by Simon Clark
Half-a-dozen shapes that I’d taken to be tree trunks suddenly came to life. The shapes hefted sub-machine-guns, that much I could see. A light blasted into my face.
‘Mason!’
One shape rammed into my chest with enough force to nearly topple me.
‘Mason, how did you find us!’
‘Eve?’
She pulled the dazzling beam from my eyes so she could light her own face. For the first time in days she was genuinely pleased to see me.
I asked, ‘Who else is with you?’
‘There’s Ulric. These five guys are from the commando squad. They were stationed at the house with us.’ She punched my arm. ‘But how on earth did you know we were here?’
Amid the trees a red object glowed. To avoid a complex – and undoubtedly problematic explanation of the nature of Natsaf-Ty – I shrugged. ‘Put it down to instinct.’
‘Never mind,’ Ulric intoned. ‘You found us. That’s what’s important.’
Eve used the flashlight to illuminate my travelling companions. ‘Uh, so you brought her with you?’
‘I could hardly leave her, could I? The Echomen were killing everyone.’
‘And you picked up the other stray.’ My sister blasted the light into Kirk’s face. ‘It’s easy to see why. He’s another copy of you.’
‘Eve, he’d be dead now if I hadn’t—’
‘I know, I know. But if you ask me, Mason, you’ve discovered a new dimension to narcissism. What you’ve got inside your head would keep a whole team of psychoanalysts busy for years.’ Then in an impulsive rush she kissed me on the cheek.
I smiled at Eve. ‘Does that mean, despite the murky depths of my subconscious, you’re actually happy to see your big brother?’
‘Yeah, I’ll give you a second chance. Even with your choice of menagerie.’
One of the commandos grunted. ‘I don’t want to spoil happy reunions, but we’re exposed here, and to render it in civilian-speak, we don’t know where the hell we are.’
‘Follow me,’ I said. ‘I met someone back there who showed me the way to the exit.’
The soldier shot Eve a quizzical glance. ‘It’s OK,’ she sighed, ‘my brother talks like this all the time. Now he must have tricked a guardian angel into looking out for him.’
I gave a grim smile. ‘It’s OK, my sister talks like that all the time.’
Ulric added in precise Norwegian tones, ‘The pair of you must issue from an extraordinary bloodline. Both of you can be as perplexing as you are fascinating.’
The commando stayed focused on the danger. ‘Around five hundred Echomen stormed the headquarters tonight. We exterminated plenty but I figure there’s probably at least three hundred in these woods searching for us.’
‘Point taken, Sergeant,’ Ulric said. ‘Mason, be so good as to lead the way, please.’
Despite the carnage, Ulric’s Scandinavian cool, good manners, appeared in perfect condition. He stood aside to allow me to take the lead. Me and my odd little clone family.
The red beacon that only my eyes could see revealed the way. With Eve, Ulric and the five surviving soldiers following I walked into the darkness.
chapter 42
We reached the edge of the forest as the sun rose.
Eve gazed out over a valley where mists slid white fingers through the meadows. ‘Do you know what’s missing?’ she murmured. ‘The dawn chorus. There isn’t one. Not a single bird wanting to sing.’ My sister slid the strap of the machine-gun from her shoulder. ‘Nature’s giving us a warning.’
The boy blinked in the growing light. ‘I want to go home. I’m scared …’
Ulric rested a hand on Kirk’s shoulder. ‘What is there to be scared of? Do you see anything?’
Kirk shook his head. His eyes said it all though: terror approached.
Then maybe old Natsaf-Ty exerted his unique aura on Kirk, who, after all, was an Echoman, albeit a junior one.
The commando sergeant’s grey eyes scanned the grasslands. ‘If we continue this way, we leave the tree cover behind.’
‘You’ve got guns,’ Madeline said. She wasn’t wrong. These commandos carried a whole armoury between them: sub-machine-guns, sniper rifles, grenade launchers, a drab green cylinder that contained a wire-guided anti-tank missile. Add to that Eve and Ulric toted sub-machine-guns. ‘There’s formidable firepower here.’
Even so Ulric shook his head. ‘We might have weapons, but the Echomen have got numerical power. Last night hundreds attacked the HQ. For all we know there might be hundreds of the creatures out there.’
‘Waiting for us,’ Eve added.
The sergeant who’d been staring at me with growing hostility slid back the bolt of his gun. ‘The real problem in the end wasn’t the Echomen who stormed the building. Our force had already gone rotten. My men were changing.’ His eyes hardened. ‘They were turning into him.’
Eve said, ‘It’s not my brother’s fault.’
‘He’s a plague carrier. I saw my men with that same scar on the backs of their hands.’ He used the gun to point at the red scar on mine … the same one that blazed its Y-shaped stigmata on both the boy and Madeline’s flesh.
Another soldier added, ‘You can’t trust anyone now. You start talking to your buddy, but by the time you finish he’s gone and turned into that guy.’ He pointed an RPG at me. And at that moment I couldn’t say for sure whether he pointed like it was an extension of his finger or he aimed the armour-piercing shell at my heart, ready to blow me all over the meadow in a sticky crimson paste. The other commandos gave a ripple of unease.
The hands of one tightened around the gunstock. ‘So what the fuck’s happening with these? How the fuck can this kid and the woman turn into versions of him? If they’re Echomen why aren’t they attacking us?’
‘It’s probably only a matter of time.’ The corporal clicked off the safety.
‘And who’s to say that this guy, Mason Konrad, isn’t the leader of those things? The kid and the Echo bitch do what he tells them.’
‘OK, OK.’ Ulric raised his hands. ‘Stay cool about this, huh?’
The sergeant growled, ‘But this guy might be infecting us. What if we turn Echo? We can’t—’
‘Listen to me. We brought Mason Konrad here for a reason. He is different from the rest of us. Yes, he can transmit the mechanism that causes the change, as do we all to a certain extent. We don’t know how this occurs yet, but we were learning from Mason Konrad. Not all the people whom he “infects” as you put it, become hostile to human beings. That makes him unique.’
Eve added, ‘It also means he could be humanity’s greatest hope for survival.’
‘I’m also your greatest hope for survival right now,’ I told them. ‘I got you through the forest in one piece.’
‘We’re not safe yet,’ grunted the corporal.
‘Then trust me to go ahead and check if it’s clear.’
‘Yeah, so you’re free to run back to your kind.’
‘I don’t have a kind.’ I glared at the commando. ‘But if I scout ahead alone there’s less chance of you looking in the mirror tonight and seeing this.’ I pointed at my own face. ‘Understand?’
‘What about the boy and the woman?’
Eve answered this one. ‘Transformation relates to proximity. If they’re far enough away you’re safe from infection.’
‘She’s right,’ Ulric said. ‘If they sit under the tree over there then there’s no danger.’
‘You better be right.’ The corporal’s eyes still flashed suspicion. ‘If one of these guys even gets so much as a rash on the back of his hand we’re going to start blasting.’
For a second there was silence as we all digested the statement. By this time the sun had risen above the horizon; the mist in the valley turned the colour of copper.
‘OK.’ I nodded. ‘We have an understanding. I’ll check ahead. Once I know it’s clear I’ll come back.’ My eyes settled on the guns the commandos handled with a restless tens
ion. ‘Only don’t go pointing those things at me. Understand?’
The sergeant nodded. ‘But when you come back keep your distance. Do you understand that?’
‘You’ve got my word. Now keep out of sight until I give you the all clear.’
Before I left the huddle of people at the edge of the forest Eve handed me the machine-gun with the words, ‘Remember, just point and squirt. OK?’
With nods, rather than heartfelt good-byes I headed down the grass slope into the valley. By this time Madeline had led Kirk by the hand to sit on the grass beneath a tree some fifty yards from the commandos. From the way her eyes followed me I knew she wanted to come, too. But what none of them could understand was that I didn’t simply strike off on my own to see if the way ahead was clear: I still followed the red figure. A figure that none of them could see. Then how could I explain I’d put my faith in something that I recognized as an imaginary friend from childhood? But just a few hours ago I sensed that Natsaf-Ty had become more than that. If you want to get to the psychological guts of the matter I might, if pressed, suggest that the figure wrapped in scanty bandages was a component of my mind. A special part that had become externalized in the familiar form of that imaginary friend of yore. The one and the same who used to occupy the step at home in order to console me and advise me after a trying day at school. But then had it become more significant than that? People who dowse using forked sticks will tell you that the ability to find underground streams is nothing to do with the hazel twig in their hands, it’s a sixth sense that they’re born with that simply makes the muscles twitch so the stick jerks over the hidden water source. As I walked through the dew that’s what passed through my head. A growing sense of understanding, as if a hidden picture slowly revealed itself to me until I was close to the point of saying, So that’s what it is! I should have known. What I’m striving to express is this: Natsaf-Ty isn’t an ancient Egyptian mummy who actually makes himself visible to me. If I walked up to him I can’t reach out to touch his dry face, I cannot slip my finger through the hole in his skull to wiggle bits of dry embalmer’s rag in the brain cavity. Nor can I identify him as simply a childhood imaginary friend. No. He’s more than that. Just what, I’ll have to wait and see.
Therefore, make no bones about it, I talked myself into placing my blind faith in the gaunt figure that glided across the meadow in front of me. I even found myself saying over and over: I believe in you. You will keep me safe. You’re guiding me away from danger. You have the power to protect us.
Dear God. Natsaf-Ty had the power all right. He had the power to bring me face to face with the monster that killed my mother.
chapter 43
‘Mason?’ The man smiled. ‘It’s good to see you again.’
I searched the meadow ahead for Natsaf-Ty. I’d followed him down through the early morning mist in a kind of trance. Now I woke up in the presence of the figure that sat on a wall beside the road. Of course, he was every inch the replica of me, apart from one feature. The wound I’d made in his face with the belt buckle hadn’t healed. In fact, it had degraded into a great open mouth of a wound. The lips of the crater in the side of his face formed a rim of wet flesh that had turned from red to black since I saw him last beside the road in Tanshelf. The bruising had become a vein-like pattern of dark lines as if soon areas of the face would break away from one another before sliding from the front of the skull. At the centre of the oozing crater were greenish cubes of hard material that could only be the remains of teeth embedded into a necrotic gum.
Bizarrely, that copy of me didn’t appear perturbed by the hole in his face. He smiled warmly. The brown eyes were absurdly bright in that ruin of a head.
Cheerful, he tilted his head to one side. ‘I am really glad to see you, Mason.’
‘The sentiment’s not mutual,’ I said. That sick clone of me didn’t have a weapon I could see so I took my time unslinging the sub-machine-gun. Already in my mind’s eye I could see the satisfying sequence of pictures as rounds sped from the gun to burst the bag of pus that passed for a head. My God, I could even smell the rot from here.
As I stood there in the road I glanced back. By this time Eve and the others were a good half-mile away back up the valley side. They weren’t in view, neither was another single living soul. The decaying Konrad misinterpreted my action.
‘Don’t be concerned about traffic,’ he told me. ‘This is a private road on a military testing ground. Nobody will drive along here. See those houses across there?’ He broke off a piece of grass to nibble on – those green lumps in his mouth were teeth. Casually, he waited until I’d taken in the view of white houses on the hillside. ‘They’re fake,’ he said. ‘The army use them for training soldiers in house-to-house fighting. Weird, huh?’
‘Not as weird as you.’ With a click the bolt slid back. Point and squirt … the monster would experience the full force of my generosity: he could have every single round in the 30-capacity magazine. There’d be nothing left of his festering head after that. Perhaps a smear in the field behind. Nothing more.
‘You know, Mason,’ he said, ‘I’m responsible for saving you. I knew you were being kept prisoner in the house up there in the forest where they were experimenting on you like a lab rat, so I had our people free you. Then I only had to think you here, and you came. With powers like that doesn’t it prove we are the superior species?’
I firmed my grip on the sub-machine-gun. ‘What’s this about our people and we are the superior species?’
Smiling, he chewed his grass-stalk.
I got to the point. ‘You’re a monster. You aren’t even human.’
‘I’m a copy of you. A perfect copy.’
‘Didn’t I shit your face up?’
‘We’re closer than twins. All this is so new, so unexpected, there’s bound to be some conflict at first. Look at Madeline; she loves you. Yet she’s still to learn that our kind have risen above love and hate. We’re forming into a single organism, physically separate units agreed, but joined by telepathy into a seamless entity of unimaginable power. Remember what I just told you? I willed you to come here to me and that’s exactly what you did.’
‘You sure it wasn’t something else?’ Natsaf-Ty guided me here. He wasn’t showing me a route to escape; he’d brought me here to confront my tormentor; not hide from him. But if only he could have warned me. Damn his crusty hide.
‘All I have to do is plant the idea in Madeline’s head to join us and she’ll soon come trotting down the lane. After all, she is close by, isn’t she?’
Despite the growing urge to blast his stinking head I wanted to see the expression of shock on his pus face when I told him what Madeline and I had worked out in his swimming-pool jail. ‘We know exactly what you are. You’re the equivalent of a hand grenade thrown into a café, or a bomb left on a crowded commuter train. Your purpose is to cause chaos.’
He smiled broadly enough to squeeze a yellowish gel from the crater in his cheek. ‘I must have left you both in the cell too long. You talked each other into swallowing peculiar theories.’
‘No more peculiar than yours. You’re deluded if you believe we’re part of some new super race.’
‘We are the super race, Mason. The master race. You should be proud. Nature has decided you are the perfect model.’
‘And so Nature transforms the entire human race into copies of me?’ I lifted the gun so it pointed at the thing that wore a corrupt edition of my mush. ‘Hardly.’
‘You’re our god, Mason. You’re the source. All of us flowed from you. The miraculous spring that gives us our new life. You even have the power to transform other Echomen into versions of yourself. That’s unheard of. And that’s the reason Dr Saffrey wanted you so badly at her HQ so her experts could study you.’
‘I’m your god? Then you’ll do as I tell you.’
Mason threw the grass-stalk aside. ‘When people worship gods they try and manipulate their deities’ actions through prayer. Those devoted be
lievers don’t for one minute want to have to obey their gods’ or goddesses’ orders. Now that would be chaos. Free will out the window.’ He stood up as I trained the weapon on him. ‘Gods are revered from a distance, and then only on certain days of the week. And they never should actually intervene in humanity’s schemes.’
A hand shot into my field of vision; a hand with a Y-shaped scar. It gripped the muzzle, then pushed it harmlessly up into the air. More hands followed to wrestle the gun from my hands. Another hand snatched the automatic from my belt leaving me unharmed, yet strangely triumphant.
‘See,’ I told him, as a dozen copies of yours truly – young, old, male, female formed a ring around me. ‘Some god you chose. I didn’t even know your rabble were creeping up on me.’ With that, I punched out the one nearest to me, a silver-haired Mason Konrad, then I ran.
The sun burned away the mist. Its heat brought out the cloying smell of hemlock growing at the side of the road. At that moment all I could do was drive myself to run as hard as I could. Yet as I raced downhill fury took hold. Natsaf-Ty had delivered me into a trap.
‘Why did you let me down … after all this time … why did you do it?’ The red figure remained out of sight. ‘I put my faith in you. Why stab me in the back?’
The road plunged downhill. Ahead of me more Echomen stood in the roadway, so I cut across a field that led down toward a clump of trees where a stone church steeple poked at the sky. At that moment running like a crazy man had to be preferable to being the creatures’ god. Their god? Me? A mad, barking laugh escaped my lips. This proves their insanity. What poor, flawed monsters they are.
A hundred yards from the church I reached a low wall that separated the field from the road. Just in time I stopped myself jumping it because I saw that the other side plunged ten feet down to road level. If I broke my leg now the Echomen could carry me to their damned Mason Konrad temple for worship or other divine activities – no doubt as anomalous as they would be perverted.
