and altar. One side of the chapel, I discovered, had been converted by the Morlocks into a temporary butcher shop for their ravaging troops. In the dark the vague outlines could be seen of the half-stripped carcasses hanging from hooks in this grisly abattoir, swaying and turning over scattered ribcages and spines. I found myself staring at a kettle of rendered fat and suppressing a scream. Suddenly the church itself began to scream, then tilted and went darker than the dark that had filled it before…
Tafe slapped me back into consciousness. The nightmare wasn't over yet. She pulled me to my feet, then led me into the now-empty street outside.
The East End was silent when we at last sneaked into that section of the city, but the pall of smoke and signs of recent battle were clearly evident. We saw none of the Morlocks. They had apparently finished their business and moved on to some other area to celebrate their victory.
We found the remains of Squeezer's company still crouched in the trenches they had dug in the centre of one narrow crossroads. Tafe searched among the still bodies, then stopped and turned over the corpse of an older male, his grey beard. stiff with the mud in which he had fallen. For a moment Tafe laid her ear against the old man's chest, then lowered the cold body back to the ground.
Cold, disheartened, my clothes torn and covered with filth, I stood next to her and shivered as I surveyed the desolate scene around us. The moon was lower now, sliding beneath the smoke that filled the sky. When dawn came, where would we be?
Tafe stood and pointed across the series of trenches. 'See if the lockers left any ammo behind. We'll need all we can get our hands on.'
We separated and began our unpleasant task, searching around and under the slaughtered forms of men and women, who had been the last flickering light of human society in the besieged city and the world beyond. How many other random sparks like Tafe and myself existed, seeking only to make our own deaths come hard as possible to the Morlocks?
Such was the upshot of one man's ambition to Travel through Time! A man in whose very parlour I had supped at the beginning of this long, dark night, and now whose very memory I cursed in my heart! A Time Machine that had become a bridge for these monsters, our children, to swarm across from millions of years into the future and overwhelm us. In the silenced, blood-spattered face of every brave man I examined was the same question that I read in my own heart. What evil design of Providence could have thus doubled Creation upon itself, like a snake devouring its own tail?
I reached the end of the trench without finding anything more than empty shell casings and a few broken knives. The Morlocks were evidently efficient scavengers of Man and his artefacts. I lowered the final corpse back down to the muddy floor of the trench, straightened my aching back, then leapt back in horror as the corpse in front of me jerked convulsively, flinging its limbs out like a ghastly marionette. A spatter of half-clotted blood struck my face. The corpse sagged back to the ground. Only then did my befogged brain perceive the ringing echo of a gunshot from somewhere close by.
Another shot rang out and the trench's rim exploded into pieces of mud and paving stone a few inches from my head. 'Hocker!' I heard Tafe call out. 'Get down!' A second of frozen bafflement passed; then I dove full-length to the bottom of the trench. A volley of shots splattered into the wall in front of which I had been standing.
I crawled a few yards away on my stomach, then turned on my side and pulled from my coat the pistol Tafe had given me. All was silent but for my heart's pounding. The shots must have come from one of the ruined buildings that flanked the street. Another lone Morlock? I counted my breaths for a minute, then cautiously raised my head over the trench's rim. The jagged brick walls on either side revealed nothing. At the other end of the trench I could see Tafe crouched with her rifle, scanning the dark, unmoving shapes that surrounded us.
Another minute passed. I began inching my way closer to Tafe, watching the ruins as I pulled myself along on my hands and knees. My ear caught the sound of something moving in the rubble behind a segment of wall several yards away. A few shards of brick were dislodged and pattered to the ground. My hand with the pistol flew up instinctively and I fired twice at the shape I thought I detected in the ruined building.
Nothing moved for several seconds. Was this the end of our lone antagonist or had he merely fled to fetch more of his vile brethren? I was about to raise my head to see when a small object flew in an arc from behind the wall. It bounced off the side of the trench behind me, then rolled a few feet away. A small, oval object, the size of two fists perhaps, with a cross-hatched metal casing, lying in the mud.
Tafe grabbed me roughly by the shoulder and threw me to one side of the trench. Stunned for the moment, I saw her leap upon the grenade, rise to her feet, and throw it into the air back at the ruin from where it had come. It only travelled a few yards from her hand when it exploded.
A glaring flash of light, and a dull percussive sound drove into my head and abdomen. Mud and dirt rained upon me, dislodged from the trench wall by the shrapnel, but where Tafe had thrown me I was safe from the metal shards' actual impact.
She, however, had still been standing with one arm raised when the grenade went off. Now she lay crumpled on the floor of the trench, blood streaming from wounds across her head and neck.
I crawled to her and examined her injuries as well as I could. She was unconscious but breathing. My head jerked up at the sound of movements in the buildings surrounding us. More than one – the other Morlocks had no doubt been attracted by the explosion. The rustling and scraping of their footsteps spread to either side as they fanned out.
Hastily, I tore out most of the lining from my coat, wadded it and pressed it to the largest of Tafe's wounds just below the jaw. With one hand holding the bandage tight, I managed to lift her with my other arm. The heels of her boots made two grooves in the trench's mud as I dragged her from the spot.
At the farthest end of the trench I stopped and listened for the Morlocks. The sound of cautious footsteps in mud led me to surmise that they had come out of the ruins and were starting to filter into the trenches to look for us. The buildings on this side of the crossroads were silent. I scrambled up out of the trench, pulling Tafe with me. As I started to carry her into the nearest battered shell of bricks, rifle fire burst behind us and the mud flew into a gritty spray a few inches from my feet. The next shots hit against the half-destroyed wall I dragged Tafe behind.
The slow, deliberate footsteps from the trenches edged closer toward the small cul-de-sac where I crouched with Tafe's unconscious form against me. Both her rifle and my pistol had been lost in the trench when the grenade had exploded. Her smaller wounds had crusted over with dried blood and dirt, but the rag I held to her neck still seeped red. My own blood felt hot and feverish, pulsing at my temples.
I looked at my own filthy hand, the blood upon it glistening wet in the fragment of moonlight that slid into the ruins, and waited for the Morlocks to fall upon us. Noise from beyond the shattered bricks. The blood and dirt.
3
'Come on, Hocker. Wake up. It's not as bad as all that.'
The toe of a boot rudely prodded me in the ribs. I opened my eyes, which I thought had closed upon my last earthly vision, and saw Dr. Ambrose standing over me. A thin smile was upon his death-pale, handsome face.
'You!' I cried, raising myself upon my elbows. 'Fiend! What ungodly tricks have you been playing upon me?' I would have stood up and taken the man's neck in my hands but for the silver point of his walking stick that he held against my chest.
'Control yourself, Hocker.' The smile vanished. 'Tricks, indeed! If a blindfolded man was walking upon the edge of a cliff and someone else tore the cloth from his eyes, no matter how much seeing his danger scared the fellow, would you call it a 'trick'? Good Lord, Hocker, you should be grateful to me, instead of spitting out your spleen at me as though you were someone with an actual grievance. Now come on, stand up and pull yourself together, man. All shall be explained. Here, take a swig of this. It'll help clear your head.'
He put aside his walking stick, bent down and grasped me by the arm. As he drew me up my legs were a trifle unsteady from muscle fatigue; he pressed a small silver flask to my lips. I drank and found myself swallowing brandy, good but with an unfamiliar aftertaste to it. Its warmth spread across my chest and oddly up the back of my
