by Guy Adams
Jack became aware that there was a couple sitting at the table next to them. He knew it was Miles and Alison without even having to turn. Could tell by the cool drips of river water he heard fall from Alison's slack mouth onto the formica.
'Small fry by your standards, I'll admit,' she continued, dabbing the tip of her tongue on the web of skin between his fingers, 'but the building had such potential. So, we reached for it...' she extended a bony index finger, 'and pushed...' her fingertip disturbed the air around it, sending out ripples, 'forcing ourselves further and further into the universe.'
'Why didn't I notice?' Jack asked, tilting his head as the ripples from the disturbance in the air ricocheted off his brow.
'We've only just started, barely longer than this conversation in your relative time. Our presence echoes all the way along the building's time line, altering things, distorting them... But your position as a time traveller offers you something of a unique perspective. You remember the past the way it was before we started to interfere. Jackson Leaves wasn't always the soup of violence and paradox that it is now; we just made it that way – in less time than the waitress took on your drink, mark you. All the better to feast when we reach inside far enough.'
She bit at the knuckle on his little finger, drawing a drop of blood, before letting go of his hand and withdrawing her tongue back inside a shrinking mouth. Within moments she was just simple Joan Bosher again.
'And we will feast soon,' she added. 'You've time to drink your coffee but not much more than that.' She pushed the mug towards him.
Jack got to his feet and walked towards the door. He yanked it open and swore as he found the road on the other side. Above his head he could hear the sound of whatever dream creature perched on the roof as it tightened the grip of its talons on the guttering. He stepped back into the café.
'Just drink your coffee,' said the thing that looked like Joan Bosher. 'Once feeding has been instigated, there's no turning back.'
'Relax,' suggested the waitress, picking up her dirty cloth and dragging its mouldy fabric over the counter. 'It's only a universe, after all.'
'Take the weight off,' said the more aggressive of the mods, walking towards him.
'Just lie back...' added Miles, looking toward his waterlogged wife.
'...and take it,' Alison gurgled.
Jack thought for a moment before marching over to the mod, picking him up by the lapels of his parka and hurling him through the glass of the door. The glass shattered and the mod winked out of existence, even as the room in Jackson Leaves reappeared on the other side of the fracture.
'Don't lay the table just yet,' warned Jack, stepping through the hole in the door and back into his universe.
TWENTY
Alexander's wheels cut channels through the rain as he headed back towards the front of Jackson Leaves, the umbrella wedged behind his shoulder to keep both him and the apparatus dry. If anything, the rain seemed to be getting heavier, bouncing off the road in white sparkles, and flooding the drains, running in great streams along the gutter. Alexander noticed the streetlights begin to flicker as he lined himself up with the drive of Jackson Leaves.
'It's getting worse,' he whispered, his words lost in the clatter of the rain.
Joe and Hannah didn't need him to tell them, though; looking around was clue enough. The privet hedge writhed in front of the house, new growths shooting forth, leaves unfurling into dry then dead, knocked apart by the hammering rain. A season's growth in an instant.
'It's spreading out,' Alexander shouted, pointing at Gloria Banks's house next door. The structure seemed almost fluid, windows fluctuating between shattered holes and bright new glazing, giving the impression that the house was winking at them. Maybe it was pleased at the undulations that were taking place across its surface: cladding surging forth to be sucked back in again by the hungry bricks, clouds of cement dust exploded from the grouting as it moistened then aged. The blue-granite gravel that Gloria had taken such pride in was not serving her well, swirling and spluttering as it was whipped to and fro by the weeds that thrashed within it.
A crack appeared in the pavement just in front of Alexander's wheelchair.
'We need to be quick!' he shouted. 'Joe, fetch a couple of stones – not from there!' Joe had been moving towards Gloria's house. 'Idiot! Behind us. The disruption is less the further one goes from the house.'
Alexander turned on the contraption in his lap and pointed it towards Jackson Leaves. On the PDA screen he could see the swirls and eddies of chronons as the disruption fluctuated over the area.
Joe returned, holding out a pair of stones.
'Right,' said Alexander. 'Let's test this, shall we?'
He took the stones, weighing them gently in his palm as he scrutinised the PDA screen.
'Listen, the two of you,' he shouted. 'With this, I can see the disruption waveforms. They ebb and flow, yes? Like a tide... rippling towards us. If we're quick and precise, I should be able to guide our way, picking the point at which the waveforms are stretched thin and less dangerous... like... there!'
He threw the stone and, instead of disappearing as it had before, his good aim saw it sail through the disruption and break the glass of one of the upstairs windows.
'Aha! What did I tell you?' He threw the other stone and it followed the trajectory of the first, rewarding the three of them with the sound of more glass shattering. 'There is a route through the waveforms, see?'
He looked at them, but what he was saying was so far beyond their understanding of physics it clearly meant nothing. 'Look... just imagine we're on a beach facing the sea, OK? We want to get into the deep water but can't let the crests of the waves touch us as we go in. If they touch us we will die, so we have to jump them. You understand?'
'Like the seaside!' Joe shouted.
'I hate the bloody seaside,' moaned Hannah. 'You always get sand in your...'
'Yes!' Alexander roared. 'Just like the seaside. Now, Joe, you'll have to carry me on your back, the wheelchair will just slow us down.'
'Piggyback ride!' chuckled Joe, dropping down in front of Alexander's wheelchair. Alexander passed the waveform reader to Joe and clambered onto his back, holding the umbrella over both of them to keep the equipment dry.
'Hold the screen right out in front of us,' ordered Alexander, 'but remember it's not waterproof, so keep it under the brolly, yes?'
'Yep!' Joe stood up and gave Alexander a playful bounce. 'This is going to be fun.'
'I sincerely doubt that,' Alexander replied, staring carefully into the screen. 'OK, so we need to take two steps to our right...'
Joe did.
'And then forward four steps on my mark, one... wait for it... two – stick close, Hannah – three... now!'
'I hope the drug does make you do whatever someone says,' said Rob's voice on the speaker. 'If it does... well, that makes this easier.'
'No!' Gwen shouted, knowing only too well what he was about to do. She began kicking violently at the door, her hip and ankle flaring in pain with each blow.
'What do you mean?' asked Julia on the monitor, while Ianto yanked out the drawers in the old dresser, hunting desperately for anything he might use to force the lock.
'I love you, Julia, OK?' Rob promised, as, drawer after drawer, Ianto came up with nothing. 'Forgive me for what I'm about to do.'
Gwen swore. There was no way she could break through – the wood was too thick and she was working against the frame. She couldn't give up though. One last try...
Julia smiled. 'I do.'
Gwen ran at the door, roaring at the top of her voice. Just before she hit it, she vanished, space folding in on itself from the pressure of dimensional intrusion.
In the lounge, Rob sobbed and raised the mallet above his head before bringing it down with all his strength...
Gwen, appearing from the wall by the fireplace, barrelled into him, her momentum sending both of them to the floor.
Rob was quick to recover. He kic
ked out at Gwen, reaching for the mallet which had gone flying in the scuffle. His foot caught her on the hip, which was sore already from her attempts to break down the door, but she clenched her teeth against the pain and fought to stay close. The last thing she wanted was to give him the space to use his weapon.
Rob grabbed the taped shaft of the mallet, but reaching out had left him open to attack. Gwen utilised every ounce of combat training, following the cardinal rule of punch-ups: there's no such thing as a fair fight. She thumped him hard in the groin and, while he was curling into a ball, got one hand on the mallet. Her other hand found the back of his head, grinding his face into the carpet.
She pushed herself to her feet, yanking the mallet out of his hands and was about to hit him with it when a hand dropped onto her shoulder.
'Don't,' said Jack. 'It's not his fault.'
'OK,' said Alexander. They were now standing on the gravel forecourt of Jackson Leaves. 'That didn't kill us, then. How wonderful.'
'Time to build sandcastles?' asked Joe.
'Maybe later, my boy,' Alexander replied. 'Let's see if any of Jack's lot want to come out to play first, eh?'
Jack unlocked the dining room door to find Ianto standing there with his arms folded.
'When you've all finished being heroic in my absence,' he said, 'I'd quite like to have a go myself.'
'You can start by figuring a way out of the house, then,' said Jack.
'Oh,' Ianto wandered into the hall. 'That hardly seems fair... All Gwen had to do was beat up a workman.'
There was a knock on the door. Ianto turned to look at Gwen and Jack.
'Don't ask me,' said Jack.
Ianto opened the door, and a young man barged past him with Alexander on his back.
'Hello there,' the old man smiled. 'Did someone order a genius?'
TWENTY-ONE
'It's not his fault,' someone said, and Rob Wallace had to agree.
Opening his eyes, he was surprised to find himself back in his and Julia's old flat, cluttered but familiar, the place they had always lived together. Perhaps he had dreamed Jackson Leaves? It certainly felt like it. Pounding walls and ghostly visions... not the sort of thing that happened in a real house. Houses were normally pretty reliable places: bricks and mortar, mortgages and electricity bills.
He was thirsty. Stepping into the little open-plan kitchen, he ran his fingers over the jumble of magnets and notes on the fridge door. These were the things of proper houses, he thought, reassuring and colourful, postcards from Spanish beaches, shopping lists filled with loaves of bread and bottles of milk. Julia had bought one of those random 'build-a-poem' magnet sets, a jumble of words that you shuffled around to make new verse. He read her last effort: 'Wander out into the sky / Ask your self the reason why / Clouds that love are full to burst / Open mouth and feel their thirst.' Rob smiled. It wasn't exactly Pam Ayres, but at least it rhymed. He pushed the words 'your' and 'self' closer together, trying to fix her grammar, but the gap remained obvious. He supposed it should be allowed.
He closed his eyes and shuffled the words around with his fingers, lining some up to form a random sentence. He opened his eyes and read what he had made: 'Burst your love feel the sky and thirst.' Very poetic. He closed his eyes again and started dragging other words in from the cool white page of the fridge door: 'Show her no tears / From a man who know / His fears are real / His death will show.' A lucky rhyme, but it was getting rather morbid...
He closed his eyes and shuffled them again. 'Show her a man who love death and tears / Burst the sky and know real fears.' No... he didn't like that game any more. The words kept making him feel as if there was a message in them, something he didn't want to know.
He opened the fridge, and looked for something cool to drink. There was a bottle of fizzy water, Julia's favourite. To him it tasted like pop with the fun taken out, but he was thirsty enough to drink anything, unscrewing the cap and drinking straight from the bottle. There was a bad smell in the fridge, something rotting. He had a poke around but couldn't find anything obviously mouldy, just a lot of different meats, damp and pink, perfectly fresh.
He closed the door and found himself feeling terribly lost in the middle of the kitchen. A ridiculous feeling in such a small space, but at that point he felt smaller. Felt, in fact, as small as one could be, stranded on the cheap black-and-white floor tiles as appliances towered over him – the jagged kettle, the sheer, silver austerity of the toaster, the towering black glass of the oven. He found his breath catch in his chest and reached for the radio, desperate to break the atmosphere with noise. He was momentarily certain that the cooking knives would eviscerate him for such a move, chop away his naughty fingers into little pink rings, but they stayed happily embedded in their wooden block, and the radio hissed into life as he turned the dial.
'Tie him up with that,' said an American voice.
'Tightly,' a woman added.
There was the screeching sound of heavy-duty tape being yanked from the roll.
Some sort of drama, perhaps? Or an advert? He wasn't sure what the sounds of a man being bound would entice him to buy. He tried changing the channel, but there was nothing else but static so he turned it back. He would have preferred music, but this was better than nothing.
'Julia's out of it,' the woman was saying. 'Someone will have to carry her.'
Where is Julia? Rob wondered, reminded of his wife by the characters in this strange programme – she always complained that Julia was such a common name, you heard it everywhere. He'd gone online to look up the name's origin; it was the feminine form of 'Julius' which meant 'man with downy beard'. He'd pulled her leg about that for weeks.
'OK!' the American on the radio shouted. 'Thanks to Alexander, we have a way out and all of you need to take it, now.'
'Oh, shut up, you big bully.' Rob muttered, turning off the radio.
The silence was still uncomfortable, so he made his way out of the kitchen and across their little lounge to the television. There had to be something cheerful and breezy on, something to take the edge off his stupid nerves. At first he could find nothing but static, ghost images, half-shapes and jagged lines. Then, flipping through the channels, he found a picture: people all sat in a roadside café, an old woman talking to a soldier – at least Rob assumed he was a soldier, he was wearing an old uniform, certainly, though clearly he wasn't on duty as his collar was open. At the table next to them, a woman was dripping water all over the table and floor. Ridiculous. Perhaps it was supposed to be a comedy?
The camera moved to a close-up of the old woman, and Rob banged the side of the television, trying to improve the reception. The poor signal made it look like there were things crawling under her skin.
'That's it, Rob,' the old woman said, making him dart back from the screen. 'Hit me.'
Rob stabbed at the remote control with his index finger, desperate to flush the woman from the screen.
'No,' she whispered. 'Not like that... like this!'
She swung her arm, and Rob felt the sting on his cheek as if he had been struck.
'How did you—?'
She hit him again, his cheek glowing hot with it.
The radio suddenly crackled back to life.
'He's completely out of it,' said the voice of the woman he had heard before in the advert about tape.
'I'm not...' he said. 'At least, I don't think I am...'
'You could have fooled us,' said the old woman on his television. 'Dead from the neck up... Isn't that what you are?'
He felt his cheeks turn cold and a pressure building in his sinuses.
'What are you...?' He ran to the bathroom, wanting to see his face in the mirror. It had lost its colour, turned the pale blue-grey of necrotic tissue. He rubbed it with his hands, and it felt thick and damp, like a verruca.
'Is that better?' the old woman asked from the next room. 'Is that what you like?'
Rob wanted to cry but knew that his dead tear ducts had no liquid to shed. He scratche
d at his cheek – wanting to feel something – and his nails filled with dead skin. He could just feel the touch of his fingers; perhaps his real face was still there, hidden underneath this useless hide? He began to peel, cautiously at first but then – as he realised it didn't hurt – in the biggest chunks he could get hold of. The sink filled with it, like cool, undercooked chicken meat, and soon there was nothing left for him to look at in the mirror but bone. There was no point in continuing to dig. There was nothing left of him.
He was lost.
'Rob?' Julia's voice, coming from the bedroom. 'Where are you, Rob?'
He made his way through to the poky room that was just wide enough to hold the double bed they had made their own. Julia lay on the rumpled duvet in her wedding dress. The gown had certainly known a happier day; now it was falling apart, shedding flakes of taffeta and lace like the peelings of sunburned skin.
'Is that you?' she asked, staring straight up at the ceiling.
'Yes... it's me,' Rob replied, touching the wet bone of his jaw and realising he must be beyond recognition. 'My face... something happened to it.'
'Something always does, doesn't it, Rob?' she chuckled. 'There's always one problem or another, one mistake you'll never make again... Until you do, of course, over and over and over... I don't know why I bother with you.'
'Please...' Rob was confused. Why was she being like this? 'Don't say that. I try so hard... I really want to make everything great... And I will, you wait and see, we'll make a real go of it in the new house...'
And suddenly he was uncertain again, did they even have a new house or was that the one he'd dreamed up? He hated to show his confusion but hated not knowing more.
'We do have a new house, don't we?' he asked her.
She made a scoffing noise in her throat. 'Not any more, you saw to that. So weak...'
'I am not!' Rob scared himself with the ferocity of his shout; he hadn't known it was coming. He had to be careful of his anger, that was something he did remember. It was too strong sometimes.