A HAZY SHADE OF WINTER

by Simon Bestwick

  There was a slight edge to her voice too. I didn’t know if she was annoyed at me or her parents or the situation of us both combined. I reached out and put an arm around her waist. ‘Okay. Sorry. I’ll have my own place next month anyway.’

  ‘Oh yeah.’ She knocked her hip playfully against mine. At least, I reflected, she wasn’t that much of a Christian. ‘That’ll be fun, won’t it?’

  I took my chance to lean forward and kiss her properly. There’d been precious few opportunities over the past couple of days. Talk about gulping water after a drought; her arms went tightly round my neck and our bodies pressed firmly together.

  The living-room door opened and the handle of the kitchen door turned, the frosted glass filled with Janice’s blurred shape. We sprang apart as she opened it, face unreadable, eyes like little black video cameras, flicking to and fro over us. ‘Karen, have you got a minute?’ she asked.

  Karen walked over to her and stepped out into the hall. The door swung closed and I shot glances at their blurred shapes, only catching odd words. ‘. . . cats and dogs . . . under my roof . . . remember . . . inside tonight . . . don’t want him seeing anything if anything happens . . .’

  Karen came back, head down, subdued. I touched her arm gently, but she didn’t respond, and stayed quiet even after her mother had gone back into the living-room. I clenched my teeth and seethed quietly, but there wasn’t much I could do. Couldn’t shout or scream with frustration and couldn’t take it out on anything; I had to dry carefully, put things down carefully; breakages would only make it worse. Nothing must break the placid surface, crack the veneer of calm. Everything must be peaceful and happy and all right. Or at least it had to look and sound that way. It’s the next best thingNo matter what’s festering behind the mask.

  Even so, I kept thinking about what I’d heard Janice saying. Most of it was pretty straightforward, the kind of thing you’d expect an over-protective—or just plain interfering, depending on how charitable or otherwise you were feeling, and I was starting to run a bit low on charity—mother to come out with. But the last bit was puzzling.

  . . . Don’t want him seeing anything if anything happens . . .

  What the hell was that supposed to mean?

  The rest of Christmas Day dragged agonisingly on. Janice made a few leftover-turkey sandwiches and passed them round. I suffered through variety shows involving the kind of bland and annoying pop-bands that fourteen-year-olds like—the kind that, unfortunately, seem inexplicably popular with people who should have more sense. Karen seemed to like them—and so, oddly, did Janice. I had no idea about Martin. He just sat in his chair, sipping his tea and gazing rather blankly at the screen, occasionally letting out an insipid chuckle.

  Now and again Karen and I managed to smile or wink at one another, and we were holding hands unobtrusively throughout. But I made damn sure I wasn’t holding her hand with the one my watch was on. I kept glancing surreptitiously at it when I was as sure as I could be that no one was looking, trying to work out how soon I could decently excuse myself and get off to bed. Anything was better than this. Forget racks and red-hot pincers and flaming brimstone—Hell could quite satisfactorily be a Saturday night in with your girlfriend at her parents’ house, watching TV. Where none of you ever goes to bed.

  It was about nine-thirty. I’d decided that I could probably get away with hitting the sack at ten o’clock, so I was trying not to clock-watch any more than was strictly necessary. I squeezed Karen’s hand gently and smiled into her eyes, badly wanting to kiss her.

  Then there was noise outside. I could hear shouts and commotion, people running, even over the droning natter of the TV. Somebody banged hard on the front door. Janice jumped to her feet and went out into the hallway at a fast clip.

  That was the first wrong note—well, the second, if you wanted to weave the end of the evening’s sermon into the pattern. She was moving with urgency, and there was, I thought, a touch of nerves in her face. Fear. Not annoyance. If I heard that kind of racket and door banging of a Christmas Night, I’d assume drunken wallies before anything else and probably wouldn’t even bother answering the door.

  I heard the front door open and a babble of excited voices. In under a minute, Janice came back through into the living-room, pulling on her coat and throwing Karen’s to her. ‘Come on.’

  Karen looked from me to her. ‘But Mum——’

  ‘Come on. We’ve got Duties.’

  Something about the way she said that seemed to give it a capital D. Karen let go of my hand and pulled on her coat. I started to get up. ‘I’ll——’

  ‘No,’ said Janice, sharply. ‘No,’ she said again, more quietly. ‘It’s just something we’ve got to do. Won’t be a minute or two. You stay in with Martin and keep him company.’

  I opened my mouth to protest—what happened to everyone staying in on Christmas as a family?—but Karen came to me and hugged me tightly, kissing my cheek. ‘It’s all right,’ she said. ‘It’s all right, Rog. Do as she says. We’ll be back in a mo.’

  She gripped my arms tightly, and I could feel the body language seeping through. Don’t rock the boat. Just do as you’re told.

  And then they were down the hall and gone, the door slamming.

  Trouble with me, though—it’s always been the same. Just try asking my parents.

  I’ve never been good at just doing as I’m told.

  I turned to Martin. ‘Come on. What’s all this about?’

  ‘Oh . . .’ he shrugged vaguely and settled back in his chair. ‘Just church stuff.’ He stared at the screen a few seconds more, then dimly registered that I hadn’t meekly sat down again. He turned towards me and then started to push himself, stiffly, to his feet. ‘D’you want a cup of tea?’

  ‘Um . . . no thanks,’ I said, moving easily round him and stepping out into the hall. There was a row of hooks near the foot of the stairs. My coat was hanging up on one of them. I picked it up and put it on.

  ‘What’re you doing?’ Martin bleated—sorry, I know it sounds uncharitable, but it was the sound that best describes how he sounded.

  ‘I’m going to see if they need a hand.’

  Oh no! Don’t do that. . . .’ Martin trailed limply out into the hall after me and reached out ineffectual hands—he was more like a ghost than ever right then. ‘Don’t . . .’ He said that a lot but that was about all he did; I think he’d been so passive so long that he hadn’t the faintest clue of how to actually stop someone doing something. Plus which, he’d never been in great shape since his accident, which I sometimes suspected might have been caused by Janice kicking him down the stairs or something.

  ‘Oh!’ I heard him moan in distress as I opened the front door and stepped outside. Then the door shut and I couldn’t hear him anymore.

  The snow was falling even more heavily than before as I stepped out onto the pavement, thick white flakes caught in tubes and cones of light from streetlamps, and houses, and . . .

  Torches?

  Up the road, a knot of people had massed. Voices were shouting. Spines of torchlight punctured and cut the night. There were more shouts further up the road, where it bent round. More torch beams came from round the corner, more loud, urgent shouts. Suddenly the group of people surged forwards, round the bend to meet the rest. I thought I glimpsed Karen’s white sheepskin in the rush. I knew for sure, though, that I’d seen something else—several of them. I’d seen a baseball bat waved aloft in one hand, a hatchet in another, a sledgehammer in another still.

  What the hell was going on? I ran up the road to the corner, just in time to see the two groups meet. For a moment I thought I was going to see a street battle, but there was none of that.

  Instead the two groups were speaking to one another. Fingers pointed, and then a shout went up. Suddenly, the whole doubled mob surged down one of the narrow ginnels that ran between the back-to-back rows of terraced houses.

  I broke into a run as well, trying to keep parallel to them. I heard another
loud, savage shout flaring up from them, and heard something else scream. The shouts rose again, and then broke up into yelps and cursing. There was a crashing and a clattering, and I caught a hazy glimpse of something leaping a fence, scrambling through someone’s back yard and then down their front drive—towards me.

  I could only see it faintly at first, a shade. It looked half human and half animal. That is, it was shaped more or less like a man or woman, but loped on all fours the way a running dog might. It wove as it ran, looked back, rolled and writhed feebly on the tarmac.

  I ran towards it. There were shouts from the ginnel, much cursing and noise as the pursuers tried to get over the fence, falling off it and fighting among themselves as they jostled for position.

  I reached the thing and turned it over. It was vaguely manlike, except—it wasn’t.

  Its skin was the colour and texture of tree bark. Its hands and feet were bare and claw-like, tipped with talons, like a bird’s or a lizard’s. It was clad in torn, tattered rags that looked more like grave cerements than anything else, and although its face was human-like—it looked something like that of a young boy—its teeth were sharp, its ears pointed, and its eyes had a yellow glow.

  But it was also in pain. It snarled in savage fright and whined in agony at the same time. Dark blood oozed through its pale, woolly hair from a gash on its leg. One arm hung limp and useless, probably broken. Dark patches on its bark-like hide might have been bruises or natural colouring.

  More shouts sounded as I took its uninjured arm and pulled it carefully to its feet. The first of the pursuers was over the fence and coming down the drive. I’d seen him before, in the church. We’d been introduced, but I couldn’t remember his name. He was a big red-headed man with a booming laugh and a merry red-flushed face. Now he was charging in with pick-handle, bellowing like a maniac, and looking capable of anything.

  I dragged the creature after me and ran. Don’t ask me why I didn’t just get the hell out of the way. It was ugly, it was weird-looking—the thing, not the man with the pick-handle, although he was the one who really scared the shit out of me—and I’m not a hero. I’m a certified physical coward. That night was the only time I ever got involved in someone else’s fight. Why? Because I knew beyond doubt that they’d beat or hack the creature to death if I didn’t help it, and because the state it was in . . . all I can say is, you should have heard the sounds it was making. Like a dog in pain. The snarls had given way almost entirely to whining and whimpers. No, I couldn’t have left it. Nobody could. At least that’s what I always think when I remember that night.

  Except that then I always remember that that there was a whole pack of people on the streets that night who could have just left it. In fact, who would have done a lot worse.

  And did, in the end.

  But not right then. Right then, I was running, supporting the wounded thing and legging it down the street as fast as I could, through the blinding fog of wind-driven snow. I didn’t know where the hell I was supposed to be going; I didn’t really know the area, unlike my pursuers, and with the wind rising, even if I had, I couldn’t see a bloody thing. I could only hope that would help me by hindering them. Because if they caught up with me in that mood, I doubted they’d distinguish much between me and the creature I was helping.

  Snowblind, I blundered on down the street. The creature’s legs collapsed under it and it almost slipped away from me. The mob was shouting behind us and it mewled piteously. I hauled it to its feet again and staggered.

  An entrance loomed on our left; a narrow brick entrance to an alleyway. I ran into it, dragging the creature with me as I went.

  The walls were high and there were trees beyond them on either side, screening out the worst of the snow. The bricks glistened on the walls. The creature clung to me, its claws digging in painfully, whimpering, stumbling on a paved floor slippery with ice and trampled slush.

  The alley was dark and unlit except by stray light from the street. And then suddenly light flared: dozens of torches shone down the passageway, shining past us to illuminate——

  A dead end.

  I stumbled to a halt. The creature was hyperventilating now, letting out noises that sounded like sobs and low moans.

  I turned around. The creature tried to wriggle behind me. Down the alley the pursuers came. Most of them were silhouettes behind the tiny burning suns of their torches, but I could see some faces. Some I knew. All were as hard as flint, and as ungiving.

  ‘Out of the way,’ said a harsh voice.

  ‘What are you going to do?’ I asked. My voice only wavered once. I was quite proud of that. Still am.

  ‘What do you think we’re going to do with it?’ said a woman’s voice. I thought it might be Janice’s. ‘We’re going to send the thing back to where it came from.’

  ‘And where’s that?’ They’d started coming closer. Torchlight gleamed on aluminium baseball bats.

  ‘Hell, you bloody idiot,’ someone else said.

  ‘Roger, get away from it!’ snapped one voice I knew too well.

  ‘What’s it done, Karen?’ I asked.

  ‘For the last time,’ someone else snapped, ‘get out of our bloody way.’

  ‘Not until——’

  But I’d let myself get distracted and forgotten how close they were. And I’d made the mistake of assuming I might be able to reason with a lynch-mob.

  I saw the pick-handle swinging, and felt the explosion of pain in my shoulder that knocked me aside. I didn’t see the next blow, only felt the eruption in my head, white stars dancing like snow behind my eyes, and then I was down on the alley floor, and the first kick hit me in the stomach, the second in the back. I tried to curl up into a ball, but everything was moving so slowly now, time slurred by the blow to my head, and a couple more kicks hit me before I could manage that.

  Hands dragged the creature, squealing, cringing and cowering, out into the street. Hands grabbed me too, dumped me on the pavement to watch. I was kicked again, and again, and again.

  But most of them formed a loose circle round the creature, weapons held high. It crouched and held up its hands, letting out little noises. To this day, groggy as I was, I couldn’t tell you if they were just inarticulate animal sounds or some kind of speech. If it was, I don’t think it was in any language I know of. Then again, I only really know English—and that none too well after the ninth pint of lager—and a bit of residual GCSE French.

  Someone ventured forward and struck the first blow, landing it one with the baseball bat. It fell back howling. Someone else moved in and kicked it, and that was the signal for the rest. They moved in fast, boots kicking, clubs and axes rising and falling, rising and falling. And still the pitiful thing screamed, on and on.

  Those who weren’t mucking in with the primary bloodsport were getting stuck in on the second. I rolled from kick to kick. Every time I tried to curl up I was kicked in the back and my hair pulled, until I unfolded into a bigger, more vulnerable target.

  A slim figure flailed in the heart of the mêlée, hitting and hitting at the thing on the ground. It was a feeding frenzy now, everyone jostling for position, trying to move in to unload their little portion of hate on the creature. The slim figure was thrown back, clear, half-turned so the streetlamp’s glow fell on her face.

  ‘Karen——’ I shouted.

  And then a kick caught me in the face. An explosion; white stars, blood, the taste of copper in my mouth. Red. Then black. Then nothing.

  The snow on Boxing Day was heavier still. The churchyard was lost in whiteness, only tiny glimpses of the stones peeping out through the thick crust of snow. The Victorian angel was little more than a featureless column, some suggestion of a face, the crests of the wings, lifting free.

  A foot crunched in snow nearby. I didn’t look up. After a moment, she started speaking.

  ‘Rog, I tried to warn you. You shouldn’t have interfered.’

  I turned and looked across at her, to where she stood about ten f
eet away. My left arm was in a sling, and despite the numbing of the cold, my face still throbbed. ‘All my fault, is it?’

  ‘You shouldn’t monkey around with things you don’t understand. So yes, if you want the truth, you brought it on yourself.’

  I looked back down. ‘It didn’t try to hurt me, Karen. Christ, it was in pain. If you’d heard it——’

  ‘It wasn’t in pain, Roger. It couldn’t feel pain. It wasn’t human. It was a demon.’

  ‘It didn’t do anything demonic.’

  ‘It was trying to trick you so you’d help it escape. That’s what they do. You don’t know them, Rog. You don’t know what it was like around here and there was no time to explain. God knows what it would have done.’

  ‘But it didn’t do anything, did it?’ I asked. ‘Did it? Did it attack anyone? Harm anyone?’

  ‘Roger——’

  ‘Did it?’

  ‘It would have——’

  ‘Did it?’ I shouted, and she didn’t answer. Finally I turned and looked at her once again. ‘Did any of them?’

  She didn’t answer. The snow drifted down. Her face was red in places, from where she’d been crying. But it was still like stone. ‘Should we have waited for it to?’

  ‘That’s what your vicar was on about last night, wasn’t it?’

  ‘It was a devil,’ she insisted. ‘Christ, you only had to look at it to see.’

  ‘So if something looks different, it’s from the devil and you kill it,’ I spat. ‘What do you do with left-handed people here? Or people with birthmarks, or club feet? Christ, you——’

  ‘I saved your life!’ she shouted.

  ‘Yes. I know.’ After I’d been knocked out, it had been Karen who’d run in and stopped them kicking me to death. But that didn’t change anything. ‘All so simple,’ I said bitterly. ‘Kill the outsider. The different one.’ I shook my head in disgust and looked away from her. ‘Well,’ I said. ‘I suppose I’ll see you. Or rather that I won’t.’

  Karen began crying again. ‘You don’t have to do this. Mum says you can still stay with us. You didn’t know what you were doing. She forgives you——’