Green Grow the Rashes and Other Stories (4 page)

"What the hell’s the matter with you
lad?" Tom’s gruff voice said.

It was hard to do, but Robin managed
to open his eyes. Tom stood in front of him, angry, but also
concerned.

"There’s something in there -
something foul," Robin said, trying to get past the older man. He
was held strong by an iron grip.

"Scared of the dark are you son?"
That’s not going to get you very far in this job. Come on… show me
what the problem is."

Robin struggled but Tom got him turned
round and frog marched him backwards, back towards the
shadows.

"We can’t have all this carry-on you
know," Tom said. "The boss would go crazy if…"

His voice trailed away as the
blackness in the corner shifted and the smell got exponentially
worse. Something lumbered out of the shadows towards
them.

It had once been a man. That much was
obvious, from the distended torso to the great, pumpkin-like bulk
of the head. Yellow fibrous skin covered the body, folds and
swathes of it, blackened, rotten and somehow slimy. As the thing
moved large patches sloughed off, casting streams of fermenting
fluid to the floor.

The smell was so bad that Robin’s eyes
watered, thankfully obscuring his vision. It wasn’t enough to cut
off the noise though - the moist slithering as the creature came
closer.

Robin’s legs felt rooted to the spot.
His brain sent signals to all parts, but none of them responded. He
only stood there, tears mingling with the painful streaming in his
eyes as he waited for the creature to reach them.

Tom had other ideas. An ear-splitting
whistle almost punctured Robin’s ear-drums and the old man grabbed
him by the shoulders, hard.

"Just walk backwards - slowly," Tom
whispered, never taking his eyes from the creature in front of
them.

At first Robin couldn’t move, then he
heard the sound that got him going… the rattling of chains as the
winch was started up out on the dock side. He made sure that he
kept a firm grip on Tom as they slowly shuffled backwards, back
towards the sunlight.

Robin’s eyes cleared, but he soon
wished they hadn’t.

The creature followed them, dragging
itself out of the corner, revealing more of its vast
bulk.

As it moved it pulsed in great
rhythmic waves and with each wave it grew, threatening to fill the
whole hold.

Robin screamed as the skin split with
a moist slither. A red maw opened, lips black and festering. Inside
the maw any skeleton that had once been there was broken and
fractured, the bones pointing inwards like twin rows of
fangs.

Robin and Tom inched back into the
sole splash of sunlight. Robin risked a look upwards and cried with
relief. The crane’s chain hung only two feet above him.

But the creature had seen it too. A
wave ran over its body and the maw screamed, sending shudders
throughout the boat.

Above them the crew started chanting,
but Robin didn’t have time to appreciate it.

"Jump," Tom shouted, and, with almost
the same breath let out another whistle. They leapt simultaneously,
both grabbing for the chain. Robin had a bad moment when his grip
slipped but then Tom caught him one-handed and dragged him upwards
just as the chain started to rise.

Tom let out a whoop of triumph, but he
was premature. Deep in the hold beneath them something shifted and
flowed. Robin felt a tugging at his feet. He looked down and the
shock almost made him lose his grip.

The thing following them out of the
hole, stretching and thickening as the maw reached for them. Robin
kicked out, hard, and had the satisfaction of seeing one of the rib
bones break and fall backwards into the churning mass of the
creature’s innards.

Small lesions burst on the things
skin, black pustules like volcanoes sending a fine spray of yellow
flesh into the air around them.

The chanting got louder as Tom and
Robin were raised higher. The fleshy growth made one last lunge at
them, and Robin had to raise his legs sharply. Even then he was
almost pulled down as a shard of bone snagged on his denims and
pulled.

The strain increased. Something ripped
and tore. The creature finally fell away from beneath then with a
squeal of loss.

Robin had to concentrate on his grip
as they were swung away from the boat and towards the astonished
gaze of the crane driver.

The driver lowered them quickly to the
quayside. Robin turned to look back at the boat, but little of the
vessel was visible. The slimy growth surged out from the hold and
engulfed the superstructure. Some members of the crew struggled,
knee, then hip, deep in the fibrous matter. The maw stretched
further. It swallowed the crew even as they screamed.

"Stand aside lad," Tom
said.

Robin had to move quickly as Tom
rolled an oil drum across the dock towards the stricken
ship.

"Get another of these open son," Tom
shouted as he passed. "We’re going to need a fire… a big
fire."

By the time Robin got an oil drum open
Tom was back at his side. Over Tom’s right shoulder Robin saw that
the beast had already started to flop over the side of the Dress
and dripped globules of steaming flesh on the quay.

Together Robin and Tom kicked over the
oil drum and pushed it away so that it rolled towards the Dress
leaving a trail of fuel behind it.

"Your lighter son… where is it?" Tom
said. "Time to put it to good use."

Robin knelt.

Just as he lit the trail of oil, the
maw stretched out from the boat and took the first oil drum deep
into its body.

"Burn!" Robin shouted as a line of
fire ran across the dock.

The flames reached the leaking oil
drum.

The Dress, and everything on it, went
up in one roaring, deafening blast that rocked the dock and sent
Robin and Tom flying.

When they picked themselves up the
boat already listed badly. It sank in a flush of steam, leaving
behind swathes of smoking flesh that quickly blackened and
burst.

"What was that?" Robin asked,
struggling to keep the tremor from his voice, never taking his gaze
away from the steaming ruin of the boat. "What the hell was
that?"

The older man didn’t speak, merely
shaded his eyes and stared at the ruined vessel.

He took Robin by the arm and led him
away.

"I don’t know what it was son," Tom
said. "But I’ll tell you one thing… you’ll see worse."

Jim McLeod waved to the departing
dinghy but old Joe didn’t wave back and in less than a minute the
Zodiac was lost from sight round the headland.

"You’ll be OK on your own," Joe had
said as he left. It hadn’t been a question. Jim stood on the jetty,
conflicting thoughts running through his mind. Of course he was
proud that Joe thought him capable enough of running the light on
his own. But that had to be balanced against the fact that he faced
the prospect of two nights on his own on this lump of rock with
only the North Atlantic weather for company.

Still, it couldn’t be
helped.

The call had come through just an hour
ago. Joe’s wife had been taken to hospital. The old man had taken a
bit of coaxing but eventually Jim had got him into the
dinghy.

"It’s probably nothing," the old man
said.

"That’s true," Jim replied. "But you’d
never forgive yourself if it’s more than that. Away wi’ you. I’ll
be fine here."

Joe took his time preparing, and Jim
caught him looking at the radio, expecting a call that would tell
him the three-hour trip across the Minch wouldn’t be required. But
no call had come, and finally the old man had bowed to the
inevitable and headed off at speed.

He’d only been gone two minutes, and
already Jim found the quiet pressing in on him, an almost physical
presence. To make matters worse, a front hung offshore and was
rolling in fast. By the time Jim walked up the jetty and into the
old lighthouse rain had started to patter on the cobbles and
darkness was gathering.

He went inside and shut the weather
out. The first order of business was to get the light started. He
almost ran up the stairs to the light room.

Beyond the glass everything
was awash, the rain running in a flat sheet down the window like a
huge water feature. Jim switched on the light and the horn. Up here
the noise was almost deafening. He had turned away at the
second
woot
to go
back downstairs, when an answering noise came from out to the west.
He wasn’t really sure he’d heard it at all… it had sounded like
chanting.

He strained to see through the glass,
but there was only watery grayness beyond. He put his nose up
against the window. As if from the far distance he heard it again,
the sound of a choir joined in singing.

Rorate caeli desuper, et
nubes pluant iustum.

Jim backed away fast. His heartbeat
thudded in his ears. When the horn went off he almost jumped in the
air. He was halfway down the stairs almost before he realized it.
He stopped, putting out a hand on the wall to steady
himself.

He managed a bitter laugh.

Old Joe is barely gone ten
minutes and I’m jumping at shadows already. Pull yourself together
man.

Going back down to the
living quarters grounded him back in a place he could relax. The
noise of the horn was slightly dampened here, and if he
thought
he heard the
chanting again, it was soon drowned out when he switched on the
radio. Jim made himself a coffee and sat down with his book. The
intricacies of the thriller soon drew him in and he was surprised
to look up and notice that the light was going.

Now that his attention was pulled out
of the book he noticed other things. The wind was up outside,
whistling like a tone-deaf pensioner around the old window frames.
The rain threw drum roll patterns against the glass, like frantic
Morse code messages. A rogue wave hit the rocks outside with a
thunderous crash and once again Jim jumped.

Old Joe would think me
daft.

It was time to check on the light. He
didn’t want to venture anywhere near the light room, but duty was
duty, and he owed it to Joe.

He went up the stairs slowly. The
higher he went the louder came the sound of the horn. And even from
halfway up the staircase he heard the rain lash against the
glass.

His round of the light room was
cursory. On another night he might linger, enjoying the play of
light on water, or even, on nights like this one, enjoying the
sheer brutal force of the storm. But the chanting had got him
spooked. While he was downstairs he was able to pass it off as a
trick of the wind, but up here the chill he’d felt came back
again.

Once more he headed for the stairs and
safety.

The chant came in on a perfect beat
between the period of the horn.

Rorate caeli desuper, et
nubes pluant iustum.

It was closer this time, a
mixture of timbres and voices that echoed and thrummed through the
whole fabric of the lighthouse. Jim’s legs wanted to run, but the
sound was
too
close,
too
impossible.

Joe would want me to
check.

He opened the door and stepped out
onto the platform around the outside.

He immediately regretted it. The wind
tugged at him, trying to throw him to the rocks below, and the rain
drenched him. He sidled round, keeping his back to the glass all
the way. The wind raged less wildly on the far side of the light,
and the building itself protected him from the worst of the rain.
Jim was able to shuffle closer to the rail and, hanging on tight,
risked a look over.

Waves blasted at the rocks below, foam
flying over the jetty that was usually twelve feet above the water
line. Something was lying on the cobbles there, and for a moment
Jim couldn’t breathe. The dark figure looked like a body, still and
unmoving.

Then he saw the heads of the others
bobbing in the water. A group of gray seals were swimming in the
relative safety of the small harbor in front of the lighthouse. As
he watched two more dragged themselves out onto the cobbles of the
jetty.

They raised their heads and looked up,
straight at Jim.

The chant came again.

Rorate caeli desuper, et
nubes pluant iustum.

Jim turned and ran.

He was back in the living quarters
with a whisky bottle in his hand less than a minute later. But even
through the thick oak door he could still hear the chanting. He
turned the radio up full.

That’s better.

He poured himself a large measure and
downed half of it in one gulp, letting the heat burn down to the
pit of his stomach -- letting it remind him he was
alive.

The words of the chant kept going
round and round in his mind.