Tim Lebbon - Fears Unnamed Read Online Free

the desert made light of so many aspects of life I took to be important. Here there was only water, or no water. Here too there was life, or death… and perhaps, if Scott’s weird story held any trace of truth, something connecting the two.
    But I could not believe. I did not have the
facility
to believe.
    The sun must have driven him mad.
    I jumped from the jeep and followed him into his tent. Its interior was more well-appointed than it had any right to be, being compartmented into four by hanging swirls of fine material, and carpeted with an outlandish collection of rugs and throw cushions. In one quarter there was even some rudimentary furniture: a cot, a couple of low-slung chairs and the solar fridge. He was pulling out two bottles of beer, their labels beaded with moisture.
    He popped the caps and offered me a bottle. “To us!” he said. “Nice fuckin’ life!”
    “Absolutely,” I said. We clinked bottles and drank.
    Only he could use that phrase and sound like he actually meant it.
    “So tell me,” I said. “This city? A real city? Why have you dragged me a million miles from home? Other than to sit and drink beer and see if you’re still a pansy when it comes to booze.”
    “Three bottles and I’m done,” he said, slurping noisily, wiping his chin, sighing in satisfaction. “I wonder if the dead spend their time mourning their senses?”
    “The dead.”
    “Wouldn’t you? If you died and could still think, reason, wouldn’t you miss the sound of a full orchestra or a child’s laugh? Miss the taste of a good steak or a woman’s pussy? Miss the smell of fresh bread or a rose garden?”
    I shrugged, nodded, not knowing quite how to respond.
    “I would,” he said. “Life is so lucky, you just have to wonder at it, don’t you? Even thinking about it makes everything sound, taste and smell so much better.” He looked at me. “Apart from you. Didn’t you shower before you left home? Stinking bastard.”
    “And I suppose the showers are out of action,” I said.
    “Yes, but the Jacuzzi is in the next tent, and the Jacuzzi maids have been told to treat you special.”
    We shared a laugh then, for the first time this visit, and we sank wearily into the low chairs.
    “The city,” I said again. For someone so keen to drag me out here, he was being infuriatingly reticent about revealing his discovery.
    “The city.” He nodded. “I don’t know if it’s a real city, Pete. It’s really here, really under our feet, and later I’ll show you how I know that. The relic I handed you in the car is one of a few I’ve found, all of them… the same. Distant.”
    “It didn’t feel all there.”
    “I think it was a ghost,” he said, frowning, concentrating. “I think it was a part of someone who died a long time ago, but a piece that was buried or lost to the ages. The other things I’ve found point to that too.”
    “But have you actually
found
this place? Or are you surmising?”
    “I’ve found enough to tell me that it’s really here. For sure.”
    “These bits of ghosts?” I felt slightly foolish verbalizing what Scott had said. It was patently wrong, there was some other explanation, but he could state these outlandish ideas comfortably. They did not sound so real coming from my skeptical self.
    “Them, and more. I saw a part of the city revealed by a sinkhole. Haven’t been able to get close yet—the sand is too fluid. But there’s nothing else it can be other than a buried ruin. Blocks, joints. I’ll show you soon.” He stared at me, challenging me to doubt.
    “But why hasn’t anyone else ever come here, found this stuff?”
    Scott took another long drink from his bottle, emptying it, and then tilted his chair back and stared up at the tent ceiling. The sun cast weird shapes across the canvas, emphasizing irregularities in its surface and casting shadows where sand had blown and been trapped, gathered in folds and creases. Scott looked as though he was trying to make