Chapter Three
Closer To Heaven
Gordon sat in the ruins of what had once been a church hall.
His throat was dry, and his heart was beating fast. Only part of him knew what he was doing here; the rest was driven by a strange impulse that both elated and frightened him. No one had questioned him that afternoon, when he set off on his own with his guitar slung over his back. Everyone knew the rules, about making sure that they were back at the Rendezvous and the safety of the lights, well before that greyness began to grow dark. Night had a way in this new world, not so much of falling as suddenly being there and taking everyone by surprise. But it was “early afternoon”, and experience had shown that there would be at least another four or five hours of safety left.
That morning, during one of her forages through the ruins, Annie had come across spare guitar strings. There were no music stores on this crag; the only one in Edmonville that Gordon frequented had been over a half a mile away to the west and had vanished into the Chasm when the ’quake hit, along with an entire shopping centre, the town hall offices and three thousand people. She’d been keeping an eye open for strings (among many other “needs”) during her foraging trips (at which she’d become quite expert) and had discovered that a general store they’d previously searched had a small music section behind a fallen wall. Nothing extravagant. No guitars there, and it seemed that the chance of there being any guitar string replacements was remote to say the least. But there they were; amidst fallen shelves and the crushed remains of a baby grand piano. On her return to the Rendezvous, Gordon was so overjoyed when she’d dropped them in his lap that he’d jumped from his seat and gone to kiss her. Suddenly embarrassed, he’d paused in mid-air.
“What’s the matter?” Annie had laughed. “Speechless?”
She’d kissed him then.
A good day and a good feeling.
But afterwards, when the strings had been fitted and he’d had some practice, the strange impulse had come over him. Lisa had looked up when he’d started off down the garden past the extension.
“More puh-practice,” he’d said, waving back. “And…walk.”
Lisa smiled, and nodded.
And he was gone, down past Yardley Terrace (or what was left of it), on past The Fallen Oak pub and the grisly reminder of the burned-out meat mart somewhere behind, down rubble-strewn Wady Street, past the overturned bus and its scrawled graffiti on the roof: Ed Gein.
And finally, to the Church Hall, standing on what had once been a main street; but now was the only building left standing with four walls. There was a mound of rubble inside; the remains of the ceiling, which had collapsed. To Gordon, this building had special memories. Not pleasant memories, exactly. He’d often walked past this building in his previous existence. Posters were still there, advertising a Line Dancing Special Event that had never materialised. How could they have known what was going to happen to Edmonville when the posters went up? Gordon wondered if any of the people in the community centre on the night that it burned had been intending to go along. And then he’d pushed the thought from his mind.
His special memory came from the time he was seven years old. He’d been walking past this place with his aunt and he’d heard the sounds of a youth band rehearsing inside. They’d been playing rock music, and Gordon wanted so much to be a part of it. They’d walked on. And he’d never heard music like that coming from the church hall ever again. Who’d been playing? What was that rock music? He’d never heard it before or since on the radio. Did the memory of it have something to do with him and the loneliness that had led him to the guitar after all these years? It was a melancholy puzzle.
But, for what he had in mind, it seemed to be the only place to go.
He’d never been inside the place before.
And he would never know what it had really looked like before the ’quake. The windows had burst out. The walls were fractured. He could see the blank greyness of the “sky” through the remaining, shattered roof timbers.
This was the place. The only place.
But would it work?
Sitting on the pile of rubble, Gordon unslung the guitar. He didn’t want to start with any practice-stuff. He wanted to start with something straight away. “Ninna Nanna Sul Nero”? No, he had done that the last time. What about the piece he’d played by the bonfire on the night of the dead? No, that was too special; he didn’t want to ruin the memories of the special bond that seemed to have been formed that night; in many ways, the most important night in his life, when the music that had been his only, lonely companion had reached out and he’d been able to share it with others. No, this must be something different.
Gordon strummed the first chord: “Closer to Heaven”. A good choice, given who he was trying to attract.
He looked around. What did he expect? That they would suddenly appear, as if by magic, just as they’d appeared that night back at the Rendezvous.
Give them time, Gordon, he thought. And keep playing.
The music filled the shell of the church hall, swirling out through the ragged timbers and into the greyness. The acoustic effect was strange; like playing in a funnel. But the resonances were wonderful.
And while he played, Gordon thought about the strange creatures that Lisa had christened Cherubim. Were they really angels? If they were, what did it mean? If they weren’t—then what the hell were they? No one doubted what Alex and Candy had seen, or that they’d killed Wayne; least of all Gordon, who seemed to remain the only other person to have seen them so far. And why couldn’t he bring himself to raise it with anyone? After all, they were potentially lethal: Wayne was testimony to that. Why couldn’t he raise it with Alex and Candy, knowing the grief that kept their relationship so badly shattered and unresolved? What if one of those creatures really was their dead son, Ricky? The Cherubim fascinated and worried Gordon, and he had sat alone at night on more than one occasion since their first visit, ostensibly on guard; actually waiting to see if they would return. So far, he hadn’t the guts to play the guitar in the house again. Another puzzle.
So he was going to try this out. Away from everyone else.
Would they come?
There was no movement in the rubble. No secret, scuffling noises; no sixth sense telling him that there were other presences.
He played on.
He could see things so much more clearly when he was playing. Not only had most of Edmonville been wiped off the map, but also according to what Jay and Juliet had been able to get out of Trevor, the map didn’t exist any more. Even so, since the terrible time of the ’quake and the loss of his aunt, it seemed that Gordon had had more dealings with people on a one-to-one basis than he’d ever had in his previous life, in that other world. They might be living in a new kind of Hell, but at least he wasn’t alone any more.
A sound from above. A piece of stone or plaster, falling from the ragged hole in the roof. Nothing more. Plaster dust swirled in the air and Gordon watched the stone roll down the rubble mound on which he was sitting, causing a miniature landslide.
The music came to an end. Gordon paused. Then began to play the same piece again.
Two hours later, he stopped.
What had he expected? That they’d come swarming again? What then? Did he expect them to speak, when he knew in his heart that they had no voice? Was he expecting them to give him answers?
Still unsure, Gordon hauled himself down the pile of rubble, and hoisted the guitar over his shoulder. He paused only once to look back, as if expecting to see small faces with bright, intense eyes; staring through the ragged hole in the ceiling. But there was nothing. Only the echo-memories of that day long ago, when he had walked past here with his aunt and had heard the music.
Back on the ruins of the street, head down, Gordon made his way slowly back to the Rendezvous.
Inside the church hall, plaster dust pattered down on the mound of rubble, swirling in a cloud. The cloud twisted and dispersed, as if something that moved faster than the eye could see had suddenly flashed through its centre.
A hinge creaked on a shattered door.
It sounded like the fading laughter of a small child.