by Adam Nevill
‘Who do you think . . . ?’ Becky began to ask, and then stopped as the indistinct shape seemed to slide, or maybe withdraw backwards, and so quickly that Seb almost missed the movement. Sideways it went, briefly, as if on runners, and the manoeuvre issued no noise. But Seb’s next impression was of the form not so much moving away, but shrinking into the undergrowth.
‘A deer?’ Becky muttered. ‘Sometimes they . . .’ But she never finished the suggestion. Neither of them had seen a deer. And what they had glimpsed was no longer there at all.
There had been a vigorous breeze in the tree canopy when they’d entered the wood, but there had been no sound around them on the path during the sighting. Birdsong was audible again, and the reintroduction of sound made Seb realize that they’d both been transfixed in a soundless glade of the wood, for several seconds.
‘The birds,’ Becky said, in confirmation that something strange had occurred for her as well. She looked to the treetops, that now swayed and loudly swished their leaves once the unnatural pause in the air currents ended.
A pressure of fear pushed through Seb’s eyeballs.
Becky didn’t seem to be faring much better, even though it was over. ‘I really didn’t like that,’ she said. ‘They didn’t look right.’
Seb didn’t have anything to add. Had that been Ewan, though, with his appearance altered?
Had he not seen a similar form scampering through the sawdust of a bad dream? Whatever had been watching them, and perhaps even waiting for their approach, must be connected to Ewan’s sudden reappearance in his life.
Becky’s collaboration as a witness failed to produce any relief. Whatever was now happening to him was worse than losing his mind, because if that thing . . .
‘Now you know,’ he said.
They hurried to the cove, not exactly running, but walking uncomfortably close to a jog until they were standing on a pebble bank.
Listening to the surf roll stones up and down the beach, they caught their breath and stared at the water as if the bay presented a barrier across their escape route.
‘Sorry, but is there another way back?’ Becky asked, almost formally.
‘On the coastal path. There’s a track up there.’
He now hated himself for asking her to visit. He may have put her in the path of harm, without understanding the threat beyond receiving a sequence of murky and elusive impressions that came by night and day.
‘That was just someone . . . someone out . . . We had a bad night, Bex. I said too much yesterday. And we drank a fair bit. It’s made us jumpy. Innocent things are starting to look sinister. The other day on my balcony . . . the towels . . .’ He didn’t believe a word of what he said, though the thing in the trees may have been nothing but a glimpse of someone wearing a baggy linen hood, with eyeholes cut into the front. But why would they do that?
He didn’t examine the idea verbally, and he also believed it unfair to share an impression that the hood had been similar to the bags that were tugged over the heads of the condemned on the gallows, in times long gone.
‘Yes. Maybe,’ Becky said, as if she were speaking to no one in particular.
The return journey via a new route around the wood was uneventful, though on the section of the path parallel to where they’d seen a figure on the ridge, Becky moved closer to the stone wall opposite the encroaching trees. Seb only noticed because he’d done the same thing.
‘Seb, will you take me to the station?’ she said when she saw his car.
‘But lunch—’
‘I want to go home. Now.’
7
The Same Event in a Converse Direction
Ewan was on the drive.
Seb alighted from his car and fell backwards, casting an arm across the roof to keep his feet.
He closed his eyes, counted to three and reopened them.
Ewan remained, grinning. He stepped forwards and the gravel crunched beneath the soles of his shoes. He was there.
It was him, and the strange aural effects accompanying the previous sightings were absent. Things were going to be different this time.
Seb’s first impression confirmed the continuance of an old theme, inebriation embellished by neglect. Even then, the changes in the man’s appearance since London were shocking. Ewan had been to places and done things that Seb could only imagine.
The man’s greatest burden in life may have been a grotesque head. A large skull, flat at the back, atop a flabby neck showing no definition to the shoulders. The squashed upper section of his face, with a low brow and near-porcine nose, quickly and regrettably became familiar. Sometime during the intervening years his eye sockets had suffered a lumpy reformation with scar tissue, from knocks or tumbles. That bit was new and made the entire spectacle freshly monstrous.
The tired complexion now showed the effects of poison or liver damage. Between the cap’s peak and the moustache, across the cheekbones and forehead, the sallow skin was blotched with broken blood vessels. Greasy white patches streaked the unkempt beard as if individual moments of crisis had bleached clumps of his facial hair.
Seb’s biggest aversion yet was reserved for the mouth. The last time he’d seen Ewan there had been something disconcerting about the terrible condition of his tobacco-stained teeth, but at the threshold of his home in Brixham, he experienced the same disgust he’d once endured when confronted by the genitals and anus of a baboon in a zoo.
Ewan’s mouth was feral and grotesquely genital. Perhaps it was the unkempt fringe of black beard that made those lips appear so bruised and engorged to emphasize the square, gappy teeth. And they were stained brown-yellow, like two rows of dried corn inside the smirk that hadn’t changed since he’d appeared on the drive.
This was the worst face that Seb had seen in his life. Finer feelings seemed to have been blunted, and the sensitivity to the nuances of another’s discomfort erased. There was nothing contemporary about Ewan any more. He was a savage.
Trying to keep the tremor from his words, Seb heard himself croak, ‘What do you want?’
‘You’ll find out,’ Ewan replied in a voice that had always been too high and thin for his appearance, near effeminate in tone and public-schooled. His voice had also altered, was now roughened by catarrh and deepened by age.
Despite his fright, Seb still suffered a mad desire to laugh at this visage before him. To howl desperately at the oily hair, near dreadlocked and hanging like old rope from beneath the baseball cap that was jammed onto the crown of the big head.
Not wanting to become trapped against a wall, and needing a space in which to think and to evade an assault, he abandoned the car and angled himself away from the house.
Intent on pursuing the effect of surprise, Ewan anticipated the manoeuvre and steered Seb towards the front door, one hesitant step at a time.
Had this scene been in one of Seb’s novels, there might have been a scuffle and a strong show of resistance from the lead character. But this was no novel, this was his life and he was no fighter. The situation made him understand how we imagine we are people that we are not.
‘Sebby, my old mate.’ Ewan tittered and held out a large hand, the skin red and marbled like corned beef, the nails black with dirt. His eyes were still dark enough to make the pupils indistinguishable from the iris. And with him so close, the intensity of his stare was made worse by its hint of sadistic amusement and need.
‘You dropped your hat when you ran away.’ At the end of the long fingers drooped the hat Seb had lost in the cliff-side gardens in Goodrington. ‘I went back and picked it up. I could have hung it on a fence spike, but I didn’t think you’d be going back there for a while.’
After this, it was hard for Seb to process how Ewan came to be inside the house so quickly. Concussed by his own fear and bewilderment, he retained nothing but a hazy recollection of scuffing his feet to the porch, where he suffered a reluctance to remove the house keys from the pocket of his jacket. During that time, Ewan had kept closing. Hemm
ing him in and making the strength hiss out of Seb like the air from a tyre. Later, he’d likened himself to an elderly person, herded into their own home by a thief driven reckless by intoxicants.
The hallway had seemed to blur brightly around Ewan’s black eyes and their penetrating expression of triumphant mirth.
‘No. No way.’ Seb did manage to say that much in the hall, but his resistance was brushed aside with the waft of one dirty hand. Ewan pushed past him and Seb coughed in the smell wafting from the trespasser’s coat.
Shutting Ewan out would only have deterred the inevitable. He would get in another way. Had he not already?
He needed to know why Ewan was here. The invader’s purpose remained undisclosed, but Ewan wanted something for sure. Seb hoped it was only money.
Following the horrible experience on the drive, the silence of his home, the white walls, the absence of dirt, the right angles and the open spaces took on an aspect of fragility. He might have even been taking a last look at a building marked for demolition, or one perched on an eroded cliff. All that had nurtured and protected him, and confirmed him as a success, now appeared as if it were destined to be lost.
Ewan took an insolently casual moment to look about himself in the stairwell, and at the stacking evidence of affluence that confronted his weather-beaten face. The luxury made his scruffy presence even more dramatic, wild and incongruous.
The intruder’s focus shifted to the framed book covers and prints of the film posters. His posture stiffened. There was a poster of Apparitions on the hall wall and Ewan seemed ready to remove the frame from its hooks before smashing the picture against the floor. Instead, he snorted dismissively and climbed the stairs, assuming the lead in the way he had done twenty years before when they were students. Did he believe that dynamic still existed, with him the dominant half of the friendship?
Alcohol fumes combined with his other odours and trailed behind him, suggesting a tangibility akin to an unclean mist.
Ewan went straight on up to the second floor, light on his feet, but swaying. He glanced into the kitchen and study, but only paused, as if stunned, when he saw the view of the bay through the living-room windows.
‘What do you want, Ewan?’ Seb repeated, while stricken with a suspicion that he was following a dangerous animal deeper inside his own home. ‘You’ve been following me.’
When Ewan spotted the glinting metal and sparkling crystal of the awards that Seb’s writing had acquired over the last decade, his eyes narrowed with the most severe displeasure thus far displayed. In the bookcase beneath the awards, the shelves were lined with the colourful spines of Seb’s first editions, and the foreign-language editions gathered from over thirty countries.
‘Yes. Very nice.’ He nodded as if proving some point to himself. ‘Very, very nice, indeed.’
The house offended Ewan. Perhaps he expected Seb to have put his life on hold, or to have made a catastrophe of the last three decades as Ewan had clearly done. But why show up now, and why not ten years ago when his trajectory as an author went vertical?
Ewan thumped his body down upon the sofa like an oafish teenager. A crack sounded, either inside the sofa or from the tiles beneath the rug.
Seb started, as if the spell holding him rigid for so long was broken. ‘Careful! Jesus Christ!’
‘Oops,’ Ewan said, and tittered.
Anger surged like a hot bile to the back of Seb’s throat. Too late now. He got inside. He’s inside now.
His rage quickly transformed into dread at the sight of those gangly limbs sprawled in a horrible suggestion of entitlement upon his couch. Ewan’s jeans may have once been blue but were now blackened with filth. On his feet, a pair of beaten shoes were split across the bridge of the toes. The soles had been ground to a rubber membrane by the endless, purposeless walks of the transient.
Shiny with stains and ripped in two places, the original colour of his anorak was also impossible to determine. Ewan made no move to remove his coat, and for that Seb was grateful. It suggested the visit might be short.
‘Why are you here?’
‘Hasty, don’t be so hasty. All in good time. And aren’t you going to offer me a drink?’ Ewan’s words were slurred and that may have accounted for his disinclination to say much since he’d appeared. ‘Come on! Have a drink with an old friend. It’s been ages. And look at you, the bestselling writer! It looks like one of those Sunday magazines in here!’
Ewan glanced around the room again, gently shaking his head as if in exasperated despair at what confirmed his worst suspicions. Seb clearly hadn’t followed the script. But he knew that Ewan was being disingenuous. A maddening, searing jealousy was burning him up. He’d seen evidence of that before, not least over Julie.
‘One drink, an explanation, and then you’ll have to go.’
Ewan changed his expression into a poor attempt at appearing offended. ‘Am I keeping the literary genius from more important matters? I mean, I haven’t seen you in years and you’re already trying to get rid of me.’
‘I didn’t ask you to come here. Or to . . . you know.’
Ewan grinned. The rictus conveyed that he could do something extraordinary that Seb didn’t understand, and Ewan wasn’t going to be very forthcoming about it either, or anything that he didn’t want to talk about. He was playing by different rules: persistence and manipulation, implied threats, intimidation. Perhaps a precedent was being set for their coming interaction. The grin, the demands for drink, the posture of the careless body spread across the sofa, were the only statements of intent being offered at this stage.
To avoid Ewan’s black eyes, but also to regroup his wits and to think on his next move, Seb went into the kitchen to fetch drinks, choosing two bottles of low-strength beer. He didn’t know what else to do. He was too jittery and risked more indecision, so he busied himself with the cupboard doors and glasses, suppressing the tremble that had possessed his hands. He was out of practice with any conflict, save what came at him online.
He thought of the police and fingered his phone inside the front pocket of his jeans. But what would he say?
He then thought about taking a knife from the drawer. That idea made him recoil the moment he entertained it, because holding a weapon was as preposterous as the current situation.
He’d probably remain civil and restrained, unemotional, and the insight made him loathe himself. Ewan counted on Seb being Seb.
He returned to the living room, unarmed and holding two glasses of beer.
Ewan was looking over the first editions and fingering them roughly with his grubby hands. He’d returned a book to the wrong place, left another carelessly protruding from the shelf, a third was laid flat. The disorder transfixed Seb. It was another reminder of the past, and perhaps a premonition of his future if he failed to get rid of Ewan quickly.
‘Drinkie-poos,’ Ewan said, and took the proffered glass. ‘I have to say, you don’t seem very pleased to see me.’
Seb felt an urge to lash out, to strike the oily face hard. A tremor passed along his arm; though, like the bullied who are manacled by the restraints of reasonable behaviour, this was an impulse that would never become action.
‘You’re surprised by that?’
His terror at the dreams and Ewan’s appearances remained trapped inside his mind like an energy that would not earth. He realized he’d do anything to avoid a continuation of that. Provoking the unstable was never a smart move either. Their responses to resistance could be as desperate as their circumstances.
‘Our lives have followed different paths. Clearly.’ Seb tried to add the last word in a neutral tone, but it dragged itself sarcastically from his mouth.
‘First you run away and now you’re all tense. Relax, Sebastian. Aren’t you interested in what I’ve been up to?’
‘I’ve enough on my own plate.’
‘I think you are, just a little bit.’ Ewan winked. ‘You couldn’t even begin to understand what I’ve done. What I’ve achieved
. And, judging by what I’ve seen of your books, you’ve gone a bit off course as far as all that is concerned.’
‘All of what?’
Ewan tittered and shook his head as if Seb had embarrassed himself.
‘I don’t follow, Ewan. As far as what is concerned? In what have I been lacking?’
Ewan’s eyes protruded as if from a burst of excitement. ‘True mysticism! And enlightenment.’ Between the two men, a flotilla of spittle droplets fell through the sunlit air.
‘My ambitions were never so grandiose. I just wanted to write well.’
‘Yes, well . . .’ Ewan raised his eyebrows. ‘Never mind, but at least you’ve done all right out of potboilers, though there’s no accounting for taste.’ He watched keenly for Seb’s reaction. Satisfied he’d inflicted another small wound, he changed the subject, directing proceedings. ‘How long has it been now?’ Ewan asked, distractedly, with a befuddled frown, pretending that he didn’t know.
‘Ten years, at least,’ Seb said, knowing it had been exactly twelve since the smelly shape had last stunk out his living space.
‘Long time.’ Ewan was about to repeat his heavy slump onto the sofa, but caught Seb’s eye and lowered himself more carefully, parodying the action of a person sitting upon delicate furniture. ‘Too long! So I thought it was about time that I paid you a visit. All very nice, I must say. You’ve been lucky.’
Ewan swigged from his glass as though desperately thirsty. Perhaps he wanted to give an impression that doggishly gulping the beer was more important than anything Seb could possibly say in reply. Ewan followed this by exaggerating a satisfied gasp. Foam flecked the black hair around his wet mouth.
Seb moved to the balcony doors. ‘Lucky? Yes, very lucky, Ewan. You could say that I’ve exceeded my own expectations, and by some margin. But I’ve also worked hard. All that advice writers offer about commitment and dedication has some validity.’
Seb opened one door and found the briny draught immediately welcome. It was late, the sun was going down and the afternoon had turned chilly, but he was feeling sick on account of the smell, and the sight, of Ewan.