Dead in the Trunk: A Short Story Collection Read online

  A siren wailed in the distance, but it didn’t matter now. The rain was tapering off. She’d got wet, but the border was almost finished. The rain pattered on her soaking head. She pushed herself up as the red and blue lights washed over the drenched pavement and glistening tarmac of the Avenue. A few faces at the windows opposite peeked out into the petering rain. A police officer approached her carefully, speaking in a low voice, 'Put it down, ma’am, on the grass.'

  She obliged. She dropped it into the basket, on top of the weeds. She pulled her gloves off, and dropped those too.

  Turning her hands this way and that, as the last of the rain fell and the wind, as if lonely, wailed once and died, she noted with pleasure that her hands were clean, still.

  A little puckered, from the deluge, a few calluses, but her nails were perfect, her skin firm and the tan remained from her last trip. Cleansed, she put her hands up in a gesture of submission, just as she had been doing for the last eleven years. Clean hands, cared for hands, with not a drop of blood on them.

  *

  Here's a blast from the past - this, dear long time reader, is my first ever short story. It wasn't my first foray into the writer's life, but it's close to my heart. My first short story, and my first publication, too, in the now defunct magazine 'Impressions Publishing'. I was pretty chuffed at the time, thought I was the bee's knees - although I think the site was a scam, it gave me the confidence to continue on. For that, I will be eternally grateful. It is also, I might add, the first tale I ever wrote set in the world of Rythe.

  The Martyr’s Tale

  My story begins the same for each death. I watch, and I am constant in my habits. I take the work that suits me, and work for money and food as much as pride. The sky is suitably grey today and rain runs from the corners of my hat. On a roof I sit to watch my work in progress. Other rooftops are similarly mounted with observers. Today is a special day. The day my work goes public.

  In the square below stands a podium. On this podium stands a man, the public speaker. I watch the rapt faces of his followers as he raises his hands and starts to speak. People on roofs and in the square grow silent. The speech begins.

  The throng lies under a hush blanket and a resonant voice rings out, loud enough to be heard over the drone of rain and murmur. It has begun and will end sooner than anticipated. But this is well for I should not stay to gloat.

  *

  In my world joy is reserved. Tables are never turned and there is no champion of the people. I am the closest thing to hope most people have.

  *

  The rain fell on and the crowd paid it no attention. The speaker continued, and for the second time in my life I belonged to something larger than myself. The first joined in torture and this second joined in rapture. He spoke of dreams I had never dreamt, of life with purpose and equal measures of life even for those who could not afford it. The people loved him and I could sense their love, was lifted by it. I could not see the faces through the haze of rain but I could see the speaker stood alone, speaking words unguarded – sometimes, even words need a chaperon. The words that raised hope and brought the low high had also brought me here.

  *

  Before my birth I had a dream. Subtle death waits for those men who disobey the Slavemaster. Torture is reserved for his favourites only – I am a busy man, he would say, as he removed your bones. He hoped you appreciated the attention you received. Sometimes an apprentice would suture the boneless shell of an arm or a leg. Sometimes the favoured were left to their own devices, teeth and nail and anything that could cut to excise the dead flesh.

  Sometimes death was subtle and sometimes death was silent. Mostly, though, in that place, it was a sombre, sobbing death, waiting in the wings while the authors of its legacy carried out their work, and the victims subsided, defiled and worn and crying for their mothers and for the pleasure of the demons watching. Mostly, it seemed to me, death came slow and languid while lives played out in dark corners populated by despair.

  It took me two years to escape that place. I was not favoured and I was not killed. But I feel death in me now, taking me slowly. I know I am favoured by death. He is sparing me his time and for that I am grateful.

  When at last I die, he will not keep me waiting.

  It is good to know.

  *

  The man on the podium is dead. I killed him last night.

  *

  I refuse to leave the suffering behind. Perhaps this one disclaimer in my work was born from my incarceration, perhaps from the one undying part of my life before, when all I knew of pain had been learned from others. Once, not long free from tortured souls outside my own, I had killed a woman. On my way to kill a man. I do not know if he deserved to die but I was paid and the job was done. I killed the woman with a knife, and impolitely she insisted on showing me her eyes. Ordinarily I do not watch. It seems impolite should I see death at work, and while I know he watches me we have not yet such rapport that I should receive the honour.

  I watched the life leave her eyes and always surprisingly a mere trickle of blood escaped the wound as arteries held their dying blood, and breath abated. The woman died and I carried out my work. Untouched.

  I returned unhurried leaving the man dead above. As I retraced my steps, in the knowledge that the passage would be clear, I passed the woman’s body. Still warm, her long dark hair fanned across the floor of the room, and I noticed, pleased, that I had not cause her to vacate, at least a little dignity in the husk remaining. I noticed a kitchen through an opening. Perhaps she had been a house slave. Drifting on the warm air came muffled sound.

  I could still hear a boyish crying as I left.

  Sometimes I am misinformed. I kill extras, I still get paid. The detritus make no difference in my line of work. I imagine death feels much the same regardless of my intentions. I left the house that day disbelieving at the guilt I felt. I had killed that boy’s mother, leaving a grieving boy, a soulless shell like me. To leave the dead was noble work. To leave the suffering, that was torture.

  That night I slept alone and dreamed of prison.

  The following morning I returned and killed the boy. I slept untroubled sleep thereafter.

  *

  The man on the podium spoke truths I knew. He spoke of union. The people joined in murmurs of agreement, he spoke of solace and silence reigned as thoughts inverted. He spoke of pride and shame rose unbidden in me. I thought at times he knew me and talked directly to my conscience. I do not think anyone else could have found it, long since withered as it was. He had a talent, for when he spoke he spoke to me, as he spoke to all those gathered.

  Watching closely now, the great man, for he was a great man, faltered and stumbled. He stood straight one last time and looked ahead.

  'I am killed', I heard over the increasing roar of disbelief. He raised his hands for silence one last time and fell forward. His last words would be interred with him. His body hit the wooden flooring, slick from rain, and slipped toward the circling crowd. He fell but no-one rose to take his place.

  *

  With word of love to a land of slaves the man spoke of freedom and higher ideals than gain. An unholy man he asked no donations, he asked no succour of his younger followers and I feared were I close enough I would see a smile pass his eyes as he died. That day a revolution was born, which I had murdered.

  I thought about what he said and felt.

  *

  My tears, subdued for unknown years, emerged renewed. Below me the crowded street was filled with wails of mourning for a man they had hardly known. And I too felt sad. Sadness welled up inside my walls and engulfed my spirit, pushing it to the surface. I had my final victory and in my pride fell undone. I had killed hope in my arrogance and fallen from grace. Before my death I realised that even death could not kill words and emerge unscathed.

  From my rooftop perch my body flew to the stones below.

  *

  The darkness thickened behind me and I turned to face death
. Light shied away, creating a corona around my kindred. Wordlessly he asked.

  I nodded.

  ‘Take me’, I said.

  *

  Indie publishing reason 111: This story was under consideration with McSweeney's for one whole year. I published it, in the end, in a collection entitled 'Dead in the Trunk' in about five minutes. I didn't need to put it under consideration. I like it just fine.

  The Allotment of Time

  Harold’s allotment were strange. The old boys from the estate, and even those from away (George Compton came from the next village and Harrison came ten miles every Saturday and Sunday), didn’t pay it much mind. Us local boys kept to ourselves, but we was the core. I don’t know what we was, but we held the centre, kept the allotments going. We was, perhaps, its heart…with many of us getting on in years, glancing at the wrong side of twilight with a jaundiced eye, the right words often desert us.

  And too often for comfort, bladder control, supple-ality (I’m fairly sure that’s not a word, but I can’t quite seem to find the right one for that, neither), and you know, other parts that don’t work, not like you read about in those bulging-jodhpur-bouncing-cleavage novels like Mabel used to read, but we’ll skip that part.

  I’ve got corns, an aching back that’s stooped and creaky…you’ll know yourself one day. Seems like there’s plenty of young-uns walking around town these days, but just as many of us, the golden generation, ticking along as we’ve always done.

  But old folk’s minds do wander some. I was telling you about Harold’s allotment, and in a roundabout way that Saturday in March, back in oh, let’s see, 1983’s what I want to say…still, I don’t suppose it matters. Anyway, that was the day the rain fell sideways and we didn’t get wet…but that’s for later.

  My mind’s apt to wander somewhat, but it don’t matter. I’ll get there in the end. I’ve got me some time now.

  So there’s me (well, that’s pretty obvious, if I weren’t here you wouldn’t be hearing about all this. Mabel was always saying I got the knack for stating the obvious. She did get her knickers in a twist sometimes, but she had me pegged right enough), then there’s Arthur from the lower end of town, up the street, Tom, and William. He likes to be called Bill but that’s just nonsense. The old fool just don’t know when a man’s a Bill and when a man’s a William. Bill’s a warm fella, with a bit of a sense of humour and maybe he likes a drink on a Friday night, maybe he don’t. A William lives in a big old house, drives a foreign car and smokes a pipe. William’s William, he’s just too up his own arse to know it himself.

  What? Nope, it ain’t swearing, son, not if I’m telling a story, so don’t you go blabbing to your mother about it and I won’t tell her you’re sweet on Lizzie Thornton…and don’t go giving me that look, or I won’t tell my story.

  Right? Right then.

  Now, don’t get me wrong, William’s not a bad fella, just misguided. I don’t mind a man who’s done well for himself, just don’t try to be the same old boss, that’s what I always say. He got himself an education, too, back when he was a young-un, and an education’ll get you in trouble faster than a loose girl and one over the eight. Gets in the way of thinking, does an education.

  Ahem, still, you wouldn’t know about that…never mind what a loose girl is. My mind just ran away with me, is all.

  I’m not one to put a man down, though. He stood up just right as rain that day in March, right along with me and Arthur and Tom. He was a bit droopy, mentally, you know, just for a while there…but then that were to be expected.

  So, as I were saying, Harold’s Allotment.

  It weren’t nothing you could put a finger on. His eggplants were purple, his potatoes came up in the right shape, his carrots smelled sweet as (he gave me a bunch once, and Mabel said they were the sweetest carrots she’d ever had. I wouldn’t disagree). He grew runner beans and they were long and if there were a slightly darker green than what’d pass as normal who’d know but us?

  It was just the little things. I never did see a weed in that allotment. I saw Harold working the earth, and I watched, and sometimes he seemed to be weeding. His compost heap had weeds on it, but Harold didn’t never have a weed in that box of his, and I never saw him pull one out.

  His knees weren’t never dirty, neither. He weren’t never wet. He wore a waterproof jacket when it rained, but his hair, which stuck up wild, didn’t lay flat even when god was bowling a fast one from the skies.

  Just the little things, see?

  Well, maybe not so little. But on their own, they don’t make much of a dent. It’s just that, that March, we was all watching a little bit closer, talking a little more than normal, perhaps, and maybe, just maybe, a little more open.

  I’d had a heart attack that winter, just after Christmas dinner, which I was thankful for as it didn’t spoil my dinner none. I love my turkey. It wouldn’t be no understatement to say I look forward to that meal the whole year long. It was a cracker, alright. Put me in the hospital for a week, and made me see the light. Not in a holy way, I’m not saying I saw god or nothing like that. Just the opposite. When I died (they told me I’d died in the ambulance – I can’t say I was aware of it myself) I saw the darkness that lay beyond this life. Sounds a bit melodramatic…nope, I’m not saying your mother’s wrong on that count, that’s just what I saw. Now, shush and let me get to telling you…I’m not one to wax lyrical about stuff like that, and I don’t go to church and I don’t read much outside of the toilet, but I believe I saw what comes after this life. There weren’t no bright shining light. There weren’t no angels, no tunnel, no god. All there was was darkness. It scared me more than the pain in my chest, and that more than anything else made me realise there’s no afterlife, just death and the dark arms of the earth waiting for us when we pass along. But that’s just what I think, and you don’t have to take my word for it. Maybe your mother’s right, and maybe she ain’t. A fella’s got to make up his own mind that account.

  Jesus, I’m getting misty and not because I love you. I was scared then, and I’m scared now. But not as scared, and I’ll tell you why. It’s because of a little thing called the allotment of time. It’s beyond me. Old William reckons he understands it, but I reckon he’s fooling himself into thinking so. You can ask him if you want.

  What I think is that there’s no understand some things, like time and death and god and love. There’s just knowing. I know and that’ll have to be good enough.

  I found out one day while the rain fell sideways and the clouds rolled heavy in the sky, black and dark, which, contrary to popular belief, are not the same thing. It weren’t a thunder kind of storm, it was too busy raining to bother with flashing and cracking. That would have been a relief. We would have known then that the end was in sight, but this was the kind of rain that had its feet under the table and its flat cap hanging from the hat stand.

  I was soaked, so when Tom…yeah, you know Tom…that’s the one, although I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t tell your mother I do more than sup a few on Friday’s with him…Tom motioned me over with a thick brown finger from the cover of his shed. I hung my shoulders on my ears and trudged through the long grass on the path toward him. When I got there Arthur and William were inside, sipping on coffee from Tom’s ever present thermos.

  'Shake yourself off,' he said, and I did. He didn’t have a heater in there and it was cold enough still to shrivel my ba…erm, fingers, but just to be out of the rain was a relief. I tell you, when you’re out in rain like that, you take what relief you can get. You mightn’t be able to get in out of the rain, but a handy shed or tree can be a lifesaver, ‘specially when you get to my age.

  'Chucking it down like a bastard, in’t it?' I said. Don’t give me that look. It’s a story, see? I can say what I want. Anyway, I’ve a knack for the obvious. Perhaps that’s why I’m still going, even after what we saw that day.

  'Have a cuppa,' said Tom, who pulled a dusty mug out from a shelf. His big old kind face, looks a little li
ke a shovel, you know? Sounds unkind, yeah, I guess your right.

  'You’re a saint, Tom, and don’t let no bugger tell you diff’rent,' I said.

  He smiled and poured. I drank some. It was strong, and I knew if I finished it off I’d need a crap pretty soon after, but it was hot and beggars can’t be choosers, as my old mum was fond of saying till she passed ten years ago at the age of 96, never having begged for a thing in all her years.

  'Wha'cha reckon? Is it gonna stop?' Arthur said, around a biscuit he discovered in the recesses of his rain mac. You know Arthur. Loves a biscuit, that man.

  'Don’t look like it, Arthur. I reckon it’s here to stay,' I said, and took another sip of that dangerous brew. My guts was a bit more tender in them days than they are now. I just carried on like it weren’t bothering me at all.

  I looked out from the shed across the allotments then, to where Harold was out in the rain.

  'Lookit that bugger,' I said. 'You’d think his hair was made of wire.'

  'No telling some people. I asked him over, but he said, would you believe it, ‘The rain doesn’t bother me, William. You just have to be there when the rain isn’t’. Now, I ask you, what is that supposed to mean?'

  Good, I can see you’re listening, because this is getting to the important part.

  Well, I shrugged with my face and looked him in the eye as I spoke. 'He’s a weird one, right enough. I asked him the other day how he got his beans so big last year, and like one of those little zen Japs he sez to me, ‘It’s just a matter of time…summertime,' he sez, like that were s’posed to make some kind of sense. Daft old bugger. Lookit ‘im, weeding in this rain.'

  '’is tomatoes is pretty damn tasty, though. Took me some home last year, tastiest tomatoes I’d ever had. Big, too. Bigger than me own fist,' said Arthur, as he was wiping crumbs from his scraggly yellowed beard. He’d grown it when his wife had passed on. Now it was all tobacco stained and I’d bet my left nut he’d not washed it since then, neither.