Bugmen

A Novella By The Ink Abyss.

#

Chapter One.

At last, in June, we have a good day: we find a monster in a dead old lady's ass. The Zit is twenty centimeters in diameter, which means it's been gestating for only a couple of hours. Its tentacles are translucent and baby smooth as they reach for my neck; I can see the morgue table through its pustule of a body. Once upon a time, I tell Bob The Brilliant, this would have been a warm-up.

His affirmative is muffled through the decontamination suit.

"Note it as a First Phase Encroachment, Bob, and pass me the Extinguisher." He hands me the Smith and Weston. I freeze dry the tiny monstrosity, my prerogative as head gravedigger.

We shuffle out of the isolation chamber; I seal the door. "Go on, Bob," I point a glove at the big red button. "My treat, buddy."

Bob's eyes crinkle behind the goggles. Flames squirt from the morgue's ceiling and reduce both Zit and elderly host to bone-speckled dust. I pull off my Kevlar gloves and lay a palm on the fused quartz viewing window; the inferno can be felt as a muffin-like glow. Clapping my assistant and very best friend on the back, I say "Let's hit the pub."

I aim the Tesla at the Oldport Arms, two hundred yards down the road. Most amenities are two hundred yards down the road because Oldport consists of three thousand souls stuck to a cliff above the Toone river. Oldport is semi-known for two reasons. One is the Toone itself, both the broadest river in Scotland and the largest tidal river in Europe. Reason one leads to reason two: the water creates a foggy micro climate much loved by the Zits. Combine that with a plentiful supply of pensioners and you have a spa town for humanity's parasitic scourge.

The pub is jumping — by Oldport standards. A full time drunk, Freddie, leans on the fruit machine like the victim of a drive by slumped on a car horn. The barmaid, Kelly, polishes beer glasses without making them any cleaner. A smattering of silhouettes occupy the booths or lean against the molasses-colored oak beams. Illegal cigarette smoke is the Oldport's perfume and Freddie's shrieking fruit machine is its soundtrack.

Bob The Brilliant moans, his always defeated shoulders slumping toward suicidal. "Can't we just get drinks at the office, Ramsey?" He looks sneaky. "We got them new craft beers you like. Play with the dog, hang out."

I order a Stella, which is what this place stocks in the absence of anything drinkable. "You don't like it here?" We've had this conversation before.

"I liked the Toone Hotel more."

Kelly plops the beer down, her lips slightly parted. "Refreshment from a lovely lady," I say. "What more could one want?" I sip. It tastes like the urine it will soon become. "The Toone Hotel closed six months back, Bob."

"Yeah, well—"

I inspect myself in the mirror behind the bar. Bob's true issue is not the Toone Hotel nor a desire for craft beers. Bob's true issue is me: specifically, that I resemble a late twenties version of the actor Jon Hamm, though with fuller lips and a beard whose lushness indicates above average testosterone. Factor in the V-shaped torso accentuated by a Breton striped Chanel jumper and I can't blame pudgy, shy, mid-forties Bob for wanting to bail: I am, quite frankly, catnip for females.

"The ladies," I say in a Spanish accent, "They love what you do, amigo."

"Uh-huh." He peers at the Oldport's red carpet, apparently searching for girls amongst the butts and roaches.

"Don't sulk." I pat his hand. "You're taller than me."

Bob's head swings round, accompanied — a moment later — by his chins. His eyebrow raise says, "Isn't everyone?" Luckily, the Universe won't permit Bob even this sliver of superiority: the doors are battered open by a tsunami of women. "Talking of ladies, the Gravedigger Groupies are in the house." I raise my glass to Bob, and to my own Grade A genes.

"You're obnoxious," he mutters. "You know that?"

Lisa and Vicky and the other one, the chick I had sex with but whose name I can't remember. A short-skirted triumvirate with one goal: the seduction of yours truly, Ramsey Holiday. Not, to be fair, a great challenge. Still, they're serious about their work and get started immediately, leaning on the bar a foot away and squishing their boobs into its sticky oak.

"I like his curly hair," says Vicky, applying lip gloss as she studies her pouting reflection.

"I like his beard," says Lisa, not be outdone. "Sexy."

The Groupies possess a narrow range of obvious plays. Tonight's is the oft-used "Pretend To Ignore Ramsey While Talking Loudly About Ramsey."

"I like his legs," says the other one. "From all that pumping up and down on his fancy bike."

Something stirs in the southernmost reaches of my belly. The way to this man's heart is by referencing his Cinelli fixed gear bicycle.

Bob's groan reminds me of the gases escaping our dead old lady. "I'm going to play pool with Freddie." He shuffles toward the fruit machine's master.

"Another Stella." I wink at Kelly. "I do love watching your hands squeezing a tap." She rolls her eyes but smirks: Kelly is also a notch on Ramsey's Danish design bedpost.

I stalk to the bar's far end and my own personal stool, ass in slo mo. Beneath the clack of pool balls, a Groupie gasps.

Um.

"What's this now?" My ass is paused, left cheek on the upswing. The stool is occupied. Not simply occupied: that lucky stool is having its face sat on by an angel.

Ramsey Holiday checks his hair in the bar mirror; he breathes into a cupped hand. An acceptable level of Stella-based sourness.

"I'm going in," I say in a posh fighter pilot voice.

The closer I get, the more otherworldly she becomes. This is the kind of beauty that destroys lives, cities, empires, a woman for whom armadas are created and prison sentences endured and death embraced. Faced with her loveliness, my friendship with Bob The Brilliant doesn't stand a chance.

She looks in my direction. She's drinking what passes for a cocktail at the Oldport Arms: an alcoholic slurry of ice and spirits speared by a toothpick, the toothpick in turn impaling a preserved cherry. It's an abortion of a drink but because she's drinking it, I want it too: she infuses the bar with a soft-focus gentleness, her hair sighs as though accompanied by a zephyr. She so hot and I'm so nervous; I'm not sure I could even get an erection in her presence, so—

Is it clear what I'm trying to say here?

"How did I not see you?" I say. She doesn't appear phased by the creepiness of my question. Probably, the shit of men has been lost so often in her presence, she thinks we're always this bizarre.

She nibbles on the preserved cherry. "I saw you though."

Bingo — no way, that easy? "And what did you think?"

"I thought you looked like a bit of a dick."

I blink. This is not how the laws of Ramsey's sexual physics work. Unless—

"Wait a second." I waggle a finger at her. "Are you negging me?"

She face shrugs. I am lost in her lips. To look at her is to peer through a microscope: every detail vast and in focus.

"I'm not a dick," I say. "People often think good looking people are dicks."

"Yeah? You think you're good looking?" Husky voice, but with a rough local accent. Huh. Saccharine perfume too, like a teenage girl's discount deodorant. I'd hazard Revlon. These tiny flaws give me confidence: she's human after all.

"Of course," I say, "Look, some people are good at maths. Some can run fast. I'm good at being good looking. Why be ashamed of it? It's just an objective fact. Why, you think I'm unattractive?"

"My professional opinion?" She sips. "You're decent. Not tall though."

My sleeve is tugged, as though by a little kid. "I'm going to feed the dog," says Bob. "Freddie doesn't want to play anymore."

"Yep, see you later."

"Or do you want to watch a film? Roadhouse is on TV—"

"See you later, Bob." He pouts, but tramps off without another word.

"What do you mean," I ask the girl, "by 'professional' opinion?"

"I used to be a model." She stifles a yawn. "Down in London. Just got back."

I may be out of my depth.

"I did a bit of modeling too." I leave out that my posing was done for a high street hairdresser when I was seventeen.

She sips. No "I can see that" or "yeah, you've got the jaw for it." On any other day, I'd accept defeat, select a townie girl or two, and forget Miss Model in the alley behind the recycling bins. But not today: victory over the ass-inhabiting Zit has lent me courage.

I nod at Kelly and send the Groupies a complimentary round of spritzers. I take the stool next to my personal stool. "Stop negging me," I say. "I'm warning you."

"You're taller sitting down." Her white teeth grind an ice cube. "Who are those girls then? They look upset." Miss Model waves her cocktail stick at the Groupies. "Skanky too. Says a lot about a guy, the girls he hangs about with."

"They're nobody. Perk of the job." Drink my Stella and count to three.

"What job's that then?"

I point. Behind the bar, there's a picture of me with the Mayor and her Deputy. I'm holding a large key made of chocolate wrapped in gold foil. The key to the city. Village. It's worth noting (though not to the goddess afore me) that I did nothing to earn the key: it was given as a PR stunt when I arrived two years ago.

"I'm a gravedigger. A head gravedigger."

And there we have it: to the untrained eye, nothing much changes. Perhaps her irises dilate, perhaps her posture softens. To a man with my instincts, however, it's like a heavenly host started playing Dixie.

She's impressed.

"Rough job," she says.

"Dangerous." Best spell it out: intuition says she's a literal kind of lady. "Highest body count since the submariners of World War Two."

"No kidding? Still?"

No, not for almost a decade. "Yes, absolutely. You know how we got the name?" Everybody knows but, like I said, subtle doesn't get sex. "Because to take this job is to dig your own grave."

A chime. She pouts at her WhatsApp. It's probably too early in this relationship to be water-boarding her phone with my Stella and demanding she erase all male contacts.

"What part of England you from?" She looks down, forefinger caressing the screen.

"Leeds. Been moving around the country since the Zero Infestation." I'm only twenty nine, but that's ancient in gravedigger years. "No rules back when I first started. Volunteered. We made the job up as we went along."

"You must have seen some horrible things." She closes the app and swipes to camera. "I've never met an original gravedigger before. Only heard about them in school." She frowns. "That makes me sound young. I'm not. I'm twenty one." She blushes. "Can I get a photo?"

The heavenly host hold their trumpets high; sun rays strike brass. "Course you can. What's your name?"

"Alyssa."

I shake her hand; an erotic experience.

We snuggle, what might be a portion of boob pressed against my elbow. Apparently, I was wrong about her hotness rendering me boner-less. Her cheek against my cheek, she raises the phone, arm outstretched. The device makes a click like an old fashioned camera.

She rubs her face. "Ouch. You got a beard. I hate beards."

Blasphemy! I'm about to explain that facial hair like this requires real effort when her phone chimes again.

"You're popular," I say. It's pleasing to see she posts our photo on Facebook before checking the message.

"A boy. We were together as kids. Loved his bloody motorbike more than me." She sniffs. "Bit of a loser."

Bugger. Despite the casual disrespect, I'm sensing a Thing, capital "T". Freddie's fruit machine chirrups in agreement. I finish the last dregs of Stella and consider my next move. Some version of indifference is best — anything except ask whether she's waiting for Mr Motorbike.

"Are you waiting for him then? The guy with the motorbike?"

She looks up, her lips twitch. "Sort of. I said I'd be around tonight." Alyssa finishes her non-cocktail and orders another, plus a beer for me. "You look like that bloke from that TV show." Her wrist brushes mine; she pushes the cocktail glass to one side. "So how many dead people you seen?"

I'm about to trot out the standard response — accompanied by an appropriately intense stare — when an explosion rips through the car park. A second later it subsides to an aggressive gurgle: a Harley. The beer makes me slow. A Harley is a type of motorbike... and... who do we know with a motorbike?

"He's fast, you're friend," I say. I excuse myself, hit the gents, and splash water on my face. As people in movies say: "There's a storm coming."

#

He's taller than me, of course. Mr Motorbike strides into the bar smelling of leather and gasoline, all six foot something of him, and looks at Alyssa in a way that suggests a history of mutual nudity. I'm returning from the John, halfway across the room but in his sight line; he definitely sees me and just as definitely blanks me. Given my status as local hero, this is mildly shocking. What's downright horrifying is that his beard is better than mine. Not as full, perhaps, or as long, but worn effortlessly. This guy's facial hair isn't an affectation; it exists because he's a hard working man with little time for shaving. I'd be surprised if Alyssa doesn't make him the exception to her beard hate rule: I would.

But the worst part — worse than the beard, worse than the ignoring — is that I recognize him.

Will Ingham is his name and he's a handyman. Since I got here, we've been exchanging glares on the High Street. I'm pretty sure we're the best looking men north of Hadrian's Wall.

"What's going on here then?" He holds up his phone, a tiny image of myself and herself in his paw. Will Ingham has his back to me. Stretched across his leather jacket is a logo: a patch of a human skull with bullets for teeth, "East Coast Clan MC" stitched in swirly type. I rather hope this means "Clan" in the Scottish sense, not the pointy white hood sense. I also hope his "MC" refers to a motorcycle club of the non organized crime variety.

"Calm down, Will. I made a friend. He's a gravedigger." Alyssa's expression is that of a fan with front row seats at a cage fight.

Leather creaking, Ingham spins on me. I wonder whether jealousy is their version of foreplay.

"Which guy?" Will Ingham's dirty look lacks the spark of full sentience. "This hipster?" He points his pectorals at my head like they're some kind of weapon. "Are you a mime, mate?"

"Ah. You mean because of the stripy jumper?"

Will Ingham shakes my hand. "I'm kidding, mate. Nice to meet you." His tone implies that neither of these statements are true. "But you are a hipster, right?"

I smile indulgently. "I have an appreciation for artisanal products. But the term 'hipster' is a little out-dated."

"Is that right?" Will Ingham turns to the bar and orders a cocktail for Alyssa. "The posh thing, with the cherry. Beer for me. The hipster's good for now."

"I've still got one," says Alyssa.

"You could do better," says Will Ingham, cryptically.

I once read a blog post about how Alpha males never act aggressively because their dominance is obvious, so I pay for everyone's drinks.

"Thanks, mate," says Will Ingham. "Lot of English moving up here," he tells Alyssa loudly.

On the other hand, maybe I'm not an Alpha male. "So, Will," I say. "Tell me: is that motorcycle club you're in the type that smuggles drugs and murders people? Or is it more of an" — I choose a word he likely doesn't know —"pretense?"

Will Ingham blushes to the roots of his magnificent beard. "Yeah, we ride. We do shit, me and the brothers."

"Yeah? Dark shit?"

"Yeah, mate. Dark shit."

Alyssa raises her eyebrows. "Oh aye, Will? Dark? Barbecues with your mates?"

"Jesus, Alyssa." My opponent rubs his jaw as though slapped.

In our metaphorical cage fight, I've just figuratively bitten off his ear.

#

Booze turns time liquid and an unspecified number of hours later, Alyssa is explaining how much she likes my apartment. At some point, Will Ingham left with his silver two-wheeled penis tucked between his legs. How this happened is a mystery. Maybe Will and Alyssa's bond is less like iron and more like fluffy handcuffs — twist them and they fall off. Or maybe Will Ingham can't handle his drink. Or maybe the reason he gave was true: "I've got work in the morning. Some of us don't have the taxpayer to pay our salary."

"Fancy," Alyssa says, stretching so that parts of her anatomy transform in breath-taking ways. Her on my couch is about as statistically probable as a Victoria's Secret show in my garden shed. "Your place is like MTV Cribs."

Ouch. "Is that a compliment?"

"Of course it is. They places are dead posh."

Actually, the apartment is an exact replica of a San Francisco loft I discovered on fffffound.com. "You know how hard it is to make exposed brick work in a Scottish Victorian?"

She arches an eyebrow. "You being patronizing? You know I'm saving up for University?"

I do know. She's mentioned it three times. I sit next to her, a move that requires courage comparable to battling a Third Phase Zit with a pair of pliers (something I've done).

"Blokes never want to talk to me, Ramsey. Or they do, and we've having a nice conversation, and then they try to kiss me."

"Takes guts."

"I suppose. I don't know." Her eyes are Manga big. "Do you think I'm stupid?"

Ah, the final test. The girls I end up with are always concerned about their intelligence. "Only smart people are smart enough to be worried about being thick." I pass her a bottle of IPA; the logo was drawn by Ralph Steadman. She sets this minor design miracle on my Charles Eames table and kisses me. All my opium receptors are blown like a socket running three plasma screens and a Playstation Four.

"Itchy," she says, breaking our skin-on-skin high.

I am drunk. Why else would I say, "Shall I shave the beard off?"

"You'd do that?" She knows my beard's value: part of my seduction involved confessing how much I spend on shaving brushes.

By way of reply, I cross to the bathroom (glass door, rope instead of a handle) and set to work deforesting my face. As the mustache falls in foamy clumps, Alyssa strokes my spine and says, "You know I said I was a model?"

"Yeah." I feel air on my chin, a faintly kinky sensation.

"Aye, well, it didn't go so well. I — well, I didn't like how horrible they all were in London. How hard. They'd call me fat or point at my cellulite while I was standing right next to them. I don't even have cellulite yet."

"I can't imagine." I was expecting this: I read 'Monocle', I know what goes on in that business.

"And, um, well I work in a supermarket now. The Spar. I hate it, but I hated modeling more." She gulps.

I tap hair from the razor. There's no doubt: I'm going to get laid. "I don't like my job either."

She wipes her eyes. "You don't? But it's so, like, noble."

Love is the process of disarmament: you stop making yourself look bigger than you are, and reveal your vulnerability. If you're lucky, the other guy/girl does the same. Slowly, the Cold War that is everyday existence becomes peace, softness and — best case scenario — intercourse.

I tell Alyssa about the coffee shop.

"I'll work another year, save up like you are, then quit and buy that old place behind the church. You know the one. I've already designed it. Concrete floors, magazines like 'Code' and 'Frame' on silver hangers along the walls. Asymmetrical shelves made of pine, coffee served with biological mini muffins and very small stools, also from pine," I'm babbling but cannot stop, "and screen printed menus and flat whites and maybe a little clothes shop or art gallery combined space in the back and, of course, silver pipes on the ceiling, and numbers that mean nothing painted on the walls, and a racing bike or two hung on the walls. You know, bring some culture to the locals. Maybe it'll become a franchise."

"That sounds nice." She brushes my newly naked chin. "And sorry if I'm out of line, but I like you more as a gravedigger."

Then we have sex. If there is a deity, it resides inside Alyssa.

#

Chapter Two.

On Monday morning, Police Constable Graham brings us another body. Graham's a cheerful sort in his late fifties, his belly restrained by a belt heavy with truncheons. Think an S&M Santa Claus.

Whistling, he dumps a Zit-proof body-bag on the slab. "Don't know how much longer my back can take this nonsense," he says. "Remember when they had a crew for every encroachment? Proper Humvee ambulances. Army lads and doctors your age. Saved me a fortune in physio."

"When I were young," I say in a decrepit voice, "It were nought but fields and the bus cost a penny."

Graham guffaws. "You wait until you're my age. After all that sex and ambition, all that's left is insomnia and a bit of gardening. If you're lucky."

I use a pole to unzip the bag in case a monster leaps out; only the stink of disinfectant and rot escapes. A skinny Grandfather is revealed, gray and big-headed like a Roswell alien.

"And if you're unlucky," says Graham, "You end up like that."

I poke our corpse with the pole. Both Pops and any intestinal hitchhiker remain still. "Any sign of a parent?"

"They found it," says Graham, "In the disabled shower. It had snuffed it trying to get down the plug hole. Silly blighter. A dwarf, no bigger than that one last Friday in the old dame."

I jab our client in the diaphragm. "Clear." Bob The Brilliant makes a note on his slate.

"Constable," I say, "Please tell the managers of the Oldport retirement home to forgo another Audi TT and invest in sweeping that place for Zits."

"I tried. They said my email got spammed." Graham chuckles. "If your kids stick you in that place, you know they hate you. Am I right, lads?"

The pole sports a small mechanical hand. I use it to pry open the dead guy's jaw. "Two in under a week." I try not to sound hopeful. "You think this is an infestation?"

Graham winks. "I think old folks croak. Sometimes to a Zit. Sometimes to another type of bug. That's it."

"Any reports of sudden energy before he went?" Hosts in labor resemble teenagers after a Red Bull binge. Zits squirt their victims full of invincibility juice nicknamed Special Cola. In the moments prior to death, they can run an ultra-marathon and will kill to protect the creature killing them. Evolution sucks.

"He went quietly. No sign of Special Cola."

Still using the pole, I peak under Granddad's legs. He has bedsores. "What I wouldn't give for a victim under eighty."

"Sorry, lads. The golden times are gone." Graham exits radiating joi d'vivre.

He's not the only one.

"You're trying to hide it," says Bob, "But you're bubbly today." He whips off the dead guy's pajama bottoms. He's right: I'm buzzing on a cocktail finer than any available at the Oldport Arms.

"I'm in love." I slip on the Kevlar reinforced rubber gloves and check for holes. "Or maybe I just got laid. No, why should I hide it? Why can't a guy just come out and say it? The first one."

"Casanova." He sneers. "But only between the ears."

My smile is meant to convey Buddha-like compassion for Bob's sexless existence, as well as Christ-like forgiveness for his sarcasm. Admittedly, this is too much to cram into one expression; Bob's contempt remains undimmed. He removes the body's adult diaper with a snort. "How was she, Ramsey?"

"Is that envy I hear?" My tone is neutral.

Bob rams the dead man's Garfield socks into an evidence bag. "No, you ponce, I'm a bloke. This is the kind of conversation blokes have. Normal ones, anyway."

I'd rather search a corpse's guts for primordial predators than continue this conversation. No way am I going to cheapen Alyssa (My girlfriend? Future wife?) by reducing her to a Penthouse Letter. "Let's play the Cavity Game, shall we?"

Bob The Brilliant folds his arms. "Don't be so sensitive—"

"I said, Junior Parasite Control Technician, that I want to play the Cavity Game."

We play. I let Bob win the first round.

"Lungs are clean," I say, running the bone saw under a tap.

His chuckle is guileless once more. "You owe me a craft beer, boss." Like the retarded son I never had, Bob's moods are easily manipulated.

"Damn, you're good." I shake my head in wonder. "Round two."

You play the Cavity Game as follows:

Step One. While Zits are famous for turning poop chutes into wombs, they're actually not that picky. Any damp cavity will do — as long as said cavity belongs to a less than healthy human. As a consequence, we gravediggers are obliged to search lungs, skulls, stomachs, pelvic girdles, penises, uteri and noses (unexpectedly, noses are the worst).

Step Two. Why not see this unpleasant necessity as an opportunity for a friendly bet? Prior to each stage of the search, Player A asks Player B for odds on meeting a creature from humanity's most ancient nightmares. If A is right, A supplies B with booze. If B is correct, vice versa. Basically, the Cavity Game is a macabre variation on Snap.

Step Three. Repeat until you run out of either booze or bodies. Or someone gets killed.

"Stomach is clear. Holy shit, Bob, you'd clean up at Vegas."

As we prepare to tackle what is potentially the rectal jackpot, a woman knocks at the observation window.

"Ugh," says Bob. "My luck just ran out. It's Tina."

I nudge the intercom button. "We'll be with you shortly, Tina."

"Mayor Sheila and Deputy Sharon wish to see you." Bugger. The interchangeable forces of bureaucracy responsible for both Oldport and my inflated salary.

"Double ugh," says Bob The Brilliant.

"Make yourself a cup of tea, Tina, while we finish up saving the human race. Kettle's on the fridge."

"Sheila has a ten minute slot." The Mayor's PA hammers on the window.

"Please let me do my job." My breeziness is probably contradicted by the gore spattered apron.

"Ramsey, at this moment, your job is to talk to your managers."

"So uptight," says Bob.

"Bob," says Tina. "I can hear you."

If Bob were smarter, he'd have a witty rejoinder. As it is, he mumbles an apology and turns as red as our gutted Granddad.

"Five minutes," I say. "Please, Tina. For the sake of your children's safety. And their children. And their children's children—"

"Ninety seconds."

"Fine." I really, really, really, really need to find a Zit snuggled in this body's bits.

"Round three?" says Bob.

"Not now. Pass me the Ass Jack."

"No need to be short—"

"Bob, pass me the bloody Ass Jack. Please."

I stuff the device up Grandpa with more force than strictly necessary.

#

"How was the big game?" says Sheila. "Any luck fishing?" Aside from her power over me, what I hate most about the Mayor is her mixing of metaphors. And her lady mustache.

"Ramsey? I asked if you scored a touchdown?"

Maybe if I whisper, she won't hear and everything will be okay. "Zero parasites were present."

"I'm sorry, I didn't catch that."

I stare out the meeting room windows. A wedding party takes place on the patio — the town hall includes a drive-thru registrars office. Since the Zits claimed more than the Black Death, citizens are paid to get hitched. A cynic might argue that this explains the abrupt surge in marriages. Personally, however, I would only marry for love. Should I text Alyssa already?

"Ramsey. Hello in there." Sheila waves. "Mr Holiday, did you hear me?"

"No," I say. "No, there were no Zits found."

"Well," says Deputy Sharon, whose H&M suit is identical to that worn by Major Sheila. Luckily, Sharon doesn't have a lady mustache, which means I can tell them apart. Usually.

"Well, what does 'well' mean, Deputy?" I say. Aside from her worshiping the mayor, what I hate most about Sharon are her vague utterances.

"Please don't talk to her like that," says Mayor Sheila. "Not all women are available for you to shag or bully." After the power and the mixed metaphors, the third thing I hate about the Mayor is that she defends the Deputy no matter what.

"I apologize, I've had a stressful morning. Also, last week we found a Second Phase creature and the PTSD has —"

"I heard it was First Phase," says Mayor Sheila.

"Yes, I heard it was First Phase too," says Deputy Sharon.

Tina, who remains in the room for no reason, nods emphatically.

I say, "Sorry, Tina, could I trouble you for a latte?"

Tina glances at the Mayor. "Yes," says Sheila, "Please fetch Ramsey whatever he likes."

"Thanks so much, Tina," I say, "And a digestive biscuit with the latte please."

"One milky coffee coming up." Tina vanishes in a puff of talcum powder scented resentment.

Mayor Sheila leans back and steeples her fingers. Deputy Sharon does the same. Outside, the wedding party give three half-hearted cheers.

"I apologize too," says Mayor Sheila. "For my abruptness. Actually, we wanted to thank you for your service. What you've done for this community is extraordinary."

"Extraordinary," says Deputy Sharon, the hype man to Mayor's Sheila's 50 Cent.

"In fact," says Mayor Sheila, "I believe you've cleansed more parasites than any technician beyond Newcastle?"

"More than any," says Deputy Sharon. "A champion Bugman."

I tip an imaginary hat. Could it be that the Mayor simply wants to show her appreciation? Maybe it's the love stew currently bubbling in my belly (amongst other places), but I have this unusual idea that perhaps people are kind and generous and well-meaning after all.

"Therefore," says Mayor Sheila, "I don't want you to take what follows personally."

"Take this personally," says Deputy Sharon. "I mean, um, don't. That you shouldn't."

The love stew solidifies into fear goulash. "What are you two talking about?"

"I'll make this like a plaster," says Mayor Sheila, "And cut to the chase by ripping it off quickly. We're not renewing your contract."

I wish Tina would bring that coffee; I could stall by nibbling the digestive biscuit. "But," I say, "We've got an infestation on our hands. Don't take my word for it. Graham said exactly the same thing this morning." I make myself sit up straight, like an innocent man at a murder trial. "Infestation. That was the exact word he used."

Sheila looks at Sharon, Sharon looks at Sheila. They both look at a piece of paper between them. On it are printed bullet points. Belatedly, I realize that each bullet is intended for the assassination of my career. "Oh Christ," I say, "You've planned all this. It's all decided. There's nothing I can do."

The bride and groom step into a taxi while somebody plays "My Heart Will Go On" through the shittiest speakers ever made. I hope they get divorced.

#

"This fiscal year has seen the closure of Oldport's bank," says the Mayor, "And Pete's garage by the motorway, not to mention that eyesore of a hotel."

"The Toone Hotel? Bob loved the Toone."

"In this climate, I can't have you swanning around in your fancy car when everyone knows you've got nothing to do and we're subsidizing your life of luxury."

"Luxury," Sharon murmurs, "Luxury." Like a voice over in a bad cologne advert.

"But I've been doing this longer than anyone. I volunteered. We" — I clear my throat — "We had to make up our own rules."

"That's part of the problem." Sheila strikes a point off her list of bullets. "We need to standardize this situation. Get some fresh blood in this pond."

"Fresh blood," says Sharon. "Pond."

"Could you please stop doing that." I glare. "Both of you. Just be normal. Direct. Please."

Sheila says, "I mean that we need an actual mortician, with proper training. No more cowboys. I also mean that, due to the diminished risk of Zits and a need to both reduce costs and increase efficiency, we want one such mortician for the entire region, based here but covering the towns of Fairport, Dunton and St Phyllis. Is that direct enough?"

Tina shows up with the coffee. It is cold. It is not accompanied by a digestive biscuit.

"Ramsey," says Sheila. "I really am sorry. And I really am in a hurry. You'll be taken care of —"

"Did you hear what I said? What Graham said? About the infestation?"

Sheila folds her arms. "I talked to Graham. He reported only immature cases.There is no possibility of an infestation. No wild Zits for years."

I see a chink of light. Or not exactly: I see a chink of lighter darkness. "There could be. What about Portsmouth? Big as a pony, jumped out of a barn and ate a school group."

"It ate three chickens and wounded a teacher. A farmer blew its brains out. That was half a decade ago." She sighs. "Look, Ramsey, turn this around. You could see this as a positive. For all of us. You no longer being needed."

My head is brimming with Alyssa's nakedness. "Keep me, please. Reduce my salary, use the money for something else. You like tennis, right? Get one of those machines that chucks balls at you."

This is intended as a kind of joke. Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe it's intended how it sounds.

Sheila says, "Mr Holiday, are you attempting to bribe the mayor?"

Sharon says, "Ramsey, are you also bribing the deputy?"

"No," I say. "At least, I'm not bribing the deputy." My shirt sticks to my armpits. I bought it in Antwerp, at the atelier of an exciting young designer. "I'm not bribing the mayor either."

The silence stretches like a hanged man's shadow.

"Yes," I say. "I was. I was trying to bribe you. The mayor anyway."

"Well," says Deputy Sharon.

"Well," says Mayor Sheila. "I'm glad you admitted it. I was about to call our friend Police Constable Graham." She rubs her mustache. "But I do find your behavior unacceptable. What should be done? Considering that you are a veteran."

"How about," says Sharon. "Not stopping his contract in six months, but stopping it immediately instead?"

Sheila turns to Sharon, mouth open. It's as though she's realized this echo is actually another person. "That's excellent, Deputy." She snaps her fingers. "Ramsey, you've got two weeks to get out."

I close my eyes. I can still see Alyssa naked, but she's becoming abstract, blocky, as through a censor's pixels.

"Of course," says Sharon. Or Sheila. "Bob will have to go too."

#

Chapter Three.

I keep quiet all week. This proves very difficult, especially because there are no more dead people to distract us. Mostly, Bob and I sit around the office playing games on our phones. Around Wednesday, we get RSI so Bob nips out and buys a dartboard. This does nothing for the RSI, but feels healthier than virtually shooting terrorists. From Thursday until Friday lunchtime, we chuck darts at a print of Mayor Sheila's Facebook profile photo. Sadly, the darts have Velcro tips and clatter to the floor without piercing her paper face.

When Bob isn't around, I check job websites and conclude that — in the absence of monsters to be slain — I'm near unemployable. Nevertheless, compared to my assistant, I'm a Fortune 500 CEO. While I'll land some crappy gig eventually, he might as well skip to the stage where he's at a bus station asking for change and faking sobriety.

I almost confess all to Alyssa and ask her to put in a good word at the supermarket. Instead, we have lots of sex and I say nothing (except "Uh" and "Yes" and "You're incredible" and "Yes" again). As well as being fun, sex is nature's way of avoiding difficult but necessary conversations. At night, I stay awake and watch Alyssa sleep while considering that a function of beauty is finitude. I must really like her: I can only think in cliches.

After lunch on Friday, I decide the weekend has started so nobody will die; Bob cracks open the craft beers. We drink every flavor we can find; the Velcro darts miss the dartboard and start bouncing off the microwave.

"I can't tell the difference between the toffee beer and the apple one." Bob squints at me. "Can you? It's like it's all one beer. One infinite beer."

I find this immensely funny. To celebrate the wit of Bob The Brilliant, we throw open the windows and play Alt-J's last album loud. "Let us," I say, "Serenade this summer night with hipster beats."

"I thought you weren't a hipster?"

I no longer find Bob funny: I find him profound. "Maybe it's the drink talking," I say, "But I really, you know, like you. Yeah?"

Bob sips a dark ale allegedly brewed by French monks. "I know, mate. I like you too." We clink bottles. "You want to play with the dog tonight, Rams?"

"Sorry, man, got a picnic."

He smiles sadly. "You were right. While we're being honest: I am jealous of her."

"It's okay, Bob." I chuck my bottle in the glass bin. "You and the dog play safe."

In Scotland, a June sunset is the length of a December day. In the blue light, I climb past the last row of council houses and up into the fields. Swallows skim the hedgerows. I pant because I'm drunk and because I'm carrying a large picnic hamper. It's stuffed with champagne, honey, Italian bread, cake, tapas and — right at the bottom — a gift for my beloved. All told, a deeply romantic and utterly impractical load.

From up here, Oldport is half-hidden by pine trees and twisting land. Only church spires mark a settlement, along with a few granite walls and fence posts and the occasional car horn. Beyond is the flat gray plane of the river Toone, then foothills dotted with telegraph poles and radio towers. These few structures mark the border between the realms of man and sheep: the Highlands roll into the northern horizon, an epic conclusion to this poor country.

The view helps, placing the Mayor's betrayal in perspective. I'm a practical man; this job requires rapid adjustments to a crisis. I huff the soft air, imbibe the stillness, avoid the cow poop; I trudge and I think. Am I angry with Sheila and her clone? Bloody right I am. But I'm also planning, treating this situation as though it's a Zit with its tentacles stuck deep in a body's mushy bits.

There is always a solution. You just need to cut in the right place.

Only problem is that I have no clue, as yet, where to make the incision.

"Ramsey!" Alyssa is standing on a rock under trees, waving with both hands like she's guiding a 747. Despite the picnic hamper, I run toward her, then stop because this is not cool.

Alyssa leaps off the rock and into the long grasses by the field's edge. She cups her nose in both hands and sneezes. Up close, her eyes are shot through with red. "Aye, sorry. Hayfever. Used to get so bad, I thought it was a flu every summer. Will gets it too."

Will Ingham's health is not a topic I want to explore — not unless it involves him having an accident — so I set about arranging our picnic.

"This food looks lovely," says Alyssa as I pour her a glass of red (Malbec). "Don't have a clue what it all is, like."

I smile. "The lovely thing about relationships is broadening each others' minds." I grimace. "That came off a bit too earnest, didn't it?"

She frowns.

"Earnest," I say, "It means 'serious.'"

Alyssa laughs. "I know what it means, Ramsey. Just because I'm a model doesn't make me a total idiot."

I almost correct her by saying, "Actually, you work at a supermarket." In my happiest, most harmonious moments, I'm always tempted to act the bitch.

"I was frowning," says Alyssa, sitting cross-legged by the hamper, "Because I was trying to figure out what that is." She holds up my present. Even selecting the wrapping paper took an age. In the end, I settled for a rose pattern that reminded me of a T-shirt on Buzzfeed.

"Can I open it?" She looks up at me, box on her lap, and the innocence of both pose and question is sexy — in a creepy, Lolita-y way.

I nod and sit in the grass, which is warm from the day, and watch as she tears the paper. Maybe I can talk her round, make her see that my fancy job isn't everything. Perhaps if I work out more, she'll love me for my six pack instead.

"Wow," she says, holding up the bottle of eau de toilette. "This is — wow. Is this from Paris?"

"Dutch. There's a guy called the Nose, makes his own bespoke scents. Viktor and Rolfe work with him."

"Wow. I never got a perfume as fancy as this."

"Eau de toilette. Not perfume."

"This is like the price of, like, a car or something, right?"

My modest smile indicates she's right. Alyssa squirts a drop on her wrist; I imagine it extinguishing that awful teenager's scent.

"You'll wear it?"

She jumps up and hugs me. "Aye, you idiot. I'll never take it off." With her hair in my face and her neck on my lips, I very nearly explain that I'll be jobless in a week but that love is all you need.

"That's why I like rich guys," she says, breaking our embrace. "They get you rich guy gifts. Does that make me a whore, saying that?"

"Not at all."

"Will couldn't get me anything nice. Best he did was a surprise caravan holiday near Edinburgh. Not even out the country. If he hadn't bought that bike, maybe he could get me — What?"

"Nothing." The blue light slips toward black.

"You look like one of those shop room dummies. Where are you right now?"

"No, nothing. I drank a bit before I came out. With Bob. Feeling it a bit."

She sits back on her rock. "Will always kept stuff from me. I hate it —"

"Alright, it's that. You mentioning Will."

"I never mention —"

"You're always going on about Will Ingham. It's a little boring."

She sets the glass of Malbec down on the rock. Her teeth are red. "Aye, see, that's the thing, when you're talking to guys. You're having a nice time and then they can't handle that —"

"Just because you were a model and you get lots of attention from men doesn't make you an expert on us." The craft beers impede restraint. The recollection of my own impending loser-dom finish the job. "You sound like a bloody Julie Delpy movie. Not one of the good ones. The ones she wrote herself after watching too many Woody Allen—"

Alyssa claps her hands over her ears; her thigh nudges the glass and it topples into the grass. "Stop making references to things I don't know about. It's pathetic."

I wave my arms, raising my voice like we've been together six years not six days. "I'm just talking. This is just how I talk—" I shut up before I make this worse. "We sound like my parents."

"What?" She takes her hands from her ears.

"I said—"

I am interrupted by the rumble of a Harley in the village below.

#

I leave Alyssa on her rock in the dusk. I point out that I need alone time, and that this town is so small you apparently can't even have a picnic without Will Ingham making his presence felt but she holds up her hand and tells me to stop the "psychological bullshit," whatever that's meant to mean, and with that the date ends.

As I'm tramping back down the hill, bereft of both picnic hamper and girl, the sun's final rays point out a brown stain on my chest. At some juncture, cow shit has been applied to my favorite Breton jumper. I spin round, expecting to find Will Ingham wielding a reeking shovel. The grass murmurs as if to point out that I'm going nuts. A frog burps as though to point that I'm nuts for thinking the grass is murmuring about me being nuts.

On closer inspection, my boots are also caked with dung, and my trousers. Logic suggests I stamped in one of the pats I was skipping around on the way up.

I could go home, but the nearest washing machine is two hundred yards down the road, at our office. As I type the security codes and scan both thumb and iris, I'm cheered to note the lights are on.

"Bob?"

A hiss followed by scrabbling. "In the back," his shout is muffled, "With the dog."

He emerges from storage, sweat beading his receding hairline. "You look like you've been exerting yourself," I say, passing him the last of our craft beers. We sit at our desks, feet up. Hanging out late at the office is both mildly exciting and slightly depressing.

"What's up?" says Bob. "You look down, Rams."

I shrug.

"Picnic not work out?" He reaches into a drawer. "Or is it this?" He tosses an envelope onto my desk. I recognize the Mayor's address.

"Bugger. Bob. Bugger."

Bob drinks his beer. Is this making him feel oddly superior at last? "Came with the last post," he said. "Figured something was up, way you'd been acting all week. Checking websites like I wouldn't notice. Thought you'd resigned." He wipes his mouth with his sleeve. "You could have told me, boss. It would have been okay."

I explain that we'll get a new job together, that Australia's still infested with Zits and worse. That we're a team.

Bob sighs. "I may not be brilliant," he says. "But I'm a lot older than you and I know when you're talking bollocks. No way will I ever get hired."

"There's always a solution. You just need to know where to make the first incision—"

"Uh-huh. Give me that jumper, would you? Bloody stinks."

"Oh." I remember. "Came by to wash it."

He gets up. "Not in a machine you won't. Ruin it. I'll do it. Give it here."

I pull my shitty shirt off. My assistant mutters "Always looking after you" and wanders to the back.

I sit topless and smelly and alone behind my desk, peering at my reflection in the window. Minus a beard, is my chin not a bit weak? Is that why Alyssa dumped me? If she dumped me. Did she? Or what was that exactly up on the hill —

There is a hiss and a moist slap and a crash. Bob sprints into the office and punches the emergency switch by the front door. Shutters rattle across the windows, obliterating my reflection. "Oh Christ, Ramsey. I think I left the cage open. The dog's escaped."

Ducking under my desk, I yell, "Get the Extinguisher, Bob. Get it now." Shrieking, he scampers to the weapons locker while I shake and wish I'd told Alyssa that I love her.

Our reactions would be unusual were we dealing with an actual dog — even a passionate sort like, say, a pit bull. Unfortunately, our panic is justified because the dog isn't a dog: it's a wild Zit the size of a dog.

#

We huddle behind a filing cabinet, the door to the back five feet away. We've been cowering for a good ten minutes and the dog is yet to emerge. My finger aches; I release the Extinguisher's trigger.

"Why did we get the dog?" I glance at Bob. "Remind me."

"Sentimental reasons." This is the standard explanation; we have yet to consider our motivations in more depth. I guess that's what stupidity is: loving your mental farts so much you don't recognize them as disembodied shit. In the case of our dog, this meant a drunken evening last Spring bemoaning the dearth of proper Zits. A day later, we stumbled on a First Phase cutie pie and decided to raise it as our own. I believe my mental fart logic consisted of "they define us, man, the hunter and the hunted are one. When they're gone, so are we."

In the darkness, far away, an object shatters.

"Was that my mug?" Bob sounds genuinely upset.

"It's playing mind games," I say, which is absurd as Zits don't have a mind with which to play games.

"Why is it not coming out, Rams?"

Hmmm.

I stare at him. "I found the way you delivered that question to be unconvincing."

"Hush," says Bob, "I think I heard it."

There is a fatty roll around Bob's middle. He hates it when I grab it. I grab it. "What do you know, Bob?"

"Let go of me, Ramsey."

I pinch harder.

"Alright, alright. I know why. Stop."

I lessen my grip but don't release him. "Tell me, Bob."

"You remember you put me on that diet?"

I nod.

"I got a mini fridge. Put it back there, next to the acetylene tanks." He scratches a less bald part of his head. "I keep secret burgers in there."

Burgers. During the Zero Infestation, butchers experienced some of the highest mortality rates; Zits mistook dead animals for people, and got homicidal when they were interrupted humping a pig's head. Rubbing my face, I say, "Do you suppose the dog is having sex with your dinner?"

Bob massages his neck. "Could be."

I stand up and rub the blood back into my legs. "Good move, Bob."

"Are you being sarcastic?"

"I was."

"I don't appreciate it when you're sarcastic."

"Really? I'm sorry."

"That's okay — wait. Was that sarcastic too?"

"Yep." I pause. Hating on Bob has given me an idea. I hold the Extinguisher with the barrel vertical, OG-style. "Actually, now that I think about it, I am sorry. Genuinely. It really is a good move."

"Ramsey? Where you going? Why was it a good move?"

I'm already at the door to the back. "Because it means that the dog, Bob, is distracted." I crouch with my back against the wall, like Mark Wahlberg in Lone Survivor. "Cover me, Bob."

"With what?"

He has a point.

#

Chapter Four.

The floor is covered with spherical objects, cracked like tiny skulls battered by a miniature baseball bat. These objects are the remnants of Bob's earlier game with the dog. With a flair absent in the rest of his life, Bob the Brilliant has developed a range of Zit-related ways to entertain himself. One involves keeping the dog on a chain and throwing ping pong balls at it. As the Zit is nothing more than a stinking, throbbing blob of instinct, its tentacles will spear anything you chuck at it in mid-flight. As with the Cavity Game, bets can be placed, or one can be more civilized and simply enjoy the parasite's murderous efficiency.

"Here, doggy, good doggy. Where are you?" I realize that I'm addressing the dog like a dog and shut myself up before a tentacle splits my chest.

The back is Bob's domain. He maintains the acetylene (our preferred means of monster immolation) and assorted gravedigger tools while I stay fresh for the sexy stuff — like gutting old folks. Whole seasons can expire without my setting foot in here.

I crouch behind a crate containing Bob's special editions of Risk and try to visualize the storage area. This corridor slopes downward and ends in another, blast-proof door. Beyond this is what amounts to a bunker, fifty feet by — I don't know — um — let's say fifty. Ish. Whatever. At any rate, plenty of room to conceal both Zits and a mini fridge. This bunker contains the tanks and is semi-subterranean. From a real estate perspective, features of note include no windows, the smell of expired rodents, and a damp problem (handy for those dumb enough to keep a moisture-loving Zit as a pet). The tanks are arranged in a three by three grid, sixteen in total. This has always struck me as an unnecessary amount of flammable gas to keep around, but the facility's builders were expecting an apocalypse while management has yet to accept its absence.

Living up to his name, Bob The Brilliant has failed to secure to secure the blast door. Leaning, trying not to grunt, I push it all the way open. I am pleased to note a lack of dramatic creaking. Zits don't have ears per se, but they do feel sound via a bat-like radar, amplified by a body that's ninety percent pus.

The corridor was gloomy; the bunker with the acetylene tanks is full dark, no stars. Luckily, Bob didn't leave his secret fridge in the immediate vicinity, which means I don't bump into the Zit making love to a burger. Feeling positive about not dying instantly, I grab an emergency torch from a hook and creep-run to the first row of tanks. These are located next to the alarm box we disabled after adopting the dog. Figuring headquarters wouldn't look kindly on our choice of pet, Bob and I decided we'd deal with any house-training issues ourselves. In retrospect, this does not strike me as the best move.

Pale spheres underfoot, dozens, maybe a hundred. Why the hell did he bring so many ping pong balls down here? Perhaps I can follow them, a trail leading toward my own personal minotaur. Or not: the balls follow no visible pattern. It's like the Chinese Olympic team exploded down here.

Okay, plan B.

Shivering, shirtless, I scuttle from one row of tanks to the next, intending to zig zag until the dog reveals itself. Around row three, I curse Bob for not giving me specific directions. At row four, I curse Bob's parents for giving their kid sub-standard DNA.

At row five, I give the family Bob a break; a glow behind the final tanks, like a child's night light. I duck down and sniff. A Zit in love smells a lot like my grandmother's minestrone soup... which smells a lot like roadkill.

I cough. Yep.

Careful, careful, I edge round the tanks and — there it is, as foretold: the dog porks Bob's beef. Even after years of Zit encounters, I freeze. I tell myself that this horny monster is big only by the standards of modern Zits; back in my day, they came in rhino format. Knowing this in no way helps my fear response. Save it for National Geographic, my Amygdala shrieks, you are going to die. Unless you run NOW, you will become a psychotic walking womb spewing tentacled evil from every orifice.

Silence, says the rest of me. No harm will befall a man of my skills. When I'm tense, my internal voice sounds like Christopher Lee.

The Zit's glow fades, which indicates that it either ejaculated or noticed me or both. The taut blob wobbles as it dismounts the fridge. Inside, translucent structures flicker like jellyfish in a yellow sea. At its base, the body assumes a reddish hue, and its skin membrane is crusty and swollen. This rash indicates the start of the Zit's genitals, which are indistinguishable from its brain — a point that isn't funny to anybody anymore. You want to hit it here, in the head/nuts. Or, to put it more realistically, you want to try.

The dog has an above average number of tentacles, twelve, but happily a mere three come with teeth. Better yet, the toothy versions are still busy molesting Bob's fridge. On the down side, six of its unarmed appendages wave in my direction, swaying as though buffeted by currents. Once a majority of tentacles are pointed at me, it'll attack.

I switch off the torch — my night sight is online — and consider the situation. Our dog's chubbiest tentacle trails remains attached to the main chain. Bob's tender heart got the better of him and he freed it from the secondary chains, shackles, loops and fasteners intended to prevent the Zit from murdering us. Peering into the dark, Extinguisher raised, I see the chain is still attached to the cage. This is both good and bad. Good because the beast's range of movement is likely limited. Bad because Zits get more aggressive when constrained.

Another two tentacles join the clump waving my way. One has teeth.

"Bugger it," I say, flipping the Extinguisher's safety off. With what's intended as a battle cry, I charge. Tentacles stiffen, some heaving the Zit off the ground, the rest shooting toward me. I roll, shoulder cracking on the concrete, and come up firing.

The Extinguisher sputters, a sad dribble emerging from its barrel. I stop screaming. I shake the extinguisher. The Zit rearranges its tentacles, straining at its chain. The roadkill smell is strong enough to make me dry heave as I slap the stupid, bloody, goddamn extinguisher, point, fire again.

Nada. A question arises: did Bob reload the Smith and Weston following our dead old lady incident? I squeeze the trigger, over and over. He did not.

I turn. I run. All that's required is that I get beyond the chain's range. My sprint is ungainly, a sprawling, gasping lunge. Another meter, maybe two. Then I can flip the Zip off and stroll calmly back up the corridor to kill my assistant.

Through the deafness produced by fear, I hear a distant and decidedly metallic crack. Thanks to some survival based intuition, I don't have to glance back to grok its source. The dog is stronger than we thought, certainly stronger than that shitty chain. Our pet is loose.

The lunge becomes a slide. I twist and avoid the worst of my fall, but nevertheless it hurts...Baby Jesus, does it hurt. Cheek on the concrete, the slapping of tentacles ever closer, I consider thanking the Academy, saying "good night" and closing my eyes. My last sight in this life will be the ping pong ball over which I tripped.

Nope, correction: it'll be the tentacle whistling toward my neck.

A blurred shape. A plate? A discus? The tentacle slams into whatever-it-is, slicing the thing in two. What's left of our Velcro dartboard clatters to the ground. Bob the Brilliant vaults my prone body, torch beam waving like Darth Vader forgot how to use a light saber. He turns, and drops his pants.

"You want this?" He slaps his bare ass. "You want to make a baby? Come on then, you bastard."

My hero.

Bob drags his jeans back up and sprints back the way he came. A yellow mass passes overhead. The Zit pursues Bob.

Silence. I grab my knees and shudder. My mouth is bloody, my tongue bitten. Far away, Bob yells and things break and Bob yells again. Probably, I should go help him.

I rock on the concrete. More yelling.

When all is still, I drag myself onto hands and knees, then up — an impossible journey — all the way to my feet. One foot is bare; I appear to have lost both a sock and a trainer. Lopsidedly, I tip toe to the vault door, up the corridor, into the office.

"Hey," says Bob. "I popped a Zit."

Slime drips from his nose, his chin. It looks like someone blew chunks across his chest. A yellow slick spreads around the upturned desks. Bits of parasite stick to the wall, which has a large hole in it.

"Yeah," says Bob, "I missed the first time."

"What did you do?"

He points. Half hidden by a fallen filing cabinet is a sack of membrane and a pile of tentacles. The microwave sticks up like a gravestone.

"Damn, Bob, you threw that?"

My assistant grins. "Amazing what you can do when you're scared." He points. "Hey, you peed yourself."

I look down at myself, then at him. "You too."

Bob the Brilliant giggles. "What a Friday night, eh boss?"

#

High on horror, laughing, we mop up. I fetch a couple of squeegees from the Tesla and we scrape gunk off desks, ceiling and walls. We right the furniture; I cry when a wheel falls off my office chair. A tentacle has hacked through my Zooey Deschanel poster — stuck to the toilet door during an obsession with 500 Days Of Summer. Bob's lavender scented air freshener is visible through a gash in the plywood.

I sigh. "I assume you can't replace a door."

"How hard can it be?"

"It needs to be perfect. No evidence."

"Then I can't, boss. Sorry."

"That's what I thought." I hand him a shovel. We bury the burst dog behind the facility. We bury the microwave next to it. Witnessed by a billion stars, I drag a wheelie bin from the garage and tell Bob to dispose of the raped burgers.

"Oh, and the ping pong balls. Every bloody one of them."

As the first bird trills like a ring tone, I declare that Bob's atonement for almost killing me shall be making breakfast.

"I also saved you."

"True. And I'll have the biological muesli, not the supermarket crap." I sink into my office chair; it collapses under me. What's left of Zooey Deschanel smirks at my misfortune.

"It's like we're the mafia cleaning up after a hit," says Bob, trying to cheer me up.

"Bob," I say, laying Zooey to rest in my waste paper basket. "That doesn't cheer me up."

We go home, shower, and return. Our most pressing issue is the hole left by Bob's missed throw.

"The new guy will be here at the end of the week." I use a brown felt tip to color a scratch on my desk. "The wall must be pristine."

Bob munches a Mars bar "for the glucose." Caramel stains his teeth. "If I can't fix the door, Rams, no way can I do the wall. You?"

I drag my fingers through my hair. "We'll have to call someone."

"How about that dude? The guy with the Harley. He's like a handyman, right?"

I wince. "Anybody but him, Bob." I google around and find a guy who works Saturday mornings. It's not yet nine, but he picks up after two rings. I explain we've had an incident. He grunts, not even slightly curious, and says he has to talk with his wife.

"And?" says Bob.

"He's not sure. He's got a family thing on. I offered to pay double."

Bob picks a last globule of Zit from under his fingernails. "I've got something I need to say, Ramsey."

"Can it wait a second?" On the far end of the phone, somebody slams a door.

"A while back, I thought the dog looked sad."

"Uh-huh." I frown. A woman's voice, indistinct but pissed off.

"So I got him a friend."

"Hello?" says the builder.

"A cat," says Bob.

"No can do, mate," says the builder. "Not if I value my marriage."

"Well," says Bob. "Not a cat, not exactly."

"And," says the builder, "I do value my marriage. She makes more money than me."

"I mean," says Bob, "It was only a cat in the sense that the dog was a dog."

"But," says the builder, "I already texted a mate. He's single, lucky blighter. He can sort you out."

"Ramsey, it was a Zit the size of a cat."

"He'll be over in an hour," says the builder.

"That's great." My guts do a loop the loop. "Thanks so much. Have a wonderful day." I hang up. "What did you say, Bob? Tell me I didn't hear right."

"Um," says Bob. "Yeah. So you know how you let me press the big red button and burn them? This one time, you went off to make tea and I sort of didn't."

"Oh no. Oh bugger, Bob." I hold my hands over my face and pray that when I remove them Bob will be gone, Oldport will be gone, the Mayor and her Deputy and Will Ingham — especially Will Ingham — will be gone. This entire world will be gone. All that shall remain is Alyssa and I on a cloud, naked, 69-ing for eternity.

"You don't seem that mad."

"I'm beyond mad, Bob. I'm in a place of icy deadly fury. Where is it?"

"You know the alarm we cut? Right there, in the cupboard with the washing up liquid."

"Bob," I say, "Go and kill it. Immediately."

"Right." He sniffles.

"Bob, it's a monster. Just like the dog. If you're lonely, go on Tinder like everyone else. Kill it."

"Yeah." Those expressive shoulders of his rounded, Bob the Brilliant slopes off.

He'll be over in an hour, says the builder again, in my head.

"Shit. Stop, come back." I hold out my hands. "Don't do a sodding thing. Not until after this bloke's gone."

#

Due to a combination of exhaustion and adrenal overload, I'm actually surprised by the Harley's rumble. I stand at the window rubbing my eyes, watching Will Ingham strut up the path. He shakes my hand. God, he's tall. In the early morning light, it's even possible that he's better looking than me.

"Alright," he says.

"Alright," I say, with equal non-gusto.

"Rodney said it was an emergency." He adjusts his tool belt. I'd like to point out that he looks like a stripper but, currently, I need his help.

"Bob, fetch our man a drink, please." Subtext: "That's right, Will Ingham. I have a servant. Do you have a servant? No, you do not."

Will Ingham kneels by the splintered toilet door and emits the tuts common to all in his profession. "Save you money if you do this yourself."

"Uh-huh."

His surprise appears authentic. "You can't put in a new door?"

"No, but I can battle demons from our species' prehistory," is something I don't say.

Bob hands Will Ingham a mug of hot, spermy looking liquid. "Latte." My assistant beams. "We've got one of them new machines."

Will Ingham sets the mug down on my desk, untouched. "Rodney said the big problem was the wall."

I place an envelope under the mug and point to the chasm in our plasterwork. Subtext: "How did you not see that?"

Will Ingham whistles. "What happened here, mate?" He crosses to the hole, pauses, lifts his boot and inspects the sole. "Why is the floor sticky?" He sniffs. "Why does it smell of piss in here?"

Alarmed by his line of questioning, I snap my fingers at Bob. "Get the man another drink." I spot the spermy latte. "No, actually, get him a Mars bar."

"None left." Bob leans toward me. "And I don't like your attitude, mister."

Will Ingham stands with hands on hips, facing the door to the bunker. "What's down there?"

I consider showing him, then bludgeoning him to death and burying him alongside the dog and the microwave — the weirdest mass grave in history. A less extreme option shoves its way through my panic. "Will," I say, "Let's talk about the elephant."

Will Ingham's head snaps round, eyes wide. "You've got an elephant?"

I remind myself that while Will Ingham looks like a sexy Viking, he's got the education of a peasant. "It's an expression. I mean, let's clear the air."

Ingham thinks, a process that suits him more than expected. "Alright, mate. You lead the way." I show him out; we walk passed his Harley and along the kind of suburban streets where pigeons are always cooing.

"She's her own woman, you know," says Will Ingham. "She's not a calender for your bedroom. And not for mine either. I mean, she was in calenders but she's not one."

I ask myself whether bludgeoning him is still an option. "I get that, Will."

"Because I know what kind of bloke you are. I'm only saying this to clear the air, like you say."

A caravan parked outside every house. A suburb for families. A redoubt. What would Alyssa look like pregnant? Sexy, definitely.

"You're an intense kind of bloke. You — I'm crap with words. What I'm trying to say is that you're like a teenage lad. You're so busy hunting sex you forget your knob goes in another person."

Wow. Have I underestimated Will Ingham? "That's pretty insightful for a handyman. No offense."

"None taken, mate." He folds his arms. "People profession, I guess. So what do you think? About your knob and other people?"

The bastard makes me sound like a psycho. "Maybe you've got a point." He doesn't. He absolutely doesn't.

"Yeah, you could get therapy, maybe. No offense either. Guys like me are just direct. You're a smart man." He looks down at me and perhaps — in another sense — up at me. "Cocky but clever." He grins. "Hey, now I sound like you."

I make myself clap his shoulder. "So about the repairs?"

"Aye, yeah. I've got a barbecue today so I can't."

If I scream, the pigeons will be frightened. "Today? All day?"

"Me and the brothers like our barbecues epic."

"I respect that leisure time is important, but Rodney said —"

"It was an emergency. Yeah. But there's another thing."

A bearded man in Bermuda shorts climbs onto a silver lawn mower. I picture Will Ingham in forty years. "What other thing?"

"Yours is a government property. I need to make official contact with the owners." Another smaller skull leers at me from his chest. "I reckon that'll be Mayor Sheila's office. Maybe. I don't know. I'll start there. Her secretary's always helpful."

The lawn mower chortles, stalls, then gives a chainsaw-like RATTA-ATTA-RAT-A-ATTA. I shout: "So they'll be a delay?"

"Couple of days."

"And if I call someone else? Another handyman?"

"Still a couple of days. But I'll have to contact the authorities anyway. For this call out." He winks. "Don't worry, I'll come up with something to make it sound innocent —"

"Are you making this shit up?"

"What? Sorry? The mower's bloody loud."

"Never mind. That all sounds perfect. So Wednesday?"

"Totally, mate. Or Thursday." Will Ingham salutes me. "Better run. Late for that barbie. Thanks for clearing the air." He clamps a phone to his head and rushes off.

I have a small and unpleasant epiphany. "Will," I say, "Did you already know what the phrase 'an elephant in the room' meant? Were you pissing me about? Pretending to be stupid?"

He keeps going.

#

Chapter Five.

I should discuss all this with Bob. We should bounce ideas off each other, share theories about the extent of Will Ingham's maliciousness. But given his recent incompetence, the only thing I'd bounce off Bob is a baseball bat and the only theory I'd share is how to dispose of his fat ass.

"I can't think straight" I say, which is at least true. "I'm going home to sleep."

"I'll send you a WhatsApp."

"Sure." I switch off my iphone.

Surprisingly, I fall into a coma and don't wake up screaming for a full fifteen minutes. After a pot of chamomile and two quetiapines stolen off the girlfriend before Alyssa, I give up on unconsciousness and embrace paranoia. In the absence of Bob the Brilliant, I turn to the next best sparring partner: an ironic-but-not-really framed poster of Patrick Swayze in Roadhouse.

"Oh Patrick," I say, "Show me the way."

Sweat from the nineteen eighties drips from Patrick's airbrushed abs.

"I'm screwed, Patrick. Even if Will Ingham hasn't figured out that we're covering, and he has, I'm sure... But even if hasn't, he'll get me in as much shit with the council as he possibly can. A shit tornado. I can't face a shit tornado."

"Oh yeah?" Patrick's feral yet endearing grin seems to say. "I faced twenty guys using the power of Tai Chi alone. How come you can't face a shit tornado?"

Maybe the quetiapines are having an effect after all: why else would I be consulting a dead movie star?

Lying on the couch in case sleep shows up, I contemplate Bob the Brilliant. A victim of nature and of nature both. A man who needs to be protected: from his own uselessness, from life in general.

And the man who rescued me with nothing but a Velcro dartboard, a microwave, and his own exposed cheeks. The man whose bravery overcame his malfunctioning genetics. A hero. A mensch.

"And all that despite how you treat him," says Patrick Swayze, his grin now stern.

"Shut up, Patrick," I say, "I only ever liked you in Point Break."

Patrick shuts up, possibly because he couldn't talk in the first instance. I roll over, close my eyes, picture a beach... and groan: the pot of chamomile has entered my bladder. For my sins, I am punished with wakefulness. So be it.

Watching a pale and herbal-smelling stream clatter onto porcelain, I mentally slap myself — my hands being occupied. Should I stay here and await the end of a life containing fixed gear bikes and an apartment copied from fffffound.com.? And Alyssa: being the female version of me, will she truly accept a man who cannot keep himself in Breton jumpers?

The gush of pee fades. I flush, decisively. Something must be done, a (metaphorical) game of Russian Roulette played; its only possible outcomes glory or brains on the ceiling (also metaphorically).

"There comes a time," I say, "When a man is tested by—"

An impulse tells me to check the bathroom cabinet. Holy shit! My own personal Nazi gold: slightly out of date sleeping pills. I down one, and pass out in the tub.

#

I am in a place of no I, where the gossamer entity that was Ramsey Holiday has been unraveled; its last thought as a self is a whisper..."Love is negation"... an echo... and this too slips away and there is only the vast silence underlying everything — under and through and around, in dimensions the eyes cannot perceive and the mind must be abandoned to access. Forsake effort and bliss is yours, un-make and become —

Uh.

The house phone sounds like a baby seal being rhythmically beaten.

Uh. Uh.

"Shut up."

Uh. Uh. Uh.

"Someone put that seal out of its misery."

Uh. Uh. Uh. Uh.

Ramsey Holiday reassembles itself and is pushed screaming from rosy darkness. I crawl across the carpet, my tentacle fingers dragging a flopping body bloated with pus and instinct.

"Rams?"

I fumble the receiver, scoop it up, drop it again.

"Bob, is that you?"

"Your mobile was off so I rung here. Um. Why was your mobile off, Rams?"

"Dude, I had the creepiest dream." I mine dried snot from a nostril. "It was like the speech at the end of a yoga class." I cough and pretend that isn't blood on my tongue. "Those were some strong damn pills."

A sob. "Your mobile shouldn't have been off. I tried sending you a WhatsApp. So many of them. All my thoughts. But nothing came back. All my WhatsApps just, like, falling into nothing —"

"Bob, are you drunk?"

Bob's breathing, rattling. "Yeah, I'm drunk. And I had a joint. I couldn't sleep. I am so scared, Ramsey."

"Yeah." I slide down the wall. "I get that."

"You should have answered my WhatsApps." He says something else, but it's lost in the concussion of a mucus grenade exploding on my face.

"Sorry, Bob, what was that? I sneezed into my hand. God, that's gross."

"What am I going to do, boss? They'll find out about the dog. I'll go to prison. Or they won't find out, and I'll lose my job and never get another one. I'm old. Old and shit. I'm shit." A pause. "You need to help me, Ramsey. You're like my dad. And my son. Does that sound strange?"

"Yes, Bob. Yes, it does." I scan the kitchen for a towel to remove the slime.

"Ramsey, I'm so weak, man."

An unusual sensation. How would one describe it? Ah yes: decisiveness. Similar to that which possessed me before discovering the sleeping pills. "Bob," I say, "There comes a time when a man is tested by—"

Huh.

"Ramsey? Tested by what? What's wrong?"

"Hold on." I stare at that which is in front of my seeping, booger-spouting nose. I am inspired.

In the kitchen of a loft apartment somewhere in San Francisco, there's a breakfast bar. Behind the breakfast bar, there's a cupboard stolen from a dying Hungarian farmer and sold to an American yuppie for many thousands of dollars. On the cupboard, there stands a picture frame supplied by an Oslo-based website specializing in vintage kitsch.

And in the picture frame, there's an original cell from Tom and Jerry. The cell dates from MGM's initial run of one hundred and fourteen films, wherein Jerry stalks a racially stereotyped housewife and Tom is a flat out sadist.

It took me a weekend to find the breakfast bar. The Hungarian cupboard was a month of solid work. Unexpectedly, the picture frame proved herculean: the manufacturer went bust after producing only a thousand copies and the Oslo-based website kept sending me fakes.

But the Tom and Jerry cell.

The Tom and Jerry cell proved nigh impossible. Hacking the unified theory requires less elbow grease. Compared to this, curing cancer is beginner's sudoku.

Eventually, I printed a copy off the Internet and forged William Hanna's signature.

Tom and Jerry. Jerry and Tom.

Tom.

"Bob," I say, a plan forming. "Can I ask you something? And I want you to give me an honest answer."

#

I've met Dutch people and they didn't strike me as particularly courageous, so I skip the booze and break out the cocaine. Half a gram later, I'm rubbing my gums and rapping along to my current power jam: Cookie Thumper by De Antwoord.

I compose a text to Alyssa: "You're right: I'm better as a gravedigger. Screw the coffee shop. Everything will be okay. I love you. Call you tomorrow." Struck by an image of a bloke in a powdered wig reading this out in court, I send a redacted version: "I love you."

Accompanied by a soft electronic whoosh, my heart is dispatched into the ether.

Okay, stage two (or three, depending on whether we're counting the coke binge). With the care of an agoraphobic test driving a Segway, I point the Tesla two hundred yards down the road. I shall apply the principles of Zit hunting: "C and C." This stands for "Cool and Care", according to a training program we were forced to attend. Remain calm, be methodical. The same approach I used tracking the dog to its meaty harem atop Bob's fridge.

I slow the car, edging passed the shops. Like a singularity dragging all light to its death, Oldport High Street exerts a pull over the whole town. If something's happening, it's here. Parking the Tesla behind the boarded up Toone Hotel, I double back on foot, skulking along the row of newsagents, grocers and opticians (no less than three of the latter).

Aside from a couple of teenagers smoking on the bandstand steps, the center of Oldport is deserted. I head to the most likely source of humans: the pub.

Freddie is having an argument with his fruit machine; Kelly picks at that finest of Scottish delicacies: the chip butty (fries on a white roll). Otherwise, there isn't so much as a single drunk slumped over the dregs of a Stella.

Trying not to breathe, I cross into the stinking mist surrounding Kelly and her butty. "Where is everyone?"

"You lonely?" She chews suggestively on her heart-attack sandwich. "You want to keep me company, handsome?"

The twenty four pornographic cinema in my head shows a preview of upcoming attractions: Kelly's boobs smeared with chip grease, an expertly placed lamp picking out rainbows in each oily droplet.

"No," I say, unconvincingly. "I've got — a thing. A mission. Something to do. Secret." Note to self: never, ever enter a pub unless you plan to partake in terrible beer and self-hating sex. "I got to go. I'm sorry. Your chip butty looks delicious."

"It's nice you found that girl." Kelly shrugs. "Well, there's always Freddie."

Freddie karate kicks the fruit machine and falls over.

In the car behind the Toone Hotel, I confront the most obvious and most unpleasant of possibilities. My thumb trembles as I log into Facebook. According to Alyssa's last status update, she's out with girlfriends at a gig in Glasgow. Therefore, were I to drop by, I would find my goddess' apartment devoid of its deity.

Unless, of course, the Facebook update is a ruse intended to prevent exactly such a visit. I refresh the message window until a pop up tells me to cut it out. Shit. Still no reply to my "I love you" text.

Alyssa lives in a studio conveniently located within walking distance of a roundabout and a strip of wasteland. From her front steps, I can just about make out the security lights of the Tesco where she works.

I peer in through the darkened window. By the roundabout's orange glow, I make out the sofa and the kitchenette, and the cupboard in which she keeps her collected works of Ryan Gosling — Alyssa and her Mum watch The Notebook together every Sunday. Tearful at this wholesome image of maternal bonding, I slink round to the side window. Behind the cupboard is an alcove with a bed. I cup my hands against the glass and squint. No shapes beneath the sheets.

Mentally, I ask Alyssa to forgive my stalking and swear to never doubt her again. Skipping across the wasteland, I almost make it back to the Tesla before recalling my biggest problem.

If Will Ingham isn't in the pub or having sex with the the future Mrs Ramsey Holiday, where the hell is he?

#

Chapter Six.

Without Will Ingham, my master plan has already become unstuck. I would like to slam my head against the Tesla's horn, but such an action would contravene C and C. A motorbike screams down the motorway framing Oldport.

Could it be?

Nope. My recently acquired expert ear announces that this isn't a Harley.

Googling "motorcycle clubs" and "barbecue" results in a single photo of an obese ex-con in Texas wielding what I pray is a steak and not human flesh. Were I fake Hell's Angel returning from a Saturday out with my fellow leather enthusiasts, where would I go?

I'm halfway to the ring road when I remember the Mayor saying she'd closed the garage.

"Bugger this."

I check the Tesla's display: eleven. Plenty of time to raid Oldport's off-license for its craft beers. A U-turn later and I'm gunning it back to town and the promise of imported Belgian oblivion.

I've given it my best shot; that's all a man can do. It's not like Will Ingham and his brothers are so pretentious as to have a clubhouse somewhere.

The Tesla breaks. I pull over. Bugger C and C: I smack my head against the wheel. "Not a clubhouse, you bloody idiot, but he does have a house house."

Hope laces my shame. I pat my jacket pockets. During our meeting, Will Ingham gave me a business card. Can't remember whether it's got an address. And if it does, would that address correspond to a home? Or do handymen have offices?

I chuck every bit of crap on my person onto the passenger seat. Between a receipt from Muji and a condom, I spy the business card.

And, yes, it is printed with an address.

According to my phone, the postcode corresponds to a crofter's cottage not far from here, out in the hills.

Were a Tesla capable of tearing off in a cloud of burning rubber, that's what this one would do. Sadly, such exquisite engineering permits only a civilized whisper, even with the driver cackling and applying pedal to metal.

Down a road of the dark and winding variety, which becomes a lane framed by drywalls. Sharp bends forcing me to slow, flowers in the Tesla's headlamps, roses stacked high at a break in the wall. Somebody died here.

How macabre. To silence grisly thoughts and the sounds from the trunk, I play Major Lazer. Hmmm. Upbeat electronic seems inappropriate given what I'm about to do. Shuffling, I find the mandatory soundtrack for those engaged in morally dubious actions: Nick Cave's Red Right Hand.

Whistling along, I drive until white washed bricks and a thatched roof are revealed by the road side.

"Bugger." I silence the dark master of Australian pop. "Double bugger. Triple bugger."

Not so much as a candle flickers behind the curtains of Will Ingham's rural retreat. Really? Does Scotland's own Sons Of Anarchy go to bed early?

Parking up under a conveniently secluded copse, I sneak back to the cottage. Trees shuffle like angry bikers, an owl whoops like an approaching police car. What will my excuse be, in case Will Ingham is indeed at home playing Grand Theft Auto with the lights off?

"My Tesla broke down, Will, sworn enemy of mine. Yeah, I know: a Tesla. The zenith of mankind's vehicular know-how, a sodding X-Wing with wheels and nicer styling. Broke down. Yeah, a gasket. Or a thingy. A fuel rod. Or whatever. Who'd have thought?"

But unlikely alibis prove unnecessary. After scuttling around, I discover a shed containing Will Ingham's bike... but no Will Ingham. My nemesis has evaporated.

"I am bloody buggering sick of this," I tell the whispering night. "For real, this time." With Bonnie Prince Billy whinging on the stereo, I drive to Oldport. I park off the High Street, where this quest began.

Thanks to thoughtful legislation catering to Scotland's alcoholics, the off license is open until two in the morn. At twelve, the place is still a hive of drunken activity.

So focused am I on the booze shop's bright lights and bottles that I almost pass the van.

I stop. I consider slapping my forehead, but it's already taken enough punishment from the car's wheel.

A decade old Ford Transit — the chariot of choice for working men throughout the land. What makes this one special, however, are the words "Ingham Jnr. Plumbing, roofing, general repairs" stenciled on the side.

Will Ingham has a van. Naturally. A handyman needs more than a tool belt stuffed in a Harley's saddle bag.

A shout from Oldport's booze Mecca. A local pisshead — one of Freddie's colleagues in despair — has pushed to the front of the queue and is busy seducing the sales girl. Unimpressed, she's staring over his shoulder, checking out a tall bearded man at the back. Ingham Jnr, in the flesh.

Figuring the pisshead's chatter buys me five minutes, I test the driver's door. Locked. Trying to appear as though breaking into a van is normal, I sidle round to the passenger door. Also locked.

"Bugger me backwards."

Alright, last chance: if the rear door doesn't give, this wasn't to be. Abort mission. Accept your fate. My hand holds the cool plastic handle. I tug. I wiggle. I press. One of life's great frustrations is trying to figure out how someone else's door works.

Click. A creak, a whiff of grease, a glimpse of a loading bay. Thank you, Jesus. Thank you for making village dwellers so trusting.

I scope the off-license. The horny drunk appears to be improvising a stand up comedy routine for the sale's girls benefit. A kid in a hooded top gives him a pre-fight shove. Will Ingham turns and rolls his eyes at the person behind him.

I sprint to the Tesla and pop the trunk. "Shush," I tell the steel container.

When I was five, my Dad hung a bird box in the back garden. I checked it after a week and discovered... not eggs, but ear wigs huddled in its crevices. Knowing that what I intended was wrong, I nevertheless fetched a knife from the kitchen and chopped every one of those creatures into teeny tiny pieces. Crossing Oldport High Street to Will Ingham's van, I experience a mindset identical to my five year old self as he butchered bugs. I am aroused and scared; my heart's beat is that of distant cannibal drums. I am fully here and simultaneously far away.

As I pull open the van's back door, it is as though all this is occurring behind thick glass.

"What a bloody shambles. Shocking." The stripper-like tool belt is utmost in a heap of equipment. Were his only sin that of untidiness, Will Ingham would deserve to suffer.

Telling myself that I'm doing this for useless Bob (and for myself, but mainly for Bob), I ease back the latches around the container's lid and shake the contents into the back of Will Ingham's van.

#

"Bob, can I ask you something? And I want you to give me an honest an honest answer."

A throat is cleared. "Sure, boss."

"Bob, did you kill the cat?"

#

I shake the container again. My jaws are clamped, molars pushed into my skull, a migraine-making pressure.

"Here, kitty, kitty." This emerges as: "Ga, ty, ty." I tell my lower jaw to relax and slam the container into the van's floor.

Movement. With a slithering reminiscent of a gigantic evil turd, the cat plops onto Will Ingham's tool belt. Not wishing to mess about, I slam the van door, sprint to the Tesla and go, go, go.

What have I done?

What. Have. I. Done?

The right thing. Undoubtedly.

Probably. In spite of my earlier associations, this is nothing like the earwig massacre.

Maybe.

Okay, let's take this from the top.

My coked up, sleep deprived, Patrick Swayze-influenced reasoning is as follows: Will Ingham is clearly a healthy specimen (irritatingly so), ergo the cat will not dare lay a tentacle on him. This being said, Will Ingham will undoubtedly crap himself and run. Ergo, Police Constable Graham will be summoned, which means Ramsey Holiday will also be summoned, which means I will effortlessly defeat the cat, which means that — come Monday morning — Will Ingham will not report the suspicious hole in our office because I will have saved his tight ass.

Furthermore, the Mayor-Deputy entity will realize that Zit infestations remain an unfortunate reality and re-instate Mr Holiday, the aforementioned chocolate key toting hero. I will humbly accept and they will, just as humbly, offer me a raise. I shall agree, but only on condition that Bob the Brilliant is offered a permanent contract. They will hum and haw because they remain spineless bureaucrats. Demonstrating typical selflessness, I shall stand firm and the Mayor — chastened by my nobility and a little bit in love — will acquiesce.

Finally, most importantly, Alyssa will propose. We shall move into a suburb where pigeons coo all day. Once we have renovated the house to exactly re-create an abode I've looked up online, we shall make the handsomest babies ever and — because love conquers all — Alyssa will permit me to re-grow the beard. With time, she will even come to find it sexy.

In the distant future, I shall take pity on the husk that was once Will Ingham and generously offer him work mowing my bloody law.

The end.

#

Chapter Seven.

Drizzle dusting my face, I ditch the steel container in a random skip, head home, and collapse into bed without chemical assistance. There is a period of no me.

Uh.

Uh. Uh. Uh.

I would ignore the phone but the baby seal association is too disturbing.

"Whoever you are," I say, picking up. "Remind me to get a new ring tone."

"This is Graham."

Error, does not compute. "Graham, it's a Sunday."

He laughs. When is this dude not jolly? "A holy day and a lucky one for you, lad. Praise be."

"Man, it's seven in the morning." I cough. Mysterious chunks appear in my mouth; I'd rather not investigate. I re-swallow.

"You have a rough night last night, Ramsey?"

Ah yes, last night. What did I do last night?

Oh shit.

"No, not at all. Quiet one." Patrick Swayze's grin is judgmental. "Um. Watched a film. Roadhouse. Have you seen Roadhouse?"

While Graham's reply may involve daring conjecture on the ideology of classic action movies, I don't hear it.

Resting the phone on my shoulder, I pad to the window. Flecks spatter the glass as though Jackson Pollock is flicking transparent paint at my house.

"It's raining, Graham. When did it start raining?"

"Monsoon season, isn't it? Let's see. My back got me up at four, so —"

"They're attracted to moisture —"

"You okay, lad?" Graham's hale fellow routine is edged with concern. "You sound like you're choking."

I sit at the breakfast bar. Tom looms over Jerry. Tom the cat. I can't look at him.

"But you're right," says Graham. "The water's probably a contributing factor."

I've figured out why he's calling — at least in broad strokes — but given my guilt, it's smart to act stupid. "A contributing factor to what?"

"We had an incident."

"Which was?"

Graham says, "I probably shouldn't sound so chuffed, and I know I'm stretching it out, but I was just so happy when I heard. For you, I mean. And Bob. That secretary, she's such a gossip, she told me about the trouble you were in with the Mayor. Anyway, so when the station buzzed me, I'd have turned cartwheels around the room. You know, if that was possible with this hernia and my age —"

He interrupts himself before I howl.

"Well," Graham concludes, "The good news is" — a pause as though he's a doctor informing me of impending fatherhood — "we got a dead body." He chuckles. "Not just any body. Every sign of a wild Zit. Now that's worth getting up early for, eh, lad?"

#

I can't find my house keys. Please, please, please, where are they? Where are my bloody keys? I search the flat a third time, panting, breath stinking like decomposing animal. After getting off the phone, I vomited until my stomach acid came up red.

The keys are not in the wash basket and they're not in my jacket. I check the cutlery drawer. "Why would they be in the sodding, shitting cutlery drawer?" I throw a fork across the room; it clatters off the coffee table. I cringe: that table cost me a month of my exorbitant salary. Patrick Swayze's gaze directs me to the fruit bowl. Of course! I probably came in — shaking, on a major comedown — and tossed the keys amongst the bananas.

"Thanks, Patrick. I also liked you in Dirty Dancing."

The fruit bowl contains only fruit.

Giving up on the house keys, I pull on my Nike Roshes, no socks, and leg it. I've been clawing at the Tesla's door for five minutes when a I realize that the car keys are probably wherever I left the house keys.

Sweating, Roshes drenched from sprinting through puddles, I crash into the office.

Bob is a pale, wobbling lump, like hair gel impersonating a human. He's slumped at his desk, dunking a tea bag over and over, the tea itself long since stewed. "Rams, the body, it's —"

"Put the tea down, Bob." His panic calms me. "And get into your decon suit. Chop chop."

As Bob leaves unbuttoning his shirt, the toilet flushes; Graham emerges through our ruined bathroom door. "Bit of a mess, lad." He winks. "You had a party in here? Raving and such?"

Ah, the perfect alibi. Thank you, Constable. "Yeah, you caught us."

Graham wipes his hands on his jeans. I've never seen him without his kinky weaponry. He looks fatter; perhaps that belly is an effect of alcoholism. Like Bob's nerves, his vulnerability gives me comfort.

"You're late, Ramsey." Bob re-emerges, the decon suit open over a T-shirt that reads "Everybody Must Get Stoned."

"Car wouldn't start."

"Whatever."

I stare at my assistant. The guy is all over the place: sad then angry and now numb, picking at the microwave-shaped hole in our wall. This is far from good. "The body already in there?" I wave at the inspection room.

"Yep." Graham's frowning at Bob. "A proper clean up crew brought it." His expression returns to default cheerfulness. "Hummer ambulance and guns and everything, just like the old days. You missed it, lad. They had to go. Fairport Hospital called them about the other —"

Bob is rubbing his eyes and sniffing. I send telepathic instructions telling him to act normal. If this goes on, I'll have no choice but to throw myself out the nearest window and run for the Highlands.

"Best get started, guys. Graham, please change as well." I clap my hands. "If our body's got a passenger, it'll be in Phase One for sure. Maybe a Phase Two." I don a decon suit and a veneer of professionalism and head for the slabs.

I see his toes first, which — like his van — could use tidying up. His feet and arms have been strapped down.

"Who secured the client, Graham?"

"Precautionary measure," he says, the suit making him sound like an astronaut. "He was on the Special Cola. The Zit had had running laps. Army lads shot him. Hence the head wound." He makes an exploding sound. "Is that gray thing his brain?"

Apart from the beard, I hardly recognize my rival. Will Ingham seems shorter, and not just because he's missing half a skull. Death brings fragility to us all. Still: a great body. Fixing sinks is apparently good for your abs. Atop one defined pectoral, over his heart, is a tattoo of the word "Alyssa."

"And this?" My voice breaks. "This second bullet wound? In the shoulder."

"He kept going after they took his head off. They hit him twice in the side. That's what all that dried blood is."

"That is some Special Cola." The suit makes my sweat worse; it's the world's least erotic steam room in here. "This is unheard of."

"He put a nurse into intensive care." Graham chuckles. "That's quite ironic, isn't it? A nurse in a hospital."

Blessedly, professional outrage douses my guilt. "He should have been kept in a military facility. That's how we used to handle the nasty Zits." I slap the morgue table; the body vibrates. "Why didn't they take him to the army base?"

"Because it's you, lad," says Graham.

Bob The Brilliant — currently Bob The Silent — rolls his eyes and busies himself with the Ass Jack.

Graham squeezes my shoulder. "The people who matter, those of us on the front line, we know you're a special guy. You've got a reputation. Calm. Superhuman. An ice king."

If the Mayor had shown me this kind of respect, none of this would have happened. "Actually," says a non-psychopathic part of me. "If you hadn't thrown a monster into Will Ingham's van, none of this would have happened."

Deep breath. Ask what you need to ask. "He looks healthy. Why did it take him?"

"Lad, I'm not an expert. You are."

I snap my fingers. After a slight delay, Bob passes me the pole. I prod a cut in Will Ingham's neck. "And these? There are a lot of secondary wounds."

"He put up a fight. Noble guy. We think he was trying to protect his girlfriend."

...

I am on the floor. Why?

...

A gloved hand reaches down, pulls me up. "Ramsey, lad. Can you hear me?"

...

I am still in the inspection room, leaning against the viewing window. "I fainted. Is that what I did?"

Graham and Bob stand over me, chubby sentinels in creepy plastic suits. "Shall we get someone else to do this, boss?"

"No, Bob." While I would very much enjoy a nervous break down, the detached version of Ramsey Holiday — the one who chops up ear wigs — explains that my best chance for survival is to stay in this room and do my job. Anything incriminating must be destroyed. A silver nozzle in the ceiling glints. More specifically, anything incriminating must be burned.

Graham helps me back to Will Ingham's morgue table. I avoid looking at his dead penis, which is predictably handsome.

"You almost hit the table going down." The Constable taps a sharp corner. "Close call." Unexpectedly, the Perry Mason theme tune chirps from inside his trousers. "Ah, talking of calls, lads. That's my phone."

Graham heads outside.

Bob apparently sees this as an opportunity to loom over me. "What is this, Ramsey? Why is our handyman dead?"

"Slow down, Bob. You're having a panic attack."

"And why does he have your girl's name tattooed on him? Is that why you didn't want him fixing our wall?"

I stick the pole in Will Ingham's one remaining ear. There is no scientific reason why I should do this. "When you're done, Bob, would you pass me the Ass Jack?"

"I'm not bloody retarded," he says. He bats the pole away. "Whatever you think. I'm older than you."

"Now is not the time for your inferiority complex. Focus, Bob."

Bob punches me in the arm. The pole tings on the metal floor tiles.

"Ouch. Jesus."

"Next time, boss, I'll knock you out, you jumped up little fool. Now you bloody look at me and you bloody well listen." He indicates the former Will Ingham. "This is why you wanted the cat, isn't it?"

I hate being called "little." "Fool" is fine but little...

With dignity, I pick up the pole and prod Bob in the chest with it. "That's correct. And you gave the cat to me. You're complicit." I invent some lawyer-ish phrases. "You're a culpable accessory. You are in a position of extreme and disbarred remiss."

The airlock emits a series of chirrups. A servomotor whirs, a green light flashes, Graham ambles back in. "It's a jackpot today, lads. The survivor just snuffed it." He laughs. I am so tired of hearing him laugh. "I have to head off. Paperwork. But she'll be warm when she gets here, you lucky bastards. A right looker, I'm told." Our local justice representative pauses. "Actually, maybe I'll stick around and take a peek."

To prevent another faint unbecoming of the ice king, I press myself against the nearest wall. As yet, there's nothing to say it's her. As yet, I am having a terrible day — yes, admittedly — but not the worst day of my existence. As yet.

Bob waves the pole. "Boss, hello. We need to inspect the handyman. I don't want a Zit to kill me because you're daydreaming." How wonderful: Bob has turned a corner and gone from raging lunatic to acting like my manager.

"I got this, technician. You just make your record." I snatch the pole, begin with the necessary prodding. "Clear," I say.

Attach a saw to the pole, slice a hole in Will Ingham's chest, obliterating the tattoo. "Clear," I say.

How many times have I done this? Nose. "Clear." Stomach. "Clear."

If you count the earwigs, I've been hacking flesh my whole life. "Clear."

It's fine. It's all going to be fine. Will Ingham had a new girlfriend and — tragic for her family, the community blah blah blah — she died. It's not an unlikely scenario. Granted, Will Ingham was my enemy, but I didn't actually know the dude: it is entirely possible he had a new partner.

Sweat drips in my eye. I want out of this suit. I want to check my phone, see whether Alyssa has replied to my text message.

"Clear," I say, replacing Will Ingham's perfect penis and removing the Ass Jack. Will Ingham's last earthly fart follows. Pleasingly, it does not smell of roses.

"Shall we burn him now?" says Bob, "Or do them both?"

"Both," says Graham, "Better for the environment."

Not that it's his call, but I agree. As a fan of artisanl products, I prioritize tomorrow's world.

Bob sets about disinfecting the Ass Jack with baby wipes.

"Well built, that lad," says Graham, nodding at the corpse. "Good looking fella. Was, I mean."

I hum in order to prevent myself yelling: "Better looking than me? Huh? Was he? And what about his cock? Is that better looking than mine too? Here, take a look. Side by side."

"What's that?" Bob says, and for a second I think he's heard my thoughts.

"Ambulance," says Graham. "Show time." The constable rubs his hands as though he'll actually be doing something.

"What about that paperwork?" I don't want him gawking at her — unless it's not Alyssa, then whatever.

"I'll just say 'hello', eh?" He waggles his eyebrows. "Only polite." He sighs. "Don't be prudish, lad. When you're my age the only place you see a piece like that is Pornhub."

I want to ram the Ass Jack down his throat. The desire is stronger than the need to hurt Will Ingham. Maybe I can drag Bob outside on some pretext, hit the red button and immolate the jolly constable —

A truck pulls up.

"Would you look at that?" says Bob. "Looks like it belongs in Afghanistan." Being not very bright, Bob retains the capacity to be astonished by things he's witnessed before.

"Only, it's white," says Graham. "With a bloody great red cross on the side. It'd get blown up in two seconds out in Kabul."

"Really?" I say. "And when did you serve in Kabul?"

Graham's still looking hurt when two soldiers barrel through the airlock. "Out the way," shouts the one with the most badges. "Move it, move it." I'm about to ask him what he's talking about when a squad explode into the office. Half are pushing an armor-plated sarcophagus on jeep-size wheels. All are made a head taller by military grade decontamination suits, compared to which my own is fancy dress. Rudely, they shove Will Ingham's table into a corner and arrange their show-off coffin center stage.

"Where's Ramsey Holiday?" says the guy with the badges. Eight trained killers look my way. Each sports a visored helmet, making them resemble knights from an unlikely medieval future.

I raise a hand. It's getting very crowded in here.

Badges points at two of his identical men. "Staff Sergeant Brown and Private Shanks will stay here, sir. The rest of the section will remain by the vehicle until the body is secured. Agreed?"

He's not really asking; I nod.

"Good. Careful, Mr Holiday." He jabs a gauntlet at Will Ingham. "If her boyfriend's anything to go by, she'll be a bitch."

What's with all the casual misogyny today? Don't these people have mothers?

After the A Team are safely posing by their big truck, we get to work. Or rather, Bob does, because I rush to the bathroom and vomit. When I return, wiping my mouth on the decon suit's sleeve, the coffin lid has already been popped.

Alyssa.

"Gak," I say, the only outward expression of an internal roar.

Alyssa. Inevitably.

Who else would Will Ingham have died for? Because a man only sacrifices himself for the woman whose name is tattooed on his pectoral. I would very much welcome the opportunity to throw up again. Experimentally, I attempt a quiet heave. Nothing doing.

"Sloppy," says Graham, plucking a flashing mobile phone from her body. And there it is: the evidence of my complicity in three words. "I love you." The earwig killer within notes that the Constable will have to be bribed at some point — otherwise there will be no more keys to cities, only keys to cells.

At least she's clothed. At least the jolly constable will be denied his necro eye rape. Probably, I should be sobbing — though the presence of people who'd find this odd makes my cold reaction a plus. I lay a hand on her brow, a movement that might pass for medical. Hmmm. Her nostrils are scarlet, as though she'd been sneezing.

"Shit." Trying to maintain my ice king persona, I glance at Will Ingham. Unfortunately, I can't check whether his nostrils are also swollen; he no longer has any. Under his mask, the ice king bites his lip until it bleeds. He's freaking out. There's your explanation, Ramsay: the cat didn't take a healthy couple after all. They both had chronic hayfever, like — what did she call it? — like a flu each summer. Congratulations, your self-absorbed inattention wins your the prize of... manslaughter.

"So," says Graham, leering, "Do you unbutton her or cut the blouse?" I am learning that the Constable is way, way more sadist than Santa.

"Constable," I say. "It's a tenant of our profession to treat clients with dignity. And respect. At all times. Shame on you."

"But—"

"Get out or I shall report you to anyone I can find. Starting with your wife."

He gapes.

"Staff Sergeant, please remove the constable."

The constable is held by the neck and ejected.

"You good, Rams?"

"Yeah, Bob."

"Anything you need, Rams." He's whispering. "I got you, brother."

Maybe this is not how it seems. Maybe they were just hanging out, old friends, Ingham providing the booze while she complained about the asshole she'd been seeing.

Uh-huh. Sure, Ramsey.

"Boss?"

"Yes, Bob?"

"I don't know how to put this delicately, so I'll just say it: we need to use the Ass Jack on her."

I stare at him over the coffin containing my beloved. Behind Bob's shoulder Will Ingham's caved in head is visible. Will and Alyssa. Romeo and Juliet. Only without the suicide pact. And the possibility of tentacled monsters growing in Juliet's bum.

"Ramsey! Don't cry. Ramsey, please. No crying, boss. Those soldiers will be back soon. It'll look bad."

"I'll not use the Ass Jack," I hiss. "You get that? I'll not have you using it either. She deserves dignity" — my teeth are thick with saliva — "Dignity, Bob."

The soldiers return. "You got to admit though, mate," says one, spinning the lock closed. "She does have a nice rack."

Which is when Alyssa's eyes flicker open, tiny tentacles rammed through her irises. "Men," she croaks, "Are my meat."

"Holy shit," Bob has his hands clamped to his cheeks, "She can talk. She can talk, Ramsey—"

Alyssa springs from her casket and rips the Staff Sergeant's head off, thus proving that talking is the least of her skills. As she beats Private Shanks to death with his superior's head, I am — on some level — humbled to be witnessing the strongest Special Cola yet created. On another level, I am screaming and peeing myself, for the second time in a week.

My girlfriend (ex-girlfriend?) decides that a decapitated head isn't the best murder weapon; she tosses it and chokes Private Shanks instead. The Private has perhaps received training to deal with such an event: certainly, he claws at her neck as though there's a routine to be followed. Sadly for him, Alyssa/the Zit is faster than his muscle memory: she squeezes so hard I hear something important crack even over my own raw scream.

In a weird way — a very weird way — I am proud of her.

Private Shanks slumps. Alyssa straddles his legs and proceeds to rip his pants off. Tentacles punch through her rib cage; they surge toward Shanks' buttocks.

"No, honey," I wave my arms, "Don't do that. I love you." Why the hell would I say that? She looks up as though asking herself the same question. A tentacle pokes from her mouth and licks her lips.

"Boss!" Bob has had presence of mind to use Will Ingham's corpse as a shield. "Get behind me, Ramsey. We'll rush her." He holds up the Smith and Weston. "You zap her."

Which is when the soldier with the badges appears at the viewing window. "Mr Holiday," he says over the intercom, "Will you shortly have the situation under control?" He taps the wall next to the viewing window; I'm guessing his fingers brush the red button. "Otherwise, I shall take the necessary measures. Repeat: can you handle this? Yes or no?"

Clearly, there is a correct response here. "Yes," I bawl. "Give us a minute."

The coldest bastard imaginable nods. "You have two, Mr Holiday." He rubs at a smear of the Staff Sergeant's blood as though he can clean it from the other side of the glass.

Together, Bob and I lift Will Ingham. Given that muscle is three times heavier than fat and Will Ingham's BMI is in the single digits, Bob's proposed rush is more of a shamble. However, our human battering ram eventually mushes the monster that was my true love. We push, hard.

"Step round her," Bob says.

I do; the diminished weight means that Alyssa/the Zit can slip out from under the corpse.

"You're a moron, Bob." Clearly, I have skipped to the angry part of my grieving process. I have more ranting to do, but Alyssa cuts me off by throttling my assistant.

"Kill her," he gasps. "Use. A. Microwave."

"I don't have a microwave, Bob."

"It's the only way."

"Um. I think there must be other ways —"

"No, Ramsey. Only. A. Microwave."

I'm assuming this is the oxygen starvation talking.

Alyssa pulls Bob's head into an unpleasant angle.

My reactions faster than my instinct for self-preservation, I wrap my arms around her, lift woman and monster, and hurl her/it/them across the room. She slaps against the far wall and slides down it, tentacles twitching like an epileptic sea anemone.

Mental note: tell Bob I now understand how fear enabled him to beat a Zit to death with a small oven.

The airlock whooshes. "Get out," says the soldier with the badges. I allow myself to be bundled into the office.

Seen from the far side, the isolation room is a jumble of horrors. Figuring out which limb belongs to which body requires a degree.

Alyssa's fingers scratch the bloody glass, pulling so hard nails are left stuck to the quartz.

"Ramssssssey," she/it/they says. "You are" — having a tentacle for a tongue makes enunciation problematic — "You. Are. Not that tall."

"Bob," I say. "Buddy, this time, I'm hitting the button."

As fire eats the monster that was my true love, I cringe: witty parting lines aren't warranted when you're responsible for this many deaths. Dabbing my tears with a piece of cloth, I wonder how I came to be holding a piece of cloth.

I hold it up to the light. It's from Alyssa's dress: must have ripped it from her during the fight.

I hold it to my nose, breathe in her scent.

Only her scent isn't eau de toilette: it's that bloody Revlon.

I scream.

#

Business is booming. Throughout the Summer, the cat preys on a range of victims, from the terminally ill to the mildly inconvenienced. Old people and people in wheel chairs and even one guy whose only health issue was severe acne. In the words of one tabloid newspaper, it's a slaughter of the lambs.

Turns out that Bob's pet is a new breed of super Zit, with a Special Cola so strong it works like a defibrillator... followed by an overdose of every party chemical stored in the brain for magical occasions like birth or skydiving. The comedown, seconds after the high, drops the victim into a slavering paranoid psychosis where everything must be killed to save the holy one... a.k.a the Zit in their guts. A proper mortician — not a gravedigger punk like myself — finds fragments of microscopic tentacles in a corpse's spine, leading to speculation that the Zits are partially directing their victims. After a night of heavy drinking, Bob and I consider stealing samples of the advanced formula Special Cola, modifying its compounds, and selling it to folks with similar interests — like meth. After investing in a Bunsen burner and some test tubes, we realize that neither of us knows anything about chemistry and, besides, our scheme might be ethically suspect.

We find the cat, now the size of a bull, hiding under a pond near Oldport — in the direction of Will Ingham's cottage. By this point, the body count has lead to martial law being declared, and the soldier with the badges is my de facto boss. Still, as head gravedigger, I lead the charge with Bob (now on a permanent contract) at my side. We freeze the beast with the Extinguisher's big brother — a canon — and fry it with a flamethrower fueled by the same kerosene-liquid oxygen mix used to power a Saturn V rocket. Somewhat superfluously, I indulge Bob by permitting him to fire an RPG at the smoldering sack of pus. Afterward, Bob and I high five; the soldier with the badges nods solemnly as though we've just taken Omaha beach. We make a group selfie.

I should point out: this all takes place inside a tank half a mile from the cat, so it's questionable the degree to which bravery is being demonstrated. Still, the national news is present and a hero is needed, and — given my Jon Hamm-like head and naturally V-shaped body— I fit the bill, particularly as I've got a new Che Guevara beard (only better styled).

As part of a series called Extreme Mega Everyday Warriors, the Discovery Channel make a documentary about me. I spend a week reenacting my adventures and giving intense pre-scripted monologues to camera; the producers skip over the boring bits with montages of people running. Ramsey Holiday stars as Ramsey Holiday, but Bob is replaced by a thin actor who once had a part in CSI Presents: Florida, Glades Of Death.

In July, I get a raise, most of which I invest in Police Constable Graham's silence/early retirement. There's a parade in my honor; in a village of three thousand, this involves twenty people walking down a street. Nevertheless, it culminates in a moving and PR-worthy ceremony outside a non-denominational church; I am awarded another key to the city — and this one is made of real gold. Or, at least, it's gold-plated.

Within a day, a photograph of me flourishing the gold key and looking sexily traumatized hangs framed next to the chocolate key version in the Oldport Arms. I frequently study this image, right up until the alcohol impairs my vision. In it, Mayor Sheila gazes at me, a little bit in love, while Deputy Sharon stands almost out of frame looking jealous. Given that this second portrait is A3 in size, I never have to point it out to a woman ever again: I simply ascend to my barstool (always vacant because I'm that famous), order a craft beer (now stocked at my behest), and wait to get laid.

At night, once whoever she is has fallen asleep, I sneak to the bathroom. Avoiding my reflection, I down a sleeping pill because without it I shall remain awake forever. Waiting for the chemicals to drag me under, I perch on the toilet and sob quietly. A thought inevitably rises: perhaps — in some fucked-up way — the Zits aren't the bad guys. And perhaps, I ain't the good guy.

#

END

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