An Other Place

by Darren Dash

  “What about extra clothes?” Cheryl asks and I laugh.

  “We’re going down sewerage pipes,” I remind her. “Clean clothes aren’t going to be an issue.”

  “Food?” she says. “Shall I pack some drone slices?”

  “That’s a good idea,” I reply, “but only bring enough for a few meals — we don’t want to weigh ourselves down too heavily. We can always catch a couple of rats if we get hungry.”

  “Eat an animal?” she moans.

  “We might have to,” I sigh, as if that repulses me as much as it does her.

  When we’re ready, we quench the candles and let ourselves out. I’ve told Franz about our new jobs. He was worried we wouldn’t be able to afford the room on our new salaries but I said that wouldn’t be a problem, though I suppose – if we don’t get down the pipes sometime soon – it might be. I’ve no idea what enemaists earn but I’m guessing it isn’t a lot or they wouldn’t be understaffed. Anyway, I paid him in advance for the next several nights, so that’s not something we have to worry about for the time being.

  We hail a public car and discuss the future on our way to Isaac’s. I’m full of optimism. Cheryl isn’t but pretends she is. I’m not sure it’s a good idea to involve her in this. She’d almost certainly be better off here. What does my world have to offer someone like her? Oh well, as I promised, if we do escape and she decides she prefers it here, I won’t stand in her way if she wants to come back. And who knows, after such a long time away, maybe I won’t fit in either. It might be that I won’t be able to adapt to my old way of life, that I’ll return with her or, more ironically still, that she’ll fall in love with my world and stay, while I’ll find I can’t stand it and make the trek back to the city on my own.

  “Tell me more about the other world,” she urges. “They’ve no drones?”

  “Not a one.”

  “What about drone teeth?”

  “We use paper and metal. Not ordinary paper and metal,” I add, spotting the sceptical lift of her eyebrows. “They’re specially designed.”

  “And glass is plentiful?” she asks.

  “Yes. It’s everywhere.”

  “There are no lykans?”

  I smile. “Well, we tell fairy-tales about werewolves, which are similar, but… Hold it,” I interrupt myself, disturbed by her questions.

  “Yes?” she smiles.

  “You mentioned glass and lykans.”

  “So?”

  “You know what they are?” I whisper, mouth suddenly dry.

  “Of course,” she smirks. “Why wouldn’t I?”

  Ignoring her question, I lean forward and tap the driver on the shoulder.

  “Sir?” he responds politely.

  “Do you know what lykans are?” I ask, a cold claw of dread tugging at my entrails. “Glass? Sandmen? Wolfers?”

  “Certainly, sir,” he chuckles.

  Fuck! I stick my head out of the window and stare at the sun. At first it looks normal but after a couple of seconds I spot blue tendrils dancing round the edges, beginning to spread towards the centre.

  “Stop the car,” I yell and the driver screeches to a halt.

  “What’s wrong?” he yelps. “Why did you… Hey!” he shouts as I scramble out, dragging Cheryl with me. “You haven’t paid your fare. Come back.” He slams open his door and gets to his feet, preparing to give chase. Then he notices the panicking crowds beginning to emerge from nearby buildings. He glances up at the sky, spots the changing sun and groans. “Oh, snuff!” Forgetting the fare, he jumps back in the car and takes off. He mows down a couple of people – a kid among them – further up the road, but doesn’t even pause to wipe the blood from his face when it flies across the bonnet and spatters him.

  In the distance, the first of this season’s flock of lykans begins to howl.

  Cheryl’s drawn towards the natural flow of the crowds but I drag her away to the quieter back streets. “We mustn’t get caught in a stampede,” I tell her, assuming control even though she’s been through more of these things than me.

  “But we have to find a sandman,” she gasps.

  “Yes,” I pant, “but we stand a better chance this way. The lykans will be attracted to the noise and smells of the crowds and won’t be concentrating on these alleys until later, when the pickings are scarce.”

  We each grab a noose and begin jogging, eyes peeled. A lykan darts past us at one stage, close enough to rip both our throats open, but it’s focused on the scent of the hysterical masses and pays us no attention.

  We spend longer on the streets than we did before, three or four hours by my estimate. The red moon replaces the blue sun in the firmament. The killing goes on. I pass a woman changing into a beast and put a quick end to her misery.

  “I thought people changed as soon as the sun or moon turned,” I remark.

  Cheryl shakes her head. “Sometimes transformations don’t occur until a day or two into the cycle.”

  “Any idea why?” I ask.

  “No. That’s just the way it is.”

  Finally we spot a sandman hiding in the arch of a doorway, his guards either having abandoned him or lurking out of sight.

  “You don’t know how pleased I am to see some customers at last,” he says as we draw up. “How goes the slaughter?”

  “Don’t know,” I grunt. “We didn’t stick around to find out. Have you sand?”

  “You’re in luck,” he says. “This is my last bag. I only had two to begin with. I would have sold this one long ago, except my guards were jumped by lykans and I decided it would be safer to linger in the shadows.”

  “Lykans got your guards?” Cheryl asks with surprise. When the sandman nods, she says, “I thought that couldn’t happen. Sandmen and their protectors are sacred, aren’t they?”

  “Supposed to be,” he agrees mournfully. “It seems things have changed. These lykans aren’t acting the way they normally do. They’re smarter, more vicious, less pre-dictable.” He sighs and looks up at the moon. “I hope things return to normal soon. I fear the worst if they don’t.”

  “How much for the sand?” I ask, emptying my pockets in search of some teeth but finding none — I gave Franz those that I’d been saving for a rainy day. Cheryl gave him hers too.

  I’m starting to panic when the sandman shakes his head and hands over the bag of sand. “Forget it,” he says. “I’m glad to have discharged my duties. The sooner I get out of here, the better. So long and the best of luck.”

  “Same to you,” I mutter and lead the way to the middle of the road. “Ready?” I ask Cheryl. She nods, we shut our eyes, and I sprinkle the sand over our heads.

  Magic. Nakedness. Glass. Safety. Calm.

  We huddle together for warmth, not saying much. I try instigating conversation but Cheryl isn’t in the mood. She seems troubled, but it can’t have anything to do with the lykans, because we’re safe from them in here.

  “How long do you think it’s going to be this time?” I ask, trying again to get her talking.

  “Don’t know,” she mutters.

  “It’s handy it happened while we were carrying water,” I note. “We won’t have to rely on drone sap so much.”

  “Mmm,” she replies.

  “And we have those drone slices too, in case the drones take a while to come this way.”

  “We’ll survive,” she sighs and there’s a long silence after that.

  “I hope Isaac makes it,” I chirp eventually. “We might not get the jobs without his support.”

  “I don’t think that will be much of a problem,” she murmurs. “There will be plenty of jobs on offer when this is over.”

  I get up and test the glass bars of the cage. I’d love to know how these things form. Next time – assuming my escape plans fail to reach fruition – if I’ve money and run into a sandman with extra bags of sand, I’ll try to buy two and keep my eyes open while pouring the first over my head. That way, if it doesn’t work, I’ll have a bag to fall back on.


  A lykan comes ambling along, so I step away from the bars and turn to tell Cheryl my plan, only to discover her staring at me, eyes wide, breathing hoarsely. “Cheryl?” I say with alarm. “What’s wrong? Are you –”

  “Don’t!” she gasps as I start towards her. “Stay back. Don’t come any closer.”

  I stop. “Cheryl, what is it? What’s happening?”

  Her hands are shaking. The muscles running the length of her legs and arms are undulating as if an electric current is coursing through her veins. Her bare breasts shudder and her lips peel back from her teeth.

  “You did it,” she snarls. “You… ejaculated… inside me.”

  “No,” I lie immediately. “You know I always pulled out before –”

  “You did it!” she screams. “I warned you not to – said it would lead to disaster – but you did it anyway, you stupid, stupid man.” She lowers her head. Saliva drips from her lips in white, foaming pearls. I spy tiny bushes of hair sprouting along the breadth of her shoulders. Her breasts are narrowing, growing smaller. The hair round her groin has spread to cover the majority of her abdominal area.

  “Oh God,” I moan, understanding now – when it’s far too late – why women are the first to turn into lykans, women who’ve been tricked and betrayed by men like me who didn’t heed their warnings and pleas. “Oh Christ, no.”

  Cheryl’s head comes up. Her jaw is stretching, her eyes no longer recognisably human, her ears beginning to point. A few more seconds and she’ll be…

  She opens her mouth and screams. No, not a scream — a howl.

  Stunned out of inactivity, I scour the floor for something to use against the creature that is forming and which will shortly attack. I dropped my noose while buying the bag of sand but Cheryl held onto hers. It lies near her convulsing, altering body. I take a deep breath and dive across. The fingers of my left hand close around the handle as I come to my feet. I force the O of the noose over Cheryl’s/the lykan’s head. My right hand grasps the spindle and turns sharply. The noose tightens and Cheryl/the lykan is choked into silence.

  I hold the spindle firmly in place. The struggle at the end of the noose ceases. I could let go now – it’s over – but instead I turn the spindle another notch. I can’t ease up. The noose seems glued to my hands. Soon I begin to cry, to sob, to howl in pitiful mimicry of Cheryl’s final utterance. But even as I fall to the floor, moaning, howling and weeping, I continue to exert pressure, cutting deeper into my dead lover’s throat, unable to stop until I’ve sliced through all the flesh and cartilage, severing the head, so that the wire loop closes into a compact, final, all-damning knot.

  SIXTEEN

  It’s been five days. I’m hungry, bored, guilt-ridden, border-line suicidal. Cheryl’s body lies stuffed by one of the cage walls, a constant reminder of my neglectful crime. I killed her. I’m not talking about finishing her off with the noose – that was self-protection – but before that, the night I assaulted her while she was asleep. That’s when the dirty deed was done, when I condemned her with my seed, sentencing her to turn when the moon or sun next issued its transformative call. I was pissed-off, bitter, cruel, and because of that Cheryl is dead.

  I take a sip from one of the water bottles. I’ve been rationing them, so there’s still plenty left, but there’s nothing I can do about the food situation. My stomach is rumbling and I’ll most likely starve to death if this siege doesn’t lift soon. The sandman was right when he said the lykans were acting unusually. Drones started milling by a couple of hours into the cycle, but unlike last time, when the lykans gave them a wide berth, now the savage beasts are interfering with the natural order of things. Several have established a vigil round my cage and are violently pre-venting the drones from coming to my aid.

  With no enemaists on hand, I’ve had to start pissing in a spot near Cheryl’s feet that I’ve designated as a toilet. It feels strange after all this time. Dirty. The smell is acrid and foul and lingers in the air. I’m dreading my first dump, though without anything to eat, that’s not an issue just yet.

  I head to the defecatory spot after my sip of water to empty my bladder. One of the lykans rushes up to the bars of the cage as I’m pissing and slams its head against the glass, then staggers away to howls of applause from its colleagues. It’s become a regular performance, repeated a couple of times an hour, a different lykan each time. I’ve stopped paying attention to them and no longer shriek or shudder when they strike, though it’s impossible to sleep through the racket.

  They take no notice of Cheryl, even though she’s jammed against the bars and would be an easy target. I was half hoping they’d feed on her, rip her to pieces and cart her body away, but they don’t spare her a second glance. Perhaps they sense my anguish and want me to suffer. Maybe this is psychological warfare, designed to induce me to smash my head against the bars until my brain pulps and my body drops.

  They’ll have a long wait if that’s the case. Not because I’m super-resilient. I just fear physical pain more than mental torment.

  A couple more days trickle by. It’s night. The red moon hangs above me like a bloated strawberry. The lykans cavort outside the cage, though their numbers have dwindled as stragglers slip away to feast on less well-protected subjects.

  I’ve seen nobody aside from the lykans and drones. I’d kill for company right now. Uh-oh – a quick glance at Cheryl – bad choice of words.

  Starving. I’ve never been this hungry. I’ve tried calling to drones, praying that one will slip through the ranks of lykans, but although they come in their obedient droves, the lykans make short work of them. The entire area beyond the cage is a wide, ragged circle of severed waxy limbs and sap. Lykans slip and slide on the mess, sometimes howling indignantly, other times making a noise that might just pass for laughter in a house of the insane.

  Some of the limbs lie within reach. I drool as I stare at them, imagining the taste of the flesh, the refreshing nectar of the sap, forgetting the many times that I’ve complained about having to eat drones in the past. I’m tempted to make a grab for an arm or leg, but the lykans are watching out for that. They’re not obvious about it – sometimes they deliberately look away and act as if they’re unaware of my presence – but I know they’re waiting to pounce. They’re faster than humans, especially one as famished and weak as me.

  I worry that hunger will warp my senses, that I’ll start to think I’m swifter than the lykans, that I’ll succumb to temptation and try to help myself to one of the limbs lying just outside the bars of the cage. If I make that mistake, the lykans will pounce, rip me up and pull me through the gaps between the bars in pieces. I understand that now and can restrain myself. But give it time. Give it time.

  One especially smart lykan – apart from occasional forays to fill himself up, he’s been hanging round from the start – was privy to a stroke of genius yesterday. Rather than throw himself at the cage, he paused, picked up a drone’s severed head and jammed it up to one of the gaps between the bars. He shook the head and made gurgling, quasi-literate sounds, then stuck his fingers up through the neck and began working the lips and eyes from the inside, so it looked as if the dead drone was trying to talk.

  I fell back from the manipulated drone face, nauseated beyond all due measure, and dry-retched. The lykan – for no particular reason, I’d decided a few days earlier to refer to him as Theo – cackled gruesomely and barked at his demonic cousins. Soon there were drone faces pressed between various bars, some arms, legs and entrails too, lykans behind them, howling and shaking the flesh from side to side, extracting much pleasure from my obvious distress.

  It’s hard to describe how terrifying those faces were. I’d come to look upon drones as dispassionately as everybody else in the city, mindless dummies, there for my convenience. Now, with so many of them converging on the cage, staring at me with dead, fish-like eyes, I felt as if I was in a supernatural dock and they were my ghostly accusers. I knew they were mindless mannequins being puppeteered by lyka
ns, but lack of sleep and hunger played tricks on my mind and I was unable to rid myself of the nightmarish belief. I lost control and started bellowing and sobbing, begging the drone spirits to leave me alone.

  After a while, as I was beginning to emerge from my screaming fit, Theo had another bright idea. He ripped a drone head in two, discarded the rear section and jammed the mask-like face over his own, making it appear even more animated than the others. That set me off again, and soon the rest of the lykans were copying Theo’s lead and I was reduced to a weeping, wailing wreck of a ball.

  The faces don’t bother me any longer. Not even the human faces that the lykans have been appropriating since morning. I’m too hungry to care. Hunger has invaded every cell of my body. Fear and all other emotions have been forced out. Emptiness has taken over. I’d probably eat my own faeces if I could produce any, and I don’t say that lightly. I’ve never known starvation before, not on anything approaching this scale, and I’m unable to deal with it. I must have something to eat. A few days ago I assumed I’d simply waste away. I’d no problem with that. I thought I’d drift off to death in my sleep, miserable but painless. But it’s not like that. This is worse – or so I imagine – than being crucified. My insides feel as if they’re on fire. If I move, hunger pangs haunt my every gesture. If I remain motionless, they grow slowly, in waves, until I’m forced to beat the walls of my stomach with my fists in a futile attempt to drive out the pain.

  In one of my quieter moments I study a handful of lykans on the other side of the glass, tossing a man’s body into the air, pulling it to bits between them, ripping the flesh from his bones with their teeth, gorging themselves on his blood. No word of a lie — if I could get out there right now, I’d join them. It wouldn’t matter to me that he was once a living, breathing, thinking human being. If I could escape this cage, and human flesh was all that was on offer, I’d dive in with my fork and knife – fingers if I had to – before you could say…