Mindf**k (7 page)
Authors: Fanie Viljoen
Blood, was what Sky had said. Blood.
Kerbs saw me staring at his hands. He didn’t even try hiding it, putting it away in his pockets or something. He rubbed it, rubbed the blood until it totally covered his hands completely. Like hand cream.
On his face a devilish look. Weird smile. A smirk.
I didn’t know him.
I wanted to ask him what the fuck he’d done. But I couldn’t. I felt like I was going to implode. I felt like crying. When did I
last want to cry? Every day, but I never did. This was different. I had never felt the need to cry for anyone else.
And I wouldn’t start now.
Kerbs came and sat down beside me. He put his bloody arm around my neck. ‘Buddy,’ was all that he said.
Sky shifted around uncomfortably. Did he know how it would all end eventually? Did he know, without saying anything?
Because what had happened was not the end.
Shit like that was never finished.
For a long while now I had stopped paying attention to the music blasting from the stage. I didn’t even hear Barney Simon’s announcements after each band’s performance. I didn’t care to see the fire artists. It was as if that moment was frozen in time. And there was nothing, nobody else inside or outside of it.
Just us three. And a tent. And a dead girl inside it.
I didn’t know how he’d killed her. Did he snap her neck? (Would there be so much blood if he had?) Or was it a knife? Maybe the bottle opener?
And what did she look like now?
Images of a naked, white body covered with blood smears, entangled hair, staring eyes, gaping mouth, and unnaturally positioned legs, flashed through my mind.
As if I had seen it all before.
But I couldn’t see the place where the blood emerged.
‘She’s fucked,’ said Kerbs, again smirking. ‘Totally.’
‘Why did you do it?’
It was Sky who asked. Who asked what I wanted to.
‘Seemed like a good idea at the time.’ Kerbs lit up a cigarette, took a drag until the coal glowed brightly, and then blew out a cloud of smoke like a ghost into the night.
‘No, Kerbs, why?’
Kerbs took another drag. He watched Sky furtively. ‘Because I could.’ He said it slowly, every word on its own. Cold chills ran down my spine.
Because he could.
It was enough reason for Kerbs. It always has been.
He lied to people because he could. Stole from people because he could. Ran over dogs in the street because he could.
Enough reason.
Sky and I stared at each other. We didn’t know what to say. We wouldn’t comfort each other. What would comforting help?
The shit had hit the fan.
‘So what now?’ I asked.
Kerbs straightened up. ‘Now we have to get rid of her,’ rasped his voice.
‘We?’ said Sky disgustedly. ‘You’re the one who did it!’
‘We.’ There was finality to Kerb’s voice. He had already made his decision; he wasn’t going to change his mind.
Sky looked at me, wanting advice. Perhaps he was blaming me for not listening when he warned us earlier.
‘Come,’ said Kerbs. He stood at the entrance to the tent, kept the canvas door closed.
I got up first. Like a zombie. Music
pumped from the stage. Was it …? I couldn’t hear clearly. The people screamed and whistled.
Kerbs was like the ringmaster waiting for the circus audience to arrive. He was in control.
I felt Sky’s shoulder against my back. Felt my own heart beating, louder than the music.
Kerbs opened the tent.
It was dark inside.
‘Go in.’ It was an order.
Sky and I bent forward to enter. There was a sweet smell, like blood, but we couldn’t see anything. I stepped on something. A foot.
Kerbs zipped up the entrance. He switched on a flashlight. Let the beam play over Partygirl’s body, pausing on the dark hair between her legs, then up again, over
her naked body. As if proudly showing off his handy work the whole time. As if he wanted to say: look at what I’ve done. Look at what I’m capable of.
Sky turned his face away.
I wanted to, but I couldn’t.
She looked like a doll.
I felt nauseous, swallowed painfully at the sourness that pushed up into my throat.
The blood ran down her face in thin streams, dripping to the floor and following the canvas folds. At places, absorbed by the sleeping bags.
Her face was intact. It was covered in blood but it was intact. It was the back of her head that bled.
And there were blood and hair on the gas cylinder beside her head.
‘How are we going to do it?’ Kerbs interrupted the silence.
My cell phone beeped twice.
1 message received.
It was my dad again looking for his car, I thought. I didn’t have time for him. Not now. But I read the message anyway. It wasn’t my dad, it was Kelly.
wer da hell r u? big shit. come home. dad caught mom with another guy. and he wants his car.
I read the message twice. When it rains, it pours.
I slipped my cell phone back into my pocket.
‘We’ll put her in the boot of the car and go dump her somewhere,’ said Sky.
‘Not in my dad’s car. He’ll kill me if he
finds blood in it,’ I said panic-stricken.
‘What else then, genius? Do you want to cut her up in pieces and go dump her in some trashcans?’
‘We’ll bury her.’
Kerbs and Sky only stared at me. As if they were waiting for an explanation.
‘We’ll cut out the floor and dig a hole under the tent. Nobody will see from the outside. There’s enough room in here for a shallow grave’s soil.’
I saw Kerbs measuring the space inside the tent with his eyes. He nodded. Sky concurred.
‘How will we dig?’ asked Kerbs.
‘There is a small shovel in the car next to the spare wheel.’
‘It will take too long to dig with a small shovel.’
‘We have loads of time. There’s nothing else we could use. Unless we go and look for something.’
‘There’s an old VW Beetle close by. It has nice and deep hubcaps; we can dig out a lot of soil with it. I’ll fetch it,’ said Sky.
With every shovel full of dirt that fell on the pile, I buried myself deeper. I tried thinking. How did I get there? What was I doing there?
Next to me Sky was busy digging with the hubcap. Kerbs stood outside. On the lookout. When someone approached he tapped on the tent and we stopped working. Until he tapped again.
It was dark inside. We couldn’t switch on the flashlight; passersby might see what we were doing inside. Only at times would Kerbs shoot the flashlight over the hole so we could see how we were progressing. Then
we plodded on again in the dark.
Partygirl lay at the back of the tent, covered in a sleeping bag. Only one hand showed. Every time Kerbs flicked on the light, her hand caught my attention. The white and red hand against the dark sleeping bag.
On one occasion it looked as if one of her fingers had moved. I got a major fright and dropped the shovel.
‘What is it?’ asked Sky.
I didn’t answer, only touched her hand. It was ice cold.
Sky started digging again.
Somewhere after one o’clock on Saturday morning the music stopped coming from the stage. The dancing tent revived. House music, trance, acid, you name it, it pulsed through the night.
Some guys came back to their tents
with beers in their hands and girls at their sides. Pissed, high, some of them on planets so far-off the Americans haven’t even seen them through their telescopes yet.
Kerbs entered the tent. ‘Howzit going?’
We couldn’t switch on the light. There was too much life in the tents around us, Somebody might have noticed. He climbed into the hole. Probably measured the depth in his head.
‘I needed this crap like a hole in the head!’ said Sky.
It was quiet for a while and then Kerbs and I burst out laughing. We had to sit down, we laughed so hard. Sky also started. Almost hysterical. From the fatigue and the stress. But mostly the fatigue.
‘Hey, bru,’ someone tapped against the tent. ‘What are you oukes smoking?’
Silence fell like a thunder strike between us.
I went out before the guy decided to enter, a flashlight in my hand. I shone it in his eyes.
‘Naught, bru,’ he said, closing his eyes. With his hand he tried keeping the light away from his face, all the while standing there swaying, obviously drunk.
I could probably have knocked him over with my finger and he would’ve stayed down. His T-shirt read:
Is there life after death? Fuck my girlfriend and find out
. (Yeah, right, brother, not tonight. Not in your condition.)
‘Are you looking for your tent?’
‘Naught, I’m just walking around looking to score a joint.’
‘We don’t have that shit. Fuck off.’ Firmly.
It seemed as if he wanted to continue talking crap. He stepped closer. I looked him straight in the eye.
‘Okay, bru, don’t be like that. I’m just asking.’
He turned around and walked away. I watched him go, saw him stumbling over a tent peg and totally flattening someone’s tent. A guy came creeping out. He wasn’t wearing any pants. ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’ he screamed and started beating up the drunken dude. A girl stopped him, said that he was a pig.
I got back into the tent.
‘Everything all right?’ asked Sky.
I nodded.
‘Let’s continue digging. Kerbs, it’s your turn now. Sky, go wait in front of the tent.’
Around half past three that morning we rolled Partygirl into the grave. I made sure the sleeping bag was closed tightly. Kerbs dropped the first shovel of earth on her.
Outside the music was still pumping.
At about half past nine on Saturday morning the first signs of life appeared around the camping area. The smell of bacon and eggs frying over early morning fires filled the air.
I had a helluva headache. The smell of the food made me nauseous. I curled myself up smaller on the car’s backseat, trying desperately to get some more sleep, but only dozing off for a while before I woke up again.
Sky was sleeping on the front seat. He had been rolling around the whole time. Maybe because of the gear stick poking him
in his ribs or because of Partygirl.
Partygirl.
Shit.
What happened to her? Why didn’t we just leave her there on the side of the road on the highway?
Damn Kerbs. It was entirely his fault. We should’ve left him at home. He always screws everything up.
I got up slowly, my whole body tearing apart with pain. Especially my back, from leaning forward whilst digging. I stumbled out of the car to go and take a piss. The plastic toilets were way too far. I found a spot in an empty field where there were fewer tents.
Nothing beats a good piss. You can just stare out into the horizon. And in that watery moment you forget about all your problems. Totally at peace with the world.
While standing there I decided to take a shower as well. I might even feel better afterwards. Then I would go to the medics and find an aspirin. We would probably hit the road in a while. We obviously couldn’t stay there the entire time. Not now.
The entire weekend was basically fucked up just because Kerbs couldn’t keep his dick in his pants.
I shook off, zipped up and made my way back to the tent. The camping area looked like a whore’s handbag. Beer cans, papers, empty meat packs, burnt out fires. Guys and girls passed out in various places.
On one of the tents there hung a black MindFuck T-shirt they’d sold the previous night. Some of them had also been tossed from the stage. I took the T-shirt in passing and stuffed it in the front of my pants. (It will teach that guy to leave his things lying about. Ha, ha, ha.)
Back at our tent I took a sip of water from a bottle. My eyes fell on the raw meat
we intended to braai and I quickly flipped the cooler bag closed before I threw up.
I opened up the tent to see what the grave looked like in the daylight.
Kerbs lay sleeping on top of the grave.
I gathered my things together, my towel was still damp from the night before. I made my way over to the place they allocated for the showers.
There was only cold water, but it was okay. I closed my eyes and imagined washing off everything that happened the previous night.
After taking the shower I woke up a medic for an aspirin and then I went back to the tent. There was more life in the camp now. More food smells. Music being played. People talking, cracking jokes, nursing hangovers. Guys bragging about the girls they’d scored with the previous night.
Sky sat across the front seat when I got
there. His shoulder resting against the back of the seat. His feet hanging from the door.
‘Let’s hit the road,’ he said.
I nodded and went to wake Kerbs up.
Everyone around us wanted to know where we were going when we packed up our tent.
‘The party has just started.’
I only mumbled something about someone being in the hospital.
Kerbs tossed the tent into the car’s boot without folding it up properly. It was now fucked up in any case. He tossed all the other stuff on top of the tent.
I looked at the patch of flat soil. (We’d carried the extra earth out and scattered it about, careful not to leave a bump on the grave.)
If you didn’t know what lay buried in
the ground, you wouldn’t have suspected anything at all.
Bye, bye, Partygirl.
We drove off.
