The Advent Calendar

by Steven Croft

  She grabbed the phone, read the message herself, then punched the buttons one at a time. Each one stayed down with a satisfying click as it was pushed home. ‘Nine.’ Click. ‘Colon – that’s the two dots.’ Click. ‘Two.’ Click. Sam caught hold of Alice’s arm, reaching for his phone.

  With the last click, something was happening. The door at the top of the calendar slowly began to swing open. There was just blackness on the other side – a richer, deeper blackness than a painted square on the surface of the calendar. For Sam and Alice it was like looking down a tiny, dark hole or through a window into nothingness.

  They both took a step backwards in shock. A split second later, the tiny door was as big as a large window and it came rushing toward them. A moment after that, before they could move or think or do anything at all, they were completely swallowed up by the great and utter darkness and, at first, complete silence.

  Without having experienced it, it is impossible to understand how vile it is to be swallowed by darkness. Perhaps a blind person would have some idea or someone who lives in a place without electric lights. Alice had never been in a completely dark room before or out in the countryside at night. Nothing had prepared her for the sheer blackness of everything. For the first time in her life she gripped Sam’s hand and was glad he was there.

  ‘What’s going on?’ he whispered, shivering. The duvet had disappeared and Sam was left in his T-shirt and boxers. ‘Who turned the lights out? Power cut?’

  ‘I’ve no idea,’ said Alice. ‘It feels as though we’re outside.’

  ‘We can’t be,’ said Sam.

  Together, still holding hands, they bent down and felt damp earth between their fingers. The air was clammy and still.

  ‘So what happened?’ said Sam, fully awake now.

  ‘I punched in the numbers. The door opened. It got bigger. The darkness kind of swallowed us.’

  They turned around slowly, hoping to see something behind them. There was nothing.

  ‘Sam, this is scary. What can we do?’

  There was a dank, rotting smell and the air was completely still. For ages, as it seemed, they stood rooted to the spot, looking around but seeing nothing, ears straining into the silence.

  Then very gradually their eyes began to adjust to the dark and began to sift blackness from blackness and make out shapes. Their ears began to catch soft, muffled sounds in the distance. Sam took a step forward, very carefully, and discovered they were standing next to a kind of rough cobbled track. Stooping down, they discovered that to each side was soft, boggy ground where hardly anything grew. Ahead was the silhouette of some kind of great city surrounded by a high wall. The track they were on led up to an open gate.

  Still holding hands and trembling as much from fear as from the cold, Alice and Sam moved slowly forward, up the gentle path to the gate, still not daring to speak. They inched their way slowly along, keeping to the edge of the path. The soft, low sounds were coming from the city itself. The gates were open and unguarded. They passed through.

  Once inside they began to make out the shapes of people shuffling to and fro, great crowds of them going about their daily business. Most were very thin and stooped. They moved very slowly and carefully in the darkness, keeping as close to the walls and making themselves as inconspicuous as they could. Sam and Alice stayed well back from them and the strange people avoided contact even with each other. They were still frightened but Alice’s curiosity was beginning to get the better of her fear.

  Occasionally, someone would brush past them and Alice and Sam noticed that their skin felt clammy. They walked deeper and further into the city for longer than Alice cared to remember. It was like a long, grey dream. She could never remember being without light for so long. The same stooped, sad figures wandered aimlessly to and fro. The darkness began to eat into them after a time, sapping hope and life. Sam had hardly said a word since the journey began.

  Then, gradually, very gradually, there began to be a change. As they came nearer to what felt like the centre of the place, there seemed to be more and more people moving in the same direction, slowly at first, then the movement picked up momentum and even some speed. Sam and Alice were caught up and walked swiftly with the crowd.

  In the end Alice had to do something. She was bursting with questions. She looked around at the crowds rushing past and then spoke to a girl her own age as softly as she could: ‘What is this place? Where are we going?’

  The girl came close and looked at them in amazement and in dread. ‘You must know, surely?’ she whispered, looking over her shoulder. ‘This is the City of Choshek.’

  ‘How long has it been dark here?’ asked Alice. ‘Does it never get light?’

  ‘How long? It has always been dark here, miss, always and always. We have always lived like this. There is a longing in our hearts for something else, something different, and we believe it was different once, but the memory is so far in our past. It eats at us when we wake and beckons us in our dreams but we have no name for it. In the meantime we have learned to live in this darkness.’

  Something stirred in Sam now Alice had made a beginning: ‘Where are all these people going?’

  The girl turned to him and, again, spoke with respect but softly, as if not wanting to be overheard.

  ‘To the great assembly, sir, in the centre of Choshek. There has been a rumour that the oracle will speak and name the thing we all seek. You must come. We have not seen a moment like this for many generations.’

  She moved away, her eyes full of fear and hope. Sam and Alice followed as best they could but lost her quickly in the crowds. They kept on walking until they came to the place where all the people in the city were gathered: a great cobbled market square which Alice guessed was in the very centre. There was a stillness, an expectancy over the gathering. For as far as they could see on every side, the crowds waited in silence.

  On a raised mound of earth in the middle stood an old, crooked man with a long staff, silhouetted against the perpetual night sky. He raised his staff high. Sensing the time was near, a rippled whisper passed through the crowd: ‘The oracle speaks.’ Then all fell silent, straining to hear. The oracle too spoke softly but his words cut through the night and carried across the great square and out into the streets of the city.

  ‘People of Choshek, hear this. There will be light again in this dark place. One day, the dawn will come. The time is near. People of Choshek, take heart and hope again.’

  His voice was thin and weak but his words carried strength and life and hope. The crowd around Alice and Sam became a little more alive, some angry, some excited.

  They watched together as the oracle raised his staff high above his head and then plunged it into the ground where it seemed to take root and grow taller. There was silence again. Then, the very tip of the staff burst into a tiny flame. Alice gasped. She felt as if she had been starved of light for so long. From where she stood, at first, it was like a candle in a football field; then, as the people watched and waited, it grew in intensity until somehow its brightness began to light up the entire city.

  For hours, it seemed to Sam, he had been longing for light and warmth. His senses leapt towards the strengthening flame. He began to look around and see the city for the first time. But the people around them had never seen light at all, it seemed. Some reached forward straining towards the burning torch, fascinated by its glare. Others shrank back, shielding their eyes and looking for the familiar shadows. There was a buzzing and commotion all around.

  ‘Childwoman! Childman! Come quickly!’ There was a soft, gentle voice behind them. ‘The oracle would speak with you.’

  One of the people of the city carrying a smaller staff was beckoning them to follow. He took Alice by the hand and led her through the crowds, with Sam following. They moved away from the flame, to a building with a high balcony where the oracle was
waiting. Alice looked out across the mass of people drawn to the light which still burned brightly.

  Sam saw that the oracle stood taller than the other inhabitants of the city because he refused to stoop. He looked around him as if he could see even without the light.

  ‘Childwoman, childman, do you know where you are?’

  Sam chose that moment to come to his senses and start to protest. To Alice’s alarm, he was being protective but Sam’s voice sounded hollow after all that she had seen and was seeing.

  ‘Now look here. We want to go home. Straightaway. This minute. I need coffee and this young lady needs chocolate.’

  ‘You are right, childman,’ said the oracle (very patiently, Alice thought). ‘It is indeed time for you to return home. But remember. Remember the City of Choshek and the promise of the light. Carry the hope within you.’

  The oracle stretched out his hand and touched first Sam then Alice lightly on the shoulder. They fell backwards together just as though they were tumbling back into a deep, dark sleep.

  Minutes later, as it seemed, Alice opened her eyes. They were back in the front room. There was the duvet. There was the phone. There was Sam, screwing up his eyes against the light. There was the winter sun streaming through the windows. There were the normal household noises: the traffic outside, the radio in the kitchen, Megs getting ready for the day.

  And there was the Advent Calendar on the wall, making itself at home. The small dark door at the top was now wide open. Alice looked more closely. There was no chocolate to be seen. Inside was something even better. Inside all was darkness, except for a tiny, living candle flame.

  2 December

  Waking up, for Sam, was always difficult. As he and Alice tumbled back he rubbed his eyes and blinked. There was a moment’s quiet. Their gaze met just for an instant. What had happened, exactly? Was Sam simply waking up after a particularly hard night out? It was nearly the Christmas party season after all. Thoughts swirled round inside his head looking for words to capture them but finding none.

  ‘Suffering swordfish,’ he mumbled, falling back into well-known territory.

  That was enough to rouse Alice from gazing up at the calendar and light the blue touchpaper. All the fears and anxieties which had been stirred up yesterday’s strange experience came to the surface. She turned on Sam ready to give him both barrels.

  Then several things happened all at once to take him out of range. Megs stumbled into the room, looking rather dishevelled but cheerful. ‘Morning, darling. Morning, idiot brother. Time to get ready to go. Hairdresser’s in ten minutes.’

  At that very moment, the doorbell rang very loudly several times. Alice opened it on her way upstairs. Four of Sam’s mates stumbled in dressed in Chelsea colours. It was Saturday and a lunchtime kick-off. They swept through the house like a tornado and when they left, moments later, Sam was with them, washed, scrubbed (well, almost) and dressed in football shirt, scarf and woolly hat. Alice saw him from the bathroom window wedged into the back seat of his friend’s car clutching a large mug of coffee and blinking his way into the day. Just as they pulled away, the house phone rang. Alice could tell from the way Megs spoke that it was Josie, Sam’s ex. Megs liked Josie. So did Alice – though they both thought she was much too nice for Sam.

  ‘You’ve missed him by a whisker, my love, sorry. Football. Early game, I think. I would have given him your message but I didn’t see him last night, you see. I’ll write him a note. Yea, you too. Have a good weekend. Bye.’

  Megs had a good look at the calendar when she put the phone down. ‘Strange-looking thing. What does it do? No chocolate? Never mind, Alice. Want me to buy you another? Not to worry then.’

  That was it for the rest of the day really. Hairdresser’s. Visit to grandparents over in Luton. Saturday night telly. Alice had left all her friends behind when she moved house, so there wasn’t much to do at weekends. The calendar was, well, just a bit too strange to talk to your mother about, wasn’t it? Or your friends for that matter. Or anyone really. From time to time, in the advert breaks or in the middle of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? she glanced over at the wall. Once, when Megs was out of the room, she turned out the lights and the little candle in the open door gave out light as if it was real, which of course it couldn’t be. Her mum hardly noticed it after the initial fuss. Alice saw this was a Two Bars of Dairy Milk Saturday. She wasn’t sure, but she thought Saturdays were probably the very worst days for Megs. Whenever Alice asked how she was, Megs would just smile and pretend.

  Sunday mornings were always lazy, do-nothing, please-yourself times. For Megs and Sam, that normally meant sleeping in (if Sam was around at all). But Alice couldn’t sleep past eight o’clock today. Her dreams were full of strange events in different worlds. She could hear Sam’s snoring through the living-room door. He was here then and taking over the front room again. Softly she pushed open the door and tiptoed into the room. She went first to the calendar and her heart skipped a beat. She could just see it by the light of the tiny candle in the first window. A second door had appeared in the bottom half of the calendar. She touched it with her fingertips: it was icy cold and seemed to be made out of tiny strips of steel welded together. She picked at the edges with her fingers but again there was no way of opening it.

  Half in excitement, half in fear Alice punched in the code: nine, colon, two. She closed her eyes and braced herself for the journey back to the strange city. Nothing happened. She opened one eye. Everything in the room was still the same. She opened both eyes, looked around and saw Sam’s phone spilling out of the pocket of his jeans.

  Like a hobbit stealing treasure from a sleeping dragon, Alice crept over to Sam without making a sound. She stretched out her hand, grabbed the phone and flipped open the lid. Message waiting. That sound she thought was snoring – well, never mind. Yeucch. She pressed the buttons and brought up the message: two, colon, four – just the same as yesterday. Different number.

  Alice held the phone close to the bottom of the calendar to see better and pressed the first two buttons. Again, they felt large and important, like the combination of a safe. She hesitated just for a moment with her finger above the figure 4, remembering what had happened yesterday. Should she or shouldn’t she – especially without Sleeping Sam? Then the next instant she remembered how useless he’d been in the dark and pressed the number.

  There was a distant, echoing, grating sound, as if huge hangar doors were being cranked open. Alice kept her eyes on the new door. Sure enough it was opening very slowly from the bottom, rolling up like the garage at her old house. Out of the gap at the bottom of the door came wisps of something like very thick fog. As the door opened wider, it poured out faster, filling the room in a matter of seconds. It was clammy and cold. Alice held up her hand in front of her face and began to feel afraid. She could see about a metre – that was all. She turned around. The light was changing somehow to an outdoor kind of light on a damp winter morning. She bent down to touch the ground: instead of living-room carpet there was moist earth. What had she done?

  Just to her right Alice glimpsed a familiar shape, hunched up on the ground, shivering and rubbing his eyes. Sam! What was he doing here? Waking up – that was clear but only very slowly.

  ‘Sam! Sam!’ She shook his shoulder. ‘Sam! Wake up. It’s happened again. The calendar. The second door.’

  In an instant, Sam was wide awake, staring round, mouth open. The fog cleared, carried away on the morning wind. They were standing on a broad, flat plain just in front of an enormous building stretching away as far as the eye could see in every direction. Think of the biggest aircraft hangar you have ever seen, then try and imagine it’s the size of four football pitches, then eight, then double it again.

  Alice and Sam were still standing in front of the door from the Advent Calendar only now it was as high as a three-storey building. Inside the door, from within the han
gar, came a deep roaring and choking sound like a thousand tractors. The ground began to shake. The smell of the engine fumes reached them a second or so after the sound and then, coming through the mist, they saw the barrel of an enormous tank.

  Sam drew Alice back a little away from the door. The tank was at the head of an enormous procession of vehicles, six or seven abreast. Sam said later it reminded him of the great parades of armaments from the old newsreels – except that the weaponry was from every different age and empire. There were ancient canons and armoured cars, huge missiles towed by tractors, jet fighters and massive futuristic bombers, chariots and submarines. Among the larger fighting vehicles were huge wagons filled with guns and knives, armour, shields and helmets, bows and arrows, decorated shields, muskets, landmines and hand grenades. Other vehicles carried spy satellites and robots and weapons which seemed to have come straight out of Doctor Who.

  Every single weapon invented by humankind was there: the whole inventory of destruction and despair: widow-makers; limb-renders; city-slayers all in one procession, a river of death. Alice looked closely: there were no people in the vehicles – they drove themselves, all in perfect timing, all in the same direction.

  ‘Come and see what happens next,’ said a voice in her ear, shouting above the noise. ‘It’s really rather good.’

  Turning around Alice and Sam saw the oldest people they had ever set eyes on: a man and a woman standing a little way back. The man’s fine grey hair and beard reached his waist. He wore a brown robe with a hood, tied with a rope girdle, and carried only a staff. He was about as tall as Sam and not at all stooped. His skin was old, dark brown and leathery as if he had spent hundreds of years in the hot sun. He wore a pair of ancient sandals: no socks, thought Alice, for some reason. He smelled just like a fusty old library, Sam thought: full of wisdom from the years.

  His companion was shorter and stooped a little. She was dressed in grey. Although very old, she was still somehow very beautiful. Once they saw them, neither Sam nor Alice was the least bit afraid.