Hyenas
MICHAEL SELLARS
Copyright © 2015 Michael Sellars
All rights reserved
ISBN-13: 978-1515154921
ISBN-10: 1515154920
For Ray, Reuben and Marcy with love.
Thanks to Jeff, Alex and Max for encouragement, suggestions and pointing out inconsistencies, unlikelihoods and some howling errors.
Prologue
Language left.
Chapter 1
The hyena dragged a filthy finger across the spines of Angelou, Arnold, Ashbury, Auden and Betjeman. It hesitated at the breach where Blake would have been had Jason Garvey not liberated him five weeks before, and then it moved onto Browning and Byron.
Jason Garvey, Jay to his friends — few and all dead or worse — was crammed under a display table just four feet from the browsing hyena, close enough to suffer its rank odour despite the thick woollen scarf covering his mouth and nose, almost close enough to reach out and touch the tattered hem of its grime-shiny, bloodstained jeans and the dead worm of lace trailing from Reeboks on the verge of splitting, disintegrating.
The corner of a leather wallet peeked out of a torn back pocket and, despite his clattering heartbeat, Jay couldn’t help but think of all the things that might be in there, evidence of the hyena’s former humanity: driver’s licence, credit cards, money he would never spend, passport photos of a wife or girlfriend or children. Jay tried not to think about what the thing might have been before the Jolt, tried not to think of it as human at all. If he started thinking about the possibility that there might be some pale but retrievable remnant of an actual person beneath that stinking crust, behind those murderous eyes, he wouldn’t be able to use the kitchen knife gripped in his trembling right hand, a hand greased with sweat despite the freezing cold. In his left hand, gripped equally tightly though of considerably less use was a copy of Northrop Frye’s Fearful Symmetry, the reason he’d left the warmth and relative safety of his blanket- and foil-lined hidey-hole on the third floor, a room that Jay assumed had functioned as some kind of break area for the Waterstones staff. Moments after he’d slipped the book from its place in Literary Criticism, he’d heard the hyena come bounding up the spiral staircase. He’d had only a couple of seconds to get himself out of sight, assuming he’d somehow given himself away and the thing had come for him. Instead, it had shuffled up to the Poetry section and had started browsing.
The hyena snarled, snatched a volume of Byron and, still facing the bookshelf, away from Jay, dropped into a cross-legged seated position. There was still a little snow on its hunched shoulders but it was melting fast. It turned the book over and over, this way and that, as if looking for a point of entry, then prised the pages apart. Jay saw there was a chunk of flesh missing from the back of its arm, just below a tattoo of the Liverpool Football Club crest; the wound was livid with infection. The hyena looked down at Byron’s words and let out a snort which sounded like satisfaction, then sighed, its breath clouding around its matted head.
Jay could feel the onset of cramp in his right calf. His lower back was beginning to protest, a sharp, persistent pain that insulted his twenty-seven years. He knew he wouldn’t be able to last much longer but he had no desire to confront the thing. He’d only found himself face-to-face with a hyena once before and it had come very close to ending badly for him. A well-aimed boot to the hyena’s balls had saved his life but he’d earned himself a dislocated arm, the memory of relocating which still made him wince.
What’s it doing? he thought. I mean, what the fuck? The world ended five weeks ago. There shouldn’t be any more surprises.
The hyena ran its fingertips over the page, as if it were reading Braille. Another snort of satisfaction, another sigh, another reeking breath-cloud. Then, with surprising delicacy, it tore the page from the book, pushed it into its mouth and began to chew, emitting little grunts of pleasure.
It swallowed with some difficulty then tore out another page. This one it rammed into its mouth, chewing furiously.
The Byron looked to be at least four hundred pages. Jay put all thoughts of ‘what the fuck?’ out of his mind and began to shuffle backwards, an inch at a time, until he could no longer see the hyena but could still hear its lips smacking together, its grunts. He was almost out, when the hood of his parka hissed against the underside of the table.
The hyena stopped chewing. Jay froze, held his breath. One, two, three, four seconds of silence. Five, six. The hyena started chewing again. Jay dared to breathe only when he absolutely had to. He was surprised the hyena couldn’t feel the vibrations from his juddering heartbeat through the carpet-tiled floor.
He was about to begin inching backwards again, when the hyena spat the pulp from its mouth and let out a vicious snarl. Jay thought it had heard him, sensed him even, but then, as it began tearing at pages and scattering them about, it became clear that it was the volume of poetry that was the source of its fury.
Jay eased his way out from under the table, stayed on his knees for a few seconds, then peered over the display of Mind, Body and Spirit books.
The hyena was looking right at him. Glaring right at him. Pages from Byron seemed to hang in the air. White flecks of chewed paper peppered its sparse, knotted beard. It pulled back cold-sore infested lips to bare yellow teeth. It was human in every respect — filthy, ragged, diseased, but human — except for its eyes. Its eyes were just rage. Jay noticed the remaining arm of a pair of spectacles tangled-up in its hair just above its left ear, and then it leapt up onto the table, scattering books.
Jay lashed out with the knife, a backhanded arc, warning the hyena off. The thing only grinned.
Jay turned and ran toward the spiral staircase.
If he could get back to his hidey-hole, lock the door, maybe he could wait it out. He had water and food (okay, mostly crisps, muffins and Kit Kats), blankets, a Calor gas heater. The hyena would starve, freeze or just get bored and fuck off.
But it wasn’t fucking off now. He heard it launch itself from the table, books thudding to the floor. Certain the thing was going to land on his back — he could almost feel it, suspended in the air above him — Jay made a sudden left, away from the stairs.
It was a wise decision: the hyena crashed to the floor where Jay would have been had he continued moving forward. But now the thing, rolling onto all fours, was between him and the stairs, between him and his hidey-hole.
Jay swiped back and forth with the knife.
The hyena laughed: high, harsh, barking. It was a sound with which he was all-too familiar; usually it was faint, distant. The last time he’d heard it at such close proximity, his arm was being wrenched out of its socket and it had taken all his will just to remain conscious.
Still laughing, the hyena leapt.
Jay knew that if he simply stood his ground, held the knife out, the thing would impale itself. But his belly was hot and oily with fear, his heartbeat a series of painful detonations. He lurched to the right, lashing out with the knife as he did so
The hyena’s body struck his outstretched arm. Jay spun like a turnstile, so fast he couldn’t keep his balance. He fell onto his back, hard enough to knock the wind out of him. The knife flew from his hand.
He lifted his head in time to see the hyena scuttling toward him on all fours. A string of saliva hung from its lips, lashing about.
Jay rolled onto his side, his front, got to his feet. He started away from the hyena, toward the stairs.
A moment later, the hyena slammed into his back, its hands gripping his shoulders, its feet pushing into the backs of his knees.
Jay went down again. His forehead struck the floor. There was concrete beneath the thin carpet tiles, and the impact was so hard sheet lightning filled his vision for a second, leaving behind
a sickly green-yellow afterimage. He kept his head tucked in, and for the moment the hyena contented itself with raking at his back and shoulders, shredding the thin outer material of his parka, but Jay knew it would soon tire of that. Hyenas liked to tear at flesh, to break bone, to kill for the sake of killing.
Fighting nausea from the blow to his head, Jay pulled his legs under him, pushed his feet flat against the ground and with a weightlifter’s grunt of exertion, stood and threw himself backwards. He managed to turn himself slightly on the descent, so his shoulder slammed into the hyena’s chest at the same moment its back hit the floor. He saw and smelled the breath forced from its lungs, a noxious fog. The hyena released its grip.
Jay jerked up and stumbled forward. Regaining his balance, he sprinted toward the stairs.
He thought the hyena might take a few seconds to recover. He thought wrong. He could hear it already, coming at him, laughing, closing the distance. He’d only climbed three steps when his hood was yanked back and the collar of his parka cut into his throat.
Jay spun round, lashed out. He hadn’t even realised he was still gripping Northrop Frye’s Fearful Symmetry until the corner of its thick spine struck the hyena’s temple. The rage left its eyes for a moment, replaced by a crazed bewilderment, and then it was tumbling backwards, head over heels, down the stairs. The book followed after, Blake’s ‘Ancient of Days’ becoming a blur of orange and yellow as it cart-wheeled. And then both of them — book and hyena — were gone, out of sight, round the curve of the spiral staircase, and there was silence.
Jay waited, his eyes trained on the spot where the hyena had flopped and twisted from view. His heart punched at his chest; his lungs felt shredded. He gave it a full minute then sat down on the steps and sighed.
“Christ.”
He probed the rapidly forming egg in the middle of his forehead and grimaced. A small price to pay. He flexed the arm which had been dislocated during his only other encounter with a hyena, as if to remind himself how lucky he’d been this time. Looking over each shoulder, he could see wads of grey stuffing erupting here and there from his shredded parka. He was going to need a new coat. Which meant going out. Out there. With the hyenas.
“Shit.” He flexed his arm again, allowed himself a faint smile. “Still. Could be worse. A lot worse.”
A wave of exhilaration washed over and through him. He was grinning now.
There was a bullish snort from the floor below. The smile dissolved. The hyena, its face glossed with blood, lurched into view. It was the hyena’s turn to grin. Most of its front teeth were missing; one was embedded in its lower lip. It barked laughter, dropped onto all fours and galloped up the stairs.
A part of Jay, a small part, knew it would be better to stand his ground, to opt for fight rather than flight, to deliver a well-aimed boot-tip to the hyena’s face once it was within range. The hyena was too fast, too relentless, to be outpaced; if he turned his back on the thing, it would run him down long before he reached his hidey-hole, probably before he reached the third floor, and he would die here on these stairs with no knife or Northrop Frye with which to defend himself.
For a second he almost dug in and stole himself for battle, but then the hyena spat out what could only have been its own severed tongue and Jay turned and fled, his bladder suddenly shrieking to be emptied, a weight manifesting in his bowels that wanted out right now.
The stairs shook with the hyena’s violent footfalls. Its ragged panting became louder, closer. Jay threw himself up the stairs, following the hyena’s example and using his arms as much as his legs.
He was almost at the top step; he could see the door to his hidey-hole beyond the shelves of Military History, Politics, Religion, Geography and Transport. For a second he allowed himself to entertain the possibility that he might make it, but then he felt the hyena’s febrile heat, saw the roiling clouds of its insufferable breath unfolding all around him. He gasped, inhaling its stink. The hyena laughed.
Jay somehow managed to keep moving and brace himself for the inevitable impact.
From somewhere further down the stairs, there was a mechanical clack, then a hiss like a sudden puncture.
The hyena’s laugh halted abruptly, replaced by a gargling cough. The inevitable impact didn’t come.
Jay turned in time to see the hyena swoon to one side, attempt to steady itself on the banister, fail and crumple forward. A metal rod about half a metre long and no thicker than a pencil protruded from its lower back, a bloodstain blooming from the entry point.
Another mechanical clack.
Further down the stairs a white-bearded old man in a black Crombie and a black woollen hat, both of which glittered with a sprinkling of snowflakes, was pointing a harpoon gun in the general direction of Jay’s torso.
“So,” said the old man, and that single syllable was enough to establish his credentials as a born and bred Dubliner. “You’re not going to be making any trouble for me, are you now, boy?”
Chapter 2
Jay wasn’t sure if the blood was rushing to or from his head, only that his legs were weakening and darkness was crowding in from the edges of his vision like the burning map from the opening credits of some swashbuckling show he used to watch in the summer holidays as a kid. He sat down, his buttocks thumping painfully against the top step, and put his head between his knees. It was all he could do to keep down his breakfast of an Eccles cake and half a pint of UHT chocolate milk.
The old man laughed but there was no cruelty in it.
“Well, boy,” he said. “I think that about answers my question. No trouble at all.”
Jay raised his head and watched the old man advancing through the thankfully receding darkness. He’d lowered the harpoon gun. He shook Jay’s hand and smiled. It was the first human smile Jay had seen since the Jolt.
“Dempsey,” said the man. He was tall and broad, at least half a foot over Jay’s five ten, and built like a rugby player, second row. His face was etched with cuts and stained with bruises; he looked like a boxer who’d won his fight, but only on points. “And you’d be?”
“Jason. Jay. Jay Garvey.”
“So, Mr Garvey, you wouldn’t happen to know a thing or two about sailing would you?” He placed the harpoon gun on the floor next to him and began rummaging through a green canvas shoulder bag.
“Sailing?” said Jay. “Not a thing. Why?”
Dempsey produced a large bottle of Lucozade and uncapped it.
“I’ve found a boat. A sailing boat. It’s got a motor but that’s for shit. Pretty sure it’s the only practical, serviceable boat left on the Mersey.” He passed the bottle to Jay. “Sip it. The sugar will help.”
Dempsey reached down and yanked the harpoon from the hyena’s back, wiping the shaft clean on his thigh. Blood bubbled up from the hyena’s wound, steaming, and the darkness began to crowd in on Jay once more. He took a sip of Lucozade and was thankful that it was largely flat; his stomach would have reacted badly to anything fizzy. The darkness began to retreat.
“The only boat left?” he said.
“Looks that way.” Dempsey sat down next to Jay. “Sergeant Pepper did for the rest.”
Sergeant Pepper did for the rest? It sounded to Jay like a random selection of words strung together in imitation of a sentence. He began to wonder if this Ahab-figure might be mad. He’d certainly had his fair share of out-there moments since the Jolt.
“Sergeant Pepper?” he said. “As in The Beatles song?”
“Sergeant Pepper, as in the deranged, self-appointed leader of the militia.”
“Militia?”
Dempsey raised an eyebrow then scrutinised Jay’s face, as if waiting for him to laugh and give the game away. Then he smiled and shook his head.
“How long have you been in here? How long have you been cooped-up in this bookshop?”
“Since the beginning,” said Jay. “I ventured out once, for supplies. It didn’t work out so well.”
“Since the beginning?”
Dempsey flashed Jay an incredulous grin.
“Yeah. Since the beginning. Since the Jolt.” He took another sip of Lucozade. It was probably just some soft-drink variation of the placebo effect, but he was starting to feel better. Or maybe he was drawing comfort, sustenance even, from the simple fact that he was talking to another human being for the first time in weeks.
“The Jolt? Is that what you call it? Good a name as any, I suppose. Fella I took up with not long after this all kicked off, Campbell, he called it the Stroke. Said it was like the whole world had a stroke. Everybody at once. The Stroke. I prefer not to call it anything. He’s dead now, Campbell.”
“What’s this militia? And Sergeant Pepper? Really?”
“I don’t know his real name. Some bloke who got himself organised from day one. Which wouldn’t be such a bad thing if he hadn’t made it his mission to save every Beatles related landmark in the city. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I like The Beatles but there are more pressing matters than creating a secure perimeter around Penny Lane, you know? Plus, he’s not much of a fan of democracy, our Sergeant Pepper. If you’re not with him, you’re against him, and he’s the one with all the guns, if you get my drift.”
“You said Sergeant Pepper did for the rest. For the rest of the boats?”
“He burnt them. Scuttled them. He doesn’t want anyone getting out of Liverpool who can be press-ganged into his Magical fucking Mystery Tour. Anyone trying to leave the city is a traitor, far as he’s concerned. Boats were the only safe way out. The roads are completely impassable, and who wants to be trekking cross country when night falls, with all those things out there?”
“Hyenas.”
“Hyenas? Oh, because of that laugh of theirs?” He laughed himself. “What is it with people and naming things?” He stood, settled his bag on his shoulder and picked up his harpoon. “Point me to the sailing books.”
Hyenas Page 1
