Faint, smirking laughter played around her from the shadows.
“Wanna join the party, officer?” he offered in his cracked, dusty tones.
She saw that one of his hands was stroking the woman’s matted hair with a retracted Stanley knife; the other held what was left of her hand, which finished just before the knuckles like a sick joke without a punch line.
“Look, she needs medical attention,” said the WPCSO, fighting to keep the steel in her voice. “It’s alright. I’m a trained first-aider.”
“No need,” said the voice like a dry well, a bottomless pitch. “She won’t die. She can’t die. None of us can. That’s the thing we found with them new alcopops, see? None of us can die. Not one little bit of us.”
He snarled the last thing with a terrified vehemence, perhaps realizing the implications at last.
Then she glanced back at the five worms knuckling their way through the leaf mould that blackened the stubby fingernails, and her own hand groped for her radio.
“Lady fingers, anyone?” continued the builder’s rubble voice, and sniggering, qualified the offer: “but you’ll ’ave to catch ’em first!”
The woman suddenly giggled stupidly. “You’re welcome to ’em, love–I didn’t need ’em anyway!”
Then Jane realized two things First that another three or four had joined the group, circling her to cut off her exit, with more lurking in the shadows of the elm, Stanley knives, machetes and screw drivers in hand; second that the dense, over-hanging foliage that muffled the fairground noise would also muffle her screams.
“’Right, bruv!” the stubble-headed man grinned at one of the new arrivals. “Good to see you’ve skinned up – pass the joint around, will yer?”
Jane’s head jerked around involuntarily at the mention of illicit substances. But it wasn’t that sort of joint, or that kind of skinning up. The new comer, the stubble-headed man had been addressing, was hopping on one leg, offering his other around for the others to gnaw.
“There was also a great deal of scare-mongering about murderous cannibal ghouls. There was some truth in this. The chemicals that gave rise to the phenomenon did release latent homicidal, even anthropophagous tendencies in some DIS patients. But on the whole, these were people hell-bent on self destruction in their previous lives. In their new earthbound after-life, they carried on in the same vein.”
–Professor Charles Marcuse, We Belong Undead: ‘The Change’ and Social Change, Oxford University Press, 2013.
PC Graham Bradley let out a loud belch as he wiped his hands on his empty kebab packet, then stuffed the ketchup crimson paper into the squad car’s globe compartment. At first, he thought his partner PC Harry Lowther had answered in kind, but it was a growl of static morphing into a woman babbling something that could have been “bath tub” in a tremulous voice, followed by less intelligible noises distorted by screeches, then a ripping, then a gurgling.
Lowther snapped the radio off irritably.
“Amateurs!” he remarked, rather smugly, Bradley thought. “Might have known they’d go to pieces if there was any problems …”
Bradley tried to switch the radio back on, and regain the signal, but could only hear some sort of howling.
“Damned radios,” he complained. “Been playing up for the last two months!”
“Sarge thinks it’s something to do with them flare things,” remarked Lowther.
“Flares?”
“Solar flares. Radiation or something. Anyway, best kill it for now.”
Lowther switched the radio off again, and pulled his cap down over his eyes. Time to catch forty winks before the fair got out of hand.
“Hang on though,” said Bradley. “Did she say ‘back up’?”
Lowther, the older of the two, lifted the peak of his cap above his eyes to glare at the other policeman.
“Nah!” he said.
Then he pulled the peak back down again.
So he didn’t notice the lump of jelly thing crawling sluggishly towards the road nearby, a liver playing chicken with the traffic.
“Scientists have been unable to agree on the exact trigger for ‘The Change’. While the nation’s self-appointed moral guardians were quick to blame the marketing of super-strong alcoholic beverages like Ultrabrew and LHC (named after the Large Hadron Collider, also named as a possible contributory factor to DIS), others have drawn a link between DIS and a recent intensification in solar activity, also associated with a notable more dramatic manifestation of the Aurora Borealis.”
–Professor Charles Marcuse, We Belong Undead: ‘The Change’ and Social Change, Oxford University Press, 2013.
PCSO Craven told himself it was the wind blowing the leaves that gave the impression of sudden, frenetic activity in the shadow of the over-grown oak tree behind the cast iron railings. It wasn’t as if he had agreed to go with Jane to talk to the drunks. She didn’t need him to hold her hand. She had already made that perfectly clear. He still felt a gnawing resentment at her for failing to reciprocate his romantic approaches.
That wasn’t the reason why he had refused to accompany her on her fool’s errand. He just thought that patrolling the funfair would be a much better use of his time. That was where most of the trouble would usually start; hormonal teenage boys trying to act hard in front of the girls they were competing over amidst the heady cocktail of flashing coloured lights, deep frying oil, candyfloss and darkness.
A group of skinny-jeaned youths sniggered at him as they swaggered past him, their chunky belts glinting in the lights from the fair, their feathered haircuts fluttering in the breeze. A cage full of pinioned bodies rose high into the night sky, then plunged metres to the ground. While other rides had garish paint jobs, this one was a brutalistic, industrial steam press, with squealing human passengers. It was called “LHC”. He felt a heavy thump on his lower back then the sensation of something dripping down the back of his police community support officer’s trousers.
A can of beer. He looked at the half empty can rolling away from him like a fleeing criminal, and it flashed its neon name as it spun, a kind of half-hearted advertising jingle: “Ultrabrew”.
He glanced around, looking for the culprits, but they had melted into the darkness. Four girls stared at him, wet lips parted, representations of desirability crudely daubed in shocking pink and electric blue on the side of the Waltzer. Just ahead the Horror Tower loomed, and PCSO Craven saw a young man and woman secured into one of its cars, their pale hands brandishing Ultrabrew cans with distinctive neon logos. The leering, scarred, lobster face of Freddie Krueger and the fanged pout of Ingrid Pitt welcomed them into its portals.
The man in the kiosk was too busy to notice that the couple didn’t come out, and couldn’t understand when subsequent customers complained of rats skittering around in the purple-strobed darkness.
“You wanna get it checked out, mate,” one young woman said, tossing aside her diagonal fringe. “Must have been some kind of mutant. Five legs, it had, and no head!”
Others complimented him on the new additions to his display. That eyeball that swivelled at you as you hurtled by in your car, from the skewer it was impaled on, was very realistic, although the pupil was a bit small. Some thought the exhibits were a bit too gross: the entrails that writhed, the slithering intestines. One man asked why that effigy of a half-dismembered cadaver sprawled in the rocking chair was wearing a high-viz jacket and community support police woman’s hat, though he did admire the attention to detail: there were even bite marks on what was left of the ragged borders of the dummy’s contorted limbs!
The man in the kiosk simply shrugged: he didn’t set up the displays, he just took the money.
You have to remember that it was dark, and many of the customers were half cut, so they didn’t notice the odd stains on their clothes until the morning after.
As many people were to find out in the days to come, they weren’t the only ones who were half-cut.
“If anything, the loss of th
eir deaths, the prospect of endless lives of self disgust and despair increased their desire for oblivion. The super opiates associated with ‘The Change’ made them resistant to pain. So the Death Immune just went around trying to chop each other ever smaller, still living and sentient pieces. It was like slicing up a tape worm: you just end up with more of them. It was one, big, messy, futile suicide pact, distressing and a minor public order problem, but largely non-threatening to the mortal public, so safe to ignore.”
–Professor Charles Marcuse, We Belong Undead: ‘The Change’ and Social Change, Oxford University Press, 2013.
Later the following morning, Kevin Williams sat in the back seat of the works van, listening to Paul and Barry as they spied on the acting senior gardener, Matt. Paul and Barry weren’t their real names, but Kevin had adopted the Chuckle Brothers’ first names as his own private nicknames for them.
“Look, the Ranger’s still there.”
“I knew it. He ain’t even left the yard! He’s been in the mess room the whole time.”
“Bet you anything when we go in there it’ll be spotless.”
Kevin imagined himself a fly on the wall to this exchange, during which the two brothers neither invited his complicity, nor even acknowledged his presence as a witness or possible dissenter. Their father, the senior gardener proper, would have done exactly the same as Matt had he been there. The fact was they just didn’t like taking orders from Matt – especially Paul, the younger and cockier of the two, who saw himself as the natural heir to his father’s petty fiefdom.
“Pikies have gone then,” said Paul.
“Yeah,” his brother confirmed. “Left a right bloody mess though! Found a load of offal lying about in the grass.”
“What is this? A fun fair or a butcher’s?”
“Funny thing was, I went back to the van to get a bag to put it in, and it had gone.”
“Seagulls must have eaten it.”
“Didn’t see none. Still it can’t have just crawled away by itself!”
Kevin didn’t mention the animated lungs. They already thought he was a bit weird as it was!
“Told you he wouldn’t do no work while Dad’s away,” muttered Paul.
Kevin thought of the six billion pound bonus paid by some high street bank to its chief executive.
No wonder they’re getting away with it, he thought. They’ve got us gnawing scraps off each other rather than tearing strips off the fat cats.
Then he thought of those corny zombie movies that were always on, where the dead feed on the living. If the zombie apocalypse happened in real life, he reckoned, the dead wouldn’t unite against the living; they’d just rip each other to shreds!
He didn’t know back then how close he was to the truth.
What Kevin had seen that morning, after the funfair had been and gone, was an early by-product of this process; a pair of lungs, trying to hang themselves from a lamp post, and then crawling under a hedge to die.
And failing.
Some say a change is as good as a rest, but they just wanted a rest. And the Change wouldn’t let them.
“Perhaps the last hope for the Death Immune lies in the new project set up by a working group of particle physicists and molecular biologists. They are seeking volunteers among the DIS community for an experiment, in which they would be fired through a particle accelerator. The scientists would then test the resulting sub-atomic particles for signs of life. In this way, they hope to discover if they can finally cure Death Immunity Syndrome.”
–Professor Charles Marcuse, We Belong Undead: ‘The Change’ and Social Change, Oxford University Press, 2013.
THE END
STORM COMING DOWN
By
Iain S Paton
The white-haired black man sat in the elegant parlour, seeking refuge from the sweltering summer. His unseeing eyes stared at the distant wall as the maid poured him a cup of chicory-scented coffee.
The mistress of the house sat opposite. ‘That’ll be all, honey.’ A massive fat arm waved lazily, and the young white maid was dismissed.
The man turned his face towards the woman, whose weight must have been over three hundred pounds, bulging out of her sweat-stained white dress. He couldn’t see her, but he sensed her bulk, and her presence. She was black, with a mass of frizzed grey hair, and she sat in front of a deck of Tarot cards.
‘Tower struck by lightning.’ She turned over one of the skull-backed card. ‘There’s a storm coming down.’
The man sipped his tea.
The woman turned over another card. ‘The second in the trinity. The Moon. The storm will come from the tides, bringing night without end.’
She turned over a third card. The man’s cup clattered on the saucer.
‘Death.’
Michael was annoyed. The flight to New Orleans had been delayed, and he was tired enough as it was. The lengthy queue at arrival control did little to improve his mood, a line of sullen-looking passengers who were supposed to be in holiday spirits in anticipation of Labour Day and the never-ending parade of festivals hosted by the city.
‘Name,’ the official demanded, as he handed over his passport and disembarkation card. She was squat and very round, bulging out of her uniform.
‘Michael Greenwood.’
‘Purpose of visit?’
He agonised for a moment, pondering the inevitable question. Business or pleasure? He felt he was owed a holiday, after all those weekends darting around Europe. But the book came first. ‘Business, I suppose. I’m writing a book.’
The mask of officialdom slipped and she smiled. ‘Really? What’s it about?’
‘It’s a collection of ghost stories, about cemeteries and graveyards which are meant to be haunted. I’ve already been around Europe, up in Scotland, then London and down to Paris. But they say there’s nowhere like New Orleans for cemeteries.’
She smiled. ‘Got that right, Sir. Nowhere does death like Noo Awleans.’ She stamped his passport. ‘You have a good trip then, Sir. Maybe make a bit of a vacation of it, check out Bourbon Street an’ all. There’s no place like it for partying.’
He caught a yellow cab outside the Louis Armstrong International Airport. A skinny black man with greying hair grinned at him from the driver’s seat. ‘How are you, Sir?’
‘Fine, thanks, well a bit tired to be honest.’
‘Where to?’
‘Downtown, please. The Sheraton on Canal Street’.
‘You from England?’
‘That’s right’
‘What brings you to the Big Easy?’
‘A working holiday, I suppose. I’m writing a book, on haunted cemeteries.’
The man crossed himself, and whistled. ‘Well you’ll be wanting a guide around the St Louis graveyards then. Don’t be goin’ there alone. You’ll either lose your wallet, or your soul – or maybe even both.’
Michael noticed the chicken leg bone and feathers dangling from the rear-view mirror.
‘Do you know any good guides?’
‘Depends what you want to know. You look like a serious fellow.’
They sat in silence, until Michael found a $20 bill in his wallet.
‘Well, there’s two sides to Noo Awleans. There’s the nice tourist side, which has its thrills, but is never too dangerous. And there’s the true face of this ol’ lady.’
The driver held the wheel with one hand while he rummaged in his pocket. ‘Mind if I smoke?’
‘Not at all. Please go ahead.’
‘This city has deep roots, even in soft ground. The French, the Spanish, refugees from Haiti.’ He drew on the cigar. ‘And Africa, it all goes back to deepest darkest Africa. This city was the heart of the slavery trade, but it had the biggest number of free black men and women anywhere. A city of contrasts you might say, white and black, light and dark, but never far apart. As close as sides of the same coin.’
Michael was sweating in the clammy heat. ‘Do you have any air conditioning?’
; ‘Sure I do, if you don’t mind the cigar smoke.’ He rolled up his window. ‘Getting towards hurricane season, so it is. You can feel it in the air. Energy, like electricity.’
The driver crushed out his cigar. ‘Anyhows, I was going to tell you about a fellow who might know a cemetery guide. Talk to Blind Willie. No-one knows the Big Easy like him. He doesn’t see with his eyes, but he sees damn well more than others with 20-20 vision. Sees beneath the surface of it all. You’ll find him in the Rising Sun, just off Bourbon Street before … I think it’s Dumaine Street. Tell him that Slim sent you.’
It was three o’clock by the time Michael checked into his hotel. He slumped on his bed, shattered by the long journey and the feeling he should be fast asleep despite the daylight outside. At least the hotel room was air conditioned. He drew the curtains and tried to doze, but sleep would not come.
He shrugged on a lightweight shirt and trousers and headed out. It was a short walk to Bourbon Street and its pastel-coloured French buildings, ornate Spanish balconies, and of course the sweltering heat. Most of the bars were shuttered, but there were a few strip clubs open. As he walked, he noticed the rainbow flags of gay bars increasing in number.
He found the Rising Sun. It was on a litter-strewn offshoot of Bourbon Street which stank of urine and vomit. New Orleans’ Oldest Coffee and Liquor House, proclaimed the faded sign. A tall black man in a porkpie hat lounged next to the door, chewing a toothpick and glaring at him through sunglasses.
‘You comin’ in here, boy?’ asked the man. He put his arm up, blocking the doorway, which seemed to indicate otherwise.
‘I think so.’
‘You English?’ The man spoke with a friendlier tone, but still blocked the way.
‘Yup. Slim said I should come here.’
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