The Quantum Toybox- Prologue
It was dusk, late summer. The light had taken on that blue- grey, dreamlike quality which makes you doubt your eyes. A touch of warmth remained on the light breeze, carrying an aroma of cow dung, apple blossom and hay bales wrapped in heated black plastic. Little Jim Rafferty stood in a long, shallow ditch, once a stream, the water coming perilously close to the lip of his welly boots. He unscrewed the lid of his jam jar and scooped up some tadpoles, almost overbalancing in the process. Straightening up unsteadily, he held the jar aloft and solemnly secured the lid again. In the dim light he could just about make out twenty squirming, comma- shaped bodies inside.
His smile was the smile of a nine year old boy who had thus far enjoyed a good childhood, a true childhood. Every night he fell asleep knowing he was loved. When he worried about monsters hiding behind the curtains, a few soothing words from his mother while she caressed his curly head were enough to obliterate the fear. It would come back the next night, of course, fear is a pernicious adversary, after all, but until then it would not bother, would not niggle the way fears do when you're grown.
Tears were occasionally cried over scuffed knees or a telling off, but once spilled, the source of those tears was forgotten, and happiness resumed normal service. Death was a foggy abstraction, so far away as to almost be mythical. If he did ponder it, it was in the context of his parents, and even then it possessed less presence than a fairytale monster, some of whom were a much more immediate concern. That cursed witch in Hansel and Gretel in particular; the notion of an old lady eating children turned something in him he couldn't quite identify, gave him a peculiar feeling in his stomach and brain. That ancient brain-stem itch. Fear of being consumed.
He headed back home, winding a track though the long grass, course against his ankles. Clasping his jar of tadpoles in both hands, careful not to drop or shake it, he hummed absently. His father's sheep were hazy white blobs in the next field. He hummed on, watching the grass part before each footstep. A wood pigeon burst out of the trees to his left, the sudden flap of wings startling him, making him drop the jar. It fell on the flattened grass at his feet almost soundlessly and stayed intact. He bent to pick it up, and when he straightened up again it seemed to be so much darker. The boy was spooked now, jumpy.
"Wise up," he said aloud, "It was just a stupid bird."
But as he strode on he couldn't shake the jitters. Fight or flight was humming along now, and there was no turning it straight back off again. Sunlight was almost gone, but he could see the windows of home, golden yellow, and that helped him relax. Soon he would be inside drinking hot chocolate, smelling mum's strong tea brewing on the stove, trying to barter a few more minutes of TV before bed.
He was aware of the shape before he really laid eyes on it; a large depression in the tall grass off to his right. At first it appeared to be a patch of flattened grass, about the size of a tractor. The breeze was cloying all of a sudden, as if it carried rotting ghosts. The son of a farmer, he knew the scent of dead livestock well. Many's a time he and his brother had come upon a stray sheep that had drowned in a ditch or been gutted by a fox.
Curiosity and fear are old adversaries, as any cat can tell you, and Jim let his feet turn right, making a new track towards the stinking pool of darkness he knew he should avoid. He knew his older brother wouldn't run away, and neither would his father. Men have to be brave, after all, tough. Farming is hard business, and death is part of that business.
Pushing to the edge of the miniature clearing, he found the grass there alternatively slick and sticky. The stench of blood, shit and viscera was overpowering, a physical cloud hanging there. His foot brushed something dry and brittle, white in the wakening starlight.
It was hard to tell how many carcasses; maybe four, ribs curved to the sky, meat and skin still clinging in sections, skulls smashed in. The flattened grass was slathered with dark blood and carpeted with slithering entrails. Discarded cloven hoofs were scattered about, some with whole legs still attached. It would all have been fascinating had the killer not been sleeping three yards away.
The boy didn't have the life experience to parse exactly how scared he was. He'd never been in a car crash, never been beaten up. Going to the abattoir had scared him at first; that was the only point of reference he had for this current terror, but the comparison lacked. The abattoir had never made him afraid for his life.
The unidentifiable thing was asleep, grey flanks bellowing steadily in and out, reminding Jim of a rusty- hinged door being blown open and closed by the breeze. On one point an adult might have equivocated over, Jim was clear; the beast was a monster, and it was time to run.
More slowly than he thought possible, his feet began the agonising process of backing away. Further...further still... until the stench lessened and that squeaky- hinge breathing faded in his ears. He broke into a run after twenty yards, unable to take the tension anymore, then vaulted the barbed wire fence, that led to his backyard, grabbing one unsteady post for support. He came down hard, twisting his ankle, but barely felt it. Rolling back to his feet, he flailed on, arms outstretched. The terror was a giant's hand, propelling him irresistibly forward.
Finally he depressed the handle on the side door, throwing his shoulder against it at the same time. He burst into the utility room and barrelled through to the kitchen, heedless of his muddy boots.
Warmth enveloped him, golden spotlights on the gooseflesh of his forearms. His mother looked up with wide eyes, in time to see him sink to his knees and curl up into a shuddering ball. When she finally managed to pry the jar of tadpoles out of his trembling hands, they were all dead.
