After: Nineteen Stories of Apocalypse and Dystopia (12 page)

“Get back!” I point the gun. It’s as light as a toy, but it ain’t a toy. Any real
person would know that, any real person would back off, but this is a Hairy, it don’t
understand. I can kill it, but I can’t scare it. I shriek, “Get away from me or I’ll
shoot!” and it lets out a yell of its own and waves its arms. I jump about a mile
in the air, I nearly pull the trigger, but I don’t, I’ve never
killed
anyone, and it burbles, “Mad, mad, mad-a, mad-a,” and I’m almost sobbing, I
know
it’s mad, I back some more and I say, “I’ll shoot, I’ll shoot!” and it says, “Madd-a-
lena
.”

I almost drop the gun.

And it says, this time I swear it says, “
Moh
-riss.”

All the skin prickles up all over my body.

I don’t wait to hear no more. I yank open that door in the wall and leap through and
go racing two at a time up shallow treads that lead around and around in a never-ending
spiral. The Hairy’s hooting in the shaft below. It’s coming after me.

Maybe it’s seen me with Morris on the street, it knows we’re dealers, it thinks I’ve
got…When Hairies get to that state, their brains is wrecked, scrambled. Nobody sells
it to ’em anymore, they can’t pay and anyway another dose or two’d prob’ly kill them,
but they still
want
the stuff. They still crave for nirv.

But I swear I didn’t rekkernize it, it ain’t anyone I ever met. And even if it knows
about Morris, how could it know about Maddalena?

I didn’t hear that. I didn’t. I didn’t hear it.

But I know I did.

Every coupla turns, daylight peeks through a little window covered with thick glass
and barred like a prison. I push on—slowing, toiling, gasping—but I keep going, and
after I don’t know how many turns, the stairs end in a narrow stone passage, no more
than elbow wide. I dive along it and come to another flight, straight this time, a
glimmer of daylight at the top. I struggle up and tumble out and grab at the wall.

I’m out on the ledge where Billy was. It rims the bottom of the dome, hugging what
looks like about a circular mile of space. Windows march ’round the walls above me.
There are huge shadowy paintings up there. Way, way up, higher than I like to look,
there’s another gallery hanging right in the middle of the roof. Dusty rays of light
slant down.

I peer into the gloom. “Billy?”

Well, he ain’t here, a’course he ain’t, that’d be too easy, wouldn’t it? He’s wandered
off again. And the Hairy’s on the stairs and we gotta get out—I’m wild with Billy
but I’m
furious
with myself. What’s wrong with me? Why didn’t I shoot when I got the chance? Next
time I’ll pull the trigger for sure.

I try Billy’s cell, which is switched off, and I call for him again, not very loud
coz it echoes, and the place spooks me, and then I set off marching around the circle.

A heavy iron railing fences off the drop. Once it musta run all the way around, but
now there’s big gaps, places where it’s torn down and twisted. I peer over, careful.
A helluva long way down there’s a pattern in the middle of the floor, a starburst
so big I never spotted it when I was down there. It’s like a target.
If you’re gonna jump, aim right here.
I pull back, shuddering, and press close against the wall.

Billy whispers at my shoulder, right in my ear, “Hey, Charlie!” I spin around. And
he’s
not there
.

Christ, the voice—the voice was so weird. All hoarse and hollow. Not like Billy alive.
Like Billy’s ghost.

It’s too much—the dome hanging over me like a thundercloud, the Hairy on the stairs,
them bloody pigeons what never stop cooing…and Billy’s voice coming outta nowhere.
My knees go weak. I croak, “Where are you?” an’ there’s a pause, and his voice whispers,
“Here”—still sounding like a ghost—and I go, “Where?” and there’s another pause and
he says, “By the door.”

Well, there’s no door anywhere near, and then I look far out across the open space
and see the doorway I come in through, more than half the circle away. Next to it
I can just make out the shape of Billy, standing there waiting. Relief soaks through
me, but I’m exasperated too, chasing each other around like a game of ring-a-roses.
I shout, “Stay put! Stay there an’ wait for me!” There’s the pause, and he answers,
“All right,” still in that dragged-out hollow whisper, like it’s traveled right up
into the cup of the dome. So it’s got to be some kind of echo.

From where I am, it’s quicker to go on than turn back. I’m picking my way careful-like
over slippery piles of fallen plaster and pigeon droppings, when I suddenly know I’ve
just made the most
terrible
fucking mistake.

I told Billy to wait where he is—and the Hairy’s on the stairs.

It’s like a fist in my stomach. I start to run, past gaps in the rail where there’s
nothing to stop me going all the way to the bottom, and then I come to a place where
the rail’s all twisted over the ledge and I hafta stop and clamber over it, and watch
where I put my hands and feet in case I break an ankle or fall, and I can’t even look
to see what’s happening—if it’s already there, and Billy’s all alone. It gives me
the horrors. I gotta get there first, before it reaches the top.

I vault the last tangle of metal, and run on. All of the circle looks the same, like
I’m getting nowhere, like the building’s revolving and I’m staying still. I’ve lost
sight of Billy, don’t know how far I’ve come, I’m dreading to hear him scream. I grip
the gun in my hand. I’ll use it this time, I really will. I’ll kill it if touches
him.…

I come around the last curve and close the circle. And Billy’s waiting for me like
I told him, his face all pleased—and there’s the Hairy clambering outta the black
oblong of the doorway behind him.

I slide to a stop, pointing the gun. My hand’s shaking so bad, I daren’t fire. “Billy,
get behind me quick, there’s a Hairy, gimme some room to shoot.”

But Billy turns. He sees this thing—this thing what rips pigeons apart and eats ’em
raw—and he smiles, all kindly and superior, like he knows best, and, “Don’t worry,
Charlie,” he says. “Hairies ain’t scary.” An’ he reaches out and
pats it on the head
.

It grabs him. It tugs his arms, gibbering, but this time I can’t hear proper words,
just a sorta mad moaning like it’s pleading for something and I can guess what. It
stinks of salty piss like an old tomcat, it’s covered with filthy tangled hair; who
knows what diseases it’s got? The gun’s no use; I drop it and try yanking Billy away,
but the Hairy holds on tight and I yell, “Get off! Get off of him! He ain’t got nothing
for you!” An’ I grab its wrist—
touching
it, skin and bone and harsh hair under my fingers—and twist till it lets go. I land
a kick to its kneecap, and it screams and collapses. Billy wails something, and I
turn on him. “Outta the
way
! Let me
deal
with it—”

He shoves me hard in the chest. He’s beetroot red, scowling, really angry. “Charlie
hurt
it!” He crouches over it, muttering, “Poor thing, poor thing.” He pulls a crumpled
foil packet outta his pocket and offers it to the Hairy like a kid sharing candy.
“Here, this is nice.”

I go
berserk
.

I rip the packet outta Billy’s fingers and jiggle the foil open. A pinch of golden-brown
powder lays there, with that dry sweet smell. Nirv. Precious, precious nirv, precious
as gold dust. I empty it on the floor. The Hairy dives for it, but I don’t care. I
grab Billy by the shirtfront with both fists and heave him toward me, and I shake
him, the way Morris shook me—and I
rage
into his face, “Who give you that? Who give you that? Who give it you?”

Billy tries to turn his face away. “Stop it, Charlie, bad Charlie, stop, stop, stop!”
His voice rises to a shriek. He flails his arms and punches me; it don’t hurt, but
it shocks me rigid. I let go. He’s sobbing. He staggers back and crouches down and
wraps his arms over his head. When I move to comfort him he cries out and bunches
up tighter.

He’s scared of me. He wasn’t scared of the Hairy, but he’s scared of
me
.

And I’m sick at myself. I didn’t hafta do that. Only one person coulda give him that
packet.

The Hairy’s down on the floor, sweeping and scraping up every trace of the brown powder
with its dirty fingers, licking and licking them. Shudders of ecstasy run through
its skinny body.

Oh, I remember how that feels. Like the sun bursting outta your skin. Like you know
everything
.…It looks up an’ its eyes burn mad and bright and satisfied. I feel its mind slipping
cold into my thoughts like a pickpocket’s fingers.

“
Moh
-riss,” it whispers, and yawns.

And after a moment I croak, “Morris. Yeah.”

And it lays down and curls up, ribby as a starved dog under the hair, and another
big shudder runs through it from top to toe, and it lays still.

Billy always says he ain’t scared of Hairies, but I never listened. I shoulda known
he don’t say things he don’t mean. Maybe he’s right. Maybe they’re harmless. But I
hate them coz I helped to
make
’em, and they’re horrible. I think of Maddalena. I’ve never stopped thinking of her.
If Hairies read minds, no wonder this one saw her. She’s always hiding like a spider
in the darkness at the back of my head.

I’m shaking so hard, my teeth are chattering. I look at the Hairy laying there. How
gently Billy touched it, the way he pets Bunny’s fur. But Billy could get to be like
that, growing hair all over him, wandering lost and mad in a place like this.

Only
one
person coulda given Billy a packet of nirv, and that person is Morris. And why? He
never lets anyone in the Krew take nirv. No chances, zero tolerance. “Keeping the
family clean,” he calls it. He’s never let Billy anywhere near it before, in case
he spilled it or tried some. Plus, it’s expensive, why waste it?

This is about me, not Billy. This is a deliberate threat.

Coz he’s guessed, hasn’t he? Morris has guessed I’m planning to go, and he ain’t going
to argue, he’s just letting me see what’ll happen to Billy if I do. He knows I’d find
out. He gave the nirv to Billy to show me Billy won’t be family without me around.
Won’t be safe. Coz Morris has to have things his own way, and he wants me under his
thumb.

You don’t cross Morris, the crooked, devious, evil
bastard
.

I feel sick. Bitter and sick and stupid. I shoulda known Morris couldn’t be trusted,
not really, yet somehow I did trust him.…I pick up the gun and wish I could shoot
him with it, and then I think I couldn’t even shoot the Hairy, and anyway what good
would it do? Then I think, So I’ll hafta stay in London, and the minute I think that
I’m so miserable I know I can’t, I jist can’t. So I put the whole idea away, coz right
here and now I hafta put things straight with Billy. And then get us both out. I crouch
beside him.

“Billy-boy, I’m sorry I shook you. Forgive me? Please?”

He whimpers.

“I’ll make it up, right? Whatever you say.”

A grunt this time. He’s got his eyes shut tight, his head buried in his arms.

“You can thump me if you want.” I pause. “Hey, I’ll even kiss Bunny.”

He unfolds and looks at me. “On the nose,” he says.

“On the nose. Right.”

He don’t exactly smile, but I feel some better. “Let’s go home,” he says, and I say,
after a moment, “Let’s do that.”

I get up first, and then I pull him up, and we look at the Hairy laid out on the floor.
“It’s asleep,” says Billy, and I say, “Yeah, it’s asleep,” an’ he says, “But its eyes
are open,” and I see he’s troubled by that, and I say, “Yeah, it’s asleep with its
eyes open. Time to go.”

As we set off down the stairs I say, “Come on, Billy, who give you that stuff?”

His eyes flash sideways to see if I’m going to lose it again. I say, trying to keep
my voice level, “Okay, when Morris give you that stuff ”—I wait, but he don’t say
nothing and my heart’s like lead, it was Morris all right—“did you try it? Did you”—I
lick my finger, dab it in the air, lick it again—“did you taste it?”

He nods once. My heart’s beating really hard. I say, “How many times?”

But he shrugs. I know I’m not going to get an answer.

It’s dark on the stairs now, the light coming in from the little barred windows is
feeble and poor. Without talking anymore we go down and down, hundreds a steps, around
and around and around and around, and push through the doors to the cathedral floor.

Now I’m looking, now I know they’re here, I see them moving. A long way off across
the floor, something wanders slowly past one of the big statchoos and disappears again
into the gloom. Under the breathy cooing of the pigeons there’s other noises—hoots
and cries, quiet raps and echoes. It’s getting dark outside and the Hairies are coming
home.

I grab Billy’s hand, and we hurry past the heaps of rubbish, and around the black
openings in the floor. The statchoos loom like huge pale ghosts. We reach the ten-meter
slice of dim sky that shows between the open doors, and scramble over the rubble.

It’s raining—big, splashy drops. Evening’s on the way, but it’s lighter than I thought.
And much warmer out here. The tide’s going out, the wind smells of seaweed and fresh
mud, the river’s gray with streaks of silver. We run down the steps to the boat and
lift it between us, stumbling down the exposed wet slope to the edge of the water,
and we jump in.

I push off and open the throttle and the water creams behind us. We both look back
and see the front of Sint Paul’s rearing up like a cliff, all ledges and pillars and
black openings. We draw farther away. The two sharp towers go fading into the rain.

Billy rubs his arms, shivering. His head droops. He looks pale and thin and tired.
I’m headed for home, coz where else can we go?

“Billy, that stuff that Morris gave you…nirv…” He gives me a weary glance, and I say,
tight-voiced, “Don’t ever try it again, whatever he says, it’s bad for you.”