Page 1 of Fear of Flames
Prologue~
Shelly Holdcraft woke from her sleep. With the alert eyes of a seven-year-old, she peered around her bedroom, searching the shadows for movements. Colorful circles of light danced on the carpeting from her butterfly nightlight.
Getting out of bed was the scary part. Her mind filled with the same questions. What if someone was under her bed? What if there was a monster in the closet? Shelly wasn’t sure where those questions came from. Her parents said she had an overactive imagination.
The thoughts probably came from her camping trip last summer with her Girl Scout troop. They sat around a roaring campfire while the older girls told ghost stories. As Shelly shrieked and shivered with her friends, she wondered what scared her more, the stories about ghosts and monsters or the crackling of the campfire.
On the way home from the camping trip, Shelly asked her mom about ghosts and monsters. Tracy, her mom, assured her that ghosts, Frankenstein reincarnations, and zombies weren’t real.
Out of her room, as Shelly started for her parents’ bedroom, a light from downstairs caught her attention. Quietly, she went down the staircase and through the dark hallway and living room. Light came from the slightly opened door to the basement.
Normally, Shelly didn’t mind the unfinished basement. She often went down there to help her mom with the laundry or search through boxes of treasures. It was when darkness came that she recalled the stories around the campfire. Maybe it was the flickering flames of the old gas furnace. Or perhaps the shadows that lurked in the corners, the pipes that made strange noises, or the coolness of the cement floor beneath her bare feet.
She stood at the door, debating if she should descend the old wooden staircase. Curiosity was a strange motivation. The sound of her dad’s voice propelled her to move forward and downward. She stopped on the landing where the staircase changed directions. Dad sounded different. There was an edge to his voice that she didn’t recognize. His words didn’t make sense.
“Roger.”
The one word floated through the damp basement air as Shelly turned the corner at the bottom of the old steps and spotted her father’s back. He wasn’t wearing his police uniform. He was seated on a tall stool near his workbench, wearing a white t-shirt and pajama pants.
Shelly noticed his tense shoulders and straight neck. In front of him was the old hand radio he’d been fiddling with over the last few years. He explained it was like the CB radios the truckers used. Last she recalled, he hadn’t gotten it to work.
The sound of a scratchy voice replying let her know it was now working. Or maybe it wasn’t. The reply didn’t make sense. Her dad hurriedly scribbled on a notepad as the voice spoke in odd words arranged in an unfamiliar pattern.
“Copy. Male. Mike, Alfa, Lima, Echo.” Pause. “Ten-year-old. Tango, Echo, November.” Pause. “Yankee Echo Alfa Romeo.” Pause. “Oscar Lima Delta. Over.”
“Copy,” Dad replied. “Last seen. Lima, Alfa, Sierra, Tango.” Pause. “Sierra, Echo, Echo, November. Over.”
“Hammond. Hotel, Alfa, Mike, Mike, Oscar, November, Delta. Over.”
Her dad was so focused on the conversation, he didn’t notice Shelly watching with amazement. For as long as she could remember, she’d been told not to interrupt adults; however, she wanted to go closer. The curiosity was overwhelming.
What did these strange words mean?
It was as if her father knew a foreign language. Except it wasn’t foreign—not like the Spanish or French she’d heard. These words were English. What made them unusual was that they were spoken in such a strange pattern. A shiver scurried over her skin.
As quietly as Shelly went down the stairs, she returned up, keeping a careful eye on the basement shadows. Her feet warmed as she made her way up to the second story and the soft carpeting.
Shelly’s mom met her at the top of the stairs to the second floor. “Are you okay, honey? Why aren’t you in bed?”
Shelly leaned into her mother and wrapped her arms around her mother’s waist. “I woke up and was scared. I saw a light.” She looked up with her blue eyes as round as saucers. “Dad’s talking funny in the basement.”
“Funny?”
Tracy squatted down to Shelly’s height and widened her smile. “Silly, you’re not supposed to be down in the basement in the middle of the night.”
“Dad fixed that funny radio.”
“He did?”
Shelly nodded. “Do you think he’ll show it to me later?”
“I’m sure he will if you ask. Now, let me get you a drink and tuck you back in bed.”
Back in her bedroom before getting in bed, Shelly bent down and lifted the eyelet bed skirt. Her heart jumped in her chest when her black cat, Ebony, came out and stretched, rubbing his head against Shelly’s leg.
“The basement at night is scary,” Shelly told her mom when Tracy returned with a glass of water.
Sitting on the edge of Shelly’s bed, her mom handed her the cool glass. “The basement can be frightening, especially to someone with as good of an imagination as you.” Her smile made Shelly feel better. “Just remember what it’s like down there in the light and hopefully, that will help you remember that it’s safe.”
