Once the fire was extinguished, a couple of the firefighters came over to us.
“You two were the ones who broke down the front doors, correct?” a firefighter who had been working on the truck when they arrived asked us.
“Yes, ma'am,” Holly answered as she got back up to her feet. “How is it in there?”
“It’s not good for many,” she answered with a solemn tone. She let out a heavy sigh. “What you did was dangerous, and we don’t recommend ever trying anything like that, but I can’t give you trouble for helping people escape a fire.”
“It’s no problem,” Holly answered.
“Now, what do you know about what started the fire? It looks like it originated around the exterior of the building.”
“I saw a man with a jerrycan walking around right before it started. He looked like he was pouring something out of it,” her roommate answered instead. “He was an older white guy with ragged hair. I couldn’t see his face though.”
“So it’s arson…” the firefighter muttered. “Do you have any idea who this man might be and why he might try to set fire to the building? A former resident, maybe?”
“I don’t think so,” Audrey answered, shaking her head. “I’ve seen everyone move in and out in the past couple years out of sheer boredom during the summer. There’s only been like two old guys and they’ve all been larger than he was. He was skinny and about this guy’s height.” She motioned to me. I got to my feet for comparison.
“I see. Thank you. I’ll send an officer over to get a statement from the three of you. Hopefully they can find whoever did this.” A look of visible frustration crossed her face. “To think that someone would come here and set fire to a low income apartment complex for seemingly no reason at all…”
Once the firefighter walked away, a horrible idea popped into my mind that made my skin crawl. “What if that fire was meant to trap us in it?” I suggested with a shaking tone.
“What do you mean?” Holly’s roommate questioned, but I saw the look of understanding cross Holly’s face.
“I’m not sure if Holly told you, but we were attacked on the street the other day,” I informed her. “By an older man that we assumed was our father for one reason or another.”
“You think he somehow followed you here and set fire to the building to kill you?” she questioned in response.
“I think it’s possible,” Holly answered. A pensive look overtook her face. “I don’t know how he would have known where I lived if he wasn’t monitoring our texts…” she muttered. “Plus we didn’t indicate a time. We left it vague…”
“Maybe the two of you should split up if he keeps showing up every time you’re together,” her roommate suggested with a tone that suggested that she was just looking for something to say.
“It really is starting to be every time,” Holly said, thoughts whizzing about her mind. “Which means it might actually be easier to catch him than we thought.”
“You can’t be serious, Holly,” I replied in a state of shock. “If it was him who set the fire, this just goes to show that he’s escalating his methods. Every time it doesn’t work, he’s trying harder. Next time he could have a gun and we could end up dead.”
“So what are we supposed to do? Just let him kill us next time?” she snapped back at me. “He just destroyed my home, and all my stuff! I have nothing left but my car. I need to know why he’s so damned obsessed with me. And why he didn’t bother to show up until you and I met.”
“She has a point,” her roommate chirped in. “This guy’s fucking around with your lives. Fuck him up.”
A couple police officers came by after I submitted defeat to going on the offensive again. We gave them our versions of the story of what happened and then asked them about the knife they took in for testing.
“You two were attacked the other day and you think it’s the same man?” the officer repeated in a questioning tone. “We’ll have to look into that.” He nodded at his partner, who headed to their car.
After a little bit, she came back to us with an expression that screamed that she had found some information that would forward the case.
“We have a match for the fingerprints,” she informed her partner, as well as us. She looked over at Holly and I. “It’s a man who disappeared 25 years ago following the death of his wife.” She wasn’t talking to us, but we were listening. She glanced at us. “But if that’s right, why would he be pursuing these two?”
“Richard Holtz?” I questioned, surprising both of the officers.
“How did you know that?” she questioned before her eyes widened. “Are you his son?”
I nodded. “I am, and we have reason to believe that she is his daughter too,” I informed her.
“Only one child was born that night,” she replied, shaking her head.
“My parents found me abandoned in an old barn, as if someone had left me there to die from exposure,” she explained. “Maybe there’s only one he let the world know about.”
“Alright, well, if that is true,” she posited in an unconvinced tone, “then why would he be pursuing either of you? What’s his motive?”
“We don’t know,” Holly answered in a slightly defeated tone. “Maybe he learned I survived and wants to finish the job?”
“We were thinking of trying to lure him out and capture him or something,” I said without thinking. Both of the officers gasped in shock before quickly getting their composure again.
“We would strongly recommend against trying to lure and trap a dangerous criminal,” the male officer said in a polite but firm tone. “Please leave this to us. Now that we have a rough description, motive, and identity, we have a clear course to capturing him.”
“I know it’s tempting to play the hero, but it’s really not a good idea,” the other officer told us in a tone that was an odd mix of soft and firm. “Please promise me you won’t.”
“We promise,” I said, holding my hand up as if I was making an oath in court. I glanced over at Holly. I could see that she wasn’t onboard with this plan, but she wasn’t going to say anything about it.
We complied with the officers and provided as much information as we had, and once they had finished their report, they left us to deal with the aftermath of the fire.
“Do you have somewhere you two can stay?” I questioned once we were alone.
“I guess I can swing by my parents for a while,” Audrey answered with a sigh. “They like me enough, and they’ll just be happy to hear that I survived the fire.”
“And I can stay with Evette,” Holly informed me. “She has a spare room set up for guests.”
“I’m surprised,” I commented with a chuckle.
“Why? She doesn’t seem hospitable to you?”
“Well, why would she have a spare room?”
“She’s been trying to get me to move in with her for a year,” Holly informed me with a chuckle. “But I told her I wasn’t going to bail on Audrey just like that.”
“Awe, that’s so sweet,” she chimed in. “Well now you’re officially off the hook. I can’t imagine that we’ll have to be splitting the rent any time soon.”
“A girl can dream,” Holly replied with a smile and a wink.
They were surprisingly cheerful for two people who were just made homeless and lost most of their belongings, but it was both a front and sincere. On one hand, they were smiling and laughing to make the pain feel less awful. On the other hand, they were trying to run away from it.
Evette came and picked us up, dropping off Audrey at her parents, and me at my place. I hopped out of the car and waved goodbye, but wondered when or if I’d ever see Holly again. I was filled with doubt about it all, if it was worth it. The guilt was palpable too. Everything stemmed from my one decision to go hunting her down that fateful day in the cafe. Maybe if we had never met, never got to know each other, she wouldn’t be so determined to get the answers from our attacker. We wouldn’t even know if he existed, and maybe he wouldn’t have decided to hunt either of us down.
“What’s on your mind?” Solenne asked as I sat quietly on her couch, my eyes stuck on the world beyond the glass that overflows with an ever-growing life and sense of danger. “Is it the fire?”
She sat down next to me and put a comforting hand on my thigh. I shook my head. “No, I’m just spacing out. Sorry.”
“It’s okay,” she said softly. She hugged me. “You’re safe here.”
I felt like she was babying me. I guess there was good reason for it, but it made me frustrated. The thoughts that raced through my mind wondered why she felt like she had to be so gentle with me now when she had no problem breaking my heart all those months ago.
“You know you still owe me a dance,” she said in a teasing and playful voice as she stood up. She held out a hand.
“There’s not even music,” I answered, uninterested in the idea.
“Then imagine some,” she answered with a playful smirk.
There was a time in my life when I would have dreamt of moments like this, moments when Solenne was so wholly mine that I never had to worry about being alone again. But now that I was in it, the appeal of it was fading quick. We fought more than I liked to admit. When we kissed, there weren’t any fireworks or wedding bells, just lips against lips. I worried that it was all my fault. All that time away from her let my mind imagine something that was never real. I fell in love with the idea of being with her, but not with the reality of it.
“We should probably actually go out dancing at some point,” I said in response, keeping myself firmly rooted on the couch. I didn’t want to just give up on it, so I wrote my feelings away and pretended there was something to be done for a relationship that was already a sunk ship.
“Do you promise to dance with me if we do?” she questioned with a bit of sadness hidden behind her playful tone.
“I do,” I said in a matter of fact way.
“So this Friday, and we won’t forget or cancel this time. We’ll go, and have a blast.”
Friday came faster than I was expecting. I thought it was so far, but the days blended together between working and seeing Solenne. Holly was still as determined as ever, but in order to avoid our communications being monitored as easily, we communicated through Mahli and Evette.
“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Mahli questioned as I was on my way to Solenne’s for our long awaited dancing date.
“There’s no convincing Holly otherwise,” I answered. “She’s a stubborn one.”
“The more I get to know her, the more she kind of reminds me of you, but different,” he texted after a short pause. “Hard-headed and stubborn, but for different things, in different ways…”
“Well we aren’t the same person, after all,” I reminded him as I got to Solenne’s apartment and let myself in casually.
Solenne was standing in the hallway looking at herself in the mirror. She had a polka-dot dress on that resembled some form of 50’s diner waitress. She turned around, her hair perfectly straightened, red lipstick on, and an excited look in her eyes. That quickly went away when she saw me.
“Awe, you didn’t think to dress up at all?” she questioned as she examined me in disappointment.
I was a little insulted, but I understood. “These are the nicest clothes I have that I can do any sort of dancing in. Just these shoes, some dress pants, and a shirt.”
“I guess you don’t look that bad,” she commented with a wink as she walked over to me. She hugged me and reached for her keys. “Shall we go?”
We drove to our old dancing spot that was just outside of downtown. It was still early in the night, early enough that the beginning of the dance lessons were still going on and we could join in. I had never been that great at swing dancing. I liked the music well enough, the bopping jazz and tempo, but remembering where my feet were supposed to be and how to move my arms to guide someone else around was difficult. It looked so easy for everyone else, and I wanted to enjoy it, but it was hard when I had to consciously try not to hurt them.
We lined up across from each other, the follows and the leads. The instructors guided us through the basic steps and some other basics before having us group up with the person across from us. I jumped to dance with Solenne, but it was short lived. After only a couple seconds (or what it felt like), we were told to shuffle one person to the left. Most of the night ended up like that. When I was tired of dancing, we’d take a break, but some other person would come by and ask Solenne to dance.
The last hour we were there, I just sat at an empty table and watched as she danced with everyone. I wasn’t jealous, but I wasn’t happy either. The way she moved with them was different than it was with me. The way I moved with her was different than how they moved. I was stiff and they were fluid. I was still so nervous around her.
She dropped into the seat next to mine breathing heavily and sweaty. “Why aren’t you dancing?” she asked between heavy breaths.
“I’m tired,” I lied.
“I know how that is,” she replied with a smile. “I’m going to go outside for a second and get some fresh air. You want to come with?”
I shook my head. “I’m good here. Just going to watch everyone dance for a bit. If you’re not back in a bit, I’ll go join you.”
“Alright,” she said. She leaned over to me and kissed me on the forehead before departing. I watched her go and let out a heavy sigh once she was gone. I thought the only thing holding me back from happiness all these months was not being with Solenne, but now that I’m with her, all I’m left with is the realization that there was more to it that I refused to face.
A couple songs went by before Solenne had come back. Bored of sitting around doing nothing, I decided to go check on her. The spring air had become much warmer than it was when we got back together, but it was still crisp enough at night to make you shiver after a few minutes.
“I’ll be right back,” I told the volunteer at the door. She smiled and nodded at me as I went out the church’s basement doors.
“Solenne?” I called out into the parking lot. The night was still and quiet, the only noise coming from the booming swing music inside the church’s basement.
My mind immediately assumed that she had left without me, but I had her car keys in my pocket so she didn’t lose them while spinning around on the dance floor, so that wasn’t possible. “Solenne?” I called out again, jogging around looking for any sign of her.
“There you are, Arthur!” A female voice that was definitely not Solenne’s called out to me from behind. I spun around and saw Holly running to me.
“What are you doing here?” I questioned, my heart suddenly racing, waiting for the inevitable attack that seemed to come every time we were together.
“I’ve been trying to call and text you for an hour!” she explained to me in a distressed and frustrated tone.
“Why? And how did you know I was here?”
“Mahli told me,” she answered. “We have to go.”
“I can’t just leave. I have Solenne’s car keys. Can’t just abandon her.”
She let out a heavy groan. “Look at your god damned phone.” Her tone scared me a bit.
I took my phone out and saw a number of missed texts and calls from Holly and Mahli. And one text from an unknown number, one that was specifically hidden too.
“Arthur Compton,” it read, “there is an abandoned house at 4425 mountain road. Go there with Holly and no one else. Or Solenne might stay there for good.”
How much time had passed since she left the dance floor? How long had I been sitting down there that he managed to kidnap her and everything? I felt like an idiot for not going out with her. It was all my fault. I told her about the fire and the attack, but not about who I thought was behind it, not that Holly and I were being targeted. I brought her out into public only to put her in danger.
“We have to go, now,” I said to Holly in a determined voice.
“You’re damned right we do. Come on, I parked over here.”
We ran over to her little white Prius and hopped in. She silenced her radio and handed me her phone. “I already have the address put in. Guide me, and we’ll sort this all out.”
“Are you sure this is a good idea?” I questioned as we pulled out of the parking lot. “Not calling the police, I mean.”
“I would love to live in the world where calling them won’t end with Solenne getting killed, but I don’t think we have that luxury right now,” she answered in a grim tone.
“Do you really think he’d do that to her? He wants us after all.” I wanted to believe he wouldn’t harm her just to get to me. “Take this exit.”
“I don’t think I’d want to take chances with the boundaries of a clearly homicidal maniac,” she told me with a hard tone.
“So what’s the plan once we get there? Got a pistol or shotgun in your emergency kit back there?” I questioned, half-joking, half-hopeful.
“No, we’re going to have to be smart and careful about this. I have a knife, and that’s about it,” she explained to me. “It’s in the glove compartment.”
I opened it up and saw the knife she was referring to. “Why do you have a knife this big in your glove compartment?” I questioned in shock as I examined it.
“It’s in case there’s a crash. That blade can easily cut through the seat-belt,” she explained.
“And in case we have to deal with murderers, apparently,” I commented as I slid the knife back into its sheathe, a little uncomfortable with having it out while we were in motion.
We drove for about fifteen minutes before we pulled up at the beginning of the driveway leading through the bud-covered trees into a dark abyss beyond.
“This looks like the place,” I said as I tried to peer through the thick blanket of darkness. “But I can’t even tell if there’s a house or a lake in there.”
“Only one way to find out,” Holly said as she turned off her car, grabbed the knife out of my hand, along with her phone, and got out of the car.
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Part 8: The House Haunted by Regret
I hope this part has found you well. As the weather gets nicer outside but uncertainty still hangs over us, it's nice to have a consistent project to work on from time to time. The next part will likely only come in a couple weeks. I have to maintain the illusion I'm a poet after all, although there's nothing describing me as a poet on this blog.
Until next time,
-Zero
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