Outside, Royle stood in the street and surveyed the damage. It was chaos out there. Sirens were going off, emergency vehicles were entering the estate from all angles; alarms blared, creating more panic. People were running, standing in groups, or cowering in gardens and doorways. A well-known local drunk was standing in his doorway, waving an empty bottle and ranting about sea cows.
All around, huge, thick-bodied trees had burst through the earth, houses and buildings had tumbled, walls had shattered, exploded out into the street, and cars were overturned and ablaze. Water sluiced across the road, discharging from a burst water main. He spotted a few dead bodies: in the gutters, in gardens, even one slumped over the bonnet of a car.
It would take a long time — perhaps years — to figure out exactly what had happened here, but whatever had occurred, it was over. It was done. Something had tried to come through, and it had failed.
Uniformed officers were running around in a panic; they were not trained to deal with something like this. The news crew was trying to film everything and nothing. The whole place resembled a battlefield immediately after the fighting had ceased, or the site of some terrorist atrocity. He’d missed it all, but in some ways he’d witnessed more than anyone else. He just wished that he understood the things he had seen.
He glanced up at the ever-present shape of the Needle. The sky was clear; the birds had flown. A few of them had gathered around the tip of the tower block, as if they were waiting for something to happen. The outline of the building seemed to tremble for a moment, as if a detonation had occurred inside.
From the corner of his eye, he saw a quick, dark shape scurry across the road, but when he looked directly at it there was nothing there but what seemed like a dusty shadow. Nearby, a scarecrow lay in the gutter, its torso shredded, the stick that had supported it snapped in two. It was crawling slowly along the side of the road, heading towards him. Royle stood with his legs shoulder-width apart, wishing that he had a gun. Everything out here was like a medieval nightmare, an image from a biblical painting of demons and monstrosities, of impossible things.
The scarecrow was close now. He couldn’t move. He felt like kneeling down and waiting for it to take him. His legs began to shake. Tears filled his eyes.
The black shape he’d glimpsed earlier shot across the road and hit the scarecrow, rolling it on the road surface. He couldn’t make out what it was, despite the fact that it was only a few feet away from him. The creature’s form was not solid, as if it were made of thought rather than matter. He thought of dusty rooms, empty larders, and buildings where old people went to die, lining up patiently to see the Reaper…
The scarecrow was torn apart as he watched. Then, as he turned away, he caught sight of the thing that had killed it — the thing was visible only at the edge of his vision, not head-on. It resembled old, ancient, papyrus tatters invested with a form of energy. Then, all too soon, it was gone, vanished into the air like a memory. People ran and screamed. The drunken sea cow man — now sitting on his doorstep — started to laugh hysterically.
Whatever that thing was, it had saved him.
Detective Superintendent Sillitoe ran up to Royle. He was hatless, with a shocked expression on his face. “What happened here?” He looked to Royle for some form of explanation, but it was futile. Nobody knew anything.
“I don’t know,” he said, as his superior officer moved away, running towards a squad car with its roof punched in and short, sharp tree branches poking out through the rips in the bodywork, waving around like monstrous spidery limbs.
Royle turned again to stare at the Needle. It drew his gaze, calling to him. He knew that he should be heading back to the hospital, to be at Vanessa’s side, but there was something else he had to do first. There was unfinished business; the final act of this messy epic.
He started to jog in the direction of the centre of the estate, passing injured people, while others walked around in a daze. He couldn’t stop to help. There was something more important to do. Ambulance men and paramedics tended to the fallen, soothing them, bandaging their wounds, trying to impose a sense of organisation onto the scene.
He heard the noise when he reached the Roundpath, and it grew louder as he approached the hoarding that ran around the Needle. A single soft note, as if hundreds of people were humming under their breath.
The fence around the building was torn and pulled away in places, so he had no difficulty accessing the site. He stood and stared up at the tower, and in that instant he knew that it was about to fall. He could feel it in the trembling ground beneath his feet; insistent tremors that travelled up through his legs and into his belly, making his innards sing. The loud humming noise was meant as a warning.
He looked at the ground, closed his eyes, and prayed that he wasn’t too late — but too late for what? He had no idea. All he knew was that he’d been summoned here. He opened his eyes again and looked at the Needle, challenging it to show him why he’d been called. Thick tree roots were wound around its base. The walls were cracked, and leaves and branches showed through the widening fissures.
The main doors flew open. A figure staggered out, almost falling to the ground. It was Abby Hansen. Black leaves clung to her arms, her legs, and her body. More of them formed a narrow pathway ahead of her, out of the building. Her hair was wet. Behind her, four other figures — these ones much smaller, and dressed in rags — moved in a sombre line, exiting the tower and standing around her, reaching out to help her.
When he started to move towards the group, he realised who the other figures were. He recognised their clothes first — despite being torn and dirty, they were the same outfits they’d been wearing when they disappeared.
He knew these girls as well as he knew his own wife, despite the fact that he’d never met them:
Connie Millstone, aged seven.
Alice Jacobs, aged eight.
Fiona Warren, aged nine.
Tessa Hansen, aged ten.
The Gone Away Girls.
They were the same ages as when they’d vanished. This did not seem as insane as it should, and Royle simply accepted that it was true. Of all the things he’d witnessed today, this was probably the easiest to understand. They’d been gone for years, but hardly any time at all had passed since they’d gone away.
“Abby…” He grabbed her arm and helped her away from the building. “This way. We have to get out of here before it falls.”
She blinked, her battered face showing comprehension. “It’s going to fall?”
He nodded. “Don’t ask me how I know, but yes it is.”
They made it over to the fence line before it happened. Royle sat Abby down on the ground, and then he gathered the girls together. They said nothing; their faces were dirty and blank. Their eyes seemed to stare inward. He wondered if they had any idea what was going on, or if, like him, they were simply spectators to some greater event.
“You were shot… are you okay?”
She nodded, and smiled, as if enjoying a private joke. “Just a flesh wound.”
He turned to take another look at the Needle, and it began to fall.
The lower floors sheared away, as if a great explosion had shunted them to the side. The floors above fell straight downwards. He was reminded of the World Trade Centre towers back in 2001, September the 11th. It was a date imprinted on the memory of the Western world, when terrorists had shaken the foundations of society. This tower fell in a similar manner, and its destruction was just as symbolic.
It seemed to take a matter of seconds, and when the billowing dust cloud began to clear, all that remained was the rubble. For an instant, Royle glimpsed a vision of a grove of massive oak trees, shimmering brightly, as if they were on fire. But the image lasted only a fraction of a second, and he could not be sure if he’d really seen it at all. All he was left with was a retinal burn; a visual tattoo, which soon faded to a small black spot — shaped not unlike a single leaf — in his vision. He’d stared directly into the sun, and it had not blinded him. He could still see, but the sights were much less beautiful than before. The falling of the tower had signified the end of something. Perhaps it was also the start of something else.
“What’ll happen here now?”
He looked down at Abby. She was sitting on the ground with her legs tucked up under her body. She was shaking.
“I’m not sure.” He reached down and stroked her head, ran his fingers across her battered cheek. “The people will have to move out of the estate. Or maybe they’ll stay, living like savages among those trees and
