Lit

Get lit.

It was done. There was no undoing it now. It was not like they would ever unbury their friend. That would be cruel. The three friends made a unanimous decision to put it behind them and move on. Still, the event deserved to be acknowledged with a night in the forest.

Kevin frowned at his lighter, failing to light a cigarette.

“Don’t use the fire to light it,” Helene suggested, predicting his next move.

Kevin slowly reached the cigarette toward the campfire and drunkenly watched two fingers get too close to the flames before feeling it. “Ouch.” He withdrew, half the cigarette on fire, and took a drag.

Joachim just shook his head.

The dynamic was off, but who could blame them? Murdering and burying a member will do that to even the best of friend groups.

“…we went above and beyond,” Helene assured herself - and her friends.

Joachim lifted his eyebrows. “No one will find him.”

During even the slightest pause in the conversation, each one gazed into the fire solemnly. The brush around them stirred occasionally. Above them, the dense summer tree crowns hid the moon and stars.

Joachim lifted his head, about to add something, when the fire was suddenly sucked into the ground, disappearing without a trace. Not a single ember remained. In an instant, everything plummeted into complete darkness around them.

“What happened?” Kevin chuckled, his voice disembodied by the night.

“It was like letting the thumb off a lighter,” Helene added.

“I’ll relight it,” Joachim said - and then his entire body burst into flames.

He burned with tremendous fury for five short, long seconds. The one-man inferno cast light onto Helene and Kevin’s horrified faces. It happened too quickly to act, and ceased so quickly that it was pitch black again by the time the thump of Joachim’s body collapsing to the ground sounded.

Helene screamed.

“Joachim!?” Kevin cried, without reply.

Then Helene burst into flames. Everything lit up again, like a returning heartbeat, jumping from place to place.

Kevin screamed something, trying to come closer, but the fire’s intensity made it impossible to even approach Helene. The pattern was confirmed when the thud of Helene’s lifeless body hitting the ground could be heard in dead, absolute, darkness.

A warm, crisp scent hung as thickly in the air as the blackness it inhabited. Kevin could taste it and threw up. He was convinced that, at any minute, he too would roast.

When the fire spawned softly back between the logs, Kevin let out a soft, surprised yelp. He nearly fell over a small chair when he noticed the stranger sitting on the other side of the fire. A very thin man, with large eyebrows. He was wearing a plain black suit. The attire made him look out of place in the forest, but his face suggested he was right where he intended to be. Calm and certain.

The stranger fished a cigarette from his breast pocket and gestured for a match to light it.

Kevin took out his lighter and, with a shaking hand, demonstrated that it did not work.

The stranger’s lips tightened around the cigarette as he took a drag from. It seemed to have lit itself. He winked his cloudy white eye at Kevin and smiled.

“Thanks for not running,” the stranger purred, with a tired timbre in his voice.

“Am I being spared?” Kevin asked.

The stranger raised his thick brows and considered the question. “Yes - you’re special.”

“Why?” Kevin cautiously took a step closer.

“It’s time for me to bow out,” the stranger said, blowing a thin jet of smoke into the campfire. “You’re the last in a long career.”

“I don’t understand.” Kevin retreated his step.

The stranger flicked the remainder of the cigarette into the fire, smiling wryly. “Few do.”

“Huh?”

“Break time’s over,” the stranger announced while slowly rising to his feet. “Again, thanks for not running, kid.”

With that, the flames vanished from between the logs, plunging everything back into darkness. For a few seconds.

Written by: J. Gaasdal-Bech

E-mail: pepwritesshortshots@gmail.com