"They call it "The Zone"'; a precisely circular, 1 mile wide area of
land in the middle of England. It sits there, day in, day out, swathed
in mist, and formed into a dome that never strays more than a few inches
one way or another, that covers the area to a height of 304 feet
exactly, precisely in the middle; we know, we've checked. More than
once.
Well, when I say “never strays”, that is unless it's had one of it’s
periodic and unpredictable expansions the Zone goes through every now
and then. One moment it's still, gently roiling against what to all
intents and purposes is an invisible wall. The next, it's swallowed up a
meter, two meters, 50 meters, a kilometre... in the 5 years since the
"Event", it's expanded 8 times, all differently, all at different
speeds, all precisely centred on ground zero. And no-one knows why.
No-one knows why it happened in the first place either, or how, but
the Event changed the world. A mile-wide dome of mist silently appeared
literally overnight in a field in England and nothing was ever the same
again.
The first people to approach it were driven mad; the first people to
try to breach it died; the first people who tried to harness it made it
grow. Now, 5 years later, it’s 20 miles wide from point to point and
exactly the same height as it’s always been.
They tried to investigate it, obviously. As I said, in the 5 years
since The Event happened, it’s swelled 8 times and breached it’s
containment on 5 occasions. They just move the perimeter back, now; it’s
all they can do.
They sent unmanned probes in, of course. Every one of them failed;
they sent in special guinea pigs; every one of them died. Then they
figured out why...
Technology goes bizarre crossing what we call The Boundary; anything
that uses electricity of even the tiniest amount stops working if it
goes from one side to the other without suitable protection. And that
includes the human brain. One step inside that misty wall without an
isolation suit, and your brain and central nervous system stop instantly
as every microscopic electrically charged neuron or nerve signal
immediately ceases; at least, that’s what they told us. A quick and
painless way to die, for sure, but not one I would recommend to anyone.
It took 3 years of hard, painstakingly gathered evidence to come up
with a solution. Along with over 95 million pounds and the lives of over
400 people, of course. And that was just the start...
And then they sent us in.
Beyond the Boundary is a misty realm, dotted with the ruins of the
world it’s swallowed. 20 miles of gobbled up land, complete with roads,
trees, houses and dead bodies. Weirdly, the animals that got sucked in
survived, and no-one knows why that is, either.
The problem is, you push past 20 miles and you don’t come out the
other side. The land just gets… stranger. Entire ruined settlements that
look like they came out of either a sci-fi movie or a history
documentary, or sometimes both, dotted around in almost logical places.
Odd objects like monoliths that have never stood on Earth rise up
through the mists. And freaky things that have never walked the land
outside a horror story call this place “home”.
And that doesn't account for the reports of survivors that somehow
didn't get "switched off" when they got swallowed by the Boundary. Or
the other man-like figures that my fellow Pathfinders were always
reluctant to put on official reports, for fear of the "scowl" and the
inevitable hauling off to be psych-tested to make sure you weren't going
to go completely postal at the next opportunity. Me? I've seen things
in there I don't ever want to remember, and certainly aren't going to
write down here; I have enough of a hard time trying to blot it out with
Scotch and deliberately pretendng some of it never happened without
putting it here to constantly remind me.
We’ve been looking for 5 years; looking for an answer; looking for
“why”. Why did this happen? Some massive cosmic mistake? A completely
random confluence of events? A directed attack? An attempt to contact
mankind, or something else? No-one knows.
Oh, there are plenty of theories, of course; an overlap with a
parallel world; a breach between dimensions where they all bleed into
one. The result of an experiment gone wrong. And that’s just the 3 that
get the most traction. I’m not counting the bizarro ones, the mad ones,
the internet conspiracy ones, the religious ones.
All we know is it happened, and the Zone is here now, and doesn’t look like it’s going away any time soon.
And pretty soon, I’ll have to go back into it again.
Who am I? Well, I suppose introductions are in order. The name’s
Ramsey, Michael Ramsey. More properly, I suppose it’s “Corporal Mike
Ramsey, D Squadron, 22 SAS”, if such things still mattered. They don’t,
incidentally… I’ve not been a soldier now for 3 years at least, and it’s
been 2 since I last drove through the gates to what the smart arses in
R&B call “the Foyer”, the latest incarnation of the departure point
into the Zone.
It’s a square mile of concrete, muddy field, gravel and tarmac… which
keeps being moved every time the bloody thing swells. I know it’s moved
since I was last there, as I’ve seen the news reports; it grew again 3
weeks ago and another 5 miles of England’s Green and Pleasant Lands are
now gone into that foggy hole where nothing ever comes back from.
Apart from the Pathfinders, of course.
That’s what we were called; Pathfinders. A good enough name for what
we did. Trailblazers was considered a little too outre, and Guinea Pigs
was frowned upon as too negative, even though that’s what most of us
were.
20 of us to begin with, fresh faced, eager and from different
backgrounds; scientists, doctors, soldiers, engineers; of those original
20, there ain’t many of us left. 2 died of some weird infection that
they contracted on the other side; 4 died as a result of complications
from injuries caused by accidents, 1 died in a scuba diving accident, 1
was a victim of a hit and run and another was murdered by his wife when
she found out about the affair he was having with her best friend.
10 of us died fighting the things that crawl, flap and skitter on the
other side. Occupational hazard, they call it, and it is, really. Not
that it makes it any easier, of course.
I guess that leaves me and Ian Parker; he got injured rescuing a load
of civilians who got caught in the Boundary when it last swelled; he
still walks with a limp, but he managed to save 3 of them before the
rest of the coach party crossed the Boundary and just “stopped”, as most
things do. He’s project director, now; riding a desk and not a trail
quad or armoured car.
And me? Well, I retired. More correctly, I was retired, mainly because of the way I drank, I guess.
Or maybe it was the way I woke up screaming in the night and couldn’t remember why.
Or the 3 times I nearly killed my camp mates in my sleep without even waking up.
My wife left me before then, thank christ; the last thing I wanted
was to wake up and find me standing over her bloody corpse. I can’t say I
blame her, to be honest; if I was shacked up with some borderline
psychopathic loon who could kill a man with a toothbrush, I’d have
fucked off pretty damn quickly, too.
So, I was psych-evaluated, poked, prodded, tested, considered “safe”
to be let go, plied with enough secrecy documents to sink a battleship
and quietly shipped off to my “retirement”, with the obligatory warnings
not to talk about what I’d seen, or done, or I’d spend eternity rotting
in a dark cell somewhere where I’d never see the light of day again.
Either that or, depending on what I blabbed or wrote about and who to,
end up meeting with a dodgy looking bloke at some ungodly hour with a
sharpened umbrella or a silenced 9mm.
I wasn’t interested in either of those, naturally. I just wanted to
be left alone to drink myself slowly to death, preferrably somewhere
nice and warm and not damp and cold. That feeling brought back too many
memories of fumbled, mad scrambling in the dark, running firefights and
warm, sticky blood on my hands.
They replaced us as we “dropped out”, naturally; fresh meat for the
grinder, all fresh faced and young, eager to please their superiors or
governmental leash holders. Promises of fortune and glory, enough cash
to sleep comfortably for the rest of your life, fame and celebrity
always makes sure there’s a line of hopefuls from all over the world ten
miles long, champing at the bit to step up and be the hero. I know; I
was one of them when I started. That soon wore off, tnough, and I can’t
say I was sorry when I drove out of those gates for the last time,
hoping… dreading I’d never, ever have to go back.
Of course, I never expected to get a call from Parker. Hell, I never expected what happened to prompt that
call, either. But, as one of my dead colleagues always used to say
“once the Zone has it’s hooks in you, you’ll always end up going back,
whether you want to or not”.
And I sure as hell didn’t want to. But I wasn’t given a lot of
choice… and,to be honest, I think a part of me needed to go back, one
last time. Just to… I dunno. Say goodbye, maybe?
Weird, I know. I don’t expect anyone who’s never been in there to
understand what I mean, but there’s this niggling voice at the back of
my mind that still, even now, whispers in the quiet of the night “but
what does it all mean?”
I guess that voice is happy it’s got another shot at trying to find out. And, strangely, so am I..."
Some snippets from a background document that details some of the story behind a project I'm toying with.... keep an eye out for more....
