by Tim Lebbon
326
it bled to disperse the faintness as he managed to haul himself up, holding onto the door handle then reaching up and curling his fingers over the door head, supporting his weight on his one good leg and pausing to let everything settle down once more.
Brand could be there by now, he knew. It must be ten minutes since he’d left. If he had managed to walk straight to their house through this storm he could be there, inside his house, doing whatever it was he’d come to do. Dan felt like crying, raging at his impotence, but he also knew that this would gain nothing. He kept his anger in and used it instead to attack the pain.
He slid along the hall wall on his right side, trying to move his left leg but finding the pain easier if he simply allowed it to drag along behind him. He held his swollen hand slightly away from his body, fingers splayed in unnatural directions, the skin a dark purple. He reached a corner and turned, resting for a few seconds before carrying on. If he allowed the pain to die down it would be worse when it flared again, so he kept up a continuous movement, cursing and swearing and shouting, unreasonably embarrassed at the words he was using. Frank had hated profanity. He kept glancing down at the dead man, and now that he could see Frank’s face the glances were quicker. Dan didn’t like the way his head looked.
He knocked pictures from the wall with his shoulder and they smashed on the floor, worsening the scene of violence. Frank and Myra’s children would have to tidy them up, he knew, pick up the shattered glass and decide whether
327
to keep the old photographs inside. Frank and Myra on a beach somewhere; a fifty-year-old wedding photograph; a family shot, a dozen unknown faces staring at him from better times …
Finally he reached the living room door. The electrical sound was coming from here, accompanied now with the sharp tang of burning. Easing himself around the door he saw the television, a fist-sized hole smashed into the screen, smoke wisping from the grille at the back. Small flashes lit its insides. And then he saw Myra’s legs stretched behind a chair, her feet turned in so that her toes touched, her white dress spattered with red.
“No more,” he whined, glad when tears blurred the scene. “No more, please no more.” He tried not to see Megan lying there in place of Myra, but once the idea existed it would not go away. “No, no, no.” The telephone was on a table several feet away. Dan pushed away from the door frame and hobbled to it, hopped, screaming as his left foot hit the ground and jarred his knee, crying out all the time, “No, no, no!”
He snatched the receiver from the cradle and listened to terrible nothingness. No tone. No static. Silence.
“Shit!” He screamed, smashed the receiver into the phone and listened again, made sure it was connected at the wall, made sure there was not an on/off button on the phone itself, stared at Myra’s legs, wondered if Brand had raped her, looked back and saw Frank’s corpse watching him with hooded eyes, one side of his face dented
328
and split, smashed the phone again, listened, nothing.
Nothing.
No help.
He had to get back home. He had no idea what he could do once he arrived-if he got there through this blizzard and didn’t end up frozen to his own driveway-but that did not matter. Megan and Nikki mattered. His family mattered, and seeing Frank and Myra dead in their own house reinforced that more than ever. They had family. He’d knocked pictures of them off the walls as he slid by. They had family, and that was more important than anything. More important than life.
He’d never make it without help. Frank sometimes used a walking stick, Dan had seen him when he and Myra went for strolls along the road leading through the woods, but where the hell. … And then providence smiled, fate-more used to fucking him over big-time-turned a blind eye, and Dan saw the handle of the stick curved over the back of an armchair.
When he left the Wilkinsons’ house he was crying again from the pain, and the tears were cooling on his cheeks and making his face cold. He tried to pack snow around his damaged knee, but the blood simply melted it and sluiced it away down his trouser leg. He plunged his swollen hand into the snow, but the dark bruising was hot, and it did the same.
Pain, then. He’d have to see the pain through and do whatever his damaged body allowed, ignoring the messages that told him to stop, this is
329
hurting you, it’s making your leg worse, injuring your hand more. The snowstorm seemed worse than ever, loading his eyelashes and driving into his eyes, stinging the exposed skin of his face like cigarette burns. He could take time to find a scarf, towel, anything to protect himself more from the storm, but time was something he did not have.
Brand could be there by now. …
Dan closed the front door on the horrors behind him and turned to confront those that lay ahead.
The room was alive. Megan was at the center of their world, and they had invaded hers.
The study had one wall lined with books, and the shelves now crawled with life of every kind. Ants created new titles on book spines, woodlice and beetles hurried along the shelf lips, spiders slung themselves from above on gossamer threads, worms slid across the tops of the books, seeking dark. Small things hurried in and out between the packed books, too small to see individually but creating a hazy sheen as a whole, a blurring of vision. A troop of snails hung on the undersides of shelves, extending hesitant antennae into the light. Birds perched on the upper shelves, pecking at a daring insect now and then, picking motionless flies off the wall and ceiling. Blue tits, siskins, a tiny wren, several sparrows, a pair of bull finches, and in the corner of the room a lesser spotted woodpecker, beak pointing directly at Megan’s face like a threat.
They were all watching her.
330
A badger sat on the desk, its snout twitching as it took a good smell of the room’s new visitor. Two squirrels frolicked on the windowsill and the end of the desk, jumping back and forth, swapping positions but always turning around … to look at Megan. Under the desk a hedgehog rooted in the bin, turning its head every few seconds to glance at Megan … or to make sure she was still there.
A fox lay under the easy chair. A stoat weaved along at skirting level, darting from one item of furniture to another. Other things moved around the room, some of which she did not recognise, ignorance of nature or shock confusing her … or perhaps they had no name.
They were all watching her, their eyes a uniform blank, and whichever way she turned she was being stared at. Their eyes were not as they should be, they were deformed and full of him. She heard him mounting the stairs overhead, but she knew that he could still see her. She wanted to be brave, defiant, wanted to promise him that he’d never break her … but she screamed.
The sound sent a brief ripple through the life around her. A couple of birds hopped from one place to another, the fox lay its ears back against its head and the squirrels stopped leaping, but other than that there was little reaction. She stood hurriedly, screamed again and kicked out at a small mouse sniffing at her toes. It ducked to one side to dodge the kick and started sniffing again.
The carpet was suddenly crawling with things, ant-sized upwards, and Megan went on tiptoes
331
to avoid them. Her balance wavered and she had to reach out to steady herself against the black wall… but it was usually sunshine yellow, the blackness now given by hundreds of spiders, furry and spindly legged, small and large. Her hand hit the wall and they parted around it. She was so scared, she could not scream. There was nothing crushed beneath her hand … they’d moved away like grease under attack from detergent, forming a circle which now closed, closed.
Megan moved back into the center of the room and tried to stamp down on the things on the floor, screaming again, swiping at her hair because there was something tangled in there.
Still they watched her. Wherever she trod, the creatures moved quickly aside. She hit nothing. Their reaction was too fast, unnatural, but she kept stamping and kicking and
scraping her foot along the floor to try and crush and break the things staring at her. She danced, running on the spot, moving across the room and kicking out at the fox. Her foot was not fast enough. The fox ducked its head and dodged to the side, darted past her and stood by the door, watching again.
They were God’s creatures turned against her. In the lion’s den, Daniel had extracted the thorn and made friends, turned wildness into tenderness. Now she was trying to put the thorn back in, but the reaction was not the opposite. These animals weren’t wild, tender, aggressive, or subdued. They were simply Brand’s. “God, God, God,” Megan hissed as she danced, kicked and punched at nothing, but He was letting her find her own way because nothing changed.
332
They sat and stared. He stared.
There was nothing left to do but go mad.
“Nikki,” the voice said through the door. It made the hairs on her neck stand on end and sent a shiver down her spine, a shiver that remained in her groin instead of dissipating. Fear and anticipation kept it there. Perhaps the greatest part of love was fear. And the most powerful part of sex was anticipation.
Nikki was already standing by the door ready to let him in. She touched the bolt and it felt warm, as if he was touching it from the other side. She would feel that warmth soon across her skin.
She drew back the bolt and opened the door. A breath of cool air came in, exuded from Brand where he stood in the doorway. His skin was pale, a bluish tinge testament to the cold, the white scar was raised and his eyes … they were upon her, they were looking into her, but they were cold and jet-black.
“Oh God,” Nikki sighed, the skin of her scalp tingling. The stitch in her side returned and she went down on her knees before him, but he lifted her under the armpits, taking her off her feet with ease and walking her across the room to the bed.
“Not that,” he said. “Hasn’t anyone ever told you that variety is the spice of life?”
Even his voice was sex, caressing her with its cadences and sending her heart thumping, her breath racing. He lay her on the bed and stood up, slipping his coat from his shoulders. Snow
333
fell from it and hit the floor, melting into the carpet. He took something shiny from its deep pocket before dropping it, smiling down at Nikki as he turned the knife and threw its reflection across her body. She could feel it, a cool caress as the weak light from outside travelled up her legs, across her groin and over her stomach, as if he was kissing her already. Her armpits were still warm from where he’d touched her. The heating in the house must have gone off because she was shivering and her breath condensed in the air. His touch was warm, the snow did not melt in his hair or on his shoulders, she was cold, when he came it had burned her skin it was so cold … and just what was he?
“What?” Nikki whispered, watching the knife, suddenly afraid. It was perfectly polished, its point so sharp that she could not make out where knife ended and fresh air began.
“Watch,” he said, and he touched her chest with the blade. He held it between thumb and forefinger and guided it down between her breasts, over her sternum and across her bellybutton, exerting no pressure.
Her T-shirt parted perfectly, every thread cut, and she felt the sharp point tracing an invisible line down across her bare skin. She gasped and arched her back, afraid that the movement would encourage penetration but unable to help herself. Brand stroked again with the knife and the front of her bra parted. Her chest rose and fell with her frantic breathing, and every movement pulled the material further apart.
Brand looked down at her face, unsmiling, but
334
she saw the love in his eyes, the glint of lust. He repeated the performance on his own shirt, sliding the knife in above the top button and letting gravity take it down, buttons popping off and tinkling to the floor as the shirt opened up. He was wearing a T-shirt underneath. He split this too, but he must have been pushing too hard because rosettes of blood bloomed on the white material.
“Careful,” Nikki gasped, but then she saw his face, saw his eyes turned up slightly, and realized that he was doing it on purpose.
And then, as his shirt parted and she saw his stomach and chest, she realized that he must have done this many, many times before.
“My mark,” he said, taking off his shirt and T-shirt and letting her see his torso. Every inch of his skin was scarred. These were not just passing cuts, but deep incisions, gouges, holes. All were healed and closed-all except for the cuts he had just made, old scars bleeding fresh blood. His skin rose in knobs and twisted heals. Every gash must have needed stitching; none had been. “My brand.”
“What’s your name?” Nikki asked, unsure of where the question came from.
“Brand.”
“Who … ?”
He straddled her and rested his weight on her hips. He caressed her stomach with his warm fingertips. The movement caused a ripple in his chest muscles, sent old scars dancing. “Who did this? People. Time. So now I live apart from both.”
335
“You’re so warm.”
“Shhhh,” Brand said, lifting one side of her slashed T-shirt and bra with the point of the knife and laying it over her arm, exposing her breast.
He reached behind him with his other hand and touched her between the legs, pushing gently at her jeans with his knuckle. She wished he’d cut those off as well. Then she thought, He will soon.
Nikki watched his face as he stared at her, saw it unchanging as he touched her nipple with the cold knife, and she realized that the duelling scar had vanished. She gasped and bit her lip, tensing beneath the blade, arching her back again. Brand lay the metal flat on her nipple and moved it slightly from side to side, then he jerked the knife away quickly. Nikki cried out, closed her eyes and lay still. His weight still had her pinned down.
She heard her mother screaming from somewhere down below.
When she looked she saw a line of blood running down her breast and pooling on her chest. There was a small cut next to her nipple. Brand bent forward and kissed it, his other hand exerting more pressure, Nikki’s chest rising to meet his mouth as her breathing turned to panting, and when his cold tongue touched her warm blood and cooled the nip of pain she gasped, crying out and covering her mother’s anguished screams with her own.
He suckled for a while, then sat back up. She could barely see him through the ecstatic haze. His face had blurred. She must be crying. Then
336
her other nipple hardened under the ice-cold knife, and Brand’s shadow bent down once more.
He was going to get lost out here in the snow and die. He’d headed off from the Wilkinsons’ in the direction he knew home to be, he’d been walking as straight as he could, he’d even bumped into the fence he knew bounded the road between their two properties … but the pain was close to defeating him, the snow was worse, and he was going to collapse and freeze to death. They’d find him in a couple of days, just another corpse between two houses of death.
And that’s what made him go on. Falling over and giving in would be too easy. Brand may win in the end, but he would not conquer. Dan would fight until he could not even think any more, he’d decided that already, and such determination gave him an unreasonable optimism. Even if I die you haven’t really won, he was thinking. You can murder us, but you can’t kill our family.
Dan leaned over the walking stick and dragged his bad leg behind him; it hurt, but less than trying to lift it clear of the ground altogether. He’d never felt pain from cold but he did now. He’d come out with a thick coat but no gloves or scarf, and now the cold was picking at his fingertips, constantly trying to slow the blood circulation, battling back and forth with his warmth until it felt like a million pins were being driven into his fingers and hands and cheeks, pricking right down to the bone. Still, it provided a counterpoint for the agony in his leg and hand. The
337
more he hurt all over, the less extreme the individual pains seemed
to be.
Perhaps he was dying already.
He walked; he shrugged snow from his shoulders and shook it from his head; and he remembered good times. Perhaps good times would keep him warm, he mused, or maybe they would steer him back home. If nothing else they would offer a distraction while cruel reality took him toward his death much faster than was fair. He thought about a holiday they’d taken a few years ago. Nikki had been eleven, old enough to seem like a woman sometimes, young enough to still be their little girl, happy to give him a kiss and cuddle in public, not yet concerned about being embarrassed in front of her mates. They’d hired a barge for a week and cruised the Norfolk canals, pleased when they came to an automated lock and equally happy when they had to work the lock themselves. Nikki had been ecstatic when her parents had to take to the bank to open the gates, because then they’d left her to steer the barge into the lock, easing the throttle so gently, nudging the buffers suspended from the walls, so proud when they came back aboard and praised her. The weather had been fine all week, and one day he and Nikki had spent a couple of hours sunbathing on the roof of the barge while Megan steered and sipped wine.
Dan and his daughter had chatted about things. The past first of all, and then the future, what she wanted to do, where she wanted to go, who she wanted to be. Dan had lain back and listened, watching puffy white clouds pass slowly
338
overhead and hearing the soft shush of water against the hull, a soporific background to his daughter’s excited chatter. It was, he’d thought at the time, the first time he had really become aware of her impending adulthood. She was her own person with her own dreams and ambitions and ideas about things. Whatever he said to her from now on, she would make up her own mind. He could advise, but not guide. It had been an extraordinarily happy moment but also extremely sad, knowing that his little girl was not really that little any more, and that from then on the important choices would be her own.
