Spanky

by Christopher Fowler

  The last remaining ties had now been severed. I was free to come and go as I pleased. Free to face a daemon. Next, I called the hotel where my parents were staying, but the receptionist informed me that they had checked out an hour or so earlier. I tried the house and Laura answered.

  ‘The place isn’t ready to move back into,’ she explained, ‘but the hotel wouldn’t accept your credit anymore. The management were very nice about it. Mum offered to put the bill on their joint card, but you know what Dad’s like, he doesn’t understand hotels. I tried to call you earlier, but your phone was out of order.’

  I asked how she was doing.

  Laura insisted that she was coping well, but hadn’t been sleeping much. She still wasn’t prepared to go to the police, or see a therapist. There was a resolution in her voice that I had never heard before. She said she would make an appointment with her doctor, but only because he wanted her to have a medical after experiencing such dramatic weight loss.

  I told Laura that whatever happened, I would find her attacker and take care of him.

  ‘Let it go, Martyn. That’s what I’m going to do. There’s been enough pain in this family.’

  ‘I can’t,’ I replied. ‘If I don’t do something, he’s never going to go away. Do you need anything?’

  ‘No, I think we’re okay for now. The electricity’s back on. Mum’s been moaning about the amount of cleaning she’s got to do, but I can see she’s secretly thrilled at the prospect. Dad’s gone to have an argument with the gas board. I guess some things never change. Martyn—’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘He’s not going to come back here, is he?’

  ‘No, he’s not.’

  ‘Promise me that. I don’t know how you’re involved with him and I don’t want to know. But promise me he won’t hurt us.’

  ‘I promise, Laura.’

  My duel with Spanky was escalating into a war. As long as I stayed away from the family, it was safe. The daemon could not afford to stray far from me over the next few days.

  I promised to keep in touch until I could get my telephone repaired, and agreed to call again tomorrow. Then I went to visit Zack. I didn’t want to involve him, but I still had to return Debbie’s Fiat. Besides, I still felt sure that something Zack had read or heard could help me survive until Wednesday.

  Debbie answered the door.

  She looked tired—she always looked tired—but healthy. Her figure had blossomed with the burden of the child she held within her. ‘I’m glad to see you,’ she said, hugging me. ‘He’s been impossible lately, up at all hours with his books, leaving bits of paper all over the place—and he shouts at me if I move any of it. What have you two been up to?’

  ‘Nothing,’ I assured her. ‘Let me speak to him, will you?’

  ‘He’s in his bedroom.’ She gestured along the passageway. ‘Go on through.’

  Zack looked even crazier than usual. It was impossible to imagine when he’d last washed his hair, and his old green sweater was matted with balls of dust, as though he’d been crawling about under the bed.

  ‘Martyn, I’ve been trying to call you,’ he said, pulling me into the room and closing the door. ‘What’s wrong with your phone?’

  ‘Spanky tore it out.’

  I proceeded to explain what had happened since we last met. He listened with barely contained impatience, occasionally nodding or shaking his head sharply. As soon as I had finished, he pulled open the drawer of his desk and removed a file of pages torn from books and magazines.

  ‘I’ve been doing a lot of reading, Martyn. You’re not the only one. Several other cases like yours have been reported around the world in the last three years, but the mainstream press dismisses them. And there’ll be more and more, wait and see. We’re approaching the Apocalypse, 1999, the fulfilment of the Nostradamus prophecy. And when that happens, daemons will take the place of man. They’re proliferating all around us, making themselves known to the human race, preparing for power.’

  I let him speak, unable to decide how much of his cosmic theorising I could handle tonight. Zack could talk the most liberal thinker out of believing. He spoke with the energy and passion of a true zealot, but came over as a nutcase.

  ‘They operate from within, Martyn. Do you see? That’s why we never have proof of their existence.’

  ‘I’m not sure I understand you.’

  ‘They exist through human imagination, and the power of suggestion. We, us, humans’—he thumped his chest—‘are subconsciously getting in touch with our Old Selves, our former Pagan lives. Lovecraft was right. We’re bringing back the old gods, man, drawing them out from our own bodies.’

  ‘You’re saying Spanky has always been a part of me?’

  ‘Of course he has! He’s your other self, your Mr Hyde, your Dorian Gray.’

  ‘Where’s yours, then?’

  ‘I don’t know, man. Buried too deep, I guess. Spanky can’t hurt you, because if he does he’ll hurt himself. Man and daemon are one and the same.’

  ‘If that’s true, the only way to get rid of him would be to commit suicide.’

  ‘Isn’t that why people kill themselves? To be rid of their personal daemons? The voices in their heads that whisper to them, encouraging them to go out and do harm?’

  ‘Thanks, Zack. I really needed to come around here and be told to bump myself off. I tried to kill someone this morning. I’m going mad trying to figure out what’s real and what’s an illusion, and all you can suggest is a handful of fucking sleeping tablets.’

  ‘You’re shouting, man. Debbie’s in the next room.’

  ‘I’m sorry. I’m very shaken up. Something very—confusing—is happening to my sanity, and I have to find a way to stop him before it disappears completely, you understand? I mean, how can I prove that it’s not just me, that I’m not simply going round the fucking twist?’

  ‘I’m trying to help you.’ Zack’s tone grew sullen. ‘I’ve never done anything practical in this field.’

  I apologized. And I heard him out. I had nothing else to do.

  ‘Listen to me, a daemon can’t exist without its host. That’s what all the books say. He’s an extension of your own id, and whether you meant to or not, you conjured him up yourself.’

  ‘How?’ I asked, trying to stay calm. ‘Why the hell would I do that?’

  ‘Maybe your subconscious is more fully developed. Why can some people see better than others? We all have differing abilities.’

  ‘That means I’m a murderer. I killed Paul and Max and set the store on fire.’

  ‘No, you only brought Spanky into being, like others before you. This woman who blinded herself, she called to him, and so did a thousand other people before her. Daemons appear to humans and lie to them, telling them whatever they want to hear.’

  ‘To find new hosts?’

  ‘I suppose so.’ He rummaged around in the cuttings. ‘These things only tell you so much.’

  ‘What if I contact the people who write this stuff? They’d know, wouldn’t they?’

  ‘It’s possible.’

  ‘I mean, there must be a way of returning him to wherever the hell he came from.’

  I picked up an issue of Fortean Times and began searching through the bylines. Soon I had a couple of names but no telephone numbers. I rang the magazine’s offices, but they were understandably reluctant to give out the addresses of their contributors to someone who must have sounded like a raving madman.

  ‘Wait,’ said Zack, ‘I’ve got a contact number for you somewhere. Hang on.’ He dug through the stacks of newsprint on his desk and found a slip of paper. ‘A lot of these articles quote the same reference sources, and one name rang a bell. Do you remember Simone, the astrologer who used to come around here in the afternoons?’ I had a vague recollection of the drunk new age hippy chick I used to find passed out on the couch with her blouse over her head. By the way, he was always smeared with patchouli oil after her visits. I suspected she did more than just read his
charts.

  ‘Well, Simone goes drinking with this guy. She says he knows all kinds of esoteric stuff. She gave me his number, but said to call in the morning, before he goes up the pub.’ He handed me the paper. ‘It’s Notting Hill, if he still lives there. Why don’t you check him out?’

  Some recommendation. As clutchable straws went, this one felt pretty desperate. But it was clear to me that Zack wanted no further involvement beyond reading in his beloved reference books. I knew he was frightened. He’d finally made a commitment to his girlfriend. He owed it to her to stay out of trouble.

  I called the number and asked to talk to Mick. A soft, well-spoken voice replied that I was already speaking to him. I tried not to explain too much about my situation on the phone. I didn’t want to put him off.

  ‘I’ve been reading your articles on daemoniality,’ I explained, ‘but they don’t tell me what I need to know. I just want some advice.’

  ‘I was on my way out.’

  I looked at Zack’s mantelpiece clock. The pubs were open.

  ‘Look, you’re supposed to be an authority. What good is that if you’re not prepared to back up your position with practical help?’

  ‘You may well have a point there, but I’m really just a hack. You want a proper scholastic source.’

  ‘I don’t have time. This is urgent. I can be there in half an hour.’

  ‘I was going out,’ he persisted.

  ‘What’s your favourite beer?’

  He answered without missing a beat. ‘Theakston’s Old Peculier.’

  ‘I’ll pick some up on my way.’

  That did the trick. He threw in the towel and gave me his address. After all, I wondered how often he got the chance to meet a live subject. Seizing the moment I thanked Zack and left, then caught a train to Notting Hill.

  ‘Be careful, man,’ Zack called from his window. ‘Let me know how it goes.’

  Chapter 31

  Consultation

  At first I figured that whatever Mick Chantery did for a living, aside from writing occult articles, obviously paid well, because he lived in a large neo-Georgian house set back from the road in what looked like the most fashionable part of Notting Hill. Sealed behind a veil of rain, it was the kind of intimidating place you found in St John’s Wood or Hampstead Garden Suburb, and suggested that the owner was either a millionaire, a crook or both. Then he opened the door, and I revised my opinion.

  The inside of the building was a pigsty. Chantery was a slightly built man in his late forties, a time-frozen hippy of the Woodstock generation. He looked as if he’d experimented with too many chemicals for too many years, and walked with a stoop, as though permanently ducking through a low doorway. He examined me carefully before opening the door wide, presumably checking to see that he wasn’t admitting a lunatic.

  He appeared to be living alone in the house, which stank of damp and was filled with cats. They ran about on the mantelpieces and across sideboards covered in old magazines and newspapers, and appeared suddenly from behind sofas. I didn’t need a heightened sense of perception to get the full picture. Chantery was an upper-middle-class version of Zack with a few years added. The house was all he had left, and he would probably have sold that if the family had let him.

  From somewhere above came the steady drip of rainwater leaking in. No doubt Chantery was happier contacting the astral plane than a roofing merchant.

  ‘I hope you’re not allergic—’

  ‘Martyn Ross. No, I like them.’ I stepped over a pair of tortoiseshell kittens that were attacking each other.

  ‘They’re very sensitive to psychic presence, you know. Sometimes they’ll stare at a spot on the wall behind you, and you’ll swear they can see something you can’t.’

  I had always assumed cats did that because they were incredibly stupid. Chantery showed me to an uncomfortable-looking armchair and bade me sit. I shifted a pile of books and a McDonald’s carton containing an ancient half-eaten burger to the floor, and found another tiny, whining kitten beside my foot.

  ‘That’s the only trouble. They get everywhere. Toss him over there somewhere and his mother will come to fetch him. Then pass me one of those’—he indicated the cans I had brought—‘and tell me about your daemon.’ He used the pronunciation I had found in the book.

  Once again I found myself impatiently explaining everything that had happened. Telling other people about Spanky had so far failed to change anything at all. Chantery (who as far as I could tell had no aspirations to fame beyond writing the odd magazine article) listened intently, resting nicotine-stained fingers at his lips. I finished my story, and for a few moments neither of us spoke. Then he rose and searched through the vertical stacks of books that lay beneath the dining-room table.

  ‘I suppose you’d like some magic formula, some spell that would make this creature vanish,’ he said, returning with a single sheet of newspaper. ‘I’m afraid there isn’t one. You can’t exorcise something that doesn’t have corporeal form. I’ve heard of cases like yours before, but I’ve never managed to actually speak to a victim.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘They’ve always been dead before I could get to them.’ He peered closely at the cutting, searching for a particular paragraph. ‘Your friend was right to suggest that the daemon has become a part of you. You can’t exist without each other. Kill him and you kill yourself. There are four main entities, all male, corresponding roughly to the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. If you do manage to get rid of this one, you’ll probably get the other three coming after you. They’re a bit like the Inland Revenue. Once they’ve made you a target, they’ll stay on your case forever.’

  Just what I wanted to hear.

  Chantery hit me with a ton of convoluted new age psychology that I didn’t really grasp. I remember one thing he said, though.

  ‘The human form is a yin-yang balance of positive and negative attitude. The war between the two sides is a powerful one. Some people feel too much, and give up on life. That’s good for daemons. They’re attracted to a certain—blankness.’

  I asked him about himself.

  ‘I read,’ he said simply, tossing back his head and draining the can. ‘I’ve read every known book on daemoniality, but when I was finally ready to publish something of my own, the only imprint that would accept my book was the Weird and Wild Worlds series. Crackpot Corner.’

  There was something I had to ask. ‘Do you think I had a hand in killing Paul and setting fire to the store?’

  ‘No, that was the daemon. He wants you to blame yourself.’

  ‘There must be something you can do to help me,’ I asked, my desperation growing. Chantery was my last hope.

  ‘Why? We can’t cure madness. We can’t even find remedies for bodily ills. We haven’t begun to touch the mysteries of the psyche. The four spirit daemons search the world for receptive minds. When Spanky “taught” you to open up your senses, he was simply unlocking the gates to your inner self. You have to find a way of shutting him out. Trouble is, I don’t think there are any. The daemon can’t enter while your own identity is still intact. You can’t have one body with two wills, two minds. He needs you alive, undamaged—but without your self-control. So he’ll either send you mad, destroy your mind completely. Or drive you into such a state of desperation that you willingly invite him in. The latter is preferable, because he can keep you in a comatose state of compliance, feeding you pleasurable stimuli while he uses your physical form for his own purposes.’

  ‘What would those be?’

  ‘Any number of things. I suppose he could turn you into an assassin, a rapist, a child molester. Have you looked into this William Beaumont’s past?’

  ‘Enough to suspect that he murdered his own parents.’

  ‘There you are. Who knows what other acts he made his host perform? I don’t know what advice I can give you. It’s a tricky problem, because any psychologist will be delighted to tell you that possession is purely a mental state. But you
’ve seen and felt the physical effects. You know it’s real, and can harm others. You can’t even try an auto-suggestive ceremony; hypnosis would erase your memory of the daemon, but that would only aid him in the battle for your mind. He grows stronger the more you doubt yourself. The harder you try to get rid of him, the more tenacious and powerful he’ll become. Daemons dig in.’

  ‘Look at all these books, Mr Chantery.’ I indicated the uneven rows of leather-bound dissertations, paperback novels, newspapers, encyclopedias, dictionaries and document-holders that lined the far walls. ‘Surely there must be something in one of them that will help?’

  Chantery shrugged and opened another can of beer. ‘We can look,’ he said.

  So we looked.

  By six o’clock we were no better off, and Chantery was drunk.

  We had covered just two and a half shelves. I worked out that it would take over a week to go through every relevant volume.

  ‘Not like this in the movies, is it?’ said Chantery, shaking the beer cans until he found a full one. ‘There’s no cure for cancer. Why should there be a magic formula for anything else?’ He seated himself back in his chair and continued to drink. It was all right for him. He wasn’t about to die.

  ‘What the fuck should I do, then, kill myself?’ I cried, my panic heightened by my growing awareness of the changing atmosphere in the room.

  ‘You’re just talking to anyone who’ll listen about this, aren’t you?’ said a familiar voice.

  Spanky was standing beside Chantery with a small black kitten in his fist. He was wearing a T-shirt and shorts, and could have been mistaken for an ordinary jogger. Except that his back-spines were erect and sticking through his shirt.

  ‘First a shop-girl, then an airhead, and now a hippy witch-doctor. Why don’t you see if you can get it on the seven o’clock news? After the break, Martyn Ross possessed by devil.’ He squeezed his fingers tighter and the kitten started to yowl and twist about. Then it began to scream.

  Chantery looked up and shrank back in alarm.

  He could see something.