by Tim Lebbon
Fight in your dreams and the outcome is the only way it can ever be. You may lie to yourself when you’re awake, say that everything is right and this is the way it has been and will be, but the true victory … or defeat … is won or lost in your dreams. Trust them. Heed them. They’re there to be read and understood and, one day, lived out. If you do not fear God, then fear your dreams, because they’re how He talks to you.
Most of all, if your dreams reveal things to you, heed them. Did Mozart compose in his sleep? Did Shakespeare dream his plots and his characters? Likely. You dream your future whether you like it or not, because your dreams are the concentration of all possible outcomes. Know them. Understand them.
Oh, and there’s a spider in your heart, watching you.
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Chapter Seven
Nikki returned to school the following day. It felt like the first day of spring. The sun was warming, not just a smudge in the sky, and a few brave snowdrops and daffodils were scattered on the grass verge at the school entrance. Trust the weather to improve just as school started again.
As she climbed off the bus, stared across at the sixth-form building and saw the unmistakable trio of Jazz, Mandy and Jesse, she suddenly felt much older. A teacher walked by and Nikki said ?good morning, feeling equal for possibly the first time, sensing that she could easily talk to them about drink and sex and drugs and all the issues that adults were supposed to be so good with, but were usually just as fucked up about as kids.
She walked around the circular road to the sixth-form block, feeling eyes upon her. Never
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the over-confident one, she looked down at her feet until she was nearer, then glanced up at her friends. They were busy in discussion, Mandy leaning against the wall, Jazz gesticulating wildly. The band, obviously. They could always argue about the band. She still felt that prickling of her skin once more, the weird sense of being observed. Looking over her shoulder, she noticed a gang of kids over by the middle block, third-and fourth-formers. They were watching her, giggling, pushing each other in clumsy displays of machismo, one of them grinding his hips and pushing and pulling his fists down by his sides. She sent them the finger-it only encouraged the display, she should have known that-and moved on.
It gave her a perverse thrill, even though the boys were only thirteen or fourteen, several years her junior. Not a sexual feeling as such, more a mental perking-up, a confidence boost that lifted her spirits the closer she came to her arguing friends. She’d never felt like a sex object before. She smiled as she realized it had put a spring in her step and a swing to her hips.
“Morning all,” she said. “All keen to get back to school, I see?”
“Hi Nikki.” Jazz smiled at her even though she could see he was still pissed off. He worshipped her. She had a brief flashback to yesterday: Jazz standing in front of The Hall while she explored behind, meeting danger, meeting Brand; then back at his house, his mouth gnawing at her neck, clumsy hands trying to pique her interest. His adoration went only so far, it seemed.
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“Hi.” She kissed his cheek and it felt warm already.
“You two tore off pretty quickly yesterday,” Mandy said. “Left me and Jesse holding the audience!” She smiled prettily.
“Sorry, I just … scared myself rooting around behind The Hall. Wanted to get away. You get the gear packed up alright?”
Mandy nodded. “Eventually.”
“What did you think of The Origin of Storms?” Jesse almost whispered, as if apologetic for actually speaking.
Nikki smiled. “I loved it. Powerful. Great lyrics, fantastic. It’ll blow their socks off!”
“Whoever ‘they’ may be.”
“Mand, we’ll get a gig soon, you know that. We can walk into a pub anywhere and get a gig for free, but we need to choose the right place.”
Jesse had already gone pale. “Euch. Playing live …”
Nikki felt eyes on her again, a surreptitious stare, not from one of her friends. She glanced around at the gang of younger boys but they were wrestling on the ground, throwing each other’s rucksacks around, generally paying attention to no one but themselves.
“You coming to my party tomorrow?” Mandy asked.
“Huh?”
“My party. Tomorrow.” She sounded vaguely desperate.
Nikki nodded. “Oh, yeah, yeah, damn right. You think I’d miss your eighteenth? Hey, at least you can drink legally there.” She sensed Jazz
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smiling next to her and guessed what was going on in his mind.
“Mum and Dad are away for the night, they wanted to leave the house free,” Mandy said. “More fool them.”
“And it’s a big house!” Jesse said.
Still that strange sensation on the back of her neck, like a hot breath touching her from a few inches away. Brand’s breath, Brand’s touch. Nikki stepped back from her friends and took a good look around. There was nobody suspicious over by the school entrance, only kids pouring off a double-decker and a couple of teachers waiting to drive in. She turned a full circle, glancing at the lower block, the middle block and then the sixth form building between the two … and then she saw the shadow.
It shifted a second after she’d set eyes on it, keen to be seen. What surprised her most was that it was inside the school, the first floor library. The blinds twitched as it sidled out of sight.
Nikki knew she wasn’t seeing things.
If it’s him, why doesn’t he show himself? she thought.
“Giving us the slow spin, Nikki?” Mandy said. “What, you had plastic surgery? New skirt? Haircut? Yeah, looks nice whatever it is.”
Nikki shook her head without taking her gaze from the library window. “Sixth sense. Someone’s watching me.”
“Just like yesterday,” Jesse mumbled.
“Watching us, you mean?” Mandy was the
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only person Nikki knew who had a voice like a raised eyebrow.
“Yeah, right, us.”
Jazz moved closer to Nikki again and put his arm around her shoulders. She did not shrug him off, but her coolness must have bled through to him. His arm was stiff and tight, the hold possessive, not affectionate. She felt like a new guitar slung under his arm rather than a person, his girlfriend. She knew she wasn’t a trophy girlfriend-far from it-but she had also known for a long time now that Jazz’s ego was a complex, fragile thing, and a reasonably attractive girl on his arm may well mean more than the girl herself.
“Can’t believe we’re back in this shithole for another term,” Jesse said.
Nikki smiled and slapped him playfully around the head. “Not just another term, the final term. Stress and exams and saying goodbyes.”
“Yeah, exams, tell me about it.”
“Mum and dad still getting at you?”
Jesse nodded, blushed and looked down at his feet.
“Well I for one can’t wait to get out and away,” Mandy said.
Nikki frowned at her. A sense of time hit her all of a sudden, hard, minutes passing, the sun moving, her own flesh and blood and mind ageing. “And what about the band?” she said.
“Hey, it won’t stop it,” Jazz said. “We’ll still practice and get a gig, won’t we?”
” ‘Course we will,” Nikki said.
Mandy laughed, a cruel knife slicing through Jazz’s naive optimism. “Yeah, like how?”
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The bell rang to announce registration. Saved by the bell, Nikki thought, but as she glanced once again at the library she wanted to go home. To enter into that building would be opening herself up to danger, stepping into something she should be running away from. She’d be acting like a scream-queen in one of those horror films, investigating the blood-smelling cellar instead of running like hell, going toward the monster, not away from it.
But she could do little else. Normality and mundanity still ruled her, even though she liked to think otherwise. She had exams to study for, and when she
noticed that the shadow had gone the danger seemed suddenly distant and foolish.
That lunchtime, Nikki went to the library.
For her English A-level she was studying A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Golding’s Lord of the Flies, but however much she stared at the pages of the novel today, closed her eyes, tried to put herself on the island with those tribal, lonely and very human boys, she could not picture Piggy or put herself in Ralph’s mind. She read the same page four times before giving up and staring at the words, trying instead to make sense of whatever strange sentences her mind may form from them. The big room was never really quiet, especially at lunchtime, but Nikki was in a world of her own. The noise she heard was the rasp of dry skin across the Freelander’s upholstery. The smell was the musty staleness of Brand’s breath. And instead of the warm breeze of a tropical island on her face, or the dryness of
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the school’s heated air, she felt the stinging caress of branches as she pushed her way behind The Hall.
Someone opened the door and she glanced up, startled. It was a fifth-former returning some books. Nikki knew the face but not his name, and she probably never would. Here was a boy she had shared the same school with for years, but she would go through life without knowing him. He would live, marry and die, and she would never hear about it. He may be a success or a failure, but nothing he did would ever touch her life, none of his accomplishments-so important to him, meaningless to anyone else-would ever matter to her. That’s something her father had once told her: nothing really matters. In the scheme of things we live, we die, everything moves on. She hated that idea, and sometimes she hated her father more for telling it, because it was something she could not get out of her head. In that respect, at least, she often found herself jealous of her mum’s faith.
Eventually, as she knew it would be, her attention was drawn to the blinds where the faceless watcher had been standing. That was why she had come here, to look and see and smell, try to sense whether it really had been Brand standing there spying on her. There was no reason it should have been him, no logic in it… but if it had, that was more terrifying than anything. It meant that he was following her still.
And why follow her when his business was with her father?
Nikki had never thought of herself as
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particularly brave. Her life was generally so safe and ordered that her level of bravery was not something that had been put to the test. She’s never faced a gunman in the village post office, never pulled someone from a burning car wreck, never had to watch a friend or family member die. If she was truly brave she had yet to discover the fact. The only time her courage had been put to the test she had failed. At least, that was how she still pictured it.
Her mother in the hospital. Nikki as a young girl, holding her daddy’s hand as they went to visit. Her mother’s face as she saw her daughter … her damaged, bandaged, almost unrecognizable face … and Nikki’s instant reaction was to scream, snatch her hand from her father’s grip and flee the private room, crying and dribbling snot and wanting her mummy back.
What still inspired shame was that one glance back to see her mother crying fresh tears, the salt-water diluting dried blood and dripping pinkly onto her hospital sheets.
No, Nikki had never felt brave.
She stood, scraping her chair and drawing amused glances from the other pupils in the room. Her book flipped closed as she left the table, as if in reaction to her ignorance. She’d see now. She’d go to the window and sense his presence, maybe even put herself in his place, be exactly where he’d been, look out and see where she’d been talking to the guys earlier that morning… maybe even see herself out there now, staring up in fear at the shadow staring down, staring up, staring down …
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The blinds were dusty with lack of use. The sill had been painted a dozen times, badly, and its only adornment was a collection of dead flies. Nikki glanced at them and wondered if it hurt when they died and if any other flies missed them. She picked one up, the Lady of the Flies, and crunched its dried shell between her fingers. It was not a pleasant sensation. There was no moisture there, but she was destroying the remains of something that had once been alive.
When she twisted the control wire and opened the blinds, she saw a huddle of flies in the corner of the sill, as if blown there by a breeze. Every one of them was crushed. Wings were scattered across the dull gloss like faded daisy petals, legs gave the paint a crazy effect, bodies were shrivelled raisins in the spring sunlight. Looking down, she could see the place where she’d been standing that morning. The double-glazed window’s seal had gone and it was misted on the inside as if someone had just exhaled between the panes.
It had been Brand. She could not smell him or taste or feel him here, but there was something else that convinced her he’d been here. Not a sixth sense, nothing so melodramatic, but a certainty derived of the course of events over the last few days. Maybe she’d been watching too many crummy detective shows, reading too many stalk-and-slash horror books, but it made sense for the watcher to have been him. Anyone else would have been pointless. Anyone else and …
… and she’d have been disappointed. Even
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though he petrified her, she’d have been disappointed.
She heard the final footstep behind her. A hand touched her shoulder; lips opened with a terribly loud pop as whoever it was went to breathe or shout in her ear; she heard the quick intake of breath; the hand tightened almost imperceptibly, an unconscious now you’re mine gesture.
Nikki screamed: “Get the fuck away from me!”
The library went from a place of calm and relative peace to a room full of potential chaos. Tables scraped and chairs tumbled as people stood, the librarian stumbled from her office as if thrown and Nikki spun, lifting her arm and swinging her elbow around before her. She aimed high-aimed for Brand’s throat, pictured his Adam’s apple squishing-and struck Jazz on the temple.
Why would I want to hurt Brand? She thought. But it was pure instinct. And instinct told her that it was the right thing to do.
Finally given leave by their surprise, the others in the library began to make a noise. A few pupils scurried around or across tables to get closer to the action, laughing in base excitement. The librarian still stood in gaping, dumbstruck amazement. Nikki’s scream had been like an explosion in the silent night, and now her violence against Jazz, her boyfriend, was a shock upon shocks.
Jazz hit the floor quickly, crumpling as if struck by a car. His hand clasped Nikki’s shoulder tightly before he fell away. His fingers
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snagged on her blouse and almost pulled her down on top of him.
“Jazz!” Nikki breathed, hoarse with shock.
“Nikki, what the hell … ?” He curled up on the floor and held his head. His left eye squinted shut as if trying to cut out the pain leaking into it from his bruised temple.
“Jazz.” It had been Brand. She’d heard him approaching her from behind … or perhaps she’d only sensed him, sensed who she’d wanted it to be. It had been his hand on her shoulder, big and warm and strong … or maybe Jazz, foolish young Jazz had merely been trying to scare her. Nikki sniffed. There was a faint smell in the air, subtle but foul, like the stench of old food in a dustbin.
“You idiot!” Jazz shouted.
Nikki went defensive. She couldn’t help it. She felt calm and relatively composed now that she knew it wasn’t Brand, but there was also a heavy, angry atmosphere in the room. It didn’t come from the pupils, or the librarian … or from poor, ineffectual Jazz. It permeated the air like invisible smoke, solid on her chest and stinging her eyes. It was a strong, cloying haze of rage … and it scared Nikki. It scared her a lot.
“What’re you doing creeping up on me like that, Jazz?” she said. “You’re the bloody idiot! What do you expect me to do, turn around and give you a kiss?”
“Wouldn’t want a kiss from you, stupid bitch!”
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“Good job,” she said. “Not getting one.”
“Good!”
“You mind telling me what’s going on?” the
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librarian finally managed. She was a meek little lady, a dormouse who rarely spoke above a whisper, even when she was not in a library. Her voice was raised to mutter-level in surprise.
“Mind your own!” Jazz snapped, and she jerked back as if pushed.
“Jazz, leave it out,” Nikki said, seeing what was happening, recognizing his imminent explosion but unable as ever to prevent it.
For some reason she glanced back at the window sill and saw the flies there. The crawling flies.
No bits, no pieces left.
She’d even crushed the shell of one herself.
“The flies,” she said, then trailed off. The whole window misted, faded and misted again, as if the room was breathing in excitement at the fight about to erupt within. Nikki glanced around to see if anyone else felt anything strange. All eyes were upon her. Theirs, and someone else’s. She still had the crazy, unsettling feeling of being spied upon.
Ironic, considering she was the center of attention.
“Fucking bitch!” Jazz whispered.
“Brand would never say that,” she said.
“Who?”
She glanced back at the window and away again, remembered where she was and what was happening. “Eh?”
“Who? Who’s Brand? Who’s he, your bit on the side, is he? You two-timing me, you bitch?”
Nikki grimaced and turned away from Jazz-pathetic, squirming Jazz, shifting on the floor
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and kicking his legs and whining like a kid. “Don’t be stupid.”
