The Spirit Realm #3
(Now She Could Not Deny The Fact That The World Was Not All There Was.)
Matty took Charlie’s hand, and she clutched at it gladly. If Greta looked, she would see nothing more than a boy standing behind her, if she noticed the strange way he held his hand, she would think nothing of it.
There were far stranger things to be seen.
As they climbed the Gatehouse Apartments reality became more fragmented. The changes in the environment were subtle, and if Matty had to tell his story in the future he knew he would not be able to. He saw the changes out of the corner of his eye, but when he looked directly at them, they appeared to recede. They were still apparent, but it was like looking at an optical illusion, as soon as he saw what he could only think of as reality passed over the world underneath, he could no longer see that world.
It was there, he knew it from the tip of his hair to the dead skin on his feet, but he could no longer see it.
Unless it wanted to be seen.
The creatures they had seen were anything but subtle.
The door to the stairwell slammed closed as if driven by a gust of powerful wind. The sound rolled around between his ears, and he could hear little else, but Greta was already running as something with far too many arms and legs shot from one of the broken apartment doors. It tumbled and smashed through a wall into a room opposite, and immediately Greta was on its heels.
She jumped through the newly created hole in the wall. Her legs were white against the gloom. Matty moved back against the opposite wall, Charlie clutching more tightly to him. Her confidence had been sapped, the figure that had frightened her in the stairwell returning her to the child she appeared to be. Matty and Charlie had switched roles, he had become her protector, and she was the clueless child.
Matty stepped forward, but Charlie refused to move. Her eyes grew wide, and her mouth opened in a soundless scream. Matty followed her gaze and saw the Tall Man step out of the doorway ahead of them, gliding through the hall and ducking through the gap in the wall.
Its movement was swift, its back hunched and knees bent. If it stood its full height, its head might have touched the ceiling of the floor above. It had folded into the cramped hallway like a basketball player might fold into a compact car.
It was a mess of elbows and knees. The angles were sharp enough to cut. On its head was a mop of unkempt hair that fell over glowing eyes. They burned behind their dark veil. Its clothing was dark, its details indistinct, but against them, its flesh stood out like a lighthouse beam. White enough that it hurt Matty’s eyes. It was the flesh of skin that had never seen daylight. It was the worm-white of maggots that would squirm in a shallow grave.
Matty only saw the thing a moment, but each detail burned into his mind as a childhood nightmare might. It was a mirror made of trauma and fear that would reflect on him forever.
Charlie stepped back, for the first time tugging him in the opposite direction to the one they were meant to take. She reached up and took his hand in both of her own. She leaned towards the stairwell door that led back into the real world, but Matty held tight.
“No,” he said, “you have to be brave. If you’re not brave there’s no way I’ll be able to be.”
He looked into her eyes and felt his heart flutter. He knew that he loved her, at least as much as his childish heart could love another, but he also knew she wasn’t what she appeared. She wasn’t even the fearless girl he had thought she had been. What was she?
She moved towards him, the movement was slight, but it was all he needed. He pulled her in the direction of the far stairwell door, past the hole that had been created in the wall. He glanced in as he passed and stopped abruptly enough that Charlie ran into him.
Lucas and Ryan fought the oddest fight Matty had ever seen. Lucas’ weapon was a silver crucifix, Ryan’s was the woman they had discovered on the stairs. Lucas would push Ryan into a corner, and then Greta would intervene breaking Ryan’s line of sight, and the dance would resume again.
The Tall Man followed on the edge as the bizarre fight moved around the shattered apartment. It moved like a huge spider in the darkness, sometimes all Matty could see was the angle of a knee joint, and he would not know what it was until it moved. It was an undulating shape that twisted from the distorted shape of a man, then into a spider, and then back to a man. It did not interfere but was watching closely, as an instructor might a student while he performed a particularly delicate task.
Matty couldn’t tell who the creature was supporting, if it supported anyone, but if it had wanted to interfere the boy thought it unlikely anyone could stop it. He could see Greta’s eyes following it, she could see the creature, and Matty became aware of the possibility that it was it, and not Lucas, that she was warding away.
“Come on,” Charlie said, “we can get there before they do.”
“Get where?” He asked but she was in the lead again, pulling him along the corridor to the stairwell door. He wanted to shout to Greta, to tell her to come along, but she knew she had found her place and that – in it – she may not be the ally he thought her to be.
Greta saw the thing but Ryan couldn’t. He was wholly concerned with the man he was fighting against, but it seemed to Greta that the creature moving in the shadows was a far greater threat. It didn’t move between the men, and as far as she could see it didn’t intervene in any way, but it was doing something. Its presence alone made fear curdle in her stomach. It had not harmed anyone, but it was clear to her that it could do so on a whim, and perhaps it was just waiting for the opportunity.
Greta tried to keep the man between the thing and Ryan. Neither man seemed able to see it, and if it had designs on Ryan’s attacker he would be easy to overcome. Even the strongest opponent is weak against an unseen threat. So they circled the stranger, the Tall Man always at the opposite side, always keeping the furthest distance from wherever the phantom was. She saw the man arch down with something in his hand, it reflected the meagre light and she swiftly slapped his hand away. He brought it back immediately and she was about to slap it away again when she realised what it was, a crucifix, a tiny figure carved to resemble a deity she never believed in.
But everything had changed. Just days ago it was her against the world. Now she could not deny that the world was not all there was. The crucifix represented another possibility.
Ryan had not responded to her and at first, she thought he was too focused on his attacker. Now she saw the blankness in his eyes. His hands were claw-like hooks, and the look in his eyes was that of an animal. Greta stepped back. The man moved in, and this time when he raised the crucifix she didn’t intervene. The silver touched Ryan and wrenched to the side as if stabbed. Behind the man, the tall thing moved, and a shadowy part of it reached. Greta pulled Ryan back and away. The hole in the wall was behind them and Greta pulled Ryan towards it, the man following close behind.
Matty could feel the concrete steps give slightly as he followed Charlie up them. Then they clung to the soles of his feet when he tried to lift them. Charlie moved ahead, her black dress fluttering, and Matty thought of birds in flight. The floor beneath him was made of damp honeycomb and the walls of toffee. The air smelt sweet and he saw strawberry desert sauce running along the liquorice stick guardrail.
It was just a stairwell, concrete and steel. He could hear the echo of his feet as he chased Charlie up to the next floor. Something moved on the edge of his vision. A fluttering image in black moved between him and the wall. Charlie was on the next flight of steps, moving further ahead and Matty picked up his pace.
He smelt the fairground smell of cotton candy and the fluttering transformed into the sound of targets being hit by BB gun fire. He took steps two at a time, rushing to catch up with Charlie. He heard laughter and that was followed by indecipherable chatter.
He was only steps behind her and reached for her hand just as it swept away from him. It was as though she was being drawn further from him even as he grew closer. The flapping of her dress made a sound similar to licking flames. Then that roar became the roar of a crowd.
He caught her hand and she glanced back to him. He could see the urgency on her face, but the touch of her hand against his settled his fear.
They burst out onto the next floor, Matty no longer knew which floor it was, and they both stumbled to a confused stop.
Matty wasn’t certain of what he saw at first, there were no lights to illuminate the floor, but even in the darkness, he knew they had stepped into something very different. His eyes adjusted but he saw that Charlie’s had adjusted a little sooner when she stepped forward with wide confused eyes.
“What is this?” Charlie muttered her hand slipping loosely from his own, and her words scared him more than what he saw.
Where the corridor should have been was a trail between two thickets of dense brush. Thorn-laden branches entwined on either side creating impenetrable barriers. Matty moved closer to where the wall should have been but could see no further than he could reach. The floor was hard-packed earth, and above them was darkness.
“Is this…?” He was about to ask if this was normal, but the absurd question dried the words in his throat. There was nothing in Gatehouse Apartments that even approached the word.
“No,” she answered anyway, “I’ve not seen anything like this.”
She walked forward slowly, and Matty fell in a step behind, not wanting to be left alone in this place. Ahead there was light and movement. Shadows shifted as figures moved between the light and the two explorers. Charlie reached back and took Matt’s hand.
Greta fell backwards, taking Ryan with her over the jagged edge of the hole. They hit the bare floorboards of the corridor heavily, Ryan landing on top of her, driving the air out of her lungs. Pain shot through her chest and she immediately wondered if she had broken a rib.
Ryan rolled from her and even as Greta cried out in pain he was already running for the stairwell door. She rolled to her side and tried to rise but the pain anchored her to the floor. She rolled until she reached the far wall and scrambled up it. She raised her arm and a lance of pain erupted just under her breast. Greta screamed and a moment later hands wrapped around her, they held her until the pain subsided then carefully lifted her until she stood.
He held her, his grip was not tight enough to hurt her, but firm enough to support her. She clutched at him, her head pushing into his shoulder as she gasped for breath through the pain.
“Are you okay?” He said and his voice startled her, it was not the voice she had expected. It was not Ryan. She looked up and saw the stranger standing over her, his arms wrapped around her, and she started to push away from him until the pain ripped through her again.
“No,” he said and Greta could hear the compassion in his voice, “Don’t. Find your feet.”
Her head was resting against his chest. She took short breaths. She could hear his heart beating rapidly. The pain was there, on her periphery, she fought to keep it there. She would have fallen if she were not supported.
“Do you know him?” He asked.
“Yes,” her response was a whisper, she couldn’t breathe deep enough to speak.
“Do you understand he’s possessed?”
“Possessed?” She muttered the word and thought of heads spinning and pea soup.
“He’s been taken over,” the man said, “you have to know…”
She did, and it was obvious. Her Ryan would never have left her in pain. Her Ryan would never have run while she was in danger. So he was not her Ryan.
“Can you…?” She couldn’t finish the sentence.
“Yes, I can,” he replied, “can you move?”
She nodded though she knew it was a lie. Each step caused agony, but the man stayed with her and would not leave her to fend for herself.
The clearing they stumbled into was far larger than it could have been, and Matty realised they were not in the Gatehouse Apartments anymore. Matty could see the woodland curve around to his left and right until it disappeared into the distance, but it wasn’t this which drew his attention.
In the middle of the clearing was the remnants of a travelling fairground. Its amusements were listed to the side like poorly kept teeth. Its lights blinked weakly, illuminating abandoned rides and silent games. As they moved closer the ground became more uneven, and they began to hear broken calliope music that lurched and stuttered on the edge of death.
“Does this make any sense?” Matty asked Charlie.
“No,” she answered.
Charlie led them between a pair of ticket booths. Matty paused at the one closest to him. It was a modest box designed to keep an occupant and the person standing before them dry and little else. On the narrow countertop was a pair of clumsily torn tickets. Matty picked them up as he passed.
The tickets were printed in black on coarse pale blue paper. The script was decorated with dots and swirls and Matty struggled for it to make sense. He thought it read ‘Mellor’s Attractions and Amusements’, but the A’s may have been D’s and the M may have been a V.
“Isn’t that your name?” He said and handed Charlie one of the tickets, she looked at it and nodded slowly, then handed it back to him. She pointed down the uneven dirt track that separated the stalls and attractions on either side. Matty squinted in the direction she indicated but saw nothing in the vague images he could make out in the darkness.
“Don’t you see it?” She asked, and he squinted harder as if it would make his vision suddenly increase, then he shook his head. “It’s the Tall Man,” she said but Matty thought he heard a pause in there as if she wanted to call it something else.
“What’s it doing?” He asked and she stared into the darkness before answering him.
“It’s waiting.” She said and tiny cold footsteps climbed up Matty’s spine.
Lucas almost carried the girls to the stairs. Sweat stood out on her brow. But even as her face contorted in pain, and her lips curled in a grimace with each step, she did not complain. As they struggled to the stairs he told her what he knew. He didn’t know if she could hear him through her pain, or whether the pain would subside enough for her even to do anything about it, but he could tell by her defence of the man that she was somehow involved, and she needed to know the whole story.
When they got to the stairs their senses were assaulted with a sickly smell. The girl wretched and gagged. As her chest heaved the pain ripped through her and she cried out in agony. Lucas held her, not knowing what else to do. They stopped at the foot of the stairs while she caught her breath. He pushed the crucifix into her hand and picked her up. She was tiny and surprisingly light, and she seemed unaware of what was happening to her she was so consumed by her pain.
He took the stairs carefully, feeling strange sponginess underfoot and seeing fleeting images of movement out of the corner of his eyes. He ignored it and concentrated on making his way up the stairs causing the girl as little pain as he could.
As they approached the next floor – the fourth floor if he wasn’t mistaken – he thought he could hear the murmurs of a crowd, then a flock of birds in flight. The sound increased as he pushed open the door leading to the fourth-floor corridor, then died away as he realised there was no corridor to step into.
The door swung closed behind them, it folded into the thicket and then it was no more, disappearing as if it was never there. Above them, the sky was as black as a mine shaft, broken here and there by overhanging branches that Lucas ducked under, trying not to let them touch the girl he held in his arms.
They reached the end of the trail and ahead of them was a clearing.
“Oh, no,” Lucas said softly and his chest felt suddenly too tight for him to breathe, it was the Mellor fairground, the place where his father had been born and raised, and where he had learned to be the man he had become.