The Years Burn (5478 hits)
Category: UberMadness! EntryRating: 1.28 on 14 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by Bart Cilfone <uberuser.at.cilfone.com> (View user info) at 2005-08-02 04:45:21 EDT
This post was an official UberMadness! entry. Click here to view the original matchup.
Mike and Stacy. With names like those and a house in the suburbs, you can imagine the kind of life they had together.
They had met in college where they were both going for teaching degrees. Mike had always wanted to teach American history and Stacy was going for chemistry. They both graduated in their chosen fields and went to work at the same community college.
The two got along well. So well in fact that the only thing they ever argued about was Mike's smoking. He picked up the habit in college and it drove her crazy. At first he would refrain from smoking when they were together, but she wanted him to quit. Her grandfather had died from lung cancer and she told Mike that she didn't want to lose him the same way.
"Everyone dies," he said. "Besides, who wants to live to be 90?"
"That's not funny. I want you to quit. I love you, but I can't be with someone who smokes. You know how I feel about it. Smoking kills."
He quit once for a month. Then a second time for six months. With enough harassment from her and some of the other teachers, Mike eventually gave up his bad habit.
The only other thing they ever argued about was home repair issues. Stacy mentioned that the water heater had a small gas leak, but he didn't know how to fix it and wouldn't call anyone else. Money was tight and he was a little stubborn, so not only did he not fix the water heater, but he never really thought there was anything wrong.
Other than those small thorns in their relationship, they were as happy a couple as a couple could be. They were always affectionate towards each other, spent time with their families, and volunteered for things in the community. Both were well liked and made friends around their neighborhood.
That was why everyone was so stunned the day Stacy disappeared.
One evening, Mike walked to the neighbor's house looking for Stacy. She wasn't there. Her car was still in the garage, but she was nowhere to be found. They looked all throughout the house and called all the neighbors. Not knowing where she could be, he called the police and told them what had happened.
This wasn't a common thing in their town, but the police still ran through the standard list. Was there a problem with their marriage? Had she run away? Could foul play have been involved? They looked around the house, but there was no sign of anything unusual. They talked to friends and family members and found nothing unusual - no marriage problems, no problems with friends, no known enemies, nothing unusual.
The story was all over the local press and even made some headway into national coverage. It was on the cover of the paper for a couple days until a scandal with the water commissioner knocked it to the second page. The police told him that most missing persons are found within two weeks or they aren't found at all. They told him not to lose hope, but they also stopped calling the house on a daily basis.
From time to time, the police would contact him again with potential leads, but nothing ever panned out. Even three years later, Mike never gave up hope. He told everyone he talked to that he would never rest until she was found. The local paper did a short piece on the woman who disappeared three years ago and interviewed Mike on what progress had been made. The reporter was amazed at his strength.
The day the story ran, Mike came home from school just like any other day. He set down his bag, went through the mail, and listened to the messages on his phone. Then he headed downstairs into the basement.
He walked across the basement, all the windows covered with decorative shudders, and walked up to a big old bookcase that had come from Stacy's grandfather's house. He walked to the side of the bookcase and slid it out about two feet to reveal a door that nobody else had ever seen.
Mike opened the door and walked through into the secret dungeon where he had kept his wife's corpse for the past three years. Her body, hanging from a hook attached to a cable, dangled above a fifty gallon plastic drum of hydrofluoric acid. That acid was the reason why the body was now just a torso.
Shortly after he killed her, he did some research into ways of getting rid of the body. He could bury her in the woods, drop her in the lake, or bring her to the junkyard, but all of those left evidence of his crime. In order to truly eliminate the evidence, he remembered a hypothetical question that came up once with Stacy where among other things, she said that a bath in hydrofluoric acid would be worse than electrocution because of the fact that it would dissolve anything but plastic. As it turns out, Mike had Stacy's keys for the chemistry lab at the local community college. He drove the van down there one day later at night, walked right into the lab, and wheeled out the drum of acid without ever bumping into even one security guard.
He unsealed the drum and lowered the torso in a little more. Murder is one thing. This was theatrics.
"Mike!"
Mike froze.
"Hey Mike, everything ok?"
The next door neighbor, Roger, was at the front door.
Mike stopped everything. He ran upstairs and opened the door.
"Heya, Roger, what's going on?"
"Hey Mike. Not much. Just got home from taking the kids out for ice cream. I noticed you left the garage door open. I wanted to make sure everything was ok. You didn't answer the doorbell and I got a little nervous."
"Oh yeah, everything's fine. Thanks for telling me about the garage door. I was going to take the garbage out to the street, but I forgot. I'd better get on that... this place will start smelling like death." Mike grinned subtilely. "I mean, smell like garbage, you know?"
Awkward pause.
"Mike, I saw the story in the paper today. If there's anything you want to talk about, my door is always open. We're all amazed at how you can be so strong."
"Thanks Rog. I'll let you know if anything comes up. I should be off to bed though."
After their goodbyes, Mike headed back downstairs. The recent questions about his wife had made him a little nervous. The local police were even discussing reopening the case. He wanted to clean things up once and for all.
He returned to the dungeon and picked up where he'd left off. He lowered the body inch by inch into the drum of the now violently bubbling hydrofluoric acid. The remains of the rotted corpse burned away with every unrolling of the cable, just as they had for the past three years.
Once the body was completely eliminated, the only piece left to do was to get rid of the other evidence sealed in this room. Into the drum of acid, he threw the aluminum hooks and cabling that had held the body all this time. The shovel he used to kill her and the metal bucket that held the water he used to clean up the garage floor, they all went into the acid bath.
Once everything was gone, Mike stopped to think of everything he had accomplished. Nobody had any idea of the crime he had carried out so wonderfully. Part of him wanted to tell everyone he knew about his achievement, except for the obvious reasons not to do so. Still, he was going to celebrate, if only by himself.
He turned on the radio and tuned to the classic rock station. "Dazed and Confused" by Led Zeppelin was playing.
"Perfect," he said to himself.
Mike reached into his pocket and pulled out an unopened pack of cigarettes and a lighter that he had bought at the gas station on the way home today. He smacked the pack against his palm, unwrapped the top, and pulled one stick out of the box. He leaned against the wall and looked at the drum of acid.
"Three and a half years," he said as he shook his head. "Three and a half years without a cigarette. I'm never quitting again."
He lit the cigarette. Then the house exploded.
As it turns out, throwing all that metal into the drum of acid was a bad idea. Large amounts of acid plus large amounts of metal releases large amounts of Hydrogen gas. Hydrogen is flammable. Think "Hindenburg disaster" flammable.
There probably wasn't enough Hydrogen to blow up the entire house, but it turns out that Stacy was right about that gas leak. Between the two, the whole basement was full of explosives waiting for a spark.
"The bitch was right," was the last thing he thought, fire everywhere. "Smoking does kill."
User Reviews
Submitted by hot_pocket (user info) at 2006-08-10 22:37:22 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
AHAHAHHAHAHAHA! yeah, fuck mike!
Submitted by jgreening (user info) at 2006-03-19 00:58:02 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
Wait, this was Bart?
I voted against this, if I remember...
Submitted by KatHunter (user info) at 2006-02-28 05:07:04 EST (#)
Ranking: 1
He lit the cigarette. Then the house exploded.
You should have just stopped there. Don't explain the obvious. Even if people don't know about acid and metal, they would just assume that the gas leak had been enough.
Submitted by icantsurf (user info) at 2006-02-28 04:45:43 EST (#)
Ranking: -2
No Comment
Submitted by JonnyX (user info) at 2006-02-16 18:47:00 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
PWNED
Submitted by Phate (user info) at 2006-01-20 02:21:30 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by charminglybeef (user info) at 2006-01-19 23:04:10 EST (#)
Ranking: -1
Uninteresting and entirely forgettable.
Why is this mindlessly rated +2?
Submitted by Nellypaal (user info) at 2005-12-16 05:59:16 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
I didn't like the punchline but the rest was great.
Submitted by Berty (user info) at 2005-12-12 09:10:31 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Why would he kill her if they had such a great relationship? Smoking is great and all but it's not that good.
Submitted by jeveuxgagner (user info) at 2005-12-12 08:53:53 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
stories based around a twist are often done badly. this was ok.
Submitted by c1ndy (user info) at 2005-11-12 10:16:26 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
hahahaha @ reviews!
Submitted by rad1101 (user info) at 2005-11-11 03:44:56 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
you're kinda slow, aren't you?
Submitted by celine (user info) at 2005-11-11 03:38:05 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Holy crap, almost 3 months before this got its first review?
That said, I swear I've read this somewhere before.
+2 anyway, cuz, well, you're Bart.
Submitted by FunnyAsCancer (user info) at 2005-10-30 05:23:35 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment