White and Other Tales of Ruin

The thing holding Chele dropped over the side of the bandstand and into the mud, skidding across the surface. It disappeared into the mists just as the second demon suddenly took flight, climbing until it was little more that a speck against the brightening sky.

“They left us,” Laura said. “We’re still alive. They left us alone. Why would they do that, Dad?”

I looked across at where the coach stood still and holed, and shook my head.

“I’m cold.” She was shivering. She may have been shivering for twenty minutes but I hadn’t noticed. I went to her and held her, careful not to touch the weeping wounds on her wrists as fresh tears fell onto my arms. They darkened the mud dried there.

“We should go,” I said, understanding none of this.

“Where have they taken her?”

“I don’t know.”

“Was she dead? Dad, do you think? ”

“I don’t know, honey. Let’s go.”

“Where?” Laura looked around, so frightened and vulnerable that I never wanted to let her go again.

“There.” I pointed at the coach. Its outline was becoming visible now, a haze around the holes like heat-haze on a blazing summer afternoon. “That’s the way out. Wherever we are, if there’s a doorway that’s it.”

We walked around the bandstand, avoiding the bodies and body parts, looking over the edge into the flowing mud. On the opposite side to where we’d landed we found a tatty old boat, barely capable of floating under its own weight. There was an oar there, though, and it pulled at its rope like an eager puppy.

Things were calming. I looked around, trying to make out exactly what was changing, but I was trying to see something that wasn’t there rather than something that was. Perhaps the mud was a shade lighter, moving a touch slower. Or maybe the light had faded slightly, and all the wrongness was simply less visible now. The houses were still there, but the street we had paddled up was indistinct, an accidental break between buildings instead of an intentional roadway. The smells were diluted too: blood yes, but old and stale; shit and mud, faded and dry; the tang of the memory gunfire.

Slowly, now that the events were over and things had changed, the scene was shutting down.

“Into the boat.” I helped Laura over the handrail and held her hands as she lowered herself down. I followed, careful to spread my weight squarely, but the dinghy was surprisingly buoyant and steady. As I untied the mooring rope and pushed us out into the current, I found that we were being carried straight towards the prone coach. I didn’t even need to paddle.

The nearer we approached, the clearer the coach emerged, until by the time we nudged its side I couldn’t believe it had ever been invisible. Its surface was matt-black and smooth to the touch, all curves and arcs without a sharp angle in sight. We’d arrived directly beneath one of the windows shattered by my pad-rifle fire, and I stood in the dinghy and hoisted myself up to look inside.

The smells should have warned me, but by then I was exhausted and turned off to everything.

I could see the occupants of two seats through the smashed window. They were both blackened husks, still smoking from boiled eye sockets and violent red rents in their skins. Clothes were burnt off or melted into their flowing flesh. The one farthest from me seemed to be slipping slowly to the floor, scorched flesh allowing the body to pass fluidly beneath the restraining belt.

Something dripped.

And then I heard the frightened voices from further along the coach.

“Come on.” I warned Laura about the sight that awaited her and boosted her through the smashed window. She took her time getting in, trying to avoid the sharp glass teeth that sought her soft skin. She had enough wounds already. I followed her quickly, taking some cuts but not caring.

“Who are you?”

“I want mummy, I want mummy …”

“What’s happened?”

“Please don’t kill us.”

There were several more dead people, fried in their seats by the demons, but the living outnumbered them. After what I’d seen and been through I could hardly look at them without thinking, Cattle. Sheep. The demons had only killed those with a direct line of sight through the blown out windows. Presumably the survivors had seen nothing of the battle that followed my pad-rifle attack on the coach.

“We’re just hitching a ride,” I said, looking at the few pale, scared faces in view. “Don’t mind us.”

“Dad, we’re moving.” Laura was looking through the smashed window and when I bent down I could see the bandstands moving quickly out of sight. The scene darkened and vanished. Somebody screamed. There was a sudden, intense acceleration that flung me down into the aisle and Laura onto the carbonised lap of a seat’s former occupant. A screaming sound erupted through the ragged holes as the coach travelled its strange route.