Upon a pile of rubble he saw a familiar giant figure. The Angel of the North sat like a chastised schoolboy, its legs drawn up against its chest, its arms down by its sides and its hands resting on the concrete block upon which it was perched. There were manacles at its wrists; it had been bound and left to die.
Simon walked closer, drawn to this curious sight. He was afraid, but his curiosity compelled him to get a closer look, now that he was certain the creature could not harm him.
The Angel’s head was bowed, the cold steel face hidden between its knees. The mighty wings were folded back; rust had broken away from the lattice framework, settling like strange dandruff onto its broad shoulders.
A woman sat at the Angel’s side. She was tall, a giant, but not quite as large as the Angel. She was naked, and across her thighs were draped the bodies of two children, a boy and a girl.
As Simon drew closer to the group, he saw that the dead children were twins: they had the same dark curly hair, pale flesh, and each had a trio of acorns tattooed across his or her narrow back. The boy lay looking up into the woman’s face, staring into her eyes. The girl was draped face-down across the woman’s legs, her buttocks sallow and flaccid.
“What is this?” Simon’s voice sounded strange. The intonation was flat; the words bounced back at him, as if he was bounded by thick walls. “What does it mean?”
The woman turned slowly to face him. Her hair was long and dark. Her breasts were saggy, empty bags laid across her ribcage. Her nipples had been removed. There was no blood, just flat, cauterised flesh. Her body was young, but it was battered, and her face was so very old. She mouthed words to Simon, but he could not hear. He stood and watched the silent mummer’s performance, wishing that he could help, that he could take on at least a fraction of the woman’s burden. If he could help her, he thought, then might not he also be able to help himself? It was an odd thought, based on nothing but intuition, but it felt like the truth.
The woman was crying soundlessly. Tears of blood ran down her lined, wrinkled face. She did not wipe them away. She just clutched her children, her poor dead children, and tried to convey a message he would never understand, no matter how long he remained here.
The Angel did not move.
The Angel was broken.
Simon looked to his right, his gaze drawn by a subtle movement, a flicker at the edge of his vision. The dark earth began to rise and fall, and then to churn. Like the woman’s weeping, the motion was soundless. He watched as the ground shuddered and was torn apart, and something broke the surface. What rolled into view was not unlike the back of a whale, or perhaps the flank of an elephant wallowing in cool mud, and it appeared only for a moment. Then, his mind clear at last, Simon thought it had resembled more the segmented flank of a giant maggot burrowing through the topsoil. Now that the shape was gone, he had the impression of boils and tumours on its hide, splits and cuts in the thick flesh which had oozed yellow fluids…
He turned again to the woman, the bereft woman and her dead twins.
She was mouthing a word — the same word, over and over again. Simon glanced back over to where the earth had been disturbed, but this time there was nothing to be seen. He looked back at the woman. She was still mouthing the word.
He stepped forward, approaching her. Her eyes were white, with no pupils, and her lips were thin, like blades. Silently, she repeated the same word, again and again and again… the same single word.
Doors swung open inside Simon’s memory, and a wind gusted through the empty halls of his mind. It was coming; something was on its way now. So he waited. Bracing himself against this alien earth, watching a giant woman as she repeated a silent warning, and wishing that the Angel would move, just an inch, he waited for whatever was coming.
Underthing.
He heard the word as if it had been spoken, but not by the woman. By someone else, twenty years ago… a girl, a young girl called Hailey.
Underthing.
This was the thing that had taken him, taken them all, the foul creature that had stolen their youth, tainted their future, and torn apart the foundations of their friendship. This was what had called him back to the estate, and finally, after all these years, he recognised the monster they had followed into the Needle, the beast with no name, just a description:
The Underthing.
Simon knew that this was a dream, but if he allowed it to happen, and the events whose aftermath he could see took place, nothing would ever be the same again.
The doors in his mind stayed open, and his worst fears came lumbering through, wearing so many masks that he could not help but realise they were still hiding, still concealing themselves. One mask at a time, piece by piece, Simon began to discover what had been hiding in his darkness.
TWENTY YEARS AGO, WHEN THE DAMAGE WAS DONE
THEY ARE WAITING on the platform, huddled beneath an old tarpaulin they discovered folded under some bushes not far from the old Beacon Hill railway platform. The sheet smells of piss and alcohol; when they found it, Marty said it must have been used as a tramp’s bedding. They all laughed at that, but still they hauled the sheet back to their base camp to use as a cover.
The night is clear. Thin clouds are just about visible, high up in the seamless black of the sky. The moon is somewhere between half and full, and it shines down like a spotlight upon the area where the boys have made their den.
Night birds sing in the dense undergrowth, or hop between tree branches. When they close their eyes and keep quiet, not making a sound apart from their breathing, the boys can almost fool themselves that they are not on the outskirts of a grey conurbation, but somewhere out in the countryside. For a moment, anyway, before the sounds of distant engines and alarms intrude upon their reverie and spoil the lie. Then reality comes flooding back, and something inside them dies.
“Can you hear something?” Brendan’s voice is low, timid. He does not move.
“Like what?” Even Marty sounds cautious. “I didn’t hear a thing.”
“Shush…” Simon pulls the tarpaulin down and peers over its edge, scanning the ground below the tree.
Something rustles in the bushes to the right of their position, making them shake. Then, softly, a low clicking sound begins to build, rising gradually from near silence to a soft, low, ratcheting noise.
“What is it?” Brendan tenses beneath the sheet; they all feel it, the fear that has crept up on them, taking them by surprise. Like the arms of a drunken parent, it clumsily envelopes them, making them feel unsafe.
“I dunno. Sounds like a rattlesnake.” Simon moves slowly across the platform, towards the edge of the plywood base. He lies down on his belly and gently pulls himself towards the platform’s roughened lip, staring down at the ground. Low branches shudder; the sound builds, dies down, and then builds again.
“Captain Clickety,” says Brendan, his voice now not much above a whisper.
“What’s that?” Marty shifts, making the platform creak.
“I dunno. It’s just a name… something from an old nursery rhyme or summat. I remember it from infant school. I think it’s something we used to sing in class. That’s who I saw earlier: Captain Clickety.”
The movement down below ceases but the sound continues, as if once begun it might never stop.
Then, softly and in a childish sing-song voice, Brendan begins to chant: