Sin (22 page)

Of course that was if we were
given these lives. If some Higher Power was running an assembly
line of souls to populate the Earth and maybe the Universe (who
knew?). Or Life could well have been an accident and we were just
here. Living. No purpose or direction, just BEING. In which case, I
don't think anything mattered, did it?

But hey-ho daddy-o, it's off to
hell we go. Free will - or was it Free Will, Will being William, or
Bill to his friends, a man locked up in prison for the past ten
years for a crime he didn't commit? Anyway, free will was looking
to be pretty scarce at the moment. My will certainly hadn't been
free whilst in the mental home (maybe it had been locked up with
Bill) and it had been hijacked by my sister since then. I felt as
if I was just along for the ride and wished I'd had the foresight
to strap myself in.

Still, whether I was being
dramatic or not, I had to take a deep breath and steel myself
before stepping over. I'd been in there more times than I could
remember when I was young. The Hills were an adventure and a dare
for a kid, and I'd had plenty of both. My courage, or innocence,
had faded with the passing years, however. I could tell myself that
it was only a sense of the danger in walking on such uneven ground
in the darkness that was making me wary. I could tell myself that,
but I didn't necessarily believe it.

Something else waited for me and
I was letting the ghost of my dead sister lead me to it. I was
walking into a cellar, with a light that didn't work, and I was
ignoring the streaks of blood on the walls and the sinister
scratching sounds from below.

* * * *

History doesn't relate whether
Jonah, Gepetto and Pinocchio sat around a table eating pizza,
sharing stories of prophecy and puppetry while in the belly of the
whale, but I thought that I could relate to being swallowed whole.
It wasn't quite in the realm of my hand disappearing as I pushed it
into the visceral blackness, reappearing again when I pulled it
out. I could still see my body and I could still see my sister.
When I turned around I could still watch cars drive by and the dog
sniffing at the lampost. But I wasn't sure whether they could see
me. It felt like I was looking at them through glass, as if they
were exhibits in a museum. Or perhaps I was the exhibit. No. I was
Alice stepped through into Wonderland - a dark, eerie, hollow
Wonderland inhabited by all manner of ghosties and ghoulies and
horrible beasties.

As long as Joy wasn't the crazy
Queen of Hearts.

"OK?"

Joy was looking at me
questioningly. Had she read my thoughts just then? Did she see the
glimmer of distrust? I couldn't help it. The situation... I was
being led blindly. I was accepting of so much. Ignoring the things
I could do and had done, this was my sister! She was
dead
!
I'd attended her funeral, scattered her ashes. Yet here she was,
large as life and twice as wonderful. Cryptic conversations and
unknown destinations. I doubt I would have trusted the Pope or a
second hand car salesman if they'd have been here instead of Joy.
But what could I do? Walk away? To what? No. I had to follow
through like a wet fart. See what came of it and clean up the mess
afterwards.

This was my sister. If I had to
place my trust, however blind it might be, in someone it could only
be her. In the absence of that second hand car salesman anyway.

"I'm OK," I said. "Just a bit
nervous."

I'd presented Joy with the
perfect opportunity for her to put my mind at rest. Ease my fear.
Calm my nerves.

"I know," she said.

No "It'll be fine" or "Don't
worry."

Great.

"This way."

She started off towards the
centre of the Seven Hills and I, as quickly as my slowly adjusting
to a distinct lack of light eyes would allow, followed.

The Hills of the Seven were all
around the outer boundary. A ring of guardians protecting an inner
treasure, or maybe a circle of judges presiding over a central
court. In some cases the slope down to the middle was gradual, the
odd pothole or dip the only blemish on the smoothish surface. In
others, a sharp incline, broken by gashes and crevices, led a
perilous path that only a mountaineer or a twelve year old could
confidently descend. Far over to the right, towards the end of
Chelmsford and its intersection with the middle of Yarborough a
group of trees huddled, afraid to venture forth into the Hills
themselves. The Copse. Or the Corpse as some called it. The rest of
the area was, in some places sparsely, in others more densely,
covered in patchy grass and low bushes. Certainly the odd tree
sprouted here and there, but they were lonely figures and struggled
to keep their footing in this naturally hostile domain.

I could see none of this. A
greyish, off white glow surrounded us as we walked - or Joy walked
and I stumbled. At first I thought it was nothing more than my eyes
becoming accustomed to the dark, but it seemed off. It seemed
artificial. And I noticed it flickering at the edges.

"Are you making this light?" I
asked in a hushed voice. I wasn't necessarily afraid of being
heard, but the setting and circumstance seemed to command a level
of respect.

"Yes," Joy whispered. She felt
it too, then. "I wouldn't want you to break your leg or kill
yourself."

I assumed that was a private
joke amongst suicide committers. What did you call someone who
killed themselves? A suicider? Suicidalist? Did they have their own
private Comedy Store in the hereafter? Comedians standing up on a
stage telling death jokes?

"I'm half the man I used to be,"
says Eddie, who threw himself under a train.

"Guess which instrument I am,"
says Denise, who dined on a three course meal of paracetomol,
washed down by a bottle of the finest triple distilled vodka.
"Maracas!" She shakes herself so you can hear the rattle.

Barry, who led a piece of hose
from the exhaust pipe of his car into his window while he left the
engine running and listened to Barry Manilow, goes one better. "And
they say smoking will kill you!"

Hilarious.

"But we'll be seen," I said. The
isolation felt so complete, we could have been alone in the world,
the last survivors of the Human Race wandering the Earth in search
of scraps of food, some shelter, or a tanning studio. Priorities,
people. But we weren't. During the day, the Seven Hills were
creepy. At night, especially this night, with this companion, they
were Creepy. We were so completely
not
alone, I almost felt
crowded, hemmed in by persons or creatures unknown, always dancing
just outside the circle of light that Joy was creating.

"No, we won't," she said. She
stopped and turned to me. "We're not in Kansas anymore, Sin," she
said.

"Not in...?" I frowned.
"Pardon?"

"Don't worry about it," she
said. Well that was easy, wasn't it? OK, I won't worry. Just like
that. "Nobody will see us."

It wasn't some
body
I was
worried about. It was some
thing
. But not in Kansas? I
assumed she meant Grimsby. So where?

"Where are we?"

"Just somewhere else," she said.
"I don't know how... It's difficult to explain."

"And this light? Have you
swallowed a 40 watt?"

"Oh," she said gesturing. "This
is nothing. Practically a parlour trick. You'd be surprised Sin. So
surprised."

"At what?"

"At what a person can really
do."

"A person? Anyone? So it's not
just the two of us? And it's not just because you're dead?"

"Well, maybe not then."

"Not what? Dead or us."

"Both." She took a step towards
me and I barely stopped myself taking a step back. "I don't know if
it's just us. It might be. We could be an accident or we could be a
design. I don't know."

"And you couldn't tell me if you
did, I suppose."

"Probably not. But I don't. But
this light, yes. It's because I'm dead. It's like... ectoplasm or
something."

I laughed and my voice sounded
empty, as if someone had turned my bass right down, and still had
their hand over the dial marked Treble.

"Ectoplasm? This isn't
Ghostbusters, you know!"

Joy laughed then and she didn’t
sound flat. She sounded her usual vibrant self.

"No, I know, but I don't know
what else to call it. It's like I'm the light. It's part of me, and
I'm just... spreading it out."

"Well that makes sense," I said.
Of course it didn't, except in a weird way, it did.

"Does it?"

"No. Not really."

Joy laughed again. The laugh was
full of body and vigour, like a fine wine, but the magic she'd
always had was missing. I wasn't suddenly uplifted. I didn't shine
inside at the sound of it, as if I'd swallowed a box of Christmas
decorations and someone had switched them on. She was right.

We weren't in Kansas
anymore.

I shivered.

Joy had set off again. She was
heading, as far as I could tell, towards the centre. Of course she
was. Where else? The big nasty Thingy in films or books was always
there. An altar had to be in a clearing in the middle of the
forest. Clearings naturally didn't exist anywhere else. A pentagram
to summon your friendly neighbourhood Djinn would be in the centre
of the attic room. Not in a corner. Not etched in the floor of the
downstairs toilet. Granted it could be painted (in blood, most
likely) on the floor of a cellar, but if you didn't have one (and I
didn't think many - if any - houses in Grimsby did) then the attic,
loft or whatever you wanted to call it, would do. But the middle of
the floor or no more. Why? Why not in front of the TV? You could
catch Top Gear or Doctor Who whilst dripping blood from your
self-sliced palm into a chalice to call your favourite hellish
minion to do your bidding. Nope. It probably had something to do
with the heart. The core. The centre of the Universe. The centre of
the soul. Or even the centre of a ring doughnut, where all
knowledge is alleged to exist, at least so says the Gospel
According to Homer J. Simpson.

So down and in, down and in. I
didn't remember the climb down being so steep or treacherous. I
didn't remember gashes the size of a small car being rent out of
the ground. Were they clawed by whatever beastie lay in wait below?
Had it tried to escape once and the ground I now scrambled across
had suffered the consequences?

Happy thoughts. Happy thoughts.
Flowers and fairies and pixie dust. Hey ho, it's off to certain
death I go. If the Great Green Oogly-Boogly wanted a piece of me,
then it looked as if I was serving myself up for dinner. Don't you
just hate it when you haven't got any condiments to hand. A little
salt. Maybe a sprinkle of paprika. I didn't want to taste too
bitter. Didn't want Oggle-Boogle-Schmoogle to be any greener than
he already was.

The light Joy was creating,
ectoplasm manifest, moved with us as I hurriedly tried to catch up.
It flowed over the rocks and dirt like lava down a mountainside,
solid become liquid, lifeless become living. It felt as if we were
in some sort of dome of luminosity, protection from the darkness
haunting the area beyond its reach. Did it hurt? Was it like an
energy she was releasing, the discharge draining her of strength?
Or was it more like wind? One long, satisfying fart that just keeps
on going and earns a round of applause once it's finished rooting
and a-tooting?

Ectoplasm. Where were Bill
Murray when you needed him? And was Slimer, all hunger and... well,
slime... going to burst from the night and Tango us?

Down and in. Down and in.

Could they, the monsters that
dwelled hereabouts, not have installed an escalator? A lift maybe?
At the very worst, some steps to aid our decent? I'd prefer to go
to my doom in comfort. And my knees, backside and knuckles were
becoming scuffed and bruised from the number of times each of them
had helped prevent me falling.

Joy stopped suddenly and it was
a second before I realised we were on level ground. The Hollow. The
hole in the great doughnut. Unfortunately, I feared it was going to
be me that was eaten. D'oh! She put a long manicured finger on her
lips. Did the dead have nail bars?

Sssshhh.

Suits me, I thought. I hadn't
intended on announcing my presence with a hearty proclamation of
"Grub Up!"

She walked forwards, slowly, a
few steps then motioned for me to follow. I did so and stepped to
her side. Her close proximity seemed to bolster my flailing courage
(although that implies that courage had existed in the first
place), but only to the extent that I didn't run away screaming.
She held my hand and squeezed tight, and the light around us went
out.

Did I scream? Squeal? Like a
kicked piglet? Or was it only in my head?

All I could feel was Joy's hand
in mine. The world had been snuffed out, a candle on a birthday
cake blown out by the birthday girl.

Make a wish.

I couldn't feel the air - no
breeze nor breath brushed my face. I couldn't actually feel my
face. The ground beneath my feel had vanished and I felt as if I
was standing, but not floating, on nothing. Terra Firma had become
Terror Firmless. Was this sense depravation at its most extreme?
People paid money to float in tanks of water, lying in an insulated
cocoon to become one with their innermost being. Or some such
nonsense. Maybe it works, or maybe you just go crazy from the
complete lack of stimuli. Was I going crazy? Or was I still one
stop away, clinging onto my ticket, but wondering if I should get
off at this station rather than at the end of the line. Because it
could quite literally be the end of the line.

A spark. A prick in the black.
Was it real or were my eyes tricking me, creating light where there
was none? Ha, got you that time. Nothing here but us Nothings. No.
There was definitely something there. Maybe it was a cluster of
Nothings, gathered together, and that many in one place created a
Something
. But a group of Nothings? What would that be
called? And why would my mind insist on thinking of the term for a
collection of crows - a Murder.