by Simon Clark
The darkness beyond the castle walls appeared to flow into him. He felt a shadow pool in his heart. Its blackness spread through his chest into his head. This was a darkness of the soul. It became unbearable. A physical pain. He longed to rip it out of him but the only release from its grip would be to climb up onto the wall; stand there for a moment, feeling the ocean breeze chill his face; then lean forward. Gravity would do the rest.
‘Marais … Marais!’
The voice wrenched Paul from that flow of dark thought. He turned to see Saiban hurrying along the walkway.
‘Doctor Marais, you must come and see what they’re doing.’
‘Saiban, drop the Doctor Marais. Paul works well enough these days.’
‘They’ve all gone mad!’
‘Saiban, what—?’
‘I tell you they’re insane!’
Saiban ran back down the steps to the courtyard. It was deserted; the portcullis had been locked down. Nobody from the outside could get in so what was Saiban so het up about?
‘Saiban? Hey, Saiban? What’s wrong?’
‘You’ve got to stop them, Marais!’
Paul followed Saiban to the cafeteria. What was on the inside knocked him backwards. Heat, light, sound, movement …
Saiban gestured at the God Scarers. ‘See? They’re out of their minds!’
‘Hey, Paul … Paulie, Paulie!’ Beech lurched round a table to throw her arms round him. ‘You came! I thought you were going to haunt those bloody battlements all night.’
West grinned from where he sat at a table. ‘It’s the Monster Ball. Welcome. Welcome!’
Caitlin emerged form a corner where she’d been hiding. ‘Paul.’ Her eyes flashed with anxiety. ‘It wasn’t just food the men delivered. There were cases of coffin paint too. They’ve started drinking it.’
‘Damn straight, sister.’ Beech reeled away from her. ‘Coffin paint. I put my bottle down somewhere …’
Caitlin grasped Paul’s forearm. ‘They don’t know what it’ll do to them. They’ll go crazy.’
‘We’ve a human being here.’ Saiban’s mournful eyes locked on Caitlin. His voice was equally woeful. ‘If she is harmed … You can’t let it happen, Dr Marais. You must stop them.’
He did a quick head count. Everyone appeared to be in the process of getting drunk with the exception of Saiban and Caitlin. As for Dominion, he was nowhere to be seen. For all Paul knew the giant might be in the town, drowning its newborns as he’d threatened. West bellowed with laughter for no obvious reason. He lifted a bottle that had an inch of that syrupy black liquor in the bottom.
‘West.’ Paul held out his hand. ‘Give me that bottle.’
West hesitated. He’d got a taste for the witch-brew by now.
Saiban joined in. ‘West, I order you to hand the bottle to Dr Marais.’
Paul walked to the table where he pulled the bottle from West’s hand.
‘At last,’ Saiban purred. ‘Sanity prevails.’
‘Hey.’ West became peevish. ‘That’s mine.’
Paul shook his head. ‘Not any longer, Westie, my old pal.’ He held the bottle up to a candle. No light penetrated the dark heart of the liquor. ‘There’s more than mere alcohol in here,’ he told him. ‘Thank goodness.’ With that, Paul put the bottle to his lips. The liquid hit the back of his throat like molten steel. It continued its burning path into his stomach. The smell was like nothing on earth. A cross between burnt apple, stain remover and chemicals left too long in a chemist’s cellar.
West clapped, ‘Atta boy.’
‘I only wish there was more.’ Paul wiped his lips. ‘A lot more.’
‘Help yourself.’ West’s wave of an arm was a generous one. ‘There’s cases of the stuff under the table.’
‘Which table?’
‘The one with Uri on it. We’re combining his wake with our in-or—in-or— inaugural Monster Ball.’ West belched. ‘Be a best buddy. Bring me a bottle back when you get one.’ Another belch. ‘Coffin paint. A taste of eternity.’
Paul crossed the room to the long trestle table where Uri lay on a white sheet with another white sheet drawn up to his chin. Someone had wrapped a bandage round the top of his head to conceal the head wound. For God Scarers death isn’t immediately total. Uri still twitched. His arms had been crossed over his chest in solemn funereal style. The man’s fingers, however, still drummed up and down as if he typed at an invisible keyboard. A moment later an eyelid slid back to expose a bloodshot eye. The eye darted as if Uri was trying to see who was making all this noise.
‘Good night and sweet dreams, Uri.’
Paul crouched down, plucked two full bottles from the box then returned to West, who drew pictures in the air with his finger. This appeared to amuse him mightily because his laughter shook the empty bottles on the tables.
Caitlin put her hands on his chest to stop him. ‘Paul. There’s more than alcohol in that stuff.’
‘Good.’
‘It’s mixed with a fungus they find up in the hills.’
‘Excellent.’
‘It sends men out of their minds.’
‘Perfect.’
‘Paul, why are you being like this?’
He looked down into her anxious eyes. The dark curls that framed her face glinted in the candlelight.
‘You’re beautiful,’ he told her. ‘But I’m a monster. We live in different worlds.’
‘Paul, this isn’t you talking.’
‘I know, my wee lovely flower.’ His Scottish accent became stronger. ‘But all of us here are in hell now. My life has been torn apart. Most of my friends have been butchered. My home’s burnt. We’re refugees trespassing in someone else’s property. Luna died yesterday. A slaughterman blew out Uri’s brains tonight. Your people don’t consider that a crime. In a few days our deaths will come, too, and you shall be home again with your father.’
‘No, Paul.’
‘So, right at this moment, I want to get away from me. Understand? I want to get out of here.’ He tapped the neck of the bottle against his head. ‘This might be the last bit of fun we have before our graves finally catch up with us again. Because, you know, that’s what it feels like. God Scarers to a man look behind them and they expect to see a hole in the ground following them. Bizarre notion, isn’t it? But it’s always there.’ His chuckle was a grim one. ‘We belong dead. That’s the line, isn’t it?’
West called out, ‘Is it my imagination? Are you actually receding into the distance with that bottle? Because you’re not getting any closer.’
Caitlin lightly stroked his arm. There was such a fond expression on her face when she looked up at him that it twisted his heart.
‘Paul, if we’re together I don’t care what anyone says.’
‘If you’ll excuse me, dear. I’m going to enjoy a wee dram with my friend.’ He shook his head. ‘Excuse the over-done Scottish accent. It’s only my poor attempt to be disarming.’
‘Paul, listen to me. If you drink that you’ll end up doing something you regret.’ She stood back. ‘It’s more than poison, it’s evil. You end up hurting the people you love.’
Saiban approached. ‘Doctor Marais, I forbid you to drink any more of that. There’s a human being here with us. What if you do something you come to regret?’
‘Saiban. Go away.’
Paul sat at the table with West. They opened their bottles, toasted one another’s health, happiness and whatever else came to mind. Paul drank wine at the transit station. All things in moderation of course. Monsters are restrained, even frugal. Wine’s warming glow was familiar. Coffin paint, however, was different. Before the alcohol started work a narcotic shockwave raced through the entire nervous system. As Paul drank that liquid fire from the bottle some part of him retained its professional detachment. He identified the alcohol content. The other flavors that seemed to progress from burnt apple to incinerated tyre rubber must have been a gift of the fungus. Whatever variety that was. Although it might well be psychoactive wi
th the power to induce temporary psychosis. The liquor lit a fire in his belly. The fungus didn’t waste any time, either. It ate his brain. That’s when the Monsters’ Ball got weird.
25
Kissing the Monster
This is where the Monsters’ Ball gets weird. Elsa told herself this when she was past the point of no return. Twenty minutes ago they carried Uri’s corpse into the cafeteria to lay it out on the table. Then they brought the food and drink supplied by the townspeople. For a spell there was utter silence. A depressing weight of absolute doom. Their misery crushed them into stillness.
From a box West plucked a bottle of the home-distilled liquor the locals called coffin paint. ‘Personally, I don’t think I’ve got anything else to lose.’ He downed the stuff like he was drinking poison. By the third pull on the bottle he couldn’t stop laughing. Then everyone began drinking. Everyone, that is except Saiban and the human, Caitlin. Their pleas to stop drinking the stuff were ignored.
This is where the Monsters’ Ball gets REALLY weird. By now Paul had joined them. He drank, too. Meanwhile, Caitlin sat on one of the benches against the wall where she stared at Paul with that clinical intensity of the love-sick. Saiban prowled the margins of the cafeteria with such an expression of disapproval it must have made his insides ache. In the centre of the cafeteria the Monsters’ Ball consisted of God Scarers upending bottles of black syrup into their mouths. And I’m one of them, she thought. Even though it feels as if I’m standing outside myself looking at that waif (which is me) in a pretty summer dress, bare shoulders, shining legs. Oh where are your surgical scrubs, child? She giggled. The others laughed, too. Some at bad jokes that were being tossed around the room. Some were hallucinating. She knew that for sure. West drew cartoons in the air. Nothing there, of course. Well sometimes … Sometimes she saw his finger trace multi-coloured swirls in the atmosphere. Then, again, she saw pinks and blues flowing across the tabletop.
‘This coffin paint isn’t just alcohol; I taste fungus. That must contain halucogens. I am beginning to hallucinate — both visual and auditory. Oh, sorry. I mustn’t speak to you, Uri.’ She shielded her hand as she whispered at the man lying beneath the white sheet. ‘Psst. Someone killed you. You might not have realized it yet seeing as you’re still moving.’ She broke off into bubbling laughter.
Dead man Uri rolled his eyes toward her. ‘Thanks for the heads up.’
Nice example of auditory hallucination. Her observation made her howl with laughter; she slammed the table top with her fist. The others joined in. They rocked in their chairs or buried their faces in their hands.
Saiban raged, ‘Stop this. You don’t know what you’re doing to yourselves!’
Saiban’s anguish brought more laughter – salvos of it.
Dominion entered the room. He stood watching the party without saying anything. Dead Luna glided after him. ‘My murderer’s name,’ she said, ‘ends in N.’ Then she melted back into the floor. Visual hallucination, methinks …
Elsa found herself running across the yard. An urge to vomit pressed at the back of her throat. Yet everything was hilarious. The way the sky pulsed with purple lights. Elsa screamed with laughter when she saw Luna’s mouldering corpse beckoning her toward the chapel.
‘There’s space in my tomb, Elsa.’ Luna’s face turned a luminous green as yellow puss oozed from beneath her eyelids. ‘Won’t you sleep with me tonight?’
Elsa bit the back of her hand to stop her shrieks of merriment.
‘Elsa,’ Luna’s corpse pleaded. ‘I’ll hold you tight. You’ll never be lonely again.’
The steps lurched out of the gloom. Elsa fell onto them; there she lay face down, unable to move.
Luna’s dead hand caressed the back of her leg. ‘Elsa. You can be with me. I’m a wonderful lover.’
With a breathy giggle Elsa scrambled up the staircase to the battlements. There, the wind whipped from the sea to tug her hair. She raced around the walkway, first of all looking out at the fluorescing emerald hues of the ocean, then finding the best vantage point to gaze at the distant hills. Up there were the Nine Sisters, the ancient standing stones, that had loomed over the valley for 3,000 years. She glanced back at the steps. Nobody there. Maybe it was too chill up here for poor dead Luna. She must have returned to her snug little tomb below ground.
‘Nighty-night, Luna.’ A giggle spurted form her lips. And as she turned to gaze at the hills the ancient dead began to sing again. Although it was far away she saw their spectral fire on the hill top. A blue-white light that formed an envelope around the stone circle.
They want me to go sing with them, she told herself. I should go join them. I’ll be safe there.
‘Elsa.’
She turned to find Luna there. Her dead flesh had begun to break open. The eyelids slid back releasing rivers of puss down the ruined face. Luna opened her mouth. Something like a rotting fish moved in there. It was the remains of her tongue. But it was Luna’s eyeballs that stopped Elsa laughing. They were so deeply wrinkled they resembled some sickly, pale version of a walnut … all pronounced ridges separated by deep gullies.
‘You ran away from me, Elsa.’ Luna’s voice became suddenly deeper. ‘I won’t let you run away from me again.’
Luna lunged forward with both hands to grab Elsa by the throat.
Xaiyad sat at the table. Coffin paint filled his veins now. He sang happily. They were a million miles from danger. They were safe. As he emptied the second bottle the door opened. A little boy with a broad face and solemn eyes ran to him.
‘Dad.’ The boy tugged Xaiyad’s sleeve. ‘Why did you have to die, Dad?’
Xaiyad smiled. ‘It wasn’t up to me, son.’ He slapped his chest. ‘Bad ticker. I’m fine now.’
‘But Mummy went and married a man who was bad to us, Dad. He got angry every night. Then he used his belt on Timal and me.’
‘I’m sorry, son.’ The smile on his face faded. ‘What could I do?’
‘If they made you all right with that Frankenstein stuff why didn’t you come back for us?’
‘I’m not allowed.’
‘The man whipped Timal. He’d done nothing wrong.’
‘Son—’
‘Dad, look what the man did to me.’ The boy pulled down the sweater to reveal a band of purple bruising running around the neck.
‘Oh, God, I’m sorry.’ Xaiyad reached out to the boy but all he found were shadows that ran through his fingers.
Xaiyad called out to Dominion who stood there, motionless. ‘Dominion, I want to go home. Do you hear? I want to go home!’ Xaiyad threw the bottle at the giant. It smashed against his chest. The massive figure didn’t flinch. Xaiyad opened another bottle. With luck he’d find the answer to all his questions in the sediment at the bottom.
Paul worked his way through a second bottle of coffin paint. It tasted like the ruins of the torched transit station. ‘If I ever go back and taste them,’ he said to Beech who laughed without knowing what he was talking about. ‘If I ever taste a burned morgue. This is it.’ He held up the bottle of black ruin to Caitlin. ‘Caitlin, my dear. This is formaldehyde, disinfectant, with just a dash of incinerated cadaver.’ Unlike the God Scarers who were juiced up enough to laugh at anything Caitlin merely awarded him a stare that was as cold as Luna’s tomb.
‘Saiban? Where are you, you old goat?’
Beech throw back her head with a huge, lascivious smile on her face. Candlelight flashed against her red hair. She was haloed by the most beautiful sunsets he’d ever seen in his life. Dozens of them. After gulping down another mouthful of that firewater she dragged her hand across her full red lips then they began their conversation that went something like this:
‘My death.’ She curled her red hair in her fingers, while smiling brightly at him. ‘My death was violence. Hitting a garden wall at ninety on a motorcycle is the ultimate violence, believe me. They said I was cold by the time they found me. And you know something, my dear, what I always feared is true. When you di
e you are aware for hours afterwards. You can hear. I read it in a text book. Within twenty minutes of death hearing resumes. Boy, it resumes … for anything up to seventy-two hours. It didn’t hurt when they dropped my body with all its broken bones on to the slab in the morgue … the sloping one with the drainage holes. I heard the assistants talking about my tattoos, and that the branch of a lilac tree had pierced my throat and exited between my shoulders. I heard my family discuss me when I was laid out in the funeral home. Are her fingers stiff? Did the undertaker glue her eyelids shut? She’d never have worn that blouse when she was alive …’
‘What an inappropriate subject at a party.’ Paul grinned. ‘Drink?’
‘Thank you. Everyone who paid their respects had something to say. Did she have life insurance? Uh, what’s that smell? Will they pull the rings off before the burial? Isn’t it true they have to break the fingers? Who did her make-up? To kiss the dead … is it lips or forehead? Does the skin feel very cold?’
‘This coffin paint works the magic. I prefer the flavour of malt whisky. The peat, the water from the burn. Burn’s Scottish for stream, by the by.’
‘Then came the funeral.’ Her smile was more vivacious than ever. Paul felt a growing sense of enchantment. What would it be like to run his fingers through her beautiful red hair? She stroked the back of his hand as her voice dropped to a husky purr. ‘They put lilies across my chest, a teddy bear by my head, then nailed the coffin shut. Oh boy, oh boy, I could still hear. And there I was: this pouch of skin: full of broken bones – nothing more, but my ears still worked. The ropes creaked as I was lowered into the grave. After the soil had been shovelled back that was real silence. Then I listened hard for the worms. I imagined they’d move through the earth with a whispery sounds. Ssss … sss … sss.’
