Ventriloquists (19 page)

‘Where?’

‘Past the Nail. Or did you intend to stay on God’s Big Toe until you hit puberty?’

‘What’s puberty?’

‘It’s when your knackers… Never mind. Are you willing?’

‘I thought you said no more ships.’

‘I did. Bloke can change his mind, can’t he? Or we can swim.’

Elvis took a step back. ‘Swim the
ocean
?’

‘Why not? It’s
my
dream: if I drown I’ll wake up properly – I probably got a lungful when that flood…’ He was staring at a quizzical expression. He stopped talking. Intending to ask more of the collection of bug life, he noticed that the shape had moved slightly: not only had it taken a few steps closer, it had also altered its shape visibly. Where before it had appeared stocky, now the overall form was tall and thin, long-legged like a spider. ‘Where are you going?’ Connors inquired of this new stranger in their midst.

The answer was soon revealed, though not in words. The humanoid set off down the hill that Connors and Elvis had climbed, his speed a matter of future legend.

It headed towards Chelsea. At the sight of the thing it so feared screaming closer, the bitch turned tail and ran off in a straight line at an obtuse angle to the approximate path they’d travelled. From where Connors stood with Elvis they could hear Chelsea whimper as she retreated.

Shouting out the animal’s name, Elvis ran in a pursuit of his own; his velocity, however, was only a fraction of that exhibited by the insect man.

‘Jesus,’ Connors whispered. He in turn joined the chase, huskily bellowing the boy’s name, and painfully aware within a few strides of how unfit and undernourished he’d become. His legs felt rubbery.

By the time Elvis reached the point on the hill where Chelsea had stood barking, both the dog and her pursuer were some seconds out of sight; but their absence seemed to reignite the boy’s fire for the chase… Several metres behind, it struck Connors that if Elvis vanished, he might be gone forever. As he pounded down the slope, trying to keep control of his steps, Connors suffered a pang of pre-emptive loneliness; this was abolished by another attempt at calling out Elvis’s name.

As if the boy had seen sense, he slowed his pace. With a flap of both arms against his sides, Elvis stopped at the top of a minor hillock. In due course Connors joined him, panting.

Both of them knew that it was too late for Chelsea.

The dog had been right to be afraid, right from the beginning.

3.

Millions of insects had flown on from Chelsea’s corpse but small clouds remained among the spoils. They had stripped her almost to the bone. On a picnic blanket of fresh shining blood the skeleton lay on its left side, the spine and skull gleaming with digestive fluids. She had not so much as barked when they’d caught her: Connors hoped that her heart had burst – that she hadn’t been eaten alive – and an image of Dorman bloomed in his mind. At last the poor sod had had his revenge, not that revenge was any sort of valuable commodity where he’d gone.

‘I feel sick,’ said Elvis.

‘Me too.’

‘And scared, Con.’

‘Yeah, me too.’ A snap decision was needed. ‘We’ll wait until they’ve finished; then we’re going back to the harbour. All things considered, I think it prefer it on the water.’

Elvis smiled thinly. ‘Me too,’ he whispered.

The swarm of flies was twenty metres away from Connors and Elvis; the swarm had not reassembled into the shape of a human being. There was no need perhaps, for any more deception, not with their tiny bellies full.

Then, in midair, the black cloud turned; an increase in the volume of their buzzing could be heard. And the sight and sound combined rolled a chill along Connors’s spine.

Elvis said, ‘They’re coming back.’

‘Yes.’

‘For
us,
Con!’

‘Yes.’

But Connors couldn’t move. His legs were not cooperating, but more than this, his brain was not telling the truth. The fact that the insects enjoyed flesh was incontrovertible; and yet Connors, now with Elvis pulling on his left arm, felt suddenly less sick and scared than angry and thirsty.
Thirsty
of all things! It was time for a drink of water. Let them have him if that’s what it took to wake up, once and for all…

‘
Con!
We have to run!’ the boy screamed.

Was this shock? Connors pondered the question carefully. Shock seemed likely: first Dorman’s decapitation, then the dog butchered down to her bony frame…

Shock.

Shock sounded
nice
.

‘Come on, Con!’ The boy had started to run in the direction of the Nail. ‘They’re coming!’

So they were: the swarm had widened the breadth of its net; darkness had snuffed much of the light from the sky.

Once more following the boy, Connors started to run. Every footfall arrowed aches through his shins and inner thighs. And behind him, he could hear the insects squeal.

He wanted to stop. To give up. To accept defeat and let nature – of whatever form – take its course. And were it not for Elvis in the lead, he might have done so: but the boy’s ragged pelt was working wonders for Connors’s instinct of self-preservation. So on he ran, a self-defeating sprint, he was certain; but the Nail, as a ribbon across a finish line, spurred him on.

The boy had slipped into an easy lead – the distance between Elvis and Connors had increased to ten metres now, and was rising – and yet Connors could not move any faster. Years had passed since his last sprint, even including swift exits from premises that he had been burgling at the time, when the owners had arrived home ahead of schedule. There was no more gas in the tank.

Midway up a hill two hills on from where he had addressed the insect man, Connors pounded to a gradual halt. The ascent had proved too much: his leg muscles burned with the uncharacteristic exercise.

The Nail was at least four hills away in the distance.

It was over.

To Hell with it.

Connors dropped loudly to his knees.

4.

Then Dorman came to Connors in a dream.

Not the Dorman who had shed larcenous advice like a sloughed skin; nor the Dorman who had wanted the dog made extinct. Not even the Dorman of doubtful table manners in chicken outlets. No. The Dorman who patrolled Connors’s dream had half a head: the top had been sawn off by a flying slice of conservatory glass. Not that this incapacity was enough to stop him conversing. The mouth was present, after all.

‘Connors,’ he said, ‘a proposition for you, mate. I’ve been thinking. Shall we give this fucking Number 11 lark a wide berth?’ And Dorman laughed: his body spasmed and a geyser of blood erupted from what was left of his head. ‘To tell you the fucking truth, son, I’ve got a bad feeling about the whole thing. What do you reckon?’

The younger man could not help but laugh as well. ‘You might have a point,’ he said wryly. ‘Fuck em, right? Fuck Massimo. And fuck Benny.’

‘Yeah. Do you wanna go bowling?

Connors took a second before answering. ‘…Bowling? Now?’

‘Why not? What else you got on?’

Connors could not think of an answer to this question.

The air around them was liquid, in violent motion. They were in a bubble. Vision pointed in any direction, and all that could be seen was milky, cataract-smeared.

‘The dog’s dead,’ said Connors, conversationally.

‘Good.’

‘No,
not
good. It was horrible, mate. And a child had to see it too.’

‘It’s a child’s job. To see things you imagine a child wouldn’t want to see. It breeds a race of supermen,’ said Dorman.

‘…You’ve lost me.’

‘No. You’ve lost yourself, Connors,’ Dorman answered. ‘Where are you? At this moment.’

‘On Toenail Island.’

‘Maximum points. And where’s
that
exactly, cunt?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘You don’t
know
? Where’s your SatNav?’

‘Don’t take the piss, Dorman. Are you here to help or not?’

‘Not. Why should I? I found
my
route. You’re on your own.’

Connors sounded sour. ‘Well bully for you, prick,’ he told his mentor.

‘
Yeah, bully for me. You want my help?’ Dorman demanded.

‘What have we been –‘

‘
Do you want my help?
’

‘Yes.’

‘Then open your eyes.’

5.

Connors opened his eyes.

Not five metres from where he knelt, Dorman’s ghost fluttered and lingered; then it was gone.

‘I can’t.’

The milky fluid outside their bubble was stirred into yet more agitation. Fist-sized bubbles popped; the temperature had risen.

‘This conversation,’ said a now-invisible Dorman, ‘it’s just not happening, mate, is it?’

‘You’re telling me!’

‘No, Connors:
you’re
telling you. My life’s ended and I can’t do no more for you. I tried me best. Believe it or not. For our short acquaintance.’

Connors nodded. ‘I know you did, Dorman. I don’t think I said thank you.’

‘You can say it now. Not in words.’

‘How then?’ The memory of the fly-storm struck. ‘I’m covered in bloody insects, mate. That want to eat me. I’m not in much of a position to dole out favours.’

Dorman smiled. ‘All you have to do is open your eyes. Surely even a twat like you can manage
that
.’

Once more, Connors opened his eyes…

6.

…and the noise was the worst he’d ever had to endure. Were there flies in his ears? In his brain? There were certainly flies on his eyelids: he felt them nibbling his skin and yanking out his lashes. But they wouldn’t have his eyes: Connors was determined on this matter, and he squeezed his eyelids shut tighter. His mouth too; he pressed his lips together until they ached. At the same time the bites that he was receiving either stung or itched. They were on his upper lip, his jawbone; they writhed in the contours of his cheeks, asserting their right to ingress. The warm meat inside would be tastier.

Remembering the fate of the dog, Connors knew that he did not have minutes; depending on how long he’d been with Dorman in that vision, he might not have seconds left either.

When he climbed to his feet he seemed to have gained weight – and not a pound or two either. The insects on his body, their progress slowed but not halted by the clothes that protected his skin, weighed a stone, or so Connors calculated. As he swiped at his face to clean his skin of his attackers, his arms felt heavy – and he wondered if he was simply transferring one legion of insects into the place of the predecessors. But all doubts aside, Connors knew that he had to do
something
. Despite his earlier pseudo-deathwish, he would not lie down and give up, not just yet. He only hoped that Elvis had escaped to the Nail…

This thought gave Connors strength. Not the thought of the boy making good – not exactly – but the thought that the Nail – the end of the world, after all! – might offer a form of salvation… Towards the Nail, then? Yes. It had to be worth a try. Connors possessed no better plan; and so, having taken one quick peek to establish the correct direction, he set off as quickly as he could, with his eyes closed. Accompanying every step was a movement that involved sweeping tiny vandals from his features; stamping heavily to dislodge his trousers of the flies he now wore; and shaking his rump like a hula-hoop champion.

The journey was a torment. The slopes were killers, their inclines made more of a travail by the extra mass that he carried; and he feared tripping up on a piece of vegetation, or his foot sinking deep into the entrance-hole of some animal’s lair, and twisting his ankle. Only rage and terror kept him fresh; only the notion of Elvis’s welfare provided Connors with a scintilla of hope… The next time he winked open an eye to check his whereabouts, he caught a glimpse of Dorman’s ghost on a subsequent hillock. The older man was waving him on with one hand; with the other hand he was petting the ghost of Chelsea.

The two spectres fizzed; they fluttered like candle flames in a strong breeze; then they were gone. Connors vowed to make it to the Nail in their memory. As best he could he ducked his head into his jacket and tried to pick up the pace. By this point his face and hands were sharp with agony: it was like they’d been set alight. But all he could do was attempt to fight through the pain, including the fierce dull aches in his legs; the husky sick feeling in his lungs; and the fact that the sum of his life’s ambition would currently seem to be… to vomit on a hillside. It wasn’t enough.
Fuck it,
Connors thought;
being sick in the open air – it’s not enough.

He surged forward.

And was it his imagination, or was the noise in his ears slowly lessening? Connors hoped that this evaluation was not a by-product of hope. He wanted it to be real. Wanted it to be the case that the insects had realised he was made of sterner stuff than the poor dog had been.

Connors inhaled though his nose (the insides of his nostrils had been bitten too: they were raw and bleeding) and he made another forward thrust.

It was like receiving an electric shock. Head to toe: a massive thump along the length of his body. The opening of his eyes was by instinct alone. He had reached and walked blindly into the Nail.

Did this arrival make him safe? Certainly the flies were retreating: Connors could feel their mass strip away as they buzzed back the way they’d chased him. There was something about the wall that they didn’t like. Perhaps the smell. Connors was partly grateful for the taste and aroma of his own blood, for at least it masked some of the cheese scent – overpowering and ripe – that assailed his senses. Within a minute he was alone, in the shadow of the Nail; a few flies ticked and hummed on the ground nearby, and Connors found some comfort in squashing these stragglers underheel. Then he took stock.