Salt Snake and Other Bloody Cuts Read online

  The heat from the oven hit him like a concrete slab. Winded, he wanted to gasp for air but he knew he must hold his breath or the heat would reduce his lungs to paste. Through the eye holes he saw his goal. He waded through the sea of flame, pushing aside corpses that waited patiently in line to file through the doorway.

  He could see nothing but blazing yellow. Adrenaline and solpadol quashed the pain but he knew he was burning; he could feel the itch of bubbling skin on his back and arms; his hair singed into a molten cap inside his helmet.

  He fought his way through the line of burning corpses. Now faces lunged into view, flames jetting out of mouths and ears, eyeballs popped with a puff of steam; faces peeled away like they were plastic masks. He felt hands grip his arms. They’re attacking me, he thought panic struck. But then he realised they were helping him. The burning dead supported and guided him towards the doorway; they knew his need was greater than theirs.

  There it was. He was six feet from the doorway of burning coffins. Beyond—lush meadows, sprinkled with a million golden dandelions like stars, willows swayed in a light breeze; and in the distance the mountain with the human face. It was smiling.

  The flames were eating into his hands now, fingernails went black and spalled from the fingers; the skin bubbled red and brown like pizza in an oven, but:

  “I’m there! I’m going through! Oh, thank God! Thank God?

  A six year old child, grossly humped with tumors, stood in his way; eagerly he pushed it away where it burst against a wall like fried egg yolk.

  Nearly there!

  But clumsy in his suit, Danny’s flailing arm brushed the burning doorway. He hardly touched it but it toppled. It hit the floor in a cascade of sparks that streamed up into his masked face like a machine gun tracer.

  Howling now, more from frustration than pain, he swung round at the burning corpses who stood placidly watching him. “Work, you bastards… Work!”

  They had to build another doorway. They had to do it quickly. Wood coffins were becoming ash. Gaping holes appeared in his suit letting the flames lick his skin. Through his eyeholes, he saw his hands trailing skin, grab at coffins and begin to stack them.

  Inside his head his mind detonated into splinters; one screamed with burning agony; one, insanely optimistic, believed he could build another doorway in time and slip through into cool, cool paradise; the other realistic, knew time was running out. He’d blown his one and only chance of heaven; that soon the fist size chunk of muscle that beat in his chest would, like a worn out engine, begin to judder.

  And finally stop.

  A Biter Bit

  “What is he going to do to us?”

  The big man in the skull and crossbones T-shirt and cowboy boots leered.

  “Search me, buster. But it’ll hurt like hell. You can be sure of that.”

  “We never touched the car. Honest to God, we never touched it.”

  Angrily, he shoved me back against the wall and started shouting; so close, the spit from his mouth sprayed my face.

  “Never touched it? Never fucking touched it? Just what were you two doing round here then? All this—the nightclub, this car park—is Mr White’s private property. When he parks his car here,” he jerked his thumb at a black Porsche, “he likes to think it’s safe from useless drunks like you. Three times in the last fortnight someone’s slashed his tyres, and now…”

  “We didn’t do it,” I said, wiping the spit from my face. “Like I said, we only wanted to find somewhere quiet for a drink. Anyway, we only got into town yesterday, so it couldn’t…”

  “Ahh…” The big man stabbed his forefinger into my chest so hard I thought my ribs would crack. “Sure, sure, we believe you. Sure as we believe pigs sprout bacon wings and fly round the friggin’ moon. Shit head!”

  I shrugged. “Do it then. Give us a good hiding and just get it over with.”

  This suggestion surprised him, and he stopped and looked back at his two bouncer mates as if in need of some backup.

  “Kick his face in, Pinner,” growled one.

  Pinner turned back to me.

  “What’s the game then? Usually you sort, if you’re not too pissed, beg a little bit first.” He grinned back at the other two. “That’s before we kick seven balls of shit out of you, that is.”

  I raised my chin and pointed at it. “Go on. Do it. Now.”

  The big man shook his head, puzzled.

  “You two have to be the weirdest boozers yet” He looked at the tall, skinny man who stood by my side. “What about your mate, then? Not saying much, is he?”

  “Emmerson never says anything. Leave him alone. If you want to beat someone black-and- blue… Me. I’m the one.”

  “No way.” Pinner paused to wipe a mark from his highly-polished, brown cowboy boots. “Mr White is really… upset about his car. He’s only had it a month, you see. So he’s going to attend to you two gentlemen personally. Right.” He nodded at one of the bouncers—a huge moon-faced bloke who looked like an ex-wrestler.

  “Jock, you watch these two. Were going back inside. Mr White’H be tied up until we close tonight. Stevie’ll give you a break soon.”

  The bouncer grunted an affirmative.

  “Mr White wants to wet his hands with some blood tonight. If these two leg it, it might just be yours, Jock. All right?”

  Briefly I heard the thud-thud-thud of music as they opened the fire exit door, then it was silent again.

  It was too dark to see much. Just a couple of cars in the car park lit by street lamps. A mile away, floodlights shone on the winding gear and buildings of a coal mine next to which a black slag heap rose up into the night sky like some weird mountain built from the same stuff as hell.

  I thought of running, but Emmerson could hardly walk, let alone run. All I could do was stand there with the night wind blowing through my ripped old army coat and wait. The thug stared at me like he wanted to cut me up—one bloody lump at a time.

  I pulled Emmerson’s sleeve. He didn’t respond, but gazed across at the brilliant pit lights like he was seeing something no one else could. Knowing Emmerson, maybe he was.

  “You all right?” I whispered. “You had enough to drink?”

  A long pause. Then, a nod. A slow one.

  “Good, good. Let me know if you need more.” People drink for different reasons (and I’m not talking about social drinking here), but usually the result’s the same: it kills the pain, whether it’s in your body or in your heart. Drink kills it dead. The pain of an affair that’s gone rotten, the pain of knowing you own nothing in the whole wide world, and you don’t know where your next meal is coming from.

  But Emmerson had his own special reason.

  And I made sure he had a regular supply—whisky, brandy, vodka (not gin, though, he reacted badly to that)—and if not spirits, lager, the strong stuff like Carlsberg Special Brew, Stella and Pils.

  Me, I drink too much for reasons of my own. Personal reasons. Anyway, they aren’t important here. I only wish to God they had been.

  We’d been drinking on and off since midday, so I reckoned Emmerson would be okay. Also, in my coat pocket reposed half a bottle of vodka—just in case.

  “We never touched the car, you know.”

  The bouncer whom Pinner had called Jock grunted, caveman-style. “Uhh… Shit.”

  “We just got into town.”

  “Shit… Uhh…”

  Jock wasn’t interested unless we ran, so I passed Emmerson the vodka. Better safe than sorry.

  “Don’t worry,” I whispered to Emmerson. “These blokes’ll knock us about a bit, but we can take that. We’ve been through worse, eh? Here, have another swallow.”

  The half bottle of Tesco vodka shone and sparkled in the lights of the coal mine. It looked as pure as fucking holy water. And, in Emmerson’s case, it worked miracles, too.

  “Hey, Jock! What you doing?”

  The voice belonged to Pinner. It sounded vicious.

  “This isn’t a flaming
cocktail party y’know.”

  Jock gave a wordless grunt.

  Oi, you—stick man,” he barked at Emmerson. “No more. Understand?”

  Emmerson carried on drinking.

  “You listen, cretin,” spat Pinner, and swung a high kick at Emmerson. The polished toe of the cowboy boot stabbed deep into Emmerson’s gut. With a weird coughing sound, Emmerson folded like a thin pole breaking in two. There was no expression on his face; his two skinny arms were just wrapped tightly around his stomach as he knelt there on the white gravel.

  Then he did something I had never seen him do before.

  He retched.

  Everything he’d drunk for the past three hours came heaving out in a steaming pool.

  “Oh Christ,” I panted, feeling something cold move into my spine. “Oh Christ. Why did you have to do that?”

  The two thugs laughed and Pinner picked up the vodka bottle and emptied it onto the floor. “You’ll listen to me in future won’t you, buster?” Chortling, he went back into the nightclub.

  We waited. Jock, said nothing and smoked cigarettes, his stupid face set solid. Leaning back against the wall, I felt the booze gradually wear off. I prayed that their precious Mr White would get himself outside and do whatever it was he so badly wanted to do to us. I kept telling myself that; if Emmerson hadn’t thrown up, we’d have been all right. We could have gone to the supermarket as soon as it opened and bought those lovely golden cans of Carlsberg Special Brew, then everything would have been fine. Emmerson would have been fine.

  The whole damn world would have been fine.

  But everything was not fine.

  The contents of Emmerson’s stomach were seeping away through the gravel, and Emmerson himself…

  I studied him closely.

  No…

  It had begun.

  Emmerson’s eyelids were thick and puffy; the lines on his face, normally as thin as a goat’s, had vanished; the skin was smooth, making him look fifteen years younger.

  This sudden age loss was caused by his face swelling. That, in turn, chilled me through to the backbone. I looked at his hands. They were swelling too.

  I began to pace between the black Porsche and the wall of the nightclub. It was all going wrong. Everything I had worked for was unraveling. I bit my knuckle. I couldn’t control it any longer. It was out of my hands.

  Emmerson stared blankly at the coal-mine lights. He didn’t move; no expression altered his blank face.

  Perhaps it would be okay, perhaps we’d make it after all, perhaps… No…

  Emmerson undid the top three buttons of a shirt that now looked three sizes too small for him. Then he licked his lips. A long, slow lick. His tongue (which also was swollen) slid slowly from left to right over his dry mouth.

  As dawn approached, turning the sky a mass of peachy tints, Mr White stepped out of the nightclub. He was accompanied by Pinner, who now leered even more broadly. White was dressed in a pale cream suit, red silk tie and handmade shoes and he toyed with a clunking gold identity bracelet which hung about one wrist. As he weighed us up, he stood the way most men who wield power stand—facing us square, legs unnaturally wide apart, as if waiting for someone to run a wheelbarrow between them. Normally, the sight would have made me laugh. Not now though. I knew what was brewing.

  “These the two?”

  His voice was low. White did not need to shout in order to maintain authority.

  “Yes, Mr White,” Pinner said deferentially.

  “I thought you said one was tall and skinny?”

  Pinner pointed in astonishment at Emmerson.

  “That was him. When I left him a couple of hours ago he was as thin as a rake.”

  “Pinner, my old son,” White lit a cigar as thick as his thumb. “You need an eye test. Look at him. He’s as plump as your mother-in-law.”

  The pair of thugs laughed the way people do when their boss cracks a joke. Loudly—and far too long. But I could see that Pinner was troubled.

  White turned his eyes on me. They were hard and cunning.

  “You’ve been messing with my car: My beautiful new car. Why?”

  “Give my friend a drink, Mr White. Please… he needs a drink, desperate.”

  My request surprised him.

  “A drink? A drink? Sure, whatever you want.” he looked round, “Jock, run and get a bottle of champagne for our friends. Oh, and make sure it’s chilled.”

  Jock looked as though he was about to obey.

  “Stay where you are, cloth-head.” White turned back to us. “You two are brass-faced, I’ll give you that. You pissing-well vandalise my car, then you calmly stand there and ask for free drinks. Who the hell do you think you are?”

  “Please, Mr White.” I was trembling—but not for reasons White would understand. “A drink. Please. Anything. He needs one. And… and we didn’t touch your car. We’re new here, we don’t…”

  “That’s it,” Pinner exclaimed, with relief. “I knew there was something wrong with this bloke. He was dead skinny when we got him—a damn bean pole! Now look at him. He’s ballooning. Look at the size of his neck.”

  “You’re right, Pinner. It’s his liver.” White nodded knowledgeably. “The booze’ll have turned it hard as boot leather. The bastard’s filling up with fluid.” He pointed the cigar at Emmerson. “You don’t need a drink, mate, you need intensive care.”

  He laughed and the others joined in.

  I glanced back at Emmerson and felt a lurch in my gut; his eyes were coming into focus. For longer than I could remember he’d worn that dazed, dreamy look. For twenty years I’d kept him drunk; now, at long last, he was sobering up.

  I saw him look round and begin to take notice of his surroundings: the white gravel car park, the black Porsche, the ground that sloped down into a shallow valley then reared up steeply into the slag-heap with the pit itself to one side.

  Then I saw it. Like lots of other things that night it was something I’d not seen in nearly two decades. My stomach churned. He had swallowed a hard and deliberate gulping motion as if exercising muscles he’d not used in years. The flesh on his bloated throat shook like jelly.

  White said: “Fat boy. You still want a drink? Whisky and lemonade? Martini Rosso? Babycham… with a cherry?”

  The three of them laughed. It was a sound I hated.

  Emmerson slowly shook his massive head. “No… No… I… I… I…”

  I knew what that grunting voice would say; I just knew.

  He spoke.

  “Food…”

  “Food? You want food now?” said White in mock concern.

  Again the heavy nod.

  And Emmerson’s voice rumbled: “Food… I want… To eat… NOW.”

  “No, Emmerson,” I shouted wildly. “No. We’ll get you a drink, anything you want, I…”

  The slap across my face shut me up. White pointed at me angrily.

  “I’ve had enough of your games. Interfering with a man’s car is like interfering with his woman—it hurts. Do you understand that? It bleeding well hurts. Now…” White pulled a Stanley knife from his pocket. “Now, I’m going to mark you for life, you shit head.”

  But the blade, glinting in the dawn light, didn’t interest me. I was watching Emmerson.

  White and Jock stood facing me with their backs to Pinner and Emmerson. As for Emmerson… He was staring at Pinner’s bare arm, as if he had seen something small but intensely interesting stuck to his left elbow.

  “I am… HUNGRY” Emmerson grunted wetly.

  “Sure, sure,” Pinner said not looking at him, “you can chew on my size eleven boot in about three minutes’ time.”

  “But first, the lippy bastard,” said White, almost softly. “I’m going to hang his ear on my key ring. Something to remember him by.”

  Emmerson reached up a hand—now a massive paw all swollen and pulpy—and took hold of Pinner’s bare arm at the elbow.

  “Hey, what’s the game, Fatso?” At first Pinner laughed in disbe
lief. “Let go. You’ll get yours in a minute.”

  White chuckled. “Looks as if he’s got a crush on you, Pinner.”

  Crush… I could see Emmerson’s great clamp of a hand tightening.

  Slowly… Slowly…

  “Hey… Fatso. Let go, or I’ll break your neck.”

  Emmerson did not let go and when Pinner punched him he might as well have punched the nightclub wall.

  Hey! Get him off me. Mr White… Mr White!”

  The panic tightened Pinner’s voice. “Mr White, he’s…”

  White and Jock spun round; what they saw nailed their feet to the earth. Now Emmerson was panting excitedly, like something dead that had been shocked back to life by lightning. Huge breaths, a wet crackling sound like a man with bronchitis hawking sputum up from his throat.

  “Mr White… Ah… The bastard’s hurting. He’s… Ah!” Emmerson stared at the arm in his grip, fascinated.

  By this time, White’s cigar had drooped out of his gaping mouth and he stared stupidly at the scene.

  “Get him off me,” begged Pinner hysterically “Ah! White, listen you stupid bastard!”

  Jock recovered from his astonishment enough to make a clumsy charge at Emmerson, but the giant hardly noticed. He shrugged lazily and Jock spun through the air, the ex-wrestler s feet flipping higher than his head. When he hit the ground I felt the concussion bite through the soles of my shoes.

  Jock lay still.

  Pinner looked into Emmerson’s eyes and his sanity gave way. “No… Nooo-owe… Oh… Ohhhh..” he screamed. He was still screaming when his arm snapped. At this point, Emmerson switched his attention to Pinner’s forehead. He bent his massive head, now bigger than a bull’s, towards it.

  For one mad moment I thought Emmerson was going to kiss him. But the mouth stretched wider and the wet hawking sound grew faster. His lips touched the top of Pinner’s head.

  The screams rang back from the nightclub walls.

  Slowly, smoothly, Emmerson’s gaping mouth began to pass over the top of the screaming man’s head, over Pinner’s frantic eyes, down over his nose. Then they were over that howling mouth.