The Burning Man

by Paul Finch

  ‘Mark … what’s he doing here?’ she stammered. ‘Why’s he –?’

  ‘Just run! Run!’

  The madman also cut across the auditorium, scrambling between rows of seats, intent on heading them off. Again, he unleashed hell, blood-red flame blooming towards them.

  They dropped, taking refuge on the litter-strewn carpet. A wedge of fire surged overhead, after which they risked glancing up. Large portions of the room were now burning. The carpets, the upholstery, the seats and even the aged wall-hangings had ignited. The air was rank with smoke, raging with heat. But, untroubled by this, their assailant vaulted clumsily over the seats as he advanced. Flames licked at him, but with no effect. Heck and Kayla dashed on. They came to the next aisle, and were tempted to divert back along it towards the entrance, but, pre-empting this, the Incinerator switched the angle of his attack and drove a wall of flame across their path, driving them back again, shepherding them down the aisle towards the front of the cinema, where what remained of the age-browned movie screen dangled in strips. To either side hung vast, swag-like drapes of formerly ornate brocade.

  Heck yanked the phone from his pocket, but of course it was broken.

  ‘You got your mobile?’ he shouted.

  ‘No, I didn’t have time, I –’

  ‘Shit!’

  The Incinerator let rip another searing jet. They ran on, and this time were almost too late. Agonising heat flared up their backs. To either side, filth-impregnated seats exploded in flames. They spun around, choking, clothes smouldering, faces sodden and blackened by smoke. The Incinerator was less than twenty yards away. He again had them in his sights.

  The next jet would envelop them.

  On pure instinct, Heck flung his useless phone at the figure’s head. It might have worked. The iPhone was a heavy device; had it smashed the plate at the front of the Incinerator’s helmet, it would have exposed him to the fire as well, and maybe forced him to withdraw. However, the maniac merely dropped to one knee and it sailed past.

  It bought them a couple of seconds, but now only one route lay open; the pathway along the front of the screen, which led to an exit-door in the far corner. They lurched down towards this, and found themselves in a fire-lit cement passage. Thirty yards ahead, the exterior exit-door loomed. They ran up to it and rammed down on the escape-bar. But the door didn’t budge. Heck put his shoulder to it, though all he managed to do was wind himself. It was secured on the other side, probably by chains. There was no escape this way.

  They turned frantically – just as the interior exit-door crashed open, and the Incinerator stood there. His silvery, flame-resistant armour had turned charcoal black. He was moving more slowly, almost sluggishly, which suggested that, shielded or not, he was finally feeling the kiln-like heat. Of course, he wouldn’t be feeling it as they would.

  They were trapped, with nowhere to hide.

  Except for one faint possibility.

  Ten yards in front, part way between the fugitives and their assailant, stood a side-door. Heck remembered it as another exit, this one connecting to the cinema’s upper circle. The thought of ascending to the upper floors with the ground level ablaze was terrifying. But what choice did they have? He pushed Kayla forward.

  The Incinerator halted, nonplussed by their apparently suicidal action. Then realised what they were doing. He raised his weapon, determined to turn them to hunks of shrivelled, sizzling meat. But they made it to the door first. Heck threw himself at it head-on. From the corner of his eye, he saw a bright yellow glare as the passage was filled with flame. The door swung open. They barged through it together, though the fiery barrage pursued them, blossoming up a black, narrow stairway behind them.

  ‘Heck, this whole theatre is going up!’ Kayla jabbered. ‘We’ll be killed.’

  ‘It’s our only chance. We’ll get to a window or something.’

  The first floor, when they reached it, was already filled with smoke. It was also intensely hot. They stumbled down the first passage, wafting at fumes just so they could breathe. Doors to the empty shells of offices stood on all sides, but none would provide a refuge. Like some medieval dragon, the Incinerator burst into view at their rear, repeated jets of liquid flame spurting ahead of him. The walls and ceiling of the passage were already vividly alight, but he advanced anyway. They fled on, rounding a corner, and finding the doorway to the upper circle. Through it, they saw the seating in the balcony, now lit a lurid crimson. Thanks to the ageing swags of material decking the cinema’s walls, flames had spread to the ceiling and were consuming the once ornate plasterwork and exposed skeletal beams.

  Heck turned back. The Incinerator was even closer, though, half-blinded himself by the smoke and the strobe-like glare, he hadn’t spotted them yet. With each doorway he came to, he squirted a jet of flame through it. Heck scanned frantically for the main stair down. It ought to lie somewhere on their right, but the roiling smog hid everything. When Kayla grabbed his arm and lunged for the door to the upper circle, it occurred to him that maybe they could descend to the front of the balcony, and perhaps climb over it and drop down.

  They hurried down between the seats. It would be a calculated risk, but when they got there it was like glancing down into Dante’s Inferno. The entire downstairs was on fire. The auditorium’s carpets, the rows of seats with their thick, decayed upholstery, and the tide of dried litter had proved combustible in the extreme. Driven back by heat, they found themselves in the access passage again – but flames were racing through this part of the building too. And amid them, framed against this seething orange/red backdrop, came the Incinerator: his massive, bulky outline, his barrel torso, his solid limbs, the heavy folds of his armour-like suit, which they now noticed was cinched around the waist with some kind of utility belt, numerous hand-tools tucked into it. The flamethrower, however, hung by his side.

  He was featureless behind his blackened faceplate, but he scrutinised them carefully – as though with sudden interest rather than homicidal fury.

  They backed off, faces singed, eyes tearful.

  He advanced a couple of ponderous steps, and turning first to the left, then to the right, sprayed arcs of liquid fire over those few parts of the upstairs not yet burning. Heck and Kayla found themselves hemmed into a tiny corner. Their clothes were smoky and wringing with sweat, their hair hung in sopping strands. They were so disoriented that only now did they notice the single functional door directly behind them.

  Heck kicked at it, expecting it to be locked, yet it broke open on first impact. He yanked Kayla through into the darkness beyond. They hammered up a tall, steep stairway, brick walls sheer on either side. At the top, they kicked and punched at another flimsy door, which again was smashed open, and found themselves facing a dank, bare room that was knee-deep in rubbish, much of it ancient movie posters turned green and black with mould. Fading evening light spilled through a single narrow window only partly blocked by slanted planks.

  Despite the horror behind, something about this dismal garret caused them to hesitate.

  They sensed movement in there. A faint scratching sound, possibly; it was hard to tell.

  Louder, though, came a clumping of boots as the Incinerator entered the stairwell.

  Instinctively, they lunged towards the light, only half noticing how foul the smell was in this part of the building; it was like an old toilet or an untended zoo cage. When they reached the window, Kayla ripped at the planks, working them loose one after another. As more light spilled in, Heck glanced up – and saw rib-like ceiling joists a couple of feet above their heads. They were clustered with hundreds of small, furry bodies hanging together like clumps of putrid fruit.

  Bats, he realised – which explained the animal smell, though basically they were harmless.

  That said, they’d be waking up very soon. He just hoped that Kayla – in her desperate, panic-stricken state – wouldn’t respond to the sight with a scream. As more light infiltrated the room, she too spotted the creatures;
she instantly froze, only for Heck to clap a hand over her mouth, and at the same time clutch her hand tightly to reassure her.

  She nodded to indicate that she was OK and that she understood she had to be quiet. Even so, shivers of movement passed through the sleeping colony overhead, probably caused by the rising heat and the smell of smoke. And then, with echoing reverberations, the Incinerator’s ascending footfalls sounded from the stair.

  ‘Move it!’ Heck hissed. ‘Quickly!’

  Visibly frantic, Kayla clambered up into the window-frame, where she halted, teetering, almost hyperventilating with fright.

  ‘Oh … oh, my God, Mark!’

  Heck stuck his head past her and peered down an eighty-foot drop into a rubbish-filled alley. At first it looked impossible; there was no other way from here. But then, a couple of feet below the window, he spied a narrow ledge. It was no more than seven inches wide, and still wet from the earlier rainfall. It ran away along the side of the building, turning at a right angle some ten yards to their left, where the cinema adjoined a different derelict building. From there, the ledge ran on past several more broken windows before continuing out of sight along the next alley.

  Safety was only ten yards away.

  But it would be ten yards of sheer terror.

  Kayla resisted as Heck tried to ease her out. ‘You can’t … you can’t be serious!’

  ‘It’s this or we burn,’ he replied.

  She glanced around, and saw the look on his face, and maybe because the alternative truly was even more awful, she stepped down onto that perilous ledge, switching her face to the wall, and whimpering loudly, began edging her way along it. Heck followed, though the sense of vertigo was already dizzying. It didn’t help that the ledge was not level, and they had to hug the wall with their spread-eagled bodies simply to keep their balance. The wall consisted of flat, smoothly fitted bricks, with barely a finger-hold between them, but even without the terror behind, once they’d commenced shuffling along, moving slowly but determinedly because they had no other choice, it felt impossible to go back. They were intensely aware of the chasm yawning behind, and didn’t dare glance downwards, not even at their feet, which was hardly ideal when to trip or stumble could be a disaster. Heck was particularly in danger, because he brought up the rear. He pressed his body and his left cheek hard into the bricks as he slid along, arms outspread, but the breath heaved through his chest. Each time, it felt as if the expansion of his ribcage would push him backward and overbalance him. Already the muscles in his calves and ankles had tightened to the point where they ached. When he suddenly felt cold, heavy droplets drumming the top of his head, he halted, wondering at first if he’d stepped underneath a leaky overhead gutter, but then realising that it had started raining again. In the brief interval while he pondered this, his right foot lost its grip on the moist ledge and skated sideways, clouting Kayla’s left foot. She yelped out loud as she tried to steady herself, which they both knew would be heard inside the room if the Incinerator had entered it.

  Fleetingly, the shock of slipping almost overbalanced Heck. He rocked on the balls of his feet, frantically digging his fingers into the tiniest cracks. He was still only halfway along, but Kayla was much closer to the safety of the open windows on the next building. The promise of this egged her on; once she was stable, she lurched on almost recklessly fast.

  ‘Mark … I’m almost there,’ she stammered.

  He managed to stabilise himself, again pushing the side of his face against the bricks, and focusing on the section of ledge just ahead. Kayla had now almost made it to the corner beyond which stood the first of the windows. She was so close that she could probably step across the triangular gap and grab the window’s sill. She glanced back towards him, only to fix on something just behind him – at which point her expression changed, all hope visibly draining out of it.

  Though Heck felt that readjusting his position even slightly, just enough that he could lean back sufficiently to turn his head, would be a desperate undertaking, he had no option. He had to look round – and found himself gazing back several yards at the garret window, from which the blackened form of the Incinerator leaned outward, his featureless, gold-painted faceplate blank and impenetrable, his weapon trained squarely on the pair of them.

  He raised the weapon to chest height, taking careful aim. From this range, he couldn’t miss. His finger crooked on the trigger. Mesmerised, they gazed into the black hole at the end of the muzzle, where a dot of flame threatened a volcanic outpouring.

  And then Heck shouted – as loudly as he could.

  It was a bass, meaningless, incoherent roar, delivered with every scrap of air in his lungs, at the very top of his voice.

  And it worked.

  In the room behind the Incinerator, the bats exploded from their roosts.

  The next thing, the madman was enmeshed in a blizzard of leathery wings and claws as the creatures poured out from the confined space in a living tornado. With wild grunts, he dropped the flamethrower’s pistol section, which clattered down against the outer bricks, hanging by its rubber tubing, and beat around his head as the entire colony engulfed him.

  Heck watched, fleetingly spellbound. But then a gust of wind blasted the rain full into his face. He blinked, again almost overbalancing, having to flatten himself hard against the wall, while the Incinerator struggled. A low sobbing drew his attention back towards Kayla, who he realised was crying with relief as she climbed through the aperture into the safety of the next building.

  Heck still had several yards to go, but, without the pressure from behind, it was easier than it had been. Soon he’d made it to the corner. From here he reached out, took Kayla’s outstretched hand and was able to step over the angled gap, plant one knee on the next window’s sill and scramble through into the room beyond.

  Chapter 39

  The Fire Brigade reached the Lyceum long before any additional police units did. Heck watched their teams work amid the chaos of smoke and teeming rain. He himself was nearly 150 yards away, in the front passenger seat of his Megane, the wipers thudding back and forth to keep the windscreen clear. Kayla sat alongside him, wrapped in a foil blanket, still sipping the beaker of coffee the firemen had provided her with even though it had long gone cold. Her hair looked damp and ratty, and beneath the sooty smears her face was ash-grey, almost immobile. She was going into shock and needed to be seen by a medic, but no ambulances had made it over here just yet.

  Meanwhile, Gemma’s voice sounded again in Heck’s ear. He’d lost his own phone, but had been able to call her on the phone he’d taken from the gangster Kemp, which was sitting in his glovebox when he’d stumbled back to his car.

  ‘But you two are definitely all right?’ she asked.

  ‘We seem to be, ma’am,’ he replied.

  ‘And you’re sure there was no one else trapped inside?’

  He shrugged wearily. ‘I dunno. Unless there were some hoboes dossing down in there who we didn’t see, the only other person on the premises was the Incinerator.’

  ‘Could he have been caught in it?’

  ‘Well … the whole place was going up when we got out, and he was still on the top floor. He’s wearing fireproof armour, of course … he might have been able to walk out, but I don’t know. That was quite a blaze. The problem at the moment is that I can’t get anywhere near the building to have a look.’

  Halfway down the backstreet, the Fire Brigade had blocked further access by deploying their own incident tape, both an inner cordon and an outer cordon stretching across the alley. For their own safety, no one else was being allowed anywhere nearer than that.

  ‘Have you liaised with DI Hayes yet?’ Gemma asked.

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘She’s on her way. So stay put, OK?’

  ‘Will do. Did you have any joy at Woodfold?’

  ‘We did, as a matter of fact. We got Sagan on camera.’

  Heck straightened up. ‘It was him for sure?’

&nb
sp; ‘One hundred per cent. We’ve managed to track him across town to a compound for disused vehicles at a place called Hunger Hill. You know it?’

  ‘Sam French Motors or something. That’s still there?’

  ‘It certainly is. And at present we’ve got it surrounded.’

  ‘Let me guess … he’s gone to ground among all the wrecks?’

  ‘Correct, and we can’t afford to make a hoohah by going rummaging through a sea of canvas to look for him. He’ll spot us from way off, and we’ll never see him again. So we’re sitting tight. Now listen, Mark.’ Her tone altered from the usual clipped efficiency to one of subdued but intense emotion. ‘Leave Sagan to us. Your priority is still the Incinerator. If he’s not lying in the ashes of that cinema, make sure you at least get hold of his Peugeot. It’s likely to be chocka with evidence. In fact, even if he is lying in there, he might be bloody unrecognisable … so we still need that car secured and cordoned off. Are we clear?’

  ‘Affirmative.’

  ‘As I say, DI Hayes can give you a hand. She’s trying to get over there as we speak. Anything else new, get on the blower.’

  ‘Will do.’ Heck cut the call and sat back. At the end of the alley, the towering black edifice of the Lyceum was wreathed in smoke, but at least the searing glare of flames was receding. Around its feet, firemen still moved, semi-invisible amid clouds of billowing steam.