Read Online Deadly Messengers by Susan May - Free Book Online

flicker and hold, flicker and hold, moving in tiny increments down the stem of wood. It took an hour, maybe, or so it seemed, before a thin, black end of burned wood formed.
    Beautiful. A work of art.
    He wanted to climb inside the white-yellow glow. Beckoning with warmth and a fiery life force. Feel the burn on his skin. Maybe later. Right now, things needed doing. He and the match had a destiny to fulfill. He held the half-burned match over the wastebasket carefully stuffed to overfull with toilet paper.
    Now. Do it now.
    He stretched his neck to the side until he heard a slight crack sounding like snapping, burning wood. Left. Then right. The joints popped as the action stretched the tendons and pulled them to release. His body flooded with a feeling of euphoria, of utter and total bliss.
    Yes, I will do it now.
    The thought rushed into his head as though pushed by the hand of God. He obeyed and dropped the match into the basket with a flick of his fingers. The paper caught instantly.
    Wonderful. Truly wonderful. Even magnificent.
    He’d accomplished the first part of his mission.
    Within seconds, little licks of orange and yellow climbed over each other, consuming the fuel he’d gathered. He was feeding a pet. He wanted to reach in and touch it, feel the burn on his cool, fragile skin. Watch his skin peel back and wither to black. Instead, he moved back toward the doorway, a better vantage point to take in the scope of his good work.
    In thirty seconds the curtains above the wastebasket ignited. The flames licked up the wall, eager to travel along the path he’d constructed, consume the meal he’d prepared. The bed he’d pushed against the other side of the window would alight shortly. He was proud of his assembly order. Wastebasket, curtains, bed. The room would succumb quickly.
    Nobody would come in time. He knew this because he’d worked the skeleton-staffed two-to-ten shift many times. Early morning, events rarely happened. Nurses would only attend to patients when called or during their rounds every ninety minutes. If they even bothered with the rounds. Sometimes they didn’t, falsifying the activity sheets.
    This room had been empty. Empty no longer, now filled with color and life, beautiful to behold.
    Benito reluctantly turned from his work, the sound of the growing flames music to his ears. Closing the door, he walked down the empty hall. The pale green walls needed paint; scuff marks crawled along and up their surface, giving the appearance of pale tiger stripes. Soon, the wall would require more than paint.
    He walked to the very end of the hall and turned toward the fire escape, pushing open the door, which complained loudly in the silence of the hour. He took the stairs, two at a time, downward to the first floor, the sound of his steps unnaturally loud, like tap shoes on the concrete.
    Exiting on the first floor, he turned left. The cafeteria lay to his right, but someone could be in there at the food dispensers or the coffee machine. He’d leave there until last. Left would do for the moment.
    The matches felt heavy in his pocket; tiny pieces of innocuous wood, which held such potential. Just like him. He was ordinary, but he would change the destiny of the world. Even though he couldn’t remember why, that knowledge was within his soul. He knew it as a certainty.
    He entered Mr. Jacob’s room. Age eighty-two. Dementia.
    Yes. Mr. Jacobs would do very well.
    He moved through the darkened room to the bathroom, switching on the overhead light as he entered. The light flickered alive, the sound of buzzing electrons filling the air.
    Minutes later, he’d gathered the wastebasket from the bathroom and filled it with paper. He spilled lighter fluid over it from the small tin he’d carried in his jacket pocket. Back in the room, the sound of Mr. Jacobs’ loud snores rhythmically breached the black silence like a homing beacon.
    He placed the wastebasket on the floor near the bed and held a match above