by Neil Gaiman
‘It’s up a ways, isn’t it?’ and Tom’s voice seemed magnified in the soppy air.
John Parke nodded slowly, contemplative, spoke without looking away from the water. ‘I’d say it’s up at least two feet since yesterday evening.’
‘And that awful noise, what is that?’
Parke pointed south-east, towards the head of the lake, squinted as if by doing so he might actually see through the fog and drizzle.
‘That awful noise, Mr Givens, is most likely Muddy Run coming down to the lake from the mountains.’ Pause, and, ‘It must be a blessed torrent after so much rain.’
‘Doesn’t sound very good, does it? Do you think that the dam is, ah, I mean, do you …’
‘Let’s see to our breakfasts, Mr Givens,’ John Parke said, weak smile, pale attempt at reassurance, ‘and then I’ll see to the lake.’
The door clanged shut and he was alone on the porch, rubbing his hands together against the gnawing damp and chill. After breakfast, he would go upstairs and pack his bags, find a carriage into South Fork; from there, he could take the 9:15 back to Pittsburgh. More likely than not, there would be others leaving, and it would be enough to say he was sick of the weather, sick of this dismal excuse for a holiday.
Whatever else, that much certainly was true.
Tom Givens turned his back on the lake, on the mess the night had made of the club grounds, and as he reached for the door he heard what might have been laughter or glass breaking or just the wind whistling across the water. Behind him one loud and sudden splash, something heavy off docks but he kept his eyes on the walnut dark wood-grain, gripped the brass handle and pulled himself inside.
A week drowned, and what was left of her, bloated flesh sponge like strawberry bruise and whitest cheese, pocked by nibbling, hungry black bass mouths, this much lay knitted into the pine log tangle and underbrush jamming the big iron fish screens. The screens that strained the water, that kept the lake’s expensive stock inside (one dollar apiece, the fathers and grandfathers of these fish, all the way from Lake Erie by special railroad car) and now sieved the cream-and-coffee brown soup before it surged, six feet deep, through the spillway; and the caretaker and his Italians, sewer diggers with their shovels and pickaxes, watched as the lake rose, ate away the mounds of dirt heaped all morning along the breast of the dam.
Blackened holes that were her eyes, grub-clogged sockets haloed in naked bone and meaty tatter, cribs for the blind and new-born maggots of water beetles and dragonflies.
Some minutes past grey noon, the lake spread itself into a wide and glassy sheet and spilled over the top, began its slice and carve, bit by bit, sand and clay and stone washed free and tumbled down the other side. And now the morning’s load of cautious suggestions, desperate considerations and shaken heads, gambles passed on, the things that might have been done, didn’t matter any more; and the workmen and the bystanders huddled, the dutiful and the merely curious, all rain-drenched, on either hillside, bookends for a deluge.
Tom Givens sat alone, safe and almost drunk again within the shelter of the South Fork depot, sipping Scotch whisky from his silver flask and trying not to watch the nervous faces, not to overhear the hushed exchanges between the ticket agent and the yardmaster. During the night, almost a quarter mile of track washed out between South Fork and Johnstown, and so there had been no train to Pittsburgh or anywhere else that morning, and by afternoon the tracks were backed up; the Chicago Limited stretched across Lamb’s Bridge like a rusty fat copperhead and a big freight from Derry, too common for names, steamed rainslick and sullen just outside the station.
He’d come from the club in Bidwell’s springboard, but had lost track of him around noon, shortly after John Parke had ridden down from the dam. Soaked through to the skin, quite a sorry sight, really, drowned rat of a man galloping in on a borrowed chestnut filly; Parke had gathered a small crowd outside Stineman’s supply store, had warned that there was water flowing across the dam, that, in fact, there was real danger of its giving way at any time.
Bidwell had snorted, practised piggy snort of authority and money, had busied himself immediately, contradicting the dripping engineer, assuring everyone who’d listen (and everyone listens to the undespairing cut of those clothes, the calm voice that holds itself in such high esteem) that there was nothing for them to get excited about. Mr Parke had shrugged, duty done, had known better than to argue. He’d sent two men across the street to wire Johnstown from the depot’s telegraph tower, had climbed back on to the mud-spattered horse, and then he’d gone, clopping up the slippery road towards the lake.
Tom Givens’ ass ached from the hardwood bench, torturous church pew excuse for comfort, and the rain was coming down hard again, hammering at the tin roof. He closed his eyes and thought briefly about dozing off, opened them again and checked his watch instead; twenty minutes past three nearly three hours sitting, waiting. Tom Givens snapped the watch shut, slipped it back into his vest pocket. And he knew that the sensible thing to do was return to the club, return to its amenities and cloister, and he knew he’d sooner spend the night sleeping on this bench.
When he stood, his knees popped loud as firecrackers and the yardmaster was yelling to someone out on the platform; the ticket agent looked up from his paper and offered a strained and weary smile. Tom Givens nodded and walked slowly across the room, paused to warm his hands at the squat, pot-bellied stove before turning to stare out rainstreaky windows. Across the tracks, Railroad Street, its tidy row of storefronts, the planing mill and the station’s coal tipple; further along, the Little Conemaugh and South Fork Creek had twined in a yellow-brown ribbon swallowing the flats below the depot, had claimed the ground floors of several houses out there. Along the banks, oyster-barked aspens writhed and whipped in the wind and current.
There were people in the street, men and women standing about like simple idiots in the downpour, shouting, some running, but not back indoors.
And he heard it too, then, the rumbling thunder growl past thunder, past even the terrible whirl and roar from his nightmare, and the trembling earth beneath his feet, the floorboards and walls and window panes of the depot, resonating with sympathetic tremor.
Run, Thomas, run away.
One, two quickened heartbeats and it rolled into view, very close, fifty feet high and filling in the valley from side to side, an advancing mountain of foam and churning rubbish. Every stump and living tree and fence post between the town and the dam, ripped free, oak and birch and pinewood teeth set in soil-frothy mad dog gums, chewing up the world as it came.
Run, Thomas, run fast. She’s coming.
But there was no looking away, even as he heard footsteps and someone grabbed, tugged roughly at his shoulder, even as he pissed himself and felt the warm spread at his crotch. He caught a fleeting glimpse of a barn roof thrown high on the crest before it toppled over and was crushed to splinters underneath.
She’s here, Tom, she’s here.
And then Lake Conemaugh and everything it had gathered in its rush down to South Fork slammed into the town and in the last moment before the waters reached Railroad Street and the depot, Tom Givens shut his eyes.
Beneath the red sky, he has no precise memory of the long walk down to this particular hell, slippery cantos blurred with shock and wet, does not even remember walking out on to the bridge.
Dimmest recollection of lying on the depot floor, face down as it pitched and yawed, moored by telegraph cable stitchings; window shards and the live coals spilling from the fallen stove, steam and sizzle in the dirty water, grey-black soot shower from the dangling pendulum stove pipe; dimmer, the pell-mell stumble through the pitchy dark, leaf-dripping, hemlock slap and claw of needled branches and his left arm has stopped hurting, finally, and hangs useless numb at his side; falling again and falling again, and unseen dogs howling like paid mourners, the Negro boy, then, sobbing and naked and painted with blood the sticky-slick colour of molasses, staring down together at the scrubbed raw
gash where Mineral Point should have been,
Where is it? Tell me where it’s gone.
Mister, the water just came and washed it off.
and his eyes follow the boy’s finger and howling dogs like mourners and
Mister, your arm is broke, ain’t it?
There is nothing else, simply nothing more, and above him the sky is furnace red and he sits alone on the bridge. Sandstone and mortar arches clogged with the shattered bones of the newly dead, South Fork and Mineral Point, Woodvale and Franklin, Johnstown proper, the flood’s jumbled vomit, piled higher than the bridge itself. Boxcars and trees, hundreds of houses swept neatly off foundations and jammed together here, telegraph poles and furniture. Impossible miles of glinting barbed wire from the demolished Gautier wireworks, vicious garland strung with the corpses of cows and horses and human beings.
And the cries of the living trapped inside.
And everything burns.
Tar black roil, oily exhalation from the flames, breathed crackling into the sky, choking breath that reeks of wood smoke and frying flesh. Embers spiral up, scalding orange and yellow-white, into the dark and vanish overhead, spreading the fire like sparkling demon seeds.
Around him, men and women move, bodies bend and strain to wrestle the dead and dying and the barely bruised from the wreckage. And if anyone notices that he makes no move to help, no one stops to ask why.
From somewhere deep inside the pyre, hoarse groan of steel, lumber creak, wood and metal folded into a single shearing animal cry, rising ululation, and the wreckage shudders, shivers in its fevered dreams; and for this they stop, for this they spare fearful seconds, stare into the fuming night, afraid of what they’ll see, that there might still be something worse left, held back for drama, for emphasis. But the stifling wind carries it away, muffles any chance of echo, and once again there are only the pain sounds and the burning sounds.
And he is the only one who sees her, the only one still watching, as she walks between the jutting timbers, steps across flaming pools of kerosene-scummed water. One moment, lost inside the smoke and then she steps clear again. Her hair dances in the shimmering heat and her white gown is scorched and torn, hangs in linen tatters. And the stain blooming at her crotch, rust-brown carnation unfolding itself, blood rich petals, blood shiny on the palms of the hands she holds out to him.
Dead eyes flecked with fire and dead lips that move, shape soundless words, and Oh, yes, didn’t you know? Why, Tom here saw her, and what isn’t there for him to hear is plain enough to see; she spreads her arms and in another moment there is only the blazing rubbish.
… saw the whole damnable thing.
He fights the clutching grip of their hands, hands pulling him roughly back from the edge, hands grown as hard as the iron and coke they’ve turned for five or ten or fifteen years, forcing him down on to the smooth and corpse-cold stones, pinning him, helpless, to the bridge.
Above him, the sky is red and filled with cinders that sail and twinkle and finally fall like stars.
‘If there were such a thing as ghosts, the night was full of them.’
—David McCullough, The JohnstownFlood
for Melanie Tem
Caitlín R. Kiernan was recently hailed by the New York Times as ‘one of our essential authors of dark fiction’. A two-time winner of both the World Fantasy and Bram Stoker awards, she’s published ten novels, most recently The Red Tree and The Drowning Girl: A Memoir. Her short fiction has been collected in thirteen volumes, including Tales of Pain and Wonder, The Ammonite Violin & Others, A is for Alien and The Ape’s Wife and Other Stories. Subterranean Press has released a two-volume set collecting the ‘best’ of her short fiction, Two Worlds and In Between and Beneath an Oil-Dark Sea. The author explains that her stories occur by a gradual, mostly unconscious, accumulation of images: ‘“To This Water (Johnstown, Pennsylvania 1889)” was written during June and July of 1994, as Tropical Storm Alberto was passing over Georgia, and it seemed like it rained the entire time I was working on the piece; there were terrible floods all across Southeast. Also, I’d just seen a particular painting for the first time, Constantin Makovski’s The Roussalkas, and Sarah McLachlan’s song “Possession”, another influence, was getting a lot of radio play. The ending of the story came to me first, or, rather, the image of the fire in the flood came to me, while I was hearing that song and then, a little later, other images coalesced into what would eventually become this story.’
The Museum on Cyclops Avenue
HARLAN ELLISON®
THE JAUNTY FEATHER in my hatband? I knew you’d ask. Makes my old Tyrolean look rather natty, don’t it? Yeah, well, I’ll tell you about this flame-red feather some time, but not right now.
What about Agnes? Mmm. Yeah. What about Agnes.
No, hell no, I’m not unhappy, and I’m certainly not bitter. I know I promised to bring her home with me from Sweden, but, well, as we say here in Chapel Hill, that dog just ain’t gonna hunt.
I’m sorry y’all went to the trouble of settin’ up this nice coming-home party, and it truly is a surprise to walk back into my own humble bachelor digs and find y’all hidin’ behind the sofas, but to be absolutely candid with myself and with y’all … I’m about as blind tired as I’ve ever been, fourteen and a half hours riding coach on SAS, customs in New York, missing two connector flights, almost an hour in traffic from Raleigh-Durham… you see what I’m sayin’? Can I beg off this evenin’ and I promise just as soon as I get my sea-legs under me again with the new semester’s classes and the new syllabus, I swear I promise we’ll all do this up right!
Oh, God bless you, I knew you’d understand! Now, listen, Francine, Mary Katherine, Ina … y’all take this food with you, because as soon as the door closes behind you, I’m going to hit my bed and sleep for at least twenty-four hours, so all these here now goodies will gonna rot if you don’t take ’em and make y’self a big picnic t’night. Y’all wanna do that now? Excellent! Just excellent.
Thank ya, thank ya ever so much! Y’all take care now, y’heah? I’ll see you bunch in a few days over to the University. Bye! Bye now! See ya!
(Henry, you want to hold on for just a few minutes? I do need someone to talk to for a spell. You don’t mind? Excellent.) Bye! Drive carefully, you be sure to do it! Bye, William; bye, Cheryl an’ Simon! Thank you again, thank you ver—
(Thank God they’re gone. Hold on just about a minute, Henry, just in case someone forgot a purse or something.)
Okay, street’s clear. Damn, Henry, thought I’d croak when I walked into the house and y’all popped out of the walls. Whose dumbshit idea was this, anyway? Don’t tell me yours, I cannot afford to lose any respec’ for you at the moment. I need a friend, and I need an open mind, an’ most of all I need a smidge outta that fifth of Jack black sittin’ up there on the third shelf ’tween Beckwith’s Hawaiian Mythology and Bettelheim’s Uses of Enchantment.
I’d get up and fetch it myself, but I’m shanxhausted, and you’re the one just had the angioplasty, so I figger you got lots more energy in you, right at the moment.
They’s a coupla clean glasses right there in the cabinet, unless the cleanin’ woman saw fit to move things around while I was gone. Asked her not to, but you know nobody listens.
Yeah, right. While I was gone. Just decant me about thirty millimetres of that Tennessee sippin’, and I’ll regale your aging self with the source of my truly overwhelmin’ anomie.
No, I’m not cryin’, it’s the strain and the long trip and everything that happened in Stockholm. Truly, Henry. I’m sad, I own to it; but it’s been four days since the street signs changed, and I’m reconciled to it … say what …?
All right, sorry sorry, didn’t mean to get ahead of it. I’ll tell you. It’s a not terribly complicated saga, so I can tell you everything in a short space. But hold off makin’ any judgements till I finish, we agree on that?
Fine. Then: my paper was scheduled for the second day of the Conference, I wanted a f
ew days to see the sights, and when SAS put that Boeing 767 down at Arlanda International, my sponsor, John-Henri Holmberg, was waiting with his new wife Evastina, and John-Henri’s son, Alex. And they’d brought along a Dr Richard Fuchs, a very strange little man who writes incredibly obscure books on bizarre illnesses that no one, apparently, either buys or reads. It was quite warm; John-Henri’s shirt was open and he carried his jacket; Evastina kept daubing at her moist upper lip; and Alex, who’s too old for them now, he was wearing short pants; it was quite warm. Fuchs wore gloves. Milky-white latex gloves, the kind you’d put on to examine specimens. But he was effusive in his greetings. Said he wanted me to see a monograph he’d translated into English on some quisquous aspect of Swedish mythology. Why an’ wherefore this odd little man should be such a slavish devotee of my work, the semiotics of mythology, by an obscure Professor of Classics from the English Department of the University of North Carolina, is somethin’ I was unable to discover. But since it was he – of everyone I met over theah – was the cause of everything that happened to me … I do suspect his bein’ there at the airport was considerable more than merest happenstance. I’m gettin’ ahead of myself. Patience, Henry.
They took me to the Royal Viking Hotel, and I unpacked and showered and napped for about an hour. But I was still restless; I was aching for sleep, but I couldn’t fall off. My legs kept twitching. I couldn’t stop worrying about my paper. Two days, I was supposed to deliver it to a major international conference on the latest academic rigours, an’ you know I’ve never been comfortable with all this ‘deconstructionise criticism. So I was dog-tired, but instead of taking a Q-Vel for the leg cramps and catching up on some sleep, I fiddled with the manuscript. Even wound up putting a new sub-title on it: Post-Structuralist Hermeneutics of the Theseus-Minotaur Iconography. I could barely get my tongue around all that. Imagine what I’d’ve done somebody asked me what the hell it meant. But I knew it’d look impressive in The Journal.
