Bone Harvest

by James Brogden

  Matt nodded and croaked, ‘Yes.’

  ‘Where do you understand it?’

  The boy pointed to his heart.

  ‘Good lad. Now then, I know you look and feel like a bit of a mess, but you are blessed in having eaten the first flesh, so you will heal quickly – not as quick as in the old days, admittedly, but hopefully in time to help out with this month’s replenishment ceremony. Would you like that?’

  ‘Yes.’ Matt coughed again and groaned. ‘I won’t let you down,’ he whispered.

  ‘Well, good. Because now you know what the alternative is. Right, let’s get those fingers and that ankle strapped up.’

  * * *

  ‘What was that all about?’ Ardwyn demanded. The deserter was bundling up Matt’s clothes – which he’d befouled and that Everett had needed to cut off him to tend his injuries – into a bin bag in the scullery by the back door.

  ‘You said, “let’s see if he has any qualms”. I was just de-qualming the boy in advance. We don’t have the time or the piglets for him to make a tusk bracelet and be properly initiated, so I took a bit of a short cut. Sometimes a short cut takes one down some rocky roads.’ He opened the back door and went out to the skip where they were dumping the ordinary household waste.

  ‘That’s not what I meant,’ she said, following him. ‘I heard everything you told him – all that about worms and mud. Is that what you really think about what we’re doing here? Is that all this is, as far as you’re concerned?’

  ‘Of course not!’ He slung the bag in the skip and turned to face her. ‘But it’s what he needs to hear right now. Stick to go with the carrot.’ He gathered her into a hug, and she let him, but he could feel how tense she was. ‘Darling, we knew that reforming the church of Moccus would require some radical new practice, but the heart of it will always be the same. You’re missing the old ways, and that’s understandable.’

  She pushed him away. ‘Don’t you dare patronise me,’ she said.

  He dropped his arms and stepped back. ‘Fine. I’ll talk to you as Mother, then. We need to move more quickly in fortifying our position in this place. Dinner parties are all very well, but you’ve been living the life of Riley and you know as well as I do how quickly this modern age works. You say no more until he rises again, but I estimate two, maybe three more sacrifices at most before people start joining the dots. We have to be wired in all round by then.’

  ‘Your methods are brutal. They lack finesse.’

  He smiled. ‘I thought that’s what you liked about me.’

  ‘I thought you were talking to me as Mother.’

  She allowed him to gather her into his arms again and kiss her. ‘In the modern vernacular, I have some very serious issues.’

  5

  A BLOOD-PAINTED MOON

  THE DECK IN FRONT OF DENNIE’S SHED WAS NOT much more than four wooden forklift pallets laid in a square; it had room for her folding chair, a small table and Viggo to curl up and snooze next to her on an old tartan blanket, where he was currently snoring. The sunset on that Sunday evening in late May had been glorious, and the sky still held its lingering citrine haze while low in the west Venus was leading the slimmest fingernail of a moon towards the rooftops of the houses surrounding Briar Hill Allotments. Dennie had dined on a boil-in-the-bag sweet potato casserole cooked on her camp stove. She had a mug of tea next to her, and was just starting to think about putting on her down jacket before it became too chilly when she saw Angie Robotham and David Pimblett walking between the plots towards her.

  ‘Here we go,’ she said to Viggo, who pricked his ears and raised his head to see what was going on.

  ‘Hello, David!’ she called, waving. ‘Angie,’ she added, with a curt nod. ‘David, we haven’t seen you around here for a bit. I hope everything is all right with Alice?’

  ‘She’s on the mend,’ he replied. ‘She’s been home for a few weeks now, and the doctors are happy with her progress. Still not out of the woods yet, but we’re getting there.’ He was hanging back behind Angie’s shoulder and fidgeting with his phone.

  ‘So, just doing the rounds?’

  Angie produced a thin smile. ‘We just wanted to make sure that you weren’t planning to do something silly like sleep out here again.’

  ‘Or you’ll tell on me to my daughter again?’

  David ahemmed. ‘There have been a few reports on the OWL of people hanging around here late at night, maybe trying to get in.’

  ‘That’s funny, I haven’t heard anything like that.’

  ‘Well, it’s all on the app.’ He had it open on his phone which he held out to her so that she could see for herself, but she wasn’t remotely interested in whatever was on that tiny screen.

  ‘Well, I have an app too,’ she said. ‘It’s called talking to your neighbours, and nobody has said anything about people hanging around. The only dodgy types I’ve seen here recently have been other tenants – and yes, I include myself in that description. It’s probably me they’re reporting.’

  ‘And what happens if you have another sleepwalking spell and end up hurting yourself?’ asked Angie. ‘I couldn’t have that on my conscience.’

  ‘Well then, I absolve you of your sins. Say ten Hail Marys and five Mind Your Own Businesses.’ She punctuated her point with a slurp of tea.

  ‘It is my business, Dennie. Your irresponsible behaviour is everybody’s business. Every time something like that happens we have to file an accident report with the Council for legal and insurance reasons, and if the insurers see an uptick in incidents they raise their premiums, and the Council passes that on to us in the form of higher rents. You think it’s just yourself but it impacts everyone, Dennie. Frankly, it’s not fair. You’re being selfish.’

  ‘I’m being selfish? With every Tom, Dick and Harry suing for every stubbed toe and bee sting because they’re too greedy to take responsibility for themselves? Rubbish. It’s ambulance chasers who are pushing up the premiums, not people like me.’

  Angie sighed as if from deep regret, as if she’d done all she could to be reasonable but had been left with only one last course of action. ‘I think in that case we have to let the tenants as a whole make the decision about whether it’s rubbish or not.’

  Dennie didn’t like the sound of this. ‘What do you mean by that?’

  ‘Just that I’ve done everything I can to persuade you to behave in accordance with the allotments’ by-laws, but if you will insist on breaking them and threatening the well-being of all the tenants you leave me no choice but to put it to the next Association meeting. They might agree with you that it’s rubbish, or they might even amend the by-laws to allow overnights, but I think it’s more likely they’ll decide that it’s for your own safety and the good of all concerned to impose a cessation order on your tenancy.’

  ‘You’d kick me off my plot? You wouldn’t dare!’

  ‘Not me, Dennie. The Association. Your neighbours. You’re not really giving us much of a choice.’

  Dennie got to her feet, joined by Viggo. ‘Angie, let me spell it out for you very clearly. The only way you’re getting me off this plot is if you come back with a squad of goons to physically pick me up and carry me off it.’

  David, who had been watching this argument unfold with more and more visible discomfort, opened his mouth to say something, but Dennie cut him off. ‘And if you say that you’re all only thinking of my well-being I will scream, David. You’re a lovely man and I pray to God that your daughter gets better, but I don’t know how you let Angie talk you into this. I think you should both go now.’

  Angie had made the point she’d come for, and David was only too glad to get out of the way, and they left without another word.

  She subsided into her chair and Viggo laid his head in her lap. She scratched him between the ears. ‘Kick me out, would she? You’ll protect me from the big bad witch, won’t you, boy? Won’t you?’

  * * *

  ‘I told you she wouldn’t,’ said David to Angie as th
ey walked back to the Pavilion. In a way, he was glad. He liked Dennie, and was ashamed of having lied to her – almost as ashamed of having faked those OWL reports, which she’d never even glanced at. ‘Why are Everett and Ardwyn so keen that the allotments all be clear tonight, anyway?’

  ‘They didn’t say, and I didn’t ask.’

  ‘But aren’t you curious?’

  ‘Yes,’ Angie admitted. ‘But I trust that when it’s something we need to know, we’ll be told. Speaking of which, there’s going to be another get-together at Farrow Farm next Friday. Will you be there?’

  ‘I suppose so,’ he said, though the idea of going anywhere near the contents of that barn made him cold inside, and it wasn’t just the memory of how fundamentally he’d been humiliated.

  ‘And will Becky and Alice be joining you?’

  ‘I haven’t decided yet.’ He was even less happy about taking his wife and daughter anywhere near the place. The parcel of meat – the ‘first flesh’, Everett had called it – had been sitting in the back of the kitchen freezer since that night. Alice had come home four days later with a bloodstream clear of infection, a prescription for heavier antibiotics, and a new chemo port, and since then he’d been focussed on trying to get things back on what passed for an even keel for his family. As tempting as it was to use Everett’s gift, he knew he couldn’t do so without deceiving Becky and he feared that no matter how healthy his daughter might become, his marriage would suffer irreparable damage when his wife found out.

  ‘Well, I hope you decide soon,’ said Angie, patting his hand. ‘I can’t wait to see her well again. Besides, it’s all very well us grown-ups being amongst the chosen, but it would be lovely to see some children too.’

  As they walked on a voice shouted, ‘Hey, David!’ It was Big Ed. He was packing up for the evening, stowing a bag of tools in the back of his white hatchback. ‘You going to the Pavilion?’

  ‘Just five minutes, and then home,’ he called back.

  ‘Well, if you see that Ben Torelli, you tell him he still owes me six quid from that last game. I think he’s hiding from me!’

  David turned to Angie. ‘Ben’s not one of the, uh, gang, is he?’

  ‘No, thank God.’ She snorted with disapproval. ‘He’s probably smoked himself into a coma somewhere.’

  David stopped. Torelli’s plot was a few over from Big Ed, and from here it did look overgrown. Even the chillies, which were Ben’s pride and joy. ‘You carry on,’ he said to Angie. ‘I’ll be along in a minute.’

  He went to have a look.

  * * *

  Matt’s newly mended finger bones tingled only a little as he gripped the steering wheel of Everett’s blue van and waited for him and Gar to return. Aware that he was tensing up, he forced himself to relax. He looked at his watch: just after two. They’d only been gone a few minutes but it felt like much longer. He slid a bit further down in the driver’s seat and pulled his hood further over his face, not that there was much danger of being seen. The lane was empty and the hedges were high on either side, creating a dark tunnel.

  He didn’t blame them any more. Straight after it had happened he’d been tempted to tell them all to get fucked and leave, and the only thing stopping him had been the fact that he couldn’t actually walk yet, but after he’d had some time to think about it he realised that if he walked away then everything he’d been through would have been a waste. Worse than that, it was possible that what he had already been given could be taken away, and he couldn’t face the prospect of having to deal with further humiliation from that bitch Lauren and her friends. He had friends of his own now.

  He even kind of understood where Everett had been coming from; you couldn’t trust this kind of work to just anybody. You had to be sure. Matt had passed the test, and so, far from feeling resentful or bitter about it he felt flattered – he’d shown that he could cope with anything they threw at him.

  He looked at his watch again. The light of its dial was the only illumination; the van was switched off and there were no streetlights on this empty country lane. He was parked just to the side in a space made by a farm gate that Gar had opened by simply lifting it off its hinges, and the two of them had jogged off into the night across the field of maize towards the houses that backed onto it at the other side.

  In one of those houses was the woman they had come for. The vessel, he’d been told to call it. Someone else who’d eaten the first flesh at the hog roast too, but had been chosen for this rather than to become one of the Farrow. Ellen Webster. She’d been a librarian, apparently, before it had been shut down. Matt had never heard of her but then he’d never set foot in the village library either so that wasn’t surprising.

  The watch was new yesterday – a G-SHOCK the size of a tractor tyre and all in black and wasp-yellow, partially a reward for his fortitude, Everett had said, but the practical purpose being that it wasn’t a phone and didn’t have a signal that could be tracked. Matt couldn’t remember the last time he’d used his phone anyway. There was no point trying to keep up with the people who had once been his mates because they were doing nothing that interested him any more. Drinking, hanging around and trying to get girls to shag them? That was beneath him now. He was part of something important.

  Movement in his peripheral vision jerked his attention back to the maize field. The first flesh had given him pretty decent night vision and he could clearly make out two figures walking back along the edge of the field, keeping to the shadows of the border hedge. The bigger of the two figures was behind, with a large bundle slung across one shoulder.

  He started the engine, and then the back doors opened and Everett and Gar were sliding a long, heavy weight into the van. Gar climbed in the back and Everett came around to the passenger side.

  ‘Holy shit!’ said Matt. He knew he should be cool but excitement had got the better of him. ‘Did you get her? It, I mean? Did you get it?’

  ‘Yes. Let’s go. Straight to the allotment. Mother will be waiting for us there.’

  ‘Can I see it?’

  ‘You can drive, is what you can do. So shut up and do it.’

  He shut up and did it.

  * * *

  Dogs were so much like men, thought Ardwyn, as she approached the old woman’s shed. Give them any amount of attention and they were your loyal friend forever, or until some other cute bitch wagged a tail at them. She was carrying a long plank under one arm and walking as slowly and quietly as she could to avoid waking the dog. It was possible that he was already awake, but she hoped that if so he would be able to smell her and recognise her as a friend. She gently wedged one end of the plank underneath the lock hasp on the shed door and the other in a gap between two planks of the decking, and then returned to her own plot to prepare and await the arrival of Everett with the next vessel.

  The tusk moon had long since disappeared below the horizon, but she felt Moccus’ presence around her all the same, in the life growing from the soil, thick and green and swelling. To think she had harboured doubts about this place. It was perfect for the new church. For Everett and the other men, Moccus was the razor-toothed warrior of the deep forests, but he was also the first farmer, using his tusks to plough up the earth for roots and so revered by the earliest agrarian cultures as the bringer of crops and fertility. When the little farmers of Briar Hill saw the bounty that he would bring, they would flock eagerly to his worship, and she would turn this sad little patch of suburban scratchings into a new Eden.

  * * *

  Despite his improved eyesight it was still not easy for Matt to drive the van down to the allotment without headlights; they were lucky that it was close to one of the access tracks so he could get right up to the shed, but there were unexpected dips and bumps which caused the van to sway unexpectedly.

  He hopped out and opened the doors at the back so that Everett and Gar could unload.

  ‘Do you want any help with that?’ he whispered. He couldn’t take his eyes off the woman that Gar was ca
rrying over his shoulder. Her head and torso hung down his back, covered in a large sack, but her pale legs and buttocks were naked to the air where he grasped them in front, and her ankles were tied with brown parcel tape. She was making a faint, muffled whimpering noise.

  Vessel. She was the vessel. He had to remember that.

  ‘No,’ Everett replied. ‘Stay outside and keep an eye on things. If anybody comes by, act like a burglar, chase them off or something. If the old woman over that way wakes up and makes a fuss, or that dog of hers starts barking, for God’s sake make sure neither of them gets out until we’re done here.’

  ‘What if she does get out? That dog of hers is massive.’

  Everett patted the jacket pocket where his Webley lay snug. ‘You let me take care of that fucking dog. Honestly, I’m fed up with all of this pussy-footing around. I might just take care of her too. Can you handle this?’ It was one of the very few times Matt had heard Everett drop the f-bomb. He must have been pretty nervous.

  ‘I can.’

  Gar carried the vessel around to the other side of the shed where the door stood open and he caught a glimpse of the floor having been folded back to reveal the black earth underneath. Mother was already there, and she had painted lines curving upward from the corners of her mouth – probably to resemble the tusks of the god, but as far as Matt was concerned she looked more like the Joker, and all of a sudden he was very glad that he’d been told to keep out. Both she and Everett scared the shit out of him sometimes, but at least he kind of understood Everett, whereas with Mother it was like trying to understand the moon.