Chapter 50: A Year Later

Jared’s naked body lay softly besides Vanessa’s naked body. He was holding the girl tightly with his left arm while his right hand ran gently up and down the svelte skin that was under it. That right hand was enjoying very much the feel of Vanessa’s smooth, warm skin as it ran over her butt cheeks, her legs, her back and stomach and her lovely breasts. Vanessa herself was just humming quietly to herself as she snuggled in hard to Jared’s naked chest and enjoyed the soft stroking of his right hand.

The two were lying on a very new sofa that sat in a very new lounge room that was part of a very new house that Vanessa, and Tracey had only moved into three months ago. That house was a lovely two story building and boasted a huge wine cellar fully stocked free of charge by one of the local merchants. The house itself was built on the same site as the one that had burned down nearly a year ago now.

When news got out of what had happened on that terrible Friday night all the people of Pahrump rallied together and did something about it. The whole site was cleared and a new house built in double quick time. All the furnishings were then also donated totally free of charge by many of the local businesses willing to come to the party. That house was then donated to Vanessa, Max and Tracey in equal shares so they could now own their own home and not just live in a rented one. Max was the first one to move in with Tracey and Vanessa coming along once they were discharged from the University Medical Centre in Las Vegas.

That fateful Friday night seemed like a distant memory now and both Vanessa and Tracey had healed up beautifully. Vanessa’s lovely hair was all growing back again nicely having been totally burned off in the fire and her skin was almost as good as new again as was Tracey’s too. The only scarring of any kind was on the soles of their feet - particularly for Tracey. When he was going from room to room looking for Vanessa the fire was already raging along under the floor making the floor boards blistering hot. The wet quilt provided wonderful protection for the rest of his body but not so his feet. Those feet paid a high price for their part in the events of that night but not nearly as high as the price Blake Benson paid.

The story that emerged from all the investigations was that Vanessa’s father was solely responsible for that fire as he was the first time all those years ago. That first fire had seen the man convicted and sentenced accordingly. This fire, however, would see him sentenced to a far more secure prison cell than any human hands could ever build.

What had finally taken Blake Benson’s life in this fire were the falling rafters from the roof. The man had only just risen from the floor having been knocked out for some time after his head hit the corner of a coffee table in a fall. When he finally came round he was confronted by Tracey and Vanessa wrapped up in that wet quilt trying to leave the burning house. He lunged at them with his meat cleaver but missed when the weakened floor structure opened up and swallowed the two completely. That moment became their salvation as the collapsing roof above ensured the demise of Blake Benson. Those burning rafters pinned Vanessa’s father to the floor where he died - hoisted on his own petard as some suggested later. Blake’s dying screams were what Tracey had heard as Tracey had plunged down through that disintegrating floor with Vanessa into the wine cellar below.

Several sheets of roofing iron had then also fallen down through the ceiling as it collapsed in the blaze. Those large sheets had fallen down through to the cellar and landed on top of that sodden quilt that the now unconscious Tracey and Vanessa lay under. Those tin sheets along with the quilt then formed a very crude but very effective heat shield that protected the two as the murderous fire raged above them. The two did not escape injury by any stretch of the imagination and their survival of the whole ordeal was still being viewed as nothing short of a miracle that nobody disputed.

However, despite the high price Tracey’s own feet, hair and skin had paid in all this he had still healed up very nicely indeed. His feet still required regular attention to make sure that the healing process was completed properly but everything else was now fine. The skin on Vanessa’s feet had all healed up by now too but you could still see definite signs of the terrible burns they had received. In due course that scarring would diminish but it would take some time. None of this however affected either ones ability to get around and so did not really present any other problem other than a cosmetic one.