Eyes of Flame

The flames, still living, burned, stretching their hot tongues up toward a clouded and darkening heaven; they cared not nor knew the blackened husk was dead, their job done, accomplished. As though still screaming, the jaw hung open upon the charred face. Empty, shadowed holes were left of the eyes. Still, the fire was mighty and would keep burning the fuel piled under the corpse, and the man who had set it would watch and stand and wait even for the last glow of an ember. Somewhere, thunder rolled, though he had seen no flash, and the distant din of nearing rain came quietly in its wake. In a moment, the downpour washed over him. The fire reeled and sputtered out dark smoke, the black billows making the air heavy to breathe. The figure on the pyre shifted then, as though animate, and in that darkening hour, fear like no other struck the man. How he shivered then as the body fell from its bonds and collapsed. The broken corpse lay there in the fire, its now grinning skull, with eyes of flame, staring down upon its judge and murderer.