Infested (6 page)

Eleven

Night was quick to come, enveloping me as if I were travelling into the
belly of the beast. It smothered me, making the silence more profound. Nothing
stirred and I was alone, the constant, soft, dripping song of the paddle the
only noise in the dark.

I began to shiver and although the temperature had dropped with the
waning of day, it felt more like I’d picked up a chill. Not long after, my
stomach cramped and although I clenched as hard as I could, there was no
stopping the foul eruption which burst forth to fill my pants. With a groan, I
shuffled in my seat but it only made things more uncomfortable. The only virtue
was that there was nothing left alive to witness my disgrace. Rather than
attempting to wash in the dark, I decided to press on until morning when it
would be a much safer operation.

The silence and the pitch black of the moonless night combined to cause
some kind of state of sensory deprivation and my mind was quick to fill the
gaps. I kept catching movement out of the corner of my eye, imagining spiders
dropping from overhanging branches and I cowered, moving slowly down the river,
trying to stay in the middle but not being able to see the banks. Often, I
thought I saw the looming shadow of trees and turned sharply to avoid them,
only to find myself being slapped around the face and scratched by branches on
the opposite side to where I thought I was, forcing me to quickly correct my
course. Each time this happened I panicked that spiders would fall on me and
for all I knew, they might have, for my skin was crawling with fever and fear.
More than once, I felt the tickle of a silk thread across my face.

The fever, for that’s what it certainly was, was worsening. I ached
all over and no longer did I make any attempt to control my bowels. The
throbbing from the bite on my calf had migrated up past my knee and it felt as
if my leg was on fire.

It was the second night without sleep and exhaustion kept trying to
force my eyes closed. My thoughts turned back to the fateful afternoon of the
murders, which by then seemed an eternity ago.

It happened on Friday. My boss had left the office at lunchtime,
telling me with a smile that he had business to attend to before swanning out of
the door. At the time I’d wondered why he’d bothered to let me know. Andrew
Morris was not the best person to work for; I’d go as far to say he was a
bully, always picking holes in my work, taking every opportunity to ridicule,
giving me impossible deadlines and so I often worked well into the evening
while he always finished early. You get the general idea.

Anyway, on this particular afternoon I’d managed to catch up on things
in the office and found myself with little to do and so, rather than sitting
twiddling my thumbs for the last two hours of the day, I decided to grab back
some of that time and finish early.

As I neared home, and was driving along my street, I saw Andrew’s car
parked outside my house. Instantly my suspicions were raised. I could think
of no reason for him to be there. A knot formed in the pit of my stomach.
Something was wrong and my mind raced to figure out what it was. I slowed the
car to a crawl, buying myself some thinking time and then, instead of
continuing along the street to my house, I stopped a few doors down and walked
the rest of the way.

My hands were trembling as I slid the key into the lock and quietly
pushed open the front door, expecting to hear conversation from the living room
or the kitchen. I’d planned on eavesdropping for a while, to enter the room
forearmed. I didn’t expect to hear the bed creaking upstairs and the
unmistakeable groans of sex.

Blind rage descended upon me but instead of flying upstairs to confront
them, a strange thing happened and something deep within my mind became
unhinged.

Despite the tears streaming down my cheeks and the blurring of my
vision, I was utterly calm as I slipped off my shoes, so as not to create noise
on the laminate floor, and searched downstairs for a suitable weapon. On the
pine kitchen table lay a claw hammer, sitting next to the shelves I was half
way through building. The weight felt good in my hand and with it I crept up
the carpeted stairs, taking extra care to step over the creaky fourth step,
lest it too betrayed me. By now the rhythmic creaking had quickened pace and
the groaning was louder and breathless.

The door to
my
bedroom
stood ajar. Suddenly it didn’t feel familiar to me, didn’t feel like home. He
was on top, thrusting hard and fast into her writhing body. She was
blindfolded, her hands tied to the head of the bed with the cord from
my
dressing gown.

Maybe I made a noise, or possibly he sensed my presence as I surged
forward, but he turned to look up just as I was twisting my body to swing the
hammer, two handed, at his head. All the usual smugness had gone from his
face, which was flushed with exertion. His eyes widened at the sight of me and
widened further still as the claw end of the hammer became embedded in his
temple. She writhed even more; still blindfolded she was filled with panic and
confusion as he convulsed on top of her.

The hammer was driven so deeply into his skull I struggled to pull it
free. I grasped the handle with both hands, pulling with one foot planted on
the edge of the bed and succeeded in rolling him off her so he lay face up, his
body twitching and his features drooped. With much tugging, I finally managed
to work the hammer free and I swung it again, as hard as I could. It connected
with his forehead, just between the eyes, while she struggled to escape her
bondage and cried his name.

“Shut it,” I spat, concentrating my efforts into repeatedly smashing
the hammer into Andrew Morris’s skull until his brains were splattered across
the bedroom, my naked wife, and me.

“Michael?” she whispered, shocked.

“I said, shut it.” I snatched the blindfold off - one I’d bought her
to help her sleep after she’d complained about the streetlight outside the
window - and a fistful of hair came with it as her head was yanked forward.
She screamed and I shoved the blindfold, hair and all, into her gaping mouth
before setting about her with the hammer.

When all was done I undressed and out of habit, put my clothes in the
wash basket before taking a long bath. It felt good to be clean after such
dirty work and without haste, I packed my provisions, loaded the canoe onto the
car and locked the front door behind me for the last time.

Twelve

I must have been delirious, for I didn’t notice the morning approach
until it was already light. The sun found me in another urban area, high banks
of red brick and concrete hemmed me in, over which I could see the tops of tall
buildings. I didn’t know which town I was passing through and was too tired to
work it out. Reading perhaps?

Everywhere there were cobwebs, glistening with dew. Under any other
set of circumstances, it would have been a wondrous thing to behold but it was
a sight which brought only despair, clustered tightly over every surface like a
shimmering veil.

I approached a bridge and as I neared, my attention was drawn upward to
a stationary car. Sunlight glinted off the windscreen, which may have been
what first grabbed my attention but when I looked more closely I could see
movement within. I sped up slightly to get closer and then held myself steady
just before the bridge, to give myself a clear view.

There were two people inside, but my brain struggled to process what my
eyes were telling it. It was an old couple; a man and woman, him bald and her
grey. They saw me too and their elderly faces filled with false hope and they
started banging the windows with their fists and from the movement of their
mouths, I could tell they were shouting. All I could do was raise a hand to
acknowledge them, knowing they were beyond any help I could offer. My mind
turned to the soaring temperatures of previous days and I marvelled at how they
hadn’t cooked in the car like dogs.

As I glided beneath them and they realised I wasn’t going to be their
saviour, I saw them both sag back into their seats, their hopes dashed. The
underneath of the bridge was meshed so thick with webs that none of its
construction was visible. Spiders scuttled to and fro and I kept a wary eye on
them as I slid beneath. When I passed out the other side, I breathed a sigh of
relief but didn’t look back, for I didn’t want to catch sight of the car or its
passengers.

The need for sleep was overwhelming. My vision blurred as I battled to
stay awake. For a brief time I considered disembarking to find a car of my own
to sleep in, but the fear of waking up trapped was worse than that of staying
on the open water. And so I continued on my way along the river.

I decided I needed an anchor, so I could snatch a few hours’ sleep and
not touch the banks of the river. For a while I considered what was needed to
make one. Something heavy and a rope were all I required and I sidled into the
next marina, of which there were many along the course of the river, making my
way slowly amongst the boats looking for them. All of the cruisers had rope
aboard, mooring them to the banks or to other boats, but I needed to find one
which looked easily detachable, which I could undo in a hurry.

Eventually I settled on a blue boat; a little older than the others and
somewhat shabby around the edges, the bow was low enough so that I’d be able to
undo the rope while standing in the canoe. Its name, Drinks O’clock, was
painted on the bow in tall, white letters. Despite my illness, I had a craving
for vodka and lime, with plenty of ice.

I manoeuvred in close, so our hulls bumped together, and peered up to
study the knot. A spider crawled over it.
It’s
only one. I can handle one,
I thought before taking a deep breath
and adjusting myself, ready to stand so I could reach up and untie the rope.
As I shifted, my pants were crusty and brittle, the stench coming off them
added to my nausea and as I began to rise to my feet, I became light headed and
touched one hand to the peeling blue paint of the boat’s hull.

Almost instantly, perhaps attracted by the vibration, at least two
spiders appeared over the deck and began down the side of the boat toward my
outstretched hand. I recoiled, a response already conditioned into me by the
pain in my leg, and lost my balance, almost falling into the river. I wind-milled
my arms for a moment before slumping back into my seat.

I fell into a pit of despair. The damn spiders were everywhere,
thwarting my every move. Was this my punishment, never able to set foot on dry
land again?
Maybe I should climb up?
I thought,
and let them have me.

There were no options left open to me but to continue. I was too weak and
fragile for anything else and so day and night, I paddled resolutely onward
toward London. Memories of that time are hazy, disjointed. I was in the full
grip of fever, starving and deprived of sleep and I was hallucinating.
Sometimes, in the day, I would see Lindsey’s body in the water, or swimming
alongside me. She’d turn her small, pale and decaying face up toward me and
say: “This is your fault, you know? It’s what you wished for.”

I didn’t possess the strength to answer.

“You killed me, and my family. You killed everyone.”

I don’t know whether or not I cried every time she appeared, but the
sadness and guilt I felt were so deep they threatened to consume me entirely.

During the night it would be Helena, my wife, who visited, or Andrew
Morris; “Come into my office,” I’d hear him say. “We need to talk about your
performance
.” He said, his back turned,
walking away from me in a manner which said I needed to follow. I could see
him as if we were in the same room, only his feet floated in the dark.

And then I’d see her, one eye oozing from the pulpy mess which was once
its socket, smashed teeth protruding through torn lips like buckshot. Then her
broken jaw would sag, her tongue darting in and out as she laughed, “Your
performance leaves a lot to be desired.” And then he would turn, his face also
a red mush on a misshapen head, and they’d come closer, both laughing.

This continued, day and night, for God knows how long until, in a
moment of lucidity, I realised I was once again in a built up area, with
restaurants and shops lining the river. I couldn’t remember when I’d last been
travelling through open countryside and guessed I might be in London. The air
was filled with acrid smog, which tickled the back of my throat and maybe it
was this which had rekindled my senses. There were no fires alongside the
river, but in places the smog appeared darker, as if there was smoke rising from
somewhere deep within it.

Then I was in the heart of the city, seeing landmarks I knew from TV
and postcards. The houses of parliament and Big Ben were on my left, just
before the towering London Eye, which was so covered in silk it was easy to
imagine it as one giant web. Of course, there were no people, at least not
alive but the water was teeming with bodies, as if they’d jumped from the
embankments like lemmings.

Boats got bigger as I moved downstream and the river widened to
accommodate them. Tower Bridge loomed ahead and wrapped around its feet was a
line of barges, all joined together like a string of sausages. As I neared I
realised the barges had been carrying a cargo of London’s waste, the
half-sunken containers spilling their festering contents into the water and so,
for a while, I was weaving through a layer of black bags and nappies.

I vaguely remember passing the unmistakeable dome at Greenwich, which
had undoubtedly hosted its last event. There was a chop on the water when the
Thames barrier loomed out of the fog, towering above me as I passed through.
Spray slapped me in the face as I cut through the waves. A little further and
I came across a number of ocean going ships, a couple of them oil tankers. A
pipeline must have burst somewhere, oozing a thick slick of oil which spread
out downstream from the tanker terminal, coating the sides of my tiny canoe and
the paddle with treacle-thick oil.

Cranes, and the vast, hulking forms of container ships appeared
ghostlike through the fog before it really closed in; a thick white blanket,
tinged with yellow. I knew now there were no river banks here; it was a
shoreline and I’d entered the open sea. At least it was calm, and I only received
a small buffeting and not enough of a splashing to sink the canoe.

All I could do was laugh like a maniac, wondering whether I really had
lost my mind. The complexity of the question made me laugh harder; a hollow,
lonely sound in the fog.

Well,
I laughed, as
I bobbed into the unknown of the North Sea,
That’s
justice for you.