Move

by Conor Kostick

  ‘Yo-Kong Shen handed the tax collector his robe, his sandals and his stave. The tax collector looked at the master, at first seeing nothing but a naked old man. Then the truth became clear to him and he understood that Yo-Kong Shen had tricked him. For the master never kept any gift from his followers, but gave it to those who needed it. Nor did he keep one gold coin from the Emperor’s mother, though he did pray for the son.

  ‘The tax collector turned purple with fury, his eyes bulged and he began to choke. He would have cursed Yo-Kong Shen if he could have, but his rage filled him to bursting. With a gargled cry he fell from his chair and crashed to the ground, dead.

  ‘The soldiers carried the body away and it was a long time before the villagers ever saw another tax collector.’

  ***

  ‘Jays’, I wish Yo-Kong Shen was around today; he’d know what I should do.’ I sighed.

  ‘That tax collector was a bit stupid, though. I could see what was coming.’ On the page of his rough book for the traits of hungry ghosts, Zed wrote ‘stupid’.

  Geoffrey came and sat at the table again. ‘Perhaps not stupid, it might be more accurate to write that their appetites blind them to what the rest of us can see.’

  ‘Right you are.’ With a quick scribble Zed rewrote the line.

  ‘Also,’ Tara came in quickly, ‘put down that they both died after getting what they asked for.’

  ‘Well, you say they died,’ I pointed out, ‘but strictly speaking, the person they inhabited died.’ I gave the kind of self-aware cough that you do when you want to draw attention to yourself and furthered the effect by raising my eyebrows. Just to make sure they appreciated that the person who died in the stories was equivalent to me, I pointed several times at my chest.

  Zed was frowning, I thought in sympathy with me, but he was looking at his notes. ‘That’s it. See. When the hungry ghost is here, it doesn’t just look like Liam, it is him! It takes over his body. See, Liam doesn’t remember those times, because he’s gone somewhere else, unconscious or asleep maybe.’

  Skin really can crawl. It sort of stretches around the back of your head and along your forearms, all the tiny hairs there stand up. No sooner had Zed spoken than I felt it to be true; there had been times when the hungry ghost had somehow taken control of me. Even then, I suddenly realised, I had some memories of being the ghost. Later, when I’d been to hell and back, so to speak, I had those memories as clear as if they had been mine all along.

  ‘That’s right,’ I stuttered. ‘Actually it’s coming back to me a bit now. I wasn’t myself; I was hungry. The Valentine’s card … Yeah, I can just about remember. I did go to school early. I was full of excitement.’ My voice dropped. ‘Full of wickedness, I mean.’

  ‘What about last night, when you came here at four am?’ asked Geoffrey.

  ‘Could you have left your house without anyone noticing?’ Tara turned to me.

  ‘I could, no problem. And now you say it, I do feel I was out on the streets last night. There was a fight … or something.’ It was all so elusive, but it was there. I’d seen and done things I wasn’t fully conscious of.

  ‘There we go then!’ Zed was triumphant, but not me. It was all very well figuring out that the ghost was getting here by entering my body, but that was bad news as far as I was concerned. Think for a minute how you’d feel if some evil person could use your body and make you do things to others that were horrible. I felt angry, frightened and helpless, all at the same time.

  ‘This is deadly. We’re making progress.’

  ‘Are we, Zed? A couple of stories, both of which end badly for the person taken over by the hungry ghost, and you think we’re making progress? Don’t you get it? I could become the ghost right now. I could attack you. I could do all sorts of terrible things!’ I stood up.

  ‘Chill out, dude. We have to figure out its modus operandi, and then we can smack it back down to hell and make it sorry it ever came into this world.’ Zed was being exaggeratedly cheerful, to try and head off my panic attack. To some extent it worked. His exuberance was reassuring, and I sat back down again.

  ‘I think Liam is right to be concerned. The hungry ghost is a very powerful creature, and it would have destroyed me if it could have. We are not simply going to be able to fight it, not physically.’ Admitting the problem was serious was good too; Geoffrey’s measured tones inspired more confidence than Zed’s attempt to portray the situation as if it needed some sort of martial arts star ready to kick ghost ass. ‘If the stories tell us anything relevant, they suggest that it is not strength that defeats the hungry ghost, but guile.’

  ‘Like I said,’ Tara raised her voice to make sure we paid attention, ‘stopping the ghost has got something to do with giving them what they want.’

  ‘And like I said. If we follow those stories, I end up dead. Look, think for a minute, what are you going to do next time you meet it? I’ll be gone, unconscious or something, so it’s up to you. I need your help. What are you going to do?’

  They all looked at me sympathetically, responding to the note of distress in my voice. But they didn’t have any answers.

  15

  On the Irish Sea

  That weekend had been a Bank Holiday and my dad had insisted on taking mum and me off to North Wales. Of course I didn’t want to go. I wanted to stay with Zed, Tara and Geoffrey, in the hope they could figure something out that would protect me from being taken over by the hungry ghost. What’s more, I had a new worry. The metaverse was growing more ragged around me, and whenever I tried to look deeply into it, I felt impending catastrophe. Or rather, doom. Each time I thought about moving, I experienced a sense of vertigo, and sometimes it felt like I had already fallen from some giant precipice, into a dark endless pit, my feeble light unable to show me the walls rushing past as I descended, forever and ever.

  Poor Dad, he spent the whole weekend trying to interest me in castles and mountains. Seeing that had failed to lift my spirits, they even let me go out to the pub on my own, to watch football on the big screens.

  Throughout the holiday I consoled myself with the thought that at least by being away from Dublin, I couldn’t harm my friends if the hungry ghost took over. But that still left my parents. It was depressing, being subject to the will of an evil creature. Part of me was fatalistic. I cursed my circumstances, groaned at my bad luck, and generally felt thoroughly sorry for myself. It was ironic really, since only a year earlier I would have said that I was the luckiest person alive, being able to move and all.

  Still, learning how to move had taught me one thing at least, which is that there are always alternatives. There’s no such thing as fate, just probability. Even now, there were wonderful happy universes somewhere all around me; I just couldn’t see them.

  In any case, I could hardly blame bad luck for my situation. The fact that this ghost was haunting me was clearly related to the fact that I could move. I just needed to figure out what was happening when the ghost took over and how I could stop it.

  On our way back from Wales, on the Monday evening, the car ferry was busy with other Irish holidaymakers heading home after the weekend and even more so with English tourists coming our way. A hen party had taken over one of the bars, their loud shrieks attracting the single men, but driving Mum, Dad and me downstairs to a restaurant.

  ‘Want a plate of chips?’ Dad asked.

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘Here, come with me, give me a hand with the trays.’

  While Mum kept our table, Dad and I joined the queue. Just as I was reading the prices, I felt dizzy and saw all the writing double up, like the effect you get if you look just over the top of a pair of sunglasses. I was being moved. The universe in which we were settling was one in which the ship’s emergency signal was being blasted out in long blares by the horns. It wasn’t possible for me to see what was going to happen after the next few minutes of alarm, but the white face of a crew member and my own sense of foreboding meant I knew I didn’t want to stay in t
his universe. Something really terrible was going to happen here and, with a shudder, I envisaged our pale bodies floating inside the ferry as it lay on the bottom of the sea.

  What to aim for? Just normality. Fast. Any move was difficult, though, as I had to dodge around the rips and tears in the metaverse to find a decent alternative. If I made a mistake, I’d fall into those black crevasses and that might be the end of everything. To help quell the sense of panic that had been rising inside my chest, I imagined I was a Buddhist master like the monk in the stories, and it worked. My breathing slowed, my heart ceased pounding.

  Having closed my eyes and concentrated really hard, overcoming a feeling of nausea, I located a universe in which no one around me showed any sign of consternation. It remained elusive, tantalisingly out of reach no matter how hard I tried to bring it in to focus. Just as I thought I’d got there, I suddenly felt as though a wrestler had grabbed me from behind and had thrown me through the air. A moment of sickness and confusion came and went. Then we were settled. I’d moved away from the danger, but with little control over the outcome. The sensations were exactly like that time in school when, to avoid humiliation with Inextreme, I’d managed to thwart my enemy, only to have been thrown into a universe not of my choosing.

  At least the one in which I’d landed seemed fine. For a start there was no alarm signal being played. There was some dismay among the people around us, though, and I began to sweat again. What was troubling them? Dad went up to the front of the queue to see, and then came back with a shrug.

  ‘The staff have all gone.’

  ‘Let’s go back to Mum.’ This was really worrying. At least if we sat together, it would be easier for me to keep an eye on them both. I’m not usually the sort of person who notices the emergency signs, like assembly points and so on, but today they caught my complete attention. If the ship sank, we had to be near lifejackets. I couldn’t be sure that I’d be able to get us out of this universe.

  It’s odd, the way I was thinking, because, of course, somewhere out there was a universe in which the ferry sank. My moving to a different one didn’t do anything to alter that fact. Theoretically, every day there were universes in which versions of me died. I’d even seen a few, like when I was nearly in a car crash on the M50. Of course, I stayed well away from those. But what I didn’t like the idea of was being moved into a universe in which I could not escape and dying there. The fact that other versions of me would continue to live was not entirely consoling, because they weren’t exactly me. They were more like twins and, deep down, I felt that my own death would really be the end. I did not have multiple consciousnesses, even if I could move. So when this one ended, that would be me done for.

  Where were all the staff? Naturally I sought answers from the nearby universes, even though that made me sick. Everything was blurry and confused, though. Wherever it was I’d ended up, I would have to stay for a while at least. It was impossible to move into that fog without risking falling through a tear, with whatever horrible consequences would arise from that.

  ‘Ice cream?’ A smartly dressed woman came past our table, offering plastic cartons of raspberry ripple from out of a large shopping bag. At first, I thought she was doing a promotion.

  ‘Not for us, thanks,’ Mum replied.

  ‘Are you sure? They are free.’

  ‘Free?’ asked Dad.

  ‘Yes. The staff have walked out, on some sort of dispute, leaving everything behind.’

  ‘Oh, well in that case, don’t mind if I do.’

  Both Dad and Mum took one, but I shook my head. I wasn’t hungry.

  ‘Seasick, son?’

  ‘Yeah, a little.’

  ‘Let’s go for a walk, see if the deck is open. Bring your coat. It’s cold out there.’

  ‘Mum, will you come too?’

  My mum must have sensed something was wrong, because she put down her magazine and came with us. All over the ship the strangest events were happening, but they weren’t in the least bit sinister. In fact, they were rather fun and I began to feel more cheerful. The passengers had realised that there were no staff on duty and were helping themselves at every food area and restaurant. There was plenty to go around, so people were being generous. Except perhaps with regard to cakes. I saw one elderly man with a whole plate of Black Forest gateaux.

  There was plenty to drink too and, seeing as there was no question of taking alcohol off the ship and through customs, a lot of the adults were tearing into it as though it were a New Year’s Eve party.

  ‘Want a turn on deck?’ Dad was as much concerned to have a smoke as to my seasickness, but I obliged him. The fresh air might actually help me gather my thoughts, in case I had to move again.

  ‘Sure.’

  The three of us walked through the extraordinary sights of a ferry abandoned to its passengers. Girls in green cowboy hats from the hen party were singing a medley of chart hits to an appreciative audience. Little kids had picked up on the festival atmosphere and were running wild around the decks, like some enormous game of chase was going on. Everyone was having a blast, surely not the design of the hungry ghost? This peculiar universe had to be a random outcome of the clash between us.

  Out on the windy deck, several people were smoking rapidly, keen to get back inside to the warmth and merriment. Dad took a light from an elderly man, while Mum zipped up her jacket, putting up the hood to keep her ears warm.

  ‘Mad stuff, eh?’ Dad looked around at his fellow smokers.

  ‘Best crossing I’ve ever been on.’ The old fella gave a chuckle that turned into a cough.

  Then I felt it again, an attempt to move. It was far weaker than it had been on previous occasions, but I realised we didn’t have to make much of a move for catastrophe to engulf us. I could see universes where a sudden lurch of the ship or a freak gust of wind shook us. Then Dad was in the cold grey water, face turned up towards me as he sank beneath the waves.

  ‘No!’ I shouted aloud and fought back. Though the move was only a minor one, I hadn’t much strength left myself. It was like running so hard you can’t breathe. Your body is still moving, but even deep gulps of air are not enough. Your mouth floods with a horrible acrid taste, while you asphyxiate. Kneeling, I held on to a nearby rail and threw up. Blackness welled up in my head. But I’d done it, I’d made the smallest of moves to keep Dad beside me.

  ‘You all right, son?’

  I managed a nod.

  ‘No offence, mate, but your son, well that’s some terrible smell. He’s wrecked the gaff and there’s no one around to clean up is there?’ The elderly man was cross. But I was so happy I just crawled inside, laughing.

  16

  The Demon and the Maiden

  As soon as we got home from the trip to Wales, I went to my room early, completely exhausted. Lying in my bed, I felt the universes whirling around me, with the dark tears between them noticeably wider than this morning. Nearly half of the metaverse was completely black; it was a terrible pool, which was spreading out to engulf me, no matter how fast I sought to struggle free.

  ***

  With my return to the world of human beings came hunger. I was always hungry. At last, though, I had the power to break all whom I met. No longer was I dependent on the flows of energy that came my way from passers-by. Now I could feast on whomever I chose and with that thought came an awareness of a place, not too far away, where I could eat with particular satisfaction. After a fifteen-minute run, with barely a pause to draw upon the meagre offerings of the humans I overtook, I was at the house I sought.

  The doorbell sang out its two notes for me.

  ‘Liam! You’re back! You should have rung. I wasn’t expecting you.’

  At the sound of her voice, I felt a surge from the boy. He loved her and nearly threw me aside. But I forced him back down: down, down in to the realms inhabited only by demons. It would not be long now until I had enough energy to thrust him away forever and seal him there, fully enjoying his body as my own.

/>   Embarrassment is pleasure and nourishment to me. With a slight sneer on my face, I let her see me slowly move my gaze up and down, observing the pink hoody, the pink tracksuit bottoms and a pale line of chubby skin between them. She blushed, and pulled at her top. There was nothing she could do to hide the false foot though, which I stared at for some time.

  ‘I was just going to take Rascal for a walk. Want to come along?’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘Rascal? Walkies!’

  The dog feared me. It wanted to be brave and protect her, but fear was winning.

  ‘Rascal, come on!’

  With a whimper, the dog allowed itself to be collared and, staying away from me as far as possible, it slunk from the house.

  ‘He normally really loves to get out.’

  There was a great deal of affection and concern flowing from her in my direction; it was unpalatable, almost poisonous to me and I strove to ignore it. At least the suburbs were good hunting grounds. Already we had passed two young humans in a lane: him, a bonfire of lust and contempt; her, lust and guilt. It was heady and I drew upon it with relish.

  ‘I’ve been thinking about those stories Geoffrey told us. It would be great if he could find some more. I think we’ve gained a lot, just from those two.’

  It wasn’t her eager chat that I was listening to, but her heart and her mind. To feast upon her would not be easy. For a young human she was surprisingly tight, like a clam, but there were cracks through which I could prise my way to her soft insides.

  ‘You were a fool, playing on the barge like that. It’s not just your life you’ve ruined, but everyone’s, especially your mother’s.’

  ‘What?’

  She stopped. We stared at each other, standing on slabs of broken paving beside a damp grey wall. The dog tried to growl, but when it met my eyes, the growl turned into a whine.