by Tony Masero
Ahlen spotted the long connecting rod attached to the engine, he remembered it was the long pitman arm, the metal bar that controlled the great circular saw that still hung attached to one end. The dish of metal was edged by a run of sharp teeth that had once sliced the great logs down into planks and although the metal was bent and stained with rust, Ahlen could see that its position dangling above Ty offered him an advantage.
Taking aim he fired at the rod and was pleased to see it buckle as the bullet struck and whined away, another shell at its aged junction and both rod and dish whirled downwards with a quivering ring of sound. There was a scream of pain and Ahlen watched as the rifle flew from Ty’s hand.
“Curse you, Ahlen!” Ty sobbed.
“I’m coming for you now, Ty!” shouted Ahlen as he ran up the few yards between him and the loading bay. He levered the Winchester but it was empty and he threw it aside, drawing his Colt as he clambered over the lip of the bay.
There was splattered blood on the boards behind the engine machinery but no sign of Ty and Ahlen turned quickly to the mill entrance at back of the bay. He ran through the wide doorway, stepping to one side into the shadows as he entered the darkness beyond. He was blind after the sunlight and all he could see before him was a dense blackness.
There was the distant sound of clattering footsteps and Ahlen stepped out cautiously, following the noise as his eyes gradually adjusted. The stench inside was terrible, the collected waste of hundreds of dead cattle rotting in the enclosed interior.
Ahlen could make out shadowy piles of hooves and horns collected in steep sided wooden bays ready for glue making. Hundreds of cowhides stood stacked, their rancid odor almost a blow to the senses and in the narrow sunbeams falling from the small windows, grim layers of pale animal skulls lay racked inside more wooden stalls. The floor beneath Ahlen’s boots was wet with a stinking sludge that sucked at his feet as he moved and threw up a miasma of foul fumes.
Ahlen gagged at the awful smell but walked on purposefully into the darkness, following the sounds that echoed back from the hollow space ahead. An army of long-tailed rats scurried away at his approach, their scampering shapes barely visible in the shadows. Ignoring them, Ahlen pressed on. He was feeling his way mostly by touch as he worked deeper into the building. Every surface seemed to be covered with a gloss of filth, slick with moisture from the suppurating traces of slaughtered animals.
Ahlen tried to remember his way through from his earlier days in the mill but a lot of years had passed since he had been inside and many changes had been made to the structure. With walls demolished and new ones raised, Ahlen was hard put to find an easy route amongst the maze of new passageways.
Then there was silence ahead and Ahlen froze.
He moved his head from side to side in the blackness, trying to catch some hint of sound or movement but there was nothing except the steady patter of dripping liquid coming from somewhere in the dark corridors. Slowly, Ahlen moved on. A glimmer of light ahead showed and by its weak glow Ahlen knew he was approaching a bend in the corridor. Moving more rapidly now, he turned the corner.
The small light was still distant as he came around the bend but the sound of his footsteps altered. There was something more substantial than wood under his feet and it was clear of awful muck; he no longer walked through the stinking mess found elsewhere in the building. Reaching down with his free hand whilst keeping the other holding the Colt before him, Ahlen touched brick. He was standing on a cleaned brick floor.
Cautiously, Ahlen moved on towards the distant light that appeared to be a doorframe to the outside. Ahlen guessed he had passed right through the building and was approaching the far side.
There was the sudden sound of chains snaking and the metallic rattle of a pulley and Ahlen’s legs were whipped from under him. He reached down instinctively to protect his head as he was jerked upwards and as he did so, the pistol flew from his grip. Struggling against the pull, Ahlen was lifted into the air. He hung there upside down, twisting this way and that as the chains that held him by the ankles creaked and chinked.
“Welcome to the killing floor, Ahlen,” Ty’s voice came out of the darkness.
A match flared and Ahlen could see Ty setting a light to the wick of an oil lamp. He turned to face Ahlen as he adjusted the flame and placed the glass chimney over the lamp. The glow from the light shone up under Ty’s face and cut hard shadows into his features, which gave him an almost demonic appearance.
“They come in through that alleyway there from the corral,” explained Ty, waving the lamp in the direction of the distant light and causing a flare of long dark shadows to skitter around the large bare room. “They’re frightened, of course. Can smell the death in the air. It takes some hard beating by the drovers to get them to come in here.”
Ty walked in a slow circle around Ahlen, their faces almost level as he moved. He held the lamp chest high in his hand, studying Ahlen closely.
“They void themselves in terror as they come, so it stinks in here on the killing days. We usually have two men working in this room. Butcher boys. Strong men, they loop the chains around the rear legs of the animals and hoist them up, just like you are now, Ahlen.”
Ty set the lamp down on the floor and Ahlen could see a cross of drainage channels cut into the brick floor that ran beneath him and led to an open drain hole set below his head.
“There’s a lot of noise, of course, squealing and crying,” Ty continued, his voice coming from behind. “One of the butchers takes the cow by the horns. Rather like this!”
Ahlen felt Ty’s hands grasp his ears and jerk his head backwards. “It exposes the neck, you see,” Ty said spitefully into his ear. “Then they cut the throat. Deep and wide, Ahlen. Like I’m going to slit yours.”
Ty pushed Ahlen’s dangling body away, letting it twist and spin from the chains that held him fast.
“Look at my arm, Ahlen.” Ty raised his torn and bloody sleeve where the saw blade had sheered through and cut a savage rip in his arm just above the elbow. “That’s a good suit you’ve ruined.”
With some satisfaction, Ahlen noticed the dripping rivulets of red that ran from the suit cuff and over Ty’s fingers.
“Pity it wasn’t your neck,” was all he said.
Ty bent down and picked up the lamp, his oiled and pasted hair gleaming in the lamplight. Lifting the lamp, Ty walked across to a wall fitting and as Ahlen spun behind him in slow circles, he could see an array of butcher knives slotted into the wooden panel. They shone with greasy sharpness, the blades honed continually to such sharpness that the steel was worn back to form long slender instruments that Ahlen could see would slice through a bullocks thick neck as if it were soft butter.
Ty selected one, its hissing rasp echoing around the room as he drew it from its holder. He turned to face Ahlen, the long knife shining in the lamplight as he did so.
“You’ve caused me too much grief, Ahlen and I’m going to bleed you out for that,” he promised. “But all your damnable efforts will have been for nothing once you’ve gone. I’ll have my business up and running within a month and it will be like you had never existed.”
“Your boys are all gone now, Ty,” said Ahlen, feeling the blood beginning to pound heavily in his head as he hung there. “There’s no one left to back you up.”
“Two a penny,” answered Ty, moving closer and obviously enjoying the slow pleasure of teasing Ahlen as he weaved the blade to and fro in the fetid air before him. “I can find their like easily. A lot of killers came out of the War and there’s plenty more where they came from.”
“What happened to you, Ty?” asked Ahlen, playing for time. “You had everything. Far more than the rest of us. Your folks were good, hard working people running a lucrative business that kept this island going and set you up with a fortune when they were gone. What more did you need?”
“Yes,” snapped Ty, suddenly angry. “But you don’t know what its like coming from such a background. Always expected
to be forever thankful for all your father’s efforts. Expected to play the little prince by a mother who desired that you only marry the right sort of society girl. They wanted a dynasty out of me, whilst you all ran free. It was stifling!”
Ty looked away down at the floor, hanging his head, the slicked down strands of black hair falling across his brow. “I wanted some freedom. Some chance to make my own way. To take whatever woman I wanted, not some society china doll with precious ways. I wanted to live, Ahlen. Not be choked by their expectations and the minute they died, I had my chance and I took it.”
“But why in such a way? Why’d you turn Mistake into a gutter for every no account scum you could find?”
“It’s mine,” panted Ty, his voice rising. “Mine! I made it. Me! Just me alone. I fashioned it, Ahlen. Something you will never understand. I have formed a kingdom of my own devising here.”
“I guess it reflects what you’re truly made of, Ty. A spoilt kid who’s empty and gutless. Ty, you’re just a sewer running with money without an ounce of human feeling left in you.”
“Right!” shouted Ty, raising the needle sharp knifepoint and letting it hover over Ahlen’s eye. “Maybe you’re right. I may feel nothing but I have the power. It’s me who has the power now, Ahlen. Not you or your fine friends or anybody else on this island. Why, I even took your precious woman and enjoyed her –”
Ahlen had him close now, as close as he wanted. His hanging fist lashed out and crashed into the soot blackened glass flume of the lamp, smashing it and spreading flying hot fragments that flew up into Ty’s face. The flame jumped and flared as he jerked back, its flame running in a bloom over Ty’s bloody fingers.
Ty howled and dropped the lamp, the globe of the brass base fell apart at his feet and sprayed kerosene over his pants legs. There was a whoomph as the volatile liquid caught fire from the flaring wick and the lower half of Ty’s body was quickly engulfed in flickering flame.
Ty gasped and looked down in surprise, dropping the knife he flapped his hands at the rising flames and only succeeded in catching his hands alight in the process.
With a groan of effort, Ahlen doubled his body up, his hands reaching for the chains above. He slipped away in a failed effort and swung down again. Then, he tried once more as he heard Ty begin screaming below him. Ahlen’s grappling fingers grazed the cold metal of the chains and slipped off. The ache of his scarred hands sung through his brain as they clawed for purchase. He reached again, every nerve in his body crying out as he fought against gravity. Then he caught hold and held on tight.
Using every particle of his great strength, Ahlen hauled himself up by his quivering biceps until the chains loosened their hold and he could free his legs. He swung down, the blood rushing from his head with a dizzying result. Almost stunned by the effects of his inversion, Ahlen stumbled and fell to his knees as he dropped onto the brick floor. His body was alive with the tingling sensation of blood-flow returning to normal and he took a moment to recover his senses.
The grim room was alive with boiling light as the moaning figure of Ty ran and fell, his whole body now a blazing pyre of flame. Ahlen, snatched off his jacket and although still giddy, ran to him, trying to capture the jerking figure and encompass it in the material and stifle the flames. But Ty was demented with pain and fear and he ran off desperately, making his way along the corridor towards the daylight. Ahlen followed, trying to catch up as Ty blindly bounced from side to side of the corridor, screaming and wailing pitifully as so many of the cattle had done going in the other direction.
He reached the open doorway and stumbling, he tripped and fell down the angled grade towards the corral below. Only then could Ahlen leap across him, pounding and flapping at the flames that licked at the near naked blackened body, which lay on a bed of cowpats with the clothing almost burnt entirely away.
As Ahlen turned him over, Ty stared back up at him. A ghastly-disfigured face, the charred, swollen and smoking features were splitting apart, with seams of raw flesh and blood breaking through the crisped skin. He sighed once, an almost breathless gasp of air that flew like smoke from his flaking lips.
“I won,” he breathed. “I won.”
On that last note of self-delusion, Ty Fells gave up the ghost and died.
Ahlen heard a crackling roar and looking behind him, he saw that the old wooden mill structure had itself caught fire from the flames scattered during Ty’s escape down the corridor. He stood and backed away as the dry old wood quickly surrendered to the flames. In minutes it seemed the fire spread, roaring and billowing its way through the dark passageways. As Ahlen watched, he approved the finality of it all. The flames seared the abused structure, the cleansing fire leaping upwards through the tall building, reaching into every awful corner and destroying forever the dankness of the abattoir just as it had destroyed its abuser. Black smoke began to pour out of the interior and billow skywards.
Turning his back on the blazing pyre and walking away down the track towards town, Ahlen knew in his heart that something better would rise out of the ashes. This time he was really coming home.
IF YOU ENJOYED THIS BOOK SEE THESE OTHER TITLES BY
TONY MASERO
Available on Amazon and elsewhere
WESTERNS
HARD RAIN MUST FALL * BAD DON’T MEAN WRONG * GRINGO WADE * IN THE DEVIL’S GRIP * SLASHED STAR * WAR RIDER * THE KILLING DESERT * JAKE RAINS * THE RIFLEMEN * THE PURSUED * DIRTY SHIRT BLUES * HARPOON * DEATH RIDES ON THE HEELS OF TROUBLE * THE RAID * THE WIDOWMAKER * THE VENGEANCE OF ENDER SMITH * WILDFIRE * BLOOD LEGACY FROM RAT HELL * JOHNNY DOLLAR * MISTER D’EATH AND THE JUDGE
THRILLERS (Writing as MICHAEL D’ASTI)
THE BITTER STONES OF INTENTION * BLACK EYE * FEED THE CROW * MOMENTS OF RECURRENCE * THE KHANDA KILLINGS * A WEB FOR ALL GOD’S ANGELS * THE GARDENER * IN THE FRAME * DEAD FALL BACK
SCIENCE FICTION AND HORROR (Writing as ANTONIO BECO INGLES)
BABEL TOWERS * THE MANSION (Novella) * HOLD A CANDLE TO THE SUN (Bk 1)
