Once Upon a Time in Hell (3 page)

"You don't know it's going to be quite that bad," Elisabeth said, hoping to reassure him.

"No? Look at it. Like a crowd loitering outside the zoo, waiting for the ticket office to open. It won't do, it won't do at all."

He sat down on one of the rocks and proceeded to mop at his face with his handkerchief.

"When the town appeared in the Cotswolds, it was as a delicate miracle. Fading out of nowhere to the surprise of the locals, who were able to cautiously explore it before it vanished once more.

This? Look at it. It's a massive spectacle, a theatrical nonsense put on for the pleasure of the gathered hordes."

"You don't know for sure whether the Cotswolds appearance is even true," his daughter pointed out, "you only have one man's report to go on, after all." "My very point! Hardly going to happen this time is it? There will be shelves of books written on the subject by the time this lot have finished."

"And you'll probably have written one of them," I pointed out, choosing not to mention that I would certainly be the author of another.

"What does it matter?" asked Elisabeth. "Is a miracle only worth exploring in isolation?

So it's not as well-guarded a secret as you expected..."

I couldn't help but make the observation I mentioned earlier, that even this many people were the merest drop in the ocean when one considered the population as a whole.

"I know, I know," Forset agreed. "It's foolish and selfish of me. I've been imagining this moment for most of my life, the fact that it isn't how I imagined it is hardly a surprise, it's just going to take me a while to get used to it that's all."

W
E WAITED TOGETHER
for another twenty minutes or so, until, finally, there was sign of life once more from within Wormwood.

That bright light that had acted as a theatrical cue for the enigmatic Alonzo pulsed from deep within the buildings. From this slight distance it looked like the detonation of an explosive charge.

The crowds had dissipated slightly, like our party they had separated out into their little groups to discuss and moan about the unforeseen state of affairs. Now they consolidated once more, swelling towards the borders of the town.

Alonzo's voice carried through the still, afternoon air, clear even at the back of the crowd. "Thank you for your patience," he said, "it is with pleasure that we welcome the first of you to pass beyond the gate and into what lies beyond. Before you travel I must try and prepare you for what you are about to experience. It is a mistake to view the existence beyond this as a singular, definitive space. It can be that but it is also much more. At its most extreme, it is a subjective environment, a place coloured by the soul of the one who enters. I cannot, therefore promise that all who enter will be glad they did so. We will talk again soon."

The mood of the crowd changed again, from impatience to fear. Not that it did anyone the least bit of good. No puppet-master allows his creations choice after all.

The entrance to Wormwood was not to be taken on foot. One moment I was stood there in the real world and the next...

I was somewhere else entirely. 

T
HE RESPONSE FROM
the crowd was predictably slow. Everyone was busy staring at Wormwood, groups breaking up, people jumbled in the crowds like several packs of playing cards cast into the air and then left to scatter. Eventually, enough people had begun looking around, trying to friend friends and family who were no longer there, that the penny dropped.

"They've just vanished," said Billy, looking to Forset and his daughter, "including Pat rick... just lifted out of the air and pulled into the town."

"I'm sure they're alright," said Elisabeth, "nothing bad can have happened to them."

"You know that do you? I don't have the same faith in that place as you."

She took his arm. "I'm not sure I have any faith in it at all, but panicking isn't going to help."

He nodded. All around them people were talking, shouting, praying. Some treating it as a glorious miracle, others as a heart-breaking slur. Billy noted the Order of Ruth, moving in a solemn pro cession towards them.

"Well," he said, "of all the people I would have expected to have been amongst the first called."

Father Martin offered a rather insipid smile. "Perhaps we can do more good out here than we can there. God has a plan for us I'm sure."

"For all of us perhaps."

"Certainly."

Father Martin took this as affirmation, but Elisabeth was aware Billy hadn't meant it as such. "And how are you Father?" she asked, shifting the subject slightly, "it must be a wonderful feeling to be so close to God?"

"We are always close," he replied, taking her hand, "he lives in everything and everyone.

Though I'll admit it does my spirits good to see so many uplifted by the miracles we have witnessed."

"Uplifted?" asked Billy, "personally I just feel scared."

"I'm sure there's no need for fear," the monk replied, "it can be difficult to let go of what we have always believed—the rules of science, the firm earth beneath our feet—but this is the work of God and God is good."

"Well, that's as may be, but I still don't like not knowing what's happening to those people. Patrick is our friend, he's been through a lot..."

"His own road to Damascus. Yes, I believe I even heard him refer to it as such." Billy shrugged. He gave up on discussing it. Father Martin was perfectly entitled to his beliefs but at that point they ran so contrary to his own that he couldn't see the point in continuing the discussion.

He was saved the need to try. From the far side of the camp a scream rose up, tearing its way across the plain.

"Great," he said, breaking into a run, "more trouble."

T
HE MAJORITY OF
the camp had emptied as Wormwood had appeared but a few had stayed, including Jeremy Clarke, the man who had found himself the sole doctor in the party.

"But we've come so far!" his wife had said, tugging his arm.

"It's not going anywhere just yet," he had replied, "and I'd hardly be worthy of stepping across its threshold if I left these people to die in my absence. You go along, I'll be with you as soon as I can."

The couple had dreams of being reunited with Jack, their son, who had fallen from the roof of their house five years earlier. If you had asked him during their long journey to Wormwood if there was anything more important to him than seeing Jack again he would have offered you a sad smile and a shake of the head. It had been the one thing that had pulled them along the trail. He would have told you that nothing, nobody, was as important to him as that. But now, when faced with the choice of abandoning those who needed him, he found he couldn't do it.

The road to Wormwood had been hard for everybody, but some had survived it better than others. In his care he had a handful of people who he was by no means sure had survived it at all. The fact that they still drew breath held little sway with him. "You just check and see if they're breathing tomorrow," he would have told you, "then we'll know if it killed them or not."

Up until last night, he would have said one of the most likely contenders for that deferred death would have been the blind man, Henry Jones. He had suffered from exposure and frostbite, his hands a ruin of blood and rot. He had been a dangerous man, so some had told him when he had been recognised (a man with such a distinctive appearance could hardly remain anonymous for long). Clarke would not have classed him as dangerous any longer. Though Jones had fought even that pre-conception, waking in the early hours and fighting anyone who tried to hold him down, determined as he was to leave the tent and search for his absent wife, a woman Clarke could only assume had not been so lucky as her husband. Or indeed, the rest of the man's party, a wounded war veteran, his negro nurse and a dwarf—as absurd a band of folks as Clarke had ever found in his surgery. Finally, he had quietened the man, injecting him with a brew of tranquilizers that allowed all concerned some much needed peace and sleep.

Jones aside, Clarke had an elderly woman who had not been fit for the journey her family had brought her on, a combination of exhaustion and a pre-existing respiratory condition had put her next on his list of 'Fatalities that Just Don't Know it Yet'. Along with a kid whose broken leg had turned septic on the trail, his fever now so high Clarke gave him no more than a few hours.

So how could he have abandoned them? Even if his care made no difference in the end, even if they died despite his best efforts, he would fight to do his job. It was who he was.

A few hours ago, the nurse, Hope Lane, had woken up and he'd found her in a surprisingly stable condition. So much so that, as the day wore on she showed an almost full recovery.

He would have been tempted to call it a miracle had that word had any viable currency left. He roped her in to assist him and, while she was still a little sluggish and dehydrated, she had seemed more comfortable being part of the solution than the problem.

Once they had been left almost entirely alone, the rest of the residents, his wife included, walking across the open land towards the town, she truly proved indispensable. It had been left to the two of them to tend to the sick.

"Why has my Joe not woken up yet?" she'd asked him, brushing the limp hair back from her charge's forehead.

He didn't like to admit that he hadn't expected either of them to recover, particularly as she had proven him at least half wrong already, so he simply patted her on the shoulder and turned her attention towards another patient. "He'll wake when he's ready," he'd told her, "and not a moment before."

And so they had continued to work. Pausing briefly as the words of Alonzo had carried even as far as the camp, impossibly clear as if he stood within the tent itself. While the response amongst the gathered crowds bordered on the hostile, Clarke was actually relieved at the delay. It meant that he hadn't missed the chance to see his son just yet. Given time he could see to his du ties and also pay Wormwood a visit. Perhaps it would be possible for the nurse to cover for him, she certainly seemed capable.

This was not to be, as, twenty minutes later she vanished, alongside Soldier Joe and the troublesome Henry Jones.

W
HEN
B
ILLY REACHED
the all but empty camp, he had little difficulty finding the source of the screaming. A girl of no more than twelve was hunkered down behind a rock at the far reaches of the camp, where it met the incline of the mountains behind it.

"Mama," she said, "told us we had to wait, had to be clean before we set foot before the eyes of the Lord."

A small crowd had gathered at Billy's back now, all drawn by the sound. He looked up to see Clarke, the doctor.

"What's happened?" the man asked.

"Damned if I know," Billy admitted. He looked to the girl. "And where is your mama now, sweetheart?"

The girl pointed towards the slope behind them. Now he looked carefully, Billy noticed a thin red line working its way along a trail between the rocks. The girl sobbed. "The Devil took her!"

"C
OME HERE," THE
old gunslinger said, "you and I need to talk."

Given his usual reluctance to do any such thing, this was encouragement enough for me to perk up my ears and listen. The look on his face was as miserable as a pig on the butcher's block but, hell, weren't it always? I decided I shouldn't pay too much heed to that unless what he had to say gave me due cause. Besides, as stupid as it'll sound I'm sure, I was growing bored out there in the crowds. Bored you say? Damn you Elywn, what kind of idiot are you that you could lose interest when presented with a magically appearing town and the voice of the Almighty (if, indeed that's who it was, I am not a man of ecclesiastical leanings—after all the things I've seen even less so—but when someone's talking to you from the gates of Heaven, I am inclined to assume that if it ain't God himself it's someone who knows him on a personal level). Well, I am inclined to the opinion that boredom is the essential human condition and any situation, once experienced for long enough, can bring on a solid bout of it. Yes, Wormwood had appeared out of nowhere but it had then proceeded to sit there doing sweet fuck little ever since. There was only so long you could stand next to a complete stranger, roll your eyes and say “Woo-ee, that town sure wasn't there before, huh?” before both of you go your separate ways and wonder when something new is going to happen. Most of the crowd was doing the same thing, shuffling back in the general direction of camp. After all, if we were just going to be vanished into the place when our time was due there weren't no need to kick our heels on its doorstep, we might as well get some coffee on the go and put our feet up. The old man, however, had a more active plan for the evening ahead.

"We need to get in there," he said. We'd made our way up into slightly higher ground and were sat looking down on the open plain, now a bottleneck stoppered by the town that had appeared at the mouth of the mountains that ranged to either side.

"We will," I replied, "soon enough."

"No," he said, "we go in there under our own steam. That is, if you're willing."

I shrugged. "I'm willing, I guess, you've kept me alive this long."

He looked slightly awkward at that, by which I mean his blank expression twitched ever so slightly, like a horse fly bouncing off a tombstone. He wasn't what you would call expressive.

"I wish I could tell you," he said. "Being here, seeing the games and manipulation. I don't like it. Wish I could be better than that..."

"But there are some things you just can't tell me," I said, "I remember. 'Laws that cannot be broken.'"

He nodded. "Partly that. Partly because to talk of things is to invite being overheard."

"I don't think anyone's going to hear what we're saying up here."