The Fire Witness

189

It felt strange to be driving with a dead woman and child as passengers. The roads were dark. Roadkill hedgehogs were lying beside ditches. A badger stood on the narrow shoulder, hypnotized by Joona’s headlights.

When he arrived at the hill he’d chosen weeks earlier, he dislodged the airbag fuse. Then he placed the woman in the driver’s seat and loosely strapped the little girl into Lumi’s child seat. The only sounds were his breathing, the rustle of cloth against cloth, and the thud of lifeless arms and legs.

He leaned into the car and released the emergency brake. He gave the car a shove from behind and it started to roll down the hill. He walked beside it and reached in to give the wheel a tug in the right direction. The car picked up speed and he ran to keep up. The car hurtled away from him, then it left the road and crashed into a massive Scotch pine. The woman’s body smashed into the steering wheel. The little girl’s body jerked violently in the car seat.

Joona took a gasoline can out of the trunk and began to splash it inside the car. He poured gasoline over the little girl’s legs and the woman’s heavily damaged body.

It was getting hard for him to breathe. He had to stop.

He leaned over, holding his knees, and tried to calm himself down. His heart was breaking.

Joona couldn’t bear it. He pulled the little girl’s body from the car and walked with it back and forth, cradling it and singing lullabies and whispering in her ear and crying. Then he placed her on her mother’s lap in the front seat.

He closed the car door in silence. He poured the rest of the gasoline over the car. Then he threw a lit match through the open window into the backseat. Flames leaped up and raced through the car.

He stared at the woman’s unnaturally calm face while her hair caught fire.

The fire was voracious. To Joona it looked as if a blue-tinged angel of death was claiming its own. The flames began to roar and they seemed to contain the sound of weeping.

Joona suddenly snapped awake. He wanted to get the bodies out. He burned his hands on the car door, but he was able to get it open. The fire in the car burned higher once the door let in more oxygen. He tried to grab the woman’s jacket, which was already on fire. Her slim legs were already smoking and licked by flames.

Pappa, Pappa, help me, Pappa!

Joona knew that it couldn’t be real. He knew they were already dead. He still couldn’t bear it. He reached into the fire again and grabbed the girl’s hand.

Then the gas tank exploded. Joona heard the bang just as his eardrums burst. He fell backward and felt the blow as his head hit the ground. His hands were empty. Blood trickled from his ears.

His heart was screaming and burning.

Before he lost consciousness, he watched the blazing pine needles come swirling down.