THE SIXTH GUEST: Chapter Four - Part Six

Before he opened his eyes, Eddie heard screaming.

He screwed his lids against the glare of light as he turned his head, moving his hand to shield it off before he dared to open them. He didn’t even know where he was, let alone what had happened to him but he was in agony all over his body, especially in his legs; at the back of his head and in his back.

Light was everywhere toward the church: like a pillar as wide as a house. Lightning kept coming down. There was fire. Near where the food van had been was a massive crater cutting across the drive and the grassy area, rubble and earth churned up around it. Half of the war memorial that had stood in the centre of the grass had been atomised. The other half was split and broken. There were bodies everywhere, some of them on fire; some of them still writhing.

The light in the crater; that seemed to be coming from something inside of it; was getting brighter, expanding up the sides of the pit to the jagged debris-strewn rim, far too bright for him to look straight into. Eddie screamed and tried to move then screamed again.

When the blast threw him he’d half hit the steps and half hit the grassy slope next to it. His legs were shattered, maybe his pelvis too but though the muscles in his right arm felt sprained he scrambled for purchase with his hands and wrenched himself over onto his belly. He didn’t know what was coming out of that hole, what had landed, surely killing everyone even close to where the van was parked, but he didn’t want to wait for it to get him too.

He clawed himself onto the steps and started to drag himself up. He didn’t cry out. There was nobody could hear him who wasn’t already screaming themselves. The light got brighter. He ignored it; kept climbing, dragging his useless legs over the steps, one after another. Every five steps or so there was a level section. He only had one more to pass before he reached the top; the blast had knocked him half way up already. Hand over hand; hand over hand; and the light was getting brighter, the temperature hotter. It was hotter now than the holiday he’d gone on as a kid with Travis’s parents: Crete in a heat wave. Then it went up a notch. Now it was like putting his arm into an oven with the door open.

He looked behind him. The light wasn’t in the crater anymore. It was at the midway point between the crater and the foot of the stone steps. Now he did cry out. He moaned in terror, twisting so he could push himself up backwards, see what was coming; what seemed to be coming for him.

He cracked his head as he hit the last flat section before the top of the steps, falling backward because he was expecting more steps to be coming. When he managed to right himself, scrambling back to the next flight, the light was on the bottom step; it was climbing toward him. It was smaller now – this light – but it was brighter, more focused, almost blinding. Eddie screamed and screamed and screamed.

He was almost at the top. He turned over on his front again and crawled on his belly, weeping for the pain in his legs and his back, He got to the flat area at the top and dragged himself off the path to the right where Mary Shelley’s grave stood. The thing in the light was on the big flat step he had been on seconds earlier and now he could see legs at the base of it; humanoid legs, climbing the steps, one after another. And veering towards him.

“Keep away!” he screamed. “Keep back!” “Don’t hurt me!” But it kept coming, kept climbing until it was at the top of the steps, only metres away. Eddie was blubbering, begging for mercy, trying to crawl backwards again until he came up hard against Mary Shelley’s stone sarcophagus (?).

The thing in the light approached him, the illumination intensifying even further, the terrible heat dropping  as it drew inside the figure that he could almost see within the maelstrom. But it wasn’t a real figure. It wasn’t anything above the waist: just legs and an explosion of light. Then he saw something forming in the light, growing from the legs in thickening strands. It paused there as he screamed, doing nothing but growing... intensifying; building itself. The strands reaching up from its waist were going to be its torso. It was building itself right there in front of him, making itself from the light. Then an arm formed. An arm formed that he could barely see in the glare that was coming out of it, the hand clenching and unclenching.

Eddie still had the broken bottle in his hand, forgotten until now. He raised it threateningly, knowing how futile it was, seeing his own arm shaking, the flesh blistering from the heat; the skin of his cheeks and forehead blistering too.

“Please,” he whimpered. “Please.”

The half formed humanoid thing in the light extended its arm toward him, even though it still had no shoulder to support it; none that had yet formed.

To his credit, Eddie’s last thought wasn’t of his revenge or even of the junk that had consumed his life. It was only of his beloved Angie, shrivelling away, waiting for him.

The thing in the light pointed its finger.

And Eddie screamed in agony as the fire consumed him. 

THE SIXTH GUEST: Chapter Four - Part Five

Eddie had expected it to be cooler down in the churchyard – that the uncanny heat had been clinging to the trees – but it was hotter down there; it was sweltering. At first he thought it was just another symptom of withdrawal: something else to screw with his life until he shrivelled up and died. But no, this was different. The vagrants were responding to it as they queued up at the back of the van. The wind was up, blasting round the corners of the church and into his face but it was a hot wind. Everyone was talking about it until he barged past them. It didn’t matter to him. Only three things mattered now: getting the junk that Travis was hoarding up there in the wood, seeing his lovely Angie one more time, and destroying the lives of both Travis and that slutty girl of his, Selina.

There were half a dozen bums waiting in a line at the back of the van. Eddie jostled his way through, ignoring their complaints and went straight to the Christian dolling out food. “Hey! I want to talk to you!”

“Please can you wait your turn? We’ve got enough for everyone.”

“No. It has to be now! I want to tell you about Travis and that slut he’s always with: Selina!”

The older man who organised things came round from the side of the van with his palms up. “Calm down Eddie. What seems to be the trouble?”

“The trouble is you’ve got some wolves in the enclosure! Travis and Selina! You know them?” He pointed in their general direction, up into the woods.

“Yes. What about them? Is this about that scuffle you had earlier?”

“Did you know he’s a drug dealer? Did you know that? He only comes here to sell! He’s not even homeless!”

The Christian put his hand on Eddie’s shoulder. “Why don’t you calm down for a minute. There’s no need to get so riled up.”

“He uses this little barbecue you throw to sell his drugs! He’s into all kinds of shit like that! He got me into—He got me into it – sold it to me and my girlfriend. He doesn’t give a shit about anyone!”

“Calm down Eddie. Come on. Just calm down.”

“Don’t you care? Don’t you care that he’s selling that shit here of all places?” He glared into the Christian’s face, at the confusion and fear; the doubt. And he realised. “You already know. You already know, don’t you?”

“Eddie, just calm— It’s not as straight forward as you might think.”

“Are you afraid of him? Is that it?”

The Christian said nothing but that same fear and doubt stayed in his face.

“My girlfriend is dying! And I might be— I’m dying too! Doesn’t that matter to you? Doesn’t that matter to anyone?”

“Please son, just calm down. We can talk about this.”

“No,” snapped Eddie, wiping his mouth again. “Nothing’s ever going to stop him. God in heaven couldn’t stop him. You aren’t going to do anything about this, are you?” He could see that the Christian wouldn’t though he couldn’t understand why; was so far away from the pampered and secure existence the man lived in. “The police won’t do anything. He’s going to get away with this like he’s got away with everything since we were kids.”

Eddie glared angrily into space, seeing the truth of it; then he knocked the Christian back out the way and went over to the foot of the church wall. It was hard to see in the shadow cast by the van and the people but when the lightning flashed again he caught the glint of reflected light. What was left of the whisky bottle that Travis had given him was still there, most of it shattered but the neck still whole extending into a jagged circle of razor sharp broken glass. Eddie brandished it like a threatening fist in front of his face.

“He’s not getting away with it this time! He’s not doing to anybody else what he did to me and Angie! If you won’t do anything then I will! I’m going to cut him up! And then I’m going to cut up that slutty girl of his, Selina. And then I’m going to take that junk he’s got and go back to Angie with it!”

“Eddie, please!”

“Stay back! Nobody fucking touch me!”

He barged through what had been the queue to the van but were now just gawkers. The wind was even stronger, battering him first from behind and then from the front. Sheet lightning flashed and popped overhead in the clouds then a bolt of it came down on the grass only twenty feet away from him to his right.

“Jesus Christ!” he stumbled back. A woman was screaming but he didn’t care. All he saw were those three things: Travis & Selina REVENGE, going back to Angie LOVE, and getting his hands on that heroin NEED. He marched forward toward the foot of the stone steps leading up into the wood.

Then the thunder hit.

It was louder and closer than anything he had ever heard in his life and hit him like twin claw hammers cracking simultaneously against each eardrum. He lost all equilibrium, falling right then left. Shattered glass was falling all around him like jagged hail, cutting him and cracking on his head: coloured glass that had come from the stained glass windows. He span. The homeless men and women were panicking, running in random directions. The Christians were gripping one another, heads down. A lightning bolt came down on top of the van, covering them in sparks. They cried out and scampered away from it, protecting their faces.

Eddie’s mind was just images and chaos, no coherency at all, like the others... apart from those three things: LOVE, NEED and REVENGE. It could have been the end of the fucking world; he didn’t care anymore; all he cared about was jamming his broken bottle into Travis’s face, slashing it across Selina’s slutty cleavage. That was all he wanted now; all he had in him left to do.

He staggered on, buffeted from the side by the wind. The thunder came again, like another physical blow where his shoulder blades met, knocking him off balance. Another lightning bolt came down, dancing on the steps in front of him, then another to his left, in the two metre gap between him and the church wall. Dozens of bolts came down near the van; on the drive; on the lawn, striking the mausoleum, hitting the tree near the road and the bush shelter. People were running and screaming but they didn’t know which way to go, which direction was away from it.

Then the biggest strike came and the world went white. He saw the van being torn in half. He saw rubble and earth flying up from the impact. He saw bodies thrown into the air. Then the blast wave hit him and Eddie was flung backwards, legs over torso, legs over torso. His field of vision flashed bright and dark, bright and dark; then as he was spinning up in the air, a second blast of light and terrible heat hit him, knocking him harder and faster.

He hit the stone steps leading up to the woods and then he lost all sense of where he was.

THE SIXTH GUEST: Chapter Four - Part Four

Eddie looked from Travis to Selina, feeling the need in him in every organ, every limb, every vein and artery; and tried to stop from giving in to the murderous rage that was prickling at him, prodding him to kill them both and get it over with; kill them both then shoot up one last time before the police came to drag him away.

Travis had the same cocky indifference on his face as he’d carried all his life; like he couldn’t care less who he was talking to; he was boss of the world. Eddie had seen him use that look on teachers in school when they were kids, and most of the time? It had worked. It got him a couple of beatings and more than a few detentions but they’d given up on him after the day they caned him and he still kept looking at them like they were filth. And the cane had been banned in schools by then. The headmaster had got it out specially for the occasion; risked his job and maybe prison to take out his frustration on his less-than-favourite pupil.

Travis didn’t give a shit about anyone or anything that didn’t make him money and it had been a wild ride being on side with that for the years that he and Eddie were friends: a blazing hot path of women and drugs; drinking and GBH; a bit of robbery here and there. But he was on the outside now, clearly; just one of the troops; one of the marks that gave Travis what he wanted or got the fuck out of his way. And it was cold. It was so damn cold being on the outside.

“I just... need a hit Travis. Please. For friendship man. Twenty years of friendship. You’ve gotta give me some.”

“You used up all the favours that us being mates bought you long ago you ugly sack of shit,” said Travis.

There’d been a time that he would never have cried in front of another bloke; definitely not this one, but tears were dribbling down his cheeks now. “Please man. Just one hit for me and my girl. I’ll do anything.”

“Anything?” Travis grinned. “Alright.” Eddie’s pulse quickened. He shuffled forward. “I’ll give you a hit if you go and slit your girlfriend’s throat first. Fuck I’ll give you two! Slit her throat then slit your own and I’ll give you all the fucking junk you want! How about it?” He laughed and on the ground Selina snorted, giggling, covering her mouth and nose so only her merry little slutty fucking eyes were visible.

She was clearly pissed; one strap of her trashy top down to her shoulder showing even more of her cleavage than usual; legs out akimbo, skirt (already short) hiked up enough to show her panties. She didn’t care. She’d never had any shame. Eddie hadn’t hated her from the day he met her, but he had since the night she’d seduced him at a party, screwing him in the downstairs toilet, so when Travis opened the door everyone saw what they were doing, including his girlfriend. All a fucking practical joke. All a big fat laugh at his expense that almost cost him the one girl he’d ever come close to loving.

“Why do you have to be such a cock Travis?” said Eddie. “What I’ve done for you over the years and this is how you pay me back?”

“You’ve done nothing for me mate that I couldn’t have done myself. You’re a waste of clean air; simple as. Look at yourself. You’re pathetic. You’re not even human anymore.”

“AND WHO FUCKING DID THIS TO ME, EH?”

Travis sneered. “Don’t try that on with me you whiny shit. I hear that all the time from losers like you who’ve flushed their lives away. You did it to your fucking self and don’t tell me any different.”

This stunned Eddie. He couldn’t speak, or even breathe. To hear Travis say it like that, after everything. “You can’t seriously think that man. It was you that got me into this stuff. Me and Angie. It was all you!”

“Get bent. I don’t want to hear your voice anymore.” Travis got up off his wall and jabbed Eddie hard in the shoulder, always that spot, since they were kids, that tender spot just at the top of his chest next to the ball of the shoulder that hurt so much; pointed fingers stabbing into it. “Go on! Get the fuck out of here!”

Eddie staggered back into the bushes, several metres down the slope. He rubbed his shoulder, head hanging, energy gone. He could feel the weird evening heat in the trees but it wasn’t touching the chill inside his body, the pulling on his veins.

“She’s dying,” he whispered, too quiet surely for either of them to hear but neither asked him to repeat it. The look he might have given a hairy caterpillar crawling up his sleeve: they were giving him. “She’s dying!”

No who? No questions at all about what he meant or when it was going to happen.

“Angie. My girlfriend,” said Eddie. “She got tested. She’s caught it. They say she’s gonna die. Say it’s already happening. Something in her lungs. She’s gonna leave me alone.”

“Fuck, mate.” The sneer was gone from Travis’s face. “That’s raw.” He stared off into his own memories. “Angie? Fuck.”

Selina came up behind him. “What about you?”

Eddie shook his head.

“You’re clean?”

“I haven’t been tested.”

He didn’t need to be. He knew how he looked from the broken triangle of mirror Angie kept in her bag. He saw the same look in her face as he had.

“You understand now,” said Eddie. “You know how it is. You know how desperate we are. Please. Just one hit each. That pouch you got there. That’ll be more than enough.”

“This?” Travis held it up, the sneer back on his face. “Ain’t nobody touches the good stuff but me and mine. You’re not even getting the shitty crap that’s 90% baking powder.”

“But Angie... We need it man. Please Travis. We’re friends, aren’t we? I need it. Please!”

“You go fuck yourself,” said Travis, jabbing him again in the shoulder. “And you tell Angie I said hi then tell her to go fuck herself!” Another jab. “If I ever see you again without money in your hand I’m going to slit you open down your belly! You got me?” He slapped Eddie hard round the face then kicked him full force in the stomach, knocking him off his feet.

Eddie sailed backwards through the air, landed on his head and shoulders on the tarmac path, flipped over and fell face down into the gorse bushes on the other side. Groups of other homeless were laughing at him as he pulled himself out, pointing at the blood he could feel running down the side of his face; could feel on his palm as he touched it. Travis laughed too, arms folded, head rocking back. The only one who wasn’t laughing was Selina. But she was watching it all. She wasn’t helping him. She wasn’t giving Eddie the stuff that he needed. All the years he’d known them both and they didn’t give a shit about him. Never had.

The wind was picking up. Thunder rolled out through the shaking treetops and lightning flashed repeatedly. Still there was no rain.

Eddie wiped his mouth with the back of his arm. “Get lost Travis. And you too Selina. I know your names and I know where you live.” He left it at that and walked away; hoots and laughter coming from all sides. Someone tossed a plastic glass full of beer at him. It exploded over the back of his head but he kept walking. Others started chucking stuff: wet discarded food; stones; a carton of rank fruit juice; a glass bottle that might have knocked him out if it had struck him square on the forehead instead of in his ribs. Eddie started to run, down the path and down the steps toward the church and the van.

There was no loyalty. Travis didn’t care about their friendship anymore. So why should he? Why should he protect Travis? They were out of sight now behind him, up in the wood. They were too far away to stop him. He looked down at the van, where the Christians were still busy handing out food to the gathering crowds.

Travis and Selina had screwed him over and now he was going to screw them: both of them. He knew everything and he was going to tell it to whoever would listen. He was going to expose them – first to the Christians and then to the cops – ruin their lives as they had ruined his!

THE SIXTH GUEST: Chapter Four - Part Three

The wind in the trees was even stronger at the top of the steps and into the edge of the wood, strong enough to knock boughs together and rip leaves down that were still in place. It wasn’t a big wood, just filling the majority of the church grounds as they climbed the side of the hill, a dark blotch in the centre of town. It would have been perfect for what Selina had in mind if it hadn’t been for the troops: Travis’s word for all of his lackeys and contacts (in this context, the other attendees of Sucker’s Night). The do-gooders down by the van didn’t approve of open drinking on hallowed ground so after getting the free food, most of them retired uphill into the protection of the tree line to continue the party. It was a focal point of the week where so many of them came together; begging-money tended to get saved up for it (if the losers could manage that).

There were clusters of troops on the path and off it on both sides, sitting or squatting, laughing and chatting, knocking back cheap liquor of every variety; smoking fags or weed (or both – cannabis did improve the quality of the good old-fashioned roll-up). One or two, in the darker parts away from the path, were doing the stronger stuff, shooting-up or snorting. Selina kept going until she found Travis. He was standing by himself under an oak tree, counting money, turning the mottled and shrivelled notes he’d earned into the correct alignment before he slipped them into the back of his jeans. He flashed his teeth as she approached and said, “How did it go? Is she gonna be Dorset’s newest lady of the night?”

“Looking good, but we got interrupted. I’m going to hook up with her tomorrow lunchtime; see what happens then. If it looks like she’s up for it I’ll call you so you can set up her first suitor.”

“Great job babe.” He wrapped her shoulders in his powerful arms and pulled her in roughly for another kiss. “You got that booze you brought? I’ve finished doing my rounds.” Selina gave him the bottle from her carrier bag then guzzled some down herself when he’d had enough. She checked out the little clearing they were in for suitability for her plan while he had a second draught. It wasn’t private enough for what she had in mind; one of the other groups was just through the bushes down the slope, making loads of racket. She took Travis’s hand as he passed her back the booze and led him up the slope. “Where you taking me?”

“Somewhere quiet.” She necked the bottle and tossed it into the bushes, feeling nervous.

The first place she tried was no good; already taken. So was the second spot – which was a shame, it would have been perfect. The clearing she settled for was near the top of the churchyard wood, close to the back of the open air car park that sat on the edge of the plateau. They had to duck to pass under the low hanging branches. The trees were shaking top to bottom now, the wind rattling them bough to root.

“You seen this freaky weather?” said Travis.

“I know!” Lightning flickered in the clouds. “Shit, you see that?” It crackled in the clouds interior, not extending jagged fingers outward; what little of the sky could be seen through the branches looked chilling. “Fuck’s going on with it?”

“Who cares?” He took her cheeks in his hand tightly, almost the same way he’d grabbed Eddie by the throat and burrowed his tongue into her, forcing it between her teeth. Selina smiled through the kiss, pulling away to tease him then turning her head around it until their faces were at ninety degrees, pushing close.

“I wanted to ask you something,” she said when they broke off.

Travis nodded. “I know what you’re gonna say.”

“You do?” She imagined him throwing her down into the bushes and coming at her, maybe faster this time, trapping a scream in her mouth with his dirty hand as he bent her neck back and came into her from behind.

“Sure. I got some right here. Brought it specially.” He pulled out a small tin she recognised with a yellow flower on the front of it. “I figured you’d want another taste of the daffodil before long. It’s great stuff ain’t it?” He squeezed the lid off and tipped it so she could see the items inside: a box of Swan Vestas, a dessert spoon, two syringes and a little polythene pouch wound tightly to keep the white powder inside from getting out. “Don’t worry. This isn’t the shitty stuff I cut down for the troops. This is top grade junk; uncut; just for my pretty Barbie doll, I swear.”

“Uh... Oh. Okay. Right.” Selina chewed her lip. She smiled nervously and took a step back.

“Come on, let’s do it,” said Travis. He crossed his ankles and sat on the remains of a low wall, keeping hold of her wrist so that she had to go down with him. There wasn’t room on the wall for her so she sat on the bare earth.

“I don’t know... What if somebody comes?”

“They won’t.” Travis held the package up near his face and rocked it like he was tinkling a little bell. “What do you say?”

Selina looked at it, thinking about the first two times she’d tried it; how it had felt in her veins; the absolute release. “I don’t want to end up like your friend.”

“Eddie?” Travis chuckled. “No fear of that. If you manage it right and you stick to the good stuff then heroin isn’t addictive.”

That contradicted what she’d heard, but the two of them were in love. What reason could he have to bullshit her? “You serious?”

“Deadly.”

Once was just trying it out. Twice was having another go. What was three times? Or more? How many tries before she became a user?

“I’m not sure Travis,” said Selina, knowing that she was whining and conscious of how much Travis hated whiners. He hated them with a vengeance. Sometimes it scared her how angry he could get about it.

He knelt down in front of her and traced his fingers up her inner thigh. “Give it a go sweetheart. You’ll be glad you did. I promise you. And I’ll watch over you the whole time, don’t worry.”

“You aren’t having any?”

His cheeks tensed a little but he smiled. “One of us has to keep watch. Trust me.” He started unravelling the white pouch, the decision apparently made. She watched his quick professional movements then she let her upper body drop back against the weeds and released the tension in her chest as a long exhalation. Above Travis’s bent head the trees were floundering in the wind. The odd purple lightning was getting stronger, the flashes coming closer and closer together. An odd taste coated the roof of her mouth and her tongue. Static electricity was prickling her, making the feathery hairs in her arms and the back of her neck ripple. Sparks of fork lightning crackled from one cloud to another but nothing came down to the earth. Travis was oblivious to it, concentrating on what he was doing but Selina saw it all and it frightened her.

A man’s voice came from out of Selina’s field of vision. “Travis?”

He turned to look who it was and groaned. “What the fuck do you want?”

Selina sat up. Eddie was back, looking even less healthy in the dim unnatural light coming from the sky, loitering at the edge of their hidden clearing, his head lowered beneath the overhanging branches. He flashed a false and desperate smile. “I see you’ve got some stuff with you. I was wondering if maybe you could reconsider; give me a little on faith.”

Selina looked at his shaking hands; his gaunt grinning face and came round so she no longer had her back to him. There was something wrong about his posture; the intensity of his gaze; something off; something dangerous. She didn’t want to leave herself open to anything sudden and violent he might do, and to look at him; he was considering it.