by Glynn James
"You're coming with me then?"
A snort was my answer.
It seemed he was.
He was still an odd thing to have around, but remembering the old tramp's words, and the times that DogThing had already helped me, saved my life even, gave me a boost of confidence that I had been missing since he disappeared a few days ago. Any companion was good in this place, especially one with the killing ability of a demon mutt.
We set off across the junkyard, heading slowly past the massive piles of refuse that I wished I had had time to sort through a bit more. I was convinced that there was endless useful stuff in there.
Eventually the mushroom patch was in sight, and it felt a little strange to be pushing the cart through it, towards my water reservoirs, with the thought that I might not be coming back this way again, at least not for a while.
The first sign that the dream was living up to its promises was the pools of water that had gathered in my pothole reservoirs. All of them were full, and it took me a while to fill all the bottles that I had stored in the sack, making the cart even heavier to push. By the time I had filled them up, collected the plastic sheets and begun my journey again, I was starting to feel the tiredness come over me. The later part of the day had gone by much quicker, and although I had no way to judge the time, it certainly felt like I had been awake for a full day.
I pushed on further and into the mushrooms, struggling with the extra weight of water that I was now carrying. I hadn't travelled more than a few hundred yards or so when I spotted the first marker. It was the same wooden pole that I remembered the tramp following, and had the same bright cloth tied neatly at the top.
As I sit here writing this journal and eating some of what I had already cooked yesterday, shaded from the rain by a massive mushroom (one that is ten feet tall, like I had seen in the dream), and an hour on from finding the first marker, and ten more markers passed, I am hopeful for the future.
DogThing is sitting barely ten feet away from me, also eating, though his is raw and bitten straight from the mushroom. His presence is a constant reminder of how strange this place is but also how not everything is against me.
I think of the lake, and the shack up on the rocks, and I know there is somewhere to go at last. It's a place not far from here, and though it is no longer inhabited by the living, it is a place that could be lived in, for now. It's a place where an old tramp who I once met on a bus, when I was a child, once lived.
One that talks to me in my dreams.
Day 17
"So who was he then?"
"He was a professor, taught art literature I think, but he was quite mad when I met him down here. He was a nice fellow, harmless enough, but he used to gibber on in some strange language, and he talked to himself a lot."
"And he just disappeared?"
"Yes... Well...no, not literally. One day he was talking about needing to go and get food. I said that we had enough mushrooms and pods to last us for months, but he didn't want pods or mushrooms."
"Pods?"
"They grow by the lake. You will see when you get here. They taste like potatoes, but with a sharper taste maybe, and are much bigger. They are slow-growing, though."
"I see. Anyway. About Professor Adler?"
"Yes...oh...yes. Well he packed up some provisions, got on his bicycle and headed out across the swamps. He used to travel round a lot before, but this was different, somehow more final. I begged him not to go, but he didn't listen. He never came back."
"Swamp?"
"It's a few miles past the valley. There are some ruins, as well. A city, once, I think. It's a dangerous place. I'll tell you all about it when you get here."
"What's your name anyway?"
"Rudy."
It was strange waking up outside again. The rain hadn't stopped. It still floated down in a barely perceptible sheet, the kind of rain that soaks everything, while giving you the impression that it's just a light shower. I was glad of the huge mushroom that I was sitting under. The ground near the base was almost dry. A few feet away, the ground was sludge.
DogThing had found himself a similar nook to hide away in, tucking himself under a smaller mushroom about twenty feet away. He was so well camouflaged in this strange field that I almost didn't spot him.
I decided that it was pointless waiting until the rain eased. It hadn't done since it first started drizzling. I spent a few minutes gathering my things and pushed off out into the wet, trying to spot the next marker.
It was a slow trek through the rest of the mushrooms and up onto the rock plateau. I didn't remember the slope out of the mushroom field being quite so steep in the dream, and it took me about an hour to haul my cart up the few hundred feet of rock.
When I finally got up there, it was the weirdest sight. Talk about flat. The plateau could have been carved by a machine from the bare rock. There was almost a polished sheen, glimmering in the lantern light, stretching out for the few hundred yards of visibility.
DogThing seemed reluctant to follow me out onto the flat at first. He perched on a small outcropping of rock at the top of the slope and watched me, eventually leaving the safety of his camouflage to catch me up. I'm glad he did. Seeing him sitting there, watching me go, gave me an eerie lack of confidence in my choice. If he wasn't willing to walk there, what was I doing?
The markers were less frequent across the rock, and each time they were sticking out of a plastic bag filled with small stones, and bits of junk. The hard surface of the ground looked like marble, but less smooth. Of course, I'd only ever seen marble on the floor of banks and museums, where it was highly polished. This must have been marble in its raw state. I could have been walking over a natural resource worth a fortune. One thing I did notice was the long streaks of reddish gold. I thought that they looked like metal of some kind, but I could have been wrong. What the hell did I know about rocks?
DogThing stayed a lot closer to me than usual, snuffling along the ground a few feet behind me and hugging the shadows that the lantern cast. He seemed ok but a little uncomfortable.
I reckon it took roughly eight hours to reach the crevasse, and I was about four hours into the journey when the rain stopped. No warning. No light rain or gradual lapse. It just switched off, like someone had turned the tap off. Twenty minutes later and I was walking on dry ground. I had no idea where the water had all gone.
The crevasse appeared in the gloom, stretching across the path that the markers had led me along. I had a horrible gut feeling, as I approached, that it was going to be impassable. It appeared to be about thirty feet wide, and it was dark. When I finally had the chance to look down into it, I sighed with relief. It was only as deep as a man's height. Of course, there was no easy way to cross it, and no gradual slope, just a sheer drop.
Well it's another hour or so later as I sit writing this. I've got a little campfire going, down in the crevasse, only a small one to cook up some mushrooms. It took me most of that time to haul my stuff out of the cart, and down into the bottom. Then I had to lug the cart down as well.
At first, I left the cart and walked a little way along the edge, hoping that it would end soon, so that I might be able to navigate round it, but there wasn't any sign of an easier crossing, so I gave up. I could have spent hours walking along it to find nothing.
My stomach is still feeling crap after two weeks or so of drinking only cheap fizzy pop. I'm hoping that drinking water will make a difference, clean my system out a bit. Having solid food seems to be helping a lot.
Now that the rain has stopped I'm wishing that I'd laid out more plastic water traps on the way. At least I still have quite a good supply of water bottles.
Day 18
"How far is it?"
"Not far, maybe a day or so from the crack in the plateau. You're making good time."
"Ok."
"The rains have stopped, haven't they?"
"Yes."
"The Maw is still with you?"
"DogThing?"
"You named him?" Laughter. "Yes. Him."
"Yes, he is still with me."
"Good. Pay attention to his senses. The gargants don't usually move up onto the plateau, so you should be ok."
"Gargants? What the hell are they?"
"Huge things. Vicious. They come from the swamps after the rain. If the ground starts shaking, then you run in the opposite direction and hide, fast. But don't worry. You'll be ok on the plateau."
"No zombies?"
"No, no zombies. They seem to frequent the junkyards and the ruins, cutting a path straight through the swamp to make their way to the great wall that you found up there. Though they take the long way round the plateau, for some reason. I've never seen one up near the waterfall."
"Are they really zombies? Those things?"
"No. Not really."
DogThing was even more on edge for most of the day. I pressed on for as many hours as I could, leaving little time to write this by the time I set up camp again. Honestly, it's all just flat rock, so not much to report anyway.
Endless, flat rock.
Day 19
"It was nervous?"
"Yes. He stuck close to me, by the cart, for a few hours, and he kept watching the darkness and stooping low. He wasn't a happy dog."
"No ground tremors?"
"No."
"Good. Keep going. You'll reach the valley soon."
"I'll be glad to get there."
Laughter.
"I bet. Be careful when you get here, though. On rare occasions, a gargant wanders up from the lakes and drinks from the waterfall pool."
"Lakes?"
Laughter again.
"Yes. Lakes."
He was right about arriving soon. Later that day, after hours of pushing the cart, the edge of the plateau dropped off out of sight. DogThing reacted before I even saw the terrain change. He bolted towards the darkness and almost disappeared before the flat rock gave way to a grassy slope.
I had seen the points of blue light for a while in the distance, but until we got closer I couldn't make out what they were. I'd suspected correctly, though. It was the crystal stalactites from my dreams, and as I approached the edge of the valley, my eyes adjusted to the new light. The vastness of it all was overwhelming. The valley spread for what seemed like miles. The sound of the waterfall cascading down the rocks was quiet and muffled. Sound doesn't seem to travel as well as light does in this place. It's also odd how the light seems to deaden off at a distance. Only the blue light of the crystals travels far. The darkness is almost like a fog.
I found Rudy's body down by the water's edge. It was exactly where it had been in the dream, but it wasn't the same. Where before there had been skin and bits of body and blood all over the place, now there were only dry, old bones, most of which had become submerged in the mud.
He hadn't died recently.
The old shack was there, up on the rocks, not far from the waterfall. It was quite a trek up the path, which I think must have been worn away by water rather than been cut. The rock was too smooth.
Rudy was waiting at the entrance to the building, near where the door was flung open and hanging half off its hinges. A strange, warm wind was gusting across the rock as I hauled the cart up the slope.
After everything I had seen in this dark world, even with the zombies (apparently not zombies), and DogThing, and the mushrooms, seeing a floating, glowing ghost of a dead man was still quite disturbing. I was wary as I approached, but he was smiling and beckoning me forward.
"You made it. Good. Come on, quickly. Get inside before the gargant smells you." He pointed behind me, beyond the waterfall.
I turned round, looking down the valley, and saw the creature he spoke of. The gargant was close by, and the name was quite apt. I'm not sure what it was that I was expecting to see, but I know that a giant slug thing wasn't it. From my best judgement, given the distance, it was easily the size of the bus, maybe larger. It shuffled on a multitude of tiny legs that lined the bottom of its body, and hundreds of tentacles writhed across the ground in front of it as it scoured the river bed and the grass near the lake's edge for, well, whatever it was looking for.
"Mad."
"Yes. Exactly. Nasty things. Fortunately they can't get all the way up here. The rocks don't give them enough purchase to climb, but they can get part of the way up, and have wrecked the lower end of the valley before, killing all the pods that grow there. Come inside. Let's not give it any reason to come any further upstream."
I left the cart on the flat, rocky area in front of the shack and went in, following my ghostly friend. I noticed that DogThing had disappeared again, and Rudy must have sensed my thoughts.
"Don't worry, it will be back. The Maw seem to love gargant spawn, and they are far too quick for the gargants to catch."
My stomach churned.
"Gargant spawn?"
"Eggs. They leave piles of them in the mud, easy for Maw to dig up. Best not to think about it."
The shack looked long abandoned, but the rough stone fireplace, the only part of the building not made of wood, was stocked up and ready to be lit.
"I made the fire before I went down to the lake that last time. It's been sitting there...ready...for years."
It took a while to get the fire going. Some of it was damp and mouldy, but after removing the worst of it, the fire took well. Soon the shack was lit up and warm.
Rudy showed me round, commenting on many of the things in his house. There were only three rooms. The main living room, a small bedroom, and a storage cupboard at the back that stank of rotten food. It would take some cleaning up, but with a little work the place could be habitable again.
In the main living room there was an old sofa, a small desk pushed in one corner, and a bookshelf crammed full of old books and papers.
"The professor's diary is in there, on the top. I read it a while after he left. I felt guilty, but I wanted to know what he was thinking. You may want to read it. It's...strange...but it explains a little about why he was mad, I think. The bits from when he was in London weren't that interesting, but the few entries he made when he moved to the country, are."
I nodded, moving on to look at the large grandfather clock stood in one corner, motionless. The time was stuck at half past four. Dust caked the top and the glass, and the wood was dry and cracked. It was still a beautiful thing, though.
"It stopped working a while after I died." His voice was quiet. "It needs winding up every week or so. The chimes don't work, but the tick of the clock is nice."
He was silent for a moment. "It could do with cleaning up a little. I never got round to restoring it properly, didn't have anything to clean it with. Would you mind winding it up? It's the turnkey at the back."
I did as he asked, and started the pendulum swinging. Soon the quiet tick, tick of the clock broke the silence.
"I used to sit in here a lot, reading. Adler liked to walk a lot, but I preferred to stay in here. The sound of that clock was quite relaxing."
"The professor didn't stay here much?"
"Yes, he did. Most evenings, anyway. He spent most of the day wandering, and he slept outside. Up the slope, behind the shack a short way, is an overhanging in the rock. He had a camp there. There's not much there now, though. I brought most of it back down here, after he left."
"I see. I'll have a look up there later, after I've got my stuff in here."
Searching through the bookshelf, I could see it held mostly classic old tales and several copies of the same thesis book by the professor; duplicates of the books I found in the bus.
"There is a mountain of books of all kinds, mostly rotten, over in the junkyard. You've probably seen it. I used to pick some up whenever I went back there, hunting for stuff." He pointed at the bookshelf. "That's where most of this came from."
Later that day I did read the professor's diary, at least the last few entries that he had written before he arrived in this place. I decided to put the pages inside m
y journal, in case they become useful at some point.
Professor Adler's Diary
Below are the last entries in the diary of Professor John Adler of Temperance, Northamptonshire, before his arrival in this other place.
March 20th, 1922
It is the first day of spring, and it is a time of the year I always love. The snow, which back when I was boy would still be melting even now, is long gone. I think the weather must be changing over the years.
As I walk the lanes of the country, which I love to do in the afternoons now the weather is turning finer. I see all the first signs of the year to come. The flowers are beginning to bloom, small animals are flitting about, collecting food or materials to build their little nests with, and there's that crisp, pungent smell in the air.
It is nice, at least, that the weather has turned, so that I may take a break from writing my memoirs. They are a joy that I would not set aside for long, but it is, as I heard some of the younger, modern thinking artists say, at my last seminar, “nice to get out”.
It occurred to me today, while I was passing one of the paths that jut off the lane that I walk, which winds round the lake, that I had never ventured aside from my regular route. There are numerous small pathways that twist and turn away from that thin road, leading to wherever they may go. I was gripped with an urge, one which I must say I resisted for the moment, to start this year's walking with something daring. I was infused with the thought of venturing somewhere new. I must consider this during my evening musings.
March 21st
There are swans on the lake today. Glorious and majestic creatures, they are. I was gifted with the most wondrous treat when I bore witness to two of the mightier specimens furiously debating the right to the attentions of one of the females. They were indeed noisy and abrupt, it was most impressive.
During my walk, I fulfilled a little of my intent to venture forth and experience a new journey, when I found a likely and interesting path. I took it upon myself to walk but three hundred full strides along it, before inhaling the view and then returning whence I came, with a promise to venture further the next morning. It was spontaneous, even though the intent was premeditated. I know that sounds strange. I wasn't expecting to find a good candidate. This particular lane was one that I couldn't recall seeing before.
