Die Tryin' (21 page)

‘Nice work,’ Nick XR2 said. He dusted off his hands, shut the boot, then took a final look round. ‘Right. Let’s go.’ He gestured for Nick Black to take up the reins as he spoke.

Nick Black stared back at him incredulously. ‘I’m not pushing him!’ he said, adamant.

‘Pussy!’ Nick XR2 stated.

‘Damn right. He’s your mate,
you
push him!’

Nick XR2 gave him daggers. ‘Fine.’ He went up to the wheelbarrow, glanced down at Taki’s moon face, and hesitated.

‘What’s wrong?’ Nick Black asked him, a wry smile on his face.

‘Nothing,’ Nick XR2 replied stoutly. He cleared his throat, and then picked up the handles.
‘Jesus, he’s heavy…’
he stated, and Nick Black thought he was hinting that he couldn’t push him alone.

Nick Black didn’t want to go there. ‘Put your back into it, Nick,’ he advised instead in a dry tone.

Nick XR2 pulled up harder, this time getting the wheelbarrow off the ground. He started wheeling. Charlie took up the lead, torch in hand. They passed through the gate one by one, Nick Black taking a last anxious look around him before he entered and pushed the gate shut.

Then they were in the darkness, the moonlight creating silhouettes of the rounded gravestones that now resembled black fingernails protruding from the earth, both the regular squeak of the wheelbarrow’s wheel and their feet thudding on the tarmac amplified in the dead of night. Nick Black felt the skin on the back of his neck crawl. He wanted his bed. And a spliff. A spliff, then his bed, in that order. That would be—

—Something rushed through the undergrowth to his right, almost making him jump out of his skin.

‘What the fuck was that?’
he exclaimed.

‘What was what?’ Nick XR2 asked, stopping still, and scanning the darkness around him, trying his best to keep Taki steady.

‘Something moved in there!’ Nick Black informed him. ‘I saw it. Big fucker it was, I swear!’

‘Probably a fox or something,’ Charlie said, training the torch beam in the area Nick Black was pointing at.

‘A
fox
?’ Nick Black echoed. ‘What the fuck is a fox doing in there?’

‘There’s loads of ’em about,
re,’
Charlie told him.

‘Loads? What do you mean
loads
?’

‘I mean
lots
of ’em. Everywhere.’

‘Hey. There better not be anything else in here.’

‘Like what?’ Nick XR2 asked.

‘Dunno… Hobos.’

‘What’s a hobo gonna be doing in here,
re
?’

Nick Black rolled his eyes. ‘Practicing his breakdancing!’ he answered sarcastically. ‘What do you think? Sleeping, you prat.’

‘There ain’t no hobos here,’ Nick XR2 reassured him. ‘Maybe the odd Satanist, but no hobos.’

Nick Black let out a sardonic laugh.
‘Ha ha.
You’re too funny. You know, you should be a comedian, not a part time burial…
person!’

‘That would be a pallbearer.’

‘Pallbearer, smallwearer. You always have to be right don’t you?’

Nick XR2 considered the question for a second. ‘Yep!’ he then said with a smile.

‘And how is that for you?’

‘Pretty fucking good.’

‘I’m so pleased for you. You know I wish I was—’

‘Can you two please save your lover’s tiff for when we’re done here!’ Charlie interjected. ‘We gotta keep going, there’s no time for this shit.’

‘He’s right,’ Nick XR2 said. ‘Let’s kiss and make up. And just ignore the foxes, they’re harmless.’ He got moving again, wheeling Taki along the path.

‘About as harmless as a suicide bomber,’
Nick Black mumbled to himself, and took up the rear.

They
might be okay with being surrounded by foxes and other wild animals, but he wasn’t.
What if they were hungry? What if they liked the taste of people?
He followed Charlie’s lead, looking around him, nervous, every rustle of leaves, every crunch of dirt under their feet, every squeak of that wheelbarrow making his stomach twitch.

For the next minute or so, none of them spoke.

Then Nick XR2 glanced down at Taki and chuckled to himself.
‘Penny for the Guy!’
he said out loud in a Mary Poppins, chimney sweep voice.

‘There you go again with that killer wit, Niko,’ Nick black mused. ‘Didn’t know you had it in you.’

‘Well, you know, gotta keep the spirits up,’ Nick XR2 replied.

‘Not the best of places to say something like that. Especially while wheel barrowing your mate to his final resting place.’

‘To be honest, he weren’t
exactly
my mate. Too much of a mummy’s boy for my liking.’

‘And that’s another thing we’ll have to take care of…’ Charlie added.

Nick Black agreed. ‘Yeah, she’s gonna go fucking bananas once she realises he’s missing.’

‘We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,’ Nick XR2 said, cutting his hand across the air, almost steering Taki off the path as he let go of the wheelbarrow. He grabbed hold of the free handle again, regained his line, and carried on. ‘It’s no time to worry about stuff like that now.’

‘That’s right,’ affirmed Charlie. ‘Taki himself is the main priority here. He needs to be buried.’

Nick Black shivered at his words.

He took another tense look around him, even though he knew it was a bad idea. Trees swayed loosely high above what appeared to be a section of very old graves, complete with aged gravestones staring at them from the darkness. When he looked ahead of him, he could see the torch beam in Charlie’s hand bobbing around, illuminating statues of angels that now looked like demons, crosses that suddenly looked like giant daggers drilled into the ground, while high above them the full moon bathed the area in an eerie sea of cold blue light, revealing the epitaphs carved into the gravestones, recounting how each dead soul buried beneath met their demise.
Died 1915, from shellshock; A brave soldier who fell serving King and country; Fatally injured during service, aged 17; Fell heroically, 1914, by exploding bomb.

He tore his stare away from the graves, not wanting to be perturbed by his surroundings. Instead he tried to think of the spliff and his bed that was waiting at the end of this crap.

If the foxes and the hobos and the Satanists don’t get you first…

He brushed the thought off as paranoid nonsense and tried his best to think of something else. Tony popped into his mind instead, getting abused by those two coppers. ‘I’m surprised at Tony, he’s scared shitless of police,’ he said aloud.

‘He took a hit for us,’ Nick XR2 retorted. ‘We have to remember that.’

‘If he’s trying to make up for us losing our lives, then he’s got a lot more work to do,’ Charlie said over his shoulder.

‘No one’s gonna lose their life, Charlie,’ Nick XR2 asserted.

‘Try telling that to Taki. He’s just the start.’

Both Nicks glanced down to see Taki’s round face lit up in the moonlight, two black holes for eyes staring eternally. Nick Black noticed his arm was bent at the elbow and his index finger was outstretched, making it appear like he was pointing. When Nick followed that finger, he found himself staring at Charlie’s back, who had stopped dead in his tracks.

‘We’re here,’ Charlie said over his shoulder. He was pointing the torch up and ahead of him. The beam cast a spotlight on the area ahead, revealing the mausoleum standing in the distance like the ghost house at a fairground.

Nick Black’s skin started crawling again, and he shivered, feeling his balls tighten and curl up into his body. ‘Why do I feel like I’m in an episode of Scooby Doo?’ he asked in a quiet voice.

‘Go and open it,’ Charlie said.

The two Nicks looked at each other.

‘Go on,’ Nick XR2 said, taking the key from his pocket and handing it to Nick Black.

‘What?’ Nick Black said. ‘No, you go.’

‘I’ve got Taki.’

‘Yeah, so?’

‘So, how can I open the door
and
push Taki?’ Nick Black was about to answer, when Charlie stopped him.

‘I’ll
go,’ he said.

‘Yeah, you go, Charlie,’ Nick Black agreed, not about to start arguing with him.

Charlie came over and took the key from Nick XR2, then marched over to the mausoleum, taking their main source of light with them. Once the two Nicks realised they had been dumped in darkness, they quickly followed him.

Charlie stuck the key in the lock and turned it, and for a split second, Nick Black expected a zombified Marco to come rushing out, baring long claws and teeth, and sinking them into Charlie before racing over to feast on him and Nick Theo in an orgy of human flesh gorging—

—But, it never happened.

Instead, the door just opened and swung harmlessly away—which, in a perverse way, was a bit of an anticlimax in Nick Black’s mind.

Charlie poked his head inside and looked round. ‘We’ll get the lid off first, then take Taki inside,’ he suggested, turning round to face them.

The two Nicks agreed. They followed Charlie into the mausoleum.

Nick XR2 made his way to the head of the tomb, Nick Black and Charlie to the left and right.

‘Just as we left it,’ Nick XR2 said with a rueful smile.

Nick Black slowly shook his head. ‘I really don’t wanna open it,’ he declared.

‘Neither do I, Nick, believe me,’ Nick XR2 replied with sympathetic eyes. ‘Neither does Charlie. But, it’s gotta be done. We’ve come this far.’

‘Can’t we just dump him in here and shut the door? No one will find him.’

Nick XR2 scratched the back of his head and shook it at the same time. ‘Can’t risk it. What if someone
does
come in?’

‘And there’s the smell to take into account,’ Charlie added. ‘No one will smell him in there.’

Nick Black sighed. ‘Yeah, you’re right.’

‘We owe it to Tony anyway,’ Charlie stated.

‘That’s right,’ Nick XR2 said, echoing the sentiment.

And Nick Black agreed.
They did owe Tony.

He took a deep breath and puffed his cheeks. ‘All right. Let’s not hang around any longer.’ He reached out and grabbed the lip of the lid, which was ice cold to the touch. The dragon sliding majestically across the lid was staring at him with pure rage in its eyes, and Nick Black swore it was now baring teeth when before it wasn’t. Just to make sure he wasn’t hallucinating, he closed his eyes and shook his head as if he had just been blinded by a camera flash, and when he opened them again, he saw the dragon
still
snarling at him. Angry. Mean.

‘Right. You all ready?’ Nick XR2 asked, holding two corners, one in each hand. Nick Black nodded. Charlie nodded too, but it might have been a twitch, whichever it was, it was good enough for Nick XR2. ‘Okay.
Lift!’

Nick Black applied pressure and his eyes widened. The lid went up an inch and seemed to stay there. The lack of Tony was very apparent; that prick could probably lift the thing on his own.

‘Come on, lift!’ Nick XR2 repeated.

Nick Black ground his teeth and put more into it, feeling the veins on his neck bulging. The lid went up more, now about halfway.

‘Come on Charlie!’
Nick XR2 shouted.

‘I’m fucking trying!’
Charlie shouted back, before he grunted, bent his knees, and pushed upwards. Slowly, slowly, the lid was rising. Nick Black closed his eyes and pushed with all his might.

There was a sudden release of fetid gas, and Nick Black wanted to retch again, but managed to hold on, his mind and system having become somewhat accustomed to the rotten smell of death. And at that moment, he understood what it must feel like for the poor bastards who go down and clean out the sewers—day one you puked your fucking guts up; day two you dry retched; day three you felt mildly nauseous, and by day four you had a stomach and sinus of fucking iron, able to sniff the pits of Hell and come out unaffected. Charlie started coughing loudly, and Nick Black knew in an instant that Charlie was stuck on day one, and had no doubt in his mind that he was about to drop the lid, sending them back to square one.

‘Hold on, Charlie!’
Nick XR2 managed to squeeze out of his throat. ‘Just hold your breath,’ he advised with an air of experience about him. ‘It’s the smell from inside! Means we got the lid off! Just ignore it and think of something else!’

Charlie coughed again, but it was a suppressed cough, followed up by an agonised groan.

‘You okay, Charlie?’ Nick XR2 asked.

Charlie became still, then began nodding feverishly. ‘Yeah. Okay…’

Nick Black now regained his grip, the muscles in his arms tightening again.

‘Put it over there,’ Nick XR2 said, pointing over to his side with his head. They shuffled over in pigeon steps, their trainers scraping across the floor. ‘Okay. Lower it.’

And they did, dropping it to the ground with a dull crunch.

Nick Black puffed his cheeks and rubbed his throbbing wrists. ‘Didn’t think we could do it without Tony,’ he said.
‘Amazing what desperate humans can do…’
he added, putting his hands on his hips, and arching his aching back.

Nick XR2 marched over to where Charlie stood, picking up the torch on the way. ‘Come here!’ he said to him, beckoning him with his free hand. He went to the side of the tomb and shone his torch inside. Charlie moved up next to him.

‘See?’ Nick XR2 asked sternly. Nick Black went and looked too. Nick XR2’s torch lit up Marco’s dead and bloodied face. ‘Marco’s dead, Charlie. So, no more shit about
him
killing Taki.’

‘It’s not like that,
re,’
Charlie replied with slight irritation. ‘The dead are vengeful. They can do things.’

‘How can they kill people?’ Nick Black asked. ‘How does a ghost kill someone?’

‘I don’t know. Okay? But, they can, and they do.’ He looked outside at Taki sitting in the wheelbarrow and pointed at him. ‘What more evidence do you need?’

Silence ensued for the next few seconds because no one could answer, not straight away anyway.

Charlie shook his head. ‘Look. Let’s do what we’ve gotta do.’

The two Nick’s agreed. Questions on what went on tonight were for tomorrow.

They dragged Taki from the wheelbarrow, and edged him to the tomb. On three, they hoisted him up as best they could and dumped him in from the side, rolling him up and over. He fell neatly on top of Marco, his head face down between Marco’s feet, whose head was wedged in between Elisabeta’s feet, making them look like a human sandwich. The way their dead bodies were piled atop one another reminded Nick Black of a typical war film scene after a missile or bomb had struck.