White and Other Tales of Ruin

boats exploded into splinters of wood and bone. Men screamed, gargled as they drowned, and the cannon fired again, wrecking another boat. There were men on the deck with machine guns, laughing as they shot the survivors in the water, one of them aiming for hands and shoulders so that the victim would be unable to swim, drowning slowly. The gun fired again, again, and each time a boat came apart, spilling men whole and in pieces into the sea for the bullets or the cold or the sharks to finish off.

The girl bobbed gently in the foreground, watching us. Her dress had spread out around her and she looked like a huge jelly-fish. Bullets splashed and I wanted to shout a warning, but somehow I knew it wasn’t required.

There’s always a survivor, the voice said again, and another nightmare scene manifested, and another, and another. Soon they were racing by like the frames of a film, indistinguishable singly but making up a moving image of pain, suffering and death as I had never before imagined possible, and -

There’s always a survivor.

Chele dropped down from a hatch in the ceiling. I could barely hold on, Laura was pressed back into the stinking, crackling remains of the corpse in the seat, but Chele seemed unconcerned at the acceleration. Her eyes had gone, and out of their sockets protruded thin, weak antennae. Her face was darkened around the eyes and nose where heavy bruises were forming, and along her hairline knobs were pushing through the skin, looking for all the world like horns forcing their way from her skull. One of them split the skin as she approached and she tilted her head as the antennae came through, perhaps picking up on some distant demonic discussion.

She reached for Laura.

I tried to lean forward but the motion of the coach pushed me back, pressed my loose skin and flesh against my bones until I thought that I’d be ripped away from my skeleton.

“Dad!” Laura hissed as Chele’s hand closed around the back of her neck. “Dad, thanks for coming for me. I love you Dad… thanks…”

I didn’t come for you, it was for me, I thought, but I wasn’t about to say it even if I could.

Chele’s hands were blackened, the solid armour of the demons, and her nails had grown long and taken on a metallic tint.

The coach accelerated some more and from the window I could see the hazy image of the little girl.

… always a survivor…

My vision darkened and senses receded. I saw Chele open her mouth to laugh as her other hand swung around, sharpened nails aiming for Laura’s exposed throat, and then I could see nothing.

I heard laughter. Chele’s cruel laughter punctuated by the clicks and clacks of her throat hardening and closing in, allowing her no more say in the matter of her fate than, in truth, any of us have.

When I awoke there was a dog licking my face.

I was lying in a gutter. A few people must have passed me by because there was money scattered by my feet. I sat up slowly, looked down at myself, checked for broken bones, finding an ache or cut on every square inch of skin I touched. I could hardly blame them for not stopping to help, because I should be dead. Little did they know I’d just been through Hell.

I recognised the street. I was lying on cobbles, I could smell Chinese food and as I sat there rubbing my head, the mutt still trying to lick my hand, two drunks burst from a door behind me and staggered along the pavement. They threw some slurred abuse my way but they were too pissed to do anything other than talk.

Laura.

Perhaps I’d been in there, in the pub with those men. Maybe I’d drunk myself into oblivion after oblivion, coming back again and again for weeks on end. The barman would know not only my name and life story, but my direct banker’s number as well. Perhaps by now he even owned my house.

I looked for the door between the pub and restaurant, but there was only a bare spread of wall.

Laura.

I was covered with dried mud and blood, some of it my daughter’s. I could smell her on me. I could remember her, how she’d thanked me what seemed like minutes ago and how I’d kept my selfish truth silent from her in those last few moments before… before…

I stood and ran home, ignoring the pain and stares, the comments and shouts, trying not to see the scared looks on kids’ faces as I breezed by. And with every step I took I expected a meteor to come blasting down out of the sky, a gunman to turn a corner with fifty pounds of explosive strapped to his chest and a belt-fed machinegun spitting death, a wall of water to come washing along the street, thirty feet deep and carrying the city’s story with it, sweeping up history and washing it clean.

I looked for disaster and death, but I saw only typical, mundane life. I wanted to stop people in the street and tell them just how fucking lucky they were, why didn’t they smile, why didn’t they live.

But right now wasn’t the time.

Now, I had to get home.

And Laura was there. Huddled on the doorstep like a shame-faced kid come home after her first night away. She was in a worse state than me, and when I saw her I burst into tears. She looked up, smiling and crying at the same time, and our tears weren’t of sadness or despair or fear. They were because never, ever have two people been so happy to see each other alive.

I knew what we were, and I whispered it into Laura’s ear as the world went on around us.

“We’re survivors,” I said, “because there’s always a survivor.”

I believed that. They let us survive.

I know that I should tell people what I know and what I’ve seen, but somehow it feels secret and forbidden. And every time I work my way to doing so I see Laura sitting in the sunlight or browsing through a book or cooking us a meal, and I dread changing anything. It’s all so perfect now, it’s drawn us together, and it really feels as though we’re doing Janine — my wife, Laura’s mother — proud.

Besides, sometimes I see demons in the dark.

So I live with the guilt and bad memories, and the certainty that every time I go to a concert or sports match with Laura I can cast my eyes across the crowds, and know that amongst them there are people who will suffer an horrendous fate. Normal people who will find Hell, not because they need it, but because Hell needs them. For fodder.

I feel terrible. I hate myself for saying nothing.

But I live with it.

There are worse things in life, after all.

The First Law

1. THE DEVIL’S CHAPLAIN

On their fifth day adrift at sea, they saw an island.

At first, there were only teasing hints of land: a twisted clump of palm fronds; darting specks in the sky which may have been birds; a greenish tinge to the underside of the soft clouds in the north, just above the horizon. They should have felt impelled to paddle towards it, but five days of sun, thirst and heat had drained them of hope. They lay slumped in the boat, their skin red and blistered, tongues swollen, lips split and black with dried blood.

Their ship had been torpedoed and sunk five days earlier. So far as they knew, they were the only survivors. They had begun to feel cursed, not blessed.

“I think there’s an island there,” Butch said, “unless the clouds are green with envy.” He was small, normally chipper, and one side of his face was badly bruised from the sinking. He knelt at the front of the lifeboat and stared