Scavengers

by Darren Simpson

  Babagoo’s sneer edged towards a smile. A flicker of warmth crossed his features. “I think interrogation’s the word you’re looking for, young boyling.” He chuckled abruptly, picked at what remained of a tooth and sighed. “Fine. If you think we’re done, go check the wall.”

  “What? I’ve already done today’s check.” Landfill glanced at the bin bags by his feet. “And I’m hungry.”

  “That lip again, eh?” The scavenger coughed and spat some phlegm to the ground. “Dinner’ll be late today – if you get any at all. I’ll make a start on it. You do as I say and check the wall. Haven’t you heard a word I’ve said?” He tapped Landfill’s temple with a bandaged hand. “Shadow trouble! Can’t afford to take risks today. You want the Outsiders to get in, do you? You know what’ll happen if they get their claws on you.”

  Landfill grunted and looked away.

  “So go check the wall again. We don’t want a single crack to compromise Hinterland. Keep a sharp eye out for anything unusual. Be thorough, Landfill. Seems we need to keep you busy. Idle hands, eh?”

  Landfill opened his mouth but didn’t speak. He wrinkled his nose, backed away and plodded to the wall.

  Hunger tempted Landfill to quicken his pace, but he knew that taking less than an hour to check the wall’s four sides would have Babagoo sending him back to start again. As he followed the perimeter, he scrutinized the wall from bottom to top. He checked for blood or breakage on the glass visible through clumps of growth, and searched carefully for any disturbance in the nettles and creepers.

  Eventually he reached the Ivy Stack – a hulking, ivy-strangled mass of corrugated steel, from which a conveyor slanted before bending to meet the Pale Loomer’s side. While tugging some creepers on the patch of wall opposite the Stack, Landfill spotted a fang of glass shifting loosely in the brickwork. His shoulders tautened and he whispered Babagoo’s words: “There’ll be mischief…”

  Landfill checked more thoroughly after that, his pupils flitting regularly to the sky. He soon reached the train tracks that disappeared into the wall. His eyes followed them to the carts of Muttbrough, where he saw several dogs gathered at the water trough. Realizing he was thirsty, he ran along the tracks to lap on hands and knees at the water. It hadn’t rained for days, so the water was warm and faintly metallic.

  He splashed some on his tanned face and chest, and turned his gaze to Woolf’s cart.

  “Woolf?” His voice was a raised whisper. “You alright?” He listened out for sounds, but there was nothing. He sniffed the dogs around the trough and brushed his head against their necks. “Keep your distance, wooflers. And cross your paws she’ll pull through.” He cleared his throat, trying to hide the quaking in his voice from the dogs. “Woolf’s strong. She’ll survive it.”

  He returned to checking the wall. By the time the Nook came into view at Hinterland’s opposite corner, Landfill’s feet ached almost as much as his stomach. He sat and stretched his legs by the Rippletop’s rear. The vast warehouse ran alongside half the wall’s eastern side, and pushing his inspection through the gloom of its shade was always a slog.

  Landfill wiped the sweat from his forehead and chest, and smeared it onto his shorts. He was scanning the Rippletop’s sloping, corrugated roof for lizards when he felt something furry brush his knee. He looked down and smiled. “Atwood! Bit far from the Den, aren’t you?”

  The lank, shabby cat purred and skimmed its side across Landfill’s toes.

  “Tickles,” sniggered the boy. He reached out to stroke the tabby, but his hand froze when he saw a raven launching itself from the Rippletop’s roof. As it passed over the south wall’s top, his smile fell away.

  He sniffed and rubbed his nose. “You know, Atwood, sometimes I don’t like the birds.” He flinched with regret at his words. “Don’t mean it like that. I do like them. Sometimes I just feel a bit…grudging, I guess.”

  Atwood settled down on a warm patch of moss. She lapped at her paw and used it to brush down her ears.

  Landfill mimicked her unconsciously, licking his wrist and wiping saliva through his hair. “Why grudging? I think it’s because… Because they can go anywhere. They go out there and always make it back. The wall must look so small when you’re up there. I bet they don’t even notice it. Must be like nothing to them.”

  He scowled and looked towards the Nook at the other end of Hinterland. “And they don’t have to put up with Babagoo and his testing and jabbering. On and on, rule this and rule that – but it can’t reach them. Nothing can. They go wherever they want. Do whatever they want.”

  Landfill’s belly gurgled, urging him to his feet. “Need to go, Atwood.”

  Leaving the Rippletop behind him, Landfill paused to pick some poppies from a vent. While threading them into his hair he spotted a large wing nut on the ground. He eyed the Hard Guts that hung above the distant Gully, snatched up the nut and lobbed it with all his strength. It landed with a satisfying clang, and Landfill grinned at the cloud of butterflies that rose from the Guts’ knotted pipes. His shoulders began to loosen, then tautened again at the faint sound of rumbling.

  The boy squatted abruptly, cocked an ear: just the grumbles of faraway thunder. His stomach groaned, and he continued on his way.

  Babagoo was waiting for him at the Nook, hunched like a hawk on its rickety gutter. He puffed and scratched his cheek in greeting. Landfill returned the gesture, although not without sullenness.

  “About time,” muttered Babagoo. “In you go. It’s getting late.” He pointed at the sky, which was a darker blue now, torn here and there by streaks of pink and yellow.

  Landfill went through the Nook’s scuffed double door. He plodded along a dim, reeking hallway of lockers and cracked tiles, the stench of which faded when he stepped through a metal door to enter the Nook’s largest room, the Den.

  It was good to be back. Landfill inhaled the Den’s thick, tangy, smoky scent, and his belly groaned again. Scanning the room’s murky gloom – a result of the blankets that covered some of the sooty windows – he saw a bin bag puffed with feathers, then spotted some buckets of fleshy pink seagulls.

  Babagoo brushed past and crouched by the stove at the Den’s centre. “I’ve plucked them to save you some graft. You do the rest. But be quick about it. We’re running late.”

  Landfill didn’t reply. He lifted two buckets and took them to the yellowing bathtub in the corner by the door. After taking the glass blade from his shorts, he threw the first seagull into the tub and gutted it, removing its head, feet and innards with mechanical precision. His work was accompanied by slapping sounds from the entrails he tossed at the giblet sheet. Cats sauntered from an adjacent stack of boxes, and traipsed to the sheet to nibble gleaming guts.

  While Landfill prepared the gulls, he heard Babagoo shuffling around the stove. The fire was soon crackling and the scavenger carried out his usual examination – ensuring the smoke was split by the pipes that branched from the stove’s main vent, then heading to the windows to check for signs of smoke outside.

  Landfill tilted his head. In the corner of his eye, he saw Babagoo take a bin bag to the goats, who were grazing on grass clippings next to consoles dotted with buttons.

  The scavenger addressed the small herd. “Grubbins for you, my venerable lovelies.” He dug his fingers into the bag and pulled out chunks of green-fuzzed bread, rotten apples and handfuls of woodchip. The goats bleated, and nudged the goods with their noses before eating.

  “Dig in,” said Babagoo. “Waste not, want not.” He moved to a large, shaggy black goat with gnarly horns and a wispy grey beard. “And how are you today, Kafka!” He slapped the goat’s neck. “How’s it been, old bleater?”

  The goat looked briefly up at him with watery, horizontal pupils, then returned to chomping woodchip.

  “That bad, eh? Been an odd one for me too. Shadow trouble at the Spit Pit. And on that note…” His voice hardened when he addressed Landfill’s back. “How’d your repeat inspection go? You haven’t said anyt
hing, so I assume you didn’t see anything…worrisome?”

  Landfill was on his third bucket. “Loose glass tooth.”

  “Eh?”

  “Just the one.”

  “Just the one?”

  “Nothing we haven’t seen before. North side. Three fifths along the Ivy Stack. Two thirds high.”

  “You’re supposed to tell me immediately!”

  Landfill kept his back to the scavenger. “Likely just weathered brickwork.”

  “No no no. That’s what they want you to think. Too much of a coincidence after what happened in the Pit.”

  Landfill shrugged and carried on. He could feel Babagoo glaring at his back, willing him to turn around. Then the scavenger came close, took a plastic bag of meat from the bath’s side and returned to the stove. Landfill licked his lips at the thought of the skewers piercing gull meat, then heard them clatter on the stove’s grill.

  Babagoo cleared his throat. “What about the rest of the wall? You checked thoroughly?”

  “Yes.”

  “Behind the bindweed?”

  “Yes.”

  “Along the Rippletop? Gets dark back there.”

  “Yes.”

  “By the Ivy Stack? You can never resist the wooflers at Muttbrough.”

  “Yes.”

  Babagoo tutted and turned the meat. “Quite the chatterbox tonight, aren’t you?” He left the skewers on the grill and made a noisy fuss of fetching radishes from the top of a console. “Low on vejbles,” he grumbled.

  Landfill fell into the rhythm of his work, until he noticed that the Den had become very quiet. He turned from the bathtub to see what had stopped Babagoo’s stomping and muttering, and found the scavenger looking at him. Landfill followed his gaze with his fingers until he touched the flowers in his hair. “Poppies,” he said.

  “Can see that, my boy.”

  “Thought they were pretty.”

  “You won’t find a prettier petal.” Babagoo closed his eyes and released a tired sigh. He headed to the water tank by the window, filled a plastic jerrycan and brought it to the bathtub. “Make sure you leave some meat for tomorrow’s traps.”

  “I know what I’m doing.”

  “Finish the rest later. Can hear your belly rumbling from here. You look like you could gobble a bleater.” Babagoo winked at the goats – “No offence, my lovelies.” – and returned his attention to the boy. “Use the water sparingly, lad. The tank’s running low.”

  After washing the blood from his hands and forearms, Landfill joined Babagoo at the stove. Their silence amplified the crackling of the fire, which popped and snapped over animal purrs and snuffles.

  Landfill gnawed at the bitter, stringy meat and kept his eyes on his food. He could sense Babagoo watching him.

  “You’re sulky tonight, lad. And I don’t think this is just a huff over being caught out earlier. What is it? Look like you’re eating lemons, not gull.”

  “What’s lemons?”

  “Stick to the subject. What’s bothering you?”

  Landfill raised his eyes to meet the scavenger’s. “Joyce. We were playing chase. He went over the wall.”

  “Ah.”

  “Haven’t seen him since.”

  “That’s the end of Joyce, then. The Outsiders’ll have him by now.”

  Landfill dropped a charred seagull thigh and covered his face with his hands.

  Babagoo sighed. “But you never know, my boy. Joyce is as crafty as they come. If anyone might survive Outside, it’s him. Plus he’s a skrill, and skrills are lightning on legs.”

  Landfill’s hands dropped. “You think he might make it back?”

  Babagoo leaned to ruffle the boy’s hair. “He’s got better odds than anyone else. But don’t build your hopes up. Hope has no place Outside. Best to brace yourself for the worst.”

  Landfill nodded sombrely. “What about Woolf?”

  Babagoo narrowed his eyes and pulled at his beard. “I’ll have a look. If she’s got the swelling she’ll need time in the cabinet for healing. You just keep your distance for now, okay? Rule eleven. Don’t want to be catching it from her. You’re too young. Wouldn’t survive it.”

  “Will Woolf?”

  Babagoo shrugged. “Most amnals do. Until we find out, just stay well away. I know you’re fond of Woolf, but there’s no need to check on her. I’ll handle it, as I always do.”

  “But—”

  Babagoo’s eyes widened. “Don’t but me, boy. We’ve seen enough of your jip today. You need to start listening to what I say. And if you don’t listen to what I say, I’ll save you a lot of trouble and throw you to the Outsiders. Because that’s where not listening’ll get you. Would you like that?” Flecks of gull flew from his mouth. “Would you?”

  Landfill shook his head.

  “Good. Then start listening. Rule number three?”

  Landfill spoke to the floor. “Babagoo’s always right.”

  “That’s the one. Always remember that. Respect the rules. They’re here to keep you alive. As am I. No one else will, you know.”

  Babagoo threw down some bones, licked the grease from his fingers and adjusted his trapper hat. He got up and – after coughing into his hand – gave Kafka a rub behind the ears. “I’m going out to fix that loose glass and gander about. Need to be vigilant after what happened at the Pit. You finish the gulls and give the amnals their dinner. The wooflers’ll be famished, and you know the birds and foxlers get surly without their meat.”

  He jerked suddenly and slapped himself on the side of the head. “So much for routine! All gone to pot today. Not good. Not good at all.”

  He eyeballed Landfill. “Leave Muttbrough ’til last; I’ll deal with Woolf before you get there. And when the amnals all have their food, come straight back to the Den. I don’t want you pottering in the Thin Woods, checking all the trees for Joyce.”

  Landfill started to open his mouth, but Babagoo raised a hand.

  “I know you, Landfill. You care too much about others and forget about yourself. Feed the amnals and get straight back here. It’s not safe tonight. You understand me?”

  A sullen nod.

  “Say it!”

  Landfill’s head dropped. “I understand.”

  Later that night, Landfill sat by the stove and tried in vain to stack yellowing dominoes on their ends. He was finding it difficult to focus. He’d returned from feeding the animals a long time ago, and Babagoo should have been back by now.

  He hugged himself, shivering in spite of the stove. Abandoning the dominoes, he turned his attention to the dozing goats. “Room for one more, slumbery bleaters?”

  Kafka looked up and belched.

  Landfill soon had his head on the black goat’s flank, and was beginning to drift off when a noise made him sit up. He listened carefully.

  There it was again: a slow, quiet scrape against one of the windows. Landfill ducked as low behind the goats as he could, and slowly raised his head to watch the windowpanes. It was hard to tell, but something was moving out there, slipping from window to window. When Landfill couldn’t see it any more, a creak echoed across the tiles in the hallway.

  Keeping low, Landfill slinked across the Den, his bare belly brushing against litter and bones. He kept listening out, waiting for the sound of Babagoo’s shuffling gait. But the steps in the hallway didn’t sound like Babagoo’s. They were too slow, too cautious. There were none of the scavenger’s usual coughs and mutters.

  The steps were getting louder.

  Landfill kept moving until he reached the hinged side of the doorframe. As quietly as possible, he pressed his back against the wall and slid himself up until he stood at full height. By the time he had his glass blade ready, the door handle was inching downwards. The door gradually opened into the room so that Landfill was hidden behind it. He held his breath and fingered the glass.

  A dark figure slipped through the doorway. As soon as it took a second step, Landfill pounced and jabbed. The figure spun quickly, and there
was a spark when Landfill’s blade was knocked across the room. Landfill saw the metallic flash of another blade, dodged and leaped up to bury his teeth in a slashing arm.

  “Okay, Landfill, okay!”

  The voice’s familiarity made Landfill drop back. He recognized the scavenger’s outline, and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

  Babagoo hissed and rubbed his forearm, then cackled abruptly. “Flaming brownberries! Sit, boy. Sit.”

  “What was that?” Landfill took deep breaths in an attempt to slow his thumping heart.

  “Another test, my lad. Didn’t do too badly this time. Got into position. Attacked from behind. But you need to improve your grip on that blade.”

  He waved his penknife at Landfill’s stunned face.

  “All it took was a light parry, and you were left with nothing but tooth and nail.” He rubbed his forearm again. “Not that you don’t have a knack with those. Now go find your blade. It went by the mowler boxes. Let’s hope you haven’t killed one of the mangy things. Having said that, mowler stew’d make a nice change.”

  Landfill scowled and searched around the cats’ boxes. By the time he found the blade in a pile of mauled carpet scraps, Babagoo had removed his hat and overcoat and got settled on the stained mattress in the corner.

  He smiled at Landfill. “Don’t resent it, boyling. Got to keep you sharp – not just your blade. Come now. It’s slumbertime, so brush your gnashers.”

  Landfill sucked at the back of his wrist, and the tightness gradually seeped from his limbs. He plodded to the workbench and found his toothbrush among rust-pocked tools.

  Babagoo watched him dip the brush in water and scrub his teeth. “Long overdue a new toothbrush, my lad. Barely a bristle left on that thing.”

  Landfill pulled the brush from his mouth. “What about you? Can’t remember last time you had a brush. Whenever you find one you give it to me.”

  Babagoo shook his head. “Better you have it than me. My teeth are beyond help. Might as well polish goat dung.”