By Al Bruno III
January 2nd: How was your New Year's Eve? Don't feel bad if it wasn't great because I spent mine almost dying. In fact, I probably should have died tonight. I should have finally suffered the consequences of taking too many chances and chasing too many secrets. As the old saying goes, when you stare into the Abyss, the Abyss stares back into you. And then it's only a matter of time before the Abyss decides to kill you for staring.
It all started with the Halfmoon fires. Halfmoon is a quiet, rural town nestled between the growing cities of Clifton Park and Saratoga. Developers have been gobbling up the farms and pastures of Halfmoon for over a decade to build shoddily constructed apartment complexes and barely populated strip malls.
Gotta love progress, huh?
Probably the chintziest of these new apartment complexes was Clifton Corners. It had been poorly designed, hastily built, and managed in a way that suggested the owners outright loathed their tenants. If that wasn’t bad enough, the place also bordered one of upstate New York’s cruddier cemeteries. The owner of this depressing prefab cul-de-sac, along with half a dozen others like it, was a man named Trace Buskin.
What can I say about Trace Buskin? That he came up from humble beginnings to become a millionaire real estate developer? That environmental groups hate him but local politicians love him? That he has the county sheriff’s department in his back pocket?
Or how about the fact that tonight he knocked me out and tied me to a tree?
Wait, I’m getting ahead of myself.
This is what happened. I had figured out that three of the five cases of spontaneous combustion either involved residents of Clifton Corners or had occurred within just a few blocks of the complex. The first thing I did was bring the results of my investigations to the sheriff’s department, but they dismissed them and instead continued to harass anyone with an arson record or a nontraditional amount of melanin.
However, my theories caught the attention of an editor at Metroland, the Capital District’s finest hippie rag. She asked me to look into the matter and write a full-fledged exposé.
And they say you can’t find success as a blogger.
Sara Bishop and I spent about a week investigating the phenomenon of Spontaneous Human Combustion. There are all kinds of theories about it: psychic volcanoes, freak reactions of intestinal gases, nefarious government experiments, and the old standby, angry ghosts.
I tried to interview some of the tenants, witnesses, or friends of the victims, but only one person would talk to me—a crazy old coot named Leo. That's when I fell back on my old standbys of spying and skulking. It didn’t take long to notice that, for an absentee landlord, Trace Buskin spent an awful lot of time at Clifton Corners. I also saw him coming out of the woods bordering the cruddy old cemetery a few times.
Spying and skulking isn't easy in the middle of winter with snow on the ground and an icy breeze threatening to snatch the straw fedora from your head. I know it was the middle of the night, but you'd think I would have heard footsteps on the snow or glimpsed Trace Buskin coming up behind me with a tree branch the size of a baseball bat.
When I woke up, I found myself tied to a tree with my own shoelaces. I tried to speak, only to discover that he had gagged me with my own belt. I struggled to break free, to scream, but there was no escaping. Meanwhile, Trace Buskin paced and ranted. He wore nothing but a three-piece suit, no coat, no hat, nothing. It was starting to snow again, but he seemed oblivious to the cold.
“And you!” he pointed at me, “What are you doing following me around? I’m a respected entrepreneur!”
“Mmmph mmph! Mmmmph mmmmmph!” I replied.
“I’m doing the best I can. I’m a human being. I work long hours because I have to! But do you think Gladys understood that? Men have needs.”
I shrugged sympathetically but it didn’t stop the ranting. “It was all their fault.” Trace Buskin’s voice became distant, “They made me.”
Oh great. I thought.
There are three things you never want to hear someone say because they're always a sign of impending disaster:
“They made me!”
“Hey watch this!”
And of course:
“There’s no such thing as flesh-eating land mollusks!”
Trace Buskin started trembling. Veins of yellow-white phosphorescence spilled out from where he stood. The snow around his feet melted and steamed, while the wet grass beneath it burned and blackened. Those fiery veins started advancing toward me.
At moments like this, I can beg for my life with the best of them, but all I could do was make more “Mmmmph!” sounds. I can also run pretty well, but I couldn’t run anywhere until I got myself loose, and I didn’t see that happening anytime soon.
So, you can imagine my surprise when someone started untying me just then.
The belt was the first thing to fall away. I turned my head to see who my rescuer was.
“Leo?” I gasped...
###
Transcript of Leo Peter’s Interview
...You want me to talk into that thing? OK. You kids with your phones, they’re like computers and cameras and every other damn thing. When I was a kid, my Dad said there’d never be anything like Dick Tracy’s two-way TV wristwatch. His eyes would bug out if he could see all this.
What was your name again? Brian Foster? You don’t look like a Brian. You look like a Darrin or a Karl.
The fires? Sure, I know about the fires. I told the police and the fire department everything I knew, but they didn’t want to hear it. They said I was disparaging a great man. A pillar of the community. Hah! I knew Trace Buskin when he was just a punk selling drugs on the street corner.
Oh yeah. He was a drug dealer back in the seventies. Trust me, Brian, you look far enough back into any rich man’s fortune, and you’re gonna find at least one crime was at the start of it.
What does this have to do with people catching on fire? It all started with him; it started back in May when Patty Kransky got a hundred-dollar fine from the complex. It was total bullshit. Her family came to visit, and she let her grandkids play Frisbee outside her apartment. So management hit her with a hundred-dollar unaccompanied minors fine.
Yeah, unaccompanied minors. It's one of the many bullcrap rules Buskin shoves down his tenants’ throats. No kids are allowed to play outside unless there is an adult right there watching them, even if you live here and they’re your own kids! Even if you’re watching them through the parlor window.
Bad enough they nickel and dime us with all kinds of other stupid fees, but what they did to Patty was just awful. She’s retired and on a very fixed income.
And when they hit you with those fines, they want the money with your next month’s rent, no negotiations allowed. I loaned her the money, but I also went down to Buskin’s main office and chewed him out.
Well, let me tell you, the high and mighty Trace Buskin doesn’t like getting called on his nonsense. He tries to feed me some cock and bull story about liability insurance, but I don’t buy it. I told him, ‘No reputable apartment complex would do this.’
Then he called me a toothless old bastard, which I am. Hee hee! Before I left his office, I told him he should kill himself.
Oh, you should have seen the look on his face.
A few days later, I get woken up out of a sound sleep by this high-pitched screaming. I get out of bed, look across the complex, and see flickering light in the window of Patty’s apartment.
Me and about a dozen other people called 911. One of the guys living next to her, this big Irish kid named Dana, he kicked her door in, but it was too late. She had burned up.
It was like you said. Just Patty burned up, none of her furniture, none of her carpets, not even her damn clothes!
Now, the cops and fire company aren’t there five minutes when Buskin shows up. He lives in Saratoga, so I was thinking to myself that he got there pretty fast. I figured he was at some kind of a party because he was all dressed to the nines in a suit that probably cost as much as my rent.
Yeah Brian, very suspicious. I can’t tell you anything else about what happened except that prick Buskin charged Dana for the damage he did kicking in the door.
A few days later, I’m up around 4 A.M. Sometimes I have trouble sleeping thanks to injuries I got back during the Tet Offensive. No. Nothing heroic, when the shooting started, the damn LT panicked and ran me over with his jeep. Broke a bunch of my bones and dragged me about twenty feet. Somehow he still ended up going home with a medal; I went home with a medical discharge.
Where was I? Oh yeah, 4 A.M. I’m watching TV, I get up to take a piss, and when I come back, I see Trace Buskin wandering around the complex. Now I’m thinking to myself that maybe he’s got some kind of girlfriend living here, but all the women here are middle-aged or older, and if a rich man’s gonna fuck around, he’s gonna fuck around with a young filly. Otherwise, why be rich? Huh?
I thought about saying something, but my show was coming back on, so I went back to the parlor.
That morning, they found Dana burned up in his bathtub; the damn shower was still running.
After that, I tried to keep an eye out for him, but when it came to every other fire, I was a day late and a dollar short.
But everyone that died, they were friends of mine. Even the two guys that died in the car fire near the overpass? They hung out with me at the bar sometimes.
None of it makes sense. Buskin’s a prick, but he isn’t a murderer. Rich men don’t kill people for kicks. But then who’s doing this?
You got your work cut out for ya, kid.
What was your name again? Brian Foster? You don’t look like a Brian. You look like a Darrin or a Karl.
The fires? Sure, I know about the fires. I told the police and the fire department everything I knew, but they didn’t want to hear it. They said I was disparaging a great man. A pillar of the community. Hah! I knew Trace Buskin when he was just a punk selling drugs on the street corner.
Oh yeah. He was a drug dealer back in the seventies. Trust me, Brian, you look far enough back into any rich man’s fortune, and you’re gonna find at least one crime was at the start of it.
What does this have to do with people catching on fire? It all started with him; it started back in May when Patty Kransky got a hundred-dollar fine from the complex. It was total bullshit. Her family came to visit, and she let her grandkids play Frisbee outside her apartment. So management hit her with a hundred-dollar unaccompanied minors fine.
Yeah, unaccompanied minors. It's one of the many bullcrap rules Buskin shoves down his tenants’ throats. No kids are allowed to play outside unless there is an adult right there watching them, even if you live here and they’re your own kids! Even if you’re watching them through the parlor window.
Bad enough they nickel and dime us with all kinds of other stupid fees, but what they did to Patty was just awful. She’s retired and on a very fixed income.
And when they hit you with those fines, they want the money with your next month’s rent, no negotiations allowed. I loaned her the money, but I also went down to Buskin’s main office and chewed him out.
Well, let me tell you, the high and mighty Trace Buskin doesn’t like getting called on his nonsense. He tries to feed me some cock and bull story about liability insurance, but I don’t buy it. I told him, ‘No reputable apartment complex would do this.’
Then he called me a toothless old bastard, which I am. Hee hee! Before I left his office, I told him he should kill himself.
Oh, you should have seen the look on his face.
A few days later, I get woken up out of a sound sleep by this high-pitched screaming. I get out of bed, look across the complex, and see flickering light in the window of Patty’s apartment.
Me and about a dozen other people called 911. One of the guys living next to her, this big Irish kid named Dana, he kicked her door in, but it was too late. She had burned up.
It was like you said. Just Patty burned up, none of her furniture, none of her carpets, not even her damn clothes!
Now, the cops and fire company aren’t there five minutes when Buskin shows up. He lives in Saratoga, so I was thinking to myself that he got there pretty fast. I figured he was at some kind of a party because he was all dressed to the nines in a suit that probably cost as much as my rent.
Yeah Brian, very suspicious. I can’t tell you anything else about what happened except that prick Buskin charged Dana for the damage he did kicking in the door.
A few days later, I’m up around 4 A.M. Sometimes I have trouble sleeping thanks to injuries I got back during the Tet Offensive. No. Nothing heroic, when the shooting started, the damn LT panicked and ran me over with his jeep. Broke a bunch of my bones and dragged me about twenty feet. Somehow he still ended up going home with a medal; I went home with a medical discharge.
Where was I? Oh yeah, 4 A.M. I’m watching TV, I get up to take a piss, and when I come back, I see Trace Buskin wandering around the complex. Now I’m thinking to myself that maybe he’s got some kind of girlfriend living here, but all the women here are middle-aged or older, and if a rich man’s gonna fuck around, he’s gonna fuck around with a young filly. Otherwise, why be rich? Huh?
I thought about saying something, but my show was coming back on, so I went back to the parlor.
That morning, they found Dana burned up in his bathtub; the damn shower was still running.
After that, I tried to keep an eye out for him, but when it came to every other fire, I was a day late and a dollar short.
But everyone that died, they were friends of mine. Even the two guys that died in the car fire near the overpass? They hung out with me at the bar sometimes.
None of it makes sense. Buskin’s a prick, but he isn’t a murderer. Rich men don’t kill people for kicks. But then who’s doing this?
You got your work cut out for ya, kid.
###
…near as I can guess, Leo was following me while I was following Trace Buskin. I'll give the old coot props; he did a much better job of not getting caught.
Now, I’m not one to look a gift rescue in the mouth, but while Leo fumbled with the triple knots securing my hands behind my back, those trails of fire slithering along the snow-covered ground toward me were getting awfully close.
Then Trace caught sight of the old man. I didn’t think it was possible, but his expression became even more crazed. “You!”
His rage was a physical thing, washing over me as a wave of heat. It scalded my flesh and set my eyebrows smoldering. I screamed at Leo, “Hurry! For the love of God, hurry!”
The knots loosened enough for me to snap the shoelaces. I got clear of the tree just as it started to burn.
“Don’t you run from me!” Trace called after us. “Don’t you dare.”
I would have loved to make a run for it, but if I did that, I would have had to leave a seventy-year-old war veteran behind to die in my place. The snow crunched under our feet as we tried to back away.
“How the hell is he doing this?” Leo grabbed my arm as we retreated. “What is he?”
“I don’t know. Let me think... Let me think... Maybe we can talk him down or something.”
Trace Buskin was stalking toward us, and every tree he walked past went up like it had been doused in gasoline, the snow around them evaporating instantly. When he spoke, his voice crackled, “You think you know me? You think you know what I had to do? What I lost?”
“You think we care?” Leo spat back.
I face-palmed. So much for talking him down. More tendrils of fire bled toward us; I thought to myself that this sure as hell wasn’t some overactive intestinal gases.
Which, I realized, might mean...
No more backing away. I stood my ground as the woods went up around me. “Trace Buskin!” I said in my loudest and most accusatory voice, “You are dead. I don’t know for how long, or what happened, but you are dead.”
He laughed smokily and kept coming. Leo made a frightened noise. The iron fence of the cruddy cemetery was just a few feet behind us, the snow against it piling up. We were cornered.
All I could do was keep talking, “You are dead! You must have died weeks ago. Don’t you remember?”
Trace Buskin slowed, his expression of rage becoming one of confusion. This time when he said, “I am a respected entrepreneur,” it didn’t sound like he believed it. He pointed at Leo, “He made me.”
“You. Are. Dead.” I said, my voice an angry staccato.
“I’m a human-”
“What happened?” I cut him off. “Was it a heart attack, or did you take Leo’s advice and kill yourself?”
He looked down at himself, his expression incredible in its grief. The rivers of flame recoiled backward, lashing themselves up and over his body. Now he burned, now veins of fire crisscrossed over him until he was nothing more than a smoldering jigsaw. That jigsaw folded and twisted in upon itself and collapsed.
Then it was gone.
The woods grew darker as the fires went out. It wasn’t a gradual thing; it was like it had all been a special effect that someone had decided to turn off.
We stood there in stunned silence until we heard the sounds of sirens approaching. Leo turned to me, “What did you do?”
A full explanation would have taken too long, and I was too tired. So instead, I just adjusted my straw fedora and said, “I guessed.”
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