“Look one of them is coming down here!” someone shouted and sure enough there was a small tuft, seemingly smaller than most of the others, and it was coming down slowly towards the side of the building. A few people jumped and tried to touch it as it passed, but no one got close, and then it stopped suddenly, clasped against the side of the bar like an ancient huge cobweb.
The skies began to clear and soon it was over, this one at ‘Shaker’s’ one of the last to fall. Now all present turned their attention to it. A huddle formed in a semicircle around the draped netlike substance, and everyone craned their necks to see it better. As they looked on, the strands that made up the filaments began to take on the look of something hardening, and very soon it looked like an icy crust on the side of the building spreading up onto the roof.
“It looks beautiful,” Tammy said to Lawrence.
“It sure does,” he said not able to take his eyes from it.
A few of the young men from the bar moved forward, and one called Simon Denver called to his friends,
“Give me a boost, I want to see what it feels like!” Two of his friends leaned with their backs to the wall and clasped their hands together to make footrests for him, and he stepped up and then kneeled on one of their shoulders to get to the height required.
“I don’t know if you should touch that, young man,” Pa Shaker said, “We don’t know what it is.”
“Don’t be such a sourpuss, it looks fine!” one of the booster boys said to him. Pa Shaker shook his head and didn’t bother arguing with the excited youngsters.
Everyone looked on as Simon reached for the icy formation. The world had fallen suddenly silent. Tammy gripped hold of Lawrence's hand like she was afraid, and he looked at her to reassure her. He squeezed her hand and nodded; it felt incredible to be holding her like this. She smiled, and they both looked back to Simon.
His fingers were only a fraction of an inch away now and he hesitated a little but why no one knew. A loud squawking chicken noise erupted from one of the drunks in the crowd and a general laugh went up, though there was nervousness in it that almost everyone felt.
“Don’t touch it, son,” Pa Shaker said again. Simon looked down at him but then determined turned back and stretched the last distance to the icy web. His fingers touched it and everyone waited for his verdict.
“It’s hard,” he said, “like stone, and it’s not cold at all!” Lawrence didn’t know about anyone else, but for some reason this was a big let-down for him. Not the cold part, but the hardness. It had seemed so soft in the sky.
A loud piercing shriek suddenly filled the air as Simon pulled his hand back from the substance, and he fell back from his friend’s grip, landing hard on his back.
“Simon!” one of them said, and they rushed to him. The crowd rushed forward and through the jostling of it all, Lawrence found himself separated from Tammy and suddenly with a clear view of Simon on the ground.
His hand throbbed red and he squirmed about in agony, the veins on his neck looking like they were ready to burst.
“What’s happening to him?” a girl cried out, tears filling her voice.
“I’ll call the doctor!” Pa Shaker said, rushing back inside to the phone.
The agonised pained screams filled the night and murmurs started to go through the crowd as people wondered what had happened. The red on Simon’s hand was spreading up his arm and Lawrence had never seen anything like it before in his life. It was both terrifying and fascinating at the same time. Simon’s two friends were on their knees on either side of him, but they didn’t have any idea what to do for him.
Lawrence couldn’t stand the cries, and he stepped in and spreading his arms out said,
“Push back everyone, give him some room; there will be no air for him to breathe down there if everyone is crowded over him!” Some people took a couple of steps back, but most stood there as though in shock, like they hadn’t noticed Lawrence shouting at all. Then Tammy was at his side again and she shouted it too,
“Get back everyone, he needs to breathe!” A few more people took notice this time and there was a larger circle around the ailing man now. Some people were crying, and they moved away, and others went with them to console them.
“I’ll go inside and get some water for his hand,” Lawrence said.
“Get some whiskey or brandy or something too,” Tammy said. Lawrence nodded, but before he got inside, Pa came rushing back out with a bucket of clean water and ice. Lawrence stepped aside, and Pa laid the bucket down and dropped to his knees.
“Get his hand in there,” he said, and the two friends took hold of Simon and got him into a sitting position and dropped the arm in. Fresh squeals of pain came from Simon’s mouth, and tears gushed from his eyes. Sweat was pouring from him, and his skin had gone a scary looking shade of yellowish-white.
“Hold him,” Pa said, “The cold will do him good, but it won’t feel good.”
“What’s happening to him?” one of the young men asked, tears in his own eyes now as he was careful not to touch the red on Simon’s arm.
“Hell if I know,” Pa said, pulling a hip flask from his back pocket and opening it. He held it to Simon’s mouth. “Drink some of this, it will make you feel better,” he said. Simon didn’t hear him and didn’t react to the smell of the brandy under his nose; he was in a different place now filled with a pain that was all encompassing. Tammy wrapped her arms around Lawrence’s waist, and he put his arm around her shoulders and held her.
“Do you think he’s going to die?” she whispered through tears. Lawrence did think Simon was going to die. He couldn’t imagine anyone looking the way he did and screaming in such pain who could do anything other than die from it, but he didn’t want to say this to her.
“The doctor is on his way,” was all he could think of. He looked down to Simon but then felt eyes on himself and lifted his face to see Clinton Scarrow staring at him. The mean look from before was still there, but it was like there was something new behind it now, as though Clinton were laying the blame for all of this on Lawrence’s shoulders.
“The town!” Tammy suddenly cried out, jumping away from Lawrence. “We have to warn them not to touch this stuff!”
“Go inside and call the sheriff's office!” Pa shouted at them while pouring brandy into the held open mouth of Simon. His choking, gurgling noises mixed with his screams followed Lawrence inside and he went to the phone. Tammy had run in with him, and she stepped from foot to foot in agitation as they waited for the phone to answer in town.
While they were inside, Simon Denver passed away below the drifted material on the side of the bar.
Chapter 3
Maggie Glymer hunkered down by the window of one of the front bedrooms of her house on Sycamore Street. She held a string that was attached to a jar on the sloping porch as she watched hidden from view to the outside. She heard the creaking of bicycles and knew the time had come. Checking once more that she could not be seen, she waited.
Maggie was a widow, her husband having never come back from the war in Europe, and she had lived alone for the last thirteen years. He’d been far too old for war, but he wouldn’t listen, and he made sure he was sent over. She was fifty-five years old and age was beginning to show on her face. For the last few weeks, young boys had been knocking at her door and running away, making a nuisance of themselves and she was getting fed up of it. She had reported it to the sheriff but only in passing as he’d stopped to say hello anyway on the street one day. He said he’d keep an eye out, but she knew this wasn’t the kind of things the police concerned themselves with, even in a small town like this.
Now, Maggie could hear the excited whispers and stifled laughter as the boys approached from the left, using a neighbour’s high hedge for cover. She didn’t need to see them though; hearing them below the porch would be enough. She tested the tension on the string and waited.
To their credit, the boys were good. They fell silent and for a long time Maggie cou
ldn’t be sure if they were coming or not, but then the tiniest of tell-tale creaks came on her porch steps and she pulled on the string. At the same moment the doorbell rang out and clattered feet scurried from the porch. Maggie's timing was perfect, however, and she stood up and whooped out the window in triumph as she heard multiple young voices cry out, “Eeewwww!” as the sour milk splashed all over their heads and clothes. It was a right stink that they wouldn’t soon forget.
“That will teach you!” she called out the window after them, unable to stifle her own laughing as she did. The boys ran in panic mode now, flapping the milk from their hair and hands as they did. One boy came out from under the porch and stood in the garden looking back up at her. He hadn’t been hit by the milk by the look of him, and his face bore the mark of defiance.
“That porch roof is going to stink to high heaven now, lady,” he said and then he walked away slowly after his long-departed friends.
“It was worth it!” Maggie cried out, but there wasn’t much conviction in her voice anymore.
She watched the last boy as he cycled past the house, riding right down the middle of the road. Trying to find a family resemblance to a father, Maggie found she could not place the boy. Who was he? Some of the others she’d recognised but not this one.
Her mind was taken away from these thoughts, however, as something caught her eye in the sky beyond the houses across the street. A low cloud was moving with speed through the air and then suddenly there were loads and loads more, all drifting in and getting lower all the time. It was astonishing, and she stood gaping with open mouth at the scene for as long as it lasted, which was a few minutes. One of the things landed on the roof of a house across from her own, and to her surprise it didn’t dissolve or disappear but instead clung there like it was made of netting or thinly spun cloth.
How many of these things had she seen? Twenty? Maybe more. They must be strewn about rooftops all over town. What was it? She squinted her eyes to try see the stuff better, but it was no use from this distance. She decided she would pay a call on her neighbour.
“Maggie,” Diane Gaughren said in surprise when she answered the door. “What can I do for you?”
“Hi Diane, something just landed on your roof,” Maggie said.
“Landed on my roof?” Diane said, not understanding.
“Yes, I don’t know what it is, but it’s up there now. You might want to send Phil up to have a look at it.”
“I...” Diane still didn’t know what to make of this.
“Something has floated in the air all over town. It’s landed on a lot of rooftops, but yours is the only one I saw on this street.” At this thought, Maggie turned and looked back at her own side of the street, but she didn’t see any it over there. Diane followed her gaze and then started walking out towards the end of the lawn. Maggie walked with her and they both looked up from the sidewalk.
“You see?” Maggie said.
“Phil’s not home yet,” Diane said, still looking up.
“You got a ladder?” Maggie asked. Diane looked at her like she was insane,
“I’m sure there’s one in the garage, but I’m not climbing up there to...”
A blood-curdling scream of pain made both women jump and cut off Diane mid-sentence. The two women exchanged a shocked glance and then set off in the direction of the scream.
“I think it came from Oak Street,” Diane said, puffing as they went. They were not fearful about what they might find, but the need to help someone in distress was overpowering and it drove them on. More screams of pain came and then another one of horror joined it as Maggie and Diane rounded the corner. A man was lying in the middle of the street rolling and thrashing about, one of the clouds Maggie had seen was wrapped around him like a cobweb. A woman - his wife perhaps - was standing by with her face in her hands, screaming hysterically now.
When Maggie and Diane saw what was happening all over the man’s body, they too stopped in their tracks and screamed in terror. Every inch of exposed skin had turned purple and veins throbbed all over him. The webbing was digging into his flesh even through his clothes, and it was hardening on him like making a sarcophagus around him, albeit one through which it was possible to see all his suffering.
“Do something!” the woman pleaded, running up to them and pulling Maggie by the arm. She didn’t have a clue what to do, and she didn’t want to touch that stuff whatever it was - and to think she was going to climb a ladder to see it on top of Diane’s house only moments before! The man screamed on in agony, never saying a word until he suddenly fell silent and- they had to assume- dead. For a second it seemed like there was utter silence in the town, but this was some audiological trick, and after a moment they could hear more screams of pain coming from different parts of the town. None close by thankfully, but it was a horrible noise, and the idea of four or five more people dying in the same way this man just had was awful to contemplate.
The woman was wailing in Maggie’s arms now. Maggie held her and looked to Diane, her eyes asking what the hell they were supposed to do next. Diane shook her head. She had as much idea as Maggie did, which was zippo.
“Let’s get you inside,” Maggie said to the woman and moving her towards the curb. “It’s best we’re indoors in case any of that stuff starts floating in again.” At this, Diane looked to the sky fearfully and then hesitated.
“I better get back home,” she said. Maggie looked at her with a scowlish glare and nodded to the woman as if to say, ‘What am I supposed to do with her?’
“That stuff is on my roof,” Diane said, “I have to make sure it hasn’t gotten inside somehow. Phil will be home soon, and he needs to know not to go near it!”
“OK,” Maggie conceded. This was a valid argument, “But let’s all go back to your house,” she added. “Now is no time to be alone.” That was something at least they could all agree on.
Chapter 4
‘The Clear View Hotel’ sat at the edge of the lake just to the north of the town of Gossamer Falls. You could walk into town in ten minutes and be at ‘Shaker’s Bar’ in ten minutes by car. These two establishments made up the outermost fringes of the town along the shore. The hotel was less popular as a drinking hole, but it still had its own regulars who couldn’t be bothered making their way out to Shaker’s. Each evening, five to ten men would be sitting around the bar having a few beers before they went home after work. Sometimes revelry broke out, but mostly it was quiet and sombre.
Like all old hotels, ‘The Clear View’ had potted history, and stories of ghosts and hauntings ran back through many generations. The original hotel had been the first place built here before the town was even in existence. That small structure was long gone now and, in its place, stood a three-story wood lodge look edifice with seventeen rooms, a dining room, bar and dancehall. It had fallen into some disrepair, but still had its charms. The current owner, Charles Landy, had been saving up a little each month from the taking in the hope of one day having enough to fix all the issues with his hotel.
“This is some crummy dump, you got here,” the smiling face of Karl Fisher said as he was checking out of the hotel late that evening.
“I’m sorry it wasn’t up to your satisfaction,” Landy said, though his tone could not have been more disinterested.
“You want my advice buddy, sell it now before the termites set in and the whole place falls into the lake!” He laughed at his own joke, “You’d still get a decent price even now,” he added. Karl stayed in the hotel once every six months or so, and he never tired of letting Landy know about the deterioration of the hotel and telling him how he should sell up while he still had the chance. Landy often wondered was this Karl’s roundabout way of saying he wanted to buy the place, but he never asked him if this was the case. He had no intention of selling at any price.
“Will you be back soon, Karl?” he asked, hoping for once the answer would be ‘no’.
“If work takes me back this way, and they haven’t built
a better hotel nearby,” he laughed. It was a grating noise, for Landy at least. “Well, so long Charlie,” Karl said, popping his hat on his head and taking up his case.
“Safe driving,” Landy said and then watched him go out the door and down the steps. He never sighed in relief until the car pulled away. Many times, it would look like Karl was gone, only for him to run back up two minutes later, and that could turn into another half hour chat about nothing at the front desk before he could leave for good.
As he watched he saw Karl look out over the lake and then stop walking. He turned and called back to Landy,
“Charlie, you gotta get out here and see this!” His voice was both awed and excited at the same time. Landy didn’t expect to see anything of note out there, but he plodded out lazily all the same. “Look at that!” Karl pointed.
Charles Landy had been wrong. There was something to see, and something so marvellous he couldn’t look away. Even if the hotel had caught on fire at that moment, he still would have looked out to the lake to see what was on show out there.
The transparent pillows of cloud took on the orange of the setting sun and lit the sky like sixty or seventy Chinese Lanterns. Far up into the mountains he saw more, but they were thinning out in number along the way.
“What is it?” Karl asked, but Landy ignored him. He didn’t have an answer for this, and besides, it didn’t matter what it was right now. It was beautiful and strange and incredible, and that was all that mattered.
As they watched, they saw changes in the wind take the majority of the clouds towards the town, but more went into the lake and some passed them overhead on and off into the forest. Windows began to open behind them, the guests all catching sight of what was happening, some running down the stairs to see the spectacle without the encumbrance of a window frame.
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