Саймон Морден - Down Station

A sinuous shape broke that same horizon, thick loops of shining green scales reflecting the light like mirrors. A streamlined head full of teeth twisted this way and that, scenting the air, before plunging back into the water. The loops grew smaller, and at last a finned tail flicked up into the sky before disappearing.

Mary was on her feet. They all were, reflexively backing away from the open sea and towards the base of the cliff, climbing up the blocky boulders.

‘What the fuck was that?’ Her wavering finger pointed at the bare horizon for a moment longer, then she dropped her arm by her side again. Perhaps it hadn’t been as she thought, she’d got hair in her face, or something else. A trick of the light. Just a wave. It had happened quickly, and far away.

But who was she kidding? They’d all seen it, or at least they’d all seen the shape of it and none of them remained unaffected. And there they were, all dressed in orange, reflective strips sewn into their clothing, standing out against the dark rock like brilliantly coloured flies on dog shit.

The bullet-headed man stood on the rock above her, staring out to sea just like her. His eyes were narrow, his lips a thin, grim line.

‘We should get off the beach,’ he said, without looking down.

‘I’m good with that.’ She was surprised at her own voice, how tight and high it was. It didn’t sound like her at all. She coughed it away, and added, ‘After you.’

Getting off the beach meant taking the long route along the shoreline into the next bay, where the unclimbable rock cliff gave way to a shallower slope, and the boulder-jumping to clattering over a series of stepped pebble banks.

The sea monster didn’t put in another appearance, despite Dalip’s constant attention.

His boots were mostly ruined, the already inflexible soles robbed of any cushioning by being melted flat. The outer covering had gone at both toes and heels, with the curved steel inserts showing through. He’d emptied them of water and wrung his thick socks out, but he’d had no choice but to put them on again, wet. It made it difficult to walk. They were already rubbing, and he’d have blisters soon.

Stanislav, despite having all the same problems and injuries, seemed to be immune to their effects. He strode out, greeting each new vista with undisguised glee, even though the landscape appeared devoid of any sign of human activity.

Dalip trudged up the loose bank at the back of the bay, stones rattling under his feet and sliding down the slope behind him. Stanislav was already at the top, hand shielding his eyes from the glare of the bright sky, scanning inland.

‘Can you see anything?’

‘Lots of things.’

He was right. There was a great deal to see: to their left, there was a high ridge that ended as the sea-cliff, and started in a tall mountain in the far blue-hazed distance. Ahead was a broad valley, a river cutting and recutting its way across the flat land in a series of braided channels. To their right, hills, backed again by more than one mountain peak.

There were short scrubby bushes up the slope to the headland, mixed in with one or two stunted trees. Inland, the trees grew taller and more numerous until they became a forest.

There were no houses, no walls nor fences nor fields, no roads nor tracks nor paths, no cows nor sheep nor pigs nor goats, no structures close by nor far away, no spires of smoke nor mechanical sounds. It was just them, and the wind, and the birds overhead.

And the sea monster behind them. Dalip looked over his shoulder, just to make sure.

‘Where is everyone?’

Stanislav frowned. ‘What do you see?’

‘Nothing. There’s nothing at all.’

‘Then what do you think?’

‘That there’s no one here? That can’t be true.’

‘So you know where we are?’

‘No.’

‘Then how do you know that it cannot be true?’

Dalip pressed his hands together, felt the burns and scalds, felt the clarity of his pain. ‘Do you know where we are?’

‘All I know is that we are somewhere which has big snakes swimming in the sea. Have you heard of a place like that?’ Stanislav watched for his reaction closely.

‘There is nowhere like that. Not…’ Dalip gave up. He wasn’t going to say it. He wasn’t going to let the words come out of his mouth.

And yet the landscape was untouched, wild, untamed. There were impossible creatures abroad. They’d arrived by stepping through a door, from the Underground and into the sea. A door that had more or less disappeared as soon as they closed it. He was right: there was nowhere like that.

‘I must be dead. Or dreaming. Or I’m unconscious somewhere. In hospital, in a coma.’

‘You think? Okay. Say it is so. What are you going to do now?’

Dalip was suddenly, painfully aware that he had an audience.

‘What am I going to do?’

‘Yes, you. So you are dead, or asleep, or whatever. You are still here.’ Stanislav stamped his foot, releasing a shower of pebbles. ‘I am here. She is here.’ He pointed to the girl with the light brown skin who liked saying ‘fuck’ a lot.

‘Yes, but…’

‘We are all here. While we wait to wake up, or for our souls to be collected, we must choose what to do next.’

It was him and Stanislav on the shingle bank, the others arrayed around them. Dalip felt the wind tug at the material of his boilersuit: yes, drying it out, but he was getting cold. And now that he’d stopped running, he was tired, and just a little hungry.

He shrugged. ‘A cup of tea would be nice.’

Stanislav looked momentarily nonplussed. ‘Tea. You expect to find somewhere that serves tea?’

‘It’s as likely as anything that’s happened since it all started burning. So, yes. Tea. I’ll have a biscuit too, while we’re at it.’

‘I cannot see a tea shop.’

‘Then I suppose we’ll have to make our own.’ Dalip waved his hands in the direction of the river. ‘There’s water. If we can start a fire and build a shelter and find a tea bush… I don’t know what I’m saying anymore.’

‘Shouldn’t we,’ said the brown-skinned girl, ‘you know, be looking for help?’

‘Where from?’ Dalip beckoned to her. ‘Come up here and tell me where help’s coming from.’

She scowled, and marched up to the top of the bank, knocking his hand out of the way when he reached down to assist her. ‘I can fucking manage, all right?’

Confronted with the same blank canvas of sky and land, her scowl deepened.

‘Anyone got a phone?’ she asked.

No one had, because they were back at either Leicester Square or Hyde Park.

‘Fuck,’ she said.

‘Got yours?’ Dalip asked.

‘Fuck off.’ She whirled around, looking for something, anything she recognised. Then she ripped off her grimy bandanna, threw it on the ground and stormed away, down the bank and away from the sea. Scrubby, heavy-headed grasses whipped at her legs, and she disturbed a nesting bird which flew up with a flutter and squeak. It made her jump, and she flailed at it to fend it off before realising it was just a bird and it wasn’t going to hurt her. ‘Fuck,’ she bellowed, and kept on walking.

Dalip bent down to retrieve the strip of red cloth.

‘How can you just accept this?’ he asked of Stanislav.

‘I am alive. I do not know how or what or where or why. But I am alive.’ He turned to look at the sun. ‘We have a few hours before it gets dark. We should find somewhere to spend the night now, and worry about what to do later.’

He set off, roughly in the same direction as the girl, leaving Dalip behind.

Dalip helped haul the big black woman called Mama up to the top then, out of courtesy, the three other women. They all stood together for a moment, watching the two orange-clad figures slowly recede into the distance.