by Stephen Laws
“A penny for them,” she said.
“Not worth it. You find what you’re after?”
Juliet indicated the boots with a sweep of her hand. I murmured approval. A box had slid from one of the games shelves, spilling packs of playing cards all around. I stooped and picked up a packet. “Maybe something for everyone to do during those long nights at the Rendezvous.”
She didn’t say anything. She just took my hand and we walked back through the racks of clothes to the bedding section. There was a double bed there, called “The HoneyMooner”; a four-poster done up with velvet drapes. The frilled sheets and pillows were whiter than white.
“Think we need playing cards for those long nights?” she asked, and she wasn’t smiling.
“No, Juliet,” I said; and I picked her up, carrying her to the bed.
As we undressed each other, she suddenly held both my hands by the wrists. Our faces were very close.
“Did you feel it, Jay?” she asked. “When you came out over the mast? And we were holding each other?”
I didn’t have to ask any questions. I was just utterly amazed. First, that I could have felt that way about someone I’d never met, even though we were dangling over a hellish drop and all I should be concerned about was getting the hell out of there. Secondly, that she’d felt something. For a moment I couldn’t speak, even though I wanted to ask her a hundred questions; about exactly how she’d felt. Part of me was frightened; scared that she’d felt something completely different. So different that it might crush the way I felt about her. I was full inside. My heart was beating fast, my mouth was dry. I was incredibly happy, but I was afraid. And even though there were so many things I needed to ask and needed to say, I could only nod.
“Trevor was right. I haven’t…haven’t been lucky with relationships.”
“Juliet, you don’t have to…”
“This is serious, Jay!” she said, now gripping both sides of my face. We were so close that our lips were touching when we talked. “In the past, I’ve only ever been wanted for the way I look. For one thing. You know? So don’t lie to me, Jay. Don’t hurt me. And don’t just want me for the one thing.”
I struggled to find my voice again. “Juliet,” I said. “It’s you I want.”
We made love then in that department store, in that “HoneyMooner” bed.
It was different and special. We had the closeness that we’d felt on that first, dangerous meeting. We were truly together. I can’t discuss it any more, can’t give you any more explanations without everything seeming clichéd. I don’t know, maybe clichés are clichés because they very often touch on the really true things in life, and people get sick of hearing and reading about them. Something wonderful had happened. Something wonderful and special.
And all I know is that was the Best Thing.
Afterwards, when we’d lain together for a long time, she leaned across me and picked up the pack of cards that I’d left on the side table. She unwrapped the cellophane carefully. I watched as she took the cards out and began to flip through them, discarding them on the sheets before us.
“This is you,” she said. “The King of Hearts.”
“Oh, yeah…?” I began. Juliet put a finger to my lips, her face serious.
She began flicking through them again; found one that she wouldn’t show me and put it to one side. Then she found another and said: “This is mine.” It was the Queen of Hearts.
“And this,” she said, picking up the hidden card as she discarded the remaining pack, “is ours.”
I didn’t have to look to know that it was the Ace of Hearts.
Juliet took the Queen, and pressed it into my hand. “Promise me you’ll keep it for ever, Jay.”
“I promise.”
I took the King, and pressed it into Juliet’s hand. Her eyes were shining, and she was utterly beautiful. She picked up the Ace, kissed it, and gave it to me. “One of us will have this one for a month, then give it back to the other. As long as we’re in love.”
I kissed the Ace, leaned over and kissed her.
We lay together for a long time, and then she said:
“It’s all I can give you, Jay.”
“I don’t want anything else, Juliet.”
We made love again.
And this time it didn’t matter which world we were living in.
Chapter Two
Damon Dreams
Almost six months to the day after Wayne had died, Damon had his first “new” dream of the Vorla.
Up until that time, all his dreams had been bad; most of them based on the memories of things that had happened since the ’quake. How could nightmares “improve” on those things? And when he dreamed of the rolling Black Sea that came up from the Chasm, flowed over buildings and ruined cars and cracked earth to engulf everything that lived and left no trace of itself behind afterwards, it was with a stabbing anxiety that brought him awake, shuddering and bathed in sweat.
But he was still dreaming, because now he could see Wayne rising from a glistening black pool at the foot of his bed. Damon screwed his eyes shut before he could see his friend’s face properly. He kept them shut, his fingers clutching his shirt front, intensely relieved that he had left the dream behind. He opened his eyes.
And Wayne was still standing there, arms folded across his chest like some corpse that had been dredged from a vat of black oil and laid out vertically in front of him. Wayne’s eyelids opened, but Damon could not see his eyes. Only the black, hollowed darkness of an ebony statue’s face. Damon desperately willed himself to wake, and could not.
The statue grinned, and it was an expression that Damon remembered well. He’d seen it so many times before, when Wayne had a cool idea. The last time he remembered seeing it was when he’d written on the school toilet wall “Stafford Sucks Shite”, and then they’d pushed the “informer’s” note into the head teacher’s pigeonhole, telling him that they’d seen Jay O’Connor deliberately avoid cleaning it off the wall tiles.
“Neat, wasn’t it?” said the sculpture, and suddenly it wasn’t a statue any more. It was Wayne, through and through, only a different colour. Rivulets of blackness flowed continually over his face and down across his body, as if he himself were the rippling surface of some strange black pool. Or as if he were standing behind a shimmering barrier.
Damon tried to answer, but couldn’t find his voice.
“That’s all right,” said Wayne. “I thought that it was scary as well. At the beginning. But it isn’t like the others say it is. Evil, and all that other crap. It…well, it feels…good.” And he hugged himself then, with that familiar smile on his face. For a while he swayed from side to side, and despite his fear Damon could see that he was truly enjoying himself.
“I am enjoying myself. There’s stuff down here, at the bottom of the Chasm, that you wouldn’t believe.”
Now Damon could feel Wayne’s reassurance taking the edge off his nightmare.
“That’s because there’s nothing to fear. They’ve got everything wrong. And the things they’ve told you? All fucking lies. We’re in a new life now, Damon. No doubt about that. But everyone’s keeping you at arm’s length, keeping you away from the Truth. While you’re sleeping, they all get together and whisper about what they’re going to do. They don’t tell you anything. The truth is, they’re frightened of you. Just like they were frightened of me.”
“But, Wayne, aren’t you…I mean…aren’t you…?”
“Dead? Yeah, of course. But ‘dead’ doesn’t mean the same over here as it does where we came from. There’s no big deal about dying. Nothing to be afraid of. See, once you’re dead and with the Vorla, that’s when you see the real Truth, that’s when you really start living. I’m telling you, the living I’ve done since I died…well, you have to experience it yourself. No, the thing that’s wrong is the way I died. Those fuckers, Alex and Candy. They just left me to die. Just like the others’ll leave you to die, eventually. They don’t want you around, Damon
.”
Damon could feel the anger swelling in his breast, as if it had somehow been implanted there by an outside force.
“Of course you’re angry. That’s because you’re better than them. Well, we’re not going to let them get away with it.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“I knew it. Knew you’d understand. Listen…” And Wayne leaned forward confidentially, placing one dripping hand on the bottom of the bed. The movement defied gravity as he swayed forward at the hips, legs bound together in one black column; like some black cobra swaying forward out of its basket. For a moment, Damon was hypnotised by the streamers and globules that ran from Wayne’s fingertips on to the mattress, as if exploring the material, before flowing back to the fingers once more. “Listen,” said Wayne, to get his attention. “They think they’ve got the Vorla where they want it. They think the light’s keeping it away. They think they’ve won the fight. Well, they fucking haven’t.”
“I can smash up the generators. Fix those floodlights.”
“No, the Vorla’s got bigger plans than that. But it knows who its friends are, Damon. I’ve put a word in for you. No, you’ve just got to bide your time a little longer. You just have to wait for the right moment.”
“When will it be? When will the moment come?”
“Someone’s coming. They’re on their way now.”
“Who?”
“People who know the Real Truth. People who know what the Vorla really is, and what it wants. People like us, who understand. And when they get here, you’ll know what to do and when to do it.”
“Wayne, I don’t know what you…”
“It’ll be a test.” The smile was gone from the black statue’s face. Damon felt the fear again. “You’ll have to pass it if you want to stay here with us, Damon. There’s going to be a new world, but not the one that Jay and all the others want. They’re going to pay, Damon. The Vorla wants to make them pay for all they’ve done. And you can be with them, or you can be with me. It’s up to you.”
“I don’t want to be with them.”
“Good. That’s what I want to hear. Just remember, you’ve got to watch them and wait for who’s coming. You’ve got to be ready for the Test when it comes.”
“All right, Wayne.”
“You know this is a dream, don’t you?”
“I think so.”
“Well, it is. But it’s real. Don’t question it. I’ll be coming to you in dreams from now on. We’ll talk, and you’ll tell me what’s been happening here. And we’ll work out what we’re going to do…for the Vorla.”
“Anything you say, Wayne. I want to be with you. On your side.”
“And that’s the winning side.” Again, the familiar smile. “Just remember…”
“Yes?”
“Someone’s coming.”
Chapter Three
Closer To Heaven
Gordon sat in the ruins of what had once been a church hall.
His throat was dry, and his heart was beating fast. Only part of him knew what he was doing here; the rest was driven by a strange impulse that both elated and frightened him. No one had questioned him that afternoon, when he set off on his own with his guitar slung over his back. Everyone knew the rules, about making sure that they were back at the Rendezvous and the safety of the lights, well before that greyness began to grow dark. Night had a way in this new world, not so much of falling as suddenly being there and taking everyone by surprise. But it was “early afternoon”, and experience had shown that there would be at least another four or five hours of safety left.
That morning, during one of her forages through the ruins, Annie had come across spare guitar strings. There were no music stores on this crag; the only one in Edmonville that Gordon frequented had been over a half a mile away to the west and had vanished into the Chasm when the ’quake hit, along with an entire shopping centre, the town hall offices and three thousand people. She’d been keeping an eye open for strings (among many other “needs”) during her foraging trips (at which she’d become quite expert) and had discovered that a general store they’d previously searched had a small music section behind a fallen wall. Nothing extravagant. No guitars there, and it seemed that the chance of there being any guitar string replacements was remote to say the least. But there they were; amidst fallen shelves and the crushed remains of a baby grand piano. On her return to the Rendezvous, Gordon was so overjoyed when she’d dropped them in his lap that he’d jumped from his seat and gone to kiss her. Suddenly embarrassed, he’d paused in mid-air.
“What’s the matter?” Annie had laughed. “Speechless?”
She’d kissed him then.
A good day and a good feeling.
But afterwards, when the strings had been fitted and he’d had some practice, the strange impulse had come over him. Lisa had looked up when he’d started off down the garden past the extension.
“More puh-practice,” he’d said, waving back. “And…walk.”
Lisa smiled, and nodded.
And he was gone, down past Yardley Terrace (or what was left of it), on past The Fallen Oak pub and the grisly reminder of the burned-out meat mart somewhere behind, down rubble-strewn Wady Street, past the overturned bus and its scrawled graffiti on the roof: Ed Gein.
And finally, to the Church Hall, standing on what had once been a main street; but now was the only building left standing with four walls. There was a mound of rubble inside; the remains of the ceiling, which had collapsed. To Gordon, this building had special memories. Not pleasant memories, exactly. He’d often walked past this building in his previous existence. Posters were still there, advertising a Line Dancing Special Event that had never materialised. How could they have known what was going to happen to Edmonville when the posters went up? Gordon wondered if any of the people in the community centre on the night that it burned had been intending to go along. And then he’d pushed the thought from his mind.
His special memory came from the time he was seven years old. He’d been walking past this place with his aunt and he’d heard the sounds of a youth band rehearsing inside. They’d been playing rock music, and Gordon wanted so much to be a part of it. They’d walked on. And he’d never heard music like that coming from the church hall ever again. Who’d been playing? What was that rock music? He’d never heard it before or since on the radio. Did the memory of it have something to do with him and the loneliness that had led him to the guitar after all these years? It was a melancholy puzzle.
But, for what he had in mind, it seemed to be the only place to go.
He’d never been inside the place before.
And he would never know what it had really looked like before the ’quake. The windows had burst out. The walls were fractured. He could see the blank greyness of the “sky” through the remaining, shattered roof timbers.
This was the place. The only place.
But would it work?
Sitting on the pile of rubble, Gordon unslung the guitar. He didn’t want to start with any practice-stuff. He wanted to start with something straight away. “Ninna Nanna Sul Nero”? No, he had done that the last time. What about the piece he’d played by the bonfire on the night of the dead? No, that was too special; he didn’t want to ruin the memories of the special bond that seemed to have been formed that night; in many ways, the most important night in his life, when the music that had been his only, lonely companion had reached out and he’d been able to share it with others. No, this must be something different.
Gordon strummed the first chord: “Closer to Heaven”. A good choice, given who he was trying to attract.
He looked around. What did he expect? That they would suddenly appear, as if by magic, just as they’d appeared that night back at the Rendezvous.
Give them time, Gordon, he thought. And keep playing.
The music filled the shell of the church hall, swirling out through the ragged timbers and into the greyness. The acoustic effect was strange; like playing in a
funnel. But the resonances were wonderful.
And while he played, Gordon thought about the strange creatures that Lisa had christened Cherubim. Were they really angels? If they were, what did it mean? If they weren’t—then what the hell were they? No one doubted what Alex and Candy had seen, or that they’d killed Wayne; least of all Gordon, who seemed to remain the only other person to have seen them so far. And why couldn’t he bring himself to raise it with anyone? After all, they were potentially lethal: Wayne was testimony to that. Why couldn’t he raise it with Alex and Candy, knowing the grief that kept their relationship so badly shattered and unresolved? What if one of those creatures really was their dead son, Ricky? The Cherubim fascinated and worried Gordon, and he had sat alone at night on more than one occasion since their first visit, ostensibly on guard; actually waiting to see if they would return. So far, he hadn’t the guts to play the guitar in the house again. Another puzzle.
So he was going to try this out. Away from everyone else.
Would they come?
There was no movement in the rubble. No secret, scuffling noises; no sixth sense telling him that there were other presences.
He played on.
He could see things so much more clearly when he was playing. Not only had most of Edmonville been wiped off the map, but also according to what Jay and Juliet had been able to get out of Trevor, the map didn’t exist any more. Even so, since the terrible time of the ’quake and the loss of his aunt, it seemed that Gordon had had more dealings with people on a one-to-one basis than he’d ever had in his previous life, in that other world. They might be living in a new kind of Hell, but at least he wasn’t alone any more.
A sound from above. A piece of stone or plaster, falling from the ragged hole in the roof. Nothing more. Plaster dust swirled in the air and Gordon watched the stone roll down the rubble mound on which he was sitting, causing a miniature landslide.