This Rage of Echoes

  ‘Even radio contact,’ I added. ‘If humans received transmissions from an alien civilization it would remove the need for us to develop our own technologies.’

  ‘Knowing we weren’t the only intelligent life-forms in the universe would be a huge psychological blow. We’d be robbed of our drive. It would destroy us.’

  ‘Destroy us completely.’

  ‘Mason,’ she said, ‘who – or what is the figure you talked to in the cell in Tanshelf?’

  Her eyes had a wide, friendly innocence about them, an open curiosity that didn’t suggest she’d deliberately engineered a flow of questions and answers. A flow that would lead me to revealing the nature of Natsaf-Ty before I could stop my runaway tongue spilling the beans by the vatload.

  Across the garden Eddie dead-headed roses.

  I licked my lips as a thirst kicked in. ‘Isn’t it amazing we’re so cheerful today? In the light of what’s happened?’

  ‘It’ll be the relief of being safe.’

  ‘Something like that.’ I watched her face. She didn’t appear put out that I hadn’t answered her about the ‘figure’ I spoke to in that swimming-pool cell. The same figure that terrified the Echomen; the very same figure that induced in her a catastrophic sense of vertigo. I bumbled along in a careless, chatty way, making a point of being relaxed; even so, my talk took a deliberately different route now. ‘You know, I figure being happy enough to mess about here in the garden with you is too good to be true. OK, the sleep did me good but I didn’t feel in such high spirits when I got out of bed. It was after I’d eaten those chocolate pastries that I started getting …’ – I hunted for the apt word – ‘… giddy.’

  ‘It’s being safe again. No wonder we got a buzz.’

  ‘Some buzz,’ I told her. ‘There were times I became so exhilarated I could have … well, torn my clothes off, then yours, then done something not just wicked but would have had sirens sounding in every psychiatrist’s consulting-room from Alaska to New Zealand.’ I glanced at the CCTV cameras mounted on the walls. ‘To speed up any experiment they’d planned for us it would make sense to feed us drugs in the pastries to blow away our inhibitions.’

  ‘You think so?’

  ‘Forget it, Madeline. I’m just being paranoid. Come on, let’s find out if Eddie has some cold drinks stashed away.’

  I check my wristwatch. Just minutes from noon. And just six hours until all hell would be let loose.

  chapter 39

  Maybe Eddie warmed to us. We still weren’t close to enjoying a taste of his chocolate; however, that night he brought a portable TV into the kitchen from his room. He told us he wanted to share his favourite show with us. It turned out to be a medic drama in Spanish with English sub-titles. Eddie read the lines that appeared at the bottom of the screen aloud.

  ‘“Doctor Lupo, you’re the first man I’ve wanted since my betrothed died …” “Nurse, remember your first duty is to your patients …” “If you don’t make love to me, Doctor, I will kill myself…”’

  I sat on the sofa, Madeline curled up in an armchair. Work in the garden had left us tingling pleasantly. We were relaxed enough to let the trashy drama wash over us. We each had a cold beer. The hot midnight air misted the green bottles, so little dribbles of condensation would peel away from the bottom to drop on to Madeline’s bare skin above her top then roll down the smooth gorge of her cleavage. The beer endowed my mind with that slippery quality when you’re pleasantly drowsy. It skittered around recent memories, taking a glimpse at random before darting to the next one. On screen, Dr Lupo watched the raven-haired nurse slip out of her uniform to reveal legs encased in black stockings. On the screen inside my head I recalled Madeline when we were in the swimming-pool cell together. The first time I saw her she’d been naked. The heat pressed down on me with a weight that became nothing less than physical. Night formed a dark wall against the windows. No stars shone. Scarlett squirmed her way lasciviously into my head the same way she squirmed her naked body against mine just a couple of nights ago. A vivid image surfaced of her red hair falling across her face as she straddled me; those physical feelings: warm, unctuous, tight, lubricious, a wonderful friction as she started that deeply erotic rhythm.

  On TV the doctor freed the nurse’s breasts from her bra. The camera loomed into close-up until a single nipple filled the screen. A soft female Spanish voice cooed lovingly from the speaker. Eddie’s gaze constantly roved from the sex scene on TV to the drawer where he kept his chocolate. Erotic images triggered his cocoa craving. Another glistening bead of water dropped from Madeline’s bottle on to her chest. I took a mouthful of ice cold beer, swallowed; my nerve endings tingled.

  The full-blooded thump lifted Madeline bodily out of the armchair. Beer foamed from the bottle the same time as a scream erupted from her lips. ‘Mason! There’s someone at the window.’

  A white face slammed up against it, two fists pounded the panes. More striking than that were two terrified eyes that stared out of the darkness at us.

  Hands drummed as a voice called out, ‘Mason … Mason! Let me in!’

  ‘Damn,’ I hissed. ‘It’s the woman from the cell. She’s managed to get out.’ I put the beer on the table as I got to my feet. ‘Eddie, what do you do when this happens?’

  He blinked in shock. ‘It’s never happened before.’

  ‘You must be able to talk to people in the house.’

  ‘Phone,’ he managed to say.

  ‘Mason,’ called the thing with Mom’s face. ‘Please let me in.’

  ‘Get away from here!’

  ‘Mason, it’s Naylor. He’s out of the cell. He’ll kill you.’

  From behind her a blur raced out of the darkness. A second later it slammed into the woman’s back, the momentum carried both of them through the window in a splash of crystal as glass panes shattered. The creature that begged to replace my mother had been thrust through the glass first. Shards bristled from her face. Blood spurted into the air. The dive through the glass left Naylor in better shape than the Mom-clone that he’d used as protective shield. His powerful body bounded from the floor. I saw that copy of my face stretched tightly over his skull, distorting the features. Madeline threw herself forward to protect me from the powerful slash of thickly muscled arms. One pass of his hand effortlessly flung her across the sofa.

  Eddie ran to the pine dresser. ‘No, no, no …’ His voice became a warbling screech as he fumbled round his neck for the string that held the key to the drawer.

  ‘Eddie,’ I shouted, ‘phone the house! Tell them Naylor’s out!’

  ‘I warned you.’ Naylor advanced. ‘I’m not letting you take away my ID. This is Corporal Naylor!’ He slapped his bare chest. ‘Give me back my face.’

  ‘I’m not responsible, Naylor. The change is spontaneous. Take it easy. Dr Saffrey’s team need time to find out what’s happening.’

  ‘Fuck you! I know what’s happening.’

  Eddie whimpered as he struggled to get the key into the drawer, the treasure chest of his chocolate.

  I bellowed at him, ‘For pity’s sake, Eddie! Tell the house we need help!’

  Meanwhile, Madeline moaned as she pulled herself upright by the arm of the sofa. At my feet the thing that pretended to be Mom bled on the rug. Naylor pushed his thumb into the side of his mouth as he glared at me. My trait when thinking hard – when planning to act.

  Here it comes, I told myself.

  ‘Naylor. You’ve got to trust me.’

  ‘Trust you! You took my face away. See the scar.’ He flicked the Y-shaped stigmata. ‘I never had that scar. It doesn’t belong to me.’

  ‘Naylor—’

  A huge fist buzzed the air. It connected with the side of my head, knocking me against the TV, crashing it to the floor. Onscreen, the drama played on with the doctor sliding the nurse’s stockings off her long legs.

  I flung a punch back. It didn’t bother Naylor much; hell, did he even feel it?

  ‘Damn it, Eddie, call the house
!’ The side of my head pulsed with agony. ‘Forget the drawer.’

  ‘I want my chocolate!’

  ‘Leave it …’ Another punch from Naylor. The room rolled over. When my eyelids slid back I realized I lay on the floor beside the TV. The thing with my Mom’s face, albeit sliced open by blades of glass, lay beside me.

  ‘Eddie! Phone!’

  Eddie wouldn’t be phoning. Even as he desperately tried to rescue the chocolate bars Naylor grabbed hold of him by the collar. The big man hauled the little man backwards.

  A cry burst from Eddie. ‘I’ve had enough! I want to go home! Let me go home. Please …’

  Naylor didn’t even break sweat. Efficiently, he pulled the string from beneath Eddie’s shirt. Then he worked the string into a slip-knot without taking it from the little guy’s neck. That done he hoisted Eddie into the air, popped the loop over a nail in the ceiling beam and left him to hang.

  Even though the string pulled so tight into Eddie’s neck the woven hemp vanished into his fleshy neck he didn’t let go of the chocolate bar he’d salvaged. It still gleamed there in its pristine silver foil with the cellophane band round it. Eddie spun round at the cord’s end in the centre of the room, his feet thirty inches from the floor. He didn’t kick or spasm as he choked. Instead he drew his knees up until he formed a foetal position, knees tucked up into his chest. Mouth open, eyes closed, he brought the chocolate bar up toward his head. Then with the flesh of his neck turning purple as the crushing force of the noose ripped blood vessels under the skin, he lovingly pressed the flat upper-side of the chocolate to his cheek. How cool it must have felt as his nerves blazed with the agony of hanging there, the narrow cord biting into his neck. It lasted a moment until his heart failed. The man’s limbs suddenly flopped loose; slowly he twisted round, the chocolate bar slipping from dead fingers to the floor.

  All this I saw in maybe five seconds: the time it took for Naylor to turn away from Eddie’s dangling corpse and finish what he aimed to do: kill me. He bent down, that mirror image face of mine contorted with hate; he bunched his fist to punch me as I lay there in a daze. Beside me on the floor, the TV glared garish images of the nurse lying naked on a bed. She teasingly caressed herself, running her fingers up bare thighs, a lascivious smile spread across her beautiful face.

  A punch hit me with the force of a concrete slab toppling from out of the sky. The army had trained Naylor to kill people with his bare hands. I’d get the manual execution. He drew back his fist again, ready to smash my nose. A figure cannoned into him. The Mom clone gripped his wrist. With her free hand she drew a glass sliver from where it had been embedded beside her mouth, then with it gripped between fingers and thumb, she drove it into Corporal Naylor’s eye.

  Dear God, that hurt the bastard. He howled.

  In a flurry of movement he shoved the woman aside, dragged the shard from his eyeball, bringing with it gouts of blood and jelly. The woman lumbered back across the room, knocking the body of Eddie in the process so he swung like a pendulum. Once more, she launched herself on to Naylor.

  With her hands round his head she dragged him away from me, shouting all the time, ‘Mason! Save yourself. I won’t be able to hold him for long. Run!’

  ‘Mom!’ I helped wrestle Naylor down. ‘Don’t let him hurt you.’ The emotion tore holes in me. I could barely speak. ‘Mom. I love you. I’m sorry. I should have stayed away.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ she breathed. ‘It’s not your fault. I’ll take care of this. You make sure you find somewhere safe.’

  Madeline crawled on all fours toward me. Above her, the soles of Eddie’s feet swished across her back as he swung. ‘Mason … she’s not your mother. She only looks like her.’

  ‘Shut up!’ My head spun. ‘Mom?’

  All kinds of bloody crap oozed from Naylor’s eye-socket; not just blood (though there was a crimson abundance of that) but pink slivers of meat along with glistening pearls of jelly. All the time the woman with Mom’s face did her best to hold him down against the floor.

  Panting she shouted, ‘Save yourself, Son. Get out of here.’

  OK, it must be the punches to my head, but it seemed as if my real, flesh-and-blood mother fought to protect me from Naylor. This is the moment to redeem myself, I thought. I screwed up in the swimming pool. My mother had drowned. If only I’d moved faster my real mother would still be alive. Naylor lay flat on his back; his eye bloomed into a gory, crimson mess, but even though the woman sat on his chest so she could hold him down he got his fingers around her throat. Those thick, muscular fingers squeezed. A choking sound spurted from her lips, her eyes bulged.

  The blows left me dazed. I wasn’t rational, but as the Mom thing choked out the words that she loved me, that I should run for my life, and with Madeline trying to pull me in the direction of the cottage door, I tugged at Naylor’s powerful arms. I have to stop him strangling her. This is my chance to make everything right again. At that crazy, God-forsaken, blood-soaked moment I really believed that I’d been given a second chance to save my mother. If I could only get the woman free of Naylor she really would be the woman who gave birth to me, who raised me and my sister, who sacrificed so much to give us a start in life. If only …

  If only is the curse of humanity. If only the hijackers failed; if only nations sign peace deals; if only the firing mechanism in that bomb hadn’t worked….

  With a roar Naylor thrust himself up from the debris on the floor. One of his hands grabbed the woman by the hair. His free hand pushed me backwards. My head cannoned into Eddie hanging by the neck, the blow dazed me and sent Eddie spinning a pirouette at the end of his line. Like the time in the swimming pool, even though I nearly burst my heart I tried to move so fast, it wasn’t nearly quick enough. I saw it all so clearly. The TV still lay on the floor presenting its show to chaos here in the room. The nurse with the long black hair lay on her back. In Spanish she begged for love.

  Naylor knelt up on the floor with the clone’s hair gripped in his hand. A split second later he smashed her head down on to the case of the TV. Once, twice. The screen shattered; so did Mom-thing’s skull. A river of blood discharged from the side of her head into the torn electrics of the TV. It sparked; smoke rolled in a black ball toward the ceiling.

  Naylor rose to his feet. I ran to meet him head on. He lifted his fists to finish me. The first weapon to hand were the remains of the TV that oozed blood and blue sparks from ripped wiring. I scooped up the smoking wreckage then dashed it into his face. Live wires found an earth through the bloody wound in his eye. The electric shock smacked him off his feet.

  To help her climb to her feet Madeline had used the big antique dresser that stood with its back to the wall. She still clung to it near the gaping drawer that contained Eddie’s chocolate.

  Roaring with fury Naylor struggled to his knees. Black burn marks mottled his bloody face. ‘Mason! You’re a dead man!’

  ‘Madeline!’ I gripped the dresser. ‘Push it over!’

  Together we heaved the dresser forward. Naylor saw it coming. He held up his hands to stop it but even his formidable muscular strength didn’t cut it this time. The heavy furniture crashed down on to him, crushing him against the floor. Blood vented from the guy’s mouth. Madeline and I blundered by Eddie’s body dangling from the ceiling. For a moment I had a clear view of the little corpse hand. A Y-shaped scar had begun to form in the skin, just in the same place as mine. Then we pushed by him out into the night air.

  My plan now: to attract the attention of people in the house. But what I found out there in the rose garden killed that plan dead.

  chapter 40

  The time had rolled past midnight when we left the cottage in the corner of the walled garden. An early summer heat filled the inside of this enclosed space with a cloying rose-scented atmosphere that choked your lungs; a scent closer to sun-baked trashcans rather than flowers. Lights shone through the cell doors. Two were wide open. Yet could they have been busted by Naylor even though he had th
e muscles of a pro-wrestler? What I saw lying on the ground didn’t answer the mystery; it added to it.

  ‘Paddy?’ I approached the fallen figure. One look at the crooked neck told me Naylor had snapped the man’s vertebrae. Had Paddy opened the stable doors? Then how could he do that? Surely the key wouldn’t have been available to him. Come to that, why should he do it? Why release a pair of Echomen at midnight?

  Madeline found the answer as she checked the body for life signs. ‘Mason? Look at his face. The shape of his nose is changing.’ Paddy’s hand faced palm upward. Madeline turned it over to examine it in the spilled light from the doorway. ‘Oh my God, take a look at this.’

  ‘I don’t have to,’ I grunted. ‘Paddy had begun to transform. For some reason he freed Naylor and the woman. Naylor killed him.’

  ‘What if he’s hurt Kirk?’

  But right on cue a wail rose from the only cell still locked. Kirk screamed in absolute terror. ‘Mason. Help! It’s back. Mason … Madeline … get it out of here.’ The scream rose in volume. ‘Please. Before it touches me!’

  Opening the outer doors to Kirk’s cell – the kid who looked like I did when I was ten years old – wasn’t a problem. Shoot back the bolts, swing open the timber doors; a cinch. Only behind the outer doors a steel gate barred the way into the cell. Inside, the kid sat on his bunk with his back to the wall, a blanket pulled up to his face, which as a shield had to be as effective as fresh air. Of course, I knew what I’d find. The Echomen who were copies of me also got facets of my mind bundled with memories, thoughts and the ability to sense the presence of Natsaf-Ty, if not see him in his dusty red entirety as I could. The Echo Mason Konrads appeared to glimpse traces of him that perplexed them to say the least. Now it clearly terrified the creatures. Kirk’s eyes bulged in terror as Natsaf-Ty, keeper of the sacred crocodiles, stood in the centre of the cell, arms limp by his side, eyes closed, the tongue protruding slightly through the papery lips. OK, the Egyptian mummy was my imaginary companion from childhood, so why did this figment of my imagination invoke explosions of horror in those clones of yours truly, Mason Konrad?