Chasm

by Stephen Laws

  “They were with us when Damon put that stuff into our drink. Gordon keeled over on the dump truck. The last time I saw Robin he was asleep in Lisa’s lap…”

  “And you don’t know what happened to them? Don’t know where they’ve gone?”

  Something was wrong here.

  Simon was staring back out of the window, but he wasn’t looking at anything. He was pretending to be looking, but really he was tuned in to me and was waiting to hear what I was going to say. He was just too keen to hear my answer.

  “Who the fuck are you?” I asked.

  “I told you, I’m a prisoner…”

  “Like hell you are.”

  Simon turned from the window to look at me. His face had hardened. And there was something about his expression, something about the coal-black eyes, that made me think I did know him, after all. No, I didn’t know him—but I’d seen someone recently with a very similar expression.

  “You’re related to him,” I said. “Aren’t you?”

  Simon stood up slowly, no longer apparently worried about being seen from the window. He straightened, and he just looked down at me with that blank face.

  “The Big Man who was in charge of those kids,” I went on. “The one who brought us here. He’s your father, or your brother.”

  “You’re a clever bastard, aren’t you?” He smiled then, showing a mouth full of bad teeth that I hadn’t noticed before. Then, raising his voice, he shouted: “You can come in now, Daddie-Paul! It’s all over.”

  The main entrance door juddered open, and suddenly we weren’t alone any more.

  The first one through was our old friend, the Big Man. Still wearing the same clothes, the same red belt sweat band—and the same expression as Simon, if that was this guy’s name. There was another man behind him; about the same age, naked to the waist. The family resemblance was remarkable. I didn’t like what he was holding in one hand. It was a gun—an automatic by the looks of it; the first firearm I’d seen since this nightmare had begun. I didn’t like the implications. He held the doors open while “Daddie-Paul” came into the room.

  He was an old man; perhaps eighty years old. A shock of white hair; a face like yellowed, wrinkled paper. Eyes shut, blanket over his lap. Pushing his wheelchair were two young women. Both with long black hair, and about seventeen years old. Twins? When the chair was through the door, the girls manoeuvred it up to me. Smiling, “Simon” moved to meet them all, looking back at me and gloating.

  “Did he tell you?” asked the old man.

  “He doesn’t know. It’s the same story as the others. No one knows where they’ve gone.”

  “Except our friend Damon,” said the Big Man. He had a voice like grinding glass. He smiled at some recent memory. The expression didn’t seem to fit his heavily pockmarked face.

  “Maybe it’s like the kids said.” The man with the gun came up from behind. His naked torso was well muscled but white, as if it had never seen the sun. There were deep scars on his forearms and chest which looked self-inflicted. One of them was carved like a crescent moon, just above his navel. He held the gun up so that I could see it. Grinning, he began to finger the barrel. “They could have woken up and got away into the ruins.”

  Eyes still shut, the old man shook his head. When he spoke, it was with a strength that didn’t seem to fit his frail body.

  “Damon did something with them. Something he wasn’t supposed to do. He’s just too frightened to tell us.”

  The Big Man laughed again. “Shall I ask him some more?”

  “At the burning place,” said the old man. “He’s failed the Test.”

  The old man winced then, one hand grasping at his chest. The others were instantly silent, and I could sense the tension. Was he about to have a heart attack? The pain on his face eased and his hand dropped once more to his lap. The old man chuckled then; as if laughing at some private joke. What the hell was going on here?

  “Where are the others?” I asked. My voice didn’t come out as strong or as confident as I wanted it. There was something about this bunch of newcomers. I’d seen traces of it before, in my previous life. When I’d first seen the Big Man on the other side of the Chasm, I’d felt it then; really strong. But now, in the presence of what was obviously a family group—the resemblances were too strong for them to be anything else—I could feel it coming in waves. These people were bad. They’d stamp my head flat as soon as look at me.

  “You worried about them?” asked one of the girls from behind the wheelchair. She was chewing gum, and pulled out a long pink strand. “You should be.”

  “The blonde one,” said Simon. “Juliet. She your girlfriend?”

  I didn’t answer. It seemed to me that anything else I said was only going to make everything worse.

  “I think she is,” Simon went on. He began to laugh. “Hope you’re not the jealous type. What do you think, Henry?”

  The Big Man just looked at him and smiled.

  Simon looked back down at me. “If you are, there’s some heartache coming your way. Right, Henry?”

  The girl with the gum laughed.

  “He means that him and Henry and Patrick and Don-Paul like blonde girls some of the time.” She stroked her own long black hair and looked at them with disdain. The other girl remained silent and sullen. “So they’re going to fuck your girlfriend to death. If they can get it up, that is.”

  “It’s up already,” said Simon, rubbing his crotch.

  “Shut up,” said the old man. Instantly, Simon was silent. The girl who had been talking made a pop with her bubblegum and was suddenly rigid with fear. Hastily, she gathered up the strands of gum and stuffed them back in her mouth. Was that a muscle twitching in Henry’s cheek? No doubt about it, they were all terrified of this apparently frail old man.

  There was a long, long silence.

  Finally, the old man said: “Leave us alone.” He grimaced again, as if the pain were returning. A yellowed hand played around his throat. “I said…leave us alone.”

  The men looked at each other; the girls didn’t know where to look. It was as if he’d asked them to grow wings and fly.

  “I said leave me with our new guest!”

  Instantly, they were heading back to the main reception door. Henry, the Big Man, roughly pushed it open while the others filed out. He seemed unsure about whether he should go or stay. As the black-haired girls shoved past him, I could see that the one who had been speaking was heavily pregnant.

  “I’ll be right outside if you need…” said Henry.

  “Out!” shouted the old man, in a voice that deafened me. The main doors clattered shut. They were gone.

  Now it was just me and the old man.

  I wriggled around to get a better look at him.

  “Hello again.” He smiled…and opened his eyes.

  It was dark in the office, but I could still see the glittering black liquid that filled his eye sockets. It swirled there, like black water going down into two miniature drains. He grinned at me, and all at once it was like being back in the boarding-house extension with Trevor Blake. The stuff in this old man’s eyes—it was the Black Stuff, the Vorla.

  I thought I’d be sick with fear.

  “Anything that even the smallest part of us knows,” said the old man, “is known by the Whole. Does that make sense to you?”

  I couldn’t speak. I knew that the old man could taste my fear.

  “What happened to Trevor Blake. Our conversation. The death of that small part of us. We know it all.” The old man closed his eyes again, hiding the two swirling pools from sight. But just like the shell that had been Trevor Blake, he knew where I was, as if he could see through those eyelids. “But did you really think that you’d chased the Vorla away for ever? Just by stringing up a few lights?”

  I looked around, tried to see if there was a way out. The old man grimaced once more; this time I could see that the pain was intense. No matter what I was being told by the Vorla, it was still in the b
ody of an eighty-year-old man with serious health problems. Was there a way I could overpower him? The grimace faded, and the old man smiled again, as if he knew just what I was thinking.

  “Don’t let this frail old shell fool you, Jay,” said Daddie-Paul, the grin spreading wider. “He died months ago. There’s a small part of him in here now, with the rest of the Vorla. But what you see…” He raised veined and wrinkled hands from his lap. “…is most definitely not what you’d get if you tried to escape. If I wanted to, I could tear you to pieces. I mean that quite literally. It’s been known to happen, you know. I keep the wheelchair because the others in my inherited ‘family’ seem to feel safer from me if I have to use it.”

  I stopped squirming.

  “We know all about you, Jay. All about you and the others. We remember all the times you resisted. Remember all the parts of us that were destroyed. That was mainly down to you. We haven’t forgotten that. And all the time you thought you’d driven us away, we were working to create another little family, on the other side of what’s left of Edmonville. Are you a religious man, Jay?”

  “You fucking bastard.”

  “We’ll take that as a no, then.”

  “What have you done to the others?”

  “They’re safe for a time. But we’re pleased that you’re concerned about them. Have you all grown close in your time here? Do you all care about each other now? We do so hope that you do. Because you can’t imagine the fear and the terror and the utter, utter pain that we have in mind for you. You’re going to despair, Jay. You and your friends are going to suffer such agonies that you’re all going to beg for death.”

  “What are you trying to do now, talk me to death?”

  The old man laughed—and there it was again. That hideous multitude of voices all coming out of one mouth. Just like Trevor Blake, just like the times when the Vorla had flowed in a black flood across the ruins of Edmonville.

  “We’re going to enjoy you, Jay. My, how we’re going to enjoy you.”

  “Who are those others?”

  “They’re my family. The Caffneys. What you see here…” The old man raised his hands to his chest. “…used to be Daddie-Paul Caffney. Head of the clan. Fifty of his eighty years spent in various prisons for a very creative range of criminal activities. These past ten years confined to his wheelchair, until the earthquake. Henry and Simon are his sons. Simon is the pilot of the microlight. More of that later. There are two other sons, Patrick and Don-Paul. A fifth son, Ronald, isn’t with us. He’s in prison, back in what you might call the ‘real world’. The daughters are twins, Tracey and Luanne. Their hobbies include incest, as you might have gathered. The mother committed suicide shortly after Daddie-Paul took to his chair. Years of worry about the boys coming and going from prison. Not so much the going into prison as the coming home. Daddie-Paul encouraged the boys’ sexual appetites not only towards his daughters, but also towards his wife.”

  “Nice.”

  “As you say.”

  “So why are you giving me the family history?”

  “We want you to know everything that’s happened here. Want you to know what lies ahead. When you and your friends…rejected our advances, we turned our attention to the other survivors in Edmonville. Finding the Caffneys in the shattered remains of a council housing estate was very pleasing to us. We visited the old man, showed the other family members what a wonderful thing had happened when he was filled with the Vorla. Oh, the miracles we’ve shown them. The wonderful things we’ve done since then. You and your companions rejected us, Jay. The Caffneys embraced us.”

  “Because they’re mad, sick bastards.”

  “And how could we ask for better qualifications? We gave the Caffneys our Great Plan. To hunt through the ruins, to find the survivors. To kill everyone over the age of sixteen, to save the children so that they could become part of our new family. We’re creating a new society, Jay. New rules for a new world.”

  I was still scared to death, but something about the sheer enjoyment of the thing that sat before me filled me with that slow-burning anger. The Vorla was everything evil about mankind, the essence of real Evil, and here sat a small part of it, taking nothing but delight from the horror and the misery that it inflicted.

  “You see, Jay, until the earthquake we were all alone here in this ‘No-Place’. Nothing but ourselves to feed on. You’ll appreciate, I’m sure, that I’m trying to keep this all very simple for you. The philosophical ramifications of the situation you find yourselves in are immense.”

  “You’re very considerate.”

  “Thank you. Can you imagine the joy? The very beings who created us…who continue to create us…are suddenly and wondrously transported here by means which even the Vorla doesn’t understand. Here! To the ‘No-Place’! Now wouldn’t it be foolish to destroy them all? Wouldn’t it be foolish to simply enjoy brief moments of torture and slaughter and pain and misery? When they’re all gone, we might never see another human again. How much better to keep some of them alive; how much better to create a new society with the Vorla as their God.”

  “You mean breed them like cattle. Keep the pain and the misery alive.”

  “Precisely.”

  “I don’t think you can ever understand how much I hate you.”

  “That’s good. We like that. We like that very much…”

  The old man coughed, one yellowed hand moving to his throat again. Suddenly, he didn’t seem to be giving off the same evil power. Something was happening here. Something different. The Vorla was telling me that it was in control, but I could see pain on that face. It said that it could tear me to pieces if it wanted to, but this was surely a frail old man. Did I stand a chance, after all? Had it—they—been lying about that part?

  “You’re a fucking liar, aren’t you?” said Daddie-Paul Caffney.

  There was something different happening here. That voice, for a start. That last statement didn’t fit with anything that had gone before, but it was more than that. It was as if there had been a change in the old man’s voice. It was the same voice, but there was a definite rise in pitch. And there was great pain there. I could see some kind of struggle taking place.

  “I’m still here, you bastards,” Daddie-Paul went on. He laughed. This time it dissolved into painful, racking coughs. They subsided and settled. He opened his eyes.

  The Black Stuff I’d seen in his eye sockets had gone.

  There were no swirling black pools.

  I was looking into the yellowed, rheumy eyes of an old man; not some shell filled with everything evil on earth.

  “They told you I’m dead,” he said. “They’re lying. I’m not dead yet. They don’t fucking like it—but I’m not dead yet.”

  I tried to speak, but couldn’t. The Vorla had completely possessed Trevor Blake, but it still hadn’t been able to take Daddie-Paul Caffney over completely. Not yet. Was there a real chance of getting away, after all? Was there real hope?

  The old man laughed again.

  “I can read your mind. You going to appeal to my better nature, boy?”

  “Listen, let’s talk about…”

  “You stupid little cunt! What makes you think that I don’t want what the Vorla wants?” Daddie-Paul’s face was a mask of rage. I could see the insanity and the cruelty there, and I could feel all my hope draining away. “But what’s mine is mine!” hissed the old man. “And the Vorla wants it too soon! They can’t bide their time. But I’m the head of the fucking family, and when the time’s right…when the time’s right…”

  I could sense the war that was taking place inside the shell of that old man. Daddie-Paul Caffney was just as evil as any part of the seething black mass inside his body. So evil and so strong that he was still able to put up some kind of fight against what had invaded and possessed him. A fight that Trevor Blake, mad and evil though he was, could never have put up. As the old man’s voice faded into silence, I knew what was going to happen next.

  I saw the Blac
k Stuff fill his eyes again; saw it swirl and bubble up in his eye sockets until I couldn’t see the old man’s eyes any more. His face had gone blank while the Vorla reclaimed its hold over his body. It couldn’t have been more than a few seconds but, as I’d come to learn, time had a way of standing still in this hellish place. When it was done, the old man closed his eyelids—and smiled again. When he spoke once more, it was with the voice of the Vorla, as if nothing had happened at all.

  “The arrival of a microlight pilot was a great bonus in our plan to spread and connect with the other isolated and fragmented mini-communities. He was so overjoyed to find us, so completely miserable when he discovered our Great Plan. Simon forced him to teach him how to fly. He’s a quick learner. We allowed him to torture the pilot to death when he’d finished. Something for which he was very grateful. And so…we have breached the Chasm on all sides using the tower-bridge technique where possible. Spreading the Word. Making the family grow. There has been much death, much torture, and a great deal of despair.”

  “And now you’ve got us.”

  “The jewel in the crown, Jay. You resisted so well. Now that’s all over.”

  “If it hadn’t been for Damon, you’d never have done it.”

  “Everyone has innate abilities. We were able to bring them out in Damon…which updates you very well, and brings us to the matters at hand.”

  The old man braced his hands on the armrests of the wheelchair and raised his head. The audience was over.

  “Henry!”

  The main entrance doors banged open, and the Big Man lunged in as if expecting trouble.

  “It’s time,” said the Vorla. “Get the others. Take him to the Council Chamber.”

  The Big Man strode across the floor as one of the daughters followed him in. As the dark-haired girl pushed Daddie-Paul out of the room, Henry seized me by the collar and dragged me after them like a sack of coal. He began to beat me as he yanked me along.

  The Vorla wanted us to despair.

  It was doing a good job.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Judgment Day

  Juliet had been to the town hall only once before in her life.