Jason, a good friend of mind, lost his job as the result of a pointless row. He was working for the council, answering phone calls from the public. A few of the senior management people had started complaining about the way he dressed. His clothes were colorful and stylish enough to have some of the gray people muttering about “flamboyance.” Perhaps Jason was too stubborn for his own good. Or perhaps he felt that, after four years of successful work, he deserved more acceptance from his colleagues. Either way, he tried to shame the management into an apology by offering his resignation. They accepted it.
I didn’t have problems like that at work, but sometimes the general level of unhappiness in the company was frightening. Our salaries had been frozen indefinitely, while mishandling of computer files had cost the company a fortune. The directors blamed the recession; but the recession didn’t force them to be arrogant, inept and cynical. Nor, indeed, to be absent most of the time.
At the end of that week, I went out to the Nightingale. They’d redecorated it in black wood-chip wallpaper, with black leather seating. The effect was deadpan and oppressive. I brought someone back to the flat. He was a quiet, sensitive guy in his mid-thirties, with a strong Back Country accent. It was more for company than anything else. We were both quite drunk. He used amyl nitrite in bed, which only seemed to distance him. I tried it, but it just made me sweat. Probably I was too tired. When he climaxed his body was immobile, like a statue melting in the rain.
He was asleep when I woke up and saw a figure at the foot of the bed. It seemed hardly more than an outline, and it was somehow too jagged, stretched-looking, like some kind of satirical cartoon. It was just watching. Perhaps waiting for something to happen. That was when I first thought: the antipeople. I shifted closer to the sleeping man, touching his arm, his shoulder, his hair. But the cold feeling remained. In the morning we both felt a bit awkward, and didn’t arrange to meet again.
A few days later, Alan drove round with some things I needed from the house. Because my new flat was so small, I’d left a lot of possessions behind. I’d have to collect them soon, before Alan moved out. He hoped to be with Paul in New York by the end of the year. We circled around each other nervously, able to hug but not kiss. He’d already said that I could sleep with him again if I wanted to. Paul wouldn’t mind—after all, he’d been seeing Paul for three months while I was still in the house. Moving out had reduced the stress, enabled me to get some kind of grip on things. But underneath, I still felt the same way.
It didn’t happen until Alan was on the point of leaving. I kissed him fiercely and started to unbutton his shirt. “Lie down. Please.” It took less than fifteen minutes, but it was as good as any sex I can remember. Afterward, we lay there and rested, no longer touching—as always when we slept together. Then I saw the creature sitting over him. It was probing his face with its narrow fingers; the nails were broken. Then it bent farther down and pressed its teeth against his arm, just above the wrist. The creature looked a bit like me, but not very much. I hope.
For a few seconds I wondered if I should just let it happen. It wasn’t that I wanted to hurt Alan. But… why should I protect him, after what he’d put me through? Then I reached out, grabbed the pale thing’s shoulder and pulled hard. My finger sank into the stale flesh and hooked on the bone. The creature pawed at my arm, scratched it with one ragged finger. The skin turned white and hard. Then I was alone with Alan. He opened his eyes and reached for me.
After he’d gone, I put a record on the stereo. Leonard Cohen sang: Now I greet you from the other side of sorrow and despair / With a love so vast and shattered it will reach you everywhere. I poured myself a glass of gin and tried to think. Was human love enough to motivate life, to give everything a meaning? Or was it so debased that the only source of meaning was something above humanity? I didn’t know. In fact, I didn’t trust people who claimed that they knew. The scar on my arm was numb; it seemed to be frozen. About a week later, the strip of dead skin fell away.
From the window in my flat, I can see out beyond the garages, to where a semicircle of trees forms a natural skyline. There’s a cedar, a few birches and a pine tree of some kind. It makes me think of forests, green places full of shadow and drifts of leaves; places where there are no people.
The last few weeks of that summer were close and humid. The newspapers were full of road accidents, murders, rapes. I can remember walking through the city center and seeing the crowd of people suddenly blur and sway, as though they had all started to dance. Alan and I kept in touch; he was under increasing stress, not knowing whether Paul really wanted to be with him in the future. He was holding onto a job and a home while hoping that he’d be asked to leave them behind. He said he still missed me. We were uneasy with each other, not really knowing what to say or to hope for. For me, it wouldn’t have been hard to forgive him. The most difficult thing would have been to trust him.
In spite of this uncertainty, the glare of madness was fading in my head. I was drinking less heavily, though that had never been the core of the trouble. Many people helped me, Mends and strangers; and while nobody’s help was crucial in itself, the total effect got me through. There’s more humanity around than I’ve tended to think. It’s not human nature that gives power to the vultures and maggots; it’s only human culture. Dead things like money and authority.
The last time I saw one of the antipeople was in August. It was outside the Nightingale, between two and three a.m. on a Saturday night. I was drunk and on my own, wishing I had someone to share the taxi fare with; or even pay it myself, but not have to go home alone. Opposite the Hippodrome, I saw a body crumpled against a wire fence. Somebody was kneeling over it. As I crossed the road, the figure reared up and gave me an unmistakable look that meant Go away. This one’s mine. When I saw the face of the man on the ground, my skin turned cold. It was Jason, and he was bleeding from a deep cut above one eye. The creature’s long fingers were pressed against the wound. I saw them turn red and stiffen like tiny pricks. They were hollow.
For a moment, I hesitated. It seemed impossible to change what was happening. Then I lurched toward them, almost falling, and grabbed at the thing’s hair. It felt like a mesh of dry plastic threads. I was afraid the hair would pull out and leave me with no grip. But he tilted backward and twisted around to face me, his arm stretching before the fingers came loose from Jason’s face with a kind of tearing sound. The creature’s own face was flat and expressionless, with eyes like holes in the ground. He fell against me, knocking me over; when I picked myself up, he’d gone.
Jason was lying very still, but he was breathing. One arm was pinned under his body. His face was like a copper mask, melting at the nose and forehead. I shook him gently; his eyes opened. “David,” he said. “My God. What time is it! I must… I got beaten up. Did you see them?”
I shook my head. “You’ll be all right. Take it easy.” He stood up, then wavered and nearly fell. I caught hold of him, and we hugged each other for a few moments. He was wearing a crimson silk shirt which was dark with sweat. The cut in his forehead was like a jewel, and suddenly I thought of Douglas Fairbanks as Sinbad in a film I’d seen as a child. Still holding onto him, I steered Jason across the road and down the sidestreet to the club entrance. They were about to close up, but I told them what had happened and one of their staff went to get some tissues and ice. They knew Jason. He sat down on the doorstep, quite calmly. There was hardly anyone about. The night was blue and warm.