Through a Glass Darkly

by Bill Hussey

  ‘Doug, what have you seen?’ Jack asked.

  ‘He’s here. Simon. He wants to see you. He’s … different somehow.’

  ‘What has he said?’

  ‘Bring Trent. That’s all. Bring Trent.’

  The boy shuddered. His housemate led Doug to a red leather sofa and whispered something to him. Then Joll held Doug to his chest and kissed the kid’s head. Leaving his friend, Joll waved Jack and Dawn into a far corner.

  ‘Look, I don’t know what’s goin’ on,’ Joll said, in a deep baritone. ‘I managed to get Dougie out tonight because I thought it’d do him good, but maybe he’s still too freaked. He says he saw Simon in the VIP bar upstairs. I run this club-night and we don’t open that bar, but I’ve put two bouncers outside.’

  Jack started up the stairs.

  ‘Whoa, you’re not going alone,’ Dawn called after him.

  ‘Please, Dawn, trust me this once.’

  He did not wait for a response. A wall of sound hit him as he stepped onto the mezzanine level of the club. The VIP bar stretched the length of the upper floor. If someone watched from behind its tinted windows, then he watched unseen. Jack began pushing his way through the crowds. He felt ridiculous in his sober suit, a dull grey pike swimming against a shoal of exotic fish. The dance beat rose, heavy on the sweat-laced air. A lighting rig sunk from the ceiling and pulsed sheer white flashes in time to the beat.

  He reached the stairs. Moving the barriers aside, he climbed up to the VIP lounge and flashed his ID at the two bouncers. They looked relieved to see him.

  ‘Has he come out?’ Jack asked.

  ‘No. He’s still in there,’ the stockier, bearded bouncer said. ‘Is this guy really the one who killed them little lads?’

  ‘We oughta go in there and tear him to pieces,’ the smaller bouncer shouted.

  ‘Be my guest,’ Jack said.

  The two men looked towards the red leather cushioned door.

  ‘Something’s not right about this fucker. Am I right?’

  ‘You’re right,’ Jack answered. ‘Look, there’s a lady downstairs, dressed in a navy business suit. I don’t want her coming up here, could you keep her out the way?’

  They nodded and descended to the mezzanine. Jack stood on the balcony before the lounge doors, summoning courage and wondering who or what had sent for him. The bass track pounded over the squeal and groan of a thousand conversations. Down there, bodies moved and ground against each other. In the lounge, a cool, clean quiet waited for him. Oliver Godfrey’s dead face, staring out of the catacombs, snapped into his mind. The Doctor will see you now …

  Anne stood inside the bricked-up room, feeling the weight of lost years and the acuteness of her betrayal. Simon had been here … She imagined her ten-year-old son hearing the voices that called to him from this place. His hand touching the warped panels. Pushing. And inside, in the gloom, two figures waiting for him. They hadn’t taken him at once, of course. The picture the policewoman had found showed that they had coaxed the child for a while. Perhaps, before the end, the little boy visited them many times. Brought his drawings and his toys. Here, in the dark, he had played with ghosts.

  Her penance must now be for Simon, for not being a mother to him. But for the first time in years, she was finding penance hard. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw her son’s (the thing’s) crumpled skull. The horror of his revelation, and what it had driven her to, set a mist over her thoughts. Now, in the room that she had feared for so long, and which no longer held the same horror for her, she relived it again.

  Monday. Only a week ago. She had heard …

  … gravel beneath tyres. A car door slammed shut. The crisp tread up to the front door. Scraping shoes on the tiled floor of the hall. Low, sweet humming.

  The lounge door opened. Simon, blood of her blood, flesh of her flesh, yet unknown to her, entered the room. She had been staring into the fire for hours, mesmerised by the flames.

  ‘Why do we make faces in the fire,’ he said, circling her, ‘when we don’t see the faces around us? Are you still grieving for Papa? How tedious.’

  She was surprised by his words. He had never mentioned Peter before.

  ‘You – you don’t understand, Simon. Your father …’

  ‘Don’t I? Did he talk about me before he died? Pass on any messages or pearls of wisdom to the son he would never meet? Of course, you wouldn’t know. You left him to his lonely end. Now, I know cruel, but even I doff my hat to you. That’s fucking heartless. But don’t grieve, Mother. He wasn’t really alone. I was always with him.’

  Anne looked up at her son and saw him – really saw him – for the first time. A young face with an inexplicable weight of age stamped upon it.

  ‘What do you mean?’ she asked.

  ‘Just what I said. I was with him in the last hours. When his face was gone, when his heart burst. So much pain. So much blood. Darkness in the darkened room … And all that screaming. You still hear it, don’t you? Poor Mother, your life hasn’t been easy …’ He passed behind her. ‘And I’m sorry, but I’m afraid it’s about to get much, much worse.’

  Pain tore through her scalp. She gasped and reached back, scratching his strong fingers. He drew her head over the lip of the couch.

  ‘The time has come, the Walrus said, to talk of many things: of shoes and ships and sealing wax of cabbages and kings …’

  Strands of hair loosened at their roots.

  ‘And how your husband never died, and whether souls have wings.’

  The wooden back of the couch cut into her neck. A thread of saliva hung from Simon’s mouth and wound down to touch her lips. She tried to bring her hands up to scratch him, but her spine was twisted, taut as a crossbow, and her arms had no strength. It was as she stared into his eyes that fear began to temper her pain. Something was changing in those cold blue pools.

  His lips traced the contours of her cheeks and jaw. Her skin crawled under his caress. He kissed her, full and deep, his tongue searching the barrier of clenched teeth. Then his mouth moved to her ear and breathed soft, devastating words. The years rolled back and forth in her mind as the truth was revealed. She listened to Simon, while at the same time echoes from the past returned to haunt her. What had she overheard the nurses say?

  ‘Poor man. So lonely. Sometimes he even speaks to himself, as if there really is someone else in the room with him …’

  What had the priest told her?

  ‘You must listen. That thing you call your son contains only a bare trace of Simon. It is something else.’

  His revelation done, she saw the bitter irony of the last seventeen years. All that grief for a dead man who still walked. All those days and nights, all that life, wasted. Yet her anger was nothing compared to her horror. Her child had been taken and she had let it happen.

  ‘Now you know.’

  He wound her hair tight around his fist and tore a clump of it from her scalp. She didn’t make a sound.

  ‘They’re still here, you know. Peter and the boy,’ the deep, sweet voice continued. ‘We all live together quite harmoniously. They know who the master of the house is. Every now and then, however, they try to have their say. Especially the child. Wilful little tyke, he is. They’re trying to stop me now …’

  ‘Who are you? How did you …?’

  ‘Haven’t you been listening? I couldn’t have done anything without Peter. He was my way in, you are my way out.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Let me show you.’

  The thing thrust its hand into the fire. Flames licked between the fingers, but there was no crack of roasting skin, no cry of pain.

  ‘I could douse myself in petrol and walk through the fire unscathed. There are only two ways out of this arrangement. One I do not care for. The other …’

  Before she could react, he dragged her from the couch and threw her onto the floor. He sat astride her, splaying her arms wide and pinning them beneath his knees. The points of his hair combed her fa
ce.

  ‘The other might prove rather fun.’

  He stretched a hand behind his back. The pressure of his weight on her breasts was agony. Then came the touch of his fingers as they spidered along the inside of her leg. He rode the skirt up to her stomach. She tried to buck him forward, but his knees dug into her biceps. Those cold fingers began to tease beneath the band of her knickers. She felt his nails graze through her pubic hair. At the same moment, through his trousers, his penis rocked hard against her. With his free hand, he ground fingertips into the raw patch he had torn from her scalp.

  ‘I’m gonna fuck you, Mummy. How do you think that’ll make little Simon feel? He can see all this, you know.’

  The thing smeared two arcs of her blood beneath its eyes.

  ‘He watches through these. All Simon can do is watch while I rape his mother with his own …’

  A kick of adrenalin rushed through her. The torn muscles in her arm rallied. She punched upwards. He pitched forward, his hand snapping from between her legs. She heard the crack of his head against the grate. Sparks from the fire flew into his hair, burned low and went out. He made no move to get up. He smiled, showing her a row of smart white teeth. So like Peter …

  ‘That’s the spirit. Why don’t you finish it? Why don’t you live for once?’

  She grabbed the poker from beside his head and stood over him. His hair fanned out like a mane of dark blood. She hesitated.

  Mad. Surely he was mad. It couldn’t be true …

  His face began to change. It was not a violent process, but one of calm fluidity. Accompanied by a strange susurration, features rustled out of the skull or crumbled away. The skin weathered, the hues hardened; an autumnal change worked across the landscape of the face. Hair receded and the pigmentation of his eyes darkened. The transformation complete, a new mouth gasped for air. Peter. Peter as he had been before the illness. Peter, wracked with pain that was not physical.

  ‘Annie … Jesus, I’m so sorry …’

  ‘Peter. Why?’

  ‘The things he’s done. The things he’s made our boy do … I’ll burn for this, Annie. I’ll burn.’

  ‘You let him … Your own son.’ Inside she was screaming. Outside, she was surprised at how level her voice sounded. ‘I deserved anything, but Simon …’

  ‘I made the bargain. I didn’t realise … Finish it, please, Annie.’

  Peter’s face contorted. His heavy brow shortened and smoothed out. The large nose contracted into a tiny snub. Colour suffused the greyness, and autumn turned to spring. Lying in the outsize clothes on the marble surround was her son as he had been at ten years old. The boy’s face twisted. She could hear the grind of his teeth.

  ‘It hurts so much,’ he whispered. ‘Please make it stop hurting.’

  ‘Simon? I – I can’t …. You’re still in there …’

  ‘He makes me do things. He says he won’t ever let me go.’

  The child-face crumpled. Between the tufts of flaxen hair, long dark strands began to grow. The features lengthened, the eyes darkened.

  ‘Fucking kill me, you bitch. Fucking kill me. I’ll do things to your child you wouldn’t believe. Kill me now.’

  The thing had returned to its usual guise. It lay very still, waiting for her move. Heat licked along her arms as she raised the poker.

  ‘That’s it. Do it,’ it laughed. ‘Do it for love.’

  She did not hesitate. She rained down the poker, tearing the creature’s head to pieces. Blood flecked her face; so warm and so wet. Her arms grew heavy, but she did not stop. She pummelled the yielding head until she heard the prang of metal upon stone. When she opened her eyes, she saw her son’s skull crushed almost flat against the marble. Blood ran in rills over the lip of the surround and onto the carpet. Chips of bone, no larger than baby teeth, adhered to the grapnel of the poker.

  ‘My, my.’ The fat little priest from the village stood in the doorway.

  Why had he been there? She could not remember. Something about having seen Simon driving erratically through the village and wanting to check he’d made it home all right.

  He had helped her. He told her that he knew what Simon was. An abomination. She had been right to end that life. He cleaned the gore from the fireplace and sponged the blood from the carpet. They wrapped Simon in cut up bin bags and taped him tight. Then they carried him from the house and placed him in the boot of his car. As the priest started the Triumph, he had given her some final instructions.

  ‘You’ll have to report him missing. It’ll look suspicious if a friend goes to the police first. When they come, your story is you heard nothing, saw nothing. Don’t overdo the worried mother routine, but if they drag their heels kick up a fuss.’

  ‘Where’re you taking him?’

  ‘The less you know about what happens now the better.’

  ‘What do I do?’

  ‘Go back to your daily routine. I’ll help you as much as I can. Now I need to take care of the body.’

  The tail lights drew away down the drive and passed between the trees like blinking red eyes.

  Why had he helped her? Because he’d really known what Simon had been? Because he thought that such a thing deserved death? Perhaps, but something had struck her the day she had gone to see him at the Old Priory. There had been a kind of relief in his eyes. An impression of quiet victory.

  Whatever his motives, the priest’s help had robbed her of the punishment she yearned for. As she stood now in the bricked-up room, staring at the bed in which Peter had died (not died, changed) she longed for the retribution of others. Seventeen years of self-imposed punishment had drained her. She took out Trent’s card and punched his number into the cordless phone. While she waited for the connection, Anne took off her headscarf. Her fingers went to the soft, wet infection on her scalp. She dug deep into the mush until the pain blinded her. Still it was not enough.

  ‘Jack Trent. Leave a message.’

  ‘Mr Trent, this is Anne Malahyde. I must speak to you. I don’t have it in me to punish myself any more. You have to help me. You have to make them punish me … I killed him. I killed my son. I didn’t see …’

  She stopped. She had heard something. Door opening. Door closing. Footsteps below. Footsteps on the stairs.

  ‘Thank you. If you wish to rerecord your message.’

  Across the landing. The door creaked open. Dust swept into her eyes.

  ‘Praise God, Mrs Malahyde,’ the priest said. ‘Your punishment has come.’

  WEDNESDAY 30th OCTOBER 2002

  Like one, that on a lonesome road

  Doth walk in fear and dread,

  And having once turned round walks on,

  And turns no more his head;

  Because he knows, a frightful fiend

  Doth close behind him tread.

  Samuel Taylor Coleridge, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, 1798

  Thirty-nine

  In the crucible below, the press of young bodies ground and melted against each other. How strange they looked, moving without the context of sound or the stale blend of sweat and perfume. Behind soundproofed windows, a man, and something that was not a man, watched.

  ‘They fritter their youth away, hardly conscious that time is bearing down upon them. They will only recognise the value of what they have now when their eyes are dimmed and their flesh is wasted.’

  ‘Quite the philosopher,’ Jack muttered. ‘Shall we cut to the chase?’

  ‘Sarcasm, Mr Trent, is indicative of fear.’

  ‘And bullshit is indicative of a bullshitter. Let’s start with a couple of easy ones, shall we? What am I talking to? Are you even alive?’

  Jack didn’t turn to look at the figure beside him. As the thing wasn’t really there, then conversing with its reflection in the tinted glass seemed just as appropriate as talking to it face-to-face. Jack guessed that the almost opalescent features in the glass were those of the grown Simon Malahyde.

  ‘Let’s say I’m between properties. I spe
nt seven interesting years in my last place. Now I’ve got my eye on a new prospect. You might know it: pubescent, lovely green eyes. Just my sort of thing.’

  ‘I won’t let you take him,’ Jack said. ‘I know how you do it and I can stop you.’

  ‘Well, well, Mr Trent, I believe you have paid a visit to the best little metaphysical library in town.’

  ‘Cut the crap. Tell me what happened to Simon Malahyde.’

  ‘Simon and his father are gone. The boy may be at peace, such an innocent. His father? Who can say? His pact with me was rather naughty, don’t you think?’

  ‘You’re not Peter Malahyde?’

  ‘Hasn’t Asher Brody told you about me yet? He does have a somewhat irritating habit of being deliberately mysterious. No, I’m not Peter. And Simon, ‘the vessel’ that is, is wrapped in plastic and rotting at the bottom of a river.’

  ‘How did he – the body – how did it die? Did you kill yourself?’

  ‘You haven’t read the Transmigration of Souls very closely, have you?’

  ‘I ran out of time.’

  ‘The sands wait for no man, eh? Especially not in the Yeager Library. I’m surprised you found your way out. But no, I’m afraid that, once the transition is made, the soul is bound to the body in such a way that suicide is impossible. There are only two ways to end the taken life. The first is natural, psychic decay. Depending on the body and how it is used, the spiritual cohesiveness of it will begin to fail after a certain time. It’s the delayed reaction of the body rejecting an alien soul. Much like in organ transplantation, often the host rejects foreign tissue. But it is a slow rejection, usually taking decades. In the special case of Simon, the period was only seven years …’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I’d’ve thought you might have guessed that. In the usual practice of the ritual, one living man imposes his soul over that of a child. With Simon, things were different. I could not impose my will exclusively. Weak as they were, I had to share the body.’