The Collector of Remarkable Stories (10 page)

"Will you come with us as far as the edge of the city?" asked Margie.

"No" said Spider Beast firmly. "I can't emphasize enough how important it is that you reach the Darkest of All Places quickly. It’s treacherous out there. And the closer you get to the Darkest of All Places, the harder it will become. There are perils and dangers that you can’t even comprehend – and people will try and prevent you from reaching there at every turn. Stay focussed. When you find The Darkest of the Dark you have to trust them. They know what they need to do. They are the only ones who have the power to destroy this Thing you carry.

Margie sensed that Spider Beast was holding something back. "Exactly what
is
it I carry?"

"I don't know."

"How do you know it can be destroyed if you don't know what it is?"

Spider Beast reared up on his back legs momentarily. "You're very astute Margie May Langley. I don't know for sure but I have my suspicions. You don't need to know any more. Suffice to say it would account for the déjà vu epidemic and the afflictions on your back. I can't emphasize how important it is that you make it to the Darkest of All Places as quickly as you can."

"What would happen if we didn't?"

"You will have condemned the whole of Limbuss to a fate worse than death."

Margie studied spider beast for any sign that he'd been joking.

"Don't worry, Margie!" he said. "You'll be just fine." And with that he scuttled out of sight.

Where to, Margie didn't even wonder. She was tired; had barely slept a wink since Spider Beast decided she should make the journey. In some ways it was a relief that he had brought it forward; she was pleased that she was finally doing something to change her situation. She was one step closer to going home ... or at the very least, waking up from this frightful dream.

While Margie and The Giant packed for their journey, Spider Beast disappeared. He had a secret job to do. A job which he had been doing for over half a century: collecting stories from the deceased and stuffing them into bits of old junk in the hope that, one day, The Collector would return and transform them into the most powerful and important energy of all; that which fuels the universe.

Seventeen thousand stories a day he collected and stored. Millions upon millions of stories over the years, all of them different but each one just as important as the next; each a vital link in the fabric of time and space.

Oh, how many people would have loved to have the Collector's power; a power so great it was classed as a divine power; akin to the creation of a new soul. Spider Beast knew he could never compete with the Collector, but not knowing if she would ever return, he had
almost
worked out a way in which to convert the stories into energy himself.

What a shame The Collector had returned to Limbuss with no memory of who she was; she could have provided him with the one remaining piece of the jigsaw before packing her off to The Darkest of All Places.

Spider Beast knew that the journey they faced would make walking through a mince grinder look easy. There was nothing he could have done to prepare them for what lay ahead. All he could do now was wait patiently for them to reach the Darkest of All Places.

He just prayed that Margie
was
The Collector ... oh, how things would be easier for him if she was.

The Journey

It was late at night when Margie and The Giant set off into the great unknown. The streets were eerily quiet bar the hissing of a nearby steam works and the air was cold.

"I ain't ever rememberin' it being this cold before," shivered The Giant, as he pulled his coat tight around his hulk of a body and pulled the belt so tight Margie thought he might cut himself in half.

Neither Margie nor The Giant knew exactly where they were going, but had been given instructions by Spider Beast that they were to follow the great white star which shone brighter than any star in the sky.

"It's not difficult," he'd tutted. "It's a straight road from Limbuss to the Darkest of all Places. If you do lose your way, just follow the star. You'll know you're getting closer to the Darkest of All Places because it will start to fade. Giant, it's vitally important that you don't let Margie get distracted in any way. Make sure she gets there."

The Giant nodded eagerly. He didn't have any intention of letting anything stand in his way. He, like Margie, simply wanted to get going, the thought of being reunited with his lovely twins fuelling his resolve.

"Make sure you take enough provisions to take you as far as the town of Avaricia," said Spider Beast. "You should be able to restock once you reach there. Giant," he smirked, "I believe you know Avaricia?"

The Giant threw a cleaver at Spider Beast, missing him by a fraction of an inch.

"Giant, are you quite okay?" Margie cried, placing herself between Spider Beast (who had voluntarily taken sanctuary in the cage) and The Giant.

The Giant was shaking. "I ain't going to no Avaricia," he spat.

"You don’t have a choice," said Spider Beast coldly. "There’s no other way."

"It's okay," soothed Margie, "we'll find a way round it. We can camp on the outskirts."

"That’s where the circus folk live," replied The Giant.

Margie nodded. She knew that the circus held bad memories for The Giant.

"Then we will dig a hole and tunnel our way
under
Avaricia."

Satisfied with that, The Giant picked up a shovel, snapped the handle off, and threw what was left of it in his travel-sac.

It wasn’t long before Margie and The Giant had left the enveloping haze of the city behind them for the street on which the Emporium stood sat on the very edge of the city. In the darkness of night and from afar, the city looked quite beautiful as it loomed up like a great medieval cathedral; its ornate spires belying the pain and disease that lurked at its core. Great columns of steam and smoke still rose from various chimneys and Margie could almost taste the sweat, blood and tears that surely powered the city every hour of every day.

On her late night walks on the streets surrounding the Emporium she often tuned into the sadness of this great city; the misery and wretchedness that ensured the flames never went out. She could hear the sounds of anguish rush past her ears if the wind was blowing in the right direction. It haunted her, for this was the kind of anguish that was tainted with horror; a kind of horror that she didn’t dare scrutinize. Just the smallest hint of it was enough to make her heart feel like lead.

Now, as the two of them crept away from the city, Margie began to feel a peace; a feeling she barely remembered. It was the same peace she felt when she first woke up in the Emporium; the peace that came with silence. It suddenly occurred to Margie that, apart from the sound of their own footsteps and their heavy breath, there was no other sound. Not the sound of an owl; or a fox; or the rustle of the trees or the sound of the wind. Nothing. And Margie had never felt such calm.

They followed the star for several more hours until the sun began to rise and as it did they could see, for the first time that they were miles from anywhere. The city of Limbuss was already a mere speck in the distance and all that surrounded them now was a desert of sand and rock. As far as the eye could see it was a vast plain of sands and stones, interspersed with mountains of various sizes and heights; and there was no sign of life in this waste of burning sand.

By day, the two took refuge beneath a small tent that Spider Beast had salvaged from the Emporium. Here they slept as well as they could, for outside the scorching wind storms battered them like a demon possessed. And if the vast scorching sand clouds weren’t rolling and surging forward like great desiccated tidal waves then the sun was beating down on them.

By night they continued forward, following the star and seeking out the illusive springs which were said to burst forth. By day they slept. And after seventeen days and nights, they finally saw, in the very distance, a great oasis.

"Avaricia," The Giant whispered darkly.

Margie could not believe her eyes. How could something so alive and green and beautiful and splendid survive amid such a brutal environment? But there it was before her very eyes. For all intent and purposes it looked like any ordinary town only this one was built on an island in the centre of a large and beautiful lake, the rim of which was covered with a forest of date and palm trees.

The Giant kicked the ground with his toe. It was hard. Too hard. He knew instantly that they weren't going to be digging any holes or tunnels. He dropped his sack and then lumped down beside it. "I ain't never been back here in a long time."

"Take your time," said Margie, thankful for the chance to rest.

And so they sat together, side by side, in the scorching heat for one, two, three, four, five days. The Giant barely moved in all that time, staring into the horizon, lost in thought. Margie, on the other hand counted stones. She memorised nursery rhymes backwards. She knotted her hair.

And then came the fly.

At first it buzzed around a nearby rock before landing on The Giant's elbow. There it sat silently observing Margie, rubbing its legs gleefully. Slowly but surely it moved closer and closer to Margie until it was buzzing only inches from her face. Initially Margie was pleased to have a distraction (after all, she was becoming quite bored). It amused her that the fly studied her so intently. Then the fly did something quite unexpected. It flew into her mouth. Margie opened her mouth as wide as it would go but the fly simply wouldn't budge.

And in that moment of panic, as she desperately clawed at the back of her mouth, she was thrust back to a time and place that felt new to her yet seemed so familiar at the same time ...

*****

It was 1934. Margie was twenty-three. Young, beautiful and dead.

Stanley Clark was the village Layer Out. Working for the local undertaker, he had been called out to the home of a Mrs Boscombe's establishment after her lodger, a certain Margie May Langley was found deceased one cold winter's morning.

"Found her sprawled on her bedroom floor, her body blue and as stiff as a board," said Mrs Boscombe. "The doctor pronounced her dead as a dodo. No rhyme nor reason for it. Still, these things happen, eh?"

Margie was the most exquisite thing Stanley had ever seen in all his life. How was it possible for someone this beautiful to be so alone in the world, he thought sadly.

That night he made her look like an angel. He rubbed rouge into her cheeks, slicked her hair with oil, and pulled, tugged and heaved her lifeless body in a beautiful blue rayon dress which Mrs Boscombe had found in Margie's wardrobe.

Before he switched the light off and left for the night he leaned over her ivory coloured coffin. "Forgive me the intrusion," he whispered to her, before kissing her gently on her lips. "Goodnight sweet angel,’ he said. "Sweet dreams."

The next morning when Stanley came by to check for any unpleasantness, Margie was sitting upright in her coffin combing her hair like it was the most normal thing in the world to be doing. As soon as she spotted Stanley (his jaw hanging six inches below his knees) she looked him straight in the eye and demanded to know just exactly what he was looking at.

Stanley laughed until he cried.

They never did find out what caused her to slip into that death-like paralysis. Six weeks later they got married and lived happily ever after. Or they would have done ...

One evening, several years later, something quite extraordinary happened. Her husband, Stanley swallowed a fly. At first he coughed a little, then the coughing became harder until his eyes started watering. Not having seen the fly enter his mouth, Stanley thought at first it was a bit of bone that had got stuck in his throat (he was partial to a bit of meat) but the coughing quickly became a deep chesty rasp. Clutching his hands to his throat he stood up wheezing and gasping and started clawing and grabbing at Margie. It was only when Stanley's eyes started to bulge, his face bloated and his lips turned blue that Margie panicked. She tried every trick in the book to dislodge that renegade fly from Stanley's throat. She thumped his back, in that bony hollow between his shoulder blades, so hard that one of his eyeballs shot out of its socket (presumably a glass one), flew across the room and knocked the head of a Henry VIII ornament. She shoved the hose from her Haywin All British Vacuum Cleaner down his throat and sucked for all she was worth. When the vacuum cleaner itself started wheezing, she threw her arms around him from behind and squeezed. Once, twice, three times he tried to expel the object. But all she ended up doing was adding four broken ribs to Stanley's growing list of complaints.

Eventually, Margie's screams caught the attention of her neighbour, a large man called Barry. He grabbed Stanley by the feet and hung him upside-down then shook him like he was shaking the dust out of an old rug. All sorts of stuff came falling out of his pockets. Pins and toothpicks. Toffees and handkerchiefs. Pills. A sachet of Mixed Herbs. A Blackpool Tower paperweight, circa 1923. Cogs, nuts and bolts. A photo of his deceased cat, Ginger. They all came tumbling out, like sweets from a shattered Piñata. But that bleeding fly, a common blue bottle, stayed well and truly lodged in Stanley's throat.

After what seemed like an age Barry laid Stanley down on the floor, shook his head sadly and left Margie to pick up the pieces.

*****

Back in the sweltering heat of the desert, The Giant by her side, Margie eventually coughed the fly out of her mouth. It landed in front of her in a sticky pool of frothy, blood stained saliva. She didn't hesitate. Filled with both anger and sadness she brought her fist down heavily on the fly's body and squashed it flat.

The Giant straightened his back and smiled. "I'm ready now." And with that he pulled himself up and motioned for Margie to join him as jauntily as if they were heading off for a trip to the museum.

Dried out and scorched by the sun's heat, Margie could barely summon the strength to stand up. "You go ahead," she mumbled. "I'll catch you up."

Moments later, The Giant picked her up and slung her round his shoulder like a lamb then he strode off in the direction of Avaricia. The Giant had wanted to draw as little attention to himself as he possibly could; a difficult feat given his height and the fact that he was carrying a young woman in addition to several large bags. And as they reached the gateway to the city, he was stopped by a gatekeeper standing guard.

"The circus is that way," he said nodding towards a track which led to the west of the city.

"We’re not looking for the circus," said The Giant. "We need food and rest."

The gate keeper regarded the pair as if they had just stepped out of a swamp then shrugged. What did he care who came and went in Avaricia? He activated the draw bridge which linked Avaricia to the rest of Limbuss, wished them luck, then waved them through.

As soon as the gate opened, The Giant was bombarded with a cacophony of sounds, smells and colours. Everywhere he looked people were dripping with gold, silver and gems. The shiniest, showiest shoes with huge buckles, heels and adornments. The grandest, finest, most sensational outfits and wigs that had ever been created. Ladies' faces were painted in thick layers of makeup with eye-lashes that stretched out like dead hands reaching out of a grave. Everyone was beautiful. Thousands of shops and stalls (catering for everything the heart desired) were laid out in a claustrophobic maze that stretched for several miles in all directions.

There was nothing moderate about Avaricia; everyone had access to everything they yearned for. And while everyone plastered on their fake smiles, they still looked thoroughly miserable. Desperate even. As if they were waiting for a death sentence at any moment ...