Kenji’s men circled the base. One of them lifted a jerry can and the liquid caught the light as it arced through the air.
Gasoline. That’s what he’s pouring.
The flames roared higher, hungrier, and another man threw wood onto the pile like he was stoking a fucking campfire.
Why the fuck are they burning people outside?
And that was when I realized that the white flakes were not snow. . .they were ash.
Now trembling, I looked up at the flakes, still drifting past the window, still dancing on the heat, still so delicate and beautiful, and my stomach turned to ice.
Ash. Human ash.
I froze.
I'm going to be sick.
I dragged my eyes back to the flames. I didn't want to look, yet I couldn't stop.
I spotted a man’s face in the mountain. His mouth was frozen open like he’d been screaming when he died. Then, his skin bubbled, split, and peeled back.
Stop. Don’t look. Turn away.
Still, I watched the fire eat through his face. . .to the red, wet muscle underneath.
A hand was poked out of the pile. Possibly a woman's hand. Those slender fingers curled into claws like she was trying to crawl free and escape.
Oh fuck.
The flesh slid off the bone.
Just slid off.
Wet.
Glistening.
Peeling away in sheets while the fire crackled and popped due to moisture escaping the bodies.
Fat rendering.
Human fat.
It liquefied and dripped down through the pile, sizzling within the flames, and that smell.
No. . .that fucking smell. . .
I gagged on hot air.
That wasn’t Christmas ham. It’s fucking. . .bodies burning.
I looked at one body in the middle. The long hair ignited. A halo of flame around a skull—there and gone in seconds—and the body slumped, shifted, moved like it was still alive, but it wasn't alive, it was just the fire eating through the structure, the muscles burning away, making the dead dance.
Stop. Make it stop. I can't—
Beyond the pyre, people stood there, watching. Men and women with sad, shocked expressions. They just watched with hollow eyes while the flames lit their faces orange.
And the most terrifying reality crashed into me.
