"They're back!" screamed Margie, jumping onto The Giant's chest, kicking desperately at the creatures as they once again tore into The Giant's flesh.
The young man who had yet to introduce himself, raced forward and yelled something in a language that Margie didn't understand. The creatures froze in an apparent trance as though waiting for further instructions.
"Now shoo!" yelled the young man, waving his arms. "Be gone!"
As quickly as they’d appeared, the creatures disappeared beneath the ground leaving no outward sign of their existence.
The young man wasted no time. "I do apologise. I have never ever witnessed an exhibition of such impotent savagery. They're not usually this bad. My name is Archie and this," he said pointing to his vulture, "is Eddie."
Ignoring Archie, Margie jumped off the rock and knelt beside The Giant. Blood was pouring from the wounds which covered his entire body.
"He’s a rather mountainous specimen isn’t he," said Archie inching his way closer to The Giant. "There's no way we can move him ourselves."
"He doesn't bite, you know!" snapped Margie.
"I believe you Bucko, but I'm not one for taking chances."
Archie turned to Eddie and once again spoke in a language that Margie didn't understand.
Eddie blinked, motionless and silent for a moment before spreading his giant wings and taking to the air at speed.
"He's gone to find the Luggers," said Archie. "They’ll make light work of carrying your injured friend to the nearest town."
"A town?" asked Margie surprised.
"Just a couple of miles across the valley. It's not without its risks but it'll be safer there than it is out here."
A sudden movement on the ground made Margie jump nervously.
"It's okay," said Archie, "they won't come back."
"What
are
they?" asked Margie.
"They're just vermin. Usually only give a nasty nip; this is really quite out of character. I really don't know what's gotten into everybody. Must be something in the air."
Archie looked up at the night sky tensely. "There's definitely
something
in the air tonight!"
He sat down a few feet away from The Giant. "Poor chap, he doesn't look too happy. Press against the heavier wounds; you don't want him bleeding to death before the Luggers arrive."
Margie glowered at Archie and shot an invisible bullet between his eyes. She was struggling to stem the flow of blood while Archie sat on a small mound nearby studying the horizon and the sky in turn.
"There's no harm in you helping me," she eventually snapped.
"I can't," said Archie matter-of-factly. "I have a problem with my hands, see?" He jumped off the mound and used his teeth to pull his gloves off'. As they fell to the floor, he held his hands out for Margie to see.
"Doesn't look like there's anything wrong with them to me," she said crossly.
"Look again," he replied. And with that he clapped his hands. Ghost-like in their appearance, they simply sliced through each other as if they were made of air.
Margie gasped.
"It’s not very easy having hands like this, let me tell you," continued Archie. He seemed oblivious to Margie’s astonishment. "But like everyone in this Godforsaken town it’s a pain I have to bear."
Archie plonked himself down next to Margie and removed his shoes. "Doesn't stop me using these though does it!" He smiled at Margie then pressed his feet against one of the bigger bite wounds on The Giant's side.
"Now, you're sure he won't eat me when he wakes up?" he quipped.
Margie forced a smile, one which her eyes refused to acknowledge. She felt oddly relieved about his hands; there was little harm he could do to her or The Giant without them. But she still felt slightly uneasy; Archie was little more than a stranger after all, and an annoying one at that.
Together the two sat in silence, side by side, staring at The Giant, neither speaking to the other. Once or twice, Archie cast a sideways glance in her direction, but Margie's gaze was firmly fixed on The Giant's face. She knew how rude it must have seemed to Archie but she just wasn't in the mood for pleasantries.
Clearly bored of waiting for her to ask him a question, he decided to answer one anyway.
"It’s my punishment," he said holding his hands out so that Margie might see them again. "I took things that didn’t belong to me, so they took my hands away. It could've been worse. A lot worse."
"Who are
they?
" asked Margie finally.
"I dunno. The people that run this show." He didn't seem to care. He held his hands in front of his face. "Now I have hands that don't let me hold anything. Nothing. Not even the things that are mine."
He cast a quick side glance in Margie's direction. "I can't even remember what it feels like to hold a woman."
Once again, Margie was struck dumb. Unable to peel her eyes from a spot on the floor in front of Archie she felt the heat rise up through her neck and into her cheeks.
"I didn't mean to embarrass you," he said wryly.
"Who said I was embarrassed," snapped Margie, pulling her shawl round her shoulders.
Again the minutes passed in awkward silence.
"How long have you been here?" asked Archie.
"How long have
you
been here?" replied Margie.
Archie cocked his head to one side and scrutinised Margie's face. "Why are you so defensive? What are you afraid of?"
Margie thrust her chin in the air. "I'm not afraid of anything."
Archie raised his eyebrows and clicked his tongue. "Wow, congratulations!"
Margie retaliated with a sarcastic smile. "Are you going to answer my question or not?"
"I've forgotten what you asked," he said, lying.
"How long have you been here?"
"A long time," he replied. "Longer than I care to remember."
Margie was sure she caught a hint of regret in his voice. She looked at his hands. There was something about their phantom-like quality that suddenly filled Margie with sadness.
She softened slightly. "Will you ever get them back?"
"My hands? Who knows. I don't miss them anymore. Although, they'd certainly come in rather handy today wouldn't they!"
Archie smiled to himself and removed his feet from the wound, which he studied carefully. "But you know what? There are folks worse off than me. I was never violent. Never. Not once. Those that harmed others ..." Archie shuddered. "You should see those that beat their wives and dogs – they walk around with welts and bruises and cuts and swellings every moment of every day. And they're the lucky ones!"
Archie peered closer at the wound. "Look," he said solemnly. Margie leant forward to take a look and gasped: "It's bubbling!"
"It's the poison in the Vermin's saliva. It's breaking down his flesh; it makes it easier for them to chew."
"What do you mean 'chew'?" cried Margie frantically. "There must be something we can do!"
"There's nothing we can do here," replied Archie. "But look ..."
Margie looked in the direction he was pointing. In the distance she could see the mist parting like a curtain revealing what looked like a group of people lumbering towards them. Above them circled Eddie.
"You mustn’t be frightened," replied Archie, waving his arms about maniacally to catch their attention. "They look worse than they are."
As the Luggers drew near, Margie could see what Archie meant. Tall and broad, they looked like the trolls she had read about in a children’s book in the Emporium. The Luggers were tall (taller than they appeared, since they were hunched almost double) and broad at the shoulders and their old, wrinkled faces with salivating mouths were, for the most part, hidden by wiry white hair. Their muscular arms stretched almost the length of their entire bodies and their knuckles dragged on the floor leaving them worn through to the bone in places.
Margie felt unable to look at them for long and, like the mist, turned away. She lay her head across The Giant's bloodied chest and closed her eyes. "Please wake up," she whispered sadly. "I miss you. I need you. I'm frightened."
As they marched through the dark, barren landscape, trying to keep up with the Luggers Archie sensed Margie's sadness.
"So where you headed then, with this Giant of yours?"
"The Darkest of All Places."
Archie laughed. "What's possessed you to make
that
journey?"
Margie shrugged. "I didn't choose to be here."
"Well, blow me!" exclaimed Archie. "You're the girl they been talking about. The Collector they reckon."
"Who's they?"
"Everyone. News travels like the Plague in Limbuss."
"Well, they've all got it wrong then," she replied. "I'm Margie and I'll be going home just as soon as all this mess is sorted out."
"What mess would that be then?" asked Archie.
"Never you mind," replied Margie. "You ask too many questions."
"How do I know you're not one of the enemies? The Vermin aren't usually so aggressive. Maybe they know something I don't? For all I know, you could be a dark spirit."
Margie stopped dead in her tracks. "Well maybe I am," she replied hotly.
Archie placed his hands on his hips and raised an eyebrow. "Then you won't mind me summoning the Vermin. Their job is to protect us from adversaries like yourself. And once they've made a meal of you, the Malignants will come and finish you off."
Margie shrugged, compressing her lips to conceal how she really felt.
"You don't want to know about the Malignants?" asked Archie antagonistically.
"Not really!"
"Fine!" replied Archie emphatically. "Suffice it to say that they've got more evil in one eye-lid than you've got in your entire body!"
As Archie skipped ahead of Margie shouting instructions at the Luggers, his words rang in her ears. With the loss of Auguste and Grandma Doyle, a seed of doubt had taken root in Margie's brain. What if she
was
a bad egg? What if
she
was the reason all these bad things were happening to the people she cared about?
Margie didn't know if she fully liked or trusted Archie, but she hoped, beyond hope, that he was right.
Margie's Curse
Spider Beast was furious when the news reached him of Margie and The Giant’s experiences in Avaricia and how close they had come to being captured. Didn’t they realise how important it was to reach The Darkest of All Places? What were they thinking? Every second they spent fooling around in freak shows posed a potential threat to her own safety and that of Limbuss. Torquere's Dog Beasts were hot on her trail which was bad enough. Spider Beast could not bear the thought of her falling into the wrong hands, let alone Torquere's with his Avellotractus Machine. Even more dangerous was the fact that she could be carrying The Big Invisible? If she
did
then every second counted. There was not a second to lose. At any moment, The Big Invisible could cause a cataclysmic unravelling of existence itself. Limbuss and everything before or after it would cease to be; condemned to oblivion. There would be nothing left but a gaping hole in the fabric of time and space.
Of course, he would have taken her to The Darkest of All Places himself, but he had a backlog of souls waiting to have their stories collected. At last count, there were 150,000 recently departed souls arriving in Limbuss each day, and most of them were being herded to the Emporium where they would be temporarily stored.
The Emporium hadn’t always been The Emporium. It had once been a school, a factory, a dance hall, a mill ... but this was Limbuss, and like everything in Limbuss things didn’t stay for very long. The people of Limbuss lost interest in things quickly, and so nothing stayed the same for long. Limbuss changed and adapted to the people. And so the Emporium, like most things here, had stagnated and been forgotten, growing old and dilapidated.
Its sheer size and layout had been perfect for the job at hand.
And so Spider Beast worked tirelessly day and night, night and day, collecting the stories and storing them for safe keeping. Night after night and day after day, hour after hour, minute after minute he processed tens of thousands of people. Time had no meaning ... Then one evening, not long after Margie and The Giant had fled the circus, that all suddenly changed. Spider Beast’s world was turned upside down when the wolf came banging on
his
door.
It was ten o’clock in the evening and Spider Beast, having felt an unusual chill, decided to conduct a quick check of the building. It was old and prone to draughts but this felt different. Colder. It was with a feeling of dread that he set off on his inspection of the premises reaching the Great Store, with its beautifully ornate till soon after. The once grand room was silent and still but Spider Beast had a feeling that something was wrong. Was it a strange scent? He wasn’t sure. Was it the almost imperceptible sound of someone breathing? Or the overwhelming feeling of being watched. He wasn’t sure. As he scanned the room with his two rows of four eyes he couldn’t see anything, but he knew that something was amiss.
Something is wrong,
he thought.
Something is very wrong.
Cautiously Spider Beast made his way to the door, which had long been barricaded from the inside. He couldn’t see anywhere that the door might have been breached. Not even the smallest mouse could have made his way into the Emporium; Spider Beast had made sure of that, not being overly fond of the squeaky little pests with their propensity for eating arachnids. He sat for a moment taking in his surroundings; trying desperately to get a grasp on what he was sensing when all of a sudden a pile of papers fell off the counter beside the till.
"Who’s there?" shouted Spider Beast? "Who
is
that?"
Silence.
All of a sudden Spider Beast felt quite afraid. "If there’s anyone in this room, then show yourself now," he shouted, the confidence in his voice belying his fear.
A great coldness swept over Spider Beast as he huddled on the floor beside a pile of old clocks. And then he heard the unmistakeable sound of a sigh, so close that he could feel the coldness of its breath on his back. A freezing gust of wind crashed through the rear wall of the Great Store.
Spider Beast didn't have time to react before a great roaring sound came from somewhere nearby. As the sound grew louder, a storm seemed to take hold. Starting out as a small whirlwind which blew a handful of papers to the ground, it quickly intensified until it was ripping items from their shelves and hurling them to the ground. Tables, chests and boxes of all shapes and sizes were carried around the room by some violent twisting unseen beast, amid a great cacophony of raps, moans, thumps, screams and cries. Spider Beast had never heard such a sound – like a giant freight train roaring past him at two-hundred miles per hour.
Then, somewhere amid the freezing destructive storm which had engulfed the room he saw two dark unpredictable eyes and the flash of a malevolent grin. At the same time he heard the unmistakeable sound of Margie's voice screaming:
"Take me home! Take ... Me ... Home ...
NOW!
"
Spider Beast called out: "Margie! Is that you?" But his voice got lost in the cacophony of noise around him.
At this point he became aware of the temperature in the room plummeting rapidly from fifteen degrees to five degrees to zero degrees to minus one degrees. At minus eight degrees Spider Beast's inner mechanisms had started to slow down and by the time it reached minus twenty his joints were seizing up. Unable to move Spider Beast could only watch as the beast ripped the Great Store apart. It continued for a few more minutes then as quickly as it had occurred, it ceased and Spider Beast was once again engulfed in silence.
The Great Store, which moments earlier had been warm, was now covered in a fine layer of ice. As Spider Beast tried to process what had just happened he heard a horrible, terrifying wail coming from deep within the Emporium. At first he thought it was Margie, it certainly sounded like her. But then with rising horror he remembered that he had left a small group of around one-hundred new arrivals waiting in the transition area.
Spider Beast wasted no time in hurrying back to the area where he had – several hours earlier – left the anxious newcomers waiting to be stored. As he raced through the many rooms and chambers he could sense a trail of malevolence and the panic began to rise. To The Big Invisible this was the Promised Land. If it
knew
how many lost souls were stored amid the junk patiently waiting for the Collector's return, it would not hesitate. They would be obliterated; lost and forgotten for all eternity. It was more than Spider Beast could bear to imagine.
As soon as he entered the room he realised that a great disaster had occurred. He
knew
there had been a group of people in the room because there always was. That's what happened every minute of every day. But that was all he
could
recall. Like an old man who would instantly recognise his mother's face in a crowd of millions but could no longer picture it in his own head, his memory of this crowd was just out of reach.
He called out. But no one answered.
His suspicions had finally been confirmed. The Big Invisible existed.
It was obvious now that The Big Invisible, whilst still intrinsically tethered to Margie, was pulling away. It no longer stayed close to Margie, preferring to travel further away in search of victims. It was proof that it was gradually becoming an entity in its own right; a hungry, angry predator with a mind of its own. What was also devastatingly obvious to Spider Beast was why it had been drawn to the Emporium in the first place. It had been there before, in the beginning when Margie first arrived. It had remembered. And now it had found its way back.
And, oh, what the Beast would soon be capable of. For whilst it was still linked to Margie it was unable to cause
her
any harm. But that bond couldn't and wouldn't last forever. As The Big Invisible grew stronger and braver, so the line linking the two would grow weaker. There was no way of telling, how long it would take for that link to be broken ...
... and then there would be little hope for the people of Limbuss.