Ascent

by Walker, Luke

  From the air, a cold voice spoke.

  Funny, isn’t it? There’s a man with a reason to grieve. He has a reason to hurt and wish for a different life. What have you got?

  With wide, staring eyes, Simon focused on his hands. He wanted to blink. He wanted to scream. Both were equally impossible. So was the voice beside his ear and in front and at his back. Surely nobody could sound so empty; nothing with such a total lack of emotion could speak.

  I can speak, Simon. I can see. I see you. I know you. I know you’re pointless. I know your life isn’t worth half of Dao’s and your sorrow is nothing compared to that man’s. Or Rod’s. Or Alex’s fears. Or Kelly’s guilt. You might as well not be here for them. You might as well not be.

  Now there was something that wanted to be emotion but couldn’t quite manage it in the voice. Call it mocking; call it sneering. Whatever its name, it was ugly. Worse than the voice, worse than its judgement, was its truth.

  Simon managed a weak sob and tried to tighten his hold on the office chair, if only to have solidity in his grip. He failed to do so because—

  Because—

  The knife dropped to the carpet.

  His hands were fading. His fingers, knuckles, and up to his wrists were all losing colour and detail. The red leather of the chair replaced them in a soft pink that grew stronger with every second—growing stronger because his skin, bone, muscle and the flowing blood below them all was becoming transparent.

  He pulled away from the chair, unable to make a sound because the fading had spread from his arms to his shoulders and into his chest and lungs. It sunk into organs, turning liver, stomach and kidneys into nothing more substantial than fog. Lost inside his head, Simon howled as he left the world or the world left him, leaving only air in the shape of his body and the contemptuous voice that had no body, just as he had none, spoke from a faraway nowhere.

  There is nothing of you, Simon, because there never was. Your worries and sadness aren’t worth the space your body took up, so let us take your body away. It’s better that you’re not here; better for the others; better for you.

  As Simon’s face slid into the motes of dust and the rays of sunlight shone through the space he’d once occupied, there was no physical pain, only the agony of being wiped away and the scornful tone mocking his desire and need to stay, to be part of the world that didn’t care whether or not he’d ever lived.

  Stay I want to stay I want to I want to stay let me stay I am here I am I am—

  I.

  The soft touch of the carpet welcomed Simon as he collapsed. He buried his face against it, welcoming the gentle scratch on his cheeks and chin, crying into it and doing all he could to not hear the freezing wind of the voice as it fell into the same nowhere from where it came.

  You are worth nothing, Simon. You offer nothing. Remember that. Remember.

  Simon sobbed. He couldn’t do anything but.

  Chapter Thirty

  Although Kelly stood too far from Dao and Rod to hear Dao’s tearful story in great detail, she caught enough. More than enough. Here was a man destroyed by his grief and what he saw as a failure on a scale beyond anything she could imagine. And while she wasn’t to blame, pushing at him in her stupid rant hadn’t helped, just like losing her shit at Alex a moment before hadn’t helped. So what if Alex was bossy and a patronising cow, sometimes? She meant well; she didn’t mean to be Mum.

  For the first time in months, Kelly pictured her mother before the illness. She saw Carla Brown in her kitchen, cooking dinner for her girls and her granddaughters in the living room while Kelly offered to help and Carla gave a look that said stay out of my way in my kitchen, baby, and all Kelly could do was laugh.

  I miss you, Mum. I really do, but I’m glad you can’t see this mess.

  Letting go of the image, Kelly told herself to go over to the men and speak to Dao, say sorry if it would help. Even if he told her to fuck off or cried more, she had to do something. Sorry to him and then maybe sorry to Alex, too.

  Kelly remained against the reception desk. Facing Dao’s pain and offering some tired apology for having a go at him was beyond her. Same with Alex. All she could do was look at the floor and make sure she didn’t meet his eye by accident or Alex’s on purpose.

  What a fucking mess.

  With little thought or plan, Kelly boosted herself forward and took slow steps to the building’s front. The image of the horrible burned people, all crowded around outside, played over and over behind her eyes. So many frightening, mental things had happened since, she could almost convince herself those people hadn’t been there in the same way the guy Rod’s falling chair killed hadn’t been there when they all looked. Or the way the police and ambulances hadn’t been there, come to save her and the others.

  She stared out to the empty pavement and road, expecting the scorched flesh to appear out of nowhere and advance, every ruined mouth wailing that they were burned. The detail of the memory from the day before filled her mind: the palms on the glass, smearing blackened blood and torn shreds of skin; the cheeks melted into lips, the faces turned into bubbled messes, and every visible inch of skin a red beyond red, the red of a fierce sunset when the sun went down in a ball and cooked the sky.

  Kelly shivered. Nothing appeared outside. If the burned people were out there somewhere, they were keeping their distance. Even so, she scanned the buildings on the other side of the road, eyes unwilling or unable to pause for too long. As Dao and the others had said, the road looked fake. It made her feel off balance, unwell. She reached for support and found only glass. At least that was solid. At least it was real because they were in the middle of a drawing… and what happened if that drawing was erased?

  A sound made her turn. Simon wheeled a chair from the corner on the far side of the lift, coming slowly and not meeting anyone’s gaze.

  “All okay, mate?” Rod called.

  Simon nodded once and that was all. He pushed the chair to the centre of the floor, head hanging, the rock solid hold on the chair’s back visible to Kelly even with the distance between them. Nobody spoke for a moment. Dao sniffed a few times and wiped the back of a hand over his eyes while Rod pretended not to notice. Alex took a moment to study her sister, wondering if there’d be another explosion of anger any time soon. Kelly looked smaller somehow; she looked younger, and Alex wanted to go to her and listen to anything she had to say, to not talk but just to listen.

  When we get out. When we get home, I’m going to do that, she promised herself.

  “What’s the plan?” Dao asked, motioning to Simon’s chair.

  “We throw it,” Simon replied. A change had come over him; they all heard it in his voice. If asked privately, none of the others would have said Simon had much strength, and while it wasn’t strength they heard now, they did hear resolve.

  “We throw it,” he said again. “And then we get out.”

  “Sounds good to me,” Dao muttered.

  Kelly turned from them to face outside again.

  In the middle of the road, a double bed sat, the covers thrown back and the man lying on the mattress totally naked. He managed to move without seeming to change position. Lying flat one second, sitting on the edge of the bed the next. His legs were wide open. His erection jutted. He smiled.

  Kelly screamed and, in the scream, she named her fear and her guilt.

  “Carl.”

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Alex raced over the floor, her panic drowning out any idea of what to say. Kelly was still backing away from the front, silent after her cry. The pavement and road beyond were as lifeless as always. But Kelly was still backing away.

  “Kelly?” Alex yelled. “What is it? Where is he?”

  Knowing she wouldn’t see him, Alex stared outside, desperate for her husband to be there and desperate for him to be nowhere in sight. Because if he was… oh, God. She couldn’t deal with that. Not even a little bit.

  Dao and Rod ran to her. Only Simon remained still, holding his
chair and wondering idly what would happen if he screamed, wondering if he’d be able to stop.

  “What’s happening?” Rod asked.

  Alex yanked her sister around. Kelly came close to stumbling to the floor but managed to stay on her feet. “Where’s Carl?”

  “I… ”

  “Where the fuck is he, Kelly?”

  “Please.” Rod tried to push his way between them; Alex pushed back, blocking him.

  “One last time, Kel.” Alex had quietened and that was all the more dangerous. The men moved away a few inches. This wasn’t their business; they understood that. Getting in the middle of it would be the worst idea in the world.

  “Where is my husband?”

  Kelly found her voice. She had no idea how, but it came like a miracle. “I don’t know. I saw him. He was there. Outside. Looking in. He’s gone.”

  Alex stepped closer to Kelly, a bare inch between their faces. “Why did you see him, Kelly?”

  To that, Kelly had no reply. None she could give.

  Alex opened her mouth. Closed it.

  Something was coming.

  In the air and ground and windows, in the sunlight and silence coating each street, in the dead and flat land of the city the sisters and Dao knew inside out, something was coming.

  It began as a soft hum. Perhaps the sound of a bored child who’d discovered the noise they could make simply by pressing their lips together and blowing. It remained at a constant pitch and grew slowly in volume, high and clear without being sharp. The group stared upwards, then to the pavement. Nothing came into view.

  “What the hell is it?” Rod said. Before the others could reply, he stabbed a finger toward the reception desk, its polished marble a smooth black in the morning light. “There. Move. We have to get our heads down.”

  He and Dao ran for the desk. Alex turned a little but remained with Kelly, her head racing and unable to get a hold on the situation, let alone any questions. Across the floor, Simon remained with his chair, the muscles in his face slack. The noise changed from a hum to a throbbing, rich and thick. It grew from the floor, making their legs shake. On the public side of the desk, Rod gripped its edge and tried to tell the others to get down. He’d lost his voice or the sound had stolen it. The shaking grew worse; dozens of windows shuddered, making the light dance madly. The throb became a low, constant beat, a dark pulse oozing from the floor, falling out of the walls and raining from the tunnel formed by the stairwell. Staggering, Kelly fell to the wall where the reception area met the front of the building. Alex reached for her, missed, and both women crashed against the wall. At the same time, Alex again saw the ruins of St Margaret’s, standing bowed and decayed in winter light. Nothing but dead grass and rotting trees surrounding it while the last of the blood-red sunset died in the sky. She wept inside at the vision, the hurt done to a place she’d loved; a home from home with her mother back in the good days of childhood when the world made sense. She howled at St Margaret’s face and the church gave nothing back because it was dead, dead, dead. It had sunk below its doom and she would do the same. She would be crushed by loss, by having all that mattered to her taken away, stolen.

  The sonorous tone paused for a fraction of a second as if drawing breath. Then the toll of a church bell crashed out, down and up like an explosion, the sound of all the bells there beating as one. Alex collapsed, hands over her ears, dimly aware of Kelly doing the same. Rod cried out; Dao tried to yell, but he’d lost his voice. Simon made no move at all.

  The echo of the tremendous clang dashed across the floor and collided with the windows that should have shattered but remained whole. A few tears fell down Alex’s face.

  It was here. Call it something as melodramatic as doom; it didn’t matter. It was here for her.

  The next sound was nothing compared to the mighty thud of the church bell, but every one of them heard it.

  The gentle ding of the lift doors opening.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Rod saw it first because he was facing that way, and he knew this made no sense because, a second before, he’d been facing Dao with the front doors at Dao’s back. But here it was. Here was the yawning darkness inside the mouth of the lift; here was nothing at all peering out at him.

  He stood straight, the old anger already coming, and that was good; that was wonderful. He’d take that anger and he’d shove it deep into the darkness. Let it choke on his tired fury. Let it choke.

  “Are you there?” he asked. To his own ears, his voice sounded nasal and blocked. Maybe the explosion of the church bell had hurt his hearing. What of it? He’d get a hearing aid if need be. He’d wear it and be an old man and not give a monkey’s about this business.

  “Are you there?”

  A low chuckle, the sound secret, dirty, answered Rod from the darkness and caressed his feet and legs with cold fingers. It seemed that was all the answer he’d get, and the sheer arrogance of this—to think the bastard believed he didn’t even have to reply and Rod would take that—went beyond infuriating. It was enraging.

  “Are you there?” Rod roared. He raised the blade from the broken guillotine, holding it like a club.

  I am here.

  The answer was as cold as midnight in winter. Any of the forced jollity in the voice from the day before was long dead. Rod stayed in place, promising himself that whatever happened in the next few moments, he would not back down.

  No bloody way.

  “I heard that,” Simon whispered more to himself than any of the others. None of them were close enough to catch his voice and it didn’t matter. He’d heard the ugly chill of whatever was speaking to Rod, and it sounded almost exactly the same as the thing that had reduced him to literally nothing in the cash office. It appeared his horror was Rod’s. In a silent flash of understanding, Simon knew there was only one force in Greenham Place; one force with as many faces as it needed.

  Close to Kelly, Alex inched towards Rod, desperate to call his name, desperate to know why he’d appeared to her sister and not to his wife and what awful thing that meant. There was no time to seize upon either speeding thought and no way to reach Rod without running to him because he was advancing on the lift door.

  “It was not my fault,” he bellowed. “You hear me? Not my fault.”

  Something laughed, richly amused and still cold like a wall of ice.

  Your fault, Rod. Always your fault. Now come in here and sit down, you little fuck. I’m telling you what to do and I say COME IN HERE AND SIT NEXT TO ME.

  Kelly let out a tiny hiss, and Alex froze in mid-step. The voice spoke again, softer now, and that was no better.

  Come in and we can talk about guilt, Rod. We can talk about secrets because everyone has a secret. Everyone is ashamed of something. It giggled, the innocent laugh of a happy child turned into a low, corrupted noise. It was like hearing dirty rainwater falling into a drain clogged with leaves. Everyone is scared of something. Scared and ashamed. Isn’t that right, Kelly?

  Kelly’s breath caught in her throat. Vision flashed a deep red and she felt, actually felt, her heartrate judder. She bit down on her tongue and the colours of the morning returned into focus.

  Alex stared at her sister, still unable to take hold of her sprinting thoughts. Or perhaps unwilling to, because that meant making sense of the worst things in the world and that meant screaming and screaming until she burst.

  Ignoring the voice’s change of focus, Rod managed another step closer to the lift. Unaware of Simon frantically attempting to signal he should move away, Rod addressed the darkness.

  “You are a monster. You are an animal. You are burning in Hell for what you did to me.” Tears raced down his cheeks. He was no more aware of them than he was of the others. Everything had become clear. He stood on a road free from traffic, the clear space ahead extending right to the horizon and a pleasant sunshine colouring the sky yellow. Everything was open to him now.

  “You are filth. And it’s about bloody time you saw that. And abou
t bloody time I said so.”

  At Rod’s great shout, the void in the mouth of the lift made no move and gave no sound. Even so, Rod felt it considering. Then movement above, coming fast, and Rod had barely a second to move out of the way before the child’s body plummeted to the ground.

  It struck the floor with a hollow thud. Yelling his shock, Rod dropped his blade and staggered backwards. He expected the shape to rupture into so much flying blood and broken bone, even though nothing of the sort had happened on impact. Not an inch of his body was free from cold sweat; his heart boomed; his mouth was a flood of electric spit and his senses felt as if they’d jumped up a level. Awareness of the men and the sisters came back in spades. They were off to both sides and at his back, not daring to come any closer, only Alex making any sense as she called for him to get away from it, and he had to wonder if it meant the body or the open lift. Or the twitching fingers and shaking legs as the body moved into a sitting position.

  The body that was him as a child.

  The child Rod jerked to his feet, body whole even though it should have been smashed into mess by the fall. He swayed like a drunk, face and eyes slack. Rod tried to find a word, any word, and had nothing. He saw Dao from the corner of his eye, the man creeping forward, reaching, crying, and the part of Rod’s mind still living in the world of real things and rational thought knew Dao expected to see his boy, the child torn apart and smeared in his precious blood. Not for Dao, though. This was all for Rod.

  Come and have a sit down, son, the thing inside the lift said. I have a magazine to show you.

  The child Rod met Rod’s eyes and there was no light there, no hope.

  He turned away and walked towards the gaping hole where the darkness was swimming and dancing.

  “No,” Rod whispered. “No, wait.”

  His child self kept moving.