Silence then. Each of us looking at him. The last glaze of Vurt falling from him, from all of us and the room was suddenly cold, cold and lonely, and full of aftershock.
Pulling out was bad. Real bad. It was a built in-option with low-level theatres but nobody liked doing it It was like admitting defeat. Like you weren't strong, not up to it. Who dared admit that? Even worse, you pulled all the other players out with you. And that was painful. That was like being skinned.
"It was me." Brid's lonely voice. "I was scared, Bee."
"The fuck you were!"
"Bee!"
"That's the point. Tell me. Isn't that the point?"
"That's the point, Beetle," answered Mandy.
"Scribble?"
"That's the point, Bee. That's the point of Skull Shit. It gets you scared."
I was ashamed…
Beetle hit Brid right across the lips.
She was crying in the corner now and if I could've just got out of that chair, well then, maybe I would have done some good deed for a change. Maybe I would have killed the bastard.
…ashamed at my weakness.
Maybe everything. End up with nothing.
The Beetle gathered up every Vurt feather he could find and rammed the whole bunch down the Thing's throat.
At least one of us would have a good night.
Beetle left us then, slamming his bedroom door behind him. Me, the shadow, the new girl, the alien. And everything going wrong and the far off call of the owl.
If they can remix Madonna after she's dead, why can't they remix the night?
Who can answer that one?
Awake, you know that dreams exist. Inside a dream you think the dream is reality. Inside a dream you have no knowledge of the waking world.
It is the same with Vurt. In the real world we know that Vurt exists. Inside the Vurt we think that Vurt is reality. You have no knowledge of the real world.
THE HAUNTING. This is the bitch incarnate. Once that ghost has got hold of you, you just gotta go with her. Back to life, back to the boredom. That's how you feel, right? Except that the Haunting isn't a bad thing. What? What's that the Cat's saying? Haunting isn't bad? Man, the Cat's losing it! Listen up, kittlings.
Only a chosen few get the Haunting. They are the edge riders. Those strange people who can't make their minds up; just what am I? This is their question. Vurt or real? The Haunted are of both worlds; they flicker between the two, like fire flies. What are they? Insect or flame? Both! Believe it. The Haunted are special. They just don't know it yet. The Cat's advice to them; resist the temptation; don't jerk out. Jerking out is giving in. Giving up. Giving up on your true vocation.
The Haunting is calling you; come up, come up! Let me take you higher. The Vurt wants you.
The Cat wants you.
I was. I was sleepless. Locked in my room, writing all this up in the ledger of those days. Living up to my name. Scribbling. Trying to make sense of it all, and trying hard to find a way out.
And now I'm looking back and thinking. And the thinking makes me weary. It's the loss of things that kills us. And of the four humans in that pad that night, only two of us are still living and that's a bad dream come true. That shouldn't happen any more. Vurt should have taken all of our bad dreams and turned them into theatre, brilliant theatre.
I was scribbling late into the ledger, listening with half a mind to the creaking bed through the wall. Beetle making love to Brid, to the sleeping Brid. Despite the arguments, I knew this would happen, knowing the score.
And then a soft knock on my bedroom door. I opened it a crack and there was Brid, anyway, standing there, and the noises of love still coming from the next room.
"Scribble?" she said, her eyes heavy lidded, voice clogged by smoke.
"I'm working, Brid," was all I could manage, still listening to the noises.
"Beetle's with Mandy," she said.
"Sounds like it." I was trying my best to be uncaring, it's just that the shadows in her eyes made me melt.
"Can I come in?" she asked and I let her walk past me into the room. She dropped onto the bed and then started to curl up like a flower's petals when the sun has gone. I went back to my table to carry on with the writing.
Brid was breathing sweetly now, lost in sleep.
I was putting it all down in words, a small desklamp hiding me in a shadow. The glow of my ledger burning softly as I banked up the words, the stories.
"What are you writing, Scribb?" I thought she was asleep and when I looked at her she was comatose and happy, eyes shut, curled up in her own shape. I couldn't see her lips move and then I realised, Brid was dream-talking, putting thoughts into my mind, which is the gift of the Shadows.
Shadows are the thought-readers. They are born with the powers of telepathy and their mind can by-pass the vocal cords, putting words into your brain, and stealing the secrets that you thought were yours alone. Shadowcops are the same, but mixed up with robo, rather than flesh, so they're not as strong; they can't go deep down, into the soul. Still pretty scary though, especially when you're out on a spree. The human Shadow works best when asleep, so that's how you find them, usually, dreaming their dreams of knowledge.
"Don't let it worry you, Scribble," Bridget thought.
"I'm not."
"I was just wondering… you're always writing. What's it all about?"
"Everything," I answered, out loud.
"You don't have to talk," she said, except that the words just formed themselves into my mind. I looked at her again, her sleeping face, and I knew what she meant.
"This is weird," I thought. Just thought!
"What do you mean, everything?"
"Everything that happens."
"Between us?"
"Sure. The Stash Riders."
The Beetle called us this, and it stuck. He was making life into a kind of adventure, I guess. Just like a kid, but what's so wrong with that? That's the score with Cortex Jammers; they just want to be kids again.
"It's our story," I thought.
"That's nice," she answered.
And then a deep silence. Just the sound of her breathing in my head and the soft petals falling off my alarm clock as it shed the minutes away until morning.
I was back to writing but nothing came out, nothing good, so I stopped, took a cigarette, a Napalm filter, and watched the smoke drift for a while. And petals falling from the clock. Stuff like that. All quiet now from the next room.
Brid's voice coming into my mind again; "Is it all right if I sleep here, Scribb?"
"You've got a bed of your own."
"Not tonight, Scribb. Not tonight."
I took another few hard drags whilst forming the words in my mind.
"That's all right, Scribb. It's a pleasure."
Shit! Some real dirty thoughts about Brid had flickered across my mind. When the shadowgirl was this deep, I had no secrets left."
"That's right, Scribb. No secrets."
"Give me a chance, Brid!" I said. Out loud, not thinking.
Brid's voice in my head again; "It just comes in pictures. Pictures and shapes."
"I'd rather just talk."
"Sure. You don't mind me sleeping here?"
Why should I? She looked real beautiful in sleep, and the world was waiting for me to climb right on in there, curling up, losing myself in all that drifting smoke.
"Thank you," she thought.
Like I said; no secrets.
"I just wanted to thank you," I told her sleeping face. "For taking the rap for me. You know, with the Beetle, in the Skull Shit."
"We all jerk out sometimes."
"You took the blame, Brid."
"I guess I like you."
"More than Beetle?"
"Don't ask. You'll get hurt."
"I saw Desdemona in there. In the Vurt."
"I guessed that."
"She was in such pain. I couldn't stop pulling out. But I couldn't admit it, not to the Bee."
"You like that man too much, Scribble."
"So do you."
"You're thinking about her again." She meant Desdemona. Bridget's words floating into my mind, like a mist over the pale shape of Desdemona; "Can't you forget her, Scribble?"