by Stephen Laws
Alex looked away from him and moved back to kick dirt over the burned patch. Annie had gone into the house once more, presumably to check on Lisa and the boy. All around, the floodlights still glowed, making it seem as if the entire house and its surroundings were on some kind of movie set.
Gordon chewed his lip.
Should he write down what had happened the previous night, and then show it to Alex? Would it help? Or was it simply going to make things even more complicated for Candy and him? Shouldn’t the others know that these potentially dangerous kids were able to come and go as they pleased, searching the house when everyone was asleep? Were they looking for something in particular, or were they merely curious? Where in hell had they come from? What did they want? Gordon was still pondering what to do when sounds of shrill screaming made him start so abruptly that he fell backwards on to the garden path.
It was impossible to tell whether it was Trevor or one of the others.
Scrambling to his feet again, Gordon looked back to see that Alex was already running towards him. Head down, Gordon threw himself at the door and burst it open. The sounds of screaming were shrill, but this time there was no agony. There was something horribly triumphant about that sound. It filled Gordon with horror as he flung himself at the interior door.
“Knew it! Tuh-trick!”
The door slammed against the wall as Alex clattered into the hallway behind him.
Something horrifying and bizarre was taking place in the room.
Trevor Blake was still in the chair, still bound. But he was no longer moving. His head had sagged forward on to his chest, and it looked as if he was dead.
Juliet was bracing both hands behind her against the windowsill, kicking at the sink unit set into the far wall. Jay was crouched on the floor beside her, yanking hard at something under the sink. Cursing, he fell back in a shower of plaster as Gordon hurtled into the room. Alex shouldered past, scanning the room for any sign of the crawling black mass. Gordon jumped over a chair and saw what Jay was doing. He had seized the pipework under the sink and had pulled a huge part of it out from the wall. Giving hoarse cries of effort, Juliet was sitting on the sill now and kicking at the washbasin with both feet. The pipework came away in Jay’s hands and he threw it down on the floor as if it were somehow alive, stepping warily back from it. Juliet skipped away from the sink unit, also standing at a safe distance.
“What is it?” said Alex, looking back and forth between Trevor’s still body and the bent piping on the floor.
Jay nudged the pipe with his foot, then stooped to look into the ragged hole in the wall beneath the unit. Juliet was leaning forward now, warily examining the sink unit.
“Too late,” said Jay at last. To Gordon, it seemed like an echo of Trevor’s agonised words that morning. He looked at Juliet, as if for confirmation. She leaned back from the sink unit, shaking her head.
“Gone,” she said.
Annie suddenly appeared in the doorway, gasping for breath.
Wearily, Jay and Juliet moved away from the sink.
“Come on, everyone,” said Jay. “Let’s go outside. I think we need some air.”
“Trevor?” asked Alex.
“He’s dead,” said Juliet. “At last, he’s really dead.”
“And the Vorla?”
Jay gestured back to the sink unit.
“It all came out of him. This time it…or should I say they…learned from their mistake outside in the light. Headed straight for the one place it would be dark, the one place that would take them back to the Chasm. I should have thought about it before. Straight down the fucking plug-hole, down through the waste pipes and into whatever’s left of the sewer system. All it needs to do is follow the sewer to where a broken underground pipe sticks straight out of the side, over the Chasm—and it’s home.”
“Did he…I mean it…?” Annie relaxed in the doorway, running a hand through her hair. “Oh, shit, I mean…did the Vorla tell you anything?”
“Get the others,” said Jay. “Outside.”
Alex, Gordon and Annie stood looking from Jay to Juliet, as if there were some kind of answer to everything on their faces. They both looked tired beyond words.
Jay saw their expressions. He nodded again.
“Outside,” he said again. “There’s a lot to tell…even if I don’t understand half of it myself.”
“I think I know why Trevor wouldn’t start speaking until everyone else was out of the room,” said Juliet at last.
Both Jay and herself had been trying to find a way to start when everyone was assembled in the back garden. Neither felt comfortable going back inside the Rendezvous, as if their ability to come to terms with what they had heard would be somehow inhibited by the enclosed space. Even outside, under the alien sky, they were feeling claustrophobic and stressed. Jay leaned against the garden wall and waited for her to continue. The tension emanating from the others was palpable.
“The Vorla wants to cause us as much misery as it can,” Juliet went on. “I think even at the last it wants to split us up. What it told us is so crazy…well, so crazy that you might not believe us. I think it wants that. If we’d all been in there with him, you would have felt the truth of it…” Juliet dried up and looked at Jay for assistance.
“Go on,” he said.
“Christ, I don’t know where to start.”
“All right, let’s start at the beginning. We wanted to know where everyone’s gone. Why no one’s come to help us. The answer’s the other way around. They haven’t gone anywhere; the world outside Edmonville hasn’t gone away.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” asked Damon.
“They haven’t gone away. We have.”
The others looked at each other and shuffled. Jay could feel the sky pressing down from above.
“What hit Edmonville was more than an earthquake. Even the Vorla couldn’t explain what kind of earthquake. Not only did it smash the town up the way we can see it all around us now, but it…it…well, it smashed Edmonville right off the face of the earth.”
“Off the earth,” said Alex, in a hollow voice. “What do you mean, ‘off the earth’?”
“I mean what I said. The whole of Edmonville has been uprooted…literally. The entire town has been shattered, and transported somewhere else.”
No one spoke.
“For God’s sake,” said Jay after a while. “Somebody say something.”
“You mean…” Lisa let the boy go. He began to play in the bushes; unhearing, unaware and unconcerned. “You don’t mean…like…well, you know. Outer space, or something?”
“No,” said Juliet. “Not outer space. Nothing like that.”
“Then where?” asked Annie.
“To what the Vorla calls a No-Place,” said Juliet.
“Look around you,” continued Jay. “We’ve seen how Edmonville has been split apart. These bloody peculiar peaks and crags. We know the way the town has been cracked up can’t be natural. And the Chasm on all sides. Now we know that’s impossible. But think about what’s beyond all that. Sometimes where we can see gaps between the crags. What can we see past them? Nothing—except the same grey nothingness that’s up there.” He pointed up. “That’s because there is nothing out there. Edmonville, all that’s left of it—that’s all there is. The real world just doesn’t exist any more.”
“Duh-dimension?” asked Gordon.
“Something like that,” said Jay. “Whatever this earthquake was, when it hit Edmonville, it shifted the entire town out of reality—I mean, out of the world we know. And it slammed it right down here in this other place. This No-Place. This different…dimension, I suppose we’ll have to call it. Like Gordon said.”
More silence.
“It’s working, isn’t it?” asked Juliet hopelessly. “You don’t believe any of it. That’s just what the Vorla is hoping for.”
“And what the hell is the Vorla anyway?” asked Alex.
“It lives here,” said Jay. �
�It’s been living here for thousands and thousands of years.”
“Yes, but what is it?”
“It’s us,” said Jay.
“Christ,” said Damon. “You two been swigging bottles in there or something? None of this makes sense.”
Jay looked at Juliet. “You think you can handle this part? I’m still trying to get my head round it.”
Juliet cleared her throat nervously, as if she were having to deliver a difficult lecture on a subject about which she knew nothing in front of thousands of people. And her life depended on it. A flush had risen around her throat. Her hand played there while she spoke.
“Basically…well, basically it’s Evil. With a capital ‘E’. Every evil thing that’s ever been done on our…on our side. I mean, our world. Well, there’s more to it than that. But I think it means that every act of violence, every killing, every massacre has much more of an effect than we think. I mean, apart from the people who actually suffer from it. It’s as if there’s an energy released when that act takes place. An evil energy, like electricity or something. And that energy doesn’t just dissolve or disappear, it’s drawn or pulled…”
“Or maybe just dumped,” continued Jay. “In this place. In this No-Place that we’re in now. The Dumping Ground.”
“Not just the big things,” Juliet went on. “Like killing and rape and murders. But even the smallest things. Spitefulness. Meanness. Everyday cruelty. Harsh words. Aggression. I don’t know…maybe even kicking your dog.” She tried to laugh. It didn’t work.
“It all creates this ‘energy’,” continued Jay. “And for thousands of years, maybe from the first day humankind walked upright on the earth, it’s been released and ‘dumped’ over here.”
“Those names,” said Annie. “The graffiti that we saw splashed all over the place in blood…”
“Madmen, murderers,” said Jay. “That was the Vorla, taunting us with a few clues.”
“Then the Vorla is…it’s their souls?” said Annie.
“No,” said Juliet. “I don’t think so. Not if we can believe what Trevor…I mean, that thing…was telling us. It’s the evil that they created, the energy that was released by their cruelty and their horrors. That’s what’s down there in the Chasm. The acts, the consequences, maybe even some of their personality. But not them. That’s what makes it so difficult to understand when the Vorla talks about itself in the plural all the time.”
“There’s a great big bloody sea of that Black Stuff down there in the Chasm,” Jay carried on. “And somehow, all that evil energy—whatever you want to call it—knows what it is. It’s become alive. Over the thousands of years, it’s grown and grown and it’s evolved. Like those amoebas and things they used to talk about when I was at school. You know, how life began and all that stuff? Well, somehow that blackness has become a living thing. Alive enough to even give itself a name: the Vorla.”
“Why the Vorla?” asked Lisa. “What does it mean?”
“We don’t know,” said Jay. “We just know that by some incredible accident, a hole’s been ripped in the life we knew and we’ve been transported to a place where humans have never come before.”
“And the Vorla’s glad,” said Juliet. “Glad that we’re here. Don’t you see? It really is a part of us. The evil side. The bad side. And here we are, the very things that create it—dropped right on top of it in its dumping ground. Right from the beginning, it’s been on its own. Growing and growing as more and more of that energy is dumped here. But all it’s had has been itself. All the evil and the cruelty and the hate. Seething and feeding on itself, with nowhere to go. Nothing to take out its horrors on.”
“But now,” said Jay, “it has us.”
“So this…” Lisa held her arms wide. “…is a kind of…limbo?”
“The Vorla said something, just after you left. It said: ‘If there wasn’t a Hell before, then there is one now.’ It’s got the opportunity to create one for us.”
“Then how do we get back?” asked Damon. His Adam’s apple was wobbling; he looked as if he might burst into tears at any moment. “I mean, how do we get out of this fucking place?”
“We don’t,” said Jay.
“We’re here for ever,” said Juliet. The flush around her neck had risen to her cheeks.
“The petrol won’t last for ever,” said Annie. “The generators won’t work indefinitely. And we could end up burning every last scrap of wood on this plateau. After that, what happens?”
“Not to mention food,” said Alex.
“This is crap,” said Damon, and he turned away to walk down the garden. At the bottom, he vaulted the wall and vanished from sight.
The boy began poking in the dirt with a twig.
For a while, nothing more could be said about these revelations; not until everyone had had a chance to think.
“What about Trevor?” asked Juliet at last. “What are we going to do with…?”
“I’ll take care of it,” said Jay. “We can’t have him lying around, when night comes again. Just in case…well, you know.”
“Petrol?” asked Alex.
Juliet turned away.
“No. We need every last drop of it from now on. Annie, we’d best have the floodlights and streetlamps turned off now. We’ll have to check out the meat mart and see if there’s any petrol left, though I doubt it. We’ll also have to make sure that we don’t have any of our night-time friends left there. But I guess the petrol for the generators is the most important thing.”
“Then how…? Trevor, I mean.”
Jay looked at Juliet, who was still turned away.
He gestured towards the Chasm, and made a diving motion with one hand.
And then, confused, bewildered, stunned, lost in their own thoughts, trying to come to terms with what they had heard, they went back inside the Rendezvous. Now that it was all out, there was no claustrophobia. Only a tenuous security, an imitation of normality when the door was shut and they were turned from the window.
The greyness of the sky pressed down, hard and relentless.
Book Three
The Caffneys
Prologue
One Year, Two Days Later
Another day and night has come and gone as I crept through the ruins, searching for the others. During the day, I’ve had to be careful; making sure that I didn’t blunder into any of the Caffney tribe. During last night, it was the same as before. Crouching in the dark, whispering into this tape machine; watching and waiting for any sign of the Vorla, and telling the story of what happened to us all in New Edmonville. Maybe trying to take my mind off the fear of what may be happening—what may already have happened to Juliet and the others.
I suppose my sense of direction must be okay, because I just kept heading in the direction that I felt was going to take me back to the petrol plant. I didn’t find that main street littered with the tortured dead, but signs of the Caffneys and their favourite pastime were all over the place. Late this afternoon, I rounded a corner and nearly walked straight into the tribe; crouched in the rubble and behind fallen blocks of concrete.
I froze, right in the middle of the street.
They were facing away from me, their attention fixed on the cliff-edge of this crag, right next to the ramshackle “bridge” they’d managed to get to the petrol plant on the other side. Still spooked after what happened, I think. But still mad enough and dangerous enough. If any one of them had been facing in my direction, I suppose that might have been the end of it for me. If Henry or his brothers had managed to wind them up again, they wouldn’t be held off by this shotgun, even if they thought I had a whole bag full of ammunition, rather than its single remaining shell.
I hopped back around the street corner, throwing myself against the wall, heart hammering. I expected to hear yelling and running as they came after me. But there was no sound. I stayed there, overcome by the urge to glance around again; at least to get a look over to the plant and see if there was any sign of the others. Sure
ly there must be someone still alive? Why else was the tribe’s attention fixed on that far crag? But I knew that I’d be pushing my luck if I tried it. Far better to somehow get up high; somewhere that overlooked it. They’d already stayed one night by the bridge safe from the Vorla. After all, despite what Alex did to Old Man Caffney, they’re still supposed to have this deal with the Black Stuff. Or would they treat it warily when night fell and find some place away from the edge to sleep? Maybe one of the ruined buildings nearby? If I was going to find a building overlooking the edge and the bridge, I’d need to be pretty damn careful about not stepping on any sleeping tribe members.
It took me a while, creeping through the ruins and trying not to make a noise. But eventually, I found a department store that overlooks the bridge and the Chasm. A lorry carrying oil drums had crashed into the frontage, and provided a perfect cover for me. Those drums had fallen from the back and were all over the road, so I was able to slide from one drum to the next without being seen; screened by the wreck of the lorry itself as I sneaked into the building.
And that’s where I am now. On the fourth floor, and I don’t like it one bit. The walls have bloody great cracks in them and most of the ceiling in here has come down. God knows how steady this building is. The staircase was a nightmare, and it ends at the fourth. Just high enough up here for me to see down and give me a pretty clear view of the cliff-edge up ahead, all the places where the tribe members are hiding. I can see the bridge and the plant on the other side, with its giant canisters and twisted metal wreckage.
There’s a low fire burning on the other side of that bridge, and that’s where the tribe’s attention is fixed. I saw Henry and Patrick a little while ago, pointing over there and giving directions to the other tribe members. They’ve got some kind of plan up their sleeves. The fact that they haven’t rushed the bridge yet means that some of us are still alive over there, and somehow holding them at bay. It’s growing dark again, and no matter how hard I strain to look—and I’ve got to be bloody careful I’m not seen—I can’t make out which of us is still alive over there.