Chapter Twenty-Five

Flames of Hell

“You can’t stay there for ever!”

The voice echoed across the Chasm from the ruins on the other side.

Juliet swung the shotgun round, trying to get a bearing.

“It’s Henry,” said Lisa.

Alex knelt beside them, trying to get his breath back. He’d found something back there in the petrol plant, had just managed to return before the Vorla had surged up around the canisters and the pipes again. He’d found two metal cylinders, braced by some kind of harness. They looked like something a scuba diver might use, but much too cumbersome. For most of the previous day, after the Vorla had vanished back into the Chasm on the far side, he had been scavenging in there; hunting for fuel, trying to find something to help them. Now the night was returning, and the Vorla was already flowing up into the shadows for a second assault. He’d managed to retrieve four cans and two buckets of fuel from the valve where Damon had died, before it ran dry. God knew how long that would last them. Annie moved forward to him, looking at the cylinders. Alex pointed, still unable to speak; but Annie couldn’t work out what he’d found, or why he thought it would help them.

“Do you hear me?” came the voice again.

There was a scuffling movement out there somewhere, in the ruins. Juliet swung the shotgun again, but there were no moving targets.

“You can’t stay there for ever,” shouted Henry.

Juliet could contain her rage no longer.

“You going to make us an offer, Henry?”

Lisa moved quickly forward to place a hand on her arm, afraid that she might fire the last shot off in anger. Fierce and determined, Juliet looked quickly down at her, shook her head and yelled back at Henry: “You mean you’ll let us all go?” It was a taunt. They all knew that the Caffneys had no intention of letting them get out of this alive.

“Oxy…” breathed Alex into Annie’s questioning face. “Oxy…” He pointed at the cylinders, then stabbed a finger furiously at the nearest petrol container, towering a hundred feet behind them. Was the Vorla already swarming up the back of that canister in the darkness, waiting for the fire to dim so that it could flood down upon them? “Oxy…”

“No!” shouted the invisible Henry Caffney. “We won’t let you go, and you can’t get away.”

“So fuck off then!” shouted Lisa.

“But we’ll kill you quick.” Henry was trying to get something like real empathy into his voice, as if he were giving them a really worthwhile alternative. “We won’t burn you, like Damon. We won’t torture you.”

“You’re all heart!” Juliet swung the shotgun continually, praying that she’d get a sight of Henry’s head, looking at them over a chunk of concrete or a fallen wall. “I suppose you won’t rape anyone to death, either?”

“Not if you don’t want us to,” said Patrick Caffney from the darkness.

“You shits…” Juliet stood erect, ready to fire into the night.

“Juliet!” Lisa seized her with both arms around the thighs, throwing her weight against her body. Struggling, Juliet fell awkwardly.

At the same moment, a bullet ricocheted from the pipework where she had been standing, screaming into the darkness.

“Oops!” said a voice from the other side. The Caffney brothers began to laugh. Lisa lay on top of Juliet, preventing her from rising as she squirmed and thrashed beneath her.

“Juliet, no! Let go of the gun! Please, darling. Let go of the gun…”

“They…they killed him, Lisa. They killed Jay.”

“I know, my darling. I know they did.”

Both women began to weep, holding each other and letting the grief out.

Annie was suddenly over them, sliding the shotgun from Juliet’s grip and taking up position to cover the bridge.

Alex was still fighting to regain his breath.

“Oxy…” he began.

“Oxy-acetylene,” finished Annie, nodding.

Alex pointed again at the hundred-foot petrol canister behind them, then back at the two cylinders he’d retrieved from somewhere in the plant. He didn’t have to say anything more.

“You thick bastards know what oxy-acetylene is?” shouted Annie.

The Caffney brothers were still laughing, but now it was forced; as if the joke were long over, but they had to keep it going to make sure that everyone on the other side knew they were being mocked.

“Oxy-acetylene!” shouted Annie. “See it?” She looked down at Alex, hissing: “Hold it up. Just for a moment, then down again. In case anyone tries to take a shot.”

Breathing heavily, Alex did as he was told.

“See that?” shouted Annie.

No answer.

“See it? That’s two cylinders of oxy-acetylene. Highly flammable. Now listen to this, you lunatics. Alex is putting those cylinders up against the nearest petrol canister. He’s doing that…” Annie nodded at him, and Alex seized the cylinders, took some deep breaths and scurried to the canister. Warily, he scanned the top of the container, remembering how the Vorla had swarmed over it the previous night. “…he’s doing that now!”

Annie swung the shotgun back out over the Chasm.

Nothing moved over there on the other side.

And the Caffney brothers had stopped laughing.

“Do you know what would happen if I fired this shotgun into those cylinders?”

Silence.

“Do you?”

Nothing moved, and the darkness was deepening just as it always deepened in New Edmonville. Just as if someone somewhere were operating a dimmer switch.

“Well, let me tell you,” Annie continued. “The cylinders will explode. And they’ll blow a great big bloody hole in the canister. And then—surprise, surprise—there’ll be about ten tons of burning petrol all over the place.”

Alex scurried back to where they were all huddling.

Candy put a hand on his arm.

Alex looked at her with real astonishment.

For most of the time since they had been stranded over here, she had been huddled with Tracey. Had it been because Tracey was the outsider? Did Candy feel that from the beginning she had always been the real outsider in this ramshackle group of survivors, and that this somehow made her closer to Tracey, no matter what her mad family had done? Alex looked at the hand on his arm, saw Candy’s face in the darkness and felt something there that brought a fire into his heart. In the same moment, Tracey’s head slumped down on to Candy’s shoulder; an expression of deep weariness, fear…and utter trust. Something had happened between them in these last couple of days. Unspoken, but very real. And somehow Candy was different.

Alex clasped her hand fiercely, then ran to join Annie.

“You’re not laughing any more, Henry!” shouted Annie. “Come on, let’s hear you all laughing! Let’s hear the Vorla laughing when I pull the trigger and the thing it hates most starts gushing down into the Chasm. Let me hear you laughing!”

Alex looked at Annie. She was doing what Jay would have done, using the anger to conquer the fear. God, he wished that Jay were still alive; that he were here with them now.

“If you do…” Henry’s voice was filled with rage. “If you do—then you’ll burn!”

“It’ll be worth it!” yelled Annie.

There was silence again from the other side.

The flames from their makeshift fire cast guttering shadows across the ramshackle bridge and the ruins beyond the Chasm, creating false movement over there.

And then the whispering began.

First like a wind, building gradually in strength. Now a deep and trembling shudder that they could feel in the ground beneath their feet. Now it was the sickeningly familiar sound of the thousand-thousand voices.

They looked back into the petrol plant, expecting to see the familiar black flood surging through the pipework, dripping from the canisters. But although they had no doubt that it was back there in the darkness, they could see no sign of it. The whispering became a thundering, like a tidal wave bearing down upon their isolated crag; to sweep them away in a churning frenzy of Black Death.

“The Chasm,” said Juliet, and everyone faced front again. Shadow and light danced and crawled on the far cliff-face. Was there movement down there, or was it just the reflection from the flames? The thundering sound was like a storm now; but there was no wind, and the air remained deathly still. “The Vorla,” she went on. “It’s rising…”

Alex seized a bucket of fuel, and broke cover from behind the pipework to position himself behind the fire. If the Vorla was going to risk showing itself in the flames, then he’d give it something to think about when he threw the entire contents of the fuel on to the fire.

“Oh God,” said Candy, cradling Tracey in her arms. “Look…”

Just below the rim of the cliff-edge, on the border between darkness and the flickering reflection of their fire, a black sea had risen to fill the entire Chasm on all sides. It roiled and churned there, hating the light, feeling the painful and searing touch of the light on its surface as it rose and fell…rose and fell…  They could feel its hatred radiating from the abyss. They had thwarted it so many times and, even when in the clutches of the Caffney tribe—the first of its “new society”—they had somehow managed to thwart it again. That hatred, that rage and frustration, had finally driven it to an action that would cause it hideous pain—to show itself in the light.

The Vorla surged up out of the Chasm, into the flickering light, filling the abyss to the very edge, where it churned and boiled in a black, hissing frenzy.

There was another sound now, almost drowned by the frenzy of the Vorla. It was a droning sound, rising and fading, somehow also familiar.

“You want some of this?” yelled Alex, pulling back the bucket of fuel, ready to throw it on the fire. “You want some of this…?”

The droning sound rose in pitch, like some gigantic gnat up there in the darkness somewhere. There was no doubt now; it was the sound of an engine. 

A shot rang out.

Alex spun, the bucket flying from his hands, fuel splashing down over his legs.

“Alex!” Candy scrambled to him as he fell heavily, the bucket rattling away.

Annie pointed the shotgun at the cylinders, anxiously looking down as Candy turned Alex over.

“Oh God, Alex…”

Blood was pumping from his shoulder. Candy grabbed at the site of the wound, a crimson flood drenching her hands. Alex moaned and tried to rise.

The droning came again—and there was another shot, this time impacting on the pipework nearby.

“Christ,” said Juliet, scanning the darkness above them. “It’s the microlight! Simon Caffney’s up there somewhere with a gun.”

“He can’t be!” snapped Lisa, also searching the darkness. “He’s flying blind…”

“And we’re perfect targets for him right here by the fire.”

Its surface boiling and blistering, the Vorla shuddered and roared—and a huge black waterspout erupted fifty feet from the ramshackle bridge. That fountain froze in mid-air, a suspended marble-black column fifty feet tall, while at its churning base the Vorla twisted and roiled in a boiling frenzy.

There was a human figure at the top of the fifty-foot spout, with his back to them. Arms held wide, he was being borne up by the black immensity of the Vorla—all for the benefit of the Caffney tribe, crouching until now in the ruins. Still terrified, still needing the extra stimulus to action that the Caffney brothers had so far been unable to beat into them, the members of its tribe cowered when they saw who was riding the immense black wave, and looking down upon them like a fiend from Hell.

It was Daddie-Paul Caffney.

Cast down into the Chasm, he had risen again from the dead. Borne up by the Vorla, to take command once more, and to bring this maddening stand-off to an end.

“Blood!” roared the dripping black figure from above. “Pain! Death!”

Another shot roared from the darkness above.

Candy screamed as Alex spasmed in her arms, blood spraying her face from where the bullet had punched a hole clean through his thigh. In agony, Alex’s eyes rolled up, his face a contorted mask of pain.

“Do it!” yelled Juliet to Annie.

Annie glanced from the cylinders to where Alex clutched Candy tightly. In a matter of seconds they were both covered in his blood. She looked back to the oxy-acetylene. Tracey was cowering, covering her head with her hands and moaning.

Annie and Lisa’s eyes met.

“Do it!” shouted Juliet.

“Rise up, my children!” howled the Vorla from Old Man Caffney’s mouth. It was the voice of the thousand-thousand, Daddie-Paul now absorbed into the hideous, vast, evil bulk of the black sea. “Rise up and take them! Show them that you’re worthy! Destroy them and begin again!”

“We can hear you, Daddie-Paul!” screamed Henry, suddenly standing up in clear sight. “We hear YOU!”

“Annie!” shouted Juliet. “You’ve got to!”

Annie cocked the hammer on the shotgun, pointed it at the cylinders.

And the fuel that had spilled from Alex’s fallen bucket and which had trickled in a stream to the fire by the bridge suddenly ignited. A rippling wave of flame raced back across the open ground to where Alex and Candy lay.

“Christ!” snapped Lisa. “Look out…”

Suddenly the wave of flame was on them. Alex’s trouser legs burst into flame as the fuel engulfed his lower torso. Candy began beating at the flames, and now her hands were on fire as she swatted and clawed. Lisa tore her jacket off, dived on to Alex’s legs and began to smother the flames.

“Rise up!” screamed Daddie-Paul. “Rise up, RISE UP!”

And suddenly, with the Caffney brothers shrieking like wild animals and urging them on, the terrified tribe of children burst from the ruins. Clambering and sliding, yelling and screaming, one hundred and fifty children of all ages erupted from the ruins into the flickering firelight. Whooping, fire and terror reflecting in their eyes, they ran wildly at the bridge. Somewhere in the mad, headlong dash the Caffney brothers were running too; stooping, keeping low amidst the kids. In moments they would be on the bridge.

“Annie!” yelled Juliet.

Candy and Lisa had extinguished the flames on Alex’s legs. Now they were both pulling him back into the shadows.

The first of the tribe had reached the bridge.

“Dear God,” said Annie, and pulled the trigger.

The blast flung the cylinders back against the canister with a ringing clatter.

But there was no explosion.

And no fire.

Annie and Juliet stared at the cylinders.

Nothing.

“Oh Christ…” Juliet stood up to face the bridge, hefting a chunk of pipe.

Annie turned the shotgun around, so that she was holding it by the barrel like a club.

Somewhere above, the microlight droned as it circled the petrol plant in the darkness, ready to make another pass.

On top of the black-marble column, shimmering and blistering in the reflected light of their fire, Daddie-Paul Caffney swirled around to face the petrol plant—arms held wide like some biblical Anti-Christ. Like some obscene parody of Moses, presiding over the parting of a Black Sea, he howled in the thousand-thousand voices of the damned; exultant in the knowledge that in moments those who had denied the Vorla would be torn to pieces, or worse.

This was the way it would end, after all.

And then something exploded in the darkness on the other side.

A mushroom cloud of billowing black and orange erupted from the ruins. Curling and blossoming, it lit up the shattered brickwork and the crumbling façade of the ruined buildings with stark light. Then another explosion. Another and another—one after the other, creating a billowing wall of fire behind the Caffney tribe. A blazing drum whooshed into the air as if it had been fired from ground level like a rocket, cascading liquid fire into the night sky which rained down on all sides.

On the petrol-plant side, the survivors staggered when the ground shivered under the impact of the next detonation. The bridge shifted in its moorings as a gigantic explosion lit up the ruins, bright as day.

Suddenly, the tribe were scattering from the cliff-edge once more, running and screaming. The Caffney brothers were left standing alone, still crouched, not knowing what was happening or what to do.

Daddie-Paul, atop the Vorla, whirled back to face the ruins.

The department store behind them had begun to burn, the bottom two storeys suddenly engulfed in flame. Lakes of burning petrol were spreading and devouring the base of the building. Deep within the roaring shrouds of flame, in the middle of the street, was the faint outline of a blazing petrol truck. Its cargo of unrefined fuel had just left the plant a year ago when the ’quake hit; and the lorry had ploughed into the building, scattering the drums all over the street, where they had lain until this day. The drums were still detonating, one at a time.

Shrieking, arms covering his black and steaming head, Daddie-Paul began to melt atop the bubbling black column.

And Jay O’Connor walked out of the inferno, straight towards him.

“Oh my God,” said Juliet. “Oh my God, Annie. Look…”

He was no more than a silhouette against the blazing inferno behind him.

But there was no mistaking the way he walked, the way he held himself.

He was holding a shotgun in one hand as he came, its barrel pointed at the ground.

Like Daddie-Paul, he had been raised from the dead; raised from the Chasm.

The Caffney brothers had cowered from the sight of their father screaming atop the black wave. Now they followed Daddie-Paul’s agonised gaze to the figure who was emerging from the flames. Suddenly, there was no more screaming. The kids in the ruins were no longer running or hiding. They were frozen like the others, watching mesmerised as the figure walked calmly from the flames towards them.

“The Vorla isn’t all-powerful,” said Jay, his voice carrying above the raging furnace behind him. The blazing building began to crumble and disintegrate, falling in upon itself. “It’s been lying to you from the very start. You saw what happened. They threw me into the Chasm—but I’m back. And I’m telling you this: the Vorla is Evil. That’s what it is and what it does. We denied it, and so can you!”

“Daddie-Paul!” screamed Henry Caffney, on the verge of insanity. Patrick and Don-Paul flinched from him as he stared back up at the dripping black figure of his father.

With fire in front and now behind, the Vorla was in a torment of agony. Hissing and thundering, it boiled and thrashed in the Chasm. Henry watched his father’s face melt and dissolve, saw his body come apart in flowing black rivulets. The column sagged and began to fall back. Now Daddie-Paul was a shapeless black lump of tar. The column vanished beneath the cliff-edge, the head of the Caffney clan now completely reabsorbed into the hideous black mass.

Henry looked back into the flames.

Jay was still coming on.

Henry raised the automatic pistol that he had been using to snap shots off at the survivors by the petrol plant, and pointed it directly at him.

Jay was still coming. As he walked, he swung the shotgun up and pointed it directly at Henry.

Sweating, his face contorted, Henry’s gun hand wavered.

“Go on, then, Henry,” said Jay. “Try it.”

Trembling, Henry pulled the trigger.

His gun was empty.

Moaning, he dropped it to the ground. Unable to confront this dead man from the fire, crazed by the apparent second death and defeat of his father and the loss of the sister who was bearing his child, Henry whirled in the other direction. Shrieking, he directed all his insane hatred at the figures who were standing by their own pitiful fire on the other side of the bridge, flinging the empty gun at them. It dropped out of sight into the Chasm, where the Vorla had once more taken refuge, just below the flickering fire-line, seething and boiling in black torment.

Shrieking again, Henry charged across the bridge.

Patrick and Don-Paul were swept along in their elder brother’s blood rage. Echoing his cries of savagery, they followed, intent on tearing the others limb from limb.

Now Jay was running after them. Unable to use the shotgun for fear of hitting the others, he hurtled across the rubble-strewn ground as Henry reached the other side of the Chasm. Patrick stumbled and fell on the bridge as Don-Paul jumped over him. Suddenly, there was a flailing jumble of confusion as the brothers reached the other side. Jay saw Henry lunging at Annie as she reared from the shadows, holding the shotgun like a club. He heard the stock of the gun connect with Henry’s shoulder, heard him scream again as they both fell, clawing and thrashing. There was a flurry of blond hair as Patrick seized one of the figures and they both went down.

“Juliet!” yelled Jay, and now he was sprinting over the bridge.

Below him, tentacles of stinking black ooze flopped and writhed from the surface of the Vorla, whiplashing at his legs as he ran. But the light was too much; the tentacles hissed, steamed and fell back into the blackness as Jay leapt from the bridge.

He was back!

Juliet was alive!

With an anger that was at once fierce and vengeful but also controlled with an ice-like determination, Jay ran at Patrick Caffney. He’d pinned Juliet to the ground, dashing the steel pipe from her hands. His hands were fastened in her hair as he beat her head against the ground. Jay brought all the impetus from his leap off the bridge into a kick which caught Patrick in his midriff, snapping two ribs and hurling him away from Juliet. He rolled in agony, clutching his side as Juliet struggled to her feet. Whirling, Jay cracked the shotgun butt down against the side of Henry Caffney’s head. It didn’t stop him. He was strangling Annie. Lisa had him by the hair, yanking back hard. Jay positioned himself, brought the butt down squarely in his face. Grunting, blood spraying from his nostrils, Henry fell back.

In a paroxysm of fury, two dozen black tendrils snaked out of the Chasm and fastened on the bridge. Already weakened in its moorings, it shuddered as the others whirled back to look. With a grinding crash, black tendrils already dissolving and steaming in the light, the bridge was wrenched from the cliff-edge on both sides. It disintegrated as it fell into the darkness. Now they were trapped on this crag.

Don-Paul Caffney flew through the air, taking Jay by the shoulders.

The shotgun flew from his hands as he went down under Don-Paul’s weight. They rolled on the ground, gouging and clawing. Juliet stumbled to her feet, ran to help, and the next moment Henry Caffney had seized her leg and dragged her down.

Somewhere, Tracey Caffney was screaming.

And another shot from the microlight kicked up a showering clod of earth as Patrick joined the fight once more, seizing Lisa by the throat. Suddenly, the remaining buckets of fuel that Alex had retrieved from the plant were clattering over in the struggle, dark-glinting pools of fuel were flowing towards the fire, and everyone was covered in the stuff.

Candy had dragged Alex away from the fighting. His legs were smoking. Now she began to shake him with fuel-blistered hands, trying to wake him.

The microlight buzzed overhead, momentarily visible in the flames.

Another shot screaming in the night.

Alex could not be woken.

“Oh, Alex…oh God, Alex. Please don’t be dead.”

When she touched his face, he was cold.

Henry Caffney screamed as he pulled Juliet on top of him. Quickly she found his eyes, was digging her thumbs into the sockets, her blond hair shrouding his face as he fought to throw her off. Patrick was groaning and clutching his face where Lisa had kicked him as she managed to pull away from his grasp. Jay and Don-Paul were still rolling in the fuel, trying to reach the fallen shotgun.

Candy stroked Alex’s hair gently, as if she had all the time in the world. Somewhere in the darkness, the microlight buzzed and whined as it completed another turn. Simon Caffney was ready to make another pass.

The spilled fuel reached the fire.

Several trails were ignited at once, all flaring and racing to where the figures struggled in the shadows. Lisa saw what was happening, kicked herself free of Patrick once more when he lunged at her, and seized Juliet round the middle, dragging her from Henry Caffney. But it was as if Juliet had the blood rage too; she did not want to be separated from this madman. She wanted to blind him; wanted to punish him for the terror and the misery that he had inflicted. Then Jay found his feet under Don-Paul and kicked out hard. The impact flung him to his feet. Arms pin-wheeling, he tottered away from him.

Just as two of the converging fuel trails reached his feet.

Time back-flipped again for Jay. Because now he was surely back at the beginning of the nightmare, still in the meat mart with the living dead, watching as they were transformed into staggering human torches.

Instantly, his body covered in the fuel, Don-Paul Caffney became a blundering mass of flames. He shrieked only once before the fire invaded his throat and burned out his vocal cords. His arms flailed and beat at his body as a lake of fire erupted all around him.

Lisa pulled Juliet free and they staggered away as Henry got to his feet.

Jay followed them, dodging quickly aside as Don-Paul blundered blindly in his direction, arms held wide. Pools of fuel erupted around him with every step. Suddenly, fire was surging and leaping all around them. Jay leaped over a burning stream—and there was Juliet at last.

They clung together as if they never wanted to let go again.

They had felt it first out on that dislodged radio station mast. Two strangers in terrible danger, clinging together with an intimacy that defied any rational explanation. The reality of that intimacy constantly tested by the hideous dangers in which they had been placed; pushed to the limit by their separation and the near certainty that they had been separated for ever by death. But both were alive, and together again, and in worse danger than ever before. In that brief moment, clinging together, they felt that first surge of wild love again and knew instinctively that they couldn’t get out of this situation alive. But they were together again. And if they had to die, then at least it would be together.

They turned to watch in horror as Don-Paul Caffney blundered straight into the petrol canister. He pounded and thrashed at the base of the container, as if his blazing arms could somehow beat a hole in the steel and extinguish his agony. But now he was falling to his knees; his body crumpling, sagging and finally sprawling…over the oxy-acetylene cylinders. Suddenly, as the fire ravaged and consumed his body, something began to hiss beneath him as he twitched feebly. Already peppered and punctured by Annie’s shotgun blast, the cylinders were slow-leaking. At any moment now, they would ignite.

Henry and Patrick were immobilised once more, staring at the blazing mass that had once been Don-Paul. Lakes of fire were burning all around them. Jay looked for the shotgun, saw it lying in a burning pool and knew that it was no good to them now.

“Where’s Alex…?” He looked around for him, and saw Candy cradling his smoking shape as they both huddled in the darkness. They hurried over to them, Lisa dragging Tracey, who could only stare back at her immobilised brothers in shock and awe.

And they knew that Alex was dead before they reached him.

Candy looked up at them, her face streaked with tears and smoke.

“We’ve got to get away from here, Jay!” gasped Annie. “Those cylinders…”

No sooner had the words passed her lips than there was a shattering roar. Light flared bright as the cylinders finally exploded. Flames spewed high, gobbling up the side of the petrol canister; a jagged shrapnel of metal hissed and clattered around them.

“Run!” yelled Jay.

“But where?” gasped Lisa. “The bridge has gone.”

“Then we’ll just have to…” But Jay got no further as a horrifying sound began to issue from the burning canister. There was a noise of rending metal and of great pressurised forces about to erupt. The canister must split at any moment, releasing its entire contents. “Come on!” Jay leaned down and grabbed Candy.

“I can’t leave him here! I can’t!”

“Candy,” implored Annie. “We’ve got to move…”

“Come on!” Juliet leaned down and seized one of Alex’s arms. Jay grabbed the other, a feeling of profound sorrow engulfing him. At first he’d despised the man; had later come to respect and admire his guts and his determination. But he’d arrived too late to help him. Between them, Jay and Juliet hoisted Alex’s lifeless body, an arm over each of their shoulders, and began to drag him away from the canister and deeper into the plant. Something ruptured on the other side of the canister with a ripping crack.

Shadows leaped in the pipework and on steel containers ahead of them.

Might a part of the Vorla still be in there, swarming and dripping on the pipes, hiding in the darkness? Waiting to drop down on them from its hiding place in a horrifying and smothering embrace?

There was no time to think about it. They had to get away.

Henry and Patrick Caffney were gone somewhere behind them, apparently engulfed in the flames that leapt from the cylinders and the rupturing canister as they ran on through the maze of pipes and containers. But where the hell could they run to? They were stranded on this crag, with no way off.

The ground beneath their feet had lost its solidity.

Suddenly, they were all pitching forward, reeling against the steel pipes and sprawling to the ground as a wave of heat hit their backs. Jay and Juliet struggled to prevent Alex from falling as, with a thundering roar, the canister finally exploded behind them. They whirled to look back, and through a maze of steel saw the hundred-foot canister erupt into a gigantic fireball as tons of burning fuel spewed out…and down, out of sight, into the Chasm.

On the night of the community centre fire and explosion, they had heard a similar screaming. They had heard it when they’d thrown blazing torches into the Black Stuff as they’d stood by the protection of the bonfire. And they had heard it tonight when Jay had somehow managed to create the raging inferno in the ruins.

But nothing could have prepared them for the hideous shrieking agony of the Vorla as tons of burning fuel spewed from the shattered canister and over the cliff-edge down on to the black sea. They listened and watched in shock and awe as a towering riot of exploding flame obliterated every detail of where they had struggled only moments before. Something like a gigantic black cloud was rearing behind the inferno, but this wasn’t smoke. It was a rearing mass of the Vorla itself, gushing skywards from the Chasm in a futile bid to free itself from the ocean of liquid fire that was pouring down into it. The black cloud disintegrated when it reached the peak of its desperate bid for freedom; its spiralling mass now igniting as the fuel that soaked it finally erupted like some immense firework display, filling the sky with a flaming web of liquid fire. As they watched, the screaming mass of fire was falling back into the Chasm as the canister continued to empty its contents.

The canister next to it also exploded, then another…and another.

A sea of fire surged in their direction.

“Run!” yelled Jay, and knew again that there was nowhere to go.

The Vorla might not get them, the black sea might not claim them. But this fiery red sea must either engulf them or force them off the other edge of this crag.

Blindly and instinctively, they ran.

The way ahead was brightly lit by the volcano behind. From all around came the shuddering roar of giant canisters as they began to rupture and split in a hellish chain reaction.

Something droned in the sky ahead of them.

Something that flew erratically, looping and swooping.

Something that was burning, its wings engulfed in a fire cloud from an exploding canister as it hunted for prey below.

“Good!” shouted Candy as they ran, her voice breaking. “Good!”

If Simon Caffney was screaming as he tried to control his blazing microlight, the sound was lost in the thunderous roar of the inferno. Suddenly, the entire aircraft was engulfed in flame as the petrol tank exploded, that sound also dwarfed by the eruptions all around them.

The microlight plummeted down behind the silhouetted roof of a ruined administration building, perched right on the far cliff-edge. For a moment it was gone from sight. But then it was swooping up again into plain view, trailing a blazing arc of fire as it ascended vertically. Was it, like the Vorla, reaching for the sky in a vain attempt to avoid the flames of its Hell on earth?

It paused, silhouetted for a breathtaking moment against the utter nothingness of New Edmonville’s sky. And then it curved and fell, heading straight back to the petrol plant in a shapeless, blazing fireball.

For a moment they hesitated. Aware of the blazing tidal wave that roared behind them, engulfing everything in its path. Now aware of the burning microlight as it headed their way.

Did it make a difference now, how they were going to die?

The fireball swooped down out of sight.

Its impact on the fractured fuel container next to the administration block was instantaneous. The canister exploded like a miniature atom bomb, triggering the containers on either side. The darkness beyond the far edge of the crag was obliterated. Until now, there had been no sun in New Edmonville. Now everything was lit up with the power of a dozen suns as the canisters exploded, disgorging their flaming contents on all sides. Another tidal wave of liquid fire engulfed the elaborate network of pipes and fences ahead as it surged in their direction. In moments the sea of fire on all sides would engulf them.

They staggered to a halt, looking all around at the blazing inferno of which they were the centre.

Death was seconds away.

Jay and Juliet lowered Alex to the ground. Candy said: “Thank you,” and cradled his lifeless body in her arms again as she knelt on the tarmac. Such a civilised thank you, as if someone had passed the sugar, or moved a coat so that someone could take up a vacant seat. And because of that, so heart-rending.

Annie and Lisa embraced, Lisa still holding on to Tracey’s hand—as if she were one of the other children she had lost, her own two sons and Robin. Tracey weaved from side to side as she clung to her hand, an eighteen-year-old woman acting like a four-year-old who needed the toilet. Her eyes remained fixed on the ground. Had a lifetime in the Caffney household, her new life in the Vorla’s New World and the violence and terror of the past two days finally turned her mind?

Jay and Juliet turned from the sight of the burning tidal wave, holding each other close as it engulfed the place where Damon had met his terrible end. They waited for their own end to come.

“Surprise,” said a familiar, hated voice.

Henry Caffney limped from around a tangle of pipes, and brought the shotgun to bear on them.

One side of his face had been burned raw; his jacket was still smouldering. His one remaining eye gleamed with insanity. The shotgun itself looked as if it had been dipped in acid, smoke curling from around the barrel and the stock. Henry had plucked it from the burning pool and, despite the damage, it still looked in dangerous working order. Patrick Caffney was behind him, clutching his broken ribs as he stepped out into full view. Unlike his brother, he was fully aware of the flood of burning fuel bearing down upon them. Somehow they had escaped the wall of flame behind.

“I’ve reloaded,” said Henry, grinning. “Two shells in here now. Not one. Got lots more in my pocket.”

“It’s over, Henry,” said Jay. “Leave it.”

The ground shuddered beneath them as another canister exploded somewhere on the disintegrating crag.

“I don’t think so,” said Henry simply, and pulled the trigger.

The sound of the detonation was drowned in the roar of another exploding canister.

Annie and Lisa fell to the ground.

“No!” Juliet instinctively pulled away, wanting to run to them. Jay held her close again when Henry swung the smoking barrel in their direction.

“You’re mine,” grinned Henry. “Nothing’s going to take you away from me.”

Jay saw the tidal wave of fuel all around, about to engulf them. Maybe this was a better way. He pulled Juliet close.

Henry grinned again, and cocked the hammer on the shotgun.

And then Patrick blundered into him, staggering forward with his eyes bulging. He was clutching his throat. There was a blurring flash of undefined movement, and now Patrick was spinning on his heels. He staggered again, tried to right himself…and fell to his knees.

“Patrick…?” Henry still had the shotgun on Jay and Juliet, but was moving quickly forward to see what was wrong. Patrick turned to look up at him, eyes still bulging. Blood suddenly began to seep through his fingers where he was clutching his throat. He tried to speak, but blood flowed out of his mouth in a gargling cough, flowing down over his chin.

Something flurried in the air, whipping Patrick’s coat. As if someone had given him a quick blast with a high-pressure air hose. His hair flew as his head snapped back. Now everyone could see what had happened. Patrick’s throat had been torn out. Still gargling, he fell backwards and lay still.

Henry whirled, swinging the shotgun.

There was a clattering from the tangle of pipes from where Henry and his brother had emerged.

A naked two-year-old boy with curled blond hair was hanging from one of the pipes. His eyes were gleaming in the light of the inferno, his beautiful face fixed in a ferocious snarl. There was a spot of blood on his chin. As Henry gawped, bringing the shotgun up to bear on the bizarre figure, the child wiped the blood from his chin with the back of one hand—and was suddenly gone in a blur of motion.

Henry whirled again.

“What are you doing?” he screamed at Jay. “What are you doing?”

Jay couldn’t believe what he was seeing. “The Cherubim,” he said in awe.

From somewhere behind, Candy said: “Oh Jesus…”

And then something blurred through the air, hitting Henry in the small of his back.

He fell to his knees, still gripping the shotgun tight. Jay and Juliet dropped to their knees, Juliet scrambling away to where Annie and Lisa were rolling in pain on the ground. The shotgun blast had hit them in the legs, peppering their calves.

Another flash, the sound of ripping cloth, and suddenly Henry was blundering to his feet. A naked three-year-old girl, same blond hair, same ferocious blue eyes, was fastened on his shoulders. Henry spun and shrieked as the girl worried at his neck, sharp teeth champing through his collar and into the flesh. He tore her free, tried to get a grip. But the girl kicked off from his shoulders and vanished.

Something flashed by his face. Henry screamed, and suddenly there was a bleeding gash across his forehead.

Another flash, and blood was pouring from his cheek.

“Kill him!” shouted Candy. “Kill HIM!”

The shotgun discharged into the air and fell at Henry’s feet.

Suddenly, there were small naked children all over him, the weight of their frenzied, clawing mass making him drop to his knees once more. Cloth and flesh ripped and tore. Henry continued to scream hoarsely.

And now everything was dissolving into a brilliant white light.

Jay held up a hand to his eyes, scrambling after Juliet. The burning fuel was here. Another second and the tidal wave would fall on them. He had to spend that last moment with Juliet, no matter what. But now he couldn’t see anything in the blinding light. He had lost her.

“No…” said Jay, in final desperation.

“Yes,” said Gordon, stepping out of the light and holding his hand down.

Jay stared up at him, unbelieving.

“Come on, Jay,” said Gordon. “Take my hand and follow me into the light.”

“Am I dead?” breathed Jay.

“No,” said Gordon. “But you will be if you and the others don’t come with me now.”

“I don’t…”

“Come on, Jay!”

Jay took Gordon’s hand. It felt cool and strong.

Gordon yanked him to his feet.

“Juliet!” hissed Gordon. “Quickly! This way. Annie, Lisa…”

Jay was standing in the bright light, but now he could see Candy and Alex only feet away.

“Bring them!” hissed Gordon. “Now, Jay! NOW!”

Jay lunged down and dragged Candy to her feet, pushing her into Gordon’s arms. Lunging again, he seized Alex’s lifeless arm and dragged him. Was this really happening? Juliet was suddenly beside him, helping with Alex’s body; Annie and Lisa leaning against each other, Tracey Caffney’s eyes wide with fear.

Now there was nothing but the light—and the flash of small, invisible bodies as they returned from exacting Gordon’s vengeance on Henry Caffney.

“Follow me,” said Gordon.

They followed him into the light.

And then the light was gone.

The tidal wave of fuel crashed down on the lifeless bodies of Henry and Patrick Caffney, finally engulfing the petrol plant and the crag. The last four canisters exploded, fracturing the rock on which the plant had stood. Like a volcano, the crag blew apart, thousands of tons of burning fuel cascading into the Chasm.

From the Vorla there was no sound.