“Get your fuckin’ coat and get yourself home. Fucking world’s coming to an end out there and you’re dishing up cheesecake for these cunts?”
Gina took a couple of steps back and visibly tensed. She raised her hand to placate him.
“Garth, you’re alarming people. The Sherriff was just in here and he’s out dealing with it. People are tense you’re making them worse. Try to keep calm I’ll be home as soon as I can.”
Garth gritted his square teeth and advanced.
“Don’t you defy me Gina. I will humiliate you in front of all these people. I will skull-fuck you in front of the town if I have to.”
Gina stood as tall as she dared. She was looking after the townsfolk as best as she could, trying to keep them from being afraid, and she could not be seen to buckle in front of her bullish husband.
An elderly woman’s voice chastised Garth from one of the booths.
“You leave that poor girl alone Garth Taylor. You always were nothing but a bully, I remember you when you were in short trousers and just the same.”
Garth turned drunkenly round to face the gathered. He slicked his prematurely thinning hair back with a licked hand. “What the fuck are you idiots doing in here anyway? Haven’t you seen what’s coming down out those woods? That mist ain’t natural. It’s judgement day for all of us here, end of the line. You should be in church meditating on your sins not here in the diner! You’re all gonna fucking die in here. Stem cell research. Abortion. Trying to push out there among the stars where we got no business. This is punishment for our arrogance is what it is!”
Gina slammed the coffee pot down on the counter.
“That is enough Garth. This is no place for your hypocritical bible bashing. Whole town knows you’re a vicious drunk and a wife beater, without even a drop of charity in your veins. So don’t come in here telling these good folks they ought to be praying for their precious souls, when it’s clear to all that you don’t even have one!”
“Oh, he has one.”
Garth turned woozily around to look at the slim old stranger in the mouldy suit, who sat smiling in the booth by the window. His long fingers were thoughtfully steepled under his chin.
Garth raised an eyebrow.
“And who the fuck might you be? I might have fallen of the wagon, but you look like you’ve actually fallen off a fuckin’ wagon.”
Garth turned grinning to the crowd at this, mighty pleased with his own joke. No one was laughing.
Cornelius Fortune was the only other person smiling. He sucked coffee spit through his rotten brown teeth.
“Always funny when religious people seek to condemn discovery and knowledge. How strange that the worshippers of an arch-rebel against the Pax Romana and the Sanhedrin should end up as the sort of fearful, intolerant company men their saviour rebelled so vehemently against.”
Garth hawked up a gobbet of phlegm and spat it noisily onto the tiles of the diner. Some of the townsfolk voiced their disgust but he just shrugged and took a hipflask from his mechanic’s overalls. He took a slug then belched.
“Well I see you ain’t fucking local. You’re some kind of whacko out-there preacher by that stupid fucking suit you’re wearing. . You may even be the only pious man in this town. But I don’t need no homeless guy to tell me my bible. So sit and drink your coffee before you get hurt.”
On his stool at the counter, Bobby MacKay finally plucked up the courage to do what he had wanted to do for ages. He rolled his athlete’s shoulders and stepped out in front of Gina.
“Look Garth. Gina’s made it pretty clear. She ain’t coming home with you, you might not think it’s important but she’s doing her job. Folk are already wound up, so why don’t you just fuck off back under a truck you fat stinking grease monkey.”
Gina put a hand on Bobby’s shoulder to pull him away.
“Bobby please don’t. Don’t antagonize him.”
Garth stepped forward. He was no athlete anymore like Bobby. Beer and burgers had robbed him of his six pack and replaced it with an apish paunch, but his tattooed forearms were meaty with brawn.
“Bobby I played on the team with your big brother. He was a pussy, and he was twice the man you are. This is between me and my wife and you are about to get knocked on your little ass if you don’t step aside. Just why the fuck would you be stepping up to her anyway?”
From the booth, Cornelius Fortune’s voice drifted lazily over.
“Because he’s fucking her. Can’t you tell?”
Garth flashed a glance around at Cornelius then angrily back at Gina.
“And just what makes you say that old man?”
Cornelius shrugged and raised his nose. “You can’t smell the come on her? Oh wait a minute, that’s not either of yours. Smells older. Almost authoritive.”
Bobby put an arm behind him to shield Gina.
“Maybe she’s not coming home at all Garth. Maybe she’s coming home with me.”
Garth bunched his big oily hands and took a step forward. “You cocky little bastard. This is your judgement day, that’s for sure.”
The gathered townsfolk were nervous and jittery, none confident enough to step in. Cornelius sighed in his booth. He shook his head slowly and spoke calmly.
“Gina, Gina. You seem like an intelligent woman. I can tell you like to read and have an enquiring mind. If I were you I’d have little to do with either of these gentlemen. You’ve been underselling yourself. I’m the only man in here sees your true beauty. Once the flesh you’ve spent all that time moisturizing and wiping sperm from turns pale and begins to putrefy. That’s when your true beauty comes to the fore. That’s when I start to feel the creative juices flowing.”
The silence in the diner was palpable. Then the coffee machine started bubbling and someone at the back nervously coughed.
Garth and Bobby were tense and still, squared up to each other with violence steaming between them. Their eyes were locked and feral. Garth glanced over Bobby’s shoulder at Gina.
“Woman you got one last chance to get your coat and get home.”
Bobby stepped forward and pushed Garth back and then the fight erupted. Garth grabbed Bobby’s t-shirt and twisted him around. Bobby attempted a left hook but Garth caught him in the mouth with a wild haymaker, his superior bulk lending the punch terrible heft.
Bobby went down to the floor, his lips burst and teeth cracked. His eyes defocused and for a few seconds it looked as if he may pass out and then the pain hit him. He rolled over onto his knees and attempted to stand but Garth kicked him swiftly in the solar plexus and he curled up with a whhooomph! Gina crouched to help him but Garth dragged her up and hissed in her face.
“I will deal with your adultery and whoreishness in good time.”
Several members of the public edged forward to help Bobby and there were scared mutterings of concern and condemnation. Across in his booth, Cornelius Fortune’s face was a mask of dreamy lust. He sat transfixed, watching the thin stream of slimy blood and spittle trail out from Bobby’s broken mouth onto the white tiled floor. He shivered with delight as Bobby coughed and sprayed the tiles with a Rorschach test of ruby goo. Never taking his eyes from the stricken young man, he spoke and his voice was thick with desire.
“Sir, I’m unable to allow you to remove my waitress Gina from the building.”
Garth snapped his head around.
“What did you just say to me you fucking hobo?”
Cornelius turned his eyes to Garth, and then raised his coffee cup and gave it a little shake.
“First of all, I’m empty. I need a refill. Second, on Gina’s recommendation I ordered the salted beef sandwich, and I’m yet to receive it. Sure, I could allow another waitress to convey it to my table. But I don’t want that. In my short time here in your lovely town, Gina and I have built something of a rapport. So I need my waitress more than you need your wife. So I’m taking her from you, but I promise to give her back in one piece. More or less. ”
Garth let go
of Gina’s arm, leaving painful red finger stripes, and strode up to Cornelius, towering above him. “I’m willing to cut you about one second’s slack what with you being obviously fucking crazy and all, but that’s all the chance you get.”
Cornelius Fortune fixed the hulking man in his eyes. For a fleeting moment, almost too quick to register with the gathered folk, his expression was filled with searing hate. Then he broke into a warm grin and nodded.
“Sir I apologize with all my heart. I was looking forward to my meal. I just get so hungry you see. So very hungry. That’s what people call me sometimes. The Hungry Man. I spoke out of turn, and now I must let you leave with your wife. Will you accept my apology?”
Cornelius extended his long pale hand out towards Garth. The big man started down at it for a moment then gave Cornelius a baleful glare. For a moment the entire restaurant thought that their local mechanic was about to hit the old man. Then Garth just chuckled and spat greasily in his own palm, before grabbing the drifter’s hand and pumping it a couple of times.
“Well you sure are gonna need whatever batshit religion you follow in Carnival. I think you arrived here on judgement day indeed.”
Cornelius laughed and his lips drew back to show the swollen receding gums and pale tongue. He gasped and chuckled as he shook the big man’s hand. “Yes, yes I think I might have. I’m like a bad penny, aren’t I?”
Garth’s expression changed and he gazed down at his hand. Cornelius let go with a look of exaggerated surprise.
“Oh my, I hope that’s not contagious, Mr Garth.”
Garth held his hand up in front of him with a look of shock. The top layer of skin was flaking away and falling to the floor like dandruff. “What the fuck? What have you got some kind of fucking leprosy?”
“Hmmm?”
“My hand my fucking hand!”
“Oh that. It’s dead.”
“It’s what?”
“It’s dead your hand is dead, you have a dead man’s hand attached to your arm.”
Garth stumbled back and tried to pry his fingers open but the hand was closing up like a dying spider. As the entire diner stood and watched, the skin turned a dark desiccated brown and the fingernails peeled off and fluttered to the ground. Within seconds the hand was shrunken and shrivelled as a mummy’s from a tomb.
“Now that appendage is without life and feels no pain. The real pain you will feel just above it at the wrist, which will be agonizing I’m afraid as it spreads. Right on the threshold of where life meets death. Always the violent border area for us all.”
Garth dropped to his knees and grabbed his wrist. His face was a sweating mask of acute pain. Through gritted teeth he growled, spittle flying from his lips.
“Aaah, make it stop, take it back. I’m sorry I’m sorry.”
Cornelius glanced up at the shocked Gina.
“I can assure you of one thing Gina, he won’t be raising his hand to you again.”
Gina looked down and almost felt pity through her fear.
“Oh mister let him alone. He’s no better than a dog but I don’t want him hurt anymore, please.”
Garth turned over his ruined hand and in feverish panic rolled up the sleeve of his overalls. To his horror the necrosis was creeping slowly up his arm. Small flies had begun to gather and flit around the limb. Then the skin burst and a host of maggots spilled out and scattered to the floor like wriggling rice. Garth stared at his splitting flesh with a look of disbelieving horror.
“It’ll be over soon. I have a job for him. It doesn’t seem appropriate to turn up at the lord of the manor’s place without a faithful servant in tow. I have a new job for you Garth. You’re my trusty manservant now.” Cornelius patted garth’s sweating head like a kindly school teacher.
Garth looked up and started to scream just as the necrosis spread up his neck then seemed to pour into his open mouth. The pink tongue turned to a black twitching slug, the teeth cracked with black decay. His scream was choked into a horrible drowning rattle as his eyes turned grey and rolled back in his head. The big man flopped back onto the tiles and began to fit and spasm. His belly distended and he evacuated his bowels onto the floor. Every drop of moisture in his body seeped out from him in an expanding puddle of yellowish-brown treacle and he was left a twisted and wheezing husk with his overalls draped limply across his diminishing frame. After a few final pained spasms he stopped moving.
Cornelius turned and offered a hand to Bobby MacKay, who was pressed up against the base of the counter with a shirtsleeve over his bloodied mouth and a look of sheer terror in his eyes.
“Help you up son?”
Bobby just stared at Cornelius’s hand for a few moments and then shook his head violently.
The drifter shrugged and then moved over to fetch his coat.
“Gina I’m afraid I may have to try that sandwich another time. A shame, as I just can’t seem to shake this hunger, it’s gnawing at me.”
Everyone in the diner was backed as far against the walls as they could, hardly daring to make a sound and all in shock at what they had just seen. Gina just gaped at the fly blown remains of her husband and then vomited uncontrollably in the sink. The stench coming from the remains on the floor was worse than anything anyone in there had ever smelled.
Cornelius casually addressed the diner with a sweep of his arm.
“Now you can all hide in here, or go outside, maybe say goodbye to your loved ones or whatever you want to do. My name is Cornelius Fortune, I am the Hungry Man, and I am the Necromancer. That means you’re all going to die. But don’t worry, I have two gifts for you. The first is death. The second is a beautiful resurrection.”
Cornelius draped his jacket over his arm like a gent taking a country stroll, and headed towards the door. After a few paces he stopped and craned his neck back.
“Come along Garth. Be a dear and fetch my bag would you? Got a walk ahead of us up to the big house.”
There was a few seconds pause.
Then the occupants of the diner gasped in terror as the ruined flesh on the floor began to twitch and rise.
Bobby back peddled across the floor and right into Gina’s legs. He stood bolt upright and shielded her with his body. “Oh my God he ain’t dead.”
Garth flopped over onto his stomach, slipping in his own bile and excrement and falling face first into the slop. His arms jerkily attempted to support him and his stick legs pistoned until he rose to a hunched crouch. Cornelius sighed.
“Yes, wakey wakey. Time to go.”
Bobby and Gina watched the rotting corpse in horror and shock. It squatted there for a few moments then from its mouth came a long drawn out wail of despair. Its shoulders began to convulse and a desperate sob emanated from it. Brown tears of polluted fluid fell onto the floor with sickening plops. One of its eyes fell out like a rotten pickled onion and splattered onto the tiles. The pitiful being swiped the air awkwardly trying to catch it then broke into further sobs.
Cornelius stood up straight and fixed the creature with a stern look.
“You’ll have plenty of time on our walk to meditate on your new condition. Right now I’m on the clock. So hop to it before I decide to rot your limbs and you can crawl along behind me on your belly.”
The creature spluttered and shuffled over to the booth. With arthritic hands it swiped at the Necromancer’s bag until it caught the leather loop of the handle. With shaky atrophied muscles it held the leather satchel close to its chest and stumbled jerkily after its master. All the while it sobbed and wailed in abject despair yet it seemed to have to have no more ability to make its own decisions than a puppet.
Cornelius opened the door and winced as the little bell rang. He shook his head at the shivering terrified diners then addressed Bobby and Gina, who stood huddled in each other’s arms.
“Revenants. Only thing that takes a few months to die in them is the brain. Poor old Garth won’t fade for a while yet, and he’s just adjusting at present. Well I won’t keep in yo
ur hair any longer, sorry for disrupting your breakfasts. My other handiwork will be visiting you all over the next few hours. When they smile at you, remember to smile back.”
Then Cornelius Fortune, The Necromancer, the Hungry Man, left the diner whistling and strolled into the main street of Carnival with his shaking, sobbing pet in tow.
14.
Empire One and Empire Two were flying low over the vast coniferous forest in two specially redesigned MH-60 Black Hawk helicopters. It seemed that they had been skimming over the wilderness for hours.
Huge dark swathes of Douglas Fir stretched out before them, cut with deep valleys, crashing rivers and bleak mountains. It was beautiful and spiritual in a stark way, but Usher was under no illusions about how much the wild needed respect. Even seasoned survival experts had come to a bad ends in places like this. Freezing, starving, falling or drowning were just a few of the prizes that awaited the unprepared. Out here every little mistake could be your last. If ever there was a place where you needed to be a good Boy Scout, it was here.
Usher heard the pilot over his group comms.
“Major Usher, our navigation equipment is playing up. I’ve been honing in directly on the co-ordinates for the town, but for the past couple of minutes I’ll be honest I’ve been relying on visual cues. Best thing I can do is just follow the forest road that leads to town. ”
Usher knew the guy flying this Blackhawk. He was forty five years old and had been flying for over twenty years. Jim Taylor had flown more Special Forces insertions and extractions that almost anyone he knew. Pilots like the Nighstalkers didn’t get the same Kudos and mystique that the special forces soldiers on the ground did, but the guys on the inside knew that they would be nothing and nowhere without these expert pilots.
Usher crouched low and moved up the cabin closer to the pilot and navigator. The noise inside the helicopter drowned out most normal conversation, so he leaned in as far as he could and looked over the pilot’s shoulder out the cockpit window.
The Last Line Series One Page 44
