Dearly Departing by Geoff North (book reader for pc txt) 📕

“Maybe in a little while. I’m kinda tired.”

Raymond couldn’t see her hands. She was hiding them behind her back. “You’re kinda full of crap. What have you got back there?”

“Nothing!”

He sniffed the air. The pig barn had never smelled nice, it was stale and unpleasant, a twelve year old stewing pot of pig shit, rotted feed, rusty water, and dust. But there was something else in that stink. Something sharper, something much more recent. “Did you fart?”

“No!”

Raymond squatted down in front of her and saw faint streaks in the dusty cement at her feet. The sulphuric smell was stronger by the floor. He touched one of the powdery marks and sniffed his fingers. “You’ve been lighting matches.”

“Please don’t tell.” Tears were streaming down her freckled face. “Please don’t tell on me.”

“I can’t keep this secret. You could’ve burned the whole damn barn to the ground.”

“I won’t do it again, I swear. Please don’t tell.”

Raymond hesitated. He was her big brother. She looked up to him. She relied on him. “Not this time, Alicia. You gotta take responsibility for this.” He grabbed hold of her arm and started to haul his sister up to her feet. She tried pulling away. The remaining hand hidden behind her back scratched at the floor. A half dozen un-struck matchsticks trailed behind. One was stuck between two sweaty fingers, the sulphur end pointing down. It scraped along the pavement and ignited, throwing sparks into the dry straw a few inches away.

Alicia yelped as the flame licked at her palm and she shook her hand. The burning match fell into her shirt and stuck there. Raymond released her, and she fell back into the straw. The dust kicked up and the small fire flared. Raymond would never forget that awful sound—a low, deadly whump as the flames found fuel to spread. Alicia screamed and batted at the fire melting the fabric of her tee-shirt away and sticking to the soft skin of her stomach and chest. She thrashed her legs and the flames in the straw rose up around her. They enveloped her.

Raymond was on his knees attempting to drag her away from the worst of it. He needed to get her out of the straw, he had to roll her over and snuff out the flames. The fire would have no part of it. The orange flames were roaring through the straw pile and climbing up the wall. He clutched at her ankles and tried dragging her back, but the girl’s thrashing was so frantic he couldn’t hold on. She kicked him away and Raymond landed on his back. The smoke was beginning to choke him. It stung at his eyes and made breathing almost impossible. And through it all, Alicia screamed.

He tried crawling back for her one last time, but he could no longer see where she was. The flames had become a roaring beast, breathing in the last of the fresh air and exhaling deadly white smoke. Raymond cried for his sister as he backed away. He flopped over onto his stomach and crawled along the dirty concrete floor the way he’d come, yelling her name over and over. Why wasn’t she answering? Why had she stopped screaming?

Why was he leaving her there?

Raymond eventually found the door leading into the mechanical room. Not much further. I can make it. The fire was roaring behind him like a locomotive from hell, gaining on him. It would melt the plastic off his running shoes first and grab onto his ankles. It would lick the faded blue jeans away from his legs and bite into his flesh. It would suck him in whole, consume him. Raymond gasped for air and inhaled the dust that scraped along his forehead, nose, and lips.

I should stop struggling. I should let it take me. Like I let it take her.

Self-preservation made him struggle on. Raymond continued crawling and clutching and gasping. His fingers fell into something soft. Grass. He was outside, enveloped in a billowing cloud of escaping smoke. With all the strength left in him, Raymond sprung up and started to run. It was more of a lurching, spasmodic kind of sprint, but it was movement. He kept going until he found the trees. Raymond clung to a thick poplar trunk and started sinking back down to his knees. He inhaled the fresh air and hacked out the smoke. It became an uncontrollable retching. The poison leaked from his eyes and nostrils, trails of saliva hung from his chin. Raymond gasped, and the choking coughs took hold again. He looked up and saw blue sky through the fluttering leaves and smoke. Raymond wanted to thank God for saving his life, and he wanted to curse him for sparing it.

The old pig barn was a monstrous construct of wood filled with rotted straw, abandoned feed, and dried shit. Within minutes it started to collapse in on itself.

Raymond watched from the safety of the shelterbelt over a hundred feet away. Even there, the heat was a powerful thing. He wiped tears from his eyes and black snot from his lips and chin.

My sister’s in there. She didn’t make it out. I killed her… I killed Alicia.

“I killed my little sister.”

Dawn didn’t say a word. The story of her aunt’s final agonizing moments had left her completely speechless. She could only wrap one arm around her father’s shaking shoulders.

Ray unclicked his seatbelt and broke the silence. “You better take over for a while. I can’t drive like this.” He stepped outside. The wind felt cold against his wet face. Ray leaned against the hood of the car on his way to the other side. Dawn reached for his hand and tried to offer comfort. He pushed her away gently. “Don’t worry about me, I’ll be fine. I didn’t know what kind of effect that would have on me.