The New Death and others (16 page)

Kimberly Williams, for those that don't know,
disappeared. Just after I followed Todd. They found her body a few
months later. The news didn't say what had been done to her. But it
was clear that something had been done, beyond the obvious thing of
turning her into a corpse in the first place.

You might also be wondering why I didn't tell
my parents. Part of it was that I was scared of getting into
trouble for going into the drains. That's a pretty poor reason.
Especially because I had the excuse of being worried about Todd's
safety, and even without that I probably wouldn't have even been
grounded. But when you're young you don't think rationally about
getting into trouble. At least I didn't. Perhaps I was selfish, and
just plain didn't care about what happened to Todd. I wasn't
worried that I might not be believed. That didn't even occur to me.
I think the main reason was that I was scared of the man.

OK, listen. At that time I didn't know
Kimberly was dead. My parents said she could easily turn up. I
realize now that they were trying to comfort us, but at the time I
believed it. A lot of kids said she might have run away. One kid
said maybe she had an older boyfriend. Kimberly was one of the
best-looking girls in our year. Almost all the boys had a thing for
her, from the popular and confident boys who might have had a
chance, down to someone like Todd. I guess I thought she'd run
away, and what Todd was doing was wrong but not, you know. Not
wrong like "Todd's got a new older friend, and they were hiding in
the drains talking about the girl that was murdered a few days
later" wrong.

I didn't tell anyone, but I did spend a lot
more time near that storm-water drain, watching it from the bridge
above. My parents didn't notice because I always used to go out
riding my bike. I used to look up the addresses of girls I liked in
the phone book. Then I'd find the house on the map and ride past
there. I'm not sure what I hoped would happen. If they'd been
standing in their front yards I would have panicked. In fact,
before she disappeared, Kimberly was one of the girls I courted in
this way. The reader will be astonished to learn that I was
unsuccessful.

After a few days Todd did arrive. As before,
I locked up my bike and followed him. Again he went to his little
den, and again he got down on the concrete and called out to
whatever was there.

The voice answered, and for a while they
spoke back and forth, too low for me to hear. Then Todd called
out

"No!"

The voice didn't change one bit. It just kept
talking, low and firm and in control. I think it was repeating
itself, 'thou hast' done something I couldn't hear. Todd started
with that whining voice that kids use when they want to get
something. Then he started crying. He was sobbing, huge gulps like
he'd nearly been drowned. His words ran together, then he wasn't
using words at all. I'd never seen anyone like this. Maybe this is
how Kimberly's parents were when they saw her corpse.

I saw that Todd had wet himself. He whimpered
like a dog. We used to joke about how he was like an ape. This, the
reality of a human being reduced to an animal--it was like laughing
at how skinny an actress is, saying 'she's like a skeleton', then
being transported to the mass graves of Auschwitz.

Then the voice spoke louder, with the tone of
a parent who is sick of repeating themselves.

"A soul and its flesh hath been delivered
unto you. Now thou must deliver a soul and its flesh unto me. Thy
sister Rebecca, or thy mother Alice."

"Me!" Todd said at once. "Me! Todd Westman!
This I pedge to thee!" He got 'pledge' wrong, but at once his voice
was clear and strong.

I made myself take a step forward, then
another. Then I ran. I grabbed Todd's arm, and we ran out of
there.

---

The next part of the story is easily found in
the newspaper archives. As I said before, Kimberly was found months
later. Todd disappeared soon after that. When we got out of the
drain he broke away from me and ran, all the way out of the world.
He too was found, in a similar state, a few months after Kimberly.
Because they didn't know each other and weren't related, most
authorities assume that they were victims of a killer who chose his
victims from within the area but who had no personal connection to
them. Of course the authorities don't know what I know.

You, dear reader, might think that Todd
wasn't as harmless as everyone thought. You might think of all
those guys that, afterwards, everyone says 'he seemed so quiet,
kept to himself'. You might think he killed Kimberly, and then
later he killed himself out of shame.

Maybe the voice sounded like Todd because it
was Todd. Like the Phantom of the Opera, perhaps he became eloquent
down in the darkness. Maybe all the getting on all fours and
nodding was playing with 'magic', pretending or trying to cast
spells as kids do (or did. I remember writing a girl's name on my
arm with biro and putting a Band-Aid on it. It works as well as
riding past their house). Then someone else killed Kimberly, and
Todd thought he'd done it, same ending as before. The mutilation of
Todd's body might have been predators or weather.

You are wrong, through no fault of your own.
You didn't see what I saw, as I tried to take Todd to safety. The
owner of the voice. The long, vulpine face, with an expression as
proud and arrogant as its voice. But not a man. Not even a shape
like a man. It sort of...smirked at me. Leered at me. But these
words describe things that people do. It didn't try to stop me. I
guess it didn't see a need to.

I can't read anything about the New Age or
astrology or
Chariots of the Gods
nowadays. Not because I
believe them. It's the opposite. They make me sick with their
naivety. Guardian angels and wise aliens looking out for us.
Something's looking all right. It waits in the dark place under the
earth. Maybe you have to be an outcast. Maybe you have to have no
hope. But maybe it has temptations for all. Perhaps that was what
the thing's expression meant: 'you too'.

Todd wasn't the weird but harmless kid. He
was...I don't know what he was first, a murderer or a rapist or an
accomplice to something foul. He was that, and then he sacrificed
himself to save his mother and his sister. And nobody knows but me,
and now you. But I doubt you believe me.

(back to contents)

++++

Diamanda and the Isle of
Wives

Upon a cushioned, gilded throne

a scowling idol carved from stone

attended to by servile priests

whose veneration never ceased

sat scowling in a sumptuous hall

adored by few but feared by all.

This god displayed his awesome might

through never-sated appetite.

No carving made could please his eye

nor could his bowl be piled too high.

His thirst could not be satisfied

still less his lust for winsome brides.

Colossal and castrated guards

prowled softly through the halls and
yards.

They burned with rage and shook with
fright

to think that men could come at night

and rouse the idol's wives to flee

or tempt them from their chastity.

In every palace wall and floor

the priests had built a hidden door

all leading to a lightless room

as bare and barren as a tomb

and those they sentenced went inside.

They pleaded in the dark, and died.

The priests believed it right and good

that those as yet unpunished should

hear every wretched, vain lament

so life within the palace went

attended by a wailing host

of hopeless and tormented ghosts.

---

A merchant's son who wore a robe

soaked in the scent of mint and clove

and hung more jewels around his throat

than barnacles beneath a boat

observed a woman walking by

and found her pleasing to the eye.

He felt despair, for well he knew

that soon some priest would see her too

and take her to the idol's home

to wed her to the silent stone.

He asked his friends and learned her
name.

To Diamanda's house he came.

"All other beauty is to me

as brackish water from the sea

that has one task and one alone:

to show the sweetness of your own."

This tender praise the clever youth

gave in a tone of artless truth.

He courted her for many days

until at last he dared to say

"Come with me on the morning tide

or wait to be an idol's bride."

They met next morning on the beach

and swore their love with lofty speech.

They sailed a craft of fragrant wood

towards an exiled adulthood

and settled on another isle

where life was tranquil for a while

until the merchant's son grew loath

to keep the spirit of his oath.

He set his mind to thinking how

to get his way yet keep his vow

to have no other wife save she

and therefore all he laid with he

named mistresses and sweethearts or

mere concubines and paramours.

Despite his eloquent defence

and mask of wide-eyed innocence

she looked upon his face no more

and with a heart made sick and sore

she drifted on the sky-blue sea

until she came to Telelee.

---

She entered an apprenticeship

and drove with barbed and stinging whip

the elephants who carried wood

and did the patient beasts no good

but lashed them as she rode astride

so streams of red stained every hide.

She made the placid servants bear

a punishment not rightly theirs

and thrashed them till their blood was
wrung

for looking like the merchant's son

him being wont to stand and doze

and large and slow and long of nose.

In Telelee there stood a square

and each day merchants haggled there

but in the night the market closed

and then she came wrapped up in woes

pretending that she walked instead

through ruined cities, lost and dead.

And in the empty square she wailed

of loneliness and Man's betrayal.

The idol and the merchant's son

in Diamanda's mind had come

to be a single nemesis

invincible and pitiless.

---

One night across the dead bazaar

she noticed that her way was barred

by some half-seen and looming shape

and when she turned she stood agape

for elephants with tranquil stride

surrounded her on every side.

She trembled like a fox at bay

that looks upon its final day.

She braced herself to die alone

walled in as by cyclopean stone

as if a dark, primordial shrine

had risen from an ancient time.

But then there came no killing stroke.

In chorus all the creatures spoke

the cubs, the matriarchs and bulls

in speech slow and unstoppable.

"What webs of folly you contrive

you outcasts of the Isle of Wives!

"So many quit that evil shore

yet ever those who go before

do naught for those who stay behind

as if the light had made you blind.

Your tears unmet by actions are

like stinging smoke without a fire.

"And as for you, your life of sin

is written on our wounded skin.

You scourge your slaves as if Hell-sent

relentless and impenitent

and yet believe yourself to be

the martyred child of liberty.

"Therefore, find all your exiled flock

who have the will for more than talk.

Go sail the world and in a year

return and bring your kinsfolk here.

And if you shirk from our command

then we will crush you where you stand."

---

No stranger to the bluff and lie

she saw no falsehood in their eyes

so swore an unfelt loyalty

and set out for the open sea.

That night she dreamed that she,
outfought,

sat dying in a sunless vault.

Not out of love but out of fear

She sailed the oceans for a year.

Though often thistles were her bread

and broken ground her only bed

she found her kin and begged each one

except, of course, the merchant's son.

But some who had been gone for years

had drunk too deep of their own tears

and grown contented with their grief

till like an unrepentant thief

they talked until the windows shook

of actions that they never took.

And some had sons and some had wives

and most no wish to lose their lives

and so her army never grew

beyond a wild and desperate few.

One balmy day near sunset she

sailed back to port in Telelee.

---

They waited in the square until

they saw around them, quiet and still

a glittering ring of staring eyes

like stars descended from the sky

eyes hard as adamantium

and none had seen or heard them come.

The elephants stood grave as monks

and gripped in every curling trunk

machetes of unearthly make.