Fearful Symmetries (41 page)

Sir David stood where he was for several minutes, shaking. Finally he quelled his shivering enough to march back inside his own house, where he ignored the phone on the hall table, choosing instead to open a drawer in his study to lift out a chunkier, older thing that had no dial of any kind, push-button or rotary. He held the handset to his head and waited.

There were a series of clicks and whines and beeps, the sound of disparate connections working out how they might after all get together. Finally a sharp, quick male voice answered on the other end.

“Yes.”

“Case Shay Zulu,” said Sir David. There was a pause. He could hear the flipping of pages, as the operator searched through the ready book.

“Is there more?” asked the operator.

“What!” exploded Sir David. “Case Shay Zulu!”

“How do you spell it?”

Sir David’s lip curled almost up to his nose, but he pulled it back.

“S-H-A-Y,” he spelled out. “Z-U-L-U.”

“I can spell Zulu,” said the operator, affronted. “There’s still nothing.”

“Look up my workname,” said Sir David. “Arthur Brooks.”

There was tapping now, the sound of a keyboard. He’d heard they were using computers more and more throughout the Department, not just for the boffins in the back rooms.

“Ah, I see . . . I’ve got you now, sir,” said the operator. At least there was a “sir,” now.

“Get someone competent to look up Shay Zulu and report my communication at once to the duty officer with instruction to relay it to the Chief,” ordered Sir David. “I want a call back in five minutes.”

The call came in ten minutes, ten minutes Sir David spent looking out his study window, watching the house across the road. It was eleven
A.M.
, too late for Shay to go to the supermarket like it had done every day for the last thirty years. Sir David wouldn’t know if it had returned to its previous safe routine until 10:30
A.M.
tomorrow. Or earlier, if Shay was departing on some different course . . .

The insistent ringing recalled him to the phone.

“Yes.”

“Sir David? My name is Angela Terris, I’m the duty officer at present. We’re a bit at sea here. We can’t find Shay Zulu in the system at all—what was that?”

Sir David had let out a muffled cry, his knuckles jammed against his mouth.

“Nothing, nothing,” he said, trying to think. “The paper files, the old records to 1977, you can look there. But the important thing is the book, we . . . I must have the notebook from the Chief’s safe, a small green leather book embossed on the cover with the gold initials IKB.”

“The Chief’s not here right now,” said Angela brightly. “This Falklands thing, you know. He’s briefing the cabinet. Is it urgent?”

“Of course it’s urgent!” barked Sir David, regretting it even as he spoke, remembering when old Admiral Puller had called up long after retirement, concerned about a suspicious new postman, and how they had laughed on the Seventh Floor. “Look, find Case Shay Zulu and you’ll see what I mean.”

“Is it something to do with the Soviets, Sir David? Because we’re really getting on reasonably well with them at the moment—”

“No, no, it’s nothing to do with the Soviets,” said Sir David. He could hear the tone in her voice, he remembered using it himself when he had taken Admiral Fuller’s call. It was the calming voice that meant no immediate action, a routine request to some functionary to investigate further in days, or even weeks, purely as a courtesy to the old man. He had to do something that would make her act, there had to be some lever.

“I’m afraid it’s something to do with the Service itself,” he said. “Could be very, very embarrassing. Even now. I need that book to deal with it.”

“Embarrassing as in likely to be of media interest, Sir David?” asked Angela.

“Very much so,” said Sir David heavily.

“I’ll see what I can do,” said Angela.

“We were really rather surprised to find the Department owns a safe house that isn’t on the register,” said the young, nattily dressed and borderline rude young man who came that afternoon. His name, or at least the one he had supplied, was Redmond. “Finance were absolutely delighted, it must be worth close to half a million pounds now, a huge place like that. Fill a few black holes with that once we sell it. On the quiet, of course, as you say it would be very embarrassing if the media get hold of this little real estate venture.”

“Sell it?” asked Sir David. “Sell it! Did you only find the imprest accounts, not the actual file? Don’t you understand? The only thing that stops Shay from running amok is routine, a routine that is firmly embedded in and around that house! Sell the house and you unleash the . . . the beast!”

“Beast, Sir David?” asked Redmond. He suppressed a yawn and added, “Sounds rather Biblical. I expect we can find a place for this Shea up at Exile House. I daresay they’ll dig his file up eventually, qualify him as a former employee.”

They could find a place for Sir David too, were the unspoken words. Exile House, last stop for those with total disability suffered on active service, crippled by torture, driven insane from stress, shot through both knees and elbows. There were many ways to arrive at Exile House.

“Did you talk to the Chief?” asked Sir David. “Did you ask about the book marked ‘IKB’?”

“Chief’s very busy,” said Redmond. “There’s a war on you know. Even if it is only a little one. Look, why don’t I go over and have a chat with old Shea, get a feel for the place, see if there’s anything else that might need sorting?”

“If you go over there you introduce another variable,” said Sir David, as patiently as he could. “Right now, I’ve got Shay to return to its last state, which may or may not last until ten thirty tomorrow morning, when it goes and gets its bread and milk, as it has done for the last thirty years. But if you disrupt it again, then who knows what will happen.”

“I see, I see,” said Redmond. He nodded as if he had completely understood. “Bit of a mental case, hey? Well, I did bring a couple of the boys in blue along just in case.”

“Boys in blue!”

Sir David was almost apoplectic. He clutched at Redmond’s sleeve, but the young man effortlessly withdrew himself and sauntered away.

“Back in half a mo,” he called out cheerfully.

Sir David tried to chase him down, but by the time he got to the front door it was shut in his face. He scrabbled at the weapon cache, pushing hard on a panel till he realized it was the wrong one. By the time he had the revolver in his hand and had wrestled the door open, Redmond was already across the road, waving to the two policemen in the panda car to follow him. They got out quickly, large men in blue, putting their hats on as they strode after the young agent.

“Not even Special Branch,” muttered Sir David. He let the revolver hang by his side. What could he do with it anyway? He couldn’t shoot Redmond, or the policemen.

Perhaps, he thought bleakly, he could shoot himself. That would bring them back, delay the knock on the door opposite . . . but it would only be a delay. And if he was killed, and if they couldn’t find Brunel’s book, then the other command words would be lost.

Redmond went up the front steps two at a time, past the faded sign that said, “Hawkers and Salesmen Not Welcome. Beware of the Vicious Dog” and the one underneath it that had been added a year after the first, “No Liability for Injury or Death, You Have Been Warned.”

Sir David blinked, narrowing his eyes against the sunshine that was still streaming down, flooding the street. It was just like the afternoon, that afternoon in ’43 when the sun had broken through after days of fog and ice, but even though it washed across him on the bridge of his frigate he couldn’t feel it, he could only see the light, he was so frozen from the cold Atlantic days the sunshine couldn’t touch him, there was no warmth that could reach him. . . .

He felt colder now. Redmond was knocking on the door. Hammering on the door. Sir David choked a little on his own spit, apprehension rising. There was a chance Shay wouldn’t answer, and the door was very heavy, those two policemen couldn’t kick it down, there would be more delay—

The door opened. There was the flash of silver, and Redmond fell down the steps, blood geysering from his neck as if some newfangled watering system had suddenly switched on beside him, drawing water from a rusted tank.

A blur of movement followed. The closer policeman spun about, as if suddenly inspired to dance, only his head was tumbling from his shoulders to dance apart from him. The surviving policeman, that is, the policeman who had survived the first three seconds of contact with Shay, staggered backwards and started to turn around to run.

He took one step before he too was pierced through with a silver spike, his feet taking him only to the gutter where he lay down to die.

Sir David went back inside, leaving the door open. He went to his phone in the hall and called his daughter. She answered on the fourth ring. Sir David’s hand was so sweaty he had to grip the plastic tightly, so the phone didn’t slip from his grip.

“Mary? I want you to call Peter and your girls and tell them to get across the Channel now. France, Belgium, doesn’t matter. No, wait, Terence is in Newcastle, isn’t he? Tell him . . . listen to me . . . he can get the ferry to Stavanger. Listen! There is going to be a disaster here. It doesn’t matter what kind! I haven’t gone crazy, you know who I know. You all have to get out of the country and across the water! Just go!”

Sir David hung up. He wasn’t sure Mary would do as he said. He wasn’t even sure that the sea would stop Shay. That was one of the theories, never tested, that it wouldn’t or couldn’t cross a large body of water. Brunel almost certainly knew, but his more detailed papers had been lost. Only the code book had survived. At least until recently.

He went to the picture window in his study. It had been installed on his retirement, when he’d moved here to keep an eye on Shay. It was a big window, taking up the place of two old Georgian multi-paned affairs, and it had an excellent view of the street.

There were four bodies in full view now. The latest addition was a very young man. Had been a young man. The proverbial innocent bystander, in the wrong place at the wrong time. A car sped by, jerking suddenly into the other lane as the driver saw the corpses and the blood.

Shay walked into the street and looked up at Sir David’s window.

Its eyes were silver.

The secure phone behind Sir David rang. He retreated, still watching Shay, and picked it up.

“Yes.”

“Sir David? Angela Terris here. The police are reporting multiple 999 calls, apparently there are people—”

“Yes. Redmond and the two officers are dead. I told him not to go, but he did. Shay is active now. I tried to tell you.”

Shay was moving, crossing the road.

“Sir David!”

“Find the book,” said Sir David wearily. “That’s the only thing that can help you now. Find the leather book marked ‘IKB.’ It’s in the Chief’s safe.”

Shay was on Sir David’s side of the street, moving left, out of sight.

“The Chief’s office was remodelled last year,” said Angela Terris. “The old safe . . . I don’t know—”

Sir David laughed bitter laughter and dropped the phone.

There was the sound of footsteps in the hall.

Footsteps that didn’t sound quite right.

Sir David stood at attention and straightened his tie. Time to find out if the other command did what it was supposed to do. It would be out of his hands then. If it worked, Shay would kill him and then await further instructions for twenty-four hours. Either they’d find the book or they wouldn’t, but he would have done his best.

As always.

Shay came into the room. It didn’t look much like an old man now. It was taller, and straighter, and its head was bigger. So was its mouth.

“Shay Corsham Worsted,” said Sir David.

Thanks to all who read submissions during the open reading period: Klaudia Bednarczyk, Samantha Beiko, Bob Boyczuk, Felicia Di Pardo, Chris Edwards, Brent Hayward, Sandra Kasturi, Barry King, Matt Kressel, Helen Lee, Kari Maaren, Michael Matheson, Kerrie McCreadie, Matt Moore, Kelsi Morris, Tehani Wessely, and Sam Zucchi. Another thank you to Matt Kressel for his advice, and for setting up and wrangling the submissions system.

A big thanks to Hank Schwaeble.

Nathan Ballingrud
is the award-winning author of the short story collection
North American Lake Monsters
, from Small Beer Press. He lives with his daughter in Asheville, NC, where he is at work on his first novel.

Laird Barron
is the author of several books, including
The Croning
,
Occultation
, and
The Beautiful Thing That Awaits Us All
. His work has also appeared in many magazines and anthologies including
The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction
,
Lovecraft Unbound
, and
Haunted Legends
. An expatriate Alaskan, Barron currently resides in Upstate New York.

Pat Cadigan
is the author of fifteen books, including two nonfiction books, a young adult novel, and the two Arthur C. Clarke Award-winning novels,
Synners
and
Fools
. She has also won the Locus Award three times and the Hugo Award for her novelette “The Girl-Thing Who Went Out For Sushi.” Pat lives in gritty, urban North London with the Original Chris Fowler and Gentleman Jinx, coolest black cat in London. She can be found on Facebook and tweets as @cadigan. Her books are available electronically via SF Gateway, the ambitious electronic publishing program from Gollancz.

When not globetrotting in search of dusty tomes,
Siobhan Carroll
lives and lurks in Delaware. She wrested her Ph.D. and B.A. in English Literature from the twin ivory towers of Indiana University and the University of British Columbia, respectively. Her fiction can be found in magazines like
Beneath Ceaseless Skies
,
Realms of Fantasy
, and
Lightspeed
. Sometimes she writes under the byline “Von Carr.” Both versions of herself firmly support the use of the Oxford Comma. For more, visit
voncarr-siobhan-carroll.blogspot.com/
.

Ellen Datlow
has been editing science fiction, fantasy, and horror short fiction for over thirty years as fiction editor of
OMNI Magazine
and editor of
Event Horizon
and
SCIFICTION
. She currently acquires short fiction for
Tor.com
. In addition, she has edited more than fifty science fiction, fantasy, and horror anthologies, including the annual
The Best Horror of the Year
,
Lovecraft’s Monsters
, a reprint anthology of stories, each involving at least one of H. P. Lovecraft’s creations, the six volume series of retold fairy tales starting with
Snow White, Blood Red
, and
Queen Victoria’s Book of Spells: An Anthology of Gaslamp Fantasy
(the latter anthologies with Terri Windling).

Forthcoming are
Nightmare Carnival, The Cutting Room,
and
The Doll Collection.

She’s won nine World Fantasy Awards, and has also won multiple Locus Awards, Hugo Awards, Stoker Awards International Horror Guild Awards, Shirley Jackson Awards, and the 2012 Il Posto Nero Black Spot Award for Excellent as Best Foreign Editor. Datlow was named recipient of the 2007 Karl Edward Wagner Award, given at the British Fantasy Convention for “outstanding contribution to the genre” and was honored with the Life Achievement Award given by the Horror Writers Association, in acknowledgement of superior achievement over an entire career.

She lives in New York and co-hosts the monthly Fantastic Fiction Reading Series at KGB Bar. More information can be found at
www.datlow.com
, on Facebook, and on twitter as @EllenDatlow.

Terry Dowling
is one of Australia’s most respected and internationally acclaimed writers of science fiction, dark fantasy and horror, and author of the multi-award-winning Tom Rynosseros saga. He has been called “Australia’s finest writer of horror” by
Locus
magazine, its “premier writer of dark fantasy” by
All Hallows
and its “most acclaimed writer of the dark fantastic” by
Cemetery Dance
magazine. His collection
Basic Black
won the 2007 International Horror Guild Award for Best Collection. London’s
Guardian
called his debut novel
Clowns at Midnight
“an exceptional work that bears comparison to John Fowles’s
The Magus
.” Terry’s homepage can be found at
www.terrydowling.com
.

Brian Evenson
is the author of over a dozen works of fiction, most recently
Immobility
and
Windeye
. His novel
Last Days
won the American Library Association’s RUSA Award for Best Horror novel of 2009, and his story collection
The Wavering Knife
won the International Horror Guild Award. His novel
The Open Curtain
was a finalist for an Edgar Award and he is the recipient of three O. Henry Awards. He lives in Providence and works at the college that served as the model for Lovecraft’s Miskatonic University.

Formerly a film critic and teacher, award-winning horror author
Gemma Files
is probably best known for her Hexslinger Series (
A Book of Tongues
,
A Rope of Thorns
, and
A Tree of Bones
), which has been collected into a Hexslinger Omnibus Edition that includes almost 50,000 words’ worth of new material. Her stories have been published in the anthologies
The Grimscribe’s Puppets
,
Clockwork Phoenix 4
, and in the webzine
Beneath Ceaseless Skies.
It has been collected in
Kissing Carrion
and
The Worm in Every Heart
. She has also published two chapbooks of poetry. Her next book will be
We Will All Go Down Together
, from ChiZine Publications.

Jeffrey Ford
is the author of the novels,
The Physiognomy
,
Memoranda
,
The Beyond
,
The Portrait of Mrs. Charbuque
,
The Girl in the Glass
,
The Cosmology of the Wider World
, and
The Shadow Year
. His short fiction has been published in numerous journals, magazines, and anthologies and has been collected in
The Fantasy Writer’s Assistant
,
The Empire of Ice Cream
,
The Drowned Life
, and
Crackpot Palace.

Carole Johnstone
’s short stories have been published in numerous magazines and anthologies, have been reprinted in Ellen Datlow’s
The Best Horror of the Year
series and
The Best British Fantasy
, and are being collected in the forthcoming
The Bright Day is Done
.
Frenzy
and
Cold Turkey
, two of her novellas, have been published as individual chapbooks. She is currently working on her second novel while seeking fame and fortune with the first—but just can’t seem to kick the short story habit. More information on the author can be found at
carolejohnstone.com
.

Stephen Graham Jones
is the author of thirteen novels and four collections. Most recent are
The Gospel of Z
,
States of Grace
, and
Not For Nothing,
and up next are
Floating Boy and the Girl Who Couldn’t Fly
, with Paul Tremblay, and
After the People Lights Have Gone Off
, a horror collection. Jones has some two hundred stories published, many reprinted in best of the year annuals. He’s been a Shirley Jackson Award finalist, a Bram Stoker Award finalist, a Colorado Book Award finalist, and has won the Texas Institute of Letters Award for fiction, the Independent Publishers Award for Multicultural Fiction, and an NEA fellowship in fiction. He teaches in the MFA programs at CU Boulder and UCR-Palm Desert. He lives in Colorado, and really like werewolves and slashers and hair metal. For more information:
demontheory.net
or @SGJ72.

The New York Times
recently called
Caitlín R. Kiernan
“one of our essential writers of dark fiction” and S. T. Joshi has declared “hers is now
the
voice of weird fiction.” Caitlín’s novels include
The Red Tree
(nominated for the Shirley Jackson and World Fantasy awards) and
The Drowning Girl: A Memoir
(winner of the James Tiptree, Jr. and Bram Stoker awards, nominated for the Nebula, World Fantasy, British Fantasy, Mythopoeic, Locus, and Shirley Jackson awards). Her short fiction has been collected in thirteen volumes, including
Confessions of a Five-Chambered Heart, Two Worlds and In Between: The Best of Caitlín R. Kiernan (Volume One)
, and, most recently,
The Ape’s Wife and Other Stories.
Currently, she’s writing the graphic novel series
Alabaster
for Dark Horse Comics and working on her next novels,
Cherry Bomb
and
The Dinosaurs of Mars.
She lives in Providence, Rhode Island.

John Langan
is the author of two collections,
Mr. Gaunt and Other Uneasy Encounters
and
The Wide, Carnivorous Sky and Other Monstrous Geographies
. His first novel,
House of Windows
, was published in 2010 and he is currently working on a second. He co-edited the anthology
Creatures: Thirty Years of Monsters
with Paul Tremblay. He lives in upstate New York with his wife, younger son, and a menagerie.

Catherine MacLeod
’s publications include short fiction in
On Spec
,
TaleBones
,
Black Static
, and several anthologies, including
Horror Library #4
,
Tesseracts Seventeen
, and
The Living Dead 2
. Her attic is a wonderfully boring place.

Helen Marshall
is an award-winning Canadian author, editor, and bibliophile. Her poetry and fiction have been published in
The Chiaroscuro
,
Abyss & Apex
,
Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet
,
Tor.com
and have been reprinted in several Year’s Best anthologies. Her debut collection of short stories,
Hair Side, Flesh Side
was named one of the Top Ten SF/F Books of 2012 by
January Magazine
. It was nominated for the Aurora Award and won the British Fantasy Society’s Sydney J. Bounds Award. When not writing, she spends her time studying medieval manuscripts in Oxford, England. You can find more information here:
www.manuscriptgal.com/
.

Bruce McAllister
’s science stories have been published over the years in the science fiction/fantasy/horror field’s major magazines and many “year’s best” volumes (including
Best American Short Stories: 2007
, Stephen King ed.). His short story “Kin” was a finalist for the Hugo Award; his novelette “Dream Baby” was a finalist for the Hugo and Nebula awards; his novelette “The Crying Child” was a finalist for the Shirley Jackson Award. His short fiction has been collected in the career-spanning
The Girl Who Loved Animals and Other Stories
. Three of his short stories—science fiction and horror—are currently under option, in development or in production as films. He is the author of three novels:
Humanity Prime
,
Dream Baby
, and most recently
The Village Sang to the Sea: A Memoir of Magic
. He lives in Orange County, California, with his wife, choreographer Amelie Hunter, and works as a writer, writing coach, and book and screenplay consultant. For more information:
www.mcallistercoaching.com/
.

Gary McMahon
is the acclaimed author of nine novels and several short story collections. His latest novel releases are
Beyond Here Lies Nothing
(the third in the acclaimed Concrete Grove series) and
The Bones of You
(a supernatural mystery). His recent short stories have been collected in
Where You Live
, and some of his short fiction has been reprinted in various “Year’s Best” volumes. Gary lives with his family in Yorkshire, where he trains in Shotokan karate and likes running in the rain. More information can be found at:
www.garymcmahon.com
.

Garth Nix
was born in Melbourne, Australia. A full-time writer since 2001, he has worked as a literary agent, marketing consultant, book editor, book publicist, book sales representative, bookseller, and as a part-time soldier in the Australian Army Reserve. Nix’s books include the award-winning fantasy novels
Sabriel
,
Lirael
, and
Abhorsen
, and the science fiction novels
Shade’s Children
and
A Confusion of Princes
. His fantasy novels for children include
The Ragwitch
; the six books of
The Seventh Tower
sequence;
The Keys to the Kingdom
series; and the
Troubletwisters
books (with Sean Williams). More than five million copies of Nix’s books have been sold around the world, his books have appeared on the bestseller lists of
The New York Times
,
Publishers Weekly
,
The Guardian
, and
The Australian
, and his work has been translated into forty languages. He lives in Sydney, Australia.

Robert Shearman
has written four short story collections, and between them they have won the World Fantasy Award, the Shirley Jackson Award, the Edge Hill Readers Prize and three British Fantasy Awards. The most recent,
Remember Why You Fear Me
, was published in 2012. He writes regularly in the UK for theatre and BBC Radio, winning the
Sunday Times
Playwriting Award and the Guinness Award in association with the Royal National Theatre. He’s probably best known for reintroducing the Daleks to the twenty-first century revival of
Doctor Who
, in an episode that was a finalist for the Hugo Award.

Michael Marshall Smith
is a novelist, short story writer, and screenwriter. Under this name he has published over seventy short stories, and three novels—
Only Forward
,
Spares
, and
One of Us
—winning the Philip K. Dick, the International Horror Guild, the August Derleth Award, and the Prix Bob Morane in France. He has also been awarded the British Fantasy Award for Best Short Fiction four times, more than any other author. Writing as Michael Marshall, he has published six internationally-bestselling thrillers including
The Straw Men
,
The Intruders
—currently in pre-production as a miniseries with the BBC Worldwide—and
Killer Move
. His most recent novel,
We Are Here
, was published in early 2014. He lives in Santa Cruz, California with his wife, son, and two cats. More information can be found here:
www.michaelmarshallsmith.com/
.