Clive Barker - Weave World

So let it do its worst, if that at the last was inevitable. Let the void come, and bring an end to the tyranny of hope.

VI

DEATH COMES HOME

As the dead hours between midnight and first light ticked by, the snowfall became heavier. Cal sat in his father's chair at the back window, and watched the flakes as they spiralled down, knowing from experience that trying to get back to sleep was a waste of effort. He would sit here and watch the night until the first train of the new day rattled by. The sky would begin to lighten an hour or so after that, though with the clouds so snow-laden the dawn would be subtler than usual. About seven-thirty he'd pick up the telephone and try calling Gluck, something he'd been doing regularly, both from the house and from the bakery, for several days, and always with the same result. Gluck didn't answer; Gluck wasn't home. Cal had even asked for the line to be checked, in case it was faulty. There was no technical problem, however: there was simply nobody to pick up the receiver at the other end. Perhaps the visitors Gluck had been spying on for so long had finally taken him to their bosom.

A knocking at the front door brought him to his feet. He looked at the clock: it was a little after three-thirty. Who the hell would come calling at this hour?

He stepped out into the hallway. There was a sliding sound from the far side of the door. Was somebody pushing against it?

‘Who's there?' he said. There was no reply. He took a few more steps towards the

door. The sliding sound had stopped, but the rapping - much fainter this time - was repeated. He unbolted the door, and took off the chain. The noises had ceased entirely now. Curiosity bettering discretion, he opened the door. The weight of the body on the other side threw it wide. Snow and Balm de Bono fell on the Welcome mat.

It wasn't until Cal went down on his haunches to help the man that he recognized the pain-contorted features. De Bono had cheated fire once; but this time it had caught him, and more than made up for its former defeat.

He put his hand to the man's cheek, and at his touch the eyes flickered open.

‘Cal...'

‘I'll get an ambulance.'

‘No,' said de Bono. ‘It's not safe here.'

The look on his face was enough to silence Cal's objections.

‘I'll get the car-keys,' he said, and went in search of them. He was returning to the front door, keys in hand, when a spasm ran through him, as though his gut was trying to tie a knot in itself. He'd felt this sensation all too often of late, in dreams. There, it meant the beast was near.

He stared out into the spattered darkness. The street was deserted, as far as he could see; and silent enough to hear the snow-hooded lamps hum in the cold. But his heart had caught His belly's trepidation: it was thumping wildly.

When he knelt at de Bono's side again, the man had made a temporary peace with his pain. His face was expressionless and his voice flat, which gave all the more potency to his words.

‘It's coming...' he said. ‘... it's followed me ...'

A dog had started to bark at the far end of the street. Not the whining complaint of an animal locked out in the cold, but raw alarm.

‘What is it?' Cal said, looking out at the street again.

‘The Scourge.'

‘ ... oh Jesus...'

The barking had been picked up from kennels and kitchens

all along the row of houses. As in sleep, so waking: the beast was near.

‘We have to get moving,' Cal said.

‘I don't think I can.'

Cal put his arm beneath de Bono and lifted him gently into a sitting position. The wounds he'd received were substantial, but they weren't bleeding; the fire had sealed them up, blackening the flesh of his arms and shoulder and side. His face was the colour of the snow, his heat running out of him in breath and sweat.

‘I'm going to take you to the car,' Cal said, and pulled de Bono to his feet. He wasn't quite dead weight; there was enough strength left in his legs to aid Cal in his efforts. But his head lolled against Cal's shoulder as they crept up the path.

The fire touched me ...' de Bono whispered.

‘You'll survive.'

‘It's eating me up ...'

‘Stop talking and walk.'

The car was parked only a few yards down the street. Cal leaned de Bono against the passenger side while he unlocked the doors, glancing up and down the street every few seconds while his inept fingers fumbled with the keys. The snow was still getting heavier, shrouding both ends of the street.

The door was open. He went round to help de Bono into the passenger seat, then returned to the driver's side.

As he stooped to get into the car, the dogs all stopped barking. De Bono made a small sound of distress. They'd done their duty as watch-dogs; self-preservation silenced them now. Cal got into the car and slammed the door. There was snow on the windscreen, but there wasn't time to start scraping it off: the wipers would have to take care of it. He turned on the ignition. The engine laboured, but failed to start.

At his side de Bono said,'... it's near ...'

Cal didn't need telling. He tried the key again; but still the engine resisted life.

‘Come on,' he coaxed it, ‘please.'

His plea bore fruit; on the third attempt the engine caught.

His instinct was to accelerate and get out of Chariot Street as quickly as possible, but the snow, falling as it did on several days' accumulation of ice, made the going treacherous. The wheels repeatedly threatened to lose their grip, the car sliding back and forth across the road. But yard by yard they crept through the pall of snow, which was so heavy now it reduced visibility to a car length. It was only as they approached the end of Chariot Street that the truth came clear. It wasn't just snow that was smothering them. There was a fog thickening the air, so dense that the car headlights had difficulty penetrating it.

Chariot Street was suddenly no longer part of the Kingdom. Though it had been Cal's stamping ground since childhood, it was alien territory now: its landmarks erased, its urbanity turned over to wasteland. It belonged to the Scourge, and they were lost in it. Unable to see any sign of a turning he trusted to instinct and made a right. As he swung the wheel over, de Bono sat bolt upright.

‘Go back!' he yelled.

‘What?'

‘Back! Jesus! Back!'

He was gripping the dashboard with his wounded hands, staring into the fog ahead.

‘It's there! There!'

Cal glanced up, as something huge moved in the fog ahead, crossing the path of the car. It came and went too quickly for him to gain more than a fleeting impression: but that was already too much. He'd underestimated it in his dreams. It was vaster than he'd imagined: and darker; and emptier.

He struggled to put the vehicle into reverse, panic making his every motion a farce. Off to his right the fog was folding upon itself, or unfolding. Which direction was the thing going to come from next? or was it somehow everywhere around them, the fog its hatred made matter?

‘Calhoun.'

He looked at de Bono, then through the windscreen at the sight that had de Bono rigid in his seat. The fog was dividing in front of them. From its depths the Scourge loomed.

What Cal saw befuddled him. There was not one form emerging from the murk, but two, locked in a grotesque union.

One was Hobart; albeit a Hobart much transfigured by the horror that now possessed him. His flesh was white, and there was blood running from the dozen places around his body where lines of force - connected by wheels and arcs of fire -entered his body and broke out the other side, revolving through him as they swung to meet the second form: the monstrous geometry that towered above him.

What Cal saw in that geometry was all paradox. It was bleached, yet black; a void, yet brimming; perfect in its beauty, yet more profoundly rotten than any living tissue could be. A living citadel of eyes and light, corrupt beyond words, and stinking to high heaven.