Nightshift 45: Ruins
[from here]
Here they were.
Conversation gave way to quiet observation as Lunge paused at the top of what was probably once a road, looking out onto the dark shell of a town that lay before them. Moonlight picked out the glint of glass and the ragged edges of debris scattered like fallen stars under the sheath of fog, and, rising out of that, the bent, wrecked bodies of decaying buildings. Even by the light of his flashlight he could see little fragments of what once was- a half-eaten chintz sofa, a dresser with most of the drawers missing, even a burnt-out oven tipped onto its side. Domesticity deconstructed within twenty feet of him.
It was, not to put too fine a point on it, as quiet as the grave.
This wasn't simply a matter of weathering, or a gradual collapse into disrepair. L's friend had been right- the town did look as though it might have dated from around the 1920s, even if Americana wasn't anywhere near his own field of interest. That kind of destruction simply didn't happen in less than one hundred years. Time could erode, but it couldn't bring entire buildings to their knees.
Laurier. What would he make of this? Obviously, the man had come expecting to find nothing out of the ordinary, and yet it was impossible to deny just how extraordinary this place was. He waited until Laurier was standing alongside him to speak. "I suggest we start with the church," Lunge suggested, pointing his flashlight down the road towards the remains. "That is, after all, what we came here to look at."
Here they were.
Conversation gave way to quiet observation as Lunge paused at the top of what was probably once a road, looking out onto the dark shell of a town that lay before them. Moonlight picked out the glint of glass and the ragged edges of debris scattered like fallen stars under the sheath of fog, and, rising out of that, the bent, wrecked bodies of decaying buildings. Even by the light of his flashlight he could see little fragments of what once was- a half-eaten chintz sofa, a dresser with most of the drawers missing, even a burnt-out oven tipped onto its side. Domesticity deconstructed within twenty feet of him.
It was, not to put too fine a point on it, as quiet as the grave.
This wasn't simply a matter of weathering, or a gradual collapse into disrepair. L's friend had been right- the town did look as though it might have dated from around the 1920s, even if Americana wasn't anywhere near his own field of interest. That kind of destruction simply didn't happen in less than one hundred years. Time could erode, but it couldn't bring entire buildings to their knees.
Laurier. What would he make of this? Obviously, the man had come expecting to find nothing out of the ordinary, and yet it was impossible to deny just how extraordinary this place was. He waited until Laurier was standing alongside him to speak. "I suggest we start with the church," Lunge suggested, pointing his flashlight down the road towards the remains. "That is, after all, what we came here to look at."