Armwrestling the Dead

by Andrew McEwan

mused as Fenmore sat.

  ‘Yes,’ said Lydon, sullen. ‘We’d appreciate a written abdication, in your own hand.’

  Courtney smirked. ‘Isn’t that rather old-fashioned?’ he jibed, unable to resist.

  Markus coloured, yet sensing victory decided to change the subject, a wild fluctuation of emotions having left him a little drunk, a little sad.

  ‘What is this I’m eating?’ he inquired, twisting his fork.

  ‘Your cousin,’ Irving said.

  viii

  It was Fenmore who discovered the body, slumped behind a chair in the Senate Room. Obviously the work of an assassin.

  But the commission?

  ‘Don’t look at me,’ said Lydon. ‘If I’d wanted him dead I would have killed him myself.’ They were reminded he had attempted such a thing only hours earlier.

  Then who?

  ix

  Sprung from the land itself, autochthonous, they were all shaped from the same clay now. Courtney’s disease was life itself, a morbid restlessness grown like a tumour, swollen and virulent, beyond his control, manifesting a number of guises, some outwardly healthy - inwardly warped - others sickly and frail. He was rightly confused, divided between avenging his father’s murder and his mother’s. Who was more fit for punishment, the company or Irving senior? Was it possible for crimes, like magnetism, to cancel out?

  He did not think so.

  All the protagonists were here, exponents of survival and personal advancement, contenders for the last laugh. Also the wild cards, those whose inclusion was down to a peculiar mix of design and fate. But who would triumph? And what exactly was there to be won?

  You could not defeat death, only defy it. Perhaps it was enough to compete, to fence and joust and rescue maidens who in turn might rescue you. Not the ends but the means. Maybe they were all in this for glory, the adulation of an audience of stars, the smiles and tears of fans and not the finishing tape.

  Why? Because it felt good.

  x

  Through the telescope the birds appeared jet black, spinning dots of hunger over the plain. Throats echoed bellies as they wheeled and dived, beaks stabbing on pneumatic necks, wings spread for balance. A gory sight, Harry thought, the image unreal, a fantastic spectacle fed through the telescope lenses into the gut of his eye, the intestine of his brain. He sensed an itch in his mental rectum and recalled Ivan’s, or whoever’s, troublesome piles. Lowering the instrument he grinned stupidly. Ivan’s eyebrow’s rose. Who was he now, and for how long?

  ‘See anything?’

  Harry passed him the scope. ‘Corpses.’

  The man hesitated, he noticed.

  Feasting on the sight the soul-devourer paled. Then, as if conscious of some display of weakness, his face turned red. ‘Must be hundreds,’ he commented. ‘The birds will be too fat to fly and easy prey for rats.’

  ‘Serves them right,’ quipped the dredger.

  Both were sore from riding bareback, their horses loosely tethered to a protruding rock. The previous night had been spent in a town Harry could only think of as Hans Christian Andersonesque, full of cobblers and washer-women, all gaudy signs and serrated gable ends, their gold buying foamy beer and wood-panelled rooms with enormous fireplaces, as well as their equine transport, complete with hand-tooled trappings.

  Harry, on entering a tobacconist’s gaily coloured shoppe, was converted to a pipe. He loaded it now with curls of rich dark shag smelling of coconut and soap.

  Ivan collapsed the scope, found with the gold in a well bucket they’d raised for a drink. ‘Do we go round?’

  The naked lady danced.

  They were headed south. There was a coastal port rumoured to be under siege.

  Or had the enemy been routed? Harry shrugged and breathed smoke.

  Ivan’s eyes were marble. ‘Harry?’ Hard and lustreless. His arms had lengthened and his chest narrowed. A prominence grew from his forehead that might not be there tomorrow.

  Were there such differences in himself? ‘I guess.’

  ‘Okay. No rush. It can’t be too far...’

  They untied the horses and walked, following the gentle contours of a wooded hill, cutting across into the next valley and a plain void of spillage. Neither perceived any direct threat. It was as if the world was unravelling before them, yet loath to embroil either at this stage in anything inimical. But the world was patient and danger would cross their path.

  xi

  Underneath it all was Smith, Zonda by his side. They had met at a circus, one of Smith’s entertainments for the boys, his close-knit assembly of drakes and hounds wrestling and chewing and tying down, fencing and sparring and dying for real in close combat with minions of Ruby Joplinski’s employ, the self-proclaimed firelord. They weren’t strictly enemies, but it paid to maintain a guard.

  Zonda was dispirited and bored. He’d fallen asleep on top of her again. She had a talent for picking the wrong men.

  Rolling his scaly body aside she rose, gathered her tail and proceeded outside, some place Smith didn’t like to venture as it hurt his eyes. She found the light refreshing, spilling over her wan form like milk, bringing the promise of colour to her skin. Yet if she stayed outside too long she burned; baked, her skin separating into crisp layers like puff pastry, dry and tender, only soothed by hours of careful nursing with her prehensile tongue.

  She stood on a stone balcony, the cool rock behind her trembling with snores, a cobble beach five metres below, shiny and crackling with blue-white surf. Zonda watched the waves spread like fans. Frowning, she leaned on the grey balustrade. A shape caught her eye, clumsy and large below the liquid surface. And then a man’s head materialized, grizzled and astonished, like a drowned mariner. Shoulders followed. Next a torso, arms dangling, splashes foaming as he stumbled ashore, wobbling as his body was no longer supported by the ocean. His legs moved awkwardly and he floundered, sodden, wearing what resembled a flying suit, a dull brown outfit frayed and holed. He sat roughly, obviously exhausted, a pair of goggles hanging round his neck and a boot in either hand. After a moment he lay back. Peering up at cliff and sky he sighted a worried Zonda MacIntyre at her perch. She waved tentatively, recognizing the man with whom she had shared an abode. Waters, first name Issac. If only she had a rope. Or was five metres not too far to jump?

  xii

  Ekland tore off a chicken leg, chewed methodically, swallowed, scraped a nail between two teeth. His feet itched. Lying back in the net he scratched. A light winked inside his helmet. A red light, meaning he was hit. The net shook and a rumbling wound its way through his skull.

  ‘Shit...’ Guessing, he let fly a missile. Missed. ‘Shit.’

  Damage flowed. Ugly data.

  ‘You’re burned,’ said a voice. ‘Come on, admit defeat.’

  He tracked the voice. Fired.

  Missed. ‘Shit!’

  ‘Ekland, you’re a lousy tactician.’

  Red lights. Plural.

  Burned...

  ‘Had enough?’

  Ruby was toying with him. Ekland resented that. He switched the helmet’s interface. Green fields surrounded. His soles were soothed by cool grass. A white butterfly fluttered nearby and he stalked it, hands cupped.

  ‘You used to be useful,’ the voice stated. ‘You got too big for your boots...’

  Mocking him.

  His feet itched worse than ever. Sore and swollen, each a half metre in length.

  xiii

  Ruby lit a cigarette. On a tray on a table beside him were a number of heads. He selected one, a pasty blond, eyes blue and staring. Nicely ripe, the way he liked them. He twirled the hair round his long fingers as he smoked. Lifting it, the tray came too, raised a few centimetres from the table before the severed base of the neck came unstuck and the tray fell back. Dangling the head over his mouth he tongued its underside, savouring the rich flavour of truncated vertebrae and congealed blood before popping it whole into his toothy maw and crushing the sk
ull like a grape.

  A soft centre. A succulent nut. He dabbed his lips on a downy skin, burped and flicked ask from his cigarette.

  The migration continued apace. Both himself and Smith travelled south, their armies far-flung yet advancing in a single direction, so it was inevitable they’d clash. Ruby enjoyed these occasions, the entertainment and casualties they provided. Fear made the flesh taste good.

  He traversed the gluey undersea on a mucilaginous conveyor belt, his pulpy fortress sliding like an aquatic snail along a film of secreted ventral sludge...

  xiv

  Ekland attempted once more to remove the helmet. His efforts were futile. The mass was welded in position, its bony structure clamped round his features like a limpet. The visions fed him were in reality regurgitated, the dregs of bygone days, a subjective landscape composed of memory footage and simulations. Joplinski had had it fitted, Ekland unsure why, a constant torment as he slipped from one scene to the next, often at random, the interface erratic. At times he could order his environment, but he fancied this was at Ruby’s discretion. The posted actuality was totally convincing, until he bumped into something that to him was invisible. Like walking into a solid wall of air. But his cell was such that injury was near impossible.

  And he walked clumsily outside his head. Inside was less painful.

  ‘Hey, Ekland.’ Circling. A bird? He saw none. ‘I’ve a job for you. An old friend has come to my attention.’

  The scene changed. He was in a narrow defile, stones piled like