Cold Fire Read online

  I look up at the sky. I can tell the sun’s gone down now. My yellow’s going to come.

  Frank says, ‘Do you see it? Yellow?’

  I see dark blue rising. Night, chill and unrelenting. I imagine them, burning, waking, stretching.

  There are fifteen houses to go.

  ‘It’ll come. Soon,’ I say.

  We’re so slow.

  I drive, I carry. Frank breaks the doors, points out doors that look closed to me but are really open. I do some, Frank does others. We’ve both got lighters.

  Still, we’re too slow.

  I’m not worried about the fire engines. Not anymore. I see the flames from behind us, at last.

  I’m not worried about the fires burning out.

  I’m worried about the glow up ahead. I’m worried about the golden yellow stretching across the sky. My sunset, the one only I can see.

  I’m worried because I know what that means. It means night is truly come.

  As I watch the last of the yellow after sun fade to black, a new fire rises. The glow is in houses we’ve yet to reach. One by one, those houses come alight. Come alive with the fires of the damned.

  *

  53.

  We park in the middle of the road. We both go, fast as we can. I’ve got seven bottles, five resting in the crook of my arm, two held in my left. The fumes from the bottles are getting up my nose. I feel dizzy and sick and my legs are weak from effort and from fear.

  We walk as fast as our cripple legs will take us. We can’t run.

  Up one side, down the other, back to the car. Then out.

  That’s the plan.

  It works. Then, there’s only seven houses to go.

  I can’t believe how much we’ve done. We’re burning an estate. A whole street. I want to laugh. It’s so fucking insane.

  Frank feels it, too. He’s not laughing. I’m not laughing. But we’re both wearing mad grins. I know, looking at him, that my grin’s just like his, in a mirror.

  He nods at me, turns, breaks a door. Takes a bottle, takes off the top, just pours it over the door. He flicks the wheel of the lighter and holds the flame against the dripping petrol. It doesn’t just burn. It blows. We both get singed.

  The smell of burning is overpowering now.

  I can hear fire engines. The scream of sirens and the cackle of fire.

  We’re not going to get out. We’re going to jail, or we’re going to die. One or the other. Did I ever think otherwise?

  It doesn’t matter. It’s nearly done, and I’m holding in a laugh that could end it all right here.

  Frank breaks the next door, takes a bottle from me, turns to the open doorway, and I shout a warning too late as the fire light reaches my eyes.

  A man lurches forward, burning brighter than any natural fire I’ve ever seen. He walks like a man in a dream, but his hands are nimble. One darts out and grabs Frank’s arm, the one holding the bottle. Flames leap up Frank’s arm, climbing up to his shoulder in seconds. The petrol in the bottle doesn’t ignite, because this fire is cold.

  Frank’s mouth is moving, but I can’t hear anything. I can’t move. I can’t see the burning man anymore. All I can see is the terror in Frank’s eyes. He sees the burning man, at last. Really sees him. Sees his arm on fire.

  I pull Frank away from the hungry thing in the doorway and we both stumble back. I’m quicker than Frank. I take the bottle from his hand as he falls, and splash the petrol from the broken cap, like it’s holy water. I kick the burning man back and as he reaches out to grasp the frame of the door I step in and with the lighter set him aflame, with true flame, one that burns hot.

  And he screams. He screams, but there is no sound, just a vibration in the air.

  Frank’s voice is the only sound I can hear now, drowning out everything else. He’s sobbing, crying in horror and agony.

  The creature is writhing on the floor, done. There is no smell of charred flesh. Maybe that’s because he’s already dead. I don’t know.

  I turn to Frank. He’s on his feet, waving his arm around, trying to put out the flames withering his flesh.

  ‘Frank!’

  He sees me, just for a second.

  ‘So cold,’ he says.

  ‘Listen to me!’

  ‘So cold.’

  He stumbles away. There’s still water in the car. I want to get it, quench the hungry fire eating away at him.

  But I know it won’t work. It needs heat to put it out.

  My heart goes cold as the fire as my friend stumbles around in an ever widening circle, flames leaping across his chest, down his legs, through his hair.

  I can’t touch him, or I’ll burn, too.

  But Frank has become a torch and the burning men are what he draws to his flame. They come from all around, pouring out from broken doors and burning houses. Some scream and drop to the floor as natural fire takes them. But there are far too many. They come on, and on, in a great mass of stumbling, clawing bodies.

  I can hear the sirens over Frank’s screams. The sky is dark. The estate bright with cold fire and true fire that left to burn may cleanse this place.

  But coldness holds sway here, and as I watch Frank burn, the creatures swarm over him.

  I can’t watch, but I see what Frank means to do and I can’t help myself.

  I shout, shout myself hoarse.

  ‘No! No! No!’

  I shout over and over, but I don’t think Frank hears me.

  He pours petrol over himself, over his head so the liquid runs down his face.

  ‘I feel their fire, Sam,’ he says, ‘...it has an old feel.’

  I can barely hear him, over the sirens.

  They’re all around him.

  He pulls his own lighter from his shirt pocket, flicks it with his thumb. He’s slick and slips, but second time it catches.

  This is how they took Sarah. They made her kill herself, even though she wasn’t theirs to take.

  They took her because they hunger.

  ‘No.’ It’s all I can say. A simple, flat no. Frank wouldn’t hear it over the roar of the flames.

  Frank burns. The most terrible thing is the light, the life, coming back into his eyes. The relief on his face. He doesn’t scream anymore. He looks happy. Free. He’s saying something to me, through the knot of creatures swarming over him. He says it again, and again, but I can’t tell what it is, because his lips are blackened worms and his face, his face, is melting.

  I want to bear witness. To remember his last words. But I fail in this, too.

  ‘I’m sorry, Frank,’ I say, though my throat is raw with smoke and screaming.

  They are on him, their hunger their undoing. Where they touch him, they burst into sweet, hot flame. Frank twirls among them, catching them alight. He can’t see them. His eyes are just drips of fat on his melted face, yet he moves among them as they come for him.

  I run. They forget me. They’re fascinated by the fire, the heat.

  The sky’s aglow.

  I take the remaining bottles from the boot of the car, pull the tops as I go, run. My heart’s burning. My limbs are leaden, but I push, hard. My leg buckles again and again, but some inner strength holds me firm and lets me keep my feet.

  My heart can’t take it, but I don’t die. I won’t.

  I splash the fuel over doors of the last few houses, just light the doors. I know now, for all my cunning, for all the time building the bombs and setting them down, any flame would have been hot enough to burn Townshend.

  The last of the houses leap into flame with this realisation. I run back to the car, trying not to look at Frank’s dead body, because I haven’t got the time. But I look, just the same.

  The burning men are alight. Frank holds one in a death embrace.

  He must be dead, but for some reason he’s kept his feet.

  The car is still running. Every house but one is burning. I don’t know how long they will burn for. I do know that I’m not going to make it out alive. I don’t think abou
t that, though. I don’t think about Frank, or Helen, or jail, but the end. I think about the end of all this and nothing more, as I put the car into gear and drive.

  There is only one way out for me.

  The tyres snarl over the pavement and there’s a moment where the front end is in the air as I bump over the kerb and onto the green. I crash into a burning woman, broken, old. Her arm twists round at an insane angle. In the rear view mirror I see her rise and follow my course, slewing across the slippery grass.

  I slam the wheel round and skid to a stop, ready for the long run up. Straight for the show home. The house of blood. I forget to change gear, but taking off in second is fine. The car holds to the grass. The engine’s roar, low to start, then louder.

  I drop onto the road, then through the low wall around the house. Some of my teeth break with the impact, when my mouth slams shut. I taste blood, enamel, fillings. I can see the fire engines, over at the start of Townshend. If I can see them, they must be able to see me.

  I see so much in no more than a second. Then the car slams into the front door. I think I break some ribs on the steering wheel.

  I get out, stumble round the back of the car. The boot shut with the impact.

  I open it, hold the lighter out with a shaking hand and lower it into the fuel.

  I don’t get far. There’s a massive explosion as the fumes ignite and I’m blown backwards, into the remains of the low wall. My head hits the top of the wall. Something cracks in my back. Everything goes black. The last thing I see is the house, the car, burning so bright. The last thing I hear is the burning men.

  They scream as they die, but as I fade out, it doesn’t sound like hate, or terror, or pain.

  It sounds like peace.

  *

  Part Six

  -

  Eventide

  54.

  The sky is white, the house, the garden, white. The sky, like a cloud has fallen. The earth, like a blanket.

  The heat is terrible. My face is burnt. Embers fall all around me.

  At first I think it’s ash, thrown into the air from the burning estate. The estate is roaring, glowing red and orange and a kind of grey which I know is gold, all hinted at through the white sky. The sirens are drowned out by the fire’s rage.

  The car is an inferno.

  Nobody sees me. Not the firemen, not the cars parked rubbernecking on the old Fakenham Road, not the damned.

  I can feel it. The damned are gone.

  It all comes back to me, as I lie there.

  Frank, whirling, burning with true fire, pure and hot. The screams of the burning creatures as they died around him. The explosion of my car that took out the last house. The last of their homes. With nowhere to live they have returned to the dirt.

  I want to cry. I can’t. I’m going to jail. I’m not dead. I won.

  Some of those things are good.

  I’ve set fire to a whole estate. Frank’s body will give testimony to my crime. There are things I won’t be able to explain. Like my car, embedded in a show home.

  I’m not done yet, though.

  I spit blood from my mouth, and some pieces of tooth that I haven’t swallowed. My chest is cracked. I’ve twisted my knee.

  I shift and feel blood-crusted crack on the back of my head. It starts to pour from my scalp again. No one will help me. There’s too much going on. The fire engines have blocked the road. I know it, because I can just make out the glow of the emergency vehicles’ lights, refracting off the white flakes falling from the sky. No one will come for me. I’ve got to make it on my own while I can. Before they find me.

  It’s not ash. It’s snow.

  A blizzard.

  The firelight winks off each flake as it drifts down to settle on the land.

  I wipe it from my lashes and push myself up, then cry out from the pain. My ribs grate and my back is torn. My head pounds as I shift it, thumping frighteningly, like I might pass out or maybe just die.

  But I’m not dead yet and I can move.

  I want to laugh now. To me, it seems just as natural as the urge to cry.

  I’m going to jail, without any doubt, but they’re free. I won. I hold that to my heart, cherish it, because it’s a victory that not even jail can take away from me.

  The snow is beautiful.

  I don’t believe in signs, but this…

  I believe.

  I believe in something other than myself.

  My feet leave marks in the snow, but at the rate it’s falling, they’ll be gone, and soon.

  I look at the house behind me. It’s burning far hotter, far brighter, than it should be.

  I turn and head on back toward the border of the estate where I parked before. The other way out. The way the stranger showed me.

  The stranger’s not there. I search for him, in my head. He’s silent. Asleep. Maybe dead.

  I hope so. There’s no place for him in the last thing I have to do.

  Tell Helen. Tell her everything. So she knows.

  She needs to know why I did it. I need for her to understand that Samantha is free.

  We can rest at last. Maybe in ten years time, maybe five, I’ll be out, and she’ll still be there.

  God. I hope so.

  I’m more hopeful than I’ve any right to be. Because the snow is a sign. It hides me, covers my tracks, lets me get off Townshend and onto our part of the estate. I head round the corner, where no snow falls. The lights are on. Calling me home.

  *

  55.

  I don’t have my keys with me. They were in the car when it burned.

  I try the door and find it’s not locked, anyway. It’s a good sign. She hasn’t changed the locks. I imagine her waiting for me to return. I imagine telling her everything, kneeling, if I have to. I can do it. I’m done lying to Helen. From now on it’s the truth and the truth alone that will be the glue to hold us together.

  I call her name as I go in. I’m aware I stink. My face must be bright red. It’s tender to touch. I’m covered in soot, tracking dirt through the house. It streaks my clothes where the snow has melted and run in streams, making everything sodden and grey.

  ‘Helen!’

  I expect she’s pissed off at me. I’ll make her understand, though. Without my usual bullshit. Without the stranger. With just the truth.

  ‘Helen!’

  I stump into the living room. The dining room. The kitchen.

  Upstairs.

  But I’m wasting my time. Each bedroom, the bathroom. I know what’s wrong. The house feels empty. She’s gone.

  I sit down on the bed.

  ‘Helen,’ I say. Just to hear her name.

  The tears come at last. Great racking sobs, rivulets of tears, cleaning tracks through the soot on my face. I wipe away the tears and the snot. I can’t believe she’s gone.

  She’s always been there.

  I have to follow her. But my mind draws a blank. I have no idea where she’s gone. I’m drawing on empty.

  I don’t have to think about it for long because the phone on the bedside cabinet rings, shrill enough to make me jump.

  It’s Helen. I know it. It’s not a premonition. I can just feel her through the wire.

  I hurry off the bed, round to Helen’s side. Each step is agony. I pick up the phone.

  ‘Sam.’

  ‘Helen.’

  ‘Sam.’

  Something’s wrong. Something not in her voice.

  Warmth. Life.

  ‘Helen. Where are you?’

  ‘Sam. I’m cold.’

  ‘Where are you?’ I’m shouting. Panic’s riding the back of my neck, pushing my head down, making it heavy. Her voice is so quiet I can barely hear it.

  ‘It’s so cold here, Sam. I’m afraid. Sam.’

  ‘Talk to me, Helen. Where are you? Do you know?’

  ‘You remember, Sam, when you talked about your sunset?’

  I’m shaking, now, but I try to keep my voice calm. Steady.

  ‘I re
member, Honey.’

  ‘The day’s winding down.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘It’s winding down, and the night, it’s cold. But it’s beautiful, too, terrible and beautiful. I’m afraid, Sam, but it’s going to be over soon.’

  ‘Helen, no…’

  Click.

  Nothing.

  ‘Helen!’ I shout. My voice breaks. I know she’s gone. My heart turns to ice.

  Then I hear footsteps, padding, on the wooden floors. Padding into the bedroom.

  I pick up a lamp, brandish it like a club. I’m not going down, not like this.

  But it’s just the black cat. My heart thuds like crazy while the little cat’s stubby tail switches back and forth. It’s got something between its teeth. For a second, it looks like a heart, dripping blood, but then I blink and the stranger’s there, behind my right eye. He sees true.

  It’s my tennis ball, dripping water. The water pools on the floor. I see it’s yellow. So bright.

  The cat comes toward me. I put my hand down. It drops the ball into my palm.

  It’s soaking wet and it smells of the sea.

  The cat turns and goes to the door. It looks over its shoulder at me and miaows silently. I get up. I lost my cane in the car, but I haven’t used it all night. I know I don’t need it anymore, and even though my legs are shaking, the ball gives me strength.

  The cat walks away onto the landing. Turns again. Waits.

  I find I can walk. Not well. But well enough.

  We get to the front door, and I remember something. Something I should do…

  ‘Wait,’ I tell the cat. It doesn’t answer me one way or the other, but it doesn’t move. It sits there, by the front door.

  I come back with a candle and a lighter. I put the candle in the window and set it going.

  Light the way home. Like a sailor in the night. Is that what they did it for?

  I don’t know. I don’t know why I do it. What the hell am I listening to Bob for? If I don’t make it back this way, the house’ll probably burn down.

  I turn around and the cat’s there behind me. I jump even though it’s just a cat. It turns. I follow. What else can I do? Right from the start, I’ve been following.