Darker by Simon Clark
And her final goodbye.
It came again. Metal shrieked as a road sign quivered flat. Houses burst into a spray of rubble. A dog barked hysterically, then …
… then it gave a screeching yelp – and stopped.
‘Richard! Come on! Come on!’
There was nothing but noise and fury. Dust from the houses obliterated the sight of Christine sitting frozen with shock in the car; dust blasted into Richard’s eyes, blinding him.
Any second now —
Any second now it would all be over.
All the hurting and the running and the misery and the guilt and the pain.
Richard dropped to his knees. His wife. Christine. Why did —
‘Richard! In here,’ Michael was shouting. He’d picked Amy up in his arms: she clung fiercely to his neck. Richard could just see through his stinging dust-filled eyes. Joey and Tommy lumbered through the side entrance into the Minster. Michael followed, carrying Amy.
What now?
What on Earth do you fucking do? thought Richard desperately. Follow Michael? Amy would need her father now. Or try and find Christine, buried somewhere in that boiling cloud of dust?
No. She’s dead, Richard told himself. Help Amy.
So, scrambling on his hands and knees through that choking, blinding dust, Richard clawed his way in through the door into the Minster.
Chapter 43
Terror
Inside the church the silence was as sudden as it was eerie. Richard, panting, covered in red dust from the pulverized brick, could only stand there, trying to stop panic from sending him crashing over the edge into madness.
Outside a street lay in ruins.
Inside, here, stillness. The sun shone through the stained-glass windows that were as big as house fronts. They depicted saints and angels. The walls of the Minster soared upwards; above him timber beams held the roof high above his head. The space within the building was so vast you could have actually flown a microlite plane through the thing.
He blinked, looked round. There were tourists everywhere. They were looking at each other and up at the stained-glass windows. They’d heard something happen, but what? Two men in black cassocks and dog collars ran by him towards the side entrance to see what was happening.
A sound like thunder rumbled across the building.
‘Come on, Richard.’ Michael called as he hurried along the aisle, carrying Amy. ‘We can’t wait here any longer.’
As if coming out of a dream Richard saw Joey half-walking, half-stumbling after Michael, his face grey; he clutched his chest as if his heart edged on bursting. Tommy was there, too. Helmet off, he looked round in bewilderment, his blond hair pink from the light coming through the Rose window.
‘Heath. What happened to Heath?’ he murmured, shocked.
‘Stay here, and you’re dead,’ snapped Michael. He wasn’t waiting for them now but turned and ran for the main exit at the front of the building.
‘Dad!’
Amy’s head bobbed up and down as Michael ran with her in his arms.
Dazed, Richard followed. Tommy grabbed hold of Richard’s arm and babbled, ‘What’s happening? What happened to Heath? Heath needs a doctor. He needs an ambulance.’
‘Does he shit,’ hissed Richard at last. ‘The poor bastard doesn’t even need a coffin; neither does my wife.’
Frightened tourists pushed for the exit now. There were shouts. Names of wives and fathers were called as people were separated from their families in the narrow aisles.
The Beast struck.
Richard looked back over his shoulder.
With an almighty crash the wall they’d just come through bulged inward. As if that vast expanse of cream-coloured stone had just become as soft as a curtain. It bulged … bulged … splitting cracks appeared. The noise began. A constant thundering like a mighty waterfall as blocks of stone heavier than a man could actually lift poured down, smashing wooden pews, statues, lecterns, tables.
Richard moved backwards, unable to take his eyes from the terrible sight. Rubble cascaded on to the stone heads of statues, shattering them, then crashed down on to the human heads below, bursting them like raw eggs.
Screams pierced the thunderous rumble; people ran. In panic some ran into the destruction; falling timbers broke grown men like toys.
Crash.
Stained-glass windows punched inwards, in clouds of streaming coloured fragments. Richard looked up. They seemed to hang for ever there, a hundred feet above his head, twinkling shards of glass in brilliant reds, blues, greens, yellows; then he realized they were falling. He threw himself under the shelter of a lectern as ten thousand slivers of glass pelted down.
A wave of screams filled the building as the shards of glass buried themselves deep into necks and heads and faces.
Move, MOVE, MOVE!
The Beast’s coming your way.
Any second, You’ll be flat as shit beneath a road roller. Accept it, Christine’s dead. Amy needs you now. You’ve got to live for the sake of your daughter.
‘Amy!’ he called. He couldn’t see her now, or Michael, or Joey. Jesus, don’t let Michael leave Amy in this hell. She’s four years old, for Christsakes; she wouldn’t stand a chance in this mad stampede of people.
He ran along the aisle, looking for Amy. He barely noticed that Tommy still ran with him, screaming, ‘Who planted the bomb? Who planted the bomb?’
Crimson and rose-pink blades of stained glass studded the back of his leather jacket; a lick of fresh blood reddened his blond hair.
‘Amy! Amy!’ Richard shouted into the roaring mayhem.
Behind him a stone column buckled and exploded. Dust filled the church, blotting out the sun that streamed through the remaining stained-glass windows.
Richard clawed his way on. The dust turned day into night until he could hardly see a foot in front of him. Sometimes he tripped over people lying on the floor. Sometimes hands clutched at him; injured people begged for help.
The dust mist thinned. He could see that the tiny exits at either side of the Minster’s huge locked main doors were clogged with people. For a second he thought he saw Joey being pushed forwards by the surge of people. Where was Michael? Did he still have Amy?
Christ, let her be safe, let her be safe, the desperate prayer whirled through his head over and over. Christ, let her be safe, please let her get out of here.
Behind him, tons of stone blocks fell onto the church organ; it bellowed out a great fugue of notes as the air was crushed from the metal pipes. For all the world it sounded like a great beast, gored to its very guts, roaring its fury and its pain as the House of God came tumbling down.
Down, down in a splash of stone, glass, and blood.
Blood spattered the walls. And it hung in the air in a fine spray as dozens of men and women burst beneath the rocks, or beneath the invisible fist of the Beast itself.
He realized it couldn’t have reached him yet, otherwise he would have been crushed, too. The carnage around him had been caused by the lethal shrapnel of glass and shattered masonry.
He scrambled over upturned pews. A Japanese woman lunged out of the dust cloud, vomit covering the front of her dress. She begged in Japanese. Shaking his head, dazed, ears bleeding from the sudden compression of air, he pushed on towards the exits.
Now Richard’s insane world was by turns plunged into darkness and filled with dazzling sunlight as the dust screened the windows before blasts of air cleared them again.
Darkness. Light. The endless rumble thundered on. The church organ still bellowed a cacophony of discordant notes.
Darkness. He moved forward by touch alone. Then came a flashing light. He saw a severed hand. Still clutching a camera, the twitching fingers clicked the shutter button, sending out a strobing flash.
Light. Thirty feet away he saw a statue of St George slaying the dragon crushed to a dust as fine as talcum powder.
Richard cleared the last of the pews and raced across the expanse of ston
‘Richard!’ screamed Tommy as he was enveloped in dust. Richard was just able to make out the leather jacket and blond hair as the man fell. Richard turned to help.
Darkness again. Richard thrust his hands out blindly. His hand closed over the blond hair. He pulled.
Again came the sensation of the air being sucked from his lungs as the Beast lifted itself upward ready for another strike.
The updraft of air sucked away the dust cloud. He could see again.
‘Tommy, get to the —’
He stopped talking. Tommy’s head hung by its hair from his hand. The body had vanished.
From the torn throat hung long strands, like a fistful of spaghetti the colour of blood. For a split second Richard stared in ghastly fascination at the man’s face. The tongue moved backwards and forwards between the blood-red lips. As if the severed head was actually trying to speak.
Richard dropped it and ran.
Sunlight blasted into the church in front of him. Someone had managed to open the huge twin doors. People flowed out through them like water pouring through a break in a dam wall.
Not knowing whether Amy was still inside the church, whether she was alive or dead, Richard was carried outside into the sunlight.
Chapter 44
Wreckage
He couldn’t stop.
That thing was right behind him. He had to keep running on through the city.
He glanced back as he ran across the paved area in front of the Minster. Now the massive doorway set in the face of the church between two towers looked like an almighty mouth.
An almighty mouth that vomited people and dust and masonry, as the Beast moved through the interior of the building like a piston through its cylinder, forcing everything before it.
Or crushing everything beneath it.
‘Richard!’
He looked round, dazed.
‘Richard!’
He looked again. Michael stood at the side of the road, covered in dust. He gripped the book parcel so tightly he looked like a drowning man clinging to a stick.
‘Richard,’ Michael called. ‘Have you seen Amy?’
‘Amy? You had her! You were carrying her!’
‘We got separated in the crush.’
Richard looked back. The huge church seemed to be folding in on itself as if it was made out of cardboard. A two-hundred-foot tower sank down with a surreal majesty. Dust clouds burst high into the sky.
Richard knew he had no alternative. He had to go back. He had to find Amy. Or die trying.
‘Richard … Richard …’ Joey lumbered out of a knot of people. ‘Don’t go back there.’ Spit gobbed from his mouth. ‘They’re all dead … don’t go back … run …’
‘I’m not leaving her,’ yelled Richard.
‘And neither am I,’ Michael said. ‘The crowd in the road. Look there,’ he told Richard. ‘Joey … Joey …’
But Joey had already gone. Clutching his chest, he ran in the direction of the bridge that spanned the River Ouse.
Michael shook his head, dust fell from his hair. ‘I’ll check in the square.’
‘But —’
‘Make it snappy, Richard. It’s coming. I reckon we’ve got all of twenty seconds.’
As he ran toward the road he saw an impossible sight.
He slowed down, his eyes straining forward in disbelief.
A grey car bumped onto the pavement and accelerated toward him.
‘Christine?’ He began to run forward. ‘Christine!’
At first he thought he was hallucinating. But he could see his wife in the car. Dust covered the windows and paintwork. A fist-sized-dent in the bonnet showed where a brick had slammed down on to it.
Christine used the wipers and screenwash to clear away the worst of the dust. He saw her expression. Grim. Determined.
The car screeched to a stop in front of him.
He threw himself into the passenger seat.
Christine’s eyes locked on to the road in front of her. ‘Where’s Amy?’
‘I don’t know. I was going to look —’
‘Too late.’ Her voice was coldly matter-of-fact. ‘Joey?’
‘He took off on foot. Michael’s … wait. Christine, wait!’ Richard beat the dashboard with his fist. ‘Michael’s there on the other side of the road. Thank Christ for that! He’s found Amy!’
Christine pulled over. Michael pushed Amy in the back, then scrambled in after her. Christine was accelerating away before he’d even closed the door.
At that moment Richard felt a great surge of gratitude towards Michael for saving Amy’s life. At that moment he would have given him everything he owned.
‘Quick,’ Michael panted, his arm protectively round Amy. Her eyes were glazed with shock; her hair was clotted with white dust. ‘You’ve got to get us away. It’s right behind us.’
He looked back. Feet away a tree shivered, branches sheered from the trunk, then the trunk itself slapped flat to the ground.
Christine floored the accelerator. The car rocketed forward, weaving round cars and dazed tourists. She drove in the direction of the bridge, concentrating on nothing but getting them clear.
‘Joey.’ Richard pointed. ‘There’s Joey.’
Joey tanked it towards the bridge, his stride slow and heavy, still clutching his chest with one hand as if his heart would snap.
Christine slowed, ready to pull alongside him.
Michael said in a low voice. ‘Don’t, Christine. It’s too close.’
‘No.’
‘Keep driving.’
‘No.’ She’d made up her mind. ‘I’m stopping for my brother.’ Michael sighed and rubbed his face in frustration as much as exhaustion.
Richard looked back to see Joey collapse in through the back door, his head and torso falling across Michael’s legs. Michael pushed him back into a sitting position. Joey couldn’t speak, panting for breath. Drool slid from his mouth in strings. His brown eyes looked up sightlessly at the roof of the car.
Richard closed his eyes. But he knew he’d seen sights today that would stay with him until the day he died.
He heard Christine accelerate away from York’s shattered heart. He would only open his eyes again when it was a long, long way behind them.
Chapter 45
On the Road to York
Ten miles from York Rosemary Snow heard the news on the radio.
She pulled the van over to the side of the road. Her blood turned cold.
‘… unconfirmed reports say that more than thirty people are dead, with many more injured by falling masonry.’
‘Oh, my God,’ she whispered. She knew what was behind this.
‘York Minster has stood for nine hundred years in the city of York, a magnet for tourists. It will be a long time before experts can tell us what actually did happen. But the people of York will remember for ever the day their most famous landmark and place of worship came crashing to the ground. Now … we can go over to Stephanie Robson, live at the scene of the disaster.’
In the background sirens, shouting. The voice of the reporter quavered. ‘I’m standing here in front of what should have been a magnificent Gothic building. All that remains … all that remains is a mountain of white stone, shattered gargoyles, fragments of once-beautiful stained-glass windows crunching like snow beneath my feet. Ian Garside was standing just here when it happened. Ian, what did you see exactly?’
The man sounded both shocked and excited. ‘I’d been to buy a newspaper. I was standing just where I am now. Heard an almighty bang, then … thunder. Just thundering on and on. I looked up and the whole building gave way in the middle. Towers crashed down. I thought of all those poor people; I saw —’
Rosemary switched off the radio. Her mouth was dry and the side of her head had begun to throb.
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Closing her eyes, she breathed deeply. Images flashed chaotically across her mind like a madman hitting the controls of a TV remote. First there were images of people running through a vast building. A church organ thrashing out discordant notes. Lumps of rock falling from above. Amy … Yes, she was seeing through Amy’s eyes. She was being carried. By her father. No … The man’s anxious face swelled into close up. The downturned eyes, the brushed hair.
Michael.
Michael carried Amy through the collapsing building.
Obviously the little girl was important to him. Just as Rosemary had been. Until she had failed him. Then she had been left to the mercy of that thing.
Then more images leaping out of the darkness. The totem pole again. All hooked noses, beaks, hooky ears and the eyes. The staring, staring eyes that …
That for some inexplicable reason terrified her more than words could say.
Stay with it, Red Zed, stay with it. See what Amy sees now. You can do it. Amy, where are you? What do you see?
Images came. They were flattened and distorted. Rosemary guessed the little girl was confused, frightened.
One second she could see the girl’s hands knitted together in her lap. They were white with dust. The car moved fast. Tree branches whipped overhead. Someone was talking. To Amy it was a rapid mumbling sound that made no sense whatsoever.
With cars droning by the VW van at the roadside, Rosemary rested her throbbing head against the side window. Soon an image would come, she told herself. A road sign or a place name. She was so close now. She could feel it. She would find Michael.
And she couldn’t wait to see the look on his face when she could say to him, ‘Hallo. Remember me?’
Chapter 46
After the Storm
Amy sat on the climbing frame in the garden. The sun had begun dropping towards the hill that climbed up at the back of the cottage, trees whispered gently in the evening breeze, a dove called. And Richard felt like shit.