Chasm

by Stephen Laws

  Quicker than seemed possible, my feet made contact with steel.

  I scrabbled around, found handholds on a bent aerial dish that looked pretty solidly screwed into the gantry, and yelled: “Okay! Keep it there!” Now I could see that the edge of the mast had carved out a deep V shape in the cliff wall. I prayed that it was as solidly anchored there as it looked.

  The woman was about forty feet away from me, and still coming ahead on all fours. Behind her, something clanged again. We both ducked instinctively and I felt the vibration shivering in the mast beneath me. Her friend had found something else to throw.

  “You can make it!” I shouted across to her, looking for some way to move closer. There was a snarl of wiring, difficult to get through. One way or the other, it would have to be cleared if she was going to make it over to this side. I began yanking it to one side, trying not to think about what the extra weight and my actions might do to the way the mast was balanced.

  I could see the man on the other side now. He’d gone completely ape-shit. He was shrieking and jumping about over there. The woman turned to look back. I had to keep her attention focused on our side.

  “Friend of yours?” I called.

  When she looked back, I saw her face properly for the first time.

  She was hanging in space on what was left of a four-hundred-foot broadcasting mast. By rights, she should already have been flung down into the Chasm. There was a madman over there, trying to do everything in his power to make sure that she fell. I was hanging over the edge on a rope that hadn’t been tested, with a cliff-edge that seemed to be made of soft loam, crumbling all around me. Below us somewhere was the Black Stuff. We were in a bizarre new world—Hell, if the Wayne-thing was to be believed—with horrors on every side.

  So the next thing that happened might seem ludicrous. But it happened anyway.

  She smiled at me, and I smiled back.

  And she was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen in my life.

  “Just got to choose my friends more carefully in the future,” she said.

  “Some new friends over here if you think you can make it.” Head down now, concentrating hard, she came on.

  “Jay!” yelled Alex from up above somewhere.

  “Yeah!”

  “He’s coming down—on to the mast!”

  I shoved more wiring from my sightline. Sure enough, the madman was clambering hand over hand through the tangled wire and girders on the other side, trying to find footholds so that he could lower himself down on to the mast. As I pulled and shoved at the wiring, I saw him manoeuvring himself down. He moved as if he didn’t care whether he fell into the Chasm or not. I knew what he was going to do even before he started to do it.

  “What’s your name?” I tried to keep my voice calm, but it didn’t come out that way.

  Without looking up, she answered: “Juliet.” She was about thirty feet away now.

  “Juliet, you’ll have to move faster. Don’t panic. Don’t worry.” I finally managed to yank the wiring away, and began to crawl out across the mast towards her.

  And then our friend Trevor reached the mast on his side. Bracing his back against the crumbling cliff-edge, he began to stamp down hard on the gantry with both feet. Again I could feel the juddering impacts in my hands through the metalwork. Juliet cried out and tried to look back.

  “Don’t…don’t look back,” I said. “Just keep on coming.”

  I moved forward again. Was I going to help the situation by moving out to her? Or should I just stay where I was? The mast tapered near its top end, with only enough room on the thin girders for one person to move. If I went out to meet her, I’d just end up having to back off again, maybe impede her progress.

  Mad Trevor was shrieking again when the mast showed no signs of collapsing into the pit. His feet were drumming on the metalwork. I realised then that I was stalling. I had to get out there across the mast.

  “Alex? Gordon?”

  “Yeah!”

  “Give me another twenty feet. I’ve got to go out there. If the mast falls, get ready.”

  I waited until I saw the rope looping down from above. The sight of it made me feel weak, aware of the drop beneath. Where the hell was the anger when I needed it? Gritting my teeth, I gathered up the rope and pushed myself out across the mast. If Trevor did succeed in knocking it loose, I had to make sure that the rope didn’t snag anywhere. If it did, and Trevor did succeed, then we were all going down into the Chasm, Alex and Gordon dragged over the side with us.

  Twenty feet out, Juliet and I met face to face.

  As if the whole thing had been stage-managed, just to make everything worse, the mast gave this moaning sound. It was as if every part of it was groaning under the pressure, ready to fall away. Juliet’s hand flashed out and I grabbed it. Right at that moment, it was like electricity passing between us, welding our hands together.

  The mast shuddered, and was silent. Unmoving.

  From the other side of the Chasm, Mad Trevor began to scream in frustration again.

  We had both been holding our breath, and exhaled at the same time. Juliet’s skin was cold, and I could see from her face what she was suffering. It was marble white, probably from shock, and there were scratches on her forehead. I heaved a coil of rope over her head, pulled it down around her waist, under one arm. We put an arm around each other like we were in some sort of crazy clinch, and I began shuffling back along the girder. Juliet kept pace with me.

  I didn’t have to say anything about hurrying.

  From the other side, Trevor had stopped screaming. He’d also stopped stamping on the gantry. I didn’t feel like thanking anyone for small mercies.

  We clung together close, breathing into each other’s faces as we moved. And something else strange was happening. We were in fear of our lives, real fear. But our physical closeness, stuck out in space on this girder and with horror waiting for us far below was…well, it was the most intimate thing I’d ever experienced in my life. For a moment, the feeling was so intense that I couldn’t move. Then I heard her teeth chattering, and forced myself on.

  I knew what was going to happen next. We’d just get to the cliff-edge, and the whole fucking thing would screech and groan and fall away, just when we thought we’d made it. Which is why I couldn’t believe it when I felt the snared wiring behind me that I’d shoved aside to get to her. We were nearly there. The rope was coiled and looped behind me. I twisted around and yelled:

  “Take up the slack!”

  Both shuddering, we watched the rope being pulled up. When it was nearly taut, I yelled again: “Whoah!” The rope halted. Part of me wanted to get up there as fast as possible before everything turned bad again, the way things had of turning bad in our new world. Another part told me to take it easy, don’t rush, don’t make a mistake at the last minute.

  Forehead to forehead, I said to Juliet: “I’m going to have to stand.”

  “I can’t let go of you.”

  “I’ve got to stand, Juliet. So I can get a proper grip on the rope.”

  “I want to let go, but I don’t think I can.”

  “Then, when I’m up…you’re going to have to stand too.”

  “What’s happened to everyone? No one came. Trevor had me trapped over there. And no one came.”

  “Someone’s here now. There are others. Up there. Waiting for you.”

  Juliet screwed her eyes shut and nodded her head.

  “Okay,” I went on. “Now, I’m still going to hold you, but you’ve got to let go of me. Just for a moment.”

  “I know the rules for this sort of stuff.”

  “What?”

  “Don’t look down.”

  “Right, yeah. Here I go. Are you ready?”

  “Yeah…”

  “Okay.”

  “Okay…”

  “Juliet?”

  “Yeah?”

  “You’ve got to let go.”

  “Okay…”

  Slowly, I raised my
self on my haunches. Still slowly, and praying that the mad bastard wasn’t going to start throwing stones again, I began to rise. I was concentrating so hard on the cliff-face that I couldn’t even look back over there to see if he was up to anything. I braced my hand against the crumbling soil and clay. It didn’t seem like there was anything solid there to reassure them.

  “Alex, Gordon! Tighter!”

  The rope tautened.

  Both feet braced on the girder, I leaned down to take Juliet’s hand.

  A noise from out across the mast made me look up.

  Mad Trevor was shuffling along the gantry towards us on all fours. Moving a hell of a lot faster than we had, because he didn’t really care whether he fell off or not.

  “What is it…?” Juliet had seen my expression change; was beginning to look back.

  “No, don’t look back! Or down. Just give me your hand. Stand up here next to me.”

  Juliet reached up slowly and took my hand. Slowly again, she began to rise. I could feel the drop beneath us, could see how fast Trevor was moving. He was halfway across the mast, in no time at all. If he reached us before we could be pulled to safety…

  And now Juliet was standing, each of us with one arm around the other’s waist while I held on to the rope, and she looked back to see what had scared me.

  “Oh, Christ!” I felt her seize up with terror. We wobbled on the girder. Leaning heavily on the rope, I righted us again.

  “Julietttt!” screamed the madman. “You’re not playing the game, you bitch! You’ve got to suffer!”

  His face didn’t look human when he glared up at us. Something terrible had happened to him. It was a white mask streaked with blood. He lowered his head again and crawled on.

  I kicked my foot into a twisted coil, hoping it would act like a toehold. But I couldn’t loop any more of the loose rope between Juliet and me around us to try to bind us together.

  “Hands around my neck!” I hissed at Juliet. I grabbed her waist tight. Again that crazy, out-of-place intimacy. Then I yelled: “Pull us up! Now!”

  Maybe I’d expected it to be a slow climb, with the weight of two people on the rope. What I certainly didn’t expect was that we’d be hauled straight off the mast and slammed into the cliff wall. The impact winded us. We clung tighter, spinning and dangling there as showers of dirt and soil fell around us, crackling down on the mast and spraying off into the Chasm. I tried to brace my feet. But now we were being yanked again.

  And there was the cliff-edge.

  The next part is confused. Just a breathless, frenzied clambering to get up there. I remember that Juliet had raised a leg, so I grabbed the lower part and shoved her hard. Alex was shouting words of encouragement. Then there was less strain and for a horrible moment I thought I’d lost her. But there she was, now topside, on her knees. Leaning back for me as I kicked my leg up and tried to get my knee on the edge.

  And then something seized my foot and dragged me back down.

  More soil showered around me. Up above, there was more yelling. This time Juliet was shouting too. But I was dizzy and whatever had grabbed my foot now had hold of my calf. I spun, dirt in my eyes, clawing at the cliff-edge with my free hand and trying to find something that I could hang on to. Below, something screeched and I felt sure that the mast was falling away. The rope was tangled. We’d managed to save Juliet, but I was going to be dragged down into the darkness, kicking and screaming, while that Black Stuff boiled below like a black sea, waiting to swallow me.

  Now I was going up again while the screaming and yelling went on all around me.

  My head was slammed against the cliff wall. Everything became even more confused. I was flying upwards like I had wings. Now the great grey sky was tilting and I could feel solid ground beneath me. Had they managed to pull me up after all? I tried to turn, still dizzy. There was a lot of activity. People were shouting, someone was screaming like an animal. There was some kind of fight going on around me, none of it making any sense. I saw Juliet’s hair flying. Then someone kicked me in the ribs and I felt sharp pain there. I rolled over.

  I was back on the cliff-edge.

  And Mad Trevor was standing over me, his face a leering mask of blood.

  He began to laugh. How the hell had he got up here?

  Then there was a strange sound. Like a heavy, clunking blow, and a loud jangling, like bedsprings breaking.

  Mad Trevor looked puzzled. Then he fell sideways, out of sight.

  Behind him, I saw Gordon, holding his guitar by the neck. He’d used it like a club, slamming Trevor over the head.

  “Shit!” he said, ignoring me and hastily turning the guitar around to look at the strings. Two of them had broken, curling away from the fretboard. “Shit!”

  “Nice…” I started to say…music.

  But the grey backdrop behind and above Gordon faded to black, and suddenly I wasn’t there any more.

  Chapter Twenty

  The Journal of Jay O’Connor:

  The End of the World and Other Inconveniences

  When I came around, all I could see was the grey sky.

  But there was something different about it now. It wasn’t just the same monotonous grey. There were…cracks…in the sky. Thin cracks. I shut my eyes, opened them and tried again. The cracks were still there. Now I realised that it wasn’t grey at all. It was a different shade. And there was light shining from below. Light from the bonfire? No, this wasn’t the stark light from the fire. It was more of a comforting, orange light. I looked around.

  Was I really awake?

  I closed my eyes, and tried a second time.

  I wasn’t lying out in the open under the grey sky, next to the bonfire.

  I was in a small bedroom, on a bed, with a neat quilt tucked in around me. The grey above me was the ceiling of the bedroom, with small spider’s-web cracks in the plaster. Something had happened. But not the ’quake, not all the horrors that had followed. That had all been part of a bad dream. Thank Christ for that. No, all I had to do now was lie here and think; try to work out where I was, and what had happened to me to give me such bad nightmares, or hallucinations, or whatever. My mouth was dry, my head hurt, and when I tried to turn to have a better look at where I was, my side ached like hell.

  “You’re awake,” said a female voice.

  She was sitting not far from the bed, in the corner, slumped back in an easy chair. The same long blond hair, the same dark clothes. This time her face wasn’t white. It was bathed in the warm orange glow from the lamp on the bedside table. And she was smiling the same beautiful smile. The girl from the dream.

  “Juliet…”

  “Juliet DeLore. I would have introduced myself properly, but what with one thing and another we just didn’t seem to have the time. Your name’s Jay O’Connor.”

  “It’s the only thing I think I’m sure about.”

  “Just a moment.” Juliet slid out of the armchair. When her hair moved around her face, I could see that there was a sticking plaster on her forehead. There were others on her fingers, and a white bandage around her wrist. She moved to the bedroom door, opened it a crack and said: “He’s awake.”

  The next moment two familiar faces appeared in the doorway, now pushing through and smiling. Gordon and Alex.

  “How are you feeling?” asked Alex.

  I groaned.

  “Tell me it’s all a dream…”

  “Sorry,” said Alex. “Can’t do that.”

  Gordon smiled again, thumping a fist on his chest as if to prove that he was solid. He held up his forefinger and thumb in an “okay” sign. Juliet moved back to the armchair and curled there, catlike, with her legs drawn up.

  I gestured around the bedroom, waiting for some answers. Now I was more aware of the pain in my head, and in my side. Alex went on.

  “We’re still in…or I should say on…what’s left of Edmonville. No change, apart from the deluxe surroundings. With any luck, we should have spent our last night out in the park, nex
t to a bonfire.”

  Gordon moved to the bedroom window and gently pulled aside a curtain. It was daylight outside. Juliet switched off the bedside lamp.

  “How did you do that?” I asked, stupidly.

  “Easy,” she replied, smiling. “Finger and a thumb on the switch. See?” She switched the light on again.

  “But you shouldn’t be able…I mean, we shouldn’t…oh Christ, I don’t know what I mean.”

  “We’ve just used the talent at our disposal,” Alex went on.

  “Talent?”

  Annie and Lisa had appeared in the doorway.

  “Us,” said Lisa. “Or I should say Annie, with a little assistance from me.”

  “Wait a moment, wait a moment! This is too much, too quick. Start again. How long have I been out?”

  “Three days,” said Gordon, holding up three fingers just in case I hadn’t heard him right.

  “What?”

  “He’s right,” said Alex. “Three days. Ever since Juliet…how shall I put it? Ever since she dropped in on us.”

  “Three days?”

  “You had a bang on the head from our other visitor. Must have been concussed.”

  “You’ve had us worried,” said Annie. “On the second day, you were raving and ranting. Had a high fever. We weren’t sure if you were going to come out of it. Then today the fever dropped and your pulse evened out. How do you feel now?”

  “Like I’m still waiting to wake up.”

  “Join the club,” said Lisa.

  I tried to sit up and felt the pain stab again. Juliet leaned across and pushed me down with the flat of her hand, the smile changing into a look of real concern. I hadn’t seen anyone look that concerned about me for a long, long time.

  “Rest up,” she said. “Give it some time.”

  “How are you doing?” I asked, remembering the mast. “You okay?”