by Greg James
Garry got his feet, absently brushing dead leaves and grass from the seat of his jeans. Esther liked his jeans, they were nice and tight and she liked to walk with her hand slid inside the back pocket. Just checking the quality of the goods, that’s what she called it. He missed having her close to him. There was a part of him that was starting to feel naked and exposed; a nerve wearing itself raw. It was telling him this wasn’t right; something was wrong. She had been gone for far too long now. Garry followed the memory of her footsteps down towards the lake and the trees.
A pungent layer of algae had risen to the surface of the lake and it drifted across the dark water in islands and continents that were barely bound together. Children went ambling by, licking streams of ice cream and melted ice lollies from their fingers. Further behind came mothers and fathers, looking tired. Their faces etched with the lines and aching frowns of parenthood, which would be smoothed away the moment their offspring were watching them again. The sudden smiles told a different story to the steady eyes of Mum and Dad, Garry thought.
Love is never like it is in books or films, so he had believed until he met Esther. Now he wasn’t sure what he believed and her absence was making everything feel so fragile. The sunlight reflected off the swampy water making it look like a dark, diseased mirror. Time was slow around him; the heat was heavy and things unwanted were rising to the surface. He looked at the clumps of algae and deeper to their cloud-shaped roots beneath the water. The bottom of the lake was uninviting. He had an idea that it was very cold down there, that the heat of the day was not reaching those depths and time ran at its normal pace once you sank down into it. A part of him longed to be there, where it was cold, lightless and time went by as it once had done for him. Before love came along and made everything become slow and hot.
So it is love then, Garry thought, that’s what has happened to me.
He scratched at the sweaty roots of his fine ginger hair and set off walking at a faster pace, dodging around tourists and office workers cluttering the path by the lake. He wasn’t sure where the urgency in his step had come from but its momentum carried him along nimbly to the bridge over the lake. Garry had to press through the people crowded upon it; all of them chattering and staring down at the crusted water. He narrowly avoided a large, short woman smearing his shirt with her ice scream cone. She shot him an angry look as if he had stepped into her way on purpose. Garry tried to mumble an apology but she had already turned away, waddling off towards the shade. Garry set his feet down on the other side of the bridge and peered into the trees ahead. There was a small restaurant with facilities further along; that must be where Esther had gone to. He rubbed a damp palm over his breast; feeling how his heart had become strange and tight. Anxiety, the old kind, he had almost forgotten about it. He remembered the twinges, aches and palpitations before Esther came into his life. The old days; they were there waiting for him, watching and waiting – the bad old days. From the shade of the trees. At the bottom of the lake. That woman’s piercing colourless eyes. He felt a sense of absence pass over him; a cold touch that should not have been possible on such a brilliant day.
Where was she?
Garry walked harder and faster now. His eyes searching the shadows cast by the trees and the sallow grass where sun-worshippers and deckchair dwellers seemed to swarm and multiply before his eyes. He was reminded of kaleidoscopes and glass prisms. The way light shines and creates reflections and refractions, conjuring tricks of shadow and light. Then, he thought of light shining on the surface of a world dark with disease and ripe with things that have grown underneath it all. They watch and they wait; just out of sight, only coming to the surface now and then when the time is right. When the moment is perfect. When the sun shines in our eyes and time has become distorted, heavy and slow; they come out to feed.
“And today is a perfect day,” Garry said to himself.
It was then that he became aware of an odour that was rich and nauseating at the same time. He realised it was the smell of the algae flowering in the heat. And into his head came an image; one of something else flowering, soft and bristling with a shape that dreamed of being human.
“And sometimes dreams really do come true.”
The somnambulant density of the air felt like it was resisting him; trying to hold him back, keep him in one place, like those dreams where you’re trying to run but you cannot. The harder you try, the slower you go; the farther you seem to fall behind everyone else. He felt like he had been falling behind for years until he met Esther then everything else seemed to change and go so fast. There were colours and light in his life. A warmth he had never felt before. He didn’t want to lose that again, not to the darkness and the cold.
Walking on, he came to the restaurant shaded by spreading oak leaves. There was the ladies toilet; its open doorway framed with moss and decorative creeping vines. A place where things could grow, unseen in the damp and the dark. He found his eyes drawn to a shadow leaning against the lakeside railing. Again, there was that smell of richness and pungency that must have been coming from the algae gathered thickly by the bank. Some of it even seemed to have crawled up onto the soil and grass.
The shadow against the railing had Esther’s shape though the heat made him think that she was trailing fingers in the infested water that were not fingers, and that they retreated into her body as he drew closer. He wiped stinging beads of sweat from his eyes and reached out to touch Esther’s shoulder. Under his hand, he felt her shoulder; its familiar shape though it seemed softer somehow, more so than before. Time felt slow again, no longer fast and fearful. He felt like he was falling but not in a good way. The moment he was in felt like a trap that had been set, patiently waiting for him. One that he would never escape. His breathing was thin and his tight heart pounded in his ears, driving out all other sounds.
“Baby, are you okay?”
The words should have been his but they were hers instead as she turned to face him. She was exactly as she should have been. The same tangled hair and gentle smile. Her eyes looked a little darker but that was just another conjuring trick of the day. It had to be. His heart eased as Garry realised how silly he had been. The images, ideas and fantasies let loose in his head by the heat of the day. Their perfect day. He had almost spoiled it by working himself up into a lather.
“Yes … yes, I’m fine.”
“You look like you’ve gotten yourself hot and bothered. Come on, let’s get an ice cream. I could murder a Magnum.”
He let her take him by the hand and lead him away before he could think too long about why she’d been waiting here for him; why she hadn’t come back earlier, or why her hair seemed to be thicker and near-black rather than the autumnal shade he was used to. Her eyes were darker, steadier and harder than they had been before. He noticed when she looked back at him that her smile was not so gentle either. No, that was all nonsense, he was worrying about nothing. Everything was fine, wonderful and normal. This was just a perfect day in the park with his perfect girl. She hadn’t changed, not one bit. How could she?
One of the birds in the lake chose that moment to take flight and, as it did, it called out. The sound it made was harsh and forlorn. For some reason, it made Garry think not of a bird’s cry but the sound made by something else; abandoned in the dark, moist and rotting, with a face he once loved and a mouth that would never be whole again.
Pteronophobia
A captured moment. One that does not last for long, disintegrating quickly, ageing softly into tragedy and dust. A feather falls; its quill wet and shining, bloodily torn out, coming to rest in a lonesome place. The last bird dies. Years go by. Footsteps come, disturb the dust. Voices upset the silence. The blood on the feather is still wet, still shining. The dead and thoughtless space around it darkly stirs.
Guin comes to, violently. Eyes open wide, wondering where she is, feeling bed sheets beneath her body. They are cold and old. The texture is heavy with the sour leavings of many bodies; dead skin cells
, crispy patches of dried fluids. Still in a world she does not know, she scrambles off the filthy linen. The floor is filthier. A stale carpet of dismal dusty tangles. Vermin droppings and extinct arachnids crunch and crumble under her feet. The room is clear to her now. The windows are papered over, yellow copies of The Times and The Daily Mail keep out the light; what little light there is. Through torn patches in the makeshift curtains, feeble fingers of moonlight trace their way through the atmosphere, casting faint grey lines of illumination, dissecting the scene. She sees the bed is dark with stains that are not her own. She is unhurt. The stains on the bed have been there a long time. Sagging shelves surface out of the shadows; bent and buckling under the weight of thick crusty books. The writing down the spines is alive before her eyes. It moves as snakes move. It flows with exotic rhythms. Piercing her eyes with unseen needles, drawing out tears, the pain goes through her, into her brain. Aches reach her fingers and toes, making them curl into rigorous spasm. Her streaming eyes clear, just for a moment, and she sees them. In their hundreds, thousands, millions, falling. Slowly, silently, softly falling; white, speckled feathers, their quills dripping bright red tears.
The blood touches her.
A feather touches her.
Guin screams.
Guin and Libby are walking and laughing, going home. They do not see him. They walk into him. A box of shittily-fried chicken and chips goes everywhere. Ketchup spatters their clothes. Malt vinegar fouls the air. His name is Arcade. His eyes are white almonds, his diamante ear-studs catch the moonlight and his skin is marbled red by acne pits. They know him. He has a knife.
Guin runs, one arm over Libby’s shoulder. Libby is nursing her face, the cut made there by Arcade. It runs from the corner of her mouth to the lobe of her left ear. Her fingers slither through the tacky film of blood drying on her skin. She can’t believe he did it. Marked her. Cut her face open. She can taste the pain as cold static on her tongue. She gags as bitter fluid runs down her throat. She lets Guin guide her. She feels the cold static spread down her spine, icicles grow in her veins and arteries. This is shock. She wants to stop, scream and drop. Curl in, concave, against the horror that is happening. This is a good night out, was, should have been. Now, a nightmare of bleeding is happening. Her head swims with ghosts of darkness chasing light. Libby hopes she’s asleep, hopes she will wake up. She hears a coarse cry and the bleak beating of a bird’s wings.
Arcade is the runt of the litter, that’s what makes him mean. Got all the bad genes. The bad skin. There’s nothing smooth or comely about him. He marked that cunt good. She asked for it. So he did it. Did it good. It would leave a scar. His stomach is sore from the other bitch – her sister – beating him. She decked him while he was laughing at the blood on the pavement, at Libby’s whining. His skull bangs with pain, hurting deep, as he runs. Each footstep strikes the pavement and drives rusted nails into his head. She hurt his teeth when she hit him. He bit off a piece of his tongue. He hawks, gobbing it into the night. He will mark her same as the other; make those sisters match.
The street is old and sits far back from the main road. A Victorian terrace where no light shines. The trees grow in a line on one side of the road. Their gnarled fingers reach the gutters of the houses, creating a claustrophobic canopy. It is late summer, not yet autumn, the leaves hang heavy on the trees. The stars of the night cannot penetrate through. No street light punctures the gloom with a bright sodium hole. Not one window glows.
Guin and Libby run into the darkness. So does Arcade. The street breathes in, consuming them. Their footsteps disintegrate, becoming silence. On the rooftops, there is a rustling and shuffling of downy bodies. Claws crack and scrape on tile. Pinhole eyes shimmer at the centre of small black moons. Beaks open, quietly cooing, calling out to something that cannot be seen.
Guin is on the landing. Her breathing is convulsive as she scratches the feathers away. The door to the bedroom is closed. Gooseflesh makes her ache. She feels every trail of sweat following its course. Feathers, always feathers, something about them, how soft they are, how they feel, how they were once a part of something living. Those who wear or carry feathers are pallbearers for pieces of the dead. When feathers touch her skin, when she sees them, all she wants to do is scream.
Libby is here. She stands at the far end of the landing, eyes open but not seeing. Guin calls out to her but makes no sound. Her throat is too raw. Libby descends the stairs to the floor below. Guin runs to her, reaching over the bannister, tugging at her sister’s clothes. Libby does not stop. There is a sound coming from below. A quiet cooing. The light call of a bird dying. Guin does not know what to do. Libby is sleep-walking. Waking a sleep-walker can be dangerous, fatal, but she wants to stop her from following the bird’s call. There is something in the sound. Something wrong with it. She reaches out to grab Libby’s shoulders, stop her descent.
Something soft brushes the back of her hand, unsettling the skin; a blood-tipped feather. Guin’s gut clutches tight. She hurls herself away from it, from the disappearing Libby. The storm from the bedroom is here, descending anew. Countless, soundless fragments of speckled white, tumbling down, meaning to drown her.
Guin, drily heaving, scrambles away on hands and knees. There is a door adjacent to the stairs. She fumbles at the handle. Her fingers made clumsy by trembling. The handle turns. She claws her way inside. Breath whistling, skin scrawling with hot streaking rash-lines. She rubs at herself fitfully, huddles in the dim quiet of the room; listens to the creak-creak of stair after stair giving way under Libby’s footsteps. Going down and down. Then, they stop.
Libby is gone.
Lost to below.
Guin chokes on a sob. She hears a sound in the room. Something is in here. She is not alone in the dark. A rumbling shakes the floor and walls. A gust of cruddy air clogs her nostrils. It comes rushing out of the far wall. Shatters the plaster. Breaks the wood. Shreds ancient wallpaper into fluttering grey strips. In places, patchy white flesh shows through, some of it made red raw by scales and weeping sores. Butchered limbs, once wings, beat brokenly, battering, flapping, scrabbling and scratching, flailing wildly, further wounding themselves. Great bones splinter and much blood falls. Shrieks echo out from the glistening meat-hook of its beak. No gentle cooing here. There are no feathers on the thrashing thing. It is bare meat and bone inhabited by something monstrous and unknown. Caught between places, only partially here, half-made, imprisoned in the brutish stuff of the wall.
Its eyes are scalding spokes, blinding furies, pure burning promises of violence. Promises it cannot keep. It cries out for pain, wanting blood. Guin sees tears run down the skinned bulb of its awful avian face. She winces at the sight.
She opens the door and sees that the storm is no more.
No feathers lie on the landing’s dirty boards.
Time to go.
Find Libby.
Get out of this place.
Guin leaves the thing to its brick and mortar gaol. She shuts the door, she hears a deep, rough grinding. The wall ingests the screaming vulture once more. She hears the sound of utter agony it makes as it is eaten, as bricks break more of its bones into dust. She pities it.
This darkness, this place, is a something that is nothing. An opening, an emptiness, a way through; calling it a door or a portal would be doing it a favour. It is a pisshole in black snow. A septic open wound with dirty scabbed-over edges. Where bad stuff clots, turns from yellow to black, goes soft and rotten. On the rooftops, the birds watch and wait, quietly cooing, listening to the screams below, feeling the pain. There is not enough, never will be enough. The blood must flow forever.
Arcade is not where he should be. He sees undecorated slabs of brick and inhales the rank odour of rat piss. It is cold and damp here. He does not want to be here. He gets to his knees, then to his feet. Shivering, he rubs his arms, his cricked neck. He walks forward, following the rhythm in his head. The beating of wings, lots of them. In frenzy. Trapped, battering against a hard surfac
e. Arcade comes to a wall. The sound comes from within. He pushes at it with his fingertips. Solid brick. No way there’s loads of birds trapped in there.
I’m hearing things. Those two cunts got me, somehow, they drugged me, stuffed me down here. I’m gonna more than mark them for this.
A shimmer in the corner, a flinty glint of steel. A fire axe, dark red flakes peel off the blade. Winking light at him, it tempts him close. Arcade feels the grain of the wood. The shaft is heavy and right in his hands, he weights it. It feels so good. Still, he hears the sound of the birds, fluttering, battering, beating, struggling behind the walls. He shakes his head, grinds his eyes shut. Still, he hears them, loud and clear. Then, he hears footsteps. Coming down the stairs. Coming here. Arcade shuffles into the shadows. His eyes glint and shine like the blade of the axe in his hands.
Libby walks down, down and down. Lower and lower into this house no longer rooted in concrete and soil. The foundations are much stranger, the depths of them deeper. You could sink in this stuff forever. She does not feel the dust and grime scraping under her feet. She does not see how the tainted walls crawl with ebola-holes, how they breathe out an acrid pale mist of urine. She does not hear her sister, calling to her, from above. She does not know the cut on her face is bleeding afresh. The blood glints and shines in the darkness down here. She does not feel the axe when Arcade buries it in her face.
A small mercy.
The bird lies in a ditch by the side of the road. Its beak is cracked and its eyes are beginning to crust over. There are numerous grubs moving about in the deep open hole of its belly. Its insides are hanging out, wiggly white worms. The feathers on its neck are puffing, in and out, very quickly.