M Sellars - Never Burn A Witch

Other members of the CSU were closely scanning the stairs with powerful lights, searching for anything out of place. Every now and then one of them would pause, stare intently, and then with an almost dejected fall of the shoulders, continue on.

Near this tightly contained work envelope, a white sheet covered something roughly the size and shape of an average human being. Plastic IV tubes snaked beneath the fabric, and the detritus of various emergency medical supplies littered the ground. Two chalky looking paramedics were carefully and systematically returning the tools of their trade back to their respective cases.

My temples were already beginning to throb.

A trim figure clad in blue jeans and a leather bomber’s jacket stood apart from the center of the activity. I instantly recognized her as a city homicide detective who had pulled several shifts watching over Felicity and me.

Detective Charlene “Charlee” McLaughlin stood almost motionless, her right arm across her chest, palm cupping her left elbow as the appendage angled upward to rest her loose fist against her chin. She stared quietly at the shrouded body, her eyes wide and glazed. She hazarded only a brief, lethargic glance at us as we drew closer.

We stood wordlessly for a long measure before Ben finally broke the silence in a solemn voice, “Fill me in, Charlee.”

“Caucasian, female. Tied to the lamppost and torched,” she said in a thick monotone. “She was still alive when I got here, Ben.”

My friend allowed the comment to rest for a beat before continuing, “You okay?”

“Yeah.” Charlee nodded her head under a thick shag of ash blonde hair. “Yeah, I’ll be all right.”

“They work on ‘er long?”

“Ten minutes. Maybe fifteen. She arrested pretty soon after they got here,” she detailed with a deep sigh. “Probably for the best. From what the paramedics said, she most likely wouldn’t have lived through the night anyway. Just would have been that much more suffering for her.”

“Yeah, well she shouldn’t’ve had ta’ suffer at all,” my friend expressed dully. “Any witnesses?”

“Not that we’ve found yet, but I’ve got some uniforms out looking. I’m not expecting much, I mean, look where we are.” She tossed her hands out palms upward and glanced around. “Not much activity around here in the middle of the night.”

“Yeah, but we can always hope. What about the ranger?”

“He’s giving a statement to Ackman right now. He told me she was already on fire when he pulled up. Says he didn’t even realize she was a person until he started on her with the extinguisher. Called nine-one-one as soon as the fire was out. The uniforms with Osthoff were first on the scene.”

No one had noticed that I was drifting closer to the sheet-covered corpse. Even Felicity was so involved in listening to the conversation that she had missed my slow but steady movement as well. I wasn’t even consciously aware of it until I found myself kneeling next to the body.

“Don’t suppose there was an ID?”

“No, she was nude, just like the others, and the fire didn’t help of course… but from what we can tell she does fit the description of Amanda Stark. We’ll have to wait on the coroner for a positive.

“We did find a Bible.” She pointed at the stairs where another tented marker, this time adorned with the number one, stood next to a book.

“What’d the asshole have to say this time?”

“Pretty straightforward,” Detective McLaughlin replied. “Exodus 22:18. Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.”

“At least he’s consistent,” Ben spat. “I hate ta’ ask, but did the victim say anything before she died?”

“Actually yeah. Didn’t make much sense, and to be honest I’m not sure I heard her right considering what the fire did to her throat and all, but I’d almost swear she said ‘truck.’”

I barely heard her utter the word before my own scream of agony exploded into the foggy night.

“Amanda Marie Stark, in accordance with the thirty-third question, in as much as you stand accused of the heresy of WitchCraft by another of your kind, and as you have admitted these crimes and remain still impenitent…”

Terror, cold and absolute punctures my bowels.

I don’t know how long he has had me captive, but it seems as though it has been forever.

I don’t know how I have endured all that has been done to me.

My mind races…

I remember the taste of a lime green snow cone on a sweltering summer day when I was seven.

I remember getting caught cheating on an algebra exam.

I remember that I have dry cleaning to pick up.

I don’t know why I remember the things I do.

I just do.

I still feel the fear.

Why did I answer the door that night?

I wasn’t expecting anything.

Delivery trucks don’t run that late anyway.

What was I thinking?

“In as much as you have been found guilty, and that you are damned in body and soul, your sentence on this day is death. The sentence is to be executed immediately, without appeal, in the manner of expurgation by fire.”

A single spark in the night.

A faint flickering glow.

A bright explosion fills the darkness.

Fire billows upward across my nude body.

The heat is beyond imagination.

I remember burning my hand as a small child.

I remember the fear.

I feel it anew.

“May the Lord Jesus Christ have mercy upon your soul.” The angry voice reaches me through the rush of the fire.

I hold my breath.

I twist against my bonds.

I want to scream.

That damn truck.

A cold steel talon rips into my shoulder, and I feel myself wrenched violently backward. Cacophonous screaming pierces my eardrums as I hurtle upward.

Downward.

Forward.

Backward.

I no longer know.

I spiral through nothingness.

I am blind.

I am omniscient.

Colors bleed and disappear. Greyness blooms and contrasts itself against the backdrop of space.

A random chord plays out of sync with the universe.

My heart stops.

My heart races.

My lungs tighten and burn.

Hot yellow fire explodes past me.

Thick fog douses the flame.

Reality slams into me full force as dull color erupts into view.

“ROWAN!” Felicity screamed my name as she shook me hard.

I gasped in a deep breath as I snapped my eyes open and stared back at my wife. Ben and Charlee were kneeling on the ground with her, and everything was moving in a mad rush. I saw Charlee gesturing at the paramedics and Ben frantically saying something I couldn’t make out.

I could feel the warm barrier of Felicity’s own shields as she cast them around me to ward off the vision I had inflicted upon myself. My earlier ground had been severed the moment I allowed the veil between life and death to be pierced. I would never have been able to cling to this plane of existence had she not intervened.

Though the supernatural connection between Amanda Stark and myself was effectively cut, the stream of consciousness that had been set into motion was forging ahead unhindered. Memories I might otherwise have considered random flashed before me in an endless stream, repetitive and disorganized. Folding one into the next like an insane exercise in origami.

“… Tracy gived it to me. Did’ju see thuh truck too?”

Delivery trucks don’t run that late anyway.

“… I’m not sure I heard her right considering what the fire did to her throat and all, but I’d almost swear she said

‘truck.’”

I’m crossing the street. A large, black panel van rolls past. A patina of grey and white from salt and road grime dusts its dark exterior.