Harvest

by Steve Merrifield

  Danny suddenly found himself fighting the air as Kevin had been sent to the floor from a punch to the face. He turned for the door from the bedroom; his sanity offered the option of fleeing the fight and end it before it became any worse, but his crippling anger suggested finding a weapon to finish the fight. Danny slammed into the door and the doorframe, unable to judge distances since the blow to his head; he groped his way into the hall. Kevin was suddenly on him again delivering a rain of stabs from a compass salvaged from the carnage. Each sting of the thick needle punched through his slim triceps into the bone beneath with hollow digs. Danny punched Kevin with a rock of a fist, sending him crashing up against the bathroom door. Instinctively Danny improvised a weapon by snatching a round mirror with a metal vine-work frame from the wall and swung it downward.

  Danny saw his own reflection in the mirror as he delivered it as a weapon, his own face staring back like a mask he barely recognised from the bloody mess left by a biro jammed firmly in his left eye. Before the gut-churning vision could sink in with its devastating consequences to his sight, Kevin’s face and head erupted through the mirror in a glittering explosion of glass and blood as the shards raked the soft flesh of his face, slicing open the muscle of his left cheek and leaving thorny gashes on his forehead. Danny ran as Kevin screamed and wailed in agony as he battled to get the jagged ring off his head, flaying himself as he wrenched it free, seemingly unperturbed by the pain.

  Danny waited for Kevin in the lounge, his breathing wracked his body while his heart danced between racing rage and throat wrenching flutters of guilt with the knowledge that things had somehow gone very wrong for them both, but he was unable to stand-down. He knew Kevin would be scarred for life from the mirror, and he himself might never see with his wounded eye, but it was too late, the damage had been done and the fight wasn’t over. He thought of his parents, what they would say, how they would feel, what would happen to him and his brother. The consequences tugged at his insides like fishhooks in flesh but they failed to quench the fire in his chest and the wrath that ached in his head. He stood defensively, the blood burning in his limbs, brandishing a large carving knife he had snatched from the kitchen. He stood holding the vicious blade out before him, steadying it with both hands against his adrenaline quakes, a determination deep inside him that overrode the consequences, the injuries he had inflicted and received, and his love for his brother and his want to give Kevin mercy, pushing Danny to finish the fight.

  A blur of motion surged through the air from round the corner in a screaming voice that cracked into a childish battle-cry as Kevin appeared faster than expected; racing at him. Danny’s hand and knife was cracked aside in a bone-fracturing swat, and then his kneecaps were shattered with a solid blow that felled Danny to the carpet in agony. Kevin swung his cricket bat down and smashed the edge sharply into Danny’s ribs, shattering three in one blow.

  Danny’s breath wrenched from his chest and hot liquid bubbled in the back of his throat in a gurgling rasp. Strings of vibrant oxygen rich red drained from his mouth blotting into the carpet as he knelt double on the floor. With the last energy his ragged lungs could offer Danny punched upward with his fist at Kevin and collapsed on his side, broken and exhausted, his chest wheezing from his punctured lung. The anger now gone as quickly as it had formed as if he had been switched on and turned off like a rampaging toy robot, only the guilt and the fear remained for within his paralysed and shattered body.

  Kevin dropped his bat instantly and staggered briefly, his arms flailed about his head from the blow that left his brain in shock and panic, searching for the injury that had caused the surge of pain and now the sudden numbness. His arms dropped from their writhing involuntary spasm and he toppled backwards to the floor. Danny’s knife impaled through the flesh of his jaw, splitting his tongue, the tip of the blade protruding from his soft scalp.

  It stared down coldly at Danny and Kevin, invisible, intangible, emotionless, with its new understanding of the limits and tolerance of flesh and bone. It would return later to witness the return of the parents and monitor the strength of the mind.

  Virtue Kafar stood in her kitchen with the phone wedged between her shoulder and her ear so she could continue preparing her son’s lunch, while Billy himself screamed his constant cry over the top of her conversation with her boss. “No Ken, everyone asks but really, you have already done enough. Unless you know where the volume controls are on babies, I am okay.”

  “No, but Sinatra used to work wonders on my boys.” She could picture Ken in his immaculate tailored suit with his well-groomed shock of white hair, as if he was standing before her at work. She could tell by his voice that he was grinning.

  “I do have a speaker phone, but I’m not sure the partners would appreciate you crooning in the middle of a conference call.”

  “Possibly not.” His smooth voice melted within a warm laugh.

  “Ken, you have been really supportive of me since Will, and now Billy… I just want you to know that I will still be dedicated to my job when I return. And I will be returning. When my maternity leave is over my mum is going to look after Billy.” Ken had always been supportive of her and Will. Despite the age there was still some discrete bigotry in the private insurance firm they all worked within. Although Will might have been as British as fish and chips, he was black, and his knowledge and efficiency wasn’t being recognised until Ken had him transferred to his team and worked on a pathway of promotion for him. They had been firm work colleagues and their relationship had become social too through their love of football.

  “Vi – you don’t need to be worrying about things like that. You take your time to come to terms with Will being gone. I have to add that you are perfectly entitled to maternity leave, so you don’t owe anyone anything.”

  “But after Will – I know you kept the partners off my back.” She had been off for three months after Will had died.

  “You’re a young woman starting a family and you have had the rug yanked from beneath you. Work is not for you to worry about, that’s my role as your manager. You just come back when you are ready – your position will be here for you.”

  “Thanks Ken.” Ken’s wife had suffered with breast cancer ten years previously and it had nearly killed her, Ken was the only person she knew that had come close to experiencing what she was going through.

  “Marjory sends her love and she is looking forward to seeing Billy again soon.”

  “When Billy has stopped screaming I will call her and sort it out.”

  “We have had three boys remember?”

  “I’m sure they didn’t scream like this.” To emphasise the point, the pitch of Billy’s cry reached a level that scored through her head. “Thanks for calling, but I better go and feed him.”

  “Okay then Virtue. Take care.”

  She said goodbye and hung up. The conversation had made her feel alive, it had been the first time she had spoken to an adult that day, before that she had only made baby talk; she was sure she would get stuck in baby talk mode one day if she didn’t get more adult company. She raked her fingers through a bang of black hair that had fallen over her eye, and tucked it behind her ear. The tiredness was returning, drawing on her limbs like weights. Billy’s crying through the night had kept her awake. Even when she did give into the aching lethargy she languished within nightmares. Nightmares about things happening to people that lived in the building. People she barely saw since things started happening at The Heights. She supposed it was a reaction to losing Will, imagining the people around her, the people ‘closest’ to her dying. She busied herself against the tiredness that now crept into her eyes. The fresh vegetables she had steamed were reduced to a brightly coloured sludge from the hand mixer. She scraped it into Billy’s bold red bowl while his screams dragged through her psyche like fingernails on a black board.

  “Hush Billy!”

  He did. Only to inhale for a fresh wail. Virtue gripped the bowl tightly in both hands, only relax
ing her fingers when his scream died down into a sob. Days of crying: he woke up crying and he cried himself into an exhausted sleep. Even his sleep was fitful and his pattern was broken. Which meant her pattern was broken also.

  She had felt foolish to take her baby to the nurse at the surgery; she didn’t want to be seen as an incompetent or fussy mother that went for help every time her baby cried, but over a few days his whingeing had become desperate screams and he seemed weak and tired a lot more than usual. After her visit she was embarrassed for another reason: the nurse had questioned whether she was feeding Billy enough as he seemed malnourished, and his tummy tight and bloated.

  Billy was a gift from her Will – she wouldn’t neglect him. Will was ravaged by cancer that had been discovered too late, yet at some point in that desperate time they had conceived. Billy had been the hope that got her through the grief. Will hadn’t lived to see their son, he had died three months before the birth, but during those three months she waited to get a part of Will back. She gave Billy all her love and the love that Will would have given their boy had he been there. Billy was precious to her. She laboured over nutritious home made food for Billy and interacted with him as much as she could to engage his mind. The suggestion of neglect had disturbed her, she had seen Craig in passing, and the policewoman that lived in the building had been with him. Seeing her and what she represented had summoned a miring guilt that kept reoccurring. The idea that she could be accused of neglecting her child sickened her.

  She sat before Billy and the sight of food seemed to placate him, he gurgled eagerly from under the tears and snot of his screams and reached clasping fingers out. Virtue gave him time to calm down so that he wouldn’t choke on the food, before scooping a mouthful of food onto the chunky spoon that matched his bowl. “This is what you want isn’t it?” she cooed. “Nice vegetables to make you strong and fit like your daddy.” Fitter than his dad. Healthier. She wouldn’t – couldn’t lose Billy too.

  From beyond the window It watched Virtue lift the spoon from the bowl.

  Virtue leaned forward in her chair and prepared for the mechanical routine of feeding him.

  It made her think she leaned forward and planted the spoon in Billy’s mouth. Made her think that Billy took the food and moved it around his gums and then swallowed, leaving a ring of food around his dribble slick lips.

  Virtue scooped the spoon into the food.

  She served the mouthful into Billy’s mouth.

  She dragged the spoon round the slop in the bowl.

  The mouthful she scooped into his mouth was rewarded with a giggling coo.

  She dragged the spoon against the edge of the bowl and wiped away the food that clung to the underneath.

  Billy sucked the food from the spoon.

  Billy screamed his lungs into his throat in rasping despair at his mother who sat before him, unaware that a single mouthful had yet to reach him. He snatched for the spoon even though he did not know how the bright object took away the agonizing hunger from his belly.

  “Hey, hey – don’t snatch honey,” Virtue instructed in a sunny voice as she moved the spoon beyond his reach and beamed back at him from behind a wagging finger.

  Billy made a dive for the bowl that was still full of food, only for Virtue to take it from the tray onto her lap. “You’re eager! You have your dad’s appetite.” She scraped the spoon round the edge of the dish.

  She collected the last of the food and spooned it into his mouth and when he smacked it around his mouth and swallowed she wiped his lips and cheeks.

  She got up and emptied all the food into the bin and popped the dish and spoon into the washing up bowl, satisfied that he had eaten his fill as he always did. What did Doctor’s know?

  It allowed her to hear the screams of her starving son. It reached into the baby and experienced its pain and the weakness of its life force, It realised the dangers of not having this need met. It understood and empathised with the call of flesh for sustenance.

  MURDER AT THE HEIGHTS – Vicki wasn’t sure. The headline mentioned the tower, and people would be following those stories but Vicki rejected it; it might be mistaken with old news and it didn’t really do justice to the shocking nature of the crime. GUTTED AT BREAKFAST. She liked it, but it would be better to emphasise the killers and victim’s relationship. WIFE EVISCERATES HUSBAND. ‘Eviscerates’? She wondered what percentage of the Camden Gazette’s readership would know what ‘eviscerated’ meant. WIFE SLAUGHTERS HUSBAND. No. WIFE GUTS HUSBAND. Yes. WIFE GUTS HUSBAND. In the latest occurrence at The Heights, Mary Korben gutted her husband at the breakfast table… Yes, she wouldn’t have much say in the headline, but she could make her suggestions. She couldn’t wait to get into the office and get the details down. This was going to be a national story and another front-page story for her at the Camden Gazette. This building was excellent for her portfolio.

  They arrived at Craig’s flat and he shrugged off her support and steadied himself against the wall.

  “No need to get all macho. You wouldn’t be the first to lose your lunch at a crime scene.”

  Craig closed his eyes and held up a cautioning hand. “Could you say something that doesn’t involve you mentioning. Ugh… You know what.”

  “Vomit exclusion noted. I just meant to say don’t sweat it you’re still my man, and we got a story out of it.”

  “You coming in?” He pitched his thumb towards his door.

  “No way, haven’t got time to stop and have a laugh. You need to get those pics done and I need to write my story.” She grabbed handfuls of his shirtfront and gave him a little shake in a gesture of excitement. “I can’t believe this. A murder! Front page here I come.” Craig propped himself up against his door and he was suddenly framing her in the lens of his camera. She quickly looked away and her face went hot. “What are you doing?”

  “Face me. Face me.” He cajoled.

  “No.” She stood firm, her arms crossed, her stare fixed away from him. There was nowhere to hide from him in the corridor, no activity to distract herself in. “I need these pictures today. I am not going to wait around for you to treat them and edit them. I am going to shoot off now so I can write this piece, and you can email them to me at the office.” She faced him, saw the camera was still trained on her and looked away again.

  “Face me and you get the pics.”

  “Stop dicking around you fuckwit.” Her voice sounded angrier than she had intended. Guiltily she faced him. Her eyes evasive at first, trying not to look at him, she relaxed her stance a little and managed to keep her eyes on him for a while.

  “That’s it.”

  She shrugged. “What?”

  Still staring at her through the view-finder he told her. “You. You have a filter between you and the outside world that turns things into stories. Truncated column inches. First line tags. Sound bites. Headlines. I sometimes wonder whether things actually get through, or whether there’s anything beyond that for things to get through to.”

  “That’s a bit personal. Aren’t you the same? Framing things. Composing pictures in what’s going on around you?” She was hurt, but he was painfully astute. “I thought we were friends?”

  “We are. You know we are. Friends tell each other these things. They can say things like that to each other. I only have my filter when I have my camera set up for a shot. Do you ever lower your filter?” He waited for an answer but gave up. “Doesn’t matter. My lens can see through it. I think this is the first time I have really seen you.”

  She shifted on her feet. “What do I look like?”

  “You look raw, vulnerable. Natural. It would be nice to see that more often.”

  She couldn’t remember ever being vulnerable. She never really let anyone in; she didn’t allow herself to get close to people just in case.

  “You know you’re beautiful, don’t you?”

  She was instantly flummoxed by Craig’s question and then startled by the intense flicker of the camera flash as he preser
ved her expression.

  He studied the image in the small LCD screen. “Got it. The perfect picture of you.”

  “I’m going to hate it.” She didn’t want to see it. She hated pictures of herself. She never kept still long enough to think about herself and what she was doing. A photo always forced her to examine herself.

  “No you won’t. You will love it.”

  She gave in and held her hands up in surrender but still didn’t look at the illuminated screen. “You really need to get some sleep. But not on my money. Get me those pictures, Craig and you can watch me all you want with your magic lens.”

  “I am tired.” He agreed.

  “Don’t sleep now, Craig, pictures. Pictures!” She patted both his cheeks and began to walk away as he keyed open his door. She stopped and turned back to him. “What you said.” He popped his head back out from inside the flat. “About being beautiful.” He stepped back out into the corridor and she walked backwards so she could still talk, it would have been easier to say what she wanted to say with him half-in his flat. “Thanks. No-one has ever told me that without a motive. It was – nice. You’re a good kid.” She smiled, and turned her back to him and continued walking away. Her smile felt like a different smile. She hadn’t smiled that way since she was fourteen and been going out with Gavin Parker, her first crush.

  Vicki heard Craig shout “KID!” objectionably after her as she popped her ear phones into her ears. She half-skipped to a dance-tune from her MP3 player as she headed to the fire door for the stairs. She had liked to think she understood men, what they wanted, what they wanted from her when they looked at her the way Craig did.