The Death in a Northern Town Trilogy (Books 1-3): Welcome To Dead Town

by Peter Mckeirnon

  Simon awkwardly rose to his feet and resumed his pursuit of Dave, the blow he took to the head, seemingly having no effect. Dave grasped the paddle with both hands and stabbed at Simon hitting him hard in the stomach.

  Simon arched forward and Dave swung again only this time swinging up, hitting him forcefully under the chin. The impact was such that his feet left the ground flinging him backwards into the air; the back of his head cracking against the concrete as his body hit the ground. Seconds later, blood began to pour from the wound.

  “Holy shit balls did you hear the sound of his head crunch open?” yelled Dave.

  “This isn’t good mate, there’s blood pouring from the back of his head. I think he really is dead this time,” I said.

  Both Dave and I edged towards Simon for a closer inspection. We had not taken more than two steps when he let out a laboured groan and we both froze, reluctant to move any nearer.

  “Check him then,” Dave said.

  “No I really think you should do it. It was you that gave him a swinging upper cut with your plastic paddle,” came my reply.

  Simon groaned again only this time it was accompanied with a twitch of both his arms.

  “Exactly, I’ve been doing all the work, it’s about time you pulled your finger out,” replied Dave.

  Another groan and he began to warily rise to his feet. Once he made it upright, he stood motionless facing Dave, giving me a clear view of the back of his sick, sweat and now blood soaked head.

  There was a large flap of bloodied flesh hanging from his head. Inside the wound I swear I could see his skull and what looked like a large crack running through it. Once again, I threw up, only now I had nothing left inside me. The retching noise that I made was enough to divert Simon’s attention from Dave to me.

  “Right, well, he looks fine to me, I think we should go,” I said, with absolutely no desire to stick around any longer than I needed to.

  “Come on Dave, see you tomorrow Simon, hope you feel better after the puke and shitting thing,” I continued.

  I turned from my boss and quickly started to walk away, back towards the alley and the graveyard of starlings. I could hear Simon’s moans and the shuffling of his feet as he attempted to give chase. This was followed by a sound that I had never heard before. If you combine the sounds of wading through mud with the cracking of an egg you might get pretty close. No sooner had I heard the noise, Simon’s moaning came to an abrupt halt.

  “Fuck me lar!” I heard Dave exclaim.

  I turned to be greeted by a sight that will stay with me forever. Not because it’s the most disgusting thing I’ve ever seen, because it isn’t, not anymore. I’ve seen plenty of things over the past twenty four hours that will make your toes curl but it was the first, and you know what they say, you never forget your first time!

  Simon stood motionless, with a mayonnaise stirring paddle inserted in to the back of his head. Dave was holding on to the other end of the paddle and it was this that was keeping our stinky boss upright.

  Dave lifted his right leg and placed his foot on Simon’s back, pushing out with force, dislodging what remained of his head from the paddle, resulting in his falling to the floor. He wasn’t getting up from this one.

  “Well I wasn’t expecting that to happen,” Dave said, fags in hand searching his pockets for a lighter.

  “Dave, what have you done? You’ve killed him!” I panicked.

  “I didn’t mean to. These things are sturdier than they look,” he said examining his paddle, watching as bits of Simon’s head slid from the shovel headed murder weapon. “You haven’t seen my lighter have you lar? I’m dying for a bifter.”

  “How can you be dying for a smoke? You’ve always got one hanging out of your mouth, you’re never not smoking!” I said.

  “Well I have just killed a man, cut me a fucking break will you!” Dave replied.

  He looked to the ground and found his lighter resting in a puddle of Simon’s brain juice.

  “There you are,” he said, bending down to retrieve it.

  Dave shook the lighter in an attempt to remove the blood and chunks of head matter that clung to it but it wouldn’t light, so he threw it to the ground in anger.

  “Now what are we going to do?” Dave asked.

  “We need to phone 999. I’ll check my phone again to see if I can get a signal,” I said, taking my mobile phone out of my pocket.

  “Not about him dipshit, about my tabs. He’s dead and going nowhere, he can wait. I’m alive and in desperate need of a smoke!” Dave announced.

  “Look just forget about cigarettes for a minute will you?” I shouted.

  Dave’s a great guy but Christ he can be hard work at times.

  “What the fuck is going on here? First no-one comes in to work, then birds fall from the sky, then we watch Simon being violently sick …” I said.

  “… And shit himself, don’t forget about that,” Dave interrupted.

  “… Ok and shit himself. Then we watched him seemingly drown in his own puke only to recover and try to eat us, and then you killed him!” I continued.

  “Hey keep it down lar, the whole world doesn’t need to know,” said Dave with an over the top stage whisper.

  “The whole world? Look around Dave, there’s no-one here. Just you, me and our dead former manager that used to have an intact head till you split it in two! What are we going to do man? We’re totally fucked. I can’t go to prison. Who will look after Emily? There’s only my brother and he can barely look after himself let alone a teenage girl. He’d have her living in a tent and foraging up Runcorn Hill for food,” I said.

  “Stop panicking John we are not going to prison. It was self-defence you said it yourself Ace, the stinky shit was trying to eat us. He obviously lost his mind,” Dave reasoned.

  We heard a noise coming from inside the mayo factory. It sounded like the clanging of equipment being knocked over and kicked about.

  “Did that come from the factory?” I asked Dave.

  “Sounded like it. I didn’t see anyone else in there when I nipped in to get this paddle. Simon’s always the last one out. The place should be empty Kid,” Dave informed.

  We heard the noise again, only this time it was followed by a loud groan similar to the noise Simon had been making.

  We both looked at each other, not saying anything but we both thought the same thing. It was happening again. Fear had set in completely now and my hands started to shake uncontrollably. I placed them in my pockets before Dave could see. This situation wasn’t affecting him the same as it was me and I didn’t want him to see how distressed I had become. He had a sparkle in his eyes and a tight grip on his battle paddle, more than ready to use it if need be. It would appear that what had happened to Simon was not an isolated incident and it had no doubt happened to the poor fucker lumbering his way around the factory.

  The noise came again, sounding closer this time. Whoever this was, they were heading towards the factory door. If our recent experience had taught us anything, it wasn’t likely they were coming to say hello. I was half expecting them to open the door, licking their lips, with a knife and fork in their hands!

  The groan came again, louder still and followed by a thud against the inside of the factory door.

  I took a step backwards. Oh man I wish I hadn’t done that. My foot came down heavy on Simon’s neck, completely separating what remained of his head from his shoulders. I tried to steady myself but it just made things worse as my other foot came down on his skull, cracking it in two. I almost slipped as the heel of my boot trampled on what remained of his brain.

  You know that feeling you get when you inadvertently stand on a snail and you hear the crunch and squelch as the poor little invertebrate is ripped from life? Times that by fifty! I gagged so hard I thought my stomach was going to spill out of my mouth!

  Dave turned to see why I was making such a commotion only to find that I was bent over, retching my guts up with tears in my eyes, partly f
rom the strain and partly from the situation.

  Dave looked me up and down. “Nice shoes,” he said, before turning his attention back to the factory door.

  I looked down to see that my boots were lodged inside the two separated halves of Simon’s head, making it look like I was wearing a pair of novelty slippers. I imagined my toes squishing around the insides of his face and I completely freaked, kicking out as hard as I could in an attempt to dislodge my boots.

  My left boot came out no problem, sending one half of Simon’s head skidding across the car park, but my right boot? Not so much. I shook my right foot wildly, a frenzy taking over. My body jerking like someone had simultaneously poured cold water down my back and placed a rat inside my jeans. If this was New York City in the early 1980s, I’d be king of the breakdancing scene with the moves I was popping. But it wasn’t and I was wiggling about uncontrollably trying to remove my boot from the inside of a man’s head. I kicked out with so much force that Simon’s face flew from my boot, whizzing past Dave’s head then hitting the factory door before resting on the ground.

  “Hey! Careful kidda, you nearly hit me then. Watch where you’re kicking next time,” said Dave, breaking his fixation on the factory door or more importantly, what was behind it.

  “Next time? Christ Dave I’m hoping there won’t be a next time. Look, let’s just get out of here ok? As I soon as I get a phone signal I’ll call the police and explain everything that’s happened,” I said.

  “Don’t you want to see who’s behind the door?” Dave asked, an inquisitive tone to his voice.

  “All I care about right now is getting home to my daughter and changing these boots. It’s starting to feel like juice from Simon’s head is seeping through my socks to my toes. So no Dave, in answer to your question, I have absolutely no desire what-so-ever to find out who is behind that door,” I said, turning my back on Dave and the horror scene that lay behind me.

  I began to walk away, again heading towards the alley and starling graveyard, when I heard the loud thud of something large banging against the factory door and it swinging open.

  “Well fuck me, look who it is,” came Dave’s response.

  I didn’t want to look. Why would I? It obviously wasn’t going to be a welcoming sight now was it? Instead I stood for a second, eyes closed, just listening to the moans behind me.

  Then I gulped and slowly turned to see what fresh kind of hell lay in waiting.

  Slouched in the now open factory doorway was the intimidating bulk of Brockers, one of the factory engineers. If any of the packing lines were having problems with machinery, Brockers was your guy, but you had to find him first. The fact that he was so elusive was probably why neither Dave nor I had realised he had made it into work that day. This guy was like the Scarlet Pimpernel and as elusive as a ninja, which is quite the achievement given his mammoth size.

  The only time anyone would ever see him would be during lunch time when he would be found in the canteen, sitting at a table with a newspaper drawing dicks on the heads of the people in every picture. It didn’t matter who they were as he didn’t discriminate. Picture of the Queen – Dick on the head. Picture of the Pope – Dick on the head. The Dalai Lama – Dick on the head. If the picture had a head, then that head was getting a dick, but not just any old crappy cartoon child drawing of a dick. These bad boys were a work of art. Shading, texture, veins… If he put as much effort into his work as he did his fascination with drawing dicks he could have been a great engineer. But that’s the thing with Brockers, he just loved the lash too much.

  As I turned to look at him, the first thing I noticed was his complexion, as it was almost identical to Simon’s. His eyes were white in colour and sunken in appearance and his skin tone was again almost translucent giving a clear view of the veins beneath his flesh.

  Unfortunately, I could no longer use Simon’s head to compare the two as one half was somewhere across the car park and the other, although resting at the feet of Brockers, was so badly mashed it looked like a bag of chopped liver.

  The big man started to sniff the air, moving his head from side to side with gloops of saliva dripping from his mouth.

  He let out a harrowing groan then bent his upper body forward closer to the ground. Something had alerted his nostrils. Dave and I watched silently as Brockers slowly got down on his knees and scooped up the remains of Simon’s head, sniffing it extensively. I honestly thought he was going to eat it, but instead he threw it to the ground, showing absolutely no interest in chowing down on Simon’s putrid face.

  I tried to speak but nothing would come.

  “Dave,” I mouthed, but no sound followed.

  A crippling panic had possessed me, crushing my ability to communicate.

  “Dave,” I squeaked, this time making the smallest of noises.

  Dave completely ignored me, obviously mistaking my new found manly voice for that of a mouse or squirrel. Brockers heard me though, and he let out a loud groan, spit dripping from his mouth as he looked right at me.

  “Dave!” I yelped, slightly more pleased with the tone of this one, my pitch changing from that of a two year old to a pubescent teenager.

  Brockers opened his mouth wide, letting out an almighty roar. Then he shuffled towards me with little co-ordination but none the less he was heading my way and after turning down Simon’s head as his starter, he had clearly chosen me for his main. Not surprisingly, I was once again frozen to the spot.

  “Dave!” I croaked.

  “Dave!” finally, making a sound audible enough to grab his attention.

  He snapped out of his fixation with Brockers and looked over to me and noticed how petrified I was.

  “Oi Brockers!” Dave shouted. “You should always look at the menu before deciding on your meal lar. There’s more of me than him.”

  Brockers took the bait, changed course and began shuffling his size sixteen’s towards Dave. After eyeing up both of his options, the big guy obviously decided that 80s Dave was the tastier meal option.

  Dave, with battle paddle in hand, was gearing himself up for a fight and was quite prepared to stand his ground against this monster of a man.

  Watching Dave being so fearless suddenly snapped me out of my panic induced statuesque statue. Dave had just put himself in harm’s way to save me and I was damned if I wasn’t going to return the favour.

  I looked around for something, anything that resembled a weapon. There was nothing. I contemplated trying to rip off one of Simon’s arms but who was I kidding. Jam jar lids get the better of me on a daily basis, there was little chance that I could pull a dead man’s arm out of its socket.

  Then I saw it! I turned and ran towards Simon’s car as fast as I could whilst being careful not to slip in the puddle of puke and shit in front of it. I grabbed the dead starling that had landed on the roof of the car and ran back to my previous position.

  “I’ll save you buddy!” I shouted and then I threw the dead bird at Brockers, hitting him on the back of the head.

  Brockers stopped walking towards Dave, turned around and restarted his pursuit of me.

  “Oh Shit!” I said, realising that my attempts at being heroic were not only rather pathetic but have now put me right back on the dead man’s menu.

  I looked around again, frantically trying to find something I could throw or hit him with. To my left, on the far side of the car park was the other part of Simon’s head that I had kicked away earlier. Was it not enough to dismember the poor fella, wear his head as slippers, kick one half across the car park and the other at the factory door? No? I didn’t think so either, so I ran to where the head lay and grabbed it by its hair as it was the only part I could even consider touching. I knelt down and positioned it on the ground as close to standing upright as possible.

  Dave watched on, a smile on his face, loving every minute of what he was seeing.

  I took five steps backward, licked my finger and placed it in the air to check for wind direction. This was m
ore for Dave’s benefit than anything else. I could see he was enjoying this and he knew exactly what I was going to do.

  “Cop a load of this you big bastard!” I shouted as I ran forward, booting Simon’s head as hard I could in the direction of Brockers.

  Both Dave and I watched as Simon’s head flew through the air, bits of blood and lumps of face flying off in every direction.

  I can’t talk for Dave but the head seemed to glide through the air in slow motion as it made its way towards the intended target and I couldn’t have asked for a better hit.

  Simon’s manky, blood dripping half head came down from the sky and hit Brockers square in the face knocking him on his backside. He sat there for a second as if stunned and disorientated by what just happened.

  “Go ed lad!” shouted Dave, waving his paddle in the air with approval.

  The big man again began to sniff the air, following his nose and reaching out with his hands until they found the remaining half of Simon’s cursed head. Just like before, Brockers sniffed at it, then turned his nose up, throwing the head to the ground. Picky bastard!

  “Lost your appetite big man?” shouted Dave.

  Brockers immediately turned his head and gazed in my friend’s direction. It was at that point I started to think that something must be wrong with his eyesight. During his transition from a lazy penis-drawing obsessed engineer to that of a disgusting looking, sunken eyed, pale skinned devil beast (probably still with a love of the lash), something had affected his ability to see, making him more reliant on sound and smells than sight. But how bad was his eyesight? Could he see at all or had his vision gone completely? I didn’t want to get close enough to find out.

  Brockers started to move in an attempt to rise to his feet. The big man fell to his left side then rolled over on to his front, then rolled onto his back again. He then attempted to sit up but he was just too big and lacked the co-ordination to do it. Both Dave and I could see what he was trying and failing to do. We both approached, making sure we were more than a grabbing distance away.