Tonight he wasn’t in the mood for a party.
It had been a long day at work and this was the last thing on his mind.
He had been home for fifteen minutes, but he hadn’t even got inside to get himself changed.
I just want a shower and a sit down. I don’t need this right now.
Athan wondered whether he could sneak away somewhere quiet and fall asleep.
“Hey Harper!” Tim noticed Athan was still in the suit he wore to work. “Did you work today mate?”
No shit, Athan thought.
He was still dressed in his work uniform. A black suit with a white shirt and thin black tie.
“You’re a badass,” Tim said grinning. “You goin’ out with us too? We were gonna head to The Link at eleven.”
“Umm…” Athan tried to think of an excuse.
Tim was giving him the puppy eyes.
I guess it is his birthday…
Athan smiled and nodded. “Sure guys, that sounds like a plan.”
Bugger.
They would have nagged him to go if he hadn’t said yes to start with.
He found one of the dirty plastic chairs that were strewn about the yard and pulled it over to the group of partygoers that surrounded Tim.
Tim shuffled over for him.
“You not drinking, dude?” Tim said. “Sup with that?” He looked slightly offended behind the mop of his bleached blonde hair. He wore a bright yellow t-shirt that matched his blonde hair a little too well. Athan and Lockie always thought Tim tried a bit hard to mix and match his party wardrobe. It was an ‘in joke’ they both shared.
“Just knocked off work, I need to slow down a bit first,” Athan said sheepishly, hoping that none of the others heard his poor excuse for avoiding the festivities.
One of the other boys came over and slapped him on the back.
“Hey dude! What’s goin on?” It was Rob, one of the guys that had not been part of their social group for very long. He didn’t get all of the ‘in jokes’, but he seemed more mature than some of the others that still clung to a high school frame of mind.
Athan gave him a hearty nod. “Yeah, not a lot, Rob. When did you get here?”
Rob didn’t drink and Athan decided that a sober friend might be better to talk to when he was feeling a bit flat.
“Only just mate. I had a paper to finish before Thursday, so I committed till it was finished. Now it’s done, I can chill,” Rob said looking pleased with himself.
Rob was a notorious over achiever at university.
“Nice. What are you studying again?” Athan was at a loss. His memory was a mess for information about people. He couldn’t describe the jobs his friends had if he tried.
“Arts, Literature.” Rob raised his eyebrow enthusiastically. “We’re doing a unit on the classic detective novels at the moment, so I got to read Sherlock Holmes and I even read Jekyll and Hyde! Awesome stuff! It’s hard to believe these books were written so long ago.”
“That does sound good man, I’ve always been curious about those, and the movies are always so different, so it would be nice to know the real story for a change,” Athan replied.
Note to self; read cool old books.
“What are you doing? Art isn’t it? Visual art? Painting and shit?” Rob asked, genuinely interested.
“Umm…yeah. Drawing mostly. My paintings always turn into the same mess… Come to think of it, so do my drawings.” Athan rubbed his face in frustration. “That’s my issue actually, my work all looks the same. The same theme!”
“Well you gotta branch out man!” Rob pointed his ‘advice’ finger. “Whatever you do normally, just do the opposite.”
Athan shrugged.
“I don’t try to draw anything now, I just let my hand take over and watch the image come together. It’s kinda lazy, but it’s all I can do…” Athan gestured to his invisible sheet of paper or canvas and moved his imaginary pencil. “I start a face, like a portrait and then it’s like my hand goes possessed on me and I don’t have any control.” Athan leaned back and sighed. “The faces or buildings, even the still lives of fruit bowls just degenerate into the same organic mess.” Athan realized that Rob was looking at him with some concern.
Rob frowned and shook his head. “You need to loosen up mate, that’s all. Let it take its course.”
“Maybe…” Athan replied.
Perhaps he’s right.
When it came to being creative he was unstoppable, he would be constantly drawing things, whether they were on paper, canvas or the desks in the Art History room. His style, though, was something that had given him more and more concern over time. He had begun in high school drawing organic worlds made from flesh and bone and twisted creatures of non-descript identity. Soon these were all he could draw. For the last few months of university Athan had been working hard to broaden the range of his subjects in his work, but all he could manage to do was bring more realistic dimensions to his organic world. And he had been drawing them over and over again. This stress was beginning to take its toll on him
After speaking with Rob, Athan managed to somehow slip inside and confine himself to his room.
He needed some peace.
Everyone else seemed so caught up in the conversations about girls, cars and work that they hadn’t even noticed him slip away. He locked his door because a couple of his housemates had a nasty habit of bursting in and annoying him when they had had a few to drink.
The big house that the three boys shared was a very old four bedroom home that would have been the equivalent of a small mansion back in the day. Athan, Tim and Lockie weren’t the tidiest people in the world, but there just was no improving this particular building. The outside doors wouldn’t lock and the windows didn’t open and the floor was up and down like the waves in the ocean.
Athan crashed on the bed, still in his work uniform. The Sturt Street Gallery demanded that their employees were dressed in a clean suit everyday, unless they were moving artworks to different places around town.
Sleeping in his suit was something Athan was used to.
He had been so tired after work the last couple of weeks, even at university he would wake up with his head on the desk.
The throb of music.
Loud voices.
The thunder of footsteps up and down the corridor.
Athan tried to blink himself awake and make out the time on the digital clock beside the bed.
The orange numbers read ten something…
It was time to get ready.
“It’s time mate! The ladies wait for no man!” Rob’s voice outside.
“Yeah,” Athan croaked. “Coming.”
He sat up on the bed and found himself amongst a litter of paper. Hundreds of sheets.
The bastards, he thought.
I locked the door.
What was on the paper began to register. He rubbed his sleepy eyes and tried to focus on the black scrawl.
Drawings, there were drawings on every sheet, and they were his. They were the same fleshy assemblies that he drew at university when he had to draw faces and bodies. He could tell his own drawings anywhere, but he didn’t remember when he had done them.
He picked up the closest and studied it; it was definitely his, an organic mass like stretched, perforated skin drawn in charcoal.
When did I draw this?
He scratched them all together and scanned the images hoping there was some kind of mistake.
Another was a bony structure that looked like a melting pelvis. He picked up a third that appeared to be cityscape of intestinal vines and tendrils. They were his, but they were drawn with some urgency.
Then he saw the fingerprints he was leaving on the sheets of paper.
He looked at his fingers.
His hands were covered in the same charcoal that the drawings were done with; it was all over his hands and up his wrists.
What? How did I do this?
Athan sat in total dismay at what he had done.
It wasn’t just the papers all over the bed, the walls were covered with black fingerprints and drawings of the same organic mass. Treelike structures and coils, shapes like tormented organs.
His room was a mess, his clothes were a mess, and most probably his head was too.
I’ve lost it.
He shook his head and stared at the chaos, wide eyed.
It was the kind of mad scrawling he had seen in the asylums in movies.
Did this mean that he was mad if he didn’t remember creating this nightmare scene? He’d always suspected that he had been dropped on his head, maybe it was true, and it just took a while to properly kick in.
He began to rub at some of the fingerprints and sketches to remove them, but they only smeared and added new black stains.
The boys!
He realized he needed to get ready, or they would come looking for him, and they’d see this.
He had about ten minutes to grab some clothes and run to the shower.
He didn’t want anyone else to realize how crazy he potentially could be.
After a quick peek outside his room he found that the coast was clear. Rob and the others must have been in their rooms or outside again.
Tomorrow he would clean the room and hide the drawings as though nothing had happened. It would be like a fresh start and his momentary slip into insanity would be totally under the rug.
“Dude?! We are all ready! How long are you gonna be?” It was Arron, one of Tim’s work friends, and not Athan’s favourite person. Arron had a habit of leaving his used bowls next to chairs in every room in the house and Athan would end up cleaning them. He had dyed black hair and a band t-shirt on. “And what’s the black stuff on your face? You look like a panda dude.”
Be cool.
“Charcoal. Had to get down some ideas for a masterpiece,” Athan answered sarcastically.
“Well, we’re leaving in ten. Get your arse into gear,” Arron said, before sipping his drink.
Athan nodded and headed down the corridor to the big bathroom that the three boys shared.
Athan shut the door, locked it behind him and took a moment to compose himself.
He felt fine.
No crazy left.
Maybe he had got it all out of his system. He had to be one of the guys now; he would save the crazy for when he had to clean the mess in his room.
Note to self; don’t bring a girl home.
***
The Link was busy as it usually was, with a crowd of rowdy young men and laughing girls at the bar.
It was eleven thirty and the security guards were already refusing entry to some drunks as they descended the steps.
A haunting blue glow emanated from the bar while flashes of pink, green and gold waved and strobed.
Athan’s housemates headed downstairs to the nightclub floor, it was the favourite place for Athan and the boys.
There was a stage, a bar and a dance floor, and quite often bands would play lots of the sing-along dance floor favourites.
The guys had a few drinks in them and were making themselves quite busy on the dance floor, being wingmen for each other as best they could. Not that it was having much effect on the girls they were trying to impress.
The band came on and all thoughts about talking to the ladies were forgotten.
The band broke into the first song for the night. An instant floor filler.
The guitars roared.
The drums crashed.
Lyrics everyone knew.
The boys raised their drinks or nodded, and others just screamed the chorus to each other.
Athan didn’t feel quite right. He couldn’t tell if he was troubled by the dark, charcoal scrawls he had locked away in his room, or if he was genuinely sick.
“Tim! I don’t feel great, man…” Athan called into his friend’s ear.
Tim yelled back. “You can’t bail man, the band’s just started, plus it’s my birthday!”
“No…I’m ok, just saying…” His head was becoming a throbbing mess.
Deep breath. Maintain…
He stumbled towards the blue glow of the bar.
Water, water will fix it.
The barman gave him a glass of water just as he asked, only it was mostly ice. Great.
Just when he felt that he needed to scull something to feel better.
He sipped and sipped trying to feel better, but it felt like he was getting more drunk.
A wave of dizziness passed over him and a feeling like water running down his spine.
The glass fell from his hand and smashed on the tiles next to the bar where he stood, and his body began to shake and shiver.
What’s happening?
Was this the beginning of another mental seizure? Was he about to draw all over everyone?
He fell to his knees, sweat soaking his shirt and running down his forehead into his eyes, burning them. Athan’s vision blurred.
He could see his hands shaking against the tiles. He was taking quick breaths, trying to focus and steady himself.
One of his friends yelled to him.
“…You’re bleeding.”
“He’s trashed!”
“Get some help!”
“Are you ok?”
“Are you ok?”
“Are you ok?” The voices echoed over and over.
The world began to vibrate like a film going out of focus or a television station losing reception.
The faces of his friends were confusing smears of familiar colour. He shifted his weight and tried to stand. He didn’t want to be dragged out like another worthless drunk.
Someone on his left lifted him and he used the marble bar to steady himself.
“You have to get him out of here now! He can’t be here!” The barman yelled behind his back.
Athan tried to look at the man to see why he was being so aggressive, and then he saw the dark smears and hand prints he had left on the clean bar. Maybe it was from the dirty floor, but it was dark, it couldn’t have been charcoal, not again. He stared at his hands trying to get them to focus and stop shaking.
Blood.
His hands were covered in blood, and it was running down his forearms.
What?
“The glass mate.” Rob’s voice. “You fell on your glass. You’ll be ok.”
Rob and Tim were holding his shoulders, trying to keep him steady.
Athan blinked trying to see clearly, and everything moved like waves on the ocean. Waves with smudged faces.
“What’s wrong with him?” Tim was calling to Rob.
Rob shrugged. “Maybe his drink was spiked.”
Athan swayed, leaning on Rob’s shoulder, trying to shuffle to the door, but he had to cross the dance floor to get there.
“My God! That guy’s bleeding!”
He could hear the girl’s squeal rattle through his head, bouncing of every facet of the inside like it was a tin can.
“Rob, I need…” Athan swallowed.
Athan felt his body convulse.
Once, then again.
He blinked and it seemed to last forever.
The world vanished.
Suddenly there was a pinkish blur on the dance floor under the flashing lights, then another. It was like the blur kept rushing at different people then vanishing. Tim, Rob and the other boys were dumbfounded.
The blur kept jumping from one person to the next on the dance floor, and soon the dancers started to see it.
Then came the screams, a few at first but more and more started.
The band stopped playing their set and squinted to see why everyone was panicking.
The screams were building, more and more of them, and people were falling over each other to get to the stairs to get out.
The whole time the blur kept flitting about, disappearing as it hit people, then reappearing from someone else metres away.
Athan’s friends joined the mob racing for the door.
They didn’t know where he had gone.
Only Rob remained on the dance floor looking, he couldn’t abandon his friend.
“Athan! Athan!” he yelled.
“Athan! Where are you! Athan!”
Athan was running as fast as he could through what looked like a charcoal smeared nightmare.
There were flashes of colour, but everything was indistinct.
Where is everyone?
He was too exhausted to yell, but he figured if he moved quickly enough, he might be able to get out.
It reminded him of trying to take off a wet shirt. It was suffocating and claustrophobic, but if he was quick he could be finally free of it.
The smudgy blurs would multiply and every now and then there would be a flash of colour or lights. The blurring began to take the form of a landscape. A desolate place that could have been the bottom of the ocean. It had a white glow and an odd smell, and what looked like leather, everywhere. Suddenly he was in the dark again, running though dense veils of charcoal smudge.
He stopped to catch his breath.
He didn’t know how far he had come, or where his clothes had gone.
All around him was like a liquid black that felt warm and familiar, like it was a someone rather than a someplace.
“Hello!” He called out into the dark.
“Athan! Athan!” came a voice that echoed through the black.
He stopped at the sound and closed his eyes to work out the direction of the sound.
Where is it coming from?
It was coming closer, barreling towards him, and suddenly he could hear the screams, whimpers and the scuffles of feet.
He was standing on the smelly beer-soaked carpet of the dance floor again, completely naked and staring across at Tim and Rob, who looked pale and terrified. Tim was shaking his head slowly with disbelief.
“Where am I?” Athan began as he stepped toward them.
“What the hell happened? Who are you!” Tim shuffled back a few steps.
Athan was scared and confused. “I don’t know…”
“Stay away…” Rob covered his mouth with his hand and recoiled from his friend.
Athan’s clothes had been trampled and kicked around the stinking carpet. He began to grab what items he could and pulled them on while people on the dance floor area shook with panic or just dumbly stared at the naked man shuffling about under the flashing lights.
Deadfall: A Post-Humans Story Page 22