London Under Midnight

by Simon Clark

  The image flashed back of this woman being held down on the wall at the edge of the river as the brutish figure sucked blood from her stomach.

  'Yes.' April stared into the woman's face. The expression of pure horror had the power to hold her. 'I was there. We-'

  'For God's sake, why didn't you stop him?'

  'We tried. My boyfriend-'

  'You bitch, you just watched, didn't you? You probably thought it was funny!' The woman backed away with her arms folded. She panted as if her lungs couldn't draw enough air into her body. 'Bitch,' the red-haired woman gasped. 'Someone should do the same to you.'

  'He did, look!' April pointed at her own side with the raw flaps of the wound raised above the skin. 'See? Everyone else has the same kind of wound.'

  The man in the yellow shirt appeared in a daze now. 'How did we get here? Why is the sun so bright?'

  'That's not the sun, it's the moon.'

  'You're lying,' he told her. 'Bitch. You must be in on this. Did you put something in our drinks?'

  Alongside panic a sense of violence crackled in the air as if that bunch of terrified victims on the beach were desperate to find someone to blame.

  'Listen.' The man pointed at April. 'She knows what's happening.'

  'I don't. I'm the same as-'

  The redhead glared at her. 'That woman stood and watched me being mauled.'

  'I didn't. My boyfriend tried to stop it. He was knocked down.'

  Fear drove these people now. They were desperate for answers. Approximately twenty men and women formed a circle around her.

  The man in the yellow shirt snarled, 'She said that was the moon. Look how bright it is? It's got to be the sun, so why's she telling us it's the moon? This is a trick. She probably drugged our drinks, then followed us outside.'

  April felt close to weeping. 'Listen to me. I'm just like you. I was attacked. I was thrown in the water. I woke up here on the island. Yes, that's the moon. I don't know why it's so bright.'

  'See, she knows all about it.' This was a kid in his teens. The denim jacket he wore had chains stitched to it so they clinked as he pointed at her. His bite mark disfigured his face. 'How does she know about an island?'

  The man in the shirt rubbed his stomach. The wound must have started its maddening itch. 'She knew I wouldn't be able to remember my name. There's a drug that does that to you.'

  'You were washed up here, like me,' April insisted. 'This is a Glory Hole for bodies. My brother said that the tides and currents gather objects-'

  'What the hell is the bitch talking about?'

  'Listen to me. Like coins, and stones of a certain size, the river currents grade them naturally and then deposit them on beaches. If you look down here all the stones are as big as coins.'

  'Watch her,' the youth warned, 'she's trying something.'

  'She's playing for time.' This was the redhead. 'Whoever brought us here is coming back so she's trying to distract us.'

  'I can make her talk.' The youth reached into his pocket and drew out a clasp knife. He took pleasure in easing the blade from its recess.

  'Please. You've got to believe me.' Nausea surged through April. For a moment she thought she'd vomit there and then. She took a deep breath. 'Listen. We were all attacked. We ended up in the water. The river washed us up here… this island.' She swallowed to push down that ball of heat rising in her throat. 'Washed up here. That happened to all of us.'

  The guy in the shirt screamed at her. 'Washed up here! We're not stupid! If we floated here, how come we didn't drown?'

  'I don't know… sorry… don't know.' Inside, she went from searing heat to ice. 'Something's happening to me.'

  'Wrong, sister,' spat the redhead. 'Something will happen to you.' She took a step toward her. 'I'm going to rip every hair out of your damn head until you tell us what's happened.'

  'Please.'

  The man in the shirt kneaded his stomach rather than rubbing it. Something was working on him, too. 'And if she doesn't talk then I'm going to break her neck.'

  A flush of heat ran through April's face as her stomach was hit by cramp. 'Doesn't anyone here remember their name?' She looked at the twenty faces. But now those faces blazed hostility at her. They could beat their fear by beating her. That was their solution. 'And aren't the colours too bright? They blaze at you, don't they?'

  'That'll be the effect of the drug you put in our drinks.'

  'I didn't spike any stupid drinks.' April couldn't stand straight now, the stomach pains were so intense. 'Don't any of you feel a sense of confusion? Like you've been spun around and around so much you…' A bitter taste flooded her mouth.

  The redhead lunged at her and grabbed her hair. 'Confusion? That'll be the drug. It's all adding up now. You drugged us, then you and your friends brought us here, didn't you?'

  'What about the bite marks?'

  'Fucking sadists, that's what you are.'

  The man in the shirt grinned manically. 'That's right. You were going to fuck us round and do something perverted but we woke up too soon. Now we're going to fuck around with you until you wish you'd never been born.'

  'But I'm the same as you! I'm a victim!' Overwhelming spasms ran through her. With them came searing heat and an urge to vomit.

  Only… the sensation was mutating inside of her. Mutating… that can't be the right word, she told herself. Only it was mutating. That's exactly the right word. This wasn't merely change in her stomach; this was mutant transformation. Her very guts seemed to writhe inside her. She clutched her belly as she cried out.

  The redhead who gripped her hair must have thought it was the pain in her scalp that did it. She nodded with satisfaction. 'See how you like being hurt. How about a bit more? Hmm?'

  She dragged April back by her hair. Only it wasn't her scalp that hurt.

  'Something's happening to me,' April gasped.

  'I'm going to make her tell us,' the man said. 'Before her friends come back… uh…' He pressed the heel of his hand into his midriff.

  'You feel it, too, don't you?' April felt the woman release her hair. The redhead backed away as she massaged her own belly with her two hands. 'What is it you feel?'

  The kid in the denim jacket muttered, 'It's the crap she gave us. I've got to eat something. Christ, I'm hungry.' He tried to laugh but there was fear in his eyes. Whatever affected April had started on him, too. The kid's throat muscles twitched.

  Instead of the people directing their anger at April Connor they moved about the beach in a restless way. Their expressions suggested they were preoccupied with what was happening to their own bodies. They were no longer interested in her, or their paranoid accusations. No, they were gripped by another obsession now… April licked her lips. The pain in her stomach morphed into another sensation entirely. Hunger. A desperate need to eat. A burning, screaming, shouting, overwhelming need: food, hunger, eat, satisfy. The craving to stuff food in her mouth was suddenly everything. It was the whole universe. What matters now? Damn it! Nothing matters now. If news arrived of the deaths of her mother, father, Trajan: it wouldn't matter. The necessity now was food.

  From the expressions on the faces of that bedraggled group on the beach that's what mattered to them. Can hunger be infectious? How can they all be hungry simultaneously? These thoughts still flitted through April's mind but the supernova of all sensation now was the incandescent hunger that raged inside of her. It didn't seem confined to her stomach. That lust to gorge blazed through her veins. And it was more than hunger; that need to wolf down food hurt. It became a living pain inside of her. Nothing mattered but food. Wildly, she looked round as if expecting to find mounds of roast beef on the beach. There had to be something to eat. If there wasn't she'd go out of her mind.

  Out of her mind? God, she'd left rational thought behind.

  Eating, eating, eating… that's all that mattered now. The others were the same. They ran along the shingle like a pack of hungry dogs. They even sniffed the air as if a hot meal waited for th
em close by. The kid with the denim jacket sped into the bushes to lift up branches; no doubt he hoped that he'd find a sizzling T-bone steak dripping its beautiful juices on the grass.

  The man in the yellow shirt shuffled on all fours across the beach; his hands picked amongst the stones with a fevered speed. She knew the overriding impulse that drove him; that if there was the slightest chance he'd find something edible there he'd search until doomsday. With a strange cry he snatched up a large stone. His expression was the same as an alcoholic knowing that next whisky might kill him, but his will power had collapsed. For a second he held the pebble that was the size of a peach in front of him. He stared at it in horror. His hands shook; tears streamed down his face. Then he opened his loose, pink mouth as wide as he could, stuffed the rock between his jaws, then bit down as hard as he could. The sound of his snapping teeth made April Connor flinch.

  Madness…

  And yet… and yet… the incandescent hunger that seared her entire body drove her to search the beach, too. It made sense. There had to be food here, too. The waves washed all kinds of things on to the shore. Why not food? Container ships full of meat lose their cargos from time to time. Images of dead fish being carried in amid the scum of high tide filled her head. Fat fish, bursting with moist, pink flesh.

  All around her, those men and women searched for food in the bushes, the reeds, the flotsam on the beach. The man still broke his teeth on the rock, screaming in frustration as he did so at his inability to devour it as if it were a hunk of chocolate. April scrambled to where waves lapped the shore. There she saw a little bank of dirt emerge from the falling tide. All of a sudden this struck her as an amazing sight. The moonlight made the dirt glisten; its silky texture captivated her. She approached it at a crouch as if terrified she'd somehow frighten it away, so it would be beyond reach. Gently, gently, gently she squatted beside it. Its smooth purity was unearthly. Instead of pebbles this was a velvety accumulation of tiny particles that had the texture and appearance of black sugar. 'Oh…' Just to look at it made her sigh with pleasure. The thought of sinking her fingers into the moist confection sent a dizzying whirl of anticipation through her. Nothing else mattered now but that juicy up-swelling of luscious black sweetness. I'm so lucky, she told herself, all this is mine. Those idiots haven't noticed what's lying here under their noses.

  As she dipped her hands into it she couldn't stop the tiny kitten-like cries escape her lips. It was all she could do to stop herself screaming with joy at capturing this luxurious mound of candied blackness from the water. Every cell of her being glowed with pleasure. Her mouth was wet with anticipation at the first mouthful. April dug her hand deep into the mud then crammed it into her mouth. Munching those moist particles was sheer bliss. Her teeth crunched against the larger fragments. Swallowing was something else! It was pain and ecstasy all at the same time. The ball of cold matter squeezed down her throat, stretching the gullet until it almost split. But this is what she wanted… this is everything she wanted… Even the tiny voice in her head that told her she squatted in the water devouring silt was nothing to her. A gnat on the periphery of reality; nothing more. She prepared to savour the next handful of the glistening delicacy, which was deliciously speckled with fragments of crisp, white sea shell, when a hand grabbed her arm.

  'Let go!' she screamed. 'This is mine! Find your own!'

  A man's voice hissed urgently, 'Get away from here!'

  'You're not having any. I found it!' Using both hands she scooped mounds of the black sugary treat to her mouth where she sucked at it with a ferocity that was nothing less than gluttonous. Its flavors were chocolate, roast beef, red wine and a vivid honeyed nougat. She couldn't get enough.

  'Get away from here! Any minute now they're going to go crazy!'

  Something about that note of warning pierced the insane lust to eat. April looked down at the black stuff on her hands. Puzzled, she uttered, 'That's mud.' She wiped her lips. 'I'm eating mud?'

  'If you don't come now, I'm leaving you, and I don't fancy your chances once that thing comes down on them.'

  'Uh?' She peered up at the man who helped her to her feet. 'What?'

  'It's going to hit them any second now. The feeding frenzy.'

  April peered at the beach where the bunch of men and women had been searching for food. They'd stopped now. Instead, they stared with a peculiar, fixed intensity at the redheaded woman as she knelt at the high tide mark. There she stuffed green seaweed into her mouth - slimy strands hung down from her lips as she fought to cram in more. The woman never noticed that she was the object of such scrutiny.

  'See?' the man told April. 'They're realizing they need something more than dirt to stop the craving.'

  Dazed, April asked, 'Why was I eating that stuff?' Even though she knew that glistening mound was mud she had the same reluctance leaving it as saying goodbye to a loved one. The sense of loss didn't seem bizarre; she even found herself rationalizing the idea of taking a handful with her, just in case the hunger returned.

  'First, it's a good idea to get away from here.' He tugged her to her feet. 'You're not like the rest. There's a different look in your eye. Your mind hasn't gone yet. Understand?'

  She didn't understand. All she could manage was to stand up straight. There, in moonlight that was bright as the noonday sun, was a man with curly black hair. He was perhaps mid-twenties and wore an expression of such concern she could have been his child that he was rescuing. When he spoke she noticed that the tips of his front teeth had been covered with gold. He had the air of someone who loved the luxuries life offered but wasn't troubled how he acquired them.

  'Yeah, I can see you've still got some human left in you,' he said. A mysterious statement that troubled her. 'You're looking at me, right? And you're telling yourself you see a gangster.'

  'I don't know you.'

  'No, you don't. Okay, I got stupid as a kid. I did time inside. But now I straighten out other kids with bad habits. Theft, drugs, self-destructing. And I read Charles Dickens because he knew poverty. But all that's for later, yeah? Because if you don't come now they're likely to start ripping you apart once they've finished with her.' Something of his alarm communicated itself to her. Get out of here! Now! his expression hollered loud and clear, so she followed him.

  The twenty people - people? People! - were beast-like now. They appeared to slink toward the woman who fed on green river slime as if they were panthers. Their feet made faint crunching sounds on the shingle. When one grunted, clearly feeling a ravenous hunger, the redhead looked up to see the pack closing in on her.

  The youth in the denim jacket chewed the air as if in his imagination he already chewed on firm meat. When the attack came it wasn't what April expected. The movement was a blur as the redhead launched herself to her feet, then hurled herself on the man in the yellow shirt. Sheer bloodlust made her howl at the top of her voice as she slammed her mouth against his head to bite into his skin. As if frightened to be denied their share of food the pack pounced on the man. After that, April Connor only saw the man's face two more times as the mass of people buried him. First, she saw his agonized expression as his eyes turned skyward as if to ask: God, why me? His mouth opened wide to reveal the teeth he'd broken when he tried to eat the pebble. Then the squirming, swarming mass of bodies covered him as they clamored to bite. The second time she saw his face was when his head broke the surface of that scrum. His attackers' teeth had ripped his face. Both his cheeks hung down at either side of his neck; they swung there; two crimson flaps.

  The mob buried the man from April's sight again as they devoured him.

  'That isn't what they need,' her rescuer panted. 'They think they want to munch down every shred of his skin, but that's because they don't really know what they want yet.' He nodded toward them. 'Once they realize that he hasn't satisfied their hunger then that's when they'll start on you. Come on.'

  Together they loped away into the trees, leaving the feeding-frenzy to rage on the moonlit b
each.

  SIX

  Home for Ben Ashton is an apartment in a converted warehouse by the Thames. It came recommended to him by a fellow writer by the name of Jack Constantine. Jack occupied a ritzier loft dwelling on the top floor. Ben's trio of rooms - lounge/kitchen, bedroom, bathroom - occupied part of the third floor. For a century the building had swallowed spices from the East Indies by the ton; lifting them directly from the ship, which moored alongside the wharf, then swinging them on derricks into the cavernous interior. Well, what was the cavernous interior of the building. Fifteen years ago it had been subdivided into individual dwellings. Even so, when nights were warm, just like this one, Ben would wake in the early hours to catch the exotic aromas of nutmeg and capsicum overlaid with those spikier scents of peppercorns.

  Ben lay flat on his bed that right at that moment seemed as big and as desolate and as lonely as the Gobi desert. He stared into the shadows as his clock-radio burned a forlorn 2:47 a.m. at him. Usually he slept well but meeting April Connor had unsettled him. He murmured to himself, 'They do say you only regret the things you didn't do; not what you did.' He clicked his tongue. 'You're feeling sorry for yourself again, mush.' He closed his eyes and told himself, sleep, soon you can get up and start hunting for Raj's phantom graffiti artist. His eyes flicked open again. The assignment of the century, he thought. Ben Ashton, investigative journalist, finds kid who sprays funny slogan on walls. He groaned. Crap assignment, good money, stop complaining. He ran his fingers through his hair. Five seconds later he sat upright in bed. 'Okay, Ben, my old china, what's keeping you awake?' he asked himself. He knew the answer. April Connor. When he saw her arm-in-arm with the fabulously blond Trajan it hurt like having a red-hot poker rammed into a place that had never seen the light of day before. He took a deep breath. That piquant aroma of spices reached into his nostrils from where it had seeped into the brickwork long ago. 'Right, Ben. Shall we take it from the top?' He groaned. 'Not this again. Not a list of my failings. Why do you do this to yourself?' He climbed out of bed and began to pace while he recited his old litany. 'First off, you talk to yourself too much. Why do you do that, Ben? Because you are lonely. And why are you lonely? I'm lonely because I let April Connor slip through my fingers. We were best friends; only when I lost touch with her did I realize, first class, gold-plated idiot that I am, that I loved her. Satisfied?' He folded his arms as he gazed out of the window. The lights from the far bank painted luminous streaks on the surface of the river. 'You loved her; lost her; and she never even knew. There, that's my confession.' He found it hard to leave the litany at that. He tried to be flippant, but bitter currents crept into it. He stared up at the full moon as it floated there above London. It could have been the vast orb of a godlike eye, gazing coldly down at one Ben Ashton, magazine writer, lonely soul. You blew it, Ben, didn't you? For the first time in your life you find the woman that suited you… You let her go without finding out how she felt about you.