MICHAEL MARSHALL SMITH

Everybody Goes

Michael Marshall smith’s debut novel, Only Forward, won the British Fantasy Society’s August Derleth Fantasy Award in 1995. His second novel, Spares, has been optioned by Steven Spielberg’s DreamWorks SKG, while his latest, One of Us, is being developed as a movie by Di Novi Pictures and Warner Bros.

He has had his short fiction published in anthologies and magazines on both sides of the Atlantic, including several volumes of the Darklands, Dark Voices, Dark Terrors, The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror and The Best New Horror series. He is a three-time winner of the British Fantasy Award for Best Short Story, and has been nominated three times for the World Fantasy Award. His short fiction is collected in When God Lived in Kentish Town & Others and What You Make it.

As the author recalls, “This story is loosely based on a time when my family lived in Armidale, in New South Wales, Australia. One Sunday we went out to visit the family of a school friend of mine, who lived in the outback. While the parents chatted about grown-up stuff, my friend took me into the bush.

“It was a hot day, and the land was flat and featureless. We found this little canyon in the middle of the open plain, much as described in the story, with steep walls and a door floating in the pond at the bottom. In retrospect, I suppose that if someone had taken the trouble to drag a piece of rubbish that heavy to it then we can’t have been that far from civilisation - but in my memory we were on the surface of Mars. We messed around, as boys will, and we had fun, and then we walked home through the stillness. It was a good day.”

I

saw a man yesterday. I was coming back from the waste ground with Matt and Joey and we were calling Joey dumb because he’d seen this huge spider and he thought it was a Black Widow or something when it was just, like, a spider, and I saw the man.

We were walking down the road towards the block and laughing and I just happened to look up and there was this man down the end of the street, tall, walking up towards us. We turned off the road before he got to us, and I forgot about him.

Anyway, Matt had to go home then because his family eats early and his Mom raises hell if he isn’t back in time to wash up and so I just hung out for a while with Joey and then he went home too. Nothing much happened in the evening.

This morning I got up early because we were going down to the creek for the day and it’s a long walk. I made some sandwiches and put them in a bag, and I grabbed an apple and put that in too. Then I went down to knock on Matt’s door.

His Mom answered and let me in. She’s okay really, and quite nice-looking for a Mom, but she’s kind of strict. She’s the only person in the world who calls me Peter instead of Pete. Matt’s room always looks like it’s just been tidied, which is quite cool actually though it must be a real pain to keep up. At least you know where everything is.

We went down and got Joey. Matt seemed kind of quiet on the way down as if there was something he wanted to tell me, but he didn’t. I figured that if he wanted to, sooner or later he would. That’s how it is with best friends. You don’t have to be always talking. The point will come round soon enough.

Joey wasn’t ready so we had to hang round while he finished his breakfast. His Dad’s kind of weird. He sits and reads the paper at the table and just grunts at it every now and then. I don’t think I could eat breakfast with someone who did that. I think I would find it disturbing. Must be something you get into when you grow up, I guess.

Anyway, finally Joey was ready and we left the block. The sun was pretty hot already though it was only nine in the morning and I was glad I was only wearing a T-Shirt. Matt’s Mom made him wear a sweatshirt in case there was a sudden blizzard or something and I knew he was going to be pretty baked by the end of the day but you can’t tell moms anything.

As we were walking away from the block towards the waste ground I looked back and I saw the man again, standing on the opposite side of the street, looking at the block. He was staring up at the top floor and then I thought he turned and looked at us, but it was difficult to tell because the sun was shining right in my eyes.

We walked and ran through the waste ground, not hanging around much because we’d been there yesterday. We checked on the fort but it was still there. Sometimes other kids come and mess it up but it was okay today.

Matt got Joey a good one with a scrunched-up leaf. He put it on the back of his hand when Joey was looking the other way and then he started staring at it and saying “Pete …” in this really scared voice; and I saw what he was doing and pretended to be scared too and Joey bought it.

“I told you,” he says - and he’s backing away - “I told you there was Black Widows …” and we could have kept it going but I started laughing. Joey looked confused for a second and then he just grunted as if he was reading his Dad’s paper and so we jumped on him and called him Dad all afternoon.

We didn’t get to the creek till nearly lunch time, and Matt took his sweatshirt off and tied it round his waist. It’s a couple miles from the block, way past the waste ground and out into the bush. It’s a good creek though. It’s so good we don’t go there too often, like we don’t want to wear it out.

You just walk along the bush, not seeing anything, and then suddenly there you are, and there’s this baby canyon cut. into the earth. It gets a little deeper every year, I think, except when there’s no rain. Maybe it gets deeper then too, I don’t know. The sides are about ten feet deep and this year there was rain so there’s plenty of water at the bottom and you have to be careful climbing down because otherwise you can slip and end up in the mud.

Matt went down first. He’s best at climbing, and really quick. He went down first so that if Joey slipped he might not fall all the way in. For me, if Joey slips, he slips, but Matt’s good like that. Probably comes from having such a tidy room.

Joey made it down okay this time, hold the front page, and I went last. The best way to get down is to put your back to the creek, slide your feet down, and then let them go until you’re hanging onto the edge of the canyon with your hands. Then you just have to scuttle. As I was lowering myself down I noticed how far you could see across the plain, looking right along about a foot up from the ground. There’s nothing to see for miles, nothing but bushes and dust. I think the man was there too, off in the distance, but it was difficult to be sure and then I slipped and nearly ended up in the creek myself, which would have been a real pain and Joey would have gone on about it forever.

We walked along the creek for a while and then came to the ocean. It’s not really the ocean, it’s just a bit where the canyon widens out into almost a circle that’s about fifteen feet across. It’s deeper than the rest of the creek, and the water isn’t so clear, but it’s really cool. When you’re down there you can’t see anything but this circle of sky, and you know there’s nothing else for miles around. There’s this old door there which we call our ship and we pull it to one side of the ocean and we all try to get on and float it to the middle. Usually it’s kind of messy and I know Matt and Joey are thinking there’s going to be trouble when their Moms see their clothes, but today we somehow got it right and we floated right to the middle with only a little bit of water coming up.

We played our game for a while and then we just sat there for a long time and talked and stuff. I was thinking how good it was to be there and there was a pause and then Joey tried to say something of his own like that. It didn’t come out very well, but we knew what he meant so we told him to shut up and made as if we were going to push him in. Matt pretended he had a spider on his leg just by suddenly looking scared and staring and Joey laughed, and I realised that that’s where jokes come from. It was our own joke, that no one else would ever understand and that they would never forget however old they got.

Matt looked at me one time, as if he was about to say what was on his mind, but then Joey said something dumb and he didn’t. We just sat there and kept talking about things and moving around so we didn’t get burnt too bad. Once when I looked up at the rim of the canyon I thought maybe there was a head peeking over the side but there probably wasn’t.

Joey has a watch and so we knew when it was four o’clock. Four o’clock is the latest we can leave so that Matt gets back for dinner in time. We walked back towards the waste ground, not running. The sun had tired us out and we weren’t in any hurry to get back because it had been a good afternoon, and they always finish when you split up. You can’t get back to them the next day, especially if you try to do the same thing again.

When we got back to the street we were late and so Matt and Joey ran on ahead. I would have run with them but I saw that the man was standing down the other side of the block, and I wanted to watch him to see what he was going to do. Matt waited back a second after Joey had run and said he’d see me after dinner. Then he ran, and I just hung around for a while.

The man was looking back up at the block again, like he was looking for something. He knew I was hanging around, but he didn’t come over right away, as if he was nervous. I went and sat on the wall and messed about with some stones. I wasn’t in any hurry.

“Excuse me,” says this voice, and I looked up to see the man standing over me. The slanting sun was in his eyes and he was shading them with his hand. He had a nice suit on and he was younger than people’s parents are, but not much. “You live here, don’t you?”

I nodded, and looked up at his face. He looked familiar.

“I used to live here too,” he said, “When I was a kid. On the top floor.” Then he laughed, and I recognised him from the sound. “A long time ago now. Came back after all these years to see if it had changed.”

I didn’t say anything.

“Hasn’t much, still looks the same.” He turned and looked again at the block, then back past me towards the waste ground. “Guys still playing out there on the ‘ground?”

“Yeah,” I said, “It’s cool. We have a fort there.”

“And the creek?”

He knew we still played there: he’d been watching. I knew what he really wanted to ask, so I just nodded. The man nodded too, as if he didn’t know what to say next. Or more like he knew what he wanted to say, but didn’t know how to go about it.

“My name’s Tom Spivey,” he said, and then stopped. I nodded again. The man laughed, embarrassed. “This is going to sound very weird, but… I’ve seen you around today, and yesterday.” He laughed again, running his hand through his hair, and then finally asked what was on his mind. “Your name isn’t Pete, by any chance?”

I looked up into his eyes, then away.

“No,” I said. “It’s Jim.”

The man looked confused for a moment, then relieved. He said a couple more things about the block, and then he went away. Back to the city, or wherever.

After dinner I saw Matt out in the back car park, behind the block. We talked about the afternoon some, so he could get warmed up, and then he told me what was on his mind.

His family was moving on. His dad had got a better job somewhere else. They’d be going in a week.

We talked a little more, and then he went back inside, looking different somehow, as if he’d already gone.

I stayed out, sitting on the wall, thinking about missing people. I wasn’t feeling sad, just tired. Sure I was going to miss Matt. He was my best friend. I’d missed Tom for a while, but then someone else came along. And then someone else, and someone else. There’s always new people. They come, and then they go. Maybe Matt would return some day. Sometimes they do come back. But everybody goes.

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