The Travellers

Dave Wilson experiences a strange phenomenon on the 11/11/11.

 

 

Dave Wilson closed the lid of his laptop as a cascade of workers flowed past his cubicle. It was a muggy Tuesday and a southerly change began to nip at the edge of the city. Dave passed the security guard at the door and they exchanged a friendly nod.

Heat still radiated from the pavement outside, yet a breeze shuffled through the small trees in the courtyard sending leaves on a downward diagonal. Dave watched his shoes drag him across the courtyard. He thought about last weekend at his parent’s house. It had been his sister’s birthday the previous day; they were having a get together. When Dave stood alone with a beer and his mobile he was approached by his mother. ‘You’re not doing anything with your life’ she said ‘Do something useful for once, it’s embarrassing us’.

Dave sighed heavily. What did they know? He thought as he stepped into his car. Her expectations were always out of control, seeing that Danielle and Jane were both psychiatrists. His thoughts consoled him slightly. His car pulled out onto the street and glided effortlessly along the smooth surface of the road.

Harriet understood, she always let me do what I want. He remembered sitting at the bar with her on Friday, her poise and beautifully shaped face, the wisps of hair protruding from beneath her dark green beret.

Dave looked up onto the road and instinctively slammed down the brakes. He came within inches of hitting a shaggy looking woman in the middle of the road wearing a grey cardigan and a faded pink blouse, but there was something different about her, separating her from most crazies Dave would see on the street.

‘Jesus will be your salvation, look at the skies, they’re falling’

The woman’s eyes were sticking out of her head and her grey hair blew wildly in the strong wind. Feeble, bony hands caressed a gold cross stringed around her neck with a chain. Dave was startled by the muffled words seeping through the windscreen, yet slowly swerved around the woman and continued toward the bridge.

The rumble of thunder sounded overhead and Dave leaned forward over the wheel to look up through the windscreen. The clouds swirled vigorously creating a menacing marble image hovering in the sky. Dave watched a strike of lighting crack through the clouds and send out a vibration of haunting thunder.

Dave Wilson jumped in his seat. On the bridge ahead of him the cars congested in front of flashing red and blue lights. Dave slowed the car and watched the scene in front of him.

A policeman was talking to a group of people who had temporarily abandoned their cars. Dave turned the keys and opened the door of his car. Lighting struck the first point on the concave suspension bridge making a discomforting zang noise. The crowd at the mouth of the bridge made a unified gasp and looked up to the sky.

Slowly the policeman regained their attention and continued to speak. Dave approached the back of the crowd and listened to the speech.

‘At the moment, the weather conditions are making it dangerous for people to cross the bridge’. The crowd heckled angrily and the policeman held up his arms to call for attention once again. ‘So, currently we are letting people through 4 cars at a time, all pedestrians should go east and catch the ferry, they are letting people on free of charge for today’.

Again the crowd became raucous with anger and the policeman stepped back into the driver seat of his police car. Another policeman dressed in a florescent yellow vest emerged from the passenger side and walked to the centre of the road with an illuminated guiding torch then directed four cars to come forward.

As each of them passed him by he said loudly over the thunder ‘Slowly, drive slowly’. The air was tense as the waiting ‘bridge go-ers’ watched the first four cars creep along the deserted surface of the road as slowly as they could. Lighting struck again and all the cars simultaneously braked.

Dave gripped the wheel and waited intensely for what might happen next. The bridge let out a prolonged moan as the suspension cables tensed. The cars started again crawling towards the other side. Within 6 minutes the first car had reached the north bank and after honking loudly sped off into the distance. It took a good hour for Dave to reach the front of the line. Police had to let people from the other side come across too.

I don’t understand why this is such a big deal?  thought Dave I’ve crossed this bridge during a thunderstorm before along with a hundred other cars. Then a terrible thought crossed Dave’s mind and he thought to himself, what if this wasn’t just a thunderstorm? After all, the wind was now raging like a vicious bull, and it was certainly the first time Dave had ever heard the bridge tense in such a way.

The policeman guided Dave and three other cars right up to the mouth of the bridge and gave each of them the same warning he had to the cars before. Dave Wilson, with a deep breath, gently pressed his foot onto the accelerator pedal and eased the car forward.

Out over the river, the water churned and the lighting danced. Dave’s stomach lurched with butterflies and an evident panic soon set in. He felt that this was a lot worse than first thought. What had that woman said before on the road? The skies are falling? CRACK!!!  Once again the top point of the bridge was struck with lighting and the zang that followed was a lot more ear-splitting now that Dave was on directly beneath it.

The bridge moaned again then seemed to settle. Dave moved the car forward slightly faster and then the bridge moaned again, and again, then the bridge seemed to be screaming and Dave stopped the car once more. The panic grew like a creature inside of him and bracing himself the next thing happened, except this time, Dave had expected it. One of the cables on the bridge snapped and whipped around the bridge, slamming into the car in front. The bridge wailed and the road below rumbled.

The driver of the car at the front of the line got out and ran back towards the south end of the bridge where the others were waiting. Dave could see the policeman moving everyone back away from the mouth of the bridge and all the cars receding like frightened beetles.

The anonymous driver was sprinting, throwing his hands around like a lunatic, screaming to the policeman for help, for the love of god help.

Dave put the car into the reverse and started the first point for a three point turn. He braked when three more cables snapped and went haywire. One of them swept down and lashed at the running driver sending him right off the bridge and over the edge.

Dave didn’t know what to do. Should he get out? What would happen? The bridge was wailing once again like a beached whale, a great beast in massive amounts of pain. Dave pulled back the handbrake and waited for what would happen next. Pressing his face against the window it began to fog up with his breath.

For a moment the air was still. The eerie silence taunted the drivers on the bridge like Satan himself. Dave closed his eyes and awaited his end. Gripping the wheel tightly, bracing himself, squeezing his eyes as closed as they could go. The two other remaining drivers were doing the same. Dave couldn’t see but he knew they were, there was nothing any of them could do now.

Then the initial jolt, the car rocked back and forth as an aftershock. Dave listened to the sound of hundreds of cables snapping and slicing through the air. The bridge let out one final cry of pain and then let go, the road cracked and crumbled its angle changing rapidly from relation to the ground, 180°, 120°, 100°. The tyres on Dave’s car skidded reluctantly toward the tipping edge of the bridge. Dave dared open his eyes and all he saw was the surface of the river below racing rapidly towards him. He and his car fell with the two other cars and chunks and crumbs of concrete, massive tangles of steel cable and all slapping the restless waves along the river.

The next part was dizzying, a total blur that was surrounded by the chilled water of the river around Dave’s feet and a desperate attempt to try and leave his sinking car. Then … black.

 

 

‘It doesn’t matter, Dave. I’ll always be there for you’. Harriet smiled, that sweet loving smile that made Dave feel so incredibly warm and in love. She was comforting him, but he wasn’t sure why. Where am I? He thought what is this room? Dave couldn’t comprehend his surroundings, everything was so incredibly bright, and all he could see was Harriet, staring at him, caressing his face.

‘Awaken’ an unfamiliar voice croaked at him. The voice was so loud, Dave’s ears rang. A crash of thunder and he was back. Staring down at him was a pale strange looking face topped with a mop of grey hair. Dave didn’t know this person, but somehow they were familiar.

The bridge!  Thought Dave, and he sat up bolt right searching the horizon for it. He was sitting on the saturated north bank of the river, about two kilometres down; he deducted this from the wreckage of the ruined bridge in the distance. It lay half in the water like a lifeless body, drowned in some sort of puddle. Water sprayed off the vehement waves and christened the debris of concrete and cement as if to say ‘Welcome to the river’.

‘We must go’ said the croaky voice from behind him. As Dave gazed upon the faded pink of the blouse and the saggy grey cardigan he suddenly remembered who this person was.

‘Jesus will be your salvation, look at the skies, they’re falling’

That woman he thought. The one I almost ran over.  Aloud he said: ‘Who are you? What’s going on?’ The woman simply turned and walked up the incline of the grassy river bank. Dave was so lost as to where he was; they were hardly out of the city, yet there were willows and endless amounts of grass surrounding. Dave quickly followed the woman over the small hill and saw a copper plated spire reaching into the sky, adorned with a neat little cross.

Uh-oh thought Dave. Is this such a good idea? He remembered the woman’s psychotic nature from earlier today, the way she gripped the cross around her neck with such overpowering faith. But they were in the middle of a dramatic thunderstorm, and Dave was pretty sure he had just died and come back to life after being tossed into the river from 30 metres. It’ll be fine, just sit there until the storm is done, it’ll all be good then.

The woman receded into the church closing the door behind her. Thunder struck again and this time brought an enormous cascade of rain with it. Dave was so confused and in total shock, there were so many unanswered questions. For the moment, Dave considered the best thing to do was to just go where the wind took him.

Inside the church was even darker than outside, Dave stood in the lobby listening to echoing whispers from the people inside. ‘Enough, Patricia, we can’t keep bringing in every Dick and Jane to sit with us through the tempest’. The voice was aged and deep, that of a man and as Dave peered into the pews he saw that the man was dressed in a traditional priest or vicar’s cassock.

The front of the church was lit up with what seemed like hundreds of candles. Dave could make out a mass of about three or four sleeping bodies on thin mattresses, directly in front of where the priest and the grey haired woman stood talking.

Dave walked up the few steps into the main area of the church. As he passed the third pew from the back, the priest noticed him and looked up.

‘Hello, stranger’ he said as amicably as he could. The grey haired woman was smiling also; Dave noticed how yellow and rotting her teeth were. Almost as rotten as mum’s personality he joked to himself.

‘I’m Patricia’ said the woman ‘And this Is Reverend Mathers’

The Reverend did not smile this time, but instead turned around and entered a small room off the side of the church. Patricia approached Dave and stood uncomfortably close to his face.

‘You look a bit confused’

‘I am confused’ said Dave, while conspicuously taking a step back from Patricia.

‘Reverend likes to call it the Tempest, like the William Shakespeare play?’ Patricia looked Dave up and down and then smiled again, her top lip peeled over the edge of her protruding gum.

 ‘I’m still confused? What is the tempest?’

‘It’s a play, by William Shakespeare’

‘Yes, I know, but why does Reverend Matthews refer to something as one?’

‘Reverend Mathers, he refers to the events that surround us right now. It has been foretold in the book of revelation, we were warned, and we are prepared. You my friend are a helpless civilian who has been pulled upon the ark of salvation’

‘Are you Catholic?’ Dave asked. His parents were Catholics, so naturally he felt some level of spite toward the religion.

‘Protestant’ was the reply ‘Catholics have it all wrong, you see-‘

‘Enough!’ the crisp deep voice of the reverend interrupted Patricia and Dave saw that Mathers had returned from the little room with a book in his hand.

Patricia’s eyes widened dramatically and Dave watched on still very confused. Who were those people on the ground?  He thought to himself are they protestants like this crazy priest and pilgrim, or are they like me? Dave felt he was in danger, and maybe the sleeping strangers were too. Had the Reverend drugged them? Would Dave soon be drugged as well?

‘Sit’ demanded the Reverend, and Dave quietly sunk into one of the pews. Patricia sat also, smiling and shaking with excitement as Reverend Mathers opened the book slowly and cleared his throat.

‘You know of the holy bible, I presume, David?’

‘Yes’ was the timid response ‘You can just call me Dave’

‘Well, Dave. This is another book, similar to the content of our beloved bible. I came across it 4 years ago, hidden beneath the floorboards of our very own St. Josephs. I kept the book at my bedside and one night decided to read it. To my surprise the book made a lot of sense in relation to the protestant religion. The words, so convincing, the sentence structure so factual and believable. I was immediately converted to reading this book more often than I would the bible. Even Patricia here was practically healed by its teaches after a dangerous break down in mental health’

Patricia nodded obligingly.

Dave built up the courage to interrupt and ask ‘Who wrote this book?’

‘I have absolutely no idea. There is no author mentioned anywhere in the book, not even a signature, but the most eye-opening idea was revealed to me at the end of the book’

The reverend picked up the book and showed the open page near the end. On it was an antique looking picture of a massive hand pushing down against the current of a river creating a massive wave. Dave immediately saw the resemblance of this image to the events he had encountered earlier.  Opposite the picture on the other page were six digits, only just decipherable as a bundle of abundant swirls. Dave read 11/11/11.

‘What does that mean?’ asked Dave.

‘It says 11 11 11, and that is the date tomorrow’ Patricia explained with great enthusiasm. ‘Tomorrow is the day the world will end’.

‘I can understand how this would seem hysterical to you, David. But I know, as does Patricia, that this book speaks the truth’

Dave took a figurative step back and looked at the two strange people who looked at him so earnestly believing a piece of realistic fiction. These people were purely insane, Dave was sure of it. He had just fallen off a collapsing bridge; he should be in a hospital for Christ’s sake.

One of the sleeping patients on the floor groaned and awoke, looking up puzzled by his surroundings. Patricia instantly got out of her seat and ran towards the dazed stranger’s assistance, the Reverend watched on and Dave seized the chance to escape. He slowly rose from his pew and then bolted for the door. Running as fast as he could, not looking back, trying desperately not to trip over the sandstone bricks paving the ground.

Dave heard Patricia screech and a deep bellow from the Reverend stating ‘Come back!’.  Dave kept running, out the door of the church and into the harsh rain. He ran for Harriet, he ran to tell his parents how much he hated them; he ran for his boring job, the fresh scent of air conditioned office spaces. Dave imagined that the ground was collapsing behind each of his footsteps making him run faster than he’d ever ran before through the gardens,  over the wet green grass, longing to hear the noises of the city, the rush of the traffic, the spray of water from the road onto pedestrians.

But as Dave ran through the large iron gates of the gardens, he was oddly disappointed. There was no sound of cars; no splash of water, the street was empty.

There were no people and all the shops were closed. Dave ran his hand through his hair. He watched lightning light up the clouds a few miles away and stood there on the sidewalk, trying to think.

His head pounded with thoughts, the last trace of the real world he could remember was the bridge, the policeman keeping back shocked crowds.

Then he was brought to that church, and Dave hadn’t been there for more than 3 hours.  So in total it had been at a maximum 3 and a half hours since he had been thrown off the bridge. What could’ve happened in that amount of time that made everyone disappear?

Maybe they’ve all gone to look at the bridge thought Dave that must be it, a nice picnic by the wreck of the bridge.

But the precipitation was increasing by the minute, It seemed unlikely that everyone just shut up shop and headed out in the rain to look at a broken bridge.

A thought hit Dave like the sting of a migraine. He had just remembered something that Patricia had said in the church.

‘It says 11 11 11, and that is the date tomorrow’

The 11^th of the 11^th, 2011? Is that really what she had said? It can’t have been? As far as Dave was aware, that date wasn’t until a month away. That would mean that Dave had been sitting in that river for a month, by all logical accounts he should’ve drowned within the first 10 minutes.

Dave looked around, desperate for ideas.

At that moment, something caught his eye, planted neatly in the stone wall surrounding the entrance to the garden. Dave knitted his eyebrows in bewilderment as the engraved writing stuck out at him like a sore thumb, a torchlight shining in his eyes, practically blinding him from the truth.

‘Dedicated to Revd. R. Mathers of St Joseph’s Protestant Church. 1830 �" 1893’

Dave suddenly felt very dizzy, and the world around him spun like a spinning top.

His unexpectedly induced vertigo forced him on his hands and knees, squinting and hoping that the dizziness would end, but all it did was increase, the world spinning faster and faster until it became a blur of smudged colours and shapes.

Now … Dave remembered.

 

 

The uncomfortable thud as the woman rolled over the top of his car and landed on the road behind him, the sick feeling Dave had experienced the moment he realised he had just hit someone with his car, The pained expression on her face, her white knuckles frozen in the position of clenching her beloved cross, the blood stained grey cardigan.

The next night he attended her memorial at the gardens near the church, he laid a bouquet of Hydrangeas at the door, he saw the crying faces of her small immediate family.

Dave spent the night with Harriet, they said nothing all night. Pasta, Red wine, a quiet movie.

In the morning they lay under the covers together, the bright morning sun illuminating the room.

‘It doesn’t matter, Dave. I’ll always be there for you’. Harriet smiled, that sweet loving smile that made Dave feel so incredibly warm and in love.

‘Just go to the party and forget about it. It’s going to take time for you to get over it, but at least you can try and distract yourself. Go with your friends, stay the night’.

The Work party was out of town at a neat little cabin in the woods. There was music and alcohol, everyone stood around and talked it was generally pleasant, or should’ve been, Dave couldn’t stop thinking about that poor woman, Patricia.

‘You must be David’ a decrepit white-haired old man approached him. ‘You work with my son Harry I think’.

Dave did the honourable thing and politely introduced himself, engaged in small talk occasionally sipping a beer.

‘You know, there’s an old Mexican legend that foretells the end of the world. I heard it once in La Paz, this funny looking old man sat with me on the porch of his favourite saloon and told me. It seemed to me like one of those stories he would only tell a stranger if he’d had enough to drink. But I remember it, I always remember it’

‘And what did he say?’ asked Dave.

‘Once, there was a traveller who came across death in the desert. Death said ‘Come with me now or curse a man you do not know’. The traveller naturally chose the latter option and Death began to laugh. So the traveller asked him ‘Why do you laugh so much? This is a terrible thing you have made me do’. Then Death said ‘You must not worry, this man will deserve what he gets and with it he’ll bring the end of the world’

The old man took off his glasses and wiped them with his shirt. Dave looked confused ‘Well, what does that mean?’

‘That’s exactly what I said to the man. He had me on edge; the story was simple yet so compelling. And I waited, and the Mexican himself began to laugh, so I pestered the man ‘Tell me what this means, I’m dying to know’ I said. But the man got up and left, and walked into the hot sun of the day. After I got up to go after him I noticed something on the deck. A thin slip of parchment sticking out from under his chair leg, and I bent down and picked it up-’

The old man cut himself off and looked elsewhere. Then, he hobbled away into the mixing crowd of guests.

And just like in the story, Dave looked down at the ground and picked up a slip of paper the old man had left behind. To his surprise he found no words on the paper, just six single strokes next to each other in neat straight ink.

 

‘||||||’

 

 

Only now did it make sense to Dave, as he kneeled on the pavement feeling all the blood in his body rushing to his head as the world spun faster and faster.

 

‘It says 11 11 11, and that is the date tomorrow’

 

‘You know, there’s an old Mexican legend that foretells the end of the world’

 

The banks of the river rose up, the water flooding in around Dave’s ankles. Surrounding him were the people who would travel with Dave on his journey.

The bridge victims, Patricia and the Reverend Mathers and one other … one who Dave didn’t recognise.

In his hand he held a rope that attached to a donkey. He had dark skin and was a young man with a traditional poncho draped over his shoulders. At that moment, Dave knew who all these people were, they were the Travellers, and Dave was one too

 

 

 

 

WRITTEN BY W.J.HALL Copyright © 2011.

Author's Note

Does it make sense? What can I improve on? Is the ending to abrupt?