Chapter Nine

The Ordeal of Juliet DeLore

Juliet seized a chunk of ripped piping from the ground as she moved; and turned to look back. It felt solid in her hand, a good eighteen inches long. But then she remembered what she’d done with the crowbar, and the memory of it turned her stomach and threatened to rob her of her will.

There was no sign of Trevor.

She clamped her jaw shut to stop her teeth from chattering together and moved from side to side, trying to see if she could flag where Trevor’s voice had been coming from.

“Frightened, Juliet?” His voice seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere. “You should be…you should be…”

“Trevor, you bastard! Keep away from me or…”

“I’ve only got one eye…but it’s…ALL THE BETTER TO SEE YOU WITH!”

The Citroën, over there beside the shopping trolley rank. He must be hiding behind it. Juliet took a short three-step run and hurled the piping at the car. The back window imploded in a shower of glittering shards, glass hissing to the tarmac. But now Trevor was laughing; he seemed to be way over to her left, somewhere in the bushes. Juliet ran on along the cliff-edge, swerving as she followed its ragged line, back towards the supermarket. On her right, she could see other chunks of rock like bizarre mountains jutting upwards from empty space, some as near as a hundred feet or so, others half a mile away, isolated against a blank grey backdrop.

“Over here!” she yelled as she ran. “Someone! Over here!”

But there was no movement on any of the bizarre crags, and it seemed that her own voice was flat and hollow compared to the unnerving echo of Trevor’s taunts.

“Yes!” laughed Trevor. “Come on over here, someone. We’re waiting for you, aren’t we, Juliet? The thing is, my love, there’s no one over there to COME! Now, isn’t that a funny thing? Just you and me stuck on our own little love island. Having a great party time.”

The cliff-edge furrowed away from the supermarket building and Juliet felt a wave of renewed hope. Her instincts were wrong. She wasn’t stranded. Behind the supermarket was solid land, and beyond that there would be help. She knew that there was a shopping precinct beyond. Surely there’d be rescue services.

But why no sirens? Why is everything so quiet?

She silenced the small, terrified voice inside. Now she could see the building that stood behind the supermarket. She saw the sign, Radio Edmonville, and then the communications mast, covered in aerials and discs, standing three hundred feet tall. There must be someone in there. Someone who knew what had happened; someone who, even now, would be broadcasting details of the disaster and what people should do. The cliff-edge curved directly up to the side of the local radio building and for a moment it seemed to Juliet that this building, like the supermarket, was also balanced on the edge of the crevasse—and that perhaps there was nothing beyond these two buildings after all.

“No, I don’t believe that!”

She jumped over a low wall, staggered on fallen rubble, and then headed directly towards the radio station’s main entrance. There was a small drive, with a low wall all around. Up ahead, a reception door; another swing-door like the supermarket’s. She set her sights on the door and ran hard.

Somewhere behind her, something clattered.

But she wasn’t going to turn and look.

She was going to reach that door, and find someone.

Suddenly Juliet knew that Trevor had broken cover; had emerged from his hiding place back in the carpark, and was racing after her. She could not hear his footsteps, couldn’t hear any frenzied ruffling of clothing, any displacement of air, but she knew that he was hurtling down upon her as she raced for the entrance. Fear was upon her again, threatening to slow her down, sap her strength.

At any moment, his hand would be on her shoulder.

His fingers would tangle in her hair.

She’d be yanked backwards to the ground.

And then her worst torment would begin as…

“No, this can’t be happening.”

Up ahead, Juliet could see that the radio station was perched on the edge of a cliff. The same cliff-edge that ran from here to the supermarket building.

“It’s not…it’s just not possible.”

Which meant that there was nothing beyond the broadcasting building and that she was stranded on this small chunk of a devastated Edmonville. A supermarket, a carpark, a local radio broadcasting company and its three-hundred-foot mast, a ruined warehouse and tumbled outbuildings. Beyond the radio station and the supermarket was a bottomless chasm, separating this plateau from the rest of the city beyond. Behind her and beyond the carpark, nothing but ragged peaks of stone and rock, like some alien landscape. And no survivors.

Other than herself. 

And Trevor.

“Juliettttt!” came his mocking voice, echoing in the stillness. “I’m coming to find youuuuuu…”