The Hollow Places (22 page)

Sarah was
standing behind this man and Simon realised that he had been
observing himself through Firdy. Firdy's fear of him had been off
the scale. He immediately plumbed for the answer to why Firdy found
him such a threat.

“Get out of my
fucking head,” Firdy thought, but it was an impossible command.
Everything was connected here.

Furious, Firdy
ordered the group to let go of each other. When they refused, he
strode from hand to hand, separating them by force. There were
complaints, shouts and screams as each person lost their small
measure of personal safety. Their yells echoed off the walls,
layering confusion on confusion. The walls distorted their voices,
as if toying with their pitch and shape and volume and then the
cacophony stopped with a suddenness that was like a physical blow
and caused Simon's viewpoint to snap back into his body.

A luminescence
began to come from the walls themselves then, giving Simon the
impression that the room was round. In the burgeoning, silvery haze
he was able to make out outlines of the others in the group. Will
and Jonathan were standing to his right, while the Cat had pinned
Naomi against the wall to his left. It had dug its claws into her;
blood stained one thigh of her jeans. She didn't scream, though she
wanted to. She and Sarah had that in common. Sarah was with Zak in
the centre of the room, with her good arm around the boy's
shoulder.

Simon moved
towards her and Firdy shoved him back. Like the others, he fell
against the wall. Into the wall. When he tried to move he was
stuck, as if he had been glued. Although it appeared to be water -
his back, arms and legs were partly absorbed by it – he felt dry.
Where it grasped him it was turning blue and green and rippling

He looked at
the others and saw confusion and horror on their faces as one by
one they too were attached to the wall. Firdy shoved Moody into
place. Jonathan stepped back of his own accord. When Will attempted
to reach Zak, a glistening 'arm' leapt from the wall and seized him
by the nape of the neck. It reeled him in while he threw his arms
out and made useless noises, a stunned expression on his face. It
dragged him. It was horrible to see. Even Jonathan looked away.
Only Firdy watched, with a smile on his lips.

Transformations continued all around. The brightest of the
blue-green light emanated from the top of their heads, like halos,
and then grew, spreading over the entire surface of the ceiling and
down the wall. Dozens and then hundreds of veins became visible,
whipping silver tails. The strands wriggled across the floor,
connecting to each other.

Zak buried his
face against Sarah. They both got the message that there was
nowhere to run from something like this. There never had been.

“Now,” Firdy
yelled. “Do it now.”

I'M DYING, the
Third thought.

“Take them,”
Firdy thought. “You can do it. We're doing it together this
time.”

WHERE'S
SHARONNE? …

“She's not
coming. It won't work with her. She's sick. We have to make do with
what we have.”

WE HAVE TO
MAKE DO.

“Yeah.”

WE.

“Yes.”

IT HAS TO WORK
THIS TIME. I DON'T HAVE THE ENERGY TO TRY AGAIN IF I FAIL.

“We only need
one more chance.”

I DON'T WANT
TO DIE DOWN HERE. ANOTHER YEAR ALONE ... I'LL DIE DOWN HERE.

“You aren't
alone,” Firdy thought. “You have me. But I know.”

WHERE ARE THE
OTHERS LIKE ME?

“They're gone.
You know that.”

'GONE.'

WHEN WILL THEY
COME BACK?

FOR ME.

“Please. You
have to stay focused.”

THEY'RE NOT
COMING BACK, ARE THEY.

“Are you
ready? You can do this.”

THEY LEFT ME
AND NOW I'M DYING.

“We're wasting
time. Let's do this.”

THERE WERE
THREE OF US. I WAS THE THIRD.

“Now. Please.
Before you're too weak.”

I'VE DONE THIS
BEFORE. SO MANY TIMES. IT NEVER WORKS. THEY DID IT, DIDN'T THEY?
THE OTHERS. THEY MOVED ON. I NEVER HAD THE KNACK FOR IT. THEY NEVER
SHOWED ME HOW.

The walls
darkened.

“You've never
tried it like this before,” thought Firdy. “We've got all the
people that you've already touched. You know them better than they
know themselves. We have Simon. You told me you must have Simon for
it work.”

YES.

“And I got his
sister too, to fill in any gaps.”

YES.

“And you have
me.”

Silence, but
the walls began to shimmer.

The walls
rippled.

“You can do it
again. Now.”

YES.

The wall
undulated, infused with pink and orange and red, like rain falling
in all directions, fanning out hypnotically.

The centre of
the ceiling was a whirlpool in the making. Sarah knew that it was
for her. A point formed in the centre, descending like a
stalactite, shimmering as it crept towards her head. She squinted
at it, her eyes ringed red, her lips tinged blue. Apart from her
breath, which emerged in visible plumes, she could have passed for
a corpse.

Firdy stood to
one side, shielding his eye from what was a glare to him, as more
whirlpools formed above. There would be one for each of them. They
emerged like creations on an inverse potter's wheel.

The protrusion
in the centre divided into two. One for Zak; one for Sarah. They
continued to descend, separating, probing the salty air like
lovers' tongues. Strands of Sarah's hair stood on end to meet one
of them. In a few moments, it had a handful of her hair and it kept
descending, inch by agonising inch, until it darted to make up the
remaining distance, attaching itself to her scalp.

Sarah's eyes
rolled in their sockets, her expression one of disgust. She looked
as though she was trying to scream, but could not make the sound.
It was unnecessary though, because now that she was connected to
the Third, they all felt her terror. They all felt that she had
answered a question that had been plaguing her: yes, what was going
to happen was worse than dying. She was becoming something new,
something beyond her control.

Ribs of light
shimmered through the elongated thing, moving first from the
ceiling towards her head and then, a minute or two later, in
reverse, drawing something from her, draining her. The light
rippled across the ceiling. The walls shivered.

Sarah strained
to see what was happening to Zak, but her body was paralysed. It
was perhaps for the best. Zak's half of the watery probe had
plunged into his mouth. His eyes bulged.

Like a
parasite, Simon thought, vomiting into its victim to prepare it for
consuming.

Zak soiled
himself and his eyes rolled back in their sockets. It wasn't long
before his muscles gave out completely. The tube of light cracked
like a whip and stiffened, holding him upright.

“It's going to
be okay, Zak,” Firdy thought. “We're going to be fine, mate.”

As it had with
Sarah, intense light passed in waves from the ceiling into Zak's
mouth and later from his body and up into the ceiling, through the
walls, across the floor.

Entwined as he
was with Firdy in particular, Simon could not help but see that
what was happening was beautiful.

Firdy played
with his fingers as Sarah and Zak became one with the Third. It was
going well so far. No rejections. He had known it would work. If it
had worked for Simon and Will, it was unlikely that there would be
a problem with Sarah and Zak. It was happening. And with the added
information they could provide, the Third could use them.

Sarah was
beginning to convulse, but Firdy knew that that was normal. The
handle of his knife, which protruded from her shoulder, slid out of
her, an inch first, then another and then the entire thing. Blade
clean, it fell, through the floor, disappearing from sight without
as much as a plop.

The puncture
hole remained in Sarah's jacket, but Firdy knew that there would no
longer be a wound beneath. The Third had learnt a lot. Fixing Sarah
had been like rubbing out a mistake and filling in a new line in
pencil. Surgery completed, future complications prevented, The
Third continued to drink up all the information she could. She
wasted nothing.

The flesh.

The bone.

The
muscle.

Good places to
eat.

Dates.

Numbers.

Colours.

Birthdays.

Ideas waiting
to happen.

Nerve by
tingling nerve, it navigated her electrical impulses.

It stored the
memories she thought she had forgotten.

The
protein.

The acids.

Carbon.

Stories, badly
remembered, but retold just the same.

Best friends,
lost and found and lost again.

Things that
happened a long time ago.

The colour of
the womb.

The best shade
of nail varnish.

The smell of
the room where her mother had killed herself.

The Canterbury
Tales.

A distrust of
mobile phones.

How to speak
French and get by in German.

How to pass
exams.

The
Characteristics of a Living Organism.

It drank up
that thing that people had yet to agree existed. The elusive thing
that held everything together, but had destroyed the Third's
previous attempts to recreate life. It had always been the most
difficult thing to manipulate; how much to push aside, how to keep
hold of what was left.

It took the
wasted time. Wasted life.

It took her
memories of Simon.

Whether he
wanted it or not, Simon saw through Firdy's point of view
consistently now, so he had no choice but to watch as Sarah was
read and thus consumed. Something similar had happened to him three
years ago, enabling the Third to enter his mind at will, but it
would go further this time. Now it didn't only want access to their
minds; it demanded their minds and their bodies in full, to use in
the creation of something new.

A dim vision
entered Simon's consciousness. His father was lying on the floor of
a room similar to this, only tinged amber and yellow. He was naked
and apparently unconscious as the floor rose and fell. There were
three others in a similar state, another man and two women, none of
whom Simon recognised. They lay in a rough circle, almost head to
toe. around his viewpoint.

Translucent
hoses descended from the ceiling and attached themselves to the
bodies. Like umbilical cords, he thought. In the centre of the
circle, the thing that afforded him this unique view looked down
and saw itself. Half-formed, it was nerves biting, lungs burning.
Its arms were bone and sinew, not yet topped with flesh or skin.
One hand ended in constricted fingers that resembled claws. With
the other bony hand, it fingered its genitalia, exploring its large
penis and heavy scrotum, which hid labia beneath.

It looked at
the men and women, prone on the floor, and knew that they were
being consumed so it could live.

Feed, it
thought. Feed.

Every object
appeared in shades of brown and there were amber veins all around,
obscuring his view at times. Simon realised that the viewpoint was
within a cocoon. He was looking out as the thing that would become
Firdy ...

“Get out,
Simon. Get out of my fucking head.”

She had had to
build her vessel from scratch, using the four as a template. She
had succeeded in creating life, but she had either been unable or
had decided not to instil itself into the body. She had rejected
it.

“Simon. Get
out now. Let it go.”

She had been
shocked when her aborted offspring didn't die. Its tenacity
inspired her to try again, as she was doing now.

It could be
done, she thought, but she needed more bodies than before: first as
subjects to examine, to strip apart and to attempt to put back
together; and then as templates from which to work, to create her
masterpiece.

No more
hybrids, because they wouldn't go unnoticed.

No more wombs.
No more vaginas. There was too much to go wrong.

This was the
last chance. She had to keep it simple, because she really was
...

“Get out.”

… dying.

Firdy slapped
Simon hard across the face, but he felt nothing. Firdy, however,
looked shocked.

“Now you know
everything,” Firdy thought. “Enjoy our new life.”

Above, the
proboscises had become cone-shaped. They were each almost two feet
long and wriggled now, seeking the tops of their heads.

Firdy watched
with fascination, horror and joy. He had done all he could. He had
delivered them as he had been asked and now it was up to the Third
to do the rest, to take their bodies and minds and thoughts, their
hearts and lungs and ropes of intestines, their blood, desires,
passions and fears, their souls, and roll them all up into one
perfect being inside which they could all live. This time it had to
work, because if she had to face another year in the water, let
alone another decade, she would allow herself to die, to go out
like a light, like all the sea creatures around her.

“Don't give
up,” Firdy thought. “We're nearly there.”

The hair on
Simon's scalp rose to meet the probe that was meant for him.

“No!” he
thought. The flow of light through the walls stuttered like a
candle flame, but it did not stop.

“It's too
late,” Firdy thought. “Let it go, Simon. You did everything you
could... nothing.”

Simon fought
against the wall. Firdy was right that it was too late, but he was
wrong that he had done all he could. Walking Sarah to an execution
was one thing, but this was no execution.

His body
vibrated as all his remaining strength surged through him.

He managed to
free one arm.