Reek, page 16
The camera swerved again, stopping on a mound of blurry lines. The camera whirred again, focusing. Short, black hairs appeared in the frame; a forest against his pale skin. The camera panned left until a large blotch filled the lens. Anno pulled the camera back a little, revealing a fist-sized mark. Ugly didn't begin to describe it. It looked like a brand of some kind, the flesh shiny and dappled with a dark purple color that made Anno want to scrape away at it with a steel brush. Until bristles ground against bone.
“I can promise you, whoever is watching this, that mark was not there yesterday or any other day of my life.” A shiver went up the back of his legs, right to the base of his neck. He tasted the copper tang of blood in his mouth and couldn't remember when–if ever–he had bitten his tongue. “The worst part is, I think I saw the same mark on the back of Yui's neck. Pretty sure she hasn't noticed it yet, don't think she will, not with all the mirrors and glass broken all over the place. But, I'm freaking out, especially when I think about how much daylight is left, maybe about an hour. Kojima sent me out here to get some footage of the sunset, h-he doesn't know I'm filming this though. Things are bad. Real bad.” He knew he was repeating now, but there wasn't any other way to get it across. Whoever wound up watching the footage had to know. Had to understand.
Anno tried to think positive, to imagine himself in a month or two, looking back at the footage from the warmth of his apartment. Sitting in his oversized armchair. Laptop resting on his knees, the heat from the computer sinking into his thighs. A real fucking pussy, that is what he'd been. Okada never stopping his ribs, telling everyone how he had shit his pants. Kojima cutting ties with him, but no great loss there. Yui texting at midnight every so often, drunk and happy. Sato with his late night talk show. Yes, on days when rain pattered against his windows, he would look at the footage and chuckle.
But there was no going back. There would be no ribbing, no comfy chair. He had been wrong about everything, and it followed suit even now. He had estimated an hour left of daylight. No such luck. Thirty minutes at most. Crisp air blew over his face. His destination; a small cliff looking out over the ocean. Below, he could see warped, discarded corpses. Skeletons twisting every which way, the ancient boat wrecks seemed to reach out to him, pleading for the pain to stop. As Anno stood looking west, he could imagine how the island's inhabitants had once felt. The ocean surged all around, teeth and claws; a predator painted greenish-blue, dragging anyone stupid enough to enter straight to the ocean floor. He wailed, letting his body jiggle with each sob.
Why didn't I say something to Jin? Why can't I speak up when I want to? What he said was, “Why do I have to be the one to do something?”
Through it all he filmed; the camera whirring quietly against the bellow of the sea. He didn't see the shadow rising up behind him, didn't sense the attack until it was too late.
10:35:57:11
Although Mai should have been wailing like Anno; terrified at where she found herself, distraught over her death, instead she couldn't help but notice the girl was not pointing at her, but the double doors leading outside. The grubby girl. All hair and rags.
Look closer, a real good look.
The child's nose flattened out across the face. Her posture slanted slightly to the right. The eyes still obscured by the wild mess of hair.
A real good look, sis.
The toes, the big one smaller than the one next to it. The child's whispers back in the hallway. That nose, that posture. Mai fought a chill as the girl's resemblance clicked into place. The one person that had truly known her. “You're not her,” she said.
Her little sister stood in front of her. Emi.
That smell again. Her stomach tightened at it, a desperate sort of ache. Her body felt heavy as she rose, unbalanced. With an indifference that she did not recognize, Mai saw that she was wearing the same style of clothing as everyone else. Right down to the unsightly clods of mud caking her shoes, small blades of grass peeking through earth.
I hope that's mud and not something else, she thought.
The little girl–Emi–began urgently jerking her finger towards the double doors; her clothing, what amounted to no more than a raggedy towel at best, quivering with every shake of her tiny frame. As Mai moved the girl did the same; both coming to meet at the doors. She bent down, the child's eyes stabbing into her own through her hair. It wasn't a familiar look, nowhere close to a kinda-sorta-a little bit-thing. The girl was exactly like her sister. Like Emi.
“Who are you?” Mai asked, not expecting an answer, her own image reflected back in the girl's chocolate pupils. Double doors opening, she took Mai's hand, tiny, yet firm and led her out into the clearing, the same one she had walked around before entering the building in what seemed like a lifetime ago. More trees were here, so tall they seemed to grind against the sky. Despite being outside, it felt like the world was pressing down on her; a dark weight that drove her shoes firmly into the soil. Down, down you go. Buildings, exhausted and defeated by the elements on her arrival now looked fresh and new, not a warped, split board in sight. Their small, squat size reminded her of a flock of birds; huddling together as the elements raged.
A cluster of people gathered around a small pit; a thick border of bodies lined around something she couldn't see. Heat vapors rose up into the air, corrupting reality through contorted images until they were absorbed by the sky. There were no screams, no one as horrified as she had heard before. She couldn't see; couldn't tell what everyone was so focused on. The girl tugged on her hand, pulling her forward.
Oh, Sis. You're not going to like it over there.
The clothing was tight around her body, difficult to get a decent breath in. Her stomach began doing somersaults of joy as they moved closer to the group. Whatever the smell was, it was coming from where they were all collected. A few of the men were making odd gestures. They disappeared from sight; swallowed by the mass of people. They would then run out, holding onto what looked like a rope, tugging at it in a vicious fashion; faces beaming through thick beards with a joy that frightened her. It was the kind of delight that usually graced a person when they had lost their mind. That look when whatever made them human had long departed. She had seen it before when her grandfather had fallen into the suffocating embrace of Alzheimer's. These men, with their tugging and their elation, were involved in something Mai instantly knew she didn't want to be a part of.
You're not going to like it, Sis. Not even a little.
The child–with Emi's nose, Emi's gait–continued to pull her forward, pointing furiously at the crowd. Mai was overwhelmed, listening to the Emi in her mind and staring at the one standing in front of her. The child smiled up at Mai revealing teeth far too sharp; jagged things that had no business being in a kid's mouth.
What makes you think that's a child? Smoke and mirrors, Sis.
“Stop,” Mai said. “Stop, I don't want to go there.” She noticed two things at once; two items of thought crashing together in a storm of panic.
First, she couldn't control her body, her legs moving forward without hesitation. It was as though she was one of those robot figures at a theme park; unable to escape from the confines of what their programmers deemed suitable, hour after hour, day after day. The second thing was–though she was unable to determine which of the two things scared her more–the child's hand was neither warm nor cold. A complete absence of temperature.
The group parted before them like a boat cleaving through waves. Most of them were wrapped up; the Bandage Team. Some teetered on makeshift crutches. She saw the flames. Vomit stung her throat as she took in the terrible sight. “Oh God, no!”
In the center of the pit, a group of people burned.
The blaze roiled around their bodies, pink flesh now blackened with thin red cracks. Hair singed, twisting in the heat until melting against skin. Clothes, the same nurse uniforms Mai had seen moments before, turned into liquid, so hot that as it ran down it took off skin and muscle in the process. A woman's chin split open, the meat flopping outwards to reveal smeared red bone underneath. Mai sprayed puke onto the ground. The heat from the fire steamed it, the edges crisping up within seconds.
Something ripped open, the sound of meat giving way stuffed itself into her ears. She jerked back as her face was spattered with hot fluid. It wasn't ropes the men had coiled around their fists. It was wire. A scream of revulsion left her as she saw what the wire was attached to. In the flames, the people; mouths open in an endless wail had the wire curled up around numerous body parts. Arms, knees. A few around the neck. The men, with their crazed grins, ran up to the fire–so close their hats smoked in response to the heat–wrapping their hands tighter around the dull metal, fists clenched, wire over skin before taking off in opposite directions. People cheered as the wire went tight, shivering in the air. Another wrenching noise. Limbs flew, blood splattering the group. They roared in euphoria, spreading the gore across their clothing; their faces. A thigh landed next to Mai, a knob of white bone with small twists of skin wrapped around it; a chunk of red muscle no more than an arm's length away. The pack–women and men alike–snatched at it, pulling the leg into their mouths, teeth sinking into crispy flesh all the way up to their gums; wet lips rubbing against the meat. Mai withdrew, heavy shoes pushing up clods of dirt. The group ignored her, focused on filling their bellies with medium rare nurse. The grubby Emi stood at her side, pointing at the flame.
“I know, I see it,” Mai said, praying to erase what she had witnessed. She was about to crawl, to turn back and go somewhere, anywhere but here, when her eye caught movement. Something moved beyond the fire, almost looming over it. The flames parted, showing a man standing atop a crude ladder, dressed all in white. The one she had seen before. His arms were outstretched to the sky; a look of ecstasy on his face, red and raw from sunburn. In one hand he held a massive cane of some kind with the end tapering out into a C shape. A word, long forgotten came to her. Crook. It's called a Shepard's Crook. The little girl was all but jumping up and down now, gesturing at the man. Terror surged through Mai as she looked from the girl to him. He was no longer looking up at the sky, but at her.
“You,” he said, in a voice as rough as rusted metal, “are not one of my flock.”
With a synchronicity that made her blood feel like ice, the group turned to her. Pupils as lifeless as stone glared at her, surrounded by splashes of red. Their bandages hung loose, sopping with blood. Mai saw their skin, pebbled and gnarled, but nothing like the thing that had attacked her in her room. If you took away the bandages and the bygone clothing they looked like normal people, men and woman you would see on the street, nod to as they walked by. People you would sit across from on the train, wondering how their day was, what they were thinking. Normal, everyday people with a skin problem.
“You,” the man said, casting his cane–his crook–around the fire, “are meat. We, the lost, the ignored, we like meat very much.”
The group was on her before she could flee. Knotted fingers and stumps closed around her, pulling. They too had no temperature. The fire she was being dragged towards, did.
“Please, I don't belong here, I didn't do anything to you, please let me go!” She was hoisted up into the air in line with the man. Smooth wood rested in the crook of her neck, jutting out across the fire; flames parting around it, avoiding it.
“Nobody belongs here,” the man spoke with a rage that ripped the breath from her lungs. “We committed no crime, save for the act of living. Yet we were cast here, shunned by all. Left to rot!” He yanked on the crook, the upper part digging into her dress, tearing it open, down to her navel. The air was bitterly cold against her breasts. The group roared in approval, shaking Mai about like a doll.
“Please,” she said, a mewl a best. “Please let me go. I promise I'll leave and never come back. I really, really mean it. I'm begging you.” She made eye contact, screaming when she did. His eyes were nothing. No light, no dark. Just nothing. A void of life, sucking you in down; down into hell itself.
“I, am the Shepard. My God has promised to save us.” The voice dug itself into her heart, burning a hole. “I tend to my flock, and my flock, Mai, is famished.”
The hands thrust forward and she sailed into the fire. She screamed, praying it would be quick. The pain bit into her; agony exploding along all sides of her body. She hit the ground, knocking aside the charred corpses, their bodies crumbling. Her hair flattened against her face, cutting into her as it fused with her flesh. Involuntarily she put a hand up to pry the hair loose. Skin merged, face and hand. She tore, pulling part of her scalp off. As her eyelashes melted against the meat of her eyes, she saw the little girl, still pointing at the man.
Shepard and Emi.
Mai screamed as everything turned into an ocean of torment. She had prayed it would end quickly. Her prayers went unanswered.
The Captain
“I swear, mate, you don't start working with me on this, I'll shut you down faster than you can tug one out in the morning. Get me?”
Henare wished he'd voiced it in a different way, more in line with what befitted a Senior Constable. Still, the results spoke for themselves. Sometimes it was good to rely on a bit of the old Maori fire.
“Nah, steady on, Hen. No need for that.”
Finding Oscar had been as easy as he thought. On TV, police work seemed so fascinating. Walking around, sniffing out clues; checking out places with flashlights when they could easily hit a light switch. Real police work was humdrum. Ask someone standard questions. Let them lead you to another person. Ask the same questions, meet someone else. In the end, you usually found what you were looking for, no flashlights required. Tracking down Oscar the boat operator–the man preferred 'Captain', one of those types but Henare was not going to give the man the privilege–had been a straight progression from the bartender to the harbor to here. The man had caved as soon as Henare walked around the corner of his rusty shitbox establishment. Told him all about the Japanese crew, how many of them, what kind of equipment they had taken over. He had paid special attention to the information about when Oscar was meant to return. Idiots had given themselves a few days on Pokere. A few fucking days and the asshole hadn't had the decency to mention it was a few days too much.
Back at the dock, staring at the island, it had looked exactly that. An island, despite what nonsense his grandmother had fed him as a kid. Fed him until he had burst and walked away. Family curses, Evil's home and other assorted bullshit. Pragmatism was a job requirement, one he relied on every day; curses didn't factor into the equation. Still, the work was such that certain requirements needed to be met. It was his responsibility, always had been.
“Oscar, you mind telling me why the hell you took them over? You've been alive longer than I have, you know better.”
He knew the answer before Oscar's face buckled and the bleat came out of his mouth. Of course he knew. Certain requirements and all that. “The money,” Oscar said, lips quivering, a motion which traveled down his body like he had no skeleton. A big, fat, jerking mess of a man. “Damn, Hen. You know I need the money. We all do,” he bawled with a deep sobbing that only came from real hardship. “The money, Jesus Christ, I'm broke.”
Henare took a step back. He had seen the cycle enough times while he was on the job, sometimes off. A man gets sad enough, real desperate then comes the rage; as hot as any fire you've seen. Typically you could expect a few punches, maybe the occasional kick. “Right, mate I know. I see.”
He saw alright. Life as they knew it had ceased. A cruel razing of a lifestyle they all had taken for granted. The first shake back in 2010 had been treated as a one-off. A freak event. This was the South Island of New Zealand, not Los Angeles. Besides, it happened while everyone was asleep, around four in the morning. No casualties. Jill had woken Henare up when it came. A light sleeper, she had noticed Podge, their chubby pug was whining. Little man wet the bed, giving Henare's feet a soak. Then everything went everywhere and it was over. A mess and a bad jolt, sure, but not something Henare or the inhabitants of Lyttelton could take seriously.
A few months later, they paid for their complacency.
Just after lunch on an overcast day in February, a murderer arrived in town. Henare was thrown against a cabinet at the station. A roaring–so low and vengeful that he still could hear it years later–swept through the town. He saw the ceiling buckle above him and in that moment, a moment he had shared with no one, not even Jill, Henare saw Death coming for him. A dark cloud, billowing and twisting, full of clear, hateful intent. One look at it was enough to have the image forever etched into memory. The cloud came straight at him; ready to claim another soul. Then the world stopped. Madness receded, everything went silent. Sound did not exist in those brief moments. Henare flashed upon his guilt, as he had for years.
The affair. Well, if he was going whole hog; the affairs.
Watching Shortland Street on TV with Jill, night in and night out, thoughts of what he had done crawled towards him. The regret was almost palpable; heavy and bitter, a chunk of rock wrapped around his heart by a rope, slowly wrenching it loose from his body. But–worst of all–as he thought about this, he remembered the sensations. The feeling of his cock sliding into each woman. Some tight inside with bumps and folds, some loose. That image of him, thick and ready, pushing deep into a new body with new curves and new warmth. Straight down to the base with one thrust sometimes, as smooth a ride as you please. Their cries; their eyes alight with that kinky sparkle they got, all because of him. They had swallowed him whole; eager and greedy to get every last inch inside. They had him all to themselves, his time and his manhood. Around the time of the Big One, Henare had started jerking off to these memories which invariably resulted in him crying until his shirt was soaked through. Guilt ate him alive; bite by bite, all the time in the world, one chunk of flesh as it pleased. He hadn't been the same since the Big One, and neither had the town.
