The Kimota Anthology (39 page)

When I wake the next morning Carol is gone. She has taken the laser rifle and the canteen. The boy's body has been further mutilated. His other arm is roasting on the spit but both legs are missing. Carol must have taken them with her. With my bare hands I scrape out a shallow grave in the soil of the back garden and bury the boy's pitiful remains, his head and torso. The dirt is loose and easy to move, but the work is hard and tiring. The sun is high in the sky before I am finished. When I go back into the house I find the arm waiting for me. The fire has gone out. The meat is charred and cold. I eat it though. This time I have no difficulty swallowing, and afterwards I sleep the deep, dreamless sleep of the truly content.

From a distance I see a Grell flier strafing a pack of mutants who hurl rocks in reply. The mutants stand no chance in the unequal combat and are soon dispatched. From my hidden vantage point I silently applaud the Grell victory. If the human gene pool is ever to recover from self inflicted wounds then the mutants must be eliminated. I am pleased that the Grell have taken this task in hand.

I lose all track of time. The days and nights all fade into each other. I fight and kill lone mutants. I feed on roots, and small animals when I can catch them. I drink from whatever pools I can find, no longer caring about pollution or radiation sickness. My life is unimportant. Nothing matters except my self imposed task of finding the Grell. They gave us the science responsible for The Conflagration. Only they, and they alone, possess the means to undo the terrible wounds our world has suffered as a consequence. Pustules rise on my arms and chest, diseased skin peels from the bone. I lose the compass, but keep walking in the same direction. Scenery is all the same, a desolate, blasted landscape in which everything is either dead or dying. Perhaps I am walking in circles. There are times when I do not know, hardly care. Only the reality of movement is important. I must keep moving. Walk when I can, crawl when I cannot. Somehow I survive.

I open my eyes to find him standing there looking down at me. I blink but he does not disappear as all the others have done. It is the first time that I have seen a Grell without one of their cumbersome support suits. I recall hearing that their homeworld has a high radiation level. Earth will be a paradise for them now. He looks so small and insignificant, not the all powerful alien of our hopes and dreams, just a little blue man with spindly limbs and a huge bulb for a head.

I manage to force my cracked lips open, to move my swollen tongue.

“Help.”

The Grell studies me dispassionately and emits a series of high pitched whistles. The voice that comes out of the translator box dangling at the Grell's side is warm and female, but that means nothing; the Grell are not creatures of gender like us.

“You are beyond help human. Soon you will be no more.”

It is the truth. I am dying of radiation sickness. I've seen it take hold of others. I know the signs. My chest heaves. The air is raw and cold in my throat and lungs. The sun burns so bright that it hurts my eyes. The skin of my eyelids has turned transparent so that it is no longer possible for me to shut out the light. I work saliva in my mouth and gather strength to say what must be said but the words elude me. It seems that now I have found the Grell there is nothing I can say to them, at least nothing to justify or excuse our betrayal of their trust. At such a moment only the truth will serve.

“We were fools.”

Tears sting my cheeks. Each breath burns. The Grell stares down at me. In his eyes is a look that, if he were human, I would believe to be a sign of compassion.

“You were no wiser than we judged you to be.” 

[Originally published in Kimota 6, Summer 1997]

THE STRANGER

by Trevor Mendham

Good, you are still here. A lot of people wouldn’t be. Well, here we go mate, another two pints of lager. Didn’t take long, did it, even with the crowd in tonight? That’s one of the perks, I always get served first at the bar. Don’t have to say anything, just give them the old stare. Even from behind these shades, it always works.

What’s that? No, Joe, I do not drink Bloody Marys. Old joke. Not funny.

So, where were we? Oh yeah. I’d just told you that I’m a vampire and you were trying to decide - am I telling the truth, am I an escaped loony or am I Jeremy Beadle? Either way you probably reckon you should be a million miles from here. No, don’t deny it. I can tell if you’re lying so there’s really no point. It’s the standard reaction I always get. That’s why I waited ‘til we’d had a couple before telling you. Don’t worry, I’m not cross. If I was, you can bet you’d be dead by now.

And before you ask, no, I will not turn you into a vampire. This is an exclusive club, my friend, we don’t let just anyone in. Whilst we might be having a nice little chat now, I’m not really certain that I want your company for the rest of eternity. No offence meant, mate.

And before you panic, nor am I gonna suck you dry and leave your corpse to rot. Do us a favour, do I look that stupid? If I wanted to do that I’d have jumped you outside, alone in the dark. I’d hardly warn you and certainly wouldn’t do it here in the pub!

Anyway, I’ve gotta be honest, you’re really not my type. Young blood really does taste better y’know. And personally I’ve always preferred women. Some vampires reckon that there’s no real difference, but I say there is. Female blood has a certain piquancy to it, an extra little bite. It’s a bit like the difference between a good wine and an excellent vintage. The ordinary stuff is fine, but the vintage, when you feel it sliding down your throat, when you lick your lips and savour every last drop, oh that’s just so...

Hmm? Oh, sorry, getting carried away. Actually, I don’t get to taste the blood of a young female nearly as often as I used to. They don’t tend to go out alone at night now. It wasn’t like that in my youth - I don’t know what the world’s coming to nowadays. So I usually have to make do with some homeless wino. Let me tell you, meths really ruins the flavour. Almost as bad as garlic.

So what do I want with you? Just a chat, Joe, nothing more. Is that so hard to accept? I get so bloody lonely, every so often I just need to talk to someone. You humans take things like that for granted.

Think about it. Being one of the immortal undead might sound fun but it’s a real pain in the neck. I can’t exactly have a normal social life, can I? No holidays in the sun, no days spent window shopping. The only jobs I can get are night-shifts and let me tell you, you meet some weirdos there. As for sex - have you ever tried to buy a double coffin? I can’t have ordinary friends. Anyone who got close to me would soon begin to suspect something. Then it would be the whole Hammer Horror bit.

The only people I can really socialise with are other vampires and you don’t get many of them around here. To be honest, most of them need to get a life - all they ever seem to talk about is themselves.

So, after I’ve been in one place for a while, when I’m ready to move on, I like to have a little chat with someone I’ll never see again. Someone like you Joe. Some people can handle the occult better than others, I could tell from your face that you’d understand. You’ve got an aura or some such New Age crap. Whatever, I felt drawn to you. I’ll bet you even have a deck of dog-eared Tarot cards at home.

You were drawn to me as well, weren’t you? I could see you watching me out of the corner of your eye. To be honest, at first I thought you might be a queer, but then I saw you trying to chat up the barmaid so I knew you were OK.

I tell you, Joe, you wouldn’t believe the mindless bigotry I have to put up with. People just label you, stick you in a box. OK, so I’m a vampire - does that make me a bad person? I adore kids, I give money to charity and I have all of Cliff Richard’s records.

Yeah, yeah. I just knew you’d bring that up again. OK, it’s true. Every so often I sink my fangs into some nubile young woman and suck the life out of her. So I’m not a perfect citizen, but you can find fault with anyone if you try hard enough.

Drink up, mate, you’re falling behind and it’s your round next. Actually, you’re doing pretty well. Most people have found an excuse to go by now. You know, they remember that they left the bathroom light on or something urgent like that. You’re different, you look like you’re actually enjoying this. Bet I know why. You’re a journo, aren’t you? Gonna write this up. “I met a vampire in the Slaughtered Lamb”. ‘Cept this is the Slug and Lettuce, but I’m sure you wont let a little fact like that stop you. And you’ll probably give me some naff name like “Count Alucard”. Actually, I’m calling myself Pinner today. It’ll be something different tomorrow, time to change it again. I try not to use the family name, doesn’t go down too well.

You’re not a journo? Not a writer at all? I’d have staked my life on it. So what do you do then? Old family business, eh? Like me in a way! Ah, a business card. Very professional. Let’s see who you are now.

Ah come on, this has got to be a gag, right? You’re having me on.

“Josef van Helsing”?

[Originally published in Kimota 9, Autumn 1998]

BEYOND THE HELP OF MORTALS

By D.F. Lewis

Phil had been tramping for miles. The pain in his backside he put down to haemorrhoids, though he would have been hard put to spell the damned word. The itching was at one moment delightful and the next worse than agony itself, veneering the insides of his denims with overlapping reddy-brown skidmarks. He
hoped
the pain was haemorrhoids, blotting the thought of wiggling cancers from his mind. He couldn’t afford medication at the best of times. Sensible not to think about it.

In the wimpish light of the moon, he could see the outline of a lorry upturned on the hard shoulder. Hit and Run. And the pedestrian who had hit it had surely run! Phil laughed to himself like a stand-up comedian who’d lost his audience. Dossers were funny even without their cardboard bedding. It was ages since he’d had a good booze-up and a long smoke. Fucking had been pretty well hand to mouth, too.

Not averse to helping himself, whenever the opportunity arose, he clambered aboard the rear end of the lorry. The chassis had been buckled by the force of its skid into the deep ditch, the driver’s cab pointing up towards the cloudless night sky.

His usually inscrutable face began to reflect his mood and broke into a wide grin, when he discovered that the lorry’s payload was a number of ruptured cardboard boxes with cigarettes spilling out. He could not make out the make. He had been so long without glasses, he had entirely forgotten that his eyes needed them. It didn’t matter, of course. In any event, he did not know his own thoughts.

He did not have a match upon his person, so he scratched at his bum where it itched quite exquisitely as if that were a consolation prize. He would need to scale the articulates of the lorry towards the cab end and rifle the driver’s corpse (if he had one) for a lighter or something.

He forthwith fell off the back of the lorry in a flurry of self-misunderstandings and a grunt of disapproval at his own lack of co-ordination and panache. Thousands of cigarettes scattered around him like flakes of long snow.

He shivered, as the darkness became noisy. Nobody slept at night any more - the flights that were permitted to lift off from the nearby airport took advantage of fuel being cheaper after daylight hours. Something to do with storage propulsion. Phil shrugged. Something was wrong.

He glanced up at the cab - a real shadow etched against the moon’s faint widening blur. The moon was a ghost of a planet. He shrugged again. Shrugging made him warmer, more alive, comforted. His mittened paws could no longer feel themselves nor each other. The cab might have to wait for morning, however distant in time that happened to be.

The droning in the sky increased like long thunder.

It would be better in the cab, if he could but reach it. He could do with a drag. He took a fistful of cigarettes, trying not to break them in his numbed grasp.

He lodged one foot upon the petrol tank that had been punched out from the lorry’s underbelly by a tough tussock during the crash. Phil then noticed for the first time that the cab itself was stove in, as a result of an ancient tree root growing outlandishly from the waste ground high bordering the freeway.

There would be little room enough for both him and the driver.

He hoped that the driver had been scrunched beyond recognition. Phil dreaded undamaged corpses more than anything.

On finally reaching the cab, he panted, cross-eyed with effort. He unbent the door, sending up a horrendously nail-gritting squeal with the splayed hinges. It exploded with loose screws in all directions. Like a cyborg berserker being sick.

Phil had one of the cigarettes behind his ear. The others he hoped were undamaged in his jerkin pocket. The driver was wrapped around the steering column, the large face mooning upward, merely a few inches from the shatter-crazed windscreen. A jagged shard from the vanity mirror had skewered both eyeballs in one go, taking most of their glistening egg-white substance with it and out through an ear. The overlong neck had a steamy slime guttering down the wrinkles.

The driver had been no human. Whether Phil realised, only Phil knew.

The driver’s belly was covered in gapes, where the satiny overalls had been stitched back by splinters snapped off a dial’s glass cover. His innards were far from red, more a pulsing grey, with a sentience which derived neither from breath or heartbeat.

Phil’s eyes were pinpricking with the luminosity that emanated from the cab’s sunroof. He had not worried about the nature of this light source - nor did he now. He was too busy rummaging in the glove compartment for something to light a cigarette.

A slobbering slick of a sensation upon the back of his flinching neck... He turned his whole body round with the effort of a skewered jack-in-the-box with its lid stuck. The driver was flapping flayed muscles and jerked the gear-lever as if he were stirring stew one moment and tugging free a reluctant rib-bone from a fellow berserker’s chest the next. The ignition churned on one sickening note, never truly firing. The driver’s club foot pumped vigorously on the clutch pedal in a ludicrous attempt to roll start.

The vehicle lurched and began to judder irrhythmically. The shattered windscreen ballooned inwards. And through the jagged lens-holes which ratcheted forwards to slice around the edges of Phil’s throbbing eyeballs, he fleetingly focussed upon a patch of starlight grown far too large to be a moon of Earth.

Phil shrugged, as he felt the stinging white tubes meticulously inserted into his mouth, ear holes, empty eye-sockets, anus and penis. The haemorrhoids audibly burst one by one in salute to a fine human being.

Some were his own thoughts, others not.

Half-knowing he was on a UFO, Phil shrugged, shrugged again and died. And lived again to die again, this time more horribly, for ever and ever.

[Originally published in Kimota 9, Autumn 1998]