The dead spore collectio.., p.67
The Dead Spore Collection, page 67
Before he could grab the door, an old couple came out of the pub and almost ran into him.
“Sorry,” he said, ramming the wallet into his back pocket. “I should have looked where I was going.”
The old man jerked to a halt, and Dean heard the woman holding the man’s hand let out a gasp of surprise.
“Dean? What are you doing here?”
He gazed in surprise at his father, not believing that he had failed to recognize his own dad. He then shot a single glance at the woman, briefly wondering why her face dripped with malice. He looked back at his father and tried to smile, desperately remembering his speech.
“Hi Dad, I’ve just been up to the house, but you weren’t in.”
His dad returned the grin. “No, son, that’s because I’m here.”
That remark completely threw Dean off balance. Was this really his dad? He’d never known him to come out with a funny, ever! While Dean was growing up, his dad’s dour face was as ever present as that horrible floral wallpaper he’d put up above the mantelpiece.
Then he noticed they were both holding hands and it clicked; oh my, his dad now had a new girlfriend. Suddenly, his prepared speech became stuck just behind his teeth; in the presence of company his words now seemed stilted and false. He didn’t know what to do; Dean had never been any good at extracting himself out of awkward situations.
Thankfully, his dad came to the rescue.
“How odd that we bump into you, right here and now.” He turned to the woman for confirmation and she just blanked Dean. His dad carried on as if nothing had happened. “It’s all over the news about the disaster in London. We were just on our way to the phone box to make sure you were alright.”
He nodded, not knowing what to make of this new woman. He put on his best smile and extended his hand. “Hello, I’m Dean, pleased to meet you.”
“I know who you are, “she replied, her hand stayed by her side. “What are you doing up here?”
Oh, this was going bad, he had no idea who this woman was, nor did he really care, but her weird attitude did bother him somewhat. “Look Dad, the events in London are getting worse. I’m here because I think I can put what’s happened right.” He sensed the woman about to interrupt and moved in between them. “I don’t want to think what will happen if the problem in London gets out of control.” Dean knew for a fact that it already had. The only thing stopping him from screaming out in frustration and guilt was the objective scientific side, and keeping everything else firmly under lock and key.
“You mean you’re responsible for this?” replied his incredulous dad.
“A black aura,” muttered the woman.
“Of course, I’m not responsible,” he replied, lying, “but I did once work with the team who were involved in this disaster.” Dean tried to push past his dad. “I’m going to stay here and sort this mess out, dad.”
“You mean here, at the pub?” his dad didn’t give him chance to reply. “No way, there’s no way that you’re staying here. Look, here take the house key. Your room is still how you left it.”
Dean looked at the key then at the pub doorway. He sighed then took the key out of his father’s hand. He nodded at the woman before hurrying away from the pair of them. He suddenly stopped, spun around, and found that they had both gone. “Bollocks, I forgot to ask if he had internet access.
Chapter Ten
Common sense gently advised him that rushing out of that nice, warm office may have been a little rash. Billy D’lacey then caught his common sense on the back foot by agreeing with it. Making the hazardous journey through the centre of the city may have indeed been a fool’s errand.
His common sense, not used to this uncharacteristic show of unity, then suggested an even bolder move of getting the fuck out of this alley before all those shambling things sniffed them out.
Billy D’lacey growled, startling the two men stood at either side of him and curtly told his common sense to mind its own goddamm business.
When the news of the body’s discovery first reached Billy, he made it his highest priority to pay his last respects to his fallen soldier before news of the murder found its unwanted attention on the desk of some greasy detective. In retrospect, Billy figured that the filth wouldn’t have given two shits, especially with what was occurring throughout Birmingham.
The news on the TV had given Billy enough to worry about before he embarked on the journey. At the time, he considered the reports of the army patrolling the city and the roadblocks to be just one big wind up; as for these supposed aggressive hordes of insurgents roaming the streets, well, that had to be wrong.
Stuff like that didn’t happen in his city, at least not without his permission.
He stared down at the dealer’s sprawled body, noticing the single imprint of a cat’s paw embedded in the congealed brain-matter pooled around his ears. Paying his last respects to this casing of cold meat now seemed like a joke. The man he knew and respected had left this plane of existence, leaving behind food only fit for the city’s scavengers.
Billy finally tore his eyes off the corpse and gave his two companions a single casual glance. Their behaviour disquieted Billy, and their posture betrayed their true nervous thoughts. Jacob looked especially jittery; the gangster would have to keep his favourite minder under very close observation.
Their reluctance to travel here and the two minders’ obvious enthusiasm to return to the club was understandable. Like him, his minders dished out pain, punishment, and regular executions with pride and zeal. Seeing their dead victims regain a semblance of existence and then attempt to eat them wasn’t part of the deal.
Billy caressed the solid silver eagle’s head attached to the tip of his ash cane. He recited a simple prayer to the memory of Glen, then brought the cane down onto the corpse’s forehead. Billy sure as fuck had no wish to see this one get back up.
“Jacob, you appear to be operating at less than your optimum capacity. Should your well-being concern me?”
The man looked down at his employer, and Billy saw just how red his eyes were; he saw the troubled frown and took that as a bad sign. Jacob did not work well under complicated conditions.
“I’m fine, sir,” he muttered.
Billy sighed loud enough for his other minder to tear his eyes away from the now deceased dealer.
“So you’re not about to start blubbing again like a little girl who’s just lost her teddy bear?”
The man drew himself up to full height of six foot ten and took a single threatening step towards his employer. It gratified Billy to witness the familiar fire ignite behind Jacob’s ice-blue eyes.
“I said that I was fine,” he repeated in a low growl.
The hairs on Billy’s forearms stood up. His excitement rose, knowing that the minder would not disappoint him again; in fact, the man would be more than keen to make up for his earlier mistake. Billy intended to milk Jacob’s fervour until it was desert dry.
“I’m glad to hear that, Mr. Cole. You are a courageous man, one of the few in my employment who have earned my respect. I consider you to be part of my family. Our fallen comrade deserves our personal condolences, no matter what obstacles are thrown in our way. You do understand that, don’t you?”
Jacob cast his eyes to the floor and slowly nodded.
All three men looked towards the end of the alley when a convoy of olive drab vehicles rumbled past the opening. “Our task here is complete, gentlemen, and I suspect that we have overstayed our welcome.”
It had been nearly two hours since Billy woke to the sound of screaming. In his confused sleep state, he almost put a bullet through the brain of one of the club’s strippers who had been in his bed. After ordering the other two girls to calm the hysterical bitch down, he rushed out of his suite and into the club’s reception area. His two minders were running towards him, both drenched in wet blood.
The men were in a worse emotional state than that stripper. With his features coated in crimson lumps, it took him a moment to recognise Craig Dolan.
“Would you care to explain why you two are dripping gunk upon my expensive carpet?”
He directed that question at his head doorman and part-time minder. He appeared to be marginally more coherent than Jacob. The man wiped some of the stuff out of his eye and looked at the glutinous blob of red mess before wiping his hand on the back of his jeans.
“It’s that fucker you asked us to question, sir. Something really fucking strange has happened to him.”
“Yeah, I can see that,” he replied, “but was it really necessary to wallow in the man’s guts?”
Craig looked as though he was about to burst into tears; the alarm bells inside Billy’s now fully awake mind finally began to ring. The man lifted his foot.
“Don’t you dare come any fucking closer!” he shouted. “In fact, step back onto the lino. Get off my carpet.”
“We killed him, sir.”
“I think I’ve already figured that piece of information out.”
Craig shook his head, “No, sir. You don’t get it. We killed him and he came back to life.”
Jacob let out a low moan.
“He won’t fucking die,” Craig whispered.
Billy rushed back into his suite, grabbed his pistol off the dressing table, and followed the men downstairs. He slowly approached the closed door to the soundproof room where he and his associates entertained their guests. The two men stopped behind him, seemingly unwilling to venture any further.
He double-checked his gun then unlocked the door.
“Please be careful, sir. That thing in there bears no resemblance to that snivelling little cunt we brought in.”
Billy nodded, still not believing their implausible story. He wouldn’t forget Marigold Drake’s face, though, when he and Jacob arrived at the camera shop where he worked. Billy honestly thought the little kid was going to have a seizure right there and then. He did throw up when Jacob grabbed the boy’s arm and dragged him over to Billy’s black van. Somehow the very idea that a skinny, seven-stone, chicken-livered bag of shit could affect his boys just seemed impossible.
He raised his pistol and opened the door. Billy looked past the gore-streaked walls. He gazed over the metal table bolted to the floor and still littered with Craig’s favourite torture toys and stared aghast at the shaking, meowing, bloodied, wreck huddled in the far corner.
Behind that swollen mask of crimson mess, Billy could still make out the features of the arrogant little shit who had the audacity to believe that he could steal money from him. The fucker actually believed he would get away with it too.
He gazed back at his two minders. How the fuck did this man reduce his two best torturers into mounds of jelly? The wreck in the corner sensed that another person had joined him in the room. The change in his posture was almost dreamlike. He transformed from a snivelling coward into something that was almost feral.
“Shut the fucking door!” screamed Craig. “Don’t let it get close to you, that thing won’t die.”
He dismissed his minder’s pathetic pleading; the idiot had obviously taken leave of his senses. The idea of those two helping themselves to some of his pharmaceutical products, before they began to work on this sad excuse for a man stuck in his mind and refused to leave.
He then turned back around and watched him crawl closer. As he slowly moved across the wet floor, Billy saw just how much damage his boys had inflicted upon his body.
The missing fingers and the two splintered ribs pushing through his torn skin were the obvious signs. Then, as he crawled closer, Billy noticed the wet trail of steaming guts the man left behind. He had a gaping hole cut out of his stomach.
“Oh, dear Lord,” he muttered.
The minders had hollowed him out and yet he still moved. His minders hadn’t been lying, this travesty really was dead. The boy’s hand reached out to grab Billy’s bare foot.
“Get the fuck away!” he shouted, jumping back. Billy brought the pistol up and fired a single shot at the boy’s forehead. Fragments of skull and pieces of brain sprayed out of the back of his head, and what remained of the body just collapsed like a de-boned fillet of fish.
“Did you two spastics not think of bashing in the cunt’s brains?” Billy gazed at his two trained killers, shivering like babies.
“Is he dead?”
Billy stood back, “Of course he’s fucking dead, Craig. Now get cleaned up, and then meet me upstairs in ten minutes time. I want to see a bucket of cold water in one hand, Craig. Jacob, you can bring a stiff bristled brush.”
Craig looked at him with confusion etched into his ugly features. “I’m sorry, sir. Did I hear that correctly?”
Billy sighed. “You two fuckwits have dripped all over my expensive carpet. I expect you to clean it.”
The last of the military vehicles rumbled past the entrance to the alleyway. When he and his colleagues drove through the deserted city streets earlier, Billy watched a dozen uniformed men setting up checkpoints near the railway station and close to The Bull Ring. Thankfully, their route took them away from any of the main shopping areas, so they didn’t have to stop. Looking back, it may have been difficult to explain why three men were tooled up with hardware more sophisticated than what the soldiers had.
He guessed that the army would start clearing the moving dead people from the centre and spreading out from there. There was little doubt in his mind that the chances of them returning to the club anytime soon would be next to remote. He kept this vital piece of information to himself. If his men knew he had no intentions of retreating to the safety of the club, their actions may be unpredictable. Usually, he wouldn’t give two fucks about how his employees felt. His word was law and that was that, but the rules had changed. He had adapted to this fucked up state of affairs, but they still needed time to acclimatise.
“Sir, we have company. Oh, fuck, it’s another one of them.”
Billy followed Craig’s trembling finger. He watched a young teenage girl stumble into the alley. She stopped in the middle, turned towards them, and took a single step towards the three men. Even without his previous contact with Marigold, he would have been able to deduce that this lady should not be moving about. Her naked body displayed the unmistakable ‘Y’ shaped stitching of a mortician’s assistant.
Jacob unleashed a sound reminiscent to an angry bear as he stumbled past Billy whilst reaching into the inside of his jacket pocket. “A shot to the head? I can do that,” he muttered.
Despite applauding the man’s eagerness to make amends, there was no way Billy could allow this. He padded up to Jacob who was already attempting to draw a bead on the approaching corpse. Billy placed his hand on Jacob’s wrist and pushed his arm down.
“The time to exterminate these abominations with bullets will come later. I don’t want any gunshots in here, though. Look around you, we’re in an alley, the buildings will amplify the noise; do you wish to advertise our presence to Birmingham’s myriad dead? Unless of course, you intend to battle with a few hundred of the things.” Billy grinned. “Besides, I want this one intact. This bitch has a role to play.”
He ran back over to Glen’s body. He found it unfortunate that the dealer had chosen to fall in the only area in this alley that wasn’t covered in litter. Around his sprawled body were piles of discarded bin bags, and another inch to the left or right and the rubbish would have cushioned his impact.
Billy glanced behind him and saw that the girl was getting dangerously close, and his two minders still had their guns drawn, but he didn’t think they’d fire unless they believed their lives were in danger. A cursory examination of the crap piled up around the body resulted in nothing he could use. Billy ripped open one of the bin bags and almost whooped with joy when a supermarket carrier bag fell through the hole.
“Just fucking perfect,” he said. He emptied the contents out, watching as a lump of mouldy teabags bounced off Glen’s face.
“Sir? Can we shoot this fucker yet?”
Billy sighed. He ran past his minders, turned the bag upside down, and pulled it over the girl’s head. Then he ducked under her flailing arms and tied the bag’s handles around her neck.
“Come on, don’t just stand there fucking staring, get this thing secured.” Billy pushed the dead girl towards the two men and strode out of the alley towards his van. The occupant tied up in the back still hadn’t answered his questions. Billy turned and watched the minders each grab an arm. He felt that close contact with one of these things would help them both to adapt to the new situation.
Glen had been involved in rather a lot of activities not authorised by Billy. He’d allowed these indiscretions to continue because the dealer was the best he had. It was reasonable to assume that if Billy reined in Glen’s rather vile pleasures then his productivity would be affected. In retrospect, perhaps paying more attention to the dealer’s contemptible traits may have avoided the silly fucker’s needless death.
He grabbed the van’s rear doors. Even so, Glen was still family so consequently, his death needed to be avenged.
The terrified girl’s face altered from blind hope to dread in the space of a second when Billy opened the rear doors. Just who did the silly bitch expect to open the door? Perhaps she heard the rumble of those army vehicles and thought some handsome soldier would stop his truck, rush over to the van, and rescue her.
He climbed in and took a seat opposite the girl. Billy left the doors open, he wished to give this girl just a slight hope that escape may be possible.
“Hello, Maggie.”
It pleased him when her eyes opened just a little wider; she hadn’t expected him to know her name. Her eyes were rather pretty considering the state of the rest of her; they were probably her best feature.
“I imagine that not too long ago, there would have been lots of handsome young men just dying to take you out to the cinema or for a meal.”
