by Simon Clark
By now Val had emerged, freshly showered, changed into cut-offs and a T-shirt. She sat on a patio chair with a cup in her hand. John found his mind turning to squeezing a great pile of oranges then mixing the juice with crushed ice. The more he thought about the iced drink sliding down his throat, the more appealing it became. To paraphrase one old song, it was summer time and the living was easy. He looked back at Elizabeth. She still stared into the water.
He leaned sideward a little to see into the lake. He saw reflected sky, a strand or two of weed. Nothing else.
"See any fish, hon?"
He waited for a reply, only she was too mesmerized by the water.
"Elizabeth. See any fish?"
"No," she said at last. "I'm looking for Baby Bones."
2
Ten minutes later John sat down beside Val. He asked her if she'd heard of anyone by the name of Baby Bones.
"Baby Bones?" She shrugged. "Sounds like a cartoon character to me. Why?"
"I've heard Elizabeth talking about this Baby Bones over the last couple of days. She seems obsessed with him… or it."
"Don't worry. She tends to get fixated on people or things every so often. Remember how she used to go on endlessly about the Titanic?"
"It's just how she talks about this Baby Bones. She seems excited and frightened all at the same time."
"Baby Bones?" Val sipped from her cup, thinking. "Isn't that the one from the Rugrats cartoon?"
"That's Chucky, Lill, Phil, Tommy and Angelica."
She smiled. "You know your cartoon characters, Mr. Newton."
"It rubs off when you've sat through hundreds of the things when the kids watch them."
"Are you sure you're the hardworking writer that you seem to be?" Her eyes twinkled. "It sounds as if you sit in front of the cartoon channels all day."
"I wish." He smiled. "At least that way I'd know if this Baby Bones was a cartoon character or not."
"Or Elizabeth might have picked something up from a book?"
"She might," he allowed. "But I was up on the lake with her just now. She was staring down into the water and when I asked if she was looking for fish she said, no, she was looking for Baby Bones."
"She obviously gets the strange imagination from you, John."
"She told me that if you saw Baby Bones looking back at you then you would soon die."
"And you think she was genuinely frightening herself doing this?"
"As I said, it's a mixture of excitement and fear. You know." He shrugged. "The same as how she gets riding a ghost train."
"I wouldn't worry about it, John. It sounds like one of these school yard myths that children frighten each other with. You know the sort, step on a crack in the pavement and you'll die, or hold your breath when an ambulance goes by otherwise you'll catch a disease."
He nodded. "Or the plant Mother Dye. When I was a kid local legend had it that if you picked the plant your mother would die." He grinned. "Steve and I used to tease our mother no end by telling her we picked huge armfuls of the stuff."
"And as she's still alive and kicking it's obviously just another of those half-baked superstitions." She leaned across and squeezed John's knee. "See, Baby Bones is just one of those stories that kids tell each other. Elizabeth'll have forgotten all about it in a few days."
"And no more Baby Bones."
"Right… now, what are we going to cook for supper, handsome? Pork chops? Steak? Quiche?"
"Quiche with salad. It's too hot to stand over a stove." He stood up, stretching. "I'll make a start on it."
"Will Paul be back to eat with us?"
"No, he's meeting some friends this evening. He said he'd make himself a sandwich later."
"I'll come and do the salad."
"No. You look bushed. I can manage."
"Come here." She touched her lips.
He kissed her.
"Thank you. You're a good man."
Smiling, he walked back into the house. Elizabeth sat cross-legged on the observation glass while gazing down into the waters rushing through the millrace below. She was lost in her own world. John, not wishing to disturb her, went into the kitchen to make a start on the meal.
3
The evening sun sliced through the trees in the cemetery, glinting from headstones, warming the faces of stone angels. Already, shadows had begun to pour into the Vale Of Tears, filling the labyrinth of passages with a shade so dark and so thick it looked as if liquid darkness leaked from the vaults.
Paul walked with Miranda Bloom along one of the passageways. The walls of the crypts flanked them above head height. You couldn't see back or forward more than fifteen paces, due to the sharp turns of the passageways. Only the roof was open to the evening air. Yet the branches of trees lidded even that.
They walked hand in hand, enjoying the silence and privacy after a day spent with a thousand students at school. Here they could be alone, say anything, do anything, knowing they wouldn't be seen or overheard.
In the shadowed gullies Miranda moved with a dreamlike beauty, her Spanish eyes glinting provocatively, her hair black as a raven's feathers spilling over one bare shoulder. Paul Newton's heart beat hard. He glanced at Miranda. She smiled and as she walked she reached out, allowing her fingertips to brush the walls and the steel doors of the crypts.
Thousands and thousands of bodies interred in those tombs, Paul told himself. Did a single one of those dead people ever feel like me? Yes, they must have. Millions of men and women must have experienced the same emotions shooting through their bodies like fire… like electricity… but how come it feels as if I've discovered something completely new? Here is Miranda Bloom. In a short skirt. In a sleeveless top… come to that, a shoulderless top. All I can see are acres of smooth olive skin. She's smiling at me. We're no longer talking. Because we don't have to talk. Everything's happening through smiles, eye contact, a raise of the eyebrow. God… how come her teeth are so white? It doesn't seem possible that anyone has felt like this before…
Behind iron doors lay caskets stacked one on top of the other. Layer upon layer of dead men and women stretching back a hundred and fifty years or more. They were bones now. Fleshless skulls. Lipless, bloodless. Leering mouths full of rotted teeth. Skeletons housed cobwebs and rodents' nests. But once they had hearts that must have pounded like his. Bellies with fire inside of them that burnt like almighty furnaces.
The heat shot out from the center of his stomach to his fingertips.
Once those long-skirted Victorian ladies had slipped beneath the sheets and smiled at their men-folk, flashed those come-to-bed-eyes, then sighed with pleasure as flesh met flesh, as nipples rose hard, as mouths pressed against mouths in kisses of overwhelming, superheated passion. Electric thrills surged up his spine.
Those people in their tombs were bone dust now. But once they'd ridden that surging wave of erotic excitement he felt now.
"Nearly there," she murmured. Her hand squeezed his.
Yes, oh my God. Nearly there. To many this was a journey of just a few hundred yards from the village. For Paul Newton it was a journey of many years. Ever since he'd been twelve years old he wondered what it would be like to lie naked with a girl. Now in a few minutes time…
His lips were dry. His heart thundered.
Now the passageway broadened out. Ahead was the cliff face, through which a path ran on a rising rampway, passing beneath a stone arch. Inscribed on that, the words: GONE TO GLORY.
Leaves sang as the breeze caught them.
Jesus… he was going to explode… he couldn't wait any longer.
"Yo!"
Shit.
Sitting on top of a wall were three teenagers. One he recognized from the school football team. "Paul Newton. My man. How's it going?"
Damn, why did they have to be here?
A weight sank through his chest into the pit of his stomach. "Not bad, Al, how are you?"
"Fair to middling. Evening, Miranda."
"Evening, Al."
The heftily built Al looked down at them, legs dangling, and the muscles clearly bulging through his jeans. The three passed a joint between them. The other two were hitting the giggling stage. Al seemed unaffected. But then there must be a hell of a lot of flesh to saturate with the weed before it started to tickle his brain.
"So, you've come to the scene of the crime?"
Casually, Paul shrugged, making sure he didn't arouse the three's curiosity by openly resenting their presence (and signaling as clear as horse piss that he'd had what promised to be an evening of electrifying sex shattered to friggin' smithereens… hell and damnation). "What crime scene?"
"Murder." Al pulled on the joint. Held it for a second, then spoke using the lung full of smoke; each word appearing as a ball of blue. "There was… a little kid… murdered yesterday. Poor devil."
"We heard," Miranda said. "But it happened down in the village, not up here."
"That's true. But didn't you hear about the kid's mother?"
"No."
"She came up here… Last night." Al pulled on the joint again before passing it on. "She hanged herself from that tree across there. But she'd mutilated herself first." He pointed. "Hands. Feet. Face. She was hanging there like a rag doll, dripping blood all over the place." Then he pointed to his face, his fingers open in a fork. "Eyes staring… just staring like she'd seen something that had terrified her."
Miranda gave a shake of her head. "You know how to decorate a story, Al. I bet you'd do a really good job with our Christmas tree."
He looked down, his lips forming a twitchy smile. "I found her, Miranda," his voice light as a whisper. "I found her hanging there. Wearing nothing but a little nightdress. Blood all over her legs." Taking the joint back in his fingers, he shook his head at it. "They don't grow stuff like they used to, Paul. This isn't having any effect." He looked across at the tree; its branch still projected out above the Vale of Tears. What was left of the rope, with a fresh cut mark at the bottom where they'd brought her down, swayed in the breeze. "She won't go away, Paul. I can still see her there. I can see her eyes." Al shook his head savagely, trying to dislodge the memory. Then, failing, he wedged the end of the joint into his mouth. He sucked so hard that the fiery tip glowed white.
4
"I thought there'd have been some cops here," Miranda said later as they cut across the cemetery, away from where Al sat, trying to fog the memory in clouds of marijuana smoke.
Paul shook his head. "I suppose once they've removed the body and checked the area there's nothing to stay around for."
"And why didn't they take the whole rope away, not just the end with the noose? It's ghoulish."
He looked at her. Her eyes were bright in the dusk. She looked cold.
"Are you all right, Miranda?"
"Fine."
"I could walk you home?"
"No. I'm OK, Paul."
"Uh, here come the ghouls. It's show-time." He nodded down the hillside where clumps of people were moving up the hillside to where the tree with the rope stood.
"I imagine this'll become something of a tourist destination. I only hope they washed the poor woman's blood away. Come on." She took his hand. "Let's find somewhere quiet."
5
In the thickening gloom, Stan Price looked out of the window. Hunger burned fiercely inside of him.
"Harry… Harry. Stan's a hungry boy, Harry. Bring me some of your Ma's cake. Harry?"
In the distance, the hillside cemetery swelled from the ground like a pregnant belly.
"Baby Bones is coming today. Baby Bones is coming to play." The old rhyme came back to him. They'd sung it in the schoolyard once. His grandmother knew it, too, from when she was a child. "Baby Bones, Baby Bones. Down on your knees and pray. Baby Bones is coming today…"
How did the rhyme end? He frowned.
Now he remembered. It had no end.
6
At the far side of the cemetery Paul and Miranda found a quiet corner where they could be alone. Here there was little in the way of footpaths.
Compared to the trees the tombstones were black dwarfish figures. There was no noise apart from the breath-like sounds of leaves disturbed by a slight shift in the evening air.
"Alone at last," Paul said.
"Amen to that."
As if ropes had been released they suddenly moved together, kissing each other hard on the lips.
Paul's heart surged. "God, I've waited for this."
"Paul?"
"Yes."
"I've got to be back by nine."
"Damn… no, I'm not angry with you. I'm just annoyed that we haven't had longer together."
"It's only half-past eight." Then she said something that almost stopped his heart. "We've got time… if you want to?"
She sat down on a bank of grass between two mattress-like tombstones. Her skirt slipped upward showing a breathtaking stretch of the thigh. She loosened her top from the waistband of the skirt. In a moment he was beside her, kissing her lips. Her wash of dark hair across the grass was so beautiful it winded him. Golden dandelions encircled her head like a halo. For a while all he could do was watch her in wonder. Then:
"Here," he whispered, slipping off his T-shirt. "Put this under your head."
She smiled up at him. "I feel so excited I could burst."
He kissed her. "I've been like that all day. God, you look amazing." Her hands closed behind his neck. She pulled him down onto her, kissing him hungrily. Within seconds he'd slipped off her top. Her bare breasts rose up in two beautifully pointed mounds. The nipples were dark, enticing. Freckles dusted her skin. She was breathing hard now. White-hot lightning seemed to sear through him from head to toe.
"Paul. Paul?"
Her eyes twinkled at him in the gloom.
"Did you bring anything?"
Good God. He could have punched his own forehead. He'd even been to the bus station rest rooms where there were condom machines. Without a problem he'd bought a pack as easily as buying gum. But the moment she asked him Did you bring anything? he saw his bag lying at the foot of his bed. In the side compartment safe and sound-but not here-were the rubbers.
Damn. He let out a sigh. "Miranda… you're not going to believe this."
"Oh no, don't tell me…" She screwed up her face as if someone had just stood on her bare toe. "You haven't forgotten to buy some."
"No. That's just it. I bought them. But I was in such a rush to see you tonight. I…"
"Oh," she groaned with disappointment.
"Sorry." He felt the biggest fool known to humanity.
Good naturedly, she smiled up at him, then sighed. "You idiot."
"I second that."
She kissed him. "I'll never survive the weekend now."
"But we could see each other tomorrow?"
"I'm going away to London. It's Dad's birthday and he's taking us to see a show."
"Oh, shit."
"Oh, shit and the rest. I'll be sitting through a horrendous musical feeling so hot I could erupt."
He looked down at her breasts. Once more they'd disappear. For how long this time?
She lightly scratched his back. His skin goosed. "You know, Paul. I've just finished my period."
"Yeah?" His mouth dried.
"We could still see this through to the end."
"Are you sure?"
"Sure I'm sure."
"I mean, will it be safe?"
"I'm punctual as the town hall clock."
He looked down into her sparkling eyes. Her mouth was parted in a smile that made him want to melt. But…
"Miranda?"
"Mmm."
"It will be… you know… unprotected."
"I haven't any dark secrets, have you?"
"No. But-"
"Shh… now help me take off my skirt."
CHAPTER 12
1
That Friday evening the clock in the hallway hadn't struck nine before Paul came in through the front door.
John Newton
noticed his son's face glowed red; he'd been running.
"You're back early, Paul," John said from the kitchen.
"Yeah… you know…"
"Fancy a beer?"
"No."
"No? Wait I'll get my diary and make a note of that." John smiled. "Paul Newton refuses beer. UN call emergency meeting."
That should have brought at least a weak oh-no-Dad's-trying-to-be-witty smile to Paul's face, but he looked flustered. There'd been some trouble with a bunch of kids in the village when they'd first moved there. Paul had been hassled just because he was new. John hoped it all wasn't flaring up again. He gave another broad smile, aiming to put Paul at his ease.
"The beer's nice and cold," he said. "Red Stripe."
"Red Stripe?" Result. "Oh, all right. Thanks."
"It's a bit on the warm side to be running."
"I was just hurrying to get back."
"Oh?"
"There's something I want to watch at nine… Anything wrong, Dad?"
"No… it's just you look as if you've run a marathon or something."
"I'll have a shower later. The beer's in the refrigerator?"
"Yeah, top shelf. There's some kabanos sausage wants eating too."
Paul shrugged, looking distracted. He seemed to have his mind on other things. "I might later."
"Are you all right, Paul?"
Suddenly he looked defensive. "Fine. Why?"
"You look as if you've lost something."
Paul appeared uncomfortable. "I don't see any beer."
"Top shelf, Paul."
"Right."
Paul crossed the kitchen. John watched him and gave a little shake of his head. Maybe he was as edgy and pre-occupied as that as a teenager. Adolescence should carry a government health warning.
He poured a glass of milk for Elizabeth, then went through into the living room where Val watched television.
"Everything OK?" she asked with a sleepy smile.
"Everything's fine."