Colder Still
Justin Cawthorne
Smashwords Edition
Copyright 2009
Justin Cawthorne
Discover other titles by Justin
Cawthorne at Smashwords.com
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
Thank you for
downloading this free ebook. You are welcome to share it with your
friends. This book may be reproduced, copied and distributed for
non-commercial purposes, provided the book remains in its complete
original form. If you enjoyed this book, please return to
Smashwords.com
to discover other works by this author. Thank you for your support.
COLDER STILL
John Spencer hated his son.
He watched him stagger through the door, drunken, bitter and cursing his wheelchair bound father for every misfortune that had descended upon his life.
“Supermarket was shut,” Peter slurred. “I’m not cleaning up after you like last time, so you’re not having takeout neither.”
With that Peter sat down, unwrapped his chicken tikka massala, and ate greedily by himself. John would have responded but the words no longer came out as well as they used to. Peter would usually just lost patience trying to work it out so John remained silent. He wasn’t hungry anyway. He didn’t feel much of anything anymore. Whether he was numb, shutting it all out, or if his body was finally giving out he didn’t know. For the most part it was a blessing.
Perhaps that was the reason he had finally stopped blaming himself for Peter. He couldn’t entirely shed a sense of responsibility. There was DNA at play, influences that were set in stone at early ages, genetic minutiae that he could doubtless be held accountable for. But maybe, sometimes, people were just born bad. Another spin of the wheel and he might have been the same himself. But he wasn’t. He had fought for his country, provided for his family, and walked on the side of righteousness. He had led a decent life by most people’s standards, while his son had merely squandered his. He couldn't waste what little remained of his own time worrying about it. Sometimes you just had to let go, and Peter had had plenty of time to make his own choices.
A parent was meant to love his children, and God knows he had tried, but somehow the balance had gone awry. What began as a loving and stable relationship had slowly devolved through their time together into an unnatural bond of hate and resentment. John was sure he had never felt anything uglier in his life, and he had survived through horrors that would give even Peter pause for breath.
He felt eyes poking at him. Peter was glaring over each forkful of curry, no doubt wondering what ‘his braindead father was on this time, staring into space’. John didn’t bother to look his way. Peter had never taken the time to ask how he was and mean it, so John no longer felt inclined to keep his son entertained.
It was time, he had decided, to let go. He had loved the baby his wife had given birth to. He had loved the slightly awkward child he had been while growing up, and he had loved the teenage son struggling erratically, occasionally violently, through all the sea changes and adjustments that puberty and beyond wrought.
But delivering unconditional love had grown harder and harder as Peter continued to change in other ways. Once childhood was fully behind him had followed long years when the abuse and the antisocial behaviour had tried John’s patience, which had nevertheless held long after his wife had given up. Then came the drink-driving and any number of petty and not so petty offences.
John had tried to excuse his son’s behaviour by blaming himself, a theory on which he and Peter apparently agreed: he hadn’t been a good enough father, he had failed to set his son on the right path through life, he had treated him bad. He even began to wonder if Peter could really be his son. Ultimately none of it was true. He hadn’t been the perfect father, but he had been an adequate one – probably more so. Peter had had been given every reasonable chance in the world, not exactly a life of privilege but something warm and comfortable nonetheless.
And Peter had been the one who failed.
John watched his eyes rove belligerently around the kitchen. Peter had converted the room for his father’s use, if converted wasn’t too generous a term, and he still practised resentment as a hobby. He was far too lazy to carry his father upstairs to bed each night. He was also way too tight to send the father who had raised him to a care home. Instead he had set aside the kitchen and lounge for John's use. Peter never cooked, and spent much of his spare time watching porn and drinking in his bedroom, so the offer had been made less through generosity than a desire to invoke the minimum requirement of effort and expense.
But the paraphernalia still bugged him. His father had led a full life, much fuller than he ever had, and he had the souvenirs to show for it. It was a constant irritation, not only did he have to surrender his house to the old man, but he had to fill it with his rubbish.
“So what the fuck is that meant to be?” Peter would pipe up on his more conversational nights. Each time the question would relate to some random artefact, a photo frame, a medal, perhaps something more esoteric. Each time a different object, each time the same question. He had spent only the briefest time unpacking his father’s personal belongings, some were scattered arbitrarily on the few shelves and surfaces in the sitting room, most remained in the packing boxes that remained stacked against the far wall.
John fooled himself at first that it was his son's way of showing an interest in his father's past. But it was nothing of the sort. All Peter was trying to do was pick a fight, and he was far too cowardly to pick it with someone who might actually stand up to him.
A few nights ago Peter had returned home in a particular fury. A court case had run against his favour after a woman - who turned out to be more clued up regarding the mechanics of her car than Peter assumed - had taken exception to the additional services his garage had charged her for. He tore into one of John's boxes, pulling out photos, letters and other precious memories, and leaving them scattered over the coffee table. Each object elicited little more than a grunt of disgust before being discarded on the nearest available surface.
Then he found the jar. It had been right at the bottom of the box. John had packed it years earlier, and had simply continued to fill the box over it, hoping that maybe it would be forgotten or perhaps even vanish if it remained hidden away for long enough. It was clamped shut, sealed with a rubber washer, and held what looked like several litres of water.
Peter wrenched it unceremoniously from the box. He stared at it entranced, his scorn for a man who would keep a jar of water in long-term storage now complete. John waited for the inevitable outrage, now that his son had found the outlet he required. Lying at the bottom of the box John noticed his wartime diary. Along with the jar it was something he had never dared show to anyone. To those who had read his subsequent journals he had simply claimed that he had been too busy trying to stay alive during Market-Garden to waste his time writing a diary.
“Water?! Fucking water?!!!” Peter began. John sat calmly. There were worse things in the world than Peter’s fury, and one of them just happened to be in that jar, Peter just didn’t know it yet.
----
January 18, 1945 8pm – Still in Haguenau. The war’s gone quiet on us. We’re pleased to have a roof over our heads (at last), but there’s little action other than taunting the Jerries over the river. I wonder if we’ve lost the momentum. Someone’s going to crack before long. We’ve got too much time to get drunk and dwell on rumours – the war’s over, the Germans have broken through. I didn’t think about it before but
Spence put the pen down, deciding he didn’t want to think after all. The more he thought about things the more he began to feel he might just get out of this war alive, and that plain scared him. When the bullets were flying all he wanted to worry about was completing the mission and keeping his friends’ backs covered. That little voice whispering in his ear, saying ‘You can make it through this, you want to live’ was likely to get himself, or someone else, killed.
The command had taken to sending them on recon missions over the Moder River, spying on the Germans to the North and occasionally bringing back prisoners for interrogation. It was a toss up whether the missions were necessary, or whether it was just something to keep the boys busy. There wasn’t much else to do until they received their next orders from HQ.
Spence didn’t complain. He was here to do his duty. Living through the war would be a bonus, but he would still be proud to be remembered as someone who died for his country. He decided to keep telling himself that until he either got home or got one between the eyes.
Jones was ready to spit blood though. He had come close to drowning on last night’s patrol, and he was blaming Captain Weathers. Jones had been terrified of water since birth, and the phobia persisted despite some of the most merciless military training known to man. Weathers knew all about it, but reasoned that the words 'phobia' and 'soldier' didn’t belong together on the same page, so Jones had been sent on the mission regardless of his protests. Now he was standing by the window, occupying himself by recalling each and every occasion Weathers had singled him out for unfair treatment.
“It’ll be Weathers who finishes me off,” he riled. “Not the Germans, not this bastard French winter. Weathers, he’s got me marked.”
Charlie spoke from the corner. He rarely involved himself with Jones’s invectives, but would pipe up if the occasion suited him. “Yeah he’s got a bullet with your name all over it,” he drawled.
“I heard he’s picking you out a baby paddling pool right now,” Fielder added. Fielder was well used to Jones’s rants, and rarely missed an opportunity to further aggravate him with a belittling witticism. It was one of the ways he demonstrated his affection for the man.
Spence, however, had noted the rising anger in Jones’s voice. “He’s just got a job to do, Jones, same as us,” he attempted to reason.
Jones turned to him. His face was purple with rage. “A job? A fucking job?!! That bastard is just trying to get off and have me pay for it.”
Charlie glanced at Spence, albeit with irritation more than alarm. Jones usually defused himself after a few irrational highlights, but the lack of action had left him frustrated. With no one else to shoot at it was beginning to sound like Weathers was being lined up in his sights next.
Spence tried again. “Weathers is still our commanding officer. Whatever he says goes. That’s what we signed up for, right?”
Jones looked away. Beyond the window was the river. On any other day it would have been a good enough target for his bile, but this time he needed something more tangible, something he could hurt. Spence followed his gaze and, as the last shadows faded into the dark, he realised Jones was watching for something else – night.
He tensed slightly as Jones walked away from the window, but he just picked up his pack and began stuffing contraband into it. Upon arriving in Haguenau Jones had done what all good soldiers did – searched the town for things he could take. Cigarettes, Schnapps, dried meat, he had unearthed all manner of local treats. Now it was all going to another home.
“What are you doing?” Spence asked.
“Gonna teach that bastard a lesson,” Jones grunted.
“By getting him drunk?” Charlie responded, already tired of Jones’s invective.
“Foley said there’s some gypsies camped out in a farmhouse to the North,” he explained.
Fielder giggled. “Hehe – gonna make his dick drop off…” For some reason this prospect amused him greatly. He continued chuckling in his corner.
Spence relaxed. “What are you going to do? Get those gypsies to curse Weathers for you? Is that what the stash is for? I have a better idea. Why don’t you give me those fags and I’ll go into the street and call him rude names because I guarantee that’ll have more effect than a gypsy curse.”
“Ah, let him,” Charlie suggested. “It’ll give him something else to blow off about when nothing happens. Had enough of the bastard as it is.”
Spence shrugged. Jones was a lunatic for heading out into the streets, even at night, where any half awake German would have a chance of picking him off, but they’d all taken greater risks for less.
And Charlie was right, it would give them something else to laugh about.
----
John wasn’t laughing now. As it turned out it hadn’t been funny in the least. But maybe the joke was on Peter. He had finished his pathetically brief litany against the mindlessness of keeping water as a souvenir. It didn’t matter to him that the water could have been from Lourdes, or the Nile River, or any one of a hundred worthy places. He didn’t even possess the imagination to rant about it for more than a few minutes.
Now he was heading to the kitchen sink.
“You think I’m gonna have this wasting space in my home? Christ, there’s enough of your rubbish around here without useless fucking shit like this.”
With some effort John wheeled around so he could watch his son. It was a measure of the contempt he felt for the man that he didn’t try and stop him, but it was highly unlikely that Peter would have paid the slightest attention anyway.
So John remained silent as Peter fumbled at the clasp sealing the jar. Finally he succeeded. John froze, wondering what might happen next. He noticed Peter wasn’t moving either. He had paused in his act of spite and was staring at the contents of the jar. He could hear the water licking at the edges of the jar. At the back of his mind had been the hope that the jar might have turned out to be empty, that the contents might have evaporated or otherwise escaped. But the jar was still as full as the day he had sealed it shut, more than sixty years ago.
He watched as Peter shifted slightly, then leaned down, the motion carrying an uncharacteristic grace. Almost tenderly he brought the jar up to his nose, taking in the scent of its contents.
“Jesus!” Peter exclaimed, recoiling and holding the jar as far away from him as physically possible. As John had expected the water was rank, quite possibly poisonous. It had been in the jar for decades, and had been in far worse places before that. Apparently Peter had suspected that it might be something alcoholic, an illicit wartime brew, something he could drink. John considered suggesting he take a swig. The thought tickled him in a way that felt too well deserved to be truly malicious. He started giggling.
Peter looked down at him in a fresh fury. “Think that’s funny?! You old fuck – you knew that was going to happen, didn’t you? Didn’t you?!! Hmph, see how you like this.”
With that exclamation he upended the jar and dumped its contents into the sink. By twisting slightly in his seat John could see into the sink. The water swilled around, seeming to glide off the metal surface. For a moment it looked as though it would remain a gelatinous mass, refusing to go down, but then it swirled and disappeared swiftly down the plughole. A little too swiftly, John thought.
“There.” Peter exclaimed as if it was an achievement. He chucked the empty jar in the garbage and walked from the room.
John waited by the sink. He had nowhere else to go. He should sleep soon. But he waited a little longer first.
And waited.
----
January 19, 1945 2am – Haguenau. Stuck on watch. The others are sleeping. So is Jerry the way it sounds. Jonesey came back, none too pleased. Charlie teased him about wasting all his contraband, nearly came to blows. Jonesey was steaming about the gypsy woman riding in on her high horse he said. After a bit Fielder got it out of him – the woman did the deal, then told Jonesey he would get no satisfaction out his revenge. Now the poor bastard can’t decide if he’s been conned. Course he has. But seems the woman put on an impressive show.
This house feels less and less of a prize every day. When we first got here it felt like a mansion. When you’ve spent a winter’s month in a hole in the ground anyplace would, but it’s a ruin. It shows up a little more every day – the wind coming through the broken windows, water leaking from burst pipes, dust and debris everywhere. But it’s not that that’ll drive a man to madness. Close quarters, idle days – we’ll all go trigger happy if it goes on much longer.
----
Peter fidgeted in his bed. The old man was just pushing it. It was one thing to bring all your junk with you, but what sort of fuckwit keeps water?! Sometimes the bastard was just beyond belief. If there was any justice he could have had the man committed, let him get on with his own life, but they wouldn’t let him do it.
Where was it written that you had to sign over your own life? You decide to have kids then, sure, lose twenty years of your life. That’s the choice. But no one asked Peter if he wanted to be born, if he wanted a father always preaching to him about what was good and right, a father that would end up like a millstone around his neck just when he thought he might have a life worth living.
He should have kept the water, that’s what he should have done. Shown it to them, then they’d see. Here - this dim fuckwit keeps water. Can't you see he's fucked in the head?
Did they think of him at all, his peace of mind? How was he supposed to relax with a senile old man dirtying up his house, couldn’t even be bothered to clean up after himself, couldn’t even be bothered to stop that damn tap dripping downstairs. Bastard was right next to the sink last time he looked.
----
“Spence? Spence!!”
Charlie’s voice spiralled roughly up from the basement, where Jones and Fielder had been sleeping. There was an unsettling urgency in his tone.
“Jesus…”
Spence heard the call. He and Charlie had been sleeping up on the first floor. The basement was warm and safe, but it could only fit beds for two. Besides, it had been their turn to stay up on watch.
“Spence! Get down here!” Charlie called again.
“Alright, alright, I’m here.” Spence flew in the door, rifle at the ready. He didn’t need it. Neither did he need to ask Charlie what was up.
Jones lay dead on his bed, eyes open, mouth contorted, his face frozen in a moment of terror that Spence couldn’t even imagine. They had all seen more than their share of dead faces. Despair, surprise, pain, even peace had been etched on those. This was something worse.
Fielder was backed up against a corner, trembling. Whoever, or whatever, had killed Jones had been in the room with both of them. Spence stuttered a moment before the words came out.
“W-what happened..?”
Fielder just shook his head, his eyes fixated on Jones.
“Get no sense out of him…” Charlie started to explain.
“Hey, Fielder?!” Spence tried again.
“I j-j-just woke up a-and… he was… he was like that…” he finally stammered. "I swear I didn't do anything... I swear I didn't do anything..."
Spence held up a hand and Fielder eventually went quiet, collapsing slowly to the floor. He took a breath, trying to measure up the situation. “Christ, how long till dawn?”
“An hour, give or take,” Charlie answered.
“Fielder? Fielder?!”
Fielder jolted up.
“Get Weathers,” Spence instructed. "Can you do that?" Fielder nodded and staggered from the room, his eyes never leaving Jones’s corpse.
Spence waited a moment. He desperately wanted to cover Jones’s face, but that would mean getting closer to the corpse, possibly touching it. Something inside him wanted very much to stay as far from Jones as he could right now.
He was relieved when Charlie spoke.
“We'd better search the house.”
Spence nodded eagerly and they left the room.
Twenty minutes later they had found exactly what they expected - nothing. They knew no one could have entered the house during the night, not while they both still breathed. But that was only part of it. The rest they weren’t quite ready to admit, but it was why, without saying anything to each other, they didn’t tell Captain Weathers about Jones’s liaison with the gypsy woman.
“That’s no way to go out,” Weathers said, inspecting Jones. “No way at all. Any unusual activity?”
That’s not unusual enough for you? Spence thought, but like all of them he simply shook his head. “No, sir.”
Weathers turned to his second. “Put the men on double patrols tonight,” Weathers instructed. “Tell them the Germans have found a route behind our lines.”
He looked at Jones one last time. If he had any suspicion that a German might not be responsible he didn’t reveal it.
“Better tell Malone to fix up a morgue,” he added. “I’ll send him over for the body.”
----
Peter tried to control himself as they wheeled his father’s body out. He didn’t want the orderlies to see the smile waiting to break out on his face. Each time it threatened to show he covered his mouth and made out he was overwhelmed with grief.
He was free, at last. Once he had cleared out the rest of the old man’s boxes into the garage he would settle down in the front room with a six-pack and some quality porn. Why should he be shut away in his room upstairs any longer? Now he could finally do what he liked in his own house, just as any grown man should be able to do.
The smile, or at least what was trying very hard not to be a smile, faded a bit as he remembered he was still pissed off.
“Hey,” he called to the orderlies, just as they reached the door. “Lemme take one last look.”
The orderlies shrugged and brought the stretcher back in a few feet. They stepped away a little, not so much out of respect for Peter but because they didn’t really want to see the dead man’s face again. There was something unnatural about it.
Peter leaned down and unzipped the bag. He hoped he had been mistaken, that in the euphoria of the moment he had seen something about his father's dead body that hadn't actually been there. But it was there, and as clear as day. Contorted in death, but still unmistakeable.
A smile.
A fucking smile. It was the final insult. This was meant to be Peter’s time, but somehow the old man had managed to steal it away. He was happy to die. It was like saying ‘fuck you, I’m outta here, you’re on your own now’.
He zipped the bag up again.
“How do you think he died?” he asked the orderly nearest to him.
The orderly paused. “Peacefully,” he lied. “We… we don’t see many going out with a smile like that.”
“I meant what do you think he died of?”
The orderly looked at his colleague. “Old age,” he replied. Another lie.
----
January 21, 1945 3:45am They found Weathers two hours ago.
He was in his office. Bought it while shaving. His body was lying right by the sink. Mouth open, eyes fit to bursting, hands grasping at his throat. This time there was blood. It looked like someone had tried to slash his throat, but the razor hadn’t quite gone in. His face, though, I've seen the look on his face before. On Jones.
There’s not many of us that know that, but it won’t be long before it gets around.
We might have saved him, if we’d only gotten there earlier. Charlie made the decision for us all, told us what we should have done from the first: tell Weathers about the gypsies, he said. Someone left the camp and ended up dead, and we said nothing.
Now someone else is dead. Poor bastard on watch didn’t know what to do. All he’d heard was the tap running. If anyone else had been in the room he’d have known it, he said. Then again, someone dies with that look on their face they don’t die quietly, or sitting still. Either way we’re all in the same boat now. When it’s no use keeping watch we may as well just all go to sleep and leave the door open.
Charlie went off to find the gypsies, trying to get some answers. We can’t quite agree that Jones wasted his time now.
After all, Weathers is dead, isn’t he?
Spence whipped up his rifle, pointing it directly at Charlie’s heart before he had even walked in the door. Charlie went straight for the bottle of Schnapps lying by the bed, either not realising or past caring that he had nearly been shot.
“Damn fool,” Spence cursed him. “You forgot the password. Do you want me to shoot you?”
“You wouldn’t dare,” Charlie joked darkly.
Fielder joined them. No one was sleeping tonight. “Well?” he asked.
Charlie took a big slug out of the bottle. He looked out of the window, then dug a piece of folded paper from his lapel and threw it to Spence. “Gone,” he finally replied. “But they were there alright. Probably halfway to the Channel by now.”
Spence waved the piece of paper. “What’s this?”
Charlie just nodded. “Read it.”
Fielder leaned over as Spence unfolded the paper. On it was scrawled a simple note:
Soldier Man,
Is your friend colder still?
I pray you are all warm men, or you be colder too.
Spence looked at Charlie. The only thing he could think of to say was: “What?”
Charlie shrugged. “Foley told me where the gypsies were, just like he told Jonesy. I found that. It was left for us.”
“Why did – how did they know we’d go back there?” Fielder asked.
“Because they knew what was going to happen,” Charlie answered grimly.
Fielder laughed. “This was, this was just a… coincidence. It’s, like Weathers said, the Germans got behind our lines. They’ve got – it’s gas, poison, or…” he trailed off, his voice starting to sound as weak as the explanation.
Spence gazed out the window, disappointed. Whatever deal Jones had made with the gypsies, they weren’t going to find out about it anytime soon. He looked at the others. “So… do you think those gypsies really did it? Did they... could they have put a curse on Weathers, just like Jonesy wanted?”
Fielder butted in. “You’re saying Jonesy murdered Weathers?” he asked defensively.
“Maybe… maybe he didn’t mean it to go this far. Maybe the gypsy woman gave him more than he wanted. Or maybe she misunderstood him.”
“Those gypsies,” Charlie began. “We don’t know how long they’d been there. What if we drove them out, what if the war drove them away from their homes? Maybe this is their revenge - maybe they're trying to get rid of us, all of us. Finish off the soldiers, stop the war.”
“Jesus, Charlie, what are you going on about?”
Charlie shrugged. He looked tired. “I don’t know. I was just thinking about it on the walk back, that’s all.” For a moment Spence thought he was going to elaborate, but then he stood up, grabbing the Schnapps bottle. “Listen, I need to sleep. And you both make sure you get some rest before dusk.”
“Why?” Fielder asked.
“I think we've got a long night ahead,” Charlie murmured as he left the room. “I need to think about some things.”
----
It was starting to look like a home again, his home, Peter thought with satisfaction. He had spent the afternoon clearing the old man’s rubbish into his garage. Diaries, photos, those damn medals he was always boasting about. Maybe at the weekend he would take it all down to a car boot sale, see if he couldn’t get some of the money back he had spent out on the old man over the years. It seemed only fair he get something back for the years of sacrifice.
Why the bastard wanted so much junk was beyond him. He never even got out of his wheelchair, never looked through any of it. It was all just boxes of junk cluttering up the house, just sitting there.
Was sitting there, Peter smiled.
He just had a few things left to move now. After that it was his time, and he had damn well earned it. He had earned it through years of giving the old man a roof over his head, earned it for cleaning up after him, better that than some saggy nurse, and he had earned it for –
Peter stifled something rising in his throat. It wasn’t a choke, just a cough. He wasn’t about to get sentimental now. So what if the old man had done so much more with his life? So what if the world had declared war on itself? What else would he have done? Probably just talk, that's all he ever did anyway, spent all his time going on about all the stuff he had supposedly done. Yes, he had fought so that men like Peter could sit on their arses all day. He had fought so Peter could have the right to do what he damn well pleased.
Peter smiled. He was going to do what he damn well pleased tonight, that was for sure. He had earned that. A day’s hard labour, then a night’s hard drinking, and a pile of videos to see him through.
It was going to be good night.
----
Spence shook his head in wonder. Charlie was on a mission alright. The minute it was dark enough to step outside he had sprung into action, grabbing Spence and Fielder. Malone, the medic, had been next on his list, and here the four of them were outside the butcher's shop that was, perhaps fittingly, serving as their temporary morgue.
Malone hadn’t been easy to persuade, especially once he learned what they needed from him, but the medic soon saw that there was no other option than to let Charlie have his way. He was a stickler for procedure, and a prig to boot, but he wasn’t made of the same stuff as Charlie.
The butcher’s shop had a meat locker. It didn’t have any power, but it was better than leaving the bodies lying in the street, which was the only other option. Malone paused before opening the door. Before he could even speak Charlie answered him. “Yeah, yeah, we know, court martial, fines, demotions, whatever…”
Malone shook his head and opened the locker. In the dim light Weathers and Jones looked not unlike a pair meeting for a strictly illicit liaison. In two days they would be transferred back to the field hospital, but for now the pair, united in death, were cuddled together in a hastily iced up fridge.
All four of them grabbed Weathers and lugged him onto a nearby counter, each man trying to avoid looking at that face.
“What do you want me to check for?” Malone asked.
Spence shrugged. “I don’t know. What did he die of?”
“They’ll do a post-mortem at the field hospital. Wait till then,” he muttered gruffly.
Charlie held the Schnapps out. “Why don’t you have a drink?”
Malone shook his head. “I didn’t come here to get drunk.”
“I figured that,” Charlie murmured. The medic wasn’t nicknamed Malone Alone just because he hung around the sick and dying. “Okay. Why don’t you check for any signs of drowning?”
Malone straightened up, folding his arms, and looked suspiciously at the trio. “You said you weren’t going to waste my time.”
Spence looked at Charlie, not sure whether to laugh or not. “Yeah, he was shaving, not swimming.” He clammed up when he saw Charlie was serious.
Charlie looked squarely at Malone. “You can’t get that body back in that fridge by yourself. Might as well have a look.”
But Malone still wanted to pretend he had a choice. “I could just leave, let you three sort it out.”
Charlie shook his head. “You’re not going to do that.” It wasn’t a threat. He just knew that the medic wouldn’t walk out with Weathers’ body still lying on the table. And he was right.
Somehow it took Malone several moments longer than the rest of them to realise he had no choice. Eventually he registered his distaste with a loud sigh and looked from the body to Charlie. “Did one of you think to bring a torch?”
Charlie had come prepared. He handed his torch over.
“And I think we’d all appreciate someone keeping watch,” Malone added haughtily.
Spence wandered over to the window, rifle at the ready. The shop was well into town and out of sight of the German encampment, but they still ran the risk of being rustled by their own men. Malone’s threat of a court-martial hadn’t been made lightly, though the prospect of their wages being docked held more of a sting.
“You realise this isn’t a hospital. I don’t have the equipment for any kind of an autopsy?” Malone pleaded with Charlie.
“This is a butcher’s shop. Where else would you go to chop meat?” Charlie said it with a straight face, but then patted him on the shoulder to let him know it was a joke. They were all friends now that Malone had agreed to co-operate.
Malone smiled uncomfortably. “Very well. There, ah, there are a few things, signs, that we can check for…” He leaned over Weathers and shone the torch into his eyes, eyes that no one had bothered to close. Eyes that no one in their right mind wanted to look into.
“Well, there’s some haemorrhaging of the eyes, but that’s a general sign of suffocation,” Malone explained. ”He could have been strangled. That’s the going theory as it happens. He could have choked, suffocated…”
“What else? There must be something else you can look for.”
Malone sighed again. “Maybe,” he admitted reluctantly. “There is something.”
He handed the torch back to Charlie, then rolled up his sleeve and gently probed into Weathers’ throat with two fingers. A few moments later he brought his hand up. The fingers came out shiny and sticky looking. Malone peered at them, frowning.
“What are you looking for?” Charlie asked, pointing the torch.
“Drowning gets the mucus membranes going,” Malone explained. “The water, the choking, irritates the… throat, the victim panics, tries to breathe-”
“I get it,” Charlie said, stopping him. But it was a grim image. Someone fighting for breath as water poured into their lungs, the body’s natural defences working overtime to sooth the abraded throat, filling the airways with thick sticky fluid. How did you fight against that, Charlie wondered, when your own body is automatically joining in the effort to kill you?
He shut out the image, and focused on Malone.
“Do you see it?” Charlie asked.
Malone looked doubtful. “I don’t know. I don’t know. Could be.”
Charlie peered closer, and shone the light lower down Malone’s hand. “So what’s that?” he asked, pointing at a dark staining over the knuckle.
“Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit!” Fielder suddenly squealed from behind them.
They all turned. Fielder was staggering out of the fridge, away from Jones’s corpse, holding his fingers out. There was something dark and wet on them.
“What are you doing?” Spence asked.
Fielder gaped at them. “I… in his mouth… it’s…”
Malone swung the torch round. Fielder’s hand wasn’t black. It was green. Malone looked back to his own hand. There was a green tinge around the knuckles, fainter, but it was there. Suddenly he knew what it was.
“Algae,” he whispered hoarsely.
----
They were moaning now, for sure, those bitches, those dirty bitches…
Peter stared at the screen, the glow flickering against his dulled eyes. The value pack of beer he had picked up at the supermarket that afternoon was steadily shrinking at his feet. He hadn’t even bothered chilling it. If he kept it down by the sofa he didn’t need to move at all. Except to change the video once in a while. Right now it was Jenna in a threesome. Next up he thought it might be one of those supposed college amateur flicks, or maybe one of the tapes that he wouldn’t even admit to the guys down the garage that he owned.
But it wasn’t working. Even with the beer he couldn’t relax. He’d settled down in his robe, ready for the porn, but had self-consciously changed into his jogging suit after twenty minutes. The old man had soured the front room for him, and now he couldn’t even sit in his own house with his dick hanging out if he wanted to. This was meant to be his time, he was claiming back what was his, marking his territory.
Onscreen the girls were going through the motions. He’d seen this one too many times, his mind was wandering. It was the unfamiliar surroundings. Perhaps that was the biggest insult, that the old man had now made him feel like a stranger in his own home. What did he expect? That he was going to sit down here with a man who pissed himself in his own chair?
He had fought the urge to go back upstairs, to hide in the grubby sanctity of his own bedroom. He wasn’t going to be told what to do anymore, he wasn’t going to let the old man dictate his life. No, he was going to sit here and drink beer and watch porn until he didn’t even think about him anymore.
And at some point he was going to get up and turn off that damn tap.
----
January 23, 1945 1:15am What if it doesn’t stop? That’s what Charlie had said. He reckoned those gypsies were out to get us all.
Jonesy had gone out for revenge, and they had used it against him. Their own twisted sense of justice. There was no reason, he said, to think it would stop there. Could be, he reckoned, that they wanted justice as well. Kill us lot and that’s the end of the war.
You don’t have to go out of your way, at a time like this, to find someone who wants another man dead – or another hundred. How long could it go on for? A great tree leading from Jonesy, taking in the lot of us.
Question was, who would it get next? And after that… and after that…
Spence’s company had been through hell together, and that was just the training. When the real fighting started it had cemented the bond between them all. Each of them knew their lives depended on the man next to them. In the thick of it even Jones would have laid it down for Weathers, and that was why almost every one of them was ready to die for any member of the company.
Except McWhirter.
He had somehow made it through the training, earned his place alongside the rest of them. Then, once they had been sent back into hell, his true character had irredeemably broken through.
He wouldn’t take a bullet for anyone, not even himself. He was one of those soldiers who ran the constant risk of being shot by his own men, and deserved it. The man was a chickenshit, and a coward, and sooner or later someone would end up dead because of him.
He looked up at them, an ugly mix of contempt and fear in his eyes.
“What are you doing here?” he asked, struggling to keep his voice straight as the three of them glared down at him. Fielder, unable to take any more, had gone back to their building, to keep watch and cover for them.
Charlie looked ready to shoot him where he sat. They had used the password, but McWhirter had tried for a shot anyway, without waiting to see who it was. Luckily he was a terrible marksman, even at point blank range. Charlie had a little dust in his hair from where the wall had exploded, but was unharmed.
McWhirter’s eyes darted nervously between them. “Are – are you going to kill me? You won’t get away with-“
Spence giggled. “Kill you? No, we’re not going to kill you.”
“It’s your lucky day, McSquirter,” Charlie continued. “We’re going to save your life.” He turned to Malone. “Why don’t you sit down over there,” he said, gesturing towards a broken basin in the corner.
Malone sat down, placing the makeshift pump they had used on Weathers and Jones by his side. McWhirter’s eyes went wide upon seeing the mass of rubber piping.
“What are you going to do?!” he squealed, trying to back away into the wall.
Charlie put a hand on his shoulder and threw him back down to the bed. Then he pulled up a chair himself and sat staring at McWhirter. “The thing is McSquirter,” he eventually began, “Weathers really didn’t like you.”
McWhirter sat upright. “You think I killed him? I didn’t kill him! I didn’t do anything!”
“I’m betting you don’t like any of us much?” Spence challenged.
“I like you fine,” he insisted. “You’re my best- I like you…”
Spence shook his head. McWhirter could lie as well as anyone, he was one of life’s talkers, but it looked like it all came apart when he was threatened.
Charlie shook him by the shoulder again to get his attention. “You see, McSquirter, I reckon that out of the whole company, you’re probably the only one that Weathers ever wished he could just, you know, shoot. He was probably hoping you’d have trodden on a mine, or got your parachute snagged by now, but you’ve been lucky. We trained together, me, Spence over there, Weathers, so I know that he respects - respected the men he fights with, and anyone who doesn’t share that respect, well, they should be with a different company.
“But you’ve stuck, haven’t you. You’re the man who’s running for cover when he should be watching someone else’s back. You’re the one who waits till the shooting stops before he shows his head above ground.
“And you shot Frost, didn’t you? Back in Bastogne?”
McWhirter remained silent, shaking where he sat.
Frost had indeed been shot while they were holed up around Bastogne. His freezing body had been found close to McWhirter’s foxhole one morning. Weathers had taken him aside and tried to talk the truth out of him, but the Captain had emerged from the conversation masking a barely controlled fury, having gained no answers. A few weeks later he voiced his suspicion that McWhirter had shot Frost in a moment of panic and then let him lie there, bleeding to death. He knew that McWhirter would have examined the body, you shoot a German soldier you check the body for souvenirs, ammo, warm socks, anything you can carry, and McWhirter was the last person who would pass up an opportunity for self gain. So, Weathers knew McWhirter would have realised he shot one of his own men, even suspected that Frost was still alive when he realised his mistake. But rather than report the incident, save Frost’s life, and face up to the consequences like any of them would, McWhirter just scurried back to his foxhole hoping that the rest of the company would assume Frost had been taken out by the other side.
“The bit that gets me thinking,” Charlie added, obviously enjoying the way McWhirter kept looking desperately over to the door, “is that if Frost had been shot by a Jerry, you’d have heard it, right?”
McWhirter remained silent.
“Right?” Charlie repeated.
“Uh, yeah, r-right.”
“And because he managed to drag himself some feet we know he was alive for a while at least. So it goes that he probably managed to squeeze out ‘help’ a couple of times.”
Charlie stopped then and looked down at the floor. Spence watched him, thinking that McWhirter probably had no idea how close to death he was getting. He realised, then, that if it did come to that he wouldn’t have a problem with it.
“Maybe we should… you know,” he suggested to Charlie. “I mean, for Christ's sake, would it really make a difference?”
Charlie breathed deeply for a few moments, then shook his head firmly. “No, if it’s going to be anyone it’s going to be McWhirter. If we just kill him first then who knows what’s going to happen.”
Malone, forgotten momentarily in the corner, breathed a palpable sigh of relief. “Maybe nothing’s going to happen.”
McWhirter was looking from Spence to Charlie, realising his life was on the line and for once smart enough to keep his mouth shut. A thin line of spittle ran from the corner of his mouth down to his neck.
Charlie noticed, looking at him in disgust. “Stop dribbling you useless piece of shit.”
McWhirter wiped his face.
Charlie turned to Malone. The debate was the only thing keeping him from murdering McWhirter where he sat.
“You saw what happened when we pumped out Weathers and Jonesy. Nothing came up but air.”
“Then maybe we’re wrong.” Spence interjected. He couldn’t figure out if he was arguing simply because he wanted to shoot McWhirter right there, or because he was too terrified of what they suspected to be the truth.
“Then we’re wrong. I’m –“ Charlie struggled a moment for the words. “You weren’t there at that gypsy camp. The place – they were gone, but I could feel it.”
McWhirter coughed for attention. Charlie ignored him.
“The place reeked. We don’t know what deal Jonesy spun with them, I’ll bet he didn’t even realise what he was getting, but whatever it was it was unholy, and those bitches tricked him. They sent something out there that’s going to kill us all unless we stop it now.”
“We don’t even know what it is,” Spence pleaded. “What if we can’t stop it, what if it’s not like that. What if it’s –“
He broke off. McWhirter’s coughing had turned into a wet choking. He was dribbling again, but this time the spittle was all over his mouth.
Then Malone started banging the table to get their attention. They could see his mouth moving, but the words weren’t coming out. He was staring at the basin in the corner. It was overflowing, a thin trickle of water leaking over the edge.
Except the basin wasn’t overflowing. Spence could see it was mostly empty. The tap was dripping, the same heavy dripping he had heard the night Jonesy died, but the water wasn’t staying in the basin, and Spence knew that if he looked a little closer he would see that trickle of water crawling up the inside of the sink, defying gravity, ignoring the laws of physics, intent on one single thing – getting out of the sink and following its path down into McWhirter’s lungs.
McWhirter was starting to retch, his hands around his throat, eyes popping with fear. He looked desperately at them, his face a mask of blind panic, knowing he was going to die, but not understanding how or why.
Spence buckled. “Dear God – get the pump!” he beckoned to Malone.
“No, wait!” Charlie ordered.
“What?!” Spence nearly cried.
“We have to get it all,” Charlie explained, eyes fixated on McWhirter.
The water was still trickling away from the sink. Spence could see it carving a thin wet line over the floor, travelling up McWhirter’s leg, soaking into his uniform and blossoming upwards towards his throat. If any of them had even noticed it before they would have assumed he’d wet himself in fear.
McWhirter was almost beyond help. The whites of his eyes were showing. His chest was heaving desperately, trying to draw in the few breaths he could still squeeze into his flooded lungs. Water and spit erupted from his throat with every choked effort, foam spattering his face while the water creeped back into his mouth. He was no longer looking at them, no longer even realising they were there.
“Alright,” Charlie said, a little hoarsely.
The medic was still transfixed by the scene.
“Malone!” Charlie shouted.
Malone stood up quickly, grabbing the pump and rushing over to McWhirter. In his panic McWhirter tried to fight him off. Charlie lent his weight, keeping McWhirter down. Spence leaned in to help.
“Wait, wait,” Charlie said, stopping him. “We need something to put it in. We can’t let it go.”
Spence searched the room, looking desperately for a suitable container. Charlie was having a hard time holding McWhirter down and stopping him from lashing out at Malone, who was busy forcing the rubber tube into his throat. “Get on with it!” Malone shouted to Spence, suddenly in charge now that saving a life was the order of the day.
Spence was busy tearing the room apart knowing that McWhirter would have a hiding place for his contraband somewhere close by. Moments later he found it behind a wooden panel on the wall. For just a split second he gaped at the sheer quantity of goods McWhirter had managed to acquire, things that most of them would only dream of finding out here. McWhirter had really gone to work in Haguenau, but then again he needed more bargaining power than most. The contraband that he traded was possibly the only reason no one had shot him yet.
Spence saw a large pickling jar, with a clamp sealed lid, tucked away at the back. He grabbed it, hastily emptying the contents over the floor, and darted back to Malone.
“About time,” the medic muttered.
McWhirter was convulsing. Spence noticed his uniform was now dry, marked only by the dots of phlegm that his gagging had produced. The water had completed its journey. Even the dripping from the basin had stopped, leaving them with only McWhirter’s muffled chokes.
Malone acted quickly, stuffing the other end of the pump into the jar. “Hold it there,” he ordered Spence, then started pumping.
Nothing happened.
“It’s not working,” he muttered frantically.
“Is it broken?” Charlie shouted.
“No, no, it’s fine,” Malone replied. “There’s just nothing coming.”
Charlie snatched the pump from Malone. “Hold him down!”
Malone bore down on McWhirter. Momentarily free of Charlie’s stubborn strength McWhirter started convulsing more violently. Charlie put his knee back down on the man’s chest, keeping him still, then began pumping. For a moment nothing came out. Charlie continued to put more and more effort into it until, with a wet scream, the water slowly started trickling out from McWhirter’s lungs. Once it started, suction did the rest.
Spence waited until the last drop emerged from the pump then slammed the lid down. The water sloshed around angrily inside. Spence told himself it was just that he had knocked the jar as he put the lid on, causing the water to swill around the edges, but he couldn’t quite persuade himself that it wasn’t the water trying to get out.
Charlie stood up. He was sweating. McWhirter had stopped breathing. Malone automatically leaned in and started giving him the kiss of life. After a few attempts a painful rasping breath came from the man they had all just saved. A couple more and he opened his eyes. He looked at Malone, then Spence, then Charlie.
“Fuck you,” he whispered hoarsely, his voice a dry shadow, then crawled to the corner of his bed and started sobbing.
Charlie shrugged. He looked down to the jar of water, then over to where Spence had uncovered McWhirter’s stash of contraband. Wordlessly he went over and helped himself. He put an expensive looking bottle of single malt whisky on Malone’s lap, then grabbed the pickle jar and walked out.
Spence waited a moment, then went and helped himself too.
“Malone,” he said. “You might want to take a look at this.”
Malone came over. McWhirter’s stash wasn’t just limited to things you could eat, drink or smoke. There were German weapons, jewellery and, near the back, Malone saw what Spence had found.
“Thanks,” he said, and turned to look sourly at McWhirter.
Supplies were hard to come by on the front line. Items went missing all the time, usually purloined by people on the supply chain, sometimes the trucks got ambushed, sometimes the goods never even reached the shore. Soldiers could get by without warm socks or cigarettes, but when medical provisions disappeared it could cost lives. Malone had complained of missing supplies for several months, helplessly watching soldiers die for want of the right drug. Now he saw where all his missing goods had ended up. He gathered up everything he could find, paused to pick up the bottle of single malt, and left the room.
Spence took what was left, helping himself to McWhirter’s pack to carry the load. He paused on his way out. McWhirter was looking at him, his face puffy and bloated, but still pale and wearing the scars of his ordeal. He was murmuring something.
Spence resisted the urge to simply leave, and instead leaned down to hear what the man had to say.
“Oh Christ,” he sputtered. “ I could hear it… I could hear it…”
Spence watched him a moment longer, trying to feel pity. When nothing came he too left the room.
January 26, 1945 3:40pm – Something like this is never over. After that night me and Charlie didn’t mention it again. He was the one who was going to look after ‘it’, whatever ‘it’ is, and that was fine by me.
Well, they got Charlie today. Poor sod. Just a recon mission, but they were waiting, and Charlie was the one out in front. The boys said his brains were coming out right where his eyes used to be. After last week I thought he’d be the one leading us into the next fight.
Fielder’s playing hard to make out none of it happened. Malone, I figure, has done his part, more than he deserved.
He said it was maybe like a disease. Jonesy got it first, then he gave it to Weathers. Some diseases travel in air, or blood. This one got by on hate. If McWhirter had got it we could have all ended up dead. We never saved him. Just ourselves.
That reminds me. We left it a few days. McWhirter was keeping himself to himself, so we thought. No one really noticed. Then me and Malone went to check on him, make sure he wasn’t planning anything against us for what happened.
Well, there was a note. That was pretty bad. Finding McWhirter with his brains all over the wall didn’t really bother us. I suppose I should have felt guilty, but if I’m truthful I didn’t, and I don’t think I could have, not with McWhirter.
The note just said: It won’t shut up.
That was it.
I guess I’m in charge of it now. I don’t want it, but I don’t think there’s any other way. I just try not to think of it, that first night, crawling out of the Moder river, using the algae and mud to keep itself together, until it got something better from Jonesy and Weathers.
I wonder if it thinks, if it knows anything. Each time it just went to whoever the last man wanted dead. Did it get that from McWhirter? Is one of us next? Or, if it ever gets out, is it just going to go the person who kept it trapped. Will it want its own revenge?
If that comes, I suppose I can take some comfort in knowing that’ll be the end of it. No one’s going to be next after me.
I’ve never really hated anyone that much.
----
She was kissing him now.
They were in the water. Oh yes, that was the stuff. The water around them, naked, her tongue down his throat. He big, wet tongue, lapping at his throat, choking him…
No, baby, that’s too much.
NO!
Peter woke up. The TV was flickering. It was still night. He couldn’t breathe.
He grasped at his throat. Nothing there.
Inside his throat. It was inside.
He was coughing. Just phlegm. Get it out.
He leaned over and retched.
But it was going the wrong way.
There was a puddle on the floor, but it was going up, into him.
He could feel it now. Water. Into his throat.
He had to breathe. Get the breath while he could.
The breath cracked and broke in his mouth. It hurt.
Just don’t stop breathing.
His throat was full. Felt like someone had their hand down there.
There was no air.
Just a bit.
Keep still. You can breathe.
Son…
Don’t panic.
Let me kiss you…
Make it alright.
Oh God make it stop.
Fucking dying…
Fucking dying.
Why you?
Why him?
Should be…
That bitch. Take her. Fucking, suing, bitch…
You hate…
Can’t breathe.
You hate her…
That bitch!
Hate her, hate her, fucking hate her, want her to die, fucking die bitch!
My kiss…
Die…
It’s my kiss son…
Die…
It’s my kiss…
Suck it down…
Dying…
Suck it down…
Suck it down.