The waning sunlight emboldened the dreary clouds above as cold winds and a chilling drizzle heralded the coming storm. In truth, even a hurricane would fail to smother the fire Thomas planned to ignite.
“Ever in my thoughts, Mom and Dad,” Thomas said as he tossed a torch through the open doorway to the cabin in which he’d spent his entire life until that moment. Seventeen years of life shielded by the stout, timbered walls of the 30- by 40-foot structure his father had built years before the son’s birth. His father had been a carpenter, a good one, and had erected the structure so that no storm would destroy it. That fact only complicated Thomas’s actions now. Thomas loaded the cabin’s main entryway with firewood coated in lantern oil. With but that one torch, the cabin erupted in flames
