Even after the warning signs, the adverts in comics, the special films on kid’s TV and Saturday morning cinema, the posters and special school lessons, little Charlie May still managed to wander into an Interstice. No-one knew until his pal Barney banged on Charlie’s front door late that Saturday afternoon, muddy, frantic, sobbing. ‘He went through the loading bay, and then I ‘eard ‘im scream and there was this other noise, like clowns larfin’ and I shoulda gone in, I know I should, but I couldn’t, missus May, I was just too scared…’
So, as the lowering sun raked bloody shadows across the crumbling frontage of R.F. Higgins and Co, (Industrial Fabrications), shuttered since 1987, a tight knot of observers watched a figure in brown overalls, bent under the weight of a metal backpack, amble towards the loading bay. Juliet May, mother to Charlie, squinted a warning look at her gathered brood and clutched at Constable Broom.
‘Charlie’ll be alright, won’t ‘e? I mean, the girl’ll find ‘im, bring ‘im out?’
Constable Broom couldn’t meet her eyes. What could he say? He’d been here, or in places like it, so many times over the years. Waiting with the families of people who had forgotten about the Interstices, or somehow didn’t think they were a problem any more. Waiting until Miss Malloy or one of her Extractor team came out, bowed, bloody. Alone.
It was the Russians, experimenting with military applications into teleportation in 1979, who had poked holes in the barrier between realities. Humanity had come to the greedy attention of a dimension populated by beings to whom the word ‘demon’ was a gross understatement. Great swathes of the Russian hinterland and other liminal zones—the New England coast, most of New York State—became uninhabitable overnight as the monsters flooded in. UN countermeasures mitigated the damage and shut down many of the incursion sites. In England, for example, no-go areas were limited to brown-field sites and abandoned factories. These could be fenced off, safely prohibited.
And the world rolled on. People forgot or marginalised the near-apocalypse, convinced themselves that the Interstices were not as dangerous as the government said. What was the harm in poking around, taking a few photos, maybe making a film?
So the creatures that lurked in the places where the worlds met had a constant supply of new toys to play with. And men like Constable Broom, women like Miss Malloy and her cohort, or the Russian ‘stalkers’, or the American ‘ghost-busters’ would always have work.
Constable Broom squeezed Mrs. May’s arm, tried to muster up a smile. ‘I’m sure it’ll be fine,’ he said. ‘Miss Malloy knows what she’s doing.’
Human senses are not designed to cope with the confluence of inter-dimensional backwash that comes as part of the conjoined merging of realities. Put it another way—it hurts to walk into an Interstice. Angles don’t work the way they should. The air is the wrong colour and smells like burning lard. Even with goggles and headphones filtering out the worst of the sensory punishment, Miss Malloy was all goose flesh and migraine as soon as she crossed the threshold. She knew she would never get used to it. The key was to get in and out quick sharp. No buggering around, lest the demons in her head came out to play with the ones lurking somewhere in the old factory.
‘Right then, you eldritch fucker,’ she murmured. ‘Let’s be ‘aving ya.’
Raising her voice to the rabble-rousing bellow that had made her a terror on the home end of her beloved Leyton Orient, she roared ‘Charlie May! You’re late for your tea and yer ma’s worried sick. I’ve come to bring you home.’
A tight, frantic shriek from the floor below, cut off and replaced with a low, liquid chuckle, gurgling and phlegmy. There was a high-pitched tone in there too, the giggle of a creature who took delight in pain and horror and despair. ‘Clowns larfin’,’ Miss Malloy thought. She’d come across this class of interloper before. They were bad news.
She yanked the energy lance from its shoulder holster and hit the charging switch. It thrummed to life, buzzing like the after-effects of a whack to the funny bone. She gritted her teeth, feeling sand on her tongue. This was no way to spend a Saturday night.
‘I’m coming, Charlie,’ she said, trying to sound convincing. ‘Stay with us.’ And she headed for the ramp to the basement level as the clowns started larfin’ again.
Downstairs there was a little light from the skylights ranged along the ceiling. Enough to see the thing crouched in the middle of the bay. Thankfully, not enough to see it clearly. She would make an attempt to describe it in her post-action briefing, part of her attempt to explain how things had gone so wrong. ‘It was sort of a cross between a crocodile, one of them naked mole rats, the sweepings off a butcher’s floor and something my old dad coughed up the week before he died of emphysema. It kept changing, shape, colour, size. But all the while laughing. That ‘orrible chuckling giggle.’
She could never talk about how it held poor little Charlie May, wrapped in tentacles that had pincers like crab claws and spiny plant-like extrusions. It clutched him like a toy, a little dolly it would squeeze to paste out of spite and love if anyone tried to tear it away.
The boy stirred, lost in an awful waking dream. ‘Charlie,’ Miss Malloy said, keeping her voice stern. His eyes flickered open for a moment. ‘Charlie, my name is Miss Malloy. I’m here to bring you home, love.’
His lips moved. ‘Home,’ he breathed. Then his face clenched in pain as the demon tightened its grip.
‘No,’ the demon said. The laughter stopped. The voice hardened. There was bloody gravel in it, razors and bits of broken bottle. It rattled like a dying washing machine. Angry clown, now. ‘My toy. My little bit of fun. It squeaks so funny when I poke a hole in it.’ It jabbed with a thorned claw. Charlie yelped.
‘That’s enough,’ Miss Malloy said. She levelled her lance, twisted the actuator. It thrummed like a motorbike and spat a long tongue of fire. The flame licked up the demon’s flank. Gobbets of flesh and ribbons of pink steam leapt from the wound. The demon made a noise Miss Malloy would still hear in her nightmares twenty years later. It shook its head, lunged towards her. In the rush, it dropped its little toy.
Good. No need to hold back now. Miss Malloy cranked the lance to full aperture, spotted what looked like a cluster of spider-eyes in the thick mound of the demon’s head, and poured fire into it. It was a soft part and the bolt of energy shot through the creature, skewering it. It thrashed wildly, bellowing with all the ugliness in its black heart. It shrivelled under the onslaught, collapsing to a husk, a cinder, a puff of foul-smelling ash.
Then Miss Malloy and Charlie were alone. ‘Come on, sweetheart,’ she said. ‘Time for tea.’
The crowd around the loading bay pressed forward as Miss Malloy carried Charlie out. Mrs. May rushed up, babbling in relief. She carefully took the boy from the Extractor’s arms, sobbing. She looked down into the face of her boy, her lovely, so nearly-lost boy.
She dropped him, stumbling backwards, her face a Greek mask. ‘That’s not my boy,’ she said. ‘That ain’t Charlie.’
Too late, Miss Malloy realised what had happened. A classic bait and switch. And she’d fallen for it so easily, blithely carrying an enemy over the threshold into the world she had sworn to protect.
The demon that had taken Charlie May, skinned him like an orange and pulled on the rags like an ill-fitting coat stood, wobbling on legs it wasn’t used to, opened its many-jawed mouth and screamed in triumph.
EXCUSES AND HALF TRUTHS 