Terror in the Night

Chapter 4

Chapter 4

A week seemed to fly by and the status of vigilante was reduced to public assistance and Faye felt like she could breathe again.

She never faltered in her mission, she was always on a different street each night, watching and waiting for her dead man still walking.

The news had found something else to be interested in, a series of fires consuming apartment buildings. At least Faye wasn't too concerned about the news as long as it kept off her.

But with the arsonist on the prowl, the police were more worried about him than Faye so she did her best to delete all the files off all the police records. It took her a few days but she reckoned she had all the electronic files off all computers, but she would have to risk the danger of paper copies for another day.

After another fruitless night, Faye staggered into her bedroom, after stashing her things away, and collapsed on her bed on top of the covers fully clothed. She was having one of those days when she thought that the whole world was against her and thought about giving up and had to talk herself out of it.

It was early in the morning when a thick acidic smell woke her up. She coughed and spluttered as she struggled to wke up. The smell could be a trick of her sleep state mind, but if it wasn't, she didn't really want to be trapped in a fire.

Smoke filed the ceiling of the flat, trickling in from under the door. Muffled shouts could be heard through the door and walls, calling for everyone to evacuate the building.

Faye stripped her pillow of its case to use it as a mask while she ran for the window to use the fire escape, only to find the flames were licking at the metal ladder. It left her with one option; down the main staircase and hope the fire hasn't spread there yet.

The smoke was thicker in the halls and it seemed that everyone had already left. She couldn't tell if the floor under her bare feet were getting hotter or if it was her mind playing tricks on her

Everything groaned and creaked with every step she took; she tried to walk as far as she could but tried to keep her weight off one for at a time in case the floor fell through her.

When she reached the stairs she felt at ease with less smoke billowing towards her. But when she started down the stairs, she heard a small scream and froze to listen harder.

A child was screaming and crying on a floor above her. She quickly looked down once more before turning around and headed up away from the fire.

The crying was only a floor above her and was a few doors from the staircase where the small child was now sobbing behind a closed door.

Faye knocked a few times, banging as hard as she could, rattling the door in its frame and called out for someone to answer the door.

“Leave us be,” a man shouted back through the door and hissed something that Faye didn't catch but knew the man had hit the child when a small shriek before hitting something.

“The building is on fire, we need to get out,” Faye shouted back.

The guy said nothing for a while until he unlocked the door and poked his head through. He didn't look too old but he defiantly looked nervous as he looked up and down the corridor. “I thought people were joking about that,” he said as he stepped out and tried to shut the door when Faye jammed her foot between the frame.

“Hold up, you're forgetting your child. I heard crying, that's why I came up in the first place.”

The guy quickly got squirrely while he tried to shut the door with Faye's foot in the way. “I don't have any children, it was probably a cat you heard,” he tried to explain desperately trying to shut the door on her foot.

But Faye just scowled at him, and knew exactly what she heard and it was no cat. She gave his door a swift kick and stepped in before he could pull the door shut; he followed her in, shouting behind her to stop and to get out.

“Hey,” the guy snapped when Faye reached for a bedroom door