Decay Inevitable

She stepped from the bath and wrapped herself in a white towelling robe, the activity in her flesh reaching a new level of intensity. Her mouth filled with drool. A key in the lock. Only when the boy was pushed over the threshold did she realise the nature of its energy.

The boy stared at her. Ice cream was slicked across his jaws. His hair sprang up stubbornly at his crown. The door snicked shut.

The boy said, “Mummy?”

“If it makes you happy,” she whispered.

HE WOKE, FRUSTRATED, his heart pounding and his dick hard as a door handle. He had been unable to still Catriona. She had slipped in and out of focus, her words to him garbled, as though coming from a slightly detuned radio. Her smile was genuine enough, her mouth somehow super-real, Technicolor. He had been reaching to kiss her when she sank from view and he was unable to conjure her again.

But this wasn’t the only reason for his revival. The slap of fast-moving footsteps had him blinking and scooting back in his seat as Known and his gang came pounding across the road. Behind them, Cricket cap had got out of the car and was standing uncertainly in the road, alternating his gaze between the heels of the burglars and the flapping entrance door.

“Got enough stuff there?” Will asked, indicating the television and stereo equipment with which Known’s gang were laden.

“Actually, we were thinking of going back for some more. Would you mind?”

“I don’t care,” Will said. “Was... Cat there?”

“No. Should she of been? This some kind of kinky trick to jazz up your sex life, then?”

“Forget it. Did you get my wallet?”

Hot Badge passed over the wallet, at pains to point out that nothing had been taken from it.

“And there was something else?”

Known pursed his lips. “I’m a bit miffed that you think of me as someone who carries small arms around in his pockets, but here... enjoy it.”

Will took the gun. It seemed woefully small. “What ammo does it take?” he asked. “Caps?”

“Funny.” A box of shells was passed over.

“Is it easy to load?” Will twisted and turned the gun in his hand. It gleamed dully, like a snake’s skin, under the courtesy light.

“Shit, mate,” said Known. “Want me to shoot the bastard for you as well?”

“Never mind. I’ll figure it out.”

“Who are them mongs, anyway?” Hot Badge nodded back at Cricket cap, who had been joined by his colleague. They were both looking in the direction of the car.

“Friends of the family,” Will said.

“Well they’s going to go visit some poor bastard called Slowheaf next. Fort you might like to know.”

“Slowheaf?”

“Well, wiv a T-H at the end. Slowheaf.”

“Slowheath. Right.”

“Yeah. What I said. Some hard-sounding bastard came froo on the walkie-talkies while I was fuckin’ the lock. ‘We ’it Slowheaf next,’ he said.”

Will shrugged. The name meant nothing to him.

“Whatever.” Known lost interest with commendable swiftness. “What now?”

Will pulled the hood of his jogging top over his head and eased out of the car. He watched the gang stuffing the fruits of his marriage to Cat into the back.

“Something extremely foolish, probably,” he said.

“Nice doing business,” Known said. Everyone left.

The sky was bruising rapidly. The gun in his waistband felt impossibly huge now. He didn’t know if he would ever be able to use it. He watched the house and waited for change.

A car pulled up a little over an hour later. It was dark by then, and the cold was drawing the colour from his hands. A full moon, and those streetlamps that had not been shattered, turned the grey pavement into a strange, luminous strip of pale orange. Will watched Cricket cap and his female counterpart walk up the street to meet it. Two men got out; they talked for a few moments; Cricket cap and the woman got into their own car. They all left.

Will strode into West End Lane. He bypassed his home, forcing himself not to look, and wondered how such a course of events could have put him in a position where he was dicking around in the cold, his life in shreds, when he should have been helping his wife to relax while counting the fingers and toes of his little boy. The loss of the baby and Cat’s disappearance, maybe even her death, had reduced the meaning of his life here to nothing more substantial than the dust that skirled around West End Lane’s back alleys. He didn’t know what to do. There was no point going back to the flat. They might have booby-trapped the place or one of the men might return while he was in there. Then what now? He felt frustrated and impotent, as in the common dream he sometimes had where he knew he must get to an appointment on time but the moment he went to open the door to leave, he remembered he had forgotten to brush his teeth or pick up his keys or turn off the electric blanket. Without realising, he was stumping up and down the pavement, his hands clenching into fists, repeating the name “Slowheath, Slowheath, Slowheath...”