The Festering

by Guy N Smith

  Holy Mother! She stared at what the two mirrors showed her: firm buttocks that were no longer recognizable as her own; they were smeared with blood-streaked pus, and where the sore had been there was now a gaping, ragged hole from which crept a steady surge of glutinous matter, trickling down the backs of her shapely legs. She dropped the small mirror and heard the glass crack as it hit the bare floorboards. Seven years’ bad luck; it seemed hers had arrived all at once.

  Then she caught sight of her face and recoiled from the haggard, wizened reflection. She thought for one moment that there was another woman in the room, and prayed to God that there was – a crone with sunken cheeks, eyes that burned out of hollowed sockets, and cracked lips with twin streams of mucus running down on to them from flared nostrils. No, don’t let it be. Let it be somebody else!

  Looking about her, she tried to will this awful witchlike apparition to materialize out of the shadowy corners of the bedroom. But in the end she had to accept that there was nobody here except herself. The diseased thing which lived down the well shaft had taken her, infected her, claimed her for one of its tortured, demented victims!

  She staggered through to the bathroom and began to splash her naked body with cold water in an attempt to cool it, shuddering as she remembered where that water came from. It was contaminated, whether or not the health inspector passed it as pure. Diseased.

  She went downstairs, clambering down like the hag she had become. The steps were slippery with the poison seeping from her. Standing in the kitchen, leaning against the scrubbed pine table, wheezing for breath, tasting the foul saliva in her mouth, she mouthed her pleas for help.

  She heard Nick coming across the patio, his feet scuffing, scraping. Then he coughed, retching, before entering the room. She knew without looking up, knew that it had got him, too.

  It did not come as a shock; she had expected it. The evil force had left its subterranean well and taken them all with alarming, unbelievable rapidity. None of them could hope to escape. Wherever Mike was, it had got him, too.

  Nick looked at her, but took time focusing his gaze. His feverish eyes narrowed in an expression of revulsion, but it was gone as quickly as it came.

  ‘It took us all,’ Holly croaked.

  ‘Yes.’ He lurched forward and stood at the opposite end of the table, holding on to it. ‘I haven’t felt well for days, you know.’ His eyes travelled up and down her naked body, possibly wondering if she was the same woman who had seduced him. Then he smiled. ‘Well, we’re all the same now, so we’d better make the best of it.’

  ‘I’m going to ring for Doctor Williamson.’ She turned towards the phone.

  ‘It won’t do any good. He didn’t help the others, did he?’

  ‘He only saw Fitzpatrick, and the fellow was already dead. What else can we do?’

  He shrugged his shoulders and watched her dialling. She leaned on the wall, holding the receiver as though it weighed several kilos. The phone was ringing at the other end, on and on, purring like a contented cat in her ear. At last she replaced the receiver. ‘Nobody’s answering. Perhaps the phone is out of order.’

  ‘I didn’t find your husband,’ he said, ‘but the car’s gone.’

  ‘So he fled the battlefield.’ There was contempt in her voice. ‘He deserted the dying in their hour of need.’

  ‘He might have gone to get help.’

  ‘He might have.’ She did not sound convinced. The floor was slippery beneath her feet where her poisoned juices still trickled. ‘Nick, you know what we discussed, about the cement?’

  ‘Yes.’ He was lisping more than ever now, but she dared not mention his speech impediment, remembering how Jim Fitzpatrick had been that time.

  ‘I think we should go ahead with the idea.’

  ‘No point. It’s too late.’

  ‘We might save other lives. Bury the bastard, whatever it is, and concrete it in.’

  ‘We’d still have to wait for tomorrow. The quarry will be closed now.’

  ‘Couldn’t you mix up some cement?’

  ‘Christ, it’ll take tons of the stuff. We’ll need a ready-mix; it would be impossible without it.’

  Silence. ‘We’ve got to destroy it!’ There was a pathetic determination about her now. Exhausted, she sank down into the nearest chair. ‘That borehole is its lair, it lives down there. All we need to do is to block it up, seal it in forever. It’s our fault, Mike’s and mine – we let it out by drilling an open shaft. But we could trap it back in there, if we had the means.’

  Nick Paton was thoughtful. He rubbed his mouth with the back of his hand, then protruded his tongue and plucked at it with his fingers as if he had an irritating hair lodged on it. Holly recoiled, wanting to avert her eyes, but it was as if that swollen tongue with its ugly protuberances hypnotized her.

  ‘Nick!’ She found her voice, a kind of terrified squeak.

  ‘Sure, I’ve got ’em.’ He gave a laugh that sounded as though he was vomiting. ‘You’re right, we’ve got to finish the thing off once and for all. I’ve an idea …’ He lapsed back into silence, head buried in his hands. She did not know whether he was deep in thought or pain. After some minutes he looked up, and there was an expression in his eyes which took some moments to identify. Hatred! ‘I’ll fix the fucker!’

  ‘Good.’ She waited for him to go on.

  ‘Suppose we poisoned it, like it’s poisoned us!’

  ‘How?’

  ‘I know a gamekeeper, about a mile from here. He uses Cymag, cyanide gas, to kill rabbits when they breed too quickly. I’ve read that they also use it for poaching salmon – tip it in the river and wait at the other end until all the dead fish come floating down.’

  ‘But we might poison the underground stream and kill half the villagers of Garth!’

  ‘Apparently not.’ He did his best to smile, it evaporates or dissolves – I’m not sure which – after a time and becomes harmless. It’s worth a try, anyway.’

  ‘If you’re sure.’ She sounded doubtful.

  ‘I’ll go and scrounge a can off him.’ With difficulty he rose to his feet.

  ‘I’d better come with you. Will either of us be able to drive?’

  ‘You stop here, I can manage.’ He made it to the door. Outside, the evening shadows were lengthening and the sun was already out of sight behind the mountains, ‘I won’t be long.’

  She sat there and listened to him starting up the van. The engine was roaring because he was having difficulty with the accelerator pedal. Jerking, stalling; starting again. She held her breath as she heard him pull out into the lane, and tensed as she remembered what had happened to Bill Cole. Then she was following Nick’s progress with her ears until finally she could hear him no more. Pray God be comes back with the cyanide and it does the trick.

  It was too good to be true. The van was back – she heard it clip that leaning gatepost with a metallic clang, then slowing. One last roar of the indignant engine before it died. A door slammed. Slow, dragging footsteps were coming towards the cottage, scraping on the patio.

  Holly closed her eyes. It could not be Nick, she had not expected to see him again. But it was, labouring under the weight of a can that resembled a catering tin of instant coffee in appearance. He set it on the table and sat down.

  ‘Got it!’ There was triumph in his tone. ‘There was nobody around at the keeper’s cottage so I just went into the shed and helped myself. Sam’ll probably never miss it. Now we’d better get it open. Damn, I’ll have to go back to the van and fetch a screwdriver!’

  ‘Use this.’ She opened the cutlery drawer of the table and handed him a serving spoon.

  The sweat stood out on his brow, glistening in the fading daylight as he exerted all his waning strength with the improvised lever under the lip of the can. A twang sounded as the metal capitulated. ‘There! Better not open it right up in case we get a whiff of the fumes.’

  ‘Nick …’ Holly’s voice shook, her splayed fingers covered her disfigured features
. ‘Nick, we’re both going to die … aren’t we?’

  ‘Yes.’ He knew there was no point in lying at this late stage. ‘There’s nothing we can do about it but, like you, I’d feel happier if we fixed that well before we go.’

  ‘Don’t you think we could drive somewhere for help? After we’ve done the job.’

  ‘Maybe.’ He didn’t think so. He had struggled to the gamekeeper’s cottage and back, mounting the verge on both sides of the road innumerable times. It was sheer luck that he had not met another vehicle. There was nobody in at the doctor’s surgery, or the phone would have been answered, and he was in no state to drive further afield. His eyesight was dimming by the hour; before morning, if he still lived, he was sure that he would be totally blind.

  She was looking at him in the half-light, the falling dusk hiding her expression from him. Pity had turned to anger, to resentment. He didn’t want to go for help, he was stalling, she realized. He was enjoying the thought of death because his brain was twisted. It was after he had done something at the well that its occupant had come and taken them for its own! His fault! She only had Nick’s word for it that Mike had gone off in the car … The bastard! It was all beginning to fit – he was a crazed psychopath who had hit upon a way to kill them all, then take his own life! Maybe some kind of bacteria had been introduced into the well after it had been drilled. By him!Holly trembled. Reasoning wasn’t easy, but she had it now. What have you done with my husband? She wondered. Where’s his body? I know, you’ve dropped him down the borehole!

  ‘Let’s go and fix this thing, then.’ She spoke calmly, almost normally. ‘The sooner, the better. Before it kills again.’

  She watched as he struggled with the can of poison and almost dropped it. Yes, she was sure he had treated the well in the first place. The remedy was supplied just too easily.

  Outside it was almost dark, a balmy summer’s evening. She was sweating profusely. That cancer on her spine was still seeping, leaving thick droplets on the ground in her wake as she shambled after Nick through a land of silhouettes. The trees and bushes were still bent under the weight of dried slurry; only a thunderstorm would wash them clean. She found herself listening, hoping. No sound, not even the twittering of birdlife, only a roaring in her ears. The countryside had been deserted by Nature’s creatures because even they recognized a place of death and fled from it. But it didn’t matter now, she thought. Nothing mattered except …

  ‘Here we are!’ There was relief in his voice as he reached the ragged crater top, clanked his burden down and knelt beside it, exhausted. He sniffed the air. ‘Seems pure enough now. Maybe we’re too late and it really has gone.’

  ‘We thought that before,’ she whispered. ‘But it came back again. It’s down there, all right, I know. Hurry, let’s finish the job. What are you waiting for?’ He was procrastinating because he did not want to destroy his maniacal handiwork, she thought. He wanted whatever he had dropped down there to kill, and kill again.

  He struggled with the lid. Even though it was already loosened he barely had the strength now to prize it off, clawing at it with his fingernails. Suddenly the top gave, shot from Nick’s grasp, spun away and rolled, clinking, rattling and going over the edge. They heard it spinning its way down into the depths, pinging from side to side as it went. Until finally there was the faintest of splashes.

  ‘You bloody fool!’ she hissed. ‘Now you’ve warned it!’

  ‘Don’t be bleedin’ stupid! What d’you think it is, some kind of bogeyman, or maybe a wild animal?’

  ‘Perhaps.’ Her fists clenched. She was kneeling behind him. ‘Who knows? Go on, tip that stuff in!’

  He crawled closer to the brink, then hung back, remembering the last time when that cold foul stench that was an embodiment of living evil had come up at him, touched him. His fingers trembled as he edged the canister closer and started to tip it.

  Something showered from the container, stark white in the deepening darkness, fine powder that rustled as it spilled out. Hissing over the edge, it reminded him of the near-silent swish of gently falling snowflakes – so soft, so deadly.

  They were both listening. It was like sand avalanching in the dunes, spilling a steady stream until at last the tin was empty. He resisted the temptation to throw it after its contents; like his torch, it might incur the wrath of whatever lurked below.

  In their imagination they heard it fizzing in the water like Epsom salts in a tumbler, bubbling and foaming, dissolving, giving off its deadly gas.

  ‘We’d better move away,’ he said in hushed tones.

  That was when the idea came to her, a spontaneous decision that required no deliberation. The plumber had instigated this foul scheme; maybe Bhopal or some other major disaster had given him the idea, a way to kill. Now it was his turn!

  Holly exerted her remaining strength, pushed hard with the flat of both hands and caught her companion off balance. He tottered, flailed his arms, grabbed for her and missed. His scream reminded her of the terrified squeals of a rabbit in the final throes of myxomatosis.

  She caught a final glimpse of him, a shape that was darker than the surrounding shadows, as he slid over the edge.

  Then he was gone.

  Nick fell feet first, slipping down the stygian shaft as though he had stepped into a lift on the fifteenth floor only to find it wasn’t there. Going down, down. And down.

  He gathered speed, then checked as his body struck protruding rocks, dislodging soil, screaming again because he knew, even in his tortured brain, that bones were breaking, snapping and shattering. The never-ending fall might go right down to the bowels of hell itself.

  For him, time had ceased to exist. He might already be dead and this was what it was like: hell, where you fell for eternity, everlasting vertigo, struggling to breathe although it did not matter whether you did or not, eternally waiting for a shuddering impact that would never come.

  Cold air rushed past him, freezing fingers stroked his plummeting body as it hurtled on downwards. And when, finally, he hit the bottom it was almost an anticlimax. There was a splash, and water closed over him, slowing his fall; his broken legs hit something soft and he was catapulted back up. Half-submerged, he floated in a metre of icy water, barely alive – but still death eluded him cruelly.

  He opened his eyes, and was surprised to find that he could see, that it was no longer impenetrable darkness all around him. The rough walls glistened with a strange and frightening glow, a gentle light that enabled him to make out his surroundings. Just as he had imagined, feared, he was in the water at the bottom of a well. But there was something else …

  It rested on a shelf about a metre away from him, level with his head and shoulders. He could see it plainly, for it was this object which gave off the eerie luminous glow which glinted on the sides of the rocky shaft and showed him the blue well liner with the submersible pump attached to it. Shapeless, indefinable, it was just a glutinous morass about the size of an adult tortoise that breathed and pulsed. Wheezing softly, it reminded him of a gigantic blob of old man’s phlegm spat upon a pavement. The cold heart pumped even though it did not have a body, the being lived and thrived in the cold dampness of a deep well.

  And gave off a nauseating smell of putrefaction.

  18

  Doctor Williamson sat dazed behind the wheel of his Range Rover. He tried not to believe what his eyes saw, and told himself it was some kind of a nightmare that would melt into a bad memory when he woke up. Or else it was caused by the heat – an hallucination, a kind of mirage. But deep down he knew that it was reality.

  The girl lying on the gravel, her head twisted at an unnatural angle, was undoubtedly Susan Willis – blonde and beautiful, and only nineteen. The grief welled up inside him and he almost sobbed. Instead he fought for professionalism, the one factor that kept doctors sane. In circumstances such as this, he remembered, you strived to become a kind of medical machine and adopted a procedure. He had once written it down on paper back in his
college days. First, a body was only pronounced dead when you ascertained that it had no heartbeat, no pulse. You attempted to restart the heart, and only when that failed did you accept the finality. He eased the driver’s door open. There was still hope.

  He found himself staring at Mike Mannion, telling himself that it could not possibly be the man from Garth Cottage. His gaze rested on the weeping stomach wound, the gaping hole where the navel ulcer had burst and spewed its stinking poison down to the groin. Williamson heaved once, then got himself under control again. Doctor Bell had examined that sore only a short time ago, and he had tried to convince himself and his patient that it was no more than a boil that might go septic; he had stalled and hoped, because he wasn’t sure. Every medic gave himself time. Now time had run out on his patient.

  Mannion’s lips were ulcerated, too, moving as though he was attempting to speak, but all he could manage were wheezes. Dribbling pus hung in strings and swung to and fro. His eyes had glazed over and seemed to have shrunk back into their sockets. In all probability the man’s vision was severely restricted, Williamson suspected, and he might even be blind. Pathetic, no longer a physical threat, he was standing there because his brain had wound down.

  Williamson turned his attention to the girl at his feet. Dead, of course, she could not be otherwise, with a broken neck and those strangulation marks on her throat.

  He knelt down and felt for a pulse, knowing there would be none. In despair, he put his lips to hers, realizing that it was futile, but he had to satisfy his own conscience. I hope you’re watching, Mannion, because this is your doing! No, it wasn’t Mannion’s fault. The professor’s words echoed in Gerald Williamson’s brain: the Festering Death! The doctor straightened up and turned back to the man who still stood there, not crouching at bay now, slumped but still on his feet, totally unaware, mentally and physically drained, an empty shell. A zombie, in fact.

  ‘Mannion ?’ Of course, there would be no reply. The man’s brain was gone. Williamson could see those pulsating sores now; they were growing by the second, burrowing up out of the flesh like an infestation of leeches, sucking blood and devouring human meat. ‘Can you hear me, Mannion?’