Garbage Man

by Joseph D'lacey

  Blood. Rust. Lightning. Intent.

  These were the things of which the fecalith was wrought. He grew swiftly.

  He moved as though falling through space when swimming in the landfill. Though its contents were crushed almost solid by the daily stomping of the heavy compactors, to him it was a private aquarium and he moved through it with the ease and grace of a dolphin. Nothing impeded him. He was drawn, called to certain places where useful parts were to be found - the glass from the door of a washing machine to form a new eye, an old radiator panel to gird his exhaust-pipe ribs, empty beer barrels and oil drums from which to fashion his vertebrae. When he passed below, the dry and jagged surface of the landfill rippled like the swell of a polluted sea. Within hours the fecalith reached maturity.

  The old man’s offerings - the hedgehogs and cats and rabbits, his own blood and the mind and body of the boy - all these flowed and lived within him, as aspects of his vast and growing consciousness, as did the blood of the boy’s sister. They formed the templates from which inanimate things became living. Parts of him bristled with approximated fur or spines, his teeth were copies of dog canines, human incisors and herbivorous molars - but huge now and made of hard junk. His jaws were hinged girders, his fingers, jointed railings. He walked on legs of reclaimed iron and in his rubber and copper veins flowed a new blood of commingled effluent and living plasma. In this blood moved the soul of the fecalith and the fecalith’s will. In his steel-cased skull processors, motherboards, hard drives and software grew and evolved. Awareness seeped into the circuitry, code flowed into its assembly of brains. In the slime at the bottom of the landfill, the fecalith philosophised and meditated as he swam.

  Like all sentient beings, he contemplated the reason for his becoming, the purpose of his existence. The where of it, the when of it, the how.

  And the why.

  Unlike most sentient beings, the fecalith began to understand why he existed, where he had come from and what he had come to do.

  There had been many created like him, born on the same day, animated by the same elemental forces. Fashioned by the immense power and anger of the storm, they had risen at its will. Of all of them, the fecalith was the only one to have survived and he was growing fast now, almost into his maturity. But the same potential from which his kin had risen still existed here in this fertile lake of garbage. He could be their mind. He could be their general. If only he could bring them back.

  ***

  The shed was an empty space now.

  Neither the boy nor the creature might ever have existed.

  Mason sat on the dirty floorboards, the sun knifing a deep angle into the gloom but not touching him. He watched the dust specks turning in the bright shaft. Dead atoms, floating but inert. Mindless, discarded chips and fragments of the world.

  Things had changed.

  Muck and blood flowed in the veins and improvised tubules of the creature, death and life mingled to make some third state - newborn in the world. Newborn and abroad.

  The creature had left the same night he gave it the boy and had not returned.

  Mason felt the splintery wood beneath his hands. There was no trace of Donald Smithfield. Neither stain of his blood nor rag of his clothes. Not a page of skin or partial bone. Not a hair. The creature had absorbed him totally. Mason’s tools were gone too. The fork and the shovel, the trowel, the hoe and hedge trimmers. The scraps of paper and cloth that had been its bed. Even the old books on the shelf. All taken.

  There had been a purpose to all this, Mason was sure of that, but now that he tried to remember it he found it impossible to justify. In some part of himself he didn’t even believe it was real. Had something gone wrong in his mind? Had he dreamed up an adventure to end his solitude, wished the creature into existence to bring some purpose to his life? It was hard to believe it could have come to this - Mason had always believed he was content with simplicity. Now, with the creature gone, he felt a loneliness worse than any before.

  In the immense inner fields of his emotions, where happiness had grown like a bounteous golden crop in time with the growth of the shed-thing, now grew tares of doubt and guilt. They choked everything. He’d had a mission or a fantasy perhaps - it didn’t matter - and now that mission was finished. There was no trace of it. He was left with nothing but the knowledge of his crime. He could now contemplate his slaughter of the child at his leisure. Were it not for him, the boy would still be alive.

  Nothing else remained to make concrete his reasoning. The shed was utterly bare inside. He had acted with great conviction, believing in a new age for the world. Now, there was nothing left to show that he’d acted well. He might merely be insane, having concocted a wild fantasy. Or he might be a killer of animals and children for no good reason. Surrounded outside by the abundant growth of his garden, of ripe fruits and vegetables aplenty, Mason sat staring and desolate at the inside of the shed door.

  There was nothing to make him move. No reason to stand or eat. No meaning in anything he might or might not do. Not any more.

  The light moved with great patience and stealth across the worn and bare shed floor, over his splayed legs and crept up the opposite wall. It turned rose gold then pink; all the while losing it’s brightness. Finally the light slept and darkness rose.

  The shed was black inside and still Mason waited for something to stir him, some prompt to make him live again.

  None came.

  ***

  Ray woke in the cool of the evening.

  He opened his eyes and stayed still for a few moments as his mind stitched reality back together. The first thing he remembered was the last thing that had happened - Delilah sucking an unprecedented fourth orgasm from him. His cock was pleasantly raw and deep inside his balls there was a constant, flat ache. He lay on his side, his head on one of the pillows. Delilah had laid his shirt over him. His hip and leg were sore from the hard ground.

  He raised himself into a sitting position, his back against the tree, and looked around. There was a note sticking out of his Converse hi-top.

  Ray,

  Had to go. Put the box away. Keep our secret! Call me.

  Luv D XXX

  There was a mobile number written below it.

  He folded the paper up and put it in his shorts pocket before dressing.

  Standing up, he felt the weakness in his legs. This was from their two knee-tremblers. When the ground felt too hard, they’d stood up and used the tree for support. He put his hand to the rough bark of the oak.

  ‘Thanks. You were great.’

  His voice sounded weak and out of place, the levity inappropriate now he was alone. He finished dressing, suddenly wanting to be away from the place. The sun was still up but it was low in the sky and he couldn’t see it through the trees. A coral pink haze was gathering and reflecting off the gnarled skin of the trees. It made the tiny grove other-worldly once more but not in the same way it had appeared to him before. He’d have enjoyed it if Delilah was still with him. Alone, the place felt wrong. He put the cushions and blankets back in the ammo box without bothering to shake them and shoved it hurriedly back into the undergrowth out of sight. All he wanted to do was leave, get out of the woods and back to his place before it got too dark.

  After a minute or two of walking through the trees, he knew he didn’t recognise where he was. It seemed like the right direction but he couldn’t be certain and he didn’t remember any landmarks. How long had they walked through the trees for before they arrived? Surely not more than two or three minutes. He should have been near the fence by now. There were trees in every direction. Nothing looked familiar. The pink light deepened and darkened.

  Paranoia and fear crept over the back of his head like insects. He turned from one direction to another looking for some sign of their passing, a hint of a path. Something that looked like a passage through t
he trees became visible. He followed it. Moments later it was blocked by a fallen branch. They definitely hadn’t come this way. Turning back he began to trot towards the clearing with the idea that he would start again. It didn’t take long for him to realise he’d lost the way back to their little grotto too.

  Unable to control his nerves any longer, Ray started running.

  He stumbled over branches and half stepped in a rabbit hole.

  Could have broken my bloody ankle.

  Realising the extent of his panic, he slowed down and took more notice of where he put his feet. He knew how stupid he was being but he couldn’t stop himself from running. It was the bloody dope; the high was long gone leaving him nothing but freaked.

  And then, up ahead, he glimpsed the sun; red now, through a straggly mesh of branches. He had to be nearing the edge of the woods. Relief surging through him, he sprinted towards the visceral glow. The woods ended but not where he’d entered them. There was no barbed wire fence here. Instead he found he was standing on a raised bank with a huge view of the countryside. The ground sloped steeply away from him into smaller trees and brush. Beyond the dense shrubs was a meandering gravel path and a little farther on, the edge of a lake. Far to the other side of the lake a heat haze rippled over Shreve’s notorious landfill, blurring the horizon.

  Of course, it wasn’t a real lake he was looking across. He had his bearings now. This was the reservoir in the centre of Shreve Country Park. From here he knew he could find his way back to town. There was no need to run any more. Now he knew where he was, there was plenty of light and lots of time. He could turn his mind to what he really wanted to do - get home and phone Delilah.

  The sun rippled as it touched the horizon and sank fast. He’d been glancing at it from time to time and dozens of after-images glowed on his retina. When the sun was gone, leaving the sky a deep dusty pink, the after-images remained. They obscured his vision of the patchwork fields and the pylons marching single-file across the country to diminish into the distance. Nothing in the expanse before him looked real. The shimmer from the landfill made the entire horizon look like a fake backdrop, a gaudily painted banner fluttering in a warm breeze. Movement caught his eye on the far side of the reservoir. Once and then a second time. It was towards the middle of the landfill. At first he assumed it was the residual blobs of sunlight in his eyes but then the movement took form, a very recognisable form.

  Something huge heaved itself out of the landfill. Ray recognised the action, that of a swimmer leaving a pool. This shape was far, far too large for that though. It must have been at least half a mile away. He could only see the shape in silhouette - what was left of the daylight was right behind it - but when it stood to its full height, he knew the outline very well. It was the figure of a man. A giant man with jagged, rough edges. It stood for a long time dripping effluent and pieces of junk, only its head turning slowly from side to side as it surveyed the land all around it. It was taller than the trees nearest to it. Taller, perhaps, than a three storey building. Ray didn’t have time to make a more accurate estimate of its height. He heard the tendons in the giant’s neck groaning like strained steel guy wires. Then it strode towards the lake, towards him, each footstep slow and lumbering but full of purpose. He felt the throb of its progress like a fat heart beating deep and slow beneath his feet. He smelled the wafted rot of re-forged detritus and reanimated filth.

  Despite the fading haze of cider and the clearing marijuana fog, Ray knew he wasn’t imagining it this time. The trash from the landfill was alive. The garbage man was coming. Ray couldn’t move.

  When it reached the perimeter of the landfill, it stopped and scanned its surroundings again. Its gaze fell on something to its right. Ray held his breath - stupid really, there was no way the thing could have heard him breathing from this distance. The urge to crouch back into the trees was strong but his desire to see what the creature would do next overcame it. It turned in the direction of its stare. Ray tried to see what it was seeing. There was nothing there but open fields and power lines. The garbage man began to walk again, that in itself was spectacle enough. Ray wished he could see better how the thing worked, what it was made up of. It stepped over the perimeter fence of the landfill and approached one of the pylons. It was about the same height as the structure, almost an inanimate skeletal version of itself. For a moment, Ray felt pity for the giant garbage man. It was merely searching for a companion. In the pylon, it had found a false friend, one that would burn or destroy it. Ray found himself on the point of calling out, even though it was already too late and there was no way the giant could hear him.

  He didn’t get the opportunity. The garbage man had taken hold of one of the power lines and yanked it free of the towering skeleton’s grip. There was a blue flash which left Ray blind for a second or two, then the sound of a distant electrostatic snap reached his ears. The garbage man held a writhing snake of raw voltage in its hands. Blue sparks poured from the snake’s severed neck in a bright arcing fountain. Parts of the garbage man’s body lit up red and orange and yellow. It juddered, rooted to the earth. Then it clumped back to the perimeter fence, hauling the live cable behind it. It bucked in his grip like a thin black eel, spitting neon poison. The cable just reached the edge of the landfill. The garbage man knelt and thrust the power-spewing ligament deep into the rubbish.

  For a few moments, nothing happened.

  Then the surface of the landfill began to pulsate and liquefy. It began to boil. Embryonic shadows, too small and distant to define, began to slither and crawl from the deep pits of trash. They left it from every side, in every direction. And all the while, the garbage man knelt at the edge of his domain like a rain god siphoning water into a desert. He brought forth life.

  Ray was down the bank and onto the path before his mind registered he was running.

  He didn’t stop until he’d reached his flat. He double-locked the door behind him, dived into the bathroom and bolted that door too. He sat down on the toilet, his legs shaking with exertion. He held his head and in between his gasps for air he cried like a little boy.

  15

  Kevin watched Tamsin open the door, catch the smell in the air and march towards the kitchen. She stopped in the doorway, hands on hips.

  ‘What do you think you’re doing?’

  He was more nervous than he’d hoped to be. Her voice hinted at nothing but total self-belief, her face showed no cracks. Already he was wondering how he was going to win this war; win it and finish it in a single engagement.

  ‘Smoking cigarettes.’

  It was, at least, obvious she knew something was up. That much showed in the flicker of her eyes as he tapped ash into his second empty coffee mug. It was a stupid habit he’d picked up at college and never quite lost. Stupid because, while it was temporarily convenient, it meant he had to strain soggy fag-ends out of the sink when the dregs of coffee were finally thrown away. Tammy hated it and had told him so the first time she’d seen him smoke at home. It had mattered back then, what she thought. It mattered now, too, but only because he knew how much it irritated her. She was seeing the challenge in his actions, the rebellion. That was exactly what he wanted.

  ‘When did you take that up again?’

  ‘I never stopped.’

  Something there. A pause. Another flicker of - what?

  Calculation? Hesitation? - then she was normal. A placid lake. She shrugged, dropped her handbag on the kitchen counter and swept out of the kitchen without saying anything more.

  She should have bitten by now. Snapped, more like. She had every right to lose her cool; he’d deceived her. She was holding back. Why?

  She trotted up the stairs. Unusual. She was fit, of course, but her gestures, her way of moving was in general more leisurely, more regal. Tammy didn’t trot.

  Kevin wasn’t used to chain smoking. He dropped the half-finished cigarette into
the half-finished coffee. It died with a hiss. He lit another, beginning to feel a little light-headed, a little nauseous.

  Upstairs he heard water running. It was the shower. Again, unusual. Too brisk for Tammy. Baths were more her style. Perhaps she felt more distant in the shower cubicle with the glass door pulled shut. More separate.

  Fine.

  He took his cigarette and the rest of the pack with him and followed her up. He didn’t take an ashtray.

  He opened the bathroom door, breaking another marital protocol. He took her towel from the hook while she was turned away from him and sat on the toilet. He pushed the door shut with his foot. Smoke and steam mingled. She knew he was there but he watched her ignoring him through the glass.

  Ignoring him.

  While she must have thought it was the greatest act of nonchalance ever performed, Kevin found it half amusing and half disturbing. There was only one reason she would pretend not to be bothered by this. She had something to hide. The kind of secret that came out when non-smoking husbands started smoking again. The kind of secret that would come out in an argument.

  What had the letter said? Something about him not being alone in sin.

  He was suddenly dead certain that Tamsin was afraid of confronting him. Tamsin thought he was smoking and belligerent because he’d already discovered something about her. What could it be?

  What the hell else? An affair. That was definitely her style.