by Gary McMahon
“Oh, shit. You’ve been fired?” The smile vanished. Her eyes clouded over. She pulled the bedclothes upwards, covering her nakedness, as if in some kind of punishment.
Brendan moved his hand away. “No... no, I haven’t been fired, or made redundant, or had my hours cut. He told me that I was still on the payroll but that somebody else was paying my salary. I’ve been hired as private security.”
Jane shook her head. “I’m not following this. What did he mean, ‘private security’? What’s that all about?”
“It’s him.” Brendan looked away, his gaze roaming the walls and taking in the framed school photographs of the twins, a wedding photo on the dresser, and the cluttered surfaces in the bedroom. “It’s Simon fucking Ridley, isn’t it? He rang Campbell and brokered some kind of deal. I’m working directly for him now. That arrogant bastard is paying my wages, paying for the food I put on the table, the roof over our heads. He can’t leave well alone; he has to interfere.” He felt the rage building again inside him. Sitting up, he pressed his lower back against the headboard. His upper back was burning; a strip of lava spilled across his shoulders. The pustules were signalling to him, responding to his wayward emotions.
“Calm down, pet. Maybe it’s not what you think. Perhaps he has a good reason – like, he’s trying to help? He always was a clumsy, inappropriate shithead, and this is probably just another example of that. I bet he thinks he’s helping us out.”
“My shoulders hurt.” Brendan had closed his eyes. He saw red fire behind the lids. It was like staring down into an active volcano. “My back’s stinging.”
“Take deep breaths.” Jane sat up, the covers falling away to expose her breasts and her belly. Small pink rolls of flesh around her waist; she always called them her ‘mummy-tummy’. “It’s okay. Don’t get yourself so worked up.” She rubbed his arm with her hand, and then started to massage the back of his neck, just above the infected area.
“I hate this,” he said, not opening his eyes. “I hate me.”
“I love you,” said Jane, still applying pressure to the nape of his neck. “So I guess you’re screwed, aren’t you?” The pressure increased; it was blissful. Nobody could calm him down quite like Jane.
“Thank you,” he said, and opened his eyes.
“Listen, I have to get the twins up, get them ready and take them to school. Are you going to be okay?”
He nodded. “Aye, aye... Of course I am. Just a bit stressed, that’s all. That idiot coming back here and trying to track down Marty... it’s freaking me out. He wants to get the three of us back together, like the old days.”
“The good old bad old days...” Jane’s voice held not a trace of humour.
“Yeah.” He reached up and grabbed her hand, squeezing it. “That’s exactly what they were.” Her fingers were hot, as if she’d been handling hot coals. “I’ll be fine. You go and sort the twins out and I’ll try to get some more sleep. If I don’t, I’ll be a nightmare later on.”
Brendan yawned. Dimness shimmered at the edges of his vision.
Jane curled up her nose, an expression she sometimes made when she was thinking. “Invite Simon over for dinner. Tonight. We can talk like adults, get some stuff out into the open for a change.”
“Aye,” he said, not fully registering what she’d said. “Okay.”
Jane left the bed and approached the window, where she shut the blackout curtains. Her body was diminished by the retreating light, like an oil painting being slowly erased by chemicals. She left the room without saying a word, grabbing her dressing gown from the back of the door. When he was on nights, she always kept the following day’s clothes in the bathroom, so that she could get dressed without bothering him. She was good like that: thoughtful.
Brendan lay down on his belly. His back was causing him too much irritation to put any weight onto the affected area. The acne was no longer hurting, just making its presence felt. He kept the covers down around his waist just to let the air circulate across the broken flesh. He closed his eyes. He didn’t even realise he was sleeping...
(...UNTIL HE WALKED across the room and opened the curtains, where he looked out of the window and down to the street. But the street was gone. In its place there stood a vast forest, a wall of trees whose trunks and branches reached up to form a canopy above the roof of the house, the roofs of all the houses. He could not see through the thick gathering of tree trunks; it was dark in there, the air black and dense and unwelcoming.
Even from here, this compromised vantage point, he could see that there were bulky things moving within the dense trees, flitting from trunk to trunk, hiding in the gloom. The sunlight did not reach them through the thick canopy; they were creatures of the dark, inhabiting the shadows.
He stared down at the bases of the trees, trying to pick out a pathway. The foliage there was bunched together, as if it had been left to grow for many years. There were no proper paths, no hacked trails through this undergrowth, and the trees were untouched by human hands.
All that lived there was whatever had always been there, hiding among the trees and the bushes and burrowing into the rich, loamy earth.
He opened his mouth to speak, but the trees began to shudder, silencing his voice before he could make a sound. A strong wind gusted through the forest, snaking between the tree trunks, and brought with it the stench of carrion. He could smell it even through the closed window. As he watched, the window glass began to stain, to darken, as if slowly tainted by smog. Just before he lost sight of the trees, he glimpsed something vast and ageless and shapeless surging towards him, causing the branches to quake and the trunks themselves to lean apart and uproot to make room for the gargantuan interloper...)
...HE DIDN’T REALISE he was sleeping until he woke up, still lying on his front, his mouth tasting like yesterday’s stale beer. His eyes were sticky. He struggled to open them fully, and settled instead on peering through slits.
The house was silent. Jane must have taken the kids to school, and then she’d probably gone for her morning gym session – or did she have a class, dancing or spinning or circuit training, something like that? He couldn’t remember. Everything was so hazy; his brain felt as heavy as a bowling ball as it shifted clumsily inside his skull.
He did remember her suggesting that he invite Simon to dinner, though, and right now it sounded like it might be a good idea. Meet on home turf; talk things through like adults. She was good like that, Jane. She always knew what he needed, even before he did.
He pulled his arms under him and straightened them, forcing his stomach off the bed. But there was something wrong – the action wasn’t as smooth and easy as it should be. He felt heavier than he ever had before in his life, as if... as if there was someone sitting on his shoulders... his acne-ridden, pus-weeping shoulders.
“What?” He could say no more; it was too much of a strain to even attempt it. He blinked his crusty eyes.
Whatever was perched upon his shoulders shifted its weight, scratching at the already ravaged skin. He winced, holding back a scream, and then flopped back down onto his belly. Panicking now, he reached up and around and tried to grab whatever it was, to throw it off his body. The thing – small and hard and slippery – scuttled across his shoulder blades, dodging his anxious fingers and adjusting its riding position.
“Come here,” he whispered. “Bastard.” He grabbed for the shape, trying to get a grip on its elusive form, but the thing moved further down his back, tracing the line of his spine. In the unnatural darkness, lying flat on his belly, Brendan began to suspect that he was going to die. Nobody would ever know what happened here, in this room, and he became convinced that this was an attack by a sliver of whatever power they had confronted that day twenty years ago, when they were held captive inside the Needle.
Something about this situation felt so familiar, as if he had been here before. Not here, in this room, but in this position, with something crawling across his back and tearing at his flesh. Infecting him..
. polluting the skin of his back and shoulders with a poison that would harm him for the rest of his life. Driving its fingers beneath his skin, probing his orifices, his most private parts.
Acting out of desperation now, he flipped over onto his back, ignoring the pain as his acne burst against the sheets, and let out the scream he had been holding on to since waking, hoping that it might break the spell.
Something small and fast darted across the mattress, dropped onto the floor at the foot of the bed, and scurried into a corner of the room. Brendan struggled to his feet and made his way to the window, pulling back the heavy blackout curtains to let in the light. He was blinded for a moment, bright sunlight taking away his vision. When he was able to open his eyes, he spun around and inspected the room. Nothing was out of place. Everything looked as it should: the books on the shelves, the photos, the pictures on the walls, the furniture. It was all so depressingly normal.
Had he still been dreaming? It was possible; it had happened before. If he was honest, it happened all the time. He would wake up, unsure if he was still trapped inside a dream or a nightmare, and everything around him would take on a sinister slant. Sometimes he would even see things, strange visions that he could not explain.
But no, that couldn’t be right. He knew that this time he had been awake, and there had been something inside the room with him, pestering him, harassing him.
He walked across to the wardrobe, reached up and opened the door at the top, near the ceiling. Fumbling through the DVD cases and the curled pages of magazines, he grabbed hold of what he thought was the acorn but it felt too big... much bigger than before. He used both hands to bring it down, and when he looked at the thing in his hands he was shocked to see how much it had grown.
The acorn was now the size of an Easter egg and covered in faint cracks, some were beginning to open up and give a glimpse of something fibrous, like dense webbing, inside. He turned the acorn around in his hands, and at the back, where he’d been unable to see, there was one crack that was much larger than the others. It was big enough, in fact, for something to have crawled out. An insect, perhaps, or a small mammal – something like a field mouse...
He held the acorn in his hands, peering into the crack. From what he could make out, the acorn was hollow, and it was empty. Whatever had emerged from this cocoon was still out there, in the world. Like a living bad dream hatched from inside a human skull, released to create mischief.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
SIMON WAS DOING push-ups on the floor when his phone rang. He jumped up and grabbed the handset; it was Brendan’s home number, rather than Natasha trying to track him down again. For reasons he couldn’t even begin to think about, not until he had everything else squared away, he still did not want to speak to his girlfriend – no matter how badly she wanted to speak to him.
He knew that Brendan would have been told by now about the new arrangement he’d made with his boss at Nightjar Security Services, and he had the feeling he might have pushed things too far by taking control in such a way. Pushing, he was always pushing. It was like he was unable to resist forcing people’s hands.
“Hi Brendan. How’s tricks?”
There was a slight pause, and then Brendan’s voice filled the airspace. “Yeah, okay. Actually, no, I’m tired and pissed off.”
Simon blew air out of his mouth, making his lips flap. “Listen, I’m assuming you had a call from your boss last night.”
“Aye.” Brendan said nothing more.
“I know I should’ve spoken to you first, but I did it on the spur of the moment. I thought it might help us both out. I mean, you can hardly help me track down Marty while you’re working nights, can you? Also, it frees up your evenings to spend with your family. I thought it was a win-win situation... you know?” His reasons sounded feeble, but he wasn’t lying. He had not been completely selfish in organising the situation with the maudlin supervisor at Nightjar... only a little.
“Jesus, Simon. You always used to do this. Take control. I was fucking raging at you last night, but now that I’ve slept on it – well, for a couple of hours, anyway – I’ve calmed down. I’m still pissed off at you; I just don’t want to hit you right now.”
Simon smiled. “Thank Christ for that. I always suspected you might be able to take me in a fight and don’t really fancy finding out.”
“Fuck off,” said Brendan. “Listen; let me get this out of the way before we continue. Jane’s invited you over to dinner this evening. It was nothing to do with me – her idea. She thought it might be good for us to sit down over a civilised meal and talk.”
Simon wasn’t sure about this. It felt like somebody else was doing the pushing. “Oh... okay. Maybe that’s a good idea.”
“Maybe. And maybe not,” said Brendan. “But it’s done now. She’s expecting you over – come for around seven-thirty. Dress fucking casual.”
Simon found himself laughing again, softly, as if the years were falling away like layers of dead skin. “Don’t worry; I left my good tux at home. I’ll just throw on my Armani suit and be done with it.”
“And again, I say fuck you, matey.”
This brief exchange made Simon feel a lot better about interfering with Brendan’s job, and with his life. He wasn’t sure that he’d be so calm about the situation if the roles were reversed, but then he remembered that Brendan was having trouble sleeping. He was probably glad that he’d be able to rest his head on his own pillow at night, next to the woman he loved – a woman both of them had shared time with, at certain points in their lives.
Shit. Why did he keep thinking about that? He had a beautiful girlfriend, an emotional safety net in case everything else failed... so why did he keep thinking about a relationship that had ended before it had even had the time to begin? It was harmful, almost a form of self-abuse. Was he using the memory to punish himself, for leaving them all here to face the things he could not?
“Remember I told you about Marty’s grandmother? How she still lives here on the estate?”
He had no idea. He could remember no such conversation. “Yeah, of course.” He had to regain focus, to concentrate on the moment rather than all the moments he had lost, discarded like empty food wrappers. “What about her?”
“Well, I’ve had a strange morning, so I spoke to her about ten minutes ago, just before I called you. She’s willing to see us. She’s old, but her mind’s still more or less intact. She remembers who we were – when we were boys. She said she always liked us, and wondered what had happened to make us go away.”
Simon said nothing. He couldn’t work out if the comment was some kind of rebuke, or even if it was aimed at him. He kept thinking about Jane, and the time they’d spent together. Her soft lips, the curve of her thighs in her skin-tight jeans, the way she’d worn her hair – long and dyed white-blonde – and the sweet words she’d used to try and convince him to stay.
“Okay,” he said, shaking it off. “What time?”
“She said to go round for midday. She’s going to make a pot of tea.”
“God,” said Simon. “Old women around the country, they’re all the bloody same. Tea, biscuits, and a nice bit of gossip.”
“I’ll come for you at quarter to. Be ready.” Then Brendan hung up the phone.
Simon got back down on the floor and finished his push-up routine – it was helping to clear his hangover. Then he did some abdominal work – crunches, scissors, and a few minutes of trunk twists – before a feeling of nausea stopped him.
He always tried to keep himself in shape. Natasha didn’t like it when he got porky, and he had always put on weight easily, even as a child. He’d been carrying an extra few pounds that summer, when it happened... when they went into the Needle and gained access to another world.
“Like Narnia,” he said, staring at a patch of peeling wallpaper and studying the plaster beneath. “Through the back of the fucking wardrobe...”
He picked up his phone and re-read the last few text messages Natas
ha had sent him.
Luv u
call me
somethin rong?
Jesus, sometimes she acted like a lovesick teenager. He couldn’t handle that kind of (badly spelled) emotional clinginess. It scared him and made him instinctively back away – that was why he was reluctant to call her, to speak to her. She was being needy and that was scaring him off, just like it always did.
He relented and replied to her last message:
I’m fine. Very busy. Will call you when I can. x.
He switched off the phone in case she responded by calling him back immediately. The kind of mood she seemed to be in, that was entirely possible, and then he’d be forced to talk to her. In his current state of mind, that would be a bad thing.
A very bad thing.
He took a shower, got dressed, and left the flat, stepping out into flat, bright sunlight. Looking up at the sky, the clouds seemed frighteningly distant, as if the lid was peeling off the top of the world. He did not want to see what lay beyond; the thought of eternity terrified him, even now, as an adult. He remembered lying in his bed at night as a small child, looking through the window and trying to imagine what was at the end of the universe. It used to hurt his head, and he would often cry himself to sleep after trying to calculate the dimensions of infinity.
Simon set off towards the Arcade, where there was a greasy spoon café called Grove Grub. He passed a group of teenagers at the corner of Grove Side and they all stopped mid-conversation to turn and stare at him, following him with their surly gazes.
It had been a long time since he’d experienced this kind of casual antipathy. Even in London it was rare to be examined by strangers in such a direct manner, certainly where he lived. Simon’s old senses began to bristle, returning to life after years of neglect. He clenched his fists and maintained eye contact. He knew that any sign of weakness would be leapt upon, used against him.
