The Arsonist's Handbook by L.A. Detwiler

Author:L.A. Detwiler
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: L.A. Detwiler
Published: 2021-03-28T00:00:00+00:00

Rule 6: Collateral damage happens sometimes.

I don’t always mean to hurt people, not directly. My focus has always been on the desecration of material items. My sanctimonious display centers around the building or a structure. I do my best to ensure no one will be home. I’m not a serial killer, after all. I ruin lives through the destruction of material items, not through the flesh.

Most of the time.

Even with the best intentions, sometimes collateral damage can’t be avoided, even when you do all the prep work. Sometimes fate steals the reins from your grasping fingers.

I was eighteen the first time someone died in one of my fires. It was on the outskirts of town at a tiny house that was more shack than a residence. The peeling paint, the broken windows—it was a sad excuse for a house. I decided to make it more noteworthy by doing us all a favor and burning it down. It happened during my Robinhood face I mentioned before. The owner, a squat little old woman who liked to harass every cashier at the local businesses, radiated ugliness on the inside. She’d often swatted at the children in the neighborhood who got too close to her lawn. She shot at local cats if they wandered onto her property. And, additionally, she’d called my mother a whore at the bank when we cut in front of her to cash a check.

I had plenty of checkboxes on my list.

Even so, I didn’t plan on killing her that night. I thought I’d show her what suffering looked like. I’d make the blackness of the ashes a reflection of the blackness of her soul. I’d put her in her place. I studied and watched for weeks. Tuesdays were Bingo night when she went to the local fire hall to try to win cash while berating everyone in town if the gossip was to be believed. I made my plan, mapped out my escape routes. I waited for the moment anxiously, the date marked on my calendar.

I didn’t find out until the next day that old widow Tilson hadn’t made it to Bingo that night. Caught up with a cold, she’d stayed in. The investigator hadn’t found proof of foul play—Dad taught me so well. Thus, they ruled it an accident, tracing it back to a faulty cook stove she must’ve left on. The town pretended to mourn for the loss of its gloomiest resident. The lot stood empty. Everyone moved on.

I didn’t, though. There’s something about the first casualty that sits differently in your memory bank. I knew I should feel guilty. I’d killed someone. My flick of a wrist had led to her hideous death. I should’ve been drowning in remorse, choking and sputtering in a sea of moroseness.

Somehow, though, I couldn’t work up any feelings other than exhilaration over getting away with it and awe at the amount of press coverage I drummed up. I didn’t feel an ache in my heart. I didn’t struggle to fall asleep at night.

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