Silver

2
Burn With Me Now

It was two minutes to three when the woman walked into Trafalgar Square.

Dressed in jeans and a loose-fitting, yellow tee-shirt she looked like every other summer tourist come to pay homage to Landseer’s brooding lions. There was a smiley face plastered across her chest. The grin was stretched out of shape by the teardrop swell of her breasts. Only it wasn’t summer. The yellow tee-shirt set her apart from the maddening crowd, because everyone else was wrapped up against the spring chill with scarves and gloves and woolen hats.

She stood still, a single spot of calm amid the hectic hustle of London. She uncapped the plastic bottle she held and emptied it over her head and shoulders, working the syry liquid in to her scalp. In less than a minute her long blonde hair was tangled and thick with grease as though it hadn’t been washed in months. She smelled like the traffic fumes and fog of pollution that choked the city.

Pigeons landed around the feet of the man beside her as he scattered chunks of bread across the paving stones. He looked up and smiled at her. He had a gentle face. A kind smile. She wondered who loved him. Someone had to. He had the contentment of a loved man.

Around her the tourists divided into groups: those out in search of culture headed toward the National Portrait Gallery; the thirsty ducked into the cafe on the corner; the royalists crossed over the road and disappeared beneath Admiralty Arch onto Whitehall; the hungry headed for Chandos Place and Covent Garden’s trendy eateries; and those starved of entertainment wandered up St Martin’s Lane towards Leicester Square or Soho, depending upon their definition of entertainment. Businessmen in their off-the-rack suits marched in step like penguins, umbrella tips and blakeys and segs, those uniquely English metal sole protectors, tapping out the rhythm of the day’s enterprise. Red buses crawled down Cockspur Street and around the corner toward The Strand and Charing Cross. The city was alive.

A young girl in a bright red duffel coat ran toward her, giggling and flapping her arms to startle the feeding birds into flight. When she was right in the middle of them the pigeons exploded upwards in a madness of feathers. The girl doubled up in laughter, her delighted shrieks chasing the pigeons up into the sky. Her enjoyment was infectious. The man rummaged in his plastic bag for another slice of white bread to tear up. The woman couldn’t help but smile. She had chosen the yellow tee-shirt because it made her smile. It seemed important to her that today of all days she should.

She took the phone from her pocket and made the call.

“News desk.” The voice on the other end was too perky for its own good. That would change in less than a minute when the screaming began.

“There is a plague coming,” she said calmly. “For forty days and forty nights fear shall savage the streets. Those steeped in sin shall burn. The dying begins now.”

“Who is this? Who am I talking to?”

“I don’t need to tell you my name. Before the day is through you will know everything there is to know about me apart from one important detail.”

“And what’s that?” “Why I did it.”

She ruffled the young girl’s hair as she scattered another cluster of pigeons and burst into fits of giggles. The girl stopped, turned and looked up at the woman. “You smell funny.”

The woman reached into her pocket for her lighter. She thumbed the wheel, grating it against the flint, and touched the naked flame to her hair. She dropped the phone and stumbled forward as the fire engulfed her.

All around her the city screamed.