He must get to Coot.
“What about your wife?” the officer called after him. Maggie was sitting in one of the side offices, dumb with sedation, Debbie asleep beside her. There was nothing he could do for them. They were as safe here as anywhere.
He must get to Coot, before he died.
He’d know, whatever Reverends know; and he’d understand the pain better than these monkeys. Dead sons were the crux of the Church after all.
As he got into the car it seemed for a moment he smelt his son: the boy who would have carried his name (Ian Ronald Milton he’d been christened), the boy who was his sperm made flesh, who he’d had circumsized like himself. The quiet child who’d looked out of the car at him with such resignation in his eyes.
This time the tears didn’t begin. This time there was just an anger that was almost wonderful.
It was half past eleven at night. Rawhead Rex lay under the moon in one of the harvested fields to the southwest of the Nicholson Farm. The stubble was darkening now, and there was a tantalizing smell of rotting vegetable matter off the earth. Beside him lay his dinner, Ian Ronald Milton, face up on the field, his midriff torn open. Occasionally the beast would lean up on one elbow and paddle its fingers in the cooling soup of the boy child’s body, fishing for a delicacy.
Here, under the full moon, bathing in silver, stretching his limbs and eating the flesh of human kind, he felt irresistible. His fingers drew a kidney off the plate beside him and he swallowed it whole.
Sweet.
Coot was awake, despite the sedation. He knew he was dying, and the time was too precious to doze through. He didn’t know the name of the face that was interrogating him in the yellow gloom of his room, but the voice was so politely insistent he had to listen, even though it interrupted his peacemaking with God. Besides, they had questions in common: and they all circled, those questions, on the beast that had reduced him to this pulp.
“It took my son,” the man said. “What do you know about the thing? Please tell me. I’ll believe whatever you tell me—” Now there was desperation—”Just explain—”
Time and again, as he’d lain on that hot pillow, confused thoughts had raced through Coot’s mind. Declan’s baptism; the embrace of the beast; the altar; his hair rising and his flesh too. Maybe there was something he could tell the father at his bedside.
“... in the church ...”
Ron leaned closer to Coot; he smelt of earth already.
“... the altar... it’s afraid ... the altar...”
“You mean the cross? It’s afraid of the cross?”
“No... not—”
“Not—”
The body creaked once, and stopped. Ron watched death come over the face: the saliva dry on Coot’s lips, the iris of his remaining eye contract. He watched a long while before he rang for the nurse, then quietly made his escape.
There was somebody in the Church. The door, which had been padlocked by the police, was ajar, the lock smashed. Ron pushed it open a few inches and slid inside. There were no lights on in the Church, the only illumination was a bonfire on the altar steps. It was being tended by a young man Ron had seen on and off in the village. He looked up from his fire-watching, but kept feeding the flames the guts of books.
“What can I do for you?” he asked, without interest.
“I came to—” Ron hesitated. What to tell this man: the truth? No, there was something wrong here.
“I asked you a frigging question,” said the man. “What do you want?”
As he walked down the aisle towards the fire Ron began to see the questioner in more detail. There were stains, like mud, on his clothes, and his eyes had sunk in their orbits as if his brain had sucked them in.
“You’ve got no right to be in here—”
“I thought anyone could come into a church,” said Ron, staring at the burning pages as they blackened.
“Not tonight. You get the fuck out of here.” Ron kept walking towards the altar.
“You get the fuck out, I said!”
The face in front of Ron was alive with leers and grimaces: there was lunacy in it.
“I came to see the altar; I’ll go when I’ve seen it, and not before.”
“You’ve been talking to Coot. That it?”
“Coot?”
“What did the old wanker tell you? It’s all a lie, whatever it was; he never told the truth in his frigging life, you know that? You take it from me. He used to get up there—” he threw a prayerbook at the pulpit “—and tell fucking lies!”
“I want to see the altar for myself. We’ll see if he was telling lies—”
“No you won’t!”
The man threw another handful of books on to the fire and stepped down to block Ron’s path. He smelt not of mud but of shit. Without warning, he pounced. His hands seized Ron’s neck, and the two of them toppled over. Declan’s fingers reaching to gouge at Ron’s eyes: his teeth snapping at his nose.
Ron was surprised at the weakness of his own arms; why hadn’t he played squash the way Maggie had suggested, why were his muscles so ineffectual? If he wasn’t careful this man was going to kill him.
Suddenly a light, so bright it could have been a midnight dawn, splashed through the west window. A cloud of screams followed close on it. Firelight, dwarfing the bonfire on the altar steps, dyed the air. The stained glass danced.
Declan forgot his victim for an instant, and Ron rallied. He pushed the man’s chin back, and got a knee under his torso, then he kicked hard. The enemy went reeling, and Ron was up and after him, a fistful of hair securing the target while the ball of his other hand hammered at the lunatic’s face ‘til it broke. It wasn’t enough to see the bastard’s nose bleed, or to hear the cartilage mashed; Ron kept beating and beating until his fist bled. Only then did he let Declan drop.
Outside, Zeal was ablaze.
Rawhead had made fires before, many fires. But petrol was a new weapon, and he was still getting the hang of it. It didn’t take him long to learn. The trick was to wound the wheeled boxes, that was easy. Open their flanks and out their blood would pour, blood that made his head ache. The boxes were easy prey, lined up on the pavement like bullocks to be slaughtered. He went amongst them demented with death, splashing their blood down the High Street and igniting it. Streams of liquid fire poured into gardens, over thresholds. Thatches caught; wood-beamed cottages went up. In minutes Zeal was burning from end to end.
In St. Peter’s, Ron dragged the filthied cloth off the altar, trying to block out all thoughts of Debbie and Margaret. The police would move them to a place of safety, for certain. The issue at hand must take precedence.
Beneath the cloth was a large box, its front panel roughly carved. He took no notice of the design; there were more urgent matters to attend to. Outside, the beast was loose. He could hear its triumphant roars, and he felt eager, yes eager, to go to it. To kill it or be killed. But first, the box. It contained power, no doubt about that; a power that was even now raising the hairs on his head, that was working at his cock, giving him an aching hardon. His flesh seemed to seethe with it, it elated him like love. Hungry, he put his hands on the box, and a shock that seemed to cook his joints ran up both his arms. He fell back, and for a moment he wondered if he was going to remain conscious, the pain was so bad, but it subsided, in moments. He cast around for a tool, something to get him into the box without laying flesh to it.
In desperation he wrapped his hand with a piece of the altar cloth and snatched one of the brass candleholders from the edge of the fire. The cloth began to smolder as the heat worked its way through to his hand. He stepped back to the altar and beat at the wood like a madman until it began to splinter. His hands were numb now; if the heated candlesticks were burning his palms he couldn’t feel it. What did it matter anyhow? There was a weapon here: a few inches away from him, if only he could get to it, to wield it. His erection throbbed, his balls tingled.
“Come to me,” he found himself saying, “come on,
come on. Come to me. Come to me.” Like he was willing it into his embrace, this treasure, like it was a girl he wanted, his hardon wanted, and he was hypnotizing her into his bed.
“Come to me, come to me—”
The wood facade was breaking. Panting now, he used the corners of the candlestick base to lever larger chunks of timber away. The altar was hollow, as he’d known it would be. And empty.
Empty.
Except for a ball of stone, the size of a small football. Was this his prize? He couldn’t believe how insignificant it looked: and yet the air was still electric around him; his blood still danced. He reached through the hole he’d made in the altar and picked the relic up.
Outside, Rawhead was jubilating.
Images flashed before Ron’s eyes as he weighed the stone in his deadened hand. A corpse with its feet burning. A flaming cot. A dog, running along the street, a living ball of fire. It was all outside, waiting to unfold.
Against the perpetrator, he had this stone.
He’d trusted God, just for half a day, and he got shat on. It was just a stone: just a fucking stone. He turned the football over and over in his hand, trying to make some sense of its furrows and its mounds. Was it meant to be something, perhaps; was he missing its deeper significance?
There was a knot of noise at the other end of the church; a crash, a cry, from beyond the door a whoosh of flame.
Two people staggered in, followed by smoke and pleas.
“He’s burning the village,” said a voice Ron knew. It was that benign policeman who hadn’t believed in Hell; he was trying to keep his act together, perhaps for the benefit of his companion, Mrs. Blatter from the hotel. The nightdress she’d run into the street wearing was torn. Her breasts were exposed; they shook with her sobs; she didn’t seem to know she was naked, didn’t even know where she was.
“Christ in Heaven help us,” said Ivanhoe.
“There’s no fucking Christ in here,” came Declan’s voice.
He was standing up, and reeling towards the intruders. Ron couldn’t see his face from where he stood, but he knew it must be near as damn it unrecognizable. Mrs. Blatter avoided him as he staggered towards the door, and she ran towards the altar. She’d been married here: on the very spot he’d built the fire.
Ron stared at her body entranced.
She was considerably overweight, her breasts sagging, her belly overshadowing her cunt so he doubted if she could even see it. But it was for this his cockhead throbbed, for this his head reeled—
Her image was in his hand. God yes, she was there in his hand, she was the living equivalent of what he held. A woman. The stone was the statue of a woman, a Venus grosser than Mrs. Blatter, her belly swelling with children, tits like mountains, cunt a valley that began at her navel and gaped to the world. All this time, under the cloth and the cross, they’d bowed their heads to a goddess.
Ron stepped off the altar and began to run down the aisle, pushing Mrs. Blatter, the policeman and the lunatic aside.
“Don’t go out,” said Ivanhoe, “It’s right outside.”
Ron held the Venus tight, feeling her weight in his hands and taking security from her. Behind him, the Verger was screeching a warning to his Lord. Yes, it was a warning for sure.
Ron kicked open the door. On every side, fire. A flaming cot, a corpse (it was the postmaster) with its feet burning, a dog skinned by fire, hurtling past. And Rawhead, of course, silhouetted against a panorama of flames. It looked around, perhaps because it heard the warnings the Verger was yelling, but more likely, he thought, because it knew, knew without being told, that the woman had been found.
“Here!” Ron yelled, “I’m here! I’m here!”
It was coming for him now, with the steady gait of a victor closing in to claim its final and absolute victory. Doubt surged up in Ron. Why did it come so surely to meet him, not seeming to care about the weapon he carried in his hands?
Hadn’t it seen, hadn’t it heard the warning?
Unless—
Oh God in Heaven.
—Unless Coot had been wrong. Unless it was only a stone he held in his hand, a useless, meaningless lump of stone.
Then a pair of hands grabbed him around the neck.
The lunatic.
A low voice spat the word “Fucker” in his ear.
Ron watched Rawhead approaching, heard the lunatic screeching now: “Here he is. Fetch him. Kill him. Here he is.”
Without warning the grip slackened, and Ron half-turned to see Ivanhoe dragging the lunatic back against the Church wall. The mouth in the Verger’s broken face continued to screech.
“He’s here! Here!”
Ron looked back at Rawhead: the beast was almost on him, and he was too slow to raise the stone in self-defense. But Rawhead had no intention of taking him. It was Declan he was smelling and hearing. Ivanhoe released Declan as Rawhead’s huge hands veered past Ron and fumbled for the lunatic. What followed was unwatchable. Ron couldn’t bear to see the hands take Declan apart: but he heard the gabble of pleas become whoops of disbelieving grief. When he next looked round there was nothing recognizably human on ground or wall—
—And Rawhead was coming for him now, coming to do the same or worse. The huge head craned round to fix on Ron, its maw gaping, and Ron saw how the fire had wounded Rawhead. The beast had been careless in the enthusiasm for destruction: fire had caught its face and upper torso. Its body hair was crisped, its mane was stubble, and the flesh on the left hand side of its face was black and blistered. The flames had roasted its eyeballs, they were swimming in a gum of mucus and tears. That was why it had followed Declan’s voice and bypassed Ron; it could scarcely see.
But it must see now. It must.
“Here ... here ...” said Ron, “Here I am!” Rawhead heard. He looked without seeing, his eyes trying to focus.
“Here! I’m here!”
Rawhead growled in his chest. His burned face pained him; he wanted to be away from here, away in the cool of a birch thicket, moonwashed.
His dimmed eyes found the stone; the homo sapien was nursing it like a baby. It was difficult for Rawhead to see clearly, but he knew. It ached in his mind, that image. It pricked him it teased him.
It was just a symbol of course, a sign of the power, not the power itself, but his mind made no such distinction. To him the stone was the thing he feared most: the bleeding woman, her gaping hole eating seed and spitting children. It was life, that hole, that woman, it was endless fecundity. It terrified him.
Rawhead stepped back, his own shit running freely down his leg. The fear on his face gave Ron strength. He pressed home his advantage, closing in after the retreating beast, dimly aware that Ivanhoe was rallying allied around him, armed figures waiting at the corners of his vision, eager to bring the fireraiser down.
His own strength was failing him. The stone, lifted high above his head so Rawhead could see it plainly, seemed heavier by the moment.
“Go on,” he said quietly to the gathering Zealots: “Go on, take him. Take him ...”
They began to close in, even before he finished speaking.
Rawhead smelt them more than saw them: his hurting eyes were fixed on the woman.
His teeth slid from their sheaths in preparation for the attack. The stench of humanity closed in around him from every direction.
Panic overcame his superstitions for one moment and he snatched down towards Ron, steeling himself against the stone. The attack took Ron by surprise. The claws sank in his scalp, blood poured down over his face.
Then the crowd closed in. Human hands, weak, white human hands were laid on Rawhead’s body. Fists beat on his spine, nails raked his skin.
He let Ron go as somebody took a knife to the backs of his legs and hamstrung him. The agony made him howl the sky down, or so it seemed. In Rawhead’s roasted eyes the stars reeled as he fell backwards on the road, his back cracking under him. They took the advantage immediately, overpowering him by sheer weight of numbers. He snapped
off a finger here, a face there, but they would not be stopped now. Their hatred was old; in their bones, did they but know it.
He thrashed under their assault for as long as he could, but knew death was certain. There would be no resurrection this time, no waiting in the earth for an age until their descendants forgot him. He’d be snuffed out absolutely, and there would be nothingness.
He became quieter at the thought, and looked up as best he could to where the little father was standing. Their eyes met, as they had on the road when he’d taken the boy. But now Rawhead’s look had lost its power to transfix. His face was empty and sterile as the moon, defeated long before Ron slammed the stone down between his eyes. The skull was soft: it buckled inwards and a slop of brain splattered the road.
The King went out. It was suddenly over, without ceremony or celebration. Out, once and for all. There was no cry.
Ron left the stone where it lay, half buried in the face of the beast. He stood up groggily, and felt his head. His scalp was loose, his fingertips touched his skull, blood came and came. But there were arms to support him, and nothing to fear if he slept.
It went unnoticed, but in death Rawhead’s bladder was emptying. A stream of urine pulsed from the corpse and ran down the road. The rivulet steamed in the chilling air, its scummy nose sniffing left and right as it looked for a place to drain, After a few feet it found the gutter and ran along it awhile to a crack in the tarmac; there it drained off into the welcoming earth.
CONFESSIONS OF A (PORNOGRAPHER’S) SHROUD
He had been flesh once. Flesh, and bone, and ambition. But that was an age ago, or so it seemed, and the memory of that blessed state was fading fast.
Some traces of his former life remained; time and exhaustion couldn’t take everything from him. He could picture clearly and painfully the faces of those he’d loved and hated. They stared through at him from the past, clear and luminous. He could still see the sweet, goodnight expressions in his children’s eyes. And the same look, less sweet but no less goodnight, in the eyes of the brutes he had murdered.