Darkfall

by Stephen Laws

  “Yes . . . yes . . .” gasped Cardiff, heart hammering. “I’m okay.”

  “Cardiff follows last. Remember what I said? Just like a ladder. See the rungs? Okay, then. . .”

  Jimmy clambered nimbly past Barbara and then paused when he was just below her, looking up.

  “We’ll all take a step together, so that there isn’t a gap between us and no one gets in trouble. Right? Here we go, then . . . Step!”

  They began to climb down.

  NINETEEN

  Rohmer exploded on to the roof under the whirling pyrotechnics of the Darkfall storm. He was Pack Leader, and the others were close behind him; a howling ravening nightmare infused with the bloodlust that they had scented from their Messiah.

  Rohmer strode ahead, scanning the rooftop for signs of them.

  The others shrank back, awed by the cloud-shattering fury of the Darkfall storm and sensing its part in their new Birth.

  Rohmer was unafraid of the sky. It was part of him. And as he scanned the rooftop and found that his prey had gone, the bloodlust inside him swelled and threatened to swamp his Reason. The insectile instinct he had inherited with his new body was struggling for superiority. He fought it, howled in frustration and finally reached the gaping hole in the roof down which they had climbed. He could smell their presence somewhere below. Behind him, the others were overcoming their awe of the Darkfall and the crackling blue lightning that cracked and shivered around the of/ice block. Soon, their bloodlust would return and they would join him in the hunt. But he was the Leader, and as such he was entitled to First Kill.

  He thrust his horribly insectile face into the ragged gap, mandibles working, but could see nothing. He smelled the girl now, and wondered with the Spider part of his mind rising in lustful anticipation: what would happen if I impregnated her? What would she give birth to? Could that be the New Beginning?

  Rohmer leapt into the crevasse, grabbing at the wiring which hung from the interior of the roof. Swinging his bulk down, he landed with the agility, ferocity and hunting instincts of a Wolf Spider.

  Still, he could not see them in the darkness. But their smell was strong and he slid through the shadows towards the sheave gearboxes and motors of the elevators as the first of his Minions reached the hole in the roof and began to scrabble after him.

  The smell was emanating from the trapdoor between the steel housings, and Rohmer emitted a hissing sound of pleasure.

  Another explosion racked the building and the concrete platform shifted beneath his taloned feet. He felt something crack and give way. Behind him, one of the Newborn scrabbled for purchase on the ragged edge of the concrete platform, missed its footing, and plunged screaming into the abyss.

  Unconcerned, the Rohmer-thing moved towards the trapdoor.

  TWENTY

  “Step!” shouted Jimmy, and they all moved downwards again. “Step!”

  The sound of a gigantic explosion somewhere boomed and echoed in the shaft. They felt its vibration in the metal rail and clung tight. Above them, the concrete platform cracked and shifted.

  “Shit!” exclaimed Jimmy, looking up.

  Plumes of dust began to fall from it, enveloping them.

  The elevator cable was swaying in the centre of the shaft.

  Cardiff remembered Jimmy’s words: The gearboxes and motors for the elevators. They weigh about a ton each, so this platform’s reinforced with steel bars. If that concrete platform collapsed into the shaft . . . ?

  Suddenly, there was something moving in the trapdoor aperture. They had all seen it at once. .

  “Come on! Move!” shouted Jimmy. “Step! Step!”

  The monstrous, swarming spider-face that was Rohmer hissed down at them.

  “Step! Step! Step!”

  TWENTY ONE

  Rohmer saw them desperately trying to escape. His bloodlust had given him a roaring of the blood which he could actually feel.

  He judged the width of the aperture and knew that he could not follow them. Liquid concrete slavered from his jaw, dripping into the pit.

  The centipede-thing with the human face was swarming towards the trapdoor hatch. It was thin enough to get through and could climb down the smooth concrete wall of the shaft. Ravening, it tried to squeeze past Rohmer and through the gap. Rohmer hissed angrily and lashed out with a taloned foot. The centipede-thing was kicked away across the concrete platform. It curled into a tight, obscene ball of legs and chitinous armour as Rohmer slammed the trapdoor shut.

  There was another way to get them.

  There was still a staircase leading down to the twelfth floor: each staircase giving access to the interior landings . . . and to the elevator doors which led into the shaft.

  Rohmer slashed his way hack through his Minions towards the hole in the roof. The Others milled in confusion . . . and then followed their Master.

  TWENTY TWO

  “Step!” shouted Jimmy, and missed his own footing.

  He clung to the metal rail as his feet kicked in space.

  “Shit!”

  He found the rung and righted himself again. They had passed the elevator doors on the fourteenth floor and were nearing the thirteenth.

  What the hell is that Rohmer-thing doing up there? thought Jimmy. The concrete platform shuddered and cracked again. A shower of fine grit fell on them. That’s it! The bastard’s trying to bring that platform down on us somehow.

  Barbara had breathed in some of the concrete dust and began to cough.

  “You alright?” said Jimmy, wiping dust and grime from his face and eyes.

  “Yes, yes . . . was that . . . ?”

  “Yes,” said Cardiff. “It was Rohmer. Just keep going.”

  Jimmy was directly opposite the elevator doors on the thirteenth floor now. He glanced briefly at it as he descended . . . and heard the first scrabbling sounds on the other side. His stomach tightened in a spasm of fear. Now he knew what Rohmer was doing.

  “Christ! Come on . . .”

  The elevator doors began to rattle and vibrate.

  “What is it?” shouted Cardiff.

  “They’ve followed us down the staircase! They’re trying to open the elevator doors.”

  “Oh, God . . .” said Barbara. Jimmy was below those doors now, and she was opposite to them. There was a crack down the centre of those double-doors; only a half-inch, but now they could hear the gibbering and the ranting and the squealing of the horde on the other side. Those hellish sounds were invading the shaft, echoing up and down nightmarishly. Barbara could see the flurrying activity of claws and talons in the small gap, trying to get purchase, wriggling and gouging between the double-doors. Now those monstrous things were throwing themselves at the door in a gibbering, howling fury.

  “Take it easy, take it easy,” said Jimmy. “Just concentrate on climbing down . . .”

  At last, Barbara had climbed past those doors.

  Cardiff was directly opposite now, dangerously close. Something larger than the other nightmare shapes had pushed itself past them to the double-doors . . . and Cardiff could see steel talons in the crack between them, trying to force the doors open. He could hear the sounds of that thing’s monstrous breathing, and knew that it was Rohmer. Behind it, the others still howled and squealed in voices that were a bestial combination of the human and the inhuman. Horror swamped Cardiff. The nightmare, lustful sounds were striking some terrifying chord inside him. Were these the kind of sounds a deer or an antelope might hear just before and during the-time it was brought down by a pride of lions? Cardiff was soaked in sweat. Any kind of death would be better than that kind of death.

  But now he was past those juddering, banging metal doors.

  “Step!” shouted Jimmy again, looking up. They were moving too slowly. Jimmy wiped one hand hard on the right rail, and looked at his glove. The rail was greased. lf he slid down, would the glove tear?

  A screeching sound began to issue from the doors above, echoing like a banshee’s scream in the shaft. The doors were be
ing pulled apart.

  Jimmy decided, gripped the rails, and kicked his feet off the rung. He slid ten feet before jamming his feet into a rung again, frantically checking his gloves. They were untorn.

  “Faster, Barbara! Faster! Come on! Step! Step! Step!”

  Barbara hurried down, face set. Cardiff was well clear of the doors at last, still looking up to the recess as he descended and the banshee wail suddenly became an echoing, juddering crash. The sounds of Rohmer’s horde burst into the shaft now; a horrifying caterwauling and howling and gibbering.

  Rohmer’s monstrous face appeared over the edge, looking down, claws braced in the aperture. The spider-legs that had been his ribs flexed outwards from his torso in rage, grasping at the air. Other horrifying visages swarmed around him, writhing and undulating and howling down after them. Rohmer snarled in anger . . . and then something leapt past Rohmer into the elevator shaft and hit the far concrete wall with a wet and scrabbling slap!

  Cardiff saw the bristling, indiscernible ball stick against that wall. Appendages were twisting and curling around it, like some huge sea anemone.

  Rohmer roared at the thing in rage.

  And then it uncurled on the wall, still sticking there, but somehow uncoiling itself into a long, thin and monstrously undulating shape, six feet long, and now hanging vertically on the shaft wall. Cardiff could see as he scrabbled downwards that at the bottom of that hideous shape was a large matted object, the size of a human head. That object was emitting a gibbering, buzzing sound now, as Rohmer roared at it again.

  The object twisted . . . and looked down at Cardiff.

  It was the centipede thing, and its hideous parody of a human face grinned as it swarmed down the shaft wall towards him. Poison was dripping from obscene and gnashing teeth as it came, buzzing and howling.

  Face drained of colour, hand trembling, Cardiff hooked his left arm around the metal rail and fumbled in his inside pocket with his right hand.

  The Rohmer-thing bellowed again, and the others joined in with him as the centipede thing fixed its eyes on Cardiff’s face. Its hideous multiple legs swarmed in undulating waves of motion as it lunged for him. The gun was suddenly in Cardiff’s hand, pointed up at the thing, and its hideous head was only inches from the gun barrel when Cardiff pulled the trigger. The detonation echoed long and loud, like thunder, and the thing’s head was suddenly an obscene stain of squashed insect on the shaft wall.

  It dropped past Cardiff, writhing, and-vanished into the darkness below. Jimmy and Barbara recoiled in terror and disgust as it passed them.

  And up above, the Rohmer-thing was laughing. It was a hideous parody of a sound. His monstrous visage withdrew from the aperture, and the others followed him once more.

  The concrete platform above juddered and cracked. A shower of grit and dust swept downwards into the shaft.

  “Come on!” Cardiff shouted into Jimmy and Barbara’s upturned faces.

  On the staircase beyond, they could hear the frenzied whooping, echoing cries of the horde’s descent. They were heading for the next set of double doors on the twelfth floor.

  We’re never going to make it, thought Jimmy desperately. We’ll never make it to the bottom. They’ll just keep at it until they get us. And then: No! No . . . that staircase only goes so far. It fell apart at the bottom. We’ve got to keep going. We can do it . . . we can do it . . .

  “Step, Barbara!” he shouted up to her.

  He had reached the double doors at the twelfth. Rohmer and his monstrous Legion were scrabbling at it already. He could see a blur of hideous motion through the thin gap and hurried on down past it.

  “Step! Come on. Step and . . .”

  The double-doors crashed open with a sound of thunder.

  Barbara was directly opposite on the metal rail. Her own scream was drowned by the hideous and exultant screaming of the Horde as a multitude of grabbing, clawing, mutated arms burst through the gap towards her.

  “Barbara!” yelled Jimmy, arm outstretched to her as she recoiled from them . . . and fell from the metal rail into the shaft.

  “Nooooooo!!!”

  Barbara twisted in the air past him. Jimmy grabbed for her . . . and missed.

  “Barbara, nooooo!!!”

  Her wildly flailing arms and legs connected with the elevator cable. She twisted awkwardly, and now Jimmy was sobbing like a child as Barbara had her arms around the cable and was spinning in mid-air, her fall arrested. Unhesitatingly, Jimmy flung himself off the metal rail after her, caught the elevator cable and whirled down around it, legs kicking.

  And now Jimmy had her by the fragile collar of her blouse, now her shoulder, now her arm. She clutched for him as he wrapped both legs around the cable and grabbed her outstretched hand. They were spinning wildly on the cable . . . but he had her.

  Above them, the things in the door recess renewed their shrieking chorus, and Jimmy threw back his own head and howled at them: a wordless yell of defiant fury. He slithered further down the cable and now Barbara was wrapped around him as they spun together on the cable. She was shaking in terror, her eyes screwed shut. Jimmy snapped off his yell, and crushed her head to his breast. “It’s okay . . . okay . . . I’ve got you . . . I’ve got you . . .”

  Cardiff had seen it all from above the double-doors. There was a large gap between them now. He was on the rail above the door aperture, they were well below it, on the cable. Rohmer was roaring into the shaft again, down at Jimmy and Barbara.

  Above, the concrete platform cracked and shifted with a grinding judder that shook the walls of the elevator shaft. More clouds of dust plumed downwards.

  “Go, Jimmy!” yelled Cardiff. “Go!”

  And now Rohmer was turning his monstrous face up to look at where Cardiff was clinging.

  Jimmy shifted position again, and was able to halt the uncontrolled swaying. “Barbara . . . ?” He was almost too breathless to speak. “Are . . . are you okay? Can you hear me?” Barbara nodded her head against his chest. “Listen, we have to move quickly. Cling tight to me. Not the cable. Can you hear me?” Barbara nodded again and Jimmy began trying to pry her other hand from the cable. She clung tight. “Trust me, Barbara. Trust me. Take hold of me . . .”

  Barbara let go and clutched tight around Jimmy’s torso.

  Christ, he thought, as he took her weight. Let me be able to do this.

  Jimmy began to slide precariously down the elevator cable.

  “That’s it!” shouted Cardiff. “Go . . .”

  Rohmer was climbing out into the elevator shaft, gripping the guide rails and looking down at them. He reached for the elevator cable.

  “No you bloody DON’T!” yelled Cardiff. He lowered the gun and fired.

  Thunder detonated in the shaft again, and the bullet blasted a hole in Rohmer’s shoulder, spinning him away from the cable. Rohmer roared up at Cardiff . . . and then steadied himself again, looking back down to where Jimmy and Barbara were descending.

  “Come on, you bastard!” yelled Cardiff again. “Come up here after me, if you can!”

  Rohmer reached for the cable again, intent on following them down.

  Cardiff fired again.

  Part of Rohmer’s face blew away in a hissing spray. He screeched up at Cardiff again, his face beginning instantly to re-form once more.

  Cardiff pulled the trigger again . . . and the gun emitted a brittle click! It was empty. Cursing, Cardiff threw the gun down at Rohmer and it smacked harmlessly against the spasming, twitching spider-legs in his torso. Rohmer was about to turn his attention downwards again, when a fierce and mysteriously instinctive rage flooded Cardiff.

  “Is it you?” shouted Cardiff. “That’s what you wanted to know, wasn’t it, Rohmer?”

  Rohmer snapped his head up, the true part of his personality rebelling against the hideous and mounting escalation of spider-bloodlust which was becoming dominant.

  “Is it YOU? Remember, Rohmer? Remember? Well . . . it IS me, you fucking bastard. Hear that? IT’S ME
!”

  Howling, Rohmer swung into the shaft, seized the metal guide rails with his mutated talons . . . and began to climb up after Cardiff.

  Already, the horde in the recess was swarming back up the stairs to the floor above . . . and to where the double-doors were already wrenched open.

  TWENTY THREE

  Rohmer watched the man above him climb, and the part of him that was not Spider screamed over and over in his mind: “It IS him! It IS him! It IS him!” as he climbed up after Cardiff.

  Now Rohmer was aware that the others were scrabbling up the staircase again, towards the opened doors on the floor above. From there, they could take Cardiff. But he could not allow that to happen. Because now that he knew that Cardiff was the one, only Rohmer would take him: only Cardiff knew the answers to the Ultimate Mystery. When Cardiff was consumed, Rohmer would have those answers.

  Rohmer howled and roared as he climbed, reaching out with his monstrous voice to the emotions of the Horde as he had first done with the Surviving Returners at the top of the staircase. They continued their ascent. He howled again, long and loud, echoing and reverberating in the shaft . . . and this time the Horde was milling in confusion on the staircase. They ranted and gibbered and wept . . . but they no longer climbed the staircase.

  They would attend upon the Desires of their Master.

  Rohmer laughed his hideous laugh . . . and continued to climb.

  TWENTY FOUR

  Jimmy continued to slide down into the fractured blue-blackness of the shaft. Barbara’s weight around him was a hideous strain, but they were moving down fast . . . perhaps too fast. The details of what was happening above were lost in darkness as they descended. Now, Jimmy was aware that Barbara was weeping against him. “Mr Cardiff. Oh, Mr Cardiff.”

  They were falling too fast. He was sure of it.