Killing God

by Kevin Brooks

  In the end, I choose one called Holy Bible: The New Revised Standard Version, With Apocrypha. It's got the world-famous Nelson's Unique Fan-Tab™ Index Reference System (which, apparently, Helps you find the books of the Bible in an instant!). It's also got:

  Informative Section Introductions with Line Drawings and Maps

  Topical Subject Headings with Cross-Reference for Further Study

  Self-Pronouncing Text for Ease in Reading

  Textual and Explanatory Footnotes for Enhanced Understanding

  and all for only £11.99.

  It's a pretty hefty book (1,191 very thin pages), and it looks like it's got at least twenty billion very small words in it, so before I go to the pay desk I nip into the Children's section and get myself a much more accessible-looking Children's Illustrated Bible (£9.99).

  I remove my earphones, take the Bibles up to the pay desk, and give them to the goateed bookseller guy.

  He looks at them, turns them over, scans them with his barcode thing.

  ‘Yeah, that's £21.98, please,’ he says.

  I dig in my pocket for some money, trying to separate a single £50 note from the rest of the notes I've got stuffed in there, but as I pull it out, the other notes come flopping out with it, and I drop the lot on the counter. There's a fair amount of cash there (which I'll explain in a while) – about £250 or so – and I can see the bookseller guy staring at it, and I can see him wondering what someone like me – i.e. a lumpyish and obviously not very rich fifteen-year-old girl – is doing with so much money.

  I don't say anything to him, I just scoop up the notes, pass him the fifty, and jam the rest in my pocket. He hesitates for a moment, then he shrugs (like, who cares?), takes the fifty, holds it up to the light to make sure it's real, puts it in the till, puts the Bibles in a carrier bag, and gives me my change. I gaze at the notes and coins in my hand, momentarily tempted to pick out a £1 coin, hold it up to the light, and squint at it like the bookseller guy just squinted at my fifty, like I'm checking to make sure it's real… you know, just for a laugh. But I don't suppose he'd find it very funny, and I can't be bothered anyway.

  ‘Do you want your receipt in the bag?’ he says.

  I nod.

  He puts the receipt in the bag and passes it over.

  ‘What time do you close?’ I ask him.

  ‘Eight o'clock,’ he says, looking at his watch.

  ‘I thought you closed at four?’

  ‘No,’ he says. ‘Eight o'clock.’

  ‘What time do you close on Sundays?’

  ‘Yeah, four o'clock on a Sunday.’

  ‘Why's that?’

  He gives me an impatient look. ‘What?’

  ‘Why do you close at four on Sundays?’

  He shrugs again. ‘I don't know… we just do.’

  I thank him, pick up my Bibles, go outside, collect Jesus and Mary, and head off into the winter-dark rain.

  happy when it rains (1)

  This rain is the kind of rain that shivers like silver in the dark. It soaks into everything, like a fine spray of mist, and it seeps right into you, all the way down to your bones. And I'd like to like it. I'd like to be happy when it rains – in a darkly romantic/Jesus and Mary Chain kind of way – but I don't. It's just cold and wet and horrible. Jesus and Mary don't like it either. And as I'm scuttling back down the street towards the shelter of the shopping precinct, they keep stopping every few steps or so to shake themselves. I don't know why they bother, because they've never been the best shakers in the world. Their legs are too short, for a start. I mean, it's hard to shake with any real vigour when your legs are no bigger than a fat man's finger. And even if they could shake themselves effectively, they don't really have any hair to shake. So, all in all, it's a fairly pointless exercise. But they do it anyway. Waddle, waddle… shake, shake… waddle, waddle… shake, shake…

  ‘Come on,’ I keep telling them. ‘Hurry up. I haven't got all day.’

  Which is a lie, of course.

  I've got more than all day. I've got all day, all evening, all night, all of the next day…

  I don't really have any human friends. My only real friends are Jesus and Mary. And they're dogs. Of course, I'm not saying that I don't know any humans, because I do. I know most of the kids in my year at school, and quite a few who aren't in my year, and some of the kids who live down my street. I know their names, and what they look like, and what kind of people they are… and sometimes I even talk to some of them. But they're not what I'd call friends.

  I suppose most people think of me as a loser. And they're probably right. But it doesn't bother me. I mean, yes, OK, I am a loser – but I'm a perfectly content kind of loser. I don't want to be in with the in-crowd, and I genuinely don't care what anyone thinks or says about me. And, yes, because of that (and also because I'm smarter than your average bear), I get a few dirty looks now and then, and some of the other kids sometimes try to get me going by calling me names. Lesbian seems to be the most popular one. Although, come to think of it, I don't get called a lesbian as much as I used to. In fact, I haven't been called a lesbian for ages. Which could mean that the name-callers have realized that I really don't care what they call me, or it could just mean that lesbians are kind of cool these days, so calling me a lesbian simply doesn't work as an insult any more.

  Anyway, the long and short of it is – I don't fit in, and I don't want to fit in, so most of the time everyone pretty much leaves me alone.

  Which is why, as I'm nearing the entrance to the precinct, I'm surprised to see Mel Monroe and Taylor Harding, the two bad-assiest girls from school, coming out of Accessorize and looking at me with some kind of interest.

  I don't stop walking, of course.

  I just keep my head down and keep going. Keep going, keep going, keep listening to the music, keep pretending that I don't hear Mel and Taylor shouting out behind me: ‘Dawn! Hey, Dawn! Hold on a minute. DAWN!’

  But you can only pretend to ignore so much, can't you? And when Mel and Taylor suddenly appear on the pavement right in front of me, jumping around and waving their hands to get my iPodded attention, I don't really have much choice, do I? I have to stop, looking at them with feigned surprise. I have to turn off my iPod and pull out my earphones and listen to what they're saying.

  ‘Hey, Dawn,’ Taylor is saying. ‘Where're you going? Where've you been?’

  She's all lipsticked up, her eyes black and lashy, and despite the cold and the rain, all she's wearing is a short denim skirt and a bright-white puffy little jacket.

  ‘Uh… I'm not going anywhere,’ I mutter. ‘I'm just… you know…’

  ‘Y'all right?’ says Mel.

  I look at her, wondering what the hell's going on. Why are these two talking to me? They never talk to me. They wouldn't be seen dead talking to me, especially outside Accessorize, with a bunch of their bad-assy friends still hanging around inside, and with me in my Nothing Coat and my baggy black trousers and my worn-out old boots, clutching a bag full of Bibles. But here they are, asking me where I'm going, if I'm all right…

  ‘Yeah,’ I tell Mel. ‘Yeah, I'm all right.’

  She nods her head, chewing gum. She's shorter than Taylor, and prettier too… in a cheap kind of way. But cheap looks good on her. And she knows it.

  ‘They yours?’ Taylor asks me, looking down at Jesus and Mary, who are both sitting patiently at my feet.

  ‘Yeah,’ I say.

  ‘They bite?’

  ‘Only if I tell them to.’

  ‘What kind of dogs are they?’

  ‘Dachshunds.’

  ‘What hoonds?’

  ‘Dachshunds.’

  ‘Sausage dogs,’ Mel explains.

  Taylor nods, not really interested. She glances at the carrier bag in my hand. ‘What've you got in there?’

  I shrug. ‘Just some books.’

  ‘Books?’ (Like I've just told her I've got a couple of turds in the bag.) ‘What kind of books?’

  I shrug ag
ain. ‘Just books, you know…’

  ‘Right.’ She looks over her shoulder, staring at a couple of girls coming out of Accessorize, then she turns back to me. ‘What're you doing tonight?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Tonight… what are you doing?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘D' you want to come to a party?’

  ‘A party?’

  She sighs. ‘Are you deaf?’

  Mel laughs.

  I look at her.

  ‘We're having a little party, that's all,’ she tells me, flicking her hair. ‘Just a few people, you know. Music. A few drinks. D'you want to come?’

  I almost say, ‘Do I want to come?’ but I manage to stop myself just in time. My face still says it though: A party? You're having a little party and you want me to come?

  ‘You all right?’ Mel says, frowning at me.

  ‘Yeah… yeah, sorry. I was just –’

  ‘Look,’ Taylor says hurriedly, glancing over her shoulder again, ‘we've got to get going, OK?’

  ‘Right…’

  She leans towards me. ‘So?’

  ‘What?’

  Another sigh. ‘So… do you want to come to this party or not?’

  ‘Umm, I don't know… where is it?’

  Mel and Taylor answer me at the same time: ‘My place.’

  ‘Sorry?’

  They look at each other for a moment, both of them slightly annoyed (but trying not to show it), then they turn back to me, suddenly all smiles again.

  ‘It's at my place,’ Taylor says. ‘It was going to be at Mel's, but… uhh…’

  ‘My mum's going to be there,’ Mel continues. ‘I thought she was going out, you know, but she changed her mind. So we're having the party at Taylor's instead.’

  ‘Right,’ I say. ‘And her mum's not going to be there?’

  ‘No,’ says Taylor. ‘So, you know, if you want to come along, have some fun…’ She winks at me. ‘It's Nelson Lane, across from the park. You know where that is?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Number 57,’ she says. ‘Nine o'clock.’

  ‘Right.’

  And that's just about it. They turn round and walk away up the street, giggling and whispering to each other, waggling their backsides, and Taylor says something to Mel, and Mel slaps her playfully on the arm, and Taylor lets out an ugly shriek of laughter… and I'm left standing here on the pavement, cold and wet and confused.

  I look down at Jesus and Mary.

  ‘Any idea what that was all about?’ I ask them.

  Mary yawns.

  Jesus licks his arse.

  ‘Yeah, thanks,’ I say. ‘That's really helpful.’

  inside me (2)

  I'm on the bus on the way home now. Rainwater is dripping from coats and umbrellas, and I can smell the sour scent of rainwet clothes and old people. I'm sitting upstairs, near the back, with Jesus and Mary lying on the floor at my feet. Mary is shivering.

  ‘It's all right,’ I tell her, scratching her head. ‘We'll be home soon.’

  how soon?

  ‘Soon.’

  I should have brought their coats. If I'd brought their coats, they wouldn't have got so cold and wet.

  I'm an idiot.

  I turn on my iPod, scroll through the menu, and select ‘Inside Me’. A moment's silence, a tick of a drum, then the bass comes in and the guitars start buzzing and

  (i take my time away

  and i see something)

  I see too much.

  In the thick glass windows, I see the colourless reflections of other passengers. I see a small boy resting his chin on the silver rail of a seat-back, grinning at the buzz of the bus vibrating through his head. His mother hisses loudly at him – ‘Dennis!’ – and when he ignores her, she yanks his arm with a charmless hand and hisses even louder, ‘I won't tell you again!’

  Dennis doesn't care.

  Further down the bus, I see a twenty-something man, all dirty fingernails and pock-marked skin, flapping the pages of a computer magazine, looking – I imagine – for something he wants. In front of him, two thin teenage girls in tight clothes are whispering to each other, exchanging smirks and stifled snorts, and in front of them a young boy about my age sits alone, toying uncomfortably with the drawstring of his coat hood.

  On the back of the seat in front of me there's a graffitied swastika, a toothy head, and something that looks like a giant hairy amoeba. I don't think it's supposed to be a giant hairy amoeba, but that's what it looks like. On the floor, there's a couple of lumps of chewing gum and a piece of cellophane.

  The town passes by in the silver-black rain. Streets, roads, street-trees, empty playing fields, orange lights, power lines, a thousand houses, cars and people. The green-grey slick of the river. A bridge. A row of small estate shops… where, beneath the awning of a newsagent's, a sad-looking girl is reading the postcard messages stuck in the shop window… but I don't think she's really reading them. I think she's just waiting for someone. And I wonder for a moment who she's waiting for – her boyfriend, her mother, her father?

  (it's living inside me)

  The sad-looking girl is looking away from the window now, dragging a lock of hair behind her ear, and as she peers hopefully down the street, the shop door opens and an Asian man comes out, crouches down beside her, and padlocks a big chain to the bubblegum machine.

  (I can see all these things from inside my cave but it's too small and dark in here for anyone or anything to see me.)

  In the seat behind me, an old man hacks up an old-man's cough – kah!

  (My name is Dawn.

  I'm thirteen years old.

  My name is Dawn.)

  I close my cave eyes and open my carrier bag and get out my Holy Bible.

  (i've seen it all before)

  I already know how the Bible begins (In the beginning, etc.) so instead of starting at the first page, I just kind of open it up and flip through the flappy-thin pages and start reading something at random. And the first thing I come across (and I'm not kidding you here, this really is the straight-up truth)… the first thing I come across is a really weird story about a Levite and his concubine. Of course, I have no idea what a Levite or a concubine is, but according to the Textual and Explanatory Footnotes for Enhanced Understanding, at the back of the Bible, a Levite is: na descendant of Levi: an inferior priest of the ancient Jewish Church: (also without cap.) a clergyman (slang). And a concubine is not (as I thought) some kind of biblical porcupine, it's: oone (esp. a woman) who cohabits without being married: a mistress. OK, so it's a story about some kind of old priest and his girlfriend or mistress, and I think they're just travelling around Israel or something, and they're in this place called Gibeah, and for some reason they can't find anywhere to stay. Then this old man comes along and tells them they can stay at his place if they want, and so they all go off to this old man's house and everything's cool for a while – he feeds their donkeys, makes them dinner, gives them something to drink.

  But then this happens:

  22While they were enjoying themselves, the men of the city, a perverse lot, surrounded the house, and started pounding on the door. They said to the old man, the master of the house, “Bring out the man who came into your house, so that we may have intercourse with him.” 23And the man, the master of the house, went out to them and said to them, “No, my brothers, do not act so wickedly. Since this man is my guest, do not do this vile thing. 24Here are my virgin daughter and his concubine; let me bring them out now. Ravish them and do whatever you want to them; but against this man do not do such a vile thing.” 25But the men would not listen to him. So the man seized his concubine and put her out to them. They wantonly raped her, and abused her all through night until the morning. And as the dawn began to break, they let her go. 26As morning appeared, the woman came and fell down at the door of the man's house where her master was, until it was light. 27In the morning her master got up, opened the doors of the house, and when he went out to go on his way,
there was his concubine lying at the door of the house with her hands on the threshold. 28“Get up,” he said to her, “we are going.” But there was no answer. Then he put her on the donkey; and the man set out for his home. 29When he had entered his house, he took a knife, and grasping his concubine he cut her into twelve pieces, limb by limb, and sent her throughout the territory of Israel.

  And that's it. Honestly. You can check it out if you want – it's chapter 19 in the book of Judges. That's the story. A bunch of tough guys (who've obviously been down the pub) want to have sex with the priest, but the old man won't let them because the priest is his guest, and of course it's really bad manners to allow your male guest to be gang-raped. So what the old man does, he tells this gang of drunken perverts that they can't have the priest, but they're more than welcome to ravish his virgin daughter and the priest's girlfriend instead. For some reason, though, this alternative offer doesn't seem to interest the gang all that much, so the priest just grabs his girlfriend and chucks her out of the house, and the men outside spend all night wantonly raping her and abusing her. And then, in the morning, when the priest opens the door and finds this poor girl lying on the doorstep, he just kind of looks at her and says, ‘Get up. We're going.’ But she's dead. So he takes her back home and cuts her up into twelve pieces.

  Which is fair enough, I suppose.

  I mean, what else are you going to do with a dead concubine?

  I close the Bible then, not sure I want to read any more. Of course, this horror story is probably some kind of allegory or something, one of those things that's not meant to be taken literally. I mean, it's probably not as sick as it sounds.

  But still…

  It kind of stinks, doesn't it?

  cut dead

  I'm half thinking of God and half thinking of Taylor and Mel as I get off the bus at the end of Whipton Lane. The street lights are on, dazzling orange in the still-falling rain, and the night's getting colder. I keep my head down and hurry along Whipton Lane, then right, into Dane Street. My street. This is where I live.