by Beech, Mark
Sam looked at the house. It was in front of him now, rather than behind. He had reoriented himself without realising it. Then something moved, close to him. A dark shape loomed up against the greater darkness.
“Oh, Sam—it’s me.” As he kissed Steve, as Steve held him tight and began to sob, Sam was sure he could pass the test, now. Stubble scraped against his face.
“Let’s get you inside,” Sam said.
Steve told them that he had walked from the motorway junction on the outskirts of Birmingham.
“At first there were loads of cars, some pulled in to the side, others just abandoned. Satellite navigation had stopped working, but before it did, its voice sang out the Tune. Everyone was wandering around in a sort of daze. In the distance I saw flames and I assumed there must’ve been some collisions. Where I was the road was littered with cars and trucks. Headlights were fading out as I watched. I thought there’d be road rage or something, but there wasn’t. I didn’t feel angry, just sad because it would take me longer to get here. Sometimes a phone rang with the Tune, once. That was just about the only noise. I think people were talking to themselves, but nothing more. They were shapes—that’s all. No-one approached me or asked me for anything, and I didn’t approach anyone, either.
“I thought about walking back home and starting out again in the morning, but that would waste so much time. I knew the way here. It wasn’t cold, so I thought it’d be best if I could find a dry place to sleep, when I felt too tired to walk any more. I wanted to keep off the main roads, so I headed off across the fields and then kept to smaller roads.
“It was easy to begin with. I knew what direction to go in, and as long as I kept the stars in the right place I knew I should be OK. Sometimes there was an explosion from a long way off. Once I stopped and looked back, and instead of the glow of Birmingham in the sky there was nothing except for one or two flames. They looked like candles but must’ve been bigger than tower blocks.
“I walked until my feet hurt. I found a barn somewhere near Kidderminster and hid myself. There was no-one around and all the houses were dark and empty. Sometimes I could see where there had been a fire, but there were no people. It was like one of those TV series where everyone gets raptured or something like that.”
Steve looked around the room, his eyes resting for a moment on each of his friends and the familiar objects, as if to reassure himself everything was real after all. “It was the idea that it would be safe here, and that you would all be here,” he said. He gripped Sam’s hand. “That’s what kept me going. I didn’t care what was happening—I didn’t know, anyway.”
“We still don’t,” David said.
“In the morning it was even more quiet,” Steve continued after a pause. “In the sunshine everywhere looked so ordinary and peaceful, but there were no people, as far as I could tell. There was no traffic. I checked the map I’d brought in my rucksack and headed towards Ludlow and then along the Hereford Road. My phone was still completely dead, and I threw it away. Sometimes I whistled or tried to sing to myself, anything to make a bit of normal noise, but I could only think of the Tune, so I didn’t whistle after all. I was able to break into a house and get some chocolate and water. There was no electricity or gas. I walked and walked and here I am. I’ve never been so glad to see anyone in my life!”
Martin and James started to speak at the same time. They laughed and Martin said, “After you.”
“It sounds stupid,” James said. “But I was wondering how many people are there left around here, or in the country, or in the world? It’s like what Steve said. Almost the entire human race seems to have vanished. First it’s like that Millennium Bug actually happening all these years later, and then it’s as if someone’s gone and reset the world. Put the clock back. Maybe a new start—”
“A sort of restoration point has been created and everything reset to that?” Martin said.
“Oh, come on,” Paul said. “That’s ridiculous. Who’s done it? Or what has? Governments? Terrorists? Aliens? God?”
“I—I don’t know,” Martin said. “Nobody knows, not yet. But I’ll tell you one thing. We should’ve seen it coming. Yes, I know it’s easy to say that in hindsight, but the Tune was swamping everything, taking over, and there were those preachers going on about how it was a judgement, and the end of the world, how technology has become our enemy and is out to get us. Well, maybe it has—got us. It’s as good an explanation as any.”
Sam got up and stoked the Fire.
“This is mad,” Paul shouted. “This couldn’t have happened on its own. It needed something from, from—”
“Outside?” David broke in.
Paul turned to him. “Yes. No! Then we’d be back to aliens or God again.”
“Or gods,” David said. “With or without the capital letter. That’s irrelevant now. Unless you’re a monotheist, I suppose.”
“I’m not a pagan,” Paul snapped.
“Perhaps we should be now,” Sam said. “Or something like it.”
“Dear Sam worshipping nature, the universe, again!” said Paul, not unkindly. “But that’s all there is now, I suppose.”
When they reassembled in the morning Paul was missing. “He’s gone,” David said wearily. “After the rest of you went to bed we kept on talking. It ended up with him wanting to go to check on his sister in Shrewsbury. He said he’d set out when it got fully light, but he wasn’t here when I woke up. He’s not in the house. He’s gone.”
“I haven’t given my parents a moment’s thought,” Martin said. “That sounds terrible. But I haven’t. If they’ve vanished, what’s the point? They were the ones who threw me out, anyway.”
They soon established that none of them had any family or relatives they felt close to, or felt close to any longer.
“My parents just thought I wanted to enjoy a selfish and hedonistic lifestyle,” James said. “I wish!”
“We’re on our own, then,” Steve said.
“But Paul’s gone,” said David.
“Day one in the new world,” Martin said. “Sorry, not funny.”
“It’s true, though,” James said. “Although it’s the old world come back again. It’ll be time for Adam and—”
“Don’t say it!” they yelled in unison.
“I was going to say Eve.”
The day was clear and sunny, as before. Sam and Steve stayed close to the house. They helped Martin hunt for blackberries, but all they saw were very late fruits that Martin said would be inedible. David and James decided to uncover the abandoned well that lay towards the eastern boundary of the property.
“David doesn’t seem too bothered about Paul,” Steve said. “I know it could be the shock. But maybe things weren’t too great between them anyway?”
Sam remembered his own feelings, before Steve had arrived. “Perhaps. But Paul was right about one thing last night, though. All there is now is nature, and we’re going to have to remember that and get used to it. Get used to it all over again, rather.”
By twilight Sam was exhausted, and decided to go to bed for a couple of hours. There were no dreams. He yawned as Steve shook him awake. “Time for dinner already?”
“No, but it won’t be long. David has just made an announcement. I don’t know why he couldn’t wait until we were all together. He’s leaving in the morning. He says he’s going to try and find Paul. If he does, he’s not sure whether they’ll try to come back. He said we’re welcome to stay on here.”
“What did you say?”
“The usual sort of thing. But we’ll stay, won’t we, at least for now? Martin and James are. You like it here, Sam. And I still feel I’ve only just got here. It’s as safe as anywhere, probably safer than most places.”
After dinner Sam went outside. The Tune was in the sweeping path of the Milky Way and the last leaves rattling in the wind. Planets and grass danced to the same submerged music. The stars swelled out their song to the moon as it rose, a nailparing against the veil of sky.
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Sam tried to remember Paul’s face, but he couldn’t. He knew he could go and look at the photos of him and David scattered around the house, but he didn’t want to know if the images had dissolved into greyness under the glass, even as their brass and silver frames remained cold and unyielding. He knew he would start to forget David when they had shaken hands for the last time and David dwindled away as he strode along the drive to the road. Steve had offered his map, but he found it seemed to have disappeared from his rucksack. Sam was sure that David would not look back—it would be unnecessary, because his leaving to try and find Paul was really one great act of looking back. Sam knew that the world had truly changed, and for ever.
In the stillness Sam heard someone approaching him. He knew it was Steve. He was humming very softly to himself as he padded across the damp grass.
“Am I disturbing you?”
Sam turned, smiling. “Oh no. Never.”
Sam was uncertain how many days and nights had come and gone. Clocks and watches had long since stopped working or been left unwound. All he knew was that light was replaced by darkness which was in turn replaced again. The moon was still waxing. Each day Sam walked the hills and lanes—he was determined to do so while it remained possible. Steve gathered wood and chopped logs; Martin and James kept the garden clear. The few birds that remained now sang the songs that Sam remembered from before. Now the Tune was there in the land itself, a chant included in everything, too deep to hear, too hidden to sing out, but there. It was no longer necessary to attempt to grasp at it.
It was a clear morning again. Smoke no longer shrouded the sky: the cities had burned for a brief time only. The smell of charred wood and all else that had gone was diminishing daily, along with the year: now Sam rarely noticed it. But he did observe a thin pillar of smoke coiling up from somewhere lying between their house and the hills; most of the houses he could see, though, were now roofless. “People will find each other—that’s what they’re good at,” Steve had said. Each evening Sam watched the hills darken along with the sky, the plumes of mist sweeping from them like grey pennants.
Martin and James wanted to build a great bonfire in the field beyond the garden for when the moon became full, and hold a party. Steve had been helping James to make more wine out of the fruit they had been able to glean from trees and hedges. “That’s a great idea,” Sam had said.
The visitors had arrived on a horse-drawn cart as the twilight gathered. As Sam drew nearer the house he heard men and women laughing and shouting, with a lone voice wildly singing over them. Sam couldn’t understand the words, if that was what they were. He wasn’t sure he cared to listen to the other sounds, or reflect on the way the forms he glimpsed through the open windows were moving. A flute started to accompany the reveller. More and more voices joined in, swelling into a fevered hymn.
Then the front door opened and Steve was standing there, silhouetted in the flickering lamplight. Sam walked up to him. Grinning, Steve beckoned Sam in. His skin smelled of woodsmoke and his mouth tasted of blood and apples. Sam remembered that not looking back meant having to adapt. Holding hands, they entered the song.
Lithe Tenant
Stephen J. Clark
1.
In the years following Lampton’s death the thought that a letter might come always lingered in the back of my mind. Yet as time passed the danger diminished, so I started to think that my late friend’s son and I might never cross paths again.
It must have been twenty years since Lampton took his own life. While I wasn’t close to his widow I agreed she could send her son to speak to me if need be, once he was ready, as I’d been his father’s closest friend, not that I had any answers or could offer any consolation. Then out of the blue I got word that they were moving away to be closer to their family and I thought that would be an end to it.
As time went on it became more and more difficult to recollect that last year of my friendship with Lampton. I would make an unreliable observer in any case as the events of that time had almost broken me. Lampton had become increasingly reclusive towards the end, repelling his friends and treating those closest to him with particular spite. Some believed he’d distanced himself in preparation for the end and while there was truth in that I knew it wasn’t the whole story. I suspected his hostility was a symptom of something much deeper and even more unnerving than the compulsion to end his life. It still troubles me how effectively I could forget those events, yet the fabric of my life depended upon repressing the terrible shadows that I sensed lay behind Lampton’s actions. I had to think of my wife and daughter after all.
Lampton had lived only a few doors away but that’s not how we met. He’d been a regular visitor to the city library where I worked, requesting books on a subject that was close to my heart; ancient mythology. In those days the library service was a slow beast but people were more patient back then and Lampton was a dedicated man, if not obsessive. He often enquired about delays to his book requests and I recall how his selection of books left me with the impression that he had a sophisticated understanding of the subject. That’s where our friendship began, in this shared appreciation. We talked about founding a club or society but that was just idle talk, our joke really. We weren’t academics, nor did we consider ourselves intellectuals; only enthusiasts really, although Lampton was quite capable of travelling far and wide in pursuit of his curiosity.
The letter had been delivered by hand. It must have been easy for Lampton’s son to find me as I hadn’t moved from the street where he’d been born. I didn’t like the abrupt tone to the note. Perhaps I was being too sensitive and his approach was only typical of his generation, yet wasn’t there an edge to his phrasing?
Dear Mr. Hurst,
You knew my father Martin Lampton. My mother said you’d talk with me. I am staying nearby at the Mayview Bed & Breakfast and will be there every evening between six and seven until the 20th September.
Peter Lampton
There it was plain and simple, with no please or thank you. I showed it to Dorothy and she agreed there did seem to be a touch of haughtiness. And there was the other matter; considering how the letter had arrived I was left with an uneasy feeling that he may have watched us before making his delivery.
It’s a terrible thing to admit but even when he was a child I’d disliked Peter Lampton and precisely because of this precociousness; making remarks at the expense of his elders. There was no doubting he was clever but he lacked the wisdom to be humble about it. I know it was stupid to expect anything else from a child so I shouldn’t have allowed it to irritate me so much but I did. Yet what concerned me more was that his premature development extended to other areas too. How can I put this? While pastimes are something that should be encouraged in a child many found his eager interest in animal behaviour improper. And what’s more he appeared to take great pleasure in asking distasteful questions on the subject of procreation or predation. His parents always put this down to boyish enthusiasm for a hobby however his attentions weren’t focused solely on the animal kingdom. His father could no longer excuse his adolescent son’s proclivities when a complaint was received from Mr Hepple, a local tobacconist. Hepple’s niece, who delivered newspapers for his corner shop, claimed that the young Lampton had followed her on her paper round and as she crossed a wooded area of the park the boy made lewd suggestions to her about goats grazing on the common there. Since I heard about that incident I’d started noticing particular tendencies in the lad’s manner; his way of looking at women for instance was quite wrong for someone so young, although conduct like that would be deemed uncouth at any age. For that reason I prevented contact between Peter and my own daughter. There were other details too; for instance there was a time when the lad refused to wash or change into fresh clothes. I could still picture him the day he was excluded from school, having been found to be the source of a head lice infestation there. I’d called round to return a book when the door was answered by the wolf-child, his hair a matt
ed nest. I’d half-expected a smart quip yet he merely grunted and fled into the shadows; moments later his dazed and blinking father emerged to answer the door.
Those memories returned to me as I crossed the threshold of Mayview B&B and asked for Peter Lampton. Given how quickly the female proprietor cottoned on it was clear Peter must have already made quite an impression. I was informed he was sitting behind me, in the bar at a table in the far corner. I could just make out his silhouette through the open doorway. It didn’t please me that such a seedy little place was situated so close to my home. As I entered the confined room a miasma of cigarette smoke further obscured the space in that dim lamplight. The room was otherwise empty of other guests. Twisting his cigarette into an ashtray young Lampton stood up as I approached him and smiling made a gesture towards the bar where he joined me. We exchanged pleasantries as he quickly finished off a gin and tonic. Ordering another I accepted his offer of a drink and the waitress served him with the efficiency of someone who’d been paid a compliment. We retired to his murky corner.
While his appearance was of a well-groomed man it was odd how much he reminded me of the feral child I’d once known. Traces lingered and triggered memories I didn’t know I still had; glimpses returned of black unkempt locks, saturnine eyes and wide lips that might lend themselves too easily to leering. I was considering the density of his eyebrows when he spoke. He started with an apology for his taste in venues only to comment how much he appreciated places that were “a bit rough around the edges”. I quickly changed the subject. He said his work had taken him to various cities throughout Britain but didn’t go into details. He talked a lot without saying much; a trait that quickly irritated me I must admit. It was all just chit chat at first; train timetables, the weather and newspapers but then without warning he changed the subject to books. At that unexpected turn the young Lampton mentioned his father. While he admitted that he was not “a big reader” himself he said he admired men who were. I knew the comment had been intended to flatter yet I detected something else in his tone; was it childlike awe for a father he knew largely from stories others had told him? I remember being surprised by my own sympathy for the lad. Up until that point I suppose I had banished my grief for his father from my thoughts for so long that I’d reduced Peter to something abstract; nothing more than an inconvenient idea. I’d feared the questions he might ask; nervous about taking my place in the long line of others who’d told him about his father. In meeting him I would have to fulfil implicit expectations. Was I supposed to somehow enrich the lad’s ideas about how wonderful his father had been? A barrage of doubts intervened as I tried to listen. Disorientated I couldn’t quite believe the encounter was actually taking place. He sat there in the alcove of that shabby bar talking at me and it was no more real than a dream.