Story Selection Two

Williamson/Story Selection Two.

1

BEFORE I DIE.

I leave Cyberspace long enough to take a world cruise.

Reality must be better than being enmeshed in global web sites and eventually being

found dead in my chair in my little room with a modem.

I’m fat, forty-five, in need of psychic balance.

I long to love before I die.

I board the Everest at Southampton, and. wave to people, on the quay as the liner draws

out into Southampton Water.

I have a table for two, set for one, beside a giant artificial palm tree behind a pillar. Not

a good spot to break my habit of being alone. I have table number 444m, which means I

have a single cabin on the lowest deck, amidships.

In two days I explore the ship. The Everest is a single class cruiser, so I go where I like.

I learn the location of the lounges, the bars the theatre, the Jane Austin library with its

computer suit and link to the Internet, the swimming pool, and gymnasium. I ride up and

down in elevators from deck to deck until I’m familiar with all nine, named after rivers:

Amazon, Orinoco, Yangtze, Thames, Seine, Rhine, Shannon, Lee, and Lagan. I’m on

Lagan deck.

Two days out, and I’ve only spoken to the waiter who tends my table. I sit or wander

around in isolation. I look at everyone talking, laughing, jogging, malleting balls through

hoops, sitting about drinking, applauding in the theatre, having their bodies attended to in

the beauty salon, gambling in the Bondless Casino Royale, splashing about in the

swimming pool, or being frippled in the jacuzzi, and wonder what I am doing here.


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Pointless. Feeling this way I walk the decks when no-one else is there.

Then I see her.

Sitting on a sheltered seat, aft, on Amazon. It’s two in the morning and intuitively, I

know she needs help.

“Anything I can do?” I say.

She’s about my own age, tall, wearing a cape with a fur hood. It is difficult to see her

face. The cape is pulled protectively, around her.

“Go away,” she says.

“It’s cold here,” I say. “You look pinched.”

“Go away; leave me alone.”

“I only meant to help,” I say.

She turns from me. I wish her goodnight and go down the steel stairway.

I station myself at the side of a lifeboat where I’ll see her descend. I’m excited and

curious.

I stand a long time, then, retrace my steps up the ladder. She’s at the rail of the ship,

grasping it with both hands. Her shoulders heave, and I can tell she’s sobbing.

Back in my cabin, I fall asleep thinking I’ll see her in the dining room, next morning.

She doesn’t appear in the dining room, morning, noon, or evening. Of course she may

have eaten elsewhere, as food is served at various times throughout the day, and an

unlimited number of sandwiches can be had from a midnight buffet. I search everywhere

and find no trace of her. Who is she? Where is she? What sort of trouble is she in? I have

an overpowering need to find out.


3

I don’t go ashore at Malaga. I go through the passenger list; the names mean nothing.

By the time we reach Ashdod, continue on to Port Said, pass through the Suez Canal, and

reach Mumbai, I haven’t found her among the 1,500 passengers.

Is she a stowaway? She won’t starve, even if she has to live on soup, coffee, nuts,

biscuits, and sandwiches. During the day she has the run of the ship like any other

passenger. Why should anybody be suspicious of her? With dancing and gambling and all

sorts of activities going on until the early hours, the nights are short, and she only has to

find herself a sheltered place until morning.

In the mornings she can take an easy chair in one of the lounges and catch up on her

sleep. She can doze in the cinema, or at concerts, or during church services. She can avoid

all organized social events and competitive games. And there are plenty of rest rooms

where she can keep herself looking personable and well dressed.

I find her, or rather, she finds me in the cinema. It is all but empty, and she sits beside

me.

Are you a stowaway?”

She doesn’t answer, but in the flickering light from the screen, she turns towards me.

“I wanted to see the world before I die,” she says. “I didn’t realize that the knife was so

sharp. Just an ordinary kitchen knife. One of a set we’d been given as a wedding present.”

On the screen, giant faces kiss, and make promises of fidelity.

She goes on. “He taunted me. I screamed at him, to stop. He came close, and the knife

went in so easily. I pulled it out, and tried, then, to staunch the flow of blood.”

She stops. I try to say something but my mouth is dry.


4

“Heart’s blood is not just warm,” she says. “It’s hot. You’ve no idea how hot it is. I was

trying to keep it from coming out, but it pumped up, through my fingers.”

There are tears in her eyes.

“Just three weeks ago,” she says. “I wanted to see the world before I...”

“There’s no death sentence in England,” I say, wanting to stop that terrible lacklustre

voice. “And, there seems to be extenuating circumstances.”

“And all the time he kept smiling,” she says. “They’ll probably call it the Penrose Street

Killing.” She turns a silvered face to me. “Such a short time to see the world.”

I get up and stagger from the cinema, shaking. I go to my cabin, and lock the door.

Next morning I go to the computer suit. I log on to the web site of the Daily Sketch. I’m

looking for evidence of murder in Penrose Street.

I find it with the headline:

BLOODY MURDER IN PENROSE STREET.

The murder of Mrs Sonia Greene was described in gory details, and concluded by

saying that the husband of the deceased was helping the police with their enquiries.

And I thought she was the murderer.

Headline for the next day:

MACABRE MYSTERY IN THE MORGUE.

Clive Greene, the husband of Sonia Greene, confessed, and was charged with her

murder. The body of his wife, however, had disappeared without trace from the police

morgue.

Fingers trembling, I manipulate the mouse and get Scotland Yard’s web site.


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I type the message: If you’re looking for Sonia Greene, stabbed to death in Penrose

Street, she’s on the P&O Liner Everest.

I look at it, a long while, then highlight it, and press delete.

I look for her again. Had she really been stabbed to death?

I wanted to let her see the world before she died if she wasn’t already dead. I don’t fear

the dead. It’s the living, who scare me to death.

I don’t see her until we’re heading for Manila in the Philippines. I’d sought her in

Singapore, Kuantan, Da Nang, and Hong Kong, longing for her all the time.

I walk into the lift to take me from Lagan to Rhine, and there she is, alone, in the cloak,

her face shrouded.

“Sonia,” I say. “I’m so sorry.”

“I beg your pardon,” she says. “You’re mistaking me for someone else.”

“Sonia, I know what’s happened to you. I don’t know how this can be, but I want to

help you enjoy the rest of the voyage.”

She presses the button to stop the lift.

“Please,” I say. “We can see the sights together. It must have been a terrible thing to

have been murdered by your husband.”

“You’re mad,” she says. “I haven’t been murdered by my husband. I’m going to meet

him now, and my name’s not Sonia.”

The lift halts, the doors open, she runs out in panic. The hood falls down and I see her

face and know the woman is not Sonia Greene. I follow her, she glances over her shoulder,

and runs even faster. She grabs a passing steward by the arm, and points at me, mouthing

words I don’t hear. He runs at me; I turn my ankle, and fall heavily.


6

The steward and two security men walk me to the medical bay. I feel no pain in my

ankle.

“Not even swollen,” says the doctor. “I’ll check your blood pressure and pulse.”

“They’re both high,” I say. “I’m too fat.”

He pumps up the cuff three times, each time he looks more puzzled. He removes the

cuff and takes my apex beat with his stethoscope. He shakes his head.

“No heart beat,” he says.

He sounds my chest, front, and back.

“Respirations, nil,” he murmurs.

“What is this?” I say. “What did you say?”

He presses a red button on the wall, and in come the two security men.

“We’ve got another one,” the doctor says.

“What do you mean?” I ask.

“Come with us, sir,” says one security man. “Can you walk?”

“Of course I can walk. Take me back to my cabin.”

I’m taken to the security unit, which is a large room with three iron cages with prison-

lock doors. In one of these I see Sonia.

They lock me in the cage next to hers.

“I don’t believe this, Sonia,” I say.

“I only wanted to see the world,” she says.

“I longed to love someone,” I say.

She reaches to take my outstretched hand.


7

LET NOTHING YOU DISMAY.

A week to go, happily pregnant, Tara McFall, strode Royal Avenue in the centre of

Belfast. Feeling great, she was. Her short, stepped, brown hair had a bit of lustre now,

because the doctor said she wasn’t anaemic no more. Top of the world, Ma, as the fella in

the Bass advert says.


8

The Christmas lights were on, and she heard the Salvation Army band playing God Rest

You Merry Gentlemen, in front of the City Hall. She hummed, tidings of comfort and joy,

comfort and joy, to herself as she walked.

People smiled as she passed, recognizing her delight in being so full of life. A slight

girl, who had only put on a bit of extra flesh, she carried Sean’s child high in her abdomen,

on legs restored from rickets.

She had just left him. They wanted time to buy each other a present. People were

walking past her with armfuls of presents, but they could only manage a present each. In an

hour they’d meet up again for a burger at Buffalo Bill’s. She knew exactly what Sean was

going to get, a...

Her thoughts flew in all directions, and her hands went instinctively and protectively to

her stomach. She turned her body away from High Street, and crouched down, making

herself as small as possible, as the front of Woolworth’s slowly caved in with a rumble of

brick and a grinding of glass. People were screaming, then the pressure of the blast

distorted all sound and movement.

“Sean!” she screamed, but his name crawled out of her mouth and dropped heavily

from her lips. Where’s he? Her worst fears had happened. She always dreaded being

caught in an explosion and separated from Sean. Where’re you Sean? I hope you weren’t

nowhere near Woolies.

There was panic all round her. Usually, bombers gave some warning and people got

clear. But not this time. Dazed and confused, people ran everywhere. She saw, but didn’t

hear their feet. Christmas presents and shopping bags lay on the pavements. The police


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came, and the army, back on the streets, since the end of the cease-fire, came, ambulances

and fire engines, came. They all came in slow motion.

She tried to get up, and get off side, but she was sitting in a pool of water, and couldn’t

move. She tried clearing her ears with her fingers. She wanted to hear because she didn’t

know where to look. A contraction stiffened her body. “Sean,” she screamed again. Two

soldiers ran towards her.

They knelt beside her. She knew they were trying to help. Their lips moved but she

couldn’t hear what they said. She gave a cry of anguish, and looked around. She saw Sean

running towards her, his feet scattering rubble and belongings on the pavement. He’s safe,

she thought. God be praised.

“The baby, Sean,” she cried. “The baby’s coming.” Her ears, mercifully, cleared with

double pops, one after the other.

“Tara?” Sean said, taking her hand.

“I’m flooded,” she said, clutching his arm, as another contraction rippled through her.

“It’s too soon. It’ll harm Seaneen.”

“Never fear,” Sean said. “He’ll be O.K.” They had both seen little Sean on ultra sound

at the hospital. “Better believe it.” His hands were warm, and comforting.

“Blimey Bert!” exclaimed one soldier. “This woman’s ‘avin’ a baby.” Bert flagged

down a passing ambulance. Tara was lifted in carefully and made comfortable. There were

other shocked and bleeding people there already. With Sean beside her, it drove off, its

siren cutting a way through the traffic towards the hospital.

In the maternity unit, the doctor was reassuring. “Your baby will be born a week early,

but shouldn’t be any worse for that.” A nurse dressed cuts she didn’t know she had.


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Her labour lasted another three hours. The pain was desperate, but Sean gave her his

strength as her own ebbed and flowed. At last, after one massive, relieving, push, the child

came into the world. She listened.

“He’s not crying,” she said. “He’s supposed to cry. Why’s he not crying?”

A nurse cleared the baby’s mouth with a suction catheter. The doctor breathed into its

mouth, and massaged its heart.

“What’s the matter?” Tara, afraid, struggled to see.

“Hey, cloth ears,” said Sean, “listen.” Tara listened, and the baby was crying. Merciful

God.

“You have a son,” the doctor said, “congratulations.” He showed Tara a wailing,

wizened, kicking infant. She laughed and held out her hands. “I’m afraid we’ll have to

look after him for now,” the doctor said. Tara kissed and licked the child’s face, after

holding him for a minute. He tasted salty.

They placed little Sean in an incubator, and took Tara to a ward. Although Sean was

with her, she wanted them all together now, for when they got home they would be living

with her mother and father and her two younger brothers who hadn’t found anyone daft

enough to take them on. What she really wanted was a place of their own, instead of all the

overcrowding she had grown up with. They had their names down for the Housing

Executive. Neither she nor Sean had jobs, but were going to start an Access course for

Job Skills training in the new year, which would mean leaving Seaneen with her mother.

Now she had a family, and dreams that someday, maybe, they’d have a nice house like

the ones seen in thon magazine Northern Ireland Homes and Gardens. They’d need good

jobs to be able to afford something like thon. But wouldn’t it be great if little Sean could


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have a nursery with Pooh Bear wallpaper, and a lot of cuddly toys, and mobiles like them

advertised on TV? Ach, poor Seaneen. The others, when they came, would have more.

Maybe, when she was a nurse, or something.

She said all this to Sean. “We’ll work together for it, Sean.” She took his hand. “Right

now, I feel just great,” she said. Drowsily, she thought about Sean standing beside her

when the priest married them. That was a great day. He’s strong, and handsome, and he

only needs a chance, to make something of himself. He’ll be a great man, so he will. She

saw herself saying “I will,” to the priest. And he’ll see that Seaneen’ll have more than we

ever did. She felt, again, the tickle of his wee mustache as he kissed her, before the world,

on her wedding day. Just before she fell asleep, she heard him say, “Your Ma’s coming.”

She smiled.

She woke up, startled. The doctor was sitting on the edge of the bed where Sean wasn’t

now. Mother of God, the doctor’s face.

“Is something the matter with Seaneen?” she said.

“Little Sean’s fine, Mrs McFall, Tara,” the doctor said, but didn’t smile.

“What’s up then?” She saw the doctor was about to cry. Sean came in, and stood behind

the doctor. His face said, never worry. “Can’t be as bad as all that,” she said to the doctor,

with a ghost of a smile.

“This is going to come as a terrible shock to you, Tara,” he said, “but we’d like you to

deal with it now, rather than later.”

Tara’s hands went to her mouth. “Oh God, what is it? Has something happened to me

Ma, or Da?”

“No,” said the doctor.


12

“Me brothers, or sisters, then?”

“No,” repeated the doctor.

“Tara,” said Sean. “Get a grip. He’s going to tell you that I was killed today in that

explosion.” He moved through the doctor and put his arms around her. How, she thought,

can he be dead, when his touch is so warm? The doctor struggled for words.

“I know what you’re going to tell me,” she said. “You’re wrong, but. Sean’s here with

me, now.”

“I’m sorry, Tara.” the doctor said. “Your mother’s here. She identified his body.

Sean’s dead, Tara.” The doctor’s voice had cracked, and he had taken her hand, and was

crying.

“Your Ma needs you, Tara,” Sean said. “She’s worried sick about you and Seaneen.”

“I want to see my Ma now,” Tara said to the doctor.

“Of course,” He rose, went out, and came back with her mother. Tara, had never, in all

the years of the troubles, seen her look so old or careworn. She was only forty years old.

“Mother of God, Tara,” she said, “are you all right? What about the chile?” She put her

arms around Tara and they both cried, but Tara was crying more for her mother’s upset.

She did her best to comfort her, patting her back the way her mother had often done when

she was a wee girl, and awful upset.

“Take her to see wee Sean,” Sean said. Tara asked the doctor, “Can we go and see wee

Sean?” The doctor said, “ Of course,” and led the way. For Tara it was a sore walk along

darkened corridors.

In his incubator, Seaneen looked snug and secure. His eyes were peacefully closed and

his colour healthy. Sean, Tara, and her mother looked at the child.


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“Tara, here,” said Sean, turning her to him. “Now, listen girl. Don’t you waste your time

hating the people who planted that bomb. You’ll be wastin’ our lives, see? Hear?” She

nodded, looking into his wide blue eyes, and at his shock of red hair, which always looked

uncombed, even when it was. He went on, “Now, don’t you forget what you see next.” His

mustache tickled when he kissed her.

She watched Sean’s spirit merge with Seaneen’s. The child opened its eyes and looked

knowingly, and lovingly, at Tara. He raised his little arm opening and shutting his hand.

“That’s Sean,” said Tara to her mother.

“Ach, the poor wee creatur’,” said her mother, eyes glistening. She put an arm around

her daughter, and didn’t know what else to do or say.

The tune, and the words of the Christmas Carol, heard just before the explosion,

hummed, with bitter-sweetness, in Tara’s mind. Let nothing you dismay.


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15

STARK.

The psychiatrist got to the hospital too late.

Stark under the sheet, his father lay, grubby, and grimy, and unshaven, molecules

immobile.

He regarded the corpse with an unforgiving heart.

The prison guards had gone.

Youth, and wanting things had departed early from the psychiatrist, but, in the recesses of

his mind, he had passions, pressed deep and unrequited.

I’m sorry, Doctor, the ward sister said. We will wash him, and shave him, and lay him at

rest.

The psychiatrist completed the paperwork for the body to go to medical science.

Two years, and the dissected remains would be cremated.

Do you wish to be notified? a biologist asked.

He shook his head. He felt choked. He put his hand up to loosen his collar.

The psychiatrist went home.

His father, he told his wife, had died of a stroke. Had gone the way of all flesh.

Let that end it, she said. By the way, Clara Medville telephoned. She’ll call back.


16

*

The ’phone rang.

The psychiatrist’s elder son, of artistic temperament, slouched from his room, answered.

It’s for the psychiatrist, he called.

Hallo, the psychiatrist said.

Clara Medville. Patient, and family friend.

I’ve been talking to your mother, she said.

No, Clara, you haven’t, the psychiatrist said.

Your mother says your father’s stalking her again, said Clara Medville.

The psychiatrist remained silent.

Are you still there?

He said: My father died at noon today.

Your mother told me, said Mrs. Medville. The moment he arrived, she fled.

Clara, said the psychiatrist. You must come and see me. Tomorrow.

Your mother, said Clara Medville, needs sanctuary.

Who really told you my father was dead? asked the psychiatrist.

Your mother is beside me now, said Mrs. Medville. I’ll put her on. Speak to her.


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The psychiatrist sighed, through his nose.

Clara, he said. Clara?

He listened, hearing nothing.

Are you there, Clara?

No response.

Clara!

How could you? said Clara Medville. You could have listened to her. Why would you not

hear her?

I heard nothing, Clara, said the psychiatrist, because she isn’t there. He made his voice

very clear, very precise. Thirty years ago you attended her funeral.

I remember, said Clara Medville. Your mother’s in floods of tears. She needs your help.

Please, come and see me to-morrow, said the psychiatrist.

Heartless! said Clara Medville. I think you should make arrangements for her safety.

I’ll review your medication tomorrow, Clara.

The psychiatrist went back to the comfort of his Parker-Knoll recliner.

*


18

The psychiatrist went to collect his younger son who was studying for his A-level

examinations, and serving fast food.

He waited outside a clean well-lighted place, and when his son got into the BMW, he said

to him:

Share with me, your motivations?

No, said the younger son.

I would like to experience, and understand the uniqueness of your motivations.

No you wouldn’t, said his son. You would like me to stop serving fast food.

The psychiatrist had never said so.

Paternal Gran came in this evening along with Mrs. Medville, said his son. It appears that

Paternal Gramps died, and is on the rampage.

A knife twisted in the psychiatrist’s innards.

My mother, he said, died before you were born.

There were no photographs.

Mrs. Medville introduced us, said the psychiatrist’s son.

The psychiatrist started the BMW, and moved out into the hazy, yellow-lit streets, filled

with shades.


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Paternal Gran says he wasn’t very pleased about his body being filled with formaldehyde,

his son said.

The psychiatrist winced.

She says he didn’t want it cut up.

In a visual seizure, the psychiatrist saw a boy holding his bleeding gut to stop it spilling

out.

The tyres hummed homeward on the road.

Paternal Gran needs your protection, said the psychiatrist’s son.

Paternal Gran is dead, said the psychiatrist.

I saw her tonight, said the psychiatrist’s son. She looked really gutted.

The psychiatrist fled from ancient memories crawling, leprously, upward from stygian

labyrinths.

Is this conversation real or ir-real? he asked himself.

*

The psychiatrist spoke to another psychiatrist. The other psychiatrist said:

What do you think?

’phone Mrs. Medville, said the psychiatrist. Ask her if she spoke to me about my mother.

Talk to my younger son.


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I can do that, said the other. I’m sure you’d know what I’d find.

That my mother lies dead and buried, said the psychiatrist, and ghosts do not exist.

The other said, in the kindest of tones. Your father just died. His death has awakened

dormant emotions. Naturally you’re distraught.

I suppose I am, said the psychiatrist. Distraught.

If I told you what you told me, said the other psychiatrist. What would your counsel be?

That you consider the effects of repressed and unresolved conflicts on the mind, and take

a holiday, said the psychiatrist.

Well then? said the other psychiatrist.

Check with Mrs. Medville and my son, said the psychiatrist.

Take that holiday, said the other. We both know there are no ghosts. Just skeletons.

*

The psychiatrist, who had never taken a holiday with his family, who had always stayed

home, couldn’t decide where to go.

The young travel agent was patient indeed.

The psychiatrist had a dreadful feeling that there was no longer, in the world, a place for

him to go.


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The travel agent sat back from her monitor screen. Her brow smoothed as she addressed

the chair to the psychiatrist’s right.

That’s a good idea, she said. She turned to the psychiatrist. What do you think of that?

I beg your pardon? he said.

Your mother’s suggestion, she said.

My mother! exclaimed the psychiatrist, frissoned with fear, scalp prickling.

A cruise, said the girl. If you can’t make up your mind about any one place, she suggests a

world tour.

You actually see my mother?

Of course, said the travel agent. She’s not invisible.

The psychiatrist got up and stumbled away.

*

The psychiatrist from the depths of his Parker-Knoll asked his wife:

Have you seen my mother’s ghost?

No, she said. You are drinking too much, again?

The psychiatrist’s eldest passed through, oil paint on the soles of his shoes, rainbowing the

cream carpet.


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Have you seen your Paternal Gran? the psychiatrist asked him.

Nope, said the portrait of the artist. Never.

The psychiatrist’s younger son came in and jammed himself a sandwich.

Paternal Gran is standing outside and would like to come in from the cold, he told the

psychiatrist.

The psychiatrist burrowed deeper into his recliner.

*

The ’phone rang.

Hallo, the psychiatrist said.

I hope you’re satisfied, said Clara Medville. She’s gone. He did it again. It’s your fault. I

am transferring to Doctor Silvers.

Clara, said the psychiatrist.

The buzz of disconnection.

You look upset, said his wife.

He told her Clara was transferring to Doctor Silvers.

*

The psychiatrist tapped on his younger son’s door.


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There was the usual grunt from within to show the room was occupied.

The psychiatrist entered.

The younger son sat on his bed. He looked at the psychiatrist, raising his head.

You didn’t save her on that cruise, he said. I didn’t save her now.

The psychiatrist wanted to put his arms about the boy, but, instead, he left, closing the

door. Malignant memories crawled out of the pit towards him, deformed skeletal hands

extended, grasping.

He heard not the door bell’s chime. His wife called to him twice, then he opened the door.

A police sergeant, and a WPC, ascertained his name, and introduced themselves. He

brought them in when they said the matter concerned his younger son.

What’s he done? asked the psychiatrist.

Perhaps you both should sit down, said the sergeant.

They sat down, and the sergeant told them that a grubby, and grimy, and unshaven man

had killed their son when he tried to save a woman from being stabbed.

I don’t understand, said the psychiatrist. He’s in his room. Come and see.

But the room was vastly empty, its untidy space stretched to a starless, inky, infinity.

They drove to identify the body.


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They came home, and when he sought the sanctuary of his Parker-Knoll, reclining in it

was his father, stark, and grubby, and grimy, and unshaven, and blood-stained.

I’ve been waiting for you, his father said.

His wife was putting on her coat. She looked pale and shaken.

We’ve only just come in, the psychiatrist said. Why are you going out again?

She ignored him.

She got her car keys, went out, and reversed her Toyota through the ghost of his BMW.

He heard his father’s familiar footsteps, terrifying and loud, approaching on the parquet

floor.

They stopped, beside him. He knew if he looked, he would see that certain smile. Crooked

and cruel.

Do not forsake me, O my darling, he shouted after the departing car.

You could have had me released from that prison before this, his father said, a mass of

querulous quarks.

Fulminating pain, and a flood of fear engulfed him as he immaterialized into homeless

particles that would wander in tandem with an unforgiven spectre through a world of blind

material eyes.

*


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The psychiatrist’s wife got to the hospital too late.

She touched him, stroked his arm, but could not bring herself to kiss him.

I did all I could to resuscitate him, said the biologist who had waited to speak to her.

On the way home, she blinked tears from her eyes, and hoped the undertaker would do

something about the stark and stricken look on her husband’s face. She didn’t want the boys

to see, and be haunted by it for the rest of their lives.


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THUNDERSTORM.

From behind, incredibly strong hands encircled my neck, strangling me. I struggled

furiously, but it made no difference. I couldn’t cry out, or even gasp for air.

Only when my life was squeezed from my body and I was out of it did I see who it

was. His bull-neck was standing out in cords and he was red-faced with the effort. There

was no mistaking Nathan Ellis, one of my newspaper editors.

Ellis let me slump heavily to the ground, where I cracked my head. He looked furtively

around, and began to strip the clothes from my body, folding them as he did so, making a

neat pile. Angered, I attacked him. It was obvious he couldn’t see me, or feel me, because

I kicked him and thrust stiff fingers into his eyes. Nor could he hear my shouted anger.

I gave up and examined my body. I could see I wasn’t dead. Vital centres in my

medulla oblongata, were glimmering like buoy lights in a rough sea.

If I went back into my body I might be unable to keep myself from alerting this ape

that I was still alive, and I was sure he’d make certain that I was really extinguished.

Better to wait until he was gone.

I was stripped now and he was dragging me along the ground the way you would pull a

wheelbarrow behind you. He hauled me to a flowerbed my wife always tended with

loving care, dropped my legs, picked up a spade, and started digging.


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He was lazy. He dug just deep enough to get me covered over. He was very agitated as

he reshaped the flowerbed and stuck in a number of potted plants to make it look like

they’d been there for ever.

I knew I could get into my body, but I wasn’t sure I could get myself out from under

that amount of earth once I was in. I couldn’t dig myself out with the spade he’d thrown

down because I couldn’t lift it up.

He took my clothing towards the beach. I followed him through the sand dunes. He left

my silks and tweeds on some rocks just above the tidemark. It was supposed to look as if I

had walked into the English Channel. I tried everything I could to kill him on the way

back. Nothing proved effective. Ghosts, if I was a ghost, were supposed to be able to

move things, and to manifest themselves. I didn’t seem to have the knack of haunting. I

wondered why he had done all this. What would he gain from it?

As Ellis approached the house my wife came out through the Grand Portico. She ran up

to him, threw herself into his arms, and cried ecstatically, “Oh Nathan, is it finished?

“It’s done,” he said.

“Now we can enjoy each other in peace,” she said.

That answered my question.

They could also enjoy the profits from my shops, my airline, my newspapers, my

entertainment networks, for having no children, she was the sole beneficiary. They went

into the house together laughing.


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I was rather hurt by her attitude. That woman was the love of my life. The inspiration

for everything I did, and the reason for all my achievements. How could she? How could

she with Ellis? The man was mutton to my venison.

I went back to where my body was buried. I needed it, but I couldn’t unearth it.

Black clouds scudded across the sky, and the wind got stronger all the time. I could see

the storm coming from the South-west Atlantic, full of barbed lightening and

thunderheads. It came at hurricane force, and it came to my rescue, whipping up waves,

uprooting trees, and tumbling houses.

I stood beside my shallow grave, and watched it shred the flowers Ellis had planted. In

moments it had me disinterred. The rain made my skin streaky with mud. There was still a

glow in my vitals, like sparks hidden below white ash, and I got back into my body. I

sneezed, got up, and was blown over. With the wind in my back I was bowled towards the

house, and managed to get inside, bleeding, all sores, scrapes, and bruises.

When I got my breath back I went upstairs to where I knew they would be. I burst into

the bedroom, banging the door against the wall, in what I thought was a dramatic manner.

They were in each other’s arms. I shook my fists in the air, and yelled, Yaaarrah.

My wife saw me, screamed, and fainted. Ellis, lacking imagination, jumped out of bed

and with an oath, made for me, like a wild boar, determined to murder me all over again.

I fled downstairs out into the stormy night, with Ellis in hot pursuit. I hoped he’d be hit

by a thunderbolt. We were tumbleweed. He clutched at me, missed, then we were crushed

by the pear tree crashing down on us.


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I was outside my body again, but so was he. He looked groggy, and soul for soul, his

was smaller than mine, a pigmy. I cast an eye over my body. Not a glimmer of life this

time. My head had been smashed by the tree trunk. My blood diluted in the rain. My body

was useless to me now, but I could see life in his, which lay pinned under peripheral

branches.

He collected whatever wits he had and prepared to go back into his body. I barred his

way, he snarled. I snarled back. He looked frightened. I took hold of him, and this time he

struggled in my grip, but he made a fight of it. We were both new to this non-mortal

combat. Neither of us knew how to deal a death blow.

A dark tunnel opened up out of nowhere, and I felt myself being dragged towards it, as

if into some kind of cosmic Hoover. My body was dead, and this had come along to

dispose of me somewhere. I couldn’t be sure where. I only knew I didn’t want to go

shooting along it. What if? I thought. I hurled him, mightily, towards the mouth of the

tunnel. It caught him and sucked him, screaming, into that dark void. Whatever it was, it

seemed satisfied. It closed, and disappeared.

I went over to where his body was, and entered, in quick time, without knocking. It

took me a while to get from under the branches.

Back in the house, my wife was conscious, but trembling. I explained to her with his

vocal cords, that everything had turned out well. A falling tree had killed her husband,

who for some reason or other, had run out into that terrible thunderstorm. It was such a

tragedy. He had so much to live for. He’d be sadly missed. A genius. A wizard with

money. We’d get the insurance and have everything else. Including each other.


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“Oh Nathan,” she said, and hugged me in relief. Well, she had what she wanted the

great, hairy body of Nathan Ellis but gradually, very, very, very, gradually, she would

come to know who it was she was really living with.

FLESH AND BLOOD.

The imagination does not have sufficient horror to match the curse of reality. Beth,

thirteen years old, plump, with a pretty face and beautifully shaped hands, clung to the

stairway of the cutter’s pitching cabin. Her friends, Sharon and Cora, shared her terror,

not so much of the sea, but of the Doctor and the man at the tiller. She shuddered, seeing

them together. The man, hideously fleshy, and overblown, she intuitively knew, was more

dangerous than the woman. Voices within her kept crying out, “Resist, resist, resist.”

Sharon and Cora remained fearfully mute. Their eyes showed hurt, pain, loss; the

cowed eyes of helpless children. Beth wished she’d never run away from the orphanage,

and she was sure the others felt the same way, for the Doctor who had befriended them


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had changed from being a friend to a fiend, once they were in the Atlantic and headed

towards the island.

They crossed a bar of frantic, shattering seas, keeping to the eastern approaches of the

entrance to the island where the water was deeper, and the heavy keel would not hit the

sand.

“You’re a good seaman, Tubby,” the Doctor remarked.

He brought them in on a furled mainsail and a small jib, allowing the swell to carry the

Desmondo into calmer waters where the brute force of the wind was stolen by the

harbour.

She drove the children from the cabin, to the dinghy. Three trembling, stumbling,

teen-agers, pale and frightened.

“So, this is your island, Doctor,” the man said, as they made their way in the dinghy.

“Mine,” she said.

“You said there were people. It looks deserted.”

As he spoke, Beth saw a line of men and women appear along the top of the harbour

wall, like a domino effect reversed. There wasn’t a friendly face among them.

“Thirty six,” the Doctor said. “They all live in the Abbey.” She pointed. Against the

horizon the ruin of an early Christian monastery stood topping a hill, in jagged Gothic

relief, beside a tall round tower. The sun was behind it. Tubby wore shades, and smiled at


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the sun’s sinking. With her hair whipping around her face, the Doctor saw neither the

smile nor its disappearance.

The people, thin and wraith-like, stood silently. They devoured all, but the Doctor, with

their eyes.

“Where now?” the man asked.

“The Abbey,” replied the Doctor.

“We walk?”

“Don’t worry, Tubby,” Her gray eyes held a grim humour. “We wouldn’t want you to

lose any weight walking all that way.”

They were carried in Sedan chairs, and were followed by the rest of the people walking

in twos. The procession never halted for rest, but moved at the same tireless pace until it

passed through the ruined archway of the Abbey, which, Beth could see, was new inside.

They were led into a banqueting hall lit with a million candles all standing like

sentinels on the floor. The man walked over to a small narrow window. The sun

disappeared into a sizzling sea.

“Doctor,” he said, turning to face her, “why did you bring me here.” Like flensed flesh,

his adiposity parted and fell, as black soil, on the red stone floor. He stood in bronzed,

athletic, nakedness.

She was gone. The door shut, and four thin-mirrored steel partitions slammed down

like released guillotines to encase them. He moved to where the girls stood looking at


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their distorted reflections. He had no reflection. Beth and the other two cowered before his

approach.

Sharon banged with her fist on the steel. “Let me out,” she yelled. There was a hollow

reverberation.

The man looked up. Near the domed ceiling, in all four walls were holes. Beth prayed

to be delivered from evil. The man moved away from her.

Cora, who had taken Beth’s hand, said hysterically, “It’s getting warmer in here. Isn’t

it getting warmer in here?” All three girls touched the warming steel. Cora began to

scream, but the man silenced her with powerful unblinking eyes.

“Think,” he said, “think what is happening.” Beth’s stomach twisted and she felt ill.

Waves of nausea brought brown acid into her mouth and she was sick.

“You know?” the man said. Beth nodded.

“Tell us, then,” said Sharon.

“Think of it,” Beth replied, “we were all befriended by the good Doctor. Why?

Because we’re fat, and have no relatives. We’re in an oven.”

The man said, “It’s their intention to feed off us, but I have the power to save you.”

“Then, save us,” cried Sharon, a cry echoed by Cora.

“No,” said Beth, voices crying out again from within her. “The price would be too

great.”


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“What are you talking about?” Sharon demanded.

Beth listened to the voices, “He is Nosferatu. One of the living dead. His flesh is the

soil of his grave.”

The steel walls began to glow. The girls found it harder to breathe. Sharon and Cora

shed their clothing.

“Whatever the price,” gasped Sharon, “get us out of here,”.

“Become one with me, then.” he said, seductively, handsome in all aspects. Only his

eyes were feral and perfidious.

“What do we do?” choked Cora. “Quick, I’m fainting.”

With the long nail of his forefinger, he opened the inert flesh of his left arm and sliced

a red artery, which pumped blood in time to a lifeless heart. “Drink of this fountain,” he

instructed. “The power lies in the blood.”

“No,” said Beth.

“Drink.” he commanded the other two.

“Don’t, Cora,” said Beth, putting her hand on the girl’s arm to restrain her. “You will

become Nosferatu, and never be able to give life and die.”

“She will have my great powers,” said the man.

“Sharon, no!” Beth tried to stop Sharon, but Sharon had taken hold of his arm, and

lowered her head over the fountain. Until the flow entered her mouth, blood got up her


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nose and into her eyes, and turned her face crimson. Her swallowing became quicker and

quicker, until he said, “Enough”. Reluctantly Sharon tore herself away.

“Cora?” invited the man.

“I’m frightened,” Cora wept tears of stress.

“Be roasted alive, then,” said Sharon, “Oh, such power I feel.”

Cora tore herself from Beth’s grasp, and drank from the fountain until he said,

“Enough.”

“Now, you are welcome” he said, invitingly.

“No, I prefer to die. Beth told him, trembling.”

“Foolish,” he said, closing the flesh of his arm.

He and the others became a yellow vapour, and made their way out through the holes

in the upper steel.

The candles went out in batches, and melted as the walls glowed redder and redder.

The wax was the liquid tallow of former human fat flowing, lava-like, from all corners of

the oven to the center where Beth had collapsed. Her clothes caught fire and burned away

from her body. Her hair singed from her scarlet scalp. The level of the boiling liquid

mounted to provide basting.

Beth screamed as blisters the size of crab apples popped up all over her naked body.

They burst with sickening sucking sounds. Just before she lost consciousness her legs


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parted and, from her womb came a host, recognizably human, minuscule, generation after

generation. They wrapped her in gossamer-like material, until she resembled a cocoon.

This done they settled on her form, became the colour of roast meat, and waited.

The oven lost its hellish glow, and cooled down. Drains opened in the floor and oil

flowed away before it could congeal. The sides ascended more slowly than they had

crashed down.

The Doctor came in, followed by the people. They brought candles and a table. The

Doctor laid out surgical instruments, which included a cleaver and a saw.

“Where are they?” All in the room were enraged, looking to her to explain why there

was only one small carcass lying where there should have been four juicy morsels.

None saw the entrance under the door of the yellow vapour, but they did see the

materializing of the man and of Sharon and Cora. They filled the room, crushing the

people against the walls, blocking their exit.

They became countless, small, persistent, vampire bats, biting at the emaciated flesh,

until all the struggling, writhing, bodies could no longer be seen under the pulsating and

sucking mass of these blood engorged furies. All life extinguished, the bats returned to

their vaporized form and began to snake sinuously from the room.

Instantly, arising, like a swarm of vengeful, stinging wasps, from Beth’s cocooned

form, quanta of quanta, insinuated themselves into the vapour, which began to writhe in

great pain. The undead fought frantically for its life, trying to rid itself of the terrible

incubus upon it. Then it began to haemorrhage. Aeons of blood began to flow and to fill


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the chamber. The cocoon in which Beth was wrapped began to float. Then there was

nothing but an agglutinated lake of blood, from which emerged victorious quanta.

They took the cocoon, and they sealed the chamber. They unwrapped Beth as gently as

they had swaddled her. They revived her and took the form of a smiling human face, and

spoke.

“We are your unborn,” they told her, “we will take you to safety, and from there you

will live to meet the men who will give us flesh.”

“Men?” said Beth, weakly, and lost consciousness.

Documents

Story Selection Two