Rupert Thomson - The Five Gates of Hell

Creed was going through Jed’s pockets.

‘Could you undo my hands?’ Nathan spoke in a low voice so the others couldn’t hear.

‘I think you should stay like that,’ Creed said. ‘I like you like that.’

‘This is no joke,’ Nathan said. ‘My hands are numb.’

‘I said I like you like that.’ Creed was staring at Nathan as if he’d never seen Nathan before. This sudden detachment, a withdrawal that was both rapid and absolute, made Nathan feel almost dizzy, silenced him.

He watched Creed find something. Candy wrappers. Creed opened his hand and the wrappers fluttered away, swarmed up into the dark air, like butterflies, like dead skin, like fragments of Jed’s soul, and Creed looked at the sky, then at his hand, it was as if he suddenly regretted having let them go.

The Skull clambered down the ladder in his heavy boots. ‘You found the tape?’

‘Not yet.’

The tape was in Jed’s inside jacket pocket. Creed held it up for the Skull to see, and the Skull nodded and grinned.

‘Half a million dollars.’ Creed snapped the tape and fed it out into the wind. A thin streamer flickering behind the boat. Then he just flipped the whole thing over the side.

‘He had a question,’ Creed said. ‘He wanted to know how I knew.’ That soft laugh again. You might’ve confused it with a breath of wind. ‘He held no secrets from me. I put the food on his tongue. I put the dreams in his head. Everything he did was written in my book.’

It sounded like an epitaph. Nathan had a question too, but he was afraid that Creed’s short speech had answered it.

‘He called himself the Leech,’ Creed was saying. ‘Did you know that?’

Nathan shook his head.

‘He was going to bleed me dry,’ Creed said. ‘Now who’s doing the bleeding?’

The Leech, Nathan thought. He hunched over. Jed was still out cold. Some blood seeped from his forehead, from his hand. Not much blood, though, considering his name. It hardly stained the bottom of the boat. Not much of a leech.

In the end Nathan had to ask. ‘What are you going to do with him?’ And when Creed didn’t answer, he looked up. ‘You’re going to kill him, aren’t you?’

Creed was staring out into the darkness. ‘He already did that himself. All we’re going to do,’ and he smiled, almost wistfully, ‘is bury him.’

‘That’s murder,’ Nathan said.

Creed shook his head. ‘Burial.’

They stared at each other until Nathan had to look away. He couldn’t look into those eyes any more.

The boat lifted, spliced a wave. Spray flew past and nicked his cheek. His upper arms and shoulders ached as if his bones had turned to metal.

He faced into the wind. And there, across the water, less than a hundred yards away, he saw a white light glowing. At first he didn’t recognise it. Then, as they edged closer, he realised with a shiver where they were. They were approaching one of the ocean cemeteries, and that white glow would be a memory buoy. They shouldn’t be here, he was thinking, not after dark. These were the sacred territories, these were the pastures of the dead. He found himself remembering the shark run he had undergone all those years ago, the moment when he grew tired and his legs dropped. That deepness where anything you thought of became real.

They passed within a few feet of the buoy, their engines idling now. An angel knelt beside a cross, the whole tableau lit from the inside. Nathan leaned forwards to read the inscription: ANGEL MEADOWS. And then some quotation from the Bible, but he could only make out one word: SLEEP.

The Skull stood in front of Creed, hands on his hips. ‘I guess this’ll do, won’t it?’

Creed nodded.

Angelo flicked a switch inside the cabin and the lower deck lit up. There were colours where there’d been none before. The green and brown of the Skull’s fatigues. The red of Jed’s blood. The white of Creed’s face, the black of his eyes.

Angelo and the Skull began to load clear plastic bags of white stones into Jed’s pockets.

The Skull noticed Nathan watching. ‘We cleaned out the ovens yesterday,’ he said. ‘These are what you might call,’ and he grinned, ‘the leftovers.’

When they’d used up all the bags they hauled Jed’s body down to the stern.

‘Anyone want to say anything?’ the Skull asked.

Creed turned away. ‘Just drop him.’

There was a moment of stillness, unintentional, then the two men heaved the body over the side. Spray rose into the air and flopped on to the deck. Nathan watched as Jed floated just below the surface in the part of the water that was green, almost transparent, lit by the boat’s bright lamps. He saw Jed’s eyes flicker open, close, flicker open again.

He woke up and he was drowning.

It was as if he’d been born into a world where the only element was water. He struck out with his hands, kicked with his feet, but the water wrapped all his movements up, stole all their strength. He struck out, kicked again. Rose to the surface. Drank the black air down. Drank some water too. He could see lights, hear voices. They were talking about him. They were saying goodbye. Was he leaving?

‘Goodbye, Spaghetti.’

‘Spaghetti.’ A laugh. A laugh he recognised. ‘Place in lightly salted water. Cook for ten minutes.’

‘Lightly salted water?’ Another laugh. A different laugh.

And then another voice: ‘Place in lightly salted water. Cook for ever.’

It was like being food. And the cooks were all laughing, they were jolly men with big faces, they were in a good mood.

Then the waves swirled in his ears, and he was falling back. He reached for the surface again. Drank black air and water mixed. Drank it down like medicine and choked on it. He wanted to call out, but he had no space in his mouth for words. He began to see images. One flowed into the next, as if they were made of water, water of many colours, water that held shapes.

He saw a man rise up out of the ground like something growing. Rise naked from the ground, mud tumbling off his shoulders, off his belly, off his thighs. Stumbling back through the big trees, back into the village. He heard a woman’s lazy voice. ‘They didn’t have no room for him,’ she was saying. ‘It was like, wait for the next bus, you know?’ And her head tipped back, she was laughing. A glimpse of all her cavities. One molar filled with amethyst. He wanted to warn her. They’d lift that in the morgue.

He had other things to say, about the naked man, about the bus. He tried to shout, but his body turned over. He was under the water, his body rolled like gas. His ears were loud, his mouth was stopped with earth. He was heavy, dreamy, deaf.

He made one last effort to rise up, to throw off this cloak of water, cloak of mud. He was standing at the temple gates. He couldn’t see the guard, except as a shape. There were gloves on the guard’s hands. It must be cold in heaven. Then a still, calm voice. A voice you couldn’t disobey. ‘Enter.’

He found words. ‘I’m not ready.’

‘Why would you be here, if you weren’t ready?’

‘Tell me I’m not ready,’ he begged. ‘Send me back.’

‘It’s too late for that.’

‘Please let me go back. I’ll sit outside my hut. I won’t speak to anyone. I’ll be mad. Just send me back.’

‘It’s too late. You’re here. It’s your time.’

Then he was high up, on Blood Rock. The wind draped flags across his back, and Celia lay below him. Warm dust blew into her hair, her armpits, the corners of her eyes. He brushed the dust away. The blood had dried in brown streaks on the inside of her thighs. He moistened the blood with the tip of his tongue. Her hand flexed in his hair. He moved back up her body to her face. She gazed up at him with so much distance in her eyes that he felt like the sky, he felt that far away, he felt she loved him.