by Eli Ingle
“We can’t spend the night like this,” said Rigel.
“You’re right,” agreed Rona. “Isn’t there somewhere else we could sleep?” She stood up and opened one of the side doors, revealing a staircase that spiralled down and up.
“Might as well go and have a look,” agreed Laurie.
Following his lead, they moved down the stairs and arrived in an empty room decorated only with bare cold stone. At the other end was a small wooden door behind which they found a little office, probably intended for a vicar or church personnel. Behind that was another door which led to a tiny bedroom with a single bed.
“Aha! A place fit for people with such a high status as us!” declared Laurie, resting one foot on the edge of the bed, the gesture automatically creating ownership of the piece.
“Is this it?” asked Rigel.
“I think so,” said Uncle. “I’ve walked around this building many times and it’s the only room I’ve ever seen. The church was only really intended to be run by one religious man so it wouldn’t have made sense to build any more.”
“I think Rona should sleep in it,” said Laurie.
“You’re only saying that because I’m a girl!” she said, stamping her feet. They stared at her. “But I’m not complaining. Okay, everybody out.”
“Yay for feminism,” said Rigel as he made a pile of curtains on the stone floor of the office and tried to get to sleep.
Down below street level, it was impossible to hear the banging of the Fallen Ones on the church doors. Rigel had no doubt that they were still there and the thought of them constantly battering themselves against the defences worried him, but after the excitement (if that was the right word for it) of the past few hours, he was too tired to ask anyone about it and fell asleep.
He was woken sometime later – he presumed it to be the next morning, although he could not tell due to the lack of windows. Laurie was shaking him and telling him to get up.
“What time is it?” he asked.
“About six o’clock,” replied the Captain.
“But that’s really early!” complained Rigel, rolling over and falling off his curtains.
“But that’s the time I say we should get up,” Laurie said, pulling him to his feet.
Rigel looked up as Rona stumbled out of the bedroom still half asleep. “Morning,” she mumbled.
“Morning,” said Rigel, yawning widely.
“Have they gone? Have they left now?”
“That’s not a very polite way to talk about Erdiz and Uncle,” laughed Jhoan. Rona scowled at him. It was too early for jokes.
“Yes, they’re gone,” Laurie informed her. “We’re safe to go.”
“What’s the plan?” asked Rigel. “I mean, we can’t stay here ....”
“Don’t intend to,” said Laurie. “We’re going back to the house to pick up supplies and anything we might have left behind and then we’re clearing out.”
“What?!” asked Uncle, who looked terrified. “No, you can’t go! You can’t leave me here!”
The Captain looked surprised and paused before answering. “Well, you’re welcome to come with us if you want,” he said.
This also seemed to take Uncle by surprise, and he stood with his mouth opening and closing like a fish, unsure what to say, as though he had been expecting an argument. Finally, he managed to say something. “Really?” he asked.
“Yes, we’re not in the habit of leaving deserving people in need.”
“Oh thank you! Thank you! You have no idea how much this means to me!”
“I have a pretty good idea,” said Laurie, smiling at him. “Well, we better get on our way. It’s early enough so we should have enough time to pack and make a good head start.”
“Getting a good head start seems to be the main thing we’re doing these days,” commented Rigel.
“That may be the case,” said Laurie, looking annoyed, “but it doesn’t change the situation.”
Grumbling to himself, Rigel followed them out of the office, across the chamber, up the stairs and into the main part of the church. The pews had done a good job of keeping the door wedged and had barely moved during the night. Replacing everything in its original position, the travellers then went outside, squinting as their eyes became accustomed to the light after staying in the dark for so long.
Walking back to Ludo’s house, they found it in a state of disrepair and realised that it must have been ravaged by the Fallen Ones after they had evacuated it. Uncle was terribly distressed to see his house and possessions ruined but it was the discovery of the mannequins in the dining room that seemed to upset him most. The group gave him a few moments to go in alone, but his wailing from inside made them follow him inside.
Finding him in the dining room, they saw he was cradling the bodies of the broken mannequins to himself, hugging their broken pieces. Most of the room was destroyed – the music player, the table, chairs and crockery – and the mannequins had obviously gotten caught up in the destruction of it. Stray heads and limbs littered the floor. Jhoan tried to scoop the pieces up but only managed to make a worse mess.
“I’m sorry,” said Laurie, patting the old man on the shoulder.
“It’s my fault,” sniffed Uncle. “I should have gone back and saved them.”
“But I told you to go – it’s my fault! I was trying to look after you but in the process of that I didn’t consider your feelings and that was wrong of me …. So, I’m sorry.”
Uncle sighed but nodded. “Thank you for saying that,” he said.
“It’s alright,” said Laurie.
“So what are we going to do?” asked Jhoan. “Have a bonfire or something?” The others shouted out against this and Uncle jumped up, clutching the mannequin pieces tighter.
“We were making really good progress here!” Laurie growled, whacking the bandit on the arm.
“Sorry … but what are we doing?”
“I can’t leave now,” said Uncle.
“What?”
“I can’t leave now, not after all of this. It would feel like I’m abandoning them.”
Rigel turned away slightly so as to be able to roll his eyes in peace. As much as he liked Uncle and felt sorry for him, there was a limit and it was starting to wear thin after all these conversations.
“It’s not abandoning them,” said Laurie. “Do you lot want to wait outside and Uncle and I will have a chat?”
They nodded and moved out into the street, shutting the door behind them. Jhoan let out a heavy sigh and rubbed his back as he looked up to the sky.
“Deary, deary me,” he said.
“Poor man,” said Rona. “I mean, I know he must be really messed up in the head if he can’t function properly but he must have gone through some real trauma to end up this way.”
“Do you think the Fallen Ones got his family?” Rigel asked. He had been pondering this for some time now and the combination of his fear and comments regarding the Fallen Ones and his actions towards the models made him feel there was some connection there. Rona thought about this for a few moments and then nodded her head.
“You know, I think you’re probably right,” she said.
“It would make sense,” agreed Jhoan.
“Psychological trauma can often manifest itself in strange ways,” said Erdiz, who had remained silent until this point. “The mannequins seem like an unusual coping mechanism that’s led him to taking care of them.”
“Look at you, scientist,” said Jhoan.
Erdiz shrugged. “What does that even mean?” she said. “I am a scientist.”
“That’s what you want us to think,” replied Jhoan.
Rigel stopped listening. He could tell when the bandit started talking sometimes that he was just saying things to get a reaction, and that was exactly what he got when Erdiz took the bait and started arguing with him.
Rigel sat down on a step out of ear range and watched as Rona came ov
er and sat by him. They enjoyed the relative silence and the red sunshine on their faces.
“Have you seen Fallen Ones before?” asked Rigel.
Rona blinked as if remembering something. “Yes, they were one of the things marauding around my planet before you came and picked me up,” she said. “Why, haven’t you?”
“Oh no, I have. When Laurie and his crew came in the airship to rescue me there was one going after them and I defeated it …. I just haven’t seen one since then. Laurie seemed really shocked to see it.”
“They’re pretty horrendous creatures,” she said.
“Yes, I suppose you’re right.”
Laurie emerged from the house some time later, his arm around Uncle’s shoulder as he carried pieces of the mannequins.
“Have you all got everything?” he asked them. They nodded. “Then let’s go.”
Walking down the side street and out into the main one, they travelled for some time until they found the cart where they had originally parked it. After the action of last night, Rigel was surprised to see that it was not torn to shreds.
Climbing up onto it, he felt a funny sense of homecoming as though the cart were more than just a vehicle now. Some of the boxes appeared to have been turned over or rummaged through but nothing was damaged … perhaps the Fallen Ones had got distracted chasing them and not bothered to come back and look over their luggage.
Uncle was the last on board and he looked around as Laurie stoked up the engine and Erdiz moved to the steering wheel. With a hiss of steam and pistons, the cart moved forwards and out towards the other side of the town.
The streets were empty, but unlike Uncle’s house and the church, there was no damage or disturbance to the area. Rigel watched the streets go by and was pleased to see the end of the town coming up ahead, giving them the opportunity to finally leave.
The late morning sunshine shone over them as they left the final outskirts of the town and Rigel let out a sigh of relief. Uncle did not seem to be coping as well and had resorted to sitting at the bottom of the cart trying to reattach pieces of his mannequins back together. When an arm fell off for the third time, the old man burst into tears, hitting the plastic limb against the floor. Rigel and Rona slid over to him and patted him on the back.
“Let me help you with that,” said Rona, taking the piece off him and fitting it into place more efficiently than Rigel could have. He settled instead for patting Uncle on the back again.
“Don’t worry,” Rigel said. “We’ll help you out with it.”
The old man smiled at him and wiped his eyes, sighing heavily. “Thank you,” he said.
They watched as Rona slotted the pieces together and then rearranged the clothes and wigs afterwards until they were tidy and respectable again.
“We didn’t know what they were,” said Uncle, unprompted.
“I’m sorry?” asked Rigel.
“Those things you call the Fallen Ones – we didn’t know what they were. We were out for an evening walk and two of them just swept out of nowhere and took our daughter.”
“I’m so sorry,” said Rona.
“We thought we wouldn’t see her again … but we did. That was worse, I think. The next night she had been dumped outside our front door. My wife thought she was dead and we brought her inside but she was unconscious. There were these cuts around her wrists and ankles and neck. They had healed but the wound looked as though it was full of ink and where her veins and so on were there was this black, ink-like substance creeping through and we didn’t know how to stop it ….
“After a few days, she woke up in the middle of the night. Downstairs on the settee. And we could just hear this crying so we rushed down – it was the first time she had been awake since they took her – and found her there but when we turned the lights on we saw her eyes … she was crying blood. I’d radioed for help from Jo-do town and got no response. They didn’t pick up. Why didn’t they pick up?” He began gasping for air, his eyes staring at images only he could see.
Erdiz hurried over and put an arm around him.
“It’s okay, Ludo,” she soothed. “You’re here with us now, it’s all over. You’re safe. Take a breath in … and out … in … and out.”
Uncle did not respond at first, but with Erdiz’s help he began to take control of his breathing.
“It’s all my fault,” he said, wiping sweat off his forehead.
“No, it’s not your fault, Ludo,” Erdiz insisted. “You did everything you could.”
He nodded distractedly.
“Looked for her the next day,” Ludo continued.
“We don’t have to do this now if you don’t want,” Erdiz interrupted.
“No, no, I want to,” said Uncle. “You’re trying to help. I … I … want to tell you.”
“Take your time, then,” Erdiz said, kindly. “You’re safe. We’re looking after you.”
He nodded again and continued. “Looked for her the next day. We spent all day looking for her but we couldn’t find her. In the evening we had given up for the day and went home, all exhausted, and there she was standing in the dining room with her back to us. We ran over to her … we didn’t see the black smoke pooling around her feet. She turned to face us and her face … uh, her face ....” He broke off, seemingly unable to continue.
“Breathe again, Ludo,” Erdiz said. “With me. In … and out … in … and out.”
After swallowing hard, he pressed on, determined to see it to the end. “Her eyes were red where they should have been white and a smoky black for the rest of them, like two orbs with smoke trapped inside. Her skin was all grey and clammy. She dived at my wife. Irene wasn’t as agile as I was, back then, and she fell down with my daughter. I got over there and pulled her off but … too late.
“I looked for my other daughter and realised she had gone. She was taken while my back was turned! I was too busy trying to save myself and my wife. I didn’t even think to remember about my other daughter and she got taken away … my fault. All my fault.”
“What did you do?” asked Rigel.
“What could I do?” Uncle said. “What choice did I have? I knew nothing about it and no cure and still no-one picked up my radio hail. I gathered them both together and dragged them across town, found a random house and put them into a bed. Then I locked them inside and left them. I left them! My own family dumped in an unused house just to save myself.”
“Why didn’t you just let it happen?” asked Laurie who had been listening in and had only just decided to contribute. “Let them get you?”
Uncle sighed and ran a hand through his thinning hair. “Don’t you think I thought about it?” he asked. “But self-preservation is a terrible thing, you see. As much as I didn’t want to be left on my own anymore, something hard-wired into me stopped me from just going out at night and letting them get me. I wish I could have done that. It would have been the easy option ....”
“So when we were attacked last night, that was your family?” asked Rona, her eyes wide. Uncle nodded, looking as though he still had never really come to terms with the event. Rigel supposed he probably had not – how could anyone?
“And the other two were with them? Who attacked you originally?”
Uncle nodded again.
Laurie cursed from the front of the cart and silence fell over the group. It never seemed to be appropriate to follow such a conversation with anything else but Laurie had another question.
“How did you work out how to fight them?” he asked. “I mean, there must have come a point where you realised what worked against them?”
“I remained in radio contact with Jo-do town,” explained Uncle. “Eventually they picked up my hails and replied. They wouldn’t let me leave. Apparently, the Mayor had specific orders that required me to stay.”
“Why?” asked Laurie.
“No idea, but I didn’t have much choice but to obey it – where else would I have gone? So I stayed bu
t they did at least continue sending supplies. Then one day they sent down this gun as well.” He patted the barrel. “Thought it might come in useful. Of course, I then tried it to make sure and blasted part of one of them away. Nothing else before that had worked. I rushed back inside but the problem was that I didn’t finish the job and it ended up reforming afterwards … they do that. You can break them but it seems like you need to do something else to get rid of them.”
“So the ones you shot last night … they … they were your, well … you know ...?”
“They weren’t my family,” he confirmed. “I would know, despite them being changed. And even though they’re not who I used to live with, they’re still my wife and children. How could I put a bullet through them?”
“Wouldn’t it be a mercy?” asked Laurie.
“How can you say something like that when you know so little about it?” asked Uncle. “To us, they might look like monsters, but what if they’ve been raised to a higher level of being? Transcended pain and bodily form to become something more?”
“What if they’re just monsters?” asked Jhoan.
“What if they are?” retorted Uncle. “That’s the point – we don’t know. Therefore putting a bullet through them is not something I see as a solution.”
They fell silent, unable to argue further. The old man had started holding onto the mannequins again now they had been returned to their original form. Rigel was considering asking how the loss of his family had translated into looking after the models, but further analysis of the question made him think it would either be offensive or upsetting. The man had been through a lot; let him keep what he had.
Laurie, on the other hand, seemed to have different ideas. Pulling the lever up, he drew the cart to a halt and looked down at Uncle kindly.
“This is the place,” he said.
Rigel frowned up at him – there had obviously been a conversation he had missed.
“No!” said Uncle, clutching the mannequins. “No, I don’t want to.”
“I know you don’t,” said Laurie, “but we talked about this, remember? It’s something you have to do for them and yourself.”