People Park (31 page)

He squints again. This thing seems to be human, or at least human-shaped, and coming at him very, very quickly, now the length of a knuckle. And though the shape of this thing is human there is something inhuman about it, about the way it moves and its spectral presence and the shimmer of air between it and Calum, a dream’s air that thickens into tendrils that slip and tighten around his neck.

Also as this person approaches, the bridge behind it, in fact everything behind it, even the sky, seems to be disappearing. It isn’t going dark. What was there a second before vanishes. And for a sky that was already an absence to cease to be even that — it becomes nothing, there’s just nothing there. As this person moves the horizon recedes, closing in, a hand curling around a camera’s lens, shrinking the image, choking what can be seen until, eventually, it will be just Calum and this person, alone, and everything else a void.

Calum backs away from the yellow line. His first step is deliberate, but then he staggers, legs twisting, and everything goes slow and soupy, this can’t be a movie, it has to be a dream. The encroaching figure nears, the emptiness swells behind it — and Calum stops walking. He steps off the yellow line. He backs up against the bridge’s railing. There is nowhere to go. He looks down into the mist and what is maybe a river’s shadow beneath and above at what remains of the colourless sky, swiftly vanishing.

And the figure comes closer still, swallowing everything in its wake.

AT BLACKACRES STATION
train 2306 sat on the southbound tracks, doors open. The platform was empty, the movators motionless. Debbie boarded the lead car. Two passengers sat down at the far end: a kid, maybe eight years old, and his fatigued-looking mother with a handbag in her lap.

Standing over her, the kid kicked his mom’s feet, she told him to sit down. He crawled up on the seat opposite and from his knees looked out the window and said, We aren’t going anywhere, we’ve been here forever, what are we doing. Sit down, Rupe, his mother said again, and he said, I am sitting down, and pulled himself up as tall as he could on his knees and stared at her stonefaced. She had nothing to say about that.

Normally the neighbourhood’s tinny din would drift up from the streets into the station. Instead the car filled with a silence that came thudding into the ears, at once thick and hollow, everywhere and empty. Outside the mist swirled past the windows of the train and over the roofs of Blackacres, between watertanks resembling the hulls of fogged-in ships, grabbing and releasing the phonelines and electric cables that lolled between rooftops. They were dead: the power was out, of course the train wasn’t moving.

Yet Debbie didn’t leave. Stray bits of mist nudged through the open doors. At the far end of the car the kid got down and went back to kicking his mother’s feet. I said stop it, she said, and he
kicked her once more, and she said, I’m warning you, and he kicked
her again, giggling — and at this she sprung forward and smacked his face. The kid held his cheek. He looked stunned. She shrunk away, seemed to reconsider, grabbed him roughly by the arm, and shook him. Are we supposed to walk to find your brother? she screamed. All the way all across the city, are we supposed to walk? The boy started crying. Rupe, no, said the woman and hauled him into her arms. I’m sorry, she whispered, kissing his face, his mouth.

Stiffly, Debbie watched. Sometimes at the Room she was privy to corporal parenting, almost always interrupted by a realization of witnesses. Then came excuses and embarrassment, the family slunk out the door in shame. But to this mother, now coddling her boy, Debbie seemed invisible, their world didn’t include her or her judgments. What was wrong with these people, didn’t they know they were in public? Had they no shame?

But what bothered Debbie most was feeling excluded and ignored.
With nothing to say and no way to help, she slipped back onto the platform and down to the street. A Citywagon idled in the depot opposite. Debbie approached, waved. The driver, bundled in furs, face taut as a canvas and primed with powder and rouge, rolled down her window. Yes?

Hi, said Debbie. Sorry, could you help me?

Help you what? I can’t drive you anywhere. I have to get home.

In a rush Debbie explained her predicament, that her phone was out, that someone was missing and —

And so?

And she’s blind, said Debbie — which, really, might not have been untrue.

Oh, said the woman. Blind?

Yeah. All I need’s a ride to Canal Station, maybe the Redline’s running
. . .
Listen, I can pay you, she said, producing her wallet as proof — the woman snickered — and shamefully pocketed it again.

Can’t you get your own car? said the woman.

I don’t have a Citycard. I don’t know anyone in the um, men’s league.

Yeah, see, my husband
. . .
The woman trailed off.

The engine idled, chugging exhaust.

Debbie felt cornered. She sighed, could hear the self-disgust in her voice as she said, Listen, I write for Isa Lanyess —

Oh? said the woman. Sudden interest glinted in her eyes.

Debbie felt filthy, but blundered on: Yeah, and if you give me your information I bet this is just the kind of feel-good story she’d love. You know, power out in the Zone, kind benevolent citizen makes generous act
. . .

Benevolent, murmured the woman. I like it!

She was already out of the car, handing Debbie a business card, eyes glazed with fantasy, projecting herself onto her friends’
TV
screens, basking in their awe and envy. She spoke in a rush, every moment here delayed her taste of fame: Keep the engine running, you won’t need to log in. There’s a lot by Canal Station, park it there. Or I’m going to have to pay for it, understand?

Of course, said Debbie, sliding behind the wheel. I appreciate this so much.

And I’ll hear from you soon? About the show?

Debbie nodded. You bet.

Gosh, little old me on
In the Know
, cooed the woman, who would have guessed?

V

EARL STOOD
at the top of a staircase that vanished into People Park as a swimming ladder into a frozen pond. The fog collecting on the common didn’t shift or swirl or embody any of the vaporous properties it did elsewhere in the city, but seemed instead a solid stagnant mass. Down there somewhere was the gazebo — and, with luck, Gip’s knapsack and his meds. The air was icy, the light a sort of non-light. It had stopped snowing, what had fallen layered the ground, pebbly and granular, half an inch thick.

Pearl imagined herself heading down into the misty park, swallowed up, never coming out. But that was ridiculous. She dangled a toe until a snowy stair responded with a squeak and
crunch. And down she went, tentatively, by feel and sound, imagining
Gip and Kellogg and Elsie-Anne browsing the Museum’s exhibits, her husband flapping his guidebook and raving about the place as if it hosted miracles.

A dozen careful steps later the stairs flattened into a Scenic Vista, the fog so thick she crossed the platform at a crouch, feel
ing ahead with her hands. In the snow her fingers quickly went cold and stiff, she brought them to her mouth to blow on them,
reached out again — but what if she encountered something
cold and wet and fleshy lying on the deck
. . .
Pearl recoiled. A chill passed through her, deeper than the cold, it iced her heart.

Kneeling, she checked her watch: dead, the hands stuck at nine and twelve. She thought of Gip. Her bad knee twitched. In inclement weather and with stress, acting as a vane or gauge, the restitched ligaments often tightened. Though this felt different, not stiffness or pain, but a strange, electrical tingling.

She stood, shook her leg out. Her knee was swollen to twice its normal size. Water retention usually came on over hours, if not days, and only after a workout. She hadn’t done much lately but sleep and sit and stand. Fluid seemed to be collecting at an abnormally drastic rate, and the joint pulsed, and despite the frigid air wasn’t cold at all, but oddly warm and soft, almost spongy — and it was inflating.

Her jeans stretched, split, the denim tore with a zippery sound and out the knee crowned. Pearl stumbled, the entire leg was numb, she had to hop. Finding the deck’s railing she leaned against it: the knee had gone hydrotic, big as a toddler’s head. Weakly Pearl called for help, her words slipped into the fog and were lost.

She waited. There was no pain. Instead the numbing fizzled into lightness. And the knee, a globelike bloom, began lifting, and behind it went her leg, unencumbered by will or gravity. The rest of her body followed: her right foot peeled from the deck, there was a weightlessness and ease to the whole thing. Pearl went limp, her worry drained into the fog. This must be a dream, she thought. She never dreamed, now she felt herself a tourist in her own subconscious. What to do but give herself over to its magic? And so she floated, her kneecap the puffed-up bladder of a hot air balloon, the rest of her body dangling beneath, out into the pillowy air over the common.

THE FIGURE IS CLOSE
enough that on its face Calum can make out shadowy splotches of eyes, a nose, a mouth. Its clothes are white. And as it advances it draws a curtain upon the world — no, a curtain would be something. This is just oblivion: everything behind it is swept from existence. The bird, the pigeon or dove,
swoops down from somewhere, the airy splash of its wings, looping
up and circling above. Calum tries not to think of vultures. And still the figure approaches, sweeping with it that great wave of nothingness. It is a man, a brownskinned baldheaded man in white moving with brisk strides, and as he closes in Calum sees upon this man’s face, grim and dark as a ditch: a grin.

ONCE THE NOISES
upstairs had calmed, Magurk raised his sword. Who’s got my back? He pointed the tip of the blade at Diamond-Wood. Recruit, you ready to earn your schnapps?

The aide glanced at the Mayor, who waved him away. My sword’s got a jones, screamed Magurk, blade in disembowelling position. Griggs, sighing, opened the portal from his console: no one waited there ready to pounce.

Magurk crept up the slope at a crouch, Diamond-Wood followed awkwardly on his crutches. A tense sort of hush poured down from above. The Mayor waited, listening. They’ve trashed the place, cried Magurk. My people, are you with me?

Griggs and Noodles exchanged a look.

We should probably get the radios back up, said Griggs, and Noodles nodded, and together they headed upstairs to join their brethren.

The Mayor eyed Favours in his wheelchair. Should we have a race or something?

Code 42, chuckled Favours, they’re here, at last!

From upstairs came moans of dismay, disgust, barks of rage from Magurk, the sound of the men moving room to room, surveying the damage.

So what next for your little boys’ club? said the Mayor.

His eyes widened — in
anticipation
, it seemed.

And the portal banged closed.

Favours squealed.

From the hallway that led to the other chambers came a whooshing, fluttering sound. Out of the darkness flew a bird. It circled the room — the Mayor ducked — and returned down the hall. From the shadows came a patter of footsteps and in the next chamber the man hollered, Lark! My liberationeers have arrived!

In a rush of black six hooded figures spilled into the conference room. Before the Mayor could cry for help, hands were upon her, a strip of ducktape was slapped across her mouth. Favours was spun around in his wheelchair, the old man clapped and hooted in delight, and then he was shuttled off into the Chambers.

The Mayor found herself wheeled past barred cells and bunkrooms, down a ramp into an unlit corridor. Favours’ whoops faded as he was swerved along another passageway. The abductors
piloted her
in silence, eerily purposeful, careering around a corner
—
a flash of light from some hatch above, they were entering a stormdrain. Things went dark again. The air warmed, infused with a mustardy, sulphurous smell
. . .

The floor degenerated from concrete to gravel, juddering through the cart and rattling the Mayor’s teeth, she held on for dear life. My legs, she screamed, make sure you don’t lose my legs — but beneath the gag her words sounded submerged. On they went, hairpinning into a passageway that angled up toward streetlevel.

Some light splashed weakly from the end of this tunnel: in it the Mayor tried to get a sense of who her kidnappers were. But their faces were mysteries inside their hoods. They drove her headlong up toward the watery brightness — a glimpse of the surface in some distant corner, who knew where, of her city.

THE FIGURE STRETCHES
from the tips of his fingers to the heel of
his palm and suddenly Calum is outside it all. He has a bird’s-eye
view. From high above Calum sees himself upon the bridge and sends frantic thoughts to this person who is some version of himself to run, but the body is frozen, leaning against the railing, staring at this person, whoever it might be, barrelling over the bridge and inhaling the visible world with him.

That purple-lipped grin shadows the lower half of its brown face, the grin of some sinister and weird anticipation. Here are the eyes, dark and glittering. The baldhead sings with a dull sheen. The legs move in great strides but the upper body is motionless, almost rigid, the man less runs toward the Calum on the bridge than glides.

And this Calum is up against the railing, on this bridge from nowhere to nowhere, with even that nowhere becoming some farther and deeper sort of nowhere, and the man closing in of course must be a dream, the whole thing must be a dream. The skybound Calum watches himself look over the railing: hundreds of feet below, a swath of gauze.

The figure is big and close, hovering, and overhead Calum as a bird traces looping circles against the shrinking sky, and where will he go when there is no sky left. A vast negative halo surrounds this approaching figure. It brings nothingness into Calum’s dream — but then Calum thinks no, this is not his dream, it couldn’t be his dream. Calum has invaded someone else’s dream and now that person is coming to banish him from it.

From above Calum watches himself watching — the figure is almost upon him, moving swift and slick, no sounds of footsteps,
no sounds at all, just those blazing black eyes and monstrous joyou
s grin, legs stabbing in front and sweeping away behind him, and this man is big, he is so big, and he is reaching for Calum with long thin brown fingers, and the fingers seem to be growing, stretching into tentacles twisted through with veins.

Things start to swirl and twist and eddy and Calum, soaring, can imagine this man’s hot breath on his own face, those fingers lace snakelike around his wrists, almost gently, and he feels his knees go weak — but then with a last desperate surge of strength Calum watches himself tear free, climb up onto the railing, and launch himself off the bridge.

But then Calum is climbing up, closing his eyes, and jumping off the bridge.

Closing his eyes, Calum climbs onto the railing and jumps.

Before the man is fully upon him, the man’s fingers are curling around his wrists and he feels the feathery touch of something else wrapping his ankles, the mouth opening from a grin to something far more sinister, he is trying to devour Calum, Calum shakes his arms free and leaps up onto the railing and propels himself off the bridge.

In silence Calum jumps off the bridge.

Eyes closed, Calum jumps, and for a moment finds himself floating.

And he is back inside his body and falling. The wind whistles into his ears and his head fills with a sort of screaming, all he can hear is screaming, his guts tumble, and down he plummets, not quite a swan-dive but flattened out, all swimming limbs, the tug of gravity, Calum’s body, the water and meat of it, falling, and it feels endless, this fall, down and down he tumbles toward the possible river below. He braces himself for the smack and icy rush, time will slow as the water catches him, then he will sink, and his crushed and ruined corpse will be buoyed back to the surface and swept away. And if this is a dream Calum will instead of dying hit the water and wake.