Simon Clark - The Fall

Most wouldn’t even know what killed them: they were pushing towards the bus, their backs to the car.

The concussion was terrific.

Sam threw his arms in front of his face to protect his eyes, But he still saw enough.

Bodies exploded across the bonnet, turning the windscreen crimson, then smashing it.

In front of the car more bodies fell. The first ones went under the front tyres. But then, as the bodies were bulldozed into a mound, the front end of the car lifted.

Sam glimpsed the speedo.

Forty.

The engine still roared.

The falling men formed a ramp of blood and bone, lifting the nose of the car even higher. A split second later it took off and flew.

The car screamed clear above the heads of yet more men. Then, rolling to the right, it fell on its side.

Dazed, hanging by the seatbelt, Sam looked to his right and down. A carpet of dying men, crushed by the car, lay on the other side of the driver’s window.

He felt a hand push at his shoulder.

The surviving soldier was signalling him to get out.

He nodded.

Unbuckling the seatbelt, he wriggled from under the steering wheel that had collapsed into a figure-eight shape.

More bodies were pressed against the windscreen that was now a crazy frost-pattern of cracks.

As far as Sam could tell, the car had come to rest on the driver’s side. That meant he had to climb out of the passenger door.

His whole body ached.

Gritting his teeth, he scrambled over the seats. Deciding not to even try and lift the heavy passenger door up and open, he worked his body out through the shattered window.

The soldier’s rifle barked.

Sam saw that the soldier was standing on the passenger side of the car that now faced the sky.

Sam stood there too, his legs shaking badly.

All around him, Bluebeards pressed towards them, ready to tear the two men limb from limb.

‘Sir, take this.’ The soldier handed him a revolver. He had one of his own. Sam took the gun, cocked it, then aimed at the face of a Bluebeard standing on the ground below. The barbarian was just about to swing a sword at Sam’s legs.

Sam squeezed the trigger.

The gun recoiled in his hand.

And the Bluebeard rolled back onto the snow, arms flung out, blood pumping from a hole in his forehead.

Sam chose another target, fired again.

Then again.

Three rounds left.

When they were gone he’d be dead.

Already a spear jab had punctured the soldier’s leg just above the knee. With one hand holding the wound closed, the man carried on firing.

Then came a sound like the bellow of an angry bull.

Dazed, Sam looked up to see a wonderful sight.

Slowly, foot by foot, the bus was pushing through the crush of barbarians.

Lee was pumping the horn, sending out that bellowing note.

Seconds later the bus was alongside the Range Rover. At this height, standing on the side of the car, the bus windows were almost level with Sam and the soldier.

Straightaway a crop of hands appeared. Sam saw Jud’s and Zita’s anxious faces. Even Rolle and Thomas Hather reached out their hands.

Sam grabbed at them and was pulled on board.

He collapsed into a seated position as the bus powered across the snow to break out of the Bluebeards’ line that Sam had smashed through earlier.

Sam glanced across at the soldier who’d saved his life.

The man had been less lucky. The swipe of a barbarian axe had taken away his hand.

Another soldier bound the wound as the bus bucked and heaved across the snow-covered meadow.

He noticed that Jud’s leg was bandaged at the knee where an arrow had perhaps found a target. Although limping badly, he managed to light the fuses of some grenades and hurl them out at the Bluebeards.

His face dripping with sweat, Sam waved people away so he could stand.

He saw they were heading back to the amphitheatre. ‘No!’ Sam hung onto the wooden king post that ran through the bus like a pin through the thorax of a butterfly. ‘Lee! No, we can’t stop now. Turn back! We’ve got to hit them again!’

Noon, Christmas Day, 1865

Even in the bloody mire of the battle there was a weird grace and harmony to it all.

From the height of the bus’s passenger deck Sam witnessed it.

The movements of the fighting men were like those of a basketball match. There was an ebb and flow of motion. One moment they were fighting down by the river. Then the focus of the action moved smoothly away to the middle of the pass. Clumps of men formed into intense clamouring knots, battling with absolute passion. Then these groups dissolved, moved away, reformed, fought again, before dissolving once more.

Sam watched as the bus drove backward and forward. Artillery guns thundered. Soldiers fired rifles, muskets, pistols. They threw grenades.

Explosions formed a surreal pattern of orange, yellow and gold blooms above the surface of the snow. They were like huge roses, abruptly flowering before vanishing into nothingness again. Everywhere, barbarians and Casterton’s defenders alike lay dead in the snow. Most of the cars were reduced to wrecks now, some upside down, wheels still turning. One burned with a furious intensity, a black smoke-column rising from it into the air.

And everywhere, the landscape was flecked red with blood.

At the front of the bus Carswell gripped the door strut and, leaning forward like a carved figure on the prow of a ship, fired his handgun down at the barbarians. Miraculously he was unharmed. He didn’t seem to tire, either. His eyes still blazed icily as he fired, reloaded, fired, reloaded.

Ryan Keith fired the shotgun, swearing, laughing, crying, all at the same time. ‘This is yours!’ Bang . ‘Come and get it!’ Bang .

Zita and Jud stood behind the boxed-in driver’s compartment, where they lit the fuses of hand grenades from a lamp before pitching them over the side of the bus. The explosions tore holes in the air with a God-Almighty CRACK! . Red-hot pieces of the grenades’ casings tore radiating lines in the snow. More tore holes in the bodies of the attacking barbarian warriors.

And there was a gleaming intensity to the way they – everyone – worked on the bus. If the bus had been destroyed there and then Sam could have believed the spirits of those on board would still continue as before – loading, firing, reloading, firing again.

Sam hung onto the king post as the snow-covered ground blurred by. He felt a hand on his arm.

‘ Sam .’ He looked up into the face of Rolle. The corkscrews of red hair fluttered and his eyes blazed. ‘Sam Baker… have you seen what’s happening?’

Sam looked round the landscape of the dead and dying. He shook his head, puzzled. ‘What’s happened to the Bluebeards? Where have they gone?’

Here goes, Nicole told herself as the group of freed captives and Liminals approached the barrier between Limbo and 1865.

There wouldn’t be time to run away if they met the Bluebeards returning from their latest raid.

Ahead, the boy who was fused into the cow, so creating a kind of bovine centaur, was first through, moving at a slow gallop.

Quickly, Nicole did a head count. There were perhaps a hundred or more of Casterton’s people there. Many of the women simply hadn’t survived the last three days. There were also perhaps 150 Liminals. They were armed with anything from clubs to shotguns. Not nearly enough if they should meet a returning army of barbarians.

William smiled at her. ‘It is just one short step, Nicole.’

She was going to hold her breath and grit her teeth ready for the transition. But then it had happened as quickly and as easily as stepping through a doorway from one room to another.