by Trevor Hoyle
Cawdor was positively not tempted to ask him what he meant by this. With even a hint of prompting, Gil would launch into a complicated, impenetrable spiel peppered with ‘temporality’ and ‘synchronicity’ and ‘acausality’ and other words ending in ‘ity’ that gave Cawdor a headache just listening to it, never mind trying to understand it.
‘Sarah any idea what’s been goin’ on at the office?’ Gribble asked.
‘Nothing’s been going on at the office.’
‘I mean – Ya know what I mean.’
‘Don just told me today, Gil. I haven’t seen Sarah yet.’
Gribble fixed Cawdor with his big, brown, earnest eyes. ‘Know what I think? I think if I was you I’d tell her. S’pose she hears it from somebody and you ain’t told her? She’s gonna suspect somethin’ fishy’s goin’ on even if there ain’t. She might think, Jeff’s got a guilty conscience, that’s why he kept quiet about it. If there was nothin’ to it, you’d tell her, right?’
That made sense. Except that he hadn’t revealed to Gil his deeper fears, the sickly foreboding he had of things falling to pieces. In some obscure way Cawdor felt himself trapped in a downward, ever tightening spiral that was sucking him deeper and deeper into an unknown yet ultimately terrifying darkness. He could sense it, feel it in the marrow of his bones. But he was unable to stand back and see the thing whole. And he felt powerless to do anything to stop it happening. That was the most frightening thing of all.
‘What say we step out and get somethin’ to eat?’ Gil Gribble proposed, finding a space in the workbench’s clutter for his empty beer can. ‘There’s a halfway decent place just round the corner. You like Italian food, don’t you?’ He smacked the palms of his hands together, trying to lighten the sombre mood. ‘Hey, that is if you don’t have to get on home…’
‘No, I don’t,’ Cawdor said. ‘Not right now.’
He felt a sudden lurch in his stomach, like a physical blow from a heavyweight’s glove, and a voice in his mind said, Yes, you do. Right now. He stood and said, ‘I have to go.’
It was Sarah. Something about Sarah. It was the next link in the inevitable downward swirling spiral. Oh Jesus no! Had something happened to her?
Gribble was blinking at him, puzzled, from under tangled reddish eyebrows. ‘Huh? Which is it, Jeff? You just said you was stayin’.’
‘I’ve changed my mind.’
Right now!
‘I have to go, right now. Sorry, Gil.’ He looked around for his coat, the one he hadn’t brought with him.
Gil Gribble followed Cawdor along the hallway. Gribble had to push past him to attend to the various bars, bolts and locks. Cawdor waited with shoulders tensed, clenching and loosening his fists repeatedly. He was white as a sheet. At long last Gribble got the door open and edged back in the cramped space, a small, humped figure with a comical fuzz of beard, gazing up with wide, spaniel-brown eyes. ‘You OK to drive? Sure now?’
Cawdor went past him, muttering, ‘Gotta get back. Sorry, Gil, don’t ask me why.’
Gribble watched him go down the steep stairway. The guy was suffering some kind of mental trauma, that was obvious. Battling a terrible inner turmoil. He’d never seen Jeff this way before. It was perplexing and worrying, and it frightened the living shit out of him.
North of Grant’s Tomb he came on to the Hudson Parkway, heading for George Washington Bridge. The rush-hour peak was over, but even so it took him an agonising 45 minutes to cross the bridge and get on to interstate 95. Then it was a matter of keeping his foot down, cruising at a steady 70. It never occurred to him to check his mirror for speed cops or to even think about helicopter patrols and radar traps.
Cawdor’s suit had more or less dried out at Gil Gribble’s, but now he was just as wet underneath, tension and fear and a crawling dreadful premonition bathing him in sweat, so that he had to turn on the air conditioning to prevent the windows getting fogged up.
The needle crept up to 75, then nudged 80.1-95 became 1-80. He was on the outskirts of Paterson now, and soon would be on the lookout for the road to his right that linked up to 202. That route eventually became 23, which would lead him directly home to Franklin.
Cawdor gripped the wheel, narrowing his concentration to the strip of blurred tarmac directly ahead.
It started to rain. He switched on his wipers, and then the headlights, as the cars coming towards him switched on theirs. The oncoming lights flashing by were splintered into dazzling refractions by the raindrops hitting the windshield. He squinted his eyes to see through them. Instead he found himself looking not through them but into them. Into the fragments of light themselves.
To his shocked amazement, each fragment contained a separate and distinct image.
A black tower 2,000 storeys high, above it a thin slice of moon stuck to the night sky like a piece of silver paper. The feeble glow it gave off was swallowed up in the dark streets hemmed in by tall buildings of granite and glass. At the peak of the tower he saw a penthouse blazing with light, and from the balcony a thin runt of a man with lank fair hair gazing out over the city –
The images flickered in front of his eyes as the headlight beams broke up in the raindrops, sparking off in all directions. Strange and disturbing images that filled him with mind-freezing horror.
And one that almost made his heart stop beating.
It was Sarah. She was stretched out naked on a rough wooden floor, surrounded by a circle of gaunt, shadowy figures, their faces hidden inside shapeless hoods. A thin hand emerged, white as a fish’s belly, and a bony finger pointed down. Sarah tried to squirm loose from the hands that were holding her wrists and ankles. She opened her mouth to scream, but a thick rope had been coiled several times round her neck so that she was barely able to draw breath. The figures moved closer, crowding in shoulder to shoulder, shutting out the dimly flickering light and enclosing her in a circle of blackness –
Memory came back to Cawdor, making him grip the wheel so tight his knuckles ached. He had seen these images before, and he remembered where. In the fragments of his shaving mirror smashed to bits on the bathroom floor – the mirror that mysteriously the next morning had been intact. The broken mirror had been part of the dreams he had forgotten. In that particular dream he had been kneeling on the tiled floor, the holographic images from the shards of glass searing his eyes. Sarah had appeared in it too, standing at the door, eyes bright with alarm, her hand clasped to her chest. It seemed so real to him, Cawdor knew it wasn’t a dream, had actually happened, and yet the morning after Sarah hadn’t mentioned the broken mirror, and the mirror was still on its shelf, unbroken.
Dream or reality?
Earlier that afternoon, while out at Glen Cove, Cawdor had tried his damnedest to discover when and why recent events had started to go awry; to pinpoint the exact moment and possible cause. Now he had the answer. The night he broke the mirror in the bathroom. That’s when it had happened. Before then his life had belonged to him; after that, he was cast adrift on a dark mysterious ocean of the unknown.
The sign for 202 flashed by, and almost too late he spotted the turn. In the few seconds it took the fact to register, the slip road was nearly upon him, and he had to ram the brake pedal with both feet and wrench the wheel round, sliding the Olds sideways for ten yards before the car shuddered, shimmied its rear end, and regained its traction. There was a smell of burnt rubber and a jolt that made the suspension groan as the car bounced over the concrete lip before straightening up and resuming the direction he was steering it in.
Leaning back in the seat, Cawdor blinked stinging sweat from his eyes. Even though the interior of the car was cold, he was soaked through, his shirt clinging to him like a clammy second skin.
Smashing up the car, and himself with it, wasn’t the brightest of ideas. The object of the exercise was to get home quickly and preferably in one piece. The same awful sense of suffocating panic he had experienced in Gil Gribble’s apartment took hold of him. Like choking to death in a confined, airle
ss space.
Once again, the demons of his fevered imagination were let loose.
He pictured the living room trashed, the walls and furniture covered in bloodstains. A trail of blood where his wife had dragged herself, cowering in the corner as the psycho with the mad gentle smile and empty gleaming eyes crawled towards her on hands and knees, humming a little tune under his breath.
Too late, Cawdor tried to obliterate the scene from his mind. It had sprung full-blown in all its gory horror before he had the chance to censor it. He pushed it away, twisting his head from side to side to physically shake free of it – and at once it was replaced by another, as if the sly demons of his buried subconscious had any number of such ghastly scenarios in store, lurking to ambush him.
In this one the house was on fire, and Sarah was trapped in the bedroom, her nightgown ablaze. With blistered hands she was beating frantically at the flames that were licking and writhing like orange-tipped blue tongues around her body. Then, as abruptly as a film cuts to another scene, she was lying concussed in the bathtub, her long fair hair swirling in the soapy water as she feebly tried and failed to raise herself before sliding down limply below the surface.
Cawdor shook his head violently and stared through the windshield at the circles formed by his headlights on the blacktop rushing towards him. They appeared stronger now, more sharply defined as dusk was shading; into night.
Flat open farmland was spread out on either side. Lights glowed in the clusters of homesteads dotted along the; highway. To his left, a few faint gleams were reflected on the dark placid surface of the Oak Ridge Reservoir. Franklin was less than six miles away.
He was nearly there, thank God.
Almost home.
Cawdor entered the house through the ground-level garage. A door at the rear of the garage gave on to a short passage, at the end of which was a bare, windowless room with the washing machine, dryer, and a cupboard containing household and kitchen supplies. Next to the utility-room door a flight of open-tread wooden steps led up to a small rear lobby adjoining the kitchen.
Silently, Cawdor ascended and stood listening at the head of the stairs. At first he could hear nothing above the hammer thudding in his chest and the blood pounding in his eardrums.
He stepped softly towards the wooden arch and the three steps of waxed oak leading down to the living room. The heavy brass lamp with its green fringed shade on the bureau threw a dull sheen across the parquet floor. The floor itself was spotless, not a speck of blood to be seen. As was the back of the ivory moquette couch, when it came into view. The gently smiling psycho rapist of his worst imaginings hadn’t struck; he could be thrown back into the locked lumber room of Cawdor’s murky subconscious.
The TV was on: he had been hearing it for several moments, Cawdor realised, without actually being aware of it.
She was curled up on the sofa. Wearing jeans and a loose, pale-lemon jumper with baggy sleeves, feet bare, her hair spilling over her shoulders, Sarah was completely absorbed by what was happening on the screen.
Cawdor was torn between relief and bewilderment. Not a thing was wrong. Everything was fine, perfectly normal, just as it should be. No calamity had befallen his wife, and for that he was profoundly thankful. At the same time he was baffled that his premonition of some dreadful catastrophe had turned out to be groundless. The panic churning in his guts had convinced him the danger was both real and imminent. He had nearly killed himself in a car smash to prove it.
A voice boomed out, ‘And now, please give a warm welcome to the star of our show – Messiah Wilde!’
The camera panned across a sea of faces, eyes wide and mouths hanging slack in hushed anticipation. Some were blinking back tears of rapture. A glittering staircase splashed with a swathe of stars led up to an archway of what seemed to be white granite, white smoke billowing forth. Through the smoke stepped a figure dressed in black. Tall and slim, his face lean and pale, he had long black hair that fell away from a centre parting and draped his shoulders. His eyes were dark and soulful, fringed by dark lashes. His appearance brought an instant storm of applause. One hand raised gracefully to acknowledge the reception, Messiah Wilde descended the sparkling staircase, the faintest hint of a smile on his lips.
The applause died away to total silence.
‘Lovebeams from my heart to your hearts.’ He crossed both hands over his heart and then spread his arms wide.
It came as a surprise to Cawdor that his accent was English; the voice was low, intimate and caressing, with underneath the trace of a softer lilt.
‘And I can feel your lovebeams coming right back to me.’
He smiled, basking in the warmth of their adoration.
‘Have you got it?’ he breathed softly.
‘We got it.’ The response was a breathless whisper.
‘What have you got?’
‘The Message.’
‘Didn’t hear you.’
‘The Message!’ The response grew louder.
‘Say it again.’
‘THE MESSAGE!’
‘One more time.’
‘THE MESSAGE!’
A large letter ‘M’ flashed up on the screen. The shape of the ‘M’ peeled off and attached itself to form an upsidedown version of the original.
The symbol might have represented a butterfly, or a bow tie, or perhaps two beams radiating from a lighthouse. Cawdor wasn’t sure which, but it did occur to him that the shape was similar to one he’d seen before. Very similar, in fact, if not identical, to the silver pin he’d seen Phyllis wearing.
His presence in the doorway went unnoticed by Sarah, who was watching the TV with a rapt, faraway expression, leaning forward on one elbow, chin propped in her hand, a dreamy smile on her lips. His predominant feeling, Cawdor realised, was that of an intruder into a private moment – even an intimate one – as if he had no right to be there. Like a jealous husband snooping on his wife because he suspects her of infidelity.
Unaware of his arrival, neither did Sarah register his departure.
At the bottom of the open-tread staircase next to the utility room, elbows on his knees, Cawdor sat with a cloudy look of bemusement on his face. The panic at Gil’s – rushing off with hardly a word – the mad dash in the car – dire premonitions of something truly awful happening to his wife. All that for nothing. Damn near killed himself in a car wreck for no good reason.
A faint burst of applause came from the living room. Cawdor raised his head, listening, and ran a hand through his unruly hair. He knew what he ought to be feeling. Profound relief and everlasting gratitude at finding Sarah secure at home watching TV, safe and unharmed. But any such feeling was absent, and he couldn’t figure out why.
Kersh sips his drink and stares across the penthouse apartment to the wall of sliding glass. He can’t see the city from here, the millions of lights spread out far below like a glittering carpet, but he has an uneasy feeling about it. He senses danger: old instincts die hard. He’s survived on gut feeling for 38 years. Like an animal sniffing out water, hiding from predators, gobbling down the weak and unwary, his instinct for self-preservation is the only one he trusts.
And now he has much more to lose – all this. His empire. Riches. Luxury. The woman of his dreams.
If he’s been given all this, Kersh reasons, he must also have been granted the power to keep it. To protect it. At all costs.
Rising, he freshens his drink at the bar and goes out on to the balcony. A misty crescent moon is stuck to the black sky. It reminds Kersh of a silvery sail attached to an invisible ship, the wind-filled sail puffed out and straining but unable to shift its burden by so much as an inch. In fact nothing moves. The lights below sparkle; the stars above glitter coldly; but nothing ever changes.
Time stands still.
Perfect. Just the way it should be. No movement; no change; everything stays like it is this minute. Except there is no minute, he reminds himself, starting to grin. That’s right, Frankie boy, you’ve done wit
h all that crap. ‘As time goes by’ don’t mean a thing no more, not up here. Here you stay the same for ever, never ageing a single second, because seconds have gone the way of minutes and hours – down the tubes – along with weeks, months, years. He throws back the drink in one, and the liquor burning his throat feels good. Life is good. In fact, this life is fucking great!
Leaning on the rail, Kersh grins into the abyss, and can’t help snickering at such sweet fortune.
‘What’s so funny, Frank?’
Kersh spins round.
Something is crawling across the tiles towards him. Something that might have crawled out of one of his own nightmares. A stunted torso on feelers. It drags itself nearer and squats on its rump, looking up at him – a smooth, bland, cherubic face, lidless eyes, the pale and hairless head of a radiation victim.
Is this mine? Kersh wonders, staring down at it.
‘Everything’s cool, Frank,’ Baby Sam says, scratching his belly with a claw. ‘Don’t worry about a thing. So what about that drink you promised your old pal?’
They go inside, Baby Sam lurching and slithering along behind him. He leaves a slimy brown trail on the carpet, Kersh notices. Baby Sam grips the legs of the barstool and crawls up, feeler over feeler, and perches on top. His head swivels; the lidless bloodshot eyes look round admiringly.
This is a neat setup you’ve got here, Frank. I always said you had great taste.’
Thanks.’ Kersh slides the glass towards him. Baby Sam extends a feeler and grips it in a claw. The stringy muscles are cratered with blue punctures and covered in weeping scabs and lumps of hard scar tissue. There’s barely a square centimetre that hasn’t been injected.
‘Here’s to you.’
Kersh drinks to that. He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. ‘How are things below? Any problems?’
Baby Sam grins, showing raw red gums. ‘Like I said, not a thing to worry about. Tight as a nun’s cunt. You’re sitting on top of two thousand floors, Frank. What could be safer?’