by Spencer Hahn

From fanaticism to barbarism is only one step. – Denis Diderot

Fire prospered in the dark. It burned through hay and heart that night, seared the flesh of horses and the soul of Patrick Ryder. Too tired to run or scream for distant help that could not come, the old farmer, quiet and still, watched as his barn was consumed, as he was by the hateful flame.

There was a demon Ryder knew was hard at work. He had seen it dancing in the conflagration of his livelihood, a rapturous whirlwind of red and orange limbs, a manic, cackling, crackling beast. But this demon was not mocking Ryder. It was inviting him. This demon did not bring a flood of sorrow, but an ignition of resolve. With a flaming fist, the fiend pummelled through the roof of the barn and roared a name into the cold February air – the profane name of “Donnelly!”

Ryder understood what the demon was telling him, and he welcomed it. He had known the hunger of the Great Famine; it had followed him to the New World, and for forty years it had gnawed at his bones. Revenge seemed easier than survival. There was a simplicity in hate. And as the weary structure of his old barn finally gave in to the demon’s torments and came crashing to the ground, Ryder’s calloused hands tingled and twitched, longing not to save the work of his own life, but to end another’s.

The fire eventually subsided; the demon had had its fill. But from the smoky ruins, Ryder cradled in his heart an ember; he nurtured its heat and spread its light to all who would attend his gospel, and soon the damned name of Donnelly burned in the bloody prayers of family, friends, and congregants alike.

The demon was in the St. Patrick’s Church when Father John Connolly was preaching the word of Ryder; it flickered in the candlelight, casting its shadows across the faithful, and with a blur of contorted faces, it leered at Ryder through the mirrored glow of ornamental brass and stained glass. “Donnelly…”, it whispered. “Donnelly,“ sneered the priest.

The accursed family had plagued the good people of Biddulph for forty years. When Patrick Flanagan had set out to compete with the Donnelly Stage Line, they had burned down his stables and stages and killed his horses, as he had destroyed their stages, stables, and horses in return. They had brawled and` bickered; they were vulgar and disreputable scoundrels; they befriended protestants. None doubted that the Donnellys must have been responsible for the burning of Ryder’s barn. Ryder himself knew it, for the demon had told him.

“An evil has fallen across the community!” fumed Father Connelly. “The guilty must be hunted down and punished for their sins!”

The good citizens set out in the night, for they knew that fire prospers in the dark. The pack surrounded the Donnelly house and descended upon them, fanged with farming implements. James and Johanna Donnelly were clubbed to death. Tom was stabbed repeatedly with a pitchfork as he tried to run. Bridget had run upstairs where she was caught, beaten to death, and her disfigured body dragged downstairs and thrown into the pile of what had been her family.

Ryder saw his demon swimming happily in the streaks of blood that daubed the floors of the slaughter-household. He hadn’t even noticed the incessant barking of a dog until the cleansing had been completed. He heard purposeful footfalls, then a hard metallic whack. The barking stopped.

The rampage then wound its way to a second house at Whalen Corners. A second infestation. Ryder clutched his shotgun close to his chest, communing with the eager spirit he could feel pulsing in the barrel of the weapon. After torturing to death the prized horse of Will Donnelly, they came upon the house, and Ryder unleashed a demonic volley upon Will himself. Eight shots were fired and thirty holes tore into the criminal flesh. What remained of Will and Ryder hardly resembled anything human, but the demon, at least, was sated.

The mob was put to trial in McLean’s Hotel in Lucan. Ryder, unused to being still, sat awkwardly in the makeshift courthouse, wearing “good clothes” that didn’t quite fit. “There’s no case against us,” he’d been assured. “Everyone who knows this is with us.”

Then the prosecution announced a witness, and into the courtroom was led a nervous looking Johnny O’Connor. Ryder knew the twelve-year old to be honest and hard working – someone he respected. But a witness? Ryder was certain Johnny couldn’t have been there that night.

The boy was sat down across from the mob where he weathered the glares of his neighbours shyly but resolutely and began his account. “I had gone to the Donnelly’s to help with some work around the farm, as I often had,” he explained.

“Were you there when the attack happened?”

“Yes.

Aw Christ, what is the boy talking about? Ryder thought to himself.

“Can you explain what happened?”

“After we’d finished our work, Mr. Donnelly invited me to stay the night. Let me sleep in his bed. Then a group of men burst into the house, a whole crowd jumped in and commenced hammering them with sticks and spades. I heard Bridget run upstairs an’ I got under the bed behind the clothes basket.”

Ryder felt his stomach drop. He could see in his mind’s eye the Donnelly girl running up stairs. Johnny wasn’t lying. He had been there.

The old farmer cast his gaze about, looking for his demon, looking for zeal, purpose, or fearlessness, but all he could find were fearful men – the guilty, fearfully and awkwardly shifting in their seats, and Johnny O’Connor, the fearful innocent casting himself into their hate. The demon had left him, and the old familiar hunger crept back in.

The trial wound on and a weary Ryder returned to work, struggling to eek out a living in the ash. The men who had helped him in revenge did not help him in survival; the mob was only generous with fire, and fire would be their final gift to him, for soon they had set upon the house of the young Johnny O’Connor. Ryder watched as lamp oil splattered through smashed windows. Torches then drew the fire from the fuel, out into the night, and in the dark it prospered. Ryder watched as another man’s livelihood burned. He watched, and, in the fire, he found his demon, flaring now with a mocking grin and laughing hysterically.