Books of Blood: Volumes 1-6

by Clive Barker

  "My God Almighty," he murmured. "Billy…"

  He turned away from the wall. In the sand at his feet lizards were mating; the wind that found its way into this backwater brought butterflies. As he watched them dance, the bell rang in B Wing, and it was morning.

  It was a trap. Its mechanism was by no means clear to Cleve – but he had no doubt of its purpose. Billy would go to the city; soon. The cell in which he had committed murder already awaited him, and of all the wretched places Cleve had seen in that assemblage of charnel-houses surely the tiny, blood-drenched cell was the worst. The boy could not know what was planned for him; his grandfather had lied about the city by exclusion, failing to tell Billy what special qualifications were required to exist there. And why? Cleve returned to the oblique conversation he'd had with the man in the kitchen. That talk of exchanges, of deal-making, of going back. Edgar Tait had regretted his sins, hadn't he?; he'd decided, as the years passed, that he was not the Devil's excrement, that to be returned into the world would not be so bad an idea. Billy was somehow an instrument in that return. "My grandfather doesn't like you," the boy said, when they were locked up again after lunch. For the second consecutive day all recreation and workshop activities had been cancelled, while a cell-by-cell enquiry was undertaken regarding Lowell, and – as of the early hours of that day – Nayler's deaths.

  "Does he not?" Cleve said. "And why?"

  "Says you're too inquisitive. In the city."

  Cleve was sitting on the top bunk; Billy on the chair against the opposite wall. The boy's eyes were bloodshot; a small, but constant, tremor had taken over his body.

  "You're going to die," Cleve said. What other way to state that fact was there, but baldly? "I saw… in the city…" Billy shook his head. "Sometimes you talk like a crazy man. My grandfather says I shouldn't trust you." "He's afraid of me, that's why."

  Billy laughed derisively. It was an ugly sound, learned, Cleve guessed, from Grandfather Tait. "He's afraid of no one," Billy retorted.

  " – afraid of what I'll see. Of what I'll tell you."

  "No," said the boy, with absolute conviction.

  "He told you to kill Lowell, didn't he?"

  Billy's head jerked up. "Why'd you say that?"

  "You never wanted to murder him. Maybe scare them both a bit; but not kill them. It was your loving grandfather's idea."

  "Nobody tells me what to do," Billy replied; his gaze was icy. "Nobody."

  "All right," Cleve conceded, “maybe he persuaded you, eh?; told you it was a matter of family pride. Something like that?" The observation clearly touched a nerve; the tremors had increased.

  "So? What if he did?"

  "I've seen where you're going to go, Billy. A place just waiting for you…" The boy stared at Cleve, but didn't make to interrupt. "Only murderers occupy the city, Billy. That's why your grandfather's there. And if he can find a replacement – if he can reach out and make more murder – he can go free."

  Billy stood up, face like a fury. All trace of derision had gone. "What do you mean: free?"

  "Back to the world. Back here."

  "You're lying -”

  "Ask him."

  "He wouldn't cheat me. His blood's my blood."

  "You think he cares? After fifty years in that place, waiting for a chance to be out and away. You think he gives a damn how he does it?"

  "I'll tell him how you lie…" Billy said. The anger was not entirely directed at Cleve; there was an undercurrent of doubt there, which Billy was trying to suppress. "You're dead," he said, “when he finds out how you're trying to poison me against him. You'll see him, then. Oh yes. You'll see him. And you'll wish to Christ you hadn't."

  There seemed to be no way out. Even if Cleve could convince the authorities to move him before night fell – (a slim chance indeed; he would have to reverse all that he had claimed about the boy – tell them Billy was dangerously insane, or something similar. Certainly not the truth.) – even if he were to have himself transferred to another cell, there was no promise of safety in such a maneuver. The boy had said he was smoke and shadow. Neither door nor bars could keep such insinuations at bay; the fate of Lowell and Nayler was proof positive of that. Nor was Billy alone. There was Edgar St Clair Tait to be accounted for; and what powers might he possess? Yet to stay in the same cell with the boy tonight would amount to self-slaughter, wouldn't it? He would be delivering himself into the hands of the beasts.

  When they left their cells for the evening meal, Cleve looked around for Devlin, located him, and asked for the opportunity of a short interview, which was granted. After the meal, Cleve reported to the officer. "You asked me to keep an eye on Billy Tait, sir."

  "What about him?"

  Cleve had thought hard about what he might tell Devlin that would bring an immediate transfer: nothing had come to mind. He stumbled, hoping for inspiration, but was empty-mouthed.

  "I… I… want to put in a request for a cell transfer."

  "Why?"

  The boy's unbalanced," Cleve replied. "I'm afraid he's going to do me harm. Have another of his fits -” "You could lay him flat with one hand tied behind your back; he's worn to the bone." At this point, had he been talking to Mayflower, Cleve might have been able to make a direct appeal to the man. With Devlin such tactics would be doomed from the beginning.

  "I don't know why you're complaining. He's been as good as gold," said Devlin, savouring the parody of fond father. "Quiet; always polite. He's no danger to you or anyone."

  "You don't know him -”

  "What are you trying to pull here?"

  Put me in a Rule 43 cell, sir. Anywhere, I don't mind. Just get me out of his way. Please."

  Devlin didn't reply, but stared at Cleve, mystified. At last, he said, "You are scared of him."

  "Yes."

  "What's wrong with you? You've shared cells with hard men and never turned a hair."

  "He's different," Cleve replied; there was little else he could say, except: "He's insane. I tell you he's insane." "All the world's crazy, save thee and me, Smith. Hadn't you heard?" Devlin laughed. "Go back to your cell and stop belly-aching. You don't want a ghost train ride, now do you?"

  When Cleve returned to the cell, Billy was writing a letter. Sitting on his bunk, poring over the paper, he looked utterly vulnerable. What Devlin had said was true: the boy was worn to the bone. It was difficult to believe, looking at the ladder of his vertebrae, visible through his T-shirt, that this frail form could survive the throes of transformation. But then, maybe it would not. Maybe the rigours of change would tear him apart with time. But not soon enough.

  "Billy…"

  The boy didn't take his eyes from his letter.

  "… what I said, about the city…"

  He stopped writing '… maybe I was imagining it all. Just dreaming…"

  –and started again.

  "… I only told you because I was afraid for you. That was all. I want us to be friends…"

  Billy looked up.

  "It's not in my hands," he said, very simply. "Not now. It's up to Grandfather. He may be merciful; he may not." "Why do you have to tell him?"

  "He knows what's in me. He and I… we're like one. That's how I know he wouldn't cheat me." Soon it would be night; the lights would go out along the wing, the shadows would come.

  "So I just have to wait, do I?" Cleve said.

  Billy nodded. "I'll call him, and then we'll see."

  Call him?, Cleve thought. Did the old man need summoning from his resting place every night? Was that what he had seen Billy doing, standing in the middle of the cell, eyes closed and face up to the window? If so, perhaps the boy could be prevented from putting in his call to the dead.

  As the evening deepened Cleve lay on his bunk and thought his options through. Was it better to wait here, and see what judgement came from Tait, or attempt to take control of the situation and block the old man's arrival? If he did so, there would be no going back; no room for pleas or apologies: his aggression
would undoubtedly breed aggression. If he failed to prevent the boy from calling Tait, it would be the end.

  The lights went out. In cells up and down the five landings of B Wing men would be turning their faces to their pillows. Some, perhaps, would lie awake planning their careers when this minor hiccup in their professional lives was over; others would be in the arms of invisible mistresses. Cleve listened to the sounds of the cell: the rattling progress of water in the pipes, the shallow breathing from the bunk below. Sometimes it seemed that he had lived a second lifetime on this stale pillow, marooned in darkness.

  The breathing from below soon became practically inaudible; nor was there sound of movement. Perhaps Billy was waiting for Cleve to fall asleep before he made any move. If so, the boy would wait in vain. He would not close his eyes and leave them to slaughter him in his sleep. He wasn't a pig, to be taken uncomplaining to the knife. Moving as cautiously as possible, so as to arouse no suspicion, Cleve unbuckled his belt and pulled it through the loops of his trousers. He might make a more adequate binding by tearing up his sheet and pillowcase, but he could not do so without arousing Billy's attention. Now he waited, belt in hand, and pretended sleep. Tonight he was grateful that the noise in the Wing kept stirring him from dozing, because it was fully two hours before Billy moved out of his bunk, two hours in which – despite his fear of what would happen should he sleep Cleve's eyelids betrayed him on three or four occasions. But others on the landings were tearful tonight; the deaths of Lovell and Nayler had made even the toughest cons jittery. Shouts – and counter calls from those woken – punctuated the hours. Despite the fatigue in his limbs, sleep did not master him.

  When Billy finally go up from the lower bunk it was well past twelve, and the landing was all but quiet. Cleve could hear the boy's breath; it was no longer even, but had a catch in it. He watched, eyes like slits, as Billy crossed the cell to his familiar place in front of the window. There was no doubt that he was about to call up the old man. As Billy closed his eyes, Cleve sat up, threw off his blanket and slipped down from the bunk. The boy was slow to respond. Before he quite comprehended what was happening, Cleve had crossed the cell, and thrust him back against the wall, hand clamped over Billy's mouth.

  "No, you don't," he hissed, "I'm not going to go like Lowell." Billy struggled, but Cleve was easily his physical superior.

  "He's not going to come tonight," Cleve said, staring into the boy's wide eyes, “because you're not going to call him."

  Billy fought more violently to be free, biting hard against his captor's palm. Cleve instinctively removed his hand and in two strides the boy was at the window, reaching up. In his throat, a strange half-song; on his face, sudden and inexplicable tears. Cleve dragged him away.

  "Shut your noise up!" he snapped. But the boy continued to make the sound. Cleve hit him, open-handed but hard, across the face. "Shut up!" he said. Still the boy refused to cease his singing; now the music had taken on another rhythm. Again, Cleve hit him; and again. But the assault failed to silence him. There was a whisper of change in the air of the cell; a shifting in its chiaroscuro. The shadows were moving.

  Panic took Cleve. Without warning he made a fist and punched the boy hard in the stomach. As Billy doubled up an upper-cut caught his jaw. It drove his head back against the wall, his skull connecting with the brick. Billy's legs gave, and he collapsed. A featherweight, Cleve had once thought, and it was true. Two good punches and the boy was laid out cold.

  Cleve glanced round the cell. The movement in the shadows had been arrested; they trembled though, like greyhounds awaiting release. Heart hammering, he carried Billy back to his bunk, and laid him down. There was no sign of consciousness returning; the boy lay limply on the mattress while Cleve tore up his sheet, and gagged him, thrusting a ball of fabric into the boy's mouth to prevent him making a sound behind his gag. He then preceded to tie Billy to the bunk, using both his own belt and the boy's, supplemented with further makeshift bindings of torn sheets. It took several minutes to finish the job. As Cleve was lashing the boy's legs together, he began to stir. His eyes flickered open, full of puzzlement. Then, realizing his situation, he began to thrash his head from side to side; there was little else he could do to signal his protest.

  "No, Billy," Cleve murmured to him, throwing a blanket across his bound body to keep the fact from any officer who might look in through the spy-hole before morning, "Tonight, you don't bring him. Everything I said was true, boy. He wants out; and he's using you to escape." Cleve took hold of Billy's head, fingers pressed against his cheeks. "He's not your friend. / am. Always have been." Billy tried to shake his head from Cleve's grip, but couldn't. "Don't waste your energy," Cleve advised, “it's going to be a long night."

  He left the boy on the bunk, crossed the cell to the wall, and slid down it to sit on his haunches and watch. He would stay awake until dawn, and then, when there was some light to think by, he'd work out his next move. For now, he was content that his crude tactics had worked.

  The boy had stopped trying to fight; he had clearly realised the bonds were too expertly tied to be loosened. A kind of calm descended on the cell: Cleve sitting in the patch of light that fell through the window, the boy lying in the gloom of the lower bunk, breathing steadily through his nostrils. Cleve glanced at his watch. It was twelve-fifty-four. When was morning? He didn't know. Five hours, at least. He put his head back, and stared at the light. It mesmerised him. The minutes ticked by slowly but steadily, and the light did not change. Sometimes an officer would advance along the landing, and Billy, hearing the footsteps, would begin his struggling afresh. But nobody looked into the cell. The two prisoners were left to their thoughts; Cleve to wonder if there would ever come a time when he could be free of the shadow behind him, Billy to think whatever thoughts came to bound monsters. And still the dead-of-night minutes went, minutes that crept across the mind like dutiful schoolchildren, one upon the heels of the next, and after sixty had passed that sum was called an hour. And dawn was closer by that span, wasn't it? But then so was death, and so, presumably, the end of the world: that glorious Last Trump of which The Bishop had spoken so fondly, when the dead men under the lawn outside would rise as fresh as yesterday's bread and go out to meet their Maker. And sitting there against the wall, listening to Billy's inhalations and exhalations, and watching the light in the glass and through the glass, Cleve knew without doubt that even if he escaped this trap, it was only a temporary respite; that this long night, its minutes, its hours, were a foretaste of a longer vigil. He almost despaired then; felt his soul sink into a hole from which there seemed to be no hope of retrieval. Here was the real world, he wept. Not joy, not light, not looking forward; only this waiting in ignorance, without hope, even of fear, for fear came only to those with dreams to lose. The hole was deep and dim. He peered up out of it at the light through the window, and his thoughts became one wretched round. He forgot the bunk and the boy lying there. He forgot the numbness that had overtaken his legs. He might, given time, have forgotten even the simple act of taking breath, but for the smell of urine that pricked him from his fugue.

  He looked towards the bunk. The boy was voiding his bladder; but that act was simply a symptom of something else altogether. Beneath the blanket, Billy's body was moving in a dozen ways that his bonds should have prevented. It took Cleve a few moments to shake off lethargy, and seconds more to realize what was happening. Billy was changing.

  Cleve tried to stand upright, but his lower limbs were dead from sitting so still for so long. He almost fell forward across the cell, and only prevented himself by throwing out an arm to grasp the chair. His eyes were glued to the gloom of the lower bunk. The movements were increasing in scale and complexity. The blanket was pitched off. Beneath it Billy's body was already beyond recognition; the same terrible procedure as he had seen before, but in reverse. Matter gathering in buzzing clouds about the body, and congealing into atrocious forms. Limbs and organs summoned from the ineffable, teeth shaping the
mselves like needles and plunging into place in a head grown large and swelling still. He begged for Billy to stop, but with every drawn breath there was less of humanity to appeal to. The strength the boy had lacked was granted to the beast; it had already broken almost all its constraints, and now, as Cleve watched, it struggled free of the last, and rolled off the bunk onto the floor of the cell.

  Cleve backed off towards the door, his eyes scanning Billy's mutated form. He remembered his mother's horror at earwigs and saw something of that insect in this anatomy: the way it bent its shiny back upon itself, exposing the paddling intracies that lined its abdomen. Elsewhere, no analogy offered a hold on the sight. Its head was rife with tongues, that licked its eyes clean in place of lids, and ran back and forth across its teeth, wetting and re-wetting them constantly; from seeping holes along its flanks came a sewer stench. Yet even now there was a residue of something human trapped in this foulness, its rumour only serving to heighten the filth of the whole. Seeing its hooks and its spines Cleve remembered Lowell's rising scream; and felt his own throat pulse, ready to loose a sound its equal should the beast turn on him.

  But Billy had other intentions. He moved – limbs in horrible array – to the window, and clambered up, pressing his head against the glass like a leech. The music he made was not like his previous song – but Cleve had no doubt it was the same summoning. He turned to the door, and began to beat upon it, hoping that Billy would be too distracted with his call to turn on him before assistance came.

  "Quickly! For Christ's sake! Quickly!" He yelled as loudly exhaustion would allow, and glanced over his shoulder once to see if Billy was coming for him. He was not; he was still clamped to the window, though his call had all but faltered. Its purpose was achieved. Darkness was tyrant in the cell.

  Panicking, Cleve turned back to the door and renewed his tattoo. There was somebody running along the landing now; he could hear shouts and imprecations from other cells. "Jesus Christ, help me!" he shouted. He could feel a chill at his back. He didn't need to turn to know what was happening behind him. The shadow growing, the wall dissolving so that the city and its occupant could come through. Tait was here. He could feel the man's presence, vast and dark. Tait the child-killer, Tait the shadow-thing, Tait the transformer. Cleve beat on the door 'til his hands bled. The feet seemed a continent away. Were they coming? Were they coming?