Blood Fugue (16 page)

Gina was shaking her head so hard in denial that her hair whipped across her face. Her voice dropped an octave and became a strangled snarl.

‘You raped me and you’re going to pay.’

Through the curtains the sun glowed orange but the room remained in shadow. Even that dim light hurt Amy’s eyes. There was a coldness spreading through her now, something separate from her fear and anger. With it came a resolve to fight her corner. How dare the crazy bitch call her fat? After all the things they’d said and done the night before, it was too hurtful to be tolerated.

And now the girl was threatening violence.

Amy’s mix of emotions was hard to keep track of. She felt anger at the insults and dismissals of the night’s importance. She felt shame at being alone in her enjoyment of it. Something else was building inside her too: that coldness. An ice calm rage and the urge to silence the girl who had made her feel all of it. But Gina was changing. In the orange dimness of Amy’s room something was happening to her.

Her head began to stretch. Her oval face, so beautiful the night before, elongated; the chin protruding further and further forward until it hooked back on itself like the jaw of a barracuda. Her skin became glassy and luminescent. Beneath it, Amy saw veins of purple pulsating with diseased light. The top of Gina’s head extended upwards and backwards and her long dark hair fell away in wet strands. When her hair hit the floor it shrank and decomposed to a puff of vapour that shone pale lilac in the evanescence from her skin.

Gina dropped the sheet and Amy saw her legs and arms lengthening, making her taller until she had to crouch to prevent her head from touching the ceiling. The changes looked and sounded agonising. Gina was screaming and howling in a strange language. From her mouth, with its vicious lower mandible, spilled a writhing purple tongue that stretched down to her veined belly and flicked at the air. A second snakelike appendage uncoiled wetly from her vagina.

Similar, smaller tongues burst from many other patches of skin and waved in the air like roots seeking water. Bony purple spikes tore outward from her breasts and shoulders, from her buttocks and hips, all of them curving forward like some combination of armour and weaponry. Amy stood, pressed against the sliding doors of her wardrobe

I’m out of time.

Amy dived for the doorway.

The moment she moved Gina lashed out with her tongues. Amy surprised herself with her own speed and made it to the hall. She caught the door and slammed it shut behind her as she passed through. There was no way to stop Gina from following but it would slow her down. All Amy could do was run for the nearest way out which was the door in the kitchen.

The kitchen curtains were flimsy. The glare from the sun almost blinded her. As Amy neared the door an effervescent glow awoke in her bones. She paused. The heat and buzz swelled, becoming a discomfort. When she reached for the security chain, she screamed in protest and withdrew. The light brought agony to every cell of her body, a scorching current she was unable to bear.

She collapsed to her knees. The sound of thumping and slithering came from the bedroom. Amy turned away from the light and withdrew a long-bladed carving knife from its wooden block. She crawled from the kitchen towards the hallway again, hardly able to support her own weight. Her eyes watered and her nostrils stung.

Something was burning.

She reached up to her hair and pulled away a handful of scorched fibres. Some of it had only melted: the rest had roasted away. With what strength she had left she stood and dived, more with her weight than her muscles, past the closed bedroom door.

It opened at the same moment and two tongues wormed out, grasping at her like tentacles. Claws appeared on the doorframe followed by a stretched, swollen head. The Gina creature winced when she sensed the light from the kitchen and Amy, her strength returning now that she was out of the glare, swung her knife at the lower of the two tongues as she staggered away down the hall. Turning back, she saw the tongue hanging by a flap of tissue. Gina was clutching its root, back near her groin and moaning in her unreal dialect.

Still backing away, Amy saw the damaged section of lingual flesh reattach itself to the rest of its length. The wound sealed over.

Amy had one place left to hide. She lunged for the other door that led off the hallway into the small storage room that should have been a second bedroom. She banged the door closed and locked it, wedging the back of a chair underneath the handle. She stared at the handle, panting.

In this room there was one small window. Not much light came through the curtains. Not satisfied, Amy placed a huge, ugly oil painting she’d bought in a garage sale against the curtains. Instead of finding it harder to see, her eyesight improved. She stuffed old clothes and blouses around the edges of the painting until the room was as almost dark. The iciness within her deepened and, though it frightened her at first, it was accompanied by such a vibrant pleasure that she felt something close to sexual arousal despite her fear.

She sat on the carpet with her back to the wall and faced the door. Outside, Gina was silent.

Amy waited for a long time. She found herself thinking of the forest. She thought of the shadowy trails and paths and the thickness of the trees bearing in against her and to begin with it was good. Then she remembered Jimmy and the wellspring he’d taken her to and she was filled with repulsion at the thought of that water and the memory of his touch. She never wanted to see him again. The bed-pissing baby was too much of a coward to know how to make her happy

After hours of drifting in silence, Amy returned suddenly to wakefulness. The doorknob was turning. She gripped the handle of the kitchen knife and stood up. Still naked and undisturbed by the fact, she waited for the creature to burst through the cheap wood of the door. The creature was all she could remember of the past day. How it had come to be in her house she no longer knew.

‘Miss Cantrell? Amy? You in there?’

She jumped at the voice and then relaxed when she realised who it was. She reached for an old bathrobe from the cupboard, one she hadn’t worn for years. It smelled dusty, as if it belonged to someone much older or someone who had passed away. She caught sight of herself in the mirrored door as she closed the cupboard and reached up to her head. Her hair was undamaged. She drew the robe tightly around herself as she answered.

‘Is that you, Mrs Fredericks?’

‘Why, yes. Are you okay in there? I can’t open the door. You’re not stuck are you?’

‘No, I’m not. Hold on a second.’

She removed the chair, unlocked the door and then stood with the knife behind her back as she twisted the handle and opened the door very slowly.

‘It’s okay, Amy, it’s only me.’

For the first time in her life Amy felt glad to see Maggie Fredericks, her curtain-twitching next-door neighbour. She peeked out into the hall to be sure, but they were alone.

‘I saw your door was open and you didn’t seem to be around. I’ve never seen you leave it that way before, so I thought I’d better check.’

‘You did right, Mrs Fredericks. I appreciate it.’

‘What happened to you, dear? You look kind of spacey.’

‘I wasn’t feeling well. After I called in sick today, I must have left a door open. Thought I heard someone in the house, that’s why I locked myself in here.’

Maggie turned pale at the suggestion.

‘An intruder? My stars, child, should we call the police?’

Amy looked down at the floor behind her neighbour’s feet and saw a scrawny old black tomcat that must have followed her in.

‘Oh no, don’t do that,’ she said. ‘I wouldn’t want to waste their time.’ She pointed at the cat. ‘There’s my intruder. I guess he must have knocked some stuff over in the kitchen. Sounded like a burglar.’

Maggie looked down and tutted in an embarrassed tone. She stamped her foot and the cat tore out of the house.

‘I owe you an apology, Amy. That’s a wild cat I’ve been hoping to tame. Probably the only reason he came in here is because I’ve been encouraging him. I’m a sucker for cats but that doesn’t hold true for everyone. You see him again, you just shake a broom at him.’

‘Well, I’ll remember to be more forceful next time,’ said Amy, suddenly feeling embarrassed. ‘I can’t imagine how dumb all this must look to you.’

‘Don’t you worry about it, dear.’ said Maggie, patting Amy’s arm, ‘I get scared every night when I turn those lights out. I imagine there are creatures out there in the dark waiting to come for me. I can’t stop myself. It’s my imagination and I just can’t control it. Us single ladies have got it rough with no man to cling to at night.’

Amy didn’t reply. She didn’t hold men in quite the regard that Maggie Fredericks obviously did and there was no point saying so.

‘You want me to stay with you a while?’ asked her elderly neighbour. ‘We could watch The Wheel together and eat some popcorn.’

‘Thanks, but I’ll be okay now. You’ve already done enough.’

‘It’d be no trouble at all.’

‘I’ll be fine.’

Amy smiled at the older woman and realised with a rush of satisfaction that something had changed for the better in her life. She was never going to be a lonely, overweight woman with nothing to do but snoop. She showed Maggie to the door and out into the twilight. Amy could sense that Gina was gone. She would be safe from now on. It was early dusk and a violet haze had settled over the street along with a pleasant chill.

As Maggie retreated reluctantly back to her own house, Amy felt drawn towards the woods. There was a hunger within her. She smiled into the strengthening gloom.

To her it felt like dawn.

Chapter 18

Maria watched José hack and slash through the wild overgrowth choking the path and wondered where his determination came from. It took less than half an hour but to her it seemed much longer.

‘Papa, I can see something on the other side,’ said Carla.

‘Yes, I see it too,’ he said.

‘Do you think it is more of the trail?’

‘No. I think we have found what we came here for. Stay out of the way until I finish this. I don’t want you to lose an ear.’

As José cleared the last few branches and vines obscuring the path, an unusual clearing came into view. He stepped forward into the space they’d discovered. Maria hesitated before walking in after him, followed by the children.

They stood at the edge of a grassless expanse of ground that was roughly circular and about the size of a cathedral. At the centre of the space was a huge tree, the largest tree Maria had ever seen. Its canopy formed the ‘ceiling’ of the cathedral. The edges of the clearing marked the distance to which its branches and leaves extended. The tree’s foliage kept the entire space in deep shadow. It looked like some sort of oak, but Maria was no expert.

‘Dios mio,’ José murmured.

He crossed himself and Maria followed his lead.

The ground beneath the enormous branches was covered in many layers of leaves; they must have fallen from this single tree for hundreds of years.

‘I have never seen anything like this. It’s miraculous,’ said José.

Maria shook her head.

‘It is monstrous.’

‘Mama,’ said Carla, mock scolding her, ‘it is beautiful. We have found the most magnificent tree in creation.’

‘We could make a rope swing,’ said Luis.

Carla nudged her brother in the ribs and they laughed.

‘Last one around the tree and back is a gimp,’ said Carla. She dropped her backpack and tore away before Luis could grab her. He slung his pack to the ground and sprinted after her.

‘Where do they learn such words?’ asked Maria.

‘I cannot say but I suspect it is this country. I will be glad when we are sitting in front of our fire eating your potage and drinking decent wine again.’

‘You will? Truly?’

‘Of course, why?’

Maria sighed.

‘I thought you might be thinking of moving here. You seem to like it so much.’

‘I could never live here, Maria. I have been excited to find my grandfather’s resting place, but it has not been an easy trip for any of us.’

‘Why couldn’t you at least have let me know your feelings?’

‘I’m telling you now. It is only now that I realise how ready I am to head for home. And I could not let any of you think that it was hard for me, otherwise there would have been no leadership, no head for the body to follow.’

‘I could kick you, José. But I am so glad to know you are still a human being that I will kiss you instead.’

The kids reached the tree’s trunk and disappeared behind it. Maria used the moment to give her husband the kind of kiss that had become a rarity during the course of the holiday. The kids reappeared and raced back towards them covering the distance very quickly. Carla won the race.

‘Gimp! You’re a gimp, Luis! How does it feel?’ she taunted, breathless and happy.

‘You cheated. No more head starts.’

Luis was flushed and panting.

‘Listen, everyone,’ said José, ‘we need to get this tent up and the dinner ready before it gets too dark. If we work together there may be time to take a closer look at this incredible tree and make a preliminary search for your great grandfather before bedtime. Otherwise we’ll have to leave our fun until tomorrow.’