Dead Bad Things

by Gary McMahon

  He turned away and gazed at the small altar, and smiled at the tatty picture of Christ. "I'm not a religious man, but I always felt good here. Comfortable – you know? I've kept all this inside for so many years that it's been eating me up like a cancer. He was a cold, callous man, probably a murderer and certainly an abuser… but he was my friend. And you don't rat out your friends, especially if you're terrified of them." Eddie made a choked sound in his throat, as if he were holding back some kind of grief.

  Sarah nodded. She looked again at her father's face on the wall. This time, when she met his gaze, he was not smiling, but she refused to look away. She glared back at him, challenging him to react. His mouth was a tight line drawn across the bottom of his wrinkled face and his eyes were burning – blazing – but it was a cold fire, a flame created by hatred.

  Come on then, you fucker, she thought. Show yourself to me now. Give me a glimpse of you in that stupid hood, and I'll chase you right back to hell.

  The unseen clock was no longer ticking. Somewhere, loudly, a door slammed. Laughter chased its own tail through the corridors, fading gradually to silence.

  The shade of the man who had called himself Sarah's father remained hidden, as if it were now his turn to be afraid of her.

  TWENTY-ONE

  He was floating again. Drifting from up high and falling slowly back down towards the bed. The drug was wearing off and he was remembering who he was, where he was, and what he had been doing. The room came into focus around him; the walls, the ceiling he was moving away from, and the bed that clasped his body in a soft, padded embrace.

  "Michael?" He wasn't sure why he'd said his brother's name, other than the fact that he felt as if the boy were close by. His scent hung on the air. The ghost of his voice vibrated like the memory of a scream in the atmosphere.

  "No, Trevor. Michael isn't here. Your brother is dead, remember? You killed him."

  Trevor sat up, rubbing the side of his head. The good feeling was gone now. He needed more of the heroin to retain it every time he took a little trip. In the past he had used drugs as a recreational pursuit but now he needed them to keep the world at bay.

  "Come on, Trevor. Come back to me. You've been gone for a while, you know. I've waited patiently but now it's time to talk."

  Who was that? Was there somebody else in his room? Trevor looked around, but there was nobody there. The wardrobe door was open and the plastic packing around his stage outfits had spilled out onto the floor, creased and torn. He recalled taking out some of the suits and trying them on, parading before the mirror and reciting some of his old show spiel. He had been performing for someone, that was clear – but for whom?

  "Oh, come on. Pull yourself together."

  Trevor turned around and looked at the mirror by the side of the bed. The man clothed in poor, trusting Derek's skin – the one who had called himself the Pilgrim – was sitting cross-legged behind the glass. He was naked. His body was smooth and hairless. Between his legs, which he now uncrossed, was just a flat area of pink flesh. He had no belly button.

  "Oh, God…"

  "Why do they always have to mention that name?" The Pilgrim smiled; his teeth were as white as bone. Derek's teeth had not been that clean, which meant that they possibly were shards of bone that had ruptured through the gums. "I mean, every time I meet one of you people you call out the name of God, as if it's real. As if he exists. Please, give me a break. There is no God, and I'm the closest thing you have to the Devil." He laughed. It sounded like drains backing up, or like the final rattling cry of someone choking to death.

  "Who are you?" Trevor was now sitting upright, his legs hanging off the side of the bed. He realised that he was wearing a silly gold suit with no shirt beneath the jacket. The collars were wide and black; the buttons were gold-plated. The suit had cost him a small fortune.

  "I told you, I'm your saviour. I'm the Pilgrim. How do you do."

  Trevor blinked, but it did nothing to improve the view: the naked figure was still in the mirror, a roiling blackness stretching out behind him. Then, instantly, the blackness dispersed to reveal a view. The flat, empty landscape was littered with burnt machine parts, and in the distance something squatted part way up a slight rise. It was the hollow remains of a partially demolished concrete tower block, the windows empty of glass and the doorways yawning like black mouths. The walls were shattered, and pocked with gaping holes. The tower block looked like it had scaly legs, but that could have just been an illusion caused by the immense destruction of the building: maybe there were a couple of large trees crushed underneath its concrete bulk.

  "That's my old place. It's kind of run down. I could do with somewhere nicer." The Pilgrim's voice had no accent; it held no tone other than that of mild amusement. It was like a cartoon voice, something fake and contrived. Trevor had the distinct impression that the Pilgrim was merely a façade, and his words were toys.

  Behind the broken-down tower block, with its slumped upper floors and spilled insides, the land rose to form a hill. At the summit of the hill there stood a smouldering tree. The spindly outline looked as if it had recently been burning and somebody had only just put out the fire. A long, slightly bulky shape hung in the branches, torn and twisted and unrecognisable. It looked like a dead monkey.

  "I used to know her," said the Pilgrim. "She promised me a ride but when the time came she wasn't quite up to it."

  The view faded, turning to grey. Empty space surrounded the Pilgrim, and Trevor stared at the figure as he began to rise. Derek's skin hung slack on the Pilgrim's bones and it shifted like a loosely wound sheet when he moved. The skin didn't quite fit; it was baggy on his form, slightly too large to contain him.

  "What do you want from me?" Trevor remained seated on the bed. He was too afraid to move, yet something told him not to be. Some inner feeling convinced him that he would not be harmed.

  "It's more a question of what we want from each other, my dear, dear friend." Another smile: a flash of those bone teeth. "I mean, we do both want something, don't we? And I believe that we can work together to achieve those needs. The thing is, you see, we want similar things. We both desire the end of Thomas Usher."

  Trevor twitched at the sound of that name. Even now, after months of trying to rid himself of the hatred, he could not bear to think about Usher. The bastard had ruined him. He had turned up at a show in Bradford and revealed the truth about Michael's death – that Trevor had driven his brother to suicide; that his sexual demands had been so great they had consumed his little brother's sense of self-worth and destroyed him.

  "I hate him," said Trevor. "Hate. Him."

  The Pilgrim nodded. "Oh, yes. As do I. But he has something I want – something I need, actually. If I promise to help you kill him, you have to help me first."

  Trevor inched towards the edge of the mattress, the soles of his feet settling lightly upon the floor. "What do you mean?" he stared at the unreflecting glass, at the naked man preening himself behind it. "What exactly do you want me to do?"

  The Pilgrim stalked the short width of the mirror, running his hands along his body and swivelling his hips in an elaborate motion each time he turned to pace in the opposite direction. He made no sound as he walked. His step was light, and his movements seemed fluid and unnatural. Finally he turned to face Trevor. His lower half spun around first, followed by the upper part of his body. He grinned. His bald head shone, the skin wrinkling like wet tissue paper.

  Trevor waited.

  "I need you to get me out of here. Our mutual friend, Mr Usher, somehow managed to trap me here, in the space between mirrors, and I am unable to escape without the help of someone on your side of the glass." He shrugged. The stolen skin of his shoulders crept along his wasted muscles.

  "Hang on… this is, well, it's crazy. You're telling me that there's a space behind all the mirrors in the world?"

  The Pilgrim nodded. Then he sat back down on the ground, once again crossing his legs, calf over shin. "Clever boy."r />
  "And," said Trevor, "and you're trapped there, behind the glass, inside the mirrors?"

  Another slow nod; his eyes glistened. They changed through blue to brown, and then settled on a peculiar shade of grey. "You catch on fast." The sarcasm in his voice was practically hostile.

  "I can't believe this."

  The Pilgrim inhaled, his nostrils flaring. His features were bland and forgettable. "But you're seeing it now. Here I am, right in front of you, inside the mirror. You can't doubt that fact, can you? I mean, your eyes are showing you the truth of the situation."

  "I've been on heroin," said Trevor. "Strong stuff, too. This could all be some kind of hallucination." He didn't even believe what he was saying, so why should this strange creature even listen to his feeble excuses?

  "Oh, please…" The Pilgrim threw back his head and laughed silently. His narrow shoulders hitched and his chest inflated. This lasted for several minutes, and then he looked forward again, right at Trevor. He was not smiling. The laughter was gone; it had died. "Let's not get silly, now. I'm trying to remain calm, to keep you fully informed. Don't make me threaten you."

  Trevor scuttled backwards, across the bed. "What do you mean? You can't hurt me. Not from behind there."

  The Pilgrim nodded his bald head, slowly, deliberately. "And what, pray tell, did I do to your little friend?" This time when he smiled his teeth were pointed, tiny white triangles set into his pale pink gums.

  "Listen. OK, just listen." Trevor pressed his body against the headboard. He felt stupid, helpless, and he wanted this to end. But he knew that he had started something he must now see through and nothing he could do or say was enough to halt the momentum. "You said something about getting rid of Usher for me. Killing him. Did you mean that?"

  "Oh, that's better. Much better." The Pilgrim held out his arms, opened his hands, and showed Trevor the tiny mouths that had opened up on his palms. The two mouths were lined with identical white triangular teeth, just like the ones in his mouth. "I'm in the habit of drawing deals, making bargains, forming pacts." The three voices spoke in unison, the sound emanating from face and palms. "The deal I'm offering you is simple: you get me out of here and I help you to get Thomas Usher. As I've said, I want him too, but I promise that you can deliver the killing blow. Now how does that sound, Trevor Pumpkiss? Tell me how it sounds to you."

  Trevor got to his feet and walked around the bed. He pulled the gold suit jacket tight across his chest, feeling confidence flooding through him. There was power here; he could feel it. Power to control, to conquer. Power to destroy. "That sounds good," he said, smiling. His fear was fading. This man – this Pilgrim – could be a valuable ally.

  "Good, good." The Pilgrim stood, rearing up in a way that suggested he possessed no bones beneath that borrowed skin.

  "Tell me what I need to do to get you out of there. Do I need to break the glass, or is it something more complicated? Rituals? Prayers? A sacrifice?" Trevor stood directly in front of his new friend, staring into his ever-changing eyes. "Tell me what I have to do to help."

  "Oh, it's something more complicated than that. Yet it's also very simple." The Pilgrim reached out a hand and pressed his palm flat against the glass. The small mouth had vanished. The palm flattened against the glass, and then it grew and stretched until it was covering an area of mirror three times its original size.

  "OK," said Trevor, placing his own palm over that of the Pilgrim, seeing it dwarfed by the other's giant hand. The glass felt cold; it was like ice. "So tell me."

  "To put it crudely, I need blood. The living energy in human blood will allow me to become strong enough to break through. I have grown weak; my form has withered. I'm tired, so very tired. I have been stuck here for a long time – a span of time that isn't tied to your world's measure of days and years and centuries. Time doesn't exist on this side of the glass. I hear the constant ticking of clocks, but they are meaningless. They taunt me." He tilted his head to one side, narrowing his eyes. "Blood will replenish my resources. I only need a little. The blood of one person should just about do it, but without that I haven't quite got the strength to break out of here."

  Trevor took his hand away from the glass. "Are you… are you a vampire?"

  "What?" The Pilgrim roared with laughter. He staggered backwards, vanishing for a moment into the grey folds of nothingness, and then stumbled back towards the mirror. "Oh, Trevor. Bless you, Trevor. A vampire? No, they don't exist, you silly man." Slowly he managed to control his hysteria. Then, looking forlorn and regretful, he moved his face close to the glass. "I'm something much better than that."

  Trevor couldn't move. His body was rigid, the muscles and tendons locked, fused together. "What are you, then?"

  The Pilgrim stepped back, swiftly and theatrically. "Why, I'm an angel of course." He fluttered his eyelashes in a hideous caricature of seduction. A long, pointed tongue flicked out to moisten his lips. "I'm an angel who's come to help you."

  Trevor stared intently into the mirror, trying to make out something else within the grey background. He could no longer see the littered landscape, or the fallen building, or the hill with the smoking tree. He did have a sense that there was something more here, behind and beyond the Pilgrim, but he was unable to discern what it was.

  Reality, he thought in a momentary insight, was something that could be shaped. This was not a conceptual notion; it was true, it happened. This creature was the proof of it, and if Trevor stood at the Pilgrim's side he might be able to learn the magic and start to redefine his own reality.

  The idea appealed to him greatly. It would be something to cling to, a dream to hold. And even if the dream in time proved to be a nightmare, at least it was something he could call his own.

  He waited for nightfall, and then he prepared to leave the house. He had fixed up the last of his gear and taken the lot: one big hit, mainlined right into a fat vein. He felt good, invincible. He felt detached from it all.

  "Be careful," said the Pilgrim, sitting beatifically behind the mirror. He looked like he was hovering above the ground; a perverted Buddha. The grey area above and below and around him was nothing but empty space, the grubby back-end of the universe.

  "Don't worry. I'll bring you something back. Something good."

  The Pilgrim raised a hand and flexed the tips of his fingers in a tiny waving gesture. The fingers did not bend at the joint.

  Trevor left the house and drove to an area where prostitutes and rent boys prowled, canvassing the kerb for business. He trawled the infamous cluster of three or four streets, choosing the least popular stretch, the low end of the scale that was populated by junkies and fetishists and people who had long ago sold their basic humanity.

  He pulled up at the kerb and waited with his lights on.

  After five minutes someone approached, stepping casually out of the darkness. It was a boy, aged about sixteen or seventeen, and he was smoking a short hand-rolled cigarette. The boy had a skinhead haircut and was dressed in a tight black T-shirt and dirty blue jeans. He was too thin, malnourished; his ribs stuck out through the material of his T-shirt and his knees were like billiard balls covered in denim.

  Trevor rolled down the car window and stared straight ahead.

  "You looking for business?" The boy was leaning towards the window but not quite poking his head inside. He was canny, this one; he had street smarts.

  "Depends what's on offer." Trevor was flying. He could barely control himself and felt like he might giggle at any minute, spoiling the act.

  "Depends what you want," said the boy, nobody's fool. "This is entrapment, you know."

  Trevor turned to the boy. He was grinning. His teeth were yellow and there were a few gaps in his gums. He had once been pretty, before the drugs had taken hold, and there still remained a sense of innocence behind his wasted features, even if it was badly corrupted. The boy's eyes were tiny, with dark shadows beneath. His cheeks were hollow, his skin sallow and waxy. He looked haunted. Or hunted. Perha
ps both.

  "Well?" The boy winked. It was a gesture that aged him, cracking open the carapace of youth to offer a glimpse of something darker, and in that moment Trevor made his decision.

  "Back to my place. I want the lot: full sex, blow job, tromboning, a bit of rough domination." The words tasted like vomit. "The whole works."

  "That's better." The boy walked around the front of the car, sashaying his pathetically narrow hips, and then opened the passenger door. He climbed in and placed his hand directly over Trevor's crotch. "That's much better. So drive on."

  The journey lasted only minutes but it seemed to last forever. The boy worked his hand in Trevor's lap, making him hard, and with his other hand he turned on the radio. There was a cheesy pop tune playing and he sang along, his voice high and fragile, like that of choirboy. It was a beautiful voice, and its wavering notes made Trevor begin to doubt what he was about to do. Then he glanced down, at the boy's fingers in his zipper, and he regained his composure.