John Halkin - Squelch

‘Get that bloody thing out of her mouth!’ Harry Smith was roaring. He elbowed his way past, sending Charlie reeling against the overturned table. ‘Here, let me, for Chrissake!’

Charlie didn’t argue. Already dead, wasn’t she? Her body lay twisted unnaturally on the grass with fat green caterpillars — six at least — gorging themselves on her. Jesus, he thought he’d seen a few things in the army, but nothing like this. Turning away, he spewed his guts out over the bench where she’d been happily sitting only a couple of minutes ago.

‘All right, Lizzie,’ he could hear Harry Smith’s voice behind him. ‘It’s all right, love. I’ll get it. Easy does it now. You’re going to be all right.’

Was she hell, Charlie thought.

He looked back to find Harry Smith on his knees beside her, slowly drawing the caterpillar out of her mouth. There must have been a couple of inches down her throat at least, judging from the length of it. The cavalry twill slicker stood just behind him, watching with interest, obviously unmoved, though Harry Smith himself sounded unusually tender when he spoke. Not that Liz Kinley would ever hear him again.

‘Harry, she’s dead,’ Charlie tried to tell him as gently as he could.

‘Who says so?’ Harry Smith’s face, flushing even redder than normal, peered up at him angrily. ‘You go an’ ring the fuckin’ ambulance instead o’ standin’ there like a prick. I’ll give her mouth-to-mouth. Let’s hope to God it works.’

‘Be careful they don’t get you while you’re at it!’

In her agonising death throes, Liz had ended up directly beneath the old apple tree. As Harry Smith bent forward to try to revive her, something fell from one of the overhanging branches. It might have been a leaf, but then Charlie knew that leaves never plummet straight down; nor, landing on the back of that red bull-neck, would a leaf have immediately uncurled and started crawling.

Charlie dashed forward to help him. ‘Come on, get it away from his neck!’ he yelled at the slicker who stood there looking on, uselessly.

The caterpillar began to chew into the soft patch beneath Harry Smith’s ear. He fell forward, bellowing in anguish. At the same time, more dropped out of the tree. Two of them joined the first, concentratedly penetrating his neck at the base of the skull.

For protection, Charlie wrapped his handkerchief round his fingers. Then he grabbed one of them, tugging it away from its feeding ground, intending to throw it aside; but it wound itself rapidly around his fingers and its head reared up like a snake’s.

He didn’t pause to discover what it might do next, but squeezed hard, digging his short fingernails into it through the handkerchief until its fat body burst under the pressure. A tacky green slime spread over his hand.

‘Urgh… A ca-ca-ca-…’

The cavalry twill slicker — a fertiliser salesman, wasn’t he? — reeled across the garden towards him, holding out his arm, terrified. At first Charlie thought the caterpillar on his wrist must be only a small one; then he realised the greater part of it had already moved into the sleeve of the man’s hacking jacket.

‘Ca-ca-caterpillar!’ he was burbling hysterically.

‘Oh, for Chrissake!’ Charlie snapped at him.

But it was no use; he had to help him. Charlie hesitated for only a second, uncertain what to do, before grasping the man’s forearm with both hands and squeezing hard. Despite the thick tweed of the jacket he could feel the caterpillar squirming as he tightened his grip. He’d always had strong hands — in the army he’d been heavyweight champion for a year — but it took all his strength to squash the thing to death. He sensed the squelch as its resistance finally gave way.

‘Take your jacket off and wash your arm,’ he ordered wearily, giving the man a shove to get him moving. ‘Not inside, you fool. Use that tap over there by the shed.’

Harry Smith was dead, that was obvious. He lay sprawled across Liz Kinley’s body, his leg over hers, as though they had died together while making love on the grass. Which, in a strange, distorted way, they probably had. God alone knew how many caterpillars were still feeding on them. Charlie looked away, too sick to count them.

From beyond the trees came the steady, wasp-like drone of a light aircraft. Crop-spraying. That told him what he had to do, distasteful though it was.

But his wife Mary had the idea before him. She came hurrying out through the back door with those short steps of hers. In her hand she held the old-fashioned pesticide spray she always used.

‘I’ve phoned the constable, and there’s an ambulance on the way,’ she informed him briskly. She pushed the spray gun at him. ‘Here, you deal with that while I look after the customer. Must say you were a bit rough on him. He’s bleeding.’

‘Didn’t know you were back, love,’ he said automatically.

He felt so drained out by the shock of what had happened, he was more inclined to walk away from it all than do anything more. Over by the garden tap he could see the fertiliser salesman had collapsed; a patch of blood spread from his arm over the new cavalry twill. Jesus, the place looked worse than a battlefield.

Taking the spray, he went back to the obscene lovers beneath the apple tree. At least it was all over for them, he thought; nothing more could harm them now. He began pumping the chemical spray over their remains, determined to kill every single one of those caterpillars.

Ginny was washing up after the children’s tea when Bernie came in with the news about Mrs Kinley’s death. She stood stock-still, the plate in her hand dripping with the foam-bubbles of the washing up liquid.

‘When?’ she asked him, stunned.

‘Lunchtime today.’ He recounted the details in a dry clinical manner which was untypical of him, as though afraid of betraying his true feelings. ‘It’s getting bad, Ginny. Worse than we feared, even.’

Ginny rinsed the plate and put it in the rack to dry. Then she let out the water and began to clean the sink vigorously. If only she’d kept her promise to visit Mrs Kinley again… taken her that half-bottle of gin she’d asked for… anything to cheer her up… A couple of minutes’ conversation at the bedside: it wouldn’t have needed more than that. A quarrel, even. It would at least have been a moment’s human contact. But no, she’d been too busy, too self-centred, and she blamed herself bitterly for it.

‘I never did go back to see her,’ she confessed miserably as she peeled off Lesley’s pink rubber gloves and draped them over the side of the sink. ‘Oh, Bernie, I wish I had.’

‘I think you need a drink,’ he told her gently, ‘And so do I. Come on, there’s still another fifteen minutes before surgery.’

The night before, they had neither of them had much sleep. Ginny had sat up in the lounge in front of the flickering television screen until the last of the late-night movies had ended, reluctant to go to bed in case Bernie rang. Twice she had phoned the hospital herself — the first time to pass on a message from a querulous patient, the second because she just couldn’t bear waiting any longer — but she’d been unable to speak to Bernie. The girl at the switchboard had taken messages, then transferred her to the night sister’s office. No news. Only a kindly reassurance that Lesley was still alive, condition unchanged.

Eventually she’d fetched herself a light blanket and curled up on the sofa to try and get some sleep. The phone was on the small table beside her; she’d only to stretch out her hand to pick it up. But sleep proved impossible. Her mind was too restless, full of thoughts of what might happen if Lesley died. Mother would have to be told, which meant telephoning Australia, only she might not be at home, she seldom was, always travelling.