It was dark. And I don’t mean the kind of dark where you squint with your two functioning eyes and keep a hand on the wall for balance as you edge your feet along the crunchy floor and jump at every object they meet with resistance, or lack thereof. I mean the dark where you can’t actually see anything. Where it’s genuinely a vacuum of colour and you are completely and truly blind. Luckily, the human mind recognises this and the other senses become more sensitive and you can feel, smell and hear all around you. It felt cold, it smelled disgusting and our footsteps clunked noisily on the ground.
Tillie hadn’t let go of my arm since we had entered the tunnel and walked close by, sniffing every few minutes. I didn’t like it at all, but any attempts to be separated from this trepidation-fuelled affection proved impossible as for such a seemingly frail person her grip was remarkably strong. If she had been several years older I wouldn’t have minded, and she wasn’t what you might call ‘all there’ either so I was feeling moderately awkward as we felt our way down the tunnel. The paving was relatively smooth and the channel unobstructed so we made our way quite quickly. The sooner I got out and had a wash the better.
I wondered how far down we were. It was highly unlikely that we were still under the original hill at any rate, mainly because of New Antarctica’s ever-changing landscape so there wouldn’t be a hill any more at all, so the tunnel led through the desert deep underneath, it was just a question of when it would eventually lead up instead of forwards, which it felt persistent on doing.
I fell forward and landed in the dry and brittle dust, biting my tongue.
‘Shit!’
Tillie had momentarily lost grip on me but quickly found my arm again and pulled my up to my knees. I tasted blood and my tongue throbbed painfully. I felt for the wall and once I felt contact pulled myself up to my feet again.
‘Are you OK?’ asked the little voice next to me, whose sound echoed up and down the corridor.
‘Yeah, yeah. I’m fine… just bit my tongue, that’s all.’
‘How far do you think it is?’
‘I don’t know! I don’t know, alright?’
She didn’t reply, just held on as we made our way down the subway again in silence.
‘I’m sorry, I’m tired, hungry and bare-footed and there isn’t a penguin to explain things.’
‘A penguin?’
‘Long story… well, not very long, just boring I suppose.’
The sentence flowed in spirals down the passageway, bouncing off the walls. A thought suddenly occurred to me and I reached out to the roof of the stone channel, and sure enough I felt a pair of hinges in the dark.
‘Aha!’
‘What is it?’
‘A hatch! No wonder we couldn’t find the damn tunnel going up.’
I felt further and came across the handle. I heard Tillie step back and I gave it a good heave. Dust rattled through the air and stone raked against stone before the thing finally swung open, narrowly missing my face by a whisper of air. Stones and dust and other tiny dry objects fell from the gap above us against a jet of soft light that penetrated the canal. Tillie’s face stared blankly at mine, with her eternal smile planted organically under her nose and above her chin, and made me jump back. She looked concerned for a second before I regained my composure. Give her a few years and she would be quite a sight, but right now in the dim light and the long shadows she looked a little eerie.
‘Do you ever not smile?’
‘What?’ she said with a slight giggle.
‘Nothing.’
I peered through the hatch and saw a small dot of light at the end of a long vent with a rusty and grey ladder stapled to the edges. Dust and stones rattled down and bounced off the metal rungs, making ceramic musical notes as they fell. I wondered what was causing them to drop on their own for such a brief, yet too long period of time and sure enough the tunnel began to rumble and vibrate gently, riding all the time.
‘Crap, that doesn’t sound good.’
‘What is it?’
‘I dunno.’
Seeing that Tillie was too short to reach the bottom rung of the ladder, or second bottom depending on whether you counted the missing rung at the very end of the ladder, I awkwardly held her under the arms and lifted her up high enough so she could grab hold and pull herself up. The lighted flickered and lessened as she blocked its path and climbed into the vertical tunnel.
The place was shaking worse and I caught a faint glimpse of yellow and orange way, way, way down the tunnel from which we had travelled.
‘Climb.’
She looked down at me quizzically.
‘Climb, you idiot.’
And so she did without another word, rung after musical rung. As soon as she was high enough I grabbed the ladder myself and despite its subtle creak I pulled my torso into the chimney of the ladder and climbed high enough to let my feet in before I reached down uncomfortably and shut the hatch behind me. I looked up and saw Tillie looking concerned but she quickly continued to her ascent. I followed after and felt the rungs shudder not only with our weight but the increasing tremor the earth was experiencing. I had a really bad idea of what was happening and hurried my climb that bit more. The brightness increased along side the vibration and Tillie climbed out as soon as it was becoming hard to hold on. I was hearing a great WHOOSHing noise below and scrambled out onto the white snow, Tillie trying to help pulling me up, just as the hatch at the bottom was released from its hinges and flew up and into the air several dozen feet above us, riding a pillar of searing flame that sent of scorching heat and melted a good portion of the surrounding snow, revealing hard rock beneath.
The two of us scrambled back and watched as more and more pillars rose in a straight line off into the distance. Behind us, the land was black and shredded, still flaming up from the explosion that had torn it inside out. Bricks and mortar dotted the surrounding area like glitter as a great plumage of smoke floated up into the sky. I sat there open mouthed as small pieces of wreckage plinked and plonked all around us.
‘Holy shit.’
There didn’t really seem to be anything else to say. It’s not as if you wonder what you would say if you saw the just-aftermath of a massive underground explosion without quite a clear prompt. It’s just something that wouldn’t happen.
But it did. And the diary had fallen out of my pocket and landed open on the snow before me, detailing in precise and comforting words exactly what to say in such a situation. I didn’t bother reading it further and put it back in my pocket. Now was not the time for reading, it was the time for a bath.
I stood up and brushed all the nastiness I could off my clothes. The air stank of burnt wood and other burnt things, the aromas recklessly hitting you again and again every time you thought you’d caught a bit of fresh air. Tillie was holding her sleeve over her mouth and coughing. It was one of those brief moments when there wasn’t a smile on that face of hers and I didn’t bother considering whether I should cherish such an occurrence. I knew that such a blast would not go unnoticed, and the smoke would last for hours, maybe days depending on what was down there, and there were bound to be scavengers and traders swarming towards us as we spoke. Thus I decided it would be wise to get the hell out of there and that was indeed what we did.
For some simple, logical reason we followed the path that the underground tunnel would have taken, guided by scorched potholes that were the escape hatches before they became chimneys. Before long I started hearing the steady hum and the small silhouettes on the horizon that signalled the coming of the scavengers. There were plenty of them from all directions, and over the steady chugging of engines and wheels the occasional whoop or yelp travelled through the air. Tillie smiled uncertainly and I forced an attempted comforting one back. Needless to say we increased our pace. That lot sounded like ominous trouble, and ominous trouble was better left to those who didn’t understand it enough to back off. We managed to find ourselves at an area of the circle of bikers that encircled the wreckage and was diminishing all the time that had a smaller scavenger-to-land ratio, but the one we did come across was a mean looking beast with a monster of a machine roaring between his legs with the handles so far up he almost couldn’t reach. He was bare-chested, but maybe that isn’t the right word seeing as how curly, sweaty hair covered every inch of his torso and more on his arms. If he hadn’t been riding that chugging two-wheeled elephant of a vehicle I would have dismissed him as a wild animal of some kind.
We heard him coming and I knew he sounded mean but his visual arrival still took me by surprise as he flew over a ridge, wheels spinning and a beefy cigar between his teeth, spraying snow over the land below him. If I had been quicker I might have gotten us out of his sight before he landed, but I wasn’t so before I could enact such a movement he had landed and spun around to face us, hands way up on the bars as a grinning skullish face displayed both the front of the bike and above his neck. I couldn’t decide which one was uglier.
‘Howdy!’ he chomped through his cigar. His piggy eyes sparkled menacingly in their dark and saggy sockets.
‘Hey.’
‘Wotcha doin’ all the ways out here then, boy?’ I could smell his rancid breath from where I stood. Tillie had her death-grip on my arm again and it started to go numb.
‘You know… catching the breeze. Things like that.’ I had meant to sound relaxed, maybe confident, maybe with a hint of none-of-your-business, but it just came out awkward and stuttery, like a child having to explain what crime he’d committed now. The machine chugged away impatiently.
‘Tell you what, kid. I hate this old chit-chat crap that’s so damn fucking modern these days. How bout you just give me what you got and I’ll leave you alone like?’
‘I don’t have anything.’ And I was being honest and couldn’t understand why the damn idiot couldn’t see that without asking me.
‘Aw, now that aint civilised. I’m being merciful here, boy. I could be breaking your skull and taking that lil’ bitch off your hands!’ He was grinning like a madman when he finished the sentence.
‘Hey, fuck you, you overgrown ball sack!’
There was a terrible silence and it took me a few terrible seconds to realise I had said that. The smile had left the pig-man’s face and a threatening, excited glint had entered his eyes and yellowing teeth.
He called her a bitch. That just uncalled for.
Perhaps. But who knows what that man knew about breaking people.
He called her a bitch.
What business was it of mine? I only met her… today!
He called her a bitch.
Yes, I know that.
He called her a bitch.
He did.
He called her a bitch.
Yes he did.
He called her a bitch.
No one says that about a woman, no matter how old or what a bitch she really is. It’s just one of those things.
Exactly. Now knock him out.
What?
I guess he had gotten tired of the silence and his testosterone had raised enough for him to hate being called an overgrown ball sack. The point was he had roared the metallic beast into life and was heading straight for me, hair after hair. His cigar left his mouth and fizzed out of life in the snow. His smell was overpowering. Tillie screamed.
Blue paper. It never lies. No matter how much you butter it or how many times you squirm the blue paper never lies.
Time slowed down. I know, I know. It’s a stupid thing to think, but for be I genuinely saw it that way. I saw every detail about me, Tillie, the surrounding areas, and most nauseating of all, animal on the bike. I noticed how the machine clicked every six chugs and rattled after each click. I heard the man’s gurgled breathing and the flappity slap of his ass on the seat. I felt every fibre on my ruined and greasy shirt. I could feel Tillie’s heartbeat through her grip. I could smell every individual piece of soot in the air.
I stood aside and as the beast flowed lowly through space in front of me, the man-beast turning to look dumbfounded, I kicked at the flabby and silver mass of man and machine, feeling its vibrations through my bare foot.
Almost instantaneously everything reverted to normal again. I staggered back and fell over, Tillie down next to me staring at me with a bewildered smile. My kick hadn’t just knocked the bike over, it had sent the damn machine and its rider fifteen feet away into the hillside where they bounced and flipped in the air and landed one on top of the other in such a way that the man would have trouble walking for a very long time.
‘Wow.’ She said.
And of all things to happen the hairy man-beast-pig-overgrown ball sack let one off. For all the reasons in the world I burst out laughing, first as a snorting giggle and then fall blown guffaws. Tillie quickly followed and we lay in the snow laughing our heads off as tears rolled down our faces and arms clucked our stomachs. You could say it was a good bonding moment. I say it was weird as hell.
I heard a voice somewhere, almost from my pocket, which said in a bizarre accent I had never heard before:
Nahce one, maaan.
The tank that was known to men as the Church Of Them was almost completely hollow on the inside in one big room with balconies and stairs and precipices off the walls and ceiling, but every corner was coated in shells, bullets, explosives and other religious memorabilia. That was not including the control ports, chairs, beds, tables, lights and of course the good dozen people that were hanging around inside as well. There always seemed to be half of them doing everything and the other half doing absolutely nothing.
The man whose head was the shape of a crescent moon strolled through it as if he had lived his entire life there and descended to a large fabricated armchair at the front of the room opposite a long, wide and thin window that stretched horizontally across the wall. He put his feet up on the table and rested his hands on the knobs and levers that had been implanted crudely onto the armrests of the chair.
Trey and the waiter stood instead.
The moon-man swivelled around in his chair.
‘Either of you two fellas been behind the wheel of a tank?’ he asked eagerly.’ They shook their heads. ‘Hellava ego booster, I’ll tell you that much! You never doubt your manhood when you have a six foot cannon in your hands!’ and he promptly burst out laughing in a deep and throaty way. The waiter looked at Trey nervously and Trey patted him on the arm.
‘Yeah, I am quite sure you’re right there but I believe it would be wise to exchange introductions.’ He had elongated the sentence for maximum impact, but held back so as not to confuse the poor devil.
‘Oh, right! Right! Right! Of course, my feathered friend. Introductions deserved to be spoken. I…’ and he placed a hand on his chest dramatically, ‘… am August Monk, the High Priest of the Church Of Them, and this bloody gorgeous metal contraption you’re riding is the gorgeous Church.’
‘Kind of contradictory of a church to be a weapon, isn’t it?’
August Monk’s eyes went wide and his eyebrows swivelled and moved, not knowing of which position they should be in. Eventually he said:
‘I dunno what religions you belong to, but the Church Of Them is prepared to defend itself. Not a lot of people want to hear about the end of the world, you know, and would be quite happy to shut us up.’
‘End of the world, sir?’ the waiter innocently asked. Trey shook his head manically. August rose from his seat and his black jacket flowed in the non-breeze and his feet stood wide apart as his hands rested solidly on his hips, the window’s narrow light spreading a line of illumination across his background.
‘Yes, my suited angel! The end is indeed ever so fucking nigh and we are going to be the ones at the front of the queue when the great gates open!’
He raised a three-fingered hand into the air and everyone else in the room did likewise. There was a moment’s silence before everyone returned to whatever they were or weren’t doing.
‘All we require now that you’re here,’ August spoke in a low voice, ‘Is the damn diary.’
But before any more could be said, a pretty girl brought them tea in green china cups which smelled and tasted completely the opposite to each other sense and the three of them stood and sat in peaceful quiet whilst drinking and listening to the churning sounds of the Church Of Them trundled along on its merry way in the general direction of Pig Town. The waiter would only notice later that adorning the roof, although punctured by many pipes, wires and hatches, was a large painting, made almost hastily by a person with rudimentary knowledge of the brush. It was a mural of a turtle. A turtle, he would say, with dreadlocks.
The hallways had steadily succumbed to the vegetable intrusion over the years Mark had been there and by then they had become nothing more than structures for the planthood to live off. The walls were covered in vines and leaves and the floor dotted with bright flowers. Roots poked through the roof from the floor above and Maiden Mark hand to push several away as he made his way down. He remembered quite clearly the perfect brilliance of clear manufacture the building had represented way back when and couldn’t help but feel the ever so common feeling of broiled anger rise in his chest, but he beat it back into submission again and continued on his way.
Gwack-A-Mole was alone, as usual, when he entered. The old man was standing on the balcony again, hands held behind his back. Mark pushed the decaying door back in place and his feet coughed politely. Gwack-A-Mole looked over his shoulder and Mark saw the perfectly green eyes even behind all the aged accessories of lines and wrinkles. The eyes were tired but brilliant, as of an aged man who hasn’t given up the ghost yet but knows that it’s nigh.
‘Hello, Mark.’
‘Hello, sir.’ His feet replied. Mark nodded at the same time.
‘I need you to do something for me, something out of the regular for you. It’s very important, otherwise I wouldn’t have asked. You know that.’
Mark nodded again but his feet stayed silent. Gwack-A-Mole also stayed in silence for a few moments, choosing his next words. Mark waited patiently for the ossan to speak, standing perfectly still. To push Gwack-A-Mole was to push your deathbed back that bit closer.
‘You have read the latest report?’
‘Yes.’
‘Good. I thought you would have.’ He wore a knowing smile that spread lines around the edges of his face, ‘I need you to be at Pig Town when the shit hits the fan, so to speak.’ Mark knew as well as he did it wasn’t a case of ‘if’ at all.
‘Surveillance?’
‘Yes, mainly, but if the opportunity arises for you to… well, you know. Do the inevitable, my boy.’
Maiden Mark bowed but the tall hunched figure had turned away to look outside again. He had aged during the time Mark had left him somehow, his movements that bit stiffer and his memories that bit more potent. Perhaps a piece of news had made him realise his age, perhaps. Something to do with Melody, no doubt. Dear, sweet, illustrious Melody. As he turned to leave one last comment was thrown.
‘Be very careful.’
He left the room gladly and made his way back through the labyrinth of vegetation and brick. The time was indeed nigh, he thought. The waiting had not been in vain after all, and the pleasure he would receive from seeing the last face Roland Savage would ever wear would undoubtedly be enough of a reward and then some. For the first time since many years, Maiden Mark smiled. Surveillance: his ass.
