Dead Man Walking (Part Two)

© 2012 David Jasmin-Green

Phileas sat in front of his master, a low growl escaping from his throat as he peered into the haphazardly piled timber at the foot of Harry's pride and joy. Phileas was the result of an unlikely alliance between an English bulldog and a German shepherd, but he looked like neither parent, resembling instead an oversized, shaggy coated bull terrier, and his guarding instinct was second to none. The dog sensed something moving among the tangle of charred branches, Harry suspected. He thought he glimpsed something slipping into the shadows towards the core of the heap, and he stood up in an attempt to get a better view, but there was nothing there.

An old TV programme leaped into Harry's mind, a programme that he hadn't thought about since he was a kid; he couldn't remember a thing about it apart from the compelling song that dominated its opening credits and suddenly infested his mind. “Grow grow the lightning tree, it's never too late for you and me. Grow grow the lightning tree, never give in too easily!'

“I would give in if I were you,” a voice as arid as a desert breeze rustling a pile of tinder dry leaves whispered from the heap of timber. “If we somehow changed places I'd throw myself down into the mud, if the boot were on the other foot I'd tremble pitifully before the mercy of a majesty that the likes of you can never fully comprehend.” The voice came from a parched throat, Harry reflected as his disobedient stomach turned somersaults of terror.

“Who are you?” he said, which was all he could think of saying. “What the hell - wh-why are you hiding in there?”

“What the hell? What the hell indeed, Harry,” the entity rasped. “In most circumstances the likes of you will never know who or what the hell the likes of I am, but if you care to clip a chain on the collar of the lowly cur at your feet I might think of showing myself, I could do with a spot of light entertainment.” Phileas half raised from his sitting position, unsure of what to do next. His hackles rose as he let out a long, low snarl, and seemingly as an afterthought emitted a soft experimental 'woof'.

“Don't fuck with the Wongs,” Harry muttered, gathering a little strength from his faithful if indecisive friend and spilling out a memorable line from an old movie before he could stop himself. “I'll chain Phileas if it makes you happy, but it'll only take a moment to release him if I don't like what I see, mind.”

“Who are Wongs, Plum Puddin'?” the voice said, at which point Harry spotted a pair of eyes staring back at him from a dark hollow beneath the woodpile. Those pale blue eyes, as watery as the eyes of a tired old woman, a thin strip of pale, drawn skin and four dirty, impossibly long fingers curled around a shard of burned timber was all that he could see of the creature. “And you mind, Harry. Your pathetic mutt cannot harm me, but that doesn't stop me from disliking it intensely. Like most members of your Earthly bestiary, the bravery of dogs is overrated - dogs are stupid, cowardly creatures, and stupid creatures get themselves killed remarkably easily. If that animal comes too close for comfort or unexpectedly snaps its slavering jaws at me I'll slaughter it without hesitation, I'll snap its neck like an old, dead twig, believe me.”

“I see no reason to disbelieve you,” Harry said, speaking slowly and precisely in an attempt to disguise the fear in his voice as he clipped the chain onto Phileas's collar. “The Wongs were a gang in a film I saw as a young man, a film the name of which I can't for the life of me remember; I have no idea why it sprang to mind - don't worry about it, it's not important.

There, the dog's secure now, so you can come out of your hiding place and reveal your full, scrofulous glory. Unless you're too frightened to show yourself, you s-scaredy cat. You're the reason for my melancholy, aren't you? You're the sole cause of my malaise, you're the force behind my bottomless gloom and inexplicable bouts of tearfulness. What are you, exactly? And where did you c-come from? As if I don't already know or at least suspect the answers to those old chestnuts.” Harry couldn't control his stuttering; it had started in his teens and it came and went as it pleased even when he felt relaxed. He punished his trembling bottom lip by biting it so hard that it bled, and he could taste the bitter, iron tang as his tongue tried to mop up the evidence. “Do you have a name, imp? Fuck, what am I doing? I'm talking to something that doesn't exist, something that can't possibly exist.”

“But I do exist,” the thing replied, “and I may or may not be a member of Lucifer's menagerie, that's for me to know and you to wonder. You're bleeding, Harry, I can smell it. How delightful..... You're bombarding me with questions, man cub, and I don't think I can answer all of them, but I'll try.

Yes, I am the whore that infected you with brain syphilis, I am the bacteria that breached your once sturdy psychic battlements and made you sick, sick, sick. I couldn't help it, Puddin', I was cold, cold, cold and lonesome, so lonesome. I was needy and so very, very cold.

I sprang from a dry, enclosed cell a little way beneath the surface of the ground when the lightning struck your precious tree a while back, I'm not sure how long ago. Before that, I guess, I came from some place else, but I don't know where. I don't know what I am, either, and if I was ever given a name I've long since forgotten it. Finally, Harry, I'm not stupid enough to come out into the open - not yet, anyway.”

“Why not?” Harry snapped. “You're too powerless to face me, aren't you? You're an illegal immigrant, you've sneaked into this world without a passport just a few weeks ago from God only knows where. You're as delicate as a butterfly that's just crawled out of its chrysalis, you're as weak as a baby. Eventually, when you've bloodied yourself, I suppose, your chitinous exoskeleton will harden and you'll become more or less invincible, but right now you're as soft as a baby's bottom and you're scared in case Phileas and I - but especially Phileas - overpowers you.”

“That's where you're wrong, pup. I have not recently entered your world, I've been here for a long time, though I've been incarcerated for quite a fat portion of it. And I am most definitely not weak, Plum Puddin' – a bit tired and drawn, a bit dried up, maybe, but I'm getting stronger by the minute.”

“Stop calling me Puddin', you piece of shit! It sounds delightful when it comes out of Sue's mouth, but you poison it, you turn it into sewage, you twist it around and make it sound like the filthiest insult in the world.”

“Sorry, Plum Puddin,” the creature chuckled. “You're rather amusing when you're angry, Harry, has anyone ever told you that? A trifle pathetic, perhaps, but amusing nevertheless. Plum Puddin', Plum Puddin', momma's kissy little Plum Puddin'.....”

“Fuck you,” Harry growled, turning his back on his foe. “I've had enough of your bilious, dyspepsia inducing crap, I'm going home.”

“Don't you dare walk away from me!” the thing roared, but Harry kept on walking. “I'll kill your foul mutt in a flash, I'll eat your children and grandchildren alive nice and slowly, I'll spit cancerous cells into your precious wife's uterus - I'll suck out Sue's pretty brown eyes, bite off her tongue and make novelty ear-muffs from her dugs if you don't come back and tarry with me right now! I'll show myself, if that's what you truly desire; I'm not a pretty sight though, Harry; don't say I didn't warn you.”

“You want to tarry with good, dependable old Harry?” Harry replied, turning on his heels. “Shit, where've you been, mate? We don't use that word much any more.”

“I dare say there are many words in my vocabulary that your people don't use any more,” the creature said as it wormed its way out of its burrow beneath the tangled branches. “As I've already told you, I've been out of circulation for a while. The lightning passed through the tree, and the weapon of choice of the Almighty in His infinite, almost infallible wisdom smashed a hole in the ceiling of my dungeon, enabling me to scramble free with a little effort. No doubt the bolt was drawn from the blue by the iron plates that my captors lined the cell with to prevent my escape – I've been cursing the ingenuity of the scoundrels ever since. 1790, that year sticks in my mind for reasons I've been chewing over for ages, quite possibly it was the year I was imprisoned. What year is it now, Plum Puddin'? How long have I been down there, twenty, maybe thirty years?”

“It's the year of our Lord 1893, so you've been down there a fair bit longer,” Harry lied.

“My my, that's a long time without a proper meal, but somehow I've existed thin. I've subsisted quite happily here since I emerged from my cocoon, sucking the juices of little furred and feathered creatures that my dulcet tones cunningly entices to within catching distance, but I'm too ravenous for small fry to satisfy my appetite for long. I'm sooo thirsty, Harry. Your blood smells delicious, but if you don't mind me saying so you are enjoying the autumn of your mortal years, and I hunger for something a little more vigorous, if you know what I mean.”

“I bet you do,” Harry said as the ghoul crawled out into the open and dragged its impossibly thin carcass upright. Phileas bared his teeth at the spectre, but he failed to growl at it, maybe because he was as unsure of its solidity as his master; though he didn't back away the dog didn't lunge forwards either. “You're one ugly mother-fucker,” Harry said, using another memorable movie line that was never far below the surface of his memory, but the thing was unmoved by the insult. “You could do with an economy sized drum of moisturising cream, you shrivelled old prune, I should ask your nearest and dearest to put it on next year's Christmas list. Shit, you could be a model with skin like that, or if you didn't make it as a model you could always get a job on the make-up counter at Boots – I've seen more decrepit looking harridans flogging their questionable wares there. 'I use Crappy Shopper moisturising lotion, gals, 'cos I'm not bloody worth it.' How come you smell of orange blossom and flower meadows instead of death and decay?” That was a good question, Harry thought, but like many good questions it wasn't destined to be blessed with a sensible answer.

“I refuse to answer your fool questions, and I scowl at your feeble attempt to lighten a distressing situation like a schoolmaster scowls at the antics of a mildly irritating pupil,” the thing said. It was little more than a skeleton clad in a lean layer of flesh beneath its dry, parchment coloured skin. Surprisingly enough it was wearing clothes, a pair of tattered buckskin trousers that looked like the Incredible Hulk's cast-offs, the remains of a richly embroidered white shirt that was now a bleached, rust coloured rag and a dark, calf length woollen coat full of holes and plastered in filth – its shrunken feet were bare. 'Maybe it's dined on its shoes,' Harry thought. 'Maybe its shoes and underpants were all that's kept it from death's door.' From an inner pocket of its coat the thing pulled out a soft, wide-brimmed hat which it pulled over its bald skull rather self-consciously. “I had a beautiful head of hair until I was sealed in this damned tomb!” it hissed. The hat was decorated with odd, flowing symbols that reminded Harry of Tolkien's elvish script.

“You were human once, weren't you?” Harry said, idly wondering if the starving creature had eaten its hair too.

“I don't know, Puddin', I honestly don't remember. Your guess is as good as mine.”

“You were human once, but an act of tremendous evil that you committed turned you into what you are today, an act of evil the like of which the likes of me couldn't possibly comprehend.”

“You've got it in one, my bleeding friend,” the thing said, taking a few steps towards Harry, its bony feet leaving curiously lengthened prints in the thin band of mud that had crept over the edge of the path. “Now here's the deal. I'll leave you and your family be if you bring me a meal, a human meal, of course. I need a youngster between, say, fourteen and twenty years old. I want a nice, plump, healthy specimen - no sickly, half-starved street urchins, or there'll be trouble. I would prefer a girl, their blood is slightly sweeter than that of boys, but I'm not too fussy.....

I also require a change of clothes, clothes a little bigger than your size that won't look out of place wherever I choose to go. When I've fed, you see, I'll look much like any other man, at which point I can vanish into the crowd forever, or as near as damn it forever. If you do my bidding, Puddin', you'll never see or hear from me again, I promise, and you have no other choice than to trust my word. If you disobey, well, let's not dwell on that; I think you can guess the sort of atrocities that will come your way if you don't fulfil my needs.”

“Let me get this straight,” Harry said. “You want me to bring you a nice, meaty young virgin – there aren't many virgins around here, mind, young or otherwise – and a set of clothing, and in return you won't feed on me and mine. Is that correct?”

“That's it, Pud, but he or she doesn't have to be a virgin. I need those things by tonight, midnight at the very latest, or your number's up. Do you understand? If you have any questions, kindly ask them now. If not, I'll be waiting patiently in my burrow for your return. I don't like the cold, you see, Harry, but I'll hardly feel it once my belly's full.”

“No questions,” Harry said, turning his back on the creature, which he found a lot more difficult now that he had witnessed its unnerving countenance.

“See you later, alligator,” the ghoul cried. Now where had it heard that term if it had been in solitary confinement for two hundred odd years, Harry wondered. It must have stolen it from his thoughts, he concluded.

“In a while, paedophile,” he replied.