Barker, Clive - The Inhuman Condition.pdf - ENG - Chlorella

THE

INHUMAN

CONDITION

Tales of Terror

Books of Blood, Volume IV

CLIVE BARKER

POSEIDON PRESS New York

These stories are works of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents

are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously

Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is

entirely coincidental

including the right of reproduction

in whole or in part in any form

Published by Poseidon Press

A Division of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

Simon & Schuster Building Rockefeller Center

1230 Avenue of the Americas

New York, New York 10020

POSEIDON PRESS is a registered trademark

of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

Originally published in Great Britain by Sphere Books Ltd.

under the title Books of Blood, Volume IV

Manufactured in the United States of America

1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

- Barker, Clive, date. The inhuman condition.

Contents: The inhuman condition- The body politic-Revelations -Down, Satan-

The age of desire.

1. Horror tales, English. L Title. PR6052.A64751 5 1985 823'.0872'08

86-5086

ISBN: 0-671-62686-8

To Alec and Con

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

My thanks to: Doug Bennett, who got me into Penton_ville-and out again-in the

same day and later furnished me with his insights on prisons and the prison

service; to Jim Burr, for his mind's eye tour of White Deer, Texas, and for

the New York adventures; to Ros Stanwell-_Smith, for her enthusiastic

detailing of plagues and how to start them; and to Barbara Boote, my tireless

editor, whose enthusiasm has proved the best possible spur to invention.

CONTENTS

The Inhuman Condition

The Body Politic

Revelations

Down, Satan!

The Age of Desire

THE INHUMAN CONDITION

ARE YOU the one then?" Red demanded, seizing hold of the derelict by the

shoulder of his squalid

gabardine.

"What one d'you mean?" the dirt-caked face replied. He was scanning the

quartet of young men who'd cornered him with rodent's eyes. The tunnel where

they'd found him relieving himself was far from hope of help. They all knew it

and so, it seemed, did he. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"You've been showing yourself to children," Red said.

The man shook his head, a dribble of spittle running from his lip into the

matted bush of his beard. "I've done nothing," he insisted.

Brendan sauntered across to the man, heavy footsteps hollow in the tunnel.

"What's your name?" he inquired, with deceptive courtesy. Though he lacked

Red's height and commanding manner, the scar that inscribed Brendan's cheek

from temple to jaw line suggested he knew suffering, both in the giving and

the receiving. "Name," he demanded. "I'm not going to ask you again."

"Pope," the old man muttered. "Mr. Pope."

Brendan grinned. "Mr. Pope?" he said. "Well, we heard you've been exposing

that rancid little prick of yours to innocent children. What do you say to

that?"

"No," Pope replied, again shaking his head. "That's not true. I never done

nothing like that." When he frowned the filth on his face cracked like crazy

paving, a second skin of grime which Was the accrual of many months. Had it

not been for the fragrance of alcohol off him, which obscured the worst of his

bodily stench, it would have been nigh on impossible to stand within a yard of

him. The man was human refuse, a shame to his species.

"Why bother with him?" Karney said. "He stinks."

Red glanced over his shoulder to silence the interruption. At seventeen,

Karney was the youngest, and in the quartet's unspoken hierarchy scarcely

deserving of an opinion. Recognizing his error, he shut up, leaving Red to

return his attention to the vagrant. He pushed Pope back against the wall of

the tunnel. The old man expelled a cry as he struck the concrete; it echoed

back and forth. Karney, knowing from past experience how the scene would go

from here, moved away and studied a gilded cloud of gnats on the edge of the

tunnel. Though he enjoyed being with Red and the other two-the camaraderie,

the petty larceny, the drinking-this particular game had never been much to

his taste. He couldn't see the sport in finding some drunken wreck of a man

like Pope and beating what little sense was left in his deranged head out of

him. It made Karney feel dirty, and he wanted no part of it.

Red pulled Pope off the wall and spat a stream of abuse into the man's face,

then, when he failed to get an adequate response, threw him back against the

tunnel a second time, more forcibly than the first, following through by

taking the breathless man by both lapels and shaking him until he rattled.

Pope threw a panicky glance up and down the track. A railway had once run

along this route through Highgate and Finsbury Park. The track was long gone,

however, and the site was public parkland, popular with early morning joggers

and late-evening lovers Now, in the middle of a clammy afternoon, the track

was deserted in both directions.

"Hey," said Catso, "don't break his bottles."

"Right," said Brendan, "we should dig out the drink before we break his head."

At the mention of being robbed of his liquor Pope began

to struggle, but his thrashing only served to enrage his captor. Red was in a

dirty mood. The day, like most days this Indian summer, had been sticky and

dull. Only the dog-end of a wasted season to endure; nothing to do, and no

money to spend. Some entertainment had been called for, and it had fallen to

Red as lion, and Pope as Christian, to supply it.

"You'll get hurt if you struggle," Red advised the man, "we only want to see

what you've got in your pockets."

"None of your business," Pope retorted, and for a moment he spoke as a man who

had once been used to being obeyed. The outburst made Karney turn from the

gnats and gaze at Pope's emaciated face. Nameless degeneracies had drained it

of dignity or vigor, but something remained there, glimmering beneath the

dirt. What had the man been, Karney wondered? A banker perhaps? A judge, now

lost to the law forever?

Catso had now stepped into the fray to search Pope's clothes, while Red held

his prisoner against the tunnel wall by the throat. Pope fought off Catso's

unwelcome attentions as best he could, his arms flailing like windmills, his

eyes getting progressively wilder. Don't fight, Karney willed him, it'll be

Barker, Clive - The Inhuman Condition.pdf

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