Face

by Tim Lebbon

  Was it him?

  “Megan, it’s just a piece of rubbish-“

  “Right across our roof, Dan.”

  “-designed as a bit of sensationalism because the local radio channel needs some publicity.”

  “You’re saying some disc jockey worried about his job planted the footprints?” she said in a monotone.

  Dan shook his head. “No, they didn’t do it, it’s just something they can manipulate, latch on to. You know as well as I do we only hear the news they think we need to hear.” Another news update rattled its way through the jingle on the radio. That was one of Dan’s pet hates: the fact that radio producers believed listeners needed background music to keep them interested in news.

  The item this time was slightly longer, and it contained details of where the trail of prints started and ended. It also stated that they were cloven prints, and that in places there were drag

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  marks in the snow between them, as if made by a long tail.

  “My God, they finish just at the end of our road!” Megan muttered.

  For a moment Dan could not breathe-perhaps subconsciously awaiting more news to follow after the end jingle-and then he sighed deeply and quietly. Megan hadn’t caught on, he was sure. And if she saw his surprise at where the prints were purported to commence and finish, it would be something more to worry about. Somehow his poker face held.

  “A mile away, through the woods,” he said. “There, I told you it was a deer.” But for the first time, Dan actually wondered whether something or someone else had left that trail through the night.

  It started five miles away, took a huge circuitous route across the countryside, and ended on the other side of the woods, right next to the main road.

  The exact locations where they had picked up and dropped off Brand.

  Nikki walked around to the side of the house-across her dad’s favorite flower bed, but it was under a foot of snow and she’d feign ignorance if there was any damage once the thaw came-and looked up at the roof. At first she could see nothing marring the white slope, but the more she backed away, the clearer the prints became where something had, apparently, moved up the incline to the ridge. And as her parents had said,

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  the trail began directly above where the prints on the ground ended.

  “Woah,” she murmured. “Can’t be real.” She glanced around at the silent landscape-the dead apple tree brought to fluttering life by the birds; the garden fence half-buried in places by drifted snow; the evergreens standing moodily at the edge of the woods-and then retraced her steps closer to the house. Where the mysterious prints ended there were two wider holes next to each other, as if whatever it was had run this far and then squatted to jump. She glanced up at the stone wall but there were no marks or scratches, no scrapes in the snow clinging here and there. Whatever had leaped onto the roof had made it in one go.

  Springheeled Jack come do your thing,

  Your every thought just makes me sing.

  Nikki felt embarrassed muttering the lyrics aloud. They were from a song that Mandy and Jesse had written for The Rabids, a weak tune called “Springheeled Jack Come Back.” They said it was based on a legend about some guy who’d been able to jump over houses. Nikki had a vague memory of it-probably something her dad had wittered on about once, a tale from one of his old books-but it was an odd subject for a rock song, and for once she and Jazz had agreed on something to do with the band. Musical differences, she thought. Now there was a good title.

  A moment of your time. That’s all Brand had wanted. The memory of his voice made her colder and brought up goosebumps. More words echoed at her, something she was not even sure

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  he’d said: I want to go up your daughter. And then she wondered why she was suddenly remembering the tall stranger at all. Perhaps because she liked to imagine him having a moment of her time, and doing what she thought he’d said? Those dark eyes, long hair, the charisma that Jazz tried but failed to exude, but which came naturally from Brand. Oh yes, she could imagine it. She had not seen beneath his coat-he’d almost shown her, he’d teased her-but she could picture it, she could see them together in the snow, not noticing the cold because they were making each other so hot-Jazz was still a boy. He was her age, but when it came to sex she felt superior, in control. Her own experience hardly made her an expert-a sticky, fumbled few times with her previous boyfriend-but with Jazz she felt so much older. He was a little baby with a new toy, while she only ever wanted to be grown up. But thinking of Brand made her feel like a little girl again. Her experience would be nothing to his. She would be putty in his hands, a jumble of disparate words which he would make into poetry.

  She wondered where and what his brand was, and what would have happened if he’d actually shown her. She also wondered who had branded him.

  Nikki turned around and scanned the treeline, knowing he would be there. He was. He hid behind a trunk, but she knew he wanted to be seen. He may have been a part of the tree itself but for his long hair snapping at the breeze, and his coat billowing open to reveal something dark

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  underneath. He did not move. He did not indicate that he had seen her, or that she had noticed him.

  She raised her hand to wave but thought better of it, brushing it through her long hair instead. Weird. He was just standing there as if he’d been there forever, watching and waiting, a natural part of the forest and all its secrets. She walked sideways across the snow-covered lawn to try to get a better view. He seemed to become more camouflaged moment by moment, and by the time she reached the house she doubted that he’d ever been there at all. Maybe all she had seen had been part of a tree. Twigs twitching with the weight of snow. Shadows dancing as the sun shone down through the laden branches.

  The back door opened behind her and she let out a little squeal of surprise.

  “Boo!” her dad said.

  “Dad!” She sighed, wiped at her forehead and noticed she’d been sweating.

  “Jazz on the phone. Said he can’t live if living is without you.”

  Nikki stamped her boots in the porch and cringed as her dad ruffled her hair. Sometimes he still thought she was seven, not seventeen.

  “Mum still listening to the news?”

  Her dad snorted behind her, and mumbled: “What do you think?”

  “Don’t worry Dad, she’ll forget about it all by this evening.” She opened the kitchen door and went in without waiting for a reply. Her mum was sitting as she’d left her, hunched at the table, eyes wide as the radio threatened more news updates at eleven o’clock.

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  “Okay Mum?”

  No answer. Nikki left the room quickly, not wishing to get caught up in Mum-and-Dad stuff. She hated when they rowed. Hated it even more when they just ignored each other. So she ran upstairs, grabbed the cordless phone from its wall mount on the landing and went to her bedroom.

  “Hi,” she gasped into the mouthpiece, breathless from pounding up the stairs.

  “Wow, what have you been doing? Thinking of me?”

  “Just ran upstairs. Out of breath.”

  A moment of your time, she thought, the memory again unbidden. It made her deliciously uneasy.

  “Sounds sexy,” he said.

  She adjusted her breathing to mimic the cliched heavy breather.

  “Not sexy anymore. Forced. I like you natural.”

  “That’s not what you said when I wore the leopard-skin bra.”

  “Well… that’s natural, isn’t it? A leopard? Grrr!”

  There was a pause for a moment as they both giggled. Nikki looked out at the icicles hanging from the guttering above the window.

  “You have a good time?” Jazz asked.

  She rolled her eyes as if he could see her. “Mum and Dad bickered, pretended they were enjoying it, made me go for a stupid walk along the cliffs. Three bloody hours! Then on the last day the snow started, and the journey home was … interesting.”
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  “I’ll bet. I thought you might get snowed in somewhere, or something.” There was a lilt in his voice that gave her a thrill, a sense of power.

  “Would you have cared?” she asked, knowing the answer but wanting to hear it.

  ” ‘Course I would. I missed you.”

  “Missed you too,” Nikki said. She wondered how true that was, thought of Jazz with his long blond hair, his still-spotty face, his belief that he could play his guitar like Clapton, not clapped-out, his love of strong cider and weak cigarettes, the way his eyes widened with a childlike glee on those few occasions they’d tried sex … and how that sex had been uninspiring. And she tried to convince herself that she really had missed him.

  “So what was interesting?”

  “Dad picked up a hitchhiker.”

  “Your old man? A hitchhiker? Get away. That’s too … interesting.”

  “Well, he did. Odd guy … just standing out in the snow. Brand.”

  “Huh?”

  “Brand, that was his name.”

  “Sounds American. Weird. Where’d you take him?”

  “Nowhere.” Nowhere and everywhere, he’d said.

  “Don’t geddit.”

  “Dad kicked him out. Well, Mum did really, after he started slagging off God.”

  “Your Mum? Kicked a guy out of the Freelander? That I wish I’d seen.” Even the static behind Jazz’s voice sounded amazed. “Although

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  thinking about it, if he did dis God I can almost believe that …”

  “Not physically. She … you know, told him to leave.”

  Jazz fell silent, and for a moment Nikki thought the line had been cut. Then he shouted down the phone and made her jump. “Hey, you see the news? About the Devil?”

  “There are footprints in our garden.”

  “You’re kidding!”

  “Really. Up on our roof as well. Reminds me of ‘Springheeled Jack Come Back.’ “

  Jazz grunted. “Trash.”

  “We can write good stuff, you know.”

  “Can we? Who’s ‘we’?”

  “Well… I write lyrics.” Nikki thought of the poetry book in her bedroom drawer and squeezed the phone. The thought of someone seeing, reading, singing her words sent acid shivers through her.

  “Yeah, but you never show us any!” Jazz’s voice whined like a kid asking for more sweets.

  “That’s because none of you appreciate them.”

  “It was only once, Nikki.”

  “You took the piss.” She lay back on her bed and stared at the sloping ceiling, imagining the footprints-hoofprints?-only feet from her nose.

  What had passed above her as she slept?

  “Well, I’m sorry. I’ve already told you that.”

  Perhaps it had paused on the roof, looked down at the fresh snow between its feet, sensing her heat, hearing her light breathing … smelling her, tasting the subtle tang of sweat on her skin.

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  She shivered and dropped the phone. It clattered to the floor as she stood on the bed, ran her fingers across the ridged Artex ceiling as if an impossible truth lay ingrained there.

  The phone crackled as Jazz shouted at her. Nikki ignored it. She leapt lightly from the bed, landed on her toes, walked to the window. Water had begun dripping from the icicles, landing on her window sill and holing the snow piled there. The dead apple tree had shed most of its snow, though whether that was more down to the feeding frenzy of birds rather than a thaw, Nikki was not sure.

  Further away, beyond the garden, along the edge of the woods, movement caught her eye as snow began losing its frozen hold on the trees and finally hit the ground.

  The phone still buzzed. She sighed, picked it up and listened.

  “Nikki? Fucking hell, Nikki, don’t get so pissed about that just because-“

  “I’m not, Jazz. I was looking out the window, that’s all. The woods look so nice from here.”

  “Oh. Well. Do you want to come over?”

  “Maybe tomorrow. The snow’s still pretty deep, and I’m tired from the trip yesterday.” And maybe, she thought, Brand is still around somewhere, waiting to tease me again from within a tree’s shadow.

  “Okay. Tomorrow, then. Missed you.”

  “You too.” She blew him a kiss and turned off the phone.

  For the next hour she sat on the window seat and watched those strange footprints melt away into memory.

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  The Book of Lies

  Associations are often made too easily. Here and there, this and that, why and wherefore, they slip together without question, without the observer trying to realize what is going on. It’s far too easy to accept what the brain is telling you without attempting to discover why.

  You believe your own thoughts far too often. Form an opinion and that’s it, that’s all there is, there’s no other way or meaning or route by which this opinion can be changed. Variety is good, lies are good, experimentation … experimentation in anything is good. I was once a Mormon, but circumstance made me question my beliefs. Hell, I got bored. I dabbled in Buddhism for a time, then Catholicism grasped me and barely let me go. I don’t want forgiving. Paganism and Wicca followed-fun, but without the

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  challenges-and then I dipped my toe into the darker beliefs, eventually shunning everything in favor of a comfortable atheism. That way I offend everyone. All of these were contrived periods in my life, brave yet pitiful attempts to fit in, to be a part of something that needed me far more than I needed it. It took me a long time to see the lies behind these beliefs … and ever since then, it’s been harder to find truths.

  Now, I believe in whatever I need to in order to get by.

  I’m not saying I’m better. I can see through lies easier than most, and lie to them myself, and that’s why I’m writing all this down. Trying to help rather than hinder. Impart what I know because I think it’s worth knowing. Although when you eventually read this, you may not want to know the truth.

  I’ve lived by questioning everything I see or sense. Just because food tastes rank, that does not mean it’s bad for you. Simply because something looks unpleasant does not mean to say you cannot grow to like it, use it, love it, given time.

  Take a footprint. Hide its source. Give it a cloven hoof. To any fervent Christian, the Devil has come to town.

  Honest.

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  Chapter Three

  Dan always hated the slow transformation from snow to slush. It was a leftover from his childhood, when a snow-covered landscape was a place of joy and fun and adventure. The slushy remains of the thaw meant a resumption of normality, a return to a school previously closed down by iced-up pipes.

  Nowadays, in his darker moments, he could not help but compare it to how his life had turned out. Vivid and clear and full of potential, transmuting as time passed by to stained and grey, slowly fading away to nothing. He felt bad thinking these things, and he knew that reality was never as perfect as a child’s imagination led it to believe. But sometimes when honesty cut in he would stare at a wall, listen to slow, deep music and mourn something forever unattainable. It

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  wasn’t that he did not like his life. It was just that sometimes, life no longer liked him.

  He sloshed through the melting snow to the Freelander, pockets full of loose change, fleece zipped up under his chin. Megan would normally drive him to the pub for pool night so that he could have a drink, but this evening she was unsure, still nervous of skidding on black ice even though Dan assured her it was all but gone. And perhaps, he thought, she was concerned that on the way home, she may run into whatever had made the prints in the snow.

  So tonight he was sober. Pity. He played his best pool after a few drinks.

  The Freelander started first time. Dan drove along the driveway, edging out onto the shared lane that snaked between the trees and out to the main road. The thaw seemed to be speeding up now, even though evening was rapidl
y leeching light from the sky. There was movement all around as he drove between the trees, melting snow hitting the forest floor. The headlights danced along the treeline, picking out fallen and falling branches along with the pale scars they had left on the trunks.

  Dan turned on the stereo for company. He grabbed a tape blindly from the rack and pushed it home, and his spirits lifted instantly when Thin Lizzy crashed from the speakers. The sound of Lynott professing to still being in love eased away tensions Dan did not even realize he had. His shoulders felt lighter and aches gave way to a dull, fuzzy warmth in the muscles around his neck and arms. He’d driven a long way yesterday

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  through horrendous weather, but now he was heading out for an evening of relaxation, chat and pool with his mates. And if he had to stay sober … well, he’d have the pleasure of watching them drink themselves into the foolishness he usually acted out as well. Megan had once called them a bunch of sad old men trying to relive an even sadder wasted youth. It gave Dan great pleasure to agree.

  He glanced in the rearview mirror and a shadow sat up in the back seat. He jumped, gasped, sighed with relief when the light shifted again, passing hard-edged shadows across the upholstery where the main road lamps shone through iced-up windows.

  Lizzy rocked, Dan bopped and sang along, the Freelander purred its way through the melting snow. In twenty minutes he would be at Bar None. It was a strange name for a pub, but on his first visit several years ago he had instantly fallen in love with the place. On the outside it gave the impression of being a quaint old British country pub, but upon entering that illusion was shattered … and its shards were broken down even more as one passed through the lounge and into the bar.