The crowds were engulfed by the city as people disappeared into the tottering ruins, searching for what was familiar. The Tuileries gardens were almost empty, except for flocks of terrified pigeons. The alleys had buckled and cracked, fountains gushed from the wrong places and water ran everywhere from burst pipes. But at least they were out of the confines of the narrow streets and their dangers. They ran doubled over against the wind, bracing themselves against each gust. The sinister cloud filled with dust and fumes seemed to hang lower and thicker with every second, though not a single streetlight sprang to life in the gathering gloom.
The Place de la Concorde was an ocean of metal wreckage, except where the fallen stone blocks of the column had cut a swathe through it. The embankment with its expressway had slipped into the river, and the Seine hurled itself furiously at the lower end of the place. The air vibrated with screaming.
Carla shook her head. Her face was livid. She could only mouth her refusal to set out across the chaos. Without a word, they left the Tuileries, picking their way through the hazards of side streets, up to the rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré. Even in the sedate and opulent diplomatic quarter, the noise had risen to such a pitch that it drowned the sound of their running feet.
Panting, they raced up the steps in front of Carla’s building. The door stood open onto the entrance hall, and the last of the occupants pushed past them, desperate to get outside, anywhere as long as they were not trapped within the confines of a building. In the hallway, Carla hesitated at the bottom of the stairs and bit her lip. Now that the panic-stricken clattering footsteps had faded down the street, the building rang hollow and lifeless. Tully read the empty, hopeless look in Carla’s eyes. What if there was nobody there?
Chapter Three
“Gabriella!” Carla shouted and banged on the door. She fumbled for her keys, dropping her bag, not caring about the books that spilled over the landing. The door finally swung open and they sensed instantly that the apartment was empty. Everything was tidy, freshly vacuumed and a pleasant smell of beeswax came from the polished parquet of the salon. Carla looked at her watch and her features contracted.
“Merde, I forgot! Oh, God, what can we do now? She’s at her driving lesson. Of all the bloody stupid things, on the eve of the end of the world, Gabriella decides she needs to learn to drive!”
Carla buried her face in her hands and cried, all her pent-up grief surfacing in the tranquil, familiar surroundings of her home. She only stopped when an equally familiar furry head rubbed against her leg. “Tattoo,” she sobbed and grabbed the sleek, stripy cat before he sloped off again. “Thank goodness! I’ll just grab a few things then we’ll get his traveling basket. It’s in the cellar.”
Tully hovered in the doorway of Carla’s room, absorbing the stillness of it, the familiar smell of perfume, clean laundry and wax polish. It was so much a part of Carla, he had learned it by heart, every inch of it. He felt at home here, more even than in his own, shabby, untidy room, where the bed was rarely made and there was always a cat asleep somewhere in the folds of the sheets.
Carla’s room was where they both felt their lives touched, where the world stood still, shrank to a mere background noise. They snatched their moments of intimacy here, lazy afternoons when nothing mattered more than a kiss or a touch, and their disjointed half phrases, secrets and longings were more important and meaningful than anything discussed at international summit meetings.
Tully looked around the room and took a deep breath. It pained him to think that he might never see it again. The empty apartment echoed with a sense of finality, as if the life that had been lived within its walls had left for good. Something was ending, he was sure. How much and what would remain were the only unknowns. Impulsively he pulled Carla to him and kissed her. She hung onto him for an instant then wiped away a tear with the back of her hand.
“I know,” was all she said.
“I’ll see what I can scrounge in the kitchen.” He tried to smile back, but felt closer to tears himself.
* * * *
Carla had often made plans over the years of what she would save if ever there were a fire—what was most precious to her. As she stared at her room, her gaze flitting over the countless objects, souvenirs of far-flung corners of the globe, the objects suddenly lost their value. They became simply inert chunks of wood or metal, bundles of rags or paper. It was the people they represented who were important, and she kept all of those safe in her head. She pushed aside the crowding memories and chose her warmest clothes to change into. Into a pocket she stuffed an antique ivory monkey, a memento from her mother’s last trip, sole representative of all the other bits and pieces that had gone into the making of her nest since she was a baby.
Carla closed her eyes and concentrated on the cool smoothness of the figurine, imagining her mother’s fingers turning the object over, admiring it, thinking of how it would make Carla smile. She thought of her mother, somewhere in the Himalayas, in an Ali Baba’s cavern of fabulous oriental artworks, surrounded by saffron robes, computers and lasers, pigments and paintbrushes.
She wondered what was left of those ancient treasures now. Just a small ivory monkey? Carla shook her head, refusing to imagine the tumbled ruins of a temple, refusing to visualize a familiar bob of black hair among the rubble, refusing to let the latent tears creep out, and slammed the door on seventeen years of memories.
The temperature in the apartment was abominably cold. Breath hung white and heavy in the air, like being inside a fridge. Tully was shivering, and she could tell from the set of his jaw that he had clenched his teeth to stop them chattering.
Carla frowned, gathering her thoughts, trying to be practical. “You can’t go back out there dressed for the beach. There’s no knowing how cold it’s going to get, or how long it’s going to last.”
She opened the big wardrobe in the hallway and bit her lip as the tears pricked in the corners of her eyes. With a brusque, decisive movement, she picked out a sheepskin jacket—her father’s. She took her jacket, identical, and touched the remaining one, her mother’s. She buried her face in its soft depths, taking deep breaths of her mother’s scent, one last time. Tully turned away. In one way, she was saying goodbye, like you do at a funeral, but when she raised her head, her eyes were dry.
“I’ll see her again,” she said. “I feel it. You’d better borrow some of Babbo’s clothes for the journey. Those tennis shoes were never intended for trekking across the Arctic. And we ought to take something to eat. It might take us days to get out to the Community.”
Tully grinned. “No kidding! You just don’t want to have to eat my dad’s cooking when we get there.”
“Go and get buggered!”
“Carla! You can’t say that in English.”
“Who cares? Nobody,” she said and bit her lip.
* * * *
The light had dimmed to a stormy crepuscule and the deafening rumble of thunder filled every corner of the solid, luxurious apartment. The rising gale flung an unattached window shutter back and forth until with a final howl, the wind dragged it from its hinges, sending it crashing into the street below.
Despite the circumstances, Carla and Tully threw themselves into collecting together what they considered essentials, letting adventure fever dull terror and grief. When they were both dressed for attacking the north face of the Eiger and each had a rucksack full of gear, Carla took a key from the collection behind the kitchen door.
“Let’s go. No, wait a second.”
She took out her phone in the vain hope it would be working, threw it angrily back into her bag and took a pencil from a drawer in the kitchen table. She tore a sheet of paper from a notebook and scribbled a message for Gabriella, biting her lip to stop the trembling.
“In case she comes back. To let her know where to go.”
Tully slung his rucksack over one shoulder. Carla stuffed Tattoo unceremoniously under her arm, and they both hurried down the stairs to the cellars.
T
he electricity was cut, but there was always a flashlight for emergencies next to the fuse box at the top of the stairs. Carla led the way to the Bellini cellar. She pointed the flashlight into the middle of the jumble of objects to where the cat carrier perched on top of a stack of dining chairs.
Tully scrambled under an oriental-looking table, skirted a wingback armchair, edged around a tower of boxes full of assorted stones and fossils and grabbed Tattoo’s carrier. Carla realized he was stuck. He couldn’t turn, not with the carrier. There wasn’t room. She tried to hold the flashlight steady, but she had Tattoo under her arm, and Tattoo was wriggling.
The light beam swung about crazily, up to the ceiling into the far corners and over Tully’s head.
“For Christ’s sake, Carla!” Tully backed into the boxes of stones and the top one fell over with a sound like a small avalanche.
“Sorry,” Carla muttered. “It’s Tattoo.”
Tully winced as a fossilized nautilus hit him on the shoulder. He was about to shout at Carla to keep the bloody light still when the first really big quake struck.
Chapter Four
Carla screamed, and the pile of dining chairs tottered and collapsed into an impossible tangle. Tully‘s face hit the floor, as the whole cellar seemed to rise and fall back with a deafening crash. From the floors above came an ominous rumbling and the cascading shriek of breaking glass.
He shoved backward, hard. A table skittered sideways, shedding its load of baskets and boxes over his back, and he was free. Carla was crouched by the door, pointing the flashlight down the corridor. She turned as Tully blundered to join her.
“I couldn’t hold him!” Her eyes were distraught. “He ran off behind the boiler.”
Tully’s annoyance dissolved instantly. Carla was almost at the end of her rope.
“Let’s go get him then,” he said, with what he hoped was a jaunty air, “before the whole bloody building falls down.”
They ran to the end of the corridor, Tully wondering if he was completely mad, playing hide and seek with a spoiled moggy in the middle of an earthquake.
“Come on, Tattoo. Time to get in your basket,” Carla cajoled. A stripy tail flicked in and out of sight in the shadows behind the boiler.
“Here. Try this.” Tully fished a squashed piece of focaccia out of his jacket pocket. “I was saving it for later,” he explained apologetically. Tattoo poked his nose out and sniffed. “Get ready.” One paw crept forward then another, nose and whiskers twitched with interest, as Tully placed the oil-scented bread on the floor just out of the cat’s reach. He flexed his hands and braced himself, ready to lose a couple of fingers.
Suddenly the cat froze, whiskers trembling in agitation, ears flicked back against his skull, and fur standing on end. Tully lunged and the cat backed away spitting, backing away not from Tully’s hands but from a round hole in the wall. It was a hole the size of a manhole cover, a hole that contained a blackness darker than any blackness Tully had ever seen, a blackness that vibrated and whined and moved like ink spreading through a glass of black water. Intrigued, Tully reached out a questing hand to the hole, the vibrating emptiness, whatever it was.
Carla shouted a warning—“No!”—and grabbed his other hand to pull him away as the ground shifted and buckled again. As they staggered, falling, floundering, the hole appeared to tip toward them, growing in size, reaching out to enclose them both. Above their heads the building shook itself apart, and they plunged into the humming darkness.
Chapter Five
Carla wanted to call out to Tully, to reach out and find that he was still there, that she had not dissolved into the nothingness that was worse than any nightmare darkness she had ever experienced. This was not just the absence of light. This was the absence of everything, everything that was solid and tangible. She could not even tell if she was falling, sinking, drowning or flying. She felt nothing, had nothing to feel with.
All she perceived were the vibrations, the half-understood, almost intelligible sounds like distant voices. And the voices were inside her head, the voices of thousands of millions of living beings, flying past too fast to be caught, like the faces beyond the window when two high speed trains pass. The voices filled her head so full that there was almost no room for fear. Almost.
Then there was silence, a silence so profound it was as though she had been flung from a car and smashed into a wall. The silence struck so hard that she knew nothing more.
* * * *
Tully groped about in the darkness until he found Carla’s hand. He had no idea if he had stopped falling, or if he had been moving at all. All he remembered was the sensation of being nowhere, of being nothing, nobody. Atoms dispersed in the void. Then he remembered the voices and a blind fear rose up and grabbed at his throat until he felt sick.
Calm down, he ordered himself. You’re not in pain and Carla’s here beside you.
“Carla?” he croaked, and the sound of his voice revealed the other sounds he had not noticed before, the faint tremor of Carla’s breath, a scraping when he moved a stone with his foot, the faint sigh that came from his rucksack when he shifted his weight on it. And the darkness was no longer total. Vague silhouettes cut the dim light in one direction. Carla squeezed his hand.
“Tully? You okay?”
“It’s too dark to see the blood,” he said, “but I think I can cope with the pain.”
He grinned hopefully but Carla’s face was strained, weary. “We must be trapped in the cellar. There was a quake. It sounded like the building came down on top of us.” Her eyes opened wide. “Tattoo!”
Carla felt about her as if she couldn’t decide if she was upright or lying down, sat up, waited for her head to stop spinning, then swaying slightly, got to her feet.
“Tattoo,” she called louder. Tully scrambled up too and took her hand. Together they made their way to the pale glimmer of light. “Hey, Tattoo! I see him.”
They stumbled toward the small shape, crouched and waiting, his tail twitching. The cat stayed where he was, giving no sign of recognition.
“It’s me, Carla, stupid! The one who opens the tins, remember?” She reached out her hand and the cat retreated, ears flush against his skull, his upper lip curled back in fear. “Tattoo?”
Carla moved another step forward and the cat turned and fled, scuttling off into the dim gray light. Carla ran after him. Ten strides and she stopped. Tully saw her clearly against the wan light from outside, saw her stop, wait, saw her press her hands to her mouth, then he ran to her.
They were standing in the mouth of a cave—grotto, tunnel, an opening of some kind—whether in a hill or simply a mound of debris, it was impossible to tell in the gloom. All Tully could make out was a jumble of irregular hillocks, more like a gigantic rubbish tip than a site of natural beauty. More than the gloom, it was the sense of hostility that made him want to back out of sight, his eyes sliding furtively after half-seen movements. Carla pointed, her eyes wide with horror. He followed the direction of her pointing finger and what he saw made him glad there was so little light.
Tattoo was creeping, backing up to a shifting heap, away from the rippling movement that surrounded him. The ripples leaped and squirmed, squealed and chattered. Tully saw naked scaly tails and colorless fur among the ripples. Carla formed Tattoo’s name silently, helplessly, as the cat, his fur bushed up, one paw raised in hopeless defense, was submerged beneath the wave of rats. Carla sobbed and Tully hid her face on his shoulder. It was over in seconds, but the single scream of terror and despair rang in his ears long after Tattoo’s body had been ripped to shreds and carried away to the vermin’s nest.
* * * *
Tully held Carla while she vomited, feeling nothing but her distress. Only when her shoulders had ceased their convulsions did he notice the cold. It was bitter, even though they were dressed for mountain conditions. He supposed it must be the shock. Still holding Carla close, he looked about him, trying to believe what his brain was telling him he was seeing.
There was no cellar, no boiler room, no Paris. He gazed in horrified disbelief across a nightmare landscape of desolation, littered with the rusting carcasses of thousands of vehicles, like so many discarded beer cans. Gray, sinister cloud obscured the sky. The earth was an undulating rubbish heap of mounds and mountains of rubble, stone, concrete and twisted metal. Pools of scummy liquid frothed and bubbled in the depressions, and the glacial wind whipped up eddies of gray dust that lay deep like filthy snow.
Far away, a low mountain peak glowed and snarled, and the ground shuddered beneath his feet, shifting the piles of rubble and sending tremors through the pools of thick liquid. Among the metallic remains that pointed to the charcoal-colored sky, the outline of a tree stood out, still tall, unbroken, but alone.
“Jesus Christ,” he whistled. “If this isn’t Hell, it’s a bit strong for how I imagined Purgatory.”
Carla straightened up. Her eyes were dull and filled with the resignation of a condemned animal. “Everyone’s gone now, even Tattoo. Where is this, Tully? What’s happened to us, to everything?”
Tully just shook his head. “How about if we just go back inside, find our gear—try and get back to where we started?”
The idea of going back into the darkness, with its memories of the whispering void, did not enthrall him, but as he pointed out, it was either that or head off into the War of the Worlds and hope the aliens had all gone home. Carla made a valiant effort to smile but it came out as a grimace close to tears. Tully put his arm around her and hoped his own despair was not too obvious.
They found their rucksacks by groping around in the darkness about twenty yards from the entrance to the cave—or whatever it was. Although the air here was slightly less cold, there was a feeling about the place that made Tully’s hair stand on end, an impression that there was something there. He could hear nothing. The silence was complete. But there was a density to the air as if something was filling the space, and he had no desire to find out what it was.
Abomination (The Pathfinders Book 1) Page 3