The Night at Day's End

Bayliss stewed in the gloom like gristle in gravy. 

It was getting increasingly worse, his guilt. His terrible cloying guilt.

Ever since the expedition to conquer Anakpan's towering summit, the climber felt the black burden of the survivor. Unlike his climbing partner and best friend, Rollo, Bayliss had returned to the safety and fireside of his comfortable period home.

But much more than that, Bayliss was consumed by the remorse - and fear -  of the murderer.

He had killed Rollo. 

He had taken his life at the top of the world, where God was watching and the devil most surely too.

Bayliss had kept his dark deceit for ten long years, guarding it like a stagnant pool in the steep ravines of his hardening soul.

In that decade he had often publicly celebrated his friend's achievements and commiserated with Rollo's newlywed widow, Hester.

More than that, Bayliss had seduced her as he had always intended to, jealous of Rollo's good fortune and his unbearably gorgeous young wife, whom Bayliss insanely desired.

Before they were married, Bayliss had long coveted his best friend's fiancee from afar, a clandestine passion growing ever stronger in the lightless recesses of his mad love.

He had been Rollo and Hester's best man at their beautiful wedding, swearing to protect his greatest friends and their promised children from the travails of the age with his very life. 

He lied.

His lust for Hester burned like the coal seams of purgatory and at length he could no longer stop his thoughts turning to Rollo's sudden demise at his own hand.

His best friend had to die.

It was Pythagorean.

The future was the perfect sum of a Rollo dead and his Hester uprooted for himself.

Then, the opportunity presented it's ugly countenance and Bayliss' hateful geometry was actually drawn out on a map of Ladkam, the tiny Asian enclave pinned to the world by its mightiest peak, Anakpan, the untaken giant at the edge of the Earth.

The massive berg gripped Bayliss like a Gypsy seer. It whispered to him, caressed his mind, conjured alluring visions of Rollo's rent body and Hester's almost unspoiled charms waiting for him to ravish in her London boudoir.

Anakpan spoke of blood and of bone. It spoke of the treachery in men's souls and laughed.

Bayliss listened like a medium and the thought was flesh. Rollo would die at the summit.

Keen climbers since grammar school and all the way though medical college, the two friends, Bayliss and Rollo had tramped the great massifs of Britain, scaled the lofty Alpine fastnesses and proudly taken His Majesty's empire to the crests of the sub-continent's titanic ramparts.

Only Anakpan remained unconquered and the nation's most illustrious climbing pair were chosen by the court to usurp it's might and plant the British flag atop it's cloud-flecked towers.

Preparations for the escapade were afoot and His Majesty's stores were made available to the adventurers. Ropes, boots, crampons, lamps, supplies, maps, guides, board and passage.

The date was fixed and the grim trajectories of Rollo and Bayliss were set therein.

May first.

One month after Rollo and Hester were married in that hopeful Spring of larks and affection.

Goodbye my sweet darling. Come back to me please.

I shall. I shall. Goodbye my love. Upon my return we shall make a child.

These pleas and vows whispered softly on the winds of the Asian range.

Anakpan was reached by the end of May.

The forecast was favourable, a solar eclipse later in the summer an omen of triumph, a herald of the impossible.

With the aid of local indigenous guides, a mid-way camp was eventually established nestling in the icy hide of the grinning behemoth. In the evenings the guides muttered to one another nervously as they stared at the nearing Moon, like the terrifying Sun, positioning itself with the gears of the Gods.

By mid-June the final ascent was in sight and Bayliss and Rollo dismissed the guides, insisting that they stay and make camp and give the final glory solely to the two appointed citizens of the great Empire.

The natives appeared keen to depart from the higher slopes and left willingly for safer, less auspicious geology. The prospect of a dark Sun seemed to make them jittery.

Bayliss and Rollo reached the harsh knoll on the Wednesday, their ice axes blunting from excessive hacks into stubborn pack ice. Even the finest quality Capital ropes were fraying in the frigid air. Rollo was struggling to breath, but Bayliss felt little pity for his dear friend.

Jealousy flared when he saw Hester's image in Rollo's pendant, a so-called kamera photograph from the new toy of the well-to-do. 

Such hubris. Such arrogance. To rub his face in it. Here!

Bayliss fumed and when the predicted eclipse of the great Sun occured that evening he saw his opportunity to rid himself of this entitled rival once and for all.

When it happened, as Moon wedded Sun, the guides at the camp stared in disbelief at the light-starved sky, it's shadowy curtain reaching down to cover their frightened faces as Gods and Demons from a different age flickered before them.

Bayliss embraced the darkness like a madman and as the Sun was cupped black he stared at his adversary.

Can you keep a secret Rollo, old man?

Rollo squinted as the corona burned round the moon like a melting ring.

Of course, what is it Bayliss?

I hate you! I hate you completely and fully! I always have and when you're gone I will take Hester from you!

What?

But the time for secrets was done and Bayliss pushed a dirk deep into Rollo's belly, who, bewildered by his best friend's unfathomable treachery, clasped his arm too late and with a tear in his eye, staggered over the frozen scarp clutching the dagger's hilt and dropped screaming onto the lethal bluffs below, where he broke like his wife's new bone china and perished on the blood-slicked slope.

Bayliss stared at his ragged friend in the solar murk and as the sun sloughed off the pesky moon once more, he could see clearly and gratefully that Rollo was no longer of the living.

He bellowed across the pinnacles with all his murderous glee.

Thank you Great Sun! Thank you!

Planting the British flag at the summit alone and feeling absolutely nothing, Bayliss climbed down to the ensorcelled guides with Rollo's pendant of Hester, supposed proof that his partner, confused by the total eclipse, had slipped from his grasp on the knoll and fallen accidentally to his untimely death as heaven was momentarily extinguished leaving Hell to open its sable doors.

Upon their return to London, Bayliss consoled the grieving wife, utterly bereft at the loss of her beloved man, now lying frozen on the frosted battlements of a distant rock, her lonely husband curled in the cold like an embryo and far from home.

She caressed the pendant she received, the only remnant of her Rollo gone and Bayliss mourned alongside her during those darkest of days that came, the eternal doom of the funeral and beyond, the gradual fading of the sun and Hester's journey into night.

Her dreams were of raw hands crawling across the moon, of lips whispering deep within the Sun and babies growing in frozen chambers at the top of the world. They broke free from their solid membranes and snowballed over jagged lintels, an avalanche of spilt blood flooding the valley below, their heads bobbing in the eddies, their hands waving red-stained Union Jacks.

Hester would scream and it was Bayliss who comforted her in the dead of night, sharing her bed on Rollo's cold half, sharing everything until one day, some two years later, they were married and expecting their first child.

Bayliss had won. He had taken Hester fully and like an avid cuckoo, had replaced his rival and dead best friend, Rollo, the man he put to death on Anakpan.

Life was sweet. 

Bayliss had a successful doctor's surgery, his new wife enjoyed a fresh procession of high teas, sponge cakes, disgorged his children and for years the couple were the toast of the town, the grief of earlier times evaporated and the memory of Rollo largely forgotten, no sign of him ever found on the mountain and his name certainly never spoken of in polite company anymore.

But as the years flew by Bayliss grew uneasy. 

His desire to confess to his best friend's murder bloomed like algae in his festering soul and his moods became tetchy, his former mellowness usurped by a burgeoning gloat. Hester and the children steadily withdrew and left Bayliss to wallow in his secret agony.

And thus, a full ten years staggered by, when the call came to retrieve the Empire's flag from Anakpan, the enclave of Ladkam now fully independent.

Bayliss leapt at the chance to be a member of the expedition and in his madness schemed to retrieve the incriminating dirk under the cover of another forecast solar eclipse. All he had to do was remember where Rollo had fallen and be there at the exact moment when the sky turned black.

The new Anakpan expedition got underway and Bayliss, once the natural leader but now deemed less experienced and older, held the lower position of team surgeon. 

The climbing was arduous and the rigours of the peak proved more than Bayliss had expected. He grew increasingly manic and the team eschewed his company, leaving him last on the ropes to mumble and curse as much as he wished.

Damn you Anakpan! Damn your granite heart! I gave you blood already. You will not have mine!

As the days bled into weeks the local guides grew restless the closer the new solar eclipse drew near. Still superstitious of the coming day's darkness, a few of their company remembered Bayliss from his previous conquest and they had never forgotten the frozen blood on his mittens. They had always suspected foul play, but had kept quiet like good acquiescent citizens of the world-bestraddling British Empire.

When the moment arrived, the eclipse of the sun and the moon, the mountain's late afternoon became night's end as the air was daubed with ink.

Everyone drew in their breath and gawped at the celestial majesty edging towards its zenith.

Only Bayliss did not look. He slipped off and gingerly picked a way down the ravine to where he felt sure his former best friend lay dead and frozen. 

As the two bodies came together and the sky turned early to midnight Bayliss could not believe his eyes.

The ice-dune that would have covered Rollo was there but it was empty and hollow.

Rollo had gone!

As the day retreated behind the moon, breathing heavily in the black ether of the solar event Bayliss frantically searched the nook he stood in for signs of a corpse.

Can you keep a secret?

The voice fluttered like a crow from a crack to the left and as Bayliss spun around, his heart pounding in his chest, a figure stepped from the deeper shadows and stood before him.

Rollo!

Can you keep a secret old man? I believe that was the last thing you asked me.

Rollo! How?

Well, my secret is ..... I'm not dead at all.

What?

Yes, old boy, you did murder me but my spirit lived on, preserved in an icy casket until it was released, just now, by the freeing corona around the sun and the moon. 

That's preposterous!

I am the ghost of your best friend, dispatched in the flaming ring of time and brought back by it, full circle, to exact my revenge.

No Rollo!

Yes, your ten years' warming my side of the bed and seeding my Hester are over my friend. Your time is up and mine is just beginning!

No Roll.........ugh!

The razor-sharp dirk entered Bayliss below his navel and cutting upwards slit easily through canvas, fur, skin and muscle until the hard chin halted the blade's progress.

In the eclipse's dark the thawing twisted phantom, of whom was once Rollo the man but was now something else, prized open the wound and holding it wide apart stepped inside and wriggled into its form until he fitted like a glove.

Bayliss screamed in agony as the entity and it's shadow filled his body. 

It sewed up the incision from the inside. 

As the final stitch was pushed through his dermis Bayliss could take no more and fell to the snowy ground babbling about the sun and the moon and the Hell in between. Then his world turned to black and his eyes closed.

As daylight rekindled itself, the medic of the team found him and, guessing he had slipped on the sharp jags by the knoll, bandaged him up and roped him down the rest of the route to the base camp. Here Bayliss's injured figure was taken by yak for an early return to England and home.

Hester tended to his grisly wound with gentle dabs of disinfectant.

It was an angry red now and dreadfully infected. The family doctor had prescribed complete rest, daily cleaning of the incision and a course of laudanum.

Bayliss mumbled about the devil in his belly who had swallowed the sun and slept fitfully throughout the first week. 

The injury did not get better and seeped increasing flows of putrefaction. 

At the start of the second week it ripped.

Hester stared in abject horror when the tear widened and screamed uncontrollably as a corrupted hand reached out of the wound, quickly followed by a second hand and a malignant pus-smeared head.

When an entire figure pulled itself out of her husband Bayliss's convulsing body and stood before her she screamed and screamed till her lungs burst.

The form of Rollo, wholly repugnant and decayed, shambled towards the shaking woman leaving footprints of blood-soaked frost in its wake. His eyes showed the darkening of a diseased sun and as he spoke his voice cracked like a fracture.

Hester my beloved, it is I, Rollo, your lost true husband, now returned to claim you and take you away to our new home, the glorious frozen prison where I was murdered and died and where we shall live together forever where day meets darkness. Come. Come to me my love.

Hester shrieked and she fainted at the feet of the decomposing figure.

The last anyone saw of her was the family doctor, who felt sure he had glimpsed a silhouette at the end of the street, the outline of a crooked man carrying a woman's body into the deepening darkening void of the night.

If You Meet Him Be Sure To Wear A Glove

Bip Yasser was the foremost palmologist in the Victorian world. 

He had read the palms of the rich and poor alike, always capturing the very essence of their futures in pithy predictions and uncanny forecasts.

His seminars and colloquia carried the alarming but alluring statement,

"If you meet me by accident be sure to wear a glove!"

Besides palmistry, Yasser was also obsessed with collecting.

Collecting his favourite things. 

His bread and butter.

Hands that is.

Left ones.

His secret and grisly collection of left hands was without equal. Thousands kept in cold storage in the cellars beneath his Victorian home, all neatly severed with excellent palms. Beautiful palms, which he'd read.

Unfortunately curiosity was a killer for the left handed when it came to palmology. The more they wanted to know the more it lead them into Yasser's lair to the end of their lifelines .... 

And Chop!

Another severed appendage for the freezer to be poured over again when Yasser felt the urge.

The more his fame grew the more sad, lonely victims sought his counsel and more than anything they desired a happy turnaround in their otherwise derelict and hollow lives. Malcontents for whom no-one cared and would not be missed.

For those he chose to murder that turnaround meant a further but fatal reading. A personal sitting in the comfort of his drawing room, where the gossamers of a violent death were waiting by the gaslights.

In a dark twist of geography his house was built over a pit. It lay dank and black in Yasser's main cellar, a sable void yawning beneath his gothic pile like a hungry mouth.

He fed it too.

He gave the pit the remnants of all his prey, hacked and butchered but largely there except for one hand, the left one, the Sinister, which he fondled and fingered, tracing the blood-flecked creases like a miner of gold.

Once washed and cauterized the sinisters would join their fellow limbs in the rank cold air of the basement's chests.  A thousand frozen handshakes they wished they'd never had.

But there was one left hand Yasser didn't have.

The left hand to end all others.

The Fallen left.

The hand of the Devil.

Satan's very own sinister. 

Legend had it that Lucifer lost it in the Final War of Angels and it's dark digits were hidden forever in the mists of evil and rheumy time.

But Yasser had researched it in a hundred hoary tomes, manifold ancient scriptures and countless forbidden grimoires. He'd read them all or the palms of those that had and it was this mastery of the art that eventually took him to the actual location of the real Fallen Sinister.

He had read the palm of the curator of the Vatican's hidden ossuary, it's secret cache of the bones of the holiest saints, whose sacred relics were piled on top of the most wicked of things that ever existed.

Lucifer's lost hand, the caresser of flies.

Yasser was electrified and immediately readied himself for the illicit plunder of the Holy See's reliquary. 

He coveted that fell appendage above all others. The unholy grail. The very fingers of evil. 

He had to have it and he had to read it's palm. 

The date was set and leaving a guided tour of Victorian guests, the palmologist loped unnoticed through the myriad ancient vestibules of the citadel until at last he indeed reached his goal.

He had realized that it would be dangerous to remove the dreadful hand unprotected. 

A crucifix around his neck, a Bible in his pocket and a prayer on his lips, the apprehensive hand hunter rummaged through the heap of sanctified femurs, skulls and ribs until he unearthed the very bottom of the shrine.

There, in the eerie glow of his flaming torch, astounding as it was, the true left hand of the Devil sat palm down on the divine earth, it's clawed fingers splayed out like a tarantula, it's skin like the black and scarlet hide of the plague.

This was it!

Everything Bip Yasser had dreamt of. 

The severed sinister of sin and malevolence here, before him, and reading it would surely grant him untold power and magnitude. Him alone. 

He would stride across the globe a demi-god and all monarchs would fear his handshake and bend to his baleful will.

The plunderer shook his head, the hot reverie passing and wearing a metallurgist's thick gloves he placed the ancient limb in a corked vessel of rosaries and holy water blessed unwittingly by the Holy Father himself.

The voyage home from Rome was dangerous and breathless.

Yasser stayed in his room on the Channel steamer until he caught the mail train at King's Cross. A midnight horse and cab delivered him safely back.

He was grateful to be home but had aged ten years from his devilish quest.

Placing his loathsome glory in the cellar's hold he collapsed in bed and suffered a fretful slumber ragged with tortuous visions and hateful strangers.

Waking at dawn, Yasser roused himself and with toast, marmalade and china tea bolstering his spirits he ventured into the lowers to savour his leathery prize. 

Staring at it outstretched inside the tank of rosary beads, it was indeed an arcane thing, a talisman of the serpent, monstrous and crimson, a forbidden greeting that drew Yasser in like a spider.

The Devil's Sinister.

He gently turned the horrific hand inside its cell and stared down through the shallow water at its dreadful palm.

He couldn't read it.

A palm that could not be read.

Perhaps if he took it out?

He did.

Free from its cloying bath, Lucifer's lines slowly gave up their grim fortune. 

With his most astute tracery, the nitheful paw gradually surrendered it's secrets to the ecstatic Yasser, which culminated in the foretelling of his rise to power, as he bestraddled the entire World and held it's fragile beauty in the palm of his hand like a snake's skull.

Released from this seductive vision the rapturous man returned the hand to its holy water and began planning his fated dominion over the Earth and it's elites.

He commenced building an empire of vanity.

Readings, divinations and tellings ushered him into the throne rooms of Emperors, Kings and Queens and the clandestine sanctums of the Holy.

Nothing stood in his way as his subjects heard what they wanted, the gears of self- indulgence turning their heads away from his gradual ascent.

It was at one such gathering where the palmologist, now Lord Yasser, was ending his sitting, when a newcomer sat before him wearing gloves.

He shook his hand and bid him read his fortune. 

I prefer the left for a fuller picture Sir.

Alas, that is not feasible my Lord.

The man held up a left gloved hand, clearly stiffened through years of arthritic strictures and malaise.

Ah, then the right it is! Lay your palm before me and close your eyes Sir.

As you wish my Lord.

The stranger removed his glove.

Yasser began to divine the ridges of what was clearly the hand of one who toiled, scolded and reddened as it was.

Then the teller opened his eyes wide! 

An apparition emerged in the ether of his senses, an overwhelming desire to take this strange individual home, bring about his death in a most terrible fashion and relieve him of his left limb regardless of its condition. 

He simply must have it.

I detect great beginnings but they remain muted Sir. A clearer foretelling would be had in my personal quarters if you care to join me?

Indeed I would my Lord.

Safely in his comfortable villa, Lord Yasser bade the somewhat hobbling gentleman, garbed in a long dark coat trailing along the ground, to be seated in front of his palmistry table in the gloomy drawing room, where the butcher's cleaver was hidden by his chair.

Place your right palm here and your gloved left hand beside it if you would.

Of course my Lord.

Once more the palmist faced the leathen appendage of fevered scarlet hues, it's fingernails more akin to talons than anything natural. 

It had the unpleasant feel more than anything of the wing-tipped claw of some enormous beast.

Gathering all his energies, Yasser began.

I see strength in you Sir, an as yet untapped reservoir of fortitude. Swathes of grand tomorrows await after years of imperfection. Yes, a reparation of sorts will occur, a union, but of what? If I follow the line further .....

Yasser's cleaver swung through the air and within a split second he had severed the man's left hand. 

It separated from the wrist with an odd splintering sound, quite unlike the splatter of his beloved skin and bone.

The stranger simply smiled. 

That was mildly irksome my Lord if I may say so, however, it was exact in its execution and I compliment your quick surgery. It needed to come off before we could proceed.

Proceed? What is that amputated hand before me Sir?

It's a wooden prosthetic made from the trees of Golgotha after I lost my original to that scoundrel Gabriel. Lost, yes, that's the operative word. I needed someone to find it for me. Someone like you Bip Yasser, deluded from the beginning. Did you really think you were destined for anything but a fool's errand leading to your ultimate damnation?

But the visions of greatness, my glorious ascent?

My lies you gullible termite. Like all you flesh puppets favoured by Heaven, it is easy to steer you to the quicksand of vanity and pride. Which is where you are now poor fellow. So be a good Victorian chap and bring me my missing hand. I, Satan, the Fallen One, want very much my sinister again!

With both of them descending to the cellars and commanded by hideous unseen forces, Yasser fetched the bath of rosaries and placed it before the Devil.

Now remove it from that accursed soup!

Ah, excellent. And now!

Satan held his severed limb in front of his left wrist stump and laughed with glee as the two heathen surfaces re-joined.

Wonderful! Splendid! I'm whole again! All thanks to you old fellow and your murderous gift. And so, I'd like to do something in return and complete your collection for you.

Satan grasped Yasser's left wrist and wrenched his hand free in a gout of spurting blood.

Yasser screamed at his amputation.

Slurping from his gushing stump, the Devil then placed the torn-away limb in the rosary bath.

Quite appropriate don't you think Yasser. The murderer's own hand loosened too!

Ha ha ha! 

The now undressed devil, his crimson hide smoking in the frigid cellar air, picked up the agonised palmist and carried him across his shoulder down into the pit, in which all the bodies had gone.

Oh, and thank you for the many morsels you threw me. Very tasty old boy.  This is one of my favourite entrances to my beloved home, where you shall live with me forever ...

In Hell! 

Ha ha ha ha ha!

E X T R A C T A

Gimme yer fuckin' water twatface!

Krale stared at the hydro-mugger, known as dro's in the metropole, and shook his head.

Didn't you hear me, fuckface, gimme that water!

Krale continued to sip his bottle and glare at the dro.

You're fuckin' asking for it fucker!

The dro lunged from his bus seat towards Krale, screaming his head off.

You're gonna die fuckmother!

Krale leapt over his rail and got the drop on his would-be mugger, booting him up the arse and sending him head first into the vehicle's side window, where his face met glass and glass won.

The agile Krale got off the bus and made a quick turn into a back alley, where he reached a keypad and touched the screen with his tongue.

He then spoke.

Krale, Officer, Aqua Force 2.

The door opened and the policeman, one of the good ones who never took a dime, entered a corridor leading to a huge operations room. Consoles beeped and maps of the city flickered on vast screens. They were maps of gangs. Drought gangs.

These criminal syndicates extorted the already struggling bottling companies and diverted the city's only water supply, bottled desalinated ocean water, for their own nefarious gains, selling the stocks onto the highest bidders in other stricken states, usually to the mega rich who could afford to pay.

Too many officials and officers turned a blind eye and it made Krale sick to his stomach.

As a result of the corruption the citizens suffered even more in what was already the worst and most prolonged drought in a century. It had lasted twenty years and had ripped civilized society apart. 

Nations warred over scarce water resources and gangs ran lines across territories. There just wasn't enough of it. Anywhere. It never rained. Not any more. 

Get delayed again Krale? 

His dodgy lieutenant was always on his back about something or other.

Some young dro tried it on.

Get the better of you?

What do you think?

Sir!

Sir!

It was a daily panto Krale and his gaffer played out, an irksome but manageable pain in the ass in a world of dwindling resources with big ass problems getting bigger every minute.

You're up on the hill today Krale.

What? oh come on boss, not the Cloisters. They're fuckin animals!

Well, you'll fit right in. Take Birds with you. The new greenhorn and a prick of a goody two-shoes like you!

Oh for fucks sake Lieutenant! Birds! The rookie! You gotta be joshin' me!

Get your weapon. Get your water ration. Take Birds and fuck off up the hill. Report back anything untoward. 

Untoward? Everything about the Cloisters gang is untoward. Fuckin' hillbilly river killers always on the make.

Take the boat up the Hudson.

They own it, the Hudson, they own the fuckin' river or had you forgotten ... Sir?

Take that tone with me Krale, you streak of Bronx piss and I'll bust you back to fuckin' boy scout!

I'm the fine champagne in your otherwise drab life Lieutenant and you know it!

Krale, if you were the last glass of Bolinger on earth I still wouldn't drink you. Now fuck off!

Officer Krale felt nervous about the assignment. The Cloisters gang were nutters. Cops left them alone, so why send him and the risk-drenched Birds. If he didn't know any better he'd think the Lieutenant was trying to get him out the way.

He logged out an ancient Winchester, his weapon of choice and good luck charm. He grabbed a bottle of the good stuff and dragged Birds from the photocopier.

Stop making copies of your lily-white arse Birds and follow me you dumb rookie.

They signed out a patrol boat at the Precinct jetties and boarded.

As Krale pushed the lever he noticed a party of businessmen disembarking nearby at the Mayor's city harbour. The boat was liveried EXTRACTA.

Fuckin' suits! I can't stand em!

Birds agreed because that's what he thought he should do. A beat with the legendary Officer Krale was both a privilege and a nightmare rolled into one. A jam doughnut sprinkled with glass. He was excited and bricking himself at the same time.

C'mon Birds. Ever seen Apocalypse Now? We're going up the Hudson straight to Hell! Mark my words, you're going to shit yourself today. Just follow my lead, keep schtumm and Birds ...

Yes Officer Krale?

... Watch my fuckin back!

The two aqua policemen zoomed up the brown skush of the old river, contaminated to fuck and held onto tight by the crazy Cloisters gang based high up on the famous hill beyond the Big Apple.

They'd be watching. Krale just knew.

It turned out to be an uneventful voyage up the drink, which worried the seasoned cop even more. His spidey senses were tinglin' like herpes.

Mooring up, the partners gingerly stepped behind the hoary walls of the hill citadel.

They could see gang members arguing in the courtyard over some sort of gizmo.

It was then Birds sneezed.

The gang turned.

Oh you fuckin' greenhorn Birds!

Krale tensed and positioned his repeater on the wall.

Drop it Cop! Drop the antique!

Krale swiveled to see a thin, gangly, tattooed creature with black teeth pointing one of two huge Magnums in his face.

The rifle was placed on the ground.

Walk coppers!

The two policemen trudged forwards towards the group who had been arguing.

Well looky here! Two fuckin' five O pigbags! What you doin' this far out you nosey little piggies?

Checkin' if the City's shit floats upstream too.

Ah, a wise ass. Krale isn't it?

Now how the fuck would you know that scumboid?

Krale was unnerved.

You're the golden boy. We all know you. Mister Honesty. And you must be the new recruit eh?

Yes, Sir, I've been fast tracked.

Krale poked his partner in the ribs.

Birds! 

Ah, yes, Birds! The Rookie! How apt! Fast tracked eh! In the right place at the right time and ready for new challenges eh! Well we have one for you Birdbrain. In fact we were just discussing whether you could be our guinea pig. And guess what, it is you!

With a single movement the gang leader pressed what looked like a small rifle with a large canister hard into Birds' waist, where it made a pop sound as if something had been punctured.

Suddenly Birds screamed for his life and turned to his partner.

His face turned blue.

Krale! 

Kraaaaaaaaaaaaaale!

Within a split second Birds was gone. He had been sucked whole into the device held against him.

What the fuck!

Krale staggered.

Jesus H!

The gang leader crowed.

Where the fuck is my partner you scumbag?

Why, he's right here officer!

The hoodlum pointed to the large glass canister on the end of the weapon. It was full of fresh but slightly pink water.

What the fuck are you talking about shit for brains! Where's fuckin Birds?

I told you copper, he's right here. I've extracted all the water from his piggy body and the rest of the shit is on the ground.

Krale stared at the water speckled with red flecks and at the pile of God knows what at the gangster's feet. And then he saw his badge. Viscous and melting.

Birds!

Krale felt sick to his pit but worse was to come.

The gang boss released the big bottle and took a long swig. 

Wow! That's some fuckin tasty fuzz pop right there! 

He wiped his lips with his arm and passed the bottle around.

Yep, the human body's more or less water Copper and you're gormless rookie has just been extracted! It's a whole new fuckin ball game!

The sickened officer was bundled into his boat and tied to the wheel. 

Tell any other upstanding pals in blue like you - a rarity I know - there's a brand spanking new way of drinking now, courtesy of our friends in Extracta, so watch out. We're thirsty as fuck!

Krale's patrol boat limped down river and he managed to nudge the steering enough to dock at the Precinct, where the lieutenant met him.

Where's Birds Krale?

He's croaked. Gone. Liquified. As if you didn't know.

After being debriefed for an hour Krale drank his ration, but spat it out at the thought of his partner. He should never have agreed to take him up river. Never.

And then he remembered.

Extracta.

Those fuckin' suits where on a boat with that written on the side.

Those fuckin' business and science types. I hate those bastards. I'm going to fuckin' find out what they're up to!

Krale grabbed a revolver and crept over to the Mayor's jetty. The boat marked EXTRACTA was still moored. He stowed on board and hid.

Before long the party returned.

The obvious top suit shook the Mayor's hand.

It's a deal Mr. Mayor. We take your street bums and homeless and sell you their extracted water at a fair price. It's a win win and we start tonight. Just pay off the cops.

Krale couldn't believe what he was hearing. Citizens being consigned for water extraction. Like his partner Birds. Jesus H. Christ! It's an abomination! And the Precinct is in on it!

The business boat speeded out to sea, past the last of the desalination plants that was still working. Just. The rest had caked up with salt and petered out. The final shipment of ocean water was in the city now and steadily running out. Rather than invest in the plants' upkeep the Mayor had made a deal with these fuckin devils!

Krale fumed. The 1 per cent every time. Screwing the rest of us. Bleeding us dry. Sucking the life out of us ... Literally! They'll pay, these greedy techno twats.

Docked, Krale saw that they were on an island. Behind was an enormous plant emblazoned with the now gruesomely familiar EXTRACTA name. Beside it were millions of empty canisters stacked up, like the one on the gangster's water gun, only much bigger. 

The top suit spoke into a tannoy.

At your stations! The first cargo of the City's filth is en route! Thus is not a drill! We go live tonight! We start the extractions!

Krale secreted himself inside the plant and desperately tried to figure out how to gather some evidence for the Press or else no one will believe him. It's just too damn far fetched that these dickheads are turning people into water!

At least he could get hold of one of those water guns and a small canister and set out to find one. Some paperwork would be good too. A copy of the deal signed by Mayor Fuckwit would really do the job!

Sneaking through the taps and valves, Krale heard the first screams and felt the liquified destitute pouring through the pipelines at his side. Canisters everywhere began to fill with that same disgusting clotty water. It was like the dairy from Hell and Krale was in the thick of it.

In the distance JCB's were scooping shrieking people from the cargo ships straight into the extractors. They screamed for their lives as their very contents were wrenched out and decanted, their clothes, skins, teeth and guts spewed out into vats, which would eventually harden and be sold to the thousands of fast food joints around the city as a cheap meat extract. Another win win.

Krale struck gold in a side office when he found a water gun and canister all badged up with EXTRACTA. More than that, he found a hold manifest for the first shipment. 

Scum, hobos, tramps and bums. 1,000 pieces. Agreed by the Mayor. 

Bingo! Fuckin' A. This would fry that elected shitstain and bring this whole temple of shite down with it.

Not so fast Officer Krale!

A beretta was pointing straight at him.

Krale couldn't believe his eyes.

You!

Me!

I fuckin knew it! You're bastard bent! 

Yep! 

But, it's mass murder!

'Bout time!

You can't mean that! You're a fuckin cop!

And a damn good one Krale. I know my place and I know when to look away. Unlike you, you inquisitive dickfuck. Those Cloister cretins fucked it up, so now I've got to deal with you or else Extracta will deal with me!

You'll deal with me old man?

Yes.

May I ask how you fuckin' corrupt twat?

Like this!

With lightning speed the Lieutenant jammed a water gun into Krale's midriff and flicked the switch.

You should have kept your nose out Officer!

Noooooooooooooooooo!

But it was too late for Officer Krale.

You were always a pesky fucker Krale. Never on the take and now you've gone the way of the birds! Ha ha! I told you, I wouldn't drink you if you were the last glass of champagne on earth. But a nice fresh bottle of water! Now that's different!

The lieutenant downed Krale's body-water in one huge gleeful glug.

Aaaaghhh! 

My, for a goody two-shoes wanker, you're a real thirst quencher Krale! You really are!