A story for Halloween: 'Innocence Burned'_美文

A story for Halloween: 'Innocence Burned'

"We don't know. She didn't come home. We came looking for her. We found her here, on the chapel field."

Sam spoke up. "It doesn't make sense. She hates this place. It spooks her. And why are her clothes and hair wet? Everything else is dry." He patted the grass around his mother. "And look at her feet."

The EMT began chest compressions on Carrie to try to bring her back to life. Then he shouted to the boys.

"Check the chapel. See if you can find out what happened in there. Maybe it'll help me know what to do."

The two brothers entered the building slowly and quietly. "What is that smell, Stu? It smells like a bonfire.”

"Something horrible happened here, Sam. Something shameful. Can you feel it?"

As he spoke the remaining chapel walls began to creak. The building shook. "Hurry, Stu, let's get out of here!"

They got out of the chapel just before it collapsed. Every piece of it shattered as if it had been crushed. The dust blew up toward the sky. And the sun came out from behind the clouds.

The boys heard their mother coughing. They ran to her. The two EMTs smiled. "She'll be OK, guys. She's breathing now. It looks like she was overcome by smoke."

But the other EMT look puzzled. "Isn’t it weird, though, that this happened here?" he said.

"What do you mean? Why is it weird?"

"Don't you kids know where we are? This is the place where there was a horrible fire hundreds of years ago. Some people blamed a teenager named Charlotte Reed for starting it. They said she caused a bolt of lightning to strike the chapel. So to punish her they threw her into the burning building. Can you imagine that?"