Rottenhouse (30 page)

Across from the lake, beyond the bright
red buoy that marked the spot where the lakes water turned black
and went down all the way to hell, the ground rose up as a sheer
sheet of rock. There were dark holes bored into this rock face.
Holes that led somewhere that Simon didn’t want to go to. Atop it,
there were trees that now looked like ancient men; their branches
contorted in such a way to look like arms and legs. In the branches
that were shaped into hands the tree sentinels held what looked
like axes. Falling leaves from those shapes looked like blood
dripping from sharp blades.

A breeze wrapped about him sending
chills across his naked body.

‘
It’s not summer
anymore.’ Lucy told him. But she wasn’t there.

‘
I know,’ Simon said,
‘It’s cold and I’m naked. Where are my clothes? I’d like my clothes
back please, or the Chairman might see my willy.’

Simon blinked and it seemed to take
longer for his eyelids to open, close and open.

‘
The pigs have them.
Over there.’ Lucy said. But she still wasn’t with him,
here.

Simon looked to his right. He blinked,
close and open, and the lake was gone and he was no longer in the
pretty place anymore.

‘
I’m not in Oz
anymore, Auntie Em.’

The world was still many shades of
grey. Simon was stood outside a great house, a house that looked a
bit like a church. It had many windows which were like square
lifeless eyes. Its front door, a bright white against the draining
grey of the rest of the world, was open like a gaping mouth. The
house was made of wood and was in a bad way. The house looked sick
and groaned with pain. Or was it pleasure?

‘
It is sick. Been
sick for a long time. I bet fire can cure it.’ Simon
said.

Simon looked lazily to his right. There
was a sign hammered into the ground next to him and it stood about
waist high. It was pointing to the house over there. But the sign
wasn’t made of wood; it was made out of meat. Human meat. The post
was a leg which had been cut off halfway down the thigh. It was
held straight by a metal bar screwed into it much like you would
see on someone who had a severely broken leg and it was now being
held in place by rods and bars and bolts. The signboard was a huge
flap of fatty browned skin, in its middle there was a hairy belly
button and this was all held to the leg-post by bits of bone and
metal and twisted wire. On the belly-sign the words Rotten House
were burnt into the pink meat, seared like a piece of prime pork
belly. Attached to the belly-sign was a woman’s hand; Simon knew
this because the nails were painted a bright red, like the buoy in
the lake. Its first finger was pointed toward the great house that
stood on a mound surrounded by nothing but grey sky and swirling
clouds.

‘
That’s a pretty neat
sign. Why do the pigs have my clothes?’ Simon asked turning his
attention back to the house on the hill.

‘
So they look pretty
on their date.’ Lucy said.

‘
Date with
who?’

‘
With them. Those
guys over there by the pens. They want to meet you. You should go
to them one day.’

The meat sign twitched, as if it were
coming to life. And it did come to life. Well the woman’s hand did
that was strapped to it like a wretched montage of filth. The
fingers wiggled and then pointed over, left of the house. The
writing on the meat sign changed. It now read, O’Hagan, and blood
dripped from the bottom of the g.

Simon looked over, following the finger
with his eyes. Next to the house were five pig pens and outside of
those pig pens were many pigs snorting around the dirt and the
scraps that lay at their trotters covered in mud and muck. Next to
the pig pens, leant on the corrugated metal that housed the little
piggies were three big men. They wore big boots and dungarees that
looked ten sizes too big. The men wore matching flannel shirts and
all three wore similar baseball caps; their peaks curved at each
end. None of the men had faces. It was black where their heads
should have been. But there was shape to those cloud faces, there
was form. Simon knew they weren’t looking at him, they weren’t
looking at the pigs.

Pigs that were wearing his clothes.

‘
They are ready for
their dates. But I need my clothes back.’ Simon said
lazily.

A crack of thunder that could have been
a gunshot ripped above him and Simon looked up to the sky. Rain
that was thick and heavy dripped onto his face and splatted to the
ground. It fell with no sound and it landed with no sound. The
earth beneath his feet sucked up the fat rain like a thirsty dog
lapping up a bowl of water.

The rain wasn’t cool and it wasn’t cold
like the air. It was warm. Warm like…

‘
Like blood.’ Simon
said and as he spoke some of it went into his mouth and it tasted
metallic, like licking a battery.

‘
It is blood.’
Someone said. A girl he thought he knew but was unsure.

He closed his eyes. He knew it wasn’t
rain falling on his naked body and dripping into his mouth.

Another crack of thunder boomed
overhead and the pigs squealed behind his closed eyes and Simon
didn’t want to open them. He kind of hoped that he could go
somewhere else now. Back to the pretty place but this time he would
like it to be green and blue and red and yellow and for there to be
bees and bugs and birds and fish and rods and nets and bait and
ripples and Bob. Good old Bob.

But then the squeals stopped.

The rain that Simon knew wasn’t rain
but was something else kept on falling and Simon was drenched.

He wished with all his might to go back
to the colourful pretty place.

With his eyes shut tight it now felt as
if he were on his back. Laying down on a cold metal something that
was taking his weight.

Not wanting too but unable to stop them
from doing so he opened his eyes and what he saw horrified him so
much that his body, the body that was on the waking side of this
dream, heaved and flexed violently enough to stir Bob Rowling from
his own sleep.

Above him was a woman. He knew this
because her legs were either side of his head and she was crouched
down over him close enough so that he could smell her womanhood.
And from that womanhood, that cut and torn piece of tender flesh,
there poured forth a dark red gore. That gore from her cuts both
outside and inside of her vagina and which rained down onto his
face and into his still open mouth made him gag, it tasted of old
batteries, petrol fumes and something eggy too. He shut his open
mouth and inhaled a scream so deep that it caused his body on the
other side to choke.

He then saw that the
woman was strapped into that position; squatting over him like she
were pissing in a forest, by a series of cords and pulleys and
those cords and pulleys were sown into her skin so roughly that it
made him want to cry. Adorning most of her beaten body a name was
etched into her skin and blood seeped from each of the cuts. That
name was
Billie
and she wasn’t dead as she hung there as from deep within her
Simon could hear the soft moan he had heard when he was at the
petrol station.

Simon rolled over to the side, or he
was rolled over to the side, he couldn’t tell. Across from him was
Mr Rowling. He was naked. His flabby bare arse wobbled as did his
beer belly.

They wobbled because he was once again
thrusting. But it wasn’t thin air his erect penis was penetrating,
for in his hand Bob held the Bream Simon had caught in the pretty
lake and on Bobs face was a smile as wide as the crescent moon
hanging in the night sky. But as he went on that smile turned into
a grimace, a grimace Simon didn’t want to look at.

With each push forward the fish
squelched.

With each push forward Bob moaned with
pleasure unbound.

With each push forward Billie moaned
with pain.

With each moan of pleasure and of pain
Simon heard he retched and screamed and cried and wanted it to be
over though he knew it would never be over until he did something
about it.

‘
They leak. They
bleed. They don’t stop once they started.’ Lucy said. And she was
there now. Next to her Dad. And she was holding the fish for him
and she was smiling. The fish however, from the continual
pummelling, was deteriorating, its pink meat was all battered to
bits and chunks of it fell to the floor and melted into the
concrete greyness.

Simon closed his eyes. But they didn’t
close. He tried to move but he couldn’t move.

‘
Wake up.’ Someone
said.

‘
I can’t.’ Simon
replied through gritted teeth.

‘
Wake up.’ Someone
said.

‘
I’m trying.’ Simon
whimpered as he felt a hand upon his bare bum cheek and something
hot and fleshy touched his vulnerable anus.

‘
Wake up.’ Someone
said. And that someone was Bob. Bob from the other side.

And finally Simon left that place.

12

‘
Come on, Simon…wakey,
wakey.’ A distant voice from behind Simons tightly closed eyes
said. He wasn’t dreaming anymore, he was back in the real world and
not in that grey dead zone.

He knew it was Bob’s voice that was
trying to wake him, there was no mistaking his dulcet tones, but
Simon was struggling to open his eyes. He could feel the sun
beating down on him; it made his skin prickle and Simon could see
the bright yellow disk as a fuzzy blur on the dark side of his eye
lids which made him more want to keep them shut. Simon was afraid
of what he might see when he opened them. Clothed pigs? Signs made
out of bits of human? Faceless men? Bob having his way with a fish?
Billie? He didn’t want to see any of that ever again. His body
still felt numb, like it had done in the dream, only now he was
clothed and his bare arse wasn’t about to be penetrated by that
fleshy stick thing. It had all been a dream. A horrid dream, but
just another freaky series of images that he could pile up and call
them the Rottenhouse Dreams like it was some ghastly exhibition of
his finest work.

‘
Times awasting, son.
Grab yer gear and let’s get back to it.’

Simon grunted, licked his lips and
finally opened his eyes. He was blinded for a moment, the suns
bright white light causing his eyes to water and sting. Rubbing at
them and coughing up a wad of phlegm he asked, ‘How long was I
out?’

‘
Bout 15 minutes.
Dropped off meself too, but yer snoring and fussing woke me up.
Good thing too.’ And then peering deeper at Simon he whispered,
‘you alright, lad? Look a bit peaky.’

Finally the haze went and Simon could
see Bob standing a few feet away; his waders partly covered in
water.

‘
Just a dream. That’s
all. Been having some doozies since I’ve been here.’ Simon glanced
down to his body, saw that he was still dressed in the plastic
waders and then felt his face in case it was still wet with the
gore that had been dripping from Billie’s hole. He was dry, a
little sweaty, but not wet with blood.

‘
There was something
real about that one, though.’ Simon said absentmindedly.

Bob had just turned to walk into the
lake when he stopped and looked at Simon. Was there concern in his
eyes? It was hard to tell. The sun was getting lower and Bob was
standing right in front of it bathing him in a shadow ringed with
pearls of pure white light. Simon had to squint to see him and when
it became too much for his fresh waking eyes he looked away, over
to where his rod was standing by the makeshift table made from old
wooden pallets.

‘
What yamean,
real
, Simon?’

‘
I don’t know. There
was something about what I saw…… it’s like having Déjà vu but in
reverse if that makes any sense. Probably doesn’t.’

Bob shook his head and Simon thought
about what he had seen. A name. He had seen a name, and it was on
the tip of his tongue. Simon knew he had never heard that name
before so why was it written on that brutal looking sign?

Bob headed off to his spot in the lake.
Though when Simon spoke up he stopped once again but this time he
didn’t turn, just stood there, the water rippling from his green
waders.

‘
O’Hagan… does that
name mean anything to you? O’Hagan?’

Bobs silence was enough of an answer
and Simon got to his feet; stretching his back out as he did.

‘
It does, doesn’t it?’
Simon took a step forward. A tentative step and the soft ground
beneath his feet squelched like a damp fart. ‘It’s them isn’t it?
That family that live up in the Rotten House. They’re the
O’Hagan’s. They were in my dream. Three brothers. Big guys all of
em too. I saw the house as well and it’s all beat to shit. But
there’s more than three of them up there. I didn’t see the girl,
nor the mother or father. But I know they are there. You told me
about them but you didn’t mention names or how many or what they
looked like. It was all a dream, but I’m right though, aint I,
Bob?’

Simon didn’t need Bob’s acceptance of
his assumptions, he knew he was right. Like he knew he was right
when he first saw Lucy, his Princess in a red dress, and knew she
was the one that he was one day going to marry. He wasn’t a
confident man, lived his life through a lucky turn of events and
mostly through the will of another – his Princess in a red dress,
but he was confident now. It must have been what he had been
through in the last couple of days that made him so and Simon could
feel that Rottenhouse, that Bob, that Lucy who was sometimes
Barbara, that the Working Man’s Club, that the beatings, that the
murders and the nightmares, were making him a stronger man. A
better man.