by Kim Newman
In 1992, Phil, your stepfather, puts a £10 bet down on you becoming prime minister by 2010 and is given 500:1 odds. He lives to collect his £5,000.
You keep fighting. Surprisingly, you often win.
And so on.
Begin again?
275
Your foot satisfyingly swipes Hackwill’s head. You’ve remembered to point your toes and get some swing into it. His gloved hands open. He slithers down, hovers on the lip of the drop, then disappears into the river.
You stand up in triumph. James shouts something at you.
The wicked witch is dead! It’s over!
A rock thumps against your head. You pitch forward, senses jarred. Your face scrapes across rock as you follow Hackwill, plunging headfirst. You’re in the air, then in the water.
The icy cold is an all-over electric shock. You are too paralysed to struggle for breath.
Go to 0.
276
It eats at you from inside.
The sainthood of a Belgian.
Numbers on a card make him a martyr, and you? What is left for you?
You are down below £3 million, then below £2 million. Where is it all going?
You have a slight heart attack. You’re treated privately, of course, and offer to pay for a heart transplant.
If it were medically possible, you’d opt for a whole-body transplant. Maybe even a brain-wipe.
You’d like to wake up innocent. And rich.
You’re not so rich any more, though.
Maybe you can’t be innocent and rich.
You’re barely even a millionaire any more. Spiders are scuttling closer. What you have just isn’t enough, so you start playing the Lottery again.
And so on.
Begin again?
277
Go back to any earlier choice.
1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7 - 8 - 9 - 10 - 11 - 12 - 13 - 14 - 15 - 16 - 17 - 18 - 19 - 20 - 21 - 22 - 23 - 24 - 25 - 26 - 27 - 28 - 29 - 30 - 31 - 32 - 33 - 34 - 35 - 36 - 37 - 38 - 39 - 40 - 41 - 42 - 43 - 44 - 45 - 46 - 47 - 48 - 49 - 50 - 51 - 52 - 53 - 54 - 55 - 56 - 57 - 58 - 59 - 60 - 61 - 62 - 63 - 64 - 65 - 66 - 67 - 68 - 69 - 70 - 71 - 72 - 73 - 74 - 75 - 76 - 77 - 78 - 79 - 80 - 81 - 82 - 83 - 84 - 85 - 86 - 87 - 88 - 89 - 90 - 91 - 92 - 93 - 94 - 95 - 96 - 97 - 98 - 99 - 100 101 - 102 - 103 - 104 - 105 - 106 - 107 - 108 - 109 - 110 - 111 - 112 - 113 - 114 - 115 - 116 - 117 - 118 - 119 - 120 - 121 - 122 - 123 - 124 - 125 - 126 - 127 - 128 - 129 - 130 - 131 - 132 - 133 - 134 - 135 - 136 - 137 - 138 - 139 - 140 - 141 - 142 - 143 - 144 - 145 - 146 - 147 - 148 - 149 - 150 - 151 - 152 - 153 - 154 - 155 - 156 - 157 - 158 - 159 - 160 - 161 - 162 - 163 - 164 - 165 - 166 - 167 - 168 - 169 - 170 - 171 - 172 - 173 - 174 - 175 - 176 - 177 - 178 - 179 - 180 - 181 - 182 - 183 - 184 - 185 - 186 - 187 - 188 - 189 - 190 - 191 - 192 - 193 - 194 - 195 - 196 - 197 - 198 - 199 - 200 201 - 202 - 203 - 204 - 205 - 206 - 207 - 208 - 209 - 210 - 211 - 212 - 213 - 214 - 215 - 216 - 217 - 218 - 219 - 220 - 221 - 222 - 223 - 224 - 225 - 226 - 227 - 228 - 229 - 230 - 231 - 232 - 233 - 234 - 235 - 236 - 237 - 238 - 239 - 240 - 241 - 242 - 243 - 244 - 245 - 246 - 247 - 248 - 249 - 250 - 251 - 252 - 253 - 254 - 255 - 256 - 257 - 258 - 259 - 260 - 261 - 262 - 263 - 264 - 265 - 266 - 267 - 268 - 269 - 270 - 271 - 272 - 273 - 274 - 275 - 276
If all else fails, go back to 1.
You’ll be here again. You’ve probably been here before.
278
Twenty years later, your body gives out. A bottle of Jack a day, topped up with interesting prescription and non-prescription anti-depressants on the market in the new century, slowly assaults your liver and kidneys. Finally, you’re carried away in an epidemic of Beijing flu. You have moments of clarity towards the end but have too much complicated past to put together.
Thinking about it, you loved your mum and dad, and your brother and sister. And Christina, who married an academic. That’s something.
But you’re sorry.
Go to 0.
279
You can’t believe you seriously thought about murder. This whole week is supposed to be punishment, a lesson. What can a dead man learn? If Hackwill died, he’d be out of his misery.
Mary’s team, with James’s help, is way ahead.
Hackwill, slowed down especially by Jessup, fumes and frets. Tonight, he wants to be in the warm.
You certainly aren’t going to try anything with him. You also can’t believe you nearly got into bed with Kay Shearer.
This course is dragging things out of you. Things unthought.
You see the outcrop shudder as Hackwill grabs it, and know it’ll come free.
Roped to Hackwill are Shane, Warwick, Jessup and you. You try to shout but rain fills your mouth.
James, at the end of Mary’s roped-together team, turns to look.
The outcrop detaches itself from the wet cliff. Hackwill bends back at the waist. The weight of his head pulls him into the air.
If Shane hangs on tight, you’ll be saved. (It’s not your decision. After all this fussing, when a crisis comes, your life depends on Shane, on the Man From B.U.N.G.L.E.) Shane panics and makes a grab not for the rock but for Hackwill’s legs.
Warwick calls Shane a fuckhead. Hackwill and Shane fall, dragging Warwick and Jessup away. The weight of all four men snaps the rope round your waist as if with a guillotine blade. You’re dragged away from the face of the rock.
You see a sky full of rain as you fall.
Go to 0.
280
Hackwill snores lightly in the other bed. Mary is alone in the next room. The others are downstairs. Only Shane’s a danger and he’s slow. James can handle him easily and have enough left over for Jessup.
It’s down to you.
James has killed for this, cleared your way to Hackwill. You sit up in bed, quietly. You lower bare feet to cold floorboards.
You take your pillow and stand over Hackwill. Asleep, he’s like anyone else. The eyes you remember from the copse are closed. You hold your pillow over his face.
Can you do this?
If you can, go to 283. If you can’t, go to 295.
281
Christ, it’s cold. Being rich doesn’t keep you warm. No matter how many layers you buy, the cold still gets in, needles of ice scything through every seam, carving into you.
And, God, but Tibet — Nepal? Wherever? — is shit. Corruption and poverty and Chinese uniforms. And fucking monks, leeching off everyone. You’ve spent quarter of a million on this trip, mostly in bribes, and you’re still miserable.
The helicopter can’t land near Thierry’s perch, so you have to crawl up the lower slopes of some mountain with a serial number rather than an English name, roped to a gang of cut-throat guides. Why couldn’t the Belgian pick a cave in Snowdonia?
You fight the rock, the snow, the ice, the smell, the hate. Inch by inch, you climb. The air gets thin. The rush of wind is eternal in your ears.
It’s not what you’ve imagined. The hermit hole is not really a cave but a hut-sized house built against the slope. Its roof is a bright orange plastic sheet. Not your idea of spiritual.
Lethem is outside, pottering. At home doing the garden. He must grow his own vegetables.
You tell the head guide — you can’t but think of him as a Sherpa — to stay back, and walk across stony ground, wind carving your face even through the fur mask and goggles. You are more tired than you ever have been, but the thinness of the air is giving you a high, almost a rush.
Lethem glances up. Swaddled in furs, he could be a bloody yeti.
You have an ice-axe in one hand, in case you want to kill him.
You look at Lethem. His face is exposed, blue at the lips a bit, weathered on the cheekbones.
You take off your goggles.
If you see an enemy, go to 292. If you see a brother, go to 300.
282
‘I don’t think that’s a good idea,’ you say. ‘Either we all go or we all stay. Someone will come eventually. We’ll be missed.’
‘So you’ll have time to kill us all,’ Hackwil
l says.
‘No,’ says Shearer. ‘You’re the one Tris and Ben were walking out on. You’re the one who needed to keep them in line. You did it. Or you had her do it.’ He nods at Mary.
‘Kay, you have my word—’ Hackwill begins.
‘As what? District councillor? Chairman of the Planning Committee? Corrupt bastard? Murdering cunt?’ Shearer is on the point of collapse.
Hackwill looks round the room. ‘All right,’ he says, without conviction, just to shut Shearer up, ‘I did it. I fucking killed wimpo Warwick and shit-guts McKinnell and I drove myself into a gorge while leaving James here safe by the road. I’m guilty of every bloody thing you think I am. Happy?’
Shearer calms. You relax a little. It seemed for a while that Shearer and Hackwill would go for each another.
Hackwill takes his knife out of his coat pocket and drives it to the hilt into Sean’s eye. The bank manager’s face spurts blood and he stiffens against the wall.
‘Now that,’ Hackwill says, ‘I admit to.’
Everyone alive in the room is electrified. Hackwill pulls his knife out of Sean’s skull as if it were a slightly recalcitrant cork. He stabs Shearer in the heart.
‘And that too. I did that.’
Shearer looks more surprised than dead.
‘Shane, take Mary,’ Hackwill snaps. ‘She’s the only dangerous one.’
Shane, brain on a five-second delay, moves. But Mary is fast. She kicks him in the groin, doubling him over, gets her own knife at his throat, cutting swiftly.
Hackwill grabs Mary by the hair and holds his blade to her neck. He makes her drop her knife.
Shane kicks on the floor.
You are frozen. You haven’t done anything.
Jessup is terrified.
‘Reg, time to join the homicide club,’ Hackwill announces.
Reg blubbers.
‘Think about it. If you don’t, you’re a witness.’
Hackwill holds Mary’s head close to his. Her face impassive, she relaxes. The blade smears blood and optic gunk on her neck.
‘Why should I care about her?’ you ask, trembling.
‘Because you’re not a murderer, you idiot,’ Hackwill says. ‘If you were, you’d never have let it get this far. Your brother, however … Reg, do James. Now.’
Jessup rushes across the room. He shuts his eyes and sticks his knife into James’s stomach. James yowls in agony and sinks to the floor, hands round the knife-hilt, face twisted.
‘That’s not a fatal wound,’ Hackwill comments. ‘Cut his neck open or something.’
James pulls the knife out and drops it. He is doubled up, lap full of blood.
You can’t do anything, or Mary will die. She’ll probably die anyway — Hackwill must plan for you both to die — but every second gives you another chance.
James is going. Mary’s still here. Prioritise.
Jessup picks up his knife with distaste. It’s squirmy with blood.
‘The neck,’ Hackwill says.
With an animal cry, Jessup stabs and slashes at James’s head. Blood arcs. James raises his hands from his stomach but is whipped this way and that by the blows.
‘That’s enough,’ Hackwill says.
Jessup is exhausted, drained, bloody and insane.
‘Clean yourself up. Congratulations. Now I won’t have to kill you too.’
Hackwill looks at Shane on the floor.
‘I promised him you,’ he whispers to Mary.
She blinks.
Is she signalling you to come on or to go back? To rush Hackwill, or to hold off?
If you rush Hackwill, go to 288. If you let Mary make her move, go to 296.
283
You force the pillow down on to Hackwill’s face, feeling his whole body stiffen as he tries to throw you off, and lie on top of him, pinning his limbs with your body, pressing with as much weight as you can manage. It takes minutes that pass like hours.
Eventually, you can relax.
When you strip the bed, you find the knife in Hackwill’s hand. The bastard thought he was ready.
You can’t wake James without alerting the others. Do you ask Mary for help?
If you ask Mary, go to 287. If you go it alone, go to 290.
284
You clamber towards Hackwill, knowing you’ll have to kill him, then climb back.
To what? James is part of James-and-Mary now. The Super Marion Brothers are a bust. You and Marie-Laure are pathetic; she’s stopped even complaining when you call her ‘Chris’.
You’ve never done anything right. You can take Hackwill out of this game. And yourself.
Instead of kicking Hackwill out of his perch, you hug him and launch yourself out away from the cliff.
Falling.
Go to 0.
285
You grab Hackwill’s collar. James is with you. He lays a hand on the exhausted councillor too.
Two nights outside have worn Hackwill ragged. He seems thinner, older, more battered than the man who left ‘to get help’.
Between you, you and James haul Hackwill up the hillside. Mary waits, a rock in her hands.
‘You,’ Hackwill says, to Mary, ‘help me.’
‘I resign, sir,’ she replies.
Hackwill’s face is purple. ‘It’s too late for that,’ he says, reaching for his knife.
Mary sees the attack coming and dives. James punches Hackwill in the stomach. You grab for his knife-hand. The sharp edge passes across your stomach, cutting your padded waistcoat but not your skin. You lose your grip.
James and Hackwill struggle. The old school bully still has fight in him, the bastard. Mary bashes his head with the rock. With a roar, he turns, knife towards her. She backs away. James launches himself at Hackwill’s knife-arm, but misjudges and rolls over the edge, getting a grip on an outcropping.
You examine the fluff pouring from your gashed stomach. You aren’t yet convinced you aren’t hurt.
Hackwill stamps on James’s hand. ‘Fucking Super Marion Brothers,’ he snarls. ‘You were always shits.’
James clings on with determination. But you hear the whimpering he made in the copse as he weed himself.
Mary yells like a lioness and smashes the rock into Hackwill’s face, obliterating his nose. He grabs her and parks his blade in her chest, twisting viciously.
‘Traitor,’ he breathes through blood.
Mary, eyes sparking fire, holds Hackwill’s anorak with both hands and pitches herself over the edge.
You see Mary and Hackwill in their death embrace. They bounce several times off jagged rocks, then launch into open space, legs waving like a starfish, and fall together into the torrent. You see a pale water-trail that might be Mary’s hair, then they’re both gone.
‘Help,’ grunts James, voice cracked.
You pull him up. Whatever it was, it’s over. You listen to the roar of the river, pouring into the caves like an ocean emptying into Hell.
When you’re asked what really happened, you have no theories.
And so on.
Begin again?
286
You turn away from the cottage and run.
You love Mary, but not enough to die: two nights’ fucking doesn’t mean that much. As you run through the dark, you pour contempt on yourself. You don’t know what’s happened to Mary or to James and you don’t care. You just want to be away from all this. You keep running.
Two days later, you wander into a village. The story is out. Most of them are dead, but Hackwill is alive.
Officially, James takes the blame. He went mad and killed people, until Hackwill took him down. Before he killed Mary, James raped her.
It doesn’t matter if you believe it. You almost do. What counts is that you ran. You’re congratulated on surviving the massacre, but some say you were your mad brother’s accomplice. You turn down all tabloid offers for your story. You wind up the business and stay home, looking inwards.
When it was just a Chinese burn, you ran into the c
opse; but when it was life or death, you ran away. You hate yourself.
You loved Mary. Those few days gave you a connection to her as important as your lifelong link with James.
And you let them both die.
Hackwill is hailed as a hero. No one dares question his business practices now. He prospers. Through his influence, streets in Sedgwater are named after Jessup, Warwick, Shearer and Shane, the victims of James Marion. You let him get away with it.
Marie-Laure tries to console you. You tell her to fuck off. You tell her you hate her and wish she had died too. You live on for quite a few years, but it eats you up that you ran away.
And so on.
Begin again?
287
Mary helps you get Hackwill out of Castle Drac and into a river. You watch the bundle swirl a little as it is rushed away. The river flows underground. He’ll probably never come up again.
Without him, Jessup and Shane are useless. All your problems are over.
Months later, you and Mary tell James what you did.
‘That’s a damn sight better than my feeble shot,’ he says. ‘And it didn’t cost us a minibus.’
‘We’re safe,’ you say. ‘You’re safe.’
