Spawn (13 page)

Even in the deep gloom inside the hut, Harold could make out his mother’s features. Her skin was peeling away, mottled green in places where it had turned gangrenous. Her hair hung in loose, flame-seared strands, blackened wisps against the pale pink of her scalp. When she opened her mouth no sound came forth, just a swollen blackened tongue which dripped dark fluid over her scorched lips. She moved towards him, her own putrefying odour almost palpable, wrapping itself around his throat like obscene tentacles.

As her stench filled his nostrils, Harold screamed and screamed. . .

He awoke beating at his pillow, the covers thrown off. His body was soaked in sweat and his throat felt raw from screaming. Gradually he realized that it had been yet another dream.

Someone was pounding on the door of his hut.

Harold uttered a small moan of fear then, as he saw the murky daylight flooding through the window, he found the courage to get to his feet. He padded across to the door.

“Who is it?” he called.

“Harold are you all right?” the voice from the other side asked and, after a moment or two, he recognised it. Harold unlocked the door and pulled it open to find Winston Greaves standing there. The senior porter was spattered with rain which was still falling from the banks of grey cloud overhead. He looked Harold up and down, noticing how pale the unscarred side of his face looked. There were deep pits beneath both his eyes and his hair was plastered to his head with sweat.

“Are you OK?” asked Greaves, stepping inside.

Harold nodded.

“Do you know what the time is?” Greaves asked him.

He shook his head, sitting down on the edge of the bed.

“It’s after nine o’clock,” the coloured porter told him. “You should have been on duty over an hour ago. I thought you were ill or something.”

“I’m sorry,” said Harold, apologetically. “I didn’t sleep very well last night.” He got to his feet. “If you give me a minute, I’ll get ready.”

“If you don’t feel well, I can get one of the doctors to come over and have a look at you. You. . .”

Harold cut him short.

“No. I’ll be all right. I’m just tired,” he explained.

Greaves nodded and sat down on one of the rickety old wooden chairs while Harold padded into the small room which housed the chemical toilet. He emerged a moment later and, after splashing his face with water from the cold tap in the kitchen, he began dressing. The muddy clothes which he’d worn the previous night to bury the foetus were pushed out of sight beneath the bed. Finally, he pulled on his overall and together he and Greaves began the walk across the open ground towards the main building. Harold looked up at the sky which still promised rain but now was falling in small droplets, quite different from the downpour of the previous night.

“I hear there was a blackout last night,” said Greaves.

Harold nodded.

“It’s the worst storm I can remember,” Greaves confessed. “Still, the electricity company should have everything fixed by this afternoon. I heard that one of the cables was brought down.” He stopped and looked behind him towards the field where the damaged pylon was. “They’re trying to fix it up now.”

Harold spun round and his eye bulged. There were indeed men moving about in the field near to the pylon, some climbing on it, others using ladders to reach inaccessible areas. There was even a small crane crawling through the mud.

“Oh my God,” he murmured, softly.

The men were all around the pylon. They were working in
that
field.

Near to the grave.

Harold swallowed hard. If they should find it. . .

Greaves walked on but Harold remained where he was, his gaze fixed worriedly on the men in dark blue overalls who swarmed over the pylon in their efforts to repair it. He saw the crane, the large white and blue van parked nearby and he began to tremble. They would find it. They must do. But, it was at least fifty yards from the base of the pylon he told himself. It should be relatively safe. His ready-made assurances did not have the desired effect and he wondered if the rain might have washed the shallow covering of soil right off exposing the bodies beneath. He hurried on to join Greaves, his mind in a turmoil.

He spent most of the day thinking about the men in that field, expecting at any time one of them to walk into the hospital and tell of the grave that they’d discovered. Then his secret would be there for all to see. His crime would be exposed. For that was what they would call it. A crime. Not understanding, they would punish him, they would not want to listen to his reasons. They would not be able to comprehend the thought behind his actions.

Every chance he got, he stole a look at them, to see how far their work was progressing. To see if they had stumbled on the grave. He could eat no lunch, so knotted with fear was his stomach. He spent his entire break standing in the rain outside watching the blue-clad men repairing the damage to the pylon.

When, at three fifteen that afternoon, they finally left, Harold breathed an audible sigh of relief.

Harold pulled on his shirt, wincing when he felt the damp material touch his skin. He hadn’t had time to wash the garment since the previous night and it was still stiff with dried mud. So were the trousers which he put on but, after a moment or two, he grew to accept the cloying feel of the odorous cloth against his skin. He pulled on his coat and tucked the torch into one pocket – he’d taken it from a store-room in the hospital earlier in the day. The fifty watt bulb hung above him. He hadn’t put it on since returning to the hut over four hours ago and the hands on his alarm clock had crawled around to 12.26 a.m. Harold knew that he was taking a small risk leaving the hut earlier than usual but, he reasoned, his business in the muddy quagmire was more important than usual and, besides, if someone did see him it would be easy enough to explain away the fact that he was out that late. Also, he was carrying nothing with him tonight. Nothing, that was, except his fear. He realized that the men from the electricity company who had repaired the downed power line could not have discovered the grave of foetuses, he would have known about it by now. However, he was worried that the driving rain might have disturbed the top soil which covered the grave.

He folded the blanket up as small as he could and tucked it inside his coat. It was to be used as an extra covering on the grave. He would drape it over the eight bodies interred there and then build more layers of earth over the blanket, ensuring once and for all that they were hidden from prying eyes. It was cold but, despite that, Harold could feel the beads of perspiration on his forehead and between his shoulder blades. He swallowed hard, checked everything one final time and then headed for the door of the hut.

Harold peered out, making sure that there was no one about, then he slipped around the side of the small building and was swallowed up in the shadows which formed so thickly at its rear. He walked to the low barbed wire fence and clambered over it, nearly slipping on some damp grass at the top of the ridge. It had stopped raining and the night air smelt crisp, filled with the aroma of wet grass. His hot breath formed small white clouds every time he exhaled and Harold was pleased when he finally reached the bottom of the ridge, almost slipping half way down. He walked across to the pylon and felt his feet sinking into the mud at its base – a testament to the comings and goings of men and machinery earlier in the day. He flicked on the torch and shone it over the ground, seeing the outline of heavy footprints in the soft soil.

There was not enough natural light for him to find his way so he kept the torch on.

Above him, the sky was a patchwork of clouds and stars. It looked like a canopy of soggy black velvet that someone had thrown a handful of sequins onto. There was a slight breeze, cold and just strong enough to send the clouds rolling across the dark backdrop.

Harold shone the torch down once more and saw where the fallen power cable had scorched the earth over a wide area. He didn’t know how many volts each of those massive overhead wires carried but it certainly had done some damage. The blackened grass and mud seemed to extend as far as thirty yards, perhaps more. He could pick out the tracks of the crane in the mud too and, close by, someone had dropped an empty cigarette packet. He kicked it aimlessly with the toe of his shoe and walked on, the breath now rasping in his throat. He was very close to the grave.

The boot marks and crane tracks ended abruptly and Harold realized that the men had not gone anywhere near to the hole. He moved on, slowing his pace some-what. He sucked in a shaking breath, the frosty air making his mouth and the back of his throat even drier. He tried to swallow but couldn’t. It felt as if his heart was trying to smash its way through his ribcage. He played the powerful torch beam over the area ahead of him, his boots creaking on the soft mud as he advanced.

Something pale gleamed in the shaft of light and Harold held the torch on it, moving forward with even more deliberate steps until he was at the spot which he knew so well.

“Oh God,” he croaked.

The bulbous head of one of the foetuses had been exposed when the constant rain had washed away the covering of earth. As Harold had feared, the top soil had been almost completely eroded and, as he shone the torch over the length of the grave, he saw that more of the tiny creatures lay virtually in the open, only the tiniest covering of mud hid them from view. He scratched his head in puzzlement. Even if the men from the electricity company hadn’t actually come as far as this, surely, he reasoned, they could not have avoided seeing the exposed bodies? The grass round about, what remained of it, was blackened so the cable had discharged its power into this part of the field too. How could they have missed the small grave? However, the important thing was that he was still undiscovered. He knelt, and scooped up a handful of wet earth, ready to cover the corpses once again.

But, looking down at the vile array of abortions which lay before him, something nagged at the back of his mind. He dropped the handful of soggy muck and frowned. It was something about the position of the creatures. Harold had buried them in a straight line and yet, three, perhaps more, were lying sideways now. One even lay spread-eagled across one of its unfortunate companions. The driving rain would have been enough to wash away the top soil but not to move the position of the foetuses. Had the men from the electricity board found them? Had he been reported? His mind suddenly began to race, his heart beat even faster. It would take maybe a day or two for the people at the hospital to discover that
he
was responsible. He would not know immediately that he had been found out. He began to shudder with cold and fear. What would they do to him? He clenched his fists, his confused mind searching for some-other answer.
Any
other answer. Perhaps animals had disturbed the grave. A fox? A badger perhaps? He picked up his torch and shone it over the nearest foetus, inspecting the small body for damage. The arms, the legs, the body were all untouched. Harold leaned closer, casting furtive eyes over the head. It looked swollen, mottled red and black in places, it appeared like a huge festering sore. The tiny mouth was open, pieces of mud clogging it. Harold reached forward with one shaking finger and brushed the muck away. The body looked so limp, not rigored as would be expected, but soft and malleable. Harold shone the torch close to it, prodding the skin with his fingers, mildly disgusted by its slimy softness. He was breathing hard now but his fear had been replaced, to some degree, by an appalling kind of curiosity. He prodded the tiny body with his fingers, even touching the torn, putrescent umbilicus for a second before returning his attention to its face. The stench which rose from the grave was almost overpowering, a cloying odour of decay which couldn’t even be driven away by the fresh breeze which sprang up but Harold didn’t seem to notice it. He shone the torch over the other bodies, some of which were in an advanced state of decomposition. Harold looked on them with a feeling akin to pity and, for long moments, he crouched in the mud gazing at the bodies, then, he took the blanket from his coat and laid it beside him. He decided to lay the foetuses back in their original position before completing the burial so he lifted the one nearest to him and placed it gently between two smaller specimens, one of which had already had its sightless eyes devoured by worms. Harold shuddered and hurried to complete his task. The smell, which he had not noticed before, suddenly seemed to be unbearable to him, filling his nostrils and making his head ache.

Each foetus he touched felt similarly cold and soft, the touch of their flesh on his fingers making him quiver violently. But, nevertheless, he completed his task, finally reaching for the body which he had first inspected. Puzzled once more by its position in the grave, Harold lifted it gently in order to replace it in the original space he had made for it. It seemed heavier than the rest and he guessed that it must have been aborted at a much later stage than the others. He lowered it gently into place and shone his torch over it one last time.

The foetus opened its eyes.

Harold’s body stiffened, his hand almost crushing the torch. It was as if thousands of volts of electricity were being pumped through him, the shock making him rigid. His single good eye bulged madly in the socket, he shook his head gently from side to side.

The foetus moved one arm, raising it slowly, as if soliciting help and Harold heard a low sucking sound as its mouth opened. A blob of black fluid appeared on its lip and trickled down its chin. The tiny chest heaved once then settled into a more rhythmic motion.

He kept the torch aimed at the thing, his entire body shaking uncontrollably.

To his left there was another low, liquid, noise which reminded him of asthmatic breathing only it was thicker, more mucoid and Harold swung the torch beam around. He began to mouth silent words as he saw a second foetus slithering awkwardly in the sticky ooze. It was smaller than the first one, its umbilicus moving tentacle-like, as it struggled in the slime.