Hyenas

by Michael Sellars

  Pepper pulled the trigger. A chunk of something flew from the hyena’s right arm and deep red spilled over filthy flesh. But the hyena kept coming.

  Jay pointed his rifle at the back of Pepper's head.

  Pepper fired again.

  The hyena placed the palm of its hand flat against its chest and kept coming. Only five yards away now.

  Pepper fired again. The hyena's head flipped back, as if it was trying to flick the greasy ropes of its hair from its face. It dropped from view between two desks.

  “Jesus,” said Pepper.

  The hyena lurched to its feet. Its face was gleaming with blood. No wound was visible. Jay assumed the bullet had struck its scalp. The hand pressed to its chest was similarly red and glistening now. It grinned with bloody teeth and stumbled forward.

  Pepper pulled the trigger again but the revolver just clicked.

  “Bugger.”

  Still grinning, the hyena let out a wet, wheezing sound and crashed to the floor.

  Pepper's shoulders dropped and he sighed loudly.

  Jay pushed the barrel of the rifle into the base of Pepper's skull.

  “Move and I'll fucking kill you, Pepper.”

  Pepper tensed and Jay thought he was going to spin round, try and knock the gun from his hands. Instead, he let the pistol fall to the ground and put his hands on top of his head.

  “Why don't you, Garvey? Kill me? Just do it. There's no Geneva Convention anymore, lad. Point of fact, there are no conventions, at all.”

  “I don't want to kill you. But I will. Not out of anger or malice but because I'm so fucking tired that anything more than pulling this little trigger here is just too much like hard work. Does that make any sense?”

  Pepper laughed. “Perfect sense. I admire your honesty. Why not help me out? We could win back this city. This is your city, too, Garvey. You're born and bred, I can tell. Your accent, it's rich, it's got the life in it.”

  “Don't get me wrong, Pepper, I like The Beatles, I really do, but I'm not going to die because the man who wrote Strawberry Fields happened to be born here. Besides, he fucked off as soon as he could afford the fucking air fare.”

  “It's not about — ”

  The hyena let out a final rattling breath, a terrible slaughterhouse sound.

  It was all the distraction Pepper required.

  He turned, a blur.

  Jay pulled the trigger.

  But Pepper was already knocking the barrel up with the back of his hand. The bullet shattered a polystyrene ceiling tile above Pepper's head.

  Pepper snatched at the gun but Jay leapt back and levelled the barrel at Pepper's gut.

  “Don't,” said Jay.

  “Fuck you,” said Pepper.

  He lurched left, then right. Jay tried to keep the gun on him.

  Pepper lunged, dipping low, trying to stoop under the firing line.

  Jay pulled the trigger.

  The rifle produced a click.

  “All out,” said Pepper. He reared up to his full height, a good few inches over Jay, and punched him in the right temple.

  Blinded by the blow, Jay staggered back, but as he did so, more by instinct than design, surprising himself, he lashed out with the rifle.

  He felt it connect, a juddering crunch.

  The anticipated retaliatory strike didn't come and, a second or so later, Jay's vision returned, foggy but functional.

  Pepper was on his knees, left hand clamped to right cheek. Blood seeped from between his fingers.

  “Had worse,” said Pepper. He let his hand fall, revealing a deep gash beneath his eye, then launched himself at Jay.

  Jay swung the rifle like a baseball bat, Pepper's head the ball, but missed.

  Pepper threw his shoulder into Jay's gut. All but a few useless dregs of air left Jay's lungs and Jay left the ground. He smashed down on the desk behind him, the back of his head cracking the dead screen of a computer monitor before sending the whole thing, monitor, CPU, keyboard and mouse onto the floor.

  He'd still managed to keep hold of the gun and, as Pepper came at him again, he shoved it hard into Pepper's hip. The resulting crack brought a grimace to Pepper's face and stopped him in his tracks.

  “Motherfucker!”

  He lunged again, but Jay was already rolling off the desk and down onto the floor. He got to his feet as Pepper slammed both fists down on the desk where Jay had been sprawled only a moment before. Jay, dragging thin streams of air into his lungs, brought the butt of the rifle down toward Pepper's shoulder. But Pepper twisted away from the blow then backhanded Jay across the face. Jay staggered back. He could taste blood. He could feel blood, too, running from his scalp and down the back of his neck from where he'd hit the monitor.

  Jay swept out with the rifle. Pepper dodged the blow. With one hand bandaged and the other greased with sweat, Jay lost his grip on the gun. It sailed across the office, landing on top of a bank of filing cabinets, sending several neatly stacked towers of CDs flying in a glittering cascade.

  Pepper moved in close and delivered two blows to Jay's ribcage, left then right. What little air Jay had managed to pull into his lungs abruptly departed.

  Jay tried to shuffle back, out of range, but he immediately reversed into a desk. He tried to sidestep but Pepper inflicted two more body blows and Jay felt and heard bone crack.

  Ignoring the pain, he threw a wild haymaker in the general direction of Pepper's head. Pepper dipped enough to avoid taking it in the face but Jay struck a glancing blow to the top of his head. It was enough to delay Pepper's next assault. Jay threw another punch but Pepper ducked it and threw one of his own. It caught Jay on the cheek, rocking him back on his heels. A second punch landed on his other cheek and Jay was hard pressed to remain standing. His head was starting to spin.

  He reached behind him, grabbed whatever he could find and swung it at Pepper.

  Pepper leapt back, a pencil protruding from the side of his forearm. His teeth were clamped together, his eyes hyena-wild with pain and disbelief.

  “Jesus!” he hissed.

  Jay backed away. Gasping for breath, he spat blood onto the tiles.

  With an animal grunt, Pepper yanked the pencil from his arm and threw it on the floor.

  Jay couldn't help but grin.

  “You must really love The fucking Beatles, Pepper.” He pointed to the crimson pencil. “What's that worth to you, Pepper? A couple of bars of Yellow Submarine?”

  “Fuck you. You don't actually think this is all about The Beatles, do you?” He rushed toward Jay. “You fucking brain donor.”

  Jay sidestepped but Pepper adjusted his trajectory and caught Jay with a dipped shoulder.

  Jay spun on the spot one hundred and eighty degrees then hit the floor face first.

  Pepper kicked him in the back, once, twice, three times.

  “What about the world’s first school for the blind? The world’s first school for the deaf? The first public wash-houses in the UK? The first social housing? The first free school meals? The first nurses paid to look after the poor?”

  Jay tried to crawl away, but Pepper stomped on the backs of his thighs, pinning him.

  “What about the first anti-tuberculosis campaign? The first city to employ a municipal bacteriologist? What about the fact that the RSPCA, NSPCC, the Citizens’ Advice Bureau and legal aid all started in some shape or form in Liverpool? We were the first city to really start looking after its vulnerable. Christ, compassion was practically invented in Liverpool.”

  Jay dragged his legs free, rolled onto his back and scuttled away from Pepper.

  Pepper followed.

  “And then there’s the first lifeboat station in the world. The first purpose-built public library. The first public art gallery. The first x-ray medical diagnosis. The first school of tropical medicine. The first mosque. The first municipal Jewish cemetery. Britain’s first Chinese newspaper.”

  Pepper shoved a heel into Jay's gut.

  “Christ, The Beatles are fuck
ing great, don't get me wrong. I mean, A Day in the Life? Beautiful. But it's just five and a half minutes. Five and a half fucking minutes.”

  He stomped again, but Jay rolled aside and Pepper only succeeded in grinding his heel into the floor.

  He came at Jay again.

  “This is a city, Garvey. A whole fucking city. Eight-hundred years old, on paper, older in reality. The Beatles? Jimmy Tarbuck? Do you think that's all this city is?” He stomped again, but Jay rolled aside and the boot heel ground into carpet tile once more. But he could feel what little energy he had left leeching away from him and he knew it was only a matter of time. “Do you think that's all Liverpool's made of? Pop music and celebrities who piss off once they’ve got a bit of dosh?” Another heel stomp, this one catching the sleeve of his coat.

  Pepper sensed the hyena a second after Jay saw it lurching up behind him. It was probably male, ginger hair like rusty bed springs, one ear reduced to an angry stump. Pepper turned as a fist caked in dried blood and clustered with tarnished jewellery slammed into the side of his head.

  Pepper tried to counterattack but the blow had done its work and the man's legs buckled. He dropped to his knees. The hyena leapt on him, fists falling.

  Jay got to his feet, spat out another mouthful of blood.

  Pepper looked at him with eyes that were beginning to glaze.

  Jay started for the reception area and the door to the stairs.

  He stopped — ”Fuck!” — turned around and marched back toward Pepper, who had curled into a tight ball. The hyena was clawing at him, trying to find a way in, an animal endeavouring to get at the soft flesh beneath the tough outer rind of a new and intriguing fruit.

  “Oi! Laughing boy!”

  The hyena glanced back at him.

  His stomach flipped as he realised he had no idea what he was doing, no idea what he'd do if the hyena came charging at him.

  “Yeah, you,” he said, voice warped by the onset of panic. “Mick Hucknall meets Stig of the Dump. Stig Hucknall. And, I’m really sorry to be the one who has to point this out to you, but you smell worse than hot dog shit on a cold day.”

  As Jay spoke, the hyena tipped its head at a quizzical angle and its eyes darted about, seeming to track the words as they left Jay's mouth. Its behaviour reminded Jay of Hello Kitty and he almost felt sorry for the thing.

  It traced the bluebottle flight path of the last couple of words, and then turned its attention back to Pepper, raising a fist in readiness to strike.

  Jay took a breath.

  “And did those feet in ancient time walk upon England's mountains green?”

  The hyena's fist remained aloft. It turned and looked at Jay.

  “And was the holy lamb of God on England's pleasant pastures seen?”

  The arm dropped, limp. Its eyes were darting about now, as if it was watching a firework display.

  “And did the Countenance Divine shine forth upon our clouded hills?”

  Jay was no grandstanding slam poet. He just let the words out, slow and steady. Even so, it was clear he was creating nothing less than a pyrotechnic display; the hyena's head was darting about as it endeavoured to capture every flash, every detonation. Jay thought, if you like this, you’d fucking love Alan Bates.

  “And was Jerusalem builded here among these dark Satanic Mills?”

  The hyena took a couple of loping steps toward Jay. Something about its face was all wrong and it took Jay a couple of seconds to realise what it was. The hyena was smiling. Not grinning. Smiling. It was a proper smile, not a putrid split in a grimy face. It took a couple more steps forward and stopped.

  “Bring me my bow of burning gold! Bring me my arrows of desire!”

  The hyena's head jerked about as it tried to keep up with what was to the hyena, Jay imagined, an eruption of Blake.

  Pepper unfurled and got to his feet, swaying like a drunk. Blood streaked his face.

  “Bring me my spear! O clouds, unfold! Bring me my chariot of fire!”

  The hyena looked like it was in ecstasy. Saliva drooled from its smiling mouth.

  Pepper grabbed something from a nearby desk tidy, Jay couldn't make out what.

  “I will not cease from mental fight, nor shall my sword sleep in my hand, till we have built Jerusalem in England's green and pleasant land.”

  Pepper buried whatever it was he'd snatched into the side of the hyena's neck.

  A pair of scissors.

  The look of delight left the hyena's face. For a second, it wore no expression at all, and Jay felt a surge of grief so deep, he let out a sob.

  Then the look of hyena savagery and insanity returned and it spun round to face Pepper. But Pepper was ready. He stomped down on its shin. The bone broke with a grinding crunch. The hyena let out a gurgling howl and dropped onto its side.

  Pepper kicked the scissors further into its neck, until they were buried up to the handle. Blood sprayed from the wound, alternating between a thick jet, like a writhing wire, and a fine mist. The hyena convulsed for a full minute then lay still.

  Not looking at Pepper, seeming instead to address his remarks to the dead hyena, Jay said, “I can't do this anymore. I just can't fucking do it. I know it's not about The Beatles. I know Liverpool's worth saving. But I can't help you. I'm not like you. You're an ex-con for fuck's sake. All I've ever really wanted was to find a quiet spot and read a book. How shitty an ambition is that?” He finally looked at Pepper.

  Pepper helped himself to a handful of tissues from a box on someone's desk and wiped the blood from his face as best he could.

  “Fair enough,” he said. “Fair enough. I understand. I know you probably think I'm some kind of nutter, but I'm not. I'm just someone who had to... someone who had to...” He sat down on the edge of the desk. “Christ.” He stared down at his feet. “I'm not a convict. I was working in the prison. Well, in the prison grounds. I was a gardener.” He grinned. “A gardener. That's why I was there. The prisoners, the ones that hadn’t become those things, hadn’t become jokers, were terrified, disorganised. I got them out, led the way. We went to the Territorial Army base in Aintree and tooled-up. Then, I went home. The suburbs were a fucking nightmare, Sunday morning, jokers everywhere. Except I didn't call them jokers back then, didn't know what to call them. My wife was gone, but my boy, Edward, my six-year old boy, was still there. He was sat in the kitchen, sat in his own shit, eating chocolate buttons and Kinder eggs. He attacked me, fucking flew at me. I’d fend him off but he’d come at me again, seconds later. He kept coming at me and coming at me. It went on for hours. Hours. He didn’t seem to get tired and I was fucking exhausted. I tried talking to him, calming him, soothing him, but it just made him worse, the words. The words made him worse. Every time he got close, I’d look into his eyes, trying to see if there was something there, something that could be brought back, something that could be... I don’t fucking know... fixed? But there was nothing. There was nothing of Edward left. Just nothing. The last time he came at me, I... I had to... I held him tight and put my... I put my hand over his mouth and kept it there until... kept it there until... until he stopped breathing.” He showed Jay the palm of his hand, it was purple and knotted with scar tissue that looked infected, looked like it would never heal. “He fought to the end,” he said and smiled, as if his son's determination and relentlessness was a weird source of pride. “So, I'm going to fight to the end, too, just like Edward. To the end.”

  “I'm sorry,” said Jay. “About your son. I'm sorry.”

  There were tears in Pepper's eyes as he said, “I know it sounds stupid, and I know I can't bring Edward back, but sometimes I think if I could just put everything else back the way it was... And even if it doesn't bring him back — and I know it won't; of course it won't — at least I can lie down and die and just be finished. Does that make any sense?”

  Jay nodded. “Yes.”

  Pepper said nothing for a while. Then, almost a whisper, “I buried him in the garden. The hole... the hole in the gr
ound was... so small.”

  He let out a couple of harsh sobs, then ground his teeth together and stood up straight.

  “Right, how the fuck are we going to get out of here, lad?”

  It was only then that Jay became fully aware of the sound of hyenas swarming up through the building. There was no gunfire. Pepper's men had either been defeated or they'd fled.

  Pepper pressed a button on his walkie-talkie. “Anyone receiving me? Anyone?”

  A hiss of static.

  He turned a small knob, pressed the button again. “Could do with a little help boys. Anyone in the vicinity of the Liver Building?”

  Not even static this time, just dead air. Pepper shrugged then clipped the walkie-talkie back to his belt.

  “We’re on our own,” he said.

  Chapter 26

  Jay looked around frantically, hoping a solution might present itself.

  “Calm down,” said Pepper, fully composed now. “We've got a minute or two before they get up here. We'll figure something out.” He retrieved his pistol and reloaded it from a carton of shells pulled from his jacket pocket.

  “That's not going to be enough,” said Jay.

  “No, it isn't. Better than nothing, though.”

  Pepper jogged over to where Jay had played sniper. He craned his head out of the broken window and looked down.

  “We could climb,” he said. “It's icy as fuck but we could do it. Possibly.”

  “Well, I supposed we'd get down there one way or another,” said Jay. He walked over to Pepper. “And if we fucked up, at least it'd be quick.”

  Jay's backpack was where he'd left it. He picked it up.

  “Any better ideas?” said Pepper. “You've survived for weeks on your own, without firearms and a small army, so you must know a thing or two about resourceful.”

  “I hid,” said Jay. “A little rat in a hole. Nothing to be proud of.”

  “You survived. Not to be sniffed at.”

  The hyenas were getting closer. Only a couple of floors away now.

  “Christ,” said Jay. “Sounds like a fucking busload of the bastards.” He started to shoulder his pack, as if he was getting ready to get going. But get going where?