by Bill Hussey
He had not dreamed since the accident. At least, when he woke, he couldn’t remember dreaming. There had been this boffin on TV once who’d said that dreaming was the mind’s safety valve. It was the ‘catharsis’ of the soul. Jack had looked the word up (it’d taken some time because he’d heard it as ‘cats-fart-sis’). It meant getting something out of your system, like punching a smaller kid if your folks were going on at you. If we didn’t dream, the TV egghead said, we’d be a mass of ‘new-row-sis’. Jack hadn’t looked that up, but he now felt he understood what it meant. It meant going nuts, having a case of the heebie-jeebies, being (no joke) one bulb short of a full set of Christmas lights.
By early February, they had started showing him things, not from a person’s past, which he only saw when he touched, but things about to happen. The future, laid out in mirrors and windows. Always dreadful things that he could make no sense of until it was too late. Accidents like the one that crippled his grandmother, which he had seen as brief flashes of stairs, flailing limbs and compound fractures. This, coupled with the inability to touch, was almost too much to bear.
One day, as he strolled along the river, skimming stones across its icy surface, he had come across Dan Foster and Jane Rye. They were too busy to notice him. He watched them, not caring if he was seen. What he witnessed made him feel as though he were frozen. Something was happening between Dan and Jane that he would never experience. It would happen to all his friends at some point, and he would be left behind.
His friends. They had been great at first. The girls cooed over him and the boys had hailed him, as if he were a mythical hero returned from the Underworld. From the start, however, he was sullen and distant. They had all been patient, but after a while their sympathy ran dry.
It was a Saturday, mid-way through the month, when he heard voices in the forest. He recognised them at once and crept within earshot. From behind the base of an alder tree, Jack watched the boys at work in the hollow. There was Dan Foster, Carl Walters and four or five of his old buddies, busy with saws, hammers and scraps of ply. In the old days, they would have asked Jack to help build their fort. He was good at that sort of stuff; always coming up with inventive but practical designs.
‘I saw this flick at the Regal,’ Danny said, through a mouth full of nails. ‘This scientist is trying to bring his wife back from the dead. He has this whole lab set-up. He puts these electrodes on her and turns on the juice. She comes back, but she’s got the soul of this ancient Egyptian Queen or something …’
‘Are you saying Jack’s an ancient queen?’ Carl Walters laughed.
The other boys giggled too until a look from Danny dried up their laughter.
‘I’m just saying you don’t know what happened to him. Maybe Jack ain’t Jack no more.’
Jack took off. He ran as fast as he could, back through the woods towards home. Trees passed in a yellow blur. His feet cracked on the hard earth, juddering his bones. His heart raced against his chest and his spit was thick and coppery. Just over the next ridge was Doyle’s Rise. Some kids called it the Shiiiiit Skids, but to Jack and Dan and the old gang, it had always been the Death Bank. It was so steep nobody dared climb it. If you slipped, you’d never stop yourself. You’d plough headlong, forty feet down and count your lucky stars if you managed to peel yourself off the road alive. No need to put on the brakes just yet though. There was plenty of time.
He was moving fast when he tripped. His legs wheeled beneath him and he pitched forward into a copse. A tree stump speared his stomach. Air wheezed out of his lungs as he tumbled, tucking and rolling. Leaves slipped through his fingers and he found no purchase on the frosted ground. Caught between screams and laughter, he tipped over the Death Bank.
He saw the descent in snatches: feet framed against the sky; cushions of bright green moss speeding his descent; woodpigeons, frightened by his screams, exploding from the trees overhanging the precipice. The road growing larger … larger, larger. LARGER.
Roots slashed his skin. There was a dull snap and he felt his right arm trail behind him. Gravel spat into his face like shrapnel. The pain and fear was blinding, and it wasn’t until he felt the chill of their hands grasping along his optic nerve that he realised they were moving. There wasn’t time to worry about it. Soon nothing would matter. Soon his skull would be cracked open on the road and they, together with his brains, would splash across the tarmac. One last inward burst of crazed laughter: Goodbye, cruel world! And a final, sober plea: Please, God, make it quick.
He tried to close his eyes. They wouldn’t shut. Everything went dark anyway. Cold, wet tar filled his nostrils.
The impact did not come.
When his vision returned, he found himself squatting on all-fours in the middle of the road. The arm, which he had guessed must be broken, supported him steadily. Looking sideways, he saw his path cut through forty feet of broken thicket. He should be dead. At the very least, he should be rolling around in agony. The only pain he felt was a slight sting between his eyes. Blood dripped from his nose onto the back of his hand. He wiped his sleeve across his face and was about to see if he could stand, when he looked again at the black surface of the road.
It was moving; flowing under his hands and feet. Something thick and gummy dripped from his eyes into the pool. The puddle shifted. They span towards his face and re-entered him as coldly as they had left. Resuming their position inside his skull, they lapsed back into sleep.
Jack fell into a sitting position and tried to think. They had saved his life. Did this mean he owed them one? The thought made him tremble. He coughed a mouthful of vomit onto the road and waited for his breathing to steady.
‘Please, Jack, tell me what’s the matter.’
Jack shivered. He was wrapped in a blanket, huddled over the electric fire. The TV was on, but he had the volume turned right down.
‘Can’t,’ he said, his voice hollow.
‘Jack, I won’t have that sort of nonsense. I’m your mother and …’
‘You won’t understand.’
He drew the blanket around him and stared at the bright filaments of the fire. Why had they saved him? He had thought they were evil because they looked monstrous. Perhaps he’d been wrong.
‘Come on, love,’ his mother said. ‘You can tell me anything. There’s no need to be frightened. Jesus is with you always.’
‘Is he?’ Jack murmured. ‘Where was he when I died? Where was he when they came into me?’
‘Jack, what are you talking about?’
He bowed his head. The fireguard gave a violent prang. He drew himself further into the blanket and watched a silent Orinoco scamper around the Womble Burrow.
‘Jack, tell me this instant.’
Orinoco fell off a ladder.
‘All right,’ he whispered. ‘You asked for it. I’ll tell you. In fact, I think they want you to know.’
Thirty-five
Jack’s Story
‘I wanted to figure it out on my own,’ Jack said, bringing his story up to date. ‘I thought if I told someone, I’d be laughed at. But I keep seeing things, in mirrors, in my head … I can’t handle it anymore.’
‘Jack, I’m so sorry,’ his mother said. ‘I didn’t know you felt so alone.’
‘What are they, Mum? What do they want?’
‘Listen, you’re very upset. I know things have been tough at school. Let’s go and see Dr Shelley, maybe he can recommend someone who …’
‘I don’t need a psychiatrist!’ Jack shouted. ‘I need someone to believe me. I need someone to take them out of me. I need … Jesus, don’t touch me!’
She drew a sharp intake of breath as his foot connected with her stomach. Fear and self-loathing rocked his senses. His mother, doubled over, stared at him through bars of hair. The pained, confused look she gave almost made him wish he was lying crushed on the road beneath the Death Bank: a cold buffet for birds and foxes.
‘I didn’t mean … you can’t touch me. I told you.’
&nbs
p; ‘Jack … it’s the … accident. You’re … not … fully … You’re imagining …’
‘How? How am I imagining things? I saw what that nurse’s father did to her.’
‘Tell me truthfully,’ she said, her breathing coming more steadily. ‘What’s wrong?’
Jack tore strands of hair over his eyes.
‘Jesus Christ! They’re inside me. Please, Mum, please believe me.’
‘But, love, don’t you see it’s impossible?’
‘And manna falling from heaven is possible? Trumpets blowing down walls and talking bushes and dead people getting up and walking around, and all the rest of that bollocks you make me sit through every week; all that is possible?’
‘But what you’re saying, God wouldn’t allow it.’
‘Oh, wouldn’t He? Well He did. And I’ve prayed, Mum. I’ve prayed and prayed and He doesn’t hear.’
‘That’s enough.’
‘You know what I think? I think He’s dead. Or maybe He’s scared of them. Yeah, that’s it,’ Jack laughed. ‘God’s scared shitless of the things living inside my head …’
‘I know you’re upset, Jack, but I won’t have blasphemy in this house.’
‘Too late,’ he muttered.
The heat from the fire made his eyes water. He looked at his mother through stinging tears.
‘You won’t ever believe me will you?’
‘I …’
‘You have to. Mum, I’m sorry.’
Jack threw off the blanket. Shivering, dressed only in his pyjama bottoms, he reached out to touch her.
‘Jack? What’re you doing?’
His fingertips quivered an inch from her hand. His chest, still shaped like a child’s but beginning to stretch and broaden, heaved as his breath shortened. Suddenly conscious of his exposed torso, he placed his right hand over his breast. His heart sang against his palm. He gripped her wrist.
Fire exploded down his right arm, licked into his fingers. It was quicker this time. There was no chance for second thoughts, for turning back. They pulled him inside her and he saw her fully, as no-one else ever had.
At the forefront of her mind was discipline, authority, morality, control, stamped through with the strictures of the Church. But behind that breakwater lay an ocean, beautiful and fathomless. They saw it too, and Jack sensed their excitement. Before he could think of stopping them, they plunged into the tumult, dragging him behind. Secrets unravelled as he drowned in her hopes and fears and fantasies. He saw her, and was proud and sickened.
Without knowing how, he drew them together and felt his way back. In a moment, he was in his own body again and was aware that he was speaking.
‘… and you want to believe it. That if you’re good, it’ll all be all right. But you know it’s not true. No-one is ever saved …’
He pulled his hand away.
‘Mum? Are you all right? I had to, you see? I had to show you. I had to …’
‘It’s dreaming. Shadowland of possibility … dreaming … I saw them, Jack,’ she said, stepping away from her son. ‘I saw them …’
Things changed in the last week of his mother’s life. To the outside world, he was sure that there was no noticeable difference in their relationship. When they met her friends in the street, or when they attended Mass, she behaved as she always had. Fussing over his appearance and manners. But at home things were different. She treated him with a mixture of over-attentiveness and suspicion. As she tiptoed around him, being all bright and cheerful, Jack thought he could feel her fear and hatred.
On a few occasions he tried to bring up the subject of what had happened. She would never be drawn. The only comfort he took from her newfound horror of him was the certainty that she would not tell his father about Them. James Trent loved to joke and fool around, but he was a very serious-minded man. He didn’t believe in monsters.
It was two days later when Jack found out just how wrong he could be.
Dan Foster had picked a fight with him at break time. The head had told them to shake hands. Jack refused and had been told to go home and think about his behaviour. His dad had been away on business and was not expected back until the weekend. As Jack eased the front door to and tiptoed down the hall, hoping to sneak up to his room unnoticed, he was surprised to hear his father’s voice from the kitchen.
‘Right. Let me get this crystal fucking clear. What you’re telling me is – I can’t actually believe I’m going to say this – Jack, our son, is possessed? You are joking. You have to be joking?’
‘I don’t expect you to believe it,’ his mother said. ‘If it’s not backed up by reports and graphs it doesn’t exist, does it? Well, the Devil doesn’t come with a Kitemark.’
‘I’m away for three days and come back to the Salem Witch Hunt … Look, if Jack’s been a bit off since the accident, who could blame him? And these mood swings? He’s growing up, changes in personality are normal. Come on, Claire, not even the Church believes in the Devil anymore.’
‘There is a darkness deep inside him.’
‘Mother of God! You know what I think? I think you should see a doctor.’
‘I’m going to talk to Father Soames tomorrow.’
‘About what? You’re not seriously going to tell him our son is …’
‘I saw them, James. They came from him. They bore him into me. Demons.’
‘Claire, this is a difficult time, what with Jack’s accident,” James Trent said, sounding conciliatory. “Of course you’ve taken solace from your faith but this… what you’re saying is practically medieval.’
‘They’re real, James. I’ve seen them.’
‘Christ. You know what? I think you should talk to Joe Soames. Maybe when he tells you you’re a fucking lunatic, you’ll believe it.’
‘You think you know so much. James Trent, Renaissance Man. You’re just an ignorant child. There is a Devil. Evil exists. There are Demons living inside our son.’
‘Claire, I don’t care if our marriage suffers. I don’t care if you hate me for the rest of my life, but listen very carefully: my son will not be subjected to your lunatic beliefs.’
‘I won’t stand by and let them take him, James. I won’t be frightened of my own child. I’ll talk to Father Soames and we will drive them out.’
The kitchen door flew open. Jack raced upstairs. He leaned over the banister and watched his father’s long shadow stop at the front door.
‘Over my dead body, Claire. You hear me? Over my dead body.’
*
The Chordettes version of Mister Sandman blared out from downstairs. There was only one reason why his dad, who disliked all forms of music, had the record player cranked up so loud. He was really pissed off and he didn’t want to talk to anybody. The barbershop harmonising of the Chordettes melted through the floorboards. The sound set Jack’s heart jangling. He flopped onto his bed and opened the latest issue of The Uncanny X-Men. His gaze swept over the grids and speech bubbles, taking in none of the story, registering only flashes of colour. What will she say to Father Soames?
He ran his fingers into his hair and pulled the long locks tight. Just two months ago he had been happy. He’d had good friends, he’d had a family. He had never felt alone in his entire life. Now, since the accident, since they had forced their way into his mind, he was a leper. His friends stayed away, or wanted to pick fights with him. His mother crept around the house, trying to keep their encounters to a minimum. He didn’t feel like he was her son anymore. It was as if he was an unexploded bomb that could only be defused with a mixture of quiet prayer and hysterical argument. He had caused that change in her. He had driven her into the extremes of her religion. And he was responsible for his dad’s growing hatred of her.
Recently, Jack had begun to think of what it was to be human. It was like clinging to a cliff face. Your safety line was family, the niches for your hands and feet were your friends. As you climb higher, as you grow, you can look down and see more of the cliff. Understand more of where
you have been and where you might be going. But what if the safety line snaps? What if you lose your footing? If you’re lucky, you might find a ledge and spend the rest of your life there, going no higher, becoming no wiser, remaining a child. Jack sensed that he had found a ledge and was grateful for that at least. But the rock face around him was smooth and sheer and a dense cloud had wrapped itself around the heights of the cliff.
It was they that had cut his line. They that had chipped away the niches. They that clouded his route to the summit.
The time had come for a little chat.
Thirty-six
Jack’s Story
Drawing them out without having to touch was easier than he had expected. He imagined a hand reaching into his mind, the fingers growing ever smaller. He began to probe the membranous tissue of his brain, seeking out their resting place. It didn’t take long to find. The sac they occupied pulsed in a channel at the interface between the right and left hemispheres, overlooking the cord of his brainstem.
They were sleeping. Strand by filmy strand, he teased the little sac away. It was as the last fibre detached that the screams and shrieks started. Quickly as he could, he plucked them out of his mind and along his optic nerve. Up ahead, he could see light passing through the gelatine composite of his eye. As the light grew brighter, they lengthened and sharpened into the needle with which they had first pierced him. The needle-point slipped into the back of his eye and he was fired into the surface of his body.
Nothing could prepare him for the pain of re-entering his senses. It was a hundred times brighter than the fire that licked into his fingers when he touched. He was sure his brains were melting and that, any moment, his head would crack apart. Black tears ran down his face and dripped at his feet. They pooled into a living puddle. Jack began to make out crude shapes forming from the mass.
‘What … are … you,’ he choked. ‘What do … you want?’
A soft gurgle answered him. As the last of the fluid slipped down his cheeks and joined the pool, another voice came from outside the room.