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under the house, a massive amount of heat rose up and grabbed hold of her. In a panic, she tried to run from the kitchen but lost her balance. When she thrust both hands out to break her fall, they made contact with the floor. The pain was instant and intense. Tessa screamed as the flesh on each fingertip and the base of her hand melted off.
     
    Something grabbed her from behind and lifted her.
     
    Eric shouted from upstairs. In her state of panic and fear, she thought she heard him yell for her to be quiet, that he was trying to sleep.
     
    The pain grew, the heat rose, and all she could think about was escaping. She struggled with all the strength she could muster, but her limbs were held firm.
     
    The oven door sat open.
     
    This is Eric’s doing somehow. Only the two of us know the code .
     
    Her mind slipped as her eyes rolled back in her head. Consciousness wavered. She struggled hard to stay alert.
     
    Whatever held her seared its imprints on her skin, as if she were being branded. Her eyes bulged as the pressure in her head increased.
     
    She was paralyzed. She could do nothing as, one by one, each foot was lifted into the oven. Her mind raged at her limbs in protest, but whatever held her, held firm and manipulated her to its will.
     
    Her waist entered the open maw of the oven. There was no way her whole body would fit in the small square cavern. At the point where she could go no further, she was shoved in hard, both hips breaking under the pressure until her upper body cleared the door, her arms crushing in around her chest.
     
    Near her shoulders, as her head got forced down and in, she felt a subtle shift in her spine and then the pain below the waist disappeared.
     
    The invisible hands let go the second the oven’s door closed. She gasped and took in a deep breath. She could barely move in the cramped space. Pain accompanied every breath as her body played the game Twister with itself. In the confined space, she could only move her eyes. Her left hand lay jammed against the oven door. She pushed hard, but to no avail. The door simply wouldn’t budge.
     
    The new lock. It locks the instant the door closes.
     
    She screamed, her eyes watering, her mouth stuck open.
     
    Through the little window in the oven door, she saw her video recorder on the kitchen table aimed at the stove, the red light indicating it was still recording.
     
    The kitchen floor had burned her hands bad and whatever picked her up and lifted her into the oven had been strong and remained unseen.
     
    Haunted?
     
    A surreal, intense fear gripped her at the soft clicking sound.
     
    The elements had been turned on.
     
    “No!” she shouted and screamed again as she redoubled her efforts on the oven’s door. Her hands ached to the point of numbness.
     
    The element below her heated up. In moments it would be red, and she sat on it with nowhere to go.
     
    Whatever put her in the oven intended to burn her alive just like the rat and there was nothing she could do to stop it.
     
    With every ounce of strength she still possessed, Tessa struggled inside the tight confines of the oven as the elements heated to over three hundred degrees, beginning the process of burning her where she crouched.
     
    Before her mind slipped off and her heart stopped, she could feel her skin cooking, melting. Blood poured, but cauterized where it met the burners, which seared deeper through her skin until bones met the heat directly.
     
    Her last vision was of the tape recorder. The once rosy skin of her cheeks melted against the oven window, both her eyes dried up and decreased in size as the water content of her body evaporated.
     
    Tessa died knowing it wasn’t just the elements of an oven that killed her. Something else was in there with her. Something much hotter and angrier.
     
    She knew she was just another victim of the burning and Eric would be next.
     

Chapter 9
     
    Friday, June 1, 2012…
     
    Clayton’s screen flickered after the