King Carrion

by Rich Hawkins

  They stopped outside the house, in an overgrown garden of nettles, weeds and yellowing grass. The windows were covered in lengths of wood or chipboard. Whitewashed walls strangled by pale ivy that entwined around the crumbling guttering and spread onto the underside of the roof. Mason was surprised to see the chimney still intact, squat and weathered against the grey sky.

  “What is this place?”

  “A friend of mine squats here,” Calvin said. “He’s ex-army. Served in the Falklands. Not all of him came back, in a way.”

  “Poor bloke.”

  “He’s a bit unstable.”

  “Aren’t we all?”

  “That’s true.”

  *

  Calvin knocked on the door. Mason stood behind him, wondering who lived behind the boarded windows; he pictured a human representation of a deep sea fish dwelling in the dark.

  The door opened little more than an inch. A lone eye appeared and appraised them, flicking from Mason to Calvin and then lingering on Mason, all watery and bloodshot like its owner had been crying. The eye narrowed in its bone socket and the pale skin around it.

  Then the door was pulled back and a man emerged, tall and thin in a ratty brown overcoat. Mason reckoned he was in his late fifties or early sixties. When he frowned, the skin stretched tighter across his face. He nodded at Mason.

  “Who’s this, Calvin?”

  “Someone in need of help.”

  “We all need help, brother. Some of us more than others.”

  “He’s sound,” Calvin said.

  “Really?”

  “Yes.”

  The man raised his eyebrows at Mason. “Are you sound?”

  “What?”

  The man rolled his eyes. “Are you sound?”

  Mason looked at Calvin and back to the man. He nodded slowly. “Yeah, I think so.”

  A thin smile broke across the man’s mouth. “You haven’t converted him, have you, Cal?”

  “Just let us in,” said Calvin. “It’s fucking cold out here.”

  The man stood to one side of the doorway and gestured inside the house. “I was just making some tea. You were lucky to get here before nightfall.”

  *

  The downstairs floor had been stripped of any furnishings and utilities, leaving only exposed floorboards and bare walls. Plaster flaked from the ceilings of the downstairs rooms. The wind moved through the hollows and recesses of the house, sounding like distant voices. The air smelled of autumnal decay and bad feet.

  “Wipe your feet,” Zeke said, as they stepped into what had once been a living room. He looked at Mason and grinned with a mouthful of yellow teeth. When Mason had entered the house, Zeke eyed him up and down then, after a few seconds of awkward silence, grabbed Mason’s hand and shook it warmly. He greeted Calvin with a hug, wrapping his long arms around the little man.

  Two candles burned on porcelain saucers in the middle of the room. Grey daylight slipped through the thin cracks in the boards over the outside of the windows. Cobwebs trembled in the corners between the walls and the ceiling.

  “Cup of tea?” Zeke asked them.

  Mason nodded and tried to smile. “Thanks.”

  Zeke took a large flask from underneath some old clothing. “Make yourselves comfortable, lads.”

  Calvin reached into his satchel and began pulling out the pastries he’d taken from the bin behind the supermarket. “I got these for you.” He handed the pastries to Zeke, who thanked him and eyed an apple turnover with something like adoration.

  “You’re a good bloke, Cal.”

  Calvin sat and slumped against the section of wall under the boarded up window and pulled his trainers from his feet. His socks were filthy. The big toe on his left foot was poking through a hole in the fabric, and its nail was pale yellow and brittle-looking.

  Mason removed his rucksack and sat down nearby.

  Zeke poured tea into two chipped mugs and handed one each to Mason and Calvin, then sat on his bedding in the corner with the apple turnover in his hands. He took little bites, like a small mammal, chewing slowly. Calvin watched and shook his head, smiling over his steaming mug.

  Mason sipped at his tea and sank into his coat. The air inside the house was warmer than outside, but not by much, and he shivered at a draught that ghosted across the room and into the cracked walls.

  “Nice place you’ve got here,” said Calvin.

  Zeke chewed the last mouthful of apple turnover and swallowed. “I have to be careful the police don’t find me here. They don’t take kindly to squatters, for some reason.”

  “He doesn’t like the police very much,” Calvin said to Mason.

  Zeke frowned. “Neither would you if they gave you hassle all the time.”

  “It doesn’t help that the last time they stopped you, you tried to kiss both officers. And they were blokes.”

  “I was only messing around.”

  Calvin laughed. “You were high as a kite. Lucky they didn’t throw you in a cell for the night.”

  “Whatever. Fuck you.”

  Calvin laughed again, and Zeke joined in.

  CHAPTER SIX

  As the daylight faded through the cracks in the wooden boards, Zeke regaled them with a variety of conspiracy theories and his views on politics, religion, and Sylvester Stallone films. When Zeke asked Mason if he was married, Mason merely shook his head and looked away. Calvin gave Zeke a look, so he changed the subject.

  “Let’s get baked.”

  “You’ve got some?” Calvin said.

  Zeke smiled smugly as he pried one end of a loose floorboard open and reached down underneath it. When he pulled his arm back there was a small polythene bag of weed in his hand. He shook the bag between two fingers and grinned.

  Calvin gave a round of applause. “Good man.”

  Zeke chuckled. “I know you love me.” He looked at Mason. “You want some, too?”

  Mason finished his tea and placed the mug on the floor. “Might as well; I haven’t got anywhere to be.”

  “That’s the spirit.”

  Zeke rolled a thick spliff with expert yellow-stained fingers, humming a cheerful tune under his breath. He wet his lips then placed the joint between them and lit the end with a plastic lighter. Zeke closed his eyes and inhaled, and when he opened them he took the spliff from his mouth and blew a ring of smoke into the air.

  “Not bad. Not bad at all.”

  “Where did you get the weed?” Calvin asked.

  Zeke coughed into one hand. His eyes watered. “Usual place.”

  “Mental Mike?”

  “Yeah.”

  “How is he?”

  Zeke took another hit on the joint then passed it to Calvin. “Absolutely fucking mental.”

  “Haven’t seen him in a while.” Calvin sucked on the joint. He closed his eyes for a moment and turned his face towards the ceiling as he exhaled. “Last time I saw him, he was in trouble with that Russian gang from Southampton.”

  “That’s all settled now,” Zeke said. “The Ruskies only took a finger from him.”

  “He was lucky then.”

  “Fuck, yeah. They were gonna cut his dick off. Now he’s freaking out because of the disappearances.”

  “The disappearances?”

  Zeke shrugged his bony shoulders. “He said some people have gone missing in the last few days.”

  “Who?”

  “He didn’t say.”

  “Sounds like bollocks, Zeke.”

  “I dunno. He was pretty unnerved.”

  “It doesn’t take much to unnerve Mental Mike.”

  “I know,” Zeke said. “But you didn’t see him. He was afraid he’d be taken next.”

  “Taken by who?” asked Mason.

  Zeke looked at Mason like he’d forgotten Mason was in the room. “Mike didn’t say. All he said was the people were taken at night.”

  Mason folded his arms to hide the shiver that passed through them. “Sounds like a fucking ghost story.”

&nbs
p; Calvin passed the joint to him. “All yours, lad.”

  Zeke scratched at his face.

  Mason hesitated with the joint at his mouth. When he realised Calvin and Zeke were watching him, he took a drag and held it in his chest. Then he breathed out a long drawl and wiped his eyes. He coughed to clear the smoke from his throat.

  Zeke looked at him. “Good stuff, eh?”

  “It’s been a while.”

  Zeke snorted as he took hold of the joint. “Just make sure you don’t throw up on the floor.”

  *

  Within half an hour the room was filled with a haze of smoke that turned the air thick and spongy.

  Night fell outside. The candlelight waned.

  Mason felt the world soften and grow numb. His eyelids were heavy and he found the shape of his hand amusing. And then he fell asleep smiling for no reason at the ceiling.

  *

  Sometime in the night Mason woke to someone muttering breathlessly outside the house. A low voice speaking the words of an unknown language. He imagined desiccated vocal chords and a face pressed close to the door.

  He looked at Zeke and Charlie, both passed out and oblivious, then considered going to the front door to listen closely to the voice, but in the end he rolled onto his back and looked at the swaying ceiling and let his eyes close to return him to sleep.

  *

  Mason woke groggy and desperate for water. A lone candle threw shadows at the walls. He sat up from the floor, dizzy and confused, gasping with a mouth leeched of moisture, and glanced around the room as he pawed at his chest with numb hands. The air smelled of weed smoke and the burning candle. There had been dreams of the Dead Girl in the car. Visual fragments lingered behind his eyes. Tormented by the vision of her face, he banged one fist on the floor and gritted his teeth until she went away and his heart quietened.

  “I’m sorry,” he muttered. He put his head in his hands.

  When he went to grab the water bottle from his rucksack, he noticed that Zeke was gone. Charlie was asleep with his mouth open to the ceiling. Zeke’s bedding was crumpled, discarded.

  “Zeke?”

  No answer. He was probably in another room. Taking a piss, probably.

  A memory came to Mason. Or was it a part of a dream? Someone outside the house, muttering against the front door. Wanting to be let inside. Desperate to be greeted at the threshold. He thought it must have been a dream, as he sipped water and swilled it around his dried mouth. But then he turned towards the front of the house, and a cold breeze from outside slipped over his face.

  The front door was open.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Mason stepped through the doorway, glimpsed Zeke walking away from the house, and called out to him.

  Zeke vanished into the darkness.

  Mason called after him again, but there was no answer. The night was silent. Mason followed, fumbling with the penlight torch from his pocket. He looked up. Endless stars filled the sky. The moon was made hazy and indistinct by a thin sheet of cloud, and when it was revealed again it gave definition to the wasteland around him. Shadows formed from the shapes of trees. Mason looked towards the distant town centre and the faraway streetlights. He switched on the torch and pointed it ahead, but its reach was meagre and did little to help him pick his way across the sodden ground. And he scanned the way ahead, and glanced around, but there was no sign of Zeke. No trace of him at all.

  Mason halted, shivering in his clothes, teeth chattering from the cold. He cupped his hands to his mouth and called out to Zeke again. There was no answer. Just silence and the ghosting breeze.

  “Where did you go, Zeke?” he whispered. He considered returning to the house to wake Calvin, but something in his gut told him to keep moving and he would find Zeke soon enough.

  Away to the left, there was something like a burst of breathless laughter. When he pointed the torch that way and squinted into the dark, he was sure he had imagined it, because no one was there. The night was merely broken shapes. Or someone was mocking him. Maybe Zeke and Calvin were playing a joke on him. He exhaled and tried to gather some spit in his throat. Then he called Zeke’s name again. He looked towards the sky and wished he was away from this place.

  The Dead Girl appeared before Mason, startling him. He let out a little cry. Her mouth was open in a silent scream as she pointed at him. There was blood trickling down one side of her face. Her neck was twisted to one side.

  Mason stepped back, shaking his head to cast away the apparition. He closed his eyes and counted to ten. When he opened them, the Dead Girl was gone. He sighed with relief then smacked his forehead with the heel of one hand. He looked around again, mouth trembling, eyes darting inside their sockets.

  When the figure coalesced out of the darkness ahead of him, he assumed it was Zeke returning from wherever he’d gone. But as the figure approached, Mason realised it was a tall hunched thing covered in rags. It raised its cloth-covered face towards him to show eyes blazing with red light.

  Mason almost wished to see the Dead Girl again.

  He froze. A voice announced itself in his head, promising him great kindness and an embrace he would never want to escape. The figure reached towards him with one crooked hand upon a long thin arm, and bid him to stay.

  Mason almost didn’t see the sharp teeth emerge from that wet black mouth.

  *

  He stumbled back towards the house, too scared to look over his shoulder, gasping for breath as he tried to stay on his feet upon the damp ground. Once he was inside the house he shut the door behind him. There was no lock, or even a bolt to throw. No furniture to use as a barricade. He stood there with his hands near his face. He stared at the door and backed away, then went to rouse Calvin.

  The old man woke with a grumble and one swipe of his hand, which Mason managed to avoid as he crouched next to him. He looked at Mason with reddened eyes and frowned. His breath stank of smoke and bad teeth.

  “Zeke’s gone,” Mason said. “There’s something outside. I think it did something to Zeke.”

  Calvin rubbed his eyes and yawned. Then he looked at Zeke’s crumpled bedding against the wall. “Outside? What’s outside? Where’s Zeke gone?”

  “I think something took him.”

  “The police?”

  “No, not the police.”

  “What are talking about, lad? Are you still stoned?”

  “I wish I was. I woke up and saw that Zeke was gone. I went outside and saw him walking away. He vanished. Then this figure appeared. Something in rags and a cloth mask, that beckoned to me. I heard its voice in my head.”

  Calvin put his hand on Mason’s shoulder. “Calm down, lad. You’re sure Zeke isn’t playing a joke on you? It was probably just him dressed up in an old Halloween costume he’d found somewhere.”

  Mason wiped at his watery eyes. His heart floundered in the cold cavity of his chest. His voice wavered. “I don’t know. I’m not sure.”

  Calvin smiled with sympathy and rose to his feet. “Let’s go and sort this out. Don’t worry – I’ll give Zeke a bollocking when I see him.”

  *

  What occurred next happened so quickly that Mason simply stood near the doorway with his hands at his sides and his mouth quivering in shock.

  Calvin paused at the front door with his torch in hand. He craned his neck to listen. An expression on his face Mason couldn’t identify. Maybe amusement or disbelief. Then he looked at Mason.

  “What is it?” Mason said.

  The door was ripped away from its frame, and before Calvin could retreat or even raise a hand or a question, something thin, incredibly swift and made of shadow reached out from the darkness, plucked him from the floor and pulled him outside. And he screamed only once. Then there was just silence and the night spilling through the doorway.

  Mason backed away, mute with terror, and raised his penlight torch. The darkness gathered around him. The cold seeped into his bones. He was caught in a fit of tremors, murmuring idiot sounds of angui
sh.

  When Calvin’s body was returned, thrown through the doorway to land on the floor all broken, and ripped at the throat, Mason could only stand and stare. Calvin’s eyes were open, his beard and clothes soaked with his own blood. The ruin of his opened throat glistened in the torchlight.

  A low voice drifted from beyond the doorway, out in the night, close to the house. A glimpse of movement outside; a shadow-shape flitting through the rain.

  Come outside. Be of my flesh and blood. Receive my blessing. Receive the gospel.

  Mason turned away and fled deeper into the house.

  *

  He tried the back door with grasping hands, even as he glanced over his shoulder and waited for the shadow-thing to appear and come for him out of the dark corridor.

  The door finally gave when he went at it with kicking feet, and it burst open out into the night. He stepped outside and started into a staggering run across uneven land, too scared and witless to worry about tripping over and falling. He only looked back once at the house. Once was enough. After that, he fled, and the only light was that of the torch swaying about his feet.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  He ran away from the house and the shrieking of awful mouths until his lungs failed him and he hunched over with his hands on his thighs, coughing and retching to the ground. His vomit was thin and acidic. Wiping his mouth and sniffling into his hand he staggered onto a narrow track that led to a house with lights in its windows. He cried with relief.

  *

  The door was ajar when he arrived at the house. No one came to greet him when he knocked. He pushed the door open and stood in the doorway, casting a glance back at the darkness behind him. Trembling with cold and fear, he stepped into the small hallway and looked around.