Incendiary by Chris Cleave Read Free Book Online Page A

you could see the ball curl in towards the goal tighter and tighter and then the whole East Stand exploded in flames.
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    At first I thought the telly was bust. There was a flash and I thought the tube was blown. But the ball was still there and the goalposts were still there. It was just the stand behind the goal that had disappeared in a white cloud. It looked like a fog bank. I wondered how fog had suddenly got itself into Arsenal’s brand-new stadium like that.
    All those fans that had been standing up to scream for the goal. Well. They were just gone. I couldn’t work it out. I was watching the ball. It was still curling in towards the goal and then it slowed down in midair. Now it was shooting back the way it had come. It was flying backwards from the goal and I couldn’t work it out. I started counting. I know it’s daft really but I just started counting the way you do when you see lightning. The picture on the telly wobbled. The camera was shaking. The sound cut out. Everything went very quiet. Jasper Black stopped moving inside me. Oh fuck he said oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck. One, I said. Two three four.
    I was just counting. I was thinking nothing much I was watching the telly. The fog bank faded into a big dirty ball of smoke and orange flame boiling up where the East Stand used to be. The keeper was flat on his face he wasn’t moving. The flames rolled over him. Van Persie was still looking where his shot had gone. He followed the ball with his eyes. The ball flew back towards him and bounced right beside him and so did a man’s arm. It was a strong hairy arm. A chippie’s arm maybe. You could see the tats on it. The hand was open like it was reaching for something. The arm hit the ground hand first. It tumbled end over end for a bit and then it stuck into the turf. There must of been a spike of bone or something sticking out of the arm and the spike jammed in the ground. It looked like some chippie was trying to climb out of the earth. Van Persie was just staring at it. Fuck fuck fuck said Jasper Black oh my fucking Jesus Christ. Five I said. Six seven eight.
    Some of the players were down and the rest were running now. They were running for the tunnel ahead of the waves of smoke and fire and some of them didn’t make it. The other players had their arms up to cover their heads because half the Gunners fan club was falling down around them in bits. There were feet and halves of faces and big lumps of stuff in Arsenal shirts with long ropes spilling behind them like strings of sausages I suppose it was guts. All of it was falling out of the top of the screen. It didn’t seem real. I looked out at the street. It was still very sunny and quiet out there. The old dear was shuffling off up the road and the 3 kids were still turning slow circles on their bikes. Nine I said. Ten eleven twelve.
    Then the windows of the flat started to rattle. There was a low boom and then a sharp bang and the windows shook harder. After the first boom was over it echoed and rumbled all up and down the street. It went on for the longest time this thunder. The kids stopped their bikes and looked up into the blue sky. They couldn’t work it out. I couldn’t work it out myself. I only found out later that the telly pictures travelled faster than sound.
    Jasper Black pulled out of me. I felt so empty. There had been something inside me but now there was nothing. I thought about my husband and my boy in their Arsenal shirts and I looked back at the telly. The smoke was everywhere now. The picture had gone almost dark it was like night had fallen on the stadium. The crowd was bursting onto the pitch. They were running in all directions. It was a total panic under this rain of blood and chunks. The crowd couldn’t see where they were going with all the dark and the blood. They didn’t have a chance. Lots of them fell and the ones that were still running ran over