Vivisepulture (16 page)

He returned to the longboat and slept, only waking when the shifting hull of the vessel bumped loudly against the dockside. Greasy sweat coated his face, matted his hair, and there was that dull pain in his hands again. He held them out before him, squinting in the darkness, and saw that his palms were moist.

When he looked outside it was dark, and lights had come on across Squid City. He could see a soup of naked flame and sickly neon: lurid splashes across the night. He glanced down at his palms: the flow of water had slowed, but still pumped at a steady rate.

I may be unmodified by the hand of man
, he thought,
but something else is changing me, adapting me. Is this evolution or something else?

On the deck of his boat there sat a jar of olives with a note attached to the lid. Cale had not seen an olive in years.

He opened the jar, popped one into his mouth. The taste almost felled him it was so intense.

He unfolded the note to read what it said:

An offering. To purity.

That was all. Four words; and each of them sent a thrill of fear along his spine. The girl was obviously insane, but wasn’t everybody these days? He thought of the gillmen, of their silent night-time creepy-crawls, and the bloody havoc they’d wreak upon those land-bound souls who spoke out against them.

Yes, everyone
was
mad.

It was time to go.

As he walked the streets he felt all eyes upon him. Lacerated eyelids flickered behind window shades, triple and quadruple footsteps resounded in hidden rooms. The residents of Squid City were spying on him, tracking his progress: the girl had already told them what she had found.

Cale looked again at his hands. The clear stigmata had finally stopped, and the holes in his palms had closed up, leaving not a mark. He was confused, frightened. Nothing like this had ever happened before.

People joined him as he walked, ducking out from shadowy doorways and dropping from low flat roofs. Acolytes following what they obviously perceived to be a messenger or a prophet. But Cale was no emissary, no chosen one. He had nothing to give but his own lack of meaning. He was an empty shell, a husk. 

But still they followed, keeping back a respectable distance and saying nothing, not even to each other.

By the time Cale reached The Moby Dick they numbered in their hundreds. When he entered the building they remained outside, sitting down on the damp cobbles and lowering their heads in what looked for the entire world like an act of group prayer.

The girl was sat next to an old man with an extra head grafted to the side of his neck. This secondary cranium was dead, and hung like a tumour, its face slack, skin as creased as untreated leather.

“Welcome,” he said, standing but showing no welcoming hand. “He dropped his gaze to the tabletop, and Cale saw that the table held another gift.

It was only then that he noticed the rest of the jars, lined up on other tables, the bar, and across the wet wooden floor.

“They have offered the only thing they think fit. They have given of themselves.” The man walked around the table and picked up one of the jars, holding it out to Cale as if he was offering him liquid refreshment.

The jar contained a pickled hand. Another held a slow-spinning foot.

These were the parts of the denizens of Squid City that had been surgically removed. The imperfections, the unwanted pounds of flesh.

Cale felt sick; he turned to leave.

Acolytes blocked the door – and the street. They had no intention of letting him go.

“You are the unmodified,” said Given, closing his eyes and placing a hand on his heart. “The last living human to remain unadorned. 

“You are legend.”

Cale held out his hands: they were bleeding water. Water ran down his face, from a wound in his forehead, and blinded him. He felt water flooding from a hole that opened up in his side.

Then other hands were upon him, dragging him down and along the floor. He felt himself being hoisted upward, but could see nothing through the barrier of modified limbs.

What was he? What had he become? Water poured down his wrists, along his arms, and he felt uplifted in a way that was more than physical. 

When they carried him outside and nailed him to the makeshift wooden cross he felt no pain: only an acute sense of forgiveness. They knew not what they did, and he realised that they were acting only as they thought they should, as they’d been taught. This was not real. It was faked. Just like everything they’d ever done was false, empty, lacking in human warmth and motivation.

These people had given up their humanity long ago, and now they were acting out a fantasy, an illusion: creating a new myth. The savage modifications they’d applied to their own bodies had been the only way they could think of to search for spirituality inside themselves, and when something else – something external – came along to threaten that, they acted true to type.

They lifted Cale into the night and took him down to the dock. He saw his boat gently rising and falling on small, choppy waves. The girl with nine fingers was sitting on the deck eating olives. She was smiling.

When they tipped him upside down and dropped him into the water, Cale did not feel sinned against. Instead he felt cleansed, purified. He was modified at last.

JUICE

by

STAN NICHOLLS

There had been a leakage of Joy.

     ‘Siren?’ Duthie asked hopefully, his finger hovering over the button.

     Busy negotiating the van through rush hour traffic, Anders ground the gears and said nothing.

     ‘Can we?’ Duthie persisted.  ‘It
is
an emergency, isn’t it?’

     Anders glanced at his young trainee.  ‘Not a category one.’  He cracked a smile.  ‘But go ahead.’

     Duthie grinned back and jabbed the button.  The siren began whooping.  Red and amber lights flashed.

     Anders put his foot on the accelerator.  ‘You’ve not been on one of these call-outs before, have you, Bob?’ 

     ‘No.  I’m really looking forward to it.’

     ‘Don’t get too excited.  We’ll be dealing with one of the more benign distillates, so it’s fairly routine.  But we still have to take precautions.’

     ‘Against Joy?’

     ‘Sure.  In its way it can affect us just as much as the stronger essences.  We’ll need clear heads to get the job done.’

     ‘So we have to wear the gear?’

     ‘’fraid so.’

     ‘Not keen on that.’

     ‘Like I said, this isn’t a category one, so we’ll probably get away with just the masks.’

     ‘What about it being absorbed through our skin?’

     ‘It’d have to be a hell of a leak to do that.  And according to the reports it’s not that bad.’

     ‘But bad enough to get us out.’

     ‘It’s what they pay us for.’  He rounded a corner at speed.  The screech of tyres had pedestrians’ heads turning. 

     ‘So what happens when we get there?’

     ‘The main thing is to try to ignore any members of the public who’ve copped an overdose.  The police and the paramedics deal with that.  We concentrate on our job.  Got it?’

     Duthie nodded.

     ‘I mean it about punters who might have been affected,’ Anders stressed.  ‘If you’ve not seen a fracture before you might find it a bit … much.’

     ‘I know what essences
do
.’

     ‘You know what they do in properly controlled doses.  A fracture’s something else.  So stick with me and do exactly what I tell you.  Understood?’

     ‘Understood, chief.’

     Their destination was marked by an assembly of police cars and ambulances.  A cordon had been set up around a squat, red brick building, and officers were trying to disperse a small crowd on the opposite side of the road.

     Anders killed the siren and pulled up a short distance from the scene.  While Duthie fished out the respirators and a toolbox, Anders flipped open the glove compartment and reached for an atmospheric hazard detector.  A sniffer, as the operatives commonly referred to them.  Then they put on their masks and left the van.

     As they approached the cordon they saw that the police and ambulance crews were wearing masks too.

     Anders checked the sniffer.  ‘Getting on for three times over normal.’

     ‘That’s high?’ Duthie asked.

     ‘High enough from this distance.’

     They got a better look at the building.  It was old, probably Victorian, and could originally have been a school, or perhaps a temperance hall.  Above its double doors hung a scruffy banner reading New Dawn Evangelical Mission.  

     A policeman in an inspector’s uniform met them.  He wore no cap, because of the mask, revealing a shock of unruly hair.  When he spoke his voice was muffled.  ‘British Distillate?’  

     ‘Yeah.  Craig Anders.’  He flashed his ID and jabbed a thumb at his apprentice. ‘Robert Duthie.’

     The Inspector didn’t bother introducing himself.  ‘I’ve got men tied up with this thing.  Can we get a move on?’

     ‘We’re on it,’ Anders told him.  ‘Have any of your people tried stopping it?’

     ‘No.  We thought it best left to your lot.’

     ‘Right answer.  Is the building clear?’    

     ‘It’s OK for you to go in.’

     ‘Good.’  He took out his PDA and punched up the schematic.  ‘I just need to check where the pipe-work is so we can - ’

     Something like a wail cut the air.  

     A middle-aged woman was coming towards them from the chapel’s entrance.  Her hair was dishevelled and her eyes were wild.  She was waving her arms about and shouting, and there was a wide, beatific smile on her face.

    
‘Halleluiah!’
she cried.
‘ I have seen the light!  I have heard the word and the word is good!  Rejoice!  Rejoice!’

    
‘Rapture OD,’ Anders stated, unnecessarily.

     Duthie looked dumbfounded, as far as could be seen through his respirator.  The Inspector sighed loudly enough to be heard through his.  

    
‘Happiness is my lot!’
the woman announced. 
‘My cup runneth -
oof!
’

     She went down under a pair of charging constables.  The trio wrestled on the pavement, the woman still mouthing exaltations, her fixed smile intact.  A paramedic arrived, and after a brief struggle managed to jab her buttock with a hypodermic.  Whatever he pumped into her worked swiftly.  She started to calm.

     Anders gave the Inspector a sour look.  ‘What was that about it being all right to go in?’  

     ‘We’ve got
most
of them out.  And you know they’re not dangerous, except perhaps to themselves.’

     ‘They get in the way.’

     The Inspector sighed again.  ‘I’ll give you an escort.’  He beckoned a heavily-built sergeant.  ‘Take these two inside and see they aren’t molested.’  

     They left the Inspector and followed the Sergeant to the chapel’s entrance.

     ‘What part of the building do we want?’ Duthie asked.

     ‘Basement,’ Anders said, consulting the PDA.

     ‘There are other officers in there,’ the masked Sergeant assured them.  ‘We’ll get you through.’ 

      A notice board stood beside the door.  A square of card was pinned to it, on which someone had painstakingly written I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man taketh from you.  John 16:22

     ‘Afraid
we’re
about to take it,’ Anders remarked dryly.

     They went inside.  It occurred to him that if they weren’t wearing the respirators it would be the sort of place that smelt of mildew and stale boiled cabbage.  The joy itself, of course, was odourless.  

     The interior was ill-lit, with old brown lino and grubby cream and green paintwork adding to the gloom.  

     ‘This way.’  The Sergeant headed for another set of doors.  

     They swung open before they got to them.  A constable and a paramedic came through, flanking a manically grinning young man.  Like the woman downed outside, he was in a feverish daze and voicing ecstasy.  His legs were buckling, and he had to be half guided, half dragged.  The constable rolled his eyes at the Sergeant as the trio staggered past.

     The doors lead to a hall.  There was a podium at one end, with a lectern and a low table holding a large urn of flowers.  An elderly man, sitting on the stage, was staring intently at the flowers.  He wore the by now familiar blissful expression, but he wasn’t raving.  Joy’s effect on him was mesmeric.  

      Facing the podium were rows of fold-up wooden chairs.  A few people were scattered amongst them, the remnants of a congregation.  Some were as quiet as the old man on the stage, others noisily jubilant.  Masked police officers and ambulance crews were trying to shift them.  Several victims were being given oxygen.

     Anders and Duthie trailed the Sergeant to the far end of the hall.  As they walked, the afflicted called out, joyfully.  A further door, slammed behind them, muted their cries.  Two flights of grey concrete stairs took them to the basement.  

     While the Sergeant kept watch, Anders produced a flashlight and found the junction box.  Once he got the cover off, the problem was obvious.

     ‘See, Bob?’  He directed the torch beam.  ‘Down at the bottom there.  Corroded pipes.  Put your hand in front of them.  Go
on
.’

     Gingerly, Duthie did as he was told.  

     ‘Feel it?’ Anders said.

     ‘Yeah.  Like a cold draft.  What do we do now?’

     ‘We cut off the supply.’  He dug a chunky, long-barrelled key from the toolbox and inserted it into the valve lock.  With a grunt of effort, he turned it.  ‘There, it’s done.  This place should air out in an hour or two.’

     ‘Do we repair the pipes?’

     ‘No.  We’re trouble-shooters, remember.  We stop the leak and assess the situation.  Then the company sends in a crew to fix things and -’  His mobile warbled.  He slipped it from his pocket, hit a button and squinted at the message.