The Maggot People (10 page)

“No.”

“Oh, but you will do it. You will not like doing it, but if you fail to do it I shall instruct one of my little ones to impale your brain…” She nodded to his left and Michael saw that one of the fur-coated children had raised a long spike towards the top of his neck, holding a little bronze mallet in the other with which to drive it home. Her tiny face had taken on a concentrated quality, and he realised this must be one of her special skills, something she had been schooled to do.

The tip of the spike certainly looked sharp enough to penetrate bone and effortlessly slide through a soft sack of membranes.

“Now that your training has begun you will be expected to kill a great many of these cute little things, Michael. You will be surprised at yourself. You will learn to accept it. You will learn to sleep easy in spite of all your disgusting deeds.”

He glanced nervously at the twisted child behind him, worried that she might take the initiative. It probably would not hurt very much, he reflected. There would be a very brief pain that was not really a pain, more like a high-energy particle beam blinding one. Great pain overwhelms the senses, he had read somewhere. The small troubles of life, a grazed knee, a broken tooth, a scratched retina, these were the painful things. But a skewer through the brain might even be pleasurable, if handled expertly.

Michael raised his gun and considered the possibility of disobeying her and giving up the ghost. In the end he listened to a deeper, protesting voice telling him to do what she said. Was this the selfish ego she had spoken of, prompted by fear?

The barrel was equipped with a silencer. It made hardly a noise, only a sort of thud that he recognized from countless American films. It was much easier than he had thought.

The soft-nosed bullet shredded it utterly, leaving a trail of blood and gore. One moment there was a puppy there, jumping about. And then there was no puppy.

As soon as he'd fired the weapon and completed his task, one of the fur-robed girls tottered up to him and took his weapon away.

With a hum, the glass tube sank back into its recess in the floor. Mama Maggot stood up. “And so, Michael, now it is time to ask ourselves the question; is it more painless to die cleanly than it is to live in pain?”

“I don't know.”

“Oh, but I think you are beginning to learn. I didn't know you were such a good boy, Michael. I suspected that I would never see you again outside this room. I suspected it.” She smiled as if she was pleased that she'd be seeing an awful lot more of him. Pursing her lips, she continued: “
I don't know what you're repressing, you ought to just feel it and do it… you know? Feel it and do it, in that order. You know why? Because you're okay, that's why.”

When he heard his own words repeated to him, he looked up and was properly afraid for the first time.

18
.

After a few days of training, Michael was again woken one night at about two or three. Janine was standing over him, insistently shaking his shoulder.

“What
is
this place?” he grumbled. “The house of no sleep?”

“You're not shooting dogs tonight,” said Janine with a troubled gaze.

Nervously he put on a clean white robe hanging on the door, then followed her outside. Dim solar powered lamps marked out the path down to the main house, but Janine climbed the hill and he followed without question.

Fifty meters below, they could make out the lit-up, screened-off terrace, where an orgy was in process. A band was playing flutes, sitars, cymbals, and tabla drums.

“So these five people have been tricked? They're being maggotized?” he said.

“They're being co-opted, yes.”

“Is that
kind?”

“Kind.” She stared at him, shaking her head at his baffling stupidity. “I don't think your training is working. What kind of sugar-coated Disneyland do you live in?”

“I think it's just called normal life.”

“Ha! There's no normal life for you, my friend. Not anymore.”

“I'm not your friend. And you're not mine. Not after what you did to me.”

“What did I do?”

“You brought me here.”

They smoked in silence, watching as the Tantric ceremony below reached its apogee, with wails and frantic drumming. “I suppose,” said Janine, who seemed to feel she had to qualify his accusation, “we all have to deal with our mortality, whatever we are: maggot people, flesh-heads, fuckwits, normals. We're all in the same boat. Look around you; look at the world full of people sleeping their way through life. When they die it scarcely matters because they weren't really born in the first place and they never opened their eyes. You're awake, you could try to be happy about it. And I'm wide awake and I have no intention of dying.”

“That's just selfish.”

She stood up and stubbed out her cigarette. “Idealist. Come on.” She led him down the hill. “Where are we going?”

“Sorry. She asked for you,” said Janine, racing backwards into her obscure universe of self-justification.

They came to a circular stone building without windows. Mama Maggot was standing outside. She took a key from her pocket and unlocked a sturdy wooden door leading into what looked like a brewery. There was a large metal tank with a thick Perspex cover and a system of pipes and filters leading up through the ceiling. The tank was full to the rim with white, churning maggots. Beyond the faint hum of generators and fans, one could just about make out the slight hissing sound of their bodies rubbing together.

Michael shivered: he would have liked to pour gasoline on them and torch the little bastards.

“Hear that?” said Mama. “In spite of all your aggression, your hatred and your vengeance, I'll explain it to you. This is actually the song of the maggot. Shakespeare knew it well. He eulogized the maggot; it was the great leveler to him. He referred to it as
the worm;
did you know that?”

“Sort of,” said Michael.

“To Shakespeare the worm was always a symbol of what lies beyond. And the ultimate meaningless of anything we try to do on this Earth. Whether we're kings or paupers there will always be a worm waiting for us, even from the very moment of our birth. You, for instance; as usual your mind is absorbed with self-importance. But do you have any idea of how long you are destined to stay here among us?”

“No one does.”

“That's right. No one does. Only I know. I know how much time should be allotted to everyone and that is why people do what I tell them to do. I make a judgment on their viability.” Her fish-eyes revolved as she chuckled and held up a key. “In our group we refer to this as the
passepartout
, the master key. Shall I show you why?” She smiled with genuine amusement. “For goodness sake don't be so afraid, Michael; it's only your little life at stake, your little ego. The world will still be here after you've gone.” He felt his hackles rise, but before he could say anything, she put her hand on his wrist and squeezed. “If you want to live, Michael, do what I say. And don't use bad language.”

“I didn't say anything.”

“Bad thoughts are a hundred times worse than words and you are a very transparent sort. Also a very lucky one. You're due for renewal and I'm going to give it to you.”

“Renewal?”

“Shut up,” said Janine. “Listen to her.”

“There's a cycle,” said Mama. “So we've learnt to breed the maggots and keep them in perfect condition.” She walked over to the vat and peered inside with an expert eye. “This batch is perfect. Very young and pristine, very healthy, with a life expectancy of around fifteen years. Are you interested, Michael?”

He flushed. “I'm not getting this. What do I have to do?”

She grabbed him by the neck. “Look, my friend. I've got the measure of you, I know how to determine a person when I see him and you don't have much time, you've used up too much of it with all your narcotics and drink. In a month or two they'll stop moving inside you and then you'll be gone. Why do you think Janine is still alive?” She looked across at Janine, who grew pale. “Because she does what we say and we reward her.”

There was a long silence with nothing but the indistinct hissing from the vat, which seemed to be growing in intensity. Michael peered over at Janine, standing to one side with her face deferentially turned to the ground.

“So. What I'd like you to do now is undress and come here.”

Janine whispered urgently: “Hurry up!”

Michael took off his robe and left it folded on the floor.

To one side of the vat was a strange adjustable rack, with two padded, curved prongs that fitted comfortably round one's neck. Michael reversed into it, and Mama adjusted the height of the prong so that it held his cranium tightly. There was a metal-tipped nozzle attached to a heavy duty rubber hose, which she sprayed with some sort of lubricant, then fed it unceremoniously into his anal cavity.

“What a nice uncorrupted young man.” Mama sniggered at Janine. “His sphincter's like a rubber band…”

A machine was turned on—like a vacuum cleaner. He felt his innards gently sucked out until he hung there by the neck like a rag doll. Within seconds his brain grew light and ethereal and he sensed the eternal emptiness whispering at him. Through his fatigue and desperation he saw Mama's face looming before him.

“Now tell me you love me,” she said. “Tell me you love me and I will hold that as a mark of your allegiance.”

Michael tried to open his mouth, but the muscles refused to work. He managed to push some air out and make a croaking sound, which seemed to satisfy her though she took her time about it and raised her eyebrows pointedly as she made her way over to an instrument panel and flicked a switch. A bubbling stream of maggots filled him, maggots fresh and bursting with life; maggots intent on breathing, feeding and propagating.

Michael opened his mouth and took a breath, like someone surfacing from under water. “Thank God,” he said.

“You have to thank Mama for the life you have,” Janine corrected him, with a servile look at her mistress.

Once he'd been refilled, Mama checked a gauge to make sure the pressure was correct, then pulled out the nozzle.

“Now for the cakes and ale, dear boy. You must spend the night with a meat-girl and induct her. We've kept one by for you and you have to lie with her tonight. If you don't, you won't survive. You're stuffed with vibrant new maggots intent on life and they'll have what they want even if you do rather make a point of avoiding your own desires.”

He wanted to run at her and beat her with his fists, then stamp her into the ground.

For the first time, Mama Maggot seemed to find his rebelliousness amusing. She had a slightly magisterial tone: “Listen carefully now. Injecting yourself with heroin won't help at this point; they're far too libidinous. So stay off the dope for a few days.”

“This is a bloody disgrace.”

“Oh, no doubt about it,” said Mama, with a wry smile. “Except there's no blood with us. We're not fans of the stuff. We're the keepers of the life force, my little man. You may be a giver of roses but you forget roses also have thorns.” She looked at him almost with affection. He noticed she had a very upper-class English accent, which came out particularly when she grew verbose. “Anyway, we gave up on grace a long time ago.”

“I can see that.”

“And you should, too. There is nowhere else to run, no more quaint notions for you. The perfume has run out, my little fool. You must come and show me what you've got; you must drop your pants, my dear, and reveal your equipment. Lead on if you please.” She maintained her clawlike grip on his neck as she opened the door for him then shepherded him out into the brightening morning. “It's time for pudding…”

19
.

Inside the enclosure, the Tantric orgy had descended into sedate conversation and herbal tea-drinking. Entwined, temporary lovers now waited for the sun to rise over the sea. In the windless air, acrid cannabis fumes hung over their bubbling water-pipes.

The Buddhists, of course, had not yet realized the Earth-shattering implication of their lovemaking. They felt themselves at home among these hospitable and libidinous strangers, this lavish complex by the sea with servants and even a plentiful supply of weed brought by a wisecracking black maid who, during the night's revels, had also revealed herself in her full vigor. One or two of the men had never before had sex with a black woman, and, to their surprise, had found she was much the same as a white one—undeniably with the same anatomy, although there was a kind of power in her haunches, a heat that spoke (to their projecting minds) of thousands of years of burning African sunlight.

But when the reed screen slid open to reveal Michael standing there in ceremonial robes, the Buddhists looked up with a slight sense of trepidation. Surely the amusements were over and done with?

Maggot Mama pulled the robes off his shoulders and let them fall in a heap to the floor. There was a sense of dismay among the Buddhists, which rapidly turned to relief when it grew clear that they were not expected to participate in what followed.

Michael was led very slowly towards a young Sophia Loren lookalike in the corner—Elvira—who, at the beginning of the night's revels, had single-handedly extracted orgasms from the three men and also fired up the three women with deep kisses and dexterous handiwork. The rest of the group had sat thoughtfully watching her expertise as if it were a performance of rare art. Which, in a way, it was.

In spite of her willingness earlier, Elvira was reluctant to participate. She held out her hands defensively. “Please! No, Mama.” Something in her voice made them fearful. There was a plea in it, a timbre that connected them to the ancient fear of dying. “I'm sorry, Mama. I love you, I really do love you utterly, Mama. Without you I'm nothing.”