Darkness Comes to Woodford Bridge Ch. 02

'We don't know it's just us here,' said Steve. 'People might have gone the other route. That way may even be clear.'

'It probably is,' I said, 'and we need to check. Need to check Woodford and find everyone that we can. For all we know people might have seen this and gone home hiding, think they're completely alone. We need to let them know that we're alive.'

'And just because this road is blocked, doesn't mean they all are,' Natalie said.

'That's right,' I replied, giving her a smile. 'Unless this, whatever it is all around the village, then we can find a way out. That also means someone can find a way in.'

Jessie had finally stopped crying, although her voice still shook with tears when she spoke. 'My parents are gone, my Brother has gone. Even Chuckie's disappeared.'

'Who's Chuckie?' Natalie said.

'My dog. My little dog. All my family has gone.' She coughed against the back of her hand. 'Does that mean they're dead, Dave?'

The thought of death had been trying to push it's way into my mind, and I in turn had been trying to push it back again. But now the word was out in the air, and it couldn't be ignored. Was everyone except for us dead? Every human, every animal, everything? They couldn't be, it wasn't possible. Wasn't possible that I had gone to bed late at night and woken up the next morning alone in the world except for a beautiful girl that I had just met and the five other people around me. Couldn't be dead. But then, where were they?'

'Jessie, I don't know,' I said truthfully. 'You know as much about what's happening as I do. But we'll try and find out, okay?' She shook her head and Natalie squeezed her hand.

Steve had turned away from the group and was concentrating once more on the energy wall. 'This might sound like an obvious thing to say, but why don't we just try and get through this?' he said. 'I mean, we haven't a clue what it is, but it's not harming us.'

'So far,' Jeff said. 'I don't trust something I don't know.'

'I'll accept that. But does anyone else think this looks like water? Like thick water?'

'It does,' Natalie said, and pushed herself up from the hood of the car. 'But it obviously isn't.' Steve turned around and looked at her, let his eyes travel up and down the length of her, and I didn't like the way he did it. If Natalie saw she ignored it. 'I think we should try and find another way out before we do anything rash.'

'She's right, Steve,' I said. 'It looks dangerous. Look at what it's done to the earth.'

He took another step towards the shaking wall, and now was only a few feet away. 'Yes, but there's no heat, nothing. It's not like this is volcanic lava, is it? This is the opposite, clear and cool. We're scared there's no way out of here, but we might just be able to go through it.'

'I don't know about you, but I'm more frightened about the fact that nearly everyone in this place has vanished,' Natalie said. 'This thing has obviously got something to do with that. As far as I'm concerned that makes it very dangerous.'

There was a mutter of agreement from Marcia, who appeared as if she was about ready to collapse at any moment. I looked at Jeff, and although he remained silent I could see the concern about the whereabouts of his Father written all over his face.

Once more Steve looked Natalie's lean figure up and down. 'I'm sorry, but who are you?'

Natalie's eyes flickered and she looked down at her feet for a moment. 'I'm a friend of David's,' she said softly. 'I've moved here for just a couple of weeks, and-'

'Well I've lived here for nine years, honey.'

Jeff chuckled and shook his head. 'What the heck difference does that make?'

'I think it gives me more say about what happens than some newcomer.'

'Perhaps if we were debating ways to raise funds for the church,' Jeff said. 'Maybe you've noticed that this isn't a normal kind of morning, Steve? Or a normal kind of situation.'

I could see the anger flush across Steve's face. 'I just want to do something, that's all,' he said. 'Standing around here isn't achieving anything.'

'We all do,' I said. 'But let's just take it easy, come up with a plan, and go from there. Okay man?'

He let out a deep breath, as if he'd been holding it for several minutes, and looked at me with a hollow expression. 'All right. I'm cool.' He once more looked at Natalie, this time apologetically. 'I'm sorry.'

She smiled. 'It's fine.' I turned to look at her, and she looked back at me through a strand of hair that had fallen across her face. I thought of the first time I'd seen her walking through her back yard yesterday afternoon. If I'd known that I'd wake up to this nightmare I would have been happy to stay locked in the previous day forever. Our first kiss now seemed like it came from another decade. I was about to say something when I saw her eyes widen. Her shout was loud in the still air. 'No, wait!'

I looked around at her cry and saw Jack mere inches away from the wall, the reflections from it playing shadows across his body, his hand raised before him. He looked back at us over his shoulder, red patches of colour on his hollow cheeks. 'It's okay guys. I think this is pretty harmless.'

Steve tensed himself but before he could move Jack pushed his finger against the wall of silent energy. Jack froze as he touched it, and so did we, as if we were a still photograph taken from some cheap action movie. And then everything seemed to happen very quickly.

Jack's finger pushed into the wall like it was spongy rubber, and in return the wall spat out a shard of energy which covered his hand. I see his body go rigid, almost into a spasm, and then his fingers started to disintegrate, started to melt like soft wax held over a hot flame. He let out a terrible high pitched wail which split the silence and made us all jump, and then his body was lifted and thrown backwards to the ground, his head cracking sharply against the road. And his hand was still melting.

Jessie screamed and her hands flew over her mouth as Jeff leaped towards him, skidding down on his knees next to Jack's twitching body. He put his hands over his chest and held him down, shouted for us to help him. I got on the other side of him and felt my stomach churn as I looked at Jack's hand, which was now almost gone. There was white stump of bone and blood flowed out in a rapidly spreading pool of crimson on the tarmac. And still the limb continued to melt, that's the only way I can describe it. It looked like acid was eating away flesh and muscle. Now his wrist was gone and his forearm was starting to go.

'A belt. Use your belt,' Jeff shouted hoarsely, and I scrabbled with the buckle and pulled my belt free from my jeans. 'Get it round his bicep, quickly,' he added, and I twisted the leather around Jack's shirt between his shoulder and elbow and pulled hard, cinching the belt as tight as I could. His muscle bulged out on either sides of the tourniquet, and I tugged it until there was no slack at all. I allowed myself to look again at the destroyed limb, and there were spots infront of my eyes as I watched a tattoo of a bird on Jack's arm disappear as the flesh fell away. His body stopped convulsing as his head slumped against the road, unconscious with the pain.

Steve dropped to his haunches by me, his face ashen. 'Is it stopping? Jesus Christ, what the fuck is that thing?' His breath came in harsh gasps. 'Is it stopping?' He repeated, and laid a hand on my forearm. I shook it off, still gripping the belt tight. 'Christ. If I hadn't had the idea to-'

'Yeah, it's stopping,' Jeff said, cutting him off quickly. 'Shut up, Steve. Blaming yourself won't help.' He bent his head to Jack's face and paused, his hand on his chest. 'He's in shock, but he's breathing. We need to get him inside right now. If he-'

This time is was Jeff's turn to be interrupted as what sounded like a heavy sack hit the floor. Natalie called my name and I looked around to see Marcia twisted awkwardly on the road, one of the single white lines on the tarmac running out from under her back. I grabbed Steve's hands and put them on the tourniquet, pushed myself up and ran over to Marcia on shaking legs. Natalie was already on her knees, pushing the hair away from Marcia's eyes as she held her head in her hands.

'She just fainted I think,' I said, as I noticed her eyelids flutter, and then lazily open. She looked up at me, and then Natalie, who smiled down at her.

'It's okay, you just passed out for a moment,' Natalie said, still stroking her fingers across Marcia's brow. 'Take it easy for a while.' She looked up at me, dark eyes wide and full of fear. 'This is horrible, Dave. I'm so frightened.'

'Me too.' I squeezed her hand and kissed her cheek, then turned to Jeff. 'How is he?'

'The bleeding's stopped, but he's in a bad way.'

'We need to get away from here, Jeff, get inside.'

'Let's get back to the garage. I got some first-aid stuff in the workshop. Not much though.'

'Better than nothing.' Marcia had sat up and was looking more together. Natalie asked her if she was all right and she shook her head slowly, and between us we helped her to her feet. I left Natalie holding her while I went back to Jack's unconscious body.

Between us we lifted him carefully, his ruined arm laying across his chest, the sun glinting off a knuckle of bone that poked out of the tattered flesh below his elbow, and carried him to the flatbed of Jeff's pickup, laying him carefully on an old tarpaulin. Steve jumped up in the back and supported his head, then looked back at the wall with unblinking, hollow eyes.

Natalie walked Marcia over to the truck and sat her in the passenger seat, and Jessie climbed onto the tailgate of the pickup, her legs hanging over the edge. I asked her if she was all right, and she nodded, wiped her sleeve across her eyes, gray and pretty despite her streaked makeup and tears. I slapped the back of the truck and Jeff fired the engine, swung around in quick U-turn and started back towards his garage. He gave me a raised thumb as he left and I returned it, pointed to my bike to indicate that we'd be right along behind them.

I ran my hands through my hair as I crossed back towards the bike, feeling hot and trying to fight the sickness in my guts. Natalie stood next to the Harley, and as I reached her she threw her arms around me and hugged me tightly. I held her close and breathed in the scent of her hair and felt her heart beating against my own.

'We're in real trouble, aren't we,' she whispered.

'Yeah, I think we are.'

'How could that thing do that to his arm?'

'I don't know.' Still holding each other, we both looked at the huge, ominous wall of plasma energy that ripped itself up from the earth in silence. It towered above us, mocking us with it's power and even more terrifying now we knew what it could do. I felt Natalie shudder, despite the heat.

'C'mon, lets get back to the others,' I said, and brushed a finger over the exposed skin on her shoulder. 'You're gonna get burnt if you're not careful.'

'That's the least of my worries.'

I dropped my head and kissed the reddening skin. 'We're going to figure this out,' I said, unconvinced even as I said the words. 'And you were planning on ripping my shirt off later, remember?'

She turned her brown eyes back to mine and smiled sadly. 'That seems like a long time ago.'

'Yeah. It sure does, baby,' I sighed. 'Lets get out of here.'

The bike started on the first kick and Natalie slid into the seat behind me. The other two cars that less than a quarter-hour before we'd been so glad to see were still angled across the road. The passenger door on Steve's Ford was still open, but that didn't matter. I had a feeling that vehicle security was going to be the last of our concerns for a while. I took one last look at the plasma wall, at the way it curved away to our left and right, and wondered if it completely surrounded Woodford Bridge, if we really were trapped like mice in a cage. I also wondered if this was happening anywhere else, if other people were missing in other communities. And then I thought of my Father, retired and living alone, becoming an old man, struggling with high blood pressure, and Josie's question asking me if everyone was dead rang clear in my mind. An icy hand gripped my heart, and when I looked at my fingers resting on the brake lever they were shaking. I gunned the throttle and got moving, away from the end of the road and back towards the garage, and as we picked up speed I could convince myself that it was simply the wind in my eyes that was the source of my tears.

***************

The interior of the garage store was in shadow and a blessedly cool relief after outside. There were racks of motor oil and brake fluid racked against one wall, and several stands with novelty air-fresheners, bumper stickers, even some furry dice left over from another age. Several standalone shelving units held dry goods and tinned food, and two large coolers were stocked with soda and beer. A rack was filled with newspapers and magazines. The restroom was through a marked door at the rear of the store.

By the time Natalie and I walked inside they'd got Jack up on the counter, a blanket underneath him for comfort and his head supported by an old sweater. He was still unconscious, his ruined arm still draped across his stomach, and Jeff was rooting through cupboards beneath the counter. Jessie and Marcia were sitting next to each other at the only table and was leaning against the counter drinking deeply from a can of iced tea.

'How is he?' I said.

Jeff shrugged. 'God knows. I'm not a... Yes, here it is.' He stood up with a green first-aid box in his hands. 'Let's see if we can find something in here.' He snapped the box catches and started rooting inside.

I asked Marcia and Jessie if they were okay, and they both nodded, Jess giving me a small smile, and I crossed to the coolers and pulled out two bottles of water. My throat felt sandblasted and from the way Natalie drank I knew she was feeling the same way. She handed me the half-empty bottle.

'I'm just going to the bathroom,' she said quietly.

'You all right.'

She nodded, tucked a strand of hair back behind her ear. 'Yeah. I just need to freshen up, that's all. Go and help Jeff over there.' She ran a thumb over my chin and turned, and I watched her walk into the restroom, wishing more than anything that I'd never moved from where we had been lying in each others arms on my sofa the night before.

Jeff was pulling bandages and surgical tape out of the medical kit, laying them out neatly on the counter. He raised his brow questioningly at me as bent down and examined Jack's arm. The stump was a couple of inches below the elbow, the flesh ragged and torn and a knob of bone protruded like a shell in the sand, but what surprised me was there was no blood. Sure, there had been some as soon as it had happened - I had a stain on my jeans to prove it - but now there was nothing. I was far from a medical expert, but I knew an injury of this kind could cause death just from blood loss, let alone anything else.

'It's like whatever that thing is has cauterized it,' I said. 'Is that the right word?'

Jeff nodded. 'I guess.'

'But you need heat for that. You have to burn the wound closed. Could that wall be some kind of electrical force?'

'I don't see how. No noise, for a start. Even if you stand near electric cables you hear a hum. Something on that scale would be deafening. And anyway, did you see what it did to him.' He looked me directly in the eyes. 'His arm was melting, Dave. Like it was paper dipped in acid.'

'Yeah, I though that when it happened. But the power is all out, maybe the electricity has been channeled through the earth, and...' I stopped, unsure of what I was even thinking, let alone saying. I let out a deep breath. 'Oh, I don't fucking know.'

'Me neither. Let's just get this arm dressed. Can you lift it for me?'

I did, held it carefully while Jeff swabbed the wound with disinfectant on a cotton ball, then started to wrap a clean white bandage around the stump with a delicacy that betrayed his large calloused hands. 'Seems like a nice girl you got there,' he said. 'I didn't know you were seeing anyone.'

'I'm not, not really. We just met yesterday. She's renting the house next to mine for a couple of weeks.'

'What, Jim Edgecombe's old place?'

'Yeah.'

'So where's she from?' He was now securing the dressing with the surgical tape.

I remembered what Natalie had said about wanting to disappear from the spotlight for a while and keep a low profile, and I didn't really want to say much about her. 'Back East, I think. We haven't really talked that much,' I lied. 'You know how it is.'

He chuckled. 'Yeah, I can just about remember.' He snapped a last piece of tape in place. 'One thing's for sure, I bet she wishes she was back home right now. There, that should be okay, as long as infection doesn't set in. Then I don't know what the hell to do.'

'It looks fine, Jeff. You've done a good job.'

'Maybe,' he muttered. 'There's some super-strength Ibuprofen for when he wakes up, should help with the pain.' He paused and looked worried. 'If he wakes up.'

Before I could answer I felt a hand on the small of my back. I looked around at Natalie, her hair now tied back in a long ponytail that lay over her left shoulder. The skin on her face and neck were still damp and droplets of water had dripped in a line down her shirt from where she had washed. It looked as if she had been crying a little, but I decided not say anything about it infront of Jeff. She linked her hand in mine and looked with concern at Jack. 'Is he okay'

'Not bad,' said Jeff. 'How are you doing?'

'I'm all right, I think.' She let out a deep breath and rubbed her face. 'Scared, confused, worried. Apart from that I feel wonderful.'

Jeff laughed. 'I know exactly how you feel.'

'So what's the plan?'

I looked at Jeff and he met my gaze, and it was obvious from his eyes that he had as little idea about our next step as I did. But there was something I wanted to do. 'I think we need to find out if that wall is all around us.'

'You think it is?' Jeff frowned.

'Well, you saw it on the road. It was curling away from us back towards Woodford on both sides, as if it was circling around us. And the way that we've seen no traffic must indicate that nothing is getting through the road. On either side.'

'And where the hell is everyone? Where's my Pop?'

I shrugged, and thought once more of my own Father. 'I guess that's the second thing to figure out.'

'Okay,' Jeff nodded. 'But we can't move this guy for the time being, and he can't be left alone. I'll stay here with him.'

I shook my head, and lowered my voice before I spoke, keeping my words away from the others. 'Listen, I don't mind going back to the Bridge, but I want you with us, Jeff. I trust you.'

'I'm not going anywhere until Dad comes back.'

'Jeff, what if-' The look in his eyes stopped me. He'd already made his mind up. I patted him on the arm and then turned around. Steve still leant against the cooler, staring off into space with a can of something cold in his hand. From the look on his face I could tell he was blaming himself for planting the seed of suggestion in Jack's mind that we could get through the wall. Jessie had twisted around in her chair and was watching us, and I knew she was waiting for something to do. She was mature beyond her nineteen years, and although she'd been upset at the wall I known her long enough to know that she didn't just want to sit around and wait for something to happen. Marcia kept her eyes on the table, a deep scowl on her brow as if she was intently listening to a voice giving instructions inside her head.

'Okay, listen guys,' I said. 'We need to start making some moves. Jack is gonna be okay, but he's pretty beat up and isn't going anywhere for a while. Jeff will stay here and keep an eye on him.'