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Death for the Dead

Victor Cerda, Jr.

“Don’t worry, Mother, everything will be fine,” Stephanie said, standing in the doorway of her home. “Danny and Kathy are already asleep, and I’ll be asleep soon. So please: go and have a good time.”
“Honey, we’re going to be late!” Frank shouted from the driveway through the open passenger’s door of his brown station wagon.
“You better go,” Stephanie said. “You know how he gets when he’s late.”
“If you have any questions, or anything happens, God forbid, call Aunt Mary,” Nancy said. “You know her number. She can be here in a matter of minutes.”
“Yes, Mother.”
Frank honked the horn as Nancy embraced Stephanie.
Nancy turned and shouted, “I’m coming!” She turned to Stephanie and said, “We shouldn’t be gone too long-just dinner and a movie. Now as soon as we leave, be sure to lock the door.”
“Yes, Mother,” Stephanie smiled.

x x x


“Calm down, Honey,” Nancy said as Frank pulled to the side of an abandoned road not far from their home.
“Calm down? It’s the first time we get to go out in over a year, and I gotta deal with this crap! We may as well just cancel dinner and get something quick to eat on the way.”
“If we have to, so what? At least were out. Let’s try to make the best of it. Do you want me to help you?”
“No. I can manage.” Frank slammed the door behind him. He flipped his tie over his shoulder, knelt beside the rear tire, and inspected it. “I thought I got all of you bastards,” he said, yanking a nail out of the tread. He’d dropped a box of them in the garage earlier that day. As he walked to the rear of the car, it began to rain hard. “You gotta be kidding me,” he said, lowering the back hatch. He pulled out the spare and jack, placed them on the ground. “Where in hell are you?” he said, searching for the tire iron.
A red truck with a flat bed, stopped beside Frank. “You need help?” a large, unshaven man asked from its driver’s seat.
“I don’t think so, but I can’t seem to find my tire iron.”
“Hold on a second. I got one right here.” The man reached behind his passenger’s seat, then parked behind Frank’s station wagon, in the opposite direction, and stepped into the rain.
“Thanks a lot,” Frank said as he shook the large man’s hand. “I’m in a big hurry, so hopefully this won’t take too long.”
“No problem. You got it in park?”
“Yeah. It’s in park.”
“Why don’t you lift it? And I’ll take the bolts off.”
Frank placed the jack beneath his car.
The large man stood behind Frank, raised the tire iron, and struck the top of Frank’s head. Frank collapsed against the car. Nancy screamed as the large man whacked Frank again. She leaned over and locked the driver’s side door. The large man laughed at her and smashed the driver’s window with the tire iron. She unlocked and opened the passenger’s door and tried to escape, but he grabbed her leg and pulled her inside of the car. He beat her on the head with the tire iron until she lay still.
The large man yanked the keys from the ignition and shoved them into his pocket. He dumped everything out of Nancy’s purse, but found nothing of interest. He searched Frank’s pants pockets and pulled out the wallet. He opened it, discovered one hundred and fifty dollars in cash, shoved the money into his pocket, and lowered the back hatch of his flat bed. He lifted Frank with ease and laid him in the back of the truck. “You and me gonna have lots a fun,” he said to Nancy as he pulled her limp body out of the car. He placed her beside Frank and covered them with a large tent.

x x x


Reading a Nancy Drew mystery in her bed, Stephanie heard the back door open. She placed the book on the bed, walked downstairs, and pushed open the door that led to the kitchen. “What did you forget?” she asked as she stepped into the kitchen-and she felt someone grab her neck from behind and pushed her face-first to the tile floor. She reached back and poked her assailant in the eye.
“You stupid bitch!” a man’s harsh voice shouted from behind her.
She felt the man’s hands tighten around her neck. He slammed her face against the floor until her neck snapped.

x x x


Stephanie awoke and rose to her feet. “No!” she shouted, seeing herself on the floor before her. She knelt on one knee and shook her body. “This can’t be happening,” she cried. “The children!” she shouted, and she ran out of the kitchen, toward the stairs.
“Mommy?” Katherine asked from the top of the stairs.
“No,” Stephanie cried. “It’s me, honey.” She knew Katherine was dead also, because Katherine looked like someone had drawn her in pencil but hadn’t colored her in. Stephanie could see her, but could also see through her.
“Where’s mommy?” Katherine asked.
“She went out with Daddy,” Stephanie answered as she darted up the stairs. “Is Daniel in his room?” she asked at the top. She lifted Katherine and placed her against her hip.
“I don’t know,” Katherine answered.
Stephanie looked toward the end of the hallway. Her parent’s bedroom door was open, and she could see a large man wearing overalls hurling dresser drawers onto the floor.
“Is Mommy coming home soon?” Katherine asked.
Stephanie turned and said, “I think so.” She passed her bedroom and stopped in the doorway to Daniel’s room. The door was open. “Daniel, get over here!” she shouted, placing Katherine’s face against her shoulder.
“What happened?” Daniel asked, standing next to his bed, staring at his bloody corpse, its throat slit like a sliced grape.
“Something bad,” Stephanie answered. “Come on. We have to go.”
“Where are we going?” Daniel asked, following them into the hallway.
“To find Mom and Dad,” Stephanie said.
“Yeah!” Katherine shouted.
“Who’s that?” Daniel asked as they walked down the stairs.
“A very bad man,” Stephanie answered. At the bottom of the stairs, she raced toward the front door. She opened it and fell. “Are you all right?” she asked Katherine, who had fallen beside her.
“I’m fine,” Katherine answered. “How come we can’t go outside?”
“I don’t know,” Stephanie said, and she rose to her feet. She turned to Daniel, who was punching and throwing himself against an invisible wall, and said, “Danny! Take your sister into the den and watch TV.”
“What are you gonna do?” Daniel asked, kicking the wall.
“Try to find a way out of here.”
“Let me go with.”
“I need you to stay with your sister,” Stephanie said. She leaned over and whispered in Daniel’s ear, “She needs someone to protect her in case that man comes down here. Can I count on you, big guy?”
“Don’t worry, no one’s gonna hurt my sister when I’m around,” Daniel said. He took Katherine by the hand and led her to the den at the rear of the house, beneath the stairs.
Stephanie ran into the kitchen, opened the back door, and found another invisible wall. She tried to escape out of the windows, but she came to the same results. She leapt up the stairs. At the top, the man moved toward her from her parents’ room with some of her mother’s dresses draped over his shoulder.
“You bastard!” Stephanie shouted. “Why have you done this?” She swung at him with both fists as he walked past her and down the stairs. The man glanced at the open front door, then dashed into the kitchen.
Stephanie opened every window on the second floor-only to find she and the children were trapped inside the house.

x x x


“Did someone forget to close the door this morning?” a woman shouted from the front of the house. “Nancy?”
“Mommy!” Katherine shouted, and she jumped off the couch. “We’re in here!” She sprinted toward the closed door of the den.
“Kathy, no!” Stephanie shouted, and she leapt in front of the door from a chair that stood next to it. “It’s not her.”
“Then who is it?” Daniel asked, staring at the TV.
“I don’t know, but I’m gonna go see. Stay in here with Katherine.” Stephanie turned to Katherine. “Honey, watch TV with your brother, and I’ll be right back.”
“Is Mommy coming home soon?” Katherine asked.
“I hope so,” Stephanie answered, and she kissed Katherine on her forehead.
Stephanie entered the front room and heard the woman scream from the kitchen, “Oh my God, no!”
Stephanie ran into the kitchen, stood beside the woman, who was sitting on her feet beside Stephanie’s body, and shouted, “Aunt Mary! Where’s Mom and Dad?”
“My Lord,” Mary said, turning Stephanie’s body over. “What happened?”
“Some bastard killed us!” Stephanie shouted. “Do you know where Mom and Dad are?”
“My sweet little angel,” Mary wept as she stroked Stephanie’s cheek.
“Please, listen to me!” Stephanie cried.
Mary sprung to her feet, pulled the phone from the wall, and dialed.
“Where are they?” Stephanie cried, and she fell to her knees.
“My niece has been murdered,” Mary said into the phone. “At my sister’s house on Calumet. Seventeen-twenty-nine. I don’t know, but when I got here the door was wide open. Oh, my God, Danny and Katherine-my nephew and younger niece. Lord, please let them be all right. Please hurry.” She returned the phone to the wall and ran out of the kitchen.
“Don’t go up there!” Stephanie shouted. She followed Mary out of the kitchen, but stopped at the bottom of the stairs.
“Why?” Mary cried from upstairs. “They’re just children!” She covered her mouth with her hand, rushed downstairs, out of the house, and into her car, which was parked in front.

x x x


“Was it Mommy?” Katherine asked Stephanie, who entered the den without opening the door.
“No, it was Aunt Mary,” Stephanie answered.
“Can I go see her?”
“No, she left. Can I talk to you guys for a minute?” Stephanie asked, moving toward the TV.
“They’re not coming back, are they?” Daniel asked Stephanie as she turned off the TV.
Stephanie knelt on the floor before Katherine, who sat beside Daniel on the couch, and asked, “Do you remember the fish that Daddy won for you at the fair last year?”
“Yeah,” Katherine answered.
“Remember what happened to it?”
“Mommy said he died.”
“Yes, honey, he did. And so did we.”
“Does that mean we not gonna see Mommy any more?” Katherine cried.
Stephanie embraced her and said, “No, we’ll still be able to see her.”
“How do you know?” Daniel asked as he stood and turned on the TV.
“’Cause I could see Aunt Mary. She just couldn’t see me.”
“That’s if they come back,” Daniel said, returning to the couch.
“Stop it!” Stephanie shouted. “They’re coming back!”


x x x


“We found your brother-in-law’s car abandoned over on Twenty-First and Range Line,” a stern-looking officer told Mary. They stood facing each other in the living room. “You better sit down,” he said.
“No. Don’t tell me-” Mary said quietly, and she sat on the couch.
“The driver’s side window has been broken out, and the front seat and dash are covered with blood. We don’t know whose it is yet. And we haven’t found anyone in or around the vehicle.”
An officer who walked in from the kitchen moved behind Stephanie toward the rear of the house.
“So they could still be alive?” Mary asked.
“They could be,” the officer answered, pulling a small pad of paper and pen from his front jacket pocket. “You said the door was open when you arrived this morning?”
“That’s right. I come over every morning to have coffee with my sister.”
“And you found your niece on the kitchen floor?”
Mary nodded her head.
“You said that when you found her she was lying on her stomach, but you turned her over?”
“Well, yes. I thought that maybe she had fallen. Did I do something wrong?”
“No. Don’t worry about it. What was your niece’s name?”
“Stephanie. Stephanie Bradford.”
“Do you know when she was born?”
“July twenty-fifth, nineteen-fifty-six.”
“Excuse me for a moment,” the officer said as two officers walked down the stairs behind him. He turned, glanced up at them, and stepped into the kitchen. Stephanie followed him and the other two officers.
“What did you find?” the stern-looking officer asked.
“A boy and a girl, just like the lady said,” the taller cop answered. “And the parents’ room has been torn apart.”
“What about you? Find anything?” the stern-looking officer asked the officer who searched the rear of the house as he entered the kitchen.
“Just her,” he answered, looking down at Stephanie’s corpse. “And the TV in the back room was on. What do you think happened?”
“I think the parents got into a fight-”
“No!” Stephanie cried.
“And it got way out of hand. I think the husband killed his kids.”
“No, no, that’s not true!” Stephanie shouted.
“And he kidnaped his wife, got a flat, killed her in the car, and stashed her body somewhere. I bet we find her in the woods next to Twenty-Second Street.”
“No!” Stephanie shouted. She ran upstairs and into her parent’s room. She leapt onto the bed and cried into the pillow, “It can’t be your car. If you were dead, you’d be here with us.” She wept for a while, then slowly pulled herself together. She returned to the den but didn’t tell Katherine or Daniel what she’d heard.

x x x


Stephanie saw a large silver truck park in front of her house from her parents’ bedroom window. She ran into Daniel and Katherine’s rooms, told them to stay upstairs, and flew downstairs.
“Some of it’s going to my house, which is less than a mile away, but most of it’s going to my sister’s in Chicago,” Mary said as she entered the house. Three large men wearing blue uniforms followed her. “So you should probably load the stuff that’s going there first. Why don’t you start with this room? Everything but the clock is going to Chicago. I believe she would have wanted me to have it. We were extremely close. Anyway, I better see if my husband dropped off the boxes I need. I’ll be in the kitchen if anyone needs me.”
“What are they doing here?” Daniel asked from the top of the stairs. Katherine stood beside him.
“Aunt Mary said they’re gonna take everything.”
“They can’t do that,” Daniel said.
“Well, they’re going to. What do we really need, anyway? We haven’t eaten or slept in over three days.”
“What about my Barbies?” Katherine asked. “Are they gonna take them too?”
“We can hide them in the basement,” Stephanie said as she leapt up the stairs.
“They’re not taking the TV,” Daniel said.
“I don’t like it down there,” Katherine said quietly, staring at the floor. “It’s dark and has bugs.”
“What about the attic?” Daniel asked.
“I don’t like it up there either,” Katherine said.
“Good idea,” Stephanie said. “Why don’t you check it out?”
“I’ll be right back,” Daniel said, and he jumped up through the ceiling.
“Tell you what,” Stephanie said, kneeling before Katherine. “I’ll clean it up and make it our own little house with all of our favorite things. I can hang up pictures and put curtains on the windows, but I’ll need some help.”
“I can help you.”
“Oh, that would be wonderful. We’re gonna have so much fun.”
“It’s empty,” Daniel said, landing next to Stephanie. “Except for a couple boxes full of magazines and a big wooden chest.”
“Good, after we get everything up there, we can put the magazines in the chest and use it to block the door,” Stephanie said. “Now remember, they can’t see us, but they can see whatever we carry, so we’re gonna have to do it when they’re not around. Danny, go to the basement and get the orange extension cord that Daddy uses when he’s cutting the grass. Do you think you can carry the TV from the den by yourself?”
“Yeah.”
“Bring both of them up to the attic and make sure no one sees you carrying them.”
“I’ll try,” he said, and he dropped through the floor as if it were quicksand.

x x x


Many people looked at the house within the next month. It was rented to a nurse, Shannon, and her wannabe musician boyfriend, Ron. She was gone most of the day, but he stayed in the house, smoking pot and writing songs he would forget with his “group” of four friends. They were desperately trying to hold onto a hippie lifestyle that was quickly fading. Sometimes they would have girls come over, and, after getting high, they would pair off and have an orgy.
Stephanie was forced to implement rules. No one was allowed out of the attic while Ron was in the house, and the bathroom and bedroom were always off limits.
Stephanie was fond of Shannon, but she grew tired of Ron’s lifestyle and being forced to remain in the attic most of the time.
One morning, Stephanie gave Daniel and Katherine permission to move things around in front of Ron. She turned it into a game: whoever scared him the most could chose what they watched on TV for the next three days and nights.
Ron sat on the couch, lit his morning cigarette, and tossed the lighter onto a coffee table in front of him. Daniel picked up the lighter and waved it in front of Ron’s face. Stephanie turned the TV on and off while Katherine turned the lights on and off.
“What the fuck!” Ron shouted, swatting the lighter out of Daniel’s hand. Daniel picked it up and tossed it into the air. Ron covered his eyes with one hand and shook his head from side to side. He opened his eyes and shouted, “This isn’t happening!” He leapt up from the couch and ran toward the stairs. Daniel grabbed Ron’s leg, causing him to fall to the floor. Ron rubbed his knee, stood, and darted up the stairs. The children followed him into the bathroom. Ron tossed his cigarette into the toilet and turned on the water in the sink. Daniel pulled a towel from the bathtub and swung it at Ron. Ron looked at himself in the mirror and saw the towel floating behind his head. He turned and backed into the corner between the wall and toilet. Stephanie turned the water in the sink off and on, and Katherine did the same with the water in the tub.
“Holy shit, this place is fucking haunted!” Ron shouted, looking down at the sink. He slapped the towel away from his face and raced out of the bathroom, down the stairs, and out the front door.
That night, Shannon returned and quietly packed. By the next night the house was empty, and the children were free to roam about as they pleased.

x x x


Two months later, the house was sold to a family much like their own. The father, Anthony, was a mechanic, and the mother, Beverly, was a housewife. They had two children, a seven-year-old boy, Tony Jr., and a nine-year-old girl, Laurie. Daniel and Katherine liked the new family and always obeyed the rules set by Stephanie. They stayed quiet, didn’t move things around in front of the living, watched TV with the sound off, and stayed out of the bedrooms and bathrooms when the doors were closed.
As time passed, things around the house began to disappear. Daniel and Katherine, tired of their toys, would take things that they liked from the new children and hide them in the attic. Stephanie was angry when she first found out but realized they all needed fresh stimulation. She told Daniel and Katherine to play with the borrowed item for a while, then hide them behind a couch or in a closet, so whomever it belonged to would find it and think they’d lost it. Stephanie also began to borrow books from Beverly and Laurie.
While the living family aged, the dead children stayed the same in body and mind. Hope of their parents returning faded with each passing year.
Laurie and Tony Jr. grew quickly, moved on to college, and started families of their own. Anthony and Beverly, who stayed together for the sake of their children, grew tired of constantly fighting, and divorced. Beverly lived in the house for the next seven years until her untimely death in a car accident.

x x x


“Welcome home, Mrs. Torres,” a muscular man said as he carried a thin, black-haired woman through the front door. “Do you like?”
“I was hoping it was him,” Stephanie said, running down the stairs.
“I love it,” the woman said as the man lowered her to her feet.
“Who is she?” Stephanie asked, stopping five steps from the bottom.
“Do you want to see the rest of it?” the man asked, closing the door behind him.
“I bet it’s his girlfriend,” Daniel teased from behind Stephanie.
“The only thing I want to see for the next three days,” the woman said, loosening the man’s belt. “Is you inside of me.”
Stephanie turned and shouted, “Everybody upstairs!”
“They’re gonna do it,” Daniel giggled. Katherine covered her mouth and laughed.
“I said upstairs!” Stephanie shouted.

x x x


Stephanie’s crush on Scott quickly became obsession. She sat beside him while he worked, ate, and watched TV. She would stare at his face for hours at a time. Curiosity got the best of her, and she began to break the rules she set by watching him in the shower. Whenever Debbie was home, Stephanie stayed away from them. But when Debbie was gone on an overnight job as a stewardess, Stephanie would lie next to Scott while he slept. She loved the way he grunted between snores.


x x x


Scott ran into the kitchen, picked up the phone, and said, “Hello.”
“It’s her, isn’t it?” Stephanie said as she leaned against the doorway of the kitchen with her arms crossed.
“Where in the hell have you been?” Debbie shouted. “I’ve been calling for the past two hours!”
“We needed some food, so I went to the store.”
“Is that why you’re all out of breath?”
“Yeah. Why? Is something the matter?”
“I don’t know. You tell me why it takes someone over two hours to go grocery shopping. I thought you said that since you were a writer you’d be home all of the time.”
“This is a joke, right?” Scott laughed.
“I don’t find it funny. Why do men always find shit like this funny?”
“Look, I don’t know what this is about, but the ice cream is gonna melt if I don’t get it into the freezer, so you’ll have to call me back.”
“I can’t call you back. I have to be on board in a few minutes.”
“Well then, why don’t you call me when you get to Paris? And remember that I love you with all of my heart. And whatever crazy thoughts your thinking, don’t.”

x x x



One morning, while Scott bathed in the shower, Stephanie wrote, “I love you,” on the steam covered mirror. Standing in the tub, Scott pulled aside the shower curtain, dried himself with a towel, and looked at Stephanie’s slowly fading sign. He stepped out of the tub, wrapped the towel around his waist, walked into the bedroom, kissed Debbie on her cheek, and said, “I love you, too.”
Debbie looked at him with a wrinkled brow and continued to pack.
“It wasn’t her!” Stephanie shouted at Scott. “It was me!”

x x x


Debbie burst into Scott’s office and shouted, “What in the hell is this?” She slammed the door and extended a ring in front of her.
Scott turned from his computer and shouted, “Jesus Christ! What are you trying to do? Give me a heart attack?”
“Who’s is this?” she shouted, and she threw the ring at Scott. It struck his chest and fell beside Stephanie, who sat on the floor beside him.
“I have no idea,” Scott said. He picked up the ring and inspected it. “Where did you find it?”
“In the spare room closet! So what whore did you have in there? And don’t lie to me!”
“Listen, first of all, why would I ever cheat on you? Look at you; you’re a goddess.
Second of all, if I was cheating on you, why would I take her into a closet?”
“I don’t know. You can get kind of freaky sometimes.”
“Come here,” Scott laughed. He stood and tried to embrace Debbie.
“Maybe we rushed into this,” Debbie said, stepping back, pushing him away. “Maybe six months wasn’t long enough.”
“The second I saw you, I knew I wanted to spend the rest of my life with you,” Scott said, reaching for Debbie’s hand. “Now, you gotta stop thinking these crazy thoughts. It’s not healthy. It was probably left behind by the people who lived here before us, or the people who lived here before them. This is an old house.”
“You better not be cheating on me, because if you are, I’ll find out.”
“The only thing that you’ll find,” Scott said, pulling Debbie toward him. “Is that I love you and only you.”
“I’m sorry,” Debbie said, snuggling her cheek against Scott’s chest. “I just can’t stand the thought of you with anyone else.”
“Then don’t think it,” Scott said, wrapping his arms around Debbie’s waist.
“Why do you put up with this?” Stephanie asked. “I would never treat you like that.”

x x x


That night, Daniel and Katherine watched TV in the living room. Stephanie sat at Scott’s desk, wrote her feelings for him on his stationary, flew upstairs, and placed the note on his dresser. She returned to his office and read The Green Mile.
The next morning, Stephanie heard the front door close and returned the book to the shelf. “I wish she would never come back,” she said as she skipped into the living room.
“It wasn’t her,” Daniel said. He flew up from the couch and through the ceiling.
“Was it Scott?” Stephanie asked Katherine.
“Uh-huh,” Katherine answered. “Will you come play Barbies with me?”
“Sure. Why don’t you go up and I’ll be there in a minute?”
“OK, but don’t forget,” Katherine said, and she joined Daniel in the attic.
Stephanie rushed upstairs and into the master bedroom. Debbie was standing at Scott’s dresser, reading Stephanie’s letter. It read: “I watch you. I watch you all day and night, yet never grow tired of you. I have fallen in love with you. I wish I could control my feelings, but the heart has no boundaries. All I can do is yearn, because I know that we can never be together. Still, I pray that one day you will be mine and I will be yours.”
“Put that down!” Stephanie shouted. “It’s not for your eyes!”
“You son-of-a-bitch!” Debbie shouted as she tore the letter into pieces. “I knew it! I knew I couldn’t trust you! You men are all the same! Sure you went to visit your sick Aunt in Greenfield! I bet you’re with the slutty whore right now!”
“I hate you! I wish you would die, you bitch!” Stephanie shouted, and she darted into the attic.

x x x


Daniel, who was lying on his stomach, coloring a racecar he’d drawn, looked up and asked, “Do you smell that?”
“Smell what?” Stephanie said as she placed Katherine’s Ken doll on the second floor of Barbie’s Dream House.
“No, he has to get ready for the dinner party,” Katherine said, snatching the doll from the house.
“It smells like smoke,” Daniel said.
Stephanie inhaled and said, “You two stay here while I check it out.”
“Hurry back,” Katherine said.
“I will,” Stephanie said, and she dropped through the floor and landed at the top of the stairs. “Good, leave and don’t ever come back,” she said to Debbie, who was walking toward her, carrying a suitcase in each hand.
Stephanie looked past Debbie and saw flames and smoke bellowing out of the main bedroom at the end of the hall.
“What did you do?” Stephanie shouted, and she followed Debbie down the stairs. “You can’t do this! Stop! You have to call for help! Please! You have to help us!”
Debbie placed one of the suitcases on the floor, opened the front door, picked up the suitcase, and closed the door with her foot.
“You stupid bitch!” Stephanie shouted, and she slammed her fists against the door.
“The house is on fire!” Daniel shouted from the top of the stairs.
Stephanie turned and shouted, “I know!”
“What are we gonna do?” Katherine cried from beside Daniel.
“We have to put it out!” Daniel answered, and he dashed into the bathroom.
“Come down here, honey, and help me,” Stephanie said to Katherine.
“Where are we going?” Katherine asked as Stephanie took her hand and led her into the kitchen.
“We need something to carry water,” Stephanie answered, and she opened the two cabinets beneath the sink. She handed Katherine two large bowls and said, “Take these and follow me.” She pulled out three pitchers and flew upstairs.
Daniel was filling the bathtub with water when the girls entered the bathroom.
“I want you to stay in here,” Stephanie said to Katherine as she filled the pitchers with water from the tub.
Daniel snatched the bowls from Katherine, filled them with water, then raced out of the bathroom behind Stephanie. The fire had consumed the main bedroom and was creeping into the hallway.
“I think it started here,” Daniel said, and he tossed the water onto a pile of torn clothes that were scattered about the bed.
“I knew she was crazy, but I never expected her to do something like this,” Stephanie said, pouring water onto the bed. “I thought she’d just leave.”
After four trips to the bedroom with water, they saw that the fire had reached the bathroom.
“It’s too late!” Stephanie shouted, throwing the pitchers into the fire. “There’s nothing else we can do!”
“We can’t give up!” Daniel shouted as he filled the two bowls with water.
“Come on, honey,” Stephanie said, taking Katherine’s hand. “Were going downstairs,” she said to Daniel. “And I suggest you do the same.”
“Do what you want! I’m gonna save our house!” Daniel shouted, and he threw water into the fire, which was just outside the bathroom door.
Stephanie and Katherine rushed into the kitchen. “What’s gonna happen to us?” Katherine cried.
“I don’t know,” Stephanie said as she sprayed the kitchen door with water from the sink.
Daniel flew through the kitchen door and shouted, “It’s taking over the house! We have to get out of here!” The fire followed him into the kitchen. He ran toward the back door and opened it, but the invisible wall stopped him.
“The basement!” Stephanie shouted. “Everyone into the basement!”
“I don’t like it down there,” Katherine cried.
“Honey! We have to! We don’t have anywhere else to go!”
Stephanie and Katherine followed Daniel into the basement. As they huddled together in the corner, the floor above them collapsed. They screamed as flames fell onto them. When the walls that surrounded them burned to ashes, they ascended into the heavens, where they joined their parents and found peace in death.



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