Lets Drink To The Dead

by Simon Bestwick

  Fitton breathes through his nose.

  “Come on, Alan. Our train’s due.”

  They move fast, and she keeps her hand on her pocket, but Fitton doesn’t follow. The train pulls onto the platform as they reach it. Alan runs for it with a sudden burst of a younger boy’s energy and speed. Vera smiles.

  Everything, she tells herself, will be alright.

  AS THE TRAIN pulls away from Kempforth, Alan looks at the platform and knows that he and he alone sees the three small boys stood naked in the rain watching them go. Because he has the Sight.

  One day they will call him home and he’ll pay what he owes. In the meantime, like they said, he can make a living. There’s always someone wants to talk to their dead mother, father, husband, wife. Son, daughter, dog. Vera doesn’t know it yet, but he’s going to make them rich. He promises it, for both of them. And he’ll do all he can to work off his debt.

  JUST AFTER DAWN and Yolly creeps downstairs, having dressed on the landing. He walks stiffly, sore; Mr Fitton took things out on him, like he often does, but it didn’t do him much good; Yolly’s too old for his tastes now. And so Mr Fitton hurt him because of that.

  Out back of the butcher’s shop the last embers still glow where Mr Fitton burned the bags of stuff from Mr Walsh’s house. He goes outside and looks to see that it’s all been burnt up. There’s nothing left. Good.

  Yolly goes back inside. He’s pinched Mr Fitton’s keys. He unlocks the gun cabinet and takes out Mr Fitton’s twelve-bore. He puts shells into his pockets and two in the shotgun, snaps the breech shut and goes back upstairs.

  The butcher’s shop is under the railway viaduct. The ceiling rattles faintly; a train’s coming.

  Yolly steps in through the door. “Mr Fitton?” he says.

  “What?” The greasy bulk in the bed stirs, rolls onto its back. Piggy eyes glare at him. “What the bloody hell are you...?”

  Yolly cocks the shotgun.

  “Yolly.” Mr Fitton tries to sit up, voice wheedling. The train goes overhead, its roar shaking the room. “Yolly, lad–”

  Yolly fires the left-hand barrel and blows apart the sheets over Mr Fitton’s groin. The grimy white sheets are red. Mr Fitton’s screaming, fingers clawing into the ragged, spurting hole that Yolly’s made. Yolly puts the gun to his shoulder, aims and fires the second barrel into that scream. It cuts off; Mr Fitton snaps back against the headboard and most of his head splashes up the wall and onto the ceiling. He stays sat up but sags, like a great big pudding collapsing.

  The train passes on. Yolly’s ears hum. The room stinks of shit and gunsmoke. He breaks the shotgun, discards the shells, goes out.

  Next he takes Mr Fitton’s van out to Saint Matthias’. He parks across the road and watches and waits and smokes three of Mr Fitton’s cigarettes until he sees Father Joseph come out of the parochial house and approach the church doors; then he gets out of the van and goes up the path after him. “Father Joe?”

  The priest turns in the doorway; he hates being called that. “What?” And then Yolly takes the shotgun out from under his coat and gives him both barrels, blowing him back through the doorway and halfway down the aisle before he hits a pew and clings on. Yolly walks through the doorway and up the aisle, reloading as Father Joe’s knees buckle and his guts slide out onto the floor. The priest turns and looks at him and opens a mouth full of blood; Yolly shoves the gun muzzle into it and fires. Father Joe falls forward with a lower jaw and fuck-all else attached; his blood goes all over Yolly and spreads across the aisle floor. Yolly doesn’t care; it doesn’t matter now.

  Yolly reloads again as he goes out of the church; not that he plans to use the gun again, but to scare off anyone gets in his way. He’s got one more thing he’s promised to do.

  Someone starts screaming as Yolly gets back in the van. It doesn’t matter. He’s not going far.

  He drives quickly out of Kempforth on Dunwich Road North, then turns off onto Dunwich Lane. The abandoned farmhouse, where the Shrike was waiting yesterday. He goes inside with the shotgun on the off-chance, but of course the Shrike’s long-gone. He’s beyond Yolly’s reach, like the Policeman; he doesn’t know where to find them. He looks up the wooded slopes above the house. Ash Fell, it’s called. Someone told him that once.

  Yolly fetches the two cans of fuel from the van and splashes them around the house. Burn it down, deny it to the Shrike. No more kids from Kempforth will be that bastard’s prey. Or even Yolly’s.

  There’s a price for everything. Redemption, sometimes, most of all.

  One can’s still about a third full; Yolly empties it over himself, then sits on the kitchen floor and fumbles out a packet of matches. The fumes make his head swim. They sting his eyes, too, so he shuts them. When he opens them again, Johnny, Mark and Sam are stood there, smiling, and he knows his debt is paid.

  “I got them for you,” he says. “I punished them.”

  Johnny shakes his head. You stopped them, Yolly. Their punishment’s still to come.

  “But not for me?”

  No, not for you. Not now.

  Yolly puts the match to the sandpaper. He takes a deep breath. This bit’s difficult. In the second before the match strikes and its sulphurous flames enfold him, he consoles himself that it’s nothing to the debt Alan Latimer will pay, when his day of reckoning comes.

  GIDEON

  1

  November, 1985

  THE VAN RATTLED along Dunwich Road, across the moors from Yorkshire.

  In the passenger seat, Dani’s eyelids drooped. Stay awake. Stay awake. At the corner of her eye she could feel the driver eyeing her up.

  Rain hit the windscreen like specks of grit. A car’s oncoming headlights flared; Dani squinted, sat up straight.

  Up ahead, hills; Dunwich Road cut through them and on through the town. A sign flashed by: Manchester 20. Halfway there, anyroad. And after that–?

  The van turned right, down a dark, narrow lane that ran beside the hill.

  “What’s this?” Dani sat up straight. But she knew; of course she knew. It had been on the cards from the minute he’d picked her up. She were young, not daft.

  “Nowt, lass,” the driver said. “Nowt much.”

  They were going too fast for her to risk jumping out. She looked back; the lights of the cars on Dunwich Road receded, then vanished as the van rounded a bend. The driver was looking sidelong at her, a smile on his lips. Christ, he was forty-odd – dad’s age – and with a gut on him like a bag of spuds. But he was strong too; big shoulders, thick heavy arms – heavy with muscle, not flab.

  A house coming up on the right: lights out, derelict. He stopped the van.

  “I’ve carried you this far,” he said. “Carry you rest of way into Manchester if you like. But I think you owe us summat in exchange.”

  “Oh aye?” Glad she’d kept her denim jacket on; she eased her hand into the pocket.

  “Aye, lass. You know. Ride for a ride, that’s the sayin’, in’t it?” He sniggered, showing big yellow teeth.

  “Fuck off,” Dani said. The snigger stopped and the driver’s look changed from a sneer to a scowl. He was used to women being doormats. That was one thing had changed around her way during the Strike; she’d learnt a few new things.

  “Right, then,” he said, and his hand lifted from the wheel, came up to strike–

  Dani moved first – her hand slid out of her pocket and snaked towards his face, thumb pushing the catch on the switchblade. The blade shot out, the point less than an inch from his eye.

  “Fuckin’ move,” she said, “and you’re blind.”

  The driver pressed his lips together and breathed through his nose. Not happy. Watch him. And think. Fast. Before he does.

  “Wind down your window,” she said.

  “What?”

  “You heard. Driver’s window. Wind it down.”

  He did.

  “Now take the keys out and sling ’em.”

  “Aw, come on–”

  “Do it o
r lose an eye.”

  He took the keys and flung them out. She heard them clatter on the tarmac. Not far away. Not far enough. Shit.

  She unfastened the passenger door, pushed it open, then leant in close to him, kept the blade at his eye, wriggling round to reach into the footwell and pull out her backpack. “Stay put,” she said. “Forget me. Find your keys and carry on where you were going. Right?” He didn’t answer. “Right?”

  “Right,” he said. She didn’t believe him, but what was she going to do? Stab him?

  Dani slid out of the van onto the road. The man climbed after her.

  “Stay back,” she said. There was a shake in her voice. Fuck.

  The driver grinned. He jumped out onto the road, flexed his arms. Shit. She’d backed away and now he was barring the way back to the main road.

  He lunged at her; she slashed at him with the knife, kicked him in the balls and ran.

  “Bitch!”

  Seconds later she realised she was going the wrong way. She should’ve gone past him, back towards Dunwich Road.

  And then the van’s engine roared into life and the headlights blazed.

  The lane stretched out ahead as far as she could see. To the right were open fields – nowhere to hide there. But to the left was the hillside – thick woodlands she could vanish in. She scrambled off to her left, yelping as her trainers plunged ankle-deep in a ditch full of cold water, then found a narrow desire-line worn into the ground, vanishing up into the trees. She ran up it, grabbing at thin tree-trunks for balance. She stopped for a second to push the knife’s blade in and put it back in her pocket. The engine roared behind her, light flared through the trees. Then she was climbing again. She could barely see. She kept her head down and eyes narrowed against the sharp twigs slashing at her face and her arms feeling out ahead.

  “Bitch!” The van door slammed. “You fucking bitch!”

  Christ, change the record, you div.

  “You’re not fucking getting away that easy! I’ll find you!”

  Dani kept climbing. Below, a splash and the van driver cursed. Despite everything, she had to smile.

  He was thrashing through the undergrowth. Dani climbed faster, stopped. He was big and he was strong. He’d gain on her and then–

  Wait. Try this.

  She stepped off the path, squeezed between trees and trunks, pushed her way through brittle undergrowth, found a thick tree and crouched behind it. A blurred pale shape moved back the way she’d come. “Where are you?” the driver wheezed. “Fucking where?”

  Obviously, Dani wasn’t answering. She took the knife out again, rested her thumb on the button that would release the blade. A couple of the badges on her jacket clicked together and she froze, holding her breath, wondering how well the sound would carry in the cold damp air. After a moment, there was a muffled roar of rage and a heavy thud – a workboot, she guessed, kicking a tree. “Fuck you then,” he shouted. “Stay up here and freeze, you frigid cunt. You’ll fucking wish you’d sucked us off, you little slag. Specially up here. Cow.”

  After a while, she heard his thrashing progress back down the hillside. A long time later – it felt like a long time, anyroad – the van door slammed and the engine roared back into life before receding out of earshot.

  So what now? Her feet were freezing. They ached with cold. She could climb back down, make her way back to Dunwich Road. But what if he’d parked up along the lane, waiting for her to do just that? Didn’t seem too likely; he was on his way to Manchester and he had a load to deliver. Couldn’t wait around all night just because the hitchhiker he’d picked up hadn’t done as he’d wanted.

  But all the same, she didn’t fancy it.

  How far up the hill was she? If she kept climbing she could make it to the top, then down the other side. She’d been to Kempforth, years before; she remembered there were farms all over the hills overlooking the town. She could bed down in a barn. Fuck it, if she had to she’d knock on a farmhouse door and beg.

  None of that, lass, she imagined Dad saying. You don’t beg. Raised you better than that.

  Aye, but she was chattery-teethed, cold and tired. Just a place to bed down, please. Anything. Besides, she could do the whole sob story of what the van driver had tried to do.

  She was starting to shake with cold. That wasn’t good. Oh, Christ. If she had to, she realised, she’d do what the van driver had wanted her to do if it meant a bed for the night. The thought made her sick and it made her feel weak. She’d not been gone from home a full day yet and already she was ready to sell herself. She still hadn’t done it with a lad yet, either. For all the punky look she liked, she was no slag. Or at least she’d never thought of herself that way. So much for saving yourself for your wedding night, girl.

  Never mind that: move, or you’ll not live long enough to marry. She rummaged through her rucksack, found her torch, switched it on and used it to light her way through the woods.

  THE TREES CAME out; the ground dipped, became more even. She found herself on a path of some kind – a low, long depression in the ground, leading off to the side and down. Something loomed up beside it; a concrete platform a couple of feet taller than her, on top of which stood a couple of old benches, a bus shelter and a house where no lights shone.

  Dani aimed her torch at the house and played the beam first over boarded-up windows, then a sign on the platform: ASH FELL. An old railway station; the path was where the track had lain. At either end there was a ramp down to ground level. She climbed up the nearest, onto the platform. An asphalted path led from it up the hillside. Easier going than she’d had, but she found herself flinching back from it. It looked like a long piece of bone, leading up into the darkness, and the trees seemed to crowd all the more closely round it. And she was cold. And she was tired.

  She looked at the house instead. Must have been the stationmaster’s. The boards covering the front door had gone. She ventured inside. The interior was gutted, but she was able to sweep a section of floor clear of debris, unpack her sleeping bag and unroll it. So cold. So tired. She just needed sleep. Rest.

  Not just yet, lass. She unpacked Dad’s old primus stove, heated the last of her bottled water over it and mixed it with one of the packet soups she’d taken, then climbed into the sleeping bag. She drank the soup as quickly as she could. So tired. This place was horrible- god knew what else might be in here with her. Or outside, in these woods. But she was too exhausted to be afraid anymore. And so she closed her eyes and slept.

  2

  PEOPLE WERE STANDING over here. Some wore hospital smocks and some wore army uniforms. She couldn’t see their faces, but she knew that was a good thing. Then one of them crouched, bringing his face close to hers. Except he didn’t have a face. There was just a hole. In a moment it would touch her. Dani tried to scream, but couldn’t.

  She woke. She lay on a hard floor in a dark place; the air was cold and damp. There was a doorway, a pale blur. A tall thin shape stepped into it.

  That was when she did scream.

  A moment later a torch beam flashed into her face. She bit the scream off – she remembered now. The van, the chase, the railway station. Here. Under the sleeping bag, she fumbled in her jacket for the knife.

  “It’s alright.” The voice was male. It sounded elderly and a bit posh. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

  Dani stayed still. She was fully clothed under the bag; her body heat would dry out her socks and trainers quicker that way, and they couldn’t be stolen.

  The torch lowered. She saw a little of the man’s face: thin, lined. “I heard noise,” he said. “Some sort of commotion.”

  “Yeah.” Dani sat up, keeping her hand on the knife. “Hitched a lift. Driver wanted me to – you know.”

  “Oh, I see. How awful. So you ended up here?”

  “Thought he might’ve been waiting for me. Stupid really. He’ll be long gone. But... thought I’d try and climb over the hill.”

  “Alone, in the dark, at this time of yea
r?” The voice sounded amused. “You were lucky. Ash Fell can be dangerous. Steep, treacherous.” A pause. “Look, this land is my property, but I have no objection to you staying here. If you want, however...”

  “What?”

  “You’re welcome to spend the night in my home.” He raised a hand. “I assure you that you’ll be safe. There are many rooms, you can take your pick. I can’t offer luxury, but I can offer a bed, a better one than this, a decent meal and a proper breakfast before you go on your way tomorrow.”

  Dani hesitated.

  “Or you can stay here. I don’t mind at all. But at my age, a little company can be pleasant.”

  Dani found her torch and shone it at him. The man wore corduroy trousers, a Slazenger sweater and a battered Barbour jacket. A full head of grey hair swept over in a side-parting. His face was thin, his nose sharp, eyes dark. The skin around them wrinkled when he smiled, much like Dad’s. Maybe that was what decided her.

  “OK,” she said. “Thanks. I will.”

  “Alright,” he said. “I’ll wait outside for you. My name’s John, by the way.”

  “Dani.”

  “Danny?”

  “Short for Danielle. Everyone calls me Dani.”

  “Dani, then. I’ll see you in a moment.”

  3

  JOHN LIT THEIR way with his torch. Dani kept hers switched off. The batteries wouldn’t last forever and there was no knowing when she might need it next. Besides, just in case, it would serve as a weapon too.

  She kept looking straight ahead, partly to keep her eye on John, just in case, but more because every time her gaze strayed towards the woods the thin shapes of the trees seemed to waver, almost but never quite shifting into something else. People, perhaps. She was seeing things. She was tired and on edge, cold and hungry. That was the problem. Nothing else.

  He kept glancing sideways at her. She supposed she understood that. Ripped jeans, denim jacket covered in patches for bands like New Model Army and Anti Nowhere League, hair cut short, dyed blonde and spiked like a bunch of knitting needles. God knew what he made of that, if he made anything of it at all.