Simon Clark - The Fall

Then the man was gone, running and screaming, while trying to claw the bird out of his face.

Sam looked around at the terrified people. There was no sign of Zita. He ran towards her car in the car park, thinking she might have headed there for some reason.

Now Sam noticed that a couple of trees had erupted through the otherwise smooth tarmac. A tree had fused with a car. The whole thing resembled some weird kind of sculpture.

There was more screaming. He looked in the direction of another tree. The sight was as shocking as the bird-man.

A woman’s head protruded from the trunk of the tree. One arm was thrust from the side of the trunk; she was waving desperately, and all the time she was shrieking in agony, her mouth a huge ‘O’ shape.

Sam paused and stared in shock. At first glance it could have been almost a comic image. He’d seen plenty of old TV shows with people disguised as trees; the sort where a soldier, so he can creep unobserved right up to the enemy, wears a cardboard tree trunk. His arms form the branches and he peers out through a hole in the trunk. This could have been a perverse version of the same. But Sam knew that here the woman’s body was fused inside the timber body of the tree, and that her face now stuck out from it, looking something like a head part-way through the neck-hole of a tight jersey. The pressure had distorted her face. Blood had begun to run from her nostrils and mouth. The bark below the face was stained red.

The woman’s face twitched, the eyes bulged, her tongue protruded from her mouth as the pressure of the wood surrounding her tightened like a giant hand crushing a moth. Then she stopped crying out. Her eyes stared sightlessly. The only movement now was the blood falling from the tip of her nose like water from a dripping tap.

‘Zita!’

Sam advanced on the tree-bound body.

Had Zita made it halfway across the car park before their backward slither through time had come to its abrupt stop? Only now the solid matter of the past – the trees, the bird and goodness knew what else – was occupying the same space as some of the time travellers. So if anyone had had the misfortune to occupy the same space as a tree or a bird they would have become fused with it.

He approached the tree with the face sticking out from the bark like some toadstool growth. Distorted by the crushing effect of the surrounding timber, it had become purple with congested blood; the dead eyes bulged agonisingly from the face; the tongue pointed from the lips as stiffly as a stick.

It could be Zita; the face appeared young. Swallowing down a filthy taste in his mouth, Sam looked more closely at the collar of bark that framed the head. Then he saw a wisp of black hair.

Zita’s hair was a rich chestnut colour. So the poor wretch wasn’t Zita. But what a ghastly, miserable way to die.

He backed away from the dead face in the tree; suddenly it seemed disrespectful to turn his back on the tree-bound corpse.

Only when he was 20 or more paces from the tree did he turn away.

As he did so an elderly woman clutched at his arm; in a shrill voice, she demanded, ‘Have you seen my husband? He had a bee in his eye.’

Sam shook his head. The bad taste in his mouth wasn’t going to go away yet.

The woman hurried on, searching for her lost husband. Again he heard her call out to someone. ‘Have you seen my husband? He’s got a bee in his eye. He’s allergic to bee stings.’

The car park was a seething mass of people. His head rang with their panicky cries. For all the world it looked like someone had thrust a stick into an ants’ nest and given it a flipping good stir.

Taking a deep breath, he skirted the amphitheatre, then headed down to the boats moored at the river bank.

Ryan Keith opened his eyes in the amphitheatre. He knew instantly he was back where he’d started. He should have still been drunk – completely stoned on the brandy, in fact: it seemed only a second or so ago that he’d been stumbling along the country road, drinking from the bottle.

But now he was here. He was completely sober. The bottle had gone from his pocket.

The Oliver Hardy bowler hat sat levelly on top of his head.

Around him people were yelling like their pants were on fire. Ryan was determined not to get involved in any more trouble.

He folded his arms and sat firm on his seat.

He wasn’t going to get into any more messes – fine or otherwise.

Nicole Wagner awoke after the time-slip to find herself sitting there in the gorilla suit again, with the hairy nylon head in her hands.

Whatever mechanism it was, whether supernatural or some weird kind of science, that dragged them back through time restored them to exactly how they were when they’d first sat down in the damned amphitheatre at midday on 23 rdJune 1999.

Yes, she thought, everything is back in its original place and condition . She felt the bump of her watch through the gorilla suit’s hairy sleeve. She’d lost the watch when she’d jumped into the tree; a twig had ripped it from her wrist. She rubbed her arms and chest. The soreness from the bruises had vanished as if by magic. She didn’t doubt, too, that her hair would have that just-brushed look.

Oh, shit …

Bostock. Where was he?

Suddenly tense, she scanned the seats on the tiers opposite her. Bostock had been seated there. Along with his wife. Of course, the wife’s seat was empty, because he’d killed her.

But she expected to see Bostock. The seat was empty.

It was too much to hope for that he was dead, too.

She guessed he’d probably come to his senses faster than she had and had probably fled the amphitheatre.

But the fact remained that he might come looking for her. In his crazed state, he saw her, Nicole Wagner, as the sole witness to his crime. At the first opportunity, he’d make sure that she’d never be able to accuse him of the murder.

Nicole anxiously scanned the seats, half expecting to see him clambering down towards her.

But there were only more confused tourists. Somewhere at the top of the amphitheatre she heard screams. Maybe Bostock was launching some crazed attack on other people? God, I hope so , she thought. At least then he might forget me . Instantly she felt guilty she’d thought that way. She was a law student, for God’s sake. Her professional integrity demanded that she uphold the law.

She stood up and headed for the stairs. Come what may, she had to see what was happening. Even if the world had gone topsy-turvy she believed she had a duty to see Bostock brought to justice. He couldn’t be allowed to get away with murder.

Lee slowly came to his senses. As he blinked and licked his lips he looked round the amphitheatre.

Yes. It’s gone and done it again , he told himself.

He was sitting there in the damned Dracula cape again. And no doubt he had the white spook make-up plastered all over his face, complete with blood trickles down his chin drawn in lipstick.

So, he asked himself, blinking up at the sun. What year is this?

‘My guess is that this is the early ’50s or possibly the late ’40s,’ Jud called out as Sam walked down the banking towards the narrow boat.

Sam watched Jud retying the lines that moored the narrow boat to the landing stage. ‘What makes you think that?’

‘I’ve only had time for a quick look round, but you’ll see the road to the amphitheatre is no longer metalled. It’s just a rutted track. I’ve checked the television.’

‘What’s showing?’

‘Nothing. Until the late ’50s the BBC had a monopoly on television broadcasts in Britain, and unlike in the United States there was only one channel. And that was restricted to a service that ran from about four in the afternoon until around midnight, when the whole service was shut down. Ah, can you just tie the line around the metal ring on the landing stage? Thanks.’