Roasting On An Open Fire

 

 

 

 

“Burn, motherfucker, burn,” DeMarco Morales laughed.

Chikae shook his head at the idiot who also happened to also be his best friend. How DeMarco survived life was still a mystery to Chikae. DeMarco was a good guy, but he was still an idiot. “Back the fuck off before you burn yourself alive,” Chikae laughed.

Dozens of times over their teenage years, Chikae watched DeMarco set things on fire. DeMarco was a bit of a pyromaniac. Everyone knew that. Most people grew out of the stupid things they did as teenagers, but not DeMarco. DeMarco would be a mental teenager for the rest of his life.

But in his own way, Chikae loved his friend. DeMarco embraced life every day he breathed. He was irresponsible and juvenile, but his personality provided a good balance to Chikae’s own structured and careful approach to existing. That balance had outlasted the years since graduation and the exodus of friends from DeMarco’s circle. Where the world dulled, DeMarco still held onto its promises of prosperity. Where Chikae settled down in a cubicle kingdom, DeMarco hopped from job to job, claiming he was still trying to find his future. The future where he would make $1 million a year and live in all the splendor it could provide. It was naive, of course, but refreshing. Part of Chikae believed that was why he enjoyed spending so much time around DeMarco, even all these years later, when most people distanced themselves. If it bothered DeMarco that so many of their childhood friends had turned away, he never showed it. But there was something there, something hidden, repressed. Something unhealthy that DeMarco hadn’t dealt with. And that was one of the reasons why Chikae overlooked a lot of the dumb things that DeMarco did.

Like setting a trashcan filled with garbage on fire.

DeMarco backed away as the flames jumped into the sky, his gaze locked on their weaving dance. Chikae understood it, there was a beauty to the way fire destroyed. But there was a difference between appreciation and reverence.

“It’s beautiful, bro, isn’t it?” DeMarco uttered.

It was, but Chikae didn’t want to encourage him.

“I mean, look at it,” he pointed at the blazing trashcan. “The way it consumes. That’s pretty fucking cool.”

"Yeah, man, it’s cool,” Chikae replied. “Just back up a little more, will you? You’re making me nervous.”

DeMarco laughed. “Everything makes you nervous, bro.”

Chikae avoided responding by taking a small hit of the pipe. It was amazing, DeMarco always knew where to get the best pot. One of the benefits of running in bad circles, Chikae imagined.

Chikae blew the cloud out into the warm night. The middle of Maryland was a moderate existence all year long. None of the insufferable heat of the South, none of that horrendous cold of the North. The ocean kept things normal, consistent, the way Chikae liked it, even as he dreamed of a life in California. Tonight, there were no thoughts of California. He was back home, under an open sky. The warmth teased, better suited for May than December. But Chikae enjoyed it just the same. Nights like tonight, where they could sit outside, smoke some great marijuana, and watch DeMarco act like a teenage idiot, were as enjoyable as they were simple.

He needed more of them.

Chikae thought about his job and the life that did nothing to stimulate him, as he watched DeMarco, still entranced by the fire. Wasn’t life about the thrills and excitement of your twenties? Chikae couldn’t remember the last time he was excited. And here was DeMarco, a grown man, adoring the flames as they leaped into the warm night. What must it be like? DeMarco didn’t have a lot of close friends anymore, couldn’t hold down a job, still lived with his aunt; but still seemed happy. Fulfilled.

Chikae had done everything he was supposed to do. He went to college after school, earning a degree and landing a respectable job; he had family and a few close friends and dozens of associates in his professional network; he had everything successful people had at this stage of his life. But yet, if a stranger watched the two of them, they would guess DeMarco was the more successful of the pair.

“I got an idea,” DeMarco broke Chikae’s silent reflection.

“Yeah?”

“Let’s head down to the club.”

DeMarco’s smirk held the promise of trouble. Chikae knew the signs well; he’d seen them a million times. Throughout their teen years, DeMarco tried to get away with things that ended with them getting their asses beat. But even beatings didn’t stop them from at least attempting to find trouble to fill their teenage weekends. More times than not, DeMarco was the epicenter of those plans, planning and scheming what he called ‘harmless fun’.

Chikae proceeded with caution. “What do you have in mind?”

The club was a dive bar on the outskirts of town, an obscure blight on a dead industrial area. The owners had liked it out there because they could get away with things to make a little extra profit. And that approved deviance made it a popular spot for teenagers back in the day. It was a place where they could buy alcohol and pretend they were something they weren’t. Everyone knew the club owners conducted shady business, but what teenager cared about that if they had a spot to dance, flirt, and get their drink on like their fathers did eight days a week?

But that legacy was the club’s death knell. One night, Jack, the majority owner, served a little too much booze to the wrong teenager. That kid, Jamaal, took it upon himself to try to drive him and his girlfriend home, killing both when he failed to stop for a red light and ran straight into the oncoming path of a semi-truck. The tragic end of two young lives was also the end of the club and any hope for the kids in town to have a drinking spot again. Outraged parents made sure of that. Without a spot to waste his weekends walking the razor’s edge of trouble, Chikae was forced to focus on other aspects of his life. Like his education. He was the first one in his family to finish college. He had a career. Everything turned out for the better.

That was almost 10 years now. What in the world would DeMarco want to do out there now? They were two grown men; they could go to any bar in town or head up into Annapolis. Either was a better prospect than the club.

“Yeah, let’s head down there,” DeMarco said, spinning back toward the car.

“Wait. Are we going to put that out?” Chikae indicated the fire raging inside the trashcan.

DeMarco smirked. “No man. Why? It’ll burn down.”

Chikae paused, unsure this was a wise decision.

DeMarco laughed at him. “Man, you’re always so serious. Chill. It’ll be fine.”

Against his better judgment, Chikae got into the car and soon found himself partying in an empty parking lot outside the abandoned club. “Man, that’s depressing,” he commented, taking in the deteriorating building that once was the coolest place in his small world.

“It fell apart real quick after you left,” DeMarco said, firing up another hit. “No one comes out here anymore.”

Chikae remembered his parents talking about the collapse of the industrial center. A domino effect killed the economy when one of the bigger employers closed their doors and moved to Mexico. One after another, businesses followed that lead or went under, spreading unemployment like a disease. It was one of the reasons he didn’t like coming home anymore. DC held a much more positive life. Out here it felt like someone hit the PAUSE button on the world at the worst part of the movie. Hopeless. Here? What could anyone hope for?

“You ready to do this?” DeMarco asked, breaking Chikae’s tail-spinning thoughts.

“Do what?”

DeMarco hopped out of the car, releasing the last of the marijuana hit he held. A large, soft cloud filled the air. A sweet smell. DeMarco leaned down, one arm resting on the top of the door, “To burn it down, man.”

He laughed, hacking up another small cloud of marijuana smoke, and slammed the door.

This was one of the worst ideas DeMarco ever had, but that didn’t stop Chikae from getting out of the car to join him. If nothing else, he needed to protect DeMarco from himself.

“What are you doing?”

DeMarco rummaged around in the trunk. The parking lot was dark; the property manager probably wasn’t interested in paying to light this abyss. Two of the light poles lay across the blacktop.

“Give me your light,” DeMarco said from somewhere behind that trunk lid. “Wait, never mind. I found it.”

“Found what?” Chikae asked, flicking on his flashlight app, shining it as he came around the back of the car.

“This,” DeMarco held up a gas can.

It was one thing to burn shit in trash cans in the middle of some field, but it was something entirely different to burn a building, abandoned or not. This was real shit. This was a felony.

“Come on man,” Chikae chided. “You’re not serious.”

DeMarco answered by slamming the trunk closed. “Last one in is a pussy.”

With that, DeMarco sprinted for the building.

Chikae stood by the back of the car watching his friend disappear into the black hole where the front door used to be years ago. Now that he was alone in the parking lot, staring at a building that was rotting into extinction, he realized how creepy it was out here. The exterior bore the scars of time. Here and there, without rhyme or reason, slivers of the siding were torn off, making the building looked marked. It served as a signal to the world how quickly something could lose its beauty once it was no longer cared for. The few windows that faced the parking lot had the glass busted out. Jagged slivers grimaced at their fate. One end of the roof sagged.

Chikae couldn’t believe he used to look forward to coming here. But this was worse; he was an adult, too old to be here, doing this. This was asinine. This was criminal. He could either leave DeMarco or he could talk him out of this. But everyone in their circles had left DeMarco. That was half the reason he was as fucked up as he was. Approaching thirty and still acting like a 13-year-old. Chikae wasn’t going to join that queue.

“Shit,” he slammed the car door, only checking for the keys afterward. Thankfully, he still had them.

The sound of his footsteps skipped across the parking lot as he approached the club, reminding him how isolated they were from anyone who could help if things went bad.

That black opening of the club swallowed DeMarco. Chikae paused, looking around at the parking lot one last time before carefully stepping through the rotted door frame and into the place where dreams had become reality for a teenage boy.

The club was nothing like a place of dreams now.

The dance floor was warped after years of exposure to the weather, thanks to a partially collapsed roof. The half-wall the bouncers used to sit behind was still there, but everything else had been stripped away, sold off or stolen. There were no barstools and even the glass mirror they used to use to covertly check out women was gone. The shelves that once held the promises delivered through bottles of alcohol now lay bare and broken, leaning at angles against one another. Chikae laughed when he saw the disco ball still hanging from the ceiling over the dance floor. How much had he learned about himself and what women liked underneath that damn thing?

Death had come to the club. It was a sad sight. “DeMarco, come on. Let’s get out of here.” He couldn’t see his friend but could hear him moving around in the darkness. “What the hell are you doing?”

The sound stopped.

Chikae swallowed, thinking for the first time that they might not be the only ones in here. He couldn’t see anything beyond the five feet his phone light illuminated. “Come on, man. This shit’s not funny. Let’s get out of here.”

Things moved, shuffled in the darkness.

He thought he heard a sound to his right. It was light, skittering. Before he could spin, another sound teased him from the left.

And then the world was ablaze.

In one corner of the club, booths where the older kids used to flirt and talk about college, the spot high schoolers weren’t allowed to be, moaned as they were consumed by fire. Flames leaped up the walls, accelerated by DeMarco’s can of gas.

Then DeMarco was running by him. “Come on, man!”

DeMarco raced across the dance floor and straight out of the club. It took a second before Chikae understood everything that was happening. All around the back of the club, the flames spread.

“Come on, Chikae!” DeMarco yelled from the safety of the gaping doorway.

Chikae didn’t need to be told again. A trail of fire surged up out of nothingness across the floor. The gas can had leaked. And it led straight to his only escape route.

Breaking into a sprint, Chikae jumped over the line of growing fire and into the night air. Once safe, he bent over, gasping. DeMarco laughed.

Chikae shoved his shoulder. “That shit’s not funny, man.”

“Yes, it is. Especially if you could see your face.”

Chikae examined DeMarco and shook his head. He was never going to grow up. “Where’s the gas can?”

“Gas can? I left that shit in there.”

“Why?”

“It cost three dollars,” DeMarco shrugged. “No big deal. Give me the keys.”

But it was a big deal. It was, if nothing else, evidence. As Chikae handed over the keys, he wondered how DeMarco couldn’t understand that. When the authorities did an investigation into the fire they might find clues out of charred wood and melted plastics. And he had a life, a career; he was going in the right direction and didn’t want to be part of this. He’d tried to stop DeMarco. That was why he wanted to know where the goddamn gas can was.

There was no time to contemplate the consequences. While they were safe in the parking lot, the interior of the club was glowing to life as the fire spread. In minutes, the building would be completely ablaze. That would draw attention.

“We need to leave,” Chikae said.

But DeMarco leaned against the hood of the car, crossing his arms, his eyes fixed on the growing flames. “No man, I want to watch this.”

Someone, anyone, might stumble by on a late-night drive. Cops must still patrol this area periodically. They might come across them at any minute. He didn’t need that mess. He wasn’t some stupid teenager without a care in the world.

And the flames were growing. Wood popped. Even this far away, Chikae felt its warm breath. With the deterioration of the structure, Chikae thought it would be too damp to catch. He was wrong. Flames danced larger and larger. Something crashed inside the building. The club was going to burn to the ground.

“Fuck this, DeMarco,” Chikae said. “Give me the keys. I’m leaving. You can join me or —“

A scream soared above the dull rumble of the blooming fire. It came from inside the club.

Chikae froze. “What was that?”

DeMarco, too, had stopped and turned back toward the building at the unexpected sound. “I am sure … I’m sure it was nothing.”

Inside the club, flames popped up over the bottom of the windowsills, across the span of the building. Heat blew toward them, a warmth that chilled his soul.

“Just hearing things,” DeMarco said and began walking back toward the car, moving toward the driver side. “It’s intense, right?” He laughed, but it was unconvincing.

Chikae had heard something. It wasn’t an after effect of the fire. It wasn’t background noise from one of the abandoned industrial buildings. If he heard something, then DeMarco did too. DeMarco had reacted to the scream. Chikae saw him.

“We can’t leave, man.”

“Why not?”

Chikae jabbed a finger back toward the building. The flames crackled. “Someone screamed in there.”

“I didn’t hear anything.” DeMarco yanked open the car door and collapsed into the driver seat, starting the car. He leaned his head toward the passenger side window, “Are you coming?”

Was he serious? They needed to help whoever that was inside the club before it was too late. They couldn’t just—

DeMarco rolled forward, turning toward the parking lot exit. Chikae took one more look at the club before returning his gaze to the car. The passenger side window was still down. DeMarco leaned across the middle console again. His eyes begged Chikae to give up. “We’ve got to go, man,” DeMarco shouted, a slight quiver in his voice.

Chikae understood. A million thoughts raced through his mind in that instant, no one thought clearer than any other. Behind him, glass exploded. The entire building surged into old age as the fire spread, consuming more and more. Maybe it wasn’t a scream after all. Chemicals made weird noises when they burned. Fire destroyed in the most chaotic of ways. It could’ve been anything, Chikae convinced himself. And in that moment of panicked clarity, he ran to the car. Something collapsed inside the building behind his retreat.

It’s just the building. Just a stupid, old building no one cares about.

Chikae’s hand was on the door, ready to pull it open when he heard the scream again. It definitely came from inside the building and it was definitely a voice. Not chemicals. Not a weird death call from some inanimate building material. This howl filled the world, reverberated inside his head. A human howl.

A howl of excruciating pain.

“Get the fuck in, man, or I’m leaving you here!” There was no mistaking DeMarco’s intentions. Whatever was happening inside that building, DeMarco would leave it to carve out its own fate.

Through the open doorway that was now ablaze with the roaring fire, something moved. It wasn’t the musty drapes catching fire and breaking loose of the rods, drifting into his field of vision. It wasn’t a partial wall collapsing, sending support beams scattering across the open maw.

Something walked toward the door.

“Get in, man!” DeMarco’s voice was muffled in Chikae’s ears.

A form. A human form, stumbled through the fire, out of the fire, toward the front door. Neither male nor female, the form was immense.

And it was on fire.

“Jesus Christ.”

“Chikae, I’m going to leave you!” Muffled no longer, DeMarco’s voice cleaved the night.

“We can’t,” Chikae screamed. “There’s someone in there. They’re hurt.”

The figure stumbled, its fiery arms swaying to catch its balance. It approached the door, close now. Flames licked at the person’s clothes. A man, a large man. Between the fire raging in the background and the dark night, it was difficult to make out much detail about him beyond tattered strips of clothing burning and floating up and away from the burning man.

The man who was burning alive.

“We’ve got to help!” Chikae pleaded through the open car window.

DeMarco put the car in gear. “Last chance. I’m not fucking around.” His icy voice was an appropriate contradiction to the burning world.

Face-first, the burning man fell out of the doorway.

“Oh, fuck!”

Flames licked at his clothes, spread across his back, down his legs, and across his thick arms. They danced on his head. Chikae, frozen, watched this slow, excruciating death. The man didn’t move. Gruesome. The unmoving form on the ground faded from the living world even as flames danced to life into the night sky above him.

Tires crunched across the loose rock and trash that polluted the desolate parking lot. DeMarco pulled away.

“Wait!” Chikae screamed in a moment of madness, grabbing for the car door. DeMarco obeyed and Chikae jumped in.

Without another word, DeMarco pulled away. They rode in silence. There was nothing to talk about. There was nothing to say about the man they’d left back in the parking lot.

Because the burning man was already dead.

 

***

 

Chikae’s cell phone buzzed. He picked it up, looking at the unknown number, then hung up.

“Who is that?” Sonia, his wife, asked.

Chikae shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. It’s Christmas. Family time. Whoever it was, it can wait.”

She smiled as she bounced Kendrick on her knee.

Chikae slunk off the chair and joined his family on the floor, kissing both of them on the forehead. Christmas in Southern California was strange with no chill in the air to remind him that it was a special time of year. But the job that brought them here was one he couldn’t pass up. They moved across the country, thousands of miles from their families and their past, for it.

They didn’t know many people yet, so this Christmas it would be just the three of them for the holidays. And that was completely fine with Chikae. He wanted to focus on these two; the job was demanding, taking a lot out of him. One day he’d be up to speed, but right now he was still proving himself to his peers and boss. That required sacrifice.

The phone buzzed again. Chikae sighed, reaching behind him and snagging it off the end table. It was another unknown number. “Jesus,” he pressed the END button.

“Maybe you should take that,” Sonia said, her eyebrows raised as a look of concern passed over her face.

Chikae shook his head. A telemarketer or a wrong number; either way, it wasn’t anyone he wanted to speak with. “It’s Christmas, babe.” He said as if that explained everything. He switched the phone over to silent mode, preferring to enjoy their traditional inside picnic on the living room floor as they watched the classic Christmas movie.

The perfect night.

When they laid Kendrick down, a feat in itself because he was excited about a visit from Santa, night unwound on the balcony. They shared a bottle of wine and the distant view of the ocean, the riches of this new life. Sonia was quiet. Chikae leaned on the railing, twirling her hair around his finger as he thought. This was their fifth Christmas together. Five years!

She wore a permanent smile, the kind of expression content people wore. He got that. The last year had been chaotic, but each challenge was necessary. Being a world away from family and friends was hard. But the huge promotion and related pay raise allowed them to buy a home they could only dream of just a few years ago. And they were living the Southern California lifestyle, something Sonia dreamed about since she was young. He did too. And then there was Kendrick, a healthy, happy toddler.

Life was good.

The sun was setting beyond the reach of the world. A beautiful sight, the way the orange light danced across the open surface of the Pacific.

They sat in reflective silence, enjoying each other’s company, even after the orange glow faded to black in the distance.

Sonia bit her lip and tapped the railing. “I need to get Kendrick’s presents out and get to bed. We’ve got an early morning.”

“I’ll help.”

After they finished, Sonia went to bed, accompanied only by her wine-induced headache. Chikae stayed awake, sitting in front of the fire and wrapping the last of Kendrick’s presents Sonia didn’t know about. He bought them today, against her wishes. She thought Kendrick had enough, but Chikae figured a couple more small presents wouldn’t hurt. Kendrick had everything he needed, but it felt good to give him more of the life Chikae had missed out on as a child.

It wasn’t until much later, then, that Chikae noticed he had 14 missed phone calls. “What the hell?” he cycled through the call log, checking each of them. All of them were from an unknown number.

Before he set the phone down, the screen blinked to life, showing an incoming call. It didn’t matter that it was Christmas, someone was getting an ass-chewing. “What?” he set the tone for this annoying call from the beginning.

“Is this Chikae Hicks?” a fragile female voice asked.

Chikae’s guard lowered with that single question. The woman sounded elderly, sad. “How can I help you?”

There was sniffling in the background of her end of the call. “You were friends with DeMarco, right?”

DeMarco? Chikae thought. When was the last time he heard that name? Not since …

“DeMarco Morales?”

More sniffling. “I’m his aunt, Gwen. I don’t think I’ve seen you since you boys were … I don’t know, fifteen. Maybe?” Her voice trailed off.

The fire had changed everything. The night Chikae tried to forget, tried to repress, was the line in the sand for their relationship. DeMarco killed a homeless man in the fire, according to local news outlets. DeMarco wasn’t charged because authorities never conducted much of an investigation from what Chikae could tell. The, now, sole owner of the property didn’t pursue charges because the fire allowed him to remove an eyesore from the world for free. Everyone soon forgot about the dead homeless man.

Except Chikae.

He couldn’t forget, no matter how hard he tried. How did you erase the sight of a man lying on the ground, burning to death? Nor did he forget his own failure to stop DeMarco from starting the fire in the first place or helping the man in the fallout of madness. It laid a heavy blanket of guilt and remorse on his mind even all these years later.

Chikae shook his head. The homeless man’s final moments were etched into his memory forever. But DeMarco hadn’t been. After that night, Chikae did everything he could to forget about DeMarco completely.

And he had.

Until this call.

He should have never picked up the phone.

DeMarco’s aunt wouldn’t call a dozen times on Christmas Eve to check in for the first time in twenty years. “Is everything okay?”

At the question, Aunt Gwen broke down. Chikae held the phone away from his ear as she wailed. Her reaction confirming something was wrong. He was ready to hear it. Over the years since the club fire, he’d followed everyone else’s lead and distanced himself from DeMarco. But it wasn’t without guilt.

When DeMarco’s aunt stopped crying, her tiny voice responded, “No. He’s dead.”

Chikae expected that much. There was no other reasonable explanation for calling someone on Christmas Eve from across the country. “Oh,” he stammered, not knowing what to say, “I’m sorry to hear that.”

A few seconds of awkward sniffling from the other end. “I was wondering … if-if you knew anything about it?”

There. That was the real reason for the phone call. A drug deal gone bad? Some ridiculous turf war over who got to sell molly on which block? In the end, someone finally made him pay. “No. No,” he repeated, softer the second time. Then, morbid curiosity made him ask, “I haven’t spoken to DeMarco in years. Do you mind me asking what happened?”

“He was killed,” Aunt Gwen answered. “The police … they don’t have a lot of answers right now, but … the family, we’re reaching out to … to … anyone who knew him, to see if they have any information.”

“About what?”

“About what was going on in his life,” she answered. “It was … his death was pretty gruesome.”

Chikae didn’t want to ask. He didn’t want the details and didn’t want to get wrapped back up in DeMarco’s mess, but the question was on his lips before he could even process it. “How was it gruesome?”

A few deep breaths answered him. “He was tied up.” She began to cry, unable to calm herself. A pause and a number of deep breaths later, the words tumbled out. “They tied him to a tree in a nearby greenbelt and burned him alive. He was … Burned. Alive!”

Aunt Gwen howled. Chikae didn’t know what to say. He felt for the woman and DeMarco’s family, but it was difficult to feel anything for his old friend. DeMarco was the only person in the world who made him approach feeling hatred, even over the stabbing panic in the middle of his chest. DeMarco’s fate birthed the reality of karma. “I’m sorry to hear that. And I’m sorry for your loss. My thoughts are with you and your family.”

It sounded so robotic, so scripted. Chikae wasn’t sure what the woman wanted from him, but he knew what he wanted. He wanted off this phone call and to return to a life that did not include the memory of DeMarco. She was the only thing keeping him from that.

Aunt Gwen rotated between whimpered whispers and cries of anguish. It was so typical of DeMarco to hurt everyone in his life and around him. Even in death.

Muffled voices consorted on the other end of the phone line. Chikae couldn’t make out what was happening until a man spoke. His tone was stern. “You DeMarco’s friend?”

The combative nature, even in mourning, didn’t sit well with Chikae. He had no idea who the man was and if he was associated with DeMarco, Chikae was less ready to give him the benefit of the doubt. “A lifetime ago.”

There was a tight laugh as if his response humored this man. “Good, DeMarco was nothing but trouble.”

Chikae’s shoulders loosened.

“I’m Robert, Gwen’s husband,” the man introduced himself. “Listen, I won’t trouble you long. I know it’s Christmas Eve and all. I don’t know what happened between you and DeMarco, that boy was messed up in the head. We just wanted to reach out and let you know about his death.”

“I’m sorry for your loss.”

Robert tsked. “It’s fine. Thank you for saying so. Listen, we wanted to reach out to you because DeMarco talked about you up until his death. Seems someone was troubling him and he was worried that you might be in trouble too.”

Chikae’s heart jumped. DeMarco ran with the wrong crowds. It wasn’t beyond reason to think his friend had pissed off the worst of Maryland’s worst. That didn’t explain why anyone in DeMarco’s circles would care about him. DeMarco ran with drugs and petty crime, Chikae didn’t. They lived in two different worlds, members of two distinct clubs of life, and had been for years now. The distance he kept from DeMarco should have broken all associations with his childhood friend.

“I’m sorry,” he began, “but I have no idea what you’re talking about. If DeMarco was in some kind of trouble, he—”

“You know how that boy was, always getting himself in the trouble, running with the wrong crowd. Grown ass man, acting like a teen. It was bound to happen.” More wailing in the background. Another covered phone receiver. After a few seconds, Robert came back. “But whatever it was, whoever it was, DeMarco was sure they were gunning for you too.”

Chikae wiped away a stream of perspiration. It had to be drugs. It had to be. The family was kind to call with their concerns, but they were mistaken.

He tried to lighten the mood, to relieve DeMarco’s family of feeling they had any responsibility for this or to him. “Well, I appreciate the phone call, I really do. But whatever DeMarco got himself into, I can assure you I had no association with it. I’m a family man, professional.”

It was a strange response and solicited an appropriate reaction from Robert. He was quiet on the other end of the phone line. Chikae was worried he’d offended the man who called to fulfill the family’s unselfish motivations in their moment of loss. He felt like an ass.

“That’s good for you,” Robert finally answered, “but be on your guard. Whoever was bothering DeMarco seemed pretty damned determined. This wasn’t an isolated thing. The last, hell, I don’t know, the last year or so of his life was a wreck. The man was always on edge. Paranoid. Seeing monsters and shadows where there were none. We actually tried to have him evaluated once and the sonofabitch ran away. We figured he was at that drug house on another month-long high or something. But he came back, swore he was clean and the family took him in. They always rescued him … right up until the end. But that last year? He acted strangely, I’ll tell you that much. Whoever wanted him dead really wanted him dead. And,” the voices in the background faded as if Robert was stepping into another room, “whoever it was fucked him up, son. Really fucked him up.”

Chikae used the crock of his elbow to wipe his forehead, running it over the top of his skull. The house felt like it was 1000°. He was being ridiculous. DeMarco got what he deserved in the end for a lifetime of abusing others. Though they were suffering, he couldn’t help them, the most recent victims of DeMarco’s narcissistic personality. Anger boiled inside him. Not at them, not even at the situation, but at DeMarco.

“What you mean?”

“They skinned him, son. Skinned and burned.”

Robert’s comment was a punch in the gut. An accidental “fuck” slipped.

“My thoughts exactly,” Robert laughed on the other end of the phone. It was an appropriate laugh, not too humored, not completely sad. The tone was gone. Robert was serious again. “We’re sorry about this, sorry about troubling you. Sorry about ruining your Christmas Eve. Gwen felt it was important for you to know because … you know …”

“Sir, did DeMarco ever mention anyone? You know, who he was afraid of?”

Robert scoffed. “Crazy talk, son. Nothing but crazy talk from that kid.”

Chikae swallowed hard. A sweat bead slunk its way down his spine toward the crack of his ass. “What did he say?”

A big sigh from Robert before the moment of madness. “He always talked about ‘the burning man’, son. He said the burning man was after him.” An awkward pause followed the statement. “Told you, it was crazy talk.”

But Chikae didn’t hear much of anything. The world was a blur, all sounds snuffed out beneath the cover of trauma.

The burning man.

He wanted nothing more than to hang up this phone call and pretend it never happened and wake up on Christmas morning with Sonia and Kendrick.

“Thank you, I appreciate that.” It was all he could mutter.

With that, they wished each other a merry holiday and hung up.

Chikae set the phone down on the coffee table and leaned back, letting himself go into deep thought. Typical, fucking DeMarco.

Even a world away, years removed from each other’s lives and beyond the grave, he still haunted Chikae.

He stood and shut off the fireplace. It was hot as hell in the house, so Chikae slid open the balcony door to allow the cool night breeze in. Looking out over the eternal blackness of the Pacific at night, Chikae reflected on his life, grateful for how far he’d come. He thought about DeMarco and the sad life he’d led. But he also thought, reveled, at the fact that he’d overcome that same environment. He’d broken away and not fallen into the traps DeMarco had.

He thought all these things, deeply.

So deeply that he didn’t notice the crackling of the fire until it was too late.

And then Chikae remembered.

He remembered DeMarco’s addiction to setting the world ablaze.

And he remembered the club.

His throat constricted. The sudden, choked breaths didn’t allow him to sob as he remembered doing nothing for the homeless man as he tried to fight his way out of the burning building, dying at the foot of the world.

The same burning man who stood in his living room.

Somewhere in his mind of madness, Chikae saw the burning man’s face, set ablaze by a fire that never died. The hulking presence filled the path between Chikae and his only escape.

From his toes to the top of his head, the burning man raged with the flames of the eternal fire. He took a step toward Chikae and small sparks floated off his body. His footfall thundered on the floor, leaving scorch marks with each step.

Chikae backed up, but there was nowhere else to go. The balcony and the drop to the ground was all that sat behind him.

The burning man stepped closer.

“Please,” Chikae begged. “Please. I didn’t do anything.”

The burning man stepped again. Closer. Reaching out. His fingers glowed yellow. Hot flames arced up, releasing sparks that floated in a slight, slow dance.

Step.

The wall of his balcony pressed against his back. Sonia and Kendrick were in the bedrooms, behind the burning man. Chikae needed to get to them. But the large form of the burning man blocked his path, filling the balcony door. A monstrosity of rage and pain.

There was nowhere to go, nowhere to run.

The burning man’s fiery hand grabbed Chikae’s throat, fire licked his face, searing his cheeks. He wanted to scream but couldn’t. His scorched throat was no longer able to open or close as he was silenced forever.

Before Chikae died, the burning man reached for his face. The sizzle of skin, the smell of burnt flesh, filled Chikae’s nose and ears.

The burning man’s fiery fingers melted into his cheek. Grabbing hold of skin, the burning man began to peel.

END