Firestorm

We were partying, somewhere. It felt like New Years, but we were in a small place, and didn't seem to be going too hard at it; perhaps not Hogmanay but one of those dead days between Christmas and New Year when everyone's free and there's not much else to do. I felt I knew the town, had been there a few times before, but it wasn't home. I was hammered, as usual. It certainly seemed to be usual as no-one even took the piss out of me as I woke up confused in this house, the whole 'Where am I, who am I?' routine. My friends were leaving to move on, I had real trouble finding my shoes and jacket, despite them being on me; then panicked over the money missing from my pocket, and my lack of wallet, which after some more stumbling and running back in my head to when I'd last seen them I found in exactly the first place I'd looked.

We left heading toward another party, another friend's house. It was snowy outside, not too cold, the snow had obviously been slushy where people had walked during the afternoon and was just beginning to crisp with frost. I ran ahead, brought crisply awake by the nippy air, trying to jump and slide on the ice and slush. True to form my friends took advantage to pelt me with snowballs, big fat white ones, apart from Pasty who was throwing his usual lethal balls of bare-handed ice. I laughed back at them, dancing and failing to avoid the deluge, looking up over the square we'd arrived at, not far from the house we'd just left. Not a large area, an anonymous Scottish town 'square'. On the right and behind, a large church-like building, incongruous brick walls against the general stone, slightly foreboding; right and ahead a row of 2 storey houses leading to the road we were to take. Ahead and left, low-ish warehouse style buildings, gable ends facing the square.

It was then I realised something was wrong. Above the warehouse roofs there stood a mass of grey cloud, twisting strangely in odd winds which didn't seem to reach the square. 'Stood' was wrong... The cloud appeared to be stalking, almost with purpose, but only general direction. Its top spread across the sky, but at the base it came down too low, an inverted slate mass concentrated from the hanging cloudbase. Protected by a nice warm party glow the worst I imagined was serious snow - although the wind was too light to justify what looked like a supreme blizzard. Perhaps hail? Whatever, I shouted behind, pointed, and started to run to the buildings ahead. There was a deep doorway in the far right warehouse wall, and I headed for it, keeping as much of an eye on this twisted cloud as I could. It continued to stalk unnaturally toward us, too fast, a hint of direction now to the movement. The base put down feelers, almost like legs, touching here and there on rooftops, obscuring them individually; before the rest of the grey caught up and obscured the whole roofline. I glanced back at my friends strung out across the square, each beginning to show signs of urgency if not understanding. Some, Rob, Ros, Blondie headed for my doorway, others peeling off for shelter in others across the square.

The whole atmosphere was becoming oppressive, turgid; movement was manageable but vision and sound were distorted. I remember distinctly the silver grey of the aged wood of the door, the grey of the stone, the flecks of flaking ancient green paint, and the round doorknob. Rob and I looked back to see a massive, roiling cloud break like nothing I've ever seen over the roofline of the square. It was like a suspension of Satanic graphite, every sandstorm, volcanic ash flow, portal to Hell from every program and movie you've ever seen, beyond belief. It stormed, and never had the term been more apt, overhead, pressing down, reaching for but not touching the ground. Small fingers and wisps plucked from the cloud at Blondie and Ros as they tried to join us. That was the moment I was completely sober. Until then the worst imaginable was some football sized hail, possible scrapes and bruises and a good story, but this was malevolent, a feel of something aware, hunting for us. Without thought I grabbed the doorhandle and burst through into the space beyond. In a flash I registered an old grey woman, cleaning a frayed and worn carpet in front of a frayed and worn sofa, while beyond down the length of the space were long trestle tables, draped with daringly colourful artworks, canvases without frames, bright after the grey. With a howl a wind came from the depths of the cloud, screaming banshee, boggart, balrog, sucking all other noise and breath with it. I spun to the door where Ros was holding Blondie as more feelers came from the cloud, thin at first, questing fingers of mercurial hatred plucking at her woollen jumper. Then she was gone, so sudden, snatched into the square by unseen force. Through the doorway we watched balls of fire hammering down, fist sized, like first warning drops of monsoon rain. Fire ran through the feelers around Blondie, lighting a face of confusion for a brief moment before the cloud touched ground around her. Confusion turned for a brief instant to horror before she disappeared in a confusion of midnight blue and fire, winds ripping through and around her, tugged, lifted and torn, any scream stolen by whatever fury had her.

Now the fear was of fire. Stone kept the winds, and the cloud, at bay, furious though they were, but the slates of the roof had gone to become wild daggers in the storm, and we had nothing but creaking boards between us and a sky full of falling flame. Already areas were ablaze, the fire so red against the dark sky actually burnt with a paler blue flame. We watched paralysed as trickles spread along joints in the old wood, defining each plank. The old grey woman seemed confused at the speed of all that was happening, this intrusion and confusion. Then Ros spoke to her, held her arms and screamed for help and she was able to point us at buckets, one in the room with us, and a collection past the artworks at the far end. I grabbed the one to hand and emptied it at the roof, extinguishing a small blaze, half full of fear that I would seal our fate as the water threw the fire in every direction, but it extinguished it easily. Then all was confusion as we danced and dodged dripping liquid fire, filling our smaller buckets from large barrels at the end of the warehouse, flinging their grey soapy contents at every trace of flame we could see. To begin we dealt only with orange, the worst burnt, occasionally holes had charred through the wood and we caught glimpses of the storm overhead. Gradually we were fighting only blue, runnels of still flaming naptha, burning in some cases almost invisibly along joins and pooled against joists and beams and in corners. I think it was Rob who tried to avoid letting his last bucket or so drip from the roof to the artworks laid out underneath, despite the previous soakings, charred soot marks and fallen embers already on them. The grey woman told us not to worry, not to worry, fine job, fine job, and I realised that I'd been hearing her throughout the ordeal, unable to keep up with the pace of our dashing to and fro, but encouraging and cajoling, even pointing out the occasional flame we'd missed. As I carefully checked each last dark corner for the near unseen flames, I caught glimpses of stars through the sodden black edged holes in the boards above. The quiet was suddenly immense, the storm had gone, nothing of that fury could remain so silent.

We opened the door to destruction. The houses along the street we were to take were battered, windows blown in, doors unhinged, in a few places the ridges of roofs showed in upper windows where they had collapsed among charred joists. Slates scattered the square, broken, sprinkled in and on the snow that remained between meltspots and other blown debris. The church building on the far side of the square was two ruined walls and a heap of rubble, like a giant fist had hammered through the centre. As we watched one end wall lost a few more bricks into the pile of broken beams and mortar beneath, the rattle eerily loud in the still square. Overhead frosty stars shone, marching clear across the sky, the threat, even that of snow, gone, wiped clean.

Afterward no-one could find Blondie. Nobody quite knew how many had left the party with us, where they had gone. No-one could remember whether the church was used either. It had felt like the fire of the Gods, yet the destruction was not total. The power, and fear, had been immense; but whether it was Sataninc hatred, Divine retribution, pure unfocused alien or natural rage at something other than us; or whether Blondie had been a sacrifice, spotted as others had not been, faster on their feet; was never to be known. Whatever, I will never, ever, forget the look of abject terror, base primal fear, on Blondie's face in that one brief glimpse as the fires fell and the tornado tore her from the ground. That memory will remain forever etched as my tribute.