A Season For Everything - Matthew Fairman (pocket ebook reader .TXT) 📗

on him again. The animals jaws nosing into the soft flesh of his throat, his muzzle burrowing into the gore. Flailing beneath the beast, Beaton slashed and cut indiscriminately with the blade whilst trying to hold the animal back with his free hand. He felt the hot spurt of liquid onto his face and the bloated sag of something soft slide into his lap. His fingers still holding the coarse hair, he felt the animal go limp and the jaws about his throat relax and slacken. He scrambled backwards from underneath the dog pulling himself up the wall. His jeans were soaked through to the skin and the air was rank with the smell of shit and blood. He heard a voice calling in the tunnel, ‘Kaiser, kaiser, come ere boy. Come ere boy.’

He could feel the puncture wounds in his neck swelling, puffing around the edges. He tried to stem the flow of the bleeding with his hand and the cuff of his coat. It felt as if red hot coals were burning inside of his throat. He knew that he was bleeding pretty badly, he could feel the warm steady stream escaping between his fingers and soaking into his vest beneath his sweater. He pressed his head towards his chest to try and close the wound. The carpet knife felt sticky with blood in the grip of his hand. Beaton stumbled over the body and moved deeper into the cave concealing him behind a boulder not far from the niche.

It was the smell that hit Michael first. He hadn’t even had a chance to cast the torch around the cave before the rank stench pushed him back and made him gag. It was a scene of utter savagery, Kaiser on his side with his intestines lying in a steaming pile about his hind legs. The bowel had been ruptured, spilling the dogs half digested food onto the ground . The dog carved up on the stone slab like a sacrificial alter. Michael vomited into his mouth and spat onto the floor, he covered his face with his arm. Kaiser was lying on an old fur coat. A dark pool of fresh blood dripped down the rock clotting into a deep red stalactite form the lip of the rock. A slight trace of steam clung to the surface of the cold red rock and was dispersed into the ether. The shining black pearl of the unblinking eye staring, dead cold, empty. ‘Who the fuck’s there? Come out, come out here you piece of shit!!!’ The tunnel was strewn with pieces of clothing and a few items of luggage. It looked as if someone had been living down here, living amongst the cold and the rocks. There was a camping stove, surrounded by some discarded blue gas canisters and old food tins, balls of tissue smeared with dried faeces. Michael edged towards Kaisers body and placed his had upon his neck, he was still warm to the touch, the last traces of life fading beneath his hand. He rested the barrel on the edge of the stone slab and crouching down he tried to cover Kaisers ruptured belly beneath an old fur coat. The sight of the dogs was more than he could bear.

 

The blade entered Michael’s leg behind his right knee, slicing his calf in a neat line towards the achilles heel. A thin jet of blood burst forth from the deep gash, dropping Michaels body to the floor like a sack full of spanners. He clutched at the gaping wound with his left hand. He tried to rise up using his shotgun as a crutch. Beaton moved quickly, he thrust the blade into the mans back just below the shoulder blade and pulled the knife following the line of the ribs, inwards towards the spine. It all happened in a matter of seconds, Beaton lunging, low from behind the rock cutting into the leg. Then seeing the shotgun he had panicked. Slicing the man across his back as he fled. Michael felt as if a red hot whip had gashed him across the back. He was lucky, it was only a surface wound. The thick wax coat had stopped the blade from sinking as deep as it could truly go. The blood, greasy and slick on Beaton’s hands, he dropped the knife as he ran. Beaton dashed through the tunnels, tripping several times and landing on his belly in the darkness. Any semblance of a plan was gone, it was merely a case of self preservation. ‘Must get away, just get away, far away from here.’ He saw the dim light of the chamber as he rounded a corner. There was an umbrella standing open upside down, balanced on the old stump of the tree. ‘It must belong to that man.’ Beaton thought to himself. He crouched before it and began to gather in the length of garden twine that led to his hiding place. ‘I should never have left this here, what an idiot, you fool, you stupid fool. ’ He could feel the snag and the tug of the rusted chisel as it dragged like an anchor through the labyrinth of tunnels. That was where Hollis found Beaton when she descended into the low grey chamber. She saw the black silhouette of an umbrella, resting upside down at an angle on top of the gnarled dead stump of a tree. She hadn’t seen Beaton yet who was kneeling down behind the tree but she could hear the click and clack of the chisel as it bounced over the surface of the tunnel making its way towards her in the dark. She took out the wheel brace and stepped lightly towards the umbrella. Something small slid across the dirt floor from one of the tunnels towards her like a snake, it was long and flat. It moved quickly. Beaton, who had all this while been equally oblivious to Hollis’s presence stood up and hearing a gasp behind him turned to see a woman standing before him. A few feet apart separated only by the upturned umbrella resting on the tree stump.

 

‘Beaton, Beaton Ernest?’

It had been the first tim anyone had addressed him in days, the words rolled around in his head. He looked to her hand she was holding some kind of tool, like a crowbar. His throat stung, it was burning, he pressed his clenched fist hard against the wound.

‘It’s Beaton isn’t it. I’m here to help you Mr Earnest. We’ve all been worried about your whereabouts. Why don’t you come outside and talk to me. I’m here to help you. You look hurt real bad.’

Hollis followed Beaton’s gaze and looked down at the wheel brace in her hand. And raised both of her arms, taking a short step backwards towards the entrance of the cave. It pained him to talk. Each rise and fall of his adams apple shot needles of pain across his chest and into his jaw.

 

‘I have to, don’t you see. I have no choice anymore. It’s just the way that it is. Don’t you see?’

He began to edge around the old stump, inching his way clear of the obstacle.

‘No, that’s not true, you always have a choice. There’s always a choice, in everything.’ Hollis had moved back to the foot of the incline at the mouth of the cave. Beaton was clear of the stump. There was no more than three metres between them. She stared into the young mans eyes. A stare, more distant and remote than the fox she had met in the alleyway. She could see that he had made his choices. Maybe he was right. Maybe he didn’t have a choice in the matter anymore.

It would be difficult to say in the brief moment between standing and running who, had made the first move. By the time Hollis had made it to the top of the slope Beaton was on her tugging at her feet as she struggled to get free. She turned to face him as Beaton buried the blunt rusted handle spike into Hollis’s thigh, deep down in to the muscle till he reached the bone. She wailed in pain and set about beating Beaton about the head with the wheel brace. Short sharp blows about his head and shoulders that forced Beaton to ball into submission with his arms above him. Cowering on the floor to escape the barrage of blows. When he looked up she was gone, he followed after her climbing out of the mirk into the rich swathes of white snow. The cold gripped him around the throat and numbed the pain. He watched her disappear across the white boulder field and out onto the trackway, limping like a lame dog.

Hollis grabbed a handful of snow and crushed it against her thigh. The blood soaking into the compacted ice. She dragged the leg like a burden, through the woods and down the hill towards the car. ‘Just get to the car, just get to the car and drive. Oh why did you come here.’ She was panting hard the clumps of snow filling her eyes and mouth. She struggled forwards, Beaton close behind her, stumbling down the hill like a ragged corpse. The car was open, she climbed inside the passenger seat and one by one, locked each of the doors from the inside. She turned the key in the ignition and the engine rumbled into life, great clouds of hot exhaust drifted past the headlights in the freezing air. She made a U turn, bringing the car around to face the road down into the village and then stopped. Instead of trying to get in the car Beaton loped on passed, he lumbered on and up over a style into the adjoining field. ‘He’s the one running away, not me.’ She looked up the hill towards the Quarry. She saw why Beaton was running. It was Michael, limping down the hill leaning on the shot gun.

His boot had filled with warm sticky blood, his sock was wet and spongy. He had used his scarf as bandage to staunch the bleeding as best as he could. He could no longer stand up straight for the wound across his back. He felt light headed, drowsy, as if he might suddenly slip into sleep. If it were not for the bitter wind that whipped the snow into icy needles against his face, he might have succumbed to the feeling. The cold was helpful in making him forget the pain that wracked his body. He kept sight of the figure in the road ahead. The man became framed in the yellow beam of a cars headlights near his pub and disappeared again form view. Michael stumbled against the bonnet of the car and looked in the windscreen at the person within. It was a young woman, she looked frightened, he vaguely recognised her from somewhere but his mind was confused. He picked up the shotgun with one hand and levelled it with her head. The halo of light blinded her eyes and she covered her face with her arms and slid down in her chair. Then the bright light was suddenly gone and when Hollis lowered her arm, so too had Michael. A single bloody handprint branded onto the bonnet of her car. She jumped from her car and laboured over the style that led into the adjoining field. Through the grey haze she could see the torchlight limping along, moving in the wake of a grey figure in the distance.

 

Beaton was scanning the edge of the field for a break in the hedgerow. All he could see was the speckled grey line of the trees and the bushes sandwiched between the white of the ground and the sky. He ploughed through the drifts of deep snow, carving a deep furrow into the pristine landscape. It was difficult to see through the swirling squall that whipped about his head. It piled up on his