by Stephen Laws
There was another sound now; the racing of a car engine, as if someone were pumping the accelerator.
“Look,” said Annie, indicating the boy.
He had left Lisa’s side and was standing over by the woodpile, not far from the dump truck. He was pointing, looking back with an anxious expression on his face. He still couldn’t use his voice, but was using that expression to tell us we should look where he was pointing.
“What is it?” asked Lisa, hurrying to him.
The boy stabbed a finger out hard again, grabbing her hand when she came close and shaking it. We all looked. There was a ragged screen of trees off to the right, but nothing else to see. When it was obvious no one was able to see what he could see, the boy became agitated, yanking at Lisa’s sleeve. The sound came again. A woman’s voice? Obviously in terror. And now the racing of the car engine was cut off with a faint crump. There was silence for a moment. Again, the cries came. Again, the sound of the engine.
Then Alex saw what the boy was pointing at.
“Look! Look there…just above the trees. It’s a radio mast or something.”
It was hard to see through the screen of trees, but at last I could make something out.
More cries for help. More racing of an engine. And then another crump.
Gordon caught my eye, then pointed to the dump truck.
“Good idea,” I said, hurrying to the cab. Gordon followed. “We’ll take the dump truck. You others stay here…” Mentally, I caught myself again. Shit! There you go again. Giving orders.
“I’ll come, too,” said Alex.
“This a men-only affair?” sneered Candy. “Racing to the rescue while the ‘women’ hold the fort and look after the kids?” Annie looked away, and Lisa just shook her head. For the first time, I realised that Candy was finally suffering from a long-delayed hangover. It still didn’t give her any excuses. She slumped to her knees on the grass, looking down between her legs, maybe returning to thoughts of what she and Alex had seen in the mini-mart last night. Damon hadn’t said a thing. He looked sort of pathetic now, as if Wayne’s death had done his head in. I couldn’t work out whether I felt sorry for him now or not. There was no time.
We climbed into the cab, me in the driver’s seat, and the engine turned over straight away. The next moment we were bumping over the churned parkland towards the ragged trees and the radio mast beyond. Last night this grassland had been a churning black sea.
“Do you believe it?” I asked Alex as we headed on.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him turn to look at me. He knew what I was talking about. Somehow I couldn’t look him in the face. I concentrated on the steering as the dump truck pitched and lurched over ruts and cracked earth.
“Are you expecting me to go on again about all the old stuff?” he asked. “About nerve gas, and hallucinations?”
“No. You ditched those ideas yesterday. Remember?”
I felt, rather than saw, Alex nod.
“So, did you see your dead son?”
“Did you see your old teacher?” he asked.
We were silent as the dump truck jolted on. We would soon be at the trees.
“Those things were real,” said Alex, at last. “Real enough to kill Wayne. But I still don’t know whether one of those things was made to look like Ricky—the way it made those dead people look like someone else. Like the fella we saw in the shop. Your teacher. It might have put Ricky’s face on one of those things. Just to make Candy and I despair even more.”
“Difference,” said Gordon.
“What difference?” I asked.
“Black Stuff wuh-was…wasn’t…there.”
We waited, giving Gordon a chance to explain further, get more words out.
“Wayne kuh-killed…one…those things.”
“Yes,” said Alex. “He stamped one of them to death.”
“Eh-any…Black Stuff? Come…come out?”
“Black Stuff? You mean…you mean like when it came out of those dead people? When the fire came near?”
Gordon nodded his head energetically.
“No,” replied Alex.
“Then it…wuh-wasn’t…there.”
“Yeah, I see it, Gordon,” I said. “The Black Stuff was in the dead people, making them move around. Just like it did with Wayne last night. When the torches came near them…the light, I mean…it burst out of them. Just the way it was bursting out of them at the factory last night. It didn’t happen in the mini-mart when that…thing was killed.”
“Suh-so…it…wasn’t…in…”
“So it wasn’t in those children,” finished Alex. “Wasn’t animating them, or creating them, or giving them new faces. If it was, we would have seen the Black Stuff coming out of the dead one.”
There was logic there, but it still didn’t give us any real answers.
And now we were in the trees, driving around the twisted boles. There were ruined buildings ahead. A side street seemed to be the only way through, and there was fallen rubble there.
“Hang on to your seats,” I said.
Then the dump truck was lurching and swaying over the fallen masonry and shattered wood. It was a rough ride. Above the roaring of the engine and the crash and clatter of the truck as we bounced in our seats there was no way to tell whether those cries for help were still coming. But the boy had pointed out the aerial or the mast or whatever it was, and that was where we were headed. A thought flashed through my mind then. Pointless, maybe. But it seemed to make sense. We didn’t know whether this was a trick, or really someone in trouble, or even if we were just imagining it. But at least, right now, we were doing something. We weren’t just sitting around, letting things happen, waiting for the end. Maybe it was unfair on the others who were left back there, but right at that moment I felt as if the simple action of driving, of finding out, of maybe being ready to offer help, was enough to start making me feel good about…about…well, about being human. There was something else. It had to do with the fact that, until then, we all thought we were the only ones left alive. But here was the possibility that there was someone else, after all. Another survivor. Maybe more than one. And just the prospect of finding that someone else was important. Probably the most important thing since this nightmare business had all begun. I don’t know if Gordon and Alex felt that way. Something inside seemed to tell me they did. I hoped they did.
I twisted the wheel and we rounded the corner between houses.
Now we had a clear view of the cliff-edge on our side, and the cliff-edge over there, on that other island of rock. The Chasm between us was about three, four hundred feet wide. And the island across the way was a hell of a lot smaller than the one we were on. But there was the broadcasting mast, standing right on the cliff-edge opposite, next to a building whose facing wall had fallen out and down into the Chasm. I supposed that was a radio station next to it. Maybe I’d passed that place a hundred times in my life, but I didn’t recognise it. I’d had a continual problem with that, working out where places were after the ’quake. Just beyond the radio station, I could see another half-demolished building that was most definitely a supermarket. I recognised the sign: Greenhaughs. Cars were still in the carpark. But no sign of any people.
I brought the dump truck to a halt and we climbed out.
My feet had just hit the ground when I heard that car engine roaring again, and Alex said: “Jesus Christ Almighty!”
I looked at him, saw where he was looking, then heard another crump.
This time it was a hell of a lot louder. A cloud of dust sprayed up around the concrete base of the mast, and I heard the crump come again, this time fainter. It was coming from the Chasm, an echo of the impact. Then…crump, even fainter. Like the Chasm was swallowing the noise or something. Alex and Gordon moved towards the edge. I followed, as the dust cloud on the other side began to settle. There was some kind of movement over there, but it was difficult to make out.
“Mast,” said Gordon, pointing.
> I looked, but couldn’t see anything.
“Woman. On the mast.”
I looked again, and now I could see someone up there. Looking through the gantries and the multiple aerials to the other side, I could see a figure, clinging to a ladder about two-thirds of the way up. And yes, it was a woman, in dark clothes and with long blond hair. We could hear a screeching sound now. Thin and distant, like metal on metal.
“What the hell is…?” began Alex.
And then the ground around the mast began to move. It was a strange kind of movement, not seeming to make sense at all. The grass and the soil began to furrow and burst all around the concrete base. Something lifted on the other side of the concrete base, and when I saw shattered headlights I realised that it was a car, moving up like it was on a hydraulic lift. We all flinched when a steel girder suddenly burst out of the ground beside the concrete base, showering soil. The base cracked and split.
“Christ,” said Alex. “The mast is falling.”
And then the concrete base split apart, cables and metal struts burst out of the ground around it, and with that screeching echo filling the air, the entire mast shuddered and tilted. For a moment, it seemed as if it was going to drop straight down into the Chasm. But suddenly the entire structure tilted and hit the side of the building next to it. Rubble exploded out into the Chasm and the impact made the mast change direction. It was falling straight out across the gap, the remains of the concrete base, the anchoring steel girders and cables becoming tangled up in the cracked soil and clay on its own side of the cliff.
“Oh God,” said Alex. “The woman on the mast. She’s had it.”
The mast was directly opposite us now, falling straight down and across.
“How tall is…?” I began.
The mast seemed to be falling all wrong, like the whole thing was in slow motion or something.
“How wide is…?”
I never finished. Because at the same moment, the three of us knew.
We turned from the edge, and ran like hell.
The mast was taller than the Chasm was wide. It was going to slam down on our side, tearing a great chunk out of the cliff-edge, and taking us down into the pit with it. We didn’t look back as we ran, but I could feel the mast coming down, right overhead. I could see Gordon next to me. He glanced back and winced—and I thought: This is it! We’re going DOWN! I knew that the Black Stuff was somewhere down there, in the darkness, waiting. I hoped we’d be dead as soon as the mast hit. I didn’t want to be alive when we fell into that stuff.
There was a terrific crash behind us.
The ground shivered and I whirled to a staggering halt. There was another crash, and a squeal of tearing metal that sounded like an elephant trumpeting or something. The mast had hit our side, just as I’d thought. But not nearly so far in as I’d guessed. It had torn a ten-foot chunk from the edge before disappearing into the Chasm. If we’d stood our ground, we’d have been all right after all. But I don’t think anyone could blame us for not taking the chance and just standing there to watch it come down.
“Bloody hell,” said Alex. “Bloody hell!”
We stood, wiping sweat from our faces, looking back across to the broadcasting station.
Something wasn’t right.
We could still see the shattered concrete platform on the other side, and the tangled girders and cables that had erupted from the ground. They were still snared at the edge of the cliff over there; a huge twisted knot of steel, embedded in the cliff-edge.
Carefully, I began to walk forward.
As I did so, I could still see the broadcasting mast, projecting down and out into the Chasm. Was it hanging from the edge by that snarled mass of girders and cable? The others followed, equally puzzled. And the closer we got to the cliff-edge, the more of the mast was revealed.
It hadn’t fallen into the pit.
It was still anchored to the other side in that tangle of metal, lying out across the Chasm like some crazy bridge. Right at the edge, or at least as close to the edge as we were prepared to go in case the ground there had been softened by the impact, I saw what had happened over here.
The top of the mast had hit our side, gouged out a great chunk and then, instead of collapsing into the darkness, had carved out a great gash down the ragged cliff wall. Twenty feet or so below the edge, it had become stuck, its end jammed into the impacted clay. It really had become like some tilted bridge to the other side. The woman we’d seen clinging to the ladder must have been flung down into the Chasm on impact. Step by careful step, we edged forward to look.
And the woman was still there, still clinging to the mast.
She was struggling now, pulling herself around on the ladder and trying to climb up to what was now the topside of the mast. I could see straight away how she’d managed to save herself from being torn off. She’d pushed her arms and legs through the rungs of the ladder, wrapping herself around tight. She couldn’t have known that the mast was going to wedge itself as it had but I admired her coolness for hanging on like that when all she could count on was the entire structure just falling down into the darkness. Luckily for her, the ladder up the side of the mast hadn’t been yanked free on impact.
“Hang on!” I yelled, and realised how stupid my words were. As if she was going to do anything else. She looked up at us then, and even though she was a long way off I seemed to feel waves of relief coming from her. She shouted something, but we couldn’t hear her words.
“Someone else!” said Gordon, and when we looked across the Chasm to the other side, we could see that another figure had appeared beside the shattered concrete base of the mast. It was a man, and he didn’t look to be in good shape. He staggered on the cliff-edge, falling to his knees beside the tangled cables and girders. Even from that distance, I could see that there was blood on his face. Had he been on the mast too? Come to think of it, what the hell had the woman been doing up the mast in the first place if it was balanced so close to the cliff-edge?
“What are we going to do?” said Alex, looking down into the pit and out across to where the woman still hung on to the mast. “I don’t see how we can get to her.”
He was right. Like I said, it was about twenty feet down to the mast on our side, but with no way of telling how safe the gouged cliff-edge would be.
“She’s going to have to do the work,” I said to Alex. “No way of knowing how long the mast is going to stay like that. Even if one of us was able to get down on it, the extra weight might just be enough to drag it loose.” I shouted to her: “Climb along to us! We’ll pull you up!”
But what the hell with?
Then I remembered.
“There’s rope or cable or something in the dump truck. Next to a toolbox in the cab…”
Before I could head back, Gordon was already running to the truck.
“Bloody hell,” said Alex. “I don’t believe it.”
“What…?”
When I looked back across the Chasm, I could see what had surprised him.
The injured man was yanking and pulling at the nearest of the tangled cables.
“What’s he doing?”
“I think he’s…no, he can’t be!”
But he was. The man was trying to yank the massive tangle free. Now he was behaving like a maniac, cursing and shrieking at the twisted cable. Kicking it, beating at it with both hands. He wanted the mast to fall into the pit.
“Leave it alone!” I yelled. “Are you fucking mad or something?”
“Yes!” Now we could hear the woman’s voice as she finally managed to climb around to the “top” of the mast. Her long blond hair was flowing around her head as if there were a wind coming up from below. “He is! For God’s sake, help me!”
Something clanged on the mast, raising a small cloud of dust about fifty feet behind the woman. It was the man. In a complete rage at his inability to do anything about the tangle, he had begun scooping up loose stones from the cliff-edge and was throwing them a
t her. Now he was screaming at the top of his voice, like an animal.
“Please!” yelled the woman again, and she began edging along one of the struts on the mast, on all fours.
Another stone whanged against steel.
What the hell was going on here?
Gordon reappeared with the rope, quickly unspooling it to see how much we had. More than enough to reach down to the mast if the woman could reach our side.
There was a cry. When we looked back, she was clinging tight to the mast. She’d either slipped, or the mad bastard on the other side had hit her with a stone. Slowly, she rose to all fours again and came slowly on. Giving another yell of rage, her attacker began prowling backwards and forwards on the cliff-edge, looking for more ammunition. This time he was able to find a chunk of heavy-duty pipe. If he hit her with that it would knock her straight off and down into the Chasm. Now she was about fifty feet out from our side.
“Tie this around me,” I said to Gordon, shoving an end of the rope into his hands. “Loop the other end around yourself and Alex.”
“What are you going to do?” asked Alex as Gordon whipped the rope around my midriff.
“I’m going down on to the mast. See if I can get hold of her.”
“But the extra weight…?”
“If he hits her, she’ll go over…shit!”
Whirling end over end, the heavy-duty pipe flew through the air, missing the woman and the aerial by less than six feet before vanishing into the Chasm. She saw it flash past. Her hair flew in a blond cloud when she jerked her head back, either in anger or fear, and then yelled: “Go to hell, Trevor!”
He’s already here, said a little voice inside me.
Then I saw the Crying Kid in my mind’s eye, being chased away with stones.
“Move well back from the edge!” I said to Alex and Gordon. “Give me about ten feet…that’s it. Now let me have more when I shout for it.”
I saw Trevor whatsisname hunting for something else to throw.
Then I turned my back and lowered myself over the edge.
I concentrated hard on the mast, tried to convince myself that the iron gantry was ground, and there wasn’t a sickening, stupendous drop into God knew what just beneath it. The cliff-edge was cracked and crumbling. Clods of earth showered from the edge as they lowered me down. The soft soil that formed the upper part of the cliff-edge didn’t seem to have any solidity at all. But I couldn’t allow myself to think about that.