Rachel followed their gaze and saw, rising above the mist that seemed thickest at ground level, the column of boiling black smoke making its way steadily up toward the heavens, and gasped. Now she understood the noise the people on the street were making, the confused wails and frightened yells.
Immediately her mind went to the day that had now become the default image for such events in the collective Western psyche: the terrorist attacks on New York a decade ago.
She had watched the events at the World Trade Center unfurling that day on TV, just days before she was due to leave home for the first time to attend college. The politics of the event were alien to her, and she did not foresee the impact that jarring September morning would have in the years to come, but she had known instinctively that she was watching something historic and era-defining.
The column of smoke rising from the centre of her home town brought a little of that feeling rushing back, a little of the incomprehension. Rachel always wished she had more patience for the news and current events, but the truth was that keeping up with the various ways people around the world managed to kill each other, or worrying about whatever invisible menace was threatening some aspect of her way of life just made her feel sad and helpless.
Now, as she realised that a huge explosion had taken place near the Cathedral in the centre of St. Davids she found herself wondering if maybe something had happened in the world that she should have been taking notice of, some dreadful event in a far off land that might affect her life even here, in the United Kingdom's very own middle of nowhere. Was this some terrorist attack?
The notion seemed faintly ludicrous. After all, surely if terrorists wanted to attack the UK, there were about a thousand targets that would be more important than a rural town in Wales?
The words of a guy she had met at university came back to her then. One of those guys who, as his eyes were opened suddenly to politics and counter-culture thought, became an expert on world affairs: If they really wanted to strike terror into the people, wouldn't taking out some country town somewhere do the job? Who'd feel safe then? London is obvious, Everyone is expecting that, it's just part of the paradigm. But if they flatten Shrewsbury or Middlesbrough everything changes.
She hadn't paid much attention at the time because the guy, whose name she was surprised to find she now couldn't recall had been insufferable, in love with the sound of his own voice and convinced of his superior intellect. He was erudite, for sure, but when the nuggets of truth were buried under nonsense about aliens or shadowy cultists secretly running the world, you pretty quickly stopped digging for them.
Yet it was terrorism that first came to mind as she watched the smoke, and she shuddered.
"Holy shit," Jason breathed next to her, his voice awed.
Rachel looked around. There were perhaps fifty people on the street, or standing in their gardens. She swept her gaze from face to face, hoping to see comprehension written there, someone who might be able to tell her what was happening. All looked as confused as she felt.
"There's no TV!" She heard someone say, and she frowned. How could there be no TV? Television was the cockroach of modern life: it survived everything, nibbling at the fringes of disasters natural and man-made, always ready to bring high definition torment directly to your living room.
Rachel didn't really think a moderately-sized explosion in Wales would exactly bring the news choppers screaming overhead, but no TV just added to the surreality of the situation. A lack of television was like an angry wasp in your bedroom: it had to be dealt with before life could move on.
She searched for the speaker: a middle aged woman in a bathrobe, her hair bundled up in a hurriedly-arranged towel, and approached her.
"Mrs...Tallis?" She said, moderately impressed that the name was still stored in her brain somewhere.
The woman looked at her for a second, eyes cloudy, before recognition dawned.
"Rachel!" She said brightly, "I haven't seen you since-"
"Did you say there was no TV?" Rachel cut in.
"What? Oh, yes! Every station, just static! I thought it was our aerial, but John next door said it's the same for him. And the internet is down too! Do you think it was the mast that blew up? It must have been the mast!"
Rachel shook her head slowly, processing this new information. She felt a sinking, gnawing sensation in her stomach.
"Mrs Tallis, does your phone work? Or your mobile? We have to call the police."
Mrs Tallis looked at her thoughtfully.
"I don't know dear, I'll just check for you." She gathered her bathrobe about her and rushed back into her house.
Rachel turned to Jason.
"There's something seriously wrong here Jase," She said in hushed tones. "I don't know what it is, but I think this is all connected somehow. To Dad."
Jason stared at her, and said nothing. Around them, people were starting to head toward the smoke. Fragments of their conversations reached Rachel. They were going to see for themselves what had happened in the centre of their town.
"I think we should go with them, Rach," Jason said. "Safety in numbers, right? And there's bound to be police there, or...someone that we can tell about Dad."
Rachel thought on this for a second, and nodded. There didn't seem to be a better plan at the moment.
"OK," She said, "But just hold on a second."
Rachel turned back toward Mrs Tallis' house in time to see the woman exiting the front door, shaking her head.
"Phones are down too dear," she called. "I think it's definitely the mast, or the servers or what have you."
Rachel nodded.
"Thanks Mrs Tallis. We're going to go and see what's happened, we'll come back and let you know, okay?"
Mrs Tallis smiled her thanks and rushed back indoors. Rachel had a feeling that she would see Mrs Tallis catching up with them in as much time as it took to throw off a bathrobe and jump into clean clothes.
"Let's go," Rachel said to Jason. "But keep your eyes open for anything weird. This doesn't feel right to me."
Jason nodded.
"Will do. But I'm hoping I've already seen all the weird I'm going to."
*
St. Davids Cathedral had stood as a place of worship for almost 1,500 years. Taking its name from the man who built it in the sixth century, the forbidding building around which the city sprang rose and fell like the tide, regenerating, cell-like, after suffering attacks of man and time throughout its history.
The cold stone had watched impassively as Vikings swarmed over it and murdered its bishops, as bandits pillaged the precious metals within; as a twelfth century earthquake shook loose its foundations. The heavy iron doors had withstood the ravages of wind and fire and water; they had provided sanctuary as plague and disease ravaged its congregation.
It was during these times, when nature turned on mankind and provided a reminder that flesh is a temporary prison, a crumbling façade, that people flocked to the cathedral in search of answers, seeking some reassurance that their decaying, faltering flesh was merely transitional, a step on the journey to a better place.
In recent years, Father Leary's church had seen attendances drop greatly. Even a town like St. Davids, with an elderly population, many of whom proclaimed themselves religious folk, saw the pressures of the modern world erode old traditions.
Leary had taken it all in his stride. Such was the way of things. For him, the Church's role was not to press people into service, but to remain there and welcome their return when they once again decided that they needed the comfort of God.
Leary's faith did not waver as he turned up each Sunday to the disappointment of a steadily dwindling congregation. He had been a man of devout strength, convinced beyond all persuasion in the presence and work of his Maker. Right up to the last moments of his life, the moments which saw his mind snap in two, his final conscious thought being that the soft flesh of his wife's throat tasted just right, and that Hell was very, very
real.
And still the Cathedral stood. And on the morning of the explosion, it drew in the people of St. Davids like a magnet, the landmark by which they all navigated as they made their way toward the site of the explosion that had put their lives on pause. Darkened by the mist, and the tower of smoke that cast a heavy shadow over it, the Cathedral tower watched again, impassive as the absent god that those who still attended prayed to, as humanity began to tear itself apart outside its very doors.
The wave of blood-letting spread outward in all directions, and as more people made their way into the town centre from the outskirts, it began to pick up pace, a tiny replica of the expanding universe, of perfect chaos.
Rachel felt something wrong in the air when the group of people she walked with, her parents' neighbours with their familiar and friendly faces, were still several hundred yards away from the cathedral, and the town centre.
The roads were twisted, densely packed and lined closely with buildings, making it impossible to see very far even if the mist had not been around to complicate matters, and so it was another of Rachel's senses that first alerted her.
The noise on the streets had remained fairly constant: loud chatter, some screams of surprise, but within them, she detected something else. Diluted at first, yet getting stronger. Increasing in intensity.
Other screams. Screams that mirrored her own in that dark basement: screams of horror, and pain.
For a moment she thought this must mean that people had been hurt in the blast, people who were now screaming for help, but there was something about the noise that gave her pause, something that she couldn't quite put her finger on.
She stopped, even as the people around her, becoming aware of the screams themselves began to pick up pace, and put her hand lightly on Jason's forearm.
Jason stopped a half step ahead of her and looked back, puzzled.
"What is it Rach?"
"Listen," Rachel hissed, cocking her head to the side as though the movement might let extra noise in, and give her some understanding. "You hear that?"
"The screaming? Yeah, people must be hurt, we should go and help-"
Rachel gripped his arm then, gripped it tightly, her nails digging into his flesh and making him jump, as she realised just what it was about the noise that had unnerved her.
It was getting closer.
Quickly.
"Run!" She screamed, and the unnerving note of terror in her voice drove all doubt out of Jason's mind.
The siblings turned, sprinting back the way they had come, moments before the first of their neighbours, only a couple of hundred yards ahead of them, sank to the pavement in a fountain of blood.
Jason had never been a runner, his sheer size and weight making him ungainly and quick to fatigue. Even during his rugby-playing days he had got by mainly by being hard to bring down, by chugging forward with the ball while the grasping hands of his smaller peers clutched him, eventually bringing him to the deck via sheer weight of numbers.
As his panic rose, he ran the only way he knew how, charging like a bull at full tilt, with no thought of pacing himself. His lungs began to burn quickly, and he knew he wasn't going to make it. He had a couple of hundred more yards in him. After that, even terror would not be able to motivate his pounding heart and burning chest to work any longer.
Rachel would have no such issues, he knew. She ran fairly frequently as a cheap means of keeping fit, and while she wouldn't be winning any races, she could comfortably keep going for many minutes.
Rachel could get away, Jason was sure of it. As sure as he was that if he told her he could not, she would stay with him.
He slowed a little, and risked a look over his shoulder.
Behind him, death moved like water, tumbling over obstacles and into spaces, filling all the gaps. It was hard to make sense of it in the mist, with only a glance, but it looked as though everyone was spontaneously attacking each other with their bare hands. There was no rhyme or reason to it, just an orgy of unfettered chaos. Some who were attacked fell and lay still, others, seemingly oblivious to their injuries, scrambled to their feet and launched themselves at the nearest person.
Each attack brought the wave of violence closer, just as each stride made the ache in Jason's lungs swell.
He was three or four yards behind Rachel, and panting heavily, when he made his decision, and turned to face the onslaught.
A strange, numbing sensation crept over him as he watched them approach. Shock, he supposed, his mind dislocated. Just over an hour had passed since he had arrived at Mum and Dad's house with a grin on his face, expecting a hearty welcome. Right now, he should have been knocking back his second or third cup of tea and attempting in vain to resist his mother's attempts to feed him.
Change had always frightened Jason, and he shied away from unusual experiences, always aware of the shyness that lurked within him, ready to pounce and cause withering embarrassment. When it came down to it, he simply wasn't built to cope with a morning like this. But now he understood what real fear was, not the hopeless social anxiety that had beset him previously. This was fear, this confrontation with imminent death, and it just left him cold.
They were so close now that he could almost taste the blood in the air. At least, he thought, I'll take a couple of them down with me. At least Rach will get away.
He clenched his club-like fists. This part, he would be good at.
A strangled yelp left his throat then, as a hand grabbed his shirt and began to pull. He turned, and his heart sank.
"Get moving," Rachel hissed. "This way."
Rachel led her brother down an alley that branched off the main street. The alley was short, just a vein that connected the arteries of two larger streets, and it was immediately obvious that the road ahead of them was suffering the same fate as the one they had just left.
They stopped halfway down it.
"You should have run, Rach," Jason gasped between huge lungfuls of air. "You could have made it."
Rachel shook her head angrily, placing her hand on the handle of a narrow green door set into the brickwork of the alley. Locked.
"We're going to make it you bastard. I'm not losing everyone this morning. Now, how about you put those muscles to some use and get this door open."
The screams were all around them now. They would be on them in seconds.
Jason lowered his head, tensing the muscles in his arms and neck until veins bulged, and charged.
For a moment, as Jason's massive frame collided with the wood, Rachel was afraid it would resist but then, as the full weight of her brother just kept coming, like the rear carriages of a crashing train, the door seemed to bend and buckle before her eyes, before finally popping open with a loud crack.
She risked a quick look around as Jason staggered inside cradling his shoulder. For now, as the carnage continued on the streets, they didn't seem to have drawn any immediate attention.
She slipped inside behind Jason, closing the door quietly. The lock was broken beyond repair, but there was a deadbolt, and after a struggle she was just about able to engage it. It was misaligned, and Rachel was extremely doubtful that it would hold up against anyone charging into the door as Jason had, but for now it would have to do.
Outside, the awful noise filling the streets became a little muted.
Inside, the siblings found themselves in a narrow, dark corridor. At the far end they could see a staircase, and an open doorway to a small kitchen. A small window at the far end of the room let in a little natural light. On either side of the hallway were closed doors. The layout brought to Rachel's mind her entry into her parents' house earlier that morning and she shuddered.
Jason was still rubbing his shoulder, wincing.
"We have to check the rooms," Rachel whispered, "make sure there is nobody else in here. We'll do it together, but be as quiet as possible."
After checking, if the house turned out to be clear, Rachel thought they would have to barricade the door
somehow. What they would do beyond that, she had no idea.
It looked like the property was almost entirely bereft of ground floor windows, save for the narrow strip of glass in the kitchen. She doubted anyone could squeeze through there. A stroke of luck.
They moved through the ground floor cautiously, as silently as possible. The place was tiny, low roofs and cramped, square rooms. It was hard to believe this was anyone's house. Modern houses were all about space, and the property market was dominated by airy houses aimed at growing families. A place like this, Rachel thought, would be sneered at by anyone looking to buy. Yet in days gone by it had probably been sufficient to house a whole mining family.
Things change.
Her initial assessment had been correct – the tiny house, jammed between two businesses either side (a hairdressers and a small grocery store) had no other windows on this floor, and only the entrance was the one they had broken through.
Rachel felt a little spark of hope flicker to life inside her. Whatever was going on out there, they might just have stumbled upon the perfect place to survive until help came.
They ascended the narrow, winding staircase. The steps were irregular and crooked, a distillation of the house itself: all obtuse angles, everything crammed into a space just slightly too small to accommodate it.
The first floor was two small bedrooms, similar in size and shape to the two rooms downstairs. Each held a small single bed, side table, closet and a small TV. Each had, like the kitchen, a narrow strip of glass serving as a window to let in some daylight. Rachel crept up to the glass and peeked out. All she could see was the brickwork of the alley wall opposite. The windows were functional: ventilation and daylight only.
The first floor was as empty as the ground, and Jason let out an audible sigh of relief.
"Where do you think the owner is?"
Rachel shook her head, frowning. Looking about, she saw no signs of anyone having lived here very recently. A sheen of dust had settled over the surfaces. There were no empty mugs, no filled ashtrays, no used towels. Nothing to suggest anyone had been in the cramped little house in months.
She tested the handle of the wardrobe, and it swung open easily. All was revealed. Inside, alongside a whole lot of not very much at all, was a wetsuit.