Suspended In Dusk

by Ramsey Campbell

  In the first month of being alone I would play those songs on repeat; the wall of sound and thin fake gravity masked the careless void for a time. Eventually something blew in the speakers and the rage turned tinny.

  Blake used to laugh at me plugging away at orbital and spin gravity calculations on my Mac after Donovan died. “The ship’s too small to give it meaningful spin gravity, doc,” he’d laugh. “And this baby’s Mars orbit is all pre-programmed, you’re not going to find any mistakes there.”

  I was just the doctor, after all. I didn’t know anything about spin and orbits, right? Well, I picked three rpm, Blake. Just enough to pretend that there’s a down without succumbing to the nausea and dizziness of the Coriolis Effect, as long as I stay flat to the floor and crawl everywhere. Bet you didn’t know that, with your fancy electronics training that didn’t help you fix the comms board. And I’ve got the return trip all worked out now, too, because they never thought we’d need one, but I changed the mission parameters, Blake. And you should thank me that I didn’t need any practise on how to administer intravenous sedatives, being a doctor and all. How’s the view out there, by the by?

  I told him it was something to keep me occupied, something to fill my head and crowd out the dark thoughts. He just laughed and somersaulted down to medical. The living quarters are a three metre wide cylinder that goes for twenty metres before it opens onto the medical capsule, so his was a beautiful demonstration of aerial skill. Cynthia watched him sail past, smiling. It was the first smile I’d seen from her in weeks.

  I finished the last of the calculations eventually, alone, pressed flat to the fake wood in the pretence of gravity. Once I reach Mars next month I only have to hang in orbit there for another four months before I can fire off most of the attitude adjustment booster and kick on, in the reverse dance that brought us here. It will take the four of us on a gentle spiral back down to the inner Solar System and eventually… eventually… back to Earth. And now there’s enough air and food to last me all the way back home, if I’m careful.

  Careful? I’m a doctor. I got this.

  * * *

  I read a lot of Lovecraft when I was a kid. He liked to populate the universe with horrible inhuman alien entities; things that sat just outside our awareness, on the thin edge of Euclidian space. I suppose he considered it a horrific thing, these creatures.

  But I don’t even have them.

  I’m the loneliest human who ever existed, two hundred million kilometres from earth, and all around me is infinitely down and the closest humans are my three dead friends, puppets on strings around the capsule.

  Nietzsche said ‘if you stare into the Abyss long enough the Abyss stares back at you’ but every day I crawl-skim over to the observation port and I stare down into the void in hope and nothing looks back.

  Nothing.

  So I close my eyes and clutch at the ever-so-slightly curved floor, and I pretend it’s Earth, and I wish to God that I were there.

  And I dream…

  * * *

  …In my dream the capsule passes close to home on its slingshot trajectory to Mars, and I’ve stopped it spinning now, so Earth looms comforting and steady below, large as the view from the ISS. I slide into the airlock and take a deep breath, then dive, wings wide, into the cool breeze of space.

  Behind me the capsule spits free of air and spurts and spirals onwards and out, a shuddering balloon, trailing Cynthia, Donovan and Blake on their tethers. They wave at me with big smiles, their helmets tipped impossibly open so they can yell their best wishes and condolences that I couldn’t come with them. They fly back and finish their mission on that tiny red dot in the distance.

  I smile; I exhale gently as I dive closer to the Earth, cool wind hissing in my ears and making them pop. There’s no other sound but the excited beating of my heart. Mountains spin into view below me and I curve my approach to glory in the white peaks and fractal slopes, white-capped tops, the scent of vegetation and mountain spring water filling my nose. Cities drift by, streets filled with banners and flags and crowds waving and cheering and ready to embrace me.

  And then, as I drift gracefully as a dove over the peaks of the Himalayas, I turn my face to the black-blue sky. Returning to the mote that is my home, I scream a mad defiance at the void.

  * * *

  I’m woken by a series of dull thuds. Probably Blake bumping against the hull. He’s tethered a little closer than the others and it happens from time to time. He always was a pain in the ass. I don’t want to go crawl down and out but I need that gravity. He’ll just need a little push.

  Always there is that light on the navigation console flashing. The network handshake.

  Someone, somewhere, is thinking of me.

  Negatives

  Wendy Hammer

  “Remind me again why I’m out in the middle of nowhere at this ridiculous hour,” Maddy said, wriggling in the passenger seat. She reached over and cranked up the music. The sudden thunder of bass shattered the relative peace of the countryside. A flock of birds took flight, bursting out of the tall grasses in blurry black clots. Their indignant cries were lost in the noise and wind.

  Viv turned the volume down and said, “First—most people get out of bed before noon, so let’s be real about the time complaint. Second—you insisted, remember? It’s a twin’s sacred duty, or something, wasn’t that what you said?” She forced herself not to smile, kept her lips firm and set.

  “Right,” Maddy grinned. “I couldn’t let you go off and have all the fun alone. I’d lose my claim as the evil one.” She stretched and sighed like a cat nestling into a sunbeam’s warm embrace.

  I don’t think that’s quite how it works,” Viv said. She would have continued, but Maddy turned the music up again. It was an old tussle, one not worth fussing about. Viv concentrated on her driving instead. If she missed the turn, they’d never find their destination in time to catch the perfect light.

  Vivian Madeline Gates and Madeline Vivian Gates were identical twins, and nearly perfect doubles. They had the same hazel eyes—brown shot through with eddies of olive green and flecks of amber. They traded clothes without a second thought because everything fit perfectly, every curve and hollow aligned. Even their unruly curls fell into the same patterns.

  But scratch the surface and all that changed. ‘Different as night and day, those two,’ people said, usually with a baffled shake of their heads. Like there were rules governing their twinship. Like it was somehow unnatural.

  The outsiders were wrong. The twins’ differences were their strength: one dark, one light. They had one to jump into the rapids, and one to watch and record from the safety of the banks. With one to balance the other, the two could weather anything.

  Maddy stuck her head outside to catch the wind. Sometimes the open convertible wasn’t enough to contain her. She whooped with joy.

  “You’re going to swallow a bug,” Viv said. She kept her eyes on the road. The turn was going to reveal itself any minute.

  * * *

  They pulled into the remains of the old parking lot. The car bumped and heaved as it crawled over patches of weeds and buckled blacktop. Viv pulled up close to the entrance. She turned off the engine and stared at the scene before her.

  “You have got to be kidding,” Maddy said. “What a dump.”

  Viv turned to her twin. “What did you expect? I did say it was an abandoned amusement park.” She snorted and climbed out of the car.

  Maddy met her at the back of the vehicle. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to put a damper on your fun. I guess I didn’t expect it to be so… empty looking.” She tilted her head and added, “I know. Duh. Now what can I carry?”

  Viv pointed to the mini-cooler, stocked with snacks and water bottles. She pulled out her small backpack and shrugged into it. She unzipped her camera from its case and slipped its strap over her head. She was ready.

  They faced the park together. Neither could deny that Professor Future’s Fun-Land had seen better days. Th
irty years ago it had drawn thrill seekers from all over the country. Coaster fans in particular had made the trip to the remote site’s featured ride, a mammoth structure called The Orbit. Old pictures showed it towering over the park, twinkling with artificial starlight. It still loomed, but had gone dark and cold.

  Viv had done some research before she chose this site as her subject. It helped that it was isolated and mostly forgotten. It was funny, how the quirks in geography had figured into the park’s fate. At first, it was a bonus. They’d been able to put on a nightly fireworks display—had lit up the dark skies with dazzling sparks of color. They’d built an impressive go-cart track that wound its way out through the surrounding grasses and hills. There’d even been plans to build a sister establishment: a water park.

  Professor Future’s fun seemed like it would never end. Then the hard times hit. Highways were re-routed. Weather turned. Financial hardships led to safety slips. Tragedy stacked on calamity, and the park died.

  New attractions sprang up elsewhere with bigger and better amusements. The Fun-Land was left behind, and soon slid out of mind. It didn’t take long for its memory to fade. The park had been all but erased, and that was just as Viv wanted it. The odds of them getting caught or having to compete for the best spots, were slim.

  Viv and Maddy picked their way through the debris. They climbed over turnstiles frozen solid with rust and their feet crunched over old glass. They soon found a section where the fencing had collapsed and they slipped through into the park itself.

  Here and there a few echoes of the old theme could still be seen: a dully gleaming comet or two, the tail section of a rocket ship, a ray-gun gripped in the tentacle of a cartoonish alien. Maddy couldn’t resist saying in her best imitation of a B-movie space invader, “Take me to your leader, puny human.” There was laughter in her voice, but she stayed close to her twin—so close she stepped on her heels at least once.

  Viv kept working. The site was everything she’d hoped for. She was already composing potential photographs and her fingers twitched. “It’s wonderful,” she said. Viv was drawn to lost places. She craved the stillness and melancholy beauty of decay. The poignancy of abandoned dreams moved her like nothing else.

  “It’s creepy,” Maddy said. She turned to look at Viv and her grimace turned into a smile. “Guess I’ll have to wait for you to show me the good in it. Like you always do.”

  The camera’s clicks and whirrs served as Viv’s response.

  * * *

  The girls found a spot of shade to shelter in while they took a water break. Maddy gulped down the cold liquid, and let the overflow spill down her chin and neck to soak her shirt. Viv sipped for a while, then shrugged, and did the same. The air against the wet fabric cooled them down, refreshed them. They sat in comfortable silence.

  Viv was glad they’d made it in time to take advantage of the bright light. Sometimes she liked harsher contrast. The brutal shadows and distorting orange glare suited the ruins. It brought out a fierceness, a kind of stubborn refusal, even as it highlighted the inevitable victory of time.

  She’d photographed an old spin ride—a Scrambler—half collapsed and rusted out, covered in choking vines. She’d found the torso of a robot on the ground. His face was cute and resembled an old boom box. He had speakers for eyes and a bow tie made from floppy disks. His arm was extended in a stiff salute to the sky. Viv had discovered his other half a short distance away, standing sentinel by a sign that read, “You Must Be This Tall to Ride.” Birds had built nests in the cradle of its waist.

  Viv had taken many other shots, seen many other things, but kept returning to the roller-coaster. There was something about how the black metal dominated the space above them that fired her imagination. Maybe it was its size and engineering, or the contrast of the gaping holes within the tracks. Maybe it was how the fallen pieces twisted and snaked along the ground like vicious offspring. It was menacing, but lovely all the same.

  “So, how much longer?” Maddy asked. She pulled her heavy curls away from the back of her neck and rubbed her water bottle on the exposed skin.

  “I need just a bit more time. I want to capture this place in softer light. We need to wait until dusk.”

  “It makes that much difference?”

  Viv nodded. “Definitely. Photos taken at the right time will glow—the edges will soften. The sadness of this place will be like something you can almost touch. You can’t miss that kind of beauty.”

  Maddy shrugged, trusting her sister.

  Viv dug in the cooler and found a chocolate bar, Maddy’s favorite. She tossed it over to her. Maddy had been a great sport. She’d amused herself with songs and games, and had even found a few choice spots for Viv to photograph. She’d not praised the park directly, but Maddy got close when she’d remarked, “This place was probably pretty awesome back in the day. I wish I’d seen it then.” But even that happy daydream couldn’t hold up for long.

  Viv could tell Maddy was starting to fade, but figured she had another hour or two left to work with. Maybe three—if she’d packed enough chocolate.

  * * *

  “You were right about the light,” Maddy said. “Even I can see how it changes everything.”

  Viv nodded and snapped another photo. She had only another few minutes before the last of the golden light was gone. The cooler blues and violets of twilight were gorgeous in their own way, but she preferred to view that with her own eyes instead of through the lens.

  “Hey, how about one of us? Can you do that?” Maddy posed, super-model style, all awkward angles and curves. She pooched out her lips and sucked in her cheeks. Maddy gave great duck-face.

  Viv didn’t do a lot of portrait work. She preferred to stick with landscape and still-life photography, but she owed her sister. A memento of their day would be a perfect thank-you gift.

  Viv set up the camera. They would be framed by the coaster overhead. Their curls would mirror its loop de loop turns. The light would make the highlights in their hair burn like they were on fire. They’d look like they were part of the park—like it had folded them in. It would be a fine picture. She set up the camera’s timer and ran over to Maddy.

  The twins linked arms and grinned.

  The camera clicked.

  And then the music started.

  It was faint at first, almost a whisper, but it grew steadily louder—a whine of synth and a driving beat. The sisters took a few steps toward the sound.

  Maddy recognized the music first. She turned to Viv and said, “I love that song!”

  Viv gave her sister a blank look.

  Maddy snorted and said, “It’s Split Enz, dummy. From the eighties?” She scrunched up her nose and added, “Doesn’t matter—let’s check it out.” Maddy turned and walked in the direction of the noise. She belted out the chorus to “I Got You” as she picked up the pace.

  Viv had to jog to catch up.

  They followed the music to the base of the Robot Ride Guardian and stopped.

  The area beside the robot’s leg shimmered and shimmied with waves of distortion. It looked like pebbles thrown into a reflecting pond. As the seconds ticked by, the waves grew more violent and then the image tore in two. A sliver of blackness grew in between.

  The rift opened wider, as if to welcome them.

  Viv gripped Maddy’s shoulder and leaned on her. Her legs had gone weak and wobbly.

  Suddenly, cold neon blinked and glared out of the hole—first pink, then orange, then green. A whiff of popcorn and sweet toffee wafted through.

  Maddy shook off Viv’s restraining hand and moved toward the light. “Holy shit! Do you know what I think this is?”

  Viv shook her head.

  “I think it’s like a door in time. Viv, I think this goes back to the park’s past.”

  Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” blared from somewhere inside the rift.

  Maddy squealed and clapped. “Can’t you hear it? Won’t you come see?”

  A chill crept down V
iv’s spine. Her limbs went heavy and numb. But, yes, she could hear the music—and underneath that—the sound of metal rumbling on metal. It was the unmistakable plunge and rattle of a roller-coaster. The delighted screams of riders provided harmony.

  She loved that sound. She feared it too.

  Maddy picked up a chunk of rock and tossed it through the rift. The air shimmered and then the rock landed with a dull thud. Nothing else happened.

  “We have to go through,” Maddy said.

  Viv shook her head. “No way. Why the hell would we do that?”

  Maddy gaped at her. “To avoid a lifetime of regret? To say “yes” to adventure? To experience magic—like all those kids we envied from stories? Or how about a chance to have some fun?” She pointed to the rock. “See? It’s safe. And we don’t have to go far, right? I just want to see what happens. Please?” She took a step forward.

  Viv hesitated.

  Maddy shrugged. “Suit yourself. I’m going.” And she stepped through.

  The hazy glow obscured her form for a second, but she made it. Maddy stood on the other side, spread her arms wide, and laughed. “It’s amazing!”

  Viv took a step and stopped. She looked at Maddy, then closed her eyes and ran forward. She felt a harsh bite of cold, a kind of curious folding sensation, and then the warm body of her twin.

  Maddy hugged her. “I knew you wouldn’t let me down,” she said.

  * * *

  The robot stood tall and proud—whole again. Maddy and Viv both measured up, well above the minimum height requirement for riding.