The Apex Book of World SF 2

Hungry Man ^{Will Elliott}

When the redheaded woman with the baby carriage at last moved out of earshot, Phil said, “It’s easy, just get it down the back of your pants. You saw me do it a hundred times, come on.”

Lex looked nervously at the girl behind the news-agency counter and said, “She’ll see me. We come here every other day and never buy anything.”

“She doesn’t care. For twelve dollars an hour, think she cares if they’re missing a couple magazines? C’mon go, she’s not looking.”

Phil made it look easy. In awe, Lex had watched him walk out of shops with packets of corn chips stuffed in his shirt so he looked pregnant, watched him take show bags from stalls at the carnival, condoms from the chemist (they did nothing with them except leave them on the spouts of their school’s drinking fountains). Phil stole cigarettes and sold them to the older kids who played coin-op games. He stole CDs, once a DVD set from JBHiFi. His prize catch: an iPod, one of those nice thirty-two gig ones with a digicam inside. Close call, the Target woman turned her back for just a moment after he’d got her to take it out of the case for a look at it, not even planning to steal it till she took her eyes off them. A security guard chased them out of there and they couldn’t go back to Westfield Strathpine again any time in the next decade.

For his part, Lex had stolen two packets of bubble gum. It had been from this very news agency the girl had gone out to the back for a minute or two. “The register,” Phil had urged. “Go! There’s fifties in there.”

Lex had been unable to do it. People had been walking past the doorway; they’d have seen him. He took the gum instead. His hands shook for half an hour afterwards.

And right now the news agency was busy. Old people buying lottery tickets. A creepy perverted dude by the porn mags who hadn’t moved since they’d come in, probably had a big fat woody while he fumbled through the latest Picture. “Don’t worry about that perv,” Phil whispered. “That’s the retard who walks up and down the road all night. If he sees you, he won’t even remember it five minutes from now.”

“How do you know?”

“We threw rocks at him, me and Trent. He just looked at us, didn’t even care. Next day we walked right past him, he didn’t recognise us. So what are you worried about?”

I have a dad at home, Lex thought but didn’t dare say. Not like you. Your mother won’t pull your pants down right in front of everyone at any old excuse to do it and hit the crap out of your nude butt like it turns her on.

Well no, Phil’s dad wouldn’t do that exactly. Phil’s dad would visit once a week and his doped-out mum would sit there in a Valium cloud and list out stuff he’d done wrong during the week in a calm dreamy voice, while Phil’s dad slowly undid his belt. Alex, I think you should go home now. You’d hear it from three houses down: cries and pleads as if Phil were being killed in there, whack, whack, whack. Every Tuesday. Visiting Day.

Phil said, “Alex, listen. You eat the stuff I steal, you keep half of it. You never take anything yourself. Bubble-gum? How badass. Come on. Go-get us some titty mags and we’re even.”

Lex left Phil standing before the comics, sidled over to the magazine stand opposite the titty mags and looked nervously at the girl behind the counter, now selling smokes to some geezer who thought he was pretty funny. Lex snuck a glance at the glossy covers, heart beating faster with the alien allure of women as old as his teachers, posing on the Penthouse with legs open, a white sheet draped between them; on Barely Legal in roller skates with a lollypop and pig-tails; in this weird black leather outfit on Babes & Bikes. Suddenly he wanted each magazine very badly. He’d all but forgotten the pervy guy, who hadn’t moved, still thumbing through the Home Girls section in Picture. The pervy guy was just a pillar of legs beside him, as inhuman as concrete.

Lex grabbed a Penthouse and a Playboy. Down the back of his shorts they went, where they slipped and slid almost completely out till he tucked them into his underwear. Turning for the exit, not daring to look to see if anyone had witnessed it, he walked head-first into the pervy guy’s legs, his face striking the man’s hip.

It was a long way to look up and see the face staring down at him, half-covered in black stubble. The man’s wide mouth hung open, eyes just peering down with no way of telling if it was anger or total blankness in them. Lex sensed something else there, too, a threat he didn’t understand at all, which made something inside him scream run but at the same time paralysed him so he couldn’t.

“Hey, Alex, let’s go for a swim,” Phil called innocently across to him from the news-agency counter. “Before it gets dark. Over at the nature strip. C’mon.” Phil’s voice seemed to break Lex out of a trance. He walked through the magazine rows, not daring to look sideways at the girl behind the counter, whose gaze he felt following him. The magazines down his pants were surely sticking out a mile.

At long last, blessedly, they were outside in the afternoon light. Cars whizzed by on Anzac Avenue. Their bikes leant against the shop wall. “Don’t pull ‘em out yet, you dink,” Phil hissed, as Lex adjusted the magazines’ position. “Oh shit. Quick, get on your bike and go.”

“What, why…?”

The pervert guy, like a horror movie zombie, shuffled slowly out of the shop and headed their way. His mouth still hung open, his eyes as dead as pebbles. “Catching flies, fuck head?” Phil said to him. “Shut your mouth, you look like a spastic.” The man didn’t say a word, just stared and shuffled closer. “I think he likes you, Alex. Frigging weirdo.”

They rode away, wheeling through traffic and many pissed off drivers, car horns blaring. Lex was so filled with sweet relief to be out of the news agency he hardly noticed how close he was to getting run over.

Rumour had it that if you could get to the waterhole at night, you’d sometimes see the bogan kids who got drunk in the Kallangur shop car parks doing it with their girlfriends, actually doing it right here in the long grass. They’d been out here one sleepover to test the theory but had seen no such thing.

It had rained last night and now the quite frequent cars that swung down the nearby road’s dip sloshed up water as they went. On the wide grassy platform a few metres above the water, Phil took out the Mars bar he’d slipped into his pocket right in front of the counter girl while he’d joked with her about the pervert guy. He peeled back its wrapping, which took much of the squished melted thing off with it, then stuffed the rest into his mouth. “Yeah, I saw that retard before,” said Phil, examining the Penthouse centrefold. “Lives on Sheehan Street. He just walks around at night, right down the middle of the road sometimes. Drivers have to go around him. Lives with these really old people, maybe his parents. Not right in the head. You can throw rocks at him or whatever and he just looks at you, doesn’t even care. So, are you going to jump or not?”

Last time they’d come, Phil had ridden his bike off the ledge and into the water. It was now Lex’s turn. From the seat of his black BMX, the water was just a brown wedge visible over the sloping rise before the drop. Phil said, “You won’t break your legs or anything. It’s deep right down there.”

Lex said, “Not worried about my legs, I’m worried about the bike.”

“It’s water, man, jeez come on.”

“I didn’t get this bike for my birthday like you got yours. I delivered pamphlets on Saturdays in the heat and paid for it myself.”

“Then you went and stole from the shops. What a good boy.” Phil took the Playboy out of Lex’s schoolbag. “If you don’t jump I’m keeping this.”

“Okay, okay.” Lex took off his shoes, put his glasses in their case, took a deep breath then pushed off, pumping hard on the pedals, the tyres bumping over the grassy ground. The water opened up into view three metres below, then he was airborne, letting go so the bike flung itself out ahead of him while he landed feet first in the water.

It was cold and not as deep as Phil had claimed, for his feet touched the hideously soft mud at its bottom. He came up and used his first gasp of air to whoop in triumph. He swam forwards to get the bike. “See that?” he laughed, spitting out a coppery mouthful.

“You didn’t stay on your bike, doesn’t count. Do it again.”

“I’ll do it again, no problem. That was sweet!”

Nearing the top of the path, Lex heard other voices up on the grassy platform: someone laughing. “Oh shit,” he heard Phil say. “Lex, get up here, okay?”

Still elated, Lex wheeled the bike up the curving path, starting to feel a chill from the late afternoon air. There was, at most, an hour of daylight left.

When he got up there he saw why Phil had been worried. Craig Randall and Keith Hume, that was why. There was, Lex was quite aware, a chance for him to get back on the bike and ride it down the path and out of there. And he knew he would have if his schoolbag and shoes hadn’t been up there with Phil, along with the precious magazines. Both these guys had been kicked out of school for beating people up. The last guy, Keith had rammed his head into a pole and put him in hospital and into a neck brace. Keith’s messy blond hair hung down over his shoulders, muscled arms exposed in a singlet. His friend Craig was tall, fat, redheaded, with squinting eyes and skin entirely covered in freckles. They were both three years and many growth spurts older.

Craig casually took Lex’s bike from him and sat on it in a way somehow devoid of aggression—just borrowing a seat. “Your friend’s fucked,” he said in his oddly high pitched voice. Going to be a pretty good show, hey? Craig smiled with no malice at all and produced a little bag of cask wine, which he put to his lips and sucked on. The wine’s cheap stink filled the place.

Phil didn’t move as Keith Hume stepped closer to him.

“Why do you have to hit him, Keith?” Lex said. “We got no problem with you.”

“Shut the fuck up, Alex,” Phil snapped at him.

Lex remembered what Phil had said about guys like this. They would beat you up now and then, face it. Just let them. Don’t be a pussy about it and they’d mostly leave you alone from then on. “Get it over with,” said Phil.

“What’d you say, cunt?” Shove to the shoulder, fists up, here it came. Jab, jab, crack went knuckles on Phil’s nose and cheek. They were fast, economical punches. Long fast arms, punching machines made just for this. Phil’s head rocked back. Lex almost felt it, almost saw the explosions of white stars. Craig chortled and slurped his wine. “Come on, Keith, that’s enough, hey,” said Lex.

But it wasn’t. Phil staggered and nearly fell but fought to keep on his feet. The “bully will respect you” theory, but Lex knew it wouldn’t work. “Stay down, Phil, for fuck’s sake,” he yelled, tears welling up in his eyes, a lump in his throat.

Craig got off the bike and with the same lack of malice, gave it a shove towards the drop and the water below. It rolled most of the way there, balanced on its wheels as though it had an invisible rider, then clattered onto its side and slid over the edge.

Lex forgot about Phil and the crack crack of punches still rocking his friend’s head back. There was just a long dark angry tunnel with Craig at the end of it. It was the casual way he’d done it, absolutely nothing personal in it. All those mornings in the hot sun, barked at by dogs, chased by one, riding up that hill on Gyp Court, swooped by magpies, wasp nests in letter boxes, folding fucking Coles and Food-Store pamphlets together all Friday night till his fingers were dark with ink. It had all been for Craig, to provide him five seconds or so of entertainment.

Lex’s hand picked up the flat rectangular stone all by itself. He moved automatically as he drew it back and shoved it into that utterly-hated, squinting, freckled face.

Craig grunted in surprise. That was the point at which Lex’s memory erased what followed, which was, of course, his hand—so much smaller—being grabbed tightly, the rock being taken out of it and the favour returned with interest, as Craig swung it down on his head. His body dropped in the long grass some way from Phil’s and about ten seconds after.

When sight returned, there were only the stars and clouds above, all spinning about slowly and lazily. A continent of thick grey cloud slowly swallowed the half-moon, dulling out its light. Crickets chirped. Pain throbbed down from the top of Lex’s skull as if Craig were right there thumping him with the rock every two seconds.

There was rustling nearby, the tickling touch of long grass, a faint lingering stink of cask wine. A gnawing, crunching sound. Like Phil’s dog Jules at work on a bone. Sucking, slurping. Crunching, gnawing.

He lifted his head, but the spike of pain made him rest it back on the grass. Tenderly, he touched his scalp; there was a sticky, tacky patch of blood. He moaned quietly. The background sounds—the eating sounds—ceased.

A listening, watchful silence ensued that instinct told him not to break. It went on for a long time. There were footsteps padding through the long grass, moving away from him, then towards him, then away again. Slow, heavy steps.

Keith and Craig? he thought. Both of them, still here?

The footsteps stopped. The eating sounds began again. There was a low murmur of someone’s voice saying something, mostly inarticulate, but amongst the babble he made out the words “good, good”.

Slowly, Lex sat up, hardly disturbing the long thick blades of grass around him. A shape loomed ten or twelve metres away, set against the sky behind. A large man hunched forward on the shorter grass where Lex had ridden his bike over the drop, with his back to Lex. The big hunched-over body was just a silhouette against the cloud. It moved in jerking, sawing motions.

A soft moan. Mournful, Lex thought, or maybe a note of pleasure. Though he knew he must stay quiet, he was too confused to be scared. He thought back to rumours about the bogan kids who came here with their girlfriends to screw. But this was no kid.

Up on his elbows, Lex watched the man’s strange movements, still not comprehending, as the minutes passed. Not till he sat up, and the clouds shifted, the moon’s light coming out from hiding to reveal the large man crouched over Phil.

Phil was looking right at Lex, so it appeared, eyes wide and unblinking and with a strange kind of grimacing smile, his lips peeled back. Lex gestured to him as if to say, Are you okay? What’s going on?

Phil did not react at all. His head was in a strange position to the rest of him, a most unnatural angle. In fact, as Lex’s eyes adjusted, he saw that it wasn’t Phil at all but actually some kind of doll, for the head had been pulled right off. He rubbed his eyes as if it might change things, but no, the head wasn’t attached to the body at all.

A dark pool spread about the body. Phil’s chest and belly had been ripped open. The man by the corpse of his best friend was digging around in it, sawing off handfuls of flesh with a knife and lifting them to his mouth. The sight did not quite register, did not make any kind of sense at all. Lex did not think he was really seeing it.

The man’s head turned sideways and Lex could see the chewing motions of his jaw. Inarticulate sounds came from his chewing, gargling throat interspersed with “good…good”.

For Lex, everything span around again, very fast. His head fell back down on the long grass, making it rustle.

The eating sounds stopped. The man got to his feet. For a moment, his heavy excited breathing was the only sound. Heavy footsteps padded swish-swish through the grass. Lex felt and heard him coming but didn’t care because he couldn’t. He still didn’t understand.

The man stood, tall over him, stretching far above like a statue, legs that were concrete pillars. It was the man they’d seen ogling the magazines in the news agency. For a long time, the longest minute in Lex’s life, the man stared down at what the moonlight had revealed to him in the tall grass. His blood-smeared mouth hung open just as it had when he shambled out of the shop towards them.

A car swept past, swishing up puddles of water where the road dipped, then it was gone.

The man was trying, it seemed, to speak. Gibberish came out, a language of stuttering grunts, interspersed here and there with words. Lex discerned only, “Where we come from… makes us hungry.”

In the long years later, on therapists’ couches, in bed tearfully telling his wife about it for the first time after twenty-one years of marriage; after waking from every nightmare where he was, again, a kid lying in long grass next to the water…

All the while driving himself through business school, through board rooms, from success to success, ever higher and faster as though to get away from a shambling monster on the road behind him…

Through memories of the funeral, of the police interviews, the witness stand with the monster blankly watching him answer questions in the trial that eventually put the monster in a hospital, not in a prison…

From trying to work out why, why he hadn’t been taken as well; why he’d been spared after he’d passed out in the long grass, utterly at the monster’s mercy, only to wake later and find what was left of his friend spread across the dewy ground…

Till he was an old man, rich and lonely, fading from life in his last days, bitterly wishing that, of all the memories his mind so eagerly shed, good and bad, why those memories above all others must remain till his very last day…

He would, throughout all this, seek some secret meaning in those words his ears had barely discerned amongst the grunts and stutters that had burnt those words—with whatever secret things they meant—into his mind, into his life, as a never-fading scar.