Sufferer's Song

by Savile, Steve

  Kristy decided to cut her losses and get out of there before lady luck decided it was time to cash her chips in on one nosy journalist. She grabbed the diskbox, didn't waste time going back to douse the anglepoise, and ran back along the corridor to the kitchen.

  She heard footsteps again, but wasn't about to wait around to see who they belonged to, or what they wanted. Someone screamed.

  Halfway down the whitewashed passageway an intruder alarm sounded. Kristy threw her weight against the flimsy door blocking her way, flung it open and dashed through and out, kicked down the steps and into the courtyard in time to see Nev, feet planted firmly, a milk bottle with a smouldering rag stuffed into its neck in their necks in each hand, rocking back to lob them up one at a time onto the stable roof. The flames caught almost as soon as the bottles smashed, licking at the tiles and tar-paper beneath.

  “Calling card!” Nev yelled, seeing Kristy racing towards him. His eyes flashed with danger, exhilaration, and no little humour. “Give the bastards something to worry about besides us.”

  Kristy didn't slow to look back. She hit the shingle flat out, almost losing her footing as she vaulted down from the steps, but more by luck than anything else, she kept herself on her feet and running hard; one arm pumping hard, the other tucked up and clutching the diskbox, both legs working hard, her breathing limited to sharp intakes snatched between each thumping stride. All the way imagining the heat of the flames on her back.

  Nev was legging it behind her, breathing down her neck, pushing her all the way to the tree line. She didn't want to look at him. Equally, she didn't want to look back to see the bruised flames consolidating their toe-hold on the stable roof, fanning out across the tar-paper, choking out thick black smoke, but the same sick curiosity that forces passersby to gather round and gawp at the twisted wreckage of a bad car crash took over the controls to her limbs; bringing her up short of the trees, twisting, walking backwards, straining her eyes to make out the few hazy details.

  The sky wasn't awash with flame. People were up on the stable roof already, picked out against the coming dawn, spraying the dying flames with foam from a fire extinguisher and water from an ordinary garden hosepipe. They looked to have the blaze under control. Looking at it, Kristy couldn't bring herself to care one way or another whether they succeeded or the whole place went up in one great big ball of smoke and fire.

  She gave herself another minute to catch her breath, before she turned and jogged off through the trees. Dead wood had been wedged up against the perimeter wall to make a walkable ramp; the others were already in the transit van. Their conversation died down to nothing almost as soon as she laid her hand on the door. Kristy scooted along the narrow bench, into a seat opposite Shaun, shifting the file under her jacket until she was as comfortable as she was going to get squashed in the back of an old transit van. She kept the CD box on her lap.

  Shaun hawked and spat at the floor between his feet.

  “I just hope you're satisfied, lady,” he said, looking her straight in the eye for the first time she could think of.

  Kristy didn't even think about it. She leaned in close enough to breathe into his mouth, clenched her fist and punched him in the face hard enough to bring a red snake's trail from his nose. Shaun looked as if he was set to lash out in retaliation, but shaking his head, Gary laid a restraining hand over his bunched knuckles and told him to grow up.

  “Fuck you, man!”

  “Come on,” Gary called through to Nev. “Let’s get the hell out of here before things start getting really stupid.” He winked at Kristy, and mouthed something she couldn't decipher. She shrugged and forced herself to smile back, annoyed that the young Scotsman had looked at her, seen a woman and immediately thought she needed protecting.

  “I'm having a bad week,” she muttered, her look challenging any of them to utter the words pre-menstrual tension.

  They made the long drive back to Newcastle in silence.

  - 56 -

  Alex Slater came round with the arrival of the dawn chorus. He was lying on his side, face mashed up hard against the fabric of the settee. His hands were trussed up behind his back with a length of nylon washing line looped around his wrists four times then pulled down and wrapped around his ankles to bind his feet together.

  Goosebumps crawled up and down his skin.

  Disorientated, Alex's first real effort at thought conjured up the single sensation, putting words to it later, when he had the right words to hand: Between them, Johnny and this place'll be the death of me. It's bloody freezing. . .

  He was right on all three counts, although the place he was thinking about was a hole in the hillside not quarter of a mile from Rogan’s Farm.

  Where he was, and how he got there, came back to him all too quickly when he finally opened his eyes.

  The inside of his head felt as if an entire elephant chorus had been dress-rehearsing the Nutcracker Suite in there, while at the same time Doc Terror had been pushing blunt needles into the backs of his eyes, just for kicks. The bare skin around his wrists was chaffed where the nylon line had started burning. Muscles in his shoulders and thighs were locked solid with cramps so close to rigor mortis Alex didn't honestly believe he'd be able to stand, let alone walk away from Frank Rogan's mausoleum, when he finally slipped his shackles.

  The room was still in darkness, despite a brightening sliver of daylight that sliced through the black like frost. A fan of knives were laid out like an offering, their blades catching the light like pieces of silver. Alex wriggled and twisted, arching his back until his questing fingers snagged the first of Billy's knots, felt his head reel and the world shift about above him; the living room tilted to resemble the inside of a funhouse, the window set to rocking in its pane as if the farmhouse had somehow set sail while he was unconscious.

  The place reeked like a butcherhouse, the smell stronger and more sickening than when he had first stepped foot in the room. How long had it taken to fester into this?

  Alex squeezed his eyes shut, doing everything he could to keep his concentration on the knot his fingers were frantically picking away at. He could still hear the hum of blowflies picking away at the wax dummy in the chair, and finally he opened them again when the dancing sparks convinced his stomach it was time to abandon ship.

  Frank Rogan was still in his chair, and still very much dead.

  His white teeth were bared where his fleshy lips had been stripped away in a permanent smile, one of two. The second bone-white smile where his head and shoulders joined, the vertebrae flashing white, like teeth while the head above tilted away at an unnatural angle.

  Alex shuffled around until his back was to Rogan, thinking that maybe, if he couldn't see the old man sat there like some bloody sentinel in his armchair, he could forget he was even there for just about long enough to work himself free, and not lose his mind in the process. And then, maybe, he could turn himself over to the Police. Maybe even go back and find Johnny so the pair of them could hit the road like Johnny wanted after all. Spend some time down the coast, hang out at the amusement arcades. Have a good time for this one summer at least. Maybe worry about giving himself up come winter, if the Police were still looking for him then.

  But what use were all these maybes if he didn't get out of here before that fucking psycho Billy came back from wherever he'd fucked off to? Maybe then there would be no dream answers couched in memories of Spanish City? Or worse, maybe, Billy would bring along his own answers and Alex wouldn't be left with a whole lot of choice in the matter.

  He had to get out of here long before then.

  He set to the knot again, worming his index finger into the small bit of slack he had managed to work loose already. The sweat on his hands made it a bit easier. Alex massaged it into his wrists, greasing them up enough for him to work at. The cramp in his side gave a deep pinch like a finger corkscrewing up and under his ribs.

  Alex braced his knees against the base of the settee and used his legs to help pull a
gainst his right arm as he pulled upwards, against the nylon line. The moment he felt the rope bite deep Alex was sickeningly sure he wasn't going to be able to worm his way out of this mess anywhere near quickly enough to beat Billy’s homecoming, and that only made him pull harder, heedless of the damage he was doing to his wrist.

  The nylon gave an extra millimetre but remained stubbornly stuck beneath the first knuckle of his thumb. Pulling against the knots was getting him nowhere fast. There was a sensation of warming growing at the back of his wrist, a hot electrical tingle, as if someone were smearing Deep Heat into the wounds opening up back there. The burning quickly spread all the way around his wrist in a bracelet as the skin began to tear under the pressure of his pulling.

  Alex screamed, yanked at the nylon line again, kicking out in frustrated rage, suddenly angry beyond all reason. Let Billy come back, he thought crazily. Let the bastard come back and I’ll rip his fucking head off his shoulders and swap it with his old man’s. . . It was like a premonition being forced into his mind. The old man with his head gone, Billy on the floor at his feet, blood pumping through the stump of his neck into a puddle spreading across the floor. . . He pistoned his arm up, through the rapidly fading mist of pain, the rope tearing the skin back across the heel of his hand. Alex pulled harder, ripping his hand free. The top layer of skin came away as if it were a glove, lined with blood.

  Alex was screaming. The voices in his head were screaming. Billy, on the floor in his premonition was screaming.

  And none of them felt the pain.

  Realising that, and thinking that somehow his body had short circuited or somehow overloaded and his senses melted down, Alex was suddenly sure he was about to die right there on the on farmhouse floor and to hell with Billy, Johnny and all the rest. That surety lasted for a full minute before it started to waiver.

  His hand was bleeding quite heavily and already he could feel himself beginning to get that familiar light-headedness. With the steady loss of blood showing no signs of slowing, Alex quickly tugged his other hand free and saw to unleashing his legs. Using his good hand to support him, he lurched clumsily to his feet. He was forced to move very slowly, and very, very carefully.

  Alex staggered to the door, stumbling and catching the frame to stop himself pitching flat on to his face. The insides of his stomach seemed to be swelling. Parts of his skull felt as if the bones holding them together were already on the point of bursting apart. He groaned and staggered into the hall, his bleeding hand clamped under his armpit. The blood was seeping down through the burgundy silk of his dress shirt in a perspiration-ring that was already a handspan across. Alex forced himself to stop and look at his reflection in the hall's full body mirror, and was stunned and horrified equally by the face and body he saw looking back from the silvered depths.

  His skin was too pale white to be healthy. His freckles reduced to a sick shade of grey. His bloodshot eyes sunk into dark, ringed sockets. The skin around his cheeks and jaw seemed to have shrunk so that his jaw thrust out prominently while his cheeks had caved in. Worst of all were the sporadic red blotches peppering his chin and around his mouth. He touched the red areas tentatively, feeling out the sores beneath the skin. Remembered Billy's face, and the weeping sores ringing his mouth.

  “You bastard. . . Oh, you bastard,” he moaned, reaching out to steady himself. His voice was weak and sounded all wrong, like the Death’s Head he was staring at in the mirror looked all wrong. The body beneath looked little better.

  To look at him, Alex thought, suddenly very scared of whatever it was that was happening to him, you would have thought he was the junkie, not Johnny.

  The shirt hung on him like a tent. His shoulders had either grown while he was unconscious, or his ribcage and stomach had withered so badly he looked to have sprouted shoulder pads, it was difficult to tell which. The way his jeans had gone baggy in some places made him think that his legs had withered along with his stomach. The man in the mirror looked to be standing on sticks, his eyes as scared as Alex felt looking into them.

  Alex reeled away from his reflection, unable to wrench his morbid fascination from the mirror man, raised his bloody hand to his face and pressed at the temples; trying to hold it all together. Christ, it just didn't look like him. At least not the him that had come in here looking for the phone last night, and that was the only version of himself Alex had ever known.

  Got to get out of here, something inside screamed just when Alex himself seemed to be on the point of surrendering to mirror man by sitting down and waiting to die, and that something carried enough strength behind it to force Alex into action. He lumbered into the kitchen, leaving bloody handprints behind where he had had to use the wall and table for support.

  At the sink, he drank three mugs full of water, and then rinsed his hand under the cold tap. He clenched his teeth and swallowed back the bile he felt rising, expecting fireworks as he soaked his raw palm. The water ran red. Alex felt nothing, the nerves stripped of skin numbed and insensitive, and took to cleaning out the wound as thoroughly as his queasy stomach would allow. Thinking about it, Alex realized that he could not actually feel the water splashing off his hand at all.

  His lack of feeling didn't bear thinking about for too long.

  Done, he pulled off his shirt, tearing off the sleeve to make a makeshift bandage, bound his hand up and pulled the shirt back on over the top.

  He's coming back Alex. . . I'm coming home. . . That voice again, only now it seemed like more than one mouth -- or mind -- was behind it. Alex didn't know how it knew Billy was coming home, if he really was coming home and it wasn't just another symptom of Alex's mind having gone mad, or why the voice had suddenly changed slant and claimed that it was coming home, and he didn't care.

  Sharing his head with voices, Alex staggered outside. He had no thoughts of his own beyond heading for the hills.

  * * * * *

  His feet took him away, and kept him moving even when he thought he was sure to drop.

  His legs had no strength in them to argue.

  A smile ghosted across Alex's face, dying almost as soon as the voice returned. Got to feel good, Alex. . . Need to feel good. . . He didn't know what it meant by that, but had a feeling he was going to find out for himself pretty soon. Whether he wanted to or not. He was moving as fast as he had the strength to push his body into going, but that was still too slow for the voice, it wanted more, and it wanted it faster than he could gather it to give. It seemed to take an age to get back to the Judas Hole.

  The sun was clear of Moses Hill and climbing the ladder across the sky by the time Alex scrambled up the narrow chimney into the cave.

  Johnny had the stove burning for light, or warmth. The cave was a good ten degrees colder than the morning outside, and that put it close to freezing. The cold didn't seem to be bothering Johnny, he had his shirt off and draped across his knees. His sweat gleamed bluish in the gas light. He looked bad. His skin was washed out and sallow, his hair knotted and stuck together in greasy clumps, his eyes haunted by his body's own desperate need.

  It was hard to tell which of them looked worse. Alex thought he had been crying.

  “I thought you weren't coming back,” Johnny said, no hint of accusation in his voice as he said it. He had a tattoo of a snake growing out of his stomach, curling around his side, up his back and over his shoulder, fangs bared to bite on his nipple.

  Alex felt himself start to slip, his legs suddenly having no more strength to support him than water. Bizarrely, it felt almost exactly as if he were melting. He pitched forward, managing to bring hand up to protect his face, then crashed face first onto the floor.

  Johnny scuttled over to where he lay, knelt there for a moment, just looking, and then lay down beside his friend. He cradled his body around Alex’s for warmth and for comfort, to let Alex know that he was there, that he would always be there, if they ever woke up from this nightmare.

  Johnny lay like that for as long as he could keep his
eyes from closing, stroking Alex's long dark brown hair behind his ear. Saw the torn skin where Billy had yanked the runic sword from his lobe rather than unfasten the clip.

  He kissed Alex’s bloody ear lightly, and breathed into it.

  “What happened to your sword, little soldier?”

  - 57 -

  Ben finished off the passage and set the printer to running off a copy of "The Sufferer's Song" while he went through to the kitchen for a well deserved caffeine injection.

  He turned the radio on and was singing along to The Eagles as he wandered through to the breakfast bar.

  Scooby was pottering around, busy looking for something to do with himself. Watching the old Labrador with one eye, the other trying to concentrate on yesterday's paper, Ben was struck by the wryly ironic image of Scooby sat inside on a wet Sunday afternoon looking to cause trouble like any normal ten year old. Boredom, it seemed, had made it as far as the canine world.

  Scooby took to wandering between the family room and the breakfast bar, sniffing at his bowl, padding over to where Ben was sat reading, rubbing himself up against his legs, and generally making a show of his hunger pangs.

  Ben got the message, spooned out some tinned dog food and refilled his water bowl.

  “Come on then, Scoob.”

  The old Labrador didn't need a second invitation to tuck in. Scooby sorted out, Ben went upstairs for a shower and a shave, thought about snatching forty minutes sleep while the printer ran off the first one hundred and forty pages of the manuscript, but decided against it, knowing he would only be worse for it later. He had things he wanted to do today besides sleep, the first of which was opening the windows to let some air in before he suffocated.

  Instead of sleeping, he pulled out a clean pair of jeans and his favourite patchwork rugby shirt. He'd been given the shirt by Mike and Hannah as a Christmas present a couple of years ago. The shirt was put together with the flags of six nations, Canada, USA, Germany, Italy, Russia, and the UK. He wore it at least once a fortnight. On the last wash he managed to die it partially pink by putting it in with a new pair of red hiking socks, but that wasn’t going to stop him from wearing it until the seams gave out and it fell off his back. It wasn't just that it was comfortable, by some form of osmosis the rugby shirt had somehow become part of him and what he was. That he felt comfortable in it was an added bonus.