been torn apart by the simple act of sacrifice, a show of friendship that monsters like him would never, ever understand. To love was human, not divine; to hate was simply monstrous.
The Three Amigos would live to ride another day, and everything that came after this would be different, cast in a new and uncertain light. Rather than a band of three, each would set off into his own sunset as his own man, liberated, freed at last from the terrible bondage of a shared past.
“What happened?” Brendan rose from his knees, topless, his shirt cast aside, his skin scratched and torn by his own fingernails. “Has it gone?”
“I’m not sure,” said Simon. “I’m not sure about anything.”
Marty staggered upright, to complete the group. He was bleeding from a gash in his side, stitches pulled free and dangling like threads. “Did you see it?” His face was ashen. He was crying openly, unconcerned by his show of what he usually saw as weakness. “Did you see Humpty-fucking-Dumpty?”
Simon shook his head. “I don’t know what I saw… or what I’m seeing now.” He looked up, at the brightening sky. A few straggling hummingbirds flew in circles above them, watching over these final few moments. “But I want to go home.”
They turned around and walked towards the grove of oak trees, no longer afraid of what they would find at its centre: just the shadows of forgotten youth, frayed lengths of rope, and husks of memories that even now were losing their power over them.
For a moment, he thought he saw a ghostly outline of three small boys, holding hands as they stood in a row before the trees. Their outlines shimmered and they were gone; he had seen nothing, after all.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
“WHAT THE FUCK happened in there?”
They were standing on the Roundpath, outside the Needle. Simon had locked the gates and was returning the keys to his pocket.
“What the fuck happened?” Marty was clutching the remains of Brendan’s shirt to his side. The blood was still flowing, but slowly.
“Would you do me a favour?” Brendan, still topless, turned around and presented his back to the group. “Tell me what you see there, on my back?” He still sounded afraid, but it was fear of a different kind.
Simon stared at his friend’s back. It was scratched and bloody, but nothing more. “Just a few scratches.”
“You sure? I mean really sure? I’ve suffered horrendous back acne my whole life. If what you’re telling me is correct, I’m cured.”
Simon walked over and touched Brendan’s back. His skin was hot and damp, but apart from a few old acne scars, it was clear of any kind of blemish other than the ones caused by the man’s own hands. “I promise,” he said. “The only marks on your back are either very old or the scratches you gave yourself.”
Marty hobbled over. “I still don’t understand any of this. What did you do in there? Did you defeat the… the monster? Is it dead?”
Simon shook his head. “No. I don’t think so. I think we just sent it away for a little while. How do you kill something that was never alive in the first place? It won’t bother us again, though. It’s done with us. We have nothing else that it can take.”
“It… it
Again, Simon shook his head. “There are no twins in our family. I was an only child. Whatever the hell it smelled on me, it wasn’t that… maybe it just caught a whiff of my spirit, and decided that the fight was no longer one it could win? Who knows? I don’t have a fucking clue.”
The sky was dark. Night had fallen. He wasn’t sure how long they’d been inside the tower, but it felt like days had passed in the outside world. He remembered that time had no meaning in there; in the place Hailey had called Loculus — the little place, where dreams went to die.
“Let’s go home. Back to Brendan’s place, check on Jane and the kids. I have a feeling they’ll have their own story to tell, and it’ll make as much sense as ours.”
Brendan’s head snapped up. “What do you mean? You think they’re in trouble?”
“Not any more,” said Simon. “While we were fighting our demons, they had to contend with one of their own. But I’m certain they’re all okay, now. We won, didn’t we?”
The three men went silent for a moment.
“Did we? Did we win, I mean?” Marty looked like he might collapse at any minute.
“Let’s get you both seen to, eh? Then we can either talk about this until dawn and try to figure out what we just did, or fucking forget about the whole thing and move on with our lives. It’s your call. I’m too tired to even think about it.”
They moved off, away from the Needle, with Simon in the lead, Marty in the middle, and Brendan bringing up the rear, dragging his mobile phone from his pocket and checking the messages. He stopped in his tracks, the phone held against his ear.
“Oh, shit…” He listened to every message before allowing them to move off again.
“It’s Harry. He’s been ill again. But… well, according to the last message, he’s okay now. Jane’s still at the hospital, but she says he’s fine. They just want to keep him in a couple of days to keep an eye on him.”
Simon smiled. “He’s fine. The boy’s fine.”
Marty said nothing.
Brendan called Jane’s mobile and asked a lot of questions as he walked, promising her that he’d go right to the hospital once he’d cleaned himself up. He seemed a lot happier when he hung up, although he was crying. He even smiled.
“Yes, he is fine. He’s eating fucking ice cream and flirting with the nurses.”
Simon laughed, and turned back round, to look where he was going. He saw the figure only briefly, as it darted out from a ginnel that led to Back Grove Crescent.
Just before he felt a sharp punching sensation in his stomach, and fell to the ground, he recognised the baseball cap with the Scooby Doo badge on the front. The hat fell from the kid’s head as he ran back into the ginnel, palming the bloodied knife.
Simon smiled. What else could he do?
He realised now that they’d never really escaped when they were children. Time had no meaning in Loculus; twenty years in the real world might be a few days in the little place. Captain Clickety, and by extension the Underthing, had simply let them leave. Because it knew — it had always known — that they’d come back.
Simon died with that ironic smile still on his lips. He tried to speak. To tell Marty something, perhaps even to explain the joke, as the other man cradled him in his arms. But he didn’t have the strength. He closed his eyes and accepted the onrushing darkness. Somewhere within it — from deep inside all of that vast black night — he heard a faint clicking sound, as if something approved of his passing.
The sacrifice had been accepted.
And still he did not know the reason why, or the full extent of what he had offered to save his friends.
WHAT COMES AFTER, WHEN THE SILENCE HAS BEEN BROKEN
TWO DAYS AFTER Simon’s death, Marty is on a train to King’s Cross. Brendan badly wanted to make the journey with him, but Marty told his friend to stay at home and look after his wife and kids. Harry is fighting fit, but he still needs a father’s attention. Jane needs some attention too, and even a woman that brave must be close to breaking point after everything she’s gone through.
