Dead Bad Things

by Gary McMahon

  Sarah reached out and gripped her mother's shoulder. The bones, through her skin, felt tiny and fragile, like those of a bird. "What else did they do, Mum? What did he do? I know there's more. I'm certain. He did worse things. Tell me what they were." The threat of violence in her voice unnerved Sarah; she felt capable of causing real damage to her frail and ailing mother, and the realisation was enough to make her afraid of herself.

  "Oh, they took me all ways." Her mother's voice sounded like a fading echo. It was small and distant, yet held a terrible power within the words. "They did me, all of them. Some of them I didn't even know, had never met. They put things on me and in me. They used me like a doll and laughed about it afterwards."

  Sarah relaxed her grip. She felt sick. "But you protected me, didn't you? At least you did that. You kept me safe."

  Suddenly, entering another spell of lucidity, Sarah's mother glanced sharply up and to the side. This time her eyes were dry; they were sharp as broken glass. There was a subtle slyness in her features. "No, I didn't keep you safe. He did." She smiled, but her lips were parched, cracked.

  "Who? Him? Father?" Sarah took an involuntary half-step backwards. "Protected me from his own filthy hands?"

  "No, not that stupid shit. The angel. It was the angel who told him never to touch you. Never to hurt you. Not to kill you. The angel protected you." Then, thankfully, her gaze went blank and she slumped backwards into the chair, her energy spent. She started humming again, but the sound was barely as loud as a series of heavy breaths.

  "Mum… Mum?"

  Nothing. No response. Just that awful toneless humming.

  Then, a slight movement: her mother's hand scurrying like a small animal across her leg. She reached down to the floor, where she kept her handbag – she was always afraid of someone stealing her things. Long white fingers fumbled with the catch, and then they popped the bag open. She took out something – a small package – and held it out to Sarah, not even looking in her direction, still humming, distracted by whatever vision had taken up residence inside her head.

  Sarah took the package. It was a folded envelope, and inside it was an old-fashioned audio tape. She unfolded the paper and read the label. Written on it in black ink, in her father's neat, graceful handwriting, there was what looked like two initials and a date:

  D.T.

  1984

  Sarah felt like she was floating; her feet lifted from the floor and the jerky motion tipped her, tilted her over to one side so that she was leaning towards the window. She righted herself, and then realised that it had all been a trick of perception. She was still standing upright, clutching the cassette tape, and staring at the top of her mother's head.

  Looking at the thin grey hair and the skull beneath the skin.

  The thin, imperfect curve of her skull. Beneath the papery skin.

  Hair and bone; a thin and fragile covering to protect the shattered dreams that writhed beneath….

  Even as Sarah watched, two or three holes appeared in the top of her mother's cranium, thick blood bubbling up from the fissures. The holes appeared as if they were being drilled, but no apparatus was visible. The small, round holes filled up with blood and the blood ran down her face, baptising her in red. The woman did not even register the wounds. She just sat and stared at the rain-smeared window, at the sun-starved and wilting garden beyond, and hummed that silly fucking tuneless dirge.

  Then, abruptly, the holes began to close up. The blood retreated, vanishing, running backwards into the rapidly healing wounds. Sarah's mother's head was undamaged.

  Behind her, Sarah sensed someone moving into the shadows; but when she turned around to look there was nobody there. Benson still stood outside, with his back against the door. Nobody else had come near.

  The old man in the corner chuckled softly, but it was only because there was now a comedy show on television. The sound was still muted; figures capered across the screen, dancing as if they were being shot by automatic weapons.

  "What is this, Mum?" But there was no answer. Of course there wasn't. "What's going on? Has he come back? Is he here?"

  What a stupid question… but was it? Was it really so absurd?

  Benson, behind the door, moved away from her line of vision. Through the small square of glass she caught sight of a reflection skipping away into the room. She spun around, trying to catch sight of whatever was causing the illusion, but there was only the old man and the television, the figures convulsing on the screen.

  "That's it," she said out loud. "It's the fucking telly. Mind's playing tricks… the TV." She tried to smile but it didn't sit right on her face; the muscles around her mouth felt too tight. The fact that she was talking to herself made her feel afraid.

  "Get away from me," she said.

  The old man chuckled again, and when Sarah glared at him he was sitting in his armchair with a thin silken hood falling softly over his head, billowing as it swallowed his motionless features. His body was covered in a long black robe, and his arms were folded neatly in his lap. The edges of the white hood fluttered down the front and sides of his face, covering his neck and throat, and finally came to rest, as if a breeze were dropping. He turned his head and watched her, examining her through the threadbare hood.

  "Get away," she repeated, and it was just an old man again, his toothless mouth grinning at the funnies on the television.

  There was no black robe, no diaphanous white hood.

  Sarah raised a hand to her face and felt tears on her cheeks. She glanced once more at her mother, but the woman was no help to her at all. She was rocking backwards and forwards, her hands gripping the arms of the chair, her tiny old-woman feet rising and falling on the floor, making soft little tapping sounds against the boards.

  Sarah reached out and touched her mother's head. There were no wounds; that vision had passed. She rubbed her mother's dry, rough scalp. "I love you, Mum. I always did. I'm sorry I never told you."

  Then, knowing that there was nothing more for her here, in this dry, dead place, Sarah turned away and headed for the door so that she could rejoin the living.

  But each step of the way she felt trailed by the dead.

  PART TWO

  BACK FOR MORE

  TWELVE

  Trevor was lying on his back in the bedroom, coming down from his last high. He wasn't even sure why he kept taking the drugs – they had stopped blotting out Michael's face a long time ago, and even made it stronger and clearer in his mind. He turned his face sideways on the pillow, his eyes coming to rest on the photograph of his brother. He was a small boy with a tentative smile, but dead behind the eyes.

  I did that, he thought. I killed whatever once lived there, in his head.

  Dead. Behind the eyes.

  It was dark. The lights were out but the blinds were open. The moon looked small, as if it were moving away from the Earth, fleeing the scene of so much horror and degradation. Trevor stared up from the bed, out of the window, and wished that he was up there, on the surface of the moon. He often imagined himself as an astronaut, skulking on a moon rock and leaving the world behind. Taking off his helmet and finding that he could breathe. He would sit there, looking up at the stars, and be glad that he was finally alone. Nobody could touch him there, on the hard grey surface of a fossil planet, and he was unable to touch anyone else.

  Touch. Touching.

  Dead behind the eyes.

  This combination of words seemed to create a monster; a thing that had chased him all his life, and was now gaining fast.

  What was that boy's name again? Oh, yes, Derek. The young man who'd fled in the night. What had he been saying about getting someone younger? Thoughts swarmed like stinking flies; Trevor's head was filled with them. He felt them climbing across the inside of his skull, felt the horrible vibration of their buzzing wings. As if he, too, were dead behind the eyes: nothing there but rot, dry and black and loveless.

  Blinking, Trevor sat up on the bed and glanced across the room. He was n
aked. His flaccid cock lay against his thigh, useless and unwanted: a short-range weapon whose ammunition had long ago been spent.

  He looked at his jeans, cast aside on the floor by the wardrobe. He'd been drunk last night, but wasn't there a vague memory of taking the boy's number – taking Derek's number – when they'd first met in that horrible club? He recalled a scribbled sequence of digits on a skinned beer mat, which he had then thrust into his back pocket. They had both known that the number would not be required, that the night would end with them leaving the club together. But certain social customs must still be maintained, rituals needed to be carried out and small gods appeased.

  Trevor was sweating. His naked torso shone when he glanced down at it. The drugs. They always caused his body to react in this way, raising his core temperature. Any drug: booze, dope, speed, heroin. They all did the same thing to his system, turning up the heat, burning out the badness…

  He swung his legs off the mattress and stumbled across the room, his bare feet dragging in discarded clothing and magazines. Bending down, he picked up his jeans and fumbled through the pockets. He found the beer mat right where he'd suspected it would be, in the left rear pocket. The soggy cardboard had curled at the edges, and spilled alcohol had caused the numerals to smudge, but the number was still legible. Still useable.

  Trevor glanced at the clock on his nightstand. It was still early: just after 9 pm. No self-respecting night owl would be asleep at this hour. In fact, Derek would probably be at home preparing to go out on the prowl, preening himself to present his wares to the night.

  He sat back down on the bed and picked up his mobile phone, keyed in the number and put the phone to his ear.

  It rang five or six times, and Trevor was on the verge of hanging up. Then, thankfully, someone answered.

  "Yeah." It was the same voice, but subdued by the digital miles which lay between them.

  "Derek? It's Trevor… from last night." He let that one hang, trying to gauge the boy's mood.

  "OK. I'm listening."

  Trevor smiled. "Listen, I'm sorry. I acted like a prick. I… I have things on my mind. Life's been a bit messy lately. But…"

  "But what? Life's full of butts, and there are several awaiting my attention this evening."

  "But I like you. You seem nice. I was wondering if we could meet up again. This evening, perhaps. I could take you somewhere. Somewhere decent. Somewhere expensive."

  "Well, well, well…" How obvious. How predictable. The promise of a pricey meal and everything changed, the edges suddenly smoothed out. "That does sound nice. By way of an apology, you mean?"

  "As a starting point, yes. Then we can talk. About something I'm interested in."

  The line buzzed. Those flies, they had left his head, exiting through his ear, and somehow got inside the mobile phone.

  "OK. You book a table and I'll meet you in an hour. Where did you have in mind?"

  "How does the Atlantic Grill sound?"

  "Fuck me. That would be great, but I doubt you'd be able to reserve a table for an hour's time. They have a six-month waiting list. As a minimum." There was a hint of desperation in his voice. High-class restaurants, expensive tastes – these were things to which the boy aspired, part of a world he desperately wanted to infiltrate. Sometimes people were so easy to read.

  "I have a table there whenever I want. I once did the owner a favour. He's a friend of mine." Trevor was smiling. He thought the boy could probably hear it in his voice, but he didn't care. He had snared his prey.

  Was that really how he thought, in terms of the hunter and the hunted?

  "I like you more and more each time we speak." The boy's voice was a soft purr.

  Yes. Hunter and hunted. That was how the world worked – this world, at least. He could barely remember how the other world functioned, the one he'd been able to glimpse through the hot glare of theatre lights as he strutted across the stage. Night after night after night. Speaking to the dead. Flirting with the departed.

  "I'll see you there in an hour. The table will be in my name. I'll tell them to expect you, Derek." He ended the call, his thumb sliding over the hang-up button. There was no need for any more: this was already a done deal.

  Trevor felt much better now. He knew what he wanted, and Derek knew too. They had avoided the issue, letting it stand there between them like a dusty stage upon which wonders would be unveiled. It was part of the act, just another line of the script. They would eat and drink, and possibly even kiss, and then they would discuss the real reason for Trevor's call.

  He remembered the boy's voice before he had left last night, his words hanging in the air like birds of prey: I can get you someone younger, if that's what you need.

  What he needed… what did he need? That was the big question, wasn't it? It always had been. What exactly did Trevor desire? An interesting word, desire: so strong, so meaningful, so full of potential. He looked at the pillow, at the old photograph. He picked up the photograph and held it to his face. He kissed it. His lips stuck briefly to the image before pulling away.

  "Oh, Michael. I need you. Of course I do. I always did. I needed you in a way that you didn't want, couldn't handle. You were everything to me… everything."

  The room went darker, just a fraction but enough for him to realise that he was no longer alone – if he ever had been. His gift was slowly returning. That bastard Thomas Usher had stolen it from him, taken it and shattered it like an empty bottle, but now it was on the rise. He could feel the presence of others. Their breath filled the air beside his face, their bodies jostled for position in whatever room he entered. They were waiting for him to come back to them, forming an orderly queue for the time when they could speak to him again.

  The dead always had so much to talk about. They were lonely, most of them, and they craved company. He had been a good listener, back in the day, and the dead never forgot one who listened. They respected him in a way that the living never had.

  "I'm coming," he whispered. To the dead. To Michael's memory. "I'm coming back."

  His gaze drifted to the full-length mirror. It was an antique, something he'd picked up when the money was good and the bookings were flying in. It was said to be haunted; a famous mirror with a story to tell. But he had not seen anything odd or strange in the mirror until last night, when things had turned sour with the boy, Derek. The hand. That cold, wet hand. It had been reaching out to him, drawing him in… or at least trying to.

  A hand to hold.

  He walked over to the mirror. The surface was no longer reflective. It had begun to fog over in the early hours of the morning and continued that way throughout the day. He could no longer see himself in its smooth, flat surface: all he could see was grey, like a slab of mist cut from the world and set on a stand in his bedroom.

  "Who are you?"

  There was no answer. His gift was still too weak; he could not yet hear the dead.

  "Why have you come to me?"

  A drum began to beat, slowly, rhythmically, like an ancient tribal summoning. The sound only existed inside his head; he knew that. But still, it was sad and beautiful and haunting: a haunting sound from a haunted mirror heard by a haunted man. He blinked back tears. He thought about Michael, and how Michael had hated Trevor's attentions, had been so scared of him. But Trevor had been unable to stop himself; he was not strong enough to resist.

  Never strong. Never strong enough. Not to resist.

  So he had acted upon his compulsions, not even thinking about the hurt he was creating, the damage he was causing. His little brother had been physically weak, and unable to fight back. Trevor had told himself that it was just an expression of his love, a way of making things special between them, but deep down inside he knew that he was lying to himself, lying to his brother, lying to them all.

  Lying all the time. And still lying now, even when there was no need.

  The truth was something he could never quite reach – even the truth about himself, about who he really
was and what he was able to do. All those years performing, faking it for an audience, and the bitter truth was that he had been gifted all along. He had always been able to hear the dead speak, but it was easier to ignore them and put on an act, give the people what they wanted rather than what the dead needed them to know.

  "Come to me. Here. Now. Show me that you can hear me."

  The pale hand appeared again, pressed against the other side of the glass. Up close, Trevor could see that it was cut, ragged, the skin was peeling away from the bone. It seemed human, but there was something not quite right about the way it looked. Like an imperfect imitation; the battered hand of a ruined mannequin.

  "Yes, that's it. That's right. I'm here for you." Trevor could feel a power in the room, a force that was coming to him from beyond the mirror. It was his old gift returned, but also something new, something different. Before, whatever he had been able to do had originated from deep within him, at his core, but this… this was from somewhere else, an external point towards which he was being drawn.