Garbage Man (30 page)

‘Shit.'

‘Let me out, Mr. Smithfield. I've got you and your family this far. Let me out and I promise I'll tell you where Donald is.'

‘Richard, let him out, for heaven's sake. Those things are everywhere. They're coming!'

‘Christ.'

The locks flipped open and Mason jumped out before the man changed his mind. He slammed the door and the window slid down. Creatures converged on the car in front and behind. The road was half clogged by them already.

‘Where's our son, you maniac?'

Mason leaned down, caught each of their gazes for a moment.

‘I gave him to the fecalith so that all this could begin. I gave him for the new world, for this world to have a chance.'

Mrs. Smithfield's hands were over her mouth. Aggie's mouth was a black hole of shock. Mr. Smithfield, Mason could tell, was weighing up whether there was time to leap out of the car and beat him to death before the landfill army blocked the Volvo's escape route. There wasn't.

‘We're going to get through this and when we do, I'll be coming back for you, Mason Brand. Remember that.'

The window slipped shut as the car sped away. The space in the road was closing fast. Mr. Smithfield drove into the oncoming traffic lane to get past the creatures, running over limbs and pseudopodia and tearing open fragile bodies as he went. But the car made it through and Mason listened to its engine fading up the road for a long time.

Long enough that when he returned from the reverie to the moment, he found himself surrounded by the life forms born of the landfill.

21

The car was drivable but directing it demanded full concentration. One lapse and the BMW's responsive steering would swing the car off course. The tyre flapped around and occasional sparks came from the steel rim. Kevin knew the wheel would be heating up with the friction and pretty soon the sparks would be flying as though from an angle grinder. Then they were at risk of catching fire, of exploding.

‘Come
on
, just a little farther.'

He dropped his window and leaned out to see the damage. The car swiped around and he brought it back on track. They were down to fifteen miles an hour. The tyre came off altogether and was left behind in the road. A stray spark caught his cheek and stuck there, burning.

‘Fuck.'

He brushed it off. The car wobbled badly in response.

‘Okay, okay. Concentrate.'

Down to ten miles and hour. In his rear-view mirror he caught sight of something coming down the road behind them. He couldn't make it out clearly because the mirror was vibrating too hard.

‘Hold the mirror steady.' She didn't respond.

‘Tammy!'

She put a hand to the mirror and the image in it settled down. He wished he hadn't seen it.

Behind them taking up the whole road was a
flood
of landfill creatures, mostly in shiny black bin liner skins. It looked like some kind of mutant army hunting them down. The noise from the damaged wheel worsened, got louder.

Eight miles an hour. He stopped the car.

‘Get out.'

She didn't move.

He jumped out of the driver's side, crossed to hers and ripped the door open.

‘They're coming. Hundreds of them. If you don't get out and run, they'll have you.'

Still she rocked, not wanting to hear, not wanting to accept any of it.

‘Tammy, for fuck's sake, I'm going to leave you here if you don't get out of the car right now and come with me.'

When she didn't move he took hold of her hair and dragged her from the seat. He pointed her in the direction they'd come from.

‘See that? Quick, aren't they? You want to stay here, fine. I'm leaving.'

He turned and ran toward the college main gate. When he turned back she still hadn't moved. He ran back to her and took her hand.

‘Tamsin, I know it's over with us but we're still married. I don't want to see you die out here. They
will
kill you, you know. And they'll eat you. And then you'll be one of them. Is that what you want? Are you committing suicide?'

She looked into his eyes.

‘I'm sorry, Kevin. I've screwed everything up. Nothing ever made me happy, not even you.'

‘Make it up to me. Run with me. Will you do that?'

He pulled her and she came a few steps.

‘I can't. I killed our baby.'

The words didn't fit the situation. He didn't understand.

‘You did what?'

‘I was pregnant. It was our baby, Kevin. I killed it. I went to the hospital and they cut it out of me like it was cancer. I could never be a mother. The only thing I ever cared about was myself.'

The strength went out of Kevin as he understood what she was telling him and realised it was true. He remembered now all the nights she'd woken up sweating with a scream forming in her throat, how she'd cut the scream short as she reached consciousness. It had been so deep in the night he'd never really remembered it too clearly in the mornings but now he recalled, now that it mattered. Sometimes Tammy had mumbled through her nightmares.
Poor little baby
, she'd said that many times, hadn't she? And once:
why can't you just let it die?

Oh, Christ, not this. Not now.

This was not the time to be sorting out the past. If they didn't shift, there wouldn't be a future. All this - was it more of her lies? there was no way to tell - it had to wait until they were both safe. He had to make her move.

‘Tamsin, listen to me. Whatever happened, we can talk about it later. Right now we have to run.'

Still she stood there like a drugged lunatic.

‘Tammy, please. Come on, you're a competitive girl. Fight one more battle for supremacy with me. Race me to the front of the college. Think of the satisfaction you'll feel if you win. Then we can talk.'

She smiled through messed-up mascara and shrugged like it was a bet for a pound. Behind her the army of landfill creatures were coming up fast, some of them could run now, not well but well enough to cover ground efficiently.

Suddenly regaining herself, she broke first, tearing away like the cheat she always was. He didn't hesitate. Soon he was beside her, about to pass.

Unable to bear the idea that she might lose, she made it a sprint.

He rose to the challenge.

Some of the things behind them broke rank, running faster than the rest. Kevin, looking over his shoulder, saw them, humanoid cripples they were, but somehow powered by hunger and determination and ignorance of pain. They lumbered on their makeshift, cobbled-together legs.

And they gained ground.

Kevin could hear every kind of sound when their limbs impacted the pavement - cracks, slaps, knocks, judders, thumps. The fastest ones were only twenty yards behind them now. He gave it everything and powered past her knowing she'd have no choice but to give everything she had to the chase. He looked back again. She was only five paces behind him. It was a good two-hundred metres to the first of the front steps of the College. Another twenty bounds from there to reach the safety of the doors at the top of them.

He wanted to call to her, to scream encouragement, but he didn't have the spare breath. As he glanced back, he let her see his eyes and hoped his expression was enough. And then he pounded the pavement, pounded it like never before. His lungs were raw and sore and aching and a sharp pain dug upwards from under his ribs on the left side. He cursed every butt he'd ever tugged on but still he ran. Despite his lack of fitness, he was faster than Tammy. Maybe a simple competition was no longer enough to goad her. Perhaps he was more frightened than she was, had more reason to live. Jenny was waiting for him just a few more steps away; a few more seconds and he'd be holding her in his arms again and saving Tammy too.

He angled in from the main gate, leaning over to make the corner like a racing driver. He found new strength he didn't know he possessed, broke through into a new reserve of power. He gave it everything he had; heart and soul and pure animal instinct.

He was going to make it. He knew it.

He reached the bottom of the steps for the hardest part, the final upward dash. He took the steps three at a time. At the top he saw the faces watching through the steel-framed glass doors. They were urging him silently on, waiting to unlock the doors and let the pair of them through before slamming and locking them again straight away. Then he heard a scream and the slap of hands on concrete. With it the muffled click of something breaking. He could hear in her voice she wanted to make it now, he knew she wanted to survive. He looked back and Tammy was down. She'd tripped on the first step and was flat out on her front, already trying to lift herself up.

He reached the door as she lifted her face to him and he saw that she'd smacked her mouth on the corner of one of the steps. The impact had snapped her front teeth off at the gum line. Even with death as close as it was he could see in her eyes the disgust with her sudden ugliness. Her lips were lined red and glossy, but smudged. As she pulled herself upright he saw her stop and wince as the pain in her knees flared. She'd taken the rest of the force of the fall across both patellae as they smashed into the edge of a lower step.

There was time for Kevin to look forward again and see the many faces beyond the glass and the look of dismissal in every pair of eyes - she's history now - they were all thinking. But no, he could still go back for her. There was still time.

He turned away from the doors - doors opening to let him pass into safety and back to Jenny - and started back down the steps.

It was impossible.

The landfill army had arrived and there weren't hundreds, but thousands of them. And now that they were this close he could see how big they were. Some of them were twice the size of people, more like cows. They came on legs of timber, legs of steel. They scrabbled along like millipedes on the claws of a hundred hedgehogs. They ran on two legs, galloped on four. They waved their arms and tool-hands like winning ticket holders. They were here for the flesh that would allow them to add to themselves from the crud of Shreve, the crud of the world.

They had Tammy in their hooks and pincers before he could take another step.

As she disappeared among them he saw the nearest ones inspect her with eyes of flesh, eyes of glass, eyes of plastic. And then their cutters appeared, made from hedge trimmers and hacksaws, the tiny blades from inside food processors. They mobbed her for her limbs and organs, took them while she still breathed. Her softened manicured hands were snatched from her in a single shear, her eyes were sucked out, the tongue clipped out from deep in her throat and he found himself wondering,

Why? What the fuck do they need that for?

She wasn't enough for them. They tumbled up the steps towards him. Instead of moving he was simply thinking, considering. Was there any point in running and hiding any longer? Wouldn't it be easier if he just let them take him now?

Hands grabbed him and yanked him back through the doors before he could finish the train of thought, before the landfill creatures could finish it for him. The locks were flicked shut and the crowd of faces retreated from the door with his now safe among them. He collapsed to the floor, panting, all the strength haemorrhaging from him.

‘Kev. Oh, Kev.' Jenny held his head in her hands, cradled his face into her lap as she leaned over him. ‘I thought you weren't coming back.'

‘What just happened out there, Jen?'

‘I'm so sorry.'

‘Just tell me it didn't happen.' She held him tight.

‘I can't do that, Kev. This is real. All of it.'

‘But . . . Tammy . . . I mean, she was right there with me. She was right behind me and then . . . Christ, what have I done?'

‘You did everything you could. You risked yourself. You risked
us
, Kev. There was nothing more you could have given.'

‘I did it, Jen. I got her here. All the way here. But she . . . she just wouldn't try. It was like she didn't really want to make it.'

‘Maybe she didn't. Don't think about it now, love.'

‘What else is there to think about?'

‘Staying alive.'

‘Yeah, but for what? What's going to be left? They take everything.'

‘We're not going to give up, Kev. We're not.'

***

Ray reached Jimmy just as the guttering gave way.

The kid threw up his hands as he fell backwards and Ray caught hold of one of them. Jimmy steadied himself with the other hand as one foot landed back on the top step of the wall and the other slipped off the side. Jimmy grabbed the steak knife out of his mouth as though it would save his life.

‘Listen to me, Jimmy, and do exactly what I say. I'm going to haul you up here but you have to help me. On the count of three, you jump and pull yourself up with your free hand. I'll pull at the same time. Nothing to it. Talk to me, Jimmy.'

The kid just nodded, wide eyed. He could hear the things right behind him, scraping and scratching as they came.

‘One . . . two -'

‘No! It's got me. It's got my LEG.'

‘Shit.'

Ray let go and looked over the edge of the roof. The first creature did have the kid's calf in its grip - a claw made of rusted barbecue tongs. There couldn't have been much strength in it.

‘Hold on to the roof, Jimmy.'

Ray unsheathed the katana and aimed. He severed the thing's ‘arm' with one sure stroke. It released a pathetic shriek and recoiled, backing into the one behind it. There was a struggle and both landfill creatures fell off the wall into the bushes below. The remaining one moved forward eagerly to take their place. Ray sheathed the katana, feeling fairly impressed with himself, and reached out to the kid again.

‘Okay, here we go again, Jimmy. No hesitation this time. One, two,
three
.'