New Writings in SF 6 - [Anthology]

by Ed By John Carnell

  On the road the little bridges had fallen, they shoved up stumps like decayed teeth. The train cried, but there was nothing pleasant in the sound, the hoarseness of it whirled up and away like the last noise on a dying planet. There were people by the track, first ones and twos then more than a great dim crowd of them pushing forward, jostling, holding out their arms. He saw folk he knew. His parents, people from Town, old Roley; but the faces were transformed, the skulls seemed to glow and smirk through the flesh. They shouted and mouthed, but the carriage couldn’t stop; and it seemed that as it moved darkness followed it, pulled like a skirt to swallow the throng. The coach reached Warwell with a final bang and groan; Jimmy touched the door, it crumbled sickeningly in his hands. He walked through what was left of the barrier. Dust blew in swirls, and ancient brown leaves of paper. He looked back, but it seemed already centuries had passed, the train had rotted on the rails, spread rust round it and out along the tracks like the stain of a haemorrhage. A glower of light showed behind it, horizon burning silver, zenith of the sky dark, dark...

  He tried to hurry into the square. Roofs and houses had fallen, trees stood stark, the river had gone, left the bare cracked mud of its bed. He thought he was the only living creature on earth, but he was wrong, there was Anne. She stood on the steps of the George Hotel, in her jumper and denim skirt. The wind gusted round her, lifted her hair; when it blew from the building the old dying stench of the place came with it, like Victorian sweat. He was walking, pushing with feet made of lead, but now the square was a mile across and there was no sense of progress. She cried to him, high and piping, a gull-noise shredded by the wind. Tried to move, stumbled and fell on the path. And his car was there, the bright TR4, standing by the kerb. As he stared the rust ran along her like a wave, a dark shadow visible to the eye. Burst through the bright skin in patches that joined and spread like fingers. She sagged, tyres wheezing; her axles broke, she came down on her sump and sagged again. Gear clusters rolled, the box walls no longer able to hold them; the little wheels ran flashing, browning as they went, fizzing away to dust, to nothingness, to blow along the wind. He gasped, fighting for breath. Three steps more, another yard.... He could nearly reach Anne, he was on his knees stretching his arms. Their fingers met, gripped ... and the Change, the huge Age that was romping through the world, caught her. He saw her shrinking, fullness sagging, clothes loosening round old limbs that were withering, twisting.... He was screaming, but there was no sound. Crying, feeling the tears on his face burned by the desiccating wind. She was a rag, a hank of hair.... Then cloth and flesh fell away, bone showed, browned, blackened, crumbled.... He scrambled forward madly, clutching, tatters flew in the sky, the wind yowled and mooed; skeletons of hounds coursed the brown wound of the river, their bone-voices boomed into dark and there was nothing, the buildings empty shells, no Anne, just dust, dust, dust, dust....

  He sat up on the bed wet and shivering with shock. His throat was full; he staggered to the basin, retched. Then again and again till there was nothing left to come, but still his stomach churned and the stink was in his nose, sweet like old flesh, ancient bone. His vision sparked in darkness, he slipped, landed on his knees, weaved his head from side to side. The sickness passed enough to let him get up, sprawl across the bed. Then the bed moved. There was a roaring in his ears; it was the Wheel, churning ... he tried to scream again and there was no sound, just Power, Power, more Power than he could have dreamed...

  The noise faded and he was still. A last thought stirred in his mind. This was why she ran. . . .

  * * * *

  Four

  The lorries woke him, clattering in Station Square in the early dawn. He mumbled and rolled over, lay for a time trying not to remember. Then he got up and padded to the window, stared down, rubbing his face. The drags stood rattling, cab doors ajar; there was shouting, blue diesel fumes jetted from the exhaust stacks. Each vehicle was pulling a road train of trailers, their loads bulky under lashed-down tarpaulins. It took Jimmy a minute or longer to realize what was happening. The steam fair was arriving.

  He leaned on the sill. He’d been looking forward to the fair. He’d intended buying some sketching gear, turning back into an artist for a few days before he moved out of Warwell. But the night before had changed all that. The flavour of the dream persisted; images came in front of his eyes, he saw skeletons riding Gallopers and Switchbacks, swaying on the cakewalks, jiggling to the noise of a calliope. He rubbed his face again violently and the pictures faded. The lorries moved off, but he couldn’t sleep any more.

  He sat on the edge of the bed and smoked till he’d finished the packet. Then he shaved, changed out of his rumpled clothes. Spent a couple of hours walking by the river where he could see the town in the distance, the clustering of the houses. His head throbbed, his eyes felt heavy. The air was clear and keen, but didn’t it carry some faint tang ? Just a hint, an evanescent suggestion, but it was enough. To Jimmy it seemed the very wind blew from some place of corruption and oldness.

  He ate no breakfast. The black mood persisted; he found himself hating Warwell and its inhabitants, everything about the place. He went to the car, meaning to drive out somewhere, clear his head with speed. He couldn’t touch her; some part of his mind knew if he lifted the bonnet the rust would be there, a red well of it, waiting to strike through and burn.... On the front seat was a smudge of dried blood. He set his face and turned away, walking aimlessly.

  Watching the skeletons. Talking and laughing, shopping, eating. Drinking coffee in the Tudor Room and the Buttery, cleaning windows, driving cars, sitting in buses, pushing prams. Other skeletons lay in the perambulators, little gristly things that mewed and writhed.... He sat on a seat outside the Town Hall, wiped his forehead, saw sweat on his hand. He clenched his fists; he was trembling, he asked himself what’s the matter with me, have I flipped my lid, gone crazy ... ? It was all he could do to stop himself yelling, telling the people didn’t they realize, didn’t they know they were all bone and slime, they were getting older, they were dying.... He put his face in his hands, tried to stop the shaking. Feeling the traffic grind and grind like one great Wheel, seeing the fish eyes roll, hearing the bird-gabble of skulls, tongues clacking inside the bone.... He felt he was going to pass out again, or vomit on the path.

  God, he’d never felt like this, not since ... when? His mind groped for a parallel, looking for a reason in a swirl of insanity. Warwell, the river and the valley, church spire and Town Hall cupola thrust up from a writhing of goblins and demons, a mediaeval maggot-heap.... Away from the Starr he knew the world was good, there were grass and trees and high quiet roads. He had to get away.... He was halfway to his hotel, scurrying to pack his bags and pay his bill, when he realized. Knew suddenly and with complete sureness that he wasn’t going crazy.

  He leaned on a wall, gasping. Shoppers stared, edged past. He wasn’t conscious of them. Nature imitates art, he thought. Subject for a college thesis. Nature imitates art....

  SEE THE FILM OF MOULIN ROUGE. THEN RIDE BACK TO YOUR DIGS ON A LONDON TRANSPORT BUS. SEE THE WOMEN AND MEN, THE TURN OF A WRIST, TILT OF A NOSE JUST SO. . . . LAUTREC FOLK, ALL OF THEM. YOU’RE SOAKED IN A WAY OF SEEING, YOU LOOK THROUGH SOMEBODY ELSE’S EYES. . . .

  Quick now, think. For God’s sake, think.... The skulls, the bones, the flaring light.... Something Germanic, Die Brücker, the Blue Riders? No, older than that, farther back.... Holbein? No, not Holbein at all, Bosch....

  By God, that is it. Old Hieronymus, the Adamite. The Millennium. Incarnation of all evil, writhing and pallid ... he’d studied it once for a holiday task, reached the stage where he could look through the painter’s eyes, see the world and its people as the master had seen it all those years ago. Now he was seeing it again....

  A chain of logic had completed itself without his direction. The fantasies that had swamped him, rose bowers that had glowed, sweet organic nestling of river against town; these things he had been shown, as now he was seeing their obverse. Somebody
, something, had tried to lull him with women and talk and drink and beauty, bright canvases all of them dangled in front of his face; and it hadn’t worked, he’d gone on searching and prodding and peering as maybe an artist will, as Roley would have done, and he’d touched the makers of the dreams and they were frightened. He’d touched them through Anne.

  Crazy, his brain yelled at him, crazy, crazy.... But it was too late. He could feel now the strange will pushing, insisting, making a living canvas out of Warwell. And the rage came, dulling his mind to impressed thought. He told himself, they were doing this. The people who’d taken Anne away, the people who ran this town, made horror and impossible beauty and used them like weapons. Whoever they were, they’d half killed him last night.- And worse; they’d destroyed Anne, stripped her to the bone, rotted every cell and tendon of her. Shown him, mercilessly, the things no man should see. And now, they’d given themselves away....

  The noise that had swamped him receded. He straightened up with an effort, stared round the bright town. Saw the shops, sunlight, the four crossing roads. Valley cupping streets and houses like a grassy hand. The town was finite; so was the enemy within. And it was a child he told himself, that fears a painted devil....

  He started to walk. It was like wading against a hot river that pressed relentlessly. Suddenly he was very tired; there were weights on his back, on his legs and arms, he couldn’t drag himself another yard, not another step.... He countered the fresh attack with the image of Anne. Anne alive, full of blood and electricity, with a woman’s body that could make sweat and tears and milk. He told himself, Anne was not dead. Convinced himself somehow that if ... they could drive him out then she would die, in his mind, and that death would be final. He moved against the pressure, holding the thought and the picture of Anne, wanting Anne and holding the rage. Peering into shops, offices, into garages, through walls that seemed half transparent. Not feeling the sun, not hearing the gabbling. Somewhere was the enemy, impossible but real. Keep sending, he thought. Keep sending till I come...They responded, stepping up their force.

  If you’re real, if you’re human, pray for yourself. Because when I find you I’ll break your bones, I’ll pull you joint from joint....

  Laughter echoing, the little town ringing with it, the noise vaunting up like cracked bells in the sky....

  SHOW YOURSELVES. ...

  Searching and circling endlessly. Every house, every street. Walking, staring, feeling. No sense of time; in dreams time ceases to matter. Find them, he told himself. Because they’re here.... Odd times he thought what he was hunting had stopped bothering to hide itself; it made a shape ahead of him in the air, it was a pressure, a noise, a hotness and coldness joined. He saw the Town Hall through a golden haze, and the river and the church. He said to the sky, show yourselves ... but it was hopeless. They were in the town, owning it and exulting, but they had no focus. Never would have, until they chose. He asked himself. How many of the people here, the vacant faces playing chess and making love, felt what I felt and were drawn and then lulled and fed like cows? Lunchtime came and passed, offices emptied and refilled. Vacant and harmless, he told himself. Like cows. And the sun moved. The wind played in the trees. The river flowed.

  How long can you keep a rage in concert tune? Not for ever, the effort would kill. And they know that. I’m burning, bleeding off strength, but I have to keep on now. If I give in the skeletons will come back and all the rest and I’ll forget I’m watching somebody else’s pictures and then God help me, God help me indeed....

  They were laughing again now, tickling and prodding, squeezing out the last of the anger. He stood blinking and seeing the Town Hall clock. The hands marked a quarter after five. He knew suddenly he was through. His legs ached, his feet felt like they were blistered raw and he’d found nothing, no Anne; the ghosts still babbled, the skeletons walked mantled with flesh as it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be.... But no praying please, there is nothing to listen. Move ghost, ghost yourself, in our little shadow world of the river and the town here in old Warwell. Soon, you’ll leave....

  He turned away, helplessly; and they were with him again, skipping and taunting. Why give up so soon? Here, along this street here ... or that one over there, perhaps what you’re looking for is there....

  He moved dumbly, mind blocked with fatigue, not able now to raise even the image of Anne. He’d forgotten what she looked like. The Pied Piper drew him gently, away from town centre where the offices were emptying at the end of the day, the buses pulling in and drawing off....

  He turned back into Hell and noise. Dragons burned on rooftops, streets shone bright with blood. He was swearing at himself for a fool. He’d been led round and about all day long, they had let him use himself up. Now for just a little while he had to swim against the tide, go where they didn’t want him to be, he’d forgotten why.

  He saw her through fire and din, glimpsed the white scut of the bandage. She was boarding a bus outside the Town Hall. He started to run back to the George to get his car. The car was rust, would fall to bits under his hands.... Yes, he said impatiently, he knew that. He got in the Triumph still knowing it, started up and gunned her across the yard and under the arch. She didn’t come apart.

  He caught the bus as it slowed for the brow of West Hill. Steady now he told himself, steady. Hang back, stay in sight, sooner or later she has to get off.... The air round the car seemed nearly thick with rage, but they couldn’t touch him now.

  The lane opened on the left, there were houses set back a couple of hundred yards. He saw her leave the bus and slammed the Triumph forward, terrified now of losing her. Must take her by speed, he knew she’d run.... He raised dust skidding into the lane. She was fifty yards away, looking back already. He accelerated, hit the anchors, came over the top of the door. She was scampering now and he was running head down, the houses were close and he’d never moved so fast, but the gap wasn’t narrowing. He was back in nightmare; the enemy were throwing everything they had, he felt his flesh pierce in holes and boil away, the wind bite among his bones. And every step was a century long and he’d touch her and she’d shrivel like in the dream and he couldn’t take that again, not again....

  She was down on the verge, he nearly fell across her. Shoe in her hand swinging, spike heel coming at his face; he ducked and got her wrist and she was strong, she rolled over and back and arched her body, hissing like a cat. He banged her arm at the bank and again harder, her fingers uncurled, the shoe rolled in the ditch. Then he was kneeling, still holding her wrist, breath coming harsh and her hair across his face, she was panting and the wind and terror had gone. He wanted to tell her she hadn’t shrivelled, hadn’t died, that she had blood and sweat, but there were no words. “In the dream,” he said thickly. “Dream....”

  She stared and he saw the tears coming, then, “I know.... It’s all right....” and impossibly she was in his arms, he was holding her and she was holding him back and moving against him, texture of wool and hair and smell of being close, he was rubbing her hair and damn it to Hell she wasn’t even pretty, lines across her cheeks from not getting enough sleep and the hair over ears nearly starting to be grey. “Anne,” he said, “Anne....” Damn it to Hell and gone, he’d thought he was chasing a bit of tinsel, but that wasn’t Anne....

  He pushed away. He said, “Your shoe went in the ditch....” And “Here....” Finding a handkerchief. “You’ve got a snotty nose....”

  Trying to laugh. “I . . . sorry,” she said. “Thank . . .”

  “Keep still. . ..” He’d reached the shoe out of the ditch, she was standing, he was holding her ankle. Just the start of her, at the foot, was wonderful. “They gave up,” he said. “Went away....”

  “No....” She was shaking her head, she nearly wasn’t wearing any makeup, her eyes were grey and sea-wet. “They’re waiting,” she said. “It’s you that has to go.”

  His hand was holding her waist, steering her. Not to lose her again.... He listened to his voice
make words. “They sent me a girl Elizabeth. But I didn’t want her....”

  “You mustn’t s...”

  “When you’re an artist,” he said. “Crossgrained by nature, just can’t take what’s ... given. Mind.... Have to make your own shapes from what you see. ...”

  “You’re not making sense I don’t know what you mean....”

  But you’re walking. Towards the car, I’m making you do that, I’m stronger than they are.... He’d done a hundred hours thinking in the last few minutes. He said, “I know about them, you see. Isn’t secret, not any more.”

  “You’re a ... liar....”

  “Anne,” he said. “Anne, I know....” Firmly, nearly believing it himself. Knowing if he frightened her now she’d run again and this time he wouldn’t catch her. “I know about them. And you. Anne, don’t you want to break out of this stinking town, don’t you want a life of your own any more?”