The air was heavy with August, a humid claw raking the nape of my neck. I walked the edge of town, the sky a molten bruise of crimson and orange, when I heard the shouts. Boys' voices—razor-thin, not yet men but eager to prove otherwise. I turned the corner, my feet slowing, unwilling but unable to stop.
They had him in the street. An older man, late forties, maybe early fifties. He had the paunch and stoop of a factory worker or perhaps a clerk too long at a desk. His face was already bloodied, a slick mess of red streaked with dirt. His shirt hung in tatters, exposing skin pale as bleached bone.
The boys circled him like jackals, no older than seventeen, maybe nineteen at the oldest. Their uniforms weren’t official—patched-together fatigues, red armbands with a logo that twisted my stomach: a stylized eagle clutching some grotesque variation of the stars and stripes. Their laughter rang sharp and hollow, a brittle thing, brittle as their innocence lost.
“He’s a traitor!” one of them yelled, a thin, freckled boy whose voice cracked on the last syllable.
“A rat!” another chimed in, shoving the man so he stumbled and fell to his knees. The older man didn’t beg, didn’t speak. His lips moved silently, mouthing prayers or curses, or maybe just the names of people who would never know what had happened here.
I wanted to leave. I wanted to step back around the corner and pretend I hadn’t seen. But my legs betrayed me, locking in place as the scene unfolded.
One of the boys pulled out a jerry can. My stomach dropped.
“Let’s see how well he burns,” the freckled boy said.
The man looked up then, meeting my gaze over the ring of boys. His eyes—dark, pleading, resigned—held mine for a fraction of a second. I did nothing. I said nothing.
The gasoline splashed over him, soaking his ruined clothes, slicking his hair against his scalp. The acrid stench clawed at my throat.
“Traitor,” one of them said again, quieter this time, almost reverent.
The match was struck.
Flame roared to life, a violent, hungry thing. It consumed him, leaping from his clothes to his skin with an unholy speed. His screams split the air, a sound so raw and primal it felt ripped from some ancient, pre-human part of him.
The crowd had gathered by now. Stragglers from the town, drawn like moths to the blaze. Most stood silent, their faces pale and waxen. A few clapped hesitantly, their hands moving like marionettes pulled by unseen strings. A woman gasped, her hand covering her mouth as tears slid down her cheeks.
And then there were those who cheered. Loud, raucous, a vile harmony of approval. I recognized faces among them—my neighbor, the clerk at the hardware store, the man who fixed my car last spring. Their eyes gleamed with something feral, something dark.
The man fell to the ground, still burning, still screaming, his voice cracking as his body betrayed him. The boys laughed, slapping each other on the back like they’d scored a touchdown.
When it was over, when the fire had eaten its fill and the man was a charred husk crumpled on the pavement, the boys walked away. No one stopped them. No one said a word.
I stood there as the crowd dispersed, my legs finally unlocking. My lips parted, but no sound emerged. The smell of burnt flesh clung to the air, mingling with the gasoline’s acrid ghost.
The evening sky darkened, the bruised reds and oranges giving way to an oppressive black.
I walked home in silence, the screams still ringing in my ears.
( Audio by ElevenLabs )
