Clive Barker - The Great and Secret Show

"I want to hold it," said Tommy-Ray.

"Consider it yours," the Jaff said, allowing the youth to claim the terata from his arms. "What belongs to you belongs to me."

"It doesn't look much like Spilmont."

"Oh but it does," said the Jaff. "There was never a truer portrait of the man. This is his root. His core. A man's fear is what makes him what he is."

"Is that right?"

"What's walking out there tonight, calling itself Spilmont, is just the husk. The residue."

He wandered to the window as he spoke, and drew the drapes aside. The terata that had been fawning over him when William came visiting dogged his heels. He shooed them away. They retreated respectfully only to creep back into his shadow when he returned 'from them.

"The sun's almost gone," he said. "We should get going. Fletcher is already in the Grove."

"Yes?"

"Oh yes. He appeared in the middle of the afternoon."

"How do you know?"

"It's impossible to hate someone as much as I hate Fletcher without knowing his whereabouts."

"So do we go kill him?"

"When we've got enough assassins," the Jaff said. "I don't want any mistakes, like Mr. Witt."

"I'll fetch Jo-Beth first."

"Why bother?" said the Jaff. "We don't need her."

Tommy-Ray threw Spilmont's terata to the ground. "I need her," he said.

"It's purely Platonic, of course."

"What does that mean?"

"It's irony, Tommy-Ray. What I mean to say is: you want her body."

Tommy-Ray chewed on this a moment. Then said:

"Maybe."

"Be honest."

"I don't know what I want," came the reply, "but I sure as shit know what I don't want. I don't want that fucker Katz touching her. She's family, right? You told me that was important."

The Jaff nodded. "You're very persuasive," he said.

"So, we go fetch her?" Tommy-Ray said.

"If it's that important," his father replied. "Yes, we'll go and fetch her."

Seeing Palomo Grove for the first time Fletcher had come close to despair. He had passed through towns like this aplenty in his months of warfare with the Jaff; planned communities that had every facility but the facility to feel; places that gave every impression of life but in truth had little or none. Twice, cornered in such vacuums, he'd come close to being annihilated by his enemy. Though beyond superstition he nevertheless found himself wondering if the third time would prove fatal.

The Jaff had already established his bridgehead here, of that Fletcher had no doubt. It would not be difficult to find here the weak and unprotected souls he liked to batten upon. But for Fletcher, whose hallucigenia were born of rich and pungent dream lives, the town, withered by comfort and complacency, offered little hope of sustenance. He'd have had more luck in a ghetto or a madhouse, where life was lived close to the edge, than in this well-watered wasteland. But he had no choice. Without a human agent to point the way he was obliged to go among these people like a dog, sniffing for some hint of a dreamer. He found a few down at the Mall, but he was given short shrift when he attempted to engage them in conversation. Though he did his best to keep up some pretence of normality it was a long time since he'd been human. The people he approached stared at him strangely, as though there was some part of his performance he'd overlooked and they were able to see through to the Nunciate beneath. Seeing, they retreated. There were one or two who lingered in his vicinity. An old woman who stood a little way off from him and simply smiled whenever he looked her way; two children who gave up looking in the pet shop window to come and stare at him, until their mother called them to her side. The pickings were as thin as Fletcher had feared. Had the Jaff been able to choose their final battlefield personally he could not have chosen better. If the war between them was to finish in Palomo Grove—and in his gut Fletcher sensed that one of them would perish here—the Jaff would surely be the victor.

As evening came, and the Mall emptied, he too left it, wandering through the empty streets. There were no pedestrians. Not so much as a dog-walker. He knew why. The human sphere, willfully insensitive as it was, couldn't entirely block out the presence of supernatural forces in its midst. The inhabitants of the Grove, though they could not have put words to their anxiety, knew their town was haunted tonight, and were taking refuge beside their televisions. Fletcher could see the screens glimmering in home after home, the sound of each set turned up abnormally loud, as if to block any songs the sirens abroad tonight might sing. Rocked in the arms of game-show hosts and soap-opera queens, the little minds of the Grove were lulled into innocent sleep, leaving the creature that might have kept them from extinction locked out on the street, and alone.

Watching from the corner of the street as dusk deepened into night, Howie saw a man he would later know to be the Pastor appear at the McGuire house, announce himself through the closed door, and—after a pause for the unlocking of locks and unbolting of bolts— be received into the sanctuary. Another such diversion would not present itself tonight, he suspected. If there was to be any opportunity to slip past the guardian mother and reach Jo-Beth this was it. He crossed the street, checking first that nobody was coming in either direction. He needn't have feared. The street was uncommonly quiet. It was from the houses the din came: televisions turned up so loud he'd been able to distinguish nine channels playing while he'd waited; hummed along to theme tunes, laughed with pay-off lines. Unwitnessed, therefore, he slipped to the side of the house, clambered over the gate, and started down the passage to the backyard. As he did so the light in the kitchen was turned on. He backed away from the window. It wasn't Mrs. McGuire who'd entered however, but Jo-Beth, dutifully preparing some supper for her mother's guest. He watched her, mesmerized. Going about this commonplace activity in a plain, dark dress, lit by a neon strip, she was still the most extraordinary sight he'd ever seen. When she came close to the window, with tomatoes to rinse at the sink, he stepped out of hiding. She caught his movement, and looked up. His finger was already at his lips to hush her. She waved him away—panic on her face. He obeyed not an instant too soon, as her mother appeared at the kitchen door. There was a short exchange between them, which Howie didn't catch, then Mrs. McGuire returned to the lounge. Jo-Beth glanced over her shoulder to check that her mother had gone, then crossed to the back door, and gingerly unbolted it. She refused to open it sufficiently to give him access however. Instead she put her face to the gap and whispered:

"You shouldn't be here."

"Well I am," he said. "And you're glad I am."

"No I'm not."

"You should be. I've got news. Great news. Come outside."

"I can't do that," she whispered. "Keep your voice down."

"We have to talk. It's life or death. No...it's more than life or death."

"What have you done to yourself?" she said. "Look at your hand."

His attempt to clean the wound had been perfunctory at best, squeamish as he was about picking pieces of bark from the flesh.

"This is all part of it," he said. "If you won't come out, let me in."

"I can't."

"Please. Let me in."

Was it his wound or his words that made her relent? Either way, she opened the door. He went to put his arms around her but she shook her head with such a look of terror on her face he backed off.

"Go upstairs," she said, not even whispering now but mouthing the word.

"Where?" he returned.

"Second door on the left," she said, obliged to raise her volume a little for these instructions. "My room. Pink door. Wait until I take the food through."