For fifteen minutes – she counted it in her head – Red sat in that nook, coming to terms with the fact that, for the first time in twenty years, she was very alone, that things would be different from now on, that demons – despite what she had been led to believe – were very real, and right here in Oilhaven.
That no matter what happened, she had a week’s supply of cooked fish to look forward to.
She dropped the remains of an angelfish into the puddle beyond the alcove and licked her lips. It had been a long time since she’d eaten something so substantial in one sitting, which would explain why she was feeling a little queasy.
Hopefully it had nothing to do with the water in which the fish had been kept, or the strange, milky fluid coursing through it now.
Well-fed and re-energised, Red climbed from the niche and headed for the door.
“Let’s find out what the fuck is going on around here,” she said, hoping that at least one person had an inkling, lest she go completely mental.
22
Lou covered the dead monster in the basement with a sheet. It seemed only right, since said monster had brought him up to be a decent chap, taught him right from wrong, tied his shoelaces for him, sang him to sleep, made his bed, made his breakfast, thrown his breakfast out when he’d grown tired of it (Weetabix™. Other horrible cereals are available). She had been a good mother to him, a real mother, the kind of mother that never revealed how hurt she was, how dismal her life was. It was only in the later years, those awful years following The Event, that she had given up entirely, confining herself to her room, believing herself to by dying.
In the end, death hadn’t crept in the way Lou imagined it would. There was no way he could have foreseen what was going to happen, that there was something wrong with his milk.
“It’s not your fault,” he told himself, but deep down, he knew it was. He had had his doubts about the milk – why the hell was he producing it, for a start? – and yet he had sold it anyway, and now…now his mother was dead, and there were god knows how many ‘haveners about to have a really bad day.
A loud bang on the door upstairs startled him. He wasn’t in the mood for disgruntled customers or…
Maybe one of them had turned – mutated – come back to finish the job his own mother had started. Maybe the whole town were mutants, out for his blood, royally pissed off that Lou’s Milk was about as good for you as an acid bath.
“I won’t answer it,” he mumbled. “Knock all you like, I won’t answer it.”
There came a second bang, and once again Lou’s heartbeat quickened, proving that you could fool the same person twice if they were stupid enough. “You’d better open up, Lou!” said a voice. “We wouldn’t want to have to break and enter!”
“Smalling.” Lou growled. Just what he didn’t need; Kellerman’s destructive duo. Couldn’t a guy mourn in peace anymore?
Lou made sure that the mother-beast was covered over before heading up the basement steps and into the store. Smalling and Harkness had no reason to go into the basement, but he wasn’t taking any chances.
“What do you want?” Lou said, through the door. “I’m in the middle of something.”
There were whisperings and murmerings, and then one of them, Harkness, Lou thought, said, “Put the claytex vagina down and let us the fuck in. We’re here on official Kellerman business.”
Aren’t you always? Lou thought. Was there any other kind of business?
Sighing, Lou unlocked the door and walked across the room to the counter. The shorn gorillas let themselves in and followed.
“So what can I do for you?” Lou said. “More specifically, what does Kellerman want now? It seems like only yesterday that you came in and robbed me blind. Surely it’s not been a month already.”
Harkness sniggered, though it was less than jovial. “You’re a funny man, Lou,” he said. “Probably best if you don’t try to piss us off too much, not if you enjoy wearing your teeth in your jaw.” He crunched his knuckles so hard that Lou felt the pain. “We’re here for more milk.”
Lou shook his head. “It’s off the menu,” he said. “There won’t be any more. The invisible well has dried up, so to speak.”
“That’s not good enough,” said Smalling as he glanced around the room. “Now, Lou, you know how much Kellerman hates being told no, and he is under the impression that this milk is readily available. Do you want me to go back to him and let him know that you made a mistake? That there is no more? That you lied to the people of Oilhaven, and to him, our founder and mayor?”
Lou was about to speak, to tell them they could pass on whatever message they wanted to Kellerman, but it wouldn’t change the fact that there would be no more Lou’s Milk, when Harkness suddenly leaned in and sniffed the damp patch spreading around Lou’s left nipple.
Lou slapped a hand to his chest, covering the blossoming dampness. “It’s nothing,” he said. “I had a little accident bottling up earlier. Got some of the damn stuff on my shirt.”
Harkness frowned so hard that you could have fit a deck of cards in the crevices of his forehead. “Wait a…I think…but that’s not possible, is…?”
“No, it’s not possible,” Lou said. “Whatever it is that you’re thinking, it’s just not possible, so don’t even try to convince yourself that it is.”
Smalling, catching on a few seconds behind his hulking counterpart, said, “Oh! You mean…but milk doesn’t come…man can’t do that, can…?”
“No, they can’t,” Lou said, but by now both of his nipples were pouring. His shirt was drenched; the milk pattered on the floor beneath, a terrible drumroll of betrayal. “It’s not what it looks like. I can…I can explain!”
Smalling shook his head. “It’s you!” he said. “You’re the invisible cow!”
“I fucking knew something was wrong about that milk,” Harkness added, gagging. “Too many hairs and lumps for my liking. Eurgh, and to think I almost drank some.” He spat on the floor, clearly disgusted by the notion.
“Don’t be silly,” Lou said, but he could see no way out, now. He was wasting his time trying to explain. Might as well bite the proverbial bullet and get it over with. “Yes, okay, I’m lactating, but there’s something you should know about the milk. It’s not right.”
“You can bleeding well say that again,” Smalling said. “It’s coming out of a man’s tit. Of course it’s not right. You should be put down. I’ve never heard anything so absurd in all my life. Of course, we’re going to have to tell Kellerman, and he ain’t going to be pleased about it.”
“Did he drink it?” Lou asked. “Please tell me he didn’t drink it.”
“What else was he going to do with it?” said Harkness. “If he’d known it had been forced from a fat man’s wobbly breasticles, he might not have been so eager.”
Oh, shit! Lou thought. Kellerman had polished off a bottle of the stuff. Would that be enough to affect him? His mother had been knocking it back by the gallon. Perhaps it would be okay; maybe you needed a lot of it in your system before anything happened. Maybe, just maybe, there was a light at the end of the tunnel for Lou.
“We need to destroy as much of that first batch as possible,” Lou said. “It’s poisonous.” It wasn’t, of course, not in the ‘fall about the floor, clutching your chest and gargling’ sense, but he didn’t want to panic the ‘haveners by informing them there was a good chance they would soon turn into stinking, drooling, defecating monsters.
“Poisonous?” Smalling said, his brow furrowed. “Shit! Kellerman!”
The follically-challenged henchmen turned and rushed for the door, which they became wedged in as they both tried to pass through it at the same time. The Event had changed a lot of things, but slapstick, apparently, lived on.
23
“Mom!” Zee Fox screeched as she landed on the kitchen floor with a thump. One of these days, she would use the door, and to hell with who saw her.
“What on earth…?” Rita rushed into the kitchen,
a snot-faced Clint under one arm and a terrified-looking Tom hanging from her leg, like a libidinous mongrel. “Zee, what are you doing here? You shouldn’t be here! You should be…anywhere else!”
Zee stood and dusted herself down. “Something terrible has happened,” she gasped. Visions of the crazed geriatric monster flooded her head once again. She shuddered. It would be a long time before she trusted an old person again.
Rita placed Clint on the kitchen floor, where he swayed back and forth for a few seconds before deciding he would be much better off unconscious. He lay down, curled up into a ball, and began to snooze. “Awwww,” said his mother, smiling slightly. Then, to Zee, she said, “What do you mean ‘something terrible’? Oh, Zee, you’re not pregnant are you? You haven’t married a coyote, have you? You aren’t up the duff with a coyote baby?”
Zee shook her head and tried to find the words to answer her mother. “I’ve only been gone a couple of hours,” she said. “What do you think I get up to when I’m not here?” She paused, then said, “On second thoughts, don’t answer that.”
“So what is it?” asked Rita. “And why is your machete covered in white goo? Oh, no! You didn’t let a pack of horny coyote masturbate over your sword, did you?”
“Mother, you frighten me sometimes,” Zee said. “If you’ll just shut up for a moment, I’ll tell you what happened.”
“She got into a fight with an old lady,” Tom said, releasing his mother’s leg.
Zee didn’t know what to say; how had her little brother known that? Was he a precog? Was he possessed of strange and amazing powers?
“Don’t be silly, Thomas Fox,” Rita chided. “Your sister’s not a biddy-beater, are you?”
Zee was still flabbergasted by her brother’s accuracy. He was a witch! A warlock! A psychic psycho!
“She’s got rice-pudding on her shoe,” Tom said, pointing at the lumpy, white residue stuck to his sister’s foot. He wasn’t a warlock, after all. “And blood on her hand. I might only be eight, but I’m not stupid.”
Rita Fox’s face dropped another few inches. “Is it true, Zee?” she said. “Have you been attacking the elderly?”
“That’s what I’m trying to tell you!” Zee said, her patience fast running out. “I was up in the cave, keeping my head down, learning how to get red wine stains out of suede, when all of a sudden, that old lady from town attacked me.”
“What old lady?” Rita said. “Mrs Warbrown?”
Zee nodded. “That’s her. The one with the umbrella.”
“Oh, come on,” said her mother, incredulous. “You’re telling me that Mrs Warbrown, the town’s oldest survivor, and winner of the best crocheted blanket for the last twenty years running, attacked you!”
“It wasn’t her!” Zee said. “I mean, it was her, but she wasn’t in control. It was as if she had been possessed by a demon. She…she changed shape, Mom. She grew, and she almost killed me!”
“Yes, of course she did, dear,” said her mother. “Was this before or after she flew across the desert on a carpet made of pubic hair?”
“I’m telling the truth!” Zee said. “She attacked me, and I had no choice but to take her down.”
“She killed the little old lady,” Tom said, grinning and shaking his head. He liked nothing more than seeing his sister in trouble, and she was definitely in trouble with this one.
“You killed Mrs Warbrown?” Rita put her hands on her hips, as if Zee had just told her she’d done nothing more illegal than steal a battery from LOU’S LOOT. “The only woman in Oilhaven with a decent rice pudding recipe?”
Zee wished people would stop babbling on about fucking rice pudding. It was driving her insane. “It was either her or me,” she said, wiping her machete blade on the kitchen curtains.
“This is some kind of sick joke,” Rita said. “And it’s not funny. Go to your room, and I don’t want to see your face again today. Do you understand, missy?”
Just then, the front door swung open so hard, it splintered on its hinges. Zee brought the machete up, ready to stave off the mutant hordes. On the floor, Clint Fox slept like a baby, albeit a very poorly one.
“Close the fucking door!” Roger Fox said as he stormed across the room. Behind him, a naked man and Roy of The Barrel bickered over something or other. Zee heard the words ‘giant’ and ‘dead’ and figured they were here for her, for what she had done to Mrs Warbrown. In all honesty, it was the worst lynch-mob she’d ever seen. They didn’t even have flaming torches or spitting wenches.
Rita rushed toward the door and eased it shut. “Roger!” she said. “What’s going on? Why is Roy here, and why is there a dangling schlong in my kitchen?” She pointed at the naked alleyway man’s shrivelled joint. In his defence, he had just killed a man. If it had gone the other way – and he’d suddenly found himself the proud owner of a throbbing erection – he would have had to question his own mental state.
“Something’s going on out there,” Roger said, glaring out through the glassless kitchen window. “Reverend Schmidt’s dead. Mickey over there staked him.”
Mickey – Naked Alleyway Man – nervously smiled. “Don’t say it like that,” he said. “Say it like, ‘We were about to get devoured by a horrible mutant, when Mickey over there rescued us’. It sounds so much better.”
“And now there are more of them out there. Skulking in the shadows, evolving into things more hideous than they already are. Honestly, it’s like fucking England out there, only without all the bicycles and monarchs.”
“Roy?” Rita Fox said, turning on the barkeep so suddenly that he took an involuntary step back. “What is my husband going on about? Please, talk some sense.”
Roy didn’t know if he was qualified to ‘talk some sense’, and so he did the next best thing. He told the truth. “It’s like the man said. There are monsters out there. Hideous fucking monsters with six legs and fifteen eyes and heads twice the size as they should be. I ain’t never seen nothing like it, but I know what I saw, and it ain’t fucking right. It ain’t right at all.”
Rita Fox sighed. “Thanks for that, Roy,” she said, clearly still unconvinced. She pinched the bridge of her aquiline nose between thumb and forefinger. “Why am I suddenly surrounded by lunatics?” she asked herself. “Must be something in the water.”
“It ain’t the water!” Roger said, grabbing his wife by the arms and shaking her so hard that her skirt almost fell down. “It’s the milk! It’s Lou’s Milk!”
Rita suddenly wished Oilhaven had a psychologist, for this had to be a group hallucination. “Roger, there is no milk,” she said. “There hasn’t been milk for years, and not around these parts.”
“There is milk!” Roger said, shaking his wife once again. She clung on to her skirt for dear life. There was already one too many bottomless people in the room. “Lou’s selling it over at his store by the bucket-load. I almost got a bottle this morning, but the silly old bitch I gave currency to forgot to pick it up.”
Zee nodded. Everything suddenly made sense, or as much sense as it was ever going to. “This old lady wouldn’t have happened to be carrying an umbrella, would she? Liked to talk about rice pudding a lot?”
“That’s the one,” Roger said. “How did you know that?”
“I hacked her up with my machete,” Zee said, as calm as you like. “I tried telling mother, but apparently, she’s the voice of reason around these parts. In which case, I didn’t hack the mutated old hag up, and you guys are clearly on some sort of psychedelic drug.” To her mother, she said, “Or, you could be completely wrong, and Oilhaven is going down the pan faster than a curried shit.”
Rita Fox – voice of reason – shook her head. “None of this makes sense,” she said. “Milk doesn’t grow on trees. It grows in cows, and when was the last time you saw a cow around here?”
“There are rumours,” Roy said, settling himself down at the kitchen table, “that Lou has an invisible milk-well.”
“Well, that’s bullshit,” Mickey said, to
welling at the sweat beneath his armpits with a dusty rag he’d found in the corner. It had a little picture of a sailboat on it – very cute.
“I agree with the naked man,” Rita said, even though he was removing perspiration from his body with one of Clint’s tee-shirts. “Invisible things seldom exist, and I, for one, won’t believe in one until I see it with my own eyes.”
“Look!” Roger said, slamming both hands down on the kitchen table. “It doesn’t matter where it’s coming from. What matters is that it’s turning everyone into grotesque mutants. There are hundreds of them out there. Lou must have sold a bottle to half the fucking town. Those who didn’t drink it are either dead, dying, or soon to be one or the other. Who knows what those monster are capable of, or what they want from us, but I’ll bet it’s not a cucumber sandwich and a nice chat about the weather.” He straightened up, rubbing his now-sore hands (stupid rock-hard table) on the seat of his trousers. “Now, we’ve got two choices. We can either stand here, wait for those creatures to figure out we’re in here, and accept that our days are numbered. Or, we can barricade the hell out of this place; make it as impossible to penetrate as we can, at least until we figure out what the fuck’s going on out there.”
Zee waved her machete around a little. “Or we can fight back,” she said. “They might be big, they might be ugly, but they’re pretty damn clumsy. If we find enough weapons, we might—”
A sudden explosion that sounded as if it were just outside rocked the house. Everyone dove for cover as the blast echoed around the room. Fifteen miles away, seven crows sitting atop an unused telephone cable glanced at one another bewilderedly before flying away.
“What the hell was that?” Rita Fox gasped. Despite the blast, everything remained in its place, apart from little Clint, who had rolled over onto his back and yet continued to snore.
“I have no idea,” Roger Fox said, scrambling to his feet. He made his way across the room and opened the front door a fraction. “Erm, you remember those houses that used to be over the road?” he said.
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