The Collector

He stood on the corner and looked at his watch. It should have happened by now.

"Pardon me," spoke the lanky financier who had appeared at his side. "Do you have the time?"

Digby glanced at the man, irritated. It was taking too long. He patted his pocket, just to make sure. Why was it taking so long? A carriage rumbled past, pulled by two bored horses clopping across the streets wet cobblestones.

A suited man loomed over him and gave a cough for attention.

"I say, the time boy, do you have it?"

"What?" replied Digby, frowning.

The financier tilted his head, unaccustomed to such hostility. He peered over, hoping to steal a glance at Digby's wrist. Digby snatched his arm away and covered his watch with the cuff of his tattered jacket. Affronted, the man straightened himself by the lapel of his tawny suit, tutting and mumbling under his breath. The financier tapped his cane on the ground. He turned as if the jury in his mind had acquitted him.

"There's no need for such--"

"Would you just shut up," hissed Digby. "Just shut up. Please."

The man's jaw dropped, aghast. He glared. Digby saw brutality raging in those eyes, the thin membrane of civility liable to break at any moment.

But Digby met that arrogant gaze, daring him. Upper-class men like him had never known true violence like he had.

As if on cue, the man's anger waned, replaced with diffident embarrassment. He gave one last harrumph and then moved toward the back of the shelter on the corner. He sat down, unfurled the creased newspaper under his arm, and gave one final dismissive cough.

Digby turned back to his watch in horror. That wasn't enough to ruin it all, Digby thought; surely. He was so close. It wasn't an exact science, he had been told, but they had also taught him that interactions could cause problems.

He checked the central glowing crystal and tapped it. No response. Its five hands twitched with the beat of time, and he studied the layers upon layers of cogs twirling and spinning at differing speeds surrounding the crystal. The longer he looked, the more maddening its rhythms became. None of it made any sense.

His stomach rumbled. He ignored it, focusing on his watch. Without thinking, his free hand rested on the notebook in his pocket. The slight volume would change it all, he thought. He stopped himself from smiling by rubbing his sore cheeks.

A jarring pain in his gut brought him back from his thoughts. The pie shop across the street was empty. He could smell the gravy, almost taste it. The griping knot of pain tumbled around within him. He recalled the last time he'd eaten. Two days before, at the abbey; the old woman's gruel. He winced at the haunting memory of its gristly texture.

The watch chimed. His attention snapped to it. A sudden rustle behind him made him suspicious; they weren't supposed to know. He checked to see the nosey suited man dart back to his newspaper.

The hands were moving in all directions now, sweeping around faster and faster. Digby cleared the sweat from his brow. It was happening. He pulled the notebook from his pocket and held it in his hand. As the cogs turned dangerously fast, and gripping the book, he held his finger just above the crystal in the device's center. Then he saw it glow brighter, the orange hue highlighting his dirty fingernails. When the mechanisms of the watch were spinning so fast that they had become a blur, he heard another chime.

Digby bit his lip and pressed the crystal down, hard.

Fractal distortions burst from the device in waves, twisting his surroundings. Then, with a lurch, the flow of life around him shunted to a stop.

A pigeon taking flight above remained still, as did the pie-maker in his shop, as did the financier snooping to see what Digby was doing. Even Digby himself had stopped, frozen in time.

But the glowing watch hadn't. Its clock-face continued to swirl with motion at a dizzying rate.

In the middle of the street, a sudden wind lashed the cobbles. Lightning whipped the air as a bright, fierce ball of energy emerged. It grew larger and larger until it ripped in half, causing an impossible rupture in the middle of the road.

The collectors emerged from the portal, tall and slender with shimmering skin. They wore long, flowing robes and carried staffs adorned with intricate symbols. Each wore veils that darkened and obscured their faces.

The closest lifted its arm and beckoned the watch to return. It obeyed and zipped into its waiting, delicate hand.

With another gesture, Digby was released. He gaped as they approached him, their movements graceful and otherworldly.

One of them spoke, its voice low and melodic. "We have been waiting for you, Retriver.”

Digby's heart pounded in his chest. This was it, the moment he had been waiting for. He held out the notebook, his hands shaking.

"I have it; the papers you wanted. It's all here."

The collector took the notebook and leafed through its pages, nodding in approval. It passed the book to another, who gestured it out of existence with a wave of its staff.

"You have done well, Retriever. You will be rewarded for your service."

Digby couldn't believe it. This was everything he had hoped for, and more. He grinned from ear to ear, feeling a weight lifted off his shoulders. He wasn’t sure how he should respond, so he fell to his knee and bowed his head.

“Thank you.” He said. He had finally made it, he was going to be one of them.

Digby waited. Then after a moment of silence, he looked up.

The Collectors were gone.

Instead, the noise of the street flooded his ears as cart-horses returned to their pondering, pigeons swooped overhead, and he saw the pie maker in his shop bring down his hatchet on a cut of beef.

They had left him behind.

Digby stood up and brushed the dirt from his knee. He watched the street flow with time, hesitating on the slim chance they would return.

Then, when he realised they wouldn’t, with a heavy heart, he strayed off into the city, plunging his hands into his pockets as he went.

But, as he did so, his fingers found the distinct outline of a small, circular shaped piece of metal, with an unmistakable outline of a crystal in the middle.

He knew they hadn’t forgotten him. Digby smiled and walked back through the city with a skip in his step.

Choices

Derek sat down in his armchair and wondered what time in the evening it was. The handle of the bloody knife was sticking to the palm of his ruddy hand, and he noted calmly that the coagulation showed an hour had passed since he’d sliced Sandra’s throat. She lay sprawled before him, her leg bent and her hand still touching the controller. The dry, stilted air around him parched his throat, and he reached for the whiskey. It was around fifty centimetres above the ground, stuck above the shattered glass coffee table Sandra had fallen through. He picked it up with his free hand and took a sip. It tasted of whiskey, that was unsurprising, but they hadn’t quite managed the peaty flavour. Moments passed as he swilled it in his hand. The knife wasn’t heavy, but it looked like it should be.

Sirens; less than half a mile. He had a minute, maybe less. Unhurriedly, he gulped the rest of the whiskey and stored it, getting up from the armchair. His leather shoes crunched on the cubed shards of glass as he moved across the brown carpet. He decided he hated brown. He entered the kitchen. It was a non-colour, Derek thought, passing the curry boiling on the hob. On the counter was the briefcase with his notes. Putting the knife down, he leafed through, printing dark splotches of blood on the thin paper. His fingers sticky, he struggled to pick the pages apart. He chuckled to himself when he nearly licked his thumb for better purchase. Instead, he moved the briefcase to one side and splayed the pages across the counter. He found the code he was looking for. Stepping back, he jumped twice, threw the knife, then he quickly followed that with a roll across the floor and a turn to the left.

The sirens were blaring outside, and Derek could see the flashing blue and red lights of the police. Moving over to the oven, he brushed the pot to one side, spilling the red curry and exposing the flame beneath. Without hesitation, he plunged both hands into the flame. The blood laced across his fingers fizzed and carbonised. Derek withdrew them and clenched his hand into a fist, popping off the black dust that had remained.

There was a violent crash as the front door fell in. Derek peeped around the corner, looking into the living room where Sandra lay dead. A stream of heavily armed police officers trampled across the room, their pistols drawn. Pistols, just pistols, Derek thought. They fanned out. Two thudded upstairs while three remained. One of them knelt by Sandra and tipped her head to get a better look. He saw the cut, sharp and raw, and shook his head.

Derek emerged from his hiding spot. The three officers shouted at him. The usual commands to obey and prostrate himself before them. He didn’t bother listening. Instead, he walked toward them. They fired their pistols. He continued. They kept firing, the noise deafening in the enclosed space. He smelt cordite waft over him. They wavered, then retreated to the front door, their faces fixed in aggressive scowls. The two officers upstairs flew down the stairs to see what was happening, but one tripped and tumbled down, hitting the wall at the bottom with a sickening crack. Derek laughed in disbelief.

He moved forward until he stumbled, his foot stuck. He looked down as they reloaded and saw that his left foot had gone. That was strange, he mused. He knelt down as another officer stepped closer and fired all six shots into Derek’s back. The foot hadn’t gone. He could see glimpses of it emerging through the brown carpet. He tugged it up, but it wouldn’t move. Derek frowned. Another police officer, a tubby one, tackled him to the ground. Then the room spun too quickly to make sense of any direction. The tubby officer’s body stretched and contorted in horrific ways. His thin limbs striking through the floor in narrow lines that whipped other objects about the room. The body bounced around, his extremities now flailing around with such speed that it became a blur to Derek.

Then Derek fell. Or, perhaps, he thought, the world above him was ascending. He looked up and saw Sandra’s corpse from below quickly rise. The tubby officer’s thrashing body disappeared through a wall, as the other agents above tried in vain to shoot Derek through the translucent floor.

He sighed, wondering what time in the evening it was. He was getting hungry. Another go; he thought.

Sandra stood in front of him, shouting. Waggling the controller in his face, her expression grave. Derek looked back with apathy, hoping this time his choice would be the right one.

The basement at 82 Caulder Crescent

The basement at 82 Caulder Crescent disappeared again last week. Not all of it, mind. The handrail and the first couple of steps leading down into the swirling void were still there, but the basement had gone. Just as I’d hoped. It was night. I’d made my way through the broken window as usual, replacing the board. The house was still except for the creaks under my boots as I went straight to the door in the kitchen. Mr Evergreen hadn’t been seen there since I bumbled about in diapers, and judging by the state of the house, and the missing basement, I had a fairly good idea he wasn’t coming back.

As I stood at the top of the stairs leading to what had been the basement, I stared at the colours in the void. It was pretty, but I can’t really describe it. Alright, I’ll try. It sort of twinkled. Bright shapes wound themselves around the edges and then down into the dark purple circle in the middle. The last time I’d seen it, I swore I saw an elongated face in one of those shapes. Trust me, that’d creeped me out so much at the time that I’d ran out of there as fast as I could. But you hardly see a disappearing basement every day, and I wanted to know where it went. So, this time, I looked really hard, trying to see if I could see it again. I got bored after a little while and chose to get set up before it closed.

I’d come prepared this time; camera and everything. It was one of those sports cameras. Not the expensive one, the knock-off type. You know, the ones that you fix on your head. Of course, I wasn’t putting it on my head. No way I was sticking my head in the void. I’d try it scientific-like. I pulled the rig that guy from YouTube told me how to make from my backpack and sat down on the top stair. The once-was-basement vibrated my bum and made my teeth chatter. No sound, though. That was the strangest part. I turned the camera on, made the checks and hooked it up to the Wi-Fi on my phone. I quickly replied to Sally’s stream of nonsense and then waited for the app to connect, placing it on my lap. Then I got the telescoping stick out and screwed the camera on top. Slowly, I pushed it toward the void. The camera on the stick got closer, but it was a fight to keep it steady as the current in the void tried to pull it from my hands. Then it plopped in and I really had to fight to stop it from getting sucked in.

I checked my phone, and honestly; it was pretty disappointing. Dark purple and that grainy noise you get when taking pictures at night. Just a bunch of garbled colours covering the screen. I held it there for what felt like hours. I was going to pack it up, but I thought I saw something move. I could barely make it out. And then I saw him. Mr Evergreen. Except, he was bald, and it was too dark to see him clearly; what with the grain and all. But, from what Mum told me, I’m sure it was him. He seemed sort of dirty, and the way he moved, or should I say, didn’t move, was really weird. Before I knew it, he’d got closer to the camera. Staring straight at me, his eyes covered by the shadow. I looked up from my lap and I thought I saw an outline in the void. That’s when I checked the feed again and he’d gone.

Right then was an almighty clap that made me jump out of my skin. The camera clattered to the ground as I let go and closed my eyes. When I opened them again, the basement was back, just as it had been the first time I’d gone exploring. No vibrations, no twinkles, no Mr Evergreen. Just a dark room with a couple of shelves and the washing machine that’d rusted from white to speckled orange.

It was definitely him, though. I’m not lying. I’ll save up and get the better camera, I think. A proper 4K one because the video I got was rubbish, you can’t see a thing. If you’re interested, I’ll give you a shout and we can go together? I’m definitely going back, mind. I’ll see if I can speak to him, find out what happened. There’s just something about it though, you have to see it for yourself. The way the void swirls and moves, it’s incredible. It feels like I could just jump in and it’d feel all warm and fuzzy. Like a big blanket, it’d just wrap me up and I’d be all cosy. Thinking about it, I might go next weekend; just, don’t tell Sally, okay?