by Ian Dyer
‘Camon Simon, yer talking silly now. There int no law that says a man can’t drink a couple of drinks and drive home. What kind a world you think this is, Nazi bloody Germany? And if there were a law like that, I would now about it, don’t yathink?’
Simon smiled, at first thinking this was a joke but then remembering that this was Mr Rowling we were dealing with here and he didn’t tell jokes, well ones that Simon understood anyhow, no, Mr Rowling was a straight man, a factual man who saw things in black and white, not magenta or navy blue or orange or sunburst yellow. Maybe it was his tiredness, or that his own String was tightening, but Simon couldn’t let this one go.
‘Mr Rowling, seriously, it’s the law. You aren’t allowed to drink and drive. It’s serious, like lose your license serious. People die.’
‘From a few drinks? Camon Simon, really? You tellin me that people have died just because a few pints were had? Don’t believe it.’
‘What’s there not to believe? It’s like a fact or whatever. You drive drunk and your judgment and all that is off and you end up rolled in a ditch wondering how the hell you got there. Worse still, you end up ploughing into someone, or someone’s. Surely, Mr Rowling, even here, you know that it’s illegal. Please see some sense would ya.’
Mr Rowling’s head jerked a little and even though he was in shadow, Simon could tell that his face was wrinkled into a snarl.
Quickly, as if to take back what he had said, Simon whispered, ‘Not sense, Mr…’
‘Sense?’ Mr Rowling interrupted with, ‘Sense? Sense is you getting into the car and keeping quiet. Against law. Ha! I’ll show ya Simon. There aint no amount of beer that can hinder me at madriving.’
Since when did this become a challenge?
‘Let me drive. Please.’
‘Just get in car.’ Mr Rowling put the key into the door lock and there was a clunk as all the doors unlocked and he opened his driver’s door and calmly got into the Cortina.
Simon took a deep breath, regretting that he opened his stupid mouth, and got into the car making sure he put on his seatbelt; checking that it was locked into place and tight; three times over.
‘Against the law.’ Mr Rowling whispered and shook his head in utter disgust. ‘Wait till the guys here that one, shit themselves with laughter they will.’
7
So, on that chilly summer night, under a creamy gossamer moonlit glow, Mr Rowling drove his car home with a look of complete smugness etched upon his face as he guided the car from bend to bend, crest to crest. He even dipped his lights as he reached the junctions, like he had on the journey up to the club, and each time he did this he turned to Simon, a wry grin on his face and he rolled his eyes in a comical over the top gesture.
‘Drink driving, my arse.’ He would mutter to himself.
Simon had expected a running commentary from the old soak but he was quiet; apart from an odd chuckle here and there. Only the roar of the engine and the wind blowing over the car could be heard. Simon wished that he could lean forward and rip that chuckle right out of Mr Rowling’s throat. Probably best that he didn’t though.
8
With a bump over the curb and a squeal from the brakes Mr Rowling brought the car to a complete stop in exactly the same place it had been prior to them leaving. Simon took off his seatbelt and stepped out of the car. Mr Rowling followed suit and locked the car checking each door was tightly shut and locked before heading toward his stony cottage.
Before opening the front door he turned to Simon. ‘Made it home safe and sound. Didn’t plough into anyone or end up in a ditch.’
You mocking twat. Fuck you. And fuck your stupid smug face.
Simon nodded but didn’t say anything; a fake grin taints his features.
Mr Rowling stepped forward. Placed his hands by his side and leant into Simon. He was close enough so that Simon could smell the beer on his breath; see the whites of his eyes as they bore into his own, down into his mind and then further down into what felt like was his soul and they looked about there for something. They tore away at his innards, tossing them aside without care. Memories of Simons past, his loves, what he lost, his faults and his dreams flew past his eyes in a second; each one bringing a new set of emotions be they good or bad and Mr Rowling’s eyes searched, hunted, wanted for something in Simon.
But they found nothing.
‘Aye, thought so.’ Mr Rowling said and shook his head, turned, opened the door and walked into the glow of his hallway.
Like a Limp Rag
1
Mr Rowling had hung his coat up and headed off upstairs to bed leaving Simon alone in the kitchen. Simon poured himself a cup of water and drank it. The water was different up here, it tasted better than that bottled water stuff and he poured another cup of it and drank deeply. The liquid was cold; really cold, but good. He took in a few deep breaths leaning heavily on the worktop.
Sleep called for him. Begged for him to come and play. So Simon obliged. He placed his jacket onto a hook, turned off the kitchen light and walked up the creaky stairs. Luckily there was still a light on in the hallway and after relieving himself in the toilet he crept along the hallway and into the bedroom. The room was dark apart from a small slither of light that crept out of the built in bathroom. It was enough so that Simon could see the shapes of the objects in the room and he carefully undressed, leaving on his pants and his plain white t-shirt and got into bed. His side of the bed was cold though he could feel the warmth coming from Lucy as she laid there asleep, but he didn’t cuddle up next to her. He preferred just to lay there in the dark and let sleep take him. Outside, now that his ears had become accustomed to the quite, he could here twigs cracking and leaves being brushed aside as something made its way along the road. Some animal seeking food and water. Simon could hear the splashing water of the stream as it rushed by and he believed it to be one of the best things he had ever heard. It calmed him. There was a splosh as something went into the water and what sounded like hooves splashing in the stream but he paid it little attention, instead he just focused on sleep and he tried to let it all go so that the dream fairies would come and take him away.
‘Have a good night?’
‘I didn’t think you were awake. Yeah it was okay.’ Simon said. ‘Just tired, been a long old day.’
Lucy slid over from her side of the bed, her warmth embracing him. She was wearing her winter nightie; the one Simon called her Keep Out the Cold and Keep Out the Cock nightie. He hated that bloody thing but tonight he was happy that she wearing it as he had no real urge to put out any moves, if you could call them that. Lucy placed her right arm over him and she moved her hand down his chest and under his pants taking hold of his already semi hard penis. From deep within Lucy came a soft moan as she stroked it.
2
There was no kissing. It was hard, fast, as if they were two teenage lovers going at it for the first time. Simon was on top, thrusting hard, giving it as much as he could. He would look down, opening his eyes so as to see Lucy’s pert tits wobble up and down. But he didn’t look down for long. Seeing them do that and the way in which she bit her lip always got him off. Simon had known a handful lovers, most of them, in a strange way, were ugly lays. They just didn’t look good on their backs or on top or on their side. But Lucy. Lucy, Lucy, Lucy, she looked hot. Hot to trot! Simon had to control himself; breathing hard and concentrating like a brain surgeon would during surgery with a scalpel and an open skull in front of him, so as not to climax early when he looked at her. Some nights he would win that battle, others he wouldn’t. Tonight, when the fates seemed against him and the tiredness started to eat away at his concentration he realised that he was lasting longer than he would have thought. Not losing rhythm and looking down again, his eyes accustomed to the dark so much that he could see Lucy and she was looking at him. Straight back at him, with a blank washed out gaze that seemed far off. Dead; as if there was something in the way of her getting off.
But she couldn’t be dead,
he could hear her breathing and her soft moaning as he pushed deeper inside of her. He looked away and then back down.
Dead eyes.
And it wasn’t just her eyes that seemed lifeless; it was as if he were screwing a thing, a lifeless thing that was as limp as a rag. Most of the time, especially when the love making had been fired up by her, Lucy was insatiable. She would do all sorts. There was no real carnal position left untouched, she grew her nails specifically so that she could scratch at Simon’s skin, that’s the type of girl Lucy was. But tonight, there was nothing. If it wasn’t for the heat being generated it felt to Simon as though he were screwing a corpse. But as always, no matter what men go through; be it trauma, death, disease, loss, torment, hunger, thirst, mental disorders, loss of limb, you name it, they always find a way to release the substance kept in their balls and tonight was no different and Simon climaxed inside of Lucy breathing hard and slobbering over her neck as his juices mixed with hers.
He eased himself off of her. She grabbed a tissue and placed it down there (this aint no Hollywood, Simon thought) and they both rolled over.
For a moment Simon thought he had imagined the whole thing, that this was some weird dream or that he had kicked the tyres and lit the fires and had, without knowing it, forced himself upon her.
‘That were good, Simon. Right proper good.’
And then Simon passed out.
3
The leak. They bleed. They don’t stop once they started.
The Working Man’s Club reception room loomed large around Simon as he floated through it. He was alone and he was naked and cold. The reception was dark apart from a small light that was shining down the dark stairs that led to the basement. It hovered there like a wisp in a fairy tale forest, its white glow shifting in pulses.
I don’t want to go down there. I don’t like what I will find down there.
From his left, behind the closed doors where Simon had heard men playing snooker, he heard the hard thwacks of the truncheon as it beat some other poor soul within an inch of their lives.
Chairman’s Justice, he thought to himself, and then shook the thought away.
Simon kept floating on. Toward the basement stairs he didn’t want to go down. The light that lit his way moved as Simon got closer and now it was hovering above the painting that was hung on the wall below the first flight of stairs. Simon floated down them. He couldn’t stop himself. He knew this without trying. There was something pulling him down. A gravity with sticky fingers and it came from the painting. He reached the concrete floor and saw that the stairs continued on down to his right; into a darkness that screamed of eternity.
Then he stopped. The paintings gravity released him from its grip and Simon floated on the spot. His bare feet didn’t touch the floor but he could tell it was cold. The air was cold enough so that as he breathed he could see his own breath form as vapour. Not wanting to, he looked at the painting and as much as he tried to look away he couldn’t. As much as he tried to scream he couldn’t. The painting was of a forest clearing. The trees surrounding it were giant brown lifeless hulks. The ground beneath them was scorched dry by the bright yellow sun that was painted into the right hand corner. There was a heat coming from that sun. Simon could feel it upon his cold pale skin. In the centre of the painting were two men. Both wore black cloaks and were shrouded by a dark green, putrid glow. One of the men held a scythe, its blade covered in rust and blood. The other man held the same wooden truncheon that that Chairman had held aloft that very evening. Looking down he saw that the painting had a bronze plaque nailed into its rotten wooden frame. It read:
Chairman’s Justice
They Leak. They Bleed. They Don’t Stop Once They Started.
There was a movement from within the painting and now the two men were separated from each other. What separated them were two crosses made of wood. Crucifixes carved from roughly hewn timbers. Upon them were two men. One of them Simon recognised as poor Stevie Johnson; his skin flayed almost to the bone. On the other crucifix a man burnt to a cinder.
From Simons right, down the eternally dark stairs, there came a cry. A child’s cry.
Simon’s breath became short and fast and he could feel panic starting to take him. He tried to move away from the head of the stairs that led down into that eternal darkness but it was to no avail. Then a voice was in his head. He didn’t know who it was it said, ‘It’s in the painting. What you think is what happened.’
Simon looked back to the painting even though he didn’t want to. Again he tried to scream but he could no more do that than he could walk across the ocean. The burnt man that had been on the crucifix was gone as too was the crucifix that bore him. In its place was the garage, only this time the door was wide open, beckoning him to come in and he could see that it wasn’t oil that came from within it, it was blood that oozed from its concrete and metal core. Simon leant in, his naked form almost touching the hot painting. Peering in, past the oozing blood he could see a metal table. No not a table. It’s a…it’s a…the word was on the tip of his tongue. Not a table, no, it’s a bed. A metal framed bed. No, it’s not that either. It’s a… it’s…
A gurney! It’s not a table, it’s a gurney, and on the gurney, handcuffed to it, with fear left like a smear upon her dead face and with skin torn from her body and her ribs open as if to welcome some demonic surgeon was what was left of Bobbie. Blood dripped from her; it dripped from the walls and it dripped from the ceiling. It was as if her blood would soon drench the scorched earth with its deep crimson filth.
A crying child screamed from deep down again, though this time its cries seemed closer and then the screams turned to a soft wailing voice. The child’s voice said sweetly, ‘Yup, you’re gonna love me some day. I’m not going to leave until I see your face.’
I want to wake up! I want to wake up!
The crying child screamed and now it’s once solitary outbursts were joined with many, many more.
They all said as one, ‘IM GETTING CLOSE, YAKNOW.
‘IM NOT GOING TO LEAVE UNTIL I SEE YOUR FACE!
‘I’M GOING TO WAIT HERE FOR YOU.’
They then cried for something; like Mr Rowling had searched for something they were crying for something. They wanted, hunted, for something. Like Mr Rowling had wanted, hunted, for something.
Whatever gravity that was holding up Simon let go and he fell hard onto the concrete floor. It was cold, ice cold, and made worse now that the warmth of the painting was gone. He tried to get up but whatever gravity had held him up now seemed to be holding him down.
The baby’s screams and cries were now joined by another sound. It was the sound of the rushing river. But this was no river made of water and stones and mud and Simon saw that the blood that had been pouring out of the garage was now pouring from the painting and down the walls. He couldn’t breathe such was the shock of it. His body was hot beguiling the cold that seeped from the floor and into his skin. He sweated from every pore. The blood was now halfway down the walls. It was thick and red and had an oily skin that made it shine on the white wisp glow. The cries from below intensified into one ungodly crescendo. Now that Simon was sat arse first on the concrete floor he could no longer see if there was anything down there but he knew there was. Like he knew that there were birds and knew that there were bugs under rotten logs and the subtle movements he saw down there made the realisation the more terrifying and just as the blood reached the floor he saw that his feet were dangling over the edge of the stairway. They were prone to whatever it was that was moving down there. Their pinkness a deep contrast to the blackness that hung there like a hole in both time and space. Instinctively he went to move them, but it was too late.
And Simon screamed himself awake as a small child’s hand gripped his right foot and tried to drag it and him down with it.
3
Simon awoke with a start, snapping his legs up to his chest fearing what the children would do if they took him down there.
; 4
His adrenaline kicked in almost instantaneously, and he soon realised that it had been a dream. All of it. There was no painting, no gurney, and no screaming children. Just him and the mottled sunlight coming through the window.
‘Shit me.’
It was then that he saw that he was no longer in bed and that he was totally naked. Simon was on the floor; the hard shaggy carpet itching on his bare arse. He was sat with his knees up to his chest; his arms wrapped around them and he was rocking back and forward like a man that has seen his own future. A cold sweat was on his pale skin. Swallowing, though it felt as if he could be sick at any moment, he heaved himself up and got back into bed, the sheets were still warm and he huddled under them. Picking up his watch from the bedside table he saw that it was a 5-45. Just as he was about to close his eyes the white light blinked a couple of times on his phone.
Grabbing it he saw that he had gotten another message from Kyle:
Hello? Come on mate. Call me, text me, whatever.
No joke. Need to talk. #fucktard
‘Whatever.’ Simon said and put the phone back and as he drifted back off to sleep he wished that he wouldn’t dream anymore.
Thankfully, that wish came true.