Chapter 13 Merry Little Flame
Merry little flame
Cast your warming rays on me
Merry little flame
Light the bitter, darkened streets
Cast out Shadow
Cast out Fear
And Dance, untouched and merrily
The sun had not risen for exactly 35 hours now. The electricity had survived for four hours more before going out like the sun. And now England was cloaked in darkness. Screams echoed through the haunted city streets, but more chilling was the laughter. Howard heaved himself off the chair by his kitchen window and limped his way up to the attic.
It was in the chest under the window, and when he removed the other trinkets that covered it he found that it was just as beautiful as before. And now it would come in handy, old things always did when you least expected them to and now it was time for Howard to do the same. To walk the streets when the young and brave were trying to figure it out, driving themselves mad.
He rushed back to the kitchen with childlike eagerness and his eyes shone with excitement as he lighted it once again. He stopped only to pull on his long warm jacket and then made his way out the door and down the familiar, but deserted street. He made it without seeing anyone else until he rounded the corner behind the old antique shop.
And that was where Mat saw him.
The old man’s white hair gleamed and radiated silvery light just like the moon would while the lamp held in his hand cast sweet golden light around him. Mat followed him and watched as he passed from corner to corner and alley to dark, forsaken alley and lighted the road with his old kerosene lamp. The thing was ancient, and its light told of wasted days and lost kingdoms.
It was like the dawn, Mat thought as he watched a reluctant smile spread across a small girl’s face before her mother’s tight grasp pulled her out of sight. The lampposts, now standing tall and useless in the enveloping dark, were like columns in a far-away castle; cold, silver-grey and foreboding, but majestic now too in the light of the small lamp.
It swayed in the old man’s hand as he limped down the road determinedly, doggedly.
Suddenly the small golden rays illuminated a puddle on the ground. It was not water. It was thick, red blood. The old man stopped for a mere second, drew in a sharp, raspy breath and then almost ran forward, his little flame dancing merrily in the dark.
They were cloaked in the night’s darkness and their laughter filled his ears with the venomous whispers of revenge. What made it worse was that they were going for the children, he knew they were. As he watched Mat saw whips, faces twisted in pain and an eerie green tinged silent horror in the eyes of children.
Green was supposed to be the color of life, trees and spring; glorious fields and warmth.
He realized, with a jolt, that the old man’s flame was flitting around the periphery of the battle scene, and in its small circle of light he could see that small children and haunted parents were being ushered away from the scene. His feet moved, though his mind was still stuck on the color green and soon his hands were enveloping children in tight, desperate hugs and he was pushing, moving, living again.
And it was almost like revenge, but there were too many that fell, too many lights that went out in wide, innocent eyes. There was too much death for it to be like revenge.
The masked, hysterical monsters disappeared all of a sudden. Whatever it was that had called them away, Mat was thankful for it. The old man walked slowly, gasping for his breath, to the middle of the street and there he stood, in the center of a once busy intersection that was now full of dead instead of cars and fell to his knees. Whether in grief or exhaustion, Mat would never know, but the silvery head soon righted itself and the lamp, which had been blown out in the course of the battle, was relit and old legs carried him steadily down the street.
The flame illuminated their faces again; they were frozen in pain, frozen in shock, frozen in despair. Mat was bleeding from within. His throat tasted metallic, rusty and his limbs were on fire. He watched as the small circle of light passed the broken forms and he heard a small whimper behind him.
His head turned immediately and he was just in time to see two small blue flames go out. The face was small and round, but it was old and now the eyes were empty. His stomach turned but he set his jaw…there was still hope, he thought, there was still light.
He turned back to the old man and watched him disappear, his flame dancing merrily in the dark, before taking off in a mad, desperate flight.
