Damned If You Do (29 page)

More importantly, I had a single, overpowering wish which rendered all other decisions irrelevant; a wish that had caused me to sit here for the whole evening, wondering how I could achieve it.

I wanted to live.

But I couldn't see a way out. I was bound by contract and the options were clear: apprenticeship (unlikely), termination (undesirable), or storage (unknown). For four hours, I'd been trying to think of a plausible alternative. But there wasn't one.

Skirmish was my last hope.

*   *   *

There was a polite knock on the door.

‘Who is it?'

‘Pestilence.'

‘
And
Skirmish.'

I remained seated. At the bottom of the deep well inside me, a drop of water fell.
If you can't move, open your mouth.

‘Come in.'

The door opened. Pestilence entered, supporting War's assistant by the arms. Skirmish looked slightly drunk, heaving into the room and flopping onto the lower bunk, laughing all the while. It was only when he finally managed to keep still for a couple of seconds that I saw the huge, strawberry-coloured abscess on his forehead.

‘My friend here,' said Pestilence slimily, ‘has been helping with a little experiment. He should be fine by the morning – though you can never be sure, of course.' I had a question gnawing at the back of my mind, but it refused to emerge from its hiding place, and I decided it could wait until tomorrow. ‘It's a new range of boils,' he continued, ‘caused by a new strain of staphylococcus. The details are absolutely fascinating – but I'm afraid I don't have the time to discuss them right now.'

He stared at me briefly, perhaps anticipating that I would ask him anyway, or (better still) beg him to tell me. When I offered no response, he tutted loudly, turned sharply, and left.

‘He's an idiot,' said Skirmish, when the door closed. ‘They all are. People's lives are in the hands of morons.'

‘How are you feeling?'

‘Like shit pushed through a mincer.' He touched the boil and winced. ‘He sneaked up on me in the office. I was on level nine on Tetris, so I didn't pay him much attention. Bastard stuck a needle in my arm, and then apologized. Said the element of surprise was vital.' He stroked his forearm absent-mindedly. ‘Worst thing was, I'd almost beaten my high score.'

I stood up, walked to the table by the rear window, looked down at the canal. I couldn't wait any longer. ‘Do you remember what we were discussing this morning?'

‘We talked about a lot of things.'

I turned around. His face was serious. I couldn't decide if he was being deliberately obtuse, or had simply forgotten.

‘I need to get out of here,' I said.

He smiled, approached the table, and for one brief, bizarre moment I thought he was actually going to kill me. Instead he asked me to stand aside, picked up the blue glass ornament in the shape of a swan, and turned it over. With his thick thumb and forefinger he reached into the hollow base and plucked out an ampoule of clear liquid. He placed it on his palm and offered it to me.

‘What's this?'

‘Batch zero-three-stroke-ninety-nine.' He closed his palm, teasingly. ‘I borrowed it from the Lab a few weeks ago. It's powerful stuff.'

I looked at him questioningly. ‘And?'

‘It's the Chief's finest achievement. Just one drop will kill anything – alive or undead – in seconds.' He tossed it into the air over his shoulder, and deftly caught it behind his back. ‘We mainly use it on our own Agents. Sometimes they get rebellious, or start itching to live again, or they just turn bad and go on the rampage. There are many temptations when you're out in the field.' His expression turned sour. ‘But the consequences can be disastrous for the Agency. And rogue Agents need to be put out of action.'

‘I don't see your point.'

‘Of course not.' He smiled wryly. ‘Let me make it clear. What I'm asking you for is … a favour. And in return, I can do one for you.' He opened his palm again, this time letting me take the ampoule. I realized, belatedly, that it matched those I had seen on Tuesday in the Lab. ‘Tomorrow, when Death delivers his appraisal of your performance, he'll share a drink with you. It's tradition.' I studied the liquid: it looked completely harmless. ‘All you need to do is break the seal, empty a little liquid into his glass, and you're free.'

I couldn't believe what he was implying. I stepped away from him, dangerously close to the damaged cactus.

‘Are you saying what I think you're saying?' He inclined his head slightly in what may, or may not, have been a nod. A flood of adrenaline surged through me. ‘What about the consequences? What about the future?' And a small, selfish urge surfaced: ‘What about my contract?'

‘No-one has seen your contract since Wednesday morning. Perhaps you've been lucky. Perhaps it's been lost…' he added suggestively. He offered to take back the ampoule, but I held on to it. ‘Besides, the Agency will have more pressing things to do than launch a zombie hunt … And I can always
swear
on my badge that Death put you back in the coffin before he was killed.'

I doubted this, but I could find no holes in his argument. Besides, I didn't have much choice.

‘What's in it for you?'

‘Immediate promotion,' he said simply. ‘With both of you out of the way, I'll be in line for a senior position.'

I turned to the window again, clinging to the magic potion in my hand. The drop of water dripping into the well inside me became a trickle, became a stream, became a flood.

‘I can't do it,' I protested.

He placed a sympathetic hand on my shoulder. ‘It's the only solution, if you want to get out of here … I wish there was a better one.'

 

 

Damned if you do

This is the corpses' creed:

I am nothing. I have nothing to offer, I have nothing to say. I define myself with silence, by inaction, through hopelessness. I will restrain every pointless atom of my being until I achieve permanent paralysis and sterility. I will do nothing, think nothing, believe nothing; and I wish only for the continuation of this powerless condition.

I mouthed these words as I examined myself in the mirror on the back of the wardrobe door. Skirmish was dozing peacefully on the top bunk, undisturbed by my activity or the pale dawn light filtering into the room through the open curtain. I hadn't slept much, having spent most of the night considering his offer very carefully. The silence and darkness had focused my mind, but I'd failed to reach a firm decision.

I am nothing.

In the mirror I saw a man. He was naked. He stood on two clumsy wedges of flesh, terminating in eight skinny toes. Bony shins bent outwards from the ankles to the knees; thin thighs bent inwards from the knees to the waist. The pale skin of his pin-cushion legs was stitched with coarse black hairs, running upwards to the pubic triangle, in which a loose, useless stump of a penis nestled. The withered belly was a mouldy grey fruit of flesh in which his navel, that mocking reminder of his birth, was nothing more than a shadow. Above it, the wasted chest was a deflated life-belt punctured by dozens of cactus wounds, and adorned with two small, white nipples like plastic mouthpieces. Hard collar bones curved against the slope of drooping shoulders, forging a triangle of skin below the scrawny neck. From an ape's hairy arms a pair of slender, blue-veined hands hung, lacking two fingers and a thumb. The entire body was criss-crossed with thick, black surgical thread, disguising a network of angry red scars arranged in bite-shaped arcs.

I am nothing.

His face was sad and weary.

I am nothing.

The man moved closer to the surface of the mirror. His head was deathly grey. The chin was unshaven, and disfigured by a raw, red wound at the centre. The lips were pale and thin, and broken by creases and cracks. The nose was sharp like a rat's, cratered with pores, blemished by bruising. The eyes were reptilian creatures cowering in caves of bone. The man's ears clung to the side of the head like rock-climbers, one higher than the other. Scattered patches of short, black hair crept up to his crown like iron filings drawn to a magnet.

On the left side of his neck, a number was stamped: 7218911121349.

I am nothing.

*   *   *

After showering and disposing of my body's waste, I selected the last remaining clothes from the wardrobe: boxer shorts decorated with pink roses, pink socks with a grey porpoise motif, and a plain pink T-shirt with the slogan
DAMNED IF YOU DO
printed on the front, and
DAMNED IF YOU DON'T
on the back. I put on my blue suit and white shoes, popped Skirmish's ampoule into my inner jacket pocket, and checked the mirror for the final time.

I saw a zombie. I saw me.

*   *   *

On the way to the breakfast room I was surprised to find Pestilence walking towards the front door. Seven white cardboard boxes were wedged between his hands and his chin, and he was stepping very carefully.

‘Love to talk,' he said, teeth clenched, ‘but can't stop.'

‘What's in the boxes?' I asked.

‘New virus. Batch zero-nine-stroke-ninety-nine.' He lifted his head from the uppermost package, balancing the column against his chest. ‘That's better. I can speak properly now.' He jiggled his lower jaw to prove it. ‘It's based on the contusion experiments I conducted earlier in the week. I think we've finally found the right formula. Massive bleeding … Rapid spread … Potentially fatal … Probably as many as one in a hundred cases…'

He continued in this vein for several more minutes, until I remembered the question I had wanted to ask him the previous night.

‘What happened to the disease we released on Tuesday?'

He frowned, annoyed at the interruption. ‘A complete and utter
failure,
I'm afraid. Our clients remain sickeningly healthy.' He gave me a look of contempt. ‘Pity, really. The Chief had been working on it for years. It would have been a truly spectacular way to start the next millennium.'

‘Nothing you can do,' I said.

‘Indeed.' He lowered his chin again. ‘Now, would you be so kind as to open the door for me?'

I squeezed past him and complied with his request. Pale sunlight broke through the doorway, intensifying the contrast between the pallor of his complexion and an overnight onslaught of acne. He looked terrible, and I told him so, intending it as a compliment.

‘You look as bad as I've ever seen you,' I said.

‘You look like Death warmed up,' he replied.

*   *   *

No-one else was awake, and I ate breakfast alone. I found a couple of brown bananas and a half-opened carton of yoghurt in the fridge, and devoured them eagerly whilst standing at the window. Apart from Pestilence and a couple of early-morning joggers, I saw no-one.

I was about to return to my room when Death walked in, wearing his grey kimono and velvet slippers.

‘Hello. You're up early.'

‘I couldn't sleep.'

‘Uh-huh.' He stared intensely at me. ‘How are you feeling?'

‘Fine.' I meant it. ‘What time do we start?'

He didn't answer immediately, but went into the kitchen. I heard him mumble something excitedly, as if he was speaking to a child. He was answered by high-pitched squeaks and the rattling of cage bars. A moment later, he appeared behind the saloon doors, only his feet, chest and head visible.

‘I've been thinking,' he said slowly. ‘Today's client … it's a pretty gruesome affair. Don't ask me
why
it has to be that way – we
could
arrange for him to pass away peacefully in his sleep. But the Chief wants something special.' He shook his head. ‘I'm told it's the person who saw Hades being killed two months ago. The Chief says his termination will solve some problems and tie things up neatly…' He lowered his voice. ‘Anyway, this is all irrelevant. My thought was: why don't you have the day off? I can easily handle things on my own.'

We discussed it a little more, and I briefly considered what effect it would have on my slim chances of continued employment, but in truth I was glad. It was increasingly likely that I would finish the day back in the coffin, and there were a couple of things I wanted to do first:

I had to discover whether my parents were still alive.

I needed time to think.

*   *   *

After explaining my plans to Death I returned to the room, where Skirmish was still in bed, snoring quietly. His diagonally-striped duvet had ridden up his legs.

I poked his arm. He grunted, and turned over.

‘I'm going for a walk. Can I borrow your front-door key?' I whispered.

He grunted again – a sound which was far from an agreement, but even further from a denial. Since I didn't have time to probe further, and since I probably wouldn't be seeing him again anyway, I took his answer to be a
yes.
The key was lying on the desk.