by Chris Ward
‘Look at me, damn you. I don’t have to do it, thank the mighty heavens, but you do.’
The monster’s face was mere inches from Victor’s own, and his eyes filled with tears of fear as he took in the bumps and curves and scars of the worst thing he had ever seen. Had he seen such a thing come out of a woman’s womb, even someone as passive as he might have been glad to see it drowned in the nearest river.
The tiny grey lips pulled back in a smile. ‘Oh, I disgust you, don’t I? What a delightful turn of events. I’m sure you’ll sleep well tonight, sire. Like a baby, wouldn’t I suggest? Do you have children, sire? Do they look anything like me?’
‘No … children,’ Victor wheezed.
The monster pushed him away and stalked back across the room. Victor, remembering his wet clothes, rolled closer to the fire, keeping the creature in sight as it stalked out through a doorway into an adjacent room. For a few seconds Victor thought about trying to flee, but he was still soaking, and even if he could get out of the door before the monster came back, he would freeze to death out on the streets.
A shadow fell over the stone floor and then the creature returned, something clutched in its spindly fingers. Victor flinched as it squatted down beside him and held out a tiny photograph of an unsmiling Asian woman, her head wrapped in a shawl, sitting on a stone wall outside a shack made of corrugated iron.
‘My mother, sire.’ A bony finger gave the woman’s face a disdainful prod. ‘The bitch. I’ve been hunted across the world yet this fucking photograph follows me like a fly wanting to feast on my remains.’
The monster sat down on the floor beside Victor, holding the photograph up in two hands. ‘I really was that child with a face only a mother could love. Yet she didn’t. She sold me like a piece of furniture she didn’t want anymore. It wasn’t even to the highest bidder, because there was only one.’
He sprung up suddenly and flung the picture towards the fire, only to reach out one spindly finger to pluck it out of the air just inches above the flames. ‘Oh, mother dear, lost angel of my life, creator of so much yet so little. One day I will say goodbye to you forever, but not today.’
As the heat of the fire gradually sucked the cold and damp out of his clothes, Victor’s fear began to reside, allowing for a flicker of curiosity to take its place. The monster was still holding the photograph between two fingers like a delicate flower, and was speaking to it in a language that Victor didn’t recognise, like a remarkably ugly character actor preparing for a final performance.
‘You … you … you—’
The monster’s head swung around. ‘What?’
‘You … have a name?’
‘I thought you would never ask, sire. I am Professor Kurou.’
‘Crow?’
‘Ku-rou. Be the first person I’ve ever met to get it correct, won’t you? Hated and hunted and in hiding longer than I remember. The very same.’
‘You’re a man.’
‘Of course I’m a fucking man, fool!’ Kurou turned and aimed a kick at Victor which missed by a good fifty centimetres. Kurou fell backwards like a drunk trying to take a penalty kick and slumped down on the pile of filthy blankets, where he lay with his arms out wide, laughing as though he had just heard the funniest joke in the world.
Then, like a tap being switched off, the laughter was gone, Kurou was sitting up, one arm propping up his head, one eye watching Victor intently, the other—that Victor now saw was false, a ball of some black polished stone—staring off into space.
‘Say what you need to say, sire. It will make no different to whether I kill you or not. In fact, I’m quite enjoying your company. I like to speak to the dead—or at least those soon to be—but to be in conversation with someone living is a rare place indeed.’
‘You’ve been scarred.’
‘Oh, and the rest! I crawled kicking and screaming out of my mother’s cunt like an ugly beetle no one was quick enough to stamp out. Perhaps she did love me once upon a time, who can guess? Before I first showed my face I was probably a treasure, and from there things swiftly went the wrong way of right. There surely must have been people around wanting to toss me under the nearest passing truck, let me pop like a ripe melon and all’s done and dusted. What a way to go out, yes?’
Victor cleared his throat. It was as Kurou said—he would either be killed or he would not. The man was insane, but Victor doubted there was anything he could do to make things better.
‘I saw what you did to the cart. It killed someone who attacked me. I’m not too happy about it, but I’m pleased all the same. But what you did … you’re a genius.’
Kurou gave an extravagant bow. ‘All in a day’s work, sire.’
‘I mean, how did you do that? What was it?’
‘A master never tells his secrets, only sells them to the highest bidder. And you don’t look like you’d get too far in a bidding war. Would I be right, sire?’
‘I do okay. I’ve always had plenty of work. What about you? What do you do?’
The question seemed absurd the instant it left his lips. As if a man like this could have ever held a real job. He was a creature of dark places, a wraith shunned by society.
Kurou turned to him and smiled. Patches of scar tissue pulsed red, while others were pale white. He looked like the devil’s own checkers board.
‘I, sire? What might I do?’ He leaned forward theatrically. ‘I change the world.’
‘How?’
‘How? What kind of question is that?’
‘How do you change it? For better or worse?’ Victor clamped his mouth shut, but it was too late. Accusing the man of being a criminal might not be the best course of action.
Kurou’s eyes narrowed for a moment, then he stood up straight again. ‘Well, I guess that depends on your perspective, doesn’t it, sire? I am a painter, and the entire world is my canvas.’
Without warning, Kurou disappeared into the other room again. Victor looked around him for a weapon, but aside from the bucket that had doused him with water, there was nothing. The cart, he noticed, had disappeared.
The door was fifteen feet behind him, and now he had got over his initial shock, the strength was returning to his legs. He could make it if he moved right now, if he didn’t hesitate—
‘Hungry, sire?’
Something landed on the floor to Victor’s right. It looked like a strip of dried meat. ‘What is it?’
Kurou sniggered. ‘Jerky.’
Victor, who couldn’t remember when he had last eaten, picked it up and gave it a sniff. It smelt oily and dry, like old clothes. ‘Beef?’
‘Have you seen a cow in these parts, lately?’ Kurou roared, throwing his hands up towards the ceiling like an emperor bidding a crowd to rise. ‘I mean, have you?’
‘Well, what is it then?’
‘It’s the fruit of failure, of fallen dreams, the thigh of drug-addled miner.’
Victor cried out and tossed the strip of meat away. It hit the edge of the fire and began to fizzle, little pockets of oil crackling and spitting.
‘Don’t waste it, fool! Upon strips of flesh like that stone pedestals are raised, empires are built, and wars are fought.’
‘Did you kill him?’
‘Who?’
Victor pointed at the bubbling strip of meat. ‘Whoever that came from.’
Kurou shrugged and turned away. ‘He was already dead. Or as good as.’ He suddenly spun and leapt across the room, knocking Victor backwards and pinning him to the ground. Victor stared up into Kurou’s one seeing eye as it loomed inches above his own.
‘Who are you to judge me, sire?’ Kurou hissed, his putrid breath making Victor gag. ‘I’m hardly the first, hardly the worst. What man wouldn’t descend to the depths of all depravity should he have the chance? It’s a long way down, I can tell you.’
‘You’re crazy,’ Victor whispered.
Kurou leaned closer, his breath tickling Victor’s ear. ‘Crazy doesn’t begin to describe me,’ he bre
athed, so quietly Victor could barely hear. ‘Mankind has yet to invent the adjective that would do me justice.’
Before Victor could reply, Kurou had leapt up again and dashed off into the other room. ‘I imagine something more … trivial might be to your taste,’ he called back, then a metal can came bouncing across the floor to land at Victor’s feet.
Tinned pineapples. A few weeks out of date, but that the paper label was yet to fade made them fresh enough in this town. Victor had left them for the stranger a couple of days ago.
Kurou’s voice drifted out of what Victor was now sure was a makeshift kitchen.
‘Quite the host, aren’t I?’
15
Nine floors under
The all clear for people to return to their homes was given some time in the early dawn. Robert walked back towards his house with Isabella leaning on his shoulder, a light snow falling around him. His heart felt heavy and his hands were itching to get hold of something meaningful he could break.
Patricia had disappeared.
While Robert and Isabella were sleeping in the shelter, she had got up and left. No one could remember her leaving, or had been too afraid to say so. In his anger he had started a fist fight with a group of younger men who had taken umbrage to his insistent questioning, and now his knuckles were red and sore from distributing his frustration across several bearded faces. In return he had a tooth loose in the left side of his mouth and his right eye was swollen half shut.
Where could she have gone?
Esel had never shown up, so she must have gone to find him. How could she know where he was? Or was she blindly wandering the streets in search of him? He guessed she had left hours before the all clear, so she had put herself unnecessarily at risk for her fool of a brother.
If he had to choose … if he had to choose… It would be Patricia leaning on his arm while the other two rotted in the ground, but such thoughts would achieve nothing.
Their house was undamaged. A crater a hundred metres up the street indicated that a stray bomb had come close, but otherwise it seemed that the drones had kept to the industrial targets to the north of town.
Robert deposited Isabella in her bedroom and set her to packing, the only way to keep her occupied, then headed back out on to the street. His telephone wasn’t working, but a couple of doors down he borrowed one that was, and called up several of his closest associates from the stand they had made against the council.
Half an hour later, he had ten men gathered around him on the street.
‘My twins, are missing,’ he said, remembering to include Esel, even though the fool boy was probably off looting some damaged building. ‘I’m asking only that you put your feelers out, see if anyone’s seen them.’
The men around him nodded. One, a banker named Michael, raised his hand. ‘A friend of mine saw a girl in the Lenin District early this morning, in St Peter’s Place. She was looking at the fallen dormitory building. I didn’t think anything of it at the time, but—’
‘What did you say? Fallen?’
‘A drone strike caused the building to partially collapse. It was the only major damage received inside the town limits.’ Michael smiled. ‘And it’s abandoned. Of all the places to hit—’
‘What was she doing?’
Robert turned without waiting for an answer, but such was his authority that the men fell into step behind him. At his shoulder, Michael said, ‘My friend said nothing at all. Just watching it, like she was fascinated by something.’
‘Where did she go?’
‘He didn’t say.’
As they headed through town towards the Lenin District, Robert sent several men off to put the word out about Patricia. When the rest of them arrived, they found St Peter’s Place to be busier than normal, with people standing in small groups as they watched the smouldering dormitory building, which appeared to have fallen in upon itself like a trampled spider.
‘She was standing right in the middle of the plaza,’ Michael said. ‘Still like a statue, my friend told me. He thought perhaps she’d lost someone inside.’
‘No one in there but addicts and pit crawlers,’ Robert spat. ‘No loss to anyone.’
He felt his anger talking, but even though many of the down-and-outs in the town were former mine workers made redundant by pit closures and cutbacks—several dozen by his own firm—no one dared to disagree with him.
A couple of the town’s bedraggled fire crews had pulled up, but no one was making any effort to enter the collapsed building. Robert headed across the plaza to where a small crowd had gathered, most of them arguing with each other about whether the drone strike was intentional or not. Most of the streets around St Peter’s Place were the haunts of the damned; drug addicts and prostitutes, rapists and muggers, a sea of human detritus committing crimes against each other. There were few streets that would be missed, but a little way to the north the residential area was altogether more respectable, and a direct hit would have caused a considerable loss of well-thought-of life.
‘Has anyone seen a young girl?’ Robert shouted, barging into the midst of the crowd. ‘I’m looking for my daughter. She’s fourteen. She was seen in the plaza just before dawn.’
A few people—clearly not aware of his status—shouted angry insults back at him, or pushed him aside. Robert toyed with the idea of starting a fight, then he saw an old man near the front beckoning towards him.
‘She about so high?’ the old man wheezed through smokers’ lungs. ‘Wearing a black jacket? Kind of pretty, if that were a thing in these parts?’
It was the clearest description he could hope for. ‘Yes,’ he said.
‘She’s gone, I’m afraid. I’m sorry for your loss.’
Robert grabbed the old man by the lapels of his jacket and swung him around. ‘What the fuck are you talking about? Where’s she gone?’
As someone else waded in, pushing them apart, Robert heard the words he had been dreading.
‘She went in there. After it got hit, before it came down. Ain’t no coming back out now. I’m sorry for your loss, sir.’
Robert shoved away the hands that were restraining him, but his own strength had gone. He sank to his knees in the snow, his hands on the ground in front of him, and he looked up at the building that had become his daughter’s tomb.
‘Why? Goddamn it, why, Patricia?’
Nearby, a group of firemen were debating whether to risk entering the collapsed building or not. Something about the disdain rising from their voices set Robert off. He pushed himself to his feet, a ball of rage growing inside him. Pushing everyone in front of him aside, he waded into them, shouting and hollering, fists swinging.
It took three men to subdue him, but it made no difference. As Robert lay pinned to the ground by two burly firemen, the chief commander called the order for a safety zone to be established around the outside of the dormitory building. Entering it was too great a risk. It was supposed to be abandoned after all.
Robert managed to free one arm enough to pound the snowy plaza in disgust. If Patricia was inside, no one was coming to get her.
Pavel made his way up to the roof level and stood looking out towards the Lenin District further to the south. A haze rose there now, like smoke, and he knew from the reports that it was dust from the collapsed dormitory building on the north side of St Peter’s Place.
He had ignored all incoming calls, but his gallant secretary—remaining at her post even during the raid—had taken messages.
One was from Robert Mortin, the garrulous mining foreman who might have found his wagging tongue cut out in more imperial times. His daughter was supposedly trapped inside the collapsed building, but with the only evidence being that of a dim-witted old man, Pavel had refused to allow the town’s firemen to risk themselves.
A second had come from the head of the local rail district, informing him that the line was undamaged and that a train could still leave as scheduled tomorrow, providing there were no further attacks.
Pavel lifted the secure line radio to his ear and activated the frequency.
‘Lena, it’s me, Pavel. What have you found?’
16
Trapped underground
‘Well, that’s us screwed.’
Before Victor could reply, Kurou had jumped up and run to the door, flinging it wide. A plume of dust gusted into the room in the moments before he slammed it shut. Then, leaning up against it like some slapstick prankster, he raised a crooked eyebrow and cocked his head.
‘Looks like you’ll be staying a while, doesn’t it, sire?’
‘What was that noise?’ Victor asked, fearing the answer. The sudden boom that had shook the whole room didn’t need an introduction.
The building had been hit by a bomb.
‘It was the sound of several floors of concrete deciding to take a little lie down, sire. Probably the best course of action for us, too.’
‘Are we going to die? Are we going to get crushed by the building falling down?’
Kurou kicked a dirty blanket against the door to block the draft beneath it that was coughing handfuls of dust into the room.
‘Soviet architecture,’ he said. Good and lumpy, falls apart like crumbly cake. Makes a mess, but never goes straight down. Up there’s a big heap of rocks, but we’re safe down here in our tomb.’
‘Our tomb?’ Victor jumped up. ‘Are you serious? There must be a way out!’
Kurou picked up the serrated lid of the tinned pineapples. ‘A quick swipe across the neck is your quickest way out, sire,’ Kurou said. ‘Ask nicely, any time.’
The longer he spent with Kurou, the more Victor’s fear of him continued to wane. The man was dangerous, certainly, and insane without a doubt. But he was also a joker, and beneath the hideous exterior, almost childlike in many of his mannerisms. It was impossible not to be afraid, but the paralysing terror he had first encountered had given way to a nervous wariness.