Simon Clark - The Fall

Standing there beneath shrouds of smoke, he stared up at the burning windows and called Sue’s name over and over again.

It took a good 20 minutes of hard running for Sam and Jud to make it through the snow to the outskirts of Casterton.

Already the heat from the burning houses had turned snow in the streets to black slush.

‘My God,’ Jud panted as they ran. ‘Look at it. It’s like the end of the world.’

Sam said nothing. All he wanted to do was find Zita. Even so, hope was draining from him.

The desolation was shocking. Butchered men and women lay in the street. Horses ran everywhere, panicked by the commotion and the fires. More than once the two men had to throw themselves into alleyways and shop doorways to avoid being trampled by horses that galloped by, riderless, their eyes wild, foam flecking their mouths.

A dog barked shrilly. And everywhere there were cries of frightened and wounded townsfolk.

In the market square Sam saw the Reverend Hather helping the doctor bandage the wounded where they’d been laid out on market stalls.

Behind them in an awful fiery backdrop the town’s church blazed. Falling masonry struck the bells to send a discordant clanging like a funeral toll across the town.

‘Thomas!’ Sam called. ‘Did you see who attacked the town?’

‘ Bastards …’ Reverend Hather shook his head bitterly. ‘The bastards even killed the little children.’

The doctor didn’t even look up from bandaging a child’s head as he spoke. ‘Men armed with knives and axes. They each had a tattooed mark here.’ He touched his upper lip.

‘Bluebeards,’ Sam said.

Jud nodded grimly. ‘And we were so damned complacent. We pretended we were living in nothing more than a Victorian theme park. We should have been preparing for the invasion. We were warned it was coming…’ He shook his head sourly.

Sam gripped Thomas’s arm. ‘Are the men who did this still here?’

‘No, at least I think not… The swine took what they could carry and left.’

Sam looked up. Across the market square, standing on the plinth of a statue of the angel Gabriel, was Rolle. He still wore the orange boiler suit. Firelight shone through the corkscrews of red hair, making it look like a glowing halo.

And, apparently oblivious to what was happening to the rest of the town, he stood there with one arm around the angel’s stone shoulder, watching the church burning down.

The sound of the organ now joined the clang of the bell. Hot air expanding in the organ pipes threw out discordant notes that ran from high-pitched shrieks to thunderous, booming bass chords. Sam swallowed. This was music for the damned all right.

Sam felt a hand grip his arm.

He turned to see Jud’s face lit a flickering yellow. ‘Sam, I’m going back down to the amphitheatre. Dot is alone in the boat down there.’

‘But that’s miles. You’ll never make it in this blizzard.’

‘Don’t worry about me. I’ll grab a horse. Where are you going now?’

‘To the Gainsbroughs’. Zita planned spending the night there.’

‘Good luck, Sam.’

‘And you, Jud.’

Jud turned immediately and ran away into the swirling snowflakes.

Sam turned his back on the burning church. Then he ran in the direction of the Gainsbroughs’ house.

Lee had stood calling Sue’s name for a good five minutes. Desperately, he willed her face to appear at one of the upstairs windows.

‘Sue! Can you hear me!’

This time he paused, listening for her reply on the off chance she was somewhere nearby.

Then, above the sound of tiles cracking under the ferocious heat, he heard shouting followed by a muffled thumping like fists on a door far away.

‘Sue! Sue!’

This time there was a sharper clattering. Not fists this time but a hammer or an iron bar against wood.

It was close, too.

It came again.

This time Lee realised it came from the trapdoor to the cellar that lay nearby. But for a moment he couldn’t see the door. Slates had poured off the roof in an avalanche to bury the entrance.

Then he remembered. The trapdoor was set beneath the kitchen window.

Lee ran to the spot and began clawing the slates away with his bare hands.

‘Sue! Is that you?’

The answering shout was male. What was more, it was familiar.

‘Ryan? Ryan, hang on, I’ll get you out! Just hang on!’

He tugged at the still-hot mound of slates.

Suddenly he realised that a second pair of hands had appeared to help.

‘Sam? Dear God, Sam, am I pleased to see you!’

‘Who’s down there in the cellar?’

‘As far as I can tell, Ryan Keith. I’m hoping Sue’s down there, too.’

‘Any sign of Zita?’

‘No… but she isn’t here anyway.’

‘I thought she was stopping over with Enid tonight? They were having a party.’

Lee shook his head as he pulled away the tiles. ‘She decided to stay back up at Perseverance Farm. She said she wanted to finish making a Christmas present.’

‘God, I hope she’s all right.’ Sam’s first impulse was to run home, but he knew he had to help Lee here first.

A moment later the trapdoor was clear. Sam kicked the bar that held the trapdoor shut from the outside. ‘Ryan!’ Sam shouted. ‘We’ve got it clear at this side.’ Almost immediately he heard bolts being slipped open on the other side. Sam bent down and heaved open the trapdoor.

An uprush of smoke gushed out, followed by Ryan who coughed and gasped as he stumbled out to fall onto the slushy snow.

‘Ryan, are you okay?’

Ryan nodded, but still he coughed, his eyes streaming.

Sam said, ‘I reckon he should be okay in a minute. Did you find Enid and her family?’

Lee looked Sam in the eye and gave a grim nod, then looked back at the house.

Sam didn’t need to interpret that look of Lee’s. ‘Oh, hell…’

Then he crouched down beside Ryan, who sat heavily in the snow, coughing so hard his chest crackled. He rested his hand on the man’s shoulder.

The flames consumed the house.

Sam watched as the walls collapsed, sending gold sparks rushing into the sky. The destruction was echoed around him as dozens of houses, warehouses, shops, hotels blazed. Again the realisation came to him that what they were witnessing was the beginning of the end of the world.

Later, in the borderlands that lay between yesterday and today, Nicole Wagner, William and Bullwitt saw the procession. They watched from the safety of a wooded hilltop as a thousand or so men passed beneath them in a long, snaking line.

They were close enough to see the faces of the Bluebeards. William held his cloak to one side so Bullwitt could peer through the slit in his clothes. The dark, bulging eyes missed nothing.

‘Lord, there’s old Snake-eye himself,’ he said. ‘You know, some say a battleship couldn’t kill him. He’s been in more battles than I know what.’

‘Just look at what they’re carrying.’ Nicole spoke in a whisper. ‘Where on Earth did they get it all from?’

‘They’ve raided the town,’ William said. ‘We all knew it was coming but we never thought it would be this big.’

‘But we should have seen it coming, me old matey,’ Bullwitt said. ‘We should have seen it coming.’

‘Why’s that?’ asked Nicole.

‘Because, sweetie, their numbers have been growing apace these last few months.’ Bullwitt spoke in a gruff but kindly way. ‘Barbarians from all over the country, from every different century you can think of, have been flocking to them; they knew the Bluebeards were onto a good thing. I mean, just think about it, sweetie. They walk into 1535, plunder a town, then bring their loot back here. The army can’t find them, so the Bluebeards get away scot-free. When they need a bit more plunder, out they go again, out of Limbo here and into any bloody time they want. Take whatever catches their eye. Then they scuttle back where no-one can reach them.’