The Storm Read online

  ‘No, usually they are more of an internal spirit, they speak from within you without showing themselves.’

  ‘Convenient,’ grunted Brick.

  ‘Don’t you think he’s on to something, Brick?’ Cal asked. ‘Made of fire, living inside you, warriors. Any of that ring a bell?’

  He didn’t reply, just sat and chewed on his simmering anger.

  ‘What did you mean by guardians?’ asked Cal.

  ‘Um, they watch over us. Many people believe that – you must have heard the term guardian angel, yes?’

  ‘Duh. But you get bad angels too, right?’ Brick asked, thinking of what he had just seen on the TV, the man in the storm. Already the image was ebbing from his head, just a big, black mark on his vision, as though his retinas had been scraped away. Better that than to see it again, though, the beast with its cloak of storm and its endless inward breath. He shuddered so violently that the bench rattled.

  ‘Bad ones? Yes, yes. According to the Bible, Lucifer was once an angel, an archangel really. He believed that he could be more powerful than God, and attempted to lead, well, a rebellion I guess, with his army of angels. Because of his sin of pride, God cast him down into the Lake of Fire, hell, along with his supporters. This is part of the scripture that I, personally, have difficulty with. It’s always tempting to believe that human evil can be blamed on the devil, and yes there are occasions when this is the case. But I think evil is also part of who we are. We have only ourselves to blame for the bad things of the world.’

  At one time, Brick would have believed that. But not now, not with everything he’d seen. The man in the storm, that wasn’t human. It was the very opposite of human, the very opposite of all life. But it wasn’t the devil either, not the one out of the Bible. It was something else, something that roamed between worlds long before anyone ever even uttered the word God. Brick could feel the truth of that in his guts, in the huge, groaning weight of breaking time and space that he could almost hear in the immense quiet of the church. It was impossible to explain, but it was there nonetheless.

  ‘This isn’t getting us anywhere,’ he said, just so there was noise.

  ‘Yeah, I know,’ Cal replied. ‘I know. Look, Doug, some of the stuff in the Bible, though, it’s probably based on real things, yeah? No offence or anything, mate. I mean, I remember hearing that the great flood, the one with Noah and everything, might have been because of some massive tidal wave or something.’

  ‘Yes,’ Doug said. ‘There are, of course, relativist theories. In fact I studied science in the Bible, back during my curacy in Oxford. You’re talking about the Black Sea deluge theory. Around 5600 BC, water from the Mediterranean Sea breached a sill in the, um, in the Bosporus Strait I think. It would have caused a terrible flood. There are other examples, too. The story of Moses and the Red Sea. There are conditions where a strong wind could actually part the waters of a river. It’s called a wind setdown. It has happened other times too, in the Nile Delta. It is quite astonishing.’

  ‘So what are you saying?’ Brick asked. ‘That science does all the work then God just takes the credit?’

  The vicar laughed, shaking his head.

  ‘I’m saying that many years ago, we didn’t know all that we know now. A . . . a volcano, say, was an angry beast beneath the ground. Or a hurricane was the gods battling in the heavens. Humans need to know the truth of things, even if that truth is fiction. It’s in our nature to try to understand our lives. If science cannot explain something, then we invent our own science to explain it. And that science is usually called religion.’

  ‘So religion isn’t real then?’ Brick said. ‘Stupid thing for a vicar to say.’

  ‘No, you misunderstand me. Religion is about faith, and faith is a very different kind of knowledge. God is a scientific fact, and there is a science that explains the nature of God. Of course there is. But we do not know what that science is yet. Perhaps one day, we will understand it, the same way that we now understand the science of gravity, of lightning, of some, um, quantum particle behaviours. Perhaps one day we will know the scientific truth about God, and our creation. Then science and religion will be one and the same.’

  Brick hissed a laugh through his nose, although there was something in the vicar’s words that made sense.

  ‘You’re saying that weird things happened a long time ago,’ said Cal. ‘And people saw these things and blamed them on God. They told their kids, and those kids told their kids, and then eventually somebody was writing a book of the Bible and they remembered this thing they were told about the sea parting, or a big flood or whatever, and that’s how the Bible got written.’

  The priest ran a hand across his head and nodded.

  ‘Well, partly. Some miracles are God’s, without a doubt. But perhaps not all. Everything is science. It has to be. But just because it is science that we do not understand yet, does not make it false.’

  ‘So angels,’ Cal went on, and Brick realised he was talking to him. ‘Maybe this has happened before. Maybe, like thousands of years ago, people got possessed by . . . by whatever is inside us. Only they didn’t know what they were, they just saw these things made of fire, with wings; creatures that could destroy a whole town with a single word. They saw them, and they called them angels, God’s messengers, and they told their kids and so on and eventually it just became a part of religion. That makes sense, doesn’t it?’

  It did, but Brick didn’t say anything.

  ‘And the thing in London, the man in the storm. Maybe he’s been here before. Maybe people saw him and thought he was just like us, like the angels I mean, but a bad version. They might have just made up a story about how he was cast down and wanted to take his revenge. It could have all happened before, Brick.’

  ‘So what, Cal?’ said Brick, turning around. Cal was hunched against the wall, wrapped up in his own arms. He looked small, and weak, but his eyes were fierce.

  ‘So, it means they’ve fought him before, the angels,’ Cal said. ‘It means they stopped him doing whatever he is here to do. It means they won.’

  ‘How do you know that?’

  ‘Because we wouldn’t be here otherwise, would we? That thing wants to eat everything. It’s like a black hole. It won’t stop until we destroy it.’

  ‘Yeah?’ Brick had to swallow a sour lump of bile that rose from the churning pit of his stomach. The image of the man in the storm appeared before him, seeming to fill the church with darkness. Trying to fight that would be like trying to stop a train with a toothpick. They’d be torn apart, pulled into that raging mouth along with everything else. And then what? There would be no afterlife, no heaven or hell, not in there. There was nothing but an end of things. ‘How do we do that, Cal?’

  ‘We wait,’ the other boy said. ‘Until they hatch.’

  And that thought was equally terrifying, the idea that there was something in his chest – no, deeper than that, in his soul – that was waiting for the right moment to burst through in a fist of fire, to take control of his body. The idea of it made him want to scream, and he pushed himself to his feet, out into the aisle, pacing with his hands clenched in his hair. He went back and forth, wishing he could cut a trench in the stone with his feet, bury himself there forever with the skeletons beneath the church. Only when he stepped too close to the vicar, when he heard the man’s breaths curl up into the unbearable whine of the Fury, did he force himself to sit down again.

  ‘But why do people hate us?’ Brick asked eventually. ‘That’s the bit I really don’t understand. If we’re here to fight that thing, then surely people would be on our side, they’d help us, not try to kill us.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Cal. ‘Doug, do you remember anything about what just happened, when we were filming?’

  The vicar went two shades paler, and shook his head.

  ‘It’s as if . . . as if that part of my memory, my life, just doesn’t exist. One minute I was talking to you, then I black out, then everything’s back to n
ormal. Only . . . only it’s not, is it, because I tried to kill you.’ He wiped a hand across his face and Brick realised the old man was crying. ‘It wasn’t me. It wasn’t me.’

  ‘Have you ever hated someone so much you lose your mind over it?’ Brick said, the words out of his mouth before he even knew they were coming. ‘Hated them so much your whole vision just burns white and it’s like you’re somebody else?’

  Nobody answered. He shuffled, uncomfortable to be sharing so much.

  ‘I have. So many times. I used to get so angry.’

  ‘Used to?’ said Cal with more than a hint of sarcasm. Brick felt it now, even as he talked about it, as though there was something erupting out of his stomach.

  ‘Sometimes I can’t control it. I think maybe I’m going to do something I can’t take back, something bad, like hit somebody or worse. Like kill somebody sometimes. When I get like that, I feel as if me, you know, the bit of me that thinks about things and holds back from doing stupid stuff, as if that bit of me is pushed out of my head, like something else has just taken the controls. It’s hard to get it back.’

  The sound of his own voice, speaking for so long, felt strangely alien to him. He licked his lips, wishing he had some of Cal’s water. He realised he hadn’t looked up from his filthy trainers since he’d started.

  ‘I think that’s what it’s like. The Fury. You get so angry, so full of rage, that you just lose yourself. Only, times a million.’

  He swallowed noisily, realised that he was blushing again. Still that rage boiled in his throat. After a while, Cal spoke.

  ‘Yeah, that makes sense. But it’s not a chemical thing, or an emotional one, it’s this, the angels. People can’t accept them, because they’re so . . . what’s the word?’

  ‘Alien?’ said Brick.

  ‘Yeah, I guess. They’re so alien that they make people lose themselves. People just have to kill them, kill us. Can’t think of any other reason.’

  More silence, as deep as the ocean. Brick looked down the church and saw the hot-dog stand from Fursville, burning, and beyond that the Pavilion. He snapped his eyes open, realising that sleep had ambushed him.

  ‘We should go,’ he said, wiping his eyes. When Cal didn’t reply, he looked over his shoulder to see that he too had dropped off, his head resting on his knees. ‘Cal, we can’t fall asleep.’

  ‘It’s okay,’ said the vicar. ‘You can. You have my word, I won’t move. I know what will happen. I couldn’t bear to be like that again.’

  Brick scowled at the man. He was a feral, he couldn’t be trusted. But just for a second, just to get your energy back. He closed his eyes and looked past the pavilion, saw the ocean there. There was a boat on it, a boat that became an island, and then a house, and by the time Brick had swum to it, opened the door and walked inside, he no longer knew he was dreaming.

  Rilke

  Great Yarmouth, 10.07 a.m.

  The ground broke and reformed, sounding as if the whole world was cracking its knuckles. A bridge of rock rose from the drenched beach, resembling the spine of some huge beast pushing through the skin of the earth. It snaked up across the furrowed land where this little town had once sat. Its architect, Schiller, twisted the air with his burning fingers, invisible ropes reshaping rock and sand and soil until there was a clear path away from the sea.

  Only when he had finished did he begin his transformation, the flames guttering out like a gas stove in the wind until the person who stood there was not an angel but a boy once more. He managed a weary smile before his legs gave out and he tumbled on to the ridged back of his own creation. Rilke picked herself up from where she had been kneeling, her knees rubbed raw from the vibrations in the ground, and walked to him. When she helped him into a sitting position, another lock of his hair fell loose. It was no longer blond, she realised, but grey.

  ‘You did well, little brother,’ she said, stroking his cheek. He was still so cold, as if each time the fire left him it robbed his body of a little more heat. ‘You wiped it clean. Just listen, listen to what you’ve done.’

  He did, and for a while they both sat and absorbed the quiet. The only sound was the soft lapping of the ocean, reduced to a dog that whimpered at their heels. There were no screams, not even any alarms. Schiller’s wave had done its job well.

  ‘Can we rest now?’ Schiller asked in a whisper. His eyes were closed, and he twitched like a dreaming puppy. She shook his shoulders, bringing him back. Why did he have to sleep when there was so much work to be done?

  ‘Soon,’ she said. She tugged on him until he responded, clambering to his feet. She put her arm under him, propping him up with her body. It was hard work, and after a few seconds she gave in. ‘Okay, we can rest for a while. But not here, we should find somewhere safe.’

  ‘Safe?’ came a voice from behind her. She looked to see Jade there, sitting on the raised beach next to the two boys. She looked like a badly painted puppet, her eyes too big, her mouth slack, her body limp. Rilke had almost forgotten that the others existed. Did she even need them? When her angel hatched she and Schill could change the world by themselves. They didn’t need to be held back by anyone. But for now it made sense to keep them here. They might come in useful, especially the new boy who was on the verge of waking.

  ‘It won’t be long before they come after us,’ Rilke said, taking a step along the stone bridge, dragging Schiller beside her.

  ‘The police?’

  ‘Yes. And others too. The army.’ And Daisy, she thought but didn’t say. The little girl had to be close to changing as well. Rilke didn’t think it had already happened, though. She would have felt it. No, they were resting, Daisy and Brick and Cal and Adam. She tried to send her mind out, the way she had been able to back in Fursville. She could feel an uncomfortable wooden bench, could smell something old and dusty, could see strange-coloured light seeping through big windows. A church, she understood with a sharp intake of breath. She’d spent enough time in one to know that much. Was that a good thing or a bad thing? Maybe they’d hear the stories about the avenging angels, maybe they’d finally see what they had to do.

  And if not? If they came here and tried to stop Schiller?

  Rilke tried to imagine what would happen if two angels fought each other. That alone would be enough to bring the world to its knees. And was Schiller powerful enough to fight Daisy? She was just a little girl, but there was an inner strength in her that her brother did not possess.

  ‘I don’t think I can carry him any further,’ said Jade. ‘He’s too cold.’

  ‘You can,’ said Rilke. ‘Just to the top of the hill, just until we find shelter.’

  She didn’t wait for a reply. Jade would do as she was told, Marcus too. She made her way from the sea with Schiller in her arms, each step a challenge. It reminded her of the morning she had arrived at the theme park, a morning that felt like a lifetime ago but was, what, two days? Like everything, time was broken now. Those two days were a lifetime. How little she’d known back then. The world was just the world, and the people in it just people.

  The thought was so absurd that she laughed. Schiller glanced up at her through the slits of his sleepy eyes. He smiled back, and she noticed that one of his front teeth was missing. Her stomach knotted, her skin was suddenly cold. It’s killing him. No. It was making him stronger. How could it not? It was making him more powerful than anything else in the world. It was making him a god. And yet still a voice called out to her, maybe hers, maybe not: It’s killing him, it’s using him, it’s eating him from the inside.

  ‘Shut up,’ she hissed beneath her breath. Schiller heard her, frowning. ‘Watch where you’re going, brother,’ she said to him, only so she wouldn’t have to look at the gaping socket in his gum where his tooth had once sat. So what if it was using him, so what if his human body fell to pieces. Once the flesh dropped away there would be only fire and fury.

  They staggered on in silence, making their way along the crest of broken rock. The further they w
ent, the more they saw of the destruction Schiller had wrought. To their left was another sea, this one made up of bricks and concrete and bodies, buoyed up on silt and seawater. Smoke rose from three or four places. She wondered if there was anyone left alive over there, then she thought of the wall of water that had crunched into the town like the fist of God. Nothing could have survived that. They wouldn’t have even known it was happening.

  After half a mile or so they reached the end of the bridge that Schiller had pulled from the earth. It became a jagged mouth of teeth, and beyond that a mess of crumbs. Rilke stepped from it into a field of patchy grass, the ground damp but firm. It was so flat that even here she could see the grey line of the sea, as if it was peeking up over the horizon to make sure they had really gone. She half expected it to duck back down again, hiding behind the ruined town.

  ‘Can we rest now?’ asked Schiller. ‘Please, Rilke, I don’t feel very well.’

  She didn’t look at him, just scanned the field for shelter. There was a fence nearby, trampled into the mud. A dead horse lay tangled in the wire and wood. It must have tried to flee when it heard the thunder of the ocean, she thought, and she felt a pity for the creature that was surprising. She shook the emotion away – emotions are for the humans, Rilke, not for you – her eyes settling on the only structure she could see for miles, other than the telephone poles. It was a windmill, one that had lost its sails.

  She set off towards it, dragging the others behind her as though she was pulling a cart. Her shadow led the way, still long, sweeping over the grass like a dark cloud. Like the man in the storm, she thought, and it made her stomach go funny again. If he was here for the same reason the angels were, then why hadn’t he tried to communicate with them? Didn’t he have instructions, commands? Or maybe he had, but they couldn’t hear him. Maybe that would only happen when the angels had hatched. She thought about asking Schiller if he’d heard – felt – anything from the man in the storm, but he was so weak she didn’t think his answer would make much sense even if he did know. Better to get him inside, let him rest, then ask.