As the Light Dies

by M. D. Woodham

  “What in God’s name!” said Thom.

  “I know,”said Andy shaking his head, almost stuck for words.“C’mon,”he said,“there’s no- one here, lets head down to the store room.”

  The three men backed up. Andy took the lead again leaving Collin in the middle now and they traced their way back along the pitch black corridor until they came to the door that led in to the stores.“Quiet!” said Andy stopping dead as he rested his hand on the handle.

  Standing as still and quietly as they could, they listened. Thom had that horrible creeping feeling that someone was behind him, creeping up behind him in the darkness and he had to fight the urge to spin around with his arm up and look stupid. Collin felt terrible, standing there in the dark, in the quiet. He couldn’t believe what had happened in the time it took from him hearing that first scream and breaking glass to the three of them getting here, so much had happened, so much damage and chaos. And where was the attendant. His mind raced thinking about the petrol station attendant that they still hadn’t found.

  If only I’d been quicker,he thought,If only I’d come across to help.

  All any of them heard was the wind rushing passed outside.

  “Thought I heard something,”said Andy,“I’m sure I did. Humph.Oh well here goes. C’mon.”

  He opened the door and called out.“Hello, is anyone here?”There was no reply.

  They moved in and just as the door closed behind them after Thom let it go, they all heard a scraping scratching sound. Thom flinched,“SHIT!” he yelped. Andy spun round to see what was wrong with him.

  Thom saw Andy spin around and thought he’d seen something and had turned to run.

  Collin stood hunched between them not sure whether to run or jump or what the hell to do.

  Thom jumped backwards and crashed in to the closed door behind him.“Oh,SHIT!” he yelped panicking. He fumbled for the handle and when he didn’t put his hand right on it he really started to panic, and he started thrashing with both hands and cried out,“SHIT! SHIT! SHIT! I can’t find the handle. I can’t find the fucking handle!”

  “What the hell?”said Andy.

  Thom heard him and thought that he saw something in the darkness behind them.

  “I can’t find the fucking handle! It’s fucking gone, it’s fucking GONE!”he yelped.

  He just couldn’t find the damn door handle. Andy thought he knew what was happening. He reached over and grabbed Thom’s shoulder. He knew Thom was already on edge, especially after their encounter outside. He knew it was only a matter of time before he got spooked, and he was spooked!

  Thom felt someone touch his shoulder and flinched away not realising it was Andy.

  “ARHH SHIT!” he yelped crying out with fear.

  Andy grabbed a firm hold of Thom’s shoulder and pulled him back having to dodge Thom’s swiping arms.

  “WHOA THOM!” he yelled. “Calm down man. What the hell’s wrong with you? Everything’s OK.”

  “What!”said Thom,“But you, you turned to run. I thought that noise was someone, uh, one of them. I thought that we were making a run for it when you spun around, but I couldn’t get the door open!”

  Thom was panting hard, still hunched, still uncertain and ready to take off.

  They heard the screechy scratching sound again and Andy felt Thom try to pull away from him.“THOM! Cool it,”said Andy,“I didn’t run you idiot. I’ve only moved three feet, and that was to stop you wearing your fingers to the bone on the damn door. All I did was turn around to see what you were making all the fuss about, and when I did, you just flipped.”

  Collin was trying hard not to chuckle mostly from nervousness.

  Thom wasn’t sure what to say.

  “But that noise,”he said.

  Andy said,“That noise is just the bush outside rubbing against the building in the wind.”

  As Andy said it Collin chuckled nervously behind his mask unable to hold it in any longer, he could imagine Thom was staring at him right now less than impressed.

  “Oh, right,”said Thom.“Stupid fucking bush!”

  Andy laughed then as well then said,“Ok, let’s get this finished,”and he turned around to start searching again.

  Thom was glad they were in the dark, he could feel his face burning bright red with embarrassment.

  From what little they could see or feel the room seemed to be relatively untouched. Nothing had been disturbed or was out of place.“I think it’s safe to say it’s clear in here,”said Andy.

  Thom looked at him and said,“Yea, it....”

  Suddenly a deafeningly loud ear splitting whine filled the room!

  All three of them flinched and jumped swearing at the noise.“What the fuck’s that?”yelped Thom. His heart was pounding like a drum. Collin practically banged his chin off his knee he hunched down so low and Andy turned from side to side trying to get a fix on where the noise was coming from holding both arms out in front of him defensively. The noise was so loud it was painful. The whine came in short sharp bursts getting louder with every burst.“Where’s it coming from?”shouted Thom holding his hands over his ears,“what is it?”

  Collin’s eyes darted in every direction trying to look everywhere at once, but there was nothing there but empty darkness!

  Thom backed up against Andy without realising and nearly jumped out of his skin when he felt someone behind him. When they hit each other, the noise spiked reaching an incredibly high pitch that hurt everyone’s ears despite Thom and Collin covering theirs with their hands.

  All of a sudden Mad Maggie’s voice boomed coming out of nowhere, from everywhere! It sounded all around them at the same time. Collin nearly bit his tongue when he heard her and Thom tripped over a wooden pallet.

  “Hello?”she said.“Andy, Thom! Are you there? Is everything ok?”

  It was incredibly loud and the whining was threatening to spike again.

  “What the hell?”said Thom looking around, then Andy realised what was happening and he said, shouting to be heard,“It’s the fucking radios!”

  “The radios!”said Thom.

  “Yes! They’re reacting against each other, we’ve gotta turn one off.”

  Andy felt for his one that hung from his belt, grabbed it and clicked it off and the head splitting noise stopped immediately while Thom still fumbled for his one.

  “Shit!”he said,“I can’t believe that just happened!”

  “They’re probably playing up with the ash,”said Andy,“You don’t have to turn yours off now,”he said,“just answer Maggie.”

  “Uh, yea, ok,”said Thom still trying to grab a hold of his radio.

  “Hello”Maggie”started again.“Hello, Andy, Thom are you there?”

  Andy could tell Thom was still having some kind of difficulty, he could hear him scuffing around in the dark. Andy stepped towards Thom,“It’s me,”he told him and he grabbed Thom’s waist and ran his hands around his belt until he found the radio and tried to pull it off but it didn’t budge. He tugged harder. It still didn’t unclip, so he clicked it off and turned his own one back on just as Maggie was calling for them again, and he jumped in.“Hi Maggie, yes we can hear you. We had a brief problem with the radios, that’s all. Can you hear me ok?”

  “Yes Andy, loud and clear.”

  “Ok,”he said.“Well we just finished searching the stores, it’s....”

  “And?”Maggie butted in.

  Andy rolled his eyes, he hated these just talk radios when he was talking to Maggie, orMad Maggie as the other staff called her.

  He continued,“It’s a real mess over here, and I mean arealmess! It’s bad. All the glass around the kiosk has been smashed, and inside, the kiosk has been turned upside down and looted.”

  Maggie took a sharp intake of breath on the other end.

  “The staffroom’s a wreck.Fuck knows what happened over here, and there’s no sign of anyone either!”

  “WHAT!” she blurted,“There must be!I checked at the rota and Lara Simpson’s
marked down to be over there, she must be there,she must be Andy!She definitely hasn’t come back here. I’ve checked. What about anyone else? Is there anyone else over there? Collin said he heard shouting and he saw car lights. Where’s everybody gone?”

  “Not a sole,”said Andy,“and the way the place looks I’m glad no one’s home. There were people rummaging when we got here but they weren’t the friendly kind. They swore and threw broken glass at us as they legged it.”

  “Hmm,”said Maggie and she thought for a moment, and then said,“Ok, probably just as well that you didn’t get tangled up with them. Keep looking for Lara though, shehasto be over there somewhere, she must be Andy. I’m going to call the police. I have my radio with me, let me know as soon as you find anything ok, double check everywhere ok, the stores, the staffroom and even the kiosk. Turn the place upside down Andy. Poor Lara has to be there somewhere.She must be Andy!”“Ok Maggie we’ll do our best. I’ll be in touch, over.”

  Andy hooked the radio back on to his belt.“Right guys let’s go and find Lara.”

  “Maybe she ran off,”said Thom.

  “Maybe,”said Andy,“but why didn’t she make her way back to the shop? We’ll think about other scenarios if we haven’t found her after our double check ok.”

  The three men searched the back stage area of the petrol station again, calling repeatedly for Lara, but got no reply. Before long they found themselves back in the vandalised staffroom. Their eyes had finally adjusted to the absolute darkness and with the small window shedding a tiny amount of light in to the room they all saw the full extent of the damage.

  “They sure did do a number on this place eh,”said Thom.

  “Yep,”said Andy, and Collin nodded unnoticed behind them as he walked carefully through the debris. Smashed cups and plates crunched under foot as his guilt smothered him, it spread out from his stomach.

  If only I’d ran to the petrol station as soon as I heard the scream like Maggie said, then maybe this Lara whoever she was would be ok. This is all my fault,he told himself,IT’S ALL MY FAULT!

  Andy spoke waking Collin from his thoughts.“Guys, check out the window.”

  He was pointing towards the little letterbox shaped window at the back of the room.

  “I think someone climbed through it.”

  Collin looked up at the window high up on the back wall as butterflies flapped their wings in his guilt heavy stomach.

  The little frame was hinged from the ceiling and the glass was missing.

  None of them had noticed that earlier. Their eyes hadn’t adjusted enough for them by then.

  “That’s not big enough for anyone to climb through.”said Thom.

  Andy shook his head.“You’re wrong,”he said.“Look at the stool lying on the counter. It’s directly under the window. Someone used that to climb through.”

  He started making his way across to the back of the room, the others followed.

  “It can only be ten inches deep and about thirty along,”said Thom.“I don’t know, it looks pretty tight to me, and there’s a decent drop on the other side of seven feet or more.”

  Andy was nodding.“Yea I know but a person can do things when they need to, like when they really need to you know.”

  Collin was nodding hopefully behind them. Andy climbed up on to the counter and pushed the stool out of the way so he could stand directly in front of the window. He had to stand up on the balls of his feet to get a close look at the broken window.

  Only tiny pieces of glass remained in the frame all around the very edge of the frame.

  “I definitely think we’re on to a winner guys,”said Andy.

  “Really!”blurted Collin.

  “Why’s that?”asked Thom.

  “Well,”said Andy climbing back down,“practically all the glass has been knockedoutof the frame and there’snoneon the counter top. A mindless vandal wouldn’t do that. They’d just lob something through it, and then look for the next thing to smash. But if you were going toclimbthrough it then you’d make sure that you got as much of the glass out of the frame as you could before you did wouldn’t you? Especially a window like this one where you know you won’t be able to help but touch the sides.”

  Collin was nodding his head quickly, he understood where Andy was coming from and was getting excited.

  “So what’s next?”asked Thom.

  “Were going outside,”said Andy.“C’mon,”he said and he headed for the door.

  They made their way out back through the vandalised petrol station on to the forecourt.

  Outside the deserted cars faced them in the eerie dark grey haze watching them. Collin felt uneasy, exposed even, he didn’t like it.

  Thom felt it to.“This isn’t right,”he said staring at the gaping hole in the Range Rover’s windscreen. Andy ignored them and unclipped his radio and asked for Maggie, she answered straight away.

  “I’m here Andy, have you found Lara yet?”

  The radio was breaking up badly.

  “No we haven’t,”said Andy,“but we might be on to something....”

  “WHAT?”she blurted.

  “It might be a long shot but I think that she might have made a break for it and climbed out through the staffroom window.”

  “No way,it’s tiny!” said Maggie.

  “Well, we’re just going to check around the back just in case.”

  “God I hope you’re right Andy. The first sign of anything let me know straight away ok?”

  “Yep, will do,”said Andy, then Maggie continued,“I called the police, they said they’d get here as fast as they could but all their teams are out, apparently there’s been disturbances and violence all over Inverness. The policeman said that people have gone daft since the ash got here. He said that everything’s falling apart, and it’s getting worse with the power fluctuating and failing.”

  “Ok,”said Andy.“We’ll get going; I’ll let you know how we get on ok.”

  “Please find Lara an....”

  The radio crackled and cut off before Maggie had the chance to finish saying Andy’s name.

  Andy tried the radio a couple of times with no luck, he glanced at the others, the radio was dead, it didn’t even crackle. Clipping the radio back on his belt he asked Thom to try his radio, it was just as dead as Andy’s.

  “Well, there go the radios,”said Andy.“C’mon let’s check round the back.”

  They passed along in front of the staring cars crunching as they walked over the glass; Collin stared down at the shards beneath his feet as lightning reflected back up at him as it arced across the angry sky over head. As the lightning seemed to appear under him he imagined he was walking across the deck of a mechanised flying blimp from a steam punk story he’d read recently. He imagined he was walking across its glass deck looking down, as it floated high above a mega storm in some far off land. To Thom it looked like the lightning was in the ground, almost as if it was trapped inside the dirty snow.

  Andy grabbed their attention.“That window opens out on to the carwash ramp,”he said as they passed the last row of fuel pumps still hooked up to the hungry cars like mechanical umbilical cords. Collin glanced at the cars and shivered wondering what on earth had caused this, why the sudden aggression? Why the power loss? And where had everyone gone.Where had Lara gone?

  It was all so wrong!

  Cold wind rushed at them as they turned the corner of the petrol station and started following the driveway around to the rear of the building towards the car wash.

  Collin tucked his chin down and held his hood tight to his face with both hands, he heard Thom say something but it was carried away with the wind. He watched Thom and Andy for a moment squinting his eyes against the wind in case something was up, but nothing seemed to be, they carried on pushing onwards against the weather.

  Andy looked up at the broken window as they approached and then down at the ground directly below. The dark snow looked like it’d been churned up but it was hard to tell with the new
snow and ash settling all the time smoothing things over again and the bitter wind. Holding his arm out to stop the others further disturbing the snow, he moved the dirty snow with the toe of his boot turning up pieces of glass. He knelt down and brushed carefully at the snow with his hands seeking more glass. He picked out one piece as Thom muttered something from behind him about there being no footprints. Andy nodded only hearing some of what he said as he studied the piece of glass. It had blood on it! He stood up.“She came out of the window,”he said.

  “How?”started Thom.

  Andy held out the shard of glass and said,“She cut herself climbing out!”Collin’s first feelings of excitement and relief were quickly squashed. Thom took the shard and looked at it while Andy scanned the area. He walked around in a semi circle treading carefully, looking for any trace of someone leaving the scene, but he couldn’t see anything that even remotely resembled a footprint. The wind and snow had covered any tracks that might have been there.“C’mon,”he said and carried on towards the carwash.

  Collin felt sick at the thought that he’d left someone out here, leaving them to push through that tiny window scared. Probably terrified, cutting themselves as they did while he went running in the opposite direction to tell someone about it, wasting time while he should have been running over here to help.

  The thoughts ran around and around his head, guilt weighed down his stomach.I caused this, he thought.

  They came to the steel roller door in to the car wash that was down for the season, it was a dead end. There was nowhere else for them or anyone else to go apart from back.

  The rear of the petrol station was enclosed by the same high wall that ran along the loading bay from the back of the supermarket, it lead across the car park, around the back of the petrol station and then it ran along the length of Millburn Road protecting the railway tracks and the train station maintenance sheds beyond.

  Andy looked at the others.“I’m certain she came out of that window guys, absolutely certain,”he said.“But God knows where she went after that. I doubt she climbed the wall over on to the railway tracks but she must have to run back to the supermarket. But then that would mean running back through the looters.”