Damned If You Do (32 page)

‘There was no-one else around. I got out, put the briefcase on the bonnet, opened the catches, lifted the lid. I took the bones and screwed them together, then removed the blade from the cellophane and attached it to the shaft. I closed the briefcase, and approached the main building, entering through the narrow doorway. The Chief had arranged a meeting with the client inside. I was about ten minutes early.

‘The interior was gloomier than the exterior. I passed through a dark corridor with offices on either side down to a bare, blood-stained room that stank of powdered bone – a large, open space filled with animal pens, tool cupboards, and overhead poles lined with hooks. And there was a steel-fenced channel at the centre, used to direct animals from the pens to the slaughtering racks: this was where the termination was due to take place. On the far side of the channel, there was a second door leading to a cold store, which I explored while I waited for my client to arrive. I felt a little restless, so I picked up half a dozen gambrels, placed them between my fingers like extended metal claws, and scraped the walls for a while. Then I found a captive-bolt pistol, put it to my head, and pressed the trigger. Naturally, it wasn't loaded – not that it would have made much difference.

‘But something strange occurred. All the doubts I'd been having this week – the same doubts I've been having for years – suddenly made sense. In fact, they made much more sense than what I was about to do. I looked around at the abattoir, and thought about my client, and it all seemed so stupid. And I distinctly remember saying to myself, over and over again:
No-one gets skinned alive any more. It simply doesn't happen.
'

He paused, the memory evidently reverberating through his mind. I walked over to the rear window and looked out beyond the canal, across the railway line, to where the green meadow stretched towards the early evening sky. I imagined myself striding along the path towards the river, sitting on the bank beneath the burning sun, lying on the brown earth.

‘Things got even stranger,' Death continued. ‘My client was late. I didn't feel comfortable admitting it, because the implications were disturbing: either I'd been given the wrong details, or he simply wasn't going to show. Either way, the Chief had made a mistake. I rehearsed the movements I'd have to make when he finally did appear, but my heart wasn't in it … I just kept hearing this circular argument inside my head:
Life has no meaning, because everything a Lifer does is swallowed by time. Nothing they achieve has ultimate value. And if their
existence
is insignificant, then it follows that
my work
is insignificant, too – because my work is precisely what makes life meaningless in the first place.
'

‘I don't follow,' I said.

‘It doesn't matter. The point is: standing there, swinging my scythe downwards into an imaginary chest, I finally understood that everything I did was pointless. And I also realized that the only meaningful act I could perform was to—Well, I don't want to spoil the ending … I waited for four more hours, with the same thoughts turning over in my head, and I was just about to put the whole day down to a misunderstanding, and be grateful that I didn't have to answer all those awkward questions, when the client finally walked through the door. A tall, wiry man with greasy black hair. Wearing a clean, white apron.

‘“Who the fuck are you?” he said.

‘“The Grim Reaper,” I told him, without much enthusiasm. “Your time has come.”

‘And he just collapsed on the floor in the middle of the fenced channel, and started writhing around, begging for mercy. I stood over him for a while, the scythe raised above my head, ready to strike – but I realized I couldn't do it. I
couldn't.
So I just walked out, got in the car, and drove back here…' He smiled thinly. ‘It felt like such an anti-climax – and there'll be hell to pay, of course – but, I tell you, sparing one man's life has given me more satisfaction than anything I've done in the last millennium.'

Sensing a momentary weakness in his position, I blurted out a question I'd been considering asking for the last few days.

‘I don't suppose you'd be willing to spare my life, too?'

He looked at me sympathetically. ‘Against the rules, I'm afraid. I'm in enough trouble with the Chief as it is. I left my briefcase behind at the abattoir, too. Very bad.' He stood up, shaking his head; and when he spoke again his tone was as business-like as it had been seven days earlier, when he pulled me from the coffin. ‘Meet me in the cellar in an hour. We have some things to discuss.'

Ralph 'n' Ron

Life is luck, and my luck was out.

I'd been trapped in Amy's apartment because we'd once loved each other. I would have escaped but for a childhood phobia about lifts. I suffered from vertigo, and my only outlet had been a wet roof eighty feet from the ground. The fall hadn't killed me, but my rescuer was a psychopath. And the psychopath, who had driven me in a car boot to a mysterious destination, had brought his sidekick.

‘Grab 'is 'ead, Ron,' said Ralph.

‘Right you are, Ralph,' said Ron.

I felt strong hands pulling at my ankles and neck. I remember shouting and writhing around, but the sound was muffled, the movement was futile, and they ignored me anyway. I was carried less than ten yards before my feet were dropped onto the gravel path.

‘I'm forgettin' myself,' said Ralph. ‘I 'aven't introduced the two of you … Ron, this is the git who's been followin' me and pissin' about with my wife for the last seven weeks.'

‘Pleased to meet you,' said Ron, lowering my head gently to the ground. His voice was shifty and obsequious like a weasel who'd learned to talk. I remembered the short, balding, stocky man I had seen from the warehouse roof; and recalled him beating his victim's naked feet with an iron bar.

‘And this is Ron,' said Ralph, kicking me on the foot. ‘Ron's a keeper in the Alligator 'Ouse.'

‘Reptile 'Ouse,' Ron corrected.

Ralph ignored him. ‘Been 'ere since 1968. Knows all sorts of interestin' stuff about animals.'

‘My Dad worked 'ere in the thirties, when they built the Penguin Pool.'

‘S 'right, Ron…' He kicked me again. ‘So you're in good 'ands.'

As if to prove it, the two of them lifted me up again, and carried me without rest for another ten minutes, dropping me only twice, and politely apologizing on both occasions.

If I hadn't already guessed from their conversation that they'd brought me to London Zoo, the distant sounds of roaring, chattering, howling, squealing and shrieking would have told me. At the end of the walk, they left me lying on a grass verge, and had a brief discussion before opening a door somewhere ahead. They picked me up again and carried me inside, where the atmosphere was cooler and more humid, and where the air bore the salty, fishy stench of an aquarium.

‘'Ere we are,' said Ralph. ‘Easy does it.'

They lowered me onto a cold, concrete floor. Every part of me was in pain, and the oily rag in my mouth made me want to vomit. I started to writhe again, and shouted for help as loudly as I could. My muted cries were answered by a long and horrifically loud bellow only a few yards to my left.

‘That's Gerty,' said Ron. ‘She's a bit tempera … temper … She's a bit
mental.
' He laughed. ‘Like the wife.'

‘D'you know you can 'ear the call of an alligator a mile off?' said Ralph. ‘Tell 'im, Ron.'

‘'S'true.'

‘And d'you know
alligator
comes from a Dago word meanin' lizard?'

‘I
did
know that, as a matter o' fact, Ralph.'

‘I was talkin' to 'im.'

In the back of my mind, far away from the horror, I couldn't help thinking that Ralph and I had a lot in common. Amy, a love of trivia, perversion, dishonesty … The more I thought about it, the more I realized we weren't so different after all. So I screamed again in the terror and darkness, further infuriating the reptile waiting for its midnight snack.

‘Keep quiet, will you, mate?' said Ron. ‘There's eight thousand animals in this zoo. You're upsettin' every one of 'em.'

‘Best way to shut 'im up is to get it over with,' said Ralph.

And that's how it ended. After a short-lived argument about who would take the feet and who the head, Ralph and Ron picked me up and swung me into the alligator pen. The landing winded me, and every nerve along my spine and neck sent worthless warning messages of agony to my brain. But the pain didn't continue for long, and the last thing I remember, before waking in the coffin, were two huge, powerful jaws crunching on my right leg, and a deafening, primeval roar that turned my blood to ice.

How I got sewn back together is a mystery I'll never solve – and why the alligator ate nothing of me other than six minor appendages, is equally puzzling. Perhaps it just didn't like the taste.

The annoying thing is: if I'd known in the grave that this was how I died, my neighbours would have treated me with a lot more respect.

Storage

After checking I still had the ampoule, I opened the bedroom door and headed for the rear exit; but as soon as I turned the handle I heard a loud moan from the corridor behind me. I turned around and saw War staggering out of his room. He was holding his head and beckoning me towards him.

‘I thought it might be you.' He massaged his temples as I approached. ‘This bloody, buggering headache.'

‘What happened?'

‘Thrown out of a second-floor window last night … Bunch of 'cking comedians.'

He groaned again, and knelt down. I glanced over his head into his room. Almost everything was blood red – bed, bedspread, carpet, light bulb, ceiling, two cupboards and a desk. The walls were lined with red bookshelves containing defence manuals, weapons catalogues, histories of world conflicts, photographic records of battle and pocket guides to strategy. The only non-red item in the whole place was a huge, two-handed sword to the right of the door.

‘Nice colour scheme,' I told him. ‘It suits you.'

‘Thank you … But it's bloody awful when your skull's splitting.'

He continued to rub his head.

‘I haven't seen you for a couple of days. How's your eye?'

‘Fine.' He groaned a little more at the memory of the twig.

‘Did you want me for something specific?'

He raised a stubby thumb to his hairy chin, and scratched. ‘Not really … I just thought I'd wish you luck. You'll need it.'

He offered me his hand. When I took it, he crushed my fingers.

*   *   *

I descended the stairs to the cellar: seven steps to the garden, reverse direction, seven more to the basement. I opened the door, and a pungent smell of mould and decay filled my nostrils. I coughed, and groped along the wall for a light switch, touching several cold, clammy objects before finding a cord-pull.

I tugged, my resurrected heart pounding.

And there was light.

*   *   *

Rows of pale white feet protruded from wooden shelves on all four walls: sallow cadavers, stacked seven high in orderly lines. Hundreds of legs – some rotting, some fresh; some with stumps, some with five toes; some covered with skin, some with only the bare bones remaining. Ranks of dead flesh, luminous and eerie in the yellow glow from the lone bulb.

‘Who is it?'

The speaker's voice was toneless, like a duck call. It came from one of the shelves on the right, close to the front entrance.

‘A friend,' I said. ‘Where are you?'

‘Over here.' In a gloomy corner, three rows up, two white feet twitched. ‘What do you want?'

I ignored the question, but skirted around a table and two chairs in the centre of the room in order to reach him. I noticed that every shelf was divided into separate sliding units resting on runners, one per corpse. I grasped the end of his shelf with both hands.

‘What are you doing?'

I pulled. The runners squeaked.

‘Leave me alone.'

I slid the body out into the light.

*   *   *

It was our client from Thursday evening again. He was lying on his back, wearing the clothes we had given him. His flesh was still quite fresh – white, cold, few signs of degradation – but he smelled awful, like old sweat. His face was drawn in the wide-mouthed leer of a sexually deviant clown, but his eyes were closed.

‘What do you want?' he repeated. Though his lips moved, his grin remained frozen.

‘I want to know what it's like.'

‘What do you mean?'

‘This,' I explained. ‘Being here. In storage.'

‘What's storage?'

I paused. He seemed contented enough. What business did I have disturbing him?

‘Can you remember how you died?' I asked.

‘Heart stopped,' he replied.

‘How long have you been here?'

‘I don't know.'

‘When are they releasing you?'

‘I don't know.'

‘Don't you know anything?'

‘No. Just put me back.
Please.
'

I slid him back into place. Talking to him reminded me of the interminable, mind-numbing tedium of eternal rest. And I briefly saw my own future: lying amidst all this rotten flesh, cadavers pressing down upon me, reaching up to touch me, crawling all around me. A writhing mass of quiet agony from which there would be no escape.

*   *   *

‘Am I interrupting anything?'

Death stood at the bottom of the steps, holding a bottle of wine and two glasses. He was smiling.

‘I was just talking to one of the corpses.'

‘Don't worry about them – they don't worry about you.'

He slapped our former client on the soles of his feet. The dead man grunted, twitched, then settled into his previous position.