Boys in the Valley(89)

I’ll never reach it, he thinks, eyeing the distance to the rope as at least four or five feet above his head. He takes a half-step backward, reaches behind him and rests a hand on the warming banister.

The banister!

“Now or never, David. Time’s a wasting!”

Not wanting to overthink it, and ignoring the ever-growing flames surrounding him—the intensifying heat, the choking, billowing smoke—he places both hands atop the banister then climbs up and onto his knees, balancing precariously, the growling lake of fire beneath him waiting hungrily for his inevitable fall.

In a quick motion, he sets his feet on the wood railing then releases his hands, momentarily standing erect on the narrow strip of curved wood.

He eyes the rope, knowing he’ll only have one chance.

And leaps.





56


JOHNSON CAN’T EXPLAIN IT. CAN’T UNDERSTAND IT.

One moment, his head is bursting with the swarm, an infinite number of angry flies battering the inside of his skull, countless black legs pressing against the backs of his eyes, crawling through the deepest reaches of his ear canals, climbing up the back of his throat. So loud, so dense, so heavy . . . he can do nothing, think nothing but for the instructions.

The command to kill is simple. Direct.

He wants nothing more than to comply.

He doesn’t see the boy swing the staff. He’s focused on Peter, the one who needs to die. The one they say is a priest.

And that word . . . priest . . . it cuts through the swarm, like a sword slashing through mist. It’s there, then gone. It means something. Someone who once gave him instruction.

He ignores the thought, the swarm makes him ignore it, grows deafeningly loud, shutting out all else.

And then the boy hits him, hits him hard. For a moment, the sound of the flies grows distant and a ringing takes its place; the reverberation of a struck bell that never wavers, never ceases. He’s confused. Unsure of himself.

Then more instructions. More commands.

Kill the other one.

Frustrated and angry at the conflicting voices, the confusion, he swats away the second attack, grabs the child, and begins to crush him.

His head ROARS with the sound of the gleeful swarm, buzzing and growing fat on his sin, crowding every inch of space inside his mind, devouring his thoughts.

He can think of nothing but squeezing the life out of the child, like he did the other . . .

But then something cold hits his face, and from one second to the next . . .

Everything changes.

The sound is gone.

The swarm is gone.

His head is clear of the flies, of the instructions. His eye focuses on a face. The boy.

Peter.

The priest.

As the boy-priest speaks the words of baptism, he can almost feel his body being submerged in cool water. The sun shining on his skin as he’s raised up, renewed. Reborn yet again, but this time in mercy.

All the evil he’s done comes back to him, fills him like smoke, and then . . .

It’s blown away.

He’s free. An empty vessel with only his soul—a new soul born of light—resting inside. He looks at the boy in astonishment. He doesn’t even remember letting the other one go, but he’s gone, and his arms are empty. They are his. His mind . . . is his.

Johnson wants to thank the boy. Tell him what he’s done. That he’s saved him. But he can only mumble three words, the most important words:

“No more flies.”

And, briefly, there is peace.

Then, chaos.

Johnson stands and turns, ready to defend the children he’s been hell-bent on destroying. He sees the doors pulled open, the distant light of the tossed lantern, the rush of flame and the waiting oil barrel. He turns and sees Peter dive down, away, grabbing children to bury beneath his own body.

The explosion rocks the room and a gust of burning air hits him.

He sets his feet, stands in front of the few remaining children. Wanting to make himself large as he can, he spreads his arms wide, lifts his head high, the black robe and the flesh of his body the only thing he can offer, the last thing he can offer.

His eye goes wide as the flames roll toward him, blasting the boys who stood closest to the entrance into bits, burning corpses and blowing the flimsy cots into the air as it crosses the room in seconds, a raging bull of fire, and slams into the shield of flesh that is Johnson’s body, who stays on his feet until he can think no more, and his body no longer has a master.

And, by doing so, saves the lives of the children huddled on the floor behind him.





57


THE TRAPDOOR OPENS SO EASILY BENEATH DAVID’S weight that he almost—almost—loses his grip on the coarse knot from which he dangles.

A rickety ladder spills out, almost clubbing him in the head. He manages to avoid it and grip the rungs. He climbs into the attic, flames licking at his heels.

He reaches the cool dark, the ladder already burning beneath him.

Now, he must decide.

And he has to do it quickly.

The high crawlspace goes two ways: south, toward the dormitory (where gray smoke is already filling the air of the attic space), or east, over the chapel, which leads to another access door at the end of the residence hallway. If he drops down there, he’ll land directly in front of the orphanage’s rear doors, a service entrance used primarily by the staff. And through those doors . . .