Shift

by Chris Dolley

  "Jack," she called. "Come on out and play. I'm waiting."

  Feet scurried in the distance. It had to be Jack. Coming from the museum's right-hand bay. Louise swung round and raced back towards the door. Invulnerable, she told herself. I can't be hurt, I can't be deflected.

  The sound grew louder, tiny feet skittering over the floor. Louise reached the right-hand bay and turned. Nothing visible. He was hiding, maybe to the left, maybe to the right. She stopped and scanned both walls, turning up the intensity of her torch. Nothing. No, wait . . . there was something. A painted mirror on the back wall. Or was it a window? Whatever it was, Jack was there, his twisted face smiling out from behind the glass. She advanced, bat held high. The sailor's image didn't move. She started to run, winding up her shoulders, ready to put everything into one devastating swing. Five yards, three, swing and . . . smash! The glass shattered, shards everywhere. But no Jack. It must have been an image.

  Laughter. From behind. Louise started to spin around but something fastened onto the back of her left leg. Jack. She looked down. The sailor had wrapped himself around her armoured leg and clamped his teeth to her thigh.

  She swung down with the bat but Jack was too close. She couldn't swing hard enough. She changed grip, grabbed the bat like a Kayak paddle and stabbed down with it two-handed—once, twice, three times—hard onto the top of Jack's head.

  He didn't even flinch. He stuck there, arms and tiny legs wrapped around her leg, his teeth . . . she could actually feel his teeth. Even through her armour!

  She hit him harder. Again and again. No effect. She spun around, smashing Jack and the back of her leg against the edge of the nearest exhibit. He still wouldn't budge.

  Pain shot up from her thigh. His teeth on her skin. Her armour must have given way. She threw down the bat, grabbed hold of Jack's head and pulled . . . and twisted; thinking strength, give it to me, as much as there is. Now!

  Jack's sailor hat ripped away in her hands but his head stayed clamped and . . . she could feel something else . . . something coming out of Jack's mouth, something sharp, something solid, pushing into her thigh. It had to be several inches long.

  No! She fastened her hands around Jack's head, twisting and pulling. The pain in her leg increased. Part of Jack was now inside her—a splinter, a tongue, six inches long—and every pull on his head twisted the splinter like a knife in the wound.

  Think Louise, think! She was losing feeling in her left leg. Her thigh turning to wood, that 'thing' penetrating deeper.

  Flame, she thought. Emulating Nick, fire shot from the fingers of both hands. She focussed the flame, turning it from yellow to searing blue, making it hiss and roar. Then turned it on Jack, twisting her body around and sending ten jets of flame searing down on the sailor's head.

  His head blackened. So did her armour. And pain . . . that thing inside her—white hot now and pushing further inside, up her leg, into her buttocks and hip.

  No! She pushed more power into the jets from her hands. Jack crackled and peeled . . . but never let go. Charcoal Jack smouldered and clung on. Smoke everywhere, the smell of burning wood and flesh.

  No! She'd lost all feeling below the waist, she was loosing balance, teetering, about to fall. Think Louise, think!

  Air, she thought. I'm no longer solid; I'm a gas, inert and free. Let Jack try and grab hold of that.

  She began to fade, but not her legs. Come on, she cried, concentrating hard, imagining herself tugging at that intricate lattice of matter—the cells and molecules and smaller still—pulling and stretching at the very fabric of her being—teasing everything apart, distending her legs from solid into gas.

  Free!

  She flew to the ceiling, spread out, flattening herself against the cracked plaster and paint. And looked down. Charcoal Jack blinked up at her, the whites of his eyes shining out against his blackened skin . . . and that 'thing' . . . that twisted tongue that protruded some eighteen inches from his mouth.

  He flexed his legs. Was he going to jump? Should she be looking into his eyes?

  She shot along the ceiling, back towards the door then dived down, turning and materialising at the same time. She landed on armour-clad feet. The same armour as before but this time coated in a protecting flame. Let Jack try and sink his little wooden teeth into that.

  She ran at him, her razor-tipped baseball bat appearing in her hands. He laughed, white teeth pushing through the cracking black mask. Jack was regenerating, and growing, new paint pushing through the crumbling charcoal husk.

  Not quick enough, Jack, thought Louise. And she swung, swinging from her shoulders, swinging from her biceps, bringing her wrist in at the last second and willing that bat to not only hit Jack but to go straight through him.

  He tried to duck but the bat caught him on the back of his head. Louise lost her balance on the follow through, tumbled into Jack, tripped over him, kicking at him as his little hands grabbed at her legs. She fell, rolled over and came up swinging. Jack danced away from the blows. What did it take to knock him out?

  She threw away the bat, stared at her right hand—chainsaw—then at her left—glue hose. Both hands morphed immediately, smoke shot from the revving chainsaw exhaust, the other hand she aimed at Jack.

  "What do you think this is going to be, Jack? Fire? Can your little brain feel fear?"

  Jack threw back his head and roared. He didn't care. There was nothing inside him to care. Now, thought Louise, unleashing a jet of milky liquid—wood glue—first at Jack's mouth, then at his feet. Dance your way out of that, Jacky boy.

  She lunged at him with the chainsaw. He ducked from the waist but his feet had stopped moving. Her next swing connected. The chain bit, vibrating up through her arm, throwing up a stream of sawdust from Jack's neck. She had him!

  He kept laughing, even when the chainsaw took off his head and sent it rolling across the floor. A little hand grabbed for Louise's arm, she pulled away and brought the chainsaw down hard on Jack's right shoulder. She'd lop off his arms and legs, dice him up and feed the remains into a shredder if necessary. Nothing of him was getting away this time. Nothing!

  She sliced and diced. Jack's laughter roared louder. She looked up. His head was growing another body, tiny legs had sprouted from his neck. He was running away. She aimed a glue jet at him but missed as he dashed behind one of the machines.

  More laughter came from behind her. And to the sides. Jack was regenerating. All the pieces of Jack were regenerating. Even the shavings. She spun on the spot, spraying glue in an arc. There were thousands of little Jacks. All of them sprouting little mouths, all of them laughing.

  She turned the floor white around her, miring as many as she could. But there were so many of them; running behind the machines, up the walls, across the ceiling. They were like ants, hundreds of insane laughing ants.

  She sprayed the walls and the slot machines but couldn't keep up. They were dropping on her from above. Hundreds of them. She turned up the flames on her armour; singed them, blackened them but still they moved—crawling and nibbling.

  A tingling, tickling sensation shot from her right wrist just above the join with the chainsaw. She looked down. Her wrist armour was rippling, crawling. He was inside her. Jack. Hundreds of him. The sawdust from the chain! It must have carried him inside her.

  Panic. Her arm alive. Air, she thought. Air now!

  She evaporated and shot to the ceiling but had Jack come with her? Was he still inside her—hundreds of tiny cuttings of Jack?

  She span, thinking tornado, thinking centrifugal force, thinking spin that thing out of me!

  She shot along the ceiling back towards the door, a spinning tornado turning right and right again into the other bay. Then stopped, she needed time to think. What kills wood? Rock, paper, scissors, what? Behind her the laughter grew . . . and the skittering. There had to be an army of Jacks racing towards her—over the floor, the walls, the ceiling.

  Think, Louise, think! Acid, fire, what?

  Te
rmites, beetles, dry rot. But how could she use them? If she turned herself into a termite she'd bring Jack inside her again.

  The navy blue tide swept towards her. She dropped to the floor, taking on human shape again but thinking granite, thinking solid, eyeless, fissureless granite. She'd wait him out; wait him out until she came up with a plan.

  Laughter—muffled but growing. They were climbing all over her. Even through the rock she could sense their tiny feet.

  An idea. Could she project her will? There was so much wood in the museum—the floorboards, joists, panelling, even the exhibits. She focussed upon them, imagined them crawling with beetles and dry rot, tendrils of fungus running through the entire structure, termites nibbling up through the floor joists, pushing into the door.

  She formed two eyes of transparent quartz in her granite head, used rock hands to clear them of swarming Jacks and started to run, her feet thundering over the vibrating floorboards. She saw the door, imagined it crawling with termites and ran towards it. She'd wedge herself against it and trap as many Jacks as she could between her and the termite-infested door.

  She pressed against the door and hoped. Time passed. Was it working? Wedged against the door, she could barely see a thing. She turned her entire body into crystal and shrank inside it. A tiny Louise standing in the stomach of a glass giant, spinning around to see what was happening around her.

  The tiny Jacks were being eaten but others were growing—six, seven, eight feet tall and one of them was advancing on her with a sledgehammer.

  She grew back into the solid quartz Louise and turned. She'd fight them to a standstill and beyond. Whatever Jack could do, she'd match. With interest.

  She blocked the swing of the sledgehammer with her left arm and threw herself at the giant Jack, pushing him back against and through a 'test your strength' machine.

  High score.

  "Come on!" she shouted. Something be in the wood. Something come out and take a bite out of Jack.

  A door materialised in the wall to her left. It juddered opened, pushing one of the slot machines to the side. Nick appeared.

  "This way!" he shouted. "Come on you've done it."

  Had she?

  She let go of Sledgehammer Jack and fought her way towards the door; clubbing and shoving and kicking. Could it really be over? Plan B. Jack can't be hypnotised but he can be distracted. That's your job: keep Jack busy while I take care of the others.

  And extricate John.

  Her John. Was he now free?

  A rotten floorboard gave way under her left foot. She sank with it, her left foot dropping eighteen inches. Several Jacks piled on top of her. So close. The door was only yards away. She couldn't fail now. She thought water, she though fountain, she thought through that door.

  Then she was flying, a jet of water rising from the shattered floorboard and arcing up and over Nick's head.

  She'd made it.

  Somewhere behind her a door slammed shut, and around her a white-walled cell materialised. She was out.

  Louise moved swiftly away from Pendennis's bed. A small cloud joined her in the middle of the cell. Only the one small cloud?

  Panic. "Where's John? Didn't you get him out?"

  "Not here, Lou. We'll talk in the corridor. Follow me."

  She followed, through the wall and out into the main corridor. There was something twenty, thirty yards away. A smudge, a mirage—was it John?

  She rushed past Nick. It had to be John. A small cloud of fuzzy lights.

  "John," she said. "It's Louise. Is that you?"

  He didn't answer. She turned to Nick. "What's . . ."

  "He can't hear anyone but me," said Nick. "I thought it safer. Which is why I brought him well away from Peter and Jack."

  Relief. And surprise—when had Nick learned how to play it safe?

  "Okay, John," said Nick. "Can you hear me?"

  "Yes," came the sleepy reply.

  "Louise is going to ask you a few questions. You can hear her voice now. Go ahead, Lou."

  She questioned him thoroughly, listening to both the answers he gave and the way he gave them. It had to be John.

  "Ask him about his teachers at school," said Nick interrupting.

  Louise was surprised. She'd already asked seven questions. How many more did he want?

  She questioned John about their school. Asked him to list as many teachers as he could and the subjects they taught. His memory was better than hers. Several she'd forgotten until John's description brought them back into memory.

  "Now ask him about the house he lived in. And his family."

  She complied, straining to remember enough details then resorting to asking questions about John's teenage music collection.

  "Anything more?" she asked Nick, wondering if there was something he wasn't telling her.

  "No," he replied. "I've heard enough."

  "Okay, final question from me then John. Do you ever want to be President?"

  John laughed. "Me? President? I'm a flyer, Lou. That's all I've ever wanted to be."

  She turned to Nick, jubilant. "That's John."

  Chapter Thirty

  It was Nick's turn. Out-of-Body Flight Training 101.

  "Okay, John," said Nick. "Follow me just like you did before. Remember, we're in a simulator. We're not really passing through the ceiling. It's just the tech guys' idea of fun."

  Nick rose slowly, watching John all the time. The small cloud started to follow.

  "Up we go," said Nick, "through the roof and . . . out into the sky. Notice the 360 degree all-round vision. It takes some getting used to but imagine the advantage it'll give our pilots in aerial combat."

  So far so good. John was hovering a few metres above the Upper Heywood roofline.

  "Now, let's take the new fly-by-wire system through its paces. Remember, the system's set up to react to your thoughts. You think where you want to be, and the software does the rest. You got that?"

  "Roger that."

  Roger indeed, Nick wondered if he should adopt a call sign. Tango Charlie something, or Wing Co. or Mad Dog . . .

  "How about Rasputin?" suggested Louise.

  So much for shielding his thoughts. "Okay, John, we're going to start now. See that hazy cloud moving in front of you?"

  "Yes."

  "That's my plane. Apologies for the crap visuals but the tech guys haven't gotten around to that yet. But imagine it's an enhanced F-84 and you're my wing man. Everywhere I go, you go. And remember you don't have to worry about G forces, how fast you go or how tight a turn you throw. The system's set up with inertial dampeners. All you've got to do is fix your sights on me and follow. Got that, John?"

  "Copy that, wing leader."

  "Okay, I'm going to start off slow, throw in a few practice turns and see how we go."

  Nick pulled away at a fast walking pace. John tucked in behind and to the left. Louise took the right. Three hazy clouds sliding along the Upper Heywood roof and then accelerating, gaining altitude, swinging left then right, up then over.

  It was working.

  "Okay, John, I'm going to start taking this baby through its paces. See if you can hang on."

  He accelerated away, blurring Upper Heywood into the distance but flying higher than he usually did, away from the distractions of houses and trees, giving John as uncomplicated a maiden flight as he could.

  Ahead, the Michael and Mary lines gilded the horizon in gold and flame. He swung towards them, maintaining his altitude, carving a long, sweeping turn until they were all pointing south-west. He slowed to check on John, wondering how long he'd stay under. Would the excitement of the flight cause the hypnotic bond to weaken? Or would it be therapeutic—John thinking he was back behind the controls of a plane after eighteen months of hell?

  "Still keeping up, John?" he asked.

  "Still waiting for you to show me some speed, sir."

  Nick accelerated.

  "This is not a race," hissed Louise. "If we lose John . . ."
<
br />   "Don't worry about me, Lou," said John. "I've been doing this all my life."

  Below them, the leys snaked off to the horizon like a braided molten river. Intersections came and went—Glastonbury, Avebury—and then others they hadn't seen before. New territory. Beyond their usual turn off to the Rectory apartment, the Michael and Mary lines stretched all the way to Land's End, passing through the Cheesewring and St. Michael's Mount. He wondered what they'd be like. As spectacular as Avebury? Something new?

  And what would the lines do at Land's End? Stop? Plunge into the sea? Shoot off across the Atlantic at wave height?

  He hoped for the latter. A ley line highway all the way to America. The lines would pass just south of the Florida Keys if they maintained the same trajectory.

  Time for another check on John. He slowed. "How's it going back there?"

  "Like a Sunday afternoon stroll in the park."

  Nick picked up the pace, skimming over moors and patchwork farms, straining to see the first line of blue on the southern horizon.

  And there it was, sweeping in from the left. Mount's Bay and the Channel. And there was St. Michael's Mount, rising out of the bay like a fairy tale castle carved out of rock. A fairy tale castle only accessible at low tide.

  Unless you could fly.

  The leys separated. One disappeared to the right, the other headed straight for the island. They followed the latter; tumbling down the headland, over the painted cottages in their pastel blues and pinks, over the long, wide shelving beach, and across the narrow stretch of water to the mount. The ley rose on the other side. They rose with it, climbing the almost sheer cliffs and the stone slab walls of the priory that sat astride the summit.

  Up and over they went. A second ley burst out of the cliff wall on the other side. The companion line—it must have travelled the last few miles underground. The two lines plunged seaward in a sinuous embrace and then turned, setting a parallel course along the bay's shallow sea bed towards the next headland, looking like two shimmering torpedo trails. Magical.

  Nick raced across the bay, dropping to a few feet above the waves. Below him the two leys shimmered and rippled along the sea bed, their brilliance tempered by five maybe ten fathoms of murky water.