World's End (Age of Misrule, Book 1)

by Mark Chadbourn

  "They only know we're somewhere in the vicinity, but they can't pinpoint us, or they would have had us in our sleep," Tom whispered. "The scratching is to draw the occupant of the room. If you had pulled back the curtains, you wouldn't have seen anything, but they would have seen you."

  "Sorry," Church said, "I don't know what came over me."

  A noise in the corridor outside made them both catch their breath again. Tom's face was pale in the dark, his cold eyes fearful. "I think they're coming in," he said.

  Before Church could speak, he had leapt across the room and was kneeling next to the bed where Ruth was still sleeping soundly. He roused her gently, then clasped a hand across her mouth before she could speak; her eyes grew wide and frightened, but Tom silenced her with a finger to his lips.

  He summoned Church to his side, then said, "Hide under the sheets with Ruth. I'll get into the wardrobe. When they come into the room, don't make a sound. Don't move a muscle."

  "But they'll see us under the covers," Church protested.

  "If they don't see you move or hear you they won't investigate further. They have little intellect. They simply respond," Tom said. "Trust me. Now, quickly."

  He held up the sheets so Church could wriggle down next to Ruth, then pulled them over their heads. It was hot and stifling, emphasising the swirl of alcohol in Church's head and the steadily increasing rumble of his heart; for the first time in his life, he had a sudden twist of claustrophobia. The wardrobe door clicked and then there was silence. In the dark he couldn't see Ruth's face, but he could feel the bloom of her breath. Her fingers found his hand and gave it a confident squeeze.

  They didn't have to wait long. A dim clunk echoed hollowly; the tumblers of the lock turning although Church had sealed it on the inside. The faint creak of the hinges as the door swung open. A soft tread on the carpet, deceptively light as if it was a child, moving to the foot of the bed.

  Church held his breath; Ruth's stopped too. Her fingers around his hand were rigid. Together they listened. It seemed the intruder was watching the heap of covers on the bed for any movement, listening for a barely audible rustle. Suddenly every nerve on Church's body came alive. A tic was developing in his calf, a spasm in his forearm; he didn't know how much longer he could hold it. Somehow Ruth seemed to sense his discomfort for her fingernails started to bite into the soft flesh at the base of his thumb, drawing his attention to the pain.

  After what seemed like a lifetime, they heard movement again. The quiet tread progressed around the bed to the head and with his blood ringing in his ears, Church waited for the sheets to be snatched back. Instead, the tread continued to the wardrobe door, where it waited again, then to the window and finally back to the door. Even when they'd heard the click of the door closing, they remained in hiding for five more minutes, not daring to move.

  Finally they heard the wardrobe door open tentatively and Tom stepped out. "Gone," he whispered.

  Church threw back the covers and sucked in a breath of cool air. Ruth rolled over and gave him a hug in relief and he was surprised at how comforting it felt; he responded, and she nestled her head into the crook of his neck briefly before getting up.

  "Will they be back?" she said.

  "I doubt it. They'll continue to search the area until dawn, but we should be out of here before sunset tomorrow." Tom stretched and cracked his knuckles.

  Despite Tom's earlier warning, Church couldn't resist peeking behind the curtains. All along the street shadows flitted in and out of doorways or shimmered in the streetlights like ghosts. It wasn't as if they were insubstantial; Church had the feeling they simply didn't want to be seen. And high over the rooftops there were others, floating like leaves caught in the wind. It was an alien infestation that made him shudder and he returned to the others dreading what the forthcoming days would bring.

  They slept fitfully, but awoke with a sense of purpose driven as much by what was at their backs as what lay ahead. They made the most of a heavy breakfast of bacon, sausages and eggs and tea, not knowing when the next meal would be, and then went to check out. Church carried out the formalities and got the credit card slip for Ruth to sign, while Ruth and Tom watched the street outside, but when he came back over to them there was anger in his face.

  "What's wrong?" Ruth asked.

  He waved the bill at them. "That sneaky bastard from the pub stiffed us! It looks like he was drinking till sun-up, plus food from the kitchen, and he signed it all on to our bill! I knew he was a conman the moment I laid eyes on him!"

  "He was quite sweet in his own way." Ruth laughed. "He stopped us wallowing in our misery so we owe him something for that."

  "Fifty quid! That's Harley Street rates!" He screwed up the bill angrily. "If I see him again I'm going to take this out of his hide."

  At first there was a shock of colour glimpsed through the throng; white-blonde hair, short at the sides, spiky on top, expensively cut to look like a mess. Then there were the sunglasses, round, hi-tech and, again, expensive, on a morning when the sun was as pallid as a watercolour; the clothes, shabby, long overcoat, jeans and engineer boots, designed to look hard and uncompromising; the portable computer tucked under her arm; and finally the air of confidence that seemed, at least to Ruth, to border on arrogance. They knew it was Laura DuSantiago long before she spoke. She looked as out of place in the crowd of shoppers and business people as if she had beamed down from another planet.

  "You brought the posse," she said to Church after they'd exchanged introductions.

  "They're both trustworthy. Within reason."

  "They better be. I don't want my insanity made public. I have enough trouble getting a loan as it is. So, you fancy something hot, wet and sweet?" The sunglasses prevented Church reading her eyes to tell how he should take the innuendo so he simply nodded. "Yeah, I bet you do. Face it, tiger, you just hit the jackpot."

  She led them down a side street off the main drag to a cafe called Mr. C's Brasserie that was quiet enough to talk and not too empty to be overheard. They took a seat in the window and once the espressos and cappuccinos had arrived, Laura plugged her computer into a mobile phone and logged on to the net. The forteana newsgroup was so jammed with postings it seemed to take forever to load.

  "It's getting worse," she said. "All over the country, an epidemic of bozoness. Claims of alien abductions, hauntings, UFOs, sightings of the Loch Ness Monster, even fairies, for God's sake. Now don't get me wrong, not so long ago I wouldn't have acknowledged these geeks if they'd painted themselves red and were doing naked handstands in Cross Keys Shopping Centre. Anybody who believed in the supernatural was dead between the ears. But we're talking smoke and fire here, if you know what I mean."

  "You said something happened to you." Church had to restrain himself not to ask her about Marianne.

  "I'm getting to that. Slowly. Because I don't want to talk about it, but I do." Her confidence seemed to waver for a moment. "Listen to me. I sound like I've got Alzheimer's."

  "If it makes you feel better, we've seen things too-" Ruth began.

  "Does one crazy make another seem better? Look, I'm doing this because somebody has to, because there's something important going down, but all I see is dull sheep going about their lives either blind to it or pretending things are just how they were. And I'm doing it for me. To make sense of my experience before it eats its way out of my head." She sipped her espresso, watching Church over the top of her sunglasses with eyes that were cold and unreadable. "So, you ready to get screwed in the head?"

  He met her eyes without flinching. "Tell us what you know."

  "It happened back here in Salisbury, the city that made me into the woman I am today. I was staying with friends for the weekend and we went out to a party on the Saturday night. Talk about dull. I thought I'd gone into the Incontinence Home for the Elderly. But I made sure I enjoyed myself, even if they didn't know how to, and the next morning I needed to chill out so I took a walk. Ended up on this industrial estate. Right i
n the middle there's a depot for something or other-cogs or shit, I don't know. Anyway, it's pretty rundown, grass pushing up through the tarmac, the odd broken window, you know what I mean. I was standing outside looking at it thinking it would be a good place to hold a party when I heard ... I mean, I thought I heard ... it could have been the wind ... I heard my name. Now I don't want you thinking I'm the kind of person who always follows imaginary voices, but I thought I ought to check it out. I've seen enough slasher flicks to be on my guard in that kind of situation, but, you know, it bothered me. I had to see."

  She looked from one face to the other as if searching for validation, but not wanting them to think she needed it.

  "You don't have to explain yourself," Church said. "We've been through the same thing-trying to deal with something your head tells you can't be true, but your heart tells you is."

  "Sorry? Do you think I'm interested? Quiet, bud, this is my story." Her attitude was antagonistic, but there was something, a flicker of a facial muscle, perhaps, that told Church his words had given her some comfort. "So, I went through the wire and had a look around. It was deserted, Sunday morning, but I still thought there might be some social inadequate with a uniform and a dog so I moved out of the open sharpish. Then I heard it again. Laura. Definitely, Laura. It seemed to be coming from this route between two buildings where lots of yellow oil drums had been stacked. By that time even I was thinking I was crazy-there could have been any psycho down there-but it was like I was being pulled in by something. I picked my way through the drums, and then ... Can I get another coffee?"

  Church could tell she'd done it for effect. Even though her face remained impassive, she seemed pleased at the grumble she'd elicited from Tom; Church could see Ruth wasn't wholly warming to her either, but there was something in her obviously faux obnoxiousness that he quite liked. Tom ordered her another espresso which she took without thanks, and then she continued.

  "I walked past the last heap of oil drums and it was like the air opened up in front of me." She fumbled for the right words. "Like the depot and everything around was some kind of stage scenery and somebody had peeled it back to show what really lay behind. I tried to back off, until I realised it was coming towards me quicker than I could move. And then it swallowed me up."

  Ruth looked at her incredulously. "It was alive?"

  "No, it was like some Star Trek effect-with no Scotty to pull me out at the last minute. There was this weird, spangly shit like I was having beads of oil sprayed on me, and then it was like I was tripping. I'm not going to start to describe the sensations-I don't want to sound like some burnt out acid case." She nodded to Tom. "No offence, space cadet. And then I saw things, heard things-"

  "What kind of things?" Church interjected.

  "Images. Sounds. It was a trip. And a half."

  "But what did you see?" Church stressed.

  "Enough to know that this whole world's in deep trouble. And I was told-"

  "Who told you?"

  "-I was told that all this strange, supernatural shit that's been going on all over the country is tied into it. The basic message was: don't go getting any long-term mortgages." Before Church could complain about her reticence, she added, "Anything I say won't do it justice. But I can show you."

  chapter six

  a view into the dark

  hurchfields Industrial Estate lay on the western outskirts of the city. It was a maze of low, flat buildings in bleak, sixties design, each enclosed by chainlink fence or barbed wire. The entrance was through a dark, long tunnel under a railway bridge, which added to the sense of grim isolation. There was a constant smell of petrol fumes and engine oil, claustrophobic in the growing heat of the day, but despite the many builders' merchants and car lots, there was no sign of life.

  Church parked the car round the corner and they sauntered up to the depot on foot. It comprised a large warehouse surrounded by smaller units, with a wide turning area for lorries at the front; the tarmac was cracked and tufts of yellowing grass poked through. As they neared, a fork-lift truck whizzed by carrying a pallet full of yellow oil drums, and through an open slide-door they could see movement deep within the building. Twelve-foot-high gates barred the way; they seemed to be opened electronically.

  "We've got no chance of getting in there unseen," Church said.

  "Don't be defeatist, Church-dude. Where's your ninja training?" Laura waited patiently and when a lorry pulled up at the gate five minutes later, she slipped through in its wake and motioned for the others to follow. The rumble of the lorry's engines drowned their footsteps as they sprinted across the wide open space to the shelter of the depot. Laura led the way along the wall and then dived down the alley she had described. Once they were out of sight of the main entrance, they rested briefly behind a pile of oil drums while Laura checked her bearings.

  "This is the place." She turned back to the others. "I hope you're set. There's no turning back now."

  "We're set." Church steeled himself, but the apprehension he felt was increasing with each moment.

  Laura picked her way among the oil drums with the others close behind, the air thick with the stink of chemicals. Finally they came to a clearing among the stacks.

  "Here we are," she said.

  "What do we do? Say abracadabra?" Church could see nothing out of the ordinary.

  "This is the place," Laura repeated defiantly, but there was a note of anxiety in her voice, as if she were afraid it really had all been in her mind.

  Tom and Ruth hung back, keeping watch as Laura and Church investigated, but the moment they stepped into the clearing there was a sudden drop in temperature and a rushing sound like water cascading over rapids. Tom and Ruth turned in time to see the air opening, not like a door as Laura had described it, but like someone slashing silk with a razor blade. They moved forward together, but they were too slow. The gap in the air folded around Church and Laura then sealed, leaving only a faint aroma of pine forests and lemon.

  Ruth and Tom had just a second to wonder what had happened. There was movement at the end of the alley; an oil drum clanged, then rolled over noisily. Three depot workers appeared, moving menacingly towards them. At first Ruth thought they would be able to talk their way out of the corner until she saw the wild look in their eyes and smelled the choking stench of animals' cages. Their faces began to move like oil on water.

  Tom put an arm across Ruth's chest, forcing her to back away, but another sound from the other end of the alley brought them to a halt. More were coming from the other direction. Tom cursed under his breath. "She's led us into a trap."

  There was a brief sensation of floating in water and then Church was suddenly somewhere else. The odour of chemicals and diesel fumes was replaced by more natural smells, of clean, fresh air and damp stone. He was standing in a corridor with a flagged floor and rough-hewn stone walls. Torches burned at intervals, but they didn't cast enough light to dispel the gloom. It was too sudden a transition to comprehend and for a second he felt as if the ground was violently moving under his feet; desperately he flailed around until he found a wall on which to cling. With his eyes clamped shut and his chest feeling as if it were being crushed by an anvil, his mind screamed out for some kind of explanation. Feebly, he tried to tell himself he had fallen through a hole in the ground into some structure beneath; it was such a ridiculous assertion it didn't hold for a second. He hadn't fallen at all. Beyond the floating, he couldn't describe what had happened to him. With dread acceptance, he opened his eyes and looked around. It was true; somehow he had gone from there to here-wherever here was-in the blink of an eye. All at once his gorge rose and he turned to one side and vomited.

  It took him several minutes to reach some kind of equilibrium, but he knew there was no point in pathetically trying to deny the truth; and after all, over the past five weeks he had seen enough impossible things simply to start to accept without trying to understand.

  His initial worry was what had happened to Laura. She ha
d been at his side when the strange effect had begun to happen in front of them, but there was no sign of her along the stretch of corridor. Briefly he considered calling her name; but who knew what else might answer?

  Certainly there was no point staying where he was. He was about to choose a direction at random when he heard someone singing, though faintly, as if it were filtered through numerous layers of stone. It hadn't just started, he was sure of it, but neither had he been aware of it before. It had a quality that made the hairs on his neck prickle. He weighed his options for a moment, decided he had none, and then started to move towards the music.

  His footsteps echoed louder than he would have liked, and he remained permanently alert for any sound of someone approaching, but at the same time his mind was working overtime: where was he? There were few clues in his surroundings, but his deliberations took a new turn as he rounded a corner into another branch of the corridor.

  On his right was a window, the first he had seen. He approached it in hope that it would allow him to get his bearings, but the moment he glanced out, an icy cold rushed through him. The view was of an infinite black void where occasional flashes of fire like distant explosions flared then subsided. There was no sign of surrounding land; whatever building he was in seemed to be floating in space.

  Panic came first, like spiders in his mind; it was worse than he had feared. But somehow he managed to damp it down and continue on his way with a stoic acceptance; there would be time enough for explanations. He hoped. Tom had been right when he suggested Church's experiences had changed him; certainly if he had been presented with the same situation a few months ago he would not have remained so calm.