‘Seven,’ he told the nurse. ‘That’s the answer. People don’t realise, but it’s not three. Three’s not the magic number. It’s not pi. It’s seven. Check the bible. Check it. I read it. I read Revelations. I read it. I read it.’
7, like the scars on his arms, like the scars on his wrists. The scars that kept the Marlin away.
Bill didn’t realise how fucking nuts he sounded until he’d been in hospital for five weeks and things began to slow a little. He wanted to apologise to David, or Richard, whatever his name was, because he’d been nuts, but by then the nurse with the beautiful and ugly face had moved on.
*
XXX.
In the community hospital, half remembering, half dazed, Bill passed physiotherapy, passed reception, passed maternity, the fitness suite.
Finally, he reached a door. But of course, it was walled in.
He couldn’t get out. Not this time. There was no hole in the wall to crawl through.
But there was a key pad. And the combination was the same as it always was, as he’d always known. He just had to be brave enough to use it, to get through to the other side, to escape this madness, this hospital, the other hospital. To escape seven he had to embrace it.
Was he ready?
No.
Was he angry? Yes. He was fucking furious. Marlin had so much to pay for, so much to pay back. He’d taken Bill’s life. Bill had to take his. Had to stop it.
He tapped in the keycode with the tip of his knife.
1897.
Hit enter, and the door, the wall, buzzed. He pulled the door open and stepped through to the other side, the pathway to the end, maybe, or just another riddle.
He wouldn’t know until he took that step.
*
XXXI.
When Bill stepped through to the other side, he knew he was insane, completely and utterly, because the land on the other side of Earth, on the realm that slid by, parallel, behind, in front…around…it couldn’t exist. It couldn’t be real. It could be nothing more than imagination, maybe an imagination that had travelled too far and over an uncharted border in the fabric of the world.
The sky above burned with fire, roiling like a blaze in a house catching the paint on a ceiling, rolling where fluffy clouds should be. The sky, the whole of it, as far as the eye could see, was red with flame.
This world needed no sun. But with no sun there were no trees and there was no grass. Without a sun this land could not sustain life.
It was why the Marlin needed the energy from the other side, from the Earth, because this was a land of imagination, a land of pure thought, and thought was its only sustenance.
Without thought it was just blasted endless wastes, an apocalypse in the making.
Bill travelled through the end of days, alone and barefoot and topless, and only then did he wonder what had happened to his shoes.
Surely he had worn them when he had fallen asleep, days, maybe months, maybe minutes ago.
But he wasn’t wearing them now, and the burning landscape scalded his feet as he walked the endless miles across the wasteland. The fires cauterised the stumps of his toes, and he found that there was no pain, though he walked on with a heavy limp. He still held the knife in his left hand, and his right shoulder hung down low. He thought now that maybe it was both dislocated and broken, but self-diagnosis was a fool’s game. You needed a trained professional for that. Someone to tell you what you couldn’t figure out for yourself, because you can’t see inside, you can’t see the broken parts.
His feet covered yards, miles, leagues and fathoms, up, down, through, all the while walking with his ungainly rolling gait, like the flames rolling through the sky.
This world was hot, and he was glad he wasn’t wearing his shirt. The shirt would have been soaked through, like his trousers and his underwear.
He realised that there was thunder, and rain fell, burning rain. His skin sizzled and blackened, and still there was no pain.
But he thought maybe this lack of pain was dangerous, just the same.
He began to run, with loping strides, made awkward by his lack of toes. He ran until he could breathe no more, while his skin and his hair caught fire and he charred. He felt the heat in his muscles and his arms curled up, his fingers became like claws as his muscles burned within him.
But there was a lake, a lake of fire, and God help him if it didn’t look like sanctuary from the rain, like an oasis in a sun scorched desert, because he dived in head first and found wonder on the other side. A cessation of the fire, and cool beautiful, beautiful…peace.
*
XXXII.
Beneath the fire, a lake, beneath the lake, a palace, a palace that was dry and safe. A palace that looked a lot like a house he’d once known, semi-detached, him on one side, a woman named…Eileen?
Eileen. Yes.
And there she was, a queen in this cursed land of fire and thought.
She was the woman on the throne, next to Marlin.
The old woman who loved God and neighbour alike, loving Marlin.
Obscenely, she was writhing and bucking, astride the long man’s lap while the legion of low beasts cavorted and licked and sucked and entered, yes, that, too.
‘Hello,’ grunted Marlin, and set Eileen aside. She moaned, she groaned, but he slapped her hard and she fell silent.
‘Hello, William. Welcome. Welcome to the world on the other side, the world across the bridge. The world behind the wall.’
*
XXXIII.
Marlin held out his arms, wide, like the sea waiting to pull a ship down into its cold embrace.
There were seven thorns on his crown, for he was surely the king, the king of his domain.
‘Are you angry, Bill?’ he said.
Bill shook his head, biting his lip. The low beasts were gone. Eileen was still panting, panting from her orgasm. Sweat beaded her brow and she smiled, a red welt on her face from her lover’s slap.
‘Just playing, son, just playing,’ said Marlin, stroking Eileen’s hair. She growled at him but he kept on stroking her hair, just like she was the family dog. A dog named Eileen, but nobody called a dog Eileen.
‘Why did you do it?’ said Bill. ‘Why did you leave? Set the low beasts on me? I did as you asked. I didn’t talk about you. I didn’t!’
‘I didn’t leave, William. You pushed me away, remember?’
‘No! No! I don’t remember!’
‘Aw, Billy, don’t shout,’ said Eileen. ‘Be a good boy.’
And Bill was a good boy. He was…how old was he? He tried to remember, but when he dug back he couldn’t. Couldn’t bring it out. But he looked down and saw his hand, slender, barely covered in fine hairs, the skin tight and the muscles undeveloped. Long thin arms, like a pianist, but without the talent. The arms and hands of an adolescent.
‘You pushed, William. Do you ever get angry, William? Are you angry now?’
‘I hardly ever get angry,’ he said.
He just needed some pills and all this would go away. But sometimes you have to go through the wall, even when there’s no hole.
*
XXXIV.
‘Come on, William. Come here. It’ll be alright.’
Bill held the knife before him and approached.
‘Oh, Billy. Bad boy,’ said Eileen, seeing the knife for the first time. ‘Billy, put that down right now.’
‘It’s alright, mummy,’ said Marlin. ‘The boy’s got to learn.’
‘I’m not angry,’ said Bill.
‘You’re holding it wrong. Not like that,’ said Marlin.
‘You’re nuts!’ shouted Bill. ‘You always were! You made my life fucking hell!’
Marlin laughed and took the knife from Bill in one swift gesture. Bill thought he couldn’t be afraid anymore, but he could, faced with Marlin holding his kitchen knife.
Bill ran then, ran through the house, away from his crazy daddy, down to the kitchen. He tried the kitchen door which led out into the gar
den and safety, but it was after seven, it was bedtime and the door was locked. Of course it was.
The Marlin caught Bill round his wrist, his young hairless wrist, and swung him around to face him. The Marlin was still naked, naked from fucking Eileen, fucking his mother.
‘Like this,’ said Marlin, stabbing down into Bill’s arm.
Then he pulled the knife out and flipped it for Bill to hold. ‘You try,’ he said.
Bill didn’t move. Couldn’t move. He was too afraid.
‘Go on, son,’ said Eileen, moping her thighs with a handkerchief.
‘Come on, son. You try,’ said Marlin. But Bill’s hand shook so badly and he was so terrified and yes, hurt, that he couldn’t take the knife from his father. So his father showed him again.
‘Like this, Bill!’ he said and stabbed down again.
Bill looked down and the wound, one atop the other, the second cut deeper and longer, looked to him just like a 7.
‘Take it!’ cried his father. His father was actually crying now, and real tears rolled down his face, but those tears were hot when they dropped onto Bill’s arm, hot like burning rain falling down and scolding his skin.
If he felt another of those tears on his skin he would char, he would burn.
Bill’s hand shook as he held it out, dripping blood onto the tiled floor of the palace.
Marlin placed the knife in the boy’s hand. ‘You try,’ he said. ‘Come on. You can do it.’
‘No,’ said Bill, William, Billy. ‘No,’ said the boy, but his father grabbed the hand holding the knife and forced it down, laughing all the time as Bill stabbed and stabbed and stabbed, laughing because the man, the Marlin, always was insane.
*
XXXV.
‘Do you ever get angry, William?’ asked Dr Richards.
‘Hardly ever,’ he said.
‘It’s OK to be angry,’ she said.
‘I’m not…’
‘Angry with your father.’
‘I’m not,’ he said. But he was. Just as he was angry with himself. And always would be.
Because he stabbed and stabbed and stabbed.
*
XXXVI.
The digital clock on the night stand read 7:37 PM when Billy pushed the door open.
His mummy leapt to one side and Billy saw that there was a Yik between his mother’s legs before she closed them, and a Krama between his father’s legs, rearing up, the thing’s slimy head pointing at him.
‘It’s alright, son,’ said mummy. ‘Daddy and me, we’re just…playing.’
His daddy was laughing.
His daddy was always laughing. There was something broke inside daddy. Once, when Billy was younger – too young – his mummy had called it ‘Shitsofrenia’. Billy had never looked it up, but then he was only eight years old then and more interested in playing football than reading in the library. He figured it was some adult word to explain why it smelled so badly after daddy had been to the toilet.
But the thing, the Krama, reared up at him and he was afraid, so he ran, ran to get something to hit it with. His daddy ran after him, and the Krama chased him, and he thought about that Krama, hurting mummy’s Yik, and yes, yes, God help him. He got angry.
Did he have the knife already in his hand? Had he run to get it, or did he already have it?
He couldn’t remember now. Couldn’t remember anything but the Yik and the Krama, and the Hatheth, crawling over his mother’s breasts, the flesh roiling with them.
Couldn’t remember anything but the knife and he took it up in his hand and it was made of steel but there was iron in there, too.
He took a knife from the kitchen drawer and turned as fast as he could. His father pulled the knife from him and stabbed down.
‘Like that, William,’ his father, his daddy, the man, said. ‘You’re holding it wrong,’ he said and stabbed Billy in the arm again.
Then he flipped it and gave it back. Laughing.
‘You try,’ he said.
Afterward, Billy thought the scar on his arm looked a lot like a seven.
*
XXXVII.
‘Do you ever get angry?’ said Dr. Richards, but she knew what the answer was, and so did Bill.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Yes. I do.’
‘At yourself?’
‘Of course. Self-harming. Self-hatred…a cry for help…I know all that. Just...’
How could he explain? He’d died that night, back when he was too young to know any better. Back the first time he’d found the Yik and the Krama and then forgot. Yes, he forgot.
How could he explain what it was like to be so dead inside, so black, so numb, that to cut and cut was to feel something. Sometimes, even when he’d been cutting, it hadn’t hurt. It had felt like a release. His skin was so numb he couldn’t feel the knife going in, carving 7 on his chest, on his arms and into his wrists. How could you explain death to the living and how good it could feel to bleed?
‘I wanted to feel again,’ he said with a shrug. He could try. He could talk right up until the hour was up, but what use would it be? Dr. Richard’s couldn’t see the Hatheth, their legs clicking like fingers and squeezing like a man’s hands on a firm pair of breast, on his mother’s fucking tits, their chitin armour unable to feel that sweet flesh.
How could you explain the Hatheth but for invading hands, invading the Yik, stroking the Krama? How could you explain the low beasts to this woman with her red dress with white flowers and her bow and her knowledge that she was sane and he was insane, but of course he wasn’t. He never had been, because he’d seen the land on the other side of the wall and no one else ever could. He’d travelled over, seen the kingdom of the Marlin and he’d returned with his scars, yes, and he couldn’t feel, yes, but he wasn’t dead inside like the blind.
‘Feel what?’
‘Alive.’
‘And your father? Are you angry with him?’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Yes, I am.’
‘Because he killed you?’
‘What?’
‘He ruined you, Bill. Don’t you see that?’
‘I killed him.’
‘No, William. No, Billy. You didn’t kill him. There are many different ways to commit suicide,’ she said. She smiled, but he didn’t understand.
‘Suicide? I murdered him.’
Dr. Richards flipped her chart shut and uncrossed her knees. She leaned forward.
‘There are many different ways of committing suicide,’ she said. ‘And just as many not to,’ she added. She leaned forward and Bill saw her cleavage. She smiled.
‘How deep does it go, Bill? How deep?’ she said, smiling while those Hatheth writhed under her dress and under her skin. ‘How deep, Billy?’ she asked, but he couldn’t answer because it was one hour and time was up.
‘Goodbye, Billy,’ she said.
He pushed himself to his feet and walked unsteadily in his uneasy gait, back to Eileen and the car and the cottage and everything else that waits on the other side. Back to the lake of burning fire and the kingdom beyond the wall, where the man, the Marlin reigns.
End
11th June 2011 – 24st June 2011
About the Author
Craig Saunders is the author of over thirty novels and novellas, including 'Masters of Blood and Bone', 'RAIN' and 'Deadlift'. He writes across many genres, but horror, humour (the 'Spiggot' series) and fantasy (the 'Rythe' tales) are his favourites.
Craig lives in Norfolk, England, with his wife and children, likes nice people and good coffee. Find out more on Amazon, or visit:
www.craigrsaunders.blogspot.com
www.facebook.com/craigrsaundersauthor
@Grumblesprout
Also by Craig Saunders
Novels
The Dead Boy
Left to Darkness
Masters of Blood and Bone
Damned to Cold Fire (previously published as 'The Estate')
A Home by the Sea
RAIN
Vig
il
The Noose and Gibbet
A Stranger's Grave
The Love of the Dead
Spiggot
Spiggot, Too
BLOOD DRUGS TEA (previously published as 'The Gold Ring')
The Devil Lied
Novellas
UNIT 731
Death by a Mother's Hand
Days of Christmas
Flesh and Coin
Bloodeye
Deadlift
A Scarecrow to Watch over Her
The Walls of Madness
Insulation
Short Story Collections
Dead in the Trunk (Vol. I)
Angels in Black and White (Vol. II)
Dark Words (Vol. III)
The Cold Inside (Vol. IV)
Writing as Craig R. Saunders:
The Outlaw King (The Line of Kings Trilogy Book One)
The Thief King (The Line of Kings Trilogy Book Two)
The Queen of Thieves (The Line of Kings Trilogy Book Three)
Rythe Awakes (The Rythe Quadrilogy Book One)
The Tides of Rythe (The Rythe Quadrilogy Book Two)
Rythe Falls (The Rythe Quadrilogy Book Three)
Beneath Rythe (The Rythe Quadrilogy Book Four)
The Walls of Madness (A Horror Suspense Novella) Page 6
