by Gareth Wiles
‘Maybe that is a good thing. I feel this is somewhat of a curse.’
‘We all remember the untold evils committed against us by our fellow man in lives gone by. No, we are above other men – we are The Great Collective.’ Some of the gathering cheered, others mumbled their general support. ‘You are thirty-six now, Peter,’ Darren carried on, ‘you have very little time left of this current life of yours.’
‘I eagerly await a time when your allotted years cease before mine,’ was Peter’s cold fire back.
‘There is some character in the bore, after all,’ Darren chuckled. ‘Tell me, Peter – would you rather spend your final few days clamouring to get your hands on Hobble’s money only to never spend it, or would you go out in a bang of glory by committing a string of murders yourself on the enemies you have made in this life and go unpunished due to your imminent demise thereafter?’
‘If I could remove you, I would,’ Peter snapped at Darren. This prompted a mere grin from the receiver of this retaliation. ‘I will persevere even harder to forget you in my next existence.’
‘Forgetting me weakens your connection to The Space. Only with your mind fully immersed in Its grasp can you hope to retain and build upon your prior lives. You must reap what you have sown.’
Peter felt a sharp shiver ride down his spine as he fought hard to remove his mind from Darren’s. Therein lay something in the corner; something shaded and altogether malevolent. It appeared as a tumour of mentality instead of physicality, hiding in its special little place away from dutiful eyes. Peter could see it as clear as night – as clearly as something in the darkness can be seen.
‘Peter,’ Stephen interrupted the pair, ‘whether you like it or not, Darren is right. We are a collective – we move together. Move forward with us.’
‘Darren does not move with us, he moves only for himself,’ was Peter’s response. All at once the tumour left Darren’s mind and threw itself at his own. He looked around and could see it everywhere and nowhere. Everyone was afflicted one second and cured the next.
‘We are here, together, for eternity. We are all icons, stuck with each other whether we like it or not,’ Stephen went on. ‘If you break away, if you weaken your link to The Space by watering down your memories, we shall all suffer. The Space came to us as a collective, not a singular. Stand with us, let us all agree on the actions we must take in the world and put them into action. We are all forgetting – the collective is beginning to dilute and splinter. Anthony is but one casualty of a much wider weakening.’
‘You make a sensible case, Stephen, and this mystery with the incentive of Hobble’s reward is enticing, but you still fail to see what I see,’ Peter replied.
‘We, as a collective, surely see all the same?’ Jim came in.
‘He claims to see that which we cannot,’ Darren laughed, ‘he thinks he stands apart from us and sees further than we can.’
‘Praytell, do you see that which we do not?’ Stephen asked as the rumblings from the gathering around them started getting more raucous.
‘We have all experienced inherent evil in our lives, yet I am the only one who can see that it is infiltrating us. Surely we must use our position to stamp it out, not nurture it?’ was Peter’s reply.
‘Preposterous,’ Darren dismissed.
‘Preposterous that there is evil within us, or that we must stamp it out?’
‘We are finished here,’ Darren concluded, rising to his feet. ‘There is nothing more to be said today, only that you, Peter, should try to enjoy your final few days of this life.’ Peter squinted across at him, his fists clenched. ‘If my calculations are correct, you have less than a week to go.’
‘Your attempt at calculation is a failure – I have nine days left.’
* * *
‘You are hoping to stave off the dilution with that?’ Stephen questioned Peter as they stepped up to Hobble’s abode. Peter, having been scribbling away furiously in a notebook, pocketed it and grimaced at Stephen.
‘If I could forget, I would,’ was his grave response.
‘But why? We can do whatever we so wish with our place in this world.’
‘Yet we do not – we choose to tickle around and make drunkards hand us their last coins and other pointless trivialities. No, Stephen, I can see terrible evils coming. The Space reveals unimaginable horrors to me.’
‘Such as?’
‘Countless murder after murder, wicked sin after sin,’ Peter sighed.
‘Can you not be more specific?’
‘Does The Space not show you?’
‘I see what I wish to see – not what I do not.’
‘Then you must keep it that way – no being would want to see what I have seen. There is untold darkness to come for the human race. A mere two hundred years from now, for example, millions will die by one man.’
‘How can one man kill millions all by himself?’
‘By controlling and influencing others. The Space even gives me a name – he will be called Hitler. I have made notes, I will make it my goal to stop him before he starts with his wickedness.’ Peter tapped the pocket where he’d just placed his trusty notebook.
The pair looked up at the house before them – vast, endless in height and so very cold. The wind blew strong, slapping them with a severe, albeit brief, chill. Pale stones bled lazily into each other to make the walls, as rusty brown bars hid the windows. The men held their nerve as images flashed through their minds, images of a blood-stained corpse lying strewn in the woody grounds behind the building. The Space was showing them – when they stretched their minds in that direction, of course. Peter took hold of the brass knocker on the door and thrashed it three times. Soon it opened, a young woman stepping aside to let the men enter. Her deep brown eyes kept their gaze away from the new presence in her hall as she fumbled to keep her long dark hair under control in the rushing wind. She slammed the door shut and shot away before having a single word uttered to her. Peter and Stephen glanced at each other, before their sight fell once again on the mystery beauty exiting the room.
‘She is a fine looking woman,’ Stephen uttered.
‘I didn’t like her dress, it was a sickly green,’ Peter replied.
‘You don’t need to like her dress… tis what lies under the dress that should interest you.’
‘I cannot see what is under the dress.’
‘Stretch your mind, my friend,’ Stephen trilled, ‘The Space allows many pleasures.’ He winked at his cohort, who immediately felt uneasy. The Great Collective? They were surely destined to greater things than these kinds of seedy actions. Stephen could see Peter was displeased. ‘You are a stranger with the women, Peter – you never allow yourself the base joys of the human body.’
‘Perhaps I am saving myself for the right woman, or perhaps I cannot allow myself to grow close to a woman because I know I will die at thirty-six.’
Stephen laughed. ‘That does not halt your ability to enjoy dalliances here and there. I, too, am like you in many ways but…’ he trailed off, looking away at images etched into his mind from prior lives.
‘Go on,’ Peter encouraged, half-knowing what was coming.
‘There is a woman, one woman, who keeps me from committing in the here and now. She comes to me, right at the end, just standing to deliver me to the next world. But no, I never get there – I am reborn and come back to life as Stephen Noble again in this world. She is a vision of perfection in all her intense golden hue. And, I know who she is.’
Peter, with some trepidation, asked: ‘Who?’
‘She is the one, the woman of my existence who waits for me in my final life. We shall be together at the end.’
‘I see,’ Peter whispered, turning from his friend. He thrust all his energy into sealing his mind right now, forcing a shell around himself as Stephen stood deep in thought. He wanted – had to – block any way of his mind being revealed to Stephen, because he too saw the same woman and knew that she would be with him and not Steph
en in his final life. ‘How do you know we will have a final life?’ Peter eventually asked him.
‘Even endlessness must cease in the end, surely?’
It seemed like there was a gust of wind carrying Thaddeus Hobble into the room – but no, it was just his thin legs. They danced as only thin legs could – quickly, and without order or method, as the lanky thing delivered himself to the men. ‘Stephen Noble, Peter Smith – thank you for coming to me,’ he said in a high yawn, holding out his hand. Before either man could stretch to shake it, Hobble had pulled it away and proceeded to wave it about the room. There was likely no reason for this other than to display and jig about the silk tassels dangling from his bright white sleeve. He was not a young man – far from it – but he was not aged. He wore the passage of time well on his taut face, and a thick head of white curls played well with the swooshing cloak draped over his narrow, slightly bent, shoulders.
‘Honoured to meet the great Thaddeus Hobble,’ Stephen cooed, bowing for added effect.
‘At your service,’ Peter joined in, nodding.
‘You have met my daughter, gentlemen,’ Hobble grinned furiously, lowering his head. ‘Monetary reward is not all I offer you.’
‘She is a fine looking specimen,’ Stephen jumped, pushing Peter aside to get closer to the older man.
‘Alas, poor Willemina – she cannot settle since her mother’s murder. These are lawless times in which we live. The breasts she once suckled from as a babe are removed,’ Hobble sighed. ‘She needs a man to bring her from her stupor.’
‘Indeed she does,’ Darren replied grandly, appearing at the top of the stairs. Peter and Stephen were taken by surprise – Darren had clearly willed his presence here be kept secret from their roving minds.
‘Ah,’ Hobble joyously lapped, ‘Master Aubrey.’ It was now Hobble’s turn to bow.
‘What are you doing here?’ Peter snapped.
‘Exactly as I wish,’ was his cryptic response as he slowly made his way down the stairs towards them. As he neared, Hobble reached into his pocket and brought out a silk coin purse, dropping to his knees and outstretching his hand. Darren snatched it off him, slipping it into his own pocket. ‘Payment number one,’ he clarified.
‘I feel ever so glorious!’ Hobble elated, staying on his knees.
‘I have planted that emotion within him,’ Darren proclaimed in pleasure, ‘for a small fee.’
‘This is barbaric,’ Peter barked.
‘Nonsense! His wife hath been murdered, he had sunk into an irretrievable slump. I brought him back from that… I am The Curer.’
‘You hast not brought the committer of his wife’s murder to justice.’
‘Tis immaterial.’ Darren yawned, checking his pocket watch. ‘Oh Peter, you are such a bore.’
‘Better to be a bore than a petty crook,’ Peter snapped back.
‘Is it? Is it really?’ Darren mused, half rhetorically, as he strolled away tapping his chin. This broke Hobble from his grip, and he got back on his feet.
‘Come, my men, and I shall show you where Mimsie’s murder occurred,’ he said to them excitedly, as if the incident with Darren had never happened.
As they made their way towards the exit, Peter’s attention was drawn to a minuscule brownish stain on the stone floor. There lay a door to one side, and vague images of a bloodied figure first emerging from it and then scrubbing furiously at the floor with a moist rag briefly flashed through his mind.
The vast garden to the rear of the property was just as Peter and Stephen had seen it in their vision; save for the dead body, which had now been removed and disposed of. Thick wisteria clung for dear life to a rotting pergola structure which separated the weedy stoned area from the mossy lawn beyond. Acres and acres of overgrown trees and hedging filled the rest of their view.
‘And you say somebody emerged from the trees and just attacked your wife?’ Stephen asked. It was now that Hobble’s jovial demeanour soured.
‘Oh Mimsie!’ he sobbed, dashing to a patch of lawn and dropping to his knees in despair. He rubbed his hands on the moist grass, bringing his hands back to his face to sniff them. ‘She was here, enjoying the fresh scent of our glorious natural world. I looked once and she was alive and happy, I looked again and she was strewn asunder with her beautiful thick neck cut clean in two.’ He looked into the trees. ‘I saw a figure shoot off in that direction carrying two sagging meaty lumps that were once her breasts, never to be seen again.’
‘He went off in that direction, but he need not have necessarily come from that direction,’ Stephen remarked.
‘I did not see him arrive, no.’
‘He may not be a he at all,’ Peter thought out loud. ‘This could be the work of a woman.’
‘I am sure it was a man, though his features and clothing were ambiguous in the fractured haze.’
‘Are you absolutely sure that he went off that way,’ Peter questioned, pondering upon the stain inside, ‘and not into the house?’
‘Indeed. Tis I who darted in that direction to raise the alarm. I had my poor wife’s blood all over my person after cradling her – it went everywhere.’
Peter could now see that the bloodied figure was indeed Hobble – he was weeping, whining about who could do this awful thing to his beloved. So distraught was he at the sight of his wife’s innards now splashed haphazardly about the place – from his own hands, clothing and shoes – that he manically tore his shirt off and sought to polish them away with it.
‘These murders plaguing Myrtleville,’ Stephen sighed, ‘always women of a certain age, always out in the open, and always some body part removed. They are wicked crimes.’
‘Women are not safe to sit in their gardens, let alone walk the streets,’ Hobble sniffled. ‘I shall keep dear Willemina under lock and key from now on.’
‘That would be a terrible shame for one so pretty,’ Stephen chirped.
Hobble got up and rushed back to the men. ‘Are you wealthy, my boy?’ he asked Stephen with more than a hint of desperation.
‘I may be, why?’
‘If my daughter’s hand is to be offered in marriage, then I must know it is not to a man so simply after the Hobble fortune.’ He clasped Stephen’s hand, and instantly there was the sense that the Hobble fortune was not as vast as was being made out. Stephen and Peter both eyed each other, having been delivered the same impression.
‘The Hobble fortune,’ Peter uttered, stroking the downy whiskers of his sideburns, ‘I hear it hast diminished.’
‘What?’ Hobble sneered, pulling his hand from Stephen and pointing it at Peter. ‘Where did you hear that from? Lies! Sheer lies!’
‘We heard it from you,’ Peter said with some glee.
‘From your own mind,’ Stephen added.
‘But how?’ Hobble fumbled, stumbling back. ‘Sorcery!’
‘By using our skills – skills which will aid in the capture of your wife’s slayer,’ Peter promised.
Hobble paced around, variously rubbing at his face and pulling at his baggy gown. Darren emerged from within the house and stood watch. ‘You will be rewarded well if you can achieve such a feat,’ Hobble committed, catching sight of Darren.
‘I would like an official introduction to your delightful daughter Willemina, Mr Hobble,’ Stephen asked.
‘Of course, of course; come hence and it shall occur at once.’
The two men marched back into the house as Peter stepped onto the lawn and approached the scene of the crime. Darren lingered behind him as he closed his eyes and sniffed the air.
‘What are you doing, you fool?’ Darren laughed.
‘I am reaching out to The Space for assistance in solving these murders.’
‘Good luck with that,’ Darren scoffed. ‘Have you ever even asked yourself why The Space did what It did?’
‘Why It gave us eternal life after life? Yes, I have. It is one of the only questions I cannot seem to be able to put to The Space.’
‘You forget, Peter
, you forget about that very first time It opened up to us – we never asked the where, why or how – we just went blindly into Its embrace.’ Darren came closer to him… too close.
‘What are you saying – I sense you do not trust The Space?’
‘It aids us with ease in taking coin from Hobble, but struggles to bring up a suitable face for the crime committed against his wife.’ Darren’s face seemed to change, as though he was a new man entirely – not new, but so very different and afraid. ‘It supports our endeavours toward ill, yet not our works of good.’
‘It is not like that,’ Peter yelled in frustration. ‘Tis our own minds which are the evil, not The Space. What It reveals to us is a mere reflection of ourselves.’
‘In that case, my drive for monetary gain is that much more potent than your desire to put right that which is wrong,’ Darren smirked, turning and strolling away.
He had a point. Peter stepped up to the house and sought out his reflection in the glass of a window – he felt then that he couldn’t see himself. He was seeing a man that looked like him, yes, but not him. It was a difficult emotion to unravel and get to grips with… he was struggling to recognise this Peter Smith, a person he had been time and time again. The vivid memories were still there – Mother burning alive, The Space first allowing him to reach out to It – but he could no longer fully connect with them. He was an outsider, just looking in on someone else’s lives. And yet, here he was living this life right now and staring at his genuine reflection. Darren’s spin on their role in the world was tainted, and Peter now put his own current peculiar mood down to that.
* * *
Lock Lane Inn was a veritable feast of life at this time of an evening. That blindingly fierce ale would help even the most hardened cynic loosen their woes for a brief interlude of unabated merriment. This is exactly what Peter and Stephen now sought – simple, unashamed happiness. They moved briskly through the thick cloud of pipe smoke and landed at the bar, where a half-hunched bald man with a blister-covered face greeted them.
‘Gentlemen,’ he shouted above the racket in the room, pouring two pints of the only drink served in this place. Peter got his purse out to pay the man, but he shook his head. ‘The money of a dead man is no good here.’
