‘If we die,’ he said, and didn’t say anything more. Blazing out, honour, valour, all that bollocks. Holding my gloved hand while I felt cold and odd.
We got back on the bike, rode on next to mud at dusk. The obelisk came into view. Beyond it: Roa Island, ships on one side, lit houses on the other, street lamps on like fairy lights, so-called wind farms in the sea beyond, the tramp wreck waiting for us by the causeway. Huge setting sky, bronze sea, full circle. Our honeymoon suite, our halcyon days. He slowed and stopped the bike next to the wreck, pulled up his visor, turned to me.
‘Let’s go inside.’
‘No,’ I said through my slow head. I’d blabbed about the wreck on the Skidblad. They’d have been in, coated it.
‘It’s fine. They’re letting us do it. They’ll already know we’re here.’
He got off the bike, gripped me by the wrist, walked us round the wreck in the half-light, pushed me up the ladder onto the slanted deck and down the hatch into the gloom.
It smelt better than last time, fresh and clean. He got the flint tin out of his pocket, struck stone against metal to spark the fluff, used those sparks to light a candle, set it into a wine bottle neck, used that to light two more candles in bottles, set them round the room.
I watched all this, shivering, staring at the flame glow. People had been in since our last visit, and waves too, left-behind seaweed now dry on the floor, flavouring the air. New furniture too: cushions and a mattress, rolled-up bedding.
‘Does someone live here?’
He shrugged, unrolled the bedding, led me down to the mattress. He was inside me, I had my eyes closed, I opened my eyes, he was staring at me, into me, with his new yellow-flecked eyes that hadn’t been in him last time we’d been in there, after the canoe, when I was ill and he’d looked after me, told me about eyes and dapples. His replacement eyes, for the ones he’d hacked out in the bathroom in Vengeance Street where we’d soon be heading. Flecked yellow, like a wolf.
‘What’s wrong?’
‘Nothing,’ I managed to say, an evil spirit flown in to cast or break a spell. ‘Scared of what’s ahead.’
Petrified of you.
‘We’ll face it together,’ drawing me back.
I lay under him, my face turned to one side, to the porthole and the bottle of Blue Nun, the dried-up bit of seaweed still jammed into its neck.
He put his finger under my chin, pulled my face back to him.
I lay next to him on the mattress in the candle-lit wreck looking at the bottle of Blue Nun, the dead seaweed jammed in with paper. Sad nothing weed, stump Chris had screamed at me from his cupboard, weeping blood as they came for him because I’d told them where he was though they’d have found him anyway. His last stand, when he was trying to say things to warn me, the last time I’d seen him.
Sad nothing weed.
Cold pop.
The boat.
Don’t fall for it.
I’d thought he’d meant beware of the Skidblad, all lit up in Barrow’s dock. But he’d meant something else, hadn’t he? This boat, the wreck I was now lying in, next to something. Our rendezvous if things went tits up. Our sign, the bottle of Blue Nun, the sad nothing. The seaweed jammed in with some kind of paper.
New Scritch I hadn’t got.
I inched away from the thing sleeping next to me on the new clean mattress.
I crept over to the porthole and the bottle. I pulled out the seaweed and the paper wadding. I opened the folded paper up, held it to the candlelight.
One sentence in black biro, weird bad writing.
I’d fallen for it.
‘What does it say?’
I turned. It was awake on the mattress, watching me.
‘What does it say? That note? Bring it here.’
46
Propped up on the mattress, stumped hand outstretched, its smiling face lit by candles and lamplight from the port holes, the sheen and sense of watching objects. The sound of sea, everything just as it had been but different, all waiting and smiling and twitching at me. It with its new yellow eyes, holding that stump out for the note.
‘Is it from me? From last time? What did I say? So fucked up then, I can’t remember. Read it out. Why are you shaking?’
Not stump Chris, not Sean, but not real Chris either. Something else, another instance, rummaging inside me for keys to wrest thrones, destroy worlds. Had been so the whole time through deserts and tunnels since I’d sprung it from the Skidblad like it had wanted. Pretending to be Sean, cut to be Sean. And me its fuckbud, shaking naked in that wreck holding that scrawl of paper. The gas, whatever, still inside me whoozifying but pure fear cutting through, bringing me to in keenest terror.
Do it.
I made myself do it, read out the black words on the paper:
Bacon sarnie inside me now if you’re reading this but I’m still cold.
Whatever that meant.
It scanned me, cocked its head: ‘What does that mean?’
I shook my head.
‘Give it to me,’ getting up, coming over, naked, gripping my wrist, snatching the note from me. ‘Did I write this? Did you? What does it mean?’
‘Don’t know. Never seen it,’ I croaked. ‘Some tramp.’
‘Really?’ looking at me, looking at the note, tracing the writing with its stump, going over to the porthole for better light. ‘My handwriting. I was trying to disguise it. What does it mean? You look ill, come here, let me feel your pulse,’ grabbing my wrist again, pulling me close, pressing its stump against my wrist to measure the beat of my blood, staring deep into my eyes. ‘Poor you. I think you’re ill,’ phoning data back to some Antarctic hub for crunching, sniffing my hormones.
The eye, summoned with my last power: ‘Stop freaking me out. I couldn’t sleep, I got up to look out of the porthole, I found this, I’ve never seen it before, so what? You didn’t write it as far as I know—and why don’t you know if you wrote it?’
It smiled. ‘I think you need to lie down.’
Tight throat, pure terror. The eye. ‘If you wrote it you tell me what it means.’ Its hand tightened round my wrist. ‘You’re hurting me.’
‘Sorry,’ relaxing its grip and not its gaze. ‘Maybe I didn’t write it. Some tramp. What do you think it means?’
‘No idea,’ forcing fear down. ‘Someone’s eaten a sandwich but is still cold and hungry?’
The viper, the bacon sarnie that was Don, the BLT, the black tortoise. A message from stump Chris from before, the first time we were in this wreck, when it was uncammed, before the cleaning and coating.
Perhaps.
A coded message to tell me what? That Don was inside stump Chris now if I was reading this? That I was with Don who was wearing stump Chris? What did that mean? The terror. But I’m still cold. Meaning what? Stump Chris was dead, still dead? I didn’t understand.
‘What are you thinking now?’
Nothing its sensors wouldn’t tell it shortly.
‘That I’m scared,’ I managed.
‘Poor you. Come here.’
Not that. I went pure ice.
But it would buy me time.
But I’m still cold while it fucked me. Scanning the hull while it got off on my fear, felt that grip.
Scanning for what?
For tramp champagne, our codeword, if things went tits up, which they had. For that broken cold box still in the corner on its side half-covered by rags. Fridge-post boxes, their method. Every place has a fridge or the coldest place. Where they left messages, their Scritch. Staring at the cold box and then staring anywhere else to fritz their retina-tracking or whatever, till it was done, retaining its cum like it did. Ancient ways to stop baby instances hatching inside me.
I leant over the side of the mattress and puked. It mopped me tenderly with some rag, then climbed the ladder to the hatch and flung the vomitty cloth out onto the deck.
I crouched naked with my back to it in the gloom. Trying not to breathe and not to look at the cold box an
d stay in the shadows and keep my mind and face blank, blanche the terrain.
It who could sense anything, the slightest twitch.
‘Poor you.’
It could just kill me.
It still needed me. For now.
It was busy talking. Up to stuff, as ever. ‘It’s happening now,’ it was telling me, whatever it was, pacing round, putting things on, putting stuff in its pockets, getting ready. ‘This is what’s going to happen: I’m going to Vengeance Street now, alone. You stay here, you’re in no state. I’ll get what we need and come back here for you.’
‘OK.’ Fandabidosi, anything for him to fuck off and leave me alone. Grabbing clothes, trying to hide my face and beating heart. But. Just managing it: ‘Don’t you need me, in Vengeance Street? To find…what we’re looking for, the…numbers?’
‘You don’t remember? They came back to you. You told me. When we got to Bacton? After the pipe? The gas, it can happen.’
The Hedgehog. The numbers Don needs to open the crack.
Yet it was the one that had told me all that, in the desert, the fucking desert. Nothing was true, what had I said, what did I know?
Help me Alan.
Oh yeah.
I was nodding away, it was talking on, about Ahmed’s secret routes to Walney, ancient tunnels riddling this landscape, cunning monks cutting limestone under the sea from Piel Castle to the old Abbey in Furness, how Tibet would sweep in later to rescue us and maybe reunite us with Alan, other cobblers I didn’t give a shit about, talking freely with no fear of cams or Dons picking up words. Nothing like the first stump Chris, the one I’d been with my first time in this wreck, the one that had been scared of everything, cacking his pants.
‘You OK?’ standing before me as I knelt there. ‘Have some bread and mushrooms, you’ll feel better,’ pulling something out of its pockets, pushing it into my mouth, perhaps not noticing how I held the vile cud in my cheek, tried to contain its leaking juices, spat it into my hand as it turned away.
‘If I’m not back after twenty-four hours…’ and it went into a long blah about burkas and service stations and chewing roots which I didn’t listen to, lost in the whirr of my brain.
‘I’ll be back soon, promise,’ turning back to me, reaching down, tucking its stump under my chin, lifting me up to it, kissing me on my vomitty mushroom mouth as I clenched mulch in my cammed hand. ‘Feeling better now?’
I nodded.
‘Don’t be scared. You must be so tired. Sleep, why don’t you?’
‘OK.’
It led me back to the bed.
Not this again, the fucking goat.
But its mind was elsewhere. It was off, needed to go.
‘I’ll be back soon.’
I couldn’t wait. ‘OK.’
‘I love you.’
‘Yes.’
‘Say it.’
‘I love you too,’ I croaked.
One last look and nod. Then helmet on, visor down. He turned from me, climbed the ladder, opened the hatch, scuttled out from sight.
Jesus fucking Christ.
I sat on the mattress rocking in candle-lit blackness. Alone at last but not alone: ten trillion rapt cams recording this freakery. And outside, if I made my run for it, up the ladder through the hatch to the deck: who squatted in wait for me on the causeway? ‘Police’ in hazard suits, ‘Ahmed’s’ crew, hacked ladybirds, controlled weather and waves.
And inside here: what? Some message from stump Chris, from the first time—really? Wouldn’t they have cased this joint down to the nano-level before letting me in here with it, read every note? Nothing was true, the scrawl from stump Chris must be useful to them or a planted concoction to addle me further, to get me to do what? More of whatever they wanted, whatever that was, get me to choose wrong again and again.
I could trust nothing, not even Alan, who was probably their plant too, seeding me from way back, what did I know.
Lie down, pretend to be woozy. Let their cams record their mushroom bread at work.
Fight the wooziness, because even though I’d spat most of it out some had entered me, I could taste it. Plus the ten trillion other ways they could be drowsing me: sleeping potions in the walls, buds in my head.
A terrible howl shot my eyes open. A storm outside: shrieking wind, crashing waves. Rain drumming down. Their military weather.
Most of the candles had gone out, light still came from the street lamps outside the portholes.
Do it without thinking. You have to. Hopeless but your only shot.
I was lying down, I got up, as if looking for water. I fiddled with dirty brown bottles, peered for liquid. Went over to the cold box. Opened it up.
Nothing in there except a semi-crumpled beer can. I turned it upside down, poked round inside the hole with my finger, cut myself.
Touched what was inside: a thick wad of rolled paper.
Took the can back with me to the bed.
Coaxed the wad out under the cammed covers.
Unfurled the paper in the dark.
Touched the sheets, felt biro indentations, the packed writing.
Too dark to read it, though.
I had to read it. I didn’t care, that it was odds-on corrupt, plants by liars for reasons. What else did I have?
I got up, went over to the rain-splattered porthole, felt ten trillion eyes on me, saw the dense pages, squinted into the orange light.
To Whom It May Concern,
If you’re reading this without me with you, or me having told you about it, then I’m dead. Sorry for everything. It’s all a sham. I’m not your Chris, I’m the other one, the lying clone freak from the turtle’s lab, sent to deceive you on their orders because I’m a weak coward and a fuck and a freak, the clone of a freak. I’ve completely lied to you from start to finish. It’s so fucked and there’s so much to say. But first, you got to know that if you’re here with someone who says they’re me and looks like me, with the stump and everything, and says they were here before with you, after the canoe, but hasn’t mentioned this note or the note in the Blue Nun, then you got to know you aren’t with me at all. You’re with my body but they’ll have taken me out, scraped out my brain and replaced it with Don’s, turned me into a receptacle for the old freak to be reborn in my perfect-match body for his resurrection now they’ve perfected the tech. It’s so freaky I know.
I’ll tell you about it, if I can, what happened, step by step, what this is. But there’s something worse I got to tell you first. They know you, Nim, from before. I don’t know exactly how but they do. A long time ago you were close to him and he killed you. But he saved a bit and you got grown again. They rebirthed you from your stored DNA. I don’t know if he did it or someone else. What I know is he thought you were lost but then they discovered you and he sent me to you, to bring you to him, so he can be with you again…
But then I had to stop. Because of the noise from under the wreck, nothing to do with the storm. Someone—something—was banging at the metal hull beneath me. Banging hard: five knocks, a pause, six more.
47
The bangs came from under the mattress, under the boat, where there should have been mud. And why not, since nothing was real? Monk tunnels, spiral castles, Ahmed’s gas pipes, Don’s whole-world set, me too long finoodling with letters and wooziness. Plenty enough for it to whizz to Vengeance Street and back, King Don who ruled the world with buttons to whizz it anywhere, no need to skulk in tunnels. Except to furnish lies for dumb me, whoever I was, some woman it had killed once, whom it would know was on to it, whom it had been inside.
Whom it might not need anymore.
I should have run, made a plan. But that letter had wiped out time, like it was supposed to? Keep her busy while I’m out, spin some crock to keep her agog.
Real Sean telling me in Vengeance Street the first time: ‘Beware. They know you from before.’
Shitting Nora indeed. Who was I?
Get out now, my belly-furnace said: up the ladder, out th
e hatch, jump off the deck, run into the storm—into their world, under their spell?
The five and the six again, followed by something else from under that mattress: a clang, harsh ripping, metal on metal.
I couldn’t move.
It slithered back via hidden ways full of new info and power courtesy of me, with new plans for the world and me. Whoever I was.
You are you. Do it. The eye.
I scrunched up the letter, shoved it down my cammed pants, sprang from the porthole in frenzied search for a weapon, anything, something heavy, metal, pointed, even though it was useless, anything at all. Blazing out. A knife to kill.
Yeah, good luck with all that. Stump Chris would have known what to look for, they all would, even realm-reared real Chris. Busy men with animal nous and murdering hands. One swift blow between the top two vertebrae, if you can find them. The Cwyd’s red weak spot. Good luck with all that. More clangs under the mattress, eleven more knocks. Then a muffled voice, words I couldn’t hear.
I leapt up onto the hatch ladder armed with a bottle-candle and a broken jagged plastic biro: tools coated with networked slime, ready to turn on me at its instruction. Go for the eye. I stared down in the flickering gloom at the moving mattress, the fresh bed made up there by staff unknown, the wreck spruced into a world king’s fuckpad. The whole thing: since Archway, since whenever: his plan meshed with my weakness. Easy meat, a gimp bursting to spill. And they knew it, better than I knew myself, the respawned carcass of a one-time Don hook-up, if I understood right, if the letter wasn’t some crock.
It’s crock. It’s all crock. How would they overlook it, let you find it? But it felt true. The whole shebang: cooked up as a fun challenge for reborn Don, the once and future king. A double whammy: decode and refuck her. Who she is that she don’t know.
And what did it know now, what had it harvested from me? What had it got? Had it been to Vengeance Street? What had they found there? Did the numbers exist, was the Hedgehog now primed? Or had it already happened: Pacific cracks, lands flooded with boiling goo from Earth’s inner furnace so it could get what it wanted? Which was what?
The far side of the mattress curled up, something under it bulging up like a dry wave inside the wreck. Newspapers, foam, plastic bags slipping from under the heaving mattress, something emerging: the outline of a head. A mud-smeared head I knew well and not at all, hoisting itself up from the rip it had made in the wreck’s belly, the filthy wet-suited body, a huge screw-tipped metal rod slung over its shoulder. A mud monster, rising from beneath. It stood, dripping splodge, wiping brown from that face. It peered round for me. It glommed onto me on the ladder. A crash of thunder outside the boat. It spoke.
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