The wind slid against his face and riding on it he could hear a weird, muffled sound coming from somewhere outside.
‘Just an animal …’ Then he frowned. ‘Maybe it’s just one of the swans?’ Being torn to pieces, from the sounds of it. He leaned forward and pushed his face through the hole in the window.
She clutched the front of her top and with a quick glance toward the ceiling, she jerked back into the room. ‘Matt. Pull your head back in.’
He whispered. ‘It’s not coming from the roof, it’s coming from the park.’
She grabbed his elbow. ‘Pull your head back in.’
‘Shhhh!’ He gazed out through the shimmering branches at the black void beyond. ‘I think it’s getting louder—’
It happened. Just then.
A sudden small light flashed through the twisted branches. Then the squealing started again. Only now it was more frantic and pained, yet still distant.
He squinted his eyes, leant forward even more, then said all he could think of. ‘Holy shit.’
‘What?’ She stared over his shoulder at the little light. ‘What is it?’
But he was already running towards the door, Holly’s furniture warped in the corners of his vision as he ran. He scrambled down the stairs, skidding off the bottom few, then he raced past the dining room, fast enough to almost fall, but not so fast that he didn’t notice a snapshot diorama of Mary Wasson in the dining room, still in her evening dress. One side of her hair had unpinned itself and was hanging like some mad fright wig. Her cheeks were now streaked black with running eyeliner while she laughed and danced around the table holding what looked like a child’s nightie to her chest. Peter and the Wolf drifted gently through the air. A bottle of vodka sat on the table with a missing cap. Next to it was a white mug. It said ‘World’s No.1 Mummy.’
He rushed outside.
‘Matt!’ Rachel called down to him from Holly’s open window. ‘What the hell’s going on?’
‘Call the police,’ he shouted, racing madly down the concrete path and across the street. ‘And the fire brigade. Call everybody now.’
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
He’d been a pretty fast runner in his time. Did the London Marathon once for charity. Admittedly it nearly killed him and he almost vomited twice (on miles fourteen and twenty) but he still did it in just over four hours. Enough for him to paw at his little medal every night for two weeks after: his one triumph in an otherwise abysmal sporting career.
But now his legs felt bulky and stiff, especially in his trousers and smart, flat shoes. Clumsy knees locked into place as he pounded desperately across the Barley Street road. Then he grabbed the iron railing and pulled himself up and over it, gasping. From this distance it was difficult to tell what was on fire exactly, only that whatever it was, it was screeching. It also didn’t help that in this part of the park there were no real street lights to speak of, only the ones from Barley Street. They faded with every step. Yet as he scrambled across the grass he could see the edge of the tree trunks slowly starting to flicker as the flames grew larger. He saw faces shimmering in the glow, which startled him at first, until he realised they were figures running towards the same sight he was. Drawn by the spectacle of it and the awful inhuman wailing that was growing louder with every hammering step.
It was disorientating, because the closer he got, the more it looked like the flames were hovering above the floor. Then gradually as the light grew larger he started to get his bearings. Over to the left, the silhouette of the gazebo was slowly flashing into life and to the right of it, that long thick branch of the heavy oak tree stretched towards it. The fire was literally floating under the branch and the flames made the tree, and the ones near it, look like they were alive. It was a common optical illusion. Still, though, he had no care for the way those branches seemed to writhe and dance as the screams went on. Nature itself rejoicing at pain.
For a while all he could hear was the wailing sound along with his own wheezing breath, but then laughter came from behind him. Without slowing he quickly jerked his head to see a row of teenage boys chasing him. Or rather, they were just running like he was. Snorting and saying stuff like, ‘Bet you any money, it’s a tyre. Bet you that’s the rubber screaming.’
It wasn’t a tyre.
Just as the breath in Matt’s lungs began to ignite, he was able to make out the shape now. It was a roughly cylindrical object, engulfed in flames. An oddly clear bright line – like a sharp finger – had started to grow from it toward the overhanging tree above, too straight and perfect to be a branch. It took him a good few steps to realise that the line wasn’t part of the tree. It was rope.
Ironically, the squealing sound had started to die down the closer he got but it was now replaced by the whoops and witch-like cackles of four girls nearby. They looked like they’d been walking back through the park from a pub. Laughter fell into sharp screams and hands clutched kebabs in fright. Two of them toppled to the floor in heels not designed for backing away. Mouths hung open on hinges.
‘That’s …’ one of the boys said behind him. ‘Bloody hell.’
Matt didn’t stop running. Not even when his cheeks began to burn. It was only when wisps of material or ash – he couldn’t tell which – went dancing towards his eyes that his legs stopped churning and he gasped out breath. He stared up in dread at the flashing shape, which wasn’t moving at all save for a slight twist to the rope with flames running
