Read Online Deadly Messengers by Susan May - Free Book Online Page B

unaltered for centuries. The sound came again, the stinging hiss, a roar, then a warm glow. Magnificent. A tumult of beauty licking into the darkness, wearing away at the darkness. So small. So delicate. So perfect.
    He dropped the glowing match into the basket to meet its paper partner. They began their mating dance. The flame rushed along the paper’s edges, digging in deep, looking for more, its hunger for fuel insatiable.
    “What’s that s-s-sound?”
    Mrs. Simpsons’ voice came out a hiss. She smelled it now and began to understand. This wasn’t a visit to check her vitals or tuck in her bedclothes. This was a visit by a friend, come to take away the pain, take away the blindness. The view was achingly beautiful. Tiny shreds of golden-white and orange licked gently upward.
    Benito pulled the bed cover across the basket, careful to leave a gap, so as not to stifle the flames. He dipped the material’s edge in so it could catch like the wick of an explosive. The fire liked the bed cover. Cotton breathes and burns. How it burned. In magnificent, leaping flames, travelling quickly up the bedclothes, it burned. Benito backed away toward the door, never taking his gaze from the vision.
    Mrs. Simpson began to scream, so he couldn’t stay.
    One more .
    The thought traveled through his mind. One more. Just to be sure. Just to seal the deal. Four people dead meant something important. A necessary number.
    He exited the room. A squealing fire alarm suddenly filled the air, earsplitting and annoying, a relentless rhythm. As though the sound was suddenly muted, his focus returned to the mission, and it became just a sound in the background.
    Someone was in the hall. Andrea almost slammed into him hurrying past.
    “What’s going on?” she yelled, through the screech of the alarm. “Is that Mrs. Simpson screaming?”
    Andrea, two kids, a single mom always volunteered for night shift, because it suited her lifestyle. “What life?” she often said, to which Benito always nodded, not truly understanding her meaning.
    She stared at him, awaiting a reply. When there came none, she shook her head and hurried past him into Mrs. Simpson’s room.
    Before entering, she stopped and turned back. “Benito, are you okay?”
    He couldn’t answer, wouldn’t answer anyway, because the need for one more pulled him away. He needed to keep moving. Strings of thoughts attached to his will. He couldn’t resist them. Didn’t want to resist them.
    Benito turned from Andrea to travel up the hall, as he imagined her running toward Mrs. Simpson in her room, running toward the screams. It would be too late. Even these few minutes would have given the flames all the time they needed to find their way. The flaming bed in the deep darkness would greet her with its beauty and life. And death.
    Someone else ran past: a middle-aged nurse. He didn’t look at Benito, didn’t stop. The man was new, only starting last week. Benito couldn’t remember his name. Now he would never know his name.
    The buzz sizzled into his spine, travelling through him, under his skin like a wave. It was a vibration in his teeth and in the membranes of his eyes. This time it hurt. He stopped and gathered himself, resting his palm flat against the cool, smooth wall. Then, in the beat of a second, the buzzing and sound were gone. He looked around, his head swinging from side to side, suddenly surprised. His gaze fell on his hands as he held them up. They didn’t look as though they belonged to him as if he was an alien inside his own skin. Fear shimmied through him. Something was wrong.
    Should he be here?
    How had he gotten here? And why? He couldn’t remember. His last memory, a wisp of a thing, was of the end of his shift, saying goodnight to co-workers, then heading off for a meal before home.
    “Goodnight Mr. Berry,” he’d said to a long-term resident in the lounge playing solitaire. Mr. Berry always had a game or two before bed. “Helps me sleep,” he would