Isolation.

The first person to notice the sound was drunk; Mark Dinsdale was on his way back from a night out with friends. It was a Friday, or technically the early hours of Saturday morning, although it is impossible to pinpoint exactly when the sound started, only that Dinsdale, at ten past one, was the first person to record hearing it. He had just abandoned trying to make a phone call as he took a short cut that led through a complex of tower blocks, and his first impression was that somebody was running a motorcycle to warm the engine up. When he turned the corner into the rear court of the flats, he really expected to see a bike of at least 1000cc on a stand whilst its rider put the finishing touches to his gear, ready to take off, so when there was nobody there, he stopped and listened more carefully. The sound was really like a giant hand had stretched out an enormous elastic band about a mile long, and then twanged it, but if that had happened, the elastic band would eventually come to a standstill, and the sound would decay, which showed no sign of happening. The sound, which could be felt as much as heard, went on continuously. Mark had no explanation, wondered vaguely if the noise of the pub and the sudden shock of the cold night air might have caused something to his inner ear, then he felt the shape of the door key in his pocket in his pocket urging him home.

The next morning, the sound was still there.

It was not so intrusive that it impeded normal life, in fact most of the people in the little town went about their business without really registering it consciously. When somebody made some reference to it, it was quite normal for the person he or she was talking to say, “Oh, you can hear that as well?” Most people had believed it to be an internalized phenomenon, something like tinnitus, maybe. One by one, you could see people staring at the sky, waiting for a plane to pass over that never did.

By Saturday night, the noise, which was what it was now being described as instead of a sound, had got so loud it was beginning to affect the behavior of the residents. Normally, there would be a certain amount of movement between the town’s three pubs, the off license, the struggling cinema and the take-aways. Tonight, the giant humming noise, which had become more like a throb, had driven everybody indoors. A particularly noise-sensitive resident, who often phoned the local council to complain about rubbish collection in the middle of the night or early hours of the morning, had been very quick to register a complaint, but instead of the usual placation he received apologetic confusion. The council, then, had no idea what the noise was either. As everybody hunkered down indoors, their ears vainly stuffed with everything from kitchen roll to high end noise cancelling headphones. Their pets ran around the deserted town; the dogs marching from street to street in an ever increasing pack whilst the cats slunk and flitted around dustbins and street furniture, their eyes and ears open for potential danger at every turn.

Finally, at about half-past midnight, Mark could stand it no longer. Wired by too much coffee and nicotine, chased by a half bottle of Bailey’s that his ex-girlfriend had left behind when she’d moved out and which had had the effect of waking him up rather than sedating him as it usually did, he looked round at the bare walls of his one bedroomed flat and decided that there was no good to be done here. He picked a cushion off the settee and stuffed it into an old gas mask case. Then he folded an old car rug under one arm, checked that his mobile phone was charged and set off through the door. He was heading for Dawson’s Rise, the hill that looked out over the town, which was his usual destination when things got him down and he needed a walk. Out there, he reasoned, he might be free from the noise and a walk might help clear his head and tire him out enough for him to lie down and catch an hour’s sleep, which was more than he was going to get here.

He moved through the darkened streets like one of the cats, trying not to look scared, trying not to call attention to himself. It was a warm night and the moon was almost full, which helped as now the noise was vibrating so hard that some of the street lamps had stopped working. Without realizing it, he retraced his steps from the night before when he had first heard the sound, through the back court of the tower block where the noise was now at its strongest. He passed the pub on the edge of the town where he usually drank; it was boarded up now. Looking up the road towards Dawson’s Rise, it looked like the trees in the wood weren’t vibrating like everything further down and that the sound was maybe less up there.

At the end of the street where the car park was, he turned around to look at the town. With the streetlamps vibrating wildly, it seemed to be almost shimmering. He noticed a sudden change in the wind direction as the leaves on the trees around him caught the breeze. Despite this, Mark felt like the whole of nature seemed to be waiting for something, somehow. Some movement or other caused him to look upwards to his left and there he saw an approaching shape on the horizon. At first he thought that a cloud or some mist had moved away from some building or other, but the little town had nothing in it that was that tall and this building had to be twenty stories high, plus it was moving. The shape thundered towards him and he could now see it as a huge train, well over three hundred feet high, with wheels of fire that cut through the fabric of the town, destroying everything in their way. Mark watched dumbstruck as the wheels carved the local hospital in half like a great white wedding cake, leaving a perfect slice still standing with a filling of beds and equipment. The train cut through the town in a perfect straight line, like a sword, and Mark was able to predict the trajectory and see that it would not touch him at all where he stood at the beginning of Dawson’s Rise. He could only look on helplessly and observe how one of the passengers on the train, an elegant female being, looked out of the window straight at him, he look of utter boredom showing that she hadn’t seen him at all.

1155 words ©Gavin A.F. Hill 2026

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