Ace of Spiders

by Stefan Mohamed

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I say. ‘You can’t. I can’t . . . I have . . . I’m going in there to try and stop what’s happening.’ She might even believe me if I sound half convincing.

  ‘What are we supposed to do then?’ The child lets out a snotty snob, and the girl kneels down and hugs him to her.

  ‘Hide somewhere,’ I say. ‘Hide until it’s over. That’s all I can offer you.’

  ‘Can we hide in there?’ She nods towards the gallery.

  Should have thought of that. ‘Yeah. Come on.’ I walk towards the Kulich with Daryl by my side and the girl and her little brother scrambling after us. The entrance slides open at my command and we enter the darkened, familiar lobby. The architecture is entirely minimalist, white walls and uncomfortable-looking furniture. ‘Hide under the front desk,’ I say. ‘If anything comes in here, just . . . don’t make a sound.’

  ‘Thanks.’ The girl goes to the desk with her brother and ducks under it. The little boy buries his face in her neck and she strokes his hair and offers me something resembling a smile. ‘Good luck.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  Amazingly, the lift is still working. Daryl and I ride it up, and a bland, tinny approximation of ‘Come Fly With Me’ plays. ‘They’ve changed their tune,’ says Daryl. ‘Actually kind of appropriate.’

  Hmm.

  We stop, get out and walk. Another long corridor. I’m sick to the back teeth of these. For several minutes we walk silently, past small rooms full of identical furniture and the same old random art, and then we enter another hallway, one I remember. I remember the way it made me feel the last time I walked along it, because I’m getting a diluted echo of that feeling now. There’s the stainless steel door; the potted plants that used to stand sentry on either side have vanished. I think open and through we go, into the big room, the room where Freeman died the first time. All the furniture is gone, there are just the photographs on the wall . . . except they’re not photographs, just big bronze frames surrounding what looks like calm grey water. They ripple every now and then but show nothing. I move towards one and can feel energy emanating from it, dizzying power. ‘So . . . where is he?’ asks Daryl.

  ‘The other world. Wherever the monsters and the shimmers come from. That’s where Smith said things could be fixed.’ As I speak, something I’ve been trying not to think about finally overrules me, pushing its way to the front of my thoughts. It’s been nice having company, and it kind of had to be Daryl . . .

  But he can’t come with me.

  ‘So the paintings lead to the monster world?’

  ‘Must do,’ I say. ‘Dunno, maybe with everything that’s happened they’ve like . . . mutated, or something. They were pretty random before, I think they showed what they wanted . . . but now they must be portals.’ I walk forwards. He can’t come. Tell him he can’t come.

  Wait.

  I want to try something.

  I stare into the grey mass within the painting and think show me Kloe, and after a few seconds the greyness begins to change, to take on form and colour. It shifts into a perfect image of the shack in the forest, bathed in green-tinged sunlight. It makes me squint. I’d pretty much forgotten what daylight looks like. ‘I have to know,’ I say. ‘If they’re all right . . .’

  If they’re all right then screw going after Freeman. I’m going to them.

  No I’m not.

  And if anything has happened to them, I’m definitely going after him.

  Who are you kidding, dickhead?

  You’re going after him whatever happens.

  Now I see Kloe’s face at the window and I feel like my blood has turned to sunlight. It shines from my eyes, from my skin, pouring out. Tara appears next to her and for a millisecond that could be a billion years, everything is all right. There are no such things as monsters, they belong under the bed in your dreams. Death, pain, violence, betrayal, endless night, black snow, none of it is real. None of it exists. There is just me and my family. Morter Smith is forgotten. Tara may be his daughter, but she’s mine. I stare at my beautiful Kloe as she and Tara wash up their plates and chatter, smiling and laughing, and I want to sob with joy . . . except I can’t. There’s no time. ‘Are you going to say goodbye?’ says Daryl.

  ‘I couldn’t,’ I say. ‘If I go in there, I won’t come back.’ I take one last look at them, at my family, the other two thirds of my soul, and I blow them a kiss, and I think stop and try to ignore the horror in my chest as the picture fades to grey.

  ‘Right,’ says Daryl. ‘So . . . how does this work?’

  ‘Search me.’ I focus on the painting, and I concentrate.

  I think show me the monster world.

  I think let me in.

  The grey lake trapped in the frame shifts as though blown by a gentle wind and begins to change colour. Dull grey becomes vibrant silver, cerulean blue, white . . . then black begins to bleed into the white like oil into milk, and the oil becomes blood, and then it is still, and I’m looking into another world. There are no monsters that I can see, just a cave of rusty red rocks and scarlet stalactites and stalagmites. An acidic smell wafts from within the painting. ‘Guess that must be it,’ says Daryl. ‘Right . . .’ He takes a deep breath. ‘Lead the way, kid. Methinks that shit’s about to get cray cray.’

  ‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘You’re not going.’

  ‘You what?’

  ‘You’re not coming with me,’ I say. ‘You’re staying here.’

  ‘Come again?’

  ‘You heard me.’

  ‘Yeah, and, um, no.’

  ‘Daryl—’

  ‘Who killed Big Blue?’ the dog demands. ‘Out of the two of us? Who took down the elephant-sized killer dog? Who?’

  ‘You, but—’

  ‘Yeah, exactly! Me! It’s not like I’m the hired help, you’re not dragging Mrs Overall around with you. I’ve got mad skills, mate!’

  ‘Not the issue,’ I say. ‘Not even remotely. I need you here in case . . . in case I don’t come out. If I manage to do whatever I’m supposed to do in there but I don’t escape for whatever reason . . . I need you to find Kloe and tell her what happened. Tell Tara. Tell my parents. Tell everyone. I don’t . . . I want them all to know. That I love them. And that . . . that any promises I might be breaking, it’s because I’m trying to fix things.’

  ‘You stand a much better chance of coming back if I go with you,’ says Daryl.

  ‘Maybe,’ I say. ‘But think about it. Freeman’s been orchestrating this for . . . I don’t even know how long. Years, at least. He knows I’m going to be about as pissed off as a human being is capable of being. He wouldn’t ask me to meet him if he thought there was any way I could get one over on him.’

  ‘Stanly, please . . .’

  ‘I’m asking you,’ I say. ‘As my best friend. Do this for me. Please.’

  He hangs his head. ‘Fine. But you’d better come back. Or else.’

  I pat him on the head, hopefully not in a condescending way. I don’t really know what to say, so I say nothing.

  And I step through.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  THE ACIDIC, SMOKY smell is far stronger in here than out there and the humidity is much higher, like I’d imagine the atmosphere in a rainforest to be. I take a couple of exploratory breaths. Definitely oxygen. S’pose Freeman would have warned me if I wasn’t going to be able to breathe.

  Unless he just wanted to kill me.

  Which would actually have been a pretty good plan.

  Marvelling at how easily I would have marched into that theoretical trap, I look behind me. No portal, just a blank crimson wall with the vague impression of a room and a dog, like it was scratched in with a piece of stone thousands of years ago. It gives me a shiver, and I turn my back on it and start to walk. I can hear strange noises far away, bleeps and whirrs and the calls of bizarre birds, and
something like wind but not. Like waves of thought, psychic tides. This cave goes on for several minutes, barren, just dust and rock, and I’m beginning to wonder if this is it when I spy an opening in the wall ahead. It’s pretty small, just big enough for me to squeeze through. I’m rapidly heating up in my soldier uniform so I take it off, apart from the boots. Back in my Angel Group hospital pyjamas. I slip through the opening into a narrow, constricted tunnel with a metallic odour to it and crawl along for a little while, occasionally catching myself on sharp outcrops, but pain seems to bounce off me now, like rain.

  The tunnel ends very suddenly and I tumble out, rolling head over heels and landing on my arse on what feels like grass. It’s blue, though, and rustles in the lack of breeze like sea vegetation. I stand up. This new plain is massive. In the distance loom purple mountains tipped with snow, with indistinct swirls of rainbow colour beyond. It’s hard to know what colour the sky is, obscured as it is by a ceiling of peach-coloured clouds through which many-winged birds swoop and glide. I feel weirdly calm and slip my boots off, just because it feels like the thing to do. The grass feels nice between my toes and I’m about to set off when I hear thunderous footfalls. My stomach lurches, although not as much as I feel it should, because the beast coming towards me is a giant, bigger than the one we took down with the tanks, bigger perhaps than whatever I saw through the smog back in London. Wherever that is. It’s humanoid and covered in brown armour, its two enormous legs ending in great clawed feet and leading up to a bulbous pock-marked body, with two hefty arms that swing slowly as it walks. I can barely even make out its head – I can just about see that it’s sort of triangular. The thing is so tall that I’m utterly, comically dwarfed, and I get ready to fly and defend myself . . . but it doesn’t attack. It doesn’t even seem to notice me. It just stomps straight past and continues on its way. I stand there for a moment, dumbfounded. Lucky.

  Oh well. Onwards. The air is still very warm but the grass is cool and damp and kisses my toes. I almost feel bad walking on it with such dirty stinking feet. I proceed for about five minutes and don’t spy any more giants, but then the carpet of grass abruptly gives way to a sheer cliff that I’m sure wasn’t there before. There is another cliff hundreds of feet beyond, but they’re separated by a huge yawning gulf. I can just about see water far, far below, dark green, and even the vague impression of things swimming in it. I think I should probably put my boots back on but I realise that I left them back there where I exited the cave. Haha. Silly.

  Wait, what?

  ‘Silly’?

  What the hell is wrong with me?

  It’s the air here, the feel of this place. It’s like being stoned. I slap myself hard, again, again, and make myself remember why I’m here. I’m here because London is being trashed by monsters. I’m here because I need to save it, and the world. Because people have died, and more will die.

  Because Eddie is dead.

  There it is. Good old pain.

  Sharp.

  Focus.

  I take a deep breath, jump out into the nothingness and fly . . . except I don’t. I fall, turning over and over, water sky cliff water sky cliff water sky cliff. What? No! I think fly over and over again and suddenly stop falling, jarring my body and winding myself. I’m not even halfway to the water below. I sit panting in the air for a moment, getting my breath back, keeping my mind on staying there, then fly up and across the gap between the cliffs, touching down on more blue grass. Another brown giant strides past in front of me, and again it doesn’t even seem to notice I’m there. I frown. Surely I should have seen it coming. How could something so huge have surprised me like that?

  This place . . .

  I fly low over the grass, the springy blue tips tickling my chin, towards a collection of big sandy-coloured rocks about half a mile away. When I get there, I see that the biggest one has a doorway in it. I don’t know how I know where I’m going. I just have a feeling . . .

  Can I trust it?

  I close my eyes and think Freeman’s name. I think where are you, you son of a bitch. I think it with everything I have. And after about thirty seconds . . .

  (Here. Waiting.)

  That’s all I need. I close my mind again, fall to my knees and crawl through the hole in the rock, into pitch darkness. I barely have time to get used to the dark before the floor gives way and I’m rolling down a steep incline, grazing myself repeatedly on sharp little stones, making a hollow rattling noise as I roll. The tunnel is cramped but I manage to sort of re-position myself so I’m sliding rather than tumbling. I can see light now, white light at the end, and I slide out of the tunnel into water. It’s warm, ankle-deep and a translucent pink, and I can see thousands of tiny gold wasp-like fish buzzing around the sand on the bottom. I’m in another cave, except this one is bright purple and its irregular walls are covered with shining silver specks . . . and there’s something up ahead, coming towards me. It scuttles into a shaft of light that doesn’t visibly come from anywhere, and I stop breathing for a second. Black. Fat. Too many legs. Smiley Joe.

  No . . . oh God, no . . .

  Wait . . .

  It looks different. Its mouths are small, gummy-looking slits, rather than horrible toothy lamprey maws, and it moves slowly, almost shyly, making an odd low bleating sound. It stops a little way away, giving no sign of having even noticed my presence . . . like the big brown thing . . . then kneels, a pretty stupid-looking movement considering the shape of its body, and starts trying to dunk bits of itself in the water, to reach the little fish with its mouths, splashing madly. I watch it, bemused, but it still doesn’t acknowledge me, it just keeps fishing, so I step past it and continue through the watery cave.

  This place is . . .

  I’m not even sure how to finish the thought. The cave ends at a stone staircase leading further downwards and and I follow it into the black, treading carefully. It’s rough and sharp under my bare feet, and I curse my stupid stoned self for leaving my stupid boots back at that stupid cave. I can hear invisible things flapping about in the dark . . . they sound like they’re giggling . . . and there is a damp, cold smell. I descend for a long time until light finally appears: a bright green glow above me. A gap of some kind. I fly towards it, feeling tiny things brushing past me, and float through the window into . . . a forest?

  A sort of forest, anyway. The browns and greens look right and there is grass and bracken and trees, but it’s all distorted as though through frosted glass and fish-eye lenses. Trees growing sideways out of gaps in the air, ropes of grass dangling from a ceiling I can’t see. Everything is filtered through different shades of green and my nose fills with a scent like rotten apples. There is something dangling from a twisted branch in front of me, a red ribbon gently flapping, and I take it because it reminds me of Tara. Gripping the ribbon hard and gritting my teeth, I start to run through this strange upside-down forest. Once or twice I try to look left or right but the clashing of perspectives and dimensions makes me feel dizzy and sick so I keep my eyes fixed straight ahead. I’m sure there are big things flying above me, or maybe walking or sitting on the impossible ceiling, but I don’t look. I mustn’t look. I’m not sure how I know that, but I do.

  Then suddenly it all stops, like I blinked and someone changed the reel, and I’m standing at the edge of another huge cliff. Seems like I should have seen this coming. There is no cliff on the other side, though, just a wall of mist with the suggestion of immense things moving beyond, strange shadows bigger again than anything I’ve seen so far, and the rumble of voices, the murmuring of ancient, unknowable alien gods. I glance down at my hand, looking for the ribbon, for comfort, but it’s not there. I dropped it . . . or never had it. I peer over the edge of the cliff. No water below, just red rock. I’ll take my chances down there. I jump, remembering to think fly this time, and dive down, down, down, flipping over at the bottom and landing neatly. The ground down here vibrates with the ech
oes of monstrous strides, and the indistinct shapes beyond the mist fill me with a new fear, even though I’ve so far been left alone by everything I’ve met.

  I look around. To my left and right are endless stretches of red rock, forward is an army of unseen giants. I really don’t want them to become visible giants, but the thought that they might shortly be stomping around my city spurs me on and I start to run towards them. This is the way anyway, I know it is, somehow. I run, face set, tensing myself, ready to do battle with whatever lies within. Glowing with readiness, I jump forwards and break through—

  And I’m falling again, falling falling falling through mist, past random splatters of colour, the grumbling beasts obviously much further away than I thought, if they’re even there at all. I want to think about flying but for some reason it doesn’t feel right. I’m not falling normally, my descent is slow, lazy. It’s quite refreshing. I land gently after several minutes and open my eyes, despite not being able to remember closing them, and find myself standing on a path of black rocks about a metre wide, leading across a bubbling green lake. It’s boiling hot down here and stinks, myriad new ghastly smells that I’ve never sniffed before. The air is hazy and there are definitely things swimming in the green water, although nothing breaks the surface, and at the other end of the path I can see a doorway in a lime green wall. I start walking gingerly towards it, then my brain kicks itself. Fly, idiot. I fly, making sure I stay right above the path, and enter the doorway in the wall. Another cramped tunnel to fly through, then out and into another cave, at least I think it’s a cave . . . everything’s suddenly topsy-turvy again . . . I’m standing on solid ground . . . but I’m half upside-down? There is definitely a path in front of me . . . but it’s both behind and beside me as well, and snakes back on itself . . . although it continues in a straight line . . . aaaaah . . .

  Focus.

  FOCUS, BOY.

  I close my eyes and try to unscramble my thoughts. When I open them again I find that things have changed, but not for the better. I’m in a distorted chamber of purples and blacks and greens, and there’s water, and things moving, and I’m sure there’s an exit not very far away so I start to run towards it. Only I’m going backwards. And straight up. But no . . . down . . .