"Don"t tell me what to do, Graham," Jennifer says. "Don"t you tell me what to do."
I look over at Jennifer. I can barely see her now. The cloud is lowering still, and the visibility diminishing. The snow is getting wetter. I look over at Jack. No, I think. You don"t need another world. There"s more than enough going on in this one.
"Jennifer"s right," Jack says. "I"m getting upset over nothing. You don"t see how supportive of me Jennifer is. None of you have seen that. Not even you, Francis."
The way he drops my name in confuses me. Maybe he does does know. But then, he is defending her. Which would be strange, if he does know. Maybe his love is unconditional. She is freedom. He has faith. know. But then, he is defending her. Which would be strange, if he does know. Maybe his love is unconditional. She is freedom. He has faith.
"It"s cold," Taylor says. The momentary silence is broken. "Maybe we should go back inside."
Jack is standing with his arms around himself. His head hangs down dejectedly.
"Well, I don"t know," Graham says. "Relationships! I"d never have one."
I can make out Jennifer"s outline. She stands with her arms folded. Her weight on one leg. She wears a long coat. Her face is indistinct. I can"t help but feel desire.
I see somebody appear behind her. Somebody from the house come to examine our beast of a snowman, no doubt. But as I watch they put their arms around her. She starts screaming like nothing I"ve ever heard. The sound is shrill and terrified, almost inhuman. I imagine the back of her throat being peeled away by the force of it. The figure drags her backwards into the mist. I start to run after them. Despite the discomfort those arms inspired in me. They were weirdly long, and knotty. And the head was faintly bulbous. A little too large for the spindly body that supported it. Some people put too much effort into fancy dress. Jennifer. I don"t know what I want from you. Or if I want anything from you. But you can"t disappear. Not now. You can"t disappear. Jack is running beside me.
"I know what you did," he says. The words sound weirdly squeezed by the wet air. "I know what you did."
I don"t say anything. I don"t fully know where Jack is. I can"t see anything through this mist other than the grey-green ground meeting my every footfall.
"Francis?" he says. "Francis? Is that you?" His words sound distorted, unreal. He sounds further away than he did a moment ago.
"Yeah," I say.
"Jack? Francis?" Erin shouts from somewhere else. I can"t tell where though. Graham too. Their voices are faint. They seem to come from directly beside my ears. Like quiet whispers. But there"s n.o.body there.
"Jack?" I say. No answer. I"m out of breath and have a st.i.tch. I can"t see anything. I stop running and bend over. I put my hand to my stomach. As I recover, I start to imagine other people running around me.
"Taylor? Hey, Taylor? Erin? Graham?" No answer. Instead, this sense of other people running. Scarily fast, all around. I can"t see them or hear them. I just have this sense of them all rushing downwards. Like they"re falling into the lake. But running, not falling. Maybe the blood in my brain is coursing around the wrong channels as the result of some growth deep within. I"m starting to lose it. There"s n.o.body here. Just me in the fog. There"s n.o.body around, running or otherwise. I tremble. My hands and arms jerk about like I"m a puppet. I start walking, not knowing what else to do. But then realise that I don"t know where I"m going, so I stop again. "Oh G.o.d," I say, to n.o.body. "Oh G.o.d." I feel like things are creeping up behind me. So I turn around. I can"t see anybody there. Just a grey blank. It would be black if not for the moonlight. I can just about hear the music of the party in the distance. A dull thumping. But I can"t contemplate going back without Jennifer. The direction that the music comes from is not obvious at first. But then I hear a shriek in the distance. A thin wail that sounds like Jennifer screaming. The two sounds each give a context to the other, so I can make a guess at the direction I should be heading. Her scream is accompanied by a high-pitched whooping, and I tense every muscle in my body. "Oh G.o.d," I say again. I start walking. sounds each give a context to the other, so I can make a guess at the direction I should be heading. Her scream is accompanied by a high-pitched whooping, and I tense every muscle in my body. "Oh G.o.d," I say again. I start walking.
After a few minutes I see a shape looming up in front of me. I shake a little. Shudder. I stop walking and just look. I half expect something impossible. Some troll or ogre or something. I don"t know what. This thing is tall, and it has arms, and it"s all twisted and f.u.c.ked up. It is covered in hard-looking brown skin. I gather that it is looking the other way, because it hasn"t shown any sign of noticing me yet. I look up at its head, thinking that if I can back away slowly enough, then I might escape. But what if this is what took Jennifer? No. It"s too big.
It"s a tree. The relief almost makes me laugh. I move closer to it. I am so cold. I am so cold that this dead tree actually looks like warmth and shelter to me. My clothes are soaked. But I have to find Jennifer. I am standing next to the tree now. I look closely at it. It still looks a bit like a creature. Or a weird person. It looks like the monster from The Woman Eater The Woman Eater. I see there are two trunks, growing against each other. Just above my head height, there are faces in both of them, twisting, almost, as if to look at each other. Each trunk has two branches where arms would be. They stretch up into the sky like the arms of preachers with broken wrists. I start to get the fear again. I look lower down and am almost sick at the sight of what is there. A pale, thick, smooth branch protrudes from the trunk on the left. It lies flat against the body of the tree, but it bends into the other trunk, and disappears into a fold of bark that is a perfect v.u.l.v.a. I put my hand over my mouth. Every hair in my body is trying to escape, is pulling out, like they are parasites and are independent of me. Oh G.o.d. I turn away, and start to walk, but I don"t know where to. I go uphill. But we started running downhill when we left the house, so I should be going downhill. I turn again and make myself walk past the trees but I don"t look at them. I don"t want to go downhill, but I do want to get away. f.u.c.k. f.u.c.k. f.u.c.k. There is something walking with me, I"m sure of it. I"m imagining it. No, it"s here. It"s there. It is just beside me, walking with me, just hiding in the mist. It"s in my head. It lashes out and claps me on the back. My spine is suddenly a stack of slates, shattered by nerves. My knees bend. Hot jaws close on the back of my neck. A long, scalding tongue slithers into the wound and my legs fold. The pain is too great for me to retain control of anything. All of my strings snap. Heavy, hairy things are astride me. I bite at the ground and the black soil fills up my eyes. but it bends into the other trunk, and disappears into a fold of bark that is a perfect v.u.l.v.a. I put my hand over my mouth. Every hair in my body is trying to escape, is pulling out, like they are parasites and are independent of me. Oh G.o.d. I turn away, and start to walk, but I don"t know where to. I go uphill. But we started running downhill when we left the house, so I should be going downhill. I turn again and make myself walk past the trees but I don"t look at them. I don"t want to go downhill, but I do want to get away. f.u.c.k. f.u.c.k. f.u.c.k. There is something walking with me, I"m sure of it. I"m imagining it. No, it"s here. It"s there. It is just beside me, walking with me, just hiding in the mist. It"s in my head. It lashes out and claps me on the back. My spine is suddenly a stack of slates, shattered by nerves. My knees bend. Hot jaws close on the back of my neck. A long, scalding tongue slithers into the wound and my legs fold. The pain is too great for me to retain control of anything. All of my strings snap. Heavy, hairy things are astride me. I bite at the ground and the black soil fills up my eyes.
I am moving through a deep grey fog, but I don"t know how. All my limbs are flailing uncontrollably. My head rolls across from one side to the other, dragged by my desperate eyes. The fog slides past as I move forward. But still my body does not connect with anything. I am not lying down, or walking, or being carried. I"m just slowly writhing, wailing, floating through the fog.
PART THREE.
JACK.
I jumped and ran, the ground pounding into my feet like a hammer, in the direction of the screaming and the strange whooping and laughing. Francis wasn"t far away; he was there, an unfocused smudge, rushing down the mountain beside me, and we ran side by side without speaking. At least, I thought it was him, although with the mist and the silence, it could have been anybody. Was it him?
"Francis?" I said. "Francis, is that you?"
"Yeah," I heard him say, or thought I heard him say, but I wasn"t sure. I looked over to where he was, where the shape shape of him was, and my foot suddenly slipped on the snow and the whole blasted fell tipped up and over my head as I spun around, falling and falling and falling and it didn"t stop until I was on my back, lying there, looking at the solid grey air above me. The thought swept into my head that I had to save her, I had to find her first, before Francis, and that was how she would know that I was the right one for her and he was not. I stood up. of him was, and my foot suddenly slipped on the snow and the whole blasted fell tipped up and over my head as I spun around, falling and falling and falling and it didn"t stop until I was on my back, lying there, looking at the solid grey air above me. The thought swept into my head that I had to save her, I had to find her first, before Francis, and that was how she would know that I was the right one for her and he was not. I stood up.
The mist pressed in against my face like a blanket somebody was trying to smother me with. What took her? Of course, it could have just been some cretin from the party but that struck me as fanciful.
I didn"t know where I was, but I kept on going.
I found myself standing over a dead body, and I held my breath in case it was her. I knelt down, every atom of my body fit to shoot off, and I saw that it was Francis. I breathed out and first of all I felt relief, and then panic.
"Francis?" I said, although I didn"t think he was breathing. I could see my own breath misting in the air in front of me every time I exhaled, but there was no such sign of life from him. "Francis?" My heart was beating against the drum of my chest and I felt hot, despite the cold air and the snow on the ground. The snow on the ground.
It was red; blood was seeping out from his p.r.o.ne body and all over my hands and my knees, pressed down into the wet ground beside him, and it was all over his face, drying into brown patches over his mouth and chin, and all over his whole d.a.m.ned body whole d.a.m.ned body, I realised, numbly. What could have done this? And what were they doing to Jennifer?
I remembered Francis" face as it hung over the edge of the bed while Jennifer gyrated on top of him, his neck taut and his mouth open and his eyes closed. Some practical voice was thrashing around beneath the memory, like maybe we needed mountain rescue, or an air ambulance, or something. My mobile. Where was it? I tried to get it from my pocket, my fingers cold and inflexible, and I dropped it a couple of times and only then did I see how badly I was shaking. or something. My mobile. Where was it? I tried to get it from my pocket, my fingers cold and inflexible, and I dropped it a couple of times and only then did I see how badly I was shaking.
Eventually I brought the phone up to my face, only to see that the screen was blank. I fumbled with the b.u.t.tons, but couldn"t turn the thing on, however hard I pressed. It was dead. I kept opening my mouth to speak with him, with Francis, but then closing it again, and I wanted to play Mario Kart with him, beat him at last, knock him off the top spot, the git. That DVD collection he had, all the B-movies, more than I would ever have thought could have been made.
I wanted to cry, but Jennifer might miraculously have appeared and seen me, so I stopped myself. The energy that tears would have released built within me until I felt that I was vibrating, slowly lifting from the face of the earth, and I shouted and screamed as loud as I could. Maybe the others would hear me and be able to find me. He had a hole in his neck, a rupture. I didn"t dare leave him, leave his body, in case I couldn"t find it again and it disappeared along with the mist.
I shouted and screamed until I felt that I was vomiting gravel and then I found that I couldn"t shout any more. I heard people running towards me, and then I heard Taylor"s voice.
"Jack?" he said. "Where are you? Did you shout? Are you OK?"
"Taylor!" I shouted, and it hurt like h.e.l.l but sounded no louder than a crow with its lung punctured by one of the cats that tumbled and yowled around Fell House, the dying bird jerking around like a leaf in a gale. "Taylor!" no louder than a crow with its lung punctured by one of the cats that tumbled and yowled around Fell House, the dying bird jerking around like a leaf in a gale. "Taylor!"
What would Taylor think? Taylor was like a role model to all of us, like in the same way that Christians asked themselves: What would Jesus do? We asked ourselves: What would Taylor do? WWTD? Francis used to hide behind the sofa when Taylor got in from work, and then jump up and scare the s.h.i.t out of him, and Taylor would lean the ironing-board up against Francis" bedroom door, which opened inwards, so that when Francis opened the door to leave his room the ironing-board would fall on top of him. Now, though, one of Francis" ribs was poking straight up out of his chest, at almost ninety degrees to the position it should have been in.
"Jack," Taylor said, from directly behind me. He put his hand on my shoulder. Erin was there too, and Graham, and I saw that the mist was clearing. "Jesus. Francis." Taylor leaned over beside me and threw up. The bile in it ate through the snow, leaving a patterned hole like the trail of a firework.
"We need an ambulance," Erin said. She pulled her phone from her pocket and fiddled with it angrily before putting it back. "My battery"s gone. Taylor? Have you got yours?"
"No," he said. "Left it inside."
"He"s already dead," I said. "It doesn"t matter."
"He"s not dead," Erin said.
"He is," I said. "He"s dead."
"He"s not," Graham said. "You can see his breath."
"No you can"t," I said, "I found him a few minutes ago. I"ve been watching him."
"You can," Taylor said. "You can see his breath."
"Look," Erin said.
I looked, and saw breath clouding above his mouth.
"Maybe you couldn"t see it in the mist," Erin said. "Come on. We need to get him back to the house."
We tried to lift him, but I expected his spine to be rigid and it wasn"t, so I dropped him. He landed on his side and settled on to his front. The back of his shirt was ripped open, and the skin was torn, and his splintered vertebrae were visible.
"Jack," Graham said quietly. "Who did this? Could he have just fallen, and and I don"t know. Could he have fallen?"
"I don"t know," I said, thinking no, you idiot, of course not. "No. I don"t think he fell. Has anybody seen Jennifer?"
They all shook their heads.
We tried to lift him again when screaming started in the distance and we dropped him again, the shock of the sound having tensed our frozen muscles so that they contracted and let him slip from our hands. This time I saw the breath forcefully pushed from his lungs. It hung in front of his lips for a brief moment, then dispersed. We stared at his body, slumped and curved unhealthily, and those awful, ghostly sounds floated down to us from the direction of Fell House. Roaring and howling and screaming and hollering. I heard a boy shouting something that sounded like "Lucy! Lucy!" but I didn"t say anything because I didn"t know what to say and we all just looked at Francis and shook. Graham slowly turned the axe around in his hands. It looked wet with some unidentifiable substance. anything because I didn"t know what to say and we all just looked at Francis and shook. Graham slowly turned the axe around in his hands. It looked wet with some unidentifiable substance.
"What is it?" Taylor said. "What"s that noise?"
"It could be the cats," I said.
"Really?" he said.
"No," I said. "I don"t suppose it couldn"t be the cats, not really."
"We need to go up there," Graham said, and of course he was right. We gently picked Francis up again, his body heavier than it looked. Taylor took his battered shoulders and head and I took his twisted feet and Erin held his waist and torso tenderly, like she was carrying a baby, and Graham carried the axe.
"There"s something coming out of his neck," Taylor said. "Something grey. There is a crack in his face that starts with the corner of his mouth and I can see the broken edges of skull through it. How can he still be alive?"
"I don"t know how he"s still alive," Erin said. "We have to be careful we don"t spill anything."
I knew the noise was coming from Fell House because I could hear the fiddle it was still there, being played by somebody who was somehow not distracted by all the other violent noise, the thread of the music tied up with all of the other, more frightening sounds.
"I"m going to go on ahead," Graham said.
"No," Erin said. "Don"t."
"I am," he said. "I can"t not. How can I not?" He glared at us, and then he turned and started jogging.
"Graham!" Taylor shouted, but he didn"t look back, and almost straight away he was hard to see against the fell-side in his black suit. He must have been moving quite fast.
A hoa.r.s.e, rhythmic shrieking reached us from the hard shape that we could see silhouetted against the sky.
"What"s that shape?" I said.
"It"s your house, Jack," Erin said. "You don"t know your own house?"
"My house?" I said, confused. It was Fell House, of course, it just didn"t have any lights on. I"d never seen it like that before, from that angle, and besides, it wasn"t really my house, not if I thought about it, because it had never felt like it and I didn"t think it ever would.
It was still quite a distance away, and from it came that shrieking sound followed by a frantic yelping and a squeal that felt like a thin wire being pulled from my ear.
Carrying Francis was difficult because the ground was slippery. One or two or all of us kept slipping and nearly dropping him, but he carried on breathing. Taylor unexpectedly fell and the sudden weight was a surprise to Erin. Francis" head dropped and hit a rock, bouncing off.
"Be careful, Taylor," I said, as he tried to stand but slipped again. "This is a steep bit."
"Francis," Erin said. "He"s stopped breathing. He"s stopped breathing! Look. Oh, he"s started again. Thank G.o.d."
Taylor didn"t say anything. He didn"t even look at me.
"What are we going to do about Jennifer?" I asked.
n.o.body answered.
The sounds from Fell House stopped suddenly. We were still a little way away. Maybe Graham and the axe had fixed it, sorted it all out, but somehow I doubted it.
We reached the small s.p.a.ce between the orchard and the back door, which was where we built the snowman. The house was dark and the wind was back, having chased the low clouds away. Everything was slightly luminous because of the snow reflecting the starlight, although there was something about the snow, something unpleasant. It was churned up, roughened, textured and corrupted by dark shadowy patches, and I couldn"t help but feel that it had somehow been violated, and Balthazar was gone. Withnail the snow-dog had survived somehow.
I accidentally knocked it over as we scuffed past, and felt something crunch slightly beneath my foot. It was a skull. My first thought was that it was Withnail"s skull, but no, that was ridiculous. It was a cat"s skull. And next to where it had lain were those small bones I had seen that time I"d thrown the axe out. Cat ribs.
"Graham!" Taylor yelled.
There was no answer but the back door was open, so we manoeuvred Francis inside and Erin flicked the light switches, but they didn"t work. We stretched out Francis on the kitchen table.
"Do you have any matches?" Erin asked. "Candles?"
"In the cutlery drawer," I said. "And tea-lights. In case of power-cuts."
"Where are all the people?" Taylor asked.
n.o.body answered. What had a short time ago been a house too full to move around in was now just an empty box. Erin lit two tea-lights, and carried them over, her hands wrapped in dishcloths so that she didn"t burn herself. Her face was drawn, and wet, and softly lit from below.
"I need to find Jennifer," I said.
"You can"t go back out there," Erin said. "We don"t know what happened to Francis."
"We don"t know what happened here," I said.
"Whatever happened here, it"s over," Taylor said, whose face was reduced to a single edge in the candlelight.
I shook my head. "We don"t know that. Besides. You could come with me."
"We can"t leave him!" Erin exclaimed, shocked.
"I have to go and look for her," I said.
"Not on your own, then," Erin said. "Taylor. You go with him."
"I can"t leave you, Erin," Taylor said.
"Somebody has to look after Francis as best we can. And it may as well be me. And I know what you"re going to say," she said, as Taylor opened his mouth. "About me being a girl and all, but we all know that that"s just offensive. So go on. Get."
"I want to be chivalrous," Taylor said quietly. I didn"t think he was talking just about the situation at hand, but his whole life, like he wanted to be some sort of Knight of the Round Table or something, and he felt like a sorry modern excuse for a good person. think he was talking just about the situation at hand, but his whole life, like he wanted to be some sort of Knight of the Round Table or something, and he felt like a sorry modern excuse for a good person.
"You are chivalrous," Erin said, and kissed him quickly on the lips.
"I love you," he said to her, genuinely, and they both seemed surprised.