again. “I respected her. Learned a lot. I don’t know what you’d say I felt about her.”
She bought a key ring, like Will had done. A plastic figure of a dead alien cast in plaster. McCulloch tried to give it to her but she said no and gave him money. Sophia had the door open when he called her back.
“Hey,” he said. “What was the other thing you found? Next to—the woman?” She said nothing, and showed nothing on her face. “Come on, I was right there. That cast Paddick messed up was pointing towards a big mound of mud. Something you hadn’t uncovered yet. Did you?”
“Yes. We hadn’t filled that hole yet.”
“Were they not connected?”
“Good question. That’s not a hundred percent clear. When we did fill it we weren’t allowed to use the resin, obviously, so we did it with plaster. Old school. We dug it out and, yeah, it was right up by where she’d been. The woman you saw. You remember her hands?” She held hers out as if straining to reach something. “In the earth? It was like she wanted to touch what we found. If it was anything.”
“If?”
“Yeah. You can’t always tell. That happens sometimes. The ground moves about, hollows appear just naturally. There are a million weird holes everywhere. You pour stuff in, you never know what shape it’s going to make. What’s going to come up. What we got was big and sprawly and opened out, like with chambers, and a bunch of what might’ve been wings and arms and legs, or might’ve been rat tunnels, or might’ve been nothing. Might’ve been just holes.”
“Did you keep it?” McCulloch said at last.
“Someone did, maybe.”
Fiorelli and his workers must have erred on the side of caution. After their first uncovering, they must have filled all manner of random chasms, made cast after cast of the shapes left between slabs of straining earth. They were doubtless all destroyed, those statues of impossibilities, spindly crevice-spiders, Giacometti burrow-people in plaster.
“Whatever it was, if it was anything, it looked like she was holding on to it, or trying to,” Sophia said. “Holding its hand.”
She walked to the front of the shop. She could be wearing any necklace or bracelet beneath her high-necked long-sleeved clothes. McCulloch looked up and watched her go in the rounded security mirror, her body distorted into something wide and shining.
“Even if it didn’t have one,” he said. Even if there was nothing there.
Sophia turned in the doorway. She said, “Just like she was holding its hand.”
THE CRAWL
A TRAILER
0:00–0:04
Blackness. Slow, labored breathing builds into a death rattle.
Voice-over, elderly female (A): “We lost the world.”
0:05–0:09
Series of fixed-camera shots of cities destroyed, deserted but for wind. The urban images become interspersed with close-ups of wounds and dead flesh.
Voice-over, A: “To the dead.”
0:10–0:13
An overgrown yard crowded with rotting corpses. They shamble.
At the furthest corner of the lot, something hidden in the weeds snatches a zombie and pulls it down and out of sight.
0:14–0:16
Young man (Y) runs through charred remains of an art gallery. A mob of bloody dead run after him.
0:17
Blackness. Sound of wet explosion.
0:18
Y has turned, is staring at a swamp of decaying blood, all that is left of his pursuers.
Voice-over, A: “We’re all prey to something.”
0:19–0:21
Interior, a broken-down shack. Unkempt men and women surround Y. He says, “They were taken!”
A young woman says, “By what?”
0:22–0:28
Montage of zombies. Some shuffle, some run. Every one of them is taken, yanked into the shadows by something unseen.
Voice-over, A: “First they walked. Then they ran. Now it’s a new phase.”
0:29–0:33
Close-up, a dead man’s face. Camera pulls back. He is one of many zombies in a city square. They crawl toward the camera.
They do not crawl on their knees but on their toes and their knuckles or fingertips or the palms
She bought a key ring, like Will had done. A plastic figure of a dead alien cast in plaster. McCulloch tried to give it to her but she said no and gave him money. Sophia had the door open when he called her back.
“Hey,” he said. “What was the other thing you found? Next to—the woman?” She said nothing, and showed nothing on her face. “Come on, I was right there. That cast Paddick messed up was pointing towards a big mound of mud. Something you hadn’t uncovered yet. Did you?”
“Yes. We hadn’t filled that hole yet.”
“Were they not connected?”
“Good question. That’s not a hundred percent clear. When we did fill it we weren’t allowed to use the resin, obviously, so we did it with plaster. Old school. We dug it out and, yeah, it was right up by where she’d been. The woman you saw. You remember her hands?” She held hers out as if straining to reach something. “In the earth? It was like she wanted to touch what we found. If it was anything.”
“If?”
“Yeah. You can’t always tell. That happens sometimes. The ground moves about, hollows appear just naturally. There are a million weird holes everywhere. You pour stuff in, you never know what shape it’s going to make. What’s going to come up. What we got was big and sprawly and opened out, like with chambers, and a bunch of what might’ve been wings and arms and legs, or might’ve been rat tunnels, or might’ve been nothing. Might’ve been just holes.”
“Did you keep it?” McCulloch said at last.
“Someone did, maybe.”
Fiorelli and his workers must have erred on the side of caution. After their first uncovering, they must have filled all manner of random chasms, made cast after cast of the shapes left between slabs of straining earth. They were doubtless all destroyed, those statues of impossibilities, spindly crevice-spiders, Giacometti burrow-people in plaster.
“Whatever it was, if it was anything, it looked like she was holding on to it, or trying to,” Sophia said. “Holding its hand.”
She walked to the front of the shop. She could be wearing any necklace or bracelet beneath her high-necked long-sleeved clothes. McCulloch looked up and watched her go in the rounded security mirror, her body distorted into something wide and shining.
“Even if it didn’t have one,” he said. Even if there was nothing there.
Sophia turned in the doorway. She said, “Just like she was holding its hand.”
THE CRAWL
A TRAILER
0:00–0:04
Blackness. Slow, labored breathing builds into a death rattle.
Voice-over, elderly female (A): “We lost the world.”
0:05–0:09
Series of fixed-camera shots of cities destroyed, deserted but for wind. The urban images become interspersed with close-ups of wounds and dead flesh.
Voice-over, A: “To the dead.”
0:10–0:13
An overgrown yard crowded with rotting corpses. They shamble.
At the furthest corner of the lot, something hidden in the weeds snatches a zombie and pulls it down and out of sight.
0:14–0:16
Young man (Y) runs through charred remains of an art gallery. A mob of bloody dead run after him.
0:17
Blackness. Sound of wet explosion.
0:18
Y has turned, is staring at a swamp of decaying blood, all that is left of his pursuers.
Voice-over, A: “We’re all prey to something.”
0:19–0:21
Interior, a broken-down shack. Unkempt men and women surround Y. He says, “They were taken!”
A young woman says, “By what?”
0:22–0:28
Montage of zombies. Some shuffle, some run. Every one of them is taken, yanked into the shadows by something unseen.
Voice-over, A: “First they walked. Then they ran. Now it’s a new phase.”
0:29–0:33
Close-up, a dead man’s face. Camera pulls back. He is one of many zombies in a city square. They crawl toward the camera.
They do not crawl on their knees but on their toes and their knuckles or fingertips or the palms
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