The Hollow Places (18 page)

SHE APPROACHES ME,
MAKING IT EASY. SHE ASKS IF I WANT TO HAVE SOME FUN AND I ASK
STUPID QUESTIONS. “WHAT KIND OF FUN?” SHE FROWNS A LOT BUT IN THE
END SHE STILL GETS IN. BEING HONEST WITH HER IS A RELIEF. IT'S A
RELIEF NOT TO HAVE TO PRETEND. I ASK HER HOW OLD SHE IS AND SHE
SAYS 23. I THINK SHE’S LYING. SHE'S THE ONE PRETENDING.

I DRIVE. I FEEL
NERVOUS AND SHE GIVES ME DIRECTIONS TO A PLAYGROUND WHERE SHE
NORMALLY GOES WITH CLIENTS. I LOOK AT HER A COUPLE OF TIMES. SHE'S
WEARING A TINY, WHITE SKIRT AND I LOOK AT HER THIGHS. I CAN’T WAIT
TO BE INSIDE HER. I WANT TO BE CLOSE TO SOMEONE AGAIN AND YOU CAN'T
GET CLOSER THAN THIS. I THINK ABOUT TELLING HER, BUT I DON'T THINK
SHE WANTS TO HEAR IT. I PULL UP AND PAY UP AND SHE IMMEDIATELY GOES
DOWN ON ME. I CLOSE MY EYES. MY HEART IS THUMPING, BUT I DON'T FEEL
TURNED ON AT ALL. I DON'T FEEL LIKE I'M REALLY HERE.

IT'S A LONG TIME
BEFORE I'M HARD. SHE ASKS ME WHAT'S WRONG. SHE CALLS ME DARLING,
WHICH HELPS THINGS ALONG.

THEN, FROM VERY FAR
AWAY, I FEEL SOMETHING COMING AND I'M THINKING “NO, NOT NOW,” BUT
IT'S HERE. I PUSH THE GIRL AWAY AND SHE STARES AT ME. AT FIRST
SHE'S SHOCKED AND THEN SHE'S ANGRY AND SHE'S ASKING ME WHAT'S GOING
ON.

IN ONE INSTANT I'M
GETTING MY COCK SUCKED AND IN THE NEXT I'M CRYING AND IT'S BACK TO
BUSINESS AND I HAVE MY INSTRUCTIONS.

THE GIRL ASKS ME WHAT
THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH ME AND THAT'S THE LAST THING SHE SAYS TO
ANYBODY, BECAUSE I TAKE A LOOK AROUND AND PUT MY HANDS AROUND HER
THROAT AND BEFORE I CHANGE MY MIND TO DO IT HERE I'VE STRANGLED
HER.

I DON’T QUITE KILL
HER. SHE PASSES OUT AND SLUMPS OVER AND I DRIVE TO THE THROWING OFF
POINT. I DRAG HER OUT OF THE CAR. SHE'S LIGHT. I PULL HER BODY
THROUGH THE TREES. IT'S WORSE THAN WITH THE OTHERS, BECAUSE I GOT
HER INTO THIS. I CALLED HER OVER TO ME TO SATISFY MY NEEDS, NOT THE
THING'S. IF IT HADN'T BEEN FOR ME, SHE'D STILL BE WORKING BESIDE
TOWER HILL TUBE, SUCKING COCK, WALKING HOME, EATING CEREAL.

BEFORE SHE WAKES I
DUMP HER HALF-DRESSED BODY INTO THE THAMES. SHE MAKES A BIG SPLASH.
THERE'S A HORRIBLE THUD. THE RIVER TAKES HER DOWNSTREAM. SHE BOBS
UP A FEW TIMES, SPINNING. I WISH I COULD TAKE IT BACK, BUT IT'S
DONE NOW. I DIDN'T HAVE A CHOICE.

I WATCH UNTIL SHE IS
ALMOST OUT OF SIGHT. THEN SHE'S SUCKED UNDER THE SURFACE, HEAD
FIRST. IT ISN’T THE CURRENT THAT'S DONE THIS. THERE ARE NO AIR
BUBBLES. THERE'S NO STRUGGLE. SHE’S JUST PULLED UNDER. THE LAST BIT
OF HOPE IN ME GOES WITH HER.

*

Firdy raided the
kitchen for anything edible and settled for cheese and stale
crackers. He furnished himself with a cup of coffee.

“I don't
normally drink the stuff,” he said. He offered to make one for
Simon, but he declined.

Sarah woke
intermittently, but never for more than a few seconds. Her clothes
were drenched with sweat.

“I know you're
worried about her,” Firdy said, “but I need her as well as you, so
I wouldn't let anything bad happen to her.”

“Anything
else, you mean.”

“You'll do me
the favour of remembering that I at least apologised.”

The cat had
been eyeing up the remains of last night's chicken dinner and
attempting to make eye contact with Firdy. It tilted its head in a
manner that Simon felt was sarcastic. After some time, Firdy nodded
and the cat knocked the chicken bones to the carpet, assembling
them in a pile beside the armchair before ripping at the flesh and
pulling cartilage with its teeth. Unlike the dog, the inside of the
cat's mouth appeared to be normal, except for the size and apparent
strength of it. Simon felt cold run through him as its teeth
scraped at a drumstick and it tongued the marrow.

Firdy made
messy business of the cheese and crackers. When he was done, he
retrieved a small, square bottle from his jacket pocket and turned
it over and over in his hand.

“Imagine
waking up with these thoughts every morning,” he said. “Dragging
them around. I see that girl's face everywhere. I remember the
smell of her, even though we never met.” He removed the lid of the
bottle and sprayed the fragrance into the air between them.
“Cinema. Yves Saint Lauren. Cinema and cigarettes. She had no smell
of her own.”

Simon knew
that their symbiosis was deepening, because as the scent reached
him he felt his heart rate spike. Not only that, but he sensed the
answer to a question he'd dared not ask. It had lain there,
unspoken between them, for almost 24 hours, but now it begged to be
out in the open, as terrible as it was.

“I can’t help
but respond to that smell,” Firdy was saying. “I'd say that it
takes me back, but I wasn't there.”

“Memory by
osmosis,” Simon said.

“Now you're
getting it.”

“You haven't
been around very long have you?” Simon said.

“Three years,”
Firdy said.

This man, with
his pale, wizened skin, his bald head and crooked teeth, claimed to
be no older than a baby, but the answer didn't surprise Simon,
because his father had disappeared three years ago and it was
making a horrible kind of sense now.

“Ask the
question,” Firdy said. “I'll answer it.”

“My dad walked
out of this house three years ago and didn't come back,” Simon
said. “Until yesterday.”

In the
near-silence, Sarah's chest rose and sank.

Rose ...

“Yeah,” said
Firdy.

… Sank.

Simon's pulse
accelerated. His calm, his concentration, was shattered. While he
felt that the Creature, the Third, was aware of the change in him,
it did not intervene.

Simon looked
Firdy up and down. His mind was doing handbrake turns, populated
suddenly by incredible thoughts.

“Shall I
explain?” Firdy said. When Simon failed to find his voice, Firdy
continued. “I arrived, was born, three years ago, fully-formed.” He
looked at his left hand. “So to speak. I had to work out how to
walk, how to eat, how to sleep. But these things took hours, not
months. I was remembering, not learning. I never had to learn a
single word and yet I speak pretty well compared to most people
I've met. I was born complete with memories, emotional scars, ticks
and nightmares. I'm a hybrid. Four men in total. Physically and
mentally.”

Simon searched
his face for a trace of his father, but the head was too misshapen,
he had no hair, the nose was broken and fixed and rebroken; the
good eye was brown, whereas his father's had been very dark blue.
His mouth, with its thin lips, was like a slash that let the air in
and out. His chin, well, he didn't have one. Nothing was
recognisable.

“He's inside,”
said Firdy, tapping his head. Then he indicated the leather journal
and said: “He's in there too. I feel him when I dream. He lingers.
Like a stench. Like guilt. His fear. His self-loathing. Sometimes I
think I could almost be happy if it wasn't for him.

“The night I
was born, I tried to go home. It wasn't easy. For one thing, there
were several to choose from. Past lives. Broken things. That night,
I chose yours. It was the most powerful impulse.

“I watched you
through the same window that you broke tonight. It hurt to look at
you. I didn't know why at the time. But I know now. It was your
father's memory. It was nothing to do with me, but I felt it
anyway.

“I was lost.
The Third gave me my reason to live.”

“And what was
that?” Simon said.

Firdy closed
his mind with such effectiveness that Simon's head hurt. He
flinched and Sarah moved against him, making him aware that his
arms and back were sore from sitting.

In the
meantime, Firdy stood and moved to the window. He stood there for
nearly an hour, clearing his mind, staying awake, watching the sky
grow dark. Simon turned the book over and over in his hands and
read the pages where it fell open naturally.

SOMEWHERE BETWEEN A
DREAM AND A MEMORY. I’M KILLING MY SON. I HOLD HIM UNDERWATER IN
THE BATH, IN THE SINK, IN A PUDDLE IN THE ROAD. HE’S A BABY. HE’S
KICKING. I CHANGE MY MIND, BUT I CAN’T LET GO. I WATCH HIM DROWN
...

“I can tell
you’re very upset,” Firdy said eventually. “It wasn't my intention.
I thought you should know the truth about your father. You were
almost there anyway.”

... I WATCH HIM
DROWNING BUT HE DOESNT DIE HE GOES ON SCREAMING GULPING WATER
CHOKING VOMITING BUBBLES ...

“Your dad
thought of it as a monster, which is probably why you call it The
Creature. That's not really the case.

“It's very
old, that's all. So it sees the big picture. With that kind of
perspective, we couldn't possibly understand it. Not
completely.”

“Are you
trying to convince me or yourself?” Simon asked and Firdy's mouth
snapped shut. The clack of his teeth was enough to rouse Sarah from
her feverish dream. Her eyes flickered open.

Gradually, she
realised that she was awake.

Gradually, she
remembered how wrong life could feel.

“Welcome
back,” said Firdy.

She reached
for the handle jutting from her shoulder and Simon swatted her
hand.

“It hurts,”
she said.

“I know,” said
Simon. “But I need you to focus and to stay calm. There's something
here.”

The cat looked
up, knowing that they were talking about it. It gazed at Sarah and
seemed to settle on her in some way, as if it had worked out her
part in all this. If Simon was the lever, then she was the
fulcrum.

“I told you,”
Firdy said. “She holds a grudge. You took one of ours, she wants
one of yours.”

“Just keep it
away from her.”

“That's up to
you, Simon. That's up to you both.”

“What is it?”
Sarah said. She was rubbing her eyes, hoping that she was not yet
fully awake. “What the fuck is that?” It sat on its hind legs so
that its head was up above the edge of the sofa. Despite its
bedraggled fur, it moved proudly. It yawned, showing off its
teeth.

“I won't let
it hurt you,” Simon said, sensing Sarah's scream rising.

The Third was
also rising. It had been coiled like a snake in the recesses of
their consciousness and now it was unfurling its great length,
swimming up as if through black water. It was gleaming; excited and
anxious and electrified. It was a deep breath held for many minutes
and their heads pounded.

Like a
soldier, Firdy responded without hesitation.

“Get her up,”
he said. “Let's do this.” He appeared to be obeying an instruction
as he took Simon's jacket and searched it for weapons. “Empty your
trouser pockets,” he demanded as he worked. “Take off your belt
too.”

Seeing Firdy
thus animated, the Cat rose to its full height, arched its back and
shivered. This was evidently what it had been waiting for.

When Simon was
three sharp objects lighter, Firdy returned his jacket.

“Hang on to
me,” Simon told Sarah and the Third was there, underneath his
breath, in between his words. He couldn't afford to rest his mind
any longer. Not only was he being watched, but he was back on
duty.

“Where are we
going?” Sarah asked. She sounded like she was thirteen years old
again. He'd taken her to school, because their father had been out
all night and their mother had failed to rise from her bed during
an uncharacteristic display of depression. She hadn't wanted to go,
but he had forced her. He wanted her to have options that he
didn't. Their family was coming apart around them and, since she
was the best of them all, he was determined that she be the one
left standing when it was over.

“You need to
move,” Simon said. “Now.”

“I don’t want
to go anywhere,” Sarah said. “I want to sleep.”

“Get up,”
Firdy said, “or I'll -”

Sarah rose.
She was unable to hide her pain but refused to show any sign of
weakness. Simon wanted to congratulate her, but the Third was
there, riding the thought like a wave.

He folded
himself up. Turned the key. Put himself away.

The Third was
keener than ever. It had wound itself tight and when it released
its energy, which was sure to happen soon, he didn't want to be
anywhere near its path. Connected as they were, however, it was
impossible for him to avoid it.

*

The kitchen swayed into
focus around Sarah even as Simon marched her through it. She
glanced at the cat again. It was real. It was all real. This was
really happening.

Firdy opened
the door and they followed him out, the cat bringing up the rear to
prevent escape. The foul thing kept its head low and trotted into
the gloom. The approaching darkness was its territory. Now that it
was away from the grounding decoration of their home, it looked
less like a monster, she thought, but more like a killer. The
movement of its body gathered shadows. Moment by moment it became
increasingly difficult to see.

Somehow, she
knew for certain that she was going to die today. It was the cold
on the wind. She was less afraid of dying than she was of how it
might happen. She wanted it to be quick. And if they both had to
die then she wanted to go before Simon. She knew that that was
selfish, but she couldn’t bear to be alone, however briefly.

Halted at the
van, she looked back at the house. She had never seen it so clearly
as she did now, knowing that this was the last time she'd see it.
She had thought of it as their family home, it had been important
to her, but now she saw it as cold, dead bricks, grey in the dark,
piled up on each other like the walls of a tomb. Both Simon's
window and the kitchen window had been smashed. Since Firdy had
arrived, the house had stopped breathing. Now it had finally
stopped pretending to be a home. A home was where people lived, not
where they waited to die.

The van's
locks clicked.

“Her first,”
Firdy said.