Read Online The Kimota Anthology by Steve Lockley, Stephen Gallagher, Neal Asher, Stephen Laws, Mark Chadbourn, Mark Morris, Paul Finch, William Meikle, Peter Crowther, Graeme Hurry - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Steve Lockley, Stephen Gallagher, Neal Asher, Stephen Laws, Mark Chadbourn, Mark Morris, Paul Finch, William Meikle, Peter Crowther, Graeme Hurry
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Christopher and hurried out into the cold, fading light.
Gill had to know more, although her rational mind was screaming at her to leave it alone. For hours she scoured the estate, talking to anyone old enough to remember that dreadful time. No one could recall the man’s name, or if they did, they wouldn’t speak it aloud; but no one had forgotten what he did. He had moved into the house when it was first built, a sour, irascible man who never spoke to his neighbours. He smelled of cigarettes and sweat; they all remembered that. No one found out where he had come from, what his job had been, if he had had a wife, or what he did in the curtained house all day. He was a blank slate, and eventually he slipped into the background so people barely noticed him on the occasions when he trawled along the streets. Even when the first child disappeared, no one thought of him. When the twins went, neighbours suddenly made a connection. “You’re just blaming him because he doesn’t fit in. There’s no evidence at all,” the police said, until they were chided into investigating and discovered a lock of one of the twins’ hair. The old man never admitted it, gave no clue as to what had happened. They found him dead of a heart attack in the cells one morning. The police had already torn up the garden and checked the floors of the house for disturbance; there was no sign of the missing children, nothing to put their parents’ memories to rest. “But who was he?” Gill pleaded. “What motivated him?” No one could give her an answer.
As twilight drew in, Gill became lost to her brooding. She tried to convince herself the old man was merely a terrible part of her home’s history, lost to time and best forgotten. The frightened child at her core refused to accept it. She wondered about the nature of evil and its longevity until her head was swimming.
The visit with John had been harrowing, but ultimately hopeful. The doctors were a little brighter about their prognosis; after an intensive and grueling period of physiotherapy they expected him to walk again. But it almost killed her, watching him lie in that hospital bed, in constant pain, disorientated through the drugs. It awakened feelings that had been buried so deeply Gill thought they would never see the light of day again. She loved him and she would die if she lost him. Before she left, she had wheeled the portable payphone into his room and insisted the nurses leave it there in case he wanted to talk to her at any time of the night or day.
The house was silent apart from Christopher’s regular breathing on the baby monitor. Donna had babysat during visiting hours and Christopher had been as good as gold. Through the open curtains, Gill could see huge flakes of snow drifting down through the blackness to lay a white film over The Green. Inside it was warm and cosey - she had turned the central heating up a notch - but she couldn’t relax without John there. The TV was an irritation. She couldn’t bear to put on any music. She guessed she wouldn’t be able to sleep that night.
It was quiet, so deathly, unnervingly quiet.
She closed her eyes to listen to the sound of nothing.
The morphine was a snow-white highway that led John away from the real world. Occasionally he would surface from the cocooning warmth, but the harsh light from the corridor outside his room and the thousand razor cuts of shattered bone and torn muscle forced him back under. In the white world of his dreams he saw faces and thought thoughts and everything made perfect sense. He knew why and he knew who.
Sometimes when he found himself back in his broken body it was still difficult to tell if he was hallucinating or not. The quality of light didn’t seem quite right; sounds were distorted. And once he thought there was someone standing in the room on the periphery of his vision. It could have been a black smear on the wall, or a shadow, but he thought he saw it move. An enormous spider, dark
Gill had to know more, although her rational mind was screaming at her to leave it alone. For hours she scoured the estate, talking to anyone old enough to remember that dreadful time. No one could recall the man’s name, or if they did, they wouldn’t speak it aloud; but no one had forgotten what he did. He had moved into the house when it was first built, a sour, irascible man who never spoke to his neighbours. He smelled of cigarettes and sweat; they all remembered that. No one found out where he had come from, what his job had been, if he had had a wife, or what he did in the curtained house all day. He was a blank slate, and eventually he slipped into the background so people barely noticed him on the occasions when he trawled along the streets. Even when the first child disappeared, no one thought of him. When the twins went, neighbours suddenly made a connection. “You’re just blaming him because he doesn’t fit in. There’s no evidence at all,” the police said, until they were chided into investigating and discovered a lock of one of the twins’ hair. The old man never admitted it, gave no clue as to what had happened. They found him dead of a heart attack in the cells one morning. The police had already torn up the garden and checked the floors of the house for disturbance; there was no sign of the missing children, nothing to put their parents’ memories to rest. “But who was he?” Gill pleaded. “What motivated him?” No one could give her an answer.
As twilight drew in, Gill became lost to her brooding. She tried to convince herself the old man was merely a terrible part of her home’s history, lost to time and best forgotten. The frightened child at her core refused to accept it. She wondered about the nature of evil and its longevity until her head was swimming.
The visit with John had been harrowing, but ultimately hopeful. The doctors were a little brighter about their prognosis; after an intensive and grueling period of physiotherapy they expected him to walk again. But it almost killed her, watching him lie in that hospital bed, in constant pain, disorientated through the drugs. It awakened feelings that had been buried so deeply Gill thought they would never see the light of day again. She loved him and she would die if she lost him. Before she left, she had wheeled the portable payphone into his room and insisted the nurses leave it there in case he wanted to talk to her at any time of the night or day.
The house was silent apart from Christopher’s regular breathing on the baby monitor. Donna had babysat during visiting hours and Christopher had been as good as gold. Through the open curtains, Gill could see huge flakes of snow drifting down through the blackness to lay a white film over The Green. Inside it was warm and cosey - she had turned the central heating up a notch - but she couldn’t relax without John there. The TV was an irritation. She couldn’t bear to put on any music. She guessed she wouldn’t be able to sleep that night.
It was quiet, so deathly, unnervingly quiet.
She closed her eyes to listen to the sound of nothing.
The morphine was a snow-white highway that led John away from the real world. Occasionally he would surface from the cocooning warmth, but the harsh light from the corridor outside his room and the thousand razor cuts of shattered bone and torn muscle forced him back under. In the white world of his dreams he saw faces and thought thoughts and everything made perfect sense. He knew why and he knew who.
Sometimes when he found himself back in his broken body it was still difficult to tell if he was hallucinating or not. The quality of light didn’t seem quite right; sounds were distorted. And once he thought there was someone standing in the room on the periphery of his vision. It could have been a black smear on the wall, or a shadow, but he thought he saw it move. An enormous spider, dark
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