Red

I have tried to keep these pages in their first and most raw form, as much as can be. I have cut a flint, and I try hard not to soften the edges. For Haley and Edgar, I write this in your shadow. The Red Death had long devastated the country. No pestilence had ever been so fatal, or so hideous. Blood was its Avatar and its sealthe redness and the horror of blood. Edgar Allen Poe, The Masque of The Red Death (1842)

I Heart.
Fires at home are yellow and small in comparison, irritable maybe, violent yes, but not murderous. These were orange, like the devils eyes. Acrid fumes of frying paint, softening metal, worse. She saw it. She screamed so hard it hurt. A girl, in a tracksuit and trainers, running along by the fence, just close enough to see the melted wreck over the screen of trees, blackened then by the smoke. Once upon a time, a car-fire happened on 12th of September near her town. Two people died. Two weeks later, and she was still thinking about it. She was walking her dog. The inferno is branded upon her vision as she walks through the narrow street to the park. She said she stopped, in front of her is a house. A house of pure red, stark against the white walls of neighbouring houses. The garden was full of flowers, large and rubicund red, like a nest of warning lights. Stop. There was a noise like pills fizzing in water, a dull hiss. She says she turned. On the other side of the flower bed, a figure stood, its head lowered, staring up at her from a down-turned face. The face was red, a scary red, like a ruby, with purple fractured into pieces by the dark veins, visible under its creased, flecked skin, which looked some how reused. It grinned -no leered at her as she gazed speechless at it. Her, it was a she. Its hair was a dry wig of a hateful puce colour beneath which she could see thick red hide. The devil ran her eye over the girl, and froze. Savage teeth glistened the dogs jaws as he bared his teeth. He growled. A thunderous noise shook the demons world. Wolf! It hated the moon-creatures, they knew what they saw before them, in that reddened, scarred face. The demons mouth slid down into a bent line of fear. It swept around, a thin lithe thing, she saw, grotesquely elongated, covered in a ripped cotton dress and as red as arterial blood, before it disappeared into the house. But she was already running, the girl sprinted down the street, the wolf- the dog- Patrick infront of her, barking. Ear-shattering war-cries filled the dmons head like fragments of broken glass, renting holes in her brain. It hid in the floor of an empty room, pressing its ears to the ground until the reassuring beat of the fires beneath the earth calmed the echoes of moon-violence. Hells Bells.

II Apple.
This was the place. The car was gone and so was the fence. It had burned down completely before the Fire Service even got here. Even the trees had not escaped unscathed. Burned on the left side, all the way up, black. Mortally wounded. This is was as close as she could get, the police tape barred her way. There was a sabre rectangle, scarring the turf. People died here. Or there. But people die everywhere. Theres nowhere on earth that hasnt seen death. Or that would be heaven. Maybe she should go somewhere else. She says, she thought the dog might need walking.

He was sitting on a bench with a book infront of his face. The Collected Tales of Edgar Allen Poe. He lowered his book slightly to scratch his nose. He drew something out of his pocket. At first, she thought it was a skull, but she realised it was just fruit. Sweet tree-flesh. Red as flesh with an inside as white as bone. The dog came hurdling through the verge, and bumped straight into him. She says she said Patrick! Sorry. Dont worry about it! The landscape here was green, or grey or blueish. Cool, safe. A red smear stained it. An abandoned car in the scrubland beyond the fence. She strained to see above the chicken wire wall, but she was too small. Cold metal scored her hands. Hey you! Hey you! He shouted from the bench. She wasnt listening, she was gazing at the car. When she looked around he was gone. She went to the bench. There on the bench, was a round shining apple. She says she thinks he meant her to take it. I think so too. But it was as red as flames, a colour which haunted her as she read ghost stories that night. The creatures and people crept like mist from the curtains, she found their figures all around. And even in sleep, for it was dreamless except, for the red that flashes behind her eyes as she woke. Eyelid red? Not quite.

III Anger.
The red garden was empty, and only when she turned did she know where the dmon was. It was standing barely two metres from her, with a surprisingly blank expression on its face, oblivious to the rest of the otherwise empty street, even to the dog infront of her. She guessed that it wasnt playing with her anymore. That it was tired. Hungry. It gazed at her bitterly, colourless irises punctured by the pupils, vermilion holes into... wherever it came from. They sucked and swelled, tugging at her. The sun set on its dark face, giving it an even more erubescent image. What are you? she asked, more hoarsely than she had intended. It licked its lips. Ive come for you, stupid. Its mouth contorted once again into an inhuman crescent.

Well, Im not coming with you! Im not going to- going to- She says she didnt finish, she just ran. The dog followed at gallop. She ran home, instinctively, thrust all of the windows and doors shut and sat shaking in the middle of the bathroom floor.

IV Heat.
Heat. Dream-heat, to give her nightmares. She would go to the house, take the girlbut no. Not with the wolf around. She gazed out of the red houses window. The moon was the highest shed ever seen it. There would be no outside journeys tonight. Bad dreams. Red faces, hot air, enclosing her like a vice, and sleepiness stayed her movement. Lurid, rampaging monsters dragged across her vision and all was lost to redness. The sound of barking and commotion in the garden mingled with her dreams. Presently, she felt cool, merciful fingers descend on her face, and she awoke.

V Blood.
The dog was licking her face. She rubbed her eyes and opened the bathroom window. It was dawn, and the heat was gone, a wonderful iciness spread over her frame. She went to the bathroom door to let the dog and herself out. That was when she noticed the blood on his jaws. There was a strand of red polyester in there too, like wig material. She went to the front of the red house. She had to be sure. She went in, as quietly as she could from room to room, searching for the demon, the red demon. Suddenly, she turned a corner and there it was. Stretched out on the floor like a childs trampled Plasticine figure. Slowly, she reached and dropped the apple to the floor. The monster picked it up, gouging sharp stabs into its flesh. The juice seeped from them, trickling down its arm, It was covered in bites, the apple juice ran into the wounds. To her surprise, its blood had changed from red to blue. It filled her vision. Blue.