by Adam Nevill
A slight easing of the terrible nausea from his head wound was now the only positive thing that he could identify within his reduced and wretched state.
Loki sat down on the end of the bed. The giant was breathing hard. He spoke with difficulty, was wheezy; it sounded like he had asthma, like Phil. Poor Phil.
‘So now you know, Luke from London. Know that you are nothing. A worm compared to what is here.’ He pointed one long finger at the ceiling. Then he looked at the little window, before checking the watch face between the two studded wristbands on his forearm. He looked back at Luke, his cold blue eyes alight with excitement inside their black sockets. ‘She can call it, you know? We know she can. And she know we are fucking serious. She has promised to call it. For us. And for you, Luke. So tonight we try again.’
Loki screwed his face up into a demoniac scowl, and stuck his dark-red tongue out. Grinned. ‘You are the lucky man. Tonight you meet a God, and you know the true meaning of a blood frenzy, Luke. You have been a great deal of trouble for me. But later, I think we will all be much happier people. Make peace with your dead God. Maybe you see your friends again soon, yes?’
Loki left him alone.
Luke continued to stare into space for a long time, unable to focus his eyes on anything around him. Up above him, in the attic, he occasionally heard the little loud feet of the old woman moving about up there; she still had not come down since the confrontation. That place was beloved to her. But Luke knew he’d rather die than ever see it again.
After a while she began to weep. Through her little sobs, she spoke in her old lilting language to those around her in the dusty darkness. And Luke did not know why, but he felt a great sympathy for her. Soon, his own tears cut across his cheeks.
The wind buffeted his little window and the clouds stifled the weak white sunlight. As the air dimmed about him, his thoughts lowered their own lights. And he wept for himself, and for his friends, and his heart’s pouring seemed to flow into the great sadness that ran through the world and through all who were in it.
Maybe for short periods of time it seemed to him, inside that stinking bed, that some people were exempt from tragedy and pain, but these respites were short; in the scheme of things and in the length of eternity, respites were nothing but anomalies in a relentless flow of despair and pain and sadness and horror that surely would eventually sweep everyone away.
And for the first time since he had been at school, Luke prayed. The enormity of what existed in this place made him think in those terms. In the epic terms of gods and devils, and in the terms of magic and the great incomprehensible age that had swept through here and left such terrible things behind. It did him good to pray, and to cry and scour his damaged lumpy face with stinging brine; to dissolve some of the cold despair.
Outside, beneath his window, the music came roaring out of the old CD player and he could no longer hear the old woman above him. Intermittently, Fenris and Loki scraped their throats to reproduce black-metal vocals. They were drinking again; he could tell by the idiotic jackal giggle that Fenris produced when downing the moonshine. And so it all continued; it was dull in its predictability. Evil was, he decided, inevitable, relentless and predictable. Imaginative, he’d give it that much, but soulless.
He dabbed at his nostrils, carefully, with the back of one filthy hand. It was hopeless; he couldn’t even wipe his own nose. It was gushing with snot and blood. He dropped his head back onto the grey pillow and closed his one good eye; the other had shut itself down. He lay still, in silence, on the reeking sheepskins and waited for the light to completely fade out, for the sky to darken. To finally get this over with.
And in the long hours in which he waited alone with his thoughts, he tormented himself briefly by replaying his attempts at escape. In his memory, once he’d hit Fenris with the jug, he should have beaten Surtr off before she struck his head wound. He should have been quicker and harder with her. He imagined himself doing it all over again, but successfully this time, and then running downstairs and finding one of the knives, or the rifle.
Or he should have just run straight into the woods after they showed poor Dom to him; he should not have aimed for the track beside the orchard. What had he been thinking? If he had gone into the woods maybe he could have hidden, then crawled away later. And the opportunity to dig through that wall was gone now too; he had fallen asleep and dreamed of his own death instead, and now his wrists and his ankles were tied. It was like this entire situation was part of some terrible destiny; like fate had drawn him here to be sacrificed. Like Loki had said.
‘Piss off,’ he murmured to himself.
But even if he had escaped from the house, and made it out there – what then?
He swore at himself. Sniffed. Winced.
This is how things were now. The thought settled heavily upon him, but at least acceptance brought the relief that comes with the final acknowledgement of a painful, decisive truth. When aspirations and pretension and effort can finally be set aside as the wastes of mental effort they usually are. No more yearnings or cravings or anxieties. It would all be over soon enough.
He had just been caught up in the way of the world; on one of its lunatic fringes perhaps, but had still been swept away by the true and deeper undertow of tragedy nonetheless. What happened to you eventually was just more extreme out here; that was the only difference to being ground down by increments in the other world he had failed at and had now departed for good. The possibilities for destruction here were not so different in any other place; they just took different forms. Nor was the intent for violence any different here; that was everywhere he had ever lived. Or the self-absorption, the pathological ambition, the spite and delight in the downfall of others – all of that was back home too. It led here eventually. It was building everywhere. It was in the blood. A few natural disasters, or the wrong people take charge, or a war gets out of hand and changes the colour of the sky, or the earth becomes irreparably poisoned and water and food run short … and skulls would be smashed, again. Over and over again. Ragnarok. This was the chaos Loki wanted. And he wanted it sooner rather than later, even if it was only around him to begin with, in his dismal, misguided, obsessive existence.
To think he’d always championed the outcast too; been a friend of the misfit, the underdog. He was the last person they should have been snuffing out. But losers just wanted to swap places with anyone above them in the hierarchy. It made his life seem even more hopeless.
‘Fuck it.’
His own weaknesses and mistakes and defects seemed pitiful in comparison to Blood Frenzy. He couldn’t even be bad properly. At least these guys really went for it. He wanted to laugh, but also acknowledged that he had probably lost his mind. At last. About fucking time. What good had it been anyway?
Maybe a terrible Karma had indeed led him here. Just so he could realize all of this now, the hard way. He grinned, and showed his own bloodied teeth to the dirty ceiling.
‘I wanted it to stop out here. Just for a bit. To be with my friends for a few days. That was all,’ Luke said out loud to God, to the things in the attic, to anyone who might be listening. He’d just wanted a break from the world he didn’t get along with: his job, the dismal flat, the same nullifying disappointment every day, the getting older and the growing into it all. He had wanted a change and he had got one.
He smiled and then he sniggered. A bubble of blood popped on his lips. He suddenly felt mad, and wild, and free of the burden of himself.
The sound of big heavy feet outside. Loki. Thank fuck: Loki wouldn’t kill him yet. He’d have a little more time to sort his head out before the end. He was beginning to interest himself; was finally in agreement with himself.
The door opened. Loki came through. He was sweating heavily, his make-up was tainting his sweat and dripping onto his beard and Satyricon T-Shirt. His hands were red.
‘Loki. Your eyeliner’s running, mate.’
The old woman followed the giant youth into t
he room. She carried a tray. Upon it stood another wooden jug, and a wooden bowl still steaming. The scent of meat and gravy hit the back of Luke’s throat and made him gasp.
Loki grinned. ‘More than eyeliner will be running from you soon, my friend. I look forward to seeing it. It will be quite a show. Maybe we film it too.’
‘Bring on Ragnarok. Bring it! The things you can do with a life, Loki. And yet people like you can’t wait to turn back the clock. Fucking savages. Barbarians.’
‘Thank you, Luke. Now you begin to understand our Viking ways with foreigners who fuck with Odin.’
‘You know, lying here with my face hanging off, I’m beginning to think that the end of the nuclear family was not a good thing. Because people like you might not have happened. There would have been no Blood Frenzy then, eh? I reckon you took it in the ass from an early age, Loki.’
‘Mr psychologist, I think you are maybe full of shit.’
‘You’re nothing new, mate. Ragnarok, this time is it? Then a few hikers cop it. And some poor priest. You big shite, Loki.’
‘Luke, I remind you, you are guest here.’ Loki wagged a finger at Luke’s face. ‘I give you to an ancient one of the woods very soon. Maybe you tell it your theory. And it tear your fucking guts out while you do it. Throw you in a tree like an animal.’ Loki grinned.
Luke laughed, until it hurt his nose, his split lips, his bruised cheekbone, and whatever had gone wrong with the top of his head. ‘The most evil band in the world, eh? The serial murderers who summoned a demon. It’s pretty rock and roll, Loki. I’ll give you that. But it counts for shit. You are a fantasist. This is all a load of Dungeons and Dragons, mate. You’re a cliché.’
‘You are a dead man walking, Luke. Or one that is lying down.’
The old woman put the tray down beside the bed. Luke’s mouth filled with saliva.
‘Time for you to eat, Luke. And to stop talking.’ Loki peered on to the plate and wrinkled his nose. ‘I wish it was nicer for you, because it is your last meal, my friend.’
‘You can stop this now.’
‘Not possible.’
‘Loki. At least let me run. Give me a chance out there.’
He grinned. ‘Please eat. Do not make this hard for me. I am not a bastard like Fenris. I do not want to … erm … taunt you.’
‘My friends had families. I want to see my dog again. That’s it. I won’t beg.’
Loki smiled. ‘You eat. Then, we get you ready. I leave you alone now.’ He walked towards the door, then paused, turned around. ‘Hey Luke. If somehow you get off this bed, then crawl down the stairs, or something stupid like that, I let Surtr cut you like she want to. She is only a few seconds away from blood frenzy with you, Luke. So I make a deal with her. I tell her, if Luke run again before it is time for him, then, I tell her, you can cut off all his toes. You can totally fuck him up. And you know something, Luke? Luke?’
‘What?’
‘I am not joking.’
Loki left him alone with the old woman.
SIXTY
She prepared him with her small gentle hands. Luke watched those doll fingers cut the soiled disgrace of his underwear from his waist and legs, to reveal the tidemark of grime that rose to his hips. She cooed to him to reassure him when he flinched as the steel of the big old scissors was close to his genitals. The pads of her fingers were coarse and leathery, same as her face, but her touch was soft when she bathed his face and his swollen nose, and when she patted his crusting scalp.
She fed him with care and with precision, tucking the warm brown stew inside his swollen lips with the old wooden spoon. Then she held the back of his head, and let him gobble and snuffle at the stewed beets she held out to him. All about the cuts on his face and scalp, she dabbed a black mixture that smelled of rain and moss.
Her eyes were little obsidian flints set so deeply in that impossibly wrinkled hide of a face, and they were smiling all the time she worked about his body, trussed upon that reeking bed. But there was warmth inside her eyes too. It was genuine, he felt. But perhaps no more lasting than the affection shown to a favourite hen, or lamb, or piglet. He mattered as much as livestock. He was important, he was valued, but only for the sustenance of other older appetites.
Good times, old times she remembered. She was washing a corpse. Perhaps her own family had once been bathed and dressed too, but in readiness for the eternity of that loft, by other old women with gentle hands. She lived with the dead. Perhaps she had learned this ritual from those still-twitching ancestors upstairs, made from parchment and dust. And maybe she had prepared other poor wretches too, for that mighty and unnatural presence that governed these black woods. To be given. Given.
He began to breathe too quickly. Into his mind came the other attic he had seen out here, and with it the memory of a black face, long, and wet about the great pink bullock nostrils; he thought of worn but strong horns the length of swords. How long did it keep you alive out there in the wet darkness? ‘Jesus. Jesus, Christ. Please.’ He said, and tried to sit up.
She came closer, held him, gently touched his forehead, like he was a child having a nightmare.
He swallowed the panic. He welcomed her arms, and her quiet words that he could not understand. Her little body was so hard under that dusty black dress that stretched up to her wizened throat. But he welcomed her bosom and he sobbed into it.
The bones of men and beasts, the skeletons of forsaken homes, the forgotten places of worship, now bound them each to the other. He had come here living and warm but now must become of it. There was no other place for him in this world. Not any more.
Close to the upright stones, whose meanings and messages were mostly lost, and in the very soil of this lightless place, something was pursuing a purpose older than any living memory. He had sensed it, had tried to run from it, but was now overcome by it. The very idea of it caught the breath in his throat and slowed the blood cold in his veins.
‘Oh God. Oh God.’
She smiled; she seemed to know and to acknowledge this great epiphany he was experiencing, that wracked his dismal little body and his frail mind upon that wretched bed of old skins and soiled hay.
The terrible will of this place demanded the renewal of old rites. Such things still existed up here. Here. Called by the oldest names, they came back to life. Tonight, for him. His life in the distant world, and even the distant world, meant nothing here. Nothing at all. This is how things were for him now.
A quiet voice came into his head and told him that thinking of what had been taken away from him would only make things worse.
This was a true wilderness and people went missing in it all the time. They died to celebrate what long lay hidden here, in its eternal retreat. It had come to the surface of the world early this year; broken its ancient slumber for the monotony of ritual and blood. They had woken it. It had slaughtered his friends, and enjoyed the hunt, the wild ride, but now it just wanted a gift; the provision of something wriggling, tied down. As it had once been surfeited by that ramshackle community above his head, it wanted to be remembered, and honoured. As all Gods do.
Luke gasped at the air. The panic covered him in a cold sweat. He shivered. The old woman cooed, she hugged him close, her little lamb.
‘It’s a secret,’ he whispered to her.
She smiled. He smiled at her, his eyes begging; even this greasy old pillow over his face would be a mercy compared to what would soon come to him from out of those prehistoric trees. ‘Please. End it.’
The old woman kept things going; she was part of a long line. She was in place, always; for the things that must be given, and taken away out there, into the eternal forest, into the darkness.
‘God no. God no.’
He thought of all those brown bones in the crypt of that broken church: there was no escape. There were no deals to be made. And the very sense of the age of the place, and its size and its indifference to him, nearly extinguished him right there and then in that little bed. He wi
shed it would, rather than making him just comprehend it.
‘Please. I want to die now.’
It was like the rare flora and fauna, exempt from scrutiny and trespass, and nurtured by only those who understood.
‘They don’t care about you. They are using you.’ He looked into her tiny black eyes. ‘They’ll destroy you too. You know it, don’t you?’
Blood Frenzy were vandals; impatient, delinquent, angry. Misfits wanting to spit into the face of God, government, society, decency, and anything else that excluded them, or simply bored them. They were as unwelcome here as he was. The old woman was not afraid of them. She was merely tolerating them; he was sure of it. He entertained a lunatic hope that he and the old woman together could help the youths find their natural self-destructive conclusion. ‘Let’s get rid of them. You and me. I swear. I promise. I will not tell a soul about you … and your family.’ He looked at her, then looked up at the ceiling.
She shushed him, she stroked his clammy forehead.
No matter the senseless age of what clung on, up here in the boreal wilderness, lit only by moon and sun and seen by so few, the last thing their startled eyes ever saw, Luke whispered to her that it would not begin the end of days that Loki craved. If they must see it as a God, then it was not a God with that kind of weight. He told her that his death was pointless.
But then maybe his life was anyway; it seemed oddly fitting that a damaged teenager’s gruesome fantasy world should be the end of his floundering in this life.
And then he was staring at the ceiling and all of him felt as though it were rising from his very body. And in his awe and steadily growing comprehension at what existed out here, at this miraculous and dreadful thing, he suspected it was not long for this world either. What was extraordinary was how it had survived for so long. But its rule was over; it was endangered. An isolated God; all but forgotten and long demented. Branded a false God by the sign of the cross, its idolatry rotted in forgotten attics now, and about it false prophets and ragged messiahs gathered.
