by Simon Clark
Chapter Five
I’m Going to Kill Slatter
‘Where we going, Steve?’
We were walking along Thorne Road. Christ Church, shining as white as a bone in the sun, hurt my eyes. Overhead, rooks circled like black snowflakes. The traffic lights at the junction flicked through red, amber, green. There were no cars on the streets.
‘Steve. Where we going?’ My throat burned as the words came out.
Steve walked by my side. I’d not seen that expression on his face before. It reminded me of a kid at school whose dad had been broken in half in a factory accident. No expression. The face looked like it had been chiselled from concrete. Only the eyes leaked pain.
‘Steve …’
He stared straight ahead. I didn’t know if he was ignoring me or whether my butchered throat couldn’t produce a voice.
Why was I walking with Steve? Toward town, sure. But what for? Doncaster’s a ghost town Sunday mornings.
Steve, why did he look like that? Maybe his father had fallen asleep at the wheel and … shit … why didn’t my brain work? It was as if I’d lost a lump of the stuff – the lump with the memories …
Christ, I must have been in one hell of a fight. Who’d hit me so hard that I felt like one of the living dead? It’d have to be someone like Slatter.
SLATTER!
Memory exploded inside my head.
Back over the garden fence that morning. Hacked-up bread in the kitchen; John’s bedroom; the pyramid.
I yanked at Steve’s arm, spinning him to face me. ‘Steve. Slatter’s killed John. I – I got back this morning. I went into his bedroom. It’s all – all … I found John. He’d ripped his face. He’s dead, Steve, he’s dead.’
Steve looked at me. His stone face not altering. When he spoke it was very low. ‘Nick. Don’t you remember? You ran back to my house. You told me about John.’
Steve began walking but I grabbed him by the arm. ‘I’m getting Slatter for this. I’m going to tear his skin off. I’m going to do what he did to John.’
Steve shook his head.
‘Steve, you don’t have to help. I’ll do it myself. I’m going to kill Slatter. John will …’ The words jammed up inside of me. I screamed and kicked a wall. ‘I’ll get the bastard. I don’t care if I do time … Slatter … SLATTER!’
I was losing it again. I came to with Steve holding me by the shoulders. He looked me in the face for a full ten seconds before he said something that nearly knocked me flat.
‘Nick. It wasn’t Slatter.’
‘Of course it was Slatter. Slatter wants to destroy me. My pick-up. Then John … I’m—’
‘Nick, listen. It wasn’t Slatter. Keep still. No, I’m not letting go. Just listen. Slatter didn’t kill John.’
‘Of course it’s Slatter.’
‘No.’
‘If it wasn’t Slatter who the hell was it?’
‘I think it was …’ He broke off, shaking his head furiously. ‘I don’t know, I don’t know.’
I pushed him away and walked in the direction where Slatter lived. My pace savage.
Steve followed, having to jog to keep up. We cut off Thorne Road into rows of terraced housing that fill the budget end of town.
‘Nick … Wait. Give me five minutes to explain.’
‘No way. Slatter’s dead. That’s the end of it.’
Ahead on the pavement a mother was seeing her young daughter off to Sunday school. Zipping up her coat and kissing her on the lips.
‘Steve, get off me. Let go!’
He’d hooked his hand around my jacket collar. The only way to shift him was to batter him in the face. And I was ready to do it. Then shove by mummy kissing her little girl. The only thing that existed for me right then was the aching need to baptise my hands in Slatter’s blood.
‘Nick. For Chrissakes stand still and listen.’
‘Let go.’
‘Listen.’ Steve spoke slowly; he was willing the words into my brain. ‘Listen to me. It wasn’t Slatter who killed John. Slatter was nowhere near your house. In fact, Slatter is probably already dead.’
Now that did stop me. I just stared, blood pumping through my ears.
‘Dead? How the hell can Slatter be dead?’
‘Nick. Something’s happened. Something … something just so weird. Insane. I don’t know – I can’t say what.’
‘Have you cracked or what?’ I twisted out of Steve’s grip and stood there, staring at him.
‘Nick. People have gone crazy. All of them. They’ve just gone fucking, ape-shit crazy.’
‘I can’t handle this now. Just piss off, will you.’
‘Don’t take my word for it. Look.’ Steve nodded at the woman kissing her child.
I looked. This time I saw properly.
The mother wasn’t kissing her child. She was eating her face.
Chapter Six
The Sound of Killing
‘The noise started after you left this morning, Nick. I went outside. The noise was the sound of people killing one another.’
As we walked along the deserted road Steve told me what had happened to him.
‘They weren’t fighting. There were two sets of people. One set were doing the killing. The other set were being killed.’
‘Why are they attacking us? Did you see who they were?’
He nodded, his eyes fixed in front of him.
I said, ‘Cops … Why aren’t there any cops when you need them?’
‘I live next door to a cop. A sergeant from the town station.’
‘He couldn’t do anything?’
‘Oh, he could do plenty.’ Steve nodded. ‘He was murdering his own children.’
‘Wasn’t anyone trying to stop it?’
Steve shrugged.
‘What did you do?’
‘Me?’ Steve shot me a look. ‘I ran. That’s right, Nick. I’m a damn coward. I was running when I saw you coming up the street to my house. You were out of it, old son. I thought you were one of them.’
‘Jesus … I’ve got to find my parents. I’ve got to tell them.’
‘No, Nick. That’s not a good idea.’
‘Why, for Chrissakes? They’ve got to know about John. I don’t know where they are. I don’t know if they’ve been attacked. Or – or—’
‘Nick. I don’t think they’ve been harmed. And don’t worry about finding them. If what I think is right, they’ll be looking for you.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Nick. Right now the world seems to have gone mad. But there’s a pattern to it.’
‘What pattern?’ I was still in shock. I couldn’t get my head around this. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘Remember what happened yesterday. Down there in the market place.’
‘That kid was murdered.’
‘By?’
‘By his mother.’
My brain fought to process this data. I couldn’t. It was all mad. Images streamed senselessly through my head. John lying in the pyramid. The little girl near Christ Church. Her mother eating her face. The deserted roads. The town centre. So silent you could hear the rooks calling overhead.
At that point we didn’t know where we were walking. Maybe we were instinctively hunting for signs of normality. This was the town we’d both known for seventeen years. We knew every shop, road and alleyway. And today it looked normal. There was no litter on the streets. Cars were parked in an orderly way by the kerbside. Only there were no people.
We passed a café with its Xpelair humming. A beautifully normal sound. It even carried a shot of warm oil and onion smells from the night before.
‘What’s happening, Steve? Why are people acting like this?’
Without looking at me he shrugged.
‘Steve, you said you thought parents were killing their children.’
‘Mainly.’
‘When I said I wanted to look for my parents … You said not to bother … That they were probably looking for me. What do you
mean?’
‘What do I mean, Nick? I mean I saw mothers and fathers, ordinary people I’ve known all my life, killing their children. They were tearing them apart. That’s what I saw. Why are they doing it? Jesus Christ, I don’t know why.’
Suspicion detonated like Semtex inside my head. ‘You think my parents killed John?’
‘I think … Shit. Will you take a look at that?’
I looked in the direction he was staring.
There were people in the High Street. At that moment they were doing nothing.
Nothing apart from watching us. With nearly a hundred yards separating us I wasn’t scared. Physically they weren’t intimidating. They could have been a group of thirty or so churchgoers, gathering on the pavement for an impromptu meeting. There were no children with them.
Your elders will tell you spending your time in nightclubs teaches you nothing. Not true. It teaches you this. You learn body language. And when you’re seventeen knowing how to read body language keeps you in one piece. You instinctively recognise when someone walks toward you whether they’re going to ignore you, say hello, or take a belt at you.
When that group of Doncaster men and women turned to look at us, a ripple of movements ran through them. As easy as you read these words you could read their hostility – and intent.
I said, ‘They’re going to have a go at us.’
Steve nodded. ‘At least they’ll never catch us from here. Come on.’
We turned.
Where they had come from I don’t know. They must have leaked from the back alleyways. Blocking the pavement ten yards away were a dozen men and women aged anything from their twenties to one old guy of eighty-plus with a deaf aid and walking stick. Normally you wouldn’t have looked twice at this bunch.
But their eyes belted out a different message.
They burned with hatred. The muscle beneath their faces was so tight skin creases radiated from their mouths and eyes. Whatever changes had taken place inside their heads changed the shape of their faces. These were facial expressions no one on this planet had seen before.
‘Nick. Run … Run!’
The men and women didn’t move. But you sensed the muscle tension building in their bodies. Their shoulders began to slowly rise.
I felt a punch in my side.
‘Wake up, Nick. Run!’
I ran, cutting between two closely parked cars and belted across the road.
Steve wasn’t behind me. I stopped at the far side and looked back.
He hadn’t been fast enough. I saw him fighting to twist free. That blond head strained from side to side as fists punched down on him; arms wrapped around his shoulders and chest.
I ran back until I was only separated from the mob holding Steve by a parked car.
‘Steve!’
He twisted his head to look at me. Blood poured like tears from his eyes.
‘Run, Nick! Run!’
Agony cracked from this throat. They were killing him.
I climbed onto the roof of the car and beat the metal with my fists, like I was trying to scare away a pack of wild dogs.
What in God’s name could I do?
How he managed to keep on his feet I don’t know. Women wrapped their arms around his neck as if they wanted to kiss him. But they were biting his face. Holes appeared in his cheeks.
‘Nick … Oh, Jesus … Nick! Niiiarrrr …’
I was screaming, ‘Leave him, leave him, leave him …’
They took no notice.
A heavy shape bounced across the car inches from me. A fat man threw himself onto the clump of bodies. Steve went down.
They were all over him. A mound of kicking, biting, punching men and women.
Steve’s destruction was all that mattered. They even ignored me, although their bodies slamming into the car nearly rocked me off as they fought for their share of the obliteration.
That’s what it was. Like a jilted bride tearing up the photograph of her ex. They were shredding my best friend to the tiniest pieces they could.
I jumped from the car and ran.
I stopped when I could go no further. I’d reached the top of the multi-storey car park after running up the ramps that linked the concrete decks.
Within twenty minutes my heart had slowed to near normal. I looked out over Doncaster. In the sunlight it looked pretty much like it always did. St George’s Church looking like a Gothic wedding cake beside the art college. Railway tracks gleamed like snail trails. No trains ran. North Bridge spanned tracks, canal and river completely deserted.
From here I could see the streets, shops, shopping mall. The silent pattern of changing traffic lights. Red, amber, green.
The place was normal. It wasn’t mad. No one was mad.
That’s it. It was me who was mad. Me, Nick Aten.
Or maybe Slatter – it had to be that twat Slatter – had spiked my beer last night with acid. I was hallucinating.
For Chrissakes, Aten. Snap out of it. Get the stuff out of your system. Eat. Drink. Piss it from your body.
The thoughts scrambled across the grooves of my brain. Nothing clear connected. I just hung onto the idea I’d been drugged. Taking a deep breath I walked down the ramps back into town.
It was people-free.
I walked the streets. Not knowing where I was going, just hoping the effects of whatever had been dropped in my drink would wear off. Once I saw kids sleeping in a doorway. Only I knew deep down they weren’t sleeping because of the way they lay, arms and legs stretched out.
As I neared McDonald’s I slowed down. There was movement behind the counter. I passed the expanse of plate glass, trying not to appear too interested in what was happening.
Normality was happening. Two teenage girls in uniform stacked burgers in the hot trays. One reached over to lift out a basket of fries and shake them onto the drain tray. I could smell heaven.
I walked through the door.
Inside it smelt even better. Mobiles advertising kids’ specials with a Ronald McDonald toy hung from the ceiling, turning slowly.
‘Can I take your order, sir?’ The girl’s bright smile was a shot of pure antidote. The world was nice and normal again.
‘Big Mac, please.’ I pulled out the money.
‘Would you like fries with that, sir?’
‘Please.’
‘Would you like a drink with your meal, sir?’
‘A large coke … Thanks.’
Then I didn’t look at her clean smile, I looked into her eyes.
It was the worst mistake I could have made. Behind the smiling face were the eyes of a frightened little girl. In that one second of eye contact we communicated more deeply than if we’d sat round a table and talked for an hour.
It was all true. The nightmare was reality. There was blood on the tarmac. Teenagers lay dead in their beds, chewed to pieces by mum and dad in the night. She’d seen it, too.
She snapped off to punch the till presets. I handed her the money but kept my eyes down on the tray.
‘Thank you – enjoy your meal.’
The other girl watched me hard from behind the burger racks. She was waiting for me to say, ‘What the hell are we doing? There’s genocide out there. Why are we pretending nothing’s happened?’
The only person you can really lie well to is you.
McDonald’s was deserted apart from its two teenage staff. It seemed normal, civilized. I wanted it to stay that way. I took the tray upstairs to eat in what could have been a film set of heaven with its marble columns, flowers, vines and sense of tranquillity.
After I’d finished I automatically dumped my rubbish in the bins and went to the toilet. The men’s door opened only a few inches. Something soft blocked it. I pushed hard and looked down. I saw a Reebok on the end of a leg.
I quit the door as if it had suddenly erupted in boils. For a moment I stood there, wanting a piss but not knowing what to do.
At last I put my head round the corner of the ladies’ door. I
t was pinkly empty. Feeling stupidly self-conscious I went as quickly as I could and left, still zipping my jeans.
The two girls watched me come downstairs, their eyes huge with fear. I’ve never seen a drowning man clinging to a life belt, but I’m sure if I did he wouldn’t hang on more tightly than one of those girl’s was hanging onto that McDonald coke dispenser.
I got through the door feeling their eyes on my back. What could I do? What could I say? I was in shock. My brain was black lead inside my skull. I should have tried to help them – they were just frightened kids.
I didn’t.
I hit the street not knowing where I was going but walking quickly. If I walked purposefully then maybe a purpose would come. Some idea of where to go.
The police?
No. When was the last time you saw a teenage cop?
I saw the car, the roof dimpled where I’d jumped onto it. There was a purpose after all in the direction I was walking. I had to check on Steve. He might be alive.
I edged slowly round the car. First I saw the mess in the gutter that looked like black-red treacle. Lying flat on the paving slabs was my friend. I didn’t know if he lay face up or face down. They’d been thorough.
As I stepped forward a black shape rushed at my face, whipping my cheek with something soft, then it was gone. I looked up to see a rook flapping up to the roof tops, a piece of food hanging from its beak.
I walked away.
Before me the traffic lights ran through their sequence. Red, amber, green. Neon signs flashed in the stores. Six TVs in an electrical store played an old U2 video. Then the sense of dislocation squeezed back again. Perhaps it would have been easier to walk through a post-nuclear holocaust town with burned-out buildings and rusting car wrecks. But here was madness and murder in a town with clean pavements and traffic lights signalling to empty highways. My friend lay broken on the street while a TV in the Post Office window chuntered in green letters:
GOOD MORNING DONCASTER.
THE WEATHER TODAY – SUNSHINE: 21C.
EVENTS SUNDAY, APRIL 16.
REGENT’S SQUARE SPRING FETE. 1PM.
FOR CARE OF THE ELDERLY WITH DIGNITY, THE—
As I stood there the screen died.
And at that moment I knew the town itself had begun to die. The traffic lights went out; screens in the electrical stores blanked; VDU timetables at the bus stop faded to black.
