Chasm

by Stephen Laws

  We were going to be made to watch something.

  Henry nodded his satisfaction, and that’s when I saw that he’d picked something up in the darkness. It was a bucket. Holding it behind him, he said: “Fill it.”

  A kid ran out of the shadows and grabbed the bucket. It was hard to tell whether it was a boy or a girl. I twisted around to watch the figure run to one of the shadowed pipes at ground level. I could see a valve wheel there. The bucket clattered on the ground, and the next moment that small shape was grunting and straining as it twisted the wheel. Henry Caffney just stared at Damon as he hung there, his head down on his chest, sobbing. The other brothers kept their eyes on us.

  I looked back when I heard liquid running into the bucket.

  The valve was turned off, and the small figure ran back.

  The smell of petrol, or diesel oil, filled the air.

  Henry Caffney couldn’t be going to do what I thought he was going to do.

  He took the bucket from the kid and stepped forward towards Damon.

  I could see that Damon could smell the fuel. He stopped moaning and looked up. His face was a terrible eyeless mask. I heard Juliet moan, but there was nothing I could do.

  Henry threw the bucket of fuel over Damon’s body. One, two, three quick actions with the bucket. The fuel glinted black like the Vorla itself as it splashed in the air, soaking him. Some of it went into Damon’s mouth. He coughed and gagged and began pleading again.

  “I know you can’t see this, Damon,” said Henry, standing back. “But you can smell it, can’t you?”

  Damon could only moan in fear.

  “And can you feel this?” asked Henry. He took something from his pocket.

  I knew what it was going to be.

  Patrick must have sensed that I was going to say something. The shotgun barrel passed quickly in front of my eyes, and before I could react he pulled it back hard across my throat from behind. I gripped his forearms. They felt as cold and as hard as the barrel itself.

  Henry struck a match.

  Shadows fluttered and danced. Dozens of painted faces were revealed in that one small glare. Smiling, his face like a demon, Henry moved forward once more and held the match up close to Damon’s face. Damon felt the heat, and began to scream.

  Laughing, Henry stood back. The match continued to burn as his laughter died away, and his face became a blank mask once more.

  “Now, for the last time. Where are the other two?”

  Damon began to babble. “I hid them. I took them away. The dummy’s a queer. Like me. We wanted the boy. We made a deal. I hid them both.”

  Henry nodded, no expression on his face.

  “Shall we send someone to get them?” said Patrick from behind me.

  Henry shook his head, still thinking.

  There was a long, long silence.

  Then Henry said: “He doesn’t know where they are.”

  He dropped the match into the bucket. Instantly, it flared up into a great yellow cloud, sending shadows dancing and leaping into the crowd. The metal tanks and canisters seemed to sway and lurch, the criss-cross framework of pipes swinging wildly all around. Waxwork-mask faces leered and grinned.

  And then Henry casually threw the blazing bucket at Damon’s feet.

  Damon shrieked. He must have known what was happening even though he couldn’t see. He began to kick and lash with his feet. But the effect was instantaneous; his trouser legs erupted in flame, lighting up the tangled wreckage around him, surging greedily upwards to engulf his lower body. The flaring light around his legs and feet showed the kind of wreckage he was standing in. It wasn’t bent, angular pipework and tangled machinery as I’d first thought in the darkness. It was human wreckage. What I had thought were rusted metal frames were charred and blackened ribcages. What I had thought were tangles of bent pipework were human bones; what had seemed to be clumps of discarded batteries and shattered engine blocks were human skulls.

  There had been more than one barbecue up against this wire-mesh fence.

  Again, Patrick must have anticipated what I might do. His full weight was suddenly on my back, pinning me to the ground. His fist gripped my hair tight as he slid the shotgun barrel away. Then I felt it jammed against the back of my skull. I tried to brace my hands to throw him off, but I couldn’t move. I couldn’t do a thing. Juliet tried to run forward and was hauled back by her long blond hair. Somewhere, Candy began to sob.

  Damon had become a thrashing human fireball. His shrieking had diminished to a muffled, faraway groaning deep within the flaming mass. We had seen the living dead burn, and that had been a deeply horrifying thing; something we’d had to do, and something we’d had to get our heads around by remembering that they were dead and no longer human. But this was a living, breathing person. This was someone, despite our differences and the fact that he had been prepared to betray us, that we knew; someone we’d spent time with and who had survived the ’quake despite everything.

  This was the most horrifying thing that I’ve seen in our new world of horrors.

  I found myself praying that he would die quickly.

  The mad, blazing puppet thrashed at the wire-mesh fence; no longer human, but a fiery mass that was only shaped like a man.

  I tried to yell my fury and my horror. Nothing would come out.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Juliet kneeling; her head hanging low, her hair sweeping down to the ground.

  The burning puppet sagged against the fence. It ceased to thrash, its legs moving feebly now in a shroud of blue-yellow fire.

  They made us watch, until the fire guttered and died out. Then there was only the darkness, and smoke, and a smell of roasting flesh that made my stomach heave. Somewhere, someone was sick. One of us, I guessed, not one of the tribe.

  I thought then that this part of the nightmare was over.

  I could never have guessed how much worse it was going to get.

  From the darkness, Henry said: “Get ready…”

  Oh God, I remember thinking. It’s our turn now, and there’s nothing I can do.

  “Get set,” said Henry. And I realised that he was saying it like a teacher at a school sports day would, working the kids up ready for the big race.

  If I’d had only ten seconds, I’d have made for Juliet and killed her. Saved her from what they’d planned for us all up against that wire mesh.

  “Go!” shouted Henry.

  Suddenly, the darkness was filled with the sounds of rushing feet. The tribe surged forward all around us. I felt someone step on my back, and groaned in pain. The Caffney brothers were laughing their heads off as the kids crowded forward. What the hell was going on? I waited to be yanked to my feet, waited to see that they’d grabbed Juliet or Alex or one of the others. Either I or someone else would end up tied to that bloody fence, standing in the skeletal wreckage of their previous victims.

  There was a rattling sound from the mesh. Frenzied and eager. They had to be tearing Damon’s corpse down, ready for the next one. And not one of them was yelling or shrieking, or making any kind of noise.

  “Have a closer look,” said Patrick Caffney, yanking at my hair again.

  I saw the fence. Damon had been taken down. But no one else was being strung up there.

  The kids were a crowding, clawing mass at the base of the fence.

  I saw what they were doing, and refused to believe it.

  “Can you see?” asked Patrick Caffney. There was only one way to describe his voice. It was gleeful. “What about that, then? Can you see?”

  I groaned in sick horror. I wouldn’t accept it.

  “Hungry little bastards, aren’t they?” said Don-Paul somewhere in the darkness.

  The Vorla promised that we’d feel it before we died.

  It was living up to its promise.

  I despaired.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Sacrifice

  When it was all over, Alex allowed himself to be dragged away with the others.


  He didn’t lift his head to see who was holding his arms, but he guessed that it wasn’t Jay. He could hear Candy somewhere beside him as they were hauled through a maze of shadowed pipes and steel canisters…and he fought to contain the turmoil of horror and anger that was churning inside him.

  He was not as badly injured as he’d made out.

  The Caffneys had beaten him when they’d first arrived at the town hall, wanting to know what had happened to Gordon and Robin. Afterwards Old Man Caffney had left the brothers to their own devices; one of the bastards had even held a cigarette lighter to his face, until the flesh was scorched and his hair frizzled. When he’d tried to fight back, even with his hands tied, the big one called Henry had knocked him out. Everything after that was confused. He remembered leering faces, asking the same question: Where are the other two? After a while, they’d given up on him. Now he knew that they’d tried other methods on Jay, turning their attentions finally back to Damon when they couldn’t get what they wanted there either.

  Damon…that poor bastard Damon.

  Candy was sobbing now as they were dragged on. Was she mourning her lover? Could he have done something to save him? Or had he held back and allowed the Caffneys to mutilate and murder him?

  No, Alex! You know that you couldn’t have done anything.

  But now Damon was out of the way. Candy’s teenage lover was dead. Maybe there was a chance for them to really begin rebuilding their relationship, even in this Hell on earth…

  No! What chance? You didn’t want Damon dead, and certainly not like…like that. You couldn’t do anything. That Caffney bastard had the shotgun to the back of Jay’s head. He would have blown it off if I’d tried anything. Maybe just blown me away instead if I’d made any kind of move. The other one had a carving knife at Juliet’s throat.

  Even though he was pretty sure that he was capable of walking unaided, Alex had allowed Jay and Candy to carry him from the town hall and through the streets to the petrol plant, or oil refinery, or whatever. He had waited for the chance to whisper to Jay; to tell him that he was okay, that he was faking it, and that if any chance came to make a move, he was ready. But Patrick Caffney had been there all the time, with the shotgun levelled at Jay’s back, and the opportunity had never arisen. He’d taken one chance back at the town hall, to let Lisa know that Robin and Gordon seemed to have escaped, to ease the grief he knew she must be feeling—and he’d nearly given the game away then. He couldn’t afford to slip up again. Not until he had a chance to do something to help them all.

  Helplessly, he’d knelt with the others and watched Damon’s terrible death. It was crucifying him inside, mentally and emotionally. Had he really been unable to act, or was inaction some way of paying the bastard back for screwing his wife?

  No, God help me, no! I couldn’t do a bloody thing. Other than get one or more of us killed.

  A great hatred overcame him, like some kind of inner tidal wave. It swamped his other conflicting emotions. He hadn’t killed Damon. If he’d wanted to do it, there were dozens of times he could have done so back at the Rendezvous. Hadn’t he told Lisa that very thing? No, Damon had been tortured and killed by these murdering bastards, and now it was up to him to do something about it and to prevent what was going to happen to them. He had to use this anger the way he’d seen Jay use it. But when and how?

  Bide your time, Alex. Wait for your moment…

  He lost track of how long they’d been moving through the darkness, but suddenly they were crossing the bridge again, back across the Chasm to the other side. Lifting his head carefully, he could see that there was a great crowd of kids waiting for them on the other side. Clearly, only a privileged few had been allowed to cross and to participate in Damon’s death. Alex felt his stomach roll. So this was what the Vorla had done in only one year in New Edmonville. Out of the hatred and the fear and the hunger, it had managed to inflict even further degradation while creating its new young society—cannibalism. Alex hung his head again, deliberately sagging against whoever was carrying him. Eventually he felt and saw cracked tarmac beneath his feet and knew that they had reached the other side. But they weren’t heading straight on, back the way they’d come. They were turning to the right, and following the cliff-edge. The tribe remained silent. There was only the rustling of the crowd as it moved.

  Suddenly, he was flung forward on to rough ground. He lay still for a while, hearing and feeling the bodies crowding around him, some of them stepping on him as they passed. Someone began to lift him, this time gently. He recognised the touch immediately. It was Candy. He saw the shadowed outlines of her face, tears glinting on her cheeks in the darkness. Her hair was awry, and he could feel the desperation exuding from her as she held his head to her breast and moaned. He allowed himself to be held, and felt the hate for the Caffneys and the Vorla burning deep inside. He loved her furiously, and he wasn’t going to let anything happen to her.

  “Are you despairing yet?” asked a familiar and despised voice.

  Alex turned only slightly, still feigning weakness, to see that they had moved along the cliff about a hundred feet or so from the bridge. Old Man Caffney had reappeared again in his wheelchair, both daughters positioned behind him and waiting for the others to finish crowding around. And what Alex at first assumed to be some kind of wreckage just behind the old man, balanced right on the cliff-edge itself, he could now see was some kind of wooden platform. It jutted out about twenty feet over the abyss. There was a wooden winch at the halfway point, somehow fastened to the cliff edge, with a great coil of rope piled up there. Good Christ! Did they intend to haul something up out of the Chasm?

  “Henry!” called Daddie-Paul.

  The Big Man strode out to meet him.

  “Did he confess?”

  “He didn’t know where they were,” said Henry. “He made up some lies. But I could smell that he was lying.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “He knew he was going to die. If he’d known, he would have told me.”

  “When we’re finished here, I want you and Simon to go back with some of the others. Find them and bring them back here. We must lay the Vorla’s hand upon them, and they must be punished for their rejection. Do you understand?”

  “You promised us some…fun. With the women.”

  “Yes, you can have all that. But there’s something else that we have to attend to first.”

  Alex prepared himself.

  Suddenly, he was dragged out of Candy’s embrace. She hung on to him, crying out loud. Someone hit her across the face and Alex fought to stop himself reacting. He was torn away and Candy pushed aside. He had to bide his time…

  But when, Alex? When, for Christ’s sake? They could kill any or all of us any moment now!

  He was dragged forward and dumped on the ground again.

  Carefully turning his head, he could see that Jay had been pulled forward too, and was kneeling beside him.

  “Turn me,” commanded Daddie-Paul, and the twins shunted his wheelchair to the side so that he had a clear view of the wooden platform on the cliff-edge. For a long time the old man just looked at it. Then his body began to spasm and judder.

  Was he having a heart attack? He was having these convulsions with increasing frequency. Alex suppressed the urge to leap to his feet and yell: Go on, then, you bastard! Go ahead and DIE!

  The convulsions ceased.

  Daddie-Paul turned his head in their direction.

  “I robbed this place when I was a young man. Petro-Ammlyn Inc. Me and my two brothers. You there, the oldest: Alex. You probably read about it in the papers when you were a kid. Well before anyone else’s time…well before…before…” The old man gasped, and his teenage daughters were quickly at his side again.

  “What’s the matter, Daddie-Paul?” asked the pregnant daughter. “The old pain? You want something for it?”

  “I want…want…”

  The old man opened his mouth wide and the two girls recoiled.

 
; Out of his mouth came a great hissing; an echo of the many voices of the Vorla.

  The old man lowered his head and began to convulse again.

  Henry Caffney took a step forward.

  The old man’s head suddenly snapped up.

  Everyone flinched, captured and captor alike.

  “You fuck,” said the old man, and he began to laugh. “You fuck! You want me to die, so you can have all of me. Don’t you?”

  “No, Daddie-Paul,” said Henry. For the first time, the Big Man sounded afraid. “We don’t want that. We don’t want that, at all. Do we, Simon…?”

  “Shut up, Henry!” snapped Old Man Caffney. “I’m not talking to you.”

  “Then who…?”

  “Shut up!”

  Henry was silent.

  “Like I said,” Daddie-Paul continued, as if nothing had happened, “we robbed this place, and we were armed. That was in the days when big companies like this paid out cash every month to most of their employees. Long before cheques and plastic cards. But someone—I never found out who—tipped off the police. They surrounded the place we were using then. Both my brothers were killed. I was shot in the legs, spent six months in prison hospital. Another ten years inside. So I never got to spend any of that fucking money, and these boys lost two uncles. Look at me now.” Caffney waved his hands at the plant. “I’m the king of this castle, aren’t I?”

  “King,” chanted the crowd. “King, king, king!”

  “And you!” screamed Old Man Caffney, stabbing a finger at the Chasm. The crowd was silent instantly. “You get what I want you to have! And not before!” There was confusion in the crowd of children now. They didn’t know what or who he was talking to; didn’t know how they were supposed to react. Caffney was silent for a long while, arm still outstretched, finger pointing, while his tribe waited.

  “Bring the woman out,” he said at last. “The one with…” And now he began to laugh; a low, liquid chuckling in his lungs. “…with nothing else to say.”

  Do something now, Alex. Carefully, Alex looked across at Jay, trying to attract his attention. But Jay’s face was turned to where a bunch of children were leading the tongueless woman towards Daddie-Paul. She still had the same indulgent smile on her mask-white face. It was as if this were some kind of school outing or picnic, and she was enjoying every moment of it. Her mad, glittering eyes filled Alex with horror. He leaned forward slowly, ready to whisper to Jay. But Jay suddenly began to rise, and in the next moment the shotgun barrel was jammed into his cheek. He froze.