Severed

by Peter Laws

  ‘Where in the New Testament?’

  She paused, ‘Matthew, Mark, Luke … John.’

  ‘The gospels … was it only them?’

  ‘Actually, yes. Just them.’

  ‘So the Jesus bits, basically … okay.’

  ‘Oh, and the TV in his room, and the Xbox. The fuses were missing from the plugs, so he couldn’t switch them on. With that and the magazines I’d say he was having a bit of a media detox, wouldn’t you?’ She let out a breath. ‘Anyway, I reckon that’s enough to ponder for now. It’s Sunday night and I need to finish writing this crazy day up. What are you up to?’

  ‘I’m off out for a pint.’

  ‘You civilians make me sick.’

  ‘Hey, there’s nothing stopping you pouring out some wine and getting that Dolly album on.’

  ‘Ooo, tempting,’ she laughed. ‘Well look, thanks for your help today, and with the translation, but listen. Now that Micah’s dead I do have other priorities. So, I reckon our wisest move is to wait and see if East wakes up and ask him straight out. If anything comes to you in the meantime, you let me know, okay? Because, I’d personally love to know what the hell today was about.’

  ‘Ditto.’

  ‘Goodnight, Matt.’

  ‘Night.’

  He hung up and stared at the words he’d scrawled out.

  ‘My God, my father …’ he whispered, ‘why have you murdered me?’

  Frowning, he tapped his fingers on his desk, tempted to fire up his computer to see how the death of Micah was being reported. But he shook his head. Time to switch off. Time to breathe. Time to—

  ‘Load the dishwasher,’ he said.

  He closed up the cabin and hurried back to the kitchen to find they’d already done it. He apologised to Wren and Amelia who were in the lounge, practising her spellings for school tomorrow. He checked his watch, knowing that he had enough time for a quick shower. By 8.20 p.m. he was pulling his jacket on in a cloud of aftershave, then he grabbed a bag and leant in to Wren and Lucy. ‘Just heading out with my boyyyeee.’

  He stepped outside, amazed at how clear the sky was. The stars didn’t just shine. Some of them seemed to flash.

  He was meeting Sean in the Jolly Sportsman, which was only a ten-minute walk from his house. He shut his gate, plunged both hands in his pockets and strolled past the church, shivering at how cold it was. It was hard not to play over the events of the day, but he wiped them out with a jaunty whistle of ‘Spanish Flea’. It was hard to think of falling legs when that was playing, though not impossible.

  Which was when he saw the large, long shadow moving across the church next to his house. It made him stop dead and look over, the whistle dying on his lips. The exterior spotlights were all blazing but the lights inside the church were off. The poorly attended evening service must have been finished, but he was still almost certain he’d seen someone standing among the graves.

  He shook his head and told himself not to be an idiot. He’d been seeing dumb shadows all day. To be honest, he’d been seeing them off and on since the mindfuck that was Menham and he knew full well that tall black rabbits lurking in the bushes were little more than lack of sleep, and maybe even a dollop of stress. Today hadn’t exactly been a spa break, had it?

  Besides, everybody knew the churchyard had an open public path that lead to the estate. He looked at the graves and wondered if the shadowy lump behind a leaning cross was actually a person, crouching. Or a tall black animal thing ready to pounce. He tilted his head and leant to the right. He saw a shadow on the gravestone and nothing more. He thought of that card Bowland gave him. The one for people to talk to. But then a quicker solution came to mind. One that was far more attractive right now.

  He said a word into the night, and the word was ‘beer’. The sound alone managed to make his tongue sparkle and launched him into an eager power walk into town.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Night came to the city.

  Headlights, street lights, shop lights. They all sparkled in the puddles. The snow from today hadn’t managed to settle anywhere. But Sam Price assumed that thick lines of it must be covering the Chiltern Hills. It’d be like a ski resort up there, he imagined. He’d have loved to have seen it. To have a snowball fight with a bunch of mates up there and build a massive snowman with a big old set of knockers, just to make them laugh. But of course, he couldn’t because there was no car to get up there and no money for a bus, and let’s face it, no friends either.

  Instead, Sam just did what he always did. He crawled under the metal fire escape behind the all-night laundrette and tried to sleep against the wheelie bin. It was a proper little cubbyhole under these steps, stuffed with cardboard that sometimes wasn’t even needed since the laundrette had an extractor fan. It pumped out a blast of heat right now. Wonderful. He assumed this patch would be stolen from him any day now, but right now, it was his.

  Sam was fifty-six, though any passing shopper with a car and a house key would no doubt disagree. They’d insist he had two decades on that, maybe even three, because matted grey hair clumped together in strands does not a young buck make. And vodka had a habit of shrivelling skin. They never mention that in the adverts. It’s all party time and glamour in those. But it dries you out, that stuff. Turns your face into Billy the Kid’s saddlebag.

  He laughed to himself and listened to the fan throbbing its usual rhythm.

  Whup-whup-whup.

  He thought back to the evening he’d had, and the smile dropped. He’d stormed out of the Salvation Army soup kitchen again, after one too many lectures from the God squad. He even tossed his rancid-tasting coffee across the room. He felt terrible after that. He’d hammered on the window trying to apologise. But the hammering just scared them, which was so silly. Sam Price wouldn’t even hurt the most unreasonable fly. It’s just that they suggested he use their phone to contact his brother all the way up in Glasgow. They didn’t appreciate that Sam and his brother couldn’t exist in the same space. If they ever met in the same room, if their fingers ever touched, the universe would implode.

  He’d be banned from the place now.

  ‘You’re a disaster, Sam,’ he whispered to himself, an echo of his mum’s favourite phrase. Whenever he dropped a mug or cut her sandwiches wrong, she’d say, ‘You’re a disaster, Sam.’ Which, strangely enough, was the exact thing Sam’s ex-wife said to him, when he lost his head teacher’s job. After that really awful Ofsted, when the school board kicked him out, Carol found him sitting on the bathroom floor and she’d said those exact words. She cried when she said it, which only made it worse. ‘You’re a disaster, Sam.’ The only way to stop those words stinging was to thicken his skin. And what better way to thicken skin than Lidl’s own-brand vodka.

  He dragged his sleeping bag across him, listened to the fan and whispered, ‘Night, Mum. Night, Carol …’

  Someone whispered back.

  It was incredibly faint. He strained to listen and heard nothing but the fan.

  Whup-whup-whup.

  Then there it was again. A weird hiss was speaking. He pushed himself up on his elbows and looked down his body to the entrance of his home.

  Across the alley, he saw a man on all fours, looking at him.

  Whup-whup-whup.

  Bumps, many of them, broke across his skin.

  The man looked large and well built, an average fella by all accounts, except that he was on his hands and knees and was staring.

  ‘Um … hello?’ Sam said.

  The stranger’s lips were moving, but they made no sound.

  Sam was used to shivering out here. Aw, who was he kidding? Since he lost everything, Sam Price was an absolute world authority on shivering. But the deep tremble that broke through his body right now was new to him. This was a different kind of cold. So he spoke firm and sharp with his head teacher voice. The same tone he used to use for breaking up suspicious groups of teenagers in the playground. ‘Excuse me,’ he said, ‘but what are you up to?’
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br />   The stranger’s lips stopped moving, but the hands and knuckles … they started pushing through the dirt.

  He’s crawling. Look at that, Sam. He’s crawling to get you.

  ‘Now look here, this is my place!’ Sam said, then he noticed something. Something that gave him courage. ‘And you’re a coward, aren’t you? Can’t even look a bloke in the eye when you’re mugging him?’

  Something flashed in the stranger’s hand. Something unmistakeable. A stubby little … oh shit … a stubby little Stanley knife.

  Fear hit him like a brick and his body jerked into action.

  He rammed his shoulder against the giant, heavier-than-hell wheelie bin. Forks of pain sparked from the chronic ache in his neck. A skiing injury, from the days when he was rich enough to still find snow enjoyable. The stranger stopped crawling and paused for some seconds. Perhaps he was startled by Sam’s terror, or amused. Then all his limbs sprang into frantic life, scrambling forward in a horribly quick, insect-like scuttle.

  ‘Christ,’ Sam slammed himself against the bin again and amazingly, it shifted a little. A gap appeared. He spun himself round onto all fours. Yeah, I can crawl fast too, ya big bull—

  A hand grabbed the heel of his boot.

  ‘Get off!’ He kicked out hard and the fingers slipped away. He sprang out from the fire escape and staggered to his feet, dizzy with shock. The buildings settled into their correct angles, and he bolted down the backstreet.

  It was a long alley this, he’d always thought that. Full of twists and turns with nothing but bins and corrugated doors for company. Those doors lead to jolly restaurants and happy, air-conditioned shops on the other side. But this side was his world. Filthy and forgotten, with angry-looking graffiti and pools of urine and shit, and sometimes even semen. Yeah, drunk folk and shopworkers sometimes nipped around the back for kisses that never stopped. Seeing that was always far less arousing than he hoped it would be. One night, it even made him cry.

  He pounded down the long, dirty alley now, while behind him his pursuer pushed bins to the side. The stranger’s boots hit the puddled floor in a steady slap. He was way too scared to look round, but he knew a side street was coming, next to Muchacho’s, the Mexican restaurant. The one with the cute neon cactus on the door. He took that hard right and pulled empty boxes down behind him, so that this chasing freak would slip on the cardboard. He felt a sudden elation of ingenuity and something he rarely felt in his life: achievement. God, it felt amazing. He could cheer, because the old, smashed fence was at the end of this alley. The one with the broken board that never got fixed. This would be his shortcut to the other side, to the mother planet, where he’d call out to the beautiful people for help. So what if they backed away like they usually did? Their fear of contagion wouldn’t break his heart this time because at least he’d be safe and seen.

  He pushed through the fence.

  It didn’t budge.

  Um …

  He pushed again.

  Nothing.

  They’d fixed it. He almost laughed at the irony of it. That for months this fence had been broken but now, on the precise night he really needed it, it was nailed coffin-tight.

  You’re a disaster, Sam. A dizzz-arrrr-sterr.

  Sam turned and shuddered when he saw the man again. Only, at first, he was just a set of dirty fingers grasping the corner bricks. Then he became a tall giant filling the space. The moment that really set Sam’s heart on fire was when the tall man split into two men. One very tall. One shorter and more bulky. They walked through his pathetic cardboard trap like it wasn’t even there.

  Sam’s knees cracked in pain when he dropped to the floor. He called out ‘Help’ and automatically gripped the plastic cross that hung from his neck. A gift. Not from the mission, but from his wife Carol. She, who had never been to church since the cruel nuns of her youth, had given him this cross one breezy autumn day, when she accidentally stumbled across him begging in the street. She bought him this cross and gave him a handful of twenty-pound notes, then ran off in a flurry of tears. He thought she might come back one day. He’d even saved up some begging pennies to buy her a coffee. She never did. Her cross used to light up in the dark, like those glow sticks people buy at firework parties. But it hadn’t shone in a very long time.

  When he saw that fat little knife again, he heard his own voice cry out, and he knew it was Carol he was calling for. Not for help, though. He was apologising to her. He really had pushed her so far away. But then he stopped speaking because the two men came very close indeed. And then a third appeared. The three shadow men pulled a rag from thin air and they flung it across Sam’s eyes. The alley vanished as one of them pressed their lips to the side of Sam’s head.

  Sam felt hot breath on his ear. And the breath said,

  Hollow …

  Funny, he thought. Carol used to call him that, too.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Matt turned up at the pub a little early, so he was expecting ten or so minutes of eBay-lurking on his phone. But the second he swung the door open he immediately spotted that Sean Ashton was already there, sitting in a brown leather chair by the fire. His hands were crossed on his lap while the fireplace flickered in his glasses. And next to him, Matt saw an identical empty chair, waiting.

  He glanced across the ales as he shrugged his coat off, then he headed over, setting his bag by the chair. ‘Hi, Sean.’ He put his hand out.

  Sean snapped into life and sprang up. ‘Professor, hi. Thanks so much for coming.’

  ‘Oh, it’s my pleasure. And it’s Matt, remember.’ He put both palms towards the fire. ‘So, what are you drinking?’

  ‘Erm … what will you be drinking?’

  ‘Well, I just spotted an ale on draught called … wait for it … Rinkydink and there’s another called Lord of Steel. So I’m going Rinky, then Steel.’

  Sean bit his lip and stared at the bar, deep in existential thought.

  ‘Or there’s coke, wine, lager, tea. They’re bound to have Tappoline.’

  ‘Ooo, what’s that?’

  ‘Water … from the tap,’ Matt smiled. ‘Or Council Pop, as my dad used to call it.’

  Sean laughed, and finally seemed to relax. ‘I’ll have the same as you, please. I’ll go Rinkydink.’

  ‘Hero.’ Matt headed to the bar, tapping out a rhythm on the brass railing with the edge of his debit card. It was only when the barman got halfway through pouring that Matt spotted the strength. ‘Six point four? Sheesh. I think we’re going to need some roughage with that. Two packets of crisps, please. Dealer’s choice.’

  Hands loaded, he headed back to the glow of their seats, and set the drinks down.

  ‘Cheers,’ Sean said.

  They clinked, and Matt leant back into the leather chair, which was hot against his back. He took a deep, exquisite sip. One of those long sigh-with-your-eyes-closed sort of deals. He wiped his lip and cradled the pint for now. ‘So, Sean … how was your day?’

  ‘Hmmm. Not great. Quite challenging, actually.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘I’ve been prepping an RE class this week. It’s on one of the most incomprehensible concepts in Christianity …’

  ‘Let me guess. Why Christians wear socks with sandals?’

  ‘Not that tricky. That’s PhD level…’ Sean giggled into his drink. ‘I just have to explain that little thing called the Trinity to a bunch of sixth-formers. Who, speaking frankly, have a habit of asking horribly intelligent questions. They keep saying how the word isn’t even mentioned in the Bible.’

  ‘They’re right, it’s not.’ He sipped. ‘But the concept’s definitely there. That God is actually three distinct personalities: Father, Son and Spirit.’

  ‘Which makes God sound … schizophrenic.’

  Matt set his drink down and leant forward. Diving back into a little of his day job was probably just what he needed right now. ‘You got a pen? I promise it’s not to autograph your beer mat.’

  Matt flipped a Starbucks r
eceipt over and flattened it out on the table. He started scribbling three overlapping circles that became a three-dimensional sphere. ‘For what it’s worth, this is how I explain it. The Bible seems to present God as three divine beings: God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. You even see hints in the book of Genesis when God creates the cosmos. He doesn’t say “I will make humans in my image”. He says, “Let us make humans in our image.” There’s more than one creator at work. And of course, I’m using “he” as a shorthand here. God transcends gender labels.’

  Sean shook his head. ‘That sounds awfully like polytheism.’

  ‘Only if you start in the wrong direction. When you teach the Trinity you don’t begin with the concept of one God, then try and make that three. Start with three personalities as your base plate, and then figure out what makes those three one.’

  ‘You mean like water can be ice, steam and water. Three distinct things, but it’s all the same thing too. Maybe I could bring some ice into class—’

  ‘Don’t. They’ll miss the point.’

  ‘Which is?’

  ‘Water, ice and steam can only be one thing at once. The Trinity, however’ − he tapped on his 3D circle − ‘that’s three distinct, separate personalities. What makes them one is their relationship. It’s why the Bible presents the Devil as precisely not a Trinity. He’s just one single entity, exclusively self-centred.’

  Sean stared at the circles. ‘It’s still a bit abstract.’

  ‘Then just think of the word “God” as the collective noun for the Father, Son and Holy Spirit in relationship. Without each other, they’re not God any more. But that love makes them so close, they’re classed as one single God.’ Matt laughed. ‘Course, whether all this stuff is just a steaming bunch of crud is another matter entirely. Leave that to your students to decide. I tend to think we invented God, Satan and all of it.’

  Sean waited for a moment. Said nothing.

  ‘But the idea itself is pretty radical,’ Matt went on. ‘It’s unity without uniformity, which ironically is a very trendy message these days. How many times have you heard politicians or pop stars yearn for a society that celebrates diversity but stands as one? What they’re asking for is the Trinity model in a nutshell.’