Where the Birds Hide at Night

by Gareth Wiles

  ‘You couldn’t help your son, Noose, but you can help me,’ Peter pleaded, getting hold of the feeble man and pulling him closer. ‘Be the one to set me free from The Space’s curse.’

  Noose managed to shake away from Peter’s grip and turned away. ‘I’ll think about it,’ he responded coldly, shuffling off back down the street. Peter didn’t go after him. He knew that hassling Noose wouldn’t solve anything. He turned and left the former inspector to wander on. Wander on he did – just going on and on until his feet could no longer carry him. He collapsed in a heap, famished and only semi-conscious as his vision caught a bright glow ahead. An angel – both a part of the light and emerging from it – swooped down and swept Noose off his feet, carrying him beyond all possible harm. Only vague features of hers formed in his sight: her melted brown eyes, her perfect bob of a haircut. The hair was pale, shiny, though could once have been dark. She was as old as Noose and yet timeless in her wrinkle-free features. She had lived and loved, fought and fretted. She was Nicola Williams.

  * * *

  Noose wakened one day to find himself feeling rather good. He was comfortable, he was relaxed. The room was warm and breezy at the same time, no stifle of airlessness or brightness of intense false lighting. Only the morning sun lit the room, though he couldn’t see much of the room from within the four-poster bed. Soft silk netting surrounded him, and the duvet on top of him also had a rich silk feel. He felt itchy for a second, scratching his naked leg as it slipped out from beneath its covering. If this was death, it was pretty good. His last memory was of seeing an angel coming to take him away from that horrible, horrible planet full of horrible, horrible people and that felt like so long ago now.

  ‘Terrible things are happening,’ a voice suddenly called out from beside him, ‘and I have to enforce them. They’re the law.’ Noose knew the voice. It was Nicola. He didn’t want the comfort to end, so just carried on lying there next to her. She placed her hand on his chest and he couldn’t recoil. He didn’t want to recoil. ‘For God’s sake Henry, when will you just be right again?’ she sighed, kissing his chest. He felt her naked breast press against his side as she slipped a leg on top of his. He didn’t want to be right, he just wanted to hide away from everything and be nursed by a beautiful woman. Nicola certainly was beautiful, and he’d never been able to resist her. That’s what destroyed his marriage, turned his son into a psychotic maniac. He didn’t care about that anymore. Everything was nothing to Noose now; it was just easier that way. ‘What do you think of this new gay law?’ she asked him, but he would not be shaken from his inward fix. He just smiled as she lifted her head to study his face and push for a reply. She couldn’t antagonise him, he was indestructible now he’d fallen so completely.

  * * *

  The wildest notion of nonsense there ever was,

  Intersections of promise and utility -

  Unfolding and consuming

  As never before.

  But everything has happened already,

  Nothing can be new that will occur -

  All on shuffle and repeat

  Just as before.

  THE EMPTY MIRROR

  There was always paperwork. Paperwork, paperwork, paperwork. Even when you’ve swooped into power so quickly and efficiently as Alex – with all his peculiar airs and graces – there is still paperwork to be done. He didn’t want to have to read and sign these things. He just wanted to breeze through the entire experience in a swoosh of destruction. And, he could easily achieve it that way. But, Alex was just Alex, from Reaping Icon’s point of view. To be Peter Smith, with his near complete connection to The Space, would allow such smoother sliding into devastation. Not that humanity needed much sliding. A shave of gliding and be done.

  Alex was sitting there at his desk with a big pile of stuff to go through, when one of his cabinet ministers knocked on the door. Alex knew who was knocking, and indeed why he was knocking. Calling him in casually, Alex yawned a little and stretched his arms into the space above his head. ‘Yes, Eddie?’ he addressed the man with indifference as his arms fell back to the desk.

  ‘Leader,’ Eddie opened, standing just inside the door as it sealed behind him. Alex pushed the papers away and stood up, walking over to the large mirror on the wall. He’d given up looking at, or indeed for, himself and simply bent down to the fireplace below. Turning the knob to release the gas, and pressing the ignition button, the fire came to life and started burning through the fake coals. Alex stood straight, looking down at the faux open fire with disappointment. There was even a sharp metal poker on a stand by the fire in which to stoke it. Stoke a pretend fire? It was perhaps this that annoyed Alex more than anything else right now. Ludicrous pomp was how he saw it, some kind of wannabe act lacking the effort to make that extra step necessary for a real open fire. ‘I must speak with you,’ Eddie carried on.

  ‘Must you?’ Alex replied, yet again yawning, as he fingered the poker momentarily.

  ‘Yes. It’s about this homosexuality thing,’ Eddie said nervously. Alex picked the poker up and held the tip over the searing flames of the fire below him.

  ‘You’re gay, aren’t you Eddie?’

  He cleared his throat. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Drop your trousers and underpants, Eddie,’ Alex instructed him calmly. Suddenly, Eddie was overcome with suffocating terror. He felt as though he was deep, deep down and bound so completely. In turn, he thought he could see Alex flailing in front of him, but he was still holding the poker over the fire. ‘I shan’t ask again, Eddie.’

  The tormented man could not fight the meld of Reaping Icon, and he dropped his trousers and underpants. They lay cumbersomely around his ankles as he found himself turning his back on Alex and bending over the desk. Then came the most unimaginable atrocity to humanity as a whole – the suffering of one single being – as Alex forced the red hot poker up Eddie’s anus.

  * * *

  Alex was staring into the fire when Ruby and Arthur walked in. They stood near the door, Ruby looking over at the desk and the brown stain on the carpet beside it as Arthur fixed his sight on Ruby. He felt he couldn’t look at Alex right now, though he didn’t know why.

  ‘There’s cleaning to do,’ Alex uttered to the pair.

  ‘So I can see. I, we, heard the screams,’ Ruby replied. ‘Is it true?’

  ‘Is what true?’

  ‘What we heard about Eddie,’ Ruby clarified bravely. Now Arthur looked across at Alex.

  ‘What did you hear about Eddie?’

  ‘That he just died in here.’

  Alex smiled and looked up into the mirror. All he could see was Ruby and Arthur – there was no sign of himself in the reflective surface. ‘It was a terrible accident.’ Alex turned to face the pair. ‘He was gay, you see. He couldn’t cope with being a criminal any longer.’ He wanted the pair to step closer, and they did. Their bodily control was overruled as they lost all control and just had to get closer to Alex. He stayed perfectly rigid, though loose somehow, and spoke again once the pair were within an inch of him: ‘You’re not a fan of gays, are you?’ he asked them.

  ‘Of course not,’ was Ruby’s quick response, little thought behind it. She wasn’t here to think. Was anybody?

  ‘Turns my stomach,’ Arthur spoke.

  ‘I thought as much,’ Alex enthused, instantly allowing the pair from his mental hold and instead embracing them physically. The three hugged, Ruby feeling truly whole. She was all too willing to sponge Eddie’s blood up off the carpet now. ‘For the first time in my entire life, I’m truly happy,’ Alex whispered in their ears.

  ‘What about when you married our daughter?’ Ruby whispered back. Not really requiring an answer.

  ‘There was always something wrong with her.’

  ‘Yes. We know what you mean.’

  * * *

  Alex was alone, just standing there in his office with an empty mirror for company. He didn’t need company – no human could provide what he wished for now. He was both Alex and Re
aping Icon in one, and needed nothing from any mere human. Humanity as a whole, on the other hand, could provide just what he most desired – total destruction. That way, suffering could actually end. It was a means to an end.

  He focused his mind on Peter; drawing him close, winding the cord up. He was fully prepared for the time when Peter would come for him, and it was all known to him. He was Reaping Icon, and he knew everything. Even if he was in such a weak-minded body as Alex, he was still more powerful than any other individual currently on this pathetic blue-green planet. More powerful, bar one: Peter Smith. And yet, Peter was not so much an individual as an amalgamation of dozens of past, present and future lives clutching precariously onto an undesirably endless timeline. Reaping Icon knew exactly how to deal with Peter Smith. It was going to be very easy.

  * * *

  Clearance has been given to raid the fridge,

  But there’s nothing of note to consume.

  CONTEMPLATION

  Peter wanted to kiss the birthmark on Lauren’s neck. He wanted to kiss all of her body. But, doing so was proving difficult. He knew this was possibly the last time he would spend the night at her flat, and he wanted her to just let go and give in to her carnal desires. However, this was Lauren, and she was never going to just do that. This was one of the most alluring things about the woman. She could so easily resist that which others desperately sought out. But why? Was she some kind of asexual bore? Peter certainly didn’t think so – after all, he had pursued her for all this time. And was that precisely why he pursued her – the knowledge, and hope, that she would resist and keep the full spectrum of intimacy at bay? That was for Peter to know (or work out) and nobody else.

  They had spent the last three hours discussing The Space. Peter had opened up fully to her, telling her everything. It had been a cathartic release for him, and for her she had been able to finally consume who Peter really was. The sheath, the facade – all had fallen away and the pair had reached the perfect point of connection. She had been able to absorb The Space’s concept and existence so easily, so fluidly, and it was this that drew Peter in even more.

  She was almost asleep now, and was starting to feel a bit heavy. Peter eased himself from beside her, watching as she curled up on the sofa without him. He stood up and walked over to the kitchen. There was going to be no sexual contact with Lauren tonight, and he knew that tomorrow he was going to confront Alex. He checked his watch: 10pm. In a way he no longer even yearned for the sexual. He was beyond that now, and he had to stand back from Lauren… from everyone. No longer was he a part of humanity. Permitting himself one final look at the impenetrable one, he exited.

  * * *

  Anna Davies was nervous to go to the door. It was gone 11pm now and the doorbell went again. She’d lost everything already, save her own life, and letting in whoever was at the door wasn’t really going to hurt her. She could lose her own life and not care right now. If you could even call it a life. It didn’t matter to her. So, she opened the door. There stood Peter Smith, the man she was convinced had murdered her daughter all those years ago. That his brother Stuart had actually done the deed had not eased her hatred of this fiend who now stood in front of her. If anything it made her despise Peter even more. Her daughter’s murder had been the Smith family secret – the big joke to share and laugh about over the dinner table. Oh how she wished for the whole family to rot in damnation.

  Peter just stood there, hoping to come up with a reason why he’d come to see the mother of the one he’d lost. No reason was forthcoming. She looked back at him, stooped but keen to display firmness. He knew she was a pale wreck of her former self, and it destroyed him to think his own brother had left all this in his wake. Now he wished he hadn’t come, but felt the overriding need to resolve something. Anything.

  ‘Can I come in?’ he asked her, thinking it would at least give her some choice and control over the situation. To bring her to her ease was all that could be done at present. And, to his surprise, she stood aside. He stepped in.

  * * *

  ‘It was so long ago now, and yet it feels so new and so raw,’ Anna said coldly, unable to sit in Peter’s presence. Instead she supported her weight against the kitchen units, next to the knife drawer.

  ‘I think about Lucy every day.’

  ‘Do you?’ she came back at him, doubting. ‘Do you really?’ Peter looked away sheepishly. He knew he hadn’t thought about her every day. He’d blocked her from his mind for years. ‘I reached the limit of thinking I could cope with. I stopped thinking,’ she told him. He knew where she was coming from. ‘And all this time, with you walking around a free man and me knowing for sure that you’d done it.’

  ‘It was Stuart, not me.’

  ‘It doesn’t really matter now, does it? It doesn’t matter which one of your family did it. Lucy was murdered, there’s no altering that.’ She opened the knife drawer and took one out, studying the blade as she waved the object in front of her. Peter sat up, taking a deep breath. ‘A human life is so easy to do away with. My husband found that out when he ended his own.’

  ‘Please, Anna, don’t do anything foolish.’

  ‘We could both die by this simple knife tonight, couldn’t we? Rid the world of our miserable existences.’

  Peter got up and walked confidently up to her, taking the knife. She did not resist. In a way, she sighed with relief, ready for him to do away with her so that she didn’t have to. But, he put it back in the drawer and held both her hands. He too felt relief, crying as her hard face softened. ‘I loved your daughter, Anna,’ he told her. He may well have loved her, though he couldn’t be certain. But still, this was what Anna needed to hear. ‘And, she loved me back.’ She too broke into a sob. ‘I will find Stuart, and bring him to justice. He will pay,’ he finished.

  That suddenly filled her with dread. Bringing to justice her daughter’s murderer would mark the end of two decades of her life’s focus. Where would she go from here? Where could she go? That would be that. Finished. Peter felt like a bad actor, playing his part quite well but being very conscious of the fact he was playing. He’d come to the end of his repertoire, too, and just wanted to bolt. He couldn’t very well up and leave immediately, and thought to occupy his mind on anything that would fill it before a reasonable enough time had elapsed to allow a respectable exit. That in itself seemed like enough to fill his mind.

  He thought of his original life, lived hundreds of years ago, when The Space had first presented itself to the group of ‘higher minds’ he belonged to. The Great Collective were just conjurers, witches even; people who had come together to search for the limits of human achievement and been forced to gather in secret because of persecution. In a way they probably deserved persecution – pompous, arrogant people. Years, and lives, had passed; but humanity hadn’t. Peter had seen it all – what people feared and hated may have shifted slightly, but not fearing and hating itself. That would always remain. He could see that, and it made him indifferent. Here he was all this time later, bogged down with people in a trapped cycle that could be left to run and run. Sitting watching TV with Mother was always just around the corner. He was alive all this time, yet he felt dead.

  * * *

  ‘I had feelings for him once,’ Emma told Peter. ‘Romantic feelings.’

  ‘And for Katie?’

  ‘What about Katie?’ Emma snapped, defensive. She remembered Peter as the nosy lodger of the Edwards household, and was never very fond of him.

  ‘I can quite easily read you, Emma,’ Peter replied measuredly.

  ‘And?’

  ‘You and Katie had a dalliance or two – sexually speaking.’

  ‘What?!’ Emma cried out, her eyes darting about as she fidgeted with her bushy dark hair.

  ‘Look, you’re well aware of what Alex is up to now with this law he has passed. He’s done it because of what happened in his life, the people who affected him.’

  ‘So it’s my fault?’ Emma snapped.

  �
��No.’ Peter tapped his chin, thinking fast. He knew he was most certainly coming across as a creepy sort of figure to this beauty, but he didn’t care. He had his goal, and he would reach it. ‘Look, Alex isn’t himself, he’s been possessed as it were by a horrible weight. I’ve witnessed it before, with somebody else in another place and time.’

  ‘You mean the Judge, Darren Aubrey?’

  ‘Actually, yes.’

  ‘I’ve read your book,’ Emma smirked. ‘He became The Leader, didn’t he? He set about that dignity experiment thing to wipe out the elderly because he was molested by an old man or something?’

  ‘You see, in a way I kind of predicted all this with Alex. He is forcing upon others what was forced upon him.’

  ‘Nobody forced him to marry a lesbian,’ Emma bluntly pointed out.

  ‘No, you’re right, but sometimes we just get carried along by life. Sometimes we’re just too weak-willed to alter things.’

  ‘Well he’s certainly altered things now, hasn’t he!’

  ‘Look Emma,’ Peter urged, stepping forward, ‘I need your help… Alex needs your help. If he is confronted with you, the one woman who can unearth his heart, we might be able to halt his damage.’

  Emma couldn’t look at him. She didn’t want to face this challenge. ‘What a load of bullshit you come out with,’ was her wall of a response.

  * * *

  Peter stepped out onto the street and waited. He knew what was about to happen, The Space had shown him, and he had decided not to fight it. Sure enough a plain white van pulled up beside him and the side door slid open. A puff of smoke was enough to send him to the ground, unconscious. He was scooped up and bundled into the van before it sped off down the road.

  * * *

  Within outward of The Space lay The Cunningham.

  Less of pig, but beauty of hind, was good to

  Develop and believe that the

  Luring of such a being would placate the