It plummeted, a dark star. The night obscured it, cushioning to a soft crumple its impact with the ground. Proffit strained to see it – then it rolled, minus its brass stand and meridian half-circle, into a wedge of moonlight between the dustbin enclosure and a decrepit bench.
The globe and Proffit were as still as each other. A flickering hope in Proffit was doused as the globe shuddered. The jabbing action was evident again, the thing inside seemingly energized in anticipation of the completion of the task it had set itself.
And something broke through. A dark sinewy growth from the seed of the globe. At the end of the growth, cilia waved, then scrabbled blindly on the broken concrete, then became still. Proffit gasped at the sight of the little hand. Suddenly, from this anchorage, the globe moved in a series of fast wide arcs.
The rent in the globe widened. The birth continued with the bulb of a head, narrow shoulders. The globe was shook wildly back and forth for several more seconds, before flying off from the body it had contained.
Bad dream: any moment now the black night would collapse on him, reduce him to nothingness until morning. Or he’d awake. The cold window ledge, the grit on it, defied his wish.
He looked down again. A creature snuffled the ground as if searching for a scent. Proffit dreaded whose. He was still – an insect in amber. Below a face rose, pinched, snub-nosed. It was looking at the sky, not for him. It grinned with satisfaction. Then the grin vanished, focus in the eyes, business to see to. Baby-like, it toddled rapidly away on all-fours into the shadows.
Proffit quietly closed the window. The creature must have been folded like linked playing cards to fit inside the globe. Diminutive, simian in the cast of its bony limbs, and those pale wedges of flesh flopping at its shoulders . . .
Proffit was alert for its reappearance. When he detected renewed movement, out in the darkness, it was at eye level.
Beyond a crumbling wall and a wide dingy plot of broken bricks and weeds was a towering black edifice, daubed with graffiti, its window apertures all brick-filled. Something moved fitfully up the black geometry of the superfluous fire escape. Such was the nimbleness of its ascent, it seemed barely in contact with the steps. Higher and higher until the top-most portion of the fire escape forced a halt. Proffit had room for a new trajectory of astonishment as the figure bobbed out from the protection of the fire escape to cling to adjacent brickwork. And then it rose again, finding adequate handholds in the interstices of the blackened and mouldering brick courses, yet seeming hardly to require them, for the rapid folding in and out of the appendages at its shoulders seemed as necessary in keeping the mite aloft. Wings, Proffit thought, why prevaricate? The narrow summit of the building had an overhang; the child-thing, as unthinkingly as an insect, fluttered out and ascended, as if assisted by a current of air, to finally stand on the small platform of flat roof.
And there, from the way its arms reached skywards, it aspired to greater heights.
The window buzzed faintly. Proffit put his ear to the glass. Cold thrilled through him, further evidence that he wasn’t in some outpost of dreamland.
Words caused the sympathetic vibration in the glass. Proffit pushed open the window the better to hear.
Instantly, he flung himself against the adjacent wall. The window crashed back into its frame. Had the thing heard? After several moments Proffit dared to look again.
Still there. The noise hadn’t distracted it. Too bad he’d let that high, rusty and oddly demanding voice, unmediated by glass, assault his ears. A summoning and an entreaty, directed at the pale tumours of the clouds, or whatever they might conceal.
Proffit returned to his flat. He didn’t sleep, unless the blackness he stared into for an eternity was that condition. Maybe he had slept, and the voice was the leavings of a dream. He wished it would stop; he wished its alien, implacable words, heard through so many thicknesses of bricks and mortar, were unintelligible to him. Ready. Ready now. Come. The waiting is over.
Morning: a threadbare light. On the coffee table were a bowl of crisp crumbs and a smeared whisky glass – but no globe.
The computer’s querulous hums voiced Proffit’s reluctance to face the day. The waiting message scotched Proffit’s hopeless hope that the globe had been nothing more than the presiding artefact of an extended dream.
Dear Mr Proffit,
Your globe does seem worthy of investigation. Of course, zephyrs are a commonplace on antique maps and globes, however the ones you describe would appear to be a rum bunch. Are you certain there’s no maker’s mark? If you would care to send a photograph by post, or via these wondrous contraptions, I will of course respond with all speed.
Sincerely,
Humphry Humphries
The provenance of the globe no longer concerned Proffit. It was out there, like a piece of damp rotting fruit; he only hoped some instinct didn’t compel the midget thing to remain near it.
He opened the curtains and the dull light provoked a token squint. With too many clouds to fit comfortably into the sky, some bulged low to blend with the city’s misty morning attire. Leached of its colour, a bus passing below seemed like a portion of the road afloat. Two successive shrieks came from the park gates, opened by the keeper.
With the city behaving like its usual self, an interpretation of the night’s events came forth. You threw out the globe, returned to bed and dreamed it out of the window again, but with a weird addendum. The letterbox rattle concurred with this, and a beige tongue poked fun at any other explanation. But the silence of the flat made his memory of the rasping voice all the more vivid. Proffit decided on a circuitous route to pay the gas bill. Walking, he could corral his thoughts, if not calm them.
Ten minutes later the clouds weren’t letting him appreciate the vast freedom of the park; they seemed as inert and solid as a plaster ceiling. A tramp shouted at them, or the chisel-marks that were birds, moving his fist in a stirring motion. Proffit headed to an outlying border of trees and a path that deposited him in narrow streets choked with traffic. Horns were territorial, like bird calls; behind windshields a limited sign-language of waved fists and jabbing fingers. Proffit couldn’t see the cause of the gridlock, or why it should provoke this particular ire. There was little to choose between parkland and city pavement; Proffit thought anywhere might feed his tension.
He ate in a cafe window. Outside a skinhead pulled at the tie of a schoolboy, and feinted with his other fist. Passers-by were better placed to intervene, and maybe one did, or said something, for the youth and the boy abruptly ran off in different directions.
Proffit left the cafe and waited with a group at a crossing.
“It’s coming,” a voice said behind him. All knees and wrist bones, the man sat against the brick division between two shops. The bowed peaked-capped head nodded lower – Yes, you. Proffit ignored him. A sad-eyed mongrel licked the black sore on the back of the man’s thin trowel of a hand. “Behind the clouds: in front of the sun.”
The green man twittered and flashed, legs scissoring. Proffit went with the crossing band, impatience at the man like heartburn.
He paid his bill in the Post Office, then looked at rustic cottages in an estate agent’s window. He moved on, and was three streets away.
“It’s coming,” said a figure set back in an alley. Darkness between the wide brimmed hat and the front complement of the long sandwich board; feet were shod in stumps of darkness. He-she may have been facing away. On the sandwich board a huge black blob, crimson gashed and blistered, dripping red onto the white below.
Proffit breathed in assertively through his nose and advanced on the figure. “What is?”
An arm rose. A match flared, illuminating a scrap of flesh between nose and chin. Smoke billowed as from a vent in a chimney. Proffit stumbled back. “Waste of space,” he muttered, though hardly that as the figure backed away, ungainly as one fellow atop another, to slot neatly into a recess in the alley.
Proffit merged himself into the flow on the paveme
nt. The egg-white sun was being bandaged in clouds. He sidestepped into the Regal.
A formulaic thriller though the violence engaged him. His fists clenched with the blows. His body tensed to dodge the gunshot. Horror cinema on the front row as a pair of teenagers consumed each other’s faces. Others flicked unidentifiable missiles at the screen.
Proffit left, but the film continued on the street. Shoppers braked on the pavement. Shots; echoes disguised their point of origin so everybody faced all ways. A siren cried. From an upstairs window over shops a woman screamed, perhaps with laughter. Proffit took refuge in the Cancer Shop.
Monica disappeared as soon as she saw him. She returned with a long black trench coat which Proffit, with more politeness than enthusiasm, put on. “Fits like a glove Mr P,” Monica said admiringly. “You look proper distinguished.” She said she’d saved it with him in mind. A bargain if you ignored the distant galaxies of impacted dandruff on the shoulders. In her Doc Martens and print frock Monica appeared to have the pick of the stock. Proffit showed one shoulder then the other to the long mirror. The silver buttons were tarnished, and the epaulettes just a little prominent on his shoulders, but yes, he did look like someone to be reckoned with. In fact, a bit of military chic might have encouraged a more studious air in his classes.
With a chilly smile, Proffit said he’d take it. He barely recalled Monica; ex-pupils were merging into composites.
“It’ll keep off the rain,” she said, keen to keep pleasing him. Bigger, greyer clouds were back, like schoolyard bullies.
“Don’t let up do they?” Proffit said.
Back in his flat, relieved to be there, Proffit saw he hadn’t logged out of his internet connection. A vague displeasure at the telephone bill left to fatten over several hours was mixed with trepidation at the new message.
Mr Proffit,
Harrowby rang some bells that prompted me to contact a long-standing colleague. I recalled him telling me of a catalogue with a mysterious supplementary list of imaginatively named places, all represented on maps and globes. The seller was one Albert Lostock, a stationer, formerly of your own fair city of Harrowby. To my friend’s knowledge none of these globes or maps has ever been documented elsewhere, nor have examples emerged from private collections. Sadly, the fire that apparently destroyed Lostock’s shop in 1937 may have robbed us of unique and fascinating items. Send pics soonest, for prompt reply.
Humphrey
Proffit rang the city library that evening. Yes, he was told. Lostock, A. Stationer. 3 Coal Row, Harrowby. Listed in Pigot’s Directory of 1936.
Proffit felt comforted. The globe was physically gone, and now given a context and history that further distanced it. With the receiver in his hand he dialled again.
She answered with a clipped “Hello.”
“How goes it?” Immediately, the phrase, a punishable offence.
“Fine.” Esther was merciful, or sounded so.
“Still chucking?” He knew she’d turned number seven Canal Terrace minimal as soon as he’d left.
“Still hoarding?” A double edge: bottles behind the bookshelves, under the stairs. Funny how drinking had started his collecting. Bottles first, before broadening his scope.
“Hoarding with a purpose,” Proffit said, suddenly inspired to add. “Thinking of opening a shop. Antiques.” Someone in Esther’s presence moved plates carefully; they weren’t antique ones, nobody was stepping into Proffit’s shoes to that extent. He wasn’t going to ask who it was.
“Good luck,” Esther said, unconvinced by Proffit’s pipedream.
“It’s coming apparently.”
“Hmm?” A lapse of concentration, then, “What is?”
“That’s what I said.” He let out a chuckle. “People on the street. Doom-sayers.” A pause Esther didn’t fill. “Actually I’m beginning to believe them.”
A sigh in his ear. “I’ll have to go now Trevor—”
“One other thing,” he began, but no words would serve to introduce that nocturnal adventure. She’d guess it were a stress dream, maybe whisky-fuelled, the zephyr a veritable bottle imp: his problem, no longer hers.
“I’m thinking of leaving the city.”
That must have surprised her; it had surprised him as much as the shop idea. “Oh,” she said, as if this would be a drastic step even allowing for what had happened between them.
“This city – it’s ‘doing my head in’ as the kids say. The aggression I mean. Complete strangers on the street look like they’d like to knife you. Have you noticed the sirens all day?”
“Cities are tough places, but crime is exaggerated by the media.” She sounded like a member of it. “People get paranoid—”
Proffit felt reduced to a trend. Her concern not sufficient to pursue the topic, Esther said she had to be going now.
A stumble of “Byes”, a withering “Take care,” from Esther.
Proffit slumped on the sofa with a glass of lager. Another glass shattered in the street. As the evening darkened, cries came at intervals too frequent to require investigation from Proffit, or anyone else within earshot; they were all too patently part of the fabric of the city. A madman shouted barely coherent orders in an increasingly hoarse voice as Proffit was preparing for bed. One great explosion, worth a few pages in tomorrow’s Messenger, made his window brace like old bones stretching. Running steps littered Proffit’s dreams, in a chaotic and interminable military deployment.
Proffit groaned, pulled the pillow over his face. He must have slept, and regretted this burdensome wakefulness. The knocking again, like an aural personification of the daylight. His presence was known with a deadly certainty, and nothing less than his presence in the flesh would be acceptable.
Proffit tugged on his clothes, and opened the door. Immediately he could tell the pair before him had nothing to sell and weren’t collecting the rent. They smiled at Proffit; apparently he didn’t know how lucky he was. Their faces were smeared with earth, or paint, or both
“It’s here; it’s now.” From a slight refinement of feature Proffit guessed the speaker to be a girl. The other nodded, wonder and something of relief in his expression, as if at some point in the past there’d been doubt on some crucial matter, but all was now resolved.
In the gloom of the corridor something about them . . . Proffit folded his arms. “What is?”
“The new world of course,” she said with a pout and flutter of lashes, as if Proffit were being deliberately obtuse.
“What ‘new world’?” He leaned against the jamb, settling in for a debate, getting a better look at them. “I think you’ll find there’s only this one,” he said, unable to prevent a sigh intermingling with the words. They wore combat jackets and jeans, all torn and stained as if they’d been on particularly taxing manoeuvres. Grimy epaulettes on his jacket; murky brass buttons down the front of hers.
“You’ve got to be ready for the fight,” the youth said, half-addressing, through a smile breaking out on his lips, his companion, “Or you’ll go under.” Barry – ‘Baz’ . . . yes. And she was . . . Ann.
Baz smirked. “And you’re a good shot, Sir.”
No, Proffit wasn’t, but this world had a mischievous god who had worked in a mysterious way to engineer an outcome that had been a shallowly buried wish. Memories pushed and shoved.
Too many shorts at someone’s lunchtime leaving do in the pub behind the school. Proffit staggering into the classroom like he’d been bayoneted. Class 3C primed and waiting. Today the Great War, the war to end all wars. Baz burbling away on the back row. A tectonic plate had shifted. Elemental anger. The chalk missile, aimed and not aimed, finding the blue between piggy sporadic lashes. Proffit walking before the governors could push him.
It was a history he wasn’t going to allude to for their entertainment.
“Who are we fighting?” Proffit was readying himself for scorn.
“The enemy,” she said, “And they’re everywhere.” Proffit noted with distaste, black deposits at
the corners of her eyes. Soap and water wouldn’t come amiss, young miss. Had they rolled out of bed only minutes before he had? Puffy faces, pinkly imprinted beneath the dirt, as if they’d slept with their heads on pillows stuffed with cutlery. Proffit felt unnerved as the youth fingered a Swiss army knife hanging from his belt. Finding words to conclude the encounter was suddenly beyond him. Then he thought of one.
Slam was the door’s loud monosyllable, into their unwashed and increasingly crazed faces. What had Baz been about to extract from an inner pocket? Both their jackets had been bulky enough to contain arsenals. Proffit was glad of the closed door as a wild violence flew in the cage of him. Young people today, the tabloid leader writer trumpeted in his head. Perhaps their enthusiasm for battle would be enacted on the doorsteps of less restrained citizens.
Proffit switched on the computer. It was no surprise, the message waiting for him.
Mr Proffit,
This has come to my attention. Please see attachment for snippet from ADVENTURES IN THE BOOK TRADE by Arnold Durstin (Northern Lines, 1956).
Proffit clicked on the icon.
Albert was a character. His shop was tiny, the catalogue in his head enormous. No kind of businessman, he made a living, though his manner hardly encouraged regular customers. He rather despised humanity en masse. He often opined the world was heading for rack and ruin. In fact he seemed to relish the sorry end he predicted for civilization. He collected, and I fear read, books of a “specialist” nature bearing on the occult. Over a few too many gins one evening he told me of his strange and vivid dreams. He spoke of “flying” over these bizarre and terrible realms. Albert would record them in his notebook on waking. He said that making maps, and latterly globes, of these places was the only means he had of purging them from his head—
Proffit had been aware of the barking for several moments before it became intolerable. He went to the window.
Baz and Ann were with an old man who was walking head down. The old man’s dog strained at the end of its lead and yammered at the couple. She was talking as Baz swished at the grass with a long stick.
The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror 19 Page 59