Chris Cleave - Incendiary

—What’s this big thing?

—It’s the airbag, said Jasper. It saved your life I should think.

—Who are you?

—My name is Jasper Black, he said. We hardly know one another. We’ve had sex twice. I am very fond of you. I was driving you to a football ground that exploded.

—Oh. Yes I remember you now. You’re very kind to me.

—Does anything hurt? he said. Do you think I can safely move you?

His voice was different. I looked at him. There was blood on his face and his nose wasn’t quite where it ought to of been. I giggled I don’t know why. He pulled me out of the motor. My legs were shaky but they held me up. I looked at the car. We’d gone into a parked van and everything was bent and broken.

—Oh no. Your beautiful motor. It’s all spoiled. And your poor face.

I reached up to push his nose back into the right place but he wouldn’t let me. He grabbed my wrist.

—It’s okay, he said. It’s been broken before it’s no big deal.

—Oh my god. The girl.

—We missed her, said Jasper Black.

—Oh good. Where is she?

—She’s over there, he said.

I looked where he was pointing and I saw her. She was still just lying there in her Chelsea shirt looking up into the smoke. I remember thinking that was pretty casual. I went over to her with Jasper Black holding me steady and I kneeled down beside her. I shook her and I asked if she was okay.

—She won’t answer.

—That’s because she’s dead I’m afraid, said Jasper Black.

The girl was so pretty. She was an ASIAN STUNNER. She looked Chinese but she was too pale. She could of done with a bit of makeup. I stroked her face and her skin was very soft. Around us there was a terrible noise of sirens. All the car alarms in the whole street were going off and the hazard warning lights were flashing through the smoke and the darkness. It was a terrible noise but the girl just lay there. She looked ever so peaceful. She didn’t look like someone whose side had been losing 1–nil. Then I noticed there was a red streak coming out from under her head and running away to the kerb. All the blood had gone out of her and into the storm drains it made me nervous. I stood up.

—Come on. Let’s go and find my husband and my boy. Never mind your car. We can all get home on the bus.

I walked off up the road with the smoke hurting my lungs. I was coughing and dribbling I couldn’t help it. It was getting darker. Jasper Black came with me. He was coughing too and there was blood pouring off his face. Now in the darkness I saw them. First just a few and then so many. Some wore red shirts some wore blue shirts and some had their shirts off so you couldn’t tell. They were coming down the street towards us and they made no sound. Their eyes were wide and glassy and quite often they stumbled but they never blinked. There must of been hundreds of them shuffling out of the smoke. All of them with their eyes huge and wide like things pulled up from very deep in the sea.

A blond woman came towards us. She was wearing gold earrings and an Arsenal shirt and pink Kappa trackie bottoms. Her makeup was nice and her nails were done but she was screaming again and again and again. I wondered how come she was screaming when everyone else was so quiet. She went past us still screaming and I turned to watch her go past. Then I saw what it was. On her back she wasn’t wearing anything at all. The Arsenal shirt and the Kappa trackies were all burned off her. There was just burned skin all the way up her legs and her back. You could see where her knickers had melted into her. The back of her head looked like something you take out of the oven. She disappeared into the smoke still screaming screaming screaming and I wondered why nobody was helping her. Then I remembered my husband and my boy and I forgot all about the woman.

I grabbed the next person that came past. He was a small man with a thin moustache about 50 years old I suppose. I grabbed him round the shoulders. He stopped and looked at me the way my boy used to look at strangers when he was 9 months old. All unsure.

—Have you seen my husband and my son? Have you seen them please? Think carefully my husband is a tall man 6 foot 1 very strong wearing an Arsenal shirt. My son is about this high he is quite strong too for his age he has ginger hair he would of been carrying a rabbit the rabbit is about so big he has purple paws and green ears his name is Mr. Rabbit.

The man stared at me.

—You’re going the wrong way darling, he said.

—Please. Please think carefully.

The man broke free. He went away down the street. I started shouting.

—HAS ANYONE SEEN A LITTLE BOY? HAVEN’T ANY OF YOU SEEN A LITTLE BOY 4 YEARS AND 3 MONTHS OLD? HE MIGHT HAVE A RABBIT WITH HIM OR HE MIGHT NOT.

Nobody stopped. They were all pushing past me. They smelled of smoke and sweat and burned meat. I was crying again. Jasper Black was beside me.

—Come on, he said. Let’s get you out of here. This is the wrong place for you.

He tried to turn me round but I shook him off.

—No. I’m going to find my chaps. You can come with me or not I don’t care.

I went on up the street. It got darker and darker. My eyes hurt so bad I had to close them and I just carried on blindly bumping into people and motors. It was like going up a horrible river. I just made sure I kept on in the other direction from the people I bumped into. I was close to the stadium now. Whenever I opened my eyes there were coppers and firemen all mixed up with the people. The firemen had these masks on and tubes attached to big air tanks on their backs. They were going the same way I was. I held on to the back of one of the firemen and I walked along behind him for a while letting him make a way for me.

We came up under one of the huge entrances all metal and glass soaring up into the black sky. There were coppers there and press. The press were trying to get in. They were pushing into the police line and jumping all over the place flashing off their cameras into the smoke. The coppers wouldn’t let them into the stadium and there was shoving and fights. I got down on my hands and knees and crawled in through the legs of the whole lot of them. I got kicked around and stamped on something terrible. I felt things break inside me but I kept on crawling. My elbows got torn ragged and I couldn’t breathe. It hurt so bad but I didn’t care. I was going to find my boy.

The ground started to get slippery under me. I was inside the stadium now. I could tell because the noise of car alarms was fading. All I could hear was shouts and police radios and people screaming. I was very weak. I knew there was stuff burst inside me because I looked under my T-shirt and my tummy was swelling up from the inside. I tried to stand but I fell over straight away. The ground was so wet and slippery and I was so messed up. I thought if I tried to crawl upwards I might get to dry ground. I found these steps and I started to go up them and this wet sticky stuff was running down and then I smelled it and I puked and puked. I was crawling to find my boy up a waterfall of blood and now it had my puke in it too.

I don’t know how long I dragged myself through the smoke and the crackle of the police radios with the firemen’s boots stamping down all around me. It was very hot and the blood hurt when it dried on my face. Someone stood on my hand. I heard it break. I heard the bones crunch past each other and I saw my thumb sticking out all funny but I couldn’t feel it. I was thinking nothing much. I was thinking of those 3 kids turning slow circles on their bikes. Of me lying next to my husband and listening to him breathe.

I went up steps and down steps with dead bodies and bits of bodies lying all over them. The bodies were like islands in a river with the blood all piled up in sticky clots on their uphill sides. After a long time I felt grass under my hands and I knew I was on the pitch.