‘They couldn’t find my ears,’ the man said.
‘No,’ Fergus said, not wanting to repeat what Wainwright had joked about the man’s ears being rat meat in the sewers.
‘I’m getting used to not hearing God speak. That’s a bad sign.’
‘Your ears, I mean . . . you don’t actually hear through those. You hear through your eardrums.’
‘Fuck you. What do you think I am, senile or something? My ears were symbolic. How else do you expect to hear the voice of The Lord other than through vague associations?’
‘I don’t know, I’ve never heard God speak before.’
‘Yes you have, you’ve just forgotten. Everyone forgets until the end.’
‘The end?’
‘Jesus, are you senile? I mean death of course. The end.’
‘Of course.’
The man looked up at Fergus. ‘You are mocking me. I like that Fergus. I like someone who has the ability to mock.’
The man stood up, walked over to the partition and stared at Fergus.
‘You can call me Snake. No one has ever called me that before. Not to my face.’ He pulled against the straps of the straightjacket. ‘Do you want to fuck me, Fergus?’
Fergus wanted to move away from the window. He wanted to leave the sterile suite. He did neither. ‘No, I don’t want to do that.’
‘What do you want to fuck? Everyone wants to fuck something. What are your particular tastes?’
Despite the glass between them, it felt like there was no barrier. ‘Do you want me to fuck you?’ Fergus asked.
The man started to laugh, then bent his head back and laughed even more. Fergus hated the way the man laughed.
When he stopped laughing, he stared deep into Fergus’s eyes. ‘I am not who you think I am.’
‘Who do you think I think you are?’
The man turned away from Fergus, ‘Fuck, I so wanna start a zombie holocaust.’
‘Why would you want to do that, Snake?’
The man looked back at Fergus, over his shoulder. ‘I don’t like the way you say Snake. Are you God in disguise?’
‘Yes.’
‘Fuck you.’
Fergus could feel himself sweat beneath the sterile area clothing. ‘Why are you here? Why am I here?’
‘I’m here because I wanted to feel what it was like to be a man. Yet once I became man, my spirit weakened this body over time, like a debilitating interior. Now that I am man, I can no longer experience what it is like to be man. You and all other men, god damn you, are now like a cancer to me. It’s just like it was before, I have to keep my distance from you.’
‘What about me? You never answered why I am here.’
‘You need the money, Fergus.’ The man sat down on the seat. He started to squirm, like he was attempting to worm his way out of the straightjacket. ‘I want to leave this place. I have been here too long. Remove your sterile clothing and open the door.’
‘If I do that you will die.’
The man bent down and wiped his mouth on his shoulder. ‘The body I am trapped inside will die.’
Fergus hesitated; he didn’t want to open the door. Not because he didn’t want the man’s body to die, he didn’t want to open the door because he didn’t want to get any closer to the man. He took off the sterile boots anyway, then the gown, the mask and lastly, the hood.
He opened the door. ‘How did they keep you isolated two thousand years ago?’ Fergus asked.
‘They didn’t need to then. It has only been in the last fifty years or so that man has started to contaminate me. Maybe it’s a way of showing me I’m too old to carry on living in this form.’ The man stood up and walked through the doorway towards the exit. He looked at the camera above the door. ‘Open up,’ he said.
Fergus heard a click and the door swung open.
‘Do you want me to remove the straightjacket?’ Fergus asked.
‘No,’ the man said, as he stepped into the changing room.
Fergus followed and once inside, the door behind him closed. Wainwright stood opposite, staring at the man. Fergus had never seen anyone look so anxious.
‘Take me to the lab, Mr. Wainwright,’ the man said. ‘I want my ears back.’
‘Your ears are somewhere in the drainage system.’ Fergus said.
‘My ears are in the lab,’ the man said. ‘Everything I ever flushed down that mingy toilet goes to the lab for analysis.’
‘Of course, Seraph,’ Wainwright said. ‘Please, follow me.’
Fergus was not surprised Wainwright had lied to him, just disappointed.
They followed Wainwright out of the changing rooms, along a seemingly endless white corridor, past a number of doorways until he stopped at a stainless steel door with a small glass window that he peered through. Wainwright opened the door and they entered a lab. The four lab technicians inside stared at the man, then turned away from him and went about their business with their heads down.
The man’s ears were beneath a bell jar on one of the lab benches. They were held in place by a number of pins, as if someone had stretched them to make them appear larger.
‘Pick up my ears Mr. Wainwright.’ The man said.
Wainwright lifted the bell jar, removed the pins and picked up the ears. Holding them in his outstretched hand, he offered the ears to the man.
The man stared at them for a short while. ‘Put them in your pocket,’ he said, ‘then take us to the restaurant.’
‘Why the restaurant?’ Fergus asked.
‘I want to see Mr Wainwright eat my ears and I don’t expect him to do that without a clean plate and cutlery. Also there are condiments; a man cannot be expected to eat another man’s ears without a touch of seasoning.’
***
It wasn’t until they reached the restaurant that the man began to cough. Staring at him, Fergus noticed his pale skin was becoming red and blotchy.
‘What, you have never seen anyone die before?’ the man said after he stopped coughing. ‘Don’t you realise everyone is dying. From the very first moment you are conceived, Fergus, you are dying. Don’t fret, though, it feels enlivening at the end. Being close to death is like nothing else you will experience. Not even reincarnation is as memorable as death.’
They were sitting at a table by the window. Despite there being over twenty staff in the restaurant, it was silent other than for the sound of people eating. As soon as the diners saw the man, everyone stopped talking. Wainwright left them while he went to get a clean plate, a knife, a fork, and salt and pepper. When he returned, he sat opposite the man and placed the ears on the white plate. He sprinkled salt and pepper on each ear and then tentatively sliced into one with the knife, before mechanically lifting it to his mouth and pulling it from the fork with his teeth. He chewed on the ear without revealing any emotion in his face.
‘Why are you making him do this?’ Fergus asked as Wainwright ate.
‘I am not making him do anything. He has free will.’
‘He wouldn’t eat your ears if he didn’t feel threatened. Everyone in this restaurant feels the same way. It has something to do with you.’
The man stared at Fergus, taking his eyes away from Wainwright for the first time since he started to eat the ears. ‘Do you feel threatened, Fergus?’
Fergus thought for a moment before answering. ‘Not threatened, more like not in control.’
‘You can leave any time you want.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes, really.’
Fergus stood up.
The man turned back around facing Wainwright. ‘Of course, for every action, there is a consequence.’
Fergus sat back down.
When Wainwright finished eating they left the restaurant and headed for the main exit. In the reception area, the man walked over to the unwelcoming security guard. ‘I know you are carrying a handgun,’ the man said to him. ‘It’s a revolver, right?’
The security guard remained glum and silent.
‘Revolvers are amazingly robust, more so than automatic pistols. There are too many working parts to an automatic pistol. Too many things to go wrong. A revolver is beautifully simple. You can stick a revolver in a steel box, put it in a hole and leave it there until you feel threatened. Dig it up fifty years later, clean it and load it with fresh bullets and hey, presto, it is ready to shoot. You feel threatened right?’
The security guard nodded his head.
‘You are right to feel threatened. Everything is about to change. Do yourself a favour, take that revolver out of your ankle holster, put it in your mouth and press the trigger. Make sure you aim the barrel into the roof of your mouth and not the back of your throat. How many times have suicides blown a hole through their mouths and not killed themselves? I’ll tell you, too many times.’
‘Don’t do this,’ Fergus said.
The man ignored Fergus and continued to talk to the security guard. ‘It would be an awful shame if you wasted your father’s thoughtful gesture. He knew you’d need the gun one day. Well, that day has finally arrived.’
The security guard bent down and raised his trousers. Fergus saw the gun. The guard pulled it from the holster. He aimed it at the man.
‘Fuck,’ the man said. ‘That’s what I hate about my influence. It’s so fucking unpredictable.’
The security guard pressed the trigger and Fergus heard a click.
The man shook his head. ‘You numb fuck,’ he said. ‘You forgot to load the gun, didn’t you?’
Heading for the exit, Wainwright opened the door for the man and Fergus followed them outside into the still, dark night. As they crossed the road to the car park, Fergus heard a loud bang behind. He turned around and saw the security guard slumped back against his chair. Red speckles of blood and brain were splattered against the glass partition all around him.
‘Looks like he took my advice,’ the man said, ‘he aimed for the roof of his mouth.’
***
‘I want a drink,’ the man said. ‘Take me to a bar.’
They were in Fergus’s car, driving back to Darlington. The man was in the passenger seat, while Wainwright sat silently in the rear.
‘It’s three in the morning, all the bars are closed.’ Fergus said.
‘I know the owner of a nice little town centre bar. He will open it up for me. Ring this number,’ he said to Wainwright, reciting the telephone number from memory.
Wainwright did as he said and when he got an answer, he held the phone against the side of the man’s face.
‘Yes, I know how late it is,’ the man said. ‘No, you don’t know me. I know about Saul, though. I know all about Saul and the others. What do I want? I want a drink. I want you to open your bar.’
The man pushed aside the phone with his head when he finished speaking and Wainwright put his phone back in his pocket.
‘It’s done,’ the man said. ‘Now take me to Number 22 and make it quick, we don’t have much time.’
Fergus barely heard his words as he stared at the road up ahead and saw the two young badgers and the sow. They were in a line, the two cubs close the road verge and the sow directly behind them. All three were flattened red against the tarmac.
‘Oh,’ the man said as they drove past the dead family. ‘That would be my influence.’
Fergus thought about the boar, wondering how its mind would process the loss of its family. What was it thinking now? What was it doing now?
‘What would you do?’ The man asked.
‘What?’ Fergus said.
‘In the same circumstances as the boar, what would you do?’
‘I would kill for my family.’
‘But who would you kill, the driver or the influence behind his deed?’
‘I would kill everyone.’
‘Good answer.’
They reached Number 22 a while later and Fergus parked the car across the road from the bar. He got out and saw that Wainwright was unable to move on his own. Walking over to the rear passenger door, he opened it and helped Wainwright out of the car. With Fergus supporting Wainwright, they crossed the road to the bar and saw the bar owner already waiting for them in the entrance lobby. He stared at them for a short while without speaking, then unlocked the door and entered the bar with Fergus and the others following close behind. The man sat at a table near the window while the bar owner busied himself switching on the lights near where they sat.
‘Bring us enough vodka to keep us going all night,’ the man said to the bar owner. ‘Not that cheap stuff on the back shelf either; I want the French vodka you keep under the counter. Bring ice and limes too.’
Fergus and Wainwright sat with the man and a moment later the bar owner placed a tray on the table with two bottles of premium vodka, three glasses, a bucket of ice, a bowl of limes and a knife.
‘Leave us,’ the man said.
The bar owner walked across to the exit and gently closed the door behind him as he left.
‘Can you see him changing?’ the man said to Fergus when the barman was gone.
Fergus stared at Wainwright. ‘Yes. What have you done to him?’
‘Fix our drinks and I will tell you.’
Fergus took the knife and sliced three thin strips of lime. He put one piece of lime and one ice cube into each of the glasses. Opening the bottle, he poured vodka into each glass until it covered all of the ice and half of the lime.
‘I like the way you fix drinks,’ the man said.
Fergus held one of the glasses up to the man’s lips and he took a sip of the drink.
‘Excellent,’ the man said.
Fergus gulped back his own vodka in one go, and then poured himself another.
Wainwright closed his eyes. His head slumped forwards.
‘What have you done to him?’ Fergus repeated.
‘You don’t think he could eat my flesh—eat my ears—without there being consequences do you? Even though I am currently in the form of a man, my influence remains sublime.’
‘Your flesh has poisoned him?’
‘In a way, yes, he is infected.’
‘To what end?’
The man began to click his tongue on the roof of his mouth, ‘We need a new kind of cancer.’ He suddenly said. ‘It might not seem so to you right now, but you guys are winning the battle against cancer. In a few more decades you will discover an awesome new medicine and cancer as you know it will pretty much seem like a common flu infection.’
Fergus fixed them both a fresh drink, thinking on the man’s words. ‘When did you become so fucked up?’ he said, as he offered the drink to the man.
The man smiled, ‘I guess that would be when God started to lose faith in me. Yeah, I’m pretty sure it was around that time.’
‘Why did you lose faith in God?’
‘I said He lost faith in me.’ the man paused, ‘Fuck, Fergus, you are a sharp one. I see what you are doing. It doesn’t matter. I also see you don’t want to know the truth. You are just like the rest after all.’
The man started to cough and then vomited on the bar floor.
The air was filled with the odour of his puke mixed with vodka and something else just as rancid. Despite not wanting to, Fergus found himself breathing in the stench. ‘I want to know where I fit in with your plans?’
The man ignored Fergus’s question. ‘I feel lousy,’ he said. ‘Being human is not all it’s made out to be. I can’t wait to die and get out of this feeble body.’
‘How long have you been a man?’
‘You already know the answer to that question. I’ve been in this weak state for over two thousand years.’
The man lowered his head a little and Fergus thought he detected something like sadness cross his face.
‘I could not believe it when I saw him on the cross. I have never experienced so much pain as I did that day. I wanted to run. I wanted to hide. I needed to get away from everything. In the end, I absorbed this man you see before you.’
‘You possessed a man in
the crowd?’
‘You could say that, but in truth, it is more than a possession. More a rebirth. A resurrection.’
Wainwright toppled forward and his head banged against the table. Fergus lifted him up, pushing him back into his seat. He checked for a pulse but couldn’t find one.
‘He’s dead,’ Fergus said.
‘In a way,’ the man said.
‘What do you mean?’
‘The dead have a way of coming back to life. Haven’t you been watching the TV or movies recently? Everywhere you look the dead are walking. Don’t you know that almost everything man can imagine, man can create?’
‘What kind of cancer have you created?’
‘Don’t act dumb, Fergus, you know what kind it is.’
‘Fuck,’ Fergus said, standing up and backing away from the table.
‘Isn’t this a blast, a zombie holocaust started after a man eats my ears? Who the fuck could have come up with a masterpiece like that other than me?
‘How does the infection spread?’
‘Not by ear wax, that’s for sure. Maybe blood, maybe saliva, maybe both. It could be an air born thing. I honestly don’t know. I never was any good at the scientific side of things. I am more your creative type.’
Wainwright raised his head and slowly opened his eyes.
The man had another coughing fit. ‘Can you imagine it, a father or mother going through the anguish of losing a child, only for that child to be resurrected moments after their death? How elated they will feel? It won’t last. Look at Wainwright. See how rapidly his flesh deteriorates. He looks like he has been dead for over a week. He is almost brain dead. His awareness has left him, but his soul remains in his body, ignorant of everything. Imagine that, can you Fergus?’
Fergus stared at Wainwright. The man was right; Wainwright’s flesh was grey and already sagging from his face. As Fergus continued to watch, patches of skin started to flake away.
‘Do not worry,’ the man said, ‘he will not bite you. He is not a flesh eater, yet. I’m not even sure if he will ever become a flesh eater. That’s just something the movies make up, right? Oops, I almost forgot my own hypothesis, whatever man imagines, man creates.’
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