by Greg James
“The higher our spires rose, the deeper we dug our graves. The horizons are graveyards and the cities lie as open as once were our cemeteries. The world is stone and so we crumble into its dust, our bodies are filthy rags and old leaves. Yea, our history is as handfuls of dried-out ashes and so we let it fall from our hands. Love, 'tis a bad taste in the mouth. Hope, an old candle burned out long ago.
“Our blood has grown slow and lo, we will soon become one with the Grey. I am a corpse treading hard in death's waters, too deep in the dust of my yesterdays. Each step brings me nearer to cataclysm and creates more failure, more hurt and more pain and more loss. I am the way and the life and the time of all these things that have passed.
“My body gives in, year on year, recognising the monotonous cycle I am cursed to. My knees, they ache to bite into the dirt. My bones, they struggle in their skin. My cheek doth yearn to kiss the cool soil of my burial ground. I am too drained, too tired, too worn-down by this existence. Oh, take it from me. I give it to you, without reservation.
“I only beg that you do not ever give it to another, this curse. Veil my eyes with the sod and soothe my brow with the lowering of my coffin's lid. I am the end, the bane of yore, the bridge and the nexus you have been waiting for, to the Gravelands consign me forevermore. Amen. All hail the Grey Dawn!”
And the closing phrase was echoed by the others, over and over again.
Ropes bit into Tom's flesh, keeping him still. The old, bloodied stone scraping and scratching at his bared back. His arms were spread out and he felt the tips of the tainted spines lightly grazing the skin of his wrists and ankles. A sound was torn from him that was neither scream, nor laugh, nor sob as the hammers came down, driving him onto the spines, spilling his blood. And so, he lost understanding of where he was, when he was and who he was. Nothing mattered but the pain.
He saw a barren universe rustle and turn on its axis. A dustbowl of whispering night-sands. Every grain, a regret. Every particle a disgrace. There was no-one out there, nothing at all to wait for, no hope. There was only that on-and-on blackness, the mud-dark, the dismal sty. This earth peopled by struggling shell-less cockroaches, maggot-ridden, overseen by things without description, without faces, without eyes, smelling of a poisoned ripeness, burning without heat, seeing without sight. He heard them speak without a voice, with a voice from nowhere. That was why he screamed though he didn’t want to, hoping never to feel a thing again, never to be touched, no, nothing, nothing at all, just this forever, just deadness, this burnt-out black nirvana, let all the lights go out.
“Don’t touch me. Please.”
All the lights go out.
Voices, little echoes, left behind.
They drift, they chatter and they fade.
“The stone, the blood and the flesh are bound. Amen,” said the priest.
And there was a wet scream somewhere inside Tom as he found his mouth somehow moving, despite the pain that was shattering through him, it was forming words.
“All hail the Grey Dawn ... ”
The taste of them was bitter and awful, and he saw the priest illuminated by the twilight moon. And he saw that the mad face was that of Bell's, his officer, the man he meant to save was instead bringing him salvation gone insane.
Time was broken on its own wheel. Seeing the future from his past, Tom felt like an observer in his own life, a wanderer adrift, a voyeur, seeing his existence from all the points of Time’s compass. The dead were no longer here, neither were the Driver, or the Conductor, they had moved on, gone elsewhere; past, present, future, somewhere. Tom had no idea which it would be but he did know one thing, he would be seeing them all again, when the cycle was done.
*
Tom looked at himself in the bathroom mirror, old too soon, old and alone. His only companion was the one who stood before him. He felt like he had blinked and missed his whole life. A young man was looking back at him sheathed in scarred and wrinkled tissue, but it was a chrysalis that could not be unpeeled. His liver-spotted hands gripped the side of the basin, the skin on them was papery, loose, the elasticity of youth long gone, a fond memory. So many years and still he could not forget, could not leave what had happened behind him, sleeping tablets, hypnosis, dream therapy, love, it all broke down in the end, came to nothing.
His bath had almost finished being drawn, the room was tropical and muggy from the water’s heat. A light condensation was settling over the glass of the mirror. His brow and underarms were pebbling with perspiration. There was a smudge on the mirror,
Tom reached out to wipe it away, giving it several vigorous swipes with his fingers. The smudge remained.
It was not on the mirror.
With the misty smears gone, he could see it was a reflection. There was a shape behind the shower curtain, climbing to its feet, staggering a little, righting itself. A man’s shape, shoulders slumped. There was a smell too, rotting fish, clay and decay. He recognised it. The place it was from.
“Bell? Lieutenant? Is that you?”
The shape did not answer him, it stood there, unmoving, gurgling in its throat. Tom did not move either. He could hear the level of the bath water rising, the rushing chatter of the flow from the taps. He liked a good, full bath so that he could luxuriate in the stinging heat of it, feel as though his worries, aches and pains were being burned away.
The first beads of water ran over the edge of the tub.
A slop of mud hit the bathroom floor.
Still looking into the mirror, Tom saw the bath was no longer filling with water, its contents were the grey volcanic slime from that benighted isle. He could not move, he was rooted to the spot, watching that faceless man-shape and the stinking, decayed tide that was slowly flooding the room. The heat had dissipated and instead there was a biting, toxic chill, one that he did not want to be breathing in. He could taste the carbon dioxide in it, the choking damp. Tiles on the walls were cracking, letting white darkness in, he could hear caustic screams and the grinding of teeth. A chuckling gurgle came from behind the shower curtain, blind fingers were probing through the plastic, making its hooks rattle and shake.
Tom tore his gaze from the mirror, anger suffusing old bones, eyes hot with tears, he stormed over to the bath, ripping the curtain back, tearing it down from its hooks, a trembling fist upheld, ready to strike the nightmare man in the face.
There was nothing there, just his bath overflowing. Tom was standing in a scalding puddle. His nerves aching, strangling his withered muscles but the sound of the running water helped a little, soothing him. Tom’s stomach was somersaulting. He was rubbing his palms together, wiping off anxious sweats.
If he reached out to turn off the taps, would a seeping hand burst forth from the water, heavy with rotting clay, grab him by the throat and drag him under to drown, make him swallow dead flesh and detritus, choke him on the sour shit of dead things?
Tom turned off the taps and pulled out the plug. He stood by the bath, watching the water draining away. There was no way he was getting in there. He would wash himself with a flannel before he went to bed. He turned away from the tub, feeling calm, more settled. On the bathroom mirror, the condensation was fading away, showing what was standing there in the bath, weeping maggots and mud, crawling with flies, as rotten and dead as all Time, all Space.
“Come, rot with us, Thomas Potter...”
With a snarl, Tom snatched up the grubby tumbler he kept his toothbrush in and dashed it against the glass. Three ugly cracks went spidering out across the broken mirror, making it bleed a soft black substance.
The old man ran from the bathroom. The cycle he was caught in was turning once more, he could hear it and feel it within. Tom lay down on his bed. Memories, they were not as clear as they once were. When you’re little, you breathe on the glass to make a mist, that was what it was becoming like for him. Every day, someone, some-thing was breathing hard on the glass.
I can’t see through it, can’t see a thing, feel like I’m losing who I am,
there and not there, I’m elsewhere, in another place altogether, a fatal space between abeyance and apotheosis, above yet below. He closed his eyes, remembering the day he was found, after the war, finally washed ashore.
A cool, grey-skied morning and two men lay on the sand of the beach at Sevengraves-On-Sea, partially submerged in the water-softened grains, they looked dead. The skin on their bodies, what could be seen through the filthy tatters strung over their limbs, was a horrible mismatch of grey, green and white patches, veins could be seen as purple and violet threads. Then, a hand snatched out one corpse to another, clamping tight over an ankle. The fingernails were broken, bloody snaggles and the knuckles split down to the bone. The live body rolled over onto its side, spitting out a heavy stream of phlegm, blood and salt water. The eyes in the head were open, alive and stirring, seeing the other, the dead man, weakly reaching for him, “Bell ... Lieutenant ... ”
No response, nothing, only stillness and the light wet hiss of decay.
Then, Thomas Potter, the survivor, shrieked through tears “What have I done?”
Chapter Seventeen
Bell shook him awake. “Wake up, Potter.”
Tom blinked, sitting himself up as the ground moved beneath him.
“What’s going on?”
“You’re on the Berkshire.”
“The Berkshire? But that’s the ship – “ Tom paused, swallowed and looked around. “The ship I came to Cape Helles on.”
They were below decks, the smell of unwashed men and horse manure permeating everything. The air was close and stifling in the crafted wooden womb. The grind and creak of the timbers, comforting, the hiss of waves against the hull, soothing. Hammocks rocking their occupants to sleep with gentle sways, Bell was on his feet, at Tom’s side, incongruous, a man who should not be there.
Tom was breathing hard. “Look, just tell me what the fuck is going on, sir. I don’t know anymore, I really don’t.” Tom’s voice cracked.
Bell shrugged. “All I know is I’m here and it’s like one of those dreams where only a few parts stick around in your brain after you wake up, pieces from a broken mirror.”
Tom started laughing.
“What’s the joke?”
Tom couldn’t speak, warm tears pooling in his eyes, streaming down his cheeks.
There was a great roar from outside, a torrent of green-grey water sluiced in. Tom’s teeth jarred painfully as the impact carried along the length of the ship. The hammocks disgorged their sleeping loads onto the lower deck with a series of unceremonious thumps and bumps. Dazed, Tom got to his feet, tearing a lifebelt from the racks above, swiftly strapping it on. From above came the frantic hooting of the siren, followed by a high cry. “Collision, lads, collision. Get above, quick!”
Tom stumbled and fell over a prostrate form. The body was twisted, head turned on its side at a fierce angle. The fall from his hammock had done this, Tom thought, as he pressed his fingers into the man’s neck, seeking a slight organic tremor, a sign of life. Nothing. Tom rolled the man over, onto his back. The eyes were fishy bulges, the skin, waxy and washed-out, the flesh around the jowls and throat was purple-black with bruising. The tongue was lolling, a distended worm, over the off-white snaggles of his teeth.
“Sir, this man’s been strangled.”
The Lieutenant said nothing as the Berkshire yawed underfoot. Tom kept his balance, he had good seaman’s legs. He could see the other men, those who had tumbled from their empty hammocks lying on the deck, all twisted about in the same way, all with their heads at the wrong angles.
“All dead,” Tom whispered.
He turned to Bell.
Bell was there, his broken throat marked with blotches of livid colour.
“All dead,” Bell echoed, “All dead here, Tommy-boy. This ship is a dead men’s ship on its way to moorings in the Gravelands. Care to join us?”
Bell offered his hand, grabbing him, fastening fingers around Tom's throat. Gagging, Tom snatched at the arthritic claws digging into his windpipe, blossoms of colour burst across his vision. His tongue squirmed, eager to escape the pressure strangling its root, Tom bit his teeth down, snipping into the end of his tongue, souring his mouth with blood, he could hear himself whooping as he tore at the dead man’s hand.
Bell’s pupils were shimmering black rubies. With a flaky crunch of bone, Tom tore the cold fingers from his neck, bracing his heel on the tipping planks underfoot, he shoved at Bell. The living corpse lost its footing, fell, its hands clawing at the deck. Tom stamped down on the groping fingers, splintering the nails, breaking knuckles into pieces.
Bell slithered away and down, without making a sound.
Tom was up, through the companionway, leaving the groping dead below. The sea was pouring over the sides of the Berkshire, sails snapped and cracked, her infrastructure groaning from the strain the storm was putting on her. Watery claws snatched at the ship, dashing themselves into foam and spray, dragon heads plunged and burst over her prow and her stern, spitting out stinging wet mouthfuls. Tom zigzagged over the deck and the silhouette of Lieutenant Bell came after him.
“Potter? You’re too slow to catch your own shadow.”
The silhouette took him by the arm, hauling him around, pushing its dripping face close to his. There were barnacles on the Lieutenant’s seamed face. “This is your last voyage.”
Hooded eyes burned white under the Lieutenant’s cap, his narrow jaw was slung low, revealing receding rows of crooked, chipped shark’s teeth. Tom screamed and punched the Lieutenant in the face.
Bell staggered back, losing his grip on Tom’s arm, nursing his face. Tom had felt the satisfying crunch of cartilage breaking under his knuckles. The Lieutenant raised his bleeding face, his eyes flashing at Tom. Despite the wind, the rain and the listing deck, he flung himself at his prey. Tom sidestepped, losing his balance as the ship lurched in a violent fit, shouting. Tom slid down the slick deck, slamming into the mast, his lungs crumpling into empty bags. The world clouded, going dim. Lightning and pain burst through, reigniting his senses. The Lieutenant was on him, teeth and claws burrowing into Tom’s shoulder, reaching his right clavicle, grating over it, gnawing at it, trying to tear a chunk out of him. Tom heaved at the Lieutenant, using his weight, he aimed a kick at the dead man’s groin.
He struck home.
The Lieutenant gurgled a laugh into his wounded shoulder, feeling no pain. The storm was all Tom could hear battering at his ears, he could feel his uniform soaking with blood and water. His shoulder crunched and the cold of shock tore through him, something burst behind his eyes. Shaking his aching head, he fought the dragging of unconsciousness, there was one way to get this freak off of him.
Let him have what he wanted.
Closing his eyes into tight knots, Tom braced himself against the mast head. He threw himself forwards, feeling the meat of his shoulder tearing free, scattering a crimson shower into the soaking ether. A polar heat ran through Tom's nerves. Lieutenant Bell’s head snapped back, trailing strings of artery and vein, and with a grunt, he spat out his dripping mouthful. Slithering in a pool of water and gore, his right arm numb and raw, Tom tried to get up, to go after the bastard.
He couldn’t do it.
His head was humming with static. He could feel a steady fall of life fluids running out from the hole where his shoulder had been, the passage of blood was heavy and ceaseless. Lieutenant Bell marched across the tilting deck towards him, unaffected by the ship’s motion, remaining erect the whole time.
Tom could see his eyes, hungry and churning, white-black holes.
The Lieutenant stopped a few metres from him, legs apart. Tom recognised the poise, the building tension, he was going to be taken down. Pinned to the deck, straddled, gutted and then fed upon by his undead superior officer.
The Vetala that was once Bell, it sprang.
Tom swept his leg up and booted the creature in the abdomen, flaccid flesh tore as his boot sank in. Tom kicked in, harder, harder. Ribs splintered
, thrusting into the Lieutenant’s heart. The burning eyes went wide and then went out. The Lieutenant dropped to the deck, limp and still. Tom withdrew his boot from the wound, trailing the coils of the corpse's steaming guts, kicking the carcass away, watching it roll down the deck. It thumped into the side. There was a heave of waves and the remains of Lieutenant Bell fell overboard into darkness.
Tom sat shivering on the deck, his hand clamped to his pumping shoulder. The flow of blood was not slowing. He couldn’t do a tourniquet one-handed and he was fading out. He was too tired, he wanted to sleep, just sleep, that was all, not much to ask, his eyes were sliding shut, he thought about the cry he had heard.
“Collision, lads, collision. Get above, quick!”
Collision with what?
The storm rose up to a scream and the shining blackness of Hell’s Teeth came forth from the sea, goring the prow of the ship on its fangs, timbers and planks shrieked, pulled apart by the gnawing rocks. Tom felt his weakening heart tremble to its roots, the Teeth were exuding an abattoir foetor, they were alive, they were moving.
He could hear them, the terrible noise they made. The Teeth were a conscious necropolis, born in the oozing cradle of the deeps, spawn of the Stones. The moonish crown of a gnarled, buckling head was visible in their midst, dark with moss and cankers of long-buried mould on sea-washed bones. Dismal and dank, a colossus arising, a writhing cataract-wet mirror of all suffering, imperfect and ever-eclipsing. This wormy, graveyard mass, barely bound together by a hissing sense of Grey, was blindly moving, unpeeling coils of feelers from the sopping, black burrows of its being. It made Tom think of bodies gutted and falling, spilling their insides into the mud, peacock plumes of white thunder and orange flame bursting overhead. The sizzling of hot petroleum on flesh, the jellied scars it left behind. The tears of a child falling from the haunted eyes of shell-shocked men. Hair matured, greying at the temples, then going white and wearing away. Eyes riddled with split capillaries, tinged to yellow then browning over, turning black then dead, then emptied out altogether. The Vetala were looking down at him in one of their many forms and he was looking up at them, beseeching, weeping, screaming, wishing they would just let him die.
