Scavengers

by Darren Simpson

  Babagoo broke away from the goats, took a jerrycan in each hand and headed for the door. Landfill tried to follow, struggling with two heavy cans and dodging the cats that meowed and circled his ankles. Babagoo hesitated at the door, and looked at the floor for a moment before dropping the cans and turning on his boots. With one cheek twitching, he took a rope from his workbench and tied it around Kafka’s neck.

  “You’re coming with me, old bleater.” He pulled Kafka along, and couldn’t look at the other goats while he addressed them. “I’m sorry, poor lovelies. There’s no other way.”

  Landfill held the door open for Babagoo and Kafka. Lugging two cans with his bony back bent, he followed the scavenger and goat out of the building and across concrete. He realized they were heading for the Burrow, and his voice broke when he shouted out: “What about the other amnals? We can’t just leave them.”

  Babagoo yelled back, over a blustery wind that sent leaves spiralling through the air. “No time and no room! They’ll have to fend for themselves!”

  Landfill’s lips trembled. “But Orwell and Woolf… Vonn—”

  “Sure!” barked Babagoo. “If you care so much, choose one to take your place and stay out here. I can probably count more on a mutt than I can on you!”

  Landfill dropped his cans on the concrete. Fresh tears surfaced when he looked in Muttbrough’s direction and cupped his hands around his mouth. “Woo—”

  “Not really, you imbecile!” Babagoo and Kafka were at the open cabinet door. “Now get in here before I come down there and save the Outsiders some trouble!”

  Landfill scrunched his eyes, gritted his teeth and took up the cans. He heaved them up several carpet rolls and, after slamming the cabinet door behind him, was soon dragging them down the dark steps.

  When he reached the bottom of the stairs he dropped to his knees. He couldn’t see anything in the thick blackness, but could hear Babagoo’s laboured breathing and Kafka’s snuffles. He swivelled on the mud and looked back up the way he’d come. He could just make out the pale, rectangular outline of light at the cabinet door’s edges.

  “Babagoo,” he said. “We left water behind. Two more cans in the Den.”

  A dismal, cracked whisper in the darkness: “Too late. They’re coming.”

  The Outsiders arrived soon after the light had faded from the doorway. Their approach had been signalled by rumbles that began while some light was still visible. The sounds were faint to begin with – just suggestions of splutters and groans, borne by the wind across some unknown distance. But by the time the light had died, they’d become roars that reverberated through every part of the Burrow.

  The roars didn’t sound like those of Hunger’s Eye. They were punctuated by loud chugs and spurts of angry hissing. The dense chorus suggested a rabid pack of huge, ravenous animals.

  The noise settled briefly, then exploded into cacophony. Heavy sounds of pounding came from somewhere at the edge of Hinterland, and Landfill’s eyes welled at the faint barking of dogs. Each thump pealed like thunder, causing the Burrow to shudder so that dirt fell upon the heads of the boy, scavenger and goat. On and on the thumps went, louder than a storm cracking open the sky, until a deafening crash was followed by sounds of tortured steel, cracking masonry, a thousand tearing roots. A long, resounding squeal forced Landfill to push his palms against his ears, and the Burrow shook once more to the twisted clatter of metal upon stone.

  The roaring picked up again, then thinned out upon spreading in all directions across Hinterland. Landfill heard angry shouts, stomping boots, snarls and barks from dogs he didn’t recognize. Whenever these alien sounds neared the Burrow, Landfill saw blue lights flashing repeatedly through the cracks of the cabinet door.

  He turned away and could just make out Babagoo and Kafka. Their faces were eerie blue, appearing and disappearing with the flashing light. Landfill wiped his eyes and mouthed an invisible sorry. He held out a hand, reaching for Babagoo’s beard, but the scavenger shook his head, his face vanishing as he pulled away.

  Landfill couldn’t tell how long they’d been in the Burrow. At first, he’d watched the light come and go at the top of the steps, trying to count the days. But he lost track when exhaustion got the better of him, sending him in and out of a torpid, rhythmless half-sleep.

  Barely a word had been exchanged since they’d descended into earth. They listened in strained silence to the sounds from Hinterland – scuffing shoes, rolling wheels, shouts and bickering, metal and masonry slammed and smashed.

  Babagoo assembled an oil lamp from a green glass bottle and a rag torn from his overcoat, and positioned it as far back into the Burrow as possible. He always dimmed it with a scrap of cloth when the light at the cabinet door’s edges faded, so that the darkness above wouldn’t expose the light coming from below..

  The first time he lit the lamp, he rummaged through the boxes to the left of the tunnel to the Pit, and took out a few rusty cans of vegetables, along with some dry foods in sealed, battered wrappers. Landfill looked on, noting that Babagoo never touched the locker on its back by the boxes.

  The scavenger laid the supplies out next to the lamp, counting carefully and checking the state of the tins. The food was rationed out in small amounts between long intervals and – besides Kafka’s farts and snuffles – the loudest sounds in the Burrow came from rumbling bellies. It didn’t slip Landfill’s attention that Kafka got larger rations than he did, but he decided not to mention it. The water had to be rationed too – just sips and trickles – and Landfill suffered a merciless thirst he could only escape through sleep.

  When he first became so hungry that it hurt, he whispered to Babagoo that they should head down the tunnel to the Pit for food.

  “Don’t be stupid,” hissed Babagoo. “They’ll be scouring the Pit too.”

  “What about this?” Landfill crossed the Burrow and tried the locker next to the boxes, but its door wouldn’t open. “There grubbins in here?”

  Babagoo’s eyeballs were green in lamplight. “That locker’s none of your business. If you ever touch it again, I’ll cut off your fingers and force them down your throat. That should stop your growling gut.”

  It was the only exchange they’d had over several days.

  Whenever the rectangular line of light disappeared, the three of them curled up on the gore-crusted blankets by the steps. Coldness from the dank, clay-like floor penetrated the blankets, and the Burrow reeked of wet earth, sour goat, old sweat, urine and dung. Babagoo slept with Kafka at his back, and Landfill tried his best to sleep close to the scavenger, who no longer offered him his overcoat. Whenever Babagoo started to sweat and tremble, Landfill worked quickly to soothe him, and had to press his hand to his mouth to muffle the muttering. Sounds of Outsiders were still coming from above.

  They listened and listened, and at some point the noises from above finally ceased. But they remained in the Burrow, listening closely in case anything broke the silence. The food was all gone, and by the second day after the noises had stopped, the jerrycans were empty too. Landfill watched keenly when Babagoo finally mounted the steps and peeped through the cracks in the doorway. After a while, he came back down the steps and they donned their capes.

  They staggered back, with hands flying to their eyes. Outside the cabinet everything was a severe, searing white, and Landfill couldn’t see without the light stabbing his retinas.

  While his vision gradually returned, he breathed deeply at the cool, fresh air. A glum shower was falling from inert, grey-black clouds, and he rubbed the water into his face and hair. After opening his mouth to the rain, he dropped his head and gazed at Hinterland.

  There was barely an animal in sight – only some ravens cawing at the tips of the Black Fingers. A line of thick fog was suspended above the Gully, and behind that the trees of the Thin Woods looked bare, black and crooked. Their leaves had been blown around Hinterland, and were piled in mushy mounds against walls, overturned drums and toppled pipes.

  Landfill
looked towards the Pale Loomer. Its towering sides were dark with rain. “The wooflers!” He hadn’t spoken for days; the words didn’t sound like his own.

  Babagoo clapped a hand over the boy’s mouth. “Keep your noise down,” he muttered. “We’re not checking on the wooflers. Not now. There’s no point in heading over and collapsing on the way. Before we can do anything, we need food and water.”

  They slipped down squelching carpet rolls and headed for the Nook. Kafka followed for a few steps, then swerved on his own course to munch dead nettles that had fallen from the perimeter wall.

  When Babagoo and Landfill entered the hallway they found lockers torn open and scattered on the tiles. A growl rumbled in Babagoo’s throat. They dodged the debris, stepped over the fallen metal door and passed through its doorway.

  The Den had been trashed. Ceiling panels either hung from above or littered the floor. The stove had been kicked over and destroyed. The cats were gone, their cardboard boxes pulled down and shredded. Blankets had been ripped from the windows and Babagoo’s workbench was overturned. In the far corner lay their disembowelled mattress. The bathtub was gone, with only bloodstains on the carpet to prove it had ever existed.

  Babagoo groaned. Landfill noticed a squelch beneath his bare feet, followed Babagoo’s eyes and groaned too. The water tank had been split and pushed over.

  The boy looked on miserably while Babagoo stomped through the Den, cursing and coughing as he checked the bin bags scattered around the room.

  “Ha!” He clutched something inside a bag half-buried beneath flaps of cardboard, and pulled out a can of beans. A sour, demented grin warped his face, and he took his penknife from his coat.

  The can proved to be stubborn. With growing unease, Landfill watched Babagoo stab again and again with his shivering blade. His cheeks and beard were twitching, and Landfill could hear words bubbling beneath clenched teeth. “You won’t beat me, little can of beans. You can’t beat me. I am Babagoo – the product of hundreds of thousands of years of evolution and refinement. You, on the other hand, are a cruddly can of beans. So no, you won’t beat me. You won’t beat me. You…can’t…beat…AARGH!”

  Landfill ducked when the can whizzed over his head and bounced off the wall behind him. He gaped at Babagoo, who was now as purple as a vein and clutching his lower stomach.

  “Ak!” he gasped, flinching in pain.

  Landfill ran to him and rubbed his heaving back. “Sshh. It’s okay, Babagoo. We’ll get the can open. We’ll get it in the end. It’s not going anywhere. Let’s go to the vejble patch. There’ll be food for us there. Can drink on the way. From the Gully. The water’ll be fresh from the rain.”

  Babagoo gradually slowed his breathing. Finally he nodded and, after pocketing the can, followed the boy.

  They bowed on hands and knees on the Gully’s bank, lapping like beasts at brown water. Then they trudged across the nearest steel bridge and entered the Thin Woods. The ground there had been churned by the prints of too many boots to count. The flowers had all been trampled, their petals pale, ripped and scattered. When they reached the vegetable patch they found it had been torn up. Landfill clawed the earth with his bare hands, but the few vegetables he found were pulpous and dark, cobwebbed in mould.

  “It’s here,” grumbled Babagoo. “The rot.”

  Landfill looked up at him. Rain hid his tears. “Can we check on the wooflers now, Babagoo?”

  Babagoo snorted. “Might as well. Could do with the meat.”

  Landfill looked at the scavenger’s face, trying to work out whether he was joking. It was impossible to tell.

  Muttbrough was deserted. The only sound there was the ping of rain as it pounded the metal carts. Beyond the tracks it pummelled the Ivy Stack, causing wilting ivy to tumble and slump. Landfill checked the carts one by one, until something made him cry out. He ducked into the cart, and crawled out backwards with a pup spread limply across his arms. “Orwell,” he sniffed.

  Babagoo had his eyes on the Stack. “Dead, eh?”

  Landfill put his ear to the dog’s chest. “Not yet. Very faint, but he’s breathing. Don’t think he’s got long, though.” He looked at the other carts and his lips began to crumple. “Where’re the wooflers? Where’s Woolf? How can they leave little Orwell?”

  The scavenger gobbed on the ground and pointed a finger. Landfill followed its course, his eyes running along the Loomer’s tracks until they met what used to be a section of perimeter wall. A large steel gate once covered in growth lay on the concrete, its dented bars bright between green tendrils.

  Babagoo coughed in the rain. “The wooflers abandoned your little friend because he’s a cripple. A hindrance. Too much effort. A waste of space.” He looked away, wiped his face with his sleeve. “I know the feeling…”

  Landfill’s jaw hung loosely open. He shook his head. “They wouldn’t leave Orwell.”

  Babagoo nodded towards the twisted gate. Beyond it the train tracks vanished into a cold, soggy landscape. The earth around the opening had been mashed by scores of giant tyres. “Yes they would,” said Babagoo. “Outside is inside now. There’s nothing between the two. The hunger has poisoned Hinterland. The amnals are gone.”

  Landfill held Orwell closer. He blinked in the rain and looked around Hinterland, searching for something, for anything. “How can we fix this, Babagoo? How do we get Hinterland back?”

  “Hinterland’s gone. Can’t be fixed. If we fix anything, the Outsiders’ll know we’re still here.”

  “So…so what do we do?”

  Babagoo rubbed his flaking lips. “Well, right now, at this particular moment…we eat or we die. Personally, I’m leaning towards the latter.”

  Landfill looked up at him, trying but failing to meet his eyes. “You still have those beans?”

  Babagoo nodded.

  “Let’s eat them. Can try to feed Orwell too. Then we’ll drink again at the Gully, head to the Spit Pit. Maybe some traps’ll have fresh gulls. Just one’d be something. Or maybe we can find some grubbins.”

  The scavenger snorted. He looked up and allowed the rain to fall on his face. After a while he began to nod. “Okay. But before the Pit we need to deal with something.”

  “Something?”

  The scavenger kept his face to the sky. “This… Longwhite of yours.”

  Landfill stared, swallowed and nodded.

  With a slightly steadier hand, Babagoo got into the tin of beans. They tipped them from the can into their mouths. Landfill tried to offer some to Orwell, but the pup didn’t stir.

  When Babagoo was done, he belched and wiped a sleeve across his lips. “Now take me to Longwhite.”

  Landfill nodded glumly and started to move towards the Rippletop. A quiver in the air caught his eye. Something dark was soaring through the spray, and he heard a shrill cry that almost raised a smile. “Winterson!”

  He freed a hand from Orwell to wave at the kestrel, but stopped when he saw something orange and bloody hanging from her beak. It was the squirrel, Joyce.

  “Stop blubbering,” grunted Babagoo. “Can’t afford to linger. This place has turned against us now. Just like everything else.”

  They were soon deep in the Rippletop’s belly. Landfill heard the thin scuttle of insects when he stepped from the ladder to the floor.

  The scavenger hopped off just after him. He whispered roughly: “Can’t see a thing. Where is he?”

  Darkness was dispersed by Landfill’s lighter. He pointed reluctantly at the low aperture in the far wall. Babagoo squinted an eye at the black crevice and sucked his top lip.

  Landfill, not moving from the ladder, watched the scavenger shuffle towards the hole. Upon reaching it, he crouched with his shins on the ground and slowly, silently, carefully slid his arm into blackness.

  “Ak!” Babagoo jolted upwards and slammed his head on a pipe. “Oh you little – argh!” He threw himself back from the hole, and Landfill saw Longwhite coiled around the scavenger’s arm. The boy made to move his foot, but
Babagoo’s fury had him faltering by the ladder.

  Longwhite shrieked and squealed and Babagoo fell back against the floor. His roar was so loud that it sent pale spiders toppling from the ceiling. He rolled and started slamming his arm against the ground, but Longwhite wouldn’t let go.

  Tears gathered against the hand Landfill held over his mouth. He could see Longwhite’s bristling white fur, his blazing red eyes – the needle-like fangs buried deep in Babagoo’s palm.

  Babagoo roared again. “A stinking ferret, eh?” He clambered to his feet, lurched and smashed his arm against the brick wall. His eyes were locked on Longwhite’s while he threw his free hand into his coat and yanked out his penknife.

  Landfill stumbled forward, his hand shooting out. “Please—”

  “A whispering weasel!” bellowed Babagoo. “A serpent in furs!” With just the one hand he managed to flip out the knife’s blade.

  “No!” cried Landfill. “Longwhite—”

  There was a loud chink. The squealing stopped abruptly and Landfill was on his knees. “No,” he moaned. “No…”

  “Had to be done,” growled the scavenger.

  Longwhite’s tail fluttered momentarily, then fell still. Babagoo kept his arm pushed against the bricks. Eventually, he eased the fangs from his hand and let go of the knife’s handle. He sucked angrily at his palm and spat blood to the floor. He turned to Landfill. “That’s that, then. Now to the Gully and Pit. And on the way, I want you to tell me everything – every little thing – that happened with that Outsider and that hole.”

  Landfill just stared in reply, his face pinched and wet in the lighter’s flame. A look from Babagoo forced him to nod, and he pocketed the lighter before dragging himself to the ladder.

  After they’d been to the Spit Pit, Landfill and Babagoo hid with Kafka in the Burrow. They sat in the glow of the oil lamp, huddled around a small grill improvised from a cracked colander. Their eyes watered from the greasy gull-smoke that filled the Burrow. It made them choke and cough, but also hid the stench of mounting dung. They stared at the grill, licking their lips to sounds of popping fat.