LITMIR.BIZ

      CHAPTER 1

      Havenwood, Minnesota

      Tuesday, January 9, 1979

      She had no memory of her own death. No idea when it might have happened, or how, or how long she’d lain insensible in the netherworld between life and death. But when Jillian Meade awoke, she had no doubt she was in hell.

      It was exactly as Reverend Owens had described in the fire-and-brimstone Sunday sermons that had terrified her as a child: acrid smoke that singed the nostrils and choked the lungs. A dry, searing wind that burned the skin like acid. Flying soot that stung the eyes so that she had to blink back tears to see. She was in a place of utter desolation, the darkness relieved only by the flickering of red and orange shadows writhing in the roiling smoke. A low vibration echoed around her, like the menacing growl of some great beast ready to spring for the kill.

      And her bones ached, she realized. She was lying on a hard surface, and something was digging into her hip. Jillian shifted position painfully, and like a dreamer slowly awaking, she began to make out shapes in the murky shadows around her. She puzzled at what she saw. Furniture. She was on the floor, wedged into a corner, a tipped-over chair beneath her. She rolled to one side and pushed it away, the hellish light tracing the familiar spindles of its ladder back.

      How many times had she sat on the hard, unforgiving seat of one of those chairs as a child, hands stubbornly behind her, fingers clenched around those spindles rather than around a spoon containing pale, woody lima beans or slimy Cream of Wheat? Stifling a cough, Jillian lifted her head. How was it that hell looked so much like her mother’s kitchen? The simple explanation was, of course, that she wasn’t dead, but back at her mother’s house in Minnesota. But why was she lying on the floor? Why was the house in darkness, except for that odd, menacing red flicker coming from down the hall? And why—

      Oh, God! Fire!

      “Mother!” Coughing and choking, Jillian tried to rise, but when she placed her hands on the ceramic tile floor, her palms, wet and slick, skidded out from under her. She propped herself on her elbows, instead, and screamed again. “Mother! Where are you?”

      Blinking through tears, she could just make out the shapes of the other three kitchen chairs, still upright around the oval oak table. A thick, gray brume was circling the room, wafting across the face of the cabinets, undulating under the ceiling like toxic silk.

      Avoiding her slippery palms, Jillian used her wrists and elbows to brace herself as she struggled to her knees. Through the archway leading to the front hall and the rest of the house beyond, the subtle pattern of the flowered Victorian wallpaper had taken on a gaudy orange glow. The fire seemed to be coming from down the hall, toward the living room.

      She scrambled to her feet.

      “Mother!” Her voice was a strangled bleat. A claw of pain ripped at her lungs, and she doubled over, spitting up thick phlegm, coughing and choking, hands on her knees. When the spasm finally passed, she held her breath and unrolled the collar of her turtleneck sweater, covering her nose and trying to take small, filtered breaths.

      “Mother, where are you?”

      This time there was an answer, but the voice she heard was deep and male. “Jillian? Are you in there?”

      It was coming from behind her, she realized, at the back door. She spun around and saw a shadow at the high window. The door handle rattled, but it seemed to be locked. “Jillian!”

      “Here! I’m in here!” She knew she should run and open the door. Or go and find her mother. Do something! a voice in her head bellowed. But she was frozen in place, disoriented and growing faint from the expenditure of scant oxygen.

      The door handle rattled once more and then the shadow at the window disappeared. A split second later, a gloved fist slammed through the glass. The smoke stirred, twisting and swirling toward this new escape outlet as a great, padded arm reached through, easily grabbing the inside knob and turning it. As the door flung wide, Jillian was knocked to her knees by the rush of superheated air coming from behind her. The fire, fanned by fresh oxygen, was on the move.

      “Jillian!”

      A pair of hands hooked under her armpits, yanking her upward, and she found herself looking into Nils Berglund’s worried face. He was dressed in uniform, the fluorescent yellow stitching on his shoulder patches glowing in the dim light. His head was bare, and his cropped, snow-dusted hair sparkled in the flickering light as the flakes melted in the heat. He rose to his feet, lifting her easily along with him.

      “What are you doing here? Where’s your mother?”

      Jillian’s legs felt like rubber, and she was forced to wrap her fingers in the soft, padded bulk of his bomber jacket to keep herself from crumbling to the floor. “I don’t know! I was out cold, and when I woke up…” Another painful spasm seized her lungs and she choked on the smoke once more.

      “Come on, let’s get you out of here!” Wrapping an arm around her, Berglund started for the door, half-dragging, half-carrying her with him, but after only a couple of steps, Jillian locked her knees and braced her feet—bare, she suddenly realized—on the hard tile floor.

      “No, Nils! We have to find my mother!”

      “I will, after I get you out of here!”

      They were almost to the door, but she grabbed the rounded tile rim of the kitchen counter and steadied herself. “No, go now! I’ll wait here.”

      “Outside, dammit!” he yelled, dragging her off the counter. He shoved her through the door and out onto the wide wooden back porch. “Get away from the house! The fire trucks are on the way. They’ll give you a blanket. Go!”

      Not waiting for an answer, he left her there and ran back into the house. “Mrs. Meade! Grace! Where are you?”

      Jillian wrapped an arm around one of the porch’s upright beams and drank a greedy gulp of fresh air, but it was too cold, too rich, and her lungs seized. Doubling over again, she coughed and hacked, gasping for air between each painful spasm that felt like a thousand tiny shards of glass slicing her lungs. Snow was falling around the house in great, feathery flakes, spinning and brilliant white against the black night. As Jillian struggled dizzily for air, the entire world seemed to be swirling.

      Then, over the raspy sound of her own breathing, she thought she heard the faint wail of sirens. She pulled herself, hand-over-hand, along the freezing porch rail and looked out into the night through wind-whipped snow, ears straining. The half-acre lot on which the house sat was mostly wooded. At the far edge of the wood, as she searched for any sign of the fire trucks, she thought she saw something move—something or someone. But her eyes, smoke-stung and running with tears, couldn’t make anything out. One of the Newkirks, maybe? Was it the neighbors who’d called in the alarm?

      A bang sounded from behind her and she spun on her heel. The storm door was swinging on its hinges, buffeted by the pressurized air from inside the house, slamming against the stucco siding. She reached out and grabbed it on the next swing, peering into the kitchen, blinking as smoke and hot air poured out from the inside.

      “Nils! Can you see her?”

      The

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