69

TOBY. SAINT CHICO MENDES, MARTYR

YEAR TWENTY-FIVE

Toby feels bludgeoned — that was brutal, it was horrifying — but she can’t show her feelings to Ren. The Gardeners would have encouraged mourning — within limits — as part of the healing process, but there isn’t the space for it now. The storm clouds are yellowy green, the lightning’s ferocious: she suspects a twister. “Hurry,” she says to Ren. “Unless you want to be blown away.” For the last fifty metres they hold hands and run, heads down, into the wind.

The gatehouse is retro Tex-Mex, with rounded lines and pink adobe-style solarskin: all it lacks is a chapel tower and some bells. Already there’s kudzu clambering up the walls. The wrought-iron gate is standing open. In the ornamental garden with its ring of whitewashed stones — WELCOME TO ANOOYOO spelled out in petunias, but now invaded by purslane and sow thistles — something has been rooting. The pigs, most likely.

“There’s some legs,” says Ren. “Over there by the gate.” Her teeth are chattering: she’s still in shock.

“Legs?” says Toby. She feels affronted: how many demi-bodies does she have to encounter in one day? She goes over to the gate to look. The legs aren’t human, they’re Mo’Hair legs — a complete set of four; just the lower legs, the skinny parts. A little hair still on them, lavender in colour. There’s a head as well, though not a Mo’Hair head: it’s the head of a liobam, the golden fur scruffy, the eye sockets empty and crusted. The tongue’s gone, as well. Liobam tongue, once an expensive gourmet feature at Rarity.

Toby walks back to where Ren stands quivering, hands to her mouth.

“They’re Mo’Hair,” she says. “I’ll make them into soup. With our nice mushrooms.”

“Oh, I can’t eat anything,” says Ren in a doleful voice. “He was just a — he was a boy. I used to carry him around.” The tears are rolling down her cheeks. “Why did they do that?”

“You have to eat,” says Toby. “It’s your duty.” Duty to what? she wonders. Your body is a gift from God and you must honour that gift, said Adam One. But right now she feels no such conviction.

The gatehouse door is open. She looks through the window into the reception area — nobody — and propels Ren inside: the storm’s coming fast. She flicks a light switch: no power. There’s the usual bulletproof check-in window, a blank-faced document scanner, the fingerscan and iris cameras. You’d stand there knowing that you had five wall-mounted sprayguns pointed at your back and controlled from the inside room where the guards used to slouch.

She shines her flashlight through the counter window into the darkness of the inner space. Desks, filing cabinets, trash. Over in the corner, a shape: large enough to be someone. Someone dead, someone asleep, or — worst case — someone who’s heard them coming and is pretending to be a garbage bag. Then, once they’re at ease, there’d be some sneaking up and baring of canines, some slashing and rending.

The door to the inner room’s ajar: she sniffs the air. Mildew, of course. What else? Excrement. Decaying meat. Other noxious undertones. She wishes she had the nose of a dog, to sort one smell from another.

She pulls the door closed. Then she goes outside despite the rain and wind and hauls in the biggest stone from the ornamental flower-garden border. Not enough to stop a strong person, but it might slow down someone weak, or ill. She doesn’t wish to be leapt on from behind by a carnivorous mound of tatters.

“Why are you doing that?” says Ren.

“Just in case,” says Toby. She doesn’t elaborate. Ren is shaky enough as it is: one more horror and she could collapse.

The full force of the storm hits. A thicker darkness howls around them; thunder hollows out the air. In the lightning, Ren’s face comes and goes, her eyes closed, her mouth a frightened O. She clutches Toby’s arm as if about to topple from a cliff.

After what seems like a long time, the thunder trundles away. Toby goes outside to inspect the Mo’Hair legs. Her skin’s prickling: those legs didn’t walk there by themselves, and they’re still quite fresh. No sign of a fire: whoever killed the animal didn’t cook the rest here. She notes the cut marks: Mister Sharp Knife has passed this way. How close might he be?

She looks both ways along the road, strewn now with ripped-off leaves. No movement. The sun’s back now. Steam rises. Crows in the distance.

She uses her own knife to scrape much of the hairy skin from one of the Mo’Hair legs. If she had a large cleaver she could hack it into pieces small enough for her cooking pot. Finally she places one end on the top of the step leading up to the gatehouse and the other on the pavement and hits it with a rock. Now there’s the problem of a fire. She could spend a long time rummaging among the trees for dry wood and still come up empty-handed. “I need to go through that door,” she says to Ren.

“Why?” says Ren weakly. She’s huddled in the empty front room.

“There’s stuff we can burn,” says Toby. “To make a fire. Now listen. There might be someone in there.”

“A dead person?”

“I don’t know,” says Toby.

“I don’t want any more dead people,” says Ren fretfully. There may not be much choice about that, thinks Toby.

“Here’s the rifle,” she says. “This is the trigger. I want you to stand right here. If anyone but me comes out that door, shoot. Don’t hit me by mistake. Okay?” If she herself gets whacked in there, at least Ren will have a weapon.

“Okay,” says Ren. She takes the rifle awkwardly. “But I don’t like it.”

This is crazy, Toby thinks. She’s jumpy enough to shoot me in the back if I sneeze. But if I don’t check that room out, no sleep tonight and maybe a slit throat in the morning. And no fire.

She goes in with her flashlight and her mop handle. Papers litter the floor, smashed lamps. There’s broken glass, crunching underfoot. The smell is stronger now. Flies buzzing. The hairs on her arms lift, the blood rushes in her head.

The bundle on the floor is definitely human, covered with some sort of gruesome blanket. Now she can see the dome of a bald head, some wisps of hair. She pokes at the blanket with the mop handle, keeping the beam of light on the bundle. A moan. She pokes again, harder: there’s a feeble twitching of cloth. Now there are the slits of eyes, and a mouth, lips crusted and blistered.

“Fuckin’ hell,” says the mouth. “Who in fuck are you?”

“Are you sick?” says Toby.

“Asshole shot me,” says the man. His eyes are blinking in the light. “Turn that fuckin’ thing off.” No sign of blood leaking out of his nose or mouth or eyes: with any luck, he doesn’t have the plague.

“Shot you where?” says Toby. The bullet must have been hers, from that time in the meadow. A hand scrabbles forth: red and blue veins. Although he’s shrivelled and filthy, his eyes sunken with fever, this is Blanco, no doubt of it. She ought to know, she’s had the close-up view.

“Leg,” he says. “Went bad on me. Fuckers dumped me here.”

“Two of them?” says Toby. “Did they have a woman with them?” She makes her voice level.

“Gimme some water,” says Blanco. There’s an empty bottle in the corner, near his head. Two bottles, three. Gnawed ribs: the lavender Mo’Hair? “Who else is out there?” he rasps. His breath’s coming hard. “More bitches. I heard more.”

“Let me see your leg,” says Toby. “I may be able to help.” He won’t be the first person ever to have shammed injury.

“I’m fuckin’ dying,” says Blanco. “Turn off that light!” Toby sees various courses of action rippling across his forehead in waves of little frowns. Does he know who she is? Will he try to jump her?

“Take the blanket off,” says Toby, “and I’ll get you some water.”

“Take it off yourself,” croaks Blanco.

“No,” says Toby. “If you don’t want help I’ll just lock you in.”

“Lock’s broken,” he says. “Asshole skinny bitch! Gimme some water!”

Toby pinpoints the other smell: whatever else is wrong with him, he’s decaying. “I’ve got a Zizzy Froot,” she says. “You’ll like that better.” She backs out through the door and closes it behind her, but not before Ren’s had a look.

“It’s him,” she whispers. “The third one, the worst one!”

“Take a deep breath,” says Toby. “You’re perfectly safe. You’ve got the rifle, he doesn’t. Just keep it pointed at that door.”

She digs into her packsack, finds the remaining Zizzy Froot, drinks a quarter of the warm, sugary, fizzy liquid: Waste not. Then she fills the bottle up with Poppy and adds a generous dollop of powdered amanitas for good measure. The white Death Angel, granter of dark wishes. If there’s two bad choices take the lesser evil, Zeb would say.

She pushes the door open with her mop handle and shines the flashlight in. Sure enough Blanco is shoving himself across the floor, grinning with the effort. In one hand is his knife: most likely he was hoping to get near enough so he could grab her by the ankles when she went in. Take her down with him, or use her as a bargaining chip to get hold of Ren.

Mad dogs bite. What else is there to know?

“Here you are,” she says. She rolls the bottle towards him. His knife falls with a clink as he grabs for the bottle, unscrews it with shaking hands, guzzles. Toby waits to make sure it all goes down. “Now you’ll feel better,” she says gently. She closes the door.

“He’ll get out!” says Ren. She’s ashen.

“If he gets out, we’ll shoot him,” says Toby. “I’ve given him some painkillers to calm him down.” Silently she says the words of apology and release, the same as she would for a beetle.

She waits until the Poppy has taken hold, then re-enters the room. Blanco’s snoring heavily: if the Poppy doesn’t finish him, the Death Angels will. She lifts the blanket: his left thigh is a mess — decaying cloth and decaying flesh all simmering together. It takes a lot of self-restraint for her not to throw up.

Then she sorts through the room for flammables, gathering what she can — paper, some remnants of a smashed chair, a stack of CDs. There’s a second floor, but Blanco’s blocking the door to what must be the stairway and she’s not ready to get that close to him yet. She searches under the trees for dead branches: with the barbecue lighter and the paper and the CDs, they catch eventually. She makes bone soup with the Mo’Hair leg, adding the mushrooms and some purslane from the flower bed; they eat it sitting in the smoke of the fire, because of the mosquitoes.

They sleep on the flat roof, using a tree to climb up. Toby drags the pack-sacks up too, and the other three Mo’Hair legs, so nothing can steal them during the night. The rooftop’s pebbly, and wet as well: they lie on the two sheets of plastic. The stars are brighter than bright; the moon’s invisible. Just before they go to sleep, Ren whispers, “What if he wakes up?”

“He’ll never wake up,” says Toby.

“Oh,” says Ren in a tiny voice. Is that admiration of Toby, or simply awe in the face of death? He wouldn’t have lived, Toby tells herself, not with a leg as bad as that. Attempting to treat it would have been a waste of maggots. Still, she’s just committed a murder. Or an act of mercy: at least he didn’t die thirsty.

Don’t kid yourself, babe, says the voice of Zeb in her head. You had vengeance in mind.

“May his Spirit go in peace,” she says out loud. Such as it is, the fuck-pig.