I thought I was going to be sick as it started to stump its way toward me, wincing with each step. My revulsion exceeded anything that had gone before.
I had failed everyone for whom I had an ounce of respect. Failed my family, my friends, myself. Pissed away my life, got suckered into greed and paid the price. When it came to sins, the fact that I warranted eternal damnation told me all I needed to know about the sheer scope of my deficiency.
As the Spanky-creature grimaced and wheezed a foot from my face, fighting to stay upright in the gale, I wondered if this was how it had been for others. A more ignominious end was impossible to imagine.
It reached out its arm-sticks, more naked than I could ever be, and I flinched back, but the bony digital stumps dug into my skin. My body started to heat and burn, and I looked down to see that it was already sliding into me.
The elbow of one arm was pressing into my corresponding limb, then its left leg was pricking and coruscating its way into mine. Although the merging process was excruciatingly sharp, the creature’s bones were soft and wet, like a salt-stung slug or an unprotected mollusc. The sensation was the most revolting I had ever felt.
Both of its legs were now inside my acicular limbs, sliding over my bones as if donning a pair of trousers. Its groin locked into place with mine, ribs cracking into position in pairs, starting with the lowest.
I could sense the thing’s spine and nervous system joining with mine, and for a moment I felt the wind buffeting my body with dual receptors, like out-of-phase stereo. One arm joined fully, the left.
I pulled the other back, moving it out of the way, fighting to keep it free.
The creature’s bony head, balanced on a skinny, too-flexible neck, was looming closer to mine, its sore lidless eyes staring covetously at my face. Within seconds our flesh would touch, my teeth joining with that bloodied bare mouth, eyes and sinuses and crania connecting as one. I was dreading the sensation of our brains joining.
I opened the fingers of my right hand and released the sprung blade of the penknife. I had taken it from the pocket of my jeans as I was folding them.
Without thought, and as fast as I could, as fast as our duality would allow, I raised my hand and stuck the knife hard into my own throat. For a second or two it didn’t hurt, then it began to sting and sear as I pulled it across my tensed larynx, opening the skin to release a broad, flattened spray of blood.
And the terrible pain punched in.
I began to cry out.
He was inside my dying body now.
His old carcass lay shed in rags on the grass. He would be left encased in a corpse. There was no one else in sight, and without a human host there was no way out. As the realization hit him and the screaming, writhing mass began to shift within me, I knew I hadn’t failed after all.
I fell as softly as I could.
I wanted to feel my life leaving, and his staying on behind.
I landed on my side in the long wet grass, to await my final disconnection from a world I had never really seen.
Chapter 40
Revenance
What is real, and what is not.
Differentiating between the states had been my problem before. Now it was impossible, and I remained in a smothering fugue of sounds and images, most of them unreal, all exaggerated. Lottie figured frequently, talking and joking with—of all people—my sister Laura.
Lottie and Laura. Gordon and Joyce.
Alternating brightness and dark.
Puzzling snatches of conversation.
The phrase ‘nothing to lose’ running around in my head, spoken by an elderly man.
Chemical smells, overpowering and sour. A high-pitched whine, first electronic, then mechanical. Extreme discomfort. Something lodged in my throat. I hawked and coughed, trying to clear the obstruction, but it would not budge. Horrific flashes of the peeled face beneath the trees, the bony, twisted limbs melting into mine.
Distant music, an off-key pianist practicing scales. A gentle surfacing, rising slowly to the top through the warm viscous liquid of sleep, and finally a view: a cream-painted wall and a reproduction painting, swans feeding on a dull green river.
‘Martyn.’
Lottie was sitting on an orange plastic chair with her hands folded in her lap, quietly watching. Her sandy hair was down, the fringe over her eyes, and she was wearing a black sweatshirt and jeans. She looked different, older and somehow more relaxed.
‘Don’t try to speak. There’s a tube in your throat.’
I couldn’t move my head, but it was possible to raise my right hand. The bones in my wrist ached. Everything did. I brought my fingers to my throat.
‘Don’t touch anything, Martyn. Just rest. I know what you want to ask. You’ve been here over a week.’
That wasn’t what I wanted to know.
What I wanted to know was, was it me?
Had I retained my own identity?
Was I alone?
I couldn’t think, and so I slept.
Later, the doctors confirmed the duration of my unconsciousness. They couldn’t risk having me awake and tearing up the delicate work that had been performed on my oesophagus.
Pushing my battered senses through my body, I found no sign of Spanky.
Nothing but me.
Another occasion, Lottie still in the chair.
‘I was there at the park, Martyn, watching you. I bet you’re surprised about that, but when you called me that morning—’
—I really did call her—
‘—and told me where you were, I knew what you were near. The park. You’d mentioned Regent’s Park before. Your favourite place. You used to go there with your parents. And it was where you’d first met him. The way you spoke on the phone, I knew where you were heading—’
—I hadn’t even known it myself—
I faded into sleep, realizing that she had listened to me, to the intention beneath my words, properly listened. The first person to do that in a very long time.
Daylight. Laura by the bed, guess who’s with her, my parents. Toothy smiles. ‘On the mend.’ ‘Doing well.’ ‘Looking good.’ Grapes. I’m on an IV diet and they bring grapes.
Then Lottie again, to continue her story.
‘When I found you in the park I wanted to run to you, but I had to understand what was going on. I couldn’t see him, but I knew he was there by your side, tormenting you. So I waited. You dashed off into the street and I couldn’t keep up. I lost you. I was sure you’d come to harm, get killed in the traffic. I was frightened I’d never find you again. I searched everywhere, went to your old flat, even returned to the burned-out store. I didn’t know where else to look, so finally I retraced my steps and ended up back at the park. I was worried out of my life.’
She reached forward and took my hand, stroking the backs of my fingers.
‘Martyn, you were quite alone, talking to the air everywhere you went, acting as if you could see someone next to you. At one point you had a kind of fight with yourself. I wanted to call an ambulance, but I had no idea where the nearest callbox was. Then—well.’ She looked down at her hands, thinking.
‘I knew you believed in what you saw. I wanted to believe it, too. And as I stood in the park watching, you undressed, and something crazy began to happen. Another figure appeared beside you. I couldn’t make it out clearly. It was like a little old man, covered in sores, all bent up and skinny, and it started to turn into you. I saw Spanky, Martyn. I saw him with my own eyes.’
I knew I was crying, but couldn’t help myself. I hung on to her fingers and let her image waver and dissolve before me.
‘I didn’t see you take out the knife, everything happened so quickly. I ran forward, calling to you. I tried to staunch the wound with my scarf. There was so much blood. Luckily, you didn’t do a very good job. I used to help Susan with her practicals, when she was training. I couldn’t remember much, but I managed to keep the cut closed. You were making strange sounds, angry grunts. I didn’t know
if it was you, or him. I shouted to someone, got help.’
I slept then, but whenever I awoke she was there.
Two days later the tube was removed, and I was allowed to sit up. I still couldn’t speak, and no one seemed to know if I ever would again.
Then I found out something extraordinary.
While I was riding in the ambulance with Lottie, my traumatized heart stopped beating. For nearly two minutes it ceased to pump and lay silent in my body before the medics managed to return it to life. I died and lived again, just as Spanky wished. But I had been reborn alone. His presence was nowhere to be felt. Two minutes had been long enough to kill the daemon, but not me. Perhaps the human body was stronger after all. The spirit supported and strengthened the flesh.
Lottie and Laura really had become friends. They met at my bedside and remained to describe the events of the day in great detail, knowing that my throat was still too damaged for me to reply.
When I was deemed well enough to vacate my hospital bed, I received another shock. I was not allowed to go home. Instead, I was to be released into the care of a psychiatric clinic, for a period of not less than two months.
I scoured the papers for details of Spanky’s attack at the shopping centre, but found nothing. Lottie had no idea what I was talking about. She went there for me, only to find the glass and marble halls undamaged.
Three weeks later I regained my voice, although now it sounded different, softer and deeper. The scar had been too severe to fully heal. I passed the time at the clinic denying Spanky’s existence and rationalizing my aberrant behaviour to my disappointed doctor, while writing up my actual experiences in a private journal. I hadn’t been able to find details of a modern daemonic case in any of Zack’s magazines. Now I was going to make damned sure that there was one on record. I was interviewed by the police, who were bothered by my appearance in a psychiatric ward, and longed to draw some positive conclusions. I made sure they left my room more confused than ever.
Lottie visited whenever she could. She found herself a job in a department store. The pay was lousy, but there wasn’t much else around. When my time was up I was released with the advice that I should live with my family, a prospect that appealed to none of us. Instead, I accepted Lottie’s invitation to stay with her for a few days, while I worked out my next move.
It was seven thirty in the morning, and I was walking through the misty drizzle in Regent’s Park. The mournful calls of the zoo animals could be heard behind the rain. I no longer slept very well, and had lain awake beside Lottie since four, so a walk seemed the best solution. The circumstances of my visit were very different this time. For a start, I was wearing some clothes.
I had been thinking. If Spanky was created from my bad side, surely I could draw on an equal amount of good within myself. I turned the idea over, wondering how much of the daemon’s residual power remained.
As I walked beneath the dripping plane trees, I thought back to those final days with Joey. He had lied to me, pretended that everything was fine when he knew he was dying. Sometimes you lie to kids to stop them from getting hurt. He’d thought he was making a quick exit, but he screwed up. Didn’t think I’d flip out and blow my exams.
His mistake, not mine.
I couldn’t keep conjuring up his memory anymore.
And I couldn’t stay with Lottie.
The police had started making connections. It was only a matter of time before they came for me again.
But something else was worrying me. There were two attendants in the ambulance. What if—somehow—the daemon had managed to enter one of them? So far I hadn’t been able to trace their identities.
I remembered Chantery describing Spanky as being like the Inland Revenue. On your case forever. Assuming that he had been obliterated, could I now await the arrival of his vengeful brethren?
Late that night I quietly left the flat in King’s Cross. I wrote a letter and placed it on the table beside her bed. In it I explained my reasons for leaving, and instructed her to tell my family nothing. I knew Laura would be hurt, but it was safer this way. Before I left the bedroom I watched her sleeping, breathing lightly, shifting her limbs across the pillows, lost in the farthest reaches of her dreams. It seemed amazing to me that within this placid form was an extraordinary power of conviction, enough to save my life and return my soul. I watched and thought: who knows how much strength we really possess? We’re more concerned with weaknesses.
It hurt to leave Lottie behind, but she was too important to me now. It was my turn to do some good. She needed to be protected.
Now I travel alone, stopping here and there, doing odd jobs for cash. I change my name, and sometimes my appearance. At the present time I am in the North. I have long hair and a scruffy beard. I recently spent my twenty-fifth birthday alone in a riggers’ bar ten miles beyond Aberdeen.
When I visit a new town, I look for people with whom I can share my experience. No one ever believes me.
I am ever vigilant for those other souls who walk alone, possessed by devils. I recognize them easily, and when I do, I am able to tell them what they must do to save themselves.
I tell them to act while they still have their own free will.
I explain what will happen if they don’t.
I am known to the police. I’ve been picked up a couple of times for harassment. I have a psychiatric record. I refuse to be branded a lunatic, a charlatan. But Spanky has left me with a bad habit—I talk to myself.
I spend my time alone. I read a lot. I study the Greeks. Homer describes a daemon as the active aspect of a god, a manifestation of divine power. Lottie mailed me the book I once stole from the library and wrapped in foil. In it the author suggests that daemons keep watch over all mankind, and perform the will of the gods through us. To the Romans they were signs of genius, and proof of the soul. To the Christians they were evil spirits, to be debased and banished to Pandemonium, the capital of hell.
But I believe the Greeks. To me a daemon is a guardian spirit, a djinn, a distillation of the self, the essence of one’s character.
And without it, I am something less than a man.
Sometimes, late at night, I walk to a public callbox at the end of a quiet country lane and ring Lottie. I listen to her waking in confusion, then relaxing as she recognizes my voice. She shifts upright in bed, gathers her thoughts and asks me if I’m keeping well.
I tell her yes, I’m fine. She doesn’t ask where I am, or where I am going. Often, I don’t know myself.
Then there’s a gap, a silence between us, and only the wind can be heard in the lines. In that silence, she tells me she knows of the hole left within me, the vast echoing dark emptiness that I must find a way to fill.
And if I do, and if I live—I’ll return to her, and no power on earth will ever make me let her go again.
I keep the memories of my past alive.
Remembering is easy.
There, at least, Spanky is always with me.
Especially for Kath, with much love
Acknowledgements
This novel is both a departure and a new direction for me, for which I thank intrepid guide Nann du Sautoy for leading the way and trusty Sherpa Andrew Wille for his excellent sign-posting, with en route map reading by Ann Hebden and that literary equivalent of the RAC, my agent Serafina Clarke. Jim Sturgeon gave helpful directions, and Richard Woolf made the journey easier. I’d also like to thank my international agent Jennifer Luithlen, and publicist Jane Warren. Love to everyone at Soho’s megaglamorous movie company The Creative Partnership, especially designer Martin Butterworth for his startling cover concept. The sexier ideas in this tale arose from a wild night out with the Dangerous Girls Club, Rebecca, Di and Jane, who ended the evening being carried down a nightclub fire escape in leopard-skin rabbit ears and handcuffs to which, naturally, we had lost the key. And they say research is the easiest part.
By Christopher Fowler
Spanky
Roofworld
Rune
Red Bride
Darkest Day
City Jitters
The Bureau of Lost Souls
Sharper Knives
Psychoville
Flesh Wounds
Disturbia
Red Gloves
Soho Black
Personal Demons
Calabash
Uncut
Paperboy: A Memoir
Film Freak
Peculiar Crimes Unit mysteries
Full Dark House
The Water Room
Seventy-Seven Clocks
Ten Second Staircase
White Corridor
The Victoria Vanishes
Bryant & May on the Loose
Bryant & May off the Rails
The Memory of Blood
The Invisible Code
Bryant & May and the Bleeding Heart
Bryant & May and the Burning Man
London’s Glory: The Lost Cases of Bryant & May and the Peculiar Crimes Unit
Bryant & May: Strange Tide
About the Author
Christopher Fowler is the acclaimed author of the award-winning Full Dark House and twelve other Peculiar Crimes Unit mysteries: The Water Room, Seventy-Seven Clocks, Ten Second Staircase, White Corridor, The Victoria Vanishes, Bryant & May on the Loose, Bryant & May off the Rails, The Memory of Blood, The Invisible Code, Bryant & May and the Bleeding Heart, Bryant & May and the Burning Man, and Bryant & May: Strange Tide. He lives in King’s Cross, London, where he is at work on his next Peculiar Crimes Unit novel.
christopherfowler.co.uk
Facebook.com/chrisfowlerauthor
Twitter: @Peculiar
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