Philip Nutman - Cities of Night

Lightning lit the sky through the lounge windows. The picture jumped. Seconds later thunder crashed. He whimpered.

A storm.

Like the one the day he’d buried mummy.

David Attenborough was talking about scorpions and the television showed one on the sand attacking a bird, its tail flicking out — once, twice — the bird jerking, then flopping on the ground.

A flash. The picture went fuzzy.

He spooned up the last of the soup, set the bowl on the worn green carpet and hugged himself, shivering.

(mummy)

(why is mummy cold?)

He would never forget the day the Crocodile came for her. It had been a few days after she’d taken him to see Peter Pan .

Like this morning, the day had started sunny, though warmer because spring was coming. father had been more withdrawn than usual, poring over his books while propped up in bed, and barely acknowledged their presence when they brought him lunch.

The afternoon passed quietly. He built a Lego house, coloured in one of his colouring books, read a Bugs Bunny comic. Later he fell asleep, curled up on the couch. The BAD DREAMS came again.

It started after seeing Peter Pan . In the dream he was walking. Never running, always walking, his legs stiff. The dream world was a dark, empty ground like the old land beside the petrol station at the East Finchley end of Long Lane. Something was coming. Something was out there in the dark. When he looked, he couldn’t see it. But he knew it was there. The dream — mummy said they were NIGHTMARES — would end when he reached a sudden brick wall without end. He would cry on waking.

This time he awoke to the sound of his mummy screaming.

He thought he was still dreaming, but the persistence of the sound pulled him from the womb of sleep, aware father was shouting — angry, unpleasant words. Even if their meaning was unclear, the tone of voice was not. Then it changed. mummy stopped screaming and father, he realized, was shouting for help. He ran to the bedroom.

She lay on the floor, her neck a lump of purple bruises, her green eyes bulging. father was on the floor, too, as if a giant had picked up the bed, tossing him to the floor like a thin wooden doll, his withered legs poking from his pyjamas, the stumps of his ankles pointing to mummy’s body, two fingers without nails.

Stephen cried out, bending over her twisted body. What was wrong?

(mummy)

father started shouting again, demanding to be put back in bed. Stephen ignored him. Mummy. What’s wrong with mummy?

He held her hand. It was limp. Help me, father shouted, adding, she’s dead.

(ded)

How?

It took her, father said. The Crocodile came for her. Came to take her away. I stopped it. But the shock killed her.

Stephen cried. Hoarse, desperate sobs that made his chest hurt as he cradled her body in his lap, father glaring at him.

Later, after he had placed father back in bed and carried mummy downstairs to lay her on the couch, he smashed all the plates and glasses in the kitchen, fear and sorrow giving way to a TEMPER TANTRUM, only this time mummy didn’t send him to his room because she was DED — and that meant he didn’t have a mummy anymore.

father, surprisingly, didn’t complain about the noise from the kitchen. Later, when Stephen was calmer, he told him to bury her in the garden by nightfall. Then it started raining suddenly as black clouds covered the sun, and he froze as he looked out the window because

(Crocodile)

one cloud looked like a giant, one cloud looked like a troll, but the other one the other one looked like looked like

(Crocodile)

the Crocodile.

It rained.

And rained, turning the garden into a sea of mud.

Darkness fell.

He couldn’t sleep. He sat in the armchair looking at mummy lying on the sofa as rain drummed on the roof, rolling down the windows like a flood of tears.

When he went to move her, mummy had turned a grey colour and beneath the smell of lavender water

(do you like the smell of mummy’s perfume, Stephen?)

she smelled like the old carpet he had once found in the street, soggy and rotten.

He buried her and then the truth sank in: she was gone.

The Crocodile had taken her.

As he finished packing the topsoil down, it started to rain again, but lightly, not with the scary force of the previous night’s storm.

Tonight, so many moons since then, the storm sounded like it was directly over the house as a crash of thunder made the windows shake. Then the television and the lights went out. He whimpered and started reciting the PRAYER.

“I am a FREE MAN. I do not believe in clocks. Clocks are BAD.

(the watch)

I am free of time

(that was a SECRET)

My time isn’t up because it doesn’t exist.

(his SECRET)

I am free. Crocodile you cannot touch me.”

Lightning flashed, illuminating the corners of the room. Shapes moved. SECRET things. Creatures he couldn’t see it in the dark. But they could see him, oh yes, old things. Rotting things. Ded things. CROCODILE things.

“You cannot touch me!”

(could it?)

Lightning.

The things in the corner moved again.

Thunder crash.

“Go away!”

The lights came on. He shouted with surprise, jerking on the couch. Then the television picture stuttered to life and David Attenborough was standing beside a big river.

“— but perhaps most regal of Egyptian wildlife is the crocodile,” he was saying, the picture changing to film of logs in the water. Only they weren’t logs they were — crocodiles!!

Stephen shrieked and ran to the television set, twisting the on/off knob so hard it came off in his hand. He ran back to the couch and pulled himself into a ball, arms tightly clasped around his legs.

It was here!

He held himself so tightly his arms ached and his legs were seized by cramps. His eye throbbed, his hand was stiff, and his nose was running. The beast was here. It was in the house. It had been playing with him, taunting him and now —

Lightning.

The lights flickered, then died.

Thunder crashed.

No! No! No! Nonononononononononon…

A slow roar came from outside the front of the house, long and low like the noise the dinosaurs made in the cartoons. The sound of glass shattering came from upstairs. father cried out, a terrible screaming wail that cut off —

Then…

Then nothing.

He pulled his arms around his head, crying, whimpering.

mummymummymummymyummymymmy —

A shout. Weak. Dying.

Then just the sound of the rain.

It had come. It was here.

The Crocodile.

Lightning. Fainter this time.

He peered through his fingers. His left eye was almost closed now and he couldn’t see properly. But the things were still there, were closer, moving out of the corners, closing in on him.

“father!”

He bolted from the couch

(father!)

collided with the coffee table, knocked it over, nearly fell himself. He ran for the stairs, tripped, fell, landed heavily on his left hand and cried out.

“father!”

Thunder rumbled.

He reached the top of the stairs, turning towards father’s room. Shadows had turned into black curtains that seemed to hang from the walls to cover the floor. The hallway had grown longer, too. Now it seemed to stretch before him like a narrow passageway, its size not right, the open doorway leading to father’s room, a small shape standing out, dark, but lighter than the walls.

“father?”

Nothing, only the soft roaring voice of the rain.

One step. Two steps. Three steps. He started down the hallway. It’s not real, it’s not real, it’s not real . It’s just the hallway. A hallway with bookshelves and books and

(skulls)