He pushed the scotch bottle to the swollen flesh of his mouth and gulped from it. Tears streaked his face and his wide eyes presented pupils that were full and black as soot. The bottle went to the shelf at his side and took its place beside the empty gas canister. The old book of matches rested there and he retrieved them now. Spluttering, he pulled a match from the cardboard, struck it.
He looked to where he saw her stand beyond the shed. She appeared illuminated by moonlight, charred, naked and hairless and dull with black carbon. Occasionally the contrasting ivory of bone protruded through blackened flesh, glinting in the light. Each point of her articulation cracked and fissured, crescents of pink like swine visible beneath the dark crust. A tendril of smoke escaped a lipless mouth as she silently regarded him. Her face was still for it could no longer move, bone and muscle and flesh unified by fire. He saw a solitary tear roll down its leathery surface.
His fingers released their pincer hold. The matchstick descended at a rate that seemed impossibly slow, flame staining the air about it. It struck the wooden floor and lay still for a moment, the sputtering flame appearing to extinguish momentarily. And then his eyes closed, the jaw tight and body rigid with grim expectation. A delicate whisper rose from the floor and the glistening stain about him blinked into life with color that seemed to mirror the hues of the fall leaves above and around the clearing.
The flame leapt and rose to meet the saturated fabric of his clothing. Delicate flickering turned ravenous and the air about him contracted as it fed, flame expanding outward and upward in a merciless burning bubble. It enclosed and surrounded him and his body tightened in preparation for what would come.
For a moment, as his fabric and flesh and hair became fire he remained silent, stoic, as if his sacrifice might be a bearable act after all. And then, the body sprung violently to life, the arms aloft, the erect legs lifting him from the stool. His arms wheeled, sent the scotch bottle and the gasoline canister crashing to the floor. The last of the whiskey spilled and ignited. In his closed hand, the book of matches flared alight.
His shouts were guttural and bestial at first, but quickly shouts became screams and screams became shrieks. His calls filled the air, carried outward and over the lake with no one to hear but the birds and the occasional startled beast amongst the trees. The engulfing flame was pulled into his throat and his lungs and soon the screams and shouts and the air that carried them were burned away like his features before them.
In time he was only collapsed and contracting black fuel for the flames that fed upon him and ignited the shed and danced in the gentle breeze carried into the vacant clearing from the lake.
YOU ARE READING
Song, Unheard
Terror***Featured in Fright Profile*** Life has been different lately. She feels a growing sense of dread and wishes for things to be normal. His drinking is out of control. The child seems frightened and withdrawn. And then come the birds. Strange b...
