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fills it completely as if it’s a liquid.
    Slowly, as his eyes adjusted to the glare, he made out the oblong shapes of coffins on fire. Then suddenly, as if someone had rung a bell, he’d seen the bodies just sit upright in their coffins. His eyes bulged; he couldn’t move his head. All he could do was watch twenty dead men and women sit bolt upright in this blue fog of gas flame.
    Mow-wurrr … Mow-mow-wurr-harrrr ….
    When they began to groan out loud Danny moved back so quickly it brought pain stabbing through his spine. He limped away, holding his back. The bloody thing seemed to ring like a bell with stabbing pains.
    Mow-woe … uck-uck-uck-urrrr ….
    Now he knew it was merely expanding gas forcing its way outward through the anus or vocal chords. But the sound was still bad … so bloody, bloody bad. It sounded as if they were crying to be let out. As if the fire hurt them.
    ‘Christ, bury me when I die. Please bury me.’
    He put his eye to the spy-hole. ‘Don’t put me in there with, oh … Jesus!’
    Inside the oven, within all that fire and light, he saw the twenty burning men and women. They were working.
     
    ‘How did it go, Danny boy?’
    It was one of the guys from the morning shift. He walked in grinning and swinging a plastic bag full of sandwiches.
    ‘Fine … not much happens, does it?’
    ‘Dead quiet.’ The man laughed. ‘See y’ later, I’m going for a dump.’
    Danny’s mouth didn’t have so much as a pinhead of spit. Dry as the ash the morning shift would soon be raking. He didn’t know how he managed to say the words, or drive to the supermarket to buy the bottle of whisky he’d drink at home while his wife worked. Later, he drank so much he couldn’t walk, but the words kept coming out of his mouth. ‘I looked in. I saw them. They’re dead. But they’re working.’
    Two emotions worked powerfully in Danny. He was frightened sick by it all. And yet … and yet he was also curious. The next night he clocked on early. Was all this some kind of miracle he was supposed to see? Or was it some kind of nightmare that he wasn’t?
    Soon he was alone in the crematorium loading bay; the concrete floor still wet; the stink of disinfectant roughening the back of his throat. The gas jets had been burning for half an hour by then. Already it would be hot enough to melt metal in there. He stood ten feet from the spy-hole, building himself up to look in. The muscles in his back were so tight they curved his arthritic spine like a longbow. Pains sparkled up and down his legs as sciatica kicked in. The slightest movement made him wince. But … but I’ve got to look in there, he thought . I’ve got to see if it happens again.
    Last night, he’d pressed his watering eye to the spy-hole in the oven door. He’d witnessed burning corpses moving around. The heat so tremendous it had ignited the fatty tissues so the figures had moved around crackling with flame, spitting out gobs of fat like burning chip pans. Thankfully, you couldn’t see the faces; only that they were incandescent shapes atop human torsos.
    Danny held his breath, then planted his eye to the glass. His vision adjusted to the brilliant glare. Now! It was happening now!
    He let out a stuttering blast of air from his lungs through pure shock. One, two, three … four, five … six. One after another they sat up in their burning coffins.
    What now? What did they intend to do? What drove them? Was this proof there was a God? Did He make them do this?
    Jesus … Jesus … My back … Oh, Christ! He didn’t scream with his mouth; his back did all the screaming for him. Muscle spasmed. It clutched around his spine as if a sharp-toothed animal was trying to bite through it. He held his breath again as he leaned forward against the oven doors; his open palms taking some of the weight. I must keep watching. I’ve go to see what happens next . Only his back wanted to force him from the oven. He clenched his jaws together, screwed his eyes