An Excerpt from:
One Dark Night In Kirkburton
A novella by Spanner.
9:28PM
“Bollocks.”
Jenks’ looked up from the ‘closed’ sign hanging behind the locked glass door of the off-license and tried to focus on his distant, morose reflection standing inside the darkened shop. Julie leaned in and pointed at the opening times.
“Who the fuck closes at nine twenty-five? That’s a deliberate attempt to balls-up the plans of none locals, that is!” Her balance was wavering, unable to keep her stable while leaning forward and delivering an outburst at the same time, and she tenderly head butted the shop door.
Jenks was not a man to give up quickly, even when persevering was stupid, and he stared intently up and down the steep, winding road cutting Kirkburton in half; looking for alternatives. It appeared the pub they’d just come from was that alternative. Normally this wouldn’t pose a dilemma, but for the peculiar barmaid’s wacky cocktail of gracious offers mixed with austere warnings. The pair also harboured an unspoken concern that going back into the pub might lead to another drink.
Before rushing out of the door and across the road, they’d been required to order one more round to avoid the attentions of the odious salesman, which had inadvertently turned into three consecutive decoys of the rather excellent draught available at the Swan With Two Necks. Each drink could be individually justified, of course; the first was a necessary circumstance of stratagem, the second was a delay tactic after Giles the Salesman had not returned from his wine delivery (causing apprehensions about running into him en route), and the third was … well, the third was because the second one teased them over the edge of pissed.
Time had disappeared into a pint glass when their appointment with the off-license almost expired. Just before the inebriates had taken to their heels there had been a modest exodus of sullen locals, curiously leaving their adolescents sat alone in the pub, looking increasingly displeased. The sales meeting from the pool room had left for whatever passed as the trendy night spot in Kirkburton (possibly the chip shop), when most of the children also up and left with agitated vivacity. Had Julie and Jenks not been in such a rush, quite so drunk or becoming accustomed to the inherent irregularities of the village, they might have taken the time to be perplexed.
As it was, they stood cold, swaying and wine-less on the hostile pavement.
“Remind me why we’re so concerned about taking any wine with us. You’re always saying only queers and women drink wine anyway.” Julie’s eyes were well glazed as she posed her very reasonable question.
“Queers, women and French children. I have to work with Wes and listening to him … er, coagulating … about how much trouble they go to showing us unfortunates from the gutter a bit of sophistication, and how we never even bring a decent bottle of Beaujo…gnogne … Spermanti, gets my dander up. That’s why.” Jenks reinforced his nonsense with some truly dexterous gesticulation. Julie missed his statement completely, but was indifferently resigned to keeping with what was left of their plan.
“Okay. Let’s get us back in the pub and ask for a bottle ‘a red and get up th’ill, eh?” She held up her clenched fist, knuckles forward, for Jenks to tap in solidarity with his ample mitt. He missed, but the sentiment was there.
The one car that had driven through Kirkburton that evening almost killed them as they staggered blindly into the road and back to the pub’s front door. Julie took the handle, but it was already locked. Suspecting she may be pulling when clearly this was an orifice to be pushed, Jenks took control and rattled the frame loud enough to catch the attention of their barmaid. She approached the other side of the frosted glass and pressed her face up to it.
“Who is it!” She demanded. This was actually a tricky question, as she didn’t know their names, so the answer must quickly make them known whilst simultaneously endearing them to her. Jenks had been to his share of lock-ins, and a diversion tactic sprang (or listed) into his mind.
“Have we to come round the back now you’ve locked up?” As if it were a sign, the clatter of empty beer bottles and dustbins from the far end of the alley suggested there was indeed activity at the back door. With knowing nods, the pair were just about to head around the back when their contact on the inside shouted through the glass. Although her voice was raised to penetrate the solid old door, she appeared to be directing her speech so it might go unnoticed from those inside.
“No! Look, you said you were going to your friend’s and I can’t let you back in. Please get to their house now! Just go!” There was a sincere desperation in her voice, an unusual concern for exactly the type of strangers she earlier appeared to despise. Doubt found a way into the evening’s plan and a long second of thought passed between the shivering pair. Jenks went first.
“There’s someone round the back. Once we’re in, they can be as unfriendly as they like, but I’m betting that little crumpet of a barman won’t say no to a tenner for a bottle of plonk.” Although he couldn’t envisage any problems with his idea, Jenks didn’t trust it any more than Julie did.
“Let’s forget the wine and get up to their house. We have to find it yet and she’s freaked me out a bit. Plus, I really need the loo.” Her last point struck a cord with Jenks. He sucked his teeth in contemplation, then nodded in agreement. Two reeling steps into their revised plan and Jenks solved the problem, stopping abruptly as if he’d stepped into a Klingon tractor-beam.
“Hang on! Brad went out the back earlier!”
“Giles.”
“Whatever. I now propose we do go round the back of the pub, try the door, and if we can’t gain … penetration, we’re already taking a short cut through to the estate! How do you like them … mangos?” Julie grinned broadly at the obviousness of Jenks revision and took his arm in camaraderie.
“You,” she emphasised “are what we in the industry call a flame grilled bacon and genius burger!” They about turned and stomped a confident, winding path down the alley leading to the rear of the pub. A blurred silhouette watched them from the other side of the smoked glass.
9:40PM
The commotion they’d heard from behind the pub started again as they neared the end of the surprisingly long, pitch black alley. As they rounded the corner, a blindingly intense security light shone straight at them, burning the eyesight from their heads.
“Bloody hell! That thing could light a football match! What’s it doing there?” Jenks wasn’t really expecting a reply from Julie, who was shielding her face from the heat as much as the light. Still tethered together by their interlocked arms, the pair fumbled around in the intense light for a path through the empty beer barrels. After berating their shins against more than a few obstructions, they found their way into the shadow of a makeshift porch, stretching their faces in an attempt to regain their vision and swaying drunkenly as their already impeded senses swam in their heads.
On the other side of the lean-to was the back door to the pub, and also the source of the turmoil that had guided them up the gloomy passage. Whether or not the rigorous eye rolling exercises had worked, Jenks’ night vision was returning, and still rubbing his eyes, he went over to see what was going on.
It took more than a few seconds for him to make any sense of what was happening, and he gave it a few seconds more to be sure he wasn’t just confused by his mottled eyesight and beer addled brain.
Four children – three boys and a girl – were perched about the tiny courtyard in obscure positions watching two salesmen viciously tearing into each other. The girl was fully twelve feet off the floor, on her haunches against a drain pipe bracket, her hands behind her back holding onto the rising pipe, rabidly jeering the two brawlers on. One of the boys had a foot and his ankle wedged painfully behind another, larger pipe – although he showed no signs of anguish – and hung upside down with his belly against the wall, pushing his arms straight to arch his back so he could also laugh insanely at the blood-match below. Another boy had packed himself tightly between stacked crates and barrels that, judging by the precariousness of his position, should have been pushed over. The towers stood quite firm, however, rattled only by the boy’s crazed, slavering laughter. The last of the quartet was on all fours, unnaturally low to the ground, getting his face as close to the action as possible then darting backwards whenever blood spattered his contorted, lunatic face.
Jenks looked around the nightmarish circus stunned, broken from his trance only by Julie’s weak utterance of an atheist’s profane prayer. He shook his head and set to bringing the atrocious performance to a close.
“Oi! What the fuck’s wrong with you? Pack it in!” He grabbed the back of one of the salesman’s jackets and hauled him off the other. He was repulsed to find the jacket was sodden, despite the fact that the concrete they were wrestling on was bone dry. He was not the equal of the task of distinguishing what was on his hands, and he didn’t have the luxury of going over to the light to investigate.
As he dropped the savage wrestler to the floor, he saw it wasn’t two men fighting, but a woman that was underneath. She snarled and bit the air as she glared back at Jenks, but made no immediate move to rush him. The horrified pair both barked in revulsion as the woman on the floor clenched her flat out palms into fists, as if trying to gouge two handfuls of concrete from the floor. Her well manicured, bloodied nails splintered and wrenched themselves from her fingers as she clawed at the stone, apparently indifferent to the damage she was doing herself. Her contorted face was swollen and massively bruised from the uncontrolled beating she’d just received.
Jenks looked down at the thrashing man whose scruff he was still holding. Evidently, he was oblivious to the fact that he no longer had an opponent beneath him and was punching wildly into the ground with mangled pulps that were once his hands. Jenks let go in a nauseating realisation that these people were beyond help or discipline, and instead attempted to focus on the children.
There was only the girl and the boy on the floor to be seen, both scowling at him in disdain for interrupting their brutal entertainment. He tried to sound like a responsible adult as he addressed them.
“Let’s get inside, okay, and we’ll try and find your parents. You’re going to be fine.” The slurring of his speech was amplified by the revulsion in his gut and he couldn’t be entirely sure he’d spoken sense. He edged Julie backward, shielding her from the evil looks they were getting from the strange youths. He held out a hand toward the children implying they should follow him back down the alley, although neither made any move to do so.
Suddenly, a door directly behind the dazzling security light flung open, and there was the barmaid, urgently beckoning them inside. The alacrity with which she had appeared made Jenks and Julie jump three feet out of their skin with startled shouts. The children had also been prompted into sudden action and sped toward them with a barbarity behind their eyes that belied their age. As the barmaid opened the door further to accept the astonished couple, it became apparent the security light had been loosed from its wall mountings and was actually hung upside down on its wire. The door pushed the swinging light round toward the charging children and demented adults, fully illuminating the back door area, and for one stomach-churning second Julie caught a glimpse of the carnage the two brawling salespeople had brought upon each other.
The woman had remained on the floor as her body was so mangled and broken from the beating she no longer possessed a suitable structure to bear her weight, with shards of splintered bone jutting out far enough to tear through her once managerial clothing. The wild man pounding the concrete was slowing his pace, presumably through severe blood loss. His face was so badly raked he had no eyes or discernable features other than a red curtain of tissue hanging down from his hairline and a mouth open so wide his jaw pushed against his collarbone, locking his head in an upright position. As she stared in appalled silence, Jenks clumsily grabbed his wife’s arm and pulled her into the porch.
The children were nowhere to be seen…
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