Into the Infested Side

by Shane Hegarty

  Only the human at the centre of it survived the explosion. More or less survived it anyhow. His skin was torn, his mind fragmented, and he was once again forced to retreat to his cell until some version of normality returned to him.

  After this, the alliance between Blacktongue and Gantrua deepened. The superlative ruler sought the human’s counsel, convened with him privately on matters of strategy, even let him leave the tower to travel with him.

  And the human broke his chanting only to speak of the prophecy about the boy, and this vision rippled ever outwards from the tower, reached the ears of every Legend that had them. And those who heard it had three questions:

  “What did the human tell Gantrua that allows him such an influence?”

  “Will another explosion come?”

  And, most importantly, “How far away should we stand when that happens?”

  Finn felt a surprising sense of freedom, having almost forgotten what it was like to run without wearing what felt like a ton of cutlery over his body.

  Shorn of the fighting suit, every step was worth two. The top of the tower was a beacon; the blips and whistles of the radio a signal that he was closer. He moved quickly, unsure why the explosion seemed to have energised rather than exhausted him.

  Sqwerrk went the radio.

  “Dad,” he said into it. “I’m on my way. Wait for me.”

  But, in contrast to this lightness he felt about his body, his mind was still weighed down by guilt. The guilt he felt about bringing Emmie into this world and the guilt he felt about being unable to rescue her after she had saved him.

  Gone.

  His only friend.

  Vanished, before he could do anything to save her.

  He slowed his pace from the effort of shutting out the terrible consequences of her capture by the serpent.

  Sprlerk said the radio.

  “I’m nearly there, Dad!”

  He ordered his legs to get moving again.

  Finn distracted himself from the loss of Emmie by thinking of his earliest memories.

  There was a hazy remembrance of his father going out to get a Chinese takeaway and coming back with a huge gash down the back of his jacket and a desiccated Legend in the same bag as the rice.

  There was the day his father left the door to the Long Hall open and Finn’s mother went utterly berserk when she found her toddler frolicking in a box of old grenades.

  There was a terrifying view of a face so angry that Finn immediately burst into tears and hid behind his mother. He always believed this to be his only real memory of his great-grandfather, Gerald the Disappointed.

  But the memory Finn thought of most as he crossed the dying landscape of the Infested Side was a rainy afternoon in the house when he was no older than two. To amuse his bored son, his father had put his helmet over Finn’s head, a piece of armour so oversized and heavy that Finn wobbled off, unsteady and blind, to crash straight into a wall.

  His father then spent what seemed to be hours banging a sword off Finn’s protected head, each gentle strike sending a tremor through the metal until Finn’s head rang. He remembered giggling through every blow, demanding more every time his father hit him with the ancient weapon until he eventually felt sick and started to cry.

  It took him a few years to realise his childhood wasn’t like everybody else’s.

  Anyway, as Finn now worked his way through a shattered forest and stabbing reeds on the wrong side of parallel worlds, he thought of that afternoon because until he had released that explosive energy it was the last time he’d felt so protected, invincible, certain he couldn’t be hurt, and he needed to hold fast to that feeling because otherwise he was just a twelve-year-old boy, lost on the Infested Side, whose friend Emmie had been taken by a Legend so that it could…

  He stopped again. Tightness coiled in his throat. The corners of his eyes watered.

  He forced himself to go on, reached for the remembered sense of invincibility from that day with his father, embraced the newfound experience of power from the explosion.

  He had wanted to run from his destiny before, but right now he felt drawn towards it. It was an unfamiliar sensation, this lack of fear. I’ll find Dad, he thought. I’ll find Emmie. And I’ll…

  What?

  He had a sense that the energy was gone from his body now – he wasn’t going to be exploding again. So, what would he do next time? Hit the Legends with a stick?

  Stop it, Finn. Just keep going.

  Squirp burped the radio.

  “I see it, Dad. I see the tower.”

  Bleeekhkh.

  The ground rose so that the trees clawed higher above him. He scrambled up, the shape of the tower lost briefly in a copse of ancient woodland until the ground levelled off and the trees thinned out to reveal the wide barren plain on which the column stood like an immense craggy claw.

  Grey clung to the sky, reluctant to slip fully into darkness, but in that light it was impossible to make out any figures at the tower.

  Skwerch.

  “Dad.”

  A voice squalled through the static, recognisable as his father’s even though the words were a mishmash of echoes and distortion. “—ttttthhhhhHHHHH

  EEEEEEEEEEEEERRR

  RRRrrrrrrrrrr—”

  Finn had no idea what that meant. “I’ll see you soon,” he responded.

  So focused was he on getting to the tower, he didn’t notice the steep drop where the clearing met the trees. Not until he fell forward down it.

  He had to pump his legs like piston engines and wheel his arms to keep upright, but the momentum sent him crashing to the ground.

  The soil didn’t try and eat him this time, but, when he jumped to his feet, he saw that he was standing in a wide shadow. Looking up, he saw the tower, white and tapering, at the centre of a vast and almost perfect circle of flat, cleared land.

  He still had the radio in one hand, his knuckles white with the grip.

  Splerrch the radio said.

  “Dad? I’m here.”

  Squerck. “Fiiiiiinnnnnnnnnnn,” said his father’s voice.

  He ran towards the tower, covering the ground at breakneck pace, the shadow widening around him. He shouted, knowing it was a dangerous thing to do, but not caring right now.

  “Dad! Dad! I’m here.”

  Chwwwerrrpp.

  He reached the tower, fat and yellowed at its base, a wall of bleached stone pieces crushed under the weight of the layers that stretched above them.

  Skkwiiirrrkkk.

  His father’s voice drifted again across the radio. Distant, echoing, unclear. “It’s— time—”

  But there was no sign of him yet.

  “Dad?”

  Finn skirted the curve of the tower, doing almost a full lap that brought him to a heavy iron door only just taller than himself. He pushed at it, but it was heavy and seemed rusted from age. So, he stood at the doorway, one hand pressed on the uneven wall, trying to calm the doubts intruding on his mind.

  Skkweeeelk.

  A pale powder clung to his hand and, as he clapped it clean, he saw a shape in the wall.

  Skleeerk.

  It was a bone. Thin and wedged into place.

  He stepped back, looked round it and then it dawned on him. The entire tower wall was made of bones.

  Some were solid, or cracking, and many had been crushed into dust along the tower’s base. But, as Finn followed the tower’s rise towards the sky, he saw them clearly. Small bones. Large ones. Of every shape and form. Leg bones. Wing bones. Claws. Spinal columns. A skull staring at him through four eye sockets.

  He jumped back, whimpered. “Dad?”

  Squalkk. His father’s voice came back. So faint that Finn needed to press the radio to his ear to make out the words. But, for a few moments, he heard them, distant but clear.

  “—wrong time, Finn— the wrong time— go back— the cave—”

  The words faded into white noise, and the white noise gave way to nothing but deep,
ominous silence.

  What did his dad mean, the wrong time?

  The only sound in the world seemed to be Finn’s breathing. The only other sound in his head was of hope collapsing.

  The wrong time.

  He was dizzy, his mind spinning. Was this why the notebook had been filled with dates? Was this what the red crystal had done?

  The wrong time.

  He thought about the Hogboon baby, Broonie. The one whose parents insisted was the only Broonie. Because it wasn’t a common Hogboon name, they said. But maybe there was another reason.

  The wrong time.

  A terrible possibility had formed in Finn’s mind.

  What if the gateway he’d made from the Darkmouth crystal had brought him to the right place, but the wrong time?

  But time travel wasn’t possible, Finn told himself. He gazed around. He was standing in a world that wasn’t possible.

  And he was more and more certain now that he was standing in the past.

  The thought of it paralysed him, left him gulping for breath. He slumped against the wall, dragged his back down it until he was sitting with head in hands. The new reality felt heavier than a thousand fighting suits.

  Except that a sound began to intrude on his anguish. Grinding. Ripping. A world being torn where it shouldn’t be. The noise grew and grew until it so filled the world that Finn blocked his ears for fear they might shatter.

  And it was right at that moment that a gateway crashed into the Infested Side and a ghost stepped out of it.

  The sparkling light of the portal was a golden colour mixed with a swirl of blood. It was a fierce intrusion on the Infested Side, hanging in its air like an unwanted guest until eventually, and without warning, it imploded shut.

  By then, a hooded figure had stepped from it. A cowl pulled tight. The glint of armour on the legs of his fighting suit. Head bowed, but eyes trained on Finn. Then it removed its hood.

  “Granddad?” burbled Finn.

  “Well, that confirms who you are,” said Niall Blacktongue.

  Finn stood, slowly, eyes fixed on the new arrival, mouth agape at the sight of him. He had seen his grandfather before, on the Infested Side, riding alongside the Legend they called Gantrua in the moments before his father disappeared. But this was not the same man. He was not that scarred, half-destroyed figure.

  No, this man was far younger. He was, Finn figured, the Niall Blacktongue of the portrait.

  “But the painting...” Finn started, while his brain tried to catch up with what his eyes were seeing. “You were... I wasn’t even born.”

  As crazy as it seemed, this was the Niall Blacktongue of a portrait completed just before he disappeared. The Niall Blacktongue that had stared at the clues for so long, waiting for someone to find them. This was the Niall Blacktongue of thirty-five years ago.

  Here. Now.

  “You’re supposed to be—” Finn started.

  “Please don’t say anything about my future,” said his grandfather, raising a hand to silence him.

  “—dead,” said Finn.

  Niall groaned in disappointment at hearing that. “Stand still.” He walked towards Finn, pausing when the boy backed towards the bone wall. “I need to be sure. It has happened, hasn’t it? You have ignited? All that torn clothing isn’t just how you dress in your era, I presume.”

  He loomed in closer and sniffed. He appeared satisfied but nervous. He twitched, though. Wincing as if in pain before steadying himself. “Don’t worry, you’re done for now. One crystal causes one ignition. Unless, of course, you can control them, build them up and use them when you need to. Trust me, I know.”

  As he turned away, Finn saw the line of a scar running down his grandfather’s neck, disappearing under the collar of his fighting suit. It looked like the one Finn had across his chest.

  “I came to find my dad,” said Finn, not quite sure what to say now that everything had been turned on its head. And inside out. And backwards. “Your son. Hugo. Have you seen him?”

  “You have to understand, I’ve just left Hugo,” his grandfather said, pointing to the air he’d just walked through, “behind that part of the world right there. That boy is my son. I have no other.”

  “But that would mean,” said Finn, trying to piece the parts together, “you’ve come through a gateway from the last time you were ever seen in Dark—”

  “No more future, please,” pleaded his grandfather, animated but not particularly angry.

  Finn was struggling to make any sense of this.

  “I heard my dad,” he said. “On the radio. But he’s not here.”

  Niall bent to inspect the radio attached to Finn’s belt. Finn saw now that he was tense, urgent. As if desperate to get something done, but trying to conceal it. “Did you have that radio on you when you first used a blood crystal?” Niall asked.

  “A blood crystal?”

  “Yes, yes, a crystal with red dust on it,” his grandfather said impatiently.

  Finn nodded. “Yes, Dad spoke to me when the gateway opened.”

  “And, when you ignited, this radio was on you then too?”

  “It was in my bag, on my back.”

  “And what kind of gateway did your father travel through?”

  “A gold one. Just normal,” answered Finn as if any gateway could be described as normal.

  “The crystals from Darkmouth’s caves are unique,” said Finn’s grandfather. “They push through from the Infested Side at the point where the two places join. The leak creates the dust. The dust changes the crystals, makes them open gateways not just between worlds, but also across time. And, when you were attached to that radio while opening a gateway, somehow the physical radio came back to this time, while its frequency stayed rooted in your time. Something to do with dimensional resonances, I’d guess. They can be tricky. Get it?”

  Finn did not get it. At all.

  Niall saw this, sighed. “The crystal must have turned that radio into a time machine of sorts, picking up Hugo’s signal across a short distance, but a great gap in time. So, he could be right beside us. He might even be standing in this very spot. But I’m afraid your father is no more in this time than you are in his. So, no. He’s not here.”

  Finn looked blank, not quite able to react any other way. He felt blank. He was never going to find his father and had travelled all this way not even knowing that. There was also this new craziness of a grandfather who actually looked younger than Finn’s own father. He couldn’t hide how adrift he felt, as if the whole Infested Side had been pulled from beneath his feet. He tried to speak and only managed to mutter something that didn’t really sound like a word at all.

  “Listen, all this time-travel stuff, well, it gives you a headache,” said his grandfather. “So, please, don’t worry about that. All you need to know is that he’s there, we are here and that you’re going to be safe.”

  Safe? wondered Finn. He did not feel safe.

  Niall appeared to be finding it difficult to hold eye contact. A twitch in his shoulders gave Finn the idea he was trying very hard to control an overwhelming edginess. What’s he so stressed about? Then his grandfather refocused on him, his urgency mixed with discomfort.

  “Now I am very sorry to have to do this.” Niall Blacktongue pulled a weapon from his cloak. “But I must. For all our futures.”

  He pointed it at Finn and pulled the trigger.

  Many years away, yet just a step through a gateway, the sun had dropped from the Darkmouth sky. It was late enough that even the hardiest felt it necessary to wind down the search for the night.

  People had looked in the laneways, peered in the yards, but had found nothing and, as the dark drew in, torch beams danced across the stony coastline and through the darker alleys, but the hunt was scaled down as people went home to eat, to rest, to put their own children to bed.

  Clara stood at the door of what was left of her surgery. The smashed windows boarded up. Cement hardening in the mixer where it stood beside
a diagonal stack of bricks. Warning signs scattered across the front of the building, plastic sheeting flapping over the hole bashed through the wall. Half a door left behind. The sign above it punched out in a couple of places, so that Darkmouth Dental now simply read Dark— Dent—

  She had looked. And looked. And shouted Finn’s name. And looked again.

  She took out her phone and, not for the first time, called Finn.

  As it had done each time before, Finn’s number went straight to his answerphone message. A few words he stumbled over (“Uh, this is, erm, Finn, leave an, I mean, a message”) until rounded off by his audible search for the hash key (“Hold on, wrong button”).

  “If you’re there, Finn,” Clara said, “please come home. Please. We’ve searched and searched, and we know Emmie is with you somewhere. Steve and the Council and the lot of them are useless. I’m better off doing it all myself, to be honest.” She realised she was venting. “Anyway, you’re not in trouble. So, come on home. I miss you so—”

  She was cut off by the long beep of time running out. She pressed the phone against her forehead, let the anguish burn in her.

  “I didn’t go to your house,” said a voice.

  She looked up. Saw a man she half knew. Maybe she’d pulled his teeth once. Or filled in a cavity. “Excuse me, I don’t—”

  “That night. I didn’t go there. Maurice Noble is my name. I knew Hugo. Know him, I mean, sorry. Anyway, I met your boy, and the girl too, a couple of days ago. They called at Mrs Bright’s next door. Not sure why. So, I feel a duty, you know, to two of our own. I’ll keep searching. I won’t let a bit of darkness stop me either. Anyway, look after yourself now.”

  Mrs Bright’s neighbour moved off again, not sure if he’d said the right thing. Behind him, Clara slowly began to walk in the other direction, back towards home.

  Under the moon’s light, and the pinpricks of stars, Maurice Noble kept his head down. It was the habit of a lifetime of living in Darkmouth. He looked at the ground for any sign of those poor children, until he veered down along the seafront, and the rocky shore, where the surf splashed at his shoes.