Josephine Marlin and The Alternatives

by Karen Eastland

  Laughing, this time with my mouth shut, I saw both Ann and Kaz getting more than a light sprinkling. Then suddenly she was back on my lap. I was certain her eyeball jelly dripped onto my lower lashes, then to my cheek.

  ‘Okay Pony,’ I said, shuddering in disgust. ‘Just so we’re clear. Horse’s favourite movie is… was… Highlander. Is that right?’

  ‘Fwend, get fwend, hep Pony,’ she said, then she began running her slimy hand back and forth over the top of my head as if I was her pet dog. I have to admit the slime eased the pain from the earlier toilet brush incident and the remnants of my migraine.

  ‘Why do you keep saying “Movie, can be only one”?’ I asked

  ‘Horsey Moobie, be own one, doe pop.’

  ‘I think it was the last thing he said,’ Ann translated for me.

  ‘Oh, poor Pony. Is that what happened? Was it the last thing Horse said to you before he went pop?’

  ‘Poor Pony,’ said Ann with a unique, bird-like shrill building in her voice. ‘I’m now left with peculiar images running through different scenarios. They all involve Pony and Horse doing the saddle-saddle bang bang, the movie Highlander and the phrase: there can be only one. I’ll never be the same again.’

  ‘Moobie, be own one, doe pop,’ Pony said a few more times with tears in her eyes.

  I agreed with Ann and knew I was smiling because I also had strange images running through my head surrounding those particular things too. All of them were both funny and disturbing. The only thing keeping me focused was knowing Pony was dead. I wasn’t quite sure how to ease her pain, so I went with what I knew and kept asking her questions.

  ‘But how did Horsey do this to you?’

  ‘You bitches better not leave me here,’ I was thinking, feeling the chain tighten around my waist. That’s when, as quickly as Pony had appeared in my face, she was in theirs too.

  ‘Tell us why we’re here?’ I called. I didn’t want Pony to leave the room again.

  ‘Hep Pony. Horse doe pop. Pony no wan doe pop. We fwend. Fwend hep Pony,’ she said while sitting herself on my lap. ‘Oo hep Pony. Fwend. Pony fwend. Lub fwend.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘We’re your fwends, and yes we do, we help our fwe… I mean friends. I don’t want you to think I’m ungrateful or anything, but why the hell did you whack me with a toilet brush?’

  ‘Sad, not wan hurt fwend. Lub fwend. I hap fwend an ver hap. Me wac, shush. Stil fwend? Jo doe sleep. Pony doe sleep. Not want fwend be Horsey doe pop,’ Pony said, and her face changed to a deeper shade of green. Her eyes were glowing a brighter yellow, and she’d lowered her head to mine to look me in the eye.

  ‘Yeah,’ I said trying to pull away, without making it look too obvious. I wasn’t sure what was about to happen and admit to feeling more than a little scared. ‘I don’t wanna go pop either. So, you wanted your friends here… to… help you? And you were so happy I was here that you… knocked me out?’

  ‘Fwend loud. Be shush. Not want fwend be Horsey doe pop.’

  ‘Okay, I’ll take that to mean you just wanted me to be quiet, so I didn’t end up like Horse?’

  ‘Fwiend.’

  ‘Seeing as you’re a little closer to my face than you were a moment ago, I’d say that’s a yes. Why haven’t you spoken to the other girls? Kaz’s been here for a couple of days, and Ann’s been here for almost a week?’

  ‘No tak. Fwends scweam. Not want fwends doe pop. Horsey doe pop. Fwends be shush. Oo fwend. Oo lub Pony. Oo tak Pony. Hep Pony no doe pop,’ she said then gave me a bear hug and full body slime. My blouse was sticking to my skin; it was that wet. ‘Pony tak. Toof. Toof bad nod make Pony tak. Pony moan.’

  I looked around her to see the others sitting back against the wall, and figured Pony must have kidnapped me because she knew I’d help. It sounded like she’d taken Ann in the hope that she could help her but Ann only screamed. Judging by the state of my flat, I’d say Pony came to me first, but because I wasn’t in the State, she tried to get help from the other girls. I was thinking on my feet and was feeling an uneasy relief as I realised why she’d taken me.

  None of it explains why Kaz was taken. Maybe she was who Pony saw next, but from what Pony had said even Kaz screamed. I found it hard to imagine Kaz screaming. She just didn’t seem the type. Pony had been making her way through her friends hoping someone could help her.

  ‘The others can thank me later, for getting home when I did,’ I thought. ‘If I ever get out of here.’

  ‘Are you sure you don’t see a green glow around Pony?’ I asked the Ann and Kaz through clenched teeth.

  ‘Nope, it’s just you,’ Ann said quietly. ‘It’d be left over from your head trauma.’

  ‘So,’ I said turning back to Pony, choosing to ignore Ann’s poor attempt at humour. ‘Do you know what we can do to help you? I mean, you are… dead, aren’t you?’

  I watched as Pony’s face change to a shade of purple when I asked that question, and quickly deduced it was not a good look. Her bulging yellow eyes focused on me, as she moved to press her nose against Kaz’s. Kaz seemed to think she’d be able to stretch a steel chain and reach the door. She wasn’t even one step from where I was sitting. I’d learnt though, and was holding tight to my chain, so I didn’t become a gas pipe.

  ‘Pony liv. Not ded. Hep Pony. Fwend hep Pony. No leeb Ka,’ she said in a menacing tone. ‘Hep Pony, no doe way.’

  Kaz grumbled and moved back against the wall between Ann and myself. I didn’t know where she thought she was going; she was still chained to the wall, and us.

  ‘How can we help,’ I asked, trying to distract her from Kaz.

  ‘Pony not wan doe pop.’

  ‘Okay. We’ve established you don’t want to go pop like Horsey,’ I said. ‘But how can we help you? How can I help Pony?’

  She leaned into me and whispered in my ear, she was quite eloquent in a whisper and told me what she needed.

  I pulled away a little, certain there was a look of horror on my face, I couldn’t help it, I’m only human. Her eyes had taken on a strange glow that only added to my terror. But it was fleeting. Through it all, I only saw a friend who needed my help.

  ‘Alright,’ I said. ‘Let me talk with the girls, and we’ll see what we can sort out. Okay?’

  ‘Okay,’ was all I heard as the door closed and locked. Then there was silence in the darkness.

  ‘You could’ve turned a light on… Just saying!’ I called after her.

  I jumped as the door suddenly opened, I heard Pony’s, ‘Sowy,’ echo around the room; then the light came on.

  ‘Thanks,’ I called as she closed the door.

  The Slice n Dice

  When the light came on, I looked at Ann and Kaz, thought about telling them what Pony had asked for, but for some reason, they just didn’t seem interested. Curiously I watched Ann launch herself into Horse’s juices as she struggled to reach an old saw in the centre of the room. I noticed Kaz was holding tight to the chain around her waist and watched it tighten the further Ann slid across the floor. Then I heard the familiar sound of Kaz’s oxygen being cut off.

  I was angry with both of them because they didn’t seem to care about what had happened to Pony. I could feel tears begin to well in my eyes and lump what felt like a hard rise in my throat. My grief and sadness were almost too much to bear, and the smell of my surroundings and being chained to a wall, all faded away.

  I just wanted Ann and Kaz to acknowledge Pony’s death. To understand how devastating it must’ve been for her. But they said nothing. Swallowing my grief, I sat and waited for one of them to ask what Pony wanted, and I’d have thought they’d be chomping at the bit to get out. I’d already understood we weren’t going anywhere unless Pony let us and whatever Pony was, she was still clever. The reason… It wasn’t a heavy chain. More like a dog lead than a prison shackle. I smiled as I realised I was proud of her ingenuity.

  I’d started to wonder how long I’d been in the room. It couldn’t have been very long, even
with being knocked out. I mean, how long could I have been unconscious?

  ‘You have most likely been here for one night,’ said Brain.

  Pulling my knees to my chest, I wrapped my arms around them and sighed as I buried my face into my legs. The girls weren’t interested in anything other than themselves, so I took a bit of quiet time to reflect on the old Pony.

  ‘My poor friend,’ I thought. ‘She died, became a ghoul, and has been alone since it happened. Of course she wants to be held. I’d want to be held if it’d been me.’

  After Brain and I gave Pony a brief memorial, I rubbed my eyes against my knees and looked through a ‘V’ I’d created with my knees to take a peek to see what the girls were doing. Kaz still had her back pushed up against the dirty wall, and was pulling at the chains around her pumps, and Ann was still wallowing around in Horse’s fluids trying to reach that saw.

  ‘Her arms would need three extra feet to be able to reach that,’ said Brain.

  It was a big room and didn’t have any obvious windows in it. Looking around, I found I was right in my earlier evaluation, there was one door, and it was the only way out.

  ‘Surely the others must’ve figured that out by now?’ I thought.

  An old hospital gurney stood in one corner of the room. It looked like it had been there a long time. The plastic coated padding had been torn, rotted, and the old foam had dissolved into a small black mound on the floor beneath it. Every wall was lined with the same old white ceramic tiles as the floor, and the once white grout had black mould growing from it.

  One of the walls housed ten small doors. It was two doors high and five doors wide. Each had a silver pull handle, like those used on old fridges.

  The door frame was attached to two walls. The door opened inwards, and there was a black rubber stopper sticking out of the floor. There was a built-in cupboard along one wall. It had four old wall cupboards, six bottom cupboards with a countertop between them.

  Most of the doors were hanging off the top cupboards, and the bottom cupboards had been kicked in. The countertop had a few old surgical tools on it. A broken trolley leaned up against the cupboard and had a few old tools at its base, and there was graffiti everywhere.

  I glanced back to see Ann and Kaz. Ann was still lying on the floor straining to reach the old saw. I turned to see what Kaz was doing, but she was still attempting to break those chains with willpower.

  ‘Fuck it!’ Ann yelled.

  Turning back to look at Ann, I watched as she struggled to sit up, and noticed droplets of Horse juice dripping from her chin.

  ‘Here,’ I said, stretching my hand out as far as I could, and pushed another old saw closer to her.

  ‘You couldn’t have done that five minutes ago?’ she complained.

  ‘I know where we are,’ I said ignoring her, ‘if anyone’s interested?’

  ‘Where?’ asked Kaz, without looking up.

  ’We’re in a mortuary,’ I said. ‘Down in the old slice ‘n’ dice room.’

  Kaz stopped pulling on the chains and I was sure Ann groaned just to remind me she was still there. I’d become tired of waiting for someone to ask what Pony had said. Having spent my time trying to figure out what to do to help her, I was about to reveal my master plan, when I really saw Ann for the first time.

  ‘Oh Ann, that’s a lovely Cantoré Blazer. Where did you get it?’

  ‘I know, right?’ she said looking down at the now off-white, Horse stained jacket. ‘It’s lovely; I got it from…’

  ‘Who the hell cares where she got the bloody blazer from,’ Kaz interrupted. ‘What the hell did Pony say? What does she need so I can go home, wash, and put the last week into some vault in the back of my mind somewhere?’

  Looking at Kaz, I noticed her white porcelain complexion was paler than usual, if that was possible. Her long frizzy black hair and pale green eyes looked the same and, if I wasn’t mistaken, I’d been certain for some time I could see points on the tips of her ears.

  ‘Oh good,’ I said, feeling annoyed, ‘got your usual dark look goin’ for ya. So good to see you in the same green velvet jacket and black crepe skirt you wear everywhere. I’m so sorry to rain on your parade, you’re obviously more traumatised than either of us, although I didn’t see you get a whack with a toilet brush. But no, you’re right, let’s make this all about you shall we?’

  ‘I’m so sorry your royal highness,’ Kaz began, ‘you’re right of course. But I didn’t see you wallowing around in Horse juices trying to actually do something to get us out of here. Oh, that’s right, that’d be because you’ve only just arrived!’

  ‘Stop it!’ Ann yelled. ‘Stop it right this minute. You can argue after we are out of here. Now, what did Pony say?’

  ‘Interested now, are we? First, I have to ask you idiot’s something,’ I said, looking at the tear streaks in the dirt on Ann’s face. Some of the dirt had caught up in the dimple on her right cheek. She looked drawn and haggard, and I could tell that the week locked up in the slice and dice had been hard on her.

  ’What!’ asked Kaz, snapping me out of my thoughts, and with more impatience in her voice than was necessary, considering I was the one doing all the thinking.

  ‘You girls have been here, what? A couple of days at the very least and neither of you has asked her anything? Damn, I thought you’d at least have the balls to talk to her Kaz.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Ann, ‘we’re a couple of idiots for not talking to her, but, after seeing what she did to you, I’m glad I didn’t say anything.’

  Kaz opened her mouth to say something, then stopped. I’m pretty sure little storm clouds had begun to form over her head. When she did say something, it was a lot slower, and through clenched teeth.

  ‘What the hell does she need?’ she asked.

  Kaz seemed to be holding back a rage I didn’t want to experience, but I couldn’t help myself.

  ‘What the hell does she need?’ Kaz asked again.

  ‘Oh, so you are interested? She needs flesh. Dead human flesh. She’s a ghoul. What the hell did you think she’d need? I don’t know if that will cure her, or if she just wants it. I’m not judging.’

  ‘Why doesn’t she eat, or wear Horse?’ Ann asked.

  ‘I don’t think Horse was human. C’mon, what humans hung like a horse?’ I asked. ‘Have you ever met one?’

  A heavy silence fell over the room as we digested the possible future ramifications of this new reality. Seconds passed before I broke the silence.

  ‘Okay, I don’t know how much time we’ve got before Pony comes back,’ I said. ‘How do we help her get dead, but fresh, human flesh?’

  I was met with silence and confusion, and the pile of slimy skin lying next to Ann was only getting funkier. I was sure she must’ve been immune to the smell by then, but I wasn’t.

  ‘Do I have to do everything?’ I spat out in exasperation. ‘You know it’s times like this I feel the need to re-evaluate my friendships.’

  Ann and Kaz began to grumble. I wasn’t in the mood, so sent a smouldering look their way. Their grumbles slowly faded to silence. At that moment I understood Pony’s frustration.

  ‘I only wish she hadn’t taken it out on my head,’ I thought.

  ‘Not when there are so many empty heads in the one room,’ said Brain.

  ‘Alright,’ I said to the others while agreeing with him. ‘Pony needs dead human flesh. Right?’

  I heard mumbling sounds and was about to speak when Ann finally spoke.

  ‘Right!’

  ‘Where do humans store dead human flesh?’

  ‘A mortuary,’ said Kaz.

  ‘Yeah, that’s good,’ I said looking at the room we were in. ‘I think we’re sitting in one at the moment, and there’s no line up for the draws in that wall over there. What is it about this town? Anyone else noticed there’s been a lot of memorials lately, but not many burials? Anyone?’

  The room was quiet, with the cogs only moving in one brain, mine. No-one seemed to h
ave any thoughts about the lack of bodies in the town.

  ‘Oo, oo, I know,’ Ann said. ‘What about a cemetery?’

  ‘Yeah that’s good too,’ I said trying to be supportive, at least she was trying. ‘But with not many fresh bodies going into the ground these days, cemeteries aren’t exactly looking like all you can eat buffets for ghouls. And let’s face it, how many other ghouls are out there already eating our family and friends?’

  ‘Jo!’ snapped Kaz.

  ‘What now? I was only saying what we were all thinking.’

  ‘I wasn’t thinking that,’ said Ann, and tears began to well in her eyes again. That’s when I remembered her great-grandmother’s funeral was just last week.

  ‘I’m so sorry Ann,’ I said hunting for the right words, ‘Ya-Ya’s funeral was a lovely service, and I’m sure the town ghouls will respect her um… resting place.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Ann said, wiping her tears away. ‘She always liked you, even though you’re Irish.’

  ‘Oh God,’ Kaz groaned. ‘Can we get on with this?’

  She certainly brought our attention back to the matter at hand, but it didn’t come with any helpful suggestions.

  ‘C’mon guys,’ I said. ‘We do this every week. We make major decisions all the time, and I think we’ve come up with some pretty good ideas.’

  I stopped talking and looked around the room waiting for someone to say something, anything… I was met with silence.

  ‘Days they’ve been here,’ I thought, ‘and I reckon the only reason they haven’t said anything, is because they have nothing to say.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Kaz growled after a few seconds, ‘we make decisions all the time, and you lot congratulate yourselves for coming up with what clothes go with what shoes, and what club we start with that night. Not about important stuff. Not about life and death stuff.’

  ‘Okay, calm down, I already have the answer. Geez Kaz, what’s up your arse lately?’ I asked as only a true friend could.

  ‘Where do all the bits and pieces go when they’re cut off at a hospital? Anyone?’ I asked, not expecting an answer, so I didn’t wait for one. ‘They’re stored in the hospital basement before being incinerated.’