“I see,” Evans said, folding his hands. “And presuming I accept your decision, how can I be assured of your confidentiality regarding the conversation we have just had?”
“Sir, you don’t have to worry. I won’t breathe a word of it, and that isn’t out of loyalty, it is because when this all goes to hell, I don’t want people to know I knew about it in advance. All I want to do now is just go home, sir.”
“Then it is with regret that I accept your resignation.”
Jim pushed his chair back and headed towards the door. He grabbed the handle and then turned back towards the president.
“Sir, if I could speak freely before I go?”
“You have so far, Jim. Go ahead.”
“I know any decision you make can’t be easy. I also know that you must be under tremendous pressure. All I ask is that you consider the ramifications of this, not just now, but in the long term. Nothing good can come of this if you go ahead. Nothing at all.”
“I appreciate your sentiment, but those matters no longer concern you,” Evans said, his tone cold and robotic. “Now if you wouldn’t mind, the rest of us have work to do. Send the others back in on the way out would you?”
Jim hesitated. There was more he wanted to say, more that he felt he should say before he left, but no words came to him. Instead, he cleared his throat, opened the door and left. As he walked through the corridors of the underground bunker to get his things, he wondered just how bad things must be at the hole for nukes to even be a consideration.
Whatever it was, it must be bad.
chapter sixteen
Gunfire zinged and fire roared as Tina walked down the center of the street. She had extended on her spider legs to full height, Morgan walking beneath her and flinching with each explosion. The air was thick with smoke, and smelled of burnt hair and boiling blood. Clifton cowered behind an overturned school bus, grimacing as he saw Tina draw closer. Behind her, a platoon of soldiers fired their weapons, the bullets doing no harm as they either passed straight through or fell to the ground before they touched her. Clifton saw a grenade thrown towards her. With a flick of the wrist, she made the grenade change course, skewing off to the right and exploding a Starbucks, showering the troops with splintered wood and shattered diamonds of glass. Clifton picked up the radio and screamed to make himself heard.
“Can anyone out there hear me? Hello?” he bellowed, knowing that it was fruitless. The channels were either dead or there was just too much noise to hear. Another explosion caused Clifton to flinch, and as he peered around the edge of the school bus he saw the burning wreckage of a troop carrier drive headlong into a storefront window. It's trapped soldiers screamed inside as they burnt. Tina scrabbled, relentless, as she headed back towards the hole which awaited her on Maple Street.
Another platoon of soldiers appeared just in front of Clifton’s position. Their armored carrier slid to a halt as the men dismounted and took up their defensive positions. Clifton screamed at them to clear the way, but the volume of the screams and the gunfire was so loud, they drowned out his voice. Instead, he watched in sick fascination as they opened fire on the approaching Tina, their bullets zinging straight through and causing the team who were behind her to duck and cover. Clifton snatched up the radio again, hoping against hope that somebody could hear him.
“Tell them to ceasefire, I repeat, ceasefire. Blue on blue. I say again, blue on blue.”
He was greeted with static, and could only turn back and watch. Tina absorbed the bullets. They went into her flesh but left no wound or mark. The soldiers stopped firing and looked at each other as Tina raised her arms towards the heavens, and thrust them down.
Clifton couldn’t believe his eyes. Human heads began to fall from the sky by the hundreds. He saw the first one hit the ground, exploding like a watermelon in a sick, wet crunch. As the skulls shattered, they released their bounty. Hundreds upon hundreds of spiders swarmed toward the soldiers. Clifton could only watch as more heads impacted the concrete and released their passengers. Others still bounced from car hoods and rolled unbroken, only for its cargo to push out through the mouths and nostrils of the dead.
Clifton had seen flocks of birds which moved as one midflight, and it was that he was reminded of here as the spiders skittered towards the soldiers. Horrified by what the soldiers saw, they abandoned formations and orders and started to shoot at the approaching arachnids, sending great gouts of concrete into the air as the bullets chewed up the pavement. Clifton gritted his teeth and took cover as more severed heads landed. His instinct told him it was no longer safe, and he lurched to his feet, half crouched as he ran, trying to ignore the sharp, wet crack of bone on concrete, and the zing of gunfire as the soldiers were swarmed by the spiders.
A bullet hissed inches past his ear and smashed the window of the car beside him as he ducked for cover. Two F14 fighter jets circled overhead, awaiting orders. Something exploded, and now there were screams mingled in with the chaos, his own included. Just ahead of him, and now undisturbed by the soldiers who were busy fighting for their lives, Tina scuttled back towards the hole on Maple Street.
Clifton saw a soldier, what remained of his face a stumpy, charred mass. He ignored it as he pulled the radio from the poor man’s death grip. Static filled the air as he tried in vain to communicate to someone – anyone in fact who might be able to bring some sort of order to the chaos, but the channels which weren’t dead were filled with sounds similar to those that surrounded Clifton – screaming, gunfire and explosions. He tossed the useless radio down on the ground and was about to decide upon his next move when he froze, his eyes unable to comprehend what he was seeing.
The circling fighter jets had now broken formation and were racing towards the street where Tina continued the walk back towards the hole. Clifton had seen enough to know that they were in attack formation, and looked around for somewhere, anywhere to take shelter amid the chaos. He ducked behind an RV, knowing that it would do little to protect him. He watched the tell-tale flash as both jets launched twin hellfire missiles, which streaked towards the ground, leaving a trail of curling black smoke behind.
Clifton barely had time to draw breath before the missiles impacted Tina's position, and his life was extinguished as the explosions destroyed the street, sending an enormous fireball fifty feet into the air. Stores exploded; car alarms raged in protest; debris rained down. An entire section of Main Street was devastated by the blasts.
From the bowels of the fire, Tina and Morgan emerged unscathed. She hadn’t even broken stride. She turned onto Maple Street, her spider legs clacking against the concrete as she weaved around abandoned cars and rubble from the earlier chaos. The people saw her coming and ran; a mixture of soldiers, government officials, doctors, police and press who were united in their desperation to flee the horror which was skittering towards them.
“We’re almost home now, Morgan,” she said, her voice a wet, slobbering croak.
“I don’t want to go down there,” Morgan said, cowering away as the hole loomed.
“That’s where we belong. That is where you have to stay until it’s over,” she responded, then reaching a clawed hand down, took his wrist.
The sinkhole loomed large. Although Tina could see the mass of people fleeing the scene, she ignored them. They didn’t matter, not anymore. Morgan started to squirm and pull, desperate to free himself. Tina laughed the wet rasp cutting through Morgan like nails on a chalkboard.
“You can’t stop it, nobody can,” she said.
Dragging her kicking, screaming prize behind her, Tina approached the edge of the hole and skittered over the edge, impossibly walking down its smooth side and into the darkness. Instantly, the chaos came to a stop.
The heads stopped falling from the sky, and the spiders which were their cargo disappeared, drifting into a purple-blue smoke like a magician’s effect—one second there, the next gone.
Once again, Maple Street fell silent.
II
&nb
sp; The people had seen Tina drag Morgan into the hole. As calm returned, someone decided to light a candle on the hope of the boy’s safe return. That candle became two. By the time Embry and Meredith arrived, the entire perimeter of the circle resembled something of a shrine. Candles flickered in the gloom, people held hands and prayed to whatever god they believed in. Someone produced an acoustic guitar and led the people to sing hymns and prayers. It was a surreal scene.
Embry cut through the crowd, back towards the sinkhole He led Meredith by the hand, her face ashen, eyes wide and staring as she struggled to cope with what was happening.
“What’s going on here?” Embry asked a group of people who were holding hands, swaying by the edge of the hole.
“It took the boy into the hole,” one of them replied, his face caked in dried blood. “We’re praying for his safe return.”
“Prayers?” Embry said, fighting the urge to laugh, having seen what Tina was capable of.
“Where’s my son?” Meredith whispered.
Embry tightened his grip on her hand and turned to face her. She locked her haunted eyes on his and repeated the question.
“Look,” he said, steering her away from the hole to the porch steps of what used to be his neighbor’s house. “I need you to stay calm for me. I—”
He began to cough, turning away and covering his mouth with the crook of his elbow, the other hand on his knees. A few of those holding vigil watched him as he spat up blood in great gouts on the pavement. He wiped his hand across his mouth, and turned back to Meredith, ashamed and embarrassed at his weakness.
“Sorry about that,” he said and broke eye-contact.
“How long have you had it?”
“What?”
“Cancer.”
“I don’t…”
“Don’t lie to me. My grandmother had it. I know the signs.”
Embry sighed. It was as if the wind had been knocked out of him. He sat beside her on the steps, and for a moment, they sat in silence and listened to the vigil’s prayers, songs, and chatter.
“Couple of years now, I guess. I was officially diagnosed around five months back. It was already too late to fix by then.” he said, fishing the crumpled pack of cigarettes out of his pocket. He looked at them, and then tossed the pack on the ground. “Lungs. Stomach. They say it’s even spread into my bones.”
“I… I’m sorry,” Meredith stammered, looking at his gaunt face in profile.
“Don’t be, I learned to accept a while back what’s coming to me.”
“What about treatment, something to make you more comfortable…”
“No,” he said, shaking his head. “I’m not interested in that. No, use in prolonging the inevitable.”
There was no answer to that, and so again they sat in silence. The man with the acoustic guitar was just about managing to string together the right chords for the Lord’s Prayer and had been joined in enthusiastic song.
“I was going to kill myself you know,” he said.
Meredith looked at him but gave no answer, letting him speak at his own pace.
“When I first found out about it. At first, I was mad, then frustrated and angry. I didn’t want to let it beat me. I fought it. I fought it with everything I could muster, but like an express train, it kept on coming. There was no fighting it. So, I gave in. Took myself down to the coast to the cliffs. See, I was determined not to let it win. I stood there, looking down into the waves as they crashed into the rocks below, and wondered what would be first to kill me—the fall or if I would drown. I don’t know how long I stood up there. It felt like a lifetime. I knew that just one single step was all it would take to put me out of my misery. To make sure I won.”
“What happened?” Meredith whispered.
Embry shrugged and gave a half smile.
“Lost my nerve. I have never been good with heights. I was desperate not to let it beat me, but the fact is that I don’t have the guts to end my own life. That was when I became resentful. Started willing the damn thing to just finish me off rather than drag it out. Here I sit today, a shell of the man who once was. A man who is bitter and spiteful and just wants off this rock.”
“Why are you telling me all this?”
Embry didn’t answer at first. He stared into the crowd of people, his eyes shimmering in the glow of candlelight.
“Something changed. I don’t know if it’s because I have come so close to the end, or because of this situation, but now… now I think want to live. I can’t remember the last time I was able to say that, but it really is true. That boy of yours, he brought something out in me. He reminds me of my own son. He’s dead now but…” Embry swallowed, then changed the subject. “You know he’s special, right?”
He turned towards Meredith, and she squirmed under his gaze.
“What do you mean?”
“You’ve seen what he can do. You know he’s different. Somehow, he’s the key to all this.”
“He’s just a boy. My boy. And he’s lost and alone down in that hole.” She broke down, her sobs coming in great, wet gasps.
“I want to do what’s right. I want to fix it.”
“How? What can you do, what can anybody do?” she said between sobs.
“I can go in there after him.”
“You can’t, you won’t survive…”
“Morgan told me that these things can’t hurt us if we don’t. As crazy as it sounds, I believe him. Up here, there is so much panic and fear that it’s impossible to control. Down there, though, down in the hole, I think I can stay strong enough to beat it. Either way, I’m willing to risk everything in the hope that he was right.”
“What if you die…” she whispered.
“I’m already dead. We both know that. Maybe this is why this disease has let me live for so long. Maybe this is what I was meant to do.”
They were both aware of the silence. They looked up to see that everyone was watching them, flickering candles held in hopeful hands. They looked at Embry as if he were some kind of god, a man willing to risk everything for a boy he barely knew.
“You don’t have to do this. If this is some way of trying to make me feel better…”
“It isn’t,” Embry said, shaking his head. “This is something I want to do. I know it sounds crazy, but this is the most alive I’ve felt for as long as I can remember.”
“Aren’t you afraid?”
“I’m terrified,” he said, his voice wavering a little. “But I want to do this. I need to.”
“Promise me you’ll bring him back…he’s just a boy.”
He held her hand and gave it a reassuring squeeze.
“I’ll do whatever I can. That I promise.”
He stood, trying to ignore the discomfort at the army of eyes on him. With his heart slamming against his ribcage, and legs which felt ready to give up on him at any time, he began to walk towards the hole, the people parting in front of him as he approached. There was absolute silence. He reached the edge, the tips of his shoes hanging out into oblivion. He was reminded of that day at the cliff top and found it ironic that back then he was plucking up the courage to try and die, this time, he was hoping he would survive.
Behind him, somebody started to sing, a low murmur which was haunting in the silence. Another voice joined in, then another. Embry could hear Meredith sobbing where she stood behind him. A puff of air came to him from the void. It was rancid and seemed to have been sent in order to dissuade him from what he was about to do. Now the chorus of song was growing louder, and people once again started to link arms, surrounding the perimeter of the hole in a human chain as they swayed and sang, offering prayer and encouragement.
Embry looked down into the inky depths, and like a gaping, sightless eye it looked back. He could feel the malevolence, the pure hatred seeping out of the hole. But he could also feel the hope, the admiration and the warmth of those who now surrounded him. He clenched and unclenched his fists, trying to force himself to move, to step off the edge.
The words of Morgan Brewster echoed around his brain, telling him not to be afraid—telling him that they couldn’t hurt him if he wasn’t afraid. The singing around him now was extremely loud; almost chant-like in its conviction. He shuffled again and then relaxed. Drawing a deep breath, and with much more calm assurance than he ever expected to find, Embry stepped over the edge and fell into the darkness.
III
President Evans had ushered everyone out of the situation room. Grateful for the silence, he paced the deep red carpet, hands clasped behind his back. He caught a murky glance at his ghostly reflection in the window and quickly looked away. The man who first got sworn in all those years ago had withered and aged due to the pressures of the job. He had made some tough calls over the years. Continued wars that could have ended. Agreed with policies which he knew were better for him personally than the country. But now, he was faced with the biggest decision of all. He walked to his seat at the head of the table and laid a hand on the telephone. With a deep sigh, he punched in the code he had committed to memory and that he alone knew, and waited for the line to connect.
“The launch is a go. Evacuate as many as you can. I want that hole sealed.”
He hung up the phone. Outside the situation room, his staff burst into a flurry of activity as they followed his instructions. Sitting alone, the president leaned on his elbows and put his head in his hands.
IV
Embry fell, the wind rushing against his skin, he could see the expanse of the sinkhole, the light ebbing further away. If he wanted to, he could drop all the way to the finish line, never worrying about what he was leaving behind, never fretting about the cancer extending throughout his body—and then, he thought of Brewster, Meredith’s little man, and he felt a sudden surge of anger rising out of his soul. He was supposed to protect that child. In a way, Morgan Brewster, had become a standin for his own son—the very child he couldn’t keep from harm’s way.
The Void Page 16