Meat

by Joseph D'lacey

  It had to be a mistake. Likely hers. She hadn’t been concentrating and had either dropped or moved the file along with the others. She checked through every entry in Albert Shanti’s record box then checked it again. Then she checked each inserted card to be sure there weren’t two sticking together. The more she looked the more it became clear that something was amiss. Interfering with Welfare files was suicidal. Utter madness. She stood back and got her breathing under control. It wasn’t possible. She had to be wrong.

  A final check turned up nothing.

  ‘Whittaker!’

  The old man arrived with surprising speed, churning up dust devils in his wake and not seeming to notice at first.

  ‘Yes, Parson?’

  ‘Look at this file box, would you? Find me the report C:127:42.’

  She handed him the box and leaned against a bank of shelves as she watched his ratlike fingers scurry through the cards. The pain in her stomach swelled like a sphere of teeth. She clutched herself.

  Whittaker made a tiny mew of disappointment and flicked through the record box again. The Parson’s legs weakened beneath her, the muscles in her thighs quivered and she began to sink down.

  ‘It’s not here,’ announced Whittaker. ‘But that can’t b–’

  She looked up at him from the dirty floor, her head leaning to one side and saliva dribbling onto her shoulder. She wanted to move, to talk to him, but her body wouldn’t obey.

  ‘Parson? Whatever’s the matter?’

  Whittaker closed the box and placed the file carefully back in its place on its shelf. She noticed how reverently he handled the records and felt bad for ever having been unkind to him. Only when the box was in position did he kneel beside her and try to help her up. He looked genuinely worried. None of his pulling or hauling did any good for her. She could neither move nor speak.

  ‘Rawlins,’ he shouted. ‘Get some help for the Parson. Get Doctor Fellows.’

  It was only then, as he waited with her, that the old man’s body remembered its allergy. He began to sneeze.

  Shanti awoke in blackness long before dawn. It was too early to practise gathering the light but he felt agitated and enlivened. Maya was deep in slumber beside him, turned away as had become her habit. Silently, he rose and dressed, put on his long coat and walked out to the darkness through the back door. The wind had changed again. Instead of blowing the evils of the MMP plant towards the town, now the smells drifted out into the wasteland where there was no one to smell anything. He breathed deeply, grateful for the clarity of the air. Something pulled at him. Hard to define the feeling – a faint tugging in his stomach, an urge to move. He had nothing else to worry about, no work to go to, at least for today. Normally he would run, today walking would be the alternative.

  He left the house behind, thinking only of his daughters sleeping so tightly curled in the lower bunk. At first the pace was leisurely and his steps cautious in the dark. But he’d run these roads so many times that he wasn’t too afraid of falling into the gorse or a patch of nettles. When he reached the main road where he usually turned left to run to the plant, he turned right and set off for the centre of the town.

  From time to time there were potholes and uneven areas of road but, not really noticing, he negotiated them without a stumble. Soon he was passing the first houses of the town proper – most folk didn’t like to live as close as he did to the wasteland. A pavement became available, albeit cracked and subsiding in many places, so he stepped onto it from the road.

  To his right and a little behind him, a faint light was born. It quickened his step. The houses became closer together and smaller. The smells of habitation – sewage, cooking, spent gas – grew stronger. It was still early and no one was awake except insomniacs, lovers and the sick. He liked it that way and hoped to be through the centre of town before the townsfolk began their business for the day.

  On his left he passed the stone gateposts and black iron gates that marked the front entrance to Magnus’s mansion, its extensive grounds walled off and guarded but set very near the centre of Abyrne. Where the property ended he turned left and walked past the Central Cathedral, a dark gothic beast, frozen in the light of the approaching dawn. Beside it were the many offices of the Welfare and further along on the right most of the central businesses – butchers, flesh apothecaries, religious shops and various craftsmen.

  He passed them all, turned right onto Black Street and walked out past the worst of the inhabited houses in the town. This was where the poorest of the townsfolk lived, barely scraping enough money together to buy a single cut of meat each week. If these people listened to Collins, many of the town’s problems would evaporate.

  Black Street ended suddenly, as though a cleaver had swung down through it, removing the far section. Beyond it there was no more road, no pavement and for a long way, no buildings left standing.

  Shanti stepped over the break in the street like a man stepping out of prison. For most townsfolk, entering the Derelict Quarter meant their lives in the town had been ruined and that they’d never return. He’d have to be careful to go home under the protection of darkness to avoid starting rumours. Magnus had spies everywhere and one never knew when a Parson of the Welfare might step out from an alley and enquire after your business.

  Stepping over broken bricks and concrete and avoiding the spokes of steel that rose and twisted from the debris brought a smile to Shanti’s face. He stepped lightly, following all the time the encouragement of an unseen pull.

  He passed many houses that were only half-ruined and sometimes had a sense of people living there, even though he saw no evidence of it. Further into the Quarter, the monolithic shadows of high-rise buildings towered in the dawn. Many of them were unsafe even to walk near because of falling masonry but others were more stable. None, however, had windows, any form of power supply or water from the town. They never had. Rumour implied that Collins – Prophet John as so many had come to call him – lived in one of the tower blocks but Shanti didn’t believe that was still true. To survive, Collins would have to keep moving.

  He passed the familiar lock-ups – a strangely untouched part of the Derelict Quarter. It was down in a deep hollow and a road, in surprisingly good condition, led down in a spiral to the row of concrete units. Shanti picked up the pace; the lock-ups were nowhere to go alone, especially now that Collins had disappeared and the meetings had stopped.

  It was only beyond the lock-ups that he began to question why he’d risked coming to the Derelict Quarter at all. Being seen here could affect his status. It was crazy when his job at MMP was already on sandy foundations.

  He had been called. That was it.

  Something had reached out to him and he was following the prompt. There was only one thing he would find out here among ruins that could not be considered part of the town. Instead of pretending he didn’t know what it was, he began to look for it. He concentrated on the drawing sensation in his belly and felt it strengthen in response.

  Ahead were more shattered terraces of what had once been houses. He walked towards them. Sick looking weeds grew occasionally from cracks and rents in the grim landscape. The earth below held little or no nourishment and the weeds appeared to survive on light, air and tenacity.

  He passed between the remains of houses, crossed what once had been a street and passed through more houses on the other side. Beyond them the destruction appeared total. He merely wandered between unrecognisable piles of mortar, tile, brick and block, every hillock of wreckage thick with grey dust and grit. Here and there rusted steel or charred wood frameworks rose like broken fingers reaching towards the sky. The damage stretched out to the horizon.

  A few feet in front of him, the ground dropped away at a shallow angle for a few paces. He slid in the debris as he scrambled down. Looking back he could see nothing of the town centre from this depression in the land. Only the very tips of some of the tower blocks were still visible. He moved on feeling safer now that he was less likely t
o be observed.

  The sun had been up for several minutes but there was nothing it could do to make this part of Abyrne cheerier. All it did was lighten the grey all around him. The ruin seemed to go on forever.

  He stopped walking.

  What’s out here? What could possibly exist in all this destruction and decay? Am I crazy walking out here like this? What’s wrong with me?

  He looked down at his long black coat. The lower half of it was grey now with the dust of the Derelict Quarter. He’d snagged it on some sharp protrusion and there was a tear in the back of it.

  The landscape is changing me. Making me like it. All it takes is a few minutes and it’s taking me over. I have to get home. For the girls. They’re all that matters now.

  He turned back towards the slope and began to walk back, panic moving his feet.

  Then he saw the opening.

  It was a very definite thing. Not some accident of the shifting rubble. It was several yards to the left of where he’d slithered down the incline. Coming down the slope he hadn’t noticed it. It was a broad hole, once perfectly rectangular but now bitten and ragged like everything else out here. He walked towards it and the opening grew, more of it becoming visible as he approached. This had been some kind of entrance way.

  When he stood on its threshold all he could see beyond was darkness descending. A few steps were visible leading downwards. That was all.

  Moments before it had seemed that no environment could be worse than the Derelict Quarter. Now there was nothing worse than darkness. He tried not to think about it.

  To guide himself, he ran his hand along the wall and felt with his feet to make sure there were more steps and that the ground didn’t disappear into a drop. Every few steps he turned around, reassured himself that he could still see the light from the entrance and that he would keep going deeper while that light was still visible.

  The Derelict Quarter. He realised now, as he tried not to think about what he was walking into, that the name was completely wrong. The area covered by the tumbledown buildings and tracts of formless demolition was vast. The part he’d seen was larger by far than the town centre and many of the other districts put together. It stretched into the distance for what must have been several miles. He’d seen near the horizon something that looked like a ladder on its side and he tried to guess what it might have been. Not a bridge exactly but something similar. It would have been enormous if he were closer to it. Perhaps some kind of walkway or road built through the air. But for what purpose he couldn’t imagine.

  He felt for the next step with his right foot but there was no next step. He’d reached a level floor. The sole of his boot crunched over the grit. The sound echoed. The space around him was large then. What must it have been? He put his back to the wall and edged along it. This way he could still see the sliver of light where he’d entered. A few sideways paces and the entrance itself disappeared from view. Still, he could see the glow coming from it. Just a few paces further and then he’d go back.

  The sensation in his guts intensified. Maybe it was because the darkness had made him concentrate on what he could feel rather than what he could see. The feeling drew him deeper into the black space.

  Shanti stopped.

  The light from the entrance was now very faint indeed. He felt very far from familiar, safe things. The darkness became aware all around him. It was alive. There was something down there with him, coming towards him out of the depths. He couldn’t see it but he could –

  – feel many hands taking hold of him, pressing him into the wall so that he could not move. By the time he tried to struggle, he was pinned. He felt the warmth of faces in the darkness, the breath of others. And then the tones of a familiar voice.

  ‘Glad you could join us.’

  They led him across an open space and down more steps. This happened three times. They left the light far behind. Some insane corner of his mind fantasised that they were taking him to a new world. Somewhere down in all this darkness there would be a door and that door would open into a better place, a place without slaughter and violence.

  It was the fear making him think that way, he reasoned. After all, he had no idea what they were going to do. He had discovered their secret place. They might wish to prevent that secret from ever being known.

  No one spoke and he didn’t try to make use of their silence to beg for mercy or plead his innocence. Instinct told him to keep quiet. There were several of them; he could tell by the footsteps in front and behind. He considered trying to tear from their arms and run away but he’d only end up hurting himself. They seemed to know the way to walk without putting a foot wrong. He’d probably run straight into a wall or break his legs on unseen stairs. There was nothing to do but go along with them.

  They came to a halt in a space that had no echo. The arms let go of him. Many footsteps retreated away but he sensed he wasn’t completely alone.

  ‘Why don’t you sit down?’ suggested the voice.

  Shanti felt around and below himself for something to sit on. There was nothing there.

  ‘Sorry,’ said the voice as if the person speaking had forgotten to provide milk with tea. ‘Just a second.’

  In the dark Shanti heard a hiss and smelled the familiar odour of gas. A match flared and the lamp lit up the room. He was standing opposite a smiling John Collins.

  ‘Welcome to our temporary new home.’

  Shanti looked around in the yellow gloom. They were in some kind of small office or storeroom cleared of all furniture except for a cot on the floor and some blankets folded into makeshift cushions. Collins gestured towards one and Shanti sat down.

  Richard Shanti didn’t run the next day either. He rose again when he sensed the sun ascending toward the horizon and went outside with a new sense of purpose. An hour later he returned when the sun was well up. Maya rose and woke the girls, made their breakfast of grilled steak.

  He assumed they all ate meat every day now. It had gone on long enough that he had begun to appreciate the irony of it rather than shouldering the guilt for them. There was another way to live and in time he would show them. First he had to prove it to himself. As a vegetarian he was halfway there already. The next step ought to be easy for him.

  He’d usually left for work by the time his wife and the girls were up, having made breakfast for himself. Maya seemed to resent his presence. When she spoke, her tone was grudging.

  ‘Do you want food? I’ll make you some rice gruel.’

  ‘I’m fine.’

  He watched Hema and Harsha sawing through slabs of steak and forking lumps of grilled meat into their mouths. They chewed hungrily and efficiently. In just a few weeks they’d been transformed into carnivores by the determination of his wife. The steaks oozed clear juice tainted brown onto their white plates. At least she cooked them all the way through. Or maybe she’d done that because he was here watching them.

  It didn’t matter.

  Finally, after so many years of hopeless wrestling with the implications of his job and the sickening realities of the town, there was a new hope for him, for the girls; something beyond his imaginings, beyond what seemed possible.

  It could be the answer to everything. A chance to start again. To atone. Never in his life could he have believed this might come to him and yet, now that the time was near, it seemed predestined. It was everything he could have voiced in petition but never knew how to say.

  ‘I’m going to go back to work today.’

  ‘I thought Bob told you to take more time than this.’

  He didn’t reply for a few moments.

  ‘Mr. Torrance’ll know when he sees me that I’m ready to start back. He’s an experienced judge of character.’

  ‘If he’s so experienced, he must have given you the time off for a reason.’

  ‘True. But he’ll be pleased to have me.’

  She shrugged like she suddenly didn’t care and busied herself at the kitchen sink. He watched her back. There w
as language in the movement and he thought he understood it now like never before in their fifteen years of marriage. He knew what people’s bodies said, what the bodies of the Chosen said. Maybe he’d never allowed himself to read her before.

  As far as he was concerned, she could eat all the meat she wanted and live in ignorance of the suffering she perpetuated. But the twins were a different matter.

  When the time came, they were the ones he’d look out for. Veal.

  Torrance couldn’t have given him a worse job. Shanti hoped he’d picked it because it represented a reduction in pace and pressure and not because Torrance knew what was troubling him.

  The veal yard was a self-contained building, smaller than the dairy and the slaughterhouse. Once veal calves arrived and were installed, they remained there until they weighed enough to be slaughtered, which also took place on the premises. Even the butchering was performed on site giving Magnus total control over veal quality.

  This meant the calves, secured for years in their darkened crates, could hear the sound of their own kind being killed every day of their lives. They used similar sounds to communicate but their language differed from the rest of the herd because they were isolated and had created words for things only they experienced.

  Shanti didn’t understand all of it and he was glad. There was so much innocence to their communication, so much acceptance of their end that it broke his heart to listen. The older calves, usually the respected teachers among them, would become frightened as they neared their time and then the hisses and taps would become a kind of harmonised prayer to give them strength and courage. The dusky halls of the veal yard throbbed with their muted rhythms and Shanti was nauseated.

  Torrance, knowingly or not, had given him the job of stunning the calves. The frequency was entirely different from the slaughterhouse. There was no chain speed – no chain even. They killed no more than eight or ten calves a day which meant one every hour or so. Shanti had plenty of time to think about what he was going to do to them.