The Book of Apex: Volume 1 of Apex Magazine (8 page)

She handed me two glasses and
smiled.

I cut my hand opening the
bottle of wine.

“Bugger!”

“Oh, I am sorry, have you...?”
She never finished her sentence, but took my proffered hand and held it still
for a moment. Tiny beads of red blood swelled to the surface of my fingertip
before trickling down across the back of my knuckles in little tributaries. I
shifted slightly to stop them from dripping. Isabella had a strange look in her
eyes. I wondered for a moment if she was exasperated with my constant
clumsiness around her.

“Stay there for one second.”
She dashed out of the room. The blood felt warm and sticky against my skin.

“Here you go.” I heard her
voice from around the doorway before I saw her hurry back into the room. She
held out a swab of cotton wool and I took it gratefully, dabbing at my sticky
hand. She kissed me sympathetically on the cheek.

After I
had finished she took the cotton wool and showed me to the bathroom. The old
stairs creaked and heaved as I presented them with my weight. I rinsed my hands
and found a plaster in the mirrored cabinet that hung on the wall above the
sink. I rubbed some of the cold water over my face, judging my reflection in
the mirror. I felt like a buffoon.

Isabella’s towels were flung
haphazardly over a chrome rail that ran along one wall; they were soft and pink
and smelled of her. Cursing myself for being so clumsy, I dabbed myself dry and
found my way back down to the dining room.

Later that
night, as we lay together in bed, warmed by the soft glow of candles and each
other, she stroked my hand as if to apologize for the violation of the broken
glass. I held my breath and listened to the sound of cars passing beneath her
window, to her gentle exhalations as she quietly fell asleep. Just then, at
that point, the future seemed so welcoming; a bright, exhilarating place filled
with opportunity and promise.

The next week I borrowed my
brother’s car—an old, blue Ford Fiesta with patches of powdery rust over each
of the wheel arches—and drove us up to Whitby. We stopped on the way by a quiet
patch of moorland and bought an ice cream from the back of a makeshift stall.
The old man behind the hatch had smiled at us warmly, and Isabella, trying to
catch each tiny tributary of melted vanilla as it ran down the side of her
cone, managed to end up with smears of it all over her chin. She drew herself
up to me and laughed, trying in vain to keep a straight face. As I wiped her
clean with the edge of my thumb, her eyes shone, and I think I’d never felt so
happy. Her fingers trailed in mine as we made our way back to the car, the man
on the ice-cream stall watching us, amusement flashing in his eyes.

We arrived
in Whitby just after noon; I swung the Fiesta into a car park immediately
outside the town centre and we walked in along the water’s edge. We ate fish
and chips on the docks, sitting on little benches and huddled against the
spray, and watched the fisherman unloading their hauls in large crates full of
ice and silvery scales. Isabella pointed to the Abbey high on the cliff top,
sticking out against the horizon like a jagged, broken tooth. It seemed ominous
to me, a brooding ruin facing out toward the sea, warding away all unwanted
visitors.

After lunch she dragged me into
a little bookshop next door to an amusement arcade.

“Come on. I have to get a
souvenir!”

I sighed theatrically but was
disarmed by her childlike glee.

Isabella bought a copy of
Dracula
; the elderly woman behind the counter looked expectant and tired,
as if worn down by the constant repetition of her day. She perked up for a
moment when I asked her for a copy of
Titus Groan
, but then sighed and
shook her head.

“We’re not that type of
bookshop, honey.”

Isabella hurried me out of the
door, her book rustling in its brown paper bag.

“Now for the beach!”

We made our way down to the
seafront for a walk. It was quiet with just a handful of children playing
amongst the rock pools, searching for crabs or other monsters left behind by
the retreating sea. Isabella kicked her shoes off to run in the sand and I
watched her dance, the breeze coming in off the water to whip her hair up
around her face. I couldn’t stop myself from smiling. I couldn’t believe my own
luck.

The drive home took three hours
and Isabella fell asleep in the passenger seat.

It started to rain and the
windscreen wipers on the old Fiesta creaked and moaned like a metronome as we
made our way along empty roads, the twilight and the misty rain leaving me with
the impression that we were driving through our own private universe, a pocket
world of our own devising.

When we finally pulled up
outside her house, I shook her gently awake. She unbuckled her seatbelt and
sleepily nuzzled my shoulder. Her hair smelled of vanilla.

“Is it still raining?”

“No, it stopped about half an hour
ago.”

“I’ve had a lovely day. Thank
you.” She planted a kiss on my cheek.

“Go on, go and get yourself
some sleep. Call me.”

She
clambered out of the passenger seat, her bag slung easily over one shoulder,
and made her way up the little red steps at the front of her house. She stood
and waved from her front door as I pulled away, the car radio blaring an old,
fuzzy version of The Who’s “My Generation.”

The following weeks passed by
in a heady frenzy of conversation, laughter and sex. Basking in each other’s
company, we spent all our free time together. We took trips to visit old
country houses, shared secret laughter in the solemnity of a portrait gallery,
ate greasy pizzas at her favorite fast food restaurant, had rough sex up
against a tree in her childhood park. We strolled the streets together long
after midnight, watching the patrons stumbling out of the clubs, vibrantly
alive in the neon glow of the city. We took a slow walk by the riverside, our
fingers and hearts entwined, the rain thrumming down all around us, hiding us
behind its thin veil, secreting us away from the outside world. Our orbits
changed; we circled each other like gravity wouldn’t let us come apart. I had
time for nothing else in my life.

It was during those days that I
often found her working, hunched over her microscope in the little laboratory
at the back of her house, or else receiving samples through the post, tiny
vials of red blood that she would set to work on immediately, decoding their
new enigma, solving their puzzle as if it meant she were saving the world. She
threw herself into her work as though it somehow redeemed her, made her whole.
For my part, I was due to start lecturing again at the nearby college and so,
after nearly a month of living in each other’s pockets, it was with a heavy
heart that I retired to my flat on the other side of town to begin preparatory
work for the course. I found it difficult to concentrate on Shakespeare,
though, when every word reminded me of Isabella, every passing car made me
think of those long hours spent lying beside her in her bed, every song on the
radio somehow relevant to how I felt. She was a siren, and I was the sailor
caught up in her spell.

Three days later I received a
call.

“Can you come round?”

“What, now? I thought you were
working?”

“I’m finished. Look, I have a
present for you.” She sounded nervous, full of energy.

I laughed. “In that case I’ll
be round in twenty minutes.”

In truth, it was nearer to an
hour. The bus was late, and I shivered underneath the shelter, my only company
a squat, grey pigeon that fluttered about the street pecking at abandoned
cigarette ends.

When the bus finally arrived it
was empty. I took a seat toward the front, pushing myself up against the
window. Dirty rainwater lined the rubber seals around the window frame where
the edges had perished. I shifted to avoid getting wet. Moments later, a man
hopped up onto the platform with two small boys in tow. I watched them push and
pull at each other’s clothes as their father dropped his change into the ticket
machine.

“Won’t be a tick, I’ve got the
change in here somewhere.” He fished around in the pocket of his jeans and then
fed some more money into the machine. One of the boys pushed the other onto the
floor. The man pretended not to notice. He hesitated for a moment, and then the
ticket machine emitted a stream of gaudy paper.

“Come on, get up off the floor!
We’ve got to go and find a seat.”

I closed my eyes and tried to
pretend I was asleep.

The boys hurtled up the stairs
faster than their father could keep up; I could hear their feet pounding on the
upper deck, the sound of it creaking underneath their weight. And then: “Pack
that in! Now stop that!”

The bus rolled slowly away from
the pavement, the driver gunning the engine to try to stir some life from the
ancient machine.

A few minutes later, we pulled
up by a stop a couple of doors down the street from Isabella’s house. As I
clambered down from the bus and gave my thanks to the driver, I caught sight of
Isabella peering out from behind the curtains of her living room window. I
smiled and waved. She pressed her hand against the glass in brief
acknowledgment, then disappeared from view. I made my way quickly along the
road, passing the dreary façades of old houses which seemed to loom out at me
like tired, care-worn faces. My breath steamed in front of my face in the cold.
I had the feeling it was going to rain again.

Moments later, I tried the
handle of Isabella’s front door and found it was already open. I stepped inside
and drew myself into the warmth, rubbing my hands together to restart my
circulation.

The house seemed quiet.
“Hello?”

“I’m in the back, come on
through.”

I slipped out of my overcoat
and dropped it over the arm of the rickety old chair that served as Isabella’s
telephone seat, then made my way through to the rear of the house, passing
through the dining room on my way to the kitchen. There was a lingering odor,
like scented-candles that had long since burned themselves out to leave a
cloying, opium-like quality to the air.

Isabella was standing in the
kitchen doorway, her lab coat draped around her shoulders, her hair tied back
severely from her face. She looked up as I came into the room and smiled at me
coyly. I moved to step forward and embrace her. Laughing, she turned about deftly
on her heel and disappeared through the side door into the other room.

Her voice trailed behind her.
“I’ve been working in the lab. Come on in.”

“I thought you had a present
for me?”

“I do!”

“Well what...”

“Patience...”

I stepped into the laboratory,
my nose bristling at the stench of formaldehyde and bleach. Isabella had her
back to me, fiddling with something in a refrigeration unit on the back wall. I
admit I’d found it odd that someone so clearly talented, with such a demanding
specialization, would work from home, but times continued to change and, with
technology developing as it was, she’d been able to set up an entire cottage
industry here in the northeast of England. Her little laboratory was an
extension to her house, a small side room off the kitchen with gleaming
clinical surfaces and banks of daunting computer equipment, their screens
flickering in the stark glare of the overhead lights.

I fidgeted uncomfortably and
glanced out of the window. Two tiny birds danced around each other on the lawn,
fighting over a worm they had managed to extract from the flowerbed. I glanced
back at Isabella.

“Isabella, can’t you just
explain...?”

“In a minute!”

I waited.

A few moments later she turned
around to face me, smiling like she was about to reveal a secret, and
ceremoniously placed a package on the table before me. I looked into her eyes,
seeing myself reflected in their glassy surface, noticed how her lips were
slightly parted, how the soft skin around her eyes seemed so smooth, so even,
so perfect. I looked down at my present, already full of trepidation over what
it might be.

It was a large plastic sachet
filled with a dark red, gelatinous substance. Condensation beaded on its
surface like rainwater on tarpaulin. Isabella rubbed her hands together nervously.
I pulled a face.

“There.”

“This is it?”

“Your present, yes.”

“But what...?” I didn’t know
what to say, what it was supposed to represent.

“A pint of your blood.”

“
My blood!
” I started,
and then stuttered something incoherent. Isabella was smiling expectantly. I
must have seemed confused. She pulled out a chair from behind one of her
workbenches and guided me to sit down. I looked up at her, speechless.

“Remember when you cut
yourself? Well, you know what it is that I do.”

I shook my head. “Yes...but why?”

“It’s not just a replica of
your blood. It’s been adapted, tinkered with...improved, I suppose. I’ve bonded
the platelets with tiny
nanomachines. They
ride on the red blood cells, hitching a piggyback through your system. When the
adrenaline in your bloodstream reaches a certain level they become active,
triggering the pleasure receptors in your brain to generate a natural high.
It’s particularly effective during sex. Packets of this stuff fetch thousands
of pounds on the black market. Yours even more so. O-Negative is fairly rare.”
She looked at me pointedly. “All we need to do is give you a small
transfusion...”