by Kane, Paul
But soon he would wake up to find that The Heart and The Maze had gone – for the time being. Replaced by another world.
A world full of wonders.
Where anything, absolutely anything, was possible.
Blackout
When Kelly awoke everything was black.
To start with she thought perhaps she was in bed and it was the middle of the night. But everything was so, so dark. Not even the streetlights outside were shining.
And she was alone.
It wasn’t until she raised herself up and something heavy dropped from her lap that she realised where she was. Where she had been before she’d fallen asleep. Reading on the sofa, curled up enjoying her book.
Damn, I must be getting old, she thought, nodding off without warning just like Mum used to do. Or maybe it had something to do with the fact that she’d been up since six, dutifully seeing Jeff off at the station.
In any event it was a shock to wake up and find such a stifling gloom bearing down on her. She couldn’t see her hand in front of her face, let alone any of the familiar, comforting objects in her living room.
Kelly never had liked the dark. As a child she’d pleaded with her parents to leave the table lamp on for her at night, and they had done so for a time. But as she got older they said it was a waste of electricity. Kelly was a big girl, and big girls weren’t afraid of the dark. It couldn’t hurt her. It wasn’t alive or anything. And the daytime Kelly agreed with them, there was nothing to be frightened of.
It was the night-time Kelly who was the problem – whispering lies in her ear, forcing her to see things that weren’t there.
Oh, but it is alive! And so are the things that lurk within.
Was there any wonder she’d wet the bed until she was almost in her teens? The fears didn’t go away just because you were older. The blackness didn’t go away – ever.
Of course Kelly hadn’t thought about any of this for ages. Her nights were no longer sleepless ones. No more tossing and turning. For one thing she’d been married six years and with her husband beside her at night she was perfectly safe. Her childish fallacies had finally been laid to rest.
But waking up here and now had stirred some of those dormant memories.
Kelly’s sofa was next to the window, so she only had to look over the top to see outside. Everything was in shadow. The other bungalows; the streets branching off from her close; the town in the distance. Total blackout. It was as though someone had covered the entire area with a blanket.
Or a shroud.
Trust Jeff to be away when she needed him most. He’d probably be enjoying himself in the hotel bar right about now – she knew what these so-called conferences were like. While she was here, on her own. In the dark. Kelly leaned in closer. No, not a light to be seen. Not—
There was something moving at the window.
Startled, Kelly pulled back. She could only see a vague outline, but that was enough. She inched forwards again. Was there someone outside? A face at the window?
It moved again. Sweet Jesus, it was behind her! Something with protruding eyes and a wide, gaping mouth. Kelly lost her balance and fell backwards. She landed awkwardly, the hardback novel jabbing into her spine.
Cursing, she flung it away into oblivion. Get a grip on yourself. It was just your reflection, that’s all. But that doubting little voice was talking to her again, reminding her that reflections don’t move of their own accord.
Saying that something was coming for her.
Kelly started to rise, slowly, carefully. Dammit, this was all her own fault. She should have taken up her sister’s offer. Gone to stay with her for the weekend. But it would have been like admitting she couldn’t cope. Fran would just love that. She’d been bad enough to live with when they were little. Kelly wasn’t about to give her the satisfaction. Although by this stage even Fran’s company was starting to look pretty appealing.
What to do now? A light! She should go and get a light.
As she staggered around the living room, trying to work out in which direction the door lay, an unwelcome thought crossed her mind. Why had no one else in her neighbourhood done the same? When Kelly had looked out of the window she’d seen none of the usual flickering of candles. No erratic torch beams flashing. What did this tell her? That the electricity had only just gone off. Or maybe, just maybe, something had happened to those people before they could—
She was doing it again. Scaring herself silly for no reason. It was all in her imagination. Now she’d get to the kitchen, find the torch, and shed some light on the situation.
Kelly followed the wall around, fingertips tentatively reaching out, half expecting to touch something nasty and slimy despite what she’d just told herself. Before she had too long to dwell on this, she came upon the open door and sighed with relief. She was no longer trapped in that room, in a confined space. Here was the hallway, and further up, the kitchen.
Still Kelly hesitated before stepping out into what felt like a dank, empty cavern, or some kind of disused railway tunnel with no beginning and no end. Perhaps it wanted her to come out. That might be part of its plan.
Stupid! Stupid!
Kelly dug her nails into the palms of her hands, the pain taking her mind off things for a blessed moment. She pressed on regardless, dragged into limbo. Kelly couldn’t see the floor, so was it still there? For all she knew she could be falling into a pit and at the very bottom, waiting for her, would be—
Something brushed her arm as she moved through the hall. Kelly rounded on it and heard a crash as an assortment of objects fell to the floor. The plastic clatter of a telephone, coins jangling in a collection box, the tinkling as a photograph frame shattered. She’d bumped into the hall table.
Calm down. Have to calm down. Kelly’s heart was fluttering and she felt sick. What the hell was wrong with her? She was falling apart, and all because of a tiny power cut. Kelly bent down and groped around for the phone. The line was dead. But whether it was due to the fall or not, she had no way of knowing.
Steeling herself, she carried on down the hallway. Her bedroom would be on the right coming up any second, with the spare room directly opposite. Ignoring these, Kelly made for the open space of the kitchen. She lost her grip on the wall for a second and found herself wading in a sea of nothingness.
She collided with the edge of a work-surface and stepped back, only to bang her head on the extractor fan. But this was a good thing. Now she could work out where the overhead cupboard was in relation to the oven. Inside there was the torch, a really powerful one Jeff had been given for joining that motor rescue service. In addition to an ordinary beam there was also a fluorescent strip down the side, which had the capacity to illuminate an entire room.
Smiling, Kelly opened the cupboard door. Everything would be all right once she had the torch in her hands. She could chase away her demons in no time. Standing on her toes, Kelly searched around inside. The torch wasn’t where it was supposed to be. No, this isn’t happening, we always keep it in here!
Wait. Now she remembered. Not two weeks ago Jeff had used it to poke about up in the loft, clearing some space for his old junk. But what had he done with it? Bloody hell, she was forever telling him to put things back when he’d finished with them.
Access to the loft was through the spare room, so she’d try in there first. Knowing Jeff he’d probably left it on the sideboard or something. But not up in the loft, please not up there! She heard laughing. It knew she would have to double back, and it was mocking her. Watching, safe in the knowledge that she could see nothing. It had come when she was at her most vulnerable, just like when she was a kid.
But she’d show it! Kelly could beat this thing yet. Wasn’t far to the spare room, a few short metres. She could run if she had to.
Kelly turned and started to move forwards. Again it was hard to tell where she was going. She prayed that her internal radar would guide her, take her safely to her destination.
She h
ad only managed a few steps when she heard the noise. A rough scratching – like that of sharpened claws – echoing all around. The laughing grew louder. Kelly made a dash for the spare room. This wasn’t her imagination, this was real. There was something in here with her, fuelled by the energy of the night; the thing from her youth that would not leave her alone. Images returned to plague her. It had waited so long for the chance to savour her spirit. So long. Now that opportunity had arisen.
Kelly began to panic and took short, sharp breaths. Without realising, she plunged headlong into sorrow’s arms. It grabbed her by the shoulders. She felt hands there, clutching. Strong hands. The blackness given form. Kelly twirled out of its grasp, swinging her fists round until they struck something. Tumbling, she caught a glimpse of its contours. The monster groaned. Kelly heard the flapping of wings, could picture those appendages which grew out of the black.
You’re dreaming. Can’t you see that it’s all a dream, you’re still on the couch in the living room and none of this is happening? None of this is real, Kelly!
But dream or no dream, she couldn’t just wait for this thing to attack again. On the floor she crawled backwards to avoid its talons.
‘Kelly,’ it whispered, coming closer, closer.
She put her hand out, feeling for something she could use as a weapon. Kelly’s fingers came across a shard of glass from the ruined picture frame. Quickly, she grabbed the makeshift dagger and brought it up with all of her might. A warm wetness jetted across her face and she realised her aim had been true. The shape gurgled, then seemed to be absorbed by its dense surroundings.
She’d done it. The monstrosity was defeated. She felt stronger than she’d ever felt in her life.
That was when the lights came back on, and Kelly slipped even further into madness.
The scene was unreal, still part of her nightmare. On the floor was Jeff’s prone body, his raincoat flowing behind, a bloody pool welling beneath his chin where the glass jutted out. Behind him was the open front door, his key still in the lock, scratch marks around the wood. She could imagine what he’d been trying to say: ‘Kelly, guess what? The conference was rubbish so I thought I’d surprise you. I know how much you hate being on your own at night.’
To her left was the discarded book she’d been flipping through when she dropped to sleep. One of those pulpy horror stories Jeff warned her about reading because they always made her so jumpy. Next to it was the broken picture frame. Her wedding photograph.
Kelly sat there on the floor, rocking back and forth. She wept, but they were more than just tears for Jeff. She cried for herself, because she knew that after all these years the darkness, the shadows, had finally won. She’d never sleep with her husband beside her again. Never be safe again.
As if to underline this fact Kelly heard the laughing again, inside her head.
And it wasn’t long before she too began to black out.
The Cyclops
The Cyclops had been with him all of his life. As far back as he could remember.
When had it first latched onto him? In the womb? He used to imagine it somehow burrowing into his mother as she slept, gaining access to her maturing son inside. Or afterwards, lying in his cot, peacefully dreaming away the days – his only thoughts random nonsense and a desire to feed, to suckle? A parasite, draining his mother of milk. A parasite, just like the Cyclops.
No, not like that thing. His mother had loved him and cared for him willingly. The Cyclops commanded him, took him over. There was no interdependence. No symbiosis. The Cyclops was his master. It had been ever since it melded with him (whenever that occurred), nestling its way inside him, curled up next to his skin. A vile stinking abomination with no thought for anything but its own desires, its own pleasure.
So what was it, this Cyclops? He was damned if he knew. He only saw its head – if you could call it that – every now and again when he could bring himself to look at it. The main section was buried deep within him; it fluttered sometimes just to let him know it was there. But the bit you could see was slimy, revolting. Its one shiny black eye stared out malevolently, searching – hence the nickname he’d given it.
As far as he could tell, it was invisible to everyone else. Only he could see it, or feel it. Certainly his mother had never noticed it during his formative years, but then it had remained physically dormant for much of that time – a side-effect of the joining, he supposed. He kept it covered under his clothes mostly anyway. Up to the age of ten or so, it prepared itself: it was sustained by his bodily fluids, expelled its own waste, appropriated his nerve-endings and spent long hours working on his mind. At first only probing, then squeezing harder and harder. Establishing the link that would ensure its dominance. He’d tried to resist it, but the pain it inflicted taught him to comply. The Cyclops never spoke to him directly. It was too strange, too different. For all he knew it didn’t even have a language of its own. But it was smart, and in time he began to understand it a little too well. Its thoughts, its edicts.
Its cravings.
It also grew stronger and began to move around, as it liked to do so frequently these days. Early adolescence was a bizarre time for him. He’d never fitted in at school because he was never allowed a free hand to interact with the other children. The Cyclops was always there, listening, telling him what to do. If he came across as an idiot, it was hardly his fault. He would’ve loved to have joined in with their games, been a member of their gangs. It just wasn’t to be. He couldn’t trust himself. He couldn’t trust the Cyclops. Was there any wonder he bunked off so often? The Cyclops didn’t care. It preferred to be alone with him anyway. To work on him further. His mother blamed herself, for isolating him from his father, for shunning the man – shunning all men come to that. She’d tried to do her best by the boy: to be both a mum and a dad. But it was clear he needed some kind of male role model. A patriarch if you like.
Enter Uncle Bob. A nice bloke, always smiling and joking, his mother had met him through a friend of a friend. Uncle Bob used to come round every weekend, with flowers for his mother and crisps and sweets for him. He liked Uncle Bob; Uncle Bob made them both laugh. But for some reason the Cyclops hated him. Loathed the very thought of him, let alone his presence. Perhaps it felt threatened, was afraid this man would somehow see it. Somehow discover the Cyclops. He attempted to reason with it, to settle it down. To mollify it. All to no avail. The Cyclops wanted Uncle Bob out, so out he had to go.
That was when he learnt just how powerful the wretch had become. How much control it could exert over him and his actions. It made him…do things, awful things to Uncle Bob. Spit at him, throw punches. Shout, scream and swear. It drove a deliberate wedge between his mother and her admirer. Astonishingly, Uncle Bob stuck it out for quite a while, possibly in the hope that it might be a phase: the infamous troubled teenager syndrome. But no relationship was worth this. He hadn’t bargained on a problem child as part of the deal. A ready-made family, yes, he could cope with that; after all it wouldn’t be more than a few years before the kid was grown up. But the spawn of Satan attacking him as soon as he set foot over the threshold? Forget it, he could live without them.
His mother cried the day she and Uncle Bob split up. He’d felt terrible, riddled with shame. He wanted to go to her and tell her that it wasn’t him. He’d liked Uncle Bob. It was the Cyclops. Instead he simply listened to her through the bedroom door, sobbing her heart out. If he could have sworn revenge against the Cyclops without it knowing, he would have done so right that minute. But he said nothing, did nothing. And his mother died a broken and lonely woman some ten years later.
Everything changed after Uncle Bob departed. It knew it had total dominion over him now. Could get him to do whatever it wanted – and so it began to plan its first strike.
Nothing too daring to start with. A simple operation, just something to oil the wheels. To set them in motion. He journeyed out one night, alone, lying to his mother about where he was going. To placate the Cycl
ops. Stealthily he crept through the streets, shaking with fear, but driven on by his mandate. He had no choice but to obey. Further and further he went, away from the city, out into the suburbs. Into the quiet, secluded cul-de-sacs. Until he found what he was looking for at the back of a row of bungalows.
A rectangle of light floating over one of the gardens, virtually the only luminescence there. He came closer to the source, a bathroom window; the curtains wide. Why bother closing them, when the bungalow backed on to woodland and fields? From a discreet distance, he watched. And, through him, the Cyclops watched too, as the woman entered, mid-thirties with dark hair tied back. Slowly, she shed her clothes: jumper, jeans, shoes and socks. She stood there in her underwear, the whiteness stark against tan skin. Climbing out of these quickly, she hopped into the shower.
He crept closer still. He didn’t want to see, but the Cyclops did – properly. So he released it. The shower spray bounced off the woman’s body, some beads clinging to her, others dripping down to collect in the bath-tub below. He gaped at the way she massaged herself with shower gel. The way it made her glisten, slick and lustrous. She closed her eyes, lost in a world of her own, pulling the band out of her hair so that it fell in damp tangles over her shoulders.
It urged him even closer. It had to see. To see more. He tried to fight it, oh Lord how he tried. But the Cyclops, as always, was stronger. He knew what it wanted.
He pressed up to the glass. So close now he could reach out and touch her were it not for the transparent barrier between them. The Cyclops needed to—
She opened her eyes. Saw the figure at her window.
And screamed.
The Cyclops ‘told’ him to run. He could not be caught this soon. So he ran, faster than the wind, hopping over fences, tripping over flagstones. But he made it away from that estate safely, telling himself she’d only caught a glimpse…not enough to identify him even if he lived in the area. Just an indistinct outline, a reflection at her bathroom window. All his fear of the night was gone now, replaced by the dread of being seen. Of being apprehended doing what the Cyclops had ordained.