wings were folded down, plastered to her back like a weird cloak. Her hair was as black as a raven’s wing; her leafy eyes were solemn. “The Underthing won’t come near you… he’s afraid. He can’t touch you, because if he does, he’ll fall apart. So much spiritual pollution can only hold itself together, in one piece, if it isn’t subject to human contact. It’s fragile, like an eggshell; too much pressure and it will break. That’s why it always sends in an avatar to do its dirty work.”
Wasn’t that the one thing he was best at — pushing, applying pressure? He’d done it all his life, to get what he wanted, and now he was faced with a real test of his talent. If he could push this thing, coerce it into doing his bidding, he might be able to save them all. The past would be shut out; the darkness would lift; the hummingbirds would move on and the sky would clear, letting back in the sun.
It was time to push.
BRENDAN COULD FEEL his unnamed brother on his back, like an unwanted passenger. The face that had haunted him from the inside without him even knowing, the familiar features he had never even laid eyes on until yesterday, was speaking to him silently. He could feel the lips moving between his shoulder blades, the frown forming on its brow, the diseased cheeks puffing in and out as they sucked at the air of this place.
He reached behind him and tried to slap at the face through his clothing, but it did no good. He grasped at his back, attempting to still those lips, to stop that unforgiving toothless mouth from moving.
But the face — the terrible face formed of ruined, besmirched flesh — mocked him; it taunted him with one word, repeated over and over again:
He could feel the word forming on the lips of his back, tearing from his own rancid flesh, and almost hear it spoken aloud inside his mind. His brother, his never-lived, never-really-died twin, was chanting the word like a prayer.
“No,” he whispered, “Stop it.” He grabbed a handful of the material of his jacket and pulled; he felt the face laughing. He reached behind and battered at the top of his spine, hurting himself. He beat at the edge of the face, hitting, slapping, and punching.
Then he began to scratch — he had not been able to scratch there, on his back, for years, and the pain felt good. Even as the skin split beneath his clothes, even as the blood seeped from the wounds…
THE CLICKING SOUND was deafening.
It filled the air like helium in a balloon, forcing it close to bursting point. Simon could feel it worming its way beneath his skin, entering his bloodstream, forcing aside his bones and vital organs to aid its passage.
The music was inside him, and it was hideous.
He looked at his friends and saw that they were experiencing the same discomfort. Brendan was scratching at his back, pulling at his clothing. He took off his jacket and threw it onto the floor, and then began to tear at his shirt, flaying it from his body.
MARTY’S SIDE WAS on fire. He clutched at the wound, feeling the stitches fray and the dressing come loose. Humpty — that awful, terrible creature from his childhood’s darkest nightmares — was moving around, picking at the wound from the inside, and trying to get out. This was where it wanted to be; it could smell the earth beneath Marty’s feet and feel the breeze of this place on its ugly, chubby cheeks.
He could feel its deformed hand-feet scrabbling, tearing away at his flesh. His side felt warm; blood was being spilled. He looked down and saw his abdomen blowing up like a balloon, doubling, tripling in size…
He went down onto his knees, crippled by the pain. He pressed the palm of his hand into his beltline, trying to push the thing back inside. Was it trying to exit through his navel?
Then, wriggling, the thing began to shift around, turning itself like a breech birth. Its head was close to the opening; he could feel the lips of the wound begin to pucker and open, like a mouth preparing for a long, deep, loving kiss. His body was preparing to vomit out the interloper.
Humpty-fucking-Dumpty was coming out to play. And all the king’s horses and all the king’s men wouldn’t be able to put Marty together again…
SIMON WAS ALONE, now; he had no back-up. Marty was writhing on the ground, clutching at his abdomen — which was swelling as Simon watched, as if the unholy clicking sound was filling it, bloating the man’s stomach like a pregnancy. His swollen belly undulated, bursting the buttons on his shirt, and Simon saw that it was taking on the shape of a giant egg: a tight, pale oval.
“What’s happening?”
“Look,” said Hailey, pointing towards the trees at the bottom of the slope.
About a mile away, like some kind of border, was a stand of undamaged oak trees, not unlike the ones from which they’d emerged. As he watched, a figure stepped forward from the tree line, using a short cane to walk. Even at this distance, he could make out the dark floppy hat, the dark clothes and the white beaked mask.
“Captain Clickety,” he said, the sound of the entity’s voice invading his mind. Like the frantic beating of castanets, it played out a surreal soundtrack, ushering the figure into view. Clickety moved without moving; he walked in place, as if exercising on a treadmill, and yet still he loomed closer, covering the distance in jinks and jerks.
Simon looked back at his friends. Brendan was hugging himself, but violently, as if he were trying to squeeze himself to death. If anything could be heard over the sound of clicking, then it would have been Brendan’s screams. His mouth was open wide, his teeth bared, and he was wailing like a penitent monk, flagellating himself before a statue of the Saviour.
Marty was rolling on the ground, wrestling with what looked like a large, pink, gelatinous egg. He was beating at it with his hands, gnawing at it with his teeth. The thing was rudimentary, only partially formed, still attached to his stomach by strands and threads of bloody flesh.
“What can I do?” Simon turned to Hailey, but she was no longer there. She had deserted him just when he needed her most.
Her voice came to him, between clicks, and he heard her say: “Do what you must. Do what you do best. Just push.”
Then it came to him: the way he could do this, how he could defeat whatever it was that had set itself against them.
He had always pushed people, towards what he wanted them to do or away from himself. It was his skill, his only real talent.
He turned and looked at his friends, locked in their personal battles, and started to piece things together. He was the go-between here; he always had been. It was his role in life: to help others make things happen.
He was the pusher. So he did what came naturally: he pushed.
“Get up,” he said slowly and calmly. “Get the fuck up and join me.” He stepped over to Brendan, who was still clawing at his own shoulders, tearing away the rags of his shirt. “Get up. Now. Leave the fucking spots alone and climb onto your feet. Help me now, or so help me, when I get back there, to where we live, I’ll take Jane away from you…”
“I’ll take her to bed, and then I’ll take her away from everything she’s ever known. I’ll show her all the things she’s been missing, the life she should’ve had. I’ll take her and I’ll keep her and you’ll never see her again.”
It was working. Brendan staggered to his feet, his face contorted in pain and rage and bitterness.
“Stand with me… or you’ll never get to hold your wife again.” Simon raised his left hand, the palm facing outward. He splayed his fingers, and then slowly drew them into a fist, one finger at a time folding in towards the palm, little one first and the thumb last: the long-ago salute of the Three Amigos.
