by Julian Cheek
“Do something!” he seemed to hear in his head. “Stop it while you still can!” Again, this instruction pummelled his brain, but he had no idea what he could possibly do in an event of such cataclysmic proportions. “What can I do?” he cried. “I can no more stop this than King Canute could stop the waves.”
“Sam. If you don’t act, those people are going to DIE!” This shot into his mind like a hot brand, burning him.
“Of course they are,” he returned. “People die in dreams after all, don’t they?” He was getting fed up with the line this probing was going.
Before he could argue any further, a major shock wave blew him off his feet and he hit the floor, hard. Dust and stones splintered into him and cut his hands and face. He pushed himself up and looked again over to Baradin, but what he saw defied all expectations. The ground was now undulating through the village. Force waves under the earth were literally moving through it, cracking houses and buildings like weak, old kindling. A large crack was now rapidly expanding both in width and in length and was moving rapidly towards the lake, disappearing under the waves momentarily until the waters themselves fell into the gaping maw of this terrible onslaught. Sam saw the children and adults overcome by the rents in the earth, disappearing into the blackness, their screams, desperate for a second, until they were cut off as the people were crushed in the tempest under the earth. The boats fared no better. Boats, sails, nets and men were pulled into the gaping hole to be lost forever in the horror beneath them.
The earthquake did not stop! Indeed, Sam noticed that the rip in the fabric of the earth was heading his way. “Bloody hell, it’s heading towards us!” he shouted. “Babu. Run!” And with that, Sam turned and started to run away from the impending calamity heading straight towards them. The ground around him was grinding furiously and the noise, if anything, had now reached deafening proportions.
“Sam. Stop! Stoooooooppp!” Clear as crystal within the din of the undulating ground around him, this warning screamed out, but it was too late. He sensed rather than felt his next step landing not on terra firma, but on air and he looked down in horror as the ground beneath him opened up, tipping him headlong into a bubbling, bouncing, terrifying chasm in the landscape. In a blink, Sam disappeared from view, his shock and pure terror blinking out in an instant as his head smacked soundly against the rocks.
David
Sam felt every bounce and jolt as he tumbled down into the dark chasm. He was aware of the jostling and of being pushed from one side to the other, wishing this could all end. “Wake up!” An urgent, distant shout from somewhere. “Wake up, mate!” Again, a strange call to him. He opened his eyes to see a strange man standing over him, shaking him roughly. “Wake up mate,” the man said. “You were shouting out in your sleep and screaming for someone called Babu. Who is Babu? Is he a friend of yours?”
Sam’s disorientation continued for a moment as he struggled to look around his surroundings to get his bearings. In front of him stood a normal looking man and he appeared to be in a normal room and even a normal bed. There was no earthquake, no pounding noises or rocks cascading around him. No children dying, no people screaming. No Babu, he realised, only this man standing over him trying to wake him up.
Sam pushed himself up, feeling his head throb and sharp knife-like pains stabbing into his brain. “Oh my goodness!” he began, rubbing his temples. “I am fine, thank you. I must have been really tired last night as I dropped off. Bad dream I am afraid. Must have been that dodgy hot dog!” He tried to laugh it off and make light of his predicament, feeling embarrassed that a stranger should find him in this way. “That’s OK,” said the man. “As manager here, I have to ensure that everyone is fine. We do get some interesting characters in here from time to time, you know?” That last said as he looked down at Sam with some questions unanswered in his eyes. “Well,” he continued, “I hope you enjoy your day, sir.” And with that, he turned around and left, closing the door behind him.
Silence! Utter quiet pervaded the room and for a while, Sam sat where he was, trying to recall what had just happened, and why, for some reason, his head hurt like he had been beaten up. “Maybe I have a cold coming,” he said to himself. In the distance, he heard the sound of the waves again, lapping gently against some shore. No boiling, bubbling cauldron of hell this time, just waves as they should behave. Normality appeared to have returned. Wow, he thought, that was so real!
Sam pulled the covers away from him and slowly got up, walking over to the single small window to see what the day to come looked like. The sun was already shining through to the rear service yard that greeted his view, and, looking up, Sam saw that the sky was clear and blue and “just right” for a walk and a stroll along the beach. And perhaps a chance for me to work out this headache! he thought.
Sam got himself ready, moving to the bathroom to brush his teeth and gazing at his face as he did so. “Bloody hell, you look rough!” he said to his reflection. He turned, got his stuff together and left the room, walking down the emergency stairs to the reception desk where yet another young zit-kid-time-waster-no-plans-for-my-future youth sat, behind the counter, bored already even though the day had just begun. Sam checked out and left the hostel wondering what to do next, the dream, as before, shelved in some distant memory bank, seldom opened.
Sam gazed down the Promenade and spied a Maccy D’s in the distance, so he hurried down towards it and disappeared inside for a quick breakfast. He eventually worked his way through the small crowd, ordered his food and sat down at a corner table, away from the younger kids who were already poking each other in the ribs as they spied the odd school girl walking past, egging their friends on to chat them up. Sam ignored them. Instead, he pulled out his phone to see if anyone had bothered to contact him recently. The flashing light suggested that someone at least had tried to call. A few text messages beeped up at him. One from someone at school asking him about a school test, which he really had no desire to respond to. Another about a “must see” television programme that he simply had to see. That one was sent straight to the delete bin. One spam mail about a hotel bargain (although why on earth he received those sorts of messages was anyone’s guess), another offering him a once in a lifetime, never to be repeated, paint balling venture… And one from his dad! He almost deleted it before opening the message, but something stopped his hand and instead, he pressed down on the text icon.
Hi Sam, it’s dad here. (“Well duh! Who else would be using dad’s phone to text?”) Waking up this morning to find, not one, but two sons missing, is more than any parent can bear. I cannot pretend to imagine your sadness at the moment and mum and I are probably lost in ours. David is gone and will not be coming back and our grief knows no way currently of helping us to deal with his loss. But to be so closed so as to chase you away because of it is a step too far, and so I am writing this, just to say Hi. To say, I love you son. Are you there? Are you safe? I am here if you want to talk, Sam. Dad
The egg burger lay, uneaten, on the table. The coffee was cold. Sam wasn’t hungry. Instead, like a vortex, the simple text message from his dad sucked him down into the one place he wasn’t ready to visit. He picked up the phone and threw it, with all his strength, down the length of the restaurant. It skittered down the polished floor before coming to rest against a table occupied by a young family. The impact against their table leg causing them to look down at what had caused the noise. They looked shocked when they discovered the phone. A young girl got off of her perch and bent down to scoop it up, looking around to see where it had come from. Her eyes rested on Sam in the corner and she walked over to him slowly, looking back to her parents for reassurance, her arm outstretched and wide blue eyes looking at him. “Does this belong to you?” she began, holding out the phone to Sam. Sam nodded, not wanting to make eye contact with her, afraid she would see his utter loss. “Don’t you want it anymore then?” she asked with young innocence.
“Thank you,” Sam mumbled, reaching out to take the pho
ne from her. The girl scuttled back to her parents, her face beaming as she felt a sense of accomplishment at doing this small but so important deed.
Sam quickly gathered his things and left. The door swinging slowly shut, the only sign he had ever been there. His mind was beating him mercilessly. Anger and frustration and deep sadness all threatened to combine into a maelstrom of emotion, and he definitely did not want to have his little break from normality to be spoiled by conflict and grief. Why did dad write? he thought. They just don’t see me. Don’t understand me. Don’t want me! He pictured his mother, walking in a shadow world and forgetting that she had more than one son. No! Let them suffer for a while. See how they like it. And with that he walked on once again, down to the pebble beach, found a quiet spot, sheltered by the concrete board walk wall, and, sitting down, gazed out over the pebbles into the water, thinking about David.
David. Three years older, always looking out for him. Taking him out into the world and once, even sneaking him into an age restricted action movie that he really wanted to see. David. Sometimes a right bully, but always his brother. They were close. Closer than most siblings, he thought. They shared secrets, frustrations, and even dreams. More than once they had discussed working together in their own business once school was over.
All for nothing! Sam thought. Bright and healthy one moment, then diagnosed with leukaemia the next and dead six weeks later. No time to prepare. No time for a final holiday. No time for even a last goodbye. Just… gone! And the terrible emptiness that followed. One that never seemed to reach the brim, always wanting more from you till you just had nothing left to give, and still it sucked at you like a leech, affecting every waking moment of your existence in some cruel, cruel joke. Never letting go.
In the quietness of the place Sam found himself that day, as if, somehow, he had stumbled across a holy space, he welled up and cried hard for his brother for the first time he could remember, talking all the while to him as if he stood next to him. Talking to him about his hurt, his loss, his loneliness now that David had gone. Gone, gone, gone! Never to return. Never coming back.
Amongst his tears, Sam managed to say, “You would have loved this weird dream world I visit. We could have had such fun there.” The thought of the place, suddenly kicking his emotions into anger. Anger at the pure injustice of it all. “David was healthy, for goodness’ sake! No one did a bloody thing.” In his eyes, everyone just stood around and waited for David to die, and they did nothing!
Sam sensed another door closing over his eyes as coldness crept, once more, into his thoughts from deep inside. Wiping away the tears and dirt that streaked his face, he forced himself to focus instead out over the beach towards the waves. He would not allow himself the place to accept that things happened, and David could no more have stopped the course of that disease than he could have stopped the sun rising. Sometimes, shit did happen.
He stared at the waves with their rhythmic cadence, crashing lazily against the shore, and slowly found himself relaxing with the sound of the waves lulling his senses.
The storm begins
The sound of the waves filtered into his mind and, with his eyes closed, he thought about the fact that they always seemed to have a calming effect on him. The rhythmic ebbing and flowing of them as they crashed onto the shore, sucking back after a few seconds, drawing the shore back into itself, cleansing it ready for the next upheaval. It was like life; a bit of turbulence helped clean away the grime and dirt leaving the surroundings clean again to carry on down the path it had been sent.
Today was no different. He heard the waves crashing nearby, almost comforting him. He was sure that he was sensing a faint wetness on his legs from the spray, but of course, that was mere fantasy as the waves were much too far away to reach him here.
There was an even louder crash as a wave broke close to him and the foam and spray ran in a deluge up the shore line and soaked him to the skin. The numbing coldness of the water immediately shook him out of his reverie and he opened his eyes, thinking that he must have dozed off and the tide had come in, which would have been a surprise given the tidal changes here at Sandhaven… But what greeted him was definitely not Sandhaven. Instead, he looked around trying to get his bearings. He was sitting on a rock ledge of sorts, and the waves were crashing against it, way too close for comfort. He found himself in what appeared to be a rocky enclosure of some sort and, through a rent in the wall in front of him, he could see the waves out to sea were much larger than he was used to and the rock pools around him were slick with spray and lichens. He had been lying in one of these and he was already wet from the standing water and spray of the waves. “What on earth?!” he said. “Where am I?”
He was aware of noises above him, high up. Scrabbling noises of something walking amongst rocks, calling… “Sam? Sam! Are you hurt?” seemed to filter into his mind and he sat up to see what or who was calling him. He almost passed out from the pain of a massive headache and, reaching up, he felt a large bump on his forehead and wetness that could only be blood trickling down from it.
Above him, he saw a rock face stretching ever upwards and boulders strewn around like a giant had thrown them out in a fit of rage. Total chaos greeted him as he gazed around him and as he looked up and up, the scene just got worse. Bent trees in unnatural positions, cracked and ripped in various rigid forms, held grimly on to the torn rock face. Far above him, he saw a chink of light, sunlight, filtering down into the green gloom of where he lay.
The scrabbling attracted him again and he focussed on the point of noise. Babu! Babu was there, some twenty metres above him, clinging to the rocky face, his talons extended and his body low to the rocks, trying to work his way down towards Sam, jumping from crevice to outcrop, to rock, getting closer until he jumped down the last few steps and landed next to the pool that Sam still occupied. His eyes scanning around him constantly, looking for danger, and when not, Babu was looking across at Sam with what could only be described as concern etched on his face. “We saw you fall, Sam. We thought you had disappeared for good but we followed. Trying to find you. Down we came, until we saw you far below in a crevice. We have come to help and to get you out of here, quickly!” And with that, Babu reached out with his front taloned leg and gently touched the bump on Sam’s forehead. Immediately, the pain disappeared! Gone!
“What? How? I mean… How…” Sam stammered out as he felt a calming healing come over him where before there was just a throbbing pain.
“We can do many things.” Babu said. “Bringing healing is one of these. Now, we must get up and leave. The tide will come and this space is getting smaller.”
Sam stood up slowly and promptly keeled over as a sharp pain shot up his leg. “I think I may have broken my leg,” he cried. Babu stopped and turned back to look at Sam, casting a quick glance down to his leg.
“No. Not broken. It is just twisted,” he said with calm certainty. “Come, we must leave this place before the tide closes off our only escape.” And with that, Babu sprang nimbly down the slippery rock face and towards the gap Sam had seen earlier, through which now, the waves appeared to be much closer and more dangerous. Sam hobbled slowly down the incline, griping onto the surfaces with both hands as he tried to keep pressure off his injured leg. The cave echoed with their passing and bounced the sound of the crashing waves up into the high chasm above them, reverberating and increasing the sound of what had started as being very calming, now only sinister in its intent.
Eventually they reached the edge of the gap in the rocks. Sam could see the waves dash the sharp edges to either side, white spume and cold blue water flooding and spraying into the space and filling it more with every second. Only a few metres of free air now remained between the top of the gap and the cold water below, and Sam stopped. Babu, with one last glance behind him, jumped through the gap and disappeared to the other side, leaving an empty space that used to be occupied by him. But not for long. His head bobbed through the gap again after a few short seco
nds. “Come, Sam. Now! There is a ledge this side which will take us safely. But you must leave, NOW!”
Sam crept the last few steps down to the very edge of chaos. The sound of the waves and the crashing, pounding water causing him to take extra care in making sure all fingers were firmly gripping something solid. He did not want to finish up falling into that maelstrom below as he was quite sure that, dream or no, it would not end pleasantly. Grabbing an outcrop of rock just outside the edge of the gap, he pulled himself bodily through the opening until he popped out the other side and at last stood, legs quivering, looking at the sea beyond and, at last, a shingled beach off to his right.
Sam didn’t notice at first that the mist had now receded such that he had a better appreciation of where he was. Off in the middle distance and to the right, the shingle beach stretched away to a tree-line which kissed the sea before disappearing behind a rocky outcropping. To the left and immediately beyond the gap he had just exited, Sam was able to gaze up at the large rock face and noticed a waterfall cascading over the lip of the cliff face, high up above them, the water plummeting down before slamming into the rocks at the foreshore.
It took some time before he noticed a familiarness to the cliffs. “I’ve been here before,” he said, looking to Babu. “Up at the top there, is the village of Baradin and that large lake…” His thoughts trailed away as he remembered what had happened when he was last here. “Were there any survivors?” he asked quietly.
Babu remained quiet, looking out towards the shingle, scanning the area as before. Almost as if he wasn’t listening. Almost. “Not many,” was the simple response in his mind. Babu’s shoulder blades were sunken into his flanks, tension evident in the way he stood. There was something there, Sam sensed. Something thought yet hidden from him that Babu was not yet ready to express, but something tangible and relating to Sam in some strange way. Babu cast a quick glance back towards him and moved on, down towards the shingles, for once, his voice still and his back firmly towards Sam.