Restoration (42 page)

  "I guess we're safe from spiders then?" Hawkins said, coming up behind them followed by his wife and Ryan.

  "Maybe," Alan agreed, "let's just hope there's no scorpions."

  "Scorpions?" asked Jonah, bringing up the rear with Barnabas. "Where have you led us now?" He sniffed and held his face up into the sunset. "Feels like the open air."

  "You can just see the roof joists," said Hawkins, pointing directly above them. "Like the bathroom, it's big but still enclosed."

  "Well," said Maggie, "it makes a refreshing change after all those corridors, anyway."

  "Just avoid the canyon," said Ryan, remembering the beggar's advice. He looked over the edge, "you can't even see the bottom."

  "We're okay for now," Penelope said, "this high ground carries on as far as you can see."

  "Yes," agreed Hawkins, "and something tells me the hatchways won't be as close together as we hoped."

  "Well," said Barnabas, "just as well we all fancied a nice walk isn't it?"

  "Is it just me or has he cheered up?" Hawkins asked his wife. "He hasn't told us we're all going to die for ages."

  Barnabas grinned at him. "We'll be dead within the hour, Cap'n, just didn't see the point in stating the obvious."

  "Was that a joke?" Hawkins asked, open-mouthed. "What's got into the miserable sod?"

  They set off along the plateau, the dust kicking up around their feet as they walked. Every now and then they would pass more storage chests or cardboard boxes. To begin with, Ryan couldn't help poking around in them, finding one filled with baby clothes, another offering a selection of gas masks. "How about one of these each then, eh?" he asked, pulling one on his head. "In case Barnabas gets wind during the night."

  "Cheeky bastard," Barnabas replied, finding a little of his old grit, "this from a kid that once tried to impress us by farting
Rule Britannia
."

  "Gentlemen," said Hawkins, "do try to remember that there are ladies present."

  Penelope laughed at that. Ryan gave her a small, apologetic bow. "Forgive me madam," he said, "but it was bloody impressive, whatever the old bastard says."

  "I'm sure," she replied, "but I'm happy to take your word for it."

  Ryan threw the gas mask back in the box. "Just as well," he said, "I don't think I could manage a single fanfare right now. Maggie's stew was a vital part of the process."

  "There's nothing wrong with my stew!" she said, waving a finger at him in mock-admonishment.

  "Didn't say there was," Ryan replied, "best arse ammunition I've ever known."

  "Will you
please
change the subject?" shouted Hawkins. "No bloody breeding these days," he muttered, "that's the problem."

  "Sorry dad," Ryan joked, looking in another box. He darted back in shock as a flock of crows burst from the opened flaps and took to the sky. "Right," he said to himself, "I'll open no more boxes."

  "Probably best," Alan agreed, "next time it might be coyotes."

  They soon realised that the sun, which had hung low in the sky ever since they had arrived was beginning to drop further.

  "We'd do well to make camp," said Alan, "who knows what night might bring out here?"

  "Agreed," said Hawkins. "We should get a fire built and arrange shifts for a watch."

  "I'll go first," offered Jonah.

  "It's alright for you," said Ryan, "it's not all bad news being blind is it?"

  "Oh no," agreed Jonah sarcastically, "those extra couple of hours sleep more than make up for it. I'd recommend anyone losing their sight really, I've never looked back."

  They stopped by the skeletal hand of a dead tree, figuring the branches would make for decent firewood. Ryan and Alan offered to strip it, Alan only too happy to get Sophie off his back and stretch his aching muscles.

  "He fancies her don't he?" said Ryan as they began to snap branches.

  "Who?" asked Alan.

  "Barnabas," Ryan replied, "that's why he's all cheered up, he's all doe-eyed over Penelope."

  "You think so?" said Alan, smiling at the thought.

  "I know so," said Ryan, "look at him!"

  They glanced over towards the camp where Barnabas was trying to offer Penelope help setting out her bedroll. "She'll bite his head off," said Alan, "she doesn't take kindly to men trying to help her."

  Penelope smiled at the old sailor and stood back as he brushed the ground clear of any small stones that might get in the way of her comfort.

  "Maybe it's just you she doesn't like helping her, mate," said Ryan with a chuckle.

  "Maybe," Alan replied, returning to his wood gathering and trying not to take it personally.

  They soon got a good sized fire going, the wood lit as easily as newspaper but burned as slowly as peat. It seemed for once that things in the House were on their side. Maybe it was the part of the house that wanted them to succeed – the rational part of it according to the lustful yokel they'd talked to before entering the ballroom – or maybe it was just luck. Either way they had a fire to warm them and Maggie prepared one of her allegedly gas-provoking stews rather than put up with another meal of pre-packaged sandwiches.

  Once the sun had gone the attic became completely dark. With no moon or stars to shed any light their fire was the only source of illumination. It was disorientating, thought Alan, lying down on his bedroll and looking away from the fire. With no definition, nothing to fix on, they could almost be floating, a single ball of orange light bobbing in an infinite sea of darkness.

  "What are you thinking about?" asked Penelope, noticing his horrified expression.

  "Just the lack of light," he replied, rubbing his face and shedding the illusion of floating from his eyes. "The feeling of being so small in the middle of something so huge."

  "Well," she said, "we're always that. Here or back in the real world. Have you never looked up at the stars and realised how tiny you are?"

  He nodded. "What I wouldn't give to see some stars right now," he said, "I didn't realise how much I missed them until just then. Wherever we go, however big or small, we're always locked away in this box of a House. I'd give anything to feel the sensation of openness again, to know that above me there's nothing but space."

  "I know what you mean," she agreed. "It's only been… what? Less than a week since I've been here? Still it feels like the real world is something so distant, so…" she struggled for the words to define it, "…historical," she said in the end, "something you know was real but can't quite relate to anymore. Something that happened to someone else."

  "You think we'll ever get out?" he asked her.

  "Well, we know you must do at some point," she said, "you left here and came back. That's the thing I've been holding onto."

  Alan thought back to his conversation with Ashe and wondered whether he should share what he knew about the old man's future, the world he came from. In the end he decided not to, whatever Penelope had said about trust she had hope right now and he was damned if he was going to be the one to take that away from her. Maybe they'd be lucky and the future would be different, certainly Ashe hoped so.

  "We all need to hold onto something," he agreed. "We'd never get more than a few feet in this place otherwise."

  "What keeps you going?" she asked.

  "Sophie," he admitted, "and the fact that I might not be the complete screw-up I thought. Before I came here I was directionless, whatever horrors the place has thrown at me it's given me a purpose as well. That's something."

  "I suppose it is," she smiled, "most people just get a good job and get married. You have to go into an alternate reality and face death every day, you're a hard man to motivate, Alan."

  He laughed at that. "I think it's more a case of having spent my whole life looking backwards. For once I've started looking ahead, it makes all the difference."

  "Well," she replied, "let's hope there's something worth looking forward to."

  Yes, Alan thought, let's hope that.

 

 

Alan had agreed to take the second shift on watch, taking over from Ryan. When the lad woke him his face was contorted with such worry that Alan assumed something awful had happened. "What is it?" he whispered, looking around to see if everyone was safe.

  "You'll see," said Ryan. "The noises, coming up from the canyon. It's enough to send you mental."

  "What sort of noises?"

  "I don't know," said Ryan, "wailing… I can't describe it, you'll hear them soon enough, scared the shit out of me and I don't mind who knows it."

  Alan gave the boy's arm a squeeze. "Well, get yourself to sleep now, I'm here."

  "Probably never sleep again," Ryan said, but shuffled off just the same.

  Alan moved to the outer edge of the firelight and began to slowly stroll in a circle at the perimeter of the darkness. He had his torch and frequently shone its beam but it only illuminated more dusty ground and the edge of the canyon beyond them so he switched it off to conserve the batteries. To begin with he assumed that Ryan must have imagined the noises that had so scared him, the night was silent beyond the crackle of the fire and the sound of snoring. Then, after a few minutes, he began to hear them. He understood why Ryan had struggled to describe it. It was reminiscent of many things but not wholly evoked by any of them. Alan thought of the noise you made by blowing across the neck of a half-full bottle, or the ghostly whistling one heard in a marina, the wind drawing notes from the masts of the boats. This had that eerie quality but wasn't so tuneful. He remembered a girl who had been waiting for a bus outside the campus, laughing with her boyfriend – Albie Forrest, Alan remembered, that had been the kid's name, and the girl was Jessica… Jessica something. They had been play fighting, she accusing him of some imagined indiscretion, he rebuking her with a wide, innocent smile. He had stepped back and tripped on his own rucksack, falling back into the road just as their bus had pulled up. The sort of stupid, stupid thing that happened everyday. One of those stupid deaths, the sort that mocked the victim with their sheer fucking pointlessness. The front wheels of the bus had gone straight over him. Alan was sure that poor Albie Forrest had known nothing about his own death, just a sensation of hitting the pavement and then – bang – no more. His girlfriend though, Jessica – Alan wished he could remember her last name, he had never taught her but somehow the fact that she had seen her boyfriend die demanded the respect of his knowing her full name – Jessica
whoever
had opened her mouth and the wail of shock, the primal note that echoed out of her, not a scream like you see in the movies, a much more forceful noise, had also been similar to the wailing that came from the canyon. What sort of creature makes a noise like that? Alan wondered? He pictured something grey and small, wizened beasts, used to a life in caves and darkness. Their wide "O" of a mouth open in perpetual sound, pumping that terrible noise into the night air. It only took him a few minutes to become just as disturbed as Ryan had been. "Avoid the canyon," the beggar in Dyckman's painting had warned them. Hearing that noise Alan couldn't imagine for one moment something enticing enough to lure him in. He stepped closer to the edge, shining his torch again to ensure he didn't stumble in the darkness. You couldn't get a sense of the canyon's depth at night but he had marvelled at it during the day, drawn by Ryan's insistence that you couldn't discern the bottom. The boy had been quite right, it had been like gazing into a distant black lake with similarly dark tributaries running off and into the distance.

  As he stared over the edge he glimpsed a light, only brief but a flash nonetheless. A match perhaps? He glanced back towards the camp fire, wanting to make sure that everything was alright. When he looked back over the edge the light had returned, a small orb that appeared to bob along in the darkness. Someone walking a distant trail with a torch, maybe? Could somebody – some other unfortunate like themselves – have travelled through the box and be stuck down there in the darkness? Perhaps they were working their way up, terrified of the noises around them, desperately hoping to find the light. If that were so then surely Alan should help? Maybe hold his torch over the edge to guide them?

  Alan dropped to his knees, torch in his hand, and pulled himself along his belly towards the edge of the abyss. Even as he was doing this a small voice, a
uselessly
small voice told him he was mistaken, whatever that light was it was no passing innocent. Alan ignored the voice, barely even heard it – in his head there was nothing but that alien wailing, that noise that was like so many things but none of them precisely – he was determined to shine his torch into the darkness.

  The beam lit up the rocky edge of the plateau, pulling out shapes of small trees and outcrops of stone. The bobbing light hovered for a moment, no longer moving. Then, with a speed that proved the lie that it was held by any human hand, it swept upward, flying towards him like a signal flare. The wailing seemed to build in volume. Jessica's roar at the sight of her boyfriend leaking from beneath fat wheels, a child blowing a note on a half-empty coke bottle, a train unfurling its whistle in the depths of a tunnel. Alan's mind seemed to sink beneath it and he could imagine looking down on himself, lying there stupidly on the edge of the sheer drop, the vision falling away from him as if his consciousness were spiralling upwards into that endless black sky. It was a sensation akin to being faced by one of the wraiths that patrolled this House's empty spaces, that feeling of being both the observer and the observed. As if a sliver of the mind had been cut loose allowing you to exist in two places at once.