White and Other Tales of Ruin

The area around the broken window was red and Charley had spread. Bits of her hung on the glass like hellish party streamers. Other parts had melted into the snow outside and turned it pink. Some of her was recognisable — her hair splayed out across the soft whiteness, a hand fisted around a melting clump of ice — other parts had never been seen before, because they’d always been inside.

I leaned over and puked. My vomit cleared a space of frost on the floor so I did it again, moving into the room. My stomach was in agonised spasms but I enjoyed seeing the white sheen vanish, as if I were claiming the room back for a time. Then I went to my knees and tried to forget what I’d seen, shake it from my head, pound it from my temples. I felt hands close around my wrists to stop me from punching myself, but I fell forward and struck my forehead on the cold timber floor. If I could forget, if I could drive the image away, perhaps it would no longer be true.

But there was the smell. And the steam, rising from the open body and misting what glass remained. Charley’s last breath.

“Shut the door!” I shouted. “Nail it shut! Quickly!”

Ellie had helped me from the room, and now Hayden was pulling on the broken-in door to try to close it again. Rosalie came back from the dining room with a few splintered floorboards, her face pale, eyes staring somewhere no one else could see.

“Hurry!” I shouted. I felt a distance pressing in around me; the walls receding; the ceiling rising. Voices turned slow and deep, movement became stilted. My stomach heaved again but there was nothing left to bring up. I was the centre of everything but it was all leaving me, all sight and sound and scent fleeing my faint. And then, clear and bright, Jayne’s laugh broke through. Only once, but I knew it was her.

Something brushed my cheek and gave warmth to my face. My jaw clicked and my head turned to one side, slowly but inexorably. Something white blurred across my vision and my other cheek burst into warmth, and I was glad, the cold was the enemy, the cold brought the snow, which brought the fleeting things I had seen outside, things without a name or, perhaps, things with a million names. Or things with a name I already knew.

The warmth was good.

Ellie’s mouth moved slowly and watery rumbles tumbled forth. Her words took shape in my mind, hauling themselves together just as events took on their own speed once more.

“Snap out of it,” Ellie said, and slapped me across the face again.

Another sound dragged itself together. I could not identify it, but I knew where it was coming from. The others were staring fearfully at the door, Hayden was still leaning back with both hands around the handle, straining to get as far away as possible without letting go.

Scratching. Sniffing. Something rifling through books, snuffling in long-forgotten corners at dust from long- dead people. A slow regular beat, which could have been footfalls or a heartbeat. I realised it was my own and another sound took its place.

“What…?”

Ellie grabbed the tops of my arms and shook me harshly. “You with us? You back with us now?”

I nodded, closing my eyes at the swimming sensation in my head. Vertical fought with horizontal and won out this time. “Yeah.”

“Rosalie,” Ellie whispered. “Get more boards. Hayden, keep hold of that handle. Just keep hold.” She looked at me. “Hand me the nails as I hold my hand out. Now listen. Once I start banging, it may attract — ”

“What are you doing?” I said.

“Nailing the bastards in.”

I thought of the shapes I had watched from my bedroom window, the shadows flowing through other shadows, the ease with which they moved, the strength and beauty they exuded as they passed from drift to drift without leaving any trace behind. I laughed. “You think you can keep them in?”

Rosalie turned a fearful face my way. Her eyes were wide, her mouth hanging open as if readying for a scream.

“You think a few nails will stop them — ”

“Just shut up,” Ellie hissed, and she slapped me around the face once more. This time I was all there, and the slap was a burning sting rather than a warm caress. My head whipped around and by the time I looked up again Ellie was heaving a board against the doors, steadying it with one elbow and weighing a hammer in the other hand.

Only Rosalie looked at me. What I’d said was still plain on her face — the chance that whatever had done these foul things would find their way in, take us apart as it had done to Boris, to Brand and now to Charley. And I could say nothing to comfort her. I shook my head, though I had no idea what message I was trying to convey.

Ellie held out her hand and clicked her fingers. Rosalie passed her a nail.

I stepped forward and pressed the board across the door. We had to tilt it so that each end rested across the frame. There were still secretive sounds from inside, like a fox rummaging through a bin late at night. I tried to imagine the scene in the room now but I could not. My mind would not place what I had seen outside into the library, could not stretch to that feat of imagination. I was glad.

For one terrible second I wanted to see. It would only take a kick at the door, a single heave and the whole room would be open to view, and then I would know whatever was in there for the second before it hit me. Jayne perhaps, a white Jayne from elsewhere, holding out her hands so that I could join her once more, just as she had promised on her death bed. I’ll be with you again, she had said, and the words had terrified me and comforted me and kept me going ever since. Sometimes I thought they were all that kept me alive I’ll be with you again.

“Jayne…”

Ellie brought the hammer down. The sound was explosive and I felt the impact transmitted through the wood and into my arms. I expected another impact a second later from the opposite way, but instead we heard the sound of something scampering through the already shattered window.

Ellie kept hammering until the board held firm, then she started another, and another. She did not stop until most of the door was covered, nails protruding at crazy angles, splinters under her fingernails, sweat running across her face and staining her armpits.

“Has it gone?” Rosalie asked. “Is it still in there?”

“Is what still in there, precisely?” I muttered.

We all stood that way for a while, panting with exertion, adrenaline priming us for the chase.

“I think,” Ellie said after a while, “we should make some plans.”

“What about Charley?” I asked. They all knew what I meant: we can’t just leave her there; we have to do something; she’d do the same for us.

“Charley’s dead,” Ellie said, without looking at anyone. “Come on.” She headed for the kitchen.

“What happened?” Ellie asked.

Hayden was shaking. “I told you. We were checking the rooms, Charley ran in before me and locked the door, I heard glass breaking and…” He trailed off

“And?”

“Screams. I heard her screaming. I heard her dying.”

The kitchen fell silent as we all recalled the cries, as if they were still echoing around the manor. They meant different things to each of us For me death always meant Jayne.

“Okay, this is how I see things,” Ellie said. “There’s a wild animal, or wild animals, out there now.”

“What wild animals!” Rosalie scoffed. “Mutant badgers come to eat us up? Hedgehogs gone bad?”

“I don’t know, but pray it is animals. If a person has done all this, then they’ll be able to get in to us. However fucking goofy crazy, they’ll have the intelligence to get in. No way to stop them. Nothing we could do.” She patted the shotgun resting across her thighs as if to reassure herself of its presence.

“But what animals — ”

“Do you know what’s happening everywhere?” Ellie shouted, not just at doubting Rosie but at us all. “Do you realise that the world’s changing? Every day we wake up there’s a new world facing us. And every day there’re fewer of us left. I mean the big us, the world-wide us, us humans.” Her voice became quieter. “How long before one morning, no one wakes up?”