We walked home together. She was a pretty wee la.s.s - eleven years old, but mature for her age. I was but a step into my teens, less mature to be certain (not so much a b.u.mp in my front but a tilt in my kilt), but of an age when I was starting to take an interest in the fairer s.e.x. And Mair, even then, had cheekbones you could hang your sporran on.

She led me across the stream, taking my hand with a natural innocence.

"I should be away to my home," I told her.

"It'll no be dark for another hour," she told me, "and there's something I want to show you."

Twenty-three years later we were taking that same walk, still holding hands in that child-like, innocent way.

"Do you remember that day, Jamie?"

"As if I could ever forget."

"When you first saw that hut..."

"Mud were singing 'Lonely this Christmas' on the radio. It looked like a magic hut, something you'd see on a Christmas card. Mind, I was only thirteen at the time."

The snow hid the fact that it was a rough mud-hut that was falling apart. Still, she led me inside. A fire was dying in the corner, but she soon revived it with twigs. Then, pulling out a swiss knife, she expertly gutted the rabbit, speared it with a stick and roasted it for us.

"You've a deft touch with that knife... for a la.s.sie."

"Eat, Jamie Teale," said she, placing strips of rabbit upon an enamel plate. The room became warm, pleasantly so. I'd no mind to leave, but time was getting on.

"There'll be other times, Mair... will there no?"

She just smiled at me.

"Away to your bed, Jamie Teale. And we'll meet here at midday tomorrow."

These many years later the hut had collapsed, leaving only a sad, skeletal construction.

"It's smaller that I remember."

"You were a wee Scot back then, of course it looks smaller now."

"I never thought I'd come back."

She just flashed me that all-knowing smile, but her mouth was no longer a part of her face. The eyes were dark, hollow and worried. Her mouth took on a life of its own, finding amus.e.m.e.nt in spite of the misery of its mistress.

"Oh, you knew you'd be back. You've known it all this time. Think back, Jamie, clear your mind: remember - then know why we had to return."

And the fog which clouded my mind blew away like tissue on the wind, transporting me back in time. I held my ground, yet the years peeled backwards. I watched the skin on Mair's face get smoother, the bones reduce in size, the b.r.e.a.s.t.s sink as though punctured... and she saw the same regression in me: the traces of grey leave my hair, the receding hairline disappear. The darkness of night faded into the brightness of day and the hut reverse-collapsed... it was 1975 and we were both youngsters again.

"Not like this," I said,"We can't face it as children again."

"We have to. It has to be just the same, don't you realize that?"

The body of a child but the voice of a woman - yet this was no illusion. "Into the hut, Jamie. We must go through it all exactly as we did before."

A fire burned in the corner, the bones of a long-dead rabbit lay beside it; unwashed enamel plates, the remains of a simple feast - 1975... today!

"Take my hand, Jamie."

"Mair..."

"Take it. It has to be just right. You can't change the script at this late stage."

She tilted her head towards me, her lips gently brushing mine.

"Softly, Jamie Teale."

We stepped outside, soft footfalls lost to the sound of the gentlest of breezes.

Soft lights, effervescent colours, an aroma of something sweet.

I turned to Mair.

"Wee La.s.sie, no!"

Her mouth opened into an impossibly wide chasm, her neck sank into her shoulders as her arms and legs seemed to weld themselves together: worms and maggots wriggled within her mouth, her eyes dried out, her skin toughened and stretched into a leather-like texture: she toppled forward, face hitting the ground, shattering like a gla.s.s doll... just so many pieces of Mair. Just so many pieces.

A slap stung the side of my face.

"Clear your mind, Jamie. Deny what you are seeing. Deny it Jamie, deny it."

A degree of normality returned... in as much as it could under these circ.u.mstances. We headed for the glen. The gra.s.s chittered like dying birds at our feet, a warning to undo the regression; an image of Mair floated before me, evilly grinning like a chipmonk with a banana jammed sideways in its mouth.

"Awa' wi' ye, images o' the minds eye," cried I, and Mair's mouth shrivelled to the most worried of frowns.

The Glen spread before us, white as the Christmas that Bing Crosby had always dreamed of, s.p.a.cious and unfettered as the surface of the moon. Just as it had been... is!

And again it came... black, cloudlike, dense as a nebula. In panic I reached for her shoulder.

"Stand your ground, Jamie. We'll no run for it this time.

And it span, twisted and snaked towards us like a stubby tornado. In a moment of defiance, Mair shook her fist at it... and in the next we were engulfed, tumbling end over end as though entrapped in a spin-drier. Our hands were wrenched, we parted, span away from each other as the tumbling Nemesis took us from our world.

I looked down upon my ten-year-old self; sitting atop the stairs, a plate of haggis before me. The meat was moving, pulsating, expanding. Then it burst, spewing forth a teeming colony of maggots.

Then I was eighteen, a gla.s.s of Glenfarclas in my fist; my first drink as a man. The liquid bubbles, a sharks head breaks the surface.

Back a year: Seventeen-year-old Jamie Teale is about to have s.e.x with a thirty-two-year old widow. She is naked upon the bed, legs spread, head tilted demurely to one side. I have a huge erection and fear that I will come too soon. I slide over her naked flesh, her hand reaches for my c.o.c.k, I begin to lower myself...

And her c.u.n.t bursts open, fangs protruding, lethal and sharp. A daemon's head grins at me from within.

"Talk about a h.o.r.n.y c.u.n.t, hey Jamie!"

Then the nightmare ends and I am face-down in the snow.

"Jamieee!!"

A tall man has her by the hand, he is pulling her away.

The car!

I must stop them getting into the car.

I run but they seem to get further and further away: climbing into the car, the engine starts. It pulls away but I do not stop running after it, for I know that it will not go far.

With a sense of destiny I watch it turn the corner, hit a patch of black-ice and spin out of control... spinning, spinning - into the path of the bus.

Sickening crash, tearing metal... the car is thrown across the road like a kicked football. The man - Mair's Father - is dead, but Mair, trapped within, is in a state almost worse than death. But if she can just reach out to me... if she can just...

I crawl to the wreck on hands and knees, peer inside. Mair's head is tilted back, blood trickles down from an ear. I reach out... "Take my hand, Mair. For G.o.d's sake, take it!"

This time she must reach out to me; I can never come this far again.

"MAIR!!!"

The eyes flicker, a rush of warm air enters the cab, breath steams from her mouth.

"Take my hand, Mair. This is your last chance; I'll never be able to get this far into your head again!"

She groans, her eyes flicker open.

"Cold."

Her arm moves, fingers uncurl.

"That's it, Mair, reach for me."

Her arm moves, snaking towards me. I am being pulled backwards.

"Mair..."

Fingers connect, palms. We hold hands and are drawn from the vortex together, spinning backwards... but this time I have brought her out of the void with me.

Now she can wake up.

Mair is learning to walk again on limbs that have not been used for more than twenty years. The Doctor's are amazed at this miracle: a woman who has been in a coma since childhood, now awakes. She is alert, and she knows ME: for over twenty years I have been her only friend. Now that friendship has given her her life back.

There IS a way out of the cold, dark void.

[Originally published in Kimota 13, Autumn 2000].

ALTERNATIVE HOSPITAL.

by Neal Asher.

Drunk as a skunk Gary may have been, but he was walking in a straight line down the centre of the pavement, no deviation, hands thrust into his jacket pockets and a rollie stuck to his bottom lip. By the time he had covered the four miles to home he reckoned to be sober enough to get his key in the door on the first or second stab, then it would be a stack of bacon sandwiches and a cup of coffee, and either Terminator or Aliens on the video. No going to bed. He preferred the sofa now. What he did not reckon on was the Jim's Cosworth mounting the pavement twenty feet behind him. Jim had offered him a lift but Gary had told him to forget it since the guy had already fallen off his bar stool once that evening. In retrospect he would have liked to have been inside the car. The impact that snapped his right leg was subsequently followed by the impact of the back of his head on the windscreen. Consciousness had fled by the time he landed in the ditch.

"You're okay now. You're going to be alright."

Gary had his doubts. The roof of the ambulance showed a tendency to travel in a different direction from the ambulance itself.

Blackout.

"Everything's fine."

Bright lights and aseptic walls. The taste of vomit in his mouth. The back of his head felt as if his skull had been stripped away and his bare brain dipped in salt. His leg broadcast severe injury but did not seem to hurt as much. It felt about the size of a telegraph pole.

"We're going to put you out now."

Gary had a ridiculous image of them carrying him outside the hospital and putting down a saucer of milk for him. Surgical spirit and a rubbing at his right arm. He did not feel the needle go in. Fine. He waited for oblivion, and as is always the case, he missed it when it came.

"Gary? Gary, are you alright?"

Gary smiled weakly up at Jill and repressed the urge to give the obvious answer. She had a habit of asking stupid questions and making unreasonable demands. Not much longer now until the final settlement. It had only taken five years.

"Is there anything you want?"

How about a lack of pain, an unbroken leg, and a wife who did not have a coin-operated v.a.g.i.n.a? They spoke for about ten minutes, not to each other, but to some no-s.p.a.ce that hung between them. When she was gone there were drugs, there was food he could not stomach, hazy boredom, and a terrible fear of the bedpan. The eight pints he'd had the night before had their usual effect on his bowel and there was no escape. He swore thereafter to eat as little as possible while he was in hospital as it had been just as bad as he had expected. Then he slept, hoping it would all go away. A week pa.s.sed and he learnt to use crutches. Then one morning he woke with the same mumbler in the bed opposite him, but something had changed.

Something was horribly wrong.

Anne was on the home run when her mobile started its high-pitched bleeping for her attention. She stopped and leant against an oak tree to catch her breath for a moment. It was just like those b.a.s.t.a.r.ds to catch her now. They knew she always went for a five miler at this time in the morning.

"Anne Grey here," she said into the phone.

"We have an event report to East Ess.e.x Unit immediately."

"Is that you Mike?"

"Yes, it is, Anne, and this is a Code One. We do have an event and this is not a drill. I repeat: This is not a drill."

Anne felt her stomach turn over and the surge of adrenaline made her light-headed. She pocketed the phone and sprinted the last mile to home. On reaching the gravel drive before her cottage she checked her watch. Five minutes. Not bad considering the amount of muscle she carried. In a few minutes more she was behind the wheel of her Jaguar XJS and heading at top speed towards the A12. A screen on the dash traced out her route for her. It was continually updated by the latest traffic information.

Anne turned on her car set and spoke: "Anne here do you have any details yet?"

"We've got a few bits and pieces coming in," said Mike. "I'll fill you in as I receive them. How long before you get here?"

Anne checked the figure at the side of the screen. "Twenty-six minutes barring mishaps."