Fire Is the Devil's Only Friend

Submitted by Jess:

My worst date had to be with Zack, the arsonist.  I didn't know he was an arsonist beforehand.  He didn't exactly mention it on his online profile.  But the boy was a certified fire starter.

He took me out to a hibachi grill, which was fun, and what's more is that he actually started out as a really cool guy.  We had some good conversations and a healthy amount of flirting.

After dinner he said that he wanted to take me to a secret spot that a fireman friend had shown him.  I told him that I wasn't too comfortable with the idea.  He said that it wouldn't take very long and that if I wanted to leave after we had arrived then we could.  Well, why not?  He was fun, and I was up for adventure.

He drove us out from the suburbs to a dead end street and parked at the end, by a treeline.  He said that we had to walk from there, but not too far.

Maybe about fifty feet off the road, he said, "There it is," and pointed to a house that I could barely see in the dark.  It was obviously abandoned, and was heavily overgrown.

Then he turned to me and kissed me, then pulled away and said, "Let's light it on fire!"

He ran for the house, but I thought he was just pulling a stunt or kidding around.  No.  From his jacket, he pulled out a large lighter and some other device that I didn't recognize and began holding it down, near some underbrush attached to the house.

"What are you doing?" I yelled, and he turned back and told me to shut up.  I told him that I wanted to go, but he ignored me.  He kept trying to light the house on fire, but the wind or his own ineptitude or my desperate prayers kept anything from catching.

After ten minutes I said, "It's cold, I'm not having fun, and I want to go now."

He shouted, "Fine!" and shoved his lighter and other thing back into his pockets.

He didn't say a word to me as he drove me home.  He dropped me off, I said, "Good night," and he drove away.  I wondered if he was on his way back to that old house.  Either way, I wasn't interested enough to find out, even after he called me over the next week to arrange another meet-up.  No thank you.