The Hollow Places (17 page)

“You must be
exhausted,” Simon observed.

“You too,”
Firdy said, but Simon had beaten him to it and his words caused a
wave of tiredness to swamp his body. He hadn't slept for … days …
surviving on adrenaline and fear and excitement, but now, suddenly,
he craved a hard floor to sleep on. He was yet to lie on a mattress
that didn't leave him in pain on waking. He was happiest down with
the dust and the bugs.

He thought of
his flat, which he had been squatting for the past three months. It
looked as if it hadn't been decorated in twenty years. Where there
was wallpaper, it was peeling away from the walls like shorn skin.
In places, printed flowers peered out from beneath, grey and brown
and damp.

The room he
took as his bedroom was much like Simon's, but because it was
larger the emptiness was more profound. He too had a camp bed on
the floor, but his was in the middle of the room, away from the
things that scuttled in and out of the skirting boards. There was a
rickety table and a broken chair, an empty wardrobe with one door,
a grainy window with the curtains drawn, heavy with dust and
dank.

The room
smelled of piss. His. He'd peed in the corners and in the bed. At
first, peeing in his clothes had been a shameful accident, but he'd
eventually got used to his body's deficiencies, as long as he
considered them temporary.

He glanced at
Simon, wondering how much of that daydream he'd picked up. It was
hard to tell, because Simon was as difficult to read as ever. It
perplexed him, as did the idea that his home of the last three
months might be destroyed without anyone ever knowing he had been
there. Certainly, he'd had some terrible nights there, but it had
also been a place of refuge. It had been home and it occurred to
him that perhaps he should have left something behind for somebody
to find. A note. Something.

He took a deep
breath and put the thought aside. That was in the past. He put all
thoughts aside.

Despite his
best efforts, within ten minutes he was nodding.

Simon had his
eyes closed too.

What the
hell.

In fifteen
minutes, he was asleep.

*

Firdy knew that he was
dreaming, because Simon was a baby, perhaps two years old. He was
leading the boy upstairs, but it was taking a long time, because
Simon wanted to do it by himself.

“Come on.
Hurry up.”

Simon crawled
up the steps on all fours, grinning as he came.

“You can do
it. Come on. Come on.”

Every time
Firdy reached for the toddler he squealed and pulled away.

“Okay, you can
do it, but hurry.”

He didn't know
why it was so important for them to get to the top, but when they
were almost there he felt simultaneous dread and satisfaction at
what was to happen.

“Come on,” he
said. The bath was running. It would overflow if they weren't
quick.

At the top
step, Simon squealed and Firdy picked him up, except he wasn't
Firdy, because his hands were big and whole and comfortable. He
carried the boy like a pack of sugar and pushed open the bathroom
door, half-expecting something terrible in there, but there was no
monster, only the bath, approaching half-f, water gushing out of
the silver tap. Good, it wasn't too late.

He hurriedly
pulled Simon's clothes off and then the big hands picked him up
again.

He thought
about apologising, but decided it was better if he didn't know what
was going to happen. He placed him in the water, which was cool and
clear and beautiful, yet he knew that it was deadly and that it
wanted the boy. Before he could change his mind, he shoved the
boy's head under the water.

To his
surprise, the boy continued to play, kicking his legs, unperturbed
by the drowning. Firdy/the man closed his eyes and held the boy
down, his big finger and thumb securing him now by the throat.

Eventually,
the baby stopped kicking.

He kept his
hand underwater for another minute or so to be sure it was done,
then he opened his eyes.

They were
outdoors and the baby was lying in a puddle in the dirt. Looking
down at the boy and what he had done, he felt as though a dark
flower were opening up inside him. It tore his insides. Those big
hands were shaking.

He prodded the
boy's white flesh with a finger.

“Come on,” he
heard himself say. “Stop pretending. Get up. Get up now.”

*

His eyelids, which had
felt as though they were glued shut, snapped open. He yelled and
sat upright, heart hammering. The pain in his chest was incredible.
His trousers were wet again.

“What are you
staring at!?” Firdy said.

Simon
pointed.

Firdy looked
down at himself, half-expecting to see his cock in his hand. It
happened sometimes. Instead, he saw that he was holding his small,
black, leather-bound notebook. He was so surprised to see it there
that he dropped it.

This body, he
thought. It has a mind of its own.

He removed the
elastic band that was holding the book closed.

“Address
book,” Simon suggested. “Got a hot date when you've finished with
us?”

Firdy tapped
the side of his head.

“Addresses are
in here,” he said. “This book is something else entirely.”

He had a good
memory for people, places and events. Dreams were elusive though.
The more he had tried to remember them, the more they span away
from him. And so he'd kept the journal, noting down fragments upon
waking. That had been in the beginning. He'd slowly discovered
rhythms and patterns, recurring themes. Eventually, he had focussed
less on recording them and spent more time analysing the contents.
Remembering the dreams became easy. They were horrible. The trouble
now was separating them from reality.

He thought
that someone might read the book one day. He had intended to leave
it under the floorboard in his flat, but something had made him
bring it along.

This body, he
thought.

“Here,” he
said and tossed the book to Simon. “Take it. It doesn't really
belong to me.”

It was
liberating to know that in hours none of this was going to matter,
but he still felt a pang of anxiety when Simon turned to the first
page. He felt naked.

“I'll be back
in a minute,” Firdy said, and hurried to the door, retrieving the
key from his pocket.

*

A RIVER AND YET A
GREAT WAVE.

ALL THE PEOPLE I'VE
KILLED ARE INSIDE.

THEY ARE DROWNING
AGAIN.

AND AGAIN.

AND SO AM I AS I WATCH
THEM.

REACHING FOR ME.

I'M ONE OF THEM.

WORSE.

MUCH WORSE.

Firdy’s
writing was irregular, ropey and childish, with no respect for
lines. In places, he had torn the paper with his pens, perhaps
deliberately, but more likely in the spur of the moment. On some
pages, the text ran almost vertically, suggesting that he had been
writing without looking. At first, Simon thought he was reading
poetry, but after a few pages it seemed more likely that these were
dreams, transcribed upon waking. In the night. In a cold sweat.

Most of the
passages were written in capital letters. For the most part, these
were the only ones Simon could decipher, but he could see that they
had been written furiously nonetheless, as if the hand had been
chasing the words across the page.

Here and there
a word or phrase caught his eye.

LIKE PINPRICKS

I PRETENDED NOT TO
NOTICE

DON’T FEEL THE COLD I
DON’T FEEL ANYTHING

THERE IS NO ME NOT
HERE AND NOWHERE

IT WAS ALWAYS GOING TO
BE

SHOULD HAVE KNOWN

LOST COUNT

The same
phrases recurred over and over across the pages.

IT DOESNT MATTER
NOW

HELL

SHOULD HAVE KNOWN

NO POINT

PARASITE

SHOULD HAVE KNOWN

SHOULD HAVE KNOWN

Some entries
were dated, all within the past year and a half, but Firdy hadn't
kept up the dating system. Although the entries would have been
written in chronological order, the thoughts appeared jumbled; one
horrendous passage stopped abruptly and then another began. New
line. New pen. New thought.

Firdy was
outside. Sarah continued to rest. Simon turned to a new page. The
capitalised scrawl had been written on top of existing sentences,
further evidence that much of this had been written in darkness. He
struggled to punctuate the sentences. The more he read the easier
it became.

DREAM:

ARM AROUND A ...

CARE ABOUT HER I’M
ALSO ...

TIGHT SO SHE CAN’T
ESCAPE ...

MY DAUGHTER ...

WIFE AND SHE’S ...

OUR PICTURE ...

SHE’S NOT STEPPING
BACK, SHE’S JUST SLIDING AWAY FROM US ...

I HOLD THE GIRL, MY
DAUGHTER, BECAUSE I KNOW THAT AS LONG AS I HAVE HER WE WON’T SLIDE
AWAY TOO ...

I’M SQUEEZING AND
SQUEEZING HER AND I CAN’T STOP. I HEAR HER BONES CRACK ...

SHE TRIES TO TELL ME
TO STOP BUT I’VE CRUSHED HER ...

SHE CAN’T BREATHE
...

TAKES A PICTURE
...

THE CAMERA ...

AND EVERYONE
DISAPPEARS ...

EXCEPT FOR ME ...

*

“I used to have that
dream every week,” Firdy said. He was standing in the doorway
looking over his shoulder to face Simon. “I'd wake up and reach out
for them. I'd hear them screaming, even though I was awake, but
they were never there. Of course not. They never were. I didn't
even know who they were.

“I'd get up,
wash, go for a walk, try to eat, but I could still hear them.
Chatting, laughing, screaming. Nice. Try getting on with your day
with that going on in your head.

“I thought it
would get easier once I knew who they were. I was wrong.”

“Who -”

“Don't be
dense, Simon. You know who they are. You were in the photograph.
The question isn't 'who is the family'; it's 'why am I dreaming
about them'? Why have I been having this dream for years, when we
only met yesterday.”

He went back
outside, shutting the door behind him.

Simon was
floundering. He put the book aside and attempted to steady himself.
In the distance, he could feel the Creature, the Third as Firdy had
called it. Thinking of it by its new name caused it cast an
inquisitive tendril in his direction. Its movements, if thoughts
could be called such a thing, were slow and gentle, oily and
threatening, but still very far away. He thought that he had been
right when he suggested that it was conserving its energy, but he
also sensed that it had plenty; perhaps more than ever,
concentrated. He had no intention of testing the theory.

He calmed his
breathing and tried to think of something neutral, but there was
the book, full of questions and answers.

*

In a meandering,
lower-case note that began in a margin and then took over the
page:

“
It’s difficult to
keep a family together. A family isn’t a living thing, it’s lots of
living things, all pulling and tugging. You need someone to keep
them all going in the same direction. It’s not easy to be that
person.”

“
Here and there
they go, obeying the voice and the vibration, leaving their
offices, their workshops, their beds, their husbands and wives, to
wander the streets of the city at night, sometimes returning home
exhausted but relieved, and other times collecting a friendly face
along the way and chucking them in the river, in the canal, in the
sea.

“
All pulling and
tugging in different directions.

“
A family needs a
mother and a father. Thankless tasks both.”

*

Simon heard Firdy open
the door and looked up. He wished that he hadn't. Firdy had the
thing that he had been keeping in the van.

This thing was
not like the dog. From a glance, he was able to ascertain that it
had much more in the way of intelligence, because it had seemed to
smile at him.

It padded
across the tiles, with lighter footsteps than the dog. It was
feline; enormous and wrong because of its size. Its fur was dark
grey with bald patches where pink skin showed through. It sat on
the floor and took in its surroundings while Firdy locked the door.
It licked its paws.

“The Third has
forgiven you for what you did to the Dog,” Firdy said. “And I must
follow suit. The Cat, however, has a mind of her own and has been
known to hold a grudge. So you might want to keep your distance,
regardless of where I am.”

He gestured
for the cat to follow him into the living area and it walked in the
opposite direction, inspecting Simon's stray tooth.

Firdy winced
and lowered his head.

The smart ones
are harder to train, Simon thought.

“Yes,” said
Firdy, as though Simon had spoken, and he snapped his fingers. The
cat scowled. “Come here,” he said. It walked straight past him,
then curled up on the floor beside the armchair. “They'll be plenty
for you to do soon,” Firdy said. “It'll be worth waiting for.” It
seemed placated by this and continued licking its giant paws. Now
that it was closer, Simon could see that one paw was much bigger
than the other.

There was no
escape from his anxiety. To his left sat the cat, Firdy's ragged
guardian and defender; when he closed his eyes he was aware of the
Third, twisting and coiling, bringing itself to the boil, and in
his hands he held the tattered, black book.

“It took so
much to write it,” Firdy said, “that the least you can do is read
it.” He hadn't created it with an audience in mind, but, aside from
the fact that Simon would be gone before the night was over, there
was no better witness to his journal.

*

As was often the case,
the subtitle 'Dream' had been crossed out and replaced with the
word 'Memory' followed by a question mark: