Chapter Five

The Journal of Jay O’Connor:

The Others

It’s impossible to describe how I felt.

There was the special something that Juliet and I had found, in spite of our situation. Then there was what we’d just seen between Gordon and the boy—I mean Robin. If that wasn’t enough, the sound of the engine from overhead. Annie began whooping and waving her arms as the shape floated closer. Then we were all doing it, like we’d gone mad.

Candy and Damon came running out of the Rendezvous just after that. Maybe I should have put two and two together then, but the only thing that anyone could see or hear was the prospect of rescue, coming closer.

“Is it a helicopter?” asked Robin in his new voice. I saw Candy staring at him. She was looking at the kid and then at the shape in the sky, as if what she could see up there was somehow responsible for giving him back his voice. Damon stood, hands on hips and shirt tail hanging out. It was, as usual, almost impossible to read anything on his face.

Gordon shook his head emphatically. “Muh…” He looked down at Robin guiltily, as if another stutter might change everything. All the kid was interested in now was the thing in the sky. “Microlight,” finished Gordon.

As soon as he said it, I knew he was right. Not exactly the fleet of rescue helicopters we’d been expecting, but the first signs we’d had that there was something else out there.

“A what?” asked Candy.

“Motorised hang-glider,” said Juliet. “Looks like a two-seater, but there’s only one person in it.”

The microlight circled us as we continued to wave, like some great big kite. Perhaps a thousand or so feet high in that dense greyness. It was impossible to tell whether the pilot was a man or a woman. It dipped and continued to circle, dropping lower each time.

I knew what everyone was thinking then. We’d all had to accept what that small part of the Vorla had told us about what had happened to Edmonville. Under threat of being wiped out for ever in the daylight, we had to believe what the Black Stuff in Trevor had told us if we were going to come to terms with living in this new place. We thought that it had originally wanted us to despair, to believe that we were experiencing a biblical End of the World, complete with its self-created Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse—this time with Evil winning out. But Juliet and I also believed that we’d given that small part of the Vorla its own reasons to be terrified. It knew what had happened to the part of it that had escaped into the garden, and into “daylight”. And it knew that we were prepared to do it again. That’s why we believed its new explanation that we had been catapulted out of one existence and into another by some sort of “psychic” earthquake.

But now I knew the others were thinking that maybe the arrival of this newcomer meant that its second story had also been lies, after all. There was something out there. We hadn’t been transported to another fucking dimension, and help was coming.

“It’s all lies,” said Candy, giving voice to the thought. “What the Vorla said about us not being in our own world any more…”

“Don’t count on it,” I said, feeling like a shit. But someone had to say what came next. “It’s just a microlight. It could be another survivor on another crag somewhere. Maybe he or she’s found some petrol, been able to get up into the air. Maybe they’re looking down thinking we’re going to be their rescuers.”

What I’d said didn’t seem to wear down anyone’s optimism. Annie continued to whoop and wave; everyone was all smiles. Alex was ruffling Robin’s hair, and everyone still felt pretty good.

And then the microlight banked, and began to fly off.

“What the hell…?” said Annie.

“Where’s it going?” asked Lisa.

“Christ,” said Alex. “Maybe we frightened it off.”

The drone of the engine began to fade as the microlight dipped again and vanished over the semi-collapsed roofs of buildings on the other side of the street. No one had expected that to happen, and the mood began to change.

“But there still might be others,” said Juliet. “Other survivors, Jay.”

I nodded.

So we followed the microlight as it vanished from sight over the ruined rooftops, catching up with it again when it had reached the edge of the park. It droned and circled once more, as if it were encouraging us to follow, waiting for us to catch up. And as we hurried, the others were all yelling encouraging noises, trying to get the pilot to come down.

We passed the site of the bonfire, and it was a bloody strange feeling looking at the charred remains. We’d been here for nearly a year, but it seemed as if that first night we’d stood by this fire, surrounded by the dead and by a living black sea, was a hundred years ago. Maybe we would still be spending our nights here if it hadn’t been for Annie and Lisa.

“He’s going again,” said Alex, and we followed once more, heading off across the furrowed grass of the park towards the west. Past the bordering fringe of trees was the remains of the apartment block that had fallen into the Chasm and the collapsed flyover. We’d been over every square inch of our plateau, hunting for food and fuel. Alex had called it “maximising our resources”, and when everyone had looked at him he’d apologised and pointed out that he’d been a senior policy officer in local government before the earthquake. He’d burst out laughing then, and everyone had followed suit. Another good moment.

But the others weren’t enjoying themselves so much now as the microlight swung around in the sky, circled over the trees and disappeared once more.

“What the hell is he doing?” demanded Candy.

I looked at Damon. Still with his blank face. It was strange. After everything we’d been through, I expected him to be just as filled with hope as the others—no matter how thin that hope might be. I thought back to the early days, and realised how much he’d changed. Withdrawn, certainly since Wayne’s death. Not hostile any more, but with this air of waiting.

If only I’d known what he’d been waiting for.

We reached the trees and there, circling over the ruins of the apartment block, was the microlight again. Still there, still waiting for us to catch up. People were getting angry now, as we climbed over the shattered concrete blocks and rusted iron girders that had once formed the base of the block. From the top of the mound, we’d be able to see the fallen flyover and the rusted wrecks of vehicles that it had come down on.

But that was not what drew our attention when we climbed to the top of the mound.

“Good Christ!” breathed Lisa, grabbing Robin with a look of joy on her face.

“I don’t believe it,” said Alex breathlessly.

“They came.” Candy was on the verge of weeping. “After all this time, someone came.”

How do I describe the way I felt? Well, I can’t. I just know that this wave came over me as Juliet and I hugged on top of the mound. Hope, yes. Relief, certainly. I know that in that one moment, it was as if everything that had happened after the ’quake destroyed Edmonville…well, it was like none of it had happened. It all belonged to some nightmare time. There wasn’t time to think everything through, only time to feel the joy of knowing that our ordeal was over.

About four hundred yards or so away, just beyond the collapsed flyover, lay the cliff-edge. Two hundred feet or so from that cliff-edge, across the Chasm, was the nearest plateau to ours. It wasn’t possible to see its extent because of the destruction. From our standpoint on this side, we’d guessed that it was maybe a quarter-mile long, but the exact breadth of it was hidden by the other pinnacles and crags surrounding it. The blank greyness framing the ruins gave everything a false perspective. It could be a hundred yards or so wide, a quarter-mile, anything. There was no way of telling. As with every other peak or crag in New Edmonville, we’d spent time yelling across, trying to find out whether there were any other survivors. But there had never been any response. So we went on believing that we were the only ones; everyone else either dead in the earthquake, or devoured afterwards by the Vorla.

But we had been wrong.

There were other survivors.

Dozens and dozens of them.

And they were all here now, standing on the cliff-edge at the other side. Waving and cheering and yelling and hooting as we clambered down the mound, eager to get free of the rubble so that we could run the remainder of the way across the shattered highway and on to the open grass leading up to the cliff-edge. The microlight was still circling overhead, and now we knew why it had been flying on, circling and returning. It had been leading us to these other survivors. I saw Gordon swinging the guitar around his head as he ran jumping over a concrete block and falling full length on the grass. But then he was up and running again, still swinging the guitar as he ran. Alex swung the boy—I mean Robin—up on to his back, piggy back style. Robin was laughing wildly, the first time we’d ever heard him make that noise. Even Candy was smiling as she picked her way over the ruins, and no one had ever seen that expression before. Annie and Lisa had their arms around each other, and I couldn’t resist grabbing Juliet and swinging her round.

They were cheering even louder on the other side as we drew nearer.

Something made me look back, I don’t know what.

Damon was still standing up on the mound, hands on hips and looking down. It was hard to tell from that distance, but I think he was smiling.

“Come on, then!” I yelled back at him. “Aren’t you coming?” He didn’t move. He just stood up there, watching.

I looked at Juliet as we ran.

“There are others,” she breathed. Her face was…I don’t know…bright. I’d thought she was beautiful before. But now she was like no other woman I’d ever seen in my life. My chest was suddenly tight and I felt so good I could hardly breathe.

And then, fifty feet or so from the cliff-edge, we all stopped.

Everyone’s smile faded at the same time.

We stood and we watched as the crowd of people on the other side continued to whoop and cheer and yell.

And everything was wrong.

No one spoke. We just stood, and watched, and listened.

Not understanding at first, then disbelieving. All our hopes, all our joy. All the good feelings about finding someone else alive on these surreal peaks and crags of stone. All of it fading and dying as we realised that New Edmonville had found new nightmares for us. We saw, and we listened.

And then, once again…

We despaired.