Cold to the Touch by Simon Strantzas sample by Dark Regions Press

Dark Regions Press —2012—

FIRST TRADE PAPERBACK EDITION Text © 2012 by Simon Strantzas Cover and interior art © 2012 by J. D. Busch Publisher, Joe Morey ISBN: 978-1-937128-38-8 Interior Design by Stephen James Price www.BookLooksDesign.com

Dark Regions Press PO Box 1264 Colusa, CA 95932 www.darkregions.com

Also available from Dark Regions Press: Beneath the Surface Nightingale Songs

Contents Foreword

Under the Overpass

The Other Village

The Uninvited Guest

A Seed on Barren Ground

Writing on the Wall

A Chorus of Yesterdays

The Sweetest Song

Pinholes in the Black Muslin

111

Fading Light

127

Poor Stephanie

135

Like Falling Snow

141

Hereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s to the Good Life

157

Cold to the Touch

175

Afterword

193

Under the Overpass I heard the knock at my mother’s door just after I had arranged my soldiers into formation, ready for battle. I sighed and bounded up the stairs from our basement recreation room to see who might be waiting. At that time of day, the early afternoon of late summer, I knew it could only be someone looking for me, as my father was at work, and my mother was busy with her television. And indeed it was; Jacob, Anne, and Shaun were waiting there, mounted on their bicycles, their skin already bronzed and hair lightly bleached. They looked at me and Jacob said, “We’re going to the Brookbanks trails. Are you coming?” Was I coming? How could I resist? “Trails” is what we called them, but they were hardly that. More accurately, they were a set of footpaths around the Don Valley, the river that cut through our community. The whole area was wooded and impossible to build on, so the planners instead called it “Brookbanks Park” and made it an attraction for the local residents. It was far from being a forest, but it was the closest we had ever come to seeing one. Living in the middle of the suburbs, we didn’t have access to anything beyond asphalt and concrete, so to put our tires on hardened mud and travel beneath the trees made us feel different, reminded us that nature was not some imaginary thing found only in picture books. The trip took at least twenty minutes, and it required riding around the local mall and across the high school grounds. Even in the summer teenagers sat there by the locked doors and smoked cigarettes, and I could feel their incensed eyes when the four of us came rushing through on our way to Cassandra Boulevard. “I hate this part,” Anne said, and brushed her chestnut hair off her face. We boys just smiled at each other knowingly. Cassandra would take us straight into the valley, and its steep slope 1

Under the Overpass would be a relief after our long trek of peddling. All we had to do was push off and coast down to the bottom where the entrance to Brookbanks Park was. The speed at which we would descend, however, often frightened Anne. “What you afraid of?” I once asked her. “Everything moves too fast.” I couldn’t admit it, but deep down I agreed. We all had bicycles of the era, thin-wheeled ten-speeds built more for speed than versatility, and on such a steep decline we had to pray that no car might be driving too far out of its lane, or that no pedestrians would appear. We would never be able to stop in time. I found it impossible, however, to speak those kinds of fear aloud. I still do. Yet I can’t deny the magical feeling of wind in my face. I could barely keep my eyes open but I didn’t care. That rush of the world passing by me was also the closest I have ever come to perfect happiness. It’s ironic, when I think back to it now, how I no longer enjoy the feeling that the world is moving past me. Now, it only evokes the fear I should have felt then. Perhaps it’s being paid back, with a life’s worth of interest. Up ahead of us I spotted through squinted eyes a white shape in the cluster of bushes that marked our destination. I tried to say something to Jacob in front of me, but he couldn’t hear me over the sound of air rushing past. Instead, he continued to weave his bicycle down the asphalt for no reason other than to heighten the thrill. We slowed as we came closer to it—our brakes screeching as worn rubber pressed against chrome, our feet jutting to maintain control— and I was able to open my eyes enough to realize it was a boy I had never seen before. He looked a few years younger than any of us, mounted on an old yellow bicycle, and he merely stared as the four of us sped towards him. Even Shaun’s antics of stopping his bicycle at the last possible second did not cause him to flinch Instead, he stood in front of the opening to Brookbanks Park, in effect blocking us from it. “Can we get by?” Jacob asked. The boy looked at us, looked at me, and I noted to myself how pale he was. His skin was so thin I could see the blue spider web of veins along the side of his face. When he spoke, his voice sounded just as weightless. “Should I come with you?” 2

Simon Strantzas I looked at his bicycle. “Will you be able to keep up?” He nodded. I felt uneasy. There was something strange about the boy, something that made me nervous. Whatever it was, Jacob didn’t feel it. Or, if he did, it didn’t concern him. I never did find out the answer for sure. “What’s your name?” he asked. “Russell.” “Okay, Russell. Follow us.” The change in scenery was instantaneous, and if it wasn’t for the sound of the highway running by a few hundred meters away, I would have sworn we were in a forest. The trees were at least a few stories tall, the leaves just beginning to hint at the colors they would later turn when autumn arrived. The air was damp, and it had the sweet smell of nature, which masked the stench of automobile exhaust we had ridden through to get there. The walking path beneath our wheels was the only thing that broke the illusion of our escape from civilization, at least until we travelled far enough to reach the river. Choked over and over again by development, the Don River was by then barely a trickle running through our town. This was the time before the environmentalists, when a city could take a natural river and replace its banks with concrete. Within Brookbanks Park, the river had not yet been so ruthlessly destroyed, but the water that moved through its bed was a fraction of what it had once been, and was barely enough to support the few plants that dared to grow near it. But, though it lacked a deathbed of concrete, the river did have one accessory not provided by nature: a long pipe, about four feet tall, which let the water run beneath the highway overpass and out of our community. I had already passed it to continue along our normal route when I realized no one else had followed. I turned around to hear what they were talking about. Shaun was speaking. “... down there. I saw him with a bunch of older kids.” “What’s through there?” Anne asked him. Shaun’s eyes flitted around, and then he looked down at his shoes. “I don’t know,” he stuttered, and adjusted his glasses. “I just know they go through it a lot.” They were talking about the pipe. “Go through that? We can’t go through that,” I said, though I couldn’t pinpoint the reason for my dread. “It’s too muddy to ride through,” was the best I could muster. 3

Under the Overpass Jacob let his bicycle drop from under his thick legs and ran down into the riverbed. His feet sank about an inch into the mud, but he was able to lean into the pipe and look down it. “It’s all concrete, and there isn’t much water in there.” He ran back up to join us. “We can ride through it.” “I don’t know,” I said. “Can’t we just do what we always do?” “You don’t have to come,” Jacob said. “But even little Russell’s coming. Right, Russell?” Everyone looked at the pale boy. He didn’t seem enamored with the idea, but he said nothing about it. I could tell he was terrified, though, even if no one else could, and maybe that is the reason I agreed to the plan. We took our bicycles down one at a time, and then moved them into the pipe before getting in ourselves. Anne seemed to have trouble with hers, and asked Jacob for help. I found this surprising; Russell had easily moved his own bicycle, and she was certainly the stronger of the two, but nevertheless Jacob stepped once more into the mud to hoist her bicycle. She thanked him, but I don’t think he heard her over his urge to explore. The inside of the pipe was tagged with graffiti, strange symbols in red and black that didn’t mean much to me. I think there were some crude drawings of nudity, or at the very least some of the vilest curse words I’d ever seen, but I did my best to avoid looking at them. Especially the former. It made me feel ... uncomfortable. Anne, though, was mesmerized. “I’ve never been somewhere like this. Jacob, where do you think the pipe goes?” He shrugged, and peered down it some more. “Wherever it goes.” She played hurt by the answer, though I’m sure I saw her secretly smile. I turned to Russell. “Have you ever been through here before?” The boy didn’t turn to look at me. Instead, he looked down the length of the pipe into the darkness, his thin blonde hair dancing in the breeze that ran though. “Not yet.” “Now’s the time,” Jacob said, and stood his bicycle. He also stood, and then mounted it, though without headroom he had to remain hunched over its handlebars. He rode through the slight stream of water, pushing himself with his feet off the sides of the tunnel. Slowly, 4

Simon Strantzas he moved in the deeper shadows of the tunnel. The rest of us looked at each other, and then Shaun stood his bicycle and followed, Anne close behind. I looked at Russell who sat shivering. Then, he too stood his bicycle. “You don’t have to go,” I said, speaking before I knew I was doing so. “We—I mean you can go back ... if you want to.” The boy shook his head. “I can’t,” he said. I understood, though I wished I didn’t. I followed a few feet behind him. The tunnel darkened around me immediately, and the only light I saw ahead was the tiny circle of the other end flickering as four bodies passed back and forth in front of it. The air was damp and cold, and though I couldn’t see him I could hear the sound of Russell’s wheels slicing through the water ahead of me—or perhaps the noise was from my own as they kicked up a spray of stagnant water. The smell of the place was musky and stale. The voices of the others carried back, but I couldn’t make out their words over the sound of my bicycle and of my feet as they echoed against the sides of the concrete pipe. Suddenly, the idea that I might become trapped occurred to me, that somehow I would lose my way in the darkness and no one would ever know how to find me. I worried about my mother then, strangely, and I could feel the curved sides of the pipe tightening around me. I tried to concentrate on that growing circle of light ahead and remind myself that nothing bad was going to happen, regardless of what my gut was telling me. But that was before I almost ran straight into Russell who had stopped just before the exit. I knew then something was wrong. Jacob and Shaun had stopped up ahead and were talking. “Hey, what’s going on?” I said. My voice reverberated sharply. “Shaun, the moron, didn’t know there was a gate here.” “How was I supposed to know?” I tried to peer past the bobbing heads and saw the thin dark bars running across the opening. They seemed to shake periodically, but never disappeared. Suddenly, I realized there was no room to turn our bicycles around and go back, and the tunnel’s walls became tighter still. “I think we can squeeze through,” Shaun said, the light reflecting off his glasses, “but it’s going to be tight.” The gate shook again for a moment, and then a shuffling, scratching sound echoed in the pipe. The noise seemed directionless, 5

Under the Overpass though for a moment I was sure it was coming from behind me and getting louder. Yet, I couldn’t turn my head enough to look. There was nothing there, I knew there was nothing there, yet the sound continued, and my lungs started struggling for air. If I didn’t get out in the next few seconds I knew I wouldn’t be able to stop myself from screaming. But instead it was the gate that screamed as it swung open an extra foot. “I got it,” Shaun said, and I saw his shadow turn into a person once more as he pushed his bicycle into the light. One by one, the rest of us followed, and I almost ran poor Russell down in my haste to breathe the fresh sunshine-filled air. It was as though we had travelled to a different country. Even though we had only ridden an extra hundred feet, everything seemed strange and unfamiliar. The trees were packed close together on the banks, creating a wall of vegetation that blocked the world from us, yet the river itself remained in the light, sparkling even with the algae that grew in the white gravel that lined its thin edges. The scene was almost too real—I wondered for a moment if I were watching a movie in soft focus rather than experiencing reality. I knew at once the lure of the place, and felt as though I had always been meant to go there, yet at the same time I wanted only to turn my bicycle around and leave. “It’s beautiful!” Anne said. “I can’t believe this was here all this time. Thank you for bringing me.” The three of us looked at her then, and she bashfully turned away. Only Russell wasn’t bothered by what she’d said. Instead, he said something I couldn’t hear. I asked him to repeat it, but he shook his head and exhaled. Jacob and Shaun were huddled together a few feet ahead of the rest of us, their bronzed arms perched on their handlebars. “How far did your brother say it was?” “I think it’s just up the river a bit.” “Do you know where you’re going?” Russell asked, and though I was sure Jacob and Shaun couldn’t have heard him, they turned around and glared. I was taken aback, but it didn’t seem to register with him. Instead, he stared back with his giant eyes. All his hair was plastered down from the sweat, and he had an imploring and sad look on his face that was only emphasized by his slightness. Finally Jacob turned away from the boy and addressed the rest of us. “Let’s go. There’s supposed to be something cool a little further.” 6

Simon Strantzas Once out of the riverbed, the path between it and the trees returned, the ground packed down and hardened. Even then, it didn’t look like the path was well used, as spots of it were overgrown. We rode the bumpy terrain along the river, just out of sight of the world around us. We rode in single file, snaking through the maples and the birches. When the river turned to the right, we followed, and I suddenly felt my old life falling away as I continued on into this new realm. The fear overwhelmed me, and before I realized my hands were on the brakes I had stopped. Everyone else did the same, and they stared at me. Even Russell. I wasn’t sure I could explain. Instead, I looked repeatedly at my watch, and said: “Look guys, I have to go. My mom’s going to get worried.” “Are you mommy’s little pet?” Jacob started making kissing noises, but beneath them he sneered. I was stunned by his sudden aggression. Shaun too looked irritated. I wondered what I had done. “It isn’t much further. I can see it from here.” Shaun pointed, but all I saw were trees. “Let’s go.” I followed despite my reservations, wondering what it was we were heading towards. Jacob and Anne saw it first, and I’m not sure when Russell did, but I didn’t notice it until we were practically there. At the end of the bank stood a large tree, its trunk wider than I could possibly reach around, and in its branches someone had build a wooden deck. It wasn’t a tree house, but it was a perch that sat high above and looked down on everything. “Why would anyone build that?” Anne asked. We reached the foot of the tree and laid our bicycles down. The tree’s bark was a mass of dark grooves, green with the lichen that grew within them. Nailed into the trunk were rectangles of wood less than a foot long but about two inches wide—enough to provide something like a ladder to the platform above. We all stood looking up quietly. The air smelled like leaves, like summers’ ending. I was surprised that Russell was the first to speak. He had barely said a word since we came through the pipe. “We shouldn’t go up.” And I believed him. “What are you talking about?” Jacob said. “This is the whole reason we’re here.” 7

Under the Overpass “We came to sit there?” I asked. Shaun was still looking up, testing the ladder with his hand. He adjusted his glasses. “My brother and his friends found it. They used to hang out here all the time.” “Maybe Russell’s right,” I said, and looked at him to show support, but he would not face me. “Let’s go up!” At least Anne was excited. She started to climb, and Jacob and Shaun looked at each other before scrambling after her. I watched them move slowly up the side of the tree, their arms long and muscles working, and for the first time they weren’t my friends, the only ones I’d ever known, but strangers, and they would forever be that to me. To my surprise, there was a fourth body on the ladder. Russell was following them, though less adeptly. Still, he kept trying, as though he were anxious to be up there and get the trip over with. When I finally made it to the platform, Russell was sitting with his feet dangling over the far edge. Against the trunk, Shaun and Jacob were flipping through a magazine, and more sat in a pile at their feet. There were empty beer bottles jammed into every crevice, and the platform was stained with something dark or burned. Anne was kneeling down. “I feel funny,” she said. “Kind of dizzy.” “Don’t look down,” I offered and she looked at me and smiled. It was as though she were a different species. I wanted to smile back, but I was so confused I simply couldn’t. Instead, I walked away. The platform shook as I moved across it towards Jacob and Shaun, the warped planks shifting beneath my feet, but they failed to notice; they were mesmerized by their magazine. “Hey, come check this out!” Jacob was rapt with delight. I shook my head, regretting I’d climbed to the platform, let alone what I was being asked to witness. Instead, I thought of the toy soldiers I’d left back at home, all ready for battle, and wished to Heaven I was back there with them rather than sitting in a tree, regardless of how nice the view was. “Suit yourself. Hey, you!” Jacob called, but Russell didn’t turn around. “Hey, do you want to see this?” “Leave him alone,” I said. “He doesn’t want to look.” Instead of stopping, he asked again; Shaun joined him. “Hey, come here! What’s the matter with you?” 8

Simon Strantzas They continued, their voices getting higher, but Russell wouldn’t move. I thought I saw him close his eyes, but it was too hard to tell from the way his head hung. Jacob and Shaun put down the magazine and started walking towards the edge where Russell sat. They called his name, using a singsong voice that left me sick and numb and cold. I felt the platform beneath me shake with each step, and start to tilt forward as the weight shifted toward the unsecured end. I looked desperately at Anne, but she wore a strange expression as she watched the boys advance, and it frightened me. I wanted to stand, but I couldn’t find my balance. “Guys, stop it! Leave him alone!” I called their names as loud as I could but they didn’t turn back. Their faces had darkened and twisted, and they looked more like old men than the boys they were. When they reached him, Jacob and Shaun stopped and put their hands on his small body. “We’re talking to you,” Shaun said, and then everything went quiet. I mean everything. I don’t remember hearing the birds or the wind or even the highway that couldn’t have been more than a few hundred feet away—nothing except the sound of my own heart beating rapidly, so fast I thought I might be hearing two. My eyes became fixed on Russell as they shook him, and his eyes remained closed throughout the ordeal. When it was done, and the boys were waiting, he looked over at me and nodded as though I was supposed to understand, but I didn’t. Then, he closed his eyes again, and in a flash he was gone. I wasn’t sure what had happened. I wanted to rub my eyes and look again because that’s what they did in the cartoons, but I knew it wouldn’t make a difference: Russell was gone, and when he left the platform bounced up enough that I felt it. Jacob and Shaun peered over the side, shaking their heads. Their faces were white with shock. Anne’s hands covered her mouth. Then, after a moment there was a sound, a moan creeping up from below. All our ears perked up for it, and we listened as close as we could. Somewhere on the ground Russell lay alive. Anne wasted no time getting to the ladder. “We have to find him,” Anne said, already beginning to work her way down. I followed, and I could feel Jacob and Shaun close behind. Russell lay on his side, his arm pulled close, his left leg bent wrong. There was barely any blood on his face. I’d never been close to someone that hurt before, and it looked different than in the movies. I 9

Under the Overpass was shivering. Jacob sprung into action as soon as his feet touched the ground. “Help me move him.” Shaun and Anne both went to the crumpled boy and tried to lift him. “Stop!” I screamed. “We aren’t supposed to touch him!” but the three didn’t listen. They instead picked Russell up by his shoulders and dragged him back to the large tree, then propped him up against the thick trunk. The side of his face had turned a dark shade of purple, and he closed his eyes and leaned his head back. “We need to go get help,” I said. No one moved. “We have to tell someone.” “We don’t even know who he is,” Shaun said. “What? His name is Russell!” “But where does he live? Who are we going to tell?” said Anne. “We can find somebody. We have to.” “He’s going to tell them what we’ve done.” Shaun’s eyes narrowed behind his dirty lenses. “But we didn’t do anything.” Suddenly, I felt the chill of the wind again. “Did we?” They were all silent. “Did we?” I was about to cry. Then, one of them, and I can’t remember for certain which it was, bent down and picked up a piece of gravel and threw it at Russell. He shrank in pain, but he didn’t try to move or even open his eyes. His breathing simply quickened. I thought I was going mad. “What are you doing?” They didn’t answer, but instead the three of them picked up more pieces of gravel and threw them at the boy. Welts, dark and red, began to appear on his pale bruised skin, drawing blood. I pleaded with them to stop, but they wouldn’t, and in their eyes I saw different people, saw lines I had never noticed before. Jacob grunted with each throw, and his voice was so deep it was as though it had risen from the depths of the earth. Anne smiled, having moved close to Jacob, and she touched the side of his head gingerly and leaned close to his ear to whisper. She touched his back, too, in a way as delicate as the stoning was vicious. Shaun’s eyes remained narrow, as though he were calculating every 10

Simon Strantzas throw he made. I had gone beyond screaming and broke down into blubbering horror. Russell had stopped moving some time before, and was barely recognizable beneath his pulped face. As the blood on his clothes dried a deep rich brown, he almost disappeared into the ground. The three were breathing heavily and sweating, their faces flushed, yet they had a look I had not seen before, as though they were satiated. Anne’s hand was entwined with Jacob’s. “We should go now,” he said, his voice so hoarse from the noises he’d made that he barely sounded like himself. “I’ve got to get home for dinner, too.” He picked up his bicycle.

~*~ I’m not sure even now why I didn’t say anything about what had happened to Russell. I suppose I expected it would come to light eventually, that we had left him there, propped up against the giant tree, surrounded by a circle of bloodied rocks. His disappearance would be noticed and Brookbanks Park, so close to where we had found him, searched. Even if it wasn’t, someone was bound to go through that graffitied pipe and discover what we had done. Things like that, they don’t stay secret for long. And yet, every day that I waited for the police to come was a day they didn’t. Soon weeks had passed and school started again. It had been so long that I started to doubt what had happened. Perhaps I’d imagined the entire thing. In truth, I still wonder that, on occasion. It wasn’t like there was anyone whom I could have asked. After I left my only three friends that day I didn’t see them again for the rest of the summer, which suited me fine. I don’t think I could have handled it. Instead, I stayed in my room and played with my toys. My mother was concerned, but how could I tell her what had happened? How could I face the look in her eyes? I couldn’t, and I knew none of the others would say anything either. At school, things changed. Jacob and Anne spent all their time together, and were disinterested in what I was doing. Shaun had pretty much disappeared outside of class, spending the recess periods with his older brother and friends. I was forced to keep with the students in the year behind me, and though I enjoyed it more than I thought I might, 11

Under the Overpass there was still a part of me that missed my three friends and the bond we once had, a bond that was broken for good on the other side of the highway. Things moved quickly after that. Before I knew it, we were in high school, and the distance that had formed between us grew larger still. Jacob joined the football team; Shaun spent his time in the library or in the school’s Science Department. I saw the two only to say “hello” to in the hallways, and neither really looked at me. I looked at them, though, most often in the cafeteria as I sat eating the lunch my mother made me. They seemed so old to me—they all did, all the students, with their thick arms and broad shoulders. I think Jacob was even shaving. As for me, I still looked as I did that last summer in Brookbanks Park, as though time had barely touched my face at all. And, of course, there was Anne. She changed the quickest, and almost every boy I knew noticed. They’d talk about her when she wasn’t around, and follow after her when she was. She seemed happy from what I could deduce, but she was no more a part of my world anymore than I was of hers. Sometimes, when she’d look at me, I wondered if she still recognized me at all. Things turned worse after that. I watched the three of them—and everyone else I knew—disappear one by one from my life, as they left for college or took a job far away from where we’d all grown up. It was as if the world I knew had taken one step past me, then started to run, abandoning me to my mother’s damp basement and the tiny plastic toys that had kept me company for so much of my awkward life. I often thought back to that summer in Brookbanks Park—the horror of it burned into my memory—and how everything had changed for me since. That was the day, I knew, that I had unknowingly stepped from the path, and allowed the world to become a place into which I no longer fit. But I also knew something else, something I knew because I felt it deep inside my very being. I knew that if I didn’t find some direction in my life, I would not last much longer. I’m not sure how I stumbled into writing. I had spent so much time making up stories while playing with my toys that I suppose the idea that I might try to commit some to paper intrigued me. I wanted to reexperience the happiness of feeling safe in a world that was changing too fast for me to understand. I suppose, in a way, I hoped writing might save me. 12

Simon Strantzas But when I tried to do something with the fifty or so stories I wrote after leaving school, the response from publishers big and small was exactly the same: though my prose was technically sound, the stories I chose to tell were too immature. “You should write something unique,” I was told. “Draw something from life. There must be something.” And there was. But I also knew my memories could not be trusted, no matter how much damage from that day I still carried. If I wanted to tell things right, I would have to go back to Brookbanks Park and face what the four of us had done. The endeavor was frightening, but somewhere inside me a voice spoke, a voice that suggested that facing the past might be the only way to get my life unstuck and moving forward again. I had not touched my bicycle in years, not since I was able to take the bus wherever I wanted to go, but I had kept it in the garage along with everything else I couldn’t bear to throw away. All it needed was some air pumped into the tires to get it roadworthy once more. I quickly realized once on my way that autumn was not the time to be bicycle riding. I shivered as I pedaled, my hands raw and frigid, and I contemplated turning back a number of times before I reached the top of Cassandra Boulevard. I took one look down that steep decline, a sight I hadn’t faced in years, and I could not help but smile and then lift my feet from the asphalt to the pedals. I coasted faster and faster down the hill, my eyelids squeezed until they were slits, and I felt the cool air cutting through the holes in my sweater. It smelled of winter approaching. The world rushed by me faster than I had ever remembered it travelling, and for a moment I thought Jacob, Shaun, and Anne were right behind me, their bicycles weaving and swerving along the street. My eyes began to water—from the rushing air, no doubt—and I had to blink as often as possible to see. The entrance to Brookbanks Park had grown over in the intervening years and it took some time for me to remember exactly where it was. When I found it, it looked like a thicket of bushes with only the narrowest of openings. I pedaled my bicycle carefully over the curb and down the broken path, keeping my head low to avoid branches that hadn’t been cut in years. Once again, the world looked different as soon as I entered. The sound of the highway was still only a short distance away, but the sight of those towering trees—already skeletal in preparation for winter— 13

Under the Overpass made me feel as though time had taken too much of a toll on my childhood playground, and everything had aged. I removed a pad and pencil from my pocket and began to take notes on what I saw, what I remembered seeing as a child. Memories returned, but in fragments, and each was stained by the bigger memory of the horror I had witnessed. I looked up at the sound of a cough to see a small man shuffling slowly along the path, limping on a crooked left leg. For the first time I considered the idea that Russell hadn’t died because of what we’d done, that the reason we hadn’t heard anything was that he had simply found his way back out. All at once, it felt like a heavy weight had slipped off me, and I pedaled towards the slow-moving man. But when I reached him, I realized he was far too old to be Russell. He was at least twice my age, though when he looked at me, it was with an air of recognition. “Nice day.” “Yes,” I said. “Good for walking.” “Huh?” He turned his head and cupped his hand over his ear. I leaned forward and repeated myself, only louder. “Too much to see. Too, too much. Do I know you?” “No.” This I said at the same louder volume. “Okay,” he said, and started to limp away. I was afraid to ask him what thought had taken root in my mind, but I did, as gently as I could. “Do you have any children?” “What? No thank you.” I repeated myself. “Not yet. I hope soon.’ He said, and then pointed down the path from where he’d come—to where I was going—then walked away. I didn’t try to stop him again. The concrete pipe, when I found it, looked very much as I remembered it—the graffiti had multiplied, but the inside was still as dark. I took some more notes, then carefully placed my bicycle inside the pipe and climbed in. I was surprised; there was still enough room for me, albeit less than I would have liked. Without anyone else in my way, I could see the light at the other end clearly, and was able to propel myself in much the same manner as I had all those years before, all the way to the end. The echo of the wheels again evoked the sensation of something following 14

Simon Strantzas close behind me, and I found the fear it brought had not subsided. I moved faster, but the volume merely increased. By the time I reached the other end, I was racing. Only to be stopped by the rusted gate. I brought my bicycle to a stop, and the noise behind me stopped as well, although it took a fraction too long. I reached out my hands and grabbed the gate and shook, but it moved only an inch. I could not get enough leverage hunched over the bicycle, but I had so little headroom I could not dismount. I was stuck, and I heard—or thought I heard—the noise behind me resume. In a moment of panic, I rammed my bicycle into the gate as hard as I could. And then I did so again. And again. Each time, the gate creaked open another inch, until finally it simply swung away, and I pushed myself out into the cold and overcast morning. Once my breathing had slowed, I looked around me. The trees on the other side of the underpass had also dropped their leaves and obscured the path that Shaun had once led us down. Without him, I wasn’t sure where to go, and yet I knew I couldn’t turn around and face that concrete pipe again so soon. Instead, I had to go forward blindly. Everything seemed so much more claustrophobic than it had when I was younger, as though everything had taken two steps closer to the water. I found myself ducking low hanging branches, and pushing fallen plants aside so I might continue. Meanwhile, under foot, the once white gravel had soiled with age, becoming a rusted-brown color. Even the water looked darker and thicker the further I travelled, and in places the fallen leaf litter choked the river so much I was amazed to see the water slip past. I’m still not sure how I managed to find it, but I came around a bend and saw, between skeletal branches, the remnants of a wooden platform. Had I been there even a few weeks before, I suspect I would have missed it within overgrown foliage. As it was, the platform was well hidden, and seeing it again after so many years induced a mixture of emotions I doubt could ever be untangled fully. I stooped to pick up a piece of dirty gravel and slip it into my pocket as a memento of my return visit. I wrote more into my notebook, too, adding some ideas I had that might string a plot on to such a senseless event, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to write more until I was closer to the tree. As I approached, I could see something large and off-white at its 15

Under the Overpass foot. It was misshapen, and lay still, half buried by dead leaves. My step faltered—I knew I couldn’t be seeing what I thought I was seeing. It had to be a mirage of some kind, a memory made solid. But as I got closer, I realized something else was there. I don’t know what, but it was something else. The off-white mass was almost like a giant mushroom growing at the base of the trunk. Thin tendrils spread from the growth and climbed the deep green grooves in the bark, anchoring the mass to the giant tree. I touched it gently, and the surface gave way like a sponge, the indentation of my hand slowly filling in after I removed it. I smelled something like old mildew on my fingers. I stood back. The platform above me was in pieces—only a portion still remained in the tree. The rest had collapsed and crashed into the ground. Even the wooden rails of the makeshift ladder had disappeared, the few that were left were at the top to where no one could be bothered to climb. The structure was dead, its remains scattered around the cream-colored growth below. I thought of Russell, thought of what had happened to him. So many things changed after that day, so many ways my life and the lives of my friends diverged into realms I couldn’t comprehend. I wanted a piece of that back, I wanted to understand what had happened, why they had travelled to places I could not even see from where I was. I wanted my pass into a world where everything around me made some sort of sense again, because to me nothing did. Nothing made any more sense than it had when I was last there. My hand slid into my pocket, where it found the piece of gravel I had picked up only a few minutes earlier. I pulled it out and inspected it, saw how dark it had become over time, how it had lost that glitter it once had. Now, it was as dull as everything else around it, trapped in some sort of bubble. I looked again at that discolored mass propped up against the tree trunk and, in a moment of desperation, hurled the stone at it with all my might. It penetrated the growth with a soft pop. I scanned the ground, feeling angrier by the moment, and each piece of the gravel I found I also threw. I threw every piece I could find at that thing, and it took each one inside without complaint. It accepted them all greedily until I could throw no more. I knelt down, panting heavily, and waited for something, anything, to happen. But nothing did. I felt nothing different. I stood up and wiped my hands on my pants, and didn’t turn around 16

Simon Strantzas as I went to retrieve my bicycle. I rode off as quickly as I could, back to that long dark pipe, back to the streets of the suburb I had grown up in. But before I left I took my pencil and broke it, then tore the pages of my notebook to pieces and threw them in the remains of the river. There was no point in keeping any of itâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;I knew no matter how far I went I would never leave that place, that tree. Even though I wanted to with all my being, I had discovered it was already too late.

There is a cold that cannot be imagined, a chill so deep it turns blood to ice, cracks flesh, tears meat from bone. It is the horror of our own reality, the terrifying curse of our own survival. Can you feel it creeping down your spine? "In his stories, Simon Strantzas skillfully marries ordinary social anxieties with the inexplicable weirdness that may lie in the darkness beyond. The "strange story" may be one of the most difficult to define — and write well — in the whole horror/dark fantasy field, but with Cold to the Touch Simon Strantzas displays a gift for evoking disturbing atmospheres and creating odd, frightening encounters with the uncanny that puts him right into the arena with Robert Aickman, Joel Lane, and Ramsey Campbell. An impressive collection.." — Lisa Tuttle