“Please… don’t burn me alive again”—He returned home early from a business trip and heard a whispered plea. What he found upstairs changed everything…
Chapter 1: An Unexpected Return
My flight from Chicago to Burlington landed two hours earlier than scheduled. I, David Vance, 40, dragged my suitcase through the thick November snow to our house. Our old Victorian mansion nestled in a pine forest, secluded and quiet.
I was supposed to stay in Chicago another night to sign an insurance policy, but I wanted to surprise Elena, my wife. Three years had passed since our daughter, Lily, died in a terrible fire at our old house, and Elena hadn’t really recovered. She had become withdrawn, often locking herself in her room and obsessed with cleaning. I hoped my presence would help alleviate her loneliness during these bleak winter days.
I opened the front door gently. The house was dark, with only a faint yellow light emanating from the second-floor hallway.
“Elena?” I called softly, not wanting to startle her.
There was no answer. Only the wind whistling through the window cracks and the creaking of the old wooden floorboards.
I climbed the stairs. The pungent smell of disinfectant assaulted my nostrils. It was strange. Elena was obsessed with cleanliness, but she usually used lavender, not this strong hospital smell.
As I approached the door of Lily’s old bedroom – the room we had agreed to seal – I heard it.
A groan. Weak, intermittent, but filled with excruciating pain.
And then, a hoarse, raspy voice, like sandpaper scraping against sandpaper:
“Please… don’t burn me alive again.”
I froze. My handbag fell to the floor with a thud.
It was a man’s voice.
A chill ran down my spine. I thought of intruders, drug-addicted thieves. I pulled the Sig Sauer 9mm pistol I always carried (with full CCW license) from my belt.
I crept closer to the slightly ajar door. A strange red light emanated from within.
“Please… I’ve confessed everything… spare me…” The voice spoke again, this time a sob.
I kicked the door open.
“Police! Stay still!” I yelled reflexively, my gun pointed at the room.
But the sight before me nearly made me drop my gun.
Chapter 2: The Red Room
My daughter’s room was no longer a bedroom. It had transformed into an operating room, or rather, a torture chamber.
The walls were covered in white plastic sheeting. In the middle of the room was an old dental chair. And on it, a man was bound tightly with leather straps.
He was naked from the waist up. His skin was bright red and blistered. But not from fire.
Standing beside him was Elena.
My wife. The gentle, frail woman I’d always worried about. She was wearing a rubber apron and medical gloves, and in her hands were neither a knife nor a gun.
She held an industrial hairdryer and a bottle of concentrated capsaicin.
She was applying the capacitance to the man’s skin, then using the hairdryer to blow hot air onto it. Medically speaking, that sensation is equivalent to a second-degree burn, but it doesn’t leave permanent scars and doesn’t kill the victim instantly. It mimics the feeling of being burned alive.
Elena turned to look at me. She wasn’t startled. Not afraid. Her eyes were icy, emotionless.
“You’re home early, David,” she said, her voice calm as if asking if I wanted dinner.
“Elena… What the hell are you doing?” I stammered, lowering my gun but not putting it away. “Who is this guy?”
The man on the chair lifted his head. His face was swollen, his nose and tears streaming down. But I recognized him.
It was Mick “The Torch.” An alcoholic from the next town, once suspected of serial arson but never caught due to lack of evidence.
“Why is Mick here?” I asked, my head spinning.
Elena turned off the hairdryer. She took off her gloves.
“Do you remember what the police said about the fire at our house three years ago, David?” Elena asked. “They said it was an electrical short circuit. An accident.”
“Yes… so what?”
“They were wrong,” Elena walked to the metal table, where medical instruments were laid out. “I didn’t believe it. I spent the last three years investigating. I hired a private investigator. I followed him.”
She pointed at Mick.
“Last week, I caught him drunk at the bar. I brought him here. After three days of… ‘therapy,’ he confessed.”
“What did he confess to?”
“He burned down our house, David. He poured gasoline in the basement. He killed Lily.”
Rage surged through me. I looked at the man groaning in the chair. I wanted to lunge at him and finish him off immediately.
“Get out of the way, Elena,” I raised my gun. “I’ll call the police. He’ll pay the price.”
“No,” Elena shook her head. “He’s already paid the price. But that’s not why I’m keeping him here until today.”
“What do you mean?”
Elena looked straight into my eyes. Her gaze pierced my soul, sharp and ruthless.
“He said he didn’t do it alone, David. He said he was hired.”
My heart skipped a beat.
“Hired? Who hired him?”
Mick groaned in his chair, “I’m sorry, Mr. David… she forced me… she hurt me so much…”
I froze. He called my name.
Elena walked slowly toward me.
“He said,” Elena continued, her voice trembling.
His voice became choked with emotion, yet filled with hatred. “The man who hired him was a man who wanted to collect the home insurance money to pay off his gambling debts. A man who thought his wife and daughter would be away that weekend, but unexpectedly, Lily was sick and stayed home.”
Elena pulled a phone from her apron pocket. It was my phone. The old phone I thought I’d lost in the fire.
“Mick kept it. He picked it up at the scene. He kept it to blackmail you, but he didn’t get a chance before you moved.”
She played a recording.
My voice rang out, clear and distinct, from three years ago:
“Burn it all, Mick. I need the insurance money. I’m going to take Elena and Lily on a picnic. Make it look like a short circuit.”
Chapter 3: The Burnt Truth
I recoiled, bumping into the door frame.
The naked truth had been revealed.
Right. I did it. I owed the New York mob $500,000. They threatened to kill my whole family. I thought burning down the house to collect the insurance was the only way. I had planned it meticulously. But Lily got a fever, Elena canceled the trip at the last minute. I tried to call Mick to cancel the plan, but he turned off his phone to carry out the plan.
I killed my daughter.
“Elena… listen to my explanation…” I lowered the gun, tears welling up. “I didn’t mean to… I was forced…”
“You were forced?” Elena screamed. It was the first time she’d raised her voice since I walked in. “You sold our lives for your debts? You played the role of a grieving father for the past three years while you were the one holding the knife?”
She lunged at me, slapping me hard across the face.
“I trusted you! I loved you! I thought we’d get through this together! But it turns out, I’m sleeping in the same bed as the man who killed my child!”
“What are you going to do?” I asked, looking at the gun in my hand. I could shoot her. I could kill Mick. I could bury this secret again.
But looking into Elena’s eyes, I felt dead. My soul had died three years ago.
“I won’t kill you, David,” Elena said, backing away, standing beside the torture chair. “Death is too easy. Mick taught me that. Physical pain is what truly makes people regret.”
“Are you going to report me to the police?”
“No,” Elena laughed, a twisted laugh. “The police will put you in jail. You’ll get food, you’ll get to sleep. No. I have another plan.”
She looked at Mick.
“Mick, I’ll let you go. On one condition.”
“Any conditions, ma’am!” Mick nodded repeatedly.
“Go tell David’s creditors in New York that he’s here. And tell them that David is holding the $1 million insurance money that he lied about losing.”
My face went pale.
“Elena! You’re killing me! They’ll skin me alive!”
“Yes,” Elena nodded. “That’s exactly what I want. I want you to feel the fear Lily felt when the flames engulfed her. I want you to run away, I want you to suffer every day.”
She threw the phone – the only evidence – into the electric fireplace in the corner of the room.
“I don’t need legal proof, David. I need my own justice.”
Chapter End: The Ghost in the Snow
Elena untied Mick. The man rushed out of the room, disappearing into the snowy night, carrying my death sentence.
I stood there, the gun in my hand rendered useless.
“Go,” Elena said, turning her back to me. “Leave my house. You have an hour before I call the Sheriff to report an intruder. And you have about 24 hours before the gangsters find you.”
“Elena…”
“Don’t call my name. My husband died in that fire. You’re just a ghost.”
I backed out of the room, down the stairs, and out into the freezing snow.
The door slammed shut behind me.
I stood in the pine forest, listening to the howling wind. I had no home, no family, and my time was running out.
Mick’s plea echoed in my head: “Please… don’t burn me alive again.”
I realized Elena didn’t need to use fire to burn me alive. She had thrust me into a freezing hell, where I would be consumed by guilt and fear until my last breath.
I trudged through the snow, knowing I would never find warmth again.
