In This Skin

by Simon Clark

  Benedict spoke softly, ”Don't worry Ellery. He's with me.”

  Ellery stood back to allow the giant to enter through the doorway ”Are-are you all right?” Ellery asked Benedict, seeing his clothes and face smeared with dirt and fragments of dead leaf.

  ”Fine. Nathaniel here got me away from some guys who were really bad guys.” Benedict nodded upstairs to the apartment. ”Are Robyn and Noel here?”

  Ellery nodded.

  Benedict rubbed his jaw, thinking hard. ”Nathaniel here is going to tell us something we need to know. I put the emphasis on need. He's also here to find Mariah. But before he goes upstairs, I have to reassure Noel, and make sure he stows the gun. The last thing we need is any more shooting.”

  For no reason that Ellery could determine, he shivered with that goose-that-walked-over-my-grave sensation. The last thing we need is any more shooting. Crows gathered on the roof. Foreboding cast long shadows inside his mind. Death stalked through the Luxor's dark heart. At that moment Ellery Hann sensed there would be more shooting. And dangers worse than they could possibly imagine.

  CHAPTER 32

  Robyn had seen enough visitors from The Place not to be fazed by Nathaniel. With the exception of hands for feet, he could have mingled easily in any gathering of gold-medal-winning athletes, while his face framed by soft curls of hair could be described as handsome by anyone's standards. Perhaps the only giveaway of his otherworldly origins would be the bluish tan of his skin.

  I have a monster in my kitchen, she thought. There is a monster sitting at my table.

  The thought didn't send her giggling insanely or gasping with shock.

  After tending to the injured girl with the red blossom mouth and being attacked by three creatures that had burst from the supernatural netherworld, this was… well, this appeared mild in comparison. Even Noel accepted the facts as they were. After being reassured by Benedict that Nathaniel was one of the good guys, Noel left the handgun in the bedroom and pulled up a chair to the table as if the big blue-white man was simply another houseguest.

  So here we are, she thought matter-of-factly. Sitting around the table with cake on the plates and coffee in the cups. First of all they introduced themselves, then they exchanged recent experiences: Robyn, Ellery and Noel being attacked on the dance floor by creatures that they now referred to as Skinners, after hearing of Benedict's encounter.

  With their surreal visitor accepting a glass of water, but politely declining food, they reached a point of psychological acceptance of the situation they found themselves plunged into.

  Robyn found herself asking Nathaniel the question that she guessed the other three had been thinking: ”In the last few hours so much has happened to us. On Sunday I learned I was pregnant, even though…” She felt a blush heat her cheeks. ”Even though Noel and I were careful and took precautions. The fetus inside me can't be much more than a fertilized egg, and yet over the last couple of days I felt something fluttering and moving inside of me. That happens months into pregnancy, not within a few hours of conception.”Nathaniel had been looking her in the eye, but he slipped his gaze away as she spoke, as if he couldn't bring himself to make eye contact. He knows something is going to happen to me, something connected with this weird pregnancy. Even though the revelation sent a flood of ice through her veins, she didn't allow herself to falter as she spoke. ”On discovering I was pregnant, I was forced, due to family circumstances, to find a new home. By instinct I was drawn to the Luxor with Noel. We wound up meeting Ellery who suggested we stay in this apartment. Poor Noel must have figured I was off my head. Only for me it seemed the most natural thing in the world to make my home here in this sixties throwback apartment, in a redundant dance floor, in the middle of nowhere. But of course I didn't know then that there were other forces here at work, did I?”Pausing only to note Nathaniel's nodded agreement, she surged on. ”We know from what Benedict told us after watching your father's video that the Luxor has exerted a compelling influence on men and women before. That on the dance floor there is a doorway to another world filled with m-” She stopped herself finishing the word. ”Filled with individuals who have been physically reworked by forces we don't understand.That may be those same forces compel us to come to the Luxor?"

  ”And some of those individuals believe that their real home lies through that doorway?" Benedict added. ”Beyond the gray forest.”

  Robyn continued, ”So, what is happening here? What is this place-this city on a hill-some people think is their real home? Why is there something moving in my womb when it should only be a pinhead of cells? What happened to Mariah Lee to change her anatomy? Why do Ellery and I feel as if we can't leave this building? What's so special about it? How can Ellery's injuries heal so fast in the other place? Why are creatures leaping out from the supernatural doorway to attack us? Why Nathaniel, why?” She finished the questions in a rush, her heart beating hard.

  Calmly Nathaniel considered the outpouring of questions for a moment, then: ”Robyn. The answer to all those questions, and more, is…” He pointed a massive finger at her.

  ”Me?”

  ”You.” He nodded.

  Noel stirred, angry, wondering perhaps if Nathaniel planned some stunt.

  Robyn noticed Benedict leaned forward, listening hard, while Ellery nodded, too, as if that was the answer he'd expected. Outside, the morning sun shone bright, while more crows glided in to join their black-as-midnight comrades.

  Me? I'm. the answer. Robyn took a deep swallow of coffee. The fluttering started in her stomach again, as if butterflies beat their wings against the walls of her womb. There was a sense of tightness, too. Something in there was larger than before. A something that grew fast.

  ***

  ”Me?”Robyn Vincent held the coffee cup tightly. Her hand shook a little, raising concentric rings in the dark liquid. ”Me? How am I the answer to the questions I asked you?”

  Nathaniel brought his large soulful eyes to rest on hers. They were an intense electric blue.

  There are secrets there that involve me, she told herself. He's finding it difficult to broach them. He doesn't want to frighten me. But, dear God, what truth can be that frightening? ”There are worlds that run parallel to this one,”Nathaniel told them.

  ”In the past, different cultures had different names for them: Elysium, Valhalla, The Happy Hunting Ground, Hades, heaven, hell.”He spoke gently mingling the manner of a priest and schoolteacher. ”Christians believed that between heaven and hell there was a third place called purgatory.

  This is where the souls of the dead could be cleansed by suffering. That is to say if they suffered enough torment and pain, their sins would be erased. Then they would be free to continue to heaven.”

  Robyn made the link. ”You're saying the gray forest through the doorway is purgatory?”

  Nathaniel shrugged a muscular shoulder. ”I don't have the wisdom to make that pronouncement. But it is a kind of holding ground for people who are emotionally damaged in some way. They are prevented from passing to the city on the hill.”

  ”Surely, you're not telling us the route to heaven is through a dance floor?”

  ”No… I'm not, definitely not. And I'm not saying that we, the people who inhabit the gray forest, are sinners. That we've been condemned to rot there. No.

  Individuals there are emotionally damaged. They have suffered so much in their lives, for whatever reason- financial crisis, upbringing, bereavement, illness-that their instincts are faulty. Imagine a migratory bird that's suffered a brain injury as a chick; then we can conceive that instead of flying south as winter approaches, it might leave the flock and fly north or west or east. Or it might not feel that built-in urge to migrate at all. These people-my compatriots-are the same. We understand we should move on to the place we know of as home, but we can't. We're stuck. We're bogged down emotionally. We don't know how to continue the journey.”

  ”Wait a minute here. Wait just one minute.”Noel's slow-burn anger had st
arted to flame. ”You're telling us that through the doorway is a kind of afterlife. But everyone we know who's gone through into that forest have been alive. What's more, Ellery Benedict and Robyn- and you, Nathaniel-have returned. You're not ghosts, so don't give me that heaven and hell stuff.”

  ”No. It's more complex than that.”Nathaniel still maintained the calm voice, concerned that they understand him.

  ”I figured it would be.”Noel scowled.

  ”I used those references to other planes of existence because they were terms of reference we are familiar with. For years now, physicists have been talking about other dimensions beyond our three dimensions. Before the universe was formed, science tells us that there were many more dimensions. Astronomers talk about black holes, where time and space are distorted by huge gravitational tides. If anything, science is only now beginning to explain, in technical terms, what men and women for twenty thousand years have known intuitively ”That there are invisible worlds running parallel to this one.”Benedict nodded. ”You'd be hard-pushed to find an ancient culture that didn't have myths and legends relating to some otherworldly paradise or dark nether region where the damned suffered for all eternity.”

  ”And, furthermore,”Nathaniel added, ”these alternative realms were often home to gods, angels or a whole zoo of supernatural creatures-dragons, ghosts, goblins, demons, genii, giants, chimera-”

  ”Okay. Okay.”Noel rubbed his jaw. ”Supposing there are these other worlds-”

  ”There are an infinite number,”Nathaniel held up a finger. ”The dance floor is a route to just one.”

  ”Okay, the gray forest is part of another world. The Luxor dance floor holds some here-today-gone-tomorrow doorway. I'll go along with that.”Noel clenched his fist on the table. ”But why are some people lured here thinking this is the way home? And why do perfectly regular people, who find themselves stranded there, become… well, changed? Reconfigured?”

  Nathaniel rested his fingertips together. ”I could sit here for the next six months and explain. But still I wouldn't have explained it all. It is complex. Thousands of years ago, our ancestors mated with visitors from these alternate worlds who either by accident or design entered the world we know as earth. You might have inherited their genetic material.

  This has been passed down from parent to child for hundreds of generations. And this genetic material does not degrade or corrupt. You, Noel, have dark hair with a kink at the crown. I daresay your father has the same kink and so does your grandfather. The genes you carry have programmed that kink in your hair. If you could travel back ten thousand years you'd probably find your ancestor had that same identical kink.

  Robyn, here, has almond-shaped eyes that hint at Asian ancestry.

  However, she might trace her family history back to Ireland, say, or Italy for hundreds of years, but what she doesn't know is that her ancient ancestors might have migrated from the Indian subcontinent to Europe five thousand years ago. And yet the almond-shape trait remains.”

  ”And how does this tie in with my Cro-Magnon great, great, zillion great-grandmammy making whoopee with one of these world-next-door guys?”

  ”Because it means you would still contain a certain amount of genetic material in your body from your otherworld ancestor. And just as that genetic material dictates hair color, or the shape of your nose, or even if you're predisposed to premature deafness, male pattern baldness, or some other condition that develops later in life, then it also implants into you certain instinctive behavior.”

  Robyn began to understand. ”So if you carry this otherworld gene, it might give you this overriding impulse to return to the world you were born in?”

  Nathaniel's eyes lit up with delight at getting his point through.

  ”Exactly. Just like salmon are genetically programmed to return to mate in the river where they were spawned. And just like how Canadian geese have the instructions to migrate etched in their very cells, so certain men and women who carry the otherworld gene find their desire to return to the world of their ancestors is triggered at times of stress or during serious illness. It's an instinct for self-preservation. If you're threatened in some way, the imperative surfaces to return home.

  You follow?”

  They nodded. Even Noel added, ”And this is a mysterious process? Like salmon know how to navigate across thousands of miles of ocean to reach one particular river, so these people who get the buzz to return home know, somehow, to come to the Luxor.”

  ”Absolutely. Zoologists believe salmon can navigate using the earth's magnetic field. Something similar must happen to the individuals whose instinct guides them here.”

  ”But you still haven't pulled all the strands together'' Robyn said.

  ”Okay we now know some carry The Place gene, for want of a better description… that they come here, go through the portal on the dance floor, and home in on that city on the hill. And we know that certain individuals are emotionally damaged, their inner guidance system fails, so they are stranded in the forest…”

  ”Where they become monsterized, if you will excuse the ugly phrase,”Benedict interjected.

  Robyn continued, barely missing a beat. ”And they are reshaped by powerful forces. But why-oh-why, Nathaniel, am I here? Tell me, how do I fit into this?”

  ”A number of people are natural-born healers.”Nathaniel found it hard to make eye contact with her again. ”Just like the people who instinctively need to lead others, or aspire to become artists, there are others who are drawn to heal the sick or care for the disadvantaged.”He took a deep breath. ”In the forest there is a powerful energy that flows through the fabric of the world there. It nourishes all forms of life. People like me don't need to eat. Only there's a malignant quality to the energy. It scrambles the genes that govern anatomical growth. While it means that injuries heal fast there, miraculously fast, it also reconfigures the men and women who are stranded in the forest. They won't go hungry, they won't get sick, they won't die of old age. But they exchange human frailty for a monstrous robustness.”

  ”That's evil,”Noel breathed. ”The poor devils.”

  ”Almost like purgatory.”Benedict gave a grim smile. ”And those monsterized men and women are like souls in purgatory being spiritually cleansed through suffering.”

  Nathaniel allowed the comparison with a nod. ”There is suffering and torment beyond comprehension. Those individuals you called the Skinners, Benedict, have been driven insane by decades of pain resulting from a mutant redevelopment that dissolves bone mass before forming new skeletal structure and abnormal tissue growth.”He shrugged. ”It hurts.

  And the Skinners have reached the schizoid conclusion that if they wear the skin of someone from this world, it will heal them.”

  Benedict said, ”So if an individual who is a genetic healer enters the gray forest, then there's a chance they can actually remedy the physical damage.”

  ”A healer is far more powerful than that. He or she can heal the emotional wounds that stranded those men and women in the first place.

  The instinctual guidance system will be repaired and they can continue on to the land of their genetic ancestors.”

  Robyn saw the four people at the table turn to look at her.

  ”So.”She forced a weak smile. ”This is the reason why I'm here. I possess the healing gene.”

  ”You do carry the gene.”Nathaniel's voice softened. ”But no, you're not the healer, Robyn. The child you now carry is the healer.”

  ”I'm sorry,”she said. ”Then you have a long wait.”

  He gave a small shake of his head. ”That is why I had to cross over to your world. I'm here to tell you, Robyn, that your child will be born tonight.”

  CHAPTER 33

  Robyn Vincent recoiled from the words as if they'd been stones hurled into her face. I'm here to tell you, Robyn, that your child will be born tonight. Standing, she backed away from the creature that owned a blue-white skin and hands for feet. With a savagery that blazed th
rough every nerve, the words reverberated in her head. I'm here to tell you, Robyn, that your child will be born tonight.

  ”No. I don't believe you.”She looked from Nathaniel to Ellery, Benedict, Noel. ”It's not true, is it?”she appealed. ”That's not possible.”

  The expressions of the three men were as compassionate, yet as helpless, as a family gathering around the bed of a terminally ill relative.

  ”Benedict, you know it's impossible for a woman to go full-term in days.”She pressed her hands against her stomach. ”This baby won't be born until the end of the year. It takes nine months,”she insisted.

  ”Nine months. The baby was conceived just a few days ago. Isn't that right, Noel?”

  He looked up, feeling for her, but helpless.

  Ellery said, ”Please sit down, Robyn. If Nathaniel says it will happen…”

  She stared at Ellery in horror. ”You believe him?”She turned to the man she loved. ”Noel?”

  Noel doubted everything that Nathaniel had told them. He wouldn't swallow that, surely. Not the ridiculous notion that a woman could fall pregnant one week, then give birth the next. Noel would never ever accept that in a hundred years… only she saw the expression on his face: horror struck through with fascination. ”Noel, you believe it, too, don't you?”She pressed her hands harder to her stomach, her fingers splayed, as if they'd become the bars of a cage, keeping in what desired with all its otherworldly heart to break out.

  Benedict said, ”We'll look after you, don't worry”