The Burned Man

Sophie was not a worrier.

But for the first time in their marriage, her husband was distant, distracted. Danny evaded her gentle inquiries, blaming his detachment on stress at work. He spun a story of colleagues not seeing eye to eye; him caught in the middle. But Sophie knew her husband. His mood was more than some office spat. He was permanently on edge; he fidgeted ceaselessly.

It all came to a head one night. She had crawled out of bed to take a trip to the loo. His side was empty. Rubbing her eyes, she had discovered him at the window in their front room. He was just standing there in the dark, shaking in terror, staring out into the street.

He had mumbled something about a bad dream. She brought him back to bed, not believing a word of it, but kept her confrontation till the next day.

“It’s going to sound really stupid, Soph,” he had said, rubbing his scalp. His speech was jagged with adrenalin, betraying genuine fear.

“I think someone has been following me, watching me.”

Alarms bells went off. Sophie’s husband was a sensible, middle-of-the-road kinda guy. He was not one for derring-do; not one for pranks. He was a middle management accountant for a company which printed whisky labels, not a gangster or even a serial philanderer. The notion someone was stalking him was incongruous.

“What do you mean?”

Danny rubbed his face with both hands. His eyes blazed with secret devastation.

“I can’t explain it. I’ve just seen … I’ve seen some things. It’s making me doubt my own eyes, Soph.”

Sophie had her arms around him now, and kissed his cheek.

“You’re scaring me, baby. What is it? What’s going on?” Her voice was trembling.

Danny gritted his teeth and pondered. She knew he was holding back, perhaps to protect her.

“Jesus Christ, Daniel, whatever is happening … you’ve got to tell me and tell me now,” she insisted.

Danny nodded like a little boy.

“I was heading down to the bus stop. I saw this man. He was standing in a doorway on the other side of the street just under the railway arches. I thought he was just some drunk, or a junkie. A taxi flashed past me and then the guy was at the edge of the pavement staring right at me. His face … his face was terrible, Soph.”

“What do you mean, Daniel, I’m not following?”

“Half of his face was like a mask. All horrible burns and scars across his brow and down one side. His eyes were … ablaze. It was like he knew me, like he hated me. Like he wanted to harm me in some way. I can’t really explain it.”

Sophie retreated to logic.

“Was he out of the soup kitchen, love? Just some poor down-and-out? Maybe the worse-the-wear for drugs? He couldn’t have meant you any actual harm.”

“But it was the way he was looking at me, Soph. Like he knew me. I felt like he wanted to kill me.”

Sophie sat back and rubbed her husband’s shoulders, gently kissing his cheek.

“This guy has really got under your skin,” she said, kissing him again. “But whoever he is, he has nothing to do with you. He’s just some random idiot on the street.”

“But Soph … I’ve seen him again. I’ve seen him a few times.”

A coldness ran down her spine like the edge of a dagger’s blade. Sophie withdrew her arms from him; as if her caress had been suddenly plunged into icy water.

“You think he’s following you?”

“I don’t know, love. But I’m scared. There’s something familiar about him and it’s freaking me out.”

“We need to speak to the police, Danny. What does this guy want?”

Danny was agitated, and lashed out at her.

“How the hell do I know?”

He stood up, rubbing his hands over his scalp again. This was his nervous tic, one Sophie knew well. Danny turned, and saw how upset his wife was.

“Sorry, honey, I didn’t mean to snap. I should have told you about this before now. I think I’m losing it.”

“It’s okay Danny … it’ll be okay.” Sophie took his hand, encouraging him to sit.

“Take me through this so we can tell the police. Tell me the times you’ve seen this guy.”

“The first time was under the railway arch. But a couple of days after that … do you remember I had that retirement lunch for Amy?”

“At the Spanish Steakhouse,” Sophie said, confirming. “You said you loved the padron peppers.”

“Aye … well when we were all heading back to the office, I saw him then. He was standing at a set of lights on George Street. He was wearing a camouflage hoodie. The hood was up, but he was there, plain as day. When saw me and pulled his hood down. We made eye contact and his face contorted. The burns on his face seemed to flare. He was really growling at me.”

“Did he confront you?”

“No, nothing like that. But I know he was real, Soph. After we passed by Amy asked me about him. ‘Did you see that guy with the burns,’ she said. ‘I wonder what happened to him’. She said something like that, I think. Big Alec saw him as well.”

Sophie felt like she could be sick. Whoever this man was, following her husband, he was real. She felt threatened, and vulnerable.

“We need to call the police now,” she said, trembling. “You should have told me about this guy sooner.”

Danny saw that his wife was shaking.

“I didn’t want to frighten you,” he said, taking her hand. Sophie clocked a flash in his eyes. It was a look she knew well – he was holding back. There was something more to this.

“You’ve not told me the whole story,” she said, withdrawing.

“Last night, when you found me at the window …”

“What about it?”

He whined, rubbing his scalp. That nervous tic again.

“What about it Danny? What about last night?” she asked, agitated.

“He was there,” he said, meekly.

“Outside our house? Outside my house, Daniel? Who is this guy? We need to get the police right now.”

She reached for her mobile, but he stopped her.

“You need to hear it all, first. Then we’ll call them, I promise.”

She looked at her husband, mortified, unsafe. Sophie had never felt anything like this before. At least, not with Danny.

“I couldn’t sleep all night, but when I did, I had an awful nightmare. I had to get up and clear my head. I was standing at the window stretching my back, and I saw him. He was across the road, standing right under that streetlight.”

He was pointing at a place just yards from their front door.

“Jesus, Danny, what does he want?” Sophie stuttered, her eyes tearing with fear.

“He was wearing that same camouflage hoodie. He pulled the hood down so I could see his face. He looked at me and he knew me. I mean, he really knew me. That look was purposeful. He wanted me to see his whole face. He wanted me to see his scars.”

“Danny, I’m really scared. Can we lock the doors?”

Sophie did not wait for his answer. She stood up and disappeared to check the front door was locked. It was. She unlocked it and locked it again. Just to be sure, she unlocked it and locked it one more time.

When she came back into the front room, she found her husband standing at the window, hands in pockets.

“Do you remember me telling you about the Tivoli bonfire? The old bingo hall?”

Sophie thought for a moment. Danny had shared little from his childhood with her; this was one of the few stories she knew. “Yes, of course I do,” she said, confused.

Danny had pulled a wee boy out of a bonfire when he was a young lad himself. He palled around with two brothers who stayed next door. One of them had stumbled when leaning in to retrieve something from the fire. Danny had thrust his hand out to grab the boys t-shirt, but missed. The boy fell in the centre of the bonfire. Danny and the brother got him out, but the boy had been horribly burned. 

“That was my nightmare,” he said, absently.

“I mean … that was the nightmare I had last night. About the bonfire at the back of the Tivoli bingo. Me and my two pals throwing things in the fire, seeing what would burn quickest. It was me and … Chris and Gary McCletchie.”

It had been an awful experience. Danny had nightmares about it, even now. She looked at her husband. His face was like an ill-fitting paper mask; his eyes like dark wells of arctic water. He looked away from her, facing out of the window.

“It’s Chris McCletchie. That’s the burned man. He’s the wee boy who fell in the fire. I know it’s him.”

“Oh my God, Daniel, how can you be sure?”

There was a pause.

“Because I’m looking at him now.”

Sophie’s stomach dropped somewhere deep in her bowels. She peered across the street in abject fear.

There, the burned man stood.

He loomed like a gargoyle, and his scarlet face was full of hate.

He stepped towards the house. Though horribly scarred, he was clearly strong and fit.

“Call the police Danny! Call the police!” Sophie screamed.

She grabbed his arms, ducking behind him for safety. Danny fumbled with his phone. They both watched, rooted, as the burned man approached, each step bringing him closer to their home. In moments, he was on their lawn.

Sophie screamed.

The burned man paused briefly to look at her through the window, and as he stood on their fake grass, he raised his arm to point at Danny. His crimson finger was an arrow of blame.

“You did this, Danny boy!” the burned man cried.

Sophie was crying, bubbling with fear. Daniel was shouting their address down his phone.

“I’m on to the police!” he blurted, raising his phone to show the burned man; as if it were a silver shield.

The burned man smiled; a malevolent grimace, and slowly lowered his arm. If he had heard Danny, he did not care.

“You did this to me, Danny!” the burned man raged. He drew his hand up to pull his hood down. Sophie recoiled at the man’s scarring. He ripped the full hoodie off his naked torso and threw it down like a gauntlet, revealing further terrible burns.

He strode to front door and turned the handle.

Danny and Sophie heard the door latch click open. Danny looked at his wife in terror. “Didn’t you just lock the door?” he fretted.

“I did, I did,” she cried.

But the door opened.

“Oh Jesus,” she stuttered, quickly thinking of her efforts. She had locked, unlocked, locked … and then unlocked. In her panic she had left the door unlocked.

The burned man burst into the front room, confronting them. He slapped Sophie to the floor and grabbed Daniel by the throat.

“Look at what you did to me, Danny!” he growled.

“He saved you! Danny saved you! It wasn’t his fault,” Sophie cried, grabbing at his arm. The burned man snarled, slapping her down again with the back of his hand.

“Is that what you told your wee wife Danny boy? That you saved me? That you SAVED MY LIFE?”

Daniel was in the clutch of paroxysms of terror. The ghoul before him had been a little boy called Christopher McCletchie, with whom he had played as a child. But the burned boy had become a burned man, and the man had become a demon, with the strength of vengeance in his red hands. He closed his eyes to the horror before him, and the horror of memory.

“Tell her the truth, Danny,” the burned man urged, his voice like crackling coals on a grate.

Daniel tried to escape the fevered grip of the burned man. Sophie got to her feet and grabbed at his arms, her fingernails drawing blood from his scarred flesh. Neither could move him; he was a colossus.

“Tell her what really happened Danny!” he spat.

Danny moaned and opened his eyes. He saw past the wretched, angry face of the burned man to the confused face of his beaten wife. The look she gave him, acceding to his guilt, was a thousand times worse.

“I did it! It was me!” Danny screamed.

The burned man let go his grip around Danny’s neck, and he fell to the floor. Sophie got free and scrambled on the carpet to her husband’s side.

“Danny, what do you mean, what did you do?” she pleaded.

Danny looked at his beautiful wife and took her head in his arms.

“I’m so sorry,” he splurted.

Towering above both of them, the burned man stood with clenched fists, a hate-filled golem.

“Tell her!” he sneered.

“We were just kids, playing, throwing things in the bonfire. It was an accident,” Danny mewled.

But the burned man scoffed. “An accident? Bullshit, Danny boy. You tell her the truth now, or she’s dead.”

“Danny, what does he mean?” Sophie pleaded, her world asunder.

“I … I grabbed wee Chris. I grabbed … him,” he said, pointing to their tormentor.

“We were at the bonfire. It was supposed to be a joke … a joke! You know, like the ones we used to play on each other as kids.”

His wife’s face rippled with fear and confusion. He tried to explain.

“I shouted ‘saved your life’ and grabbed him. You know, to give him a fright. Make him think I was pushing him into the fire. Only … I stumbled when I grabbed him …”

Then the burning man spoke. His voice smoldered with ashen fury.

“And you pushed me in, you bastard. I was just a boy with my whole life ahead of me. And you pushed me in a bonfire … for a joke. Are you laughing now, Danny boy? Are you?”

“No… no! I’m so sorry … Chris, please forgive me,” Danny pleaded.

The burned man scoffed.

“You told the police I fell in. You told my parents I fell in. You made ME believe I fell in. I was just a child, and you made me think I was to blame.”

“Jesus, Christopher … Jesus … I’m so sorry. Please. Please don’t hurt us.”

The burned man leaned down and struck him with the back of his red hand, as his scarred upper lip curled in enmity.

The sting of that strike shook Daniel. Images flashed before his eyes. Awful images, of that terrible day, of a little boy screaming. A little boy whose flesh dripped from his face.

As Danny’s mind was an awful world away, the burned man grabbed Sophie and dragged her, screaming, to the front door. He tossed her onto the lawn like a bag of rags, and retrieved his hoodie. He re-entered the house, locking the door behind him with a single, assured twist.

Scrambling, Sophie got up from the grass to thrust herself at the window. Her husband lay below the burned man, cowering.

The burned man fished inside his hoodie, producing a small plastic bottle. He squeezed the contents over himself, and over her husband. The burned man paused, leering at her through the glass. Where his eyes had been, she now saw two dark pits of hell. He produced a lighter.

She ran to the door, fumbling at the lock, crying, screaming. She ran back to the window. The burned man held his gaze of her, and flicked the lighter into flame. Sophie screamed as he let it drop. Both men whooshed alight. Danny screamed, grabbing, kicking. The burned man batted his efforts away. Slowly, he sat on top of him and held him down, and they burned together.

Sophie howled, running to and fro for help. No neighbour came to their window. No neighbour came to their door. She was alone.

She ran back to the window, gibbering, her mind fractured with horror. The two men were ablaze. Danny was motionless, his blackened body lying crippled and prostrate. She could not see his face, for he had none.

The burned man was atop him, tearing at what was left of her husband; a writhing, living portmanteau of flame and flesh.

“We burn together, Danny boy,” he croaked.

And then, the fire took him.

It took them all.