Tower of Silence

by Sarah Rayne

  ‘We’ll always be together,’ said Douglas defiantly, and Selina stared at him, and thought: yes. That’s what I’ve got to hold on to. Always being together. Whatever happens, wherever we all go, we’ll be together. That’s what matters.

  She thought Douglas started to say something else, but before he could do so a gunshot rang out again, and he gave a half-cry and fell forward, and Selina heard Christy scream. The second shot came then–the little girl who had thought God would send their parents to save them. She did not fall forward, she fell back, her body tumbling onto Douglas’s. I’m going to be last, thought Selina wildly. They’re going down the line. I’ll be last–I’ll have to watch everyone else be shot—

  Third shot. Fourth–that was the other boy: he and Douglas had been good friends, they had played football together. Christy would be next—And then it will be me. I can’t bear it, thought Selina. She tightened her hold on Christy’s hand.

  It was at that instant that the torches that had been sending the fantastical shadows dancing halfway up the tower’s sides flickered wildly, and went out.

  Darkness, velvety and thick, closed down, and the fifth shot–Christy’s shot–rang out.

  If there had been time for Selina to think she would not have done what she did. She would have seen the stupidity of trying to run away, and she would have stayed where she was, fixing her mind on the image of her parents waiting for her on the other side of death.

  But the heavy darkness closed around her like a stifling curtain: it smelt of fear and the mad excitement of the gun-men, and Selina dodged back instinctively. The gun-men were stamping around and you could tell they were cursing each other even though they did not speak in English, and at any second they would relight the torches and finish off the shooting. Christy, if that last shot had not hit her, was next, and then it would be Selina’s turn.

  Christy’s hand was no longer holding Selina’s, but that did not mean anything. The shot might have missed Christy by yards, and Christy could now be trying to escape, just as Selina was.

  Escape…Could she do that? How? I can’t run, thought Selina, because there’s nowhere to run to, and once they’ve relit the pieces of wood they’ll see me. But I might be able to hide. Yes, but where?

  She had been moving cautiously back from the group, feeling her way round the base of the tower. It was horrid to have to keep one hand on the harsh stones, but at least it stopped her from getting lost. It was what her father had called a point of reference. Would he have a point of reference to help him get to heaven with mother? Would they have waited for Douglas and the others, and Christy? They’ll all be together by this time, thought Selina. But Christy might still be alive–yes, I’ll keep thinking that she’s alive and that I’ll find her.

  She thought she was about halfway round the tower–if you regarded the plotters as being at the front, she was about at the back–when the smeary lights of the burning torches flared up again. Selina crouched fearfully against the tower’s sides but there was no sound of running feet, or shouts of men looking for her. Don’t let Christy be dead, she prayed. Oh, please, please let her not be shot, and let her have got away.

  It was just as she reached the end of this scrappy prayer that she saw the dark outline cut into the side of the tower, and realised with a mixture of horror and hope that it was not the doorless tower of the nightmare after all. The dark patch was where a bit of the wall went inwards–Selina thought it was what you called an alcove–and set into it was an iron gate, a bit like the gates in stories that opened onto secret gardens. Beyond the gate she could make out a small door. It’ll be locked, said Selina to herself. The gate will be locked and the door will be locked as well. Of course they will. People won’t be allowed to just walk into this place. But if they aren’t locked—

  She glanced behind her but there was no one to be seen anywhere, and then stepped into the alcove. It was cold and dank, and there was a faint smell that made you think of meat when it had been left out of the cool marble-slabbed larder by mistake, and had gone bad. Selina was not conscious of reaching for the gate’s latch, but although it was very dark she could just make out her own hands reaching up to it. She saw the latch lift and the gate swing open. There was no creaking sound, only the whisper of the hinges.

  The door had a huge iron ring for a handle, and at first Selina thought it was not going to turn. She tried twisting it to the left and then to the right, and she was about to give up when she heard the men shouting, and the sound of running feet. Her heart began to pound with terror. They’ve found out that someone’s missing! thought Selina. They’ve counted the bodies and they’ve only found five–or maybe even four–and they know that one’s missing! And they’re coming to find me! And whether it was sheer panic that lent strength to her hands, or whether she had suddenly fathomed the trick of the handle, she did not know, but whichever it was she jerked the handle one last time, and this time it yielded, and there was the faint click of a lock’s being released. The door moved back.

  Selina took a deep breath and stepped inside the tower, and the door swung gently into place after her.

  The stench inside the tower was dreadful. It rose up to meet her like a solid wall and it was the absolute worst thing she had ever known. It was like rotting meat and decaying vegetables, and pulpy fruit with wriggling maggots. Selina gasped, and put a hand over her mouth, but the stench had already reached her stomach. She retched and was violently sick on the ground. Terrible! She shuddered and gulped, and after a moment managed to find her handkerchief to wipe her lips. Better now. And if hiding in here meant she would escape being shot, she would manage to do it.

  It was very quiet in the tower, a thick smothering quiet. She could hear the men’s voices outside but they were very faint, as if they were coming from a long way away. It’s as if I’ve crossed some kind of line into a different world, thought Selina, trying not to breathe in too deeply, trying not to notice the smell. Like in a story where you stumble across a magic doorway without realising it. Only I don’t think this is a doorway that’s taken me into a good place; I think this is a very bad place indeed.

  She could not decide if the darkness was a good thing or not. On the one hand she would have liked to see what was in here with her, but on the other she would prefer not to see all the half-eaten dead bodies. But the trouble with the dark was that you did not know what might be creeping towards you…

  I can’t stay here, thought Selina. I really can’t. But then she remembered that the men outside had guns, and that they had shot the other children and her own parents, and that if she went back outside they would shoot her as well. And it was worth hiding here for as long as possible, because if her parents had come out here to find her, it meant that people knew where the children had been brought. It meant that other people would come to find them.

  She had absolutely no idea whether the gun-men would come into the tower or not. Douglas had said this was a holy place, and so it might be that the men would not dare to enter. She stayed where she was, just inside the door, afraid that if she moved away from it she would get lost.

  Little by little her eyes were adjusting. The tower might not have been the doorless tower after all, but as far as Selina could tell it was certainly a windowless one. But far above her head, higher than the highest house, the tower was open, and a faint grey light trickled down. It showed up a black iron stair at the centre: it was very wide, and it twisted all the way up to the top. Selina could see its outline quite plainly at the top, although nearer the ground, where the faint light did not reach, it was smothered in darkness.

  The tower had to have that staircase, of course, and if you thought about it it had to be open at the top as well. The dead bodies had to be carried up those stairs so that they could be arranged on the ledge at the top. The ledge was where the vultures came: it was where they ate the dead bodies, dropping pieces of them down the insides of the stone walls—

  A hand came out of the darkness
and touched her face.

  Selina did not quite scream, but she nearly did. The only thing that stopped her was the knowledge that the gun-men were outside the tower, and that if she screamed they would probably hear and come running.

  She pressed back against the door, fumbling behind her for the handle, so absolutely panic-stricken that for several endless seconds her hands would not obey her brain. Find the door handle, said Selina’s mind in panic to her hands. Find it! Find it and get out—

  It was about ten nightmare seconds before she realised that there was no handle on this side of the door, and it was another ten before she understood that there was no need for a handle on the inside, because once alone in here you would never need to get out again, because you would be dead…

  And the door itself fitted so snugly that Selina could barely even feel the edges. She would certainly not be able to open it again. I’m trapped! she thought in rising horror. I’m shut inside this place with all the eaten-up bodies–bones and nails and arms and eyes—There’re probably huge mounds of them, all piled up on the ground. Only something isn’t quite dead, because it’s crawled through the darkness, and it’s found me: it’s patting my face and if only I could see what it is…

  She had just clenched her fists, preparing to hit out at whatever it was, when the hand came again, and this time it touched her hair and a whispery voice said, ‘Selina?’

  Selina felt a huge rush of relief. She said, ‘Christy? You’re safe!’ and Christy said, between a sob and a laugh, ‘The torches went out, didn’t they? Just as they were going to shoot me.’

  ‘I thought you got shot. I really did.’ Selina could not believe how wonderful it was to find Christy here.

  ‘I thought I did, as well. I heard the shot, but I ran round the side of the tower and came in here.’ Her voice, which had sounded thin and weak to start with, sounded a bit stronger now. ‘I think they must have missed me in the dark,’ she said.

  ‘I ran away as well.’ Selina felt dizzy with relief at not being on her own any more. She loved Christy hugely for being alive, but she also felt as if she had been running for ten miles without stopping, or as if somebody had been beating her arms and legs until they quivered like jelly. She put her hands out and after a moment she felt Christy’s arms come round her and hug her. Christy felt cold, and she felt somehow thinner than Selina had expected. She drew back a bit. ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘Yes, but it’s horrid in here. I don’t like it.’

  ‘I was sick when I came in,’ said Selina. ‘On account of the smell.’

  ‘I know, I heard you. But I wasn’t sure who it was, so I didn’t say anything until now. It doesn’t matter about being sick. You got away from the plotters. Will we have to stay here until they stop looking for us?’

  It was not like Christy to sound so unsure. Selina said firmly, ‘Yes, we’ll have to. But it’s better with two of us.’

  ‘Yes, but, um, wouldn’t you have thought they’d have come in here by this time? I mean–they’ll know by now that we got away, and they’ll know there’s only one place we could be. Why don’t they come inside and get us?’

  ‘I thought of that.’ Selina was pleased that she could offer a solution. ‘Douglas said this was where the dead have to be brought.’ She felt Christy’s sudden shiver at Douglas’s name, and hurried on. ‘So I expect it’s forbidden for people to come in here. Like church at home, only even more important.’

  Christy said, slowly, ‘But would those men care about that? They’re evil. They shot Douglas and the others. They shot your mum and dad as well.’

  ‘I know. I can’t think about that yet.’ If Selina had started to really think about her parents’ being dead, she would have cried until she was ill. So she said, ‘The plotters haven’t come in here at all. And if my parents knew we were here, other people must know it as well. So what we could do is wait until we hear another car come, and then go outside.’ She stopped, suddenly remembering that Christy might not know about not being able to open the tower door from this side, or about the walls being so thick that it might blot out the sound of a car.

  But when Christy said, ‘I expect my parents will come pretty soon. I don’t expect we’ll have to wait very long, do you?’ Selina at once said, ‘No, I don’t expect so.’

  But they had to wait for a very long time. Selina thought that hours and hours went by, although Christy said it could not be hours and hours because the sky through the open top of the tower showed it was still night.

  They did not want to move away from the door and so they sat on the floor, leaning back against it. ‘Mind the sick,’ said Christy. ‘It’d be horrid to sit in it.’

  Selina was actually past caring, but she said, ‘Yes, it’d be horrid.’

  They sat close together because it was less frightening that way, but it was still very frightening indeed. As the night wore on, the tower seemed less silent. It seemed to fill up with tiny stirrings–Selina had to try very hard indeed not to think about all the poor half-eaten bodies in here.

  After a while a horrid little night wind got up and hissed around them, and small dry rustlings sounded within the darkest part of the tower. Bones being rubbed together, thought Selina, shuddering. They had stopped noticing the stench by this time, but the wind seemed to stir it up and she was sick again. Christy lent her a handkerchief, and when Selina had mopped her face she sat down again and said, ‘Christy, dead people don’t really come back, do they?’

  It seemed a long time before Christy answered this, but at last she said, ‘No.’

  ‘But even if they did come back, they wouldn’t hurt anyone, would they?’

  ‘No,’ said Christy again. ‘If they loved you when they were alive, they love you even more when they’re dead. They want to help you.’

  ‘My father—’ Selina stopped and had to gulp down a sob. ‘My father would want to help me. And my mother.’

  ‘And Douglas and the others.’

  ‘Oh yes. We’ll keep thinking about that, shall we, because—’ Selina stopped speaking. Something was moving on the other side of the door.

  Selina had not realised that she had stumbled to her feet until she felt Christy’s hand pulling her back from the door.

  ‘Someone’s coming in,’ whispered Christy, and Selina nodded, her eyes on the faint rim of light that indicated where the door was. ‘We’d better keep back until we see who it is. I didn’t hear a car, did you?’

  ‘No, but I was being sick. You can’t be sick and listen for cars at the same time.’

  The light around the door became stronger. It was the same red, smeary light that the burning torches had made earlier, and Selina hated it. But as the door slowly opened she saw with despair that it was not Christy’s parents; it was not anybody’s parents. It was the plotters.

  There were six of them–one was the man the children had all thought of as the leader–and between them they were carrying two objects that Selina could not instantly identify. Two sacks, was it? Whatever they were, they were wrapped in pale cloths, like sheets. The door was pushed wider, and the sulky torchlight trickled in, showing up the iron staircase, and something else–something that Selina had not seen until now.

  A wide yawning blackness in the centre of the floor. A deep, deep well, going down and down into the earth. Its sides were lined with black brick, and Selina realised that it was from there that the bad-meat smell came. It looked about a thousand years old, that black, evil well, and it was where the poor bodies went when the ogre-birds had finished with them. All the spat-out bones and bits of flesh and eyes that they couldn’t chomp up or didn’t want, she thought. For hundreds and hundreds of years. She could see bits of bone and dried-out skin around the edges of the pit, and it was absolutely the horridest thing she had ever seen in her life.

  As the men came right inside, propping the door open, she pressed back into the deep shadows, terrified of being seen and dragged out. But they did not seem to be here to search the
tower, or to be concerned that two of their prisoners had escaped. They were intent on the sack-like things they carried.

  As they began to cautiously mount the iron stair, one of the pale wrappings fell back a little, and Selina, crouching in the darkness, had to bite back a sob. The things were not sacks after all. Under the wrapping had been her father’s face.

  The sack-like things were the bodies of her parents, wrapped in clean white linen, and they were being carried to the top of the tower for the ogre-birds.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  If Selina could have run out of the tower, she would have done so then. The door was still propped wide open, and it would have been easy. And having Christy with her had made her feel much braver and much stronger, and she thought that together they could have dodged out when the men were near the staircase’s top.

  But through the door she could see the other plotters: they were moving to and fro and the pieces of wood were burning up strongly again, so that red shadows danced everywhere, making it look as if there were at least a dozen men. Selina thought it was only the flickering shadows that made it seem like that; she thought there were only about three or four of them. But they still had their guns, she could see that clearly.

  She did not dare whisper to Christy in case the men heard, but Christy would have seen the men; she would know that it was important to stay in hiding. That was one of the really good things about Christy: she understood things without them having to be explained.

  The men were almost at the top of the stair. It was a long climb–probably as many as a hundred steps–and they had had to go carefully and slowly because of carrying the two bodies. The leader had gone up first, carrying the flaring torch, and four of the men carried the bodies after him, two to each one. The other man followed, with another burning torch. There was a little platform at the top, and when the men reached it they stood for a moment, propping the bodies against the tower’s sides, straightening up as if to catch their breath.