by Glen Johnson
I turned my head towards the end of the corridor, just in time to glimpse the couple and their baby become engulfed in an angry fireball that swept over them and continued up the walls, running like a living entity across the ceiling. I could no longer see the family.
As I have already mentioned, I had seen countless movies where fires roared around a house or particular building. In the films the sound effects were loud and eerie, sounding like the fire was alive, growling and muttering.
I lay on the carpet halfway down the corridor with the fire engulfing the ceiling behind me, and ripping the doors from the rooms, then engulfing the rooms in one violent movement. I swear I could hear unearthly sounds, like the fire was indeed a living entity, searching, consuming all in its path. It roared and growled, and sounded like it was muttering, unearthly words carried on the flickering flames. Guttural utterances, sounding like some forgotten ancient language. I found myself wondering what language demons – fallen angels – speak? Obviously not English. Maybe I was hearing it now?
The heat was almost unbearable. I could imagine the young couple having been completely incinerated by the initial blast, like a churning furnace, with them disappearing like dry kindling.
I tried to stand, but the heat forced me back to the floor. Electrical fittings popped and crackled under the onslaught. Wallpaper went up in quick flashes of hissing flames. The carpet started to steam. Paint started to drip around me, even though the flames were still a good way up the other end of the hallway. The dripping paint looked like raining fire. I could imaging Fire and Sulphur raining down on the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah.
Time to get my ass outta here.
I scuttled along on my hands and knees, reminding me of my quadruped movements in my black and white dreams. Now though I wasn’t moving with liquid grace, but rather stumbling along like a cripple tipped from a wheelchair.
The heat was blasting the back of my neck, and the eerie roaring sounds behind me sped me on, as I fumbled my way along the ugly patterned carpet.
A door swung open on my left, a mans face pushed out, then disappearing back into the room. The fire now had another source of oxygen with which to make it grow. Flames reached out like long searching fingers, crawling along the ceiling, searching for the source of its food. Then in one bright orange flash the ceiling above me became an inferno. Crackling ceiling joints and popping light bulbs echoed above. The heat was almost unbearable, seemingly sucking the air from my lungs. The flames shot into the room on my left like a red tidal wave, having been created by a ferocious monsoon.
With the fleeting energy I had left I forced myself to keep moving.
Suddenly it was there in front of me. Smoke! Black billowing clouds of toxic lung filling death. It rolled across the ceiling like tempest storm clouds, sped up by camera trickery.
I stood as high as I dared, head leaning forward, almost bent double, using my off balance to fling myself towards the exit. I raced for the door before I needed to gulp for more air. My lungs were already burning. I cursed all those years I smoked.
Behind, I could hear the screaming echoing out from an open door, but it died away as quickly as it started. Suddenly a figure lunged from a room.
It was hard to tell if it was male or female, because it was engulfed in flames, hair, clothes, and skin, everything, like a fiery demon rising from the great hall of Pandemonium itself. No noise issued from the inflamed person, as it shot past down the hallway, smacking hard against the fire door, before falling down dead, body still twitching as the flames ate away at the fat. The corpse lay spitting, crackling and hissing, like a pork chop that has just been tossed on the barbeque. The Korowai and Melanesian tribes from New Guinea call the human the Long Pig, because of its supposedly similar taste.
I continued to run, the image of the inflamed person giving me strength.
I reached the doorway and jumped over the burning remains, which was laying face down, arms forward, as if trying to get that little bit further. The fingers were all black and twisted, reminding me of the first man in the black suit, after he had reached into the fire to light a cigarette.
I now stood in the entrance lobby, gulping fresh air.
The fire roared behind me, as if upset at losing its prey, not content with the bodies it had already consumed. Like a gluttonous predator it surged forward.
The fire door was not able to swing back into place because of the charred corpse. The fire was following, and now had a way to keep feeding.
People were running about. Even though the doors stood wide open, some were running back into the building, either after family members and loved ones, and some, possibly, even for possessions.
I screamed at them, shouting that the fire was just down the corridor right behind me, but no one listened. I could hardly hear myself, with the loud fire alarm screeching. Shock made people act in unusual ways. Common sense and rationality gone, panic stripping them from the mind.
It was crazy, the door was right there!
There was nothing else I could do, time for me to get out.
An older chubby man ran past, dressed in only white boxer shorts, clutching a black briefcase to his grey-haired chest. He barged past, hitting my shoulder and spinning me around. I fell at the same time, landing on my back, knocking the air from my lungs.
Then the smoke started pouring out the hallway, first filling the ceiling – boiling and churning. A blanket of the thinner smoke started to descend, like a roller-blind being pulled down. All happening in seconds, and I had the perfect view from laying on my back.
A long fluorescent light fitting dropped, shattering on the floor to my left. Then several others, as if being dropped like a surgical strike. Powdered glass blossomed into the air.
I was still flat on my back. Everything was happening so fast. It was maybe not even a minute since the alarm started. It seemed like hours.
Then something behind the deck exploded, possibly a fire extinguisher. An expanding cloud rocketed out. The desk disintegrated. The man who had knocked me to the ground was stood beside it. He was blown out the front glass doors. I was rolled to my right side, allowing me a front row seat, as he was shredded by the thick plate glass and wood. Strangely, his briefcase now sat on the ground where the door should have been, as if someone had just gently placed it down.
Sound was now muffled, with a hollow ringing inside my head, caused by blunt trauma to my ears.
I forced myself to stand, while holding my breath, and ran out the shattered door. I kept running, getting a least thirty meters between me and the building. The air outside was cool, with a light drizzle falling. It was a beautiful spectacle. The cold rain was a blessing against my face.
The flames now churned into the lobby, looking for more objects to consume. In one sudden surge the fire engulfed the reception area. The explosion behind the desk was small compared to what happened next. A fireball expanded out the front entrance. What was left of the large ornate glass and wooden doors exploded outwards. Thick plumes of greasy black smoke was now pouring out the remains of the large scorched, smouldering doorway.
My back was to the building when the large explosion erupted. Something flew past my leg, the wind whipping at my clothing. A briefcase imbedded in the door of an Audi TT in front of me, the whole car rocked to one side, before righting itself – its alarm now adding to the cacophony of noise. My hearing was still ringing and muffled, the alarm sounded distant and tinny.
I turned and stood looking back at the hotel. Flames licked out all the windows, down one side, where I had been. Black billowing smoke poured out the burning window frames. Bright red embers floated on the heated winds caused by the flames. Only a few windows were still intact, the fire doors having held the flames back for now. People stood behind the glass, their screams lost in the noise of the roaring flames and alarm bells.
One person on the top floor threw a chair through the window, in hope of getting out to safety. But with the window now broken th
e flames raced into his room. He disappeared behind a fireball of angry red flames and pungent black smoke, which was now pouring out his shattered window like a large fiery fist, announcing to the spectators that it had captured its victim.
The inevitable groups of morbid people had gathered from out of the service station, to watch the free show. People gathered together into huddled groups. Some pointing at the engulfed figure screaming from the window, as he tipped over the edge and fell the three floors to the concrete beneath, with a sickening thud and the cracking of bones.
I had to get away from the commotion. I was shaking worse now than from the train crash. The train crash was fast, over in moments. I had been flung about like a ragdoll. I had been disorientated and confused, finding myself lying on my back in the wet grass. It was nothing compared to having to crawl away from a engulfing infernal, that seemed to hunt victims, and seeing burning bodies and others dying in painful convulsions.
The rain was getting heavier. At first it was cool and refreshing, but now it was chilling me to the bone.
People ignored the biting cold winds and thrashing rain as they continued to gather. Now pouring out of the main service station like termites from a nest.
The wind was whipping the flames into curling thongs that reached all the way to the roof, reaching and spreading the destruction. Burning embers swirling and dancing in the dark sky creating a ballet all of there own.
More windows could be heard shattering. Loud popping sounds echoed out of the building. Screaming, hissing smoke issued from countless windows and cracked walls.
I could hear sirens ringing through the wind, and through the sound of the burning building. The emergency services had been stretched to there limit over the last few days.
I knew the blue Vauxhall would still be where I had left it, but decided to leave it; they would already be looking for it.
I remembered seeing a small signpost as I drove along the long twisting lane leading to the entrance of the service station; it stated a small settlement was at the end of the road. The small village stood no more than quarter of a mile down the back lanes. So that’s where I headed. Head down against the onslaught of wind and driving rain. I walked along the narrow hedge covered lanes.
After getting away from the main car park and entrance, with all the police cars, ambulances and fire engines flying past, no other cars seemed to be around. No other living souls apart from behind at the service station, where even now the battle to control the fire was underway.
I had no idea what the time was? I regretted dropping my watch down the drain. It was a present from my second wife. A Ulysse Nardin, two thousand pound watch kind of stands out. Why didn’t I just put it in my pocket? I was under a lot of stress at the time – and still am. It was a diver’s watch anyway – stainless steel, so it would be okay until I went to retrieve it, if I ever got the chance.
I missed using my iPhone. It could’ve told me the time, including my exact location down to a couple of feet anywhere on the planet. But I couldn’t risk turning it on, they would be able to track my SIM card.
I had pondered going into a 02 phone shop and picking up a Pay & Go SIM card and swapping it with mine. Just putting a tenner on would give me a certain amount of text, but more importantly 500MB’s of web browsing. With that I could use anyone of the numerous Apps my phone held. A Map App that would not only pinpoint me, but tell me how to get to certain locations. An App called AroundMe, which tells you the location of anything from banks and ATM machines, to gas stations, pharmacies, hospital and hotels. When I’m in an unfamiliar city I always find what I need with this App. I could’ve also used the Sky News App, which would keep me up-to-date with everything that was happening at my home.
But I hadn’t seen a 02 shop yet, and I doubted very much that the small village I was headed towards would have one.
The small isolated village I now stumbled into was dark and deserted. Cats and dogs were the only wandering inhabitants of the narrow shadowy streets. Their fur was plastered to their backs, making them look thin and unnatural, the granny light reflecting off their large round eyes, like many wandering water-demons. Very few lights glowed from the drawn curtains. A handful of street lights spilled weak light onto the rain soaked streets. With the ever-present sound of the rain drumming against the concrete pavement and slate roofs.
I wandered up the main street, a mere collection of old narrow dull houses and a scattering of small shops. Large ugly light green wheelie-bins sat perched all the way along the streets, with big black bin bags stacked up around them. Some had been torn into from hungry cats or foxes. An occasional head with glowing green or orange eyes wound peer from beside ripped bags. Tomorrow was possibly garbage day.
Every now and then a shattering sound would cause me to turn quickly, sounding like someone throwing pottery from a window down onto the street.
The rain was now heavy and pouring steadily. I loved the rain. Even more so if I was inside watching the rain spatter against the windows, or echoing off the conservatory roof. It wasn’t much fun walking along in it. I needed to get out of my wet clothes and into somewhere warm. I couldn’t get wetter even if I jumped in a river.
I continued along the old main street. Few windows splashed light out onto the pavement, illuminating the large bins and rounded black bags, looking like hunched figures crouching in the rain, all lining the street waiting for me to pass.
Then for some reason that I can’t explain, I turned down a small back street. No street lights illuminate the dark and ominous side lanes. The small lane was so narrow it wouldn’t even fit a car down it. Front doors were directly facing each other. The houses themselves seemed like they were huddled together to protect themselves from the bitter wind and battering rain. Several roof tiles lay shattered on the cobblestone street, having been torn from their resting place and smashed like fragile glass. So that was the crashing sounds I had been hearing.
Then as I turned another corner, down an impossibly narrow lane, I saw a door wide open, with wind and rain lashing through. I headed towards it, head down against the pounding relentless English weather.
I stood on an old warn doormat, looking into the dwelling. No lights issued from the small cramped house. Maybe the door had blown open from the battering wind? I knew differently when an eerie, wailing voice rose out of the very wind and darkness itself.
“E… n… t… e… r...” it said, in a long drawn out voice, sounding like a person trying to talk while suffering from a bad asthma attack.
I stepped into the cold house and was engulfed in darkness. The door slammed shut behind me.
22
Little Remains
The inside of the house was even darker and colder than outside, if that was possible. The cold seemed to creep into the very marrow of my bones, making me shiver violently, seemingly making the rain freeze on my skin.
I couldn’t hear any other whispering voices. Just emptiness and abandonment, that wrapped around me like a chilling blanket.
I was surprised the onset of hypothermia wasn’t kicking in. I was soaked and freezing – the perfect recipe to get extremely ill. Added to the body damage from the train crash and hotel fire, I should have been a complete mess. But apart from being cold and feeling slightly woozy, and having a little chest pain and ringing ears, I was much better than I had any right to be.
I hope my luck – in the health department – lasted.
Amen.
I jumped as the fire roared to life in the hearth, engulfing the logs stacked inside. The orange and red flames licked around inside the old fireplace, consuming most of the wood in one violent burst. It then quietened down, the flames becoming more subdued, gently crackling away, turning to a yellowy-orange. Images of the hotel fire flashed in my mind, burned bodies and screaming children. I quickly banished them.
I then knew it was his voice that called me into the house. His power lighting the fire, as he had done in my home, keeping the fire burni
ng for days.
The room was small and cramped. Only one old chunky easy chair near the fire, made from brown striped cloth, with a small footstall in the same material. On another wall was an old bookcase, filled with books picked up from charity shops and flea markets. And a vast stack of old magazines on the big bottom shelf; all tatty and well read. Next to the chair was a non-tilt overbed table, the same as you see in hospitals. Next to the table were more magazines and papers. There was a television opposite the chair, an old one, which was built into a wooden cabinet and standing on wobbly looking legs. The main feature of the room though was the large ornate green patterned tiled fireplace, with a John Constable, The Hay Wain print hanging over it. I knew the painting well, my grandma use to have the same over her London fireplace. I spent hours dreaming I lived in that cottage by the water.
To one side another doorway led into what could be a kitchen. A spiral staircase twisted away from sight in one corner, leading to the first floor. The house was old and had been well used.