The Nature of Balance

by Tim Lebbon

  “I left him there,” Holly said. “I didn’t want to move him. The animals, you know?”

  Blane nodded. “I don’t blame you. I think that’s why we should move him.”

  Holly frowned, but no explanation was forthcoming. Blane smiled again – that same forced smile – and headed off towards the church. Holly glanced back at the man he’d walked in with, and motioned with her head that he should come over. She was feeling more able now that Blane was back, and she sensed her usual outward dominance rising to the fore once more. The man stared at her as though she were a moving statue, and she smiled to put him at ease. He walked towards her; small steps, hesitant, looking about him as he came.

  “I’m Holly,” she said quietly as he came closer.

  He looked down at her, but could not hold his gaze there for long. There was too much to look at, to take in. Too many dead people.

  “What the fuck happened here?” he whispered. “Is there someone doing all this? Shouldn’t we be-”

  “I saw someone die right in front of me,” Holly cut in. The woman squirmed in her lap, but it had to be said. The last thing they needed now was a panic to spread, the thought that there was some madman cruising the village and killing people at random. If that happened, the likelihood was that the first rescue personnel into Rayburn would get lynched. “No one killed him. He just died.”

  “Slates?”

  “Blane told you?”

  He nodded. “I’ve seen the lad in the woods a few times. Nice kid.”

  “What’s your name?” Holly tried to keep his attention, gauge his condition. Shocked, certainly, but it seemed a controlled shock, not crazed. “I’ve introduced myself, surely a gent would do the same back?”

  He frowned at her for a second, then his face relaxed. Not a smile, exactly, but better. “Paul. Paul Toré. Nice to … well, meet you. Not nice, but you know.”

  Holly shrugged, and then he did smile. The expression suited him. She thought he did it a lot. “I wish circumstances were different. Did you, um, lose anyone?”

  “What? Lose? No … no. I’m staying alone in the holiday cottage on Pond Lane. Surveying the wildlife in the woods.” A shadow passed briefly across his face, and he glanced over her head, past the church and across the fields to where the woods posed starkly against the sky.

  “It’s lovely in there,” Holly said. “I’ve been meaning to take a walk in there for weeks, but I’ve never got around to it. I suppose I’m an armchair nature lover. Wildlife On One, David Attenborough, that sort of thing. You know?”

  “Hmm.” Paul squatted down next to her, and the severity of his gaze froze her mid-speech. “I passed an ambulance on the way in.” He paused, waiting to see whether the woman in Holly’s lap had heard. She did not stir; she was somewhere else. “It was abandoned. Nobody about. Engine ran out of petrol while I was there. The back was, well, pretty messy.”

  “Messy with blood?”

  Paul nodded. “Hey, wake up!” He nudged the woman – more than a nudge, more like a slap – and she stirred, mumbling something incoherent.

  “Let her sleep,” Holly said.

  Paul frowned, pursed his lips. “I think best not to,” he said meticulously, as if testing an idea as he spoke. He stood and followed Blane.

  Holly watched him go. She looked over at Slates where he lay bleeding his heat into the ground. And although she did not really believe, she prayed that she would see no more dead people today.

  The woman was still sitting at the church door. She had stopped banging on the old oak and now nursed a bloodied hand. She took no notice of the two men. Her eyes barely flickered as they walked past her into the graveyard. She was a sleeping mannequin.

  “Good place to die,” Paul said. Blane did not answer.

  When they reached the dead boy, neither spoke. Blane had seen it before. Paul could find nothing to say. A mixture of emotions – anger, dread, dislocation – vied for supremacy in his mind, leaving him confused and shaking.

  The lad could not have been more than ten years old.

  Blane picked him up, wincing as the dried blood on his throat crinkled as his head tipped back. He averted his eyes from the wounds, but he could see their ghastliness reflected in Paul’s eyes.

  “Get the gate for me, will you?”

  Paul nodded, pleased to walk on ahead. “What were those animals doing with him? Someone arranged that. It’s like .. an offering, or something.” He did not look back at Blane, but talked just loud enough so he could hear.

  “Don’t know,” Blane said sharply.

  “Anything else like that around?”

  “Not that I know of. Not that anyone’s mentioned.” A raucous twitter of scrapping birds erupted from one of the trees stretching above the gate, and the memory of a joyful song flashed across Blane’s mind once again. How he so wanted to recall what that was about. Whose the laugh was. Why it was there. And why he should connect it with the silhouette he had seen in the graveyard.

  “Did you hear anything weird in the woods?” he asked suddenly. He watched the back of Paul’s head shake.

  “Haven’t been in today. Got up, opened the front door, came down here as fast as my legs would take me. Why?” He stopped and turned, looking for the root of the question in Blane’s face.

  But Blane gave him nothing. “No reason.”

  They walked slowly onto the green, Blane first with the boy, Paul following and smiling grimly down at Holly as he passed. Blane lowered the body gently to the ground next to Slates and quickly stretched a flap of his bloody jacket across the boy’s throat and face. As much to hide his glaring eyes as his wounded flesh.

  “There’s some stuff you all need to know,” Blane said, loudly.

  Paul glanced back at Holly, who raised her eyebrows and shrugged. She tried to prise the woman from her lap, but succeeded only in rolling her onto the grass. Paul went to help.

  “Listen to me,” Blane said again. He was standing next to Slates and the other dead kid, trying not to look down but finding his eyes drawn that way anyway. Two young lives. Shattered. Ripped away. And by what? For what? There were no reasons in nature, he knew. They were merely forms from the same mould, and when death came they went back into the stuff of future bodies. And in the end, the very end, they would all go back to the stars. So, death was meaningless.

  But still he raged inside.

  The people around the pond had started to pay attention. The farmer who had driven his dead family into the village sat close to Blane and looked up at him, apparently glad to have something else to focus on, for a time at least.

  Blane was silent for a while, suddenly unable to begin, hardly knowing where to. He looked around at the villagers; bloodied, stunned, ashen-faced. Holly caught his eye and nodded, smiled. Paul stood next to her, arms crossed, frowning, eyes flickering around the square then back again as if watching for something.

  “Something terrible, and strange, has happened,” Blane began.

  “Telling me,” a woman said. She sat cross-legged close to the pond, wringing her hands between her knees. Her head shook as if possessed of some sonic vibration. “Telling all of us something we know.”

  “It’s something terrible, but it’s something we’re going to have to help each other out of,” Blane continued. “Paul here came into the village from the holiday cottage. I met him outside my house. On his way in, he passed an ambulance with its engine still running, doors open. It appeared to have been abandoned.”

  “The engine cut while I was checking it out,” Paul said. “Petrol ran out. “

  “Maybe they were away treating someone,” a small, frail looking old woman said. She was swaying gently from foot to foot as if nursing an invisible baby, her night-gown stained green where she had been sitting on the damp grass. Her eyes were glassy marbles in her leathery face.

  “No,” Paul affirmed, shaking his head. “I called out. I looked. There wasn’t anyone within shouting distance. And the back was covered with bl
ood. It was awash with the stuff.”

  “Were there bodies?” the bearded farmer asked, glancing back at his family lying beneath bloody sheets.

  “No, no bodies.”

  “None of us have been able to get through to the emergency services,” Blane continued. He did not have to raise his voice. He had their complete attention. He was an outsider, and perhaps it was this that gave him a semblance of authority in the eyes of the villagers. That, and the fact that he had no family member laying dead nearby. “That in itself is worrying enough. Either there’s a fault in the line between here and the exchange, or all the lines are busy.”

  “There must be a fault,” the old woman said, “maybe a line fell down. Was there a storm in the night? Did anyone hear lightning?”

  “There’s no line down,” Holly said. “I got through, remember? They said they were busy. That was hours ago. Anyone heard anything?”

  Heads shook. A few faces turned to the road leading out from the village, down to the main bypass that twisted along the base of the valley. No ambulances appeared, drawn by will. No cavalry came to rescue these sad people, besieged by strangeness and death. All was silent.

  “I don’t think anyone is coming,” Blane said. “I think we may have to go to them. But the main thing is … is anyone injured?” Again, shaking heads. “So, we’re a village of living people and dead people.”

  “Nice way of putting it,” said the farmer bitterly, but he only shook his head and stared down at his feet.

  “I’ve got some ideas,” Blane said. “Some things we could do. We must stay together, find a house that’s empty, make some phone calls. Try to find out what’s going on, and whether it’s just happening with us. Pray to God it is.”

  “God?” the farmer hissed.

  “He helps people, whether He’s there or not,” Blane said quietly. He stared at the man. “Believe in whatever will help you. If that’s anger and rage, then hold onto it. I think there’s something very wrong with the world today.” He spoke up, so that they could all hear. “The animals are acting strangely, as well.”

  “What do you mean?” the woman from near the pond said. “Who gives a shit about the animals?”

  “I do,” Blane said, “and so does Paul there. We’ve both noticed some weird behaviour from them today. Unusual. Certainly nothing I’ve ever seen before.” He thought of the dead animals surrounding the boy in the graveyard, the fleeting shape he had seen there. He considered mentioning it. But it was something personal, particular to him, and telling them of what he had seen and heard would have felt like baring his soul to them.

  “What have they been doing?” the farmer asked, half rising. He had something to tell them, Blane was sure. He was also sure that what the farmer said would make things a whole lot worse.

  “Birds hissing, squirrels and rabbits staring at me. They seem, I suppose, less afraid than they used to.” Paul shivered slightly at his own description. “The animals seemed unfrightened, as if instinct now told them that there was no longer anything to fear from Man.”

  “It’s the Terror,” the farmer mumbled.

  “What’s that?” Blane wanted to hear what he had to say, afraid that it may affect them all more than they could imagine.

  “A story I read, once,” the farmer continued. “Horror story. Horrible. The Terror, when the animals rebelled against man because he was destroying the planet with war. He’d removed himself from nature. But what the hell happened to my family? Why are they all dead, just because the animals …?” He trailed off so that his new tears did not distort his words. His beard trembled, shedding old tears like stale rain.

  “I was coming to that,” Blane said. He squatted on his haunches; standing in front of these people, talking to them so openly, seemed bizarre. “What happened to all your people?”

  “I was awake,” the old woman said, “couldn’t sleep. Making tea. Sitting down, watching telly. Thump from upstairs. George…”

  Someone else, a man who had been quiet up until now, raised his hand to speak. He stood and began without preamble. “I was in the toilet. My wife screamed, once, then I heard a terrible sound. I don’t know how that sound could come from our bedroom. There’s nothing that hard there. Nothing that solid, to do what it did to my wife. To do …” He stared away past the church, still talking, voice reducing to a mumble.

  “Slates told me, before he died, that he had been awake, reading under his blanket,” Blane mused, almost to himself. “Everyone who died was asleep.”

  And in the woods, I had my eyes closed when the deer appeared before me.

  “I had a bad dream,” Paul said. He stepped forward, unsure of himself among these strangers, wondering whether he had any right to intrude into their grief. He felt foolish, certain that what he had to say would be laughed down, but there was proof. He had proof.

  “A bad, bad dream.” He told them. He left out the fact that his wife had appeared, swollen by the river water and criss-crossed with darting fish. But he relayed the rest of it: the fear he had felt in the aircraft; the terrible cold; the tumble through the air, and the impact on softening snow. Finally, when he had finished telling them, he showed them. He peeled off the two jumpers he had on and turned around, so that they could see the damage to his body.

  His ebony skin had puffed out and swelled between the shoulderblades, as though pushed by a hand from inside. The swelling was a violent purple colour, like thunderheads just before the unleashing of a storm. They had all seen worse that day, but gasps of surprise rang around the group.

  “That happened in your sleep?” Holly asked, dumbfounded. Paul nodded.

  “When Slates fell asleep …” Blane said, looking at the woman Holly was still comforting. But he did not have to complete his sentence. They all remembered.

  “So what? We can’t sleep?” said the farmer.

  Blane shook his head. “Whatever else we know, I think that’s clear. I think Paul survived, because … he hit snow.”

  “You think everyone is dying because of their fucking dreams? Are you crazy? Sorry, of course you are, you’re the nutter who spends his nights in the woods, fucking the animals. For all we know, you’re the one-”

  “Shut up June,” the farmer said. “He’s hit it on the head. I was asleep when they all died.”

  “What about Slates?” June scoffed. “He didn’t fall.”

  “I think he did,” Holly said. She looked over at Blane, who nodded to confirm the impression they all had.

  “The ground,” Paul said. “The ground hit him.”

  “Don’t you remember the stuff when you were kids,” Holly exclaimed, a glint in her eyes that was a mixture of excitement and terror, a terror at something which forbade comprehension. “That thing we used to tell each other, the urban myth? That if you died in your dreams, you died in real life?”

  A couple of people nodded. Blane stood expressionless. He did not remember his childhood. For all the good his memories did him, he may as well not have had one.

  “I recall it differently,” said Paul, “and not just because of what happened to me.” He shrugged back into his jumpers, wincing as he lifted his arms. “I seem to remember it being something about, if you have a falling dream, and you hit the ground, you die. Perhaps I woke up falling.”

  Blane had been taking all this in, evaluating, trying to perceive where the connection was between the animals and the dead people, the dreams and the wildlife. He could find none. In a way, he hoped there was none. That was just too terrible to comprehend. Did animals dream? Was the same thing happening to them, in slightly different ways?

  “I think,” he said, “for the present time, that we should ensure that no one nods off. Agreed?”

  They all agreed. Even June.

  “Meantime, let’s make some phone calls.”

  Following Blane, letting the stranger lead them towards the village post office, the villagers left the green, and the red-dappled bodies lying there beneath a bright blue sky.


  11. Agitated Ghosts

  A car was lying on its roof at the Castle roundabout. There were dead people inside. One man hung half in, half out of the windscreen, his blood darkening the tarmac like spilled oil.

  How many dead people?

  As Peer crossed Newport bridge towards the roundabout, an ambulance and two police motorbikes came screaming past from behind her. Their sirens were silent, and one of the policemen flashed her what seemed a casual glance. No problems here, it said. All under control.

  The small convoy slewed onto the roundabout, bypassed the crashed car and disappeared between the King’s Hotel and the train station with a smear of exhaust fumes.

  Peer should not have been surprised, but still she stood agog. What was going on here? There were dead people in the middle of the road and the ambulance had not even slowed down. She hoped that when she drew near, the car would have a Police Aware sticker splashed across the shattered, bloody windscreen. She hoped, but she did not believe.

  Maybe they’d decided to pick the bodies up later, after they’d done all the other things they had to do today. Like pick up all the other bodies.

  How many dead people?

  Peer was becoming more and more disturbed. Not only were people dying everywhere, and her friend lay dead in bed with a broken neck, but things were changing. Crumbling. The calmness with which she had used to approach life, believing that there were always people there to keep control, whether they did it well or not, was slowly being chipped away. Perhaps this calm acceptance was a façade, behind which chaos hunted unhindered. Now the façade was weakening. And although the curious distance still kept her on something of an even keel, she could feel the panic building up inside her, storing itself for an eventual, cataclysmic release.

  Jenny was dead, but when Peer had made a frantic phone call to the emergency services from the nearest call box, she had heard a pre-recorded message. Nobody seemed to care. She was alone, abandoned. One step removed.

  All lines are busy at present. You’re in a q-queuing system, and your call will be taken as soon as possible. Please wait. The female voice had sounded high and edgy, as though it had only recently been recorded. Peer had queued, and waited, and queued, and listened to the apology five more times before slamming the phone down. Then slamming it down again, and again, trying to draw attention, desperate to talk to someone.