by Greg James
The gull had been elderly, its flesh was stringy grey stuff and the entrails were a slimy tastelessness. Bones and feathers were scoffed down with the rest of it, leaving their guts rumbling in discomfort as they licked bloodied juices from their lips and fingers. Then, Tom and Bell lay down to sleep as the evening began fading into the deepening rose of twilight.
Tom was awake and asleep, caught in a breathless purgatory between the two. He could taste the residue of the gull’s life on his tongue, feel its uncooked flesh and guts stewing into sickness in his stomach. He was drunk on blood and nausea. The sun overhead fogged over; gulls circled in vulture circles, their feathers tatty and sparse with leprous grey skin showing through. Their cracked beaks caked over with barnacles and their eyes were pale cysts. The cries that came from them, he recognised. The voice from nowhere, from the place under the sands, calling, drawing him on, once again, with that strange black gravity.
Tom came to, gargling a mouthful of blood-flecked drool. Spitting it out, he rolled over and heaved himself into a sitting position. His wasted stomach crumpling inwards as a thick belch escaped from it, leaving the decayed taste of their crude meal to linger on his tongue.
“We should’ve let that gull alone,” Tom muttered.
Tom felt an urge to vomit the half-digested gull over the side of the boat. With an effort, he decided against it. He would let his body glean what few nutrients from the dead bird that it could. Bell was looking as bad as Tom felt, his lips bloated and bleeding. His skin was sloughing away from dehydration. Long days of drinking salt water had taken their toll. Their eyes were little more than bloodshot balls, and Tom could smell the accrued stench of sweat and urine. They both wet themselves when they slept, it was better than shitting yourself but not by much. A little water and rest, that was all he needed. Both men tried to sleep but dreams would not let them alone.
The reality they were living was tainted by throttled gulls, sea water and the blistering sun. For dinner, they began to gnaw at their own flesh, scraping what little sustenance they could from open sores and festering wounds. Bell, laughing, scooped out his eyes to feast upon. They shared them, splitting the gristled orbs open and drinking heartily from the vitreous humours that ran through their fingers.
“This is my body which is for you.”
They both burst out laughing, the laughter of the damned. Both soldiers were riding a rising inner tide of gross exposure, and it was frothing, running over with familiar faces, fingers, mouths and hands, all belonging to the dead and diseased. In their ears was the call, leading them on, desolate and primal, a lonesome summoning steering their carrion ship. They were tossed to and fro across insanity’s seas. For how long, neither would ever know. Days were nights and nights were days. Sense was a foreign thing and long gone away. They remembered nothing afterwards but bits and pieces; impressions, suggestions and broken fragments of wet speech.
And still, the call of the Vetala came from far away.
Chapter Eleven
Outside the elderly house of the darkly-dreaming Tom Potter, Mr Humphries padded through the grass, hungry. He had scavenged through the bins and skips but had not found a single thing, they were too clean and tidy around here for a stray one-eyed tom cat. He sniffed at the air again and there was a scent, faint but clear, up ahead; roadkill, rot, dried blood and decay. Bad meat was better than no meat. Cautious, on his scarred paws, he crept into the brush under the window to see what was there, there was nothing there.
And then, there was something there that was not meat.
Mr Humphries’ hackles arose, every hair on his body becoming a trembling, taut wire. He felt it touch him. He hissed at it, striking the air, claws out. It ate his paw, leaving behind a spurting, mangled stump. It tore off the cat's jaw and the yowl in his throat became a wet, whimpering burp. Then, it was flowing into him, forcing its way down his throat, bursting the limp sacs of his lungs, racing through him, numbing his nerves then shredding his insides into fine filaments. The cat struggled, spitting blood and bile, but the more he fought, the more he was consumed, leeched, turned from something into nothing. There would be no more nights, no more fights with dogs, no more damp grass, no more mating, no more warmth, cold or comfort, nothing at all was waiting, this was the end of everything.
It sent a shiver of colourless ecstasy through his body as it savoured the sweet taste of extinction, and the wet rags that were left, Mr Humphries's carcass, slithered into the dirt. And so, temporarily gorged, the Vetala began to climb, up, up and up the wall, to Tom Potter’s bedroom window.
Bullets of rain battered down, pounding away at the top soil of Tom's slumber, churning what lay beneath, inside his mind, into fetid slurry. The walls of the bedroom were fluttering, moving, trapped wings and fragile bones, threatening to snap, tear and break open, threatening to let the waters in to purge the muggy, dry interior. The air became pungent with a dank, mouldering tang as the night hours crept on by. Tom lay awake, watchful, listening carefully to the sounds outside, to what was happening out there in the rain. He had been dreaming of travelling, awakening on the train after leaving Cairo, and the thing at the window.
Now, he was sure that he could hear something abroad in the miserable night outside and whatever it was moved strangely, using the deluge as a torrential camouflage. Outside, in those lightless, roaring depths, a slithering weight, wet leather scraping over bricks and mortar, pausing, from moment to moment, to pick at them, a curious child plucking at the unfamiliar.
Another gush of rain crashed down, crushing all sound, then keening out a stratospheric fury. Tom thought that he saw a glistening, a wet patch, a dreary stain settling upon the windowpane, broad and bulbous, seeking to break in, break through the glass to the other side. Another tumble of rain and the stain was gone.
Closing his eyes, Tom listened again. There was no more sound, nothing more from outside, nothing but the rain falling. Too weak and flimsy, this world, he thought, it wobbles, shakes and shudders; an unrealistic set on an abandoned stage, old grey shapes forever flitting just out of our sight. And after it all collapses in on itself, death rises, black and terrible from the remains.
A speck in the distance that, as a child, we hurry towards, fascinated. Then, slower, we see the speck become a smear, a dirty mark, contaminating the view. We waste a lifetime watching it grow and grow then, too soon, we stop and see that all around us has become black and then death is here, and we are no more.
Thunder, lightning flash, making him gasp, his heart missing a beat or two, it fitfully murmurs. There, before his eyes, is a drifting white shadow, flickering in and out. A faltering flame. Its fingers pass through him, withdrawing. It looks down over him as she often did when he was younger, asleep but plagued by the growth of the bad things in his mind. Those first sticky dreams of adolescence, the sickness that comes with hormones and age, sleep becoming so many restless, broken pieces upon which we are cut and cut again.
“Mum-”
The ghost spoke.
“It’ll be brighter later, hun.”
Then, the eyes of the ghost changed, becoming buried in a scarified mask, pink marinated hollows, leaking tears composed of a white wormy fluid, and standing over Tom was another figure, the Conductor; the faceless figure from the Night Bus, ever-caressing the dulled metal of his Bell Punch. The long, thin fang of the needle weeping its pale poison tears. The night cried out, weeping and bleeding, and the Conductor was gone with the next violent crash of the storm.
Night wore on, the hours grew old and long, and Tom grew tired. He knew this game, there was another way for it to come to him, through his dreams. A sob choked off in his throat. “I’m just an old man. Why come back to haunt me now? I haven’t long for this world. What use am I to you?”
*
“Plenty, now get moving, Potter!”
It was time for the landing at Gallipoli. Men were nervous, jittery, coming in on a barge, leaving the relative safety of their ship, the Sikh. They had all hea
rd the constant booming of the Turkish guns from miles away, many of them wondering if a shell was going to fall on them and turn the barge into so much matchwood.
It was a scorching day, their uniforms were sticking to them and the weight of haversacks, water bottles and iron rations made their bodies ache, a recipe for making tempers flare and nerves break down. The cliffs were ominous colossi, growing in stature as the barge was towed towards shore by the naval launch assigned to it, towering and sheer. Tom wondered at the cliffs of Gallipoli; the gullies, crags and clawing outcrops. This was to be their 'home' for god alone knew how long.
“Hell's teeth,” he muttered.
He swallowed hard, his gaze not parting contact with the approaching land until the first bullet snapped into the water.
“Cover! Under cover, every man!” bellowed Lieutenant Bell.
Another bullet whined overhead, a horse snorted its disquiet, more bullets bit into the side of the barge, spitting out small hails of splinters from the holes they made.
Peering over the side of the barge, Tom saw the beach was not far; crowded with people, mules and stacks of supplies. The bullets came at a steady rate as the barge crept nearer and nearer to the beach; every man was crouching on one knee, his head down low. There was no sense in offering yourself to the Turks as a prize before you had set foot on the peninsula and had a good crack at them. They felt the barge heaving a little as the launch cast off, chugging off to port, going to collect the next barge of men from the Sikh.
“Haul her ashore!”
They heard shouts and splashes as a party of men charged through the shallows from the beach, taking hold of the barge’s ropes. There was a scraping of pebbles and stones as the barge drew up onto the shore.
“Get down the board! Mind yourselves!”
There was a thunk, a crash of surf as the chains were released, the landing board that made up the bow of the barge fell down, digging into sand. Men went forward as fast they could, the clatter of horses and the rumble of gun-wheels in their ears. Tom waded into the churning foam, his boots grinding into the water, his tunic and trousers soaking quickly through.
Bullets were peppering the water around him, blinding him with the salty sting of sea-spray, a bullish man immediately before him was holding out his hand, reaching out to haul him up onto dry land. Tom took the hand, gratefully, then he was stumbling backwards, under the man’s dead weight, his face spattered with gore. The man’s eyes were suddenly sightless, glassy marbles sinking in their sockets, mouth and nose streaming scarlet. Twisting out from under his weight, Tom let the man finish his fall into the water. Blinking traces of blood from his eyes, Tom dragged himself up onto the sand, another dead man was waiting for him, a hole of crusted black in his forehead denoting the cause of death. It was already being inspected by a handful of hungry flies, the flesh was peeling away from sunburn and mottling as blood sank to the lowest points in the corpse. The lips were marred by a queerly vacant smile as if the soldier had gone into death’s embrace a willing and happy man, the dead man turned his head to face Tom and through that smile crept ensilvered ropes of ooze, viscous stuff, crude as oil and, in its tide, there bobbed a single black pearl, burning and hellish.
The eye of a Vetala.
Tom crawled to an alcove at the foot of the cliffs to shelter behind a sturdy finger of rock, he turned back to see how the barge was fairing. Hundreds of holes were chewed into her sides from the fusillade, bodies of men were draped across the landing board, those who had tried and failed to lead the horses and gun carriages off safely, sobs, moans and screams competed in the air with the bang and zing of exchanging fire. The Turks had known about the landing, Tom thought, otherwise there wouldn’t be this merciless fire, a few pot-shots maybe but nothing this intense.
It was then that he saw Old Duty.
The steed must have broken free in the confusion. Tom could see him nuzzling the dead, pawing at them with his right hoof, uneasy about walking on what was bloodied and dying yet still breathing, Tom heard the shrieking whine of an incoming salvo.
He threw himself to the ground.
Shoulders shaking from the concussion of the blast, Tom clambered back to his feet. He looked down the beach to the barge. The front end was gone, the rear spiking into the air, going under, dead horses and gun-iron tipping the weight into the shallows. Then, there was silence. Tom ducked and ran across the sand, dashing into the settling cloud of smoke and debris, looking for his horse.
Old Duty was there, on his side, torn open, showing shattered bones, burst lungs hissing. The horse’s intestines squelched under Tom’s boots. He closed his eyes and forced back tears as the animal kicked out, enfeebled. Old Duty’s remaining eye was a wide, black mirror, reflecting a life in eclipse, the end of everything, the fade to black. Pinkish froth edged the smooth brown of the horse's muzzle. Trickling blood ran out from between his clashing teeth. A rifle was in Tom's hands. The lipless black mouth of the barrel was an inch from Old Duty’s upturned eye.
“I’m sorry, old mate. You were a good nag. You did well.”
Tom aimed and pulled the trigger.
Chapter Twelve
He could remember bits and pieces. That was all he seemed to have in his head; fragments, shards, broken glass, distortions, half-memories and semi-dreams, nothing whole, nothing the way it should be.
The squik-squik-squik of the Night Bus’s unoiled wheels were a piercing screed. Looking into the dirty glass of the window beside him, Tom saw his face as a ghost, bald and wasted away, leaning on a neck of chicken-skin stretched over cartilage and worn, white tendons. Loose false teeth chewing at chapped lips, gums gone grey, wavering hands, dulled eyes suffering the sensual drought of old age, reliving the pain of decades past, hearing the voices and blood falling on the sand. Tom reached out to it, tensing, expecting to touch on a cold pane of glass, but worm-riddled skin snatched out at him, slick and slimy. Those eyes, shining, no longer dull, were burning black. Tom tore his hand away. Its fingers came through the glass, clutching for a moment at thin air, then, they were gone, dissolving into ether, and the glass was again clear, showing nothing but the undulating Grey outside of the Night Bus. Tom examined his hand, rubbing his fingers together.
The Night Bus chuntered on.
*
Tom broke the surface of what felt like a lifetime of sleep, the shot that executed Old Duty, an echo from a dream, ringing out hard in his heart and head. For long minutes, tidal seconds, he could not find the will in his aching bones to move, to rise from the damp bed where he was laid out, half-submerged. The sky overhead was the colour of the leaden stones found in a tomb. He lay there, easing himself over the brittle edge of consciousness, exhaling one crushed lung breath after the other. He was cold, he was wet and he was also sinking. Splashing about in boggy clay that stank of rotting fish, he spat out a mouthful of watery crud. Tom lifted his head and took in his surroundings, not believing what he was seeing.
The silence was absolute and the barrenness was immense, the wreck of the raft had beached onto a vast, deserted shore. He got to his feet and looked back to where they must have come from, the horizon. By shading his eyes he could make out the last traces of the retreating tide. Exhausted, Tom fell to his knees and let loose a hoarse cry that set his vocal chords vibrating like high-tension wires. He grabbed stinking handfuls of the sea-mud in his fists and ate them, wiping the rank stuff around his face, into his eyes, into his hair, it felt so good.
“Land! Lieutenant! Bell, we’re on fucking land!”
Unsteady footsteps came up behind him. Tom looked up at his superior as a hand came to rest on his shoulder, fingernails digging into raw skin, bursting half-a-dozen baby blisters. Bell was crying and smiling too.
Dead fish littered the sealess shore; rainbow wrasse, sea bass and whiting, some still twitching, many fleshless from a profound decay. Tom and Bell scooped up as many of the twitching ones as they could carry, their stomachs aching with need each time they came upon anoth
er glistening, scaly body. They made their way inland. The ground became firmer, drying out, changing to ashen sand. Sitting down on the drier land, they tore apart the fish, gorging themselves on flesh, fine bones, silver-button eyes and tin-foil tails. Bell punctuated the end of his feast with a mighty burp.
“Christ, that feels good,” said Tom.
“We need to get water too, Potter. Better go further in, maybe there’s some shelter.”
“Let’s just hope we don’t scare the natives. From what I can see of myself, I look a right wreck, and what I can see of you, well, you’re a fuck sight worse.”
“Come on, let’s get moving,” Bell said, spitting out the skull of a whiting that he had sucked clean.
Supporting each other, they made their way up the slope of the shore that was rising before them. Two lean skeletons with bloodied eyes and beards bleached bone-white, their stomachs felt more comfortable now that there was something to digest in them but the struggle was not over. Their bodies wanted to give up the fight, to fall down and never move again. They kept going, not sure why, they just did.
“It’s like a graveyard, Potter,” Tom whispered. “The whole place, it smells dead.”
“Why are you whispering, Potter?”
“I don't know,” Tom paused. “It’s the silence, I guess. You realise we haven’t heard a thing since we got here, not a sound. We should be able to hear something from inland after walking this far. Birds, something.”
“Yes, I know, there's nothing.”
The sun was setting when they came to the crest of the slope. The lip of it was steep. Neither man felt like he had the energy left to manage climbing over, especially if there was more distance to travel when they came down the other side. They decided to take their chances, settle down and sleep where they were. Unsurprisingly, sleep came quickly for both men.
*
