PROMPT-A PYROMANIAC SKELETON, A NERDY FARMHAND, AND AN ACCIDENT-PRONE INTERIOR DECORATOR FALL IN LOVE IN A BIG OFFICE.

BY VOICE

“Terrik, I swear, if he lights one more thing on fire-“

“Yesss, fire. Burnnnn, burn it all…”

“See?” The blonde woman turned to me, hair spinning around her like a halo as she jabbed a finger at the skeleton crouched in the corner. She’s clearly angry, but the retro framed glasses perched on her nose kill the effect and I can’t help but admire just how cute she is. The skeleton is everything but however.

“Annabel,” I flash her a smile as I walk over to her and pat her shoulder. “Gustof promised he wouldn’t burn anything down in the office, didn’t you Gustof?”

The skeleton grinned up at me, the little trail of bones that formed his tail moving back and forth like a serpent. “Yesss, no firre.”

I turned back to Annabel and nodded. “See, he will behave.”

There was a click of a lighter behind me and I whirled, lashing out with my polished shoe to catch the skeleton’s paw and send the lighter flying. Unfortunately my other foot slipped out from under me and I came crashing down on my tailbone with a yowl.

“See! See!” Annabel stood over me, her accusing finger pointed once again at the skeleton. “He’s trying to kill us all, and on Christmas no less!”

Gustof darted to where his lighter had landed and quickly snatched it up, caressing it much like a child wood with a hamster.

I painfully rolled over, my back on fire as I clawed a desk for a way up. Christmas, trapped in an office with a nerd turned farmhand who had come in to talk to me about redecorating her farmhouse, and Gustof, whatever he was. The bipedal bunch of animated animal bones had shown up shortly before the snowstorm that had trapped them in the office. I thought he might be a Christmas ghost, you know, like Dickens, but all he’d done was cackle about lighting stuff on fire and making Annabel panic.

My hand closed around a lamp and suddenly I hit the floor again with a grunt and a burst of colorful language. Annabel helped me up, finally seeing the problems I was having. My tailbone was on fire. “Look, we’re trapped here and there’s nothing we can do until the snow melts or someone rescues us.” I smiled at her the best I could through clenched teeth.

“That is if he doesn’t burn us all to oblivion.”

I waved my hand, moving out of her hands to lean against a desk. My gaze moved to Gustof where he huddled in the corner of the office talking to himself. “I think he’s settled now.” The words sounded hollow even to myself.

“How can you be so sure?”

I shrug and wince as the muscles in my back pull taut. “Just a feeling I have.”

“Riiiigggghhhht.” She rolls her eyes and I admire just how crystal blue they are in the half light of the room. “Does your feeling mention anything about burning alive in a towering inferno?”

I can’t help but chuckle at this and Annabel frowns. I hear the flick of the lighter and my eyes dart to where Gustof applies the yellow flame to a stack of papers. “You son of a-“ I push off from the desk. The skeleton grins at me before rushing away from the growing flames as I run over, grab the stack and dump it into one of the waste bins to contain it. Whirling I see Gustof peeking around a cubical partition, his hollow eyes reflecting the firelight beside me. “I told you, no more fires!”

The skeleton darted back behind the wall and I stalked forward, my fingers curling into fists. Gustof flitted away each time I turned a partition, grinning back at me with his horse skull, clacking his teeth at me in what I assumed was a skeleton’s laugh.

“Get over here you piece of-“ I turned a corner and my hip caught the edge of a desk, the pain sharp as it spun me around. My arms flung out as I tried to catch myself, the world tumbling before me while Gustof’s clacking teeth followed me to the ground. There was a snap and a starburst of pain flaring across my body as my arm gave in a way it shouldn’t. Annabel must have heard because she came rushing around the corner, her face looking a little green despite her obvious panic.

I clutched my arm as I rolled to my back, the pain in my lower back nothing compared to the sickening waves that crashed upon me now.

“I think I broke my arm.” I said between clenched teeth.

“By the sacred cow, are you okay?” She knelt, fingers moving over the arm in question with delicate movements. When they alighted on the break I hiss through my teeth. Annabel nods, her fingers moving away from me to wipe crimson on her coveralls.

Blood?

I turn my head and retch, thankful all I had eaten so far was instant noodles. Annabel shakes her head. “Definitely a break. Thankfully it hasn’t broken through too much of the skin or we’d be risking a lot of infection here.”

“How do you know? You’re not a doctor.”

She laughs when I expect her to frown. “You don’t think we see injuries like this on the farm?” She does something to my arm and the world swims for a moment before she slaps me back into reality. “Come on, stay with me, I’m almost done.”

“Your bedside manner needs work.”

“And you need to be less accident prone.”

“Story of my life.” My laugh gets cut short by the pain in my back.

Annabel finishes whatever she’s doing out of my field of vision, cause there’s no way I will look at my arm if I am bleeding or risk spending the next hour in pass-out-land, and suddenly she’s leaning forward, cupping the back of my neck in her hand.

A very soft yet strong hand.

“Come on you, time to get up. Slowly now.” She leans forward while remaining on her knees and starts to help me sit up. Her hair brushes against my neck and face. I’d expected her to smell like the farm, all cows and wheat, but instead she smells like summer and growing.

We pause, faces an inch apart. The moment lengthens.

Our lips touch, my hand goes to the back of her head to tangle in her hair while she returns my passion with her own. She tastes like well drawn water, cool, refreshing. I can’t get enough. My arm and back throb by it’s easily pushed aside by the feeling in my chest.

We break the kiss, both of us trying to catch our breath. She speaks first.

“Sorry, I shouldn’t have-“

“No, no. It’s my fault.” I try to sit up further. “Client relations…”

My words die off as our gazes meet. Right then I know we’ll kiss again, moths drawn to a flame as old as time.

Flame.

Fire.

The smell hits my nose and tears my gaze away from where I had been losing myself in Annabel’s eyes. I smell smoke.

Gustof. Damn his bony hide!

Annabel pulls me to my feet despite my body’s protests and I glance around, trying to ignore the way the office tilts. The fire isn’t hard to ignore as it climbs up one of the walls, eating up the thick curtains that covered the snow shrouded window.

How could we have been so stupid.

Gustof leaps onto the top of one of the cubical walls, clacking his teeth together, looking like a morbid mockery of an ancient Disney cartoon I had seen as a child. I stumble forwards and he cocks his horse skull head to the side like some morbid crow.

“Gustof you son of a bitch, what have you done?”

Annabel is holding onto my good shoulder thankfully or I would have fallen again. She shook her head. “He’s doomed us!”

I tried a step, and then another as I moved closer to the leering skeleton. Ghost of Christmas or not, there was no way we were going to get out of this now. I turned and pulled Annabel to me. I wanted to say something romantic in our last moments together. Maybe it was the endorphins and adrenaline flooding my system, maybe it was shock, but damn it all, I think I was in love.

“Look Annabel, I know we haven’t known each other very long…” There was a crack as the window started to break, melting snow oozing through it. “but I just wanted to say-“

With a massive crack the window broke, snow rushing in from outside. We turned to watch as Gustof vanished under the wash of white. The cold was instantaneous, washing over us. The cold made me hurt less, which in itself was a welcome change.

Figures moved in from the outside. I thought I was hallucinating until I saw the yellow reflective strips of their uniforms.

Firemen.

Christmas above, firemen!

“Are you okay?” The lead fireman said after yanking his mask aside. “We saw the smoke from outside and were trying to dig aside the drift when the glass broke.”

I looked at Annabel and she at me.

“Gustof, you Christmas miracle of a bastard.” I laughed, my chest pulling tight. Annabel squeezed my arm. Turning I watched her as she stared out to our freedom. The fireman seemed to realize what was coming and moved off, keeping his eyes averted. I reached out and brushed a stray strand of hair out of her face.

“Annabel, as I was saying.”

“Yes?” She turned to look at me as snowflakes danced around her head.

“I haven’t known you for a long time, and I know this may feel kind of rushed, but, I think I love you.”

She smiled, biting her bottom lip before looking back out at the falling snow as more firemen entered the office.

“I know.”