Salt Snake and Other Bloody Cuts

  I want to go home, he said to himself. Want to go home. Want Mum and Dad. Even baby

  sister Carol would be nice to see now. Wanted to go home, shut the door and…

  DANGER. KEEP OFF. UNSAFE STRUCTURE.

  He stood there shaking, staring at the fencing that sealed off the bridge. No way home. Not unless you counted swimming the murky river, but John couldn’t swim. Or unless you somehow climbed down the sheer face of the railway cutting and ran across the tracks. He’d not do that either. He’d promised Mum faithfully never to walk on the tracks.

  The gatehouse. It was the only way home.

  He tried many times over the course of the afternoon. Every time he got close to the gatehouse the door shrieked open and there was the man with the red face, shouting so furiously at John that he wanted to cry. People walked in the park or played football, but no one noticed the shouting man or John trying to join them in the park.

  He tried to climb the wall, but it was completely smooth. Then he waited for more people to enter the park via the gatehouse, so he could slip through with them. Surely the red-faced man wouldn’t shout at grown-ups?

  None came. No one could cross the broken bridge.

  At nightfall he crept back to the riverbank and curled up beneath a tree. He must have slept a long time, for when he woke he saw Ivan and the rest of the gang riding bikes along the riverbank. John was overjoyed. He ran after them, panting out their names, but he was running so fast he hadn’t the breath to shout loud enough for them to hear. Even so, he could only have been ten feet behind them as they cycled past the gatehouse into the park. He was sure he’d make it this time; he was running so very, very fast.

  He was almost through when he heard the shriek of rusty hinges and saw the red face looming at him from the darkness. The shouting man stood between him and the park again. No way through.

  John cried all the way back to the river. He curled up beneath a willow tree and cried for his Mum, his Dad, and his baby sister. Maybe if he waited long enough, he thought, the shouting man with his frightening red face would go away.

  John waited. It was not long before he saw a grown-up walking along the riverbank with a woman of the same age. The man had red hair, and looked like someone John knew. He looked like Ivan, and John wondered if Ivan had a big brother, but when he thought about it he knew that he hadn’t. He sneaked through the bushes to get a closer look. The man and the woman kissed each other and laughed. The man looked a lot like Ivan: he had the same colour eyes and the same freckles. He even had a white scar above his left eyebrow, exactly where Ivan had his.

  Why did this man look like a grown-up version of Ivan? John didn’t understand. But it troubled him as he tagged behind the courting couple.

  And he did not understand why this grown-up version of Ivan could walk hand-in-hand with his girlfriend, freely through the gatehouse archway and into the sunlit park, when as soon as John was within three paces of the gatehouse the door would shriek open and the shouting man with the frightening red face would block his entrance.

  John backed away to stare at the gatehouse, now feeling as much puzzled as scared. If it was so sunny in the park why had it become so cold and gloomy out here? Why didn’t his Mum and Dad come looking for him? Why was Ivan a grownup? His eyes pricked and a tear slid down his face. Why did the shouting man stop him from entering the park full of happy, smiling people? He didn’t know the answers. All John did know was that the shouting man, with a face the colour of spilt blood, would keep him outside the park.

  Forever.

  Feed My Children

  “You’re going underground, boy.”

  The big man enjoyed bellowing the words at the startled child so much that he repeated them. They came out in a fullblooded roar:

  “You’re going underground, boy! You’re going underground.”

  Barstow, a great bear of a man with a blood red face covered by moles that looked like the nuts of chocolate you get in chocolate chip cookies, grinned. A big animal grin that oozed with a lust that was nothing less than ferocious.

  “You boy! Stand still. Do… not… move… one… inch.”

  Terrified, the boy froze under the gnarled arms of the oak tree as if every muscle had locked tight with shock. “That’s a good boy.”

  Barstow made a sound in his throat that mated laughter with a snarl of triumph. He had caught the boy walking out of the quarry. This was Barstow’s secret place, where he came to sit beside the quarry pool, smoke cigarettes, and drink the beer he spiked with vodka. The quarry was his kingdom. He’d walk round the man made crater swearing at the oak trees, imagining they were his grovelling slaves, drink his vodkabeer cocktails and throw the cans into the quarry pool. He told the children that sometimes strayed here that the pool was bottomless—and that there were monsters in there—” Monsters in there, boy! Monsters that’ll eat you! Like you were a chicken drumstick. They’ll rip the meat from your bones and suck it right down into their bellies…”

  The little bastards would scream when he told them that. Not that Barstow minded. The quarry was a mile from the nearest house. No-one ever heard.

  Now he’d caught this scrawny little bastard coming out his quarry like he owned the damn place.

  Barstow looked the boy up and down. Aged what? Ten? Thin little face… Jeans with holes in the knee… T-shirt with two stupid faces on it and a stupid slogan: MARIO BROTHERS RULE THE WAVES. Stupid.

  The boy had frightened eyes that couldn’t keep still in his bastard head. They flashed like anything as they looked round. Probably looking for someone to keep him safe… or a place to run to.

  Go ahead, run all you want boy.

  “This is my property, boy. I own it. What ya’doing here?” Barstow pointed at him; the white carrier bag that held half a dozen cans of beer in his meaty hand. “Do you know you’re trespassing?”

  Well, Barstow felt he owned it. He’d been coming here to get pissed for twenty years. Oh… the fun he’d had when luck brought fun and games in the shape of a lively little youngster.

  “Talk to me, boy. If you don’t you’ll be going underground, boy.”

  The boy’s brown eyes went so wide they seemed to fill most of his face.

  Barstow rubbed his cheek, making the fat moles jiggle like they were only just rooted to his skin.

  “The law allows owners—free ’olders they’re called—to shoot trespassers. I’m the free ’older and I’ve got a gun in this bag. If I get it out I’ll blast you rotten with it. See?”

  The boy pressed back to the tree trunk.

  “So you’re not going to talk then, eh? That’s impertinence, eh? Don’t they teach you manners, eh?” Barstow took a step nearer the scared boy. “I’m going to learn you some important lessons.”

  Barstow gently put the bag of cans down on a rock and studied the boy who stood about fifteen paces away down the slope. Behind him the tree-covered slope continued down to the quarry pool; its water shone with the same green you get in cans of cheap peas. The sun was hot enough to distort the air over the steep, naked rock rim of the quarry. Once you were in here there was only one pathway out.

  Now for some fun. This was a dirty and naughty boy. The kind that tormented Barstow when he was at school. If he had an accident it would serve him right.

  Barstow pointed a shaking finger at the soil beneath the boy’s feet.

  “See that earth there, boy. If you were to dig there, you’d find bones. The bones of dirty boys and girls. They wouldn’t be all clean and white like you see on films. Oh no, when they’ve been underground for a while they turn into stew. You know what stew looks like—all brown and sloppy with bits of meat in. Well, buried bodies look like that. With bits of bone in and clothes and even the money they had in their pockets.” Barstow rubbed his chin, waggling the brown moles, he was feeling the beginnings of excitement now. “Sometimes I open up the soil myself to have a quick look at them… Fucking sticky and messy… Just like brown stew. Can you feel them squ
elch under your feet? Boys and girls just like you… But squelchy now. Smelly.”

  He took another step nearer the boy.

  The boy did not move. He stood there, shoulders hunched up to his ears, watching Barstow with those scared brown eyes.

  Move you stupid bastard, thought Barstow, disappointed. It wasn’t so much fun if they didn’t try and run away first.

  A mole sprouted from just beneath Barstow’s bottom lip. As big as a hazelnut and bristling with white hairs. Whenever he was confronted with a problem he would thoughtfully suck it. He did this now. Sucking the mole like it was a nipple: rough and hard, running his tongue across its bumps and cracks.

  This wasn’t fair. Barstow enjoyed a good chase round the quarry, laughing and shouting in his thundering voice. Of course he could catch them in two minutes flat but he’d spin it out, pretending to lose sight of them, or running like a breathless old man while knowing he could tear through the undergrowth like a gorilla on steroids, a huge bustling bear of a man that could frighten shit out of a bull.

  Barstow took another step nearer the boy. Still no movement. The runt was frightened stiff. Barstow sucked the mole nipple. Time for psychology.

  Barstow stopped as if he’d heard something startling. He changed the smile spreading across his mole-covered face into a look of fear.

  “Oh, God… Did you hear that?” Barstow pretended to sound scared. The boy looked round quickly. “Did you hear it? That’s the sound of ghosts. The ghosts of dead children coming up from the lake. They’re coming for you, boy!”

  This did it.

  The boy ran. Sometimes they ran down to the quarry, pool to hide where the trees were thickest. Sometimes they’d even find the cave behind the brambles and try and hide in there.

  They soon discovered someone had tried before. When they found old Smiler in the cave.

  Barstow grinned, listening to the sound of the boy crashing through the bushes as he ran down toward the pool.

  Smiler must have been in there three years now. Barstow had left him sitting against the end wall of the cave. Smiling.

  Barstow smiled himself, remembering. The youth had been about seventeen. He’d hidden in the cave while Barstow had teased him for a good two hours. Then Barstow walked into the cave to find the lad frozen in a state of shock. Barstow had simply tapped a six inch nail into the top of the youth’s head. Screamed his bloody head off when the nail went in though. Barstow had been tickled pink by the expression on the dead lad’s face. The mouth stayed frozen in the scream. Wide open, exposing the lad’s teeth with its V shape gap in the bottom.

  Barstow used to visit the youth regularly. The cave’s lack of humidity mummified the body and the screaming mouth began to look like a smile. Smiler. Barstow nodded, smiling. For some reason, though, the youth’s mouth seemed to be becoming larger and larger. Barstow couldn’t work out why. Shrugging happily, he followed the boy down the slope to the pool.

  Silly, dirty boy. The slope was fairly steep. Easy to run down but hard to run up. Especially when you’re exhausted and terrified. And he would be by the time Barstow had finished chasing him round the quarry.

  Barstow sucked his mole with anticipation. The dirty boy was going underground. Where he belonged.

  “I’m going to get you boy!” he growled, pushing the branches of the trees to one side without slowing his bustling stride. “Bad things happen to dirty little boys down here.” He paused. Brilliant sunlight blasted down through the gaps in the trees, turning the bushes into blocks of dazzling green. He listened. Bees buzzed through long grass.

  “Want to know what happened to the last one?” Barstow looked slowly round, like one of those closed circuit TV cameras in a shopping mall, turning to look into the black shadows beneath the trees. “The last one… God, he came to a bad end. Christ… Even I wished I hadn’t done that to him. I couldn’t eat my supper. I couldn’t sleep. All I could remember was what I’d done to him. Why… If I close my eyes now I can see his face. The way it looked when I—oh, I haven’t told you what I did to him yet, have I?”

  Pause. The boy was bound to be listening.

  “Well, this boy came riding round the quarry on a motorbike. Dirty little bastard woke me up. He was about seventeen. Looked as dirty as hell. Anyway, I knocked him off his bike. And I’ve got this ruddy great axe with me. You listening, boy? I had this axe. I chopped off his arms, then I chopped off his legs. No, wait. You haven’t heard the best bit. Then I chucked him in the pool; ninety feet of fucking cold water. No arms, no legs, how the hell could he swim? But he kept his head above water a good twenty minutes. I don’t know how he did it, unless he swam with his cock like a bloody seahorse.” Barstow laughed heartily. “And all the time he watched me, little head bobbing up and down, whimpering, with an I’m-going-to-tell-my-mummy-about-you expression on his face. Oh! I tell you, he turned that fucking lake as red as tomato ketchup!”

  A frantic scrabbling sound came from Barstow’s right. He spun round to face it. Get the little bastard. Twist his head right round!

  Barstow held out his arms ready to catch the boy if he should run past.

  More rustling. Then a blackbird flew up over Barstow’s shoulder. Clumsy fat bird. They make as much racket as kids.

  Barstow continued the hunt. Sometimes he bellowed gruffly, “Fee Fi Fo Fum…” Or he’d recall anecdotes about his victims. “Ever seen a human torch, boy? Or:” How fast can someone run with no feet?

  Barstow methodically tracked the boy (he wasn’t in the cave; Smiler smiled alone); he had to be down by the pool itself. On the little gravel beach between the quarry’s rock wall and ninety feet of cold water as green as pea soup.

  Barstow stepped across the knots of tree roots, his big muscular tongue working his mole. Nearly time to sort him out once and for all.

  “I’ll sort the dirty beggar out. I’ll sort him out,” he muttered under his breath. “Sorting out” was his euphemism for the execution. Once the dirty bastards were “sorted” they were no longer any trouble. Quiet. Pliant.

  Barstow dropped down onto the narrow band of damp gravel between the rock and the water.

  And there was the boy. With his arms wrapped round his knees he crouched pathetically near the water’s edge; his expression would have made a clown sob.

  “I’m going to sort you out, boy.”

  Barstow advanced slowly. There was nowhere left for the dirty boy to run. The little beach tapered away to a sheer cliff that plunged into the water. The boy was going to get sorted. Now.

  The boy did not look up as Barstow approached. He stared in front of him as if fear had turned him solid.

  Barstow bustled forward, his feet clinking across the stones; then he grabbed hold of the boy’s arm.

  “What am I going to do with you, boy? Just what in God’s name am I going to do, eh?”

  The boy’s face was frozen.

  “Maybe I should open you up with the knife, then let you go so you can run round the trees for ten minutes with your insides spilling out onto the ground: all – all spilling out like a lot of wet, purple bags joined up by a mess of red tubes.” He sucked excitedly and gripped the boy’s arm tighter… oh, that would hurt the dirty little bastard. “Or—or maybe I might just fill your pockets with stones and throw you in the water. The sides are sheer you know—and—and there is no bottom to that lake. That’s right boy, it’s bottomless.”

  “It’s not.”

  “Eh?” By this time Barstow hadn’t expected the boy to so much as mutter a word. The boy’s voice had been clear; almost calm.

  “Of course it’s bottomless boy. I should know. I’ve chucked folk in over the last few years and they’ve not come back.”

  “It’s about sixty feet deep. The woman you put in the water is still down there.”

  Barstow was astonished. “How the hell could you know that?”

  “I see her.”

  “Liar.”

  Barstow remembered the woman he’d weighted with concrete bl
ocks and dropped in ten years before. Dark she was, gypsy looking, with long black hair and her ears pierced with gold rings in three places.

  “She’s got long hair. It’s a lot longer now,” said the boy calmly, “and she has rings through her ears.” The boy pointed to his own ear. “Here, here and here.”

  “No!” spat Barstow. “Someone’s told you to say that.”

  The boy looked calmly up at him with his large dark eyes. “No. I see her. Every day.”

  “Liar!” Barstow balled his fist.

  She had babies inside of her when you dropped her in the pool. She did not die—she changed. The babies keep coming out. Every few weeks. Not like babies up here, but like tadpole babies—they’re as white as your face.”

  “Liar.” Barstow sweated. He’d never felt like this before. Oh, he’d been excited, laughing drunk, angry, but he’d never felt like this before. What was this new feeling? What was this bastard feeling?

  “All the lady’s babies live in the soft mud at the bottom of the lake. It’s all soft and cosy down there. We like it.”

  “You’re lying, boy. They’d drown.”

  “You made her breathe water. Now we all breathe water.”

  “We? We? You mean you’re one of the—”

  “Yes.”

  “Liar.”

  “And we’re hungry. We need to feed. There are so many of us down there now. The little tadpole babies keep coming out of her.” Calmly the boy looked across the surface of the water. Seconds ago it had been completely calm, now it had begun to ripple and… ever so slightly… swell. Just water rats, Barstow told himself. Now… Sort out the boy…

  But before Barstow could do the sorting, the ground skidded insanely from beneath his feet; greenery and water and stones and tree roots blurred by him.

  He realised, somehow, the little boy in the torn jeans and Mario Brothers sweatshirt had thrown him—as easily as a plastic toy.

  Barstow hit the ground so hard it knocked the light out of his eyes and filled them with darkness.

  When he woke it was evening. They were all round him. Feeding.