Part II

‘Everything is alive . . .’

Statement taken from Mason Brand’s journal dated June 19th, 2001

8

To Mason Brand the cycle of the seasons was the kind of certainty you could stake your life on.

Predicting the actual weather, on the other hand; that was an idiot’s pastime. Especially this spring. For days there had been extremes that no forecasts had prepared people for. Monday had been cold, bright and crackle dry. Tuesday, the rain was as warm and heavy as a monsoon. The chill had returned on Wednesday and the rain had turned to snow - four inches of it that soon became a depressing brown slush.

Reports said storms were moving in.

Mason ignored forecasts. Each day he took a broad-brimmed, brown wax hat and a coat of the same material into the vegetable plot with him. Under the coat he wore three more layers, just in case. In his weathered, padlocked shed at the far end of the middle strip of his three planting beds, he kept his tools and a reclaimed pine chair. On a narrow shelf were the few hardback novels salvaged from the tip’s recycling centre. The dust jackets were long gone and many of the books were stained and warped by damp. He read them in breaks between digging or when it was raining too hard for him to be outside. He was comfortable in the shed, a thinner skin between him and the free air.

The days smelled clean and blue. An insistent wind scoured the slumber out of the countryside and relieved the trees of their dead branches. Between the clear days and the gales there were showers that came and went as easily as children’s tears. Nature puffed and cried and smiled its resuscitation attempts, impatient for the land to respond. In surreptitious moments, when it thought no one was watching, life returned.

It always did.

***

First, he rolled back the wet, mildewed strips of carpet that had kept the light from the soil below.

Beneath it were satin-backed beetles and slaty woodlice, beating their legs in panicked rhythms and scuttling for cover. Pale orange centipedes twisted and writhed as if the exposure was burning them. Ants, their bead-black bodies reflecting pinpoints of sky, marched in the crazy corridors they’d constructed throughout the winter. Worms, previously safe, nosed their way downwards away from his eyes. A few white strands and rootlets had survived the darkness but had failed to grow. The sudden light would finish them off. The earth was tamped and flattened by the weight of the carpet but it was clear of weed and ready for Mason’s fork and shovel. It begged to be broken open and sown. A dirty richness rose up to meet his nostrils and it was enough to make him salivate and smile. This unveiling, this undressing of the land was his favourite moment of the year.

In his shed there was a small window over which he had placed a tough wire mesh to prevent break-ins by opportunists after his tools. The window framed a view of Shreve’s landfill site, beyond the garden wall of his house, far across the Meadowlands recreation ground and the brownfield land surrounding it. When he glanced up from his novels, what he would notice first were the distant seagulls. They turned in the air in their hundreds like particles trapped in a slow liquid whirlwind. In unpredictable moments, the twister would evaporate and drop them. They would fall to earth, their white backs disappearing into the camouflage of waste.

There wasn’t really that much to see; the landfill was specifically designed not to be an eyesore. What was visible was a laterally-spreading volume of multicoloured trash. Each evening, the machines covered the newest waste with soil. In the direction that this solid river crept were man-made canyons - once an open-cast coal mine - awaiting the growing flood. The landscape changed so gradually it was impossible to define, even in the space of a day, what it was that had altered. But alter it did, and constantly. This kind of dumping was going on all over the country. What couldn’t be dumped here was shipped overseas. He wondered how long it would be before the world smothered itself beneath a crust of refuse. Then, like a tightly crumpled ball of tossed scrap paper, Earth would spin through space, useless and dead.

He turned the soil. He read. He planted his seed. He watched the seagulls slow-whirling between the clouds and the creeping tide of waste.

When the wind turned, it bore upon it the odorous ghosts of a billion used objects - some degradable, others not. Mason’s nose recognised it all. He smelled the composted tops, tails and skins of fruits and vegetables - none as wholesome as the ones he grew. He smelled greasy leftovers - inedible animal bones and fat. He smelled the soured excrement trapped in wadded disposable nappies and feared for the health of the children that had worn them. He smelled the owners of discarded clothes and shoes, knew them a little. He smelled old blood and tissues, the acid of batteries, smelled the abandonment of broken toys, the obsolescence of outdated computers and other electronic devices.

The run-off from these and many other articles, washed, rinsed and dissolved by rain, seeped downwards. Somewhere below it all was a warm, living broth - a kombucha of liquid filth festering and decomposing. Leachate was what the industry called it. This too he smelled or, at least, believed he could. It was supposed to be sealed within the landfill by plastic liners but he didn’t believe for a moment that the leachate didn’t escape into the water table.

That spring, with the fickle wind changing its mind daily, the smells came to him often. He thought he noticed something different, a vibrancy that didn’t belong. Or was it merely that this spring was so much more eager than so many others he could remember? Perhaps he was smelling its expectancy on the air. He sensed that the growing season would be a fertile one: there would be a surplus of produce he could pickle and make into chutneys. There’d be enough to give to charity. For the moment, he was still living well off his crop of over-wintering vegetables.

He put in broad beans and garlic, leeks and potatoes. He sowed carrot and parsnip seed. He planted delicate broccoli and Brussels sprout shoots in regimented lines. Radishes, onions, beetroot, celery and lettuce made up his salad plot. Under cardboard boxes, to keep it sweet, he grew rhubarb. In their own corner, where there was more room to spread, he placed marrows and courgettes. On his fruit trees, like clusters of tiny white satellite dishes, blossoms sprang open ready to guide in their insect helpers.

Mason sweated over the land, no matter how cold the days, and his saline fell upon the soil.

***

The storm was savage and wilful. It was easy to see why the ancients believed it meant the gods were angry. That evening they were furious. It approached from a long way off like a giant travelling many continents for vengeance. Mason watched it come.

At first, early in the afternoon, white clouds multiplied upwards from the horizon. Like vaporous spawn, like rising balloons of fungus. The sun caught these clouds and they were so pure white they reflected it. Mason shielded his eyes. They reared up, swelled and loomed: mountain ranges breaking from the ground. Nodding at their appearance, Mason turned his attention to the earth once more, raking the larger stones from one of his beds. Each time he looked up, the clouds were higher. He stopped to watch and see them grow but his eyes could not catch the movement. Too slow to be noticed, too fast to be caught.

The storm strode across the land.

Within an hour, its bulk filled half the dome of the spring sky. Its highest point was anvil flat, the whole mass coming straight towards Mason’s house. The whiteness of the clouds had gone. Now they were armoured grey and bulbous. The sun no longer beamed back from their surface but was swallowed there. The amorphous cloak of vapours darkened and deepened, spread its influence ever wider. Silent, cold-smiling, it came.

Mason stowed his tools and stopped work to watch the beast stampede his way. The clouds began to stretch over him and his garden. He felt his tininess and knew the storm could crush him under its boot heel. Every day, no matter how careful he was, he mashed insects under his own soles just as unknowingly. Even with the first clouds high over his head, the base of the storm was still beyond the horizon. The size of it drew a primitive response from within him. He retreated from the shed to the back door of his house, ready to go inside at any moment.

There had been a breeze all day, blowing towards Mason whenever he looked up. Now it died as though the storm had stolen the wind’s breath for itself. The storm had been inhaling and expanding for hours; now there was pause. Mason smelled ozone on the air; a dry, dusty, charged smell. Far beyond the horizon and barely audible, paper thunder rippled across the sky. The hair on Mason’s arms and legs lifted. A chill penetrated his stomach. He saw knotted expressions in the tempest’s clouds and thought he could sense the skirl it was preparing to unleash.

The storm approached still nearer.

Its black base cleared the horizon. It walked on feet of darkness strapped into boots of night. The horizon disappeared. The clouds over Mason churned and twisted, boiling upside down. The wind returned, gently at first, like a hand pushing at his face, tugging his beard, urging him inside. He heeded the warning. Without taking his eyes off the storm, he backed into the kitchen.

Before he shut the door, the storm let go. It spat white teeth that bit into the earth. The after image was still glowing when the storm screamed, finally exhaling its first rush of gathered zephyrs. Mason clasped his hands to his head to block the pain from his eardrums and used his body to slam the door. He didn’t move from the back window of his house for an hour.

Outside, the storm stopped moving and stabbed the land all around with crooked white swords, skewered it with blue fire-tridents, whipped it with electric silver birch. It shrieked at the land. It trampled it. It beat the ground with hammers of light. While the Earth was silent, it screamed, and raged and swore.

And though it raped and brutalised the land, the storm wept at its own unstoppable cruelty and the soil beneath it turned to mud.

***

It was six forty-five in the morning and still quite dark. Ozzy and Lemmy strained against their leads.

Their hanging tongues dripped saliva and twitched as they panted and choked. Their cheeks were drawn back, wrinkled into determined grins. Black claws dragged and scraped at the paved footpath. Like squat twins, the bull terriers leaned into the future. Two taut leashes attached them to Kevin Doherty, who was inclined backwards and walking forwards at the same time in an attempt to keep control. Just a few more metres and they’d be at the entrance to Shreve Country Park. Then he could relax.

Before they even reached the gate, the two Staffies were close to asphyxiating themselves. Kevin didn’t think that eating long grass, sniffing strangers’ urine and running yourself to the point of collapse was anything to get excited about, but he didn’t pretend to understand dogs. Not like Tammy, whose ‘boys’ they were.

Why it was him that had to walk them every day was another thing he didn’t understand.

The car park was empty, but he still checked there was no one else with a dog in the immediate area. Ozzy and Lemmy hadn’t been ‘socialised’ but, while they’d never actually fought with other dogs or bitten anyone, Kevin was fairly sure it was only a matter of time before they gave in to their breeding and committed a multiple murder. He knelt down to the dogs to reach for their collars but they pulled away, dropping him to his knees in a puddle left by the previous night’s storm.

‘Fucking hell. You hairy, stinky bastards.’

He rocked back onto his heels, reined them in and flicked them free of their leads. They shot off like a pair of short-legged missiles with spinning tails and snap-flapping ears. Into the trees, into the undergrowth, gone. Twenty seconds later there was a rustling and they reappeared, sprinting back to him and occasionally looking at each other to see who was winning. They split as they reached him, skidded into a tight turn behind him and raced away again. For the first twenty minutes or so, that was how it would be.

Kevin sat down on a bench, his knees cold, wet and dirty. He took out the cigarette he’d hidden in his glasses case and lit it with a small pink lighter. The rare rush of smoke flooded his bloodstream, dizzying his vision. There were some compensations for walking the dogs.

***

The roads wore a skin of dirty water which split and resealed with the passing of cars.

In a tired and dented black Rover, Ray Wade touched the brakes for a moment and then placed his foot back on the accelerator.

‘What?’ said Jenny.

‘Nothing,’ said Ray. But he didn’t want to lie. ‘Thought I saw something on the grass verge. Light us a fag, would you?’

‘I saw it too. Looked like a -’

‘A body. I know.’ Ray speeded up. ‘It was a bin liner full of rubbish. That’s all.’

‘We should check,’ said Jenny.

Ray looked across at her to see if she was serious and knowing that if she was he wouldn’t get any peace until he did what she wanted. It was the same with everything. They watched the DVDs she wanted to watch, went to the clubs she wanted to go to, hung around with her friends, did sex the way she liked it.

Maybe he could defuse her this time.

‘It’s somebody’s trash, Jenny. The gyppos fly-tip along this road all the time.’ He looked at his watch for effect. ‘Anyway, we’re late as it is. Can I have that fag, please?’

Jenny had her arms folded, her lips pushed forward. Ray could tell she was thinking. Not a natural talent. She was more fun when she wasn’t thinking.

‘What if someone’s lying there? Hurt or unconscious? We should definitely check, Ray.’

‘Jenny. We can still make half of Bodger’s lecture. If we stop we’ll miss the whole thing.’

‘No. Everyone’s doing that.’

‘Doing what?’

‘Everyone’s driving past and seeing something there. And they’re all going “Oh, it’s just a bag of rubbish. Oh, I’m too busy to stop.” How would you feel if you were hurt and everyone was ignoring you?’

‘I’m telling you. I saw it. It’s nothing.’

‘Go back.’

‘Je -’

‘Do it, Ray. I’m not kidding.’

Ray despised himself for not standing firm yet again. But this was different, wasn’t it? This really could be someone in trouble. Knowing that, weren’t they morally obliged to go back? He swore to himself and started looking for a place to turn around.

‘If it turns out to be a black bin liner full of rubbish, you owe me. Big style.’ he said.

‘I don’t owe you anything for doing what’s right, Ray.’

‘If you make us miss this lecture for no reason, you owe me.’

She shrugged.

‘Fine. I’ll owe you.’ Ray smiled.

‘Two dogs.’ he said.

‘What?’

But she knew what he meant.

‘Next time we do it. I want it like two dogs.’

‘Whatever.’

He looked over, gauging her mood. Was she . . . thinking again? Nah, not twice in one morning, surely.

‘Give me that fag, Jenny.’

She crushed the empty pack in her fist, rolled the window down and threw it out into the damp morning.

‘We’re out,’ she said.

***

‘Quickly. You have to be so quick. Please, Don, he’ll be back soon.’

Half terrified and half limp with abandon, Tammy let Don batter her against the beige carpeted stairs. He was standing on the parquet hallway floor, uniform trousers and underpants piled over his shoes. He held her hips as she knelt on the third step. The force of his lunges, the panic in them, hurt and delighted her. He was inept but that made it all the more delicious.

She imagined Kevin coming home, letting the dogs in, standing for a moment in the doorway not believing, taking the first object to hand - a thumb stick from the brolly holder - and smashing Don over the head, swiping at his ribs, driving the tip of the stick into his throat and mashing his windpipe as the poor boy tried to pull his trousers up and explain. Sweet, giddy mayhem.

She came.

When the boy was gone, red-faced and furtive out the back door and off to catch the school bus, Tammy weighed the rumpled condom in her palm. It was still warm with his semen. She slit it with a paring knife and flushed it away in the downstairs toilet. Then, already aching for more risk and the boy’s utter devotion, she showered.

In the kitchen, over strong coffee, she read the paper Don had delivered. Catching sight of the wall clock as she glanced up from the singles pages - sad fuckers - she noticed Kevin was taking longer than usual. Christ, she thought, I could have milked the kid a second and third time. Teenagers were like that: endless enthusiasm.

There was a noise from outside the back door and she looked over, expecting to see her boys, Ozzy and Lemmy, thirsty and spent. It wasn’t the dogs. Through the glass door she saw some other kind of animal, rolling and struggling on the back steps. It seemed to be covered in rubbish, as though it had spent the night in a dumpster. Its weak thrashing suggested it was wounded. She let the paper drop to the counter of the breakfast bar and stood up slowly to take a better look.

***

The path at Shreve Country Park took a two-mile route around a reservoir and bird sanctuary. It passed through wooded areas and fields, and across a dam-like embankment. Only in some areas did it follow the shoreline of the water. Their warm-up races over, Ozzy and Lemmy now danced on their hind legs around Kevin. Tongues lolling, eyes rolling, foam around their jaws, they begged for him to throw the rubber ball. It was hard, red and heavy. Kevin drew his arm back and hurled it as far as he could, hoping to lose it in the long grass and weeds. That would keep them searching for a while and give him a few moments free of their dirty duo mania.

They raced away at less than knee high and disappeared into the sea of grass. He watched dew drops sparkle off the tasselled grass tips as the dogs tunnelled through below. Knowing there was plenty more time, he wished he’d brought extra cigarettes. Quitting was the second hardest thing he’d ever done. Pretending he hadn’t taken it up again was the hardest. But walks were the best time to indulge because the fresh air blasted through his clothes and took away the smells. Between the outdoors and his gold-top breath freshener, he’d managed to keep his relapse a secret from Tammy.

He reached a stile leading to the next section of footpath and turned back to see where the dogs were. There was no movement in the field. The throw had really tested their retrieving skills. That was a joke, of course; when the pair of them did return with the ball, neither of them would let go of it and yet they would prance around and hassle him to take it and throw it again. He’d have to wrestle it from their slimy, spittly mouths. Dogs. He just didn’t get them.

He looked around before he shouted out:

‘Ozzy! Lemmy! Here.’

He hated calling their ridiculous names - Tammy’s idea, naturally - and withered inwardly if anyone was near enough to hear.

On the other side of the field there was movement in the grass and then a single line of disturbance approaching fast. Lemmy appeared from the hip-high jungle with the red sphere plugging his mouth. Ozzy was right behind him. Their coats were dark-streaked with fallen dew. Lemmy stood quivering in front of him, offering the ball, wagging.

‘Clever boy, Lemmy. Want me to throw it again?’

He reached down to take it and Lemmy turned away. Ozzy tried to steal the ball from his mouth so he turned the other way. Kevin reached again. They both started to bounce and cavort around him.

‘Right. Piss off then.’

He stepped over the stile. Delighted - laughing it looked like to Kevin - Lemmy and Ozzy went under it, dropped the ball and sprinted away up the path.

He caught up to them a few minutes later. They were sniffing at a split bag of rubbish.

‘Hey, get out of it, you two!’

Bloody hell, he thought. Why did people dump stuff this way? And in a nature reserve of all places. He clapped his hands twice.

‘Oi, OUT! Come on.’

They looked back, guilt on their faces, and ignored him. It was a big bin liner and much of its contents were strewn out behind it into the water. It looked like it had burst open when someone tried to drag it out. He stomped over to the dogs, sick of being disobeyed. As he bent down to grab their collars he saw that the rubbish wasn’t rubbish at all. It was moving.

It was alive.

9

Ray and Jenny left the car on the other side of the road.

Now they stood on the grass verge with the traffic slashing past over the wet tarmac. They were close enough to the road that some of the spray from the cars sprinkled their legs. Ray had his arms folded across his chest. He felt stupid standing there. People would drive by and think that they were the ones dumping stuff illegally. But he was half happy too: Jenny owed him. Big style. Doggy style.

‘What did I tell you? It’s just someone’s unwanted crap. I can’t believe we’re doing this.’

Jenny didn’t answer. She was looking at the elongated, comma-shaped pile of junk and black plastic as though it had hypnotised her.

‘We’re late,’ said Ray. ‘Let’s get going.’

Jenny walked around to inspect it from a different angle. He couldn’t understand why; the stuff stank of rot and shite. She crouched down.

‘Jenny, this is mental. We’re leaving.’

‘No.’

‘What do you mean “no”? We need to get to lectures.’ She turned her head and stared up at him.

‘Ray, look at this, will you?’

She was pointing at something near the fat end of the trash pile. Ray hadn’t seen it until then. It was the body of a rabbit but it was flat, like it had been run over. The eyes were missing from the head. It was a patch of grey, fur-covered bones.

‘Road kill. If I stand here much longer, my breakfast is going to make a reappearance.’

‘I don’t think it was hit by a car.’

‘Jenny, I don’t care if it was assassinated or died in its sleep. I’m going now. If you don’t want to come with me you can hitch to college.’

He said the words but he didn’t leave and Jenny didn’t stand up to come with him. Typical, he thought, his self-respect leaking away as it so often did when dealing with her. On the road the traffic was decreasing, the rush hour almost over.

‘Ray?’

‘What.’

‘Is it me or is this moving?’

‘If that rabbit’s moving, it’s because it’s got a skinful of maggots.’

‘No. Not the rabbit. The rubbish. Look.’

She pointed to the oddly shaped lump of debris. Ray looked more carefully. It seemed to rise and fall as if it were. . . breathing. The thought of missing lectures suddenly lost its importance. Ray became mesmerised by his concentration, his attempt to recognise what he saw. Jenny beat him to it.

‘I think there might be someone stuck inside all this,’ she said.

She reached out and began to remove items of refuse from the pile but each thing she took hold of - an old noodle carton, a crushed nine-volt battery, a piece of rag - remained attached to the whole as if fused. She pulled harder, tried to dig her fingers through a section of black plastic. The rubbish rolled towards her and she fell back onto her bottom in the waterlogged grass.

‘Shit.’

She still held the tongue of an old tennis shoe in her hand. She attempted to get back onto her feet. Ray, watching it all, saw the bulk of the rubbish pile in a different way now. It seemed heavy, muscular. He saw the eyes before Jenny. Two tiny brown eyes that glittered. They were charged with a life and intelligence far superior to that of the rabbit they had once belonged to. With unreal speed, the mass of rubbish surged towards Jenny, knocking her flat on her back. Before Ray could move, it had swamped her legs, humping its way over her like some junkyard walrus.

She screamed: fear and disbelief. Ray couldn’t move.

She screamed again: pain.

‘RAY. It’s BITING me. Get it OFF.’

He looked at the thing, still not understanding it. Not knowing how to begin to save Jenny from a living, breathing pile of litter. Another scream. She looked at him, eyes wide and beseeching.

‘PLEASE, Ray. DO SOMETHING.’

Finally the animal in Ray surfaced from below the constant haze of spent marijuana. Wrathful and vicious, he put the boot in like a rioter kicking a downed policeman. The steel toe-cap of his Dr Martens hefted into the rubbish again and again, penetrating the black plastic, forcing crumpled cans and crisp packets deep inside the thing. It ruptured easily and liquid filth spilled forth. The stink made him retch and still he kicked, fear and ignorance devolving him into a savage. He kicked and choked and kicked again, tearing the thing open. It had covered Jenny to her chest by this time but the damage Ray’s boots had inflicted had overcome it.

Soon he was kicking a deflated pile of rubbish. Pieces of it flew away with each new shoeing, sending litter and paper across the verge. He kicked and kicked. Jenny pushed the bulk of the thing off her body and rolled away and still he kicked it. The eyes, the tiny clever rabbit eyes, watched him as if interested in what he was doing to the rest of its body. He saw them and stomped them out, stomped them dead into the wet grass until they were mud and mucus. Tears streaked his face and then, exhausted, he coughed up his breakfast amid the strewn trash.

Jenny was standing awkwardly and weeping in shock and pain. As she cried, she scanned the ground and limped through the scattered remains of the creature. Ray saw the torn end of her shoe and the way her blood ran so freely from the wound there.

‘We’ve got to get you to hospital.’

‘Not yet,’ she said.

‘Yes, Jenny. We have to go now. You’re losing blood.’

She looked at him, pleading again, yet somehow still in control.

‘Please, Ray. We have to find my toe first.’

***

Mason found the thing early on the morning after the storm.

He’d seen something moving around the bottom of his runner bean canes and thought initially that it was a cat taking a dump or a sick rabbit looking for refuge. Neither would have bothered him much. He’d have moved the cat shit - no telling what toxins might be in it - to a place where it wouldn’t affect the purity of his crops. If he’d caught the rabbit he’d have ended its myxomatosis misery or put it back out in the scrubland beyond the garden. It only took a few seconds of watching to see that it was neither of those things. The colours were too man-made. The movements were wrong.

With a mug of tea he’d only taken one sip from in his right hand, he shuffled barefoot into his wellies and flop-footed his way out to the bean canes. His mind worked hard to make sense of what he was seeing but there was no context for it. Partially obscured by the lower leaves of the runners, it was the contents of an overturned dustbin, it was the run off from a sewer, it was the scum that forms over drains, the pin mould of the cellar. He smelled it before he reached it and knew immediately where it had come from. He stopped, feet chilled in his Wellingtons, right hand hot from the tea mug.

The thing was an accident. It was an abortion. Yet it lived. The shape of its body was that of a huge, bloated tadpole. He could see echoes of embryo, attempts at foetus, but it was all wrong: plastic and cardboard and glass and paper did not live, could not move. He had to be seeing it wrong. He had to be looking at an animal or newborn baby which had somehow entangled itself in waste. Perhaps some underage girl had given birth in secret and then thrown away her child. Perhaps it had survived.

He experienced a ripple of guilt rising along his spine. It passed immediately. He’d done nothing wrong, broken no trusts or taboos. He’d looked, passed time, taken the photos. He’d been professional, as he’d been in his old life. That was all. And this was nothing to do with it.

And still, he felt responsible. Even if it was nothing to do with the girl, it was something to do with him, was it not? He knew it was.

Mason trusted himself. He trusted his eyes. What he saw clenching and twisting on the fertile ground of his garden was neither human nor animal. It was something new, something more. Not only did he know where it had come from, he knew exactly what it was. Suddenly the calling he had recorded in pencil in dozens of pads in the woods and since then on those occasional nights in his dead camper van, suddenly all of it made sense. The blood, the earthquake, the rising of new life. He had written all of this down years before. It was a message about this time, this era. If he hadn’t wanted to believe before, now he was obliged to.

Something swivelled in the ‘head’ of the thing. It was a child’s marble, rainbow swirls of colour rippling within it. The ball was covered by a layer of transparent plastic, part of a clear supermarket weighing-bag for fruit or vegetables. The plastic crackled as the thing tried to look up at him. Then the tiny body swelled up. A split, formed by the opening of an old polystyrene burger box, appeared below the eye. The thing deflated, venting a wail of need and perdition more heartbreaking than the cry of any child.

He knelt down and reached out to it.

***

A moment after she opened the back door, Tammy Doherty’s coffee mug hit the top step and broke into three uneven shards. Her screams started before the impact and finished long after, so the brief, sharp sound of shattering china was swallowed and lost.

***

Kevin Doherty took a firm hold of each collar and hauled the dogs away from the thing. They each had their jaws embedded and so it moved with them. Frustrated, Lemmy and Ozzy shook their heads, trying to rip into their prey. The black plastic tore and rubbish spilled out accompanied by a viscous brown slop. Kevin, smelling shit, turned his head away.

‘For fuck’s sake . . . LET GO.’

He wrenched the dogs backwards and they lost their grip. They spat out the trash from their mouths and licked their lips in disgust as though they’d only just realised what they were doing. The torn tube of refuse rolled away down the small slope towards the water. Kevin watched it, not certain of what he’d seen.

He laughed.

‘I must be going soft in the head.’

The rubbish was just rubbish. It wasn’t living. With the dogs chewing and tearing at it, of course it had been moving. And now that they’d let go, gravity had rolled it back down the incline to the reservoir. He shook his head, finding it hard to believe what conclusions the mind would draw given the right circumstances. He didn’t make any attempt to clear up the rubbish, though. That was the responsibility of whoever had discarded it in the first place. He told himself that if he saw the park warden, he’d report the dumping. He clicked the leads onto the dogs’ collars and turned back towards the car park.

***

Mason lined an old mushroom box with rags from under the kitchen sink and placed it in the corner of his shed. It seemed the best place. He certainly didn’t want the smell in his house. The thing’s weak mewls made him feel a kind of panicked accountability. He didn’t want it to die. It was inevitable, wasn’t it, that sooner or later something like this would happen?

The more he thought about it, the more it excited him. Something new had been born from the badness and unwantedness of the world. There was something natural in that, something logical and right. Didn’t compost make his garden grow better? Didn’t the grass eventually grow thicker and greener from below an old cowpat? The thing wept. Mason recognised the cry of hunger, a cry that without him would soon become the miserable tears of starvation.

He went to fetch a saucer of warm milk.

***

It was hard for Kevin to ignore the spilled pile of rubbish at the back doorstep. The dogs were so muddy and smelly after their walk that he’d tied them up to their post in the garden before letting himself in through the back door. The sight of the trash disturbed him. It would have been different if he’d known it was from their own dustbin - Tammy might have dropped it whilst taking it out - but Kevin didn’t recognise any of it. They didn’t eat microwave quick-rice for a start. They certainly hadn’t thrown away an old radio. And the smell of the sewers that rose from the slack pile was worse than any odour that had ever come from their house.

There was a broken coffee mug on the top step and a pale stain where the contents had splashed the stone. One of the broken pieces was sticking into the rubbish pile. To Kevin it looked like a blade buried in a strange body. He touched the trash with the tip of his shoe but it was inanimate. Once again, he found himself laughing at the hair trigger of his imagination. He stopped laughing when he looked through the back door into the house and saw Tammy crying at the breakfast bar attended by a neighbour.

He stepped inside.

‘What happened, babe?’

Mavis Ahern from across the street looked up with accusing eyes. As though he had caused Tammy’s tears, as though he was a guilty man. She tightened a protective arm around Tammy’s shoulders and answered for her.

‘She’s had a shock. Might not have happened if you spent more time here.’

He’d never liked the woman; younger than she looked and dressed, but a good deal more fucked-up than any close neighbour ought to be.

Mavis Ahern was Tammy’s friend - well, more of an acquaintance really - but did she really have the right to talk to him that way in his own house? Her gall took him by surprise and he was silent too long to react spontaneously. Instead he thought about why Miss Ahern would take such an attitude. A spinster to her marrow, of course, but was that deliberate or accidental? Did she really hate men or did she just like women more? There was more to the way she held her arm around Tammy than simple shielding; she was milking the physical contact somehow and fearful of its ending. Kevin was that end.

He approached the breakfast bar and when Tammy saw him, she reached out leaving Mavis the way she looked like she belonged; standing alone. He drew Tammy tight, holding her head to his chest and allowed his eyes to meet their neighbour’s.

‘Thanks for coming over, Miss Ahern. We’ll be fine now.’

He smiled at her, barely sincere, knowing she had no option but to leave. The woman left by the back door, stepping with care around the spilled rubbish. He comforted Tammy in silence for some minutes, her degree of upset puzzling him. She wasn’t the type of girl to freak like this. She was tough, hard-edged. It was one of the few things he still admired about her.

Eventually, he stepped away from her and opened the cupboard under the sink. He took out a roll of black bin liners and snapped one free. From the utility room he picked up a dustpan and brush. As he made towards the back door Tammy spoke,

‘Don’t touch it. There’s . . . something . . . in it.’

Unmoved, Kevin said,

‘It’s rubbish, babe. That’s all. I’m going to get rid of it for you.’

‘But it was . . .’

‘It was what?’

Eventually she shook her head.

‘Doesn’t matter.’

Kevin, lips clamped tight, stepped outside.

***

Its wailing drove nails of guilt into his heart. Guilt for not satisfying its needs. Guilt over what he might have to do if he decided to fulfil those needs.

A few minutes before, he’d placed a saucer of pure white liquid, still warm from the microwave, in front of its rag-box cradle. It had turned its single glass eye upon him as though he were torturing it. It had vented a moan of bleak destitution that punctured his chest.

Milk was not to be its nourishment.

Crying without tears, he’d left the shed and stood in the fertile surroundings staring through the newly-forming fruits and vegetables. Pods, gourds, edible flowers, seed heads, nourishing green stalks. All had grown up from the ash and dust of the earth. All had taken strength and vitality from dead or decaying matter, from things that had once lived.

The answer had to be here somewhere. He’d never known a problem that couldn’t be worked out by spending time in the garden. His eyes focussed on the runner beans he’d planted a month earlier. Some of their flowers had already formed and dropped away leaving the tiny precursors to the long flat seed carriers that he would eat. The ones he did not cook or freeze would ripen and dry and he would keep the speckled purple beans inside them to plant the following year. Generations of runner beans had come and gone right here in his garden.

Miniature kidneys; that was what the beans reminded him of.

Below ground, potatoes were forming in clumps under flowering tops. In the miniature glasshouse, tomatoes were appearing in tiny green rows on the vine. They grew from a special compost that he’d devised over the years. Dead things fed the living. That was the natural way. And flowers, fruits and seeds were the organs by which those living things reproduced and flourished.

The thing in the shed was not living in the strictest sense. It had been born amid the slime and ordure of human waste. It had come from dead, discarded things and it had crawled away from its birthplace in its attempt to survive. Clearly, whatever it needed wasn’t in the landfill. The dead feed the living. That was the law. But it was an old law now. This creature was something new; nature’s new vision. A break from evolution. Something that would perhaps save the world from self-destruction if it had the chance to survive. He knew it was important. It was beyond important. The creature was the key to a fresh nature in the world, a new living logic that would reverse the destructive appetites of humanity.

Only one new logic made sense in this case: a reversal of the old natural laws. The creature’s survival depended on it.

For a moment he smiled in understanding but it faded with the implications of what he had to do. He wanted to think of himself as the midwife of the new nature but he’d been too late for that, merely witnessing the birth from a distance. But if the creature survived, he might be remembered as the nursemaid of the new nature. Perhaps even its governess and teacher. He was half surprised to find he wanted the responsibility.

The guilt was something he would have to learn to live with.

Explaining what had happened had been impossible. They knew there was no way anyone would believe the truth but coming up with an alternative story had been almost as difficult. As Ray drove and Jenny held her mutilated foot against the dashboard they’d had a surreal conversation. Blood and effluent had smeared the moulded plastic.

‘You slammed a garage door on it.’

‘I’m not strong enough to do this to myself.’

‘All right. I slammed a garage door on it.’

Jenny, who had shown surprising stoicism since the ‘accident’ started to cry. Ray pressed a little harder on the accelerator hoping to pass the van in front of them. Traffic appeared in the opposite lane and he had to ease off. All the time they spent between here and the hospital meant more time for Jenny’s wound to be exposed to the filth of the thing he’d killed.

‘We dropped a manhole cover on it. Those things are heavy.’

‘What the fuck were we doing carrying a manhole cover?’

‘Uh . . . we were . . . going into the sewer to retrieve some keys. That will explain the, uh . . . you know, the smell and everything.’

Jenny had stared across at him then and Ray had felt a real rift open up between them for the first time. Or perhaps it was just the first time he’d admitted it to himself. When it came to handling things together, handling life, nothing worked. Stoned, they were fine. They were company for each other. Adequate company. He didn’t know why it suddenly hurt to see it that way. She looked sick of him. Sick of everything.

‘A dog bit me, Ray. It bit my toe right off. We were by the river and there was a lot of rubbish strewn around. That’s what we’ll say.’

Ray had shrugged. Fine. It was her toe. It would be her story. As suddenly as the jab of emotional hurt had come, it vanished. He couldn’t wait to get the odour of blood and shit out of his car.

Now, two hours later, he dropped Jenny off at her place. She was dosed up with painkillers and he’d bought her a half bottle of brandy for the shock. She didn’t ask him in and he was glad. He held the door open for her and she thumped inelegantly past him on her borrowed hospital crutches. She still smelled terrible because there was sewage all over her jeans and jacket but the doctors had told her not to get her foot wet. Still, he hoped she’d have a bath.

‘Want me to come in and make you a cup of tea or something?’ he asked, feeling obliged to make some kind of gesture.

‘I’ll be fine,’ she said. She collapsed onto her untidy couch, unscrewed the cap off the brandy and took a couple of large sips. ‘Don’t you worry about me.’

She managed an ugly, forced smile and all Ray wanted to do was leave.

The doctor who stitched her foot up hadn’t believed their dog story. They stood by it, though. Even when he pointed out it was unlikely a canine bite would look like this. He’d given her a tetanus shot and a week’s course of antibiotics. He never even mentioned rabies. The doctor wasn’t much older than they were and looked exhausted. Maybe that was why he hadn’t involved the police. Either way, they were both relieved to get away from Shreve A&E without having to answer any more questions.

Now Ray looked at Jenny and thought about how this might be a story he’d tell his mates or his next girlfriend. One day, perhaps but not yet. For now, still not understanding what had happened and the shock of her mutilation would keep the event a secret.

‘You sure you’ll be alright?’ He asked.

She took another sip of brandy and nodded without looking up.

‘I’ll see you then,’ he said.

‘Yeah. See ya.’

He shut the door and walked slowly back to the car. Next stop was the pub. College would have to survive without him for a day or two. Ray had some forgetting to do. After a couple of pints in the snug of The Barge had released some of the weird tension that had built up inside him, he couldn’t help a grim smile and a stifled giggle which drew a glance from Doug, the landlord: they hadn’t found her toe.

10

Mavis Ahern kept an eye on her street and as much of Meadowlands as she could see. Not a neighbourhood watch so much as a Christian vigil. This was the tiny corner of God’s no-longer-so-green Earth where she was His sentinel. There were misdeeds to be seen most days if she watched carefully enough and long enough. The binoculars were essential to her task, as was the swivelling piano stool which allowed her gaze to sweep smoothly between the windows and pathways of Bluebell Way.

She saw cars keyed by children too young to be out after six o’clock. She saw drunken youths urinating against the swings in the corner of the playing field visible from her bathroom. From there she could also observe the space behind the pavilion and lavatories where old and young alike believed they could not be seen. She had views into the bedrooms of several houses on the street and also into some of the lounges and hallways. From her own bedroom she could see plenty of back gardens too. What others considered private, she considered her business; God’s business.

Wickedness flourished in Bluebell Way.

But nothing so far had topped the goings on in one particular house, the house opposite her own in which she believed she had a friend and at least one fellow Christian. Now she knew how wrong she had been. Not that she’d ever liked the husband and his flash car nor his secret smoking habit, observed on a couple of mornings when she’d followed him down to Shreve Country Park. She didn’t much like the dogs either, but in the lady of the house she saw a wayward, vulnerable, potentially salvageable Christian girl who just needed a little bit of herding in the right direction.

Now, though, Mavis merely saw herself as incredibly naïve and, despite the dubious education her watchfulness had bestowed upon her, completely unprepared for the depths of iniquity that lay beneath the suburban veneer of middle class life in her town.

She’d watched the boy on his paper round for months and, as plain as his presence was, he’d always been invisible to her. Then, one morning, the door had opened just as he pushed his paper through the letterbox. She’d seen a glimpse of Tamsin Doherty in her white dressing gown, hands clasped around a cup of black coffee. There was an exchange on the doorstep she couldn’t hear, both the boy and the woman motionless as the words passed between them. Somehow, Mavis knew what would happen even though she could barely believe such a thing possible. But she must have been able to imagine the outcome otherwise how could she have had this premonition?

She often wondered what the words were that had been spoken by the woman and the boy that morning. What on Earth could they have been? How did two such ill-matched people begin these things? Along with the vague foreknowledge of the sin to come, Mavis also knew she would never understand the answers to her questions even if she found them. The relationship was from the realms of some deranged fantasy, dreamed up by the kind of minds she would never penetrate.

She found it hard not to hate Kevin Doherty, despite the fact the woman’s sin was greater - in anyone’s eyes. Even the boy seemed wiser than his years. He ought to have known better. Boys were such filthy creatures and they had no hope of growing into anything other than vile men with wills honed for domination and a desire for badness in all things.

She would somehow have to put it all straight. What was the point in watching for the Lord if you didn’t labour for Him too? This would not be evangelism. It would be the saving of three otherwise lost, damned souls. She would bring them back from the cusp of ruination.

***

Mason tested his theory first to be sure.

There was something sacred in the act for him. He was the first one whose life the creature would gain from. He wasn’t scared of the knife or of making the cut but his stomach leapt and fluttered as he knelt in front of the weakening newborn and put the blade of a small penknife to a vein on the inside of his elbow. It must have been a kind of excitement.

The air in the shed smelled of excrement and decay but he ignored this, likening the task to changing a child’s nappy: it was the natural function of a carer or guardian. The creature knew what Mason was about do and its mewlings changed from pathetic whines to expectant, urgent growls. It squirmed amid its rags in anticipation. Leaning down so the drops from his arm would run into the clean saucer, he punctured his skin with the tip of the knife. Quick and sure he split the vein.

The clinical way he did it prevented the incision from hurting much. Dark blood trickled down from the cut and dribbled off the tip of his elbow. It pattered warmly into the white saucer. He flexed his biceps tight to squeeze more from the neat wound until the saucer was close to overflowing. The cries of the creature were insistent. He laid the knife down and placed the saucer on the floor beside the rag box. The creature leaned out and a crumpled plastic straw appeared from its Styrofoam flap of a mouth. The straw darkened as the creature drew Mason’s living fluid in. The creature swelled.

A midnight light expanded behind its glass eye.

***

The studio was more like a warehouse. Aggie arrived at seven in the morning, running from Stepney Green tube station. Most of the others were already there - not a great start. A gruff ogre of a woman had prodded her along a corridor muttering in Czech or Polish.

She and six other girls - some of them younger than she was, she was fairly certain - had prepared for the shoot in what she thought must once have been a cold storage room. The thick vertical strips of plastic still formed the ‘door’ between the dressing room and the large bare space where the photographers and sets were. The work happened at a frenetic pace, the photographers working to some kind of deadline she didn’t understand. The pressure was constant. Everyone was impatient and rude and she couldn’t risk admitting to a lack of experience. There seemed to be a lack of staff too. One make-up girl ran between the seven of them. A barely coherent boy about her age gestured to outfits hanging in flimsy dry cleaning wrappers on a chrome clothes rail. She was so cold her nipples stood permanently erect and she had a sense the photographers quietly enjoyed her discomfort. She’d expected all the staff to be Italian or French but instead they had names like Grigor and Dobry and Janek.

She tried to think of it as bohemian but really it was sleazy. No denying it.

It was only her second week in London and already she felt like she’d been there two months. The smell of the city was in her skin now, didn’t come off no matter how hard she scrubbed. She was at the bottom of the pile and there was a long way to climb over the sharp hip-bones and elbows of thousands of other models. Every one of them would do what they could to thwart her. The dressing room atmosphere was not one of camaraderie and understanding, it was chilly and toxic. Most of the girls didn’t even speak to her. Aggie was horrified to realise she was getting used to it.

By eleven the shoot was over. Aggie checked her tiny diary for the address and time of the next shoot. There was no way she was going to make it on schedule. She hadn’t eaten breakfast and there was no opportunity to grab a snack. Running from the warehouse, and thanking God she’d worn flat shoes, she skittered down into the underground and caught a District line train to East Putney. She studied her A to Z as she travelled and ran to the next address arriving in a sweat.

The location was utterly different from any she’d seen so far. She rang the bell of what appeared to be the top floor flat of a very smart-looking Victorian town house. No one replied but she heard a buzzer and pushed the door open. Inside was a lift shaft running up the centre of the stairs. She was too frightened to go inside in case she got stuck. Once again she found herself running.

She arrived outside the top floor front door out of breath and knocked.

No one came immediately and she was about to knock again when a woman opened the door. She was small and dark-haired with a languid voice and manner.

‘Welcome, cherie,’ she said and moved out of the way.

At last, a French accent and a decent venue.

Aggie stepped past her into a private London paradise. The flat was lined with paintings and free-standing sculptures. Tropical plants and flowers sprouted from lavish pots wherever there was a space. From a room she couldn’t see, a dreamy kind of music she didn’t recognise wafted out.

‘God, this is lovely,’ she said and then regretted it. Learning to hide her ignorance was one of the hardest lessons the city had to offer.

The woman shrugged, smiled a little and gestured for Aggie to move deeper into the collision of art and jungle.

‘The door to the left, cherie.’

When Aggie reached the door the woman was suddenly right behind her.

‘What would you like to drink?’

‘God, I’d love a cup of tea. Milk and two sugars.’

The petite woman tilted her head, her brow wrinkling slightly. Then she laughed.

‘You’re a vodka girl,’ she said. ‘I can always tell.’

Before Aggie could protest, she’d receded away down the overgrown corridor. Not knowing what else to do, Aggie turned the handle and pushed open the door. She didn’t understand what she saw.

The room was painted black. A darkroom, she thought, at first. Then, by the light of the bare bulb in the centre of the ceiling, she saw the wooden rack lining the wall to her left, the chains and cuffs hanging from it. A chair with a high back, like some kind of Gothic throne, occupied the centre of the space. From its arms and legs hung thick leather thongs and buckled straps. On the wall to her right hung rows of paraphernalia. Some of them she recognised - whips and restraints and masks among them. Other items tested her imagination. It was as the purpose of some of the objects began to make sense that she felt a bulky presence behind her.

She turned.

A man stood in the corridor. His physical intimacy forced her inside the room. The French woman followed them in and closed the door behind her.

‘I don’t do this kind of . . . work.’ She didn’t know what else to say.

‘No one officially does this kind of work,’ said the man. He was squat and muscular with a flattened face. His accent was almost aristocratic. It silenced her for a few more seconds.

‘No,’ she said eventually, looking from one impassive face to the other, ‘I don’t ever do this kind of work.’

The man stepped past her into the room. He leaned on the chair back. The woman handed Aggie a nearly full high-ball - vodka, ice, lemon. She held it but did not drink. The woman took her place beside the man. Aggie glanced towards the door and the man shrugged.

‘You’re not under any obligation,’ he said. ‘Leave if you want.’

Aggie’s heartbeat swelled in her neck. Her chest hammered. She was sure they could hear it.

Sooner or later this was going to come up. All I have to do is turn around and walk away.

She didn’t move. Her own stubbornness frightened her. Why didn’t she just leave? she wondered. She wanted more. Something was telling her she wasn’t in danger. All she was doing was walking the wild side.

Do I really want to succeed so badly that I’ll stoop to this? It’s not stooping, Aggie. It’s work. That’s all it is.

Christ. All the promises I’ve made to myself.

She watched the man and the woman watching her. How many times had they done this? Dozens? Hundreds?

‘Seeing as you’re still here,’ said the man, ‘let me explain one very simple thing to you.’

He reached into the back pocket of his jeans and placed a stack of twenty-pound notes on the hard seat of the chair. She tried to count how many were there. It looked like more than the agency would pay her in a whole week. Cash. No questions asked. Suddenly, she could see a crack into the future.

No, Aggie. This is not the way.

The man laid several more notes beside the first stack. A sweat broke on Aggie’s upper lip, even though the room seemed cooler than the rest of the flat.

‘What exactly would I have to do?’ She asked. Her words came out dry and cracked.

The man put a few extra twenties on the chair but didn’t speak.

Aggie took a long drink from her glass.

***

Donald Smithfield was in love. There was no other way to explain it.

Being in love was more painful than pleasurable. That had been a surprise. Now the holidays had come, he’d had plenty of time to think about it - usually while he lay in bed before sleeping and after he woke in the morning.

Mrs. Doherty was breaking his balls and his heart one hot, lonely day at a time.

The heart problem was caused by Mr. Doherty, the smug bastard who could have her any time he wanted, spend all his time with her. The man took her for granted, that much Don understood.

God, I swear if I lived with Mrs. Doherty I’d make her feel like a queen every day.

He’d look after her and give her everything she wanted. Anything. Could Mr. Doherty say that? Don doubted it. The man didn’t care about her. That was why she’d been so vulnerable.

Seeing her with her husband, imagining her with her husband, knowing that he, Don, had no real right to be with her and yet every right because he loved her, that was what hurt his heart. He smelled heartbreak when he smelled black coffee - that was what she was drinking on the three mornings he’d been there. Heartbreak was the smell of a newspaper, like the ones he delivered around the neighbourhood; the ones he’d delivered the day he’d seen her crying and asked if she was okay. Walking past his sister Aggie’s bedroom door he smelled heartbreak. She used the same perfume as Mrs. Doherty. All these things knifed his heart. The wet scent of freshly cut lawns filled his nose every day. Even summer smelled of heartbreak.

Thinking about her for more than a few moments, remembering what had happened each of those times, turned his fifteen-year-old prick to flaming iron. It leaked throughout the day. Either he left it alone or he didn’t. Either way, his leaden balls ached constantly.

From his bedroom window, he could see the corner of the Doherty’s house across the estate, but there were no windows visible. He sat there for hours waiting to see her, just to catch a glimpse of her for a few moments as she entered or left. She wore summer dresses and high heeled sandals; she wore tight shorts and clinging tee shirts that showed off her breasts and behind; she wore her blonde hair in a pony tail; sometimes she let it flow free. He often cried with frustration as he masturbated. He didn’t want his own pathetic, insufficient hand. He wanted her.

He wanted nothing else.

A yearlong week into the holiday, he began to grow up. It was time to stop wanking and do something. If he wanted her that badly, he told himself, he had to find a way to see her.

***

Gone were the moody days, the indecisive days of frost then sun then rain. The world had bloomed and now, day after day, the sun stared at the greenness of it all through cloudless skies. Rain, when it did come, fell at night and was a ghost before people began their mornings.

In Mason’s garden, the fruit and vegetables filled and fattened, drawing strength and goodness from the soil and his rocket fuel compost. He’d eaten all the new potatoes and as much of the broccoli as he could manage alone. The rest of it he canned and stored in his pantry. The garden helped him cut out many of the costs of living. He fed it and in turn, it fed him.

However, there were two mouths to feed now, one of which wanted nothing the garden had to offer.

He no longer sat to read in the cool of the shed or rested there when his energy flagged - he was tired most of the time these last few days. There wasn’t enough space any more and the shed-thing was so ravenous that Mason didn’t like to be near it for a moment longer than was necessary.

At night he put drugged cat food out to attract animals into the garden. Long before dawn, he would collect them while they slept and throw them into the shed. There wasn’t always an animal to give to the shed-thing and on those mornings, to keep it from making its increasingly louder groans of hunger, he was obliged to give of himself. The neighbourhood was running out of hedgehogs and stray cats. When Mason looked at himself in the mirror in the mornings, he was pale beneath his tan. There was no way he could give this much blood and remain strong and healthy. Maintaining the garden was becoming a struggle. Keeping the shed-thing properly fed was becoming impossible.

And, pretty soon, someone was going to knock on his door asking if he’d seen their pet moggy.

On the nights after it had engulfed an animal, the shed-thing scratched at the shed door and Mason would let it out. It would slip and slummock its way over to the back wall where he would open the gate for it. Each of these nights it went back to the landfill and returned with extra parts. Blood was enough to keep it alive, but it needed bone and soft tissue in order to grow. The first time it absorbed a sleeping cat, it returned from the landfill with a second eye and a replacement for the first one. The eyes were made from a discarded pair of spectacles and caused the creature to look bookish and short-sighted. Everything it added to itself was made of garbage. Inside, Mason imagined it creating amalgamated organs that grew as it grew. Three hedgehog livers and four cat livers to make one shed-thing liver. Each brain adding to the ones already in its ever-changing head.

So far the shed-thing still looked like a developing foetus, its reclaimed limbs made from anything it could find - old chair and table legs, the wheels from the corners of sofas, joints made of rusted hinges or ball bearings fitted into approximated sockets to give it a greater range of movement. Flimsy carrier bag or bin-liner skin was exchanged for cloth and leather and sheets of flexible plastic.

It went on all fours, like the living creatures it had taken into itself, but it was no animal. Mason could see the growing intelligence behind its glass eyes. There was a blackness within that shone from its reconstituted lenses, a depth Mason had never seen in a human eye.

As exhausting as nannying and suckling the newborn shed-thing was, Mason couldn’t stop himself from doing it. There was such sound reason in keeping it alive. He could find no argument against it. There was something else. He was fascinated by its development. He cared about it. It was not his pet. It was not his child. It was the future.

And yet, sometimes he talked to it in mock-scolding, motherly tones.

‘One of these days the starving puppy routine is going to stop working, you know,’ he told it. There was no animal to give it that morning so Mason reopened what was now a wound that would leave a deep and visible scar. He placed a quarter of a pint of his blood in the doorway of the shed and the creature seemed to smile at him as it lapped up his warm sacrifice. Gone was the burger box mouth and the pathetically crumpled straw proboscis. Now it lapped with a suede belt tip. Its mouth was formed by the opening of a plastic purse. ‘Don’t worry. I’m just fooling. You’re meant to be here. There’s a reason for it. I’ll make sure you’re all right. I’m going to help you grow up straight and strong.’

The lapping paused, the belt dripping darkly. The shed-thing looked at him from far behind its glasses-for-eyes. He thought he saw the corners of the purse turn upward in a synthetic smile.

***

Kevin Doherty realised his marriage was over the day he lost the dogs. Ozzy and Lemmy had very little to do with it and yet, without them, it would never have happened.

At seven fifteen, he was halfway round the reservoir and two cigarettes poorer. It was then that he saw a girl sitting on a bench overlooking the water. She was wearing jeans and a black leather motorcycle jacket - it must still have been cool when she’d ventured out into the morning and he wondered how long she’d been there. Even from a hundred and fifty yards away she looked sad. The next thing he noticed was a cast or bandage on her foot and a pair of grey crutches leaning against the bench beside her. He’d known he would speak to her, that something was going to happen.

As he approached, Ozzy and Lemmy tumbled out of a hawthorn hedge ahead of him. When they saw the girl on the bench they raced towards her barking in penetrating stereo.

‘Bloody hell,’ he muttered, knowing he was going to have to call them back and that she’d hear their stupid names. He started running, vainly trying to close the distance to the bench before them. It wasn’t even a contest. The girl turned to see what the dogs were barking at and saw them inbound at high speed. Kevin watched her reach for her crutches.

‘Shit.’

And then he was shouting,

‘Ozzy, Lemmy, come here. Hey, HERE boys.’ He whistled and watched them ignore it. They were yards from the girl who had struggled to her feet and realised there was nowhere to go. ‘OZZY! LEMMY! HEEL, NOW!’

He was there but not in time. Sensing the girl’s fear, the dogs now ran around her in opposite circles, hackles spiked, white spittle scattering from their jaws. He caught Ozzy by the collar and fumbled around after Lemmy who hid behind the girl every time Kevin lunged for him.

‘God, I’m really sorry about this,’ he said. ‘They won’t hurt you, honestly. They’re just a bit . . . exuberant. Come here, Lemmy, you stunted bastard.’

When he’d put them back on their leads he took them over to the fence that bordered the fields beyond and tied them to it.

‘Don’t you show me up again or you’re both going into kennels. Forever.’

He walked back over to the girl who was leaning on her crutches and trembling. Her head was turned away.

‘Listen, I’m ever so sorry. Are you going to be all right?’ He didn’t know whether he should put out his hand and take hold of her arm. He decided not to. She turned towards him then and her face was wet with tears. She’d been laughing.

‘I’ll be fine,’ she said through a giggle.

‘I thought you were traumatised,’ he said stupidly.

‘Yeah, well I was to start with but watching you handle your highly-trained dogs helped me get over it. That and their heavy metal call-signs.’

Kevin’s lips went tight. The girl was long-haired, kind of a rocker herself with all the leather and denim, and this close to her he realised why it was inevitable he’d talk to her. Even without the help of the dogs he’d have stopped and said something to her. What was that? Pheromones? She charmed him now, as he stood next to her, but he had no idea why. She was attractive in a way that made no sense to him. Not a single stereotypical beauty-feature in sight and yet he could hardly keep his eyes from exploring her.

And here she was taking the piss out of the dogs’ names. Taking the piss out of him.

‘Not my idea,’ he said and saw her glance at the ring on his left hand. He hadn’t planned to admit he was married. Too late already.

‘Uh huh,’ she said, as though she didn’t believe him. ‘Well, they could really do with some obedience training.’

‘I’m sorry,’ he said again.

For some uncomfortable moments, there was silence. The kind of silence that ought to have clarified the conversation was over. He didn’t want that, though.

‘I feel terrible about this. They drive me nuts those two. Are you sure you’ll be okay?’

‘I’m hard. I’ll handle it.’

Before he could stop himself he said,

‘Do you smoke?’

‘I do, as it happens.’

Kevin reached into his pocket and drew out his glasses case. There were two cigarettes remaining, both a little wrinkled and bent. He offered one to her.

‘Here. It’s the least I can do.’

She smiled and shook her head, drawing an almost full pack of Camels from her own jacket pocket.

‘I couldn’t possibly take one of your last fags. Besides,’ she said, catching sight of the Silk Cut logo, ‘it’ll be like smoking hot air. I need some serious tar.’

She held the pack out. Kevin sighed, shook his head and took one, his humiliation complete.

‘Don’t worry,’ she said. ‘I appreciate the offer. And the dog thing, it wasn’t your fault. Just forget it, okay?’

He sighed again.

‘Okay.’

She cupped her hands over her lighter, a pink Bic just like his, and flicked it for him. The first rush of ‘real’ smoke made him dizzy.

‘Been trying to quit?’ She asked, noticing the look on his face.

‘Kind of.’

‘Not many of us around these days.’

‘That’s how it looks,’ said Kevin, ‘but none of the tobacco companies seem to have gone out of business.’

She sat back down on the bench and once more leaned her crutches against it. He joined her. As soon as they were sitting, the conversation died and he was left thinking he shouldn’t be there. If anyone from the estate saw him, the rumours would spread like plague. He rushed the cigarette, heating and lengthening the glowing end in the process and crumpling the diminishing shaft of white.

She smirked.

‘That’s quite an addiction,’ she said. ‘Maybe you should just let the tobacco companies take your money. Looks like you need the nicotine.’

She was kidding, he knew, and it was good of her to be so pleasant natured when his - correction, Tammy’s - dogs had just scared the crap out of her. He also knew she was right about the smoking. Her simple observation had an equally simple but unsettling inference. Kevin Doherty isn’t allowed to be himself, he thought. Kevin Doherty does the things his wife wants him to do and he does it to keep the peace. Kevin Doherty’s marriage exists beneath a patina of lies: two unhappy people share the same house and bed. Both of those people would like to be elsewhere doing other things with other people. Living other lives. Being themselves.

It was so obvious it was depressing. Why couldn’t he have admitted before?

The thoughts had stopped him smoking and the ash had caught up with the rest of the cigarette. It toppled in a grey column onto his navy blue Ralph Lauren chinos. It broke up on impact and some rolled onto the gritty dirt under the bench. He could have brushed it away but he didn’t.

‘Everything all right?’ asked the girl.

‘Fine.’ He took a deep breath. ‘My name’s Kevin, by the way.’

He put the butt in his mouth and held out his hand, squinting as the smoke stung his eyes.

‘I’m Jenny,’ she said and shook it.

He relaxed then, finding happiness in this other world, this real world that suddenly existed outside his marriage. He nodded towards her bandaged foot.

‘How did you break your foot?’

‘I was hoping you wouldn’t ask me that.’

Shit, he thought, can I possibly get this any more wrong than I already have? But she continued and he could see her trying to save him from his newfound gift for crashing and burning:

‘What I mean is, it’s difficult to explain. Maybe I could tell you about it another time.’

She allowed her eyes to meet his and he was both elated and terrified to arrive at this moment out of nowhere. What he wanted. What he shouldn’t have. What he deserved?

He dropped the cigarette and crushed it out under his shoe.

‘I’d like that.’

He stood up and held out his hand again. Another lame-assed gesture that felt all wrong. She took it with a smile and a barely noticeable shake of her head.

‘Will I see you around here,’ he asked, ‘or . . .’ he didn’t know where to go with the suggestion.

She was already writing down her telephone number.

‘Here,’ she said. ‘Why don’t you call me sometime.’

‘I will.’

He looked around as he accepted the scrap of cardboard from her Camel packet in case anyone was watching. It was then that he noticed the lack of activity over by the fence.

‘Oh shit. No.’

The leads hung there abandoned, each with the collar still attached. Tammy always insisted they not be too tight so that they didn’t choke the dogs. Taking advantage of her thoughtfulness, the rock and roll Staffies were gone.

11

The cliché of seeing light at the end of a dark tunnel came nowhere near to describing the experience of soaring from life into death. It did even less justice to that singular moment in which she’d found salvation. For Mavis Ahern those two experiences were indivisible.

Now, as she sat and examined the photographs she’d snapped, she was taken back to the person she’d been before her illumination. Her old life had been similarly earthly, similarly uninspired. Yes, there had been lust, but not like this. Hers had been a lust for some other kind of connection; lust born of spiritual isolation.

Other than the occasional movement of her fingers, the room was still. Dust particles migrated slowly through rectangular blocks of sunlight like nebulae rotating through space. The room was silent. She held the stack in her right hand and when she’d seen enough she placed the top photo to the back and studied the next one. A china cup of black coffee had been cold beside her for a long time. Her eyes drilled each of the images before she moved them from front to back. Over and over again she analysed what she saw, trying to understand. She could not.

All the photos could do was remind her of the ‘life’ she’d known before finding her Saviour. There had been a void in her existence then - no, that wasn’t accurate - her entire existence had been a void, even in childhood. She had never participated, she had only ever observed. The world revolved and its people willingly danced. The old Mavis - the young Mavis, as she’d been - did not like the music. Nothing in the dance held any meaning for her. Until she found Him, even the natural spin of the planet seemed powered by random, purposeless clockwork. The world was a toy, its people were puppets; the whole of creation pirouetting ceaselessly in an absurd oblivion.

Reaching nineteen without any change in her outlook and concluding her arrival in the world was equally without meaning, Mavis hung herself inside her mother’s huge antique wardrobe. She didn’t understand the principles of a hangman’s noose and so she asphyxiated slowly rather than snapping her neck. Her body’s will to survive had been stronger than her mind’s inability to find a reason to keep on living and she kicked and hammered the old cupboard to pieces around her. It collapsed, setting her free.

And it was in that moment, cheek by jowl with the reaper’s blade, God had entered her life. It was like standing in the stream of a flamethrower. All her ignorance was burned away. At last, she began to understand. She did not feel welcome in the world because she was His special scion. Of course she felt alienated and excluded - she was of the very divine fire that now flayed away the last of her human stupidity. Through the flames came God’s voice so clear and direct that the sound hurt more than the blaze around her.

You are my child, my instrument. Love me as I love you and I will always guide you, always protect you. Do as I ask, and you will dwell forever in my house.

She’d never felt alive before that moment. Now she was alight with sensation; explosions of brightness and colour lit up death’s night sky.

-I’ll do anything you ask of me.-

I ask only this: Be vigilant.

There was a terrible moment of doubt. The conflagration dimmed.

-How will I know what to watch for?-

Trust me. You will know.

In a moment her faith was total. She had a relationship, a personal relationship, with the creator. It was like a direct line to his wisdom and love. He never spoke to her again - not in words - but he communicated with her in signs every day. Whenever she asked for His judgement or help on a matter, the answer came. All she had to do was be vigilant and she would see His reply. The sign might come in a newspaper article or from a television advert. It could arrive as a phone call from someone or an odd coincidence that had very specific significance. Since sharing in God’s love everything had become significant. She was constantly in conversation with Him.

Though she wore a silk square to hide the scar the rope had left on her neck, when she was safe and alone at home, she uncovered it. For, though it was a shameful thing she would never let another human being see, it was also the mark that made her His child forever; her mark of salvation and redemption.

And she was constantly watchful.

It had become her duty, not merely to spread the good news, but to watch for sinfulness and wrongdoing in her small area of the world and to make things right in His name. Where she’d previously seen meaninglessness in every deed, now she saw the playing out of the battle between good and evil. Increasingly, the world looked like Satan’s domain. Greed, selfishness and an unquenchable desire for instant satisfaction were tearing the Christian world apart. Morality - the simple, common sense goodness outlined by the Ten Commandments - was a fraying thread. It no longer held anything secure. God’s creation was falling apart around her. Though she was frightened by what the world could do, by what ordinary people could stoop to, she stood squarely beneath the responsibility to show no tolerance for evil. She shouldered it gladly.

Everything had its purpose. Even the unpleasant altercation with the Smithfield girl outside her house had yielded something. It gave her the idea of using her old camera. Now, studying the pictures she’d collected from the camera shop that morning, she realised she was in a position not only of responsibility but also of power. This, again, was part of His message to her. Not only must she watch, now she must act. Her camera was dated. It contained film which needed to be developed, but it did the job well enough. Not all the photos were clear and few of them ‘proved’ anything.

One or two, however, had the power to set things straight.

The question was how best to use them and whom to show them to. She had two options:

She could go with her anger, her desire to do damage to the guilty party, and show them to the person she had, until very recently, favoured. Or she could show them to the one who, in her eyes, had done the greater wrong. The more she thought about it, the more she realised that much of her thinking was based on her prejudice against young, good-looking, self-assured men. She had to let the Lord be the judge.

When it came right down to it, the woman had done much worse and had been doing it for longer. It shocked Mavis that such things were occurring on the very estate where she had lived for the last twenty years. It was a sure sign of where the world was heading - into the welcoming jaws of Armageddon. Mavis didn’t want the judgement day to come, though she had no fear of it on her own account, and maybe by getting just these two young people to see the wrongfulness of their behaviour, getting them to reconcile their differences and start again, maybe that would keep God’s wrath at bay just a little bit longer. There had to be love in this world and there had to be respect. Most of all there had to be faithfulness to God’s plain but holy laws. Righteousness and Goodness and Sacrifice above all other things.

And forgiveness. It was difficult to bear that in mind. If Mavis could not forgive their actions then how could these two, who had strayed so far from the Christian path of marriage, forgive each other? Her decision could not be made lightly or without the help of the Lord.

Mavis Ahern laid aside the wedge of amateurish but incriminating photos. She slipped off the sofa and onto the carpet. There she prayed and meditated and cried for His guidance. She petitioned for a sign that would make her course of action clear.

An hour later, her knees sore from kneeling on the thin carpet, she opened her eyes and struggled to get to her feet. Numbness and tingling in her calves threatened to take her balance so she let herself fall into the armchair that looked onto the garden. There she saw her rose beds and how sweetly the roses bloomed from their foundation of manure. She saw how unforgiving the spikes of the roses were and how they all existed together in a natural harmony. From muck came beautiful things, dangerous things. Marriage was like those roses, wasn’t it? God surely meant for her to do something rather than nothing and the roses were His sign to her.

A magpie flew down from her pear tree. One for sorrow, she thought. What did that mean? A moment later she saw a separate pair, still flicking their tails and rattling their calls to each other up in the branches. Three for a girl. She looked around carefully but there were no more. And no other obvious signs.

So, then: she would tell Tamsin. Show her the pictures. Her part would be done then - unless they asked for further guidance from her - and the two young people would have to mend their marriage in their own way.

From the muck good things would come. That was the Lord’s message.

***

The drinking part was easy, as was the not turning up to college. In the space of a day, Ray Wade had developed an uneasiness that made him want to avoid everything. Including his higher education. It wasn’t an important term to complete - he’d already taken the exams and thought he’d done well enough. Lectures had seemed far more important before Jenny’s accident. He’d let Shreve Tertiary College know he was sick and then stayed sick until the term had finished. Now it was the summer holiday, a time for long lunchtime pub sessions. For late nights smoking weed, watching DVDs and playing Revenant Apocalypse on his game console. There was Glastonbury and Notting Hill Carnival to look forward to and, since Jenny was no longer running his life, he could do whatever he wanted.

He had the feeling though, that some things remained unresolved. For a start, he knew he was staying bombed all the time because he missed her. He hated himself for being so weak when all he’d wanted to do was to get away from her and live his life the way he wanted to. And then there was the incident that had happened at the roadside.

He thought about that more than anything.

He thought about it even when he thought he wasn’t thinking about it.

It was this constant obsessing that led him, not back to Jenny’s door, but to the grass verge where it had happened. He had to know what it was he’d seen. Put it behind him once and for all.

It was a different day when he drove out to the ring road, the quickest way from his place to College - the way they’d been going when it happened. Day by sweltering day, the sun had burned away all the moisture from the earth and now the verges were hard, dry and yellowed. Ray had both the front windows down in the Rover to counteract the heat - there was nothing hotter than the interior of a black car in a heat wave. He might as well be driving around in a pizza oven. The smell of synthetic leather and moulded plastic oozed from the seats and steering wheel as Fleetwood Mac thrummed out ‘The Chain’ from the only thing of value in the car, Ray’s Pioneer stereo.

Neither the sunshine vibe music, nor the glaring presence of summer were enough to make him feel good about revisiting the spot where Jenny had ‘lost’ her toe. He pulled off the road in the gateway to a field waist-high with brightly-flowering rape and walked the final few yards to the spot.

A month of weather had changed the place from the damp, blood-streaked verge he remembered to an arid, dusty scrub. As he reached the spot, he slowed down and took in a long, careful view of the strip of stubbly grass lying between the ring road and the fields. There wasn’t a single car passing in either direction. Across the rapeseed field a silent gang of crows loitered in the dead outer branches of an oak tree. The ground in front of him was dry and empty. No blood, no litter, no sign of anything except drought.

He stopped on the place where he thought the ‘attack’ had happened and giggled at the memory of Jenny being knocked over in the rain by a bag of damp rubbish. He shook his head at himself. How could he be laughing? Some other part of him answered, how can you not be laughing? The bag of rubbish hadn’t been moving. It hadn’t been alive. They’d both had very little sleep the previous night. They’d both been so stoned on a new batch of weed that they’d taken most of that sleep in a tangled pile on the sofa. Nothing had bitten Jenny’s toe off. Inside the bag of rubbish there must have been a shard of broken glass, an old carving knife or razor. Shit, there could have been an animal trap hidden inside it deliberately by some evil-minded sicko.

And why was there nothing here to prove that anything had ever happened? Because the environmental services would have been along in the meantime and cleared up the mess. A crow or magpie had probably hopped away with Jenny’s big toe and fed strips of it to its brood of hungry chicks. Ray released a sigh.

‘What the fuck am I wasting time out here for? I’ve still got all ten tarsals.’

Astounded by his own stupidity, worried and amused in equal measure by the kinds of paranoid fantasy he was prepared to accept as true, he turned away from the spot and trotted back to the car.

His mind eased by his review of events, he made a deal with himself:

He wasn’t going to think about stupid Jenny and her stupid toe anymore. He wasn’t going to believe in slithering hungry garbage. He was going to enjoy the rest of the summer.

***

His aching heart and his aching cock led the way. Her front door was a terrifying magnet he could not avoid, though the rest of his body protested. Even his brain told him he was crazy.

Don’t do it like this. Think about it first. Make a plan.

The voice of his heart was louder. The voice of his heart commanded.

Donald’s feet walked him down the stairs of his house and to the front door. None of his family was up yet. Knowing exactly how to open the front door and close it again without a sound, Donald’s body let him out into the warm bright morning. His paper round took about twenty minutes. That was all the time he had in the worst scenario. In a better scenario, there might be longer but only if he didn’t dawdle now. Faster than he was prepared for, his legs took him and all his pain on a direct route to her. He cut the corners off the streets, walked across other people’s driveways, stepped through the edges of gardens.

His mind screamed at him to stop, turn around, go home, think it over.

His heart battered away making it hard to breathe. His throat dried out and he knew he’d have no voice, only the expression on his face when he saw her. That would be enough, said his heart, more than enough. Then they would touch - a spark to the high-octane fuel - and he would enter a painless ecstasy.

For a few minutes, his mind said.

That will be enough, replied his heart.

He was there somehow. Without remembering a single step that brought him. His chest hurt. He knew when he opened his mouth all she would hear would be the drum and bass of his heartbeat. A hand reached up to knock, he saw it and couldn’t believe it was his. It was. The hand knocked an urgent double-rap on the white-painted wood.

Footsteps in the hallway. The door opened and he saw her

fucking hell

husband standing there in his dressing gown. Unshaven, bleary eyed. Unhappy.

He couldn’t speak. He couldn’t look the man in the eye. He was sure his face was the colour of the scarlet roses in her front garden. The man looked confused and impatient.

‘What can I do for you?’ asked Kevin Doherty. But Donald heard the barely veiled ‘piss off, squirt’ in his tone. His throat locked.

Mr. Doherty opened his eyes wider, craned his neck forward in a we’re-all-waiting-and-we’ve-all-got-better-things-to-do gesture of encouragement. Then Donald saw recognition on the man’s face. There could be nothing worse.

‘You’re the paper boy.’

‘Uh . . .’ said Donald.

. . .

‘I’m s-sorry,’ he added.

. . .

And finally,

‘No papers today.’

Mr. Doherty shrugged.

‘Thanks for the warning, but who cares? There’s nothing in the local rag worth reading about. Do me a favour, son, will you? Cancel our subscription.’

The words stopped Donald’s heart. The paper was his only connection to her.

‘It’s all right, son. I’m sure you won’t lose your job over it.’

The husband closed the door. Donald’s legs turned him around and took him away as fast as possible. A shout from behind stopped his heart again.

‘Hey! Come here a second.’

Donald stopped walking and considered sprinting. His body wouldn’t do it. He rotated towards Mr. Doherty like a robot and took a few reluctant steps back towards the door. The man’s voice dropped to a whisper.

‘I want to ask you something.’

Donald started thinking up the frantic denials, lies and excuses. None of them were believable. Mr. Doherty was going to smash him into unconsciousness. Maybe strangle him to death right there on the doorstep.

Mr Doherty looked from side to side at the quiet neighbourhood and beckoned Donald closer. Two steps were all he could manage.

Mr. Doherty’s voice became even quieter.

‘You haven’t seen a couple Staffordshire bull terriers, have you? They’re easy enough to recognise - got these stupid grins on their faces most of the time. Thought you might have noticed them on your paper round.’

***

Ray Wade’s days took on a lethargic monotony that was utterly comfortable and utterly safe. He arose some time in the hour before midday and would see the pile of books that needed to be read before the end of the holidays. Bypassing them he would spend fifteen minutes or more frowning over a month-old crossword as he sat on the pot. Breakfast at Luigi’s café varied a little, but not much - some version of the full English highlighting his favoured fried food of the moment - and then back to the flat for his first spliff of the day. There was no hurry in any of this.

He made a mug of tea and set it on the coffee table while he constructed a complex pattern of cigarette papers, licking and ripping until he had the shape he wanted. Then he crumbled hash over the innards of a Marlboro, made a roach from the dwindling packet and rolled the whole lot into a pristine cone. The first blast of hot, tearing smoke hit his lungs like spicy fog and jammed his brain with sparks and dizziness a moment later.

When he’d recovered from the first rush, out came the games console and in went disc 2 of Revenant Apocalypse, the scariest and most satisfying game he’d ever played. There on the rumpled couch he would stay for the next three or four hours, moving only to make tea, relieve himself or roll new joints.

In the late afternoon, both spaced and creeped-out by his one-man war against the undead, he would rediscover the world of sunshine outside the flat and walk through Shreve to The Barge, a pub overlooking the canal. There, in the gravelled beer garden, he would sit and stare at the ducks - cold pints of cider taking the edge off the build up of game-induced paranoia.

The walk home would include a stop at Rockets Video Rental for a couple of DVDs - comedies usually - to counteract the terror of half a day spent hacking zombies to pieces with a sword. The final leg would then depend on which takeaway he required and whether or not he needed to visit Monkey Man for a new block of hash.

Ray intended to make the most of the student loan he knew he’d spend many miserable years paying off.

And at three or four in the morning, too stoned even to masturbate, he knew that all the things he put into his body and distracted his mind with each day had only one purpose. No amount of brain haze could hide it: they helped him not think about what was missing in his life.

***

It became Mason’s ritual to rise at around half past three in the morning and sit in the kitchen with the back door open drinking tea until he heard something. He sat there now, halfway through his third mug, cold between his cupped palms. A night breeze teased his bare ankles in the darkness and he shivered, put the tea on the window ledge. It was out there right now, far across the scrubland, sifting waste while Shreve slept.

It was impossible for Mason to sleep when he knew the shed-thing was at large in night’s obscurity, picking over the landfill for better parts. He didn’t fear for the animals or people it might find while it searched for augmentations. He worried he wasn’t taking good enough care of it, that it would get lost or hurt or buried out there on its own in the middle of the night. He thought of it as an orphan whose guardian he had become.

The noise he waited for was a scratching on the wooden gate at the bottom of the garden. It was an unmistakeable sound. It had that presumption to it, the way a child might knock on its own parents’ door. The scratching said so much about the shed-thing, this creature which could not speak a word. It telegraphed the shed-thing’s vulnerability: let me in, give me sanctuary, I need to be safe now. It communicated urgency: I’m hungry, sustain me. It wordlessly spoke of a terrifying solitude: I do not know what I am or why I am like this, let me see you, let me be with you again.

Sometimes he worried he was putting words in its makeshift mouth, that it was nothing more than an abomination, death rekindled into living death, trying mindlessly to survive.

Each night he let it out and each morning, long before dawn it returned; larger, altered. It developed itself. The process made Mason think of hermit crabs discarding shells they’d outgrown in favour of something more spacious. But there was so much more to it than that. The shed-thing didn’t merely make itself larger. It improved itself, it self-modified. It appeared to learn as it went what the best combinations were for a strong, resilient frame. This was not the behaviour of senseless, dead matter.

It was using some of the flesh it had taken as muscle and sinew to hold its newest parts together. Corroded copper pipes, pieces of garden hose and bicycle tyre inner tubes had become its veins and in them, judging by the smell, flowed the filthy biochemistry of recycled bloods and the slimy leachate from beneath the landfill. It was a more complicated thing to look at now. Mason found it bewitching in the way of sunsets, for, like them, the creature was never the same two days in a row. It was mysterious; Mason knew what was in it, what it was of, but not how it fitted together. Not how it lived. The shed-thing was animate; sentient, junkyard mechanics. It was improvised biology melded with reclaimed human wreckage. The shed-thing defied entropy - more than that, it opposed and reversed it. It was beautiful and new the way the shimmering fur of a tiny wild fox cub was beautiful. It was as feral as a wolf, as intelligent as . . .

Mason tried not to think about that.

Every day the creature budded in some new way, reliant upon the amount and nature of the live flesh and organs he fed it. It added to itself continually. What remained obvious, despite its many flaws and deformities, was its unceasing intent to evolve from its quadruped form. It was trying - and it was failing every time - to become humanoid in shape. There were aberrations, of course - vestigial limbs that survived for only a day, extra toes and ears which disappeared or dropped off and rotted so quickly they appeared to evaporate. Many mornings the creature had a tail but by the end of the day it would have vanished.

It was no animal, even though it had the nature of an animal and the vitals and ligaments and tissues of an animal. No. What it aspired to was humanity.

Since the bounteous day that two stray bulldogs had been drawn to the food in the garden, the creature had added a great deal of body to itself. He’d come to think of it affectionately as the shed-thing but it barely fitted inside the shed any more.

And that, if nothing else, troubled Mason deeply. For, if it was no longer a shed-thing, what would it be?

The noise came. It was not a scratching.

It was a knock. A soft, surreptitious knock on the garden gate. Three taps. He almost didn’t hear it over his own breathing. The spacing and the volume were a code and, once again, Mason heard the inference from the speechless shed-thing. It was a signal meant only for him. I’m back, let me come in. All of this was their little secret. Come quietly, don’t let anyone know. There was something else. Something he hadn’t heard before. Usually the scratching was insistent but somehow fatigued, as though the shed-thing had exhausted itself in its nocturnal seeking.

The three taps came again. A little louder. A little faster. Urgency.

The shed-thing was excited. There was something it wanted to show him.

In his slippers and worn-through pyjamas, Mason crept quietly to the bottom of the garden. The fronds and leaves of his vegetables left dew on him as he passed, raising chicken-skin from scalp to toe. He saw the lighter coloured square of his back gate and beyond it a shape. He had the impression of something crouching there and for a moment he lost

all his confidence. He stopped on the paved path a few steps from the gate. Beyond it a shape moved in the darkness. There was no way to identify it except that it was no shape ever seen before. Not by him. Not by anyone.

It did not tap again. It knew he was there.

Why couldn’t he step forward and open the gate?

The answer was in his heart rate, his life-pump swelling in his chest. Mason was afraid.

The silence of the shed-thing was full of patience. It was full of excitement. That was what scared him.

He stepped forward and reached for the latch. He pressed the thumb lever, the black metal cool in his fingers. The well-oiled workings made no sound as he lifted the latch and pulled open the gate.

***

There was a moment of mental safety in which Mason reasoned that what he now saw beyond the gate was all in his imagination. There was nothing new here. Rationality helped in this brief delusion. The shed-thing was still just a pile of trash and animal parts which crawled on four legs. In the darkness, all he could see was the jumble of mismatched structures and appendages he’d come to expect when the shed-thing came home each night. Similar but larger, exactly as it usually was.

Then the shed-thing did something it had never done before. It moved in a new way. Instead of crawling towards him, it uncoiled. Upwards.

Mason took several steps back up the path. It rose up to show him what it had become. It was proud to display itself, he could see that in the way it moved, turning a little to each side so he could see it against the wall of night behind. The shed-thing stood now on two legs, swaying like a toddler taking its first steps.

Mason put his hand over his mouth to keep the gasp inside. The gasp which might have escalated into some louder expression of disgust.

The shed-thing had found enough pieces of furniture and angle iron to make itself a pair of legs. But these new limbs, although larger and longer than before were insufficient for the task. It had used the bull terriers’ limbs as a template and so it stood now, only partially upright, on limbs with thick rounded haunches, skinny-looking ‘tibia’ and ‘fibula’ and elongated, front-flexing ankles. And, just like dogs, there was no way it could stay standing on these hind legs for very long. Still, Mason noted the sense of achievement the shed-thing was displaying. It had found a kind of confidence in itself he hadn’t seen. Before, it had laboured for itself with a will and a sense of urgency. Here was its first moment of a more human emotion, something approaching self-belief. Mason despaired; it had built this pride on sandy foundations.

Even as Mason thought these things, the shed-thing’s ungainly swaying worsened. A tearing came from one if its new legs as the weight of the rest of its body overcame the poor structure. The shed-thing’s left leg snapped at the ankle. Not understanding what had happened, it tried to take a step towards Mason. Instead it fell through the entrance to the back garden, forcing Mason to sidestep into his cabbages. The noise the fall made was loud, like someone had dumped a small skip onto his path. For a moment there was silence, the silence after a child falls over and before it fully realises it’s hurt. And then came a keening wail from somewhere deep inside the shed-thing, a moan of failure and pain and frustration.

A light went on in the bedroom of the next door neighbour’s house.

Mason’s voice was a harsh whisper:

‘You’ve got to be quiet.’

The bedroom window opened and a man looked out. He seemed to scan the night blindly at first and as though he expected to see thieves making off with something from his own garden. As his eyes adjusted after the glare of the bedroom light he must have seen something on Mason’s side of the fence.

‘Don’t move,’ hissed Mason to the shed-thing. Thankfully, it lay completely still.

The neighbour saw him in the light emitted from the bedroom. There was no need for the man to shout. The night was otherwise utterly silent.

‘You’re a fucking lunatic, Brand. Leave your pissing rubbish alone until morning. If you wake us up again, I’m calling the police.’

The man withdrew and the bedroom window shut behind him. Mason imagined the brief explanation the man would have shared with his wife. The light went out.

After a long time, so long his knees had stiffened, he began to haul the shed-thing to safety. As soon as he touched it, it pushed him away. He felt the anger in the gesture. It began to pull itself along with its three remaining good limbs, dragging the broken leg behind it. Mason unlocked the shed and let it haul itself in. He had to lift the useless leg over the threshold but then it was whipped away from him onto the blackness. He stood in the cave-hole of the doorway for a few moments listening to the forlorn whimpers of the failed creature and wondered at the nature of its tears.

12

Jenny wasn’t great in bed but it was almost worth it just for the cigarettes that followed. Delicious, biting lungfuls of high-tar fags that made his scalp tingle and gave him a rare reason to smile. These thoughts gave him an immediate and physical rash of guilt across the back of his neck. Too many years spent with the wrong woman had deepened his cynicism. The truth was, for the first time ever, the quality of the sex didn’t matter. He felt something for Jenny he didn’t remember feeling for Tammy, even when they’d first met.

He would never tell the girl - and girl she was compared to him - but the simple fact was that Jenny was an amateurish fuck. Either she didn’t like it much or she wasn’t very experienced. More surprising than this to Kevin was that he didn’t care. In his experience, sex improved as a relationship lengthened. It was a small matter and there was plenty of time. When Jenny was beside him, in her bedroom or anywhere they met, Kevin felt like he was in the right place. Such a simple state of mind. A sensation he didn’t recognise but one he delighted in.

He assumed Jenny must have been used to having things her own way because she often said manipulative things. His response was to smile and tell her to piss off. Compared to Tammy, she was a beginner at mind games too - ironic, considering she was studying psychology at Shreve College.

There would be no more inference or atmosphere or undertones in his life. Just honesty.

‘If you’ve got something to say, Jen, just get it off your chest, eh?’

The first time he’d said something like that she went quiet for a while. Now she was learning the art of being up front:

‘I don’t like the way you look at every woman that walks past.’

‘Tough. It’s my programming.’

‘Change it.’

‘Alright. I’ll try.’ Or

‘Do you have to eat spaghetti that way?’

‘Yes.’

‘It’s embarrassing me.’

‘How would you like me to eat spaghetti?’

‘By cutting it up first.’

‘No chance.’

She won some. She lost some. At least there were no misunderstandings.

Her missing big toe bothered him. It didn’t turn him off or revolt him but there was something about it that wasn’t right. At this stage, he didn’t feel he could ask her any more without upsetting her and that was the last thing he wanted. But wasn’t he doing the very thing he disliked in himself and others by not coming out with it?

She’d said she’d lost it using a hover mower at her parents’ house. The scarring around the remaining knuckle was still purple and shiny. When she moved her other toes the scar tissue turned white where the bone stump pressed out from inside. Something in the way she’d answered the question ‘how did you lose that?’ made him think she was lying and he couldn’t understand why. He didn’t ask her about it again.

Had it been something embarrassing? Something that would make her look like an idiot to him? If so, he didn’t care. He liked her laughing, stupid ways. Accidents happened to everyone and none of them ever looked cool. Maybe it had been an act of violence. Kevin’s mind ran with that one. Had she been kidnapped? Her toe sent as a sign of the abductor’s seriousness before she was rescued or the ransom paid and she was freed?

Other things gnawed at him. Where was her toe now? Perhaps she’d had an infection and it had been amputated. He assumed that hospital waste was taken somewhere very safe and burned but he could only guess. If the toe had been severed in the lawnmower accident, perhaps it was too damaged to be recovered. In that case the flesh would have rotted on a lawn somewhere, the bone stolen by a fox or left to sink into the earth. Two small bones, one joint between them. Lost, discarded, stolen, who knew?

One day, when they got to know each other better, when there was more trust, he’d ask her again. But he knew he was a traitor to himself by putting it off.

***

The next time Don visited Mrs. Doherty, he made sure Mr. Doherty was out. It took three more days of surveillance for the moment to appear. He saw Mr. Doherty back out of the driveway in his BMW Z3. Unaccompanied. Don didn’t care if it was for just ten minutes. Or only five. He had to see her.

He sprayed his ripe armpits with Lynx, what his dad called a gypsy shower, and did the same inside his Vans before he slipped them on and hurried out of the house. It was impossible to make it casual. Anyone looking out of a window nearby would see him, see where he was going. They would notice the purpose in his pace. He no longer cared. He walked fast but without panic straight up to her door and rang the bell. His heart was banging, fit to escape the prison of his ribs. He ignored it. What he was doing would put everything right. No more heartache. No more misery. A sore prick perhaps, but a fulfilled one. A few moments. That was all he needed.

He saw a figure through the frosted glass. He chewed back his heart, swallowed it down.

This time she answered the door. She.

***

They stood in the kitchen. She leaned against the breakfast bar with a coffee. She seemed to have a lot of make-up on. Her eyes looked tired. Something about her was different but Don didn’t know what it was. Worse, he knew that if he was older, with just a little more experience, he probably could have worked it out. He cursed his insufficient years.

She was wearing white cycling shorts and a tight blue running top. He didn’t know if it was just fashion or what - he’d certainly never seen her out jogging or returning home from anywhere looking sweaty. All he knew was that the outfit left plenty of skin bare and clung to her curves like latex. He put his left hand in his pocket to shield his erection.

Silently, she appraised him, as though waiting for him to explain why he’d come. He didn’t know what to say. She’d merely turned and walked away leaving him to shut the front door and follow. He glanced from the floor to her breasts, feeling like what he was - a kid. He knew his time was running out.

‘Sorry to hear about your dogs.’

It was the only thing that came to him. It would have to do.

Immediately she was animated, shocked.

‘Why? What’s happened? Have they been hurt?’

‘No. I don’t think so. I heard you’d lost them.’ She flashed a look of angry impatience at him.

‘Tell me something I don’t bloody know, Donald. Christ, I thought you were going to tell me they’d been run over or something.’

Donald shook his head.

‘Nothing like that, Mrs. Doherty. I was just sorry to hear about it. If we ever lost Sasquatch, mum would be . . .’

There it was. Out before he’d even thought about it. He saw Mrs. Doherty as similar to his mother in some way. Not quite as old, but still, he’d even said it out loud and -

‘Two things, Don. First, don’t call me Mrs. Doherty. Coming from you it makes me feel like an old hag.’

Donald blushed. How pear-shaped could this go? He didn’t want her to feel old. He wanted her to know that she was beautiful and that he -

‘Second, what kind of a name for a dog is Sasquatch?’

‘What should I call you?’

She topped up her coffee from a cafetiere.

‘You should call me Tamsin. Don. Answer the question.’

‘What?’

‘Why on earth did you call your dog Sasquatch, for God’s sake?’

‘When she was a puppy, her feet were huge compared to the rest of her body.’

‘And?’

‘So I named her Sasquatch.’

‘Christ, Don, what does it mean?’

‘You don’t . . . it’s the Native American name for Bigfoot. The giant ape that people keep seeing.’

Tamsin blew on her coffee.

‘Well, I never knew that. You’re quite bright, aren’t you?’ Donald was confused. The fact that she didn’t know what Sasquatch was made her stupid or from another planet. It didn’t make him smart. Suddenly, he preferred her when she wasn’t talking. Talking was raising barriers between them instead of breaking them down. But, right now, talk was all he had.

‘Do you think you’ll find them?’

‘I don’t know. Kevin says he’s put a poster up in the post office and knocked on a few doors but I doubt he’s really asked anyone. Bloody useless man.’

Though it cheered him to hear her say it, Donald didn’t think what she was saying was fair.

‘He asked me. That’s how I know you lost them.’

‘Really? Well he ought to be asking a lot of other people too. He ought to be out there now going house to house. Instead he’s gone to some bloody weekend business meeting. Probably just playing golf and drinking. Christ, we might as well be retired the way we go on.’

The whole weekend? And she saw Mr. Doherty as useless?

Donald jumped all over the opportunities.

‘I could find them for you.’

‘You?’

‘Yeah. I know my way through Meadowlands like no one else. I know loads more of the people than you do. I could ask around. Someone’s bound to have seen them.’

‘Would you really do that?’

‘Sure. Why not?’

She threw her coffee in the sink.

‘Come here.’

On legs like stilts he went to her. She stroked his cheek.

‘You’re very sweet to me.’

Her long nails traced the side of his neck and disappeared into the hair at the back of his head sending tight, flesh prickles all the way to his feet. She drew him close and pressed his head into her throat. He felt her breasts pressing flat between them. He took his hand out of his pocket and put his arms around her. He didn’t see her smile and close her eyes as she felt his erection spring free.

‘Do you have to rush off, Donald or can you spare me a few minutes?’

He tried to answer but his throat was clogged dry. Some kind of noise came out but it didn’t sound like his voice.

‘That’s good. You haven’t seen upstairs yet, have you? We’ve just had it redecorated.’

***

Ray arrived at The Barge at one o’clock and ordered a pint of cider to quench his thirst - the short walk from his flat was enough to get him sweating. He could feel the heat reflecting up from the pavement. It was a good day to have chosen his cut-off denim shorts and an army surplus shirt, the sleeves rolled well above the elbows. No matter what the weather, Ray Wade never wore sandals or showed his feet. He would never admit it but to show the skin of his feet made him feel utterly vulnerable. He’d have preferred to strip in public than take off his shoes. His favourite footwear was boots and even the unusually hot weather hadn’t changed him - he was wearing the least booty boots he owned, a pair of green Converse hi-tops. A creased leather bush hat kept the sun off his head.

The Barge was already humming with people enjoying the suddenness of summer. Families with kids ate outside near the small playground. Students from Shreve College attended in large numbers, so there was no shortage of people to talk to. Ray fell in with a crowd of psychology students as they discussed Big Brother. These were people he’d met through Jenny but their chosen subject hadn’t made them better judges of quality TV. Ray thought Big Brother stank of voyeuristic exploitation.

‘That programme’s a fucking carnival,’ he said. ‘It’s exactly the sort of freak-show the government wants to distract us with while they levy stealth taxes against us and steal our privacy and liberty. All the contestants should be executed.’

Up until that moment, the talk had been, if not positive, then at least interested in the reality show. After Ray spoke there was a silence. Maybe it was the third pint of cider that had loosened his tongue. He didn’t care. He grinned around the table challenging any of them to disagree. They were all two years younger than he was anyway. The quietest of them was a Goth chick with long purple-streaked black hair and heavy make up. Her skin was china white next to her long black garb and her piercings glinted in the sun.

‘Lethal injection or firing squad?’ she asked in the lengthening pause.

Ray grinned.

‘What about a good old-fashioned hanging?’

The Goth - her name was Delilah though he didn’t believe that for a moment - shook her head.

‘Public execution would play into their hands. They should all be made to live alone and unobserved knowing they’ll never get any attention again.’

Ray lifted his pint to her.

‘Nice one.’

Any girl that wore a full-length black dress in thirty-degree heat was alright by him. He tried to gauge the size of her breasts through her clothing. They seemed fulsome. But it was difficult to tell. You never knew with these Goth chicks. They dressed that way because they had something to hide. Obsessive compulsives, bulimics and self-harmers most of them.

Delilah smiled back at him while the conversation resumed and went in a different direction. It seemed to leave him and her behind. He wondered if he’d been staring and quickly found he didn’t care. Ray stood up.

‘Anyone for another?’

He only asked because he knew they’d all just bought a round. All except Delilah who’d arrived later than everyone else. She was thirsty.

‘I’ll have a pint of cider, please.’

She started to dig out a grimy looking purse.

‘You can get the next one,’ he said. That was when it all went to shit.

As he turned for the bar he caught sight of a couple sitting on the grass by the canal. He stopped, an empty pint glass in each hand. The couple were kissing deeply. He could almost taste their mingling saliva. The girl was Jenny. Seeing it hit him in the chest physically, like a bag of lead. It took his breath away. Something was different about Jenny; he’d never seen her look so good. She’d lost weight, cut and dyed her hair. He could see her usually bitten nails were long, manicured and painted. With them she held the back of the man’s head as she kissed him. Who the hell was the bloke?

Ray realised that he was staring and made his feet walk to the bar while the rest of him seemed to stay behind in the beer garden.

He placed the glasses on the bar.

‘Two pints of cider, please,’ he said to Doug the landlord.

‘You alright, Ray? You look weary.’

‘Fine, Doug. Too much sun probably.’

‘Too much cider, more like.’

Ray squeezed off a smile and made an announcement.

‘Today, cider will be the cure for my weariness.’

It was as hollow as it sounded. Doug ignored him while he pulled the drinks.

Outside, Ray handed Delilah her drink and took his seat at the other end of the table. But now he was morose and he knew it showed on his face. He wanted to flirt with Delilah but suddenly he didn’t have it in him. He stamped the sparks out by avoiding her gaze and ignoring her comments. His contribution to the chat around the table dried to a trickle. He surrendered himself to the larynx-ripping chill of the cider a mouthful at a time, welcomed its effect.

This is my habit, my coping mechanism, my panic room. And it fucking works.

He slipped into the safe alcoholic mind-fog a little deeper than usual for a lunchtime session but he didn’t care. There was nothing important that needed to be done. Not thinking about Jenny was hard; the image of her face welded to the face of a stranger wouldn’t quite leave him alone. He grunted his way through the next hour, only half paying attention to what was said. Then, very suddenly it seemed to him, the group was breaking up and leaving. He looked at his watch. It was almost three.

Rather than putting her off, Ray’s ignorance of Delilah had served to make her more determined to connect with him. When everyone else had gone, she reappeared from the pub and sat next to him.

‘You look fucked, Raymond.’

‘No one calls me Raymond. It’s Ray.’

‘So, you are fucked then, I take it.’

‘I’m on my way.’

‘Fancy a joint somewhere?’

Ray focussed. The girl was talking his sweet holiday language. Immediately, he realised she probably knew his reputation - that he always had a decent sized stash. She was just in it for a free toke.

‘Why not?’ he asked. And then, testing her, ‘What’ve you got?’

‘Some nice sticky buds from my mate on the Crowthorns estate.’

Crowthorns? This was a dealer Ray hadn’t heard of. Even though he was fairly drunk he took in the information and retained it. Some things had importance. This was one of those things.

‘Sounds good to me. Where shall we go?’

‘Outside, I was thinking. It’s too nice for indoors.’

‘That’s fairly radical thinking for a Goth, isn’t it? Aren’t you allergic to the rays of the sun? Turn to dust or something?’

Delilah’s disappointment was plain. She looked like she was thinking about leaving.

‘I didn’t think you’d be one to judge by looks alone. Not like everyone else. Was I wrong about that?’

‘Hey, come on. I’m not serious.’ He smiled crookedly. ‘I mean look at me. Do I look like the sort of person I look like?’

‘You sure you won’t pass out? This weed is really strong stuff.’

‘I bet I’ve had stronger. I’ll be fine.’

He watched her a little unsteadily for a few seconds, not caring how obvious was his stare. She seemed to make up her mind.

‘Okay,’ she said. ‘Let’s go.’

‘Great.’

Ray stood up from the bench and swayed pleasantly. He had made full contact with the cider goddess and he loved her.

They walked around the outside of the pub to leave and Ray couldn’t resist scanning the grassy bank for Jenny. She wasn’t there. The thought of her made him so totally miserable he could barely feel the sunshine.

I’m not going to let you spoil my day, Jenny. Or my summer. I never cared about you that much.

He straightened himself, tried to walk with assured steps and failed within a few yards. He giggled.

‘Hey, where did you say we were going?’ He asked.

‘I didn’t.’

‘Fine. Where are we going?’

‘Into nature. I know a lovely spot where no one ever goes.’

‘Cool,’ said Ray. ‘Supercool.’

***

Tammy had always thought of Mavis as a sweet, well-meaning old lady. A little bit lonely, a little bit dotty, perhaps, but otherwise harmless and always nice to have around for a cup of coffee and a chat. She was even able to ignore the occasional evangelical hint in return for some harmless company. Recently, however, Tammy had noticed that the woman had begun to look tight of face, sharper somehow, and more intense. The word fanatical sprung to mind. There were rumours of disputes in the street with neighbours and more than one tale of Mavis being seen at her window with a pair of binoculars. Apparently she’d tried to drag some local youths to church. Physically.

The obvious conclusion was that the lonely, dreary hag was losing it. Everyone who mentioned her now believed Mavis to be, at the very least, a little cracked.

At first Tammy couldn’t help but feel sorry for the woman. Mavis was still young really, even though she neither looked nor acted as though she was. She didn’t appear to have any family nearby and if she really was developing some kind of mental problem there wouldn’t be anyone to look after her. She’d probably end up drooling and ignored by under-paid, under-trained staff in some psychiatric ward with rotting mortar and peeling green paint.

It was a sad thought. It made Tammy think carefully for the first time about what she would do in those circumstances. Something similar would probably happen to her when she got old. Everyone seemed to end up in some kind of ‘care’ home. Would she even know she was losing her wits or did crazy people hold on to the belief that they were sane even when their minds were porridge? It was too terrifying and depressing to contemplate. Especially because Tammy knew she would never allow herself to have children.

So, when Mavis knocked on her door one morning while Kevin was out, Tammy was all welcomes and smiles.

‘Good morning to you, Tamsin,’ Mavis said on the doorstep. ‘Might I have a word?’

‘Of course. Come in and have some coffee. I’ve been wondering how you’ve been. Seems ages since we had a nice chin-wag.’

Tammy caught the look on Mavis’s face. Sternness wavering and then returning. She didn’t understand it.

As brightly as she could, Tammy said,

‘Seat at the breakfast bar or a comfy chair in the lounge, Mavis?’

‘Oh . . .’

The hesitation went on as Mavis followed her through the hall. They both ended up in the kitchen while Tammy put the kettle on. So the decision was made.

As she took out cups (always with saucers for Mavis) and brought out the real coffee and the cafetiere, she wondered what to say.

Mavis took care of that.

‘I’ve brought you something, my dear,’ she said and placed a large, recycled brown envelope on the breakfast counter.

‘That looks exciting. Shall I open it now?’

‘Why don’t you wait until you’ve got your cup of coffee?’

Again, Mavis’s expression didn’t match the words coming out of her mouth and suddenly, Tammy realised that this probably wasn’t going to be a pleasant morning of coffee and chit-chat. It would be the strain of talking to a woman who was adrift from her mental moorings. She chided herself for being so selfish. Mavis had always been a caring support for her - even though Tammy was independent enough not to need anyone’s support - and the strange woman had no one else. She would make the most of their time together. Her sudden charitable feelings surprised her.

‘Here you are, Mavis.’

She placed everything on the breakfast bar between them and sat opposite. She even put out the special ginger shortbread biscuits she usually reserved for herself. Then she reached for the envelope, slid a table knife under the flap and slit it open in one deft swipe. She tipped the contents onto the counter.

Snapshots of her and the boy. Not explicit but explicit enough. Her face flamed.

‘I don’t understand, Mavis. What is all this?’

‘I would have thought that was obvious.’

‘But why? Who took these and where did you . . .’

Christ, it’s her. She’s done this.

No. It couldn’t be. Not sweet, quaint Mavis from across the street.

Across the street.

That was where the photos had been taken from. Shots of the front door and hallway. Shots of the bedroom.

‘You’re a jezebel, Tamsin. A Babylon whore. I’ve been so wrong about you. It hurts me to think I’ve spent time trusting a woman capable of this kind of deceit. This kind of . . . filth.’

It was a moment or two before Tamsin replied. The volume and pitch of her voice rising as she found her words.

‘Don’t you judge me, Mavis. Don’t you come into my house and pass judgement on my life. What about you? How many people have you spied on? How many dirty little secrets are you party to? Do you get off on it, Mavis? Is it because you’ve got no one to talk to? Christ, I don’t care if you do end up locked in some dungeon for the insane. How dare you come round here and do this as though you’re some kind of moral watchdog? You’re just a sad, curtain-twitching nutter looking for a way of getting some kicks.’

Tammy threw the pictures across the breakfast bar.

‘Take these and fuck off, you depraved cow.’

She stood up and walked round the counter to Mavis’s seat. The woman looked shocked. The fingers of one hand fluttered at the silk neck scarf she always wore. She looked frightened and Tammy was glad. Tammy pointed to the front door.

‘Out. And don’t come back.’

Mavis cleared her throat but didn’t move.

‘I think you should listen to me before you turn your back on this.’

‘I’m not listening to another word from you, Mavis Ahern. You’re not welcome here any more.’

‘I’m going to tell your husband, Tamsin. I’ve got the letter ready to give to him.’

Tammy exploded.

‘You do that and I’ll fucking kill you.’

She turned away and drew a carving knife out of the wooden block beside the sink. She held the point in Mavis’s face.

***

When the doorbell rang, Mason was in his back garden as usual. He wouldn’t have heard it if he hadn’t been bending down to the outside tap for a drink of water.

The sun was high and even though he was only checking things over in the vegetable plot, he was sweating. People didn’t come calling at his house too often. Perhaps a pair of Jehovah’s Witnesses - Jehovah’s Nitwits he called them; to their faces if they hung around too long - or the occasional cold-caller who hadn’t heard to keep away.

Now he had more reasons to turn people away than simply not being a ‘people person’.

The doorbell rang a second time. He shrugged to himself and walked quietly along the side pathway to the front of the house. He wasn’t pleased to see a teenager from the estate dressed in baggy cargo trousers and unlaced skateboard trainers. The kid had a fervent look, determined somehow, and Mason immediately wondered if he was out of his head on drugs or desperate for the money to buy some more. But Mason wasn’t scared of the boy. He was a tall man and strong from all his garden labour and lifting free weights. Strong from the pure, simple food he ate and the outdoor air he breathed. Not like these burger-eating, computer-fixated kids with nothing but slackness in their muscles and no hint of steel in their bones.

‘What are you doing here, boy?’

The kid jumped, not knowing he’d been observed.

‘Sorry to bother you, Mr. Brand. I’m looking for two stray dogs. Staffordshire bull terriers, they are. Have you seen them?’

‘How do you know my name?’

‘I deliver your papers. Post office always writes your name in the top corner. Have you seen the dogs? Two brindles called Ozzy and Lemmy.’

Mason acted like he was thinking about it.

‘Why do you want to know?’ he asked. ‘They your dogs?’

The kid looked exasperated.

‘No. They belong to Mrs. Doherty at the other end of Bluebell Way. I said I’d ask around.’ The kid was losing interest and turned to go. ‘If you do see them, maybe you could let her know. She lives at number twenty-seven.’

Mason let the boy get back onto the pavement before he spoke.

‘Didn’t have any collars on, did they? Shouldn’t let dogs out like that.’

‘You’ve seen them, then?’

‘People who don’t look after animals properly shouldn’t be allowed to keep them, I reckon.’

The boy walked back towards him. He seemed unusually committed for a youngster, unusually concerned.

‘They haven’t been hurt, have they? Tam . . . Mrs. Doherty’ll be heartbroken if anything’s happened to them.’

Mason opened the gate to the side walkway of the house and sauntered away into his back garden. He heard the kid scuffing along behind him, lace tips clicking and bouncing along the flagstones.

‘Have you got them back here?’ The boy asked.

Mason walked down through the rows of leafy vegetables to the shed that was now partially obscured by a small square of tall maize plants. He reached into his pocket and took out a key, jiggled it into a heavy old padlock on the shed door and snapped it open. Inside there was heavy movement and

scratching. The boy heard it too.

‘Blimey,’ said the kid. ‘Managed to catch them, did you? That can’t have been easy. They’re a real handful that pair.’

‘See for yourself,’ said Mason and opened the shed door a few inches.

It was midday, the sun almost overhead and bright enough that they were both squinting. Mason knew the kid couldn’t see what was in the gloom of the shed. He would see what Mason saw, something moving in the shadowed space.

13

The snapshots Kevin found in the large envelope were poor quality and rushed-looking. He studied them whilst sitting at the breakfast bar with a cup of coffee. Some of them were smeared by movement. Others had out-of-focus leaves, branches or other objects in the near view, partially obscuring the two figures beyond. They weren’t going to win any photographic competitions.

But they were meticulous and they were telling. Somehow, the inexpert handling lent authenticity to the secret moments the camera had stolen. They were secret no longer.

Kevin stared at the shots of him sitting with his arm around Jenny Chapman on the bench in Shreve Country Park. Holding hands over a table at The Barge. A kiss - on the lips - beside his BMW. There were no images more intimate than that but, taken together, it was enough.

What he noticed most strikingly was the ease of their togetherness. Unless he was imagining it, it came through even in these hurried photos. The pictures made him realise something he hadn’t been able to fully admit before he’d seen them. He wanted Jenny, wanted to be with her, and he was ready to do anything to make that happen.

There was also a letter in the brown envelope, written in a fastidiously neat style. Certain he was being blackmailed for money, he hadn’t understood it at first. The letter implored him to see the sin in what he was doing. It told him he was one diseased microbe in a world drowned by a moral plague. Did he not understand the seriousness of the vows he’d made in the sight of God? Did he not realise what would become of his soul? The letter told him to confess everything to his wife, end the affair and make good on his marriage vows. If he did not tell Tamsin, she would be the next to receive a brown envelope.

He had to read it three times before he realised there was no demand for money or anything else. The letter said he was not alone in sinning and that he would find out why soon enough.

It was signed Mavis Ahern.

Kevin folded the letter in half and replaced it and the photos inside the envelope. It was pure luck that he’d been there when the post arrived and Tamsin had been out. Otherwise she’d have opened his mail for him like she always did. The photos weren’t a bad thing. Not a bad thing at all. In the space of a few minutes, they’d helped him make a very simple decision.

He took out a pack of Camels - no more low-tar nonsense - and lit one with his pink Bic. The kitchen filled with smoke. He flicked the ash into his half-full coffee cup and waited.

***

She’d taken his hand somewhere along the way and it struck him as a gesture of innocence. He imagined how they looked together, him in his shorts and hi-tops and hat and her in her long dark gowns, her piercings concentrating the sun to bright pinpoints.

We make it look as though love transcends boundaries.

He smiled to himself.

I must be really drunk.

She didn’t speak much as they walked and Ray was so relaxed with the drink and the heat that he didn’t feel uncomfortable. Sometimes he looked to the side to take in her strangeness again, to remind himself who he was walking with. It was very clear he didn’t know who she was at all. He didn’t care. The near anonymity of it was exciting. In those moments she would look back at him, quite unashamedly assessing his eyes and they would both smile. That was enough for Ray to be happy. If that was to be the extent of their afternoon together it would be a very simple and good thing.

Tomorrow, he already knew, much if not all of this walk would be unremembered history, at least on his part, so he sank himself into their shared moments totally like a man stopping swimming and letting himself sink to the bottom of a lake. There on the bottom, he found he could still breathe.

They passed people and shops and the ends of streets and old Victorian houses and estates. They walked along A roads then B roads and then on rural footpaths and finally, as an agitation began to niggle Ray’s booze-soaked nerves, they were in a wood. She’d passed through a stretched gap in a badly-maintained barbed-wire fence, holding her skirts and sleeves about herself to avoid tearing her clothes. Ray stooped and followed.

The noise from the road receded. Soon Ray could hear nothing but the sound of their footsteps on the brittle grass and last year’s desiccated oak leaves. Much of their progress involved crouching or pushing branches out of the way and it took only seconds for Ray to be lost. Pleasantly so. It was like being on an alien world. He felt a euphoria he knew it would be difficult to recreate and he realised that coming here in the future - if they had any kind of future together - would never again be the surprise it was turning out to be. Imagine, he thought, a Goth out here in all this free air, this absence of all things urban. As he watched her creep between trees, over fallen logs and under branches, he saw that she fitted this landscape. She looked like a witch in her natural habitat; the wilds.

They stopped in a tiny clearing, not much bigger than a room in a house. It was an accidental den, it seemed, where there was nothing but grass - dry and yellow, with the ground showing through its bald patches. Five twisted oaks formed the perimeter and between them high bushes of sloe and hawthorn.

‘Nice place you have here,’ said Ray.

‘I’m trusting you not to tell anyone about this,’ she said.

‘It’s a secret.’

He dropped to his haunches and collapsed against a tree. His feet were hot in his All Stars. He decided to remove the canvas boots, hesitating only for a moment when he realised this would leave him exposed.

‘Do they stink?’ she asked. He shrugged.

‘Not really. I’m a nice clean boy.’

‘That’s a shame.’

‘I’m easily influenced.’

Delilah grinned and then turned away. She knelt with her head in the bushes. There was a shaking and rustling of branches.

She dragged an old wooden ammunition crate into the clearing.

‘Where’d you find that?’ he asked.

‘Same place you got your shirt. Army surplus.’

‘What’s in it?’

‘Luxuries. You’ll see.’

She brought out a couple of tartan car blankets with ragged edges, an opened, half-empty bottle of vodka and two cushions.

Ray was impressed.

‘You’re a woman of . . . hidden attributes,’ he said.

‘You don’t know the half of it.’

The last item out of the crate was a clear plastic bag scrolled into a neat cigar and secured with rubber bands. She unfurled it and handed it to Ray. He inhaled the aroma of the contents with his eyes closed.

‘Bloody hell,’ he said. ‘that is fresh and strong and good in the extreme. Want me to skin up?’

‘I prefer a pipe. Got one in my bag. You don’t mind do you?’

‘Not at all. Long as I don’t go comatose.’

‘It’ll give you a serious kick in the head but you’ve had a chance to sober up a bit after the walk. I think you’ll manage.’

‘I will, I will. I will manage.’

From her velvet patchwork handbag, she withdrew a short, olive-wood pipe. It was intricately decorated with tiny figures. The way she handled the pipe was reverential.

‘What are the carvings?’ He asked.

‘They’re tree spirits.’

Tree spirits. Right.

She loaded the pipe with the sticky-looking weed, put a lighter to it and took a long toke deep into her lungs. She coughed but managed to hold on to all but a single snort of smoke that puffed from her nostrils. She passed Ray the pipe and he followed her lead.

The grass vapour rose up like a cobra and bit him in the mind. For a few moments he came loose from his body and soared. Soon the rush settled and he felt the vibration extend to the tips of his toes and fingers. His head cleared and the drunk was suddenly gone, replaced by clear-sighted, enhanced awareness.

‘Enlightening,’ he said.

‘Isn’t it.’

They sat on the blankets with the cushion behind them propped against a squat oak. She took his hand again and it seemed he could feel her communicating with him from her aura to his. They turned towards each other and kissed with taser lips, sparking tongues. Delilah came alive. She pushed away from the tree and swung a heavily skirted leg over Ray’s lap. Kneeling there she kissed him harder, inhaled him as though he were the magic smoke. He was shocked to begin with. This was not what he was used to. This was not Jenny, waiting for him to make a move before anything would happen. This was a woman who desired. Delilah needed. He could taste it in her saliva - a clean elixir on his tongue. He could feel it on her bloated lips and in the heat that seeped from her crotch. She was confident of her sexuality, easy in her longing, fluid in her drawing.

Her garments became a restriction and she struggled against the clinging length of her dress, the numbness of her spurred motorcycle boots. She stood up from Ray and caught hold of the dress’s hem, lifting it and freeing herself. She flung it to the dusty grass and stood naked before him. Black at the armpits, black at the crotch, black at her boots. Ray stared at the dark manliness of her sexual hair and the paleness of her strong hips and heavy breasts. His erection crystallised into hot glass.

Delilah took her boots off and she was the witch of the woods then, still pulling him in with her eyes.

‘I’m going to come just looking at you,’ he said.

She knelt between his legs and cupped a hand to the seam of his shorts.

‘Judging by the size of your bollocks, that’s not going to be a problem.’

She helped him undress.

***

There was a thing in Mr. Brand’s shed, something twice the size of a man with the face and jaws of a dog. Donald wasted precious seconds trying to understand what he was seeing and in that time, the thing rose from a crouch to a hunched standing position. It placed a limb against one wall to support itself. It was taller than him but looked crippled and thin. Donald knew the difference between real and imaginary, between the living and the dead but this creature, this beast, didn’t fit any category.

The thing in the shed looked like a child’s primary school project, a collage of useless, broken items. It was the melding of animal flesh and bone with the flotsam of the dump. Tiny veins ran into hollow electrical flex then disappeared beneath fur or bristle or skin. The hollow legs of plastic classroom chairs made for its femurs, hundreds of tiny mammalian ribs bound with wire formed the cavern of its chest. Coils of innards pulsated within - all visible because there was not enough skin to conceal it. Flattened rusted cans were its shoulder blades. The eyes and jaws of a dog protruded from the front of its amalgamated skull.

Mr. Brand had definitely seen the Staffies.

The thing made the insistent snuffles and squeaks of foraging animals. It creaked and grinded as it moved its improvised joints. It smelled of diseased excrement, of bleach and ammonia, of sulphur and dried blood.

A hand made of an old weeding fork took hold of Donald’s throat so tightly he could neither scream nor breathe. It was far stronger and quicker than he could have anticipated. A desperate intelligence forced itself out through the insufficient eyes of the dogs and searched his face, scanned his body. The expression of the thing was one of utter desperation and yearning. It was single-minded and yet it was contrite.

For a moment, Donald wondered why such a tormented thing would ever feel such remorse. It was only for a moment.

The hand forced him down to the splintered, dirt-covered floor of the shed.

Donald saw Mr. Brand’s bearded face looking in through the mesh-covered window with his hands cupped around his eyes to keep out the brightness of the afternoon sun. It was all too unreal to make any impact on Donald. It had happened so quickly and was so outside his experience of the world that he was still waiting for it all to end as a practical joke or, at worst, some sick lesson Mr. Brand wanted to teach the youths of the community by making an example of him.

He only accepted the reality of the situation when the thing in the shed began taking him apart.

***

Mason watched the creature pinion the boy on the floor.

There were long moments in which the shed-thing assessed and gauged the supine teenager. Its cobbled-together skull, reminiscent of a dog’s but moving in some robotic imitation of a human head, swept up and down the length of Donald Smithfield’s body, making calculations Mason didn’t want to guess at. The shed-thing was frantic to perceive the bounty it had received but it did not yet possess the organs necessary to fully sense its captive. Its inadequate eyes roved and explored face and neck and chest and limbs while the boy silently choked in its grip. It sniffed the boy too, eager to measure the wealth of materials his body might offer.

It stopped for a moment and turned its head up towards the window to meet its guardian’s stare. Never yet had Mason seen so much life behind those eyes, so much intelligence and potential. The shed-thing was on the cusp of becoming, perhaps in the way the boy must have been close to becoming a man. The shed-thing nodded to Mason, or perhaps it was more of a bow. In thanks, in deference, in awe.

It sheared off Donald Smithfield’s left hand with filth-dripping bolt cutters which unfolded from its chest. Its own fork hand had the boy’s throat so tight he was barely breathing; nothing more than a high-pitched rasp escaped the boy’s mouth. But no grip was strong enough to stop the expression of shock and agony creasing the boy’s face as he felt his hand severed.

The moment it separated, the shed-thing forced the bleeding stump into its own chest. Its entire body appeared to expand. The boy went pale, his eyes widened. Mason saw Donald’s thoughts playing out for a long time in those perfect irises, irises which screamed in glistening crystal blue. Hope and passion and belief in a world of choice and freedom - all this was taken from the boy a piece at a time. The shed-thing didn’t seem to understand that by not killing the boy outright, it was extending his agony; bringing the child to the precipice of sanity and hurling him over still conscious. Or, if it did, it didn’t appear to care. While Donald still breathed, it opened him up from pubes to sternum. It began to select and remove his organs, holding them up for inspection in the angled bars of sunlight penetrating the shed, before thrusting them into itself through the many openings and unmade sections of its own body. When it began to clip through the boy’s ribs, Mason had to look away.

The clattering of metal against wet bone emanated from behind him. The shed-thing was trembling as it worked. Mason sensed its eagerness and excitement. As soon as it could finish, it would return to the landfill with its new brains and bones and skin, with the fine, healthy organs of a young human. There would be no slowing it down now. Risking daylight and detection, it would collect more garbage and redesign itself. It would be more powerful. It would be larger. It would have a suitable vehicle for the innate intelligence it had displayed since the morning Mason found it.

Mason had no idea what he would do when it returned.

14

Steel panels and shattered glass; plastic bags and shitty, rotten nappies.

Old shirts and mouldering dishrags; torn corduroy trousers and moth-eaten jumpers. Crushed, jagged baked bean cans; short loops of flex; plastic cartons, plastic packaging, broken plastic toys; tubing, stuffing, plasterboard, bricks; oxidising springs, hinges and wire; splintered planks and bent nails; light fittings; smashed picture frames and burnt things; peelings, leftovers and cooked bones; raw bones; dead rats, guinea pigs and hamsters; aborted foetuses; grease, fat and oil; upturned drawers and their unwanted contents; retired desks and lamps; keyboards, mice, PCs, laptops, hard drives, monitors, TVs, satellite dishes, speakers, mobile phones, SIM cards, software.

Blood. Rust. Lightning. Intent.

These were the things of which the fecalith was wrought. He grew swiftly.

He moved as though falling through space when swimming in the landfill. Though its contents were crushed almost solid by the daily stomping of the heavy compactors, to him it was a private aquarium and he moved through it with the ease and grace of a dolphin. Nothing impeded him. He was drawn, called to certain places where useful parts were to be found - the glass from the door of a washing machine to form a new eye, an old radiator panel to gird his exhaust-pipe ribs, empty beer barrels and oil drums from which to fashion his vertebrae. When he passed below, the dry and jagged surface of the landfill rippled like the swell of a polluted sea. Within hours the fecalith reached maturity.

The old man’s offerings - the hedgehogs and cats and rabbits, his own blood and the mind and body of the boy - all these flowed and lived within him, as aspects of his vast and growing consciousness, as did the blood of the boy’s sister. They formed the templates from which inanimate things became living. Parts of him bristled with approximated fur or spines, his teeth were copies of dog canines, human incisors and herbivorous molars - but huge now and made of hard junk. His jaws were hinged girders, his fingers, jointed railings. He walked on legs of reclaimed iron and in his rubber and copper veins flowed a new blood of commingled effluent and living plasma. In this blood moved the soul of the fecalith and the fecalith’s will. In his steel-cased skull processors, motherboards, hard drives and software grew and evolved. Awareness seeped into the circuitry, code flowed into its assembly of brains. In the slime at the bottom of the landfill, the fecalith philosophised and meditated as he swam.

Like all sentient beings, he contemplated the reason for his becoming, the purpose of his existence. The where of it, the when of it, the how.

And the why.

Unlike most sentient beings, the fecalith began to understand why he existed, where he had come from and what he had come to do.

There had been many created like him, born on the same day, animated by the same elemental forces. Fashioned by the immense power and anger of the storm, they had risen at its will. Of all of them, the fecalith was the only one to have survived and he was growing fast now, almost into his maturity. But the same potential from which his kin had risen still existed here in this fertile lake of garbage. He could be their mind. He could be their general. If only he could bring them back.

***

The shed was an empty space now.

Neither the boy nor the creature might ever have existed.

Mason sat on the dirty floorboards, the sun knifing a deep angle into the gloom but not touching him. He watched the dust specks turning in the bright shaft. Dead atoms, floating but inert. Mindless, discarded chips and fragments of the world.

Things had changed.

Muck and blood flowed in the veins and improvised tubules of the creature, death and life mingled to make some third state - newborn in the world. Newborn and abroad.

The creature had left the same night he gave it the boy and had not returned.

Mason felt the splintery wood beneath his hands. There was no trace of Donald Smithfield. Neither stain of his blood nor rag of his clothes. Not a page of skin or partial bone. Not a hair. The creature had absorbed him totally. Mason’s tools were gone too. The fork and the shovel, the trowel, the hoe and hedge trimmers. The scraps of paper and cloth that had been its bed. Even the old books on the shelf. All taken.

There had been a purpose to all this, Mason was sure of that, but now that he tried to remember it he found it impossible to justify. In some part of himself he didn’t even believe it was real. Had something gone wrong in his mind? Had he dreamed up an adventure to end his solitude, wished the creature into existence to bring some purpose to his life? It was hard to believe it could have come to this - Mason had always believed he was content with simplicity. Now, with the creature gone, he felt a loneliness worse than any before.

In the immense inner fields of his emotions, where happiness had grown like a bounteous golden crop in time with the growth of the shed-thing, now grew tares of doubt and guilt. They choked everything. He’d had a mission or a fantasy perhaps - it didn’t matter - and now that mission was finished. There was no trace of it. He was left with nothing but the knowledge of his crime. He could now contemplate his slaughter of the child at his leisure. Were it not for him, the boy would still be alive.

Nothing else remained to make concrete his reasoning. The shed was utterly bare inside. He had acted with great conviction, believing in a new age for the world. Now, there was nothing left to show that he’d acted well. He might merely be insane, having concocted a wild fantasy. Or he might be a killer of animals and children for no good reason. Surrounded outside by the abundant growth of his garden, of ripe fruits and vegetables aplenty, Mason sat staring and desolate at the inside of the shed door.

There was nothing to make him move. No reason to stand or eat. No meaning in anything he might or might not do. Not any more.

The light moved with great patience and stealth across the worn and bare shed floor, over his splayed legs and crept up the opposite wall. It turned rose gold then pink; all the while losing it’s brightness. Finally the light slept and darkness rose.

The shed was black inside and still Mason waited for something to stir him, some prompt to make him live again.

None came.

***

Ray woke in the cool of the evening.

He opened his eyes and stayed still for a few moments as his mind stitched reality back together. The first thing he remembered was the last thing that had happened - Delilah sucking an unprecedented fourth orgasm from him. His cock was pleasantly raw and deep inside his balls there was a constant, flat ache. He lay on his side, his head on one of the pillows. Delilah had laid his shirt over him. His hip and leg were sore from the hard ground.

He raised himself into a sitting position, his back against the tree, and looked around. There was a note sticking out of his Converse hi-top.

Ray,

Had to go. Put the box away. Keep our secret! Call me.

Luv D XXX

There was a mobile number written below it.

He folded the paper up and put it in his shorts pocket before dressing.

Standing up, he felt the weakness in his legs. This was from their two knee-tremblers. When the ground felt too hard, they’d stood up and used the tree for support. He put his hand to the rough bark of the oak.

‘Thanks. You were great.’

His voice sounded weak and out of place, the levity inappropriate now he was alone. He finished dressing, suddenly wanting to be away from the place. The sun was still up but it was low in the sky and he couldn’t see it through the trees. A coral pink haze was gathering and reflecting off the gnarled skin of the trees. It made the tiny grove other-worldly once more but not in the same way it had appeared to him before. He’d have enjoyed it if Delilah was still with him. Alone, the place felt wrong. He put the cushions and blankets back in the ammo box without bothering to shake them and shoved it hurriedly back into the undergrowth out of sight. All he wanted to do was leave, get out of the woods and back to his place before it got too dark.

After a minute or two of walking through the trees, he knew he didn’t recognise where he was. It seemed like the right direction but he couldn’t be certain and he didn’t remember any landmarks. How long had they walked through the trees for before they arrived? Surely not more than two or three minutes. He should have been near the fence by now. There were trees in every direction. Nothing looked familiar. The pink light deepened and darkened.

Paranoia and fear crept over the back of his head like insects. He turned from one direction to another looking for some sign of their passing, a hint of a path. Something that looked like a passage through the trees became visible. He followed it. Moments later it was blocked by a fallen branch. They definitely hadn’t come this way. Turning back he began to trot towards the clearing with the idea that he would start again. It didn’t take long for him to realise he’d lost the way back to their little grotto too.

Unable to control his nerves any longer, Ray started running.

He stumbled over branches and half stepped in a rabbit hole.

Could have broken my bloody ankle.

Realising the extent of his panic, he slowed down and took more notice of where he put his feet. He knew how stupid he was being but he couldn’t stop himself from running. It was the bloody dope; the high was long gone leaving him nothing but freaked.

And then, up ahead, he glimpsed the sun; red now, through a straggly mesh of branches. He had to be nearing the edge of the woods. Relief surging through him, he sprinted towards the visceral glow. The woods ended but not where he’d entered them. There was no barbed wire fence here. Instead he found he was standing on a raised bank with a huge view of the countryside. The ground sloped steeply away from him into smaller trees and brush. Beyond the dense shrubs was a meandering gravel path and a little farther on, the edge of a lake. Far to the other side of the lake a heat haze rippled over Shreve’s notorious landfill, blurring the horizon.

Of course, it wasn’t a real lake he was looking across. He had his bearings now. This was the reservoir in the centre of Shreve Country Park. From here he knew he could find his way back to town. There was no need to run any more. Now he knew where he was, there was plenty of light and lots of time. He could turn his mind to what he really wanted to do - get home and phone Delilah.

The sun rippled as it touched the horizon and sank fast. He’d been glancing at it from time to time and dozens of after-images glowed on his retina. When the sun was gone, leaving the sky a deep dusty pink, the after-images remained. They obscured his vision of the patchwork fields and the pylons marching single-file across the country to diminish into the distance. Nothing in the expanse before him looked real. The shimmer from the landfill made the entire horizon look like a fake backdrop, a gaudily painted banner fluttering in a warm breeze. Movement caught his eye on the far side of the reservoir. Once and then a second time. It was towards the middle of the landfill. At first he assumed it was the residual blobs of sunlight in his eyes but then the movement took form, a very recognisable form.

Something huge heaved itself out of the landfill. Ray recognised the action, that of a swimmer leaving a pool. This shape was far, far too large for that though. It must have been at least half a mile away. He could only see the shape in silhouette - what was left of the daylight was right behind it - but when it stood to its full height, he knew the outline very well. It was the figure of a man. A giant man with jagged, rough edges. It stood for a long time dripping effluent and pieces of junk, only its head turning slowly from side to side as it surveyed the land all around it. It was taller than the trees nearest to it. Taller, perhaps, than a three storey building. Ray didn’t have time to make a more accurate estimate of its height. He heard the tendons in the giant’s neck groaning like strained steel guy wires. Then it strode towards the lake, towards him, each footstep slow and lumbering but full of purpose. He felt the throb of its progress like a fat heart beating deep and slow beneath his feet. He smelled the wafted rot of re-forged detritus and reanimated filth.

Despite the fading haze of cider and the clearing marijuana fog, Ray knew he wasn’t imagining it this time. The trash from the landfill was alive. The garbage man was coming. Ray couldn’t move.

When it reached the perimeter of the landfill, it stopped and scanned its surroundings again. Its gaze fell on something to its right. Ray held his breath - stupid really, there was no way the thing could have heard him breathing from this distance. The urge to crouch back into the trees was strong but his desire to see what the creature would do next overcame it. It turned in the direction of its stare. Ray tried to see what it was seeing. There was nothing there but open fields and power lines. The garbage man began to walk again, that in itself was spectacle enough. Ray wished he could see better how the thing worked, what it was made up of. It stepped over the perimeter fence of the landfill and approached one of the pylons. It was about the same height as the structure, almost an inanimate skeletal version of itself. For a moment, Ray felt pity for the giant garbage man. It was merely searching for a companion. In the pylon, it had found a false friend, one that would burn or destroy it. Ray found himself on the point of calling out, even though it was already too late and there was no way the giant could hear him.

He didn’t get the opportunity. The garbage man had taken hold of one of the power lines and yanked it free of the towering skeleton’s grip. There was a blue flash which left Ray blind for a second or two, then the sound of a distant electrostatic snap reached his ears. The garbage man held a writhing snake of raw voltage in its hands. Blue sparks poured from the snake’s severed neck in a bright arcing fountain. Parts of the garbage man’s body lit up red and orange and yellow. It juddered, rooted to the earth. Then it clumped back to the perimeter fence, hauling the live cable behind it. It bucked in his grip like a thin black eel, spitting neon poison. The cable just reached the edge of the landfill. The garbage man knelt and thrust the power-spewing ligament deep into the rubbish.

For a few moments, nothing happened.

Then the surface of the landfill began to pulsate and liquefy. It began to boil. Embryonic shadows, too small and distant to define, began to slither and crawl from the deep pits of trash. They left it from every side, in every direction. And all the while, the garbage man knelt at the edge of his domain like a rain god siphoning water into a desert. He brought forth life.

Ray was down the bank and onto the path before his mind registered he was running.

He didn’t stop until he’d reached his flat. He double-locked the door behind him, dived into the bathroom and bolted that door too. He sat down on the toilet, his legs shaking with exertion. He held his head and in between his gasps for air he cried like a little boy.

15

Kevin watched Tamsin open the door, catch the smell in the air and march towards the kitchen. She stopped in the doorway, hands on hips.

‘What do you think you’re doing?’

He was more nervous than he’d hoped to be. Her voice hinted at nothing but total self-belief, her face showed no cracks. Already he was wondering how he was going to win this war; win it and finish it in a single engagement.

‘Smoking cigarettes.’

It was, at least, obvious she knew something was up. That much showed in the flicker of her eyes as he tapped ash into his second empty coffee mug. It was a stupid habit he’d picked up at college and never quite lost. Stupid because, while it was temporarily convenient, it meant he had to strain soggy fag-ends out of the sink when the dregs of coffee were finally thrown away. Tammy hated it and had told him so the first time she’d seen him smoke at home. It had mattered back then, what she thought. It mattered now, too, but only because he knew how much it irritated her. She was seeing the challenge in his actions, the rebellion. That was exactly what he wanted.

‘When did you take that up again?’

‘I never stopped.’

Something there. A pause. Another flicker of - what?

Calculation? Hesitation? - then she was normal. A placid lake. She shrugged, dropped her handbag on the kitchen counter and swept out of the kitchen without saying anything more.

She should have bitten by now. Snapped, more like. She had every right to lose her cool; he’d deceived her. She was holding back. Why?

She trotted up the stairs. Unusual. She was fit, of course, but her gestures, her way of moving was in general more leisurely, more regal. Tammy didn’t trot.

Kevin wasn’t used to chain smoking. He dropped the half-finished cigarette into the half-finished coffee. It died with a hiss. He lit another, beginning to feel a little light-headed, a little nauseous.

Upstairs he heard water running. It was the shower. Again, unusual. Too brisk for Tammy. Baths were more her style. Perhaps she felt more distant in the shower cubicle with the glass door pulled shut. More separate.

Fine.

He took his cigarette and the rest of the pack with him and followed her up. He didn’t take an ashtray.

He opened the bathroom door, breaking another marital protocol. He took her towel from the hook while she was turned away from him and sat on the toilet. He pushed the door shut with his foot. Smoke and steam mingled. She knew he was there but he watched her ignoring him through the glass.

Ignoring him.

While she must have thought it was the greatest act of nonchalance ever performed, Kevin found it half amusing and half disturbing. There was only one reason she would pretend not to be bothered by this. She had something to hide. The kind of secret that came out when non-smoking husbands started smoking again. The kind of secret that would come out in an argument.

What had the letter said? Something about him not being alone in sin.

He was suddenly dead certain that Tamsin was afraid of confronting him. Tamsin thought he was smoking and belligerent because he’d already discovered something about her. What could it be?

What the hell else? An affair. That was definitely her style.

The water in the shower stopped running but she didn’t get straight out. He could sense her tension now even through the cloudy glass. First she’d felt safe. Now she was trapped.

She stepped out and reached for the towel that wasn’t there.

Without her usual poise and confidence she stood, naked and dripping on the shower mat. He blew out a long stream of smoke in her direction.

‘Got the smell of his spunk off now?’

‘What?’

‘Who is he?’

‘Can you pass me my towel, please?’

‘No. I can’t.’

She lunged for the door but he had his foot against it and her wet hands failed to even turn the handle.

‘Give me the fucking towel, Kevin.’

‘Answer the question.’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

He sighed deeply, acting far more laboured and weary than he really was.

‘We’ve been married six years, Tammy. Not bad really, when you think about it. Not bad in this day and age. So, I’m going to give you one more chance to be honest with me. I think I owe you that much.’ He drew on the cigarette.

‘Who is he?’

He watched her carefully. There was a lot going on behind those eyes. Computation, assessment, analysis of risk. She looked like she might have thought in this way a lot. All her life, perhaps. He couldn’t understand why he hadn’t noticed it before. Or maybe he had and had mistaken it for intelligence. But this wasn’t benign intelligence. This was deviousness. It took split seconds, that was all, but he could see it nonetheless.

‘Open the door and let me out or I’m going to start screaming.’

Part of him wanted that. Yes, screaming. A struggle. Something worse. Ignoring her threat, he said,

‘I’ve seen the photographs. They’re not very good but they show everything. What you fail to understand here, Tammy, is that I’m not giving you the opportunity to deny this. We’re way past that now. All I want is an answer to my question: Who is he?’

It was a crazy bluff but he was past caring. He’d seen no photos but it was reasonable to assume that if Mavis Ahern had pressured him with visual evidence, she’d done the same to Tamsin. After all, her motive wasn’t to squeeze them for money; it was to bring them back together in the sight of God.

He was looking forward to telling Mavis Ahern that they’d been married in a registry office, in a civil ceremony, without a Bible in sight. That would keep, however.

Meanwhile, he was watching Tammy. Every move. Every twitch. The gooseflesh had risen on her now that she was beginning to cool in the tarry bathroom air. The calculations inside her head seemed to have slowed and become more specific.

‘You can’t hurt him.’

‘No? Why not?’

‘Because he’s just . . . you know why.’

‘No, I don’t. Tell me why I shouldn’t hurt him, Tammy.’

‘He’s only a kid.’

‘Only a . . .’ Kevin put a hand to his forehead, touched it ever so lightly. ‘It’s the paper boy, isn’t it? You’ve been screwing the fucking paper boy.’

He stood up and took hold of Tammy’s wet hair in his left fist. With his right hand, he put out his cigarette against the wet strands. He wasn’t absolutely sure what he was going to do with her, all he knew was that he wasn’t going to hold back.

‘I can’t believe how long I’ve put up with your bullshit. You know,’ he said, ‘If you really want to start screaming, now would probably be a good time.’

***

She watched the silver Z3 pull up outside her flat and knew that everything was about to change. Something about the way he slammed it up beside the kerb. When he got out, she saw a mark on his face for a split second. Then he turned away, walked to the passenger side door and hefted out a large sports bag. Her stomach fluttered as she ran to the front door of the shared downstairs corridor to let him in.

There was a fresh cut across his cheek bone, the blood only just dried. For a few moments he stood on the doorstep without speaking. She lost faith then, wondered if he’d really go all the way.

And then:

‘I’ve left her.’

Still, he didn’t move forward.

She stood out of his way. The tension dropped out of his shoulders, the pinch left his mouth and eyes. He stepped over the threshold and dropped the bag in the hallway. He was shaking his head, not understanding what he was doing, moving by instinct not thought.

She led him through her front door to the sofa. Returning to the entryway she collected his bag and dropped it inside the flat. She sat down beside him.

‘What happened?’

‘It got . . . physical. I wanted to hurt her. Really hurt her. I dragged her into the bedroom. I don’t know what I thought I was going to do. And then, suddenly, all the anger went out of me. I knew it would be crazy to give in to the rage. I thought about the future. I thought about you. I didn’t want . . . didn’t want . . . to jeopardise it. Us. So I just stopped. And when she realised it, she spun around with the nearest thing to hand - our wedding photo, as it happened - and hit me in the face with it.’

‘But why, Kev? I mean, what had she done to make you so angry?’

‘She was having an affair.’

‘So were you.’

‘I know. But . . .’

‘There’s no justification. You’re as culpable as she is.’

‘There’s more to it than that. Years of her . . . disdain. And control. It was so typical of her. And the poor . . . it doesn’t matter. He was just such a mark, such an easy target. She’s evil. She gets off on chaos.’

He was quiet then and she went to the kitchen to make coffee. She didn’t believe he was a violent man. Despite what she’d said to him, she knew his rage was appropriate - who wouldn’t be angry in that situation? But if he’d acted on the emotion, that would have been unforgivable. She’d have thought differently of him then. But he hadn’t. He’d risen above it. Because of her.

As she splashed boiling water into the two mugs she became aware of him standing behind her.

‘What?’ she said, pouring in the milk.

‘Can I stay?’

She kept her back to him as she stirred the sugar into her cup. Finally, she turned and held out a mug.

‘I was hoping you’d ask me that.’

***

There were other people Ray could have phoned; the authorities perhaps. But who else would believe what he had to say? And who else did he owe this knowledge to?

Ray pressed dial. The phone rang several times and cut to voice mail. He hung up and dialled a second time without leaving a message. Same thing again. His heart was still banging hard and his breathing nowhere near recovering. It didn’t matter. He hung up and dialled again.

Please . . .

This time she answered.

‘Ray?’

He had no idea what to say.

‘Yeah, it’s me.’

‘What is it? You sound . . . are you all right?’

‘No. Not really.’

‘Look, Ray, I don’t want you thinking you can just phone me any time. As far as I’m concerned you and I are finished.’

‘I know that. This isn’t . . . about that. It’s . . .’

He heard a man’s voice in the background; he assumed it was the man he’d seen her with at The Barge. Unless she’d gone completely . . . He didn’t want to think about it. Still, despite the terror he felt, despite the sensation that something was yanking the rug of reality out from under him, he recognised jealousy rising up through all of it. Was that the real reason he’d phoned her?

‘Make it quick, Ray, this isn’t a good time for me.’ He took a deep breath.

‘There’s no easy way to say this, Jenny. I’m not even sure I believe it myself. But I had to tell you. I wanted you to have the best chance to get away.’

‘Get away?’

‘The thing we found. By the side of the road -’ Her voice tightened.

‘No, Ray. Don’t do this.’

‘Jenny, please listen. I’ve spent every day since then pretending it didn’t happen, that it wasn’t real, that somehow you just had an accident or that something bit you. Just like we told them in the hospital. But I never believed that.’

‘Ray, please -’

‘You have to listen to me. Just for a few more seconds and then I promise I’ll never call you again. That thing was alive. I haven’t been able to face it until today but it was. I think we killed it but there’s more of them out there. Worse things. Bigger things.’

He could hear Jenny crying now. He didn’t want her upset, he wanted her to listen. She needed to concentrate.

‘You never took any notice of me, never heard me. If you only ever do it once, it has to be now, Jenny. I think your life depends on it.’

‘How can you do this to me, Ray? It’s so sick. You were always weak but I never thought you’d stoop to this.’

‘Thirty seconds more, Jenny, that’s all. I was out at the reservoir this afternoon, not so far from where we stopped that day. I saw something rise up. I’ve never seen anything else like it except on that day with you. And then it made more of them - too many to count. I swear, Jenny, I swear to you now I saw it. Saw them. I had to call you. I had to let you know. So you could be ready. So you could . . . leave. . . if you wanted to.’

At the other end of the connection. Jenny seemed to have sniffed her way back to some kind of composure.

‘You can’t have me back, Ray. No amount of bullshit or scare tactics is going to make me want a weak man like you ever again. You’re scum, Ray Wade. You’re garbage.’

The line closed.

‘Jenny. Jenny? Be there. For God’s sake, still be there.’

He dialled the number and it cut straight to voice mail. He waited for the prompt to leave a message, then changed his mind and hung up. What more could he say to her? How could he even be certain she would listen to his message? He dropped the handset back on its base station and collapsed onto his sofa. He’d had his chance. He’d done his best to warn her.

Now he had to think about himself.

***

Mason Brand began to decay along with his post-harvest crops.

Though he’d always had a beard, he’d always kept it trimmed. Now he never touched it. It obscured him, hid his face the way ivy hides old ruins. He preferred it. He stopped cleaning his teeth and bathed even less than he had before. He knew he smelled bad but it didn’t concern him. The cornucopia of fruit and vegetables the garden had yielded rotted, much of it unpicked. He ate rarely and made no effort to pickle or preserve any produce.

He no longer understood the nature of things. He would allow himself to die like a spent vine.

Except that he knew it wasn’t time yet. He was waiting for something. Something would happen. He knew that much. It had to happen sooner or later. When he’d seen this thing, this happening, then he would stop living. It was proper that he, Mason Brand, be allowed to end and to rot. He no longer deserved a place in the world.

Autumn arrived less eagerly than the spring had come. The stifling, long days hung on an and on. Everyone else saw it as the most marvellous summer of heat hazes and broad, crimson-orange sunsets that graced each evening’s horizon. People lay on the grass in parks and kissed languidly. Parents took their kids on picnics and bike rides. Students, emboldened by beer and cider, leapt into the canals and rivers of every college town.

No one believed the summer would go on forever, not truly, but no one wanted it to end. On the warm nights, muggy with moisture and the promise of rain that never seemed to come, the world, and Shreve in particular, was lulled by a sense of eternal youth.

When the first leaves turned and dropped in drowsy breezes, Mason Brand was the only one smiling. But it was a chill-bitten smile, a smile ahead of its season.

The very meat of him longed for the pressing of the earth all around him, its weight pushing down from above, its healing power drawing down the poison from his bones and transmuting his evil.

***

Ray waited two days for something to happen.

In that time he stayed at home. He ate baked beans and tins of soup instead of walking to the take-away or calling for a delivery. He didn’t want to see or talk to anyone. Instead of hiring DVDs, he watched TV. He replayed Revenant Apocalypse instead of buying new games. At dusk and dawn he peeped through his curtains expecting the giant to thunder down his street and smash through the wall. He watched people put out their rubbish and waited for it to come to life and ooze out of their black wheelie bins.

He smoked as much dope as possible, achieving a permanent, medicinal high.

Nothing happened.

He watched the news. There were no reports of undead rubbish or towering landfill zombies. The world continued to devour itself in war; people still murdered their lovers and children; plane, rail and road accidents claimed their usual quota of victims; the prime minister still lied through his smiling teeth while he raped the nation.

Nothing had changed.

Finally he picked up the phone and dialled the number he should have called the night he ran back from the woods. She answered after one ring. His stomach lurched with unexpected joy at the sound of her voice.

‘Hi,’ he said. ‘It’s Ray.’ There was a silence.

‘I didn’t think you were going to call.’

‘Sorry. I’ve been . . . studying. Fancy a pint?’

16

Mason Brand couldn’t remember the last time he’d eaten. He didn’t care. There was no hunger anyway, no desire other than for the blackness to hurry up and take him.

His skin was petal pale. Even his day-burnt face and forearms had faded. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been outside. He didn’t know what day it was nor the time. He had no television, no radio, no computer.

Life had become a condition of two states: light and dark.

In the light he tried to sleep to pass the hours. It had worked for the first few days but then his body no longer required further rest. Instead of sleeping, he hid in the twisted sheets and blankets on his bed.

Then the darkness came, like a kidnapper slipping a black hood over the day’s head and pulling a cord tight around its neck. He would sleep then because of his body’s clock, its understanding of what the night was for. But then his body woke, no more than an hour or two after the light had gone and then Mason was awake in the most awful way.

Something about the workings of his mind was different at night. Some aspect of him was more alert than it was during the day. His veins itched with it. His mind’s eyelid was peeled by it, left raw and staring. And with that eye he viewed his waking dreams of guilt and saw visions of the destruction of the world. Destruction that he was responsible for.

Under dark crimson skies, heavy with suffocating cloud, the Earth was changing. Upon its skin had grown many organisms in its long history. They had tunnelled and burrowed and lived and died without troubling it. In its waters they had swum for incalculable generations, keeping harmony all the while with the world and its rhythms. Then had come a new creature, similar at first to many of the others. The creature was wily and smart, outwitting its predators despite its physical weakness. The creature spread rapidly and successfully to all parts of the world’s vast body. It became a parasite, feeding from the world, sucking on it, mining it, scorching it, flaying it alive.

What choice was left to the world but to respond? She was slow at first, merely showing the signs of her anger and disgust. She spun a little wide from her axis, shed her protective layers, became lean. The mountains ground against each other like determined teeth. The winds shrieked and whirled, throwing the parasite’s dwellings to dust. The waters rose up and drowned the parasites, washed away their homes. Fires swept the dry climates.

But the parasite survived it all. The world’s mere anger was not enough.

So she shifted her shape.

And this was what Mason saw in his dreams.

Where the land had been flat, blades of rock thrust up. Where the land had been solid, rifts tore open. The winds of the world joined forces and swept her in unison, one mighty gale that blew from West to East forever. The fresh waters of the world became poison. The sea waters grew into impassable towers. Everywhere the world grew eyes to watch the parasites die, grew mouths to eat them, ears to hear their screams and then their silence. The world consumed her parasites because it was the only way she knew to survive them.

Each night, awake or sleeping - he could not always tell - he watched the world eating humanity as she tried to save herself.

Why had it come to this? Was it really his fault?

He knew, of course, that much of the evil of men was nothing to do with him. He had lived in harmony with the Earth and her cycles and seasons. He had loved her the way only a farmer can love the world. He had tended her, respected her, exchanged with her.

Now this.

Perhaps that was why she had chosen him.

Eyes shut or open, Mason saw what he believed was the future or a representation of it. The world was not ending but humanity was. He had not been the nursemaid to a new way of life, he had been the trafficker who gave the assassin free passage. He had aided the executioner of all mankind.

He had not seen the fecalith for many days. Weeks, perhaps - he wasn’t sure. What would it be like now? How much would it have grown? What and who would it have devoured and added to itself?

Would it still recognise him and if it did, would it even matter?

He’d led that poor boy to the most horrible end. The first human death in this new and dangerous world. His own end could not come soon enough.

It was in the middle of the night when he realised that waiting for the end was pathetic and cowardly. He should kill himself swiftly, mete out the justice due to him and have done with it.

He slipped from the filthy second skin his sheets had become and stood naked in front of the full length mirror in his bedroom. Moonlight filled the room with luminous silver light.

He was thin now. His ribs showed - he could count them all. What little fat he’d carried had gone from around his waist. His abdominal muscles were a ridge along the centre of his stomach. Inside, all his organs would have shrunk to fit this smaller cavity. His pelvis protruded like a small shelf. Everywhere the guy-wires of his body, the sinews, showed tight and proud beneath his thinning skin.

A razor would do it.

A blade across his skinny neck and his blood would pool blackly in that silver light.

There was no razor in the house.

He went to the kitchen. There he took out a tiny paring knife and his whetstone. The sound of grinding, slippery steel was loud in all that quiet. For five minutes he stood, his right hand sliding up and down, up and down; a sandy, gritty movement vibrating in his bones, raising the hair on his forearms and neck.

He tested the blade against his thumb. Sharp as a razor. Sturdier. Surer.

He moved in the direction of the stairs but sensed something outside the back door. He stopped and turned. Was there movement out there among the quicksilver shadows? He stood for a long time, watching. Stood until his vision greyed out and he had to blink it clear. It was so long since he’d looked outside that the shapes out there, the rotted-down stalks and stems and vines, made no sense to him. He recognised none of it in the insufficient moonlight.

The knife became a weapon of self-defence and he clutched it, blade upward, in his weak fist. The sense of a presence outside the back door grew and spread. A dark tide had flowed all the way to his back step, covering everything, a living black ocean.

But that could not be.

He stepped closer to the glass in the back door until he could see his own breath on it. The ground seemed to be rippling in the moonlight as though his whole house were at sea. His grip on the knife loosened because his palms were sweating.

He listened, turned an ear towards the glass.

Whispers across the lake of his garden in a language he did not understand.

He told himself he did not understand it but in truth he knew every word. The calling had returned.

Something scraped against the bottom of the door and he stood back.

The waves in the garden were rising, a squall getting up out there. Crests began to obscure the only shape he did recognise - his shed. The level outside was rising.

He backed away still further.

What could his knife do against all this?

And could he really kill himself now when tomorrow would no doubt bring the strangest dawn the Earth had ever seen?

He waited there for a long time, trying to discern some shape, anything recognisable in the flood of movement beyond the glass. He could not.

He waited for it - for them - to come and take him as he so deserved to be taken. He waited for them to separate him into vein, muscle and bone, lymph and blood, to dissociate his various organs and reuse them in accordance with their new way. They came no further than the threshold.

An hour must have passed wherein he entered some staring trance, as though contemplating a mandala. Then, finally, he was tired. Tired enough to sleep. He turned from the black ocean in his garden, disconnected and trudged upstairs to his bed. He placed the knife in the drawer of his bedside table next to his grandmother’s Bible, a book he never read.

Before he died there was something he needed to do.

***

Aggie stood naked in the tiny bedroom of her shared flat in Wandsworth.

The landlord had made a poor job of turning two bedrooms into four - there was barely enough space for her to walk around her bed and the walls were like cardboard. Somewhere in the house there was damp rot and every room smelled of mould and sweaty decay. She hated it and barely spoke to her flatmates. Maybe it was because she believed she was worth so much more than the existence she’d found. Maybe it was because she was becoming exactly the person she swore she’d never be.

The mirror showed her who that person was.

She had lost weight trying to stay as skinny as the other girls. After finding the job in East Putney and quitting the money-grabbing modelling agency, she’d found it impossible to put the weight back on. She remembered how she’d looked when she studied herself in the mirror of the bedroom in her parents’ house. She hadn’t been fat then, but she’d had curves and a fuller bust. Now her ribs showed just a little too much. The gentle, attractive mound of her belly had become a definite concavity - still desirable in the world of modelling but a difference she didn’t welcome. And yet, there seemed nothing she could do about it. She tried to eat but the hunger wasn’t there. Her skin had taken the grey out of the city air. Her sweat smelled stronger, sourer than when she’d lived at home.

These things were a source of constant anxiety but her skin told other stories. Tales not necessarily about the lonely single girl trying to make it in the world of fashion. The bruises on her wrists and ankles never quite had the time to fade now and so she wore clothes with sleeves that draped to her hands or fingers. The whippings were more for show than for pain but occasionally the leather did leave weals. Sometimes the marks took several days to disappear.

She no longer had any pubic hair and the hair on her head had been shorn to a crew cut allowing her to wear a variety of wigs. Before she’d left home she’d always worn clip-on earrings, not having any desire for the real thing. Now she had piercings in places she would never even have considered. The one consolation was the balance of her bank account. All of a sudden she had savings. Soon she would move to better accommodation - she promised herself a nice place on her own nearer the centre of the city. She’d clean herself up. Get pretty again. And then she’d get back into the kind of work she’d always dreamed of doing. She had enough experience now to shop around for the right kind of jobs.

Just a little more money and she’d move on. She’d move up.

The mirror was straight with her. More honest than she was being with herself about where her life was headed. It was one thing she couldn’t ignore. There was no disguising the changes. She was a different kind of girl now. She was a different kind of animal.

Her phone rang and she flinched at the sound. It could only mean one thing: more work. She grabbed it out of her handbag and pressed accept. No one spoke.

‘Yeah?’ she said.

‘Agatha?’ It had been a familiar voice once but now, like her own body, she barely recognised it.

‘Mum.’ She had no idea what to say. ‘How did you get this number?’

There was something wrong with her mother’s voice.

‘You’ve got to come home, poppet.’

‘Don’t start this. I’m never coming back.’ Her mother was trying not to cry.

‘You’ve got to. You’ve got to come back.’

‘Listen, I’m nev -’

‘Yes, you are, Agatha. You’re coming home right now. Donald’s . . .’ The tears Pamela Smithfield had been holding on to escaped. Her next words came out as a kind of howl. ‘. . . gone missing.’

***

Delilah held Ray’s head against her breasts as they lay beneath the oak tree.

She liked him unshaven, his stubble scratchy and prickling to her skin. She liked the smell of sebum that came from his unwashed hair and the sourness of his underarms. From all of him came a musky fuck-odour. She’d smelled it the first time they’d come to the secret clearing. Since then, the more sex they’d had, the stronger the smell became. It was as though his hormonal system had responded to her at a chemical level. The more they touched each other, entered each other, the more of this smell he produced and the more magnetic he became to her. Even when they weren’t together she could smell a trace of him. She never wanted to lose it.

Ray had changed in other ways. He was more of a man. Still a feckless dreamer. Still a person who found it hard to live in what other people called the real world. Inside him, though, something had hardened, locking another thing deeper inside. She sensed a fear in him and she knew not to ask him about it. Not yet.

Spent, he dozed beside her. They’d brought sleeping bags to the clearing so that they could spend the night outdoors. Now the weather had turned a little cooler, the bags were ideal for day-time trysts too.

Ray twitched, making her jump.

He sat up and she saw in his eyes the hidden thing that had returned from sleep with him. It faded quickly.

‘Shit.’ He said.

She touched his arm.

‘What is it?’

‘A dream, thank God.’

‘What happened?’

Ray looked around at the oak trees as if gauging their strength.

‘Do you think we’re safe here?’ he asked.

‘Completely. No one knows about this place. No one else has ever found it.’

He wiped his face with both hands.

‘That’s not really what I mean, D. I thought it was coming here. Coming for us.’

‘What was?’

Ray rubbed his forehead hard and shook his head to clear it.

‘Sorry. I’m still half asleep. Or stoned or whatever. You know that feeling when you think you’ve woken up but you’re still dreaming? That’s how I feel.’

‘Are you scared?’

‘I’m fine. Just need to arrive properly. Is there any water left?’

She passed him the canteen and he took several small sips. Then he lay back against the tree and put his arm around her.

‘I love this place, D. Being here with you, it’s like being on a better planet. A place that only you and I understand.’

‘I feel the same way.’

‘Did you bring other blokes here before me?’

She held her breath for a moment. They’d known each other long enough for this.

‘My first boyfriend brought me here when I was fourteen. He was three years older than me and that seemed like a lot back then. I didn’t tell my parents about him. At school, the other girls were jealous. Boys my age wouldn’t come near me when they realised who I was seeing. His name was Simon Pike. Everyone called him Spike. He’d already left school and had a job in what used to be Manny’s Spares and Repairs. I had a thing for all that grease and grime.’

‘Dirty girl to the bone, aren’t you?’

‘To the marrow, Ray. Anyway, he brought me in here a few times. It was Spike who put the ammo box here but there were other things in it back then. The first few times he was nice with me, took it slow. I lost my virginity right here under this tree. It wasn’t bad, really.’ She paused, remembering. Not smiling. ‘Pass me the water, would you?’

Ray handed her the canteen. She could tell he knew there was more to the story and she was glad.

‘We came here one Friday evening after he finished work. He didn’t even go home to change. Just took off his overalls, washed his hands and brought me here. It was like he was in a hurry. We made love and then he stood up. I heard some laughter in the bushes and I realised straight away what he’d done. Either he’d bet his mates he’d do it while they watched or they’d paid him. I never found out. They’d all been drinking hard when they walked out into the clearing. Spike was angry, so I suppose they must have promised to stay quiet so I wouldn’t know. The funny thing is, I wasn’t that angry. I knew they’d watched us and, from the looks on their faces, they’d enjoyed it. That made me feel good. I must have been born kinky, I suppose.’

She watched Ray’s face. He could have laughed or commented but he didn’t. Again she was pleased. She continued.

‘They raped me. Spike tried to stop them but not very hard. In the end he just joined in. By the time they’d all had a go, the first one was hard again. It took hours before they were finished. You know what the worst of it was?’

Ray shook his head, watching her carefully.

‘If they’d suggested it to me, if they’d let me have a drink and if they’d just asked me, I probably would have said yes. But for them, the pleasure was not in the asking, it was in the taking, the forcing. It was after dark when they left me. I heard Spike being sick a little way off. Back then, I really believed it was me he was disgusted with. He’d fucked me and he’d hated it so much it made him ill. That was what made me so introverted for so long, thinking I was the kind of girl that made men puke.’

She checked Ray’s expression again. It was his opportunity to tell her that she didn’t have that effect on him. He didn’t take it. She already knew how she made him feel and he knew it. Nothing needed to be said. They were good together. She was falling in love with him.

‘I squatted under this tree and their sperm poured out of me onto the dirt. It just kept coming and coming and I remember thinking “I’m going to be pregnant and I won’t have any idea who the father is”. But I didn’t get pregnant and all those billions of sperms died here on the ground. It was that that brought me back here in a way. This was the place where I’d faced men and survived. This was the place where their power had fallen into the ground, impotent and wasted. This was my place, not theirs. I used the dirt where

I’d squatted to perform cleansing rituals on myself. And then I fell in love with the outdoors. I’d rather be outside than in the most beautiful palace in the world.’

‘What about the Goth image? It doesn’t really fit, does it?’

‘No. But it keeps people from getting too close.’

‘Hasn’t worked with me, has it?’

‘It’s worked perfectly. You saw through my disguise. You’re worthy of me.’

‘I’m not so sure about that.’

She seized his face between her palms and looked into his eyes.

‘Ray. No matter what you may think of yourself, I can see who you really are and who you can become. I wouldn’t have told you any of this if I didn’t have the greatest trust in you and the greatest belief.’

‘D, I’ve dropped out of college. I don’t have a job. I spend every day stoned and I waste most of the hours of daylight playing video games. I’m not worthy of anything.’

‘I could slap you for saying that. I believe in you, Ray. You’re only like this because you’re afraid. When you conquer your fear, you’ll be capable of anything.’

‘What fear?’

She put a finger on his heart.

‘The one you have locked away right here.’

His tears came from nowhere. It was as though her finger had pressed some kind of release mechanism. He knew she was a real witch then, a powerful white witch with the keys to open him up. He turned his face into her breasts again and wept there until his tears rolled onto her belly.

When the tears finally stopped he told her everything. He told her about the garbage man.