A square of plywood as big as a car bonnet scythed through the air over Sam’s head as she ran between rows.
She jinked sideways, nearly tripped over a family of three running for cover and spun into the row of caravans where she and her dad lived.
“Dad!”
Sheets of thin metal and other detritus were flung through the air as Weenie’s caravan smashed into everything in its path. There really was someone on top of the flying caravan. Sam couldn’t see her from this close – the caravan itself blocked her view – but there was definitely someone on top of the caravan. Sam could hear her. And it sounded like she was singing.
Marvin Applewhite stood on the steps of the Little Torturer static caravan staring into the sky. There was something silvery cradled in his arms like a baby.
“Dad!” Sam yelled again.
He heard her over the whirling din, looked her way, and stepped down from his caravan. The flying caravan came round again — lower than before, surely — and swung like a pendulum through the next row over.
Somewhere nearby, something exploded.
Sam grabbed Marvin’s elbow and pulled him away, as fast as his old legs could carry him.
The thing in his arms was the salmon mousse tin.
“What the hell have you got that for?” she screamed.
“I didn’t know what to bring,” he replied.
A flailing water main hose whipped about and soaked them. Sam spat and ran on.
* * *
Bradley collided with two figures running in entirely the wrong direction. It was the twins. Trent and Jordan.
“Wrong way!” Bradley gasped, grabbing their shoulders. They tried to twist out of his grip.
“Gerroff! I know MMA!” one shouted.
Bradley ignored them, shoved them roughly about face, and propelled them away from the carnage.
“Fucking weirdo!” spat the other, but Bradley managed to keep them in front of him and ran towards the admin block.
* * *
With each cycle, Candelina could see that the caravan was getting lower, its arc flatter. Each collision was more jarring and soon there would be an impact that would be the last one. In the heat of chaos, things fall apart and, elated though she was by this experience, she wanted the freedom to enjoy other, future experiences.
She needed to leave. The straps holding up the caravan were taut and straining and she wondered whether she could cut them and send the caravan spinning earthward. But even under such tension, she didn’t imagine she could cut through them in time, if at all.
She would have to leap. At the slowest part of the caravan’s orbit, at its lowest point, when there was only open grass in front of her rather than hard unyielding concrete and the sharp edges of smashed caravans.
Candelina ducked under the side of the supporting metal frame and contemplated her future.
* * *
One of the boys resisted as Bradley tried to herd them into the central admin building.
“I need to film this,” the lad protested. Bradley thrust him forward.
Inside, holidaymakers were clustered around the entrance to the Paloma Blanca Tiki Bar, Pizzeria and Entertainment Centre.
There was a shout from a woman and the two boys were swept up into her arms.
“Where the hell were you?” she growled.
“Did you see Uncle Kev?” said one of the boys. “Sitting on his throne when the roof came off!”
* * *
Marvin clutched at Sam and dragged her to a halt.
“We’re — clear,” he panted.
Sam wasn’t sure if any distance was clear enough from the crazed demolition taking place at Putten’s Holiday Park, but they were on the tarmacked road near the park admin centre. Marvin was probably right, unless the caravan flew off the cable and had the bad luck to come sailing in their direction…
“A little further,” she suggested, seeing Delia waving to them from the car park.
“We were probably safe where we were,” he said. “Our little caravan’s still standing.”
“You have a bloody awful sense of direction,” she said. “That caravan you’re pointing at is three rows over.”
“Oh. Where’s ours?”
“You see that pile of wood and rubbish there?”
“Yes?”
“Exactly.”
* * *
There was a crunch and a groan and a whistling of wind. The tornado of caravan destruction rumbled on. Weenie’s caravan, barely a caravan at all any more, spun on its cable. All Candelina had to do was let go and allow chance to take her.
She clung onto the metal frame beneath the cable.
Only think about this painting, this moment. The past is past. Paint in the now.
Before she could recognise that the feeling that was most definitely not fear buzzing inside her might actually contain a kernel of genuine fear after all, she let go, stepped forward and focussed on the green fields beyond the caravans.
* * *
Weenie saw Candelina fall, leap, tumble from the roof off the caravan. He wanted to see her land, see her dashed against the ground. He wanted to spin back round and drop the caravan on her head, crushing the wicked witch for good.
He pulled the joystick back the other way. The crane struggled, the metal arm above fighting against the spinning mass of the weight at its end. The crane slowed but the caravan and the cable swung on, given speed and curve by the suddenly stationary arm.
And he could see how its arc would continue. Weenie had manipulated so many marionettes and stringed puppets that the workings of gravity and pendulums were second nature to him.
“Ah.”
He should not have stopped the crane so suddenly. Such violence, and the centre could not hold. Pulled short, the caravan swung round, its arc tightening. Daryl Putten had given up shouting at him and was finally fleeing for his life.
The unavoidable course of the caravan wound inwards, graceful, like the spiral of a seashell. Beautiful in its own way, Weenie thought.
It didn’t make it any less annoying.
* * *
“Oh,” Delia exclaimed, and Sam couldn’t see what she was exclaiming at, what else beyond the unfolding destruction she could possibly be exclaiming at.
And then Sam saw.
The crane vehicle had ground to a halt and the caravan on the cable was swinging on. The cable tightened, spooling around the crane arm. Metal protested, and then the cable wrapped itself fully around the boom arm, a loop, a half loop, and then the ruins of the caravan came swinging in and smashed straight into the cabin of the crane.
There was a crash of metal and glass and at the moment of impact, it was impossible to see what was caravan and what was crane.
And then it all stopped.
The crane wobbled and stopped moving. The cab had been ripped away entirely. The noise of smashing wreckage slipped into stillness, revealing the quieter sounds of general panic and bewilderment among the people around them.
“You have a salmon mousse tin,” said Delia.
“I do,” said Marvin.
“Did Sam give you the rabbit jelly mould from the shop?”
“She did,” he said with some enthusiasm. “Lovely thing. Alas, lost in the ruins now, I suppose.”
The three of them looked at the scene of devastation.
“But I’ve still got the salmon mousse mould,” Marvin said eventually.
Sam gave her father a long look. “We are truly blessed,” she said, and then took a deep breath. “They’ll be doing a headcount at the admin building to check if anyone’s missing or hurt.”
Marvin gave some consideration to the general pandemonium that had seized the holiday park.
“I don’t think anyone will be doing anything quite so sensible,” he ventured.
“Then we will go to the admin building and begin a headcount,” said Sam.
The three of them went inside. One of Daryl’s daughters was standing by reception and repeatedly informing people that they should go into the Paloma Blanca Tiki Bar, Pizzeria and Entertainment Centre. She had a powerful voice and an air of authority and if she was directing people into the tiki bar just to get them out of reception then at least she was doing something.
Sam went over with the intention of asking if there was a guest list so that she could begin checking people off. This was an automatic reaction. It would not even have occurred to her that this wasn’t her job.
Delia grabbed her arm.
“That’s him!”
“That’s who?” said Sam.
Delia pointed and Sam thought she was meant to be looking at a person, but Delia was pointing at a board of employee of the month photos.
“That’s him. The guy who came into the shop.” She looked at the photo. “Bradley Gordon.”
“Right,” said Sam and tried to put her thoughts in order. “We do what we can here, help with the headcount, and then we locate Bradley Gordon.”
Outside, there were the overlapping sounds of approaching sirens.