Among the Fallen: Resurrection (21 page)

I heard the crying children from the old orphanage again today; every night I have been on shift I
have heard the same thing. The other security guards said they too hear it, but a lot of these old
buildings have weird noises. Maybe it’s just the night playing tricks on me, working hazard of a
nightshift security guard I guess. Why does a church and orphanage need security anyway? Who
would, in their right mind rob from a church?
Anon

Alex threw the paper to the ground, suddenly pausing for a few moments, staring up the side of one of the shops almost spellbound. Up on the side of a building were twenty or so clowns, all dead and twisted; their arms and legs broken and warped, tangled up and hanging from an intricate tract of multi-coloured lights that stretched across the street. Alex hated clowns and immediately a shiver ran down her spine at the mere sight, as hard as she tried she just could not find any sympathy for them and scuttled under briskly and almost panic stricken, praying to a God that the demon world was void of a sense of irony. Hastily, she moved along the trashed cartoon themed street, searching cars and vehicles for anything useful but found nothing. After a while she came to a corpse that was dressed in a giant costume of some kind, face down and burnt, the suit fused to the cadaver inside; a rabbit maybe? She had thought of turning it over but she wasn’t that desperate to find out what it was supposed to be. On its back was a note, stuck in place with a rusty nail. She pulled the note from its back.

Note on the back of the costumed corpse - Candy Avenue

“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does
the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not
prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?’ Then I will
tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’
Matthew 7:22-23

She looked down at the sad sight as she screwed up the pointless paper and moved on. Eventually, she came to the end of Candy Avenue and stood at the top of the hill looking back upon it with sympathy and regret. She had not been here for such a long time that she was now regretting it.

When maturity and social pressure inevitably stole her childhood from her, she suddenly realized that as an adult she was cheated from the fun and innocent things in life; enjoyment that used to cling to every inch of this street throughout her infancy was now gone forever. As she watched the giant balloons bob around above the avenue one final time, she lit a cigarette and wiped a tear from her eye, eventually turning her back on her childhood evermore, finally turning into Swins Street.

Appearance wise, Swins Street was no different to any other brutal street before it, but from here, Alex could look down the vast hill and see the lake in the distance. It was going to be a very long walk and the road ahead was trashed beyond imagination. She thought about stealing a car but there would not be a lot of point, she could never navigate a car along these streets; most of them were barricaded and with wreckage and bodies literally everywhere, it was by far easier to walk. She stood for a few moments just looking down the hill at the island in the far distance, black and dark it was invisible against the tree lines and something definitely looked out of place. She looked long and hard at the darkness that hid her home just trying to work out why it was so different but to no avail. She couldn’t quite put her finger on it and she just glared off into the vastness for a few moments, until suddenly, her attention was snatched away by a fly as it flew erratically around a streetlight above her. She gazed up at it profoundly and suddenly she looked at the other streetlights curiously before staring back down towards the island. Suddenly, it dawned on her; the island was in total darkness, but why?

The island shared the same grid as the city so why the blackout? Was there something else going on down there?

She looked up at the light again as the fly simply bounced repeatedly and undeterred by the hot glass. Suddenly, it flew away, chasing another fly mischievously. She looked down at the lake into the shadows with a sigh before flicking her cigarette into wind; the father she hated all her life had now become a worry, and no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t shake the feeling of him being in danger or even worse.

Alex looked down at the ground as she rifled through her pockets pulling out another cigarette and her lighter, casually lighting it before tilting her head back and blowing the smoke into the sky. As she calmed her nerves with a nicotine dose she just stood listening to the eerie moans and groans that continued to cry from the distance, coupled with the howls and squawking crows it almost felt almost cliché. She turned and looked up at the body of a man as it hung silently from one of the strange bridge networks that crossed the street; his pale skin more or less shadow-less and wrapped in barbed wire, his head covered in what looked like a black bin-liner; tightly pressed against its face revealing the contours of his nose and mouth. Why she picked this particular body to stare at even she didn’t know, but there was something about him that just seemed to draw her attention in a morbid kind of way that felt kind of weird to her. This man was probably a father, maybe a youngster or someone her age; in fact it was almost impossible to even guess, but he had a life, a family; yet he hung there without identity and without dignity. In some ways, Alex thought that maybe staring at him and feeling the pity and sadness she felt for him gave him just some of his self-respect back that he so rightly deserved, giving her too some humanity and even a hint of morality; one thing that she was actually terrified of losing altogether. Alex suddenly looked away as she flicked her cigarette to the floor and began to continue her journey, ignoring the dead around her as best she could with no success. She suddenly hesitated and turned in surprise at the cafe just off Swins Street, its glowing light spilling into the street and its neon open sign glowing in the brilliant red. But even stranger, there appeared to be a man sitting at a table by the window reading something and sipping coffee. Alex stood staring from across the road with her hands in her pockets, confused and dumbfounded.

Was it a trick? A survivor maybe?

She looked around queerly at the carnage and the devastation, the haunted look etched in the dead faces as they rotted under the red sky, and yet, here was this man sitting drinking coffee? She stood there for a few moments trying to piece together the face but nothing was making sense; he was definitely familiar to her that was for sure.

She suddenly decided to throw caution to the wind and strolled across the road to the café. She pushed open the door and a pathetic bell rang, the man looked up staring at her briefly before he continued to read on. She looked at the man inquisitively, his wrinkles mapping out a face of experience, grey streaks of hair cut short but typically a gents cut for a fifty year old. A grubby blood encrusted suit and a leather briefcase were all the strange man possessed and even more eccentrically, he was not fazed by her in the slightest. The café too was full of the dead, sitting at the tables with cutlery and condiments stuck in their heads, salt and pepper shakers rammed cruelly into their over-stretched mouths and plates fractured skull and bone. Limbs hung from chains and blood covered the tiled floor and Alex just turned in amazement at this man, totally oblivious to the horror around him; either that or he just was unaffected by it as she was.

“Mind if I join you?” she asked. The man raised his head and looked at her puzzled, his eyes cold and his old leather like skin streaked with streaked blood and sweat.

“What is wrong with the other tables?” He said arrogantly, knowing full well this was strangely the only clean table in the entire cafe.

“But I want to sit here!” she demanded coldly.

The man slumped back in his seat and stared at her bemused as she looked around the café painfully at the barbarity that had fallen over these people. He slowly shuffled his paperwork together and removed his briefcase form the table and stared back at her sternly.

“Please yourself.” He muttered.

Alex stood looking at him completely astonished by his rudeness and attitude. He was neither pleased, nor relieved to see what could have been another survivor; she was almost secretly ecstatic that this whole thing was at least survivable, so what was his problem? She sat down clumsily and the man looked up and sat back staring at her. She sat still until eventually breaking eye contact and gazing around at the cafe. Bodies sat at the tables with their stomachs open and their innards slopped around the floor, plates and cups were covered in grime and bacteria, swarming with flies and the decayed walls caked in blood, tidemarks and dirt.

“Coffee?” She said cheerfully sighing.

“No thanks, surprise, surprise the coffee here tastes like shit!” he replied coldly.

Alex got up and helped herself to the coffee at the counter, the machine pouring her drink as she stared at the money littered across the floor, the chef in the kitchen hanging from a chain, everything below the waist missing and piled on the tiled floor beneath.

“I’m Alex” she said as she picked up her coffee, making her way back to the table, stepping over severed limbs and mangled guts.

“I know who you are, you are the Mayors Daughter!” he said while putting the papers back in his brief case. “I have been your Doctor since you were born. But I’m at a loss, I pronounced you dead myself!”

Alex frowned and sat back down, lighting a cigarette and sipping her coffee while pulling a face of disgust at the taste. She couldn’t remember the Doctor, it was hard for her to establish whether it was because she very rarely saw a doctor at any point, or maybe it was just another memory stolen from her, but either way, he knew who she was; and that was at very least a start.

“Then that’s two of us at a loss because I remember dying too!” she joked. “Honestly Doc? Looking around you, are you really that surprised?” she said seriously. She leant back blowing thick yellow smoke into the air, her arrogance only overtaken by her confidence. “To be honest I am surprised you recognize me, I hardly recognize myself” she said. “I’m a right state!” she muttered, sipping her coffee.

“Well you do not look bad for someone that’s been dead three months. So what is the story?!” he said.

“Three months?” she mumbled surprised. Three months was a long time, she expected it to be something like three days or even three weeks. She remembered the diary from Barrie’s cabin and was amazed that she didn’t work it out back then. But as the Doctor sat there staring at her, she soon realized this was the man that could have the answers she so desperately sought.

“I’m definitely dead, right?! No misdiagnoses? No blunder? No mistaken identity?” she said to him, hoping he would say something to make her feel a whole lot better.

“I resent the implication that I could make such a mistake, Alex!” he said scornfully. Alex lowered her head and watched the steam from her coffee for a few moments. “I double checked your identity through fingerprints and dental records, DNA too. I removed your heart, liver, stomach, your brain did not need removing, it was found four feet from your body, so no, Alex, no mistake!”

he said cruelly and with a hint of vengeance at her obviously offensive question. Alex felt her stomach turn and the Doctor looked at her shaking hand as it unintentionally flicked ash onto the table. The Doctor suddenly grabbed her hand and pulled it towards him, checking her pulse as she clearly offended his sense of scientific reason. He frowned and looked up at her strangely, as if he was fighting confusion; yet he didn’t seem surprised.

“What do you recommend, Doc?” she said almost amused by herself. The Doctor took out a gun and placed it on the table.

“Take one in the head and call me in the morning!” he said gruffly and angrily. She smiled at him coyly and took the gun from the table and put it to her head. The Doctor looked at her uneasy and worried, his face turning to an immediate frown.

“Put the gun down, Alex. I will not appreciate declaring you dead twice in one year, not great for the reputation.” he groused sarcastically. Alex smiled and pulled the trigger as a sudden flare of light flashed before her eyes and a split second of pain passed through her head, and then darkness; then nothing.

As her eyesight returned and focused, she saw the horrified Doctor just staring at her speechless, his coffee mug shaking uncontrollably in his hand.

“Did it go off? I didn’t hear anything?!” she said calmly before turning to see a massive patch of blood and bullet hole in the wall next to her. “Funny, I would have thought I would at least hear it go off, oh well” she joked acerbically. The Doctor shook his head as his coffee mug suddenly slipped from his shaking hand, spilling the coffee over the table instantly with little reaction from either of them. The Doctor picked up his mug and placed it on the table, before swiping the mess from the surface with his hand.

“It’s not every day I’m startled, thirty years as Doctor and you would think you’ve seen everything!”

he mumbled as he slumped back in his seat wiping his hand with a handkerchief. Alex smiled at him and took a sip of her coffee, its taste foul and like metal. She lowered the cup with a frown and saw blood with skin and bits of flesh floating on the surface; she immediately cursed and gagged, throwing it over her shoulder angrily.

“Told you it tastes like shit!” the Doctor grumbled as he put his gun back in his inside pocket. Alex scowled and looked at him with contempt and anger, he sat there alive and yet he mocked her unfortunate demise. She thought about the whole situation as he sat there staring at her with a gaze as cold as stone, insistent and frigid, yet somewhere in there was a sadness that even she picked up on.

“What happened to me, Doc? What happened to me and Sarah? At the roadside I mean” Alex asked softly as she leant towards him with a hint of desperation. The Doctor stood up and piece of paper dropped to the floor without him realizing and he walked to the counter, pulling change from his pockets and peculiarly paying for his coffee. He turned and faced her, contemplating whether or not to indulge her with the truth she was seeking.