Close Encounters of the Strange Kind

by Michael Kerr

  The leaden skies burst, releasing their burden of wintry flakes, which drifted in the windless night to spiral down upon the city, at first with no urgency, and then in quickening flurries that soon covered the grey and grimy capital in a pristine coat of sparkling white. For three days the snow continued to fall without pause, not faltering, to lend a truly seasonal flavour to this special time.

  The morning of Christmas Eve dawned bright, with clear, ice-blue skies, now emptied of their load. A chill was in the air, which fogged the breath and nipped at the noses of all abroad. But the snowscape gave inner warmth and cheer to all those still young at heart.

  Josiah rose early and set a kettle over the fire, always taking tea before going down to start in on his work. He cut two slices from a knuckle of pork, eating them with sweet pickle and crusty bread as he waited for the water to boil. Today he had just one order to complete, that of a doll, and then he would be done until after the holiday. The following morning he would hire a hackney carriage and, laden with gifts, would be delivered to the hospital to dispense them among the needy. He was becoming excited at the prospect, eager to see the wide-eyed joy that always greeted his visit. He smiled, anticipating the children’s glee, knowing that most of them would forget their ills and pain, if only for a short time. Yes, tomorrow would, as usual, make the whole year and his efforts throughout it worthwhile. It would please him if every day was Christmas, but then, he supposed, it would lose its uniqueness.

  One last tap with his leather-cushioned mallet and the second glass eye was driven securely into place. The doll was finished and ready for collection, with half an hour to spare.

  By the onset of dusk, Josiah had bagged myriad gifts in coarse hemp sacks, ready for the morning trip. He took a hanger from his wardrobe and inspected the poppy-red suit and matching cap, both trimmed with swan-white ermine. This was the outfit that he always wore, to bring a splash of colour to the dismal gas lit wards and brighten the bleak institution. He clipped his beard and moustache, and then set the tub down on the kitchen floor in readiness for a hot bath.

  A noise...No, not a noise, but tuneful music caught his ear. It sounded as if it came from below; a choir accompanied by flutes and a harp. Carollers he thought, and made his way down the stairs to acknowledge them, bid them the season’s greetings and perhaps part with a coin or two.

  The soft strains of music and singing stopped as he reached the bottom stair. Josiah went through the shop and opened the door, but saw no one in the street, save for a passing mongrel of dubious origin, loping awkwardly yet quickly through the snow, as if late for a promised bone. He shut and locked the door and turned, suddenly short of breath, his chest tight and paining him. Sitting on a stool next to his workbench, he tried to regain his equilibrium, resting his elbows in the wood shavings that littered the oak top.

  A soft, warm glow permeated throughout the shop. Rays of saffron light blended into a filmy mist of shifting sunset hues, and Josiah sat upright, now gripping the bench, afraid and yet intrigued. His discomfort evaporated as though it had never been, and the stale, dust-filled air of the shop became as fresh and sweet to breathe as a spring meadow in May, alive with the scent of blossom and wild flowers. He was overcome with a tremendous sense of well-being, which coursed through his body, and he saw the room with a clarity that he had not been capable of for decades, and his crippled hands were renewed; the swelling and the pain completely gone.

  Josiah became calm, knowing that a mystery was unfolding; a supernatural event that in some way involved him.

  The pervasive glow withdrew from the corners of the room and gathered before him in a dense shaft; a beam of lambent, shimmering light. And as he watched, the light took form to adopt the shape of a robed, winged figure that was translucent; the windows behind it easily viewed through its gossamer outline.

  “It is time, Josiah,” the visitor said in a soft, soothing and equable voice. “Loved ones wait to be reunited with you. Your good work here is done. Come, take my hand and let me lead you to your just reward.”

  Josiah heard the words, even though the messenger’s lips had not so much as quivered. This appeared to be an angel; a heaven-sent attendant, here to take him from this temporal plain. But surely it could be no more than a dream. Or had he already died without knowledge of his passing? Could it be possible in reality that an angel stood, or hovered before him in his humble workshop? He looked about him, and nothing had changed. Tools still rested where he had set them down. A box of dolls’ glass eyes glinted in the strange light, next to pots of paint and sable-tipped brushes. But the figure persisted to exist, looking at him with kindness and patience.

  “Please, good spirit,” he said, not knowing how to properly address an angel of the Lord. “If this is not a wistful dream, and you have truly come to take my soul to a better place, could you not delay your mission for just a day? I need to deliver my gifts to the children.”

  Josiah felt a great relief that his day of reckoning had arrived, and did not wish to postpone what had to be for selfish reasons. But please, God, not this night, he thought. He had to make his annual trip. How could he disappoint all the little ones? No, today was, to say the least, bad timing; an obvious miscalculation on some higher authorities’ part.

  “Worry no more of mortal things,” the angel replied to Josiah’s words and thoughts alike.

  The effulgent figure lost its human form to become a brilliant, shining star, engulfing the spirit of the old man, absorbing his essence, before blinking out in an instant.

  In the workshop, now returned to its former gloom, the toy maker’s body slumped, face on crossed arms on the bench as if asleep, abandoned and forlorn in the place where Josiah had practised his craft for so long. His mortal remains were at rest, awaiting discovery and a proper Christian burial.

  It was Christmas morning, and the coachman reined his horse to a halt outside the hospital. Porters stepped out into the crisp, ankle-deep snow and helped unload and carry the heavy sacks inside.

  The old man in the crimson garb moved from bed to bed, his gifts, caring smile and kind words a tonic to the children. And in return, he revelled in the joy that shone from their wide and happy eyes, elated by the pleasure that his toys generated.

  From ward to ward he ventured, his sacks impossibly not emptying until every tot had been bestowed with a gift.

  “I see that Josiah Tenby was about his business on the wards as usual on Christmas morning, handing out his priceless toys at St Ormond’s.” Dr. Benjamin Fabien said as he sat in the lounge of the Fairmont Club on the evening of the following day.

  His good friend, Howard Soames, a pathologist at St Bart’s, set down his glass of cognac, his brow furrowing like a washboard at the statement.

  “Alas,” he said, more than a little perplexed. “I fear you are mistaken my dear fellow. Poor Tenby expired on Christmas Eve and is, as we speak, lying in the mortuary ready for collection by the funeral director on Monday.”

  “Then miracles really do happen,” Benjamin stated. “For as I live and breathe I swear that I shook Josiah’s hand on Christmas morning, and thanked him for his much appreciated charity.”

  19

  A PERFECT DAY

  The coach, once released from the crawl of city traffic, sped out on dual carriageway towards the motorway. It was filled with laughing, chattering and excited youngsters, keyed up with anticipation and impatient to reach their destination.

  Terry sat by the window, its surface cool on his brow, as he looked back to the grey, urban sprawl; the grim panorama only relieved by the reflection of the morning sun, its rays glinting off the acres of shining glass that the high-rise office blocks were filmed with.

  It was his first day out for a long time, and every aspect of the world about him – however commonplace or mundane – seemed vibrant and interesting. The window was a screen, through which he had an ever-changing, live-action outlook on the hustle and bustle and everyday to and fro of people about their business
. The images of trees, children playing football in a park, and even shoppers and men at work flashed by his eyes and gladdened his heart at the sheer delight of just being able to see them.

  In the hospital, his only view, apart from the ward, had been the sky, through another window, that had become his portal to the outside world. Laid in his bed, he would watch the constantly changing palette, which ranged from gunmetal-grey to bright powder-blue. And he had given fanciful form to the clouds, creating the shapes of faces, animals, steam trains and ships; a pastime that afforded him pleasure and sustained him through the days, weeks and months. At night he would stare in awe at the black cathedral of the heavens, with its myriad bright pinpricks of stars, and imagine other eyes, looking back and seeing the Earth in the same light.

  Terry’s battle against leukaemia had been like a boxing match; short remissions between the countless rounds of painful fighting. But now he felt fine, was rid of the invisible, debilitating disease, and strong enough to join the other kids for a day trip to Blackpool.

  “Penny for your thoughts?” The girl said, sliding into the empty seat beside him, her radiant smile a flash of silver from the braces that held her teeth to supportive attention.

  “Oh, er, I was just daydreaming,” he replied, studying the girl’s pale face and short, cobweb-fine, blonde hair.

  “My name is Debra Walters,” she said, offering her fragile, white hand in greeting. “Pleased to meet you.”

  “Terry...Terry McNulty,” he replied, giving the cool hand a tentative, quick shake.

  As a flame to a moth, the famous tower seemed to draw them ever closer to the sea front, the Golden Mile and the pleasure beach.

  They spilled out of the coach in a door-jamming rush of euphoria, which to Sid Roberts, the driver, was analogous to lemmings throwing themselves from a cliff top, or penguins leaping from a packed ice floe.

  “It’s eleven o’clock, now,” Sid shouted, to be heard over the din of the alighting teenagers. “Be back by four...latest, or I’ll leave without you.” he lied.

  “What are you going on?” Debra asked, walking along the promenade by Terry’s side, having correctly assumed that he would want to be in her company.

  “Everything,” Terry said, feasting his eyes on the giant rollercoaster and other rides and attractions that had been added since his last visit.

  It was a beautiful July day. The sun’s rays shimmered on the crests of a million waves that were little more than ripples in the gentle offshore breeze. On the horizon, Terry saw the blur of a large ship, probably Liverpool-bound, which appeared to be stationary against the distant meld of sea and sky, with no landmarks for him to judge its size or rate of knots by.

  He had more fun than he could believe it was possible to experience. Debra held his hand and drew him along, flitting like a butterfly from flower to flower, in and on the gaudy blooms that the permanent funfair that was Blackpool offered.

  They cried with laughter in a crazy house of mirrors, as their reflections shifted shape and transformed them from giant ‘Lowry’ matchstick kids to squat Tweedledum and Tweedledee barrels. And they screamed with joyous fright as they were rushed up and down the peaks and troughs of the towering, skeleton-framed rollercoaster; stomachs rebelling as they plummeted around its snaking track, their knuckles white as they clung on for their lives.

  Later, sat on the hot sand, they licked rapidly at whirled gobbets of ice-cream, as it melted and dripped down onto their hands and turned the wafer cones to the consistency of wet cardboard.

  “What next?” Debra asked, magically producing two tissues for them to wipe the ice-cream from their sticky fingers and white-rimmed mouths.

  “The big wheel,” Terry said, noticing that even the sweltering midday heat had not added any colour to Debra’s alabaster skin.

  Borne aloft, they leaned forward, the seat tipping and only a safety bar holding them back from the receding crowds that they watched shrink to the size of insects as the giant Ferris wheel revolved vertically and took them high into the summer sky.

  “Bumper cars now!” Debra shouted when once more they were back on the ground. “C’mon.”

  Terry raced after her, as she seemed to glide through the milling throng. Calliope music filled his ears as he ran, then faded and was replaced by the beat of rock as he reached the bumper car pavilion. They boarded a car each, crashed into each other unmercifully and giggled as the air was filled by ozone from the sparking wire grid above them, which powered the juddering, robust little vehicles via rods that stretched up like flagpoles from their rear.

  Exhausted, and sated with an excess of thrills that had emptied an overdose of adrenaline into their systems, Terry and Debra walked along the seafront, eating chips from bland, white paper, which had none of the character that less hygienic newspaper used to invoke.

  “Have you enjoyed today?” Debra asked, flinging a chip into the air, to watch as it was instantly caught and devoured by the beak of a screeching gull.

  “It’s been the best day of my life,” Terry replied. “I wish it could last forever.”

  “That’s how I feel. I wasn’t really looking forward to it, but it’s been better than a lot of things that I’ve planned and got really excited about, and then they’ve turned out to be boring or a real let down.”

  It was all over too soon, and as they drew near the row of coaches, Terry withdrew his hand from Debra’s and felt the outside world crush in on their special relationship.

  Time was fluid, he thought. It can creep by frame by frame in slow motion during periods of sadness or suffering, like a sluggish, slow-moving river, silted and leaden. Or can rush by in a pell-mell dash; a blur of speed at times that are full of happiness and abandoned distraction. The day had been perfect in every way, not least due to being in the company of the girl with the large, enigmatic eyes and somehow melancholy air about her.

  It was time to go, and as Debra and the others congregated to board the coach, Terry slipped back from them to be concealed and swept away in the seething mass that filled the pavement; lost to them without a trace.

  He had a final, special place to visit before the day was over.

  “Terry’s missing!” Debra said as the driver took his seat, ready to drive off. “You can’t leave without him.”

  Sid stood up and lifted the clipboard from the dash, then did a head count of his charges. It took three attempts to settle them down and satisfy himself with a total. “I’m sorry, love,” he said to the worried looking girl who stood before him. “We left Lime Street with forty-one, and that’s what I’ve got for the return trip.” He did a verbal check, to cover himself, shouting out the names on his list and ticking them off as they replied; as though he was a teacher with the morning register. There was no Terry McNulty on the list, and his numbers tallied, so although he could see that the girl was distressed, he believed her to be confused, suffering from heat-stroke, or just fantasising. He pulled away from the kerb and headed back to Liverpool, ready for his tea and an evening at his local pub.

  Only in dreams is it believed that in the blink of an eye you can be in another place or time. But Terry was not dreaming, as in an instant he was transported from the centre of the holiday resort, to find himself standing amid a stunted forest of marble and granite. He sat down on the grass cross-legged, eyes closed for a moment as he allowed the tranquillity of the western Pennine graveyard to fill him with a sense of peace and serenity.

  The dull, weathered headstone was engraved with the words: TERENCE DAVID McNULTY; and beneath: Born 12th February 1946 – Died 20th July 1960. Terry ran his fingers over the letters that formed the words: WITH THE ANGELS, and marvelled at how right his now also dead parents had been, when they had lost him over fifty years ago and had had that legend carved into the marble. Strange, he mused, how some years his will brought him back to celebrate the anniversary of his passing from the living world. This year had been the best by far. Debra had been such fun to be with, and it was almost
a shame that by the time she awakened from the sleep that she would fall into on the coach, she would have no memory of him. But that was one of the rules.

  Terry smiled, and then became a shapeless, glowing, translucent form, before imploding to an incandescent spark and winking out. It really had been a perfect day.

  20

  SOMETHING VERY STRANGE

  The full moon had risen to cast flat, cheerless shadows on the rutted earth of the narrow lane. Tall trees stirred in the chill wind, their branches soughing and the remaining life-sapped leaves rustling with the dry rasp of bronchial old men tittle-tattling on park benches.

  Nick could make out the black shape of the pitched roof and chimneys silhouetted against the backdrop of a star-spangled sky. He paused for a few seconds; felt that the house was in some way aware of his approach. The skin of his scalp and forearms tightened, causing hairs to spring erect. He had the absurd feeling that the Victorian dwelling was leaning towards him, eager for him to draw nearer and be assimilated into its very fabric.

  God, I don’t want to go in there, he thought, experiencing an irrational stab of fear. In his mind, the house that loomed ahead of him had taken on a life of its own; something that existed on Godless, unholy ground. He felt sure that even had he possessed a crucifix, bible or holy water about his person, they would have offered little protection against the evil that emanated from the very bricks and mortar. A fertile imagination produced terrifying images of undead figures in his brain; deformed and staggering stiff-legged, outstretched arms and long, white grasping fingers reaching out, intent on latching onto him.

  Ignoring the crushing, unfounded fear, he slipped over the waist-high wall and approached the house in a crouching run; to make his way around to the back door, to jemmy it open and step into the heavy, cloying silence, needing all his strength of will to dismiss the sensation that he might be crushed into non-existence. The fleeting urge to turn back passed as quickly as it had come. The night was his friend; an ally in his unlawful pursuit.