White and Other Tales of Ruin

I turned and walked to the trapdoor, and as I looked up through it I could see reflected light coming in from somewhere. Somehow, it smelled like what I had seen outside should look: blood, rot, pain, death, anguish, nothing fresh, all of it corrupted.

Laura.

“I want to help you,” the woman called from her seat. I turned and saw her straining at the strap, glancing nervously at the motionless thing lying by my vacated chair. A wisp of smoke curled from its broken visor, but I was sure I could see black movement in the shadow cast by its body.

“Why?”

She looked at me, frowning, trying to speak but unable to find the words.

“Why?” I said again. I wasn’t used to people helping me, and I didn’t believe it now.

“Laura’s still alive,” she said. And I nodded, because her son Paul was dead and perhaps, in this, she could shed her helplessness.

“Not if we don’t hurry,” I said, and that was that, agreed. I found the shard of visor composite and knelt by her side, hacking, pulling, slicing and sawing at the strap until it came apart. She stood shakily, hanging onto my arm as her tired legs tingled their inactivity away.

“I’m Chele,” she said.

“Hello Chele. I’m Nolan.” I went back to the trapdoor, knotted my hands and motioned her to climb. “What can you tell us?” I asked the mutilated man as Chele heaved herself up through the trap. I heard her banging about above the ceiling, suddenly wondering whether I’d sent her up first on purpose. If there were more of those demon things up there …

“More demons,” the man said.

“Don’t tell me they’re demons, there are no such things as demons!”

“No such thing,” the man repeated, and a rattle in his throat may have been a chuckle. “Well … this is a strange place, and strange things happen. Last time I was here, when I was out there in all of it, I saw one of them sprout wings and take flight.”

“Cyborgs,” I said. “Is that what they are? Constructs? Artificial-”

“They are what they want to be,” he said, “and here, most of them want to be demons.”

“Hey,” Chele called. “Something’s moving out there!”

I looked at the blackened window of the coach, as did the mutilated man. “How did you…?” I began.

“There are so many worst nightmares out there, it’s not even worth me telling you,” he said.

“Why did you come back?”

He looked at me with his tortured eyes. “To remind myself I’m not still here. I really wish you luck.”

Laura, a voice said inside, and I was wasting time. It was probably a waste of time to begin with — I’d seen her blood, seen the pain in her expression — but the bastards had stolen her away and hung her up out there …

… and for the first time since seeing her I actually began to wonder about why she was here.

If Laura, how many others?

“Hey, you, I’m moving off, are you coming?”

“Yes,” I said up into the dark rectangle above me. I jumped up and held onto the hole’s edges, glancing around me before I hauled myself up. The expressions on the few faces I could see told me that they thought I was mad. As for the mutilated man, he had no expression … but his eyes spoke volumes.

Goodbye, they said.

I scrambled up through the hole and into the space above the coach, a false ceilinged area that must have been intended for ventilation and security.

“Hey, you,” Chele called from ahead.

“My name’s Nolan.”

“Well Nolan, there’s a door up ahead, and something out there smells.” She crawled on her hands and knees and I followed.

“I should have brought that demon thing’s weapon,” I said, but Chele didn’t hear. I paused, looking behind me and then ahead again, terrified that I’d see another one of those things crawling my way.

Chele eased herself around, hung her legs out through a low opening in the wall and dropped out of sight. A second later I heard her strike ground. I edged forward and looked out.

Chele was squatting on her haunches, picking at the lush green grass, sniffing it, running her hands across the bright daisies that grew in profusion between the coach and the trees. Dark things darted in the air around her head and she waved them away. I waited for them to attack her, pierce her skin and puncture her insides, but then a couple landed on her arm and they were only flies.

I dropped to the ground next to Chele, knees buckling and rolling me into the grass. I ended up on my front, breathing in the beautiful aroma of grass and dirt and the wilds, nothing artificial here, nothing made … all natural. I closed my eyes for a second and remembered a time with Janine, lying in the sun and making her a daisy chain.

“Where’s the coach gone?” Chele asked quietly, mock-calm.

I knelt and turned back to the coach … and it was not there. There was something there, something big and heavy where the coach should be … but perhaps that was my memory playing tricks, because all I could actually see were rolling meadows, clumps of trees, a valley leading down, down, a river following its route to see where it went.

I turned and looked at the trees I’d seen from the coach window.