Defiled Earth and other tales Read online

“You’re hurt,” she said, “and there’s something more. I smell death on you.”

  “I’ll live,” he said. But if Mrs Halliday could have seen him, she would have noticed the bandage round his head and the dressing over his nose. Blood had soaked through for the most part, but he had managed to arrest the flow eventually.

  He was a mess. His hasty patch-up in a service station toilet using the truck’s compulsory first aid kit wasn’t going to be enough. He needed surgery, but it could wait.

  “It didn’t work, Mrs Halliday,” he said. There are more of the undead than ever. Five of them tonight—and Jimmy Hodge. So I figure at least two more crawled out of Grieve’s Bog at some point. There may be more out there, closing in. So I’ve come to ask, what went wrong?”

  She reached for her pack of camels and took one out, holding it unlit between her fingers. “You piled on the salt like I told you?”

  “Sure. The bog looked like a salt pan by the time we were finished.”

  She flicked a zippo lighter open and lit the camel, drawing in the smoke. “And you performed the ritual using the exact words in the book?”

  He was brought up short. “What ritual? You didn’t tell me about any ritual.”

  “Didn’t I tell you how to perform the díbirt ceremony?”

  His eyes narrowed. “No ... you never mentioned it.”

  She tilted her head back and brayed in amusement. “Hee, my memory’s a boggart and that’s for sure. Salt on its own is as much use as rubber nails.”

  Cormac’s anger rose. “Why would you not tell me about this ritual?”

  “Oh, don’t get het up. My brain’s like a rusty mangle these days. Still, you didn’t think it was going to be easy now did you?”

  The woman hacked with laughter, but Cormac could see something else in those film-grey eyes. Was it mockery? Gloating?

  She’s led me up the garden path. It’s all just a joke to her.

  He felt the cords of restraint snap in his brain and leapt to his feet. “Shut the fuck up, you witch,” he bellowed. But it just made her laugh all the more.

  “You Learys have never seen the funny side of things. You’ve got to admit, it’s a hoot!”

  He saw red, and this time it wasn’t blood. It was a rage incubated from frustration and lack of control. Here was this harridan, making light of the situation. Making a fool of him.

  The Leary fury, passed down from father to son over generations, boiled over. He swung the back of his hand, striking her on the cheek and sent her reeling backwards. Her head struck the corner of a cupboard as she toppled over, landing in a heap on the floor, her laughter silenced.

  Cormac held both hands to his head. “Fuck it. Fuck, fuck, fuck!”

  He knelt down and lifted her head, putting his finger to her neck. There was neither breath in her lungs nor pulse in her arteries.

  He slumped back against the caravan wall, realising that now he’d never know how to rid himself of the undead.

  Doom heaped upon doom.

  He had the blood of a wise woman on his hands—and that carried a heap of curses in itself. He recalled the gypsy rhyme from when he was a boy:

  Kill a man, once-cursed are you.

  Kill a woman, reap damnation too.

  Kill a wise-woman, pay the devil his due.

  The gypsies would want his blood. That is, if they found out. The criminal cogs of his mind were turning again. He got up, his gaze flashing from left to right.

  She’s an old woman. In her nineties. She can’t remember if she’s eaten, pissed or shit herself in the last hour. An easy thing to forget—leaving the gas on. She lights another camel and ...

  He saw the gas hob. Turning the dial clockwise he heard the familiar hiss of escaping gas. He needed to leave it long enough to build up and then ignite it from a distance. Remembering what he’d seen in the pickup’s locker, he came up with a plan that might work.

  He stepped out of the caravan, closing the door tight behind him. Over at the truck he pulled out a blasting cap and a remote tone-generating pad from the locker. The quarry boys shouldn’t have left them in the truck, but their loss was his gain. He padded across the waste ground and noticed, with relief, that no one stirred. Something other than the dawn chorus was going to wake the camp this morning.

  He entered the caravan for the last time, the smell of mercaptan additive stinging his ravaged nose. He held his breath and swiftly placed the blasting cap down the side of a seat cushion. A thorough investigation by the fire brigade might find it, but by the time they did, he’d be long gone. He also knew that the travelers liked to look after their own. They might close ranks and delay the authorities too—which would work in his favour.

  As he returned to his truck the wan, yellow light of day spread above the distant tree line. He started the engine and rolled out along the exit road. Once round the first corner, he stopped and reached for the tone generator. He keyed in the required number.

  A millisecond later he heard the detonation, like a large, feather mattress landing from a great height. Orange gouts of flame reached into the dawn sky as a rain of debris fell round about. His cold mind reflected that one of the neighbouring caravans might have been caught up in the blast.

  Collateral damage.

  Old Mrs Halliday had been right about one thing. He was a heartless bastard.

  ~ ~ ~

  It had been two years or so since the day Cormac had left the gypsy campsite. His memory of that dark week was very patchy—the mind’s protection mechanism against horrors that would otherwise drive him mad.

  He’d called in more favours: rang the quarry and paid them double for the truck—and to keep their mouths shut; got one of Augit’s men to supply him with a false passport, visa and work permit, then greased the palm of a container ship’s captain, bound for New Zealand. He didn’t tell Augit. The old man didn’t so much employ people as hold them to ransom—and Cormac wouldn’t be needing a reference.

  Cormac Leary, valued employee. Good with his hands and doesn’t mind wet work.

  He chuckled to himself as he lay in bed, looking through the skylight at the southern cross.

  The constellations were sprayed across the heavens like mother’s milk as they looked down on the ranch Cormac had built.

  Life had been good. He’d started anew, using his savings to carve out a career in sheep farming. Even found himself a wife.

  Gina lay next to him, breathing softly, her long auburn hair spread over the pillow. She had drifted off after making love to him. A perfect end to a perfect day.

  Soon, he fell into a deep slumber. No dreams tonight. And that was a blessing too.

  But the cosmos’ scales of justice were not weighted in his favour forever. Cormac Leary enjoyed his last moment of oblivion for three full hours before he was woken by something shaking his head to and fro.

  His eyelids opened to a sight beyond nightmare. A charred, black face pressed up to his, third degree burns dripped tissue fluid and pus onto his skin and two milk-grey eyes stared into his soul.

  “Wakey-Wakey, Cormac me boy. It’s payback time.”

  An involuntary whimper leaked from his throat as Mrs Halliday pinched his cheeks together with her crusty talons. He tried to push her away, but his hands were held fast above his head.

  “That’s right,” croaked the woman. “Fettered by your own handcuffs. I didn’t know you was a kinky bugger.”

  Behind her he heard dry, callous laughter, and saw a multitude of skeletal forms packed into the room. They were squashed in, wall-to-wall, even extending down the staircase beyond. The Pennine bog-stench was back in his nostrils, like the acrid smoke of desolation.

  “Oh, I don’t believe you’ve met all my sisters,” Mrs Halliday said. “No point introducing them yet, you’ll have plenty of time to get to know them all—intimately.”

  This caused another ripple of demonic mirth through the assembled throng. His thoughts switched to
Gina. What had they done to her? He tried to swivel his head sideways to see if she was there.

  “Looking for your pretty wife, Cormac? Well, she’s still here.” The hag released her grip, allowing him to twist his head.

  “Noooo,” he cried, and thrashed about in anguish.

  Gina was lying next to him, her eyes staring at the ceiling, her throat cut from ear to ear.

  “I said there had to be an atonement,” said Mrs Halliday. “You’d done the repentance bit, setting yourself up here with a new life. Although it would’ve been nice to have had an apology for what you’ve done. Never one for carrying out the customs and practices right, are you Cormac? Well, looks like you gave us the sacrifice we wanted.”

  “She was innocent, you bitch. Why did you have to hurt her?”

  “That’s the whole point of a sacrificial lamb, Cormac my dear. They’re always innocent.” She drew close to him again, leaning over like a vulture. “Did you really think you could run away from your doom? Hide from us forever? It’s like I said; fart gas and turnips. It took us a year or two, but in the end we followed our noses.” She tapped the place on her putrid face where the nose used to be.

  The laughter of the assembled undead chilled him to the marrow. He tried to utter a protest, but his vocal cords might as well have been glued together.

  “You’re wondering what we’re going to do? I can see it in your eyes—another benefit of the undead. All senses restored and enhanced.” Her own eyes widened in glee. “Of course we are going to kill you. The Leary curse will be fulfilled—at the hand of a woman. But first, there’s to be consummation. Many consummations. And when the last of these hundred virgins has fucked you til’ your ballsack is drained, you’ll be given release into the realm beyond. That’s when the real fun begins, ‘cos with our task here completed, we’ll meet you on the other side to take things up again. Night after night. Forever ... and ever.”

  As the decomposing corpses crawled over him, shedding skin from their bodies and worms from their orifices, Cormac let out a scream of utter torment and despair. His mind unhinged and madness poured in.

  The madness of a damned, impure son.

  ~ ~ ~

  Author’s note

  The Pennine moorlands are a bleak, windswept and lonely set of hills. In the seventies, my dad was a resident engineer, responsible for overseeing the laying of gas pipelines across the north of England. As children, my brother and I would often be taken to work with him. He would let us see the JCB’s, engineers and workmen lay this gargantuan network of steel pipes across the rugged Cumbrian and Northmbrian landscape. So it was that I became familiar with the world of welding, ‘pigging’ and gas holders.

  One Sunday, up a place called Tindale Fell I had wandered off alone to catch caterpillars (real ones, not the mechanised kind.) On the way back, I took a shortcut through a trench filled with a soft gloopy mud. I tried to jump across it, but didn’t quite make it to the opposite bank. I remember my trailing leg carried the weight of my body. I tried to pull my foot out, but it was stuck fast. What made it worse was that I was sinking – slowly and inexorably— like Squeak in the story.

  I knew my Dad was literally a hundred yards away in his cabin or supervising some work. I cried out, but no one heard and no one came. I was still sinking.

  Finally, I did the only thing I could do – pulled my foot out of the welly and left it in the mud, hobbling my way back to the cabin. I returned with Dad a little later, whereupon he extracted the welly, as he had a further reach than me.

  The experience has stayed with me all my life. Maybe this story has helped exorcise the ghost of the peat bog, but living in the shadow of the Pennines, I often hear the whistling helm wind, and wonder if the hags of the moor are calling for me.

  ~ ~ ~

  Special pupil

  When I woke up that morning, I knew I was gonna kill someone. Which is kinda funny because I’d fallen off to sleep in a pretty good mood, jerking off to an image of Jade Bennington and her bouncing big jugs. Every testosterone-crazed male in our year calls her ‘bad back’, and would give their eye teeth to plant a dick in her cleavage and have themselves a tittywank to remember.

  But then everyone isn’t Connor Allen, who’s dipped his wick in every looker at school, leaving a trail of broken hearts and ripped hymens in his wake. Did you hear that by the way? That’s a metaphor, that is. My English teacher taught me about it. She said I’d a talent for creative writing, but she also said it was a crying shame I wasted most of my time in disruptive behaviour. Yeah, she taught me literary devices and my PD teacher taught me about hymens—oh and condoms and dildos. Lots of stuff I couldn’t ever see myself using.

  I’d got to know my teachers at Gardale High pretty well. I’m usually in small classes or spend time in the EAZ, which stands for Education Action Zone, by the way. They keep changing the name every year, which is a bit pointless really. They might as well put up a sign saying ‘Department for Thick Kids’ and have done. But they like names with capital letters. Miss Pennington calls them … what is it? Accro-nimms. Like the ones they have above my name on seating plans.

  One time Miss Pennington was helping me as I was sat at her desk. I couldn’t help seeing her open planner. There it was, Ken Wilcott EAB, followed by some more words I didn’t understand. I looked it up on Google that night, and learnt that it stood for ‘Education and Behavioural Difficulties.’ That’s me in a cricketer’s box—nutshell—geddit?

  So, there I was in my wank-pit thinking about murder. It wasn’t like I was angry with anyone, though I’d plenty reason to be. See, I’m one of those kids who’s a bit of a loner. I’d be walking down the corridor and hear sniggers as people passed. Sometimes they’d call out after me. Things like “Hey Ken, you shit in any more waste paper baskets recently?”

  That was something I’d done for a laugh, goaded by some of the kids in my class. I thought it’d give me some cred’, but it kinda backfired. They grassed me up. When I denied it, the head said they’d got footage on CCTV and “I wouldn’t want to make him show it to my parents.” I’d ‘minded him that there was only my mam left now, but he just said I was being argumentive.

  After that, I stopped trying to fit in. What’s the use? I’ll never be like them, and they’ll never wanna be like me. I’m in a class of my own—Ken Wilcott’s class. With my own personal program of one-to-one behaviour modification and anger management.

  Like I said, I didn’t have no personal grudge, I just hated the world, and killing seemed to be the best way to relieve the pressure. I know that sounds extreme, but I remember my brain feeling kinda itchy and bloated, like it was gonna break out of my skull. Then this voice kept saying “You know what to do, Ken. They’ve fucked you around long enough. It’s time they got some shit shovelled back on them.”

  I’d heard the voice a few times before. But never this loud, never this often. It just went over and over in my brain.

  “Get outta my head, tosspot,” I shouted. That seemed to do the trick—for a while at least.

  I got myself off to school straight away, skipping breakfast as usual, and hung round the footie goalposts ‘til registration bell. By the time I was off to first lesson my head felt like it was on fire. I kept banging a hand against my temple to get rid of the feeling, but it did no good. I must’ve been muttering things as well, because the other kids gave me more space than usual.

  When I got to the science class, Dr Taylor was at the door to greet us. Mr Faizal was there too, letting his class into the lab next door.

  “Morning Yair,” said the Doc. “I see leadership are doing some drop-ins today. You got your lesson plans ready?”

  “Yep. I was up till eleven o’clock last night making sure I had my objectives and planners all sorted out. It’ll be just my luck if they give me a miss today.”

  “Never mind, I’ve heard the floggings will continue until morale improves.”

  Mr Faizal laughed at that on
e. Seems the teachers want to be here less than we do. Can’t say I blame ‘em. Ever since the Head told us in assembly that the school was in special measures, they’ve been rushing round like headless chickens, getting us to repeat our targets and carry out fucking reflection exercises.

  I sat down at a desk and looked at the kit laid out in front of me. It looked like we were gonna be doing a dissection. I saw scissors, a seeker and a scalpel in the tray, laid neatly next to a glistening, fresh pigs kidney. Without thinking I took the scalpel and snuck it into the side pocket of my trousers. That way I wouldn’t cut my leg when I walked. I might find use for it later.

  Like a swarm of wasps, my head started up again, so I lay it on its side. It didn’t stop the burning feeling, but my brain felt less itchy. The Doc hadn’t noticed me as I was sat behind a pillar, out of his line of sight. So that was cool—until Bev Hutchings screamed out loud.

  “Eeeeeeeeh! That’s so groooos.”

  “What the f.... What on earth?” said the Doc.

  “It’s Ken,” she said. “He keeps making gurgling noises, and this orange stuff has just leaked out of his ear.”

  I lifted my head and found the room was spinning round. I felt like I’d just stepped off the Pepsi-Max rollercoaster at Blackpool. Everyone’s voice sounded all slowed down.

  Connor Allen piped up. “Ken’s head is spewing orange jizz. Just look at it.”

  The other kids were out of their seats, looking and laughing. This was worse than the trash can thing. Why wouldn’t they just leave me alone?

  “Are you feeling alright Ken?” Said the Doc. “Joel, Sid—can you take him to sick bay? I don’t think he’ll make it on his own.”

  This was what he always did if kids got sick in class. He’d get rid of them straight away, like we made the place look shitty and upset his clean, fucking OCD world.

  “Yeah. Get him off to Nurse More Cum lads,” Allen shouted. “She’ll swallow his brain-spunk for him.” This set the rest of the class off again and left me boiling inside.