Salt Snake and Other Bloody Cuts Read online

  “What’s your job, Bex?”

  “I’m a doll maker.”

  “Gerraway.”

  “Yes. I make dolls. I’ve been taking samples round to toy shops.”

  “You mean like Barbie and Sindy?”

  She stands up from the bed and takes off her jacket. There’s a big suitcase thing against one wall. She opens it. (OKAY, SUNSHINE, THIS IS THE DULL BIT, I KNOW, BUT I’M JUST SETTING THE SCENE. WE’LL GET TO THE SEX IN A MINUTE,.. YES, AND THE BLOOD, AND YEAH, YEAH, THE THING IN THE GRAVEYARD). Inside the suitcase is this load of ugly dolls held in place by straps, so you can admire their ugly Joe faces with their artificial woolly looking hair. She talks about them, but I don’t give a toss. My attention slides and I look round the room wondering where she keeps the money. On the table are piles of papers and this huge stapler she’s been using to clip together price lists or some other crap; there’s a traveling clock, hairbrush, bunch of car keys with little silver dog fob. There’s the usual motel kettle, basket of coffee sachets and jiggers of UHT.

  The time’s coming up to ten. Must act fast to get that cash before leather jacket man packs up and pisses off.

  “Bex. I want to kiss your neck.”

  “I’d like that.” She smiles, undoes her little business suit skirt and lets it fall. Her pants are white and lacy. She’s got a tiny, bony bum. And when I grip it hard enough I know she’ll cry. I kiss her throat; her perfume’s strong; my hands slide up inside her blouse to her hard little tits.

  OKAY, SUNSHINE, PUT YOUR HEAD BETWEEN YOUR LEGS AND BREATHE DEEP. YOU’RE NOT HERE FOR THE PORN. LET’S GET TO THE BIT WHERE YOU CAN DOMINATE HER, TAKE HER MONEY, RINGS, EVEN HER EAR IF YOU FANCY IT, AND KNOW SHE’LL NOT SCAMPER TO THE POLICE. THIS IS WHAT YOU DO… WHAT’S THAT? SURELY NOT, SUNSHINE? YOU MEAN YOU WANT TO SEE A BIT MORE OF THE FILTHY STUFF? YOU ARE A GREEDY BUGGER, AREN’T YOU? OKAY, CEASE WITH THE DROOL. HERE ARE A FEW SEX SNAPSHOTS!

  Hot, sweaty, erotic. Up against the motel windows, curtains wide open; bony little bum thumping the glass. Outside, screech of brakes on the motorway. Across the chair. On the carpet. Fingers kneading her smooth skin; her eyes wide open as if she’s seen something shocking; her rose red lips slipping over…

  ALL RIGHT SUNSHINE. YOU GET THE PICTURE. MAKE IT EXCITING FOR THEM. WANT SOME MORE TIPS? TAKE THEM SOMEWHERE INTERESTING: A FIELD, OR IN THE YARD BEHIND PIZZA EXPRESS. WHAT WAS THAT? GRAVEYARD? GOOD CHOICE, SUNSHINE! ONCE I HAD THIS JAPANESE BINT ON TOP OF A STONE TOMB THAT WAS AS BIG AS YOUR GRANNY’S DOUBLE BED. CHRIST, HELL FOR LEATHER WE WERE GOING FOR IT. SUDDENLY THIS SLAB OF STONE CRACKS. CHUNKS OF STONE FALL DOWN ONTO THESE COFFINS BELOW. THEY CRACK OPEN LIKE YOU CRACK AN EGGAND THIS IS THE WEIRD BIT. YOU KNOW SOMETHING? THEY BURST WITH A FIZZING SOUND. LIKE THEY WERE CANS OF BEER. THE JAPANESE BINT CRIED FOR ME TO STOP, HER HEAD HUNG BACK DOWN THROUGH THE HOLE, HER LONG HAIR SWEEPING THIS WAY AND THAT ACROSS THE BROKEN COFFINS THAT FARTED OUT SUCH A FUCK-AWFUL STENCH IT’D HAVE MADE A LEG-WIPE GAG. I COULDN’T STOP LAUGHING. IT WAS THE EXPRESSION ON HER FACE. SHE ACTUALLY WENT BOZ-EYED LIKE THAT OLD SQUINT EYE FROM THE LAUREL AND HARDY FILMS.MSHEY, HEY, SUNSHINE, WHAT YOU DOING? I’M WASTING TIME HERE. THE FLASH CLOSES IN FORTY MINUTES AND STILL I’VE NOT GOT MY FIST ROUND THIS WOMAN’S—WAIT FOR IT, WAIT FOR IT, YOU’VE GOT A DIRTY MIND, SUNSHINE—I STILL HAVEN’T GOT MY FIST ROUND THIS WOMAN’S PURSE. SO, MUST RUSH NOW. OH, YOU MIGHT WANT TO GRIT YOUR TEETH. NOW. THIS IS WHERE IT GETS NASTY: TY:

  PICTURE THE SCENE. BEX IS ON HER HANDS AND KNEES ON THE BATHROOM FLOOR. SHE’S BARE ARSED. HER TOOTHBRUSH, A NOVELTY BART SIMPSON ONE, STANDS NEATLY IN ITS GLASS. HER FLANNEL’S ON THE SIDE OF THE BATH, ALL MOIST AND LIMP. THERE’S A CHIP IN THE BATH ENAMEL THAT LOOKS LIKE A SPIDER.

  GOT THE SCENE FIXED IN YOUR MIND, SUNSHINE?

  I’m kneeling on the floor behind her.

  My hands grip her waist. She’s shaking. I’ve been rough. I’ve been bloody rough. I can see her face in the mirror; her eyes are wide with shock and fear. Ten minutes ago, she might have screamed for me to get out. It’s gone too far for that now. I’m through that doorway inside her head. I’ve made the conquest. She’s an object. She’s feeling broken and used. She’s nothing now; she’s worth nothing; she is nothing… nothing at all. And she bastard-well knows it.

  I’ve won, I control this shy little woman … now, time for the execution…

  It’s funny, One part of me wants to tell her to scream, kick, fight, fight and fight against the submission. But meekly she puts her head to the floor as my hand presses down on the back of her neck.

  I whisper softly, “Now, Bexy, love, I’m going to make you bleed.”

  I do what I have to do. She bleeds heavily. The blood covers my hands. I leave jam red hand prints on her back. They stand out so vividly it mesmerizes me. Bloody hand prints, bloody finger prints, blood, blood, blood. She’s painted with blood as rich and as dark as a fingerlicking barbecue sauce.

  I’m not stopping now.

  Outside in the corridor a woman’s voice is singing gently. The song and the bleeding go well together. Softly running words… softly running blood beads across her back … they sort of merge.

  SO SUNSHINE, YOU KNOW HOW TO DO IT NOW. YOU’LL NEVER BE STRAPPED FOR CASH AGAIN, ALL YOU NEED TO REMEMBER IS TO… FUCK ME … THAT’S NOT RIGHT. WHERE’S IT GOING? IT’S JUST … HEY WHAT’S HAPPENING HERE?

  The blood is going, I mean it’s vanishing. I mean.., I don’t know what I mean … it’s making no sense…

  The blood is disappearing from her skin. At first I thought I’d wiped it off without thinking. But it isn’t that. It’s as if her skin is soaking up the blood like kitchen roll.

  Well, so what? I’m not Blood Professor of Kissmyprick University. Just take her money and go. You’ve got twenty minutes to get that leather jacket.

  And all the time that blood keeps soaking into her blotting paper body.

  Come on, time to take the money and run. On your feet. But I just can’t stand.

  Now she gives a laugh. The voice isn’t like the shy one she used in the wine bar. It’s richer, more satisfied. The same kind of sound old Fat Billy Bastard down the street makes when he’s eaten fish and chips, and fifteen slices of bread and margarine.

  I make it to my feet. Lose my balance, fall grabbing at the shower curtain… ping, ping, ping, it comes down on top of me.

  She smiles, purses her lips, then pulls the shower curtain aside and I see clustered all around my groin are tiny puncture marks in the skin. Blood oozes from them. They don’t hurt but I feel so… so fucking knackered.

  She sits astride my chest. There’s a pricking sensation on the skin just above my heart.

  I try to punch at that smiling face, those eyes shining like she’s just won first prize. My arms are too weak to lift. Rolling my head to one side I see my arms look like a balloon three weeks after Christmas. The tattoos are wrinkled.

  I look up at her. She seems bigger now.

  Now I feel like a dried up crust lying there on the bathroom tiles,

  I try to shout as she looks in the mirror and wipes something off her lip, When she hears the poisoned cat whine I’m making she looks back down at me. The face is cold. There’s no emotion now. I’m over and done with, used up: nothing.

  Nonchalantly, she picks me up by one of my arms. I hang like I’m a damp bath towel as she carries me through into the bedroom. She switches on the television, pours herself a mineral water. She lays me on the case with the ugly dolls. They are the same size as me. They look as if they’ve lost their stuffing; they’re limp and wrinkled and dead looking. Only their eyes gleam bright as glass. Outside in the corridor, people are walking by. I cry out for help. My voice is faint but I’m sure they’ll hear me.

  The woman frowns, looks at me, as if she’s suddenly aware of a minor irritation. Like an insect buzzing against the window.

  Then, as if she’s done it a million times before, she picks up the stapler with one hand, pinches together both my lips with the finger and thumb of her other h
and.

  She staples my lips shut. The sound the staple makes as it brutally pierces skin and muscle is like a horse crunching celery; the noise is somehow far more shocking than the pain. Then she lays me in the case and closes the lid.

  The darkness is complete. I know I can never say another word. And somewhere, faraway in the night, a dog begins to howl: it is ghost music for a lost boy, who will dance though eternity.

  Forever lost.

  Forever alone.

  Live Wire

  Exhibit 1: C90 Audio Cassette.

  Case: Markham, John Stephen.

  I’ll do it.

  I’ve thought it through.

  I’m just going to get up. And walk through that door.

  At worst, I can only die.

  They’re out there. They’re waiting. If I turn round I can see them pressed to the kitchen window.

  Oh… She loved me once. Perhaps she’ll forgive me. She won’t hurt me, I know she… I know…

  Right… I’m alright… I’ve got a mugful of vodka, I’m calm.

  Now. I’ll tell you what happened.

  Listen. My name is John Markham. Age: Thirty four—no thirty five. And here I am. Alone. In a rail worker’s cottage slap in the middle of bloody nowhere talking into this cassette deck. I’m a signal man on the London-Leeds line. What more do you need to know about me?

  I’m six foot, I stopped believing in God when I was ten years old, I can eat Marsbars until they come out of my ears, I once played electric guitar in a rock band.

  Oh… And three weeks ago I murdered my wife.

  Why?

  Simple. Another woman.

  When married men first commit adultery it makes them feel so bloody good. Suddenly, you cheat, you scheme, you’re the cleverest guy in the world.

  Well, I conned myself, believing life with Suzie would be heaven on Earth. So. I killed Louise.

  It seemed so easy. I rigged the overhead power lines that feed the locos, so they were pouring all their juice—twentyfive thousand blinding volts—into the metal handle of our garden gate. You see, the railway runs by the garden. There are no other houses nearby. So one evening when she’s pruning roses I appear with two carrier bags of shopping and say quite casually, “Louise, these bags weigh a ton. Open the gate, love.”

  Somehow I thought it’d be clean. Just falling asleep,

  I wasn’t ready for that.

  Smiling at me, she reached for the metal catch.

  BANG!

  Her whole body flickered like an old silent film—a blue-white flickering light that stung my eyes. She looked at me all the time. Looked, as her face blistered and bubbled and blackened. Her tongue came out stiff and purple, like a finger pointing at me, accusing me of every crime in creation, and all the time her teeth champing, biting on it until it split in two.

  Well… Verdict?

  Suicide.

  She’d climbed the pylon and touched the cable. So they said.

  Who am I, a failed musician, a piss-poor railman to argue?

  Yesterday, I started work for the first time again.

  I didn’t feel good. I didn’t feel bad. Just empty. Cold. I did my job that’s all. Suzie? She found another love and flew south. Funny—I didn’t give a toss.

  Well. A fine day. Hazy sunshine. Mild. I sat high in my signal box, king of my castle. The trains passed, the contacts sparking against the wires. Sometimes drivers waved.

  Then came a lull.

  I looked out at the cables and track that ran away from my left and my right to the horizon.

  Usually the wires had a silver sheen.

  Today, they turned pink.

  I should have known.

  Should have.

  Didn’t.

  “A trick of light, John,” I told myself. “Just a trick of the light.”

  I made myself a coffee, using the electric kettle. An ancient thing furred up to the element.

  Now the flex was messed with crap.

  Stuck to the rubber coating, from end to end, were pink blobs. The size of rice grains, they were a moist pink, and for some reason, not all that pleasant to look at.

  I don’t remember thinking, “What are they?” My numb brain only checked if there were more of them.

  There were.

  They stuck to every bit of electrical equipment in the place. Light switches were sticky with them. They rashed along power cables; clustered round the mouth and earpieces of the telephone. Like those little sea anemones glued to rocks.

  And the more I looked, the more I felt I should be trying to work out what they were. I shivered. This wasn’t nice. My numb brain acknowledged that much.

  And it acknowledged they were swelling. Now they looked like tiny starfish, pink, moist with four legs and—

  Christ… You know the feeling that cracked through me?

  That almost knowing. That half understanding.

  Like your swimming in the ocean. Where it’s so deep the water turns black. And treading water, you look down to see a pale shape torpedo beneath you.

  You don’t know what it is… Scared? You are. You are shit your pants scared. Don’t think, you tell yourself, don’t think “SHARK”.

  Because if you do. You panic. You’re dead.

  Outside. The live overhead wires were thickening up. I mean the entire cable was sheathed in thick, wet pink.

  Shark.

  SHARK.

  This it. I had to look. I had to know.

  I searched out the lense old man Porter used to study the sports pages. Then I thumb-nailed a single pink blob off the phone.

  I looked hard. I looked until I was panting and sweating pig-like.

  Oh, I swear to God, there in the palm of my hand.

  It was her.

  Louise.

  Eyes closed. Still. A minute pair of breasts. Black pubic hair the size of a full-stop. She seemed asleep, like the hundreds of times I’d seen her before, flat on her back across our double bed.

  My Louise. She was coming back.

  Then something gave way inside. I crashed on the chair, unconscious—blissfully, sweetly, innocently unconscious.

  You know, this world is bastard cruel. It wouldn’t let me die there in my sleep.

  I woke to pinkness.

  Pink blobbed telephone. Pink signal controls. Everything electrical coated with this disgusting jelly—pink, wet. Trembling.

  I’d slept two hours. Where were the trains? Alarms should be splitting my eardrums.

  Only silence. That pink, pink silence. The electric clock had stopped at 12:14. I tried the pink jelly light switches. No light.

  That was it! That pink muck was sucking the juice right out of the mains, feeding on it, growing into something I never wanted to see.

  I knew then I had to look outside. I had to see what had happened to the loco power lines that were alive with twenty-five thousand volts of pure power.

  Oh, Jesus, sweet Jesus…You heartless bastard!

  Where are you now!

  While I’d slept madmen had used the high voltage cables as washing lines.

  Told myself that. To stop my head splitting like a chopped cabbage.

  They—the madmen, the madmen—had hung out pink jumpsuits. Mile after mile of them, stringing out in a neat line to the horizon. Legs swinging gently in the breeze the way washing does on a line; the arms pinned to the wire. They were pink, a fleshy pink, the colour you turn after a too-hot bath. And they were still moist from the madman’s washing machine.

  I went down to the track. There I finally accepted the truth.

  The jumpsuits were bodies, thousands of bodies—picture them!—naked, pink female bodies, all identical, hanging by their hands from the live wire like a Nazi massacre. All had their backs to me. I couldn’t see their faces.

  Each bore a birthmark in the shape of a letter C on the left buttock.

  Louise had one.

  Each had dark hair.

  Like Louise.

  I didn’t scream or tr
y and beat my head against the steel rail. I just watched.

  I was watching when they slowly turned their thousand heads and looked at me.

  Oh. That expression. The hurt.

  Louise.

  Then, one by one, they dropped from the wire like ripe fruit falling from a branch.

  Somehow I made it home, locked the doors and tried to build an impregnable fortress around me out of vodka. Ha, stupid twat.

  All murderers confess. So they say.

  I’m confessing into this tape deck. It’s battery powered, so it seems okay. With no blank cassette I taped over my only Hendrix bootleg. God, I loved that tape.

  Louise. She spoilt everything in the end.

  So here I am. A rat in a trap. Without a God, without so much as a fucking ten bob saint to save me. Shit…

  Outside… Well, the fields are pink with Louise. She’s followed me home. I’ve nowhere to run.

  Even as I talk those pink blobs are rashing over the fridge, cooker, microwave; a dozen pink hands are squeezing out of the ceiling strip light. They look like swollen cows’ udders. Yeah, she’s coming into the house. Bit by bit.

  Right…

  I’ve come to the end. There’s no more to say.

  I’m standing.

  I’m opening the door.

  I’m here, Louise.

  I’m—

  (Tape continues a further thirty-two minutes. Identifiable sounds: None.)

  Exhibit 2: Torn Brown Envelope Bearing Pencilled Message.

  SHE HELD ME TO THE WIRE

  NOW I AM THOUSANDS

  SHE WILL TORTURE US FOREVER

  I’M SO SORRY GOD

  PLEASE GOD

  LET US DIE

  I

  I am disliked by everybody.

  People cross the street to meet people they like. I see their eyes light up with happiness at seeing a familiar face. No-one has worn such an expression when they see me. If anything, it’s: “Oh Jesus. Not him again.”

  Sometimes a person will be in a position where they are forced to talk to me. I sit, for example, next to someone on a train or I’ve joined a society for people with similar interests to my own. And when they talk to me I see that look again on their face. The smile becomes fixed. The conversation is polite but empty of the remotest shred of warmth or interest. They look round as hungry as a dog caught by the RSPCA, hungry for a way out of the conversation. Usually they’ve just seen a friend they need to speak to as a matter of enormous urgency, and yes, oh yes, they’ll be right back.