Unholy Fire by Robert J. Mrazek Page A

Building disappeared into the mist.
    We rode on for another mile or more along an unlit thoroughfare lined with wood-framed row houses. Then we were out of the city and on a deserted country lane. The driver finally reined the horses to a halt in front of a small brick farmhouse. A faint light came from behind the shuttered windows.
    Val stepped down from the coach without a word, waiting for me to follow him before he approached the front door. I turned to see the carriage disappearing in the direction we had come.
    Someone was obviously expecting us. As Val raised his hand to the iron knocker, it swung open. A short, stocky man filled the doorway, an oil lamp in his right hand. His small head was covered by a grotesque red wig.
    â€œI’m ready for you, Colonel,” he said, stepping back to let us pass.
    I saw that the man’s right foot was missing. In its place was an iron bar connected to a carved block of wood. We headed down a set of stairs that led below ground. At the foot of the stairs, we arrived at a heavy oak door that was anchored with iron straps to the mortared stone foundation wall.
    Val opened it and then waited for me to go through before closing the door behind him. The brick-walled chamber smelled of wood smoke and fermenting apples. It was about twelve feet square, with a floor of loose cobblestones. There were no windows.
    A log fire burned brightly in a grate that was set into the left wall. Two chairs sat in front of the hearth and an iron bed along the right wall. In the center of the room was a round, drop-leaf walnut table, from which two guttering candles flickered in the dank air.
    â€œI would advise you to lie down and try to build up your strength for the contest ahead,” said Val, removing a book from his coat pocket and sitting down in one of the chairs next to the fire.
    I walked over to the bed. It was covered with a thin, straw-filled mattress and a single pillow. Two woolen blankets were rolled up at the foot. I sat down on the edge of the bed.
    Thus began the longest night I have spent on this earth.
    Less than an hour later, the perspiration was pouring from my body and soaking the bedclothes. Val poured a large glass of water from a pitcher on the table and brought it over to me.
    â€œYou are becoming dehydrated,” he said, with almost clinical indifference. “Drink as much water as you can.”
    The tremors began in my hands a few minutes later.
    â€œThe first twenty-four hours will be the worst,” said Val, as my body began to shudder uncontrollably. A white stabbing pain exploded behind my eyes, followed by a headache so intense that I passed out. Sometime later I awoke to find that the shaking had subsided.
    â€œYou should try to sleep,” he said from the chair as I waited for the next round of tremors.
    They came on slowly, finally taking hold of my body until a racking pain swept back and forth through all my muscles and joints. Then they would ebb away again, leaving me spent on the mattress. Each new wave was more painful than the last. Through it all, Val sat calmly reading his book.
    I realized how much I hated him.
    â€œGet out … get the hell out!” I cawed, my voice just a hoarse whisper.
    He didn’t look up from his book.
    A spasm of nausea came on with no warning, and my stomach began heaving up an odiferous green fluid. By the time Val had moved to put a pan under my chin, much of it had spewed through my nose and mouth to soak the bedclothes. The uncontrollable retching continued unabated until I passed out again, desperately trying to take air into my tortured lungs.
    I dreamed then that I was lying in the dead house at the hospital at Glen Echo, surrounded by stacks of maimed and bloated corpses. It was terribly cold, but the frigid air did nothing to diminish the stink of effluvium that hung over me. Johnny Harpswell appeared at my side, grinning down at me out of his ruined face. Colonel Baker, his toga-clad