A Gathering of Twine

by Martin Adil-Smith

  “You have a sit down... just there.” Randall directed me to the far wall, and I sat without hesitation. I felt exhausted.

  A rumble came from above and I felt the building shake. I had been in Kern County in fifty-two when that earthquake had struck. Although only a child, I remembered how the buildings shook. Instinctively I covered my head.

  What I did not see was the floor.

  “IZZY!” Randall crossed the room and picked me up, and quickly moved back to the stairs.

  “Wha...?” I turned to look over his shoulder.

  The wooden crates had begun to sink into the mud floor. My eyes must have been wide as plates as I saw them begin to slip beneath the once solid surface. The building stopped shaking, and after a minute or so my husband released me. I looked at Randall, and then to the floor. It looked solid. I gingerly put a foot on it. It felt solid.

  “It’s called liquefaction,” Randall said. “I saw it happen in Niigata in sixty-four. Whole buildings had slipped.”

  I looked at him, mouth open, still not comprehending what he was saying.

  “It’s because we’re on the coast,” he continued. “The ground is saturated with water. Give it a shake, and it acts like quicksand.”

  “The world is ending and you’re giving me a lecture in geology?”

  Randall looked at me, and even through the gloom, I could tell he was ticked off at me. “I’m doing the best I can Izzy. You don’t get trained for this.”

  A smart remark rose to the surface of my mind, but I held it in check. Like he said, he was doing the best he could. Randall stepped back into the basement store and began searching through one of the now sunken crates.

  “Is there anything in there we can use?” I asked.

  “I don’t think so. They’re empty, but...”

  The building trembled again. Not as hard this time, but Randall still quickly crossed to the stone stairs, where I still stood, for safety. From high above us, we heard more screams. I knew that both of us wanted to return to the ground level, to do what we could. But what would be the point? We had no weapons, or escape plan, and we didn’t even know what it was we were fighting. A distant part of me began to panic.

  The trembling subsided, and Randall went back to the crates. “... maybe we can use these to block the stairs up. If those… things come looking for us they might think this whole area is filled with crates.” Randall continued as if the interruption was little more than someone coughing excessively, and not the very real likelihood of our friends being slaughtered.

  It seemed like as good a plan as any and I joined him trying to heave the crates up.

  “And then what?” I asked him, as we pulled one crate free.

  Randall began walking it over to the staircase. “Wait it out for a day. Maybe two. We’ve got no water. I wouldn’t want to go much longer than that. Then scout about, see if it is clear. Try and get out of the city. Try and get help.”

  I didn’t mean for my voice to come out as shrill as it did. “Help? Where are we going to get help from?” Randall looked at me, demanding a better idea.

  “I don’t know Izzy, but I’m working on it,” he replied through gritted teeth. The last thing he needed was a hysterical woman. Hell, the last thing I needed was to be a hysterical woman.

  Silence settled between us as we moved the remainder of the crates. There were just enough to make three stacks under the staircase spiral, blocking the view of our little room completely. Anyone coming down the stairs would assume that it just ended at the wooden boxes.

  “What about those Sky Lords?” I asked as we sat back down on the earthen floor.

  “You saw them as well as I did Hun. They were hightailing it out of here.”

  Randall was right. The Sky Lords had been defeated as well. My mind began to reach for other options, but each was more ridiculous and improbable than the last. Despite the adrenaline in my system, a wave of weariness washed over me, and I felt my eyes begin to droop.

  “It’s ok Hun. You sleep. I’ll take the first watch.”

  I don’t know how long I slept for. It may have been a few minutes or a few hours, but it was deep, like I had been pulled down to the bottom of a dark ocean. I stirred once, feeling a tremor run through the building, but Randall told me it was ok and I went back to sleep again.

  When I did wake, my bladder was bursting. “Baby, I gotta pee,” I told him. Randall looked at me and nodded. I could see that he had been thinking about this. A day or two without water is one thing, but what is in still has to come out.

  “We’ll dig a little hole and ... well, we’ll just go in that.”

  Randall went to the far corner of the room and began to dig with his hands. I joined him. The ground was loose and felt a little warm and sticky, like watered clay. The smell was none too good, but we had got used the stench of the city. We each brought up clumps of earth with our bare hands, until after a few minutes...

  “What the...” Randall stood up quickly, and stepped back, trying to examine something in the poor light.

  “What is it?”

  “I don’t know. A bone I think?”

  “Let me see.” I stood and joined him, picking through the dirt in hands. I could feel a solid object in there and began to sweep away the filth with my fingers.

  “Oh my,” I said, realising what he held.

  “What is it?”

  “Baby put it down. Please”

  “What is it?”

  “It’s a forearm.” I could clearly make out the all too familiar shape of a radius and ulna bone that I recognised from my days in Accident and Emergency.

  “What? But it’s tiny.”

  “It’s a baby’s. Randall, please put it down.” He laid it gently on the dirt floor, and I realised that I didn’t need to pee anymore.

  Randall went back to the hole and began tearing up more earth.

  “God. There is more down here. Izzy, come and take a look...”

  “I’d really rather not.” I was feeling sick. I could see Randall pulling more bones out of the small hole. Ribs. Part of a skull. A thigh. Another part of a skull. A jaw. More arm pieces.

  “Randall, please stop, please...” the sobs had begun and I knew I couldn’t stop.

  “Hey, hey there,” Randall came across the small room and took me in his arms. And that was when my dam broke. Whatever reserves I had to hold back the fear and the panic of our situation were exhausted, and I began to shriek. Hysteria finally wrapped around me like a cloak.

  Randall put his hand over my mouth, in case anyone above heard us. “Sshh, Izzy. Sshh. It’ll be ok.”

  He tried to rock me a little, but I just kept screaming and crying through his hand. Those babies. All those tiny little babies. I didn’t need to see any more. I knew the whole damned city would have been built on the corpses of a million babies. It was like Tim had said. That was how they get to you. Through the children.

  God knows what had been done to them. Strangled or stabbed or just plain neglected. In my mind, I could see every single one of them. Every mewling face. Every tiny little arm reaching out for a mommy who wasn’t there. I heard every single cry that rose and then fell unanswered. I saw the distended stomachs, the rheumy eyes, and the skin as thin as paper.

  My mind began to fold in on itself. Maybe Randall was pressing too hard. I don’t know. But I passed out.

  When I came to, it felt as though days had passed. I was propped up, seated in a corner, my head against the wall. Randall was crouching by the crates and looked at me raising one finger to his lips.

  Sshh

  I held my breath and heard a movement above us. I realised that it was on the stairs. I had a vision of the black clad men, armed with those cruel staves. They had found us. They had found us, and we were trapped, and they would hurt us and they would make us watch before sacrificing us to whatever hell-beast it was that had reigned over us from the sky.

  Hysteria crept back in like a returning rapist, leering over me, read
ying itself for the next assault. I put my hand to my quivering mouth, but too late a whimper escaped.

  “Hello?” A voice filtered down to us, echoing off the stony walls. I’d recognise that accent anywhere. It was Celus.

  Randall realised it too. “Hey! Celus?”

  “Who’s that? Where are you?”

  “It’s Randall. I got Izzy here with me too. Is it safe to come out?”

  “As safe as it’s going to get. I can’t see you.”

  “We’re behind the crates. Hang on...”

  Randall began to move the crates and I joined him, helping to send them tumbling into the room behind. We quickly had the stairs cleared and Celus came down. I heard another set of footsteps behind him, clanking like metal on the stone stairs. I looked to Randall. Surely Celus would not have led them to us...

  Celus appeared, smeared in dirt and blood. Behind him was another figure, clad in armour. I instantly stepped back, afraid of more strangers.

  “It’s ok,” Celus said, raising a hand. “He’s with us.”

  The figure stepped from the darkness of the stairwell into the gloom of the store room. Clad in some oriental battle-dress, two swords hung by his side, and all I could see of him were two glittering eyes through the black battle helmet.

  “Nipponai?” Randall asked. The word meant nothing to me.

  The stranger stopped, turned to face him and stared. “Your accent is terrible. But yes, I am Japanese.”

  Celus stepped forward. “This is Jion. Randall. Izzy.” He gestured to each of us as he said our names.

  I realised that, like Celus, Jion’s armour was similarly covered in filth and blood.

  “Are you hurt?” I asked, stepping forward. “I... I’m a nurse.”

  “Thank you. No.” Jion bowed his head a little.

  Celus looked to Randall. “We’re here to take you home.”

  “How many others...” his voice trailed off.

  Celus looked at him. “Not many. We’ve spent the last day crawling around the buildings looking for... Most of the Temple were caught in the square when...” His voice tailed off. “Jion... he held them off for as long...”

  Randall looked to Jion and bowed his head. “Domo. Aragato...”

  “It really is better if you stick to your English,” the voice behind the helmet said.

  “We need to get you home,” Celus said. “Others are waiting for you...”

  “What about you?” I asked.

  “We will stay,” Celus looked to Jion, “for another day?”

  The armoured figure nodded and grunted an affirmation.

  “Then we’ll come back to Jonestown.” Celus continued. “We need to get up to the square. This room is too small... Come with us.”

  There were of course so many questions, but we were both too tired to ask. My arms ached, and I had knots in my back and shoulders from sleeping on the floor. Jion led the way, then Randall, myself, and Celus brought up the rear. If it had been another time and place, I would have marvelled at the intricacy of Jion’s attire, and the way he held his swords close and moved with barely a sound. But I was hungry and thirsty and still terrified that the things from the previous night would pounce on us at any moment, like lions on an unsuspecting antelope.

  As we exited through the doorway we had come hurriedly through the night before, I squinted in the glare of the sunlight. The scene that greeted us was like something we had read about the Nazi concentration camps.

  Bodies were strewn everywhere and their essential fluids had pooled creating the effect of nightmarish bog or swamp. I could pick out the still forms of temple members, and there were a lot, but I quickly realised that these were far outnumbered by the corpses of those who had come for us the night before.

  The bodies of the black-clad devils were strewn all over the square. Sometimes just lying side by side, but more often in piles of a dozen or more. Next to them lay the impossible carcasses of the giant maggot-things I had witnessed before, now seeming to steam and slowly deflate before our very eyes.

  “How did you...?” I asked, looking to Celus.

  He shook his head and nodded to Jion. “You can thank him.”

  I turned to Jion. I could not comprehend how a single man could be responsible for all of this. How he alone could have saved us from... everything this place had thrown at us.

  Randall seemed as overwhelmed as I was. Several times during our marriage he had let slip the destruction he had seen in Vietnam. It was something he seldom ever brought up, but I could see from the look on his face that this vision of savagery was another order of magnitude from anything he had seen before.

  The sound of the sea slopping against the city walls brought us back to the reality around us. Just off from the centre of the square, I could see a small depression in the mud, clear of any bodies, and I sensed that this is where we were being led to.

  It was then that we heard a sound. Like a chittering clattering clacking coming from behind us. In hindsight, we should have just run for that small clearing. But we didn’t. We turned, and there, swarming down the side of the tower was a blanket of our black-clad adversaries.

  Jion had already turned and was running towards them, although I don’t know how he intended to scale the sheer sides of the tower. Celus shouted something, and I saw a volley of the staves coming at us. Jion had drawn his longer sword, and I realised that it was an ornate katana blade, and batted them all away. Another volley, and this time we heard another sound, similar to the first, as more assailants entered the square from the opposite end.

  Jion half-turned, and in that instant, his sword missed one of the staves, and I knew it would slam into us. I felt Celus push both of us towards the clearing... and then Randall slammed forward. I knew it. I knew it. I didn’t have to look, but I did. I watched him fall in front of me. A stave had pierced his back and exited through his chest. I was screaming. I knew it was me screaming, but it sounded so distant like it was someone else.

  I tried to grab my husband, but Celus had hold of me and bundled me into the clearing. I was kicking and screaming, and as he put me down I spun around to try to go back for Randall.

  Over Celus’ shoulder, I could see that Jion had been almost completely enveloped by the first horde, and the second wave was nearly on top of Randall. My husband looked at straight at me, life fading fast, and smiled.

  It is difficult to explain what happened next. I felt Celus grab both my shoulders, and I am certain that he said something. I felt a cool wave, and my ears popped. And then I was back in the pavilion, the shriek of battle still in my ears.

  *

  All around me were my muddied and blood streaked friends. Most were sitting on the floor, a look of stunned resignation on their face. The older members, who had come back earlier with the children, were tending the wounded as best they could. Some were weeping. Others just held themselves or each other.

  I could see Dad sitting at the far end of the pavilion, his head in his hands. Marcy was to his left, with a cruel cut to her temple. To his right sat Celus’ friend, staring into the distance as though he continued to see the horror I had just left.

  Several people came over to me, although I’m not sure who. I think I may still have been screaming or crying. I can’t be sure. Someone put an arm around my shoulders and steered me towards a chair. Someone else put a cup of hot black tea in my shaking hands. I know I should have been scalded, but I don’t even remember feeling it. I was too numb.

  All around my were the worn and weary faces of the congregation, streaked with blood and mud and who knew what else. Each member seemed to be in their own world, reeling from what they had all just gone through, like a platoon of defeated soldiers. And yet it was more than the loss of our comrades that brought such a silence. We were broken. That part of us that held our faith so dear had been shattered into a million pieces and the truth of our object of worship had been revealed… revealed as something hellish and beyond our comprehension. Whatever the eye
was, it was not the god I wanted, and with the breaking of that tenet so was the hope of a better tomorrow utterly extinguished. I could see that all those around me just didn’t want to go on.

  For my own part… I felt hollow, as though I had been physically gutted like some fattened calf, and yet I still lived. Whatever hopes and dreams I had for the future had been torn away from me with the loss of Randall. When I tried to consider what my next move should be, all that greeted me was an inky blackness and I could see no way forward from our present position.

  I just wanted to lay down… for the ground to swallow me.

  One of the girls from the medical tent came over. Chris, I think. She wiped down my face, and I realised that it too was streaked with blood and earth. She checked me over, but outside of a few bruises and grazes I was in remarkably good shape. Far better than I had any right to be.

  Over the next few hours, a few more survivors materialised around us. I had given up asking questions by now. There were probably no answers, and if there were, we wouldn’t understand them. Randall was gone, and at some point, I would have to tell the boys. I felt a cold weight, like a cannonball, in my stomach. I had seen people being given bad news before. I had even had to do it myself a few times. The look on their faces. Some would go into shock. Others would crumple immediately.

  Later, I found myself with Dad, both of us feeling as though we had been gutted and were now nothing but walking husks. He had asked about Randall, but I did not answer him.

  “Did the Olds hold Congressman Ryan off?” someone said eventually.

  Dad half-laughed. “We were just gone a few hours. It’s only the eighteenth.”

  I looked up with an expression of incredulity that said, “But we were gone at least a day.”

  Dawn’s light was beginning to creep over the horizon when Celus finally reappeared. There was no sign of Jion. Various Temple members made their way over to him, asking about those still missing. He just shook his head. Some just sat down. Others began crying. Still more berated him, haranguing him to go back. To do more.