The New Death and others

by James Hutchings

  I'm sorry for your loss and all Mrs. Westman, but the only people I can see you sacrificing yourself for are the shareholders of Phillip Morris. Were you misquoted maybe? Did you say 'Mexicans' instead of 'I'?

  On the other hand, maybe she did say it. It's easy to say you'd die to bring someone else back to life. Who's going to hold you to it?

  Poor kid. Put it this way, Todd wasn't burdened by the crushing weight of everyone's high expectations. His Dad had a hard time in the war. He spent a bit of time in 'hospital', then got released into the custody of the liquor store. His Mom got bitter, which is fair enough. But she got bitter at the wrong people. Todd used to come out with that stuff about lining them up against the wall. But everyone could tell he was just repeating what his Mom had said, so it was 'poor kid' and not 'creepy little freak'. Thinking about it now, the jails are probably full of guys who beat someone to death because of what their parents told them, so I don't know how smart it was to ignore him. Maybe it was because we didn't have any Klan or skinheads for Todd to join. There wasn't any internet in those days.

  One big city feature we had was a world-class system of storm-water drains. We weren't supposed to go down there. Rain could come without warning, and you'd be drowned. It totally happened to a kid who used to go to our school. Just like a kid at our school had sex with the art teacher after the prom, and a kid got caught pulling himself in the bathroom. Maybe it was all the same kid. A kid who went to every school, leaving each time he had sex with the art teacher and got caught pulling himself in the bathroom thinking about it, finally drowning himself in despair after running out of schools. A tragic hero of our times.

  At the time we did believe in this drowned kid. But we went down there anyway, to explore, and smoke, and talk about the things that being in a tunnel under the ground made boys think of in those days. A lot of the time that was either nuclear war or Dungeons & Dragons (for those of you under about thirty-five, Dungeons & Dragons is like World of Warcraft played with pen and paper and dice instead of a computer). We talked about girls too, but that wasn't because of the storm water drains. We talked about girls everywhere, and I don't think anything we said was true.

  Todd really took to the drains. He did something no one else did, which is go down by himself. With all his friends, as I said at the time. And if you're thinking I sound like an obnoxious little shit...well, I got worse when I went to college. Anyway, like the Phantom of the Opera without an opera, like a troll in one of our games of Dungeons & Dragons, Todd went down there all the time. I don't think I could have gone in by myself. Not that anyone said he was brave. It just proved he was a freak.

  Anyway it was in the summer, and I was riding around on my bike, doing nothing in particular, when I saw Todd making his way into the drains. Through an opening under a bridge, appropriately enough. He had his back to me, and I locked up my bike and followed him. Why? I was worried he might get stuck and drown. I heard he had a little house down there and I wanted to see it. Both those things were in my head at the time. But you do a lot of pointless things at that age. After you work out that you want to talk to girls, but before you work out how, you're just filling in time. Maybe I wanted to track a troll to his lair.

  The walls of the tunnel were covered in slime and filth, like the inside of a smoker's lungs. Todd had a torch, so I could follow him pretty easily. I tried to tiptoe. I probably didn't do a very good job, but it's surprisingly noisy down there: rushing water, and the echoes of traffic. Though the traffic doesn't sound like traffic. It gets bounced around and changed until it's more like a low roar, or like breathing. After a while you don't notice it, and when you come out again the quiet hits you.

  I followed him to a place where the tunnel widened into a room. Some light came from the world above. I stayed in the dark and watched him. He really did have a little house. Or at least he'd found or brought an inflatable mattress and a blanket, a thick scratchy one like the blankets you get in jail, and he had a little box next to it. A clubhouse for one kid. On the box he had a stack of magazines. Without seeing the covers, I knew they were pornography. Precious finds in the days before the internet. The combination of glossy paper and sperm is the smell of boyhood for men my age. You used to find them hidden in bushes. I guess kids stole them from the shops and then were too scared to take them home. Sometimes they'd be damaged by rain or fire (masturbation and setting fire to things: the two great impulses of boyhood), the paper as brittle as an old man's skin. Meanwhile, as I found out years later, girls were reading 'romance novels' in the comfort of their bedrooms. Men, have you ever read those things? Damn. Anyway Todd had quite a hoard.

  What was he going to do? I hoped he wasn't going to pull himself.

  He knelt down, but not on the mattress, on the concrete. He faced away from me. He knelt on all fours, and started to sing. Or at first I thought he was singing. It was like singing, but also like talking. There were words that were repeated, but I couldn't make out what they were. This went on for- well, it seemed like at least half an hour, but it was probably only a few minutes. Then someone talked back.

  It was a man's voice, not a boy's. The voice was familiar, and I couldn't think where I'd heard it. I worked it out a week or so later, lying awake at night. It was Todd's, but different. Deeper. More confident. Better. It was a beautiful voice, an actor's voice. And the few words I could hear sounded like a play. Like Shakespeare. Like Shakespeare was supposed to sound, rather than the sound I knew, of kids in class taking turns to read lines they don't understand. Todd nodded several times, said 'yeah' or 'yes' or something. The nodding and the eagerness to please reminded me of a dog wagging its tail. The voice replied, urgently. I couldn't hear the words, but then Todd spoke, very loudly and clearly, but awkwardly, like he was repeating words that he didn't fully understand.

  "This. I pledge. To thee."

  In those days there wasn't as much talk about pedophiles as there is today. We were told not to talk to strangers, but the implication was that they wanted us for murder rather than for sex. So I didn't come to the conclusion you might have come to, if you saw an outcast kid in a secret place on his hands and knees, and heard the voice of an older man telling him what to do. But I knew whatever was happening was wrong. I felt like I'd been punched in the stomach. I would have run, but I was scared the man would hear my footsteps. I just assumed he'd catch me if he wanted to. Then Todd spoke again.

  "Kimberly Williams."

  "Kimberly Williams," the man replied.

  Then the man was gone. I don't mean he stopped talking (although that too), or that I heard him walking away (I didn't). Even though I couldn't see him, I was sure that he was no longer there. My stomach relaxed a little. I was even able to sneak away, although I dearly wanted to run.

  ---

  A few of you might be wondering where you've heard the name Kimberly Williams. Or maybe you're wondering whether it's the same Kimberly Williams. It is. So now you can find out where I'm from. Not that that means so much these days when everyone's details are a google search away and every pen-name is on Wikipedia.

  Kimberly Williams, for those that don't know, disappeared. Just after I followed Todd. They found her body a few months later. The news didn't say what had been done to her. But it was clear that something had been done, beyond the obvious thing of turning her into a corpse in the first place.

  You might also be wondering why I didn't tell my parents. Part of it was that I was scared of getting into trouble for going into the drains. That's a pretty poor reason. Especially because I had the excuse of being worried about Todd's safety, and even without that I probably wouldn't have even been grounded. But when you're young you don't think rationally about getting into trouble. At least I didn't. Perhaps I was selfish, and just plain didn't care about what happened to Todd. I wasn't worried that I might not be believed. That didn't even occur to me. I think the main reason was that I was scared of the man.

  OK, listen. At that time I didn't know Kimbe
rly was dead. My parents said she could easily turn up. I realize now that they were trying to comfort us, but at the time I believed it. A lot of kids said she might have run away. One kid said maybe she had an older boyfriend. Kimberly was one of the best-looking girls in our year. Almost all the boys had a thing for her, from the popular and confident boys who might have had a chance, down to someone like Todd. I guess I thought she'd run away, and what Todd was doing was wrong but not, you know. Not wrong like "Todd's got a new older friend, and they were hiding in the drains talking about the girl that was murdered a few days later" wrong.

  I didn't tell anyone, but I did spend a lot more time near that storm-water drain, watching it from the bridge above. My parents didn't notice because I always used to go out riding my bike. I used to look up the addresses of girls I liked in the phone book. Then I'd find the house on the map and ride past there. I'm not sure what I hoped would happen. If they'd been standing in their front yards I would have panicked. In fact, before she disappeared, Kimberly was one of the girls I courted in this way. The reader will be astonished to learn that I was unsuccessful.

  After a few days Todd did arrive. As before, I locked up my bike and followed him. Again he went to his little den, and again he got down on the concrete and called out to whatever was there.

  The voice answered, and for a while they spoke back and forth, too low for me to hear. Then Todd called out

  "No!"

  The voice didn't change one bit. It just kept talking, low and firm and in control. I think it was repeating itself, 'thou hast' done something I couldn't hear. Todd started with that whining voice that kids use when they want to get something. Then he started crying. He was sobbing, huge gulps like he'd nearly been drowned. His words ran together, then he wasn't using words at all. I'd never seen anyone like this. Maybe this is how Kimberly's parents were when they saw her corpse.

  I saw that Todd had wet himself. He whimpered like a dog. We used to joke about how he was like an ape. This, the reality of a human being reduced to an animal--it was like laughing at how skinny an actress is, saying 'she's like a skeleton', then being transported to the mass graves of Auschwitz.

  Then the voice spoke louder, with the tone of a parent who is sick of repeating themselves.

  "A soul and its flesh hath been delivered unto you. Now thou must deliver a soul and its flesh unto me. Thy sister Rebecca, or thy mother Alice."

  "Me!" Todd said at once. "Me! Todd Westman! This I pedge to thee!" He got 'pledge' wrong, but at once his voice was clear and strong.

  I made myself take a step forward, then another. Then I ran. I grabbed Todd's arm, and we ran out of there.

  ---

  The next part of the story is easily found in the newspaper archives. As I said before, Kimberly was found months later. Todd disappeared soon after that. When we got out of the drain he broke away from me and ran, all the way out of the world. He too was found, in a similar state, a few months after Kimberly. Because they didn't know each other and weren't related, most authorities assume that they were victims of a killer who chose his victims from within the area but who had no personal connection to them. Of course the authorities don't know what I know.

  You, dear reader, might think that Todd wasn't as harmless as everyone thought. You might think of all those guys that, afterwards, everyone says 'he seemed so quiet, kept to himself'. You might think he killed Kimberly, and then later he killed himself out of shame.

  Maybe the voice sounded like Todd because it was Todd. Like the Phantom of the Opera, perhaps he became eloquent down in the darkness. Maybe all the getting on all fours and nodding was playing with 'magic', pretending or trying to cast spells as kids do (or did. I remember writing a girl's name on my arm with biro and putting a Band-Aid on it. It works as well as riding past their house). Then someone else killed Kimberly, and Todd thought he'd done it, same ending as before. The mutilation of Todd's body might have been predators or weather.

  You are wrong, through no fault of your own. You didn't see what I saw, as I tried to take Todd to safety. The owner of the voice. The long, vulpine face, with an expression as proud and arrogant as its voice. But not a man. Not even a shape like a man. It sort of...smirked at me. Leered at me. But these words describe things that people do. It didn't try to stop me. I guess it didn't see a need to.

  I can't read anything about the New Age or astrology or Chariots of the Gods nowadays. Not because I believe them. It's the opposite. They make me sick with their naivety. Guardian angels and wise aliens looking out for us. Something's looking all right. It waits in the dark place under the earth. Maybe you have to be an outcast. Maybe you have to have no hope. But maybe it has temptations for all. Perhaps that was what the thing's expression meant: 'you too'.

  Todd wasn't the weird but harmless kid. He was...I don't know what he was first, a murderer or a rapist or an accomplice to something foul. He was that, and then he sacrificed himself to save his mother and his sister. And nobody knows but me, and now you. But I doubt you believe me.

  (back to contents)

  ++++

  Diamanda and the Isle of Wives

  Upon a cushioned, gilded throne

  a scowling idol carved from stone

  attended to by servile priests

  whose veneration never ceased

  sat scowling in a sumptuous hall

  adored by few but feared by all.

  This god displayed his awesome might

  through never-sated appetite.

  No carving made could please his eye

  nor could his bowl be piled too high.

  His thirst could not be satisfied

  still less his lust for winsome brides.

  Colossal and castrated guards

  prowled softly through the halls and yards.

  They burned with rage and shook with fright

  to think that men could come at night

  and rouse the idol's wives to flee

  or tempt them from their chastity.

  In every palace wall and floor

  the priests had built a hidden door

  all leading to a lightless room

  as bare and barren as a tomb

  and those they sentenced went inside.

  They pleaded in the dark, and died.

  The priests believed it right and good

  that those as yet unpunished should

  hear every wretched, vain lament

  so life within the palace went

  attended by a wailing host

  of hopeless and tormented ghosts.

  ---

  A merchant's son who wore a robe

  soaked in the scent of mint and clove

  and hung more jewels around his throat

  than barnacles beneath a boat

  observed a woman walking by

  and found her pleasing to the eye.

  He felt despair, for well he knew

  that soon some priest would see her too

  and take her to the idol's home

  to wed her to the silent stone.

  He asked his friends and learned her name.

  To Diamanda's house he came.

  "All other beauty is to me

  as brackish water from the sea

  that has one task and one alone:

  to show the sweetness of your own."

  This tender praise the clever youth

  gave in a tone of artless truth.

  He courted her for many days

  until at last he dared to say

  "Come with me on the morning tide

  or wait to be an idol's bride."

  They met next morning on the beach

  and swore their love with lofty speech.

  They sailed a craft of fragrant wood

  towards an exiled adulthood

  and settled on another isle

  where life was tranquil for a while

  until the merchant's son grew loath

  to keep the spirit of his oath.

  He
set his mind to thinking how

  to get his way yet keep his vow

  to have no other wife save she

  and therefore all he laid with he

  named mistresses and sweethearts or

  mere concubines and paramours.

  Despite his eloquent defence

  and mask of wide-eyed innocence

  she looked upon his face no more

  and with a heart made sick and sore

  she drifted on the sky-blue sea

  until she came to Telelee.

  ---

  She entered an apprenticeship

  and drove with barbed and stinging whip

  the elephants who carried wood

  and did the patient beasts no good

  but lashed them as she rode astride

  so streams of red stained every hide.

  She made the placid servants bear

  a punishment not rightly theirs

  and thrashed them till their blood was wrung

  for looking like the merchant's son

  him being wont to stand and doze

  and large and slow and long of nose.

  In Telelee there stood a square

  and each day merchants haggled there

  but in the night the market closed

  and then she came wrapped up in woes

  pretending that she walked instead

  through ruined cities, lost and dead.

  And in the empty square she wailed

  of loneliness and Man's betrayal.

  The idol and the merchant's son