Someone hit you in the mouth last night. Knocked you out cold.
‘Eileen!’
He could speak, alright, he could scream. His mouth hurt but the pills took the edge of it, off all his pains.
Shit. His pills. His pills…what time was it?
Eileen…Eileen…sorry…can you hear my thoughts? Can you hear me, through the wall? I’m going to come…if I can…
Of course she can’t hear you. The wall’s in the way. The man who hit you in the mouth?
Bill.
He’s still here.
‘William,’ said a voice. Thick and full of gravel, like…a car, driving up a path, something heavy. A van.
‘Don’t try to fight it. The rope will get tighter.’
It was confusing. Was the man talking through the wall? To Eileen…or to him?
He tried to think while the man spoke, telling him to stay calm because the pain would get worse if he struggled. The man must be talking to him, but he couldn’t figure it out. Couldn’t think through the haze.
He tried to think through what was going on, how badly Eileen was hurt…how badly this man hurt her…how he was missing his pills and if he did how soon ‘til the low beasts came…?
Then his mind kicked in.
Eileen was screaming when this man was in his house.
There were two of them.
Fuck.
He struggled. The man pulled the hood off and punched him in the nose and he was out again.
*
X.
Bill woke. Light was failing and night was coming on.
His face hurt. His foot hurt. He didn’t remember…then he did. Didn’t know why his foot hurt when he’d been punched in the face, but he’d probably hit it on the way down. But his foot and his face – they were small problems. He had a bigger problem, and he was standing in the shadows, the thick shadows of the darkness rising.
‘Now,’ said the man, standing in the shadows behind the misty light coming through his frosted windows. ‘Here’s how this is going to be. We’re going to have a talk. Long or short, up to you. But we’re going to have a talk and we’re not going to have a struggle. Are we?’
Bill nodded, pain shooting through his broken nose.
‘My pills…’
‘Later,’ said the man. ‘I’m talking, so fucking shut up,’ he said, and the gravel in his voice could hurt.
Bill bit down, trying not to cry.
‘If you play up, I’m going to teach you. Remember being a teacher? Well, it’s like that. Except, you know, with pain. Maybe I’ll kill you, maybe I won’t. Depends on you. You understand?’
‘No,’ said Bill.
The man laughed, a growling, frightening thing.
‘Good,’ he said.
Bill heard the man dialing. Like on a mobile. A couple of beeps only, as though the number was on speed dial, not like he’d had to put it in from scratch.
‘Cut her finger off,’ he said. ‘Just one for now.’
Beep, connection cut, and Eileen screamed through the wall. Bill jumped.
Was this…was this real?
The scream went on and on. Bill had never heard a scream like that, but he imagined someone, a man, the other side of the wall. He could imagine more than he wanted to...secateurs, a knife, scissors...
He struggled and pushed and swore but he was tied down tight. The scream carried right on, and he couldn’t do a thing about it.
‘You bastard! You fucking sick cunt! Fuck! Let me…fuck! Fuck!’
‘Good. Listening?’
‘Fuck off!’
‘Shut up, William. Shut up now, because there are some rules to this, and you need to listen, in case you make a mistake. Hurt yourself, you know? You’re important to us, but don’t…’
‘Fuck off!’
The man was across the room in an instant and Bill got the sense he wasn’t tall, but built, really wide, strong. The man slapped him so hard he saw spots for a second, right up on the ceiling, floating. He tasted blood.
‘Don’t interupt. I was saying, don’t make the mistake of thinking you’re so important to us that we can’t do without you. Now, are you listening?’
Bill nodded.
‘Good. Good boy. Eileen, right?’
Bill stared at the broad shape back in the shadows.
‘Answer me. Let’s start out right, OK? Make this easier?’
Like he was a reasonable man, but as sick as Bill was, he wasn’t stupid.
He nodded again.
‘Here’s the deal. You do something that I’m happy about, I won’t hurt you, OK?’
Bill remained silent.
‘You do something I’m unhappy about, I hurt you. Sometimes, when I feel like it, I’m going to hurt Eileen. Get it?’
‘You fucking bastard…’
‘Swearing, see? I don’t mind that. That’s kind of understandable.’
The man stepped forward, immensely broad, but short, and leaned in, putting his blunt face forward. Bill tried to pull back, but couldn’t go far enough. He was bound tight down against the bed and could only twist his head. Totally captive. Totally helpless.
The man grinned, and Bill saw that he was chewing, behind that grin.
He poked out his tongue, and resting on the end of it was a little mangled something. Something Bill couldn’t understand.
Thought of the pain in his foot, and then, right after, that the morsel on the man’s tongue could be a toe, a small one, like a little toe. Like his little toe.
He screamed and the man laughed, that sick grinding thing that made Bill puke. He didn’t know if it was his toe or the realisation that it was his toe the man was eating, or the laugh.
Could have been all three, but it didn’t matter, because night was falling, and he hadn’t had his pills.
The man laughed and carried on laughing, then he stopped for a second and Bill heard the sound of a man swallowing a tasty morsel.
Night comes quickly in the wide open spaces of the country. Night, and the low beasts. But he didn’t have to worry about them now, because this man, this low man...he was eating him...
Bill wondered how much he’d already eaten and puked again, then, the last of the light failed and it was just Bill and the man in the dark.
*
XI.
It wasn’t a crawlies or a creepies night. Bill hadn’t had his meds. He didn’t have Eileen to chase his nightmares away. Him and Eileen were living the nightmare, right now, and it didn’t need crawlies and creepies to make it so.
He could see the Hatheth skittering, chitinous, segmented legs clacking and clattering as they swarmed from the hole in the wall. In among them the slow slimy forms of the Krama slithered across the floor, drawn by his blood, aiming for his toes…his missing toes. They’d lap at him, worm their way into his blood.
He didn’t realise but he was screaming and crying and railing against them, trying to pull his foot back, but they were coming, they were coming and they’d eat him from the feet up, until they were sated, and the Yik could come, and God, God, God help him, Marlin? No God. No.
‘No. No…God…fuck…Jesus…’
‘Poor William. Poor, poor William.’
Screaming from next door, Eileen, shouting something…like ‘it’ll be alright, Billy’…trying to help him even though she was being tortured, just like he was.
It pulled him up sharp. If she could do that…he could deal with it. He could…
But the man stopped him, leaning in his face. He gulped, swallowed another of Bill’s toes.
Picked up one of the Hatheth in his big thick hand and stroked it. It preened. Like it was home. But this wasn’t the man. This wasn’t him.
‘What?’ he said. Patients bargain, he thought. Don’t talk to him. But he needed to know. How could it be? How could he see…unless…unless…
The Hatheth really were real…not just a sign on sickness, like the doctor told him, like he believed, sometimes, in a roundabout way during the day�
��they were really real. Really here. The wide man could see them. They fucking liked him.
‘What? How?’
‘You think you’re the only one, William? The only one that sees them?’
The wide man shook his head.
‘Back,’ he said, and the creatures swarmed backward, crawling and sliding up the wall, back where they came from.
‘Be a good boy, William. Maybe I’ll won’t let them at you.’
‘Please,’ said Bill. Realised he was crying again. Sobbing. Not from terror, this time, but with gratitude. This man could keep them back. He loved him.
This man ate your toes, some part deep inside Bill dredged back up. So long ago you forgot already? Don’t be fucking stupid, Bill. Don’t trust him. Not for a second. He’s not the man, but he’s something. He’s something, alright. Don’t fuck with him.
‘I’ll do anything,’ said Bill, despite the voice that existed deep down, where the circle couldn’t catch him.
‘Good,’ said the wide man with a big grin. ‘Good boy.’
He picked up the phone. Watched Bill’s eyes in the dark, like he could see perfectly even though there was only the light of a weak moon.
‘What? No! I’ve been a good boy! I’m a good boy!’
The man grinned again and hit speed dial. Bill screamed at him, thrashed. He wet himself, he struggled so hard.
The man spoke into the phone. ‘Make her a cup of tea,’ he said, all jovial, like he’d just been mucking about with Bill. Even in the dark Bill could sense the big man wink at him.
The fight went straight out of Bill and he even smiled back.
‘Then cut off her ear,’ he said.
‘No! No! You sick fuck...you…’ but Bill was sobbing so hard then that he couldn’t speak.
He could only think, and wish. He wished he was whole, and unbroken. Then maybe he could deal with this. But he wasn’t. He was a cripple, handicapped, and it had nothing to do with his maimed foot. His mind was broken and he couldn’t deal with it. Couldn’t take any more.
‘Just kill me,’ he said, and meant it. He’d meant it for a long time, and only then, listening to Eileen’s screams and his own deep sobbing, did he know how long he’d wanted this, wanted to die, because he was broken and he could never be fixed, and sometimes you just have to put a broken man to sleep.
Then, ‘How deep does it go, Billy boy?’ said the man in from the shadows, but Bill didn’t understand.
The world was upside down and Bill didn’t understand anything right then but pain and terror.
*
XII.
Bill’s schizophrenia first presented when he was sitting his final exams in university. Back then, he’d been a confident man. Maybe he’d had a little charisma. He hadn’t gone into a mental hospital aged twenty-eight a virgin.
Maybe it was the pressure, maybe some drugs, but the drugs weren’t a habitual thing, more the kind of fucking about experimental period that’s just commonplace for students and younger people, going to festivals, hunting around among the cow turds for magic mushrooms on cold autumn mornings. That kind of thing, but he never put it down to the few joints he’d smoked or the couple of mushrooms he’d taken.
Psychosocial factors, not just genetics, not just drugs. That’s what he’d learned since, back in the early days of his diagnosis. Two years had passed since that one and only admission (commital, if he was honest). In that time the fascination with diagnosis gave way to a kind of dog-tired, couldn’t give a shit phase. It was hard enough, living with it.
He remembered the first time he’d had a freak out, and it hadn’t had anything to do with a bad trip, though the feel of it wasn’t far off. Like acid, being stuck in the circle, stuck on that magic fucking roundabout and unable to get off. Sometimes the schizophrenia crippled him so bad it was like being tied down, being tortured, waiting, wishing to die.
He’d been watching Newsnight when it had happened the first time. When he’d seen the other side of the wall.
*
XIII.
Newsnight wasn’t really freak out material, but the talking head on the show really started talking. His head was massive to begin with. The presenter’s jaw was overly large. His nose was prominent, broad, and shot through with broken angry blood vessels. All his features stood out bold and somehow it was frightening to look at. And then it came out of the TV. Hard, maybe, for people who don’t have mental illness, or a history of drugs. Hard to understand the feel of a massive freak out.
The presenter’s head grinned at Bill, then laughed. Bill scuttled back onto the sofa. He’d been sitting cross-legged on the dirty old carpet that passed for flooring in the rented house he shared.
It was just a head, but the thing was, it wasn’t attached to the presenter’s body anymore, but kind of floated, like Bill imagined 3-D should look like. But it wasn’t 3-D. It wasn’t some technical trickery.
The head was really there, looming larger and larger, coming for Bill. Then it was there and the man didn’t try to eat Bill. It wasn’t anything terrible. But he kissed Bill on the cheek and spoke.
‘They’re coming, Bill. They want you. They need you. That’s the news, Billy boy. That’s the news on the hour.’
Bill squeezed his eyes tight shut but the head didn’t go away, it just took on an orange hue like a cold room lit by a coal fire. The light distorted through his eyelids, but eyes shut or open, the man wanted to be seen.
And through it all, things crawled over the presenter’s face. Later, Bill knew their name. It just came to him, what those horrible creatures were called.
They were the Yik, and they were many.
Bill’s flatmate, David, he remembered, or Richard, came back from the pub and found him screaming and holding himself like a frightened child in the corner of the living room, his arms around his knees, hiding behind the sofa.
Bill tried to explain it to his flat mates, the day after. The cold light of day, and studying for a degree in history, a bunch of ‘friends’ from the course he shared a flat with…it hadn’t been easy. None of them really did drugs. None of them knew what a bad trip was.
Fuck, most of them had only ever been drunk.
He may as well have been trying to explain the cosmos to an ant. Maybe he had been because you just couldn’t explain something so large to something so small, he figured, but he figured wrong, because he hit the nail on the head, and the head was pretty damn big.
Looking back at it later, he’d hit the nail on the head, but missed the whole body of the nail, sunk down into the wood like it was. But by then he was long gone, and Bill Hunter that was broke.
‘It’s like a bad trip,’ he told his flatmates. ‘Like being stuck on a roundabout. You can’t get off. It’s a crazy fucking carnival where the horses on the merrigoround are nailed right through with poles and your feet slip in the blood. The music isn’t music, but horses screaming. Well, the newsreader’s head came out of the television, and it was covered with bugs, like, millipedes, and, I remember thinking, Yik, Yik. Kind of while that was going on, things came out of his mouth and he was talking to me, calling my name…and right? I’m not that important. How would the newsreader know my name? But he did, and it’s me that he wanted…’
Bill went on like that for a while longer, but it was only the day after and he was still on kind of a come down from a massive burst of chemicals fucking up his brain.
His flatmates called the doctor. The doctor gave Bill some pills to calm him down during his exams. It worked for a while.
That was the first time he saw the Yik, and he was right there with them. The Yik came from the walls and covered the wide man in his bedroom in the now, the present, the real.
The low beasts crawled and caressed his skin with their myriad limbs, like they were making love to him, that wide man, that low man.
Bill didn’t know how long he’d been out, but it was light out again and the Yik were there right now.
In the daytime.
; *
XIV.
‘Please. God, please. Please. Let me take my pills.’
‘What,’ said the man, ‘You can’t handle it?’ He plucked one of the Yik from his forehead and popped it into his mouth, crunching it up between his blunt back teeth, just like he’d crushed the marrow from Bill’s toes.
‘You’re not the only one he wants. There are others, you know that right? You think you’re that important?’
Bill was terrified. Didn’t want to ask. Because he knew, but he had to ask.
‘Who?’
‘You know. Don’t make me angry again. I swear. You don’t want to,’ he said, shaking his head.
His hair was receding, but otherwise Bill couldn’t tell the man’s age. He was just…massive. It was the one and only defining characteristic.
Bill nodded. Didn’t need to go any further, nor wanted to.
‘What do you want?’
‘I thought you’d never ask,’ said the man with a grin. There were pieces of the Yik stuck in his teeth. ‘Been wasting my time, eating your toes, while Silo over there has been fucking up your girlfriend. You could’ve just asked straight off.’
‘You could’ve just told me,’ said Bill, but even in the midst of fear he knew there was no point in arguing with a psychopath.
There were different levels, even for nuts. Schizo’s were top tier, but then psychopaths…a whole other playing field.
Bill had no doubt the man would kill him in an instant, if he wanted to. Like he’d said eating your toes. Hadn’t said eating a toe. Bill didn’t look down, because he couldn’t handle it. Eating your toes.
Like maybe he’d eaten all of them.
Bill couldn’t handle one more thing. Couldn’t take the man standing there, his face crawling with Yik in the daytime. Couldn’t handle the thought of Eileen next door, with the one called Silo. Not knowing what was happening to her.
The Walls of Madness (A Horror Suspense Novella) Page 3