Simon Clark - The Fall

A ripple of laughter from the audience.

‘You’ll notice the effect if viewed from above is like a domino. The double three, to be precise. See, two diagonal lines of three? And there in the centre a deep slot has been cut. Again, the uses for this object are shrouded in mystery. But most historians agree there’s a ritual significance. That this was used for religious practices. And some have speculated that this is a sacrificial altar.’ Heads craned forward, suddenly interested. ‘See?’ Jud said, clearly enjoying himself enormously (while suddenly adopting a Vincent Price voice). ‘Can’t you imagine the sacrificial victim being dispatched just here as they lay stretched out on top of the stone altar? Then the internal organs – the heart, the kidneys, the liver, the lungs – would be carefully arranged in these stone bowls.’ He couldn’t resist a devilish laugh. ‘While the victim’s head would rest just here. So it could stare accusingly at the audience. Now, wouldn’t that make for a grisly sight?’ He laughed again. ‘Or then again, it was more likely the equivalent of the Christian harvest festival and the bowls would be filled with berries, apples, wheat, oats and probably a drop of the best local beer. The truth is, not many societies indulged in human sacrifice. Ancient cultures were far more humane than the makers of horror films imagine.’

While the man talked, Sam Baker once more let his attention wander.

To his left, the students in fancy dress – Laurel and Hardy, Dracula, and King Kong in her black-hair costume minus the gorilla head – were smoking roll-ups. They smiled a lot and Sam wondered if they’d crumbled a little cannabis resin into the tobacco first. Not that he had a problem with dope. Once he’d had a girlfriend who’d baked chocolate muffins laced with cannabis. They’d had some great nights on a couple of muffins alone; she’d some pretty laid-back sparrows on her bird table, too.

By now Jud Campbell’s history lesson had taken its audience into the 18 thCentury when the locals had filled the amphitheatre with leaves, then planted liquorice in the leaf mulch, liquorice being a useful medicine in those days as well as a substitute for sugar in the form of liquorice paste. Or so the helpful Jud informed them.

Sam yawned, glanced at his watch. Ten past two. His stomach told him in no uncertain terms it was way past lunchtime. He found himself thinking about that deep-fried fish. His stomach rumbled. He looked round wondering if anyone had heard. The acoustics of this place were damn near supernaturally good. If you could hear a pin drop then a stomach rumbling would sound like a 21-gun salute. Suddenly he felt like the kid who broke wind in class. All eyes would turn on him as his face burned with embarrassment.

Luckily, at that moment Jud Campbell wound up his show and the genuine applause drowned any grumbling sounds Sam’s internal plumbing might have made.

As in any theatre, or cinema, the amphitheatre steps were immediately clogged with people making their escape back to their cars, the bus or the ice-cream van.

‘We’ll leave them to clear the aisles first,’ Sam said. ‘After all, we’re in no tearing hurry.’

Zita watched the crowds packing the aisle. ‘Okay. It’ll give me time to finish this schedule while I’ve got the chance.’ She pulled the pencil from her hair and began writing on her clipboard. As she did so she sang under her breath.

Beside him the students in fancy dress were talking in a very relaxed (some might say stoned) kind of way. The one dressed as Oliver Hardy giggled, gave the gorilla a playful slap with his bowler hat and said, ‘Hmm… hur! That’s another fine mess you’ve gotten me into.’

Sam suddenly realised what Zita was singing under her breath as she neatly pencilled equipment codes onto the schedule.

‘Buffalo girls gonna come out tonight, gonna come out tonight…’ she sang in a whisper.

He looked at her, the hairs on the back of his neck starting to stand on end. His scalp prickled, too.

‘What made you sing that?’ he asked, suddenly feeling a strange shivering sensation running across his chest, then down his arms to his fingertips.

‘Mm?’ she asked, still running through her figures. ‘Sing what, Sam?’

Before he could say another word the lightning tore from the cloud.

The lightning came with a tremendous whump! of thunder, too. Sam froze. A wash of blue light cascaded into the amphitheatre; it was so intense it seemed to bypass his eyes and sear right through his skull to the visual centres of his brain.

His heart convulsed. Instantly he looked round the amphitheatre, his eyes wide, expecting to see charred bodies, splintered seating, heads on fire.

Instead people were looking up at the black cloud directly above. Someone opened an umbrella but there hadn’t been so much as a drop of rain.

‘Wow!’ The guy dressed as Dracula looked at the roll-up. ‘Was that lightning or was that something I just smoked?’

Oliver Hardy shot his only line. ‘That’s another fine mess you’ve gotten me into.’

Sam swallowed. His mouth felt strangely dry. ‘You were right about the weather,’ he told Zita evenly. ‘We’ll get someone at the office to ring round the local farmers and have them on standby with their tractors.’

She shot him a concerned look. ‘Are you okay, Sam?’

‘Sure, don’t worry. I haven’t a phobia about lightning or anything. I just don’t want rain to bog down our OB trailers when we set up.’

‘Bloody English weather,’ she said with a smile and picked up her mobile phone. ‘I’ll get Liz right onto it.’

Most of the people had left the amphitheatre as Zita dialled. The four in fancy dress were the last to pick their way slowly over the bench seats: gorilla girl forgot the gorilla head and had to come back for it, still smiling that I-love-the-whole-wide-world smile that comes with pulling on a little dope.

Sam eased another mint from the pack. The cloud appeared to be beating a retreat. The sun returned to shine brilliantly on the amphitheatre. Jud Campbell was in the process of picking up his only stage prop: the pin, which he carefully stuck back into his collar. In the background a millionaire’s huge launch bobbed gently at the riverside moorings.

Sam looked back at Zita, the phone to her ear. She nodded at him. ‘It’s ringing. Liz shares the same office as me, so she should be – Oh.’ Her eyes shifted from his face as she concentrated on listening to the voice in the earpiece. ‘Oh, hello. Liz, I need you to… Wait a minute.’ She frowned, suddenly puzzled. ‘Who am I speaking to, please?’

Sam listened to the conversation, only hearing Zita’s half of it. ‘Hello, who is this, please?’ she repeated, sounding more angry than puzzled. ‘No. You misheard me. What’s your name? Oh, look, just let me speak with Liz Pearson… She’s out? Oh, no – no message. Never mind. Goodbye.’

Annoyed, she used one of the red-for-danger fingernails to stab the button that terminated the call.

‘I take it you got the school kid on the work-experience programme?’

‘No.’ Zita stared at the telephone in something that was a blend of wonder and disbelief. ‘You’re not going to believe this, Sam.’ She looked at him. ‘But, if I didn’t know better, I’d swear I’ve just had a conversation with myself.’

Sam Baker gave Zita a reassuring smile as they walked back in the direction of the car. Zita was looking at the phone as if it was a loaded gun that had inexplicably gone off in her hand and blown a hole in some guy’s face. For a moment Sam was startled by the look of shock in her eyes.