The Nature of Balance

by Tim Lebbon

  “But who have we got to follow now?”

  Blane sighed. They were doomed, and they knew it. They were unfit, and in this new world only the very fittest would survive. Already they were consigned to the past. Their wounds were constantly open, untreated, exposed to the elements, inviting infection. Fay had used them. They still loved her for it, and he could see no way to disabuse them of the fact that she had been their leader. Their messiah.

  “You decide,” he said, “I’m leaving.”

  He started back along the path, treading on loose ground disturbed by Fay’s death. His feet crunched on gravel and sucked at freshly-turned mud. He could almost hear the indecision in those behind him, but he did not turn. In a way he had created these people, but he felt more sorry for the dead magpie at his feet than the tortured souls who had damaged themselves so. He saw a cat with two heads urging its body in opposite directions at the same time and felt a lump in his throat. But when Gabrielle called after him, her voice now devoid of anger, full of wretchedness, asking him what they were to do now? … who do they worship now? … he felt nothing.

  Soon he was back in the square. It was a far different place to that he had left hours before. The stream’s course had been diverted by a change in the topography, and now it was in the process of flooding the square and surrounding streets. Tiny black fish flapped their last amid low shrubs, trustingly following the course of the waters.

  Blane was responsible.

  The question, Why now? never entered his mind. Why anytime?

  He knew what he had in his mind, his vastly expanded mind, but he was terrified to view it. The memories and knowledge had always been there, of course, but hidden away like him. Shoved into a dark corner where they could do no harm, traces of them haunting his darkest hours over the last ten years and driving him to distraction and disaffection. It was as if they had been piled behind a weak door and the keyhole left open, allowing a dribble of their vastness out at a time. Now that door was smashed from its hinges, and like a man amongst lost treasures Blane was wading into the new, dark room. But along with the treasure were skeletons, and next to the skeletons were the swords by which they had died. Pride; anger; hate.

  He would have to be careful.

  As Blane walked back through the village, a memory began to form. A South American settlement centuries ago, buildings burned or smashed, bodies already merging into the hard ground, crops looted and pulled and left out to die in the sun. Needless murder in a slaughter where children were considered acceptable targets. Babies, swung against trees. Left in a pile.

  He recalled the disgust he had felt, but also the sense that he could do nothing about it. He was unable to act in any matter, existing as he did as a model more than an overseer, a cast for the imperfect creations he saw killing each other and slowly raping the world.

  Fay’s reaction, too. Even then she had been changing, Blane realised. Preparing herself, either consciously or subconsciously, for the shift which would eventually possess her.

  Another memory … Fay screaming at the world as she gave birth to a dead thing … his own madness driving him away, abandoning her to the fate that had overcome her … But he closed his eyes and shoved the memory inside. That was for later.

  The stone bridge had fallen into the stream, its back broken. Blane did not hesitate to wade through the waters. As he emerged onto the other bank something dived at him from above, flapping and screeching murderous threats. He flinched, but at the last minute the bird veered away and snatched a small fish from the upset waters. He watched it move away across the ruined village. For a moment he wished it had attacked him. At least then he would have felt real.

  33. Taking Account

  The sunlight felt fresh on Holly’s skin. It fingered through her eyelids, urging her to open them and accept its touch, but they were all that shielded her from the sight of reality. She was unsure whether or not she really wanted to see it.

  Every part of her body tingled, from the underside of her toes to her hairline. Her senses seemed sharper; either that or the smells, sounds and tastes of nature had intensified directly after the earthquake. She opened her eyes and sat up. The tremor had flipped the Mini over onto its side, exposing its rusting underside. Oil dripped like thick black blood. Somehow, she had been thrown clear. “Paul,” she called, but she knew he could not answer. Gingerly, she touched the side of her head. Her hand came away sticky with blood, speckled with grains of Tarmac like black fleas. She felt dizzy, hardly able to sit up let alone stand. So she crawled to where Paul lay slumped on the grass verge – hand holding his throat as if strangling himself – and saw that he was dead. Blood stuck his hand to his skin. The worst of the bite-marks were hidden.

  Spike lay further along the road. Paul had shot the dog as it hung from his throat, blowing its body away with a mouthful of his neck in its spasming jaws. The dog had crawled while it was dying, leaving a smear of itself across the road like an exclamation mark. It had crawled the same way its mistress had fled.

  Peer sat further along the verge, rocking slowly back and forth, hands clasped in front of her. She did not appear to notice the blood caking her lower face. She did not seem aware of anything.

  “Paul,” Holly whispered. “Paul. Paul.”

  There was a sudden flurry of activity from above. A flock of birds appeared, flying low across a field and lifting over the hedges and the road. Their wings flapped in complete unison, changes of direction instantaneous, as if they were separate facets of the same consciousness.

  Holly’s wounds from the service station were still sore and itching. She went to cry out, but then the birds disappeared into the distance, mumbling to themselves about how much things had changed.

  She lay down next to Paul. The stimulation of her senses continued. She could smell heather, though she did not know how near they were to the moors. She could hear a heartbeat; she placed her head against Paul’s chest in excitement, but all was still. She tried to discern whether it was her own heart beating, or another, or some other pulsing noise, like the life-sign of the land. She rolled onto her back and still heard it. It was a comforting sound, almost soporific, an invisible metronome driving strange ideas into her head and encouraging her to accept them.

  She felt a sudden affection for Peer, poor battered Peer, but it was a motherly love. Peer remained sitting on the verge, rocking to an unseen rhythm. “Peer,” Holly said when she reached her. “It’s all right, love. Mary’s gone away. Things are different now.”

  She finally stood up and looked around, and saw just how right she was. A clump of trees in a nearby field sprouted huge flowers, waving fronds whipping at the air and snatching insects from flight. Birds larked in a fresh new sky. A gang of blue-tits, twice their normal size, swooped down and pecked a frantic Jay to death before eating it. Rough, but nature. Even the sky seemed different; a clearer blue, with higher clouds diffused gold by the sun.

  Holly sat next to Peer and put a comforting arm around her shoulders. The shocked woman stopped rocking at once and leant against her. They sat there for a long time, exhausted, Holly vaguely aware that they should be moving in case Mary came back. She stared at Paul’s corpse, a heavy sadness weighing on her heart like iced rain.

  The day carried on around them, ignoring them at last.

  By the time Holly realised that Peer was asleep, she too was on the verge. A warning rang urgently in her mind, but it was muffled by tiredness and shock, and another feeling altogether: a sense of belonging.

  Leaning together, Holly and Peer sat with their eyes closed, their breath slow and deep.

  A fox trotted along the road in front of them. It sniffed at Paul’s corpse and passed it by. Its auburn pelt was speckled with spots of gold.

  The sky is a deep blue, a colour richer than she has ever seen. It looks so solid that, for a moment, she is afraid that it may fall in upon her and crush her. Fat clouds bobble its pureness. The sun is a bright button high overhead.

 
; The field around her is sad, in pain. Its crop droops, trying to bury itself in the sick earth whence it came. The seed is rotten. Hedgerows divide the fields like the spines of dead behemoths, trees slump in secretive clumps, farm machinery rusts itself back into the ground.

  When she was here before, this place was in upheaval. Now the ruin has been and gone, leaving behind this changed, dead land. But ahead of her there is a door, and she realises that this is a possibility, not a reality. Change need not mean end. Mutation is the prime driving force of nature, not something to fear and abhor.

  She approaches the door, glancing over her shoulder as she does so. No clinking shadow bears down upon her. The door is old, inlaid with iron bracings and smooth from the touch of a million hopeful hands. It whispers open almost before she pushes, inviting her in, hauling her from the dead world she no longer wishes to inhabit.

  She steps across the threshold. Realisation strikes. She sees the vibrant, alien landscape spread out like the map of a surreal dream, and she opens her eyes.

  Blane was standing before her. Peer smiled up at him, and even though he looked smaller and older than when he had left them, she could see nothing but good.

  “Hey,” she said.

  “Peer,” he said. “You’re bleeding.”

  She raised her hand to the dried blood covering her lower face. “I was. I’m not any more.”

  “You were sleeping.”

  She nodded. “I was. But I think it’s all right, now. I think it’s passed.” She turned her head carefully and kissed Holly on the top of her head, trying not to wake her. “See? Sweet as a baby.”

  Blane sat next to Peer, groaning as strange aches made their presence known. His joints thrummed, feet throbbed. He had seen Paul as he approached the two women, and for a terrible moment he was sure that they were all dead. Paul was cold but the women were still warm. The mere thought of Peer’s death had sent sparks of terror into him, creating a rich, plump fear more awful than that connected with anything which had happened over the last few days. Sometimes the future can be lost in the present. Even now the momentary fright was still a stale taste in Blane’s mouth.

  “Mary?” he said.

  Peer nodded at Paul, waking Holly in the process. She stirred and stared at Blane through dazed eyes.

  “What?” Holly said. “Where are we? Oh shit!” As events caught up with her she turned pale, recalling the sight of crushed, impacted bodies in Rayburn’s village square. “You let me sleep!” she said to Peer, but remembered at the same time that the truth was actually the reverse.

  “You can sleep,” Peer said. “It’s better. Blane has made it better.”

  “I’ve made it all bad,” he said, but found it impossible to continue even when prompted by Holly’s raised eyebrows. “I found her,” he said instead. “She showed me some things, made me keen to come back here. Then she died.”

  “Was she close to you?” Holly said.

  “She was my twin sister.” And my lover. But some things could never be said.

  They sat chatting quietly for a while, the women telling Blane what had happened with Mary and Paul. Holly fetched a blanket from the Mini’s boot and covered Paul with it, kneeling at his side for a long time and resting her hand on his shoulder.

  “It all happened at once,” Peer said. “Paul and Holly. The dog. Mary. Then the earthquake … or whatever it was.”

  “A shockwave,” Blane said. “Nature shuddering.” He looked at Peer and Holly and wondered whether they knew the full import of what they were. It was not his place to tell them, he thought. He had been the focus of so much heartache and destruction. How could someone so corrupted talk to those so newly pure?

  They lay Paul in the back seat of the Mondeo and headed back towards the farm. There was a calmness about things now, a serenity in the air where before there had been nothing but threat. The world was a stranger place than before, but it was a place at peace with those in it, including these tired travellers. Holly sat behind the driver’s seat, Paul’s head resting on her lap. She fell asleep with him like that, an arrangement that hours ago would have been impossible. Now, it seemed like the right thing to do.

  Blane sat back and closed his eyes, letting the memories continue to flood back in; strange, wonderful, bizarre memories of his time with Fay, from long before the ruin began. It was as if the reminiscences were inherent in the landscape, forming the backbone of nature. Only now were they released to him whereas before, when nature and all in it suffered, they had merely been able to offer clues and vague outlines.

  But with knowledge came a terrible tiredness. Fay was dead, and the echo of her death had settled itself into his bones. Blane began to feel himself slip away from his surroundings, blending more into the background. While his mind was active, challenged, enraptured with the miraculous revelations being laid out before it, his body was failing. An endless darkness loomed; Blane almost welcomed it.

  The car wound its way through the lanes to the farmhouse. It was deserted. There was no sign of Gerald, no indication that he had ever been there. It was as if he had vanished into thin air. The inside of the house was sterile and clean, all personal effects gone, the smell of bleach rising from every surface. Holly, Peer and Blane sat at the kitchen table, sighing dejectedly, staring around as if expecting Gerald to appear with a sumptuous feast at any second.

  Outside, the Mondeo rocked slightly on its suspension. The armrest flopped down in the back seat, resting at an angle against Paul’s body. Two hand squirmed through the opening, then a head. Then a shout, as a mad woman was born from the dark womb of the car’s boot.

  34. To Sire the Future

  “Did you hear something?” Blane whispered.

  “What?”

  “Car door.”

  “Gerald?” Holly half-stood, hands splayed on the table like a piano-player. “Paul?” she whispered impossibly.

  Blane glanced at a shadow against the window. “Oh no.”

  The glass erupted inwards, merging with splintered timber and lead shot to make a lethal concoction. Blane fell back like a bird in a storm of stinging things, choking a scream through a ripped throat. His hands went back to lessen his fall but his wrists folded under his weight. Shards tinkled to the flagstone floor like frozen rain.

  Holly screamed and stepped back from the table, coming to a halt against the wall adjacent to the cold fireplace. Peer remained seated, watching the shattered window, waiting for whatever was to come.

  Mary came. She leapt into the room with the unconscious grace of a ballet dancer, rolling across the glass-strewn floor and standing in one sweet movement. Blossoms of blood opened on the back of her shirt, flowers feeding on chaos. She held the shotgun straight out in front of her, eyes wincing against the imminent recoil and explosion. It was aimed directly at Peer.

  “Bitch!” Mary hissed through bitter tears. “Fucking bitch! What makes you think you’re so special?”

  “Nothing,” Peer offered.

  “Shut up! Shut up, shut up, shut up!” Mary was manic but the gun did not waver an inch. Her eyes burned behind the tears. She was useless once more, and it was a feeling she hated. It was a feeling she was unbearably used to. “Where is she?” she shouted.

  “You’ve just shot the person who can tell you that,” Peer said calmly.

  Holly’s hands were pressed to the cold stone. She wondered how long it would take her to reach the mad woman. Push herself away from the wall, not worry about falling, use the forward momentum to stumble across to Mary. What then? Stand in front of the gun? Her muscles twitched as the seed of the idea struggled to germinate.

  Mary glanced down at Blane. He was squirming, like a landed fish barely alive in its own leaking juices. “Where is she!” she demanded, but Blane either did not hear, or could not answer.

  “She’s dead,” Peer said then. “Whoever she was, she’s dead. I don’t know what control she had over you. I’ve got an inkling of why, but just sit down and we-”

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nbsp; “I don’t want to sit down! I want Fay!” Mary’s eyes squeezed shut. Her knuckles had turned white around the shotgun stock and barrel. Her biceps quivered with the weight, her forefinger felt like a brand of hot iron, waiting to cool and contract around the trigger. Peer sat tall and still in front of the gun.

  “You bitch!” Mary said quietly.

  “I did nothing,” Peer said.

  “Mary!” Holly shouted, not knowing what she was doing, what use it would be to attract the woman’s attention.

  Mary did not answer.

  “Mary, it’s all pointless!” Holly cried, angry at how it could all come to this.

  “I don’t care,” Mary said. “It makes me feel better.” The comment had an air of finality to it.

  There was a sound from the broken window. A growl. Mary turned with a smile on her face. “Spike!”

  It was a fox. Bigger than normal, more heavily muscled, its tawny coat interrupted by tiger-like stripes of yellow fur fleeing down across its ribs. Its teeth were bared.

  Peer watched, motionless and expressionless. She felt other arrivals, though she could not yet see them.

  The fox leapt. Mary screamed and tried to bring the gun to bear upon it, but it fired and chewed a lump from the table, spraying splinters. The recoil pulled her arms over her head. The fox hit her in the midriff and clawed its way up her body to bite into her throat. She gurgled and screamed.

  More shapes rushed in. Mad spring hares kicked at Mary’s legs. A buzzard, shrinking the room with its size, pecked at her eyes. Smaller birds joined the fray.

  Peer sat still, a step away from the carnage. Unafraid. Holly watched, stunned. Blane was unmoving amongst blood-splattered glass.

  Mary screamed, but it merely allowed access to her mouth. A bee went in and did not come out again. Insects swarmed across her skin and brought her features to life. A muffled shout could have been Fay’s name, but it was difficult to tell above the noise. The farm kitchen was transformed into another domain of nature, absorbing its smells and sounds, bearing witness to the hunt. Mary stumbled towards the door, the fox still clawing at her front to maintain its grip on her throat. Blood merged redly with its coat.