Hyenas

by Michael Sellars

  Jay saw the Hello Kitty bracelet circling the skinny wrist of her limp left arm and started to cry.

  He cried for fifteen minutes, his knees drawn up to his chin and his arms wrapped around his shins. As his sobs began to dry out, he found himself wondering what Dempsey would have made of him — a grown man crying — and then he realised it was doubtful that Dempsey would have thought of him as a grown man at all. And, anyway, what did it matter? He wiped his tears away with the back of his sleeves and got to his feet.

  He washed most of the blood from his hands using the water that had been sitting in the pipe since the Jolt and had, thankfully, not frozen. He shook them dry. There was an apron hanging from a hook near the door; Jay fetched it and did his best to cover the dead girl. He thought about pulling the knife out, to make her look as normal, as unmurdered, as possible, but he just couldn’t bring himself to do it. He considered saying a prayer but suddenly realised that, aside from about three quarters of the Lord’s Prayer, he didn’t actually know any. He only knew Blake.

  So, he knelt down next to her, laid a hand flat against the top of her head (because it seemed like the right thing to do, somehow) and said, “In the age of gold, free from winter's cold, youth and maiden bright, to the holy light, naked in the sunny beams delight.”

  He stood, trudged from the kitchen, onto the landing and down the stairs. As he was about to step out into the cold, a man wearing a combination of army fatigues and police riot gear, complete with visored helmet, stepped into view. He was holding a small, black assault rifle, which he was pointing directly at Jay’s face.

  Voice muffled by the visor, he said, “What’s your favourite Beatles song?”

  Chapter 10

  “What?”

  “Beatles song. Favourite. Which one?”

  “Fuck off,” said Jay, surprising himself. He could feel anger forming inside him, a knot in his gut and a hot, red buzz in his brain, a kind of mental inflammation. His fists were locked in a cycle of clenching and unclenching, clenching and unclenching.

  “What?”

  “I told you to fuck off. I’m tired and cold and I’ve just murdered someone. Or I think I have. I don’t know.”

  “Favourite. Beatles. Song.” With each word, the man jabbed the gun in Jay’s direction.

  Jay looked at his hands, still clenching and unclenching; although he’d washed off most of the blood, there was a dark crust under and around his fingernails and the grooves of his knuckles were filled in deep red.

  “Octopus Garden,” he said.

  The rifle butt struck his right cheekbone before he even knew what was happening. He dropped onto his backside, legs splayed, then flopped as far back as his bulging backpack would allow.

  “That’s enough, Williams,” said a different voice. This voice wasn’t muffled. It was deep and commanding, broad Scouse but clear and precise.

  “Sir, he said ‘Octopus Garden’, sir. Favourite Beatles song, sir.”

  “He looks like he’s had a bit of a rough time of it, Williams. Probably doesn’t know what he’s saying. Leave him to me.”

  Jay sat up. The owner of the voice was wearing a similar uniform to Williams, military meets riot squad, but no helmet or visor. He was taller, a lot taller, about six foot four, with a heavyweight boxer’s build — all shoulders and arms. His hair was cropped down to less than half an inch. “Fall in, Williams,” he said.

  “Yes, sir,” said Williams and dropped back behind the man Jay felt certain was Sergeant Pepper, where there were six other militiamen, all clad in the same motley fashion as Williams, all carrying assault rifles.

  Sergeant Pepper had no assault rifle, just a pistol holstered at his side. Jay imagined this was intended to mark him out as ‘officer class’.

  “Looks like you’ve been in the wars, lad,” said Pepper, gesturing to Jay’s blood-flecked face. “Trouble with the jokers, eh?”

  “Hyenas,” said Jay, getting to his feet. “I call them hyenas.” He had liked it when Dempsey called him lad, but Pepper didn’t look a day over forty and it seemed like too forced an attempt to establish seniority.

  “Hyenas,” said Pepper, smiling a little. “That’s new. Like it.” He pointed at Jay’s hands. “So, I take it you killed one? One of these hyenas?”

  “Suppose so,” said Jay looking down at his hands again.

  “Suppose so? You weren’t sure?”

  “It was a hyena. Then I killed it and it wasn’t a hyena anymore. It was just a kid. A girl.” He thought he might start crying again. The sorrow mixed with his growing anger and formed something that was almost unbearable.

  “You did what you had to do. We need people who do what they have to do. But don’t think because you’ve survived this long you’ve got what it takes. Not yet, anyway. When the End happened, it was, what, eleven o’clock, Sunday morning? And you were here, in the city centre? Shops had just opened. A few hundred consumers milling about. The suburbs is where the real shit went down. And that’s where you’ll earn your stripes, lad. What’s your name?”

  “Jason Garvey. And you’re Sergeant Pepper.”

  “Yes. That’s what they call me, Garvey.” A cold smile came and went. “I prefer Vaughan, though.”

  “Sergeant Vaughan?”

  “Edward Vaughan. Just Vaughan to you.” Pepper — Jay couldn’t think of him as Vaughan or anything else for that matter — took a step toward him. “Are you with us, Garvey?”

  “I don’t have a choice, do I?”

  “Of course you have a choice. You can choose to join us voluntarily or you can be drafted.”

  “That’s a choice?”

  “Of sorts. But, one way or another, you are going to help me take this city back from the jokers.”

  “Well I suppose I don’t have any choice but to choose to come with you, then, do I?”

  Jay was suddenly aware of the sarcastic bite in his voice and realised he wasn’t afraid. For the first time since the Jolt, fear wasn’t at the forefront of his consciousness. He wasn’t scared of these men with their guns. That being said, he was under no illusion that he would have to go with them, but it wouldn’t be fear that drove him to that decision, rather it would be simple common sense. He didn’t want to be shot or pistol-whipped but neither was he afraid of the bullet or the rifle butt.

  He had no idea why he was so unafraid all of a sudden. Maybe it was because he had fought, killed and survived. But he didn’t think so. Maybe he was still in shock and once the adrenalin had run its course, he would collapse into a trembling jumble. But he didn’t think it was that, either. What he thought was, I killed that girl with the Hello Kitty bracelet, I murdered her, and now whatever happens to me, I’ve got it coming, I deserve it, maybe I even want it.

  There was a commotion behind Pepper, and then Williams said, “Christ, would you look at that. A fucking horse.”

  A horse — the horse — thick curls of steam rising from its back and flanks, had come from their right, from North John Street, showering the window of the Abbey National with chunks of white shrapnel. For a second, it looked as if it was going to plough right through them, and the militiamen began scuffling about, uncertain which way to move. A couple of them raised their weapons. Then, the horse veered away from them toward the middle of the street and thundered by. Jay could feel the percussion of its hoofs in his diaphragm, a slightly nauseating jitter that made him think of Jenny Lasseter again.

  “Thanks,” he said.

  “For what?” said Pepper, not looking at Jay, still watching the horse as it crossed Whitechapel and headed up Church Street.

  “Not you,” said Jay. “The horse.”

  Pepper turned to look at him then, his expression somewhere between bewilderment and irritation. He took a pair of handcuffs from his belt and started toward Jay.

  “Oh, bollocks!” blurted Williams.

  The hyenas had arrived, just as Jay had known they would, eight of them so far and who knew how many more were still to come?

>   The militia began firing. Pepper dropped the handcuffs, pulled out his pistol and rushed forward to join his men.

  Jay turned and ran, dipping back into the narrow side street from which he'd only recently emerged. He thought he heard someone bark his surname but it was impossible to be sure with the sound of gunfire bouncing off every surface, creating a painful mosquito whine in his ears.

  Maybe it was the sight of the horse, its refusal to be brought down, but he was suddenly filled with a crackling, roaring energy. He felt strong, unstoppable.

  As he neared the end of the side street, he was certain he heard his name called out. Then, a gunshot, this one qualitatively different from the others, and he knew someone — Pepper, almost certainly — was standing at the Lord Street entrance, shooting at him. Sparks flew from the wall to his left a few feet ahead of him. Another shot. Sparks to his right. Warning shots. But Jay didn't heed the warnings. At the end of the side street, he turned down Harrington Street, sprinting between the two halves of BHS, the walkway over his head. He didn't let the sight of too many bodies to count littering the floor and tables of the BHS restaurant slow him down or dent his sudden sense of strength and purpose. He didn't let the blood smeared windows or that thing that might have been coils of red rope hanging from one of the light fittings undermine his newfound energy and determination. He kept running. When he reached a side street branching off to his left, toward Mathew Street, he considered taking it, because it would lead him away from Pepper and his militia. He considered it. But only for a second. This was the new Jay. He needed to get to Liverpool One, to Waterstones and the book he would need to sail the Jerusalem out into the Irish Sea; Mathew Street, though undoubtedly safer, was in the wrong direction. He continued down Harrington Street until it became Button Street — with its Bistro Pierre, Ted Baker and American Apparel — following it round onto Whitechapel.

  He could still hear the sound of gunfire as the militia fought the hyenas. He risked a glance behind him. There was no sign of Pepper. He wondered how he was going to get to Waterstones without being seen. The quickest way would be straight along Whitechapel, onto Paradise Street and up College Lane, but that would mean running across the wide intersection with Lord Street, in plain view. But there were no other options. He’d just have to hope Pepper was otherwise engaged. He took three deep breaths, the freezing air cooling the inside of his lungs, and set off along Whitechapel.

  At the intersection, he glanced up Lord Street, in time to see the last of the militiamen turn into the side street down which he'd fled, doubtless in full pursuit now. It was only because he'd witnessed the opening salvos of the skirmish that he was able to identify the dark, shapeless clumps lying about the snow as dead hyenas.

  He was hoping Pepper and his men were heading toward Mathew Street, away from him — because if they weren't, they'd emerge onto Whitechapel any moment now and spot him for sure — when, his eyes still fixed on the fallen hyenas, he tripped on something and fell. He pushed himself up onto his knees and was about to spring to his feet, when he found himself looking into a fist-sized head wound. Alice Band's brutal handiwork. Blood was still leaking from the boned-edged hole, viscous now, moving like wax down the side of a burning candle, quick at first, then congealing to a standstill, reminding Jay of just how little time had passed since he'd crouched outside Vero Moda, swooned and brought about Dempsey's death.

  He scuttled backwards, away from the body, and stood. He could feel the strength leaving his legs. Worse, he could feel his recently acquired determination and energy seeping away.

  He ran, hoping it was simply the sight of the corpse that was leaching his resolve, that if he put it behind him, he'd be enervated once more. Ten paces later, a stitch began to hack at his side and needles of pain stabbed at his shins.

  He tried to think of the horse, to summon it in his mind, a totem, but all he could visualise was the black hole in the dead man’s skull, impossibly deep, with its steady and seemingly endless trickle of blood and grey matter.

  As he turned up College Lane, his vision began to blur, a combination of sweat running into his eyes and sheer breathlessness. The smell of coffee from the Starbucks on the corner was so normal, so pre-Jolt, he almost began to cry. On the opposite corner, two stories of mannequins watched him through logo-plastered plate glass windows. And suddenly, the strength was draining from his legs and he could hardly be said to be running at all. The small set of granite steps halfway along the street did little to ease the effects of the steep incline and he had to stop, dropping first to one knee then the other.

  From where he knelt, the cold drilling into his kneecaps, he could see Waterstones stretching off on his right, toward the corner of College Lane and Manesty’s Lane, a great wedge of a building, too big to be a bookshop, the architecture somehow more appropriate to a cinema. Surrounded by clothes shops, it had always seemed lost to Jay, its days surely numbered.

  Even before he’d wiped the sweat from his eyes and blinked everything back into focus, he knew something was wrong: the way the thick blanket of frozen snow seemed to have retreated from around the bookshop, drawn back several feet to reveal slate-grey paving stones. And then, confirming his worst fears, his nostrils prickled with the smell of ashes, and he noticed the thick, black scorch marks rising up the broken windows.

  Chapter 11

  Jay kicked his way through blackened books and couldn't help laughing.

  “This is a fucking joke,” he muttered. “A shit joke with a piss-poor excuse for a fucking punch line.”

  He looked around. Not all the books were destroyed. He could see a shelf labelled Local Authors that was mostly untouched. Niall Griffiths, Roger McGough, Nicholas Monsarrat, Brian Patten, Beryl Bainbridge, Ramsey Campbell, Adrian Henri. He suddenly felt unworthy. He was alive and they were gone, one way or another. It seemed wrong. It seemed like a colossal oversight. Maybe some cosmic intelligence would realise its gaffe and he and the hyenas would abruptly swap places, Jay the snuffling animal and the literate back in the driving seat once more.

  He made his way over to a set of escalators on the far side of the shop. They seemed sturdy enough, despite being warped and soot encrusted; the rubber handrail had melted entirely.

  Upstairs, things were worse. Very little made of paper had survived and most of the shelves had collapsed into jagged arrangements of metal and charcoal. The ceiling had been torched away in several places, revealing steel rafters and a confusion of ducts and drooping cabling. The floors groaned and squeaked under his weight. There were any number of blackened, grinning skeletons, contorted into all manner of impossible poses by the intensity of the heat.

  He looked about half-heartedly for sailing books, knowing there was no chance. Some fiction had escaped harm and a shelf-load of graphic novels, but everything else was ash.

  He was about to head downstairs and outside and back to the boat to take his chances with the open seas, hoping some genetic maritime instinct might kick in if backed into a corner, when he heard movement from the ground floor.

  He froze for a second or two then began looking for somewhere to hide.

  He heard a dull, gritty shriek and knew that whatever was downstairs had stepped onto the escalator.

  He ducked behind the remnants of a counter, a blistered cash register the only clue to its original purpose. The till's drawer was open, displaying blackened coins and ash. It wasn't until he crouched down that he realised he was sharing his hiding place with a corpse that was skeletal from the waist down but had retained flesh and even some clothing on its upper body. A metal hair slide in a Celtic cross design was fused to the corpse's scalp. The smell of burnt hair and skin which was evident throughout the shop was overwhelming here: bitter yet too sweet. It reminded him of a thick, black medicine he'd had to endure as a child, but he couldn't remember what ailment the medicine had been intended to treat. The floor beneath the corpse looked like it had been scorched to a black parchment on the verge of collapsing and droppi
ng its burden of flesh and bone down to the ground floor.

  The dull, gritty shrieks continued, getting louder, then stopped. Whatever it was had reached the top of the escalator. Jay realised he was a little close to the edge of the counter and shuffled further out of sight. The back of his hand touched the corpse's face and something stuck to him, something tacky and still warm. He couldn't help but investigate and saw threads of semi-liquid flesh stretching between his hand and the dead woman's cheek. He snatched his hand away and clamped his other hand over his mouth, just managing to suppress a moan. His stomach seemed to shrink. Bile burned the back of his throat and his mouth filled with a salty fluid that told him he was going to vomit. He parted his fingers so he could take a deep breath. He dry heaved but, thankfully, managed to do so silently.

  From somewhere out on the shop floor, there was a clatter and Jay realised that whilst he'd been distracted, the hyena — surely it was a hyena — had moved from the top of the escalator but Jay had no idea to where. He just knew it was up here with him, somewhere.

  Slowly, painfully aware of every rustle he was making, he shrugged off his backpack and set it down between himself and the melted corpse. He unclipped a side pouch, reached in and brought out the small paring knife he'd taken from the galley of the Jerusalem.

  Another clatter. This one louder, but Jay couldn't tell if that was because it was closer or because it had been more violently executed.

  He remembered the hyena stuffing its mouth with Byron, the hyena with its largely pageless dictionary that had killed Dempsey and Hello Kitty spitting out wads of pulped magazine before pitching herself at a plate glass window in her eagerness to do him harm. He wondered if she'd intended to punch a hole in his skull and rummage through his grey matter looking for, well, what? He was certain it all meant something. Everything meant something once the world had come to an end. There was so little left that whatever remained inherited all meaning.