Thursday – Jackson Part Two
How had he lost so much time? Bloody tourists. He shoved his way through the traffic, growling under his breath. They were meeting in the park. Him and the two of them on a bench, all cosy and out the way.
He was sweating, a thick sheen of it all over his dome. Bloody, sodding bollocks. He ran over the road and into the park. They wouldn’t want to wait. And they wouldn’t be impressed. He hadn’t thought he cared that much but turns out he did.
He slowed as he neared the centre of the park and followed the instructions. He spotted them before they spotted him and took a moment to examine. They were wearing suits. Should he have worn a suit? He spat, drawing stares from the people around him. Why did he care? Bloody Chinese bastards, he was better than them.
Jackson stomped over and stopped before the bench, arms folded. They looked up at him and for a brief moment his blood ran cold. Bitch had dead eyes, but they were nothing on these two.
‘Hi, you Li and Han?’
They still stared at him. One of them, who knew which, lifted an arm and carefully examined his watch.
‘Yeah, I know, bloody tourists in the way.’ He stopped himself before he could say anything else stupid. Their eyebrows rose and he opened his mouth again, then shut it. He shifted from foot to foot.
‘We do not appreciate being made to wait.’
Jackson blinked. The guy had an American accent, bang on. Weird.
‘Yeah, like I said, tourists.’
The one who hadn’t spoken patted the bench beside him. Jackson was sitting before he had time to think. This was that bastard flower seller’s fault. He’d thrown him. He’d been having a good morning and now it was all over the shop because of him. Sodding roses. He scrubbed his hand on the knee of his jeans and turned to the two Chinese men.
‘Let’s put this little issue of lateness behind us, shall we, and begin again. I am Li, then is Hen.’
Jackson stuck out a hand and received the limpest handshakes known to man. What was he so worried about? These guys were creepy but he could snap them both without blinking. Hell, bitch could snap them.
‘Thank you for agreeing to meet with us. We thought this would be a good time in our relationship to develop a deeper understanding. It is important that we are all on the same page, you understand?’
Jackson nodded, waiting. There was a but in this. He didn’t know what it was, but it was definitely there.
‘Tell me, Jackson, where do you see yourself in five years time?’
Jackson blinked. He hadn’t been asked that since school. When they asked him there, he told them he’d be robbing cars. Turns out he went a bit further, but they never expected anything from him, so cars seemed pretty big at the time.
‘Dunno. Working with you, I suppose.’
Was that the right answer? His hands were in his lap and he rubbed them together.
‘I see. You wouldn’t want to be in our position, making people like you do all the work?’
‘Well, maybe, dunno.’
‘You haven’t thought about this very much, have you, Jackson? I only ask because we want to work with people who think ahead, people who think about the big picture.’
‘Uh, yeah, I think about it. I mean, I’m getting a new van. Gonna have straps and stuff, make it much easier. Means I can get more in one go, too.’
The men looked at one another and turned back to him. He thought the one doing the talking was grinning, but maybe not. ‘Well, that’s very good to hear, truly.’ Li nodded and smiled for sure now and Jackson found himself smiling back.
‘We have a proposition for you, Mr Jackson.’
‘Uh, it’s just Jackson.’
‘Well. We are expanding our operations. Until now we have been focusing on older children, those strong enough to work and satisfy our clients’ needs. We wish to diversify and become more specialist. We want younger children, toddlers. Can you still work with us?’
He didn’t have to think. ‘Yeah, course. Don’t matter what age they are. Gonna be trickier to find though, less homeless ones.’
‘Well, that will be your challenge. The rest of our operations will continue in just the same way and we would expect to receive children, not promises or excuses. Do you understand?’
Jackson nodded, face heating up. He could get em, but it’d take longer. He might have to bring in some other people as well.
‘When do we start?’
‘Mr Jackson, you have already started. Thank you.’
He turned away and the two men talked in quiet voices. Realising he was dismissed, Jackson stood and walked away. He was dazed, thrown by what had just happened. They didn’t want to go for drinks or nothing, and what was that about? Still, they wanted to stick with him and that was just fine.
He stopped. They hadn’t discussed price. Kiddies were gonna take a lot more time, they had to be worth more. He turned back to the bench, but it was empty. Dammit, where the hell had they gone?
He did a slow circle, catching sight of people through the trees. But every time he moved to see them, it was other people. Creepy bastards. He headed back to the bench, then turned to leave the park. He spotted them, standing over near the exit. He raised his hand and dashed across, making sure to keep his voice down until they were close.
‘Here, we didn’t talk about price.’
The look they gave him was strange, like they’d never met and Li stepped forward. It might have been Hen, he wasn’t sure.
‘I am sorry, sir, I don’t know you. Nor do I know what price you are talking about. Excuse me.’
He turned away and fighting the urge not to, Jackson grabbed his arm and pulled him back around. ‘What the hell you talking about? You can’t pay me the same for the young-uns, so don’t try and bullshit me.’
Li looked at the hand on his arm and up at Jackson. His face split into a smile and there was something oddly familiar about it. He couldn’t pin it down and what happened next took all thoughts of familiarity from his mind. The man’s face split apart, his lower jaw dropping until it rested on his chest while the top of his head disappeared backward. From the darkness of his throat a pair of hands reached up and grabbed either side of his widening mouth.
With the sound like a blocked toilet finally clearing, a head emerged from his throat, followed by a body and a young girl climbed out. Her hair stuck wet to her head and her face was covered in spit. She scrubbed it away with her sleeve, staring at him. Jackson backed away, hands pressed to the sides of his head. He heard mumbling and realised it was him. ‘What the hell, what the hell, what the hell?’
The other man fell onto his hands and knees and his suit jacket ripped all the way up the back seam. The skin beneath it was bruised deep purple but now it tore open. Jackson winced, expecting blood to erupt, but instead a child emerged to stand atop the wrecked body.
Jackson took another step back, his heel caught and he landed on his arse. He didn’t feel the pain, his eyes fixed on the two children stealing toward him. There was something familiar about them also, but he couldn’t place it. He couldn’t place anything except the sweat running down his back and the way his hands shook where they gripped his head.
He had a moment to ask what was happening before he felt the hands. Tiny hands gripping his waist and shoulders and splayed flat across his head. He shrieked and scrambled to his feet, breaking free of the children surrounding him. He dashed away and they watched him go.
He got to the entrance to the park and slowed. They weren’t following. He took deep breaths, head swinging to and fro as he rested his hands on his legs. They’d poisoned him. This was some sort of test by those creepy bastards. They’d spiked him somehow and he was hallucinating.
He shook his head and slapped himself around the face. He drew odd looks from the passers-by but right now he couldn’t give a toss. Something brushed his leg and he looked down. A young girl, no more than twelve, – he was a good judge – stood beside him. She looked up, pale green eyes set in deep, black sockets.
‘Hi Jackson, you wanna come play?’
He screamed and lashed out. His fist collided with her face and something gave beneath the blow. People passing by stopped now and stared at him. One man came forward, hands out-stretched, and Jackson flailed at him, batting his hands away.
‘Why don’t you want to play? You said we’d have fun.’
He turned back to the girl. Her face was caved in, one eye burst and the bone of the cheek cracked and poking through the flesh. His stomach heaved. He could handle blood as well as the next man, but she was still standing, still talking to him through crushed lips.
He wanted to run but he was surrounded. He put his head down and charged at the nearest one. He’d make a path and they’d never stop him. The person moved out the way and he dashed straight into the railings on the edge of the park. His head struck the metal and he groaned and staggered away.
More hands grabbed him and his stagger became a fall. He landed on his back hard enough to knock the air from his lungs and he gasped and lashed out with fists and feet. Nothing connected and the hands returned. Soon he was pinned. All about him, children’s faces looked down. They were all familiar in their own way.
‘We’re yours, Jackson.’
‘You took us.’
‘And you tried to sell us, but we’ll always be yours.’
A boy, twelve or thirteen, loomed large in his sight. Then hands went into his mouth and he felt them pull his tongue away and slip down his throat. He gagged and vomited but nothing came up. The hands went further and he thought his face would split apart. From the pain that came next, he thought maybe it had.
The hands slipped down until he swore he felt them in his chest. Then the head followed and the shoulders and he screamed, the sound a gurgled, muted cry. His entire body was tearing apart and why wasn’t he unconscious?
His mouth closed up around the boy’s feet and his scream came out whole now. His body shook, great convulsions that made his head slam against the floor. His arms were free and he tried to stand but he couldn’t move. He got as far as sitting up before the hands pulled him down again.
The next was a girl and she was definitely familiar. He’d taken her only a couple of weeks ago. She’d been sleeping out of the hostel and they were his favourite. Promise of a warm bed and she jumped into the van. Now though, her hands were pulling at his lips and try as he might, he couldn’t keep his mouth shut.
Interlude
The flower seller turned away and vanished into the crowd. What made it worse were the number of children queuing for their turn. Jackson had been at it a while. He should have felt remorse, some sort of pain at what he was being asked to do. But there wasn’t even a hint.
Truth was, the flower seller had never expected to succeed. How Jackson got on the list was anyone’s guess. The subjects were supposed to be on the edge, but he was well past it. The choice he made today was between evil and greater evil. There was no salvation so far as the flower seller could see.
The street around him faded and the stone of his chamber came into view as he dropped back into his body. He stood from his chair and stretched. He glanced back through the window to the park and the man lying prostrate on the concrete path. To those standing around, he was just another lost soul who’d finally slipped free of sanity. But the flower seller could still see the long line of children.
There was supposed to be salvation, real salvation that made a difference. The list was tough this week. If he had the choice, he wouldn’t be beholden to it like all the rest. But the truth was, he liked being a seller. It was just the weekly reviews that made it drag. Still, two in either column. There were three days left, it could go either way. He picked up the list and scanned it. So many choices being made.
He sighed. Now and then he got a sense of just how big their job was. When he was down among the nitty gritty, he could ignore the bigger picture, but the list trailed off his desk and out into space and the end was somewhere far below him.
He needed a drink. He dumped the list on the table and jumped.
Next Installment Monday 7th July
