Partie 2/2 de 'oil for the lamp'

2.

Hale looked up at the tower despairingly. “The darkness is up there, you know.”
Trek spoke sharply, trying to imitate the confidence of his vanished former leaders. “The tower is safe. We’ve seen it plenty of times from below and the only thing up there is gas. We know there is...” But then he paused, uncomfortable with his own words. Yet how else could he explain? “We know there is... deep dark in the sheds on the other side – but we’re not going near there.” He pointed to the lower part of the tower where each floor was bounded by waist high railings. “There are gas cylinders on the second, third and fourth floors. We’ll take one each. The floors themselves are grated so the light should get through pretty well. I’ll go up to the fourth floor. Hale, you’ll take the lamp in between us on the third. Will can take the second. Remember, the tanks will take a good twenty seconds to fill.”
Hale and Will nodded slowly at Trek’s pale figure, but their eyes were locked on the shadow of the tower beyond. Trek handed Hale the lamp, who gripped it tightly. It was part of the plan, but still, Trek hated to give up the light.
“Keep this beside you at all costs.”
“I will guard the light,” said Hale slowly, like he was swearing an oath.
“Good.” Trek motioned to the tower. “Let’s go.”
Will made a tentative movement toward the tower but Hale remained unmoved. He was trembling slightly.
“We’ve got it covered, Hale. There is only one way up the tower and that’s the staircase. If there’s any trouble, we’ll have plenty of warning. Will is going to keep watch below you. We can do this.” Trek pointed Hale to the external staircase. “Just focus on the light.” It was foolish advice, of course. Looking directly at the lamp light practically blinded you to anything else. But Hale needed confidence, not vision. Finally, Hale started towards the tower, looking up from the lamp in only fleeting glances.
The three slinked warily up the tower’s grated staircase. The darkness that so greedily swallowed the lamplight seemed to amplify their clanging footsteps. Trek winced with each footfall. He didn’t like making noise. Not when the deep dark was so near. Leading the way, Hale was so focused on the lamp’s yellow globe that he stumbled when the flight to the second floor ended. But he hadn’t screamed, or fled. Some had. Trek admired the determination of this first time runner.
Will stepped past wordlessly, moving directly to a large horizontal gas cylinder a few feet from the stairwell. The cylinder had a small tap at the end which could be fitted to their canisters via a thick plastic tube. Trek prodded Hale, and motioned upward to the next floor. The two ascended the second flight, leaving Will crouched next to the first tap in the shifting lamplight. Reaching the third floor, Hale hesitated at the threshold. But after a moment he spotted his cylinder, and headed towards the tap. Trek breathed a sigh of relief and continued up to the fourth floor. He had been right: the lamplight shone in bright shafts through the grating below, illuminating the fourth floor well enough to make out the final cylinder.
Trek heard a loud hiss of gas under pressure from far below. Will had started to fill his canister. With silence now impossible, Trek nearly jumped the remaining steps to his cylinder. Crouching beside the tap, he hastily fitted his canister’s plastic tube to the nozzle. The hissing noise increased in intensity. Hale had got his gas siphon working as well. Trek fumbled for a moment with his tap and finally he, too, had his canister filling. Peering through the grate below, he could make out Hale tapping his hand impatiently against the large cylinder. The lamp rested on the floor beside him. Hale looked up and said something which Trek couldn’t make out for the overpowering hiss. Trek nodded reassuringly and gave a thumbs-up before returning his attention to his own floor.
For the first time, he observed the small interior of the tower. A few metres beyond the gas cylinder, a massive circular beam formed the centre of the structure. Little else but a few tracks of rusted pipes scattered the rest of the floor. He almost didn’t notice the missing section of guardrail on the far side of the tower. Trek jumped to his feet. With rising horror, his eyes distinguished the beginnings of a narrow walkway extending out from the gap. It was a catwalk coming from the sheds... the deep dark.
Another way up.
In a panic he started shouting down through the grate. “Hale! Get your canister off! We’ve got to get off the tower!” There wasn’t a hope of being heard above the hiss. He stamped his boot on the grate, shaking the entire floor. If Hale felt the vibrations, he showed no sign, continuing his absentminded tapping. Trek was turning to descend the staircase when he caught a shudder of movement on the catwalk. It was too late.
Trek spun his tap off and wrenched the canister and tube free. Resecuring the canister to his back harness took only another moment. But already something was emerging from the blackness. It was a man, it seemed to Trek, or what had once been one. He had never seen such a thing before, but knew, with a chill, what it must be. The voice and the body of the deep dark. Its skin had paled beyond mere whiteness, taking on a grey pallor which looked almost dead upon the body. What seemed to be clothes were unrecognizable rags. But Trek caught his breath at the starkly bald head. It was as if the bitter dark itself had been imprinted on the thing’s face. The corners of the mouth were drawn into the beginnings of a snarl. A thin nose protruded between... between what? The face around the eye sockets was horribly sunken, leaving two shadowy hollows where eyes might be hidden.
Trek reached down for a bit of loose pipe to wield as a club. But the creature had no interest in him yet. Jumping fearlessly over the guard rail, it swung itself by the platform edge down onto the third floor. Feeling the jolt behind him, Hale spun wide-eyed to find himself only inches from the sunken eyes. The creature paid little heed to the horrified Hale. Instead, Trek saw through the grating, it kicked the lamp at Hale’s feet, sending the light over the edge of the tower. Hale didn’t even hesitate. He ran full speed after the lamp, crashing through the flimsy guardrail. His figure seemed to hang for a moment in space, flailing hopelessly in the dark air. Then he was plunging downwards with a low scream. Hale hit the ground with a dull thud. Rushing to his own railing, Trek saw Hale’s crumpled body a few metres out from the tower, lying still beside the fallen lamp. The glass of the lamp had shattered with the impact. But it was still burning.
The hiss of gas siphoning had stopped completely now. Trek continued to watch Hale’s fallen body. With disturbing suddenness, a half-circle of shadowy figures emerged around Hale and the lamp. There was about ten of them, each completely bald and with the eye-hollows like the first. Some had strange gashes criss-crossing their bare scalps. One advanced quickly towards the lamp. It was going to extinguish it. Trek ran away from the guardrail, toward the catwalk side of the tower. Imitating the movements of the first creature as best he could, he swung down onto the third floor. But the one which had kicked the lamp was nowhere to be seen. Meanwhile, the creature on the ground had snatched up the lamp and was shaking it violently. Trek picked up Hale’s fallen canister and hefted it onto his shoulder. Running to the platform edge, he heaved the canister over the railing with all his strength. The canister plunged silently to its target, crashing hard into the shoulder of the creature which held the lamp. With a howl it dropped the light and fell writhing onto the gravel. Trek felt a moment of elation at his success. But now the other creatures turned from the lamp towards the source of the projectile. Almost instantly, they started towards the tower stairs, their sunken eyes looking up to where Trek stood. He backed away from the rail.
There was a clanging noise to his right. Something was coming up the stairwell from the second floor. Trek looked frantically for anything to use as a weapon. There was nothing this time, not even a scrap of metal. He tried to remember something an older runner had said about fighting but the pervasive darkness suffocated his thoughts. His mind raced hopelessly. What was this darkness? How was he supposed to fight it? But he could only recall the cryptic, useless sayings of the camp: “avoid the deep dark”, “darkness fears the light.”
The sight of a familiar tuft of brown hair in the stairway brought a moment of calm. It was Will.
“One of those things came at me from above,” he stammered. “I think… I think I threw it over the edge. Where the hell did it come from?”
Trek glanced upwards. “There’s a catwalk from the sheds on the next floor. But they’re coming up the stairs now.”
“I saw. Can we get off this thing?”
“Well, the stairs are blocked. And the catwalk leads to the deep dark.” It wasn’t an option. Trek leaned over the railing. “We need to get to the lamp.”
There was a flurry of footsteps below.
“They’re almost at the second floor now.”
They both looked down miserably at the three storey drop to the lamp.
Trek made his decision.
“Will, this is going to hurt.”
“What? Jump?” Will was incredulous. “You saw what happened to Hale from this height.”
“No.” Trek had pulled out the cigarette-lighter. “This.”
He pressed the lighter against one of the thickest oil stains on his overalls and flicked it once. The oil patch ignited instantly. Will watched dumbfounded as Trek reached across and set his own overalls alight.
“GO!”
The two sprinted down the stairwell, the rush of air fanning the flames. Trek screamed uncontrollably as he ran, spurred on by searing pain and adrenaline. Hurtling onto the second floor, they were now a pair of fiery demons in the gloom. The darkness fled before them. Some of the creatures rammed headlong into the tower’s centre beam; others leapt heedlessly over the guardrails, crashing into distorted heaps far below. Trek and Will charged helter-skelter down the final flight, leaping several steps at a time. They could hardly see when they finally burst out on to the refinery gravel, burning flames swirling wildly in their vision.
Next to Hale’s body and the lamp, the two clawed desperately at their flaming clothing. Their hands burned badly as they struggled free from the charring rags. Still able to put off the intense pain, Trek picked up the lamp and took a final look at what was clearly Hale’s corpse. His frame was doubled over awkwardly, his back clearly broken in the impact. Another “disappearance”. Will scooped up Hale’s gas canister and stood panting beside the body. There was nothing to be done.
Will spoke first. “Get us out of the dark.”
Trek led the way, holding the lamp tenderly with burned fingers. The filled gas canisters were heavier now, but the extra burden gave them hope. They ran with what energy they had left. Trek could no longer think steadily, his numbed mind navigating by intuition. As he ran, Trek glimpsed a flash of metal off to his left at the limit of the lamplight. A broken sign, he thought, catching a glimpse of text. “SOLWAY”, it could have said, but it was too far away to be sure. He thought of stopping to take a closer look, but already he had lost the metallic reflection in the darkness. He focused again on the painful run.
Trek’s direction held true, and they soon came upon the fence hole. They moved quickly through the gap, left breathless by the pain of bending. The uneven path sapped their failing strength. Unconsciousness beckoned to Trek with every step now. Pools of blackness welled up in his peripheral vision, merging with the darkness around him.
Trek’s muscles were numb with strain when at last his failing sight made out the dim glow of the camp. As he took the final unsteady steps, the glow took shape into a tight cluster of canvas tents. A figure standing at one edge of the cluster was waving and pointing. It was the lookout, and he was shouting ecstatically: “They’re back! They’re here!” An anxious crowd had formed when Trek finally stumbled into the cluster. He looked around for a moment and thought to speak, but no words came into his weary mind. Instead, he reached to unhook his gas canister, but even this proved too much. Exhaustion overtook him, and there on the camp’s threshold he collapsed into unconsciousness.