Garbage Man (25 page)

‘It's started.'

***

All along the canal side of the towpath, there was movement. The weeds shook and trembled and the water rippled.

Out of the corner of his eye, Kev thought he saw shapes swimming in the murky water. Up ahead, Jenny was sprinting. He'd never seen her move so fast. There was an unevenness to her running gait because of the missing toe but it didn't slow her down. Every few paces she hurdled some agglomeration of rubbish that had squirmed into her path and moments later he was forced to do the same.

Bloated black worms of rubbish overflowed from the canal every few feet. Kev thanked God they were so cumbersome but he was afraid too that their lack of mobility was some kind of bluff and that, at any time, they might lash out and bring both him and Jenny down.

They reached the canal bridge where the towpath let up onto the road. Jenny hammered up the slope and he followed, already fishing for the car keys. He pressed the fob, the locks sprung open and they shut themselves inside. He fumbled the key into the ignition with shaking fingers, started the car on the third attempt and left rubber on the tarmac as they screeched away.

***

There was no sustained sense of relief. As Kevin drove, he saw more crawling, writhing shapes in the fields and, as they neared town, in the alleys and streets of Shreve. Groups of kids poked some of the bags with sticks or laid into them with booted feet. In other places people backed away when the numbers of trash things seemed too great.

‘Where the hell are they all coming from?' he said, not really expecting an answer.

‘From the landfill,' said Jenny.

‘How do you know that?'

‘I just know it.'

He was about to ask her again when she said,

‘Kev, where are you taking us?'

‘Home.'

‘Why? Don't you think we should be trying to get as far away as possible?'

She was right, of course. She was thinking. He was panicking.

He took a left turn, heading for the ring road. From there they could reach the motorway and go north or south. Anywhere, as long as it was away from Shreve. But the traffic was mounting. Kev didn't think anyone in the cars and trucks had realised yet that it was time to leave town, but the sight of the trash things invading Shreve was causing accidents. In front of them two cars had smashed into the back of a local bus. The driver had got out to dispute whose fault it was but now all parties were merely watching the laboured progress of the landfill creatures converging from every direction.

Kev drove around the knot of gawping drivers from the accident, almost colliding head-on with a speeding Land Rover. They both braked and Kev pushed through the gap, ignoring the horn and abusive shouts from the other driver.

They hit the ring road and the driving was better. There were no landfill creatures to distract anyone. Kev took the slip road that led off the bypass and out towards the motorway. Up ahead another car had done the same. The driver had seen the pile of ‘rubbish' spilled all across the road and had tried to drive over it. Kevin imagined the man's annoyance as the nails and blades hidden inside the self-sacrificing creatures had punctured all his tyres like a stinger trap. The man had stepped out of his car and was screaming now. Something in the mass of trash at his feet had a hold of him. He was trying to tear his leg out of its grip. Kevin saw blood welling through the man's trousers, a whitening of the man's face. The man stumbled and fell to his knees. He put out one hand to stop himself going down all the way and when he regained his balance he brought the hand up again. All four fingers were gone.

Jenny stifled her scream with two hands over her mouth.

‘We've got to help him,' said Kev.

‘No. It's too late. Turn around, Kev. Turn us around before we get stuck out here.'

He checked his mirrors. Another car was pulling up behind them on the slip road. He flicked on his hazard lights and put the Z3 into reverse. A second turn put him onto the hard shoulder. He passed the approaching car of a woman making wank signals to him through the glass. Down on the ring road he rejoined the flow of traffic to more blaring horns.

‘I'll try the next exit.'

Jenny said nothing. She didn't even nod.

Half a mile further along he signalled and pulled off the ring road again. This time he was ready for the road block and saw it long before they came close. A moving tide of rubbish had stretched right across the slip road. None of it moved. It was waiting. He turned the car around between the hard shoulder and the gravel verge.

Back on the ring road traffic was building up.

‘Where the fuck are we going to go?'

‘I'm thinking,' said Jenny. ‘Just give me a minute.'

‘I'm not sure how many minutes we've got.'

***

Mavis Ahern lay in bed with damp cotton pads over her closed eyes. She was dressed in a white blouse and navy cardigan, a calf-length grey skirt, tights and flat shoes. The curtains were drawn shut to keep out the light.

She'd come back to bed and lain this way since the sparkles at the edge of her vision had begun that morning. The sparkles had become streaks of blue lightning. Thunder followed in the form of pulses of agony that burst inside the entire right-hand side of her head. Her coffee and cornflakes made a swift reappearance. Traces of them stained her cardigan. She didn't care. After seeing herself in the mirror; her face grey, the vein in her right temple raised by internal pressure, she'd gone directly to bed.

It was years since she'd had a migraine. She thought she'd outgrown them. This one had started as she watched two boys kissing behind the pavilion. They couldn't have been more than eleven years old. One boy had unzipped the other's baggy cargo pants. Put his hand inside. Flash. Crackle. The auras had begun.

Why had the migraines returned? Was it some kind of punishment?

Maybe it was because Tamsin had gone as far as threatening her with a knife. Perhaps the shock of that was only now sinking in. Her plan to reunite the Dohertys in the sight of the Lord had failed utterly. Kevin had left the marriage home. It could not have gone more wrong.

She was filled with doubts.

Had God deserted her? Left the neighbourhood? The whole town? Given up and abandoned it to eat itself away from the inside?

She was so sick now, she hadn't the energy to look for a sign that He still loved her. The room pressed in around her. Icy sweat dripped from her head, palms and armpits. Her sense of smell was enhanced to the point where the insides of her nostrils felt stripped raw. She tried to breathe only through her mouth because the slightest smell made her nausea worse.

Her pulse was erratic. Each beat was a clap of agony inside her head. The irregularity of it was frightening; her heart not beating the right time, losing its rhythm. She tried not to worry about it. She tried not to think. Thinking only made it all worse. Keeping the image of the two boys from her mind was almost impossible. It hung there at the edge of her consciousness, waiting for her guard to come down. Whenever she drifted close to sleep, instead of being released from the pain, she saw the boys. The furtive glances, their innocent, inexpert hands, their trembling excitement. She would snap back to wakefulness and sickness and pain.

She didn't know how long she'd lain there. Hours, it had to be, but how many she didn't know. She ignored the urge to urinate at first and even succeeded in convincing her body it didn't need to go. Twice she'd managed the trick of it but now the urge had returned, insistent and demanding. She would not be able to trick herself again nor sleep through it. Sooner or later she'd have to get up and face the agonies that a sudden change of blood pressure would cause her.

It was time.

She turned her palms to the mattress, ready to ease herself upright.

From downstairs came the muffled sound of glass breaking and wood, the door-frame perhaps, being - what? - kicked?

More glass shattered. There was a scraping sound. She recognised it: the back door had been opened.

Strange how both the urge to pee and the intensity of pain receded as she listened. From downstairs she heard thumps and dragging sounds. Deliberate, determined movements. She imagined a man, deformed somehow, limping from the back door across the lino in the kitchen and onto the hallway carpet. Was someone hurt perhaps? Mr. Siscombe from next door having a heart attack and struggling to find help? She couldn't just lie there. She had to check.

More quietly than she would have done minutes earlier, she pushed herself into a sitting position and swung her legs out of bed. The pads fell from her eyes. Her vision turned gritty white and the room spun away from her. The pain struck her like a tsunami. For several moments she didn't even know if she was still sitting or if she'd fallen back onto the bed. She couldn't stop the sickness then. She just sat forward and let her stomach clench and cramp. There was nothing in it and she racked one dry spasm after another until finally a dribble of pale green bile rose and slipped from her lips onto her grey skirt. This seemed to satisfy her stomach and the retching ceased. The chartreuse liver-mucus seeped into the rough fabric.

The white-out must have robbed her of a few seconds because now the noise of dragging and stumping was on the stairs. Nearing the top. There was definitely an urgency to the movement. A kind of desperation.

Her bladder was a bag of needles. Even so, she didn't believe she'd be able to stand.

The smell of sewage and rot hit her and her eyes widened in utter revulsion. The vomiting began again. This time the bile was dark green and coagulated. Its bitterness made her nausea worse. She heaved and heaved until it seemed her head would burst.

And then the thing that had broken into her house and dragged itself up the stairs came into view and she knew what it was. God had sent His retribution. She had failed Him despite every effort to serve. Now He had sent a creature to escort her downwards, away from Him forever, unblessed and discarded.

She didn't know what it was. It had no name. It had five ‘arms' which it used as legs. It was fashioned of junk and animal parts and filth. It dragged a long fat body and left a wet trail of excrement on her carpet. A long-bodied spider without enough legs to move properly. It was searching for something. It used its arms to point its front end in one direction and then the other - hers. Its eyes were the loops from the handles of scissors. Its teeth were the ends of dozens of knitting needles. They clicked as it saw her. It dragged itself into her bedroom.

The thing was almost comical. It was impossible to believe it was real. The pain had elevated her awareness and reality had become a kind of farce now. Here came the shit spider with its stunted arms and comedy teeth. Here came its leaking body behind it. Clickety-click went the shit spider's chattery teeth. Snip, snip went its scissor-hole eyes. It was no higher off the ground than a small terrier. Along it came and she watched. She might have giggled if she knew it wouldn't have hurt her to do so.

The shit spider crawled closer, all the while blinking its eyes and clacking its remnant jaws. It took hold of her left leg with surprising strength; the grip was as sudden and strong as a sprung animal trap. The comedy went out of it all when it bit off half of her left foot. Until then, there'd never been pain worse than a migraine. The scream that had been waiting in the wings like an actor with only one line made its entrance.

The shit spider was hungry.

It bit and swallowed but did not chew.

She watched all this with inquisitive terror. The smell of waste filled her nostrils until they burned ammonia white.

Both her feet were gone.

Mavis Ahern allowed her bladder to release.

She thought of her roses. How from the muck good things would come. She had been wrong. So very, very wrong.

18

He wasn't happy with her decision but he couldn't think of anywhere better. Time was the only factor and so he agreed.

The Shreve Tertiary College car park was only a quarter full. It was Saturday, a day mainly for adult learners and weekend courses of a less academic nature. Kev pulled up right outside the front entrance and Jenny got out. When he didn't follow her, she walked around to the driver's side. He lowered the window.

The sound of sirens came from every direction. Smoke rose from various points on the horizon. Whether people realised it or not, Shreve was beginning to come to a halt. On the main steps of the college, students stood in frowning groups, not yet aware of what was happening.

‘Aren't you coming in?' She asked.

‘Yes. But not yet.'

‘You're going to get her, aren't you?' He looked away.

‘I can't just leave her there with these things. I can't just let her die, Jenny. I'd never forgive myself. Trust me, babe. I love you but I have to do this. I've got no choice.'

‘Kev, please . . . I know she's your wife . . . I know you probably still love her but -'

‘Jen, it's not that. I just -'

‘What I'm saying is, I don't care about her or what happens to her. I care about you. You've got to come back to me, Kev. Promise me you'll come back.'

He took her hand.

‘I'm coming back, Jen. I swear it.'

***

Morning found Mason Brand shaved and dressed in clothes that had not come out of the wardrobe for several years. They smelled musty at first so he'd aired them on a ladder outside the back door.

In the predawn light, the garden was nothing more than untended fruitfulness turning into waste ground. Nothing moved out there. Whatever tide had drawn so close to his shore had ebbed far, far away.

The shaving didn't go well.

He cut off as much of his beard as he could with scissors. Then he used the only thing sharp enough in the house to finish the job - the knife he'd honed intending to kill himself. It did not lack for keenness - it was merely the wrong shape and several times he poked himself with the sharp end, eliciting a wince and a very willing blood flow. Finally, he managed to get most of his face smooth. He left long sideburns and a tuft under his chin where he'd nearly taken the top off his adam's apple.