The Fabulous Beast Read online

  Jack.

  Jack Frost.

  These late frosts: they kill everything on the bough.

  Phoenix Man

  The world’s gone crazy lately. Eruptions, earthquakes, floods. Two nights ago there were meteorite showers in the northern hemisphere. Thirteen people were killed in one town alone. Phil Mackerby, a guy I knew at school, had a hole in the top of his head the size of a walnut. The meteorite went down through his brain, his throat, neck and on and on through his chest, stopping only at his pelvis. Crazy. Whoever heard of anyone getting killed by a walnut from space? It never used to happen. But it has now. Just as it happened that a couple in the Australian outback were fried by a shaft of sunlight which slipped through a crack in the atmosphere. Burned the skin right off their heads and backs. And the Japanese fishermen, a whole boat load, who went blind looking at a harvest moon reflected on the surface of the water. Just another one of those phenomena, some which follow the laws according to science, others right out of the kook book.

  And then there’s the plague of course. The White Death. Destroying towns by the month. Not quickly, not easily, but surely. It creeps in through the back door and wipes out the whole household, unless there are strict regulations in force and the local law ensures they’re adhered to.

  That’s why it’s not so hard to accept what’s happening to Dan Strickman.

  Let’s back up a little. My name’s Clark Sutherland. I work at Maggot’s Place, on Quay 7. I sell diesel to the fishing boats, and private yachts, and anyone else who wants it. I also run the office and the yacht chandler’s. I have a lot to do, one way or another. I get paid pretty well for it, but I’m never going to be wealthy. Just comfortable. Dan Strickman on the other hand, owns the cod packing plant, and is already a rich man by anyone else’s standards. In this town, anyway.

  I was engaged to be married to Jenny Leiner, Fred Leiner’s daughter. She was nineteen then. A couple of years have passed since she first said yes to me – then she said no, but that was later. We met at Cajun dancing. My brother, Rick, he has a Cajun band. Actually, they play everything from country to blue grass, but they call themselves a Cajun band. I play the fiddle. Jenny came to learn to dance and she just stood in front of the stage the whole night long and watched me fiddle.

  As I say, that was over two years ago, and since then Dan Strickman took her away from me. Married her. Left me looking at myself in the mirror and wondering whether I had a growth on my nose that everyone else but me could see.

  Then this thing happened.

  I’ll get straight to it now. Dan Strickman sacked a guy, who it turned out was not right in the head. The guy went home and got himself a can of gasoline, waited for Strickman to leave his office, and threw it over his old boss. Soaked him. Laughing like a maniac – hell, he was a maniac – he struck a match. He was so busy talking, telling a blubbing Strickman what was going to happen to him, he burned his fingers on the match, dropped it onto the half–full can of gasoline, which of course exploded in flames. The arsonist was incinerated, right there and then, and unfortunately for Strickman, the flames from the blow–back leapt out and fired him too. For the next few minutes he was a blazing torch, running around screaming: hair on fire, clothes on fire, skin on fire. The crackling sound first turned my stomach over and then the stink actually made me vomit. Not that I stood around and watched for more than a shocked few seconds. I was one of three guys who rushed to help.

  We threw a canvas sail over him, one from the drying rack, and managed to put him out after a few minutes.

  ‘Call an ambulance,’ I said, redundantly. ‘He’s badly burned.’

  The paramedics were already on their way. When they slotted him into their vehicle I thought that was the last we would see of him, before the funeral. I tried not to think of the fact that Jenny was free again.

  The following morning, Jenny called me.

  ‘Can you come to the hospital,’ she said over the phone. ‘Please, Clark, will you come?’

  I left two boats waiting for fuel, locked the office and put a closed sign on the door of the chandler’s. Jenny met me in the waiting room.

  ‘He’s still alive,’ she said, excitedly. ‘I don’t understand it, but he’s still alive.’

  ‘What am I here for?’ I asked, trying hard not sound disappointed.

  ‘The doctors want to know what happened.’

  A young doctor questioned me.

  ‘Was he actually on fire?’

  ‘The flames were three feet tall. I saw his eyes melt – sorry, Jenny. His hair, his clothes, everything went up. Is the other guy dead? Well, there was nothing to choose between them. They both looked as if they’d tried to escape from hell through the back door. I burned my hands trying to wrap the sail round him. Look.’

  They looked. The young doctor said, ‘Blisters?’

  ‘I told you – he went up like distress flare. I stuck my hands under a cold tap, straight after.’

  The doctor shook his head. ‘Come and look,’ he said.

  He led me into a ward with two beds. One of them was empty. On the other lay a pale but healthy Strickman. He wasn’t smiling, exactly. He was looking stunned. But he was whole. I stared at his skin. It wasn’t right, but it wasn’t black and charred, like it should be. When I last saw him he didn’t have skin. He was one red weeping wound, from head to foot, all the raw flesh showing, along with one or two bones.

  ‘What is this?’ I said, turning to the doctor. ‘Some new miracle cure you’ve discovered. Hell, that’s not just quick, it’s indecent. What’s it called?’

  ‘We did nothing. The skin regenerated itself, overnight. He cured himself, somehow.’

  Strickland managed a weak smile now. ‘Ain’t that a blast?’

  I couldn’t say anything. There was nothing to say. All we could do was look at one another. We soon got tired of that, and besides, the media had arrived. Just local at the moment, but I knew the nationals would soon be here. Men don’t return from the dead every day.

  ‘I’ve got to get back,’ I said. ‘Jenny? All, I can say is, he was a pillar of fire, yesterday. I don’t know what he is today.’

  That night I went out and got drunk. I’d lost Jenny twice now and it hurt like Hell. Of course, I didn’t want Dan Strickman to die, but I had thought he was dead. I felt a little cheated. It sounds mean to admit that, but it’s true. I was confused. Last night he was as dead as a red snapper on a barbecue spit. Today he was laughing and joking about his ‘ordeal’. How could that happen? I couldn’t cope with such aberrations without a skinful of liquor. Maybe you could, but not me.

  That should have been the end of the affair, but it was the beginning of the affaire, so to speak. I kept away from the Stricklands, trying to erase my feelings, and was just congratulating myself on what a good job I was doing, when Jenny turned up on my doorstep one night.

  ‘Can I come in?’ She looked distressed.

  ‘Sure.’

  I made us drinks and found her tearful. I steeled myself for a session of ‘Dan doesn’t do this’ and ‘Dan does that’. I wasn’t looking forward to being the confidante. Jenny was sitting there with her brown eyes brimming. I wanted to carry her into the bedroom, and I knew I was going to have to listen to woes and wherefores. But I wasn’t strong enough to tell her to leave. Instead I said, ‘What?’

  ‘He keeps doing it,’ she said, through clenched teeth. ‘Twice a week now.’

  What? I didn’t want to hear about sexual deviancy with Jenny as the recipient. Maybe he was beating her? She didn’t look bruised or battered. If he was hitting her, I could maybe do something about that, if Jenny wanted me to. Maybe she just wanted me to listen?

  ‘What? What does he do?’

  ‘He keeps setting fire to himself.’

  I jumped up, spilling my drink. ‘Shit!’

  ‘No – really – he gets off on it. You should see his face when he goes down into the cellar to do it. It’s like he used to look when we had sex behind yo
ur back. Sorry, Clark. I’m not myself. I’m frightened. I keep thinking, “What if he wants me to join him?”’

  ‘He – he wouldn’t make you do that.’

  She screwed up her nose. ‘I’m sick of it, anyway.’ Her voice changed in tone. ‘Can I stay here, Clark? Just for tonight? I’ll sleep in a chair.’

  She didn’t sleep in a chair, of course, she slept in my bed. I got the chair.

  I don’t like to leave things festering. I went straight round to Dan Strickman’s house the next morning.

  ‘Jenny stayed at my place last night. We didn’t do anything, but she says she’s scared of you.’

  ‘Jealous,’ he said.

  ‘I’m not jealous of you,’ I said, misunderstanding as it turned out. ‘I got over that a long time ago.’

  ‘No, I mean Jenny’s jealous of what I have.’ We were on his porch. He gave me a sly grin. ‘Hell, you don’t know what it’s like, Clark. Fire. It’s so cleansing. I feel pure afterwards. All my sins gone up in smoke. I can’t explain how good that feels, to be utterly, completely, clean. In a spiritual sense, of course. A soul without a blemish. It’s as if – it’s as if I’ve been reborn. An angel couldn’t be more chaste, more innocent of carnal crimes. There’s a double whammy. It’s unbelievable, the feeling of being totally pure and stainless, but that’s only half of it. The other incredible jolt is sinning for the first time after a cleansing.’

  ‘It is?’ I said, not really interested in all this philosophical crap. This is the sort of garbage you hear people yakking on about when they’ve been through some hellish experience – lost at sea, held hostage by a gunman – how it had changed them forever and now they live for one day at a time, yak, yak, yak. What I wanted to know about was the act of being burned itself. What did it feel like? ‘Doesn’t it hurt at all?’

  His eyes changed. I could see the pain in them.

  ‘It hurts like hell – the burning. But it’s worth it. Afterwards. Hell, to experience that kind of pleasure you’ve got to suffer, Clark. It doesn’t come for nothing. But what’s a few minutes agony, compared with the regeneration that follows – the high, afterwards? The pain doesn’t last very long. Just as long as the fire itself. Once I’ve snuffed myself, then I’m free to let myself feel in a spiritual sense.’

  ‘How do you “snuff” yourself?’

  He laughed. ‘Makes me sound like a candle, doesn’t it? I mean, once I go out, once the flames have gone, the burning feeling doesn’t last. I enter another plane. My senses are tuned to the highest pitch, but my nerves cease to function. I’m on a spiritual level by that time.’

  I could no longer hold back my disapproval. I was truly appalled by what he was doing – to himself and to his wife.

  ‘Listen, you really need some psychiatric help, man. You have to see a doctor. You’re heading for destruction! Let me call someone.’

  His eyes turned steely. For a moment he looked quite dangerous and I wished I’d kept my mouth shut.

  He said, ‘Have you any idea what it’s like to be bad once you’ve cleansed yourself? Incredible. You’ve never experienced anything that comes close to it. Booze, drugs, sex – nothing compares. There’s the cleansing, then there’s the defiling to follow. I find myself committing some atrocious acts, just to dirty my purity, just to get that second kick. You want to watch? I’m just about to . . .’

  ‘Have your fix? No, I’ve seen the results of one of your atrocious acts. What do you think all this is doing to your wife? What about Jenny?’

  ‘What about her? She’s left me. Do I look as if I care?’

  After that it was as if I didn’t exist. He walked into his house and descended to his cellar. I followed and stood at the top of the stairs, looking down into the dimness below. After a few minutes there was a whumph, then a bright flare followed by a sustained intense glow. I could hear him moaning with pain. Then there was silence for a while. The fire dimmed and finally some noises I would rather not have heard. It was like listening through thin walls to a couple making love in the next apartment. I left, wondering what ‘atrocious’ acts. What was he doing, after dark? It wasn’t smoking behind the bike shed, that much was certain. Robbery? Rape? Murder? Dr Jekyll’s ‘Mr Hyde’ would not have been satisfied with stealing sweets. The crimes might start small but they have to grow in nefariousness. Is that why Jenny had left him? Because she suspected that he was carrying out terrible deeds behind her back?

  When I got back to my own place, Jenny was talking to Burt Yammon on the doorstep. Burt is the law in our town. He looked concerned.

  ‘Hey, Clark,’ he said.

  ‘Has Jenny told you what Dan Strickman’s doing?’

  ‘I got far more serious worries than that, Clark. We’ve got a case of the White Death in the shack line. The town’s under quarantine. Nobody goes out, nobody comes in.’

  The ‘shack line’ was where the lobster, crab and shell fishermen lived – a line of shanties on the south foreshore.

  ‘Shit!’ I said, a horrible leaden feeling in my stomach. ‘The plague comes to town.’

  ‘Yep. We’ve been expecting it.’ His expression was naturally grim. ‘Now, it doesn’t spread that quickly, as you know, but once you’ve got it, that’s it. Five days. We’ve got the guy at the infirmary and he’s passed the fever stage. He broke out in erupting boils at two this morning. He’s a goner. We don’t want any more.’

  ‘Oh, Christ.’

  ‘Look, the town’s under Marshall Law now. We’ve got to conserve supplies, because, basically, we’re not going to get any. Your boat fuel. You don’t give it to anyone without my authority. And don’t let anyone land. Fly that little yellow flag of yours on the jetty pole . . .’

  ‘That’s the quarantine flag for ships.’

  ‘Fly it anyway. Sailors will know what it means. Anyone does land, you keep them here. You’ve got my permission, backed by my authority, to shoot anyone who tries to steal a boat and get away from town. You understand? This is a serious business, Clark. I hate to ask you to do this, but this is the way it’s got to work.’

  ‘I understand. I don’t know if I can shoot anyone, but I understand. I haven’t even got a gun.’

  ’You’ve got to. That’s the law now. I’ll get you a gun. I’ll call by the jetty in an hour, Okay?’

  ‘Okay, Burt.’

  Once he had gone, I said to Jenny, ‘I saw Dan. He’s crazy.’

  ‘I told you.’ Then more bitterly, ‘I bet it was him who brought the plague here.’

  I didn’t want to hear this, but I asked anyway. ‘Why do you say that?’

  ‘He went with a girl in Kettelstown. Took her against her will, he said. She died six days later, of the White Death. He brought it all right. He eats down at the shacks every Wednesday night.’

  Rape. I knew it. Murder next. This was a nightmare. Everything was coming at us at once. The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, charging right in, slaughtering. Burt had enough on his plate at the moment. He wouldn’t be able to handle a rape investigation. I’d have to wait until the plague had gone, then tell him. The girl was dead, Jenny said, which would make a conviction harder. Perhaps impossible. Yet we had to stop him somehow. It would be murder next. It was written in the sky with big flaming letters. The guy was out of his head.

  ‘They’ve got the plague in Kettelstown all right. Why didn’t Dan get it then?’

  ‘Maybe the fire burned it out of him? He’s always talking about how cleansing it is.’

  ‘Well, you’d better stay here, until this quarantine thing is over. Then – well, you can make up your mind what you want to do. Go to relatives, or whatever.’

  She nodded. ‘That’s fine. You know I always liked you, Clark.’

  ‘Yeah, well, I thought it was something more than that, once.’

  ‘It was.’

  So, in this world that had been turned on its head, I was gradually getting back all I had lost. In the week or two that followed we heard lots more stories about Dan and his obse
ssion with fire. He started doing it in public, going down to the town square and setting light to himself in front of an audience, like some Far Eastern priest protesting about the occupation of his country. People told me how he went up like a bowl of overheated fat. It was street entertainment: a side–show. Everyone was scared shitless of the White Death, which was gradually spreading, so the crowds were small, but it must have provided a distraction for some who wanted their minds taken off an omnipresent horrible death.

  One night he did it outside my house, I think to taunt me. He didn’t care about his wife, but he cared that I was learning things about him. His exhibition was a warning to me. To show I wasn’t worried, I got out my fiddle and played while he blazed down in the street: wild, gypsy music, the strings singing, my bow hand zipping across them, my head full of rage. He burned, I fiddled. His name should have been Tony Rome, from that movie with Frank Sinatra. It was a crazy night. Jenny screamed at the two of us, running from me to window and back again, making an insane situation worse, the whole thing spiralling into mayhem.

  ‘Let’s do this again sometime,’ yelled a toasted Strickman, his white eyes and white teeth stark against his blackened over–cooked face. ‘That was fun, kids, that was fun!’

  That same week there were two copycat deaths. It hadn’t occurred to me how many lunatics were in our town, but it seemed there were several Dan Strickman wannabes out there. Two of them managed to torch themselves to death. They found in their last moments of agony that they hadn’t got the magic touch. They stayed as crisp as bacon left under the grill for far too long. As with all of Dan’s little acts, the stench of burnt flesh was sickening, and people were throwing up right there in the street, as these two misguided fools formed a double pyre.

  I wondered why Burt or one of the lawmen in the town didn’t arrest Dan for causing a public nuisance, but like Burt had said, he was up to his neck in other worries, and when I mentioned it to him he said, ‘Where would I put him? The jail’s full of looters. Can you believe that? People stealing from someone dying of the plague? Risking death themselves for a tv set or microwave oven? Aw, he’ll run out of gasoline soon, you’ll see. The gas station’s already empty. He won’t have the fuel to cause a disturbance. What’s he going to use, kindling? I’ve closed the two hardware stores. There’s nowhere he can get inflammable liquids, not in any quantity. In the meantime, we’ve got seventeen more cases of the plague . . .’