The crunch. The scream.
"This is wrong," Taylor said.
"Oh yeah?" Graham said. "How many people have you killed, old man? How many kids, across the decades? How many old couples in their little cottages out in the country? How many?"
"You really don"t get it," the man said. "I don"t know. A few, yeah, alright, but I didn"t always know what I was doing. You get something growing inside you and all else goes flying out your head. But you don"t do it for the killing. That"s the price you pay. Not the reward. Unless you"re one of the sick ones. And yeah. Fair enough. There"s a few of them about."
"This is wrong," Taylor said again.
"It"s either this," Graham said, "or we let him change back. And I for one don"t trust him."
"Well," Taylor said, "not now, not after everything we"ve done to him, eh, Graham?"
"What"s happening here?" I asked the man. "Why are you all here in Wasdale?"
He looked at me with his watery eyes.
"It"s the Leaping, isn"t it?" he said. "The Leaping. And may it all be over soon."
"Now," Graham said. "The legs."
"Wait," I said. "The Leaping? What"s the Leaping?"
"It"s like a party. A real big party. Lasts for days. A traditional thing. And there"s a contest at the end. The Leaping. Who jumps the furthest."
"Why are there no lights in the valley?" I said. "No satellites?"
"Because, it"s the Leaping Leaping, boy," he said. "The Lord Himself is here tonight. Takes us all out of the natural way of things. The time and place as you know it is gone for the time being. Everything goes dark. Like we could be hundreds of years ago. Or hundreds of years into the future. You all just kind of got caught up in it, because you were in His house. The Lord"s house. Ha. Some of your friends might"ve got eaten. The rest just killed." He wheezed a laugh. "I would say it"s very stupid of you all to be living in His house. But there"s no way of knowing, I guess. What would the world be like if you knew something was a mistake before you did it?" You all just kind of got caught up in it, because you were in His house. The Lord"s house. Ha. Some of your friends might"ve got eaten. The rest just killed." He wheezed a laugh. "I would say it"s very stupid of you all to be living in His house. But there"s no way of knowing, I guess. What would the world be like if you knew something was a mistake before you did it?"
"The Lord?" I said.
"Yeah," he said. "The Lord."
"You mean like G.o.d?" Graham said. He shattered the old man"s ankle with the axe before he could answer. He screamed and screamed.
"Like G.o.d?" he wheezed, eventually. "I don"t even know what you mean."
We stumbled across the fellside for what felt like hours. The size of the mountains was deceptive their various features always appeared closer than they were, because they were so big.
Of course, in the dark, when we couldn"t see much apart from the silhouette of the land against the sky, it was difficult to get any kind of handle on the scale of it at all.
Hours later. It had to have been hours. We stood by a stile over an old drystone wall, looking down at the flickering firelight bouncing off all of the trees below us, by the lake. "You really don"t want to go down there," the old man said. "I don"t know what you"re looking for, but if it"s down there, you won"t want it no more."
"So," I said. "That"s the Leaping?"
"Yeah," he said. "It is. Well, it"s the gathering beforehand. Can go on for days before it really starts."
Taylor was shaking uncontrollably. The fronts of his shirt and jacket were stained black with blood and gleamed wetly. He was standing with a forward stoop, so the skin of his stomach hung loose and relaxed.
"Why is it not getting light yet?" he muttered. "Why is it not getting light yet?"
"Because that Lord of theirs is down there too," Graham said. "That"s why."
I was worried about Taylor, and not for his health not in the normal sense because he seemed OK or, at least, capable of moving. I was worried that he"d been bitten and he"d turn into one of them while Graham and I weren"t looking, and that"d be it, then.
"What are we going to do?" Graham said.
"I don"t know," I said.
"I don"t see that we need to keep him any more." Graham tossed his head towards the old man.
"He"s just an old man," Taylor said.
"We should kill him," Graham said. "We"re not going to be able to keep an eye on him once we"re down there."
"You won"t be able to do anything if you"re going down there," the old man said. "Not ever."
"Shut the f.u.c.k up," Graham said.
"He"s just an old man," Taylor said.
"He"s not just an old man," I said.
"Jesus," Graham said. "What the h.e.l.l are we going to do?"
I thought back to when we"d found Graham in the Fell House kitchen alone, sitting in the middle of the aftermath of a terrible slaughter. I took a few steps back, so that he was no longer behind me.
FRANCIS.
Drumming f.u.c.king carnival. I start walking on two legs. Eat some meat from a pit, let the fat run down my chin and blister my skin. I realise that I am becoming humanoid again, and it"s painless, effortless. All around me these creatures are in flux. Some of them, you wouldn"t know they weren"t human at all. I am naked. The women here are beautiful, vicious. Dancing with sticks, torches, claw-hammers. But they all put Jennifer in my head, thrust her forcefully into my mind. As clearly as if they were shouting her name with every movement, every word of every song, every fang, every item of clothing falling to the floor, every strand of hair, every f.u.c.king one of them, every f.u.c.king thing. Every torch. Every flame. Every hammer. Every guitar. Every van. Every tent. Every bodhran. Every b.l.o.o.d.y transformation. Every orgiastic pile-up. Every torn-up ghost. Every giggling hobgoblin. The music is a whirlwind. Whipping weird things about and around the sh.o.r.e, the beach. The water is alive. Bubbling up with formless animals as they change shape. Their solid bodies churning around like the liquid they flop in. Squealing like the pigs they"ve been eating. churning around like the liquid they flop in. Squealing like the pigs they"ve been eating.
But she"s not here.
"She"s not here," Balthazar says, who has crept up beside me.
"I know," I say. "I would be able to tell if she was here. What about you? What are you doing?"
"You"re one of us now," he says. "You enter into our world, you can see us all."
"One of you?" I say. "What are you? I thought I was brain-damaged. So what does that make us?"
"You can see us, can"t you?"
"The the things? Like you?"
"Yes."
"The faeries?" I say. "Goblins? Spirits? The abominable snowmen?"
"Yes."
"Will I see them all the time?"
"Well." Balthazar pauses. "Tonight"s a special night." He turns to look at me. His eye-sockets are overflowing with icy, tumescent lumps. I shiver. "He"s here, tonight. You"ve seen Him leaping. Hopping up there on that rotten log."
"Who?"
"You know who," he says.
"What are you?"
"I am just something that came to you," he says. "This world doesn"t work like it used to. Erin told you a story before you ate her. About the boy and the bear. About the Lord on the horse. Swearing allegiance. The soul."
"But we built you," I say.
"It"s strange the way things turn around. In honesty, this body is just a body. I am something else that inhabits it."
"So f.u.c.k"s sake, Balthazar. You haven"t explained anything."
"I chose to come to you," he says. "To guide you into this existence."
I look over at the frantic mad thing on the log. He has strangely shaped boots. Short grey hair. His tongue is s...o...b..ry and loose. His grin is impossibly wide. Stretching from below one eye to below the other.
I don"t know what to say. It feels like a joke that I don"t fully understand.
"Balthazar," I say. "Who"s that on the log?"
"That"s Him," Balthazar says. "That"s the Lord. Of course He doesn"t always look like that. He is a changeable sort."
I shake my head.
"Francis," he says. "How do you really feel about Jennifer?"
"She"s everything."
"What about everything else?"
"It devours me. I look in the mirror and all the world devours me."
"Then let us help you forget."
"f.u.c.k you, Balthazar. All this c.r.a.p is no help at all."
"Don"t think for a moment that I have any answers, Francis," he says. "Besides, f.u.c.king is somewhat beyond me. Look at the state of this." He gestures downwards, to his p.e.n.i.s. It is ma.s.sive, misshapen. Grotesque with tumours.
"I"m sorry," I say. "Have you got cancer?"
"Don"t be such a fool. I"m a snowman. It"s just the way you built me. Your fear is in everything you touch."
"Have I got it?"
"I wouldn"t know," he says. "But it doesn"t matter now. It can"t kill you. Nothing can. That"s the joy of it."
A woman with long black hair and a red dress runs past, shouting. She is being chased by a hairless wolf-thing with a human head. It scampers past on all fours. It hoots with laughter.
"I can"t die?" I say.
"Complete dismemberment might kill you," he says. "Certainly for a while. Maybe you would retain some level of consciousness. And you can return, if you so choose; you could be a human again. And then you would be able to die. You would be prey. Cancers would stalk you through the woods. Through every waking moment. Various fears would make up the tune that you dance to. There are so many things to be scared of. The BNP. Terrorists. Paedophiles. Traffic accidents. Earthquakes. AIDS. Your conscience. Loving somebody. Nuclear war. Christianity. Topshop. Fast food. The Daily Mail Daily Mail. Used needles. Global warming. Tidal waves. Rape. America. Imagine subsidence the ground beneath your feet opening up. Imagine infertility. Inexplicable headaches. Various pressures can materialise in the brain they come from nowhere and n.o.body understands them. And then of course, there are the wolves. They never went away."
I don"t say anything.
"Being human," he says. "I wouldn"t recommend it."
"I"m not scared of dying."
"No," he says. "But other people dying? As a human, you can become vulnerable to such things."
"I"m not human."
"No, you"re not. You"re not fully one of them though, either." He gestures towards a small group of large, sleek wolves that gaze serenely up into the wintry sky. My breath catches at their tranquillity and quiet power. If I look around, there are others like them.
"What? Why not?"
"There is a deal you have to make," Balthazar says. "You have to give something up. Otherwise you are just a human being struggling with something you can"t really control. You can turn into a wolf, but afterwards you will still be human, with a human consciousness, with all of the guilt and the worry about what you"ve done. The conflict between the two states can ruin people, Francis, if they"re not strong enough." As he finishes speaking, he looks mournfully down at a clump of snow that"s just dropped from his waist. "b.l.o.o.d.y campfires," he says.
"Why would anybody not make the deal?"
"Giving up your soul has this negative stigma," Balthazar says. "I don"t understand it myself."
"What does that even mean?"
"It means real nihilism," Balthazar says. "It means really, truly, not giving a f.u.c.k about anything except your own life. It means no chance, ever, of doing anything good for the world ever again."
I open my mouth to reply, but don"t.
"Like I say," Balthazar says, "I don"t understand it myself."
The choice is one that I never expected to be so clear. All around me the dancing and the flaming slows down; the music and the yelling fades. I am surprised, and pleased, that really there is no choice to make at all. And excited. Genuinely excited for the first time in years.
"What if I do want to be fully human again?" I ask. "How do you go back?"
He creaks over and whispers in my ear. The sound of ice cracking. As he leans back, I see a look on his face that could almost be pride. I nod. First, though, I need to find Jennifer.
The fires are behind me. My shadow is cast forward, a long thin thing. Dark against the orange flickering light that illuminates the ground. I am facing the mountain. I try to taste the air. Looking for her scent. Jennifer. I need to find her. She is the thing that brought me here. Put me here. Led me here. Without her, none of this means a thing.
And then. Her scent drifts across from the air above. A thin, floating strand of spiderweb. It is accompanied by another. A strong odour of rotten teeth. Instantly I am fully alive. Every sense jumps up, thirsty for more. I take a step forward. Then another. I move away from the dancing, fighting, feasting. I move upwards. Towards Jennifer. And the rotten teeth. I bend to touch the soil with the palms of my hands. I start to run. The mountain starts to speed past. Black earth. White snow. Points of light. Above. Blurring. Jennifer. And the rotten teeth. I bend to touch the soil with the palms of my hands. I start to run. The mountain starts to speed past. Black earth. White snow. Points of light. Above. Blurring.