Diary of the Displaced (8 page)

Outside, everything is gloomy and cloudy for most of the day. I did take a walk up to the spring to replenish my supply. I think if it were not for the spring water I would feel much worse.

March 29th

I am determined that I will make an appointment with the doctor. My vision is playing up terribly. This afternoon whilst the weather was furious outside, I began hearing the most terrible noises, it must be a deficiency of some kind, for the dizziness came, and my vision went blurry, then I heard the screaming. It was a terrible, terrible haunted scream, one of pure torture, and obviously it was completely in my imagination. I ate cheese this morning with my toast, so maybe that has affected me.

I wanted to write it in my diary immediately, but I couldn’t for the life of me find the damn thing. And then the oddest thing happened. The sun came out once more, and there it was, my diary and pen, right where they always were. I must have missed them completely during the feverous moment that had now passed.

March 30th

The storm last night was ferocious. The episode with my diary occurred yet again today, I am beginning to question my sanity. It was missing for most of the day whilst the bad weather and those terrible voices assaulted my senses.

I shall walk down to the village in the morning and see Doctor Elsden. This can be tolerated no more.

March 31st

Terrible storms. Diary is only there for moments. Dizziness gone somehow. Can’t sleep but tired. Strange smell, can’t rid of.

April or May

Not clue of date, is still April? Legs ache, finger has fallen off, can’t understand.  Must find food. Cannot leave, terrible hungry, what is date? Chanting heard Nua’lath, Nua’lath. What is this mean?

When

Blood   Lots it  Everwhere blood   Carnt seep   the screamun    too many screamun

Mas 145 1728812

Nua’lath muo’lah vor : Blud far Nua’lath : Kiy e Nua’lath : Blud far Nua’lath : dun dring der warta

That’s the last entry in his diary.

I don’t know if it answers any of my questions or not. Did I end up here in a similar way? I wish I could remember what happened after I went to the toilet in the service station.

One thing that worries me is the date. 1922. How long was Adler here?

Day 20

I wasn’t aware of falling asleep, though I do know that we talked for hours. I know what woke me though.

The storm had come, just as Rudy had said it would, and I had arrived at the shack in the valley just in time. Outside the shack was a maelstrom of wind, dust, and rain. I’d never seen anything like it. Down the valley hundreds of small tornadoes swirled around, churning up the muck and water. Across the river and up onto the start of the rock plateau I could see rain gushing sideways at an incredible speed.

Odd though. I could still see quite far, at least down into the valley where gargants hunkered down into the muddy water. Several of them were sitting there like massive, wet, rock mounds, half submerged in the swamp.

DogThing wasn’t around. I guessed that he had snuck off somewhere and found a shelter of his own.

The shack was mostly untouched by the storm, tucked away as it was in the hollow of the rock face near the waterfall. The wind and the rain still battered the walls, and I felt a bit wary that it might come crashing down on my head at any moment.

Rudy must have sensed my concern.

“This place has weathered hundreds of storms.”

“Okay. Good.”

He sat down on the chair near the fireplace. Can ghosts actually sit? It would seem so.

“Whoever built it certainly knew what they were doing. It may look like a pile of junk, but it’s solid.”

“You didn’t build it?”

“No. It was here before I arrived, pretty much as you see it now. I made a few repairs, but not a lot.”

I spent most of the rest of the day having a poke around in the house, hunting around for useful stuff. Found more tools, including a rusty saw and a couple of hammers. I also moved my cart into the shack, out of the storm, and emptied it. Some of the scraps of wood I’d gathered stoked up the fire nicely and I was able to dry everything out.

The storm ended during the night. I awoke to silence. I even think it was the silence that woke me.

Day 21

I found a hole.

Not a normal hole. This is a little bit different. Well, the best description I have for it is a hole.

I found it outside the hut after the storm, as I was trudging around in the newly formed rock pools. Any crevice or recess in the rock that could hold water was filled up and I was busy bottling as much of it as I could.

I stood frowning at the hole for a few minutes, watching the water trickle out of it and down onto the ground to gather in one of the pools. Even if I empty the pool, it keeps refilling with the water from the hole.

Doesn’t sound strange does it? Nope. But this hole is in mid air. It’s not in the rock or the ground. It’s about three feet off of it. Just… sitting there? Holes don’t sit do they? Hanging there even.

Well it’s there anyway, and once the water finally stopped coming out of it a beam of bright light lit up the pool. The light was coming out of the hole. Even stranger… It could only be seen from one side. When I walked around to the other side there was nothing, only the light, but from the front, I could clearly see a hole.

I went back to the hut and fetched a thin piece of wood, and then went back to the hole and stood gobsmacked as I poked the stick through it. Sure enough it went into the hole and didn’t appear on the other side. Fortunately it didn’t devour the stick as I pulled it back out again. If it had done that I think I might have run screaming and hidden back in the shack.

“Strange aren’t they?”

It was Rudy. He was standing a few feet away.

“What the hell is it?”

He shrugged.

“Well, a hole, I guess. I’ve never been able to figure out what they are. Only that they appear for a short time after the storms and gradually disappear.”

“Weird as hell.”

(Laughter)

“Yes. Very much so. Adler used to turn into a nervous mess when those things appeared. He swore that he came here through one of them.”

“Seriously?”

“Yes. I’m not calling him a liar, but I’ve never seen one big enough to fit a man through.”

We talked as we walked back up to the shack.

“How did you get here, Rudy?”

He was quiet for what seemed a long time before speaking again.

“I’m not entirely certain, but I know that I had been assaulted. Back in the old world, in the area that I lived, there was a gang of what is best described as rich thugs, high earners in the city, some people said, that had a hobby of going into the slums and making sport on those who could do little to defend themselves. They did some quite awful things. I was quite used to avoiding them usually. They’d turn up every now and then in the middle of the night in their fancy cars. They would grab someone and take them somewhere out of the way and… Well you can imagine the rest. One night I was asleep and didn’t hear them coming.”

We arrived back at the shack and sat down on the rocks outside. Rudy continued.

“The whole experience is hazy, but I do remember something interrupting them, something terrible. I remember being picked up by people who I couldn’t see. They were different people and not the gang. I was stunned or concussed I think. They took me. I woke up in the ruins across the swamp. That’s about all I can remember.”

“They didn’t tell you where you were?”

“They weren’t there when I awoke.”

“But the zombies? You said they are all over the ruins.”

“Yes. They are now. They weren’t so much back then. At least I don’t remember seeing any. I eventually found this place after being scared out of my wits by the gargants.”

Rudy was quiet for most of the evening. I settled into one of the chairs in the shack and read bits of some of the magazines and books.

Day 22

DogThing was back. I didn’t spot him immediately. He was sitting on the top of a rock across the river, watching me.

This time he wasn’t alone.

I was too pleased at seeing him again that it took me a while to even notice the others. It was only when one of them stood up, stretched, and then sat back down, that I saw them. They were huddled together under a rocky outcropping about half way up towards the plateau, four of them, watching me.

“You seem to have gathered more followers.”

Rudy was standing in the doorway to the shack.

“You think they are safe?”

“Yes. Look there is something I need to tell you about. I’m guessing that you are planning to head out again soon.”

I thought about it. It hadn’t occurred to me since arriving at the shack but I couldn’t stay there forever. That would never get me home.

“Yes. I can’t stay here forever.”

“Understood. Well you need to be wary of someone in the place. Someone dangerous.”

“More dangerous than gargants and zombies?”

(Laughter)

“Yes. Much more. He is called CutterJack, at least that’s how I know him.”

“Odd name.”

“Yes. You asked about who it was that killed me, and I was wary about voicing my thoughts about it at the time, but I believe it is he who killed me down by the river. I’ve only ever seen him once and that was a long time ago. I was in the city ruins fighting the zombies there, whilst scavenging. It was before I met Adler and at the time I was relieved to see someone else, but he came at me brandishing knives, long, sharp ones. The same ones I’d seen him killing zombies with. I ran. But he was too fast, and caught me up, cornering me in one of the ruins, cursing and ranting, spitting at me.”

“And he killed you?”

“No, at least not that time. That was our first encounter and it was the maw that saved me then. They came out of the shadows and chased him off. There were many of them, a dozen even. I haven’t seen that many maw since then.”

“Sounds like a nasty bit of work.”

“He is. I call him he. I don’t know. It may be a creature.”

“How did you know its name?”

“Adler. Oddly enough. I mentioned him to the professor once and he sang me a song about a character called CutterJack. I’ve no idea where the song came from, but the name stuck. Just be wary and hope your maw sticks with you. I think it was CutterJack that caught me down by the river, when I was alone.”

“Oh, I see.”

“Well I’d not seen him for years after that. But every now and then when I was wandering, scavenging and stuff, I’d come across a zombie that had been slaughtered. So CutterJack was still around somewhere.”

New things to note:

Swamp pods do taste like potatoes, if a bit mustardy.

DogThing and his friends don’t like pod.

The other maw look different to DogThing. Each has its own distinct look. I’ve named one of them Mo. She has a tuft of hair, a little like a Mohawk, running along her back. It’s bright green. Very odd. She has brighter eyes. I don’t know if she is a she, but she looks somehow more feminine than the others.

The hole has gone.

Day 23

I’d been hanging around the shack since I arrived. This morning I decided it was time to have a look around nearby so I grabbed the lantern and my makeshift rucksack. I swapped a few things around and chucked a few tools and some water bottles into the rucksack, and then headed out, but not down towards the swamp and the gargants. That would have been stupid. Instead I wandered up into the rocks, and the hill behind the shack, hoping to find some trace of Adler’s camp.

I could only get a few hundred feet further up the rock, behind the shack, before it became too steep to climb. I was about to give up searching for the outcrop of rock that Rudy had mentioned, the professor’s camp, when I noticed the rope hanging down twenty or so feet from me.

It was dangling there, hanging in the darkness. I climbed over the rocks towards it and looked up. In the gloom above I could barely make out what might be the outcrop of rock. It didn’t look very big, and there was at least a fifty foot climb upwards. Without the rope I would never have been able to get that high, not without some seriously hard work. It took me twenty minutes to pull myself up.

There was a cave about thirty feet deep cutting into the rock, ending in loose rubble, and it was there that I found some of the remains of Professor Adler’s camp. There wasn’t a lot left, just a mattress and a blackened fire pit that was long abandoned. How the hell had Adler got a mattress up here? I had struggled to get up there by myself, and from Rudy’s description, Adler had been a lot older than I. I doubt he would have been able to put the rope up there, so it had to be there already. I wish he was still around. So many questions.

Stranger still was where the rope had been attached. Poking out of the floor was a metal hoop about two inches thick. It was attached to the rock by a heavy metal panel and bolts.

I was about to light up the lantern, to have a look at the back of the cave, when I noticed that there was light coming from somewhere already, somewhere at the back of the cave was a faint glow of a different colour to all the other lighting in this place. Not quite so unnatural. I left the unlit lantern on the ground near the entrance of the cave with my rucksack next to it, and walked cautiously into the darkness until I reached the bottom of the rubble, still unable to see where the light was coming from.

At the top of the rubble I found my answer. The rocks weren’t the back of the cave. A small gap about two feet high gave way to darkness. Darkness, except for a single perfect line of light on the ground somewhere below. I couldn’t judge the distance.

A few minutes later, and I was back up at the gap with my rucksack over my shoulders and the lantern lit. The light from the lantern revealed what turned out to be a corridor below. I say a corridor because it was definitely not natural. All along the walls hung chunks of cracked plaster. The ground was littered with the stuff, as well as a heap of other junk. Bits of paper, magazines, empty tin cans, another burned out campfire and a pile of mattresses. Maybe the mattresses had already been up here?