'I loved him and he beat me up. Beat me and yet I loved him so much. Even now I feel I betrayed him. At least your memories are good.'
She left me then and walked back to her seat.
'There's another anomaly coming up,’ Gareth said.
I took a deep breath.
'Stop when you're close. I'm going out again.'
* * * *
The hand was curled into a fist, rising out of the road. I reached down and it grabbed me. The grip was strong enough that I could feel it through the armour. Reflexively, I pulled back, engines in the suit whined, monitors went red, but I did not give up and the hand rose.
It came with an arm, then a head and shoulders. I fell to the ground—Gareth yelling in my skull.
Deb looked down at me and blinked. She was still holding my hand; slowly she pulled me to my feet.
'Richard,’ she said. ‘It's coming.'
I shook my head. ‘What's coming?'
'You'll know when it arrives. I know I shouldn't but I—'
Something caught her attention behind me. Her eyes widened and then she was gone, collapsed back into the road.
I turned but there was nothing there. Nothing at all.
* * * *
'If it is at all reassuring, I cannot detect any other anomalies.'
'Thanks, Gareth,’ I said. ‘But I don't know what we're dealing with. Deb, she, whatever she was, spoke to me.'
'I know,’ Gareth said. ‘It may have looked like Deb, but it wasn't human.'
'What was it then?’ I asked.
'The road, it was the same substance as the road.'
Which meant that Gareth didn't have a clue. No-one did.
We were travelling down the Highway at around seven hundred kilometres an hour—twice the usual speed. Both Gareth and I agreed that if we could avoid running into whatever was coming all the better. Outside the dust in the void had become increasingly agitated—mad patterns spiralled against the glass.
I looked back at my passengers; they seemed more than a little agitated too. Someone was throwing up in the toilets—I hoped they had better aim than the last person. I would have to speak to them all soon.
A beeper went off in the cockpit and I smiled.
The nearest exit had locked onto us; we'd be off the Highway in under two hours.
A storm was coming, but with any luck we would miss us entirely.
* * * *
'Um, Richard. We appear to be having a problem. Something is slowing the bus down. Everything is working properly and yet there's a measurable reduction in speed.’ Gareth sounded worried. ‘Richard, I don't know if I can trust my sensors any more.'
I nodded, understanding his fears. AI's are all sensors and readings. If they lose the ability to understand them, they lose the ability to function.
'I think you should take over here,’ Gareth said. ‘I need to concentrate on making some sense of all this.'
'Okay, I'll switch to manual.’ The bus was suddenly under my control, the sheer power of it rumbling into my hands through the steering wheel. We were definitely still moving, though according to Gareth we were not.
I pushed the speed up to 900.
'Richard, we're going backwards.'
'What!'
I pulled the bus to a halt. Then I felt it, a slight shuddering in the wheel. A sense of something building.
'It's coming,’ I whispered and got to my feet.
* * * *
I opened the door and looked out, nothing. No movement.
'How fast are we going?'
'Fast, very fast and it's increasing exponentially. We'll reach light speed in around two minutes.'
I began to wonder why we weren't dead. The acceleration should have crushed us. The armour I wore suddenly felt very insignificant. I looked at my passengers and they looked at me, everybody was most definitely switched on.
'Something is happening,’ I said. ‘But I'm going to do whatever I can to get you through this.'
'It's coming,’ Sara said, gripping the hem of her dress tightly in her hands then releasing. ‘It's here.'
Something slammed into us, the bus creaked and Gareth shrieked with it, then shut down. I was thrown to the floor, a couple of passengers hit their heads and then, there was silence.
Only for a moment. We looked at each other.
Voices, there were hundreds of voices, thousands, millions, billions upon billions and I realised suddenly they had always been there, a kind of background radiation of chatter. Always there, but never really noticed, maybe I hadn't known how to listen.
'Gareth,’ I subbed. ‘What's happening?'
There was no response, no static, no sense of Gareth's presence at all. It chilled me to the bone. Nothing to give me data updates, or slow a racing heart. I walked up and down the aisle, but for a few bruised heads everybody seemed okay
'I want you all to stay inside,’ I said, then walked to the door, opened it, and my jaw dropped.
The road had gone replaced by faces, a concretation of expressions stretching away into the distance.
I jumped from the bus and they parted before me, creating a path leading away from the bus, leading towards Deb. My head spun, what was going on?
Cautiously, I walked towards her. And when, at last, we stood face to face. She hugged me, tightly.
'Rich, you've been running a long time. A very long time. I can't believe that it took so long to catch up.'
'Not that long, surely,’ I said. ‘Years maybe, but not that long.'
She brought a finger to my lips. ‘Longer than you think, Rich. Longer than you suspect.’ She squeezed my hand. ‘There's someone I think you might want to see.'
Govinda smiled at me as we approached.
'Richard, get out of that armour. You don't need it here.'
I nodded and, as I stripped out of the intelligent metal, I looked along the road at that highway of faces, every eye trained on me.
'What's happening?’ I asked. ‘What the hell's going on? I've got passengers back there.'
'Those passengers are your wards, Richard. And you've always looked after them well, but who looks after you?'
'I don't need looking after.'
Govinda laughed and Deb with her; these two women whom I'd loved and lost.
'That may be right,’ Govinda said. ‘But you've been hurting for a long time. You've been driving for such a long time.'
'No longer than anyone else,’ I said, knowing it was a lie. ‘And I've never needed help. I get my passengers to their destination, I make sure that they're all right and then I take the next load on.'
'When was the last time you got off the Highway?'
I realised I couldn't answer that. The truth is you never stop when you're driving. There's always more people to take a little further up the road. God, I couldn't remember when I'd last stopped for more than a day at a Way Station.
'Is that all you've stopped me for, to tell me that I need to relax?'
Govinda laughed. ‘You were always thick-headed, Richard. Kind heart, thick head. You've been calling us. A hundred years, a thousand. Why, you've been calling us since the beginning of time.'
'What do you think this road is? How do you think it works? The Highway is as ancient as that first eternal instant, when the galaxies, the clumping pulsing fire of it all, were put into place. When heat was beyond heat when the universe itself paused before its first great inflationary burst.'
'And you've been calling us since then.'
Govinda laughed.
'Took a long while to catch up. But then you never stopped, Rich.'
I looked at Deb. My Deb.
'Always,’ she whispered. ‘The Universe is always.'
And I hung my head and wept.
'I've missed you, Rich. You never let me go. But you have to. The more you run, the more it just builds up behind you.’ I felt her fingers on my face.
'You died,’ I said. ‘And I couldn't do a thing. What was I supposed to do? You died
and I couldn't change it. Couldn't fix it.'
Deb brushed my face with her fingers.
'The only thing you could fix was yourself, Rich. Get on with your life. Now let me go.'
I lifted my gaze to hers and knew that I would never see it again. Not so perfectly.
She smiled.
'Heal yourself, Rich.'
'I miss you.'
Deb smiled.
'I wouldn't expect it any other way.'
Then she was gone.
I turned to Govinda. ‘What do you want?’ I asked and she smiled sadly.
'Honey, this isn't about what I want. It's about what you need. You don't stop running until you're ready.’ She looked at me. The highway looked at me, with its multitude of eyes. ‘Are you ready?'
'My passengers...'
Then I felt a familiar presence in my skull.
'Rich,’ Gareth said. ‘Back online. There's some serious Flux work here, and I think it's going to get even more interesting.’ Gareth paused, reading something in my expression or remembering, then said softly, ‘I can take them on.'
'Gotta talk to them first,’ I said.
Slowly I walked back to the bus.
They were frightened; I could see it in their eyes. But I was frightened, too. I'd felt this storm behind me for longer than I knew, perhaps ever since I got on the road.
So I smiled and it relaxed them a little.
I told them what Govinda had told me. Told them how I'd been running for so long. I apologised and they forgave me.
'Sometimes you've just got to leave,’ I said. ‘Some day that's all you can do.'
'I'll look after them,’ Gareth said. ‘It's what I was made for. Maybe I'll see you sometime.'
'Yeah,’ I said.
Sara gripped my hand, face resolute.
'I'm coming with you, too.'
I looked into her eyes and knew that she meant it.
'Okay,’ I said, not knowing what else to say, just that it felt right.
I walked towards the baggage compartment to get her things and she stopped me.
'I don't think we'll need that where we're going.'
'Gareth,’ I said. ‘There's one more thing I'd like you to do.'
'What's that?'
'Clear my inbox. I don't need it any more.'
I picked up the quartz then put it down; I didn't need that any more, either. I could not forget her, she was as much a part of me as life itself. She had followed, down every road, down infinities beyond knowing.
'Sara, are you ready?'
'Yes, I think I am.'
We stepped out of the bus, then watched it drive away and I felt not fear but relief. Govinda was waiting and behind her, not far away at all, the road was shifting, changing, a door taking shape. Our own private exit.
'Where are we going?’ I asked
Govinda smiled, reaching for the door.
'This is the Highway, who can tell where or when. You pay your money and you take your chances. Why don't you walk through and find out.'
I looked at Sara, and she held my gaze, then, hand in hand, that's what we did.
* * *
BAKERMONO
Maxine McArthur
Author's acknowledgment: Many thanks to Timothy Amos, whose fascinating research provided the inspiration for this story, and without whose help it could not have been written.
The tracks followed the woodcutter's path down to the edge of the swamp. A broad swathe of flattened leaf mould showed where the missing carcase had been dragged to its unknown resting place. Imprints of huge bare feet with a single toe continued through the middle of the swathe.
Mosquitoes whined hungrily in the still air beneath the trees. Rokubei slapped his bare shoulders irritably. Hinin patrolmen didn't qualify for a decent jacket, and his loose vest over cotton drawers provided little protection from the bloodsuckers.
Next to him, Sanpachi lit a pipe, in defiance of regulations. The foul smoke brought some relief from insects, although it was hardly worth the pong. Rokubei had never caught the smoking habit. In Edo it had been too dangerous—a single wayward ember, and an entire quarter could flame to ashes. He felt a pang of nostalgia for that warm, claustrophobic city life. Out here, someone could steal an entire steer carcase in the middle of the night and nobody the wiser.
'Whaddaya think?’ Sanpachi coughed and spat lavishly at the tracks.
'I think it's dinner time and we're stuck out here chasing a dead cow.'
'Steer. Pizzle, but no balls.'
Rokubei squatted by the path. ‘What drags a steer carcase from the front but leaves footprints behind?'
Sanpachi considered. ‘Bakemono with a backache?’ He guffawed, and coughed again.
'Right.’ The prints were twice the size of a man's, but the stride was about the same as Rokubei's. Maybe there had been two of them, one pulling, one pushing. The steer's weight would have swept the front tracks clean.
The path disappeared in a snarl of brambles and bamboo grass that marked the beginning of the swamp. A blue-white sheen on drooping snake-vine leaves caught his eye. It looked like a giant slug had brushed against it. Rokubei touched the smear cautiously and a fine powder came off on his finger. It smelled faintly of the sea. Familiar, but he couldn't quite place it.
'Serves whatsisname right,’ said Sanpachi. ‘Accusing us of pinching it.'
Rokubei agreed. The farmer in nearby Upper Sugino had hinted obviously that the hinin must have taken the whole steer carcase instead of just the skin, thereby violating the terms of their salvage rights. But while hinin—and the chori leather workers to whom they took the skins to cure—occasionally availed themselves of fresh meat, no hinin would risk losing their job of patrolling the area by stealing a whole carcase.
'Let's go,’ Sanpachi puffed.
Rokubei nodded, glad to leave the damp air. They trudged up the slope to the main path that led from Lower to Upper Sugino. The hinin station hut sat on the border between the two villages.
'Typical, innit?’ Sanpachi knocked out the contents of his pipe bowl on a convenient branch. ‘A few unlicensed beggars wander through the district and it's, ‘help us, patrol', ‘get rid of them, patrol', ‘earn your pay, patrol'. But we gotta check every corner of the place, in case there's a carcase they haven't bothered to tell us about.'
Why complain, Rokubei thought? Nothing would change.
Having expended his bad temper, Sanpachi's shoulders straightened to their usual jaunty angle. ‘We can spend tomorrow puddling around in here looking for that steer,’ he said. ‘Means we get out of doing the report.'
Rokubei sighed. Once a month, the head of the hinin patrol station, Gansuke, reported to Shigeimon, the chori chief who effectively ruled the leatherworkers, butchers, sandalmakers and beggars of Lower Sugino. Shigeimon lived in a fine house and always provided the reporting hinin with quality tea and sweet bean cakes. It was as close as Rokubei would ever get to his former life, and he relished the excursions.
Dead cows instead of cakes and tea. Bloody symbolic of what his life had become.
'Not nervous, are ya?’ Sanpachi shot him a look from under heavy brows, curious and not without malice.
'Of what?'
'Bakemono.'
Rokubei snorted. ‘No.’ Ridiculous question. Why would he be afraid of a monster? If it killed him, at least it would finish the job he couldn't do himself.
He saw a momentary image of Teru stepping from the temple balcony, heard the creak of the beam as it took her weight at the end of the silk belt, felt the bone-tight grip of her slim fingers on his...
Felt his feet stop on the edge as he failed to join her. Failed her.
It wasn't as if he had anything to lose now. He'd have to be reborn to sink any lower than teka, the lowest of the hinin.
Sanpachi nodded. ‘Yeah, I reckon we're scarier than anything stupid enough to live in this swamp.’ He swung his three-pronged baton at the spindly kunugi bushes. But he also kept a hand on the hilt of his sho
rt sword and his eyes flicked uneasily at the sudden shrill call of a roosting pheasant.
* * * *
They found the dead steer easily, on one of the patches of solid ground within the marshy area. It was easy to find because most of the crows in the district had congregated on top of it in a squabbling, raucous mass. The carcass presented an effortless feast to the birds, for it had been skinned and gutted.
The soggy ground around the island covered any tracks. Where tracks might have been found, the ground—spongy nut-grass and soft-leafed fat hen—was swept clear. Except for a one-toed footprint pointing away from the villages to the hills north of the swamp. You could almost see the stage directions.
'This isn't a hinin job,’ said Sanpachi, after they shooed the crows away.
'Why not?'
Sanpachi cast him a scornful glance. ‘You've seen our knives. This skinning was done with some kind of machete. Maybe even a sharp axe.’ Sanpachi squatted right next to the ragged, bloody mound. He pointed to a gleam of bone. ‘See here? They cut right down to the shoulder. I bet they shredded the skin. Couldn't use it for nothing.'
No hinin would wilfully ruin a skin and deprive himself of the only livelihood allowed him.
'Or claws.’ Sanpachi stood excitedly. ‘That's what it'll be—the bakemono's got claws.'
'Why would it skin a cow? Or eat only the guts, not the meat?'
Sanpachi didn't listen. He was measuring the one-toed footprint against his baton.
It was all too obvious. And Rokubei should know—he'd seen some badly staged performances in his time.
* * * *
In the next few days, three people reported seeing ‘a huge groaning thing with an eye like a floating moon’ in the swamp. The first report had to be taken seriously. It was by a visitor from a neighbouring village to the head farmer of Upper Sugino. Gansuke was summoned to the village head's house and listened attentively, then took out his ill-humour on Rokubei and the other teka back at the station.
'Bloody waste of time,’ he grumbled.
The second person to report the bakemono was Grandpa Ichiro, on his way home to Lower Sugino from gathering his meagre allotment of firewood. As Grandpa Ichiro could barely see further than a handsbreadth in front of his wrinkled nose, Gansuke merely ah-ed and really-ed and noted it in his log.
Journeys of the Mind Page 2
