Стюарт Макбрайд - All That’s Dead

Tara ruffled the fur between Cthulhu’s ears, setting her purring. ‘You ever think about having a kid of your own?’

‘Are Tweedlehorror and Tweedlemonster not enough?’

‘Wanking into a cup, so your Lesbian Lothario boss could impregnate her wife with a turkey baster doesn’t count.’ Tara lowered her head, looking up at him through her eyelashes. ‘So... what would you think?’

He opened his mouth. Closed it again. Stared at her. ‘You’re not... I mean, we... Are you...?’

She put a hand on her lower stomach and smiled at him — wide eyed, sappy, and serene. ‘The seed of our love has taken root, Logan, and soon it will blossom for all the world to see!’

Oh God.

‘I... We... But...’ Wait a minute. ‘Are you taking the piss?’

She grinned.

‘I nearly had a heart attack then! Are you trying to kill me a third time?’

‘You should’ve seen your face, it was an absolute—’

‘PEW! PEW! PEW!’ Naomi stampeded out of the patio doors again, shooting everyone with her laser gun. ‘PEW! PEW-PEW-PEW!’

Tara grabbed her, sweeping her up, turning her upside down and dangling her head-first over a wooden planter full of herbs. ‘Have you washed your hands yet?’

Naomi shrieked, giggled, and wriggled. ‘You’ll never take me alive, copper!’

‘Go wash your hands or there’s no sausages for you.’

The little monster went limp. ‘It’s a fair cop.’

‘Darn tootin’ it is.’ Tara set her down, the right way up.

Naomi smiled at her, all sweetness and light. Then scampered off. ‘Sayonara, suckers!’

Tara shook her head. ‘Yeah... On second thoughts, let’s not have kids. There’s enough horror in the world already.’

Oh God, oh God, oh God.

Nicholas threw back his head and howled his pain into the gloom.

Fire burned up and down his arms, pulsing in waves that matched the beat of his heart. Up and down and up and down. Searing. Scorching. Urgent.

Tears spilled down his cheeks; his chest ached with sobbing, every breath tasting of bitter sweat and hot metal.

He kicked out against the lid again, slamming his foot into it. The thing barely moved, held fast by the padlocked chain around the outside.

A white plastic box, smeared with blood. His blood. It saturated the bandages that covered his arms from the elbow down, the damp surface busy with the fat greasy bodies of bluebottles.

They glittered in the thin sliver of light that crept through the one-inch gap where the lid had been propped open. One inch: just enough so he wouldn’t suffocate. Because that would be quick, wouldn’t it? Too easy. Much better to make him endure a slow lingering hard death. Trapped in this hideous box. His small plastic coffin — too short to lie down flat in, not deep enough to sit up properly, the sides pressing in against his burning shoulders.

A lifetime spent studying constitutional law and legislation. Lecturing. Educating. Trying to make people understand the truth about how democracy and civilisation really work. And this is how it will end.

In a gloomy plastic box.

Eaten alive by bluebottles and pain.

Nicholas dragged in another foul breath and screamed .

Something horrible and tinny blared out of the clock radio, followed by, ‘Goooooood Morning Aberdeeeeeeen! It’s six o’clock — I know, I know — and you’re listening to OMG it’s Early! , with me, Rachel Gray.’

Urgh...

Logan peeled his eyes open and blinked at the ceiling. The curtains were shut, but bright-white light glowed around the edges, as if the aliens had come to abduct everyone.

‘We’ve got a great show for you this sunny June morning. So wakey, wakey, hands off snakey, it’s time to rock!’

‘Noooo!’ Tara’s hand appeared from beneath the duvet and bashed him on the head. Voice a pained mumble, ‘Make it stop! Make it stop!’

He fumbled with the controls. ‘Gnnn...’

‘Here’s the Foo Fighters with “Learning to Fly”, fight that Foo, guys, we can’t—’

Silence.

Tara grumbled, turned over — taking a good quantity of the duvet with her — and said something very unladylike.

Logan lay there grimacing. Six in the morning. Who got up at six in the morning? Then he sighed, rolled out of bed, and slouched his way through to the shower.

Sod this for a game of soldiers...

Light spilled in through the kitchen windows, making the tabletop glow as Cthulhu sat in the middle of it washing her bum.

Logan stuck the slice of toast in his mouth, holding it there with his teeth as he ripped open a sachet of chicken-and-liver and schloched it into the bumwasher’s favourite bowl. It lay there, in a jellied slab, like some foul internal organ. He put it next to her biscuits and dipped into the fridge for the big Tupperware box of barbecued sausages and the smaller one of leftover fried onions. Chewed on his toast as he carried both out into the hall and dumped them by the front door.

No chance of forgetting them there.

Brushed toast crumbs off his black Police Scotland T-shirt.

Yawned.

Slumped.

Mornings used to be a lot easier.

He fastened his inspector’s epaulettes and stared up the stairs, listening for signs of life.

Nothing. Because they were all still asleep. Because none of them needed to be at work by seven. Jammy buggers.

‘God, I miss being off on the sick...’

He tucked his box o’sausages under one arm, balanced the onions on top and bumbled his way out the front door, into the searing bright morning. The day had barely started and it was already far too hot. Like living in a deep-fat fryer. God knew what it’d be like by lunchtime.

He plipped the locks on his Audi and hurried down the steps.

Froze.

Sod.

Hurried inside again and grabbed his peaked cap off its hook at the bottom of the stairs.

Checked his watch: six thirty-seven.

‘Gah!’

No doubt about it: whoever invented mornings was a sadist.

It wasn’t easy, limping his way up the Bucksburn station stairs, a waxed-paper cup of scalding coffee in one hand, the big box of sausages — topped with the container of onions and his flat cap — in the other. But he hadn’t dropped anything yet .

He was halfway up when Shona burst out of the PSD office, stomping her way down towards him, face flushed and creased, teeth bared. Deep wrinkles slashed their way across her forehead, barely concealed by a sweaty brown fringe. Mid-forties, going on homicidal.

He tried his best cheery voice, ‘Happy birthday, Shona!’

She didn’t stop. ‘Bloody printer hates me!’

‘Oh fine, fine. Thanks for asking. You?’

Shona stomped past him, the muscles bulging in her clenched jaw as she forced the words out, ‘You lot better have chipped together and bought me a sledgehammer! Cos when I get back, that printer’s dead! DEAD!’

He stayed where he was as she growled her way down to the bottom and away through the double doors.

‘Yup. Great to be back.’ Logan limped up to the top and pushed through into the main office.

It wasn’t as busy as yesterday — most of the desks were unpersoned — but Shona’s was really easy to spot. Mylar balloons bobbed in the air above it, streamers hung in rainbow-coloured drapes all over the cubicle walls, a big banner with “HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!” pinned to the wall.

Subtle.

Logan nodded to a couple of officers in the process of logging on to their computers as he made his way across to his desk. Or at least, it used to be his desk. Someone had colonised it with Lord of the Rings stuff — posters and film stills on every available vertical surface, an ‘Eye of Sauron’ mug, and a tableau of action figures Blu-Tacked in place on top of the monitor: Gandalf and Frodo facing off against Saruman, an Orc, and, for some unknowable reason, Postman Pat.