The Fire That Wouldnt Burn
by: NoSleep
“Are we theeeeeere yet?” asked Mike, in an obnoxious, nasally tone.
“You’re the navigator,” Andy replied flatly, “You tell me.”
Cynthia grunted. “I swear to God, Mike, if you say we’re lost and we wind up in a creepy cabin in the woods and getting picked off one by one…”
Mike fiddled with his phone. “Relax. I’m just kidding. We’re almost there.”
I wrapped an arm around Cynthia’s shoulders and pulled her close to me. “Well I can’t imagine a more romantic way to die than slowly being dismembered by my favorite person on earth.”
“Aww babe,” she cooed.
Mike craned his neck back to look at us. “Uhhh, he meant me.”
Cynthia kicked his seat as hard as she could.
I could hear the annoyance in Andy’s voice as he replied, “Settle down, kids.”
The three of us answered in unison, “Okay, dad.”
He sighed and rolled his eyes. “I should just leave you all on the side of the road.”
“Take the next left,” said Mike, “Not me, though, right? You’d never get rid of me!”
Andy grunted. “Especially you.”
Mike let out a whimper. “I’m hurt. I thought we had something special. All those late night cram sessions…”
The car turned left, onto a narrow gravel path.
“You mean the nights I spent studying and you spent getting drunk in my dorm room hiding from your creepy roommate,” Andy replied.
“Hey! I’m not creepy!” I shouted.
Mike cackled. “HA HA. Buuuuuuuurn!” He stretched in satisfaction and settled back into his seat. “Just keep going straight. The parking lot should be at the end of this road.”
Mike closed his map app and switched to social media. My phone dinged. I’d been tagged in a post. ‘OVERNIGHT CAMPING TRIP WITH THESE LOZERS’. All caps. Losers spelled with a ‘Z’. Classic Mike. Cynthia’s phone dinged seconds later. She looked at the screen, and then at me.
She winked. “I got this.”
She kicked Mike’s seat again. He toppled forward a little bit, then settled back in the seat and chuckled.
Andy pulled up to a slightly wider gravel area. “This looks about right.”
There were a few cars there already, half on the gravel and half on the grass. One of them was so caked in fallen leaves, I couldn’t see inside. It must have gotten caught in the storm a few days before. I remembered having to peel leaves off my own car in the morning. Of course, it hadn’t helped I parked right under a maple tree. My mistake.
We got out of the car and grabbed our camping gear.
“Got everything?” asked Andy.
Mike lifted a case of beer. “Everything that matters!”
I checked the back seat to make sure I hadn’t forgotten anything.
“Ok, so where’s the campsite?” asked Cynthia.
Andy looked around. “There should be a trail somewhere around here.”
I closed the car door and joined the three by the hood. I looked for the trail, but, since the ground was covered in leaves, nothing stood out. It’s hard to find the one dirt path when there’s a blanket of red and yellow all over the place.
Mike pointed towards an opening in the trees. “There!”
Cynthia quirked a brow. “Are you sure that’s the trail? Shouldn’t there be a sign?”
Mike shrugged. “Might have blown away in that storm this week. The wind was so strong, my umbrella flipped THREE times walking from the library to the social sciences building!”
Andy turned towards him. “Wait. What were you doing in the social sciences building?”
Mike turned redder than a tomato dipped in tomato sauce. “Uh. I. Um. I like the fen shui of their study hall?”
Cynthia snickered. “’Ol Mikey over here has a crush on the barista working there.”
“You don’t say,” murmured Andy.
I could see the cogs in Andy’s head start to turn.
Mike waved his arms dismissively. “I-it’s more of a mutual understanding and respect for the art of coffee!” He took a few steps towards the treeline. “It’s really not important. What’s important is setting up camp before dark. Come on, I’m sure this is the way.”
Cynthia grunted. “We are soooooo getting murdered, aren’t we?”
We followed Mike because, honestly? Even if no one was sure he knew the way, no one else wanted to take the lead and be wrong. Mike was an easy scapegoat. We figured we’d double back to the car if he led us down the wrong path and make him wear the proverbial cone of shame for the rest of the trip. It’d be a great team-building exercise. Unfortunately, it looked like he was right, because after trudging along for half an hour, we came across a clearing.
“Well, well, well, look who didn’t lead you right into the arms of an axe murderer?” Mike asked proudly.
“This is your greatest achievement yet, Mikey,” I replied.
The clearing was surrounded by tall pine trees which, based on the amount of pine needles on the ground, hadn’t fared much better in the storm than their non-coniferous brethren. There were two tents around the site. I assumed the muddiest and…uh, pine-needleliest…one belonged to the driver of the truck covered in leaves. There was a large fire pit in the middle of the site with a still roaring fire and a few logs stacked in a circle around it. If the other campers were around, they didn’t bother to say hello.
"Man, these are some messy sons of bitches," Mike said loudly.
He motioned to a few piles of ash and come discarded pieces of clothing scattered around the site.
Cynthia set her gear down and started sweeping pine needles with her foot. “Could be worse. Could be pee jugs.”
Mike shuddered at the thought.
Andy started unloading the tent. “We might fill some tonight.”
Mike’s face drained of color. “Are you serious? Do you know how disgusting that is?” He gagged. “Nope. Not going there. Change of subject. Cynthia, how’s school?”
Cynthia shrugged. “It’s fine.”
It didn’t sound fine, but neither Mike nor myself were going to push her for answers. We were here to relax, not worry about college. I grabbed the assembly instructions while Cynthia finished clearing a spot to pitch the tent. Andy ripped the instructions out of my hands and tossed them in the tent’s carrying case.
“Hey!” I shouted.
“We don’t need that,” he replied flatly.
“You might not need that, but I-”
He pulled a band off the flat tent, and it suddenly exploded into its proper shape.
“In my defense, no one told me you bought a pop-up tent,” I mumbled.
“Pass me the stakes,” answered Andy.
He nailed the tent in place while I helped occasionally by handing him another stake. At least I was being more helpful than Mike, who meandered around the campsite kicking stranger’s dirty clothes into a single pile. I guess he needed the peace of mind of knowing they were all in one place and he wouldn’t be walking on them. Cynthia, in the meantime, tossed our sleeping bags and other belongings in the tent, and then set up our electric grill.
We cooked ourselves hot dogs and sat around the campfire making idle conversation for most of the evening. There might have been a bit of drinking involved.
“Where is everyone anyways?” Cynthia asked.
OK. Maybe a lot of drinking.
I huddled up closer to her to steal her body heat. “What do you mean? We’re all here, babe.”
She pointed to the extra tents. “The sun’s been down for HOURS.”
Andy, sitting on the other side of the flames, narrowed his eyes. The angle of the light made him look sinister. “There’s an old legend around these parts about a dark shadowy creature that crawls into tents in the middle of the night and eats campers alive.”
Cynthia rolled her eyes. “You are so full of shit, Andy. I’m serious. What if they went hiking and one of them, I don’t know, slipped on a mossy rock and fell over the side of the mountain and his friend tried to save him but also slipped down and now they’re both almost dead at the bottom of a canyon, quietly trying to scream for help but their throats got crushed and they can’t make a sound? Or, I dunno, they’re lost? Shouldn’t we try to find a ranger?”
“I don’t think this park has rangers, does it?” I asked.
Mike shrugged. “No idea, man.”
Cynthia started shivering, so I held her tighter.
“Ok well, whatever. We’ll let those poor souls suffer and die at the bottom of a cliff,” said Cynthia.
Andy stared at the crackling fire in front of him. “I’m sure they’re fine. They left just before we showed up, so I guess they’re used to hiking in the dark.”
Mike snorted. “How d’you figure that, Sherlock?”
He motioned to the fire. “The fire was burning when we got here. That means someone was around to tend to it.”
Cynthia shivered. “Brrrrr! I’m going to get my sleeping bag.”
She pried herself free and stumbled to the tent. The sudden absence of her body heat made me shiver.
“It really is cold,” I mumbled.
Andy shrugged. “Get closer to the fire, then.”
I got up, rolled my log a few feet closer, and sat back down. It didn’t help.
“You’re still shivering,” Mike said.
“Yeah, well, it’s still really cold,” I replied.
He grinned and tossed me a beer. “This should warm you up!”
I popped the cap off and chugged it like a nerd trying to prove he’s cool enough to join a frat. I felt a flush of warmth radiating from within me, but it didn’t keep the cold from seeping in.
“There’s something odd about the fire,” Andy said.
Mike looked up. “Huh?”
“Has anyone fed it since we got here?” Andy asked.
I shook my head, so did Mike.
“Didn’t think so,” he replied. “Either one of you up for a game of fire chicken?”
“Fire what?” asked Mike.
“It’s when you play chicken with a fire. Two people slowly move their hand towards the flame. The first one to pull away loses,” I explained. I looked at Andy. “I’m game.”
I didn’t understand what Andy had in mind, but I was always up for drunken shenanigans. We stood on opposite ends of the fire. The look in Andy’s eyes was intense. I’d only ever seen that amount of focused determination during midterms. He stared at that fire like he’d just caught it in bed with his girlfriend, mom, and grandma. We stretched our arms out.
“Ready?” asked Andy.
“Ready.” I replied.
Mike bounced in his seat. “Set. GO!”
We mirrored each other in speed, but not in intensity. Andy was trying to prove something, while I was just having dumb fun. He took a step, I took a step. My arm felt cold. Or was it hot? It was hard to tell. There was something heavy in the air, overwhelming me with dread.
“This is stupid,” I whispered.
Andy didn’t pull away, so neither did I.
“Christ almighty, what are you DOING?” shouted Cynthia.
I started to turn to look at her, but Andy, with his damn cat-like reflexes, reached through the flames and yanked my hand in.
“What the fuck are you doing?” I screamed.
He held me there for a good thirty seconds before I realized something: the flames didn’t burn. I looked at Andy incredulously. He let me go and focussed his attention on the fire. He knelt down and hovered his hand at the bottom, where the flames were supposed to be hottest.
Cynthia hopped over to us like a kid in a potato sack race, with her sleeping bag zipped all the way up to her neck. She was speechless.
“Dude, doesn’t that hurt?” Mike asked.
Andy wiggled his fingers. “No.”
“The fire’s not hot,” I told Mike.
Mike stared at us. “What do you mean the fire’s not hot? It’s FIRE!”
I backed away and stumbled, landing on my log. It was like I’d waved my hand through thin air. Scary thin air, like the kind you find in a dark room as you paw around trying to hit the light switch, but thin air nonetheless. Cynthia dropped next to me, her eyes on my arm rather than Andy’s. I could tell she was trying to size it up to see whether I’d burned myself. When she saw I was fine, she unzipped her arm free and whacked me upside the head.
“What the HELL were you thinking?” she screamed.
“Nothing, I-” I whispered.
“How stupid can you be? Do you know how PAINFUL third degree burns are? Do you have any idea how hard they are to treat?”
I should have known her internship in the burn unit was bothering her. She hadn’t been the same since she started it.
“Look, I’m okay,” I whispered, wiggling my fingers.
She looked away coldly. “I worry about you sometimes.”
“Duuuude this is so fucking cool,” screamed Mike.
He’d joined Andy by the fire. Andy pulled his arm out and gave Mike room to play as he inspected his skin. It looked fine. Mike swung his arms horizontally, cutting through the flames. He looked like he was having the time of his life.
“How’s this even possible?” Cynthia asked.
Mike jumped into the fire pit. “Maybe it’s a hologram?”
“I don’t see a projector,” answered Andy, scanning the area.
Mike shrugged and began to dance a weird fake tribal dance in the middle of the fire pit. “Fear me, mortals,” he bellowed, as he waved his arms and stomped his feet to an unheard beat, “I am Ra, god of FIRE!”
“Sun,” corrected Andy, “Ra is the god of the sun.”
Mike ignored him. He spun around and lifted his arms to the sky, “I AM RA! GOD OF FIRE!”
Through it all, the flames never seemed fazed. They never faltered, never weakened, and never swayed as a direct result of Mike’s movements. Maybe he was right about it being a hologram.
“We need to document this,” said Andy, pulling out his phone to record what was happening.
You would think the novelty of the fire wouldn’t wear off too quickly, but it did. You can only stare into a funhouse mirror for so long before it stops being funny. With the night getting colder and the fire not providing us anything in terms of warmth, we retreated to the tent about an hour later. A tent which might have struggled to fit four adults comfortably, but definitely didn’t fit four drunk adults comfortably. I found myself pinned between Cynthia and Mike, with each snoring in my ear, and Mike drooling in my hair. He kept twitching and smacking me in his sleep. Suffice to say, I didn’t get much rest that night.
Come morning, Mike was holding me in a lover’s embrace. I might have pushed him away, but I’ll take my body heat where I can get it, I guess. Andy was the first to “officially” wake up, and he left the tent before I even had the chance to whisper hello. Cynthia was next, and as soon as she saw the giant slug holding me captive, she whipped him with a shirt like a football coach with a towel in the locker room.
Mike grunted and unhooked from me. “I was having such a nice dream.”
“How d’you sleep, babe?” asked Cynthia.
“Pretty well,” answered Mike.
“Annnnd I just threw up in my mouth. Thanks, Mike.”
I laughed. It was great seeing my friends and girlfriend getting along.
“Where Andy?” Mike asked.
“Outside,” I answered. “I’m joining him. Come out when you’re ready.”
I yawned and got up. Well, crouched up. There wasn’t enough room to properly stand in our tent. I left the tent and heard all my bones cracking in protest as I stretched myself straight. Andy was sitting by the fire taking a million photos.
“It’s still going?” I asked.
“Yup,” answered Andy. “I think I’m going to come back with some equipment. Try to figure out what’s going on here.”
“Ok, well in the meantime, you want to help me pack up? I’m dying for a shower.”
“Yeah.”
We kicked the two sleepier ones out of the tent and started rolling up sleeping bags and disassembling the tent. Sans-instructions, might I add. Within about an hour, we were ready to leave. Andy snapped a few extra photos, and we went back down the trail.
We never did see the other campers.
We dropped Cynthia off first, and then headed to the dorms. All I could think about was my bed, with its warm down comforter, fluffy pillows, and all that glorious room to sprawl out on. Once home, Mike made a beeline for the fridge, and I went right for my bed, throwing my coat in the laundry hamper before passing out on my pillow. I vaguely recall hearing my phone ring at some point, but I was off in dream land.
A sharp, stinging sensation woke me up a few hours later. I opened my eyes, but the smell hit me before my brain could process the images. Something was burning. I felt a spike of adrenaline as I saw smoke rising from the laundry hamper. I jumped to my feet and ran to it, finding flames chewing up my coat’s right sleeve. I pulled it out and quickly tossed it in my bathtub before it could spread to anything else…or so I thought. Now that my attention wasn’t split anymore, I noticed the fibers of my shirt’s right sleeve slowly sizzling with microscopic ambers.
My entire arm was in agony. I couldn’t tell if it was searing hot or frozen cold, I just kept getting hit with wave upon wave of terrible, radiating pain. The only thing more sickening than the feeling was the smell. A disgusting scent like rancid beef on a frying pan. My sleeve had become a wick, and the wick was burning, no, melting. I ripped the shirt off without thinking. I could feel my skin pulling as I did it. Pieces of skin stayed on the shirt, pieces of shirt stayed on my skin. I could see the melted, woven fabric embedded into the reddened surface of my skin. My arm became a patchy mess of red and sickly yellow, like a blanket of autumn leaves on a forest floor. I didn’t know what to do. I needed someone to tell me what to do.
My phone went off.
Somehow, through the agonizing pangs of pain blurring my mind, I managed to grab the phone.
Andy was calling, and I had a new voicemail.
I picked up.
“Get Mike to a doctor NOW,” he shouted, with no regard for my well-being.
But I think he’d figured out what was happening, whereas I could only think about how much pain I was in and how nothing I did could make it stop. The burn didn’t get worse, but the pain wasn’t letting up for a second. It was excruciating.
“The doctor, Mike, now,” Andy insisted.
I could hear him say it through gritted teeth. He was choking back the tears that were already falling from my eyes. The authority in his voice was enough to snap me into action. I ran out of my room, whining at every air current that licked my raw, bubbling skin.
“Mike,” I whimpered.
Why was it so hard to speak? My arm was burnt, but my throat worked just fine. I think the problem was having to speak through the need to scream. Mike was sitting in front of the TV. He looked at me, then winced at the sight of my arm.
“Holy shit, dude. What the fuck happened?”
“Doctor,” I stuttered.
“Yeah man, I’ll call an ambulance. Holy fuck.”
I was shaking. I wanted it all to stop. I wanted someone to knock me out so I wouldn’t be able to feel the pain anymore. Mike called 9-1-1 while I stuck my arm in the freezer, feeling very little relief. I couldn’t even tell you how long it took for the paramedics to get there. I was in shock.
When they arrived and ripped me away from the freezer, I remember hearing Andy’s voice again in my head. Get Mike to a doctor NOW. I was dazed. Disoriented. I couldn’t think. I could barely breathe, but at the pit of my stomach, I knew I had to get the message across.
I pointed to Mike and screamed, “Him!”
They all seemed very confused, even Mike. One of them said he could ride along. That was enough. I tried to give in to my need to pass out, but the spikes of pain refused to let me. I simultaneously remember every single minute of agony spent in the back of that ambulance, and yet I couldn’t tell you if it took two minutes, ten, or thirty. I just remember, at some point, Mike’s screams drowned out my own.
My admittance into the ER was a blur. People kept asking me questions. Something about chemicals. I couldn’t answer. I remember seeing Mike thrashing in the background. I remember seeing Andy sitting on a hospital bed. I remember a needle.
The pain in my arm started to decompress, and the panic slowly subsided. Then, it hit me. Whatever happened to me probably happened to Andy, and would probably happen to Mike.
And then my stomach dropped.
Andy and I had put our arms in the fire. Mike had jumped in. Mike had danced in the flames that wouldn’t burn. He’d spent so much time in there dancing and laughing and making a royal ass of himself.
“Make it stop!” he screamed. “It hurts!”
I could hear him all the way down the hall. I jumped to my feet and ran out of the room. All I cared about was Mike, and trying to help him in whichever way I could. I met a wall of orderlies who held me back. Doctors and nurses were running into Mike’s room.
“Let me through! I need to see my friend!” I screamed.
I had enough adrenaline pumping through my veins that I actually thought I could overpower them, but I guess that was just in my head. They were accustomed to dealing with grieving family members. It wasn’t any effort on their part to hold me back.
A bright, flickering light poured out of the doorway to Mike’s room. I heard gasps and prayers and panic all around, but nothing was louder than Mike’s last scream. It poured out of him in one, long, horrifying stream. It started rough and primal, but tapered off into the cry of a child looking for his mother. The light went out, and smoke took its place.
All that was left of Mike was a pile of ash, and the stink of burn that spread to every corner of the hospital. It felt like it happened in an instant, but I heard it took over half an hour, and there was nothing anyone could to do stop it. I heard the nurses talking about it. They said his skin melted away, his blood boiled, his fat melted, and he finally caught fire. It all happened very slowly, and he was alive and awake to suffer through it all.
I hope to god that’s not true, because I finally got around to checking that voicemail on my phone.
“Hey babe, just letting you know I’m taking the girls to see that fire! I’ll be back tomorrow. Love you!”
By now, it’s already too late. I know, because I saw the photos she posted online of her and her friends dancing in the flames.
