The Evening Lands: A Question for the West

By C.L. Spillard

Verity realises, on New Year's Day morning, that the events of the previous night can mean only one thing: Stan Mills will be seething, and out for revenge.

She needs powerful allies, and fast.

She travels to the U.S.A. as volunteer for the country's top psychologists: they need someone with a heart problem like hers for their gruesome, dangerous experiments probing the nature of Evil.

She knows Mills will follow her, and hopes that together she and the scientists can defeat him.

But once in their basement laboratory she discovers The Professor isn't who he says he is, the staff are psychopaths, and no-one expects her either to sleep or ever leave.

No-one, that is, except sinister Colonel Herz. He believes she holds the key to an interrogation technique that's impossible to resist and which, she soon finds out, plays a crucial role in the fate Mills has in mind for the U.S.A.: the country he calls ‘The Evening Lands’...

• Language: English
• Publisher: C.L. Spillard
• Release date: Jan 27, 2022
• ISBN: 9781005268961

C.L. Spillard

C.L. Spillard is a complex interplay of matter and energy in a pattern of waves whose probability cloud is densest in York, United Kingdom.Following the profound influence, in a mysterious process not yet fully understood by science, of the NASA moon landings on the young pattern’s quantum-based self-awareness mechanisms, C.L. Spillard developed an interest in Physics and the plight of life on our small, blue spheroid.A career in scientific research beckoned, including complex calculations of what happens to radio-waves being sent through the atmosphere by people who wish to talk to each other.This included studying the weather – which brings us right back to the plight of life. C.L. Spillard has among other things dropped dead in Downing Street for Greenpeace, sat in a flooded tent on Solsbury Hill in an attempt to fight off a motorway, and planted more trees – sometimes under cover of darkness – than you can shake a stick at.C.L. Spillard’s wave-pattern enjoys proximity to a second pattern originating in St Petersburg (Russia), and these two have since generated two younger ones who are now diffusing over the planet stuffing themselves with knowledge as if it were going out of fashion.

Book preview

Gentlemen, Chuck announced, waving a sheaf of papers as he entered the lab, I got some good news and some bad news.

He paused for dramatic effect, to ensure he had his collaborators’ full attention.

The good: it looks like we got ourselves a Volunteer! Retired scientist. All six criteria. I checked. Including live proof that she screams good. CCTV, British Royal Navy base—she called for help. You can have a listen, if you like.

Gee, said Charity, who had long since given up pointing out she was not a gentleman, that’s great!

What’s the bad news? asked the Professor.

The bad news, Professor, is the rest. For starters, she’s a foreigner—a Limey.

That’s not so terrible.

She let me befriend her on Face. I got all her details. Green Party, how ’bout that?

What’s ‘Green Party’? Charity asked.

Bunch of pinkos, scoffed the Professor.

Chuck continued, "Then there’s, Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. Plus, Community Orchard."

She’s a Communist? Charity’s eyes widened.

Looks like it.

Oh jeez.

Next you’re going to tell us she’s married to a Ruskie.

Professor, take a look for yourself. Chuck handed over the papers.

The Professor sighed. How in God’s green earth are we going to get this lady a visa?

Academic visitor? suggested Charity, It’s always worked in the past.

But we’re on Black Alert.

Can’t you pull strings, Professor?

You’re right. The Professor flicked through the papers and laid them on the desk. They’ll cancel our contract if we don’t get started soon. I’ll pull strings. I’ll pull the goddamn place down if I have to.

He glanced at the photograph on the first sheet—a plain face topped with white hair.

She did spend a year in the States as a kid. Seattle: look. Chuck indicated a paragraph on the briefing.

OK, write her with a yes. My guess is she’s got college-age kids?

Yup, two.

Offer what we can.

Will do, Professor.

~~~

date: Saturday 31st December 2016

from: [e-mail]

to: Verity Player ([e-mail])

Subject: re: laboratory volunteers

Dear Verity I. Player, Ph.D.,

Thank you for contacting us re: the volunteer posts.

It is unusual for us to find someone who fulfils all 6 conditions, but from the information you provide, you appear to do so. We would be delighted to welcome you to our Institute, and of course we will cover all your expenses. A scan of your passport will enable us to obtain a visa for you as an academic visitor.

As an educational establishment we are unable to offer you direct payment for your time. However, we can offer bursaries to cover college and/or University fees to any children you may have who are studying, if you agree to participate for a full month.

Kind regards,

Charles M. Forrester

Chapter 1

Freewill

Verity re-read the words.

Her heart lost its rhythm again.

Her offer to help the psychologists had made perfect sense at the time…

But after last night’s surprise, she faced the unpleasant task of telling them she’d changed her mind. And she couldn’t even let them know why. What on earth would America’s top psychologists make of an Englishwoman claiming that one Stan ‘Satanic’ Mills, the embodiment of all Humanity’s irrational fears, had been stalking her since her student days?

She scrolled down to her own email, still appended below the reply. Her sentences, written on New Year’s Eve as early darkness fell. Written after she’d heard—could have sworn she heard—Mills mutter that she’d lost the wager he’d tricked her into making.

His plan to set humanity on a course for self-destruction would roll to its inevitable conclusion. Her conscience would be torn from her as forfeit. What else to do but seize on the little advert for volunteers—on one last thread of chance?

It would still be daylight in America—morning, even. She pictured the sunlit lab, techies and academics sharing a joke over their mugs of coffee as they read her words. They must take her on; what tiny number of people had heart conditions, and all the other things they needed?

Without a conscience—she’d thought it all through with cold logic—she’d still be a scientist. She’d still be driven, by her curiosity, to go there and take part in experiments—even dangerous ones.

Her presence there would lure Mills—Stan ‘Satanic’ Mills, who always found her wherever she went—so the psychologists might confront him, and take up the fight she had lost…

But an unexpected twist had saved her.

She’d won Mills’ wager. The sentences of despair called like an echo from another time, an evanescent year passed away.

New Year’s had brought her a bright morning and—for once—a clear head.

She’d spent the day tidying the garden, even though Sacha wouldn’t be home from his Russia visit till after dark.

He’d not want her to endanger herself like this. Neither would Clara or Andrei. Her son’s voice came to her mind unbidden: Mu-u-um, are you sure that’s wise? He’d grin, but fear wouldn’t be far beneath. And Clara would just quietly think her unhinged. Again.

She took a deep breath and hit Reply. Better get on with it.

Further to my letter of New Year’s Eve…

She sat up with a jolt.

How long had Mills been working on that plan—cultivating the world of Finance to set up a system where debt would always outstrip the money to repay it? Debt which could only be staved off by constant ‘growth’, destroying more resources year by year until it consumed all, leaving nothing but dust?

Hundreds of years…

She turned to look behind her—the spare bedroom with its four-poster with roses on the bedspread and piles of books and leaflets on the floor. She’d first come face-to-face with him right here. Here he’d told her he’d been stalking her for years—for decades, even.

He wasn’t going to go quietly, was he?

She recalled the things she’d seen when he’d allowed her inside the ice-cold palace of his mind. The dark War Room with its maps and documents of atrocities.

He’d have some other plan in there—some even worse device to fill humanity with the fear on which he fed, pitting body against body in some hideous, all-consuming struggle, just for his gruesome satisfaction. Like as not already started on it…

She couldn’t let these people down. The scientists working hard to unveil the nature of evil who, having accepted her offer, expected—perhaps needed—her help. To cry off now would be to break a promise—to lie. To lie and throw away a chance to embrace the most powerful allies she could dream of!

Sacha! She called.

What is it, love?

I’ve got a reply from those American Psychos! They were at work at midnight on New Year’s Eve, can you believe it?

What American Psychos?

Sacha walked from his study to the spare bedroom. He leaned over her shoulder to read the email. She put an arm round him and gazed up into his face—noticed how much care he took in reading the words.

It’s from the Milgram Labs, she explained.

What do they do?

They want me for some kind of re-run of the first Milgram experiments, the classic ones where they see whether people will obey cruel orders. They put them in a position where, say, they’re trying to teach somebody something. They give them a mild electric shock if they get it wrong. The shocks gradually go up—

But everybody’s heard of those experiments already. Even in Russia. It’s trivial. They’re not going to work this time.

Yes, but they think the experiments’ subjects—the people who administered the electric shocks—cottoned on that the shocks weren’t real. So they want to do the experiments again; a different cover story this time, I suppose, but with real shocks. On real people, with real heart conditions.

You?

The shock came to her in his voice.

She nodded.

Me.

He reached for her hands. She wished they weren’t so cold.

I… she hesitated, "saw their advert. In New Scientist, while you were away. I thought Mills had won with his wretched plan and we had nothing to lose."

You thought he would take your conscience, as winnings?

Yes. So, you know how they say, ‘while I am still of sound mind—’

But now there is no need for you to do this. This type of experiment, it’s an unreasonable thing to ask of you.

They’re proper scientists. They’re not going to kill me! They’ll have paramedics on hand to revive me if the worst comes to the worst.

Verra, love, do you trust these people?

I…yes. I want them to see Mills. I want someone else to be able to face him without being paralysed by the fear he’s made of. Somebody who matters, not just me.

She turned in her seat as he sat down on the edge of the four-poster.

"Harvard psychology professors must be able to find a way. You know how he sees into people’s minds when they’re in fear. I bet they can work out how to stop that."

Her words trailed off.

Milgram.

Professor Milgram…

Professor Stanley Milgram.

She reached for Sacha’s hand. She could have sworn her touch betrayed the thought.

~~~

Coincidence, lad. Pure, ruddy coincidence.

Sacha forced himself to look at the figure that stood before him—dark, unintelligible, foreboding. It had materialised in front of the closed door of his book-lined study. He hated himself for the fear Mills lit in his mind—fear without reason.

But you have to admit it’s a good ’un. What with the effect those trials had on folk at the time, filling them with a whole new kind of irrational fear.

He recalled the things Verra had told him: that fear—irrational fear—could grip entire nations…

Aye. Fear that folk aren’t plain good or plain evil. It’s not all solid and reliable like that. There’s no handy way-markers now folk have found out that any one of you can be made evil by circumstance alone.

And if it took hold of a mind, it could read every fleeting thought…

Anyone, even the lass.

His thoughts cut out. The dreadful figure—Mills—leaned towards him, as if to share a confidence.

It were too easy.

What was too easy?

Last year. Those folk who got her to listen, over and over, to that recording of their little meeting. Because she were desperate to understand what they were on about.

Yes, he remembered. The effect of the language the meeting’s attendees used. The Language of Indifference, which made everyone who overheard too much of it—

Indifferent, aye.

Another memory tugged at him—yes!

But you didn’t want anyone to do that to her! You didn’t want her to be Indifferent! You even came here and asked me for help!

He had. He’d helped Mills. He’d been the one to talk Verra into allowing Mills into her Mind Palace: into the landscape—the constructions—of a mind. The garden where trust grows; the rooms where skills and memories are kept.

Verra had described a portrait gallery of remembered faces. Everybody had one but hers had been damaged, she believed, by lack of oxygen when her heart was repaired as a child. There’d been an optical device—broken, for the same reason—for reading facial expressions. Verra—his Verra, and perhaps no-one else alive—could look at that dreadful face and not resonate with fear.

Mills—that thing—had been in Verra’s mind. No-one else had known how to banish the webs of Indifference that choked her conscience and made her accept lying to children in her job…

Aye, that I did. But why d’you suppose that it were so easy to get the lass into that state—and so ruddy hard to get her out of it—that I needed any help at all? Hmm?

Mills—and not him.

He couldn’t think. Couldn’t summon Reason.

I were pushing at an open door, lad.

The pause seemed to last an age.

You see, your lass—your Verra—has one great love in life.

True. He—everybody—saw it in her face: the light when she gazed at him…

And it isn’t you.

He glared at Mills, shuddered. You are LYING!

She’ll go anywhere—do anything, the voice lowered to a horrible whisper, follow anyone.

A chasm yawned,

For answers.

The figure vanished before he could protest.

He should have gone to bed earlier, shouldn’t stay up working so late.

As he lay down, his mind worn out, Verra turned away from him in her sleep.

Chapter 2

Reward Centre

Verity sat at the computer posting New Year’s greetings to her friends on Face, revelling in the loud rock music that played through her cans—music that banished fear.

Silence cut in.

I’ve a present for you, lass.

She turned to see Mills holding the cans’ wire and jack—cursed herself for never having bought speakers.

Do you recall what I said when you caught me out with proof I’d sat you in the electric chair in the Dungeons?

She might have seen a smile at the mention of his favourite haunt, the city’s torture museum. Or she might have imagined it.

He’d laced her arms to the chair, begun to unstitch the silk threads that held her heart together…

The following morning, he’d tried to convince her it was a nightmare. But she’d shown him the rope-burns on her wrists.

In the strange ‘game’ that bound them both, he’d had to pay a forfeit for the damage.

No, Mills, I don’t.

She stared at his hand holding the wire. Music. Music had saved her. She’d belted out the chorus of Sheer Heart Attack.

She grinned. It was all a bit of a shock.

Her smile faded.

A present…

Anyway, you were saying.

I said I owed you three stitches, an obligation which I have discharged—

Oh, I remember now: ‘And a life’. I’d forgotten. It didn’t seem to make sense.

It makes perfect sense, lass. I owe you a life.

But I’ve already got a life. I rather like it, as it happens.

Listen, lass: how many chances at life have you had? Every Mortal has one, the one they’re born with. How many have you had, so far?

Ah, you mean, like people say a cat has nine lives. She warmed to the question. Let’s see…one when I was born, yes. One shortly after that. Then when I had my heart repaired. Then, just after getting married. She brightened, smiled right at him. All thanks to the N.H.S.!

Mills loathed the National Health Service—so much fear taken away from a nation, with one stroke of the pen! But did it ever cross his mind that without it she wouldn’t be here? That then—he’d told her so himself—he’d be alone with all his knowledge, without a chance for a rational conversation?

And, of course, one at New Year’s when you found me fainted in the snow at the crossroads. Walking back from the party at the Green House. So, if I were a cat, I’d only have four lives left by now.

Well, you’re not a cat. You’re a Mortal, and a very lucky one. The more so now you’ve an extra chance at life, should you ever find yourself in need of it.

Oh. Er…thank you.

She didn’t know what else to say.

Her gaze wandered to the Christmas lights, sparkling in the window on the rustic pentangle she had made years ago from tree branches.

You need to learn how to claim it, lass. He shouldn’t be able—shouldn’t be allowed—to sound kind like that.

Oh, yes. I do, don’t I?

Aye.

Sparks shot from her hands to her heart. She shouldn’t have asked for an answer she wasn’t owed.

Aye, it does count as a question. But it’s one where I owe you the answer, so no harm done.

He must have been able to see that—the white fear of loss, of the unknown. All fears showed as colours to him: red for poverty, green for status anxiety, sky-blue for pain, violet…

Now: suppose you were in imminent peril of death. For example, you have drunk what you believed to be a harmless glass of wine. You recognise, too late, the taste of bitter almonds. It’s been laced. You’ve only a few minutes. This is what to do, in those few minutes.

She straightened, concentrated.

"You must say, loud enough to be heard, even if it is only by yourself: About that life I’m owed. Five words. Got it?"

Yes. Thank you.

She made to turn back to her New Year’s greetings but halted.

Er, sorry if this sounds a bit ungrateful but, what if I forget them? What if I’m so far gone I can’t remember what to say?

You’ll remember.

Would she?

That star: it’s always there in your window, isn’t it? Not just for Christmas.

Yes. Why d’you ask?

You’ve learned how to draw them, in one stroke of the pen, havn’t you?

Yes. Americans taught me, as it happens. We all learned it in school, so we’d be able draw the flag.

So: imagine you’re drawing one. One stroke for each word. The downstroke leftwards from the top, ‘about’; the upstroke to the right, ‘that’; the stroke that crosses the figure, like the current in those experiments through your heart, ‘life’. And so on, for the final two strokes. You’ll not forget that, will you?

She beamed. A pentangle is for Life, not just for Christmas.

Very droll, lass. Anyroad—to make sure, I shall arrange a test for you.

Oh…right. Thank you.

~~~

Verity had to travel to Edinburgh to collect her visa. She decided to cycle to the station. She enjoyed the route along the river path—peaceful, once past the crossroads.

The red light took ages to change, but she always waited. Green—she looked and pulled out.

The car that shot the lights came out of nowhere and knocked her flying.

Bloody cyclists who won’t wear a helmet!

She hit the kerb head-first at an awkward angle.

She opened her eyes. The roadside grass looked strange, right next to her face. And she had landed in a patch of red paint someone had spilled there.

How careless people are.

Realisation dawned.

Oh well. More than half a century, I suppose it’s not too bad considering. I knew these crossroads would get me in the end. No more migraines, at least. Always look on the bright side of—

Wait!

She concentrated, formed the words with difficulty.

About, that, life, I’m—

Someone squeezed her hand. She opened her eyes.

Passed first time.

Mills smiled down at her from beside the bed.

Good lass.

She struggled to offer a smile in return.

How many warnings had she heard about electricity, about hearts? She’d be unconscious—paralysed, unable to say anything.

And what of this ‘extra life’? Would it be a proper, full, mortal life like her own—the sort she felt comfortable with? Or would it be a life like his? Long-drawn-out, alone, ghost-like—the life he’d offered her with the ice-blue drink at Winter Solstice and which, to his obvious chagrin, she had declined?

Chapter 3

Memory Lapse

Amos never introduced himself, just dived straight into what he had to say. Verity picked up the phone and caught the brunt of it.

Mum-says-would-you-all-like-to-come-round-for-dinner-she’s-got-two-new-students-and-they—

Oh, hi Amos! Happy New Year! Can you put her on, then?

~~~

Arash and Farrukh had arrived in Britain, the day after New Year’s, without anywhere to stay. Within three days, they’d launched themselves into buying a house together.

Ruth said it might be fun for them all to meet up.

By nine in the evening noisy conversation criss-crossed the Meiers’ generous dining table. Dishes of gefiltefish, couscous salad and stuffed vine leaves passed from hand to hand, along with news and wine.

Verity sat next to the two new arrivals.

She picked up an open bottle of red to refill her glass, offering it to her neighbours first.

Each declined with a polite wave of the hand.

Er…white, then?

Neither said anything.

Oh, right. Sorry. Of course.

Sharia law.

Two blokes living together.

Sometimes people made even less sense than usual.

She poured herself a glass and took a swig.

Ruth said you were house-hunting.

She’d start with the easy question.

Where’re you going to buy?

Bishopthorpe Road.

What, near the racecourse?

Farrukh nodded.

Would you go to the Races? Are you allowed to bet?

"Gambling is haram. But for horses, one can make an arrangement with the organisers—‘make a prediction’ and win, if one is correct. There are bureaux for this, in our country. We’ve not yet found a Predictions Bureau here, though."

Arash smiled. There’s a business opportunity for someone.

He paused.

My cousin would have been good at that.

Would have? She picked up her glass. Does he…do something else now?

No! Her face burned—God, it must match the colour of the wine in her glass. Would have. That must mean he was dead, been killed somewhere.

He disappeared.

The whole table went quiet.

Even Amos.

Everyone turned to her. Was she supposed to ask?

Er…how?

He was arrested. In Rawalpindi, the night before he was due to fly to Europe. Terrorism. No one has heard from him since.

What’s…what’s his name?

Perhaps Amnesty had taken up his case? Perhaps she’d see him in next month’s magazine when it arrived at the house. She should make sure to find it, and write. She’d already made that New Year’s resolution to write to the Director of the C.I.A. about those camps…

The formal name, elaborate and winding, soon left her consciousness. She didn’t dare ask, ‘what was that again?’

Ruth rescued her. So, about the house?

Arash explained the very thing she’d wanted to know to start with—how a Sharia mortgage worked. A mortgage without usury.

She hoped she hadn’t drunk too much to be able to remember the details in the morning.

~~~

Verity pressed the hot flannel against her forehead. If she pressed hard enough, perhaps the splinters of ice might melt—not dig into the joints in her skull. She tried not to groan. Sacha stirred. Damn, she’d not wanted to wake him.

I made an idiot of myself at the Meiers’, love. Sorry…

I did tell you. I did pour some water out for you.

Sorry…

And you asked so many questions. I hope we haven’t upset the Meiers.

He turned over, away from her, but the pain put her past the point of caring.

She had to write that letter in the morning.

It needn’t be a long one.

Chapter 4

Superego

Verity stared at her things. How little might she get away