by Tim Lebbon
He looked down. There were no burns on his clothing and his chest was dry.
Adam shook the hand from him and ran. He passed a shop where someone lay half in, half out of the doorway, a dog chewing on the weeping stump of one of her legs. She was still alive. Her eyes followed him as he dashed by, as if coveting his ability to run. He recognized those eyes. He even knew that face, although when he had first seen her, the bug lady had seemed more alive.
“Let me back!” he shouted at the figures receding along the decimated street ahead of him. From behind, he heard thumps as burning people hit the ground to melt into pools of fat and charred bone. He risked a look over his shoulder and saw even more of them, new victims spewing from dilapidated doorways and side alleys to join in the flaming throng.
Someone walked out into the street ahead of him, limping on crutches, staring at the ground. The figure looked up and the expression that passed across her face was one of relief. Adam passed her by—he only saw it was a woman when he drew level—and heard the feet of the burning horde trample her into the dirt.
“Let me back, you bastards!” The last time he was here—although he had been on the other side of the lake, of course, staring across and pitying those poor unfortunates on this side—he had not known what was happening to him. Now he did. Now he knew that there was a way back, if only it was granted to him.
“You are really a very interesting one,” the voice said as loud as ever, even though Amaranth stood in the distance. “You will be… fun.”
As Adam tripped over a half-full skull, the burning people fell across him and a voice started shouting again. “Tiger! Tiger!” It went from a shout to a scream, an unconscious, childish exhalation of terror and panic.
The world was on its side, and the legs of the burning people milled beyond the shattered windscreen. One of them was squatting down, reaching in, grasping at his arms even as he tried to push them away.
Something still dripped onto him. He looked up. Alison was suspended above him in the passenger seat, the seatbelt holding her there, holding in the pieces that were still intact. The lamppost had done something to her. She was no longer whole. She had changed. Adam snapped his eyes shut as something else parted from her and hit his shoulder.
Heat gushed and caressed his face, but then there was a gentle ripping sound above him, and coppery blood washed the flames away from his skin like his wife brushing crumbs from his stubble. The flames could never take him. Not when he was such a lucky man.
You are the first to visit both places, Amaranth’s voice echoed like the vague memory of pain. You will be… fun.
“Tiger!”
Jamie?
“Jamie!”
Flames danced around him once more. Fingers snagged his jacket. A hand reached in bearing a knife and he crunched down into shattered glass as his seat-belt was sliced. Something else fell from above him as he was dragged out, a final present, a last, lasting gift from his Alison. As he was hauled through the windscreen, hands beating at the burning parts of him, his doomed son screaming for him from the doomed car, he wondered whether it was a part of her that he had ever seen before.
He was laying out on the lawn. It had not been cut for a long time because his riding lawnmower had broken down. Besides, he liked the wild appearance it gave the garden. Alison had liked wild. She had loved the countryside; she had been agnostic, but she had said the smells and sounds and sights made her feel closer to God.
Adam felt close to no one, certainly not God. Not with Amaranth peering at him from the woods sometimes, following him on his trips into town, watching as good fortune and bad luck juggled with his life and health.
No, certainly not God.
Alison had been buried alongside her mother over a year ago. He had not been to the cemetery since. He remembered her in his own way—he was still painting—and he did not wish to be reminded of what her ruined body had become beneath the ground. But he was reminded every day. Every morning, on his bus trip into town to visit Jamie in the hospital, he was reminded. Because he so wanted his son to join her.
That was guilt. That was suffering. That was the sickest irony about the whole thing. He’s a lucky lad, the doctors would still tell him, even after a year. He’s a fighter. He’ll wake up soon, you’ll see. He’ll have scars, yes… And then Adam would ask about infection and the doctors would nod, yes, there has been something over the last week or two, inevitable with burns, but we’ve got it under control, it’s just bad luck that…
And so on.
His wife, dead. His son in a coma from which he had only awakened three times, and each time some minor complication had driven him back under. He was growing up dead. And still Adam went to him every day to talk to him, to whisper in his ear, to try and bring him around with his favorite nursery rhymes and the secret dad-voices he had used on him when things were good, when life was normal. When chance was still a factor in his existence, and fate was uncertain.
He looked across at the house. It was big, bought with Alison’s life insurance, their old home sold for a good profit to the couple who had wanted it so much. This new property had an acre of land, a glazed rooftop studio with many panes already cracked or missing, a Mercedes in the driveway—a prison. A Hell. His own manufactured Hell, perhaps to deny the idea that such a grand home could be seen as fortunate, lucky to come by. The place was a constant reminder of his lost family because he had made it so. No new start for him.
The walls of the house were lined with his own portraits of Alison and Jamie. Some of them were bright and full of sunshine and light and positive memories. Others contained thoughts that only he could read— bad memories of the crash—and what he had seen of Alison and heard of Jamie before being dragged out from the car. The reddest of these paintings hung near the front door for all visitors to see.
Not that he had many visitors. Until yesterday.
Howards had tracked him down. Adam had let him in, knowing it was useless to fight, and knowing also that he truly wanted to hear what the old man had to say.
“I’ve found a way out,” he had whispered. “I tried it last week… I injected myself with poison, then used the antidote at the last minute. But I could have done it. I could have gone on. They weren’t watching me at the time.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“Well… I’ve come to terms with it. Life. As it is. I just wanted to test the idea. Prove that I was still in control of myself.”
Adam had nodded, but he did not understand.
“I thought it only fair to offer you the chance,” Howards had said.
Now, Adam knew that he had to take that chance. Whether Jamie ever returned or not—and his final screams, his shouts of Tiger! Tiger!, had convinced Adam that his son had been the twitching shape on the burning cross—he could never be a good father to him. Not with Amaranth following him, watching him. Not when he knew what they had done.
Killed his wife.
Given his son bad luck.
Yesterday afternoon he had been lucky enough to find someone willing to sell him a gun, the weapon with which he would blow his own brains out. And that, he thought, perfectly summed up what his life had become.
“Oh, look,” Adam muttered, “a four-leaf clover.” He flicked the little plant and sighed, pushing himself to his feet, stretching. He had been laying on the grass for a long time.
He walked across the lawn and onto the gravel driveway, past the Mercedes parked mock-casual. Its tires were flat and the engine rusted through, although it was only a year old. One of a bad batch, he had thought, and he still tried to convince himself of that, even after all this time.
He entered the house and passed into the study.
Two walls were lined with moldy books he had never read, and never would read. The portraits of the people he loved stared down at him and he should have felt at peace, should have felt comforted, but he did not. There was a large map on one wall, a thousand intended destinations marked in red, the h
alf dozen places he had visited pinned green. Travel was no longer on his agenda, neither was reading. He could go anywhere on his own because he had the means to do so, but he no longer felt the desire. Not now that his family was lost to him.
He was about to take a journey of a different kind. Somewhere even stranger than the places he had already seen. Stranger than anyone had seen, more terrifying, more—final. After the past year he was keener than ever to find his way there.
And he had a map. It was in the bureau drawer. A .44 Magnum, gleaming snakelike silver, slick to the touch, cold, impersonal. He hugged it between his legs to warm it. May as well feel comfortable for his final seconds.
Outside, the fourth leaf on the clover glowed brightly and then disappeared into a pinprick of light. A transparent finger rose from the ground to scoop it up. Then it was gone.
“Well,” Adam said to the house, empty but alive with the memories he had brought here, planted and allowed to grow. “It wasn’t bad to begin with… but it could have been better.”
He heard footsteps approaching along the gravel driveway, frantic footsteps pounding toward the house.
“Adam!” someone shouted, emotion giving the voice an androgynous lilt.
It may have been Howards, regretting the news he had brought.
Or perhaps it was Amaranth? Realizing that he had slipped their attention for just too long. Knowing, finally, that he would defeat them.
Whoever. It was the last sound he would hear.
He placed the barrel of the gun inside his mouth, angled it upward and pulled the trigger.
The first thing he heard was Howards.
“… bounced off your skull and shattered your knee. They took your leg off too. But I suppose that won’t really bother you much. The doctors say you were so lucky to survive. But then, they would.”
The shuffle of feet, the creak of someone standing from a plastic chair.
“I wish you could hear me. I wish you knew how sorry I am, Adam. I thought perhaps you could defeat them…”
He could not turn to see Howards. He saw nothing but the cracked ceiling. A polystyrene tile had shifted in its grid, and a triangle of darkness stared down at him. Perhaps there were eyes hidden within its gloom even now.
“I’m sorry.”
Footsteps as Howards left.
With a great effort, one that burned into his muscles and set them aflame, Adam lifted his hands. And he felt what was left of his head.
A face pressed down at him from the ceiling, lifeless, emotionless, transparent but for darker stripes across its chin and cheeks. Another joined it, then two more.
They watched him for quite some time.
For all the world, Adam wished he could look away.
Naming of Parts
“A child grows up when he realizes that he will die.”
—proverb
THAT NIGHT, SOMETHING tried to break into the house. Jack heard the noises as he lay awake staring at the ceiling, attempting to see sense in the shadowy cracks that scarred the paintwork. The sounds were insistent and intelligent, and before long they were fingering not only at window latches and handles, but also at the doorways of his mind.
He liked listening to the night before he went to sleep, and out here in the country there was much to hear. Sometimes he was afraid, but then he would name all the different parts that went to make up that fear and it would go away. A sound I cannot identify. A shape I cannot see. Footsteps that may be human, but which are most likely animal. There’s nothing to be afraid of; there are no monsters. Dad and Mum both say so; there are no such things as monsters.
So he would lie there and listen to the hoots and rustles and groans and cries, content in the knowledge that there was nothing to fear. All the while the blankets would be his shield, the bedside light his protector and the gentle grumble of the television from downstairs his guarantee.
But that night—the night all guarantees were voided—there were few noises beyond his bedroom window, and with less to hear, there was more to be afraid of. Against the silence every snapped twig sounded louder, each rustle of fur across masonry was singled out for particular attention by his galloping imagination, It meant that there was something out there to frighten everything else into muteness.
And then the careful caress of fingertips across cold glass.
Jack sat up in bed and held his breath. Weak moonlight filtered through the curtains, but other than that his room was filled with darkness. He clutched at his blankets to retain the heat. Something hooted in the distance, but the call was cut off sharply, leaving the following moments painfully empty.
Click click click. Fingernails picking at old, dried glazing putty, perhaps? It sounded like it was coming from outside and below, but it could just as easily have originated within his room, behind the flowing curtains, something frantically trying to get out rather than break in.
He tried naming his fears, this time unsuccessfully; he was not entirely sure what was scaring him.
A floorboard creaked on the landing, the one just outside the bathroom door. Three creaks down, three back up. Jack’s heart beat faster and louder and he let out a gasp, waiting for more movement, listening for the subtle scratch of fingernails at his bedroom door.
He could not see the handle, it was too dark, it may even be turning now—
Another creak from outside, and then he heard his mother’s voice and his father hissing back at her.
“Dad!” Jack croaked. There were other sounds now: the soft thud of something tapping at windows; a whispering sound, like a breeze flowing through the ivy on the side of the house, though the air was dead calm tonight.
“Dad!” He called louder this-time, fear giving his voice a sharp edge to cut through the dark.
The door opened and a shadow entered, silhouetted against the landing light. It moved toward him, unseen feet creaking more boards. “It’s okay, son,” his father whispered. “Just stay in bed. Mum will be in with you now. Won’t you, Janey?”
Jack’s mother edged into the room and crossed to the bed, cursing as she stumbled on something he’d left on the floor. There was always stuff on the floor in Jack’s room. His dad called it Jack debris.
“What’s going on, Dad?” he asked. “What’s outside?”
“There’s nothing outside,” his father said. His voice was a monotone that Jack recognized, the one he used to tell fatherly untruths. And then Jack noticed, for the first time, that he was carrying his shotgun.
“Dad?” Jack said uncertainly. Cool fingers seemed to touch his neck, and they were not his mother’s.
She hugged him to her. “Gray, you’re scaring him.”
“Janey—”
“Whatever… just be careful. Be calm.”
Jack did not understand any of this. His mother hugged him and in her warmth he found the familiar comfort, though tonight it felt like a lie. He did not want this comfort, this warmth, not when there was something outside trying to get in, not when his father stood in his pajamas, shotgun closed and aimed at the wall, not broken open over his elbow as he carried it in the woods.
The woods. Thinking of them focused Jack’s attention, and he finally noticed just how utterly silent it was out there. No voices or night calls, true, but no trees swishing and swaying in sleep, no sounds of life, no hint of anything existing beyond the house at all.
His father moved to the window and reached out for the curtains. Jack knew what he would find when he pulled them back—nothing. Blankness, void or infinity… and infinity scared Jack more than anything. How could something go on forever? What was there after it ended? Occasionally he thought he had some bright idea, but then sleep would come and steal it away by morning.
“Dad, don’t, there’s nothing out there!” he said, his voice betraying barely controlled panic.
“Shhh, shhh,” his mother said, rocking him.
“I know,” his father said without turning to offer him a smile. He grabbed a curtain and drew
it aside.
Moonlight. The smell of night, a spicy dampness that seemed always to hide from the sun. And the noises again, tapping and scraping, tapping and scraping.
“Mum, don’t let Dad open the window,” Jack said, but his mother ignored him because she was hugging him, and that was usually enough. He would forget his bad dreams and go back to sleep. Mum would smile at the foolishness he’d spouted, but didn’t she know?
Didn’t she see that they were all awake, and that what he was thinking was not foolishness because his dad really was standing in his room with a shotgun, opening the window, leaning out now, aiming the weapon before him like a torch—
There was an explosion. Like an unexpected scream in the depths of night it tore through Jack’s nerves, shred his childish sense of valor and set him screaming and squirming in his mother’s lap. Her arms tightened around him and she screamed too. He could smell the sudden tang of her fear, could feel the dampness between her breasts as he pressed his face to her chest.
“Gray, what the fuck—”
Her words shocked Jack, but he could not lift his face to see.
“What the hell? What are you doing? What are you shooting at?”
Somewhere in the blind confusion his father came across and offered soothing words, but they were edged with his own brand of fear. Jack could not see him, but he could imagine him standing there in silence, staring at a wall and avoiding his mother’s eyes. It was his way of thinking about what to say next.
He said nothing. Instead, Jack felt his dad’s strong hands under his arms, lifting him up out of the warmth of his mother’s fear and letting the dark kiss his sweaty skin cool.
“Dad,” Jack sobbed, “I’m scared!”
