Chapter Twenty-Three

The Devil and the Deep Black Sea

“Something’s happening over there!” hissed Juliet, and instantly everyone was alert.

They’d managed to start a fire between themselves and the bridge, using assorted flammable wreckage that Alex and Lisa had managed to find within the plant, keeping it going with the fuel from the opened valve where Damon had met his horrible end. Night had fallen, and with it came the knowledge that the Vorla could erupt at any moment from the Chasm. The flames would be a defence against the hideous Black Stuff as long as they could keep the fire going, and the flickering of the flames against the far cliff-face was some small comfort. But while it illuminated the far side, it also meant that they themselves were much clearer targets for any pot shot from the Caffney’s side. And at any moment, when they’d managed to round up enough terrified kids from the ruins, they might follow through with a plan to rush the bridge.

“The Vorla?” Alex moved close to Juliet, scanning the upper part of the cliff which had been illuminated by the fire.

“No.” Juliet edged around, keeping the shotgun barrel levelled. “I think I saw someone running on the edge. Can’t be sure in this light, though. For a moment it looked as if someone was trying to lower themselves down or… There! Look, there he goes!”

A silhouette was dashing away from the cliff-edge.

“Jesus!” Juliet’s grip froze on the gun. The others tensed all around her in fear as a great black wave surged up from the Chasm, obliterating the running figure from sight. The reflecting light from the fire glinted on its great oily black surface. Screeching in pain from the light, unable to tolerate the glare any longer, it dissolved to right and left into the darkness, emerging again to ripple up over the cliff-edge in the darker areas, away from the fire. Now they could see that children were running and screaming on the other side; silhouettes dodging and weaving, arms flailing. It was chaos, and they couldn’t make out what was happening now.

There was the roar of a car engine.

“Get ready,” said Lisa. “I think they’re going to charge the bridge.”

They’d gathered makeshift weapons from the ruined petrol plant, to supplement the one shotgun shell. Twisted pipes, jagged glass. As Tracey huddled back in the darkness, moaning and curling herself into a foetus shape, they snatched up the first thing they could lay their hands on and prepared. Grimly, Juliet kept the gun levelled, waited for the surge of kids on the bridge, and prayed that somewhere in there she’d see Henry Caffney.

But the children were not swarming over the bridge.

They had vanished once more into the darkness.

And the screams of fear and terror were continuing.

A churning wave of Darkness, blacker than the night, seemed to spout from the ruins; falling from sight again in the chaotic confusion. The car engine roared again and there was a screech of tyres. Twin headlights stabbed into the sky, swept out over the petrol plant, momentarily blinding them. Then they were gone. There was another screech of tyres and the car engine roared off into the night. They listened to the droning as it dwindled and faded.

Now there was only quiet.

“The Vorla’s gone,” said Candy. “Thank Christ, it’s gone.”

“No it hasn’t,” said Annie.

And when they looked at her white face, they instantly followed her shocked expression back into the depths of the petrol plant behind them.

Where the reflection from their fire finally muted into flickering shadows, something was moving amidst the pipes, the bent fences and the giant containers. Something that flowed and spread, glinting black, its oily tentacles creeping and dripping on the metalwork, testing the barrier between light and darkness, looking for a way in.

The Vorla had flowed up from behind, and to their right and left.

Now there was no way back in that maze of pipes to refill the buckets.

Alex looked down at his feet.

Four buckets. Three filled, one half empty.

He looked back out across the bridge, started to say something about lasting out the night.

Then a bullet ricocheted from the pipework nearby, screaming like a wild bird of prey. They all ducked instinctively, fear stabbing.

Behind them, they could hear the thousand-thousand voices of the Vorla as it swarmed and flowed, hungry for their souls.

Candy gasped in alarm, grabbing at Alex. She pointed up at the giant container nearest to them, perhaps fifty feet away and a hundred feet tall. A black, scummy tide was dripping and flowing over the top rim down towards them. It met the flickering reflective light of the fire on the canister, hissed angrily, and retreated back up over the rim and out of sight into the darkness where the rest of the Black Stuff had surged and flowed in shadow.

Suddenly, anything Alex had to say about lasting through the night was desperately inadequate.

They crouched together in the flickering light, completely surrounded by the Vorla and with their only possible escape from this island plateau controlled by the Caffneys on the other side of the Chasm.

Tracey began to weep.

And no one had the energy or the inclination to quieten her.