Stoner John is a character from Enter Infernum. He’s a seven-year old boy with a special magical gift. The boy is revered on the Indianapolis Eastside who know him as the “Brookside Park” oracle. This is his story.
A siren screamed its alarm, punctuated by short horn blasts. The noise came closer. John Gilchrist ran out to the front porch to investigate. The door slammed open again as his older brother Ralph raced out, followed by his mom. The three stood watching the spectacle. One block down, the Gallagher’s home was in flames. A firetruck was parked front and center of the burning house. Firemen sprayed the house, others ventured into the residence, looking for survivors. A short time later, two firemen returned with Mr. and Mrs. Gallagher draped over their shoulders.
John ran down the street to get a closer look. Tears welled up in his eyes. Old man, Tommy Gallagher was his only friend. They played rummy just about every day during the summer break. His wife Laura was always nice to him and his family. Since his father’s passing, the Gallaghers were ever present to help the destitute Gilchrist household. Now, the Gallaghers lay on the grass, unresponsive, and the paramedics administered CPR. Their attempts to revive the elderly couple was unsuccessful. Their bodies were loaded on a gurney, shrouded with a white sheet.
Tears streamed down John’s face as the men loaded the bodies into the ambulance. The emergency lights on the vehicle extinguished as the ambulance left in silence.
John lamented the Gallaghers death. Mr. Gallagher was the only one the boy confided about his special gift. He didn’t think of it as a gift. The boy asked his mother for the opposite of gift. She said, “Curse.” Yes, John felt cursed.
The secret was revealed one day when John and the old man played cards on the front porch of the Gallagher home. It was the age old question about the leather gloves the boy wore year round. Challenges accepted when he said they belonged to his father. Mr. Gallagher didn’t buy John’s answer.
“John, be honest with me. I’ll keep your answer safe.”
“Objects hold stories. Sad stories. Bad stories. The gloves protect me,” answered the seven year-old.
“But you never wear them here,” answered Mr. Gallagher.
“That’s because all your objects have love.”
The old man was touched by the boy’s response. Skeptical of the boy’s claim, he pulled out of his pocket a small ring of wire and gave it to John. “Prove it,” Mr. Gallagher challenged.
The boy held the ring in his small hand. “You gave this to Laura when you were young and poor, living in Dublin. You asked her to marry you, even though you had no job prospects. She said no the first time. You asked again, and again. One night, when you were both tipsy coming out of the bar, she said, “Yes, I’ll marry you, Tommy.” You eloped that night and took all you had saved for a boat ticket to come to America. One day you earned enough to buy her a proper engagement ring, but you kept the wire ring.”
Mr. Gallagher sat back in the wicker chair with astonishment. “How did you know?”
John responded, “God whispered it to me. He talks to me. Sometimes on the wind. Sometimes through animals. Always through the objects I touch.”
The boy turned back to the fire as the ambulance took his friend away. He continued to cry as the firemen fought the blaze.
Whispers borne on the wind alerted John, “He’s here. The killer is here.” John turned to survey the neighborhood crowd that gathered around the burning house. All faces he recognized. The wind whispered, “He dare not be brazen enough to be seen. He’s across the street. See him hiding behind that bush.”
John walked across the street to the bush. A man stood in the shadows. He smelled of gasoline. For summertime, the stranger was oddly dressed, wearing a long, black wool coat, a red stocking cap, and green galoshes. He had a knapsack strapped to his shoulders. The wind said to the boy, “Let me speak to him.”
The boy complied with the request. John quieted his mind letting it go blank. The Spirit flowed into him from the ether. “Robert Franke, We know who is responsible. You’ve murdered the Gallaghers with the light of your match. Repent. Turn yourself in.” The Spirit spoke with John’s voice, a child’s voice. Franke stared back, first with fear, followed by anger. He grabbed the seven-year-old’s T-shirt collar, hauled John close to him, and said, “Keep your mouth shut, if you know what is good for you. I know where you live. You, your family, poof. Do you understand?”
The boy trembled in the stranger’s grip and simply nodded. The man released John and walked into the night.
For weeks, John did not sleep, tormented by the knowledge of the Gallagher’s killer. An orange tabby visited the boy daily to remind John of his responsibility. “John, you can’t let this crime go unpunished.”
John always responded, “But he’ll hurt my family.” The cat answered the same, “Doing the right thing is hard. It has its perils. Be strong.”
One day the boy relented, “I have a name. I can find where he lives.”
The cat responded, “That’s a start, but you’ll need more.”
“Like what?”
“Evidence.”
John ran back into the house and searched the white pages for the name. “Franke. Franke, Arthur; Franke, Joseph; Franke, Robert.” The boy wrote the name and address down on a piece of scrap paper. The home was five blocks away.
A block from the address, John went down the back alley. The evidence would be in the garage. The orange tabby followed the boy, walking side-by-side. He asked the cat, “How will I know?” The tabby responded, “You know.”
John hated wearing his father’s black leather gloves. Wearing them put a target on his back during the spring and summer. His dad never wore the gloves. They lay in an unopened box in Mr. Gilchrist’s dresser. Since the funeral, objects told him stories about the owner. He avoided any item belonging to his father. They told him terrible things about him. Liar! Cheat! Adulterer! Thief! The problem was most things he touched had stories. Too many were sad or scary. The gloves protected John from their memories, their stories. The boy knew he had to touch the objects in the garage.
The backdoors to the garage were unlocked. John and the cat snuck in. Several items lay on a work bench. The cat warned the boy, “John, be selective in what you touch. I promise you nothing pleasant sits on that bench.”
There were several mason jars on the bench, a box of rags, and a kerosene can. John took off his gloves and touched the surface of the can, avoiding the handle. An image appeared in his head. He saw the man dressed as he was that night, wearing his traditional costume. Black wool coat. Red stocking cap. Green galoshes. The stranger believed he was a superhero, fighting crime in Indianapolis. During the day, he was a regular nobody, Bobby Franke, but at night, he was “Fire Bug.”
He was convinced that the sweet old couple on Tuxedo Street, the Gallagher’s, were crime lords, responsible for narcotics on this side of town. John watched as the man punched a hole in the top of a mason jar, fill it with kerosene, create a wick, and seal the firebomb with the jar’s lid. John relived that awful night through the eyes of the killer.
Franke creeped up the backdoor of the Gallaghers. He twisted the door knob, turned it and attempted to push the door inward. The door was locked. He was flustered until a voice said, “Remember your powers.”
The man took his left hand and twisted an imaginary knob. A click followed his action. The door was unlocked.
He eased the door inward and shut it, ever so quiet. Franke retrieved a flashlight from his knapsack and ventured into the house, careful not to make any noise. At the stairs’ footsteps, he retrieved one of three Molotov cocktails tucked in his knapsack. He lit the fuse with his custom lighter. The image of a flame with stick legs and arms was engraved on the side of the lighter. He hurled the incendiary at the top corner of the stairs. The jar smashed spreading kerosene and flames on the wall and stairs. The flames raced up the wallpaper, perfect flammable material.
Franke pulled out another bomb, lit the fuse and threw it at the front door. Within seconds, the incendiary cocktail engulphed the door in flames. As he exited out the back, he hurled is final bomb at the kitchen floor. He left satisfied. The Gallaghers were trapped. No escaping the flames of death for the dastardly duo.
As customary for the “Fire Bug”, the costume crusader watched his handy work from the shadows until a fat kid discovered him. “Fire Bug” thought the nerve of the boy to challenge his work as he walked home. Unable to watch the fire, the flames, the smoke. At least, he left knowing mission accomplished. The elderly couple succumbed to smoke inhalation. The city was safe.
“This is it,” John said to the cat. “Now what?”
“We need to make a phone call.”
John followed after the orange tabby to a phone booth outside a convenience store. “Who do I call?,” John asked.
The tabby responded, “I’ll give you the number. Once you get an answer let me do the talking.”
John deposited a dime and dialed the number given by the cat. When a voice came on the line, the boy lowered the phone’s receiver to the cat.
“I have information regarding arson at the Gallagher residence on Tuxedo Street. The person responsible is one Robert, “Bobby” Franke.” The cat gave the man’s address and continued with his testimony. “You will find all the evidence you need in his garage. Talk to the neighbor’s and they’ll vouch he’s been a problem since he was a child. Stories of his pyromania are well known in the neighborhood. Talk to the police. We’ve brought them out, but nothing ever came of our complaints. Who am I? A concerned citizen.” The cat looked at John who hung up the telephone.
“Now what?”
The cat answered, “We go back and watch.”
The pair returned to the alley and hid in the garage of a vacant house. A black Chevrolet Impala pulled in back of Franke’s garage. Two men exited, wearing suits. John whispered to the cat, “Who is that?”
“The fire marshal.”
An hour later, one of the men retrieved a black trash bag from the Impala’s trunk. The other man reached through the driver’s window and retrieved the handheld microphone to the console mounted radio and spoke into it. John strained to hear.
“We’ve found the arsonist. Fred is collecting the evidence as we speak. Inform IPD an arrest is warranted.”
The men got into the Impala and circled the block, waited across the street from the Franke residence. John and the cat walked to the corner of Tuxedo Street and Nowland Avenue to watch. An IPD squad car pulled up to the Franke residence. The men from the Impala followed the uniformed officers to the front door. A short time later, Bobby Franke was escorted into the back of the patrol car. John and the cat watched as the cars drove away.
As the boy and the orange tabby walked home, John asked, “Cat, who was talking to “Fire Bug?”
“My name is Prescott. Call me Prescott. The voice? He is known as Surt, a demon of fire. We stopped him just in time.”
“Why? What was going to happen next?”
“Surt demands sacrifice. It was only a matter of time before Bobby set an orphanage, school or hospital on fire.”
“Prescott, will I ever see you again.”
“Yes.”
“Will you be my friend?”
“It would be an honor to call you friend.”
John knelt down, hugged, and kissed the cat on its head. Prescott purred.