We were thundering through
a chaos of lashing rain and pummelling wind, dragged by the horses whose
pounding hooves and enraged snorts sounded so close it was like we were one
single creature running insanely from the deathly darkness surrounding us.
The carriage hit an
uneven stretch of road and threw us around in our seats, reintroducing the pain
to my stomach. I turned to the carriage window and lifted the dirty crimson
curtain to look outside. The unseen rain spat across my face. I could see
nothing but the enveloping, encroaching, inexorable darkness. It was a night of
madness and terror. I dropped the curtain and wiped my face with my
handkerchief.
There were three of us
in the carriage, or should I say four? Three human and one ‘of human’.
Representing the human race there was myself, the man Biggarty and the quiet
gentleman in the corner; from the other category there was the thing devouring
me from inside. I was on my way to Edinburgh to see what the doctors thought
about it. It was a last resort. I knew they were quacks and butchers to a man.
No doubt they’d slice me open to take a look inside and I’d either die immediately of chronic blood loss or some days later from an infection contracted from their filthy instruments. Maybe that would be a good thing. At least it
would save me from the torment of being slowly eaten alive. Either way I had concluded this was my last carriage trip. I would not live to make the return journey.
Biggarty was talking
again, this time about the price of sugar and its market fluctuations during
the past eighteen months. He was so obsessed with his own thoughts he was
oblivious to the world around him - the weather conditions, the darkness, the
bumps in the road, my illness and even the disinterest myself and the other
passenger were showing in what he had to say. Rather unfairly the third
passenger hadn’t stirred for a long time, leaving me to bear the brunt of
Biggarty’s discourse alone.
I’d never met Ponson
Biggarty before this evening but after only a couple of hours in his company I
knew more about him than I did about my closest friend. With his fluffy ginger
moustache and his bulging green waistcoat he sat there candidly revealing his
thoughts on a startling variety of unrelated subjects. He suddenly bored of
sugar and started to talk about venison, then quickly switched to inform us of
his views on local politics making a link I couldn’t begin to fathom.
The sound of the
horses’ hooves changed from a pounding rhythmic thud to a chaotic clatter as we
reached the cobbled streets of a town. Moments later we pulled up abruptly.
Biggarty leant over and shook my hand, saying something about being pleased to
have met me. He threw open the door, letting in a maelstrom of wind and rain,
plus a little light.
‘Get out man!’ I said
impatiently.
The wind gusted in,
removing Biggarty’s hat. He laughed for a moment then he was gone,
slamming the door behind him.
There was a cry from
the coachman and we were off again, racing into the night. With Biggarty gone
and nothing else to occupy myself with, I began regarding my remaining
companion with much more interest. He was sleeping in the corner of the
opposite seat, wrapped in a grey great coat with the lapels pulled up over his
cheeks and a soft brown hat over his eyes. In fact I could see nothing to show
who he was or what he looked like.
I began to miss
Biggarty’s inane chatter now it was gone. It was the kind of evening when your
imagination could run away with you if you didn’t have other distractions. The
shaking of the carriage and the regular music of the horses’ hooves rocked me
into an almost hypnotic state. The thing in my stomach ached and I slipped a
hand under my waistcoat to comfort it. My mind concocted images of my visit to
the surgery the following morning, a tableau of gleaming knives and gleaming
eyes, all eager to cut me open to see what lay inside.
An errant gust of wind
flicked open the little curtain, startling me back to life with an icy cold
draught and throwing a shard of moonlight across my sleeping friend in the
corner. I saw he had moved a little and the sleeve on his right arm had risen
up above his gloved hand revealing a rough patch of skin. The flesh wasn’t
right. It was blistered and diseased. I recoiled into my seat. Smallpox! Then I
gathered my senses. No, it wasn’t smallpox. I’m no doctor, thankfully, but I
could see the skin damage was more extensive than that, almost like a bad burn.
But I’d seen burns before and I knew it wasn’t that either.
The flap of curtain
fell closed again, plunging the carriage back into darkness. Fear took hold of
me. In the darkness my strange companion seemed to be moving. I reached for the
curtain and pulled it aside once more. In the dim light I saw his face!
I screamed in terror.
He was only inches
away, leaning towards me. He had two piercing yellow eyes, no nose, no ears and
a wide laughing mouth. His inhuman, hairless pink face was made from the same
blistered flesh as his arm. What alien creature was this? Had the devil come
for me already? Had I died? Had I gone to hell for my self-obsessions, my
self-pity and all the other vanities I had indulged in during my short and
tragic life?
I roared in terror.
‘Let me out! Let me out!’
The creature darted
forward and grabbed my wrist with a puckered, blistered pink claw.
‘You are afraid?’ he
said in a metallic, mechanical voice that seemed to emanate from within him.
‘I’m petrified,’ I said
shakily.
‘Don’t be.’ He let go
of my wrist and sat back. He slowly opened his overcoat and light flooded the
carriage. Beneath the coat was nothing like I had ever seen before. Instead of
flesh and blood, the creature’s torso was a machine, all glittering lights and
dials and buttons set in a frame of shining steel. Half of him was a living
creature, the other half was mechanical. The light from his body was so bright
it stung my eyes and lit the entire carriage as if it was morning.
‘That doesn’t help,’ I
croaked.
‘Oh, of course not,’ he
replied, closing the coat. ‘I just wanted you to see who I am. I have nothing
to hide and I mean you no harm.’
‘Whether you mean me
harm or not, I will remain terrified.’ I gathered my wits and fought back my
fear. ‘Who are you?’
‘I’m not of your
world,’ said the creature. ‘My ship was damaged and I was stranded here some
time ago. But now I have the necessary parts to get me home again.’
‘A sailing ship?’
The creature cackled.
‘A space ship.’ He jerked his head to one side, lifting a claw to his face as
if shushing me. He looked frightened. He wrapped himself up in his coat and
retreated back into the corner of the carriage.
‘Whoaa!’ roared the
coachman outside. The carriage pulled up quickly and I was almost thrown from
my seat. We stopped. I heard voices, all shouting in self-important tones. The
door was torn open and a soldier stuck his head into the carriage. He was young
and fit and arrogant, with a ridiculous waxed moustache and a tall hat decorated
with gold brocade. Rain dripped from his hat onto the floor of the carriage.
‘Horrible night’ he
barked irritably. ‘Who are you? Who is that?’
‘Who are you looking
for?’ I asked.
‘Something strange,’
said the soldier. ‘A creature, a thing.’
‘Escaped from the
circus?’
‘Maybe.’
I was about to point to
the creature but the thing in my stomach jabbed at me, reminding me it was there,
reminding me I didn’t wish to see anyone suffering, alien or not. If the
doctors were happy to cut me open without reservation, I could imagine what
they might do to my travelling companion. He didn’t deserve that. I had no
reason to believe he was evil. He was just different. If there was room in the world for Ponson Biggarty there was
also room for this poor creature.
I scowled at the soldier.
‘There’s no one here but myself and my friend Biggarty.’ I tried to sound as
dismissive as I could.
The soldier looked at
the creature in the corner, starting forward as if he was going to unmask him.
Then he stopped and thought better of it. He swore under his breath and ducked
back out of the coach. He didn’t close the door and I had to lean out into the
driving rain to get it. I pulled it closed and moments later the coach was
moving again.
The creature uncovered
himself and looked at me with an expression I assumed was a smile but was quite
terrifying, his great mouth widening and its edges curling in on itself
grotesquely.
‘You helped me,’ he
said in his metallic voice, which I now realised came from his mechanical torso
rather than his grinning mouth. ‘Thank you.’
‘They would have hurt
you.’
The creature trained
his golden eyes on my own. ‘You surprised me.’
My laugh was cut short
by a stab of pain. ‘I surprised myself. But I’m ill and I don’t want to see
anyone come to harm.’ I shrugged. ‘Tomorrow I’ll be dead so what do I care whether that was right or wrong?’
‘What's wrong with you?’ asked the
creature, leaning forward.
I opened my coat as he
had done. I pointed to my stomach where the thing lived. ‘You tell me.’
The creature reached
inside his clothes. He pulled out an opaque device with blinking white lights.
Then he leant forward and pointed it towards my stomach, shining a bright blue
beam onto me.
‘Of course,’ said the
creature, understanding. He put away the device then slipped off his seat onto
the floor of the carriage. ‘Close your eyes,’ he said.
‘I won’t.’
‘Very well.’
What happened after
that was a blur of glinting metal and searing pain. The creature tore open my
waistcoat and pushed aside my shirt. Three mechanical tentacles came shooting
out from his torso. One was a blade. Without warning it sliced through my
flesh. Blood spurted across the carriage, hitting the wall. I screamed, at
first with fright but then with pain. I knew I was going to die. I tried to
fight back but the creature pushed me back down into the seat. I saw a second
tentacle rise up in front of me like a cobra. Then it struck, reaching into my
stomach through the incision it had made, feeling around inside me. The pain
was excruciating and I nearly passed out. Then something was torn from me.
Other tentacles treated and stitched and mended. Then they were out of me. I
looked down and saw the gaping wound in my side, still seeping blood. One of
the metallic arms moved over the cut, spraying a foul-smelling liquid that
sealed the skin back together leaving nothing but a thin white scar.
I looked up. The
creature was throwing something out of the window. He sat back down opposite
me.
I couldn’t move. I was
frozen with shock.
‘You should have no
more problems,’ said the creature.
‘What do you mean?’
The creature pointed at
my stomach and I felt around for the familiar pain. It had gone. The thing that
had threatened to take away my life had been removed. My body was my own again.
My life was my own again. I was cured.
The creature lifted an
arm and banged loudly on the roof of the carriage. Outside, the coachman roared to the
horses and the carriage slowed. The creature opened the
door. ‘Goodbye,’ he said. Then before the coach had even come to a halt, he
leaped out into the night.
I pulled back the
little curtain once more and stuck my head out into the lashing rain and encroaching darkness. I shouted
my thanks into the night, for giving me back my life, but there was no one there to hear me.
