It Knows Where You Live (25 page)

“So why isn’t it devouring me,” said Stan, feeling high and floaty, as if this were some kind of lucid dream. “I mean, at first, when I saw the thing, I thought that’s what it wanted. To eat me. To use me up. But it didn’t. All it did was take my fear. Why did it do that?” He pulled his hand away, regretting it instantly. He wanted to keep stroking the thing, feeling its tender, undulating mass under his fingers.

“I don’t know,” said Ted. “This has never happened before. I told you I had feelings for you...maybe that’s why. Because my feelings are real. Or maybe it’s getting lonely, and thinks you might be a friend.” He closed up his chest and reached for his shirt.

“No,” said Stan, pressing his hand against Ted’s chest. “Don’t.” He raised his other hand and began to massage Ted’s ribcage. Ted closed his eyes. His lips began to move; he was humming a Beatles song. Penny Lane. One of his favourites.

The ribcage tensed, and then relaxed as Stan fondled it. He felt the thing in Ted’s chest reaching out to him, straining to make contact. “I love you,” he said, and for the first time he realised he was not talking to Ted; in fact he never had been, all this time.
 

He was speaking to the
thing
inside Ted.

“I love you, too,” said Ted. Then he resumed humming his tune.

Love.
 

You
.
 

This time Stan only mouthed the words; he didn’t want to hear any kind of reply, not from Ted. He wanted to feel it, to experience it by touch alone. The thing in Ted’s chest fluttered. It loved him back. Ted’s love loved him in return.

They went to bed. Stan was distracted, but he made sure Ted was fully satisfied before falling asleep. As Ted snored softly at his side, flat on his back with one arm raised above his head as if to ward off invisible sunshine, he pulled down the bedclothes, exposing Ted’s naked torso.

He’d felt it shifting as they fucked. Kneeling behind Ted, deep inside him past the rim, he had reached around and stroked the other man’s chest, feeling around, trying to connect with the thing inside him. Briefly, he’d felt a soft fluttering movement, like huge wings twitching, and then it was gone. When he came, he imagined his ejaculate squirting up inside Ted’s rectum, tearing out of the ruined tissue and travelling into his stomach, then up into his chest, and coating the creature which lay curled up there, enjoying the distant sensations of sex.

It was a silly fantasy, he knew, but what about this whole situation wasn’t silly? In fact, wasn’t it actually insane?

He held his hand, palm down, an inch above Ted’s sweaty torso. The skin beneath trembled; the thing knew he was there, and what he was doing. Once again, it was struggling to reach him. Ted slept on, unknowing; he didn’t even realise Stan was conducting a secret affair with his love. It was almost funny, if you thought about it. Absurd, yes, but also very funny...

“I love you,” he said, lowering his head so his lips touched Ted’s flesh. I. Love. You. Love.”

The thing in Ted’s chest fluttered madly, excited.

It gets hungry.

Ted’s earlier words returned to him, filling his head.

Hungry.

But what on earth would such a thing eat? He didn’t even want to think about the mechanics of consumption, but the subject of what kind of diet it needed tugged at him, not letting him go.
 

He thought of old women when they saw little babies, and couples so lost in their feelings they uttered gibberish:

I love you so much I could eat you all up.

He flattened his hands on Ted’s chest.

I could eat you up...

He slid his fingers into the small indentation at the centre of Ted’s ribcage, feeling the seam in his flesh, and pushed the bones slowly apart. Beneath the epidermis, Ted’s muscle mass was desiccated; the meat of him was dry and fibrous, like the layers which made up a sheet of corrugated cardboard.

Eat you up...

He opened up Ted’s chest and set his eyes upon Ted’s love—
his
love. The love they both shared. It was beautiful, soft and white and diaphanous. It seemed to have changed slightly in appearance, as if this new situation was making it thrive. It was puffy, like cotton candy. The similarities to a jellyfish were a thing of the past; now it looked like a big ball of candy floss. But with teeth, sharp circular teeth.

Stan reached inside and cupped Ted’s love. He lifted it out and stared at the empty, dusty space it left behind. There was no heart; there were no internal organs in there at all. No blood, either. Over the years Ted’s love had slowly used him up, drained him dry, and now he was just a shell, a container for his love: he was a big, bony box filled with love.
 

And now, once again, his love was hungry.

I could eat you all up...

He pressed the thing against his cheek. It was soft, downy, and so wonderfully cool.
Like ice cream
, he thought,
not candy floss.
But like lovely fluffy ice cream
. He rubbed it against his face, kissed it, enjoying its substance. The thing rolled around on his hands, wrapped itself around his forearms. He buried his face in its mass and breathed in its smell: vanilla, and beneath that the suggestion of fresh meat. He felt its sharp little teeth as they grazed against his chin, nibbling: dainty little love bites.

All his life people had told Stan his kind of love was wrong, it was twisted. That it was
mutant
.
 

Well
, he thought,
I guess they were right after all
.

Then, when he was finished luxuriating, almost regretfully he placed the love onto Ted’s upturned face. It spread out, like a stain, covering his handsome features. Ted, waking now, began to struggle feebly, but Stan leaned across his body and restrained him, pinning down his arms. This enabled his love to feast, to sate its hunger and fill itself up with Ted, or what little now remained of him on the bed. The parasite was turning on its host, cleaning up the mess before it entered its new home.
 

When Ted stopped moving Stan got up and crossed the room, opened the door, and took one last look at the resting place of his former lover, the man with the long, thin fingers and who had so much love to give. A small mound of something or other was still visible on the bed. Soon there’d be nothing left to see—nothing but his love. The sounds it made were muffled, but unpleasant. Small tearing sounds; tiny sucking noises.
 

Stan loved his love, but its eating habits turned his stomach.

He left the room and closed the door behind him, cutting off the busy little sounds of feeding.

•
   
•
   
•

The man walked into the bar and sat down on a stool. It wasn’t a gay bar, or even a pick-up joint. Just a drab city-centre drinking den, quiet and half-empty at this hour of the day. He ordered a large G&T and listened to the jukebox music while he waited. It never took long. Usually within a couple of minutes someone would be drawn to him, attracted to his love, his hungry, hungry love.

“Hi,” said the boy. He was young, pretty, and had one of those pouty little mouths the man had always liked.

“Can I buy you a drink?”

The boy nodded. Sat down. “I’ll have a Heineken.”

“I’m Stan,” said the man, staring at the boy, sizing him up. He would do. Thin, with not much meat on his bones, but his shoulders were broad and hard and he stood quite tall: solidly built for someone so skinny.

“Pete,” said the boy, nodding and smiling as the barman set down his beer before moving away to stand and watch the football on the television.

“This your local, then, Pete? Is it your neighbourhood watering-hole?”

“You mean, do I come here often?” Pete smiled. His eyes lit up from the inside. He clearly liked to come across as being a bit cheeky, something of a Jack-the-lad: somebody with a slight edge.

“I suppose I do mean that, yes.” The man smiled back, but it was empty, lacking any genuine warmth or humour: a painted-on grin.

“So what’s your story?” said Pete, rubbing his leg against the man’s thigh. “I mean, what brings you here tonight, Stan the Man?”

“Well,” said the man, placing his hands flat on the bar. Something stirred dryly in his chest, turning over to get into a more comfortable position. He clenched his hands into fists. “I suppose you could say I’m a man who’s in love with love.”

He smiled again, this time more realistically.

Pete raised his glass to his lips.

“You’re weird,” he said. “But I like weird.” Then he took a drink.

The jukebox changed its tune: ‘This is Not a Love Song.’

After a moment’s pause, the man began to laugh.

ALICE, HANGING OUT AT THE SKATE PARK

Then:

She was found early one morning. The sun was just coming up, its golden light basting the horizon like a layer of butter on a roasting chicken. A man was jogging through the park with his dog. I think it was an Irish Setter. He cut down behind the old bowling pavilion, along the narrow, leaf-coated pathway between the damp flower beds, and came out of the trees by the kiddie’s play park. He ran past the empty swings and slides and climbing frames, and turned the corner to run alongside the skate park.

He saw her immediately.

She was a small girl; everyone used to call her “dainty.” She had such tiny hands and feet. She wore clothes made for someone two or three years younger than her. She was lying vertically down one of the stainless steel skating ramps with a length of nylon washing line wrapped around her throat, her bare feet pointing downward. The other end of the line was tied to a metal tent peg hammered into the ground a few yards away, at the rim of the slope bordering the sunken skate park.
 

There was a transparent plastic bag over her head. The plastic was pressed so tightly against her skin she looked shrink-wrapped.

She was just eighteen years old.

They never discovered who killed her.

Three months later:

“I wish they’d just take her away.”

I stopped beside one of the wooden benches and glanced at my wife, Emma. She was staring at Dead Girl—that’s what they all called her now, like a nickname—and I could see the side of her face. Her features were sharp: severe cheekbones, a chiselled nose. Most people thought she was elegant but I just thought she looked vaguely evil, a bit like a wicked witch in a picture book.

“They do,” I said. “They do take her away. Every day.”

Emma turned towards me. The sun was now positioned behind her head; her hair was wreathed in yellow fire. “But they used to do it four or five times a day. Why did they stop?”

I shrugged. “Don’t ask me. Maybe they got sick of wasting their time.”

She glanced again at Dead Girl, and slowly shook her head. “What’s her name again?”

“Alice,” I said, too quickly. “I believe it was Alice.”

“Well, I wish she’d fuck off through the looking glass.” Emma walked away towards the fence to watch Ben play. He was on the big climbing frame, carefully working his way to the top of the roped pyramid.

I walked up next to her and placed my hand on her thigh. She ignored the gesture. I left my hand where it was, too embarrassed to take it away.

“I hope he doesn’t fall,” she said.

I examined Alice, in her little taped off resting place on the skating ramp. She was wearing the same clothes as always: a dark blue knee-length hooded coat, black leggings cut off at the shin, and a tight black woollen sweater. Her feet were dirty. She hadn’t changed a bit.

Ben finished on the climbing frame and went over to the swings. He clambered into one and started himself off by rocking back and forth, then looked over at us pleadingly. “Dad...” His face was pale. He was a beautiful boy, but fragile. That was why Emma always worried so much about him. She hated to see him taking too many risks.

I walked along beside the waist-height metal fence and opened the gate, moving over to the swings. The play park was busy, full of happy little families enjoying the day. I stood behind Ben and pulled the swing backward, then paused before letting it go. He laughed as I pushed him higher and higher. His legs kicked out at the apex of each arc, and he let out a little squeal of pleasure every time he swept down towards me.

When we were finished Ben wanted an ice cream, so we walked through the gate to get Emma. She was concentrating on the council workmen as they removed Alice’s body. They cut the nylon washing line, hauled her onto the rear of a tiny little dumper truck, and then drove off over the concrete skate park. A small crowd was gathering, as usual. Some of them—the younger ones—were laughing. It was no big deal. This happened every day, just another part of park life.

By the time they’d reached the far end of the park, Alice’s body was once again at the ramp. Nobody ever saw it reappear; it just did. Even if you watched the space intently, not even blinking, you could never pinpoint the exact moment she returned to the ramp, the nylon line wrapped firmly around her throat, her arms lying stiff at her sides, her face a mashed blur through the plastic bag.

“I hate it,” said Emma. She wrapped her arms around her rib cage, holding herself. “It’s horrible.”

I studied the people as they moved away from Alice’s body after the removal; once she was back in place they lost interest and dispersed. A number of the others hadn’t even bothered to watch. They were getting used to the event. The newspaper and television reporters didn’t even turn up any more, unless it was a slow news day. It was an old story; other, more important stuff was happening: celebrities having affairs, new films being released, riots in European cities.

We walked through the park, watching people playing football, climbing trees, sitting on the grass with sandwiches and flasks of tea. I bought Ben a large cone at the ice cream stall. Emma didn’t want anything, and neither did I. We headed towards the exit and the main road. We crossed the road and walked a few hundred yards to our street, and went home.