Like a Scorched House on Fire

by H.L. Fullerton

He'd burned down the house three times, and yet still it stood. White-skinned. Two stories squatting over a grave-deep basement. Nine eyes and devil-black mouth in the front; a set of eyes on each side and five watching its back. It was the type of home that got the drop on its inhabitants; no one ambushed it. There weren't any trees left–at least some things stayed dead.

Fourth time. Fourth. Time, he muttered as he furiously sloshed acetone across floorboards and walls. Good ole number four. Lucky like a clover. Fourth try would work.

The first time he used paper and matches. He was five and knew little about starting fires. His mom always warned him not to play with matches so when he realized the house had to go, that it was dangerous, he walked through the house dropping lit matches upon crumpled flyers until the entire thing went up like a tinderbox. The firemen barely got him out in time. Survival was something he hadn't yet understood.

The second time he used dynamite. Flying splinters everywhere. The third should've been the charm. It wasn't. Turned the blue shutters black with soot, but a little mascara on its face was all the change he managed.

But this fourth time will work. Four: like earth, wind, fire and water. Like
cardinal points, like apocalyptic horsemen. Four was a good number, productive.

He shouldered open a bedroom door, the room where he once slept. Saw it was still burning from last time. He didn't let that stop him. He doused the room, sweat and smoke stinging his eyes. The fuel didn't catch when flames licked at it with greedy tongues.

"You can't trick me!" he yelled, which triggered a coughing fit. Each cough sent out a fine spray of memories, coating furniture and picture frames and light switches with tiny, twinkling images of happy mornings THAT NEVER HAPPENED. Lying house, trying to suck you in and never let you go, he thought. "Can't trick me, can't trick me," he muttered and redoubled his efforts to coat every speck in flammable liquids.

Satisfied, he'd done a thorough job, he stumbled down the steps and out the soot- mouthed door, dropping lit cigarettes as he went. He heard the whoosh, felt the crackle, tasted the flashpoint, and knew it was good.

He waited at the end of the long, curved drive--for the walls to cinder, the roof to cave, the house to fall. For sirens and flashing lights and angry questions.

Exhausted, he napped--and woke to the sound of crows. At the end of the drive, the house still sat, smug as a magpie cat.

Fifth time, he thought. Five senses. Five fingers. The fifth dimension. Pentagrams. Five like the age of his first fire.

Five would work.

H.L. Fullerton writes fiction—mostly speculative, occasionally about not-so-sweet homes; uses words instead of emoticons; likes semi-colons and the occasional interrobang; might be in trouble with prepositions; loves lists and bullet points; believes apostrophes are commas gone wild; saves dangling participles (sometimes); has upwards of 75 short stories published in places like Mysterion, Tales to Terrify, Lackington's, Underland Arcana, and Kaleidotrope. On Bluesky as @HLFullerton.bsky.social