Hellfire Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  HELLFIRE

  MICHELLE SCHAD

  HELLFIRE

  Copyright © 2018 by Corrugated Sky Publishing, LLC

  Copyright © 2018 by Michelle Schad

  All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or repro- duced in any manner whatsoever without written per- mission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, busi- nesses, organizations, places, events and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  For information contact :

  http://www.corrugatedsky.com

  http://www.tamingchaos.net

  Book and Cover design by Michelle Schad

  Print ISBN: 9 7 8 0 9 9 8 2 6 0 5 3 2

  First Edition: April 2018

  For everyone still waiting on their radioactive spider.

  01

  Hadi!

  He coughed, choking on the rainwater that streamed down the sides of his broken nose. Each droplet dripped down the back of his throat along with the copper tang of his own blood.

  Hadi!!

  He took another gut punch to the stomach, curling in over the steel toe that delivered the painful blow. He wretched into the puddle beneath him, groaning pitifully after. The kicks continued, bruising his ribs, his sides and hips, his chest and back until he no longer had the strength to keep them away. Instead, he lie there, dead to the world around him, numb to the pain and hateful words spewed at him.

  HADI!!

  The nightmare shattered like a broken window. A violent hissing replaced the thunderous sound of falling rain. The taste and smell of copper evaporated into the odor of melting plastic.

  “Astayqiz!” someone barked. Get up. The pain of the nightmare still lingered, but something about the barked order made Hadi Shahir’s limbs move, made him sit up and force his eyes open. Half of his room was on fire.

  “Shit,” he cursed, immediately absorbing the flames into the palm of his hand. It burned the skin, reminding him of his curse. “Saleh, I’m sorry I-”

  “You are late for work,” his cousin, Saleh, said heavily. “Eajluu. Mary already called. She is waiting for you.”

  Hadi watched Saleh walk away with the fire extinguisher still in hand. The white foam was everywhere. There was absolutely nothing left of the television that once sat atop Hadi’s dresser. He could hear Nima, Saleh’s wife, asking if everything was alright as Saleh left the room and their baby girl crying from all the commotion Hadi caused.

  The nightmare was the same every night. Nothing he did made the memory of what had been done to him go away. He tried alcohol and drugs, tried meditation or useless television, even bought himself a pet fish to see if it might offer some tranquility. The fish boiled the same week Hadi purchased it. The outcome of the nightmare was always the same, too: everything burned, including himself. Unfortunately, that meant everything in the waking world burned too. His walls were a myriad of scorch marks and blackened outlines of furniture that no longer existed. Blessedly, the fires were always contained to his room, but it was only a matter of time before they tore free of the plywood door that separated Hadi from his cousin’s family.

  It took months for Hadi to recover from the physical trauma he endured. Mentally, however, he felt lost; adrift in a world that did not understand; did not want to understand. Saleh insisted he needed to find focus, put himself into his work, and push the nightmares away. The understanding and compassion Saleh had shown right after the incident slowly vanished to annoyance that Hadi simply could not just ‘get over it’.

  Hadi flinched when Saleh pounded on the bathroom door, demanding that he hurry up. The hot water felt good on Hadi’s back, though; he did not want to leave. It cradled him in a much needed embrace. However, if he expected to get paid, he needed to walk the two blocks to the laundromat to watch over the empty washers and dryers while listening to late night television echo out into an empty establishment. No one came into the laundromat that Saleh owned after 10:00pm.

  With a heavy heart and heavier feet, Hadi shrugged himself into his winter coat and shuffled out of the small apartment he shared with his cousin. It took a full five minutes to gain the courage to open the door to the building’s foyer and set foot out onto the street. Two of the street lamps above flickered in a poor attempt to shed actual light onto the dirty sidewalk. He fought a wave of nausea and forced one foot in front of the other until he gained actual forward momentum. He hid inside his coat, stuffing hands deep into his pockets and scrunching down into the wool scarf around his face. His soft hair fell into his eyes or around his ears where it was not held back by a matching knit beanie. Winters in Chicago were brutal.

  Hadi continued a little mantra while he walked the two-block distance from Saleh’s apartment to the Wash n’ Fluff laundromat that Saleh owned. His steps increased in speed as soon as he saw the sliding doors, all but running into the humid confines of the laundromat. Maria, the woman who worked the day shift, eyed him with annoyance and disapproval. She looked like everyone’s grandmother but had the personality of rusted spoon.

  “Lo siento, Mary,” Hadi intoned in horribly accented Spanish as the woman collected her things. She muttered something back, but he wasn’t paying attention enough to hear it. He waited until she was gone to change the channel on the television and remove his coat, pulling a tiny baggie of white powder from the inside pocket. He took the baggie everywhere, catching a sniff any time he felt anxiety start to build up in his chest. It helped to relax his tense posture and racing mind, helped him to forget even if it was just for a few hours. The evening crawled along as most evenings did: in a blessed haze of psychedelic colors and nearly overwhelming heat. He dozed behind the cash counter where folks dropped off their bags of filthy clothes for the fluff and fold service the establishment offered. He took quarters from the drawer to buy a soda and chocolate bar from the vending machine, and ‘skated’ around the empty building inside one of the wheeled baskets that were kept in even rows just inside the front entrance. He read a book someone had left behind - An Ember in the Ashes by an author he had never heard of - and then re-read the first chapter only two hours after finishing the the book itself; he read fast. Eventually, boredom caught up to Hadi’s over-active mind, the high wearing off too soon, and he fell asleep behind the cash counter.

  “Hey,” said a woman, rocking him off his chair and onto the floor. Something ‘popped’ behind him, smoldering briefly before he squashed the flame and scrambled to his feet. The woman - though she did not look much older than Hadi - grinned kindly. “Uhm, y’all are outta quarters.”

  Hadi blinked at the attractive young blond in tight leggings and chunky Ugg boots. She wore her hair in braids that fell over her shoulders with a slouchy knit beanie on her head and a sweater with too-long sleeves. ‘Basic white girl’ immediately jumped into his mind from something he had seen on social media. She fit the meme to a perfectly crossed ‘T’.

  “Sorry - we don’t leave the machine on after ten,” Hadi explained finally in a barely audible croak before clearing his t
hroat. “How much do you need?”

  “Just five,” she shrugged. “I don’t got much to wash. You new ‘round here?”

  Hadi shook his head, unlocking the change drawer.

  “No? You related to Sal? You kinda look like him,” she continued, swaying a little as she spoke. Hadi glanced up at her, catching her very obvious flirtation and smirked.

  “He’s my cousin,” Hadi grinned back, handing her the requested change. “You come in here a lot?”

  She nodded. “I live just across the street so it’s pretty easy. Normally I just drop off an’ run but I didn’t get to it today an’ I’m outta underwear.”

  She bit her lower lip when she spoke, making Hadi’s grin broaden. He gave her an appreciative glance, watching her walk back to her small basket of laundry. He practically died of a heart attack when his view was suddenly blocked by Saleh’s imposing presence.

  “Saleh,” he breathed out. The girl at washer number four waved when Saleh looked at her but he did not wave back.

  “You are lucky that I do not call the police,” Saleh began. Hadi frowned in confusion but Saleh continued on. “I have protected you, hid your secrets from Nima and your father, and now you bring this into my home.”

  Saleh tossed a brown canvas sack onto the counter between them. Hadi’s heart sunk, eyes closing as he exhaled slowly. He knew what was in the bag for it was the same type of contraband he had hidden in his coat pocket.

  “You’re fired,” Saleh said. “Your things are outside.”

  “Saleh!” Hadi tried but the man would not hear it. His generosity only went so far and Hadi had finally set a fire he could not control.

  ~

  Hadi sat around the corner of the Wash n’Fluff front entrance with a backpack on his shoulders and two garbage bags full of the few belongings he had not burned to a crisp. Saleh had been gracious enough to dole out his final paycheck in cash which meant Hadi had exactly three-hundred dollars to his name and whatever was in the bags at his feet. Anywhere decent would drain him of money and anywhere else set a twisted knot in the pit of his stomach to even think about. Cars rolled by, kicking up icy cold blasts of air and minuscule particles of dust. Some honked at each other, others blared loud music or ran from the sirens that chased them. Hadi, quite literally, had nowhere to go.

  He called Chicago his home for a painfully short few months before the horrible incident that very nearly tore him apart occurred. He spent a great deal of time in the hospital, and only knew mind-numbing ‘work’ since his recovery six months prior. His visa was under condition of study, yet he had no real interest in what the schools had to teach him. Much of what was taught, was biased or so dull Hadi wanted to shoot himself in the foot just for some excitement. The one semester he managed to sit through was cut abruptly short when he argued with the professor regarding French history, something he was rather intimately familiar with. France was his childhood home, where he grew up and learned the most but the professor in question only saw him as an obstruction and kicked him out the very same night of the argument. Saleh put him to work shortly thereafter and then terror in a dark alley robbed Hadi of everything else. Now he didn’t even have mind- numbing work and no way to get back home either.

  “Didn’t sound like things went too well when Sal came in,” the girl from washer four said. Hadi looked up at her. She held her laundry basket in her arms, a big puffy coat protecting her from the elements. He didn’t know what to say so remained silent, looking back down at his booted feet instead. “What’s your name, handsome?”

  Hadi looked up at her again and blinked curiously. “Hadi. Shahir.”

  “Lindsay-Rae,” she replied with a smile and gentle sway. “Everyone just calls me Lindy, though. Let’s go, Hadi Shahir.”

  He frowned at her, standing uncertainly so that he practically towered over her. “Go?”

  “You’re just like a lost little puppy and I’m not one what lets strays sit out in the cold. Folks don’t sit out on street corners with trash bags o’ junk if they’ve got some place to stay. C’mon.”

  Hadi opened his mouth to say something but nothing emerged save a pathetic croak. He glanced at the glowing light coming from the Wash n’Fluff, then back at Lindy. It took less than half a second for him to heft the two trash bags up and trot across the street after the ‘basic white girl’ with the unwashed under garments.

  “Why?” Hadi asked as he finally caught her up.

  “Why what?” Lindy asked, unlocking the front door to her apartment on the second floor.

  “Why help me? You don’t even know me.”

  Lindy shrugged. “You’re cute. And I’m kinda hopin’ you can cook better than I can. I could use food that don’t come from a bar.”

  The smile she gave him lightened the weight that pressed down upon him considerably. He grinned back, snorting a little with the loosening he felt in his chest and shoulders.

  “I hope that you like macaroni and cheese,” Hadi teased.

  To Hadi’s credit, he knew how to cook a rather large array of things. It was something his mother taught him despite his father’s disapproval at such things. Cooking, he would say, was women’s work. All the same, both Hadi and his younger brother had learned to cook by sheer observation and some devious test runs when no one else was in the house. And, despite an egregious amount of laziness, Hadi also knew how to keep a house clean - something Lindy seemed to be lacking entirely. So, for the first week, Hadi played home maker to his new friend. The extra perks were nice as well. She never judged him for his habits and, more often than not, joined him in a sniff or two or shared a joint on the fire escape stairs. She also had a blessedly insatiable appetite for the flesh that Hadi was more than willing to tackle. It kept his mind off the dire straights he was in or the nightmares that crept into his mind when no one was around. While he was eternally grateful to Lindy for her caring heart, he knew he could not stay with her forever.

  It was a conundrum he pondered while lying on the sofa. The TV to his right ran through reruns of The X-Files, making the darkness in the room almost eerie with the awkward shadows and creepy sounds. Hadi did his best to ignore it, blowing out a stream of pungent smoke into the air above him. His muscles relaxed, arm dropping lazily to the carpeted floor. The joint rolled into the palm of his hand as he drifted off to fitful sleep.

  Hadi!

  He coughed, choking on rainwater. There was a pain in the palm of his hand that seemed out of place, dull and throbbing but agonizing at the same time.

  Hadi!!

  This time, Hadi’s eyes snapped open with a sharp intake of breath. There was no rain, no dark alley, or mocking voices. There was only the dark living room of Lindy’s apartment and the drifting noise from the TV. It was then, he realized, that Lindy sat on the floor beside him, massaging his right hand. His whole palm felt raw, making him hiss and pull away.

  “You ok?” she asked when he pulled his hand away. The center of his palm was scorched, marred in black and red with tiny ashes practically welded to his skin.

  “Yeah…” he breathed out, sitting up. He ran his good hand through his hair, pulling the other close to his chest. “Yeah, sorry.”

  Lindy stared at him, big eyes full of concern and a touch of fear. He’d done something; he could tell by the way she stared, the way she stayed rooted to the spot on the floor. He could not smell anything, and nothing looked damaged even in the dark. He’d not been asleep for very long.

  “Bad dream?” Lindy asked gently, cautiously.

  He glanced at her and nodded. “You’re one of ‘em, aren’t you?”

  Again, Hadi glanced at her, feeling a knot form in his stomach and his throat clench. Lindy looked down at her lap and then pulled his right hand towards her so that they could both see the blackened mark on his palm.

  “It was on fire,” she explained. “Your hand. It was on fire. I read about folks like you. They talk about ‘em on TV sometimes.”

  Hadi felt his mouth drop open as if t
o explain or deny her accusation. Instead, it just hung open until he sighed and turned away, pulling his hand back away from her.

  “What happened?” she persisted, daring to scoot a little closer. “You twitch sometimes when we’re in bed; and you’re a great cook but you’re always high, Hadi. What are you hidin’ from?”

  It was not something Hadi wanted to recount because it meant he had to relive it. And yet, he could not stop the words from falling off his tongue. He told her. He told her about the young man he met at a club not long after arriving in the states, how beautiful his smile was and how much he liked to dance; Emmet was his name. He told her how angry Saleh had been when he learned where Hadi was going at night. He told her about the men that dragged him and Emmet into an alley, how they had both screamed for help but no one heard over the roar of the storm. He told her how they beat Emmet to death and nearly done the same to him. He told her how the police looked for clues, asked some questions, but, ultimately, let the case go unsolved. He told her how he had not been able to sleep since then, or walk the streets at night without wanting to vomit. He told her how every time he felt afraid, something always caught fire and how, sometimes - most times - he wished the flames would just eat him alive.

  02

  Sunlight directly to the face woke Hadi the following morning. His head felt fogged over and the palm of his hand throbbed something fierce. Not much else would surface to memory, however, so he simply groaned and let his head fall back to the pillows. The vibrating buzz of a phone pulled him further from cotton-headed sleep until he slapped the small little rectangle to his left. Left?

  Hadi lifted his head up enough to peer at his surroundings. It was not the sofa on which he slept, nor was it the living room. He frowned at that, at the tiny little pink rose buds on the sheets that covered his naked body while still holding on to the vibrating phone. His right hand was wrapped in soft white gauze that was slowly staining itself pink. There were kitten posters on the walls or full-length images of bands Hadi was not familiar with. Lindy’s room.