Paper Cities, an Anthology of Urban Fantasy (18 page)

Colby unconsciously put his left hand on his hip where the skin was still scabbed and sore. “No,” he said. “I’m the only one.”

•

Paul Meloy

Alex went through the cottage to the kitchen and packed a few things in a bag for the day. As he was checking a cabinet for something to put in a sandwich, a shadow passed by the window and he heard a scraping sound from above, on the roof. Some shingles rattled on the path outside, and he thought he could hear a clicking sound retreating down the lane. Standing up quickly, he peered out of the window. Rain blew across the village in fine sheets, causing the view to flutter and drain of colour; it was like looking through a billowing net curtain.

Alex gasped. There at the end of his garden, standing on the tallest pair of stilts he had ever seen, was a small figure. The rain blew and made it impossible to make out any features, but Alex got a distinctly bad feeling from seeing it standing there with rainwater running off it and down its slender stilts in rivulets.

Suddenly, it lunged forward and swung its right leg out and over the garden wall. The stilt swept through the air like the hand of an enormous clock and came down with a wet thud in the ground beneath the windowsill. Alex stepped away from the window, feeling threatened and scared.

Somehow, the creature at the top managed to swivel its hips and sling the other stilt over the fence. Its arms windmilled, and it threw its body forward, bringing the two stilts together outside the window. Alex could see them clearly, and they looked old and splintered and stained.

There was more scraping from the roof and then to Alex’s shock, a large chunk of guttering crashed to the ground.

“Hey!” He shouted, and from up there he heard a dreadful rasping chuckle.

Alex felt suddenly disorientated; he had been preparing for a good day out a moment ago and now he was under attack. Alex rummaged in the toolbox beneath the sink and found a small-handled axe. He threw on his jacket, hauled on a pair of boots and opened the back door.

He had to squint against the rain and narrowly avoided getting his head knocked off by a downfall of roof tiles, which exploded on the step by his feet. He circled the rickety stilts and looked up. The stilts were embedded in the ground and reached into the sky. The creature had jumped from them and was now standing on the roof, tugging and pulling at the tiles like a vandal, giggling that horrid cracked laugh. Bits of shingle spattered down like hail.

Infuriated by this incursion, Alex approached the stilts and swung his axe. The creature saw him, shrieked and hurled a roofing slate. Alex ducked and whipped the axe round in an arc. It crunched into the stilt and sent splinters flying.

The creature shrieked again and leapt from the roof. It caught hold of the stilts in both hands and glared down at Alex, who wrenched the axe free and made to swing again.

It braced its feet on the stilts and, to Alex’s amazement, shinned like a monkey to the top. It wobbled briefly, clamped its feet into odd, stirrup-like fitments and, before Alex could chop at the stilt again, was away.

It all happened so quickly. With two strides it was off, over the garden wall and down the lane. By his feet, two steaming holes beneath the window were the only evidence Alex had that it had been there. He looked up and there it was, a little shaking figure atop its enormous legs.

“
Pak-Pak
!” It shouted, in a grating high-pitched voice. “
Pak-Pak
!”

Alex felt like hurling the axe at it, but before he could do anything, he heard the strangest noise.

From behind the cottage came the rhythmic sound of rusty springs creaking.

Alex spared Pak-Pak one last look, then ran back into the cottage. He belted up the stairs and went through to the back bedroom.

Just in time to see an ugly blue face drop out of sight.

He went cautiously over to the window but, before he got there, heard that rusting
spang
! again and that face appeared, grinning with malignant glee. It pulled back its arm and threw a fist-sized rock at the window. There was an enormous smash, and the glass blew into the room. The rock carried through and crashed against the wall behind Alex. He leaped aside to avoid the flying glass, skidding on the floorboards and crashing against the wardrobe.

He went back to the window and threw it open.

Spang
!

The creature rose up before him, and he saw a look of surprise on its face. It was a horrible thing, fat and slimy, with little stumpy arms and legs sticking out. Its skin was blue, and it was totally bald. It held an armful of rocks, but its shock at seeing Alex leaning out of the bedroom window prevented it from chucking any more. It dropped out of sight, gawping.

Alex reached out and slid a drawer from the bottom of the wardrobe. He heaved it round and pushed it out of the window, holding on tight to the heavy brass handles.

Spang
!

The creature flew up and smashed face-first into the underside of the drawer. The wood buckled and splintered and Alex heard a muffled cry. The drawer leaped in his hands and he yanked it back in, threw it on the bed and peered out over the ledge.

Beneath him lay the creature, spread-eagled and cursing. Beside it stood a small, circular trampoline. The fabric looked gray with dirt, and it was laced across in places with big clumsy loops of stitching, where it had been repaired and patched up. The ring of springs connecting it to the rickety frame was ancient with rust.

As he watched, the creature staggered to its feet. It shook its head and rain flew off it in cold heavy droplets. It stood and stared up at Alex.

Alex had been feeling fairly charged up with all the action, but standing there with his head leaning out into the rain, he saw an expression on the creature’s face and a look of utter hatefulness in its eyes that shook him and filled him with a sense of cold dread.

From the back of the house Alex heard a sharp cry, and before he could react, a stilt soared up and over the roof and plunged down into the dark wet grass of the back lawn.

With one stride Pak-Pak stepped over the cottage. It looked down at Alex and made a rattling sound in its throat. In response, the other creature gave Alex one last glare, waddled up to its trampoline and grabbed it by the frame. It yanked the trampoline out of the grass, turned and began dragging it across the garden towards the gate.

Pak-Pak spun on its stilts and with enormous strides, stalked away towards the Welts. The trees were thin at the bottom of the garden but thickened and towered as the forest drew away over the hills. This bitter winter had thrashed them of their leaves completely, so as Pak-Pak trod its way deeper into the woods it looked like something doggedly dodging mighty claws.

The gate banged shut, and Alex watched the creature with the trampoline drag it into the Welts. It turned once and Alex heard it make a thick snuffling sound as it met his eye. Then it turned and was gone.

Alex stood there for a moment longer, watching the wind moving amongst the trees, washing them down with that cool, fine rain. The garden gate swung back and forth on its old iron hinge, creaking softly.

He closed the window, careful of the broken pane and made his way back downstairs. He felt shaken but pleased that he had seen the creatures off. What had they been doing here, wrecking his home? He went into the kitchen and grabbed his bag from the kitchen table then went out to the shed to get his bike, a big old three-wheeler with a basket on the front. As Alex wheeled it out, Bong, his cat, came flying over the garden wall. He skidded to a stop at the back door, saw Alex and leapt straight into the basket.

He stroked the top of Bong’s head, glad to see him and he nuzzled Alex’s hand with an uncommon urgency. His tail curled and flicked and he peered up at Alex with a look of fright in his pale gray eyes. His ears pricked up suddenly, and he pulled away. He stood rigid, front paws up on the rim of the basket and the hackles went up all along his back. He hissed sharply.

Alex followed his gaze.

From out of the Welts came a cry. It began as a low note, and Alex felt it blanket his bones with chill and misery. It began to rise in pitch, gaining in volume, and it was the most awful sound he had ever heard, a sound that wanted to hurt you.

Alex felt like screaming it was so awful. At once, all the birds for miles rose up out of the forest and filled the sky with wheeling black static. They flocked in great pulsing blotches against the low white cloud, but what made the event so unreal was that they flocked as one regardless of species. Crows and doves, woodpigeons, starlings and magpies all turned and shoaled together in total and flawless formation. It was as if the sky kept folding and unfolding itself. They swarmed overhead, and Alex saw nightjars and wrens; herons, ducks, kingfishers and owls all in profusion above him. But the thing that shook him, which made the whole spectacle so upsetting was how they all looked. They all appeared terrified, as if this whole thing was out of their control. Their beaks gaped, and their little eyes bulged. And throughout it all, that screaming drove them, welling up out of the Welts.

Alex patted Bong’s head down into the basket and tucked a cloth round him. He jumped on his bike and pedaled off down the path to the gate.

Alex suddenly needed Hemog’s friendly face and kind words more than anything, and his vision blurred with more than just the rain. He stood up in the saddle and pushed hard on the pedals. They flew down the lane to Hemog’s cottage.

•

As Alex reached the end of the lane and cut along a path worn into the earth at the outskirts of the Welts, the weather changed. Snow began to fall. Great flakes like rose petals swirled down from the darkening clouds. He rode through a dense and thickening blizzard, aware that the snow was settling quickly on the hard, churned earth and skeletal branches around him. Flakes drifted into his face and spattered against the back of his neck. Bong caught a flake the size of a potato crisp on his tongue and spluttered, burying his head under his cloth.

Mercifully, the dismal screaming had stopped and the birds had taken roost against the snow, a storm of dark particles replaced by sweet purifying whiteness. Alex thought all this had been too much for Bong, who in all the time he had known him had never been one for birds.

Eventually they arrived at Hemog’s cottage and came to a stop at his gate.

As Alex climbed off his bike, the front door opened. Bong sprang out from the basket and landed softly in an inch of snow. He looked up at Alex, saw him nod and leapt over the fence and streaked down the path. As he reached the door a large white bull terrier appeared. Bong skidded to a stop but was too late. The dog was on him in a flash, teeth, tongue and gums grinning down on him, gnashing.

Bong slid in the snow, head down and somehow managed to glide beneath the dog’s bandy front legs. He rolled over, recovered his footing and pounced on the dog’s back.

The dog yelped, but Bong had an ear in his mouth and sensed victory. The dog bounded around the garden with Bong stuck to its back but couldn’t shake him off.

Alex opened the gate and walked up the path. Although the door was half open, he knocked anyway, vaguely aware of a dog with a head like a chalk anvil bundle past him and get tangled up in a honeysuckle vine, a small cat hanging off it like a scarf.

As Alex was about to push the door open and go in he glimpsed something move in the Welts behind him. He paused and looked back down the path, and as he did so two horrid looking beasts charged out from the cover of the trees and threw down the gate.

Alex gasped. Bong saw them and, instead of tormenting the dog, grabbed its collar in his mouth and began pulling, freeing it from the tangled remains of the honeysuckle. The dog, who had been writhing and munching at the tendrils, sprang to its feet and advanced down the path towards the creatures, snarling. Bong leaped into Alex’s arms.

One of the beasts was low to the ground and scaly. It had a human face and unearthly curly blonde hair, as if someone had stuck a doll’s head on a Gila monster. It walked on all fours, although all four limbs were arms with long-fingered hands. It had spines like knitting needles in a ring around its neck.

The other creature had left the path and was circling the dog; a cluster of eyes like a spider’s high on its forehead glittering maliciously as it stalked. It walked upright but with a terrible kind of caution as if it had recently recovered from a near fatal accident. It had a face as round and pale as a pudding bowl, featureless apart from that handful of eyes. It wore a dark, pinstriped suit, which was smothered in mud and blotchy with mould. For an awful moment of stillness it stopped and stood there, swaying slightly in the snowfall, and marked Alex. It reached out an arm and pointed at him. It made a gesture with its thumb and index finger like a pistol and mimed a shot at him. Alex felt a rush of air along his cheek, and a small hole appeared in the doorframe behind his head.

Alex cried out and dropped the cat, ducking instinctively. It only got off one shot. The dog twisted away from the advancing lizard-thing and threw itself at the taller figure. It made to fire on the dog but didn’t get a chance because the dog had seized its wrist and was tearing at it like a hambone. The creature shrieked and made a desperate imploring gesture to its companion. The doll-faced thing blubbered, rolled its haunting blue eyes and scuttled across the grass to assist. The three fought in the snow, Pinstripe on his back with the dog savaging its gun hand, lizard-dollboy circling and slapping and whining. And all the time the snow continued to fall and it was like watching monsters dance in a dream.

Then, from behind Alex: “Alehouse!”

A hand landed on Alex’s shoulder, and: “Hello, Alex.
Alehouse
! Leave them
some
dignity!”

Alex looked up into Hemog’s kind, strange face and let him usher him into the warmth of his cottage. Outside, Alehouse was backing away from the creatures, issuing a low, protective growl. He reached the doorstep and stood at Hemog’s side, huge barrel chest filled out with pride. Hemog fussed the top of his head.