Chasm

by Stephen Laws

  It was the same then, walking into that entrance yard; knowing that there was something really bad inside that building. So bad that Wayne and Damon couldn’t even bring themselves to talk about what they’d seen. The prospect of what we might come across, after the terrors that we’d all been through these past few days, made my legs feel weak. They felt like rubber now as I walked on ahead. But the anger was there too; that old enemy of mine. Flaring up when it wasn’t needed, spoiling everything for me; keeping the things I wanted most at arm’s length. Sometimes working for me, like now. I was angry that I was afraid. Angry at myself for being such a bloody coward. And that anger and that shame were making me do the brave thing, at least maybe in the eyes of other people.

  But it wasn’t brave at all.

  It was never like that.

  There was a lorry ahead, tilted on its side at a crazy angle. Now I could see what had happened. The concrete forecourt had cracked—more than that; there was a bloody great fissure zigzagging right through it. The lorry had slid partly into it, its cab and front wheels pointing up at the blank grey sky. Both doors were open, as if the driver and his mate had made a leap for safety when the tremor had hit. But there was no sign of anyone around. No bodies, anyway.

  Well, there wouldn’t be, would there? I thought. The Black Stuff has been making use of every dead body it can find.

  There was a ramp here, leading up to corrugated metal doors, which had been pulled back from a loading bay. Inside, it was dark. No way of seeing from here what we were going to find. I decided that I wasn’t going to push Wayne and Damon any harder on what they’d discovered. We’d find out for ourselves soon enough. But at least I had to know where the hell we were headed. I turned back on the ramp and looked at them. Was this the way? Damon looked as if he was having trouble swallowing. I pointed into the darkness and looked at him.

  He nodded.

  “I can’t,” he said, shaking his head. “I just can’t go in there.”

  Annie came striding up the ramp, slapping Gordon on the shoulder as she passed. Gordon winced, feeling as jumpy as everyone else. But, hoisting his guitar around to the middle of his back, he walked on up. Alex followed.

  The fear again, gnawing inside me.

  And then the anger.

  Never let the fear eat you alive. Hate the fear. Use that anger to face it head on.

  I turned and strode quickly into the dark.

  When my eyes got used to it, I could see that we were in some kind of loading area. Large, lumpish shapes were hanging from the ceiling, swaying and creaking. When my eyes adjusted, I could see ribbed patterns in each of those shapes—realising at last that they were ribs, and that I was looking at dozens of gutted cow carcasses hanging by hooks from overhead rails. Right then, we became aware of the smell. The refrigeration units in here had broken down and, although it had only been a few days, the meat had begun to rot. Not enough to make anyone gag yet but getting there. Maybe the meat was loaded from lorries outside, via those hooks and chains on the overhead rails. The carcasses swayed and rattled as if there was a wind blowing through the building. But there wasn’t. There was just us, the cold and the quiet creaking and rattling.

  “It’s up ahead,” said a strange voice from behind.

  When I turned to look, I could see that Wayne had followed us in after all. Damon was still framed in the entrance, unable to step inside. But Wayne’s voice didn’t sound like his voice at all. It was as if his fear had made it drop to a lower tone.

  “There,” he went on. “There’s a door up ahead.”

  I turned to look where he was pointing. There was some kind of sliding door in the wall. It was pulled halfway open.

  Whatever lay ahead of us was in there.

  Fear of fear.

  Anger at fear.

  Cowardice.

  I headed for the sliding doors. Was I bringing my feet down hard and making the echoes louder because the quietness in here was scaring me? Was I stamping out my anger on that fear? I wanted to stop then; maybe take a breath and build myself up in front of the doors. My anger wouldn’t let me. Not even a peep around the half-opened door first. Instead, I grabbed the handle and heaved it aside, shoving hard until it clattered like some giant concertina into the wall brackets on my right.

  There was a collective gasp from behind me.

  I took my time raising my head. One concession to the fear.

  The room beyond was about a hundred feet square and must have been some sort of loading area for the cold storage room. The iron rails and hooks overhead went straight in there, through ratchets at the top of the sliding doors and across the room to the actual cold storage unit itself. The door to the refrigerated section was directly opposite me, set into the far wall, and it looked like the vault door at Fort Knox. Want to know how I took in so much detail of the architecture? Because I had to keep looking away from what was in the storage room, and at what had been clawing and scratching at the cold storage door, trying to get in.

  The room was filled with corpses.

  Of all the bad things we’d seen, even the scary things that couldn’t possibly happen, this was the worst. The dead people, those who had been left lying in the ruins and the rubble after the earthquake and had somehow been brought back to life to taunt and terrify us, were all here. Somehow, after we’d scared them away from the fire, they’d been brought to this place by the Black Stuff. They’d shambled in here, maybe piling up on top of each other as they staggered into the storeroom; and then they had groped and clawed and beaten at the cold storage door when they couldn’t get it open. It was covered in bloody smears and handprints. The same hands that had left those scrawled messages for us to find. Finally, when the Black Stuff had given up, it had left them lying there. Waiting for night to return. There must have been a hundred, a hundred and fifty bodies; some of them damaged so badly that you just couldn’t look.

  “Why…?” began Alex.

  No one else spoke for a long time. Then I said: “Where else would you put dead bodies? Somewhere to keep them fresh. Why not meat freezers, cold storage? Makes sense.”

  “They couldn’t get inside,” said Annie. I glanced back at her. She couldn’t look any more. She was staring away at another wall.

  “But the power’s off,” said Alex. “The refrigeration in there will be shut down.”

  “Still going to be colder inside there than out, isn’t it?” Did my face look as white as the others’ when I turned back? Why were they all staring at me? I got it then. They were waiting for me again, waiting for me to tell them what to do.

  “I’m…” I bit down on what I was going to say: I’m not your leader! Instead, I said: “I don’t know how long we’ve got before it gets dark again. So we’ve got to move fast. You all head back to the park. Make sure the fire’s started and we’ve got lots of fuel and firewood. Alex, you sort Candy out. Get her out of that mini-mart and back to the fire. Take a crate of booze with you, if you’ve got to.”

  “What are you going to do?” asked Annie.

  “What we set out to do. There’s petrol in the dump truck. And these bodies are all in one place. So, I’m going to bring the bodies from the truck, dump them in here with the others. And burn them.”

  “Is there time? Before it gets dark?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I’ll stay and help you…” began Alex.

  “No, you go and get Candy organised. Annie, you take Lisa and the boy back. We’ve got to make sure there’s enough wood and stuff to keep that fire burning through the night. Whatever happens, we know the Black Stuff doesn’t like the fire.”

  Gordon stepped forward. He was still staring into the storeroom. This time, as if he couldn’t look away.

  “Me,” he said. “I’ll help you.”

  “Okay…Wayne and Damon…you help Gordon get the cans from the dump truck. Bring them in here, quick! I’ll see if there’s other stuff we can throw in there to start a good fire. You others—go now! Get b
ack there as quick as you can!”

  I braced my hands against the door and stared into the hellish room, listening to the echoing footsteps of the others as they hurried off. And fuck me, hadn’t I just gone and done it again?

  Taken charge.

  Become the leader.

  Was this all bloody crazy, or what?

  There was a long thin window in the storage room, with security wire and mesh on the outside; a thin, grey light washing over the bodies that lay sprawled over each other in there. White and bloodied masks leered from that sickening pile; white, claw-like hands stuck out from that mass, as if they’d been trying to claw themselves free before they’d seized up again.

  Even as I looked, it seemed that the grey light was fading.

  Growing darker.

  Terror froze me to the spot. The anger had burned out.

  I was alone with the dead.

  Who wouldn’t be staying dead for much longer.

  Chapter Eleven

  Delirium Tremens?

  It was autumn in Candy’s head.

  It was always autumn in her head. No matter whether the sun was blazing down outside; whether they were in the middle of a heat wave, with clear blue skies and no breath of a breeze. Or whether the streets were covered in snow, and the trees and shrubs in the garden were hidden beneath mounds of white. Inside her head, frozen in time, was the garden in autumn. Rust-brown leaves falling around her from the trees, sweeping around her feet as she gazed back at the house.

  Alex, walking towards her from the house. Slowly at first; not understanding.

  Quickly now, as he began to understand that something was wrong.

  She wanted to tell him, wanted to scream. But there was nothing she could do.

  The wind was swirling around her feet, the leaves were dancing there. And she felt so light inside. Surely the wind must snatch her up and blow her away? To another place where what she had seen could not possibly happen. A dream place, perhaps. Somewhere light and quiet and peaceful. So that when she opened her eyes, she would be in bed again. The day would not have started yet, and she’d have that wonderful feeling of relief on waking from a nightmare, with the realisation that none of the bad stuff had happened and that there was a new, fresh day waiting. But the wind could not sweep her from where she stood. On the inside, she might be as light as a feather. But her body was as heavy as stone, and she remained rooted to the garden like a statue as Alex came running right up to her. Even her face was carved from stone, and no matter how much he shook her by the shoulders, she couldn’t respond.

  Alex, running past her, mouthing something that she could not hear. Hearing the garden swing swaying gently in the wind, the chains squeaking against the metal poles. And now, knowing that he’d be seeing what she had just seen.

  Ricky, still there.

  Still looking as if he were trying to climb up one of the chains of the swing; one hand clutched in it as he twirled slowly, his feet hanging high above the seat. In her mind’s eye now, Alex doing exactly what she’d done: turning Ricky slowly so that he could see his face at last. A face that was purple and blotched. Eyes wide, puzzled. Tongue protruding. And then, there were only the sounds of Alex’s screaming.

  But she couldn’t scream; couldn’t make a noise.

  Because she was made of stone, like a statue.

  And statues didn’t cry.

  Did they?

  Candy came back from the bad place again. That autumn scene was always there in her head. Sometimes it was vivid and real, and no matter how much she tried to blot it out, it wouldn’t go away. More often, it was behind a locked door in her mind. And although the picture was not there, its existence couldn’t be denied. She could feel its presence with every waking second. Sometimes the drink made it easier for her to open that door and look at the scene. The grief was still there, of course; but numbed by the alcohol. And for the time that she was drinking herself into oblivion, it dulled the hurt. The pain never went away. And the hangover afterwards always seemed to make it worse. But for the time she was drinking, like now, it made life bearable.

  Candy lifted the bottle to her mouth and realised that her cheeks were wet. Suddenly she was back from that terrible moment in time.

  “Statues can’t cry.”

  Candy wept as she looked around and remembered where she had come. She was sitting down on a littered floor, her back up against the glass door of a soft-drinks cooler. It was the mini-mart, and there had been an earthquake, or something. There were cracks in the ceiling. Pieces of plaster on the floor and dust all over the place. Tins and packets lying where they had fallen from the shelves.

  “I’m not anything to do with what’s happened…I mean, what’s happening…outside. This is my world, in here. Where I’ve got everything I need.” Candy brought the bottle to her chest, patting it with love.

  Something scraped on the floor, nearby.

  “Nothing,” said Candy, “to do with me. Outside is outside. Those who want it can stay outside. Inside’s where I am. Away from it.”

  Something light and fragile, but made of glass, tinkled on a shelf just out of sight.

  This time, Candy looked up. There was nothing alarming about that sound. It was too gentle, non-threatening.

  “Ten green bottles…” Candy began to hum.

  And then something clattered against the broken front window.

  Candy sat up straight, clutching the bottle.

  Three different sounds now, from three different places in the store.

  Something whispered, a breath of air; as if something very fast had suddenly flown through the air overhead. A sparrow, maybe. Trapped in the store, or taking refuge.

  But there was no sign of anything, and now an empty bottle was rolling across the floor. It bumped against the edge of the counter where Candy sat and spun lazily to a halt. Candy shrank back from it. Now the alcohol was no longer keeping the fear away. Another image cut through the blur, bringing sobriety of a plain and terrified kind: the store-owner, standing behind this self-same counter, with a shard of wood embedded in his eye and with that Black Stuff gushing from every orifice as he screamed with laughter.

  Something beyond the counter, out of her vision, seemed to rush from one side of the store to the other. A small cloud of plaster dust rose above counter level. A single sheet of newspaper flapped in the air, making Candy wince and pull her knees up to her chest.

  “Who’s there…?”

  Silence now.

  As if the several invisible presences on the other side of the counter who had been exploring the store had suddenly frozen in their tracks. Even now, were they turning their heads slowly and with horrifying interest towards what might be hiding with its brandy bottle on the other side of the counter?

  “There’s no one there.” Candy unscrewed the top from the brandy bottle and took a deep swallow.

  Something giggled in the store, out of sight.

  Candy froze, the bottle still raised to her lips. Breathless, she waited to hear if the sound would come again. It had sounded just like…just like a small child. Doing something secretive and naughty.

  Now something was whispering on the other side of the store. Like another child, answering the first.

  Something scraped on the floor.

  And then Candy saw the shadow slowly approaching around the end of the counter where she sat. It was vaguely human in shape. There seemed to be a head and shoulders; moreover the head and shoulders of a child, or a midget perhaps. The shadow paused, and Candy saw an arm raised; now it was placed carefully against the side of the counter as the shadow slowly came on. Secretive, furtive, knowing that she was hiding on the other side. The alcohol had ceased to be a protective barrier. Candy was shuddering in fear. Could the shadow hear her breathing? Now its small head was cocked to one side, listening.

  Another child’s voice giggled from somewhere in the store.

  The shadow made an unmistakable gesture.

  Half turning its
head back so that Candy could see the profile of a child’s face, with tight, curling hair, the shadow placed a forefinger to its lips in a plea for silence from the others.

  The giggling stopped.

  The shadow turned to look back towards the corner of the counter.

  Candy was no more than five or six feet from the edge, but she could not move.

  Silently, the shadow crept towards her.

  Chapter Twelve

  Night Falls

  “I don’t like this,” said Alex, as they drew level with the dump truck in the rear yard.

  Lisa and the boy were waiting there for them. The boy was climbing on the running-board of the truck, just like any other kid his age. But he still acted as if there was no one there when they approached. As if the only real people in his make-believe world were Lisa and, sometimes, Annie.

  Gordon pulled open the passenger door and began to lug cans of petrol out from where Alex had stored them. Annie looked to see that Alex was staring at the grey, unchanging sky. Wayne and Damon had pulled down the flap at the rear of the truck and were lifting cans to the cracked concrete yard, trying to ignore the bodies there. They stopped when Alex spoke.

  “Why?” asked Damon. “What’s wrong?”

  “Everything’s wrong,” answered Annie. “Come on, we’d better get back to the others.”

  “No!” snapped Damon, betraying the tension they all felt. “What does he mean?”

  Alex wished he hadn’t spoken. It was an unguarded comment. He’d suddenly been struck by the notion that whatever passed for day and night, light and dark, in this strange new world, didn’t seem to abide by the normal rules. And he had been overcome by the possibility that maybe there would be no gradual change from grey to dark grey to utter darkness “tonight”. What if it was like someone flicking a switch? One moment, the blank greyness. The next, utter darkness. And how long would it take the Black Stuff to come swarming up from the chasm? How long before it exploded in a hideous torrent around the corner of this meat mart, engulfing them? How long before Jay’s cries from within the building told them that Edmonville’s remaining dead were dead no longer?