by Stephen Laws
If I can start a fire down below, behind the Caffney tribe, it’s going to cause confusion that Alex and the others might be able to take advantage of, and the Vorla isn’t going to like that one bit either. So all I have to do is get down there, siphon off some petrol, open some of the drums without any of the tribe hearing or seeing me and…
What the hell is that?
Someone’s shouting down there.
Sounds like Henry Caffney.
Yeah, it’s him all right.
He’s yelling across to the petrol plant. Trying to put the fear of the Vorla into them. Maybe using one of Daddie-Paul’s New Religion speeches.
Well, make it a good speech, Henry. Keep everyone’s attention fixed on the petrol plant, because I’m on my way downstairs.
And I might have my own revivalist speech, to put the fear of God into you.
On the other hand, I might be pissing into the wind. One thing’s for sure—I haven’t gone through all of this, haven’t found my way back here, just for nothing.
Juliet may be out there. And she’s my life now.
Now I’m angry.
Been that way lots of times.
But never like this before.
I’m cold, and controlled.
And I’m coming…
Chapter Twenty-Five
Flames of Hell
“You can’t stay there for ever!”
The voice echoed across the Chasm from the ruins on the other side.
Juliet swung the shotgun round, trying to get a bearing.
“It’s Henry,” said Lisa.
Alex knelt beside them, trying to get his breath back. He’d found something back there in the petrol plant, had just managed to return before the Vorla had surged up around the canisters and the pipes again. He’d found two metal cylinders, braced by some kind of harness. They looked like something a scuba diver might use, but much too cumbersome. For most of the previous day, after the Vorla had vanished back into the Chasm on the far side, he had been scavenging in there; hunting for fuel, trying to find something to help them. Now the night was returning, and the Vorla was already flowing up into the shadows for a second assault. He’d managed to retrieve four cans and two buckets of fuel from the valve where Damon had died, before it ran dry. God knew how long that would last them. Annie moved forward to him, looking at the cylinders. Alex pointed, still unable to speak; but Annie couldn’t work out what he’d found, or why he thought it would help them.
“Do you hear me?” came the voice again.
There was a scuffling movement out there somewhere, in the ruins. Juliet swung the shotgun again, but there were no moving targets.
“You can’t stay there for ever,” shouted Henry.
Juliet could contain her rage no longer.
“You going to make us an offer, Henry?”
Lisa moved quickly forward to place a hand on her arm, afraid that she might fire the last shot off in anger. Fierce and determined, Juliet looked quickly down at her, shook her head and yelled back at Henry: “You mean you’ll let us all go?” It was a taunt. They all knew that the Caffneys had no intention of letting them get out of this alive.
“Oxy…” breathed Alex into Annie’s questioning face. “Oxy…” He pointed at the cylinders, then stabbed a finger furiously at the nearest petrol container, towering a hundred feet behind them. Was the Vorla already swarming up the back of that canister in the darkness, waiting for the fire to dim so that it could flood down upon them? “Oxy…”
“No!” shouted the invisible Henry Caffney. “We won’t let you go, and you can’t get away.”
“So fuck off then!” shouted Lisa.
“But we’ll kill you quick.” Henry was trying to get something like real empathy into his voice, as if he were giving them a really worthwhile alternative. “We won’t burn you, like Damon. We won’t torture you.”
“You’re all heart!” Juliet swung the shotgun continually, praying that she’d get a sight of Henry’s head, looking at them over a chunk of concrete or a fallen wall. “I suppose you won’t rape anyone to death, either?”
“Not if you don’t want us to,” said Patrick Caffney from the darkness.
“You shits…” Juliet stood erect, ready to fire into the night.
“Juliet!” Lisa seized her with both arms around the thighs, throwing her weight against her body. Struggling, Juliet fell awkwardly.
At the same moment, a bullet ricocheted from the pipework where she had been standing, screaming into the darkness.
“Oops!” said a voice from the other side. The Caffney brothers began to laugh. Lisa lay on top of Juliet, preventing her from rising as she squirmed and thrashed beneath her.
“Juliet, no! Let go of the gun! Please, darling. Let go of the gun…”
“They…they killed him, Lisa. They killed Jay.”
“I know, my darling. I know they did.”
Both women began to weep, holding each other and letting the grief out.
Annie was suddenly over them, sliding the shotgun from Juliet’s grip and taking up position to cover the bridge.
Alex was still fighting to regain his breath.
“Oxy…” he began.
“Oxy-acetylene,” finished Annie, nodding.
Alex pointed again at the hundred-foot petrol canister behind them, then back at the two cylinders he’d retrieved from somewhere in the plant. He didn’t have to say anything more.
“You thick bastards know what oxy-acetylene is?” shouted Annie.
The Caffney brothers were still laughing, but now it was forced; as if the joke were long over, but they had to keep it going to make sure that everyone on the other side knew they were being mocked.
“Oxy-acetylene!” shouted Annie. “See it?” She looked down at Alex, hissing: “Hold it up. Just for a moment, then down again. In case anyone tries to take a shot.”
Breathing heavily, Alex did as he was told.
“See that?” shouted Annie.
No answer.
“See it? That’s two cylinders of oxy-acetylene. Highly flammable. Now listen to this, you lunatics. Alex is putting those cylinders up against the nearest petrol canister. He’s doing that…” Annie nodded at him, and Alex seized the cylinders, took some deep breaths and scurried to the canister. Warily, he scanned the top of the container, remembering how the Vorla had swarmed over it the previous night. “…he’s doing that now!”
Annie swung the shotgun back out over the Chasm.
Nothing moved over there on the other side.
And the Caffney brothers had stopped laughing.
“Do you know what would happen if I fired this shotgun into those cylinders?”
Silence.
“Do you?”
Nothing moved, and the darkness was deepening just as it always deepened in New Edmonville. Just as if someone somewhere were operating a dimmer switch.
“Well, let me tell you,” Annie continued. “The cylinders will explode. And they’ll blow a great big bloody hole in the canister. And then—surprise, surprise—there’ll be about ten tons of burning petrol all over the place.”
Alex scurried back to where they were all huddling.
Candy put a hand on his arm.
Alex looked at her with real astonishment.
For most of the time since they had been stranded over here, she had been huddled with Tracey. Had it been because Tracey was the outsider? Did Candy feel that from the beginning she had always been the real outsider in this ramshackle group of survivors, and that this somehow made her closer to Tracey, no matter what her mad family had done? Alex looked at the hand on his arm, saw Candy’s face in the darkness and felt something there that brought a fire into his heart. In the same moment, Tracey’s head slumped down on to Candy’s shoulder; an expression of deep weariness, fear…and utter trust. Something had happened between them in these last couple of days. Unspoken, but very real. And somehow Candy was different.
Alex clasped her hand fiercely, the
n ran to join Annie.
“You’re not laughing any more, Henry!” shouted Annie. “Come on, let’s hear you all laughing! Let’s hear the Vorla laughing when I pull the trigger and the thing it hates most starts gushing down into the Chasm. Let me hear you laughing!”
Alex looked at Annie. She was doing what Jay would have done, using the anger to conquer the fear. God, he wished that Jay were still alive; that he were here with them now.
“If you do…” Henry’s voice was filled with rage. “If you do—then you’ll burn!”
“It’ll be worth it!” yelled Annie.
There was silence again from the other side.
The flames from their makeshift fire cast guttering shadows across the ramshackle bridge and the ruins beyond the Chasm, creating false movement over there.
And then the whispering began.
First like a wind, building gradually in strength. Now a deep and trembling shudder that they could feel in the ground beneath their feet. Now it was the sickeningly familiar sound of the thousand-thousand voices.
They looked back into the petrol plant, expecting to see the familiar black flood surging through the pipework, dripping from the canisters. But although they had no doubt that it was back there in the darkness, they could see no sign of it. The whispering became a thundering, like a tidal wave bearing down upon their isolated crag; to sweep them away in a churning frenzy of Black Death.
“The Chasm,” said Juliet, and everyone faced front again. Shadow and light danced and crawled on the far cliff-face. Was there movement down there, or was it just the reflection from the flames? The thundering sound was like a storm now; but there was no wind, and the air remained deathly still. “The Vorla,” she went on. “It’s rising…”
Alex seized a bucket of fuel, and broke cover from behind the pipework to position himself behind the fire. If the Vorla was going to risk showing itself in the flames, then he’d give it something to think about when he threw the entire contents of the fuel on to the fire.
“Oh God,” said Candy, cradling Tracey in her arms. “Look…”
Just below the rim of the cliff-edge, on the border between darkness and the flickering reflection of their fire, a black sea had risen to fill the entire Chasm on all sides. It roiled and churned there, hating the light, feeling the painful and searing touch of the light on its surface as it rose and fell…rose and fell… They could feel its hatred radiating from the abyss. They had thwarted it so many times and, even when in the clutches of the Caffney tribe—the first of its “new society”—they had somehow managed to thwart it again. That hatred, that rage and frustration, had finally driven it to an action that would cause it hideous pain—to show itself in the light.
The Vorla surged up out of the Chasm, into the flickering light, filling the abyss to the very edge, where it churned and boiled in a black, hissing frenzy.
There was another sound now, almost drowned by the frenzy of the Vorla. It was a droning sound, rising and fading, somehow also familiar.
“You want some of this?” yelled Alex, pulling back the bucket of fuel, ready to throw it on the fire. “You want some of this…?”
The droning sound rose in pitch, like some gigantic gnat up there in the darkness somewhere. There was no doubt now; it was the sound of an engine.
A shot rang out.
Alex spun, the bucket flying from his hands, fuel splashing down over his legs.
“Alex!” Candy scrambled to him as he fell heavily, the bucket rattling away.
Annie pointed the shotgun at the cylinders, anxiously looking down as Candy turned Alex over.
“Oh God, Alex…”
Blood was pumping from his shoulder. Candy grabbed at the site of the wound, a crimson flood drenching her hands. Alex moaned and tried to rise.
The droning came again—and there was another shot, this time impacting on the pipework nearby.
“Christ,” said Juliet, scanning the darkness above them. “It’s the microlight! Simon Caffney’s up there somewhere with a gun.”
“He can’t be!” snapped Lisa, also searching the darkness. “He’s flying blind…”
“And we’re perfect targets for him right here by the fire.”
Its surface boiling and blistering, the Vorla shuddered and roared—and a huge black waterspout erupted fifty feet from the ramshackle bridge. That fountain froze in mid-air, a suspended marble-black column fifty feet tall, while at its churning base the Vorla twisted and roiled in a boiling frenzy.
There was a human figure at the top of the fifty-foot spout, with his back to them. Arms held wide, he was being borne up by the black immensity of the Vorla—all for the benefit of the Caffney tribe, crouching until now in the ruins. Still terrified, still needing the extra stimulus to action that the Caffney brothers had so far been unable to beat into them, the members of its tribe cowered when they saw who was riding the immense black wave, and looking down upon them like a fiend from Hell.
It was Daddie-Paul Caffney.
Cast down into the Chasm, he had risen again from the dead. Borne up by the Vorla, to take command once more, and to bring this maddening stand-off to an end.
“Blood!” roared the dripping black figure from above. “Pain! Death!”
Another shot roared from the darkness above.
Candy screamed as Alex spasmed in her arms, blood spraying her face from where the bullet had punched a hole clean through his thigh. In agony, Alex’s eyes rolled up, his face a contorted mask of pain.
“Do it!” yelled Juliet to Annie.
Annie glanced from the cylinders to where Alex clutched Candy tightly. In a matter of seconds they were both covered in his blood. She looked back to the oxy-acetylene. Tracey was cowering, covering her head with her hands and moaning.
Annie and Lisa’s eyes met.
“Do it!” shouted Juliet.
“Rise up, my children!” howled the Vorla from Old Man Caffney’s mouth. It was the voice of the thousand-thousand, Daddie-Paul now absorbed into the hideous, vast, evil bulk of the black sea. “Rise up and take them! Show them that you’re worthy! Destroy them and begin again!”
“We can hear you, Daddie-Paul!” screamed Henry, suddenly standing up in clear sight. “We hear YOU!”
“Annie!” shouted Juliet. “You’ve got to!”
Annie cocked the hammer on the shotgun, pointed it at the cylinders.
And the fuel that had spilled from Alex’s fallen bucket and which had trickled in a stream to the fire by the bridge suddenly ignited. A rippling wave of flame raced back across the open ground to where Alex and Candy lay.
“Christ!” snapped Lisa. “Look out…”
Suddenly the wave of flame was on them. Alex’s trouser legs burst into flame as the fuel engulfed his lower torso. Candy began beating at the flames, and now her hands were on fire as she swatted and clawed. Lisa tore her jacket off, dived on to Alex’s legs and began to smother the flames.
“Rise up!” screamed Daddie-Paul. “Rise up, RISE UP!”
And suddenly, with the Caffney brothers shrieking like wild animals and urging them on, the terrified tribe of children burst from the ruins. Clambering and sliding, yelling and screaming, one hundred and fifty children of all ages erupted from the ruins into the flickering firelight. Whooping, fire and terror reflecting in their eyes, they ran wildly at the bridge. Somewhere in the mad, headlong dash the Caffney brothers were running too; stooping, keeping low amidst the kids. In moments they would be on the bridge.
“Annie!” yelled Juliet.
Candy and Lisa had extinguished the flames on Alex’s legs. Now they were both pulling him back into the shadows.
The first of the tribe had reached the bridge.
“Dear God,” said Annie, and pulled the trigger.
The blast flung the cylinders back against the canister with a ringing clatter.
But there was no explosion.
And no fire.
Annie and Juliet stared at the cylinders.
Nothing.
“Oh Christ…” Juliet stood up to face the bridge, hefting a chunk of pipe.
Annie turned the shotgun around, so that she was holding it by the barrel like a club.
Somewhere above, the microlight droned as it circled the petrol plant in the darkness, ready to make another pass.
On top of the black-marble column, shimmering and blistering in the reflected light of their fire, Daddie-Paul Caffney swirled around to face the petrol plant—arms held wide like some biblical Anti-Christ. Like some obscene parody of Moses, presiding over the parting of a Black Sea, he howled in the thousand-thousand voices of the damned; exultant in the knowledge that in moments those who had denied the Vorla would be torn to pieces, or worse.
This was the way it would end, after all.
And then something exploded in the darkness on the other side.
A mushroom cloud of billowing black and orange erupted from the ruins. Curling and blossoming, it lit up the shattered brickwork and the crumbling façade of the ruined buildings with stark light. Then another explosion. Another and another—one after the other, creating a billowing wall of fire behind the Caffney tribe. A blazing drum whooshed into the air as if it had been fired from ground level like a rocket, cascading liquid fire into the night sky which rained down on all sides.
On the petrol-plant side, the survivors staggered when the ground shivered under the impact of the next detonation. The bridge shifted in its moorings as a gigantic explosion lit up the ruins, bright as day.
Suddenly, the tribe were scattering from the cliff-edge once more, running and screaming. The Caffney brothers were left standing alone, still crouched, not knowing what was happening or what to do.
Daddie-Paul, atop the Vorla, whirled back to face the ruins.
The department store behind them had begun to burn, the bottom two storeys suddenly engulfed in flame. Lakes of burning petrol were spreading and devouring the base of the building. Deep within the roaring shrouds of flame, in the middle of the street, was the faint outline of a blazing petrol truck. Its cargo of unrefined fuel had just left the plant a year ago when the ’quake hit; and the lorry had ploughed into the building, scattering the drums all over the street, where they had lain until this day. The drums were still detonating, one at a time.
