by Kim Newman
One of the problems with the novel—although, for Paul, it was a strength—was that Wells never quite explained how a three-legged machine could move. Logically, it would have to be like a one-legged man on two crutches, but that doesn’t sound threatening enough. Christopher Priest, in The Space Machine, worked out a system involving a spinning-top motion, but that struck Paul as too awkward. The film-makers had just copped out and got rid of the legs. The war machine last night moved naturally, as if having three legs was entirely the usual arrangement and unsteady bipeds were at a disadvantage.
It had been unimaginable. Therefore, he could not have imagined it. It had been real. It had hurt him, it had displaced indisputably real objects, and it had used a real heat ray. Imaginary hallucinations do not start actual fires.
And the kid, the mohican-haired kid, he’d seen it too.
Paul looked up at the fire site on the hill. It was peaceful now, blackened earth and burned-out trees blending in with yellowleaved bushes and tanned grass.
Paul tried to picture the kid. It was hard to remember anything but his hair, the one detail overwhelming his ordinary face and standard ripped-jeans-and-a-T-shirt outfit. He’d been skinny, and he’d had a London accent. ‘Fuck, fuck, fuck,’ he had said. He’d pushed Paul, thumping his shoulder. He’d been wearing a black leather wristlet, dotted with studs. The kid had seen the war machine. Two people couldn’t share a hallucination. Paul knew he had to find that kid, talk to him. Maybe, if he did, he wouldn’t go mad.
5
Daddy was strange this morning.
During the school holidays, they always had breakfast together, Daddy tucking into bacon and eggs because he’d already done a couple of hours’ work, Mummy having just yoghurt and fruit juice because she was forever on a diet, Hannah and Jeremy eating cereal and drinking orange.
Today, they all arrived at the table at different times. Mummy was getting breakfast ready in the kitchen, making a lot of noise, when Jeremy, in his pyjamas, came down to the dining room and found Daddy sitting in his usual chair, covered with earth.
It was over his shirt, hands and face. His cheeks were plastered, like an African tribesman’s, with lines of chalk mixed in. Often, he would get dirty. Farming, he said, was a mucky job most of the time. But one of the rules of the house was that you washed before coming to the table.
Jeremy was outraged. Daddy was supposed to make the rules, not break them.
‘Daddy,’ he said, ‘you’re dirty.’
Mummy had the radio on in the kitchen, and pop music gurgled out. Daddy turned to Jeremy. Egg-white eyes opened in his mask of dry earth.
‘Daddy?’
‘Here it comes,’ said Mummy, stepping in with a tray.
The tray hit the floor and flipped over, scattering bacon rashers and globs of scrambled egg. A plate smashed, and knives and forks skittered on the tiling.
‘Maurice,’ Mummy gasped, ‘what the fuh—’
Daddy looked at Mummy, and she made a scared face.
Hannah tumbled late into the room, rubbing sand out of her eyes, yawning. She sat at the table and filled her bowl with cornflakes.
‘Daddy, you look silly,’ she said, and sloshed in the milk.
Mummy sat down and shook her head. Daddy’s clothes were torn. There were streaks of blood in his dirt mask. His jeans were ruined, the fly exploded and filth-clogged.
Daddy didn’t say anything. Jeremy backed away.
‘Sit down,’ Mummy said.
Jeremy didn’t want to go near Daddy, but didn’t want to go against Mummy either. He pulled his chair back and slid into it, never letting his eyes move from Daddy’s brown face. Hannah was eating as usual. Daddy put his hands on the table, and crumbs of soil spread from his fingers. Daddy smiled an Evil Dwarf smile, a line of spit damping the earth around his lips, and his mouth began to open. He coughed, and chunks of dirt came out, burping on to the table.
‘What’s wrong, love?’ Mummy asked, gingerly putting her clean hand on Daddy’s dirty sleeve.
‘Nothing,’ Daddy croaked. His voice had changed, as if his throat had turned to bark and planes of rough wood were rasping together inside him. ‘I’ve put things right with the land,’ Daddy said.
Jeremy looked at Mummy. Obviously, no one knew what to do. Hannah finished her cereal and pushed her chair back.
‘Sit down,’ Daddy told her.
Unsure, she did, stuttering out a ‘But… but’ before going silent and sulking.
‘Give thanks, family.’
Jeremy looked down at the tabletop, then sideways at Mummy. Mummy was scared. That made Jeremy scared too. Scared of Daddy.
He saw dirt thick around Daddy’s fingers, coating the nails, clodding in between like duck-webbing. There were rootlike tendrils mixed in with the earth, growing out of Daddy.
He looked up. Daddy had taken an apple from the bowl and was eating it. The apple should have been thrown out today, since it was half shrivelled and nobody had bothered with it before. Jeremy was sure there were maggots in it. As Daddy ate, more dry earth fell from his face. It came off in chunks, showing his skin. Daddy was changed. There were boils on his forehead. Red and protuberant, like little bruised apples, they seemed about to break. His face was longer, nose extended, the beginnings of a wispy beard around his chin. He munched the apple down, skin, pips, core and all.
‘We must make sacrifices,’ he said, reaching for a breadknife.
Mummy flinched, and Hannah was crying. Daddy pulled his sleeve and bared his forearm. The music from the kitchen burbled out, a disc jockey interrupting to read out funny items about the weather from the papers. Daddy stuck the breadknife into his arm. Blood came, but not much. A greeny-yellow liquid seeped out. The blood was just a few red threads in the other, sappy stuff. It smelled like glue. Daddy pulled the breadknife out of himself and put it down. The hole he had made opened and closed like a goldfish’s mouth, spewing more of the yellow-green on to the table.
Mummy got up, and Daddy hit her. His arm was longer than usual, and he fetched Mummy a hard thump on the side of her head, lifting her out of her chair, pitching her across the floor. Mummy fell down, chair tangled in her legs, and, although she tried, didn’t get up again. There was blood in her hair.
‘Now,’ Daddy said, ‘bow, you heathens.’
Jeremy and Hannah bowed their heads and mumbled. Daddy laughed, not like himself but like the Evil Dwarf. Dopey had come in the night and eaten his brain. Jeremy knew this had happened. The Daddy-shaped thing at breakfast was just the leftovers from the meal.
The children looked again. Mummy was pulling herself up, shaking her head dizzily, holding tight to the table edge for balance. She got her seat upright beneath her, and slumped. Daddy had mashed part of her hair, and a bleeding bruise was showing. She opened her mouth to complain, but a glance from Daddy’s rotten eyes silenced her. He reached out again, and Mummy flinched, but instead of hitting, he stroked. His fingers smoothed her hair against the gash in her head, and she winced.
Daddy smiled. Mummy was whimpering quietly, like Hannah when she was scolded. Mummy touched Daddy’s arm, fingertips probing the wound, dabbling in the honeyish gum. Daddy nodded, and Mummy tasted her finger. Weakly, she tried a smile.
‘See,’ Daddy said.
Jeremy looked at the shell that had been his Daddy. The boils on his forehead burst, drops of clear liquid dribbling past his eyes. Tiny shoots, bright green like spring bulbs, were emerging from his head, curling slightly in the light. In his smile, his teeth were bright yellow, like corns on a cob.
‘Now,’ he said, ‘what shall we do today?’
6
‘Hazel?’ The girl was distracted, blank-faced. Her eyes were large, waiflike. ‘It’s me, Susan. Remember, from last night.’ She’d found Hazel on the private road to the Agapemone, walking and dreaming. Weirdly, Susan saw herself in Hazel’s mind, face cracked into three.
‘Oh, uh, hi,’ said the girl. ‘Good morning.’
She wasn’t w
earing shoes, just grubby wool socks. Bumping into Susan unnerved her, as if she’d met someone she knew only from a dream.
‘Good morning. Are you all right?’
Hazel pushed a hand through her hair, scratching her scalp. Susan saw her confusion. She might be in traumatic shock. Then again, she might just be a daydreamer. It was too easy to intuit the worst all the time.
‘How’s your boyfriend?’
‘All right,’ she said, without conviction. ‘Up and about.’
They were by the side of the road. Usually, there was no traffic. Today there was almost a jam, with carloads of festival-goers turning up early. There were several travellers’ caravans, possessions roped to roofs, rickety and battered as an Okie convoy.
‘Out for a walk?’
Hazel tried to think. Susan tried to read her. She’d been almost sleepwalking.
‘I thought… uh… I’d visit the Agapemone again… thank you…’
She saw in Hazel a vacancy, a need. The girl was under pressure, not easy to read accurately. She was just Jago’s type, a vessel steadily emptied, waiting to be filled with the faith.
Susan didn’t know what to do. Less ignorant of the dangers of the Agapemone than anyone, she ought to try to put Hazel off. But warning Hazel would rip her Sister of the Agapemone snakeskin. Soothsaying wasn’t her style, anyway. That was why she was Susan Anonymous. She didn’t want to end up like Cassandra, kicked to death.
A biker cruised by, engine protesting, squeezing between the cars and the verge. Susan and Hazel had to step out of his way. The boy’s jacket-back, with a flaming skull and ‘Route 666’ logo, reminded her that Wendy’s leather ghost was still around. At the fire, Susan thought she’d glimpsed him mingling with the bystanders.
‘Well,’ said Hazel, ‘must be going…’
Susan had to try to help the girl. She did not like to interfere, to use her Talent like a puppeteer. But sometimes it was the only way.
‘See you later,’ Susan said, fixing Hazel’s eyes with her own, pressing a mentacle delicately against the girl’s mind. She found it useful to imagine a point between the person’s eyes as a tiny hole, leading funnel-like into their brain, their mind. Susan tried to plant a seed of doubt, to give Hazel protection.
‘There,’ she said. ‘Goodbye.’
They parted. Susan watched Hazel wander up past the Gate House. She had not seen James Lytton since last night. She must talk to him later. She hoped the girl would be able to look after herself. Hazel climbed the steps to the front door and pressed the bell button. Susan was reminded of Psycho. The Agapemone had an attic window like Mrs Bates’s bedroom, but it was blacked out. Beloved was playing with his Victorian toy. She looked up, imagining neon eyes in the sky. She wondered how much Beloved saw. If she could sense what he was, then he must be able to see through her. Of course, he had disadvantages: he had only Bible stories to justify his Talent, not years of tests and research. And he was mad.
She turned and went on her way.
There was an old red telephone box by the pub, opposite the dead tree, and Susan had a supply of carefully hoarded coins. There was no point calling from the Agapemone. She didn’t think the phone was tapped, but it was on the table in the hall and couldn’t be used in private. That was one of the ways Beloved cut his disciples off from their old lives—parents, friends, expartners, whoever. Mick said the Brethren weren’t prisoners, but that might be because Beloved was a subtle master. Whenever anyone made a call, they had to account for it in a ledger, writing down the number called and the duration. It was one of Mick’s systems to keep bills under control. Susan noticed that if anyone did try to call out, Mick—or Gerald Taine or another of the cabal Susan had tagged as the Agapemone’s enforcers—would find something to do within earshot.
On the other side of the road, Derek and Marie-Laure—nobody’s idea of a dynamic duo—were doing their best to direct traffic, guiding vehicles on to the hard-packed earth track to the parking areas. Susan waved to them, but they didn’t notice. They were fuzzy this morning, too, moving clumsily like astronauts or deep-sea divers. The Sister was prayerfully muttering to herself, eyes fixed on the dirt, while Derek was humming a tune Susan could barely remember being in the charts, ‘Nights in White Satin’. He waved at her, head empty.
The telephone box was useless to most disciples because having small change was a rarely granted privilege. Money was held in common, and every penny spent had to be explained. Only James, useful as a free agent, had any petty cash at all. One effect of this was to isolate the Brethren from the community. They couldn’t go to the pub for a drink or even drop by the garage and buy a packet of sweets. Her own coins had been smuggled in and hidden. Mick and Taine held regular inspections to track down uncharitably retained private property. In theory even clothes and toiletries were communally owned. There were penalties for hoarding. Karen Gillard once had to take a month’s vow of silence because she kept a transistor radio for private use.
Two lads in an open-top car whistled and shouted a ‘Hello, darling’ at her. Seeing red, she turned to look in their direction.
‘While I’ve got a face,’ one of them said, ‘you’ll always have somewhere to sit.’
Before she had time to fight it, her mind swelled, and reached…
There were four quiet pops as tyres ruptured. The car settled, hissing, and stalled. Cars behind hit their horns. Children bawled. Susan was embarrassed. She had not meant that, but sometimes she could be surprised. She must be more guarded. Walking past the swearing youths, she wanted to make a smart comment but bit down on it. Let them think it was a freak accident. One of the lads was out of the car, gawking at the flat tyres. He was wearing a Loud Shit T-shirt and had an X of baldness shaved into his head.
She smiled at him, claiming responsibility.
‘Witch,’ he said.
7
‘What youm doin’?’ Terry asked.
‘Makin’ sacrifice.’
Allison held the pigeon in one hand, her other over its head. The bastard bird was beaking into her palm but wasn’t making a racket any more. She’d taken it from a tree, creeping up quiet and clutching fast as a lizard. The small body, warm and bony in her grip, squirted hot shit at her. She held it at arm’s length, so the jet mainly missed. She needed one hand to grip the bird, otherwise she’d have used her cheesewire. She squeezed the bird’s head and wrenched it off. Blood choked out of the neckhole and the thing kicked. She held it up and sprayed blood over the ground. She sloshed some on Terry.
‘Watch out,’ he moaned.
She held up the squirming pigeon like a bottle, and sucked blood. Hot and tasty, it ran down her chin like gravy.
‘There, breakfast.’
She dropped the dead thing and wiped her face on her sleeve. The bird’s wings wound down and it quickly stopped kicking. Sacrifice was made. She knew the importance of sacrifice. Badmouth Ben had explained it to her. He had come to Alder because of her sacrifices, because of Mr Keough’s cats. Sacrifices made him stronger.
‘Gor fuck I,’ said Terry, ‘that’s disgustin’.’
Allison stuck out her red tongue at him, and smeared his cheeks with bloody thumbs.
‘Clown,’ she said, ‘like your brother.’
Terry was theirs, marked now by blood and deed. In the end, he’d be proud to be hers and Ben’s. He was the first. Others would come, initiated by blood. More sacrifices would be made. The boy was twenty paces behind mentally, huffing and puffing to catch up. This morning, his beard was heavy and ragged. It was still a kid’s bum fluff, but it gave him a beasty look. Ben had helped Terry change. He wasn’t much of an army, but he was a start. He was just stupid enough to fall in step.
‘Last night,’ Terry said, ‘what bloody happened?’
They’d slept out after the hide-and-seek with Terry’s brother and Lytton. This morning, Ben had got up early and gone about his business, leaving her in charge. She’d woken with dew on her face, cradled in the bushes, lying i
n a beaten-flat tunnel that protected them. Terry, clothes tattered, was nearby, snoring mouth wide open. He wasn’t used to sleeping in the open. He wasn’t close to the earth the way she was.
‘Al’son?’
She smiled, and he went quiet. There were secrets he didn’t need to penetrate. He was sensibly afraid of her. The lesson, however, had to be reinforced.
She stood near him, licking her lips, and slipped her hands under his shirt, feeling his soft, hairy belly. There was fear in his eyes, but also a little excitement. He thought he knew what he was getting, and raised his arms so she could pull his shirt over his head. She let her hands climb up his torso like thin spiders. She found his pulpy nipples and pinched hard, digging with her long thumbnails. He opened his mouth to shriek, tears welling up, and she quickly kissed him. With a final, flesh-abusing twist, she pushed him away. He was yelping like a dog now, and rubbing his teats.
‘Pain,’ she said, ‘you got to be friends with pain.’
He swore and bit his lips, sucking in air. She brushed the twigs out of her hair and stretched. Terry sat down and complained again, howling like a kid, tears in the fur on his cheeks.
‘Come on,’ she told him. ‘Get up. We’m got places to go, things to do.’
8
She got to the telephone box just before a hefty, beef-faced man with a tweed jacket. He was standing outside, shifting his weight from foot to foot, chinking change in his hand, looking at his watch. She didn’t have to be a Talent to get the message. She dialled the number. The phone was lifted on the third ring.
