King Solomon's Carpet

by Barbara Vine

  As the flames approached the tightly taped package inside the plastic bag, Tom came close to the fire to see it consume the last of Axel.

  On his way to join the Safeguards for that night's Central Line duty, Jed caught a southbound train at West Hampstead. It passed the end of the School garden just in time, the last car slipping along the rails as the magnesium flash, tightly compressed, met the fire and burst its bonds.

  The black powder, metamorphosed into gas, went up with a brilliant flash and an enormous explosion. It leaped across the tracks with a roar, taking stones with it and bricks and tree branches, grasping everything in that garden, living and inanimate, in its fierce chemical breath, and hurling what it snatched into the air. Flames leapt, doubled back, and shot with a screaming hiss into the sky.

  The train went on unharmed down to Finchley Road.