Vurt (2 page)

I twisted the black feather around to read the label. It was handwritten, which always meant a good time.

"Skull Shit. . ."

"It's good?" asked Mandy. "Is it good!? Oh come on!" "You don't want?" she said. "I've done it already."

"No good?"

"Sure. It's fine. It's dandy." "Seb told me it was sweet."

"Sure it's sweet," I said. "It's just not the Voodoo."

The Beetle jam-reacted to the title. "Did she get it, Scribble?" "She did fuck."

"Well bully!" spat Mandy.

"Yeah. Well fucking bully!" I told her.

"Hey, you two. Keep it quiet," Bridget said, in that smoky voice of hers, the shadowgirl. "Some of us are trying to get some sleep." Bridget was Beetle's lover, and I guess she was just putting the new girl in her place.

"Sleep is for the dead," replied Mandy. One of her slogans.

"Almost home," announced the Beetle.

We were riding through Rusholme, straight down the curry chute. Mandy hand- cranked a window. She managed a half-inch gap before the mechanism failed, clogged up with rust. But through the tiny gap a rich complex of powder smells was making my tongue wet; coriander, cumin, cinnamon, cardamom -- each of them genetically fine- tuned to perfection.

"Christ!" Mandy told the gang, "I could kill a curry! When did we last eat?" The Beetle answered; "Thursday."

"What day is it now?" slurred Bridget, from the half-lit world of Shadow. "It's the weekend, sometime," I said. "At least I think it is."

The Thing-from-Outer-Space was by now a blur of feelers and I could almost see the Thermo Fish swimming his veins. It was making me envious.

"Can anyone tell me why we're carrying this alien shit around?" asked Mandy. "Why don't we just sell him? Or eat him?" The van went silent. "I mean, why are we chasing around after feathers? We've got the Thing right here. We don't need feathers!"

"The Thing comes with us," I told her. "Nobody touches him!" "You just want to make the swap," Mandy replied.

"You got a problem with that, Mandy?" I asked.

"Let's just get home." Her voice defiant. "Let's take some stuff."

"We will do." I felt for her all of a sudden. She was new to us, two days old in the gang and full of the will to please.

It's just that she had a hard act to follow.

"I know I did bad in the Vurt-U-Want. I didn't know what to look for." "I told you, didn't I? Precisely?"

"Let's stay up all night playing Vurts," she said. "Let's make a meal from scraps in the fridge. Let's not go to bed."

"We'll do all that," I told her.
Anything to hold back the pain.

We took a hard right turn into Platt Lane, and then another into the garage space behind the fiat. The van scalded to a sudden halt. "We're home," announced the Beetle. Didn't we know it? Only the Thing was coping, his body full of wave-knowledge, Vurt- knowledge. He just sort of flowed into the doors and then away, loving it.

And then the voice. . .

"Scribble. . . Scribble. . . Scribble. . ."

Words floating upwards, from nowhere, calling my name.

"Scribble. . ." Desdemona's voice. . .

I looked around to see who was playing the fool.

Oh shit. Nobody should use that voice. And I got a sudden flash then, of Desdemona falling away from me, through into a yellow blaze. . .

"Who said that?" I demanded.

"Said what, Scribble?" asked Mandy. "My name! Who the fuck said it?" A silence fell over the van.

"It was in. . . it was in Desdemona's voice. . ."

"Do we have to keep thinking about her?" asked Mandy. "Yes."

Yes we do. Keep thinking about Desdemona. Don't ever let her go. Not until I find her again. And then keep her forever.

I listened to the van settling its rust deposits.

The Riders were looking at me. Even the Beetle was twisted around, his eyes full of jam; "Nobody said anything, Scribb." But then I got it again, that voice.

"Scribble. . . Scribble. . ."

And I got where it was coming from; the Thing. A gash had opened in his flesh, a set of black gums peeled back from crumbling teeth, and a tongue of lard moving there, between them.

"Scribble. . ."

But only I could hear. Why was it only me, and why was he using that voice?

That beautiful voice. . .

Beetle broke the mood; "Let's do it! Inside!"

I heard an owl calling, from the Platt Fields. Real, Vurt, or robo -- who can tell the difference any more?

No matter.

It had a longing to it.

This week's safe selection, my kittlings. Status: blue and legal.

THERMO FISH. You went swimming in the Seas of Pitch. But now you're back on Earth and you're feeling slightly queasy. It can only get worse. Because the Thermo Fish of Pitch have invaded your system. Your blood stream is a river home for them.

They love those passages. You're feeling the heat inside, the biting heat. One thing to do; buy yourself some nano-hooks, some pitchworm bait, go fishing for a week. You know the Game Cat doesn't lie.

HONEY SUCKERS are out to get you. They want you for supper. Six legs, four wings, two antennae and a demon sting. They'll cover your body with bites and turn you into a swarm. Only quork juice will save you. It turns the Honies to pulp. You better find some, and soon, because those bugs are coming. Trouble is, quorks live on the planet jangle. The Cat says squirt those suckers!

We had to drag the Thing-from-Outer-Space out of the van, his fat sack of a body clinging to the tartan rug, glued by the juices.

Beetle opened the van's doors. "Come on, lazy fucks," he shouted, reaching into the back to gather the dropped feathers from the van floor. One of them, the black, he slipped into his baccy box. "I feel like tripping out somewhere." He was walking fast towards the house.

The pad was on the top floor of the Rusholme Gardens. Sure, it was in Rusholme but no trace of a garden. Just an old-style block of flats on the corner of Wilmslow and Platt.

The doorcam reacted to Beetle's image in a loving way, opening its gates in a slow, seductive swing. Brid was back in shadow mode, sleep-walking to the step-light, so that left me and Mandy holding the can. The can was the Thing and he was like Vaz between our fingers. Oh boy, Thing was hot; totally adventurous. Respect to that.

"Let's move it, Big Thing," I said.

The Desdemona calls had stopped. Now he was rambling in his own language.

Xa Xa Xa! Xhasy Xhasy! Stuff like that. Maybe he was travelling the Vurt-waves, looking for a new home. Maybe I'm some kind of romantic fool, especially when the Manchester rain starts to fall in memory and I'm scribbling this down, chasing the

moments. Bridget used to say that the rain around there was special, that something had gone wrong with the city's climate. That you always thought it was just about to start raining, but it always was, anyway. All I know is that looking back I swear I can feel it falling on me, on my skin. That rain means everything to me, all of the past, all that has been lost. I can see big spots of rain on the gravel. Over the road the black trees of Platt Fields Park are whispering and swaying, receiving the gift of water gratefully. The moon is a thin knife, a curved blade. Miles from there, and years and years later, I can still feel that slow struggle towards the flat door.

Thing-from-Outer-Space wasn't really from Outer Space. Mandy just called him that, and we'd all latched onto it. Well then, what would you call a shapeless blob that didn't speak any known language and that had come into your world by a bad accident? Tough one, huh?

"Stop dropping him!" hissed Mandy, her voice heavy from the exertion. The rain had plastered her red hair flat to her brow.

"Does it look like I'm dropping him?" "His head's on the floor!"

"Is that his head? I thought it was his tail."

Mandy was getting angry at me, as though I should enjoy carrying aliens over wet gravel, in the dark, in the rain. As though I should know all the various techniques of carrying aliens.

"Keep a hold of him!" she screamed. "Keep a hold of what? He's all slippery."

Just then a shadowcop flickered into life, broadcasting from the Platt Fields' aerial. He moved like a fog, the starry lights of his mechanisms going on and off, on and off, as he drifted through the trees. I told Mandy to get a move on.

"Look who's talking about speed," she replied.

We had to bend the Thing into a strange shape to get him through the house doors, a kind of Mobius knot variant. The Thing didn't mind; his body was super-fluid anyway, from the embrace of Vurt. A quick glance over the shoulder told me that the shadowcop was out of the park and heading towards the flats. I slammed the door on the sight. Silence. Pause. A catch of breath. The look of despair in Mandy's eyes, naked eyes under the hall lights, her arms straining to hold the weight of alien meat. "Shit!" I said. "We forgot the rug." The Thing was naked in our hands.

"How did we get here?" Mandy asked. "What?"

"Why is it always like this?"

"Never mind that. Keep going."

Above us, on the next landing, Brid was drifting with the shadows, trailing smoke. "Follow her," I said.

It was like carrying a bad dream up a flight of greasy collapsing stairs.

Sometimes it feels like the whole world is smeared with Vaz.
"Are you after the Beetle?" I asked, halfway up the first flight "Beetle? Don't be daft."

"Oh good. Because Bridget would kill you." "Seb told me something."

"Oh yeah?" I managed, between panting breaths. "There's a new delivery, tomorrow."

"Of what?"

"New stuff. Good stuff, he said. Bootlegs. Well black." "Voodoo's not black. I told you that."

"Yes, English Voodoo. Seb --" "He's got it!? Mandy!"

"Not yet. Coming in tomorrow --" "Mandy! This is --"

"Watch out! The Thing! He's. . ."

I was dropping the alien. My hands were too sweaty. I was losing the world. A feather was floating in my mind. A beautiful multicoloured specimen. I almost had it! Just reach out!

"Scribble!" Mandy's voice calling me back down. "What's wrong with you?" "I need it, Mandy! No messing. We've got to find Seb again."

"Not him. He gave me the contact name. Said that Icarus was getting a new delivery."

"Icarus?"

"Icarus Wing. That's his source. Seb's supplier. You know him?" I'd never heard of him. "Mandy, why didn't you say this before?"

"Would have done. Just the cops. . . and all that. . . the shadow-cop. . . the dog.

Scribble, I got confused. I. . . I'm sorry. . ."

I looked at her then, her greasy scarlet hair a mess from the rain, a last smudge of

paint on her bottom lip. Oh sure, no great beauty under the harsh light of a stairwell, face creased from the carrying of that lump of alien flesh, but my heart was calling out a song, a kind of love song, I guess. Christ knows, it had been a long time without singing.

"Do you think Seb will be alright?" she asked.

"Find him, Mandy. Ask him about English Voodoo --"

"I don't think he'll be working that Vurt-U-Want counter any more." "Don't you know where he lives?"

"No. He's very secretive. . . Scribb!" Mandy's eyes in shock mode. "What? What is it?"

"Over there! The corner --"

We'd reached the first landing by now. There was a store cupboard set into the wall. It was marked NO GO. In the dark space between it and the wall lay a coil of rope, a violet and green rope. It moved. Sudden like.

"It's a snake!" screamed Mandy.
Oh fuck!
Just then the lights went out.

Bastard landlord had them on a strict timer and the next switch was some two feet away, down the landing. Two feet's a long way to go when you're carrying an alien and it's dark and there's a dreamsnake on the loose.

"Don't panic!" I said to her, in the dark. "Turn on the fucking light!"

"Don't move!"

Mandy dropped the Thing. I still had my hands under one end, and I felt the weight jerk as the bulk hit the floor. Mandy was running to the next switch. Snakes can see in the dark, but we can't.
So hit that switch, new girl!
I was sweating with the fear and the Thing was starting to slip from my fingers. The lights came back on but it wasn't Mandy who'd hit the switch. The woman from 210 had come out to see the noise and she'd got to the switch first. This is what she saw: Mandy, frozen, two inches from the control, me holding on for dear life to a pulsating mess of feelers and grease, a whip-fast coil of violet and green slithering to the nearest shadow.

I felt a nagging pain in my left leg, just where I'd been bitten. But that was over four years ago. So why the
pain?
Memory can be a right bitch sometimes.

The woman just stared at us for two seconds and then started to scream; "Arghhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!" It was a knife-hot screeching, high and loud. The noise shot down the corridors, threatening a mass stepping-out.

Mandy hit the woman.

I'd never seen her violence until then. Only thought about it.

The woman was knocked into silence. I could imagine all of the occupants quaking in their beds from the scream, and then its sudden termination. Hopefully they would stay scared.

"What is it?" the woman said at last.

Mandy looked at me. I looked at Mandy, then at the Thing in my weakening hands, then at the woman.

"It's a prop," I said. She looked at me.

"We're part of an avant garde theatre company. We're called Drip Feed Theatre.

Soy what." We're doing a new piece entitled English Voodoo. . ." "That's right," said Mandy, coming out of shock.

"We're very experimental and wild. We've had this. . . uh. . . this. . . thing. . . made for us by a mad artist. He made it out of old tyres and a ton of animal fat. We're just taking delivery."

"Do you like it?" chipped in Mandy.

The woman just kept on looking, maybe building up to another screaming session.

"We live in 315," I said. "Say, do you want to come up? We're having some friends round. We're going to rehearse the play. Fancy it?"

"Oh my God, how gross!" the woman said, before slipping back inside of her flat, slamming the door.