by Jasper Bark
The only thing to hand that even vaguely resembled food was what remained of his last meal. He could see a piece of ground pork nestling in the well of Consuela’s ear. Two kernels of sweetcorn were stuck to the side of her neck and there was half a kidney bean on her collarbone.
Ricardo stared at the tiny morsels of food for a good five minutes before he found the resolve to do what he had to. He told himself that he’d already eaten the food once. All he was doing was putting it back into his body where it belonged. That was all. There was nothing gross about it.
Ricardo took a deep breath and put his lips to the cold cartilage of Consuela’s ear. He scooped the pork into his mouth with his tongue. It tasted of rancid meat and bile. He chewed and swallowed it anyway. He gagged and the pork threatened to come back up, but he took a deep breath and held it down. So far, so good.
He put his lips to her neck and pulled the sweetcorn off with his teeth. He tried not to think about planting kisses on that self-same neck when it was warm and had a pulse. Instead he chewed the tough, dried kernels that would have stopped any Green Giant from being jolly.
He did the same with the kidney bean and began to root around Consuela’s face and upper body for any clumps of food he could find. After a while his hunger kicked in and he stopped worrying what it tasted like or whether it had once been a diced onion or a piece of tortilla. He just swallowed it.
When he couldn’t find any more morsels he licked at the bitter, dried puke that caked her frozen flesh. His animal instincts took over and his brain shut down. He had to eat to survive and he couldn’t allow himself the luxury of disgust. Couldn’t stop to consider how low he’d sunk, sucking vomit from the half eaten face of a corpse.
As the regurgitated food hit his gut, Ricardo could feel it cramp with hunger. He was desperately in need of sustenance but there was no puke left on Consuela. The bear had eaten most of it before it had torn her face up.
Ever since the bear had left them, Ricardo had been trying to ignore the fraying chunks of skin and the exposed muscle that made up half of Consuela’s face. Now he regarded it as the bear must have, with the eyes of a predator. And all he saw was food.
He sunk his teeth into the raw flesh of her cheek and tried to tear at it like the bear. It was much tougher than it looked. The blood that coated the muscle had dried into a scab. He ran his front teeth over the tendons of her jaw and scraped off the dried blood and shredded muscle.
He wanted to hate himself for what he was doing. He knew he ought to feel disgust but he was too tired and hungry to feel anything but relief. It was just meat he was eating after all, no different from a pig or a cow. He’d never eaten raw pork but it probably didn’t taste much different from Consuela. She was dead anyway, so why should she care? At least she was finally proving useful to him.
Once he’d finished, Ricardo could see the white of Consuela’s cracked cheek and jaw bones. When help came, he’d tell them that the bear did all this. He lifted his hand to wipe his chin and found the life had come back into his arms. His legs were also working again. His stomach groaned, but only because it had food in it.
His shoulders and his forearms ached when he moved them. So did his calves and his feet, but Ricardo was only a little way from the safety of his jeep and he had the energy to get there now. All it took was one last little push.
The forest floor evened out and the trees began to thin as the road got nearer. Consuela’s legs felt heavier on the backs of his thighs. Her arms were starting to move as Ricardo forced her along the ground. Tiny bubbles of blood frothed between her teeth and what remained of her lips. Rigor mortis was wearing off.
Christ, it’s been that long? Ricardo thought. Consuela’s legs went soft and flopped to the ground. As her muscles relaxed she got heavier and harder to move. The skin around his thighs and stomach began to tear and weep even more.
The muscles of Consuela’s crotch didn’t relax though. He tried a couple of tugs to see if he could free himself but she still held him fast. Christ, what would it take to get her off him? She was worse than any limpet. Worse than any sin he carried around with him. What had he done to be punished like this?
The agony of moving Consuela was now so intense he could taste it, grind it like grit between his teeth. “Fuck you,” he shouted in her face. “Fuck you and your dead limp body. You are not going to stop me. Do you hear me? You’re not!” His arms were shaking. There was a painful knot between his shoulder blades that stabbed every time he pulled himself forwards, but he was not going to be beaten.
More light came through the trees up ahead and Ricardo was sure he could see the road. He was nearly there. He was going to make it. He wasn’t going to die out here in the woods and be eaten by vermin. He was going to survive.
He laughed when he saw the road, and the sound scared him. It wasn’t a happy or relieved laugh. It had an edge of hysteria and desperation to it. It showed Ricardo how close he was to losing it. How near he’d come to being broken by this whole experience.
The sight of the road gave him more impetus. He pushed on towards it but it wouldn’t come any closer. Now that the end was in sight it was excruciating. The road remained the same distance away no matter how much he sped up. For a moment Ricardo wondered if it was a mirage. Perhaps he was hallucinating with all the pain. Then he felt gravel beneath his fingers and he was certain that he was near. The final leg of any journey is always the most interminable and he’d never wanted a journey to end more than this.
Ricardo put his head down and stared at the ground. He stopped thinking about the road, or reaching his jeep. He just concentrated on the dirt in front of his nose as it passed by, inch by tortuous inch. When the dirt turned to tarmac and sunlight hit the back of his neck he knew he’d made it out of the woods.
CHAPTER 11
Ricardo looked up and tried to find the jeep. It was nowhere in sight. He glanced up and down the road but there was no sign of it. Sweat broke out over his body. Where had it gone? Had it been stolen, or towed away by Park Rangers? He was dead if it had.
Then he caught sight of a broken boulder by the side of the road. He’d passed it just before he pulled over. He must have gotten turned around in the forest and come out further down the road. That’s why he couldn’t see the jeep. It was just around the bend.
Shit, he had to drag himself down the road to get to the jeep. Ricardo punched the road in frustration and instantly regretted it. Now he had to crawl to the jeep with sore knuckles.
Consuela’s rigor mortis had completely worn off and the gases were starting to build up inside her. Ricardo could feel the bubbles swelling and breaking in her stomach. Must be all the drugs she swallowed. One more gross thing for him to endure. One more reason to get her off him as soon as possible.
The road was harder to move along than the forest floor. There was nothing for Ricardo to grip onto and the tarmac scraped the skin off his knees and his shins. He had to keep shifting onto the verge and then back on the road when a bush or rock got in his way.
Consuela wasn’t helping any either. Her flesh had gone limp, so not only was she heavier but her whole body resisted him. It was like pushing a giant bag of jelly that absorbed half of his momentum. A putrefying bag of jelly that stank of blood and pus.
The sun was behind the tree tops by the time Ricardo saw the jeep. It took him almost an hour to reach it, cursing and swearing at Consuela’s stinking corpse the whole time. Dusk was fast approaching as he pulled himself alongside the passenger door.
The handle was too high for Ricardo to reach from the floor. He had to find a different way to get to it. He pulled his knees up under him and reached behind Consuela’s back. Then he rocked himself backwards until he was kneeling up with Consuela’s corpse sprawled over him. He had visions of the complicated positions he and Ellen had seen in a Joy of Sex DVD, except none of them had been with corpses.
Ricardo shuffled around until Consuela’s back was against the rear passenger door. He placed h
is hands in her armpits and stood up, taking her with him. He grunted as the skin around his midriff tore, but he managed to prop Consuela’s body against the jeep and pin her there with his weight.
Ricardo pulled the handle but the door didn’t open. What the fuck was up with it? Why wasn’t his keyless card working? Then it hit him. His card was in his wallet and his wallet was in his jeans back in the forest. No! This could not be happening. He could not get this far only to fuck up at the final hurdle. There was no way he could go back and look for his wallet, not after what he’d gone through to get here. He’d have to find another way into the jeep.
Ricardo glanced down at the verge and saw a small pile of rocks. He couldn’t reach them from where he was. He’d have to move to where they were. He pulled Consuela’s corpse away from the jeep then fell forward on to it, letting it cushion his fall. More skin tore round his crotch but he ignored it.
As he shuffled over to the rocks Ricardo felt the gases build up inside Consuela again. Like something was moving in her guts. Must be a split bag of coke or something. He reached the pile of rocks and grabbed a big jagged one. Then he maneuvered Consuela around so he could stand and pin her corpse to the jeep again.
Ricardo raised the rock to smash the passenger window and hesitated. He loved this jeep. It was a work of automotive art. Breaking the window was an act of desecration. He tried to think of other options but drew a complete blank. It was one more shitty thing he had to do in order to survive.
The glass scattered across the passenger seat as Ricardo reached in and opened the door, ignoring the shrill sound of the alarm. He pushed Consuela’s body through the door and fell onto the passenger seat. Broken glass crunched beneath Consuela’s cold, naked flesh as Ricardo pulled them into the interior and opened the glove box.
Ricardo pulled a heap of stuff out of the glove box and found his i-phone. He clicked the refresh button but the screen stayed black.
The battery was dead.
He found the lead to charge it, but without the keyless card he couldn’t start the engine and without the engine he couldn’t charge the phone. Without a charged phone he was dead.
Shit!
Shit! Shit! Shit! Shit! Shit!
His whole plan to beat this situation depended on his i-phone and now his i-phone had let him down. He spent his entire life on that phone. It felt like he’d been betrayed by his best friend. For a long time he just stared at the phone with an open mouth, clicking the refresh button over and over, hoping that a tiny bit of charge might magically appear in the battery. Just enough for him to make one call. That’s all it would take.
Why hadn’t he charged the phone before he left home, or left it to charge in the car? Why had he let Ellen talk him into this dumb trip? Why hadn’t he just left Consuela in that parking lot? Ricardo played the events of the last two days over in his mind, trying to correct every mistake he’d made, as though he could go back and change time through the simple power of his imagination.
He couldn’t though. He’d tried everything and he’d failed. The futility, the sheer hopelessness of his situation hit home and Ricardo was done. He gave up. ‘That’s it’, he thought, ‘I’m finished’. He stopped fighting the inevitable. He let go and relaxed and his body went limp. All the resistance drained from his muscles and he became as flaccid as the decaying corpse his cock was still stuck in.
He wondered how long it would take him to die of blood poisoning. Which would get him first, that or the hunger? It would probably be the blood poisoning, he decided. He wouldn’t get hungry considering what he’d done to Consuela’s face and would probably do again when he got too desperate to stop himself.
He deserved to die. After what he did to Ellen and poor Consuela’s corpse, he had no right to go on living. It was better this way. Ricardo just hoped it would come quickly so he could finally be rid of all the pain.
CHAPTER 12
Time lost all meaning. Ricardo stared into the foot well of the driver’s seat, hardly blinking, until it got too dark to see.
A text tone chimed and a dim light came on in the foot well of the passenger seat. Ricardo blinked. The tone sounded again and the light flickered back on. It took Ricardo a while to recognize what it was. He’d given up on everything, including thought, and now his mind was taking a while to work out what he was hearing.
It was Consuela’s phone. The shitty piece of crap she’d used to text her drug connection. She must have dropped it in the jeep and it had slid under the seat. It was a phone that worked. He was saved.
Ricardo pushed himself and Consuela just far enough out of the passenger door to reach beneath the seat and get the phone. It still had charge and a signal. He wasn’t going to die.
Ricardo dialed 911. The phone cut out. He tried again and the phone refused his call. It was text only.
Ricardo only knew three numbers off by heart: Ellen’s cell, his Mom’s and his local Pizza delivery. He composed a quick text to his Mom:
‘It’s Riccy, need help badly. Send an ambulance to Coronado Forest, Route 5 off of Highway 19, pls, pls hurry!!!
He typed in the number and pressed send. The phone wouldn’t let him. He tried sending it again but the phone blocked him. He sent the same message to Ellen and hit another brick wall. Out of desperation Ricardo tried sending it to the Pizza delivery place and wasn’t any more successful.
The phone would only let him text one number. The same number that had sent the most recent text and the other twenty unread texts before it. It had to be Consuela’s connection. He’d given her a phone that only let her text him so he could stay in complete control of her. It made sense when Ricardo thought about it. If you were running drugs you wouldn’t want anyone to know where your mules were. You’d want to make sure they could only get in touch with you and no-one else.
That meant Ricardo was going to have to get some guy he’d never met, who was very possibly a criminal psycho, to save his life, even though the guy would probably hold Ricardo responsible for Consuela’s death and the loss of his drugs. Ricardo was going to have to play this very carefully. He opened the most recent text:
‘Bitch u betta be runnin cuz ima kill u wen i catch u’
Great, the guy was pissed. This was going to be worse than he thought. Ricardo pressed reply and wrote:
‘sorry, ran into sum trouble, need help badly!!!’
The text tone rang almost immediately:
‘damn rite u in trubble!!! i lost my buyer!!! u in deep shit!!!’
‘Fantastic’, thought Ricardo:
‘couldn’t help it, sorry!!! stuck in Coronado, need an ambulance NOW!!!’
Ricardo stared at the time on the cellphone screen, counting down the minutes till the guy texted back. It took him six minutes to reply. It felt like sixty.
‘no shit u need a ambulance, they bout ready to hatch now.’
What did he mean ‘hatch’? He wasn’t making any sense.
‘what’s about to hatch?’
‘bitch don’t be playin’ me. wot d’ya think u swallowed?’
Ricardo was confused.
‘drugs’
‘pleez, u be dumber than i thought. they wuz eggs and u know it.’
‘i don’t understand’
‘no u don’t. i had me a buyer. wuz gonna pay top dollar for rare monitor lizards, banned in the US. all u hadda do wuz get the eggs here.’
‘monitor lizards?’
‘them things is flesh eaters and they be born hungry.’
Ricardo pushed his fingers between Consuela’s teeth and forced her mouth open. He found the thin piece of twine tied around her back tooth and pulled at it. The twine came up easily, there was no weight on it.
On the end of the twine was a clear plastic bag containing pieces of blue speckled egg shell. There was a big hole in the bag. The edges of the hole were torn and ragged as though made by teeth that were tiny but incredibly sharp.
So that was the little secret that Consuela had swallowed. It wasn�
��t drugs. It was something rare, dangerous and very expensive. A secret that had been waiting to hatch.
Ricardo felt more movement in Consuela’s gut and realized it wasn’t gas either. It was a secret brood with teeth so sharp Ricardo couldn’t begin to imagine how they’d feel.
Then he didn’t have to imagine anymore. Consuela’s little secrets chewed through the wall of her abdomen, met his, and carried on.
All he could do was scream, and push at the corpse that held him fast until his damaged flesh tore and ruptured and bled. Because the pain from the teeth was worse than any he’d yet felt.
And Ricardo remembered what he hated about secrets. They had a way of eating you up inside.
TAKING THE PISS
So I’m taking a slash in the King’s Arms. The two blokes either side of me finish up then leave as I’m shaking the last drops off. I’m all alone.
I check the door, then crouch down in front of the urinal. It’s one of those big stainless steel jobs, with a long trough at the bottom. I get right up close to the sluice, where all the piss runs, and I whisper, “Danny, I know you can hear me.”
