Dead Leg

Dead Leg

The detached house at the end of Old Church Road seemed to hunker down against the cold. It was a bulky building, squatting there in the wind-blown night, hunched against a barrage of horizontal rain lashing against its blood red bricks. A light flicked on in the first floor window. At midnight on the deserted road, it was the only promise of life.

Shirking electronic music throbbed though the living room as a cupped hand rattled dice over a Backgammon board. The game was splayed on a large coffee table and the dicey hand belonged to Jack, a young man in his late twenties with the twitchy energy of a child who’s drunk too much Coca-cola. Bathed in orange lamplight his opponent and flatmate, Gassum, looked out the window, waiting for Jack to take his turn. The windowpane was black, and quivering in its frame as if scared of the wind outside.

Jack flicked his wrist and two ruby dice bounced across the coffee table, passing plates of mouldy food before being brought to a premature stop by an antique cut-throat razor. He grunted at the result; a three and a one.

“Explain to me the barber’s blade,” said Gassum, leaning back into the sofa. He was big and slow moving, cool to take his time as he sat there twiddling his beard.

“I’ve called him Mr Blonde,” Jack nodded. He was kneeling on the floor between another moth-eaten sofa and the coffee table. “Found him in that flea market, Perverts Paradise.”

“Snoopers Paradise,” corrected Gassum. “And you’ve given the inanimate object a gender?”

“Obviously,” Jack’s face scrunched up as if it was a stupid question. “Mr Blonde. Michael Madsen in Reservoir Dogs, you know, when he’s got the razor blade and there’s the cop’s ear with all the blood and…”

Gassum nodded with a smile, the visceral scene clear in his mind.

“Was only a few quid,” said Jack. “Thought I’d clean him up and put him in a frame. Make’s a cool thing to hang on the wall, a cut-throat razor.”

“Does it?” said Gassum, not hiding his dubious tone.

“Course it does, it’s badass. It’s Reservoir Dogs, mate. It’s Switchblade Romance and Sweeney Todd.” Jack nodded to himself. “It’s badass.”

Gassum’s blank expression wasn’t convinced but he said nothing more, happy to shrug and stretch back into the sofa.

“S’your go, Gas,” Jack said, jerking his head at the dice sitting by the razor.

Gassum picked them up with a wide swooping hand and after a little shake he released them back onto the table, saying, “And where do you envision Mr Blonde living?”

Jack whipped his head round to look at the dirty white walls of the living room. He didn’t see the dice land on a five and six. With Jack’s back turned, Gassum leant forward to flick the five over and give himself double sixes.

“How about we hang him between the ram’s skull and the poster for Irreversible?” said Jack, head still craned round oblivious.

“Sounds good,” said Gassum, a thin smile on his face. “S’your go, dude.”

“Double sixes again?” cried Jack, his eyes bouncing over Gassum’s counters, the majority of which were already gathered safely in his home corner on the board.

Gassum shrugged casual. “My lucky night.”

Jack squinted at his flatmate. Gassum returned the stare, a mirror image. Picking up the dice Jack rolled a three and a four.

“Fuck man, it’s Sunday.”

“I know,” Gassum nodded. “We’ve got work tomorrow, sucks.”

“Nah, I mean we gotta take the rubbish out.”

“You didn’t?” Gassum gave a quizzical frown.

“No,” said Jack. “I thought you were gonna do it. I did it last week, it’s your turn.”

“Fuck that, you seen outside? It’s like the end of days.” Gassum yawned, picking up the dice. “Let’s just leave it. Great thing about binmen, they come every week.”

“It’s been like a month now,” Jack said, looking at his flatmate, imploring him with wide eyes full of all the years Gassum never did any housework, never helped clean or tidy the flat. “Come on, mate. The kitchen smells worse than a tramp’s ball-sack.”

Gassum shook the dice in his hand, giving Jack the wanker sign.

“We should let the dice decide who takes the bins out.”

The brittle rattling, a china snake in Gassum’s palm, was silenced when he rolled the dice. After a few seconds he looked up with a grin, bouncing his eyebrows.

“Double sixes.”

“No way, man, no way. Those dice love you.” Jack was staring at them, suspicion and resentment now clouding his eyes. “They love you and they hate me.”

“Only way it’s fair,” hissed Gassum, his voice in Jack’s ear as if he was bent over his shoulder.

Jack huffed, frowning like a creased bit of paper.

“How’s that fair, you’ve been rolling doubles all night.”

Gassum shrugged again, turning a lock of his beard between his fingers, waiting patient, knowing his flatmate would crack.

“Fine,” sighed Jack, picking up one of the dice. “I’m rolling though.”

“Do your worst,” Gassum smiled, his eyes black in the low light.

“Evens I take the rubbish out, odds you take it,” said Jack, his cupped hand shaking the die. Alone it made no sound, just a soft thudding against the cushion of his palm, like a patient in a padded cell.

Gassum nodded agreement, his thick curly hair bobbing in front of his face. He was Jack’s polar opposite, tall and dark, cool and calm. Jack resented Gassum’s effortlessness, things just seemed to come to him, as if life was easy. Every day was double sixes. After a moment Jack let the die fall out of his hand and skitter across the coffee table.

It rattled past the Backgammon board to ricochet off the razor and land on a… two. The two white circles were like a pair of tiny eyes staring up at him, not even sorry.

“Uncle Fuck!” screamed Jack. Then suddenly calm, “Best of three?”

“Best of bullshit,” Gassum laughed, hearty and assured. “Take the bins out, bitch.”

Jack got up grumbling, “Those dice hate me.”

In the doorway he turned to glance out the window. Still it shook from the howling wind outside, the night so dark the window looked like a sheet of black glass. At least the rain had stopped, Jack told himself as he left Gassum in the warm living room.

Opening their front door into the hallway, Jack tensed. In his white T-shirt and jeans, the cold air cut at his exposed skin. He paused on their landing, a creeping sense of dread making him hesitate.

Their building was a big detached house which had been converted into three separate flats. Jack’s was sandwiched between old Miss Marble below, and Gene in the studio flat above. It was hard to tell Gene’s age, he had an elusive face and timeless features you couldn’t pin down.

The bin-bag was heavy in Jack’s hand and he pictured every time over the last few days he’d pushed the refuse down, packing it dense rather than taking it out. Now he lugged the bloated black sack, which emitted a sweet, vomit-like stink, down the carpeted stairs. It was then that the front door opened, and Jack froze.

Gene came in from the outside world. Jack hovered a moment. It was too late to turn back and hide in the flat, Gene was closing the outer door behind him, unavoidable now, Jack would have to pass him, give him an awkward acknowledgment, hoping he didn’t stop and complain about the recycling that he and Gassum had left by the front step. Or the red stains on the banister. Or the mud he’d brought in after a midnight skulk through Wish park, tramping it into the carpet.

As Gene climbed the stairs, he gripped his shopping bags tight enough to make his knuckles white. The bags clinked with each step, the unmistakable glass-on-glass sound betraying the myriad liquor bottles hiding inside.

“Alright, Gene?” Jack nodded, trying to find Gene’s eyes in the darkness.

Their shoulders almost brushed on the narrow staircase but Gene didn’t acknowledge him. He kept his hooded eyes low, trudging up the stairs heavy and mechanical, until he was at the top, outside the door to his flat. Up there, on his pedestal, he called down from the dark.

“Can you please do your damn recycling? It’s been sat out there for weeks now. Weeks. I’ve told you, the council don’t come this way anymore. You have to do your own recycling.”

Jack’s arm and voice strained under the weight of the bin-bag as he said, “Do your own? Where though?”

But Gene was gone, his door slamming closed behind him. Jack tightened his grip on the bin-bag and pulled open the front door, the icy encounter with Gene preparation enough to face the weather outside.

When Jack arrived home from work the next day, he was whistling. As Mondays go the Gods had been kind to him. The marketing meeting hadn’t taken all morning like his manager said it would. Their hotel client had emailed his boss telling her they loved the new website designs. And Honey McKay in HR only ignored him once, so all in all, today was a huge triumph. He was smiling like an emoji when he opened the front door to his flat, but as he peeled off his duffel coat, something on the carpet caught his eye that made his good mood dissolve.

The red envelope was unmistakable. Jack had got enough of them before. It was a note from Gene. He considered leaving it there, like the unopened texts on his phone. But he picked it up with a sigh and crossed into the living room, collapsing onto the shabby sofa to read Gene’s latest gripe.

Dear Jack,

Have pulled your bin out and there are maggots in the bottom!!

Think you might like to get rid of them before they multiply

Gene

Jack sighed again, flicking the note onto the coffee table as Gassum came through the front door.

“Mate,” Jack called. “We got mail.”

Gassum dumped his rucksack in the living room doorway before joining Jack on the sofa. Under a furrowed brow Gassum read the note. He looked up and Jack smiled, pleased his flatmate was as annoyed by the letter as he was.

“Right?!”

“Gene, man,” Gassum chimed, flicking the note back to Jack, its corners slicing through the air and into his hand. “He’s mental.”

Jack nodded agreement. “I hear him hoovering at like five in morning.”

“What about the time he complained you were playing Kenny G too loud?”

“It was Warren G,” Jack insisted, shaking his head. “And it wasn’t loud at all.”

“That Wicker Man party we threw was loud though.”

Jack chuckled, “That girl got so slaughtered.” Then raised his eyebrows. “Gene though, what’s he playing at?” And shook his head in disbelief.

Gassum tutted. “What was he even doing looking in our wheelie bin?”

“Looking for trouble,” Jack said.

Gassum took the letter and held it under his nose, holding it there, taking a long deep breath.

“It’s an invasion of our privacy, going through our bins,” said Jack. “Isn’t it, mate, an invasion of our privacy?”

“Yeah man, it’s an invasion of our privacy,” nodded Gassum, still sniffing the note, distracted.

Jack jumped to his feet. “How do you get rid of maggots?”

Gassum grinned at him. “Boiling water will kill them. But then you’re not supposed to dispose of them down the drain, incase some are still alive.”

“So what do we do with them?”

Gassum picked up the ruby dice from the coffee table and started rattling them in his cupped palm. Jack watched him bite his lip while he thought. His fang pinned the flesh to his bottom teeth, grinding down until it crunched gristle. Just before he drew blood, Gassum let the dice escape from his hand and they flew free across the table, like birds escaping a cage.

“I know what we do with the maggots,” said Gassum, his lips hardly moving. “And we don’t kill them.” And the dice landed on double sixes.

At the top of the detached house on Old Church Road, a pair of bare feet crept up narrow stairs, the old wood creaking under them. Ascending through the 3am darkness, the feet passed dank walls riddled with mould so the paint looked like storm clouds, moody and bruised. Gloved fingers brushed flecks of paint off the banister as they glided up towards Gene’s door. A second pair of feet followed, but they made no noise.

Jack and Gassum were dressed in all black; hoods up, ski masks covering their faces. Their eyes though, their eyes still glowed silver when they caught the moon through the hallway’s skylight.

Jack had forgotten his keys enough times to know a credit card could open their rounded lock with a little love and lot of patience. There on the landing he gulped, hoping Gene had the same mechanism. He lined himself up with the lock and wiggled the card in, real gently at first, but when he tried to jimmy it the weak plastic snapped.

“Uncle Fuck!”

“Dude,” said Gassum, a gravel whisper in Jack’s ear. “Bite your tongue.”

Jack straightened up to his housemate, confrontational.

“Mate, that drunk’s bed is right above mine. I can’t tell you the number of nights his snoring’s kept me awake, okay? So don’t worry about noise, we could break in here with a wrecking ball and he wouldn’t stir.”

Gassum didn’t rise to it. He shrugged, his face calm and unassuming.

Jack pulled out another card from his pocket. Wiggling the plastic rectangle in corner-first this time, there was an instant click as the lock released. Jack gave it a little push and the door gasped open.

Gene’s studio flat meant they didn’t have to go far to find him. They followed the sound of snoring to the far corner, a siren song guiding them in towards his bed.

He was sprawled out, face down with one leg hooked over the duvet. The empty wine bottles cluttering up his bedside table suggested Jack was right, they wouldn’t have to worry about waking him. Gene’s drunken snores were deep and oblivious like empty boats hitting rocks. In the light of the moon sweat glistened on his thigh.

Jack took out a piece of string. Holding it taut, he slipped it under Gene’s foot, carefully shimmying it up his leg until he got to the top of his thigh. He tied the string around tight enough to restrict the blood supply, but not tight enough to wake him.

Then they waited. Jack squatted down on his hind legs. Gassum followed suit. A couple of jackals waiting for their prey to grow weak. Submerged in the silence they could almost hear the pump of Gene’s blood, the dull beat of his old heart. At the end of the bed sat a flat screen TV. Jack stared at his own murky reflection. There was just enough light to bounce off his shoulders and face in the screen’s black mirror. He looked for Gassum’s reflection but couldn’t find it.

At one point Gene stirred and they both held their breath as he turned over and slurred something to his subconscious. When he settled down and his low grinding snores resumed, Gassum checked his watch. Thirty minutes should be long enough for Gene’s leg to go numb. Gassum held up a finger for a beat, then dropped it, signalling Jack.

Jack took out his cut-throat razor. Mr Blonde was clean now, the blade shining black in the darkness. Holding the knife in front of him, Jack leant over Gene’s bulging leg. It was engorged. The flesh was swollen blue-red as Mr Blonde cut down Gene’s thigh, slicing through the bloated skin for seven juicy seconds.

The wound was six inches long and plenty deep, yawning open with a muted sucking sound. It looked like a piece of fruit, Jack thought, licking his lips. And that’s when Gassum nudged him into action. Jack took out the Tupperware box and a spoon. The box was alive, moving as shapes squirmed inside, visible but blurred through the translucent plastic. Taking the lid off, careful not to make a sound, Jack revealed hundreds of wriggling maggots. He hovered over Gene, steadying his position before he started shovelling the maggots into the fresh gash in the old man’s thigh. The white larvae turned red as they fell into the open wound and bathed in Gene’s blood. Using the back of the spoon Jack stuffed the maggots deeper into Gene’s leg and that was when the wound came alive, the tissue and bloody flesh crawling now, squirming with the primordial little worms.

It was the sound that woke Gene up. A din of buzzing, as if a bee hive thundered in his head. At first he thought it was the hangover, his head dehydrated and clanging. Then he felt the prickling across his skin, like hair-thin legs all over his thigh and up his left side.

Gene opened his eyes and the din got louder. It got louder with every blink as his pupils adjusted to the light and he took in what he saw; hundreds of flies vibrating around the room. The majority hovered in a throbbing black cloud right above him. The cloud was breathing, moving and morphing, becoming thicker then thinner like a jittering net.

Rubbing his eyes with the back of his hand, Gene followed the tail of flies down to the end of the bed. They seemed to be emanating from under the duvet. He ripped back the cover to release a mushroom cloud of flies that had been trapped underneath. At that moment, when he saw his feet through the fog of wings and little black bodies, Gene realised he couldn’t feel his left leg.

As the flies dispersed, joining the others above, they revealed a hive of maggots nesting in Gene’s thigh. The gash was green and gangrenous. The edges of the wound were obscured by hatching flies, bursting from embryonic sacks to be christened in his own blood and pus. The maggots multiplied, bubbling out of his leg to fall into the bed. Gene watched the crawling nest of larvae, the fat little grubs wriggling amongst their winged siblings. Then his mouth fell open and he let rip a B-movie horror scream so loud and shrill, for a brief moment, it cut through the din.

Sat on their sofas in a pair of identical shabby dressing gowns, Jack and Gassum slurped up bowls of cereal. The serene early morning peace was broken by Gene’s scream shrieking through their ceiling.

Jack and Gassum shared a confused look.

“You didn’t?” said Jack.

“Dude, I thought you did.”

“Fuck that. I took the rubbish out, you take the guy out.”

“I took the last one out,” argued Gassum.

“No you didn’t,” countered Jack. “I did.”

They faced off for a second. Jack frowning at Gassum, Gassum reflecting his expression back.

After a moment Gassum sighed, “Go get the dice.”

“Fine,” said Jack. “But this time I’m odd.”

“You’ve always been odd,” Jack heard in his head.