By this time dusk had fallen with the usual tropic suddenness, though it was not noticeably cooler. He lifted his eyepatch away from his face in the hope that the tiny breeze would ease the discomfort, but without success, and he sighed.
The lighted shops and doorways took on the distance that lamplight imbues them with to an outside observer, that warm and welcoming glow that at the same time excludes the life within from those without.
Not a part of the crowd, but now further distanced from it, he attempted to filter out the living and concentrate on the dead. Of whom there were, in fact, more. As Harris had noted, and Da Silva knew well, life was cheap here. The pattern of the ghosts that drifted amongst the press of humanity bore that out, for mostly they were the shades of victims. Women and children, the weak and the sick, beggars and prostitutes, the robbed and the beaten and the raped. A crowd of miserable souls. Literally.
But nothing lupine ran among the shades, and there was no threat hanging in the air save the echo of Mohan Das’s voice.
I think it will find you, senhor capitão.
Yet his hackles had risen, and it was not, this time, with the sense that he was being watched. It was the unshakeable feeling that, between one heartbeat and the next, something was loose in the night.
* * * *
The grey wolf lay on the dirt floor, panting in the aftermath of almost unendurable pain. But now he lived in the moment, and the memory of agony did not remain in his mind. He heaved himself to his feet, feeling renewed strength flowing through his body. Power far greater than his feeble human form, and a fierce joy at the prospect of the hunt.
This time there was in his nostrils the smell of one particular human being. Not a tiny child this time, and therefore a little less tempting. He shook his head, puzzled. Why should he scent this one, when he knew that there were far richer pickings in the shacks and hovels where he had preyed before?
Keeping to the shadows - not a difficult task - he crept swiftly on the trail, an imperative that tugged at him with strange urgency. He could taste his quarry, and it knew nothing of his pursuit, which was the first thrill of the hunt. When it sensed him and knew the first small stirrings of fear, that was the second joy of the hunt. And the third was the kill, the taste of its terror that sweetened the meat. Yet there was that about this prey which seemed to promise more than soft small children. Some spice, some savour. Something he did not understand.
Impelled by this odd compulsion as much as by the need to feed, he padded along a path he discerned as easily as a man would a broad road; and if anyone sensed his passage it caused them no more than a momentary unease.
* * * *
Zé, his senses completely overloaded, was immersed in a microcosm of India’s vastness, drinking in sights and sounds and smells the like of which he had never imagined. He had just eaten some pastries, stuffed with mind-blowingly-hot spiced vegetables, that he’d bought from a hawker, and was now sucking in breaths of air in an attempt to cool his mouth. He paused to watch a snake-charmer, a lithe brown boy of about his own age who was playing his pipe to the swaying hooded head of an enormous cobra. The spectacle markings stood out clearly on the reptile’s back, and Zé watched its motion, as fascinated by the snake as the cobra itself was by the music.
Close by, another boy was trying to interest passers-by in a somnolent python that was looped hugely round his shoulders. He had hold of it just behind the head, and was lunging at people with it, a manic grin on his face, laughing uproariously if they flinched back and capering ponderously under the snake’s weight.
This scene was lit by a sputtering fire that cast shadows at strange angles when the flames spurted and sparked, and Zé abruptly realized, with a start of guilt and alarm, how dark it had grown. Oh! he was going to be in hot water. He stared round the crowd in sudden apprehension at the inevitability of punishment. Seeing a gap in the direction in which he thought the waterfront lay, he headed for it purposefully, nimbly dodging the boy with the python.
Ten minutes later he halted, panting heavily, a stitch stinging his side, thoroughly and comprehensively lost.
And then, behind him, in the darkness, something growled.
* * * *
Da Silva’s scalp prickled. What is this, another new sense? he wondered sourly. He considered unsheathing his long knife, but decided against it. It would be too conspicuous. Instead he fingered the revolver in his pocket, and wondered briefly about silver bullets. Well, I’ll just have to rely on virtue, won’t I? he thought, with a mirthless grin that made him look more than a little wolfish himself.
It was not just a tingle of unease. All his nerve endings felt raw and exposed. And his whole back was as taut as rigging in a high wind. Sweat trickled into his eye and he flicked it away automatically with a finger, scanning the crowd of living and dead with every sense he could muster. Sight was less important in the gathering dusk than his awareness of ghosts and this new sensitivity to . . . something evil in the night.
Rounding a corner, he found himself abruptly in another world altogether, and cursed at the realization. He had stepped out of the populous town into its noisome underbelly, stinking mud underfoot, noxious drifts of garbage to either side, uncertainly lit by fires here and there. The stench made him gag.
Da Silva took out his revolver and cocked it, holding it in his right hand. He was left-handed, but finding a target was easier this way round since he had lost his left eye. Besides, it kept his other hand free should he want to draw his knife. And that, he thought, turning his head to look at his surroundings, was a distinct possibility. At times like these it was a distinct disadvantage to have no sight at all on one side. Sweat crawled in his hair and ran down his sides. He felt his heart pounding. In fact, he could hear his heart pounding, and damned loud it sounded, too. Raising the gun, he stepped cautiously forward.
* * * *
The scent of the quarry was very strong now, so powerful that it quite overwhelmed everything else. Saliva surged into his mouth in anticipation, and he loped along, tasting the prey’s fear, feeling no need to hide in shadows any more.
Close now, so close - and then, just as he was on the point of springing, something else intruded. An alien sense, like a knife-blade in his brain, and his senses splintered: sight, or the memory of it, spilled into his mind, putting him off. And he remembered.
He knew this prey - this boy. It – he - was his friend. He could not kill it. But it was not, he suddenly became aware, what he had really been seeking: it was merely an echo of it. His real quarry was - there.
* * * *
Disbelief almost stopped Da Silva in his tracks, disbelief and dismay. What in the name of Christ and all the saints was Zé doing here? But he saw his son standing in the dingy, fire-lit alley, and he saw the wolf at the same time. And it saw him.
He sensed, rather than saw, its muscles bunched to pounce, and raised the gun. As he did so a voice he almost recognised shouted indistinctly, ‘Leaf’im, ski’-er!’
‘I can’t,’ he said. ‘That’s my son.’ And he fired.
His shot caught the wolf in mid-spring, right in the centre of the chest, but the beast’s momentum propelled it forward almost unchecked by the force of the bullet to smash into him. They crashed to the ground together with an impact that drove the breath from his lungs and the gun from his hand - he swore as he heard it skitter off in the darkness - and then the wolf’s wide, fanged, stinking, snarling jaws were an inch from his face.
Da Silva stuffed his right arm in the beast’s maw while he fought to unsheathe his knife from underneath his body. Fangs slid into his forearm like hot knives into butter and he hissed through his teeth at the pain, and then something knocked the creature off him. He felt his flesh tear as the beast relinquished its grip, and heard Zé shout something.
Gasping for breath, Da Silva whipped out his knife as he lurched to his feet, to see another wolf battling with the first one. This beast was much larger, and had reddish fur. Its teeth were in t
he grey wolf’s throat.
Zé grabbed his hand and pressed the revolver back into it. ‘It’s got a silver bullet in it,’ he whispered, wide-eyed with fright.
The captain shot him a glance that was both astonished and relieved as well as threatening retribution to come, and took hold of the weapon, pushing Zé behind him. Blood running down his arm made the grip slippery, but he brought the gun up, only to shrug helplessly at the growling, snapping mass of fur that was the two battling wolves.
A moment later, the bigger animal’s strength and size told, and the grey wolf was pinned to the ground beneath it.
‘Shoo’ i’, ca’-n,’ the red wolf panted, barely intelligible. Its mouth had not been designed to frame human words.
‘Harris,’ said Da Silva, and put the gun to the grey wolf’s head. ‘I’ll need to talk to you later,’ he added as he pulled the trigger.
The recoil jarred his bitten arm painfully, but the smaller beast spasmed in death, blood and bone and brain matter spurting from the exit wound. Zé made a small sound of disgust, and the red wolf stepped back, its eyes on Da Silva, who nodded once, with a slight smile. Then it turned and padded away into the shadows.
‘Look!’ said Zé. The dead wolf that lay on the ground seemed to shiver, and its outline blurred. Its body jerked and twitched, as if things were moving under the skin. Which was exactly the case, Da Silva realized, sheathing his knife. The grey fur seemed to fade into the flesh, the muzzle of the face shrank, the shape of the skull changed as if an unseen hand were remoulding it like clay, and a naked boy lay there with a gunshot wound in his head.
‘Mother of God,’ said Da Silva, slipping the gun back into his pocket. He squatted down to look for the bullet, gritting his teeth at the pain eating his arm.
‘It’s Vik,’ Zé breathed in a mixture of wonder and horror. Then he turned away and abruptly lost the pastries he’d eaten earlier. Da Silva found the bullet and straightened, pressing his bleeding arm against his ribs.
‘Come on,’ he said, putting his other arm round his son’s shoulders and giving him a rough hug. ‘Let’s get out of here.’
* * * *
When they got back to the Isabella Zé, somewhat to his surprise, did not get the anticipated hiding, and he thanked the sailor from Providence for that.
<
* * * *
CHRISTOPHER FOWLER
Crocodile Lady
Christopher fowler’s short fiction is collected in City Jitters, The Bureau of Lost Souls, Flesh Wounds, Sharper Knives, Personal Demons, Uncut, The Devil in Me and Night Nerves. His short story ‘Wageslaves’ won the 1998 British Fantasy Award, ‘The Master Builder’ became a CBS-TV movie starring Tippi Hedren, while an adaptation of ‘Left-Hand Drive’ won Best British Short Film.
Fowler’s novels includeRoofworld, Rune, Red Bride, Darkest Day, Spanky, Psychoville, Disturbia, Soho Black, Calabash, Full Dark House, and the recently completed Plastic, about a shopaholic housewife trapped in a blacked-out building. He also scripted the 1997 graphic novel Menz Insana, illustrated by John Bolton, and has written a book about the cinema, Electric Darkness.
‘I first had the idea for this story in 1979,’ explains Fowler. ‘Back then it was called “Red Rovers”, referring to the all-day tickets you could buy to ride the buses. I always wanted to write a story about a schoolteacher losing a pupil, which must be the ultimate nightmare - or dream - of many a teacher. Then I remembered that the author Joanne Harris used to be a French teacher, so I talked to her about the problems of controlling classes, and she gave me plenty of observational tips. I’m also getting into training for when I eventually do my Underworld London book.’
* * * *
I: Finchley Road to Swiss Cottage
L
ondon has the oldest underground railway system in the world. Construction began in 1863 and was completed in 1884. Much later it was electrified, and since then has been periodically modified. A great many of the original stations have been abandoned, renamed or resited. A partial list of these would include Aldwych, British Museum, Brompton Road, York Road, St Mary’s, Down Street, Marlborough Road, South Kentish Town, King William Street, North End and City Road. In many cases the maroon-tiled ticket halls remain, and so do the railway platforms. Even now, some of these tunnels are adorned with faded wartime signs and posters. Crusted with dry melanic silt produced by decades of still air, the walls boom softly as trains pass in nearby tunnels, but the stations themselves no longer have access from the streets above, and are only visited by scuttling brown mice. If you look hard, though, you can glimpse the past. For example, the eerie green and cream platform of the old Mark Lane station can be spotted from passing trains to the immediate west of the present Tower Hill Station.
* * * *
‘You know what gets me through the day? Hatred. I hate the little bastards. Each and every one of them. Most of the time I wish they would all just disappear.’ Deborah fixed me with a cool stare. ‘Yeah, I know it’s not the best attitude for a teacher to have, but when you know them as well as I do . . .’
‘I think I do,’ I replied.
‘Oh? I thought this work was new to you. Being your first day and all.’
‘Not new, no.’
‘My boyfriend just decided he wants us to have kids. He never liked them before. When he was made redundant he started picking me up from school in the afternoons, and saw them running around my legs in their boots and rain-macs asking endless questions, and suddenly he thought they were cute and wanted to have a baby, just when I was thinking of having my tubes tied. I don’t want to bring my work home with me. We still haven’t sorted it out. It’s going to ruin our relationship. Hey, hey.’ Deborah broke off to shout at a boy who was trying to climb over the barrier. ‘Get back down there and wait for the man to open the gate.’ She turned back to me. ‘Christ, I could use a cigarette. Cover for me when we get there. I’ll sneak a couple in while they’re baiting the monkeys, that’s what all the other teachers do.’
Good teachers are like good nurses. They notice things ordinary people miss. Ask a nurse how much wine she has left in her glass and she’ll be able to tell you the exact amount, because for her the measurement of liquids is a matter of occupational observation. The same with teachers. I can tell the age of any child to within six months because I’ve been around them so much. Then I got married, and I wasn’t around them any more.
But old habits die hard. You watch children constantly, even when you think you’re not, and the reflex continues to operate even in civilian life. You bump into pupils in the supermarket. ‘Hello, Miss, we didn’t know you ate food.’ They don’t quite say that, but you know it’s what they’re thinking.
If there’s one thing I know it’s how children think. That was why I noticed there was something wrong at Baker Street. My senses had been caught off guard because of the tunnels. Actually, I sensed something even before then, as early as our arrival at Finchley Road Tube station. I should have acted on my instincts then.
God knows, I was nervous enough to begin with. It was the first day of my first week back at work after twelve long years, and I hadn’t expected to have responsibility thrust at me like this, but the school was understaffed, teachers were off sick and the headmaster needed all the help he could get. The last time I had worked in the education system, the other teachers around me were of roughly the same age. Now I was old enough to be a mother to most of them, and a grand-mother to their charges. I wouldn’t have returned to Invicta Primary at all if my husband hadn’t died. I wasn’t surprised when the bank warned me that there would be no money. Peter wasn’t exactly a rainy-day hoarder. I needed to earn, and have something to keep my mind occupied. Teaching was the only skill I was sure I still possessed.
Which was how I ended up shepherding twenty-seven eight-year-old boys and girls on a trip to the London Zoological Gardens, together with another teacher, Deborah, a girl with a tired young face and a hacking smoker’s cough.
The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror 13 - [Anthology] Page 14