Alan Baxter - The Gulp - Five Tales of Horror

“Fuck you, man! Let me go!”

“Let’s not be unpleasant to each other. You’re with me now.”

“What do you mean I’m with you? I’m not with you! You have to let me go!”

Carter tipped his head to one side. “Do I though?”

“Please!” Rich said, hating the plaintive tone in his voice.

“There’s some better manners already.” Carter took out a cigar, lit it from a brass Zippo, then slipped the lighter away into his shirt pocket as he puffed acrid smoke into the air. “Now then, let me give you your choices. For one, I can dig another hole next to Daniel. He’ll go quiet soon. So that’s one choice. The other is that you work for me. You do as I say, and make yourself useful. Accept the fact you’re in The Gulp now. We could develop a wonderful working relationship together, you and I. There is great potential in you, I see it. You came here for a reason. And I am, as you know, in need of a new employee.”

“I don’t want to!” Rich internally cursed the tears rolling over his cheeks, but he couldn’t stop them. “I want to go home. I’ll never come here again, I won’t tell a soul anything. I’ll quit the job, never drive another truck for the rest of my life! Please, just let me go.”

Carter sighed, shook his head. “I gave you your choices.” He puffed on the cigar, then smiled again. “Your personal life, family situation, it’s suited to The Gulp finding you, no?”

Rich swallowed, mind adrift, desperate for purchase. “What?” he managed.

“You have your choices. I’ll give you some time to think about it.” Carter smiled. “Welcome to The Gulp, Richard Blake.”

Rich flinched as something sharp scratched his neck. He looked to the side to see Chrissy step away, a syringe in one hand. She wiggled the fingers of her other hand in a wave as Rich’s vision closed in from all sides. His tongue felt suddenly swollen, then everything went black.

George’s head poundedfrom lack of sleep. He’d maybe caught an hour or two of fitful dozing here and there, but it amounted to nothing really. He was too damn old to stay up all night any more. He remembered the long benders of his youth, all that drinking, carousing, womanising. He didn’t miss those days, if he was honest. They had been where he’d found his wife. He couldn’t wait to see her again.

The day was bright, harsh against his gritty eyes as he sipped the coffee and ate a croissant from the bakers. The Woollies precinct opened at eight, allowing him a leisurely piss into an actual urinal, rather than the debacle of the night before. His body ached in every place he put his mind to, but the night had passed. That was the main thing. Still no sign of Rich though. Until ten, he’d told the kid. He intended to stick to his promise. He would wait, but he’d leave without Rich if necessary. A big tow truck pulled into the loading bay, gleaming chrome and bright decals. The driver gave George a wave.

It took over an hour, disengaging the trailer, jacking up the cab, changing the wheel, putting it all back together again. But it was finally done by 9.15. George went inside for another coffee and then sat in the cab drinking it. The minutes ticked slowly by.

“Come on, kid,” he muttered aloud.

It was ten minutes past ten when he finally called it time to keep his promise. He rang in the problem, told the office the new driver had gone out on the town and not come back. They told him to try ringing the kid, which he had about nine o’clock, then again at nine-thirty, but it went straight to voicemail.

“He said he had no signal in this arse-end-a-nowhere town,” George told his supervisor.

“Can you wait for him?”

“Already did. I told him last night I’d wait until ten, he said he’d be here by eight. Still no sign, though.”

“Give it a bit longer?”

“And then what?”

There was a pause, muffled conversation, then the supervisor came back on. “Look, we’ll try to raise him too, see if he catches some reception. Can you wait a little longer? If he’s not there by eleven, head out and the fool will have to hitch out to Monkton or Enden or something when he wakes up.”

George looked at his watch. Forty-five minutes more in The Gulp. He sighed. “Okay, I’ll give it until eleven, then I’m out.”

He stayed in the cab until a few minutes past eleven, then started up the truck. Still no sign of Rich. George shook his head, easing the big rig out of the loading bay and turning right to head for the main road back to Enden.

“What the hell did you get up to, kid?” he said as he went around the roundabout by the leisure centre. “Or what the hell got to you, eh?”

He didn’t look in the rear view mirror once until he turned right onto the highway, thankful to be leaving The Gulp for the last time.

“We need toair this place out,” Maddy said, face scrunched in disgust under her strawberry blonde hair.

Zack turned from the bed to look back at her. “You gonna finally come in?”

“Nah.”

“She’s dead now. You can come in.”

“Fucking stinks, Zack.”

Her brother shrugged. “That’s death for you.”

“Just open the window at least.”

Zack sighed and moved around the bed, pulled open the curtains and unlatched the window, swung it wide. As daylight flooded in, the cadaver that was their mother took on super-real details.

“Doesn’t even look like her any more,” Maddy said. She leaned a little into the room, wincing against the stench. It was sickly and thick, sweet and harsh at the same time, laced with shit and antiseptic. She’d only been dead a few hours. It would get worse quickly.

“You’re a year older than me,” Zack said. “You’re supposed to be the responsible one.”

“Am I really?”

“You’re eighteen soon!”

“Another six months. Zack, I’m no more an adult than you are. Don’t try to pull that shit. I’m the one said we should shut the bedroom door and leave her to it. You insisted on caring for her. Just cos she died now, doesn’t make it suddenly my problem.”

“She cared for us–”

Maddy shot one hand up, palm out. “When did she ever fucking care for us? She kept us alive when we were babies, that’s it. I been taking care of myself and you since I was five. You looked after yourself enough too. Daddy helped until he disappeared, and I was only nine then. We been on our own our whole lives, Zack. Fuck her. I’m glad she’s finally dead.”

“You think he really left us?” Zack asked. “You always say disappeared and vanished and shit. Never left.”

“I’m not having this conversation again. Who knows? This town, anything is possible.”

Zack looked down at the skeletal woman in the foul, stained bed. Maddy couldn’t help looking too. Their mother’s skin was patched ochre and pale browns where it had once been creamy, her lips cracked, eyes and cheekbones bulging from a sallow face that was mostly skull. Her mouth hung slightly open, tips of yellowed teeth showing. Zack sniffed, wincing against the smell, then nodded. “Yeah, me too.”

“What?”

“I’m glad she’s dead.”

“Yeah.”

“But we owe her something.”

“Do we?”

Zack looked up, eyes flashing anger. “What do we do with her?”