Darkfall

by Stephen Laws

“He’s flipped his fucking lid,” said Jimmy. .

  “Don’t you know . . . don’t you know?” laughed Rohmer again, berating the horrors with a sweep of his hand. “I’ve come . . . come to lead you.”

  “Maybe we can sneak down,” said Jimmy. “Maybe we can sneak down to the next landing. Find a place to hide. To hole-up until this storm’s over.”

  “No . . . no . . .” Barbara was twisting her head from side to side in negation of Jimmy’s last suggestion, but still could not find her voice properly. “Down . . . down . . .”

  “Look!” hissed Cardiff. I

  Rohmer was taking his gloves off, finger by finger, in a grand theatrical manner as if he was going to perform some neat magical effect.

  “I’ll show you . . .” continued Rohmer. “I’ll show you . . . I can do it . . . I can go . . . and come back!” And now Rohmer was holding up his hands before the monstrosities like a miracle healer. “Wait! just wait!”

  Rohmer turned from them and faced the outside wall, hands still held out in front of him.

  “He’s not . . . he can’t . . .” began Jimmy. .

  Rohmer stepped forward and thrust his hands flat against the walls.

  “No!” exclaimed Barbara involuntarily, and her cry echoed down the stairs.

  Dozens of hideous and mutated eyes turned in their direction.

  Rohmer began to scream as his hands began to sink into the wall. The things turned to look at him again as Rohmer thrashed at the wall, suppressing his agony now as they watched. But this time, Rohmer was looking back up the stairwell to where Cardiff, Jimmy and Barbara stood horrified in the shadows. With a mixture of mad delight and pain on his face, Rohmer threw back his head and howled: “It’s easy! Easy. You just don’t have to resist, that’s all!” Rohmer’s hands had vanished cleanly into the wall, and now they could see with horror that Rohmer was actually pushing himself into that wall. His forearms vanished, sliding easily into the plasterwork without leaving a mark; just as if he had been pushing them into mud.

  “Transcendence, Cardiff!” howled Rohmer again. “To know the truth! To live forever! To fly!” Rohmer screamed again, this time in real pain as his elbows vanished into the flat white surface without trace. The wall was nearing Rohmer’s face. He twisted back to the things on the staircase below him, which watched silently. “Wait for me! I know your pain! I know it . . . know it . . . know it . . .”

  And then with a scream of defiance and elation, Rohmer thrust his face forwards and headbutted the wall. Instantly, his face was sucked into the plasterwork. Barbara turned away from the sight and clutched at the rail in sick horror as Rohmer’s head was engulfed. His juddering, spasming body was sucked greedily into the wall . . . and even as it was happening, they could see that Rohmer was still forcefully pushing himself into the wall. His feet beat a savage, echoing tattoo on the steps as his torso slid from view. Spasming and kicking, his legs followed. His feet slid into the living tissue of the wall and now it was as if Rohmer had never been there at all.

  The things on the staircase were silent, still watching the wall.

  “We’ve got to get away,” hissed Cardiff. “We’ve got to . . .”

  Dozens of feral eyes were beginning to turn back in their direction. They knew that they were there.

  “. . . fasten this bloody door.”

  The thing with Gilbert’s stretched face turned away from the wall and began to clamber up the steps, eyes fixed on them.

  They fled from the landing back towards the Exit door.

  “Why . . . ?” said Barbara in distress, still fighting for her voice.

  “Because he’s mad,” said Cardiff flatly as he dragged her back towards the Exit door.

  “Mad?” said something from the darkness of the stairwell shadows.

  “Christ!” Jimmy recoiled back against the rail.

  A face was forming on the wall beside the Exit door. A contorted, twisted, mutated, hideous face was pushing out from the fabric of the scarred plasterwork of the wall like a living deathmask. It began to laugh; a horrifying gargle of sound that mixed pleasure and hideous pain as the eyes on that wall-face opened and Cardiff saw the black pits of Hell reflected in there.

  It was Rohmer’s face.

  But it had been hideously transmuted with something that had been behind the plaster of the wall when Rohmer had been Absorbed. Rohmer had intermingled with the steel and concrete and plaster and brick of the office block wall. But he had taken most of his new physiognomy and structure from the living thing that had been crawling in the wall when he entered.

  It was a spider.

  And now the spider that was Rohmer was coming back.

  Hands began to push out from the wall; hideously gnarled fingertips like the roots of trees were breaking the surface of the plasterwork . . . and now the wall itself was bulging slightly as the dark mass of Rohmer’s new body began to push itself out from the wall.

  “For God’s sake!” shouted Jimmy. “Put a fucking bullet in it before . . .”

  The thing that had once been Rohmer lunged out from the wall, still imprisoned at the waist but now with its arms free and thrashing out towards them. Jimmy yanked Barbara away from him as it tried to seize her. Horrifying spider-eyes glittered insanely in the darkness. They staggered back against the rail as the thing hissed and writhed and struggled to be free from the wall faster than the process would allow. They were trapped at the rail.

  “Transcendence, Cardiff!” hissed the thing again. On the next lunge it must be free.

  “Your choice, Rohmer,” said Cardiff grimly . . . and raised the revolver. A hand of tree-roots and frost and ice and cracking plaster erupted from that wall in a shower of plaster dust, encircling Cardiff’s wrist. The face in the wall began to laugh. Jimmy lunged forward, holding the aerial like a spear. He stabbed it directly into Rohmer’s swarming, ever-changing visage and the Rohmer-thing shrieked as the aerial embedded there; one of its spider-eyes popping in a gelatinous mass. Gnarled and mutated claws scrabbled at the quivering aerial . . . and Cardiff yanked his hand from the grip of the thing. Jimmy pulled Barbara away from its thrashing embrace and out on to the rooftop again. The Rohmer-thing slashed out with a claw and Cardiff was hurled aside as it continued to shriek and scrabble at the protruding aerial. Cardiff collapsed in the doorway, and Jimmy lunged back, grabbed him by the coat lapel and dragged him back on to the roof. Barbara joined him, grabbing Cardiff’s arm and hauling until they were free of the doorway and back on the rooftop. Rohmer’s thrashing form was now almost free of the wall completely. His shrieks were now joined by a chorus of other insane sounds as the mutations below rushed and scrabbled up the staircase once more. One of its thrashing arms connected with the Exit door, slamming it open. With a final bellow of rage, the thing that had been Rohmer was at last free from the wall and thrashing in the stairwell; its hideous form doubled-over and tearing at the aerial.

  Jimmy and Barbara kept on dragging Cardiff until they were in the centre of the rooftop, next to the still-smoking crater-hole where the Darkfall bolt had split the roof. Smoke drifted upwards into the great raging canopy of St Elmo’s fire above and around them. They helped him to his feet, watching in fear as Rohmer finally managed to pull the aerial from his “face”. He stepped into the doorframe, aerial dangling from one claw, ooze dripping to the shale on the ground. Even from where they stood they could see the ragged hole in the middle of his hideous face. But something was happening there as it stood watching them with its one good eye. There was movement taking place on that face; shapes were arranging and rearranging there like clay.

  “Transcendence,” said the Rohmer-thing again, tossing the aerial disparagingly to one side with a brittle clatter. And now the thing’s face was complete again; the ragged hole smoothed over; a new, yellow and feral eye staring at them.

  “Did you feel it, then?” Cardiff heard himself ask. “Did you find your Other Side?”

  The thing advanced one step. Behind it, they could hear
the other monstrosities drawing near.

  “There’s nothing,” the thing seemed to gargle at them. “Nothing. Only a new Me!”

  “How did he do it?” asked Jimmy. “How did he come back?”

  Still with its gaze fixed on them, the Rohmer-thing reached out with one claw and seized the Exit door. With what seemed effortless ease, it wrenched the door from its hinges with two sharp movements. It discarded the door to the shale roof.

  “No way to hide, children. Not from me.”

  FIFTEEN

  He could feel the newness of his transcendence; could feel how he had been changed. His flesh was now more than flesh. As he stood, watching them cower before him on the roof, he could feel the vibrancy, the exhilaration, the power of the Darkfall surging through him. It was part of him, just as he was part of it.

  Rohmer’s Absorption had constituted the most hideous agony he had ever known. But his faith in what lay ahead had sustained him; had contained his agony. Within that plaster wall, within the concrete and the steel and the wiring lay the agony of his salvation. He had become one with the bricks and mortar, had allowed his flesh to dissolve and melt into the very fabric of the building and with the spider. The others, he knew, had fought that inevitable process; had been horrified and anguished by the Absorption. And in their resistance to the Darkfall, to the process, to the Absorption—they had lost their minds. They had lost that necessary essence of self as their physical and spiritual mind had been absorbed and changed.

  Not Rohmer.

  He knew now that he was more than human; knew that his flesh was not human flesh—it was now a complex structure of organic and inorganic materials. His very molecules were fused with the essence of concrete and bitumen and steel and plaster and plastic and paper and insect.

  He was Liberated.

  Liberated not only from his body (which he could now reform and reshape at will) but also from anything which had constituted human morality.

  He was not human anymore. Therefore, human moralities would no longer apply to him. He was Primal. And that within him which he had suppressed, that within him which had poisoned him with guilt need no longer do so. The Darkfall had suffused him with a new Power and he would use that power for further transcendence. Within him, he could feel the ever-changing flow and melding of flesh and blood and concrete and liquid plastic; all of it finding its right place, its right reaction, its right purpose in this new Body he had been given. He remained still for a while, savouring the bliss and the agony of his transcendence at last.

  “Reborn,” he said aloud with a gargled voice. Raw, liquid cement spilled from his mouth and flowed like oatmeal down his chest. His chest heaved and sucked like the thorax of some hideous insect; legacy of the insect life which had been absorbed and transmogrified within him as he had been drawn into the office-block wall. The ribs of his chest flexed, stretched and opened outwards like the clutching legs of some upright and monstrous spider, pushing and kneading that spilled cement back into his body as if spinning an internal web. The ribs squirmed, in perfect symmetry, back to the body again and were still.

  “Reborn.”

  He liked the word. For that was truly what had happened to him. Every Messiah must be reborn. Only a Messiah could understand the potential of this new Flesh.

  He watched the three before him on the shaking office-block roof. He could sense that they were cowering, waiting for his next move.

  He despised them for what they were.

  He despised them for their humanity.

  They would die. And the fuel of their death would feed him. He had never tasted blood, had never eaten raw human meat, but now . . .

  And then he heard the shuddering sounds of something huge collapsing in the stairwell; heard and felt the grumbling, crashing roar of masonry and steel. There was a screaming intermingled within that great roaring. He turned back to the Exit as a cloud of dust spewed forth and engulfed him. The screaming was fading now, swallowed by the great avalanche sounds . . . but he had recognised the agony and the fear in that screaming, which had not issued from human throats.

  He looked back to the three on the-roof from his engulfing dust cloud, then back into the darkness of the stairwell.

  The three could wait.

  He was needed by his Own.

  SIXTEEN

  “He can’t be killed,” said Barbara in a quiet voice, as the Rohmer-thing vanished through the dust cloud and into the guttering shadows of the stairwell. Overhead, another shattering crack of Darkfall energy caused the whirling ice-storm barrier to pulse with blue force. They flinched and waited. There was no further bolt from the sky—just the continuous grumbling and shuddering of the storm and the ever-swirling colours of its nightmare rainbow.

  When the dust cloud swirled away, Rohmer had vanished from sight—and now, somehow, this acted as a trigger for Jimmy. A dark and violent rage swelled inside him. Pulling away from Barbara, he strode across the rooftop towards the shattered Exit door.

  “Rohmer!” shouted Jimmy. “Come back here, you bastard!”

  Barbara tugged hard, trying to stop him. “What are you doing, Jimmy? Stop it! Stop . . .” Her voice had returned.

  Jimmy was reacting to the fear and the unknown and the terror in a purely instinctive way. The sickness of fear in his stomach, the continuing attacks on their very existence, the horrifying uncertainty of whether they would ever get out of this nightmare alive—all had converted within him to desperate rage.

  “Come out of there, Rohmer! Come out of there and I’ll . . .”

  Cardiff was at Barbara’s side now, grabbing at Jimmy’s other arm. Jimmy pulled free of both. They were standing at the ragged lip of the blasted crater and Jimmy stooped, grabbed a chunk of concrete and hurled it at the Exit door. The concrete exploded on the lintel in a spray of dust. But there was no movement from within.

  “Come out and get it, Rohmer! Come out and . . .”

  Cardiff and Barbara had grabbed him now. His breath was coming in heavy sobs, but he no longer resisted them as they stood there beneath the raging Darkfall.

  “Don’t snap, Jimmy!” said Cardiff fiercely. “Don’t snap now. We need you.”

  Jimmy took a deep breath and looked down into the ragged aperture which had been blasted by the Darkfall bolt. A hole had been punched through the roof and through the reinforced concrete platform ten feet below on which the elevator gearbox, winch and motors were housed.

  And Barbara was shaking his arm now, as he stared down into that ragged shaft.

  “Down, Jimmy. Not Up. That’s what I felt.”

  Cardiff was looking hard at the Exit door for signs of Rohmer and the others. “God knows what he’s . . .”

  “Listen to me, Mr Cardiff!” said Barbara. “We haven’t got much time. The Darkfall isn’t going to subside, it’s not going to blow itself out. There’s nowhere we can hide. Because this building will collapse. It’s going to happen. The Darkfall storm is going to tear it apart. And the only chance for us is to go Down!”

  Jimmy’s rage had subsided. He turned back to Barbara as she continued: “Believe me, I know what I’m saying. There’s never been a Darkfall as powerful as this one. We have to get down and take refuge below ground. Anything living above ground will be . . . oh, what’s the word? They’ll be . . . dissipated. It’s like they were telling us before, when we were in the basement and John . . .” Barbara swallowed hard. “John tried to get in and kill us. They told us that if we’d waited out the storm below ground, then we would be safe from the Darkfall effects. We’ve got to get down again, get below ground to avoid the dissipation. And this building will collapse, believe me.”

  “Even if we get down there,” said Cardiff, glancing back down through the ragged aperture. “What makes you think being in the basement will save us? This office block is fourteen storeys high. Have you any idea how much concrete and steel that represents? If the building collapses straight down on top of itself we’d have to be a quarter of a mile unde
rground not to be squashed flat.”

  “Maybe it won’t collapse straight down,” said Barbara. “Maybe the storm will blow it outwards, or sideways or away altogether or . . .”

  “That’s a lot of maybes,” said Cardiff grimly.

  “It’s our only chance!” shouted Barbara.

  Jimmy continued to stare down into the shaft. Overhead light from the Darkfall cast great chasing shadows in the chasm; the rumbling sound of its power echoing in the seemingly bottomless depths. It was like a mineshaft into Hell.

  “Down,” he said at last, and his eyes seemed glazed as he stared down into the flickering shaft. “Yes . . . we’ve got to go down again.”

  Cardiff peered into the pit. “It’s a nice idea, Barbara. But it’s just not possible. We can’t reach the elevator cable from here. There’s no way to reach it. . .”

  “Don’t need to climb down the cable,” said Jimmy quietly, his voice almost drowned by the rumbling of the storm. “That hole has blasted straight through the roof and the concrete platform underneath, hasn’t it?” He ducked down to the rim of the ragged hole and peered sideways and down. “Yeah, I thought so.”

  The sky detonated again overhead. Jimmy did not flinch. Cardiff dropped to his knees, looking anxiously back to the Exit door for signs of Rohmer. He had vanished. He gripped an exposed girder in the roof and, leaning over, followed Jimmy’s gaze.

  “Look, it’s not possible . . .”

  “l think it is possible, Cardiff.”

  “How the hell can you . . . ?”

  “I’ve burgled two office blocks through the elevator shaft. I think I know my way around. “ Jimmy swung around so that his feet were-dangling over the edge of the chasm. Barbara rushed forward, hand held out to him.

  “Jimmy! Be . . .”

  Jimmy braced his hands on the lip and shoved, launching himself into the shaft.

  Cardiff cried out too, grabbing for him as he slipped into the darkness in a fine spray of rubble and dust, expecting to see him whirling away down into the darkness in a contorted jumble. Amazingly, Jimmy had grabbed a dangling wire from the ruined fabric of the roof and used it to steady himself as he landed on the solid edge of the shattered concrete platform ten feet below. He hopped away from the ragged edge, dragging hard at the wire to make sure that it was still fastened tight as he wrapped it around his gloved wrist and forearm. Wiping dust from his bloodied face, he looked back up at them . . . and grinned.