Bone Harvest

by James Brogden

  ‘I don’t care,’ he said, trying to make himself believe it. ‘It’s not possible. This must be a trick.’

  Big Ed turned to Jason, puzzled. ‘Was he not paying attention just now?’

  ‘Why would it be a trick?’ asked Everett. ‘There’s nothing set up here. We didn’t even know you were coming, remember?’

  Ardwyn looked disappointed. ‘There’s a fine line between scepticism and a stubborn refusal to accept the truth, David. Personally, I don’t care which side of that line you choose to live on, but just ask yourself whether you have the right to make your sick daughter go with you.’

  David swallowed. ‘Okay, let’s for the moment assume that I’m not going insane and that everything you’ve all told me is true. What about the how?’

  Ardwyn stood. ‘Come. I’ll show you.’

  Feeling like he was sleepwalking, he let Ardwyn and Everett lead him out through the back door and across the yard to a large outbuilding, the door of which was secured by a huge padlock. He expected some kind of illegal medical clinic – something with stainless steel tables and trays of surgical instruments like in one of those horror movies – but as Everett unfastened the lock and opened the door, he saw nothing like that. It was an empty, cavernous space lit by bare electric bulbs. Hanging from the ceiling at the centre was a complicated arrangement of chains, pulleys and large metal hooks. Directly below this, the concrete floor was stained black. Close by the door was a large, white chest freezer, its compressor humming, and on the wall above this…

  ‘Fuck me,’ he breathed.

  It was a skull, but not the skull of any creature a sane man had seen and lived, he was sure of that. It resembled a boar in its elongated jaw and curving tusks, but the eye sockets faced directly forward, like a human’s, and it was much bigger than either man or beast. Hanging below it was something that looked like a long trumpet or horn made of bone that flared out to a normal-sized boar skull at the wider end. Below that hung a knife with a curved, black blade. Surrounding all of this, scrawled on the wall in paint, chalk, mud, blood and pigments more obscene than that, were hundreds of crescent moons.

  The whole place looked like someone had made a shrine of an abattoir.

  Behind him, the door closed and he found the exit blocked by a huge man dressed in stained overalls, chewing something nosily and glaring at him with amber eyes.

  ‘Right now, it’s going to occur to you to run,’ said Everett as David stood open-mouthed. ‘That’s a perfectly natural reaction, and nothing to be ashamed of. But just ask yourself where you’re running to. Home? Fair enough. The hospital where your daughter is being treated, perhaps, to make sure that she’s safe?’ As he was saying this, Ardwyn had opened the chest freezer and taken out a small parcel wrapped in ordinary white butcher’s paper. She handed it to David, and he accepted it with trembling hands.

  ‘What is it?’ he whispered.

  ‘It is the flesh of our god,’ she said simply. ‘It will heal your child, just as it has healed your neighbours. Just as it has already healed you, in fact.’

  He stared at her, then at the parcel in his hands. Then he realised. ‘The barbecue!’

  She nodded. ‘You’ve felt different ever since, haven’t you? Healthier. Stronger. You don’t get fatigued as much as you used to. Possibly you’ve had some niggling medical conditions that have cleared up mysteriously.’

  ‘Your sex drive has increased,’ added Everett. ‘How’s the wife finding that?’ He closed the chest freezer.

  ‘Deny what you saw at the dinner table just now all you like,’ said Ardwyn. ‘You can’t deny the evidence of your own body. Tell me that you believe this.’

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I believe it. I’ve got no choice, have I?’

  Everett had taken the black sickle from the wall and was testing its edge with his thumb. Now he looked up at David, his gaze narrow, considering. ‘No,’ he said curtly. ‘Too easy. Gar?’

  David’s arms were grabbed from behind by the huge man, and he dropped the parcel. He’d been half-expecting something like this, and slammed his head backwards, hoping to catch the big bastard in the nose, but his attacker was simply too tall and David only hit his shoulder. It felt like headbutting a sofa. Still, it made the guy twist his head to one side and David flailed backwards with one outstretched thumb like a desperate hitch-hiker, and got luckier – his thumb went somewhere soft and wet and the giant bellowed and threw him away. David skidded and spun, looking wildly for the door. The big bastard was staggering away, hands clutched to his face.

  ‘David?’ said Everett. He was pointing a gun at him. An actual pistol.

  It was so utterly surreal that all David could do was gape. ‘Wait, please—’

  There was the ear-splitting crack of a giant firework going off and the sensation of being punched hard in his left thigh. The leg collapsed, pitching him to the concrete floor. In the frozen moment before his shocked nerve endings could start screaming, he stared at the ragged hole in his jeans and the blood welling there, then reached around to the back where there was a bigger hole and his fingers came away crimson and dripping.

  Shot, he thought. I’m shot. He shot me. It was incomprehensible.

  Then the pain hit, and he howled. His whole leg was on fire.

  ‘Well, look at that,’ said Everett, coming to stand over him. ‘Straight through.’

  ‘You could have killed him,’ said Ardwyn, with just a hint of reproach in her voice.

  ‘Oh poppycock. If I’d wanted to kill him I’d have put one right here,’ and he tapped David in the middle of his forehead with a finger. ‘You understand that, don’t you?’ he said to David directly. ‘If we wanted you dead, you’d be dead. I doubt if you’re even still bleeding. Have a look for yourself.’

  ‘What,’ David gasped, ‘the fuck?’

  ‘Fine. Let me show you.’ He took the black sickle and for one terrified moment David thought that Everett was going to cut his throat, but instead he used it to slash open the jeans around the bullet wound – a wound which was no longer bleeding. There was still a hole, oozing slightly, but not bleeding as freely as it should have. Even the pain was nowhere near as bad as it had been a moment ago. As he watched, the hole in his leg closed over into a puckered scar.

  Ardwyn and Everett helped him to his feet, and he stood, tottering slightly. His leg was prickly with pins and needles, but otherwise undamaged.

  ‘Now then,’ she said. ‘What did that? What healed you?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ he stammered.

  Everett cocked the hammer of his pistol. ‘Do you need another lesson, chum?’

  ‘No!’

  ‘The first flesh healed you,’ she continued, and placed the wrapped parcel of meat back in his hands. ‘The blessing of Moccus, He Who Eats the Moon. What other explanation is there?’

  He had thought that such a confession might be difficult – he was a rational, logical human being, after all, who respected other people’s beliefs without having to share them and absolutely didn’t believe in magic or miracle cures – but he found that it was actually the easiest thing in the world. It was like scratching an itch that he’d resisted for too long, or giving in to a reflex that he’d been trying to suppress.

  ‘None,’ he said.

  ‘Good,’ she said. ‘You’ve told me. Now tell him.’ She pointed to the skull on the wall. ‘Tell Moccus that you believe he exists and that his flesh can cure your child, just as he healed you.’

  This was harder. But he was holding it in his hands. It was there on the wall in front of him. He had eaten it, and it had healed him. He’d been shot in the leg, and could still walk. How could it not be true?

  ‘Moccus,’ he said. ‘I believe that you exist and that your flesh can cure my child.’

  ‘Good,’ she said again. ‘Now. On your knees and beg.’

  This was hardest of all. ‘What? No! I’m not going to kneel down in front of that thing.’

  Her face clenched and she inhaled s
harply, but Everett laid a calming hand on her arm. ‘It’s all right,’ he murmured to her. ‘Let me take care of this.’ To David he said: ‘I bet you’ve never knelt to anything or anyone in your life before, have you? And you have no intention of starting now.’

  ‘You’re right there.’

  ‘I understand that, I really do. It cuts straight to the heart of your dignity as a human being and your masculine pride, doesn’t it? In the words of Meat Loaf, you would do anything for love, but you won’t do that?’

  ‘If you want to put it that way, yes.’

  ‘Tell me, David, how effective is a dose of masculine pride in healing leukaemia?’

  He couldn’t answer that. There was no answer to that, and there never had been.

  ‘David, take out your phone and find a picture of Alice.’

  ‘What? Why?’

  Everett sighed with exasperation. ‘I’m not going to steal your phone or profane the image of your child. Just take it out and look at it. I’m honestly trying to help you here.’

  He did so, scrolling through the images until he found one of Alice on the allotment when she must have been five or six years old, before she had become sick, standing with a kiddie-sized shovel and wearing dungarees and pink wellington boots, tremendously proud of having helped with the digging. He showed it to Everett. ‘How about this one?’

  ‘It’s fine. She’s a lovely kid. I can’t imagine how traumatic the illness must have been for her and you and Becky. Would you kneel to her?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Then do it.’

  Feeling like a complete idiot, and hating the fact that they were watching him do something so submissive, never mind that it was to one of the two people in the world he would gladly give his life for, he put the phone on the concrete floor and knelt down in front of it.

  ‘See?’ said Everett. ‘That wasn’t so difficult, was it?’ Before David could react, he quickly stepped forward and took the parcel from his hands again.

  ‘Hey…!’ David started getting to his feet.

  ‘Stay down!’ Everett roared, so suddenly and loudly that David obeyed mostly out of surprise. The man’s face was thunderous, and he seemed to have grown taller, like an Old Testament patriarch delivering judgement. Even Ardwyn stepped back. ‘If you stand up a moment before I give you permission, then we are done here!’ he promised. ‘You can go back to the hospital and watch your child writhe and cry for her mummy and her daddy and know that the one thing you could have done to help is forever beyond your reach because you were too proud to beg.’ His voice was barbed with scorn, and he pointed at the phone. ‘Look at her. Look at her!’ David obeyed, and found tears coming at the sight of his baby, so happy before she became the pale and forlorn shadow that the illness had turned her into.

  Everett held out the package with his other hand. ‘Do you want this or not?’

  ‘Yes. Please.’ He was weeping freely now.

  ‘Then do as you are commanded, and beg, like the worm you are.’

  ‘Please, I’m begging you…’

  ‘Oh no, not me. I’m just a servant.’ Everett pointed to the skull. ‘The god. Beg Moccus for the gift of the first flesh that will heal your child.’

  David turned to face bone and tusk and the black holes of eye sockets. ‘Please,’ he sobbed. ‘Moccus. I beg you. Give me your flesh so that I can make my girl well again. I’ll do anything. Anything.’ He collapsed, and all the misery that he’d bottled up to stay strong for his family, two and half years of pain, fell in a flood of tears and snot between his knees.

  They helped him to his feet. Ardwyn hugged him while Everett patted his back and said, ‘There there, chum.’ They ushered him from the building, locked up, and walked back across the farmyard towards the house.

  ‘She didn’t eat any,’ said David, wiping his face with the sleeve of his jumper. ‘At the hog roast. Neither of them did.’

  ‘And that is an oversight that you can put right,’ Ardwyn replied. ‘Simply provide the first flesh for your loved ones.’

  ‘But Becky doesn’t eat pork.’ It felt ridiculous even as he said it.

  ‘Then don’t call it pork!’ Everett answered.

  David stopped at the back door. ‘Just tell me why. Why the hog roast? Why give this to everyone? And why not say anything about it?’

  ‘We just want to help people,’ said Ardwyn. ‘But you know how this looks, you’ve experienced it for yourself: people can’t bring themselves to believe in the miraculous even when it is actually happening to them. We let them find their way to us, like you have, and on occasion we go out and seek them when we feel it’s necessary. I don’t know what kind of a marriage you and Becky have, but I suspect that you might not want to tell her about this until your daughter is actually well again.’

  ‘I don’t like the idea of lying to them.’ He especially didn’t like the idea of sneaking pork into Becky’s food. She might never forgive him even if Alice was cured by it.

  ‘Of course, you don’t. But it’s for the right reasons, and you can tell them the truth when they’re in a position to understand and accept it.’

  Ardwyn returned to her guests while Everett led him around the side of the house and back to his car. As he got in, Everett put his hand on the door and leaned down. ‘We’ll let you know when we’re having another get-together,’ he said. ‘Hopefully by then you can bring the whole family. In the meantime, we might ask you for the occasional small favour. Don’t worry!’ he laughed. ‘Nothing criminal! But nature is a balance; you’ve been given something and I assume that you’ll be happy with giving something in return.’

  ‘Nature has already been unbalanced enough, as far as my family is concerned,’ David replied.

  ‘Exactly.’ Everett grinned. ‘Let’s not exacerbate that situation, shall we?’ He patted the bonnet of the car as David reversed away down the farm track, and stood unmoving in the beams of his headlights until David reached the road, shifted gear and headed for home. He tried not to look at the pale parcel sitting on the passenger seat beside him and instead focussed on the road ahead, but every so often he caught a glimpse of his own face in the mirror: his eyes red and haunted.

  When he got home he put the meat as far back in the freezer compartment of the fridge as he could, hiding it with some packets of frozen peas and chips. Then he changed his trousers, threw his ruined jeans into the rubbish and sat down with his laptop, trying to find out as much as he could about Ardwyn Hughes, Everett Clifton, and the thing that their group worshipped.

  The group to which he now belonged, whether he liked it or not.

  * * *

  ‘I can’t believe that just fell into our hands,’ said the deserter, when everybody had been sent home. He and Ardwyn were sitting by the fire enjoying the peace and a nice bottle of red, in her case, and a single malt in his, and he was glowing just as brightly with a sense of achievement. ‘I know he was high on the list to approach, but the fact that he came here voluntarily, it makes me feel like we’re on the right track.’

  ‘Never doubt that, my love,’ she replied, and sipped her wine. ‘You broke him wonderfully, I thought.’

  Everett accepted the compliment with a tilt of his whisky tumbler. ‘The old parade ground bark is good for reminding the troops of who’s in charge. Absolutely essential for a new recruit.’

  ‘He will be useful in keeping the local authorities from taking too close an interest, but I wouldn’t want to have to rely on that before I was sure about the strength of his loyalty.’ She watched the embers shift and sparks drift up to die in the chimney. ‘All the same, let’s have no more until after the next replenishment. Maybe not until Moccus rises, even.’

  ‘That long? With each replenishment the chance that someone’s disappearance will be noticed increases, and the more people we have on-side the easier that is to conceal.’

  ‘Yes, and the more chance there is that they will realise what the replenishments actually involve. I’m sorry, bu
t we can’t risk that. It doesn’t matter what they’re healed of, they’ll never accept the necessity of human sacrifice, not until they see the god with their own eyes.’

  Everett thought about this, swirling the liquor around in his glass. ‘Matthew might.’

  ‘Really? Is he so far along?’

  ‘The boy’s a natural. What he did with those lambs was inspired.’

  ‘Hmm.’ She drained her glass and poured another. ‘Do it. Have him assist you and Gar on the next abduction. Let’s see if he has any qualms. But test him first.’

  ‘Yes, Mother. Who is to be next?’

  She took out her little notebook, opened it, and smiled at him. ‘Ooh, let’s have a look, shall we?’

  3

  THE WILD SIDE

  MAY ARRIVED IN A WHITE INCANDESCENCE OF hawthorn and blackthorn blossom in the hedgerows, raucous families of house martins settling in to the eaves of barns and swifts slicing the slow haze of the lengthening evenings as they hunted for insects. It was peak growing time on the allotments, and Briar Hill buzzed with activity. The majority of plot-holders who only ever came on the weekends now popped down for an hour or two after work, planting out seedlings from their cold frames, repairing fruit cages, putting up bean-pole trestles, digging in compost and weeding, weeding, weeding.

  It also brought another visit from Lizzie.

  This time she didn’t bother coming to the allotment first; Dennie got home and found her car in the drive. Lizzie had let herself in and was in the kitchen, going through the contents of the freezer and checking the expiry dates.

  ‘Hello, darling! This is a lovely surprise!’

  Lizzie waved a packet of frozen butter at her. ‘You know this expired in January, don’t you?’

  ‘It’s lovely to see you too.’

  ‘As in January 2015.’

  Dennie took off her boots, dumped her trug in the utility room and put the kettle on. ‘Oh, butter keeps forever.’

  ‘No it doesn’t! You’ve heard of salmonella, I take it?’