by Guy Adams
Forests can be terrifying places. They make me think of the grave. It’s the way they seal you off from the outside world. They muffle and distort sound, imposing their own dull silence, broken in this case only by drips of water and the almost nautical creak of straining branches. People talk about getting lost in forests, I feel lost the minute I enter one.
I knew it was important to try and be organised, I had brought a pack of brightly coloured ribbon that I’d found in Alexandra’s apartment and I used short lengths of it, tied onto low branches to mark out my way as I zigzagged through the trees. It was hardly Ariadne’s thread, offering a safe return path through the labyrinth, but it did at least mean that I was unlikely to double back on myself without noticing. There were enough paths that I could never truly be lost, but I could walk right past Robie without noticing him unless I made a concerted effort to quarter the forest, covering it as methodically as I could.
I’d been walking for about an hour when I began to hear voices ahead of me. As I drew closer I heard the crackle of a fire, the smell of wood smoke cutting through the clean, chill air.
It was a little group of homeless men and women. Five in all. They had constructed makeshift tents between the trees, lengths of sheeting strung up between the trunks. In the centre of their camp a small fire smouldered. On seeing me, one of them, no more than eighteen, jumped to his feet in surprise. I couldn’t tell whether he meant to run or attack. Either way, I held up my hands and hastily explained I meant no harm.
‘I’m not police,’ I explained. ‘I’m just trying to find a friend.’
‘In this weather?’ one of the others laughed. She no doubt appeared older than she actually was, her lank blonde hair having formed ringlets around her ruddy face. ‘One for you, eh, Jan?’
Jan was clearly the young man who had jumped up. He was also clearly embarrassed at the woman’s suggestion. ‘Fuck you, Karin,’ he said, kicking some wet leaves at her.
‘The man I’m after really is a friend,’ I explained. ‘I think he’s been staying out here for the last few nights.’
One of the others, a man all but hidden by his bushy beard was quick to answer. ‘Don’t know anyone else out here,’ he said. ‘Keep ourselves to ourselves.’ He lay on a park bench, no doubt dragged in here from one of the more public spaces. He looked curiously like a Roman Emperor, propped up on one elbow, as if waiting for grapes to be delivered to him.
‘You haven’t seen anyone else around?’ I asked again, suspicious, but not altogether surprised, at the speed with which he had denied knowing anything. ‘He’s a bit younger than me, thinning hair. It’s his eyes you’d have noticed, they’re each a different colour. I’d happily pay you for information.’
‘I could take your money,’ he said, ‘spend it on something to keep me warm. But I don’t know anyone, none of us do, so we can’t help you.’
He glanced around at the rest of them, most likely making it clear they should keep their mouths shut too. Frustrating but, conversely, hopeful. I doubted he’d be so adamant unless he was hiding something.
‘Fair enough,’ I said, reaching into my wallet and pulling out a few deutsche marks for them anyway. My conscience wouldn’t allow me to walk off without giving them something.
I left them to their fire and continued to weave between the trees, and soon all around me was silent once more. Enough so that when Jan suddenly appeared ahead of me, peering out from behind a tree, I nearly cried out, embarrassing both of us.
‘Hello Jan,’ I said. ‘You nearly frightened me to death.’
He grinned. ‘I move quietly.’
‘You certainly do. Have you remembered something?’
He nodded, glancing over his shoulder. ‘Kurt doesn’t want us to say anything so if anyone asks I just offered you a blow job, OK?’
I wasn’t sure what to say to that. I just nodded in what I hoped was a suitably casual manner.
‘The man you’re after is that way,’ he pointed off to my left. ‘He uses one of the shelters. We used to but they kick you out after a while. Easier to build your own.’
‘Will you show me?’ I asked. ‘I’ll make it worth your while.’
He shook his head. ‘I can’t be gone too long, Kurt will know. You’ll find it, just keep straight through the trees towards the river. You cross the path and then into the trees again. He is English.’
The sudden change in subject almost threw me. ‘I know,’ I agreed. ‘He really is my friend.’
Jan shrugged. ‘People say that, but they don’t always mean it. He gives me money sometimes.’
I must have given him a funny look because he immediately became defensive. ‘He gets me to buy him food,’ he explained. ‘He doesn’t like to go himself. He doesn’t like people.’
And people like him too much, I thought. I nodded. ‘He likes to keep his own company.’
‘I hope you are his friend,’ Jan said, perhaps wondering whether he’d done the right thing talking to me. ‘He’s a good man.’
‘I am,’ I promised. ‘I’m here to help. He’s in a bit of trouble.’
Jan laughed. ‘Of course he is. You don’t live out here if you’re not.’
I pulled out some money for him and he ran back to the camp, leaving me to hope Robie’s shelter was as easy to find as he’d claimed it to be.
After about ten minutes, I stepped out of the forest into the open air again. As Jan had promised, I’d reached one of the footpaths. The snow had lessened slightly and I could just see the shadow of the Ferris wheel to my left, a vague grey arc in the white sky. I crossed the path and back into the trees on the opposite side.
A few more minutes and I saw the shelter. It was a small wooden cabin, open at the front. In the corner sat a bundle of blankets with a head poking out of them. I’d found him.
I advanced quietly. He seemed to be sleeping and I didn’t want to give him enough warning that he could make a break for it. Hopefully, this time he’d refrain from punching me too.
I was about ten feet away when he spoke.
‘Hello, August. There’s no need to creep.’
Obviously he hadn’t been asleep after all.
‘Lucas.’ I joined him in the shelter, sitting down in the opposite corner. ‘Lovely place you’ve got here.’
‘It’s quiet,’ he replied, ‘usually. I hoped you’d stay away, August.’
‘How could I? You’re in trouble. I wasn’t going to just abandon you.’
‘No,’ he tugged off one of his blankets and threw it at me. ‘It’s been some time since we shared bedclothes but you’ll be glad of it after you’ve been sat still for a minute.’
I pulled it around me. ‘What’s going on, Lucas?’
He was silent for a while, then: ‘How much do you know already?’
I told him my suspicions, that something was controlling people, making them commit violent acts. I told him about the postman that had attached me, and about Grauber.
‘Who?’ he asked.
‘You talked to him in the bar, he told you something and you went off with him.’
He nodded, remembering. ‘He wasn’t Grauber.’
‘He was according to the soldiers I talked to. And it was certainly Grauber who flung himself off his balcony while I watched.’
‘You misunderstand me. I mean it wasn’t Grauber when I talked to him. It was the thing inside. The puppeteer.’
‘The thing that killed him.’
He nodded. ‘I don’t have a name for it. I don’t know what it is. All I know is what it wants. It wants me.’
‘For what?’
‘To wear. To be…’ He rubbed at his unshaven face. ‘It can borrow people, for want of a better term, wear them for a while. Then it has to leave them again. There’s a time limit.’
‘How long?’ Trust me to be thinking in such practical terms already.
‘I don’t know,’ he snapped. ‘It’s not important. But it wants a more permanent host. For that it can’t just take yo
u, you have to allow it. Like selling your soul to the devil. You have to agree.’
‘And you haven’t?’
‘Of course I bloody haven’t. Can you imagine the trouble it would cause inside me? You’ve seen what it’s like, what it does. It’s psychotic. Imagine if it had my skills.’
‘Your charm. Yes. Which is why you’ve been doing everything you can not to let it see what you’re capable of.’
He looked at me in suspicion. ‘August?’
‘Yes.’
‘How do I know, though?’ he asked. ‘How do I really know?’
I told him of one of the more memorable things he’d done on our first night together. Immediately the suspicion dropped away and he laughed, his voice echoing between the trees. ‘Oh Christ… August, love, trust you to think of that.’
‘I often do,’ I admitted. ‘It’s me. You can trust me.’
‘I know,’ he nodded. ‘But you’ve no idea what it’s been like. Ever since it found me, I haven’t known what to do. I keep thinking I should just kill myself, that would be the sensible thing to do, the fair thing.’
‘Nothing fair about it.’
‘You know what I mean, How can I risk it taking control of me? How can I allow that? It’s selfish of me to put my own welfare first.’
‘But you have to allow it. It can’t just take you. Not permanently anyway.’
‘And you’ve seen what it’s willing to do to try and convince me.’
‘Alexandra.’
He nodded. ‘Her death’s on me. No two ways about it, if I was dead then Alexandra wouldn’t be. And now you’re here.’
‘It already knows about me anyway,’ I reminded him, ‘after Grauber. It’s been watching me.’ Perhaps it had even been watching me before then. I thought about the little girl outside Grauber’s block, the old woman in the street beneath Alexandra’s apartment. ‘It’s tried to kill me once. If it does it again then it’s not your fault.’
He shook his head. ‘OK, maybe it’s not my fault, but killing myself is still my only option. I was ready to do it you know, just as you turned up. You annoying, lovely man.’
‘Then I’m glad I came when I did.’ I took his hand. ‘There has to be another way, Lucas. Together we’ll find one.’
‘You can’t stop it, August. It’s nothing. It’s a thought, an idea. How do you fight ideas? Look at this bloody city for proof of that. Millions of people kept apart, not by a wall, that’s just bricks, anyone can kick down bricks. They’re kept apart by thoughts and ideas.’
‘It can’t just possess you permanently, that means it does have weaknesses. Anything with weaknesses can be fought. You just have to figure out how.’
‘Weakness, singular. We don’t know of any others. And while we’re busy trying to figure things out, more people will die. The next one probably you. Can’t you see I don’t want that? Enough is enough.’
There was a cracking sound from in the trees and I looked towards it. I wondered if it was Jan having decided to come and find us anyway.
Then, behind me, there was the sound of a revolver cocking and I turned to see Lucas had pulled a gun from beneath his blanket and had pressed the barrel to his temple.
‘No, Lucas.’ I reached for it and then time seemed to jump. The very next thing I knew I was stood several feet away from the shelter, Lucas lying in the snow just in front of me. For a moment I thought he’d succeeded in shooting himself, blood trickling down the side of his face. Then he looked up at me, a terrified look in his eyes.
‘What…’ I looked around, trying to understand what had just happened. ‘How did we get out here?’
‘It’s here,’ he said, pushing himself up to his knees. ‘It took you over.’
‘I don’t…’ I looked towards the shelter. Was it possible? Had I just lost a section of time because I’d no longer been conscious in my own body? I looked down at my hands. One of them was holding the gun by the barrel, the grip was wet with blood.
‘It expressed its distaste for the idea of my killing myself,’ said Lucas, dabbing at his wounded head. ‘In no uncertain terms.’
‘Where is it?’ I asked, looking around.
‘Who knows where it goes between hosts? Is it in the air? Has it jumped hundreds of miles away to someone else? Do you get it, now, August? Do you see what we’re dealing with?’
‘There has to be something we can do.’
He suddenly charged at me, laughing maniacally. I was so surprised I didn’t even raise my hands to defend myself as he jumped on me, our momentum sending us tumbling backwards. I crashed to the wet ground, the gun falling from my hand as Lucas – or the thing that was now wearing him – jumped up and down on my chest like a small child demanding to play.
‘You could both blow each other’s heads out?’ he said. ‘Or, and here’s an idea…’ He pressed his face close into mine, Lucas’s lips against my cheek. ‘How about you just try to kill everyone in the world? Every. Single. One.’ He poked my chest with each word. ‘That would fix me, wouldn’t it?’
Then time jumped again and I found myself back in the shelter, pinning Lucas up against the wall.
I immediately let go of him and he slumped to the ground.
‘It happened again,’ I said, rather redundantly. ‘Did I hurt you?’
‘Not as much as he’ll hurt you!’ Lucas replied, laughing and kicking my legs out from underneath me.
As I fell back into his nest of blankets, he ran out into the snow, picking up the dropped handgun and turning to face me. ‘I think it’s time to teach Lucas another lesson, don’t you?’ he shouted, firing into the wood a few inches above my head. ‘Why don’t you run?’
‘What would be the point? You can find me anywhere I go.’
‘True,’ he said, ‘but why would I want to be you any more? This one’s got the gun!’
As if to prove the point he fired again, this time into the wood at my feet.
‘So run!’
When he put it like that, I didn’t see I had much choice.
THIRTY-TWO
As I burst out onto the path, I considered running along it. Even with the snow underfoot, I would certainly be able to move faster. I would also make a much easier target.
Snap decision. I retraced my steps from earlier, ducking back between the trees and weaving between them as much as I could, hoping they would take a bullet in my place should the need arise.
Behind me, Lucas whooped like a child playing Cowboys and Indians. ‘Run! Run! Run!’ he shouted.
Of course I bloody would.
And as I did so, I tried to think about what I could do in the long term. Ultimately, beyond staying alive for the next few minutes, running was getting me nowhere. Lucas had been right: how did you fight something that was only a thought? What could I threaten it with? How could I attack it?
It wanted a more permanent host. For now, it had decided that would be Lucas. I was sure that, were Lucas to die, it would only choose someone else. His death would achieve nothing in the long run. Though, as he had rightly said, if it possessed someone else it would, at least, not have access to Lucas’s powers. Had he been right that it was worth doing anything to ensure that didn’t happen?
A shot rang out, clipping the tree next to me and I veered away, losing my footing and crashing to the ground.
‘Nearly!’ he shouted and I could tell he was close behind me. Dare I stand up or would he shoot me the minute I presented him with a target?
I decided to lie still. I thought it was unlikely he’d just walk up behind me and put a bullet in my head, since everything he’d done up until that point relied on the same twisted need for the dramatic. Frankly, killing a man who’s lying flat on his belly is dull.
Of course, as I heard him step behind me, his borrowed feet crunching in the undergrowth, it occurred to me that the real drama in this situation would be letting Lucas see what he had done. For a moment I was convinced that I had misjudged the situation.
‘Get u
p,’ he said, nudging me with his feet. ‘Come on. Get up.’
I was, for the most part, completely still. The only thing that moved was my right hand. I was lying on it, and the short branch it was holding.
‘I said get up!’ he shouted, stooping down and tugging at my coat to flip me over. I moved a little more easily than he would have expected, spinning around, the branch in my fist. I beat at his hand, sending the gun flying into the dirt. He was quick to respond, grabbing the branch and kicking out at me. I’d expected that and pushed the branch away, kicking at the leg he was using to balance himself. He fell backwards and I got up, looking around for the gun.
I saw it, perfect black in a small mound of snow and made for it even as he got up and threw himself at me. We both toppled to the ground, the gun still out of reach.
Again I tried to use our momentum to my advantage, continuing the roll in the earth rather than fighting against it so I ended up on top. I head-butted him in the face and brought my knee up between his legs. I felt sure poor Lucas would forgive me, after all, he’d intended visiting worse on himself.
I got to my feet, just managing to evade his grasp, and grabbed the gun, turning to point it at him.
‘And what are you going to do with that?’ he asked, chuckling. I’d broken his nose I think, blood dripping off his face to patter on the ground beneath him. ‘You’ve made it quite clear you have no intention of killing Mr Robie. Only one of us is willing to murder to get what they want, I think.’
After the fact, when that day in Berlin was long behind me, I thought of lots of things I could, and should, have done. Isn’t that always the way? Going over and over missions, especially the ones that didn’t go our way, and seeing the alternatives that didn’t occur to us at the time. If we didn’t do it then our superiors certainly would, because it’s easy to plot a perfect mission from behind your desk, when the adrenalin’s not making your brain scream and you’re not shaking with fear and anger. When you know all the facts, can look at everything in a cold and analytical manner, the best route is simple. When you’re in the thick of it, it’s often a case of doing the first thing to pop into your head.