Books of Blood (14 page)

dark, and the air was muggy. Even in daylight he wasn’t sure of the route to the farm; it was worse by night. He was very soon lost, somewhere between the playing-field and the trees. It was too far to see the outline of the main building behind him, and the trees ahead all looked alike.

      The night-air was foul; no wind to freshen tired limbs. It was as still outside as inside, as though the whole world had become an interior: a suffocating room bounded by a painted ceiling of cloud.

      He stood in the dark, the blood thumping in his head, and tried to orient himself.

      To his left, where he had guessed the out-houses to be, a light glimmered. Clearly he was completely mistaken about his position. The light was at the sty. It threw the ramshackle chicken run into silhouette as he stared at it.

      There were figures there, several; standing as if watching a spectacle he couldn’t yet see.

      He started towards the sty, not knowing what he would do once he reached it. If they were all armed like Slape, and shared his murderous intentions, then that would be the end of him. The thought didn’t worry him. Somehow tonight to get off of this closed-down world was an attractive option. Down and out.

      And there was Lacey. There’d been a moment of doubt, after speaking to Leverthal, when he’d wondered why he cared so much about the boy. That accusation of special pleading, it had a certain truth to it. Was there something in him that wanted Thomas Lacey naked beside him? Wasn’t that the sub-text of Leverthal’s remark? Even now, running uncertainly towards the lights, all he could think of was the boy’s eyes, huge and demanding, looking deep into his.

      Ahead there were figures in the night, wandering away from the farm. He could see them against the lights of the sty. Was it all over already? He made a long curve around

to the left of the buildings to avoid the spectators as they left the scene. They made no noise: there was no chatter or laughter amongst them. Like a congregation leaving a funeral they walked evenly in the dark, each apart from the other, heads bowed. It was eerie, to see these godless delinquents so subdued by reverence.

      He reached the chicken-run without encountering any of them face to face.

      There were still a few figures lingering around the pig-house. The wall of the sow’s compartment was lined with candles, dozens and dozens of them. They burned steadily in the still air, throwing a rich warm light on to brick, and on to the faces of the few who still stared into the mysteries of the sty.

      Leverthal was among them, as was the warder who’d knelt at Lacey’s head that first day. Two or three boys were there too, whose faces he recognized but could put no name to.

      There was a noise from the sty, the sound of the sow’s feet on the straw as she accepted their stares. Somebody was speaking, but he couldn’t make out who. An adolescent’s voice, with a lilt to it. As the voice halted in its monologue, the warder and another of the boys broke rank, as if dismissed, and turned away into the dark. Redman crept a little closer. Time was of the essence now. Soon the first of the congregation would have crossed the field and be back in the Main Building. They’d see Slape’s corpse: raise the alarm. He must find Lacey now, if indeed Lacey was still to be found.

      Leverthal saw him first. She looked up from the sty and nodded a greeting, apparently unconcerned by his arrival. It was as if his appearance at this place was inevitable, as if all routes led back to the farm, to the straw house and the smell of excrement. It made a kind of sense that she’d believe that. He almost believed it himself.

     
‘Leverthal,’ he said.

      She smiled at him, openly. The boy beside her raised his head and smiled too.

      ‘Are you Henessey?’ he asked, looking at the boy.

      The youth laughed, and so did Leverthal.

      ‘No,’ she said. ‘No. No. No. Henessey is here.’

      She pointed into the sty.

      Redman walked the few remaining yards to the wall of the sty, expecting and not daring to expect, the straw and the blood and the pig and Lacey.

      But Lacey wasn’t there. Just the sow, big and beady as ever, standing amongst pats of her own ordure, her huge, ridiculous ears flapping over her eyes.

      ‘Where’s Henessey?’ asked Redman, meeting the sow’s gaze.

      ‘Here,’ said the boy.

      ‘This is a pig.’

      ‘She ate him,’ said the youth, still smiling. He obviously thought the idea delightful. ‘She ate him: and he speaks out of her.’

      Redman wanted to laugh. This made Lacey’s tales of ghosts seem almost plausible by comparison. They were telling him the pig was possessed.

      ‘Did Henessey hang himself, as Tommy said?’

      Leverthal nodded.

      ‘In the sty?’

      Another nod.

      Suddenly the pig took on a different aspect. In his imagination he saw her reaching up to sniff at the feet of Henessey’s twitching body, sensing the death coming over it, salivating at the thought of its flesh. He saw her licking the dew that oozed from its skin as it rotted, lapping at it, nibbling daintily at first, then devouring it. It wasn’t too difficult to understand how the boys could have made a mythology of that atrocity: inventing hymns to it, attending

upon the pig like a god. The candles, the reverence, the intended sacrifice of Lacey: it was evidence of sickness, but it was no more strange than a thousand other customs of faith. He even began to understand Lacey’s lassitude, his inability to fight the powers that overtook him.

      Mama, they fed me to the pig.

      Not Mama, help me, save me. Just: they gave me to the pig.

      All this he could understand: they were children, many of them under-educated, some verging on mental instability, all susceptible to superstition. But that didn’t explain Leverthal. She was staring into the sty again, and Redman registered for the first time that her hair was unclipped, and lay on her shoulders, honey-coloured in the candlelight.

      ‘It looks like a pig to me, plain and simple,’ he said.

      ‘She speaks with his voice,’ Leverthal said, quietly. ‘Speaks in tongues, you might say. You’ll hear him in a while. My darling boy.’

      Then he understood. ‘You and Henessey?’

      ‘Don’t look so horrified,’ she said. ‘He was eighteen: hair blacker than you’ve ever seen. And he loved me.’

      ‘Why did he hang himself?’

      ‘To live forever,’ she said, ‘so he’d never be a man, and die.’

      ‘We didn’t find him for six days,’ said the youth, almost whispering it in Redman’s ear, ‘and even then she wouldn’t let anybody near him, once she had him to herself. The pig, I mean. Not the Doctor. Everyone loved Kevin, you see,’ he whispered intimately. ‘He was beautiful.’

      ‘And where’s Lacey?’

      Leverthal’s loving smile decayed.

      ‘With Kevin,’ said the youth, ‘where Kevin wants him.’ He pointed through the door of the sty. There was a body lying on the straw, back to the door.

     
‘If you want him, you’ll have to go and get him,’ said the boy, and the next moment he had the back of Redman’s neck in a vice-like grip.

      The sow responded to the sudden action. She started to stamp the straw, showing the whites of her eyes.

      Redman tried to shrug off the boy’s grip, at the same time delivering an elbow to his belly. The boy backed off, winded and cursing, only to be replaced by Leverthal.

      ‘Go to him,’ she said as she snatched at Redman’s hair. ‘Go to him if you want him.’ Her nails raked across his temple and nose, just missing his eyes.

      ‘Get off me!’ he said, trying to shake the woman off, but she clung, her head lashing back and forth as she tried to press him over the wall.

      The rest happened with horrid speed. Her long hair brushed through a candle flame and her head caught fire, the flames climbing quickly. Shrieking for help she stumbled heavily against the gate. It failed to support her weight, and gave inward. Redman watched helplessly as the burning woman fell amongst the straw. The flames spread enthusiastically across the forecourt towards the sow, lapping up the kindling.

      Even now, in extremis, the pig was still a pig. No miracles here: no speaking, or pleading, in tongues. The animal panicked as the blaze surrounded her, cornering her stamping bulk and licking at her flanks. The air was filled with the stench of singeing bacon as the flames ran up her sides and over her head, chasing through her bristles like a grass-fire.

      Her voice was a pig’s voice, her complaints a pig’s complaints. Hysterical grunts escaped her lips and she hurtled across the forecourt of the sty and out of the broken gate, trampling Leverthal.

      The sow’s body, still burning, was a magic thing in the night as she careered across the field, weaving about in her

pain. Her cries did not diminish as the dark ate her up, they seemed just to echo back and forth across the field, unable to find a way out of the locked room.

      Redman stepped over Leverthal’s fire-ridden corpse and into the sty. The straw was burning on every side, and the fire was creeping towards the door. He half-shut his eyes against the stinging smoke and ducked into the pig-house.

Lacey was lying as he had been all along, back to the door. Redman turned the boy over. He was alive. He was awake. His face, bloated with tears and terror, stared up off his straw pillow, eyes so wide they looked fit to leap from his head.

      ‘Get up,’ said Redman, leaning over the boy.

      His small body was rigid, and it was all Redman could do to prize his limbs apart. With little words of care, he coaxed the boy to his feet as the smoke began to swirl into the pig-house.

      ‘Come on, it’s all right, come on.’

      He stood upright and something brushed his hair. Redman felt a little rain of worms across his face and glanced up to see Henessey, or what was left of him, still suspended from the crossbeam of the pig-house. His features were incomprehensible, blackened to a drooping mush. His body was raggedly gnawed off at the hip, and his innards hung from the foetid carcass, dangling in wormy loops in front of Redman’s face.

      Had it not been for the thick smoke the smell of the body would have been overpowering. As it was Redman was simply revolted, and his revulsion gave strength to his arm. He hauled Lacey out of the shadow of the body and pushed him through the door.

      Outside the straw was no longer blazing as brightly, but the light of fire and candles and burning body still made him squint after the dark interior.

     
‘Come on lad,’ he said, lifting the kid through the flames. The boy’s eyes were button-bright, lunatic-bright. They said futility.

      They crossed the sty to the gate, skipping Leverthal’s corpse, and headed into the darkness of the open field.

      The boy seemed to be stirring from his stricken state with every step they took away from the farm. Behind them the sty was already a blazing memory. Ahead, the night was as still and impenetrable as ever.

Redman tried not to think of the pig. It must be dead by now, surely.

      But as they ran, there seemed to be a noise in the earth as something huge kept pace with them, content to keep its distance, wary now but relentless in its pursuit.

      He dragged on Lacey’s arm, and hurried on, the ground sun baked beneath their feet. Lacey was whimpering now, no words as yet, but sound at least. It was a good sign, a sign Redman needed.

      He’d had about his fill of insanity.

      They reached the building without incident. The corridors were as empty as they’d been when he’d left an hour ago. Perhaps nobody had found Slape’s corpse yet. It was possible. None of the boys had seemed in a fit mood for recreation. Perhaps they had slipped silently to their dormitories, to sleep off their worship.

      It was time to find a phone and call the Police.

      Man and boy walked down the corridor towards the Governor’s Office hand in hand. Lacey had fallen silent again, but his expression was no longer so manic; it looked as though cleansing tears might be close. He sniffed; made noises in his throat.

      His grip on Redman’s hand tightened, then relaxed completely.

      Ahead, the vestibule was in darkness. Somebody had smashed the bulb recently. It still rocked gently on its

cable, illuminated by a seepage of dull light from the window.

      ‘Come on. There’s nothing to be afraid of. Come on, boy.’

      Lacey bent to Redman’s hand and bit the flesh. The trick was so quick he let the boy go before he could prevent himself, and Lacey was showing his heels as he scooted away down the corridor away from the vestibule.

      No matter. He couldn’t get far. For once Redman was glad the place had walls and bars.

      Redman crossed the darkened vestibule to the Secretary’s Office. Nothing moved. Whoever had broken the bulb was keeping very quiet, very still.

      The telephone had been smashed too. Not just broken, smashed to smithereens.

      Redman doubled back to the Governor’s room. There was a telephone there; he’d not be stopped by vandals.

      The door was locked, of course, but Redman was prepared for that. He smashed the frosted glass in the window of the door with his elbow, and reached through to the other side. No key there.

      To hell with it, he thought, and put his shoulder to the door. It was sturdy, strong wood, and the lock was good quality. His shoulder ached and the wound in his stomach had reopened by the time the lock gave, and he gained access to the room.

      The floor was littered with straw; the smell inside made the sty seem sweet. The Governor was lying behind his desk, his heart eaten out.

      ‘The pig,’ said Redman. ‘The pig. The pig.’ And saying, ‘the pig’, he reached for the phone.

      A sound. He turned, and met the blow full-face. It broke his cheek-bone and his nose. The room mottled, and went white.