The Tunnel at the End of the Light

by Stefan Petrucha

  Aged twenty-nine, jet black hair prematurely greying, he looked from the filthy window of his North London flat and saw a matchstick in a tall woman’s fingers spark, burst into flame and rise to the end of her cigarette, all before she even removed the matches from her purse.

  As if possessed of an invisible second set of eyes, Lechasseur was forever seeing past and future events. Not in simple visions, either. They spiralled out, like the spinning lights of whirligig rides at amusement parks. If he paid attention long enough, or failed to banish the inciting sight from his mind, they left long, gooey trails that reminded him, for some grotesque, boyhood reason, of worms. They were like living things, some a few feet long, some stretching off to the horizon, twirling as the earth moved.

  They were patterns, these worms; happenstance born of the of the physical world, but still intangible truths. Unfortunately, a solid sense of the distinction between the worms, which he considered there, and the present day he inhabited, which he considered now, had yet eluded him, and Lechasseur, in his dark moments, of which there were many, often feared that he himself was there and not now.

  Hence the books that lined the nooks and crannies of his spartan flat. Lechasseur was fond of sitting and reading in the gloom, where there were fewer things outside of him that could move. To that end, he usually kept the curtains – just thick, torn blankets, really – drawn tight. No such luck today, though. Today, they were boldly open, allowing the unwelcome light and smells of the misbehaving world to intrude brazenly on his mind. A wrinkled old woman folded into a foetus. A child grew into a successful businessman. A poodle being walked by a hasty fellow was strangled to death, its body hidden in a park. He could see its flesh rot into the earth, leaving only the skeleton. It was maddening.

  ‘So, it’s not so bad, then, is it?’ Emily Blandish called cheerily from what passed as the kitchen area. It was thanks to her that the window was uncovered. She’d been fed up with his sulking of late and decided to do something about it.

  Fearing she’d read his mind, Lechasseur pretended he didn’t know what she meant and furrowed his brow. Surprisingly, she nodded towards the sun: ‘The weather. You put up such a fuss about opening those dingy curtains. You know, people need sunlight to be healthy. You could be depressed just because you’re in the dark all the time.’

  And here he was thinking just the opposite. Sensation depressed him. Still, Emily had her own mind, full of the most odd bits of information, and he admired her for it. Admiration aside, though, he was starting to wish she had her own mind somewhere else. Her constant presence was a drain. He’d never realised, until her arrival, how much he needed regular solitude in order more easily to face his days.

  But now they were linked, not by sex or by romantic love, but by friendship, and the inescapable fact that while he was what was called a time sensitive, she was a time channeller; while he could see time, she could actually move through it. Every now and again, they’d run into someone whose time-line seemed a bit off. If he and Emily touched one another as they thought the same thing... whoosh, there and then became here and now – and they’d be stuck in another time, until they could find a way back. They’d met under strange circumstances. She’d just appeared in London, an amnesiac in pink pyjamas, and he’d helped her because it was something he’d needed to do. After that, they’d stayed together as friends, bonded by their complementary abilities as well as by a mutual respect for each other.

  As he watched sundry Londoners rushing to and fro, and saw, in advance, where they were rushing to, and where they had rushed from, Lechasseur had a wry premonition that it would be raining soon. He thought of sharing it with Emily, but she was onto other things – reading the paper, humming some tune she recalled from her forgotten past – and he decided it might be cruel to interrupt the chain of recollections.

  As if feeling his attention on her, she stopped, turned to him and said: ‘What did you think I meant?’

  He grunted, not wanting the conversation that would ensue. After all, he’d thought she was talking about time travelling. Lechasseur didn’t mind the danger so much – he’d seen action in the War, and some more since as he tried to make his way in post-War London – but the travelling itself was an exacerbated form of the disorientation he felt whenever he caught a glimpse of a timeline. Each time, as of yet, he worried it would drive him mad.

  He also knew he was the only available key – or potential key – to the mystery of Emily’s identity. It seemed likely, at least to the two of them, that it wasn’t just a question of where she came from, but when. As a result, she was always pushing Lechasseur – gently, mostly – to explore their abilities further. He was sympathetic, but the subject brought up an animal-like survival instinct that he’d yet been able to control.

  So, instead of answering, he decided simply to stand by the window and enjoy what he could of the view. By and by, no doubt guessing exactly what had been on his mind, she went back to her humming. The song, a cheery tune, without any words, made him smile. It was the last smile he’d experience for quite some time.

  A knock came at the door. The sound was so soft, yet insistent, that Lechasseur thought the caller must be a child. Perhaps some mother had sent her daughter along to express dissatisfaction with some black market meat he’d provided. He didn’t think that could be it, though; he was careful to check all the goods that passed by him.

  As Lechasseur headed to the door, he saw Emily lower the paper and look up. It was only then that he noticed the headline: THIRD HUMANOID ATTACK NEAR BLAST CENTRE. Wondering what that could mean, he hesitated and was about to ask, but the knocking increased in intensity.

  ‘All right, I’m coming!’ Lechasseur said as he pulled open the door.

  Then, all he could think was: A toad. This man is a toad.

  Not a small one, either. Lechasseur had in mind a big, warty bull toad of the sort he used to catch as a child in the swamps outside New Orleans. Some had been so large, he had been barely able to get the fingers of his two hands around them. The fellow at the door was bigger, of course: a few inches over five feet, round, wearing sunglasses and a full suit much too heavy for the weather. He stood outside the door, looking left and right with big round eyes. Lechasseur nearly laughed. He was like something out of a child’s picture book. He also caught the thick, sweet odour of the man’s cologne.

  The effect on Lechasseur and Emily was instantaneous. There was definitely something strange about him – not only in his appearance, but in his very being. They’d experienced the sensation previously, but this time it was positively overwhelming – and neither could keep from staring. Lechasseur imagined they must look fairly animal, for, seeing their eyes, their visitor immediately took two wobbly steps back from the threshold.

  ‘Sorry, wrong. Must be wrong...’ he squeaked, looking fairly terrified.

  Lechasseur struggled to get a hold of himself and said: ‘No, wait, please. Who are you looking for?’ By then, Emily was at his side, joining her eyes with his. He could feel her body itching to reach out and touch the strange man.

  He also expected at any moment to see the worms start reeling from him, showing in cryptic flashes the source of the disturbance. But nothing came, only an image of darkness. A voice in the back of Lechasseur’s head said: Touch him. Touching helps you see.

  As if acting of its own accord, Lechasseur’s hand shot out to grab the visitor. Shocked, the stranger lurched backwards and nearly fell.

  ‘Mistake, mistake. I’m sure of it,’ the toad-man said, catching his balance and taking a few more quick steps back.

  ‘I’m Honoré Lechasseur,’ was all Lechasseur could think to say.

  The man stopped short, blinked twice, then squinted. There was now some distance between them. Emily, as if hypnotised herself, tried to step forward, but a quick nudge from Lechasseur stopped her cold.

  ‘You’re spiv, then?’ the man asked ca
utiously, as if it were a name, not an occupation. Lechasseur nodded slowly, as if trying to coax a deer from the woods. Without turning toward her, he added: ‘This is Emily Blandish... my friend.’

  Moving awkwardly, the man pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and dabbed the moisture from his face. It was only then that Lechasseur noticed how profusely the newcomer was sweating. No wonder, given his clothing. But Lechasseur had the strangest sense that it wasn’t the heat that was the cause. Moreover, the man’s swollen flesh seemed to hang rather loosely on his skeleton; again, like the meat on the leg of a toad.

  The man stiffened and gave a quick bow that Lechasseur thought for a moment might be a Germanic affectation.

  ‘Randolph Crest, sir. They say spiv can help with a... a predicament... most unusual.’

  Lechasseur nodded. ‘Come in. Let’s talk.’

  A few seconds passed before Lechasseur realised that neither he nor Emily had moved an inch to let the man in. He pulled Emily back into the flat, giving Crest a wide berth to enter.

  With surprising ease of movement, Crest came in, then manoeuvred along the wall. When Lechasseur took a step towards him, pretending it was an innocent gesture, Crest twisted and turned to avoid even so much as a glancing contact. Lechasseur knew that physical contact might reveal the man’s history to him, but surely Crest had no idea of that?

  In a few more steps, during which the only sound was the rustling of Crest’s too-heavy coat, the toad-man reached the windows and immediately pulled the curtains, blocking out the sunlight.

  ‘Apologies. Apologies. Sunlight disturbs,’ he said. He seemed about to relax just a bit when Lechasseur, again compelled by such a strong instinctual desire to learn more about this man that it overcame his natural fear, used the pretext of adjusting the curtains to make a further attempt to brush against Crest. The effort was awkward, amateurish and obvious.

  Crest whirled, in a fury, and made for the centre of the room. Emily and Lechasseur immediately stood, arms and legs akimbo, as if, should he try to flee, they would have to try to catch him.

  With that, Randolph Crest flushed bright red and screeched: ‘Would you mind not trying so hard to touch me?’ It was apparent that he’d wanted to bellow, but his voice simply wasn’t equipped for it. ‘It’s terribly obvious, you know! Don’t think I can’t tell!’

  ‘I’m... I’m sure I don’t know what you mean,’ Lechasseur said, backing away.

  Panting and wheezing, Crest stood in the middle of the small room, wide-eyed, slightly hunched, as if ready to fight physically for his privacy. ‘I am... have... among other conditions... aphenphosmphobia. Fear of physical contact. As a child I was touched, too much, too often, and now cannot bear it!’

  Emily and Honoré exchanged embarrassed glances.

  ‘I understand, and I’m sorry, Mr Crest. It won’t happen again. I promise. I’ll just take a seat here. Miss Blandish will sit by the window,’ Lechasseur said in a slow, deliberate voice.

  Before Crest could answer, Lechasseur did as promised and sat in an old, torn reclining chair he’d rescued from an alley rubbish pile. As if to show he had no weapons, he also placed his hands firmly on the chair’s thick arms. Emily, as if hypnotised, stumbled backwards until she reached a plain wooden chair. She plopped herself down, then folded her hands neatly in her lap.

  Crest watched each movement eagerly. After a few moments, he exhaled, and his bulging eyes seemed to shrink just a bit.

  ‘Perhaps... perhaps I misjudge. I have so few choices,’ he said, pulling his handkerchief again from his inside pocket and dabbing the patina of sweat from his forehead. Lechasseur noticed that the handkerchief was monogrammed, RC. He also caught another whiff of what he thought was cologne, but briefly wondered if Crest’s sweat itself was somehow perfumed.

  ‘Please don’t worry, Mr Crest. What was it you thought I might help you with?’ Lechasseur said, trying to seem businesslike.

  ‘Word is that in these days of rationing and poor necessity distribution, spiv can obtain things,’ Crest said, ending with a nearly girlish giggle.

  Lechasseur’s response was standard. He shrugged and said: ‘Maybe.’

  The handkerchief came out again, more sweat was dabbed off. ‘I’m a poet, Mr Lechasseur, nearly twenty years now. I have reputation and influence.’

  Emily furrowed her brow. ‘That Randolph Crest? I was reading about you a month or so ago. The Darkness That Hides as Kind? Was that yours?’

  Crest smiled a bit at having been recognised, then nodded in a gesture of practiced graciousness. ‘Yes, yes. So, you know. As such, I have certain connections that have indicated that spiv is much more than merely a spiv.’

  Emily tensed. Lechasseur remained noncommittal.

  ‘Maybe,’ Lechasseur repeated, wondering if he’d given up too much, but unwilling to let the conversation hit any roadblocks. For Crest, the verbal wink was as good as a nod.

  ‘Then I’ll be to the point,’ Crest said. He leaned forward, a tiny bead of sweat accumulating at the tip of his roundish nose. ‘They think they know me, and because of what they think they know of me, they want to kill me.’

  ‘Who want to kill you?’ Lechasseur asked.

  Crest shivered and lowered his forehead to his hand. ‘As if my poem were made flesh and now sought to destroy its creator.’

  ‘I’m sorry?’ Lechasseur said.

  Crest grew more tense. His hands clenched and his thumbs desperately rubbed the loose white flesh of his index fingers.

  ‘The paper of today, you have it? You know of the attacks?’ he said.

  Lechasseur shook his head, but Emily spoke up again. ‘The sub-humans they say attacked that guard in the underground? By the blast site? You think they want to kill you?’ Her disbelief was made plain by her expression. ‘Why?’

  Crest tapped the side of his head, sending a few barely-perceptible drops of sweat from his black, oily hair down the side of his pasty cheek. ‘Everyone has gifts. Spiv and you have yours. Mine is to have dark creatures in my head. They’re not so much real as they are nightmares, fed by my own passions, the darkness inside me I can’t control. Don’t you see? I’ll keep on giving them power until they use it to destroy me.’

  The reference to gifts was disturbing. How much did he know about them? Still, Lechasseur said nothing, he simply stared and hoped that Emily would realise she should keep up the questions.

  Taking the hint, Emily asked: ‘Um... why not go to the police?’ But she was thinking, or a psychiatrist?

  Crest barely moved as he answered. ‘Like you, they’ll think I’m insane. But I’m hopeful that, unlike them, you’ll see that there’s more.’

  A silence ensued. When Lechasseur realised that Emily could think of nothing further to ask, he said: ‘I suppose we could look around, ask some questions. Then there’s the matter of my fee...’

  Before Lechasseur could continue, Crest lobbed a crumpled envelope into his lap, as if tossing raw meat to a tiger. It was thick with money.

  ‘For the preservation of my life, Mr Lechasseur. I hope it will be enough.’

  With that, Crest rose, never once taking his eyes from both Emily and Lechasseur. ‘My card is in the envelope as well. I trust you will be in contact.’

  As they remained seated, he cautiously backed toward the door and let himself out.

  No sooner had the door closed than Lechasseur turned to Emily, to find a knowing expression on her face.

  ‘Well, don’t look at me! You were trying to touch him, too!’ she protested.

  ‘I know, I know!’ Lechasseur answered, hands up in surrender. ‘There was just something about him... something very strange.’ He laughed a bit at himself. ‘Perhaps even more than the obvious! He practically glows. You looked mesmerised yourself. Could you tell anything?’

  Lechasseur knew there were times when Emily had a sort of second sight
about people, not as specific as his visions, but she often caught a sense of people that slipped by him.

  ‘English isn’t his native language, but I think anyone might be able to tell that much. If I remember what I read correctly, he’s considered a minor talent, but utterly mad, even certifiable. I saw you staring at him. Did you see anything?’

  Lechasseur shrugged. ‘No. He wasn’t a blank, exactly, like when I look at you. More the opposite, like there was far too much tied in to him for me to make head or tail of it. No lines to follow, if that makes any sense. Balls of colour mixed with darkness. Explosions and silence. I... had the strangest desire to touch him.’

  ‘No kidding,’ Emily said, with a little smile.

  ‘It just felt as if it might help. He seemed on to it, though.’

  After a few beats of silence, during which Emily rose and wandered to the windows, she asked: ‘So what are we going to do about it?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Lechasseur said, fingering the thick envelope.

  ‘You don’t know?’ Emily said, raising her eyebrows at him. ‘You can’t let it go! He’s paid you!’

  ‘I could return the money,’ Lechasseur said plainly. Now that Crest had gone, his natural trepidation was kicking in. There’d be time travel in this somewhere, he was sure of it. What he wasn’t sure of, was if he was ready for that experience again.

  ‘You know there’s something about him! You couldn’t control yourself!’ she objected. ‘How could you turn your back?’

  ‘All right, all right. We could check out his concerns a bit, I suppose,’ Lechasseur shrugged, reaching for the newspaper. ‘Since you seem to know more about him than I do, and, as you say, I’m having trouble controlling myself around him, maybe you can follow Crest, see what you can find out about his habits and haunts. But keep your distance, and don’t do anything rash.’