Desolation

by Tim Lebbon

  The view was stunning. At the bottom of the long slope was the main lake, obscured here and there by tall trees. A flock of ducks drew lines across its surface, and there were a few rowing boats out, their occupants mainly just sitting back and enjoying the slight movement as their heartbeats rocked the boats.

  Cain ate his food, drank some water, started to read. He was reading The Glamour again, and as ever he found it easy relating to the characters’ experience with invisibility. Cain felt that he could enter a room and remain unseen by anyone there. The sound of birds in the trees around him gave a curiously apt sound track to the novel, singing as if they were alone, without any humans ready to make out the secrets in their songs. He smiled at this, pleased that he could nurture such thoughts. His father had not made him that way.

  An hour passed, he finished the drink, and he had read twenty pages of the novel. And when he realized that for the last fifteen minutes he had been reading the same page over and over, he tried to tell himself that the peace of the park was distracting.

  Too many birds, singing and whistling their way through the day. Little kids playing and crying somewhere, their mothers cooing unintelligible succor to them. The occasional swish of leaves as a breath of air danced through the trees. The park was talking to him, calling for him to relax. He closed the book and lay back, content to listen.

  Cain heard the sound of music carried on the breeze. He jumped up and looked out for Whistler. It was surely not his neighbor, probably a car stereo blasting from one of the roads outside. But his instant reaction brought home the truth. He was not here to relax, he was here to decide what to do.

  He picked up his litter and his book, bagged everything, and walked down toward the lake.

  They had been playing him. It was ironic that the efforts they were expending to fool and confuse him made him feel more alone than ever. His pursuit of George had felt arranged, though he had no proof of that. Last night, however, was clearly a play from start to finish. And the only way to become involved in a play and influence its outcome was to become a player.

  It was as easy as that. Cain’s mind was made up before he even realized it, and by the time he reached the lake and started walking around it, he was making plans. He would not let his dreams control him, and he would not let the others in the house control his dreams. He would declare a new start to his life—here, now, in this park, at this precise instant—and determine to shed once and for all the stifling memories of his past. The dreams may still come, but he would better them. Magenta and Whistler and the others may toy with him for their own amusement, but from now on he would play his own part, not merely sit it out as a passive victim of their games. From that would come acceptance, and perhaps even more of an understanding of how the world worked. To make his own life, he had to understand others. He would not let them frighten him away. Perhaps they were all odd, but they certainly did not have the monopoly on weirdness.

  Pleased with himself, Cain bought an ice cream from a van and sat beside the lake. He heard music again, drifting across the water as if risen from its depths, and this time it was not the borrowed echo of a car stereo. He recognized the style of this, the sound, the rounded vibrations and exhalations of pan pipes. And as he looked across to the far side of the lake, he dropped the ice cream in his lap.

  Even at this distance, Cain knew that the figure was Whistler. Tall, gray hair tied in a ponytail, his long black coat flapping out behind him even though the breeze was only slight, he walked across the grass slope where Cain had been sitting ten minutes earlier. And he was not alone. Like some modern-day Pied Piper, he led a strange procession after him: a woman pushing her baby in a buggy, a cat slinking from tree to tree for cover, a squirrel loping across the grass, several birds flying, hopping, flying again. All of them followed at a distance as if afraid to draw too close. Whistler seemed unaware or unconcerned; he simply played his pipes, strolled along, looking at the ground before him as if the rest of the park held no interest.

  “No!” Cain said. He stood, his first inclination to run around the lake. “No!” He would catch up with Whistler and quiz him, or follow along with the others to see where they were being led. “It’s my own life. Leave me be!” He turned, brushing ice cream from his crotch, and started running around the lake.

  Whistler had obviously followed him to the park and waited to make his presence known, expecting Cain to fall for the dupe and follow him. And now was the time Cain could make his own play. For whatever purpose, they were toying with him, his decision to flip expectations was about to be put to the test.

  With Whistler here, Cain would be able to break into his flat. Perhaps then he would see what the tall man was all about.

  As he ran from the park a shadow passed over him, fleeing rapidly across the grass and disappearing into a clump of trees. A waft of warm honey came to him and faded just as quickly. He looked up, but saw only a flicker as something disappeared above the trees.

  Too big to be a bird, he thought. But he shook his head and ran on. They were not going to trap him like that. His mind was made up.

  The street was deserted and the house seemed quiet. The garden welcomed him with its customary covert rustlings, but he would not be drawn by them today. The front door was locked, so he used his key, slipped inside, and closed it again behind him. The lobby was still. A clock ticked somewhere out of sight, the doors to the basement and back garden were firmly shut, and he heard no signs of life from upstairs. If Magenta was in her flat above him she was motionless, perhaps waiting for him to move first.

  He hurried upstairs and stood outside Whistler’s door. For a second he had a sudden flush of doubt. What if the man in the park had not been Whistler? But Cain was certain. It was too much of a coincidence for it to have not been Whistler. He would not let false doubts derail him now. He listened at the door, holding his breath, waiting there for a full minute. There were no sounds at all from inside; no music, no cautious footsteps.

  Cain tried the handle, but the door was locked. He held the handle down, nudged at the door with his shoulder, and heard the frame creak. It did not sound very strong, but breaking in was not the right thing to do. Whistler had done nothing to him—none of them had, not really—and there was no justification for smashing his way into the man’s flat, invading his privacy, doing something that Cain would hate having done to himself.

  Those doubts again, assaulting his confidence.

  Still, Cain turned the handle again, worked it back and forth, then listened at the door. No response from inside.

  If only he could get in . . .

  Cain had seen lots of films and read lots of books at Afresh, finding early on that his preference was for the fantastic. He had lived impossibilities, and now he wanted to read of them as well. Many of his preconceptions of how life was on the outside came from his viewing and reading. Any single source would have been damaging; basing his understanding of life on, say, Something Wicked This Way Comes would not be the best way to adjust. But as a cumulative whole they not only presented him with a whole world, but made it as wide and varied as possible. And in that world, people sometimes did foolish things. Like leaving spare keys on the tops of door frames.

  Cain felt above Whistler’s door, and his fingers touched metal. He and the pan pipe player had obviously read some of the same books.

  Already he felt guilt, cold as the key in his palm. It stared up at him accusingly, daring him to use it, urging him not to. After all the bad that had been done to him, Cain had no wish to unload it on other people. Yet simply looking around the flat could not be harmful, could it?

  He felt alone in the house, and not only because it was deserted. Some people claimed that they would rather be hated than ignored, but for Cain anonymity would be preferable. At least that way he could still live his own life. Loneliness was something he was more than used to; being actively picked on was not.

  If entering Whistler’s flat gave him the upper hand in any way,
then it could not be a bad thing.

  It’s your life now, the Voice had said. Cain was terrified by that, but he agreed. And he had to protect himself.

  For some reason, slipping the key into the lock brought on a fear of the siren. Perhaps the thrill he was feeling at acting for himself was something his father would have abhorred. Pure Sight, the old man would have said, relies on purity of mind and soul. Cain was happy to sully himself.

  The door swung open and the siren remained absent. Glancing around the landing, checking that no one had witnessed his crime, Cain moved inside Whistler’s flat and shut the door behind him.

  Wherever he had been, he had always belonged there. His father’s house had been maintained to keep Cain within its walls, for whatever nefarious reasons. Afresh was not only a home, it was a secure unit, dedicated to treating Cain and holding him within its grasp. Here, in a stranger’s flat, he had stepped outside the realms of his own existence and entered someone else’s world.

  Everything was different, and for a minute he was overwhelmed by the rush of sensory input, remembering the siren again, the agony in his head and the anger in his heart. There was a heavy smell of herbs permeating the flat, warm and fresh and complex. The carpet was pink, the walls a luxurious green, the paint so textured that it looked like felt lining the hallway. Pictures hung at dozens of random locations on the walls, all seemingly chosen at random; landscapes, impressionist art, portraits, technical detailing, abstracts, flowers, animals, nudes, sex images, pictures verging on pornography, religious iconography, and more. Walking along the hall felt like taking a dozen journeys, and in the end Cain closed his eyes, breathing heavily and wishing he were back in his flat. There at least familiarity would keep him calm.

  Whistler’s living room was such a startling contrast that the plain white walls, carpet, and monotone furniture hit Cain just as hard. It felt so empty, so soulless that he almost backed straight out, preferring the intensity of the hallway over such a sensation of nothing. But then he noticed the glassfronted bookcase in the corner filled with red-spined tomes, and he went to investigate. The doors were unlocked, and Cain opened one leaf to read the book titles. He was not sure what to expect; he had barely spoken to Whistler, and hearing his music so briefly could communicate nothing of the man’s intellect. But judging by the explosion of style in the hallway, he guessed that the books would cover a multitude of subjects, both factual and fictional. What he had not expected was that each one had been written by Whistler himself.

  There were more than a hundred books in the bookcase, all of them titled My Philosophy. They were numbered 1 to 113 and shelved in exact numerical order. Each book was identical save for the number, and they all looked new and untouched. Perhaps they were empty and awaiting inspiration. Or perhaps that emptiness itself was Whistler’s statement.

  Cain rested his fingertips on Volume 23, felt the soft coolness of real leather, closed his eyes, and enjoyed the sensation. He did not know what he should not, and he was glad. The siren remained silent, and he was grateful for that also. The idea of his father’s face hovered into view in his mind’s eye—he had never been able to remember the old man’s true features, not exactly—but Cain was not afraid. He tried to make his father smile, but it was not a memory he was certain of, so the expression broke up and fled into the dark.

  He opened his eyes, shook his head, and closed the bookcase door. He could not intrude this much. He had his own life to make, and part of the foundation for that was a determination to be a good person. Not like his father. If Cain ever had children, he wanted them to look at him and believe that he was good.

  He glanced into the kitchen. There were vegetables hanging from hooks, colorful crockery from a dozen exotic locations, framed photographs on the walls showing animals in varying stages of slaughter, from alive and breathing, to butchered and chopped. A pig’s head sat on the draining board, a trail of black blood still leaking slowly into the sink. Cain stared at its eyes, but their glitter remained still, their insides dull. That he had expected more disturbed him greatly, and he turned and hurried back through the living room and into the hallway.

  Cain had learned that Whistler was as different to him as he was to Sister Josephine. They were all different, and perhaps everyone was this different. Not just those in this building, but the others in the street, the district, the city, the country. His reading had conveyed so much, but as the Face had told him, there was no substitute for real life. Maybe every book he read could not even begin to touch on the wonders of existence. Perhaps the world was much larger and more diverse than he could possibly imagine. His imagination had, after all, been held prisoner until he was a teenager.

  “Fuck you, Dad,” he said quietly, meaning it, and his anger boiled up in a way he had never experienced before. He should not be scared of Whistler, but his father had hobbled his development so much that all he could feel was suspicion and fear. He should not be worried about the way Sister Josephine had manipulated him, but he had no idea who she was, where she came from, or what she meant. If it were not for his father, at least he would have some idea, some experience or knowledge that could perhaps help him to understand the nun, at least a little. She was no more to him than a character in the books he had been reading since his teens; almost beyond belief. He could still not see her as a person. “Fuck you, and the Pure Sight you so wanted to give me. So where is it? Does it help me now? Can it make me see my way?” Old fool, he thought. But already he had said too much.

  Sometimes Cain’s mind played tricks on him and he thought he was actually back at the house.

  His father is still alive, Cain is in the room, his mind is ruled by the siren, and his life at Afresh and now beyond is a dream given to him by his father. Dream yourself to Pure Sight, the old man says. And in this strange dream of freedom Cain meets people he can never know, and they show him things that can never be. His father watches him, ready for the moment when his son’s Pure Sight will at last be revealed.

  Chapter Six

  Follower

  He was about to leave the flat when he saw an extra door in the hallway. Cain had one bedroom, Whistler seemed to have two, and the door to the second was closed, bearing a sign reading, “The Followers.”

  There’s only bad in there, Cain thought. But he was not sure whether it was something he should not know, or perhaps simply fear.

  The door was not locked. If the room contained secrets it should have been, but that was no justification for Cain to open the door. He did so anyway, stepping back in surprise at the smell that wafted out. It was the stink of age: must and mold, dust and old, old ideas. It seemed to subdue the colors in the hallway, as if an obfuscating gas had escaped from the Followers’ room. Maybe it was Whistler’s dressing room? He was not a modern dresser for sure, and the aroma of age and mothballs seemed to fit this image. But that idea seemed not to fit. This smell was more important that that; it held more weight than thoughts of which trousers or jacket to wear. It could have been the stench of an ancient tomb, broken open for the first time in centuries and laden with the timeless musings of the lonesome dead. Smells like that would surely carry a curse.

  The bad smell should have discouraged Cain from going any further. And on its own, it would have. But Cain had other senses, and though he heard nothing, he saw a thin slice of what was in the room. And though he tasted nothing but dust, he felt the power of that place drawing him in. It did not feel dangerous—it was too impersonal for that, too remote—but it did feel daring. Through the slightly open door he saw a line of shelves, and he gasped at what they contained. Animals, all of them stuffed, mounted on plinths or backboards. He nudged the door a little wider and revealed more of the same. There were several squirrels in a woodland tableau, though Cain had never heard of squirrels grouping together like this before. Two badgers sniffed at the muzzles of dogs—a Labrador, and another breed confused by bad taxidermy—instead of snarling at them. Birds posed in midair, courtesy of stiff wir
es and blocks of wood.

  If these are the Followers, who were they following? Cain thought. He remembered what he had seen in the park, and shook his head. That was just too weird.

  The room was divided by at least two high bookcases, staggered to form partitions that created a route through turning left, right, left again. There must have been a window at the other end, but as yet it was hidden from view. The smell was still there, and now that he knew where it came from—dusty pelts, dried skins—it was even more repellent. He wanted to go, leave this sickness behind, and he actually took a step back. But a tail protruded around the first corner in the room, bushy and red. Cain had only ever seen a fox in books.

  He rounded the corner and the fox was eating a chicken, the frozen grasp of its jaws matched in detail by the crepe-paper gush of blood from the chicken’s ruptured neck. Here at least was a realistic depiction. And yet on a shelf above the fox a rat toyed with a legless cat, the rodent’s paw stretched out as if dealing a never-ending coup de grâce.

  The most disquieting thing about the displays was not the lack of movement but the utter silence. Everywhere he looked there were animals running, fighting, cowering, sleeping, or fucking—two field mice had been truly mounted after stuffing—and yet the room was totally quiet. It was so unnatural that Cain made noise on purpose, pulling his feet across the carpet, coughing, making sure that he was not alone in here with the stillness. He drove the silence out. And when he realized that he had started humming the unidentified tune from his dreams, he turned to leave.

  He expected a shadow to be waiting behind him, but there was only the fox and chicken.

  What all this meant, he could not begin to understand. An innocent hobby of taxidermy, perhaps, but it felt so much more than that. There was no care over how the animals were represented, for a start. These were not considered studies of the creatures in their natural habitats, but creations for Whistler’s own entertainment. Why else would the badgers be sniffing at the friendly dogs, the rat fighting the cat?