by S E England
He regarded the woman sending him this marvellous vision, and his glacial expression melted. Smiling, he began to walk towards the bed, already undoing his belt.
Thankfully she spared me the grunting loveless sex, and at that point I woke up. Stars glittered through the skylight, and it took a moment to think where I was. My stomach was aching a little. And despite the unnaturally cold air, sweat coated my face and chest.
I’m going to get ill again…
I popped a paracetamol to numb the worst of the headache, and immediately drifted back into the same dream. The man with the comical moustache was now lying naked and breathless beside her.
“Fucking English,” he said, ringing the bell for a servant. “They side with France and Russia. We will fight and we will win – we have two entire empires against Russia and France.”
She was smiling a false, bright smile that did not reach her heart. “And you will win, my love.”
Snatching the bottle of champagne brought in by a servant, he popped the cork. “To Prussia!”
“To Prussia!”
The image then shot to black, and a deep bass voice resounded in my head, repeating the words ‘All roads lead to the Black Sun’ over and over and over. All roads lead to the Black Sun, all roads lead to the Black Sun, all roads…
Those two days and nights of bliss were over. And after the first thumbtack sting of that new sore when I woke up, a host of others rapidly followed. It looked like smallpox. I lay back and closed my eyes. Opened them again, and there were more. This time on my hands.
Fuck! It was impossible to cover these. I had to go to work. Oh my God… Running over to the small sink in the corner of my room, I stared into the mirror. Shit – there was even one on my face! A huge fuchsia spot shaped like a spider was spreading across one cheek.
Fortunately, the uniform covered my arms, and I got to the nursing home without anything awry being noticed. What the hell was I going to do? I mean, what? What? The sister would notice for sure.
Give us work, give us work…
I had done. So hexing my grandad was not enough?
Give us work…more, more…always more…this will never stop…never!
I was scared, okay? Scared and desperate. And that fear triggered a primeval reaction that suppressed all rational thoughts, exactly as it had the day when at just seven years old, I’d stabbed another child with a compass. Only this time, it would be far more horrific than a compass stab.
Once you’ve crossed that line, it will become easier.
In the side ward at the very end of the corridor lay an elderly lady who weighed less than a small child. Of bird-fragile bones, with a mouth that gaped open in a toothless cavern, she was rasping her last.
That morning, I stood at the door.
There was no one else around.
Static buzzed in my ears, my footsteps hollow, heartbeat rapid as I walked into that room stealthy as a cat.
Immediately her eyes, half blind with cataracts, flicked open.
An icy wind blew in, and a shadow loomed over the far wall above her bed, larger than me, wing-shaped and raven black
Her tiny claw hands began to scrabble out from underneath the bedclothes, scratching helplessly in the air.
Oh, she’s looking for the buzzer.
A hand that looked like mine but seemed far away, picked it up and placed it out of reach, on top of the bedside cabinet.
My conscience then disconnected. And the deed happened fast.
From the nearby armchair by the window, Eva Hart took a discarded pillow, turned, then slammed it over her face and held it down hard, snuffing out the light of her life.
After a minute, maybe less, the tiny hands stopped flapping frantically. The temperature climbed back to normal. And the dark shadow on the far wall slipped away.
***
Chapter Thirty-Three
Every single symptom vanished. Immediately. And it wasn’t only the illness that had gone, but good health was now in abundance – I mean, I was practically bouncing! And despite the enormity of what I’d done, a filament of excitement fizzed inside, a sense that crossing the line had been a test passed, and would now be rewarded. I was a step closer. But to what? Because someone was definitely coming; they were on their way. The air practically sparked.
As promised, I met Nicky the following evening. I had this feeling, an overwhelming conviction, that with every passing hour the person who would take me to the next level drew closer. My hands shook while applying mascara, the intensity of anticipation so great I had to break off, turn up the radio and dance away the surplus energy. It wasn’t until sweat was pouring off that the overload abated, slightly, enough to resume getting ready.
We’d decided to go to a pub nearby. It had a beer garden out the back, and that summer night it was packed out. We didn’t know what to order, but Nicky said she’d heard lager and black was good, so we got a pint each of that, and before we knew it, we were laughing at things that weren’t funny and the multicoloured lanterns were zooming in and out of focus. She had on a white crochet top with shorts, and I was in a sleeveless denim dress. Both of us had makeup on, and while Nicky’s hair was in tight braids, mine was cut in layers that flicked out in flames around my face.
“Don’t look now, but there’s a lad staring at you,” she said.
I looked. Of course I looked. And she was right. Nor did he shy away when our eyes met. Instead, he held my gaze with laser intensity.
It didn’t register fully who he was until later because his frame was silhouetted against the lights of the pub, but I felt riding shockwaves of attraction, and my insides flipped. Why me? There were grown women in low-cut evening dresses, and tiny hot pants. And there I was in a Chelsea Girl denim dress and espadrilles – a kid, really, with Farrah Fawcett hair and black-cherry nail varnish.
Nicky was spluttering with giggles. Luckily, Ma Dixon had agreed she could stay with me that night, seeing as how Helen was a social worker and had set a ten o’clock curfew. It was such a happy night, my last one.
“Well, I’m glad you’re all right, anyhow,” she said. “I was so worried about you, especially when I heard about your grandad. I know he wasn’t nice to you, but even so…what a way to go!”
Go? So he died? Fuck me!
I’m not joking, this terrible thing happened then. A volcanic eruption of laughter nearly shrieked out. I had to keep my eyes down, focusing hard on blades of grass while desperately trying to think of something other than Earl Hart’s withered black cock, of how he had passed away from gangrene of the cock and balls… I wondered what they’d put on the death certificate. In the end, I couldn’t contain it any longer, and the mirth came spurting up in a fountain. It sprayed from my eyes, spluttered from the corners of my mouth and contorted my face.
Nicky shot around the table, thinking it was grief. She put her arms around me and muttered soothing things while my entire body shook with uncontrollable hilarity. By the time she pulled away, I was dabbing at my eyes and asking if my mascara had smudged.
“No, you look fine.” She went back to her seat, leaned across and squeezed my hand. “Are you okay?”
I nodded. God, yes. I was on fire. I felt as if I could conquer the world, like I’d overdosed on fly agaric or LSD. Not only that, but it was as if a channel of secret knowledge had opened up. I could have gone around that pub garden and told each person exactly who they were and what they were thinking. Their thoughts transmitted directly into my head, the collective chatter suddenly chaotic and massively overwhelming. Some had towering shadows around them, dark energy that sapped their light and inserted malicious thoughts… Put a shot in her drink…Say she was brave to wear a dress like that…
What had Sophia taught Lenka? What was it? I struggled to remember until the answer appeared. Yes, it was to imagine a cord that switched those channels on and off, and to pull it.
Because the only one of interest was the man behind me, the one whose eyes were still boring
into my back.
Nicky stood up to fetch the next round of lagers and black.
“Do you believe in the supernatural?” I blurted out.
She sat down again and frowned. “We ’ad this conversation before, a long time ago, didn’t we? Wasn’t it about you ’aving nightmares when you were little?”
“Yes, and you said your mum did voodoo?”
Nicky looked sheepish. “She told me off about that, said the conversation had come up and you went and snitched. I told you not to say owt!”
“Sorry, I didn’t think you meant your mum.”
“Yeah, well, I don’t know what she admitted to, but she did this thing once with her sister. They stuck pins in a doll. Did she tell you that the girl, the victim, got sick?”
“Yes.”
“It were my auntie who told me originally. She said it was important to stay with Jesus, and if you did then you wouldn’t go far wrong. It scared me. I mean, we don’t know what’s out there, do we? We have no idea what we’re messing with. Everyone thinks that when we die we’re dust, so Ouija boards and stuff like that are just a laugh! Anyway, for what it’s worth, I think spirits exist. Some people go mad, you know – when summat bad ’appens?”
My mum came to mind then.
“Are the nightmares still happening, Eva – those with your great-grandmother coming to you? I know you used to be right scared.”
“Sometimes.”
“You have to pray to Jesus and ask him to save you. I’m not kidding. My auntie said after they’d asked the spirits of the dead to help them and stuck pins into this doll, that a shoe went flying across the room and hit the wall. And the lights flicked on and off…all sorts…then they found out what happened to the girl. So, it is real. You’re not doing stuff, are you? Practising black magic?”
“Erm, no–”
She reached across the table and squeezed my arm. “I worry about you.”
“Don’t, I’m fine, honest.” My smile was frozen, though. If she had even the slightest inkling about what I’d done, she would cut the cord between us, and the only friend I had in the world would be forced to turn her back on me. What else could she do?
The conversation put a bit of a downer on the evening, and for another hour or so we just chatted and discussed the other kids in school, boys in particular, and made plans to go and see ‘Stardust’ at the Odeon. Then at ten to ten, we stood up to leave. It’d be a sprint to get back by ten.
By that time most people were rowdy and drunk, and I was following Nicky as she pushed through the throng of bodies towards the exit when it happened. It felt as if an invisible thread was pulling my attention, forcing me to look over my shoulder. I crashed into several people all at once, drinks spilled and someone called me a stupid bitch.
But all I could do was stare.
It was him. The man whose eyes had been boring into my back all evening. This time though, seen through the smoky haze of the lit bar, his face was clearly visible. So, too, the long legs, expensive jacket and the slight stoop due to his height.
My heart fair stopped. No, it couldn’t be. How was this even possible?
He lifted his glass in salute.
It was Heinrich Blum!
***
Chapter Thirty-Four
In the end, it was longer than a week before we went to visit Mum. Another month, in fact, on a drowsy midsummer afternoon, when the curtains in the nursing home where I worked were drawn against the glare of the sun, and fans had been placed next to the old people’s beds. It blew their fine white hair into ice-cream wisps, many of them staring glassy-eyed into the distant past. Occasionally a gnarled hand would snatch at my arm as I walked past, forcing me to bend down and lock eyes with their lonely bewilderment. I bet they wished they hadn’t, though. Despite their earthly existences now rapidly fading, I swear some flinched, seeing something there that frightened them. They knew. Even those who could no longer recognise their family and could not recall their own names, knew what dwelt within me. Yet the nursing staff did not. Intelligent people often refused to see unpalatable truths, it seemed – their busy, tutored minds suppressing a deeper wisdom.
After the pillow incident, the nurse who’d responded to the buzzer that day told me I’d been standing by the bed ashen-faced and mute. In shock, I’d let her lead me to the staff room amid murmurs of “It’s her first death. She’s only eighteen – never seen a dead body before.”
Hot, sweet tea was made as I sat there shaking. “I just found her like that,” I said “All limp with these staring dead eyes…”
I drank the tea, and they murmured reassurance, but the rest is a blur. The murder had been about as real as Lenka’s satanic initiation – a dream, an illusion, a memory not mine…until about a week after that night out with Nicky, when reality struck hard, and I was forced to wake up.
My God, I was ill. This time, I was to find my hair falling out in handfuls. I’d been having an explicit and highly disturbing dream. In a large bath of blood, there’d been dozens of us rubbing it into each other’s bodies, smearing it into the skin, writhing and chanting, ‘Hail the Dark Lord! Hail Satan!’
On waking up, not only was my hair coming out, but there were patches of vomit on the sheets, and the bed was soaked with urine. In a panic I shot over to the sink and splashed my face with cold water. This wasn’t happening…couldn’t be… But the girl reflected in the mirror was ugly beyond all comprehension. Cracks had opened up around the mouth, the scalp shiny and pink where it was balding, the eye whites jaundice yellow. And the skin….what the hell was happening to it? Backing away, my hands flew to my face. Boils were pulsing underneath it, rising in hot, red lumps.
The room stank. In panic, I ran around stripping off the sheets, opened the skylight, grabbed towels and soap. This could not happen. It was not real. It was not. Please no, and especially not now, when I’d found someone who liked me and who I liked back. I wanted life. I was just sixteen! And what about Luke? That was all I could think. Tears poured down my face. What was I going to do about him? We were supposed to meet again that night!
The man from the pub was not Heinrich at all, he just bore an uncanny resemblance. After the initial shock of that wore off a little, I’d returned his smile and he’d inclined his head, indicating I should go over and speak with him. I couldn’t. Nicky and I were already late and Helen, my new landlady, would give us hell if we didn’t get back for ten. So he followed us out to the car park and walked with us. His name was Luke, he said, and he worked in Leeds, rode a motorbike and liked Punk - particularly the Sex Pistols. All three of us chatted about music for a bit, then when we levelled with Helen’s house, Nicky hurried to the door, while he and I hung back.
“Look, do you want to go out some time?” he said.
Hell, yes!
I told Helen I was going to the pictures, but the following night I met Luke and we just walked to the park and held hands and talked. I had to be back for ten, as before, but the time zipped past too quickly and by the time he was kissing me up against the wall outside the house, I thought it might be love.
That night was to be our second date.
But there really was no way I could go. The only option was to stand him up. I couldn’t let him see me like that. What if he turned up, though? I mean, knocked on the door? That’s what I was thinking. And what about Helen and the kids? They’d all see me, too!
Give us work…give us work…Eva!
What to do? What to do?
My rational mind then blanked completely and an automaton took over, exactly like before. Vaguely aware of my actions, I had a hot shower, shoved the dirty linen into the washing machine, then dressed and hurried over to the nursing home early.
Instinctively knowing who to pick out, I took the back stairs two at a time, heading straight for the top floor. One of the ladies had developed a nasty chest infection following a fall a couple of weeks ago. No one expected her to last more than another day. So what difference would it make
? She’d had her life, and I wanted mine – that was it.
Bedridden, her lungs were rattling with fluid, the oxygen mask hissing when I walked in and softly shut the door behind me. She lay prone, having toppled sideways off a mound of pillows, deep in an opiate-induced dream.
Yet the second my shadow crossed the far wall, her eyes snapped open and her hands gripped hold of the sheets. The whites of her eyes grew large, fingers scrabbling for the buzzer.
Calmly I moved it from her reach and turned off the oxygen supply. Then, pulling off her mask, tugged loose one of the pillows from behind her. Once more, it was like watching someone else commit the act, only this time there was a significant pause, an extra moment taken in which to witness the build-up of terror in the victim’s face. It was curiosity, nothing more, noting how her horrified stare flicked to the all-enveloping shadow reflected on the wall in front. The shape had spread into one of giant wings that towered over the bed, and the rush of an Alpine breeze whistled over the sheets. The room that had been bright with the dawn sun a moment ago, now darkened to night, and the fluorescent light buzzed and flickered overhead.
“Get away from me, demon,” she whispered.
My head cocked to one side as, poised with the pillow, a transfer of information began to take place. Knowledge channeled into me, relaying in full every indiscretion she had ever committed – from the baby angrily shaken but declared a cot death, the letter concealed from a close friend because she wanted the man for herself, to money stolen from petty cash. And just before her wrinkled mouth could work itself into a scream, I snuffed her out.