Sun<\/em>day. Above, dust clouds shivered their load across the sky to block out the sun. Allyson shivered too. Cold air pressed through the holes in her moth-eaten cardigan and wind whistled through the hole in her cheek.<\/p>\nDarren\u2019s sister, Yellow-Anne, collected the hymn sheets from the children. Blood-streaks had replaced Anne\u2019s once golden highlights and her hair hung limp over her sunken cheekbones. The children clutched her torn lace skirt and gathered about her unformed hips. They waited for Pastor Baest to lead them from church. Yellow-Anne walked with a limp. She\u2019d shuffled along even before the fall.<\/p>\n
Allyson wondered why they bothered to leave at all. It wasn\u2019t as if there was anywhere in particular to go. Their decimated town comprised the church, a broken gravestone, a quartet of trees and a crypt, a section of road, and the post office front – places she\u2019d skipped and strolled with Darren before her cheekbones had collapsed and worms had nested in her belly. Their town ended behind the church.<\/p>\n
Pastor stepped from his pulpit.<\/p>\n
His cassock moth-bitten into a cape and his words stolen from a cult-leader\u2019s manifesto, Pastor Baest had fashioned his exposed bones and brain into a superhero\u2019s guise, but his rotting guts spoke otherwise. All the same, Yellow-Anne followed him, and the children and the bell ringer, Bill, followed her. Allyson was last to leave. By the time Allyson had entered the remains of the graveyard, Pastor Baest had locked himself in the crypt.<\/p>\n
Time no longer measured in seconds, minutes or hours, its calculations were now wrought from the gaps between earth shudders. Allyson waited four earth shudders before approaching the crypt. She pressed her eye to the keyhole, then, unable to see anything, pressed her ear to the thick wood. The wind whistled. Beneath her, the ground rocked, urging her away from its edges. Allyson rejoined the children, who sat on the grass outside the church. This decimated world broke her heart. She hoped it broke the children\u2019s hearts too, but feared it didn\u2019t.<\/p>\n
Yellow-Anne clutched her ragdoll body and pressed her bony back to the church wall. She rubbed her lame leg, a sneer twisting her thin lips. The girl no longer looked like her brother Darren–another death of sorts. At Yellow-Anne\u2019s disfigured feet, a girl poked and pulled at a boy\u2019s intestines, as if hoping to unravel them to use as skipping rope. Otherwise, there wasn\u2019t much else for them to play with. The edges of the hopscotch squares, which they\u2019d chalked several shudders ago, had crumbled into the abyss. Allyson looked at the trail of intestines. The remains of her stomach churned, disturbing the children with its rumble.<\/p>\n
She pressed her finger to her lips. \u201cShush,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Moving to the edge of their world, Allyson lay on her belly and looked down at what they called Hell. The long-dead swarmed. Ripped from their graves with the first shudder, their embalmed bodies didn\u2019t rot like hers. Allyson parted her hair and pressed her fingers to the hole in her skull. Below her, other ants swarmed. The fresh dead, the broken and perhaps the living (someone had to have survived), were busy constructing barricades to keep the true zombies out. The ones who had died and been buried before the fall. Allyson thanked the Pastor\u2019s god. Up here, the remains of their world may be small, but at least their infection did not give way to apocalyptic madness. She looked towards the silent crypt. Except for the Pastor, and he was an all-too-human sort of monster. The quake had not fashioned him.<\/p>\n
Allyson sat and dangled her legs over the edge. The drop was forty foot and pitted with handholds. If the long-dead chose to climb, Allyson and the children would make a paltry meal. In the distance, what remained of the city poked defiantly above the caverns, pressed against the horizon, metal on smoke. Skyscrapers listed at unnatural angles. Allyson suspected the city wouldn\u2019t stand much longer. When the skyscrapers fell, the old world would be truly gone.<\/p>\n
\u201cCome away from the edge,\u201d Bill, the bell ringer, shouted. The man never ventured further than the church door, clinging to its wood as if he believed God still lived within. \u201cYou’re scaring the children.\u201d<\/p>\n
A girl with hollow eye sockets looked up at Bill. \u201cI’m not scared, sir.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNone of us are,\u201d Yellow-Anne said, spitting out the words. \u201cYou’re the one squealing, Bill.\u201d<\/p>\n
Darren would have admonished his sister.<\/p>\n
Allyson stood, brushing dust off her hands. \u201cHow about we hijack the church organ and have us some hymnal karaoke.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019ll bring the house down,\u201d Bill said.<\/p>\n
\u201cPerhaps that\u2019s my intent,\u201d Allyson said, ushering the children inside the church.<\/p>\n
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<\/p>\n
Despite the attempt at life inside and the continued shudders, the church didn\u2019t crumble. Pastor Baest stood in the church doorway, a ghost of his former self, his cassock flapping from his bony shoulders. She\u2019d lost count of the shudders since he\u2019d locked himself in the crypt and they\u2019d danced into church. There\u2019d been no Sun<\/em>days in between and looking at the weight of the dust-filled sky, Allyson feared they\u2019d seen the last of them. A sigh rushed through the cracks in her jawbone. Sometimes she wanted the world done.<\/p>\n\u201cAllyson, come with me,\u201d Pastor said.<\/p>\n
The blind child clutched Allyson\u2019s skirt. \u201cIt will be okay, pet,\u201d Allyson said, uncurling the girl\u2019s fingers from her thigh and trying to ignore the snap of their bones. She\u2019d have kissed the girl\u2019s fingers if she\u2019d had lips.<\/p>\n
Allyson and Pastor Baest formed a solemn procession as they walked the short distance between church and crypt. Across the road, the post office had fallen from the edge and in the distance, a lone skyscraper poked towards an empty sky. When had the others fallen? At times, it seemed what remained was all there ever was.<\/p>\n
Taking the key from his belt, Pastor Baest unlocked the crypt door. She wondered why he\u2019d bothered to lock it. It wasn\u2019t as if the dead could crawl out. Or so she believed. The door creaked open to reveal an almost empty space. Most of the crypt had tumbled into the abyss, opening their town to Hell and its inhabitants. Only the stone steps remained and they formed a jagged pathway between worlds.<\/p>\n
\u201cSometimes we have to face our temptations,\u201d Pastor Baest said. \u201cOvercoming them makes us stronger.\u201d<\/p>\n
She had no temptations left to battle. She\u2019d left want behind in the old world.<\/p>\n
The steps ended at an iron gate that had buckled with the shifting earth – a barrier between here and there. On the other side, a dead girl moaned. The girl\u2019s milky eyes turned to them, her head perched on fractured shoulders. Loose black thread dangled in place of eyelashes. Allyson had never known the dead to wander so close. Usually they foraged far from where Allyson\u2019s town rested. The girl stood, leaving an arm behind on the rock where she\u2019d sat, and held out a spool of cotton and a needle, as if she expected them to sew her together. Pastor Baest grabbed her thin wrist and stole the needle and thread. The girl scratched his forearm, causing him to drop her things. Allyson picked them up. The Pastor turned and hurried Allyson up the steps.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t understand,\u201d Allyson said. \u201cWhat does showing me this girl achieve? How is she a temptation?\u201d<\/p>\n
The earth shuddered. The walls of their small world crumbled about them, covering their skin with loose earth. Allyson spat out soil. At the top of the steps, the Pastor pushed her out of the crypt and locked himself inside. Allyson fell. The spool of thread rolled from her hands. Yellow-Anne grabbed it, delighted to find a new toy. Within two shudders, the children sat on a pew sewing loose skin together – crude stitches attaching arms to shoulders and wrists to forearms.<\/p>\n
Allyson remembered how Yellow-Anne had stitched her dolls\u2019 hands together so they\u2019d never part. Allyson had wanted to stitch her fingers to Darren when he\u2019d become engaged to Melanie Waters.<\/p>\n
\u201cI died,\u201d Bill said, holding his fingers to his face and examining the torn, mottled skin. \u201cI died.\u201d As if the fact surprised him.<\/p>\n
Allyson wandered to the cliff edge, wondering if life had more purpose over at the last remaining skyscraper or in the earth\u2019s bowels. She wondered how their small community continued to stand. Perhaps it rested on the Devil\u2019s shoulders.<\/em><\/p>\nShe hoped Darren\u2019s girl had broken at First Fall.<\/p>\n
Below them, the ants built crude homes from fallen trees, broken rocks and litter. They wore makeshift masks to protect their dead lungs from dust that couldn\u2019t kill them further. At times, they looked at her watching them and crossed themselves. Allyson replied in copy.<\/p>\n
Remaining at the edge, toes curled over crumbling rock, Allyson realised the world hadn\u2019t shuddered and she hadn\u2019t moved in some time. Although, as they now calculated time in shudders, she figured she\u2019d been standing there for no time at all. Her muscles had adopted rigor mortis. For a moment (or perhaps a year), Allyson thought she\u2019d become a gargoyle perched on the edge of the world. The sun poked through thinning dust clouds, bringing with it a palette of long-forgotten blues. Bill set the church bell ringing. The ants huddled together. Allyson turned away from them.<\/p>\n
The children gathered about the crypt door, pretending rotten pieces of wood were animals. A fallen hollowed-out tree was to be their ark should it ever rain anything but dust again. The crypt door creaked open. Black veins pulsing beneath his mottled skin, Pastor Baest booted the children aside.<\/p>\n
\u201cI wonder if perhaps it\u2019s safer down there,\u201d Allyson said.<\/p>\n
She looked at Yellow-Anne.<\/p>\n
He ignored her. His tongue wiped across his lips and his hands rubbed his belly.<\/p>\n
Fresh clouds announced the end of Sun<\/em>day. In the distance, the last skyscraper fell. Its dust cloud rushed towards them, carrying with it glass fragments determined to blind those that could still see. Allyson pressed her hand to her face. She wondered how the ground dead fared. She waited for the earth to still before daring to look into the cavern.<\/p>\n\u2018Cavern\u2019 seemed an inappropriate word, now that they stood on the last remaining peak with the survivors spread across the basin; busy little re-building ants.<\/p>\n
Pastor Baest joined her at the edge, his cape flapping behind him like rotting wings. \u201cWe should steal them from Hell.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI’m not certain this<\/em> isn\u2019t Hell,\u201d she said.<\/p>\nHe pulled her away from the edge and pressed his lips to hers in an iron-tasting kiss. He bit the remains of her lip, tearing away skin.<\/p>\n
Staring at the open crypt door, the children gathered their things together and clutched their insides to their chests. Allyson pulled away from the Pastor\u2019s clammy grip and ran for the crypt. Their town was Hell, and the real world, or as close to it, continued below. They had to escape the pastor. Before the children could follow her inside the crypt, the pastor flew by them, as if he were a bat\u2019s wing and they the dust beneath him. He slammed the door and locked it, trapping Allyson alone. If this was banishment, it was okay with her.<\/p>\n
Pressing her hand to the soil wall, Allyson made her way down the steps. Her right arm dangled loose, having been dislodged from her shoulder. The bottom steps were sticky with gore, the gate into the other world open.<\/p>\n
Spots of blood formed a winding path across rubble. Shallow breaths filled the otherwise silent air. Allyson\u2019s and the children\u2019s lungs hadn\u2019t required breath since the first quake, though sometimes she caught Pastor Baest attempting to breathe. She found the source of the sound slumped against the remains of a terraced house. A girl, her breaths growing frantic as Allyson approached. The wound in the girl\u2019s leg festered green and her head lolled to the side. Despite these symptoms, Allyson knew the girl was alive.<\/p>\n
Melanie? No, a lookalike.<\/p>\n
\u201cAre you recovered?\u201d Allyson asked.<\/p>\n
The girl attempted to lift her arm. It flopped to her side, fingers trailing in the dirt. Raindrops, the first in at least eight Sun<\/em>days, splashed between them. The girl tipped her head back and opened her cracked lips.<\/p>\n\u201cI must bring the children to see you,\u201d Allyson said, daring to touch the girl\u2019s smooth skin.<\/p>\n
The girl shook her head.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo, you\u2019re right. Pastor won\u2019t allow them to come to you, so I shall take you to them.\u201d<\/p>\n
The earth shuddered, marking time\u2019s passage. Rubble hurtled from the skies. Allyson wrapped her good arm around the girl, shielding her from the brunt of the storm. Small missiles slammed into Allyson\u2019s back. When the world had ceased its violence, Allyson lifted the girl and found her no weight. All skin and bones and, despite the life pulsing in her chest, weighing less than Yellow-Anne. The girl groaned but offered no fight.<\/p>\n
At the top of the steps, the crypt door stood ajar. Pastor Baest perched on the gravestone. \u201cSee,\u201d he said to the children. \u201cI told you, Allyson wouldn\u2019t leave our church.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\nAllyson dropped the girl onto the grass. The girl groaned. Bill fell to his knees, palms pressed to his grey cheeks.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe thing,\u201d Bill said. \u201cThe thing we are become. May God have mercy on our souls.\u201d<\/p>\n
Allyson looked at the blue skies. Sun<\/em>day again. She wondered why they hadn\u2019t gathered in church for Pastor\u2019s sermon, and then she noticed\u2026 The church had gone–fallen into below world. The children gathered about the living girl, pressing their hands to her fever and poking her wound.<\/p>\n\u201cAre they all like this down there?\u201d Yellow-Anne asked, brushing hair off her face and exposing her cheekbone. She chewed her words. \u201cSoft and pretty and tasting sweet.\u201d<\/p>\n
Allyson didn\u2019t ask if Yellow-Anne thought the girl looked like Melanie. They both had enough festering wounds.<\/p>\n
Forming a broken necklace, the children held hands and allowed Yellow-Anne to lead them into the crypt and down the steps. They had a new leader now–Yellow-Anne, a broken girl for a broken world. They did not look to Allyson.<\/p>\n
\u201cMay God forgive your rotting souls,\u201d Bill cried. Running toward where the church had stood, he fell off their world.<\/p>\n
Pastor Baest turned the key in the crypt door before Allyson could follow down the steps. If she\u2019d intended to. Bill\u2019s words resonated, \u201cThis thing we are become.\u201d<\/em> She didn\u2019t fully understand what he\u2019d meant. When the air had cleared of Bill\u2019s final screams, Allyson sat at the cliff\u2019s edge and waited for the children to emerge below. As she watched them pick their way across rubble, hope rose in her chest. It felt almost like breath.<\/p>\n\u201cThe girl is dead,\u201d Pastor Baest said, pressing his hands to the foundling\u2019s forehead. \u201cWill you join me in\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo more prayers, Pastor.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201c\u2026finishing my meal?\u201d<\/p>\n
Screams rose from the cavern. The people in the camp nearest their cliff scattered.<\/p>\n
\u201cDo you think they\u2019ll cure the children?\u201d Allyson asked, ignoring the meat dangling from Pastor\u2019s lips.<\/p>\n
Perhaps Anne would grow to look like her brother again. <\/em><\/p>\n\u201cI believe the contrary,\u201d he said. \u201cThe children are the cure and we shall rebuild our church.\u201d<\/p>\n
Thunder echoed across their short land. Allyson pressed her hand to her stomach. She would not listen to her hunger. <\/em><\/p>\nIllustration copyright \u00a9 2011 byPierre Smit
\nCopyright \u00a9 2011 by Cate Gardner
\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/somethingwicked.co.za\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/07\/blackline1-300x7.jpg\" "\\"blackline\\"")
<\/h5>\n
\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/somethingwicked.co.za\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/07\/PurchaseButton.png\" "\\"PurchaseButton\\"") <\/a><\/td>\n | ![\"\"](\"https:\/\/somethingwicked.co.za\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/07\/SubsBuyButton.png\" "\\"SubsBuyButton\\"") <\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n[hana-code-insert name=’ArticleBlockOpen’ \/]<\/p>\n ![\"\"](\"https:\/\/somethingwicked.co.za\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/Cate-Gardner-150x150.jpg\" "\\"Cate-Gardner\\"") <\/em><\/p>\nCate Gardner<\/em> lives in Liverpool and hopes tiny pirate ships ferry rats to a surreal otherworld<\/em> via the brook that runs beneath her street. She also hopes said rats wear pinstripe suits and carry umbrellas. Monocles are optional. Her short stories have appeared in Fantasy Magazine<\/span><\/a>, Shock Totem, Daily Science Fiction and many other wonderful places.<\/p>\n[hana-code-insert name=’ArticleBlockClose’ \/]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Cate Gardner
\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/somethingwicked.co.za\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/06\/TitleUnderline.jpg\" "\\"TitleUnderline\\"") <\/h3>\n\n\n\n| \n \u201cThe Devil pulled the string on his attic door and all the people tumbled down,\u201d Pastor Baest said, recounting recent history. \u201cSoil shot up in an almighty plume, affixing its weight to the sky and colouring the world sepia. Amen.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAmen,\u201d the children repeated.<\/p>\n<\/td>\n | ![\"\"](\"https:\/\/somethingwicked.co.za\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/CoverIssue16Kindle-225x300.jpg\" "\\"CoverIssue16Kindle\\"")
\nFrom Issue 16 (Dec 2011)<\/span><\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n\n| <\/td>\n | <\/a><\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[137,226,178,133],"class_list":["post-1668","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fiction","tag-cate-gardner","tag-fiction","tag-horror","tag-issue-16"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/somethingwicked.co.za\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1668","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/somethingwicked.co.za\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/somethingwicked.co.za\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/somethingwicked.co.za\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/somethingwicked.co.za\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1668"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/somethingwicked.co.za\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1668\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1993,"href":"https:\/\/somethingwicked.co.za\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1668\/revisions\/1993"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/somethingwicked.co.za\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1668"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/somethingwicked.co.za\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1668"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/somethingwicked.co.za\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1668"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}} | |
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![\"\"](\"https:\/\/somethingwicked.co.za\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/6ftabove.jpg\" "\\"6ftabove\\"")
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