Chapter 40: Vanessa’s Lunatic Father

Tracey Manning’s lithe body skipped and danced between all the naked bodies surrounding him just like some young sprite himself. In no time at all he was out in the arena’s carpark and looking for his own car. He found the vehicle and was soon heading back from the arena towards his home about ten miles away. As Tracey got closer and closer to where he lived he started smelling smoke in the air. As he pulled into his own street he realized with a sickening horror that that smoke was coming from his own home.

Tracey’s car screeched to a skidding halt as he leapt out to see billows of black smoke fuming out of the back windows in large thick plumes.

“VANESSA! VANESSA!” Tracey screamed. “VANESSA! CAN YOU HEAR ME?”

Tracey looked down the side of the house and saw that her car was there so he knew she must still be inside. Tracey looked all around him trying to think hard about what he should do. Over the neighbour’s fence he saw a large quilt hanging on the clothes line. In an instant he was over that fence and ripping that quilt down. He then turned on the back yard tap and soaked that quilt in as much water as it could possibly absorb then he flung the whole sodden mass over his head and around his shoulders and went charging back around to his house and in through the front door.

As Tracey charged into that burning house clad only in a wet blanket he heard the faint wail of a fire engine truck. He turned his head momentarily in the direction of that wail and saw another vehicle not far from his. He hadn’t noticed it in his rush to get out of his own car but knew in a flash that it was the same car he had seen yesterday parked a bit farther down the road.

“What the hell is that doing there?” Tracey muttered to himself not knowing that he was soon to find out. He turned his head from that car and faced the blackness of the doorway in front of him then charged on in. It took a few moments to adjust to the gloom but the red glow from the fire burning in the back room gave him enough light to see his way by. The smoke was also not too thick yet and was mostly getting sucked out the back windows. The heat however was another thing. Tracey knew that if there was any hope of finding Vanessa then he had to find her in the next few minutes or he would not find her at all.

“VANESSA! VANESSA!” called Tracey continually as he stomped from room to room. He got no response nor could he see anything until he got to the dining room and saw a solitary figure in the shadows slumped in one of the dining room chairs. The smoke in the room was quickly filling up from the ceiling level. Tracey crouched down so he wasn’t breathing in that smoke then stumbled his way over to the slumped body. It was Vanessa.

In the reddish glow Tracey gave Vanessa’s shoulder’s a push. She responded with a sleepy grunt and mumbled the word’s, “Daddy, is that you.” Then her head dropped back down onto her chest.

The relief in Tracey’s heart that Vanessa was still alive was incredible. He began to sob uncontrollably as he bundled her naked body up under his dripping quilt. The heat of the floor around his bare feet was getting unbearable as he held Vanessa’s body in close to his and tried to make his way back towards the front door. That was when he saw that other figure loom up out of the whole hellish scene and swing at him with a huge meat cleaver. Tracey had never met Vanessa’s real father before but in that instant he put all the pieces together and correctly guessed that this was him and that was his car just outside.

In that one single moment of cognition and fear Tracey’s whole world seemed to disappear right out from beneath his burning feet. One minute he was expecting to get clobbered by Vanessa’s lunatic father then the next minute he felt himself get swallowed up by total blackness as he held Vanessa tight to himself under that wet quilt. The last two things Tracey Manning remembered hearing in those final few moments of consciousness were the awful screams of someone experiencing incredible pain. Added to that was the wail of the fire engine trucks sounding like they were right on top of him - then it all went blank!