by Mark Morris
He was breathing too heavily. She could nearly feel the hot, choppy distress of it. “You did the right thing, Robbo. He’d killed people. What else could you have done?”
“Are you for real with this shit or is it just an act? I didn’t call the bizzies ’cause he’d killed people and it was the right fuckin’ thing to do, ’annah. I called ’em ’cause I thought he was gonna kill me. And he came to my house ’cause he knew I’d do it, he knew I’d grass ’im up.”
She opened her mouth to speak, maybe to say sorry, but he hadn’t finished. She could hear his boots scraping against the ground, and she could still hear the agitated puff of his breath. “And as they’re cartin ’im off, still fuckin’ wet from me fuckin’ shower, he says to me, it’s okay, Robbo, like he fuckin’ means it, and I stay standin’ there on the doorstep in me skivvies and slippers, worryin’ about the fuckin’ neighbours.”
“I used to be a troll.”
He coughed again. “What?”
She gestured at the snow. “Before all this. When I still had my sight and the world still had the Internet. I worked nightshift in a petrol station as a cashier, and dayshift in online chat rooms as a troll.”
She could nearly hear him blinking. It made her suddenly want to laugh.
“You mean, like, you were one of them blerts gets people to off ’emselves for shits and giggles?”
“No,” she said quickly, though not for exoneration. “I just did what you said before. I watched and I listened. I worked out people’s weaknesses and used them.”
“You’re pretty fuckin’ good at it, like,” he said, with a low, sheepish chuckle, because he was a lot cleverer than everyone else thought he was.
For a while, he said nothing else. She couldn’t hear even the sound of his breathing any more, only the cracks of the firewood, the muffled conversations on the other side of the camp, the closing, echoless shroud of settling snow. In her mind’s eye, she could see the clustered pine trees that she’d been able to smell just before they made camp. She imagined them padded with new white shoulders, their cones sparkling with frost, dark trunks in shadow. She imagined the abandoned towns and villages and cities made new, smothered under all that breathless white and quiet. And she imagined all the camps, doubtless just like this one: small bastions of fiery resistance, like coastal dun beacons passing along messages of doom.
She started when Robbo made a sudden movement, cleared his throat.
“What the fuck d’you do it for?” He sounded angry, and she could understand that at least. Robbo hadn’t only thought that her blindness meant she could hear and smell better, he’d thought that it meant she was better. Better than anyone else.
And she’d thought about the why a lot too. Most often, she’d posed as a man, a predator, whose misogyny had hidden behind feigned interest and casually cruel charm. “I don’t know. I just did.”
She heard a sound: the cracking of a snow-heavy branch maybe, or a starving wild dog trying to hunt. In an instant she was afraid again, uncertain again. She reached out her numb hands toward the fire. “Do you ever get tired, Robbo?”
“Sure.” That self-conscious chuckle again. “Do I wish I’d just stayed in the house and drunk meself to death instead? Deffo sure.”
Some snow crept between her blanket and skin, cricking her neck. “Do you think we’re both better people now?”
“No. Do you?”
“No.” She smiled, and it hurt her chapped lips. “Is there any more of that nasty rum?”
“There ain’t much left, but you’re welcome to it.”
“We can share it.” She heard the screw of the hip flask, and then the tinny slosh of its contents. When Robbo got up to walk around the fire, she could hear his boots sinking into the snow, and the creak-like sound of them shifting inside it before lifting free. The snow had got deep fast. When he squatted down next to her, she could instantly smell the rum, his breath, his sweat. Goosebumps prickled her skin. Perhaps her other senses were getting better after all.
“You okay, ’annah?”
“Yeah,” she said, feeling the cool smoothness of the hip flask against her open palms, putting her numb fingers around its opening before guiding it to her lips. She coughed as soon as she swallowed, and then put it to her lips again before pausing.
“It’s okay, you finish it,” Robbo said.
When he started getting up, she reached out for him, tugging on his coat. And when he squatted back down, she released a breath that she hadn’t realised she’d been holding. She didn’t take another drink, but she swallowed anyway.
“I can see them, Robbo. The Whites. I’ve always been able to see them. Right from the start.”
He lost his balance. She heard his legs going out from under him, boot heels scraping against buried dirt, his arse hitting the snow with a nearly funny whump.
“They’re all I can see.” She felt a need to explain that was pretty much redundant now—but the omission had been too heavy. All those weeks of people trusting her, holding her elbow, thinking she was benignly special, their good luck charm. She’d helped them, but not enough. Not in the ways that she could have. And now there was this.
“That’s boss, ’annah.” But his voice was careful, guarded. Maybe even a little disappointed in her. “And I can understand, like, why you never let on. You’d be the same as them folk who didn’t go blind in that triffid thing, ay? Every cunt’d want a piece of you.”
She tried to smile when he immediately cursed—when he realised what he’d said and tried to take it back. It made her like him more. It made the choppy beating of her heart choppier.
“You’re right, Robbo. You’re right, it’s the same.” But it wasn’t. She hadn’t kept quiet about being able to see those fast and silent white horrors, like nets of bloated muslin twisted by the wind, because she’d been afraid of being exploited. She’d done it because she’d wanted to feel wanted, needed to be needed. Just like all of those yellow days spent hunched over her laptop in the grimy, freezing kitchenette of her bedsit. She’d needed to feel powerful.
She took another swallow of rum and it went down better than the first. This time she didn’t cough. When she shook the flask, it gave a tinny, almost empty slosh. “You finish it,” she said, pushing it against his coat.
“Why d’you make us stop here tonight, ’annah?”
She could hear the quiet neutrality in his voice, the clever, fearful certainty. She pictured those fiery dun beacons again.
“Do you know what I think, Robbo?” she said, feeling self-consciously histrionic despite herself, despite the circumstances. “I think the world would be better off without us. I think the land and the sea and everything living in both would be better off without us. And I think that God— if there is one—would be better off without us too.” She stopped, wiped tears as well as fat flakes of snow from under her eyes before turning back towards Robbo, the heat and sweat and fearful certainty of him. “But I need to know what you think, Robbo. I need you to tell me what you think.”
He shifted, got back onto his haunches. When he spoke, she could hear the smile in his words as well as all that fear. “I think we’d be the ones better off without fuckin’ God, ’annah.” He immediately tutted, as if his answer had annoyed him, and then sighed a long, low sigh. “I reckon love’s just another excuse for hate.”
“Good,” she said. Her own breath left her in a shuddery exhale that she imagined as a silvery plume of smoke. “Me too.”
The world will be white and quiet, she thought. Nothing but white and quiet.
“Aren’t you going to finish the rum?” she said instead, and her teeth were suddenly chattering too much; she bit her tongue.
“It’s okay, ’annah,” Robbo said, taking hold of both of her hands and pulling them into the warmth of his chest. She could feel his frantic heartbeat against her knuckles.
She thought of his mate being led out to the police car, still wet from his shower, looking back at Robbo in his skivvies
and slippers. She squeezed her eyes closed. The world will be white and quiet, she thought, the world will be white and quiet, like a mantra that she’d once believed in but now no longer trusted at all.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
She kept hold of Robbo’s hands as she lifted up her head, as she opened her eyes. She gripped them harder as she let herself see all those bloated fists of white wind around them. All those casually cruel eyes, hungry dark mouths. The hundreds—maybe now even thousands—of them crouched inside the expectant silent hush. They weren’t waiting for her; they weren’t waiting for anything. They were simply taking their pleasure, stretching it as far as they could.
She remembered how it had felt to know that she had someone caught and trapped by her smiling lies; how the anticipation of destroying all she had built up had so often loomed larger than the final act itself. And how that need to purge—to pass along all her fear and furious loneliness, like a contagion of fire along headland and cliff—had never waned, never ever lost its power. She was sorry for it now— sorry for all of it—but she’d never lied to herself. She’d never pretended that if the Whites hadn’t come she would ever have stopped.
The world will be white and quiet.
“It’s okay, ’annah,” Robbo said again, pressing the wet prickle of his face against her own as those eyes, those mouths, all that eager, twisted white rushed over the camp in a suffocating fog that would soon not be quiet at all. “It’s okay.”
And she believed him, she trusted him, she clung onto him. Even though he was blind.
THE EMBARRASSMENT OF DEAD GRANDMOTHERS
by Sarah Lotz
Oh God. I’m almost sure she’s not breathing. It’s hard to tell, though, with that racket on stage. The Phantom of the bloody Opera. Her choice, not mine. Well, at least if she is dead I can blame Andrew Lloyd Webber. Don’t be flippant, Steven, this could be serious.
She really is being unusually quiet. Especially considering she’s one of those noisy breathers—on a good day her chest sounds like a Volkswagen Beetle with a cracked carburettor. And if she’s not wheezing and rattling, she’s making liquid smacking sounds as she adjusts her ill-fitting dentures. These less than pleasant sound effects normally drive me up the wall, but right now I’d give my left arm for a snort, a cough, or even a fart. Any sign of life will do. Her eyes are closed; she could just be dozing.
Okay, worst-case scenario. She’s dead. What then? What the hell am I supposed to do? Do I stop the whole performance? Just the thought of it makes my skin crawl. I hate making a scene. I’ve never once complained about poor service in a restaurant, nor fallen foul to road rage (not an easy feat in London with all of those bloody cyclists).
Jesus.
This outing has been a complete debacle from the start. First there was the thing with the teeth. Why take them out in the ladies’ in the first place? My God, the look on the usher’s face as he handed her the dentures wrapped in a wad of toilet paper. She’s not that doolally. I can only surmise that she was doing it as some kind of warped practical joke. She is—(was?)—continually telling me to “lighten up, petal”. And then we had to bribe the usher to let us in after last bell. It’s no wonder I forgot to switch off my iPhone. And when we’d finally squeezed and shifted our way to our seats, I had to endure ten painful minutes of crackling and rustling as she unwrapped the cellophane from her box of Quality Street. And who offers chocolates to strangers in a theatre? Mortifying. And now this.
I’d better be sure though. Really sure, before I do anything drastic. Imagine the embarrassment if she’s just having a snooze.
Without taking my eyes off the stage, I sneak my hand over to hers and pat it gently, as if I’m just trying to reassure her. Nothing. I pat harder. No reaction. Steeling myself, I pinch the skin on the back of her hand. Its liver-spotted surface is pliant, like cheap ham. It’s also somewhat chilly, but then she’s always going on about her poor circulation. Better check for a pulse. The thump of “The Music of the Night” seeps through the soles of my feet, but I can’t detect the faintest timpani of a beat in Gran’s veins.
I drop her wrist as gently as I can and wipe my sweating palms. Has anyone noticed? The meaty guy wedged into the seat next to Gran is transfixed on the stage, his lap littered with multi-coloured chocolate wrappings. He’s silently mouthing the words, getting every second one wrong.
Must concentrate. Think.
I can’t interrupt everyone’s evening with the announcement of my gran’s recent demise. It’s just not the done thing. Best to hang on until the interval, then slip out and get help. That’s it. Pretend in the meantime that nothing out of the ordinary has happened. Just sit here. Watch the show. Shut it off, block it out, brick up the bad thoughts, Steven. Yes. Sit here and watch the show. Sit here and watch the show with my dead gran.
* * *
Finally, the interval lights go up. The large fellow next to Gran hefts himself out of his seat and makes a beeline for the concession stand. Time to spring into action. Easier said than done, though. I’ve been sitting completely still for the last half an hour or so, and now my leg’s asleep. I thump it to rid it of the pins and needles, and I’m half up when there’s a tap on my back. I somehow manage to strangle a scream.
“Steven?” a familiar voice says.
I turn.
“It is you. It’s me, Liz, from Litigation. Second floor? I thought it was you!”
“Liz, hi!” Oh God. How bad can this evening get? I’ve been trying to find an excuse to talk to Liz for weeks. And now here she is, within touching distance. And what the hell am I going to say to her? Excuse me, Liz, gorgeous Liz, while I just pop out and phone for a hearse?
“I didn’t know you were into musicals, Steven.”
“I’m not. Not usually, I mean.”
“Me neither. A client sent us a bunch of tickets. Who are you here with then?”
“Oh, just my grandmother,” I say, trying and failing to sound nonchalant. My thighs are aching from doing an awkward half-squat motion—not quite standing, not quite sitting. “She loves an outing.”
“Oh that’s so sweet.”
I manage a rictus grin.
“Sorry,” she says. “Don’t let me keep you. Were you going to the bar? I could keep your gran company if you like. You know, while you’re gone.”
I sit back down so hard I almost break my coccyx. I’d better tell her. It’s going to look really odd if I don’t say something.
“You all right?” Liz asks. “You’re looking a bit peaky.”
“I’m fine. Really.”
“Well? Aren’t you going to introduce me?”
“Excuse me?”
“To your gran, silly!”
Acid floods my stomach. Bugger, bugger, bugger. What to do? There’s a chance that I can spin this in my favour. I need help, Liz, I think Gran’s had a turn; I’m really worried. Perhaps she’ll stay with me while the paramedics arrive; hold my hand, dish out the sympathy. I could shed a tear, show her my vulnerable side—women love that. Maybe she’ll come with me to the funeral; she’d look good in black. Perhaps, in the future, we’ll look back at Gran’s demise and laugh sadly about it. It’ll be our story. “How did you two meet?” people will ask, and we’ll glance lovingly at each other, and finish each other’s sentences:“Well, it’s a funny thing…” But then again, it could easily go the other way. If I come clean now, I’ll be that guy. The guy who took his dead gran to a—let’s face it—sub-par production of a rather stale musical. Paralegals can be cruel; conveyancers can be brutal. I’ve seen the group emails that waft through the office like sarin gas. Sure, people might be sympathetic on the surface, but at the very least, I’ll be the Weekend at Bernie’s guy for the rest of my career at the firm. Am I being paranoid? No. No, I don’t think I am.
Brazen it out for now, Steven. I lean towards Gran, and gently pat her hand.
“Gran. This is Liz. Liz, this is my gran.”
“Pleased to meet you,” Liz
says.
Unsurprisingly, Gran doesn’t respond.
“Sorry,” I say. “She’s a bit deaf.” (This is true.)
“Shame, it’s probably a bit late for her, isn’t it? She must be dead tired.”
Oh, Liz.
“Listen,” Liz says. “This may sound a little bit presumptuous, but a few of us are going out for drinks after, if you’d like to join?”
“That would be great!” I blurt, without thinking. “I mean, I’d love to, but I have to sort my gran out.”
“Oh bring her along! It’ll be fun!”
The lights dim and the orchestra hums. Liz squeezes my shoulder and sinks back into her seat.
Now I’ll have no choice but to wait until the end of the performance. Mind you, maybe that’s not a bad idea. Yes, wait until the theatre empties, then call in the cavalry.
But what about Liz? Thanks, Gran. Thanks a bloody lot. Of all the times to die, she has to choose tonight. My one chance with Liz ruined. What if I don’t go and she thinks I’m not interested?
Think, Steven, think.
But it’s impossible to hear myself think with the caterwauling going on onstage.
The bloke next to Gran shifts in his seat, bumping his elbow into her side. I’m powerless to do anything as Gran’s head slips onto my shoulder. I freeze. I can’t shift her back—if I push too hard she might topple in the opposite direction and land on the fat guy’s lap. So now I’m trapped. Gran’s hair, which has always been lustrous for her age, tickles my ear. How long before rigor sets in? It’s been ages since I read a Scarpetta novel, and I can’t remember. Using minuscule movements, I take out my phone and quietly ask Google. The woman on my left (Gran’s age, smells faintly of beef bourguignon) tuts as my iPhone’s glow radiates up from my lap. Don’t make a scene. I stash the phone back in my pocket. I think it’s four hours. Yes. I should be fine. But how long before decomposition starts? I breathe in deeply. All I can detect is hairspray and fabric softener.
