Decay Inevitable

The bar had been emptied. Once it was clear that Sigourney Weaver had someone in her clutches, widespread calm had broken out. The bartenders reappeared and unlocked the doors, and people filed into the foggy twilight, chatting about where they were going to spend the rest of their evenings. Now a few bartenders were clearing away glasses and wiping down the tables. Bouncers were gathered by the doors, arms folded, nodding apocalyptically. Brad Pitt was sitting on the edge of the stage with a half a lager and his pants unbuttoned to allow his beer belly a breather, crooning to one of the cleaners who was gazing at him, a bucketful of cigarette ends in her hands.

“We’ll come to that, presently,” Sadie said. “In here, little man, you are no longer the boss. This is my playground. My sandpit.”

“How long have you been in a coma?” Will asked. Sadie laughed again. Maybe she was laughing because Will was studiously avoiding the obvious question. Maybe she was laughing because she found his questions to be piffling and trivial. Whatever, it was pissing Will off.

“I’m not in a coma, chucky-egg. It’s you who’s in a coma. You and all the other veg-heads floating around here.”

“You’re deluding yourself.”

“Am I?”

“Everyone here...”

“Everyone here is in a coma. Except me.”

Will looked around him, bored by the argument. “Tell me what happened to Elisabeth. Is she here?”

Sadie took a sip from her glass and rearranged the sac on her knees. The homunculus within rolled onto its back and gazed at her through the milky suspension with pale eyes. “I told you, we’ll come to that. When I say.”

Will turned the frosted glass in his fingers, spreading a base of condensation across the scarred bartop. He said, “If you’re not in a coma, what are you doing here?”

“Putting the fear of God up my subjects.”

“Subjects?”

“Yes. Here, I’m important. If I was a cheese here, I would be a big one.”

“I don’t get it.”

Sadie winked and rubbed the shiny skin of the sac. It wrinkled and gurgled beneath her fingers. “You did get it though, didn’t you? Remember? In the church? Naughty boy.”

Will forced himself to concentrate on one thing at a time. He felt as though he were sinking under the weight of so much innuendo and concealed threat. If he was going to be of some use to Cat or Eli, wherever they were now, then he had to tread water. “Why are you so different?” he tried again. “What marks you out as something special?”

She said, “I was an Insert once. Like your friends. One of the first. A guinea-pig. They lost me as soon as they put me in. I’ve been lording it here ever since. I’m a rare bird, Will. I can cross over. I have that talent thanks to the men in the white coats and the big beards. A failed experiment, but I’m not complaining. I didn’t go in quite as far as they were hoping, or needing, me to go. But, as I say, I’m not complaining.”

“And what about George and Alice. Relatives of yours?”

“Ah yes,” Sadie said. “George and Alice. No. Not relatives. That was me. A welcoming party for you. How’s your arm?”

Will stiffened. “What’s all that about?”

“Well, a girl’s got to eat, hasn’t she?”

“What the fuck are you talking about, Sadie?”

She licked her lips at him. “What is it, you think, keeping our child here sustained? Nourished? Gold top milk and a pot of puréed chicken and sweetcorn?”

“It’s not my child. I don’t know what sickness has got into your brain, but it’s got to stop, Sadie.”

“Will, meet Cherub, Cherub, meet Will. Daddy’s home.”

The curl of grey flesh twisted. A smile curled its lip.

“Come home with me,” she said.

“Fuck off, Sadie. I’m not scared of you.”

Sadie widened her eyes. “Jesus, Will. You should be.” She tapped a nail against her teeth; her other hand absently stroked the umbilicus joining her to her progeny. “Tell you what, let me show you why you need to be scared. There’s plenty to be scared of, you know.”

She reached behind her, for one of the puling idiots begging to be put out of his misery: an elderly man whose spine was a shattered bow sticking through the sheepskin coat on his back gibbered his appreciation. He placed a gnarled hand in hers at the same time that she caught hold of Will’s sleeve.

A blink: the bar resolved itself into the twisted, burning carriage of a passenger train. Commuters lay around the carriage in various states of physical collapse. There was a lot of blood. The old man was now lying half in, half out of the train, his spectacularly ruined back shredded apart on the mangled remains of the window. Will watched as he turned his face to them, his shattered teeth bared in a grateful leer, bloody bubbles bursting on his tongue as he fought for breath.

“Now,” he begged.

Sadie leaned over and covered his mouth with hers. She drew breath so violently that it seemed half the old man’s jaw was sucked between her lips. His body jerked twice and was still. She let him fall. The scene disintegrated around them as she let go of the man’s hand.