The Book of Apex: Volume 1 of Apex Magazine Page 5

  I didn’t bother replying.

  It rained hard that night and into the next day, and the day after that. Snodgrass called to see how I was and to tell me that the walls of the coal pit had collapsed in the rain and work would be halted in the bottom seams until they could get the water and mud out. Zan’s father filed a report. Zan stayed missing.

  By the end of the week the bandages were removed and my face no longer caused people to look away. Now they only winced. I got the call at around noon.

  Mr. Snodgrass sounded tired, shaky as he said hello. “How you doin’ boy?”

  “Fine, Mr. Snodgrass. I’m a whole lot better.”

  “Good, that’s real good. I got some bad news for you. Seems Owen and B.J. had an accident. Well, they um, they’re dead. Ain’t no mincing words here. I ain’t got any operators worth a damn and Monday we are going to be hitting the seam hard. I know Zan was your friend, but the kid’s gone AWOL and I need all the help I can get. What are the odds of getting you onsite Monday morning? You ain’t got to operate, just keep an eye on the new ones, make sure they ain’t screwing around.”

  I didn’t know what to say. I had known Owen and B.J. half my life and on top of everything else, it was just too much. “Mr. Snodgrass, I’m going to need more time than this.”

  “How’s Wednesday then?” he replied, not taking my meaning.

  “I’ll call you next week and we’ll figure something out.” A thought occurred to me then, and I asked the question, “You’re not planning on digging out the crater are you?”

  “That’s where we are going to be digging. I hired a dirt crew to come in and they’ve already got it cleaned out. It was a big mud hole when they started, and now it’s dry. Just a big oily pool at the bottom, but we’ll get that drained out Monday, I guess.”

  “Did you notice anything weird down there when they were cleaning it out?”

  “Well, that’s odd. B.J. found a frog he’d run over with the track hoe. Thing was big around as a dinner plate and had five eyes. Damnest thing I ever saw.” He paused, then added, “how did you know that?”

  I gave no reason and got off the phone. It was a five-minute drive to the county impound lot where the truck B.J. and Owen had been killed in was being kept. The big red Ford diesel was still on the back of a long flat bed hauler, chained down to the deck. It was obvious that the truck had rolled several times. The cab was crushed down to the level of the dash and the whole body appeared twisted. That those two had wrecked didn’t surprise me; hardly a day ended that they hadn’t consumed a case of beer apiece before heading home from the job. What was unaccountable was that both doors were missing, and along the crushed holes where they should have been hanging were deep gouges in the red body that left jagged rents in the metal. I turned to leave, noticing off in the distance, thirty miles or so to the west, a vast black cloud drifting up from the ground. Paradise. The old coal plant had its environmental scrubbers off. They never ran them unless the EPA was going to do a fly through, and the smoke was as dark as the coal they burned, our coal, full of heat, full of something else. I thought about all the millions of tiny particles of the bones and black glass that must be rising up in that midnight plume, drifting up and up to rain steadily back down across the earth.

  I raced home and started looking up numbers. Curtis Ward, no answer. Jay and Eric Ingram, answering machine. I called what cell phones I had numbers for, but nobody picked up. Finally I even called Johnny Lindsey, why the mute had a phone had always been a point of humor for all of us at the mine, but as he answered with his back throat squeal. I was glad of the fact.

  “Johnny, listen. It’s Tom Phelps. Listen to me now. I think something’s wrong with Zan. I think, well, it doesn’t matter. You get yourself out of the house and come over to my place. Bring a gun with you and you don’t stop.”

  He started to make the affirmative squeal, then, halfway through, cut off. I heard a loud banging in the background, like someone beating a door down. Johnny made a low, suspicious moan.

  “Johnny, Johnny! Don’t answer it! Get your gun.” I screamed into the receiver. In answer I heard the sliding clunk of a shotgun pump. There was another sound then as Johnny’s door must have exploded, followed by a shotgun blast.

  I have to ask you if you’ve ever heard a mute scream. I think it was worse than normal screams. Maybe they save ‘em up for really important moments. The noise that came from Johnny’s throat was like nothing I had ever heard, primal and utterly free of restraint. It rose and rose, higher in pitch and volume, then, suddenly, seemed to fill with gurgling liquid. Then all was silent. I listened, not daring to breathe. Seconds stretched out unbearably and I strained to hear. A slippery sound finally came across the line, a sound like wet rubber being pushed across metal. The phone popped and a voice came over it. “Hiiiiiii Tommmmy.” It was a whisper made through wet leaves, “Caaann Iiii cooomme oooverrrr?” I dropped the phone, then scrambled to pick it back up.

  “Zan! Zan, is that you?” But there was no one there.

  Mr. Snodgrass didn’t answer the phone when I called. Everyone that had worked the Lindsey seam was away from their phones and their cell phones. So were their families. I sat on the couch staring at my burned hands. Every bit of exposed skin I had was cooked by the black substance and I had been around it for less than half an hour. Zan probably experimented with the shard for hours. Did he notice what was happening? Did he feel himself changing? I wondered what would happen if he’d tried to taste the thing? He had been desperate to keep our find a secret. How much more did that matter after he’d realized what was occurring to him? Did he take the shard and flee into the woods? Bury himself in the cold dead ground like some grub, shedding skin and hair, coming out changed into something new, something mean and repellant?

  I had to get Annie out of the house. She refused to go to her parents until I gave her a good reason. I know she thought I was hiding something, drugs probably. In a last desperate bid to get her out of the house, I slapped her. Whoever finds this tape, make sure she knows I didn’t mean it. I just wanted her to be safe for as long as possible. I know that nobody will be safe for long. Whoever you are, don’t let the Lindsey mine open back up. I hope to God that the coal price drops. As long as it’s running high, some fool will try and open up that godforsaken pit.

  I can hear him. He’s on the roof. I know what feet sound like on our roof. The neighbors kid cleans my gutters and I know the sound of feet. That’s not what I’m hearing. I’m not hearing feet. I can’t tell you if I am hearing limbs. The bugs and frogs have gone quiet. Even the mosquitoes have stopped buzzing in my ears. I hear its breath, like a hot-air balloon inflating.

  The Nature of Blood

  George Mann

  I fell in love with a red-head on the bus.

  Her eyes were sparkling windows of blue, glassy and serene. Her hair was a shock of amber that fell in waves about her shoulders. Sometimes she wore it tied back in a taut ponytail. When I think of her, I see a pair of skinny trousers, cut short, in black and white pinstripe, and an old cream jumper wrapped around her body, pulled up underneath her chin. It was winter. Our breaths made steaming clouds in the night air; fogged up the windows on the inside of the old Leyland bus. We watched each other with cautious eyes.

  Her name was Isabella.

  She spent her time making blood. Later, she would talk to me about the nature of blood; show me her little laboratory that smelled of formaldehyde. She would hunch for hours over her enormous electronic microscope, rearranging plasma, synthesizing the fluid of life. She would smile to herself at little triumphs; rub the back of her aching neck with her left hand. I never quite grasped the complexities of those hours, the nuances that made the blood of one person so different from that of another. Still, now, I have difficulty understanding the allure, the reasons she did what she did. Looking back, with the benefit of hindsight, I think she saw it as a failure on my part, this lack of comprehension, and it undermined our relationship from t
he very start. But at the time we were full of hope and optimism, and all things were new. If I showed my ignorance she would simply smile at me knowingly, and then kiss me brightly on the forehead, her lips leaving a cool, damp impression on my skin.

  When I first saw her she was poring over the pages of a scientific journal, her lips carefully following the words of some difficult passage, silently committing them to memory. The bus shelter curved in a protective arc over her head, its dirty plastic barrier holding off the snowflakes of yet another miserable English night. They tumbled gently around me, catching every now and then on my cuff or sleeve, only to wink silently out of existence like tiny stars.

  I smiled.

  She didn’t even notice me.

  I took my place under the shelter and willed the bus to come around the corner.

  Beside me, an ancient, careworn woman was standing hunched over the figure of an elderly man, lecturing him on the benefits of having turned up the sleeves of her cardigan.

  “I just cut them off about here,” she said, indicating with her finger, “and then turned them up to here. I did one the same for little Violet, you know.”

  “They just come down to me knuckles, these do, these sleeves.” He looked up at her plaintively.

  “Just pop round one afternoon Tom, I’ll do anything, me.” A pause. “I’m up at the cemetery tomorrow mind, about twelve o’clock. Shan’t stay long, be home for quarter-to.”

  “Aye. I’ll be at the bookie’s, meself.” He looked up at me and winked.

  I turned away quickly, embarrassed. Two eyes peered up from the pages of the journal, momentarily lost, as if the sudden segue-way between theory and reality had left her disorientated, out-of-sorts. She looked over. I held her gaze. She smiled. I smiled back. The bus came around the corner.

  It skidded to a stop about three feet from the shelter, causing a wave of dirty water to slop up onto the curb. The doors slid open with a pneumatic hiss. We clambered on board. Noisily, the driver gunned the engine and we headed off into the night, surrounded by the odd, uncomfortable bustle of disparate strangers trying to make their way home.

  The next day I was surprised to find her take a seat beside me. I shuffled up to make room and pulled my headphones away from my ears, unsure of her intentions. I glanced over. She was smiling at me expectantly, wanting to talk.

  “What are you listening to?” Her voice was soft and sugary, perfect.

  “The Throwing Muses.”

  “I love their University album.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah, I’ve got it at home somewhere. Haven’t listened to it in years though. Too busy with, well...” She indicated her reading.

  I smiled. “I know that feeling.” I rubbed my hand over my chin, the rough, unshaven bristles like sandpaper against my palm.

  “Sometimes it just feels like the whole world is conspiring against you, and you only wish you could step back for a moment to take a breath.”

  I stared at her for what seemed like an age. “Do you fancy a drink?”

  The pub was cozy and out of the way. Snowflakes spattered on the windowpanes, rolling across the wet glass like tiny beads. An open fire flickered in the grate, casting dark shadows across the faces of the other patrons, exposing their sinister sides to anyone who cared to look. Couples whispered to one another in hushed tones. I spilt her drink.

  “I’m so sorry. I’ll just get you another.”

  “No, please, let me.”

  “No, really.”

  We laughed at our awkwardness. I bought the drink.

  Later, when I thought she wouldn’t notice, I watched her breathing, the little bird-like fluttering in her chest as she formed her words, the gentle pursing of her lips as she exhaled. I was exhilarated. She caught me watching and smiled at me inquisitively. I looked away, embarrassed. Her blue eyes flashed with amusement.

  It wasn’t long before we found ourselves back at my place.

  I never got past putting the kettle on. We tugged at each other’s clothes, awkward and still unfamiliar. She wrestled me to the ground amongst a pile of magazines and old wrappers, planting kisses over my face and hands. I followed the contours of her delicate body with my fingertips, enjoying the curve of her hips, cupping her small, round breasts in my palms. Her skin was warm and soft and smooth.

  Quietly, gently, her lower lip clasped tightly between her teeth, she reached down and pulled me inside her.

  In the morning I woke to find she had gone. A little yellow Post-it note was stuck to the alarm clock, flapping gently in the draught from the half-open window. Light filtered through in hazy streams, picking out the dust motes that swirled and danced in the air all around me. I reached over and tugged at the message. It came away in my hand.

  Tomorrow night, 56 Westbrook Ave, 8pm

  Isabella xxx

  I smiled to myself and clambered out of bed. I could hardly wait.

  Fifty-six Westbrook Avenue was a crumbling old Victorian townhouse; enormous, with large red steps leading up to the front door and a little iron railing that ran parallel to the road. Inside the front yard, huge leaves flapped like elephant’s ears in the cold breeze and moss poked up inquisitively through the cracks between the paving slabs. A lamp glowed dimly from behind the curtains in the downstairs living room. I rapped the knocker briskly and drew my coat up around my neck to fight off the chill.

  After a few moments the door creaked open and Isabella was smiling at me from within. The sight of her face filled me with a sudden sense of well-being and relief.

  “Hi.”

  “Hi.”

  I handed her my coat and struggled to find something to say as she hung it over the banister. A tall grandfather clock ticked ominously in the corner. “Nice place. How was your day? Isn’t it cold tonight?” I mumbled incoherently.

  Isabella laughed, and, stepping closer, touched her finger against my lips. I relented. Her face gleamed in the low light of the hallway. I took that face in my hands and kissed it. Twice.

  Afterwards, she clasped my hand tightly between her own and led the way to the dining room. Candles spluttered, arranged in a random fashion upon the large table. The flickering shadows they cast on the walls and ceiling reminded me of tiny butterflies darting to and fro, dancing in myriad patterns and shapes.

  She handed me two glasses and smiled.

  I cut my hand opening the bottle of wine.

  “Bugger!”

  “Oh, I am sorry, have you...?” She never finished her sentence, but took my proffered hand and held it still for a moment. Tiny beads of red blood swelled to the surface of my fingertip before trickling down across the back of my knuckles in little tributaries. I shifted slightly to stop them from dripping. Isabella had a strange look in her eyes. I wondered for a moment if she was exasperated with my constant clumsiness around her.

  “Stay there for one second.” She dashed out of the room. The blood felt warm and sticky against my skin.

  “Here you go.” I heard her voice from around the doorway before I saw her hurry back into the room. She held out a swab of cotton wool and I took it gratefully, dabbing at my sticky hand. She kissed me sympathetically on the cheek.

  After I had finished she took the cotton wool and showed me to the bathroom. The old stairs creaked and heaved as I presented them with my weight. I rinsed my hands and found a plaster in the mirrored cabinet that hung on the wall above the sink. I rubbed some of the cold water over my face, judging my reflection in the mirror. I felt like a buffoon.

  Isabella’s towels were flung haphazardly over a chrome rail that ran along one wall; they were soft and pink and smelled of her. Cursing myself for being so clumsy, I dabbed myself dry and found my way back down to the dining room.

  Later that night, as we lay together in bed, warmed by the soft glow of candles and each other, she stroked my hand as if to apologize for the violation of the broken glass. I held my breath and listened to the sound of cars passing beneath her window, to her gentle
exhalations as she quietly fell asleep. Just then, at that point, the future seemed so welcoming; a bright, exhilarating place filled with opportunity and promise.

  The next week I borrowed my brother’s car—an old, blue Ford Fiesta with patches of powdery rust over each of the wheel arches—and drove us up to Whitby. We stopped on the way by a quiet patch of moorland and bought an ice cream from the back of a makeshift stall. The old man behind the hatch had smiled at us warmly, and Isabella, trying to catch each tiny tributary of melted vanilla as it ran down the side of her cone, managed to end up with smears of it all over her chin. She drew herself up to me and laughed, trying in vain to keep a straight face. As I wiped her clean with the edge of my thumb, her eyes shone, and I think I’d never felt so happy. Her fingers trailed in mine as we made our way back to the car, the man on the ice-cream stall watching us, amusement flashing in his eyes.

  We arrived in Whitby just after noon; I swung the Fiesta into a car park immediately outside the town centre and we walked in along the water’s edge. We ate fish and chips on the docks, sitting on little benches and huddled against the spray, and watched the fisherman unloading their hauls in large crates full of ice and silvery scales. Isabella pointed to the Abbey high on the cliff top, sticking out against the horizon like a jagged, broken tooth. It seemed ominous to me, a brooding ruin facing out toward the sea, warding away all unwanted visitors.

  After lunch she dragged me into a little bookshop next door to an amusement arcade.

  “Come on. I have to get a souvenir!”

  I sighed theatrically but was disarmed by her childlike glee.

  Isabella bought a copy of Dracula; the elderly woman behind the counter looked expectant and tired, as if worn down by the constant repetition of her day. She perked up for a moment when I asked her for a copy of Titus Groan, but then sighed and shook her head.