Excerpt: Bourne of Fire

The smell of butane filled my nostrils and the creature drew back almost imperceptibly. It knew that it would be fed. I try not to think about what is about to happen. It is not what I want. It is what the creature demands of me.
“I’m sorry. Truly I am.”
She cowers, bound hand and foot, her mouth hidden behind dull grey duct tape. She knows, or thinks that she knows, what is about to happen to her. I have seen that look before. The pleading with the tear streaked eyes. The accelerated breathing. The snot flowing from the nostrils. The struggling against the restraints.
When I said that I was sorry, something that I always do, I meant it. I want to be a good man. Hell, I’d settle for normal. Average. Ordinary. Anything but this. It’s the creature. It drives me. It demands this of me.
She’s still crying as I pour the gasoline over her. Over the years I have found that this brings the ordeal to the quickest conclusion. I have tried other methods; shooting, stabbing, cutting, smothering, everything. The creature demands the flames. Demands the killings.
I feel the tears pressing against the backs of my eyes as I move toward the woman, torch in hand. “Why do you make me do this?”
There is no answer. There never is.