The Essential Clive Barker

by Clive Barker

  He had his answer from his stomach, which made a little thunder of its own.

  “You want food?” he asked it, and it gurgled its reply. “Me too,” he said.

  He got up and started down the stairs, preparing himself for a return to modernity. As he reached the bottom, however, he heard something scraping across the bare boards. He raised the candle, and his voice.

  “Who’s there?”

  Neither the light nor his demand brought an answer. But the sound went on, and others joined it, none of them pleasant: a low, agonized moan; a wet, dragging sound; a whistling inhalation. What melodrama was his memory preparing to stage for him, he wondered, that had need of these hoary devices? They might have inspired fear in him once upon a time, but not now. He’d seen too many horrors face to face to be chilled by imitations.

  “What’s this about?” he asked the shadows, and was somewhat surprised to have his question answered.

  “We’ve waited for you a long time,” a wheezing voice told him.

  “Sometimes we thought you’d never come home,” another said. There was a fluting femininity in its tone.

  Gentle took a step in the direction of the woman, and the rim of the candle’s reach touched what looked to be the hem of a scarlet skirt, which was hastily twitched out of sight. Where it had lain, the bare boards shone with fresh blood. He didn’t advance any further, but listened for another pronouncement from the shadows. It came soon enough. Not the woman this time, but the wheezer.

  “The fault was yours,” he said. “But the pain’s been ours. All these years, waiting for you.”

  Though corrupted by anguish, the voice was familiar. He’d heard its lilt in this very house.

  “Is that Abelove?” he said.

  “Do you remember the maggot-pie?” the man said, confirming his identity. “The number of times I’ve thought: that was my error, bringing the bird into the house. Tyrwhitt would have no part of it, and he survived, didn’t he? He died in his dotage. And Roxborough, and Godolphin, and you. All of you lived and died intact. But me, I just suffered here, flying against the glass but never hard enough to cease.” He moaned, and though his rebuke was as absurd as it had been when first uttered, this time Gentle shuddered. “I’m not alone, of course,” Abelove said. “Esther’s here. And Flores. And Byam-Shaw. And Bloxham’s brother-in-law; do you remember him? So there’ll be plenty of company for you.”

  “I’m not staying,” Gentle said.

  “Oh, but you are,” said Esther. “It’s the least you can do.”

  “Blow out the candle,” Abelove said. “Save yourself the distress of seeing us. We’ll put out your eyes, and you can live with us blind.”

  “I’ll do no such thing,” Gentle said, raising the light so that it cast its net wider.

  They appeared at its farthest edge, their viscera catching the gleam. What he’d taken to be Esther’s skirt was a train of tissue, half flayed from her hip and thigh. She clutched it still, pulling it up around her, seeking to conceal her groin from him. Her decorum was absurd, but then perhaps his reputation as a womanizer had so swelled over the passage of the years that she believed he might be aroused by her, even in this appalling state. There was worse, however. Byam-Shaw was barely recognizable as a human being, and Bloxham’s brother-in-law looked to have been chewed by tigers. But whatever their condition they were ready for revenge, no doubt of that. At Abelove’s command they began to close upon him.

  “You’ve already been hurt enough,” Gentle said. “I don’t want to hurt you again. I advise you to let me pass.”

  “Let you pass to do what?” Abelove replied, his terrible wounding clearer with every step he took. His scalp had gone, and one of his eyes lolled on his cheek. When he lifted his arm to point his next accusation at Gentle, it was with the littlest finger, which was the only one remaining on that hand. “You want to try again, don’t you? Don’t deny it! You’ve got the old ambition in your head!”

  “You died for the Reconciliation,” Gentle said. “Don’t you want to see it achieved?”

  “It’s an abomination!” Abelove replied. “It was never meant to be! We died proving that. You render our sacrifice worthless if you try, then fail again.”

  “I won’t fail,” Gentle said.

  “No, you won’t,” Esther replied, dropping her skirt to uncoil a garrote of her gut. “Because you won’t get the chance.”

  He looked from one wretched face to the next and realized that he didn’t have a hope of dissuading them from their intentions. They hadn’t waited out the years to be diverted by argument. They’d waited for revenge. He had no choice but to stop them with a pneuma, regrettable as it was to add to their sum of suffering. He passed the candle from his right hand to his left, but as he did so somebody reached around him from behind and pinned his arms to his torso. The candle went from his fingers and rolled across the floor in the direction of his accusers. Before it could drown in its own wax, Abelove picked it up in his fingered hand.

  “Good work, Flores,” Abelove said.

  The man clutching Gentle grunted his acknowledgment, shaking his prey to prove he had it securely caught. His arms were flayed, but they held Gentle like steel bands.

  Abelove made something like a smile, though on a face with flaps for cheeks and blisters for lips it was a misbegotten thing.

  “You don’t struggle,” he said, approaching Gentle with the candle held high. “Why’s that? Are you already resigned to joining us, or do you think we’ll be moved by your martyrdom and let you go?” He was very close to Gentle now. “It is pretty,” he said. He cocked his eye a little, sighing. “How your face was loved!” he went on. “And this chest. How women fought to lay their heads upon it!” He slid his stump of a hand into Gentle’s shirt and tore it open. “Very pale! And hairless! It’s not Italian flesh, is it?”

  “Does it matter?” said Esther. “As long as it bleeds, what do you care?”

  “He never deigned to tell us anything about himself. We had to take him on trust because he had power in his fingers and his wits. He’s like a little God, Tyrwhitt used to say. But even little Gods have fathers and mothers.” Abelove leaned closer, allowing the candle flame within singeing distance of Gentle’s lashes. “Who are you really?” Abelove said. “You’re not an Italian. Are you Dutch? You could be Dutch. Or a Swiss. Chilly and precise. Huh? Is that you?” He paused. Then: “Or are you the Devil’s child?”

  “Abelove,” Esther protested.

  “I want to know!” Abelove yelped. “I want to hear him admit he’s Lucifer’s son.” He peered at Gentle more closely. “Go on,” he said. “Confess it.”

  “I’m not,” Gentle said.

  “There was no Maestro in Christendom could match you for feits. That kind of power has to come from somebody. Who, Sartori?”

  Gentle would have gladly told, if he’d had an answer. But he had none. “Whoever I am,” he said, “and whatever hurt I’ve done—”

  “’Whatever,’ he says!” Esther spat. “Listen to him! Whatever! Whatever!”

  She pushed Abelove aside and tossed a loop of her gut over Gentle’s head. Abelove protested, but he’d prevaricated long enough. He was howled down from all sides, Esther’s howls the loudest. Tightening the noose around Gentle’s neck, she tugged on it, preparing to topple him. He felt rather than saw the devourers awaiting him when he fell. Something was gnawing at his leg, something else punching his testicles. It hurt like hell, and he started to struggle and kick. There were too many holds upon him, however—gut, arms, and teeth—and he earned himself not an inch of latitude with his thrashings. Past the red blur of Esther’s fury, he caught sight of Abelove, crossing himself with his one-fingered hand, then raising the candle to his mouth.

  “Don’t!” Gentle yelled. Even a little light was better than none. Hearing him shout, Abelove looked up and shrugged. Then he blew out the flame. Gentle felt the wet flesh around him rise like a tide to claw him down. The fist gave up beating at his testicles
and seized them instead. He screamed with pain, his clamor rising an octave as someone began to chew on his hamstrings.

  “Down!” he heard Esther screech. “Down!”

  Her noose had cut off all but the last squeak of breath. Choked, crushed, and devoured, he toppled, his head thrown back as he did so. They’d take his eyes, he knew, as soon as they could, and that would be the end of him. Even if he was saved by some miracle, it would be worthless if they’d taken his eyes. Unmanned, he could go on living; but not blind. His knees struck the boards, and fingers clawed for access to his face. Knowing he had mere seconds of sight left to him, he opened his eyes as wide as he could and stared up into the darkness overhead, hoping to find some last lovely thing to spend them on: a beam of dusty moonlight; a spider’s web, trembling at the din he raised. But the darkness was too deep. His eyes would be thumbed out before he could use them again.

  And then, a motion in that darkness. Something unfurling, like smoke from a conch, taking figmental shape overhead. His pain’s invention, no doubt, but it sweetened his terror a little to see a face, like that of a beatific child, pour his gaze upon him.

  “Open yourself to me,” he heard it say. “Give up the struggle and let me be in you.”

  Another cliché, he thought. A dream of intercession to set against the nightmare that was about to geld and blind him. But one was real—his pain was testament to that—so why not the other?

  “Let me into your head and heart,” the infant’s lips said.

  “I don’t know how,” he yelled, his cry taken up in parody by Abelove and the rest.

  “How? How? How?” they chanted.

  The child had its reply. “Give up the fight,” he said.

  That wasn’t so hard, Gentle thought. He’d lost it anyway. What was there left to lose? With his eyes fixed on the child, Gentle let every muscle in his body relax. His hands gave up their fists; his heels, their kicks. His head tipped back, mouth open.

  “Open your heart and head,” he heard the infant say.

  “Yes,” he replied.

  Even as he uttered his invitation, a moth’s-wing doubt fluttered in his ear. At the beginning hadn’t this smacked of melodrama? And didn’t it still? A soul snatched from Purgatory by cherubim; opened, at the last, to simple salvation. But his heart was wide, and the saving child swooped upon it before doubt could seal it again. He tasted another mind in his throat and felt its chill in his veins. The invader was as good as its word. He felt his tormentors melt from around him, their holds and howls fading like mists.

  He fell to the floor. It was dry beneath his cheek, though seconds before Esther’s skirts had been seeping on it. Nor was there any trace of the creatures’ stench in the air. He rolled over and cautiously reached to touch his hamstrings. They were intact. And his testicles, which he’d presumed nearly pulped, didn’t even ache. He laughed with relief to find himself whole and, while he laughed, scrabbled for the candle he’d dropped. Delusion! It had all been delusion! Some final rite of passage conducted by his mind so that he might supersede his guilt and face his future as a Reconciler unburdened. Well, the phantoms had done their duty. Now he was free.

  His fingers had found the candle. He picked it up, fumbled for the matches, struck one, and put the flame to the wick. The stage he’d filled with ghouls and cherubim was empty from boards to gallery. He got to his feet. Though the hurts he’d felt had been imagined, the fight he’d put up against them had been real enough, and his body—which was far from healed after the brutalities of Yzordderrex—was the worse for his resistance.

  As he hobbled toward the door, he heard the cherub speak again. “Alone at last,” it said.

  He turned on his heel. The voice had come from behind him, but the staircase was empty. So was the landing and the passageways that led off the hall. The voice came again, however.

  “Amazing, isn’t it?” the putto said. “To hear and not to see. It’s enough to drive a man mad.”

  Again Gentle wheeled, the candle flame fluttering at his speed.

  “I’m still here,” the cherub said. “We’ll be together for quite a time, just you and I, so we’d better get to like each other. What do you enjoy chatting about? Politics? Food? I’m good for anything but religion.”

  This time, as he turned, Gentle caught a glimpse of his tormentor. It had put off the cherubic illusion. What he saw resembled a small ape, its face either anemic or powdered, its eves black beads, its mouth enormous. Rather than waste his energies pursuing something so nimble (it had hung from the ceiling minutes before), Gentle stood still and waited. The tormentor was a chatterbox. It would speak again and eventually show itself entirely. He didn’t have to wait long.

  “Those demons of yours must have been appalling,” it said. “The way you kicked and cursed.”

  “You didn’t see them?”

  “No. Nor do I want to.”

  “But you’ve got your fingers in my head, haven’t you?”

  “Yes. But I don’t delve. It’s not my business.”

  “What is your business?”

  “How do you live in this brain? It’s so small and sweaty.”

  “Your business?”

  “To keep you company.”

  “I’m leaving soon.”

  “I don’t think so. Of course, that’s just my opinion …”

  “Who are you?”

  “Call me Little Ease.”

  “That’s a name?”

  “My father was a jailer. Little Ease was his favorite cell. I used to say, Thank God he didn’t circumcise for a living, or I’d be—”

  “Don’t.”

  “Just trying to keep the conversation light. You seem very agitated. There’s no need. You’re not going to come to any harm, unless you defy my Maestro.”

  “Sartori.”

  “The very man. He knew you’d come here, you see. He said you’d pine and you’d preen, and how very right he was. But then I’m sure he’d have done the same thing. There’s nothing in your head that isn’t in his. Except for me, that is. I must thank you for being so prompt, by the way. He said I’d have to be patient, but here you are, after less than two days. You must have wanted these memories badly.”

  The creature went on in similar vein, burbling at the back of Gentle’s head, but he was barely aware of it. He was concentrating on what to do now. This creature, whatever it was, had tricked its way into him—Open your head and heart, it had said, and he’d done just that, fool that he was: opened himself up to its possession—and now he had to find some way to be rid of it.

  “There’s more where those came from, you know,” it was saying.

  He’d temporarily lost track of its monologue and didn’t know what it was prattling about.

  “More of what?” he said.

  “More memories,” it replied. “You wanted the past, but you’ve only had a tiny part of a tiny part. The best’s still to come.”

  “I don’t want it,” he said.

  “Why not? It’s you, Maestro, in all your many skins. You should have what’s yours. Or are you afraid you’ll drown in what you’ve been?”

  He didn’t answer. It knew damn well how much damage the past could do if it came over him too suddenly; he’d laid plans for that very eventuality as he’d come to the house.

  Little Ease must have heard his pulse quicken, because it said, “I can see why it’d frighten you. There’s so much to be guilty for, isn’t there? Always, so much.”

  He had to be out and away, he thought. Staying here, where the past was all too present, invited disaster.

  “Where are you going?” Little Ease said as Gentle started toward the door.

  “I’d like to get some sleep,” he said. An innocent enough request.

  “You can sleep here,” his possessor replied.

  “There’s no bed.”

  “Then lie down on the floor. I’ll sing a lullaby.”

  “And there’s nothing to eat or drink.”

  “You don’t
need sustenance right now,” came the reply.

  “I’m hungry.”

  “So fast for a while.”

  Why was it so eager to keep him here? he wondered. Did it simply want to wear him down with sleeplessness and thirst before he even stepped outside? Or did its sphere of influence cease at the threshold? That hope leaped in him, but he tried not to let it show. He sensed that the creature, though it had spoken of entering his head and heart, did not have access to every thought in his cranium. If it did, it’d have no need of threats in order to keep him here. It would simply direct his limbs to be leaden and drop him to the ground. His intentions were still his own, even if the entity had his memories at its behest, and it followed therefore that he might get to the door, if he was quick, and be beyond its grasp before it opened the floodgates. In order to placate it until he was ready to make his move, he turned his back on the door.

  “Then I suppose I stay,” he said.

  “At least we’ve got each other for company,” Little Ease said. “Though let me make it clear, I draw the line at any carnal relations, however desperate you get. Please don’t take it personally. It’s just that I know your reputation, and I want to state here and now I have no interest in sex.”

  “Will you never have children?”

  “Oh, yes, but that’s different. I lay them in the heads of my enemies.”

  “Is that a warning?” he asked.

  “Not at all,” it replied. “I’m sure you could accommodate a family of us. It’s all One, after all. Isn’t that right?” It left off its voice for a moment and imitated him perfectly. “We’ll not be subsumed at our deaths, Roxborough, we’ll be increased to the size of Creation. Think of me as a little sign of that increase, and we’ll get along fine.”

  “Until you murder me.”

  “Why would I do that?”

  “Because Sartori wants me dead.”

  “You do him an injustice,” Little Ease said. “I’ve no brief as an assassin. All he wants me to do is keep you from your work until after midsummer. He doesn’t want you playing the Reconciler and letting his enemies into the Fifth. Who can blame him? He intends to build a New Yzordderrex here, to rule over the Fifth from pole to pole. Did you know that?”