Splinter Salem Part Two

by Wayne Hill

  Lemon and Pug nod sagely. They know the one.

  “...it was quite good, that one. But, other than that: fuck you guys! Fuck you for being dumb as fucking fuck!”

  Laughter thronged the table. Everyone was laughing, even some patrons on other tables — the tale was well known to the Lanes. Everyone except Fishbalm. He is wide eyed and lights his cigarette with a trembling flame.

  “You ate people and made furniture with their bones?” says Fishbalm nervously.

  “How did you do the furniture joints,” asks Hector curiously with his distinctive static-down-a-well voice.

  “Well,” explains Lemon, “we had knives and drills and bits of fabric and ropes. So, we utilised a kind of tenon-and-mortise type or dowel-type joints, initially. Later, Pug got extremely good at a type of dovetail join that made the bones seem like they had just grown into chairs.”

  “Mairs,” says Hector, dead pan — with his blank mask of a face, no one could do deadpan like Hector. Everyone looks at him expectantly, drinks frozen halfway to their lips. “Man-chairs; mairs,” he clarifies. This sets everyone to laughing, some spitting out mouthfuls of booze. Except for Fishbalm. Once again, Fishbalm is nervous of the atmosphere of dark humour, worried that cannibals surround him. Blood has drained from his face, leaving it vampire-white, and flight or fight hormones are flung around in the quickened pulsing of his bloodstream.

  “I'll be honest with you guys,” says Fishbalm quietly — feeling light-headed, his stomach churning and his mouth watering. “I’m fucking done asking anyone else about their story. That was horrendous!”

  Fishbalm tries to head for the exit, but his legs seem to have lost all reason, and, like the previous night, he finds himself on the floor. Home again, he vomits.

  “Come here, you soft bastard!” Gert suddenly has him by the scruff of the neck, lifts him up and throws his arm around her neck. She drags him out onto the decking outside O’Shea’s — to get him some fresh air, to get him away from crazy Splinter, away from the gruesome twosome; away from Hector — away from a danger of which he seems oblivious.

  Laughter from inside the bar filters out to them through the saloon doors.

  He looks through the window and watches the two pirate cannibals as they elaborately explain to Hector how they made human furniture. Hector is nodding in agreement and his head is cocked to one side in a contemplative pose that Fishbalm decides is disturbing.

  “What the fuck is this place?” asks Fishbalm, turning from disquietingly normal bar diorama. “They’ve eaten people? Fuck this world! How can Lemon just sit there breathing, living? I would just end myself!”

  Gert self-consciously puts her hand to the heavy red scars lacing her neck. She feels ashamed for the first time in years. The time, long ago, when death seemed the only rational option.

  “You’ve no idea what you’re saying,” says Gert. “You’re young.”

  “I’ve seen enough,” says Fishbalm defensively.

  “Marauder, you think everything’s easy,” sighs Gert. “You think everything’s just going to go your way because your youth tells you so. Well listen up! This is O’Shea’s — The Weeping Willow — and every person in here has seen someone they love torn apart, just to get to the Lanes. Unless you were born here, you have to cross the lethal Barrens, or you risk coming by sea or air. So how did you get here?”

  “I told you, I’ve no idea!” says Fishbalm. “I fucking woke up here. I’m not even sure which prison planet this one is.”

  “Prison planet Earth,” says Gert.

  “Earth? Really? I thought people were joking about that. Oh, fucking great. I don’t suppose there are any crafts leaving anytime soon that I can hop on?"

  “Nope. No craft dock here. They air-drop cargo crates, filled with prisoners, at some facility called Drumcroon, on the other side of the island. They process them there, like objects, not people. They give them backpacks containing basic provisions and then it’s ‘Bye bye, out you fucking go! Watch out for the monsters in the woods, and don’t come back!’”

  “The what now?” asks Fishbalm, feeling even more nervous. “Did you say monsters?”

  Gert looks at the clothes he is wearing, as if for the first time. Unrecognisable fashion: all browns and greens; soft fabrics. Soft footwear, too, like moccasins — although one of them had gone missing last night and his left sock had three green toes poking through a large rip. Gert wonders if he even knows about the Dionysus virus. Has he not seen his foot, or does he just think green toes are part and parcel of growing up? She supresses a smile at the thought, as she continues to look at this fragile young man. She feels a wave of love for this likeable, skinny kid wrap around her like a snug duvet. Everyone likes The Marauder. It was strange. Kind of his superpower.

  “Let's get you cleaned up, Fishbalm,” Gert says grabbing his hand and pulling him towards the peninsula of houses leading to the Lanes. “You stink! You’ve probably had enough horror stories for one day so, come on, let’s sneak off back to mine. I’ll clean you up.”

  “Right. Well. There's an offer I —”

  “Not another word or I’ll shoot it off!” says Gert with a smile.

  “Yes ma’am,” says Fishbalm curtly, still trailing in her wake.

  “You might get lucky, if you stop being a twat,” says Gert.

  “Well. I’m willing to put the effort in for that. From now until we reach your domicile, I will not say anything remotely twatish. So ... do you live in a cave or hut? No wait, I bet you live beneath a bridge!”

  Gert stops. “I am not a troll!” says a grinning Gert as she punches him playfully on the shoulder. She links arms with him and guides him away again, adding, “Dickhead.”

  “Didn’t think you’d get that one,” mumbles Fishbalm, rubbing his arm and knowing that the punch would leave a bruise. “I see ‘Dickhead’ is your insult of choice. Especially, when addressing inebriated men. Wise choice. A sage selection, madam. Although, I think, perhaps, maybe a more ... sophisticated ... name could be employed. One which really grasps the whole zen-like experience of this picturesque hamlet,” prompts Fishbalm.

  In the distance, sounds can still be heard from the O’Shea pub: laughter, chants, some gun fire, the tinkling of breaking glass, the cracking of breaking furniture.

  “Dickheads!” shout Gert and Fishbalm over their shoulders. Laughing and holding each other closer they wind through the Lanes, arm-in-arm.

  “I don’t suppose you have any spare boots at your place,” asks Fishbalm, slowly growing more cognisant of his cold toes.

  “You won’t need your boots, Fishface,” replies Gert.

  “Well,” says Fishbalm expansively. “In that case, I must warn you that, if you are a cannibal, and are planning to eat my feet, I have several green toes. So maybe you can nibble around them?”

  “You really know how to sweet talk a lady, don’t you, Marauder?” Gert asks stopping him by an old hut. Turning to face him, all merriment draining away, she pulls him close. He looks into her dreamy, inquisitive eyes. They contain mysteries. Her gaze shrinks his world, focusses him in this moment. This time. His hand touches her soft face. Gently, he brushes the hair away from her elegant neck and traces a finger along her scars.

  “I know this pain,” he says. She looks deeply into his eyes, there is no lie there, no ounce of uncertainty, no fake-ness.

  She pounces on him, legs wrapped around him, her passion volcanic. He feels a surge of love for her, everything in a kiss, the whole universe collapses to this expression of pure and raw emotional power, a fractal moment of two stars colliding.

  A short, ginger man shuffles out of his hut.

  “Oi, Romeo and Juliet,” he shouts.

  “Fuck off!”

  7

  It was around noon when the cloaked figure fell from the Great Barrier wall surrounding the Lanes. This incident occurred to the south-west of the O’Shea’s pub. It was witnessed, and the story recounted over a large vase-like glass of bourbon, by a
man called James — known to The Weeping Willow patrons as Jimmy Skull-finger. After this dramatic fall, according to Jimmy Skull-finger’s bar room report, the cloaked figure walked out of the askew front door of the half-destroyed shack, unscathed by the fall, much to the irritation of the fuming couple whose drunken tryst he had interrupted. According to Jimmy Skull-finger, the accident-prone invader had then received a long tirade of pain-filled insults. Skull-finger laughed as he told several drunk pals in his strange cockney accent:

  “He shrugged it off as fair. ‘I’m all those things and worse,’ says he. Went to the trouble of inviting said personages to drop by his place ‘anytime’. ‘Wouldn’t mind the company so much, might be entertaining,’ says he. He told them where he lived, who he was and ...you know what? They only apologised, didn’t they? Said sorry to him for the rude remarks, and, thanked Ol’ Alan Minter for dropping by. I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it with me own mince pies...”

  Splinter’s —or Ol’Alan Minter’s — early morning tunnel run is considered (by himself) a mild success. Splinter had killed plenty of Barrenites, but not enough for him to feel any sort of satisfaction. No amount of death can ever fill his cavernous rage towards the monsters above him in space — the robe-wearing high priests of the Believers’ court. The Believers are no better than the monsters in the tunnels: endlessly multiplying, killing without thought; continually feeding, but never full.

  Covered in patches of dried black blood — bits of yellow-green and red flesh, partly cured by the sun, hanging from his colourful patchwork attire — Splinter unsteadily marches towards O’Shea’s and safety. Bits of bone and bloodied scales fall from his mane of dreadlocks, as if he has a creature living in there which is discarding the detritus of a seafood meal. Teeth clenched together in pain, a scowling Splinter staggers towards the pub.

  He passes Hector, who is calmly receiving vicious punches to the face from a large man sporting a yellow bandanna and handlebar moustache.

  “How about now?” the bandana-wearing thug asks.

  “Nope,” says Hector.

  Whack! Another mighty blow rocks back Hector’s head.

  “How about now?” asks the moustachioed assailant.

  “No, this is ridiculous,” says Hector.

  The man grabs a bottle of gin and smashes it over Hector’s head.

  “No, not a thing,” says Hector more firmly. “Hey look, there’s Splinter. Splinter! Gi’z another recitation!”

  A nod to Hector is all that Splinter can muster as he passes wordlessly.

  He knows he’s getting sick, and sober fast. Can’t afford to get into anything too weird just yet, he thinks. Looking down he sees his Lala is on the last green bar. It’s been on that for the last three hours, he thinks. The alarm will go off in a few minutes and, in this state, that will hurt me far too much. An awful feeling of sobriety is falling upon him now, crushing Splinter. A hollow pain is now starting to form behind his yellowing, dark eyes.

  Black swirls begin to form around his temples as his boots squelch through the mud towards the bar, continuing an unsteady but increasingly urgent pace.

  Noticing the mighty weeping willow swaying in the breeze, he stops, momentarily free from pain. He takes a few deep breaths and waits for his mind to untangle, his heart rate to slow. Continuing to the bar, he once more stops at the rickety old saloon doors, to compose himself before entering.

  “Going to have to be a good performance,” Splinter mutters to himself, “or I’ll lose them to fear.” Then, staring behind him at the wind-rocked weeping willow tree and Marie-Ann’s grave: “Love you, Marie-Ann. I’ll be seeing you soon, my Emerald of the Island.” The smell of spilt beer in his nostrils, the sound of her sweet voice still fresh in his mind after all these long years, he pushes into O’Shea’s.

  “How far did ya get this time?” asks Jonesy in a loud voice as soon as he enters.

  The other pirates in the packed bar, cheer his arrival with differing levels of enthusiasm, depending upon their levels of inebriation.

  Splinter holds up his arm-cannon and lets off a few loud bangs of compressed air, to get the pub’s attention. He takes his place to the far right of the bar — the same place favoured years previously by Mr O’ Shea, Marie-Ann’s father.

  “Mile and a half down,” Splinter says to Jonesy hoarsely, as something indescribable detaches itself from somewhere on Splinter and hits the floor with a wet thump.

  “You’ll have to give this tunnel-running up one day, son,” sighs Jonesy, placing a bottle of synthesised Oban scotch and a tumbler in front of Splinter.

  “Nah,” says Splinter, biting the cork out and glugging from the bottle. “Keeps me sharp, Jonsey. Marmots need to dig holes.”

  “It’ll make you dead, son, is what it will do,” says Jonesy, putting the tumbler back behind the bar and wondering why he even bothers with glasses.

  Splinter belches and he slams the bottle down on the old wooden bar top, bringing a closed fist up to his burning mouth. Warmth started to spread from his stomach to his extremities, and his various pains slowly started to wane.

  “No chance,” Splinter spits. “They’re not smart enough to finish me. I’m a magical marmot, gopher ... er ...mole-guy ...uh... thing. Fucking tunnels!”

  Someone’s hand clutches Splinter’s shoulder and his arm-cannon automatically whines, beginning to charge.

  “It’s only Pug, Splinter!” interjects Jonesy quickly. “It’s only Pug.”

  “Get those fucking slugs off me, Pug,” says Splinter. “You disgusting albatross!”

  The hand slips off.

  “Calm yourself down, man!” Jonesy barks, waving a spindly, green index finger under Splinter’s nose.

  Splinter stares at the wagging digit for a while before returning his attention to his scotch. Still swigging from the bottle, he turns to face the much shorter man. Pug is flanked, as usual, by Lemon.

  “How many this time, Splinter?” asks a smiling Pug, clutching and using Lemon like a wobbly crutch. Not just a wobbly crutch, either. Lemon was a smelly, drunken crutch that was trying its best to consume a bottle of synthesised tequila.

  “Seventy?” says Splinter. “Fifty-seven? Definitely, more than fifty, though. I blew a few up with some fucked up missiles I made last night. They had these bomb-eye stickers on them. I drew them myself. So, they got some free artwork before they were blown to smithereens, the lucky ducks! No gratitude from them, though. Oh no! No ‘Thank you, Splinter, for the artwork,’ no. Nothing. Just Boom! and then a big bunch of dead fuckers. Well ...bits of dead fuckers.”

  Splinter shrugs off his cloak, revealing claw marks on his bloodied body and a large Barrenite fang protruding from his side.

  Seeing the enamel knife lodged in Splinter’s side, Jonesy swings himself over the bar, as if he were a spry young man in his twenties.

  “You dumb wee shite!” shouts Jonesy, fussing over the multiple wounds. “Look at this, man. This is what I’m talking about. This right here. This is insanity!”

  Splinter smiles fondly down at the shocked Jonesy, and nods to Bowdon sat at the other side of the bar. “It was one of those fast ones. The ones with the big teeth. Looked like a snake — or the nightmare of a snake, or something snake-like — crossed with a monster Venus flytrap. Some Feed-Me-Seymour-looking motherfucker, anyway! There were some barracuda-Frankenstein’s monster types, a few pole-arm jobbies (with crab claws) and some fucking new things with tentacles...” Splinter trails off, his train of thought derailed, and stares at Jonesy treating his wounds.

  “Not beat my record, Splinter,” says the hooded figure of Bowdon.

  “I know, Bowdon,” says Splinter wincing, “I know. I’m still working up to the two-mile mark. The Barrenites are adapting to our attacks. Their numbers have increased since my last attempt. I had to evolve my attack strategies. The strategies were solid attack strategies, but in war, Bowdon, in war, we must somehow change with the battle, using differing tactics, each suited to t
he needs of a particular facet of engagement ... using the ...”

  Splinter was distracted by Jonesy’s raised eyebrow which seemed to say, ‘cut the shite, wee man!’

  “Alright,” said Splinter. “For fuck’s sake, Jonesy, lower that eyebrow! It was different this time. One of those lizard-looking ones spoke to me, called to me by name. I may have reached one of the Dehas, this time. I handled this situation, as I take care of all situations, and will continue to do so, in my own organised manner. I’m not scared of those dirty little wasps...”

  The pub disappears around Splinter as he has a flashback to an encounter he had earlier.

  “Craaaab fuckeeerrrs!” Splinter screams as he plummets down a cliff, firing a missile at the Barrenite hoard below. Another memory surfaces: the sound of thousands of claws and hooves, scratching, scrambling, pounding down the tunnels after him; something from deeper in the earth calling out to him, something powerful trying to reach him, clawing past the other Barrenites that swarm in the deep darkness.

  “Was it the leader?” asks Gert, curiously wiggling a large tooth embedded in his side, the pain dragging Splinter back to the present.

  Splinter pours some scotch over the tooth. With a nod from him, Gert wrenches the tooth from its fleshy scabbard. No blood has time to emerge before Jonesy plugs the wound speedily with some white gelatinous paste — an antibiotic, colloquially called White Shite, designed to aid rapid healing.

  “No, not their leader,” says Splinter, grimacing. “Their leader is my height, maybe a bit taller, with a large head. Weird-looking fucker. I’ve met him once, I think. He’s very aggressive ... but last time I met him I was with someone equally scary, so old bighead left me to it. From what I remember, he wasn’t massive. This thing was, though. It was a big ornery fucker. No doubt it was furious with me for killing a lot of its monster friends. Y’know ... politics. Anyway, it’s good to be home.”