Diary of the Displaced Box Set - Books 1-4
Author: Glynn James
Date: 2019-03-14 04:00:00+00:00
Description: The highly praised Diary of the Displaced series. The first four books in one bundle! There is a place where nightmares are real. A dark and terrifying place that is hidden from the world we know, by borders that only the most unfortunate of souls will ever cross. James Halldon woke up in the dark, alone. No food. No water. No light. Almost no memories of his past. Things moved in the darkness around him. Things that growled. And daytime never seemed to come. "Of all the places I had to end up, it had to be here." Readers are calling the DIARY OF THE DISPLACED series: "A wild ride through a st
Publisher: Element 12 Ltd

DIARY OF THE DISPLACED

BOX SET

BOOKS 1-4

The Journal of James Halldon
The Broken Lands
The Ways
Footprints

Glynn James

Book 1

The Journal of James Halldon

It has to start somewhere...

I have no idea where I am, and I don't know what day it is. I could guess at how much time has passed since I arrived here, but other than that, I'm lost.

It was January, I think. The 8th sounds about right to me, but I'm not sure.

I'm trying to write down everything that has happened so far, otherwise this isn't going to make any sense to anyone but myself, if it even makes sense at all. Not that I'm expecting anyone else to read this, but you never know, do you?

Do I fill in the previous days with notes, or put it all in today's entry?

I settled on the latter. Thought it would seem disjointed, otherwise.

So here we go, I guess.

Two days ago

I remember coming round. It was dark, very dark. I could vaguely make out some shapes around me, but not much else. I was lying on something uncomfortable, or several things. It all seemed to shift and collapse under my weight. My head hurt, and I knew that there were bruises all over me. I could feel them. How I got them, I have no idea.

It took a while to get over the initial panic. I scrambled around blindly, trying to find something solid in the mass of crap that was shifting underneath me. I clumsily cracked my knee on something hard and metal. It was large, maybe the size of a microwave or a television, but it was difficult to tell what it was in the dark. I nearly screamed as the agony seemed to shoot round my whole body, which was already aching from the mysterious bruises. In the end, I lay there for a long time, trying desperately to stay as still as possible, rolled up in a ball and gritting my teeth, waiting for the pain to abate.

I felt my pockets, but my cigarette lighter was nowhere to be found. The only damn source of light available to me, and it had gone. I did find cigarettes, wallet, car keys, a pen, and a packet of mints, but no lighter and no mobile phone. I tried to search the ground around me, stumbling over whatever all the stuff was, but that turned up nothing. I'm certain I had a lighter and a phone.

My hands were cold and numb, although the place didn't feel that cold. There was air coming from somewhere, a breeze with a chill to it that smelt musty, mouldy, rank and somehow old.

Negotiating my way through the debris was slow going, but after an hour or so of crawling in the dark, I found a solid barrier. It was a wall of some sort; at least that is what it felt like, but it was hard to tell in nearly complete darkness. I must have crawled about a hundred yards in that time and I had lost all sense of direction.

I sat holding my head until a wave of dizziness passed. Exhaustion weighed heavily on me, but it was a relief to find something solid as a reference. Hopefully my eyes would adjust soon, and I would be able to figure out where I was.

In the end, sleep overcame me. I don't remember it happening. I guess my body had just switched off.

Total shutdown.

One day ago

When I awoke I was leaning against the wall, and my whole body was crying out with aches and pains. Where was I? What had happened to me? It took me a few moments to recall the last day or so. I tried standing up but my legs were numb. I could have just stayed there and moaned, but I could see where I was now. Fear always wins, it would seem.

My eyes had adjusted to the level of light. Not much but it was enough to make things out nearby, to see shapes and shadows. Details weren't clear.

All around me was a mass of junk, twisted and broken furniture, scattered books and children's toys, all damp and rotten. A few feet away stood a monolith of a refrigerator that looked like it must have been fifty years old, its doors missing. There was something nasty growing on the inside. Endless piles of junk. I shuddered to think about what might be crawling underneath it all.

Then there was the wall. My assumptions had been right, to some degree. It was made of solid stone blocks and extremely old. The blocks were at least three feet long and about a foot tall. The material was like slate, and the rough edges felt sharp. There was no visible cement between them, just a thin groove. Those bricks, if you could call them that, had to weigh a tonne. They were like nothing I had ever seen. In the limited light, it looked like the wall went on and on in both directions. Upwards, there was no sign of the top of the wall, or a ceiling of any kind, just darkness.

I called out a few times but there wasn't much of an echo, only a dull and hollow sound. I was convinced that I had to be in a building of some kind.

All I had to eat was the half empty packet of mints, so I was getting hungry. They tasted strange somehow, but I put that down to my mouth feeling like I'd been chewing on sandpaper.

Felt like crap, so I lay there for most of the day. I couldn't sleep, and even resting didn't make the tiredness go away.

Woke up and finally felt a bit more alive, managed to retrace my crawl through the rubbish, approximately, until I found what I thought was the microwave again.

Found my lighter! It was about a foot away from the microwave, under a table covered with broken glass. Underneath that was a pile of cardboard boxes and my lighter. Searching for it took me a while, and I had nearly given up, but then I put my hand straight on it.

It didn't work, must have run out of fuel, though it was wet, so that may have stopped the flint. Don't know. I never considered how they work.

Day 3

So this is where I am so far. After two days of mostly sleeping in the dark and feeling ill, lethargic, and hungry, I'm nearly ready to keel over. The mints didn't last long, and they just left me feeling even hungrier than before. I know I've slept a lot, so there is a possibility that I'm actually on day four, even five. All of this doesn't seem to matter, though.

Lack of food is going to become a problem soon. My stomach is churning and making some very odd noises.

My lighter works now that it has dried out.

Found this journal. It was stuffed into a box not far from the cardboard pile. I was so close to throwing it on the fire, along with anything else I've found that is flammable, but hesitated, which I'm glad of. I decided that I would write in it instead. I used to keep a diary at home, and I wrote in that every day, well, nearly every day, so it's nice to be able to record stuff again. My pen still works.

There appear to be pages torn out of the front of the diary, so it starts in February. But since I don't know the exact date for sure, that doesn't seem to matter.

So. The fire. I gathered up the pile of cardboard this morning. Yes, I know, there is no way to know what time it is, but I'm referring to the early part of my waking hours as morning, just to keep me sane.

There were piles of it, a lot of it wet or rotten, scattered all over among the junk. With a bundle of it tucked under one arm, I headed back over to the wall, taking it slowly and only using the lighter occasionally, just to get my bearings. It takes at least ten minutes of sitting there in the dark for my eyes to re-adjust.

Even with the light from the clipper, the top of the wall isn't visible, and neither are the ends of the wall in either direction.

There was a decent sized area cleared now, where I had slept for the last two nights. I threw most of it back over the junk, as far as I could chuck it, which isn't very far, because my muscles burn in protest every time I try to do anything even slightly strenuous.

The ground in here is mud and stones, so this place hasn't been used in a while.

The cardboard on the top of the pile that I had made was reasonably dry, and caught fire quite quickly. When it did, I was given a glimpse of something that I wasn't expecting. I stood there for about five minutes, trying to take it all in.

To start with, I guessed that I wasn't inside a building. This place is much bigger than that, unless it's an exceptionally large building.

Stretching out for probably two hundred feet, there was endless junk strewn across the mud floor. It wasn't just a small pile of rubbish. The stuff went on and on, and was piled much higher than my head in many places.

The wall wasn't a part of a building of any kind. It was a free standing thing, about a hundred feet high, crumbling into ruin in different places. In one direction it ends about two hundred feet away, collapsing into rubble, but in the other direction it goes on for what seems like forever.

The light from the cardboard seems to reach a lot further than I had expected. This is good. It gives me space. Somehow I think that light travels farther than it should in this place. I'm not certain how that works, but it's strange. Even a tiny glow illuminates quite a large area. Maybe it's my eyes?

I had only just begun to get a grasp of where I was when the fire started to die out. The cardboard had burned through quickly, and as the fire started to die down, I rushed about, trying to find some more fuel to keep it going, but only found more cardboard. At least it gave me enough light and a bit more time to explore the junkyard while I searched for better fuel.

There were bits of broken furniture scattered about, but most of it was rotten or wet and I didn't think it would burn well. I piled some nearby anyway, hoping it would dry out. Does wood take a long time to dry out? I've no idea.

An hour later, after ten more piles of cardboard and an assortment of broken furniture, I found it.

A pile of logs.

Big ones with some of their branches still on them.

Someone must have cut up and dumped the majority of an entire tree there, maybe even more than one. Fortunately, a lot of it was dry and cracked, as though it had been sitting there for a long time. I cleared a bigger space surrounding my bonfire, stacking up the smaller logs that were easy to carry at the edge of the clearing.

It took another hour to move the logs to my makeshift camp, between keeping the fire going and lugging the heavy bits of trunk. Some of it was far too bulky for me to drag, so I left it where it was.

I called out into the darkness again, still no answer. I've tried this a few times now, but nothing comes back, not even my own cries. I'm starting to think that I am a long way from other people. Where could this place be? Underground? Surely this isn't under the city? You can't hide a place like this, can you?

Feeling very weak.

Day 4

Woke up ravenously hungry.

It's my fourth day without food or water, so I'm really not feeling good at all. I'm losing weight quite rapidly now. Thank God for that extra Christmas-holiday fat. I would never have been able to lose weight like this normally.

The campfire had gone out while I slept, but there was still a large pile of logs, at least enough not to run out in a hurry.

Lit the fire again, and then made a torch out of a piece of furniture leg and a torn piece of cloth from the remains of a sofa. I needed to find food, and fast, so I headed further out into the junkyard with my torch in hand.

The microwave isn't a microwave at all. It's this strange, seemingly solid block of metal. Well, it appears to be metal. It doesn't open. Well, not in any way that I can see. There's no door or handle, or anything like that, just a solid block. I tried moving it, out of curiosity more than anything, but there was no way I was going to budge it without help.

I spent most of the day clearing the area near my camp. Once more I tried to find something edible, with no luck.

Day 5

Found something to drink! There was a stack of fizzy drink cans underneath the wreckage of an old wardrobe, about sixty cans of it. It's nasty, cheap cola, but at least it's wet and gives me some energy. I think the cans are quite out of date, but even though the taste is a bit odd, just like the mints were, it still feels good going down. Stopped after I drank the third can. I need to make them last.

The wardrobe drawer proved useful to carry the cans back to camp.

There is so much junk scattered all over the place. It makes me wonder where the hell it all came from, and who put it there. Was this some half-used underground landfill site that was long abandoned?

Now that I've got a bit of energy, I've started to build a sort of temporary shelter. I need to have a base to work out of; this place is pitch black, and if I end up stuck in the middle of nowhere, in the dark with no way to find my way back to my supplies, I'm dead. It may sound crazy, staying here and setting up camp. I keep thinking that I should up and move on, keep walking, that soon I would find a way out. But there is something in the back of my mind telling me that it would be a bad idea, that escape isn't only a few hundred yards away.

But what if I'm wrong? What if just round the corner there is some hidden exit that I haven't yet seen?

Made a rough sack out of some old curtains I found.

Still haven't found my phone.

The fizzy drink is four years out of date. I found a readable consume-by date on one of the cans. I'll never turn my nose up at cheap fizzy drinks again, ever.

Day 6

Lots to write today, but where to start?

The day began with a stint collecting more wood, breaking bits of furniture that I have found, and carrying it back. I'm taking it slowly, well aware that cans of fizzy drink are not bad for energy, but without any food, I'm not running on full batteries.

I found a stack of chairs, dozens of them, all made of solid wood and nearly new. It's bizarre what you find in this place. I used them with the curtain material, and managed to make a batch of torches that I can easily carry with me. They don't burn for long, though.

Kept one of the chairs to sit on.

The first sounds came while I was hauling a broken sofa back to the camp, a task that is not easy while holding a torch. I was dragging it along with one hand, making my way one yard at a time, when I heard the sound cut through the noise that I was making.

It scared the hell out of me. A howl, quite a distance away, though it is hard to tell in this place, where nothing echoes properly. It didn't sound like any dog I have come across, and I've never heard anything else howl. Do foxes howl? The sound was much too deep to be a dog, almost how I imagined that a wolf would sound, but we don't have wolves in England, do we? I don't think we do.

The howl was answered by another one, this time much further away. I wasn't sure of the direction the noise was coming from, or even the exact distance.

I finished dragging the sofa back to the camp and leaned it against the wall, until I could clear an area for it. My torch was nearly out at this point, its last flickers nearly dying as I stuffed some cardboard onto the fire.

The howling had stopped.

Panicking, not wanting to lose the fire, I fumbled with the torch and managed to get the flames going again. There was a lot of smoke at first, but finally it went up in one giant whoosh.

There it was, five yards away, teeth bared at me, growling. I knew by its reaction that I was saved only by the campfire; the minute the area was flooded with light again, the creature screeched. It was a high, piercing sound, like a siren, like it had been hurt. It belted away through the junkyard, yelping, to disappear into the darkness. It only took a couple of seconds. The creature moved at a speed I could only imagine. It must have been going thirty miles an hour through the piles of junk. I hate to think what it could move like on flat terrain, without any obstruction.

I'll describe it as best I can, but it's not like anything I have ever seen, and I only got a brief look at it while having what felt like a heart attack. I panicked and nearly fell on my backside in the fire as I tried to back away from it.

Take a large dog, such as a Rottweiler, and mix it about half and half with a tiger or a panther. Give that a mouth of teeth twice the size they should be, cover it with grey and brown spiky hair, and lots of what look like scars, and you have roughly what just bared its teeth at me. I would swear that there were bits of flesh hanging off it, or its fur was all torn.

The eyes, they were huge, and they didn't look natural. At least not to me, they didn't. Maybe the thing is accustomed to being in the dark? I presume this from the way it reacted to the light.

How something like that has developed is unfathomable. Is that the right word? There is nothing that I am aware of that is like it. It must be indigenous to this place, wherever this is. That reinforces my belief that I'm a long way from any place I know. Damn, I don't know if I'm even on Earth any more. You read stories about people vanishing, and folk tales of travel to other places, but they are stories, aren't they?

I'm going to keep the fire burning continuously now, if I can.

I think I'm going to need a weapon.

Day 7

A wrecked car has appeared about twenty feet from my camp, smashed up against the side of the wall. It's a complete write-off, and there is blood all over the torn and twisted upholstery. There are also, well…bits. It wasn't there before I went to sleep.

Jammed into the driver's footwell, which is utterly crushed, is a leg. Well, part of a leg. To make it worse, the bone sticking out of the leg is perfectly flat at the end, as though it had been cut or sawn off.

Yeah, not kidding you, this thing arrived without making a sound. It was just there when I woke up. I can't even tell what make or model the vehicle is, it's in that much of a mess.

From the apparent damage at the front of the vehicle, I would say it didn't crash into the wall here. It's not the right shape. How the hell a wrecked car got here, though, I don't know.

I noticed a smell of petrol wafting in the air, which would be great news if I could get my hands on it, somehow. That is if the tank is still intact. Petrol would be useful right now. I keep glancing at the leg in the footwell and shuddering.

Managed to force open the boot of the car. It took about two hours, but was worth it. Inside was a large suitcase, unusually heavy and ticketed to go to Namibia, Africa. Mr Adam Samuels.

Hauled the suitcase back to the camp. I struggled, but couldn't open it.

I wonder if that is Mr Samuels’ leg in the footwell.

Genius.

Went back to the car and carefully pulled off some of the damaged metal panelling. There are lots of sharp bits that break off easily, to make cutting implements. A large piece of the frame came away, twisted and jagged at one end.

It didn't take much effort to wrap more pieces of the door panelling round the thing and some of the curtain material around the handle, tied together with cloth strips cut from the sofa.

Now I've got myself a nasty weapon if the dog thing comes back.

It only occurred to me afterwards that I could have cut myself badly while pulling at all that sharp metal. There aren't exactly any ambulances around here.

As well as the mace (I think that's what they are called) I've managed to put together two usable, makeshift knives using the braces between a chair leg and a large piece of sharp metal from the wreck.

Before going to sleep, I used a large piece of furniture wood to prise open the side of the car, so I can access the petrol tank. I've got nothing to put it in at the moment. Really, I just wanted to make sure it wasn't leaking out anywhere. It's not. The petrol smell must be from the battered remains of the engine.

One last thing. It occurred to me that the dog thing was probably hungry, and a raw leg from the knee down, sitting in this vehicle, might bring it here again. I think I heard movement in the distance once or twice, but while I've got the torches burning and the campfire lit they seem to be leaving me alone (I'm presuming there is more than one from the answering howls that I heard).

Decided I couldn't risk it and took half an hour to prise open the footwell with the hefty bit of wood, wrapped another piece of curtain round my hand and pulled out the leg.

Damn thing. It squelched as it came free. I nearly threw up, and probably would have done if I had anything but fizzy drink in my belly. Chucked it over the wall. Barely. I was so glad I didn't need a second try at it. There's not a lot I can do about the blood, without wasting fizzy drink. Most of it seems to have dried anyway.

As a last thought before I sleep again, I must venture out, soon, but I need to know that I can survive it first. I can't stay in this camp forever. For all I know, there might well be a way out a few hundred yards away.

Day 8

The suitcase, when cut open, contained some men's clothing. It's all a bit too large for me, and the trousers don't fit too well, but at least I've got some clean pants on now. There are towels. All I need now is some water! Sun tan lotion and sunglasses – you're having a laugh. A roll-on deodorant, so now I don't smell too bad. Can DogThing smell it, though? I never thought of that before I used it. More pens, Namibia travel guide, mouthwash. Damn, mint flavoured.

Stomach is burning with indigestion from only cola cans to live on. I need to find something solid soon, otherwise I'm going to have some serious stomach problems, or worse. I think at a guess I must have already lost two stone. Oh well, Doctor said I needed to lose weight.

I'm hungry, but somehow not as hungry as I think I should be after so many days without food.

Preparation for travel (Inventory).

Shoulder sack – slightly better fashioned with bits of leather from the car upholstery, now that I have something to cut with.

2 knives.

Wicked, nasty, DogThing-killing mace.

15 torches.

Bundle of curtain material to make more torches.

10 cans of fizzy drink.

Cigarette lighter – still part full.

Journal and pens.

Small chunk of sofa foam for pillow.

Small towel and deodorant?

Mouthwash? Too much to carry.

Ok, the torches last about half an hour, roughly. The longer ones last maybe three quarters of an hour, if I'm lucky, so I reckon that I have something like seven hours travel time, three and a half hours each way. I'll have to judge it by the torches.

My stomach is beginning to give me real problems now, so although I should probably leave after I've slept, I'm going to head out today.

Day 9

A breakthrough! I've discovered something that might be food. I know that sounds odd, but I've never seen a three-foot-tall mushroom before. I stood there, wasting torch time, for about ten minutes, wondering whether it was edible or not. Eventually I decided that the risk was worth it. It's a pale white colour, which made me think of the mushrooms that you can buy in a supermarket. I hope I'm right. I chopped it up and stashed it in the sack. It's not heavy stuff, and there is quite a lot of it.

I'm getting too far ahead, so here we go.

Right, I've slept again, so it's pseudo-morning once more. I need to catch up on yesterday's excursion. Again, quite a bit to write, but the first thing is I'm back at the camp.

The Day 8 Expedition

Hour 1

For the first hour I walked about a quarter of a mile through the debris, marking my journey by re-arranging junk, mainly by pulling away a pile of wood or rubble, and laying out a marker pointing back to the previous one. It was slow going, but if I get lost in here, I'll be in serious trouble, even with my supplies. Although there is a lot of junk there are also some wide, open spaces between it, so I don't have to climb over junk the whole way.

There's so much mashed-up stuff here that it could be the rubbish dump for a whole town. Most of it is either scrapyard junk or piles of broken furniture. That's good, though – at least I'm not running out of firewood any time soon. There's no rotting filth that I can see, so this isn't landfill refuse.

Found what I can only believe is DogThing's droppings, dotted about all over the place, but no signs of DogThing itself, yet.

As I travelled further away from the wall, the rubbish started to thin out a bit, but there were still quite big piles of it all over the place. I spotted a damaged shopping trolley that I decided to take back with me. The wheels didn't quite work, but I thought they could be fixed, with a bit of force.

Hour 2

Headed further out, and at about half a mile, I reached the edge of the rubbish. It thinned out into only infrequent larger piles and odd scattered bits. I think I saw at least five washing machines.

I abandoned the shopping trolley. It was too knackered to fix and wouldn't push straight, plus one of the wheels fell off.

It was at this point that I found the mushrooms. They were dotted around quite a distance from where the ground was covered with scrap, so maybe they favour open areas. The biggest one that I found was about three feet tall and probably the same diameter across the hat. I spent a while examining it before deciding to cook it back at the camp.

Hour 3

As I was wandering along, trying to figure out what the hell all this stuff was doing here, and hoping that I would see some glimmer of inhabitancy in the distance, I came across the most bizarre thing yet.

It was sitting there in a large clearing, rubbish and junk of all kinds stacked up around it.

The first glimpse I got of it was the shape, and the eyes. Or what I thought were eyes. They reflected off the torchlight, and I nearly turned to run, but it didn't move.

It was about six yards high, four wide, and as long as a truck. After meeting DogThing, I was positive that this was some gargantuan mutant rhino, or something equally horrendous and deadly. I thought that I was about to die. Then I noticed something up on top of its head and it looked like writing. I took one step closer. Stupid, I know, but I nearly fell over laughing at myself in amazement at what was there.

Number 12.

Not in service.

It was a London bus.

I was about to walk over to it and investigate, when I heard the scream. Crazy. I have been on edge ever since I arrived in this place, and the one moment I relaxed, something caught me ill prepared.

I've never heard anything that made my spine tingle as much as that scream did. It was stomach wrenching, long, and turned into a gargling wail seconds later. For the second time in as many minutes I nearly fled the area, but something, call it instinct if you want, compelled me to try and help. That scream was coming from something or someone in extreme distress, and I knew what I was going to do, even though every part of me said it was stupid.

I ran. Not quite blindly, but barely able to see ten yards in the darkness. My torch in one hand – newly lit only a few minutes before – and my mace in the other.

The scene unfolded far too quickly for me. The fight was going on much closer than I had first thought. I had barely run twenty yards, and there they were. DogThing was cowering back, blood streaming from a wound in its side. Looming over it with weapons in their hands, were two people.

I had hoped it would be possible, and for a few brief seconds, I felt relief. There were other people here. I wasn't totally alone. But that relief was short lived as I ran towards the scene to help them.

The stench hit my senses as I got within about ten feet and then one of them spun round to face me. What I saw staring out of that hooded cloak was disgusting and terrifying beyond anything I've ever seen in my life.

It may have once been human, but what was left was unrecognisable enough that I was unsure whether it was male or female. Most of what was visible of the creature was either rotting or falling off. It began lumbering towards me. Its face was half missing, and I could see its jawbone shining in the torchlight, hanging on by one or two putrid strips of muscle. The cloak opened a little as it moved, and underneath I could see maggots falling out of holes in its flesh and scattering across the ground.

I've seen a lot of Living Dead films, and I know a zombie when I see one, or at least what a zombie really looks like. Let's face it, you watch the films, but it never occurs to you that you might meet one in person, let alone two.

I was surprised enough that the slow, shuffling thing nearly got to me before I reacted. It tried to hit me with the broken stick that it was carrying, an improvised club, but I took a couple of steps back, waited for it to get in range, bit back the fear, and tried my new mace, ironically made to defend against the creature I now fought a common enemy with.

I lunged at it, missed and stumbled forward, nearly dropping the torch and the mace. This stuff always looks easier in the films.

Fortunately, I wasn't the only one with little control over my faculties. The zombie was having a hard time turning round, so I had time to wind up and aim the second attempt. As I pulled back my mace for another shot, I was vaguely aware that yards away, another violent struggle was going on between DogThing and the other zombie.

Impact. Its head erupted into pieces, splattering the ground behind it. My arm jarred, and the pain shot all the way up to my shoulder. I stumbled backwards. The creature still staggered in my direction for a moment, but then collapsed sideways, tumbling to the ground with a wet thud.

Behind me, the furious growling from DogThing had stopped, and silence came once more. I spun round to look, swinging my torch in front of me, realising that I still had DogThing and possibly another zombie to deal with, but DogThing was just watching me warily, and nudging the remains of the other cadaver, which it had quite literally torn to pieces.

Both zombies down, and only a demon dog to deal with. We stood there, ten feet between us, breathing heavily, watching each other.

I backed away slowly, leaving it to poke around the bodies. I needed to be away from the scene. I staggered back to where the bus was and leaned against the side.

It took me a while to stop throwing my guts up and get my breath back. I called out in frustration, into the darkness, but only a dog and two smashed up zombies were there to listen to me.

Realising that I was over my expedition outward time, I rushed some of the way back, and decided to leave investigating the bus for another time.

DogThing followed me back to camp, keeping its distance.

Today (Day 9) I spent the most of the day shifting some of the junk in an attempt to build some kind of wall defence round my camp.

It occurred to me as I sat back at the camp that I was wrong about DogThing being hurt by the light. I suspect it merely frightened him.

Yes. I decided to presume that DogThing is a male. He sat just on the edge of the light of the campfire for most of the evening, watching me warily, and licking his wound. It looked a bit nasty. He's not looking at me hungrily, so I'm trying to presume that I'm not what he has planned for dinner.

Facts I've learned about DogThing

DogThing likes roasted mushroom. So do I.

DogThing isn't a Living Dead thing. The bits hanging off him are just dirty bits of crusty fur. I am beginning to wonder if I have found an ally in him. I hope so. I certainly don't want him as an enemy, and sleeping might be easier with him nearby. Knowing that there are zombies and things wandering around in here doesn't set you up for a peaceful night.

He doesn't smell anywhere near as rank as I thought he would.

He doesn't like the campfire light.

Back to the mushrooms. They don't taste that much different to supermarket mushrooms, and they come in bigger bits. I guess I will find out quite soon if they are edible or not, but for now it feels good to have something solid in my stomach.

I can't believe I have been here over a week.

Day 10

I haven't slept for hours now. It may be day 11 for all I know, but I'm sticking to a day being between each sleep (ish). Thank God for DogThing, and to hell with zombies.

I'm about to try and get a few hours’ sleep, but I doubt very much that it's going to happen. If it wasn't for DogThing, I would be dead right now. There is no doubt about that.

I was fast asleep and far too comfortable, with a belly full of mushroom and a warm fire going. I guess I nearly forgot about the dead things that I had fought earlier that day.

The noise made me start, and I sat bolt upright, fumbling for a torch, and my weapon. That same long, drawn-out moan resounded nearby, and I could hear DogThing having a go at something. The unwelcome and familiar sound of zombie flesh ripping, and the grating of DogThing's teeth, was too close for my liking. He must still have been sitting nearby when they arrived.

The torch flooded the area with light, and I wished it hadn't, because I could see at least four of them loping slowly towards the camp. Worse still, there were bits enough to account for a few others, strewn about the clearing that DogThing had been lounging around in. They don't leave a lot of blood, just bits.

I hurriedly put my torch into the fire again, stoking it frantically to try and get more light into the area. It was almost out, and I didn't have the time to lug any wood from the pile. I managed to get it going a bit more, and regretted it straight away, as the fire roared to life and lit up the entire area around me.

There were dozens of them, at varying distances. All shapes and sizes, and at different stages of decay. The nearest to me was at least twenty feet away, and it seemed to be stuck in the junk. Most were still staggering, trying to negotiate the piles of scrap. I am so glad that they are slow, or I would have been overrun before I'd even noticed that they were coming.

I hesitated for a moment. Would I be able to fight them all off? DogThing was doing an awesome job, but me? Not a chance. My trip out earlier proved to me that I was useless with this mace. Yeah, sure, I killed it, but only after nearly landing on my backside after my first swing.

Time to run.

Time to get the hell out of here as fast as I can.

My kit was still packed from the expedition, so I grabbed it, and as much other stuff as I could carry, and made my way along the wall away from the camp, in the only direction that was reasonably clear. As I shuffled along through the rubbish, I saw that there was only one of the creatures in that direction. I figured that if I moved quickly, I may not even have to fight it.

So here I was, tucked inside the bus with the doors all jammed shut, and DogThing prowling the area outside. I was exhausted.

DogThing followed me, after side-tracking to make a meal out of one or two of the zombies along the way. I think I now know why I've not become a DogThing meal. He seems to have a taste for the living dead. Sick, yeah, but I'd rather it was them and not me.

The zombies didn't follow me. They seemed intent on continuing into the camp. I don't know where they are heading, or what has attracted them to the area, but I'm just glad it isn't me. Well, I think it isn't me. They didn't follow me to the bus, so they must have had some other reason to be there. What that was I don't know, and I don't think that I want to find out.

Need to sleep now. Struggling to write.

Day 11

I'm still alive, still inside the bus, and still got me a demon DogThing patrolling on the edge of the torchlight. Can you feel love for a mutt from hell? Damn right you can. He won't come into the bus, and seems to be afraid of it for some reason. Maybe I should take heed of that, but I'm too tired.

I'm glad I made a large supply of torches now.

Anyway, back to my escape.

My exodus wasn't entirely uneventful. That one zombie that I was hoping to avoid moved quicker than expected. As I edged away along the wall, it closed the gap. I looked back, but DogThing was busy tearing into another of the monsters that had entered his clearing. I whistled, but he didn't respond. I would have called him, but I didn't think he would answer to "DogThing," and I didn't have a name for him yet. I must give him a name, he deserves that at least.

The wall was quite low by the time I faced off against the zombie. I approached slowly, pointing my mace and my torch at it. The reek of the creature was nasty, hitting me like a cloud of gas at about ten feet. It was a massive one, not tall or anything, but fat, monstrously fat, and it had something sticking out of its stomach, piercing right through its body. It looked like it was a metal girder or something similar. Its innards were wrapped round the metal and dangling out all over the place, dragging along the floor as it stumbled about.

A totally random thought entered my head, and I laughed. How odd. Here I am, faced with a horde of the living dead, and I'm laughing as I remember being told by my mum to tie my shoelaces or I would trip on them. Did this creature ever have a problem tripping on its own guts?

For its weapon, this zombie had chosen a head. Yeah, a zombie head. It had hold of it by the hair, which was long and drenched through with dried blood and other crap. As it swung it in my direction, the head cursed and swore at me. I think that's what freaked me out more than the obese size of the creature – that swinging, screaming head that it was trying to hit me with.

I didn't think I had much luck by ending up in this place, but luck has had a lot to do with my survival after that moment, and it played a huge role right then. I was about to step forward and try to take the thing on. Even though I was convinced that I stood no chance, but then I noticed what it was standing on. Cardboard! Another immense pile of it, spread out across the floor, and this time not drenched in muck and water. One jab of my torch and it took like a treat, and the giant zombie went up with it. I had to jump back a few steps to avoid getting toasted myself.

I've never been a hateful person, but the sheer joy in watching that creature roast was immense. So much so that I wasn't expecting the damn thing to come walking off the cardboard towards me, burning like a failed Catherine wheel as it flailed that screaming head and its other arm around in its fury. I had no choice. I dived over the wall, hit the ground hard, and then frantically crawled away. Not a moment too soon either, because barely a second or two after I tumbled away from the wall, the burning zombie came crashing down over the rock, in an inferno, and fell to pieces on the cobbled floor. The head, still on fire, rolled over towards me and came to stop a few inches from my feet.

It screamed.

Up until then I had been avoiding going over that wall. I dreaded the thought that when I got there it would be as vast and endless as the side I was living on, and there was something reassuring about sleeping with your back to solid wall. I was right to be wary.

Broken ground stretched out into the darkness, and there was no sign of an ending to the open space this side of the wall. I didn't have time to look around, and I wasn't going to go stumbling into somewhere else unknown if I could help it, so I hurried off in the only direction that I could remember. Towards the bus, leaving the zombie collapsed in flames with the putrid stench of rotten, burning flesh hanging in the air and tearing at my nostrils. The head screamed even worse insults at me as I scurried away. How typical is that? The first time I hear another human voice, and it's not attached to a body. It couldn't even have had vocal cords.

This place is nuts.

It would seem that my memory isn't completely gone! I'm starting to get some little bits back about the day I ended up here. I think I would have remembered more, but the dream that brought it to me ended rather abruptly when the zombies arrived at the camp.

I was on my way to a major client, to talk to them about their latest order, when I hit a traffic jam. The M25 can get quite frustrating, during rush hour, but it wasn't normally so congested mid-afternoon, so that was unusual. Still, that didn't suggest anything weird to me.

It took about an hour extra to get there, so I had phoned ahead to let them know I was going to be late. That was when I noticed my phone was getting low on charge. I couldn't find the car adapter for recharging it, and I remember making a mental note to do so later on, but I guess that the opportunity never came.

The last thing I recall was stopping off at a service station to use their toilet. I have this thing, you see, call it an obsession if you will, about not appearing untidy, or being a nuisance of any kind. Turning up to a client's place and using the toilet straight away was rude. Well, it was to me.

So I went to use the toilet at the side of the service station, and that's about as much as I can remember. Sometime after I used that toilet, something bad must have happened, and somehow I ended up here.

Even more interesting! This bus has a rough bed laid out on the upper deck, and a whole bundle of personal stuff tucked away in the corners. Somebody used this place as a home at some point, and from the dust that has settled over most of it, I think that it wasn't recently. It's a shame. Even though it's a relief to see any signs of life here that might be human, the place being abandoned for so long, or so I presume, is another reminder that I'm alone here.

I spent most of the day hiding away in the bus, trying not to attract any more attention from the zombies, and catching up on my sleep. It was reassuring to be barricaded in somewhere for a change.

Never would have thought it, but sun tan lotion works ok as a makeshift soap. It's not brilliant, and I think it's a cheap brand, but it does freshen you up a bit. It's a shame there is only one bottle of it.

Day 12

A few more zombies passed by this morning, but they didn't come too close and didn't bother investigating the bus. I don't think they even noticed it.

DogThing has wandered off somewhere. I didn't realise until about an hour ago that he had gone. There is something disconcerting about not knowing where he is.

Gave in to curiosity and tried to start the bus, but the engine didn't even turn over. Not surprising really, it must have been sat here for years. It's strange what you become accustomed to. After fighting zombies and eating three-foot-tall mushrooms, a London bus sitting in the middle of nowhere doesn't seem so odd any more.

Found some useful things after having a rummage through all the stuff on the bus. There is a lot of random, useless junk, like a box of dishwasher tablets, but I found a knife for starters. Yes, a real one. It's only one of those small cheese knives with a curly, two-pronged tip, and it's a little blunt, but it's better than the makeshift knives that I botched together. There was also a torch, minus the batteries. You never know, I may come across some at some point, so I will keep hold of it for now.

In the front corner, on the upper floor, was a pile of magazines. Mostly gardening and craft ones. Some of them are over thirty years old. Behind the magazines was a small pile of books. Six of them are the same book "A Thesis by Professor Adler". They look quite old and are all signed, presumably by Mr Adler himself, though I can't make out the signature clearly enough to be sure.

In a pile, in the middle of the floor, was a thick woollen blanket that was sizable enough to cover a double bed. It's quite smelly, and could definitely do with a wash, but will be a lot better than the curtain that I no longer have. Damn. I lost a lot of stuff back at the camp.

Plastic bottles. There were dozens of them, all stuffed into a massive cloth sack. If only I could find some water. Unfortunately, all of them were empty.

Hanging on small metal hooks on two of the walls were a pair of lamps. They were both empty of fuel, but if I could siphon some from the car wreck, I might be able to get them going. There was also an empty hook.

Covering most of the walls and windows on the top floor were posters from various time periods. Some of them were of bands from the eighties, and others that I'm certain go way back, possibly even to pre-Second World War, maybe further.

I'm saving the best find until the end (as they say). On the bottom floor, right at the back, among all the litter (the bottom floor must have been the last occupant's rubbish bin) was a small metal box with a broken handle. Inside it was a rusty set of tools that were mostly knackered, but there is a screwdriver, a hammer, and a rusty but usable adjustable spanner. All fantastic finds. I'm getting all happy about a damn toolset.

Lingering in the back of my mind, there is an unsettling feeling that someone lived here for quite a long time, and then went off one day, never to come back. Maybe they were trapped here like me and found somewhere better, not bothering to come back? I'm not convinced of that. I think I would have come back even if it was only to collect a few things. Which reminds me, I still have to go back to the old camp and salvage whatever I can, hopefully avoiding any zombies on the way. I also need to find somewhere other than this bus to stay. There seem to be zombies wandering by every few hours. I'm lucky – they either don't seem to notice me or they aren't interested, but that doesn't mean it will stay that way.

I'm convinced that the zombies are heading somewhere. They are always walking in the same direction, and I've never seen any of them twice. Trust me, I would know. They are all grotesquely different.

The strangest one I have seen so far came past yesterday, while I was having a smoke and peering out of the window, hoping to see DogThing. It wandered by, about thirty feet away, right on the edge of the light. I'm damn sure the creature had been put together, because there were two heads sticking out at the top, and another jutting out of its waist. It had far too many arms and legs, almost like three different people had been wrapped together deliberately. The top two heads were staring at each other, like they were in shock at being attached to one another (wouldn't you be?) while the third, the one sticking out of its waist, was looking around. I'm not sure whether the two heads that were facing each other were even alive, or animate, or whatever they are.

There are only three cans of fizzy drink left. I'm surprised they have lasted this long. Either way, I'm going to run out. This is a good thing and a bad thing – if I drink much more of the stuff I'm going to end up with serious stomach problems. Not that I don't already have them. Fizzy pop is not good as a staple diet, but I've got nothing else.

From the empty bottles, I've come to two possible conclusions. Either there is water nearby, or it is so far away that whoever owned these bottles needed a lot of storage to be able to live here.

I'm going back to the old camp tomorrow, in an attempt to recover the last few bits of my possessions. I remember seeing a hosepipe somewhere in the junk, not too far from the camp, while I was hurrying on my way to the bus, so will attempt to find it.

I ventured out briefly to see if I could find anything else to drink, but I didn't go too far. I did find something intriguing though. Hidden away, behind a massive pile of empty tin cans around the corner from the bus, was a small heap of mangled-up bicycles and prams. None of them were in a condition to be used as they were, but it did mean one thing to me. Wheels. I'm determined to fix up one of the prams to use as a cart; then I wouldn't have to lug everything on my back.

Will pass by the pile on the way back to the camp. A second reason to take a different route back there.

I hope the zombies have gone.

Day 13

To say that today has been an interesting experience would be an understatement, but before I go into that I need to sort out last night's dream, in my head.

I hadn't even noticed, until I woke up, that I hadn't been having any dreams at all that I could remember. I used to dream so vividly before, back in the real world (is that the right thing to call it? This place seems real). It's strange that I don't recall dreaming at all while I've been here, so much so that I'd forgotten all about it until last night.

It started off a bit vague. Don't all dreams start that way? I was on a bus that was driving slowly through London, like the world was going through one of those film clips that they play in slow motion, so that you don't miss the details they cleverly placed in there. It wasn't as slow as a film, but the dial was definitely turned down slightly. Everyone outside the bus was walking slower, and everyone inside the bus seemed to be in complete time stop, apart from me and one old fellow, who was sitting right at the front of the bus, smoking a pipe and chattering to himself.

I recognised the route the bus was taking. I'd taken it many times when I'd been working in the East End of London, years ago, back when I was just learning the trade. It always worked out easier to park up and go by bus than to drive through the streets.

As always on that journey, I watched the busy traffic outside and occasionally glanced down at my newspaper. The print in the paper seemed to be changing every time I looked at it, though I wasn't turning the pages. Then it occurred to me. Had I been there before, on this bus? I mean on this particular bus.

Yes, I had.

It was a long time ago, back when I was a kid. The theatre poster stuck on the top panel over the stairs, the one slightly torn in one corner, was identical to the one I’d seen back then. I was convinced of it. I was very young at the time and out on a day trip with my parents, to the London museums. It was the exact same poster.

I remember the old man getting off the bus a stop before us. He peered at me as he went by, and my dad nearly leapt out of the stall behind me. The old boy just smiled at me, and pointed at the empty cream soda bottle that I had been sitting squeezing the air out of, so it made a whistling sound. I remembered him so clearly because of his distinctive appearance. He was scruffy beyond scruffy, half of his clothes in tatters, with rips and holes dotted all about him. I think his boots were held together with masking tape or something similar. His beard was long and plaited, almost like thin dreadlocks, with multi-coloured string, or threads of some sort, woven into the braids. How he managed it, I don't know, but he must have been wearing at least six or maybe seven layers of coats and jumpers in varying stages of disrepair. Finally, there was the hat. A baseball cap that had faded over the many years that he must have been wearing it, until it was a light shade of muddy brown. That hadn't stopped him from attaching about half a million tiny pin badges to it.

He had the strangest face I think I've ever seen. His nose was huge and bulbous, his eyes deeply inset and smaller than I thought was possible. To me, he looked exactly like I had imagined a goblin would appear, except grimier, if you could get grimier than a goblin.

"You finished with that, son?" he had said, with a wink. I just stared at him and held the bottle out. I imagine that my mouth was wide open, my jaw ready to bounce off my lap. He took the bottle, winked at me a second time and said "You'll be fine," then he gave me another toothy grin, and shuffled off down the stairwell.

I woke soon afterwards, startled by a noise outside, but the dream was still fresh in my mind, and the images overlaid reality for a few seconds. From where I was lying, huddled in the blanket (which was damn warm if a bit smelly), I could see all the other posters on the walls. There, stuck right where it had been back then, though partially covered by a few newer posters, was the same one, ripped corner and all.

Evita. Starring Marti Webb.

There it was, right in front of me.

I sat there for a while, going over it in my head, and although I'm uncertain, I think that was how it happened. It's not all in my imagination.

The noise outside repeated once more. Shuffling, scratching. It brought me round in a second. I lit up the torch as quietly as I could, and tentatively peered out of the window.

DogThing was shuffling about at the front of the bus, and although he only stayed for a few minutes before heading back out into the darkness, I've never been so relieved to see a mutt from hell.

An hour later and I was out the back of the bus, cooking mushroom on a small fire. I was tempted to cook inside the bus, but if the thing went up in flames I would be homeless. I figured I would hear a zombie coming in plenty of time.

I was wrong.

It was already past me and moving off into the darkness when I became aware of it, just visible on the edge of the light cast by the fire. This one was only small and carried its own severed arm in its other hand. It went on, lumbering its way past, into the darkness, and off in the direction of the old camp, and the wall.

Where were they going?

I hadn't been totally stupid. The mace was leaning against the side of the bus, barely a foot away from me, and I leapt round the fire to grab it. I was still standing there, shaking and nervous as hell, thinking that the thing would come back again, when two more shuffled into the light. They were leaning on each other, or maybe one was dragging the other along. The shorter of the two had a leg dragging behind it, barely attached. They completely ignored me and followed the same path.

You know what's worse than having to fight zombies? Being ignored by the damn things. It makes you wonder if you are even there. I suspect that if I wandered near them, they would probably attack me (which I'm not going to test), but the way they just carried on, ignorant of my existence, made me wonder if they sense much at all. Maybe they can't even see you unless you are right on them.

It's starting to grate on me. The need to know where the hell they are all going. I know that I'm going to be daft enough at some point to follow them and find out, but right now I'm down to two cans of drink. I'm surprised that I've managed to make the remaining few last this long.

I want to go back to the old camp, and disregard the need to head off somewhere that I don't know to find more supplies. Food isn't a problem, as there are about a million mushrooms growing in the dark all over the place. Water is a problem, though.

Ok, I'm heading out now. Got my satchel and a few bits and pieces. Got the tools, the mace, lighter, a couple of empty bottles (one of which looks remarkably like that bottle I gave the old man on the bus), a few torches, and one of the lanterns.

I decided to go for the bike and pram pile, to see if I can put together some form of trolley to move stuff in. It's right on the edge of an area I haven't been far into, with plenty of mushrooms, so I can explore a little and grab some food at the same time.

Oh, and it's not near the zombie route.

Day 14

Yesterday I spent the majority of the day rummaging through the pile of prams and bicycles, trying to find enough useful bits to put something together. I did it in the end, after a lot of messing about. I found an old pram that only had three wheels, and a single wheel that was roughly the same size. It's probably going to wobble, though.

Thinking of other possibilities, I also picked up a couple of the bikes, and various other parts that looked usable, and pushed them along in the pram, back to the bus.

After a couple of trips there, I had enough bits to rig something up, and spent the rest of the day inside the bus, fixing up my new contraption. I made it from two prams, four bikes, and a heap of other bits to keep it from falling apart. A push cart.

It is a thing of engineering genius and beauty.

Well, it is to me.

There is only one can of drink left. I've done well to ration them, but they don't exactly quench any thirst. If anything, they make it worse.

Today I decided to go and have a poke around back near the old camp. There was an area where all the cardboard was damp, so I figured there had to be water near there, somewhere. I took a pile of empty bottles and one of the hanging lanterns. Hopefully I'd find something to fill the bottles.

On the way to the wreck, I spotted the hosepipe that I had seen before. It had a few holes in it, and was wrapped round a massive stone block that looked like a collapsed part of an old building. It took a bit of cutting with the new knife to free a section of it about four metres long. I cut it into two pieces, which should be enough for siphoning off petrol, I thought. I've seen how it's done; my dad was always tinkering with his car, but I've never tried to empty a petrol tank myself before.

The zombies had gone, and there wasn't even much left of the gargantuan one with the swinging head for a weapon; the one that I torched. There were small bits here and there, but the majority had vanished. I'm sure some of the bits were broken bone. Maybe DogThing came back and had his dinner here.

After clearing out what remained of my camp, including the pillow, sofa foam, curtains, and odd bits that I had collected, such as the pile of chair legs, I wandered back over to the car wreck.

It was still there, with that musty smell of petrol lingering in the air. Where I had managed to prise open the side of the vehicle, the petrol tank was in clear view. I admit that I was a little nervous holding a lighted torch over it.

After propping the torch up a few feet away, I took off the petrol cap and forced the pipe down the hole. It took a lot of sucking to get the petrol flowing out, and it tasted disgusting, but soon I had a few full bottles.

The lantern, once filled, lit up an area much bigger than the torches did. At last a source of light that shouldn't run out every half an hour. I hoped.

It was strange to see the old camp area, and the place where I first arrived, all brightly lit up. I could clearly see a hundred yards or more before the bright light began to recede.

After a bit of clambering about, I found a decent piece of metal pole and attached it to the pram with ripped bits of curtain, pointing upwards. A couple of whacks from my mace and there was a hook shape on the top to tie the lantern on. Another strip of the curtain sorted that out.

The damp area where I first found the cardboard, a few feet from the spot where I first woke up, was as dry as the rest now, and I couldn't find a reason for it being wet in the first place.

Something I hadn't noticed while I was living out of that camp was a mountain of books and newspapers, about a hundred yards along the wall, in the opposite direction from where I made my quick exit a few days ago. I pushed the cart over to it and had a rummage in the pile.

There had to been thousands, maybe tens of thousands of books and magazines in the pile. I grabbed a few of the least damaged ones and stacked them on the cart before moving on, promising myself that I had to come back and have a proper look. If I was going to be stuck here, I may as well have something to read.

It was so much easier to spot useful things with the area lit up almost as bright as daylight, but that also meant I kept seeing stuff that would definitely come in handy. Far too much of it to carry at that moment. Damn it. I was becoming a bag lady.

One interesting thing that I did spot was half a dozen sacks filled with empty drink cans, the same ones that I had been living off. Unfortunately, there weren't any left unopened. Had someone else sat here drinking them all?

DogThing hasn't shown his face again since he popped back to the bus yesterday. I wish that I knew what he knew. He's probably lying in a huge pool of water somewhere, drinking his fill and frolicking on the shore. If only he could talk. I bet there would be an endless amount of interesting things he could tell me, having lived here all his life. I still wonder what exactly he is and how he got here.

As I headed out to the mushroom field, I spotted the oddest thing.

Scaffolding.

I don't mean piles of it. This stuff was already erected and sitting there, in the middle of an immense clearing in the junkyard that was close to the wall. Some of it was hanging down, ready to collapse, but most of it was standing quite sturdy, ramps, ladders and all. The only thing that was missing was the building in the midst of it all. There wasn't time to head over to it and investigate; I needed new supplies. I set off again, pushing my cart back towards the mushroom field.

Sometimes it just doesn't click, does it?

Then, later on, you have an epiphany, and feel damn stupid because you didn't put two things together.

Mushrooms.

Where do they grow?

In the dark. With little light. In the damp.

I was busy cutting up my third mushroom, standing in what looked like an endless field of the things. They stretched on as far as I could see, so I wasn't going out into them. I'd have gotten myself lost.

Then I felt something tap me on the shoulder.

I spun round, dropping both the mushroom and my knife. My heart almost leapt out of my throat. That stunned tingling feeling you get when you jar an elbow, or knee on something, shot through my whole body.

There was nothing there, only more mushrooms and darkness.

I was alone.

The mace was in my hand in about a millisecond. Well, maybe not that quick, but I was fast. It was a good job that I wasn't holding the lantern or I might have dropped it and wound up standing in complete darkness. A minute went by and then I felt it again, but this time it was on the top of my head.

A drip.

In the utter silence of this never-ending void, I heard a sound that nearly made me jump up and down with joy. It was only a faint noise, barely audible, but it was there.

The pattering sound of rainfall.

Day 15

Catching rainwater is not an easy thing to do.

I spent the remainder of day 14 hunting down bits of plastic and sheets of anything that I might be able to use to catch the water in. Eventually, I dug some holes in the sparse layer of soil that is like a crumbly coating on the rock floor. I straightened out what little bits of plastic sheeting I could find in the nearby rubbish, making small reservoirs. Then I waited for the water to collect.

An hour later and I managed to fill one bottle of water up, which I drank down in about three seconds.

It was fantastic. But there wasn't enough of it.

After some more hunting, and more digging, I eventually managed to cover a large area of ground with little potholes for the water to collect in. I'd have to come back after I'd slept and hope that it had worked.

I had another strange dream last night.

I was still on the bus, sitting watching the traffic and the throng of people on the streets of London, but this time I was the only one on the bus. I didn't look downstairs at the driver's booth, mainly because I had an eerie feeling that it would be empty.

The journey seemed to last for ages, but then I guess it would, if you were sitting there with no destination. I had no idea where I was going or where I was supposed to be getting off. So I sat there. Then I fell asleep, within the dream, which was odd.

In the dream within the dream, I was watching the old tramp again, but this time he wasn't in London, not even on the bus. He was here, walking among my mushroom patch, past all of the (now full!) little water pits I had built.

He didn't seem aware of them though. He appeared preoccupied with something else, something that I wasn't privy too. He was wandering slowly through the mushrooms. Although it might sound strange, I think that he was singing to them. He held his arms outwards and his palms flat. A mumbling sound, like a hum of an electricity generator, was coming from his throat.

He walked on, and I was trapped in my camera view of his journey through the mushroom field, which ended after about a half-mile later, after passing some particularly huge mushrooms that must have been ten feet tall.

Along the way, I noticed wooden shafts jutting out of the ground, with pieces of bright cloth tied to the top. The tramp seemed to be using them as a guide through the mushrooms.

After the mushrooms ended, the ground was hard rock. No crumbly soil coated the flat plane of ground that he walked over. I couldn't take my eyes off him. My gaze was fixed on his back. I tried to look around me, but my head wouldn't turn. I was only allowed to look in the direction that he was facing.

The expanse of flat rock went on for the best part of a mile before the ground once again turned to soil. I suspect it was much further, but that was the distance that my brain registered.

Now the land sloped downwards, and for the first time, my vision was released. I realised then that I hadn't been seeing by the light of a torch. I wasn't even there to be carrying one. I was floating, disembodied, behind the tramp, and he wasn't carrying any form of light source. Instead, the area was lit by the glow that now came from the scene in front of me.

Where the flat rock plane ended, a valley spread out below us. Wild slopes covered in strange glowing grass and even stranger plants spread out before me.

It was hard to judge the distance to the far side, where the rocks were sharp and jutting upwards into what appeared to be a rock face. It looked like a natural rock wall, rising for hundreds of feet from the valley floor, and lit up by massive stalactites that were formed from a strange, blue, translucent, glowing, glass-like material.

There was a waterfall cascading down into the valley, and white foam splashed off the rocks as the water fell from the darkness above, to end in a roaring swirl in the middle of a crystal-clear lake.

It was beautiful.

My gaze went back to the old man, as he made his way down to the water. I noticed for the first time that a body lay barely five feet from the water's edge.

I followed him down the slope and glanced down at the body. It was him, or what was left of him. Something terrible had happened to him here. Apart from his face, which had enough features remaining to make him recognisable, the rest of his body had been torn apart and spread out across the area in a frantic and random pattern. I guessed that something had literally ripped him apart.

I turned to the other old man, the same, but living one, to find him looking back at me. His eyes were brimming with tears. He spoke, and his words were the last part of the dream that I remember before I woke up.

"Wake up."

I had to find out. I had to go there. It was probably quite a journey. I don't remember the exact passage of time from the dream, but it didn't matter. I had to find the valley. I didn't remember looking at it during the dream, but when I went over it in my head, I was positive that there was a building, a shack of some sort, up on the rocks on the opposite side of the water. There was a wagon, a log pile, and other vague features that I had forgotten, or were blurred, as many things are in dreams. Someone lived there. I don't know if it was the old man, but if the place still existed, I was going to find out.

But not without being prepared first.

I spent the whole of the day getting my supplies together, packing whatever I thought that I would need into my cart. I hauled out the sack of bottles and made some alterations to it so that it would hang comfortably off the front of the cart. I collected more wood and made more torches until I ran out of the curtain material. By the time I was finished, there was a pile of torches enough to last me a few days if the lanterns ran out.

A trip out to the mushroom patch later on rewarded me with a dozen full bottles of water. I drank two of them down straight away, relishing the feel of real water running down my throat. No more cheap cola for me.

I'd kept a lookout while walking there, hoping to spot more plastic sheeting or anything that might collect water. Nothing jumped out at me.

After chopping up another mushroom to take back with me, and checking that all my makeshift water collectors were set up properly, I turned to head back, but couldn't help but stop and look out over the expanse. Somewhere through those mushrooms, I would hopefully find some that were ten feet tall. If I did, I would know that there was a chance that everything else I had seen in the dream was true.

As I go to sleep tonight, I am full of the first hope that I have had. There is a place out there. I'm certain of it. It's a place that has light, and water, and grass. There was grass!

Of course, in the back of my mind, I remember the body on the shore, torn to pieces. It somehow didn't worry me. I was under constant threat wherever I was in this place.

Day 16

I didn't sleep as well as I would have liked to last night, but then I wasn't expecting to. I lay awake for a long time, wondering whether I should set off right then. Eventually tiredness took me into slumber and yet another dream.

This time I was sitting on the bank of the lake and the old tramp was sitting next to me, staring into the mirror-like surface of clear water.

"I told you that you would be fine here, didn't I?" His voice was harsh and cracked. His gaze cast out over the lake to something that I couldn't see. "You will be fine here."

"Where is here?" It was all that I could think of among the multitude of questions that I really wanted to ask.

"I wish I knew, exactly. I have been here a long time, as long as I can remember. My life back in the old world seems to be a vague memory, and one that fades a little more each day. Home, is all I can say. This place is my home – was my home."

"What happened to you? Was that you on the lakeside?"

"Yes, again, I wish I knew."

"But you are still here?"

"Yes. It would seem that even in death, I am still trapped here, though that is a comforting thing. After so long here I would not choose to leave. It is a dangerous place. But if you can adapt, as you have done, it is also a wonderful place."

"Dangerous? Like the zombies and the dogs?"

"Yes, and far worse. The zombies, as you call them, are only dangerous if you approach them. They are tormented enough with their own inner pain that they do not wish to be reminded of how whole you still are. The dogs, the Maw, are no danger to you. If anything, they are a gift. Do not fear them."

"But something killed you."

"Yes. There are...other things here. Things best avoided."

"What things?"

I didn't get an answer. Instead, I felt myself drifting away from the scene. My body was no longer a barrier to hold me. My mind raced back to the bus, where I lay sleeping. A million questions still unanswered.

Before I awoke, I heard his voice one more time.

"You must find your way here, James. Find your path to the lake. You must leave, soon. For after the rain will come the storm. Leave as soon as you can. I will be waiting for you."

The first on my list of things to do was to head back to the old camp, to the car wreck, to siphon off as much of the petrol as I could in the couple of hours that I had spared myself. I figured that I might not have the opportunity to come back here, at least not without a long trip, and the petrol was something that I didn't want to run out of soon. Torches were all very well, but there was nothing like the light of the lanterns.

The trip was surprisingly quick, with not a single sign of a zombie anywhere. It was disconcerting to be wandering the place, to find nothing. I was on edge the whole way, expecting to hear that stomach-turning groan in the darkness. No movement. Not even DogThing, whom I am starting to miss.

Ten bottles of petrol filled later, and the tank was empty. I had made such a lot of ground in a short time that I wandered back via the book pile and had a bit of a rummage through it. Most of it was damp, from the rain, and mouldy from sitting outside. But I found a few readable books and magazines. A lot of it is ancient.

Then back to the bus, to take as much as I could carry in the cart. Tools, lanterns, mushrooms, the hose, everything that I thought would be useful that would fit on it. By the time I had stacked everything up, the cart was quite heavy. I only hoped the wheels would hold out for the journey.

With some reluctance, I finally set off, saying goodbye to the bus as it disappeared from view. With my temporary home left behind me, I turned the cart toward the mushroom patch and the journey that awaited me. I had only gone a hundred yards when I saw movement in the gloom ahead.

I prepared myself, mace in one hand and knife in the other, and I watched and waited. The shape moved slowly out into the light, becoming DogThing. He padded towards me and then sat down about twenty feet away, glancing backwards in the direction that my journey would lead me.

"So you are called a Maw then?" I don't know what I expected back from him, but he replied in his own manner. He shuffled, stood up, and gave me what was almost a nod. Then he made a quiet, whining noise, before sitting back on his haunches.

I hauled the cart into movement again. It was heavy to get started, but once you had momentum it moved quite easily over the dirt ground.

As I got closer to DogThing, he stood up and skirted round me, keeping his distance for a moment before he began to trot alongside me.

"You're coming with me then?"

A snort was my answer.

It seemed he was.

He was still an odd thing to have around, but remembering the old tramp's words, and the times that DogThing had already helped me, saved my life even, gave me a boost of confidence that I had been missing since he disappeared a few days ago. Any companion was good in this place, especially one with the killing ability of a demon mutt.

We set off across the junkyard, heading slowly past the massive piles of refuse that I wished I had had time to sort through a bit more. I was convinced that there was endless useful stuff in there.

Eventually the mushroom patch was in sight, and it felt a little strange to be pushing the cart through it, towards my water reservoirs, with the thought that I might not be coming back this way again, at least not for a while.

The first sign that the dream was living up to its promises was the pools of water that had gathered in my pothole reservoirs. All of them were full, and it took me a while to fill all the bottles that I had stored in the sack, making the cart even heavier to push. By the time I had filled them up, collected the plastic sheets and begun my journey again, I was starting to feel the tiredness come over me. The later part of the day had gone by much quicker, and although I had no way to judge the time, it certainly felt like I had been awake for a full day.

I pushed on further and into the mushrooms, struggling with the extra weight of water that I was now carrying. I hadn't travelled more than a few hundred yards or so when I spotted the first marker. It was the same wooden pole that I remembered the tramp following, and had the same bright cloth tied neatly at the top.

As I sit here writing this journal and eating some of what I had already cooked yesterday, shaded from the rain by a massive mushroom (one that is ten feet tall, like I had seen in the dream), and an hour on from finding the first marker, and ten more markers passed, I am hopeful for the future.

DogThing is sitting barely ten feet away from me, also eating, though his is raw and bitten straight from the mushroom. His presence is a constant reminder of how strange this place is but also how not everything is against me.

I think of the lake, and the shack up on the rocks, and I know there is somewhere to go at last. It's a place not far from here, and though it is no longer inhabited by the living, it is a place that could be lived in, for now. It's a place where an old tramp who I once met on a bus, when I was a child, once lived.

One that talks to me in my dreams.

Day 17

"So who was he then?"

"He was a professor, taught art literature I think, but he was quite mad when I met him down here. He was a nice fellow, harmless enough, but he used to gibber on in some strange language, and he talked to himself a lot."

"And he just disappeared?"

"Yes... Well...no, not literally. One day he was talking about needing to go and get food. I said that we had enough mushrooms and pods to last us for months, but he didn't want pods or mushrooms."

"Pods?"

"They grow by the lake. You will see when you get here. They taste like potatoes, but with a sharper taste maybe, and are much bigger. They are slow-growing, though."

"I see. Anyway. About Professor Adler?"

"Yes...oh...yes. Well he packed up some provisions, got on his bicycle and headed out across the swamps. He used to travel round a lot before, but this was different, somehow more final. I begged him not to go, but he didn't listen. He never came back."

"Swamp?"

"It's a few miles past the valley. There are some ruins, as well. A city, once, I think. It's a dangerous place. I'll tell you all about it when you get here."

"What's your name anyway?"

"Rudy."

It was strange waking up outside again. The rain hadn't stopped. It still floated down in a barely perceptible sheet, the kind of rain that soaks everything, while giving you the impression that it's just a light shower. I was glad of the huge mushroom that I was sitting under. The ground near the base was almost dry. A few feet away, the ground was sludge.

DogThing had found himself a similar nook to hide away in, tucking himself under a smaller mushroom about twenty feet away. He was so well camouflaged in this strange field that I almost didn't spot him.

I decided that it was pointless waiting until the rain eased. It hadn't done since it first started drizzling. I spent a few minutes gathering my things and pushed off out into the wet, trying to spot the next marker.

It was a slow trek through the rest of the mushrooms and up onto the rock plateau. I didn't remember the slope out of the mushroom field being quite so steep in the dream, and it took me about an hour to haul my cart up the few hundred feet of rock.

When I finally got up there, it was the weirdest sight. Talk about flat. The plateau could have been carved by a machine from the bare rock. There was almost a polished sheen, glimmering in the lantern light, stretching out for the few hundred yards of visibility.

DogThing seemed reluctant to follow me out onto the flat at first. He perched on a small outcropping of rock at the top of the slope and watched me, eventually leaving the safety of his camouflage to catch me up. I'm glad he did. Seeing him sitting there, watching me go, gave me an eerie lack of confidence in my choice. If he wasn't willing to walk there, what was I doing?

The markers were less frequent across the rock, and each time they were sticking out of a plastic bag filled with small stones, and bits of junk. The hard surface of the ground looked like marble, but less smooth. Of course, I'd only ever seen marble on the floor of banks and museums, where it was highly polished. This must have been marble in its raw state. I could have been walking over a natural resource worth a fortune. One thing I did notice was the long streaks of reddish gold. I thought that they looked like metal of some kind, but I could have been wrong. What the hell did I know about rocks?

DogThing stayed a lot closer to me than usual, snuffling along the ground a few feet behind me and hugging the shadows that the lantern cast. He seemed ok but a little uncomfortable.

I reckon it took roughly eight hours to reach the crevasse, and I was about four hours into the journey when the rain stopped. No warning. No light rain or gradual lapse. It just switched off, like someone had turned the tap off. Twenty minutes later and I was walking on dry ground. I had no idea where the water had all gone.

The crevasse appeared in the gloom, stretching across the path that the markers had led me along. I had a horrible gut feeling, as I approached, that it was going to be impassable. It appeared to be about thirty feet wide, and it was dark. When I finally had the chance to look down into it, I sighed with relief. It was only as deep as a man's height. Of course, there was no easy way to cross it, and no gradual slope, just a sheer drop.

Well it's another hour or so later as I sit writing this. I've got a little campfire going, down in the crevasse, only a small one to cook up some mushrooms. It took me most of that time to haul my stuff out of the cart, and down into the bottom. Then I had to lug the cart down as well.

At first, I left the cart and walked a little way along the edge, hoping that it would end soon, so that I might be able to navigate round it, but there wasn't any sign of an easier crossing, so I gave up. I could have spent hours walking along it to find nothing.

My stomach is still feeling crap after two weeks or so of drinking only cheap fizzy pop. I'm hoping that drinking water will make a difference, clean my system out a bit. Having solid food seems to be helping a lot.

Now that the rain has stopped I'm wishing that I'd laid out more plastic water traps on the way. At least I still have quite a good supply of water bottles.

Day 18

"How far is it?"

"Not far, maybe a day or so from the crack in the plateau. You're making good time."

"Ok."

"The rains have stopped, haven't they?"

"Yes."

"The Maw is still with you?"

"DogThing?"

"You named him?" Laughter. "Yes. Him."

"Yes, he is still with me."

"Good. Pay attention to his senses. The gargants don't usually move up onto the plateau, so you should be ok."

"Gargants? What the hell are they?"

"Huge things. Vicious. They come from the swamps after the rain. If the ground starts shaking, then you run in the opposite direction and hide, fast. But don't worry. You'll be ok on the plateau."

"No zombies?"

"No, no zombies. They seem to frequent the junkyards and the ruins, cutting a path straight through the swamp to make their way to the great wall that you found up there. Though they take the long way round the plateau, for some reason. I've never seen one up near the waterfall."

"Are they really zombies? Those things?"

"No. Not really."

DogThing was even more on edge for most of the day. I pressed on for as many hours as I could, leaving little time to write this by the time I set up camp again. Honestly, it's all just flat rock, so not much to report anyway.

Endless, flat rock.

Day 19

"It was nervous?"

"Yes. He stuck close to me, by the cart, for a few hours, and he kept watching the darkness and stooping low. He wasn't a happy dog."

"No ground tremors?"

"No."

"Good. Keep going. You'll reach the valley soon."

"I'll be glad to get there."

Laughter.

"I bet. Be careful when you get here, though. On rare occasions, a gargant wanders up from the lakes and drinks from the waterfall pool."

"Lakes?"

Laughter again.

"Yes. Lakes."

He was right about arriving soon. Later that day, after hours of pushing the cart, the edge of the plateau dropped off out of sight. DogThing reacted before I even saw the terrain change. He bolted towards the darkness and almost disappeared before the flat rock gave way to a grassy slope.

I had seen the points of blue light for a while in the distance, but until we got closer I couldn't make out what they were. I'd suspected correctly, though. It was the crystal stalactites from my dreams, and as I approached the edge of the valley, my eyes adjusted to the new light. The vastness of it all was overwhelming. The valley spread for what seemed like miles. The sound of the waterfall cascading down the rocks was quiet and muffled. Sound doesn't seem to travel as well as light does in this place. It's also odd how the light seems to deaden off at a distance. Only the blue light of the crystals travels far. The darkness is almost like a fog.

I found Rudy's body down by the water's edge. It was exactly where it had been in the dream, but it wasn't the same. Where before there had been skin and bits of body and blood all over the place, now there were only dry, old bones, most of which had become submerged in the mud.

He hadn't died recently.

The old shack was there, up on the rocks, not far from the waterfall. It was quite a trek up the path, which I think must have been worn away by water rather than been cut. The rock was too smooth.

Rudy was waiting at the entrance to the building, near where the door was flung open and hanging half off its hinges. A strange, warm wind was gusting across the rock as I hauled the cart up the slope.

After everything I had seen in this dark world, even with the zombies (apparently not zombies), and DogThing, and the mushrooms, seeing a floating, glowing ghost of a dead man was still quite disturbing. I was wary as I approached, but he was smiling and beckoning me forward.

"You made it. Good. Come on, quickly. Get inside before the gargant smells you." He pointed behind me, beyond the waterfall.

I turned round, looking down the valley, and saw the creature he spoke of. The gargant was close by, and the name was quite apt. I'm not sure what it was that I was expecting to see, but I know that a giant slug thing wasn't it. From my best judgement, given the distance, it was easily the size of the bus, maybe larger. It shuffled on a multitude of tiny legs that lined the bottom of its body, and hundreds of tentacles writhed across the ground in front of it as it scoured the river bed and the grass near the lake's edge for, well, whatever it was looking for.

"Mad."

"Yes. Exactly. Nasty things. Fortunately they can't get all the way up here. The rocks don't give them enough purchase to climb, but they can get part of the way up, and have wrecked the lower end of the valley before, killing all the pods that grow there. Come inside. Let's not give it any reason to come any further upstream."

I left the cart on the flat, rocky area in front of the shack and went in, following my ghostly friend. I noticed that DogThing had disappeared again, and Rudy must have sensed my thoughts.

"Don't worry, it will be back. The Maw seem to love gargant spawn, and they are far too quick for the gargants to catch."

My stomach churned.

"Gargant spawn?"

"Eggs. They leave piles of them in the mud, easy for Maw to dig up. Best not to think about it."

The shack looked long abandoned, but the rough stone fireplace, the only part of the building not made of wood, was stocked up and ready to be lit.

"I made the fire before I went down to the lake that last time. It's been sitting there...ready...for years."

It took a while to get the fire going. Some of it was damp and mouldy, but after removing the worst of it, the fire took well. Soon the shack was lit up and warm.

Rudy showed me round, commenting on many of the things in his house. There were only three rooms. The main living room, a small bedroom, and a storage cupboard at the back that stank of rotten food. It would take some cleaning up, but with a little work the place could be habitable again.

In the main living room there was an old sofa, a small desk pushed in one corner, and a bookshelf crammed full of old books and papers.

"The professor's diary is in there, on the top. I read it a while after he left. I felt guilty, but I wanted to know what he was thinking. You may want to read it. It's...strange...but it explains a little about why he was mad, I think. The bits from when he was in London weren't that interesting, but the few entries he made when he moved to the country, are."

I nodded, moving on to look at the large grandfather clock stood in one corner, motionless. The time was stuck at half past four. Dust caked the top and the glass, and the wood was dry and cracked. It was still a beautiful thing, though.

"It stopped working a while after I died." His voice was quiet. "It needs winding up every week or so. The chimes don't work, but the tick of the clock is nice."

He was silent for a moment. "It could do with cleaning up a little. I never got round to restoring it properly, didn't have anything to clean it with. Would you mind winding it up? It's the turnkey at the back."

I did as he asked, and started the pendulum swinging. Soon the quiet tick, tick of the clock broke the silence.

"I used to sit in here a lot, reading. Adler liked to walk a lot, but I preferred to stay in here. The sound of that clock was quite relaxing."

"The professor didn't stay here much?"

"Yes, he did. Most evenings, anyway. He spent most of the day wandering, and he slept outside. Up the slope, behind the shack a short way, is an overhanging in the rock. He had a camp there. There's not much there now, though. I brought most of it back down here, after he left."

"I see. I'll have a look up there later, after I've got my stuff in here."

Searching through the bookshelf, I could see it held mostly classic old tales and several copies of the same thesis book by the professor; duplicates of the books I found in the bus.

"There is a mountain of books of all kinds, mostly rotten, over in the junkyard. You've probably seen it. I used to pick some up whenever I went back there, hunting for stuff." He pointed at the bookshelf. "That's where most of this came from."

Later that day I did read the professor's diary, at least the last few entries that he had written before he arrived in this place. I decided to put the pages inside my journal, in case they become useful at some point.

Professor Adler's Diary

Below are the last entries in the diary of Professor John Adler of Temperance, Northamptonshire, before his arrival in this other place.

March 20th, 1922

It is the first day of spring, and it is a time of the year I always love. The snow, which back when I was boy would still be melting even now, is long gone. I think the weather must be changing over the years.

As I walk the lanes of the country, which I love to do in the afternoons now the weather is turning finer. I see all the first signs of the year to come. The flowers are beginning to bloom, small animals are flitting about, collecting food or materials to build their little nests with, and there's that crisp, pungent smell in the air.

It is nice, at least, that the weather has turned, so that I may take a break from writing my memoirs. They are a joy that I would not set aside for long, but it is, as I heard some of the younger, modern thinking artists say, at my last seminar, “nice to get out”.

It occurred to me today, while I was passing one of the paths that jut off the lane that I walk, which winds round the lake, that I had never ventured aside from my regular route. There are numerous small pathways that twist and turn away from that thin road, leading to wherever they may go. I was gripped with an urge, one which I must say I resisted for the moment, to start this year's walking with something daring. I was infused with the thought of venturing somewhere new. I must consider this during my evening musings.

March 21st

There are swans on the lake today. Glorious and majestic creatures, they are. I was gifted with the most wondrous treat when I bore witness to two of the mightier specimens furiously debating the right to the attentions of one of the females. They were indeed noisy and abrupt, it was most impressive.

During my walk, I fulfilled a little of my intent to venture forth and experience a new journey, when I found a likely and interesting path. I took it upon myself to walk but three hundred full strides along it, before inhaling the view and then returning whence I came, with a promise to venture further the next morning. It was spontaneous, even though the intent was premeditated. I know that sounds strange. I wasn't expecting to find a good candidate. This particular lane was one that I couldn't recall seeing before.

The lane was long and winding into the distant fields, very enticing, and I was suddenly elated, joyous even, what an excellent idea this was. I think it would make a nice walk if I started out early enough. I will do this tomorrow.

March 22nd

I started out ten full minutes earlier this morning for my walk, following my usual route around the lake, and not stopping for any distraction that might place itself upon me.

When I arrived at the path, I estimated that I would have at least an hour to venture this day. My diary entry will be short to give me extra time.

March 23rd

On my third visit to the path, I have found a wonderful spring running down the slope of a small hill. Because the flask in which I carry my tea was empty, I decided to sample the water from the stream. It is quite an unusual find, and the water is exceptionally clear. I tried it in my tea, in the evening, and it has a wonderful mineral tang to it, quite unlike anything I have tasted before. I must return for another sample tomorrow.

March 24th

I have made an interesting discovery along the lane this day. About a quarter of a mile along, which is indeed a long walk, there is the most exquisite chapel. It resides on the side of the hill, a short walk along one of the paths that leads off this new road that I am walking each day. Behind the chapel, which seemed quite deserted and unused, is a small graveyard with some amazingly old gravestones. I only managed to investigate a few of them, and there are at least three dozen other. The dates that I saw were 1722 and 1728, so extremely old and intriguing.

I have decided this evening that I will, just for the day, postpone my memoirs and make a whole day of it. I have made sandwiches and selected two ripe apples, and found my old walking satchel to take with me. I think it will be an interesting day.

Once more this morning I filled a flask with water from the spring for my tea this evening. It adds a wonderfully sharp taste to the tea that is both subtle and lasting.

March 25th

I had the most interesting experience this day, while sitting on the bench in the graveyard. One moment the day was clear, with barely a cloud in the sky, then the next moment the sky changed. It seemed as though it happened in an instant. Above me were dark thunderheads, and a chill wind blew across the hills. I'm not sure if it was something that I am coming down with, but my vision felt blurred for a moment, and shadows inside the chapel and the stones shifted slightly, giving me a slight dizzying feeling. I rubbed my eyes and looked back up, and everything was as it should be once more. The sky was clear and the sun was smiling down upon the hills again. I thought that it was strange for the weather to change so quickly.

I am unable to explain what caused this strange vision, if that is what it was. I am certain that it was merely a moment of sickness on my part.

I have taken to using the water from the spring in my lemon drink before I retire to my bed, as well as my lunch and evening tea. I have found that I feel much more invigorated in the morning, when I awaken, because of this.

March 26th

The oddest thing happened during the night. I had what I can honestly say was a lucid dream. It must be the purifying effects of the water, I am sure of it. In the dream I was up at the graveyard on the hill, and talking to a fellow that I couldn't see clearly. I am not sure of all the conversation; my memory of it is fading, even as write this diary entry.

I do remember the fellow trying to convince me that there was a better way to lead my life, a purer way; it was almost as if he was like one of those door to door pedlars I used to tire of when I lived in the city, thank heavens I moved to the country.

I remember one other thing about the man in the graveyard, he had a terrible smell about him, and I think maybe he hadn't washed for a long time.

I woke with terrible headache, so I am going to give my walk a miss today. It looks terribly dreary and dark outside. The weather has taken a turn for the worse, I would guess.

March 27th

Some strange things are happening. The weather changes from a bright sunny day to a misty, stormy half-light. It does this now, regularly, and far too quickly. I worry about what may be causing this terrible change and what we may have done to our world.

Last night, as I lay in my bed, I swore I heard noises outside, someone in great pain, but when I shone my lantern out of the window there was no one there, not even a sign of any passage.

The blurred vision has returned once more, but this time with a vengeance. The strangest thing is that I believe that it may be weather-dependant. When it is sunny outside my vision is as normal, but then when one of the sudden weather changes occurs many things seem blurred. As before, this is accompanied by headaches and dizziness for a moment before it passes.

March 28th

I had another dream last night. In this one the very same fellow I spoke to in the graveyard came to my home and was sitting in the study, talking to me. I remember asking him to leave and he said the strangest thing, he insisted that he lived here.

Of course, I scoffed at this, and I told him that he was being ridiculous, but he insisted that I was the intruder. The dream took a strange turn before I awoke, I finally got to see who I was talking to, and it was me, except this version of me was not well, not well at all. It must be a manifestation of my worries about the strange symptoms I am suffering, because this version of me was disfigured and had what is best described as bits missing. It was quite disgusting. I do hope that this is not some spiritual warning of a fate that may come.

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, while 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 while 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

No 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 anywhere to be seen. 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."

"Ok. 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 among 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 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 round 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, who 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 so 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 have to move on at some point."

"Understood. Well you need to be wary of someone in this place; someone very 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 while 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 piece 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 round nearby, so I grabbed the lantern and my makeshift rucksack. I swapped a few things around and added a few tools and some water bottles, 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 have been there already. I wish he was still here. 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 burnt-out campfire and a pile of mattresses. Maybe the mattresses had already been up here?

It took me a few minutes to negotiate my way down the rocks without injuring myself. I put the lantern smack in the middle of the corridor to get as much light on the area as I could. It was about forty feet long, straight into the rock. There was a filing cabinet lying on its side, the drawers pulled out and full of yet more junk. Nothing worth taking though.

The corridor ended abruptly in a flat wall of solid rock. No plaster on this wall, only smooth carved rock. Dead in the middle of the back wall was the source of the light.

A door.

There was no handle, no lock, no hinges or any other visible sign of opening it, only the solid metal door covered in scratches and dents, like someone had tried many times to get through it. At the bottom of the door was a thin crack, no more than a couple of inches high, and light was shining from it. As I said before, this wasn't the same light as any I'd seen in this place so far. It was more natural and startlingly bright. I got to my knees and squinted, trying to make out something through the gap. I was greeted by a fresh, cold breeze. Not damp, not musty or humid.

Fresh air.

I breathed deep and filled my lungs with it as I squinted harder against the glare, still desperate to see what might be on the other side of the door. After a minute or so my eyes adjusted enough to be able to vaguely see. Long days of being in this dark place had changed my vision, I guess. Enough that the sunlight, and it had to be sunlight, hurt my eyes.

After more than three weeks in this dark place, I caught a glimpse of somewhere else, somewhere that lay beyond a seemingly unopenable door, a small slice of another place.

I could see grass, and among the grass was a single white flower dancing in the breeze.

Day 24

"You may as well stop now."

It was Rudy, sitting on the filing cabinet, watching me.

I stopped hammering. I'd already broken one of the two hammers I found in the house. I'd even tried prising the rusty saw into the thin gap underneath the door, but there wasn't enough leverage to cut. That knackered old thing was never going to cut metal anyway. I stood for a moment, peering at him, and then realised he had known about the door all along.

"We tried. Me and Adler. He was more persistent than I, but in the end he gave in as well. It's at least six inches thick, that door. I guess that's what drove him away in the end. I think he went a bit bonkers, realising that the only way out of here that we'd found was only a few hundred yards away, and we didn't have the means to open it."

"Why didn't you tell me it was here? It's daylight out there."

"Yes. It is. But daylight where?"

I dropped the hammer and sat down on the hard stone floor, catching my breath. "What do you mean?"

Rudy shrugged. "Do you know where we are any more than I do? It's alien enough down here without stepping out into daylight. Is that our world up there?"

"I don't know, but you still could have told me why Adler really made his camp up here."

"Yes, I could have told you, should have maybe. I'm sorry."

"How long was he up here?"

Rudy shrugged again. "Probably months, I don't know. If I'm honest with you, I didn't discover it. Adler did. I was here at the shack for a long time, years even, before Adler, and I never found the door. I mean it, I'm sorry. I didn't want you to waste the stupid amount of time we did, Adler and I, trying to prise the damn thing open. I was hoping to save you from that."

We sat in silence for a while.

"There's no lock. No door handle. No hinges."

"No. Whoever put it there, put it there to keep what's in here locked away I guess."

"And it's the only way out?"

"Yes, well, as far as I know. I guess that Adler may know by now if there is, that's what he left to find. I certainly haven't found any other way."

"And you never went with him."

It was a statement more than a question.

"No. I don't know why I didn't. If I'm honest, I wish I had. I've wished that so many times since then."

"Why didn't you take off after him?"

"Fear, I guess."

I sat for a while, looking round, at the door, the junk strewn around the place, and Rudy.

"How long have you been here at the shack, Rudy? I mean how long before you died?"

He was quiet for a while. "I don't know how long since I've been dead. I haven't been able to make the marks on the calendar for so long."

"The calendar?"

He shook his head and sighed.

"Come. Come with me."

I collected my things, including the broken hammer, just in case I could fix it, blew out my lantern, and then we made our way over the rubble and back down the rope. I was surprised to see Rudy still climb down the rope, I don't know if he had to, being a ghost and all, but he still did it.

He took me to the back of the shack and there he showed me something that I hadn't noticed in the couple of days I had been there. I hadn't thought to look behind it.

At the back of the shack was a fifteen-foot gap, before a sheer wall about eight feet high. It spanned the entire length of the shack and was covered with a makeshift lean-to made of corrugated metal and wood, much like the rest of the shack.

"You'll need your lantern, or see if one of the ones in the box over there still works."

I took a quick look in the box near the arched entrance and took my own lantern out of my pack and lit it.

The light flickered for a moment and then glowed brightly as I turned the gauge to get as much light as possible. Across almost the entire back wall of the lean-to, scratched into the rock, was Rudy's calendar. Row after row of small marks in bunches of six, and then crossed through the middle. Every so often there was a small letter carved between the marks. J, F, M, A, M, J, J, A, S, O, N, D and then a few marks after the D came a number.

Months, and the numbers were years. My heart jumped a little when I saw the last number, with only three scratched marks after it.

31

"You were here for over thirty years?"

"Yes. Thirty-one years, as it says. I don't know how many passed after my death, though. It's hard to keep count when you can't make a mark anymore, and since I don't sleep, it's just been one long day to me."

"You could still leave, though. Leave this place and look for Adler, look for a way out. Nothing could hurt you either."

He shook his head. "No. Unfortunately it seems I am stuck here, and when you go I will remain here still."

"How do you know that?"

He sat down on a stump of wood that was leaning against the rock wall.

"I've tried. Many, many times I've tried. I get as far as the bottom of the plateau, or down to the foot of the hill where the river from the waterfall meets the swamp, where the pods grow, and I can go no further."

I traced my hand across the lines etched into the wall. It was almost like reading Braille. Not that I could read Braille, but it was how I imagined it would be.

Except this calendar had taken him thirty-one years to write.

"How? Why can't you go any further?"

"I don't know. It gets harder to move the further I am away. Then at a certain distance I can no longer move any further forward. It's like being held by a giant leash that won't stretch any further."

"From what? Where's the middle? Have you tried to find out what's stopping you?"

"Yes, I'll show you."

We left the calendar room and I followed him down towards the river, across the small rock bridge, and over to the other side.

"That."

He was pointing at his body.

"It seems that I cannot travel far from the spot where I died, and even worse, I can't see any further than my prison."

"How so?"

He looked up and over towards the swamps.

"What do you see when you look that way?"

I followed has gaze.

"I see the river, and the swamp, the gargants over there, a line of pods on the river bank, and then more swamp."

"Yes, well, I can see where the river ends, but only a few feet of the swamp. I can see up to the cave, but I can no longer see out of the door and into the light. Darkness like a fog is all I see, even when I stand right up close to it."

As Rudy was talking, something flashed in the dim light, a glimmer of some kind, shining off something on the ground. I crouched down and reached into the grass. It was metal, a chain or a necklace, but most of it was buried under the soil.

"What have you found?"

"I don't know. A chain of some kind."

I grabbed the nearest thing I could find to dig with, one of my knives, and dug the chain out of the ground. It was a necklace, silver or steel. Dangling from the end of it was a compass.

It seemed that Rudy couldn't contain his joy.

"It's my compass! I thought it was lost!"

I cleaned off the dirt and held it up so I could see it more clearly. As I turned the compass round the hand moved. It still worked. The hand pointed out over the swamp and past the gargants.

"Please. Can I see it?"

I held it up so that Rudy could look. He reached out but his hand passed through it. He looked disappointed.

"Will you keep it for me? Will you bring it to the shack?"

"Of course."

I was tired. Climbing the rope and hammering at that door had worn me out. We settled back into the shack and I got the fire going. As I sat reading aloud some of Professor Adler's earlier memoir entries, Rudy stood gazing at his compass hanging on an old nail jutting out of the wall.

Day 25

It's been a long day and I have a lot to write. Right now I'm hunkered down in what appears to be the cellar of a ruined building. It's dark down here. I've got the lantern turned down as low as possible to conserve the fuel, just bright enough to be able to write. I can see the faint glow that Rudy emanates coming from the stairway. It's strange to think that so much has changed in a few hours, and I still can't think what it might have been that caused it all.

I'd been asleep, overtired from climbing up into the cave. The noise that woke me made me jump up from my sleeping place near the fire, and my heart was pounding. Rudy was there, peeping out of a small hole in the wall. Outside what could only be described as a war was raging. The screams and groans of the zombies were almost deafening, though not as loud as the growling and the howls from the Maw.

I fumbled around and finally found where my mace lay, grabbed it and ran for the door.

Rudy yelled at me not to go. "Don't. It's too dangerous."

But I was acting on gut instinct and ignored him. Instead I flung the door open and stepped outside.

Zombies everywhere. Hundreds of them.

Littered across the ground all the way from the river to the house were the torn remains of dozens of the things. The Maw darted backwards and forwards, bringing down zombie after zombie and tearing them to shreds. The zombies seemed strangely oblivious to the demon dogs and were mindlessly intent on getting up the hill to the shack.

I know that I didn't need to join in, but something told me that my new friends were defending me, and I couldn't let them do it alone. I ran down the hill, the mace raised ready, my common sense screaming at me to stop and go back. I charged at the nearest zombie that wasn't being munched on by one of the Maw.

Crunch. Splat. That was the noise as well as I could describe it. I swung the mace, this time not throwing my whole weight into it as I had my first encounter. I'd learned a clumsy lesson that day, and wasn't going to make the same mistake again. The zombie barely saw me coming but I swore there was a brief moment of recognition before I smacked the thing across the side of the head.

I was hoping that I could take one down if I wasn't as clumsy and tried to aim, but I wasn't expecting to end it so quickly. The creature's head exploded, its body lurched sideways with the force of the blow and hit the ground hard.

I didn't have time to rejoice my victory, though; two other zombies were stumbling towards me, and I didn't know if it was hunger or hatred in their eyes. One of the zombies only had one eye left, but I swear that eye hated me.

Three swings of my mace later and they were both down. I hadn't hit the first of the pair hard enough and had to draw back, take a step away and swing again. The second fell to my first blow, and with a flash of green fur I saw Mo jump upon it; she dragged it away from me and tore its throat out before I could even judge whether I'd killed it.

I backed further up towards the shack, gave the Maw some space to do what they do best and I waited, taking out any odd zombies that managed to get past them.

Half an hour. That's about how long I think the battle had taken before every zombie was down. I'd killed twenty of them, and the Maw had killed countless numbers, possibly hundreds. Some of them still crawled, still tried to carry on, and as I moved around with the Maw, watching them finish off those that hadn't died, a horrible realisation struck me. They hadn't been heading towards the shack at all. They had been trying to get to me.

Somehow I had become a target again. After my flight from my first camp, the few zombies that I had seen during my brief stay at the bus had ignored me. Now this was no longer the case. They had come there for me.

Rudy was waiting at the door to the shack, looking worried.

"Are you ok? What will you do now?"

"I don't know."

I sat down, breathing heavily, and watched the Maw as they milled around and prodded at the bodies of the zombies.

"Why do they want me, do you think?"

"I have no idea. I've never known them to bother anyone. They are usually mindless and only focused on wherever it is they are going. I've never had one of them even register that I was there, even when I was not far away."

"Somehow they seem to have noticed me."

"Yes. For some reason, you bother them."

I sat in thought for what seemed a long time. The Maw eventually calmed and wandered back to their rock hollow near the plateau.

"I don't know if I can stay here. Not if they are going to keep coming here. But is anywhere safe from them? Will they follow me wherever I go?"

"I don't know."

We wandered down to the river and a little way to the swamp, but not all the way down. Rudy looked out over the swamp and nodded at the gargants.

"They will notice the bodies of the zombies soon and will come to consume them."

Rudy's expression changed. I was watching him when it happened, and it was like a sudden epiphany (is that the right word?).

"I can see further."

"What?"

He was shaking. (Should ghosts shake?)

"I...I can see further than I could before, across the swamp. I only just realised. I haven't seen across the swamp for years. But I can now."

He looked at me, visibly shocked, then looked out over to the plateau.

"I can't see the plateau or the rope up to the cave. It's all darkness."

He looked as puzzled as I.

He moved quickly across the river and walked towards the rocks below the plateau, then came back.

"I don't understand. Something has changed. The area of my prison has moved about a hundred yards."

I shrugged, unable to help.

"It was centred on my body before, now it seems to have moved to the shack."

We both guessed at the same time.

"The compass."

Rudy laughed.

"All this time. I thought that I was trapped forever, to haunt the spot where I was killed. It wasn't the case at all. The compass."

"That means you can come with me."

"What?"

"You can come with me, when I leave."

That took a moment to sink in.

"Of course, yes. I can, can't I?"

"I just have to keep the compass with me. Of course, it's up to you."

"I wish to come. Leave this place. I've been stuck here so long that I can't even remember what other places look like any more."

I started back up towards the shack.

"Then it's decided, isn't it. We leave."

Rudy caught up with me. "When? When do we go?"

I could sense the anticipation in him now. He was bursting to get out of here and I was glad. I'd been too safe at the shack, too comfortable. All the water and food I needed, and a roof over my head for a few days, had made me complacent. I'd been putting off leaving because I was getting used to feeling less lost.

"Now. We go now. It has to be. If we wait then I might start doubting."

We went into the shack and I started gathering as much up as I could.

Rudy hovered around. I could sense he was itching to help me pack, but obviously couldn't. "Which way will we go?"

"I don't know. I don't want to go backwards. Not back to the bus or the scrapyard. We can't get that door open, so that's not an option. Across the swamp, maybe?"

Rudy shook his head at this.

"Too dangerous. There are far too many gargants out there, and no shelter for miles, but if that's the way you want to go we can go around."

I stopped packing and looked at him. "Didn't you say that round the swamp was the zombie path?"

"We can go the other way round, up into the rocks on the other side, along from here. It may look sheer but there are numerous paths and some ruined buildings dotted here and there. At least until we reach the city. It's the way I came here, all those years ago."

"Sounds good."

"After that, when we reach the city ruins, we're into new territory, though. I don't know the way after that."

"We deal with that when the time comes."

An hour later and we were on our way, and what a strange bunch of travellers we made. I pushed the cart, which was full of everything I'd brought with me so far and a heap of stuff from the shack, everything I thought I could push in the cart that may be useful. Beside me walked Rudy, a ghost. His face beaming with a smile I hadn't seen since I met him. Around us, circling, hopping from rock to rock and sniffing at everything that we passed, were the Maw.

I had wondered if they would follow us, or if it would be only DogThing. When we left it was five Maw, but by the time we got to the ruined building with the cellar, three more had joined us. I don't even remember seeing them arrive; they were just there with the others, scouting ahead of us and watching our backs, constantly guarding.

So here I am, camping down in the cellar, writing this by the faint light of the lantern, before I go to sleep. Rudy has become my watchman. It's strange that he doesn't sleep. I guess ghosts don't need to. He seems quite happy with the idea of sitting there all night, watching out for me.

I heard the Maw moving occasionally, but mostly I think they are huddled together in the ruined building above me.

Before I go to sleep I'm going to tell you about one other thing. Something I found down here in the cellar. It's written on the wall, in charcoal or black chalk, and I didn't notice it until I'd already eaten and set out my bedding.

I turned the lantern up brighter so that I could read it.

It says...

CutterJack, CutterJack,

He knows where your throat is at,

Listen out and watch your back,

Slice you, dice you, little rat.

It's signed underneath. "Adler."

Day 26

"They've gone."

Rudy was sitting at the bottom of the steps when I awoke. It took me a few moments to catch up, clear my head, and realise where I was.

"Who? Gone?"

He nodded towards the stairs leading out of the ruined cellar. "The Maw."

I sat up pretty quick at that, then stood up, and walked towards the stairs. My body ached again. First night out sleeping rough again, I guess. I'd gotten far too used to the mattress in the shack.

"All of them?"

DogThing was still there. He was sitting up on top of one of the broken walls that ringed the building, scratching away happily.

The ruins of the building suggested that it had once been a house of some kind. It reminded me of the walls they dug up in that TV program. What was it called? Time Team! I loved that programme. Hippy archaeologists in a hurry.

Rudy was close behind me.

"Only him left. The rest seem to have gone. I didn't even notice them go, and I've been sitting out here all the time you were asleep."

I don't know what it was that I felt. Fear maybe. It wasn't pleasant.

"Strange. I was kind of getting used to them being around."

Rudy laughed. "Yes, me too."

I went back down into the cellar and started packing up my stuff. Most of it was still in my sack and I had left some of it up in the cart. Ten minutes later and we were ready to leave.

Then I realised that I wasn't even sure where I was heading. I hoped that Rudy might have some idea.

"So. Where now?"

"You're asking me? Well, apart from that rhyme down in the cellar, we don't have a lot to go on, do we?"

"Nope. Not a lot. I guess we head down into the city?"

"Well, it's dangerous down there, from what I remember. Zombies, CutterJack and who knows what else."

I climbed up onto one of the rocks downhill from the ruin and sat down on the top. Rudy appeared next to me, though I don't remember him climbing.

From my perch on top of the rock, I could see quite a distance down into the valley, even though it was, as always, dark. The darkness seemed more like a fog and less like pitch black. Dotted throughout the ruins were small clusters of light, though I couldn't make out what it was that the light was coming from. It was enough to get a rough idea of the layout of the buildings and streets. It wasn't as vast as I had imagined it would be. Rudy had called it a city, or was it The City?

"I expected it to be bigger."

"Oh? Well, I guess it's not the size of a city like London or Birmingham. I must admit, I don't remember. It was always Adler that called it The City. I suppose he named it that."

"Did he go there much?"

"Yes, quite a lot. He became quite the scavenger and explorer over the years. Most of what we had in the shack was scavenged by Adler from those ruins. I never did get to ask him how far he actually travelled. He was always up in his camp, or in the shack, before I went to sleep. He said that The City was a gold mine of useful junk."

"He must have travelled fast to get here and back in a day."

"He did have his bicycle."

The bicycle. Of course. I had forgotten that the professor wasn't on foot.

"Well, trying to find some trace of his passage might be a place to start, do you think?"

Rudy was frowning. "Yes, I think so. If there is anyone who has an idea of what else might be out there, it would be him. That is if anyone does."

"He may still be there, for all we know."

I was only hoping against hope, of course. I knew as well as Rudy that the professor would probably be long gone, but maybe there would be some trace of him staying there, or some clue somewhere of where he might have headed. It had been a long time though, from what Rudy said, years even. Adler could well be miles away, hundreds of miles. He could be dead, a pile of bones somewhere.

Or another ghost?

I couldn't think of a better plan though. I knew that I had to keep going, even if it meant the risk of bumping into zombies or this CutterJack person.

For the next couple of hours we travelled down the hill, negotiating our way through the rocks. The cart was becoming a bit of a hindrance, now that the ground was more uneven. I hoped that when we got down into The City that the roads or paths would be easier ground.

I was down to four bottles of petrol for the lantern now and, thanks to the river near the shack, twenty bottles of water. I still had a dozen torches and a whole heap of dried pods left, even some of the mushrooms.

Light was becoming less of a problem now, and most of the time we travelled in the dark. My eyes seem to be adjusting even more to it as each day passes, and neither DogThing nor Rudy seem to have a problem seeing.

Am I going to end up with strange, bright, googly eyes like DogThing? Like that Gollum creature from The Hobbit.

We eventually made it down onto the flat ground and the edge of The City. The layout was the strangest thing I'd seen in a while. It wasn't like any other settlement I'd seen. It was almost like someone took a big old chunk of London and dumped it here. There was no build-up of smaller buildings or suburbs like every other town or city I'd ever been to. The road where we first entered the ruins just "started" right next to the first building, cobbles and all. Yes, real cobbles. They made the cart almost impossible to push.

I don't know why I was expecting a modern city, or even vaguely recent buildings. As we had travelled down through the rocks towards the looming buildings I'd had a chance to get a rough layout of the place. The slope we were travelling down was quite steep, and we had been at least a few hundred feet above The City when we started down the rough track. There were only four streets in each direction, all crossing like a grid, like the blocks in New York, but this place was nowhere near as new. I'm not much of an expert on old buildings, but I'd have said that they were a few hundred years old, and most of them looked like they hadn't collapsed over the years. To me they looked like they had been bombed. Dotted here and there along the pavement were clumps of glowing grass, like up near the shack. It gave the streets an eerie alien feel.

Most of all I noticed how quiet it was.

We walked up the first street with DogThing following us a few feet behind. He was alert, I could tell; I've somehow gotten used to reading some of his behaviour. And he was jitterish, on edge.

The street was called Charleston Way. The sign was rusty and hanging off a broken post that looked like something had smashed into it. I struggled over the cobbles and hauled the cart up onto the pavement. It was littered with piles of rubble and junk, but the slabs made it flat enough that the cart moved over it easily enough.

We headed towards the middle, passing run-down shops and flats. I glanced into one of the shop windows, through a hole in the glass. I could vaguely make out what might have been shelving and display cabinets, but it was too dark in there to get a proper look.

"Hold up."

Rudy peered through the window.

"Did you spot something?"

"I don't know, maybe just junk, but you never know, might be something in there."

I pulled the cart up alongside the door to the shop and grabbed the lantern. It only took a few seconds to light it. I was getting quite quick at it now. I grabbed the mace and used the sharp, nasty end to push the front door open.

The door fell off.

I'd barely touched it, the lightest prod, but it was enough to send the door off its hinges and crashing down with a loud bang. Dust flew everywhere; a huge cloud of it billowed up upwards, until it made a signal that would be visible for miles (if anything could see for miles).

DogThing ran. He was fifty yards down the street before he stopped and sat down to watch me from a safe distance.

"Crap. I didn't want to do that."

"Hmm, no, maybe not," said Rudy, from behind me.

Big, deep sigh.

"Well, that kind of settles it then. If there is anyone here, they now know we are."

"Or a thing. I'll keep lookout, out here," said Rudy.

I stepped over the collapsed door and shone the lantern into the shop. Most of the dust had gone outside, so I could still see clearly. Strewn across the floor were empty tin cans and ripped boxes. I picked up one of the boxes nearest me. It was torn and covered in dark, mouldy stains.

Weetabix. Empty. Damn.

It was the same along every row, counters full of ripped and damaged packaging that was either empty or had contents that I wouldn't have touched, even if I was starving.

Then I reached the back of the shop.

There, on what looked like the shop counter, right next to a smashed-up cash till, was a cardboard box with cans of tinned food carefully stacked in it. I emptied it out onto the counter to see how big a find it was. Peaches, beans, stewed steak, mushy peas, there were a few of each type of can, all unopened and seemingly undamaged.

"Bingo."

I packed the tins into the box again and walked round the back of the counter, all the time wondering who would leave a box of food tins lying around. Maybe someone had packed them and meant to take them away, but for some reason hadn't been able to? Not a comforting thought.

Then I found out why they were still there.

There was a door at the back of the counter, this one also hanging off its hinges. There was a light coming from inside, and a noise that sounded like wasps swarming.

Or flies.

Masses of them buzzed around.

The room was only small but the devastation was huge. Whatever had happened in there had happened quite recently, like within a few days, or a week at most. It was all disgustingly fresh. Blood was splattered all over the walls and collected in little, congealed pools across the floor. Scattered here and there were the remnants of someone or something, chunks of bones and flesh, and other stuff that I couldn't identify – didn't want to identify. In the corner a small electric lamp lay on the floor, plugged into some kind of battery. It was still on.

Then the smell hit me. I stepped out of the room and threw up all over the counter. I felt my heart rate screaming and panic about to take over.

"Rudy..."

He was already there.

"Oh, my God."

It took me a minute or so to regain control of my faculties, hanging off the side of the shop counter with my head spinning, and my stomach lurching.

"This was recent, wasn't it?"

I looked up. Rudy was standing in the doorway, staring at the mess.

"Do you think it was... a person?"

"Had to be..."

I turned away. I couldn't look at it again. Zombie bits were one thing, but a real person I couldn't handle.

"Wait though. No."

Rudy had gone into the room.

"This skin, it's not human skin, it's like lizard skin. It's all scaly."

That brought me to my senses. It wasn't a person.

I walked back to the door and stepped inside. Rudy was kneeling down near the back corner of the room. The stench was terrible. He pointed at a piece of the body, and when I took a closer look I could see exactly what he meant. Not only was the skin not human, but what I was looking at was the jaw of a lizard or cat-like creature.

"What the hell was it?"

Rudy stood up and left the room. I followed him.

"There are more than zombies, gargants and the Maw here. Adler always said there was. Come to think of it, he claimed he had seen the Maw, like your DogThing, fighting against another creature that was slightly larger, and covered in grey coloured scales, like a Maw but not hairy."

"I see. Well that looks greyish doesn't it? I can't tell with all the blood."

"Yes, like a lizard's scales even."

It was then that I noticed the footprints. I hadn't seen them when I was searching the shop. I guess I had been too busy checking what was on the shelves to take any notice of the floor. Starting from the carnage room behind the counter, and running straight in line towards the entrance, were bloody footprints. Human footprints. There were also other footprints that might have been paws, lots of them.

Someone had run out of the place after the lizard thing had been killed. Someone in a hurry, and they might have had Maw with them, or chasing them.

I followed the footprints out of the shop and further along the street, but they soon disappeared on the wet cobbles, twenty yards along the street. They ended in the middle of a street crossing, right next to a manhole cover. The paw prints split off and went in all directions.

Rudy was right behind me, as was DogThing, who seemed to be over his scare from the noise of the collapsing door.

"Do you think...?"

Rudy's eyes shone in the dim glow. They said exactly what I was thinking.

"They escaped."

"Yes."

"Whoever it was that was in that room managed to slaughter that lizard thing and then escape this way."

"Chased by the Maw? Or maybe more of the lizard cat things? I'm not much of a tracker. Wasn't in the Scouts when I was a kid."

Rudy stood frowning at the manhole cover and then back at me.

"You're not seriously thinking of going down there are you?"

I shrugged.

"There's a chance of finding someone else, someone alive and recently here. I can't ignore it!"

"Oh, crap."

Rudy sighed.

"You have no idea what's down there. It could be crawling with God knows what. Zombies and, well, there are a lot of other dangerous things in this place that I can't even begin to describe."

"You think I shouldn't look?"

Rudy was pacing the ground now.

"I'm not saying that. Just, well, you only have that spiked stick, and whatever went down there..."

"Whoever went down there."

"...whoever then. You don't know that it's a person. It could be a zombie. It could be CutterJack."

I nodded. I'd forgotten about CutterJack. Don't ask how. I just had.

"It could be Adler."

We set up for the next night in one of the buildings across from the shop, hoping that whoever had gone down the manhole might come back up again at some point, then we could check them out at a distance. Rudy was on watch again, as I spent the rest of the day searching the half dozen other derelict shops on the street.

Found a box of cigarettes! Ten packets! They're a bit dry, and they don't smell so good, but I tried one and they smoke pretty well. Guess I'm not the fussiest of people these days.

You know, I'd forgotten that I had run out. I guess I've been trying to avoid thinking about it, but I think I had my last smoke sitting under the ten-feet-tall mushroom in the rain. Back before I crossed the plateau. It seemed as good a place as any.

Something strange was bothering me as I thought of my "last cigarette" moment, something niggling in the back of my mind. I can't figure out what. I remember sitting there under that enormous mushroom, smoking, and frowning at the empty packet. I kept thinking that there was something odd about the brand. Nothing really odd, they were just Mayfair cigarettes. I really can't figure out why it's been bothering me ever since then.

I don't recognise these new cigarettes. The name on them is in Chinese, or some other glyph-like language, maybe Korean?

Found two packets of unopened dry noodles in the last shop and a harmonica, but nothing else of real use. I can't play harmonica. Maybe I need to learn.

Decided to take a quick inventory. Figure out what I have left.

DIY backpack

"ZombieBane" Mace

Harmonica. (It works! I just can't play it.)

Pair of petrol lamps

4 bottles petrol

18 bottles water

9 torches

Electric lamp + Battery

Torch (no batteries)

Screwdriver, 3 hammers (1 broken), spanner.

12 tins of food + Pods (lots) + Mushrooms (3 big ones)

2 packets of noodles.

2 DIY knives + Kitchen knife

Cigarettes / Wallet / Car keys

Journal + Pens

Deodorant + 3 towels

Namibia travel guide (Why?)

Mouthwash (Nearly empty)

Sunglasses + sun tan lotion (Nearly empty)

Sofa pillow + Blanket

Plastic bottles x 13 in sack

2 bits of hose pipe

Half a Curtain

A dozen magazines

Lots of plastic sheeting

Adler's diary

Rusty saw

Can't believe I actually named my mace. What am I? Conan the Barbarian?

I suspect that my cigarette lighter is going to run out soon. It's stuttering and taking several attempts to get a flame, and even then it's a weak one. I hope the petrol from the car wreck works in it. I'm sure I heard somewhere that it does.

I guess I'll find out soon.

Day 27

I think I nearly died last night.

I was in a deep sleep. I know that because I was still dreaming some strange dream about glowing spiders when I woke up, even though the noise was loud enough to wake even the dead.

Rudy was standing inside the door, his hand to his mouth and one finger over his lips.

A voice in my head, that wasn't Rudy, spoke.

"Silence."

"Don't make a sound."

Something was trying to get into the building, and as the last of the spiders from my dream drifted away, the door shook violently. I'm so glad I propped that broken chair up against the handle.

Another violent shake. I was up, grabbing my mace and my knife. I crept quietly towards where Rudy was standing, fighting panic as my heart tried to leap right out of my chest.

Then it spoke. Not the voice in my head a moment before, warning me, no, this was another one. It was speaking in plain English and I understood everything that it said, but it was raspy and deep, the accent like none I had ever heard. Russian-sounding, but not quite.

"I know you are in there. Rat."

I almost bit off the end of my tongue stopping myself from calling out in fear.

The door shook again, this time even more violently. I heard something crack, and realised that whatever was out there was going to get in, and something told me this was no clumsy zombie.

Crack. The top hinge of the door broke. Bits of wood scattered across the floor.

Then there was growling, and a lot of it. I recognised DogThing's deep growl over the noise, but it wasn't just him out there. The others must have returned. Whatever it was that was trying to break down the door hissed in reply.

"Another time then. Rat."

Footsteps echoed away from the building and the growling followed. I pulled the chair away, opened the door, swung my mace back ready to strike, just in case, and stepped out.

DogThing was sitting in the middle of the street. I followed the direction of his gaze and was in time to see a bunch of Maw, a dozen or so I think, vanish round the corner of a building two blocks away.

Across the street the manhole was lying half open.

"I guess that answers our mystery," said Rudy.

I sat down heavily on the pavement, breathing deeply. "Screw this. That was CutterJack wasn't it?"

"Yes. That was CutterJack. I'd recognise that voice even if a hundred years had passed." Rudy was standing in the doorway, watching the road.

"What the hell do we do now?"

"We leave."

We had to. If CutterJack came back and the Maw weren't there, I didn't stand a chance. I'd seen his shadow and the sheer size of him when the door began to break. For a moment, the top corner of the door had leant inwards, giving me a glimpse of the monster that stood outside.

He was huge, tall enough to have to crouch down to be able to hit the door. Roughly? I'd say eight feet tall, and that's only a guess.

People don't grow that tall, do they? Not normally, anyway. DogThing must have been out there the whole time, but it took a whole pack of Maw to scare CutterJack away. Now, if that had been me, one DogThing would have had me running.

The mess in the shop had to have been made by him. I was convinced of it. Unless there were others around here, or the Maw and the lizard thing had a set-to and CutterJack had arrived afterwards.

I don't know. I don't know.

I packed my stuff back into the cart as fast as I could, dumping a lot of stuff to make it lighter. The travel guide and the magazines went, making a surprising difference. I'd not realised how heavy they were until I left them behind. Why had I been keeping them anyway?

Distance.

We had to put some distance between us and CutterJack, and then hope we hadn't left enough of a trail for him to follow. I wouldn't have a clue about tracking someone, but I also didn't know how skilled CutterJack was. I had a horrible sickly feeling that he would be able to follow us anywhere, if he wanted to.

I reckon it was less than two minutes later when I hauled the cart outside onto the pavement.

Rudy was waiting for me, watching the road where CutterJack had fled.

"Which way?"

"The way he didn't go."

We headed along the pavement as quickly as the cart could go. DogThing eventually caught us up and followed us, always twenty or so feet behind, always scanning behind us and sniffing the ground.

We crossed a road, Maldon Street. I had to pull the cart backwards to get it over the cobbles, and haul it back up onto the pavement on the other side of the road. I stopped for a moment and looked down Maldon. Shop after shop lined the street, twenty of them, at least, and no time to look.

We hurried for another block and began to cross Merriwether Avenue. Odd name.

Rudy stopped in the middle of the road, frowning. "Wait."

"What?"

"Be quiet."

Then I heard it too.

Music.

Somewhere nearby music was playing. It was quiet and echoed faintly down Merriwether Avenue. It sounded like it was coming out of a window, high up somewhere, and I could see that further down Merriwether there was a row of three and four story Victorian style townhouses.

One of the buildings, right in the middle of the row, had a window wide open on the top floor. Long drape curtains were hanging out, swaying like they were caught in a breeze, even though I could feel no wind from down on the street.

There was a light on in the room.

"Is that?"

"Yes. Music. What the hell?"

I started walking down the street towards the house, for the second time in as many days wondering if I had found someone else alive, someone else other than CutterJack.

"Is this a good idea?"

Rudy was following me, but I could see he was hesitant. Why would a ghost be scared? It's not like he could die twice. I didn't consider until now, while I'm writing this, that if I died he would be trapped again, probably for a long time.

"I have no idea."

We approached the building slowly, checking every alleyway and door as we went. CutterJack had gone the other way, but he was tall, and I imagined he could move fast.

I stopped. Now it was my turn to be hesitant.

"What if we're just walking to CutterJack's house?"

"I'm with you. I say we just run."

We both started back down the street again, away from the house, but we'd only travelled a few feet when DogThing lowered himself to the ground and started growling. Nearby I heard more growling, and my nerves hissed as I saw two other Maw dart out from an alleyway that both Rudy and I had checked moments before. Neither of us had seen them.

Then we saw him, right down the other end of Merriwether, walking towards us casually, as though he was out for a stroll in the country on a Sunday afternoon.

CutterJack.

"You can't hide from me for ever, Rat. I got your friend, and I'll get you."

We ran, straight for the house. My heart was thumping again as the front door rushed towards us. I nearly tripped on the cobbles at least twice, and I could almost feel him getting closer to us. I glanced back as Rudy ran up the steps to the front door.

Down the street, the Maw were holding him off, but there were only three of them and CutterJack had drawn out a pair of long blades and was swinging them in long swirling patterns as he walked slowly forwards. I turned and ran for the door, colliding with it, hoping it would open, but it was shut tight. Rudy stepped through the door and vanished.

"Rudy!"

Lots of growling and noise behind me.

I tried the handle. Still no luck. Then I rammed the door a second time with my shoulder, but it wasn't budging.

"Rudy!"

I glanced back over my shoulder to see CutterJack standing at the bottom of the steps, grinning at me. The three Maw, including DogThing, were lying in the street. One of them was still barely moving, twitching. I couldn't make out which Maw it was.

It was over. I knew it was. I pointed my knife at him and pulled my mace back, ready to fight. I didn't stand a chance, I knew that, but he had killed my dogs. I was going to hurt him before he killed me too.

I have no idea how it happened. It was all over far too quickly for me to recall it clearly. CutterJack leapt forward at me, much quicker than I had expected, taking the steps and the distance between us before I could even react. I had barely enough time to fall over onto my back. Something hit the door above me with a bang, then another, thwack. I tried to roll out of the way but felt my mace catch on something; only the weight of me falling off the front porch pulled it away. I think that was when I hit my head, maybe on the cobbles or on the porch steps as I fell. There was a scream. The kind of noise I imagined I would be making in a few moments. Or was it me screaming?

No pain came.

Everything went blurry for a while after that. I remember hearing someone bellowing at the top of their voice – it might have been Rudy, but when I came to my senses it had stopped.

It was all over, I was still breathing, and CutterJack was gone.

There was blood all over the sharp end of my mace.

A Buddy Holly song was blaring out of the window above me, and I couldn't remember which song it was.

I heard Rudy's voice nearby. "Quickly, get up."

I staggered to my feet, still staring in wonder at the end of my mace, unable to figure out how the hell I had managed to fumble my way out of death.

"Where the hell were you?" I mumbled. I wanted to shout at him but my head was still spinning.

"I ran inside. I thought you would come through, but you didn't. I could see that you couldn't open the door, so I ran round the house, trying to find another way in, or see if there was someone else in there that could open the door. There wasn't."

"It's locked up."

"Yes. I figured as much. You have got to see in there."

I sat down on the porch steps, trying to catch my breath and slow my heartbeat down.

"Then I heard the noise from the Maw stop and I ran as fast as I could. I've no idea what I was going to do, but couldn't think of anything else. When I ran back through the door I ran straight into CutterJack. I screamed. I know, I know. You must think me a coward, but I'm terrified of him."

"No. You're all good there. I'm damn scared of him myself."

"Well, I think, I don't know, but I think I made him jump."

I looked up at this, almost smiled.

"You frightened him?"

"Well, I doubt that, but I don't think he expected someone to come running through a closed door. You do realise your mace was stuck in his leg don't you?"

"Was it? I thought it was caught on his clothes or something. I think I fell off the porch."

"Yes, you did, but so did he. He stumbled back from me and tripped over you."

At this I did laugh, and Rudy laughed too. I was avoiding looking over towards where I knew the Maw would be lying, dead. Anything mildly funny was enough for me at that moment.

Then Rudy stopped laughing, and his jaw almost dropped off. I followed the direction of his gaze, my stomach lurching as I expected to see CutterJack coming back again.

The Maw had gone.

"What the..."

"They've gone. How?"

"How the hell should I know?"

We both moved quickly then, jogging over to where we had last seen the Maw. My head was still fuzzy, but seeing the bodies of the Maw missing sobered me up fast.

No trace, nothing. There was blood over the cobbles, where they had each fallen, but not as much blood as I had expected.

"Let's get into the house, just in case he comes back," I said, heading over to grab the cart from where I had abandoned it.

"Um, James? I don't think he is coming back any time soon," said Rudy.

I stopped and turned round. Rudy was standing in front of the porch, staring at the ground.

"Why?"

"Because I think this is a bit of his leg."

I pushed the cart as quickly as I could and went over to look at Rudy's grisly find.

"Oh, hell! That's gross."

There was a lump of bloody flesh about the size of my fist lying in the street. I'd literally taken a chunk out of CutterJack.

"And if he does come back, he is going to need some new knives," said Rudy, pointing up at the door.

They were embedded at least six inches into the wood. One was protruding from the door, and the other was stuck hard in the wooden floorboards of the porch.

CutterJack had left his knives behind.

It took me about five minutes to prise the one out of the floor, while Rudy went round inside the building, trying to find a way I could get in. It was no small knife. The blade was about two feet long and as sharp as a Stanley knife. Damn, if that thing had gone in me instead of the door...

The one in the door took longer. I'd just managed to pull it out when Rudy came back.

"There is a window at the back, on the second floor. I think if you can get up there you might be able to get in. There is a rope hidden behind the drainpipe. I didn't spot it at first. It's well hidden. All the other windows in the house apart from that one and the one on the top floor are all shored up on the inside. Someone made a fortress out of this place."

We left the cart at the front of the house and made our way round the row of buildings and into an alleyway. It looked like someone had been shoving their junk into the alley for years. I had to climb over three fences before we got into the yard.

I couldn't see the rope, even when I looked behind the pipe. Then I noticed a bit of it poking out of a hole in the drain, high up near the window. It went inside through a small gap where the window had been left open, just a little bit. The rope was tucked into the pipe. Whoever had put it there had hidden it well, cutting a slit all the way from the top to the bottom and stuffing it inside.

Day 28

We are holed up in the house. All the windows are shut and the door is locked. I hauled the rope up and pulled it back through the window. There is so much to say about what we have discovered in the house, but I've not had the time. Feeling sick and dizzy. I need to sleep.

I asked Rudy if he had spoken to me when CutterJack was trying to bang the door down in the building opposite the shop the night before. He says he didn't. I shrugged it off; maybe I'd imagined that I heard it, but I was almost certain that someone had spoken to me. It hadn't been CutterJack. Why would he have told me to be silent and still? He wouldn't have. Someone other than Rudy had told me, someone who didn't want CutterJack to find me.

Silence.

Don't make a sound.

Day 29

Rudy thinks I may have had a slight concussion from when I hit the paving after my fall. I remember being dazed for a while afterwards, so I guess he could be right. I don't have any injuries though, so if I did bang my head it can't have been too hard. I think I've just been feeling sick from fear, after nearly being butchered. I know, I've fought with zombies a couple of times now, and they are gruesome-looking, but they are slow, and I always had time to line myself up for each swing. Well, nearly every time. CutterJack was different, and I think that's why I've been feeling sick.

Luck. Just luck. Nothing else. That was all that had kept me alive during my brief fight with CutterJack. If it hadn't been for me falling at the right time, and Rudy walking through the door at that same moment, CutterJack would have torn me to shreds. He was so fast. I barely even had the time to realise he was on me, let alone react.

What we found in the house was nothing short of a revelation, exactly what we needed.

Adler had lived here. No, we're not sure how long ago, could be a decade or more, or it could have been yesterday, but we found all kinds of maps and notes. I've read journal after journal detailing lots of random stuff about what he found here. I'm taking a few of them with me, hoping that if I get the chance at some point, I can put them in order, piece together everything, but for right now we found some quite interesting stuff.

This one, from a diary that looks old, put a smile on Rudy's face.

"I regretted leaving within days. Of course, I still knew my primary goal was to return home, but leaving Rudy was a hard thing to do. He wouldn't listen though, wouldn't hear reason. I decided that I should still make one journey back, one last attempt to convince him to leave.

Alas, my dear friend is gone. I returned too late. My tormentor must have followed me back to the shack, found Rudy, and ended him. It's my fault. I should have never taken the compasses, and I should never have given one to Rudy. What else could I do though? I had to stop CutterJack from doing what he has been doing for so long.

I couldn't stay and bury Rudy, though it pained me not to. CutterJack had killed Rudy very recently, maybe only hours before, so would still be close by. I had to keep moving. I'm sorry, Rudy, for everything. If only I could explain.

The compass that I gave to Rudy was gone, either lost or back in the hands of that monster."

"He came back." Rudy seemed pleased at that, and went quiet for a time.

There was more. A lot of what is in the journals is undecipherable, the handwriting is too messy. Maybe I can sit down sometime, and figure it out, but for now I have to use whatever I can read in this dim light. I went back further, to a previous journal.

"The compasses, they are his keys, how the damn thing works, I have no idea, but I know that the compasses that I took are the keys, and while they are not in his possession he can do no more evil. When I can retrieve the fourth, I may be able to figure out a way of using the device to escape, but with only three of them all I can do is hide them from him, and keep searching. I can't risk him catching me up and getting all three back so easily.

I went back to the first place that came to mind, somewhere that I knew would be ideal for hiding at least one of them, the scrap yard. The safe would still be there, hidden among the trash, where I found the stash of Roman coins. I'm so glad I still have the key for it. There were no constructs there, or there shouldn't have been. It took me quite a time to get back, but it was worth the trek.

I'm not sure what I will do with the third. For now I will stash it in the toolbox on the bus and hope I can find somewhere more suitable. I need to go back to the bus anyway, to get the torch. I found batteries in one of the houses on Maldon Street."

I stopped reading at that moment, and ran down the stairs to the cart. There it was, right where he said he had hidden it. How I had never spotted it, I don't know. I thought that I had emptied the box out. It was tucked inside a small compartment at the bottom of the toolbox, Adler's toolbox, the one that I had found on the bus.

Another compass.

I had two of them all along, and the third was in some kind of safe in the scrap yard. I didn't remember seeing a safe, but at least I knew where to start searching.

There was more in Adler's diaries; I skipped through them until I found what I thought might be the most recent. None of it was dated.

"He nearly caught up with me again today, but was unable to keep up the speed once I put some leg work in. If I hadn't fixed up the chain on the bicycle, I think he would have had me. I was pleased to not have to hear a constant squeak as I rode, but it would seem that my efforts paid off tenfold.

I have a dilemma. Considering what I have heard and seen, I can't in good conscience just give him back the compasses. But now I have him hunting me, and I'm not sure if I can keep up this game of cat and mouse for much longer. If it isn't him, then it's those damn creatures he has control of, disgusting abominations that they are. I had no idea that the creation of such a creature was even possible, or that anyone would have a mind twisted enough to conceive them in the first place, but then I suppose there are many things in The Corridor that don't make sense, or even follow the laws of nature. I should be used to the unexpected by now."

"That would explain why the zombies were in the scrap yard when you arrived here," said Rudy.

"You mean they were searching for the safe? For the third compass?"

"Seems reasonable to me."

"I didn't see a safe anywhere. I know there is a shed-load of junk to hide one under, but..."

I stopped talking. Of course!

"James?"

"The microwave."

"The what?"

"There was something in the junk yard, right near to where I first arrived. I thought it was a television or a microwave, but it was a solid block of metal. It's quite possible it could have been a safe. I never managed to turn it over."

I asked Rudy what Adler meant by "The Corridor".

"That's what he called this place. He said he found it in one of the few remaining books in the library, said the building was somewhere in The City, but it was burnt out. There was half of a book left, a history book or something like it, detailing the past of The City."

"Strange thing to call it."

"Yes, though that was just what Adler called it, he said the name was obscured in the writing, The Something Corridor. Actually, I remember it now, he said the same went for The City, it was called something else. The ‘The' was only part of the name."

"Adler was convinced that both the building and even most of The Corridor didn't exist here once. He thought that somehow it all just ended up here, like all of us, I suppose. I don't know if I believe all that, but I envied him that he even had some ideas. He was clever, the professor, and I'm a much simpler man than he was."

It's hard to imagine, isn't it? Not only does it seem that I have ended up somewhere that I don't belong, but according to our mad professor friend, Adler, the place where I ended up shouldn't be here either.

I wonder if we are all in some kind of limbo, like purgatory, but that wouldn't make sense either.

Am I dead? I don't think so.

Not yet.

Day 30

There were diaries everywhere, stacked up on shelves, piled high in corners, and left lying around in seemingly random locations. Neither of us knew where to begin. In a strange way, it was fortunate that most of them were completely illegible. I think that at some point the majority of them must have been soaked in water. Maybe the building wasn't watertight. There were some entries that I could still read, but a lot of that was meaningless garbage.

The light in the upstairs room was handy as hell. I didn't have to run down any of my own supplies. It was set up the same as the lamp had been in the shop, attached to a battery. It wasn't bright, but it was light enough to read by. The same battery powered the small tape player that was blasting out the same few songs over and over again, until I switched it off. How the battery had lasted so long I have no idea.

Dotted all around the house were the strange objects that Adler had collected. In the middle of one of the downstairs rooms there was a six-foot-tall statue made entirely of scrap metal. I wasn't sure what it was supposed to be. It looked like a kind of grotesque winged angel, and it was so intricate in design that it must have taken him weeks to build it. That is if he even made it himself. I suppose he could have found it somewhere. It didn't even need propping up. It stood there, balanced of its own accord.

Plates! Hundreds and hundreds of the damn things, all stacked on shelves or hanging on the walls. Some were actually real plates, either plastic or metal or crockery. Is that what they are called? Crockery? What the hell is a crock, anyway? I don't know. Most of them were those display things you see in pubs and old houses. Who needs that many plates anyway? The cooker doesn't even work, without any electricity.

The best find for me was the wardrobe full of clothes. It seemed that Adler had made quite a collection of clothing over the years, and most of it looked about my size. After close to a month in the same rags, I was glad to dump them in exchange for something that was at least clean. I found a couple of pairs of reasonably undamaged jeans and put a pair on. A full change of clothing later I felt a lot more comfortable, and glad to be rid of those oversized, ripped up, and dirty trousers.

There was more in the wardrobe. Stuffed into the bottom were three pairs of boots. Proper walking ones. Again they were a bit tatty, with worn treads, but they were so much more comfortable than the tatty boots that I'd been wearing for a month. There was also a belt with some small carry pouches on it, like the ones hikers wear. I stuffed some of my more important things into each of the pouches. My lighter, keys, wallet, a bottle of water, the journal fitted in there with some room still left. There were even little knife holders and a strap that held the battery torch. Don't know why I put the harmonica in.

Strewn all over the house, either in boxes or stuffed onto shelves, was every type of tool imaginable. Dozens of hammers and saws, boxes of screws and nails. There was even one of those electric bench cutters plugged into a wall socket. Completely useless – at least that is what we thought. How the hell had Adler got that thing into the house? Maybe it was already here when he arrived?

Then Rudy called me. He was in the back room on the ground floor. All the windows were blocked up and the back door out into the garden was boarded over double thick with wooden planks. Set up in the middle of the room was something I hadn't expected.

The front half of a car.

The wheels had been removed and the whole frame was propped up on rows of bricks. All of the metal panelling had been removed to reveal the engine, the dashboard and the ignition. He'd even removed the steering wheel.

Where the exhaust should have poked out there was a long bendy plastic pipe attached. It was hanging on bits of string that were nailed to the ceiling. The pipe ran across the room and up the chimney, where it was nailed to the wall about three feet up, just below a metal grid that blocked the chimney, but let the air in.

The key was still in the ignition, so I turned it, not expecting a damn thing to happen, but it did. The engine coughed a little, and spluttered, and then gave a roar that made me nearly jump out of my skin. It juddered and hummed away happily.

It was noisy, but I thought screw it, it's not like I've been that effective at staying hidden anyway.

All the lights in the house came on.

Rudy was pointing at something, something lying on a chair in the corner of the room. It was another journal. One that looked more recent than the others. The ink was much clearer than the other books. Of course, it could still have been written years ago.

There was only one entry.

I found the fourth key and I'm going to collect the others now. Hopefully I can make it all the way to the device and activate it. Maybe, just maybe, it will take me home. During CutterJack's curses and taunts, while he was outside the house, he let slip about some of his deeds on Earth, the things he took, the horrific and brutal things he did to people. So overcome with his own pride, that terrible creature. He didn't even realise that the threats of what he had done to his past victims were giving away clues as to how to resolve my own predicament.

Even if it takes me somewhere completely different, it has to be better than here. I could cope reasonably with another world, or even another universe, but to be stranded in this dark and claustrophobic place for the rest of my days, forever hunted by a creature of such evil intent. That is a thought that makes me cold to my heart. I cannot even bear to contemplate the possibility of becoming one of his abominations.

Of all the places the key could have been. I would never have guessed. Why would someone have poked it under the door? How did I not see it there before? I spent hours gazing at that white flower. Maybe someone pushed the key under there because they didn't want CutterJack to find it.

I thought I would never know, until that damnedest of creatures came to taunt me once more, a few nights ago.

It was something he said, about chasing one of my predecessors up to the door that ‘Those ones has locked in on me'. His English is thoroughly common, no, that would be an insult to common folk, a barbaric half-wit, at best. Regardless of that, he murdered the man right there, right where we had camped for all those days while Rudy and I tried to get the door open. I'd never even thought to look there, and I wasn't looking for a key when I went there. Something knotted up inside me. I had to go and look up there, to see if there was any evidence of CutterJack's victim. There was. That pile of rocks hid more than other bits of rubble.

I covered the poor man back up again after I said a few words. It was the least I could do. In a way I feel that his life was extinguished to my benefit, as self-centred as that may sound. If he had not died there then CutterJack would never have mentioned it, and in turn I would never have been led to find the final piece of the puzzle. I swore I would place a memorial of some kind to my anonymous benefactor one day. I only regret that there was no form of identification upon the remains. I will never know who he was.

I'm leaving my diaries here, in case someone else happens to end up here. CutterJack can't read. If he could, he would have been able to understand the note that I left for him, but I could see from my hiding place, peering out of the top window of the house, that he couldn't. He looked too puzzled. He also can't get into the house if it's secured properly. He tried often enough. I don't think he is the cleverest of creatures. How he gained the knowledge to do such things as he does, I have no clue.

My journey will have to take me across the swamp, even though I dread the mere thought of it. Every other way is crawling with his creatures.

If you are reading this now then I hope that you will find the place that I travel to now, and I hope you find the device intact. Know now that it is the same device that CutterJack has used for centuries to travel to other places and perform his butchery, so beware of him on your journey. The device is located near to the wall, past the junkyard. The wall somehow marks the boundary of this place, how I cannot tell you, I have not yet discovered why, only that a scrawled note in a book that I found in the library suggests that it is dangerous to go beyond the Wall.

‘Do not, ever, ever, cross to the other side of the wall from the ground.' it said, and ‘seek the house that was never built.'

I didn't know what that meant when I first read it, but it's obvious when you are there. You'll know it when you see it."

Rudy and I stood quietly for what seemed a long time. It was he who spoke first, but we both knew what this last note meant.

"He never made it, did he?"

"Doesn't look like it. He never got the key from the bus, otherwise I never would have found it, and he never came back to where you died to find the other one."

"He went through the swamp. Why? That's just suicidal."

"I don't think he had much choice."

"No, I suppose not, but I'd rather face those, what do you call them?"

"Zombies."

"Yes, them. I'd rather have to fight my way through them than try and get through the gargants."

That reminded me of something I had never asked Rudy, since the dreams that led me to him.

"Do you remember that you said they weren't zombies, during my dreams, before I came to the shack?"

"Yes, of course."

"What did you mean?"

Rudy shrugged.

"I didn't know what a zombie was."

It took me five minutes to stop laughing.

Then I remembered something and stopped damn quickly.

"Damn."

"What?"

"I've already crossed the wall."

Rudy looked puzzled.

"In the professor's notes."

I took the book and showed him that last page.

"He says right there, don't cross over the wall from the ground. I've already done that. Well, once anyway. It was back when I first got here, I had a camp right against the wall. I had to leave it because it got overrun with zombies. It was when I met DogThing. I was running from the zombies and there was one that was in the way; it had a head that it was swinging."

"It was swinging its head?"

"No, it was swinging another head. It had hold of it by the hair. Well, I set fire to it and I had to jump over the end of the wall to escape it."

"Oh. I see."

We both stood quietly for a while.

"Do you think I'm screwed?"

"No. No. Look, Adler doesn't say why, does he?"

"No, I suppose he doesn't."

"Well it may only be some kind of warning. You know, don't go over the wall, there are all manner of nasty things over there. He doesn't actually say that crossing it is the bad thing."

"Yes he does. It says right there. Do not ever, ever cross from the ground."

"Well, you're still here, aren't you?"

"Yes."

"Right."

"I miss DogThing."

"Yes. Me too."

Day 31

The nausea and headaches seemed to have stopped, so I packed up my stuff. There was a proper hiker's backpack stuffed in among a lot of junk that the professor had collected. It was quite tatty, with a few holes in it, but fixable. From what I found in it, and threw away, he had probably used it a few times and then left it. It was huge. I couldn't imagine anyone going for any length of time on a bicycle with that monstrosity on their back. For me, it was a godsend. If we were to head into the swamp then I couldn't take my cart anymore. I filled the pack with as many supplies and as much kit as I could, but left a lot of heavier stuff. I had to leave most of the petrol, and some of the water, behind, just because of the weight. I kept two bottles of petrol, though. Fortunately seeing in the dark was no longer an issue. My eyes adjusted alarmingly fast to the darkness now.

I even managed to attach the two long blades that CutterJack had left behind to the back of the pack, after I had wrapped them in a tatty grey shirt that looked too small for me anyway. I wasn't having those two sharp blades hanging loose; one accidental fall and they would dice me. I'd like to say I made decent holders for them. What were they called? A scabbard? But that wasn't the case. I'd have to untie them if I needed them. It was kind of handy and reassuring. I had this horrible image of CutterJack sneaking up on me and pulling his blades off my pack. The same image was less worrying when it involved him standing there for five minutes untying them. I locked up the house again and stuffed the rope into the pipe.

We set out a few hours after I'd woken up, moving as quickly as we could out of The City and making a direct route to the swamp. There were no Maw around now, so I was uneasy for the first hour or so. The ground was hard, mostly rock, so signs of us passing were few, at least as far as I could see.

I think it took us about three hours to reach the small group of buildings at the edge of the swamp. Neither of us had expected to see buildings there, let alone ones so intact. We started checking rooms, and finally found some kind of campfire in a room on the ground floor of the largest house. There was no way of knowing if it had been left years ago by the professor.

While Rudy took a look round some of the other buildings, I walked down to the swamp's edge. There were a few small pods growing in a bush right next to where the path started. Of course, I hadn't expected there to be a path either. It was about ten feet across, and made from piled-up earth and rocks that had flattened from use. Who had used it, I don't know. I presumed that it had been made a long time ago.

The path twisted through the swamp in a snake-like fashion. Dotted here and there were large rocks jutting out of the stinking mud.

"Well that makes our journey a little easier," said Rudy when he saw the path.

"Aye. I wonder if it goes all the way across."

"Well I've never seen a path on the other side, but it could be hidden or come out in an area that I've not been to. I've been along a lot of the shoreline on the other side of the swamp, but I didn't always follow the edge. There are large areas of rocks that I just went round."

"I guess we will find out."

Rudy wanted me to rest in one of the buildings before we moved on. He was convinced that I might not get another chance, but I wanted to put as much distance between myself and CutterJack as possible. Even if he was wounded, I still had this gut feeling that it wouldn't stop him following us if he found our trail.

The trail meandered through the swamp for what seemed miles, and I was glad of it, because away from the hard ground was deep sludgy mud. I had thought that all of the plants I'd seen growing in The Corridor were strange, until I walked through that swamp.

Clustered all along the trail were plants weirder than anything I had ever seen. Dotted here and there were huge, bulbous, green blobs, fifteen feet across, with spikes that looked like sharpened spears jutting out of them. Massive lily pad plants, probably twenty or thirty feet in diameter, hung a few feet above the sludgy mud, the underneath covered in thick, moving tentacles that seemed to sift through the swamp, occasionally popping up with some unfortunate creature that it would then wrap in tentacles until the creature vanished from sight into a tight cocoon. There were reeds that must have been fifty feet high, reaching upwards into the darkness, glistening with something that looked sticky, and crawling with strange cockroach creatures the size of my fist. And the mushrooms; I had thought the mushrooms I found in the field near the junkyard were massive, but these things stood almost the size of a house.

After a couple of miles of walking along the path it became clear that it didn't head towards the shack, but with a bit of debate, we figured out how to roughly guess where we were heading.

"The zombie trail," said Rudy. "Somewhere along the trail that runs the other side of the swamp I'd say."

"Maybe it will be clear. Maybe we killed most of them in the fight at the shack."

"Maybe."

He didn't sound convinced.

"We have a bigger problem though. Look."

He was pointing along the path.

We had passed quite a few of them while negotiating our way along the swamp trail. Fortunately they were all a long way away. I'm not sure how – luck, probably – but each time we saw another one, they were far enough away not to notice us. We were moving quickly, not wanting to be down in the swamp any longer than we had to, but as we started to see rocks and dry ground in the distance, probably four or five hours after first setting off across the swamp, our luck ran out.

A gargant was sitting on the path, a massive gargant. It was easily the size of a double-decker bus, and was right over the path, sprawled out, munching on some of the odd vegetation that grew all over the place, and it didn't look like it had any intention of moving.

"Crap."

"Err, James. It gets worse."

"What?"

"Behind us."

They'd found us, at least a dozen of them, behind us on the trail, staggering slowly along. For all I knew there were more hidden in the mists that obscured my vision past a hundred yards or so.

The zombies were back.

"Double crap."

"We're trapped. This is not good."

"Ok, no panicking."

My mind raced. I was panicking. I grabbed my mace and tried to decide which form of death I was going to face first. No Maw with us to fend off the zombies, and not even the slightest clue what to do about moving a gargant, which, to make it worse, seemed to have noticed us and was hauling its fat butt off the ground and along the trail, no doubt with the intent of coming over to munch on me.

"I hope you like swamps Rudy, because if we can't think of something fast, you might be following a gargant around for a while."

I dropped my pack to the ground and fumbled for the bottles of oil. I knew that the zombies could be burned, and there was no way I was going to handle a dozen of them on my own.

Why the hell does everything take so much longer when you are in a hurry? If I had been hunting for something else, the damn petrol would have been sitting on the top of everything else.

"What now?" asked Rudy. He was hovering next to me. The fear rising inside me was equally detectable in his voice.

"Pray," I snapped back, and felt immediately guilty.

I poured the first bottle of oil onto the ground, drawing a line all the way across the trail, and then stepped over it onto the side where the gargant was. It only took a couple of flicks of my lighter, and the oil burst into flame. The roaring heat quickly swept along the line and rose up nearly to my waist. I had to jump back away from the flames. Foul-tasting smoke filled my lungs.

The zombies were now about thirty feet away and closing slowly. The nearest one was another bizarre creation that should never have walked. It had two heads, one right where it should have been, but facing in the wrong direction entirely, and the other protruding from its bulbous stomach. There were far too many eyes glaring at me out of that bloated, rotten face, and each of them with sheer hatred.

The zombies didn't seem at all fazed by the fire, but then I didn't expect them to be. I had to hope that they would carry on moving slowly enough for my thin line of fiery defence to catch them. Otherwise I was screwed.

The gargant on the other hand was reacting in a way I hadn't expected. It screamed, loudly. I mean extremely loud, as loud as a fire alarm going off right next to your face kind of loud. That piercing noise would have carried across miles if echoes had even worked here. I felt the noise reverberating through my skull, and for a panicked moment I thought my head was going to explode.

That would have been a really rubbish way to go out.

The enormous slug didn't like the fire, or it didn't like the brightness, or the heat, or something, and with that sudden realisation I grabbed my pack back and pulled out one of the remaining torches, lighting it on the burning path. As stupid as I thought it was I started forward towards the gargant, burning torch in one hand, bottle of oil in the other. I would never have been this reckless and stupid back home. I hadn't a clue at the time how much I would regret it later.

"What are you doing?" shouted Rudy.

I almost laughed.

"James! Have you completely lost your mind?"

"Absolutely."

I glanced back at the fire to see the first of the zombies walk mindlessly into it. BellyFace had caught fire a treat, and was a walking inferno in seconds. Damn, if those eyes didn't start popping. But he was still stumbling forward, a walking Guy Fawkes, still intent on coming for me. The second zombie stepped into the flames.

I turned back to the gargant, my main problem, and nearly jumped back again as I discovered that I was only about twenty feet away from it. Trust me, twenty feet is way too close when it comes to a giant tentacled slug.

It reared forward at me, screeching. I had seriously pissed it off. I began waving the torch backwards and forwards and psyching myself up, ready to hurl the oil at it. It was furious, screeching at me at the top of its voice and throwing out tentacles and spit, to try and knock the torch out of my hand, but it wasn't coming any closer. It didn't like fire, and it liked it even less when I threw the oil on the ground and lobbed the torch at it.

Fact: Zombies burn well.

Important fact: Gargants burn so much better.

They also move through swamp a lot faster than I expected. I hadn't even seen the other ones approaching, but soon spotted them when the burning gargant went screaming off through the muck towards them at full speed. It was popping and sizzling and leaving massive bits behind as it bulldozed its way through the other gargants, which in turn were catching fire as the one that I had lit up smashed into them, one by one.

Then I realised why they burned so well. It wasn't the gargant at all. It was the damn swamp, the stuff the gargant was covered in. It must have been oil, or even some form of gas being given off by all the dead and rotten crap. It didn't matter. It still meant the same thing.

The swamp was on fire.

A burst of flame erupted from the mud, reaching up into the darkness like a geyser, spewing out hot steam and launching a spray of hot fiery mud over everything that was nearby. I was lucky to be out of range. The hot mud splattered across the swamp and spread the fire even further. Then, with one almighty whoosh, the fire took hold, and geysers burst upwards every ten feet or so, launching debris over everything. Soon the flames were spreading out from where the gargants were burning, sweeping across the swamp at such a speed I barely had time to react.

I looked around for any form of cover, but there was nothing nearby, just clumps of vegetation and a scattering of rocks. I spun back round to where my pack was lying, about thirty feet away, reaching distance for the zombies that now crawled their way along the trail. My flaming barrier had set fire to them but it wasn't stopping them.

Rudy was edging his way along the path towards me now, keeping his distance from the zombies. They couldn't hurt him. I guess that was one of the advantages of already being dead, but that didn't stop him being afraid of them. He glanced at my pack as he passed it and looked worriedly at me, then picked up his pace.

Across the swamp the fire was spreading fast. All around me was lit up like a furnace. I think I was lucky that it wasn't gallons of pure oil. I can't imagine what the explosion would have been like if it had been.

No way to go back and get my pack, not even my mace, which was lying on the floor next to it. Oh for hindsight!

"Run."

That voice was in my head again, the same one that spoke to me when CutterJack first showed up.

"Run. Don't go back. Don't stop. Just run."

Rudy caught up with me, as the flames swept over the path where I had dropped my pack. The zombies, about ten feet behind him, were consumed by the inferno seconds later.

"Don't go back."

Who was in my head? It wasn't Rudy. It wasn't CutterJack. The voice was softer, almost feminine, but not quite.

"Run. Run. Run."

I ran, finally snapping out of my fears, taking off along the path as fast as my legs would carry me, cursing at myself out loud with every breath.

Then it was there. The end of the path, and dry ground, fifty or so feet away, close enough to hope, but yet it still seemed so much further. Time seemed to stop dead for me. That sprint through the fire seemed to last for ever, and I could feel the heat of the flames burning my back as I finally hit the rocks and struggled upwards out of the swamp.

I had no idea if Rudy was with me. I hadn't looked back once.

It was the path that saved me. The rocks and dry, sandy ground gave the flames nothing to burn, so the fire swept past me on both sides. It reached the end of the swamp much sooner than I did.

At the top of the slope I collapsed, rolled over onto my back, and lay there, stunned, as the expanse of the swamp behind me lit up in flames. Gargants were screaming, unable to escape from the heat. All of those strange, alien plants were destroyed, one by one turning black and then withering to nothing as the fire consumed them. I watched, dumfound and horrified, as a line of behemoth-sized mushrooms in the distance lit up like bonfires, burning bright blue for a few seconds, before collapsing.

Rudy sat down next to me, and we both watched as the entire swamp burned. What else could we do?

"Well that went better than I thought it would," said Rudy eventually.

I laughed and laughed. I have no idea why that was my reaction. I could have just completely incinerated an entire ecosystem, for all I knew. That swamp might be the only place in the entire universe where some of those things grew. The gargants, as much as they disgusted and frightened me, hadn't actually done anything to harm me, yet, and I'd roasted a heap of them.

"Well I'm glad you find all of this funny."

"It's not. It's not funny at all."

After about ten minutes, Rudy went back into the fire, walking unharmed through the flames and along the path. It had been his idea, even though I had thought about it. I didn't want to ask him. Dead or not, I wouldn't have volunteered to step into a burning fire. But it seemed that during my run out of the inferno I'd inadvertently dragged him right through the flames. I didn't know what he meant at first, but then realised that he was bound to stay near me, near the key. If I ran, he had no choice but to follow.

If our judgement was correct, and I went down the slope as far as I could without getting scorched, then he might be able to get to the pack and see if there was anything worth salvaging. He paused for a moment before stepping into the fire, and I cringed as he disappeared from view. There's something not right about being able to walk through a blazing fire.

He came back a few minutes later with a dour look.

"There may be some things left, but most of it looks burnt beyond scavenging. I don't know if it is worth waiting for I'm afraid. Some of the tins of food might be usable, but most of the rest has been destroyed. Your mace is still there, and I think CutterJack's blades are under the burnt pack, but I couldn't move anything to get a better look."

"I have to wait."

"What? But the flames might take days to go away."

"I don't have any choice. I have to wait at least a few hours. I don't have a weapon, other than a couple of poxy knives. They won't do me much good if I have to kill zombies, or if CutterJack turns up again. I left it all there."

"We can make it to the shack in a day, if we don't stop, maybe."

"Have you forgotten where we are? The zombie trail..."

"Of course I haven’t forgotten, but the zombies are slow, you could outrun them – outwalk them, even."

"All the way to the shack? We don't even know exactly how far it is, and I'm already knackered."

"Ok. We wait. Maybe you're right. Maybe it will be gone in a few hours."

We both looked over at the swamp. If anything, the flames were getting higher.

"Maybe."

I checked my pouches. No food. I had one bottle of water, but other than that I had little more than I had started with over a month ago, just the things that I had put in the pouches that morning. I put my head in my hands and felt like crying. I think if Rudy hadn't been there I would have done.

Instead, my mind started racing, trying to find a plan to hold on to, something to stop me going completely insane. I had to find more supplies, fast. I knew I could get pods from along the swamp's edge, if I could find a bit that wasn't burning. There were pools of water in among the rocks up near the shack, but that meant going back there, going back to where there might be more zombies.

All of this and we were still no nearer to finding out where Adler had gone.

I slept underneath an overhanging of rock that we found a few hundred yards back from the swamp. It was about as far as I could go before I was ready to collapse, which completely put an end to Rudy's idea of keeping moving until we made the shack. I was breathing heavily and kept coughing up black crap. I guess I hadn't realised how bad the fumes from the fire had been.

I lay there for a while, huddled on the floor, trying to get comfortable enough to sleep without my blanket and my pillow. That pillow had stunk, but I would have given almost anything for it now. I couldn't get it out of my head, going over and over everything that had happened in those few seconds on the path. Everything lost because I took the pack off.

It would seem that I was out for the count for probably double what I normally slept; at least that's what Rudy said. Not that he has a clock to keep time by. Maybe being a ghost for years and years forces you to learn other ways of dealing with things. He also said I was coughing most of the time, and he even tried to wake me because he was worried that I was going to conk out on him. I didn't wake up, no matter how many times he called me, and of course he couldn't nudge me.

Day 32

The last bottle of water only lasted until the morning. My throat was dry and sore and the water seemed to be the only thing that helped.

We headed back to the swamp, slowly. I hadn't felt this bad since I had first woken up in the junkyard, though at least it wasn't my whole body that was aching, only my chest and my throat. I think my hearing is worse as well, and all I can smell is a harsh, burnt stench.

The flames were still burning hours later when we got back to the edge of the swamp. A bit of luck though. The flames along the swamp trail had died down a little. Not completely, but enough that I might be able to make my way back along to where my pack was.

I was about to go for it when a low growl a few feet away absolutely made my day.

Right behind us, about twenty feet away, perched on a rock, watching, was a scruffy, furry canine with teeth that were far too big for its mouth and bright eyes the size of my fist.

It cocked its head to one side and made a snorting noise that almost sounded like "Oops".

DogThing.

If I could have given DogThing a hug at that moment, I would have done, but I don't think he would have appreciated it. There were no visible signs of any wounds that he might have taken during the fight in the street, but I was certain he was missing a few bits of fur. Not that it appeared to have made any difference. He seemed his usual self.

Rudy did his best to try to persuade me not to go into the fire, but what does he understand? He is already dead. He doesn't have any attachment to material things any more. He seems to have forgotten that he once depended on them. Well, apart from the compasses; he was fidgety until I showed him that I still had those tucked away on the chain, under my shirt. God forbid I lost them.

I almost backed out anyway; even though the flames were nowhere near as bad as they had been the day before, it was still damn hot walking along the trail. Fires still burned on either side of the path as I made my way along it, and I had to dodge from side to side a few times to avoid them. Every step I took along the path left me increasingly paranoid about one of those damn geyser things exploding a few feet away from me, but nothing happened. I got to the remains of my kit without getting roasted.

It was almost a write-off, almost. ZombieBane was charred but thankfully still useable. I rummaged through the smouldering remains of my supplies with one of my knives. Most of the food and anything flammable, which meant pretty much everything, had burned, including the pack itself, but two tins were still intact. There was some plastic sheeting still useable, and the screwdriver, the saw, the spanner. One of the petrol lamps was also salvageable. I used the bits of plastic sheeting as a bag and dumped everything in it. How typical; just after I've got myself sorted with kit, I lose nearly all of it.

Underneath the blackened remains were CutterJack's two long blades. They were still pristine. Not even a speck of the ash clung to the blades. Of course, the cloth that I had wrapped them in was gone.

Incredibly, one of the zombies was still going. It was armless, legless, and burnt to a crisp, flapping around on the floor. Hissing and spitting at me, desperate to sink its teeth in. I jumped when it first made a noise, my nerves tingling. It was only about five feet away and had lain perfectly still, smoking and stinking, the whole time I was sifting through my gear.

It felt so good to cave the damn thing's head in. One satisfying crunch later and it stopped moving. Am I becoming heartless? Yes, I think so. I don't have any sympathy for these creatures, and deep inside I know I should. Am I putting them out of their misery? Are they even in misery? I don't know, but it feels better to keep telling myself that.

My joy was short lived. That one smack on the zombie's head and ZombieBane fell apart in my hands. I nearly took myself out in the process, as a sharp piece of it sprang off and bounced off my leg.

Lucky this time.

I picked up the two blades that still lay on the floor and weighed them up. I didn't know if I was going to be able to use both of them at once, as CutterJack had. I guessed I would find out.

I actually walked up out of the swamp with a smile on my face. It was daft. After the disaster of the previous day, there was I, grinning from ear to ear. I was still alive after taking on a gargant and a bunch of zombies, I had DogThing back, and I still had some remnants of my kit to keep me going, not much, but enough. I kept telling myself that I'd done this once already, crawled out of the darkness with nothing and still lived, so I could do it all over again.

The first fight happened roughly an hour after that. We had set off immediately. Rudy tried to get me to rest up more. I was still coughing up crap, but I was determined to move on. It had only been an hour or so since I'd woken up, and although I was feeling knackered again already, I was not staying by the swamp, breathing in more fumes.

DogThing sensed them first, four of them, and we saw them long before they were anywhere near us. They lumbered slowly out of the darkness, mist swirling around them like some cheap effect in a low-budget horror film. No messing about this time, I was ready for them, well sort of, if I managed to fight with CutterJack's blades.

We took down two each, though DogThing did make the first kill, I'll happily give him that. Less than twenty seconds I would say, and they were in bits all over the ground. I was getting better at this.

CutterJack's blades rock.

I can't believe I just wrote that.

Idiot.

For most of the day we stayed a reasonable distance from the shore of the swamp. Is the edge of a swamp called a shore? I didn't want to stay too close. The fire was kicking up fumes that made me feel sick, so we used it as a distant guide to keep direction, only moving away when a gargant came into view. I was surprised to see some of them still moving slowly among the flames. I guess I hadn't wiped out a whole ecosystem after all.

Should I be pleased by that?

The good news was that after roughly half an hour of walking, the fire in the swamp dwindled, revealing a vast expanse of smelly gunk once more. We found a pool of clear water trapped in a small crevasse between some rocks. I was dubious at first about drinking it, but DogThing didn't hesitate. Strange, back home I would never have dreamed of sharing a drink from a pool of water with a creature as mucky as DogThing. I guess you get used to things.

We met three other groups of zombies that day. Fortunately there were only three or four of them each time, all ambling along the same route. They moved slowly, so most of the time it was us catching up with them. It didn't matter that I'd fought these creatures a number of times now, I'd still nearly wet myself every time we closed in on them. I was getting better at fighting them though, and quite proud that I was actually able to fight with both blades, sort of. In truth I only swung one at a time. I was too scared I'd slice my own foot off.

Day 33

A second day travelling along the edge of the swamp.

The area on the zombie-trail side of the swamp was similar to near the shack – barely a few hundred feet of rocks and dirt, and it gave way to tall cliffs that rose up into darkness, though the rocks weren't quite so large and warren-like.

Pods grew in abundance along the edge of the swamp; much more so than near the shack. Rudy pointed out that there were few gargants along the trail to eat the pods. Maybe the gargants liked to avoid the zombies. It didn't matter. It meant I had a re-supply of food.

My geography was completely thrown by now. All I could go on was that the swamp would eventually lead us back to the shack, which is where we decided we needed to head. There was at least some replacement equipment there, probably not much, but even some torches and something to make a decent bag out of would help. There was of course the cave in the rocks, and the door. I had to go there again, just in case I'd missed something the first time. That was the plan, at least.

I wish I still had my push cart.

No zombie groups today. I wonder where they have gone.

Day 34

No more zombies again today. I managed to collect some more water and a few more pods.

We reached the shack finally. I think we kept going for close to ten hours before eventually sighting the waterfall. It must have been that long. I was exhausted, hungry, and cold. My chest wasn't so bad today though, not so much coughing.

I watched DogThing run off up towards the rocks at the edge of the plateau before I closed and blocked up the front door.

A minute later and I collapsed on the bed.

There were no zombie bodies around the shack anymore. I didn't notice that until I was drifting off to sleep.

Day 35

After I awoke, I spent a few hours going through my stuff and replacing what I could from the shack. There were plastic bottles, and wood to make torches from. I took a blanket from the bed and made a rough sack out of one of the sheets.

DogThing came back and was wandering around the valley for most of the day. He followed us up to the cave in the rock face and sat there waiting as I climbed up the rope.

Nothing had changed up there. Not that I had expected it to. I searched around, glancing often at the rocks along one wall. Unlike the rest of the rock fall, which seemed as though it had come from the hole in the ceiling, maybe some kind of cave-in, the rocks there looked like they had been piled up carefully. I hadn't noticed it on our first visit.

Rudy sat watching the rock pile the whole time we were up there.

I found a long piece of stick covered with mud lying on the ground near the refrigerator. It was thin and it looked like someone had whittled the end away into a small hook shape.

"No more clues here, then," said Rudy.

"No. Only this stick, which Adler may have used to get the compass."

"And that pile of rocks."

"Yes, the rocks."

"We're not going to disturb the grave are we?"

"No."

"Why come here, then?"

"I just needed to know that what Adler wrote was true, I guess."

"I see. So where now?"

"Well, Adler found the last compass here. So I presume he had to have been carrying it. He would have had to come back to the shack to look for the one he gave you. Of course we know he never found that one."

"So he must have either gone on to get the ones in the junkyard, or gone somewhere else."

"Somewhere we missed."

"Ok, well we have to go for what we do know, and hope we find out where he went."

"Well, there is always The Warrens," said Rudy.

"The Warrens?"

"They run along the side of the plateau. You remember I said that the zombies don't go over the plateau? Instead they go round. Well, that is where they go. The professor and I went that way once, following the footprint trail in the dirt that the zombies left behind. It led us all the way through and out, not too far from the mushroom fields. There are a lot of different paths in the rocks and Adler did keep going back that way. I only went with him the once, and we stuck to the footprints. That doesn't mean he always did."

We headed back to the shack.

All quiet. No zombies today. I walked down to the swamp to see if there was any sign of the fire.

Nothing.

Even the gargants are not around.

Day 36

We set off back towards the junkyard soon after I awoke, but rather than heading back over the plateau I took Rudy's suggestion and we made our way across the river, following the foot of the slope. I would rather have gone back across the plateau, but I couldn't ignore the possibility that The Warrens might be hiding something.

Rudy was cheerful today and talkative.

"If you stand on the plateau and look down into The Warrens it's a sheer drop, too high to clearly see any of the paths that run through the rocks. It's the way that the zombies go when they are on their way to the junkyard, but they seem to stick to one particular path, and there are hundreds of different ways."

"So we can avoid the zombies by using another path?"

"Hmm, I'm not sure we should. It would be quite easy for us to get lost down there, but saying that, I'm still curious as to what Adler was searching for down there, and he went there a lot."

We travelled past the spot where Rudy had died, and were both a bit disturbed to find that it had been messed with. Some of the ground had been churned up and bones had moved, and I don't mean the bit that I had disturbed to get the compass.

"Maybe I should bury you?"

"What?" He looked shocked at that. I have to admit that it was a strange comment to make, considering he was standing right next to me, well, his ghost was.

"Your...remains. You're kind of just... Maybe I should bury you?"

I pointed at the bones that were scattered along the riverbank, overgrown with the bright, glowing grass.

"No. It's ok."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes. I don't want you to. It would be like admitting I'm dead, and I'm still here. I don't believe I'm dead yet."

That was that. Decided.

Over the river bank the ground sloped downwards past the rocks and then flattened out into a rough, open plain littered with small stones and debris. The grass gradually thinned out and was replaced by hard, cracked ground that was covered in a kind of salty sand. It reminded me of some pictures I'd once seen in National Geographic, of the Gobi desert.

DogThing was waiting for us where the rocks ended and plains began. I like to think that somehow he knew where we were heading.

We stayed along the edge of the plain, near to where the plateau rose up, higher and higher, in a sheer wall of marble until I could no longer see the top.

Across the barren ground, in long trailing lines, were sets of footprints. Rudy said that not even the storm and the rain managed to touch anything here, so the footprints were still there from the times that he and Adler had travelled through The Warrens, all those years ago. It was eerie seeing a small, thin bicycle track, cutting into the ground. I was excited about it at first, thinking that maybe it was a clue of some sort, but Rudy pointed out that Adler had always taken the bike with him, so the tyre tracks could well have been quite old.

Littered across the ground here and there were bones and junk. I didn't examine any of it long enough to figure out what kind of creature the bones belonged to, but they looked like they had been there for a long time.

We got to The Warrens a lot quicker than I expected. I would say about an hour across the plain, so only a few miles. They came into view through the mist and were so eerie that I almost stopped and turned back. I don't know how they were formed, but they didn't look natural. Sheer walls, maybe forty feet high, lined a dozen entrances. The rock arched at the top, almost like it had been cut from the stone by a machine. The paths were all roughly twenty feet across, and the same thin, salty sand lay on the ground. The mist, that covered everywhere, made the entrances even more foreboding.

I saw where the zombie trail continued into The Warrens before we even reached it. It wasn't hard to spot. A path that was maybe ten feet across, which looked like it had been worn away, over many years, by thousands of pairs of feet, stretched across the plain and entered the tunnel nearest to us. There were no zombies in sight, but I didn't like how deeply cut into the ground the trail was.

"I'm hoping that we won't be using that path?" I said, pointing at the trail.

"Unfortunately we will. We have to follow the same path at least most of the way. I think we might get lost, otherwise."

But something we both noticed almost at the same time changed that.

A short distance from the entrance, a bicycle track crossed the zombie trail, and led into the third tunnel. I looked closer. The track seemed as though it had been used a lot of times.

"We never went that way," said Rudy.

"Do you think Adler found another route?" I asked.

"He must have, but he never mentioned it."

I was still nervous going in there. No open ground and not a lot of choices when it came to escaping if we came across anything, but DogThing wasn't growling and didn't seem disturbed, so I followed Rudy into the third entrance.

I was expecting hours of wandering around, lost, but about an hour later, after following the bicycle trail, we were looking down into a gulley that ended in a sheer wall. The tracks led down to the very bottom, where another metal door was built into the rock.

A door that was open.

We looked at each other, puzzled.

Leaning against the rock only a few feet away from the open door was an old, rusty bicycle.

"The professor's bicycle," said Rudy, as we approached the door.

There was no light coming from inside, just pitch darkness. Rudy knelt down next to the bicycle and tried to wipe away some of the dust and sand that had gathered on it. His hand went straight through.

"Well I guess that answers where he went."

"Yes, I suppose it does, almost."

"He must have come here a lot if all these footprints are anything to go by," I replied, indicating all of the different footprint trails coming to and from the entrance. Most of them came from the path opposite the one we had arrived by.

Why so many visits?

I moved the bicycle away from the wall. Years of gathered dust and sand fell from it. It had been here so long that both the chain and the steering column had seized up. The bicycle may have been ancient even back when the professor had used it, so the cracked paint and rust weren't much of a gauge to go by.

Rudy stood there, peering at the doorway. I could see he was reluctant to go inside.

"I don't know whether I want to see what's in there."

I nodded my understanding. "It's ok. I'll go."

"No. No. I'll go first, safety and all that. It makes sense. Just give me a moment."

I took my time lighting up one of my newly made chair leg torches and waited quietly by the door. I knew the torch wouldn't last as long as the others. I'd had no cloth to wrap round the top, and no petrol to soak it in; ironic really, since I'd probably burned thousands of gallons of fuel in the swamp fire. It didn't matter though; this was Rudy's friend we were expecting to find dead inside the door, unless it led somewhere else. I was hoping it did.

After a minute or so, Rudy stepped through the doorway; his own glow filled the corridor that was revealed, casting dim shadows over the broken furniture that littered the ground and the cobwebs that hung from the ceiling. I thought that was a bit odd, having not seen a single spider the entire time I had been here.

DogThing didn't follow us in, but he also didn't seem on edge.

There were three doors along the left side of the corridor, all of which were open, and then a dead end with another door in it that was shut. The door at the end looked almost identical to the door in the cave near the shack.

Rudy was standing in the corridor, not moving, so I decided it was down to me to look after all.

The first room was no larger than a decent sized bedroom, containing little apart from a row of turned-over filing cabinets, all of which were empty. More cobwebs filled the dark corners of the room, and the floor was littered with rotten books and piles of folders. I picked up the nearest folder and opened it, but the pages inside crumbled to dust in my hands.

The second room along was the same, except the cabinets, again empty, were still standing against the far wall. There was also a stack of tables and chairs in one corner.

We found him in the last room, sitting upright facing an aged computer screen that was still plugged into the wall. Where the hell the electricity had come from originally I don't know; the plug was hanging by one rusted wire that clung to the concrete wall. The screen of the computer had been broken in a long time ago.

Adler had been dead for a long time. So long that there wasn't a shred of flesh left on him, just a decaying skeleton inside a smart, grey dress suit. There was a hat sitting on the side of the computer desk, caked in years of dust and grime. Yet more cobwebs covered the walls, the desk, and Adler.

Rudy recognised the hat and suit immediately, walked over to the body, and knelt down with his head bowed.

I didn't need to ask, but I did anyway. "It's him isn't it?"

Rudy nodded.

"I'm really sorry, Rudy." It was all I could think of to say.

After a few minutes, Rudy stood and began searching the room. I joined him. I couldn't think of anything else to say that might make Rudy feel any better, so I got on with the task, finding the compass, the key.

I was about to open the front of Adler's suit jacket, hoping to find the key dangling on a necklace round his neck, when the apparition came through the wall. A second before it appeared I heard DogThing growling down the corridor. I felt a tingling sensation run down the back of my neck and then it was there, right in front of me.

I have never been so terrified in my life. I've probably said that a few times since starting this journal, and meant it each time, but this was the kind of fear that made me run for my life, Rudy as well.

It came out of the wall screaming, a high-pitched screech that was ear-piercing. I couldn't understand anything that it was babbling at me, apart from "GET AWAY". It was vaguely human, or at least I thought it could be if it wasn't flailing itself in a way that made it too blurry to see. Its eyes burned with hate and madness.

So I ran, as fast as I could, tripping twice as I dashed out of the room, down the passageway and out of the door, to the sloped opening that led up to The Warrens. It was right at my back the whole way; only I couldn't feel its touch, just the coldness that swept around me as it flailed its arms trying to grab hold of me.

Without watching where I was going, I sprinted up the slope back towards The Warrens, straight past the two zombies that were making their way along the path towards us. I briefly stumbled sideways to avoid them and saw Rudy do the same.

Then the most god-awful noise pierced the air. I stumbled again and fell forwards, landing on my back. I felt one of the blades hanging at my side nearly pierce my leg, and rolled over onto my back.

About twenty feet away the apparition had stopped. It was no longer chasing us. Instead it was busy tearing apart the two zombies. It was over in seconds. The zombies lurched away from it, fearful like I was. They know fear? It didn't matter. The glowing, screaming apparition tore them both apart like they were made of paper.

DogThing had been busy during all of this. As I got back up to my feet I could see him backing away from the apparition, leaving the remains of the other zombie on the ground. I didn't notice until afterwards that DogThing had killed three other zombies, leaving only the two standing as we came rushing out of the door.

The apparition stopped screaming and flailing, and walked towards us, halting about ten feet away. It tried to move forward again, but appeared to be blocked in some way. It stood there watching us. I was stunned, completely unable to decide what to do.

"Adler?" asked Rudy.

The apparition looked up and stared at Rudy.

"Do I know you, thief?" it said, its voice harsh and angry.

"Yes. It's me, John. It's Rudy. Don't you remember me?"

"Rudy. That does sound familiar. Were we friends once?"

Rudy glanced at me, worriedly. "Yes, for many years. You don't remember?"

"Of course I remember you, you old fool. But you are dead. I saw you dead. You are gone. You are no more alive than those pathetic creatures."

"Yes. I'm dead. Sort of."

"Stop talking to me. You can't be here. You died."

I stayed quiet during all of this, and took out my blades, watching the two paths for more zombies. They had followed us, surely?

"Just as you did," said Rudy.

"What? How ridiculous. I'm not dead."

"But you are. Like me. You are...a ghost."

"Maybe so, but you are a thief, Rudy Shevchenko, and there is no excuse for such rude behaviour."

"But...how? I haven't taken anything."

Adler glared at him. "You know what you were going to take, though, don't you? Well no one shall have it. I will not allow that...creature to find them again."

"We don't want CutterJack to—"

"Don't say its name! Damn you, you fool! Don't you know it can hear you?"

"It can?"

"Yes. Everywhere you go. Anything you say. It can hear the living. It can read their thoughts and know what they are planning; hear their breathing, their heartbeat, everything."

My turn to cut in. "So that's how the zombies are finding us?"

Adler turned and glared at me this time. "Yes, boy. It knows exactly what you are planning, and now it knows what you are searching for."

"But you led us to look for them. Your diary."

"My diary. I was a fool, forever searching for them only, trying to keep it secret and hoping for a way to escape this hell of a place. My foolishness and my hurry caused my end."

Adler turned and walked back down to the door. We followed, but with every step I was wary of him turning on us again. I looked to DogThing, hoping to get some indication of any danger, but he was just sitting there a few feet from the entrance.

Adler was standing staring at his own skeleton when I stepped into the room. He looked up briefly.

Rudy was bursting with questions. "How did you find the door? You never mentioned it."

"I didn't find it while you were still alive, Rudy. It was long after. I used the paths through The Warrens a lot after you died. I can't be completely sure of it, but right after I found you dead, I travelled across the plateau. He was there, it was there. I sensed him, but could not see him. He knew where I was. So after that I took to using the paths through The Warrens, hiding whenever his creations wandered past. Every time I tried to get to the trash yard, or to the bus, I could sense him. I could feel that he was there. That fear stopped me from trying to leave for weeks."

"Zombies," said Rudy.

"Pardon?"

"They're called zombies. His creatures."

"They are? Oh. Interesting. Finally a name to the abominations. Anyway, as I was saying, I used the route through The Warrens a lot, trying to find a way through that felt safe. Then one day I came upon a set of tracks that hadn't been there before, along one of the paths that the...zombies didn't use. There were many tracks. So I followed them, and found myself outside this place."

Adler sat down on the desk next to his skeleton.

"The entrance was closed when I got here, but the footprints led straight to it, and I knew they were not old, otherwise I would have seen them before. I set up camp in the rocks above the path, and waited for days. Nothing. So I travelled again, back to the swamp, to gather provisions. How I hated those pod things, but not as much as mushrooms."

"You never did take to the cuisine here," said Rudy, laughing.

Adler shot him a sour look. "Don't. Don't call it cuisine. The filth that grows here is anything but that." Adler sighed. "Well, when I came back here, hoping maybe to try and open it again on my way to collect the keys. I was too hasty. The door was already open, you see. I went in too quickly, didn't think. I was so excited, like a little boy walking into a toyshop. The door was open, and I could hear movement, voices."

"What happened?"

"They shot me."

"Shot you? Who?"

"I never found out who they were. They were armed with guns, strange guns, the likes of which I had never seen before. Their clothing, it was like something out of the future, or the past, grey armour of some kind. The door at the back was open too. I think they were leaving. The last of them turned round, and as I was calling out in welcome he levelled his weapon at me and fired. That is all I can remember. I suppose I must have dragged myself back to this room and sat down, somehow."

"That's terrible. They didn't even stop to find out who you were?"

"No. I think they presumed I was a zombie."

"You found the fourth compass though?"

"Yes. It was up near the other entrance, outside the door. That creature must have killed someone up there. What I don't understand is why the body was buried. It would never have buried the man. Someone else must have buried it."

"The armoured people?"

"Maybe."

"You've seen outside? You saw it when they had the door open?"

The professor laughed at this.

"Oh, Rudy! You've been like that – like this – longer than I have and you haven't figured some things out. Walls are no barrier to you now, my friend."

"Yes, I do know, but..."

"Rudy, I have been sitting outside in the sun for years now."

"Outside in the sun?"

"Yes, come. Come with me now."

We went out into the passage and the professor walked towards the door at the back. He didn't stop, just went right through the door. It puzzled me. Why hadn't he walked through the wall in the room if there were no barriers, instead of going into the corridor? Habit?

"Come on, my old friend. Come and see the world outside of our dark prison."

Rudy looked at me for a moment.

"I will come back."

Then he stepped through the door.

I knelt down and peered through the gap underneath. It was almost exactly like the other door. The gap was no more than a few inches.

I saw it.

The fourth compass.

It was a few feet away, lying on the rock floor. If I could reach it, all that would remain was the one in the safe.

They came back through the door a few minutes later. Rudy looked different, and not in a healthy way. He looked sad.

My turn for the questions. "What's out there?"

Rudy shook his head. "Only endless desert. I hoped for something else, but at least I've seen the sun for the first time in years."

"The key, it's out there, outside," I said.

"Yes, again, I don't know how or when I put it there, or if it was even me. The first thing I remember after the pain of the shot was waking up, sitting outside in the sun."

"So barren," said Rudy. "So desolate. I'd hoped that London was outside the door, or at least somewhere familiar."

"Ah but we are not somewhere familiar are we, my old friend? This is not Earth. I figured that out a long time ago. But at least the sun shines out there."

I wished I could have seen the sun again.

It took me at least an hour to get the compass. I pulled apart bits of furniture and tried poking it through the gap. Eventually I managed to drag the damn thing back within reaching distance. I could hear the two of them talking, in the room with the computer, but wasn't paying attention. I probably should have been; no doubt Adler had a lot of things to say that would be important.

Adler was bound to the compass, just as Rudy was. He couldn't explain how. He had numerous ideas about trapped souls and their spirits having nowhere to go. Most of his ideas seemed like fairy tales to me. Are ghosts magnetic? Compasses don't draw things to them, do they? Surely it should have been the other way round?

We left quickly.

I took the professor's hat. He insisted I keep hold of that. Not sure why, it wasn't like he was ever going to be able to wear it again. There was also a small rucksack full of his stuff. I turned it upside down and left the contents on the floor. There was nothing useful but it was a stroke of luck to have something to put my things in again.

One thing that was handy, though. There was a small bottle filled with oil of some kind. Adler was reluctant to leave the bicycle behind, and finally convinced me to use some of the oil on it and push it along at least for a while. I agreed, even though I didn't think there was any point. It seems that I was wrong. After a few hundred yards, most of the dust and crap that had built up simply broke off, and the wheels and chain were turning again. I still wasn't quite ready to try riding it.

Further into The Warrens was where Adler took us, all the time chattering away. It was nice to see Rudy full of spirit again. By the way he was going on I even thought he was raring for our next encounter with the zombies. I guess I'll never understand that bit, being potential zombie food myself, but I figured that being dead didn't give you too many perks, so I couldn't begrudge his enthusiasm at discovering that he was an untouchable zombie-killer. When I think about it, it was handy. I could sleep knowing that I had a demon guard dog and two ghosts that never needed to sleep, watching over me, all three of which were utterly deadly as far as zombies were concerned.

Adler hadn't figured out why he was so lethal to zombies.

"I don't even feel them," he said. "There were a few of them, loitering around outside the door when I first became aware that I was still here. I was confused, staring down at my own body as it died. I walked outside and, in my frustration, I tried to attack the nearest one. I don't know how or why it works, but it does. They can't touch me, but I can destroy them. I don't physically tear them apart. They sort of just fall apart at the seams."

We found a small alcove further into The Warrens a few hours later. It was only a short climb, up some rocks. Adler said he'd used it several times. The zombies couldn't get up there.

Only one more compass to get now, and thankfully Adler told us where the key to the safe was hidden.

I laughed until I was almost in tears when he told me. Talk about irony. It was one of the keys hanging in the ignition of the bus.

Day 37

Is it really thirty seven days since I got here?

Every time I write the day in this journal now it seems like an eternity. I feel like I've been here much longer, which worries me. What if I end up stuck here for years, like Rudy and Adler?

That's not the plan, I know. If I get out of here and I take the compasses with me, hopefully my ghost friends will go with me. What happens to them wherever we end up next, I don't know. I don't think either of them cares, so long as it isn't an eternity stuck in this place.

We spent nearly the entire day heading through The Warrens, and I camped out again in another nook up in the rocks. The trail was easy to follow and I wouldn't have needed directions. The footprints and bicycle trail left in the dirt, long ago, by Adler, seemed quite permanent, which wasn't promising as far as water was concerned. I didn't have many bottles left.

The entrance to The Warrens came out not far from where I'd first stepped up onto the plateau. About half a mile of walking across the open rocky ground and I saw the rocks that lined the bottom of the slope. I was missing the glowing grass already.

DogThing went all hyper as soon as we left The Warrens. I guessed that we were back on his home ground now, barely a mile through the mushrooms to reach the bus. You know, I don't think Adler and Rudy stopped talking even once during the whole time. You would have thought they were two old friends, still alive, and just out for a walk in the park somewhere, instead of two ghosts.

We stopped at the foot of the slope. Adler was paranoid about CutterJack being around, even though it had been years since he had been here.

"I don't think he is here. At least I can't sense him, like I could before, but that doesn't mean we should be rash. He could be anywhere, waiting."

"Or he could be back at his home, wherever that is, still licking his wound."

Adler laughed. "Yes. True. How did you manage that? I still can't get my mind around it. You actually injured it."

"Luck and clumsiness," I replied. "I wouldn't have stood a chance if Rudy hadn't come running through the door at that moment."

"Plus I think the Maw had given him one hell of a battering before he got to the door," said Rudy. "He could quite probably have already been injured."

"Yes," said Adler, "he is wary of the Maw, and rightfully so, I have seen first-hand what they are capable of. Well, so have you."

I looked over at DogThing and wondered again why such a creature had decided to become my friend.

I picked up the pace a bit, and soon we were walking through mushrooms again, following the marker poles. I had too many questions for Adler; so many that I couldn't remember half of them.

"Did you ever find out who put these markers here?"

"No, though I did repair a few that had fallen down. They are old, I know that much. I can only suspect that this place has had people coming through it for a long time. Well, there is evidence all around us is there not? The junk yard, The City, buildings dotted all over the place that have been run down for what might be centuries. It has puzzled me for years – were they made here? Or are they like other things, brought here by some mysterious occurrence?"

"I think they were brought here," I replied. "It's all too random. Take The City, for example – it just starts; there is no reason for the roads to be where they are, it's almost like they were once attached to other roads, and still should be, but a chunk of it was picked up and dumped right there."

Adler was nodding. "Exactly my point."

"Even some of the roads are broken up where a rock underneath has pushed them up. Rock doesn't do that, does it? Tree roots I can understand, but a rock pushing its way up through the road? Seems too odd to me."

"Yes, indeed, and the building on the edge of the swamp. Have you noticed that they are sitting on top of a sandbank? I looked. In one of the cellars the walls have collapsed and sand has poured in. Who builds foundations into sand when there is solid rock only a few feet away?"

We camped out in pretty much exactly the same spot that DogThing and I had used on our trek through the mushroom field the first time, underneath the giant mushrooms. I'm almost certain that I slept under the same one. It seems so long since we made that journey, like it was years ago. It's hard to believe that it has only been a few weeks.

Day 38

The weirdest thing happened. I awoke hours later, having had another dream, the first in days. Adler and Rudy were sitting over near the marker pole, a few yards away. DogThing was underneath one of the mushrooms. He was sleeping, I think, though I don't know if he ever really sleeps the way people do. It started raining again. Just like that. One moment ominous silence, and the next moment there was torrential rain, just as it had been the last time we passed this way. Yes, last time it had been drizzling for a day or so before, but the torrential downpour had happened while we had been under the mushrooms.

In the dream I was walking round a house. It was not a place that I had been to before, though it seemed familiar somehow. There was no furniture in any of the rooms, like it had been cleaned out before a sale. The walls in every room were painted white and there were no curtains at the windows.

I happened to glance out of one of the windows on the top floor, and saw that there was scaffolding everywhere. The oddest thing. I went downstairs to find the front door, so that I could go outside, but there was no front door. I walked all the way round the ground floor of the house and there were no doors leading outside.

There were three floors to the house, and the front door was at the top. There was only one large room up there, and in that room, tucked into the corner, was a small dressing table with a mirror. Someone was sitting on the chair, facing the mirror. I spoke, but there was no answer. Then I found out why.

The person in the chair was dead, and had been for a long time. I stood there, puzzled for a while, and then I recognised the dead man's clothing.

It was me.

That was when I woke up.

I didn't get back to sleep. The noise from the rain was so loud. I lay there for a while, drifting in and out, but didn't manage to drop off again. I think I may have been drifting into a deep sleep when all hell broke loose.

They even took DogThing by surprise, but he was up and tearing into them before I was even fully conscious and aware of what was going on.

Adler and Rudy ran past me as I stumbled and tried to find my blades. My blades? They had somehow become mine now, no longer stolen from CutterJack.

It must have been the rain that obscured their sound, or their smell in DogThing's case. It had to be that. He normally sensed zombies approaching before they were anywhere near us, and it wasn't like it was just one or two, stumbling slowly through the mushrooms. There were hundreds.

Adrenalin finally kicked in and I was up, throwing my rucksack over my shoulders. With a blade in each hand I ran towards where the others were now furiously battling the mass of zombies. I slowed down as I got nearer and made my way closer to DogThing. Unlike Rudy and Adler, who were now running through the horde, throwing themselves about and knocking down zombies every few steps, I was not going to get trapped in among them.

The first one that got past DogThing and came shuffling towards me was the nastiest I had seen yet. How the thing managed to stay held together I don't know. CutterJack must have been in a particularly cruel mood when he created this one. Instead of legs, it walked on six hands, all of which were attached to the back of the first poor soul. On top of this were two other torsos, each with a head and no arms. Where the legs had gone I don't know.

I stepped backwards and waited for it to get closer, pulled back both of my blades and swung the first, then the second. All three heads screamed at me furiously and it tried to grab my legs, toppling itself over in the process. I was nearly sick, but still managed to get in two more stabs before I backed off and saw the thing writhe on the floor for a moment. It reached out one hand in my direction before finally collapsing.

There were too many. It didn't matter how many DogThing, Adler and Rudy were killing, more were appearing to take their place. But as much as I shouted, Adler and Rudy carried on. DogThing took notice of me though and was following me as I slowly backed away.

Then, without warning, Adler stopped fighting. He was looking around. I think he was trying to find Rudy, but spotted me first.

"Get out of here," shouted Adler. "Get to the bus, lock yourself in! They can't hurt us!"

I ran for Adler's bicycle and leapt onto it, hoping to God that it wouldn't fall apart on me. The last time I had ridden a bicycle I had been about twelve years old, so the first thing I did was fall off it. Ten yards was how far I got, and then crash, straight into one of the larger mushrooms.

DogThing tore into a zombie a few feet away, and I hauled myself back onto the bicycle and pushed off as another zombie reached out to grab me.

Then I was away, riding as fast as I could through the mushrooms, on a bicycle that I thought would fall apart at any moment. But it didn't. I reached another marker and then slowed down, stopping for breath.

Adler and Rudy were standing about a hundred feet away, facing in the direction that we had come. Of course, I'd somehow forgotten that my leaving would drag them away from the fight.

DogThing padded over and sat down a few yards away, panting.

The break was short-lived as a single zombie staggered into view, and then another. These ones were moving faster than normal. I don't know why. Maybe CutterJack's experiments had yielded better results with these few.

DogThing turned and growled at them.

"No, leave them," I said, and started cycling away again. Thankfully DogThing did leave them. I think Rudy and Adler would quite happily have dealt with them, but I wanted the hell out of there.

I didn't ride as fast this time. DogThing could move damn fast when he wanted to, so that wasn't a problem. But I was losing my sense of direction. Thankfully Rudy spotted another marker and we picked up the pace again, forced onwards by the presence of the zombies that would appear through the mist every time I slowed down.

After an hour of this I was beginning to tire. My legs were screaming at me. I'd forgotten how much work riding a bicycle was. I protested when Rudy ordered me to stop and rest for a few minutes, but I couldn't really argue. Although I had become a little more resilient, after living here for over a month, I was still no athlete, and this was pushing it. We'd reached the junkyard at last, or at least the start of it, and I collapsed next to the first pile of junk that I saw. I smiled; a few yards away was the familiar pile of bicycles and prams that I had built, which meant we weren't far from the bus.

We'd left the zombies behind, even the faster ones, so I walked, leaning on the bicycle. I know it would have been much easier to ride if the ground hadn't been so uneven and muddy, plus my legs felt like jelly.

A while later we reached the bus. The relief of seeing it looming in the darkness was short-lived though.

Something had been waiting for us.

There, sitting on its haunches at the back of the bus, was a creature I had not seen before, but I knew what it was immediately. The grey, lizard-like skin was stretched taut over its powerful frame. It was larger than DogThing, much larger, and as close to a cross between a panther and a crocodile as you could get.

I stopped in my tracks, dropped the bicycle and reached for my blades as it stood up and stretched its legs casually. DogThing growled and the creature answered with a hiss.

So this was the mysterious species that had been killed in the storeroom at the back of the shop. That meant it was killable, but it didn't help much when it was bounding towards me, its massive jaw opening to reveal rows of teeth that would make a shark envious. DogThing leapt at its throat, but the creature reared up and batted him aside with one of its massive paws, sending him hurtling away over a pile of junk to disappear into the darkness with a crash.

I stood my ground, crouching, hoping desperately that somehow these two blades would be enough to hurt the creature.

Adler and Rudy ran past me, charging at it, but they fell straight through it. This was no unliving abomination that could be hurt by ghosts. Their attempt did slow it down though, but only for a moment.

It jumped at me and I lashed out in return, feeling the flat of the blade hit its skin and deflect off as I was thrown to the floor. Then it was on me, one massive paw pushed against my chest, crushing my ribs; it looked down at me and bared its teeth.

But it just stayed there.

Why hadn't it killed me?

Then I heard the footsteps behind me and saw a long pale hand pick up the blade that lay on the floor next to me.

"I told you I would find you, little rat."

As CutterJack stood over me, I saw his face for the first time. If I thought that the zombies were hideous, they were nothing compared to what stared back at me out of that hood.

I knew at that moment that CutterJack was no human and never had been. He was too alien, too grotesque, to have even been one of his own experiments. Everything about his face said death. His skin was pale, almost transparent, and a mass of scars, though there were no veins visible underneath. His features were twisted, as though they had been carved up and sewn back together many times. He had only one visible eye, blackened and bloodshot. The other was sewn over, crossed by a stitched scar that ran from his pointed chin to the top of his forehead, but no surgeon had made these stitches. Instead, metal staples stuck out every inch or so along the opening, and between them, I could see the grey bone of his skull, cracked and rotten where the staples had been forced in. The skin around his mouth was drawn back, and taut, showing rows of sharpened, bloody teeth. Where his nose should have been, there was just a gaping hole, split by a small, sharp sliver of bone.

My senses were assaulted by a rank, musty stench that somehow spoke to me of death that was far older than anything I had ever known. There was something in those eyes that I will remember, always; a malevolence that hated not only what it was seeing, but possibly everything living that had ever existed.

This was the creature that now stood over me, his pet pinning me to the ground with a force that I was unable to resist. He was even taller than I had first thought, easily over eight feet in height, probably closer to nine. His body was thin and gaunt, like a ragged skeleton over which the darkest, dirtiest clothing was hung. He leaned closer to me, so that his face was barely inches from mine, stared me straight in the face, and smiled. There was no warmth in that smile. It was a smile of victory, the kind that only the most wicked of hunters saves for taunting his helpless victims, before ending them.

I wondered if that was what I was about to become, and whether it would last very long. Was I about to become a plaything, a toy to torture? Was my fate the same as all those countless abominations that walked the dark mists of this place? Part of me longed for that moment – for it to all be over. Do with me as you please, I thought. I have had enough of running now.

"Be still," he hissed. I did as I was told, but then I realised he wasn't talking to me. He was commanding the lizard creature (a LizardCat?) that had me pinned to the ground. It lifted its paw off my chest, but still bared its razor-sharp metallic teeth at me. I coughed and drew a sharp breath in.

Then CutterJack's attention was on me again. "I think you have something that is mine, little rat," he rasped, his voice rattling like his lungs were filled with water, or with blood.

He reached down and pulled at my shirt, searching for the compasses that had slipped and now dug into my back. But then he stopped and stood up, suddenly distracted. His smug grin vanished, replaced by suspicion, his one eye squinting as he looked around. Something had disturbed him, something I couldn't sense.

"Give me the keys, quickly, or I will end you," he said, pointing the blade at my chest. There was urgency in his voice now, and I felt the blade pierce my skin. I gritted my teeth against the pain as I felt a warm trickle of blood run across my ribs and down my side. It took every bit of will that I could muster to not breathe in and force myself to lie still. It was the only way I could avoid being impaled on the blade.

The LizardCat whined and growled, scanning around frantically. It began to back away from us. I heard an answering hiss from over near the bus, and my heart sank as at least a dozen more LizardCats bounded round the corner, spreading out in a circle around us, hissing and spitting as they glared into the darkness. Something was coming. They could sense it, CutterJack could sense it, and now even I could feel the change in the air.

CutterJack pulled his blade back, but still kept it aimed at me. He glanced around again, shifting irritably as the LizardCats around us shuffled and twitched, peering in every direction.

He looked down at me.

"Rat. Give me the key, now!" he shouted, but then he suddenly looked away, dropped into a crouch, and lifted his blade up in defence.

Whatever it was that was coming, was coming right now, and I didn't want to see the thing that could scare CutterJack and his lizards.

A flash of fur rocketed across the gap between us and the nearest junk pile. It moved at a speed that made my heart leap. The Maw shot through the gap between two of the LizardCats before either of them could even react, instead they moved moments after it passed, snapping at an empty space, as the Maw went directly for CutterJack, leaping high, and straight at his throat. But this time CutterJack was fast, and ducked down just in time, swinging his blade quicker than my eyes could even follow. The Maw went hurtling by, to latch on to one of the LizardCats with its teeth. I heard a ripping noise as it tore a massive gouge in the creature's back as it went by. The LizardCat stumbled and spun around, lashing out with its claws and screeching in anger, but the Maw was gone, speeding off into the darkness, lost from view in the mist. I had only the briefest of glances at it before it vanished, but I knew that neither blade nor claw had touched it.

My heart began to beat faster. Hope. That was all I could think of. If a Maw was willing to risk its life to try and help me, then there had to be a chance, even the slightest chance, that I could escape, and I owed it at least an attempt.

Another flash of fur, this time from a different direction, and another LizardCat screeched as it was struck.

Then another

And another.

There was more than one Maw, maybe many. I had no real way of knowing. They appeared, struck, and were gone before I could make out any discerning features.

Again and again the Maw made attacks upon CutterJack's pets, disappearing a moment later, back into the mist, before any of my captors could react. The LizardCats flew into a rage as one after another they were bowled over and mauled. They shifted around, confused and seemingly dazed, helpless to stop the attacks, even snapping at each other.

I looked up at CutterJack. His attention was not on me. I knew then that he didn't even consider me to be a threat, and I knew that I would only have this one chance.

Now was the time, if ever there was going to be one.

If I tried to escape, tried to run out of this circle of my enemies, then I would probably die, but that didn't mean I was going to lie there and hope that the Maw would rescue me. In one desperate last attempt to stay alive, I took a deep breath and lashed out, kicking CutterJack in the leg, hoping that it was his injured one. I gave it everything I had, even though my own legs were still weak from riding the bicycle, and my whole body fought against it. I struck him, and I knew it was hard.

Thud.

I was lucky. He howled and stumbled away, hobbling for a moment before spitting at me and pulling his blade back, ready to strike. He advanced again, jumping forward, but his injured leg faltered.

I was ready, stumbling to my feet and grabbing the other blade, which had been underneath me the whole time. I lashed out at him, but missed as he stepped back so that the blade cut through empty space.

We were both up now, facing each other, barely ten feet apart. How I ever believed, for even the briefest of moments, that I could stand there and actually fight him, I don't know, but there was something waking up inside me, and it said that I could do it. I would keep him at bay if he came at me. I would fight him off long enough for the Maw to decimate his pets.

CutterJack stared at me, warily watching the blade in my hand. Then Adler and Rudy were by my side, yelling and screaming at him. I knew they couldn't help me, but did CutterJack know that? It seemed not. He backed away and looked around at the chaos.

The first LizardCat, the one that had first knocked me down, jumped out of the way, glaring at the ghosts warily. They hadn't scared it the first time, but I guessed that it had never seen its master show any sign of weakness. It started to back away.

"Get back here," CutterJack cursed, but the LizardCat still backed away even further, edging towards the bus.

"Stay calm. Hold your ground. Don't back away." The voice in my head was back again.

Then I saw CutterJack's one eye open wide. He was staring straight at me... No, not at me, and not at my ghost friends. Something else. Something that was behind me.

Then he was backing off, moving quickly past the bus, taking off at a run. His lizard pets broke away from their guard and bounded along to catch up with him.

I didn't understand; even with the help of the few Maw that were hounding them, I would quite probably be dead if he had decided to come for me.

"This is not over, rat," CutterJack yelled as he vanished from view into the junkyard.

Then I heard the growls behind me and turned round to see what he had seen before he fled, what it was that had frightened even this most deadly of monsters.

CutterJack had not been the only one waiting for me at the junkyard.

The Maw had arrived, and I don't mean the few that had caused disarray with the LizardCats. There were scores, maybe even hundreds. So many that I wouldn't even try to count them. They jumped over the piles of junk and poured in from the mists around us. At their lead, a few feet away, was my DogThing, a little shaken, but still fighting fit. Several of them broke off from the main group and sped past me at an astonishing speed. I could tell that they were the ones who had made the attacks earlier. They were different to the Maw I had seen so far, different to DogThing. These Maw were larger, quicker, deadlier, their fur almost black, and their eyes even larger than DogThing's. They vanished a moment later into the mists, in the same direction that CutterJack and his pets had gone.

I collapsed on the floor, dropping my blade and holding my chest. The LizardCat had nearly crushed me. My chest was tight with pain, and I found it difficult to breathe without it hurting. Broken ribs, maybe. I reached inside my shirt to where the wound was, and was relieved to find that it was only the slightest of cuts. It would need cleaning, somehow, but if I didn't let it get dirty and infected, it should heal.

"Are you injured?" It was Adler, leaning down over me. “I'm ok. I'll be ok.” I was gasping for breath. "I just need a moment. My ribs feel like a car rammed into me."

After a few minutes, I got up slowly and headed over to the bus. Around me, the Maw were spreading out, surrounding the whole area. Far away, back towards the mushrooms, the noise of a furious fight drifted towards us, the screams of zombies mixed with the growling and barks of the Maw. I could hear howling from the junkyard, where I imagined the Maw were prowling and hunting, seeking out CutterJack and his pets. I had a sense that they had not caught him.

A war was raging around me, and how different this place seemed to when I had first been here those many days ago. It had been so quiet, so barren and void of life, and now, all around me, the noise of fighting. I couldn't help but feel that, in little more than a month, I had turned this surreal chaotic world into even more chaos.

I stumbled onto the bus and leaned over into the driver's cab. The keys were still in the ignition, which surprised me.

"It's that one," said Adler, pointing to a small, bronze key dangling on the loop among a dozen other keys. I pulled them out of the ignition, deciding that it might be better to take them all in case the others had a use.

I was confused. "Adler, you said you thought he could hear all of our thoughts, and know what we were planning? Well how come this key is still here if he knows what it opens? Surely he would have read that from my mind?"

Adler was nodding. "Yes, I believed it was so. But this does suggest that maybe he isn't quite as omniscient as I thought. I was rather confused when we first met. It had been so long since I'd seen anyone else."

"Then he may not know everything."

"Indeed. This is good news, is it not?"

"Yes, of course. If he had known that the safe key was here, it wouldn't be here anymore, and he would already have the safe open, and the last key would be his."

"Which means that, unless he has managed to break open the safe, the last compass should still be there."

"Let's go." I stepped out of the bus, grabbed my bag, and started hobbling off towards the junkyard.

"Are you leaving the bicycle?" asked Adler.

I‘d forgotten about it, but was glad that Adler hadn't. It made a usable crutch of sorts, taking some of my weight as I moved slowly along. There was no way I was going to ride it again, at least not for now, but I was able to hang my pack over it.

Rudy caught up with me. He looked concerned.

"You don't need to rest? That was quite a fight, and you took a battering."

"I'm good, and we are too close, plus we have the Maw with us now. We don't have time to mess around. Every minute or hour we give him means another ambush or something worse. I can't let him have the time to plot."

"But there is no point if you collapse before we get there."

"I'll be fine."

In truth, I felt dizzy and sick, but I was determined to go on. Rudy was about to protest further, but Adler shook his head.

"James is right. We need to do this now, especially while he has the protection of the Maw."

Almost as though they knew what to do, the Maw broke off from their guard perimeter and split into packs, moving with us, patrolling down all of the different paths through the piles of junk that we passed. I couldn't believe how many of them there were. Hundreds, it seemed. It was as though they had known that something important was about to happen, and they had come from all over to be there. There were Maw of all sizes. This wasn't just a pack of fighting dogs; they had brought their young as well. On the edge of visibility, I saw a large group of the huge, black-furred ones, herding an even bigger pack of tiny Maw, some no bigger than a cat. I smiled at this. Maw puppies.

It was then that it clicked. I had never considered it before. I had always presumed that the Maw had come from here, that they were natives, and that they belonged here, like every other strange thing that I had encountered. But what if they weren't? What if they were the same as us, lost and trapped here? It seemed obvious to me now. They simply wanted to escape this place like we did. That had to be it. It explained so much. Why else would such creatures befriend me when there was so little for them to fear in this place? I always knew that there had to be a reason, and now, here they all were, gathered around me, probably the entire pack, going wherever it was that we were heading. Somehow they must have known that we were making a break for an exit, a way out, and they wanted out too.

Without the fear of bumping into zombies or CutterJack, we moved fast. I was in a lot of pain, but leaning on the bicycle helped. We soon arrived at my old camp. After over a month, here I was, right back where I had started.

There were already fresh zombie kills littering the area; the ground was covered in destroyed bodies, right where the safe poked out from the top of a junk pile. There were several dozen Maw lying around the place, licking their paws and scratching their fur, like DogThing always did after a fight with a zombie. I looked behind me. DogThing was still right there, a couple of feet away. He was sticking closer to me now than ever before.

"CutterJack knew something was here," said Adler. I frowned. It was strange to hear Adler say our enemy's name. I guess that the professor had thrown away the idea that his thoughts were being read.

"Or he knew that James had been here," said Rudy.

"Ah, yes, well thought of, Rudy. It makes perfect sense for him to cover every possibility."

I climbed up onto the junk and made my way over to where the safe still sat. Some of the Maw followed me, hopping across the piles of refuse, sniffing in the gaps and glaring into any spot that was dark or able to hide someone or something.

It was strange, being back here again after so many days. The last time I was here I couldn't see a thing; my eyes hadn't adjusted to the dark back then, but now I could see clearly. The great wall loomed ahead, blocking all vision past it, and there, tucked away among the junk, was my old camp, the fire in the middle still piled with fresh logs.

I cringed as I looked over and saw that the car wreck was still there, untouched. A shiver went down my spine as I thought of what had been in the footwell, what still probably lay on the floor, the other side of the wall. I wonder if he ever got to Namibia.

The safe hadn't moved, and I could see now why I had thought it was strange, why I hadn't recognised it for what it was. The door was on the underside, where I couldn't open it, where I would never have seen it when I first arrived. I would need to turn it over.

I leaned on it for a moment, waiting for the pain in my chest to stop. I nearly laughed. How ironic that when I return here I'm not in a much better state than when I first arrived.

As I was propping myself up on the safe, I happened to glance down. Something metallic was lying on the floor a few feet away, tucked underneath a broken kitchen table. I crouched down, reached into the gap, and plucked it from among the broken glass.

It was my mobile phone.

The first thing I tried was switching it on, like it would have been any use. Of course, there was nothing. The battery must have run down. I looked at it puzzled, it was my phone, sure enough, but somehow it was wrong. I couldn't place why.

Adler and Rudy were watching me the whole time.

"Find something?"

I smiled. "My phone. I wondered where it had gone."

Adler frowned and peered at it. "That is a telephone?" he said, shaking his head. "How things have changed in the decades I have been here."

We all stood frowning at the safe, puzzling over what to do with it.

"So how are we going to get that thing tipped over?" asked Rudy.

"Ah, yes." said Adler. "It seemed like a good idea at the time, turning it over."

"Hosepipe."

"Hosepipe?" asked Rudy.

I even remembered where I'd found it before. It wasn't far from the old camp, only a ten-minute walk. It did mean backtracking on ourselves a bit, I couldn't think of another way of moving the safe. All of this junk lying around and nothing looked useful for shifting it.

It took a while to haul the rest of it out from underneath all the trash and rubble. The last time I had been here, I had cut off a bit that was quite easy to get at. I didn't have that luxury this time. I couldn't move some of the rubble, but I managed to uncover enough of the hosepipe to make a loop round the safe, and give me a few feet to pull on.

I was so relieved when it worked. After pulling and pulling for what seemed hours, I finally managed to topple the safe over onto one side. The noise was thunderous as it crashed through the piles of wood and broken glass, hitting the rock floor with a loud crack. Around me, the Maw were startled, and dropped into a crouch before they realised that there was no threat. I could have sworn DogThing was frowning at me.

I tried the key. It was stiff, but after I wriggled it around in the lock there was finally a satisfying clunk, and the door swung open. Piles of old papers and books spewed out, spilling across the ground. I rummaged around, feeling almost desperate as I got to the back of the safe, but it was there right at the back, stuffed inside a book. It was a copy of Adler's thesis.

"Always something that puzzled me, that," said Adler. "Of all the things in my house that could have travelled here with me, it was a box of copies of my thesis. They were due to be picked up and taken to Oxford University, after I had signed them. I kept finding them everywhere, all over, even in some of the houses in The City. It's so disheartening to know that they won't have been read."

I put the thesis in my pack. "I'll keep this one for you, you never know, we may get back, and I can deliver it myself."

Adler laughed. "Only a few decades late."

I had all four compasses, each of them identical except for one small detail. They each had one of the four compass directions engraved upon them - north, south, east and west. Not one of the compasses moved any more when you turned them.

I held them up, each dangling on an identical chain.

"So, what do I do with these then?"

Rudy and Adler stood watching me.

"I have absolutely no idea," said Adler. "I know we have to find the way to The House That Was Never Built from the scaffolding, but once we are there we are walking blind. I must admit, I had hoped that something significant might happen when all of them were together. "

"What do you mean?"

"I haven't a clue, my friend."

"Let's go and find out, then."

We set off across the junkyard once more, heading straight towards the scaffolding.

"What is The House That Was Never Built, Adler?"

"Ah, just a name for the strange structure that appears to not even be there. I am not sure. I am certain that it has something to do with the scaffolding. It is strange is it not? The scaffolding is there, like it surrounds a building, but there is no building; such a curious thing. Is it for another purpose I wonder? Did you ever go to the top?"

"No."

"You never went up to see? Even out of curiosity?"

"No, I didn't have time, I was too busy scavenging for food and water, too busy starving."

"Ah, that's a shame. If you had gone up there, you might have ventured far enough to see the door. It's quite odd, just sitting there in the middle of nowhere, no hole for a key or anything useful though."

"How does that make it a device?"

"It's not, not as I understand it anyway, but I believe the door is special in some way, that it may even be the device. I have not seen inside the door, if indeed it even goes inside anything. I read about it in a journal of sorts that I found in The City. It described what the person had found. Our nemesis also blurted some of his secrets once, while he was trying to get into the house on Merriwether Avenue, in between his curses. Beyond the door should be whatever he used to travel between places. How he did it, or how we use the keys, well, I don't know."

We passed the mountain of books that I remembered discovering on my expedition out from the first camp. Something had been rummaging in them since I was last here, or maybe there were simply more books, I couldn't be certain. It had been a reasonably neat, if not huge, pile. Now they were strewn all over the ground, like someone had been searching for something.

The Maw became fidgety as we approached the scaffolding site, and as we made our way round one of the massive junk hills, and the skeletal structure came into view, I found out why.

There were zombie bodies everywhere, or at least bits of them. I hadn't heard any fighting as we approached, so the Maw must have fought this battle long before we arrived. I trod carefully through the carnage, carefully keeping my distance in case one of them happened to still be moving.

I never had a proper look at the scaffolding the first time I came by this way, and I certainly didn't notice that it led round in a spiral, all the way from the ground to maybe five, six or more levels high. I had an eerie feeling that I had been up there before, some kind of déjà vu, but I couldn't remember when or why. The memories were right there, hidden from me, screaming to pour out. There was something terribly familiar about all of it, and somehow I knew that there was something up that scaffolding that was waiting for me, something that had been waiting for me the whole time that I had been here.

There was only one way to find out.

It was on the third floor.

A door. Just a plain, wooden door, but until you stood facing it, you couldn't see it. A single step in either direction and it simply vanished from view. I reached out and pushed the door, but it didn't move. There was no handle to open it with.

I remembered the keys, and reached into my shirt and pulled them out.

Something was happening, something I hadn't expected. One moment there were four compasses hanging on chains round my neck, and the next there was only one. I panicked and searched. How could I have lost the other three? But something about the single compass in my hand was different. I looked closer and saw that all of the four points on the compass were now showing on the one I held in my hand, and the compass was pointing directly ahead of me.

"How very curious," said Adler, as he peered over my shoulder.

"You were right. Something was supposed to happen," said Rudy.

I reached out to the door, feeling solid wood, and pushed. It simply swung open.

"Even more curious. It would never open for me," said Adler.

"The key!" said Rudy, "I mean the compass. It was never whole before."

I hesitated for a moment. I hadn't told Adler or Rudy about the dream, about what I thought might be waiting for me in the room beyond the door. Was I going to die in the room beyond the door? Was I going to discover another grim scene of death?

I took a deep breath and stepped across the short open space, into the room beyond, trying to ignore the sheer drop down below as I crossed. Directly ahead of me was what I had dreaded seeing. It was the dressing table with the mirror. But there was something different here, something that was not the same as the dream. The seat was there, in front of the table, but there was no one sitting in it, no dried and withered body. Had I been dreaming about the future? It wouldn't have been the first time. Was my death still to come from this room?

But there was no choice. I went over to the chair and sat down in front of the mirror, brushed aside the dust and the cobwebs that covered it, and stared directly at the face that was reflected back at me.

The face that wasn't mine.

He was much older than me, with dark curly hair that was lined with grey streaks; his face was weathered and tired, with bags under his eyes. He looked sick and pale, and sweat dripped from his face. He was dressed in some strange uniform, a bright white shirt, with a black jacket and grey trousers. There was a brightly coloured piece of cloth, with a picture of an eagle and a snake, tied around his neck that seemed to have no particular function.

"Who are you?"

I realised that we had both said the same words together.

"I'm James Halldon," we both replied, but then he looked confused.

"No," he said, "that's wrong. That's not me at all. I'm not James Halldon, but I thought I was."

I could see a change in his expression. The pallid colour was fading, and his skin began to flush, as though the blood in his body had only just remembered its job. I could feel my head throb for a moment, and then it was like someone had taken a heavy weight off the top of my head, one that I hadn't even noticed was there in the first place.

"I am James Halldon. But who are you?" I asked.

The man stared back at me, and then glanced around him. It was then that I saw that the room he was in was different as well. There were tiles upon the wall. It looked like one of the old toilet rooms that I had seen in the ruins occasionally, when my team had gone to the old city to scavenge for supplies, back when I was much younger.

What was I thinking? Scavenging? Old city? Team? These memories were new. Where had they come from? My mind raced.

The man in the mirror looked back at me.

"I'm where I started," he said, as though he was surprised to even be there.

"Where?"

"I thought I was trapped, in a dark place, with monsters and ghosts, but I'm not. I'm still in the toilet, at the service station. The mirror, with you in it, it's here. I'm not in the dark at all. It's you that is trapped. You. You were the face in the mirror that I saw before everything changed."

I didn't need to look behind to know that Adler and Rudy were standing there, watching over my shoulder. Whether they could see what I could see, hear what I could hear, I didn't know, but as the man in the mirror began to make sense of everything, so did I. With each memory that he recalled, another became clear to me. Many of the things that were in my head weren't true. They weren't my memories. They were his, this man who stared back at me from the mirror. One by one the memories broke down and faded away. At first, each of them was vivid, like I had been there, like I had lived them, but then they became fuzzy, memories that were faded after many years. Then finally they were gone, removed completely, not even forgotten, like they had never even been there.

He smokes a different brand of cigarette to me, Mayfair, and somehow the brand is important to him. I always smoked whatever I could find. Now it was all so clear. It was never me that was puzzled by the cigarettes, it was him.

"You've been stuck in my head." It was a statement more than a question.

"Yes," he said, "I remember now. I walked into the toilet, and there was this mirror. It didn't look as though it belonged here. It's so old and cracked. I went to the toilet, and then I washed my hands, and then I looked into the mirror and you were looking back at me. I started to feel sick, dizzy, and then I was in the dark, and lost. I was hurt, like I had fallen or something, but it's not true is it? Was it a dream?"

"No. This isn't a dream, it's real, but you are there and I am here. Somehow, things got mixed up."

I remember now. I've looked into this mirror before. I was here before, but the first time I failed to do something, something I need to do, something that I came here to do. It was the mirror. I'd looked into it, and seen his face instead of my own. Something unexpected happened, and I stumbled, fell somewhere. Did I fall out of the door and off the scaffolding? That would explain my injuries. Did I bang my head? Was I merely confused? Somehow this stranger, this person from another world, had been in my head.

"I don't come from London. I've never even been to London. I don't even know where England is."

"I do. It's where I live," said the man.

"I'm not a salesman."

"I am," he replied, reaching down and picking up his briefcase, like that was significant somehow. He held on to the briefcase like it was precious.

"I never met a tramp on the bus did I?"

"No. That was me, when I was a child. I never knew his name, until now. He was called Rudy, but I have never met him again since."

"No, but I have."

"How did this happen?" he asked. "I just saw everything. I just spent the last God knows how many days in that place."

"I don't know. Somehow when we both looked into the mirror we got mixed up."

"I've been stuck in your head all this time, when in truth, I was standing right here in the toilet. How long have I been standing here?"

He looked at his mobile phone.

"Ten minutes," he said. "I have only been here for ten minutes."

I mirrored him, taking out the mobile phone I had found earlier. I shook my head, confused. I had no idea what this device was for. Earlier, when I had found it, I had known, but now it was only a dead gadget from a forgotten age, with no meaning to me.

The man in the mirror looked away. I don't know what he was looking at, but I could sense his relief, his joy at knowing that he was still alive, and free. As soon as he stepped out of that toilet door his life would be normal again.

Then he was gone, and I was staring at an empty toilet. Just like that, he left.

He didn't even say goodbye.

I stood up and turned to Adler and Rudy. I could tell by their shocked expressions that they had witnessed it all.

"His device," said the voice in my head. "His creation for drawing people here. To make his creations. You could not control it. I tried to warn you, but you came here anyway."

This was why I was here.

This thing in front of me.

It may have looked like a mirror, but it was something far more sinister. The memory, or at least part of it, sharpened in my mind, unlike most of my memories, which were scrambled even more now that many of them had left. My previous life, in London, somewhere called Earth, being a salesman, driving a car, riding a bus to work. That was all someone else's memories. Who was I? Where had I come from? I'd spent so many days now, searching for a way to get back to a world that wasn't even my own. Was it possible that this was where I had come from? Or maybe one of the doors that lead to other places? Was my home through one of those doors?

I looked back towards the mirror, and then to Adler and Rudy.

"That's your world through there. But it's not my world."

"How can you be sure?" asked Rudy.

"Because I remember some things, but I know that I have never known that place. I have never even been there. Those memories were his, they weren't mine. You should go."

Rudy stared at me.

"What? We can't leave you here. I can't leave you here."

"Yes, you can, you have to."

"I can't, and even if I wanted to I couldn't. I don't even know how to."

"Try going through it, going through the mirror, while it is still your world through it. I don't know if it will work, but if CutterJack can bring people through it, maybe you can go back that way. It may be the only chance you ever get."

"I don't think I can do it," said Rudy, shaking his head and backing away.

"You have to try. It may be the only chance you will ever get to go back home. I have to destroy this thing, and I have to do it now, before some other stupid disaster stops me from doing it."

"I think what Rudy is trying to say is that he doesn't want to," interrupted Adler.

I stood there for a moment, confused.

"Why?"

"Because back there I will just be dead!" said Rudy, "Back there, I will go, well, I don't know where I will go. At least with you, I still have something like a life. Back there I was homeless and alone. I led a pointless and hopeless life. At least here I have friends and some purpose."

"What purpose?"

"To destroy those like him. To fight for something. To help you."

I didn't know what to say. It was Adler who spoke.

"I also have no reason to go back now. All the time I was alive, I sought to find my way back to my home, back to the life I led before, but now I am no longer living, and after having discovered all of this, this place, and the knowledge that there are other places, I don't want this to end. There is so much more to discover. Other worlds, James!"

"If you are sure?"

They both nodded.

"And besides," said Adler cheerfully, "we still have to find out who you really are, don't we?"

"Yes, it would seem that way. I thought I was starting to get some idea of who I was."

"Then let us start doing so right now. Destroy the device, before that evil thing that is no doubt waiting for us outside, somewhere, right now, trying to figure out how to get past the Maw and get in here, actually manages to."

I looked back at the mirror. The image of the toilet was gone. Now there was only darkness, no reflection.

CutterJack used this device to capture his victims, and I was here to destroy it. How I knew this, I could not remember, but I knew that it was what I had been sent here to do. I don't know who sent me here, or if there was even a plan for me to escape once I had succeeded, but I knew that if I didn't finish this now, countless more souls would suffer. Somehow the first time I had tried to do this, I had failed, it had trapped me.

"We can't use this to escape."

"No," said Adler. "I think you are right. My original ideas that he used it to travel were wrong. I can't see how it can be used to travel other than maybe using it to control someone on the other side, or bring people here. There has to be something else, another way. Or maybe it can be used in another way?"

"Yes, but how?"

I heard the familiar sound of DogThing growling.

"We need to find another door."

I felt something warm on my chest, and reached inside my shirt to pull out the compass. It was glowing. A spark of light shot out from it, to strike the mirror, and the darkness inside the glass vanished. Instead, there was a clear image of a wall. I squinted to see what might be significant about the wall. It wasn't like the ancient wall outside. This was made of bricks, not massive stone blocks, and it didn't look that old.

"Look," said Adler, pointing.

The image was changing. Where there had been bricks, there was now a seam of light surrounding what looked like the shape of a door. It opened slightly, and then the image was gone.

"I know that place. I've seen it before, but there is no door in that wall."

"Where is it?"

"It's over the great wall. The scaffolding goes higher, much higher, and then it goes over the wall at the top. I went there, once, a long time ago, long before I discovered this door. But it leads to a platform that goes over the void that is the other side of the wall. But it ends at a brick wall. I always thought it was a curious place to put a wall. It doesn't even block anything. It's just there, on a small rocky outcrop, at the end of the platform."

The compass glowed again.

"The direction of the compass has changed. It's like it's pointing us somewhere, towards the great wall."

"Then let us go, quickly. But first, destroy that thing," said Adler.

I turned back to the mirror and drew my blade, turning it in my hand. With a grunt, I thrust the blunt pommel into the black glass. I hit it again, and again. On the third strike, the mirror shattered, scattering glass fragments across the room.

Unfortunately, so did the ground underneath me. Floorboards collapsed, bricks crumbled, and the roof of the building began to fall in. I stumbled, hauled myself up again and ran for the entrance. It seemed like the very fabric of the building was being torn apart. Through the gaps in the wall, I could see darkness and mist, and things, immense things, clawing at the building and tearing it apart.

I reached the doorway and jumped, barely landing on the scaffolding, skidding to a halt a few inches before I toppled over the edge.

I turned back around, bracing myself, expecting to see a building collapsing, but there was nothing. Even the door had gone.

DogThing sat a few feet away, waiting patiently for us.

"Where now?" asked Rudy, as I tried to get my breath back.

"We go up," I said, glancing at the levels of scaffolding platforms that rose up above us until the darkness swallowed them.

"And let's hope that door is still open when we get there."

Eight floors up and probably two hundred feet from the ground I discovered where the platform finally led to.

It was exactly as Adler had said. Instead of rising up further and further, it drew level with the top of the wall that Adler was so convinced marked some kind of boundary that shouldn't be crossed, at least not from the ground. From there, the platform extended towards the wall, and then over it, where it stretched outwards into the darkness and continued on and on. I stood there for a moment, peering down over the other side of the wall, into the emptiness below. I could still see the ground behind us and some of the Maw moving around. Most of them were up on the scaffolding, following us. The other side of the wall, where I had only been once, by pure accident, was an empty, endless void.

There was scaffolding holding up the walkway on the other side. Roughly every ten feet or so, the metal struts poked out of the darkness and upwards, to hold the wooden planks in place, but I couldn't see where they ended.

"Are we going across there?" asked Rudy.

I shrugged. "I don't think we have a lot of choice."

"It is not far," said Adler, "even if it looks it. The wall on the outcrop is only just out of sight, along the platform."

DogThing was right behind us, and behind him came the rest of the Maw. Below, I could see what might be the last few stragglers jumping up onto the bottom of the wooden slope below.

It seemed to me as I walked across that rickety wooden platform, into the darkness ahead, that with every single step it might give way and we would all tumble down into the darkness below. I'd only walked about ten feet when the wall with the door in it came into view, giving me a little more confidence to move on. I was about half way across the space between the top of the wall and the door at the end when I happened to glance back down into the darkness below.

I wished I hadn't done that.

Very little light was down there, only the faint glow from some stalactites that I could see high above us. I wondered if they were in the ceiling, and if there was a roof to this place that was just out of view. The crystals cast a small amount of light down onto the platform, and the ground below, just enough to see what was there.

At first I couldn't make out what it was that I was seeing; it looked like the surface of some strange rock formation, spread across the ground below. But as I stopped and squinted, trying to focus on the strange, bumpy shapes, something moved.

One of the rocks below shifted, nudging the one next to it. From there, a kind of wave effect spread across the ground. I still hadn't figured out what I was looking at, even though it was moving. I was convinced that I was viewing some new, and strange, but natural phenomenon.

Then one of the rocks looked up and moaned, and I realised that I wasn't seeing the ground at all. They weren't strange rocks. They were heads, every single one of them, thousands upon thousands crammed in together, moaning and moving, shifting, pushing and shoving each other.

The ground underneath the rickety platform that we were all walking on was a sea of zombies.

I stopped walking.

"Do you see them?"

"Yes." It was Rudy who answered.

"Keep moving. Slowly. Quietly."

The voice in my head.

"Through the door. Go through the door. This will all be over soon."

I focused. Tried to fight back the fear, the tiredness, and walked slowly forward, every moment telling myself over and over in my head that there was nothing there, nothing below us, only the door, just go through the door.

One step at a time the door got closer. One step at a time I breathed, slowly, deeply.

I stepped off the platform and onto the rocky ground. It was a small outcrop, as the professor had said, and the wall was merely a free standing block of bricks, maybe ten feet high and ten feet wide.

The edge of the door glowed faintly as I stepped nearer. I reached out to touch it, and just that slight touch was enough to open it.

I stepped through and stumbled into daylight.

I staggered, moving forward a few steps, struggling to grasp my new surroundings. The skeletal remains of massive, derelict buildings rose on either side of me. The ground was broken. It had probably been a road, once. Now grass and weeds broke the tarmac.

It was day, but it was still dark. Above me, the sun shone only through small gaps in the grey clouds that drifted overhead at a speed that was astonishing. A cold blast of wind gusted down the open street, and I had to brace against it to stop myself from falling over.

Rubble, broken windows and burnt-out vehicles littered the street, and not just this street. I was standing in a dead end, with a solid wall behind me, except for the hole through which Rudy and Adler now stepped. The street stretched on and on, and beyond that were more ruined streets, more ruined buildings and vehicle wrecks. From the seat of the car next to me stared the weathered, cold, bleach-boned face of someone who had been dead for a long time.

An entire city lying derelict, ruined and dead.

A noise behind me startled me, and I turned to see the Maw begin to flood through the hole, pacing down the street, spreading out, not stopping, so that the rest of their kind could escape through the door that we had opened. After a few minutes, they stopped coming through.

DogThing was by my side.

"It's time to close it now," said the voice in my head.

I looked down at DogThing.

"Before he escapes too. Before they come."

Then I knew.

The voice in my head was DogThing, and he had been speaking to me all this time.

He looked back towards the door and started to growl. Other Maw nearby spun round and crouched down low, baring their teeth, ready to spring at whatever was coming from the other side, whatever was about to escape with us.

"He comes," said DogThing.

I could hear the thud of heavy feet on the wooden platform, approaching fast. But he never got there in time.

I reached for the door. There was no handle to pull, so I grabbed the edge and pushed, quickly taking my hand away. The last thing I saw through the opening was CutterJack, a few feet away, reaching out with both hands, his one eye wide with anger or fear, running towards us. Behind him were his lizard pets, many of them, tearing along the wooden boards as fast as they could go, each of them with the look of death in their eyes, and beyond that a wave of moaning and screaming.

The cries of countless tortured souls.

I swore that I heard CutterJack scream just as the door closed and vanished, leaving a solid brick wall in front of me. I staggered back, expecting the wall to collapse in front of me, and CutterJack to come bursting through with his lizardcats and an army of zombies, but there was nothing.

It was over.

I turned, seeking the others, Adler and Rudy. They were a few feet away, staring up at the towering ruins that stretched on as far as I could see.

"Something terrible must have happened to this place," said Adler.

"I don't remember," I replied.

I turned back to DogThing and knelt down. This time he came forward and nuzzled his head in my lap. I ruffled his fur.

"You've been talking to me all along, haven't you?"

"Yes, but I don't think you always heard me."

"Why did you help me? Why did you help us?"

"Because I'm your friend."

"My friend? I don't remember."

"I know. It was after you fell, after we found Nua'lath's device. I didn't understand why you weren't breaking it. That was why we went there. That was what we came here for."

"Nua'lath?"

"CutterJack. He goes by many names. That's what you always said."

"So I've known you all along, right from the beginning? That's why you came to me in the junkyard?"

"Yes. I came here with you, to destroy the device. I'm your guard, your companion. But you became something different, something I couldn't understand. After you looked into the device, you changed. You weren't you. There was someone else there. I was frightened."

"You've always been with me, haven't you? I just can't remember why?"

"Yes. You raised me from when I was a puppy."

"I raised you? I wish I could remember."

"Ever since I can remember, I've followed you."

"But the other Maw, where are they from?"

"I'd never seen another one of my kind. They were trapped in there, in Nua'lath's prison. I found them. They didn't like me at the start, but they became my friends, and I told them that if they helped me, if they helped you, you would help them escape that place forever."

"Do you have a name, other than DogThing?"

"No. That's what you always called me."

I stood up and looked around at the world we had returned to. Somehow I knew that although we had escaped back to where we had started, this place was no more my home than the prison we had left behind. It should be familiar, but my memories still haven't returned.

We found a building, not far down the street, to camp up in for the night that still had windows and a door that could be shut.

Day 39

I slept well for the first time in weeks, and I woke up to a sound that in my memory, I'd never even heard before. I looked through the dirt-crusted window and saw that outside, Rudy and Adler were listening, smiling, so I opened the door and joined them.

A grin crossed my face as I felt the warmth of the sun. High up on the top of the building across the street was a single nest of birds. I didn't know what sort of bird they were. One of them was perched on a ledge, just below the nest, singing.

This is the last page in this journal. I've run out of space to write for now, until I find another book. I'm sure I will soon.

So much still to discover and so many questions still unanswered, all locked away in my own mind.

There is a whole new place here for me to explore. Even as I look round, there are things that are somehow familiar, yet my own mind has locked it all away. I should be afraid, like I was when I first came round in the dark, in The Corridor. But I'm not alone this time. I've got Rudy and Adler, and I've got DogThing. It's amazing how much fear is lessened when you have friends to look out for you.

Book 2

The Broken lands

My memories have not completely gone...

It's strange. It seems as though memories that are built in, the sort of memories that you learn so well that they are instinct, have remained. But any knowledge of who I am or where I came from is still missing. I'm not sure how I can describe it. Anything about my past prior to waking up in The Corridor that I have to think about to remember, is gone.

The device must have damaged me in some way, but how, I don't know. I look at Adler and Rudy, and although they are technically dead, they still know who they are, or who they were when they were alive. They have complete recollection of most of the things that happened in their lives. I seem to have none.

I'd hoped to get answers from DogThing, and I think I pushed him too far with the barrage of questions, to no avail, though. My conversation with him was not as clear as I had first hoped. After first speaking to him when we had just escaped from The Corridor, his answers had been clear in my mind, but I soon discovered that his understanding of my questions was very vague. He wasn't even able to grasp some concepts that I considered simple.

"How did we get into The Corridor in the first place?" I had asked him.

"We just went in."

That was all he could muster, and he seemed confused at even that.

"But we got in there somehow," I pressed. "Was it a door, like the one that we escaped through?

"Door is confusing."

"But you told me to close it."

"I knew it must be closed."

"How?"

"He must not come through."

"But how did you know that it was the right escape route?"

"You knew."

"What do you mean, I knew?"

"You knew to escape through the door and you knew he would follow, and that it must be closed. I only know what you know."

"You really only understand what I understand?"

"Yes."

"So do you know who I am?"

"You are James."

"But what am I? Where do I come from?"

"From where we have been."

I could tell that he was as confused as I was, and that he didn't really understand most of what I was asking him. I stopped asking questions when he began scratching at the floor and making a low whining noise. He was uncomfortable.

"Have I angered you?"

"No, of course you haven't. I just hoped that you might be able to help me find out who I am. I was hoping to learn more."

"Did I not? You are James."

"Yes. Thank you."

I let him be and sat there quietly, staring at the wall, wondering where to go next.

It didn't take long to find another journal to write in, not even hours, let alone days. DogThing took me to a place where there was one.

"You will want your things."

I turned to him. He was sitting in the doorway of the run-down building that I had just slept in. He looked like he was frowning at me. I thought he meant the pack and the few belongings that still lay at the back of the room.

"Yes, I'll get them in a bit. I'm not sure where we are heading yet. Kind of a bit lost."

"No I mean the things you left here."

My turn to frown.

"What do you mean?"

"The things that you hid near here, long before we went into The Corridor. You knew you might want them. If you came back this way."

"I left things here?"

Now I was curious.

"Yes. It was long before we came into The Corridor. I think. Come. This way."

How could he remember that I hid something here, but he couldn't tell me who I really was? It had to be something to do with the complexity of the memory. I was sure of it. Was he also suffering from some kind of memory loss?

"Did you lose your memory too?"

"No. I don't have a good memory like you. Things go."

A good memory? I could barely remember yesterday.

I quickly packed away my stuff and stepped back out into the street. Across the road, some of the Maw that had been sleeping out on the pavement, stirred and began to wake up.

"Are we leaving already?" asked Rudy.

"DogThing wants to show me something."

Rudy and Adler looked puzzled, but didn't question me. I'd forgotten that they didn't even know that DogThing and I could talk to each other now.

I followed DogThing along the side of the road, skirting around burned out cars and piles of rubble. We turned left at a crossroads after a hundred yards or so. Across the street I could see a boarded up building, with the front door wedged closed by a plank of wood. That was where DogThing led me. I forced the plank away, drew my blade and stepped into the dim light of the shop entrance. My eyes were more comfortable in that room than they were in the bright sunlight outside. Spending so much time in the dark had left me a little sun-blind.

DogThing shuffled past me and headed to the back of the shop. He scratched at a door that was at the side of what would probably have been some sort of small storage space or staff room at one time.

"In there."

I tried the door but it was jammed shut and I eventually just kicked it in.

Dogthing hadn't been joking about a stash.

"I left this here a long time ago, you say? Not recently."

"Yes and no. We haven't been this way in a while. I don't really remember."

A rucksack was perched against the back of the small closet, next to a long brown jacket that looked like it was made of some sort of tough leather. The shoulders were reinforced with armour plates of some kind, as was one side of the chest panels and the elbows. It looked and felt like some kind of hard plastic. I didn't recognise it, but I somehow knew that it was mine, and wasn't at all surprised when it fitted me perfectly. Underneath the jacket was a pair of trousers made of the same leathery material, and some loose armour that looked as though it should strap around my lower legs.

Why had I left all this stuff behind? Why leave a stash?

It didn't end there. There were boots, long ones with toe-caps that were studded at the end. In the rucksack was a treasure trove of tools and food supplies, and lying behind the rucksack was a utility belt that made the one that I was wearing look like a kiddie's toy.

And then there were the guns.

I hadn't a clue why I would have left these behind anywhere, let alone before I went into The Corridor. Why would I have gone in there and left guns behind? Maybe there was a good reason, maybe I knew before I went in there what was likely to happen. It puzzled me.

Handguns. Four of them. Yes, four. That's too many handguns isn't it? Why did I need so many? There was even a holster for each of them, with a strap to hold them in place. Two of them attached neatly to the sides of the utility belt, but it took me a lot of messing around to figure out where the other two were supposed to go. I finally settled on strapping them around my thighs so that they sat just below the two on my belt. There were worn marks on the trousers that suggested I had chosen correctly.

I picked up each of the guns and felt very strange as I did my best to check that each of them was in working order.

How did I know? Instinct. Had to be. There was no other way to explain it.

Not one of the guns had an ammunition clip, just some kind of built in mechanism and a clip-in battery no bigger than a cigarette lighter. These guns didn't need ammunition and they didn't fire solid bullets. It didn't make sense to me but I knew that it was correct. I couldn't even remember ever holding a gun, but they felt comfortable in my hands, as though they had been worn away by my using them over time, or maybe they were made for me.

After ten minutes or so, I left the shop and stepped back out into the road with all of my new found gear, which had apparently been put here by me.

Adler was standing a few feet away and looked bemused as I walked back out into the sunlight. Then he saw the guns and frowned. Rudy caught up with us. I don't think he wanted to leave the birds nest behind.

"Where did all that lot come from?"

I nodded my head at the door to the shop.

"In there. It would seem that I left all this behind when I went into The Corridor."

"Oh...but how did you know? I thought you couldn't remember anything. Are your memories coming back?"

"No." I smiled and looked down at DogThing. He was sitting on the pavement a few feet away.

"He told me."

Adler looked surprised.

"DogThing told you? You can talk to him?"

"I can now, yes. It would appear that he was with me all along. I couldn't hear him or understand him very clearly at the time, when we were in The Corridor. Not until we destroyed the mirror. I occasionally used to hear a voice talking to me in my head, but it never occurred to me that it was him. Out here we can talk to each other. Sort of."

"That's incredible," said Adler, with a smile. "You can actually communicate with the Maw! Or is it just him? What about the rest of them?"

"Only with DogThing. He is different to the rest. We're connected in some way. He says that I raised him from when he was a puppy."

"Amazing. But of course that explains so much." Adler began pacing the pavement. "He has followed you ever since the two of you met in The Corridor, but what you are saying is that he was there with you right from the start. That explains why, does it not? The other Maw, they were native, or at least had lived there a long time. It explains why he even looks different."

"He does?"

"Have you not noticed how the other Maw have bigger eyes? They are struggling with the sunlight and always hiding in the shadows."

Adler pointed at DogThing.

"He isn't having any problems with it."

"I don't like the dark."

I laughed. I'm sure Adler thought I was laughing at his comment because he joined in.

"It's not funny."

"We're not laughing at you my friend," I said, giving DogThing's head a quick pat.

Then I realised something.

"DogThing, can you understand what the others are saying?"

"Not really. Some. They are not as clear as you."

"How so?"

Adler and Rudy looked confused. To them I suppose it was a one sided conversation.

"Can he?" asked Rudy.

DogThing barked. I'd never heard him bark before. It sounded more like a human's hoarse cough. Nearby, some of the other Maw jumped at the noise.

"He says he can, sort of, but not clearly. But then most of the time he can't really understand me either."

"What do you mean?" asked Adler.

"I've asked him all manner of questions, but he can't grasp some of what I'm asking. I asked him about the door, and our escape, but door was beyond his understanding."

"Well, he is a dog," said Rudy.

"What?"

"He is a dog," he repeated. "Would a dog know what a door was?"

"Why, yes," said Adler. "Of course, you are right, Rudy. You may be able to converse with DogThing on some telepathic level, but that doesn't mean he understands you any better than any other dog, or Maw, would. His mind is still that of a canine, of sorts. He may know what a door does, but not necessarily what it is."

"Oh," I said, shaking my head. It was obvious really.

The Maw had been on edge ever since we left The Corridor, always keeping to the shadows and out of the sun. Most of them had been hiding in the ruined buildings along the street. I saw movement in the ruins directly across from us, and recognised one of the bigger Maw, just edging out of the entrance. Most of the buildings didn't have doors or windows anymore, just empty concrete shells rising floor after floor. Some of them must have been ten floors high at least, and a few of the ones that I could see in the distance were easily ten times that. Huge, monstrous, empty shells that would once have been home to thousands of people were now just home to the sparse wildlife.

I couldn't imagine how long this place had been left here, abandoned. It was probably decades or maybe even centuries. Even the tallest of the buildings had a web-like skin of overgrown creeping plants reaching nearly to the top. Just along the road, at the very bottom of a tall building, the roots of one of the creeping plants had grown to such a size that I could have mistaken it for a tree trunk. It was easily five feet thick and had broken up the pavement and even part of the road around it.

"So where now?" asked Rudy.

I didn't answer straight away.

"You know, I have no idea."

I looked either way along the street, wondering which way to go. No clues. Now that we had escaped from The Corridor I had no goals, no aims.

Then I noticed the movement. It was a long way off, down the street that led away from the bigger buildings, but it was moving very fast towards us. DogThing must have noticed it at the same time, because his head shot round to face it and he lowered himself to the ground, growling. Then the other Maw reacted. I could see them taking positions in the doorways of all of the surrounding buildings.

Adler and Rudy looked in different directions, confused.

"A kre'esh"

"A what?" I whispered back.

"A kre'esh. Nua'lath's lizard pets. It must have picked up our scent, or your scent. If it sees us then Nua'lath will know where we are. We will be hunted."

I crouched down and waited for it to get nearer, and yet again an instinct that I didn't know I had, made me draw one of the handguns and take aim.

Crack.

The sound was much quieter than I anticipated. I had expected a loud bang as the gun went off.

At least a hundred yards away the creature tumbled to the ground, sliding along the road, to lie motionless. A cloud of dirt and dust rose into the air. Three Maw darted out of the building closest to it and dragged it back into their refuge in the ruins.

I stood up, holding the gun out in front of me. I don't remember ever firing a weapon before, let alone being a good shot. As I stared at the gun, a glowing, blue indicator on the top lit up and then turned white.

Where the hell did I learn to fire a gun?

"We should go, there will be more. They are never alone, always a pack."

"How many?"

"I don't understand. There will be many."

"Okay. You were here when we went through the door. Do you know where we came from before going to The Corridor? I mean the last place we went to. Can you lead us there?"

"Yes, it is that way."

DogThing turned and took a few steps towards the direction of the huge buildings, towards what I suspected was the centre of the city.

"How far?"

"All the way through, and out into the big sand. Many rests."

"Then let's get going."

I explained to Adler and Rudy and they agreed that we should get moving. As we made our way along the street heading further into the city, I wondered if the Maw would come with us. They did, pouring out of the surrounding buildings and following us along the street as we weaved our way through wreckage and fallen walls.

"There are many minions in these dark places."

"Minions?"

"The dead ones that walk again."

"The same as the ones in The Corridor?"

"Yes, some, but others are different. The plague carriers, the ones that make the humans sick and die and become one of them. They are also here. Somewhere."

It was a haunting sight walking through the streets of the city. As we made our way towards the tallest buildings where there was even more wreckage, I saw countless ruined and empty shops. The remains of a long dead civilisation were everywhere I looked. I've never seen so many skeletons. In places they littered the streets or lay crumbling inside rusted vehicles.

We searched some of the shops as we passed, but there were no supplies to be found anywhere. Everything of value had been picked clean a long time ago.

Worse than the remains of the dead were the bodies that hung from lampposts and buildings, strung up by ropes or chained to fire escapes. I suspected that these people had been executed, and it made me ache with wondering who they were and why they were slain so brutally. Were they looters? Were they criminals that the local populace put down, taking the law in to their own hands when civilisation began to fall apart? Had something more monstrous done that to them?

I guessed that I would never know.

By the time it started to get dark we had travelled quite a way into the city, and the tall buildings stood around us on either side of the road. Immense, empty shells covered in the same creeping plants, rows upon rows of glassless and hollow windows, gaping holes of darkness that could hide all manner of hideous creatures or haunting scenes that I really didn't want to see.

Day 40

I had expected to be woken during the night by the noise of a fight, but there had been nothing. Whether or not the Maw had been keeping any danger away, I didn't know. I still thought that I would have heard something. DogThing's warning about the plague walkers had me on edge. It had all of us on edge. The closest I can think of to his description were the very first zombies that I encountered during my first days in The Corridor. They had been different to many of the creatures that I had seen after that. Most of the zombies in The Corridor were more like twisted and tortured abominations than the walking, rotten things that I now envisioned occupying the dark recesses of every building in the city. I was just waiting for them to come pouring out of the darkness, groaning for my blood, or whatever it was they hungered for.

It rained heavily, a torrential downpour that pummelled the ground and the buildings around me. The street outside had become a river that ran strongly enough to sweep a man away. Water poured through gaps in the structure around me, leaving few places dry. The Maw that shared the building that I had chosen to sleep in had made their way up onto the second floor. I joined them, huddling against the wall next to one of the empty spaces where a window would have once been. There was no way that we would be able to leave whilst this weather kept up.

How could the street be so dusty and dirty if it rained like this? Shouldn't it all be washed away?

Day 41

The rain stopped during the night, and when I awoke this morning most of the flooding had subsided. Somehow all of the water that had deluged the city overnight had drained away. As I leaned out of the window and looked up the street, I could see that there were small pools dotted about everywhere, but most of the flooding had gone.

I hauled my pack onto my back and set off down the stairwell, then out into the road. DogThing had slept on the stairs not far from where I had made camp for the night, and he shook his head groggily before following me out.

"Everything good?" I asked as I passed him on the stairs.

"Good."

I noticed that Rudy and Adler were not there. When I had gone up the stairs to the second floor, they had stayed out on the road. I sat watching them from the window for a while and the river obviously made no difference to them. They seemed to find great amusement at being able to stand in a torrent of rain that must have been more than a foot deep, the water rushing past them at an incredible speed. I vaguely remember them still wandering around out there when I finally drifted off to sleep.

I looked in either direction and called out a few times, but there was no answer.

Should I have kept moving and hope that they were somewhere nearby? I hesitated, and stood in the middle of the road as DogThing sat on the broken pavement a few feet away.

Finally I saw them, far away, down the road, as they came out of one of the buildings. Rudy stopped and waved at me.

After a few minutes I caught up with them at a crossroads in the street. The road opened up into a large square, surrounded by buildings that might once have been huge shops. All around the square were smashed up and rusted vehicles, many with the skeletons still sitting in the seats. It was something that puzzled me. What had killed these people so fast that they hadn't even managed to get out of their cars? I wondered if that wasn't the case, and that they had locked themselves in their vehicles to avoid what was outside.

The fronts of many of the empty shops had crumbled and collapsed, spilling out broken masonry, and dry, splintered wood onto the paved ground. I shivered as I noticed a pair of skeletal feet sticking out from underneath a pile of bricks just a few feet away from me. Had that person been crushed, or had they died long before the building covered them?

Rudy and Adler were staring wide-eyed at something that I couldn't see until I got nearer to them. As I approached, it appeared as though they were looking into open space, but then I got closer and the object of their fascination came into view.

It was a hole.

This one was nothing like any of the tiny holes that I had seen after the storm in The Corridor. This was much larger, big enough that I could have walked through it if I chose, but the view on the other side caused me to step back.

Flames burned in the dark place beyond the hole and the fire was so violent that I was surprised that it didn't lash out at us. An endless blaze of inferno rippled across a landscape that was blackened and scorched.

I heard a quiet growl behind me and glanced back to see that DogThing had caught up. He was shuffling around uncomfortably.

"Strange isn't it?"

It was Adler. Rudy was just standing there shaking his head.

"The heat doesn't even travel through to this side, but I wouldn't want to step through it."

I wondered how long they had been standing there, watching the fire burn, and it occurred to me that I hadn't known that Adler and Rudy could even feel heat or cold.

"When did you find this?" I asked, stepping sideways to see if I could see more of the landscape at a different angle.

"Last night whilst you were asleep," said Adler. "Rudy and I decided that with the entire Maw pack around, you were safe to be left alone, so we decided to take a wander, have a look around. There are more of them, dotted about, holes, I mean, but this one is the biggest by far."

"They all seem to lead to the same place," said Rudy.

"This burning place," said Adler.

I peered through the hole again, trying to make out any kind of detail through the flames that might have given me a clue as to where it was, but I couldn't recognise any of it. Visibility was so distorted and blocked by the fire that seemed to be consuming everything.

Then I saw movement amongst the flames. It was distant, but it was there.

"What's that?"

I pointed.

"Oh, yes. There is that as well," said Rudy. "We couldn't figure out what it was. It hasn't come close enough for us to make it out amongst the flames. It's been wandering around all the time and I'm certain I saw it through one of the other holes, but Adler doesn't think that possible. Not the same one."

Adler shrugged. "That the holes are all connected to a single other place is curious enough, but that they could all be close enough to show the same location just seems a little unlikely."

I took a step back, a feeling of loathing somehow creeping under my skin. Something was very wrong with what was moving around in there.

"How in hell's name does anything manage to survive in that?"

"It is quite feasible that a creature could exist, whose make up and physiology is so different to ours that the fire could be their natural environment. It would be highly irregular, but not entirely impossible."

The creature, if that was what it was, was now moving closer to the hole. I could make out a humanoid shape, but it didn't move like a human would. It stumbled around and its steps were jerky and sharp.

"It's coming nearer," said Adler. "Maybe we will see it this time." He stared through hole, oblivious to the danger that my instincts were now screaming about.

Stumbling, clumsy steps carried the apparition slowly towards us, until it was within a few feet of the hole, and then the horror of what was staring back at us took hold of me, and by the reactions of Rudy and Adler, they saw it too. I took yet another step backwards as I heard the growls of DogThing getting louder behind me.

"James, get away," stuttered Rudy as he backed away from the hole.

Adler didn't move. "Wait, we don't even know if the creature can even get through the hole, or even see us."

It could see us. Or in the very least it could see me. The skeletal inferno was staring directly at me with piercing, cold, white eyes that I felt would burn their way into my soul if I stayed there much longer. It was so humanlike that I swore it might once have been a person, except all that remained now were bones, blackened but somehow glowing. Was this hell itself that I was staring at? Was this the fiery abyss for those who were to burn forever as their punishment? Was the creature staring back at me through the hole once a living person who was now condemned to burn forever?

Then it stepped through the hole.

"It might not be hos..." said Adler, but he was cut off as the searing heat burst from the creature and blasted into our world, behind me I heard the sound of something catching fire and over to my left a few pieces of scattered wooden debris turned black and burst into flame.

The heat was staggering.

I vaguely heard Adler shouting over the tremendous noise that erupted all around me. A shape moved past me quickly. It was Rudy, heading away from the flames and the heat that now seemed to be engulfing everything.

Then it was gone, leaving the crackling sound of the fires that were already burning around us.

I opened my eyes, stunned, and looked around. Adler and Rudy were standing a few feet away, looking as shocked as I felt. DogThing was crouched by my side, panting, with steam rising from his fur. I was crouched on the floor.

"That was close."

Over near where the hole had been was a leg, or at least the blackened and glowing bones from a leg. Smoke was rising from it like it would a camp fire that had just been put out.

I looked down, frowning, and I noticed that one of my guns was lying on the ground next to where I was now kneeling. Somehow I had collapsed to the ground, and in my left hand I held the compass key tightly, so tight that my knuckles were pale and blood now trickled down my arm.

Something had happened as I fell to the ground. As much as I tried to comprehend it, I couldn't. Somehow I had acted on instinct once again. Without even thinking about it, I had pulled out the key and closed the hole.

I wished that I could remember how.

For a while, no one said a word, and I was aware of the Maw moving around us, but my mind was cloudy and confused.

Finally I got a grasp of myself.

"I'm going to bottle up some of the rain water and then we should head out again," I said. "I'd like to get out of this place today if we can."

Rudy nodded.

We didn't get out of the city that day. Weaving in and out of the ruins slowed me down and about five miles or so later through the ruins of the city we found a building that still had some doors intact, so I made camp again and blocked up the door, leaving DogThing on guard outside. I tried to persuade him in, but he was stubborn. As the sun began to drop behind the skyline of the city, the rain came again, and the streets flooded as they had before.

Still no sign of any of the plague walkers.

Day 42

I woke up with a stinking headache, wrapped the towel that I'd been using as a pillow around my head and sat there, sweating, hoping it would go away, or someone would come and take me away. Eventually I gathered up my stuff and pulled away all of the junk blocking the doorway. DogThing was on the hood of a rusted car just across the street and was already sitting waiting for me when I finally managed to unblock the door and step out onto the street.

Adler and Rudy had been investigating some of the buildings during the night and I followed them down the road to a run-down supermarket that still had an almost intact front. The main door was rusted shut and I pulled hard on it for about five minutes before it broke free and nearly fell on me.

It was dark in there, but there was just enough light coming in through the broken windows that I was able to pick my through rows and rows of shelving and stacks of old goods. The place stank of old, dried up food and something even worse that I didn't try to identify. The floor was littered with broken glass and bits of ceiling tiles that had cracked and broken, bottles were strewn across the floor. Everywhere I stepped there was something to avoid.

At the back of the shop was what they had brought me there for. Most of the tins of food on the shelves were cracked and useless, but on one of the top shelves was a whole row of canned soup, untouched and potentially still edible.

I looked up and down all of the aisles and finally found what I was looking for next. Near the front of the shop, hidden behind a collapsed shelf was a stack of small, wheeled shopping bags. They were the kind that came with a handle to pull them along with. I took the least damaged, and threw my old rucksack into the bottom, and then wheeled the thing back round to the cans, loading it with everything that looked useable.

Also found a small box of disposable cigarette lighters and a stack of musty but still clean towels.

Then I noticed the hardware section of the shop. There were knives, cutlery, cooking pans, everything, stacked up high. By the time I pushed the trolley back out onto the street the trolley was nearly full. It would slow me down even more trying to haul this thing through the ruined streets, but I wouldn't last very long otherwise.

Rudy and Adler had gone back outside during all of this and were waiting for me out on the street.

Rudy grinned as I stepped out into the sunlight.

"We thought you'd find a lot of stuff in there. We really did look all over the place, but a lot of what we found didn't look to be much use."

"We also found a few things that we are best avoiding," said Adler. He pointed up the street to a huge shop front that looked like it might have been some kind of furniture store. "In there, on the second floor are dozens of what look like zombies. They are just lying around on the floor or standing still looking into thin air. They didn't notice us, though we didn't try to go too close. We didn't want to wake them from whatever slumber they were in."

Plague walkers.

"Right," I said. "Let's get out of here then."

"How far do you think it is to the edge of the city?" he asked, as I walked away.

I was just about to answer that I had no idea, when I heard a clattering noise nearby.

I span around, looking to where the noise had come from, but there was nothing there.

DogThing sniffed the ground, but looked puzzled.

"I can't sense anyone."

Another noise right behind me, near where several cars were parked along the side of the road.

I reacted too slowly and a moment later I was standing in the middle of the street with the end of a double barrelled shotgun pointing at my chin.

"Easy now," said the stranger. "Nobody do anything rash and no one needs to get hurt."

DogThing growled and crouched down low, ready to pounce. Adler and Rudy stood perfectly still, both with shocked expressions. I could hear the movement of the Maw around us as they surrounded us, but it made no difference. I was still at the mercy of whoever held the gun.

I couldn't see all of his face, only his eyes. He was wearing what looked like a long leather duster coat similar to my own and a brown Stetson hat that was worn and ripped. He wasn't carrying just one shotgun, but two, both of them double barrelled, both of them pointing straight at me.

He shifted his weight and looked slowly around.

I just stood there, perfectly still, with a handgun in each hand, but neither of them pointing in a direction that was useful. I wasn't aware that I had even drawn them.

"Who are you?" I asked.

"I think I'll be the one who asks the questions for now if you don't mind. Now if I pull this away from your face are you going to be nice? One flick of this trigger and you won't have a head anymore, but that isn't what I'd really like to happen."

"Then what do you want to happen?"

Something moved on the edge of my vision. It was distant and barely noticeable, but I had to fight back the urge to turn away from the man that now held me at gunpoint. Something was moving towards us, and fast, but it seemed that no one else had noticed it.

"Danger is coming."

"Well, I was kind of hoping that we could sort this out amicably..." he said, but was cut off mid sentence as I shouted.

"Get down!"

I dived to the side as the kre'esh tore between us. I had only just in time recognised what was approaching. It was so fast that I almost hadn't reacted quickly enough, but I dived one way and the stranger leapt back towards the nearest car. The kre'esh barrelled across the road and collided with some of the Maw, sending them all, including the kre'esh, tumbling to the ground.

Then everything went crazy.

The air shifted around me and I rolled sideways, coming back up just as another kre'esh bolted through the space that I had just occupied. I wasn't fast enough with my gun, but the stranger was, and as the creature raced towards him, he lowered a shotgun and blasted it from barely three feet away. The creature exploded into a mass of flying body parts that splattered the ground and the car next to me. I looked directly across at the stranger, who was now leaning, wide-eyed against one of the car wrecks.

I span around and looked along the street to where the kre'esh had come from, just as another leapt up onto the top of the car next to me a lashed out at me with its teeth. This time I didn't hesitate, and raised my gun and shot the thing in the face. I hadn't known up until that point if I even had the courage to stand and fight with these new weapons, but it seemed that instinct was more powerful that courage. It flew backwards just as two more kre'esh came leaping over the car, bearing down on me. The roof of the car buckled under their weight and a single intact window exploded into shards of glass that scattered across the ground.

I raised the other gun and fired, knowing that the second kre'esh would surely have me. The first kre'esh screeched and fell off the back of the car as the other bore down on me, but a hard shove on my shoulder sent me stumbling sideways and down onto the pavement amongst the glass as several large, black Maw collided with the kre'esh in mid air. I barely saw them vanish over the other side of the car, taking the second kre'esh with them, as I hit the ground.

I hit that ground hard, and tried to stumble back to my feet, crouching behind the car again as DogThing's friends poured over the area. The street on the other side of the car that was protecting me became a mass of teeth and claws as I realised that there weren't just a couple of kre'esh, but dozens of the damn things.

A shotgun blast went off behind me, and I span round again just in time to fire two shots straight into the kre'esh that had knocked the stranger to the ground and was about to bite down on him. The man hauled the dead body off, grabbed the shotgun that had been knocked from his grasp and raced over the gap between us, to join me by the car.

Another kre'esh managed to break free from the battle and jumped over the car towards us, but we were both ready and it was sent flying back into the fray by the blast of a shotgun and my handguns.

More kre'esh were rushing down the street towards us in what appeared to be an endless stream of the glistening, black nightmares.

Two of the kre'esh leapt clean over the ruckus that was blocking the road and both the stranger and I ducked down behind the car as they came crashing into the clearing. One of them hit the ground and tumbled away, not getting up quick enough before I shot off two blasts into its side, sending it crashing into one of the cars opposite. It still jumped up and made a dash for us, but DogThing sped past us and clamped his jaws on its neck. The thing thrashed and screamed but DogThing kept it pinned down until one of the black Maw jumped over me and landed on top of it, crushing the creature with its weight.

That didn't stop the other one, though. It landed hard, but on all fours, and darted around the back of a car as the stranger blasted away with his shotguns. Another Maw chased after it, but the kre'esh was faster, and as it came thundering around the other side of the car and raced straight towards me I dropped my two handguns that were still re-charging and grabbed for the other two, but I knew I wasn't going to be fast enough.

I rolled sideways, desperately throwing every bit of strength I had into getting out the creature's way.

A shotgun blast behind me made my ears ring and I felt the creature hit the ground barely a foot away from me.

Then it was over.

The whole fight had lasted for only a few seconds, but it had seemed like hours as time appeared to slow down.

I stayed down on the ground, breathing hard and watching the stranger just a few feet away from me doing the same.

He looked over at me.

"You okay?" he asked.

"Yes, you?"

He nodded again. "I'm all good here."

There was quiet for a few minutes before he spoke again. Only the noise of the Maw moving around us broke the silence.

"I have been travelling the roads of this land for years and I've never seen anyone stupid enough to be inside one of the cities other than myself."

"We were just leaving."

He nodded, still getting his breath back.

"Leaving from where? What were you doing here? What did you find here?"

"Nothing. We found nothing."

The stranger didn't take his eyes off of me.

I wasn't sure that I wanted to tell him the truth, but I couldn't think of a good lie, and we had just saved each other's lives.

"We arrived here, through a door."

"A door? What kind of door?"

"A portal. A gate."

He squinted at me.

Around us the Maw were gathering in large numbers. For a moment I saw the stranger's eyes give away a hint of fear.

"You know how to move between worlds?"

I took a deep breath.

"No not really. It was by accident."

"I don't want any trouble," he said looking around. At least twenty of the big, black Maw were watching him. I'd have wet myself if that had been me, but although I could see the fear in his eyes, he was still holding it together.

"Me neither," I said.

I nodded at DogThing.

"Ask them to back off."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes."

"It is done."

The Maw backed away and relaxed a little. Some of them broke off and headed back towards the buildings that they slept in. Others began dragging the bodies of the kre'esh away.

The stranger heaved a sigh of relief and holstered his shotguns.

"Thank you for that. And, well, we already established that neither of us particularly likes the local fauna. Any reason why we can't get along?" he asked.

"That would be good," I said.

I holstered both of my handguns and then offered him my hand.

"James Halldon. Pleased to meet you."

He glanced at my hand and hesitated, but then he shook it.

"Reginald Weldon. Happy to meet you also, James. You can call me Reg."

Reg leaned back against the rusted remains of the car that had been our cover during the fight. He took off his hat and the scarf that had been tied round his face and for the first time I got to see what he looked like. He was older than I expected. His face was wrinkled and worn as though he had seen years of troubles, and his eyes looked tired. He hadn't shaved for a while, and like me, he sported a scruffy beard and a moustache. What was strange was that all of his hair was almost white, as though he was many years older than he really looked.

"Tell me, friend," he said, "I need to know if you can really move through those portals. Can you make them appear?"

I shook my head.

"We have done before, and that's how we got here, but I don't know how to create them, at least I haven't figured out how to, yet."

He looked disappointed.

"Where do you come from? I mean where did you come from?"

I hesitated to answer.

"We escaped from somewhere that was dangerous."

Reg laughed out loud.

"Well you haven't landed yourself somewhere safe now, this place is dangerous too."

"Trust me," I said, shaking my head. "It can't be as bad."

"You give it a couple more days and see if you still think that."

I sat there, trying hard to think of something to ask the first living person I had seen in ages.

"What about you? Why are you here?"

He stared at the ground, his eyes slightly glazed as though his mind is far away, remembering.

"Oh, that's one long, long story. I'm looking for my wife. She disappeared a long time ago and I've been tracking her down ever since. This is where she came, through a portal like the one I also came through, but it's been so long that her trail is hard to follow, and it sometimes takes me to places where no one should ever go. I also never came from this world."

Reg looked up at me.

"What about you James? Where are you headed?"

"Nowhere really. I had an accident of some kind that means I can't remember my past. I don't really know who I am. I suppose I'm headed anywhere that might give me some clues."

I look over at DogThing

"My furry friend over there is leading me to where we came to this place once before, where there might be some answers, but other than that I'm lost."

"You can talk to your wolves? I guessed that you had some kind of control over them, but talk to them?"

I laughed.

"Not all of them. Just him."

Reg looked over at DogThing, who was sitting on the pavement opposite us. DogThing started shifting around as though he was uncomfortable with the attention.

"And, which way is he taking you?"

I pointed along the main street.

"Out to the desert. Where after that, I don't know. He seems to know where to go though."

Reg stood up.

"Well, it looks like we're heading in the same direction for the time being. What do you say we travel together?"

I looked at Adler and Rudy. Reg glanced over at them.

"I don't see why we can't travel together. It will be nice to have someone new to talk to," said Adler.

Rudy looked warily at Reg.

"I'm okay with it if you promise not to point those guns at James again, though I can't say that I trust you."

"I won't be doing that again," said Reg. "I was just defending myself. I hid between the vehicles when you two came by, hoping to stay unnoticed, but then those wolves and James came along and I knew I wasn't going to stay hidden for long."

I looked over towards Adler and Rudy.

"So what were you two up to before?"

Rudy's eyes seemed to light up, he grinned.

"We're not bound to the compass anymore, at least we don't think we are," he said. "We realised it whilst you were asleep. I thought it was strange how I could see much further after we had left The Corridor, but I figured it was just because we were in a different place. Then when you went to fetch the stuff that you had stashed in the shop and I was left listening to the birds sing, I realised. You were hundreds of yards away from me, much farther than you had ever been before and I wasn't being dragged away."

"I also noticed it," Adler cut in. "When you were asleep last night and the rain was coming down, we wandered off. We kept a visual check on where we were, of course, so that we didn't get lost, but I wasn't even thinking about it. I just presumed that we would be still bound to the compass, so getting lost was really a moot issue. We got further and further away and I realised that the rules had changed. I must admit I panicked a little when the thought occurred to me that we would need to be sure we could find you again."

"So you are free."

It was a statement rather than a question.

"Yes," said Rudy.

We made our way slowly through the streets. DogThing was in front with some other Maw, guiding us. He stopped at each junction and sniffed the ground, looking around until he decided which way to go. I trailed behind him, with Reg at my side, both of us with weapons ready, watching the streets for trouble. Rudy and Adler followed behind us, chattering all the time, and behind them trailed the rest of the Maw pack.

I could have sworn that the Maw pack was getting bigger, and that there were some new ones, with different markings that I hadn't seen before. I shrugged it off. I didn't really know exactly how many of them came out of The Corridor with us.

"So do you know where it is that you are heading next?" I asked Reg.

"Yes, well, roughly. I found some clues in the last settlement I was in, weeks ago."

"So there are settlements? People alive here?"

"Yes, there are some. They're dotted all over the place and mostly hidden away, avoiding the attention of the things that still walk and crawl this land."

"Anyway, I found a clue that she had left the town maybe thirty years ago and joined a coven of some kind. It took me a while to get directions, but out of this city and across the desert there is supposed to be a range of mountains. At the foot of the mountains is a forest. I was told that there was once a settlement of some kind in those woods, near a city that had been abandoned a long time ago, and that they traded sometimes with the coven. It's the best lead I've had so far."

"What sort of coven? Like a religious group?"

"Yes, sort of. An old man in Rockroad, the settlement I left, said that the Sisters of Rahl, that's what the coven is called, travelled through the settlement and they took several other women with them. Not by force, but they left all the same. He said that his wife was offered to go with them, but she stayed to marry him, and they had told her that if ever she wanted to join them that she should travel to the mountains, to the Narrowfang as they call the forest. I thought it was a strange name for a forest, but that old guy said that it was supposed to be because of the shape of the woods if you saw them from the mountains. Anyway, his wife left him in the end because the coven still haunted her and she felt an uncontrollable urge to join them. So she went after them. He said that he followed her, and found the settlement, but he never found out where the coven was and never found his wife again."

"Poor man."

"Yeah, but well, there are a lot of sad stories in the world if you take the time to listen, and that's without the old stories of the days before the invasion."

"Invasion?"

"The invasion. The time when Nua'lath and his minions stormed across Gaia. Destroying and enslaving everything in their path. Billions of people once lived on this planet. I'd be surprised if there were even few hundred thousand left. The most I've seen in my years of travelling is a few scattered towns hidden away with a few hundred or maybe a thousand people in them. Even all these years on from the invasion, the creatures of Nua'lath's horde still ravage this land and prevent anyone from rebuilding something from the ruins. Too many people get caught out every year, or a town gets overwhelmed by shamblers."

Nua'lath. That name again. CutterJack.

“I’ve met Nua'lath, though I know him by another name, CutterJack.”

Reg stopped walking and turned to me. He looked shocked.

“You’ve met the creature?”

“Yes, that’s where we just came from. We escaped from his prison.”

“I didn’t even know he had been imprisoned, all I ever heard was how he led his armies across countless worlds.”

“I didn’t know what he was until after we had escaped,” I replied, “I still don’t, really.”

"What's a shambler?" I asked.

"A shambler? Well, they are basically dead people who have been killed by other shamblers. They spread a disease through their blood. It somehow brings their victims back to life after they die. If you can call it any kind of life. The disease kills pretty quickly if the wounds don't. Well, you end up with a walking corpse that is just as contagious as the last. Whole cities got overrun with the damn things in the early days, now, every now and then someone runs across a few of them and gets themselves bitten, and then stupidly goes back home hoping to get help, ends up turning the whole damn town into shamblers."

Plague walkers.

"And these Sisters of Rahl. What are they all about?" I asked.

"Oh, I don't know enough about them yet, only that they are a community of only women, and that they live up in those mountains somewhere. I've heard that they don't deal with men very kindly, but I have to believe that they must be decent in some way. Marie would never have joined them if they weren't. There are rumours I've heard about them being mystics and mind readers, and also tales of them killing men, but I don't know if any of that is true and I have to risk that if I'm to find my wife."

"I guess we will find out."

Reg smiled at me.

"You're planning on travelling that far with me?"

"Well I don't have a lot of leads about my past at the moment. If you are willing to travel with us to where DogThing is leading us, so that I can at least try and find out something from there, then I reckon the least I can do is travel that bit further and go find these Sisters with you."

"I'd be glad for the company."

"I must admit I'm also curious. You never know, they may even be able to help me. I need to regain my memories, and if they are mind readers they might be able to tell me at least something that I don't know."

Reg nodded.

"There is that."

It was nearly dark when we left the city. The relief was obvious in everybody. Even the Maw seemed to be more relaxed as they spread out across the dry, barren land either side of the highway.

There was a rundown building that looked like it had been some kind of factory, just a quarter of a mile or so from where the city buildings ended. We split up, Reg going one way around the building and I went the other, checking between the piles of trash and rubble and inside the half dozen rusted cars for unwelcome inhabitants. Nothing. The building itself didn't look like it would provide much of a defence if it came to it, but the Maw had settled down in small groups, completely surrounding the ruin and the area around it, so we cleared the inside and set up camp. Reg even lit a fire.

I spent an hour or so telling Reg everything that I could remember from our time in The Corridor. It was strange recounting it again and I was surprised just how much of it I could remember. I didn't even have to get the first journal out of my rucksack.

"So, are you going to tell me a bit more about yourself?" I asked. "I can't really tell you much more about me. No memory and all that."

"Sure, well, where do I start? I reckon I'll cut to the why and how I ended up here. Not enough time to recount my whole life story. That's maybe a tale for another time."

Reg's Tale

As I said before, my wife disappeared, just vanished right in front of me when I was only a young man, and I've spent the rest of my life trying to find out where she went to, but it took nearly dying to actually get somewhere. See, I'm a hundred and twelve years old.

Well, when I was one hundred and two years old, I was dying of a cancer. I was sitting on a bench out in the middle of the grounds of my house, in a spot where Marie used to sit. You see I eventually did find where she vanished to all those years ago. A man named Laurence had made a deal with a demon of some kind and stole her away from me, or so he said. It was decades before I finally found out about it and tracked him down. But when I got there, she had disappeared again and Laurence didn't know where she had gone either. Well, it turned out that Laurence wasn't even what I thought he was. He wasn't human at all and there hadn't been a demon to make a deal with. He was the demon. That was another thing that I didn't find out until I was nearly dead.

Many years before, when I was a young man, a man named Andre had come into my life. Now he was a traveller, a traveller that could go across worlds and possible through time for all I knew. Well, on that day, as I sat dying out in my garden, he showed up again. Right in the spot where I suspected there was some kind of magical door that my wife had travelled through, and one that I couldn't open.

That door just opened right in front of me. I tried as best I could to struggle to my feet. I had to get through there and follow her somehow, but I was too weak and nearly dead and I just collapsed on the grass.

Then Andre stepped through the door and the door closed.

"You're still alive," he said to me. "Good."

Then I blacked out. I'd passed unconscious to the world. When I came round I felt sick as anything. I had never felt so bad in my whole life. Every muscle in my body was screaming at me.

I was lying in my bed in the house and Andre was sitting in the chair by the window.

"Just lie down and don't try to move. The feeling will pass. You will feel sick over the next few weeks, but then you will feel better," he said.

"What happened? I passed out."

"Yes, you did, well actually you died."

"I what?"

"You died, but don't worry. I fixed that."

"You fixed it?"

I couldn't get my brain around that.

"How?"

"I gave you a dose of a drug that will change you."

"Change me? How?"

"You'll become like me."

It took a while for it to all sink in, but as the sickness passed over the next couple of weeks, Andre told me all about what he had done to me.

They're called The Resistance, you see, the organisation that he belonged to. And now that he had given me this serum or A-17 as he called it, I was one of them. He had given me my life back. A-17 is some strange concoction that stays in your body and doesn't ever go away. It fights all diseases, reverses the aging process, all manner of outlandish and godly things. It's hard to grasp. But that A-17 stuff is why I'm so old and yet I have the strength of a young man again. And that won't ever change.

It's an immortality drug.

Can you believe that?

Andre had a reason for coming back. He wanted something from me, and he wasn't going to get it if I was dead. He needed information that he believed I might be able to help him find and he said it wasn't until he remembered me that he realised that I'd encountered what he was seeking.

Laurence's deal with a demon.

Over the next few weeks I went back through all of my memories, and my memory is good I'll have you know. I told him everything I could ever remember. I was surprised how much of it there was.

Then one day after about three weeks, during which time I had gone from dying of cancer to being in full health again, Andre discovered something.

He called me down to the small cemetery that was on the grounds of my house and showed me what he had dug up.

I was furious at the time. There in the middle of that cemetery was the grave that Laurence had laid for my wife, even though he had known, and I knew, that she wasn't dead. Andre had dug up the damn grave and broken open the coffin.

I shouted at him, asking him why he would do such a thing. But then he pointed into the coffin, which was crumbled and rotten by now, after so long in the ground.

There was a skeleton in there.

"That, I think, is Laurence," he said.

"What? How?"

"The Laurence that you met when you came here was not the real person. Though whoever it was probably was the one responsible for burying him."

We didn't have to look very far.

Right in the middle of the cemetery was a small chapel, I had been there many times before, but I hadn't realised that there was a space underneath the chapel. The moment that Andre found the entrance and pulled the stone away, the creature came at us.

At first I was just shocked. Out of the dark cove came a rustling noise, and then footsteps on stone, and then Andre jumped back as the creature shot out of the darkness and grabbed a hold of my neck.

It was Laurence. Not the dead one, not the real, human, Laurence, but a creature that was masquerading as him.

I thought I was going to die, but in reality the creature didn't stand a chance. I pushed back at it, expecting it to resist, but I hadn't realised just how strong A-17 had made me. It flew across the room and crashed to the floor, and by the time it was trying to get back on its feet, Andre had a hold of it by the neck and pinned it to the ground.

"You will not be helping Nua'lath to influence this place any longer," growled Andre.

"There are others," the creature hissed as it turned from the Laurence that I recognised into the creature it really was. A blood covered and hideously skinny wretch of thing with eyes as large and bright as the moon.

"Yes, and you will help me to find them," said Andre.

"I will never help you," it hissed. "Blud far Nua'lath. Kiy e Nua'lath."

"Shut your crap," cursed Andre, striking the thing across its face. It cursed and spat at him. He then reached to his belt and took out some kind of device, which he put against the creatures head.

"Oh I never said I would be asking nicely for your help."

There was a cracking sound and the creature writhed for a few seconds, before collapsing.

"Is it dead?"

"No, just stunned."

"Will you kill it?"

"Yes, but not yet. I need to know where the others are."

"What others?"

"The others like it. Nua'lath's minions."

"Who is this Nua'lath, really?"

"As I said on our last meeting, he is what is known as an Old One. I'll tell you more in good time. Right now I need to get this thing somewhere where I can interrogate it. He is still using these creatures to cause havoc."

"Interrogate?"

"Where I can torture the information I need out of it. Look, Reg, you've helped more than you can know, so I'm going to help you in return. Come with me and I'll take you to where your wife went. I can't tell you exactly where she is, but I know which world she ended up on and I can take you to the place where she arrived there."

*

"So," said Reg, "that is how I ended up here, standing in the desert, all kitted out with my new Resistance weapons and gear, and on the trail of my wife. That was quite a few years ago now. They gave me that much grace. I could search for my wife so long as I also spent my time noting down the places where the survivors were, where people still managed to live on after all the devastation that killed this world."

"That is quite a story," said Adler.

"I'll say. And it leads me to ask something of you, James."

I frowned.

"What?"

"I want to check the back of your neck," said Reg.

"My neck?" I asked, puzzled. "Why?"

"Because If I see what I think I will see there, I may be able to answer something of your past right here and now."

I reluctantly pulled the collar of my jacket down and waited apprehensively as Reg came over and peered at the back of my neck. He didn't say anything at first, but went back over to his seat on the opposite side of the fire.

"You have the same scar that I have," he said quietly.

"What does that mean?"

"It means, my friend, that you are a member of The Resistance."

"I am?"

"You say your name is James Halldon?"

"Yes, that much I'm sure of."

He nodded.

"I knew it when I first saw you. It's in your face. It's a spitting image of his. It's so similar that you could have been twins, even though you aren't. And all these Maw around you, drawn to you for a reason that you probably aren't even aware of, even though you once would have been."

"Who? Tell me."

My heart was almost jumping out of my chest.

"James Halldon, brother of Joshua Halldon, one of the commanders of the Resistance Outriders. He told me all about you after Andre took me to stay with him. They called you the 'Maw tamer'. On account of you being the one who could talk to the creatures. You're the one who made the pact between the Maw and The Resistance in the first place."

"I have a brother?"

"No, not one. You have four brothers, though I don't know the others, but they are all in The Resistance."

Day 43

We had talked long into the night and it was getting late when I finally went off to sleep. So much so that I was still tired when the sun rose the next morning, and I pushed open the door out to the desert. It was strange still, having sunrise to judge the days by.

Reg was still asleep so I shut the door and left him there, stepping outside onto the cracked concrete and weaving my way through the weeds until I was out at the edge of the building's grounds. The desert was such a beautiful thing to see, endless barren sand and rocks that seemed to go on forever. Dotted in different places were some very strange plants that were a cross between a palm tree and a cactus. The bottom part of the trunk was round and fat, and covered with spikes, with the trunk of the tree rising from middle to climb maybe twenty or thirty feet before blooming into a mass of green leaves.

They looked quite comical.

The most amazing sight, of course, was the Maw. I hadn't considered that there would be so many of them. I knew that there may have been a few hundred that followed us out of The Corridor, but there were far more than that clustered in groups, which I presumed were families, all over the desert floor.

"Others have come to join us."

It was DogThing. I hadn't even heard him join me, but he was sitting on the ground just a few feet away.

"Good morning."

He whined and scratched the ground.

"So there are Maw here as well?" I asked.

"Yes, many of them. They will be coming with us."

"All of them?"

"All of them."

"Even though I don't know where I'm really heading."

"The door place is not far from here."

"The door place?"

"You asked for us to go to where we came from before. It is the door place."

"Okay, good."

I sat there for a while, looking out at the desert, wondering quietly why the Maw followed me as they did. I was the 'Maw tamer'. At least that is what Reg had said. I was a member of something called the Resistance, an entity that I had no idea about. Then there were brothers, four of them. Yet through all of this, everything that Reg had told me about, I still couldn't remember a single thing.

"Well, good morning," said a voice behind me. It was Adler. Rudy wasn't with him.

"Quite an eye opener, last night, was it not?"

"Yes, yes it was. If it's true."

"You have a reason to believe it may not be true?"

"No, not really, I just can't remember any of it. I'd hoped that when I learned something of my past it might trigger my memory, but that didn't happen. Where's Rudy anyway?"

"Oh, you must come and see, we have found something quite interesting. You may want to wake Mr Weldon up, it's quite a distance."

Reg had already woken up and was packing up the camp when I went in. Ten minutes later and we were outside of the building and ready to go.

We followed Adler around the front of the building and out into the desert for a few hundred yards until we reached a ridge where the ground dropped away down into a chasm. As we walked along the top of the chasm, heading further into the desert I could see the Maw rising from their slumber and following us, spreading out across the dry, cracked ground as far as I could see.

"What is this place?" ask Reg. "I didn't know this was here."

"We don't know, yet," said Adler, "but something about a mile from here is very interesting."

"This is the way to the door place. They followed me last night."

I looked at DogThing.

"It was this close? You went there last night?"

"Yes, whilst you were sleeping. You were tired after the fight and the journey from the city."

The chasm continued to wind its way through the desert, and after half an hour or so the heat of the morning sun was starting to become unbearable.

Then I saw it in the distance, another building, or at least the top of another building. It was jutting out of the desert floor right where the chasm appeared to end. As we got closer and closer I realised just how large the building really was. At least five floors of broken windows rose from the ground and the same amount was tucked against the side of the now quite deep chasm. A stairway wound its way along both sides of the building and we made our way down them to the very bottom, where I saw Rudy waiting.

We scouted out around the building and up through the lower floors. Countless rooms filled with broken office furniture and smashed glass. I was beginning to think that we would find nothing, but then DogThing stopped and peered down a stairwell.

"It's actually a few hundred yards further, just over the back of the ridge behind the building," said Adler.

"Wait."

"Yes?"

"Down here."

I looked over at Adler and Reg.

"We'll catch you up. DogThing wants me to go with him."

"We looked down there," said Adler, "but didn't find anything."

"I'll be back soon."

I followed DogThing down several flights of stairs, my eyes adjusting slowly to the darkness, until we arrived at the bottom, which opened up into a massive underground chamber.

"This is where we arrived. We came through here."

"In this room?"

"Yes, over there."

He walked into the darkness and disappeared. I stopped for a moment and hauled one of my torches out of my pack. I guess my eyes had re-adjusted to daylight again, so much so that the darkness in here, that I would previously have seen clearly through, was like a black pit.

Bare ground was all that greeted me, and some kind of scorch mark on the stone. I reached for the compass and tried to concentrate on it, but twenty minutes must have passed and I still had no idea how to re-open the door.

"There has to be more here."

All this way to find nothing.

I paced around the edge of the huge room. No doors. No debris. It was almost as though this room had no function, no reason to be here. It wasn't until I had moved away from the centre of the room that I saw something. A glimmer of some kind, shining off of the light of the torch. I don't know why I hadn't spotted it when I first lit the torch.

I walked around the centre of the room again, shining the torch down on what appeared to be some kind of a pattern. It was a circle, roughly twenty feet across, the centre of which was an elaborate twisting collage of strange symbols and winding patterns. No visible lettering or anything that made sense, except that the scorch mark was dead in the centre of the pattern.

"What is this?"

"I don't know."

"Have you seen this before?"

"Yes, many times, when we arrive by going through."

"So before, I used to open doors and these markings were where we would arrive?"

"Yes. But not always."

Then it struck me.

"Did I have this compass back then DogThing?"

"No. It was another thing."

"So this wasn't mine originally?"

"No."

"What is this thing?"

"I don't know."

"So I didn't make it?"

"No."

He shuffled around and sniffed the floor, just as he had the last time I attempted to drill him with questions, days ago.

How was I ever to find out?

I turned and made my way to the stairs.

"Let's go and find the others."

I saw what Rudy and Adler had found before I spotted them. Just over the top of the ridge. It was impossible not to see it. As I walked down the slope to where they were all standing I couldn't help but gawp at the sight.

The land stretched out as far as I could see, miles and miles of perfectly flat ground disappearing into the distance, and covering every bit of the ground were billions and billions of white flowers.

White flowers.

I made my way down the slope to where the others were and bent down to examine the nearest of the flowers. It was unmistakeable.

"The flower that I saw through the door in The Corridor."

"Yes," said Adler. "Absolutely. Up in the passage above the shack. They are the same species exactly, I'm sure of it. They are not something that I recognise from our world, so I can't tell you what they are, but they are indeed the same."

"You know what this means?" said Rudy.

"This world must be where one of the doors to The Corridor is. One of the real doors."

"Precisely," said Adler, "and although you would not have been able to see it, the same flowers grow outside the other door as well, the one that I died near, down in The Warrens."

"Does that mean that Nua'lath's prison is actually here on this world?" asked Reg.

"I don't know," said Adler. "But it would seem quite likely. Maybe somewhere near here is the other physical door. I stood outside that one for years, so would be able to recognise the land."

"No wonder The Resistance is so interested in this place," said Reg. "I always did wonder. So many worlds to cover, so many places where Resistance folks are helping to rebuild and protect, yet the amount of them on this world is far greater."

"Then we can find them?" I asked.

"If we travelled a long way in the other direction, then yes, but that takes us away from the Sisters of Rahl, and Marie."

"Okay," I said. "We'll go there first."

"I'd understand if you wanted to leave now," said Reg.

"No. I said I'd go with you, and I want to know if these Sisters can help me with my memory. This place, down in the bottom of that building, was where I arrived here with DogThing at some point, but I can't find anything down there apart from a pattern on the ground that makes no sense to me. I'm not going to find out much about myself at this rate. I need someone who can help me remember, and maybe these Sisters of Rahl can help."

"Then we better head back to the road, grab the trolley and get moving," said Reg.

We hiked a long way along the road that day, which was clear, apart from a few abandoned vehicles along the side of the road that looked like they had been shunted out of the way by something big, moving fast enough to smash the sides in as it went by. Maybe twenty miles along the road and I caught my first glimpse of the mountains that Reg had spoken of. He also stopped as they appeared, far in the distance, through the dust of the desert.

"It's strange to be so close after all these years," he said.

I nodded.

"We'll find her."

Roughly five miles later and we saw the edge of a small, ruined town along the road. We made our way slowly and carefully towards it, always wary of what might be waiting for us there.

It was a one street town, and most of the buildings were blackened ruins, as though the place had been burned to the ground a long time ago. One or two brick buildings still stood, and the one we chose had an upper floor that was mostly intact. No sooner had we set up camp than the rain came again and the bottom floor was the only place that we could find that was moderately sheltered. I don't know where the Maw went, but they seemed to have vanished in amongst the ruined buildings. I could only presume they found their own places to shelter from the rain.

I did manage to set up a few water traps before attempting to get some sleep.

Day 44

The town was infested with zombies, and we hadn't spotted a single sign of it until the damn things came crawling up out of the ruins. Even the Maw hadn't noticed them. I don't know how. Adler thinks that maybe the dust and dirt from the desert had buried everything, that is, before the rain came down. He thought that the desert sands had hidden the scent from the Maw. As soon as the rain began to wash the streets and the buildings clean, the undead came clawing and crawling up from almost every hole and cellar in the town.

"Wake up," was the shout. It was Reg, and I looked up to the top of the stairs, bleary eyed, to see him holding both of his shotguns. His pack was by his feet.

"What's going on?" I asked, but then heard the noise. All around us the moans and growling cut through the din of the pouring rain. I stumbled up the stairs, lugging my pack with me, to look out of the broken window.

A war was raging in the town around us. Through the deluge of rain I could see Maw darting around in the shadows. For one moment one of the plague bearers stumbled out into the street from a doorway of a building a hundred yards away, only to be pulled to the ground by two of the large black Maw.

I dropped my pack and drew two of my guns, glancing down the stairs. If they came this way and there were a lot of them, we would have to hold this stairway and hope.

But at that time we had no idea just how many of them there were. To the Maw, these things were almost no danger. They just weren't quick enough to fight back and I'd seen just half a dozen Maw take on hundreds in The Corridor.

Ten minutes later and the streets were filled with plague bearers. Hundreds of them. Reg and I were huddled down on the top floor, watching the stairs when the first wave of the zombies burst into the building. We both knelt at the top of the stairs, shooting them down one by one as they crawled over the top of each other, trying to get through the door, and to us.

"Reg, there are too many of them, we have to get out of here."

"We can't," he shouted back. "The streets are full of them, we wouldn't get through."

"Then what do we do? There are too many for the Maw to handle. They'll overwhelm us if we stay here."

"We have too. Hold tight and let your furry friends clear up. There can't be endless numbers of them."

There was a gap of maybe twenty seconds as some Maw attacked the area outside the front of the building and I realised that if we didn't do something fast, then we might die there. I looked around. Nothing but bricks and stone and...

The stairway was made of wood.

Creaky, rotten, brittle, dry wood, that was now even weaker after the rain.

I put my guns away and quickly grabbed the biggest piece of masonry that I could lift and hauled it over to the stairs, hefting it up as high as I could and letting it drop.

Crack. One of the steps collapsed as the block smashed through it.

Then Reg must have realised what I was doing and slung his shotguns, running over to wall and picking up two large bricks. He knelt down by the edge of the stairs and started pounding as hard as he could on the support beam. It cracked and began to collapse further and further with each hit.

I lifted up the next biggest lump of cemented bricks that I could find and hauled that over to the stairs, just as the doorway filled once more with groaning, crawling bodies. Two of the creatures broke away from the rest of the mass, and stumbled up the bottom of the stairs, falling over themselves to get to us. The first was faster and reached out towards me as I slammed the piece of masonry down on the top of the stairs as hard as I could.

The whole stairway screeched and cracked as the wood gave way and crashed to the ground floor. I stumbled back as the zombie that had been in front clawed its way up onto the remaining floorboards and reached out for me, grabbing my ankle and making me fumble and drop the gun that I had just drawn.

"Lie down," shouted Reg, from behind me.

I threw my shoulders back and lay my head against the wooden floor just as I saw the shotgun barrel inches away.

One loud blast and the zombie went tumbling away into the mass that was gathering below us.

I lay there for a moment, breathing heavily, then grabbed my guns and headed over to the window that Reg was now looking out of.

"It's pitch black out there. I can't see a damn thing, but I can hear your Maw friends doing their thing out there."

It was pointless lighting a torch. The rain would put it out in seconds.

Then I saw Rudy below in the street and Adler close behind, they were running through the mass of zombies, flailing their arms around. I'd clean forgotten how deadly my ghost friends were to zombies.

Rudy rushed through the ones that were trying to cram their way through the doorway and into our building. He didn't even reach out or touch any of them, just ran straight through them and into the downstairs floor. I was shocked to see the ones he ran through dropping to the ground and not moving.

It would seem that Rudy and Adler only had to touch the things to kill them.

Less than a minute later and the ground floor was silent. None of the bodies moved. Rudy and Adler had just run around, almost like they were performing some strange and manic dance, dropping the zombies with barely any effort.

We tried to rest for a few hours, up on the second floor, with Rudy and Adler guarding the downstairs throughout most of the night. I don't think I managed to drop off for more than a few minutes at a time with the constant din outside made by the Maw and the zombies.

When daylight came, the rain had finally subsided, and Reg and I climbed out of the window and down the wall to get outside, we saw just how many zombies there had been.

Everywhere, all over the ground were bodies, some pilled two or three high in places. There were enough gaps for us to weave our way between them, but the sheer number was mind-numbing.

Thousands.

"Whole damn town must have gotten infected and been sat here waiting for someone to come by for all these years," said Reg, "though I reckon that there is a lot more here than would have lived in just this town."

DogThing showed up as we were slowly winding our way through the mess, heading out of the town once more.

"But where were they hiding?"

"They weren't," said Adler. "I saw it from down on the street as you were settling in up in the building. They were buried under years and years of desert sand and dust. When the rain came it loosened it all up and they started crawling out of the ground.

"Crazy."

"But it must have rained before? They must have been washed out before now?"

"No," said Reg. "The rain only started a few days ago. I'd never seen anything like it in all the time I've been travelling these lands. Something strange happened just before I met all of you. Something changed and the rain came down. It's never rained like this before."

"Do you think we did this?" asked Rudy. "Did we do something to make the rain come?"

"Not anything that I can think of," said Adler.

"The rain from The Corridor?" I asked.

Adler looked thoughtful.

"Do you think that maybe the rain is somehow linked to us? Maybe to the compass?" he asked.

"I have no idea. But do we know anything about it?"

Wait

"DogThing. Did it always rain a lot where we went? I mean before we went to The Corridor."

"No."

"No. That's not it then."

"Look, folks," said Reg. "I hate to break up your little chat, but I think we need to get the hell out of this town. We don't know if that is all of the creatures. There could be more that haven't washed up."

No arguments there.

We headed straight out of the town, weaving our way through the mass of torn bodies. My stomach churned a few times as I saw the Maw feasting on their kills. I know that the creatures aren't human anymore and that they are monsters, but they had been once. At least DogThing didn't eat them in front of me.

It took us an hour to get out of the town, and several times one of us would fire a weapon into one of the piles of bodies where something still twitched.

I was relieved to be out on the open road and the desert again and we soon left the town behind. It felt safe out there, even though we were out in the open. I could see for miles.

Roughly thirty miles later and we found an outcrop of rock just off of the road that provided a good shelter in case the rain came down again.

Day 45

I saw something during the night that I will never, ever forget as long as I live.

It must have been the middle of the night when I awoke to the strange sound above us. Reg was asleep and Rudy and Adler were sitting on top of the rocky outcrop, looking out over the desert and talking in their usual hushed tones. I should have been exhausted, but for some reason got up and walked around the back of the rock and climbed up to where my ghost friends were sitting. I was surprised to find DogThing also up there, just a few feet away, snoring contentedly.

"Can't sleep?" ask Rudy.

"No."

"I should be..."

That was all I managed to say before the thing in the sky appeared. All three of us just sat there, staring, as it swept across the sky.

It was bigger than even some of the clouds, with wings that must have spread out for miles. If it hadn't been for the moon reflecting light down upon us, we probably would never have even seen its passing.

I can't even begin to describe completely how vast and beautiful the creature was, but I imagined that if it had landed it could have flattened an entire town. Maybe it was perspective, maybe I was just imagining that it was so huge, but underneath it, the clouds drifted. Long jagged wings bore a body that was covered in scales and a tail that seemed to trail out behind it for miles and miles. Its head was much like that of a lizard's, except the eyes that glowed a piercing orange light that burned brighter than the stars.

It gave a single, long and moaning sigh as it swept across the sky above us, pushing the vast clouds aside.

It was only there for a few moments, travelling at an immense a speed across the sky. A few seconds after it disappeared from view the wind hit us like an instant tornado that nearly knocked me off of the rock. A wall of sand and dust from the desert swept past us and then continued on its way across the desert.

Below, I could just make out the shapes of many of the Maw, all of them sitting looking up at the sky in the direction that the creature had passed.

"What manner of gods live in this place?" asked Adler, though I think it was more of a statement than a question. Rudy didn't say a word and I couldn't think of anything either.

As I settled back down to sleep again under the outcrop I wondered how many other strange surprises lay ahead of me.

When Reg woke me up, the sun was high in the sky already and the heat was blistering even though we were sheltered by the rock.

"I left you to sleep on account of how little we got in the town," he said.

I nodded and rubbed the dust from my eyes.

"You missed quite a sight last night," I said.

He looked up from the small campfire he was prodding with a stick.

"Oh?"

"Something huge flew over in the middle of the night. I've no idea what it was. I looked like some kind of massive lizard with wings. I mean, it was as big as a town.

He sat back and smiled at me.

"They are quite a sight, aren't they?" he said.

"You've seen them before?"

"Oh, I've seen them many, many times." He said with quiet laugh.

"What was it?"

"Legends in this world call them the Wind Gods. I've heard all manner of different tales about them from all over the place. They've been here as long as people can remember. Myth would have it that they are the ones that create the weather and the winds. No one has ever been able to make contact with them and they go about their lives just drifting across the sky, never even noticing those on the ground."

"It was an amazing sight."

"There are many amazing sights in this world," said Reg. "you want some soup?"

We saw our first glimpse of trees in the distance today, about midday. Just as Reg had said, they seem to spread across the foot of the mountains. He estimates that we are maybe two days from there now since we seem to be covering ground quite quickly. I hope we find another town soon, preferably one not so ruined, and not quite so occupied. We're running low on supplies now that there are two of us to feed, even if it does mean that the trolley is lighter and easier to pull along the road.

We camped out in the open again, this time in a small rock crevice.

Day 46

A quiet night for once.

We rose early, ate a rushed breakfast and then headed off soon after. There was no point wasting too much time.

The land was now changing with every mile. Flat, dry barrens were giving way to rockier ground that had a very slight uphill slope. The road was fortunately still running almost directly straight, so even though it was slightly harder work to walk along, we were still making good time. By the time the sun began to set, we were passing the odd copse of trees and there was grass in small patches. I'd noticed during our journey that there was little wildlife about, but now I could hear the odd chirp of birds in the trees, and glimpsed the occasional mouse or hare running for cover between the bushes.

We were just about to set up camp in a small copse of trees when Rudy spotted it.

A light in the distance, further up the road and only just hidden amongst some trees.

"It's probably only another half mile or so," said Reg. "Should we risk it?"

"Friendly do you think?"

"No idea. We better take it carefully," answered Reg.

"It may be worth the risk if they aren't hostile," suggested Adler. "Maybe Rudy and I could go on ahead and take a look around?"

Rudy nodded his agreement.

"Okay, do that, but don't go approaching anyone. We don't want to scare the life out of them. You are ghosts after all."

Rudy and Adler sped up, quickly leaving a gap between us as Reg and I slowed down.

A few minutes later they disappeared from view behind the trees that surrounded what appeared to be some kind of road-side station.

As I slowly approached, I could see that the building had recently been in use. Tracks in the dirt on the side of the road showed the passing signs of a vehicle, or more than one. There were footprints in the sandy ground that led up to the wooden porch at the front of the building, and more leading away.

It was a mostly single floor building, apart from one small area at the back that was brick built and two stories high. The whole place was boarded up, and the windows were covered with corrugated steel sheeting and in some places wooden planks. The front of the building had a low barricade, about waist height, that was built from broken pallets, metal panels from cars and some kind of metal railing or fence.

The place had been reinforced to be as defendable as possible.

Strangely the front door was wide open.

Rudy appeared through the door, just as I was slowly edging around, my guns aimed, to get a better look. Reg went round the back of the building, both shotguns ready.

"No one home," he said, "but it does look like someone lives here, or has done recently. There is even a cooking fire that looks like it's recently been put out."

"Why would they leave the front door open?" I asked.

"Maybe they didn't mean to?" said Rudy.

"Did you look upstairs?"

"Adler has just gone up there," answered Rudy, "but there is no one on the ground floor, we checked all the rooms and the shop front, even the garage."

Reg stepped out from the side of the building, having been full circle. He glanced at DogThing for a moment, who was standing in the road and sniffing the air.

"Fresh wood chopped up out the back. There's someone living here."

"But they aren't here right now."

Then I heard the noise. It was faint and distant, but definitely heading our way. The sound of a vehicle approaching down the road.

"Get to cover," I snapped, ducking behind the barricade and aiming both guns in the direction of the noise. Reg joined me, Rudy stepped back into the building, peering around the doorway, and DogThing ran over the road and hid in the bushes opposite. I couldn't see any of the other Maw, but I could sense that they were there. How hundreds of them could disappear so easily was baffling.

The sound of the vehicle grew louder, and moments later a bus slowed down and pulled over on the side of the road. It was a battered old mini bus that may have originally carried twenty or so people through a local city bus route, but now it was rusted, the windows were all covered in metal grating, and the front of the bus was reinforced with metal plating that had to have come from other vehicles.

The driver's door opened and someone stepped out. I say someone. They were human, living I would say, and covered from head to foot in brown and green clothing wrapped around every part of their body. Their face was covered by a scarf that was the colour of the desert sand.

There was movement inside the bus. There was more than one of them.

"Wait," said the man in a deep rough voice. He was staring at the front door and began to raise a crossbow that I hadn't seen concealed inside all the clothing.

"We don't want any trouble now," said Reg.

The man span round and aimed the crossbow in Reg's direction. Peering, trying to spot the speaker.

"Dad?" said a voice from inside the bus, young, female, probably a young child.

"Stay quiet," said the man. "Stay down."

A gasp of air from the bus.

I slowly stood up, aiming both guns at the stranger. Reg copied me, moving slowly. I could almost see the fear in the man's eyes at realising that there were more of us.

"We are just passing, we don't mean any harm," I said. "You lower the crossbow and we'll lower the guns."

"What do you want from us?" he asked.

"We were looking for somewhere to stay the night, also hoping for friendly faces, but if you don't want us here, we'll keep moving."

"You look like Resistance folk," he said, peering at my armour.

"We are," said Reg.

The man lowered his crossbow and Reg and I lowered our guns, as promised.

"Then we don't have a problem at all do we?" said the man, pulling off his scarf and smiling.

"Roberts is the name, Cory Roberts. This is Cheserton road stop. Resistance folks are welcome here. I've had you folks up here quite a few times and never had any trouble."

The he spotted DogThing on the other side of the road and began to raise his crossbow again.

"No!" I shouted, "He's friendly. They all are."

"All?"

"There are a few hundred of them in the woods at the moment, a whole pack, but they're with us and they won't harm anyone. If anything they'll keep this place damn secure whilst they're here."

"They Maw?" he asked.

"Yes."

"Okay. I'm not used to them being around. I've seen a few out in the desert a few times, killing off shamblers, but not seen one up close. You fellas fancy giving me a hand offloading all my stuff?"

Half an hour later and we were all sitting down eating stew. I didn't know what was in it and didn't ask, but it tasted fantastic and filled a gap that was so empty that I'd forgotten what it was like to have a full stomach. Cory's daughter, Shelly, was older than I had expected, at least in her teens. I was surprised how welcoming they were.

"So where are you all headed to then?" Cory asked us."

"Up into the forest," I said, glancing over at Reg, who was sitting stuffing his face. He nodded.

"We're looking for the Sisters of Rahl," I said. "I don't suppose you've heard of them or happen to know where we can find them?"

Cory stopped eating.

"Oh I've heard of them alright, and that's a dangerous place that you're headed to. I don't know exactly where they are, but if you head up into the hills following the road you'll eventually come to a crossroads. Take a left and follow that and you'll find the ruins of Landshaw. They live in that city somewhere. I never go up that far myself, heard too many tales of people disappearing up there. You know those Sisters don't have a good reputation for being friendly to visitors."

"It's only hearsay, dad," said Shelly. She looked over at me. "Not many people have made contact with them after they hid themselves away years ago. They used to go around all the towns, recruiting new members for their monastery and they used to take supplies to the towns and trade. I remember seeing them when I was very little. But they just went recluse all of a sudden and all contact stopped.

"I've heard enough stories to believe that some of it has to be true," said Cory.

Shelly smiled. "You'll have to excuse my dad, he doesn't trust many people. Well, apart from Resistance folks anyway."

"Resistance saved the town I was born in a long time ago, and brought us all here. They earned my trust by saving a lot of folk's lives. You were too young to even remember."

"Have many people travelled up to find them? I mean people coming through here," asked Adler. Cory frowned at him. Both he and Shelly seemed to find Rudy and Adler a little disturbing.

"A few over the years, and I never saw any of them come back again," said Cory.

"That's because not many people come by here twice unless they're traders," said Shelly, shaking her head.

I smiled.

"You don't get many visitors here then?" I asked.

"Not so many as we used to," said Cory. "At one time this road was busy, and we'd have folks come through here almost every week. You know, travellers moving to new places, traders shifting their salvage around. Last few years the road got quite. Must admit it suits us fine though. Less trouble."

"Trouble?"

"Occasionally we'd get a bunch of folks who were up to no good pass through. They soon learned that me and Shelly can look after ourselves good enough."

Day 47

I woke up late, with the sun already blazing high in the sky. For the first time in ages I'd had an amazing night's sleep, in a real bed. Well, in a bunk, and Reg snored the whole night on the top bunk. It didn't matter.

No one was up yet, so instead of disturbing anyone, I went outside and walked around the back of the buildings and then over to the fence on the edge of the trees. From there I could see almost to forever across the open desert plain. Everywhere amongst the trees outside of the fence I could see the Maw. I imagined that if Cory or Shelly had come out here and seen them it would have been quite unnerving for them.

It's strange how you get used to something so quickly.

"Good morning," said a voice nearby. I looked round to see Rudy approaching from the tree line. That was something I still wasn't used to. It didn't matter that he was walking on the ground that was covered in dry twigs and leaves. He still made no sound.

"It is," I said, "A very good one, for a change. Is Adler around?"

He smiled. "Oh, he is about here somewhere, seems to be intent on studying the local wildlife and plant life. Always the obsessive. Look, is anyone else up?"

I frowned. He looked concerned, or serious. I wasn't sure which, but I suspected I was about to find out.

"No. All still asleep, I think."

His tone became hushed.

"We found something last night. Whilst you were all asleep."

"What?"

"Underneath the station."

My nerves tingled.

"It's nothing bad. Don't worry. But we're pretty sure that it's something that they don't want us to know about. I knew that Cory wasn't happy about me and Adler. He was wary. And we both suspected that there was a reason. Well, we were right. When they all went to sleep, we had a little look around."

He looked around as though he was expecting to be found out at any moment.

"Rudy. Stop messing. What's under the station?"

"People," he said.

Now I was nervous and my mind immediately jumped to Reg, asleep in there on his own.

"People? Who? How many?"

"Eleven. We counted them. Nine children and two women," he whispered, "they were all asleep when we went down there. There is a hatch under the stairwell that leads down into what looks like some kind of shelter. They've got everything down there. Electricity, lighting, food stores."

"But why would they be under there? Do they have them locked in?"

"No. It's locked. We checked, but the lock is on the inside. The people down there must have locked it."

My mind was racing.

"That explains the open door."

"What?"

"The open door. When we got here the front door was wide open. When Cory arrived, when he and Shelly pulled up in the bus. He was looking at the front door."

"Oh."

"Yes. Oh. They saw us coming maybe? Look. Go and get Adler. I'll speak to Reg."

A couple of minutes later, and I was sitting on the chair opposite our bunks as Reg rushed to put his clothes on.

"Let me get this straight," he said. "You're telling me that there are a whole lot of people hiding away underneath us? Like they're entire family maybe?"

"Could be. Rudy says that it's locked up, but from inside. So they can't be prisoners. Whoever is down there locked themselves away before we got here."

"They must have seen us coming."

"Yes. They must have seen us and dashed for the bolt hole."

"Can we be sure of that, though?" asked Reg. "Is Rudy absolutely sure that the lock is on the underside?"

"He seemed sure of it. He said that they looked."

"So what do we do now? Go on pretending that we don't know? "

"I don't know."

"We can't leave them down there if they are locked up. We have to do something."

"Yes. You're right."

We were sitting with them over breakfast when I just came out with it. I'd stewed over how to approach them about it for about an hour and in the end decided that the best way was to just ask.

"Who are the people underneath the house?"

It was a very hard question to ask. They'd welcomed us in, fed us, and everything was cheerful up until that moment.

Silence. Everyone stopped eating. Shelly looked nervously at her father, who in turn just looked directly at me.

"What people?" he asked.

I shook my head.

"No point in trying to hide it, Cory. Eleven of them. Two women. The rest are children. Do you have them locked away or are they hiding from us?"

He took a deep breath and looked over at Shelly.

"Sweetheart. Go tell your mother that they don't need to hide anymore."

Shelly got up and left the room, heading for the stairs. Cory looked back at me.

"They would have hidden when you arrived. They're my family. Well, mine and my friend Jacob's. He and his sons are out on a trade run at the moment."

"We can leave if it makes you nervous," I said, looking at Reg, who nodded back.

"No," said Cory. "No need to leave. I didn't trust you when you first arrived, but now I can see that you're all decent folk who don't mean any harm."

Something occurred to me.

"That's why the door was open when we arrived, wasn't it? They were in a hurry and forgot to shut it."

"I would say so, yes," answered Cory. "Sentry would have alerted them before you were close."

"Sentry?"

"Oh. You're not the only ones who have helpers around," he said looking over at Adler and Rudy.

"There is someone like us here?" asked Rudy, looking surprised.

"No. He's not like you fellas at all. I'm sorry. He won't show himself to strange folks, especially with them Maw all over the place. He watches over the place, mostly watches over the children. Arrived a few months ago. Just turned up and started loitering around. Made everybody very nervous at the time. But then one day one of the kids nearly got attacked. It was little Ella, the youngest here. She's not one of mine or Jacob's. We kind of adopted her when her folks passed on. Anyhow, she was out near the back fence, just playing around, and half a dozen kre'esh came bounding through the trees. They would have been on her before anyone even had the chance to do anything, but no one had to. Our loiterer killed all of them before they could get anywhere near the child. It was the most surreal thing I'd ever seen in my life, and I've seen some strange things. I heard all the noise, and ran around the back as fast as I could, to find little Ella sitting on the ground, still playing with her toy car in the dirt. All over the place were the torn apart bodies of the kre'esh. She was still singing to herself, and our new visitor was standing perfectly still just a few feet away, watching her."

"Fascinating," said Adler.

"He never talks. Never interacts with anyone. Just stands watching out over the desert and kills anything that comes near that he deems a danger. Sometimes he will go to the children and point into the house. That means get yourself away, quickly. I don't know much about him, only that you can't see him very clearly, like a shadow, and that I'm more grateful to him than almost any other living thing I ever met. He's like some kind of guardian. If you ask Ella about it, she just says the angel is her friend."

"So we're actually quite lucky that he hasn't taken offence to us," I said.

"Very much so. I'm not sure how you found out about them being under there, but I'm very surprised that whoever looked didn't get themselves killed."

Rudy stood up from the chair he was sitting on.

"It was me that spotted them. I saw a light coming from a gap near the stairs and was just curious."

He looked over at Adler.

"I said to you at the time that I thought we were being watched."

"So you did," Adler agreed. "I'd forgotten. I never felt the presence you were speaking of. I thought you were being paranoid. It seems, my good friend, that your instincts once more prove me wrong."

We were planning to leave early, but once we were all outside, with the children running around and playing, any sense of urgency to leave just vanished. I could see by my friend's expressions that they were just as thrilled to see life once more. At one point, later on in the day, when I was standing out by the back fence, just watching over the desert, I heard some quiet footprints behind me. I turned to see one of the children, Ella, the youngest one, standing smiling at me.

"Hello little one," I said.

"I'm not that little. My angel says I'm specially made to be small, and that small is the bestest."

"Does he now?"

"That's what I said, didn't I?" she said, frowning at me.

I laughed.

"Yes, you did."

She climbed up onto a box next to the fence and peeped over.

"My angel likes your doggies. He says they are going to be his friends now."

I frowned this time.

"Oh? Really? I'm glad he likes them. I kind of like them too."

"You've got too many of them though," she said.

"Yes, I do seem to have picked up a few more than I expected."

She beamed a smile at me that was dazzling and infectious. I couldn't help but grin back at her.

"It's okay, though. Some of them are going to stay with me and my angel. They like it here."

"Um...okay. How do you know that?"

She looked back out towards where some of the Maw were sleeping in the shade of the trees.

"They told me so. My angel told them they should stay here and look after me and the other children, and that we can help them look after all their children too. So they said yes. I like the big one with the big bright fluffy bit on her head. She's funny."

"Yes, I like her too. She's been with me for quite a while.

"Her name is Mo," she said.

"Yes. It is. I gave her that name."

I felt a tingle run down my spine. I gave Mo her name only in my head, weeks ago, when we were in The Corridor, and I've never told anyone.

"That's okay. I won't tell anyone if it's a secret."

Then Ella went off to play with the other children out the front of the house, leaving me both puzzled and not just a tiny bit unnerved.

Day 48

We rose early the next morning whilst it was still dawn. The plan was to leave as soon as the sun came up. We packed up some new supplies that Cory had given us and said our goodbyes, making more than one promise to come back this way soon. I tried giving Cory something in return for their hospitality, but he wouldn't have any of it. Not that I had a lot to give.

Just as we started off up the road, Ella ran after us and handed me something small wrapped in a grey cloth.

"Promise don't open it til you are a long, long way. It's a surprise and secret."

"I promise, and thank you."

She ran back to the station and stood next to Cory. As we headed up the road I looked back more than once. She was still there, even though everyone else had either gone back in the house or in the children's case, probably off to play. I could still see her watching us when we were nearly a mile away, just as we turned a bend and the trees obscured the building.

I stopped pulling the trolley along, and reached into my pocket, taking out the small cloth that she had given me. Rudy, Adler and Reg were walking ahead of me. Only DogThing stopped and peered back.

I opened the cloth and looked at what was inside. Just a single folded up piece of paper and a tiny flower. A white flower, and the kind of which I knew only too well.

I unfolded the tiny piece of paper. Until I could see what was written on it. It was just a few words, not much, but I felt my heart jump at reading them.

I wil be redy wen tis time for me to go wif yoo ganda. Eleanor

That was it. Nothing more, but it was enough to scare the crap out of me. First she could read my thoughts, and then that. I folded the paper back up with the flower and put it away into a pocket that I could button up. Tried to take my mind off of it and think of something else, but it was almost impossible. As we had left I noticed how a few of the Maw had just stood and watched us from the trees. She had been right. They were staying.

Throughout the day we made our way at what felt like a snail's pace, gradually uphill as the road wound its way through the trees. Along the way we passed run-down buildings that may once have been houses or farms. The buildings were mostly collapsed and crumbling ruins. One of the houses, right up next to the road, still had some clothes on a line that was stretching from inside one of the windows to a pole near the side of the road. The clothes, that must once have been white, were now a muddy grey colour and were barely clinging on. I wondered how long they had been hanging there.

It was mid afternoon when we finally reached the crossroads that Cory had mentioned. Further on ahead of us the road seemed to crumble into nearly nothing as it wound further upwards and into the mountains. I could see that even further up a collapse had happened at some point in time and the road was completely covered with mud and stones that had to have come from the huge chunk that was missing in the rock face above it. To the right, the road ran even steeper, winding its way up and over the top of the area of rock that had collapsed.

Left.

That is what he had said.

No words were spoken. We simply all turned into the new road that fortunately ran almost straight along the top of the ridge. It wasn't until we had walked a few hundred yards that I noticed the first of the blackened buildings in the distance.

Landshaw. The buildings had to be the beginning of the ruined city, where Cory said The Sisters of Rahl lived.

We walked on for maybe two more hours, so that some of the buildings were about half a mile away, and then stopped. I'd already said I wanted us to go into the city in daylight, just in case. No one disagreed. We all knew that what we were going to find in there might be easier to handle if the sun was shining.

We set up camp and even lit a fire this time. Reg insisted on it. He wanted to cook before we went into the city. I watched him as he set up the pot and poured some random tins into it. Beans, Lentil soup. Beef chunks.

"I thought you might try and rush into there tonight," I said to him.

"Oh. Yes. It did cross my mind. But after the warnings that Cory gave us, I want daylight just as much as you do."

"I'd have expected you to be in a hurry, considering that your wife may be in there, somewhere."

"Well. You would think that wouldn't you? I've been waiting so long that another day won't make much difference. And to come all this way and get killed by some night creature just a short way from finding her is not in my plan. I may not look old anymore James, but I've got a lot of years of patience behind me and I've learned to trust my instincts."

"Understood."

"And damn it if a few hundred of those Maw around us hasn't convinced me to wait as well. Why go alone?"

I laughed at that.

Rudy appeared from behind one of the trees nearby.

"Me and Adler are going to go into the city to investigate. Unless you have any objections?"

I couldn't think of any reason why not to have a heads up on the place. And some ghostly and unkillable scouts were the best people for the job.

"Sure. Go for it. Just keep low and don't draw too much attention if you can help it. I'd rather not have a whole city of dead things wandering about, ready for us when we go there tomorrow. If that is what is in there."

"We'll take care of any that we find. Don't worry."

I smiled. My own personal zombie clearing advance party.

Rudy started to walk away, but then stopped and turned back.

"Is it just my imagination, or have more than half of the Maw left us?"

"Yes. They have. I noticed it too. I'd ask DogThing what's going on, if he were around. A lot of them stayed back at the station, but I've seen quite a few wandering off in various directions into the woods the whole day."

"Good," said Rudy."Well, no not necessarily good, but at least It's not just me seeing things. The young ones and the females have gone, haven't they? It seems to be mainly the big black ones left. Adler is still trying to figure out what he calls their 'social structure'. It baffles me. I hope they don't all go running off. I liked having them around to watch over you. Made me feel a little less worried."

"We'll be fine. There are enough of them still prowling around to alert us of anything coming our way."

"Okay. Good. We'll be back before the sun comes up."

"Good luck."

I watched him head off into the woods, and smiled as he just stepped through one of the trees. Finally he was getting used to his new form. Is that what it's called? His new life.

Day 49

Rudy and Adler were waiting on the road when I woke up, but DogThing was still not around when the sun had been up for over an hour.

"Did you find anything?" I asked.

Rudy shook his head.

"Lots of empty buildings."

"The place is absolutely huge," said Adler. "It goes sprawling for miles. We didn't really get to look around that much of it and we were walking all night. It was very quiet in there, no animals moving around, which may not be a good sign, but also nothing else that we could find, and we delved quite deep in some buildings."

"Also no supplies," said Rudy. "The place is completely burned out. You'll see when we get there. Looks like the whole city burned."

We were soon all packed up and waiting, the Maw milling around us and looking edgy.

Still no DogThing.

"Do we wait longer?" asked Reg.

"No. No point. Where the hell is he?"

"No idea, my friend," said Adler. "But it's not like he hasn't done it before. He usually seems to know where to find you."

"True. Let's get going. Maybe we'll catch up with him."

As we moved along the road, I noticed that the Maw were sticking closer to us. I also noticed that Reg had both of his shotguns at hand, where he would normally only carry one, with the other slung over his shoulder. I guess he was as edgy as me.

There were significantly less Maw now. Maybe only a dozen of the big black ones surrounded us. They were even walking in the road alongside us, where they would normally have been creeping through the trees at a distance. One of them even walked at my side. I wasn't sure whether to be re-assured by him or more nervous.

Roughly half an hour of walking and we passed the first of the burned out buildings. Everywhere around us the blackened ruins rose from amongst the trees. It seemed that over time a whole forest had risen up in the streets, between the hollow ghosts that had probably once been a thriving place. In amongst the trees were the rusted ruins of vehicles, but there were no skeletons in the seats, and there were no remains anywhere to be seen. All of the buildings were blackened with soot.

Reg stopped and looked towards a massive high-rise building that rose out of the tree line a few hundred yards from us.

"You were right about this whole place being burned to the ground," said Reg, shaking his head.

"Indeed," said Adler. "Quite an astonishing sight isn't it?"

Reg looked at me. "Did Cory say anything about where to look?" asked Reg.

"No. Just that they live in this city, somewhere."

"Christ. The Sisters could be anywhere. We have no idea how big this place is."

"Cory said it was once a city, so it's probably going to be big, but we have to start somewhere. Just keep looking for any signs of life."

There were none. We searched street after street all day, and must have walked for miles. Several times we ended up back in the same place having managed to go full circle around a block of buildings. Then late afternoon we crossed over a bridge that spanned a dried up river, or a canal. It looked far too straight to be natural.

"We didn't come this far," said Rudy. "We stopped just back there because the sun was coming up.

We headed further along the street, moving slowly between the ruins and the trees. It was strange to see trees that were hundreds of feet tall just poking up in the middle of the road. At one point we came across one that Adler said was an oak tree, or at least similar. It must have been three hundred feet tall, with the branches spanning across the entire road. In places the end of the branches continued out of sight into the sides of various buildings, and I could see that the walls and windows of the buildings had collapsed inwards to let the mammoth creature spread its arms wide.

Eventually we made our way to what I believed must once have been the very centre of the city. All around us the trees grew together and wound around each other. There were no buildings in the way here, and I could see that the area had once been a huge plaza of some kind, so large that you might have been able to land a plane in it. All around the outside of the plaza were the remains of some of the biggest and most elaborate buildings I had ever seen in my life. They were massive, sprawling affairs, with columns and rows upon rows of open stone balconies that seem to climb their way up into the very clouds.

It was there, in one of the smaller buildings where there were still a few doors and the place looked reasonably untouched by the massive fire that must have destroyed most of the rest of the city so long ago, that we found a second floor room overlooking the entire plaza and camped up. Reg lit a fire in the centre of the room, which must have been some kind of meeting place if the piles of broken chairs and broken vending machines were anything to go by.

Strangely, I noticed that the Maw were staying very close to us, still. They were all in the same room with us, where normally they would wander out and find somewhere to hide away for the night. These Maw were all sitting at the windows and the stairwells, watching.

I went over to the nearest vending machine and prodded around in the wreckage, smiling as I spotted three cans of drink buried under the dust and twisted plastics and metal. I pulled them out and wiped them down.

Cola. The same brand that I had drunk myself nearly to death with in The Corridor.

Reg and I were sitting drinking two of the cans when it happened.

First, one of the Maw, a large one that was over near one of the windows, stood up and snorted sharply. The other Maw immediately jumped up from their positions and began sniffing the air. Some of them started growling very quietly and scratching the ground.

I may not have been able to communicate with them, but I knew what those signals were.

Something was coming. Something that was not friendly.

I put the can down and grabbed the two guns that were at my feet, checked the two that were strapped to my thighs, and stood up. Reg moved quickly to grab his shotguns, frowning at me.

"Something coming, you think?"

I nodded. Walking over towards the window where the first Maw was now standing, staring out into the darkness.

"What's that noise?" asked Rudy, but was then silent, listening.

The sounds were distant and quiet, screeches echoing through the buildings far away, drawing slowly closer to us as the minutes went by. They seemed to be everywhere, yet nowhere that I could pinpoint. One high pitched rasp would echo through the skeletal buildings and be answered moments later by another. The sound made my skin crawl. It was like nothing that I had ever heard before, and much more chilling than the groan of a zombie or the howls and barking of the Maw. Gradually the screeching sounds drew much closer. They were in the buildings around the plaza now. We kept close to the edges of the windows, all of us silent.

Then I saw them, moving swiftly through the trees and across the plaza, like shadows. Hundreds of them darting between the massive trunks and jumping over the car wrecks that littered the ground.

They were running fast and heading straight towards our building. The rubble between us and them seemed to slow them down only for a moment before they leapt up and over it.

"What on earth are they?" asked Adler. He and Rudy were crouched by the window next to me.

"I have no idea, but they don't look like they are here just to say hello."

"There's a lot of them," said Reg.

As I glanced around the bottom of the plaza and the area around our building, trying to see where they would enter the building, the first of them hit the wall below us and started climbing. Others joined it, clawing their way up the broken stone work at a speed that made my heart jump, and yet more of them burst into the ground floor through the broken windows. I could hear them running across the ground below, heading for the stairs. The first of them reached just ten feet away when we started firing. I could see its eyes glowing in the darkness, the mass of sharp teeth that were bared and ready to bite. They were humanoid and roughly the same size as a man, except they were thin. Their dark skin looked stretched over a fragile frame of bones, like a human that was near starvation. Come to think of it now, they looked like they were starving. Hungry for us.

I'd only just managed to take in all of the features of the nearest one when Reg's shotgun tore the creature apart, also knocking three others from the wall to fall backwards to the ground.

More climbed the wall faster than I could take in. I fired at one of them that was climbing up the edge of the building, just a few feet from where I was standing, then at another that was close behind. My guns didn't have a blast effect like Reg's, so I was going to have to aim carefully and make every shot count.

Growls and screaming erupted behind us and a quick glance back revealed that the fight between the Maw and whatever these creatures were had started on the stairs. Three of the Maw were blocking the way up, taking it in turns to dart forward and bite at the creatures, each time catching one in its teeth, shaking it furiously and then launching the dead thing back down the stairs on top of those trying to make their way up. The other Maw were blocking the other windows, lashing out at any of the creatures that tried to get through.

There was no exit. They had us completely surrounded, and there were so many of them that I was sure that this was to be the end of us.

One of the creatures darted into sight from the wall next to me. I hadn't seen it come up from the ground. It had to have come down from above. It lashed out at me, claws scratching deep into my shoulder but not penetrating my jacket. I stepped back and kicked out with my boot, connecting hard with its chest and sending it stumbling backwards into the mass below. Another dropped down to take its place, but this time one of the Maw darted forward and ripped the things legs out from underneath it. Grey liquid splattered the ground as the top half of the creature fell backwards out of the window to tumble down to the ground below.

My eyes focused beyond the gap that was left behind, a window in the chaos that was around me. Down in the plaza, the creatures were still swarming over the trees and wreckage. There were far more of them than I had first thought, and there was no way that we were going to be able to withstand this kind of assault for the time it would take to kill them all.

There were too many of them.

In my head I screamed. Where the hell was DogThing? Had he already died, been killed by these creatures?

"Not dead. Trapped."

My heart jumped yet again as his voice echoed in the back of my mind. I dodged down and shot rounds off at two more of the creatures that leapt into view.

"Where are you? You must be close."

"Trapped."

"Where?"

"Under the ground. Tunnels."

"What? How did you get down there?"

"Under the buildings. Ways. I searched. The Tunnel collapsed."

"We're under attack. So many of them."

"Go to the tunnels."

Down. We had to go down.

"Reg, Rudy, Adler. Get ready to go. We have to leave."

Reg looked back at me for the briefest of moments, wide eyed.

"Where the hell are we gonna go? They're everywhere."

"DogThing is close and says that he is trapped underground in some tunnels. We may be able to escape down there. We have to go down the stairs and have to somehow get the Maw to clear the way."

"You can't talk to them," shouted Rudy. "Or can you?"

I went into my head again, still somehow able to fire at the creatures that were now swarming into the windows. Reg and I backed away, unable to keep up with so many of them jumping at us from different directions.

"DogThing. Can you reach the Maw that are with us? Can you speak to them?"

"Yes."

"Guide them. Please. Tell them we need to go down to the tunnels. They need to clear the way."

I backed further away, edging slowly towards the stairs. Reg was now standing shoulder to shoulder with me, unloading shot after shot into the creatures. Rudy and Adler tried to help, but their ability to hurt zombies didn't seem to apply to these new creatures, whatever they were.

Come on, DogThing, I thought. Get them moving.

Almost as though the Maw had heard me, they moved as one, backing away from the windows and towards us. Three of them broke off and dashed across the gap, leaping past us and down into the stairwell to join their brothers. As we began to take the stairs, slowly at first, but then faster as the Maw intensified their assault, it became more difficult with each step to try and fire weapons up the stairs. There were half a dozen Maw up there, furiously tearing at the mass of creatures that now poured down the stairs after us. How the Maw manage to fight on without seeming to suffer injury just baffled me.

We took the first few flights of stairs steadily, but after that the way seemed to clear. We passed the ground floor and just kept on going. The Maw in front of us were now running, taking down the few night creatures that had strayed downwards instead of heading up the stairs to the floor that we had been on. Flight after flight of stairs I ran down, nearly stumbling several times, but Reg was always behind me.

Then the stairs ended. A set of double doors and scattered broken glass was at the bottom. Beyond the doors it was dark, but there was just enough light coming from above to figure out that we were on some kind of platform. A few yards ahead and the floor dropped away, down onto railway tracks.

An underground railway.

"We need to block up the door," shouted Adler.

"With what?"

I glanced around quickly, trying to find something, anything. Every second or so the quiet of the station was shattered with the sound of Reg firing at the creatures that were still following us down the stairs. There weren't so many now, but I was convinced that our escape route would not remain quiet for long.

I spotted it. Over the top of the doors and ran forward.

"Shutters. There are metal shutters."

"Then you better figure out damn quick how to get them down," said Reg, taking aim and firing another shot. "I can hear them coming, lots of them, and we don't have long."

I glanced around. I needed something to climb up on, and I'd abandoned the trolley in our rush to escape. But I couldn't see anything.

"Over here," shouted Rudy.

I ran over to the dark corner of the platform, where his voice was coming from, and saw the stack of boxes. They were empty, and only made of flimsy wood, but I only needed them to hold together for a few seconds. I grabbed two and ran back to the doors. Reg was now firing as fast as he could out into the stairwell. Behind him, the dozen Maw were crouched, ready to take down anything that got through.

I dropped the first box and stacked the second on top, jumped up, took hold of the bottom of the shutter and pulled down as hard as I could. There was a creaking noise, followed by something snapping, and I nearly fell on top of Reg as the steel shutter came slamming down into the ground, just as some more of the night creatures appeared at the bottom of the stairs.

Moments later and the steel shutter was shaking and rattling as they tried to get through.

I collapsed to the ground, breathing heavily, next to Reg, who was covered in sweat and gasping as loud as I was.

"What the hell are those things?" I asked.

"I have no idea," said Reg, shaking his head. "I've never seen anything like them before."

I was exhausted.

"I really hope these Sisters of Rahl are going to be worth this."

"Me too."

Rudy was pacing the ground and looking warily at the dark entrances either end of the platform.

"What if they find another way down here?" he asked.

"They more than likely will," said Adler. "They seem quite determined."

"Yes. We need to move. We can't stay here. Anyway, DogThing is trapped down here somewhere, and needs help."

"He is? Is he hurt?" asked Rudy.

"I don't think so. Just stuck. Give me a moment. I need to try and talk to him."

I closed my eyes and thought of DogThing again.

"Where are you DogThing?"

"I don't know. In the tunnels, the wall broke and I was stuck. Here."

That last word was almost like a beacon to me. He was there. When he spoke to me, I could feel it. I could vaguely sense where he was. There was a room off of a platform similar to the one that we were now on, somewhere along the same line. He had gone in there and somehow not been able to get out. I just had to try and figure out where it was.

"What were you doing down here?"

"Following a scent. I knew the smell. I can't think of who it is. I went to look."

I stood up, glancing left and right at the two dark holes either end of the platform. We had to pick one.

"Okay. He is down here in these tunnels, off of one of the platforms, but I don't know exactly where."

Reg frowned.

"So I guess we just pick one?"

I walked to where the boxes had been, trying to see down the tunnel, but it was too dark.

"This way?"

There was a low growl behind me, and I turned to see one of the Maw standing a few feet away. It sniffed the ground and then moved a few feet in the other direction, stopping and turning to look at me again. The other Maw were on their feet now, some of them moving towards the other end of the platform.

"Can you smell him?" I asked the Maw.

It scratched at the floor and then took a few more steps along the platform, sniffed the ground and then looked up at me. It made a low whining noise.

"You can, can't you?"

I moved forward, following the Maw.

"Follow the Maw," I said. "They can find him."

A few minutes later, torches lit, and we were jogging along the rail track behind the Maw. We passed three platforms that were a few hundred yards apart, the entrances collapsed and littered with debris, old broken boxes and shopping trolleys lying on the ground, covered in decades of dust. In amongst the rubbish and the decay were skeletons, covered in huge cobwebs that had to have been made by particularly large spiders. They covered areas metres wide. I tried not to think about it too much as we searched for signs of DogThing.

At the fourth station I noticed paw prints in the dust that lead over to an open doorway. This platform was very different to the previous ones. Most of those had been simply laid out, with one set of doors that were either already shuttered, or collapsed. This one had two levels, with a stairway leading up to the higher platform. Three doors lead off of it. Two that were closed, and another that was wide open.

The paw prints led inside.

One of the Maw took a sniff of the door and then backed away.

"Looks like we're near," I said. "Wait out here. I'll look inside."

"I'm coming with you," said Reg.

I shined the torch through the gap, and saw almost straight away where DogThing had gone. The room was large, and stacked high with dusty boxes, but straight through the middle was a wide path that led to another opening, and his paw prints were visible in the dirt.

"Looks like some kind of storage depot," said Reg. "We might find something useful here."

"We're near. I know we are."

I walked slowly through the room, wondering what was in the boxes that were stacked up a dozen high in places, and glancing into the dark corners. This place made me feel uneasy.

On the other side of the room the second entrance led out into a passage that went on for a long way, but I didn't need to go far. Just as I reached what looked like a small section of collapsed wall, on the right, about twenty feet down the passage, I heard a bark.

I looked down, shining the torch so that we could both see. Some of the wall and the floor had collapsed down into what looked like some kind of drainage area. At the bottom, maybe ten feet down, was DogThing, and he was lying underneath a pile of rubble and metal pipes.

With Reg's help, I hung down from the passage and dropped to the ground, next to DogThing, and began shifting the rubble off of the pile of metal pipes that he was pinned under. Ten minutes later, I was sweating like crazy and breathing heavily, but DogThing managed to crawl out from underneath the mess. He was limping.

"Did you hurt your leg?"

"Yes. But it will be okay soon."

It's not an easy task to lift a massive dog that is easily as heavy as a man, up on to your shoulders. I had no idea that the Maw were that heavy, and DogThing was relatively small when compared to the huge, black things upstairs.

He hopped off of my shoulders and scrambled up the few feet of rubble, into the passage above. Reg reached down and helped me climb back out again.

Outside on the platform, we all sat down on some of the boxes from the store. Reg was busy opening some of them up and throwing aside what look like table cloths and bottles of cleaning fluid.

"Damn maintenance stores for cleaners by the looks of it," he cursed.

"Didn't think we would be that lucky," I answered.

I looked over at DogThing, who was busy licking his leg.

"So, what were you searching for down here?"

"I don't know. I was just wandering around the city and smelled what I thought was a person. I went to look, but it led me here."

"We should get moving," said Rudy. "We have no idea if those creatures up there will find their way down."

I started to go down the stairs with the others following me. DogThing was still limping a bit, but seemed otherwise okay. I'd seen him recover from worse.

The Maw were waiting down on the lower platform. I sensed that something was not quite right, even before I got close to them. They were all crouched low, looking at something along the track.

I moved between them, peering through the darkness until the torchlight reached the end of the platform.

A figure was standing up on the platform, barely twenty feet away. Humanoid.

Reg went to raise his shotgun, and I lifted my handgun, ready.

"You will not need those weapons here," said a woman's voice. "If you have peaceful intentions, then nothing here will harm you, and those outside will not come here."

She moved forward, stepping further into the light of the torch. She was tall, easily my height, and very pale skinned. Her eyes were so dazzling that they seemed to almost be on fire.

"Are you a Sister of Rahl?" asked Reg.

"Indeed," said the woman. "What reason do you have to be here? Men should not come here, lest they become what you have seen outside."

"Those creatures?" I asked. "They were once men?"

"Yes," said the woman. "They were the original inhabitants of the city. The male ones at least. The city was attacked by The Horde and everyone infected with the same affliction. The virus doesn't react very nicely with men's blood. Now they will forever be bound to a torturous fate. As would you, if you were bitten by one of them. I do hope you weren't. I would have to deal with you if that was the case."

"Well, we didn't come here to harm anyone," said Reg. "We are from the Resistance."

Her expression softened for a moment.

"Be that as it may. Then you may be welcome here, but that is not for me to decide."

"Who is the one who decides?" asked Adler.

"If you chose to come further, then the council will decide. You may come, but you must promise that your Maw will behave themselves, and that you will put away your weapons."

I nodded.

"We agree."

In my mind I spoke to DogThing.

"Tell the Maw they must relax and not attack anyone in here."

There was a moment of silence.

"They understand."

The woman looked at the Maw.

"You can guarantee that they will not attempt to attack anyone?"

"Yes."

She was looking straight into my eyes now. I could feel something. Some kind of prying.

"What is your name?"

"James. James Halldon."

At that, her eyes opened wide. Surprised.

"How is this so? You were believed to be dead," she said.

"You know of me?"

"Of course I know of you. What is wrong? If you don't remember the Sisters, then you are either lying, or your brain is faulty. Either way. Come, quickly. I don't like walking these tunnels."

I wanted to answer, and to ask her questions. At last, someone who knew of me in the past. But she turned away.

"This is not the time," she said.

We followed her into the darkness of the next tunnel, our torches barely giving enough light to see twenty feet ahead of us. Along the new section of tunnel was even more rubble and debris than we had seen in the others. Some of the walls had given way and lay crumbled on the ground a few feet thick, and water poured from some broken pipes that had been exposed by the collapse. After a few hundred yards I saw the light ahead. It was a sharp, white light, not like the glow that came from a natural fire. This seemed harsh somehow.

After another hundred yards or so we emerged from the tunnel into another platform. This one was clear of all rubbish. A bright florescent light hung from a wire over the top of the doorway in the middle of the platform. It flickered on an off every few seconds, but was bright enough for me to see that the end carriageway of a train was sticking out of the opposite tunnel. Across the top of the train, the tunnel had collapsed. Stone, bricks and mud filled the entrance so that only about half of the carriage was not submerged. There would be no way of getting around the train.

The woman jumped up on to the platform and led us towards the train, pulling open the rear door to let us in. I was the first through, with Reg right behind me. Rudy and Adler followed. I saw straight away that all the fittings and furniture that may have once been on the train had been removed so that the carriages had become a metal tunnel through the tonnes of fallen rock outside.

The woman waited whilst DogThing and rest of the Maw shuffled their way through the door and onto the train, then she pulled the door shut.

"You will wait in here whilst I go ahead and speak to my sisters."

We waited for what seemed like hours, but I would imagine that it wasn't really that long. As I sat on the floor, I took out the small note that the girl from the road station had given me and read it again.

They had called her Ella, but she had called herself Eleanor. Somehow that was important, but I just couldn't place why. I was still puzzled that she seemed to think that I would be going back for her. Why would she think that I would do that? It's not like her adopted parents would just let a stranger take the child away.

A noise from the other end of the carriage snapped me out of my thoughts. Three robed figures approached us along the train, stopping a few feet away.

"You may come," said one of the figures, a different woman by the sound of her voice. This voice was deeper, sterner.

We followed, and I was surprised to find how long the train was. At least four carriages held up the collapsed tunnel, and another two emerged at the other end. The platform that we stepped out onto was also abandoned. The door in middle of this one was much larger, as was the platform itself. As we walked into the passageway I glanced up towards the huge, rusty sign that hung on the wall above, lit up by yet another florescent light.

Landshaw Sports Stadium.

The women in robes walked ahead of us, not even glancing back to see whether or not we followed. The passageway that they led us along was much larger than any of the others had been, and it sloped upwards gradually. Along the walls were broken glass panels that still held in place the remains of huge pictures. People dressed in bright clothing standing upon small platforms with bright medallions around their necks. Soon the passageway opened up into a vast hall. All around were shop fronts and broken seating. Hanging from the ceiling were the cracked and broken remains of large display screens. It looked like some kind of shopping mall, where there would have been cafes and gift shops. One large, open space looked like it might have been a bar of some kind. Now, of course, all of the furniture was falling apart, and various stains tainted the frayed carpet.

We climbed an escalator that was covered in rust and cobwebs and probably hadn't worked for many, many years, and then entered another walkway. This one had an old ticket booth in the entrance. The windows were long gone and even the wooden booth itself looked close to collapsing in. Still sitting in the chair, slumped over the counter, was a skeleton without a head.

No one spoke. We all just followed.

The walkway finally opened out into a wide grass field, surrounded by sloped stalls of chairs that climbed higher and higher into the sky. Dotted all around were the same hanging florescent lights. There were hundreds of them, maybe thousands, glowing eerily and reminding me far too much of the strange, glowing plants in The Corridor, all of which only emphasised the sight that awaited us in the middle of the stadium.

I couldn't have counted how many there were, but at least fifty, maybe a hundred, massive marquee tents were laid out across the huge field. Some of them must have been fifty feet high in the centre, and they were all joined together by covered walkways.

I was too busy standing and staring in awe at the sight in front of me to notice that the women had stopped, and one of them was now just a few feet away from me.

"This is the home of the Sisters of Rahl. You are fortunate to see it. Not many men have seen this place and lived. In fact, from my knowledge, only some of the soldiers of the Resistance have been here. You of course," she said, looking directly at me, "have been here before. Though, it is apparent that you do not remember."

I looked back at her.

"I had an accident and lost my memory. That is why I'm here."

"I see," she said. "We will have to do something about that.

"That is what I had hoped."

She looked around at the others, and then the Maw.

"All of these are with you?"

"Yes. Well, Reg here is looking for someone."

Reg stepped forward and bowed.

"My name is Reginald Weldon. And I lost my wife many, many years ago. I have tried to find her, and it has led me here. I hope that you can be of some help. Is there any chance that she is here? Or if not, could you tell me where she went to?"

The woman stared at Reg.

"Reginald Weldon you say?"

"Yes maam."

She turned to one of the others and spoke quietly to her.

"What is your wife's name?"

"Marie. Marie Weldon."

She nodded.

"The woman who was once your wife is here. She has been a member of our order for many years. Word will be sent to her that you are here. I cannot promise that she will want to see you, though. Sisters of Rahl leave their old lives behind when they take up their vows."

She looked at me.

"You must all rest. In the morning we will talk."

Day 50

It was only a few hours before the sun came up. Most of our night had been spent running from the creatures that had swarmed the city, and then stumbling around the underground railway, but I still managed to get some sleep in the tent that they took us to.

Tent seems hardly the word to use. Inside, the marquee was huge.

I glanced around when I woke up. DogThing was lying at my feet, but no one else was around. He shifted his legs, and then looked up at me. How did he do that? He always seemed to wake up the moment I did. Something to do with our mental connection, maybe.

I walked out of the nearest exit and into the sun. It was blisteringly hot outside, the glare of the sun almost too much to bear, but I wandered around for a while with DogThing tagging along behind me. I saw some of the Maw up in the stadium stands, lying on the chairs in the shade, and then I spotted Reg. He was walking along one of the paths that wound all the way around the stadium between the rows of seating, about half way up the stands, and he wasn't alone.

With him was a young woman, obviously one of the Sisters by the way she was dressed. She was walking with her arm in his.

"Amazing isn't it?" said a voice behind me.

I turned to see Rudy sitting on one of the seats. I hadn't noticed him there.

"What is?"

Rudy nodded towards Reg.

"He has been looking for her for about ninety years."

I looked up at them both and then back at Rudy.

"So she really was here."

"Yes. It would seem so. She has been for a very long time. Apparently she doesn't remember everything from the time they were married, but she remembers enough of it. Seems you're not the only one who has lost their memory. Their mind-seer, at least I think that's what they called her, tried to restore Marie's memory a long time ago, but it didn't work completely. It has taken a lot of time."

"Hmm. I was wondering if she would want to see him, based on how the Sisters spoke last night. Speaking of which, have you seen any of the other sisters?"

"Yes. Adler was talking to some of them over in their garden, and the one in charge left a message that you should go to the centre marquee when you are awake."

I looked up at Reg and his wife one more time before heading back inside. After nearly ninety years, he really had found her again, and they were both alive. Strange how things turn out.

I eventually found my way around the maze of tents to the central marquee, a much larger space than the others. There were a lot more Sisters than I had first thought. Whilst wandering around, I met at least a hundred of them. They were all deeply involved in one thing or another, so I didn't disturb them.

"Ah. I see you have finally woken," said a voice from near the back of the vast chamber. Her voice echoed slightly, which was odd. I wouldn't have thought that tents could echo.

The speaker was different to the Sisters that I had already met. She was short, maybe five feet, and very thin. She was also the only one who looked old, which was unusual. If Marie was anything to go by, the Sisters were ageless, just like The Resistance, yet their leader was old and grey and wrinkled.

"James Halldon, The Maw tamer. It has been a while since I saw you. Apparently you won't be able to remember me at the moment, though."

"No, I had a slight accident in the memory department."

She laughed.

"Well, at least you haven't lost some of your humour. Come. Let us retire to a quieter place and I will see what can be done. DogThing can come if he promises not to interfere and to stay calm."

I frowned at her.

"Really," she said. "Quite pointless me explaining anything to you isn't it? If I can help you remember, then I won't have any explaining to do at all."

I sighed. Seemed to make sense.

She looked down at DogThing.

"You will behave yourself this time won't you?"

DogThing turned his head sideways and whined.

"This time?"

She waved her hand at me.

"Bah. Come on."

We followed her out of the great chamber and into a smaller side compartment, where there was just a single chair placed in the middle. Nothing else.

"Sit there."

I did as I was told.

"Now. First I must discern the extent of the damage. This bit won't hurt."

She placed her hand on the top of my head and closed her eyes. Mumbling to herself.

I sat there, sceptical, wondering if this was a complete waste of time and that I would be no better off than before, when there was a slight twinge in the back of my mind. Something felt strange.

"Ah I have found some of the problem," mumbled the old woman. "Now, I can't promise that this bit won't hurt. It might not, but it also might be painful."

I took a deep breath and waited.

Nothing. She was still mumbling under breathe. A slight warm feeling tingled in the back of my mind.

"Senga," I said, not sure of where it had come from.

"Good," she said. "Very good."

"That's your name isn't it?"

"Indeed. Now shut up."

She mumbled some more, and the more I listened to her voice the more my eyes began to cloud over. The sounds she was making were gradually becoming more and more audible. Then I realised. She wasn't mumbling at all, she was talking to the part of my mind that I no longer had access to.

"Now this is going to hurt, but it will unlock what has been locked, and your memories will start to come back."

FLASH

My mind felt like it had exploded, and searing pain shot through my nerves. I felt my arms tense up and my spine cracked so loudly that DogThing whined. My eyes felt as though someone had stuck a hot needle into the centre of them.

FLASH

I am no longer in the tent.

Where the hell am I?

I'm in a field. It is daylight here, and the fields stretch for miles and miles. Barley is swaying in the wind. It's almost hypnotic.

There is a laugh behind me. Someone else is here with me.

"Are you coming?" asks the voice. Another laugh.

"Yes," I say, except this is not me now saying this, this is me back then. I have no control of myself. I am merely a passenger in a scene from my own past.

I look round. A face that is familiar smiles back at me. She is tall, nearly as tall as I am, and beautiful, so beautiful. Long, dark hair, the colour of midnight, blows in the wind. Brilliant, bright eyes, shine with mischief. She wears a long flowing dress of green and white, with a loose belt and a hood made of cotton.

It's 1773. I'm fifteen years old and she is fourteen.

Abegail is her name.

I'm in love with her. My first love.

I chase her across the field, and we fall over, laughing together.

These were the happy days.

"I'm going to marry you one day," I tell her.

"What makes you think I'll marry you?"

She laughs and runs off again through the barley. I jump up and chase after her.

I live in Georgia.

I do come from Earth, but not from London.

I come from America.

Georgia.

It's just a few years before everything changes, before the war, before we rebelled against the British and made our home our own land.

I never married her back then.

Why didn't I marry her?

FLASH

More pain. My head feels like someone has smacked me around the face several times. My vision swims, blurring everything. But then I focus. There are people around me, lots of them watching me from a distance.

I'm not in the field anymore. I'm not in the chair, with Senga standing in front of me. I'm somewhere else, yet again.

Where am I now?

I'm standing in a line with many other men. Some are my age, and some are older. We're in the village square. Someone is speaking, but I can't make out what he is saying. He is tall, with a long beard and a jacket that makes me think his is...

He is recruiter for the militia.

I'm frightened.

It's 1775, and I'm seventeen years old, and we are being mustered for war. The war that changed everything.

I have everything I own packed in a small bag that hangs over my shoulder. It's hot. It's summer here. I can feel the sun burning on the back of my neck. I'm sweating, but it's not just the heat that is making me sweat. Fear.

Abegail is standing not far away in the entrance of a building. My mother is next to her.

Gabriel Halldon.

We say goodbye. There are tears.

This would be the last time I would ever see my mother. She would die in the winter to come of a fever and I would not know that for years. I wouldn't know that until I saw Abegail again.

FLASH

My mind swims again, this time I seem to drift. I'm in pain, but I can't sense where the pain is coming from. It's excruciating. Am I wounded? Yes.

My legs. They are broken.

I'm lying down in the mud. There are bodies around me. The smell of blood and the reek of the dead. I'm coughing.

Dying.

It's cold. It's winter.

It's the end of winter and nearly the beginning of spring. The year is 1778 and I'm twenty years old. We are at a place called Valley Forge. The war has stopped for the winter, but we weren't able to return home. I haven't been home for three years, and now I know that I may never go home. I will die here, just like the others.

I look down and realise that I'm sitting on bodies. Dozens of bodies. I'm in a pit. Blood covers my legs, but it's not my blood.

I try to move, but my legs are screaming with pain. I remember now. They are broken from when I was run down by the horse that charged us. I have been in the field hospital for weeks now, gradually getting weaker and weaker by the day. I know that gangrene courses through my bones and my veins, ever eating away at me, killing me slowly. They never tried to save my legs. They didn't even try to save me. Too many injured men. Too many sick and dying from disease or their wounds. Some would get help, but not someone with my wounds.

We had fought a battle. Black Hill comes to mind, though the memory is fuzzy and confused. I had been wounded. They dragged me for miles and miles on a stretcher. Both of my legs were broken and useless. I heard them talking. The tall one. He said that I should just be left to die. The other one. Shorter and thinner. He says no. The boy may live.

I was sick with fever. A lot of men were sick with fever.

We had stayed at the camp at Valley Forge over the winter, along with thousands of others from the army. There were multitudes of the sick and the dying. The field hospital smells of the dead and the dying, of the ointments and alcohol the doctors use to treat the wounds of those who may live.

Time moves on. The camp is packing up, now. The doctors visit the remaining sick. I am barely conscious. They say I am dead, but I'm not. I can hear them, but I can't tell them, I can't move. I try to call out, try to tell them that I'm not gone yet, but they walk away, and two other men come to lift my stretcher. They carry me somewhere and I feel myself falling.

I wake up. I'm still not dead.

I'm in the burial pit.

But they think I'm dead.

Somehow I manage to move. My arms and upper body still work, even though the cold of the winter numbs my fingers, my hands, and my face. I can't feel my face.

I crawl across the bodies and somehow manage to haul myself out of the pit. It takes so long. Just a few feet to climb, but it takes forever. Something moves underneath me. There is a cracking sound. I look down and the bodies below me in the burial pit are moving.

I must be delirious. I must be seeing things. No. They keep moving, crawling, writhing. Then one of the dead opens its eyes and looks straight at me.

There is death in those eyes.

Death and hatred.

I am out and crawling across the ground, one yard after another. Just a few more yards to escape into the bushes that seem so far away, yet they can't be more than a hundred yards away. I can feel something, some dark presence and I'm frightened.

There is a voice. I hear a deep voice. A harsh voice. It's back near the pit. I glance round, but my vision is still blurred. There is a tall figure standing next to the pit, looking down into the horror that I have just fled.

"Arise my brethren. Arise," says the voice. It chills me to my very heart. Evil has come here.

There are more cracking sounds.

Movement.

I see movement from the pit. Someone crawls out and slowly stands up. I can hear his bones snapping, as though his body still refuses to move. His head is lying on one side.

The dead man is standing up.

I crawl further away, further into the bushes, frightened.

The bushes are thicker here. I might be able to hide. I crawl into them as far as I can before they are too overgrown for me to force my way any further. I lay there, quiet and still.

The voice shouts.

"I know you are out there, you little rat. You will not escape from me."

My heart beats, thumping in my chest.

That voice.

"I have come to claim you all."

Moaning sounds, lots of them. I can barely keep my head from spinning, but I see well enough to see the dead men from the pit rising up, crawling out and wandering into the mist that spreads across the valley. There are dozens of them, maybe hundreds. They should not be walking. They should be dead.

Then there is a buzzing noise. I can't place what it is, but it's very near. A flash of light, nearby, and a faint popping noise, and then I can see someone standing near to me. My vision is so blurred now that I can only make out a silhouette of the new arrival, and nothing more.

Is this another evil?

The tall figure near the pit looks directly at whoever has just arrived, and he smiles a wicked, evil grin.

"You will be mine one day, rat," he says, and then he turns and walks off into the mist, with the mass of dead soldiers stumbling behind him.

I feel someone touch my shoulder. I try to push away but can't. I'm too weak.

There is cold on my back, my jacket has been torn open. Then pain, in the back of my neck. I'm being stabbed, a blade, or something else sharp. It bores into my neck and feels as though it will burst from the front at any moment. It's like nothing I have ever felt before. It digs inwards, to the centre of my head, to the nerves in my finger tips, even to my stomach. I try to scream, but nothing comes out.

Is this to be my last moment? Murdered by a stranger whilst I already lay dying? Will I ever see my family or Abegail again?

FLASH

My vision blurs for a moment. It's hard to find orientation. My neck hurts. I feel nauseous.

I am sick, everywhere.

My legs and arms don't seem to want to move. I can feel my heart beating all the way up into my throat. My right hand hurts more than anything else.

I look down at it, and try to raise it to my face so that I can see.

My hand is pale, like the dead. My veins seem black against my almost transparent skin. I start choking on my own vomit. Hands grab me and turn me over.

Then I can breathe again.

I feel my whole body shaking, convulsing.

There is a voice.

"I told you we should have sedated him first."

Who is that? Who is talking? I try to speak, but still nothing comes out.

"I know. We didn’t have time. He was nearly dead already."

The other voice is angry.

"It doesn't matter. It works anyway, so long as they still have a heartbeat."

"Yes. Okay. Next time we sedate."

I cough again, feeling the blood pumping through the veins in my head. It feels like someone is hitting me with a hammer.

Everything goes black. No bright flash this time. No more pain.

I awake some time later, open my eyes and take a deep breath.

"He's awake," says one of the voices.

A face appears in front of me. My vision is still blurred, so I can't make any features out.

"Stay calm, my friend. You are not dead and this is not Valhalla or Elysium. Your vision and your faculties will return. You need to rest."

"It's heaven in his culture."

"What?"

"Heaven. They believe in heaven. Valhalla and Elysium were years ago and that's Europe, anyway."

"Whatever."

FLASH

I'm standing on a ridge overlooking a vast plane that is completely covered with makeshift buildings. This is The Resistance evacuation camp. A sprawling city of tens of thousands of people from many worlds, all saved from death by The Resistance. It's called Evac. I think that they could have given it a more imaginative name. I always thought that.

A voice calls to me.

"Are you okay, my love?"

It's Abegail. She is here too. As are my brothers. I have been here for three years now and they arrived barely a month ago. Something happened in my home town. Some kind of disease that was not caused by man.

I was not allowed to go, even though I am a Resistance soldier now. I should have kept quiet, but when they mentioned the name of my town I just blurted it out, told them we had to save the people there. They did, but they didn't let me go.

"You look better today."

She smiles.

"I feel a lot better. Whatever it was that they gave me has got rid of my sickness."

"It does that."

I step round her and move the hair away from her neck, looking at the red scar on the back of her neck. She flinches.

"It still hurts?"

"Yes, a bit."

"It does heal, but it takes quite a while. Don't worry, a couple of months and all you will have there is a nice scar like mine."

She looks out across the sprawl of the city-camp.

"Will we ever go home?"

"Maybe. I don't know."

"They don't want people to go home do they?"

"No, they need all the help they can get to fight the Horde."

"Is that why you never came home?"

"Yes. I am needed here. But they came to help because I asked them too."

"It's okay, you don't need to apologise again. I understand. You're a soldier now."

"And you, you will be soon if you join up. Then we don't need to be apart again."

She laughs.

"They take girls?"

"Yes. Lots of them. Some of the best soldiers in the Resistance are women. It's hard, and it's tiring, and sometimes it's upsetting, when we get somewhere and we are too late. But when you help some people escape the horror and bring them here. It's the best."

I look down the road to an area that has been set apart for the children to play in. I helped set that up. We took the swings and the slides from various abandoned places and brought them back here.

I point at the children playing, and Abegail turns to look.

"They wouldn't even have had the chance of life if it wasn't for what we do. It's important, Abegail. Much more important than anything I've ever done in my life. When we go out to fight, we go out to save people, we go out to destroy the horrors that invade the worlds that the Horde attacks. They say one day that we will find a way of getting there first, before the Horde has already done the worst of the damage and killed so many people. One day we will be there when they get there. We will be strong enough and we will be waiting."

She smiles at me.

"Okay I'll join. I don't know how much of a monster killer I can be, or whether I'm even strong enough to be a soldier, but I'll try."

"Thank you. You know, years from now you'll look back on that decision and wonder why you even had to think about it. Look at how quickly my brothers joined."

"They were all already soldiers," she says, laughing louder. "I make clothes."

FLASH

"Easy, take it easy."

It was Senga, leaning over me.

"Easy."

I was back in the present. I could feel my heart beating heavily, thumping in my chest, just as it had each time my head had exploded from the inside.

"I saw things."

"Yes, yes. I know you did. I was in there with you remember?"

"No I don't remember."

I took a deep breath and let out a heavy sigh.

"They were my memories coming back, weren't they?"

"Yes, they were. I found what was wrong inside your mind and triggered it."

Confused.

"What do you mean? You triggered it? Triggered what?"

Senga walked slowly across the room and sat down on the floor.

"Something or someone has been tampering with your mind. There was something blocking your past memories. Something that was not natural. It had been put there by someone, or something."

"Why would anyone do that?"

The Mirror. Was it the Mirror?

"I don't know. That is down to you to find out. But I don't think you'll have any trouble doing that now, you just have to be careful. Your mind is still fighting against the memories returning, but I have made sure that there is nothing holding them back now. Eventually, all of your past will come back."

She was also breathing quite heavily.

"I am very tired now. I think I will go and rest. You should too."

"Yes."

She stood and went to leave the chamber.

"You must be wary now, James. You will have no control over when your memories come back. I would suggest you stay put for a while and allow it to just happen. You don't want to be out there in the world, and in a predicament, when you mind decides it's time you remembered something."

I nodded, and watched her leave.

"Thank you," I said, under my breath.

I sat there for a few minutes, just taking it all in. An hour ago I had no idea who I was and where I came from. Now I knew so much more, but there was also so much still missing. It frightened me to think what might come next, what I would remember next.

Abegail. I remembered Abegail, but that was quite literally hundreds of years ago. Where was she now? Was she still alive? Had we married? This I now had to find out, but was I best searching for her, or just waiting for the memories to return?

I looked at DogThing, who was still sitting on the floor and watching me, from a few feet away.

"Well, I don't know about you, but I'm exhausted."

"I was worried."

"You were? Why?"

"You were in a lot of pain."

"Was I? Yes, I suppose I was. But now I remember who am, where I came from. And Reg was right, I am a member of the Resistance, which means I now have to go and find them, somehow."

"We are leaving again?"

"No, not yet. Soon though. Let's go and find the others. I've got things to tell them."

We found Rudy and Adler in the Sister's gardens on the north side of the stadium. The pair of them were busy poking around amongst the trees and the plants, accompanied by three of the Sisters.

They called it The Arboretum. Rows upon rows of fruit trees lined the ground, all of them cut short and kept very neat. Every tree was overloaded with nearly every kind of fruit possible, and the ground around all of the trees was home to so many types of vegetables and plants. There were many that I had not even seen before.

My ghost friends stopped what they were doing and stood watching me. Waiting.

"Well?" asked Adler.

"Come on, tell us," said Rudy.

I smiled.

"My name really is James Halldon. I was born in America, in Georgia, in 1758."

Adler's eyes nearly popped out of his head.

"1758?" he blurted. "But, that makes you hundreds of years old."

"So it would seem," I said. "Reg was right as well. I am a member of The Resistance. Have been for a very long time."

"What else can you remember?"

"I can remember seeing CutterJack when I was seventeen years old."

"You've met him before?" asked Rudy.

"Yes. And I have terrible feeling that I may remember that I've met him a number of times afterwards. Something inside just tells me so. Look, I don't remember everything. I remember most of my youth, and joining the resistance, even some of the wars and rescues I've been involved in, but after than I've not remembered, yet."

Rudy frowned.

"Yet?"

"Yes. Senga says that I will remember it all over time, but there is no way of knowing when it will all come back. It comes in these strange flashbacks. I just have to..."

FLASH

My mind races to catch up with the scene that I am thrown into.

My ears are bombarded with the sounds of gunfire, lots of weapons firing.

I'm running. Around me I sense, more than see, dozens of Resistance soldiers running along with me.

I stop for a moment, spin on my heels and fire. Others around me are doing the same. Run a few yards, turn, fire.

The Horde is behind us, a mass of shambling zombies lurching along, trying to catch us. There are thousands of them, poor tortured souls from countless worlds, but with each turn that I make and each time that I fire into them, a dozen more fall, a dozen more are saved from their horrific existence.

Something is driving them at us. Something I can't see, but I know it's there. Some presence that is the reason that we are here.

"Keep moving," I shout.

"Keeping firing."

A hill is in the distance, just a few hundred yards away, and over the top of that is our destination. We scramble up the slope and reach the top. I see that below, in the grasslands at the foot of the hill on the other side, a hundred or more Resistance soldiers are lined up, kneeling in the dirt. Behind them is a vehicle of some kind.

"Flat out. Run. Keep going," I shout, and the soldiers with me stop firing and run as fast as they can down the hill towards the line of safety.

Then I remember. This is years later and these soldiers are under my command. Below awaits the trap. The trap for the thing that drives the zombies towards us. Years of planning, years of failure, yet this time it will work. I know it will.

"Move. Move," I shout. "Get behind the lines."

My troops move fast, flowing through the firing line. I am the last to step behind the line.

This has been practiced so many times.

I head towards the vehicle, then I turn and stop, looking back, as the creature that we are here to trap appears over the top of the hill.

"Charges ready?"

"Ready," shouts a familiar voice to my right. I glance and see Abegail. She has her hand in the air, waiting for the signal.

"Hold your fire," I shout. "Wait."

The line of troops stays kneeling on the ground as the mass of zombies stumbles its way down the hill towards us. On the top of the hill the tall creature stops and watches. I can see the expression on its face. Curiousity. Nervous. Doubting.

"Light it up," I shout and I hear a noise behind me as the vehicle's generator kicks in. On the top of the hill a glimmering, shifting light appears, surrounding the creature.

"Open fire."

Guns blaze. The zombies begin to fall.

"We got it," says Abegail, her hands over her ears to blank out the noise of the guns that are yet now decimating the zombies.

"Yes," I say. "Finally we have one of them."

"What now?"

I look up at the creature on the top of the hill. It smashes its hands against the barrier, screaming with rage, but I know it won't escape. The defence grid technology can withstand much more than one creature's futile blows. It would take thousands to break it.

"Now we find out how to hurt it, find out how to get information out of it."

"But we will kill it, right?"

"Yes. When it has squealed everything that we can possible wrench out of its filthy mouth. Then we will kill it."

FLASH

I'm in a room in Evac City.

Abegail is lying on a bed. Sweat covers her face and there is blood on the sheets. For a moment my heart jumps and I think she must be ill. But she isn't. Far from it.

She smiles.

In her arms she holds a small bundle of cloth.

Wait

It's not cloth.

The bundle moves. It starts to cry.

A child.

"What will you call her?" asks someone nearby. I don't look to see whose voice it is. My eyes can only look at Abegail and our baby.

Abegail smiles.

"I want to call her Chione."

She looks at me, seeking approval.

I can't take the grin off of my face. I don't even try.

"It's a beautiful name. Chione it is."

FLASH

We are sitting cross legged on the ground. Chione and I. She is now four years old. We're drawing pictures.

She looks at me and grins. She has a gap in the middle of her smile, where her baby teeth fell out recently. She looks stunning.

"Where do you go daddy?"

Her voice has gained the sweetest lisp.

"When you are gone for weeks. Where do you go?"

"I have my job to do sweetheart. One day I'll tell you all about it."

"Do you help people? Or do you make things?"

"Mostly help people, but sometimes I make things."

"I want to help people too one day. And I want to make things."

"You will, honey. One day."

FLASH

We're out in the desert, standing on the roof of an open topped vehicle. It's one of the ones we use to move troop squads around. This one is mine and has two sets of bunk beds as well.

Chione is standing next to me, a rifle in her hands. It's a sniper rifle, and it's bigger than she is. She points the rifle out across the desert. Holding it tightly and peering through the view finder.

She is older now. Sixteen years old. I feel then that time has passed too quickly. She is everything I would want in a daughter, but I miss her being small.

She fires, and a hundred yards away a lone zombie drops to the ground.

"Excellent shot, sweetheart. You're getting better at this all the time."

She lowers the rifle, turns and smiles at me. I remember when that smile had two missing teeth in the middle. I can see her mother in her. Her eyes burn with the same wicked mischief, and her hair, the same dark flowing locks, even now blows in the wind.

"You think I'm ready?"

I sigh.

"If it's really what you want. Then yes."

"Mother says I will make an amazing Outrider."

"You will."

"And I don't have to stay at home when you go out any more. I can come with you and mum now."

"Hmm. We will see about that. You have a lot of training to do first. It's hard work, and you will have to be focused and strong."

"I'm tough."

I laugh,

"Yes, just like your mother."

"Mum's the best shot in the Outriders."

"She is indeed, but I think she is going to have competition from her own daughter if you carry on the way you're going."

FLASH

The same bed. Blood on the sheets. Except this time it isn't Abegail laying there with a child in her arms. It's Chione, and this is not long ago, only a few years. She smiles at me the same way that her mother had all those years ago.

"Can I hold her?" asks Abegail.

Chione nods, and hands the baby over to her mother, who smiles and talks quietly to the frightened infant.

I turn and grin at the soldier sitting on the seat next to Chione, the father of my new granddaughter. His name is Andre, and he is one of my best men. He looks guilty for a moment, then smiles and lowers his head.

"What will you call her?" Abegail asks Chione.

Chione frowns.

"I thought about this a lot, and I think I like the name Eleanor."

Eleanor.

My granddaughter.

FLASH

I stumbled to the ground and waited for my head to clear.

"Are you okay?" asked Rudy.

"Yes...I'm fine. Give me a minute."

Adler walked over and knelt down next to me.

"You glazed over for a second. I thought that you were going to pass out."

"He should rest," said one of the Sisters. I didn't see which one.

I wil be ready.

That was what she wrote.

"How long was I like it for? How long was I out?" I asked, reaching into my pouch and taking out the cloth with the note in it.

"Not for long," said Rudy. "Barely a moment. Less than a second I would say."

I unfolded the cloth and read the note again.

I wil be redy wen tis time for me to go wif yoo ganda. Eleanor

Ganda? How could that one word have got past me? How had I missed it?

I will be ready when it's time for me to go with you Granddad. Eleanor

The little girl at the road station was my granddaughter? Cory had said that she had been left behind when her parents passed away. No, he said passed on. But did that mean dead? Did this mean that my daughter was dead?

And how long had I been away? We just travelled through that road station and left again. What must she have thought? That her parents and her grandparents had forgotten her? That they had abandoned her?

I looked up at Rudy.

"The little girl. The one at the road station. She gave me a note. The one called Eleanor."

I went to hand the note to Rudy, but of course he couldn't take it. I forget that even now.

I read it out loud to them and they both stood there looking thoughtful, puzzled.

"What does it mean, do you think?" asked Rudy.

"In my last flashback. I saw her after she was born, I saw her mother and father. Her mother is Chione. She's...She's my granddaughter. Eleanor is my granddaughter."

I look over at DogThing.

"Did you know any of this?"

"No. I don't remember things."

"What do you mean?"

"Things don't stay in my head that long."

"Oh," I laughed. "You forgot too, except you forgot naturally."

"Yes."

I stood up.

"I have to go back and get her."

Rudy and Adler looked at each other, worried.

"Shouldn't you wait until your memories have all returned?" asked Rudy

"No. She may be able to tell me much more. And she is my granddaughter. I need to go to her."

"But, what if you have a flashback at an unfortunate time?" asked Adler. "You should at least wait for the night."

I thought about this. The flashbacks did seem to be coming quite quickly. Maybe they were right.

"Okay. Look, I'll stay here for one more night. I do need to sleep. But tomorrow, when it's safe to get out of the city again. Then we go."

"Agreed," said Adler.

I stood up and walked back to the marquee where I had slept before, all the time, the things that I had learned were going over and over in my mind. It was so much to learn in such a short space of time. A partner, a daughter, and granddaughter. Two of them could be anywhere, they could be dead, but one of them, Eleanor. She was alive and she was the only living connection that I had to my past, as far as I knew. And she was on her own. What must she think of me?

I lay on the bed for a few hours, thinking it over, wondering if another flashback would come soon, but there was nothing. Were they triggered by something?

I heard movement in the chamber.

"How are you feeling now?"

It was Reg, standing near the entrance.

"Better. Worse. I don't know."

"You've got some of your memories back, it seems."

"Yes, lots of them. I have...people I need to find now. We're leaving in the morning. I take it you're staying?"

I smiled at him and he grinned back.

"Not sure," he said. "We haven't decided what we're doing next."

"You must be pretty damn happy."

"Oh god, you would not believe it. I can't, still. She hasn't changed a bit, well, except her skin is paler and she has fangs. Other than that she is the same woman that I married."

"Does she still love you after all this time?"

"I guess I stuck lucky there, too. She still does, and she says that whatever I decide to do, or go, that she's coming too. Her superior was angry at her for turning away from their ways. But...She's my wife, you know?"

"Yes. Well. It would seem that I do know as well. I had a partner. I don't know if she was my wife or not. Not yet, anyway. I have a daughter, and a granddaughter."

I told him all about the flashbacks.

"I knew it. I knew that she recognised you, somehow. I couldn't place it at the time, but now it all makes perfect sense."

"Well. I don't know about perfect."

"No, but you know what I mean."

We were silent for a moment.

"You'll be going back then," he said, "back to the road station. Not only do they have your little one, but Cory and his folks, they might also know about Chione, or even Abegail."

"Yes. We go tomorrow. What about you?"

He seemed to think about that for a long time.

"I'll talk to Marie. You helped me get here. I want to help you."

"I'll understand if you don't want to come."

"I need to," he says." I made a promise to Andre. Who it appears is your son in law, that I would head back to the Resistance and join the cause once I had found my wife. I guess he presumed it wouldn't take quite this long, but I still have a promise to keep. And you don't know where the base is. I do. I can help you get your little girl, and then take you there. It's the least I can do."

"Thank you."

"No thanks required. Look. I'll leave you to rest now. You look exhausted."

"Okay, thanks Reg."

He goes to leave.

"Reg?"

"Yes?"

"They seriously have fangs?"

"They're vampires. But don't worry, we're safe. They can't drink our blood, since apparently some of their blood is in the A17 serum, anyway. They can't touch Resistance folks."

"They drink people's blood, though."

"They used to. But it seems that they found some way of avoiding it. I didn't ask."

Day 51

I can't believe that I actually slept for the whole day and the night. Unfortunately there were no flashbacks either.

We left early. The sun was just rising over the horizon when we stepped outside of the gates. Yes, gates. We went out the front door this time.

We wasted as little time getting out of the city as we could. The head of the Sisters had said that the Warped Ones, as they called them, wouldn't be back until nightfall, but the city was quite large and difficult to move through, so we had better get moving.

The only delay was in Marie saying goodbye to the Sisters. I wanted to go quickly, but I understood that she had been here for decades. It was a difficult goodbye.

She knew her way around the city very well, and within an hour she had taken us back to where the battle had been.

"There are no bodies," I said, as we approached the foot of the building from across the plaza. I had expected hundreds of them to be lying around. We had certainly killed that many.

"There wouldn't be," said Marie. "Part of their curse is that they only leave dust after they die. The bodies soon collapse, and all that is left is that."

She pointed at the grey muck that was gathering against the bottom of the ground floor windows.

"They burn up in the day?"

"No, that's just a myth, otherwise I wouldn't be standing here," she said, smiling. "But when they die they crumble to ash. As would I."

"So all the other stuff, crosses, holy water, sunlight. Does any of that affect you?" asked Rudy.

I frowned.

"Bram Stoker's Dracula," he said grinning at me."

"All myth," said Marie. "Well, mostly. Silver bullets hurt a lot."

"I thought that was werewolves?" asked Rudy.

"Bullets of any kind hurt. We're still corporeal. Anything that would hurt a human hurts us, except that we don't die very easily. It would take a lot of bullets."

"Oh," said Rudy.

"And yes, I can see myself in a mirror."

Adler laughed.

I left them chattering, and went into the building. Thankfully the trolley was still where I had left it. I just had to pick it up and put everything back in it. It must have been knocked over during the battle. I also had to bend a wheel back into place.

Outside, they were still talking.

"So werewolves are real as well?" asked Adler.

"Oh, yes, they are very real. You most certainly do not want to mess with one of them. They are lot bigger and faster than tales tell of them. And they will eat anything, alive or dead."

DogThing growled at this.

"I don't mean you," said Marie.

My turn to question.

"I don't yet remember much about the Maw," I said, giving DogThing a rub behind his ears. "Are they related to werewolves?"

"No, not at all. Maw are much friendlier, and almost as deadly."

"Really? From the way you were describing werewolves, they sound pretty dangerous."

"Oh, yes, they are. The main difference being that the Maw simply won't lie down and die."

"They don't? Not at all?" asked Rudy.

"No," said Marie. "I've never heard of a Maw being killed by anything. They have this innate ability to just vanish and then turn up later on."

I thought back to when DogThing and the other Maw had fought CutterJack in The Corridor. CutterJack had killed them, or so I had thought, but DogThing came back again. I never did ask him.

"Miala, the Head of the council of the Sisters once told me about them. No one really knows where they disappear to when they are killed. She believed it to be some kind of other plane of existence. She said that she suspected that they had some other place that they could go to that allowed them to rest and heal, and that it happened without them being conscious of it. Of course, you are the only person ever to be able to talk to a Maw, and only that one. And he's so young that he doesn't understand half of it anyway."

"I never thought of that," I said. "He is a lot smaller than the other adult ones. I never considered that he might still be a pup."

"I can hear you, you know."

"I know. How old are you DogThing?"

"I don't understand you."

I nodded.

By midday we were back at the camp we had used before, but this time we didn't stop. We just carried on until it was dark. We camped up in one of the old buildings. It was the one with the washing still on the line.

It was late when the first flashback hit me. We were all sitting around a fire in the middle of the room. The Maw were outside, surrounding the building. Marie was telling us about her past.

"I couldn't remember anything," she said. "Somehow the creature that had helped Laurence, the man who took me, had wiped all of my memories."

I knew how that felt.

"I stayed there because I couldn't leave. Something surrounding the house stopped me. I could only see darkness past the bottom of the garden. In every direction there was just darkness. I never did find out what it was that stopped me from leaving, but I always had this feeling that it was something real, an object of some kind. I even sensed where it was, hidden away in the loft. I searched, but I couldn't find it. There was this box that was hidden under piles of junk, and that was where the feeling came from. But the box was empty."

"Just like Adler and I, when we were trapped by the pieces of the key," said Rudy.

"Why yes," said Adler. "Of course Rudy, it sounds just the same. Marie, when Rudy and I were killed, we couldn't leave. We were trapped in the place of our deaths until James came along and we discovered that it was the pieces of the key that we were bound to. When James reformed the key as a whole, we were set free."

"Except that Marie never died," said Reg.

"No, I didn't, but I was bound nonetheless. Until one day when a man came to visit. He knocked on the door, and Laurence wasn't there. I never let anyone in when Laurence wasn't there. I just watched from the windows upstairs. He did this very strange thing. He walked into the back garden, and down the steps towards the summer house. I wondered what he was doing down there, so I went out the back door, and followed him from a distance, keeping quiet."

"Was he looking for something?" asked Reg.

"Yes. Well. In a way," smiled Marie, "He went down the garden to where the old ruin was. There was an arch down there. I always found that ruin fascinating."

She seemed to be lost in some memory for a moment.

"You don't have to tell us," said Reg.

"No. No. He walked to the arch, and then took something out of his pocket. A thing. I didn't know what it was. And then the portal opened. It just appeared in the middle of nowhere. He stepped through and the portal closed. He was gone."

"Another key maybe?" asked Rudy.

"Maybe," said Marie. "Anyway. After that I became obsessed with that archway. I would sit down there day after day. One day I was sitting there, reading a book, when the portal just opened again. I stood up, and walked over to it. Through the gap was a bright desert, yet on my side of the portal was wet grass. Before I could do anything else, it closed again."

"I was so angry with myself. By then, you see, I had discovered enough of my own mind to know that I wasn't Laurence's wife. I was bound there. You see Laurence would talk in his sleep. Not that I ever slept in the same bed as he. But I heard him, and I would go and listen at his door when he started. That way I found out all about how it had happened. I knew I was trapped here by him."

"But, you'd missed the door opening," said Adler.

"Yes. But I was determined that I wouldn't miss it again, so I began to prepare. I found an old satchel and started collecting things that I would need, and hiding them in the summerhouse. I still went there every day. About a year later, I was sitting in the same place, once more reading a book, and the portal opened again. This time I grabbed my things and ran."

"Into the desert of this world?" asked Adler.

"Yes."

FLASH

I'm standing in the snow. Andre is next to me. Around us, the forest burns even as the snow falls into the fires. A cold wind blows.

"So. There are no sentient races at all on this planet?"

"Not exactly."

"What do you mean? Why else would they come here?"

"There are these creatures, they are like dogs, except much bigger, much more dangerous. We think that they came here to enslave them. They may be sentient to some degree. We haven't managed to find out yet. They are quite defensive and untrusting."

"But other than big and dangerous dogs, there's nothing else for them here?"

"No. Nothing. But you should see them. They are amazing creatures. From what we have figured out so far, the Horde can't even kill the things."

This surprises me.

"They can't kill them? Explain."

"They are just too tough for them to kill. We've seen them fight. They get set on by hundreds of shamblers, and they can't seem to even scratch them."

"What about the burning ones?"

Walking skeletons that carry an inferno with them.

"I haven't seen them here, yet, so I can't vouch for that match. But, can you imagine if we were able to get these things to help us?"

"You mean train them?"

"Yes."

"I'd need a pup. A young one."

"I'll find one," says Andre.

"Do that. And get Chione to help. She is good with animals."

"Get's it from her father."

FLASH

I'm standing in darkness. Wait. It's almost complete darkness, but there is some kind of unnatural glow coming from somewhere.

"What is this place?" I ask.

Joshua, my brother, stands a few feet away from me.

"A cavern made naturally from near the centre of a destroyed planet."

"What? How?"

"When the planets collided with another, it was pulled into a naturally occurring hole, and somehow it ended up here, in this place."

"Embedded in the middle of the desert on an entirely different planet?"

"Yes, amazing isn't it? Quite an extraordinary event."

"How do you know where it came from?"

"Oh. The Sisters Seer. Senga. We brought her here."

"Oh, her."

"Yes. She walked around for a few days, warbling on as she always does. Then she just blurted out what it was. That woman freaks me out."

"And you just found it. Whilst you were wandering around in the desert?"

"Yes. Well, no. We were looking for a good spot to build an outpost, you know, somewhere secluded, but not far from a road. We found the ravine and then one of the scouts spotted the cave entrance. There are two entrances, about three miles apart."

"So, Josh. Why are we even here? I mean. It's just a big dark cave."

"It's a very special, big dark cave."

"How so?"

"Once in here. You can't portal out. I tried it."

Now he had my attention.

"What do you mean? You can't open a door at all?"

"No. Well, just one spot in the entire place. We tried a few times. There is one small area that is part of the original rock that was here before this thing popped into place. That area can be ported out through, but only if you have a key. We tried opening one into here and that works okay, but you have to have the exact coordinates, and it's very inaccurate, somehow it gets warped. There is also this very strange anomaly over on the other side of the cave. We haven't figured out what it is yet. Did I tell you that this place is thirty miles across?"

An idea begins to form in my mind.

"If you can't portal out, but you can portal in. If you blocked up all the holes, those entrances. You'd be trapped, right?"

"Yes brother. Effectively, if you put someone in here and...Oh."

"The perfect trap."

FLASH

I'm standing in the desert. I'm not alone. I'm near the portal. It's the same portal that Marie travelled through. I'm not alone. Standing next to me is...

Nua'lath.

"We have a deal then?" he asks.

"We have a deal," I reply.

"I will help you, and then you will let me take what I want."

"Yes."

My mind reels. This can't be true. I can't have made a deal with Nua'lath.

No

No. Wait. It looks like Nua'lath. But it's not him. Another that looks similar. No scars. His skin is not so pale. No metal rivets holding his face together.

Another of Nua'lath's kind.

He speaks, and his voice still chills my spine.

"The power. The gift of the old ones. It should never have been his. He has squandered it and abused the gift."

"Yes. You could say that."

"The destruction of entire worlds is unacceptable. Only the old one has the right to such an endeavour. We, the followers, must be humble. It must stop."

His name is Dha'mir.

"Agreed," I say.

"We will end this, you and I. And I, the high priest, shall become the ordained one, as was the will of the old ones, before he stole it from me. It will take time when he is trapped. He will weaken eventually, but we must be patient. It could be years or even decades before he has become weak enough for me to destroy him."

"But during that time The Horde will dissipate?" I ask. "And there will be no more invasions?"

"Yes. The Horde will cease to have a mind holding it together. The creatures will still exist, but they will not gather in force. We will start in the next world that The Horde are to travel to. I will be with him. It is a place that the native peoples call Nenshar. A swamp on a very warm planet. Here. This will allow you to travel there. Good luck."

For a moment I see a picture in my mind, of a swamp on a distant planet. Huge mushrooms grow there, and slithering in the rancid mud are massive slug like creatures. The place is etched into my mind so clearly that I know that I will be able to use the key to travel there.

FLASH

I'm standing in the dark, with Andre and my brother Joshua. Others are nearby, a dozen armed Vigilant soldiers, the heavy combat troops of the Resistance, stand watching, waiting for their orders. Their battle gear is similar in design to the armour plates that I wear, what all the Outriders wear, except that Vigilants are covered from head to toe in it, with helmets and visors that allow them to see in the dark.

We're in The Corridor, and below us, down the slope, is the part of London that we pulled into The Corridor, hoping to catch Nua'lath. I watch as lurching zombies stumble around in the darkness. We managed to capture and contain the outbreak that he released, but we somehow managed to miss him.

"Nua'lath's not here," says Andre.

"No. I know," I reply. "We failed again."

Joshua looks at me.

"What is it we are doing wrong?" he asks.

"I don't know. I will need to meet with Dha'mir. Maybe he will know. Maybe it's the machine."

"That's four times now," says Joshua. "The swamp, the waterfall, those desert caves, and now these streets. We're going to run out of space. There's only so much crap that we can haul back here."

"I know, okay?"

He shrugs.

"We'll figure it out. Next time we will get it right. Maybe we need to be closer to him when we set off the machine. He must have left the area before it activated."

"Closer to him means dead."

"Not in here it doesn't. He won't be able to control his creatures so well. Dha'mir showed us that."

"He is still lethal. And we're guaranteed to pull whatever is with him at the time."

We watch as other Vigilant soldiers sweep through the streets below, destroying the zombies.

Something darts out of an alleyway and runs at the soldiers, but they cut it down before it gets near.

"What was that?" asked Andre.

"Kre'esh," replied Joshua. "They came from Nenshar. The swamps. The Horde has thousands of them now. I guess there must be a few wandering around down here as well."

Andre shakes his head.

"This place is soon going to be too dangerous to work out of. We have to get it right the next time."

"Don't worry. It's not time to give up yet. We're close. And soon, it will work."

FLASH

I'm in London, walking the streets of an area called Gallowshill. It's 1912. Joshua walks with me, as well as Loran, Ashley and Kale, my other brothers. The streets are busy, and I feel hugely uncomfortable without my armour. I can tell that the others do as well. Fortunately we are able to conceal our guns, so we are not completely unprepared.

"So we have secured the house?" I ask.

"Yes," says Kale, "paid for, and as we speak being occupied by a detachment of Waylanders"

Waylanders. They work closely with the Outrider division of The Resistance. They are the supply and logistics division. Right now they will be setting up base in The Old Caff Trade Company premises.

"And the other occupants?"

"Recruited. They were only too happy. Vagrants mostly. The old owner has moved out of London and won't be back."

"Good. No loose ends."

"What's the plan?" asks Ashley.

"We start following the Horde's agents. They are here again, we know that. We have to somehow persuade them that the junkyard is the best place for the door to open. Then we will be ready."

"How are we going to do that? There are a lot of them," asks Kale.

"We make everywhere else too dangerous for them."

"This is risky, you know," says Joshua. "Pulling another piece of London into The Corridor, and barely a couple of miles between the two locations. We took whole streets last time. If we do it again we could cause untold damage."

"We went about it all wrong last time," I reply. "We've been too busy trying to stop the Horde, and not concentrating on the one element that will achieve that goal. This time we don't try to get the whole outbreak. This time we just want him. And if we aim to set the thing off in that junkyard, then we have half a square mile that no one is ever going to miss. And those Waylanders will be working hard to make that junkyard as enticing a lair as possible, even as we speak."

We stand on the street corner for an hour or so. Ashley looks impatient.

"We're not going to find them here."

"Just be patient," says Joshua. "Andre assured us that there were at least two gangs working out of Gallowshill that were being controlled by one or more of Nua'lath's scout minions. They are here. The Sisters will come to us when they have located them. Until then, we just have to keep our eyes open. This is where the Sisters said that they are most active."

We wait another hour before I notice the group hanging around across the street, in the alleyway next to the pawn shop opposite. I nod to my brothers, and we make our way into the crowd, disappearing from view.

I watch as a young boy leaves the pawn shop and turns into the alleyway. The gang have been watching him, and as they corner him in the alleyway and pin him against the wall I see one of them talking to him, obviously the gang leader. I glance over to Kale, who is ten yards from me, standing next to one of the market stalls and pretending to examine the fruit. He nods to me. The tell tale signs were there. Dry and mottled skin with patches that look black and diseased, rotten teeth that have started to sharpen, eyes that look somehow distant. These are plague zombies yet to be reborn, an invasion in the making.

We start moving as one towards the group, approaching from different directions, but something is happening.

There is a scuffle, and the boy strikes out at the leader, and then begins running away. Another of the gang grabs for the boy but he lashes out with something, a knife. Fingers scatter across the ground. I recognise the style of the knife. It's Resistance made.

Then the boy is running down the alley, followed closely by the gang. The leader, with his arm spewing blood all over the ground, is trying to follow his gang after the boy, but he is losing blood fast, an artery severed.

My brothers run past the gang leader and continue running, following the gang. Joshua slows and glances back.

"I've got him," I shout, and I stop and grab him by the collar of his jacket, avoiding the blood and dragging him further into the alleyway, round a corner into a dead end.

I push him to the ground, draw my gun and put it to his head. His eyes widen with fear.

"Where is the one who speaks to you in your head?"

He doesn't answer, just lays there stuttering.

"I'll kill you if you don't tell me where the creature is that you call master."

"Hemley...he is on Hemley alley."

I look into his eyes and see that fear has made him blurt out the truth.

"Please," he says. "I need help."

"Yes. You do."

I fire the gun twice, head and chest shots.

One less future zombie. I haul the body into the yard of a derelict building, cover it with oil and set fire to it, then run back into the alleyway to find my brothers.

Just as I turn the corner I see three figures, dressed in robes. I guess that they have been watching me and will have seen everything.

"I see that you have found them," says the first.

I aim my gun.

"Who are you?"

"We are allies. We are the Sisters of Rahl. Come. I think your fellow soldiers have found the rest."

The Sisters of Rahl. A Vampire sect. Why we ever deemed it right to become allies with them, I question, but they have proven helpful in tracking down Nua'lath's movements in London.

I follow them, and we turn many corners, making our way through one of the most dangerous parts of London, along dark alleyways and empty streets. Just as I begin to wonder if the Sisters have turned on us and this is a trap, we turn a corner and I see my brothers.

The alleyway is a mess. Several men lie dead, blood everywhere, and at least a dozen others are kneeling on the ground, my brother's guns trained on them.

I glance at the name on the street sign as I walk by. Hemley. The creature is on this street.

At the other end of the alleyway lie the bodies of two women. Two of the Sisters move quickly through the carnage and over to the two bodies. They examine them, and then look up to the Sister who still stands next to me.

"They are both barely alive."

She nods.

"Turn them."

The two sisters lift the dying women and take them along the alleyway and around the corner.

I walk over to Joshua.

"Well?"

"One of the Scouts is living out of a house down near a place called The Running Ground. It's some kind of storage for contraband."

"Good, well the other one is on this street, somewhere."

"We have them."

"Yes."

"Then we kill these things and then tonight we drive the minions out of their hiding places. They will move on and we will make sure that they move in the direction we want them to go. From here, they can't fail to find the junkyard."

The Sister of Rahl standing next to me touches my shoulder.

"When we are done here, I would wish to speak to you. It is in my understanding that you are able to open doors. Doors to other places."

"I can, yes."

"The Sisters do not wish to be here anymore. We would like to go somewhere where there are no crowds, no wars, and no people. We will miss London, but it is not safe for us here anymore. Would you be able to assist us?"

"Of course, you and your kin have been of great help to us and I can understand you not wanting to be here if we can't stop the invasion that is coming. I think I know the ideal place."

"You do?"

"Yes, how does an entirely empty city sound to you? It's post invasion, so there are some elements of the Horde still there, but not too much. And there is a whole city of empty buildings."

"It sounds perfect."

FLASH

I opened my eyes and looked around. Marie was still talking. They hadn't even noticed that I'd just had more flashbacks.

"...So I joined them and followed them to the stadium. Senga promised me that she would help with my memories. She has over the years. I still get the occasional flashback, and there are still memories that I'm sure are missing, parts of my mind and my past that I hope will come back, one day."

I lay down again. I was tired, and it was far too late in the evening to start telling them all about the flashbacks that I'd just had.

Day 52

The sun wasn't quite as hot today, and there was a cool breeze blowing across the desert as we made our way out of the forest and down the highway, back towards the road station. I kept thinking about how I was going to be able to explain to Cory that Eleanor was my granddaughter, and that she would be leaving with me. No easy way to put it came to mind.

As we approached the road station, around midday, I could already tell that something had changed. The front door was wide open, and the truck was gone.

We went inside, but found no one there. Things were missing, not furniture, but other things, like the cutlery in the kitchen, pictures on the wall. They had taken anything that could be stuffed into a vehicle. Rudy and Adler went through the hatch and looked around in the secret basement, but came back with worried looks.

"Nothing."

Growling. From outside. The Maw.

I was the first one out, with both guns raised, followed by Reg and Marie.

There was a figure standing on the other side of the road. The Maw were encircling it, but keeping their distance. We crossed the road, slowly, until I recognised who it was. A week ago I would have opened fire, thinking it was CutterJack.

"It's impossible," said Rudy, behind me, still unaware of the addition of Dha'mir to the mystery. "How can he be here? You have to kill him. You've got guns, Kill him."

"Wait. Calm down. It's not CutterJack."

"It's not?" asked Rudy.

"No, it's not," said Adler. "This one has no scars."

"I had a flashback late last night. This is one of CutterJack's kind, but he was helping us. I think he was the one who helped us trap CutterJack down there."

"You trapped him? You did it?" asked Rudy.

"Remind me tonight to tell you all about my flashbacks."

The figure approached.

Dha'mir.

"Do you have your memory back this time Mr. Halldon?"

"Yes. Of you at least. Why are you here?"

"I was watching over your offspring."

"You knew she was my granddaughter?"

"Hmm, it would seem that not all of your memories have come back, otherwise you would have known that your daughter left the child here when you went into The Corridor a few months ago. You do not remember this yet? I presumed something had gone very wrong, you have been gone for longer than expected."

"So you just decided to watch over her out of kindness?"

He laughed.

"Of course not. No difference to me, except that I knew that if you survived, your daughter would have come back for her. I believe Eleanor was quite confused that you did not recognise her. Of course, I warned her that you were not well, and that you would be back again."

"Then why didn't you show your face when we were here last? Why didn't you speak to us?"

"I entered your mind and found no reference to myself. It was quite strange. You appeared to have forgotten quite a lot. I presumed that my brethren had damaged you. You spoke of your memories, and I knew that the Rahl witch would be able to change your illness. I decided to wait. It must be very frustrating that your mind is open now, when once you were strong enough to stop almost anyone."

"You were the angel that Eleanor spoke of. Her angel."

"Yes. Ironic is it not?"

"You could have saved me a lot of time."

"Really? If I had appeared, you would all have fired your guns at me, believing me to be Nua'lath. Would you not? I would now be dead. Not a wise choice."

I had to admit that I would have shot him if we had met a few days ago.

"So where is she? Eleanor."

"They have moved on, under my instruction. To another location."

"Where?"

"Somewhere safe. Do not worry, the Maw that stayed here have gone with them. She is safe, and they will return. When you have completed your half of the deal, you will see her again. Do you remember if you destroyed the scrying device that you suspected he was using?"

"That much I do remember. I destroyed a mirror."

"A mirror, yes, a favourite method of his. Then he is trapped once more. And if you came out of there alive, then he must be weak enough now. It is time to fulfil the rest of our deal. You must take me to this Corridor. This trap. So that I can kill Nua'lath and take my rightful place. This is what we agreed, and I have waited long enough."

"You said that my daughter went with me?"

"Yes. Your daughter, and your mate, and others. I am sure this memory will come back to you soon. It would be unfortunate if they were all now dead."

"They could still be in there."

"That is also possible."

"I need to get them out."

"Yes, well then. It suits us both. You will take me to The Corridor. And you will wait at the door until I have killed him. Then it will be safe for you to go and get your kin."

"But I haven't remembered how to use the key yet. I can't get us in there."

FLASH

I'm standing in a field. Corn sways in the wind and the sun is creeping behind the horizon. DogThing is beside me. He is much smaller. Much younger.

We're alone.

"Now sit," I tell him, pointing to the ground.

He whines at me and scratches the ground, then sniffs at his feet.

"Sit," I repeat.

This is going to be harder than I thought. Three days and the pathetic little thing hasn't even learned to sit still yet.

I pat his back end and he sits down.

"That's sit," I say.

He makes a quiet growling noise.

"Okay. Now up. Stand," I say.

He sits there looking at me. Big puppy eyes all wet and confused.

"You are a stubborn mutt," I curse.

"And you are rude."

A voice in my head.

I look round, drawing a weapon, panning across the field. Looking for the source of the voice, but I see no one, there is nobody there.

I look down at DogThing.

"I'm imagining things now."

"No you're not."

The voice again.

"Who's there?" I shout, looking round again. I must have missed them. They are there somewhere, hiding.

"Just you and me."

"Where are you?" I shout, my gun ready to train on anything that moves.

"I'm right here, ManThing. Why don't you sit down?"

I turn to DogThing.

"You're speaking in my head."

"Yes."

"How? How are you doing that?"

"It's how I talk."

"You can talk."

A stupid statement.

"I can talk. Is that really a surprise? You can talk."

"But..."

"Sit."

I sit down.

"Now. Can we agree on something here?"

"What's that?"

"Next time you want me to do something. Ask me. I don't like being told to sit, any more than you do."

"Of course."

"Good."

There is silence. We sit opposite each other, working each other out. Finally I break the silence.

"So, what else can you do?"

FLASH

I'm standing in the ruins of a city. It's one that has fallen recently and is still under attack by The Horde. Around me, buildings are still burning. I'm convinced that we are too late to save anyone in this city, and we don't have time to stay here very long, or else we will miss the chance to save people elsewhere. Even now, squads of Resistance troops are portaling across the world, hunting for places that are not already burning, places that people are still alive that may still be saved. But this world is turning out to be a particularly bad one. We were just far too late in following The Horde, too slow in finding where they were going next.

Andre is standing next to me, watching up and down the street for movement, expecting the enemy at any moment. I'm concentrating on the building directly in front, waiting to hear from our forward scout.

"He's taking too long. Should I go in and check?"

"No. Wait. He's fine."

Andre shakes his head.

"It freaks me out that you can do that," he says. "Talk to him, I mean."

I smile.

"Me too."

DogThing comes out of a building on the opposite side of the road. He runs across the street and stops next to me, looking back.

"Nothing in there."

"And no burning ones?"

"No. They have already finished with this place."

"Okay. Let's get back. There's no point sending the Vigilants in here if there is no one to rescue. Andre. You need to get the squads moving to the other locations. Let's get back. I'll open some more portals. There are a few places here that I remember. One of them is the ruins of a church next to a small town. It's far enough from a city to hopefully not be too hot when you go in. But we're a week into this incursion, and we were too slow this time. We were complacent. So be careful anyway."

He nods.

"I still don't understand how. He's been locked in The Corridor for decades, yet the attacks have begun again. How is he doing it?"

"Something we missed. Something we overlooked."

I pull something out of my pocket. A small device. It's a key. It's similar to the one that I wear around my neck in the present time, but this one is different. I made this one.

I concentrate on it for a moment, and a hole pops into existence next to us. Through the gap is a dark room with a mosaic on the floor. People are moving around, preparing for war.

We step through.

FLASH

I blinked my eyes. The flashbacks were over and I was standing on the road again.

Dha'mir was looking at me, his eyes untrusting.

"Ignore what I just said," I said to him. "I know how to open portals now."

"Good," he said. "Then we need waste no more time. You must open the portal, and keep it open. I will be able to keep in contact with you that way."

I nodded.

I turned to the others. They look confused.

"I'm sorry. I just don't have time to explain everything to you all. I'm going to open a portal over in the back yard of the station, let him through, and then come back. Then we will all have to watch the door until Dha'mir returns."

"That could take days though," said Rudy. "CutterJack could be hiding anywhere, and The Corridor is a big place. Isn't it risky, keeping the door open so long?"

"We need to," I said. "If Dha'mir needs to know anything, he will need to be able to talk to me."

"I will know where my brethren is when I get there. I will be able to sense his presence. It will not take me long to find him."

"I will come in with you."

I looked across the road at DogThing, and then nodded. I walked around the building and into the back yard of the road station. The box that Eleanor stood on to look over the fence was still there and my heart jumped at seeing it.

I will find you again, little one. I promise.

I moved into the middle of the yard, took out the key and concentrated on locating the wall at the end of the bridge, in The Corridor, the place where the door had opened and allowed us to escape before. My mind reached out in a way that I had forgotten until now, and in front of me a small hole appeared. One that was similar to the random holes that I had seen in The Corridor, after the storm. I focussed on that small hole, willing it to grow, until there was a gap big enough for us to go through.

I stared at it for a moment, wondering why it wasn't in the shape of a door, like it was before.

I stepped forward into the gap and walked through, changing the hole from merely an image of the other place, into a real hole. My ears popped as the door was opened.

So, there I was once more, in The Corridor. The darkness in the pit below made my stomach churn. I knew exactly what was shambling around down there.

Behind me, DogThing shuffled through the gap, followed by Dha'mir. Dogthing walked over to the edge of the precipice and looked over. He remembered as well.

"Still zombies down there."

I turned to Dha'mir.

"This is it. As I promised. We will keep the door open until you come back. Good..."

FLASH

I move quickly through the junkyard. DogThing at my side, Andre, Joshua, Abegail, Chione and others close behind.

We're in London. At the junkyard. Many years ago. Andre had been watching the area for a long time, investigating every strange phenomenon that happened, confirming that the place called Gallowshill would be the most likely entry point.

So easily they gave up their secrets, even though they defied us at first, and then cursed and denied their admissions afterwards. The minions had been crawling around London for years, preparing for the arrival of their master, and the Horde that would follow him to Earth. We had caught them all, all of those minions sent to pave the way, and we had burned each one of them until they told us what we needed to know.

"We don't have much time," shouts Abegail.

I glance around to where she is looking. Over on the other side of the scrap yard, no more than a few hundred yards away, in the middle of the strange scaffolding platform that the original owner put up to build his house, the air is crackling with energy. Dark swirls of blackened mist are gathering into a cyclone that will precede the opening of the first portal on Earth. If that one is opened, then more portals will open all over the world, and we will have failed yet again.

I stop and drop my pack to the ground.

"Here is good."

The others pull the packs from their backs and haul out the contents. We begin assembling the device, all of us breathing heavily. This has been practiced many times before, and it will only take a few minutes to assemble the device.

"I can't believe that we are this close," shouts Chione, over the noise of the wind. I can see the fear in her eyes as she hurries to put together the main chamber, the cylinder that will fill with energy.

"We need to be," I reply, as I fix the first battery to the power coupling. "It has to work this time. This is the only way to catch him for sure."

Less than a minute later and the device is assembled and switched on, ready to use. Abegail stands behind it with the control pad in her hand, waiting for me to say go. Everyone else has their guns out, trained on the black tornado that is now forming. The six Vigilant soldiers that we brought with us form a line in front of us, also with their guns ready.

"I've never seen one this close," says Andre.

"No," I say. "Me neither."

He shakes his head.

"We actually got it spot on this time."

"Don't start celebrating yet."

Chione looks me straight in the eyes.

"Dad, what if it's not him? What if those burning ones come through first?"

"It will be him. Don't you worry about that. He is always first, along with his gate openers. The portal needs to be fully open, and to do that, the opener must step through it. That means him and his cronies. It's important that we kill those gate openers. Without them, he won't be able to open more doors."

She looks back at the tornado.

"It's opening," shouts Abegail.

"Wait," I say. "Not yet."

She nods.

The tornado implodes on itself, and the energy tears open the tiniest of holes. Then the hole begins to grow, until I can see dark figures on the other side. The hole expands further, until it is big enough to swallow an entire house. Then the dark figures step through. The misty barrier that separated this world from the other vanishes, and the hole becomes real.

Four figures appear, pale, thin and gaunt, each of them bearing a chain around their neck with a talisman upon it. They look like compasses, but are really parts of a single device that Nua'lath uses to open the door, each time draining these wretched creatures of a little bit more of their soul. Their skin is nearly dropping off of their bodies. These are the ones Dha'mir told me about, the ones that have to die if we are to trap Nua'lath.

Nua'lath is the next through, followed by some of his kre'esh pets.

"Now," I shout and there are several clicking noises as Abegail presses the switches. The device bursts into life and the shockwave deafens me as a cloud of bright energy spreads out around us. Then the noise. The wind as the device opens the rift that will drag us all away from Earth.

I look over at Nua'lath, who has now seen us and is looking directly at me. He glances behind him, seeing what I see. His portal collapses and we are pulled from Earth into The Corridor. The whole area around us is torn away and dumped into the darkness.

"Fire," I shout, and the guns answer. Shards of invisible energy tear through the kre'esh at the front. I see Nua'lath run into the darkness, followed by some of his pets. Two of his Gate openers drop dead as the Vigilant soldiers target them specifically, but the other two panic and dash in different directions, heading into the darkness alone.

I wait a moment, allowing the Vigilants to kill as many of Nua'lath's creatures as possible before they vanish from view.

"Move," I shout. "To the exit. Time to leave, folks."

"What about the other two Gate openers?" shouts Abegail.

"No need," I answer. "Dha'mir told me about them. Two are dead. He needs all four. He will need to kill them now, and create four more. Which is why we don't want anyone alive in here now. We've done it."

Then we're running through the darkness, following the markers that will guide us to the gates. Abegail is running at my side. Every few hundred yards we meet another group of Vigilants, who then join us in our exodus. They were placed there to back us up if we were followed.

"We did it," shouts Abegail over the noise of dozens of boots on the hard ground. "We got him."

"Yes," I answer, as I gasp for breath.

We pass the old London bus. The Waylander team has already packed up and is waiting for us.

I stop, out of breath. Everyone around me is crouching over, gasping for air.

"Okay. Two minutes, that's all. Then we move again. We have a day's journey ahead of us. Andre. Radio ahead. Tell them to evacuate and secure The Warrens and wait for us. Then call the team at the waterfall. We need that exit shut and sealed up."

FLASH

We're in The Corridor. It's years later. Maybe only a few months ago. Abegail, DogThing and Andre are by my side.

We are standing on Merriwether Avenue, in The City. Just down the street I see the top window of the safe house is open, music drifts from the open window and the curtains blow in the breeze.

"You really think that music will bring him here?" asks Abegail.

"I think so. We know that he comes here, and the noise of the music seems to travel like no other sound does. It has to work. It has to keep him snooping around here whilst we find out what is going on out there."

"I hope so."

"Okay. You all get down into the bunker and wait for us to get back."

"I'm worried. We should come with you."

"No. We need to be quick, and draw little attention. We need Nua'lath distracted long enough to locate whatever he is using and destroy it, and I need somewhere to run to if we get into trouble. Be ready. Chione has my key, and the coordinates for the bunker, she will be able to get us out of there."

"You be careful," says Abegail.

"Always."

I turn to the four Outriders that stand a few feet away, waiting for me.

"Let's go and do this."

FLASH

A week has passed and we have travelled across The Corridor and finally finished up at The Junkyard. Other places turned up nothing, but now we have found how Nua'lath is still causing chaos.

I'm standing on the scaffolding, looking at the door to the pocket dimension. I curse. How could we have missed it? How could we have misjudged that pulling an opening portal from Earth, and through to The Corridor would create such a strange phenomenon? It confirmed our suspicions. Nua'lath was able to reach outside because he was able to step into another dimension, albeit another sealed one. But once there, the confines of The Corridor were no longer a problem. It was surprising that he hadn't figured out a way to escape yet.

Nearby, the four Outriders stand nervously looking out into the darkness around us. None of us even see the kre'esh moving swiftly through the darkness towards us until it's too late. Before I can even react, or warn them, all four of them are knocked off of the platform, falling into the junk below. I hear guns going off, but also screams. Lot's of kre'esh are moving around down there,

I start to run down the scaffolding, to go and help them, but something moves behind me. I spin round, as Nua'lath lunges for me. I try to duck out of the way, but I'm not fast enough. DogThing is. A flurry of movement and a flash of fur and DogThing and Nua'lath tumble off of the edge and down into the junk below.

I stop. I could go and help DogThing, or I could make an attempt to destroy whatever device Nua'lath is using to reach outside.

I hesitate, but then chose the latter. DogThing may just be able to keep him busy long enough for me to do something. I dive through the open door, into the space beyond. The room is empty except for a dressing table in front of me.

A mirror.

I grab my gun and turn it in my hand. He must be using the mirror to scry. This is how he is still controlling the Horde, even from within his prison. I step forward, about to smash the mirror with my gun.

Something moves in the mirror and it's not me. I falter for a moment and try to focus on what it is. The image is clearing. A face. I don't know who he is but our eyes are locked together and now I cannot look away. I'm stuck, unable to move.

I curse, and try to break free, but I don't have the strength. Something grabs me from behind and pulls me away. A hand is around my throat and I am being lifted off of the floor and dragged back out of the room, all the time I can see the man in the mirror, his mind locked with my own, and just as terrified as I am.

We're out on the platform and Nua'lath is holding me by the throat.

"Now I shall finally feed on you, Rat."

My jacket and my armour are torn from me, weapons and equipment thrown off the platform and into the junk forty feet below. All the time his tight grip breaks bones and tears muscle. I see his mouth open as he pulls me in. Sharp, bloody teeth are about to bite me.

But it doesn't happen.

Another flash of fur, DogThing was still alive, and Nua'lath is launched away from me once more. I drop to the ground, one foot hitting the wooden planks, but the other foot kicks out into open space. I'm falling. I see the ground rush up to meet me. Then I burst through the junk and hit the ground. I lie there, barely conscious as everything seems to be slipping away. I can feel the junk collapsing on top of me. The last thing I can remember before I pass out is hearing the thoughts of someone else echoing in my head.

FLASH

The flashbacks receded, and I was back near the entrance once more, with Dha'mir and DogThing, but something was wrong. Pain exploded in my chest. I couldn't breathe. Something was stuck in my chest. Dizziness washed over me and I collapsed to the floor. I could see the handle of my blade, the one I took from CutterJack, sticking out of my ribs.

I glanced to my right, to where DogThing was still looking over the edge of the cliff, down at the zombies below. I tried to call out. He turned, his eyes lighting up with anger. He rushed forward, but there was movement next to me, and a sudden gust of strong wind, and DogThing was hurled over the edge of the cliff, down into the mass of zombies below.

Dha'mir stood over me and smiled. Even though I couldn't turn round, I knew from the darkness around me that the door was no longer open.

"What a fortunate turn of events. Those flashbacks of yours are quite dangerously distracting are they not? I was content to know that I would be able to finally kill Nua'lath and take the power that is rightfully mine. But to leave you to die in here as well, and take this? Most opportune."

He was holding the compass key. Nua'lath's key.

In the distance, below us, I could hear growling and gnashing of teeth, and the moans of countless zombies. DogThing was putting up a good fight.

I watched helplessly as Dha'mir pulled my pack from my rucksack and rifled through my things. He took out a single bottle of oil and one of the cigarette lighters and placed them on the ground, and then he threw the pack out into the darkness. It plummeted down towards the zombies and disappeared amongst them.

"Does that hurt?" asked Dha'mir. "Such a shame. I should kill you right now, and I may regret not doing so, but because you have been so helpful to me, I will let you die up here, slowly, out of the way, where the zombies cannot get to you. Maybe you will even live, maybe your friends will figure out how to re-open the door and come and help you, as unlikely as that may seem. I think that blade will be your end. I am truly regretful for doing this, but you have to understand that I could not miss out on this opportunity. You would, after all become an issue later on, and to remove one of the Horde's most prominent enemies is most fortunate. For me."

One by one he pulled my guns out of their holsters and tossed them over the edge. I couldn't help but feel the irony of being stripped of my equipment yet again.

"Farewell, Mr Halldon. I hope it does not take you too long to die."

I couldn't move. The pain was too much. All I could do was watch as Dha'mir walked off across the scaffolding bridge. It wobbled under his weight, but still held. As he walked away, I saw the trail of oil that was pouring out of the bottle that he had taken.

He vanished into the darkness, but moments later there was a spark of fire, and the oil took light. The flash rushed along the wooden boards and then spread out, until it engulfed the entire platform.

Below, the zombies were still once more and everything was quiet, apart from the crackling of the flames.

Day 53

So I'm still sitting here, up on this small rock outcropping in The Corridor, alone and injured once more, looking out at the burned ruins of the bridge across the zombies. There is no sign of DogThing after his fall. I can only presume that he fell to them or escaped somehow. If I'm right, it will be a couple of days before he regenerates, and then he may be able to help me.

After passing out at least twice, I managed to pull the sword from my chest, and it's lying on the floor next to me. The gaping hole has already closed up, and I know it will only take a day or so before most of the damage is gone. I'm surprised that Dha'mir had so little experience of the Resistance to not know that we could heal from nearly any wound if given the time.

If only I hadn't had the flashbacks. I could have turned around when he was gone, walked out of the door with DogThing, and sealed the two of them in to kill each other and then found a different way to get to my family, wherever they are. Now it seems that both CutterJack and Dha'mir are sealed in together, but I'm here as well.

Dha'mir burned the scaffold platform, so he didn't intend coming back here, which means that either he knows something that I don't know, something that CutterJack wasn't able to figure out in the decades that he was trapped here, or he doesn't yet realise that the key won't get him out of here in any other location. He has to come back this way.

What I wouldn't give to have my friends with me now. Rudy and Adler. How useful would they be getting through the zombies that now trap me? Or Reg with his shotguns. Or maybe Marie. I don't know how well she fights against zombies, but I would imagine she is dangerous.

Out there is not just one, but two nightmarish enemies, and one of them has my key.

But this time I'm not as confused as I was before. This time I know I'll be able to kill the creatures that prowl this place. And I already know where the mushrooms are.

And I know that Abegail and my daughter could well still be down here somewhere, wherever the bunker is, they must be locked away in there, waiting to be rescued and they have been waiting for nearly two months. I just need to remember where that might be, or wait for a memory flashback to tell me. They can't be anywhere else, and I won't accept the only other answer.

I know one thing. This time I won't fail. This time I will somehow destroy both CutterJack and Dha'mir.

This time it will be different.

Book 3

The Ways

Knowing that death is not coming is the strangest of feelings...

It may have been days that I've laid here on the rocky cliff, in pain, but somehow I don't think it's really been that long. I hope that the time that has passed in between each unconscious period was merely hours. Every moment that I lie there, not moving, not trying to get away, was more time wasted as Dha'mir wanders around in The Corridor, hunting for CutterJack, and maybe hunting for Abegail and Chione, wherever they were.

It would be very handy if CutterJack or Dha'mir were already dead when I finally managed to get away, but I had this terrible feeling in my stomach that it would not be quite that simple. A few times I had managed to push myself up and look over the edge to see if the Zombies were still there, and search for any signs of DogThing, but nothing changed.

The bridge that had once spanned the gap, all the way to the wall, was now completely void of any of the wooden planks that would have made my escape easier. Now all that remained were some charred lumps here and there.

The scaffolding was still there, though; tall struts pointing up into the darkness, held together by cross-beams that looked as though they could collapse at any moment with the slightest disturbance.

Eventually I stopped passing out and managed to sit up. I checked what equipment I had left and discovered it was as little as I had expected. A couple of those disposable cigarette lighters, my cigarettes, this pen and the diary and a knife was the sum of my resources, and they were only there because Dha'mir hadn't ripped off my utility belt whilst he was casting every other useful thing into the darkness below, into the Zombies.

Oh, and of course, I still had the long blade. That was still there, and thankfully now no longer stuck through me.

I'm going to presume, for hope's sake, that it is still day 53, even though I know it isn't.

I examined the wound in my chest, and was relieved to see that it had sealed up. It wasn't a neat scar, and my skin was still pale and bruised. In fact, pretty much all of me is pale. My cheeks and hands tingle from the blood loss.

My mind drifted back to the moment that I pulled the blade from my chest, and it nearly caused me to throw up. I couldn't even begin to describe the horror of how the jarring of a long blade scraping across my own ribs felt. The pain hadn't been as intense as I had imagined it might be, but the grating against bone had been...I shuddered just thinking about it.

I decided that across the scaffolding was my only route of escape; there was no chance at all, not even the slightest of hopes, that I would survive a battle through the Zombies below, even if I did survive the fall to get down to them. There were just too many of them. They'd tear me apart in seconds, just as I presumed they had torn DogThing apart. Of course he could phase out, and I hoped that he had, but I wouldn't be able to do that. I would just be consumed by them. It's ironic really, when I think about it. Like all of the Resistance, I am almost immortal in the way that I can just heal over a very short period of time due to the serum in my blood, but that serum wouldn't matter in the slightest if I was munched on by Zombies. And yet here I was, fighting them yet again. We're always fighting the things that can actually kill us.

The Maw had it easy that way. They could phase out and disappear to wherever it was that they went, and just stay there until they healed. And they healed from nearly anything.

The Maw.

DogThing.

The hope that I have is that he somehow managed to phase out, like I had discovered he could in my flashbacks. I still don't remember - yet - ever having seen him or any of the other Maw do it, but when I thought of how CutterJack had killed DogThing and the other Maw on Merriwether Avenue, I couldn't deny that this strange regenerative ability that they supposedly possessed had to be true.

Or had I seen it? Hadn't one of them phased when I was in the ruined city?

My head hurts.

My mind is also spinning with confusion over Dha'mir's actions. What had he really to gain by killing me? He now had the key. But why hadn't he just taken it when we first arrived at the road station? Why had he not taken it when I was unable to even remember who he was?

I need to sleep now. Rest some more. Hopefully when I awake I will strong enough to attempt the climb across the scaffolding.

Day 54

I awoke with a cough, but this time there was no blood running down my chin. I sat up before I even thought about it, and was relieved that I didn't collapse back down to the floor in pain.

I realised then why Dha'mir had killed me. I remembered. I had seen it in his eyes as he had stood over me. He was no different to CutterJack. It was obvious to me. He had travelled with the Horde the whole time, commanded them to destroy cities, and in turn been commanded by CutterJack. He was burning with hatred for both his master and everything else. He hated us, and me, as much as he hated them.

If he managed to kill CutterJack then he would simply take his place, and he would have the key to help him. Opening doors would be much simpler with that. The Horde would have a leader that not only had the same strengths as its previous one, but one that could open doors into any world he chose.

I had to get off this rock.

I stood on the edge of the rocky outcropping, knife tucked into my belt and everything else as secure as I could make it, and reached out to the nearest scaffolding upright.

It was too far away to reach, which meant that I simply had to take a few steps back, run, and jump. It was a one-way trip. That much was obvious. When I made the leap there would be no going back and only downwards if the whole lot started to fall apart.

I moved back until I was leaning against the wall that had once held the door, took one long, deep breath and then I ran.

When I was in mid-air, about three seconds later, and half a second before I grabbed hold of the scaffolding, I regretted my choice. I hadn't seen it from the ledge; the eerie darkness played hell with my vision, especially at a distance, and as I sped through the air towards the first upright pole, I saw below.

The footings underneath the first section of scaffolding had collapsed. There was nothing below the section that I was about to land on. If the cross-beams holding the uprights together gave way - and they were rusted with age - then...

No choice.

I was already committed.

This was going to happen anyway.

The upright pole was suddenly right in my face. I grabbed hold of it and held on as tight as I could. Below me, I heard the screech of metal twisting and breaking as more of the metal poles collapsed under my weight, but the momentum of my run swung me forwards as the whole section broke away and fell to the ground below. One moment I was holding onto a metal pole and the next I was plummeting downwards with the metal uprights and steel crashing down around me, crashing down towards the mass of Zombies in the darkness below. If anything was going to wake them up then that was it.

I came down holding tightly to one of the cross-beams, slamming my legs into another beam that was a few feet below. Something snapped, and I couldn't tell if the noise had been a part of me or just another piece of wood or metal breaking.

I opened my eyes, not even sure why they had been closed, and waited for the pain.

I wasn't on the ground amongst the Zombies. I was lying on top of the broken scaffold, which in turn was crushing the mass of undead things beneath it. But they had seen me now and began moaning, clawing their way over the tops of each other and over the fallen metal structure to try to get at me. I pulled with every bit of my strength that I could summon, and hauled myself up, barely managing to drag my feet up and out of the way of the first of the reaching hands.

Then came the moans. First it was just the few that had seen me, but then the entire darkness around me began to wail and writhe. Thousands of them, all crawling over the broken scaffolding, and each other, just to get at me.

The scaffolding pole that I was clinging on to had fallen at an angle, leaning against the next section that was still standing. If I could climb up there, I might be able to keep climbing and get away.

Pain erupted again in my chest as I dragged myself one hand over the other, inch after painful inch, up the pole. I slipped a few times and had to swing back up, all of the time aware that below me the Zombies were piling on top of each other to get to me. Every foot higher that I managed to climb, they seemed to still get closer. Finally, after what seemed to be forever, I grasped hold of a crossbeam and climbed up into a standing position, out of the way of grasping hands and gnashing teeth.

But it didn't end there.

No sooner had I moved over to the section of still standing scaffolding, than the Zombies below were shaking the very footings that held it up. As quickly as I could manage, I climbed. Up and up, until I was on the top of the scaffolding again. Once there I held on tight and began to make my way, crawling, across the tottering remains of the bridge.

Once I was higher up, the Zombies seemed to calm. I couldn't quite make their heads out now as I looked down into the darkness below, so maybe they couldn't sense me either. The light of the glowing rocks high up in the cave was not as bright as it had been when we had left this place before, I was sure of it. I vividly remembered seeing the mass of heads and arms swaying like a sea below as we walked across the bridge that time.

It all seemed so long ago now, even though it had only been a few weeks.

The climb across the wreckage of the bridge took so long that I couldn't even count the hours that may have passed. But the relief when I finally pulled myself on to the top of the wall was enough to make me cry out.

I collapsed onto the cold stone and lay there, breathing heavily.

I couldn't believe that I'd actually made it across, and I didn't even notice DogThing until he was standing next to me, licking the back of my head.

I rolled over and lay there looking at him, and laughed, just completely relieved to see those massive glowing eyes and the wide grin of teeth that would terrify any sane human being. I could swear that he was getting bigger. Even the row of black spines across his back somehow seemed to be sharper, and stick out further. Maybe it was my imagination.

"So we're back here again," I said, coughing again. I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand.

Good. No blood.

DogThing snorted.

"Yes. Back here...again."

I laughed again, louder this time.

Then I realised that I could see, I mean actually see almost clearly without any torchlight. My eyes had adjusted to the darkness already.

Or something worse. Had I been in the dark for long enough for it to happen?

I felt a surge of panic. I couldn't have been. My eyes hadn't seen very well in the darkness across the bridge, or down into the Zombies.

"Have we been here long?"

"I don't know. I've phased twice already, so I don't know how long it has been."

"Twice? You mean you died twice already?"

"I don't die. I phase and then heal. And then I phase back again."

"Twice though? I saw you go into the Zombies, but twice?"

DogThing looked towards where the Zombies were, beyond the bridge and into the darkness.

"When we phase back, we are in the same place. I was still in amongst them. They hurt me again. I ran through them, but they still wounded me enough for me to need to phase again."

"Oh."

"I saw some of your stuff. It's right near them. But they moved when they chased me."

"What bits? A gun?"

Hope.

"No. I only saw your bag."

"Could we get it?"

"They would sense you and come after you."

"Hmm. There are thousands of them down there."

I sat there, still completely puzzled over why the Zombies gathered there. From what I remembered of our last visit, the Zombies travelled all the way across The Corridor to get there. What the hell was there that drew them to it? I would only find out if I killed them all, and even though I was now remembering how to be half competent fighter, I didn't fancy my chances against thousands of the creatures with just a blade.

Even if it was CutterJack's blade.

"DogThing. I think I know where there are guns. And even other equipment."

"Where?"

"Below us, right over there, in the junk on the ground. That was where CutterJack threw me the first time I was here. I ended up hidden underneath all of the junk, but he threw my kit in there. Unless someone else took it, which seems doubtful, it has to still be there."

I pulled myself up onto my feet, every part of my body screaming with aches and pains.

I stopped. If it hadn't been for the pain I would have laughed. Well, wasn't this familiar?

We made our way down the scaffold walkway until we drew level with where the door to the pocket dimension had been. I stood there, looking at the space where the door had been. It was strange to think that we had planned on using explosives to close it up, when all that was really needed was the destruction of the mirror. If only I had smashed it that first time.

A few minutes later and we were both hunting through the junk that surrounded the bottom of the platform.

"He can't have thrown it far. He was holding me with one hand, and threw my stuff into the junk. I remember that much."

"He can throw quite far."

"Yes, well, there is that."

I scrambled around, lifting bits of scrap metal and broken electronics and casting them aside, searching for anything that had once been mine. Then it occurred to me. How had all this modern junk ended up here? When we pulled the junkyard from London into The Corridor, most of what was lying here underneath me hadn't even been made yet. Was there something that we had missed with that machine? Even though it was now switched off, not even here any more, was it still somehow working? Was that what the holes that I had seen the first time I came here were?

DogThing barked at me.

"I've found where you were."

I stopped searching under the pile of electronics and ran round to where DogThing was sniffing the ground.

"Blood. Yours."

I crouched down and peered underneath the broken table next to the patch of dried blood. The table had definitely been smashed by something from above, probably me falling on it. Beyond the table I could see a gap underneath the junk, some kind of tunnel, held up on both sides by broken window frames and furniture.

I crouched down, peering underneath to see how far the tunnel went.

FLASH

I'm lying on the ground, barely conscious. My right arm and leg won't move. I look at them and can clearly see the bones jutting out at odd angles.

Broken.

I try to breathe, but my ribs explode with pain.

Also broken.

Nearby, somewhere, I can hear loud crashing noises. I look up and see that there is a struggle going on up on the platform above me.

I realise that I'm lying on the ground, where CutterJack threw me. The noise is DogThing and CutterJack fighting, but it ends quickly and I see a bundle of fur go flying off the platform into the darkness. A crash of glass and metal is followed by silence.

Heavy footfalls on the scaffold walkway.

He's coming to finish me off.

I roll off the table and look around frantically. There has to be someplace to hide, someplace where he cannot find me. Then I see it, just a few feet away, a hole in the massive pile of scrap furniture and window frames.

I crawl towards it, my limbs bellowing in protest. Broken bones crack and I can feel something inside of me shift uncomfortably.

Internal injuries.

This time it will take a while to heal. This is no overnight rest.

As I crawl through the small tunnel underneath the junk, I glance back. A shadowy figure stalks the ground near the bottom of the scaffolding. There is a loud bang as CutterJack kicks the table that I fell on.

"I know you are here, rat. You can hide, but I will find you."

Then I see it, just past his foot.

One of my guns.

It's underneath a pile of torn paper and cardboard.

I can't go back and get it. It's right next to him. I crawl onwards, silently screaming in pain with every inch that I make my way further into the darkness and safety underneath the mountain of refuse.

I pass out, but wake up a short time later. My arm is stuck, wedged between the legs of a chair and a pile of bricks. It must have straightened and healed whilst I was unconscious, my body fixing itself. I pull on it, but it's still stuck. I can't get my elbow out of the gap. It has healed in a way that makes it physically impossible to pull it out.

Only one thing for it.

I lean on the arm, throwing all of my weight on the newly re-formed bone. The pain is almost more than I can take, but then it cracks, broken once more. I cry out, I can't stop myself. But the pain is soon gone and I pull my shattered arm out of the gap. Again, the pain is excruciating. I feel myself drifting back into unconsciousness again, but before I do so, I manage to lay my arm straight against my body. Just before the dizziness overwhelms me and I pass out, I wonder what made me think to break the arm. Why would I do that? How can I get to the hospital in central London? Where is London? What am I thinking?

Darkness.

FLASH

When I snapped back to the present I found myself sitting on the floor and holding my head.

DogThing was standing in front of me, peering at me. Then he licked the side of my face.

"Another flash? A memory?"

"Yes."

So that is how I escaped him. I crawled under the junk and lay there. How long I was there? I don't know. Long enough to heal, all but the bruises; that would take a few days. That had been the last moments before I originally woke up here in The Corridor, sharing my mind with the man from London. It was strange remembering how it felt to have two people's thoughts rammed into one head. I had almost forgotten how confusing it had been.

I crawled back out of the tunnel, looking for the table, for where CutterJack had stood. There it was, lying on its side, shattered, about ten feet away, and right in front of it, was the pile of cardboard and paper. Underneath that was where my gun should be.

I threw aside the paper and the cardboard, feeling a surge of relief as the pale shine of metal greeted me. I picked up the gun, flipped it over, examining it, looking for any damage. Every time I flicked the active switch it did the same thing, a small flash on the battery indicator and then nothing. The battery had somehow been damaged. It certainly wouldn't be empty.

But if I could get my rucksack back from where the Zombies were, then I would have a replacement battery.

"Damn."

"It is broken?"

"No, but I need a battery. They are in my rucksack."

"Then we need to get it back, somehow."

"Yes we do, otherwise all I have to fight with is this blade. And I don't much fancy my chances with that alone. Not against both of them anyway."

"How will we do that? Get the rucksack?"

"I don't know yet. Come on. Let's go and see what we are up against. Maybe they have moved further away."

We headed along the wall for about twenty minutes before finding a part that was collapsed enough for me to climb over. There were spots earlier on, but there was no way I was trying to climb up to them. The wound in my chest was still healing, and I could already tell from the constant ache that my jaunt across the broken bridge hadn't helped.

"I can smell them from here."

"The Zombies?"

"Yes. They are close, but I can't sense them properly down here. This place is stifling."

"It is indeed, my friend. And much more."

"More?"

I stopped.

"Don't you think that there is something down here, I mean in this area of The Corridor, that we have missed? Something we don't know about?"

"Yes. Maybe."

"I think so. I certainly felt it when I first stepped over the wall. Do you remember that? That head-swinging monster? That one that screamed at me? Well. Adler had said in his notes never to cross over the wall, and I always thought that he meant the Zombies. Now...Well I don't think that was all of it. I think it's something else."

"You think that something darker is in there?"

"Pretty much it," I said, nodding. "Call it gut feeling, or empathy, or whatever nonsense."

"Well, I don't want to find out."

"No. Me neither."

I dropped down into the open space the other side of the wall, and DogThing leapt down to land next to me. Even though my eyes had adjusted to the dark, there was very little light on this side. Even the unnatural glow that seems to hang in the air across most of this place was absent here.

A darker darkness, I thought.

I drew my blade.

"I'm going to need you to be my eyes here," I said. "I can barely see a few paces."

"Even my vision is not at its best here."

"Better than mine."

"True."

Travelling along the wall towards the bridge I became nervously aware of the emptiness that stretched out before us. It was even darker down by the wall, but at least there was no rubble, or junk, or other obstructions for me to trip over. DogThing stayed close enough to me that I could hear his quiet panting. It was enough to keep me calm.

Soon the faint glow of the unnatural rocks above the bridge came into view; small specks of dim light against the void.

Then we reached the first of the upright poles, and the scaffolding that held up the bridge; at least what was left of it.

It was time to step away from the wall and out into the open cobbled space.

I wondered if the people of London in the Gallowshill area missed their cobbles. It was probably tarmac by now.

We moved slowly forwards; the dark, skeletal form of the ruined bridge, lit up slightly by the odd, glowing rocks far away, high up in the rock wall, was the only means to judge where I was.

After fifty yards or so DogThing stopped.

"Stay here. I can see them now."

"Close?"

"Close enough."

He edged forward, slowly, very slowly, and without a sound, until I could no longer see him. The moment that he disappeared completely from sight, I felt a terrible wave of fear creep into my stomach, I glanced around. I couldn't see the wall, but still had the bridge to go by. I had to keep the direction of that bridge visible.

"I think I can get your bag if I'm quick enough."

I couldn't answer out loud, so just thought to myself. We never tried speaking this way normally, but I remembered how he was able to speak to me when he was trapped in the train tunnel, back in the ruined city where we found the sisters of Rahl.

"How far is the bag from them?"

"The same as my length from eyes to tail."

"That's too close. They'll notice you. It's not worth the risk."

"They didn't."

"You got it?"

"Yes."

I couldn't help but grin at the sheer audacity of my furry friend.

"Then get out of there."

A shadow moved a few feet away, and not from the direction that DogThing had gone. My nerves lurched and I drew back my blade.

"It's me."

I gave a sigh of relief, and shook my head as he approached me, still creeping, with my bag in his mouth.

I knelt down and took the rucksack from him, closed up all the straps and slung it over my shoulder.

"Let's get the hell out of here."

"Agreed."

A moan shattered the silence.

Then another.

"Oops."

"Run."

DogThing shot off in the direction of the wall, and I followed close behind, the two of us sprinting through the darkness. I was nearly blind, but could just make out his shape a few feet ahead of me. Twice I nearly collided with the scaffolding, and by the time I reached the foot of the wall and began climbing, he was already sitting there, waiting. Two glowing bright eyes in the darkness.

"Come on. You run like a snail."

"Thanks buddy!"

I hit the wall hard and turned left, still running. The moans were nearer now, and I risked taking my hand away from the wall to sprint as fast as I could. I can't even begin to explain how unnerving it was running along in complete darkness, only able to see a few feet ahead of me, and only able to judge where the wall was because it was even darker to my left. To make it worse, no matter how fast I ran, and how many hundreds of yards we covered in those few minutes, the moaning seemed to be getting nearer and nearer each moment.

Always, though. I could hear and vaguely see that furry black shape ahead of me, guiding me through the pitch black.

Then, finally I saw some light. It was faint, and in the distance, an eerie light shining across the broken stretch of wall that I had dropped down from. I pushed harder, willing myself to run faster and faster as the gap came closer. It wasn't until I was twenty feet away from it, and getting ready to jump for it, that I noticed the Zombies. They weren't just in the area near the bridge. They were all over the place in the dark, even just a few feet away from the wall near here.

We'd just walked for twenty minutes, in the dark, barely a few feet from thousands and thousands of them.

As I ran forward, I sheathed my blade, ready to climb. DogThing reached the wall first, and leapt up, scrambling on the edge of the wall for a moment before managing to climb over the top. It was a ten-foot drop, and as I approached it, I cursed myself for not putting something down for me to climb back up. I could have found a rope or something similar in all that junk.

Too late.

With the mass of Zombies lumbering out of the darkness behind me and closing the gap rapidly, I leapt forward and up, barely grasping on to the edge of the lowest section of the wall. I heaved hard, feeling something pop in my chest; pain and wetness erupted from there, but I didn't let go.

Something grabbed my foot.

That was enough to frighten me into pulling myself up with every bit of strength that I could muster, and some more that I didn't know I had. I reached out, my leg heavy with the Zombie that was holding on to it, and grabbed another rock, pulling myself and the Zombie over the edge and onto the top of the wall.

I glanced back, kicking out with my other foot as the mouth of the Zombie clamped around my ankle. It bit down hard, but that one swift kick to the face cracked its skull open and sent it tumbling back into the darkness the other side of the wall.

I sat up, quickly undoing my leg armour and checking underneath. I hadn't felt any pain, but with the state my body was in at the moment, I may not have felt my skin being pierced on top of all the other pain.

To my relief the bite hadn't broken the skin. It hadn't even gone through the leg guard. I sighed with relief and then strapped the guard back on, pulled the pack off my back and opened it up. There were three torches stuffed in there still, so I took one out and lit it.

What I saw below me made my heart nearly leap out of my chest. I knew I wasn't looking at every Zombie that I suspected were in the darkness beyond the wall, but there were enough of them. Hundreds of the nasty things had followed us and were now pushing forward, crushing each other against the wall. None of them were able to climb up, they weren't smart enough for that, but a few were even now crawling over the top of others. Soon the mass of bodies would create a pile big enough for some of them to make their way over the top.

"We can't have them following us. And they will if we don't stop them."

"How do you stop so many?"

FLASH

I am hunched down behind a wall, firing every few moments through the window of the burned-out building. Others are around me, Resistance soldiers, also firing frantically through the windows.

"We're pinned down. There are too many."

It's Joshua, my brother, crouched next to me.

I pause for a moment.

"Where are they coming from? Can anyone get an eye on the entrance point?"

"Down the street," shouts a voice above me. One of the Vigilant Troopers with us is perched on the ledge of a window above me. "There is an alleyway."

I take a deep breath and pull out one of my spare handgun batteries. The bottom comes off with a twist and I see the four wires. I pull out the green and the yellow ones and twist them together. The battery begins to feel warm in my hands.

"Cover fire," I shout, and everyone opens up, blasting the nearest of the Zombies away.

A moment later and I hop over the window ledge and onto the pavement outside. Above me, the Vigilant Trooper blasts away with his automatic rifle at the Zombies that approach me.

I swing back my arm and launch the ammo battery across the street and into the alleyway.

"Oh crap," says a voice behind. "Everybody get down!"

The Vigilant soldier kills two more Zombies before dropping back down to ground level, just as I leap back through the window.

A high-pitched noise can be heard for a moment and then the ground shakes. Dust and rock fly through the open windows, along with other objects. Bits of Zombie.

When the dust settles, the Vigilant climbs back up onto the perch above and scans the area outside.

"All clear. Damn, you took out half of the street."

FLASH

I shook my head and waited for the dizziness to pass. Strange, I thought. The flashbacks seem to be linked to my thoughts, somehow triggered by need or by a similar situation.

I glanced down at the Zombies, then at my gun. I knew that I had other batteries in my rucksack, and the one in the gun at the moment was useless. It might not even work, but it was worth a try.

I unclipped the battery and put the gun into the holster at my waist. Yellow and green, I told myself as I unscrewed the bottom, pulled the two wires and twisted them together.

I held the battery in my hand for a few moments, waiting for the sound, waiting for the heat.

It was there, very slight at the beginning, just a little warmth, but then the piercing sound began and the battery heated up rapidly. By the time I threw it down into the crowd of Zombies, the surface of the battery was nearly burning my skin.

"Run," I shouted, scrambling down the rocks as fast as I could, away from the Zombies and into the junkyard. I ran, and I kept running, DogThing right behind me, until I saw a pile of rubble big enough to hide behind. I dived.

THUD.

The sound was muffled somehow, but then I remembered how everything was dampened in this place. I looked up, over the pile of rubble, to see a dust cloud wafting through the piles of scrap.

I walked back with DogThing, approaching the breach in the wall slowly. Even as I climbed the pile of collapsed blocks, I could see that the battery had done its job.

Looking down into the darkness, all I could see were body parts. The blast area was about thirty feet away from the wall, and every Zombie within visible distance had been torn apart by the explosion. The wall, on the other hand, seemed to have remained mostly intact.

"They won't be following us now," I said.

I knelt down, pulled my rucksack off my back and searched for my spare batteries. Two of them were stuffed into their own protective boxes at the bottom of the pack. I took one out and put it into my gun, and then fired it into the ground. It hissed as it discharged the energy bolt, and sent shards of stone scattering across the floor.

The recharge counter on the top flickered from blue to white.

Perfect.

Armed once more.

Now I have a means to protect myself from the things in here, even if it's still not a way to end CutterJack.

"Let's get moving. I want to make it to the bus before we rest."

So I'm now sitting locked away in the bus, finding it quite funny that DogThing is actually on the inside with me this time. He hesitated, but then I pointed out that I was going to barricade myself in. I think that the idea of being out on his own this time soon changed his mind.

The journey to the bus was quiet. No Zombies, no Kre'esh and no sign of either CutterJack or Dha'mir. I remembered on the way to gather up some of the plastic sheeting that was still lying in a massive pile not far from the pram and bicycle dump, just in case it rained.

Another thing I found along the way...the professor's bicycle. It was propped up against a broken wardrobe, not far from the scaffolding site. I'd completely forgotten that I'd left it here, and it certainly made the journey to the bus much quicker.

Day 55

I awoke to the sound of movement outside.

It was a shuffling noise, something going around the outside of the bus, again and again.

DogThing was sitting near the door, and sniffing.

I climbed the stairs to the top floor, stepping as quietly as I could, and peered out of one of the windows. It was too dark out there to make out clearly what was wandering around, but it certainly wasn't as clumsy as a Zombie.

DogThing made a low whining noise that was immediately answered by a quieter, higher-pitched whine from outside. The creature was now sniffing and scratching at the door to the bus.

"It's a Maw, like me. And young."

I went back down the stairs, less quiet this time.

"Seriously? There was one left behind?"

"She's frightened."

I moved quickly to the door of the bus and unblocked it. The metal screeched in protest as I forced it open.

Sitting on the floor looking up at me was the tiniest Maw I'd seen this close up. No taller than my knee. Its big eyes stared up at me so brightly that I could almost feel the terror hiding in there.

"Come on in then," I said, giving her room to get by.

She looked at me warily for a moment, and then at DogThing, and then jumped up onto the bus and scuffled past me quickly, to hide in the corner, behind DogThing. I stared at her, bewildered for a moment.

"I thought that all of them got out?"

"Yes, I also thought that they did. But, I heard one of the matriarchs pining. This may be a lost pup."

I looked down at the small bundle hiding quietly behind DogThing. She was almost entirely black, like the larger hunter Maw, except she had light, grey coloured patches around her feet.

"So she has probably been on her own down here for the last few weeks. No wonder she is frightened. I'm surprised she is still around."

"Even the Maw young are tough, and we can phase at birth. She could have been hurt many times, but would still live."

"Well. I guess we will have to figure out what to do about her. We obviously have to take her out of here, but it's too dangerous to take her with us right now."

"Yes."

I stood there thinking about it for a while.

"Are you Maw any good at hiding at her age?"

"Almost invisible if we choose. Even more than the older Maw, because of size, and especially in The Corridor where it is always dark. She could go almost anywhere and not be seen. She chose to come to us. She says that she picked up my scent over near the bridge, where she had fallen and had been hiding ever since."

"OK. So she can come with us then, but you will have to make sure she is well out of the way if something happens."

An hour later and I had decided that it was time for us to move on. I cautiously stepped out of the bus, gun drawn, scanning the furthest distance of my vision, which thankfully was increasing slowly.

No sign of movement.

We set off. I was on the bicycle, with DogThing and GreyFoot trotting alongside. I had wondered if GreyFoot would be able to keep up with us, but she moves at quite a speed considering her small size.

Oh and yes...GreyFoot. I just had to name her.

We were soon moving through the mushrooms and gradually heading uphill towards the plateau. My plan was to push hard, so that we could try to reach the ravine that was half-way across before making camp again. I didn't want to be out in the open, and the bicycle certainly sped things up a bit.

By the time the ravine came into view, I was just about exhausted. But we had travelled much faster across the expanse of marble than we had the first time.

Day 56

"Wake up."

I awoke, and immediately heard the noise above us. GreyFoot was crouched down into the darkness not far from me, and DogThing was pulling on my jacket, trying to rouse me from sleep.

I slowly edged underneath the overhang of rock, quietly dragging my rucksack with me, lying flat and staying as still as I could, gun drawn.

There was something moving around above us, up on the plateau. I had the chill feeling in my stomach that it was looking for us. Hunting us. I lay as quietly as I could, and hoped that it would move on.

Movement above. A dark shadow leapt across the ravine. A feat that I could never have achieved. It landed right on the edge, four feet hard on the marble surface. Another followed, then another.

Kre'esh.

We stayed there, hidden in the ravine. and watched as they jumped. I tried to count, but lost it at thirty in the blur of movement above us.

Thirty Kre'esh.

I would never be able to kill that many if they all ran at us at once.

We left it a few minutes and then hurried up on to the ravine. I threw the bicycle up, and then climbed, hopping on to the bicycle as quickly as I could and pedalling away as fast as it would carry me.

But we had not anticipated that some of the Kre'esh might come back to the ravine so quickly. I had hoped that they would at least keep going for a while, before they realised that they were tracking us in the wrong direction.

A hiss behind me made me glance round. About fifty feet behind us were three Kre'esh.

"Keep running," I shouted at DogThing. He grabbed GreyFoot by the neck and ran onwards, even faster than I would have been able to pedal.

I held onto the handlebars tightly with my left hand, keeping the steering straight, and then drew my gun with my right, every moment telling myself that riding forward at twenty miles an hour whilst firing a gun behind you was not a clever thing to be doing.

CRACK. CRACK.

The first two shots went wide, but they were enough to slow them down. The first of the lizard cat creatures ducked low and rolled away before getting back up and darting forward again.

CRACK.

The third shot took down one of the Kre'esh, hitting it straight in the face and obliterating most of its head. The body tumbled and continued to slide across the marble. The other two Kre'esh dodged around their fallen ally and kept on coming, screaming as they ran. Those piercing, hollow screams were answered by many, and from all directions except for the one that I was pedalling in.

CRACK. CRACK.

Another shot hit the mark, severing the leading Kre'esh's leg clean off. The creature fell to the ground, screeching and leaving a smear of dark blood across the pale marble ground. It tried to get up, but fell again.

I pedalled hard. Firing and riding at the same time meant that I kept slowing down whilst I tried to aim.

"Rocks," came DogThing's voice in my head. It sounded urgent.

I quickly looked back around, and only just in time to swerve and avoid a large chunk of the marble that was jutting out of the floor. I didn't remember seeing that before.

After a few seconds of gaining my balance, I pushed forwards. The remaining Kre'esh was now only twenty feet or so behind me, having jumped right over the rock. It was slowly gaining on me.

Then I saw them, ahead of me, DogThing and GreyFoot. Both were crouching low on the ground, teeth bared.

I knew that look.

I turned the bicycle and aimed almost directly at them, just to the side, giving them just enough space to attack.

The Kre'esh didn't even see them. It was so intent on catching me that when DogThing clamped his teeth on the creature's neck, and GreyFoot bit into one of it legs, it just carried on going. I almost didn't want to stop, or look back after the ripping sound that followed as the creature was torn apart by its own momentum.

But I did. I rode a full arc and came back around to where they were both now feeding on the Kre'esh. I shuddered. The thing was still barely alive, jerking and shaking from shock. One of its legs lay ten feet away and most of its insides were splayed out in the gap between there and where it had finally come to a halt. My stomach churned, the stench was terrible. As much as I hated these creatures, I couldn't let it die like that. I aimed my gun at its head and fired.

GreyFoot jumped back and growled at me. I almost had the impression that she was telling me off, but a moment later she continued feeding. I watched her tucking in, and cringed. Even though she was tiny if compared to the adult Maw, against the kind of dogs that people keep as pets on Earth, she was a dangerous little thing.

After they had finished gorging themselves we set off again, or I did and DogThing and his little sidekick caught up with me. With a pack of Kre'esh so close to us I wasn't hanging around for long, hungry Maw or not.

Considering how long it took me to cross the plateau back when I first set out into the dark more than a month ago, crossing it on a bicycle, even one in as bad a condition as Adler's rusty old thing, was a hell of a lot quicker than on foot and pushing a cart. I can't really account for the time, only that it only seemed like a few hours had passed when the plateau dropped away into the slope and I saw the waterfall and the shack, and all the strange, glowing plants again.

How a place like that could be a welcoming sight, I don't know, but it was. I was also relieved to have miles between us and the Kre'esh, even though I knew that they could move pretty fast when they wanted to. They would be hunting us now.

I had to rest somewhere and I knew that the shack was always somewhere that CutterJack and his pets had avoided when Rudy had lived there. He never did know why, though I suspected that he might be afraid of the place, as much as a creature such as he was able to be afraid of anything. For what reason? I don't know.

As I rode down the slope and up the other side, coasting along the rock path towards the shack, I noticed movement on the edge of my vision. Gargants, out on the swamp, still moving around. Fortunately they weren't up near the waterfall at the moment. I guess I hadn't wiped out their whole species in the swamp fire after all.

I pushed open the front door of the shack and took the bicycle inside, scanning around the place to see if anything had changed, or if anyone had been there since Rudy and I left there for what was supposed to be the last time.

It was quiet and uncomfortable there without Rudy around.

Again, and unusually, DogThing and GreyFoot joined me in the shack, huddling down in one corner whilst I spent an hour or so reinforcing the windows and the door by stacking everything that I could find against them, everything except for the mattress that I was going to sleep on.

Day 57

We had another visitor in the night. It prowled around outside for a while before moving on. I was sure it was another of the Kre'esh, but I didn't get a good look at the thing. I know it wasn't CutterJack or Dha'mir. I would have known somehow if it had been. It also wasn't a Zombie, otherwise it would have been battering on the walls all night. The thought of that made me shudder as I remembered the time that I had been woken by the sounds of a horde of the things banging on the door, and the battle outside that had come afterwards. I must admit I'd rather have dealt with Zombies than Kre'esh, though.

I woke up still feeling knackered. I guess it was just too hard to sleep with my adrenaline on full steam ahead. I knew that not far away, there was a chance that Abegail and Chione might be locked away in a hidden bunker and I had to find it. I had to find it fast. I also had to hope that I was the first to find it.

I grabbed my stuff and got ready to go. DogThing and GreyFoot were already sitting waiting by the door, patiently. I tentatively stepped out of the door and out onto the flat expanse of rock that jutted out in front of the shack, expecting Kre'esh to come bursting down the hill or out from the swamp at any moment, but thankfully they didn't show.

Then it occurred to me that I was near one of the locked doors, just over the back of the shack and up the rope that hung down from the ledge. There was something up there that I just had to see for myself, I was sure of it. Something that I had missed during my first visit up there.

I made my way up the winding path behind the shack, eventually arriving at the rope. I'd forgotten how hard a climb it was, especially with my pack, which I was not leaving anywhere, for any reason. I struggled over the final edge and then sat looking back down at my two Maw friends.

"Don't worry," I called, "I won't be long."

"We'll be here."

I climbed over the rock-fall, lit one of my remaining torches and crawled down the other side. The burial spot was still there, and still untouched. As much as I didn't like to disturb the dead, I had to see for myself. I had to see if there were any clues about this person who had been killed and buried here. Was it one of the four Gate openers that were with CutterJack, one of the two that survived and escaped the guns of the Vigilant soldiers? There had to be clues as to their fate somewhere, and here seemed as likely a place as any. The person buried here had to have come from somewhere.

There weren't many stones piled up on top of the bones, and after only a couple of minutes I had uncovered the remains. It had not been a ceremonious burial; the body had just been thrown down here and covered up by...

FLASH

I'm standing in a doorway. It's one of the physical doors that we built to block The Corridor up. It's the one above the waterfall. But I'm on the outside, where the sun is shining brightly. There are Vigilant soldiers with me. Four of them. Two Outrider sentries are also here; the ones that were guarding the door from the outside.

"So the noise was from just inside here?" I ask one of the sentries.

"Yes, sir," he replies. "There was screaming and begging, and then the sounds of a fight. It was disturbing, but we obeyed our orders and didn't open the door."

"Good. Well done."

I feel heartless, but also know that the risk of opening the door is too great.

I shine the torch into the passageway, and make my way along it, with the Vigilant soldiers by my side, their rifles raised. Target lights flicker around in the darkness.

The body is over near the collapsed area of the tunnel, huddled against the wall, torn apart and mutilated. I walk over to it and look down. Even with the damage that has been done to it, I can see that it is one of the Gate Openers. The wretched creature has been cut apart.

There is a broken chain lying on the floor.

At least one of the two survivors is now dead, I think, but then I stop. Why kill the Gate Openers? Surely Nua'lath would need them if he was to attempt an escape at some point?

I find nothing useful, so spend a few minutes covering the body with stones from the collapse, and then we leave. The Vigilant soldiers watch over the entrance as I do this, and I can tell by the way they shift about that they are uncomfortable being here.

FLASH

I shuddered. So many things that I am remembering are confusing, and some of them are unwanted. I was the one that buried the body all those years ago. Me.

I didn't even bother to search through the remains for clues; I knew that there was nothing here for me to discover, but I had achieved at least some of what I'd hoped for. The flashback told me more than enough.

I headed back over the rubble pile, down the rope and over to where DogThing and GreyFoot were still waiting for me.

"Did you find what you were looking for?"

"Yes...well..sort of. More questions really."

"Oh."

"OK," I said. "Let's get out of here. We're just wasting time here."

We followed the same route that we had taken the last time, more or less. I didn't have Rudy with me to guide me anymore, so it was mostly guess-work. It was easy to follow, though; the paths through the rocks along the side of the swamp all looked much the same, and so long as I kept the swamp within visible distance I could still use it to guide me without the risk of having to face another of the huge, lumbering slugs. I'd had quite enough experience of those disgusting things the last time we were here.

Hours passed, and eventually we stopped to rest. DogThing found a small cave that was dark and overhung enough for us to hide in, and the three of us huddled in there.

Day 58

"Wake up."

Again, it was DogThing.

"Quiet."

I roused slowly, with my gun still in one hand and my blade in the other. It was awkward to sleep holding weapons, but I knew that the seconds could count.

"Out there. Zombies."

I looked out of the darkness of the cave and my heartbeat increased.

Barely a few yards away, dark figures shuffled along the path; many of them. I crouched there, at the back of the cave, hoping that our tiny hiding place would be enough cover to keep us hidden.

An hour must have passed before the last of the creatures wandered by, then after a few minutes, I slowly crawled to the front of the cave and peered out. The path where they had come from was clear, and in the other direction I could just make out the back of the last Zombie stumbling away into the darkness.

I grabbed my things and we crept away, taking the first turning off the main path and heading further down towards the swamp. I would rather be nearer to the slug things than a Zombie horde. Or would I? I didn't know which was easier to deal with.

Where the hell were they coming from? I knew that I hadn't been the other side of The City and I knew that there was a lot more of The Corridor that way, but they had to be coming from somewhere. Was there a door open somehow? I remembered the conversation with Joshua so long ago, how you could arrive here but not open a door to escape, and I'd seen the holes that let things through, but so many Zombies?

We headed around the swamp for the rest of the day, and I used the bicycle as much as I could, just to speed things up. But the ground amongst the rocks was difficult to pedal over, and I often ended up using the bicycle as something to lean on rather than ride.

Then it was there, over the ridge to our right; the first of the buildings that were The City. Roughly twenty minutes later and I shut and bolted the door to the house on Merriwether Avenue that Adler had called home for a while. I walked around, memories of the place flooding back to me. This was the building that we had used to house the generator; the one that was in the cellar. It had charged the portal device until we were able to use it. It was ironic, really. I had wondered how Adler had managed to build an engine in the basement, and that hadn't been the case at all. I'd completely forgotten to mention it when we finally met him, but knew the answer anyway.

I checked the building, securing the windows as best I could. I would sleep now, and then when I woke up, unless I was interrupted, I would begin my search. Somewhere in these crumbling ruins was the bunker. I presumed it must be underground, but...

The man-hole cover.

The footprints.

The room with the blood in it.

Kre'esh blood.

The battery. We always used those batteries for portal anchors.

Of course! Now it all made sense.

Someone had come into this place from somewhere else. They had run across the street and climbed down into the man-hole cover. I had thought that it was CutterJack, but somehow I knew it couldn't be. But who had it been? Chione?

Day 59

I awoke slowly for the first time in days. I don't know how long I had slept for, but it must have been hours and hours, because as I sat up, the pain in my chest wasn't the first thing I thought of and it was a few minutes before I even remembered it. I opened my shirt and looked at the freshly knitted scar that was forming. There was very little redness there now, and as I moved my arms around, my ribs didn't scream at me.

I got up and put my jacket and trousers back on, and couldn't remember when I'd decided to take them off.

DogThing and GreyFoot were upstairs in the room with the record player when I found them, both sitting looking out of the closed window at the street below.

"What's wrong?" I asked, immediately realising that something was amiss.

"Movement in the streets. Kre'esh."

I moved to his side and looked out of the window. The view of the street was clouded with mist, and I strained to see anything. Then after a minute or so I caught a glimpse of something in one of the alleyways. It shifted and jittered about, peering at us from its hiding place, impatiently.

"They're waiting for us aren't they?"

"Yes. They have been for a while."

"How many do you think you've seen?"

"A lot. Maybe all of the ones that we saw before."

"Damn. Now we're trapped in here. We need to get over to the man-hole cover and down into...whatever is underneath the city. There are probably sewers or something. The bunker is down there somewhere, I'm almost sure of it, though I can't remember exactly where."

I knew I should have gone down the man-hole when we arrived, straight down the one that I had found open during my first visit to The City.

DogThing sniffed.

"There are other round holes. Like the one in the street. In different streets."

"Where is the nearest?"

He looked thoughtful for a moment, and I mused over being able to tell a dog's expressions. Not that he was really a dog.

"Out the back. It's in the next street, somewhere in the middle."

I moved quickly out into the hall and then to the back room, where the rope would be attached to the drainpipe, and looked down into the row of back yards behind the houses. Beyond that was an alleyway filled with rubble and rubbish, and beyond that the backs of more houses that faced onto the next street, but there, in amongst them, was an alleyway not far from the back gate of this house.

"Which street?"

"The one that is over those houses."

"OK."

I surveyed the ground between us and the alleyway. Between the bottom of the window and our goal was thirty yards of weeds, then the gate, then ten yards of alleyway, and then the corner where the bins were piled up. After that it looked like a straight run to the alleyway, and that went through the houses. There was no way to tell if the alleyway was blocked with anything, and all I could do was hope that it wasn't.

We had to risk it.

I packed my gear and then carefully opened the back window, trying not to make any noise.

"Can you two jump from here?"

"Yes."

"Right. When I start climbing, you go."

I took a deep breath, grabbed the rope, pulled it out of its drainpipe hiding place and climbed out of the window. The rope swung outwards into open space and I hung there, lowering myself as fast as I could, feeling the rope burn my skin as I went hand over hand until I was six feet from the ground. Then I let go and dropped. The moment before I hit the dirt, I felt, more than saw, DogThing with GreyFoot held by the scruff of her neck land a few feet away. He dropped GreyFoot and we ran.

We were through the garden and at the fence when the first screech echoed from the street the other side of the house. More answered. High-pitched shrieks that made my stomach lurch.

Then the race began.

I didn't stop at the gate, jumping and kicking out as I approached. The gate was old and crumbling already, and to my relief it broke more easily than I had expected. Some of the wood cracked off and the rest swung round with a loud bang against the back wall. I ran again, dashing through the opening and out into the alleyway that led between the gardens. I held my gun out, pointing ahead of me, and for just a brief moment scanned in every direction before running again. Bags of rubbish and collapsed walls blocked my path all of the way, but I was at the turning in the alleyway, DogThing and GreyFoot in front of me, before I heard the scratching and scuffling of feet on the path behind me. I spun around, just in time to level my gun and fire in the face of a Kre'esh. Its blood splattered across the nearest wall and the body fell at my feet twitching.

I didn't stop to feel sorry for this one.

There were no others behind it, but I knew that they wouldn't be far behind, so I ran again, dodging between the piles of bins that blocked the intersection in the alleyway, and welcoming the darkness of the covered path that led between the houses. We raced on ahead, not stopping to look back. The Maw were only just ahead of me when we burst back out into the street, the sounds of dustbins crashing and clawed feet scratching the hard ground behind us as the Kre'esh chased after us, closing the gap quicker than I could think.

GreyFoot turned and ran in the wrong direction as DogThing hurried towards the middle of the road.

"GreyFoot!" I shouted as I ran after DogThing. He stopped at the man-hole cover and looked back at me, his eyes wide and showing the fear that I felt. The little Maw jumped at the noise and ran after us, getting to us just as I holstered my gun and grabbed the handle of the metal cover to the sewer entrance, and also at the same time as the Kre'esh came spewing out of the alley entrance. They were only thirty yards away, at least ten of them, and they were barrelling towards us as I heaved on the cover, pulling it from its hole.

"Jump," I shouted at the Maw, as I lifted the man-hole cover by its handle and turned it over. The Maw were gone in a flurry of movement, darting into the dark hole in the ground. I had no idea what was going to be down there, or if there was even a ladder to climb down, or how far the drop would be, but I did know that at least ten Kre'esh were barely a dozen yards away, and running towards me at a startling speed as I jumped into the hole, holding the man-hole cover handle with both hands.

I had seen something in that short moment as I fell downwards. I couldn't place it immediately, but there was something else on the street, something that I had seen but couldn't comprehend, as though the image was refusing to show itself. My mind raced to catch up with my vision but was stalled as the man-hole cover slammed into the ground, upside down, but still blocking the gap and still with me holding onto the handle to stop me from falling into the depths below.

I hung there for a while, in the darkness, breathing heavily, my arms and my back shuddering with the impact, and I could feel the claws of the frustrated Kre'esh scratching and grating on the metal the other side of the man-hole cover. I tried to think more clearly about what I had just seen further down the street.

Gradually the image emerged from my stunned thoughts. It was a cross of some kind, and it had been a long way down the street, but my eyes had adjusted enough to this dark place again that I could make it out clearly even though the outline was melded with thoughts of running, screaming Kre'esh, and broken, crumbling buildings. There was a mist rising from the cobbled street that fogged up the picture, but then the mist cleared, as much in my own head as in the street itself.

There was a cross in the middle of the road.

I didn't know what it was made of, or how it could be held in place without falling over, but I did know that it was tall, tall enough to crucify someone upon; tall enough to crucify the person who now hung from it, his clothes ruined and his features haggard and tortured.

Dha'mir.

I had only seen it for the briefest of moments, but I had recognised him even in the state he was in. They were the same type of creature, CutterJack and Dha'mir, but CutterJack had those hideous scars and Dha'mir did not. For that moment I had seen his face distorted by pain, and it was clearly him. His face was left intact, but I couldn't even put together a picture of the rest. It was a blur of red and mist and torn clothing.

After a few minutes the scratching above me just stopped. There was no gradual sign that they were giving up. It just stopped. I tried to focus on something, something that would help me to see better in this new level of utter darkness. There was next to no light at all in this new place. I swung my feet around, finding the walls of the access tunnel, but could find nothing to put my feet on. There were a few small pieces of metal jutting out of the wall that may once have held a ladder, but there was no ladder now, and the pieces that remained weren't big enough for my feet.

"DogThing. Are you there?" I called out, my voice echoing.

"Yes," he said in my head. I still forgot most of the time that I didn't need to open my mouth to speak to him.

I tried to reach to my backpack, to get a torch out, but couldn't hold my weight with one hand for long enough. I doubted that I would be able to light a torch anyway.

Not enough hands.

"How far down is it? Is it safe to drop down? I can't see from up here."

"It's not far. The same as a man, standing on a man, standing on another man."

I pondered that for a moment. Twelve feet from my feet maybe, roughly.

Then I sighed, took a deep breath, and let go of the cover, dropping into the nothingness below me.

For those few moments, as I plummeted downwards into the dark, I seriously questioned DogThing's judgement. Panic was just about to seize me when I hit the ground. My legs collapsed underneath me and the pain rushed up my thighs and my back. I could heal most injuries given time, I knew that, but they still hurt.

I felt myself falling backwards, and I sat down hard, regretting it immediately as I realised that I was sitting in water. There hadn't been enough of it to make much of a splash, but there was enough to soak my clothes through.

Gross. I had no idea what was in the water, if it was even water. Whatever it was, it stank pretty rotten. My senses flooded with the reek of something awful, something that could only be dead, long dead. I held back as my stomach lurched, threatening to empty itself.

I looked around. The sewer channel was about twelve feet wide, with a small channel running down the middle and taking up at least half of the width. Running along both sides were slightly raised walkways. The stonework was old and broken, and even though my vision was still adjusting to the low level of light down there, I could see that everything was covered in a slimy layer of gunk and moss. There was movement in that sickly unnatural growth, small bugs that I didn't even want to touch crawled and writhed around.

Old London sewers.

Correction, Old London sewers gone incredibly rank. If such a thing as worse than a sewer was possible, this was it.

I spotted GreyFoot sitting on the walkway not far away, and DogThing standing behind her, so I climbed out of the sewer channel and up onto the walkway, trying not to touch anything. I found a reasonably clear spot and dropped my pack on the floor, slumping down next to it.

"Well, that went well."

"It did?"

"We're all still here."

I nodded. I couldn't argue with that. We were all here, but above us was an answer to something that I had been wondering since I came to at the bridge.

Dha'mir had been crucified in the street above me, and I had no way of knowing whether he was alive or dead. What I did know from this was that he and CutterJack had met. The confrontation had happened already, and whatever happened during that conflict I guessed hadn't gone so well for Dha'mir. He had been so confident that CutterJack would be weak enough for him to take out, confident that right now he would be leading The Horde. Even after he had, as he had thought, killed me, I still felt sorry for him.

Surely he must have known that I wouldn't die from the wound? That was what puzzled me so much. Any normal human would have died in seconds, but Dha'mir knew I was no longer a normal human. I was convinced that there was something I was missing, and I wanted to ask him, but now I was trapped down a sewer with a mass of Kre'esh above me.

"You saw him too?"

I looked at DogThing.

"Yes."

We moved through the sewers slowly, DogThing at the front, then GreyFoot, then me. My torch - once I had finally managed to light it - illuminated the tunnel for at least thirty feet, and it didn't take us long to find our way back to the man-hole that was on Charlestone Way, the same man-hole cover that I had found open on our first visit to The City. Ironically there was a ladder all the way up to the cover at the top.

I looked up at the entrance and then down at the ground. There had to be some way of finding out where the bunker was. It couldn't be far from here; there wasn't a huge amount of London here anyway.

Then I noticed it. The walkway leading away from me, not the way we came. The ground was clearer, less dirt.

A more used path maybe?

"What do you think?"

"It smells."

"No. I mean the path. Can you track who ever came down here?"

"Not with the smell."

"Oh. I see. I suppose it does stink pretty bad down here."

"Your kind have a bad sense of smell. We Maw have a very good one. Imagine how much worse."

"Yeah it must stink like hell to you."

As if to emphasise his point, I could see that GreyFoot was squinting and sneezing, giving tiny little choking sounds.

"She's not going to be sick is she?"

"Would you blame her?"

We followed the clearer path around two corners, and spent a while at an intersection trying to judge which way was more likely, but in the end I wasted hours discovering only one dead end after another. There were no doors, no hatches, nothing. There were plenty of other entrances from above, but nowhere that looked like it might be a bunker entrance.

It wasn't until I climbed the ladder up to Charlestone Street that I found it. I was trying to retrace where I thought someone might go if they came down into the sewers from the street above us, and there it was. Half way up the access shaft was a small ledge, and an indent in the wall hid a small round hatch that was slightly ajar.

"I've found it," I said, looking down at DogThing and GreyFoot. They were peering up at me from the ground below.

"Good. Can we go now?"

"I'm going in."

"Be careful."

The hatch opened into another shaft, and this one had a ladder that also went down. I shone my torch down there and started to descend. The shaft went much deeper than the sewers, probably another thirty feet past the level of the walkways, before ending in another tunnel. The door at the end was also open even though I had a terrible feeling in my stomach that it should be closed. The keypad on the wall suggested that this was the security door to the bunker.

I was right.

Three small rooms greeted me as I went into the bunker, with signs of recent habitation everywhere. In one room there was a pile of empty food tins and discarded wrappers, in the other a set of empty bunks. The third room was empty except for a large mosaic on the floor. I recognised that for what it was but knew that I had no way of using it. If only I still had the portal key.

Had they used the portal? Had someone managed to get them out? Had Chione opened a portal into there?

I sat down heavily on the bunk, and stood straight back up again. There was something hard under the sheet. I pulled it back, throwing the bedding onto the ground. Underneath was a small box no bigger than my hand. I picked it up and examined it. Metal, worn but still shiny, with a small latch keeping it shut. I popped the latch and opened it, not sure what to expect. Inside was a long, thick needle, maybe three inches long. There was also a metal rod with a button at one end, and a dozen small, clear, plastic capsules of blue liquid. For a moment I was completely puzzled, but then I remembered the pain in the back of my neck all those years ago.

How long had it been? Centuries? I knew what this was. The needle would clip into the rod. The capsule would push into a slot on the side of the rod. The needle was pushed hard, almost like stabbing with a knife, into the back of the neck, downwards and into the spinal cord. The button would fire the injector that shoots the liquid in the capsule directly into the spine. The liquid would turn an otherwise normal human being into, into something else. Into me, I thought. It could also be used to infuse more of the A17 serum into someone already turned, and used like a booster. I didn't know how I knew that.

It was an A17 injector. How did I know that? How did I know what A17 was? It was the serum that ran through my veins, the stuff that they had injected into my neck all those years ago, the thing that made me what I was. But, why had they left it behind? Was it meant to be here? Had they left it for me, or had they just forgotten it?

I looked around at the empty bunker. They were gone and I had no way to know where. Maybe Chione had opened a portal and they had left. That was what I hoped, but somehow I knew that would not be the case. They wouldn't have left without me and from my own memories we had never managed to open a portal from inside The Corridor to outside. The only place where a portal entrance had worked had been up and over the bridge, where somehow, on that ledge of rock, was a weak spot.

Unless there were other weak spots that we hadn't found.

My head swam with confusion and disappointment. They had been here two months ago and they had still been here until very recently. Almost anything could have happened in that time. I sat down on one of the beds and tried to figure out the best thing to do next, but really I already knew what that was. I had known what was coming next the moment that I realised what was hanging from the cross out in the street. I would have to go to Dha'mir and find out what had happened since he left me for dead, and I would have to hope that he had some idea of a way for me to finish the job that he had obviously failed to complete.

I would have to face CutterJack and kill him, even though I knew from my own memories how impossible that might be. I had my gun, but if it was that easy someone would have done it long ago, and I could not remember why he was so difficult to kill. The Resistance surely must have tried many times and failed.

I had probably tried many times and failed.

Day 60

I had a dream whilst I slept.

I had completely forgotten about the dreams I'd had when I first arrived at The Corridor, which was now a startling sixty days ago. Two months.

It wasn't a flashback, but it did involve Adler. The strange thing was that it wasn't anything that I had witnessed before. Once more I was stuck in my flight path, with no way to look in any other direction, but this time I was hovering over Adler as he sat and wrote his notes in one of the mass of books that even now cluttered up the shelves in the house on Merriwether Avenue.

I was peering over his shoulder, locked in my view of his hand quickly jittering across the pages, and I could see what he was writing.

...staring across the strange grassland that stretches endlessly in that direction, that I heard the sound of a distant train...

I awoke from the dream and sat upright. On the ground beside me DogThing and GreyFoot were still asleep. GreyFoot stirred slightly as the bed that I was on creaked, but she went back to sleep. I didn't know how the Maw managed to negotiate the two ladders to get into the bunker, but they had managed it whilst I had been sitting on the bed, deep in troubled thought.

What did the dream mean? I remembered reading in one of Adler's journals of how he heard strange noises during his time in The Corridor, noises that were completely out of place, but why was I dreaming about them now? What was the relevance?

My stomach grumbled for the first time since I'd been back in The Corridor. I'd almost completely forgotten about food, but I had picked up some of the mushrooms from the mushroom fields when we passed them. I knew now that I didn't have to eat very often, but that didn't mean I could survive indefinitely without food. It would have to wait.

It was time to get out of the sewers and I didn't have a lot of choices. The only sewer entrance that I had found with a ladder was the one on Charlestone, the one that the bunker was on, and that entrance was two streets from the house. I would have to go past Maldon Street and half the length of Merriwether before I could get to the house and back to some kind of safety, and that was a lot of ground to cover if you had Kre'esh on your heels. It would be dangerous enough just to reach there, let alone how I was going to make it out on to the street behind the house, to where Dha'mir was. And what if he was dead? From the very brief view that I'd had, that was the most likely thing anyway.

It didn't matter. I would have to take the risk. I had no other leads.

"Time to go," I said aloud, and DogThing woke almost instantly, GreyFoot a few seconds later.

It was only ten feet from the bunker entrance to the metal sewer cover on the street, and as I climbed slowly and as quietly as I could, I wondered what I would see when I got out there. I pushed at the man-hole cover and peered through the gap, into the street.

Nothing moved. The street was empty.

I quickly pushed the cover off and climbed out, drawing my gun and scanning the buildings around me.

Still no movement.

DogThing and GreyFoot had managed to get up the ladder somehow, and they jumped the last few feet out of the sewer entrance.

We moved quickly along the road from the crossroads. Maldon Street was also empty, and I began to feel very uneasy about how quiet the place was. It had only been a day since we had been chased down into the sewers, and I couldn't believe that the Kre'esh would leave so soon knowing that we were here.

But my disbelief continued all the way back to the unnamed street beyond Merriwether Avenue. At first my instinct was to go to the house, but because it was so quiet in the street I found myself walking past the street and on to the next. Then we started down the street towards where the crucified body of Dha'mir was waiting for us.

We made our way past the long rows of abandoned houses, their broken windows like gaping holes leading into the darkness inside, a darkness that could hide any number of horrible things.

Finally, in the middle of the street, was Dha'mir, just as I had thought I had seen. He was nailed to a wooden post, and not just by his hands and feet. Six-inch-long stakes were driven through his arms, legs, everywhere. There was a gaping hole in his stomach that should have held the mass of intestines that hung down to the ground. There was dried blood everywhere.

I approached him slowly, realising that I was not going to get any information out of him. He was long dead.

Or so I thought until his eyes opened.

He looked at me and the edges of his mouth curled into a painful smile.

"I wondered how long it would take you to get here, James."

I jumped back, surprised, as did DogThing and GreyFoot. Then they began to growl. I glanced around, realising that my instincts had been correct after all. From the dark places around us the Kre'esh crept. Out from windows and broken doorways they came, dozens of them. I looked around quickly for a direction of escape, but knew that we were surrounded. We were trapped, and there was no way that we would be able to battle this many of them. I expected Nua'lath to step out from the darkness at any moment, to survey the success of his subterfuge.

"Do not worry about them," said Dha'mir. "They are under my control and will not harm you." His voice was strained, and considering how much of his insides were no longer inside his body I wondered how he was able to speak at all.

I turned back to face him. His face was pale and his eyes burned red with some kind of infection.

"Like I can trust anything you say," I said, almost spitting the words out at him.

He laughed and I could feel the mockery in his voice. Then his face contorted with pain and blood trickled from his mouth.

"You have little choice, do you not?"

I said nothing.

"I have been a fool, James. And this is my final punishment. It is all that I can do with my remaining powers to keep myself alive and keep the Kre'esh from eating me. And you for that matter. Though I have managed to feed from their energy enough that they are now held together only by my will."

"I should just kill you now, and take my chances."

"Oh you will not need to fight them. They, as I said, they are alive only by my will. If you kill me, which I am hoping that you will do, they will die too. I was merely using them to guide you to me."

I lifted my gun towards him, determined to end him before his poisoned tongue could persuade me otherwise.

"Wait," he said, his body shuddering as he coughed up more blood. "You need to know..."

"Need to know what?" I almost spat the words at him. "More of your twisted lies?"

"Not this time." He coughed again, and visibly strained to continue speaking. "If you wish to know where your family has gone, you will listen. Please. I have held on for as long as I can, but the waiting has been torturous. I need to tell you."

I lowered my gun. Beside me DogThing growled.

"Nua'lath is no longer in this place," said Dha'mir.

My heart nearly stopped at hearing those words.

"What do you mean? He can't..."

"Oh but he can and he has. I learned much as he tortured me. And he did torture me, very slowly. The sword that I thrust into your chest is nothing to what you would have been subjected to had you been with me when I confronted him."

I peered at him. Hatred burned inside me. I had no sympathy for this creature who, in my opinion at the time, had played us all in his game and had failed.

"He has your family. They are now his gate openers, chained together and under his control. I am sure they suffer greatly."

At this I collapsed onto the road, unable to speak.

Dha'mir continued.

"I was not aware that he had captured them, and if I had known that he had found a way to regain some of his former strength I would not have ventured to face him. He overpowered me as though I was but an insect."

"How?" I said, finally.

"They sought to leave and he was waiting. Do not concern yourself with them, though. If you act fast you may be able to save them and they may not be entirely destroyed. His gate openers are his most precious of pets, and he sees to it that they are not harmed. Otherwise they would not perform their duties well."

Chione, Abegail, Andre. They were in the hands of the enemy.

"He is gone to another place now, and no doubt already bringing forth the armies. If you are quick, you may be able to follow him. It was no more than a day ago that he headed out of the city, to a place out there beyond these ruins. I could see the place in my mind before, but now I don't have the strength. The portal's activation and my own efforts to live have drained me beyond repair."

"How? How did he manage to open a gate out of here? We thought it wasn't possible."

"You were right. It is impossible. But it is possible to get into here from the outside. It is possible if you have enough power. Your pathetic portals are nothing when compared to the great storm portals that move The Horde to new worlds. Nua'lath merely had to find a way to contact one of his lieutenants to aid him in opening a way through, and oh how you helped him to achieve that did you not? How proud he was of his success when you handed him his escape."

At this I stood up, the anger surging forward again and replacing the grief and horror of the knowledge of what had become of my family.

"Me? How did I help him?"

"The one with whom your mind joined. The one from another world. The memories of this place would linger in his mind, just as his memories stayed with you. There were already minions of Nua'lath's on your home world, were there not? It was only a matter of time before one of them sensed the poor creature's troubled nightmares. Then they would look closer, they would delve into his mind, they may even have hurt him, tortured him, until they found how deep the nightmares went, and then they would discover the secret buried inside, they would know where to find their master."

The man from London.

The man in the mirror.

He would not forget everything, just as I had not forgotten.

"They found the man you shared your mind with, and took him away to somewhere that they could use him, pry into his mind and pull out what they needed to find their master and open a way out for him. The portal will still be open. They can be open for days, weeks, even years. Some remain open for ever."

I looked him in the eyes.

"Which way? Where will the portal lead?"

He looked along the street, towards the edge of The City, to the area of The Corridor that I had not explored, the area of which my own memories of the past had yet to give me any recollection.

"That way. Find the hill. It is not far into the darkness. As to where it will come out, I have no idea, though I would guess that he will head to one of the old worlds, a place that has already been attacked, but one that still has a large amount of Horde minions on it still. Also there are other places, places in between worlds. Pocket dimensions. They are everywhere. I would suggest he will try to head for one of those, for there are many that he used as hidden bases before."

"Why are you helping me now?"

"Because you are the only one who can avenge me by destroying him. You must go beyond the City, and cross the darkness to where his home lies. Beyond that you will find the hill. I suggest you do not look at what else is there, for it may disturb you. Kill him."

"But we never found a way to destroy him. He was impervious to any damage. Nothing we tried would do it. That's why we had to trap him in the end."

Was he? I thought for a moment and the image of a lump of raw flesh on the ground outside the house on Merriwether appeared in my mind. I had wounded him with a simple weapon. But how?

"The key is in his gate openers, the Icons. Kill them and he becomes mortal once more. He wasn't always immortal. The talisman that is buried in his heart, the one that he stole, is what made him that way. The power that feeds that talisman is drawn from his Icons, the Gate Openers, and through them it is drawn from his minions. They are his conduit."

"I will not kill my own family."

"Then you will not kill him. You must destroy them, for they are now his link to every creature in the Horde, his source of power and the thing that makes him immortal. You must kill them, or you must separate them somehow. But be wary. The power that his gate openers lend him, the power that they draw from the lives that the horde destroys, is also gifted upon them to some degree. It heals them as much as it heals and sustains him. But I think that they can be destroyed. Once he is separated from them he will become mortal. Do I have to say this a third time?"

"How do I do it? If he heals them and they heal him, it's never-ending. It's been tried for centuries. No one succeeded."

"Indeed. And if I had known how to do it I would not be hanging here, on this cross, dying. Now, I have told you what you must do. You must kill me. Release me from the fate that he has given me. If I die slowly upon this cross, my power will become his. Such is the nature of this death. But you can stop it. If you kill me, then he will not gain."

I glanced around at the Kre'esh. They encircled us, keeping their distance, hissing and spitting, then I turned back to Dha'mir.

"I should leave you here to rot."

He laughed once more, this time through a barrier of agony as his body wracked with pain and he coughed up yet more blood.

"Kill me and the Kre'esh will also die."

I raised my gun, stepped forward and aimed at his head.

"I hope that you burn forever in hell."

He opened his mouth to speak, but I didn't give him the chance.

I pulled the trigger.

The loud crack of the gun echoed through the streets, and all around us the Kre'esh dropped dead.

We moved quickly. Once more I was on Professor Adler's bicycle, with DogThing and GreyFoot running at my side, but this time we were venturing into the unknown, just as every step had been when I originally woke up here. We had rushed back to the house on Merriwether, and as much as my stomach was now screaming at me for food and water, I didn't stop. I probably could have cooked up the mushrooms that I had, or found something in the house, but if the gateway closed whilst I was there then I would be trapped in The Corridor with no way of knowing where Nua'lath had gone, and no way to get there anyway. We rushed through the streets of The City and out into the darkness that surrounded it.

The land this side of The City was a barren place, much like the desert near The Warrens, but the ground was hard rock, so it was easy to ride the bike. Unlike the smooth marble of the plateau, this was bare rock littered with collapsed, dead trees and rubble. I had no memory of this place or of us ever bringing trees into The Corridor, and no flashback leapt at me to fill in the gaps, but it was of no matter. I pressed on ahead.

Dha'mir had said it was not far, and he was not lying this time. I had only been pedalling across the hard ground for twenty minutes or so, maybe half an hour, when the looming shape of some kind of large building slowly crept towards us from the gloom. Beyond that, in the distance and silhouetting the monster of a building was some kind of bright light.

I jumped from the bicycle and the three of us moved slowly and cautiously forward.

The building was maybe a hundred feet high, and stretched into the darkness in both directions. Large gothic windows, now glassless, left huge gaping black holes in the brick-work, the darkness from within seeming somehow blacker than anywhere else, like the evil mouth of some great beast.

It must have once had a very grand roof spanning the top of it, but now only some of the rafters stuck out into the air like a blackened ribcage. Littered across the floor, everywhere, it seemed, were broken bones covered in rags and pale white skulls looking up at me from the dirt.

I pushed the bicycle along with one hand, drawing my gun with the other as we stepped through an archway and into the building's interior.

It was at that moment that I remembered Dha'mir's suggestion of not spending too long looking at what else would be here, and I regretted not taking his advice immediately.

Everywhere around us was evidence of how truly evil Nua'lath really was. More crosses lined the walls with skeletal remains hanging from them. Metal machines, most of which I hadn't the faintest of clues as to their function, other than finally death, were scattered across the ground, the remains of their victims still clinging to them, and dark, dried stains splattering their rusted surfaces.

I felt sick as we moved through the vast building.

It was a train station.

Four deep pits ran through the entire length of the building. Rusted and broken railway tracks still lay at the bottom of each pit, each of them leading away from a crumbling retaining wall all the way out to the other side of the massive structure through four gaping holes that had once been ornately decorated archways. That would have been a long time ago. Now these four archways lay in ruin, with barely any of the stonework still standing.

Where had this place come from? There were no recollections jumping into my mind to tell me, no flashbacks seizing me to force the memory upon me. I just stood there, with DogThing and GreyFoot nearby, gawping at the one thing that was still, almost, in one piece.

A train.

On the third track, parked as though it were still waiting, as it had been for decades, was an old steam train with four gaudily painted carriages attached to it.

This must have been Nua'lath's home. Had he lived in the train?

I took a step towards the first carriage but stopped as I heard a quiet whining noise behind me.

"We should leave this place."

I turned and looked at DogThing, and then back at the train.

Some things are best not known.

Light does not travel far in The Corridor, as I had learned so many days ago, and had probably known for years if I could have remembered, and when the portal appeared it was quite sudden. A few hundred yards away, beyond the four ruined archways, another massive archway of an entirely different kind stood. It was of red crackling energy and was perched atop a small hill. It was barely big enough to be called a hill, maybe thirty feet high, but it seemed like a mountain jutting from the completely flat ground that surrounded it, and was dwarfed only by the monstrous ghost of the train station.

The portal.

"Let's go."

I holstered my gun and jumped back onto the bicycle, pushing off a little harder than I intended. And I didn't slow down until we reached the foot of the hill.

It was then that I saw that it wasn't made of rock or earth. Thousands of bones and skulls were piled high, gradually sloping upwards towards where the portal burned with energy. Underneath the mound of skeletons, even the hard, rocky ground was black and charred.

As sickening as it felt, I left the bicycle and climbed up to the summit. It was a hard climb, and very steep, and every step I took I could feel the bones underneath me shift and collapse. Dead and hollow faces stared back at me from the mass of shifting bones.

Where in the hell had they all come from?

Eventually I reached the top of the hill and stood before the portal. I tried to make out what was beyond the crackling waves of energy, but unlike the portals I had opened before, and the holes that we had seen, there was no view of where the gate would take us. I turned to DogThing and GreyFoot.

"You don't have to come with me."

It was a stupid comment. I knew, just as they did, that they had no other means to escape The Corridor, but I also knew that wherever we were about to go was probably even more dangerous.

"We are coming."

I nodded, took a deep breath, and then stepped through the portal.

Into dark streets that bustled with life and movement.

I stood for a moment, taking the scene in, and then I looked to my side and thankfully found DogThing and GreyFoot there. Behind me was just darkness. No portal, no crackling, fiery light.

No way back.

I was standing in a dark alleyway that ended directly behind me in a stone wall and the overhung tiles of a low roof. A stack of bags spilling with foul-smelling refuse was a few feet away, and just beyond that, a busy street. Above me, the pale light of two moons shone through the overhanging buildings on either side, a thin line of eerie light. The other thing that I noticed was the state of disrepair. Three windows faced onto the alleyway, all of them small, the windows broken and the woodwork rotten and cracked. Twenty feet away, the wall at the back of the alleyway was partly collapsed, exposing the larger blocks of the inner wall. This was also crumbling. Weeds and grass pushed up from between the gaps in pavement that looked like it was at least a hundred years old, maybe older, and the guttering that ran down the alleyway to my left was broken in many places.

It would have been nice to have seen somewhere that wasn't falling apart for a change, but that was not to be.

I was so busy taking in my surroundings that I hadn't even noticed that I was being watched.

"They went that way," said a voice from the darkness behind me. "Turned right."

I spun around, nearly jumping out of my own skin, but still managed to aim my gun into the shadows at the back of the alleyway, and even though I squinted, I couldn't see the person who had spoken.

DogThing and GreyFoot crouched and glared directly at one dark corner.

"Easy. I was just trying to be helpful. I don't mean no harm."

"Come out," I said.

"No chance," replied the darkness. "Your pets there might eat me."

I couldn't argue with that logic.

"Who went that way?"

"The one that came before, with those people in chains," replied the voice. "You chasing him? Got to be with the hurry he was in. He was proper skiddadlin away like someone was hot on his heels, dragging those poor folks behind him."

I peered into the darkness, to the spot where the voice was coming from, but my eyes struggled to adjust enough to see him clearly.

"You could say that, yes."

My mind swam with questions, but I was sure this man, drunk as he was, may not be able to answer most of them.

"Where is this place?" I asked.

Silence for a moment.

"What do you mean?" asked the stranger. Now I could vaguely make out his outline in the corner. He was huddled behind some broken boxes, a knife in his hand. His face was hidden under a hood and the mass of grey beard that must have reached his chest. I could see the fear in his eyes.

"I mean where am I?"

"Huh?" He sounded puzzled, but then laughed. "You really don't know do you?"

"No, obviously not," I said, my voice low.

"This is Riverfall. The City."

No recollection came to mind and the rush of dizziness before a flashback didn't come.

"It's a human city?"

"What?"

"Is this a human city?"

The man coughed out a laugh at that.

"Of course it's a human city, well what's left anyway."

"No Zombies?"

The expression on his face was more puzzled and amused than fearful now.

"Zombies? What's one of them?"

"Dead people that walk."

"Oh. You mean Dwellers. Well, there's some here if you wander off the roads too far, or into the abandoned parts of the city. Of course then there's over the wall."

"The wall? What's over the wall?"

"Don't know. People say nothing, people say the old world. People say everything is over the wall. I think that there's just millions of Dwellers out there, but no one ever gets to see. The Ward don't let no one go out. And the wall is too high. Hey you really don't know anything do you?"

"I just appeared in front of you through a gate didn't I?"

"I don't see no gate. But, yeah, that tall fellow with his slaves and then a few hours later you and your dogs. I figured I'm wasted. I drunk a bit too much of the shine, see? It's damn good stuff. Man, I'm actually talking to you and you're not there."

"I see. You say he went right."

"Yeah," and the man laughed again. "Oh I'm not touching that stuff again."

"Did he have creatures with him? Lizard things?"

"No, just those slaves. What am I doing? I'm still talking to ghosts."

I left the drunk to his rambling, stepping out into the street, followed by DogThing and his little sidekick, both looking warily at the throng of people moving around us, and both sniffing at the ground frantically. The street was a mass of movement. In both directions I could see wooden stalls selling everything from clothing to food and tools.

"We will hide and follow you."

"Yes, good idea," I replied, this time remembering to only think the words and not say them aloud. "We don't know how these people will react to you."

A smell wafted towards me from the market.

Food. Food that wasn't mushrooms. I still had the mushrooms in my rucksack, but the thought of eating them, even though I was hungry, soon dampened my appetite. There is only so much mushroom you can eat before you get sick of it.

I walked down through the lines of stalls, looking at all the food. Around me, people moved away, giving me some distance and puzzled looks.

How had CutterJack come through here? People must have noticed. I was surprised that the place hadn't been in uproar, or that there weren't dozens of dead bodies lying in the streets.

"Can you pick up his scent?" I asked DogThing, hoping our thought speech still worked here.

"Yes, slight, but not clear enough yet."

"Keep tracking."

I stopped at a stall that was selling cooked meat of some kind. It looked like some kind of rodent, but I didn't bother to ask.

"What do you want for these?"

"Ten each."

"Ten what?"

The seller looked puzzled.

I took out the only thing I had that I thought I might be able to trade with - a small half empty bottle of oil that was in the bottom of my rucksack. It was all that I had left, but I needed to eat and so did the Maw. Anything but mushrooms.

"How many will you give me for this?"

The woman peered at the bottle for a moment, puzzled.

"Is that..."

"It's oil. Petrol?"

"Oh. But, how did you get that?"

"I travel a lot. Will you trade? I'm in a hurry."

"You travel? How? Um...yes," she said, reaching out and taking the bottle. She sniffed the top, and then quickly slipped the bottle into her coat, glancing around as though she was doing something she shouldn't.

"Take whatever you need," she said.

I frowned.

"What I need?"

"Whatever you can carry. Look I have a dozen cooked and I've got thirty or more stripped and cleaned."

"All of these?" I asked, puzzled. Then it clicked. Petrol must be very valuable here. I had no time to consider what else I could get for a half bottle of petrol, and no desire to carry raw rats with me...if that was what they were.

The woman wrapped all of the ones that were cooked and handed me the filled cloth. I stuffed it into my rucksack, nodded and moved away quickly, pushing through the crowd. If word got around this market that I had petrol to trade, and it held the high value that I suspected, I would draw attention to myself, and all I wanted was to be away from there.

I moved through the crowded street, and it wasn't until I was fifty or more feet away from the rat seller, and just turning a corner into the next street, that I looked back. She was talking frantically to two men, and holding up the bottle. She pointed at me and the men looked straight at me, and then began to move in my direction.

I turned the corner and stepped behind the nearest market stall.

"We're being followed."

"Yes. And we have his scent."

"Where?"

"He came this way."

"How? He would have been seen. He must have Abegail and..."

"Yes, I have their scent too. It was many hours ago."

Of course. The market must have been closed when he had arrived. Maybe most of the people in the city had been asleep.

"Move. Quickly. Follow the trail."

I jogged behind DogThing, moving through the darkened and ruined streets. All around us were the same signs of a world that had already been destroyed; rows of buildings that were falling into disrepair, their windows long broken, the roads cracked, weeds growing from holes in the middle of the road.

"The men are no longer near us."

"Good. We must have lost them."

We stopped briefly and huddled in an archway of an old church, quickly and ravenously eating our way through all of the cooked rats that I had traded with the market seller, and then with a careful glance in all directions to make sure the men from the market were not in sight, we moved on again.

For hours we travelled through the city, the only sound my footsteps on the old cobbled road. Some of the streets were lit dimly by lanterns that were connected to some kind of wiring that hung in the air above me, barely a few feet from my head. None of the houses were lit, and only some of the streets were inhabited. We passed street after street of old and dilapidated houses with makeshift repairs to keep them standing. Most of the windows were gone, and in some of the houses the holes had been either boarded up or covered with plastic sheeting. After an hour or so of walking, the signs of habitation drifted away, and the streets became barren and empty, the houses ruined or collapsed.

Eventually we came to the end of a street and DogThing stopped on the corner, peering around the end of a collapsing wall. I stopped and listened, hearing the faint sounds of conversation drifting towards us. About a hundred yards away was some kind of makeshift barrier, a wall built over the top of a row of rusted cars. Tall stilts of wood - probably old telephone poles - jutted up into the air and were used to hold up the ragged and patched together wall that was atop the walkway. In the middle of the road there was a gap maybe ten yards wide blocked up with metal railings. There was debris strewn across the street and piled up nearby.

"Some kind of checkpoint?" I whispered.

"I don't know, but Nua'lath's scent leads this way and through there."

"Damn."

How were we to get through there without being seen?

I crossed to the opposite side of the road that we were on and walked along the path, keeping close to the buildings and hoping that the men - and I could now see that there were three of them - wouldn't notice me.

As I suspected, the next road along was the same, except there was no gate in the middle. Then it occurred to me. Was that even a gate back there in the other street? All of the debris piled around it suggested that maybe it wasn't. Had Nua'lath forced his way through? Did he really have that kind of power? If so, how was I to fight that?

"Let's see if we can get over this one," I whispered.

We crept forward towards the barrier and it wasn't until we were right up to the cars that were used as its foundation that I discovered that this wasn't a different section. Whoever built the barrier had made it into one long endless wall, even to the extreme of knocking the houses down where they were in the way. I had thought, and hoped, at first that they had just blocked up the middle of each street, but I could clearly see up onto the platform from where I was crouched, and the wooden planks went on and on. Every twenty or thirty yards another one of the same lanterns hung from the barricade wall, the same wrapped wire hanging loosely from the tall poles that held each section of wall. There was no dark spot to sneak through and even if we travelled further away there would be a good chance of being spotted.

"Maybe I should just walk up to them and ask to be let through?"

But gut feeling once more stopped me. I needed to get through this place as quickly as I could. If I were to be stopped I might be asked questions, they might not let me through, and they might want to know things that I didn't want to tell them.

A quiet noise from behind made the decision for us, the click of footsteps on cobbles. I glanced around, back up the street.

It was the two men from the market again. One of them was kneeling on the floor pointing at something.

My footprints or maybe paw prints.

They were tracking us.

The fools, I thought. If they tried to stop me I would have to fight back. I really didn't want to kill anyone that wasn't an ally of Nua'lath.

That thought made me wonder. How many had I killed in the past in places like this? Had I had to kill before just because people who have no business being involved just won't leave well alone? In some ways my lost memories were a blessing.

The kneeling man stood up and they began to walk slowly down the street towards us. They hadn't seen us, but within a minute or two they would.

"We have to go. Now."

"Yes. Go."

I jumped up from my hiding place and pulled myself up onto the platform, rushing forwards towards the makeshift wall. The boards underneath my feet bent with my weight and creaked; the roof of the car that was underneath groaned. The barricade wall was only a yard high from atop the platform and I easily hopped over it and dropped to the street the other side. Five seconds was all it took, and the Maw were over it quicker than I was, but five seconds of noise and fast movement was enough to alert the guards further up the street and the men tracking us.

A shout went up from both.

"Halt! Don't move or we shoot," came the shout from the guards at the barrier.

"Stop!" came the call from behind us, back up the street where the two men were probably running towards the barrier.

But we weren't stopping. On the other side of the barrier there was a gap of maybe fifty feet before we would reach the cover of the ruined buildings beyond the wall. The Maw covered that ground in just a few seconds, but I wasn't as fast. I sprinted with every bit of my strength, hearing the crack of guns behind me and feeling the whoosh of air around me as the guards opened fire. Bullets pinged off the cobbles barely inches from my feet, and just as I was reaching cover I felt a sharp pain in my shoulder as one of the shots hit me. I staggered forward, losing my balance, but still managed to get to cover purely by inertia.

I hit the ground and rolled, staggering to my feet again. I had to keep moving. I ran through the streets, turning left and right, blindly following DogThing and GreyFoot as they moved swiftly along, constantly sniffing at the ground. Behind me, for the first few minutes I could hear the footfalls of the two men chasing us, the ones who had tracked us, but finally that noise faded.

I stopped for just a moment, checking my shoulder, and was relieved to see that the bullet hadn't punched through my jacket. Instead the shoulder plate had a new dent in it.

"He came this way."

"How long ago?"

"The scent is not fresh."

"Then let's keep going."

Once more we moved through ruined streets, except this part of the city was much more decayed than the place inside the barrier.

What was the barrier there for? What did it keep out? Or maybe it was meant to keep something in?

The sun began to rise and I was almost overwhelmed with the sight of it. Sunlight again. It burst over the horizon and cast a warm orange glow over the ruined shells that had once been occupied buildings. I felt it on my face. Warmth for the first time in days.

I stumbled into one of the buildings, one with a roof and a few tattered furniture remnants. There was a rotten old sofa that was still barely covered with leather, the foam stained and smelly, but I was too exhausted to wait so I slept.

Day 61

"Wake up. Someone comes."

I snapped out of my sleep and sat up, instinctively reaching for my gun and blade.

It was dark once more. Had I really slept all through the day?

They were all around us before I was even on my feet, shadows in the doorways and near the windows. Many of them were in the street beyond.

I went to raise my gun to the nearest, thinking with a rising panic that they were Zombies, the Dwellers, as the alleyway drunk had called them.

"Don't," said a voice. "Or we fire."

I stopped moving.

"Who are you?"

The voice was deep and harsh, and came from a figure that stood by the window nearest to me. I sensed danger and aggression in the voice.

"I'm just passing through," I said. "I don't want trouble."

"Oh, really?"

There were murmurs from the other shadows.

"And where might you be travelling to? There is nowhere to go out here."

"I just need to get somewhere," I said.

"Are you an exile?" asked another voice. This was a woman's and much softer than the first. There was no menace in her voice, at least none that I could sense.

"No. Well. Not exactly. I'm a traveller."

"There are no travellers in this place, only the city," said the harsh male voice.

Some of the shadows were moving closer now and I felt a tingle run up my spine. DogThing and GreyFoot were both growling now, very low, but still.

"And these dogs? They are yours?" asked the woman.

"Yes."

"They are unusual," she stated.

She moved into view and I could see that she was older than her voice suggested, with long grey hair and sharp features. When she was younger this woman would have been beautiful. She stared at me, her eyes squinted and calculating.

"Another...traveller...passed this way but a day ago. Also in a hurry. Are you anything to do with that one?"

I paused for a moment.

What if these people were waiting here to stop me? What if Nua'lath had persuaded them to kill me? But I decided that it would happen regardless, if that was the case.

"I am following him."

She smiled slightly at that.

"Ah, you are the hunter and he is the hunted?"

I nodded.

"Sort of."

"The one that you follow murdered two score of my people this last day and then raised them from the ground as Dwellers that they may follow him. He is a cursed one."

I felt a rush of panic and a pressure in my forehead as my heart sped up. I could hear myself breathing heavier.

It had begun.

He was raising his horde once more.

"How did he kill them?" I asked.

"By no weapon that I have ever seen," she answered. She sat down on the arm of the sofa that I had slept on.

"It was as though he merely willed their deaths and they fell at his feet. We tried guns and blades but we could not get near him. He has these...people...on chains and their eyes were glowing..."

Her voice trailed off for a moment.

"My own brother was one of those taken, and we barely escaped," she said. "In one hour of slaughter that creature has halved the number of my people. If you are indeed his hunter then you shall leave now and we shall let you pass."

Many of the shadows outside began to drift away, disappearing as quickly as they had appeared, until only the man and the woman were left.

We moved out into the street and I only just caught glimpses of some of the shadows heading into the surrounding buildings, disappearing into dark corners as quickly as they had appeared.

The woman looked at me.

"They came this way about a day ago and headed towards the wall," she said, pointing along the street into the building beyond. "Where could he be going? There is nowhere left here except what is inside the wall."

"That's what I intend to find out," I said. I had no words of condolence for her or her people, at least none that I could find at that moment.

"You are being followed," said the man. I could see him now, the long dark hair tied tightly back from his face, the grey beard, and a line of triple scars running from his forehead to his chin. "We cannot stay here. If they discover us then we will have to kill them, otherwise they will alert The Ward and then we will be hunted down."

I frowned.

"Who are The Ward?"

The woman laughed. It was a warm laughter, though not loud, and it was a sound that I hadn't heard in a while.

"You truly are not from this place are you? Well, whoever you are, wherever you came from and wherever you are going, know that The Ward are the people that rule this place, and they have eyes everywhere. They do not like those that go against their will. People like us, those who hide in exile outside of their barriers, are considered vermin to be removed. People like you? Well, I would imagine that they would be very interested in what you have to say. The means they use are not pleasant."

She pointed up the road.

"You should go."

I nodded, thanked her and then headed back into the ruined building to collect my things. When I emerged a few minutes later the man and woman were gone.

Well, that was brief.

"We should go quickly so that these Ward people don't catch up with us."

"Yes."

For maybe another half an hour we moved quickly through more streets of ruined buildings that seemed to become more and more devastated and run-down the further we travelled away from the barrier. Occasionally in the distance I saw figures in the darkness moving slowly, but these didn't move with the stealth of the exiles that I had met. No, these stumbled along.

Dwellers.

Zombies.

We changed direction a few times, avoiding any paths that would lead us to one of them, whilst still trying to follow the scent. Eventually DogThing led me behind a row of houses and into a large open area surrounded by the backs of a dozen houses. It was a square clearing, with broken pavement slabs encircling it and an overgrown area of weeds and grass in the middle. One very large tree overshadowed what once had been a children's playground. In the middle, amongst the weeds, were the rusty remains of a swing and a broken climbing frame. It had been from places like this that we had salvaged enough to build the playground in Evac city. Even though I had only been given one brief flashback, and it had been one from decades before, that memory was clear now.

Even clearer was the crackling, glowing archway underneath the overhang of one of the houses. The brick-work behind it was already blackening. The bright light shone over the area and sent a chill up my back.

"Another gateway. But to where?"

"There is only one way to find out."

"Yes. But first, did he go through? And did he take Abegail and Chione with him?"

DogThing sniffed at the ground around the portal, which even now was beginning to stutter and fade.

"Yes, they went through."

"Then let's follow."

I stepped forward, moving towards the gateway.

"Stop!" shouted a voice.

I spun around. Twenty feet away, just across the park, were the two men who had spoken to the rat seller. They were holding hand axes and moving towards us through the overgrown weeds and grass. There was a sharp metallic clank, and the nearest man fell forward, calling out in pain. He hadn't seen the climbing frame and had collided with it, but the second man ran forward.

I stepped quickly through the portal, and the darkness of the night in Riverfall vanished.

I found myself standing in yet another street, but this time in the bright sunlight. It took a few moments for my mind to catch up and for my eyes to focus, but the movement around me was all too familiar.

I lifted my gun and fired into the face of the nearest Zombie that was standing close enough to reach out and make a grab for me. Its head exploded in a cloud of blackened spray, and the body fell to the floor.

I spun around as something brushed my shoulder, and fired the gun into the chest of another Zombie. This one fell sideways still holding onto my jacket, almost pulling me to the ground. It flailed its arms at me, grabbing, pulling, but I managed to level my gun at its face and fire.

Growling and gnashing sounds erupted behind me, and I kicked the arm of the expired Zombie and stood up.

We were surrounded. Dozens of Zombies were closing in from all directions. DogThing and GreyFoot were in a frenzy, biting and clawing at the creatures closest to them.

We had walked into a trap. These things were barely a day dead, the stolen exiles, left here to stop us from following.

I looked around, knowing that I only had a few seconds at most to make a decision, and saw it. Ten yards away, with only four Zombies between it and us, was the row of open windows of a nearby house.

I was about to speak when the two men from Riverfall appeared in front of me just a few yards away, and right amongst the mass of Zombies that was lurching its way across the street towards us. They both squinted against the bright sunlight, looking confused.

Confused long enough for the Zombies to set upon them.

Both men went down in a fury of clawing hands, screaming. I think more in shock than pain. Honestly, thinking back to that moment, I suspect that neither of them had enough time to even figure out what was happening to them before it was over. Within seconds most of the Zombies on the street were lumbering over and fighting past each other to get at the two men now being torn apart.

Then more movement as another figure appeared just a few feet away. This one was barely noticed by most of the undead on the street. They were all too busy with their unexpected meal.

It was the alleyway drunk, the spaced-out guy that hadn't seemed to know where he was when we arrived, except this time there was nothing drunken about him. He was just as ragged and scruffy as he had been in the alleyway, but his face was a mask of grim determination as he raised his shotgun.

The blast rang out and several of the hungry creatures lurching towards us, the few that hadn't yet made it to the feast in the middle of the road and had actually noticed him arrive, were scattered to the ground, blood and body parts strewn across the cracked tarmac road. The drunk - I'm pretty sure I'll have to find something else to call him - looked swiftly all around, seemingly taking in the situation with a calmness that was surprising, and then he spotted me across the road and started moving.

I ran towards the house, drawing my blade. There were still a few stragglers amongst the Zombies that weren't being mindlessly drawn to the mess in the middle of the road, and I lashed out at the nearest two with my blade, cutting them down. I'd forgotten just how lethal Nua'lath's blade was against these creatures. They fell to the ground and writhed, but I didn't stop to finish them off.

I ran onwards, my gun held out in front of me and my blade held back ready to strike, and I was half way to the window when the remaining two Zombies that blocked my path closed in on me. The first I shot in the face, a face that vanished into a spray of dark gunk that showered the one behind it. It fell backwards, sprawling onto the road, hitting the ground with a cracking sound. The second Zombie, already missing an arm, stumbled forward and hit the pavement at my feet. I jumped over its outstretched arm and stepped onto its back as I passed, running for the window. Growling and tearing sounds behind me told me that I wasn't going to need to finish off that one either.

Another shotgun blast pounded my ears as I jumped through the open window, landing hard on my knees but still managing to haul myself up, spin around and aim my gun out of the window. The alleyway drunk, who I could now see was a huge bear of a man and certainly hadn't appeared to be when he was huddled in the corner of the alleyway, jumped through the window next to mine, nodded at me once and then aimed his gun outwards. A moment later and furry flashes, one large and one small, jumped through another window nearby.

We started firing at the mass of Zombies lurching towards us across the street, picking them off one by one before they could cross the front garden of the house that was our temporary refuge. The sound of both guns firing filled my ears and drowned out the noise from the street. One by one, the creatures that couldn't get at the remains of the two men peeled off from the brawl and staggered in our direction. This made it almost trivial to kill them. By the time the last few stood up and began to make their way towards us, there was nothing left in the middle of the road but a jumble of blood covered bones. Our guns sang once more and the last of the Zombies fell.

Then we were both leaning against the wall, breathing heavily and looking at each other. I could tell that he was as suspicious of me as I was of him. Whilst we had been killing the Zombies we'd had a common cause, but now that it was all over neither of us knew if we could trust each other.

I was the first to speak.

"Are we good?"

He peered at me for a moment, not raising his shotgun.

"We are if you are."

"I have no problem with you."

He visibly relaxed.

"Good. I don't either. I didn't come out here to die, just to escape."

"How did you find us?"

His voice was a deep growl, just as it had been before, but this time it was clearer.

"I woke up a few hours after we spoke in the alleyway, I'd had far too much of that shine, and I still remembered everything that I had seen, which wasn't normal. I don't usually remember much. That's the reason for the shine in the first place, you see, when you become too old for your work in Riverfall they let you fall by the wayside." He shook his head. "They don't look after the old. They just let them fend for themselves, and I spent a long time trying to find other work, but in the end I fell to the depression and took up drinking shine to ease things. It's what happens to everyone eventually, or so it seems. They get old, get useless, and then get drunk. Then they drift off out of the places that people frequent, disappearing into the back alleyways or out of the populated areas altogether. I think a lot of the Dwellers that wander outside the protected areas are mostly old folks that were left to fend for themselves, and caught out, alone, somewhere. I was well on my way to that end, but remembering you changed that for me. I came round, and I had a headache, but I remembered it all. I thought it was some nightmare or hallucination, you know, a side effect of the shine, but then I saw all the footprints in the alleyway. Yours, the others, and then I saw paw prints. There aren't any dogs in Riverfall."

I smiled, still trying to catch my breath.

"Why follow us?"

"You were following him, the one that was going to just pass through and leave again, by whatever means they can do that, and as I sat there, still trying to get the headache away from the hangover, I started remembering other things. Before him there were some others, all dressed in dark hoods and, well, I think robes, and well, they came into the alleyway and stood together, and they began to chant, but it was more like a whisper. They did that for a while, and I was watching from my corner in the dark, thinking it was all a dream. That was when he stepped through. It wasn't like some door, not like the one in the park just now. It was just a hole."

Holes. I'd seen plenty of those before.

The alley drunk continued.

"Well, when he stepped through, with his slaves dragging behind him, those ones he has in chains, one of these robed figures speaks quickly and I couldn't remember it until I woke up this morning, but he says 'The next portal awaits you my master.'. Then the tall fellow, he's really damn ugly isn't he? Well he says 'does it go to The Ways?', and they say no, but they say they will be able to open a door to this Ways place in the next world. They say something about a lack of anchors. I didn't get all of it clearly."

The Ways?

What was that place?

I let him carry on.

"Then I realised that it was all real, that you were all real, and you were all just passing through, by whatever damn magical means I don't know, but I did know that it was a door of some kind to somewhere else. It dawned on me that I might be able to escape, and if I did then there wouldn't be any shine to keep me drunk, and I might be able to start again. It meant a way out of this place."

He looked around.

"I mean a way out of Riverfall."

"So you followed me," I said.

"Yes," he said, smiling. "I went back to my place, grabbed my stuff and picked up your trail as quickly as I could. Of course it was easy after a while. I wasn't the only one following you. Those young city rangers are damn good at following trails, but they were young and inexperienced and I used to be one myself when I was younger, and they were stupid enough not to notice me following them at a distance. I've done it many times."

I stood up, and stretched my arms.

"Well now you're out. I'm not sure I've led you to a place that is any better."

"Anywhere is better than Riverfall."

"I would hold off on that before you decide."

I looked directly at him for a moment. He seemed to collapse under the scrutiny and looked away from me, his cheeks red with either embarrassment or, maybe, something else.

"Aint no way back it seems," he said, nodding in the direction of the road and the spot where the portal opened to. He was right. There was no hole, no way back. The door from Riverfall was one way only.

"I'm James. What's your name?" I asked.

"Ellis. Ellis Rendell. Or should I say, Captain Ellis Rendell, but now retired. As I said before, I used to be a ranger in my youth, but I grew old. I've still got some go in these old bones."

I held out my hand and we shook.

That was when three more people appeared in the middle of the road, all armed with loaded crossbows. They stepped quickly forward, spreading out and covering all directions.

Three more followed.

The Ways

Within thirty seconds, and before any of us could decide whether to run or stay, six had turned into ten, and then twenty. They hadn't seen us, but I didn't think it would be long before they did.

"Exiles," said Ellis.

I glanced at him.

"As in the ones that live outside of the barriers?"

He nodded, and stayed crouched below the open window, peering over every few seconds.

"I think I met them already. They let me go. I wasn't expecting them to follow."

"Hmm." Ellis was squinting. "They let you go? That isn't normal. They kill anyone or anything that comes near them. They don't trust anyone. We should leave."

Then something popped into my mind.

"Do you think they let me go for the same reason that you followed? Maybe they wanted me to lead them out?"

He stared at me with a blank expression.

"Did you tell them? About the portal I mean? Did you tell them that you were leaving?"

"No, but I did tell them that I was hunting the man who killed a lot of them."

"Then how would they know?"

Had they lied to me?

I looked over to where DogThing and GreyFoot sat, crouched a few yards away from me. I wondered for a moment if this was a different group of exiles, and almost as though I had predicted it the woman who led the group I'd met the night before stepped through into the road. By now the first group, the ones armed with crossbows, were spreading out, making room for more to follow, and they followed quickly. Women, children, the old and the injured came through until there must have been a hundred people gathered on the road.

"Kill anything that moves," called a voice from amongst the gathering crowd. It was the man's voice again.

I glanced over at the Maw again.

"That's our cue to leave," I said.

I stood up and moved quickly through the run-down living room, heading for the back door. DogThing and GreyFoot followed close behind.

Then I heard Ellis moving behind us.

Ten minutes later and we had left the back of the house and moved through the alleyway at the back. It led along the back of a dozen other houses and out onto street that looked the same as the one we had left. It all looked the same here.

"We're moving away. The scent is weaker here."

I stopped.

"Ellis, we need to double back, or at least find our way around to the other side of those Exiles."

"The trail your...dogs are following goes that way?"

"Yes."

He nodded, looked around, scoping out the directions of the few roads that joined the one we were on.

"This way," he said, and strode off.

I frowned, but followed.

"How do you know?"

"The buildings around. The larger buildings. They tell you what shape the streets are. Trust me. I'm used to navigating streets. This way should lead us around. You see that tower over there? The one with the broken clock? That was not far from where we came out. If we circle around, keeping the same distance, we should be able to reach the opposite side. If we're quick we will be able to skirt around in maybe an hour and still avoid those back there. We have to avoid them."

I followed him.

"Why are you helping me?"

There was no point in just wondering.

He looked back at me and smiled.

"You found me the way out of that stinking city. The least I can do is get you back on your trail."

As we moved through the streets I began to wonder once more if I would ever see a place that wasn't damaged. If I would ever set foot in a city, somewhere, that hadn't been ravaged by Nua'lath's creatures. Were there even any worlds left that weren't? Yes there was one.

Earth.

Earth was still not destroyed, but my travelling had not led me back there for decades, not since we had pulled parts of London out of existence and into the void under the desert.

We made our way, skirting around the city. Every now and then I would glance up at the clock tower, still roughly a mile away from us. As the minutes ticked by the face of the clock gradually turned away from me, until finally we were looking at the back of the tower.

"The scent is stronger here."

"Can you follow it?"

"Yes."

"Good, then let's go."

I stopped and turned to Ellis.

"We've found the trail again. Thank you."

He seemed to size the three of us up for a moment.

"Good luck," he said, and then turned and began walking away in a direction that would take him even further from the Exiles. I was disappointed to see him go. With that gun and his obvious sense of direction he would have been very helpful to have with us, but something in the expression on his face when he had looked at the three of us told me that he had made a judgement of some kind, and the verdict was that we weren't up to the task ahead. I also wondered if we were.

We camped up that night in yet another run-down building; this one I thought had once been a cinema. The foyer was still covered in dark red carpeting, but it was torn and dirty. There were crumbling wooden counters with broken computers hidden behind them, and a row of smashed, see-through plastic containers that still contained a smattering of sweets, all of which looked dried and solid.

Day 62

I awoke in the middle of the night to sound of voices outside. GreyFoot was curled at my feet, and for a moment I forgot about the voices, puzzled that she had suddenly taken to sleeping so close to me, but a quiet sniff from just a few feet away brought me back to the noise. DogThing was crouching next to a film display a few feet away, and glaring out at the darkness beyond the entrance to the cinema. There was no light outside except for the dim moonlight, but my eyes had already adjusted to it.

Dark figures moved past the shattered glass doorways. They were moving swiftly along the street and passing the cinema without a pause. I watched them, trying to focus on the figures, but couldn't make out any details other than they weren't stumbling and dragging their feet. Not Zombies. Every few moments one of them would speak but I couldn't understand the language. It was more guttural than that spoken by the Exiles, who had spoken clear English.

How was it that so many places that I had been to spoke that same language? Were they all linked in some way? I couldn't even put it down to common ancestry from thousands of years past. Ancient civilisations hadn't spoken English, but the people of Riverfall had, and those that I met during our time in the last place - whatever that had been called - also spoke the same. Had the Resistance spread the language across the worlds they travelled? No, even Nua'lath and Dha'mir spoke it, though I knew that it was not their native tongue.

Anyway, this was the first time I'd heard a foreign language spoken in a long time.

They continued to pass by for a few minutes, and I guessed that there had to be at least a hundred of them. It wasn't the Exiles, at least I didn't think it was. Unless of course the Exiles had their own language and they had come through the portal in huge numbers.

A long time after they had gone I drifted back off to sleep again. I hadn't intended to, but the last thing I could remember was thinking that it had been an age since I'd slept so well. Had it been at the road junction where I met Eleanor? Or did we sleep at the stadium in the city of the Sisters of Rahl? I couldn't remember.

It was daylight again outside when I did awaken, and that had only happened because DogThing woke me up.

"The trail is getting weaker."

I sat up, rubbed the dust from my eyes, nodded, and quickly collected my things. Five minutes later we were following the road again.

After roughly two long hours of walking through crumbling streets the city finally gave way to countryside, but this wasn't a kind of countryside that I was used to. I'd seen the arid deserts and lush green fields of many worlds, but I'd never before walked a barren wasteland like this. The buildings gave way to broken and cracked ground that was covered in a thick layer of grey dust that looked like ash. Dotted across the endless expanse of almost perfectly flat land were small outcroppings of black rock jutting out from the ground like sores. There was no sign of plant life and no animals wandering across the deserted landscape, just dead greyness that drained me of courage every time I looked up at it.

Bones in the dust.

The journey along the road felt like it took days, though in reality only hours passed. The road itself went from reasonable condition, to broken, to nearly absent as the dry desert and dead nature took over. I saw many more skeletal remains as we travelled. Some of them looked once human, but most were much larger, the size of a car or in a few cases a double-decker bus. Sunlight was almost fading into the pitch darkness of a desert night when DogThing finally perked up.

"There."

I looked along the road where DogThing was facing and saw the change in light almost immediately. Further up the road, about two miles from where we were, was a petrol station and behind the building was a huge metal roof held up by metal columns. The whole structure was glowing, the light jumping and dancing, and much brighter than the pale sun that now barely made an effort to cast light upon the ground.

The light from a portal.

As we drew closer I saw the first body.

The petrol station was as dilapidated as everything else I had seen in this world, and far more degraded than any place I had ever visited in my travels. I know, I can't remember everywhere that I have been right now, but something inside me said that nothing I'd seen before had felt this lifeless. I felt a pang of regret for the Exiles and for Ellis. I had inadvertently led them to this place and I didn't think that they would remember me kindly for it.

The windows of the petrol station were broken, and glass littered the ground in pools at the bottom of each gaping window hole. The paint on the walls had peeled away so that there was barely any of it left clinging to the grey and mottled concrete underneath. A dozen rusted vehicles sat by the piles of scrap metal and plastic that had once been petrol pumps, their colour now rusted metal, the bodywork long ago having lost its colourful coat. Inside a few of the vehicles were the skeletal remains of the long dead, blackened and wasted. They were a stark contrast to the freshly killed and bloody bodies that now lay scattered across the ground around them. I couldn't say why, but I knew that these new people were the ones that had passed us in the night, and as I approached the first body and turned it over with my boot I saw why they had been coming this way and why they had been killed.

Staring at me out of the thick hood was Dha'mir, or Nua'lath. It didn't matter which of those you chose, the face that stared back at me with eyes as dead as the ashen ground around us was the face of one of their kind. The man, at least I thought it was a man, lay there with his mouth open wide in a final painful grimace, and sharpened teeth snarled motionlessly back at me.

The face was half pale skin, almost translucent, like his kinsmen that I had met, and half blackened like burnt leather. There was a blue tinted marking tattooed upon his forehead, and as I walked around examining more of the dead I found that they all had these same markings. I couldn't tell you what they meant, but they were almost identical. A blazing blue star, surrounded with what I could only describe as tentacles, with a dark blue compass face in the middle. I say it was a compass face, but the polar letters were confused. East and west were reversed.

They all had this marking, and all appeared to be the same until you looked carefully and noticed the small differences in the tiny sigils that encircled the compass in the middle. What each of the sigils meant was beyond me, but I couldn't help but think of the markings around the engraved circle in the dark cellar room that DogThing took me to when we found the ruined outpost in the desert near the field of white flowers.

I'd looked at half a dozen of the bodies, whilst DogThing and GreyFoot sniffed around the rest of the petrol station, before I leaned over one of them and it moved.

The creature rolled over and spat at me from six feet away, and a tirade of what must have been curses in its own language spewed from its mouth in the same harsh and guttural voice as Nua'lath.

I took a step back, drew my blade and then advanced, shoving the tip of the blade into the creature's chest. I didn't stab it, only pushed hard enough so that the creature stopped cursing me and made a quiet choking sound.

"Shut up," I said.

The creature tried to take a breath but grimaced with pain. Blood was oozing out of anywhere that it could - ears, nose, eyes and mouth - and also from blackened burns that covered much of its exposed skin.

"Did you fight Nua'lath here?" I asked.

The creature laughed at me, coughing with every heave of its breath.

"Answer me."

"Why should I tell you anything, human?"

"Because I hunt him like you do."

"Yes. Maybe you do, but it is to take the power that belongs to our people. You humans interfere so much in what is none of your business, and you steal."

I shook my head. I could hear DogThing and GreyFoot approaching now, and noticed the change in expression upon the creature's face. He was frightened - no. He was terrified of the Maw.

DogThing came to stand next to me, and the creature tried to move away.

"Please... Don't let it."

I pushed the blade harder.

"What? Don't let it what? You don't like the Maw?"

He shook his head, still choking.

"Please...they consume my kind. If they...I will not go to the sacred halls. Please."

I had never seen this side of Nua'lath or Dha'mir. Maybe they had somehow overcome their fear of the Maw, or maybe they knew something that this unfortunate thing didn't. I knew what it did mean though.

"Answer my questions and I'll leave you alone. If you don't, I let them eat you."

DogThing snorted at this and bared his teeth. GreyFoot seemed to understand as well, and did the same. To me it was comical seeing such a small Maw growling, but the effect was not lost on the creature lying at my feet.

"Yes, we fought Nua'lath. He has grown so strong now. We could not reach him before in his prison, but now he is free again we may track him down. The power is not rightfully his, and it must be returned. But he had new Icons, the ones in the chains. They are strong. We were not prepared."

He started coughing again, and I drew the tip of the blade away to give him space for a moment.

"You are trying to kill him, and so am I. I don't give a damn about some mystical fairy power that he has, that you want back. I really don't care. His new Icons, as you call them, are my family and I want him dead, and them free. Can you tell me how I can do that?"

He was staring up at me now, puzzled.

"Humans lie. But you? I cannot sense a lie in your mind."

"I'm not lying. Tell me how to kill him. We tried for centuries, but he is too strong. Weapons seem to have no effect. You shoot him and he laughs at the wound as it heals right in front of you."

"You must separate him from the Icons," he said. "The ones in chains."

"How? He apparently heals them too."

"You must sever the link."

He was coughing heavily now, and struggling to speak. Blood poured from his mouth.

"How do I do that? Break the chains?"

"No. The chains are merely bonds. The link is not physical. They must be separated in mind, or if you do break the chains you must either take them far away from him, or kill them."

"Then what? How? Tell me."

I wanted to kneel down and shake him, but I knew it would do no good; it would only accelerate his death.

"Separate..."

I was too busy with these thoughts churning around in my head to even notice the creature's hands reach out to grab my blade, and I wasn't quick enough to pull it away. Before I could react he pulled the blade and impaled himself through the neck with it. I drew it back, but only aided him in his suicide. The blade swung out in a short arc and sliced the wound in his neck wide open.

A few moments of coughing, and a shudder, and the creature lay still.

Nothing. I knew nothing that I didn't know already. I wanted to scream out loud, but just stood there, breathing slowly. I needed to keep calm and go on. A few minutes passed before I was ready.

"Let's go."

I looked across the parking lot behind the petrol station at the glowing, crackling portal under the huge metal roof. That was where we were going.

I started walking towards the glowing portal, staring straight at the picture of darkness beyond. I could see a wall of some sort through the hole, and on the wall's surface was a pattern like the one upon the floor in the desert outpost and the tattoos worn by the dead that surrounded me. The sigils surrounding the pattern seemed to etch themselves into my mind, just as a bright sun leaves spots of lingering light in your eyes long after you look away from it. But when I was about thirty feet away the crackling energy stuttered once and then disappeared. The huge hole that for a few moments had given me a glimpse of a dark place beyond simply vanished.

The portal had gone.

I didn't know what to do for a few moments. I had presumed that the portals would stay long enough for me to step through them. I had been travelling so fast all this time that I had completely forgotten that there was a chance that I may suddenly be stopped dead if one of the portals shut before I could travel through it.

I looked around me at the bodies scattered on the ground, wondering how I was to carry on. I couldn't. That was it. My journey was over. Wasn't it?

After everything that I had been through, everything that I had discovered, the way to kill him or at least the way to distract him long enough to separate him from my family who were now his power conduits, I still wouldn't be able to find my family or Nua'lath.

GreyFoot made a whining sound behind me.

"Here."

I turned around and looked at DogThing, who was now pawing at the body nearest to me. Despair was clouding any rational thought that may have helped me understand what he was trying to show me, but he was persistent.

"Look. Here."

I looked down, frowning at the body, and it took me a few seconds to understand.

But then I saw it, something so obvious about the dead body that I shook my head at my own stupidity and lack of observation.

Around his neck was a metal chain, and attached to that was something that looked just like...a compass. I reached down, pulled the chain from his neck and examined it.

It was obvious then. They had to have travelled to this world, somehow. These would-be assassins had to have had some way to follow him.

The amulet was almost identical to the one that I had reassembled when I had been trapped in The Corridor. It had the same polar markings, wrongly placed so that they faced backwards, the same multitude of many smaller markings. Only the chain was different.

"It's a portal key," I said.

"Yes."

I smiled.

"You, my furry friend, are a damn genius."

"Yes."

"I found it, not you," said another voice. This one was softer, and distinctly young and feminine.

I turned to look at the pair of Maw. DogThing was now lowering his head a little, and GreyFoot was scowling at him.

"Hmm. It was better when you didn't speak."

I closed my fist around it and envisioned the pattern that I had seen on the wall through the portal that had just disappeared. I forced my mind to focus on those burning sigils, on the pattern that had stared back at me from the darkness. The thought grew, until I could vividly see swirling, twisting lines, glowing with fire. Then I could feel a connection, and the air around me crackled with energy.

Wait.

I was in too much of a hurry to keep up the chase, and not thinking clearly. I had a key that could take me anywhere, open a door to any place in my memory if I could just focus on it.

And so my thoughts shifted to the desert, and to the way station where I had last seen Rudy, Adler, Reg and Marie. I tried to find something in my memory that stood out, something that would be detailed enough that I could call it up. I thought of the front door, the road, the pile of debris out the front, and the yard. The yard where Eleanor, my granddaughter, played.

The air around me shifted and a blast of hot desert air brushed my face as a portal opened in front of me.

Rudy looked back at me through the void, his expression shocked.

"James!" he shouted.

I stepped through, followed by DogThing and GreyFoot. Rudy was still speechless when I noticed Adler rushing from the house.

"Why, James," he called out. "You're alive."

He smiled. "And DogThing! And, oh you seem to have found a young friend I see."

"We thought you were dead," said Rudy. The relief on his face made me smile.

I looked around.

"Yes. Look. It's such a long story that I will have to tell you as we travel. I'm on CutterJack's trail. He has gone to somewhere called The Ways. He has my family bound to him as his gate openers, the ones in chains."

The smiles vanished instantly.

"He has them?" said Rudy, his voice weak.

"Yes. I don't have time. I'll have to tell you as we move. Where is Reg? Marie?"

"They left," said Adler. "They've gone south again, heading for the Resistance base that Reg says is there. We said we would stay in case you came back. They are going to try to contact your brothers and the other Resistance leaders. We couldn't think of a way to get to you, to help, so they were going to try and get the Resistance to help."

"Well it will have to be just us then. Are you willing to come with me?"

Rudy nodded. "Of course."

Movement from the trees around us. Shadows amongst the low branches and the undergrowth.

"Others come."

I glanced at DogThing.

"Who?"

"Some of my kin that stayed here."

They appeared one by one from the amongst the great desert trees that surrounded the way station. Large, black-furred Maw that were much bigger than DogThing. The warrior caste. I remembered them from our exodus from The Corridor, and from the battle against the mass of creatures in the ruined city where we found the Sisters of Rahl.

A few minutes later and there were two dozen of them surrounding us, all standing and looking directly at me, waiting.

Waiting for me to do something.

"What do they want?" I asked, looking at DogThing.

"They come to help."

"They're coming with us?"

There was a moment of silence before he answered again.

"They are coming."

Five minutes later and we are all standing in the place where I'd seen the glowing symbol. The portal was easy to open, and no one hesitated to follow me through. I'd had to wait a few minutes whilst Adler and Rudy insisted on dictating a note to leave for Reg and Marie. I wrote it down quickly and left it on the table inside the main building, right where we had eaten breakfast with Cory and his daughter. It had only been a few days ago, but it seemed like years had passed since then. I also took a moment to look at the back yard where I had spoken to Eleanor. Back then I hadn't known that she was my granddaughter. I hadn't known her at all, but she had known me. I couldn't help but think again how strange, confusing and upsetting it must have been for her to see her grandfather acting so distant and unknowing to her.

I will make up for it soon, I thought. I will make up for it, and much more.

And so we went, for the first time, into The Ways. This place was special somehow, at least to Nua'lath and his kin, and maybe others. I didn't know why, but if Ellis had spoken the truth, then this had been the first place that Nua'lath had mentioned to his followers when he had escaped from The Corridor. The very first thing his thoughts went to.

I don't know what I had expected of the place, but what was there when we arrived was certainly not it.

Darkness, I had expected. For a place that Nua'lath wished to return to, I couldn't picture anything but a dark place. It didn't disappoint me there.

I was the first through the portal, and stepped out onto a brick and cobble ground. The place was vast, or at least the first bit of it was. Brick walls with no windows rose around me and into the darkness. I lit my torch, the only one I had remaining, before I went through, and I was glad that I did because there was only a very dim light in the place and no indication of where the pale glow came from. Stairways also made of brick rose from the ground in many places and led into corridors whose destinations were faded into the darkness. The ground was wet and moss covered, and the brick-work cracked and broken. I walked forward to examine the brick wall in front of me, the one that bore the fiery symbol that had burned its image into my mind, the one that had allowed me to open the portal in the first place.

I thought then that it was strange how the portal keys worked. I could open a door to almost anywhere if I could remember the scene vividly enough, or if there was a symbol, one of the fiery symbols, in my memory. When I held the amulet tightly there were a million, or so it seemed, of these symbols in my mind, and many flashes of remembered images of places that I still couldn't identify. I could go anywhere I wanted to, and almost nowhere that I knew, instantly.

After a few minutes my friends and the Black Maw had joined me. The Maw began to spread out around us, creating a perimeter of deadly black fur and teeth. They still made me nervous. Anything as big as a lion, with black fur, and a mouth full of teeth large enough to send any alpha male big cat running in fear, and nearly completely silent, was something to be fearful of. But they were my allies and that gave more comfort than anything else I could think of. An armed division of Resistance Vigilants wouldn't make me feel as courageous as the Maw did.

"Which way did they go, do you think?" asked Rudy.

"I don't know."

"We will find the trail."

I nodded.

"The Maw will track him," I said to Rudy and Adler.

We waited there in the darkness whilst the Maw drifted away, each of them sniffing the ground and darting around in the shadows just outside of the torchlight. I opened my pack and pulled out one of my few remaining tins of food, and sat on the ground eating. I would have to eat the mushrooms soon, there was no doubt about that, but I was going to put that off until it was the last option. During mouthfuls of the drab tasting stuff in the tin I told Rudy and Adler everything that had happened so far - the bunker, Dha'mir's death, finding the train station and the remnants of what I believed to be Nua'lath's home in The Corridor, my journey to Riverfall and the Ash covered ruined world that followed. I told them about the exiles who left Riverfall, and Ellis. I'd just gotten to the part about the bodies of Nua'lath's kinsmen when the growling noises erupted from the darkness. I dropped the food tin and stood up, drawing my blade and my gun in a swifter movement that I thought I was capable of.

Half a dozen of the Maw were backing away from something, heading towards us. Other Maw were rushing across the cobbled ground in the direction of the growling.

"What's happening?" I thought.

"Movement in the tunnels. Something is coming."

GreyFoot appeared from the murky darkness, running as fast as her tiny legs would carry her. DogThing appeared for the briefest of moments, seeming to check that she had reached me, and then he joined the line of Maw - that was now a dozen strong at least and growing as others made their way back to the clearing. A few of them formed a perimeter around me, but most headed straight to the growling line of black fur.

Then I saw what they were growling at as the first creature came into sight.

It was a massive, bristly nightmare.

Long spindly, hairy legs as tall as a man, maybe taller, stuck out from a bulky body, from the centre of which glared a multitude of bright, round eyes. There were hundreds of eyes.

A spider of some sort, but one much, much larger than any that I had ever seen. This thing was the size of a car, and it was not alone. I could see the shadowy movement of several others as they slipped out of the entrances around us. One of the Maw darted forward and gnashed with its teeth, growling louder at the nearest spider, but it jumped back quickly as a cloud of noxious green gas burst from the gaping mouth of the spider. The gas jetted forward maybe ten feet, nearly reaching the line of Maw, but they quickly backed away.

I looked around me, and saw that the massive spiders were already nearly surrounding us as they spread out around the cavern.

One of the larger corridors, maybe forty feet wide, was still visible, but the spiders were edging their way around, closing even that last gap. Very soon they would have us in a trap.

At my feet, huddled against me and staring at the same gap as I was, was GreyFoot. She made a soft whining noise and then looked up at me. She was still a frightened child.

"DogThing. To me. Now. And tell your kin to be ready to follow me when I fire," I thought.

"Yes."

"Stay right by my side, little one," I whispered, kneeling for a moment so that GreyFoot could nuzzle my elbow.

A moment later and DogThing was by my side.

"We're going to break out that way," I said out loud.

Rudy and Adler nodded.

I began walking forward towards the gap, just as two of the large spiders started to close it. I raised my gun and fired. The sharp crack of the gun echoed with such a loud force that nearly everything and everyone in the huge hall jumped back. Even the Maw were startled, but more importantly, the spider that I had aimed at shrank back into the shadows, screeching from the burning wounds on at least two of its legs.

"Go. Now," I shouted, running forward. I kept the gun in front of me, frantically aiming shot after shot at the creatures as they swarmed in the darkness. We were approaching the open corridor fast, and I could feel, more than see, the dark presence of the Maw rushing around me. None of them blocked the way in front, or got in the way of the gun that was sending bright flashes of deadly energy out into the shadows and the swarm of massive spiders every couple of seconds.

One of the spiders leapt just as I was about to run into the passageway, and landed in front of me. I staggered back for just a moment before firing the gun almost blindly into the massive, black body that was looming over me, a few feet away. There was a loud scream, and then I felt the gas erupt around me. I ducked down and tried not to breathe in, firing again, sending the creature rolling away and scuttling back to the shadows, and ran through the green mist that was spreading out around me.

Another spider landed nearby, but before I could spin around and fire, a group of Maw jumped it, gnashing with their teeth and tearing at the creature's legs. It jumped again and vanished from sight, above us. They weren't just coming from the tunnels. I had no idea how tall the cavern was and what was up there.

Then I was in the tunnel, and expected it to be dark, but the light was still with me. I had left the torch on the ground in the middle of the great cavern, but it was no longer there. Standing just a few feet away, gripping the torch in her teeth but keeping the flame away from her fur, was GreyFoot. Adler and Rudy rushed into the tunnel, closely followed by DogThing and a mass of Black Maw. A dozen of them rushed past us and into the darkness ahead as I turned and began firing back into the hall.

"We don't know which way he went," shouted Rudy.

"I know. We'll have to find the trail, somehow."

But the spiders hadn't given up.

Half a dozen of the Maw held the passageway, and I stood behind them as we backed away slowly. The passage was only wide enough for one of the spiders to move into, so we were spared being attacked from many directions, but it seemed that every time I shot one of the creatures another would push its way over the wriggling body of its injured ally. And they weren't being as timid as they had been in the cavern. In this long corridor, that seemed to just keep going and going, they threw themselves at us with fury.

As we moved further and further along the passageway the attacks from the spiders became less frequent, and after about fifteen minutes they stopped altogether. It gave me time to look at my surroundings and become even more puzzled. The massive cavern that we had arrived in had been strange enough, with its winding walkways, bridges and the arched entrances dotted randomly along the walls, all leading into darkness. Everything was built from bricks, and it all looked very old.  They weren't even a type of brick that suggested that they had been made in ancient times; instead they were the same as any of the small dark bricks that you could find all over the city of London, way back when I last visited it. What made the place strange was that the bricks did look old, as though they had been here for centuries, maybe millennia. In many places the walls were crumbling, and I could see behind the facade to smooth, hard, grey rock.

The tunnels didn't even run straight; they twisted and turned and split at strange angles. Stairways went down, or up, into yet more darkness that the light from my now fading torch barely cut into, and always the passageways were nearly ten feet tall, and just as wide, and arched high in the middle. There were metal brackets placed at twenty-foot intervals, but no torches.

It was an endless maze of twisting passages.

Sometimes over the following hours the passageway would break out into another cavern, and each time only the different shape of the vast opening gave us some clue that it was a different room and that we hadn't just walked back on ourselves.

I knew we wouldn't anyway. DogThing was at the front of the Maw, and had been the whole time, sniffing the ground and stopping at every intersection to decide which direction Nua'lath had taken.

Then there were the symbol walls in each cavern. These were the strangest of all. They were built dead in the centre of each cavern, up on a dais that was raised maybe two feet. The walls themselves were roughly ten feet tall and the same width, and always in the centre of the wall, identical on both sides, a symbol was carved into the rough brick-work. Even though a lot of the walls and passageways had crumbled in places, these jet-black coloured bricks were in perfect condition.

Eventually I called for everyone to stop. I was exhausted and needed to rest for a few minutes before we carried on. I sat down on the step of the dais and watched as Adler attempted to examine the symbol wall, which wasn't very easy now that the light was gone. Of course, with the two ghosts - Rudy and Adler - glowing as brightly as they did, we weren't short of light, but it wasn't bright enough to see very far.

"It looks like some kind of obsidian," Adler said, as he peered at the brick-work from a few inches away.

"Obsidian?" asked Rudy. "What's that?"

"Well, volcanic rock is the best description," replied Adler. "It's formed over a long period of time under extreme heat, and it's no small task to have collected enough for just one of these walls, let alone the many we have seen, let alone to have carved it into bricks and then carved these symbols in it. Truly an advanced culture must have done this."

"Not advanced enough that they could use something other than bricks to build this place with," I said.

Adler stepped away from the symbol wall. "Yes, good point, but whoever built these passageways and these caverns produced the bricks by the millions, maybe even billions. Have you noticed that we have walked maybe five miles or more through these corridors, and there have been a dozen caverns in that time?"

"It's an amazing place," said Rudy. "Just think. It must have taken years. And where is it even? I mean, where are we? Are we under the ground somewhere? We haven't seen any ways out."

"Good question, my friend," said Adler. "We've walked five miles or more, through endless passageways and twists and turns, through many large caverns, and in each were countless other exits to what I can only presume is more caverns and more passageways. Yet no doors, and no way out. What was it you called this place James?"

"The Ways. That was what Ellis said Nua'lath had called the place when he overheard him talking to his minions," I said, and for a moment I wondered where Ellis had gone to, and whether he was still alive. Had he wandered out of the ruins and found how dead that world really was? And the Exiles. Had they also?

"The Ways," said Adler. "A strange name."

"Are the symbols for opening portals?" asked Rudy.

I nodded.

"They seem that way," I replied. "Whenever I look at one of them I can feel it trying to burn into my mind and stay there, like some sort of bookmark. It's an odd feeling. I think if I tried I could open a portal using one of them."

"Hmm. Almost like they want you to open them?" asked Adler.

"Like they have a will of their own," added Rudy.

Day 63

I don't remember the rest of Rudy and Adler's conversation. One moment I was sitting on the dais and the next I was in a dream.

I was stumbling through darkness, a pain in my head. No, the pain was burning in my eyeballs. All around me I saw glowing shapes, but nothing else. It was like seeing ghosts of blood red, with swirling wisps of vapour of some kind trailing behind them. Every few moments I would feel a burning pain in the back of my head and everything would flash with a bright light. For that briefest slice of time I could see everything clearly. Zombies and other creatures stumbled ahead of me, all heading in the same direction that I was moving. Other creatures that I didn't recognise also stumbled forward, their backs to me. In the distance I would see something moving fast, and the flashes of what might be gunfire. Then the pain would go and one of those fast-moving figures would fall to the ground.

After each time this happened I would feel the dull ache in my eyes, and the pain would begin to rise again.

I awoke, sweating, and breathing heavily, to find DogThing standing next to me. I sat up. GreyFoot was still huddled at my feet, and as I arose she also sat up, a puzzled expression on her tiny face.

I almost felt her ask.

Time to leave?

Before I'd fallen asleep I'd seen DogThing darting into the different exits from the cavern and then coming back a few moments later.

"I have found the trail. It is up there."

He was looking up into the void above us.

"It is not far but the path is broken in places. The scent is stronger. I think we are catching them up."

I rubbed my eyes and struggled to my feet, my whole body aching.

Time to move on.

We found the first of the bodies about three hours later.

The climb up the stairwell was a lot more dangerous than I had expected. The stairs were solid enough for a while, and I could see clearly enough with Rudy and Adler staying close to me, their unearthly glow providing enough light to see a few feet ahead. But a short while into the climb, and maybe ten flights of stairs later, the stairs just disappeared completely, leaving a gap of maybe four or five feet between the last step and where the stairs began again. At some point this section must have just fallen away, aged and weakened until its own weight was too much. The Maw had no trouble jumping the gap, and even GreyFoot leaped across almost effortlessly, but I had to take a few steps back and will myself to jump.

I don't remember ever having a fear of heights, but this unnerved me. I think it may have been the dim light and my inability to see to the stairs that were obviously only twenty or so feet below the gap that made it daunting.

Eventually I just jumped, and was relieved to land easily on the other side, but the first few steps immediately began to crumble under the impact and I jumped forward again just a moment before the loud cracking sound echoed around the walls of the cavern and the brick-work fell into the darkness below. Less than two seconds later and a loud crash erupted from the darkness below as the falling rubble hit the ground.

This was how it went for the next two hours as we climbed further and further up the stairs. At least a dozen times I had to either jump a gap or climb round a small ledge that remained, jutting out of the wall like blackened teeth. Every time my stomach lurched as I imagined it giving way and sending me falling into the darkness. I knew that even if I was injured I would heal, or at least I thought that I would. I'd not yet had to heal from an injury that actually broke my neck or smashed my skull, so I couldn't account for that.

I don't think it was the thought of injury that made me nervous, though. I think it was the idea of falling into darkness. It made me panic slightly, just as I had when I'd dropped into the sewers back in The City.

The dark unknown scared me even when I knew it wasn't really unknown.

Also if I was injured then my journey would be hugely delayed, even to the point where we wouldn't ever catch up with Nua'lath; maybe he would open another portal and it would close before I was able to heal and catch up.

The stairwell did eventually end, though, and we found ourselves upon a massive platform that stretched away almost forever, oddly lit somehow by some source that wasn't visible.

That was when I spotted the first dark shape on the ground. It was hundreds of yards away, across the brick ground. Two of the Maw were already moving towards it, sniffing the ground, but not getting too close to it.

It was another of Nua'lath's people. Another tattooed disciple of their strange priesthood, except this one was far more grotesquely mauled than the others had been.

I stood a few feet away, cringing in disgust at the mauled thing. It was barely recognisable, but one part of its smashed face bore the same tattoo markings, and the same material that their clothing was made from was lying in torn shreds across a large area.

Rudy and Adler stood next to me, and Rudy was shaking his head.

"It's like it was torn apart...like."

I suddenly realised.

"Just like how you died, Rudy."

He looked up to me, his face pale. How a glowing white ghost can be even paler, I don't know, but Rudy managed it now.

Adler leaned over the mess.

"Yes, this is how it was when I returned to the shack that time and found you dead, Rudy," he said, his voice quiet and wavering. I knew that neither of my two ghostly friends cared much about reliving their demises, and even less about how they had split up. I think both of them regretted it to a level that they believed they might both still be alive had they made different choices, had Adler not been in such a hurry to leave, and maybe if Rudy had not been so stubborn.

"Killed by Nua'lath."

I didn't repeat DogThing's words to Rudy and Adler.

There were more bodies as we moved on, each of them mauled in a similar way, and after we had passed maybe twenty of them the carnage ended. Once more we walked across an expanse of open ground that was almost perfectly flat but for the occasional broken patch of brick-work, or an area covered with a blue, spongy moss.

Then the Maw were growling, and I moved quickly forward towards the noise. As I approached I could see that a dozen of them were surrounding something, a figure that was kneeling upon the ground. Another half a dozen bodies were lying in a circle around this one that was still alive, and they weren't mauled and ripped apart like the others had been. These last few dead were killed by blades.

I stepped through the circle of Maw and towards the figure, my blade and my gun at the ready.

"Be careful," said Rudy.

The figure looked up at me for a moment, rose slowly from the ground, and bowed.

"I am honoured to be in your presence, Halldon," said a deep cracked voice. He stood up straight, and looked directly at me from within his hood. I could see that he was younger looking than the others had been, but there was no mistaking the tattoo markings. At his feet lay two long wickedly sharp blades.

"Who are you?" I asked, pointing my gun at him.

"I am Sha'ris, acolyte of the High Temple," he said, bowing once more. "I was an initiate and student to Dha'mir before I was passed into the brotherhood."

Dha'mir. There was that name yet again, come back to remind me of his betrayal. Even though he showed regret, and helped me in his last breath, I wouldn't forget.

I watched the creature...creature? They look almost like men, really, except for a few differences; the lack of a defined nose; the larger than normal eyes; the paler than pale skin that is almost translucent. Their mouths are lined with long, sharp, exaggerated teeth, and their shoulders sit higher than a man's, but other than that they are humanoid.

"Why are you waiting here?"

He blinked at me, expressionless.

"I was waiting for you. My brethren are all dead. I am alone. I knew that you were following the trail, and I decided that instead of failing in my duty to destroy Nua'lath and retrieve the talisman, I would wait, and offer to join with you in achieving the task. I had, like Dha'mir, believed it a crucial element to the success of the task, but I was restricted by my brethren in making the choice. Now they are all dead, I have decided to curse myself to the unlife, and accept that as my fate for joining forces with an enemy, but I deem it a necessary sacrifice."

He frowned.

"Well you can go right ahead and die with the rest of your people. I have no intention of teaming up with you."

He nodded and I turned, intending to move around him and carry on. I knew that the Maw would happily deal with him.

"I expected that you would react as such."

I stopped and looked back.

"Really? Well I'm pleased for you. Though you're about to become Maw food."

"James," interrupted Adler. "Maybe we should talk to him first? Maybe..."

I felt a twinge of anger rising.

"For what? So he can lead us down some merry path and then stick me with a sword? Did you even listen to what I told you about Dha'mir? I wouldn't trust any words that thing says."

Adler went silent, which I thought was unusual. He'd never been one for backing down before now.

"But James..." it was Rudy this time, "don't you think that he must have had good reason to wait for you?"

"Yes, perfectly good reason. Team up with me to fight Nua'lath now that his buddies are all dead, and stab me in the back later on. Am I right?" I glared at Sha'ris.

"Yes. Of course," he said. "If you stand in the way of me taking the talisman back to my people."

At least it seemed he was being honest.

"I don't want your damn talisman. I've never wanted it. You can take your damn talisman and stick it right where it's dark for all I care. If you even have one. And why aren't you dead like the rest of your freaky friends? Can you answer that?"

His face was emotionless.

"I am faster with a blade than even Nua'lath. My brethren were there to provide distraction so that I could make it past the barrier of protection that the Icons provide him, and make the killing blow. I have failed twice."

I laughed at this, though it was a shallow and empty laugh.

"You failed twice? Not much good at this are you?"

"You also have failed many times, even to the point of losing your kin to his will," he said, staring back at me.

I wanted to feel angry at this, and I could feel a rage burning in my stomach, but the feeling sank. He was right. I stood there for a long while, just staring at him.

"I have spoken out of place. I apologise," he said, which took me aback for a moment. "Our two races have warred for so long that I cannot help but dislike you intensely. The hatred is blood-deep. My mentor, Dha'mir, held his hatred back for a long time, and was scorned by the brethren for even associating with your kind. But he taught me that we have a common enemy. We have hunted Nua'lath for longer than you, ever since he first became corrupted and strayed from the true path when he stole the power of our people, bending it to destroy. We were never meant to step out from our home. We are meant to stand in vigilance over the Great One and use the power to sustain him."

I frowned, wondering why this enemy of mine was suddenly telling me far more than Dha'mir ever had.

"Your kin abhor us as much as we do you, we are too unalike for us to ever exist together in harmony, but my kind also have a great respect for your resilience and determination. Whilst we are forced to leave our home and hunt Nua'lath, we will always stumble upon each other, and killing one another is a natural result. Is it not in both of our interests to join forces and finish this, so that I may return home with the talisman, and you and your kin never see us again?"

The more he spoke, the more his words made sense, but I just couldn't bring myself to want to team up. This was no ally that I'd ever wanted.

"I still don't trust you. What reason have I got to think that you're not lying to me?"

He swept his arms outward and in an arc, indicating the bodies.

"I killed the last of my brethren to take a chance at a different approach."

I could see by the expressions on Adler and Rudy's faces that they were as shocked at this as I was. It took me a minute or so to grasp the idea.

"You killed your own people to join up with me?"

He nodded.

"But...what could posses you to do that?"

"They were set in their path and their ways to continue on and attempt a third attack. I knew it would be our final failure. Do not misunderstand. I had no desire to hurt my own kind. I only wish to restore that which rightfully belongs in our high temple. I will be punished for my crime. But I will also take the talisman home."

I stared at him for what seemed a long time. I had to make a decision, and quickly. I couldn't waste any more time with waiting when I knew that we were gaining on Nua'lath. If what this man was saying was true, then working with him, against our common enemy, may be the only way to succeed. And if I was honest with myself, I knew what I had to do to defeat Nua'lath - separate him from my family - but I still hadn't the slightest idea of how I was going to do it.

"OK," I said, finally.

He looked startled.

"You are accepting my proposal of a temporary alliance?"

"Yes, but it ends when Nua'lath is dead and you take your talisman and go."

We set off again, most of the Maw travelling ahead of us with DogThing, seeking out the scent of the trail, and Sha'ris walking by my side, with Adler and Rudy with us. GreyFoot was still clinging to my side like I was a parent, just as she had since we first entered The Ways. She was constantly on edge, as though something was bothering her.

I found myself holding two conversations at the same time, one with DogThing as he kept me updated, and the other as I probed Sha'ris for more information.

"Not far now. I can sense them."

"You can? How close?"

"Very soon. Their passing here is strong."

I took a deep breath. Finally the moment was coming. My stomach churned and my nerves tingled. I had the Maw with me, and Adler, and Rudy. But Sha'ris? I couldn't account for him. I knew that I was going into this fight with the odds against me.

I tried to ignore it. I'd been through worse, alone.

"How did you know we were coming?" I asked Sha'ris. "You were waiting for us."

"Yes, we passed you in the ruins before the battle at the portal. I knew you were there, as did many of my brethren, but we could not sense your exact location. Also, our rear scout was waiting at the top of the stairs for a while when you entered the last chamber before climbing to The Gallery."

"The Gallery?"

"Yes. The Ways is split into many levels, and the topmost was strangely called The Gallery. Our histories do not tell us of the ancient peoples that built or named the different places within The Ways, only the region names."

I frowned at this. The Gallery, as he had called it, was a vast open plain of sorts, but instead of dirt and grass the ground was almost perfectly flat brick work patterned in a thatchwork style. All of the bricks were of the same size and the colour of dark slate. A strange name to call such a strange place.

"Your histories? How old is this place?"

He shrugged.

"No one knows that either, but our histories date back over twenty thousand years through the names of the families that have held the High Priesthood, and it has been here, almost unchanged the whole time. Many centuries ago it was mostly occupied by my kind, and was used as a way of travelling to many worlds, but it became less so after Nua'lath took the talisman. We still have the means to use the portals, as you know, but The Ways has become a dangerous place, with many creatures that never belonged here now inhabiting the dark places.

"It's pretty big then? The Ways?"

He laughed. I don't remember ever hearing Dha'mir laugh, so the noise that came from Sha'ris was quite alien. It was a deep booming sound that was barely comparable to a human's laugher. It sounded mocking, but his expression suggested otherwise.

"The Ways is indeed large. No one has ever found the end, as such. It is, in theory, an endless place. Once, many centuries ago, there was a prophet amongst our kind called Lha'rul. He left our lands and said that he, as his particular rite of passage, would walk the entirety of The Ways, and map it as he went. About three centuries after he left upon his journey his remains were found in a tomb somewhere in The Ways. Who had buried him, no one knows, but the tomb was a shrine, and very decorated, and within the tomb were his journals. There were thirty-five volumes, and over a thousand maps, each covering an area that was vast. It was calculated by scholars that he must have walked for over a hundred years, barely stopping. Many of the places on his maps are so far away that a man could not walk there if he walked for ten years, and many of the places on the maps we have still to visit. Lha'rul recorded the locations of over five thousand portal markings."

"That's ridiculous."

"Indeed."

A place so vast that ten years of walking wouldn't take you to some of the furthest reaches, and connected to over five thousand worlds. It was mind-boggling.

Sha'ris opened his mouth, about to speak again, but then he stopped dead, his expression changed to intense concentration.

"Do you hear that?"

I stopped. Listening.

I couldn't hear anything at first.

"Everyone stop. Listen."

Far away, echoing through the halls and across the flat brick plain, came the very faint sound of a raised voice. And something else, something humming, an almost inaudible crackling sound.

"A portal?" asked Rudy. "Is that what that noise is?"

"He is opening another portal to leave here?" said Adler.

I looked at Sha'ris.

"I think, Halldon, that if we are to catch up with and confront Nua'lath, it should happen here, where there are few creatures for him to throw against us or twist to join the ranks of his minions. He has some still with him, but we have thinned their numbers out significantly. We should attack as swiftly as possible, surprise him if we can. We should..."

"We should run."

"Yes."

I stared at my unlikely ally for a few moments, wondering if I was about to walk into my last fight, wondering if by teaming up with Sha'ris I had made one final mistake.

But it was too late now.

"Are you ready?"

"Yes."

We ran.

For what seemed like hours, we just ran, even though barely half a mile in distance went by. The open brick plain that we had started on quickly gave way to rows upon rows of massive pillars that were twenty feet in diameter and rose into the darkness around us. Had I not been in such a hurry to catch Nua'lath before he escaped from this place, and possibly got ahead of us one more time, I may have stopped to see the strange things that we rushed past on our way, but there was no time.

I saw things that can't be explained easily, things that would have looked more at home in The Corridor. There was a tree growing from the ground just before we reached the hall of pillars; the brick-work around it had just broken and fallen back as the monstrous thing had pushed its way up, and this was like no tree that I had ever seen. There was no end to it, and it rose up into the darkness, promising to just keep on going. The trunk of the tree must have been a hundred feet wide and the roots that stuck up from the ground were taller than I was. There were no visible leaves or other forms of growth, but the thing was definitely alive. As we skirted around it, still hurrying in the direction of the noise, the entire thing swayed towards us. It didn't reach out to us, but the whole mass of the tree swayed back and forth slowly as we passed by.

Half way across the hall of pillars, as I jumped over holes in the ground that seemed to fall endlessly into the darkness, I saw the rusted and broken frame of a tank. This was an old one, and I remembered that sometime in the past I had seen tanks like this as they roared across Europe in the war that humankind had called the second great world war, or something like that. We, the Resistance, had only been involved in a few incidents during the two great human wars, but my memory was sharp enough now that something floated to the top, something that didn't need a flashback. It was a panzer tank, and to confirm this I saw the body of a long dead and shrivelled German stormtrooper lying dead on the ground just a few feet away. The body looked as though it had been drained of all of its fluid, blood, water, everything, and I was suddenly unsure that the draining had been natural decay.

Something had killed the soldier.

Something that lived here in The Ways.

It had killed others too; I saw the bodies scattered across the ground over the next hundred yards as we ran onwards.

Things moved in the darkness around us. Slow, slithering things, and things that crawled or scuttled away as four humanoid figures and a mass of Black Maw dashed past them in the darkness. I was sure that those creatures were used to the half-light, but I still wasn't, and although I knew that they could see us, I couldn't see them. Most of them quickly disappeared into dark shadows and holes in the brick-work before we got anywhere near them.

Then, the noise was overpowering, and the glaring light was dazzling as we rushed towards the edge of the cavern. I almost fell, but slowed myself in time, and I realised that I had been lucky. If I had not stopped when I did I would have plummeted fifty feet into the massive chasm that now opened up below us, and maybe even into the dark pit that lay in the very centre.

My brain was struggling to keep up with the speed at which everything was happening. Barely an hour ago we had been walking quite calmly through the seemingly endless maze, and now, now my confrontation with Nua'lath, with CutterJack was racing up to meet me at a rate that I couldn't fathom.

It was the first time since we escaped from The Corridor that I'd seen him, and looking down into the cavern sent a sharp chill up my spine.

In the middle of the deep, circular chasm was the same sort of portal sign platform that I'd seen a few dozen times already, one of apparently thousands in this endless maze of bricks, except this one was alive. A bright halo of flickering, crackling power hovered in the air just in front of the brick wall that held the sigils that identified the location the portal would lead to, and that was the first thing that burned into my mind. The destination pattern was glowing with a bright orange fiery light, and it was like staring into the sun for a moment and then looking away.

The sigil was burned into my memory for ever.

The second thing that grabbed my attention, and the thing that sent the chill into me, was Nua'lath himself. He was standing about thirty feet away from the burning portal, arms raised, power flowing from his hands to the portal as he charged it up, ready for use, charged it up using the force drained from those who surrounded him...

My wife, my daughter and my son-in-law, Andre.

My family.

There was one other, but I didn't see that one; he or she was unimportant to me. It was a moment of realisation that I will never forget my whole life. The faces were the same, but different. Instead of being the healthy people that I had once known, the gaunt figures that stood a few feet from Nua'lath, shackled in those chains, were but shades of what I remembered. Their eyes were glowing as brightly as the portal, their skin was tight and stretched over almost skeletal features, and they seemed less alive than the Zombies that stood motionless around them.

A rage emerged from somewhere within me, in an instant. I was willing to launch myself off the edge of the chasm to get down there, even though I knew that the fall would kill me.

I didn't have to. One quick glance told me that there was a winding stairway leading from about twenty feet away and curving around the entire chasm until it reached the ground.

I ran, and with me ran the Maw and DogThing, but even though I was fuelled with rage, there was one running ahead of me.

Sha'ris.

He was much faster than I was, and as I almost flew down the stairway in my hurry to reach those in the centre of the chasm, he still gained speed and pulled away. By the time I reached the foot of the stairs, and dashed forward across the remaining distance, surrounded by the Black Maw, DogThing and GreyFoot, he had cut his way through the few Zombies that stood in his way, reached the dais, swung his blade, and struck down the fourth Icon.

The man was barely alive, anyway. I don't know if he had been one of the original four Icons that were with Nua'lath when he was first trapped in The Corridor, but by his condition he had been one of Nua'lath's slaves far longer than Chione, Andre or Abegail. He was almost a skeleton, held together by skin that was almost transparent.

The blade sang as it took his head off. It flew from the man's shoulders and past Nua'lath, who hadn't noticed our approach until that moment. I think we moved so fast that he was taken by surprise for the first time in my experience.

The head bounced away across the chasm floor, and the body fell to the ground. The power that Nua'lath was feeding from, to open the portal, stuttered and stopped, and the portal began to fade.

A panic sprang into my chest as I ran across the floor and jumped up onto the dais. Was Sha'ris intending to behead the others? Was he going to kill my wife and daughter? But he didn't. As I raised my gun, nearly firing at him, but hesitating, he swung his blade around and leapt towards Nua'lath, leaving the remaining three - Abegail, Chione and Andre - to sway in their shackles.

Around me I could sense, more than see, the Maw, Rudy, and Adler, rushing at the Zombies that were even now coming awake and stumbling towards us. I heard growls and yelling and the moans of the creatures as they fell, but my attention was elsewhere, on the dais.

I turned to face the nearest Icon, my daughter. My mind swam with memories of our past, of her as a small child, the times I had spent with her as she grew up. And now here she was, so thin and frail, looking more like a Zombie than the beautiful girl that I loved. In the back of my mind I was screaming at myself "sever the chain, sever the chain", but my body was rigid with horror. I raised my hand, the one without the gun in it, and slapped my own face, forcing myself out of my stupor. Then I raised the gun and aimed at the chain. I fired, but the chain didn't break. Instead the power surged up the chain and into Nua'lath. I saw his eyes glow for a second.

The gun was giving him power. I couldn't shoot the chains without aiding him, without giving him even more power to destroy us.

I let the chain go and turned to Nua'lath, I lifted my gun to aim, but everything seemed to move so slowly.

Nua'lath ducked under the blade as Sha'ris swung it in a wide arc towards him, then he lashed out with his fist, I heard something break, and Sha'ris was thrown across the chasm floor, to land in a heap against the wall.

Then the Maw arrived, flooding over the dais and enveloping Nua'lath, blocking my view and stopping me from firing. Teeth gnashed and claws scraped.

I swung my blade at the chain, but it wasn't strong enough to break it. Then I stumbled as there was a burst of power, and a surge of energy. The Maw were sent flying, scattered away from Nua'lath, who even now was rising to his feet. His entire body was covered in blood from the claw wounds and the bites, but that wasn't stopping him. The wounds that had just been caused were sealing shut and healing already.

Two of the Black Maw and GreyFoot were thrown the furthest, flying over the chasm towards the deep pit at the far end. The first Maw seemed to somersault in the air, and managed to land on the ground only a few feet from the edge, and the second flew right over the pit, but GreyFoot didn't. I could only watch in horror as the tiny thing fell straight into the pit and vanished into the darkness. I think that I heard a quiet whimper as she disappeared from sight, but there was so much noise that I couldn't tell if it was her or another of the Maw that cried out.

Either way, I realised that she was gone, and when I turned back round to face Nua'lath, I saw him laughing as Rudy and Adler tried desperately to fight him. But of course they couldn't touch him any more than he could touch them. All they could do was distract him.

But the distraction wasn't working, and he quickly turned his gaze towards me. I was the only one left standing in our failed attack, and the only thing stopping him from his escape. Sha'ris still lay on the floor near the wall of the chasm, and the Maw were not getting up. Some of them stirred and shook, but they were all too injured, including DogThing, who was still trying to crawl back towards the dais right up until the moment that he faded away. One by one the other Black Maw began to disappear as well, going to wherever it was that they went when they phased out of existence to heal.

I looked to my daughter, and into her eyes, and realised that there was only one way to save her from this fate.

I raised my gun to kill her, and at that moment I felt my heart dying. This was the end, and I had failed one last time. I had come all this way, and faced Nua'lath one last time, and he had won. I tensed, steeling myself to do what was needed, to kill the ones I loved in the hope of saving them from a life of endless torture that they would surely suffer for centuries after I was dead.

But then the gun was gone, flying from my hand and clattering across the floor. And I was spinning round, grasped by the throat. Nua'lath was holding me. I lashed out with my blade, but that too was thrown from my hand. This wasn't the same creature that I had faced in The Corridor, the one that ran when I had faced him with his own blade, when the Maw had turned up and left him and his Kre'esh pets outnumbered. This Nua'lath was once more the thing that had led armies across countless worlds. He was strong once more, maybe not as strong as he had been back then, but his power was growing, and even now it was more than I could fight against.

I felt my throat collapse and my neck breaking as he crushed harder. There was a ripping noise and blood spurted everywhere. I felt numb. I didn't understand what had happened, but as I fell backwards and hit the ground I pulled my hand up to my throat instinctively.

He had torn my neck open.

I saw through a blur of red that he was moving away now, moving towards the portal. It was barely open, the power flickering and fading, but it was still there, and he was going to use it. He looked back towards me, seeming to hesitate. Now was his chance to kill me, to end me for good, but the portal was closing. I saw confusion in his eyes for just a moment, but then he was walking forward, going for the portal. In front of him, leading the way mindlessly, was my Chione, Abegail and Andre. They stumbled in their chains, driven along by the force of his will, moving slowly towards the glowing door. One by one they stepped through, vanishing from my sight. First to leave was Andre, then Abegail, and then Chione. Once more they were gone.

Sever the link.

This wasn't a voice in my head, not one from this time, and it wasn't DogThing. These words were coming from the past, and it was Dha'mir speaking to me, and it was all I could think of as I crawled across the floor. I managed to grasp the gun, and turned to aim it, but I knew it was no use. It would do no good. The gun would not aid me here. There had to be another way, but my thoughts and energy were blurred, my strength draining as fast as the blood poured from my neck.

Sever the link.

This time it was Sha'ris speaking in my head, his voice echoing from merely hours ago.

Nua'lath was stepping forward now, his foot disappearing into the portal, vanishing from this place to somewhere where I knew I would not be able to go. I had maybe a minute before the lack of breath in my lungs and blood in my veins sent me into a coma that I somehow knew I would not recover from.

Sever the link.

The voice was that of the acolyte lying dead in the petrol station, the one who had ended his own life on my blade.

How? How could I sever it? There was no way. All I could do was...

It’s time to close it now.

DogThing.

His words echoed back to me from the moment that we escaped from The Corridor. Nua'lath had been running at us across the bridge, across the scaffolding platform, with his Kre'esh pets thundering along behind him. I had seen the fear in his eyes then.

It’s time to close it now.

DogThing's voice came back to me and triggered something in my mind. The words I was hearing him speak, from the past, made me realise how this could be done.

The door.

The portal.

My family were on the other side and Nua'lath was still stepping through it. Only one foot and part of his leg was through. I lay there watching this in slow motion as my one chance was slipping away, as my stunned mind tried to catch up, and tried to figure out the thought that was stuck in there just waiting to surface, trying, trying to force its way out.

It’s time to close it now.

Then it came.

The key.

I had the key that I had taken from the body of the man at the petrol station.

I had to use the key.

I had to close the door.

I reached into my shirt and felt for it, and was rewarded as it almost leapt into my hand. I had somehow known exactly where it was.

Nua'lath was half way through the portal now, and slowly, so slowly, moving away.

I grasped the amulet tightly and willed with every part of my being, calling out to the door to obey me.

Close.

Close.

And it closed.

One moment there was a bright blazing light, and the next it was gone. Only traces of the power crackled across the ground and spidered along the chasm walls.

I was barely able to see what came next, but the little remaining energy from the portal discharged into the ground and gave off enough of a glow for me to see Nua'lath fall to the floor.

No.

It was only half of Nua'lath that fell to the floor.

The door had closed and he had been sliced in two.

He was finally dead.

And in a few seconds I could join him.

My throat had been ripped open. I couldn't breathe, blood was everywhere, and I could feel it pouring from the wound. I knew that I had but seconds before that and the pain overcame me. I may well have A17 running through my veins, and would probably recover, maybe, but how long would that take? If my body drained of blood would it ever recover? I realised that I needed to speed it up, and fast.

I needed to do one last thing before I passed out into unconsciousness.

I rolled over onto my back, trying to ignore the arc of blood that splattered across the ground, and pulled my backpack away, spilling the contents across the floor. I grabbed the small case that was on top of the pile, the one that I had found in the bunker. I fumbled with the latch, feeling my head swim and the world also spin around me, but I was able to open it somehow, open it and grab the injector and one of the small tubes. I fumbled with them both, my body threatening to just give up, but I managed to push the capsule into the injector.

Lifting it to my arm was the hardest thing I have ever attempted to do. As the blood was leaving my body I was becoming weaker by the second, and this last thing seemed to take every bit of will left in me to achieve. Finally, I rammed the needle into my arm, and pushed down, feeling a burst of pure relief as the world slipped away from me.

Day 64

I don't know how long I was out, but I did wake up. I couldn't move my legs, and had to drag myself around. Rudy and Adler were trying to help, but they couldn't touch anything, couldn't help me at all apart from encouragement. Most of their talk just flowed over me like so much background noise and I was barely able to keep my concentration.

The injection must have worked, for now my throat was healing at an incredible rate, and I could breathe again.

It seemed that a lot had happened since I fell unconscious, and I had been unconscious for quite a while, though neither Adler nor Rudy could make a guess.

Sha'ris had gone, as was Nua'lath's remains. I'd suspected that he wouldn't stick around for very long when he had what he came for

His precious talisman.

"He woke up, maybe an hour after the battle ended," said Rudy. "He went over to Nua'lath's body and he..."

"He cut out his heart," said Adler, seeing that Rudy was struggling to speak.

Rudy nodded, and Adler took over.

"We tried to persuade him to help you, to try and give you another injection, but he would not," said Adler.

"He was too intent on his goal to help," said Rudy, "but in the end he gave up after we badgered him endlessly. He opened the portal and brought back your wife, your daughter and the man."

"He injected them with the same thing that you had used," said Adler. "We didn't know what it was, and we argued with him, but he wouldn't listen. He was acting as though we weren't even there."

"Then I realised why he was hurrying," said Rudy. "None of the Maw were there. They were all still phased. But if any did come back, they would stop him immediately. They would pin him down."

"So he took the heart," said Adler, "pulled the key from your neck, and opened the door again. He also took Nua'lath's key. He left leaving us no way to get out. I almost went to follow him, to try and persuade him to at least leave one key behind, but I knew that if I did he might close the door - as he did in the end - and I would be trapped wherever he was going."

They both stared at me. I could almost feel the empty place near my chest where the key should be.

"Then he was gone," said Rudy, "and we knew that when you eventually woke up you would have no way to get back out of here."

Adler knelt down by my side.

"I went back to the other ones, Sha'ris's people. I went to check if any of them had a key, and none of them did. I also tried to find my way back to the place where we first came into The Ways, but I nearly got lost, and spent hours just trying to get back here."

I was listening, but my attention was on the three people who lay next to me as I held them in my arms. My wife, Abegail, my daughter, Chione, and Andre, the man who had married my daughter and was father to Eleanor. They were all still alive, and I couldn't believe that it was so. They were all still breathing, and the injection that Sha'ris had given them was working even now. They were regaining some colour, and breathing, and starting to look less frail. Somehow I didn't care that our situation was bad, that we may be trapped in this endless place.

I had them back and they were alive.

"We'll find a way out of here, James," said Adler. "We will."

"Yes, we will," said Rudy.

I just nodded. I physically couldn't speak. I had my family back, and Nua'lath was finally dead. In the last moments before I had closed the door, when I had been the only one left standing against him, I'd had no hope, and no idea that there was a chance that I might still succeed.

There were still no Maw around; they were all phased. I suspected that they would be back soon. All except maybe GreyFoot. She had fallen into the chasm. How would she return? I took one look over the edge, down into the darkness, and I wondered if there was any hope for her, because the darkness just seemed to go on and on. For all we knew the pit could be endless.

Day 65

I must have passed out at some point.

When I awoke, DogThing and the other Maw were sitting nearby. I took a moment to count them all, and was surprised to find that there were still some missing. Of the two dozen that had followed me into The Ways, eighteen remained.

Had some of them actually died, or were they just more injured than the rest, and taking longer to recover?

I hoped it was the latter.

GreyFoot was still nowhere to be seen.

"Has she gone?" I asked DogThing, but he was silent, glancing towards the pit at the far end of the chasm and then looking to the ground.

I think I'm going to be here for a while, now, as I wait for Abegail, Chione, and Andre to recover. I don't know how long that will take, but at least I have them back now. At least they are still alive.

For them I can wait for ever.

I'll even eat these damn mushrooms if I have to.

This was the last recorded entry in the last journal of James Halldon recovered to date.

As noted by Tremaine Ronson, Chief Archivist, central archive, Evac City.

Alone

"That was more than fifteen years ago, Eleanor," The major said as he thumbed through the ragged bundle of paper on the desk in front of him. Eleanor just sat in the chair, evaluating the balding man across the desk from her. Major Samlin was her immediate superior, and one of the most well-respected officers in the Resistance Outriders, and had held that position as long as she could remember. He had been the face of authority in her life since her sixteenth birthday, the day that she had signed up to the military, even though her foster-parents had argued that she was too young to join.

Samlin looked down at the book once more, and then at her. There was empathy in those eyes. She had felt it many times. Samlin had been one of her grandfather’s recruits a very long time ago, and he had been a friend of Andre, her father. She had no idea how old he really was, but hundreds of years probably wouldn’t have been a bad guess. To a lot of recruits, and even to a lot of experienced Outriders, Samlin was not the commanding officer to mess with, but she knew that he felt that it was his obligation to watch out for her since her whole family - all except the brothers of her grandfather - had vanished. That was why she was here, why she hoped to get what she needed. But now, seeing the expression on his face, she knew that she would get the opposite. He wouldn’t want her to go.

"Apart from The Diary being found, no one has seen or heard anything from your parents or your grandparents in all that time, in fifteen years. No one knows where this place - The Ways - is. The Diary may have indicated how they got there, but no one has been able to find the portal entrances."

"I know that. That's why I need..."

"I assure you,” Samlin cut in.” I was an officer even back then, at the time of Nua'lath's death, and I was serving at the front on many of the worlds that the Resistance travelled to when we faced Nua'lath's kin. We fought them for close to three years before their numbers diminished and their efforts ceased. They were so convinced that we had their talisman. The search by our people was just as extensive. But we never even found the City of Riverfall, let alone the Ashlands, and definitively not The Ways. No one really knows how the diary came back into our hands. Some say that it was just found at one of the main highway portal entrances one day, others have said it was given to a border patrol. We couldn’t even confirm something as simple as that. If we could have found your grandparents and your mother, we would have. We had no leads. Nothing. The search went on for nearly five years. Five years whilst we were still fighting."

Eleanor sighed. "I know that too, but I've read the diaries and the books written about them since. I know no one could find them. I know all that."

"Then why the application for funds and the request for this... this expedition? Why start the search now? I understand your desire to see them again, and I honestly wish I could offer you some hope that you might be successful, but you must know that it's a fruitless venture? Even Halldon’s own brothers couldn’t find him with all the vast knowledge and mass of portal locations they have. It may be difficult to grasp, Miss Halldon, but this is a hopeless request."

"I don't believe it is."

The major looked at Eleanor, puzzled, seeking something, some reasoning.

"What leads you to believe that you will achieve what countless others have failed to do after more than a decade?"

"I had a dream," she said, looking away from the professor's scrutinising gaze. Why she felt embarrassed, she didn’t know. It was true. Also, everyone knew that her grandfather had possessed some sort of almost mystic ability that was tied to his dreams, but her?

He frowned at her now.

"A dream," he said, sighing.

"I dreamt about one of the Maw. She was talking to me, beckoning me to go and find her."

The major was shaking his head.

"No one has heard from the Maw since your family disappeared. The bond was gone, the pact forgotten now that the common enemy was removed. We didn’t know it at the time, but the pact had been with your grandfather, no one else. There was no mutual bonding between the Resistance and the Maw. They chose to help your grandfather. When he was gone, they just...they vanished almost overnight and no one knows where, or how they got there. They certainly didn't go back to their homelands. People looked there."

"She says the horde are gathering again, that they are already preparing to rampage across a distant world."

"And yet none of the Outrider clans have seen anything like that. We’ve spent a decade just clearing up. And this...Maw...she speaks to you in your dreams?"

Eleanor nodded, her heart jumping a little. Maybe she was winning him over, just a little, she thought.

"Yes. She says that she can guide me, but I have to find my way to The Corridor first. To do that I need funds for equipment, and supplies to travel, and a portal permit, and an amulet, and a gun. She says that she can help me to find what happened to my parents and my grandparents, and that they may still be alive."

But his expression was too sceptical.

Eleanor sat silently looking at Samlin, certain now that she was facing the same brick wall that she had faced when she approached her great-uncles, the brothers of James Halldon, positive that she would have to gather the resources herself, somehow, and knowing that they were all available if she was willing to steal them.

"I'm sorry Eleanor; you're an excellent soldier, and one of my best shooters. From what I hear you may have inherited that ability from your mother. I don't see how I can discharge you indefinitely and assign funding to let you go off on some pointless expedition. Did you approach your great uncle, the Colonel? Did Joshua have anything to say on the matter?"

She nodded.

"Yes. He said no."

The major sighed, stood up and went to look out of the window.

"I wish I could say yes, but I can't. You'd need something far more solid as evidence than a dream. How does this Maw know that they may be alive? How are you so sure that this voice in your head is even a Maw? I'm sorry but the answer is no. I think you should return to your quarters now."

Eleanor stood up and pushed the chair away.

"Thank you for hearing my request, sir," she said, standing, saluting and then leaving the office. As she walked down the hallway, heading out of the building and back in the direction of her barracks, Eleanor felt inside her pocket, her hand grasping the letter of resignation.

She couldn't believe that not one of them was willing to let her try. Even with their knowledge of her grandfather's connection to the Maw. He had dreams like she did. Everyone knew that. There were far too many accounts from witnesses to make that a fable. And if he could do it, then why was it such a far-fetched idea that she could too?

What evidence did she have? Why should she need evidence? They would have believed anything that came out of her grandfather’s mouth no matter how strange and improbable it was.

She thought of the Maw that spoke to her every night in her dreams, and had done quietly for years, trying to reach her, so quiet, almost imperceptible, until one day when she was about fifteen years old - five long years ago - she had opened her mind just a little more, enough to hear the voice that she had known had been there talking to her all along.

"If you will help me then I can help you to find your parents and the James man. I know where they went."

"Where did they go?"

"Further into darkness. Deeper into The Ways. They went to fight the greater power."

"But where are The Ways?"

"I cannot describe. Come to me. I'm trapped. I’ve been trapped for so long. Help me escape, and we will go where they went. We will track them and open the doors and track them and open the doors again and again until we find them. We will find them together. Come to me Eleanor."

“How do you know my name?”

“It was the name that the James man spoke of. And the one that DogThing told me that I must seek out when he was teaching me how to use the way of the mind-speak. He taught me that I must find the one for me. I must find the one whom I am meant to join with. He said that there was a girl who could see like the James man saw. He said that she was very little but she would grow and become strong like her grandfather. That was you.”

“But...how did you find me? How did you find me in my dreams?”

“There are no places in The Phase. There is no distance. Only the ones who are there and the ones who are not. Only the minds and the voices. When you sleep, Eleanor, sometimes you drift into The Phase, just like the James man did. If you try hard, one day you will be able to speak into The Phase even when you are awake.”

“I will? I’ll be able to do what my grandfather did?”

“Yes. But you must first find me. Will you find me? I cannot come back from The Phase or I will die from the fall, I think. There is something below. Something that is dark, like a void. I think it is a thing that destroys. If I fall into it...but you could help me. You could stop me from falling.”

“Yes I want to help you.”

“I’ve been stuck here for so long.”

"I want to help you. I will help you.”

“Thank you.”

"But where do I start? How do I find you? I don't know how to get to The Ways. No one ever has since my family went there when I was just a child. Were you there with them? I don't even know where to start."

"We must begin in the dark place called The Corridor. Can you make it to there?"

"I think I might be able to. Or I may be able to find out how to. I will find it. But they locked it up. I'll have to find a way in."

"Then you must start your search. But you must learn much more and grow stronger before you can come here. You are only a child still. But soon...soon you will be strong. Learn everything you can and then one day you will be able to help me. And then I can help you find your family."

"What's your name?"

"GreyFoot."

Book 4

Footprints

:: System Start up sequence initiated…

:: Start up completed successfully

:: Record Date 00:00:0000 00:01

Mum! Mum! This thing works! It actually works!

(Squeal of joy)

(Muffled sounds)

On no. I dropped it! Oh, it’s okay. It’s alright. It’s not broken. The light is still on. Mum! This thing is recording my voice! Come quick and listen!

(More muffled sounds. A woman’s voice can be heard but none of the words can be made out clearly)

It’s really cool isn’t it? It actually remembers everything I say into it, and you can play it back and everything.

Day one. This is the diary of Connor Andre Halldon. The year is…uh… Mum, what year is it?

(Again the muffled sounds of a woman’s voice)

475. It’s 475 and–

(Another muffled call from the woman)

Oh. Oh right. I thought…okay, well. Um.

4775! It’s 4775 and it’s May, erm, the fifth!

Hmm. The date at the top is wrong. Lemme see if I can… Oh I got it. Mum! There’s a menu and settings as well. This is awesome. So cool.

:: Accessing Menu

:: Date Functions Selected

:: Date Altered

:: Saving

:: Record Date 04:05:4775 11:38

This is my diary. I mean, this is the first record log of Connor Andre Halldon. Nah…that’s too long… This is the first entry in the Journal of Connor Halldon.

(More muffled speech from the woman)

…Yeah just like Great-Granddad. I can keep a diary like he did. I’ll be famous!

(More muffled speech from the woman)

Can I keep it, though? Can I? I don’t want to hand it in.

(Long pause and then another short speech from the woman)

Oh, wicked! Yes! I promise I won’t. I’ll keep it secret.

So…this is my first diary entry.

Erm.

Okay, so this isn’t as easy as I thought it would be.

My great granddad used to keep a diary, but he wrote it in an old book. Anyway, I was out at the Junkyard when I found it. Me and my mate, Aaron, go out there all the time, hunting for cool stuff. It’s like this massive area surrounded by a big fence, to keep the critters out, and they store all the junk that no one has had time to sort through, stuff that got salvaged. Most of it has been there for like a million years or something, and there’s so much junk piled up you can find almost anything if you hunt for it.

(Short pause)

Where was I? Oh, yeah, the recorder.

Well, I don’t think we’re really supposed to be in there, but no one stops us so it doesn’t matter, does it? Anyway, I was in there salvaging for cool stuff and Aaron had gone further along the main stretch, which is this kind of road that circles around the place with all these alleys coming off it. Anyway, Aaron had gone off to where they keep a lot of dumped bikes because the spokes on his dirt bike are broken and he wanted to find some more. I was hunting around where they keep this big haul of batteries and electronics and stuff, and I found this recorder thing in a pile of batteries.

It’s so cool. If you press the button on the top it makes a popping sort of noise – well, a bleep or something, like a tick-bleep – and then everything you say gets remembered, and you can play it back and everything. I’ve so got to show this to Aaron. He will go mad! I thought it was a stopwatch when I found it, so I didn’t bother to show him. He’s going to be so jealous when I show him what it really is.

Anyway. Where was I? Oh yeah! Great-granddad. Oh, I have to call him something else, that’s too much of a mouthful. He was James Halldon, this really famous guy who, who like, killed all the bad guys and had a magic dog. I know, my teacher says the dog wasn’t magic, but it could talk in his head…we’ll call him JH! James Halldon, JH, no?

Hmm.

Well, it works for me.

Where was I?

Oh yeah! JH had this magic – but not really magic – dog that could talk in his head, and my teacher – that’s Mr. Rowan – he’s a proper grumpy old guy that doesn’t smell very nice. I think he smokes those cigarette things, and I don’t think he washes very often. He’s okay though, kinda cool, really. He takes us out on trips to the Junkland and the Reaches, and teaches us all kinds of cool stuff like how to rework batteries and wire up gadgets. That’s how I fixed this voice recording thing all by myself.

The dog could talk in his head, and if that’s not magic, then what is?

Well, unless JH was a crazy guy.

Maybe he was?

I never thought about that.

But that still didn’t stop him from killing Nua’lath, who was this monster about fifty feet tall with big claws and ten arms. JH chopped him in half with his own sword, or was it something else? I don’t really remember how he did it, but he chopped this big monster in half, and killed eight gazillion zombies and Kre’esh, and pretty much saved the whole universe.

Well, nearly. There was the war after that, but that wasn’t JH’s fault. He just started it.

(Muffled sounds)

Woah. Maybe I should stand still when I’m recording my diary. I just nearly fell down the well at the back of the house.

I wonder how deep that well is?

(Distant sounds of a woman calling)

But Mum! I’m recording my diary. This is important!

:: Record Date 04:05:4775 22:34

(Whispering)

I have to talk really, really quiet. I’m in bed and if my mum catches me recording this she’ll do her nut and take the recorder away. And then we won’t be able to record my truly epic adventures.

I hunted through all the stuff in my room, and I found the copy of JH’s diary that I’ve had forever. It’s kinda tatty, and this copy doesn’t look like the ones we used in school, and it’s got a completely different book cover that has a picture of a cartoon character with a little cartoon dog, and it’s called Jamie’s Mag Torch.

(Flicking of pages)

I think that’s supposed to say Magic Torch, but the cover is worn.

(More flicking of pages)

I’ve never heard of the book but it looks like a kids’ book. It’s kinda funny though, I think. The kid on the front has a dog and they are gonna jump through this hole that they made, like a magic portal, but they made it with Jamie’s torch. I think I’d probably like the original story but I don’t know where the pages are, and JH’s diary has been kept inside the torn out cover for forever. But it’s a bit like JH and his magic dog though, isn’t it? Except JH didn’t have a magic torch.

I don’t remember how JH did it, some sort of magic necklace?

Hmmm.

(Thud of a book being dropped on the floor)

So, they printed all the copies of JH’s diary in school, in big bold typing letters like what the print machine in the Admin Centre prints. The copy I’ve got seems to have been written by hand, or something. It’s scruffy and has a lot of ripped and crumpled pages. There are notes on some of the pages that look like someone else’s handwriting. I should ask my mum if this is a copy. Has to be. Wow. I never thought about that. Someone must have spent ages writing this out.

I don’t remember a lot of these notes being in the books we used in school. Mr. Rowan taught us ages ago about the history of Evac City, and the war, and JH’s diary, and all the stuff that came before.

Actually, some of the handwriting looks like my mum’s, a bit. Sort of. Maybe she made notes in her copy? I’ll have to ask her tomorrow.

Oh, she’s coming. Erm. This is Connor Halldon, signing off.

:: Record Date 05:05:4775 07:34

So its morning and I have to go to school, but I’ll be reporting about my day’s activities when I get home. I’ve got maths and physics all in the same day today, so it’s going to be boring. I prefer it when we do field work – you know, useful stuff.

I learned how to make a water purifier last week in field survival lesson. So cool. I’ve now got four of them working out the back of our house, and when it rains the water feeds into buckets I’ve placed under the overhang so only the water that goes through the filters gets kept. It works wicked, but one of the filters fell off and spilled all over the paving Mum did last year. She was not pleased and I had to clean it all up.

:: Record Date 05:05:4775 12:34

(Woman’s voice)

Conman. This is your mum.

I don’t have much time. They’re coming, so I have to go, now.

I hope that this gets to you, so you will know that I didn’t just go off and leave you. I can’t take you with me. It’s too dangerous. This way you’ll be safe. I don’t know any other way to do this. If I don’t go, they will arrest me anyway, because I went too far. I looked where I shouldn’t have.

(Muffled sobbing)

I found something. A clue about my parents – your grandparents – and also James, your great-grandfather.

Something.

I haven’t seen them for so long. I have to go and find out if it’s true. I have no choice now, anyway. If they catch me they will arrest me, and I’ll be locked up.

I don’t know if I will ever see you again, but I have to leave you here. It’s where you will be safest. I just can’t take you where I’m going. It’s much too dangerous for you.

Oh boy. I’m so going to miss you, my little guy.

You have to remember this. No matter what they tell you, and no matter what you come to believe later in your life, I want you to remember that I always loved you and that I will think of you every moment for the rest of my life.

Be safe, my little soldier.

(Distant sounds of banging, and shouting can be heard)

:: Accessing Menu

:: Note Functions Selected

:: Note Saved

:: Powering off

:: Record Date 03:04:4787 17:20

(Low, softly spoken man’s voice)

This is Connor Halldon, and it’s the third of April, 4787.

It’s been twelve years since I used this thing.

I have no idea what to say about what I just listened to.

I remember this recorder, and I remember when I found it, so many years ago.

I even remember leaving it on the shelf in my room and then forgetting to go back and use it. I was so busy back then that the next new and exciting thing always distracted me and this thing just got forgotten.

I’ve not seen my mother since the day after I found the recorder, and that would be twelve years ago, give or take a few weeks. I remember going to school, and I very clearly remember being bored in my maths lesson and staring at the wall. I think I got scolded by the teacher a few times that day. It was in the afternoon and we were doing physics – something about water flow and air flow and suction dynamics, or something like that – and then there was knock on the classroom door. I was taken out of class half way through. They sat me down on a bench outside school, four of them – all Outriders, including a guy I recognised as a senior officer in my mother’s unit. He wasn’t her immediate superior but even higher, I think. I’d met them all before, many times, anyway, at gatherings where all the Outriders’ families would get together and cook out or something. My mother loved those get-togethers.

Well, they told me there was a problem with my mother. There had been a violent encounter and she had fallen during the battle.

And I didn’t find this recorder until now, over a decade later.

They emptied the house we used to live in the next day, when they moved me to digs in a children’s refuge.  I didn’t understand at the time why I was being put where the parentless kids lived, but after a while I came to understand that my mother wasn’t coming back.

The Outriders had told me my mother had fallen, but they didn’t use the word dead. I thought she was in hospital, and I carried on believing that for weeks. She was coming back. She’d be fine. I think I even told the orphanage manager that, and he just nodded at me.

(Short pause)

I would imagine he must hear that a lot.

Eventually, I came to accept that she wasn’t coming back. I was one of the parentless kids.

I can’t believe that was over a decade ago and that my mother left me a message on this thing, way back then, and I didn’t even know about it. The last time I spoke to her was when she said goodbye in the morning, just as I headed to school. You, know, now I think about it, I vaguely remember her hugging me for a long time that morning when she said goodbye. It felt stupid at the time, but then any kind of hugging or affection seems stupid when you are nine years old, doesn’t it? Maybe the hugging part is all in my imagination, but I don’t think so.

I’ve spent the last twelve years believing that she was killed in combat, while out on duty, on the day she disappeared. I never saw her body, and now I wonder what was in the casket that was lowered into the ground a week later, at her memorial. They don’t usually show the body of a fallen trooper. It can upset the family too much to see wounds or whatever it was that killed them.

My mother was Eleanor Halldon, a captain in the Fifth Division Outriders, and in charge of some pretty major operations. She was in combat on a regular basis, sometimes on huge operations directly facing Horde remnants, but mostly just on operations on post-Horde worlds. Dangerous stuff. For her to die how they said wasn’t unbelievable.

It was unbearable, though. It broke me. Back then, I was a seriously messed up kid and got into a lot of trouble before I eventually calmed down and accepted what had happened to her.

What I thought happened to her.

It took a couple of years, in fact. And if it wasn’t for Colonel Samlin, the guy in charge of most of the entire West Division of the Outriders, I don’t think I would have turned back.

I remember I was caught stealing from the market. I thought I was good at stealing – well, good at sneaking – and I think somehow I wanted to be caught, wanted the thrill of other people knowing I was misbehaving, though I didn’t care what they thought. Well, as it turned out, I may have been good at getting away, but I was not as sneaky as I thought. I was spotted multiple times and eventually hauled in front of a local magistrate.

If it hadn’t been for Colonel Samlin turning up at my hearing, I would have been put straight into the work gangs in the quarry, and that would have been it. Once you’re in there the choices are simple and limited – escape and run into the wilderness, volunteer for Vigilant Blue Company, or keep digging. The first two are pretty much suicide.

But he turned up for me and even the magistrate – this tall guy who looked like he had as much empathy as a rock – did not dare to question the colonel.

“Misdemeanours aside, Mr Halldon is exactly fitting the Outrider specification – skills, attitude, everything. You will give him the option of signing up and then finishing his schooling, under compulsory enlistment after his schooling, or I will make sure you lose that comfortable seat and its privileges,” is what Samlin said to the magistrate.

Cold and straight to the point.

So I was given that option, and I took it. I’d have been stupid not to. Even if I was rebellious and angry, I wasn’t a total idiot.

All that time I believed that my mother was dead, and had no reason to think otherwise.

But she left me this message, and now a lot of things don’t make sense anymore. A huge part of my life, up until this point, has been based around knowing that my mother was a KIA combat veteran. Killed in action.

Now I don’t know how much of it I can trust, and how much of what I’ve been told is true.

Can I trust anyone? All the people I know, and have known, even some of the other Outriders from her crew who told me the whole story and described the incident to me later.

Lies? Was it all lies?

:: Record Date 04:04:4787 02:24

I can’t sleep. Can’t clear my head.

Why would they say that she was dead if she wasn’t? It doesn’t make any sense. And who was it that was coming for her in her message? If she left, if she went away, then she may still be alive. Somewhere.

Unless whoever she was running from caught her? That was possible. But surely I would have found out if they had arrested her? Wouldn’t I?

But how did she know they were coming? Was she already prepared for it when we said goodbye that morning? Did she know it was the last time we would see each other?

I don’t know. I suppose that would depend on just what it was she had gotten into and how deep it went. Would they lock her away and tell me she was dead?

:: Record Date 06:04:4787 21:16

I guess I have to start somewhere.

I grew up in the shadow of a man that changed the fates of worlds, and yet I never met him.

I think I was about five years old when my mother first told me about her grandfather – my great-grandfather. I think. It's hard to recall. My life back then was so confusing, and it’s so long ago that I barely remember any of it.

It still is confusing, I guess.

JH. I think I called him that for years after I found the recorder. I still do.

The great JH.

My grandparents, Chione and Andre Halldon, and my great-grandfather, JH, and great-grandmother, Abegail, all disappeared at the end of the period that The Resistance calls The Long Trail, the beginning of The Talisman War. I'll get round to explaining all of those things eventually, I hope, but right now I'm just getting used to using this voice recorder, and I'm probably going to waffle on a bit.

I think I need to clean out some of the buttons on this thing. They keep getting stuck. Dust, probably. This thing was in a box for years.

My great-grandfather, James Halldon, wrote diaries as he travelled; at least he did for a period of time when he was mostly alone, trying to get his memories back and figure out who he was. I think that is what inspired me to do something similar myself. When the idea popped into my head a week or so ago, I remembered the recorder and started hunting through my old stuff for it. I gave up a few times, but eventually I found it in a box at the back of my storage cupboard, one with childish scrawls of dogs and other things all over it. I remembered the box and sat down, smiling, remembering, somehow both sad and happy at the same time. I opened it to find all manner of things – playing cards, small trinkets, toys from when I was a kid, and there, at the bottom, was the recorder.

No, I'm not big-headed or vain enough to think that people will read – or listen to – what I have to say, like they do my great-grandfather's diaries, but deep down, I think he wrote his journals not for others to read, but to try and get some kind of grasp of his situation during those months. You know, get his head straight and figure things out. I think they were more a way for him to voice his thoughts than record them for others.

They actually still print copies of those diaries now, using the same reclaimed printing machine that was found when I was very young. I think he'd find it funny that they use the diaries he wrote to teach in the schools in Evac City. My great-grandfather is actually part of the history curriculum.

I wonder if he ever knew about me. I doubt it. In fact, it seems stupid to even think of that. He disappeared when my mother was what...five or six years old? She never saw him or her parents after that, even though she spent years trying to find them. So, no. He wouldn't even have known that I exist.

I was about seven years old when our class teacher dumped a copy of the diaries on the desks of everyone in the class and told us all to start studying. I remember looking at the front of the book, seeing my last name there, and wondering what it was all about. Later, when I was deeply into the story – and yes, I thought it was just that, a story – I realised that I already knew the book in front of me.

In a box, in my small room, was a tatty pile of papers, bundled together with a dozen elastic bands and covered over with a cartoon book cover that I think dates back to a long time before I was born, centuries even. It has a picture of young boy and his dog on it, and the boy is shining a torch on the ground where a hole has opened up, but the cover has nothing to do with the written work inside; someone just tore the cover off an old book and used it to keep the papers safe.

It took me a long time to realise what it was that was bundled in with my sack of meagre belongings that the authorities took from our house when I became an orphan.

The original diaries. The actual original papers that JH wrote.

It wasn't a work of fiction I had been reading at school. It was all real.

I have no idea where I got the original journals from, but I suspect that my mother left it around the house and I probably picked it up and took it, thinking it was a comic book. The thing is a relic, and probably worth more than my life, but I'm damned if I'm telling anyone. It’s mine now.

Yeah, I'm waffling.

When I was younger, after I had read my great- grandfather's diaries a dozen times from cover to cover, I used to go and play in the Junklands, pretending that I had my own DogThing and that the place was crawling with Shamblers and Kre'esh. They don't let kids in there now, and haven't for a few of years, but folks with a military pass can come and go as they choose, so I still get to poke around whenever I want. I remember that my mother didn't like me going there when I was little, but she was always pleased, in that over-exaggerated way that mothers are, when I brought back a piece of junk that I thought was cool.

I miss her, you know.

She was all I had. No. That sounds wrong. I miss her because we were a team, she and I – just the two of us – not just because she was the only person in my life. She just was everything.

Anyway, the further into the Junklands you go, the older the junk is. Honestly, there is stuff in there that has been there for decades, maybe even hundreds of years, and the place is absolutely huge. I've nearly got lost a couple of times.

I was out there just a few days ago, looking for old batteries to clean out and refill. It’s kind of a regular haunt for me, a place to go and think.

Thought for the day – I feel kinda stupid talking to this thing. It's a lot more difficult than I imagined it would be.

Second thought for the day – saying my great- grandfather every time is too long winded. So, from now on, he is back to being called JH.

:: Record Date 07:04:4787 09:45

This thing actually doesn't record too badly. I listened back to what I recorded yesterday, and even though it's just me going on and on, and voicing mostly random thoughts, the audio recording is quite clear. Sometimes the recording crackles, and I’ve not yet figured out why it does that, but most of the recording is very clean.

I've taken the recorder apart a couple of times, and tried to figure out how it works and where the recordings are stored, but there is no tape, only a small fingernail sized flat piece of plastic that pops in and out of the side, and two other slots that are empty. A storage card, maybe?

The recording node itself is tiny, much smaller than I thought it would need to be, and after a thorough cleaning, with some oil and a piece of scrap cloth, it's nice and clear with hardly any background hum like all the old recordings on disks that I've found over the years.

It's still weird not having a larger object to hold, though, like the disks that go into the old music and movie players. I have discovered that the thing doesn't record without the little chip of plastic in it, though, so that must be what stores it all.

I wonder how much it can hold.

I'm waffling again.

Signing off for today. I need to sleep. We've got a post-recovery tech salvage operation starting tomorrow, and I need to be up very early.

I need to explain that better, I guess. You'll have no idea what I'm talking about.

You know, I think I might take this with me on the operation. It’s keeping my mind off the confusion of the message my mother left me.

Thought for the day – I have a real craving for mushrooms and no idea why. I haven’t eaten them for years, not since my mother used to harvest them. Must remember to ask next time I’m at the supply depot.

:: Record Date 12:04:4787 09:32

So, I took the recorder with me but didn’t get to record anything while I was on the salvage run. It was way too crazy. We were dropped into the place – a city that had been trashed at least a hundred years ago, one that had already been checked out by a Vigilant crew a few months back – and pretty quickly we discovered we weren’t alone.

It works like that sometimes, and you can’t really complain that they didn’t spot the signs. The Vigilants are heavy combat troops, not Scouts or Recon, and they are pretty focused on just that area. An experienced Outrider or Recon squad would have spotted the signs within minutes, as we did, but, to most Vigilants, I would imagine the scratch marks and breakages could have appeared decades old.

Of course, they weren’t. We had at least ten clusters of Shamblers in different pockets across the city, and at one point, Crew Five – that’s my team, well, the team I’m in, since I’m not an officer – ran a retreating battle for half an hour or so before we could take them all down. We even had Crew Eight – our nearest neighbouring team – on the way over to help out.

Damn, that was one big pocket. It probably built up in one of the buildings or at bottom of a collapse. Shamblers are kind of stupid and become focused on one thing, ignoring everything else. I’ve seen it numerous times. You find a group of them, huddled against a closed door, or bottlenecked in some corridor, and they’ve got themselves stuck. If they thought for one moment – something that Shamblers don’t have the capacity to do – they could just turn around and walk out the other way, but they don’t. They just keep on being stuck, or banging against the wall with no obvious way to pass through or around it, until something comes along and draws their attention – like an unwary traveller or a squad of Resistance troops – and then the smell of living blood wakes them up.

Troops can actually get taken out like that if there are enough of the things.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the message my mother left me and wondering what the hell I can do. I don’t even know where to start.

Maybe there are records on the computer system in the Admin building.

I wonder if my password is still on the system.

Probably not. But Aaron works there. Maybe he would be able to help. I haven’t seen him for a long time, though.

:: Record Date 13:04:4787 17:21

I couldn’t resist. I had to go and find out. But I knew it would be awkward with Aaron, and I was right.

Aaron and me, we’ve been friends since I was little Since, well, back when my mother was still around. We went to Little School together, until I was sent off to the orphanage when my mother died. If she died. I didn’t see him much for a couple of years, because I did the rest of my Little School at the orphanage and it was fifteen miles across the city from the old place, but then we both hit passing age – that’s when you’re twelve – and I met him on induction day at the parade grounds. Everybody attends induction day, and everybody has to at least apply for basic military training, so it was kind of inevitable that we’d meet again sometime. Of course, I was on compulsory enlistment, thanks to Colonel Samlin’s intervention, so doing just basic training wasn’t an option for me. I was there to become an Outrider. It was long-term enlistment or the quarry for me.

We spent the next five years in training together, even in the same classes most of the time, but when I graduated into Outrider training at seventeen, Aaron didn’t. Months of our early training went by, and I noticed that Aaron wasn’t keeping up with the physical side. Don’t get me wrong, he was still pretty tough, and could hold his own, but he wasn’t hitting the grades to get into Outriders, where we both wanted to be. For me it was an absolute must. JH had led the Outriders, though I don’t think he ever had a title. My grandfather, Andre, had been a major, my mother a captain, my great grandmother and my grandmother were also officers. If I didn’t make it in, I didn’t know what I would do. I was expected to get in.

But that wasn’t the case for Aaron. His folks were merchant quarter, even though his mother had been an Outrider at one time, and that meant that he had options outside the military.

That kinda put a wedge between us that I don’t think ever went away. When I left for Outrider Basecamp, which is right up in the north of the city boundary, an easy thirty miles from the city centre, Aaron headed back into Evac central and took up training in the Admin section. I only saw him every now and then, maybe a couple of times a year. Outriders very rarely have reason to be at the Evac City centre, and Admin usually don’t go anywhere but there.

I always thought he’d go for mechanical division, so it was a surprise to me that he chose Admin. I think maybe his family had something to do with that, but it was a shame. Aaron was obsessed with motorbikes and other off-road vehicles. I think it kinda ran in the family. Anyway, he went for Admin in the end, and I saw very little of him over the next few years.

So when me and my crew hauled in the computer system we’d salvaged a few years ago, I got to catch up with him again. They had us help them set it up, along with a power system we rigged to some solar panels we’d stored at the Basecamp a year before. I got to know Aaron again, at least a little. But it was never the same.  Don’t know if he resents me or something, but I suspect as much.

That probably sounds big-headed, but I don’t mean it to be.

Anyway, Aaron works in the roster office, keeping track of troop numbers, recruitment, and all that, and that also includes keeping records of those who are KIA. They keep all that info on the computer system we helped set up.

So, earlier today, I walked in there and just asked him, and he looked over his shoulder, as though trying not to draw anybody else’s attention.

“I’m not supposed to give out any details of anyone to another person, Con,” he said. But he looked uncomfortable, undecided.

“It’s my mum, Aaron,” I said. “You must have something in there.”

He looked at me, then started tapping on the keyboard.

“Not necessarily,” he said. “Records from before the installation was set up haven’t all been entered. What was her first name again? Sorry, I’ve forgotten it.”

“Eleanor,” I said. “Eleanor Abegail Halldon.”

More tapping.

“Okay this is weird,” he said, frowning.

“What?” I asked. “What’s weird?”

He shook his head, confused. “Well there’s a record on here for her, and it says…sorry…KIA,” he said.

“Yeah,” I said. “We already know that bit. Does it say anything else? What’s weird?”

“Most of the data is missing.”

“Like what?” I asked.

“Like the location, and the cause of death, and the burial place.”

“But I know where she is buried,” I said. “She’s over in the cemetery out in the plains.”

He was shaking his head. “No. You’re missing my point. I’ve put enough of these details on here, Con. When you get to the screen for filling in this stuff, you can’t save it or leave the screen if you don’t fill in all the required details. You have to complete it properly, with all fields filled in, or abandon the input.”

My turn to be confused. “What does that mean?”

“It means that the location of death, and cause, and about ten other boxes, weren’t filled in, or they were cleared. The person who put your mum’s record on here somehow didn’t fill in all the info.”

“But that can’t be right?” I said. “You said they can’t do that.”

Aaron nodded. “Exactly my point. They had to have got rid of it afterwards.”

“Someone changed it? Why would they do that?”

“I think, maybe… Look, I don’t know. The system doesn’t say who changes anything – we never got the user-specific stuff worked out. Everybody uses the same sign-in, apart from the maintenance techs. And they use the admin password, or something.”

“I see. So there is no indication of where she died?”

“None. Sorry, Con.”

“It’s okay.”

I was ready to leave, and gave him a squeeze on the shoulder, about to say thanks for looking, but then his eyes went wide.

“Wait. There’s a lot more here,” he said.

“What? More what?”

“I’m just looking,” he said, squinting at the screen. “There’s this file section that can be attached to an entry on the system, and usually there is nothing in there unless someone higher up wants to put notes on record. Sometimes there’s file or two, but your ma’s got hundreds of files…”

“What?” I asked, unable to hide the impatience in my voice.

“There’s hundreds and hundreds of files in here, and they are all marked…” He tapped the keyboard a few more times. “HiSec,” he said. “Oh crap.”

Aaron tapped one of the keys repeatedly and then looked at me, his face turning a little pale.

“What?” I asked. “What’s wrong?”

He was shaking his head. “That’s secret stuff from the very top, Con,” he said. “I can’t look at it.”

“What do you mean, you can’t?” I asked.

“It won’t let me. And even if it did, I shouldn’t be looking there. I can get in a lot of trouble for snooping into HiSec stuff.”

But I didn’t need more from Aaron. I knew that already, and I certainly wasn’t going to get angry at him. He’d stuck his neck out far enough already, by looking at someone else’s files for me, and if caught, he would already be in trouble.

“It’s okay, buddy. Thanks for looking.”

We chatted for a while about old times before we said our goodbyes and I left. I was itching to get away, even though I had no direction to go in.

Aaron thought he’d let me down – I know that much by the way he was acting – but he hadn’t. The mere fact that there were hundreds of secret files on my mother’s record, all high security locked, and that a lot of her details were missing or deleted, said everything that I needed to know.

Something was being hidden from me. There were secrets about my mother’s death that someone didn’t want anyone to know.

If she was even dead.

She may not be dead at all.

My mother may still be alive somewhere.

But where?

Where do I go from here?

:: Record Date 14:04:4787 16:08

I need to get into that computer system, and I need to do it without Aaron or anybody else’s help. I do wonder if the password I used when we helped set the machines up still works.

But how the hell do I get at the computer?

There could be so much information in those files that Aaron found, so much that I don't know anything about, but getting at them is the real problem. I can't risk going through Aaron again. He could already be in trouble, if it was discovered that he was looking, and I don’t want to cause him any more problems than I may have already.

When we originally helped set up and repair the system, there was no one guarding it. It was low security. They never thought – well, I don't think any of us thought – that it would be used for anything, or be as useful as it became, but now the facility is locked down. There’s no way I could get inside, even though I was one of the original people that set it up, even if the password did still work. Getting at the terminal was the problem. Getting in there without being caught? I certainly don't have clearance to be poking around.

It's been going over and over in my mind, troubling me. Part of me really wants to know, wants to see what's in those files, but the other part thinks they may not lead me to where my mother is – or was.

I need another approach. There has to be something else.

I need to think about this.

:: Record Date 21:04:4787 19:25

So it’s been a week since I last switched this thing on, but at least I’ve been carrying it with me. Right now I’m out on another tech salvage op, same world as before, and we’re camped up on the top of a ravine. I flipped for night watch so I’m up here on the lookout platform. I don’t know why I took this recorder out. I guess I’m just feeling a little lonely.

Everyone else is asleep.

:: Note Function Accessed

:: Exit menu

Damn. What the hell is that? Stupid recorder must be playing up. Oh. It’s still recording. Note section? I didn’t even know this thing could take notes.

:: Note Function Accessed

:: Note Saved

:: Recall Note Function Accessed

:: Note Display

[Does this really work?]

:: Exit Menu

Wait a minute…

:: Note Function Accessed

:: Note List Function Accessed

Note1 Record Date 05:05:4775 12:36

Note2 Record Date 21:04:4787 23:45

That first one is…twelve years old.

:: Note Function Accessed

:: Note List Function Accessed

:: Note2 Selected

:: Display Note Recording Attachment

:: Playback

Conman. This is your mum.

:: Playback halted

:: Note Function Accessed

:: Note Display

[52.298717, -0.682086]

What the…? The note was left the same time my mother left me the message.

Mum. You left me a hidden note?

What do those numbers mean?

:: Record Date 23:04:4787 18:35

They’re coordinates, longitude and latitude. I can’t believe it took me two days to figure that out. I’ve been busy with the tech salvage op, I know, but I should have recognised numbers like that straight away, we use them all the time. I’m going to have to presume that they are coordinates on our home world, where Evac City is. There’s no indication of them being on another world, otherwise there would be a world designation number in front of the coordinates.

Damn, it’s going to be at least another three weeks before I get enough time off to go and investigate. I estimate that the coords are roughly a hundred and fifty miles out of Evac City. I just need to dust off the Roughrider trike and hope that it’s still working ok. I haven’t ridden that thing for at least three years, but I can’t use my Outrider quad. They’d notice the missing fuel.

I’m sure the old thing’s still sitting with its cover on in the garage.

I really hope I put the cover on it.

Anyway, I know it’s out of fuel. I remember running it dead, that last time I used it, but the battery should be fine, since it’s hooked up to the solar panel on the roof, and I have enough credit to get more fuel. I have four days off in three weeks, and I can make it the hundred and fifty miles in maybe five hours. It’s due north, I know that much from a rough guess, but that will mean heading over the Dustlands, and that will slow me down a bit.

Maybe six or seven hours, then.

What if I can’t make it back the same day? Damn it. I’m going to need to haul out my old sleeping bag. I know it has holes in it, and if where I’m going is in open Dustlands then it could get nasty. The Roughrider has a roll cage that covers the cab, and shutters that can be pulled over to seal it up so that nothing can get at me while I sleep, but there are still gaps for the dust to get in, and that stuff can clog up the inside and screw with the electrics.

Something’s been bothering me since I saw the coordinates. There’s nothing but rocks, dust and ruins out that way. There’s some old ruined industrial complexes around the area, but they’re centuries old and have long since been scoured clean. They haven’t been occupied…well, ever, I think. And other than those it’s almost completely barren out there. If my mum was out there, what was she doing?

Wait…maybe she was testing something out there that needed a lot of open space?

This is going to drive me crazy, thinking about it.

I have to go there, even if all I find is desert. There may be something, some sign that she was there. There has to be. Why else would she put the coordinates into the recorder, if there wasn’t something out there to discover?

:: Record Date 30:04:4787 15:11

I’m home from another salvage op, and this one ended early, so I have half a day free to go through stuff. The Roughrider is still in working order, though it jumps a bit when started up. I guess that dust sheet hasn’t kept it completely covered all this time. I’ll need to clean it out but I don’t want to start that today.

I did find my spare sleeping bag, and it looks ok. Well, it’s a bit battered and worn. It has been a number of years since it was used and it was old when I got it. I don’t want to use any of my issue gear in case I lose it. I don’t have the cash to replace any losses and they never replace anything that isn’t lost on an operation.

Got my old rucksack out and emptied all the crap out of it. I can’t believe I didn’t do that when I got my new one. I should probably have traded it back at Basecamp for a few credits, but I’m glad I never did. It’s so much more comfortable to wear than the Outrider issue one that replaced it.

My mum got me this rucksack.

It even has my name sewn into it. I don’t think I ever noticed that. She must have done it herself, by hand.

:: Record Date 30:04:4787 15:28

Okay. Get a grip of yourself.

I’ve done the math, and I think that if I can make good time I can get there and have two whole days to recon the area and try to find whatever is out there. I suspect I won’t find much, the dust surely will have covered everything up after this many years, but I’ve got to try.

I’m struggling to remember why I called my Roughrider Toby, but can’t seem to recall it. Also can’t believe I managed to ride the thing when I was only eight. It’s huge. Much too big for a kid.

So, two weeks from now.

:: Record Date 15:05:4787 10:42

Well, this it.

The last two weeks have been awful. This whole thing has been driving me crazy, but now I’m back at my tiny little hovel in north Evac and I have four days to myself. Four days of no one expecting me to be anywhere. It should hopefully be plenty of time. Even though I’m itching to get out there, and find out what could possibly be at the coords my mother left me, I also seem to be doing everything I possibly can to not get started. I could have headed out this afternoon, but I wanted to go over all my gear one last time before I did.

I’m stalling. Why?

Even though I know it’s all ready. Hell, I’ve been prepping for this for the last three weeks, at least the few days that I’ve been home, and I even headed out here for a few nights instead of staying at the barracks in Basecamp, just so that I could go through my checklist and sort out more gear.

I’ve got all the provisions I need for a longer stay, though I have no intention of not making it back in time for roll-call in five days’ time. I’ve got plenty of repair supplies if the Roughrider breaks and enough fuel for double the trip.

So it’s all good.

I’m ready. I guess. No time to waste.

Except it’s me that’s not ready. I have everything I need and still I’m having second thoughts about going. I don’t know why. You’d think, after all these years, that a sign that my mother may not be dead, and that there may be clues out there, would have me rushing to get there. Something is niggling in my mind, telling me not to go, and I don’t know what it is.

I even have the grid location programmed into a tracker I got from the overstock store so that I can get the exact spot. It needed fixing, but that was no problem. They always dump broken stuff at the overstock building, out near the Junkyard, and most of it doesn’t need a lot of work to get it going. I always did find a lot of cool stuff there.

I already said all that.

First thing in the morning, I’m out of here.

:: Record Date 16:05:4787 06:21

So I hit the edge of Evac City just a few minutes ago. Yes, I stopped messing about and got going. I took a long turn around the east side, mainly to avoid going anywhere near Basecamp. If I headed out that way I’d get distracted, and I know I’d waste a day, somehow. I’m testing this recorder as I travel, just to see how well it records with all the background noise from the engine and the road. If it works, I may even try to mount the thing on my headset. It’s small enough, and having it hang there, right next to where the ops radio is, would make it much easier for me to use it.

I probably should have tried to rig it up before I set off.

:: Record Date 16:05:4787 08:15

I’m just heading into the Dustlands now.

I got a lot further over the last couple of hours than I thought I would, but it’s mostly flat and open ground that stretches for miles. I guess that’s why they built Evac where it is. Plenty of ground to expand into, and even though it’s dead ground, it’s not too far from the river, where they can actually grow crops. No crops out here, though.

There is a strange change as you head into the Dustlands. Even the atmosphere appears to alter. I don’t think it’s colder, just less humid. The dirt also has a grey tint to it, rather than a healthy brown.

When I was at school, about ten years old, I think, the teacher tried to explain to us how Dustland spots were caused. Back in the days when this world was invaded, a long time before The Resistance settled here, some of the creatures in The Horde opened portals to bring yet more creatures through. From what I remember of the teacher’s explanation, unlike Resistance technology, which uses electrical power to generate a shifting field to open a doorway, the Horde summoners used life. Any creatures or plants within a few miles would be turned to ash and their energies would create the portal. I always wondered how they didn’t die themselves – the summoners, I mean. It killed everything around them, so why not them?

It’s kinda creepy, and I’m glad I have a kerchief. The idea that all that dust swirling around could actually be the remains of plants, animals, or even people, makes me shudder. Though isn’t that what dirt is anyway? I should have paid more attention in class.

:: Record Date 16:05:4787 22:35

So, the recorder doesn’t work so well attached to my headset, though some of the recordings came out okay and I cleared the rest of them. A lot of what I said after I hit the ridge near the industrial complex just sounded like mumbled garbage. Too much background noise. So I guess I’m down to using this to record when I stop, kinda like JH did.

I arrived near the coordinates about half an hour earlier than I’d expected. It would seem that although the dust from the ground kicks up and make a mass of swirling mist, most of it is left drifting behind the Roughrider, and as long as I kept the speed up it didn’t slow me down. I found the ground to be pretty solid to ride over as long as I kept good pace. The moment I stopped, or eased off the throttle, the swirls of dust made visibility almost nil for a few minutes, until it settled once more or was blown away.

Anyway, I would say it was around 12:45 in the afternoon when I cleared the ridge and saw the buildings. I was stunned. What I saw was not what I had been expecting. A pile of ruins, maybe, or the odd building still standing, but not what lay in the valley below. It was massive, a huge industrial complex. Easily fifty or more buildings spread out over an area that was about a quarter of a square mile. A lot of the buildings were crumbling or collapsed, and all of them were run down, but some of the sturdier structures, like the central row of six warehouses, were still mostly intact.

I must remember to put this place up for salvage. The buildings are mostly made of concrete, but the warehouses are sheet metal, and that stuff is a major find. They could take them apart and put it back together no problem. Quite how this place could have been left alone, even though it’s only a hundred and fifty miles from the city, is beyond me. We haul torn-down metal buildings for miles to get them through portals and back to Evac to be reused. That this is only a day’s travel away, and is mostly intact and uninhabited, seems crazy.

I should probably have thought about that before just riding down into the place, but I was lucky. It was uninhabited. No bugs and no bandits.

Outside of Evac City there are dozens – maybe hundreds – of other settlements that spread out and built up over the years. Not everyone wanted to stay in the sprawling city. There were also farming communities, but as far as I knew, no one bothered to try and settle out in the Dustlands. It would be pointless, I think. Nothing grows there and there’s barely any water.

I drove down the ridge and headed towards what looked like it may once have been an office building. The place was right next to the row of warehouses, and seemed to be the most intact building on the site. As far as I could tell, from a distance, it was likely to be the best place to set up camp.

If I had to, I would sleep inside the Roughrider, but there isn’t a lot of room inside the cab. I decided that if the office building had a room on the ground floor that I could access and barricade up, while still able to get the Roughrider in there, then that’s where I’d make my basecamp.

I found exactly what I’d hoped for at the side of the building. A garage.

The front of the office complex was smashed in. I presume the harsh wind had taken its toll over time, but around the side, the metal garage doors were still hanging on the mechanism. It was shut, and took a lot of force, and more oil than I really wanted to spare, just to loosen it up. After a few minutes the door swung upwards, screeching as it went, and I was rewarded with an open space inside that was easily big enough to fit the Roughrider in and allow me to set up a makeshift camp.

The garage door even opens and closes, now I’ve messed with it. Good job, really. I didn’t really want to have to blow my way out of there.

Anyway, I figured I may as well get started, and after setting myself up in the garage, I switched on the tracker. I’d already keyed in the coordinates that my mother left me, after I converted them into a grid reference. The tracker doesn’t know what to do with longitude and latitude, so I had to convert the numbers. The tracker doesn’t have much battery life in it, so I’ve kept it mostly switched off, but I was relieved when the screen buzzed and flickered to life. I didn’t need to haul out and set up the solar panel until later, though I ought not leave that too long. No daylight left but it would be good to have it already set up when the sun rose in the morning.

I was hoping the coordinates would lead me to something obvious, but what I wasn’t expecting was the tracker to show that I was standing just thirty feet from the target location.

The coordinates were inside the office building.

I looked to roughly where they should be, but it would place them inside the wall at the back of the garage, about two feet through, to be precise. But wouldn’t that place it right inside the wall? That was odd.

I switched the tracker off and walked to the back of the room. The wall didn’t sound hollow when I knocked it, so I searched, hoping to find some sort of hidden slit, or an opening. Of course, I have no real idea of what it is that I’m looking for here, just the coordinates that my mother put into the voice recorder. Maybe what I’m looking for is on the other side of the wall, inside the office complex itself?

I searched all of the walls, and at the same time rifled through a lot of the trash and junk piled up at the back of the room. There was nothing of value, which to me meant that someone had already done exactly that at some time in the past. Maybe it had even been my mother?

The door from the garage into the building was blocked. I could see through a hole that part of the room beyond had collapsed at some point and the rubble was three quarters of the way up the height of the door. No getting through there without a lot of heavy hauling, and I wasn’t going to do that if I could find another way in. The door was built to open inwards, right into where the rubble was piles, so I was going to have to go in the front of the building.

I got kitted up, something that I really should have done before I drove down into the ruins, but I was damned if I was going to start strapping on body armour out in a dust storm. I figured that the chances that something actually lived out here, like wild animals or Horde remnants, was pretty remote. At just a hundred and fifty miles from Evac City, there was no way that any Horde cells could remain, not after this long. Unless they were Shamblers and stuck inside somewhere, hidden where no one could find them. Still, the chances of even that were pretty slim.

As I started to put on my combat armour, I began to wonder again why the place hadn’t already been completely stripped. Those metal warehouses, by all rights, should have been taken down and reused long ago. It didn’t make much sense. Unless, of course, someone had lived here for a while? That could explain it. Evac City would leave it alone if it was in use. But that would mean that someone had settled in a dust ball.

I stepped out into the bright, glaring sun about ten minutes later, armour strapped down, my handguns in their holsters, knife in hand. I thought about taking Snap with me. Yeah, sure it’s not the most original name for a sniper rifle, but it stuck and I couldn’t think of anything better. The thing deserved a name, having travelled with me all the way through training, and I still used it as my main long range shot. I’ve fixed that thing up so it’s more accurate than most rifles, and the range is easily fifty yards further than standard issue. It’s not much good to me inside a building, though. The damn thing is as tall as I am, if I stand it next to me, and you just can’t manoeuvre around a building and still hope to use it.

The wind seemed to have calmed now that it was midday, and the ground was as flat as concrete. It was strange, moving around to the front of the building, trudging through the settled dust. If anyone else was moving around out here during the night, I’d spot it straight away. It was like walking through snow. But, if you left it a day or so, the dust would cover up all tracks and there would be no trace of passage.

The front of the building was open to the elements, with nearly all of the windows smashed in and a lot of the masonry crumbling. I peered through one of the open windows for a few seconds, switched on my headlamp, and then stepped into the darkness.

It had once been some kind of reception area, and a lot of the fittings and furniture were still there, even if they were trashed. I took note of the collapsed counter at the far end. I was pretty sure it was made of wood and would be dry in this climate. If I could smash it up I could get a fire going later, though I’d have to make sure the floor in the garage was clear of anything flammable. I didn’t expect that to be a problem.

Plastic chairs were scattered across the floor, most of them half buried in dust, and there was a lot of broken glass on the floor. Surprisingly, the large entrance room wasn’t as damaged as I’d expected, and even though I could see the west side of the building had collapsed, the other two entrances led into corridors with intact open doorways.

No signs of rubbish or other debris that might suggest any kind of inhabitancy – at least not recently. If this really was a place that my mother had visited, some twelve years ago, she had probably been the last.

I switched on the tracker, found my bearings, and then headed into the darkness beyond the reception room.

The corridor I stepped into was about thirty feet long, and the floor in there was much the same as the reception. About three or four inches of dust had gathered, and more piled up in corners, but no large debris blocked my way as I followed the tracker to the back wall that split the offices from the garage.

All I found was a plain wall, just like on the other side. Nothing. There had been nothing in the garage, either. I even checked the ground, hoping for a hidden floor panel or something – anything that could conceal what it was that I was here to find. Nothing.

After an hour of hunting around the ground floor of the office complex, and finding nothing, I headed back out into the bright sun, disappointed. The upper floor looked mostly collapsed, and dangerous, and the stairs had caved in, so there was little chance my mother had gone up there.

Maybe I hadn’t worked out the grid reference accurately? That could be it. If I’d calculated it wrong, the actual coordinates could be anywhere inside the industrial complex. But I’d checked them several times. I was sure of that.

I went back around to the garage, grabbed Snap – I could use the rifle out in the open if needed – and then started off towards the first warehouse. I still had at least ten hours of daylight, and I was going to use it.

Then I spotted it.

I was standing in the huge gaping entrance to the first warehouse, looking inside the vast empty space. The place was barren and empty; the only thing of any value or interest was the structure itself. I don’t know what the complex had been built for, but when it had been abandoned, nothing was left behind. Often, when we check out places like this, there would be old vehicles, or stacks of abandoned parts or goods. A lot of it would be useless, having sat there for sometimes years, decades, or even longer, but huge buildings like this were hardly ever completely empty. But this one was. I wasn’t going to presume that it was the same in the other buildings, but decided I was hungry and turned back to the garage. The other warehouses could wait.

There it was, right up on the outer wall, two floors above the garage. I could barely see it, and could understand how most people would miss it, but I lifted my rifle and sighted in on it. I’d only noticed it because the bright, glaring sun had flashed across it, making me squint as the reflection flared my vision for a moment. Something shiny, metallic.

It was a metal grate built into the wall above the garage, and if I was guessing correctly, it was directly above where the tracker had marked the grid spot.

And scratched into the top of the metal, in small markings that I could only just make out, even looking through the sniper rifle sights, was a single word.

Conman.

My name.

The nickname my mother always used.

I nearly tripped over my own feet running back to the garage, and then I stood there, looking up to where the rusted and rickety metal fire escape jutted out from the side of the building.

There was no easy way to climb up from the ground. The stairs had broken off years ago, leaving the bottom step, which itself was barely hanging on, fifteen feet off the ground, far beyond my reach. I stepped back again, looking up across the wall, trying to figure out a way to get up there, but then it occurred to me. The vent, or grate, or whatever the thing was, had to lead inside somewhere. That vent would come out on the top floor. There were two gaping, open holes where windows had once been on either side of the vent, and I thought that if I could get up there, I may be able to hop out onto the fire escape. Or, hopefully, I could get at the vent from the inside.

I had only ventured into the building on the ground floor and had ignored the upper floors, so far, because they looked like they would fall in if I so much as coughed. Now I needed to go back inside and somehow make my way up there.

I glanced around, sizing up the upper floors of the building, and noticed that much of the opposite side of the building was collapsed, but there had to be a way up.

I didn’t leave the rifle behind this time, instead, I slung it over my shoulder, drew one of my handguns, and went round to the reception area.

There had been two sets of stairs leading upwards, and both of them had been partially collapsed and far too dangerous to risk climbing. I’d seen metal and masonry hanging down from above, and the last thing that I wanted was to have the whole lot come collapsing down on me.

I made my way back to the wall at the rear of the garage and searched around the two rooms adjacent to the dead end. There, in the second room, was my way up.

A lot of the room was still intact, unlike the first room where the ceiling was now on the floor and the patchwork metal frame above looked as though it could collapse with even the slightest weight. But in the second room there was a small opening in one corner. I stood underneath the hole, shining my headlamp up into the darkness above to get a better look, and saw that there was a desk half hanging over the hole.

Plastic chairs, a dozen of them, hauled out from the dust in the reception area and stacked up neatly, gave me my ladder. I leaned the stack against the wall, tested them to make sure they wouldn’t fall out from under me, and then carefully climbed up into the gap. It was pitch black up there, and I remembered that there were no windows on the side of the building above the garage, at least not on that floor. The gaping windows were a floor higher. I hauled myself up and glanced around the room, finding one open doorway and no holes in the ceiling, and then edged around the desk – which was much bigger than I’d first thought – and crept out into the hall.

The stairway that had collapsed on the bottom floor was still intact on the second, and even though I could see a few glimmers of sunlight creeping in through holes in the walls, the only bright light seemed to come from the top of the stairs, up on the third floor.

Every step that I took up those stairs creaked and complained, and a couple of times I had to side step as I felt the stair start to give under my weight.

Finally, I made it up to the second floor and crept over the rickety boarding to the room at the front. And, yes, I found that it was just one big room.

I always get a thrill when it comes to searching out new places – or old places, as it were. There’s an adrenaline buzz that always comes with the excitement of possibilities. A lot of the time I would be treading where no one had been for decades, sometimes much longer, and the thought that there could be something incredible hidden away, untouched by people for so long, was what I think always made my job as an Outrider so exciting. I guess it was part of what made you an Outrider. It was in the blood.

Like the time we found the computer system that Admin now uses, and the times when we’ve discovered outposts of people, hidden away where no one thought there was a living soul. Once, we found a sealed bunker filled to the brim with ancient but high tech weaponry and batteries, and another time, just a year ago now, we found an entire library of books, thousands and thousands of them, sealed in airtight plastic containers.

That feeling always seems to come when I start to think I’m getting close to something, and as I stepped into the large room two floors above the garage, where the vent should come out, squinting against the brightness of the sunlight, that feeling was stronger than any time before.

This wasn’t about a stash of forgotten treasure, though. This was about my mother. She had been here, I now knew. No one else ever called me Conman, or “My little Conman,” – just my mother. And that was what was scratched into the vent outside.

So I stepped into the room, shining the headlamp around the dark corners, looking for…expecting…hoping for… I don’t know. Anything, really. Anything that could tell me what happened to my mother.

It didn’t dawn on me until that moment that the pile of rags in the far corner, just underneath where the vent came out inside the building, could be a body. I stood there, staring at the pile of rags, making out boots, legs, a head, or was it a hood? All the details of a dead body were there.

Was it my mother? Had I come all this way to find her final resting place?

Please, God, no…please, God, no, was all I could hear over and over in my head.

Don’t let this be my mum, please.

And it wasn’t.

The relief, as I finally strode over the bare floorboards and turned over the body, coughing as a cloud of dust filled the air, was immense.

Because it wasn’t a body at all.

It was a pile of clothes and gear.

It wasn’t a dead person.

It wasn’t my mother.

A pair of heavy boots, some thick leather chaps, leggings sometimes worn by far-travelling Outriders, two rucksacks, a pile of shirts and slacks, and a hood. I knelt and started searching through the pile. A re-breather mask – something worn by either divers or people in harsh conditions…such as heavy dust storms – a satchel filled with dull but reasonably new looking tools, two more holsters with handguns, similar to the ones I carried, and a trio of different length knives in a small scabbard.

And even more.

There were two small lock boxes piled against the back wall. I popped the lids and found dozens of small rectangular ration tins, all still sealed and intact.

I had been wrong to not expect a stash, and it hadn’t been what I was looking for, but to find it only opened up more questions.

Who had put this here? My mother?

If she had, then why? Had she gathered this stuff for herself? And if that were the case, why hadn’t she taken it with her when she moved on from here?

The back of the air vent stared at me from the dusty, crumbling wall.

I shone my headlamp directly at it, and tried to peer through. The sunlight outside glared, but still half of the small area between the two vent panels, one on the outside, and the one I was peering through, remained half in shadow. I could still see something in there. Was it box? Or a pouch?

I grabbed at my tool belt, ripped open the flap, and took out a screwdriver. A minute later I pulled the inside metal vent from the wall, coughing again as more dust flooded the room.

There it was: a small pouch. Actually, it looked like a wallet of some kind. I grabbed it and opened it up.

My mother’s face smiled back at me from a faded, stained photograph.

So, now I’m sitting here in the Roughrider, with the sides all battened down because a storm is raging outside. It started as I was going through the gear that my mother – well, I’m presuming it was my mother – left behind. I hauled everything down using the rope I found underneath the pile, dropping it all on to the ground outside the garage and then dropped the rope. Going back through the building was a little more precarious than the ascent had been, especially with the wind blowing dust through the building. I nearly fell back down the stack of chairs I’d piled up, but managed to grab onto the joist above as the stack collapsed.

Damn garage door wouldn’t stay shut and kept rattling, so I left it and I’ve secured everything inside the Roughrider. I remembered to put the cover over the hood and the engine before I climbed in. The last thing I wanted was for the dust to get inside and clog up the engine.

I went through all the stuff left behind, still marvelling at how much there was and wondering why my mother would have left it here. I thought that maybe she could have left it here for herself, and maybe she planned to leave me a message and not all the gear. I also worried that she hadn’t made it back here to collect her stash.

Then I found the recording chip inside the sealed pocket in the wallet. I’m going to try something, now. There seems to be a buffering tool on the recorder, so I’m going to attempt to transfer the recording to this chip.

Well, here goes nothing.

:: Transfer Function Accessed

:: Pasting Buffer

(Woman’s voice)

Hi, Conman. This is your mother.

I don’t know if you will ever find this message, but I’m hoping that you will. I hope you’ve found the coordinates I put into your recorder, though I’m also hoping that it is a long, long time after I recorded this. Oh God, I hope you’re not out here until you’re old enough to be able to cope on your own.

I know. I know. You’re a strong kid, but I hesitated putting the coordinates into the recorder, hesitated even thinking about leaving a trail behind, and if I’m honest, this may be the only trail note I leave.

Where I’m going is dangerous, and that’s without considering The Resistance on my tail.

To you, I hope this will be years on, but I only recorded the message for you this morning. It was just a few hours ago that I left the other message on your recorder.

I’m still trying to get my head around leaving you there. It’s just so hard. But I know you’ll be okay. They may have come looking, and they may have searched, but I know you keep the recorder hidden, and I doubt they’ll find it.

But I also don’t know that for certain, so I’m going to have to test you on this. Before we’re done, anyway.

I have to think how to do that, but while I’m at it I guess you’re going to have a lot of questions you want answering.

Well. Let’s start with this.

The Resistance made a deal with the Stygians – that’s Nua’lath’s people, but you know that – way back at the end of the war.

We didn’t win. We surrendered.

No. I know. That will be so hard for you to grasp.

They sold us out, our leaders. Sold us out and sold out my parents and grandparents. We could have got them back, I think. The documents that I found, purely by accident, detailed the search. They did find traces, and they did find a way into the city of Riverfall. That much was all lies.

But they were met by Stygians. The damn things were waiting for us. Nua’Lath’s people, even though they hated Nua’lath for stealing their precious artefact.

Somehow Joshua and my grandfather’s other brothers – James Halldon’s brothers – made a deal with them, rather than continuing to fight. I can’t find references at all to Sha’dis, so I don’t know if it was him or other Stygians that made the deal, but it meant that The Resistance agreed to end the search, and not to enter The Ways. I also couldn’t find anything about what The Resistance gained from the deal, other than an end to the war.

Now, you’re probably wondering what the place is that you’re in right now?

I found out about it years ago, before you were born, but didn’t bother to come here. It was one of the bases that James - let’s call him JH, like you used to - used in his work, the experiments with gates and plane shifting. But it was closed down and became forbidden ground after the war. They stripped the place completely, or so they thought. They also put an order out that no one was to enter, because they couldn’t know if there were still things hidden here.

Of course, I found what was hidden here, and I also found signs of passage that hadn’t been disturbed. From other info I gathered, JH didn’t just run the Outriders. He was head of Tech Research. And at the time of his disappearance, and the secret agreement, a whole division of the Outriders and, from what I can gather, nearly the entire Research Division - who I can only guess must have been stationed here at the complex - just vanished. Yes, I know. It’s very strange, and I’ve still found no trace of them. I estimate, from what I’ve found, that about five hundred Outriders and Vigilants went missing, and maybe two hundred research facility staff.

All of these people would have been hand-picked by James, his most loyal.

When this place was stripped bare, as you will find if you look around, they took everything. But they didn’t find the bunker and they didn’t find the people. And I’m hoping that no one does and that it’s just you that finds this. I don’t think anyone has any reason to come out here, especially with the quarantine on the facility.

Well there is, and this is where the test begins.

So there is a bunker entrance hidden on this base, and inside there you’ll find answers if you search. It’s a huge bunker, miles and miles of passages and rooms. Keep the entrance closed, so no one else can get in. There’s a lot hidden here that not many people know about, and they mustn’t know. There’s far too much to tell. You’ll have to go see for yourself. Be careful down there. It’s dark.

So, if it’s really you that finds this, Conman, and no one else, then you’ll be able to remember your Maw, and open the bunker door that I recoded. Do you remember?

I hope the supplies come in handy. You may need them if you choose to follow. I won’t be disappointed if you don’t follow. I’ll understand.

I love you.

Mum.

:: Buffer End

:: Record Date 17:05:4787 06:26

I didn’t sleep so well. The storm is still raging outside. I did poke my head out, during the night, and decided not to risk much else. I’ve turned the engine over a couple of times just to make sure that it still works, and it seems to be fine, at least for now. The last thing I want is to be stranded out here and not make it back for roll-call in…two days. I have two whole days to find this bunker, starting now.

I don’t know how long I sat thinking last night, but I’m pretty tired, so it was probably way too long. I just couldn’t get it out of my head. My mother made it this far, and she left all this behind for me to find. I know she says the place is quarantined, but I still think it’s a minor miracle that the stuff was still here and intact. Mind you, if I hadn’t seen my name scrawled on that vent plate, I wouldn’t have ventured up into the higher floors of the building. I took a quick look up there when I first searched the offices and decided it was too dangerous. This building looks like it’s ready to fall in on itself.

That reminds me. I must try to find somewhere better than this garage to use as a base. Now that the door is broken, and the dust can get in when the storm blows, it’s not much of a shelter. And the thought of it falling in on me probably adds to my unease and inability to sleep.

I can’t believe it, though. She didn’t die. They’re liars. All of them. How many of them were in on it? Even JH’s brothers? If what my mother said is true – and I have no reason to believe otherwise – they backstabbed him, and the rest of my family, but for what reason?

Why would they do that?

:: Record Date 17:05:4787 19:26

I’ve retired to the RoughRider early, because it got dark very quickly and the storm is raging again. It’s been calm and clear for most of the day, apart from the occasional blast of wind sweeping through the valley, and I’ve managed to cover a lot more ground than I expected to.

The central row of warehouses, all six of them, though still pretty much intact, was a complete no win. The buildings have been stripped bare, absolutely nothing left behind. It was kind of eerie entering each one. Even though it is bright and sunny outside, glaring even, inside the warehouses was dark and still. Most of the doors are open, so there is enough sunlight coming in to be able to see, but it’s still mostly dark inside.

I went through all six warehouses, and the tiny office rooms at the end of each, but the people who cleared these buildings took everything, even the furniture. All that remains is a film of dust covering the floor.

I did uncover a whole section of the ground in the first warehouse, but didn’t bother with the rest. It’s just concrete under there, and I figured if you were going to hide a bunker, it wouldn’t be in the middle of a warehouse. No, so far no signs of any hidden entrances.

Searching the warehouses took me up until midday and then I came back to the office building and started a more thorough search, at least just the ground floor. I figure that since I’m looking for an underground bunker, I can skip searching upper floors.

Actually, I don’t think any of the other buildings even have upper floors.

Anyway, the ground floor of the office building turned up nothing, so I headed out the back.

There was a row of a dozen much smaller buildings lined up behind the office building. They actually don’t look much bigger than the cargo containers that a lot of the early Evac City buildings were built from, and on closer inspection that was what they turned out to be. They had all been prised open and left to the elements, and apart from a pile of thick metal pipes in the third container, they were all empty. I’m surprised that they didn’t take the pipes and the containers themselves. I know I’d get a high price for the pipes if I had some way to haul them back to the Evac scrap market, and a building merchant would snap up the containers to build habitats.

So, I have just one day left to attempt to find this bunker. I think I’m going to run out of time. Even if I did find the place, I wouldn’t have very long to investigate, which leads me to think that I need to find somewhere secure to put all this stuff my mother left me. I don’t think it’s safe to take it all back, just in case someone starts to pry.

I think a trip to the Junklands on the way back. The old diner there is a good place to hide the gear, and I haven’t been back there for years. It would be good to see the old place again.

:: Record Date 18:05:4787 20:17

Well, wherever this bunker entrance is, it’s certainly well hidden. I covered the remaining buildings today and I’ve come up empty. I guess that was to be expected, really. When the place was shut down it must have been crawling with people, and if none of them found the entrance then it’s likely to be very well hidden.

Most of the remaining buildings are ruins, with barely more than the ground floor still intact, and a lot of them have caved in. I still tried to search even the collapsed ones. It worries me that one of them could hide the entrance, but none of them seem ideal for a bunker entrance. No stairs, no lift entrances. I figure I would have at least spotted something, but then, maybe not. The people that cleared this place out didn’t.

I’ve been sitting here for twenty minutes, trying to wrack my mind for ideas, or any clues, but I have nothing.

How did my mother find it? How long had she searched for it? There has to be another clue somewhere. Anyway. I’m going to get off to sleep now, hopefully, and then head back to Evac in the morning. I could probably stay a few hours tomorrow, and continue my search, but If I’m going to stop off at the Junklands and visit the diner to hide all this gear, I need to give myself time.

Something I did find, and which has me puzzled, is in one of the bigger buildings on the far side of the complex. There is a huge room below ground level in some kind of massive basement. The door was closed and the dust hadn’t gotten in. On the floor, dotted about, were these circles of glyphs. If I’m guessing correctly, they are portal markers.

Could they be the very ones that JH talks about using in his diaries? I think so. To see them, after all these years of knowing about them, is just mind blowing. We travel to other worlds using portal mechanisms, machines, but those are different; they have coordinates to aim for. These markings are like ancient carvings in the floor. To think that they really can be used to open doorways, with nothing but the power of your mind and an amulet, is crazy.

It always did make me wonder. What were the portal keys that JH and Andre used? As far as I know, there were only ever a few of them, and I’ve certainly never seen one. Were they some kind of high tech? Or even magic? I know, that sounds crazy. But reading the diaries over again, and looking up how the portals were used, it almost seems like some form of magic.

:: Record Date 19:05:4787 07:43

Leaving now. I’m all packed up. It was difficult fitting everything on, even with the sizeable trunk I have on the back of the RoughRider. My mum left a lot of gear up there.

:: Record Date 19:05:4787 13:55

It took me longer to get to the old diner than I expected. The road that leads there is broken up and no one ever went out that way to fix it. There isn’t a lot of traffic north of Evac, since it just leads to the Dustlands and miles upon miles of barren wilderness. Not a lot out there to interest anyone. Though, with what’s supposedly hidden under the facility, people may change their minds if they knew. I wonder if that was why JH chose the place. Seems like a perfect location to hide something you don’t want people looking at.

We lived at the old diner when I was little, just me and my mum. I’m sitting here at the entrance right now, looking over the place. I hardly ever come out here, even though, technically, I own it and about five square miles of dirt around it. We did try to grow stuff out here, you know, corn, vegetables, all manner of stuff, or, should I say, my mum tried to grow stuff. But the land is so barren that even with the irrigation system she built it doesn’t yield crops worth bothering with.

My mum used to say the diner used to be a waystation of sorts – an eating establishment that travellers stopped off at to eat and fill up with fuel – centuries ago. Before this world fell to The Horde, and before The Resistance chose it as its base.

It’s a rectangular building, with strange curved edges rather than sharp, straight ones, and at one time I think it was probably brightly coloured, even gaudy, because you can still see some traces of the old paintwork clinging to the rusty metal. My mum and me spent weeks and weeks cleaning the place up, getting rid of as much of evidence of wear as we could. Hours of scraping off rust and painting it over with resin coating to try and stop the place degrading any further.

Out the back, the swing that we built still stands and so does the sandpit, or “the pool”, as my mum used to call it. I think she was going to try and repair the outdoor swimming pool, but the tiles were too broken and we couldn’t find enough replacements and adhesive to make it work. In the end, we chucked a lot of sand into it, and were going to just fill it in, but then I started playing in it and my mum decided that it had found its new job.

There are four rooms off the back of the main room, which is a pretty big open hall with a bar that occupies the centre. On the outer side of the bar there are tables and benches lining the room. Again, most of those we replaced with newer, scavenged ones.

You know, I think the plastic chairs may be the same as the ones in the facility in the desert, those I stacked up to get up to the other floors. I’ll have to check that.

I can see the edge of the Junklands from here, about five miles down into the valley. The huge mounds of scrap metal look like hills from this distance, but on an even clearer day than this you can see the sunlight reflecting off the metal. But not today.

Anyway, I wasn’t planning to stay here. All I wanted to do was visit what’s out the back of the building, about thirty yards into the brush.

The stash. That was what Mum called it. We tried to dig one out right next to the diner, but the ground is solid concrete for roughly thirty yards, and where that ended was where we ended up digging.

It’s about five feet deep, and roughly big enough to fit a car into, but there are no cars inside the stash. The roof was made from the side of haulage truck, solid metal, literally just dropped onto the ground over the hole.  That’s pointed with concrete around the edges to stop the thing shifting, and then there’s a hidden gulley and a door that leads into the space below.

It mostly empty now, but back when we lived here my mum used it to store all manner of crazy gear inside.

I’m going to hide everything that my mum left for me in there. It’s much closer to Evac City than the facility, and I know I’m the only person that knows about the stash, other than my mum.

Can’t be too careful.

Then it’s time for me to head back and put the RoughRider in the garage. I’ve got a lot to do before tomorrow, when I’m expected to be at the Basecamp and ready for the next expedition.

I think I’m going to leave the chip my mother recorded with the stash, and remove the recording from the memory of the recorder. I’ve also removed the note with the coordinates, and her message, transferring them onto the same chip so I don’t lose them.

Actually, no. I’m going to leave the recorder and the tracker here, just in case. Can’t risk someone finding the message from my mother.

:: Record Date 03:06:4787 14:23

So, it’s been over two weeks since I was out here. That time has passed ridiculously slowly. I’ve stewed over everything I found at the facility, and something has been driving me nuts all this time.

There was a building on the west side of the facility that had ten large garages, all in line, and what looked like some kind of workshop and a huge open area at the back that I guess, from the layout and shape of it, was a repair building. Well, it was while I was at Basecamp, getting my quad ready to leave for the tech salvage mission we just went on, and I started to think about the layout of Basecamp and how it compares to the facility. A lot of the buildings in Basecamp are of a similar style to the ones at the facility, and even the functions of most of the buildings are the same, though Basecamp is probably ten times bigger. That garage area was what brought it all to mind. There are several buildings at Basecamp that are almost identical, even in shape.

Also, there’s an admin complex at Basecamp, and underneath that is the supply centre, which, in effect, is a small bunker. The entrance to supply looks like a garage and has exactly the same folding doors. Then you go through that to a ramp that leads down into Supply.

This made me think, and it has been distracting me the whole time since I went to the facility out in the Dustlands. The garage I stayed in was in the office building, yet the larger garage building, where I presume all vehicles would have been stored and repaired, was over on the other side of the facility.

I don’t think I parked my Roughrider inside a garage at all. That entrance, surely, could be the entrance to the bunker?

But it wasn’t uncovered. The ground was solid, I think. I didn’t check. It never occurred to me that it was anything other than a garage and workshop.

But I won’t get back out there for another few weeks. This trip out to the diner is just overnight, for me to drop off a few things that I want to take with me on my next trip out to the facility.

Three more weeks, and then I get another five day break. I’ve been invited to go stay in Evac by some of the guys who are getting the same down time period as me, and part of me wants to go. The idea of kicking back, getting a little drunk and maybe trying my luck with some of the city girls is appealing, and I haven’t been out with the guys from my troop for months, haven’t been to the plaza for even longer.

But I can’t let this slip.

I’ve included an eight pack of beer in my drop to the stash. Figured I might need one. Hell, I’ll probably drink half of it tonight before I go to sleep. It’s so quiet out here, and I haven’t stayed here overnight since I lived here with my mum.

Although I’m tempted to keep the recorder with me, I think it’s safer out here at the diner.

Three weeks, and I’ll be heading back to the facility. I’m itching to go already.

:: Record Date 24:06:4787 20:43

Someone has been here.

The Diner is trashed.

Everything is turned over, cupboards emptied all over the floor. Even the plastic chairs and the benches are strewn all over the place. The door was broken beyond repair and looks as though someone used something heavy to smash it open, not that that rickety old thing would have needed much force to break in the first place.

I’m sitting on the counter that my mum said used to be the bar and looking at everything that I know from my childhood, now in ruins.

The pictures that were on the walls are all over the floor, their frames pulled off. And…I think the pictures of me from just before my mum disappeared have been taken.

Who would want that stuff?

My mum’s bedroom is the worst. I just took one glance in there and daren’t go in.

I panicked when I first got here and nearly ran out to the stash, but I didn’t. Thankfully instinct kicked in and I grabbed my guns and took to the shadows. That I even grabbed them and switched off the safety is something that scared me. Sure, occasionally there are robberies in Evac, but it is rare. And this... This didn’t look like a robbery. The place was completely combed over.

Eventually, after watching out of the windows for about twenty minutes and seeing no movement, I ventured outside and went to the stash. To say that I was relieved when I saw the dirt and brush around the concealed entrance was undisturbed would be an understatement, but that didn’t last long.

The dropship had landed just yards from the entrance to the stash, and from where I’m standing, they may have even landed with one leg on top of it. The burn marks on the ground, and the familiar shape of combat boot footprints, are unmistakeable.

A Vigilant dropship came out here.

There are four large, rectangular imprints in the ground, with even smaller marks where the foot stabilisers would be, and the ground is scorched in three places, showing where the lift drives would have blasted the ground as the aircraft landed and then took off.

I rushed down the gully and found the lock still in place and the door closed, and sighed with relief. Inside, my gear was untouched.

But I’m still screwed.

The Resistance has records that this place was owned by my mum, and that I own it now, so if they sent a dropship out here then they had to have a good reason. But how could they?

Was it the conversation I had with Aaron? Had someone picked up on that? Is he in trouble? I’ve no way of knowing, and if I try to head back to Evac to find out, they’ll surely pick me up.

I don’t understand. I didn’t think that enquiring about my mum’s files could trigger this kind of response.

Do I go back? Do I just hand myself in and try to find out why they raided the diner?

I sat inside the stash for about an hour, going over and over everything that had happened so far, and I’m still confused.

But I do know one thing. For them to send a Vigilant dropship out here is serious. They wouldn’t send them here if they had good intentions.

For a while I didn’t know where to go, but then I calmed myself and sat up here and tried to go through all of my options.

If I go back to Basecamp they’ll pick me up and I may never find out what happened to my mum.

If I stay here, they may eventually come looking for me again. Same result.

If I go to the facility, they might trace me there. Potentially the same result.

I am in just the same situation that my mum had been, all those years ago, except I don't have a son that I would have to leave behind.

The facility. That was where she went back then. Even though it could be the stupidest move I could make, I know I have to risk it. I have little else. Other than just driving off into the wilderness, I have nowhere to run to.

My mum had gone to the facility, and then down into the bunker, or so I believe. And then where? The only way I would find out was if I followed her down there.

I have to go back to the facility, and I have to find a way down into the bunker.

There’s no way back from here.

:: Record Date 25:06:4787 22:29

It’s pitch black out here, but I can see the lights from a dropship over at the Junkyard pretty clearly. I don’t know what they are doing out there, but I need to get out of here as quickly as possible.

I’ve grabbed everything I can from the stash and loaded it into the trunk again. I wasn’t planning on leaving until the morning, and the thought of heading out into the Dustlands in the middle of the night doesn’t thrill me, but I don’t think that I have much choice.

The tracker still holds the coordinates that I originally followed, and it also has the route that I took to get back here, so I won't be travelling completely blind, even if I was going to be driving in the dark. I could patch the tracker into the RoughRider and it would give me pretty accurate directions.

Time to go before they think to come back here.

:: Record Date 26:06:4787 01:29

I’m hiding in a rock outcrop in the hill just outside of the Dustlands. Oddly, the small cave actually looks like it may have been used as shelter before. There is a darkened area in the middle of the cave that appears to be the remains of a campfire. Unfortunately, I don’t have any wood to burn, and I don’t want to cast any light outside, so I’ve backed the RoughRider in as far as it will go and sealed myself inside it.

The wind from the storm outside creates a strange and eerie howling noise as it gushes into the cave, and even though I’m sitting inside the armoured body of the RoughRider it’s creepy as hell, like some groaning monster.

I’m not even going to try to sleep.

:: Record Date 26:06:4787 05:23

The storm must have been pretty heavy outside, and it must have come from the direction of the Dustlands, because I can see from inside the cave that the tracks that the RoughRider left in the dirt outside the cave are completely covered over. Thankfully.

I did sleep in the end, but not for long. Four hours was enough to give me a little more energy than I was running on when I found the cave, though.

As I left the diner last night, I could have sworn that the dropship lifted back up into the air and was heading over in my direction. If it did, they didn’t pick up my trail, and I was away from the diner before they got there. If they went there.

I’m going to take a look outside, and if it’s clear I’ll head towards the facility. I think I’m only an hour away, though I’m coming in from a different direction, and I’m not sure what the terrain is going to be like.

:: Record Date 26:06:4787 07:30

So there’s still no sign of the dropship, but I’m convinced that it passed over where I was hiding several times. They have to be looking for me, and it seems that they have some idea of where I am. The problem is I have no idea if they’re tracking me because I asked Aaron to look at my mother’s files or if they somehow know I’ve been into the ruins of the facility already.

It has occurred to me that they could be waiting for me there, but I have no choice but to go on. I suppose, as I thought before, I could just take off, head across the desert and not come back, but I’d never know where my mother went if I did that. I have to go on. I have to go back to the facility and find that damn bunker, wherever it is.

If my mother had thought I wouldn’t be able to find it, she would have left more clues in her message, surely? She expected me to find it, even though the people that originally cleared out the facility after it was closed down never did. It’s hidden in a way that they wouldn’t expect it.

That has to be it.

As soon as this dust storm starts to clear a little, I’m going to head off as quickly as I can. I have to move fast and try to shrug off the dropship. The last thing I want is to lead them there.

:: Record Date 26:06:4787 07:56

I don’t know if the storm is clearing already or if it’s just a lull. I’m going to head out anyway, crank up the RoughRider, and just go for it. I’m no more than an hour away and hopefully the storm won't cover the entire area between here and the base. I just have to hope that the dropship is somewhere else at the moment and not in scan range.

While sitting here, I started going over everything at the facility that I needed to search again, and I came to the conclusion that I had to search back over most of it.

You know, I think I’m finally getting used to talking to this thing. Maybe I’m too comfortable with it?  It’s amazing how being on your own can encourage you to talk to yourself.

:: Record Date 26:06:4787 10:11

So it took me longer than I expected. Just as you get to within half a mile of the facility, the ground becomes impassable. Where the rest of the Dustlands is mostly just dry, open flatlands, covered with grey dust, that area is cracked and unstable. I’m glad I was driving quite slowly when I approached, or I may not have seen the gaping cracks in the ground. If I’d driven into one of those, there is no way I could have got the RoughRider back out again.

And it took longer to go around than I expected.

I’ve seen no sign of the dropship, so hopefully they are searching elsewhere, if they are even after me.

Hell, who am I kidding? Of course they are looking for me. Normally I’d call it paranoia, but after the state they left the diner in? That makes it even more important that I find the entrance to the bunker. Where I go from there, I don’t know. I could end up stuck down there.

I parked up in the garage again, pulled the doors down as best I could, and started clearing the ground of dust and dirt.

Hopeless. The ground is solid concrete. It’s not possible for it to be a ramp of any kind, and if it was, it had been filled in a long time ago. I don’t know, maybe underneath the floor is the remnants of a storage area, just like at Basecamp.

And that leaves me right where I was when I left.

Logic. Must think logically.

I’m going to walk the perimeter and see if there is anything around there, and then I think I’ll head over to the larger garages again and some of the smaller buildings.

Maybe there was something I missed.

:: Record Date 26:06:4787 12:43

I moved the RoughRider, and my gear, over to the bigger garage compound. The doors there actually open and shut via the hydraulics, and still work, which is surprising.

That got me thinking. If the hydraulics on the doors still work, then there has to be a power source somewhere nearby. There’s no obvious source on the surface; I’ve searched all over the facility and found nothing. No solar panels or vents. But if the repair building has power, where others don’t, surely that would indicate that I was getting close to where the bunker might be.

I’m waffling again.

I honestly have no idea where to look.

:: Record Date 26:06:4787 16:28

They’re here.

I was out over at the warehouse nearest to the garage compound when I heard the noise coming. It was barely audible at first, as I was sweeping away an area of dust in the corner of the warehouse, a spot I picked randomly just to check. Sure, yeah, I’ve resorted to that kind of desperation. I felt, more than heard, the hum of the engines.

I ran to the outer door and looked up, then out, but couldn’t see anything. Then the humming sensation shifted, vibrating the side of the warehouse.

They were on the far side, furthest away from the garage, and landing right at that moment. Within seconds the place could be swarming with troopers.

I grabbed my guns from their holsters, flipped off the safeties, and ran for the opposite door. As I reached the open entrance, I felt the thud of the dropship landing and heard a hiss. I knew what that meant. They were in a hurry, and the hiss would be the sound of the hatches opening. I moved quickly, rushing across the open ground to the nearest outlying building. If I tried to run straight for the garage, I’d end up in full view of the dropship and whoever was now jumping from it. I’d seen the Vigilants in operation, and they would be moving fast.

Then my heart jumped. They could even be using motion or heat sensor visors, in which case, every one of the Vigilant soldiers jumping out of that dropship would know exactly where I was unless I put more walls between us.

I glanced around the side of the building, preparing myself to run for it, and quickly pulled back. There, just at the other side of the building, only thirty yards away, was a squad of them. They held their Arc rifles high, aiming outwards as they swept the area, but none of them were looking in my direction. I glanced again, my heart jumping in my chest a second time.

They moved past, heading in the opposite direction to me.

I ran, scurrying across the twenty foot gap between the buildings as quickly as I could. I knew my handguns, even though they were shredders, may not even damage the Vigilants in their heavy armour, but the rifle, which I’d left back at the RoughRider, would cut through it no problem.

I can’t believe I was even considering killing Vigilant soldiers.

I reached the back of the garage compound and nearly ripped the door off its hinges as I rushed in. Then I panicked.

They would have heard the noise.

I ran for the RoughRider, knowing that seconds were all I had. Even as I pulled the rifle from the trunk, and slammed the clip into place, I heard the crack and thud of the side door. I hit the deck and rolled under the RoughRider. There was nothing else that I could use as cover, and I knew that the repair platform I had parked on had a gap underneath it that would normally be used by mechanics to get under the vehicles they were repairing. I had chosen the platform at the back of the repair hall, thinking that there, in the darker area of the building, the RoughRider was less easily spotted. It was dark and that corner had no windows.

Usually the platform would be raised before going into the gap underneath, but I’d left the platform as it was, and all I could do as I rolled under there was hope that there was enough space to give me cover before the firing started. Their guns would probably tear the RoughRider to shreds, I thought, but if I was under cover, below, I might be able to get off some shots before they spotted me.

But instead of dropping a couple of feet into the bottom of the pit, I rolled out into open space. I fell into darkness…and kept falling.

Only the cables hanging underneath the platform stopped me from falling to my death. There were dozens of them hanging there, and as I fell, I became tangled in them. My rifle fell from my hands and I heard it clatter a few times in the darkness below.

There were no shots fired, but the team of Vigilants still came. I heard their boots on the ground, heard them spreading out into the building, and heard their muffled voices, but not what they were saying.

Eventually my eyes adjusted to the darkness under the platform, and I found that I was hanging maybe thirty feet underneath the Roughrider and the repair platform. Below me was complete darkness that, for all I knew, could be endless.

I shifted my weight and slowly pulled my way across the cables to the side of the shaft, where I could just make out the studded outline of a set of ladder steps. I grabbed frantically at the ladder, which I could now see was built into the wall, and finally hung there in the darkness, not wanting to move as I listened to the troops above me. Someone tried to open the trunk of the RoughRider and couldn’t, but I knew that the locking mechanism wouldn’t keep them out for very long, and they weren’t going away.

I couldn’t go back up and face them. It would all be over if I did that.

My only choice was down.

Three minutes later, down into the darkness of what appeared to be a wide shaft, I found the end of the ladder, but not the bottom of the shaft. I reached into a pouch on my utility belt and pulled out my maglight. I was easily two hundred feet below the platform, and figured that if the Vigilants hadn’t found the shaft then they were unlikely to see the light down here.

I had to know how deep it was.

And it was much deeper than I first thought.

My torch shines quite a distance, maybe fifty feet, but even that didn’t illuminate the bottom of the shaft. It just seemed to go on and on.

I couldn’t go down.

And I didn’t want to go up.

Then I started thinking about the grooves in the side of the wall, and the cables running down the middle of the shaft.

It was a lift. The damn platform was a lift.

This was the way down to the bunker. It had to be.

If I could only figure out how to lower it.

The cables only hung part of the way, but then I noticed that they wound back up again.

That was it.

The height of the lift was double the length of those cables, which meant…another few hundred feet into the darkness below what I could see. That jump would kill me. But, if I could trigger the mechanism, I could ride down.

I climbed back up, slowing as I got to within thirty feet of the platform. From there, I could see two of the Vigilants were standing next to the platform, talking. I wasn’t going to be able to go up there and press the button that would lower the platform, so I looked underneath it. Holding onto the ladder, and edging upwards as quietly as possible, I traced where the wiring came out from the control panel.

There, just to the right of the groove on the north face of the wall, was a cluster of wires that led to a bulky metal cabinet attached to the bottom of the platform.

But it was right underneath where the Vigilants were standing, and the panel looked rusty. Any attempt to open it could alert them. So far, they hadn’t located me.

I slowly edged my way across to the panel, cringing every time I made the slightest of sounds, but there was a lot of noise on the ground above me. I presume the rest of the Vigilant team was trashing the remainder of the building in their search for me. After what seemed like an age, but in reality was probably only a few seconds, I managed to prise open the panel. It squeaked a little as I opened the door, but I tried to time it with the noise from above, and then I hung there, waiting, watching the two soldiers above me, just a few feet away. But they didn’t move.

I switched on my headlamp, being careful to point it only at the panel and not send some random flash of light up into the building that might alert them. But it was dark up there, and I felt my heart thumping again as the glow lit up the area underneath the Roughrider.

The panel was thankfully quite a simple setup, with just a few input wires and another cable leading out and downwards, joining the other cables dangling in the darkness. That second one had to be the power source, I thought, and the cables leading up to the button panel above had to be both power and a switch signal. I had to make presumptions, not having the time to test, and went with the power cables being the same colour.

With my hands shaking, I cut and released the switch wires, pulled off some of the plastic covering and tapped the solder joint where the wires should connect.

There was a clicking noise, then a hum, and then the platform jumped to life, creaking as it began its descent.

Shouts from above and boots thudded on the ground as more of the Vigilants rushed back to the join the two above, but the platform was dropping at an alarming rate.

And I was on the underside.

I couldn’t go above it. They would see me and start firing. So I stayed underneath, clinging to the cables and the underside of the platform, hoping to hell that there would be at least a small gap under the platform when it reached wherever it was going.

And so I began to descend into the darkness.

I could hear shouts from above, and the sound of boots upon the ladder, but so far no one had fired. If they wanted me dead, they could simply drop a grenade down into the shaft, but they hadn’t.

They must want me alive.

That was when something ricocheted off the wall just a few feet away. I hadn’t heard the snap of a gun go off, so it had to be silenced.

But it was only the one shot.

The platform continued to plummet down into the darkness, but then it jolted still, nearly sending me falling into the void below. Something clicked once more, and then the platform was heading back up.

They had managed to rig the signal, just as I had done.

I panicked, reached for the panel, and jabbed the wire at the point once more. Again the clicking noise, and the platform restarted its downward journey. A second later it ground to a halt and began going back up again.

I had to fix the switch to stay. Not knowing how else to do it, I jabbed the wire into the point, pulled all the other wires out and waited, just hanging there in the dark as the lift jolted and moved downwards.

Five seconds, then ten. It wasn’t going back up.

Then I saw it below me.

A platform jutted out of the side of the wall. Below that, the shaft continued on with no sign of it ending.

I climbed across the underside of the platform, holding onto cables and jutting pieces of metal, until I reached the gap in the corner, where the ladder should have been, and waited. The lift platform didn’t slow down, but merely halted dead as it reached level with the section of ground jutting out into the shaft.

And all was silent.

I climbed up and jumped out onto the platform. In front of me, a wide corridor cut into the wall. There was no door, just the corridor leading into yet more darkness.

And it was big enough to take the Roughrider.

I hurried, jumping up into the cab of my vehicle, slamming the key into place and hitting the accelerator. The RoughRider leapt forward, sped down the short stretch of ramp and shot into the corridor. As I hit the ground, I glanced up at a flash of movement above. Half a dozen ropes were dropping out of the darkness, and with each rope came the zipping sound of a descending Vigilant.

But the image was gone in seconds as I sped into the corridor, foot mashed down on the accelerator as far as it would go. I had barely inches either side of me, and every few yards I heard a screech as the wheels, or some other part of the trike, scraped against the walls. But I wasn’t slowing down. I didn’t have time. The Vigilants would be on the platform by now, or maybe even in the corridor, running after me.

After maybe half a mile I saw it, racing up to meet me much faster than I could hit the brakes. All I could do was grab hold of the body frame, slam the brake on, and hope.

The Roughrider crashed into the massive metal door with a force that nearly knocked me clean out of the vehicle, but I hit my shoulder on the frame and was forced backwards into the seat. I sat there for a few seconds, panting and grimacing at the pain that erupted in my right side, but then got to work.

I had to get through this door, and shut it behind me, before the Vigilants got here or I would be cornered, trapped, and then captured.

I hit the ground, nearly fell, staggered to the front of the vehicle, and squinted at the control panel next to the bunker door.

Mum, I thought. I hope to hell you were right about the passkey. Because now, if ever, I need you to be right.

The panel was similar to others I had seen, and I hit the activate entry button, and then waited for the digital keypad to appear on the screen.

But nothing happened. Nothing, just a blank, black screen

“Come on!” I shouted, much too loud. The shout echoed along the corridor and I turned, listening.

The distant thud of boots on stone came back.

They were coming. They would be here soon.

Then the panel flickered to life, just as I was about shout out in frustration second time. It displayed a keypad that I was familiar with, the same display that was shown on many sealed doors used by the Resistance.

Then my thoughts went back to what my mother had recorded.

So, if it’s really you that finds this, Conman, and no one else, then you’ll be able to remember your Maw, and open the bunker door that I recoded. Do you remember?

Of course I already knew the answer to this. I’d never forget the times we played Maw-tamer when I was little. Never.

I keyed in the name of my own pretend Maw, the one that was always by my side when we played games back when I was a child.

SilverSwift.

And hoped.

The word processing appeared on the screen.

And then nothing happened. Had it frozen? Was the door faulty, after all these years?

The sound of boots on the ground, maybe two hundred yards away, jerked me into action. I could wait there for the door to open, or I could be ready.

I rushed around the back of the Roughrider, keyed in the lock code, flipped open the trunk, and grabbed at my stuff, hauling it round to the doors. If there was going to be a delay, I wanted to be ready.

Two trips and I had a pile of my gear right at the entrance to the door, but still nothing had changed. I crouched as the footfalls grew louder. Any moment now, I knew that they would catch up with me. And in answer, in the distance, lights began to flicker across the walls.

Then there was a click and a hiss, and the door began to open.

But it was so slow.

I waited until there was barely a foot of opening and grabbed some of my gear and threw it through the gap.

“Halt or we fire!” came the voice from corridor.

I jumped forward, squeezing through the door, grabbing the last bag that was outside and falling forward into darkness. Snaps of near-silent gunfire chattered behind me, and I felt, more than saw projectiles ricocheting off of the walls. Something hit my left arm, causing me to drop my gun, but I managed to reached up and tap the panel on the other side of the door. Beyond, and now around me, was complete darkness. There were no lights on the other side of the door and a musty, old, rank smell assaulted my nostrils.

The panel flickered on and displayed a dozen different options, but I stabbed at Close and reached for my other gun.

More gunfire, and several more sharp pains hit me, sending me sprawling to the ground. Lights flashed all around me. I grabbed at another gun, but found that my arm wouldn’t respond. I tried again, but then my legs gave way. The world spun, dizziness flooding my vision.

Tranquillisers, I thought. They hit me with tranquillizers.

Then all went dark.

:: Record Date 27:06:4787 12:14

They didn’t get me.

Yes, they knocked me out. After I woke up, my head thumping, I managed to switch on my headlamp – which appears to be shattered but still working – and I found four different darts sticking out of me. Two in my arms, one in my leg, and another in my shoulder. Plus, there were at least thirty or forty other darts strewn over the ground and they're just the ones I can see. They must have peppered the area in the hopes of stopping me.

Tranquilliser darts. So they want me alive. Though if they’d hit me with all these darts strewn all over the floor I think I might have overdosed and died anyway.

But they didn’t, and I’ve dodged them, though they now know where the bunker is. So much for keeping this place a secret.

The bunker door must have closed before they could get past the Roughrider – that would have been blocking most of the corridor – leaving them on the other side, and me unconscious on the floor. If it wasn't for this recorder, I wouldn’t know what time it was, but it displays a date and time at the top of the screen, and it seems that I’ve been out cold for over twenty hours.

Twenty hours. I’m lucky that they haven’t managed to bust their way through in that time.

Thankfully the big, metal door is still shut.

I examined the panel and tried to bring up the options, but it seems to have been tampered with. You know, I even suspect that my mum may have set it up somehow, she was clever like that, knew all sorts of stuff about computers and tech that I never could grasp.

The screen now just displays the same message constantly – ConmanLockedIn

Well, thanks, Mum. Good job it was me that got through the door first.

:: Record Date 27:06:4787 21:27

Exhausted, even after over twenty hours of unconsciousness, I went back to sleep. No hunting for a good camping spot here, I just lay where I was. I did manage to pull one of the rucksacks over to lay my head on, but that was about all my body would allow. Four tranquilliser loaded darts, each singularly strong enough to knock out a man, has left me too lethargic to move much.

:: Record Date 28:06:4787 01:09

I’ve heard banging outside a few times, and once I awoke to a sound that could have been drilling, but I saw the thickness of that bunker door as I jumped through, and it must be two feet of solid metal. I don’t know what kind of metal it is, but I would imagine it’s meant to withstand a lot more than what Vigilants have with them.

For now.

When those guys radio back what they’ve found here, and that a fugitive has just locked themselves inside, I would imagine an army of techs, Vigilants, just about everybody, is going to descend on this place.

I’m in some serious trouble, now.

I also think I woke again, later on, to a much louder noise, but I can’t be certain. The ground vibrated for a second or so, but if it was an explosion outside I must have missed most of it.

Eventually my head started to clear enough for me to motivate myself, and I got up and used my headlamp to check that I still had everything. I did. I think the only thing that I lost was my rifle. Damn. I spent so much time working on and perfecting that thing, and now it’s at the bottom of that shaft, most likely in a thousand pieces.  I guess I’ll have to get used to just short range handguns for a while – at least until I can replace the rifle.

Hmm. Maybe there are weapons down here.

Hopefully I won’t need them. My mother said to be careful down here, but she never mentioned any real, living dangers. Also if anything was living down here, they would need some form of food and this place has been sealed for years. Of course, there are things that walk and attack that don’t need inconveniences such as food and water, but I think my mum would have mentioned that.

I just thought; the doors to this bunker were open. I know it would be hard for anything to get down the shaft, without moving the platform, but realistically this place hasn’t been sealed, and anything could have gotten in here in the last fifteen years. I have to presume the worst. So, guns at the ready.

I’m ignoring the most important thing, here.

I made it, eventually.

I actually made it.

At least I think I have. The little digital output on the door panel showing my name suggests that I’m right where I’m supposed to be.

Now I just have to explore and find out what is beyond this entrance hall.

I put my stuff in a neat pile and stuck a glowlight on top of it, so that I could see where it was as I explored around my immediate vicinity. The tiny batteries my headlamp and the glowlight use are the same type that power shredder guns use. Well, they are the same tech, at least. That means they aren’t going to run out anytime in the next millennia, but they don’t give off much light. I needed to find a switch that would light up the whole area.

I tried searching for a lighting panel near the entrance, but there was nothing. I can tell that the room is big, maybe even vast, just by the way noise echoes, but it’s difficult to judge size when the brightest light that I have – the headlamp that will only stretch out fifty feet or so – hits nothing to reflect the light.

I skirted around the edge, following the wall, until I spotted something large and bulky at the very edge of the light. I knew I should just stick to the wall, but I could still see the glowlight where my gear was, and I hadn’t gone very far, and curiosity won.

Holy damn. It was an APV – an Armoured Personnel Vehicle – and not just a small one. This thing is huge, I’d estimate large enough to hold five squads and command, so twenty troops plus two command, and then add the driver and driver’s mate, navigator, gunners. If I can find a way into the thing it will make the perfect shelter. I’ve seen them before, even seen the same model, I think, though this one looks brand new. Sure, it’s covered in a few inches of dust but after brushing away the dust covering the side door, I could see that it was shiny and pristine.

I pulled at the door release, hoping that it wasn’t locked. No such luck. These things were meant to be almost impenetrable unless you had a key fob, and after searching around on the ground I didn’t find one.

What I did find was another APV sitting just ten feet away, lined up with the first. And that got me curious. I walked to the front of the APV, lined myself up with my gear, now a distant spot of glow, and started walking. By the time I got to within sixty feet of my gear I had passed eight APVs.

I was in a vehicle storage area of some sort, which made me even more curious. I tried to visualise the platform I had lowered to get down here, thinking of the size of the Roughrider. There was no way one of these vehicles would fit on that platform. And no possibility that they would be able to drive along the tunnel that led here, even if it was quite wide.

So how the hell did vehicles like these get down into the bunker?

Was this not the only entrance? Did they assemble them down here?

Found just what I needed after heading in the other direction, past what appears to be rows upon rows of empty metal racking. A mechanised trolley!

I laughed when I spotted it, thinking of how JH had written about his exploits with prams and bicycles, trying to make something that he could put stuff in to take with him, and here I am with a haulage trolley that I can even stand on. The damn thing lights up a hundred feet in front of it with a bright glare, and even has a pop-out seat. Okay, it doesn’t travel very fast, really not much faster than walking, or maybe a slow jog, but I can get around and I can light up whatever I need to look at. And it’s powered. I’m not sure what by, so I’ll have to have a look later, but there are half a dozen of these powered trolleys in the little bay they were kept in, so if the battery indicator starts to go down too far I’ll just head back and swap.

I took two trips all the way around the hall, and found it to be much bigger than I had first imagined. There are three rows of the APVs – twenty-four vehicles in total. Or at least there had been that many of them, at one time. One is missing, and there are tracks in the dusty floor leading towards a huge door at the back of the hall.

Then I spotted the ramp, a stairway, and a massive glass panel overlooking the room, just few yards from a large, dark tunnel.

I hopped off the trolley and started up the steps, guns at the ready, and entered what appeared to be a control room, but it was difficult to tell. I reached inside the doorway, while shining my headlamp into the room, and found a switch. With a flick, some dim lights came on in the room. They weren’t bright enough to light up the room clearly, just enough to see by. Not the main lights, then. Some form of emergency or guidance lighting.

I don’t know how long ago the bunker had been built, but it looked as though most of it hadn’t been disturbed for decades. A row of six dusty monitors sat along the front of the room, near the glass panel – correction, five dusty monitors and one reasonably clean one.

It was then that I noticed the footprints in the dust on the ground in front of me. They went further into the room than I had, so they couldn’t be mine. And they were smaller – I’d say at least five sizes smaller – than mine. The ground between where I now stood and the display screen was well trodden.

The footprints were embedded into the dust but had also gathered a thin coat of dust themselves, as though someone came here long ago and then the place remained undisturbed for a long time afterwards.

Were they my mother’s footprints?

I followed the trail to the screen on the nearest desk and looked at the display. Just like the dust inside the footprints, that one particular screen appeared to have been wiped and used, a long time ago. It wasn’t covered in quite as much dust as the rest.

I leaned forward and pressed the button on the screen, and I was rewarded by a buzz and click. The screen flickered several times and the display appeared, bright and glaring in contrast to the darkness.

And on the screen was a mass of lights, red and green, all labelled. I scanned some of them – outer barrier door release, inner barrier door release, vehicle hangar lighting, guard room lighting. The list continued. I tapped at some of the keys, but nothing on the screen responded, but then I noticed the finger marks on the screen and I tentatively reached forward and tapped the screen area marked “guard room lighting”.

The lights in the room buzzed and flickered, at first, and then came on. The blue fluorescent glow was low to start with but gradually intensified. I switched off my headlamp and scanned the room, seeing it in it’s entirely for the first time. There were a lot of screens in this room, all of them still switched off, and the dusty footprints, harder to see now that the room was fully lit, trailed further around the room than I had first thought.

I looked at the massive glass panel window, now a blank sheet of darkness. The light from inside the guard room – or what I resumed was the guard room – glared off the glass, making the darkness outside seem all the more looming.

Wondering if there would even be enough power to switch on lighting that could illuminate the vast room beyond, I tapped at the screen again, this time touching “Vehicle Hangar Lighting”, and I stood back and waited.

Nothing.

I searched the room and finally found what I’d been hoping for. Inside on of the dust coated closets was a cabinet door that opened up to revealed rows upon rows of small metal hooks, some with sets of keys hanging from them. I noticed that inside were the twenty or so that I’d expected, but there were hooks for hundred more that were empty. I counted them. Twenty-three sets exactly, and each set was just a single key and a numbered key fob.

I took the first and started to walk away, to head back to my trolley, but then thought of the Vigilants outside. They might get in. Hell, they would get in, given enough time. I knew the moment I found the bunker, with the Vigilants on my tail, that it was only a matter of time before they also got in. I could have days, or I could have a few hours. I had to slow them down. I grabbed all the keys, shoving them into an empty pocket.

Two minutes later I was standing right where I had slept the night before, staring at the metal vault door and wondering how I could stop them getting in.

There had been an inner vault mentioned on that screen. An inner vault and an outer vault.

:: Record Date 28:06:4787 12:18

Stopped for a spot of food so I thought I’d catch up midday. These ration packs aren’t too bad when you get used to them. A bit dry, but edible. The juice, or whatever it’s supposed to be, tastes pretty awful, though.

I got the big door open!

Thankfully.

There are only two entrances to this vehicle depot. The one that’s stopping the Vigilants from getting in, and the big door that the tracks from the missing APV lead to.

I was nervous about hitting either the outer or inner door open options on the screen, but eventually I found the menu that would display some of the cameras. I don’t remember seeing a camera outside the other entrance, but then I was in a hurry to get in. I flipped around a couple of the different displays and found the right one and then watched. Apart from the Roughrider blocking a lot of the view, the tunnel was empty, as far as the camera would display, and for a few minutes I contemplated opening the door to try and retrieve my Roughrider, but there were blind spots. I imagined that the Vigilants had gone back up top to report, and to plan whatever they were going to do next, but if one of them was hiding under the Roughrider, or behind it, things could go badly.

I sighed, and was about to switch the camera to another view when I noticed at the top of the screen it said Outer Door View A1.

So the inner door must be the bigger one.

I switched to the other menu and pressed the option to open the inner door and heard a grinding, rattling noise outside the office. I glanced out of the door, and yes, there it was, the big door, opening upwards to reveal a very wide, dark tunnel.

That got me thinking, though. If I go that way, how can I stop them following? Both doors can be opened from this office. So if they get in, there is nothing stopping them from doing the same as I have.

Seems like a strange security system.

Putting that problem to the back of my mind, I headed over to the big inner door on my trolley. The trolley makes a low whining noise, that under normal circumstances you would barely hear, but the vehicle hall is huge and empty, and the noise seems to echo around.

It’s not even just a tunnel through the big doors. It’s an underground road. That something as huge could have been constructed and still kept quiet is amazing. How did JH keep this hidden?

:: Record Date 28:06:4787 12:42

The answer to my puzzle about the security was just fifty yards up the tunnel. I hadn’t seen the recessed booth until I started driving my APV up the tunnel.

Oh, yeah. I took one of the armoured vehicles, and I have a box on the floor near my feet with the keys to all of the others.

I’m a damn genius.

If the Vigilants do get in here, they’re not taking one of the vehicles unless they know how to hotwire one.

Hmm. They probably may know how to do that, but they would need to get into the vehicle first. Not happening!

It doesn’t matter, I guess. I’ll just have to deal with that if it happens.

I loaded the trolley and all of my gear into the back of the APV and then went over to where the other trolleys were.

Screw it. Why not take them all? They all fit in the back of the APV, just. So I now I have a dozen trolley batteries and six trolleys, and for good measure, I have one of the plug in re-powering points that they were parked next to. There’s nothing to plug it into inside the APV, so I’d have to find a power outlet somewhere along the way, but I was damned if I was going to leave any form of transport behind for the Vigilants to use if they get in.

When they get in.

I started down the big tunnel through the inner doors. I nearly missed the booth, but as I approached it a red light swept across the front of the APV, like some kind of scanner. Nearly panicking, and expecting a blast from a defence turret, I slowed the APV and waited.

After a few seconds of just waiting, and nothing happening, I lost patience and jumped out of the side door.

The booth was set back in the wall, and the remains of the glass screen that would once have separated it from the tunnel were scattered across the floor. I saw more boot prints, again small, and then I spotted a display screen similar to the ones in the office back at the vehicle depot.

As I approached, stepping over broken glass and pushing away cobwebs – yeah, like there should be many spiders down here? – I spotted the piece of paper attached to the screen. The screen was already switched on, and the glare of light from the display was bright enough to light up the two words scrawled onto the bit of paper.

Turningpoint.

I frowned. Those words meant nothing to me.

Or do they? It’s not two words is it? It’s one. Turningpoint.

I tapped at the screen, flitting through the different menus, searching for locking mechanism options, and eventually found them, except I didn’t just find options to open and close the bunker doors. No, there was another, very final sounding option at the bottom of the list.

Initiate Bunker Outer Security Lockdown.

I selected it, and frowned again as a password request came up. None of the other options had wanted a password. Then I looked at the piece of paper again.

I typed in Turningpoint and waited.

What seemed like dozens of alerts flashed by on the screen. All of them detailing doors locking, power outlets shutting down, access points locking.

Crap. Had I just shut the whole place down? Was the power about to be cut?

But it didn’t. Instead, just fifty feet away, the huge inner door started to grind and rattle once more.

Finally, the screen displayed the words Bunker Secured.

Problem solved, for now. I hope.

Time to head further into the base.

:: Record Date 28:06:4787 15:21

There’s a lot of different routes down here. I’ve passed maybe ten or more junctions and crossroads. If it wasn’t for the obvious tracks in the dust, left behind by my mother in another APV, I wouldn’t have a clue where to go.

One area I passed was mostly collapsed on one side. I got out and climbed up the rubble, mainly because I could see there was a gap at the top, but it was darkness beyond that and a lot more rubble. I shone my light into the gap but the tunnel was blocked for quite a distance, and there was no way I was going to fit through the gap.

It looks like an explosion collapsed the ceiling down into the roadway.

Anyway, I had multiple directions to go in so didn’t try to remove any of the rubble. The tracks left by the other APV – which I’m hoping was driven by my mother – follow one path through the tunnels, and don’t turn off very often. I think I’ve taken a turning maybe three times now.

Why didn’t I block the main entrance up more?

I only just thought of that.

How stupid. I have all the keys to the APVs in the vehicle bay. I could easily have driven a dozen APVs over to the entrance in front of the door and blocked it up. They wouldn’t stop it opening, because it opened into a wall cavity on either side, and it wouldn’t stop them getting in because there would be a gap – the APVs aren’t as tall as the door. But it would have slowed them down.

Damn it.

Should I go back?

No, it’s too far. It would be a couple of hours back in the other direction instead of putting more hours between me and the Vigilants.

Onwards.

:: Record Date 28:06:4787 20:34

What the hell am I going to do when my supplies run out? I’m now locked into this bunker, with a troop of Vigilants outside, trying to get in as I sit here, and I’ve nowhere to go, nowhere to run to other than further into the base.

I drove for about three miles along the dark tunnel before it came to an end. I was about to think that I may have missed something when I saw the lighting up ahead.

The tunnel opened out onto a large platform with several corridors and doors leading from it, but it wasn’t the end of the tunnel.

I stopped the APV, armed up, and jumped out, switching on all the exterior lights so that at least the area around the vehicle was lit up. I did notice that the tracks of the other vehicle, now more than ten years old, led off to the right, and yet another tunnel, rather than going straight ahead along the main route. The side tunnel is smaller, but the APV should still fit through it. I’m beginning to think that these roads were built just to fit the APVs.

The area outside was bleak and abandoned. I don’t think anyone, apart from my mother, had been here for a very long time. The rooms that the doors opened out into appear to have been some sort of accommodation area, and there were rusty bunks lining the walls of otherwise empty rooms. And there were a lot of them. Along the corridors – which I think I took far too long to explore, but I was being cautions – were more doors leading into more old, dis-used dormitories. It was dark nearly everywhere, and my headlamp didn’t light up as much as I’d have liked it to.

Creepy.

But if there was something to be found there, it had been removed a long time ago. Nothing but empty beds.

I headed back to APV and followed the trail that my mother took.

I hope the tracks stay visible.

I think they will.

I’ve noticed that the further into the bunker I go, the dustier it seems to be.

I wonder why that is?

:: Record Date 29:06:4787 07:43

I camped inside the APV, parked at yet another area of rooms. I pulled up at two other areas along the route, which has taken me about ten miles through tunnels so far, but I didn’t stop to look around until now. None of the other areas had signs of passage, but as soon as I opened the side door on the APV in the new area, I spotted the footprints again.

Still no other vehicle, though. I guess my mother must have stopped here for something.

I’m going to go find out.

:: Record Date 29:06:4787 09:28

Stores. Huge stores.

I went through the double doors off the platform expecting to find corridors again, but that wasn’t what greeted me. Instead I saw a vast darkness and the air changed, becoming much cooler. I could also feel a breeze coming from somewhere but have no idea where the source could be, especially underground. I called out and the echo that came back suggested that I was in a very, very large room.

I went back, rolled a trolley out of the side door, and drove the smaller transportation back through the double doors. I’ve unloaded a lot of my gear into the APV so the trolley now moves at quite a speed, maybe a fast jog, and I made sure to recharge it before I left, so the lights are as bright as they are going to get.

The doors bumped open, and the headlights from the trolley lit up the first row of what appeared to be storage racking.

And there is a lot of it. Rows upon rows of palleted supplies. Everything from food to weapons, to power batteries.

Found a new sleeping bag. Grabbed two. Three new rucksacks. Not that I could carry it all but it’s better than just bags. Also replaced my headlamp and found a box of handheld torches – maglights – with the batteries still in them.

Awesome.

Of course, it was inevitable that I was going to spend an hour loading everything I thought I would need into the APV.

Found a replacement rifle! It’s not the same as my old faithful, but I think with some modification I can build something equal to the task. I’m kind a looking forward to that. With that in mind, I grabbed a bunch of gear I could modify the weapon with, new sights, handgrip, and a few other bits.

Damn, I’m turning into a hoarder.

At least there is one thing, though. From what I found in the storage, I’m not going to run out of food or water any time soon. I think I have months of supplies. I also have a whole heap of batteries for weapons and stuff.

It was when I was just unloading my last trip that I felt the ground shake. It was a very minor rumble, but the APV still buzzed with the vibration of the earth tremor and I felt it though my boots.

I don’t know what it was, but I didn’t like it. Not at all.

:: Record Date 29:06:4787 17:21

I awoke in the middle of the night to what I thought was a noise but as I sat up and rubbed my eyes and listened all that came back was silence.

I climbed into the front of the APV and searched the darkness, finally deciding to switch on the lights outside. I could see the long extended corridor stretching ahead into the darkness, and there was no movement, nothing

I climbed back out of the cab and went to the side door, peering through the small window. I could see the open hallway, leading towards the storage depot, but there was still nothing there. No sounds or movement.

I jabbed at the hatch door and it opened with a hiss. Wind brushed my face, and the smell of stale air wafted into the vehicle. I flicked on my headlamp and panned around, looking into the storeroom where I had left piles of equipment.

It’s me. It’s just me being paranoid. This place is just eerie, too quiet, even though I know that a few miles away there are Vigilants, probably even right now still trying to break into the place.

Completely empty.

I went back into the APV, shut the hatch and tried to get back to sleep, but even though there was no noise, just complete silence, I still couldn't sleep very well. I lay there, wondering if I should leave the APV behind and go on foot. It would mean travelling a lot slower, and I suppose my real goal at the moment is to get as far away from the entrance as I can, in the hope that the Vigilants won't be able to catch up with me.

But I shrugged off that idea as stupid. When they do finally get in, this thing will be my armour. I haven't heard many more noises, but occasionally there is a distant and unexplainable sound, and they don’t always come from behind me. Bangs and hisses, thumps. Faint noises that seem to echo from different tunnels. It must just be the noises at the entrance bouncing around the tunnels.

Has to be.

I needed to check the camera feeds, so headed up the tunnel to what looked like another booth. It was a few hundred yards from the stores, which seems odd, but when I got there I found the same layout as the first booth. A single screen and keyboard tucked away in a recess, except the glass panel protecting the booth was still intact.

I was getting used to using the system, and it didn’t take me long to find the camera feed for the vehicle bay. Still no change there. They’re not in yet.

:: Record Date 29:06:4787 17:48

Another tremor as I was heading off. I’ll check the camera feeds at the next booth.

:: Record Date 29:06:4787 17:52

Okay, so now I know what the tremor was.

Just a half a mile from the storage facility, I found yet another station with computer screens. It was pretty much the same setup as the first office that I found, the one in the vehicle hangar. I switched it on, noting the footprints in the dust and realising that my mother had also stopped off here. I flicked through the camera options and found the one for the vehicle bay. There are hundreds and hundreds of others, and they have intriguing names that like Outer Labs, Gateway Facility, Cryo Research Facility, but whenever I try to display the cameras there, there is either no response or just darkness.

But the camera in the vehicle bay was working, even though I used the lockdown. I presume the power for the cameras must be separate? I don’t know.

This place is very strange.

The camera showed a full panoramic view of the vehicle depot, and appeared to be set in the wall on the opposite side to the office. Strangely, the view showed the huge gate, now closed, and what had been the outer door, in one view. I tried to get my head around how that could be achieved, and gave up, focusing more on the fact that the outer door, the one that had been locked (ConmanLockedIn) was no longer there.

Instead there was a huge, smoking hole with rubble strewn for yards across the ground.

And Vigilant soldiers were everywhere.

Damn it.

I’m running out of time.

They’re into the vehicle bay, and now all that holds them back is one more door, the big door. Thankfully, that seems to be still intact.

They will get in, and even if they have to move on foot, because I’ve taken the keys to the other vehicles, they will soon be in here and I’ll be caught.

This place is huge, but I won’t be able to run forever.

And worse.

They will have access to the bunker.

Maybe that inner door will hold them off? Maybe they won’t get in. Why am I kidding myself? They’re going to get in and they’re going to take over the bunker. Time to stop stewing over that. I can’t do anything about it, not now. The best I can do is move on, find where my mother went, and follow. Get the hell out of here.

Time to get moving and try to find where the trail of the other vehicle, and my mother’s journey through the bunker the last time she was here, ended.

She had to have found a way out, surely.

Unless she is still down here?

No. She couldn’t be. If she were, there would be more signs of trips to the storage area.

Unless there are other stores? That was a possibility. It had never occurred to me that she could still be down here. I’ve presumed that she had been through the bunker more than a decade ago and moved on to wherever it was that she went.

What if that wasn’t true? Have I just brought The Resistance down on her?

:: Record Date 30:06:4787 03:22

After hours of driving along yet more tunnels, I finally stopped to rest, but I didn’t sleep for long. I think the knowledge that they’re inside the vehicle bay has me on edge. I’ve got the jitters, and I just can’t seem to sleep. I know I have some time, even when they do get through. I’ve been down here for three days, travelling for over two of them, so I’m a long way from the entrance. When they finally get in I’ll be a couple of days ahead of them.

I suppose that really depends on how fast they travel, and how easily they pick up my trail. The marks in the dust that the APV leaves behind are pretty obvious, so it won’t be difficult for them to follow me.

How big is this place? It does make me wonder. I must have travelled forty miles through tunnels already. I should have kept track of it.

I do know one thing, though. I’ve been travelling mostly in one direction – well, the vast majority of the time I have – so that means I’m a long way from the facility in the desert.

:: Record Date 30:06:4787 05:31

I awoke to another unfamiliar noise. I thought I’d imagined it at first, and then I wondered if it was the sound of wind through the tunnels. There isn’t much air movement in here, but occasionally there is a burst of wind that howls along the tunnel. It’s quite creepy, and it makes me wonder where it’s coming from. It seems to happen at regular intervals, though. No idea.

As the howl drifted away, and I started to wake up, my thoughts more coherent. I started thinking about the wind blasts. But then I heard it.

It was like some long, drawn out hiss from an animal, but only very quiet. I felt the air around me drop in temperature. It was warm nearly all of the time down in the bunker, especially in the long corridors and the transit system. When I stood outside the APV, on the path that runs alongside all of the roads, and especially when I was inside the APV, it was almost stiflingly warm.

The temperature seemed to keep dropping, and the next time I let out a breath of air I could see the vapour. This wasn’t in my imagination at all.

I reached over and tapped the top of the light sitting only a few feet away from me and the interior instantly lit up, all except the area near the cab. There all I saw was darkness. I reached for one of the guns as I hauled myself up to my feet, hurrying, almost panicking, wondering what the hell was filling the front cab. Was it gas? Had the Vigilants got in and caught up with me already?

Then the darkness left, rushing out through gaps in the vehicle. It wasn't until I slammed the access panel to the main doors and stepped outside that I realised that some form of liquid or gaseous shadow had invaded the APV while I slept.

I hesitated, lifting the gun up and aiming at the form that was now swirling around the front of the vehicle, and almost as though it sensed my intentions, the gaseous cloud shot away from the front of the vehicle at a speed I hadn’t expected. I didn't pull the trigger, but held my aim at the form as it sped away along the tunnel until it melted into the darkness and was gone.

Was it some form of ghost thing? I can't really give it a better name. If it had just dissipated I would have thought some sort of gas, some strange, unexplainable leak maybe, but this thing moved. I stood there on the path, confused, for what must have been four, maybe five, minutes after it had gone, taking deep breaths, feeling my heart thumping in my chest and wondering what on Earth I’d just seen. I’d had never seen anything like that before, and I’ve seen some strange things – creatures left behind on the other worlds, things abandoned by The Horde that still roam around centuries afterwards, in some cases still causing havoc to the survivors. But nothing like this.

I couldn’t sleep very easily after that, but did eventually – I think – after an hour or so. It was a restless sleep, and I kept waking up, imagining that I could hear another hissing sound or rushing air.

If it came back, there was no way for me to stop whatever it was getting back inside. It must've wafted in through the smallest of gaps in the vehicle. I decided to sleep with the light on, even though it takes power from the APV, and I’ll have to make sure that the battery is fully charged.

Somehow, the Vigilants trying to break their way into the bunker behind me is no longer the scariest part of my situation.

:: Record Date 30:06:4787 09:52

I was still thinking about the ghost thing I'd encountered as I drove along the tunnel, when the space in front of me opened up into a vast chamber.

It took me by surprise, and I skidded the APV to a halt, stuck it in neutral, and then just sat there, staring out of the front window at the huge installation in front of me. Eventually I climbed out of the driving seat, grabbed my guns, jabbed the access door panel, and waited for the door to hiss open. I then stepped outside onto the platform below the APV, realising that I was now parked on a bridge.

I looked down. It wasn't so much a single chamber, but more a massive chasm. On both sides of the road the chasm went downwards into the darkness for hundreds of feet, with no sign of the bottom. Smooth carved rock lined the walls for the first hundred feet or so, but then that ended and was replaced by jagged rocks. There was no indication of how far down it went, it just seemed to go on forever, but for about a hundred feet below and above where I stood, in the middle of the bridge, the walls were smooth.

There was a set of stairs leading down about twenty feet away from me, back near where the bridge began. They led down onto a flat, metal platform jutting out over the rock face, and there were dozens of similar platforms at varying heights, spread along the great wall of the chasm.

I could see whole sections of metal panelled walls, with windows spaced evenly apart on either side of the chasm, and criss-crossing here and there were bridges, some covered, some not.

The place was vast.

I moved towards the top of the stairway, and spotted a metal plaque embedded into the wall with writing etched into it.

Area 17 Laboratories.

This was interesting.

How long did I have to look around? No idea, but I couldn’t ignore it all and just drive on. There was just too much to walk away from.

I headed out to the front of the APV, to look at the road that crossed to the other side. There were track marks in the dust, so I knew my mother had carried on.

But had she stopped here?

I went back to the stairs and looked down on to the smooth floor beyond the bottom step, and spotted the footprints immediately. She had gone this way, but then she had moved on afterwards.

I didn’t know how much time I would have to investigate. I guessed not very long. The Vigilants were into the main vehicle bay and trying to get access to the rest of the bunker, at that very moment, and there was only one door between them and me, unless they were already through.

They could already be on their way.

But what if this was important?

I had to look, but knew that I couldn’t stay for long. Even if I was two or three days ahead of them when they got in, the longer I look to search through areas of the bunker, the less time I would have wherever my mother ended up, and I had no idea what I’d face when I got there.

If I got there.

There were no other vehicles parked at the labs, even though I spotted spaces in the vehicle bay when I turned to look at the other side of the road. I’d missed that completely, which is ridiculous when you take in the size of the space – easily enough to park half a dozen APVs. But the area wasn’t well lit and my eyes had been drawn to the illuminated windows that lined the chasm.

I walked over the road and looked around the parking area, just in case there was something I’d missed, but the ground was barely disturbed and there were no signs of anyone driving a vehicle over it.

Back over at the stairs I found a lot of footprints heading in and out of what appeared to be a foyer, which was about a hundred feet away along a passage carved into the rock. Large double doors stood wide open, the glass smashed and scattered across the floor. Strangely enough, the glass was on the ground outside the foyer, not inside, suggesting it was knocked out rather than in. Odd.

A path had been swept through the glass, the shards piled roughly along the side, and the footprints led through the gap and into the interior. Beyond the doors I could see a reception desk. I took a few steps inside, shining my headlamp around, searching the darker corners in case something was lurking there.

No movement or sound. Nothing.

The whole place was covered in rubble that had fallen from the crumbling ceiling and a thick, smooth coating of dust, like it had been untouched for a long time, so my mother must have come here, gone through to wherever it was she was interested in, but left most of this alone.

The headlamp wasn’t very bright, but it cast enough of a glow to be able to see most of the layout without actually treading on anything. I went and grabbed a maglight from the APV. The headlamp was fine, but the handhelds that I found in the stores were much more powerful. I wasn't sure I was going to need it – the area was mostly lit by working fluorescent lights – but I figured it may be darker further in.

I headed into the complex, stepping cautiously past a second set of large double doors. The reception area was huge, with two large two long corridors heading off it; one goes deep into the rock, and the other that seems to run alongside the chasm. Broken glass windows line the chasm wall.

The view from there was amazing. I could see right down into the chasm and in both directions for hundreds of yards. It's seemingly a better angle than what from where I parked the APV. The vehicle is parked up on the bridge, and from up there I couldn’t see much.

There must be twenty or more covered bridges spanning the chasm, joining different sections of the facility. There was so much to explore, but there’s no way I was going to be able to investigate all of it in the time I had.

After wandering around the reception and the offices off that – most of which were filled with crumbling furniture of no use to me – I headed back out to the passage that runs alongside the chasm. There were multiple trails on the floor, leading along the corridor, the same sort left behind in other places. They could clearly be seen heading along the passage to the bridge, not far away, and more heading back. I decided I’d need to follow them and ignore the other paths, and I headed along the windowed walkway until I reached the bridge.

The bridge was covered and the glass was mostly coated in dust, obscuring the view outside, and the same coating of dust was thick on the ground. That made the footprints my mother made much clearer, and I could see that she must have travelled this way and back several times. I don't know if that means she came here once and made several trips, or if she came here several times over the years.

I picked up the pace, crossing the bridge nervously, thinking the whole time that it may collapse, but it was an unwarranted fear. I think I just had the jitters. There was something eerie about crossing a bridge over a dark chasm that seems to have no end. I would have loved to find out what was at the bottom, but I didn't have the time or the equipment to go down there.

The chasm must be a natural fissure of some sort. I don't see why they would have carved all of this out of the rock.

I got to the other side of the bridge and saw that it opened up into what appeared to be a canteen area. There were dozens and dozens of tables and chairs dotted all over the place in a grid. Every one of them was covered in dust, unused for decades – or so I thought. As I made my way around I saw some of the tables had cups and plates on them that had been there as long as the dust, but on one table in the very corner was a small stack of plates and cups that looked like they had been put there more recently, and next to them was a pile of ration packs.

They’d all been eaten.

I stood looking down at the table, frowning at the forty or so empty ration boxes, and an equal amount of plates, and wondered if my mother had used this table.

She must have been in the area for quite a while, because the footprints are all over the place, but not many sets lead back out to where I parked my APV. Something interesting had to be down here. Interesting enough for her to be in this area long enough to eat forty rations.

At the far end of the canteen was a large serving area. As I walked over and peered through, I could see kitchens beyond that. No footprints in there, and it was dark. I moved on.

The footprints mostly went to the table and then headed off into one of the corridors at the other side of the canteen, so I headed that way, stepping carefully over a section of fallen ceiling and into an unlit corridor.

I could see further ahead, maybe forty or fifty yards into the darkness, where the corridor was lit once more. I wasn’t sure why this particular section was unlit, I guess the lights bulbs must have failed after the long years, especially if they'd been left on all that time. They were there a lot of doors off the corridor, but none of them were open, and the first few that I tried were locked, so I ignored them. Eventually, the corridor led down some stairs and I realised I was heading quite deep into the facility, away from my vehicle. I did consider going back but I wanted to know why my mother came down here. Further on I saw something leaning against the wall, and stopped to draw a gun. As I reached it, the outline of a tall box of some kind became visible.

It was a drinks machine, and it was still powered from somewhere. Well, I couldn't resist that. I jabbed hard on a few of the buttons, but they just flashed red, until finally I spotted a cheap cola variant at the very bottom and saw that the button was already lit up green. I pressed the button and heard a satisfying click, followed by thump as a tin can dropped into the bucket at the foot of the machine. I picked up the can, grinning. It was just a cheap cola, but who can argue with that if you're thirsty? I jabbed the button a second time and another can fell into the bucket, but that was it, empty, no matter how many times I used the button.

With the tins safely in my pack, I continued down the corridor, still ignoring closed doors, until I came to a two sets of doors, opposite each other on the corridor, that were open. One of the doors was large, and led into a tall vaulted room. I peered in, squinting at the bright light that hung near the entrance. What I saw there puzzled me. Apart from the bright light near the entrance, the room was massive and not very well lit. Some sections of it still had lights embedded in the ceiling, but in other places the ceiling had collapsed. But it was what was in the room that was puzzling.

Machines. Dozens of them. They were spread apart all over the floor, and each one seemed to be different in some way. I didn’t recognise any of them. Not a single clue. Most were no bigger than a car engine, and all of them had a power cylinder at the top, attached to cabling that snaked across the floor in all directions and eventually leading to a bunch of power generators that line one wall – all of which were switched off.

It was puzzling. I really couldn't make a guess at what they were. Maybe some sort of experimental machines? I've certainly not seen anything like them, and I wouldn’t want to switch one on just to find out. I’m not that adventurous.

But my mother came in here.

Maybe she knew what they were?

I look down on the ground, and followed the footprints around, and saw that my mother had been near most of these machines at some point or other. The footprints trail all round in a grid, going to nearly every machine, and I could see that there were impressions in the dust where she must've knelt down to investigate, so I did the same, but couldn't guess what I was looking at.

There were no desks in the place or lockers that could contain documents that might give me a clue.

I was baffled. Eventually I gave up and headed back out into the corridor. I hoped the other door would be an office, but it was small and empty.

I was about to leave, to head back to the APV, but I noticed a set of footprints heading further down the corridor and back, running along one side and barely visible.

But I’d been side-tracked too long, I thought. I was wasting time. I followed the new set of footprints but sped up, walking briskly down the corridor. There was a set of steep stairs that went down another hundred feet or so.

Then the smell hit me, causing me to almost reel back. I wanted to flee, run away from the stench, but I still pushed on, covering my face with my kerchief and trying not to breathe through my nose.

I hoped that it wasn’t something dead.

I found the source of the smell at the bottom of the stairs and no, it wasn’t a body.

A large pair of double doors stood next to a long line of windows along the left-hand side of the corridor, and the sharp, musty smell was even stronger as stood between them, looking into the darkness.

Damn, it was making my eyes water.

It was a familiar smell, somehow, but I couldn't place it, so rather than going inside, I peered through the first window trying to make out what was beyond.

It was a large area, very large, I thought, but it was so dark I couldn’t see how big. I looked along the wall for any sign of the light panel or a switch, and found neither. Finally, I went to the door and opened it, and I regretted it immediately. I thought the smell had been strong before, but then I nearly retched.

Still no light switch, but my maglight lit up far enough into the dark for me to see what was making the smell.

There, twenty feet away, was the biggest mushroom I've ever seen in my life.

Mushrooms.

Mushroom! Something clicked. There had been mushrooms this size in The Corridor! Now, here they were again, growing in his facility. I took a few steps into the room, double checking the door didn't swing shut behind me, and pointed the maglight around. There were hundreds of the damn things, spread out into the darkness.

A strange thought struck me. Was I in The Corridor now? Was this door an entrance of some kind?

No. It was a stupid idea. I remembered reading about when Rudy and Adler had stepped out of the corridor. JH even wrote about seeing it. Daylight. They had been at ground level, not down some dark bunker. There was no way this was The Corridor.

I contemplated cutting a chunk from one of the mushrooms, but after little thought I realised I wasn’t as desperate as JH had been, especially when they were that odd, pale purplish colour. I don’t remember if JH even mentioned the colour in his journal?

No. I looked at them, wondering if it was worth a try.

But. No.

I wasn’t that hungry.

At least, not yet.

I left the mushroom room and glanced along the corridor. The footprints didn’t lead any further, but I could clearly see the end about a hundred yards away. Another set of double doors.

Curiosity won.

The doors were locked tight, and I tried both pass codes I had used so far on the keypad on the wall next to them – SilverSwift and Turningpoint – but neither worked.

I guessed that my key codes weren't a generic all-access thing.

But I could still see in through the small window on the left door. It looked like some sort of hospital wing. A wide, long corridor led away from the doors, with dozens of small bays off it. There were beds tucked inside some of the bays and, a few feet from the entrance, a drip machine stood gathering dust. Other than that, there was only one more detail, but that one thing was enough to send shivers down my back. About four bays along, on the right side of the wing, I could vaguely make out some dark red stains on the floor tiles, splashed out across the floor as though someone had thrown a bucket of paint down. But my instincts told me differently. That was dried blood, I was sure of it.

It was enough for me. I decided that it was probably best that I couldn't get in there. There might have been some useful medical gear in there, if I broke in and searched, and I did have my guns, but something about that stain made me uneasy.

Time to head back.

I was all the way back to the chasm and halfway across the covered bridge that led away from the canteen when I spotted GhostThing once more.

It was up by the APV, floating, hovering, whatever it did, around the entrance.

I'd left the damn vehicle open. Stupid.

I jogged across the bridge as quickly as I could, stooping low, keeping myself hidden behind the metre-high panels that line side of the bridge, hoping the GhostThing wouldn’t spot me.

Hell, I didn’t even know if the thing could see.

I stopped at the end of the bridge, peering round. Why had I rushed over there? What was I even thinking? I didn’t even know if my gun would affect the thing.

I crouched low and crawled towards the reception area, then peered through a crack in the wood. The gaseous form was still floating next to the entrance to the APV.

Was it waiting for me?

Was it even a living thing?

For ten minutes I lay there, undecided, wondering if I should shoot at the thing. Just as I decided I had to, and reached for my rifle, GhostThing seemed to get bored and floated off across the bridge in the direction the APV faced.

Once it had disappeared into the darkness of the tunnel, I rushed back to the APV, slammed the access panel, ran to the front cab, and switched on the headlights.

Nothing.

It was gone.

Ahead of me, lit up by the bright headlights, was two, maybe three hundred feet of tunnel with no apparent exits.

And the thing was gone. Vanished.

Could it move that fast? Or could it just go through walls? If it was further down the tunnel, then I would have to pass it at some point. Or pass through it.

Somehow I didn’t want to go forward, and I didn’t want to go back. I certainly couldn’t stay there, just because of some strange GhostThing, but I didn’t like it. It wasn’t right.

I wonder. If I was driving fast, and it was in the middle of the path, would I drive right through it?

:: Record Date 30:06:4787 21:11

I didn’t see GhostThing at all in the tunnel.

I pulled over, about halfway through the day, at another terminal on the side of the tunnel. This one hadn’t been used previously, and was coated in dust that wafted up in a cloud when I brushed at it with my hand. Fortunately, I was wearing gloves. It took a minute or so to settle and drift away before I could switch on the screen.

The same password worked there, which was handy and a relief, and it only took me a minute or two to bring up the camera display of the Vehicle Bay and the office, the large front entrance that was already open, and then, finally the inner bunker door.

There was a huge dent in it.

At first I thought it was just my eyes, or a shadow cast over the doors, but no. That was a dent. A big one. I don’t know what they used on a door that thick that could make a dent, but it worked.

:: Record Date 30:06:4787 21:22

Found another stop off. An area that may be offices, so I’m going to go take a look.

:: Record Date 30:06:4787 22:46

Okay, that scared the hell out of me.

The entrance to the area looked undisturbed, and there were no footprints, but for some reason I decided to go in there anyway.

It wasn’t offices, but some sort of storage depot.  A large platform opened out on the other side of the entrance with multiple large doors leading from it. There was a rail track leading between the two, which sloped gradually down into the earth, but no sign of a train or cart.

On either side, next to the large doors, were signs.

Maintenance Depot and Mineral Deposit.

Some kind of mining system?

After I’d visited the labs, a strange thought had been creeping into the back of my mind. What if JH hadn’t built this place? What if it had been here already? I don’t know who could have built it, but this world was destroyed by The Horde long before The Resistance came to it. It was at least possible that the bunker had been built long before.

I took my maglight out again, and walked through the door marked Maintenance Bay. Inside I found a huge open hanger with parking bays along all three facing walls. There were no vehicles there but there were certainly platforms to put them on.

Finding nothing of use, I headed out and crossed the track to the Mineral Deposit. Inside, rows and rows of huge trolleys, all of them automated, or they would be if they were switched on, were crammed into various large rooms. Beyond that, further down the corridor – which, by the way, seemed to go on forever – was a massive arched vault room with piles and piles of grey rocks. I examined some of the rocks from the nearest pile and thought it may be coal, but they seemed more solid, and there are flecks inside the rocks the looked silver, or maybe a lighter metal. Maybe even crystal.

I couldn’t be sure in the dim light provided by the maglight. So I took one of the rocks with me; I'm not sure why. Was I expecting to learn something from a rock? Not without the right equipment.

Curiosity, I guess.

I was just leaving when I heard the hissing noise coming from down the corridor.

I’d just reached the entrance, and was heading back towards the APV, when the hiss, faint, but still audible, came from the darkness behind me. I spun around, pointing my weapon into the darkness. About a hundred feet away, where the light from my maglight faded out, I saw the dark wafting shape of the GhostThing floating out from the wall.

I ran, blundering out of the doors towards the APV, jumped in, slammed the door shut – I seem to be doing that a lot –  fired up the APV and headed off along the tunnel, glad to be away from whatever the thing was.

I didn’t even want to know to know what it was.

Leave it for the Vigilants to discover.

It may be harmless, of course, but it gives me the creeps. I'm not sure how I could possibly defend myself from such a thing. I don't even know how it would react to being shot at, and if the blasts from my shredder had no effect on it, then what?

It occurred to me as I was driving away – how could it attack me? Maybe I should grab one of those re-breather masks that I saw underneath the shelf at the back of the APV. Would wearing one of those stop it? Though I saw the way it slithered out of the vehicle, and I think I just saw it go through a wall.

I don't like the thought of it going into my ears or my eyes.

I wonder if my mother knew about this GhostThing.

:: Record Date 31:06:4787 22:52

I’ve spent the last day ignoring the areas that I keep passing, but it all looks so interesting. I’d love to stop and discover what secrets lie within, but the tracks of the previous APV don’t stop anywhere, and haven’t for quite a while. So, reluctantly, I’m just following. Also, I want to put some distance between me and the GhostThing. If I just keep going, surely it will be that far behind that it won’t be able to catch up with me?

I did stop at another security booth to check the situation at the entrance, and found just what I’d expected. The debris from the blast had been cleared away and the entranceway, where the vehicle bay was, was still crawling with people, still, and they aren’t all Vigilants. Before the video stream was cut off, I saw techs and admin uniforms. I think I also caught a view of some Outriders.

The inner door still hasn’t budged, though, so they are still stuck outside. They will undoubtedly get through and inside the bunker soon.

I really am running out of time very rapidly.

:: Record Date 01:07:4787 19:48

End of the line for the APV, it would seem.

Just when I was starting to consider ditching the APV and attempting to head into one of the areas that I keep passing in the hope of finding some way out, or at least somewhere to hide, I saw the missing APV up ahead.

I’d noticed during the last few miles of tunnels that the walls were starting to look a lot more degraded. There was still no lighting in any of the areas, but at least the ground wasn’t broken up, but the last two stations looked like some of the buildings in the ruined cities that we run missions in. It hadn’t occurred to me that JH could have had this facility built centuries ago; he was certainly old enough to have done that. Some of these areas, just like the ones I’ve been passing, could be so old that entire generations had passed as they lay there, unused.

The last stop off, where I pulled up behind the APV that my mother (I hope) had used, looked older still.

The station platform was larger than most that I’d seen, and the front panel windows had been smashed long ago. Dirt and grime lay inches thick on the broken concrete platform, and as I stepped out, handguns ready, something small scuttled away into the darkness between the cracks in the ground.

The other APV was parked right in the middle of the platform, and its side doors were wide open. Dust had gathered over the last decade or more, since my mother had been here, but there were those same footprints that I recognised. The smaller ones that I still hoped were hers.

I checked inside the vehicle and found it just as dusty. Cobwebs, which I avoided, clung in large clusters in the corners. I’ve no idea what kind of spider can make webs that size, but I don’t want to go anywhere near it.

The APV was pretty much empty anyway. My mother, if indeed it was her, had taken everything with her.

Out on the platform, I looked back up the tunnel from where I had come, my stomach churning as I dreaded seeing lights flickering over the walls, but there was nothing.

Water dripped constantly from the ceiling above the station platform, and the trickle formed a small stream that had worn away a path leading to a drain a few dozen yards away.

The platform was about thirty feet wide and ended with a large gaping doorway that opened up to a slope leading down into the darkness. There were footprints in the dirt leading away down the slope.

I’d hoped to keep the APV. It’s stocked with so many supplies that I could last months, but that was obviously not what was going to happen. My mother didn’t come back to her APV, at least not that I can see. Whatever was down that slope was what she came to find the last time she visited here.

Now that I come to think about it, it’s strange. Most of the other stations, apart from the last few, had her footprints going backwards and forwards, like she had visited the areas a lot of times, but not this one. Only one set led away, down into the darkness.

I presume she must have come to the bunker a number of times before finally being forced to flee, and part of me was excited, but I also dreaded what I may find down the tunnel.

She only went in, not out.

I’m going to load up one of the trolleys with as much stuff as I can and head down there.

:: Record Date 01:07:4787 20:11

Well, that plan didn’t work out so well.

I got about a hundred yards down the tunnel when the debris started to build up. At first it was just dirt and the occasional pile of broken masonry, and I had no trouble following the footprints as they threaded their way through, but then I came upon the first collapse.

An entire section of the wall had fallen into the tunnel, nearly blocking the way completely, and the footprints ended at the pile of rubble. I could see there was a small gap in one corner, big enough for me to climb through, but there was no way the trolley was coming with me.

So there went most of my supplies, unless I get the chance to come back.

It took me a few minutes to rummage through my stuff, split out what I really needed (mostly food and batteries) and fill up the two rucksacks. I climbed up the rubble, pushed the rucksacks through the gap, and crawled through.

On the other side, using my headlamp to light the way and already missing the bright lights of the trolley, I found the footprints once more. The collapsed tunnel continued for about thirty yards, at which point the slope ended in another bunker door similar to the entrance I’d found at the bottom of the maintenance shaft.

The door was wide open and led into what looked like a small foyer of some sort. The room was still large, easily forty feet across, with a crumbling counter opposite the entrance. More debris littered the floor, and I could see holes in the walls that looked like blast marks. A battle had taken place here, leaving the whole area a crumbling ruin of collapsing walls and broken furniture, but as I examined all three rooms coming off the main entrance I could tell that whoever fought here did so a long time ago, way before my mother came here.

Her footprints were all over the place, leading from one room to another. In the first room, off to the right, was the largest room, and I would say it was a supply storage of some sort because there was shelving lining every wall, most of it still packed with boxes and crates covered in dust. In the centre of the storage was a makeshift campsite. Boxes taken down from the shelves were built up to surround the spot that was littered with empty ration packages and a curled line of cabling my mother must have plugged into something, maybe a heater, but whatever it was had gone with her.

The second room was an office, though it had been turned over and destroyed. Most of the furniture was broken, except for a large table that had been dragged into the middle of the room. Papers and books were stacked up on it, along with all manner of documentation. A single chair nestled underneath the table. I glanced down at the papers strewn across the cracked, scratched surface and spotted one piece of paper that my mother must have looked at last. A large red circle was scrawled around a bunch of numbers that looked like coordinates.

And two words in big red letters.

FOUND IT.

The last room was the most impressive.

The room was mostly empty apart from a platform in the middle and a console a dozen feet away from it. Cables snaked and twisted all over the floor, plugged into sockets on the wall. Boxes were stacked against the far wall.

The platform was the most curious. It looked like a much smaller version of the ones used in Evac, at the staging grounds, to open gateways and transport vehicles and people to other places on expeditions.

And that made my heart start thumping.

This was a gateway. A door. A way to travel to other places.

And although I wasn’t skilled at electronics, I was very familiar with setting up portals after my many outbound trips. Whenever we reached a new world to investigate, we always had to set up our return journey. And that meant taking it with us, packed in boxes, and wiring it up when we got there.

I knew how to operate one of these.

:: Record Date 01:07:4787 20:46

After making three journeys back along the corridor to grab a few things from the APV, I shut the main doors to the complex before I started work, trying to get the gateway going again. Most of the cabling had been pulled out of various sockets and either thrown randomly on the floor, or plugged into entirely the wrong socket on a different box. Was my mother trying to confuse whoever found this? I presume it had been my mother, since she would have been that last person to come here, and the red scrawls on the papers in the other room were her handwriting.

But why would she mess it all up like that if she wanted me to follow her?

Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. How could I not have thought of something so obvious?

I was part way through rewiring it all when it occurred to me that it had been left as it was after my mother last used it. It didn’t make sense, since a lot of the wiring should make the machine inoperable, but she had used it, surely. There I was, putting everything back the way I thought it should be, and it only just occurred to me that she actually used it the way it was. She couldn’t come back afterwards and change it. I’m an idiot.

I put the wiring back as she had left it, and looked at the activation switch.

It doesn’t make sense! How could it possibly work? It was either going to do nothing, or blow up, or something worse. Is there worse?

I finally decided to just flip the switch.

It wasn’t like I really had much choice, was it?

There was a satisfyingly loud click and a hum and the thing switched on.

This is crazy.

It shouldn’t possibly be working, but it was.

But that made no difference. There was no glowing entrance hovering in the middle of the platform because the moment the machine jumped to life, an error message appeared on the display unit next to me.

UNABLE TO LOCK TARGET LOCATION. NO VALID DESTINATION.

Damn location memory on the box was completely wiped. I guess fifteen years unplugged wore the internal batteries down.

So I had a working portal but it wasn’t pointing anywhere. I also didn’t have any coordinate records with me to put into the damn thing, so I wasn’t like I was going to get out of the bunker by opening a door to a house or anywhere convenient like that. Anyway, that wouldn’t have helped me find my mother, would it?

So back to my mother’s notes and the scrawled red numbers.

Coordinates to whoever knows where.

:: Record Date 01:07:4787 21:01

I’m going back to grab one last lot of supplies.

:: Record Date 01:07:4787 21:22

I swear I just heard that same hissing noise down the corridor. I’m back out at the APV, near the entrance, with my gun ready and the trolley behind me stacked up with gear.

I did hear something.

Looking down both ways I can't see any movement but both directions end in darkness after about a hundred yards or so.

That GhostThing, whatever it is, has followed me all the way here. I’m sure of it. I was hoping that because I travelled quickly for quite a distance after finding the mining area and seeing the creature there, I might have left it behind. But that noise was the same noise it made when I saw it down the corridor near the Mineral Depot, I’m positive of that. It had to be.

But I can’t see anything. There’s no movement.

Nothing.

This thing is seriously giving me the jitters.

If only I knew what it was.

Strange thing is, when I was in the APV, it was hovering over me and then it left; it didn’t harm me.

Maybe it can’t? I don't know.

I still have that horrific thought of the thing crawling all over me.

I wish I knew what it was.

I need to get moving, need to get back inside the area down the corridor, maybe check if I can seal one of those doors. Then maybe it won’t get through.

:: Record Date 01:07:4787 21:35

Okay. I’m back at the portal area and locked in, now. The outer doors do lock, which was probably a good idea, anyway. Even if it doesn’t keep out the GhostThing it will delay the Vigilants when they get here.

I’m going back over what I found of my mother's notes, which are quite extensive. If only I had the time to go through them properly. Whatever happens now, I’m taking them with me, so that I can at least try to understand when I have the time to stop and read them without worrying about being hunted down or haunted by some ghost.

I put the coordinates in, the ones my mother scrawled next to the red writing, and fired up the portal. With a hum, it appeared there, right in front of me.

An actual portal entrance to somewhere.

But where did it lead? What if my mother stepped through and died? What if it went into solid rock, or a thousand feet in the air? Or worse, some planet without atmosphere? She was sure she got the coordinates right, or so the big red words suggest, but how am I supposed to know if she did?

I could have come all this way only to die the same way she did.

It’s the setup of the machine that has me worried. It’s all wrong. It shouldn’t work, but it does.

:: Record Date 01:07:4787 21:56

I just spent the last half an hour going back over the notes and everything else written down again, trying to convince myself that this won’t be suicide.

I’m no more convinced than I was, but I’m going to do it anyway.

You see, they got through. The doors are open and Vigilants are everywhere.

Just as I expected they would.

If I’m honest, I didn't expect them to take quite so long to do it, but they’re in.

I’d been too busy trying to follow my mother’s notes, hoping to come to the same conclusion she had about the coordinates, but I have no idea what any of it means. I wasn’t a portal tech and she had been. Well, I’d finally decided that whether she was right or not, I still had to go, when there was movement on the vid cam in the corner of the room.

Let me clarify. These terminals that I’ve been stopping at along the tunnels are security outposts – or were. I figured that much out myself. There was one of them in the corner of the office that my mother had turned into her research room, already fixed on the inner door like she had watched it too. Though I don’t suppose she had the same worries. It’s not like they followed her down here.

Anyway, it was pointed towards the inner door, and I saw them take the damn thing out. It must have been some form of arc drill, a heavy duty laser. Something like that would have taken ages to set up. But I had no way of knowing because when I changed the camera view, hoping to see inside the vehicle bay, I found all the other camera views that I’d been using to spy on them were no longer operating. I’d been busted.

And now they were in the bunker. My time was now finite.

It was with these thoughts that I heard the hiss behind me.

I spun round, turning away from the terminal, to look straight into the dark, floating mass, barely a foot away from me. I tried to take a step back, but hit the desk with the terminal on it. I reached for my gun but realised it was on the other side of the room, on the desk where I put it. Stupid.

My heart was thumping again, thudding even harder than it had been when I ran from the thing the last time.

Then I took a deep breath.

I couldn’t help it. It was a natural reaction. Nowhere to run, need to grab my gun, deep breath.

There was a brief burning pain in my chest, and then the pain was gone, but at the same time the entire bulk of the gaseous cloud floating in the room just inches from me, was disappearing, being sucked in as I breathed in. I staggered again, but this time to my side, my head swimming, dizzy. The cloud was gone.

It was inside me.

I coughed, retching, but there was nothing stopping me breathing. I still thought I would die, that the gaseous form would choke me, but nothing happened. I fell to my knees, grabbing my throat to feel if there was anything wrong there, but there was no pain. The dizziness abated, and I stood up, shocked.

I'd swallowed the damn thing.

“That's better,” said a voice.

I lifted my gun, spinning around the room, searching for the intruder, but there was no one there.

There was a laugh, soft but cheerful, almost mocking, but again I could see no one.

“Stop panicking,” said the voice. It was a woman’s voice, young, maybe a few years older than me, at a guess. Maybe younger. I couldn’t tell. What I could tell was that it was coming from nowhere.

“Where are you?” I shouted.

“Um…inside you,” replied the voice. “Don't worry. I’m sure this is perfectly safe. I think.”

I staggered again, unable to rid myself of the crawling sensation all over me. The thing was inside me.

And it was talking?

“You’re in…” I stammered.

“Yes,” said the voice. “Yes. Come on. Let’s get this bit over with. This is where you freak out and scream or something, right? I probably would, to be honest. So go for it. Get it all out. Let’s consider this therapy.”

I felt like screaming but didn’t. “Who... What are you?” I asked.

“What am I?” replied the voice. It sounded annoyed, insulted. “What? I’m not a thing, you know.”

“W—who are you?” I asked. How was it talking?

“Ilya,” said the voice. “Pleased to meet you.”

Ilya. What was that? My head was spinning, confused.

“What?”

“Ilya,” replied the voice.

“Ilya,” I replied.

There was a pause.

“Well?” asked the voice.

“What?”

“What’s your name, you fool. Oh, God. Did I find an idiot? All this time, waiting, and when I finally find someone, it’s an idiot.”

My brain was spinning, unable to catch up. “I’m not an idiot,” I replied. “I’m Connor.”

“Connor. Nice to meet you,” said the voice in my head called Ilya.

“Connor Halldon,” I said.

Another pause.

“Woah. Say that again, buddy,” said the voice.

“Say what?” I replied. I looked around, my vision clearing, no longer flooded with darkness. I spotted a chair a few feet away and stumbled to sit on it.

“Connor Halldon, as in Halldon?” asked the Ilya voice. I thought it sounded mistrusting.

“Yes,” I said.

“Like, Halldon, as in James Halldon, Joshua Halldon, all those folks.”

“Yes,” I replied. “James Halldon was my great…erm…great-grandfather. Or something like that.”

“Something like that?” replied the Ilya voice. “You’re all famous and it’s just something like that?”

“I’m not famous,” I said. “I guess he was.”

“Oh, sure he was,” said the Ilya voice.

“You’re talking in my head,” I said. “I’ve gone mad.”

“No, you’re not mad. But yes, I’m really in here,” said the voice. “Oh, unless a side-effect is that it sends you mad. I never thought of that. Hmm.”

“You have to get out,” I said.

“Ah. Problem with that is I didn’t know I could get in in the first place,” said the Ilya voice. “And I have absolutely no idea how to get out.”

I turned to look back at the terminal. It was still on, and as I flicked through the various camera views, trying to take my mind off my intruder, I saw Vigilants hurrying around the rooms of the storage area that I had found.

I cursed.

“Not friends of yours, then?” asked the Ilya voice.

It can see out of my eyes?

“No,” I replied. I decided I wasn’t going to let my mind completely leave me, so I would keep the conversation with this Ilya thing to a minimum.

:: Record Date 01:07:4787 22:26

“Come on. I know you're angry with me,” said the Ilya voice.

I was ignoring it, trying to figure out how long it would take the Vigilants to get here. Two days, if they are fast, so I had time, but I also had problems other than this thing in my head.

“Look, I’m sorry,” it said. “But it’s not like it wasn’t your fault, really. I mean, I didn’t know you were going to breathe me in like that. I was as surprised as you.”

“Can you just please stop talking?” I asked.

I must be going mad. I’m talking to it now. I keep telling myself that, but I know it's not really true. This thing in my head was real, but for it to have a name and a voice is… I don’t know what it is.

Vigilants are now moving throughout the outer areas of the complex. I brought up the security cameras near the entrance to this smaller area after I'd sealed the main doors. I know those doors won't keep them out for very long when they do finally make their way here. But I’ve got to try.

I’ve already decided I’m going through the portal, especially since I’ve already thrown a lot of my gear through, but the problem is where it leads to. That bit will be what it will be, but when I go through I don’t want the Vigilants following me.

I have to figure out how to stop them.

I have no explosives. I can’t wreck the machines before using them, because it won’t work for me to pass through.

After some thought, I set the security camera to rotate swiftly through as many cameras as I could find, and sat watching it for a while.

“Oh, they found the stores already,” said the Ilya voice.

With the Ilya’s voice constantly chattering about every new discovery, the two of us, we – I mean I – sat watching the screen change. I spotted them on three different cameras. They’d spread out, heading down different routes, but some of them were definitely following my trail. A large group, maybe a dozen of them, from what I could see, moving very fast and using quad bikes to zip down the tunnels. So my original thoughts that I would have a four-day head start on them is probably not very likely. Maybe I have a day.

I'm pretty sure I saw a tracking drone flying ahead of one of the groups.

:: Record Date 02:07:4787 04:31

The tracking drone is outside the door.

Already.

Damn it. Those things move so fast when they have a trail to follow. It must have picked up on the APV tracks and my footprints.

Good job it has no way to get in and no armaments.

Still means I’m stuck in here now, and I can hear the digital babble the thing makes even through the doors.

I’m so glad I locked that door shut.

:: Record Date 02:07:4787 06:28

“What do you mean?” I asked the Ilya voice. “You were a person once?”

“I do have a name, you know,” Ilya said.

“Sorry,” I replied. I didn’t know why I was apologising to a thing that jumped into my head. Then it occurred to me.

“Can you hear me thinking?” I asked.

“No,” replied the Ilya voice. “Probably a good thing, yes?”

I didn’t reply to that. “So, you were a person?” I asked again.

“Yes,” Ilya said. “I mean, I was once, though it was a long time ago. I've been stuck down here, like this, since the experiment went badly wrong,”

“Experiment?” That made me a little nervous.

“Yes,” it continued. “Well, we tested a lot of equipment down here. You know, new inventions and upgraded machinery. You've probably seen some of them.  I know you saw some of them.”

“Huh?”

“I saw you cross the bridge to go and look in the labs,” she said.

“You did?” So much for my covert skills. “I thought I was sneaky.”

“Not so much,” Ilya replied. “Good effort, though.” I think the latter comment was just to avoid offending me.

I sat there, stewing over the documents my mother had left behind, silently waiting for the Ilya voice to carry on.

“Well, I was helping on one of the experiments when it went a little messy. I thought I was dead, but I kind of ended up floating around like this with everyone freaking out.”

“You were a scientist, then?” I asked.

“No, I was a trooper, a guard. I used to accompany the scientists and help carry the kit, set it up, guard the area and make sure no critters got anywhere near them. When they were testing the latest phase chamber, I was…”

The Ilya voice stopped talking. I waited for a minute or so, but realised she wasn’t going to continue.

“You were too close,” I suggested.

“Pretty much,” Ilya voice said.

After that, the Ilya voice was quiet for a long time.

I’m presuming it’s a she, for the moment. I don’t know if the voice is something my own mind is creating, but I’m going with it. Anyway, I think she’s gone deep into thought, or something like that. Maybe thinking about the accident has depressed her. I think it would do that to me. To be honest, it doesn’t bother me, as cold as that may seem. I have no reason to like this voice in my head.

I know that sounds terrible.

I can’t help it. I’m just happy not to have a voice in my head, though I suppose that just saying this into this recorder might spark it off at any minute. Somehow I think the Ilya voice went deep inside somewhere, hiding, and can’t hear me, otherwise it would reply.

Now I'm trying not to think about wherever it is right now. Inside my head. I don't think it's anywhere where my thoughts are.

I need to concentrate on how to stop the Resistance Vigilants from following me through the portal. It’s a one-way trip, I presume, so whatever I’m going to do will have to happen on this side.

“How can I stop them?” I asked myself.

“Who?” asked the Ilya voice.

Damn. Ilya voice is back. Oh well, here goes nothing.

“I’m being followed by Vigilants,” I said.

“Oh,” Ilya voice replied. “That’s why they are searching and in such a hurry?”

“Yes,” I said.

“You let them in?” Ilya voice said, sounding surprised.

“I didn’t exactly mean to,” I said.

“Well that was stupid.”

“Hey,” I shouted, then realised I didn’t need to. I was effectively shouting at myself. “I was followed, okay? They tracked me and were hunting me. I found this bunker by accident.”

“Alright, alright. Don’t get your pants all twisted up,” Ilya voice said.

“What? Don’t what?”

“Calm down,” said the voice. “There has to be a way out of this. Give me a situation report.”

Like now she was in command.

“Okay,” I said. “I was followed here.”

“I know that bit,” said Ilya.

“You’re really starting to annoy me.”

“Sorry, I’ll shut up,” she said.

I stood up, and started pacing the room, waving my arms around. Frustration mostly. “So they followed me, and now they’re in here. There’s a tracking drone outside, and I have about a day before they get all the way through the facility and reach here.”

“Go through the portal,” she said.

“Yes,” I replied. “I intend to, but I need to somehow stop them following me. I can’t think how. I need a way to shut the thing down, or even put it out of action permanently, but I need it to happen after I go through.”

There was silence for a long time. I was about to speak again when Ilya cut in.

“I have an idea,” she said. “But you may not like it very much.”

:: Record Date 02:07:4787 08:04

I can’t believe that worked.

Firstly, how.

I was sitting in the middle of the larger room – the one with the gate platform in the middle – listening to the noises outside the entrance room. The damn tracking drone was making enough racket that I couldn’t help but hear it. I wished there was a camera looking out into the passageway outside, but there isn’t. The security camera must be broken. It wouldn’t matter anyway.

“Go on,” I said, after the Ilya voice suggested it had a plan.

“You can blow it all up,” Ilya said.

“What?” I replied. “Are you crazy? Why would I try that?”

“A delayed and controlled explosion,” she replied. “Finish getting all your gear through the portal, set it off, and run for it. BOOM.”

The BOOM part was loud in my head.

“Sorry,” she said.

I thought about the idea for a moment. It would work but there was one small problem.

“I don’t have any explosives,” I said.

There was a laugh, and I thought I heard it in the room, but it had to be in my head.

“Of course you do,” said Ilya, when she had stopped laughing at me.

She is very annoying.

“I don’t,” I insisted.

“Yes, you do,” she said. “You have four shredder guns, all of which have batteries. And I bet you have a bunch more in those packs that you stole from the stores.”

I frowned. I was about to remark that it wasn’t stealing, but couldn’t be bothered to argue. “And how does that help?”

Silence for a moment.

“You know, I do wonder what folks are teaching kids these days,” she said. “In the Journal of JH, he opens the battery, twists the wires and throws it. It explodes. It’s a standard, last stand, tactic.”

Of course.

“He also does it later, on the wall in The Corridor, to get rid of a Shambler Storm.”

“I remember,” I said.

I also remembered during training that we were shown the damage that could be done by one of those things being set off, and we were also told that under no circumstances were we to meddle with the batteries in that way. Apparently, or so my instructor told me, there were numerous accounts of major injuries, and even deaths, caused by people emulating JH’s use of batteries in the journal.

I even had spare batteries.

I even remembered the technique that JH mentioned using in his diary. It involved short circuiting a power battery for a shredder. So there I was, looking for a way to stop the resistance from following me through the portal, and it was right there all along. I just needed to have the guts to do it. Oh, and a GhostThing to remind me.

Of course, she knew all about how to do it anyway and insisted on detailed, step by step, instructions. I was impatient, and grumpy, but really, I was relieved that she was taking me through it, even if it creeped me out that she could see through my eyes.

Blowing up a shredder battery can take down buildings, and if I was honest, I didn’t want to injure any of the troops following me, even though I had been shot at a number of times. I was one of them, not long ago, and they were only following orders.

So, I checked back through the diary, yet again, grabbed one of the spare shredder batteries, and prised off the side. It was exactly as described, and exactly as Ilya rambled about.

I guess they still made them the same.

I stood there, right in front of my one-way escape, holding the battery in my hand and swallowing nervously.

Should I just wait? Let the Vigilants trying to break in get through and arrest me? I don’t know why I was questioning my resolve, at that particular time, but it was there. I didn’t know if I wanted to continue.

A buzzing sounding behind me snapped me out of my fears and into action. The damn drone was chirping away again, but it reminded me that my time was running out.

“Let’s do it,” shouted Ilya. “Go, soldier!”

It was the strangest thing I’ve ever done. I pinched and changed the wires, as Ilya explained, felt the heat rising in my palm, and heard the low whining sounds beginning, then I ran forward, dropped the battery on the floor and jumped through the portal.

I fell onto solid ground, instinctively covering my ears, and waited for the explosion.

But there wouldn’t be one, would there?

After a few seconds I rolled onto my back and stared into complete darkness. I felt a stabbing pain in my side, and rolled sideways, pushing myself up onto my knees.

It was pitch black.

“Are you still there?” I asked.

I waited in the darkness. But there was no reply from Ilya.

I waited some more.

“Ilya?” I asked. “Are you there?”

I sat there in the dark for a long time, my eyes gradually adjusting to the gloom, but it didn't really help that much. Wherever I was, it was void of light. I thought about GhostThing, the Ilya voice. A woman who worked for JH way back, maybe.

She was gone.

Dead? Had she not come through?

The first person I met that was mildly on my side, and now she was gone.

I hadn’t even been very nice to her.

I never thanked her for helping. I was too busy thinking about how I hated having her in my head.

I had to focus. Had to get moving. But a pang of sadness was there, unmovable.

As I felt around me, I realised that I’d landed on my own pile of gear. The floor underneath me was concrete, or something else flat and smooth. I couldn’t find my head lamp; I must have taken it off at some point. Eventually I located my maglight. It had been among the gear that I’d thrown through before setting off the battery. I flicked it on and shone the light around me.

I was in a large room, about thirty feet across, with concrete walls and ceiling and just one door that stood half-open. My gear was scattered haphazardly across the floor, obviously landing randomly as I’d thrown it through the portal.

But where the hell was I? Was I still in the bunker? Maybe another area far underground? Or was I in a building somewhere else?

I could be anywhere.

I drew one of my shredders and headed to the door, deciding that I could collect my stuff when I had a better idea of my location.

Peering out through the already open door revealed a small entranceway with two other doors leading off it. The first was a bunk room, with two sets of bunk beds, and the last was a much smaller room mostly filled with trash. The bunks were covered in a thick layer of dust, as was the trash room.

At the end of the small entranceway was a circular hatch. It was wide open. I peered out cautiously, wondering what the hell I would see out there.

A ladder. It appeared to lead up into more darkness, but I thought I could see some light up there, though it was faint. It was a shaft, and there didn’t appear to be any other direction to go in – just up the ladder.

I went back into the larger room, gathered up some of my stuff, and headed up. I’d have to come back and get the rest if I found something to carry it in, but right now I wasn’t going to try and haul it all up the ladder. Just my rucksack, weapons, basic gear.

I reached the top and found a small ledge leading out onto yet another ladder, but this one didn't go up very far, maybe another ten feet, before it reached a circular hole at the top. That was where the faint light was coming from. Below that, puzzlingly, the second ladder went down into yet more darkness and I could smell something awful wafting up to me.

I climbed the last ten feet and rolled onto my back outside the shaft…onto an old road surrounded by even older looking buildings. My heart started thumping in my chest, my nerves on edge. It was night, and there were no stars in the sky. I was standing in the middle of long road lined with houses that had been abandoned a long time ago. Just thirty or so feet away, across the road, was the first of a row of empty shops, some boarded up and some just left with gaping holes where windows would once have been.

It was as I scanned the street, gun in hand, that I settled upon a rusted and cracked street sign forty feet away, barely hanging from the wall on one rusted bolt.

Charleston Way.

:: Record Date 02:07:4787 08:44

I can’t believe I’m actually here. I’m in The Corridor, actually in the place that JH was trapped in, and CutterJack.

This is really it.

And it’s much stranger than even the journals depict it. And even weirder is how untouched it is. I resisted the urge to explore immediately, still paranoid that The Resistance could burst into the place at any moment. I have no guarantee that my planned explosion actually went off, and no way to check it, so I wanted to get everything out of there as soon as I could. And boy was that an effort. I hauled all the gear out and dumped it just inside the front porch of a building nearby. It had a door that I could pull shut but there was no way to secure it. I’d just have to chance it. I moved everything essential that I thought I could carry into just three rucksacks, one I could wear and the others I could carry. Everything else would have to stay here unless I could find a way to move it, which I thought was unlikely, so planned for the eventuality of not returning. Most of it was junk anyway.

And now what? I hadn’t expected to get here so soon. I’m not sure where I was expecting to end up, but straight into The Corridor wasn’t it. My mother must have somehow found something, the coordinates maybe. She’d have to have found them. Thinking back, I remembered a section in the journal that mentioned a way to get to the bunker, but I thought it had been through the shop that is just down the road, not straight into the bunker. Somehow my mother found details of how to get there. The very same bunker that my great grandmother, Abegail, had hidden in with Chione and Andre, my grandparents.

I guess all she needed after that was to get access to a portal, and it seems that she found that eventually.

The urge to explore is overwhelming. I’ve read the journals over and over, and now, if I choose to, I could go and visit every single place that JH went to. The Junkyard, the shack up near the waterfall, The Warrens. All of these places should, if they just sealed the place up and left, still be here.

I grabbed my rucksacks and headed to the nearest place on a very long list of tourist locations that I could visit – the house on Merriwether. The house Professor Adler had occupied during his time in The City.

I was in The City!

:: Record Date 02:07:4787 09:38

The streets are quieter than I could imagine, not a single sound, and the light is odd, kind of sourceless, apart from small clusters of what look like mutated plants that pop up here and there through the broken cobbles. They’re a weird colour, sort of green and sort of blue at the same time, and glowing.

I’m not going to touch them.

When I turned into Merriwether I had this strange feeling in my gut and a tickle of something cold down my spine. This was where it all happened. The fight with CutterJack. The discoveries at the house.

But which house was it?

I walked down the street, looking for an open window with music playing, but none of the windows on the top floors were open. From what I could remember, the house would be about half way down the street.

So I decided to go around the back, into the alleyways, gun drawn just in case there were things about. I had no idea if there would still be Shamblers or Kre’esh in here, after all these years, but I wasn’t going to risk being unprepared. At least I was armed to take them on.

From what I remembered of JH’s tale, he shut the place up and then escaped out the back window. That was how I’d have to find the house.

Look for the rope. It should still be dangling there. I hope.

The alley was pitch black and none of the ambient light, coming from wherever it came from, pervaded the long path, but I could see something through there, a faint glimmer of the light on the other street. I edged forward, pointing my flashlight into the darkness. Junk was piled up against the walls, and as I made my way slowly through it, I wondered who had put it there. It had to have been there a long time, but there was no smell coming from it. It mostly comprised of stack up boxes, some cardboard that were collapsing and falling apart and others made of wood. Crates. They had to contain something, but my curiosity was overridden by my need to get into the house.

I eventually came out on the other side, covered in cobwebs and dust. I was pretty sure I saw something crawling around on the ground while I was making my way through the short tunnel, but I moved away quickly, preferring not to think about it or get any closer.

The alleyway was wider than I had imagined from JH’s description, but it was piled high with junk, just as it had been when he escaped from here.

Bingo! I spotted the rope hanging from the partially open window of the fourth house in the row. The gate was already open – well, falling off its hinges, I’d say. It was half hanging off, and about a quarter of it was on the ground a few feet away.

I headed forward, stepping over a pile of trash bags, and then stopped. On the ground in front of me, half against the wall and half across the alleyway, was a very dead thing.

A Kre’esh, I thought. It was one of CutterJack’s LizardThings, and it was very decayed. I could make out the texture of the creature’s skin, but most of it had rotted away. I stepped around it, my mind racing with thoughts that hadn’t occurred to me before that moment. Kre’esh wandered this place, and Shamblers – what JH called zombies. I’d encountered both, many times.

I had to stay alert.

I edged into the yard behind the house and headed over to the rope, gave it a quick tug to check that it was still secure, and started climbing, finally falling into the room on the top floor of the house twenty seconds later.

:: Record Date 02:07:4787 11:12

The house is almost completely empty.

Everything is gone.

No books on the shelves, no machine in the basement, nothing. When they sealed up this place they must have come in here and taken everything. I could understand why. If they wanted to stop someone from researching what may really have happened in the past, it made sense to clean the place out, and, I suppose, The Resistance in Evac City would want everything that would have been here for the central archive.

The beds in the other rooms were still there, though, and when I saw the first one I felt my eyes drooping. I had forgotten how tired I was. I pulled down the window, checked that the front door was bolted, shut myself in the room at the top and flopped onto the bed.

But I couldn’t sleep.

I had too much going round my head, especially the knowledge of what may be in the next street. I had to go and see.

So, after an hour of trying to sleep and failing, I opened the front door and left it unlocked, then headed back through the alleyway and into the street beyond the next row of houses.

This was where JH ran to escape the Kre’esh, and as I stepped out I saw the manhole cover, still upside down from when he had dropped down into the sewers. Almost reluctantly I turned, looking the other way down the street, knowing full well what I should see there.

In the distance, about a hundred yards away, was the cross that Dha’mir had been hung on. It still stood there, in the middle of the street, still upright after all these years. I walked towards it, squinting to make out more detail through the mist that hung in the street, and then stopped fifty yards away, staring, unnerved and shocked.

Because there was no body hanging from the cross.

I ran forward and stopped just a few feet away, searching the ground around the cross. Nothing. The dried up remains of Kre’esh were all around the cross, but there was no evidence that Dha’mir had ever been there.

Had someone come back and taken him? They must have. JH shot him in the head, didn’t he? That’s what the journal said. He’d killed him, and a shot to the head would surely be fatal. The creature couldn’t recover from that. No way.

I headed back to the house, went back inside, and sat on the stairs in the hall, pondering what to do next. I could head to the shack. I had enough details in the journal to attempt to find it, or I could go where I expect my mother would have gone.

She’d have gone straight to the portal on the hill, where CutterJack had escaped.

Ten minutes later, after a trudge back to the house where I’d stashed some of my stuff rather than carry it all with me, I was walking out of The City, leaving behind the mystery of Dha’mir and the empty house. I could think of no reason to head to the shack, or even to the Junkyard. It would just be curiosity slowing me down.

:: Record Date 02:07:4787 11:30

Saw something very odd as I was heading away from The City. I’m not even sure what it was. As I stepped down from the cobbled pavement onto the broken ground that marks where the built up area ends, I noticed movement. It was just on the edge of my vision. I stopped, raising my gun, thinking that something had caught sight of me – a Kre’esh or a Shambler, maybe. But when I looked along the row of houses I saw a bright flash of movement duck into an alleyway about midway along the row of houses that face away from The City, looking out towards the dark flatlands.

Then the movement was gone.

I don’t know what it was, but it meant that there was something still wandering around in here, and that couldn’t be good.

Must get moving. Must reach the portal and leave here. There are so many secrets, so much of the past, hidden in this dark place. The urge to go and explore them, see them for myself, is almost overwhelming, but the longer I stay here, the longer it will take me to find my mother.

I don’t remember any glowing nasty things from JH’s diary.

:: Record Date 02:07:4787 11:41

It’s following me. I’m moving faster now, heading across the barren wasteland that JH described in his travels.

The land beyond The City is eerie. The ground is hard and cracked, with no strange plants growing on it, but there is still some light. I thought of JH coming this way, and of my mother after him, and then wondered who else? Had others followed the trail? They must have, trying to find JH and the others.

I can see the glow in the distance. It’s a long way behind me, but definitely following the same path as me. Something alive, or some strange phenomena that JH never encountered? I don’t know. JH didn’t really explore much over this area of The Corridor. He moved fast and went for the portal, and that means there could be all manner of things hidden here.

:: Record Date 02:07:4787 12:13

I lost it. At least I think I did.

Maybe it’s just given up the chase.

Moving as quickly as I can now, heading across the open ground inside The City, and need to get to the next portal. I'm hoping that is still open.

:: Record Date 02:07:4787 12:24

I spotted something in the distance as I was moving across the open ground. Somehow, I don't think that JH came exactly this way, which worries me a little, because I think he would have seen the rusted car at the same time as I did.

It came into view a hundred yards ahead of me and maybe fifty to my right, a rusted hulk of junk just sitting there in the middle of a road. I veered away from the straight direction I was heading in and walked towards the thing.

Very odd. The road goes for about a hundred yards in both directions away from the car, but then ends at the broken ground, almost as though just this small section of road was taken from whatever world it came from. I can’t imagine it belonging here. Nothing does.

The car looked like it had been there for quite a long time, and it was covered in a thick coating of grime and dust, just like everything inside the bunker. That it would gather on this car, of all things, is very odd.

As I got closer, I noticed that both of the back wheels had fallen off onto the road and lay a few feet away from the rusted vehicle. Most of the bodywork was black and crumbling, the rust long having eaten away at it.

The boot was open at the back, and I edged forward, gun drawn, to peek inside. I could see a suitcase that was also open, lying in the back, and as I was about to touch it, I glanced further up the road and saw the first body.

There were two of them; one near the front of the car and the other further out, maybe twenty yards away. I found the nearest one as I was walking towards the front of the car, curious as to what lay in the road ahead. I hadn’t seen it as I approached because it was on the other side of the vehicle, lying near the front bumper.

Both of the bodies were headless, and there was no sign of where the missing heads were.

I got the creeps and moved out quickly. No way was I staying around there to find out what took heads from corpses. I may not have had to worry, as the corpses looked decades old, but I was taking no chances.

I think it’s getting foggy here.

:: Record Date 02:07:4787 13:28

I had no idea that CutterJack’s place was so close to The City. After just one hour of walking across the broken ground, most of the while wondering if I’d lost my sense of direction, I saw the outline of the huge building that JH described. I was about ready to turn back, though, even after such a short stretch of time. The land between The City and the ruined train station was almost completely flat, with rocks scattered here and there, but there were no distinguishing details to indicate that I wasn’t just going around in circles.

Seeing the ominous shape of the ruins ahead of me was a relief, but it also brought me to realise just how close I was to such an evil and dark place. I remembered JH’s description of the ruins, and as I approached, moving quietly between the crumbling archways, and saw the train for the first time, my stomach churned. I had never seen one of CutterJack’s monstrous creations, even though I’d seen plenty of other things, like Kre’esh and Shamblers, in my time. I’d still not seen one of the stitched together monstrosities. To think, I was actually standing in the place where he’d made many of them.

I couldn’t help myself. I did look in the train, and maybe sometime I’ll speak of what I saw in there, but right now I can’t find the words.

I tried to distract myself from what I’d seen, and a distant flickering of light did that for me. I jumped down into the recessed train track and up the other side, repeating this with the other platforms until I reached the other side. After what I’d just seen I tried to avert my eves from the contraptions scattered around the station but it was hard to do.

Eventually I breathed a deep sigh as I came out at the other side of the building, wishing that I’d done just as JH had done – hell no, maybe I should just have gone all the way round. It probably would have been quicker.

But my relief was short lived when a voice, just yards away, spoke, and nearly gave me a heart attack.

“I think I’m dead,” it said.

:: Record Date 02:07:4787 14:51

It took me a few minutes to stop heaving for breath. She scared the hell out of me, but when I’d finally stopped my heart from jumping out of my chest, I looked back up and saw a woman standing near the wall of the ruined building. She stared at me, frightened, lost, a glowing figure, almost a spectre, with no physical form. She was beautiful, in a pale and unhealthy kind of way, if that makes any sense.

“I think I’m dead,” she repeated, staring out into the barren darkness.

That voice was familiar.

“Ilya?” I asked.

It couldn’t be. Could it?

She looked up.

“Yes?” she answered, her focus not really on me, her eyes far from here.

“Ilya?” I repeated. “Is that you?” I asked.

“Yes,” she replied. “Ilya. I was Ilya, but I think I’m not anymore.”

I stared at her, shocked. She had made it through after all. She was…not alive, but still here. Then it occurred to me.

Adler and Rudy.

“You’re not dead,” I said. “You’re not. It’s the same as Rudy, in the book, it must be.”

“Rudy,” she said.

She turned back to me, her eyes focused now, some form of realisation starting to appear in the blank, lost expression. “A wendigo?” she asked. “Like Rudy?”

I nodded. “It must be. You’re talking and you’re still here, you haven’t passed on to…wherever.”

:: Record Date 02:07:4787 15:32

Adler’s bicycle was perched at the bottom of the portal hill!

I think, if I’m honest, that I was more elated to find the rusty old thing sitting there at the bottom of the hill of bones than I had been when I spotted the light from the still open portal.

Over the years, dust or dirt of something must have settled on the hill, because although I can see ivory coloured things sticking out of it, most of it is overgrown with a kind of moss and covered thick with dirt. I was glad of that as I trudged up the hill.

I climbed upwards, leaving Adler's bicycle where it was. Part of me wanted to take it with me, but after some thought I decided that it should stay. It was where it belonged, a relic of the past. I couldn’t resist touching it, sitting on it and holding the handles. So much history in such a simple thing.

The hill with the portal on top was a lot bigger than JH described it. He said it was hard work to climb, but I got the impression it was only a few dozen feet to the top. This thing is a hundred feet, at least. I can’t believe it’s entirely made of bones. So many bones. Finally, puffed out and ready to take a break, I reached the top.

I was standing in front of blazing red portal, glowing fiercely in the dark.

I can’t believe I’ve made it this far. I’ve actually made it to the portal to Riverfall and it is still there, still open, after all this time.

That confirms that a lot of what I’ve been told is all lies. And my mother was lied to, even in the journals. It’s here, right where I’m standing, and it’s still open.

I turned back, looking at the figure standing a few feet behind me.

“Are you coming or staying here?” I asked Ilya, hoping that she would come with me. Even if she is a little odd, even more so now she is there, a real thing, sort of, rather than a voice in my head or a cloud of gas, I think I like having someone to talk to.

She looked at me for a moment, glanced back towards the darkness behind us, then turned back and smiled. It was the first time I’d seen her smile, and damn it if she wasn’t even more beautiful.

“Let’s go find out what’s on the other side, soldier,” she said.

So we did.

It’s now been two days since Ilya and I stepped through the portal, and I have a lot to tell you.

Continued in book 5…

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Thanks! – Glynn

Acknowledgements

Thanks to all of the Jameses – Julia, for your patience and constant encouragement, and my kids, for just being you.

To my parents and my brother for not being too surprised that I write crazy fiction, and for telling me it’s cool.

To Bill, Sara, Billy, Jim & Jean for taking me seriously and never doubting that I could actually do this, and for demanding signed copies when I thought that whole idea was daft.

About the Author

GLYNN JAMES, born in Wellingborough, England in 1972, is a bestselling author of dark sci-fi novels.

He has an obsession with anything to do with zombies, Cthulhu mythos, and post-apocalyptic and dystopian fiction and films, all of which began when he started reading HP Lovecraft and Richard Matheson’s I Am Legend back when he was eight years old.

In addition to co-authoring the bestselling ARISEN books (over 400,000 copies sold), he is the author of the bestselling DIARY OF THE DISPLACED series.

For More Info
www.glynnjames.co.uk

Copyright

First published 2011-2019 by Glynn James

Copyright © Glynn James

The right of Glynn James to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any other means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the author. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

Table of Contents

DIARY OF THE DISPLACED BOX SET BOOKS 1-4 The Journal of James HalldonThe Broken LandsThe WaysFootprints   Glynn James

Book 1
Two days ago
One day ago
Day 3
Day 4
Day 5
Day 6
Day 7
Day 8
Preparation for travel (Inventory).
Day 9
The Day 8 Expedition
Hour 2
Hour 3
Facts I've learned about DogThing
Day 10
Day 11
Day 12
Day 13
Day 14
Day 15
Day 16
Day 17
Day 18
Day 19

Professor Adler's Diary Below are the last entries in the diary of Professor John Adler of Temperance, Northamptonshire, before his arrival in this other place.

March 20th, 1922
March 21st
March 22nd
March 23rd
March 24th
March 25th
March 26th
March 27th
March 28th
March 29th
March 30th

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

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

Mas 145 1728812
Day 20
Day 21
Day 22
New things to note:
Day 23
Day 24
Day 25
Day 26
Day 27
Day 28
Day 29
Day 30
Day 31
Day 32
Day 33
Day 34
Day 35
Day 36
Day 37
Day 38
Day 39
Book 2 The Broken lands
My memories have not completely gone...
Day 40
Day 41
Day 42
Day 43
Day 44
Day 45
Day 46
Day 47
Day 48
Day 49
Day 50
Day 51
Day 52
Day 53
Book 3 The Ways

Knowing that death is not coming is the strangest of feelings...

Day 54
Day 55
Day 56
Day 57
Day 58
Day 59
Day 60
Day 61
Day 62
Day 63
Day 64
Day 65
Alone
Book 4 Footprints
:: System Start up sequence initiated…

Holy damn. It was an APV – an Armoured Personnel Vehicle – and not just a small one. This thing is huge, I’d estimate large enough to hold five squads and command, so twenty troops plus two command, a...