Fiddleback

  Fiddleback

  MARK MORRIS

  www.sfgateway.com

  Enter the SF Gateway …

  In the last years of the twentieth century (as Wells might have put it), Gollancz, Britain’s oldest and most distinguished science fiction imprint, created the SF and Fantasy Masterworks series. Dedicated to re-publishing the English language’s finest works of SF and Fantasy, most of which were languishing out of print at the time, they were – and remain – landmark lists, consummately fulfilling the original mission statement:

  ‘SF MASTERWORKS is a library of the greatest SF ever written, chosen with the help of today’s leading SF writers and editors. These books show that genuinely innovative SF is as exciting today as when it was first written.’

  Now, as we move inexorably into the twenty-first century, we are delighted to be widening our remit even more. The realities of commercial publishing are such that vast troves of classic SF & Fantasy are almost certainly destined never again to see print. Until very recently, this meant that anyone interested in reading any of these books would have been confined to scouring second-hand bookshops. The advent of digital publishing has changed that paradigm for ever.

  The technology now exists to enable us to make available, for the first time, the entire backlists of an incredibly wide range of classic and modern SF and fantasy authors. Our plan is, at its simplest, to use this technology to build on the success of the SF and Fantasy Masterworks series and to go even further.

  Welcome to the new home of Science Fiction & Fantasy. Welcome to the most comprehensive electronic library of classic SFF titles ever assembled.

  Welcome to the SF Gateway.

  Contents

  Title Page

  Gateway Introduction

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Epilogue

  Website

  Also by Mark Morris

  Dedication

  About the Author

  Copyright

  one

  ‘So why are we here?’

  My tone was light, almost playful. I wasn’t afraid of him back then. We were still in our honeymoon period. I didn’t analyse each sentence, each word, each syllable before I uttered it for fear he would fly into a rage. For three months we’d been happy. We’d laughed a lot. We’d developed what I’d believed was a real bond of friendship, of understanding. Later, despite his behaviour on this day that I always think of as Day One, I blamed myself, not merely for rousing the darkness inside him to life but for actually creating it. I made myself believe that he became angry and violent not through any fault of his own, but because of me, of something in my make-up, of some lethal ingredient I was bringing to the rich, warm stew of our relationship. I was a poisonous mushroom. A chunk of spoiled meat. Without me, with someone else, he would have been happy and loving and well-balanced.

  All blinkered, self-deprecating crap, of course. Classic victim mentality. It’s obvious to me now that this day – Day One – was the day on which the alarm bells began to ring loud and clear, but that I was simply too flattered to pay them any heed. Flattered by his bringing me here once I’d found out why, by his willingness to confide in me, to share his darkest secret. What happened afterwards was not entirely his fault, I suppose. Men are not born evil, they are moulded by their experiences, bludgeoned or teased into shape by what happens around them and to them.

  I looked at him when he didn’t answer me immediately and I was shocked by what I saw. He looked … I don’t know … haunted. His features pinched, his skin pallid, his shoulders hunched, his hands clamped to the steering wheel. The engine was still running, and I half-expected him to slam the car into gear and hightail out of there, gravel spurting from beneath our squealing wheels. I touched his arm. The muscles beneath his fleece jacket were rigid.

  ‘What’s wrong, Matt?’ I said. ‘What is this place?’

  His head made a small, darting turn to the left and just for an instant there was a look in his eyes which dried the words in my mouth and snuffed out the consoling smile that was rising to my lips. All at once a smile seemed as grossly inappropriate as if he’d just told me that his mother had died, or that he had terminal cancer, something like that. The look he gave me was one of … the only way I can think to describe it is cold contempt, though it was less stark than that, as if he was in a partial trance, and yet all the more disturbing because of it. There was something almost primeval about the way he looked at me.

  Silly? Maybe. But how do you describe that moment when the lights go out in someone’s eyes and the darkness takes over? They become something you can’t reason with, something whose conscience you can’t appeal to – like a shark or a machine. They look human, but they’re not. Not in the sense that the majority of us understand anyway. They have no moral code. They become less than human – inadequate, incomplete. And that incompleteness can make them dangerous, even deadly.

  But I’m getting ahead of myself. I’m applying hindsight to what was actually nothing more than a fleeting instant. All I was aware of at the time – and this only peripherally – was that as Matt glanced at me, something slipped out of him, some essence that changed him from the man I had grown to love and trust to … to what? A blank space. It was enough to make me suck in a surprised breath and hold it there, to not release it again until he spoke.

  ‘What does it look like?’ he said.

  I looked away from him then, tore my gaze away from him, and focused on the place we’d come to. The drive from London to Preston had taken over three hours. Matt had been subdued, but when I’d asked him if he was all right, he’d simply said, ‘I’m just tired,’ or ‘I’m concentrating, that’s all.’ Later, a little awkwardly, as if he wasn’t sure how to broach the subject, he’d said, ‘I want you to know everything about me.’

  ‘Is that why we’re making this trip?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes. There’s a place I need to show you.’

  ‘Couldn’t you have described it to me?’

  He scowled, emotions chasing one another across his face. A touch of exasperation, a hint of anguish. He seemed on the verge of launching into some kind of explanation for his secrecy, but in the end he just shook his head.

  ‘OK,’ I said, settling back, feeling an urge to be flippant. ‘Magical Mystery Tour it is, then.’

  I hated (hate) tension – I’d had enough of it at home – and so I was always the first to lighten a dark mood with a quip, to offer the hand of conciliation in an argument. Sitting in the car outside that place I wanted to punch Matt lightly on the arm, to grin and say something silly to make him smile. But I couldn’t. Not because I was afraid of him – not then – but because I was afraid for him. Afraid that, for whatever reason, he was only just holding himself together. And because of this I had to be strong and steady, sensible and composed. So, trying to keep my voice light but neutral, I said, ‘It’s an old railway station.’

  He didn’t answer me for a moment, just continued to stare broodingly at the building in front of us. Then he
leaned forward and twisted the ignition key and the car’s engine sighed to silence. Matt sighed too, shoulders slumping a little as if he had also turned off the tension inside himself. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Yes, that’s all it is.’

  We sat in the car, quiet now except for the pinking of metal as the engine cooled down. The place didn’t look like much, was simply an old branch line out in the sticks, evidently unused for some considerable time. The car park was weed-strewn rubble, the stonework of the long, low station facade so black it looked charred. The roof had been stripped of slates like the meat from the back of some vast creature, leaving mottled brown ribs exposed. The building was crouched at the bottom of a slight valley, down a side turning that time had reduced to little more than a dirt track. It was early October, chilly. Wind moved stealthily through the spindly clumps of grass that were staking a claim to the land, and through the shell of the building itself, whispering secrets.

  Before I could again ask Matt what we were doing there, he opened his car door and abruptly got out. Though he’d said it was important for him to bring me here, he immediately started striding stiffly towards the station entrance as if now oblivious to my presence. For an instant I considered leaving him to it, but then I got out of the car and followed him. It was obvious that something momentous had happened here. Momentous and bad. I played out a little scene in my mind as I went after Matt, envisaged him telling me of a boyhood game that had got out of hand, of one of his friends – perhaps even his best friend – losing his footing on the platform, falling in front of a train. A tragic accident that Matt had always blamed himself for. A game of Dare with terrible consequences. I was almost rehearsing my words of comfort and condolence when I caught up with him. He was standing just inside the station entrance, in the ticket office, staring at the rusty turnstile that led to the platforms.

  ‘Hey, wait for me,’ I said softly, wrapping both my arms around his right one, pressing myself against him. I could feel the back of his hand resting lightly against my pubic bone, but he didn’t react – not to my physical presence anyway. He gave an abrupt nod and in an oddly hollow voice he said, ‘It’s through there.’

  What is? I wanted to know, but decided not to push him, to let him tell me in his own time. I nodded. ‘OK,’ I said. ‘Let’s go and see.’

  We moved across the ticket office, a square space where journeys long past had begun and ended. There was a ticket booth to the right, the glass – surprisingly still intact – now cloudy as cataracts. The area smelled of stale urine despite a breeze strong enough to ruffle hair that swooped down on us through the gap where the roof had been. The floor was strewn with cans and bottles, with broken glass which glittered like a fortune in diamonds dropped by a fleeing thief.

  ‘When did this place close down?’ I asked.

  Matt shrugged. ‘It’s always been closed. Ever since I was a kid.’

  ‘So it’s stood like this for what? Twenty, thirty years?’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘Did no one ever think to knock it down, develop the land?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ he snapped suddenly, rounding on me. ‘I’m not a fucking expert!’

  His anger made me jump – but again at that time not through fear, merely surprise. I let go of his arm, which had become rigid again.

  ‘All right,’ I said, halfway between placatory and irritable. ‘I was only asking. Look, Matt, you’ve got to see this from my point of view. You drag me halfway across the country without any real explanation and then behave as though you don’t really want me here. I mean, it’s hardly what I’d call a fun day out.’

  ‘It’s not supposed to be fun,’ he muttered, and then that weird blankness came into his eyes again and his voice grew tight, strangled. ‘It’s not supposed to be fun, you stupid …’

  His voice choked off and he took three stumbling steps away from me. Then he did an odd and scary thing. He slowly raised his hands and began to jab the tips of the fingers into his forehead, both hands moving in deliberate unison, reminding me of a machine whose function was to punch holes in sheet metal.

  He did this at least eight times, and might have gone on indefinitely if I hadn’t rushed forward and grabbed one of his hands, shouting at him to stop. He did stop, though his eyes were still blank and staring, mouth set in a rigid line. He had eight angry circles of red skin on his forehead, vivid on his otherwise pale flesh, like warpaint.

  ‘Matt, what’s wrong? Talk to me!’ I blurted at him.

  His eyes jerked up in their sockets and he looked at me. His mouth opened, but at first no sound came out. Then he murmured, ‘This is so … hard for me.’

  ‘Then don’t do it,’ I said softly. ‘You don’t have to, Matt. Let’s go away from here.’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘I do have to.’

  ‘OK. But not here, eh? I mean, I’ve seen the place, haven’t I? You can tell me what happened somewhere else. Over a drink, a nice meal.’

  ‘No.’ His eyes and his voice were suddenly full of alarm. ‘It can only be here. It can’t … it can’t be anywhere else.’

  He seemed to be talking about the memory as if it were a caged animal, as if it could only be allowed to roam within certain confines. I stroked his arm as if he were the animal, skittish and unpredictable, needing to be calmed.

  ‘OK,’ I said. ‘OK. Let’s get it over with, then.’

  We walked together up to the turnstile, feet gritting on broken glass. Nervousness was making me want to joke, to lighten the mood by offering some puerile comment about not being allowed on to the platform without a ticket, but I bit my lip.

  The turnstile shifted a squealing inch when Matt shoved against it, but then jammed solid. We climbed over. The platform beyond was a wind tunnel, my skirt snapping against my stockinged legs hard enough to sting. The rails were barely visible in the long grass. At the far end of the platform was a crossing point, presided over by a traffic light which was bent at an angle (forcing me to gulp back a comment about the wind being really strong around these parts), its eyes long-since blinded.

  ‘This way,’ Matt said, pointing to the left. He led me to a door which must once have been royal blue, the words WAITING ROOM lovingly rendered in gold script across the upper panel. Now the paint that hadn’t peeled or blistered had faded to sludge and the letters ‘IT’ had been scraped away and replaced with ‘NK’ in black marker pen that itself had faded to grey.

  As Matt reached for the handle I noticed that it wasn’t coated with the gritty dust that overlaid everything else. Spooked by Matt’s behaviour, and by the sudden thought that maybe we weren’t alone here, I darted out a hand, placing it over his.

  ‘Be careful,’ I said.

  Matt regarded me coolly for a moment, but said nothing. His hand was motionless under mine, as if waiting for me to release him, though I wasn’t gripping him tightly. Matt has big hands. Strong. The fingers long, the knuckles prominent. I didn’t know then how much I would come to loathe them, to fear them. After a moment I let go of him and said, ‘Sorry. This is starting to freak me out a bit.’

  He didn’t smile back, didn’t comment. Just turned the handle and pushed the door open.

  The stench of urine was pungent as mustard gas. The lack of a roof had allowed the elements to attack the ceiling above us. It was yellow-brown, pulpy as porridge, sagging and bulging and cracked. It looked as if one good sneeze would bring the whole lot down on us. Fingers pinching my nose, I said, ‘Don’t,’ as Matt stepped back to close the door.

  He looked at me, and though his face was deadpan I felt a need to justify myself. ‘I can’t stay here if you don’t allow some air in, Matt. It stinks.’

  He shrugged, left the door open and crossed to the middle of the room, where two rows of metal chairs were screwed to the floor. He sat down without even inspecting the seat. I hovered by the door, anxious to get this over with, to get away from this vile place as quickly as possible.

  As Matt leaned forward, resting his elbows on h
is knees, the room abruptly darkened. I glanced out of the open door, and saw battalions of grime-grey clouds drifting across the pearly haze of the sky, colliding and entangling. A few fat drops of rain began to fall. I thought of the ceiling above us enduring yet more punishment, and asked, ‘Are you going to tell me what this is all about now?’

  Matt had been staring into space, but his eyes now swivelled to regard me. What little light there was in the room clung to the oily whiteness of his eyeballs, making them gleam. Although Matt is good-looking, he is also tall with a long, sharply boned face, and too much shadow can make him appear cadaverous. Now his cheeks looked sunken, the skin on his nose and forehead stretched tight across the bone. He opened his mouth and darkness flooded in.

  ‘I was ten when it happened,’ he said.

  I waited for a moment, but he fell silent again. Finally I asked, ‘When what happened, Matt?’

  His response was immediate, as if I had flicked a switch. ‘I used to come here with my mate, Steve. But this one day he was off school. Tonsillitis. This place attracted us. There was never anyone here. It was creepy, but exciting too. We thought of it as our secret hideout. We were young enough, naive enough, to think that no one else knew about it. That anyone who had known had either died or forgotten it was here.

  ‘We used to come into this room and read each other ghost stories, scare ourselves silly. After a bit we used to think we could hear things outside. Dragging footsteps. Creaks and moans. Imagination.

  ‘Often we’d stay here until dusk, until the place had filled with shadows. That was when we started to see things too. Dark things moving. Through the window. Out on the platform. Not clearly, but from the corners of our eyes. I couldn’t really describe them. They were just shapes. Not there, not really. Just shadows. Darkness.

  ‘More often than not we’d end up running out of here, our hearts pounding. Terrified. But not really terrified. Exhilarated. Alive.