UniteDead Kingdom. Stuart Irving Irving
crouched rioters weren't doing so to protect themselves. They were deliberately hunched down, all in little packs and very slightly moving. Almost imperceptibly writhing, like the way a thin bed sheet would move with live, crawling insects underneath.
The camera zoomed in and Zan could see a woman in a navy business suit lying face down on the ground. She had brown hair scrunched back to form a tight ponytail and from the side you could see that she might have been pretty. It was hard to tell because one of the so-called rioters, an obese mid-twenties man in an apron, had his teeth clamped on the side of her face and used his hands above and below her mouth to slowly tear her jaw apart. Her prone body strained as he pulled her mouth sickeningly wide and snapped the tendons free, her face now spraying blood and her tongue flapping in desperation. She trembled in response, betraying the sickening fact that she was still alive. But not for long. The two other attackers who’d crouched round her body were also systematically dismantling her - one gouged at her thigh where her skirt had been pulled up, the other hungrily ate into her back towards her intestines. They feasted on her prone body like greedy siblings with a bag of treats at Halloween.
Zan felt himself dry-wretch and wondered what sort of sick joke this could be. It conjured the memory of a hundred movies where the actors saw something unreal and pinched themselves. He almost laughed at how crazy and clichéd that action would be but still did it. Nothing changed. This was fucking real, he thought. He waved his hand rapidly though the other channels and most of them showed the same scene, albeit the other broadcasters hadn't decided to go for gross, close-up drone-cam mode, accidentally or not. They all broadcasted similar strap lines: -
'Hundreds feared dead in Slovenian massacre'
'Violent riots in Eastern Europe. 100s dead'
'Cannibal cult in attack on peaceful market town, N Slovenia.'
The last one was apparently the only one to nail the truth. The news of the past decade was often filled with 'brutal attack' or 'rioters feared dead in the village of ‘Toofarawaytocare-istan’. But cannibals, what the fuck!? Who knew there was such a cult? It brought to his mind the explosion of zombie movies in the 2000s and 2010s that he grew up with. Before the public became obsessed by movies about daft other-worldly demons and dark, unsettling Cthulhu Mythos adaptions. Then his sleeve started buzzing. The message on his arm simply said ‘It’s Jack. Call me.’
Jack? Ex-colleague, Jack Travis? Can’t be. Zan barely knew him. He had worked on a different trading desk and certainly wouldn't have appreciated Zan's trading nearly costing him his job. The firm ended up with a positive PnL on that fateful Tuesday just over a year ago, but the traders knew exactly what happened and they didn’t speak to Zan again. A small minority still thought he was a trading legend, but most considered Zan reckless and arrogant. Zan was pretty sure Jack was in the latter camp. His mind drifted. Maybe it’s not Jack in Equities. Hold on. Surely it’s not …
“Oh, that Jack” said Zan, finally realising.
Chapter 5: A Gentleman’s Agreement
“Jack!” Zan shouted across the high street. He knew it was unlikely that Jack would answer. His loss. The gentleman's agreement forged all the way back in Fresher’s Week had been the following; if either of them ended up with a 'munter' then the other must intercept to save their friend’s honour. Zan looked at Jack’s squeeze for the evening and shook his head slowly. The interception wasn’t supposed to be required every fucking night.
Zan sighed and straightened his posture as if getting ready for battle. Right, he thought, tonight’s booby prize appears yet again to be a gigantic, loud, shouty girl, wearing gigantic, loud, shouty clothing. Jack had pulled her in the kebab queue, for fuck's sake. What happened to ‘celebrating the end of their exams in style’ they agreed to in the club only two hours before?
“Jack!” Zan shouted again, going for a slightly quieter but more authoritative approach. It worked; Jack jerked his head away from her determined blubbery lips.
“Yeahhh, wha’ is it?” said Jack, his lower face smeared with bubble-gum pink lipstick. He also had a large dollop of kebab sauce on his shirt collar.
“I need to talk to you dude. You can carry on with your new girlfriend when I'm done, but it’s very important.”
“God dammit dude, it f-fuckin better be.” answered Jack, and then paused. He looked straight through Zan, his head slowly jiggling … then he jerked it right back and laughed crazily up at the sky. The enormous girl looked up at him and/or his kebab sauce stain with hungry eyes. Then their eyes met again and they resumed chewing at each other’s face.
Well, it’s true what they say about a man's big head is ruled by the little. It led Zan to a further baffling thought … how did Jack manage to get so hammered in such a short space of time? We matched pint for pint, shot for shot. The booze wasn't close to a sufficient excuse for such a scandalous display.
The girl looked miffed as Jack pulled away. And why wouldn't she be? She clearly wanted to get laid and Jack seemed willing (and possibly even able) to oblige. But even for two battered, temporary love-birds the location was awful. They were outside a kebab joint where all the locals, students and even some squaddies were queuing and had ring-side seats to the courtship. So, rather than the three groups fighting with each other as normal they had found a creative outlet: unleashing a wide variety of cat-calls and creative but crude hand symbology at Jack and his new lady-friend.
Jack finally wrestled himself away from the girl and came over, swaggering confidently at first, then almost completely losing his footing on a slight indent in a paving stone. Zan started to explain as the rum-soaked Jack approached.
“Look dude.” said Zan. “First of all - you're very drunk. Agreed?”
“What you talking about buddy, not a ch-chance,” said Jack. “I can probably still dive … and drive better than you.” He finally reached Zan. They stood facing each other a few seconds, Jack slightly swaying. Jack burped and blew it steadily in Zan’s face.
“Wonderful.” said Zan, turning his head away from the rancid, kebab-flavoured gas. “Just perfect. Look, Jack. Look at me! We have our agreement, remember? And because of that, right now I have to tell you this; your judgement is shot to hell. Do-you-get-what-I-am-saying?”
“Eh? No-one is s-shooting anyone tonight! And no-one j-judges … me!”
“Really?” asked Zan. “You’re really that fucko’d? Jesus Christ. Arrrghh. OK, basically, the girl you are trying to tune this evening - that’s right, over there - is terrible. I don't JUST mean she is obese, which she is. And, by the way, you allegedly don’t like that.” Jack turned and looked at her, squinting. She was giving the fingers to the jeering crowd in the kebab shop and bared her titanic buttocks at them, enjoying the jeers as if hearing only encouragement.
“May I present exhibits A and B?” said Zan.
They both watched her display with silent, quiet concentration.
“Last but not least, she has a God-awful screechy, whiny voice. I think even the neighbourhood dogs are struggling with it.”
“She’s not a dog!”
Zan sighed. “OK, yes, correct, she’s not an actual canine. She IS more or less a human. Actually … much, much more. C’mon man, look at her clothes, they must be hurting your eyes! And to top it off, she has a really nasty attitude. She was fighting with everyone in that club, even in the fucking kebab queue, which you somehow found appealing. She is a low-three, do you understand me? A LOW-THREE!” Zan showed three fingers in Jack’s shaky line of vision to reinforce the message. A brief flicker of light sparked deep down in Jack's blood-shot eyes and he suddenly looked up at Zan with a puppy-dog face.
“I th-think - I think I want to go home.”
“Hallelujah!”
Zan peered over Jack’s shoulder. “OK, lady, sorry, but I'll take care of Jack from here.” She stopped baiting the Kebab shop crowd and her belligerent