by Lex Sinclair
Kate didn’t have an answer. Instead she deliberately changed the course of the conversation. ‘I thought you said there would be no more talk about the creature we cremated or any other scary supernatural tales from now on,’ she said.
Tom rubbed his sweaty brow with his hand, distressed. ‘I know I did.’
‘Well, let’s hope you’re wrong about me having repercussions during the birth, shall we?’ she said, choking back the urge to cry. Then she marched out of the room.
Tom sighed forcefully. He considered running after his wife, but what use would that do? It would merely prolong the conversation and upset her more so.
Peace of mind, my arse. The only way they were going to find out if they would regret the wishes they’d made, was by waiting anxiously as the events of their lives gradually unfolded.
21
On Thursday afternoon Charles returned to his cottage no wiser than when he’d taken a ride into to the nearest hospital to be examined by the specialist about his problem. He’d given the specialist his urine sample a couple of weeks earlier. Then was questioned about his health. All to no avail. Charles had also given a blood sample. The results of his tests had all come back negative. If it happened again, though, he was advised to report it immediately.
Charles brought the Jeep to a halt and sat motionless behind the wheel staring vacantly at the dashboard, aware that no matter what tests he was given, and no matter how qualified the doctor was, they’d never find the cause of the incident because it wasn’t meant to be detected by any outsiders. He banged the dashboard with his fist and pulled back his lips in a snarl. He knew he would suffer more before this was finally over. His face looked wan these last few days. Also his hair started receding faster more than it had ever done previously.
This was all to do with the Frozen Man getting his vengeance on him for his lack of respect to its corpse.
Just get it over with!
He couldn’t the bear the thought of a slow, agonising death. He imagined it must be how cancer patients must feel when they’re told they have a certain amount of time to live, regardless of the fact that they are suffering indescribable pain and just want to die so they don’t have to endure it any longer. Charles supposed - hoped - his situation wasn’t that extreme, although it wasn’t much better, either.
He entered his home, closed the door shut behind him and drew the bolt.
A dreaded thought came to him: He desperately needed to pee. Oh God. Not again. Unwillingly he headed to the bathroom, afraid at what would probably happen... again. Yet as he stood in front of the toilet and aimed his penis at the bowl, ready to see a crimson flow pouring out of it, he was so relieved he shook with laughter and inadvertently pissed on the wall. Although right then, Charles didn’t seem to care; he was just glad it was urine emanating from him, and not blood. Thank you, God. Thank you, he said silently, overjoyed with such a common practice.
When he finished wiping the splatters off the wall and washed his hands, he flushed the toilet and stepped back into the cosy living room area, feeling as if a thousand pounds had been taken off his shoulders, which he’d been carrying these past few weeks.
He made himself a hot chocolate and collapsed into his recliner chair in front of the TV. As he did this, he let his mind wander about the recent information Tom gave him on Wednesday. Kate went to the doctor’s like he had done, and had confirmation that she was pregnant, after all. Tom was delighted with the news; as well he ought to be. Although he did admit to him that he was rather anxious about the bad things that do sometimes occur when women are carrying a child in their stomachs for nine months. But that was to be expected. All men who cared about the women they loved felt the same when they were carrying their unborn child. Charles had his fingers crossed for his friends. It was wonderful news. He just hoped nothing would mar it for them. Maybe he and Tom had overreacted after all. Maybe things were going to get better. Or maybe they were only meant to believe that.
***
Charles’s happiness came to an abrupt end on a Friday night two weeks later.
He leaned over the washing basin in the bathroom, vomiting the contents of his late lunch that he’d eaten only a couple of hours earlier, violently. For some unknown reason he’d been unable to keep his food down and was constantly being sick. This was the third time today he’d been sick. The dizziness got so bad that he began to see flashing spots in his vision, blinking like disco lights then rapidly disappearing. He gazed at the mashed, gelatinous food in the basin, leaning on the porcelain rim, just about managing to keep himself upright in his weak condition. The hot, nauseating aftertaste of the bile rushing out of him still burning in his oesophagus.
What the hell is wrong with me?
He turned the cold water tap on and watched as the gush washed the lumpy, congealing vomit down the drain. However, when he saw that some of the lumpy bits of food were too large to fit down the gaps in the drain hole, he groaned. He’d just have to mop it up later by hand when he was feeling better.
If he ever did feel better.
He lurched to the bathroom door, opened it, and then cautiously made his way to his bed, hoping he’d reach it before falling over for the umpteenth time in the past few days. His body was already black and blue from falling down all the time. He threw himself onto the mattress, breathing heavy, wanting nothing more than to close his eyes and fall into an undisturbed sleep. In spite of being utterly exhausted, Charles could not get to sleep for even an hour that night, or the next night, or the night after that. Or for another four days, until his sleep- deprived body, at long last, passed out.
***
After ten hours sleep, Charles was slightly better - but not much. His body ached as though he’d been playing with the New Zealand front row all afternoon. The first thing he did upon waking was to hurry to the bathroom and vomit. An hour later he came to on the cold tiled flooring in the bathroom behind the toilet bowl trying to get his bearings in his dizzy confusion.
What the hell is happening to me? This isn’t right. He couldn’t recall what had happened in the past week other than puking his guts up in the bathroom, and lying in bed staring at the ceiling desperately awaiting sleep... which never seemed to come.
With a lot of exertion, he peeled himself off the hard floor and stumbled to his feet. He considered driving into town to call for an emergency doctor. But what use would that do? He knew the doctor wouldn’t find anything wrong with him after yet another futile test. He just wanted for the pain to ease and to be able to sleep for a few hours a night. Why was that so much to ask?
Standing, Charles stared, aghast, at the reflection staring back at him in the mirror. He was as white as a sheet of paper. He looked like he suffered from a flesh-eating virus that was now reducing him to a skeleton. There were more deeply-etched lines on his haggard, rapidly-ageing face. There were purple shadows as dark as the bruises on his body under his hollowed eyes. Instead of looking like a sixty year old man, when he was in his mid-fifties, Charles now looked like an eighty year old man ready to depart from the world at any moment.
He lowered himself down on the toilet and pushed. But even though he desperately needed to empty his bowels, the giant turd (equivalent in size of a small rock) refused to exit the crevice so he could flush. Charles just sat there squeezing, constipated, veins standing out on his forehead and on his scrawny, chicken neck, in considerable amount of pain. He tried to look at the funny side of the situation. People joked all the time about constipation, but actually it was quite serious. There was nothing humorous about what was happening to him right now.
He’d eaten three times in the past week without upsetting his stomach. It was as though his body had grown emotions and turned against him, wanting to make him suffer for the abuse he’d put it through all these years. After a couple of strenuous minutes Charles gave up. Otherwise he would only end up hur
ting himself and adding to the pain. Nevertheless, as soon as Charles exited the bathroom and stepped outside to get some fresh air, thinking a bit of refreshing coolness would do him some of good, the turd quietly crept out of his arse and rolled down his trouser leg, as if on purpose. This had been occurring a lot lately. Whenever he felt he’d better go to the toilet to do his business, nothing happened, but as soon as he was anywhere else, besides the bathroom, he’d either piss or shit himself. It wasn’t funny. It was humiliating and upsetting. Here he stood... a fully grown man with a giant log rolling out from the cuffs of his corduroy trousers onto the ground. If he glanced at the turd he wouldn’t be at all shocked if he saw it grinning at him.
Charles closed his eyes and shook his head in disdain. He didn’t deserve this treatment. Whether it was the Frozen Man’s doing or his body simply failing him, he’d endured enough. The old man observed the scenic land before him - doing everything he could to take his mind off what had just happened - watching the mild wind blow the long blades grass in the field and the pines on the hilltop, swaying in rhythmic motion to a tune only he could hear.
Returning indoors Charles wished he could turn back the hands of time more than anything else to the day he discovered the Frozen Man.
***
In the following three days, Charles caught up on missed sleep, went to the toilet without any difficulty. He ate adequately, and managed to keep all that he consumed in his stomach. His body loosened up, and all in all he felt a hell of a lot better; like his old self again. He dearly hoped that his illness was finally over for good, because he didn’t know how much more of the sleepless nights, humiliation and awful pain he could withstand.
Then on a Sunday evening in March, Charles was seated in his recliner, watching an action film on the TV he’d seen previously in the cinema when it had been first released, devouring his dinner and licking the plate clean.
After the film had finished he would shave and have a hot bubble bath. All he needed then was another early night and a good rest. Twenty minutes later his heavy eyelids started weighing down on him, and in his weary state he welcomed sleep like an estranged relative. Out of the corner of his eye he glimpsed an incandescent purple mist drifting across the charcoal sky, decorated with twinkling, silver stars. Stars you could make a real wish on, without severe consequences, he thought dreamily.
At first he smiled, not quite realising that what he was seeing in his lethargic state. Then he jolted upright in his chair, eyes protruding from their sockets, wild with terror. He drew in a rasping breath, followed by a frightened whimper escaping him, aware of what the purple mist drifting down from the charcoal skies meant. A sense of ominous flooded his conscience until it spilled over the brim, as the purple mist quickly clouded his cottage, drawing ever closer.
He leapt out of his chair and hurried to the front door, drawing the bolt shut.
His whole body shuddered. Charles ran in spite of the throbbing pain in his arthritic legs to the back door, checking that entryway had also been locked.
Through the wide living room window he saw the purple mist, touching the glass, absolute. He stumbled backwards to the centre of his cosy living room, shaking uncontrollably.
Abruptly the lights snapped off.
Charles cried out. Then he clapped a hand over his mouth. This wasn’t a power cut of any kind - this was the purple mist’s doing. The billowing shadows on the walls were not his own. They were the moving shapes of the unseen ethereal presence that had invaded his home. He stood rigid, cringing, breathing heavily, as tendrils of purple mist floated down through the cavernous fireplace, cloaking him in its sinister, amorphous shadows. In desperation the old man held his hands up before him in a defenceless gesture, feebly trying to protect himself in vain of his inevitable fate. There was no escaping the unrelenting, incandescent mist, which found its way into his rustic home where he cowered in foetal position, awaiting his bitter end.
Outside a howling wind played a tuneless song, drowning out the screams of the withered old man, and then relented to a soft breeze when the purple mist ascended to the velvet skies without trace.
Inside the house, the electricity suddenly came back on.
***
The sun spread its vibrant magic on the day. A hungry flock of crows descended from the fresh-smelling pines on the hilltop down to the stone-built cottage below, cawing as they perched atop the ledge and saw the remains of the dead man sprawled out on the carpeted floor inside. The doors and windows were locked shut. Yet when one crow found access to the interior through the chimney flue. The others followed eagerly and feasted on the old man’s corpse.
The crows worked their way through the lower and upper jaw area, peeling away strips of flesh in their beaks and claws in an excited rush that it wasn’t long before the nicotine-stained teeth could be seen through the flaps of skin where the cheeks had been severed. They pecked ravenously at his throat, other areas of the face, and hands (although, not one of them plucked at the glazed over eyes which were glowing a strange purple hue.), until there was nothing remaining except a bloody mucus and ragged tissue. The rest of Charles’s flesh was a shade of maroon; not like an ordinary pallid corpse lying on a stretcher in a morgue, but like he had been exposed to a purple sun or an X-ray for too long.
The crows didn’t care what colour the corpse’s flesh colour was, though. They were just glad for an ample, satisfying meal to start a warm, sunny day in the quiet countryside.
22
Derek occupied the deckchair outside in his back yard that afternoon reading the newspaper, having decided to spend a couple of hours in the sun’s glow, drinking his mug of tea and relaxing in advance to starting the evening shift.
Rhian worked the afternoon shift as it was much quieter, and she also liked going to town in the nights with her girlfriends.
Seated beside the picnic table, his feet resting on the smooth patio slabs, Derek wondered if his best friend Charles would come over to the pub tonight and watch the football with him. The last time he’d seen his old friend, was when he came in to drop off his tracksuit bottoms he’d let him borrow on that awful night. Charles informed him that he was all right, and that the doctor had given him the all clear. However, since then, Charles hadn’t been over; not even for a quick drink in the afternoon. Derek found that to be rather peculiar and unsettling. Yet prior to the night of that horrible incident in the toilets, he hadn’t seen his friend for a few weeks, either. Perhaps Charles had just told him he a lie, when in fact he was very ill? he thought. He sincerely hoped his intuition was wrong about his friend’s health.
If he didn’t come over tonight, then he would phone him, Derek decided.
Then he opened the paper and rested it on his lap and tried to read the headline story, but couldn’t concentrate. His eyes merely ran across the words without any absorption. He knew why. Something didn’t sit right in his mind, and until it did he wouldn’t be able to think of anything else. Stupid bloody conscience.
What am I his mother for Christ sake?
Derek folded the paper aggressively and then slapped it down on the table. He picked his mug up, sipped his tea, and then headed back inside to the nearest phone. He went to the phone on the wall in the kitchen and put the receiver to his ear, dialled Charles’s number, waited impatiently for it to ring. After ten rings, Derek slammed the phone down, almost knocking it off the wall, and strode back outside.
Of course he’s not in, he thought. It’s a glorious day. Not scorching hot, but not cold, either. Why would Charles or anyone else for that matter be stuck indoors? He’d phone him later when darkness descended. He tilted his head back and closed his eyes, allowing the sun’s glow to soothe his face with its warm hands. For the remainder of the afternoon, Derek sunbathed and read the paper, until it was time to start his monotonous shift.
At 5:00p.m. a group of motorcyclists entered t
he pub wearing their leather padded jackets, leather bottoms and matching boots. They were a boisterous bunch, both men and women, but not the slightest bit aggressive. They just wanted a break on their long journey, and stopped for a Coke before riding off into the mountains on their way to wherever they were all headed. Campers and motorcyclists were more common than a regular customer because of the pub’s isolated location. Those type of people came, drank, ate, made a lots of good noises, and then were on their way again. No big deal.
They stayed for half an hour, thanked Derek, and then departed.
Derek had to go around the pub and collect all the empty glasses from the tables where the bikers had left them. He stacked them underneath the counter ready to be washed, checked that there was no one in the bar, and then went to the phone again, punched Charles’s number in and waited for an answer. Once again he got no reply.
It was half past five. Surely wherever Charles had been he would be home by now? he thought. Try him again later.
Another hour passed before the next customers arrived and ordered two beers, played a couple of games of pool, finished their third round of drinks, then left.
Derek sat on the stool behind the bar wondering why he couldn’t get Charles out of his head.
Big deal. So he hasn’t picked up the phone during the day or a couple of hours ago. He hasn’t been in my pub for a while, and when he did he had himself a terrible accident. Poor guy is probably embarrassed it will happen again. Or maybe he’s tired and just wants to be left alone for awhile. Or maybe something bad has happened. Perhaps he fell down and thumped his head and is lying unconscious on the floor unable to get up.
But Derek didn’t want to go driving to his friend’s house when he wasn’t invited to visit him; when Charles didn’t want to see anyone. Instead he waited another twenty minutes before picking up the phone and dialling the number for the third time.
Twenty rings later, Derek put the phone down. Now he was almost certain something wasn’t right. By now Charles would be at home. And even if he was in the bathroom or busy, twenty rings would be plenty of time for him to reach the phone.