Read Online Desolation by Tim Lebbon - Free Book Online Page B

The door slammed shut, locks were thrown, chains rattled, and seemingly before the last key had turned Cain heard the first muted hoot of a pan pipe.
    â€œNice to meet you too,” he said, but his anger lasted only seconds. It was melted away by the music. There was no real tune, but there is no order to the roaring of waves on rocks or the whisper of leaves in a breeze, and yet they comfort and ease. The music came to a sudden stop, cut off by a dullthump, and Cain hurried up the stairs to Flat Five. He glanced at the scored door next to his while he fumbled with his keys. Vlad had been found with his stomach eaten, Peter had said. Cain wondered whether whatever had done it had been looking for someone else.
    Inside his flat he felt at ease once again. Alone. At Afresh he had sometimes preferred his own company, even though he hardly knew himself. He would sit for hours listening to music or reading, and then a sudden awareness of his own presence would shock him as much as finding someone else in the room. The Voice told him that it was a result of spending so much time cut off from outside influence, and that such an upbringing had inevitably created a solipsistic side to his thoughts. Free of his father at last, discovering the truth of the world with his senses as well as his mind, it was only natural that he sometimes thought of himself as a stranger.
    He made a cold drink, put on the Mozart CD, and relaxed back on the sofa. Classical music always lifted and lowered him, swirled around and through him, and with his eyes closed he was easily lost to its influence, controlled and owned by every minor element of the whole. Closing his eyes also brought the siren closer; with less to hold it off it crept back, promising pain were he to overstep boundaries. But there
were
no boundaries anymore. He had to convince himself of that. He used the remote control to turn up the music, taunting the siren and cringing inside at the same time, waiting for the thunderous pain that would surely come again someday.
    A tear rolled from his closed eye. He left it to run down his cheek, relishing the sensation.
    The CD finished after an hour. He had listened in vain for any trace of that tune he hummed and which had been hummed to him, but there was nothing there. He would find it someday . . . and yet he was not certain he
wished
to find it. Because it was not simply a tune that he had brought out of his time with his father. And though that other element—that presence—had not appeared to him since being taken from the house in the chest, it terrified him still.
    It was only midafternoon, but already he was tired. The sun cut in across the back garden and into his bedroom, and he opened the curtains before stripping and lying on his huge double bed. With Mozart now silent, Cain’s mind was left to drift in other directions, and he fell asleep thinking of that dancing clown Magenta.
    He woke up later that evening fully refreshed and relieved that his rest had been dreamless. But as the sun went down and the noises began, he wished that he were still asleep.
    Initially it was quiet, with only the purr of occasional traffic and the distant voices of playing children marring the peace. It was twilight, the half-moon high in the dark blue sky, thin cloud cover smudging its light across the heavens. A few lonely birds sang their last before night came to carry them into sleep. Cain lay on his bed, chilled now that the sun was no longer resting across his body, but too relaxed to move. He had an erectionand he held it, imagining it wrapped by Magenta’s hand instead of his own. But in his mind’s eye she smiled that strange, mocking smile, and he opened his eyes and sat up before asking whom she was impersonating, and for whom. His lust dwindled as he dressed.
    And then the noises began. A loud thump—it came from downstairs, he felt it vibrate through his feet—followed by an expectant silence. Cain held his