Third Degree Burns

I was lying in bed when it happened. I had a smoke wedged between my lips, puffing after a long day of work. At my side was a half-empty bottle of Cachaça. I make my potables in a distillery in my basement. Nothing special, just a flask, condenser, and makeshift burner. A crude way to do it, but it works. Don’t have enough things to fill the basement, and emptiness was awkward.

Cachaça is splendiferous. It’s hard, about 50% alcohol, and sweet. Tangy. The traditional way to make it is to sip slowly, and savor every swallow. I gulp it. It’s cheap to make, and I’ve got tons. They say I’m an alcoholic, but I’m just an enthusiast.

I started to feel a bit drowsy, my eyes were half-masting, and my cigarette was ekeing into a stub. I half-rolled, half-slid over to my ashtray on my nightstand, and extended an arm past the bottle of Cachaça to put it out. My hand was nearing the tray, when I accidentally jutted out my elbow and knocked over the container. “Oh shi-” I shouted, but cut myself off when I realized that I had dropped my smoke. It landed dead-center on the alcoholic substance, causing it to go up into flames.

The drink morphed into heat and light, its tongue licking my walls and furniture, speading itself like disease across my shaggy carpet. It had already started on the door before I could scream. My tongue was down my throat, anyway, and my legs were gelatin. Red and orange sprouted up on my bed, and I knew I had to get out. Ash was hot against my cheek, and fear sprouted in my eyes. There was no way out. All exits were alit, I was surrounded my a forge in every direction. I scanned the door, looking for a cool spot to kick down. There was an untouched area near the hinges, but it would not stay there long.

I paced back, and ran to the door, my feet padding on embers. I let out a scream for my life, raised my leg, and forcibly kicked to door. It was already weakened by the flames, knocking it down easily. The floor below my was tile, cool to my bare soles. I ducked down to it, face-flat, and inched myself slowly and caustically towards the stairs. I had to escape now, but I couldn’t keep my head clear with all the smoke. I was getting an oxygen-deprived headache, pounding like a demon on my cranium. I crawled, my leg hair searing.

I was at the stairs with redness dotting my calves. Burns. I couldn’t get down the stairs without standing up, and I couldn’t stand up without choking on Carbon Dioxide. I was stranded. My lungs were crammed with smoke, both cigarette and wild. Why did I take up smoking? It was terrible for my health, and proved to be deadly. The ceiling groaned, and seconds later, a pillar plummeted from above me and landed to my left with a muffled crunk!

Flames curled over from the wood to my arm. My muscles were weak, my body like a bag of cement. blisters sprouted on my once-smooth and coppery skin, pus oozing from burns inadvertedly gained from attacking the door. It was time to take a stand for my life. Mustering my strength, I uneasily took a gulp of air and jerked up. Shimmying down stairs, my feet only touching the edges, as not to break a step, I delicately decended. Suddenly, as my foot hit the landing, fire engulfed my person. Its tongue burned my hair, my arms, my eyebrows. Screaming in pain as skin turned to leather, I collapsed. My life was over. I shut my eyes and waited for the end.

A punting sound came from nearby. I opened my eyes in vain to see a thick-bearded, glasses-bound man, covering a thick mat of hair with a green cap, deftly manuvering the ruins despite his beer belly. I felt his arms wrap around my chest, and it hurt like hell. Hands pulling against scalds ached and astabbed, but I knew I was going to live. I tried to deliver a thanks, but searing pain clenched my jaw shut.

The man dragged me out of the house, and loaded me into the back of a white van. There was nothing in the way, but the carpet stang against my back as he laid me down. I cussed in my head. The man slammed the double doors of the van shut, and moments later, reappeared behind the wheel. And we started driving. At a regular pace, as if this wasn’t an emergency. Not fast, not slow, barely grasping the speed limit we rolled on, pain shouding my body.

He pulled a right turn and stopped the van. It hurt to talk, but I managed to ask him “is this th’ os-pital?” He didn’t say anything. He just scooped my up, one hand on my shoulders, the other in my knee pits. It didn’t look anything like a hopspital. More like a brick alley. I jiggled in his arms as he turned a corner to a brown door. Opening it without seeming to let go of me, I was before an empty warehouse, with nothing but a wood table and crude metal shelves about 100 feet from us. The man walked to the table, and set me down roughly. “What are you ‘oing to do to me?” I asked, tears rolling down my cheeks, and burning as the went. He turned around and rummaged amonst the shelves. “What are you ‘oing to do to me?” I reiterated. It was as though he was deaf. He turned around to face me, with a knife in his hand and a hungry look in his eyes.

The man bent over to me and dug the knife deep into one of my eschars. It hurt like hell, and he dug out an entire plate of skin. It hung floppily as he waved it in front of my face. He brought the flap of skin towards his mouth, and wolfed it down. Hungry for more, he dug out another burn, ripped it off, and ate it. The skin seemed to wilt on his tongue before it disappeared down his throat. The man was a sick, rat-bastard! He dropped the knife and seemed to fall into my arm, opening his manibles wide, chewing on my limb. I cryed silently as I was slowly being eaten. His tongue lolled on my arm skin, tetth tearing off scabs and popping blisters, all being lapped up like a dog eating from its bowl.

He gasped in horrid delight. Eating my charred skin was not enough for him. He searched his metal shelves again, and this time returned with a circular saw. He revved it up and lowered it onto my torso. I was going to die. It was a miracle that the burns had not been enough to put me out, and I was awake to see him lower that saw onto my flesh. Hot blood gushed out of my separated halves, and my eyes darkened.

* * *

The man released his grip of the saw and carelessly slid the legs away from the table. The guy he brought from the fire was unconcious. He lowered his head to the decapitated torso, with the curiosity of a child. Smiling menacingly, he gripped the edges of the table and drove his head into the person’s body. pushing more, like the birth of a child in reverse, he entered to man’s body more and more. Bones gave way, skin spilt to let out guts and bones and gristle. And finally, he was in to body as far as he could go. Smiling in joy, he licked around his newfound surroundings, then curled into a ball, half inside his victim, and fell asleep.

(c) The Desktop, 2006