Dead Bad Things (10 page)

  She remembered:

 

  
This one time, when she was nine or ten years old, he had come again into her room. He moved with the usual slouched gait. In his hand he held the scalpel – a new one; it was shiny, even in the dark. He said nothing, just pulled back the bedclothes and squatted by the side of the bed. She knew enough to pull her nightdress up over her thighs, exposing the pale flesh. It was pointless fighting: the door was locked and he >was so much stronger than her.

  
Lately he had started wearing the costume. It was strange, almost monkish: a long, black smock-type thing, with a white gauzy hood covering his features. There was something ritualistic about the outfit, and it made her think of prayer.

  
Is that what he was doing? Praying to his god?

 

She slid down in the bath, the hot water cradling her, keeping her safe. The water level rose around her ears, containing her within a quiet world. Her life receded, drifting away. Another scene took its place:

 

  
The scalpel blade flashed, catching gleams of light from the streetlamp outside her window. She did not scream; she would not give him the pleasure of hearing her pain. She had learned not to scream a while ago. It ensured that the ordeal was short. He carried it out like a duty, as if it were a job of work. By now each tiny cut was perfunctory, as if there was no passion behind the act. It had gone on for so long that it had almost become a chore.

  
Then, the beast once more quietened, he left the room. The door clicked shut. The sound of the lock echoed in the cavernous dark.

  
She waited… waited… and then came the muted screaming. Then she took the cotton wool balls and antiseptic lotion out of her drawer and began to dab at the cuts.

 

When she woke, mere moments had passed. She checked the clock on the wall, and it told her that she had simply been drowsing. The water suddenly felt dirty, contaminated. Her father did that: he blighted whatever he touched. Even now, after his death, he was able to cast a shadow and cause a stench.

  The bastard was dead, but he would not rest.

  He was dead, but he was watching.

  Watching over the people he owned.

 

 

 

 

 
 
 

It was gloomy when They stepped off the bus. The air was wet and heavy and the sky trembled as if machines thrummed behind the heavy grey clouds, generating the weather. Drizzle fell like insincere kisses; it was light, almost waxy, and promised nothing but more of the same. They stood at the side of the road and watched as the bus pulled away, an unstable outline in the murk. They could not remember boarding the vehicle – Their consciousness had emerged at some point during the journey and the first thing They had been aware of was the sight of a city approaching.

  Cities. They loved cities, despite never before being able to enter one. These places were Their playgrounds and Their workplaces. Wherever people massed, and the energy of mortal men and women was strongest, Their designs flourished.

  A city, then….

  Oh, yes; They loved it here.

  Traffic was heavy. The rain and the scant daylight conspired to fill the road network with harried drivers. Couriers hurried here and there: in small white vans, on bicycles and mopeds. Workers emerged from tall buildings to consume brief lunches before tunnelling back into the communal hive.

  The evidence of their designs was everywhere. They smiled. They were happy. To see the designs in action was such a gift; They rarely got to examine the results of Their work at such close quarters. Moments like this one were to be savoured.

  They walked slowly from the spot on the pavement, enjoying the feel of two spindly limbs skimming above the surface. They clenched Their hands into fists and then relaxed. Over and over: a succession of empty threats on the end of two skinny white arms.

  They caught sight of Their body in the mirror of a shopping quadrant window – a lovingly restored Victorian arcade. The body was small, almost invisible within the greater mass of flesh and movement. It was clad in scruffy rags. Torn jeans covered the legs. A thin shirt encased the fragile torso. The face was partially hidden by long, lank hair.

  They scanned Their memories for the particular design – if any – allotted to this form, but found nothing. Perhaps it was free of Their interference. Not everyone was lucky enough to be a subject, a framework, for the perfection of Their duty. Some people spent their entire lives without being blessed by a design.

  A tall man in a smart suit brushed against Them as he passed by in a hurry. A design trailed from him like webbing. The complex nature of its construction was a joy to behold, and They paused to admire Their handiwork.

  Such complex patterns; a veritable labyrinthine structure clung to the man. There were so many placements, such a vast array of conceptual pathways in evidence, They wished They could simply follow him and observe as the design evolved.

  So that's what They did: They stalked the man from across the street, enjoying the way that several older versions of the design fell away like skeins of dead flesh then drifted on an unseen breeze, floated up into the air, and dissipated in the upper levels of the atmosphere. Even once they had been installed, the designs kept growing and mutating, becoming things which adapted to the person who carried them.

  The discarded raw material might find its way back and be recycled for another design; some of it might even attach itself to a design already in action, snagging on an outcropping and changing an existing shape and process in the beautifully organic way They had only ever witnessed in Their imaginations.

  The man jumped into a taxi outside a large, contemporary public house. His face crumpled, and then reformed. The design was changing him, re-contextualising his basic role in the human race, simply because of the matter which had drifted away. No one else could see this, of course. No one but Them.

  They watched him for as long as They could; until he was no longer visible. The air moved around him, making room for his ever-changing design.

  They knew:

 

 

Such was the beauty and simplicity and sheer mathematical impossibility of the design. His design. The one They had created for him, and which was changing with every second he remained alive.

  They crossed the road, enjoying the sound of car horns and the yelling of drivers who stuck their heads out of side windows to shout abuse. The screech of tyres. The song of the city.

  They stood outside the public house – a bright, cheery building with lots of glass along the frontage and huge swinging doors. They once again saw Themselves reflected in the glass, and They tried to smile. But it did not work; the expression was alien to Them, a thing They could not even begin to rationalise in the context of Their designs.

  After a short while They crossed the footpath to the door and pushed it open, walked inside. It was warm; music was playing; people drank and laughed and ate salty snacks from shallow bowls at the bar. Hardly anyone noticed Them, so They stepped lightly across the room, looking for something – looking for
someone.

  They had sensed a familiar tension in the air. It told Them that there was at least one soul present who had been touched, or breathed upon, by the lost one. He had breached the external barriers protecting Their designs, entered it, and then sealed it behind him. He had interfered in a way which had always been forbidden.

  He had made himself part of the designs, and by doing so had caused a mess. That was why They were here: to clean up the mess, stitch together the tattered holes in whichever designs the lost one had damaged.

  They scanned the room. There were so many auras; They could see them all now. Their vision was improving. Most of the auras They saw were torn and frayed, but the specific one They sought would be slashed and trashed, hanging in frayed tatters from whoever carried it. The designs were visible to Them like the exoskeletons of certain insects; they enveloped the bodies of the subjects, fusing with their auras to create a sort of scaffolding for the energy held within.

  Then, at last, They saw it. Several of the separate links of the small design were coming apart at the seams; some of them had broken away and dissolved, leaving behind only seared stumps. This person had been touched only briefly by the one they had come to find, and possibly several times removed, but still he had been touched. The damage to his design, however minimal, pointed to this fact. He had come into the lost one's orbit, and his design had trembled.

  They began to cross the room, approaching the man. He was young, and he was very drunk. In his hand he held a shot glass; the liquid inside was golden, fiery. He finished it in a single mouthful, and then motioned to the barmaid for more – and that was when They were spotted.

  "Get out of here, kid." Another man had approached Them from the side, his hands held out away from his body. "What the hell are you doing in here? You're underage: go back home to mummy."

  Laughter. Shouts. An unseen woman singing.

  The man grabbed Them by both shoulders and steered Them back the way They had come, towards the door to the street. The crowd parted; people smiled; a large woman with a big shiny face pointed and began to giggle.

  Once outside the man knelt before Them, his face creased into a gentle smile. His entire demeanour changed. His design was small and fragile; an incomplete element hung from his back and left to wither. They were sad. "What's up, son? You in trouble? I know someone who might be able to help. I can take you there. He… he takes in young kids like you, gives them a job. You can earn good money."

  They knew exactly what he meant, what he wanted. They knew it all. It was part of his pathetic design. As was a possible future outcome, one which might change with the slow flexing of his tired design.

 

 

  They shook Their head. They could not yet speak – this mouth; it refused to work properly – but They could grunt. They could moan.

  "Hey, kid, what's that? What's wrong with your head? You been in an accident?" The man reached out for Them again, his fingers grasping. "Hey, come here. Let me help you." When he pulled his hand away his fingertips were red.

  They backed away and left the man there, crouched on the sidewalk and thinking of chicken – his pet name for all the boys he and Sammy recruited from the streets to service their clients in the basement room of Sammy's Hi-Fi shop in Bestwick…

  They knew this, because it affected the designs of those who passed by on the street, making them flutter. Serendipity knew no moral boundaries; it was free to all. As long as it was designed for them.

  They walked to the corner and waited. The young man They'd spotted inside the pub would have to come out at some point, and when he did They would be sure to follow. They would trail him wherever he went, because eventually he would lead Them to the lost one.

  And then Their work here could be completed.

 

 

 

 

 
 
 

The sky was dull grey, the colour of sorrow, as they left for the Stoneville residential home. Benson took the wheel while Sarah sat in the passenger seat staring out of the window at the drizzle, which seemed to form fuzzy grey clots in the air. She was trying not to think too hard about where they were going, just clearing her mind and allowing the greyness to saturate her perceptions. She hoped that it might even drown her thoughts.