Carnies Read online

  CARNIES

  By Martin Livings

  Copyright © Martin Livings 2006

  Reprinted 2017

  First published 2006 by Lothian Press

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form by any means without the prior permission of the copyright owner.

  For Mum and Dad

  Carnival: A travelling amusement show usually including rides, games and sideshows (from old Italian carnelevare, meaning ‘the removal of meat’).

  PROLOGUE

  Alf would’ve bet his left ball that this place hadn’t seen a crowd like this in years, even on a Saturday night like tonight. He looked around the Tillbrook Pub with a satisfied smile on his tanned and leathered face. The lady behind the bar, who he’d heard one of the locals call Lucy, was keeping a nervous watch on him. Her eyes kept straying to the tattoo on his cheek, just below his left eye. He’d got it in prison, using a sliver of steel he’d smuggled out of the metal shop and some ink he’d bought off a long-timer. It was a single, dark blue teardrop that made him look as if he was crying. The tattoo was more intimidating than endearing, which was the effect he’d wanted, of course. It was working well on Lucy. He’d seen her trying to make a quiet phone call an hour or so earlier to the cops, at a wild guess. They hadn’t shown, though - a bloody sensible decision as far as he was concerned. They’d be well and truly outnumbered here.

  His boys occupied an entire corner of the public bar, where the rough brick walls were covered in a variety of posters and ads for booze and fags. A bar heater embedded in the wall kept the cold winter night’s air out, but did nothing to disperse the stale smoke. All the bikers wore heavy leather jackets, with their club logo stitched across their backs: a wolf, baying at the moon, and beneath this, the words ‘The Pack’.

  They’d arrived at the pub almost three hours before, roaring into town on their Low Rider motorcycles like a summer storm, kicking up a cloud of dust in their wake. They’d parked their bikes out the front of the pub in a parallel pattern of chrome and rubber, almost blockading the entrance. They had stomped inside, twenty-odd dirty boots sounding like bowling balls on the pub’s dark wooden floor. Their voices were loud and gruff, peppered with cruel laughter and profanities. When they’d entered, all but a few townspeople had hurriedly finished their beers and made a discreet exit, careful not to meet any of the bikers’ eyes as they left. A couple remained, either too brave, too dumb or too drunk to get away. ‘The Pack’ had started drinking straight away, mostly beers, with a few scotches thrown in for good measure, and hadn’t let up. As they got drunker, they got louder and more aggressive. The threat of violence hung over them like a thundercloud.

  Alf sat by himself at a table, his hands behind his head, fingers linked beneath his shoulder-length, grey-blond hair. His heels rested on the green tablecloth, and he was leaning his chair so far back that it seemed he’d fall at any moment. But he wouldn’t. Unlike the rest of The Pack, he’d been drinking lightly to stay alert.

  He was the leader of this gang, and in a weird kind of way he thought of them as his kids. Sure, he had to show them the back of his hand from time to time, like any good parent, but he also looked out for them. So while he appeared relaxed and drunk, his eyes were always on the move, alert to any possible threat. Not that he expected anything of the sort here. The looks on the locals’ faces as they’d fled the pub reassured him that they’d meet no resistance here. Not even the cops would touch them, for fear of getting touched back... hard. He smiled to himself at this thought. He’d have to remember Tillbrook in the future as a safe place to stop over. Towns like this were getting rarer these days. The only downside, in his opinion, was the lack of entertainment. His boys could use some exercise.

  Three men walked through the door, and his smile widened further. Ask and ye shall receive.

  The men looked young - maybe too young - to be drinking there. Their faded flannel shirts and torn jeans were a little ragged, and their feet were bare. All three were unshaven and had quite long hair. Hell, put them in a jacket, add ten years and twenty kilos to them, Alf thought wryly, and they’d fit right in with us.

  But right now, they’re just fresh meat for the dogs.

  They saw the bikers pretty much straight away and froze. Alf looked at the rest of The Pack. They were all gazing at the newcomers too, eager, hungry. All conversations stopped. Drinks were held in mid-air. The silence was dangerous. Just the way Alf liked it.

  ‘In or out, kids?’ he called, smiling like a shark. ‘Make up your fuckin’ minds.’

  The men glanced at Lucy behind the bar. She didn’t budge. She looked like someone who’d just stumbled into a lion’s den. She was very still, not even breathing, like she was hoping that lion wouldn’t notice her, that it’d just disappear.

  Oh, we’ll disappear all right, Lucy, Alf thought. Once we’ve had some fun.

  ‘Somethin’ wrong?’ The man who spoke, Tacker, was taller than Alf, but not as heavy, and his face was so pocked with acne scars it looked like it had been carved from pumice. He was one of Alf’s lieutenants, one of the chosen few in The Pack who could think and breathe at the same time. Alf had always followed the advice given to him by the head of the first bike gang he’d been in, when he was sixteen: The trick to leadin’ is to be smarter’n anyone else there. Don’t let ’em get smarter’n you. Still, he found having a couple of members around who could count to ten without moving their lips could be handy. They could keep the others in line when he wasn’t around. Like those dinosaurs that were meant to have had two brains, one in the head and a smaller one in the tail.

  ‘Ain’t we good enough ta drink with?’

  Tacker’s best mate was Goon, a skinhead who could have put up a pretty decent fistfight with his leader if it ever came to that. He was short, but his shoulders were almost as wide as he was tall, his skin was like a white rhino’s and his nose seemed to be pressed against his face. It’d been broken eighteen times while he’d been in prison - twelve by the guards and six by other inmates. You shoulda seen the other guys, he’d always add to that story. Alf didn’t doubt they’d have been fucked up. Goon was the single most aggressive son-of-a-bitch he’d ever met. And he’d met a shitload of them.

  The three men looked at each other. Only one, with sandy hair and a dark, short beard, spoke up. His voice squeaked a little as he said, ‘Uh... we’re not thirsty.’

  Alf removed his feet from the table, and let his chair fall forward onto all four legs with a sharp crack. All three men in the doorway jumped. None of the bikies moved an inch. He stood up quickly, knowing that the others were doing the same.

  ‘That’s a pity,’ he said, his voice low, but still audible to everyone in the pub. ‘We were hopin’ you’d shout us.’ His smile vanished. ‘Now you’re just gonna shout.’

  The three men turned and fled through the door, slamming it behind them. Alf’s smile returned. He looked around at The Pack, who were standing at attention like a bunch of eager hunting dogs held back only by their leashes, straining to be set free.

  ‘Go get ’em,’ he hissed through his teeth.

  As one, the bikies thundered out of the pub. Their drunken battle cries were sweet music to Alf’s ears. He sauntered behind them, past the bar where Lucy was backed up against the glass doors of the refrigerator. He stopped there for a moment and looked at the terrified woman. He continued to smile.

  ‘Don’t worry, lady. We’re outta here now.’

  ‘You...’ she stammered, ‘you shouldn’t chase those folk. They’re not...’ She sought the right word for a moment. ‘They’re not... right.’

  Alf laughed, a barking guffaw. ‘Not right, hey? Well, if you think they ain’t right now, you wait till
you see ’em after my boys are done with ’em. Big difference between “not right” and “completely fucked up”, believe me!’ He turned and left the pub, still laughing.

  On the verandah, a number of The Pack climbed onto their bikes and started them. Half were already gone. He looked around, the laughter dying in his throat. Tacker was standing by his Harley-Davidson, waiting for his leader to emerge. He waved a semi-salute. Alf waved back.

  ‘Where are they, Tack?’ he called.

  ‘Fuckers up and vanished, boss,’ the thin man yelled back. ‘Couldn’t’ve been more than a minute behind ’em, getting outta the pub. But not a fuckin’ trace. Skipped out like rabbits.’

  ‘Then we’ll hunt ’em down like fuckin’ rabbits,’ Alf said, his smile now gone. This wasn’t how it was meant to go. ‘Skin the fuckers and hang ’em up to bleed.’

  Tacker grinned now, a wide dark split across his pockmarked face. He gave the thumbs-up signal, then climbed onto his hog and started it. The dark, dull roar of the motor drowned out even the other bikes around them. He waved his right hand in the air a few times, making sure the rest of The Pack saw the signal. He then revved the engine, sent a spray of dust and gravel out from the rear wheel and churned out of the car park and onto the road. The other bikies followed suit, splitting up to go each way down the highway. The rumbling grew quieter, but Alf could still hear them in the distance. It was a comforting sound, like waves on the beach.

  He smiled again, alone on the pub’s verandah. He liked letting the dogs off the leash every once in a while. Tacker and Goon would keep them under control. He could also hear a siren in the distance, and assumed the cops were in pursuit. No big deal, they could handle small-town pigs. The Pack was like a herd of elephants.

  Nothing could slow them down. Anything that tried would get flattened.

  A twinge in his groin brought him out of his thoughts. In all the excitement, he hadn’t noticed that his bladder was well and truly full. Jesus, I’m gettin’ old, he thought, wincing at the sensation. The boys have drunk five times as much as me, and they’re holdin’ it in just dandy. He was suddenly very glad he was alone. It wasn’t something he’d ever bring up, the same way he’d never mentioned the occasional traces of blood in his piss. It would be an admission of weakness, an invitation to sedition.

  He stepped off the verandah and looked around for a place to take a slash. The last thing he wanted was to go back into the pub. He’d made his exit, and to return would just weaken the impact. It was all about the head-fuck, another trick he’d learned from his first gang leader. Act tough, beat up a few, and everyone else falls into line.

  The pub was set at the edge of the forest, which stretched left and right along the highway as far as the eye could see, and continued on the other side of the dual-lane road. It wasn’t a thick forest, at least not this close to the road, but there were plenty of trees there for him to choose from. He wanted to be out of sight, in case one of The Pack made an unwelcome return. He didn’t want any of his boys to see him straining to take a leak like some old fart ready for the retirement home. Fuck that. He walked towards the trees, and his cracked leather boots scraped in the gravel until it turned to dirt. He continued until he could just barely make out the streetlight jumble on the highway, then picked a likely tree. The moonlight made a crazy array of shadows around him. He unzipped his old jeans and released himself, leaned one hand against the rough bark of the tree and held his dick with the other.

  It took a good minute to start, though it felt longer, and once it started he moaned at the mild burning. Damn, I should get that checked, he thought, but he knew he’d never do it. He hated doctors almost as much as he hated cops. It seemed to go on forever, but eventually the stream became a trickle, then a series of agonised squirts, each punctuated by a grunt. Once he’d finished he shook his dick a few times, folded himself back into his jeans and pulled up the fly. Satisfied, he turned back to the road.

  A noise caught his attention, from deeper in the woods. Something moving. Something big.

  Or perhaps not something. Perhaps someone.

  He smiled his deathmask smile again. The little fuckers had gone and hid in the trees, like Hansel and Gretel or some shit. He reached into the back pocket of his jeans, pulled out a butterfly knife and unfolded it with a practised flick of his wrist. He started forward, towards the noises, holding his breath. He was careful not to step on any branches or dead leaves, and tried to make as little noise as possible.

  Someone was breathing hard in there. He held the knife out in front of him, ready to open anything he saw. There were some scrubby bushes, and they were moving.

  ‘Okay, you fucks,’ he breathed. ‘It’s time to...’

  It happened so fast he barely saw it. A shape, a good head taller than him, and bulkier than any of his boys, leapt from the bushes towards him. It hit him high in the right shoulder before landing behind him with a crunch and rolling back into the darkness. He didn’t get more than a glimpse of it, but it was enough for him to revise his assessment. Not someone. Definitely something.

  He looked down at the ground. His head buzzed like he’d just smoked a joint. What he saw confused him. He’d been in dozens of motorcycle accidents in his many years on the road, had skidded along a hundred metres of rough bitumen on his back, bounced off the pavement on his head, even been pulled under a semitrailer once. He’d worn his leather jacket through all of them, the same damn leather jacket, and sure, it had been scratched and scraped, and even a few holes had opened up in it once or twice, but it had never been ripped entirely, not in decades of hard riding and hard living.

  So he couldn’t quite understand why the sleeve of his jacket was lying on the ground in front of him.

  Or why his arm was still in it.

  He fell to his knees. His legs turned to mush, and his brain wasn’t far behind. He looked across at his right shoulder, saw the place where his sleeve had been, and the jagged, meaty stump that protruded out of it by an inch. He caught a glimpse of bone, still purest white in the moonlight, despite the blood that poured from the wound. He watched this waterfall, which looked jet black in this light, with a kind of detached fascination. As he watched, the edges of his vision darkened, like a cloud had passed before the moon. He could still hear the rumbling of his gang’s motorcycles, but they seemed a world away, and another sound overwhelmed them: a rushing noise.

  He closed his eyes then, and fell face-first into the dirt.

  Through the rushing he heard footsteps nearby. He sensed hands grabbed his good arm and turned him over onto his back. Pain surged from where his right arm used to be, but it didn’t quite reach him in his comfortable fog. He tried to open his eyes, but the lids seemed too heavy to lift now. All he could do was lie there.

  ‘Bikies,’ a voice said nearby, one he didn’t recognise. It sounded out of place in this town, in these woods. It sounded... educated. And disgusted. ‘Always think you’re the top of the food chain, don’t you? Head of the survival class?’

  There was a soft laugh, then the last words Alf would ever hear.

  ‘Sorry, my friend. It appears you’ve flunked.’

  ONE

  Initiations

  -1-

  It was still raining when Paul Hampden woke up, just as it had been the night before when he’d gone to sleep. Well, the morning before, to be perfectly accurate. It was rare that Paul was in bed before two or three in the morning. That’s when the best movies were on, especially on a Sunday night, the ones they’d never show during so-called prime time. Cheesy action flicks, which usually starred or co-starred stand-up comedians attempting to break out of their stereotype, with plenty of car chases and machismo. Not to mention the obligatory strip club scene, with women in various states of undress jiggling around on red-lit stages, with enough mirrors on the walls to catch repeated glimpses of the camera crews filming. The movies were trash, totally without redeeming features. But Paul loved them. As his thirtieth birthday snuck up on him, h
e enjoyed returning to the crap he’d watched when he was younger and more foolish. Well, younger, at any rate.

  He lay in bed for a while, not ready to face a Monday just yet. He took in the dim light of the room and tried to work out what time it might be. He couldn’t. He shifted his gaze to the ceiling for a while. It was dotted with tiny splatters of blood, the results of a few years of squashing mosquitoes against it. The flywire on his apartment’s windows was about as effective as a deep-sea fishing net.

  The place was only a rental, and a cheap one at that, so he couldn’t be bothered cleaning the mess off the roof. Anyway, the red dots kind-of looked like stars. If you squinted, you could make out little bloody constellations.

  Paul tired of this after a short time, and hauled himself out of his single bed. He was wearing the silky, tiger-striped boxer shorts Belinda had given him for his birthday, just before they’d broken up. She’d said he looked like Tarzan in them. Then she’d left him for someone who was a bit closer to that image. He shook his head and wandered out of the bedroom, limping to favour his right foot. His bad ankle had seized up during the night, as usual, and now he couldn’t bend it at all, and putting weight on it was quite painful. But he was used to it by now, and refused to use his cane unless he would be walking for an extended period, like going shopping or to the video library. It made him feel twice his age.

  He hobbled down the short hallway towards the kitchen. The floor was covered in that rough brown-white combination carpet that seemed to be in every rented place he’d ever lived in, which gave way to even cheaper linoleum. He switched on the kettle. They say that breakfast is the most important meal of the day, but for Paul it was the coffee that kept him going. He took a mug from the cupboard beneath the kitchen bench, put a few teaspoons of instant coffee into it, then three teaspoons of sugar.