The Baker's Man (20 page)

“I guessed,” Tessa said. “I dumped in a few handfuls.” She watched Anna and wrinkled her forehead. “I did this for you. I want you to be happy too.”

Anna shook her head. “Look what happened when Grandma Bea tried to make a man for your grandma. Their friendship was ruined, and everyone thought your grandma was crazy. Me creating Eli almost ruined our friendship. This isn’t right, Tessa.”

“Just wait a little longer,” Tessa pleaded. “Let’s see what happens. He might be the most wonderful man you’ve ever known. Maybe he’ll fix everything.”

An idea occurred to Anna. There might still be a chance to repair the damage. “How long has the dough been cooking?” she asked.

Tessa glanced at the clock on the wall. “Twenty minutes or so.”

Anna exhaled. There was still time to stop Tessa’s mistake. Anna grabbed the handle of the oven, but Tessa snatched her hand away.

“Anna,
please
,” she said. “Let’s wait and see—”

The oven groaned and metal buckled as though something inside had become too large for the confined space. Anna grabbed Tessa’s arm and pulled her away from the ovens. Smoke oozed out around the oven door and swirled in the air, creating dark clouds that hovered near the ceiling. The room stank of char. Without warning, the oven door burst open so violently it snapped from its hinges and slammed into the island. Tessa’s fingernails dug into Anna’s arm. They stood and stared, unable to move, transfixed by what was happening.

Through the smoke, a malformed human-like hand reached out and gripped the side of the oven. Black smoke billowed out, and something moved in the darkness, unfolding itself. The built-in oven dislocated from the wall on one side and jutted forward. Anna heard the grind and rasp of metal. Connecting pipes and wires snapped. A face emerged, and Tessa’s scream caused a glass cake plate to shatter on the shelf. Blue shards exploded into the air.

Anna felt Tessa trembling beside her as her scream faded. The thing that emerged from the oven was no longer a ball of dough, but it wasn’t a man either. It lurched sideways and gripped the only remaining rack in the hot oven. The doughy flesh on its hand sizzled, and the thing opened a slit in its knobby face, releasing a garbled, bubbling noise. It snatched the rack from the mangled oven and heaved it across the room, where it clattered into the storage room and sizzled against unused cake boxes. With a shrieking of metal, the oven pulled completely away from the wall and crashed to the floor. Anna knew gas would be billowing from the exposed, broken pipes in the recess where the oven had been. They needed to get out of the bakery.

The monster was tall but lilted to the side on uneven legs that looked like misshapen breadsticks with stumps for feet. It had two very human arms, but its hands were a combination of sticky, raw dough and fingerlike extensions. The body was lumpy like raw dough left uncovered overnight. Parts were hard and cracked like compacted mud in a dry riverbed, and other sections still looked as though they would be tacky to the touch. The entire torso was flecked with bits of green. When it turned its hairless head, it blinked black, deep-set eyes without proper lids, eyelashes, or eyebrows and stared at Anna and Tessa. Another horrible noise erupted from the slit in its face, and it lunged across the island for them, slamming into the box of golden sand. The box careened off the island and smashed into the opposite wall. Tessa screamed again, and Lily’s voice shouted from the top of the stairs.

“What’s going on?” Lily hurried halfway down the stairs and stopped as she fanned smoke away from her face.

“Get outside!” Anna yelled over her shoulder. “There’s a gas leak.”

“What in the hell is that?” Lily asked, staring at the misshapen creature pushing off the island into a standing position.

“Get out of here!” Anna repeated.

The monster yanked open a drawer in the island and pulled out a knife used for cutting large blocks of chocolate. Anna tried to push Tessa toward the staircase where Lily stood, but the monster had quickly grown accustomed to its uneven legs. It pounced around the island with unnerving agility, and Tessa and Anna were forced to run back toward the ovens. Lily lifted a small canister of flour from a nearby shelf and tossed it through the air. Her aim was slightly off, but the canister crashed into the monster’s shoulder, breaking off a piece of its back, and the monster stumbled forward and fell. Flour scattered across the floor and mushroomed into the air like dust motes as the canister shattered against the tiles.

Lily snatched two bottles of cooking oil from the shelf and flung them at the downed monster, one after another. The first bottle hit him square in the back and lodged itself for a moment in the doughy flesh. The second bottle missed him completely, bounced off the tiles and burst open against the wall, sending a flood of oil across the floor. “Hurry,” Lily yelled. “Get out while it’s down.”

Anna grabbed Tessa and pulled her toward the archway in the bakery so they could run out the front door. The monster lurched from the floor, and the bottle of oil popped out of its back. It leaned down, grabbed the bottle, and hurled it at Anna and Tessa. The bottle caught Tessa in the back of her head. She moaned and collapsed forward onto Anna, causing both of them to fall. Tessa’s body pinned Anna to the floor. Anna’s breath rushed from her lungs. On her next inhale, she choked on the colorless gas that hovered over the tiles. The stench of rotten eggs filled her throat and caused her eyes to water.

Lily rushed to their rescue, and the only thing that saved them from the monster’s wrath for a moment was the spilled oil. The monster’s feet slipped, and it skidded into the wall, but it was quick to regain its balance.

“We have to get her off the floor,” Anna said and coughed. “Gas.”

Lily rolled Tessa off Anna and slapped Tessa’s cheek, but Tessa didn’t respond. The monster lurched around the island straight for them, sliding on slick, stumpy feet as it moved. Lily hooked her arms beneath Tessa’s armpits and tried to drag her away. Anna pushed herself up and ran bent over toward the monster like a defensive tackle. She caught the monster in the stomach and felt her body press into its soft flesh. They slammed into the stove. The monster scrambled beneath her weight. Two of the burners on the stove clicked and flickered to life with low, blue flames. The monster made the mistake of pressing its hands on the stove as leverage so it could push off and knock Anna to the ground. Both of its hands ignited. Anna stumbled away as the monster waved its hands in the air in an attempt to extinguish the flames, but the fire leapt from its hands to its back and traveled to its feet, which quickly began to burn because of the oil slicking its body.

“Get out!” Anna shouted, scrambling to help Lily drag Tessa’s body into the front room, but it was too late.

The monster bellowed, throwing sparks like an exploding Roman candle. For half a second, the gas hovering over the tiles glittered as though hundreds of fireflies fought to escape with burning wings. With one great inhale, sound and air yanked toward the epicenter of the leak, and then an instant later, the gas whooshed into flames that roared loudly and powerfully as they rushed across the floor of the bakery like a tsunami of fire. From the force of the burst, Lily was thrown onto the staircase. Anna’s head slammed into the archway, and she crumpled to the floor, lying on her side in a daze, watching flames lick up the walls, eat through bags and paper boxes. Tiny flames burned at her bare feet, and she tried to kick them away, but her legs were slow to respond. When she opened her mouth to call for help, the air wasn’t fit for breathing, and she coughed instead.

A massive hulking creature moved through the bakery. When it spun into view, Anna imagined the burning shape was a flame dancer. It crashed into the island, into the walls, into the staircase railing, leaving behind blazing trails that wrapped around everything and climbed the walls. Anna tried to sit up, but her head spun even though she’d barely lifted it from the floor. The monster dropped to its knees, where it became a burning, bubbling mound dwindling to nothing.

Tessa lay in front of Anna with most of her body still in the bakery’s kitchen. Flames jumped onto Tessa’s clothes, and Anna reached for her, grabbing Tessa’s arm. Anna tried to tug, but every time she breathed, she choked. Finally, Anna’s eyes closed. A window shattered somewhere in the bakery. Male voices shouted, and Anna heard the pounding of shoes against the tiles.

Anna felt her body lift from the floor. She dangled in the air, pressed against something warm and strong. Cold air rushed across her face and into her lungs.

“I have her. Grab Tessa,” a man said.

Someone carried Anna at a quick pace. She coughed a few times before a solid, freezing breath filled her body. When she opened her eyes, a thousand stars glittered in the dark sky. She saw trees appear, and branches empty of leaves stretched across her vision.

“Eli?” she asked in a rasping voice.

He laid her on the crisp, icy grass. It pressed into her pajamas like tiny toothpicks made of ice. “Lie still,” he said, brushing her hair from her face. His hand lingered on her cheek.

“My feet hurt,” she said. Tears rolled out the corners of her eyes.

Anna felt a rush of relief at seeing him again, seeing his blue eyes looking down at her face. She reached up to touch his cheek, but she heard Baron’s voice. Then his face hovered into view, and Eli’s was gone.

“Can you hear me? Are you okay?” Baron asked. “What happened?”

Anna suddenly pictured the jerking, burning monster as it destroyed the bakery’s kitchen. She sat up and gasped. Pain shot through the back of her skull, and she doubled over. She clutched Baron’s arm. “The bakery is on fire,” she said. “My apartment.” Anna saw a body beside her.
Tessa
. She reached for Tessa’s still hand. Then she panicked at the sight of only Tessa. “Lily? Where’s Lily?”

“Lily was in the bakery?” Baron asked. He looked up at Eli. “Did you see her?”

Anna watched Eli and Baron sprint up the street toward the bakery, which was lit from the inside with an eerie, flickering orange glow. Glass littered the sidewalk, and smoke billowed out of the broken windows. Anna crawled over to Tessa, who was covered in Baron’s jacket. She pressed her fingers to Tessa’s neck. There was a steady pulse, and she wiped smudges of ash from Tessa’s check. For a few seconds, Anna laid her forehead against Tessa’s shoulder, thankful to know she would be okay. The night had shifted from bad to horrendous. Anna looked at the fire over her shoulder.
Lily
.

Anna stood and winced at the pain in her feet. Her head pounded, spreading an ache from the back of her skull toward her eyes. She hobbled up the street in the direction of the bakery. Baron stumbled out, bent over and coughing. He leaned against the next building and sucked in the cold night air. Suddenly, the flames roared and the bay window in Anna’s apartment shattered. Baron looked up and saw her. He ran toward her, grabbed her arm, and pulled her away from the bakery.

“We have to stay back,” he said. “The whole place is going up in flames.”

Anna fought against Baron’s strength. “No,” she argued. “Lily and Eli—”

“He carried her out the back door,” he said.

“Is she okay?”

“Her outfit has seen better days, but she’ll be fine. I promise,” he said, grabbing both of her shoulders and forcing her to look at him. “I promise.”

Anna stopped struggling. Lily and Eli were safe. Her legs trembled, and she leaned against Baron. She saw tiny burns in Baron’s shirt where sparks had leapt onto his clothes and left behind black holes. He lifted her from her feet and carried her back to the grassy area. Baron lowered her to the ground, and Anna sat there watching as flames destroyed her life. A siren broke through the silence of the night and whipped around the corner onto Main Street. Firemen bustled out of a gleaming red truck and assessed the situation. They attached the fire hose to the blue hydrant and opened the nozzle full blast.

Eli appeared through the smoke. His arm was draped around Lily’s shoulder, leading her to the grassy area. When Lily saw Anna, she tore away from him and ran to Anna. They hugged tightly and shivered in the night air.

Lily said, “I woke up, and it was so hot. I came downstairs, and everything was burning. The stairs caught fire and boxed me in. I yelled and yelled, but I couldn’t see y’all through the smoke. And then I couldn’t
breathe
. Eli appeared out of nowhere and snatched me up like a doll.” Her eyes drifted to Eli who stood nearby watching Anna. “Are you okay?” she asked, looking Anna over. “Where’s Tessa?”

Anna motioned over her shoulder, and they knelt beside Tessa. “She’s okay. She has a pulse.” Just saying the words made Anna’s throat close. She shivered and stood, crossing her arms over her chest and watching the firemen combat the inferno.

“You’re probably freezing in those pajamas.” Lily slipped her arm around Anna’s shoulders. Anna leaned against her. It seemed like the whole world was burning. Smoke blotted out the stars, one by one. Main Street smelled like a catastrophe.

Anna started to say she was okay, but she wasn’t. Ash floated through the air like snowflakes and caught in her hair. Her teeth chattered as the wind blew burned pieces of her life down the street.

“And the other thing?” Lily whispered.

“Gone. Burned up with everything else.”

Ambulances and police cars arrived on the scene. Policemen and EMTs spilled out of their cars looking for victims. Baron ran over to meet them, and Anna watched as he pointed toward their small group crowded on the grass, clinging to each other just to make sure they weren’t alone. Water battled the fire until the firemen left behind a sodden, charred mess—a great, gaping hole where Anna’s home used to be.

“We can fix buildings,” Lily said as encouragement. “But we can’t fix people. At least we’re all okay.”

Anna knew Lily was right, but when she stared at the remains of Bea’s Bakery, her mind was blank of thoughts except for one word:
gone
. She had no job, no home, no clothes, no food. The wind brought wisps of curling, ashy smoke and the horrible stench of burned plastic.