Brian Aldiss - The Monster Trilogy

‘It’s a lovely day outside,’ said the ginger man. ‘How would you like a walk? I could come with you. We’d talk.’

After a long silence, Renfield spoke in a husky voice. ‘Nobody asked you, kind sir, she said. I’m all alone. There once was ten of us. Now no one knows the where or when of us.’

‘It must be very lonely.’

The madman roused himself, though still without observing his visitor direct.

‘I’m not alone. Don’t think it. There’s someone always watching.’ He raised a finger to the level of his head, pointing to the ceiling. Then, as if catching sight of an alien piece of food, he reached forward quickly and bit the finger till it bled.

The ginger man continued to squat and observe.

‘Do you realize what you’re suffering from?’ he asked softly. ‘The name of the ailment, I mean.’

Renfield did not reply. He began to hum. ‘Ummm. Ummm.’

The bluebottle spiralled down again. He had his eye on it all the way. Directly it landed on his shirt, he grabbed it and thrust it into his mouth.

Only then did he turn and smile at his visitor.

‘Life,’ he said conversationally. ‘You can never get enough of it, don’t you find that, kind sir? It’s eat or be eaten, ain’t it?’

As they advanced along the corridor, it became darker and smokier. Both Bodenland and Clift decided that their chances of survival were thin.

The dimensions of the corridor altered in an alarming fashion. The way ahead twisted like a serpent. It appeared as if infinity stretched before them – grand and in some way elevating, but nevertheless formidable.

And then suddenly at infinity the air curdled, like milk in a thunderstorm, and an atmospheric whirlpool formed. From that whirlpool emerged a terrifying figure, beating its way towards them.

‘Joe!’ yelled Clift. The sound echoed in their ears.

A great leathery winged thing, its vulpine head plumed like something from a Grünewald painting, thrashed towards them. It had an infinite distance to go, yet it moved infinitely fast, despite the wounded slow-motion flap of its pinions. Its eyes were dead. Its mouth blazed. It had scaly claws, like the feet of a giant bird. In those claws it carried a brutal blunt gun of matt metal. It raised this weapon and began firing at the two men as it progressed.

Phantasm though it seemed, the monster’s bullets were real enough. They came in a hail, screaming as they came. Bodenland dived into a shallow guard’s blister to one side of the passage. Clift fell, kicking, with a bullet in his shoulder.

Hardly conscious of what he was doing, Bodenland scrambled halfway to his feet. The blister contained a wheel, perhaps a brake-wheel, and little else – except an emergency glass panel with something inside he could not see for shadow. A hatchet? Swinging his fist, he shattered the glass. Inside the case was nothing more formidable than a torch.

In those few seconds when death was coming upon him, Bodenland’s brain seized on its final chance to function. From its remotest recesses, from below a conscious level, it threw out a picture – clear and chill as if forged of stained glass in some ancient chapel.

The picture was of a great artery stretching through the body of planetary time. And up that artery to the throat of it where Bodenland crouched swam terrible creatures from the very bowels of existence, ravenous, desperate for a new chance at life, stinking from the oblivion that had shrouded them.

This avenging thing on its pterodactyl wings – so the picture depicted it – was no less mythological than real. Alien, yet immediately recognizable. One of its talons screeched against wood as it slowed in the corridor to turn on him. So monstrous was it, it seemed the train could never contain the wooden beat of its wings. They burned with dark flame.

And it keened on a shrill note, cornering its prey.

Clouds of murk rolled with it as it swerved upon the blister. Bodenland had dropped to one knee. With his left arm raised protectively above his head, he held the torch in his right hand and shone it at the predator.

The beam of light pierced through murk to the red eyes of it. Abruptly, its singing note hit a higher pitch, out of control. It began to smoulder inside wreaths of biscuit wrack. It recoiled. The leather wings, fluttering, banged woodenly against imprisoning walls. The immense veined claws opened convulsively, letting drop its weapon, as faster went the beat of the wings.

Just for a moment, in place of horror, a vision of a fair and beautiful woman appeared – dancing naked, shrieking and writhing as if in sexual abandon – couched on gaudy bolsters. Then – dissolved, faded, gone, leaving only the monster again, to sink smoking to the floor.

A great wing came up, fluttered, then broke, to join the crumble of ashes which strewed themselves like a shawl along the train corridor.

Bodenland switched off the torch. He remained for a moment where he was.

Another moment and he forced himself to rise. He placed a hand over his heart as if to still its beating. Then he went to see his friend.

Clift had dragged himself into a sitting position. Blood oozed from under his shirt.

‘You know what it was?’ he gasped.

‘I know it was most ancient and most foul. Are you okay, Bernard? It seemed to dissolve into a – well, into a woman. An illusion. The perspective and everything. Terrifying.’

‘It was a lamia, a female monster. There’s a literature about it.’

‘Fuck the literature. We’ve got to get out of this corridor. Brace yourself, buddy.’

As he dragged Clift to his feet, the latter gasped with pain. But he stood, clutching his shoulder and managing a grin.

‘God knows where we’ve got ourselves, Joe. Maybe I shouldn’t take the name of the Lord in vain …’

‘We’ve got ourselves into more than we bargained for,’ Bodenland said. Half-supporting his friend, he started down the corridor, which had now regained normal dimensions.

Moving steadily, they made it to the cab in the front of the train.

Bodenland propped Clift in the corridor, and made a sudden rush in, where a man in overalls worked in the greyness.

He sat on a swing stool, handling controls. He was shadowy, his age impossible to tell. And when Bodenland jumped in on him, he swivelled round to exclaim in astonishment, ‘No, no – you’re the man with the bomb!’

This stopped Bodenland in his tracks.

But the driver raised his hands, saying, ‘I’m still afraid – don’t attack me.’ He made no attempt to escape.

‘You know who I am?’ Bodenland asked. But even as he spoke, he heard the sound of someone approaching down the corridor. Dreading another monstrous apparition, he snatched the driver’s gun, which the man made no attempt to draw.

As he did so, Clift looked into the cab.

‘Joe, dozens of them. Second line of defence. The gun, quick!’

He grabbed the gun from Bodenland and at once began firing down the corridor. Bullets from the enemy spanged by. There were cries in the corridor, then silence.

Bodenland went out to see. Whoever the assailants were, they had disappeared. Two dead lay a few yards away. Clift lifted himself on one elbow.

Kneeling down by him, Bodenland asked him gently how it was.

‘The grave —’ Clift said, then could speak no more. Bodenland caught him as his head fell, and hauled him up into a more comfortable position. Blood welled from the palaeontologist’s chest. He looked up into Bodenland’s face, smiled, and then his face contorted into a rictus of pain. He struggled furiously as if about to get up, and then dropped back, lifeless. Bodenland looked down at him, speechless. Tears burst from his eyes and splattered Clift’s cheeks.

He dragged his dead friend into the driver’s cabin.