by Stephen Laws
What has that woman seen beyond the ridge? What’s over there that’s so bad?
Then Jay saw a familiar sight that slowed him down. When he saw it, he breathed out an almighty sigh of relief, then bent to put his hands on his thighs and suck in good air. Gordon drew level again, and waited.
“It’s okay,” said Jay. “Okay. Thought I was freaking out there for a minute. But it’s all right now.”
“What?” asked Gordon, and was surprised at how easily the word had slipped out this time. Sometimes it happened like that.
“See that?” Jay pointed to the church spire which had suddenly appeared over the mound. “That’s St. Michael’s. My mate got married there. Me and my pals stood in the back row and coughed when the vicar asked the usual question, ‘If anyone knows why these two shouldn’t be joined together’. Church is still there, though. Means everything’s still where it’s supposed to be.” Jay laughed. “The vicar must have put a word in with God. Everything else has fallen to bits, but the church is still in one piece.” He carried on. Following behind, Gordon watched more details of the church spire reveal themselves as they drew nearer to the mound. It began to rise before them like a rocket heading for the heavens in slow motion. The effect was heightened by the absence of clouds. Just that dense, grey backdrop of the sky, with that great black needle rising before them.
Annie had forged on ahead but now paused before reaching the mound, turning to wait until the others caught up. Even from a distance, Jay could see the look of confusion on her face. Clearly there was something over there that made her anxious. She began to speak while they were still drawing near.
“I don’t know why I went for…a walk,” she said hesitantly. “When I woke up, I mean. I had a dream. Nothing that’ll make sense to you. Just that something was…different. I had to go and see what it was, before I woke you up, Lisa. When I saw the smoke barrier was gone, I nearly woke you. But I didn’t feel right. I wanted to make sure that what I was seeing was really there. Or rather, not there.”
“Annie?” Lisa was concerned. She had never seen her reacting like this before. She touched her arm and Annie continued.
“I came here. I don’t know why. The dream, you see.”
“Look, I’m sorry,” said Alex. “But you’re not making any sense. Why have you brought us out here? What is it?”
“Look for yourself,” said Annie, stepping cautiously up the mound. “But be careful.”
Jay pushed past and climbed the mound.
“Be careful!” warned Annie again.
Jay reached the top of the mound, and could see St. Michael’s church a hundred yards away.
But there was nothing else between him and the church.
Nothing.
Just a yawning gap, with the church apparently sitting on a crag of rock, only slightly wider than the building itself. A cliff-face dropped away from the church on all sides, into nothingness. Jay stumbled on the mound, arms waving, and saw a mind-reeling drop of sheer rock faces and impenetrable darkness below. His mind reeled before the immense depths. He staggered, then felt something grab him from behind. Stumbling, he realised that the kid with the guitar had pulled him back.
“You see?” said Annie. “You see what I mean?” She sounded as if she wanted to hear him say: No, you’re wrong. You’re seeing things. That’s all.
Uttering a sound of exasperation, Alex pushed on past them all to the mound and peered over the rim. What he saw left him speechless.
“What is it?” Candy was spooked, but didn’t want the others to see how much. When Alex motioned to her without turning from the rim of the mound, she nervously began to climb. The others followed, carefully reaching the raised edge to look on their new world.
No one spoke. No one could speak.
The playing field had been severed by the ’quake at its mid-point.
The raised mound was cracked earth pushed back by the immense collapse of land, to form the ragged cliff-edge on which they stood. Different colours of soil and clay were revealed in descending layers in the facing side of the pinnacle. It was like a cross-section view of some surreal geologist’s underground survey from what had once been ground level to the unfathomable depths below, testimony to the passing of the ages. Behind the church on its stone pedestal and off to the right was another pillar of clay, soil and stone. This was larger, perhaps four hundred yards square in ragged dimensions. There were four ruined houses there, and the remains of a road vanished over the edge of its precipice.
To the left were several more of these impossible towers. There was nothing on them but meaningless rubble, but on one was a solitary tree. Where the cliff-edge mound curled away to their left past a row of crumbled terraced houses practically perched on the edge, there had once been a bus depot. That too had been replaced by another stone tower, this one perhaps bigger than the others, although it was impossible to see around the bend of the cliff-edge. But most of the nearside of the depot had fallen away into the chasm. There was a double-decker bus parked on the ragged edge of the tower, its left front wheel in space. At any moment, it seemed, the vehicle must topple over the edge. To the right of the church, perhaps two hundred feet lower, was another stone tower with a flattened top, like a miniature plateau. Whatever had previously been at ground level, which would have brought this tower up to the same height as the church, had shattered and collapsed, leaving only this lower crag of ragged soil and stone, like a flattened building site. Behind the church and the shorn-away tower on the right stretched another cliff-edge, on which were perched the remains of a collapsed frozen-food factory and other industrial buildings.
Even more bizarre, beyond the peaks and crags which were all that was apparently left of this part of Edmonville—was nothing. There was only a blank expanse of greyness that must somehow be an all-enveloping mist or fog, hiding what lay beyond from sight. But surely even mist had “substance”? It was possible to feel, even sense, the moist dense barrier of a real mist or fog. So why were there no wisping curls, no shifting cloud banks? Why only this utter, blank greyness?
They all felt it then, when they looked out into the void; the unnerving sense that they were looking past these surreal towers and crags of crumbling stone into an awful and empty nothingness. It was as if the world beyond, and on either side of the cliff-edge on which they stood, had simply ceased to exist.
“You see,” said Annie at last, and she had to clear her throat before she was able to continue. “At first, I thought that I was seeing things. It can’t really be like that, can it? I mean, not like that. It’s just not possible. Is it?”
“Come back from the edge!” shouted Candy, and everyone reeled back to see that she had quietly scrambled back from the awesome sight. She began to shake her head, staring at her feet, as if by simply refusing to look, everything would return to the way it was before. “Alex! Come back from the edge. We’ll fall. If we get too close, we’ll fall.”
“We should do what those other two did,” said Alex, scrambling back to her. “Go find help.”
“But where is everybody?” asked Lisa. “It’s like…like we’re the only ones left. Do you think…” She stopped then when the boy crushed hard against her, burying his face once more.
“What?” asked Jay. “Go on…say it.”
“What if the only ones left were those in the community centre? I mean, those two men in the ambulance had gone around looking for survivors and were bringing them back there. What if everyone else was…burned up…in there?”
“In a whole city?” said Alex. “No, there’ll be help. I’m going back.”
“What about the man?” said Candy. She was still looking at her feet. “What about the man in the off-licence shop? And the…black water?”
“What are you talking about?” asked Jay.
He remembered the strange darkness that had erupted through the windows of the community centre. Something that might have been black water, or oil, but couldn’t possibly have been either
—not when the entire community centre had burst into flame only moments later.
“Nothing,” replied Alex. He reached for Candy’s hand as he moved off. “It was nothing. Come on, Candy…” Candy pulled away from him, but also moved off.
“Wait a minute,” said Jay. “You were running away from something back there at the community centre. It was you…and the woman…who came pelting back into the place, just before…before the place blew apart. What the hell was after you?”
“Leave us alone,” said Alex. “We’re going for help.”
“What the hell was it?”
“You want some aggro, sonny?” Alex whirled around, fists bunched. Candy shied away from him, and walked on past, head down. “’Cause I’ve just about had it!” His eyes were wild now, the pressure of everything he had seen and experienced, and the horrifying and inexplicable events after the encounter with the Dead Man, coming to bear at last. Jay stopped himself moving forward to meet him; the old instincts again, anger flaring in any confrontation. The man was perhaps twenty years his senior, but looked in bad shape. And even if Jay’s head was still swimming, even if he still felt weak from his ordeal in the school ruins, he reckoned he could take him on if he had to. But he held himself in check as the wild grimace faded from the man’s face. Now Alex looked as if he was going to apologise for his outburst. Instead, shaking his head, he turned and marched after his wife.
“What do we do now?” began Lisa. “I suppose that man’s right. We’ll have to…”
“Wait,” said Gordon, forcing the word out. When they all looked at him, he knew he wouldn’t be able to get the rest of it out. Instead, he pointed ahead, past Alex and Candy—and what they hadn’t yet seen as they plodded on, heads down.
Two figures were running across the park towards them.
It was Wayne and Damon.
At last, Candy and Alex saw them coming. Candy shied away again from their headlong dash. Alex stood his ground, as if this time he really was ready for a fight, with whoever or whatever. But both kids staggered to a halt before they reached him, gasping for breath and trying to speak, now pointing back the way they’d come.
“Oh Christ,” said Annie, as if she knew.
“Back there…” Wayne managed to get out at last. “There’s…God…there’s…”
“What?” yelled Alex, unprepared for more confusion. He wanted this nightmare to be over.
“Just past the school!” gasped Damon. “Down Davion Street and up to the shopping centre. Where the smoke and stuff was. Where they said no one could get through…”
“What?” yelled Jay.
“It’s all gone!” continued Damon. “Oh Christ, it’s all fallen away into a great fucking hole or something. There’s just…like…a big cliff-edge. Everything past that has fallen into this big…deep…” He couldn’t find the words to describe it, but with sickness in their souls, everyone knew what he was talking about. “My folks,” babbled Damon. “My brother and his wife. The street where they lived. It’s just…gone!”
“There’s bits and pieces of houses and buildings and factories and things,” Wayne cut in. “All balanced on these big, thin mountains…or something. They go down so deep, you can’t see what’s at the bottom…”
We’re cut off, Gordon tried to say. It’s the same all around us. Behind, ahead. And on both sides, where those houses are over on the left. And where the trees are on the right. It’s a half-square mile of land, stranded and separated from the rest. But when he looked at everyone else’s shocked and white faces, he knew that they were all thinking the same thing.
The earthquake had done more than demolish their city.
It had changed their world.
For ever.
From behind, beyond the cliff-edge, came the sounds of a distant and grumbling thunder. They turned in alarm as the sound changed, becoming a crackling and shivering that filled the air with ratcheting echoes.
“Oh God,” said Lisa. “Look…”
The church spire was disintegrating.
Slowly, far too slowly, it seemed, the tower fell apart before their eyes. As if it had somehow been detonated at the base like a redundant factory tower. The lower half disappeared in a gushing cloud of dust and whirling bricks, the spire coming apart like some massive brick jigsaw as it toppled and began to fall out across the chasm. The bell in the tower clanged. It was a hollow, booming death knell. Wayne moaned and sank to his knees, hugging himself. It was just like the bell in the school tower, and the horror of the similarity overwhelmed him. The disintegrating spire vanished in its roaring shroud of dust, an avalanche of shattered brick, cement and stone vanishing into the depths of the chasm.
Candy shrank back when the bus balanced precariously on the crag of rock that had once been a bus station suddenly juddered forward as if it were alive; pushing forward until both wheels were over the edge, as if watching the church spire vanish into the darkness. And then the tarmac edge crumbled and the bus lurched forward over the rim.
“Christ…” said Annie.
The bus showed its undercarriage and suspension as it turned over lazily in the air. There was nothing for the vehicle to hit on its way down. Silently, looking like a toy in that immense gulf, it fell…and fell…and fell…until it was gone into the darkness below. There was no sound of impact. Just the muted hush of the vanished church spire as its disintegrating rain of brick and stone swept down the jagged, sheer face of the stone tower on which it had stood. Only a faint whispering of dying echoes from the chasm below, like the waves of some vast and bottomless underground sea.
They stood and listened, until there was nothing else to hear.
Chapter Thirteen
The Journal of Jay O’Connor:
Aftermath
I don’t think anyone was in their right mind then. Not me, that’s for sure. I was still feeling like hell and my vision was blurry. And it seemed that what had just happened—the church spire falling and the bus going over after it—was like some kind of warning. Like we were all being told that it wasn’t over yet.
Wayne and Damon just slumped down there on the grass as if all the wind had been kicked out of them. Wayne was grabbing handfuls of turf; as if he was afraid that the ground might suddenly give way beneath him. I didn’t blame him for that. Everyone was spooked. It was the guy called Alex who first suggested we find out who we all were. The two women were called Annie and Lisa, and they owned a hardware store. Although I thought that the kid with them must be a son of one of them, I was wrong on that count. They’d saved him when the ’quake hit or the bomb dropped, or whatever the hell had happened. But his parents had been killed. The kid with the guitar didn’t seem to want to talk to anyone. When we pressed him for his name, he only spat out one word: “Gordon”. Whether it was his first or his last name, no one knew at that stage. I supposed he was in shock like everyone else. Something funny happened when the guy called Alex introduced his wife. He said that her friends called her Candy, and I could tell by the way they looked at each other then that something was up. It didn’t have anything to do with whatever had hit Edmonville, it had to do with the fact that they hated each other’s guts.
But it was bloody peculiar, the way everyone was sitting and standing around, telling everyone their names; like we were at some kind of group therapy session or something. Like, if we all did the sensible thing, started to act as if nothing had happened, then everything would sort itself out. Afterwards, Alex said:
“We’ve got to have a proper look around. Check out the…entire area. Just to make sure.”
He was right—we couldn’t be sure that it was the same cliff-edge and the same destruction all around us. Maybe we weren’t perched on a half-mile-square, flattened-off mountain peak, with a bottomless drop every way you looked. But we all believed that it was true. Still Alex was taking the lead and saying the sensible thing.
“Why don’t we split up into two groups?” He was trying to make his voice sound like he was in comman
d. It wasn’t working, but we let him get on with it. “Jay, you and…Gordon, and the two lads…why don’t you make your way around there…” He pointed off to the right, where the bus depot was perched on its peak and the bus had gone over the edge.
“The two ladies and the boy, Candy…” His wife glared at him again. “…Candy and I, we’ll all head along this edge in the other direction. Whoever finds a way out can come back…come back here, to the playing field…just here. Otherwise, well…otherwise…” He couldn’t bring himself to say: Otherwise we’ll all meet up again when we’ve been right around.
No one had the energy to object to Alex’s idea, least of all me. We had to do something. So when Alex and his “team” headed off along the rough cliff-edge, we did the same. No one spoke, and we walked as if we’d been on the road for weeks. As we drew nearer to the trees, I remembered something.
“What happened to the other kid?”
“What other kid?” asked Wayne.
“The kid who was crying. The one I found you with, in the school. Was he in the community centre…?”
“Oh, Paulie. He’s gone.”
“What do you mean ‘gone’?”
“He ran away. We never saw him again.”
I remembered how Damon and Wayne had started throwing stones at the kid. At the time I was in no state to do anything about it, even if I’d wanted to. But now I felt sick inside. Sick and claustrophobic like I was still trapped under all that rubble. They’d chased the poor little kid away. God knows what had happened to him. I struggled with this sick feeling that I should have done something about it. Then I tried to rationalise it. Even if I hadn’t keeled over and had been able to drag him along, he would have ended up at the community centre; and the chances are he’d have ended up like all the others. Burned alive. But there was another voice, one that I struggled to push down: He might have got away, through that rear exit. Just like us. And he’d be alive now. I shook my head, and caught Gordon giving me a funny look. Maybe being dead was the best option in the long run. Christ knew what was happening here, and what was going to happen to us now.
