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from a cut on his hand, a steady drip-drip of sticky crimson fluid that left a
spotted trail in his wake.
Still searching. A box that rattled, fascinated him so that he tried to open
it, became angry when he could find no hinged lid. A grunt of surprise as the
interior slid out, a kind of drawer filled with lots of little sticks.
Something flashed across his memory, a reminder that had him scraping a match
head on emery paper. The sudden burst of flame had him backing away with a
cry of anguish, the match falling from his fingers and extinguishing itself in
a puff of sulphurous smoke.
Walter Stone gurgled his amazement, scrabbled in the box again, spilling some
of its contents on to the floor treading on them, igniting them. He jumped
back in alarm then began to laugh again, dropped to his knees and blew at the
flames like a child attempting to extinguish burning candles on a birthday
cake.
Some of the matches went out. Two or three were stubborn, their flames
wafting, one hungrily attempting to reach a pile of scattered newspapers which
had spilled oul of the kitchen cupboard. A comer caught, began to spread. . .
.
Stone watched in silence, amazed, an awareness that he had achieved this; his
own work, all his own doing. Now striking matches with gay abandon, flinging
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ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
them into the air, a private firework display, the bonfire starting to blaze,
crackling as some smashed furniture yielded to the persistence of the
fire. The smoke made his his eyes smart and he pawed at them annoyance.
Jubilation as man's primitive instincts were awakened. Fire was pretty; it was
warm.
Too warm. Hot. He retreated into a corner, coughed. The doorway was on the
opposite side of the room but it never occurred to him to make a dash for it.
Within seconds that single avenue of escape was cut off.
Now the room was ablaze, wooden units a fiery wall. Still he stood and watched
through smarting eyes, laughing loudly, talking to himself. It was nice, very
nice; he hoped that the fire didn't suddenly go out.
Noises. A shrill blaring, faces beyond the flames nut he ignored them. A
crashing of glass, shards splintering like that ornament he had dropped
earlier. Voices shouting; a hissing watery sound like the bath taps upstairs
made only much more powerful.
Walter Stone gave a cry of defiance. Whoever these intruders were they could
not get at him because he had built an impenetrable barrier of fire. He
stumbled, fell . . . and then he saw the face in the fire, features that were
impervious to the heat, ancient immortality that had surely risen from Dante's
hell, features so malign that a cry of incomprehensible terror came from the
Planning Officer's cracked and blistered lips. He heard the words, somehow
understood them in spite of the fact that his brain was past reasoning.
'The sentence of death has been passed on you by the Council of Oke Priests,
traitor who sought to desecrate sacred (and. Your body will be burned by fire
but your soul will suffer eternal purgatory!'
A strange feeling engulfed the man whose clothing was already burning on his
body, a kind of dizziness in which everything was blurred, even the heat
lessening for a few seconds. An awful sucking sensation as though a vacuum
pipe attached to his head was forcibly drawing his brains out. Everything went
black, then he was conscious again, but it was all different. Somehow he was
airborne, still in that fiery room, looking down on his own incinerated body!
He did not understand, did not attempt to reason even though his mind was no
longer fogged. This was the way it was meant to be, freed from the encumbrance
of a bulky shell, able to float wherever he wished. Yet he felt compelled to
remain and watch.
Outside the firemen had been forced to retreat across the road, playing their
hoses on the burning building from a distance. The flames leaped higher,
throwing up columns of sparks, debris falling in a series of avalanches. A
crowd had gathered, a fever of excitement. People secretly enjoyed a
spectacular fire, peering through the eddying smoke, trying to see . . . a man
was trapped in there, being burned alive. They craved a glimpse of a frantic
blackened figure, strained their ears for screams of agony; reluctantly moved
back a few yards when the uniformed policemen remonstrated with them. A child
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