Chasm

by Stephen Laws

  It had been for a civic function, hosted by the then Lord Mayor of Edmonville. The town was officially “twinned” with a French town called Pibeau, and a delegation of that town’s civic dignitaries had been over for a week’s visit. Since Juliet’s company had been responsible for the travel arrangements, a half-dozen tickets had been made available for employees. There had been wine, vol-au-vents and long speeches by local councillors on the need for international harmony. It seemed barely possible that this was the same building.

  Her recollections of arriving here for a second visit were hazy. Kids screaming and shouting, a great deal of jostling about. Her wrists and ankles were red and weeping from where ropes had abraded the skin. She’d been the first to really come round, to find that the men had been separated from the women. Night was drawing close.

  Annie, Lisa, Candy and herself had been thrown into an office filled with overturned filing cabinets and scattered paperwork. When she’d groggily tested the main doors, a girl with long black hair had lunged at her with a carving knife. Juliet recoiled, the door had slammed shut and she hadn’t tried again. When the others came round, everyone was suffering from the same painful nausea. It seemed worse for Candy, who was also suffering withdrawal symptoms from the alcohol.

  And then Juliet remembered those last moments by the dump truck, when Damon had stood astride Jay and taunted him with what he’d done. She’d sat for a long time, putting the pieces together while the others slowly recovered.

  “Why have they separated us?” asked Lisa at last.

  No one had an answer. Moving to one of the cracked windows, Juliet could see that they were on the third floor of an annexe to the town hall. The administration offices to the west had collapsed into rubble. There were giant cracks in the wall here, and only God knew how safe this building was. Two hundred yards to the east was a cliff-edge. Beyond that, more of the plateaux, peaks and crags to which they had grown accustomed. Juliet looked in awe at the ramshackle towers that had been built and toppled to form a criss-cross connection between these plateaux. None of them had been able to see the extent of the devastation from such a viewpoint before.

  A mile or so beyond the stone pillars and peaks that contained the remaining ruins of Edmonville there was nothing but the blank and utterly empty greyness. Juliet looked to right and left, following the ragged outline of the devastation that formed New Edmonville’s horizon. Beyond it all, only the greyness and the utter despair that knowledge brought: the Vorla had not been lying. Edmonville had been uprooted and somehow brought down into this empty void. For ever. Juliet turned away; she could look out there no longer.

  “Oh God, Annie,” said Lisa. “Do you think Robin’s all right?”

  There could be no answer to that question.

  “They’ll be dead,” said Candy, with hollowness in her voice. “They’re bound to be dead.”

  “Don’t say that!” snapped Annie. “We don’t know that.”

  “Don’t kid yourself,” said Candy, sitting with her back to the wall and hugging herself tight as if she couldn’t get warm. “Alex is dead. They’re all dead.”

  “Shut up, Candy,” said Juliet.

  “Jay, Damon, the boy. All dead.”

  “Will you shut up?”

  “Don’t you see? Every time it looks like we might be going to make it, something else bad happens. We’re all going to die here, we’re never going to get away. Whoever’s brought us here—they’re going to kill us.” She began to weep.

  And then the door banged open, and a man who they’d never seen before strode into the room. He was in his mid-twenties, with dark hair and wearing a brown leather jacket that looked brand new, straight from the peg. He had huge gold rings on each finger, and he was holding a shotgun. He looked anxious to use it. At first, Juliet took him to be the Big Man they’d seen on the other side of the Chasm. But up close she could see that this wasn’t him at all. There was a sound from somewhere behind him, previously muffled by the doors. It was the sound of a crowd somewhere else in the building; singing, shouting, yelling. The voices sounded young. No one had any doubt that this must be the “tribe” they had seen with the Big Man on the other side of the Chasm.

  “Everybody move,” he commanded, his voice slurring. Was he high on drugs or booze? He waved the shotgun at them.

  Annie helped Lisa to rise. Candy remained snuffling on the floor.

  “I said everybody!” yelled the dark-haired man. He looked on the verge of completely losing control, and raised the butt of the shotgun as if he might use it on Candy like a club. Juliet lunged across the room and grabbed her arm, hauling her upright before anything further could develop. The man smiled, but his eyes seemed far away. “My name’s Patrick Caffney.” He nodded his head then, as if this were the answer to some great puzzle they’d been trying to solve. “The handsome brother. That’s me.”

  They stood looking at him, waiting for something else to happen.

  “Oh yes,” he said at last, as if returning from his faraway place to what he’d come for. “Follow me.” He waved the shotgun at the door and bowed.

  They moved quickly past him, expecting him to suddenly “turn” again and bring the shotgun barrel down on someone’s head. When the door banged shut they all recoiled instinctively. Patrick Caffney began to laugh, the sound echoing. They were standing on a marble landing which Juliet remembered from her previous visit. There used to be council offices down the corridors to right and left. One of the doors leading to a corridor had been jammed open, and she could see that a ceiling had come down in there, blocking it with debris. Ahead was an elaborate balcony with metal scrollwork which looked down into a stairwell and the main reception area of the town hall. The stairwell was filled with the echoes of young people yelling, singing and screeching.

  Caffney waved the gun at the staircase.

  “The boy,” said Lisa. “What’s happened to him?”

  “You had better shut your fucking mouth, lady,” said Caffney. “And just speak when you’re spoken to.” His eyes were wild and staring.

  Without a further word they descended, the noises of the tribe growing louder as they got nearer.

  Below, the glass doors to the reception area had been shattered. To Juliet, it seemed that it had been done deliberately rather than by the earth tremor. Furniture had been dragged from the offices at ground-floor level and smashed against the walls. They picked their way carefully over the broken wood and glass as Caffney urged them on with the shotgun. The walls had been spray-painted with obscenities.

  Juliet knew now where they were being taken.

  The Council Chamber lay just ahead.

  “Stay here!” commanded Caffney when they had reached the padded double doors. He shoved past them and shouldered open one of the doors. Immediately the sounds of wild voices were amplified, filling the entrance area. Caffney snapped something at someone. There was a brief silence, and then a great roar.

  They were expected.

  Caffney lunged out, grabbed Juliet by the shoulder and shoved her inside.

  For a moment she stood rigidly, unable to move.

  The Council Chamber was filled with people. Up front was a raised platform where the Lord Mayor, chief officers and officials would sit. On either side of the aisle in which Juliet now found herself were ranks of well-upholstered seats sweeping in curves to each wall, microphones dangling from overhead rails for the use of individual councillors who would use this room for council meetings.

  Except that there were no councillors or local government officers present at this wild and raucous meeting. Each seat contained a young boy or girl. Not one any older than sixteen; all of them ragged and painted in the manner that Juliet remembered from their encounter with the tribe on the edge of the Chasm. Papers from torn council agendas were being flung all around her, like some form of bizarre ticker-tape greeting. Kids screeched and howled, leaping in their seats. Caffney jabbed Juliet between the shoulder blades with the shotgun, forcin
g her on down the aisle. She turned only briefly to see that the others were being made to follow her.

  Something hit her on the shoulder and she recoiled. One of the kids had lobbed some kind of missile at her. Juliet hurried on ahead through the flurry of paper, protecting her eyes.

  At last she could see that two figures were sitting at the centre table up on the stage. Another figure was standing guard behind them.

  One of the seated figures was a middle-aged woman, grey hair askew. There was a horribly fixed smile on her white face. She was nodding enthusiastically as the kids jumped and shrieked in their seats, in a kind of anxious and terrified approval. One of her eyes had been blacked. But Juliet’s attention quickly moved to the second figure seated at the table.

  It was Alex.

  Like the woman, he had been tied to one of the chairs, and by the way his head was bowed it looked as if he had been badly beaten. Standing behind him was a teenager with a marked resemblance to Patrick Caffney. Juliet looked back through the hail of paper and other debris being thrown at her and saw Caffney wave her on. Reaching the foot of the platform, she could see half a dozen stairs leading up. As she climbed, something else hit her across the shoulders. Juliet whirled then, anger flaring.

  A sea of young, painted faces lay before her. But in that blizzard of paper and the torrent of yelling and screeching, she could see something else that at once puzzled and horrified her.

  There was no exultation on these faces. There was no cruel happiness or joy there.

  She scanned the faces and saw only fear.

  “Go on!” snapped Caffney, and Juliet staggered to the table.

  Another man grabbed her arm and yanked her down into one of the seats. Candy pushed past her, making straight for Alex. The second man didn’t intervene when she pulled back his head and saw the bruises beneath his eyes, the cuts and scratches on his cheeks. A clump of his hair seemed to have been singed off. Candy cradled his head, sobbing. But Juliet couldn’t be sure whether she was crying for him or for herself. As Patrick Caffney flung Annie and Lisa into seats, he crossed behind them and seized Candy’s hair. She shrieked, and Juliet made to rise; Caffney jammed the shotgun barrel under her chin and pulled Candy into the seat beside Alex.

  Throughout, the middle-aged woman at the end of the table nodded her head and smiled at each development. But her eyes were glazed in terror.

  There was a clattering noise somewhere behind them all.

  Instantly, the two men were alert.

  Patrick held his arms up in the air.

  The whooping and jeering died away.

  Now there was only the soft, pattering flutter of torn paper falling like giant snowflakes all over the Council Chamber.

  The two men looked apprehensively behind them.

  “Alex,” whispered Lisa. “Where’s Robin? Is he all right…?”

  The second man stepped back and smacked Lisa across the head. Annie pulled her close and looked as if she might launch herself at him. But now the second man’s attention was returning to whatever was clattering and banging at the rear of the stage.

  An old man in a wheelchair was being pushed in through a rear door by a teenage girl with long black hair. The other Caffneys followed close behind. A great hush lay over the Council Chamber, broken only by the squeaking of the wheelchair as the old man was pushed to the centre table. Another clatter, scuffling footsteps…and suddenly Jay was flung out on to the stage. He fell heavily, and as Henry Caffney followed close behind, he delivered a kick to Jay’s side that sent him sprawling again.

  “Jay!” Juliet lunged from her seat.

  She’d tried not to think about what might have happened to him. The fear was too great, and she had struggled to contain her despair at the prospect that perhaps he and the others had been killed. Now that she could see he was alive, hope flared inside her, and any thought of immediate danger was forgotten. Patrick Caffney caught her by the arm and hit her hard across the face. Stunned, Juliet fell to her knees.

  “See?” said Simon, pointing to her and smiling. “He is her boyfriend.”

  “You scum…” said Juliet, as the wheelchair was pushed right up to her. The young girl manoeuvred it to the centre of the table. The old man leaned to one side and looked down to where Juliet knelt. Before she could react, a gnarled hand had fastened in her hair and dragged her up close as he lowered his face to meet her.

  “I can feel your hope,” said the old man, opening his eyes. “It will make your ultimate despair all the sweeter.”

  Juliet saw the swirling black water in his eye sockets—and knew.

  The sight of the Vorla seemed to suck everything good out of her soul.

  The old man laughed and let her fall.

  Unable to control her trembling, she crawled away from him as he continued to laugh. Someone tried to grab her again, but she dragged herself away. The next moment she was holding Jay. He embraced her as they lay there, and Juliet tried not to weep; did not want to give any of these evil bastards the satisfaction of hearing it.

  “Juliet, thank Christ you’re all right.”

  “Jay…oh Jay…”

  “What is my name?” asked the old man.

  And the kids in the Council Chamber began to chant. It was a low, hushed and awed sound, filling the chamber.

  “Vor-la, Vor-la, Vor-la…”

  “These people are our enemies,” continued Daddie-Paul. “They belong to the Old Ways.”

  “Vor-la, Vor-la, Vor-la…”

  Annie and Lisa looked out in horror at the naked terror on the faces of the painted savages who had once been the youth of Edmonville. Alex’s head sagged to Lisa’s shoulder. She held him.

  The middle-aged woman just kept nodding her head and smiling her crazed, fixed smile.

  “Lisa,” whispered Alex, keeping his voice low to avoid further punishment from the Caffney clan standing all around them, “Robin and Gordon got away. They weren’t captured. They thought I might know where they’d gone, so they tried to beat it out of me. But they got away…”

  “Oh, thank Christ,” sobbed Lisa.

  Patrick Caffney smacked her across the head again, yanking Alex back by the hair.

  “One among them,” said Daddie-Paul. “One among them wished to join us, but failed the Test. Bring him out, Don-Paul.”

  The teenager who had been standing at the top table when Juliet and the others entered the Council Chamber whirled back to the rear of the platform, vanishing around a curtain. A door banged.

  “What do we do with the Old Ones?” asked Daddie-Paul.

  “Blood,” murmured the crowd.

  The middle-aged woman nodded and smiled.

  “Pain,” the crowd went on. “Death.”

  “Blood and pain and death,” said the old man. “Old ways for dealing with the Old Ones. What is my name?”

  “Vor-la, Vor-la, Vor-la…”

  A door banged again.

  Someone was weeping behind the curtain. A clattering of feet on the bare boards of the platform. A scuffle and a thump as a body was hurled down. The weeping became a frenzied, horrifying plea. Juliet felt a coldness, as if emanating from something very, very bad. The curtain was pulled aside, and Don-Paul re-emerged, dragging someone by the hair right out on to the platform; someone who screamed and thrashed and pleaded.

  Someone who was instantly familiar.

  Don-Paul let him go, stepping over him to stride back to the table.

  Damon groped at the platform, fumbling with bloodied fingers as if he were searching for a lost contact lens. His whole body was shaking, as if he were racked by agonising pain. Juliet and Jay lay only ten feet from him. Sobbing, with great effort, Damon raised his head.

  “Oh, good Christ…” moaned Juliet when she saw his face.

  They had torn out his eyes.

  Damon’s eye sockets were ragged holes, filled with congealed black blood and suppurating matter. For an instant, Juliet saw Trevor Blake’s ragged and empty eye socket; saw Trevo
r’s face superimposed on Damon’s. “Oh, my God, no.”

  Moaning, Damon groped feebly forward.

  “Juliet? Is that you? Are you there, Jay?”

  “You filthy, fucking animals!” Annie was up and out of her chair, seizing Don-Paul Caffney around the neck from behind. Don-Paul’s eyes popped as Annie’s forearm choked the air from his throat. He sagged to his knees, clawing at her arm. The next moment Patrick Caffney stepped forward to deliver a vicious, jabbing blow to the side of Annie’s head with the shotgun butt. She went down immediately, unconscious. Lisa grabbed for her, knocking her chair over.

  The old man in the wheelchair was unperturbed.

  “What is the punishment for failing the Test?” he asked, smiling.

  “Please, Jay,” begged Damon, feeling his way towards them. “Please, Juliet. Tell them I don’t know what happened to Gordon and Robin. Please tell them…”

  “Blood, pain, death,” chanted the young crowd. “Blood, pain, death.”

  The old man nodded.

  The middle-aged woman nodded even harder.

  “The woman has already been judged. She tried to hide from us in the ruins. For a year, she denied us. Like the others, she spoke in an Old Voice. She spoke of the Old Ways.” Daddie-Paul took something from his cardigan pocket and held it up. “Now, she speaks no more.” He threw the object down on to the table and the crowd of kids began to yell at the top of their voices.

  It was a bloodied human tongue.

  The woman looked at it, smiled and began nodding her head again.

  The old man’s head bowed. Was he in pain? The yelling went on and on. His daughters looked back at their brothers in agitation, as if they should do something. Henry Caffney shook his head.

  And then the old man’s head rose again. Slowly, he held up his hands and the kids were silent. When he spoke once more, it was in the real voice of Daddie-Paul Caffney. It didn’t seem to matter to the kids filling the Council Chamber.

  “We leave for the burning place,” said the old man.

  The crowd began to yell again. Voices cheering and shouting, faces small masks of painted terror.