Conflagration!

By M.D Hickman

Does spontaneous human combustion exist? That is the question fire assistant investigator Roy Honda faces when the cremated body of Michael Fay is discovered in an undamaged bedroom. While his boss is sure the death is nothing more than a smoking mishap, Roy is unconvinced. Digging into the truth, he learns that spontaneous combustion of the human body is indeed real and that high concentrations of metabolic acetone are responsible. But when he discovers this rare and terrifying phenomenon can be triggered by artificial means-in the form of a poison pill-the truth could get him killed.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Mar 12, 2019
• ISBN: 9781644248577

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Conflagration!

M.D. Hickman

Copyright © 2018 M. D. Hickman

All rights reserved

First Edition

PAGE PUBLISHING, INC.

New York, NY

First originally published by Page Publishing, Inc. 2018

ISBN 978-1-64424-855-3 (Paperback)

ISBN 978-1-64424-857-7 (Digital)

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Prologue

Michael Fay slammed the door behind him. He limped to his bedroom, exhausted.

As he sat on the mattress, his cell phone rang. With a grunt, he threw up his hands and stood, weary though, he felt. The cell phone rang a second time. He closed his eyes, narrowed his eyebrows.

Not now. Please don’t call me now.

After a third ring, he collapsed back on the mattress but then answered the phone.

A female voice was on the other line. Michael, you there?

Michael rubbed his forehead. Who’s this?

The woman giggled. It’s me, Michael. Tina. I’m calling to hear how you’re doing.

Michael sighed and brushed aside his graying hair. Oh, Tina, I’m not too well. It’s been a busy day. I’m bushed!

You don’t really mean that!

Michael stretched his legs. I’ve worked eleven long hours today. I just fell on my bed less than a minute ago. I need a nap, is all. He let out a yawn.

Tina softened her voice. So I guess tonight is out of the question.

Michael squeezed his eyes shut, as he remembered the date he had planned for Tina. What a fool. He scolded himself for turning down a young sexy lady when here’s the chance to screw his wife behind her back! Rubbing his cheek, Michael imagined it was Tina’s hand on his face, her naked breasts dangling on top of him. That could’ve been the situation tonight—just one of the many extramarital affairs he enjoyed—but now it would have to wait. At least his wife would be out of town for the rest of the month.

We can dine tomorrow, he said in his usual soothing tone to placate her concern.

Tina hesitated half a minute and then raised her voice, almost like a yell. You said that last week! We’ve not gone out in two weeks. Are you ditching me?

Michael chuckled. Oh no, baby! I’m not! I’ve just been overtaxed by my no-good bosses. Come on. First thing in the morning, I will come to your place. At seven sharp.

You better keep your word, she replied, her voice strained.

Michael laughed. Baby, you put me on fire!

Michael then shut off the phone. He placed it on the counter next to his bed and then lay sideways, covering himself under a blanket.

But his blissful rest only lasted an hour. Heat rising under his clothes woke him, but he ignored it. His body tensed, and the oncoming sweat made it difficult to relax. Maybe I should have removed my clothes before going to bed, Michael thought to himself. He sat up to take off his shirt when a burning sensation struck his chest. As he opened his eyes, flames assaulted his face. He chocked, uttered a scream, but it was deafened by the roar of the fire that enveloped his body. Hot gases charred his lungs and then made it impossible for him to utter anything more. In two seconds, he fell back on the bed, dead.

White smoke billowed from the human torch and filled the room. Heat simmered like an oven in a kitchen, melting the plastic shell of a television just overhead; and within the glow of the flame, Michael vanished as the water content of his body turned to steam. Past six minutes the fire died out. The hot bedroom slowly returned to normal temperature. No spread of fire.

Apart from the television, this fire left the bedroom unscathed. What remained of Michael was a foot still wearing a tennis shoe and a handful of black ashes.

Chapter 1

The little girl threw the baseball to her brother. He caught it and pressed it on his palms. He smiled, and he looked down at his feet.

Throw the ball back, come on! the little girl insisted, jumping as she swung her arms.

The boy broadened his smile. You’ll have to catch me first!

He then ran off in the opposite direction. The girl fumed.

You little—come back here! she cried as she chased her brother.

Both children giggled. The older sister managed a grin despite her temper.

It was a pleasant day for baseball. The sun shone on a clear landscape of flat grasses and pine trees across an urban field, with no cloud obscuring daylight. All that shielded the kids from ultraviolet radiation were branches that spread out like cobwebs. Their home was not far, only a quarter of a mile from the baseball park, where they played their pretend sport. In fact, another residence, as safe and familiar to them as they so often played in that area before, rested no more than five hundred feet from the park.

The girl hurried toward her brother and tackled him to the ground, her arms wrapped around his chest. They wrestled a bit, then stopped. A strange sweetish odor registered. Leaving the baseball on the ground, they stood, and there, less than a yard, smoke crawled out of an open window on a one-story house. No fence secured the area, which explained how they stumbled so close to the house. A strange scene, as the house showed no chimney.

They tiptoed toward the window.

I wonder if there’s been a fire here, the young boy of no more than eight years of age pondered.

His ten-year-old sister replied, Maybe. But it must have been a small one.

They had seen house fires on the news before. Typically, from viewing experience, a house tumbles to the ground in a roaring inferno. This house, though, remained unaffected. Only a small stream of smoke drifted out from one tiny corner of one specific room.

They held their backs to the wall and waited for the smoke to clear. In five minutes, the smoke disappeared; then they turned their backs, raised their toes, and glanced at the interior.

The room appeared in pristine condition. A tall bookcase filled with books stood on the opposite wall, along with a six-drawer clothing cabinet not far. Azure fabric ordained the carpet. White walls reflected sunlight, revealing a faint brownish smoke stain on the top left corner opposite the window. At the ceiling, a darkish-brown stain alerted their eyes. They measured this stain as no more than four feet across. Their eyes followed down the ceiling to a melted television set mounted on a side table, and behind that, a bed smoldering, its fabric cackling; and at the center of its mattress, a black burned hole outlined as the shape of a human oozed inward down the floor. Springs melted within the underside of the bed and staining the azure carpet coal black. Their eyes widened, however, when they noticed the unburned shoe and trouser protruding from out the hole.

They saw no more.

* * *

Sirens approached the macabre scene. Fire Marshal Randolph Martin parallel parked between two fire trucks and a Mercedes car as he switched off his sirens. Randolph stepped out of his car and marveled at the undamaged condition of the house, as if there had been no fire at all. Indeed, this house looked as if it was built yesterday, though in fact, it was a decade old. From where he stood, he scanned the exterior. Randolph then maneuvered around the house until he approached the front door. Randolph saw no backdoor, a curious feature. Rubbing his gray hair, Randolph tucked in his shirt and straightened his necktie as he sniffed with his hawk nose and found no odor of interest. He sauntered into the house, his hands in his pockets.

Inside the victim’s bedroom, Randolph’s best investigator, Roy Honda, scribbled notes. He always admired Roy, who he knew was a man of discipline but questioned authority when a situation required it. In his midthirties, Roy stood a quarter foot taller than Randolph and had sandy brown hair, razor-sharp crystal eyes, and a thick goatee around the mouth. Attired in a light-blue jacket with a dark gray collared shirt and necktie, canvass shoes, and belted silk pants, Roy demonstrated the office professional outside the walls of a classroom and made even the sloppiest of death scenes appear as tidy as delicate microscopic software—an impression Randolph like most of all. Roy glanced at Randolph as the latter entered the room, and he welcomed him in.

Randolph halted at the sight of the bed and drew a deep breath. Oh dear lord! What happened here? I heard a victim had been burnt to death, but where’s the body?

Roy pointed his pen to the tennis shoe–covered foot. The victim’s there. Or rather, what’s left of him. I guess cremation won’t be necessary this time ’round.

Randolph walked briskly toward the bed, his arms behind his back. Do we know what happened?

Roy consulted his notepad. The facts I’ve ascertained are these: at eight past eleven this morning, a certain Mary Manderbee called in to report a house fire, or rather, the victim of one. She says her daughter and son alerted her of this when they found the remains. The children were playing toss ball when they stumbled upon the scene. There’s a baseball field not far from here.

Randolph grinned. Yes, I see. Please go on.

Lisa Manderbee, the daughter, saw smoke coming from this room, Roy said, flipping a page. She and her brother peeked in, out of curiosity. They saw the mess that we now see.

Randolph nodded. Now we just need to figure out what started the fire.

Roy flipped another page from his notepad. The victim’s name was Michael Fay, he said, following the notes, with his forefinger sliding down the sheet, "and this house here was his address. We don’t know much about him