Garbage Man Read Online Free PDF Page B

leaves a final possibility but it’s the coward’s way forward. I can use stealth. Creep from doorway to doorway, sidle along walls and stay in the shadows of alleyways. I can crouch and crawl on my belly in the dirt. It will be slow. It will drain me . But it’s safer than walking into God knows how many skirmishes and risking my life.
    While I consider all this, I stand with my back to a brick wall which forms the side of a three-bedroomed house. Opposite me is the wooden fence dividing this property from the one next door. I notice I’m panting, my adrenaline levels rising at the prospect of what lies ahead. Whatever I do, I will not sleep this night. I will not rest unless injury forces me into hiding.
    I drop to a crouch and creep along the wall towards the back garden. It’s unlikely there will be anyone back there. I can’t see too far ahead but to turn my head-lamp on will attract attention . I have to do this almost blind. I come to the end of the wall and I’m about to sprint over the back lawn to the rear fence of the house when I think I notice movement to my left, by the back door of the house.
    I turn to look.
    Assailants. Three of them.
    Heads cocked to listen, clothes torn or missing, decay visible everywhere. Ribs showing through ripped tee shirts. Lipless mouths grinning. Lidless orbs swivelling maniacal, unfocussed. They make a papery sound as they keep vigil. It is not breathing but the movement of their desiccated dead skin. They are agitated, hungry.
    Three.
    More than I can deal with even using surprise.
    I’m going to have to get on my face and slide over the grass. I’ll have to stop regularly to turn and check they haven’t discovered me. What are they doing here? So many in one place . In the wrong place. Gardens like this should be empty. They should be safe.
    Sick with fear, hands shaking, I put my face to the ground and start forward one stolen hand-span at a time.
    ***
    Tamsin Doherty twitches in their bed. Beside her is an expanse of linen across which she and Kevin rarely meet throughout the night. On the other side of this gulf is the cliff face formed by his back. Her eyes are closed. There is a waxy patina of sweat darkening her hairline, transparent pinheads above her lips. Her closed eyelids are two pregnant bellies in which twin eye-foetuses kick. She takes a sudden in-breath, fingers gripping the sheets.
    There is a tall building, a building made by the hands of men but one which reaches up very high. Some days the upper parts of this building are hidden by clouds. She knows there were people here once but now they are gone. There is only the building. It stands tall and alone in a silent landscape as if it is the last building on Earth, as if it is the first.
    She sees the building from above and notices something there. Something moving on its bare, flat concrete roof. She knows what this thing is long before she is close enough to really see it. All the people have gone and they have left behind a poor denuded baby. She feels she may have lived many lives but never has she seen such a solitary being. Perhaps, like the paradox of the building, this is not the last baby on Earth. Perhaps, somehow, it is the first.
    The baby crawls on the sky-scraper’s flat roof. There is a small wall and railing around the top of the building but the baby will fit through the rails easily if it finds them. It crawls well too. It might easily haul itself over the edge. She wants to go closer and help the baby, bring it safely to the ground but she cannot. She is here merely as an observer. The more the baby crawls, the more determined it becomes. It is naked and its hands and knees and feet, where they scrape over the cold concrete have developed thick pads, thick as the paws of wolves and lions.
    The baby finds the door to steps that lead down. But the baby does not know about door handles and even if it did it would not be able to reach. It bashes its head