The Nature of Balance

by Tim Lebbon

  Blane hoped that Peer and the others were all right. Especially Peer. There was something about her which struck him as odd, but also familiar. She did not seem to gel with the group like the others, always remaining on the periphery when it came to discussion. Mary was aggressive and antagonistic, but Peer was different in deeper ways. She seemed guided, not by decisions made within the group, but by something else. Her eyes held a constant state of subtle shock, a shock deeper set and more age-worn than mere terror at recent events.

  The road curved sharply to the right, curling around the high stone wall surrounding a church and graveyard. Blane heard the occasional musical tink of something striking metal, and saw dozens of black flapping shapes hovering around the belfry. Blackbirds, orange beaks mostly replaced by something grey which looked so much like metal, dive bombed the bells in the church tower. The result was a part of the song of nature. Random, unseasoned and careless, but full of order. Until now. The sense of wrongness came, Blane realised, not from the idea that the creatures around him were alien, but that he was an alien visitor to their world. It felt like things had always been this way. They had simply waited this long to be noticed.

  As the road rose and the wall dipped, his view opened up into the churchyard. He found his attention drawn there, even though he could still remember the last one he had been in.

  There were a dozen bodies scattered among the graves, and for an instant Blane feared that he was seeing more of what had happened in Rayburn. But these bodies were old. It seemed the dead had sprouted; their remains had been forced through the compacted soil of decades or centuries and displayed to the sunlight. Their limbs projected in grotesque arrangements, sickly grey plants entwining them with thin stems, thicker roots disappearing down into disturbed graves and holding them aloft. Headstones had been pushed aside and tumbled, splintered wood showed wetly through the frozen eruption of soil, myriad small creatures crawled around in the damp mud, as yet undried by the sun. They were unwilling zombies in a film never to be made, slack-jawed skulls sad rather than threatening. Today, this was the acceptable face of death.

  Blane walked on and found what must pass for the village square. A shop huddled in one corner, a garage in the other, benches in the centre overturned by the agitated roots of the old oak which grew there. Its fresh bursts of growth, thrust out over the last couple of days, hung whitely on its ancient withered trunk. New leaves were green and vitally fresh, but they did not match their older cousins in the strength of their appearance, nor did the new branches harbour that mystic spread possessed by those there before. They did not reach for the sky, but twisted and pointed at all angles, directionless.

  A stream trundled along at the edge of the square. Blane went to it, half hoping to see clear water that was fit for drinking. But the water was the colour of sick urine, and stank as bad. He turned away and headed for the shop, wading through plants knee-high and armed with cruel curved barbs. They nicked at his skin through his jeans, but he ignored them. He was afraid that to notice their presence would encourage them more in their attack.

  Foolish thoughts. The thoughts of a madman. But what he could see around him were the visions of a madman, and he felt infected with the bizarreness of the scene. To change, he thought, is to understand-

  An idea came, unbidden and shocking in its sudden intensity. A madman … or a mad woman.

  The more Blane looked around, the more he saw order in chaos. A body had been lifted by the rapid growth of the barbed plants, the cruel shoots piercing the natural openings of the naked corpse and emerging from new, forced splits in the skin. But the way the mouth hung open, surprised in a scream, seemed false. Manufactured. Created. Other things, too, pointed at the artificiality of the scene. Not the disruption to living things, which was apparent everywhere, though more pronounced and advanced in this place. But the way the dead lay, in eternal mockery of the manner of their passing and the world they had been taken from so suddenly, shouted sham. Someone had been here before Blane. He thought he knew who.

  A shape stepped from the shadows of a tumbled-down house. It was a woman, her mouth open in a sick grin, part pain, part hate. She was crying blood.

  Blane turned to flee but another shape joined the first, then they came from elsewhere. In a matter of seconds he was surround, and the people with blood for tears closed in on him.

  27. Good Dog

  Holly insisted on trying the telephone one more time. It was midday, the sky was clear and there were no vapour trails marring its perfection.

  Gerald had an old rotary dialling phone, a genuine antique rather than an affectation. Holly dialled 999.

  Paul stood behind her, hands resting gently on her shoulders. He could feel by the tension there that she had found nothing. He had not wanted her to try the ‘phone again, because he was dreadfully certain of the results.

  Paul partly hated himself for it, but he was more disturbed by the obvious changes in nature than the fate of untold millions of humans. Perhaps because people had removed themselves away from their environment by shunning it, burying themselves in redbrick prisons and soap operas, using it as a convenient picnic place rather than respecting it for what it was. Now it was all changing, and Paul felt life’s purpose changing with it. His life was no longer clearly defined. All he could do was to go with the flow.

  “Maybe the lines are down,” he said, knowing it was no comfort.

  “Random number,” Holly said, ringing in the area code for Cardiff then a random six-figure number. “It’s ringing.”

  Peer sat by the fire, staring into the renewed flames, legs bruised and swollen where stray pellets had struck her. Her jeans had prevented the penetration of all but a few, but dark blood bruises pebbled the skin of her shins. She had hardly spoken since tumbling back into the house. Mary sat opposite, staring at Peer, Spike at her feet. She was guarding Peer, Paul thought, though more as a captor than a bodyguard. Every now and then Mary would look up at the ceiling, frowning, as if reading shocking tales into the cracks and scratches thereon.

  “Still ringing,” Holly said needlessly.

  “If they answer, tell them my cows need milking,” Gerald said.

  Holly went to say something but felt the squeeze of Paul’s hands on her shoulders. “Don’t worry, Gerald,” he said, “they’ll be here soon.”

  The ringing continued, hypnotic, hopeless. Holly counted them out loud, every one of them. At thirty rings she hung up and dialled again. A Manchester code this time, followed again by random numbers. Unavailable. She tried one more time with the same code and a different number. “Manchester. Ringing.”

  Paul stared out of the kitchen window. The dead bull lay off to the left, dive-bombed occasionally by carrion birds he knew, and those he did not. He had never seen blue-tits or robins rooting so relentlessly inside dead animals. He felt alone and betrayed, estranged from the nature he so loved and thrown in with a bunch of people he could barely relate to. Peer was distant and almost removed from their gang, worse now that Blane had gone. Mary was scary. Gerald seemed to have been losing it ever since coming back in from killing the bull. He talked of ploughing the wild fields, milking the dead cows, eating eggs rotten with whatever had corrupted them. Paul had serious doubts whether Gerald would agree to leave with them, once the time came.

  Holly … He felt an affection for Holly which he was not used to dishing out onto any casual passer-by. She was brusque, much younger than him, but possessed of a tenacious strength which he respected. Like now. None of the others wanted to try the ‘phone, because they were so certain of what they would find. Holly had to try it for herself. She did not want to take anything sitting down.

  “Still ringing,” she said wanly.

  Paul felt a chill pass through him as he contemplated trying to telephone home once more. He only spoke to his family once or twice each year, not because he did not still love them, and not even because the calls ostensibly cost too much to make. It was simply a habit he had falle
n into. Now, it was something he had been putting off. He had tried from Rayburn, but he put that down to a bad connection. He had to. He had to believe is family was still alive. It was his hope, and he did not want it dashed. The Dominican Republic was such a beautiful island. So much wildlife …

  “Try home,” he said. He could remember the number like guilt.

  Holly dialled the number as Paul recited it. She heard the creak of interest as Mary and Peer moved forward in their chairs to listen. Gerald was peeling potatoes. After she had finished the dialling there was a series of clicks, mysterious sighs, pauses interrupted by more static.

  “Well?” Paul asked.

  “Hang on.” Everyone held their breath. The scraping of Gerald’s knife was the only sound in the room. “One long tone,” Holly said quietly. “Unobtainable.”

  Paul gently took the receiver from her, suspecting she had dialled wrongly. He rang the number in himself and waited, and the same tone spat into his ear. He tried one more time. Then he looked up another foreign dialling code and tried a random number in France. There was ringing, but it went unanswered. He tried Australia, but that too was unobtainable. America did not answer.

  He tried about twenty numbers, moving into Holly’s chair when she vacated it for him, feeling her hands on his shoulders now, roles reversed. She squeezed and pain bit through his muscles, but he welcomed it because it proved that he was still alive.

  “Everywhere is dead,” he said. He turned around and said it again. Even Mary seemed shocked.

  “Can’t be everywhere,” she said. “It must be the phone. The phone’s broken.”

  “It’s possible,” Holly said.

  Paul turned back and rang the talking clock. The voice was calm, assured, soothing. He wondered what state the woman who had spoken these words was in now. Now that everyone else was dead. He put the phone down gently. Through the window he could see the midday landscape, hazed with a threat of violence. He wondered whether it would ever feel like home again.

  “So?” Mary asked. Spike grumbled as she spoke, as if echoing what she said.

  “So,” Paul said, “we do as I suggested. Head off towards where we’re meeting Blane tomorrow. See if there’s anyone else around.” His words sounded empty, even to himself.

  “What’s the good in that?” Holly said. There was an edge of panic to her voice now, slipping in like a sharp knife through skin. “Why not just stay here? There’s food, a big house, a stream to drink from. Why not stay for a while?”

  “Then what?” Paul said, but wished he hadn’t. It had too much of an air of finality about it. “Look, we said we’d meet Blane and it would be unfair if we didn’t. He’d be on his own, Holly.”

  “He left us on our own,” Mary said.

  Peer looked up from the fire, her face still red from its glow. “He’s gone for a very good reason. He thinks he knows what caused this. Do you think he’d just sit back and let it continue?”

  That seemed to settle the argument. They would wash, gather as much useful equipment as they could into the two cars and head off towards their meeting place. Gerald seemed to agree, but Paul thought that they would have trouble with him when the time came to leave. This was his farm, his history. Paul decided there and then that he could not force Gerald with them. It was not fair.

  Nothing was fair.

  Paul and Holly had the same room as before. It had a small wash basin in one corner, and Holly stripped off shamelessly to wash. Paul stared out of the window, but the splashes and the sound of a towel rubbing skin drew his eyes back.

  He went to Holly and hugged her from behind. She went limp in his arms, started to cry, shaking uncontrollably for a couple of minutes.

  “Is it really everywhere, Paul?” she asked. “Can it be like this? All in one day? Can everything change so much in one day?”

  “I think so,” Paul whispered into her neck. His own tears dropped onto her shoulder. She turned around and kissed him.

  This time, they had no problem.

  Peer and Mary remained downstairs while the others went up to wash and freshen up. Peer started to gather together provisions, leaving them on the kitchen table for now until they could be bagged up and put in the cars. In the pantry there were several lumps of cheese on a cold slab. As she picked one up a dark shape scurried from behind it and found shadow behind another. A spider. But it had far too many legs.

  “The spiders have changed,” she said casually.

  “Why should they be different?” Mary was at the window, looking out into the yard, not just staring. Spike, as ever, was at her heels.

  “I wonder whether we’ll ever see a do-do.”

  “Hmm.”

  “Or a unicorn.”

  Peer opened the fridge and paused, bathed in white light and cool air. For an instant she was opening another door and the light flooding around her was fresh sunlight, the air tinted with the smells of spring. She stood that way for a while, as hypnotised by the fluffy frost on the shelves as she had been by the caves of fire in the grate. The world moved around and then away from her, distancing itself even more as her thoughts drew inside.

  Her mother had always told her that she had an overactive imagination, but then her father said imagination was a good thing. She had been left feeling guilty and invigorated whenever she had a flight of fancy, as though dreaming were masturbating. She knew that her father was right, and she could never dream of a situation where her mind would not benefit her. Slowly, over the years, imagination was replaced by adulthood, the curse on the innocence of wonder and awe. Peer had thought that remarkable vein of ideality purged from her mind for good, or at least driven deeper than mere memory could redeem. She had mourned it, but not too much – the loss was gradual, and other changes in her body and environment were enough to keep her mind diverted for a time.

  Now, she had found it once again. Her mind was wide open. Every sensation had many meanings. Nothing seemed literal any more, and the strange distance she had been experiencing simply allowed room for her to see, taste, feel so much more than she ever had before. She wondered what her mother would say.

  Mary was staring at Peer. Peer was staring into the fridge. Once more, Mary found it difficult to come to terms with the fact that this weak, dreamy woman was, or could ever be a threat to beautiful Fay. But from bitter experience Mary knew that it was always the weakest, slightest looking ones who were the worst. In a supposedly civilised world, size was complemented by temperament. Now, with civilisation foundering on an unknown beach, nothing was quite as it seemed.

  She tapped her leg and Spike stood to attention, stumpy tail erect. Time suddenly bore down on her, now that she had decided what to do. The others were upstairs but they would not stay there for long. Decisions had to be made, threats issued, and once they were on their way they must never stop or permit the chance of being caught. Mary had to fulfil her promise when the time was right; it would be easier to do so if she and Peer were alone.

  As for Blane … Fay must surely have her own plans for him.

  “Peer,” Mary said quietly, using the hated woman’s name for the first time, “I think we should go.”

  “Go where?” Peer said.

  Mary had begun to shake. She tried to keep her voice low, frightened that she would alert those upstairs, but she had little control. She felt guided by Peer, not in control of her. “Away from here,” she said. “Away from these. They’re fools, and they’re hanging onto the past. And Blane is the worst of them all. They’re better off without him, and we’re better off without them. Will you come with me?” She tried to sound forceful, but felt more like a puppy begging for favours.

  Peer looked at Mary with her thin arms, scrawny neck, wide blank eyes surrounded by stress lines where laughter lines should be. A stern face, acting the hard thing when really she was the most vulnerable of them all. “Of course I won’t go with you, Mary,” she said. “You hate me. I feel safe with Paul and Holly. And Blane has something about him whic
h makes me feel important. Like I’ve something to do, but just haven’t been told yet.”

  “You’re a fucking whore,” Mary spat, shoulders twitching and tendons standing out on her neck. “Spike!”

  The dog trotted over to Peer and, before she had a chance to move, stood and placed his front paws on her stomach. She held her breath, looking down into the dog’s obsidian eyes. Spike growled, a low, continuous noise that sent subtle vibrations through his legs and into Peer’s body.

  “He’ll rip you open in a second,” Mary said. “He’s a good dog. Good dog, Spike. If you make a noise or a movement, I’ll tell him to attack you. By the time those idiots upstairs get down here, you’ll be damaged beyond help, trying to stuff your guts back inside. Is it worth it? Do you value your freedom that much?” Mary had a sudden memory of a deer they had caught once, how Jams had bashed its head in with a sledge hammer while the other prodded at it with sharpened sticks.

  How she so wanted to do that to this bitch.

  She shook, clenching and unclenching her hands, wishing she still had the chain. She came close, so close to telling Spike to savage the bitch, and realised how much she would love to sit back and watch. She was aware of a dark presence in her mind and she opened it up and spread it out. She thought she would find Fay there, an influence burned in forever from their brief meeting, a duty waiting to be performed. But when she realised what was inside her, she was shocked. Shocked, and amused, and greatly excited.

  The blackness was her. She wanted to kill the bitch and rip her up, and not because it was the duty bestowed upon her by Fay, but because she wanted to do it for herself.

  “I’m so close to killing you,” Mary whispered, and she saw outright fear in Peer’s stare. She was glad. “Come on.”

  Mary grabbed Peer’s arm and squeezed, enjoying the sharp intake of breath by the other woman. As she led her to the door Spike followed on behind. “Sexist bastards keep the guns for themselves,” she muttered, but she opened the door anyway. She snatched a set of keys from a hook next to the jamb and pressed them into Peer’s hand. “Take these. You’re driving.”