Green Grow the Rashes and Other Stories (5 page)

Rorate caeli desuper, et
nubes pluant iustum.

He fired up his laptop. His searches
didn’t tell him much at first. He found the translation quickly
enough.

Drop down dew ye heavens
from above, and let the clouds rain the Just One.

A search for
The Just One
proved less
fruitful. Until he factored in their location. The article was the
first thing returned.

"St Brennan’s Abbey is now
little more than a ruin, but in its day it was the focus of one of
the biggest religious trials in history. Twelve monks, long time
residents of the island, were found guilty of heresy. They had
renounced Christ and instead had turned to worshipping a being they
said lived in the seas around the island, a being they called "The
Just One".

The storm went up a notch. All the
lights flickered and Jim’s heart jumped into his mouth. But the
lights stayed on, as did the radio. He went back to the
article.

Found guilty, the monks
were sentenced to be burned at the stake, but they escaped that
fate when a great storm hit. The roof of the Abbey itself fell in.
When the storm was over, the monks were nowhere to be found. But
local legend says that they can be heard, in the wind, singing
their prayers to their watery god. The identity of this god is
subject to much conjecture but…"

The lights went out. Jim fumbled in
the dark for several seconds. The wind howled, and through it, the
chant rose, high and loud.

Rorate caeli desuper, et
nubes pluant iustum.

Peccavimus, et facti sumus
tamquam immundus nos, et cecidimus quasi folium
universi.

Something banged at the oak
door, hard. He heard the old wood creak. An involuntary
squirt
of piss ran down
his leg inside his trousers.

Move you idiot.

He’d just found the dresser, and the
candles, when the backup generator kicked in. He heard the rumble
of the diesel engine rise up from the cellar below him.

Sorry Joe. I’d forgotten
all about that.

The radio switched back on suddenly,
giving him near as big a fright as the chanting.

He stood there for a while, waiting
for his heart to calm, letting the sound of forties’ big band swing
seep into him. When he thought he could do it without dropping the
glass he poured another whisky, draining it in one smooth
gulp.

It was a long time before
he felt even close to calm. He went back to the laptop, looking for
answers, but the
comms
were down. He couldn’t even find the article he had been
reading in the history.

He banged the table in
frustration.

Something thumped on the door in
reply.

Fuck off. Just fuck
off!

He waited. There was no repeat of the
banging on the door. Glenn Miller’s band kept swinging.

So what now?

Jim turned out the light and let his
eyes adjust to the darkness. He stepped slowly over to the small
window by the door and looked out.

Twelve seals sat barely fifteen feet
away, each as long as a man, and nearly twice as heavy. They all
had their heads raised into the teeming rain, and all had their
jaws wide open showing mouths full of yellow dog-like teeth. Even
above the swing band he heard the chant rise up.

Rorate caeli desuper, et
nubes pluant iustum.

As he turned away from the window, he
spotted something else he had forgotten. A small box was nailed to
the wall beside the door. Inside lay a flare gun, and two
flares.

His hands shook as he loaded the
first.

He took a deep breath and opened the
door.

"Fuck off," he shouted. "Just fuck
off."

Even as he raised the flare
gun the seal he had aimed at
swelled
and grew. It rose up, tall as
a man. Its body
morphed
until it looked like a large hefty robed figure, a
cowl covering its head.

Jim pulled the trigger and
the flare hissed through the rain and embedded itself in the
shadows where the face would have been. The flare
blazed
, orange and yellow
that stayed behind his eyelids when he blinked. The figure fell
away, burning, into the rough water below the jetty. Jim slammed
the door shut and headed for the whisky, emptying the best part of
the bottle before stopping, breathless.

He moved to switch the light on, then
realized he could see quite clearly. A shimmering blue glow filled
the window.

It’s coming from out on
the jetty.

He couldn’t help himself. He went back
to the window and looked out.

They were no longer seals.
They stood tall in two ranks, one of six, one of five, on either
side of the jetty. The shimmering blue light rose from the
thing
that was hauling
itself out of the sea.

It looked like nothing less than a
bloated white maggot, but a maggot that was nearly thirty feet
long. The blue light came from a vast maw that gaped and pulsed as
it drew itself up the jetty.

Jim fumbled with another flare and
took three tries before he got it loaded.

The chanting outside rose again, loud
enough to drown out the radio.

Rorate caeli desuper, et
nubes pluant iustum.

He threw the door open
again.

"I told you already. Fuck
off."

He fired the flare straight
at the pulsing mouth of the
maggot.

The mouth opened wide and the flare
disappeared inside, immediately snuffed out.

Rorate caeli desuper, et
nubes pluant iustum.

Peccavimus, et facti sumus
tamquam immundus nos, et cecidimus quasi folium
universi.

Jim was suddenly struck
immobile. He
wanted
to turn and run, to slam the door behind him and look for more
booze. But the blue light surrounded him and held him as tight as
if he’d been chained.

His legs started to obey someone
else’s orders. He stepped out into the storm.

The chanting immediately got louder
and more urgent. He translated it in his mind, even as his throat
started to articulate the sounds.

Drop down dew ye heavens
from above, and let the clouds rain the Just One.

As he stood finally in
front of the
maggot
, legs starting to melt and fuse, teeth growing in a mouth
that was suddenly too small, he knew.

One of the twelve had been
taken.

A replacement was needed.

It is only
just.

Why won’t they just go
away and leave me alone?
she thought, but
didn’t say. That would be impolite.

All her life, all seventy eight years
of it, she tried to live up to her standards - always be polite,
never shout, always comport yourself with dignity. But sometimes it
was hard. Especially when you son-in-law was of the opinion that
old age meant you should be treated like a two year old; you were
automatically deaf; and you were not to be trusted on your
own.

He was at it again.

"John. Come away and leave your Gran
alone. You’ll tire her out."

As if she wasn’t capable of a few
minutes play with the boy. Hadn’t she brought up three children of
her own? And not the easy way either. They were always going on
about how hard life was today. They didn’t know the half of
it.

Did they have to queue for hours -
ration book in hand - just to get a couple of eggs? Did they have
to walk home in the dark in fear that any light might bring a bomb
down on their heads? Had they had to stand by helpless as their
eldest son died of pneumonia through lack of medicines? She knew
the answer to all of these.

But she mustn’t complain. Her life had
been easier than her mother's, which had been easier than her
mother’s before that, and so on, back to Roman times she supposed -
it was they way of things, that was all. Sometimes she wished that
the way of things was a bit more exciting, that she could tell them
all just to go away, that she could leave everything behind and go,
just go somewhere, anywhere, apart from these few square miles
which had bound her whole life.

She realized that Dick was looking
down at her.

"Are you all right Gran?"

She wished he wouldn’t call her that.
It only made her feel even older.

"I’m all right" she said. "Don’t fuss
over me. I’m not a dog."

She saw the look he gave over his
shoulder to his wife, eyes wide in amusement. She had to do
something, otherwise she was going to scream in
frustration.

"I’ll just go and put the kettle on."
She said, pushing herself out of the chair.

"No, don’t worry mum, we’re just
leaving," her daughter responded.

She tried not to show her
relief.

There was a flurry of coats and
handbags and umbrellas were found, a brief wetness at her cheek as
she was kissed goodbye, and then they were gone, leaving her alone
once more.

She was always guilty about the relief
she felt when they left. They were her only family, and you were
supposed to feel happy when they came to visit, but recently she
just wanted to be left alone. Too many people had been fussing over
her - the butcher who insisted that her meals would be delivered to
save her the walk into town; the postman who always waited until
she answered the door just to make sure she was OK; the doctor who
always called twice a week. It wasn’t as if she was an invalid - it
had only been a little fall. She hadn’t even broken any
bones.

Ever since he had found her at the
foot of the stairs Dick had been trying to get her to move down to
the town to stay with them. She’d refused point blank, and he
couldn’t understand why she’d been so angry.

She had been born in this house, her
mother had been born in this house, and she wasn’t going to leave
it, no matter how much she might want to. She had her duty and she
wouldn’t leave. Not until they came to take her out in a
box.

Nestling back in the armchair she
looked around the room - the clutter of a long life surrounding
her, pride of place taken by her wedding photograph. Tears welled
up in her eyes as she started to fall asleep, dreaming of John and
the long years which separated them.

She woke, bleary and tired and stiff,
still sitting in the armchair. The light above her shone hard and
bright in her eyes as she struggled to sit upright. Outside all was
quiet and the clock on the mantelpiece told her that it was past
four o’clock in the morning. The noise - the same one that had
woken her - came again; a rustling and crackling from just beyond
her kitchen door. Groaning, feeling the old age which had settled
into her bones, she pushed herself out of the chair, teetering
unsteadily at first as the blood rushed back to her legs causing
them to tingle and tremble before she was finally steady. The noise
came again as she headed for the door.

The kitchen lay in darkness, only a
stray shaft of moonlight illuminating a piece of faded linoleum.
Outside the door there was only a wall of silvery blackness. She
couldn’t make out any detail through the slightly warped glass, but
as she peered something moved smoothly and silently behind the
glass.

"Fox" she thought. Many times over the
years she had watched them from her upstairs window, seeing them
slinking through her garden as they stalked some small prey. They
never ceased to bring a sense of wonder and a sense of jealousy.
She envied them their freedom.

The old door handle rattled as she
touched it, a small, almost insignificant noise, but she knew it
was enough to scare away anything that might have been there. She
opened the door anyway, just in case.

The lawn stretched out before her,
silver and grey in the moonlight. The beech tree overhanging the
garden at the far end rustled slightly in a sudden breeze, but
apart from that all else was still and quiet. She turned her back
to go indoors and the noise came again, a whispering and a rasping
and a cracking.

It was coming from under the hedge,
over in the left hand seed bed. There was something there,
something swaying in the stray moonbeams which made their way
through the foliage. She tried to peer into the black shadows, but
the night was too dark, and her eyes weren’t what they used to be.
She moved across the lawn, feeling the cold seep through her carpet
slippers.

Where, the day before, there had only
been dark brown earth, there was now a profusion of thin, silver
shoots. The noise she had heard was their growing, thrusting
themselves up through the soil, cracking as their leaves unfolded
and stretched upwards for the moon.

She leaned forward for a closer look,
seeing the silvery lightness of the leaves, the thin black veins.
Her heart beat heavily in her chest, thudding its beat into her
ears as she realized that these were not leaves, these were
something new, something rich and strange, something wonderful. Her
eyes shone in the moonlight as she stretched out a hand. and, just
as her fingertips threatened to brush a shoot, the silence was
broken by a laugh, a girlish giggle. The moon went behind a cloud,
darkening the shadows and banishing the silver shoots into
darkness.