by Gary McMahon
He approached them in silence, hearing only the crisp black leaves crackling against the soles of his shoes. The earth had a heartbeat; he could feel it vibrating against the skin of his feet. There was power here, but it was old, tired, and unfocused. Like an ageing man at the point of death, it was troubled, confused, did not know what it was supposed to do or what it had done in the long-ago past.
Up close, he could see that the girls were dressed in animal skins, but the fur resembled nothing he had ever seen before. There seemed to be scales amid the pelt, and he was sure that he caught sight of eyes blinking at him from the garments, as if these were not the pelts of slain animals but living things, protective vestments that would attack if the girls were in danger.
Then, abruptly, they were once again just four girls dressed in torn but normal clothes.
They turned and entered the cave. Marc followed them, not knowing what else to do. He had not asked to be here, but it seemed that his presence was required. The girls were his welcoming party, and they were unthreatening, simply acting as his guides.
The cave walls were covered with strange paintings, but he could barely make them out because of the lack of light. He focused ahead, trusting the girls to lead him. He listened to their footsteps and kept going in a straight line, his arms held out at his sides to ensure that he didn’t collide with the cave walls. Before long, dusty light began to glimmer in the air before him.
The ground was smooth underfoot. The air was moist but not unpleasant.
Up ahead, the cave broadened out to form a cavern. Along the far wall were the entrances to other caves, but in front of these was a broken stone plinth upon which two hummingbirds fought. But, no, that wasn’t it. The birds were not fighting; they were balancing some kind of gemstone between the tips of their beaks. Their wings were a blur; they were soundless inside the cave.
“That’s the first tear ever shed here, in Loculus.” Abby stepped out of the shadows to his right and placed a hand on his arm. Her face was battered and bloody. She smiled. He had not seen her smile before, and it made her look beautiful, despite the terrible marks upon her face. Here, in this place, she looked different than she did in the Concrete Grove. She was less shabby, more substantial.
“What happened to you?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Why are we here?”
“Because we followed the Path of Black Leaves.”
One of the girls – Abby’s daughter, Tessa; he recognised her from her photograph – broke away from the pack and held her mother’s hand. Her face was a porcelain mask; it held no expression. The eyes were flat and shiny. She was like a life-size doll.
“What do you mean?”
“We’ve been talking, my daughter and me. She’s been telling me stories, lots of stories.
“Things started to happen a long time ago, and this is the outcome. Different people started to interfere with this place, tried to gain entry so they could use the power here for their own reasons. There’s pollution under the ground and it gets stronger with each negative emotion that ends up here – the pollution came from us, from humankind. There used to be balance. Now that balance is misaligned. That’s why they’re struggling...” She indicated the hummingbirds with a raised hand. “If they drop the teardrop, it’ll shatter. I don’t know what happens then, but it can’t be good. Not for any of us. But the Path of Black Leaves will grow longer and wider... other things will use it to leave Loculus and find their way back there, to our world.”
“What about Terryn Mowbray?”
She didn’t reply.
“Captain Clickety.”
She nodded. “Oh, him.”
“Yeah, him.”
Abby sighed. “As far as I can tell, he’s a... what’s the word? A tulpa?”
“Yeah, that word would fit.”
“You think about him, and he comes. It’s like opening a door for him. Last year three men spent a lot of time thinking about him. He got his claws in. He broke through. They dealt with him, I think, and what we’ve seen is the leftovers... the remains. Not much, but enough to try and cling on, to use my pain and my memories of Tessa to try and stay there, in the Concrete Grove.”
Marc turned to face her, finding it difficult to take his eyes off the birds. “So what are we supposed to do about all this?”
“The girls were brought here to watch over this cave, and what’s inside it. They came to bear witness to the struggle for balance. Because that’s all that’s ever required, for somebody to see what’s happening. Our world forgot about this place, absorbed it into our myths and our legends. The first dreams mankind ever had ended up here, strands of power. The last dreams we ever have will come here, too. This place... it’s just concentrated Creation. But you’d be surprised how easy it is for creation to become destruction, when the balance isn’t right.”
“What about the girls?”
She shook her head. “They’re tired. They were too weak for the task. They were inadequate replacements. You were promised and prepared a long time ago, to act as a permanent witness, but your parents reneged on the deal and that’s when the balance really began to tip. You were always meant to be here. You were born to be here. I’m sorry... Clickety knew that. He tried to repair the damage. If the balance tips, he fades. He is a product of the status quo.”
“So he isn’t a monster?”
She nodded. “Yes, he’s a monster. But one who knows what’s good for him.”
He thought of the life he was being asked to leave behind, and how it had always seemed hollow and insubstantial. He’d always felt that he was destined for something else, something better or more important, but he’d never been able to discover what it was he was meant to do. And now here it was: his purpose. He was nothing more than a witness.
“What happens if I say no?”
Abby smiled, but sadly. “Who knows? There are no rules here. It’s just another form of chaos.”
“What’s in those other caves?” He motioned to the cave mouths beyond the plinth and its birds.
“They lead to other places. Maybe even other worlds or other times... probably both. This place we’re in is just a way station. I have no idea what other routes might be available, but there are hundreds of them scattered throughout these caves and tunnels. All those hummingbirds originally belonged somewhere in there. Now they’re lost in Loculus, just like the rest of us.”
Without another thought, Marc nodded, stepped forward and knelt down at the foot of the plinth. It seemed natural, as if long ago – perhaps in another lifetime – he’d been trained to do exactly this. He wasn’t sure, but the two birds seemed to respond to his approach. Their wings beat harder, their beaks looked stronger, and their colours were far brighter than they had been only seconds before. The shattered stone plinth began to mend itself.
He felt the weight of a hand on his shoulder, and then another as it enclosed the first. Five hands clutched him, thanking him and saying goodbye. He did not turn around. There was no need. This was his station – he belonged here, in this little place. He always had.
For the first time in his life, Marc felt useful. He was glad.
He’d hate to have made another mistake.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
ROYLE FELT IMMENSE pressure in his lower back as he held onto the small, soft hand. When Abby Hansen had dropped into the hole, he’d bent over and reached out instinctively, trying to save her. His flailing grasping fingers had come into contact with something, so he’d tightened his grip. But the hand he held did not feel right... there was something wrong with it.
When he looked down now, braced above the opening with one foot on either side of the hole, he wasn’t sure whose hand he had hold of. He shifted his position, gripped tightly with both hands, and pulled. A small, dark shape began to rise up from the depths of the hole, covered in black leaves. The leaves formed a layer – a skin. They coated the figure, making it seem even smaller, compressed.
H
e tugged as hard as he could and the figure emerged, popping out like something being born. He thought of Vanessa, and the unborn child they had made together... he felt sick, wasted. His energy dipped dramatically.
He stepped away from the hole, hauling the body out and shoving it aside. It was damp, slimy. Unclean.
He looked at his hands. They were covered in those mulch-like black leaves. He wiped them on his trouser legs. The body stirred. Leaves came away, falling to the floor and making a soft, slippery sound. Royle went down onto his knees and stared at the figure. It was inchoate, not quite complete: a stunted child’s body with an oversized, beaked head. The limbs were thin and wasted; the hands were three-fingered claws. He reached out and grabbed the mask, tearing it away... there was nothing beneath: just a shapeless mush of black leaves and a lot of tiny, fragile bones, as if a flock of birds had died in that mess.
The figure began to shred, parts of it slithering away and liquefying. Royle sat down and watched as it was reduced to a thick, black slime on the carpet. The last thing it did was reach out and hold his hand.
“You didn’t make it,” he said. “You couldn’t get through. We stopped you... somehow they stopped you.”
He stood and turned away, then, as an afterthought more than a calculated act, he turned back and kicked at the remains of the mound at the centre of the room, destroying the structure that Abby Hansen had so painstakingly made in honour of her missing child. There was no longer a hole in the floor. He could see no evidence of the route by which Abby Hansen had travelled... she was gone; her point of access had closed up, like a wound scabbing over. He wondered if she would ever return, if he would ever see her again.
Erik Best’s body lay a few feet away, its ruined face turned away from him. He shook his head. “You stupid bastard...” He walked away, left the room, and went downstairs.
Outside, Royle stood in the street and surveyed the damage. It was chaos out there. Sirens were going off, emergency vehicles were entering the estate from all angles; alarms blared, creating more panic. People were running, standing in groups, or cowering in gardens and doorways. A well-known local drunk was standing in his doorway, waving an empty bottle and ranting about sea cows.
All around, huge, thick-bodied trees had burst through the earth, houses and buildings had tumbled, walls had shattered, exploded out into the street, and cars were overturned and ablaze. Water sluiced across the road, discharging from a burst water main. He spotted a few dead bodies: in the gutters, in gardens, even one slumped over the bonnet of a car.
It would take a long time – perhaps years – to figure out exactly what had happened here, but whatever had occurred, it was over. It was done. Something had tried to come through, and it had failed.
Uniformed officers were running around in a panic; they were not trained to deal with something like this. The news crew was trying to film everything and nothing. The whole place resembled a battlefield immediately after the fighting had ceased, or the site of some terrorist atrocity. He’d missed it all, but in some ways he’d witnessed more than anyone else. He just wished that he understood the things he had seen.
He glanced up at the ever-present shape of the Needle. The sky was clear; the birds had flown. A few of them had gathered around the tip of the tower block, as if they were waiting for something to happen. The outline of the building seemed to tremble for a moment, as if a detonation had occurred inside.
From the corner of his eye, he saw a quick, dark shape scurry across the road, but when he looked directly at it there was nothing there but what seemed like a dusty shadow. Nearby, a scarecrow lay in the gutter, its torso shredded, the stick that had supported it snapped in two. It was crawling slowly along the side of the road, heading towards him. Royle stood with his legs shoulder-width apart, wishing that he had a gun. Everything out here was like a medieval nightmare, an image from a biblical painting of demons and monstrosities, of impossible things.
The scarecrow was close now. He couldn’t move. He felt like kneeling down and waiting for it to take him. His legs began to shake. Tears filled his eyes.
The black shape he’d glimpsed earlier shot across the road and hit the scarecrow, rolling it on the road surface. He couldn’t make out what it was, despite the fact that it was only a few feet away from him. The creature’s form was not solid, as if it were made of thought rather than matter. He thought of dusty rooms, empty larders, and buildings where old people went to die, lining up patiently to see the Reaper...
The scarecrow was torn apart as he watched. Then, as he turned away, he caught sight of the thing that had killed it – the thing was visible only at the edge of his vision, not head-on. It resembled old, ancient, papyrus tatters invested with a form of energy. Then, all too soon, it was gone, vanished into the air like a memory. People ran and screamed. The drunken sea cow man – now sitting on his doorstep – started to laugh hysterically.
Whatever that thing was, it had saved him.
Detective Superintendent Sillitoe ran up to Royle. He was hatless, with a shocked expression on his face. “What happened here?” He looked to Royle for some form of explanation, but it was futile. Nobody knew anything.
“I don’t know,” he said, as his superior officer moved away, running towards a squad car with its roof punched in and short, sharp tree branches poking out through the rips in the bodywork, waving around like monstrous spidery limbs.
Royle turned again to stare at the Needle. It drew his gaze, calling to him. He knew that he should be heading back to the hospital, to be at Vanessa’s side, but there was something else he had to do first. There was unfinished business; the final act of this messy epic.
He started to jog in the direction of the centre of the estate, passing injured people, while others walked around in a daze. He couldn’t stop to help. There was something more important to do. Ambulance men and paramedics tended to the fallen, soothing them, bandaging their wounds, trying to impose a sense of organisation onto the scene.
He heard the noise when he reached the Roundpath, and it grew louder as he approached the hoarding that ran around the Needle. A single soft note, as if hundreds of people were humming under their breath.
The fence around the building was torn and pulled away in places, so he had no difficulty accessing the site. He stood and stared up at the tower, and in that instant he knew that it was about to fall. He could feel it in the trembling ground beneath his feet; insistent tremors that travelled up through his legs and into his belly, making his innards sing. The loud humming noise was meant as a warning.
He looked at the ground, closed his eyes, and prayed that he wasn’t too late – but too late for what? He had no idea. All he knew was that he’d been summoned here. He opened his eyes again and looked at the Needle, challenging it to show him why he’d been called. Thick tree roots were wound around its base. The walls were cracked, and leaves and branches showed through the widening fissures.
The main doors flew open. A figure staggered out, almost falling to the ground. It was Abby Hansen. Black leaves clung to her arms, her legs, and her body. More of them formed a narrow pathway ahead of her, out of the building. Her hair was wet. Behind her, four other figures – these ones much smaller, and dressed in rags – moved in a sombre line, exiting the tower and standing around her, reaching out to help her.
When he started to move towards the group, he realised who the other figures were. He recognised their clothes first – despite being torn and dirty, they were the same outfits they’d been wearing when they disappeared.
He knew these girls as well as he knew his own wife, despite the fact that he’d never met them:
Connie Millstone, aged seven.
Alice Jacobs, aged eight.
Fiona Warren, aged nine.
Tessa Hansen, aged ten.
The Gone Away Girls.
They were the same ages as when they’d vanished. This did not seem as insane as it should, and Royle simply accepted that it was true. Of all t
he things he’d witnessed today, this was probably the easiest to understand. They’d been gone for years, but hardly any time at all had passed since they’d gone away.
“Abby...” He grabbed her arm and helped her away from the building. “This way. We have to get out of here before it falls.”
She blinked, her battered face showing comprehension. “It’s going to fall?”
He nodded. “Don’t ask me how I know, but yes it is.”
They made it over to the fence line before it happened. Royle sat Abby down on the ground, and then he gathered the girls together. They said nothing; their faces were dirty and blank. Their eyes seemed to stare inward. He wondered if they had any idea what was going on, or if, like him, they were simply spectators to some greater event.
“You were shot... are you okay?”
She nodded, and smiled, as if enjoying a private joke. “Just a flesh wound.”
He turned to take another look at the Needle, and it began to fall.
The lower floors sheared away, as if a great explosion had shunted them to the side. The floors above fell straight downwards. He was reminded of the World Trade Centre towers back in 2001, September the 11th. It was a date imprinted on the memory of the Western world, when terrorists had shaken the foundations of society. This tower fell in a similar manner, and its destruction was just as symbolic.
It seemed to take a matter of seconds, and when the billowing dust cloud began to clear, all that remained was the rubble. For an instant, Royle glimpsed a vision of a grove of massive oak trees, shimmering brightly, as if they were on fire. But the image lasted only a fraction of a second, and he could not be sure if he’d really seen it at all. All he was left with was a retinal burn; a visual tattoo, which soon faded to a small black spot – shaped not unlike a single leaf – in his vision. He’d stared directly into the sun, and it had not blinded him. He could still see, but the sights were much less beautiful than before. The falling of the tower had signified the end of something. Perhaps it was also the start of something else.