After: Nineteen Stories of Apocalypse and Dystopia

I don’t know.

So I ask Nelson. I square up and speak into the dark. “What d’ya think? Will Billy be okay with Morris? Shall I go?”

I listen, listen for the least bit of sound, listen inside my head as well as outside. In the cold silence, my heart thuds against my ribs. A little bit of me says I’m fooling myself—telling lies to myself—but I gotta believe in something or I ain’t got nothing.

There’s a tiny tickling noise like a cat lapping. My neck prickles, my breath hisses. I flash the light down and see fresh ripples crossing the surface. Toward me. Next there’s a sloshing, regular sound: splash—splash—splash. Someone’s wading out of the deep darkness on the other side of Nelson’s tomb.

My blood turns to acid. My heart comes choking up into my throat. It’s Nelson—I’ve woken Nelson! I swing the cell up. A face appears in the light beam, screwed up an’ blinking—a face buried in long straggles of gray-black hair. My hand dives for my gun, but my pocket’s all wet and tight and I can’t get my fingers in. I start backing away, the water grabbing at my thighs.

The thing whines like a dog, and my hair stands on end. It works its jaw up and down. Around its mouth is draggled and sticky, with feathers stuck to it….Feathers? It’s gripping something—a dead pigeon, all tore open, I can see the dark blood and white bones. It’s been sitting in the dark behind Nelson’s tomb, chewing on a dead pigeon. I’m almost sick. I scream at it, “I’ve got a gun!” and I run.

But the water’s so deep. I hafta force my legs along, elbows pumping, thrashing up stinking spray, nearly falling every stride, and I glance back to see if it’s coming and can’t see nothing in the dark, so it could be right behind me….Then I’m in the shallows, splashing along ankle deep, and now I can really run—so fast I almost miss the steps, but here they are—and I hurl myself up and slip and my knee slams into the stone—hell that hurts!—and I scramble up on all fours, and I’m coming into gray daylight, shouting, “Hairies, Billy, run…”

And he’s not here.

He’s not here!

“Billy!” My voice explodes into the space above me. All the birds hurtle up again and go whirling around. Where the hell is he, he never goes wandering off—and there are Hairies in here, I shoulda guessed a place like this would be crawling with ’em—I took too long, I should never a-left him—“Billy?”

Faint and thin, his voice floats back. “Hi, Charlie…”

I look up. Shit! Overhead, way overhead where the ledge clings to the underside of the dome, I see the tiny white blob of his face looking down. “Hi, Charlie,” he calls again. Or maybe he means, “High!”

He sounds really pleased with himself.

Shit! Shit! I know he’s not gonna come down on his own, I’ll hafta fetch him. Just as I start for the doors leading to the spiral staircase, there’s a noise behind me, a sorta tuneless singing, “Doh-de-doh-de-dum. Dum, dum, dum.”

The Hairy’s coming, limping up outta the cellar like a walking corpse, naked, dripping wet, the hair plastered to its thin shanks and knobby knees. As it comes it hums, jiggles, twitches, scratches itself. I struggle to push my hand into my wet pocket, shove and wriggle my fingers till they curl around the handle of Morris’s little gun, and I drag it out. It musta got well soaked—will it work when it’s wet?

The Hairy sees me. It stops in the archway just under the death’s heads. It’s still got the pigeon dangling from one hand. It tips its head sideways like it’s trying to figure me out. Through the hair its eyes gleam like a dog’s. Then it drops the pigeon and shambles right at me.

“Get back!” I point the gun. It’s as light as a toy, but it ain’t a toy. Any real person would know that, any real person would back off, but this is a Hairy, it don’t understand. I can kill it, but I can’t scare it. I shriek, “Get away from me or I’ll shoot!” and it lets out a yell of its own and waves its arms. I jump about a mile in the air, I nearly pull the trigger, but I don’t, I’ve never killed anyone, and it burbles, “Mad, mad, mad-a, mad-a,” and I’m almost sobbing, I know it’s mad, I back some more and I say, “I’ll shoot, I’ll shoot!” and it says, “Madd-a-lena.”

I almost drop the gun.

And it says, this time I swear it says, “Moh-riss.”

All the skin prickles up all over my body.

I don’t wait to hear no more. I yank open that door in the wall and leap through and go racing two at a time up shallow treads that lead around and around in a never-ending spiral. The Hairy’s hooting in the shaft below. It’s coming after me.

Maybe it’s seen me with Morris on the street, it knows we’re dealers, it thinks I’ve got…When Hairies get to that state, their brains is wrecked, scrambled. Nobody sells it to ’em anymore, they can’t pay and anyway another dose or two’d prob’ly kill them, but they still want the stuff. They still crave for nirv.

But I swear I didn’t rekkernize it, it ain’t anyone I ever met. And even if it knows about Morris, how could it know about Maddalena?

I didn’t hear that. I didn’t. I didn’t hear it.

But I know I did.

Every coupla turns, daylight peeks through a little window covered with thick glass and barred like a prison. I push on—slowing, toiling, gasping—but I keep going, and after I don’t know how many turns, the stairs end in a narrow stone passage, no more than elbow wide. I dive along it and come to another flight, straight this time, a glimmer of daylight at the top. I struggle up and tumble out and grab at the wall.

I’m out on the ledge where Billy was. It rims the bottom of the dome, hugging what looks like about a circular mile of space. Windows march ’round the walls above me. There are huge shadowy paintings up there. Way, way up, higher than I like to look, there’s another gallery hanging right in the middle of the roof. Dusty rays of light slant down.

I peer into the gloom. “Billy?”

Well, he ain’t here, a’course he ain’t, that’d be too easy, wouldn’t it? He’s wandered off again. And the Hairy’s on the stairs and we gotta get out—I’m wild with Billy but I’m furious with myself. What’s wrong with me? Why didn’t I shoot when I got the chance? Next time I’ll pull the trigger for sure.

I try Billy’s cell, which is switched off, and I call for him again, not very loud coz it echoes, and the place spooks me, and then I set off marching around the circle.

A heavy iron railing fences off the drop. Once it musta run all the way around, but now there’s big gaps, places where it’s torn down and twisted. I peer over, careful. A helluva long way down there’s a pattern in the middle of the floor, a starburst so big I never spotted it when I was down there. It’s like a target. If you’re gonna jump, aim right here. I pull back, shuddering, and press close against the wall.

Billy whispers at my shoulder, right in my ear, “Hey, Charlie!” I spin around. And he’s not there.

Christ, the voice—the voice was so weird. All hoarse and hollow. Not like Billy alive. Like Billy’s ghost.

It’s too much—the dome hanging over me like a thundercloud, the Hairy on the stairs, them bloody pigeons what never stop cooing…and Billy’s voice coming outta nowhere. My knees go weak. I croak, “Where are you?” an’ there’s a pause, and his voice whispers, “Here”—still sounding like a ghost—and I go, “Where?” and there’s another pause and he says, “By the door.”

Well, there’s no door anywhere near, and then I look far out across the open space and see the doorway I come in through, more than half the circle away. Next to it I can just make out the shape of Billy, standing there waiting. Relief soaks through me, but I’m exasperated too, chasing each other around like a game of ring-a-roses. I shout, “Stay put! Stay there an’ wait for me!” There’s the pause, and he answers, “All right,” still in that dragged- out hollow whisper, like it’s traveled right up into the cup of the dome. So it’s got to be some kind of echo.

From where I am, it’s quicker to go on than turn back. I’m picking my way careful-like over slippery piles of fallen plaster and pigeon droppings, when I suddenly know I’ve just made the most terrible fucking mistake.

I told Billy to wait where he is—and the Hairy’s on the stairs.

It’s like a fist in my stomach. I start to run, past gaps in the rail where there’s nothing to stop me going all the way to the bottom, and then I come to a place where the rail’s all twisted over the ledge and I hafta stop and clamber over it, and watch where I put my hands and feet in case I break an ankle or fall, and I can’t even look to