At the base of most of the heaps were piles of brown, broken fragments, presumably of bone. The lids of the vertically stacked coffins were all loose, and standing propped against the box.
I stepped back quickly into the main tunnel and glanced up towards the door by which I had entered. There had been a slight curve, and my escape was now out of sight. Somewhere deep inside the cavern, the generator continued to run.
I was trembling. I could not help but think: that distant engine, this torch, only these lay between me and a sudden plunge into darkness.
I could not go back. My brother was here.
Determined to resolve this quickly, I followed the path down and to the right, curving away more steeply from the exit. Another flight of steps followed, and here the lights had been placed closer together because the steps were uneven in height and tilting to the side. Supporting myself with my hand on the wall I went down them. The tunnel immediately opened out into a wider cavern.
It was full of modern metal racks, brown-painted, held together with chromium-plated nuts and bolts. Each rack had three broad shelves, one on top of the other, like bunks. A narrow gangway ran next to each rack, and a central aisle ran the whole length of the hall. A light was positioned above every gangway between the shelves, illuminating what they held.
4
Human bodies lay uncovered on every shelf of the racks. Each one was male, and fully clothed. They all wore evening dress: a close fitting jacket with tails, a white shirt with black bow tie, a modestly patterned waistcoat, narrow trousers with a satin strip along the seams, white socks and patent-leather shoes. The hands wore white cotton gloves.
Each body was identical to all the others. The man had a pale face, an aquiline nose and a thin moustache. His lips were pale. He had a narrow brow and receding hair which was brilliantined back. Some of the faces were staring up at the rack above them, or at the rocky ceiling. Others had their necks turned, so they faced to one side or the other.
All the corpses had their eyes open.
Most of them were smiling, showing their teeth. The left upper molar in each mouth had a chip missing from the corner.
The corpses all lay in different positions. Some were straight, others were twisted or bent over. None of the bodies was arranged as if lying down; most of them had one foot placed in front of the other, so that in being laid on the rack this leg was now raised above the other.
Every corpse had one foot in the air.
The arms too were in varying positions. Some were raised above the head, some were stretched forward like those of a sleepwalker, others lay straight beside the body. Several of the bodies wore gloves which had been soaked in red ink.
There was no sign of decay in any of the corpses. It was as if each one had been frozen in life, made inert without being made dead.
There was no dust on them, no smell from them.
5
A piece of white card had been attached to the front edge of each shelf. It was handwritten, and mounted in a plastic holder that was clipped ingeniously to the underside of the shelf. The first one I looked at said this:
Dominion Theatre, Kidderminster
14/4/01
3.15 p.m. [M]
2359/23
25g
On the shelf above it, the card was almost identical:
Dominion Theatre, Kidderminster
14/4/01
8.30 p.m. [E]
2360/23
25g
Above that, the third corpse was labelled:
Dominion Theatre, Kidderminster
15/4/01
3.15 p.m. [M]
2361/23
25g
On the next rack there were three more corpses, all labelled and dated similarly. They were laid out in date order. By the following week, there was a change of theatre: the Fortune, in Northampton. Six performances there. Then there was a break of about two weeks, followed by a series of single appearances, about three days apart, in a number of provincial theatres. Twelve corpses were thus labelled, in sequence. A season at the Palace Pier Theatre, Brighton, occupied half of May (six racks, eighteen corpses).
I moved on, squeezing down the narrow central aisle to the far end of the cavern. Here, on the top shelf of the final rack, I came across the body of a small boy.
6
He had died in a frenzy of struggling. His head was tilted back and turned to the right. His mouth was open, with the corners of his lips turned down. His eyes were wide open and looking up. His hair was flying. All his limbs were tensed, as if he had been fighting to be free. He was wearing a maroon sweatshirt with characters from The Magic Roundabout, a small pair of jeans with the bottoms turned up, and blue canvas shoes.
His label was also handwritten, and it said:
Caldlow House
17/12/70
7.45 p.m.
0000/23
0g
On the top was the boy’s name: Nicholas Julius Borden.
I took the label and shoved it into my pocket, then reached forward and pulled him towards me. I scooped him up and held him in my arms. At the moment I touched him, the constant background presence of my brother faded away and died.
I was aware of his absence for the first time ever.
Looking down at him in my arms, I tried to shape him into a more comfortable position for carrying. His limbs, neck and torso were stiffly pliant, as if made of strong rubber. I could change their position, but the moment I released them they swung back into the shape in which I had found him.
When I tried to smooth his hair, that too moved intransigently back to its former position.
I held him tightly against me. He was neither cold nor warm. One of his outstretched hands, clenched in fear, was touching the side of my face. The relief of finding him at last overwhelmed everything – everything except the fear of this place. I wanted to turn around so that I could head back towards the exit, but to do so involved moving backwards out of the gangway. I held my past life in my arms, but I no longer knew what might be standing behind me.
There was something there, though.
7
I eased myself backwards, not looking. As I reached the main aisle and turned slowly around, Nicky’s head brushed against the raised foot of the nearest corpse. A patent-leather shoe swung slowly to and fro. I ducked away from it, horrified.
I saw that at this end of the hall there was another chamber, just five or six feet away from where I was standing. It was from here that the sound of the generator’s engine was emerging. I went towards it. The entrance to the cavity was slanting and low, and there had been no effort made to widen it or to make access to it easier.
The sound of the generator was now loud, and I could smell the petrol fumes being emitted from it. There were several more lights within the chamber, beyond the entrance. Their radiance spilled across the uneven floor of the main hall. I could not go through the gap without putting down Nicky’s body, so I bent over to try to see what might be within.
I stared across the short stretch of the rocky floor I could see, then I straightened.
I wished to see no more. A chill ran through me.
I had seen nothing. Any sounds there might have been were drowned by the mechanical clattering of the generator. Nothing moved within.
I took a step back, then another, as quietly as possible.
There had been someone standing inside that chamber, silently, motionlessly, just beyond my line of sight, waiting for me either to enter or retreat.
I continued to step back down the shadowy narrow aisle between the racks, easing my body to and fro so as not to scrape Nicky’s head or feet against the bodies on the shelves. Terror was draining strength from my body. My knees were juddering and my arm muscles, already strained by Nicky’s weight, were aching and twitching.
A man’s voice said, from within the chamber, reverberating around the hall, ‘You’re a Borden, aren’t you?’
I said nothing, paralysed by fear.<
br />
‘I thought you’d come for him.’ There was a harsh intake of breath, a rattling of phlegm. The voice was thin, tired, not much more than a whisper, but the cavern gave it an echoing resonance. ‘He is you, Borden, and these are all me. Are you going to leave with him? Or are you going to stay?’
I saw a vestige of a shadow moving beyond that rough-hewn entrance, and then to my horror the sound of the generator faded quickly away.
The light bulbs died down: yellow, amber, dull red, black.
I was in impenetrable darkness. The torch was in my pocket. I shifted the weight of the little boy, and managed to get a grip on the torch.
With my hand shaking, I switched it on. The beam angled crazily as I tried to get a good grip on the torch and keep Nicky’s body held tightly in my arms. I twisted around.
Shadows of raised legs whirled about me on the cavern walls.
With the crook of my arm clumsily shielding Nicky’s exposed head I shoved my way along the rest of the aisle through the racks, my shoulders and arms colliding with the shelves, and dislodging several of the plastic labels.
I dared not look behind me. The man was following! My legs had no strength, I knew I could fall at any moment.
As I mounted the crooked steps out of the hall, my head collided with a spar of rock in the roof, and it hurt so much I almost dropped Nicky’s body. I kept going, staggering and hunching, not even trying to keep the torch beam steady. It was all uphill, now, and Nicky’s deadweight seemed heavier with every step. I turned my foot, fell against the tunnel wall, recovered, kept lurching on. Fear drove me.
The inner door appeared before me at last. Barely pausing, I pulled it open with my booted foot and forced my way through.
Behind me, on the stone-laid floor of the tunnel, I could hear the footsteps following, pacing steadily over the loose stones.
I ran up the stairs to the surface, but snow had blown in and was covering the top four or five steps. I slipped, fell forward, and the little boy rolled out of my arms! I lunged forward, pushed the door open with all my weight.
I saw: snow-covered ground, the black shape of the house, two windows lighted, an open doorway with a light beyond, snow hurtling from the sky!
My brother yelled in my mind!
I turned back, found him sprawled across the steps, and picked him up. I stumbled out into the snow.
I floundered and staggered through the thick snow, aiming for the doorway, turning my head constantly to look back over my shoulder at the black rectangle of the open vault, dreading to see the emergence of whatever it was that had been following me.
Suddenly, the intruder light mounted on the side of the house came on, half-blinding me. The blizzard thickened in the glare. Kate appeared at the open doorway, dressed in a quilted coat.
I tried to shout a warning to her but I could not find the breath. I continued on, sliding and staggering in the snow, Nicky’s body held before me. At last I reached the yard in front of the door, slithered on the snow-covered concrete and pushed past her into the brightly lit hallway beyond.
She stared wordlessly at the body of the little boy in my arms. Gasping for breath, I turned around and went back to the doorway, leant against the post, looked back across the snow-covered garden at the indistinct shape of the vault entrance. Kate was beside me.
‘Watch the vault!’ I said. It was the only sentence I could get out. ‘Watch!’
Nothing was moving, over there on the other side of the snow. I took a step back, put down Nicky’s body on the stone-flagged floor.
I fumbled in my pocket and found the label that had been on Nicky’s rack. I shoved it at Kate. I was still struggling for breath, and I felt as if I would never again breathe normally.
I gasped, ‘Look at this! The handwriting! Is it the same?’
She took it from me, held it up in the light, and gazed intently at it. She looked straight back at me. Her eyes were wide with fear.
‘It is, isn’t it?’ I shouted.
She put her hands around the upper part of my arm, and held herself against me. I could feel her trembling.
The intruder light timed itself out.
‘Get it on again!’ I shouted.
Kate reached behind her, found the switch. Then she held my arm again.
The snow whirled in the blaze of light. Through it, vaguely, we could see the entrance to the vault. We both saw the slight figure of a man emerging from the door of the vault. He was dressed in dark clothes, and was covered up against the weather. Long black hair straggled out from under the hood of his jacket. He raised a hand to protect his eyes from the glaring light. He showed no curiosity about us, or fear of us, even though he must have known we were there, watching him. Without looking at us, or anywhere in the direction of the house, he stepped out on to the flat ground, hunching his shoulders in the blizzard, then moved to the right, between the trees, down the hill, and out of our sight.
Christopher Priest was born in Cheshire, England. He has published eleven novels, three short-story collections and a number of other books, including critical works, biographies, novelisations and children’s non-fiction. In 1996 Priest won the World Fantasy Award and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for his novel The Prestige which was adapted into a film by Christopher Nolan in 2006. His most recent novel, The Separation, won both the Arthur C. Clarke Award and the British Science Fiction Association award. Priest and his wife, the writer Leigh Kennedy, live in Hastings, England with their children.
A Case of Conscience James Blish
A Fall of Moondust Arthur C. Clarke
A Maze of Death Philip K. Dick
Arslan M. J. Engh
A Scanner Darkly Philip K. Dick
Babel-17 Samuel R. Delaney
Behold the Man Michael Moorcock
Blood Music Greg Bear
Bring the Jubilee Ward Moore
Cat’s Cradle Kurt Vonnegut
Childhood’s End Arthur C. Clarke
Cities in Flight James Blish
Dancers at the End of Time Michael Moorcock
Dark Benediction Walter M. Miller
Dhalgren Samuel R. Delany
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Philip K. Dick
Downward to Earth Robert Silverberg
Dr Bloodmoney Philip K. Dick
Dune Frank Herbert.
Dying Inside Robert Silverberg
Earth Abides George R. Stewart
Emphyrio Jack Vance
Eon Greg Bear
Flow, My Tears, the Policeman Said Philip K. Dick
Flowers for Algernon Daniel Keyes
Gateway Frederik Pohl
Grass Sheri S. Tepper
Helliconia Brian Aldiss
I Am Legend Richard Matheson
Inverted World Christopher Priest
Jem Frederik Pohl
Last and First Men Olaf Stapledon
Life During Wartime Lucius Shepard
Lord of Light Roger Zelazny
Man Plus Frederik Pohl
Mission of Gravity Hal Clement
Mockingbird Walter Tevis
More Than Human Theodore Sturgeon
Non-Stop Brian Aldiss
Nova Samuel R. Delany
Now Wait for Last Year Philip K. Dick1
Pavane Keith Roberts
Rendezvous with Rama Arthur C. Clarke
Ringworld Larry Niven
Roadside Picnic Boris Strugatsky, Arkady Strugatsky
Stand On Zanzibar John Brunner
Star Maker Olaf Stapledon
Tau Zero Poul Anderson
The Body Snatchers Jack Finney
The Book of Skulls Robert Silverberg
The Centauri Device M. John Harrison
The Child Garden Geoff Ryman
The City and the Stars Arthur C. Clarke
The Complete Roderick John Sladek
The Demolished Man Alfred Bester
The Difference Engine William Gibson and Bruce Sterling
The Dispossesse
d Ursula Le Guin
The Drowned World J. G. Ballard1
The Female Man Joanna Russ
The Fifth Head of Cerberus Gene Wolfe
The First Men in the Moon H. G. Wells
The Food of The Gods H. G. Wells
The Forever War Joe Haldeman
The Fountains of Paradise Arthur C. Clarke
The Invisible Man H. G. Wells
The Island of Doctor Moreau H. G. Wells
The Lathe of Heaven Ursula le Guin
The Man in the High Castle Philip K. Dick
The Martian Time-Slip Philip K. Dick
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress Robert A. Heinlein
The Penultimate Truth Philip K. Dick
The Prestige Christopher Priest
The Rediscovery of Man Cordwainer Smith
The Shrinking Man Richard Matheson
The Simulacra Philip K. Dick
The Sirens of Titan Kurt Vonnegut
The Space Merchants Frederik Pohl and C. M. Kornbluth
The Stars My Destination Alfred Bester
The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch Philip K. Dick
The Prestige Page 36