by Tim Lebbon
He ran headlong into a garden fence overgrown with rosebushes, cursing as thorns pinned him and stems seemed to curl around his limbs to hold him fast. He struggled, kicked, pulled, and a dog started barking from the other side of the fence. Soon there would be lights and an angry homeowner . . . but then the shadow was there, helping him snap thorns from his clothing and tear his legs free of the offending growths.
“I can’t hear him anymore,” Cain said.
“Can’t you smell him?”
Cain was not sure, but still he ran blindly along the lane. It was much longer than he had expected. Gardens opened up on the left and right, then a row of vandalized garages with doors only half closed, and then a large timber building that seemed to be rotting on its frame. Now that the overhanging hedges and tumbled fences had vanished, he could see more, the landscape silvered by starlight and the weak moon. All colors were washed away. Blood will be black tonight, he thought. Black as the shadow.
A howl rose somewhere nearby, and a chill of fear set Cain’s hair on end. The cry ended with a chuckle and a cough, and Cain realized that George was doing it just for him. The shadow emerged from a hedge of brambles, giggling.
Cain ran on. He glanced up on occasion, wondering whether it really had been Sister Josephine flying overhead. He could not help thinking of her naked, magicking herself up before him, and the smear of her magic cream on his thigh when he woke up from what he had thought was a dream. If he had enough of that cream, could he—
No! I’m not like them. I’m like me!
“Here,” the shadow said. “This way! I think he’s stopped.” It flowed ahead, turning left and heading across an area of open land toward a house on the opposite side. Though still in the city the house stood on its own, isolated by common land on one side and a huge area of allotments on the other. A light shone in a downstairs window. Briefly, terribly, Cain saw the thing that George had become silhouetted against the light.
“What are you going to do now?” the shadow asked in his mind, and the question was loaded, the voice ready to mock.
“I don’t know.” He could say no more, because that was the truth. I don’t know.
Cain ran across the open land. He stumbled once and went tumbling, banging his head on a rock and feeling blood burst across his scalp. It cooled him as he ran on, trickling down his neck and into his shirt. He did not care. It’s only blood, he thought. And he imagined Magenta saying, It’s only blood, son, only the stuff of the flesh.
The second he reached the low stone garden wall, he heard glass smash and a short, startled screech. The shadow was already there, lurking at the edge of the pool of light leaking out from the lit window. The broken window. It had been pulled completely from its frame, shattered glass sparkling across the ground. He saw George’s shadow cast against one of the inside walls, the light swayed and shifted madly, and then there was a roar and the light went out. Another shriek—louder this time, its owner having had more time to see—and then George uttered something between a chuckle and a growl.
Cain climbed the wall and paused on top. He could go either way. Let himself fall back and flee across the open ground, leave the city forever, find his way to Tall Stennington and live whatever life he could make for himself at Afresh. Or he could tip forward and go for the window, try to stop George from spilling innocent blood, and in doing so educate himself in another facet of Pure Sight. The shadow hung there with him, smeared across the wall like spilled oil. Cain thought to ask it what he should do, but he knew what the answer would be; this was all down to him. The shadow exuded knowledge and wisdom, but really it was attached so firmly to his own actions that it may as well be his third arm. It awaited his decision.
There was a riot of noise inside the house—someone running upstairs, another scream from a child’s mouth, an adult shouting and raging—and then George let out a roar that shook the remaining windows. This one was pure and basic, no longer simply for Cain’s benefit. This was George at the height of the hunt, releasing an ecstatic celebratory howl seconds before the kill.
Cain leaped from the wall and ran at the window. He had no idea what he was about to do. Something drove him, a feeling so deep down that he had never felt it before, and as he dived for the window he wondered if it was valor. He rolled across the floor and stood in one movement, wincing at the broken glass that had pricked and gashed his back and head. He was alone but for the shadow. He headed for the door.
“We have to do something,” Cain whispered.
“We do?” the shadow asked, pausing on the bottom step of the staircase.
Cain ran right at it, head down, storming upstairs without realizing that the shadow had stepped aside. He thought perhaps he had it draped across his head, some rudimentary camouflage from George. What he would do in the second or two it gave him he had no idea, but he could hear a little girl crying now, and that thing that had risen from deep inside forbade any true consideration of the situation. Valor or stupidity, it drove him on. Even when he reached the landing and realized that the shadow was ahead of him again, he did not stop. The crying came from a room at the end of the landing, pink door smashed from its hinges, George hunkered down in the doorway, growling, drooling as he advanced slowly on whoever cowered on the bed.
Cain glanced through an open doorway to his left and saw the body of a man lying on the bathroom floor. He had been struck across the throat, his windpipe and carotid artery opened up, and he blew bubbles as a puddle of blood spread across the vinyl. His hands were clasped to his throat, trying to press the wound together, fingers buried deep in himself. Cain met his gaze and saw the message straightaway. My baby. My baby! He looked away from the dying man and advanced on George.
He passed the shadow and it held back, slouching down at the head of the staircase, expression unreadable as ever. “Scared?” Cain asked in his mind.
“You should be,” the shadow said. For the first time, Cain believed the shadow had spoken aloud.
He was three steps from George. The man had transformed into something monstrous and yet still so obviously George. There was no gray pelt, no lengthened legs, no extended snout filled with wolverine teeth. He was still a man, but in whatever grotesque manner the Way had twisted his soul, it had also acted on his naked body. His back was arched, ribs pressing against the skin below his shoulder blades. His face was transformed by a hunger that mere food could surely never satiate, and his eyes reflected some inner pain, red and ravenous. Claws tipped his fingers and toes, thickened and sharpened nails curled into wicked cutting and slashing weapons that were black with old blood and red with new. He stood on all fours, the weight of his change pulling him down.
Cain stood there for a few seconds, waiting for George to turn around. But the monster had not noticed him. Whether he was obsessed with the child inside the room or simply unconcerned at Cain’s presence, George showed no signs of knowing he was there.
“You’re ugly, George,” Cain said. He had no idea where he was finding the courage to face this thing, but he had never really been tested before, not like this. Perhaps he had always been brave.
George tried to turn around, but he was trapped in the doorway by his widened shoulders. Cain took the opportunity to glance past the monster and into the bedroom, and he saw the little girl cowering on the bed. She had the blankets pulled up around her stomach, unable to bring herself to hide away completely from the horror. Perhaps her child’s logic had already told her that shielding herself would do no good. She wore Barbie pajamas, had long blond hair, and her eyes begged Cain for help. She saw a monster and a grown-up, so it was obvious to her who the enemy and friend must be.
Cain dropped his eyes and backed away. Could he really help? He had run here under the impression that George would not hurt him, but where that idea had come from, who had implanted it in his mind, he had no idea.
Could he really, truly help?
George tried to turn again, twisting hard. His shoulder struck the door fram
e and wood splintered, architraves falling against Cain’s upraised arms. George growled. Perhaps he was trying to speak, but his mouth had become a shape that could never form words. He was built now for killing and destruction, not thought and conversation.
“So ugly I want to puke,” Cain said quietly, not quite believing his own words.
“Oh shit,” the shadow said in his mind, its voice receding as it fled elsewhere in the house.
George leaped and Cain backed away. He stumbled but kept pushing with his feet, putting distance between himself and George. The mutated man landed on all fours and came closer, jaws dripping, teeth bared and long where the gums had receded. He reached for Cain where he lay floundering on the landing.
“No!” Cain shouted, and the shadow winced in his mind. George sat back and laughed.
Cain recognized the trick immediately. He tried to stand, but the monster was already away, moving quickly back through the shattered door and into the little girl’s bedroom. As Cain stood and ran forward, he heard the girl’s screams cut off by a sickening tearing sound. Blood splashed and turned the bedroom light red.
A hopeless sob escaped Cain’s lips, and tears tried to make the scene unreal.
Someone whined. Cain glanced to his left into the bathroom once again. As soon as the stricken father saw the horror in Cain’s eyes, his hands dropped from his throat and he died, his final tears diluting his already thickening blood.
“You bastard!” Cain shouted, running to the room. He did not want to see, but there was no way now that he could turn away. This is my fault, all my fault! George had done this to show Cain what he could do, and why, and how powerful the Way had made him. If Cain had not shunned Magenta yesterday, this family would still be alive. If he had taken more time to look into himself, see whether Pure Sight really was there and what it would entail in his form, George may have gone days or weeks without another kill.
“Can’t blame yourself,” the shadow said from elsewhere in the house. “You didn’t kill them. It’s just the Way of things.”
“Fuck the Way!” Cain shouted. “Fuck it! And why are you so scared? Piece of shit, that’s you!” His feet tangled in a length of architrave, and he bent and snatched it up without thinking. The wood was thin, but he might be able to fend off George’s first blow, at least.
“Not scared,” the shadow said. “You have to see this on your own.”
Cain stood in the doorway and took a good, long look at the scene before him, punishing himself with the horror of it all. George was leaning over the bed, blood streaking his bruised and stretched skin, heavy shoulders flexing as his arms ripped at the dead girl, hand falling and rising to lift scoops of meat to his jaws.
“I have always . . . been . . . alone.”
The monster turned around and the grotesque, bloody smile on his malformed face brought the rage up out of Cain. Fear hid away, farther than the shadow. Doubt was drowned, smothered by the sense of rightness that rose within him, up from depths he never knew were there. He brought up the length of broken timber and growled like a wolf.
For an instant a flicker of doubt crossed George’s face. He looked left and right like a nervous bird. But then he looked straight at Cain again, threw back his head, and laughed, spitting gobs of flesh that stuck on the ceiling between glow-in-the-dark stars.
“Hey, ugly,” a voice said from Cain’s left. “Sometimes you go too far.”
Sister Josephine was squatting on the sill of the open window, slick hands and feet resting delicately between a collection of model horses. Her habit flowed about her. Honey filled the room, an overpowering aroma that succeeded in washing out the stench of blood and insides . . . but only for a moment. Cain did not look for long, did not breathe in that scent and believe that everything was all right, and if the nun spoke again he did not hear her words. He grasped the moment she had given him—George was still staring at Sister Josephine, his jaws hanging slack and bloody—and thrust forward with the broken architrave.
George screamed. It was an expression of sheer agony that the little girl had never had the chance to utter. As the wood jarred home in the monster’s stomach, Cain shouted too, his hands slipping along the snapped timber and picking up a dozen heavy splinters between his fingers. He backed away, aghast at what he had done. The shadow appeared at his shoulder and laid a cold hand against his neck, but Cain shook it off, swearing, backing up to the doorway as George stood to his full unnatural height.
“I’m sorry!” Cain shouted, ridiculous and yet heartfelt. George staggered across the room toward the door, blood spewing out around his hands where he held the architrave protruding from his gut, and Cain wondered whether that blood was all his own. Several bees buzzed at the wound and, finding it not to their liking, bumbled lazily out the open window. “I’m sorry!”
“Shit,” George growled, his voice distorted. “Oh God, it hurtsss!” His body already seemed smaller than it had before, not shrinking but lessening. However the monstrous transformation took him, he could not maintain it in the grip of such pain.
Cain glanced again at the open window. The nun had gone, but he thought he heard a laugh hiding somewhere among George’s continuing cries of pain.
“I bet that hurts,” the shadow said.
“Of course it hurts!” George shouted. “Pull it out!”
“Sure thing,” said the shadow.
“No!” Cain said, and he realized the shadow was playing with both of them.
The injured man fell to the floor, rolled onto his side, and started writhing. Another scream came, rising into a high, keening whine that seemed to go on and on, assaulting Cain’s ears almost as much as the siren. But only his ears. This sound could not reach inside his heart, because guilt was quickly being buried by the anger. His newfound confidence hammered it down and told him that George deserved this, every painful second between now and his death had been earned a thousand times over. Cain looked to the mess on the bed and nodded, unable to stifle another sob for the fate of that poor girl.
The shadow voiced its agreement from behind. “We should leave,” it said then. “There’s nothing more we can do here.”
“I can’t go anywhere!” George screeched.
“You’re not,” Cain said, “and there’s plenty more we can do.” He saw confusion in the monster’s eyes as he walked forward to stand over George. Could still be dangerous, he thought, could lash out with those claws, those feet, and maybe he’s just feigning it. But he could see a curl of gut squeezing from the wound in George’s stomach now, and he knew that this was no sham. “Here, let me.” He reached out for the end of the protruding architrave.
George grew still. Perhaps he thought Cain really would help him, find his Way in time to realize just how George was helpless in the face of his own.
Cain grabbed the wood in both hands and twisted, pushed, leaning left and right, and he closed his eyes to the horrible sight of George thrashing and dying beneath him.
The screams, though. He could not avoid the screams. They were rich and loud and filled with the memory of decades of death. Such was their intensity that Cain expected the siren to scream in and punish him for such an experience. But at last, at long last, he believed that he was way beyond its reach. This murder by his own hand had shifted him out of his father’s influence forever.
If only I’d been faster, Cain thought. If only I hadn’t delayed out there in the garden. Maybe all this would have turned out differently.
He had begun to make his own life.
“How do you feel?” the shadow asked.
“Leave me alone.”
Cain was sitting beneath a tree in the park. The shadow moved around him, across the grass, in and out of a clump of bushes, circling like a dog avoiding its angry master. Cain was carefully pulling splinters from his palm and the flap of skin between his thumb and forefinger. There was not enough light to see by, but the slivers were large enough to get a grip on in the dark. Each one hurt more, and he welcom
ed that. Each extraction brought tears and he let them flow free, hoping that they would distort this world beyond what it was revealing to him. Exactly what that was, he was unsure. But he wanted none of it.
He could still hear the echoes of George’s final screams, as if they were haunting the park.
And he could still hear that little girl’s final cry. He would hear it always. It had replaced the siren as his tormentor, his punisher, because had he acted differently that scream would have never been uttered. The girl would be asleep in her Barbie pajamas, with her model horses watching over her and the luminous stars on the ceiling giving her sweet dreams.
“We should move,” the shadow said.
“Why?”
“Someone may find us here.”
“So? What about it?”
“You don’t want to be connected—”
“I am connected!” Cain shouted, standing and kicking out at where he thought the shadow may be. Darkness slunk away from him, flowing about the tree like water. “I caused that! George did what he did because of me, to show me!”
“Fool,” the shadow whispered. “You can’t blame yourself for what he did. He wasn’t so insecure that he’d need to show you anything. Don’t flatter yourself with the idea that you could have prevented that.”
“But . . .”
The shadow emerged from the dark and stood beside him, more solid and real than he had ever seen. Cain leaned back, eyes wide with a fearful fascination, staring at the shadow and trying so hard to make out any features. There were none; only a consistent absence of light. And yet it held the shape of a human, moved like a man, and spoke with the calm assurance of someone comfortable in their own skin.
“You remember those months and years in your father’s basement?” the shadow said. “Those times he tortured you, trying to pry a talent from you that he knew he could not possibly have himself?”