|
Margin Walkers
The pair arrived just as it was getting dark. The intense static of thrashing waves filled the air with a faint mist that slicked their faces as they consulted the directions with their Maglite:
Land's End, end of Laurel Street. Ten hours west from where they woke up.
Lights were on inside the house, and an enormous painting of a harvest scene could be made out behind the two silhouettes that were peering out. The door unclicked as they crunched up the gravel path, wearily slinging their rucksacks to their sides and laughing.
The trials of the long day faded once the hosts welcomed the visitors inside. Marcus and Ned worked in resolved unison, one handing bottles to the guests as the other guided them towards a plush settee at the head of the room, all the while inquiring about the routes they had taken.
A homebound city worker must have felt generous. You were lucky.
As the pleasantries subsided formal introductions were made. Lorcan's brother had spent time living out here with Marcus and Ned when he worked as a fisherman, and he had recommended the brothers as hospitable contacts well worth locating if one was passing through the area.
Lorcan and his friend Liam figured they'd just humor the pair, accept any food offered and enjoy the empty bedroom they'd been promised.
Maybe climb the mountain in the morning and then set off back home counter clockwise. Two middle-aged brothers in fisherman's caps living on the edge of a cliff had got to be good value on the free entertainment stakes they figured. Guaranteed head bangers.
Although the two parties had nothing in common bar a shared acquaintance, the banter was engagingly lively and comfortably dissipated any initial awkwardness or suspicion in the room. Wine was poured and a slab of salmon was divided on dishes. The hikers scanned their surroundings as animal eyes flickered in the gloom outside the window. The place was immaculately turned out and had ornaments perched on every available free surface; grouped in themes then heights, indicative of stern order and free time.
Marcus and Ned were almost identical to an unfamiliar eye, both were bald tall and spectacled, and had lived together in the family house ever since their parents had died. They worked on a trawler owned by a local publican named Sullivan and spoke of Scandinavian girls they visited when the seasons dictated their departure to sea. Ned had contracted an STD on his last visit the boys were told, and carefully memorized advice was issued about how to avoid doing likewise. The boys buried their laughter and nodded with mock intrigue, consciously memorizing the terminology to reenact over a shared joint later on by themselves.
The travelers slumped listlessly as the banter became meandering, eventually announcing with a mutual nod that they were beat and should get some sleep. Once ensconced in their room a hastily constructed joint was smoked out the window and they drifted off attempting to decipher the muffled conversation next door. Something called out in the forestry nearby, piercing the steady rumble of the ocean. The room was musty and a moth circled noisily above them in a vain search for light.
The foot of the mountain began at the back of the house, separated from the garden by a knotted tangle of thistles and exposed tree roots. They craned their necks upwards and stretched their aching legs in preparation.
Thin trees aided the boys' ascent, and Lorcan scolded Liam for purposely uprooting saplings in his wake. The steep slope was caked in wet mud created by the night's rainfall, and at one point it seemed as though Lorcan had fallen foul of his unsuitable soles and was about to plummet back down to earth. He composed himself against a tree and swore anxiously, fumbling through his parka jacket for his cigarettes.
Ten minutes of determined striding later they eyed the final peak and threw themselves through a final outpost of sparse vegetation. Once they pulled themselves over the summit, they were surprised to find that the mountain was completely flat and dotted with large red oblong boulders; reminiscent of visions of Mars they'd seen on television or of the desert landscape that Mad Max patrolled. After a brief sit down and a joint they wandered off separately in different directions.
It wasn't long before Liam let loose a giddy shriek and urgently called for Lorcan to come and take a look at what he'd unearthed. He dipped into the creviced surface and arose holding a cow's skull above his head, cackling and waving it like a sporting trophy. He hung it by its horns on a protruding rock and re-emerged seconds later scattering bleached finger-length bones on the ground around him. The skull wriggled from its mounting and clattered noisily into the bone pile.
The deep red stones they stood on contrasted jarringly against a clear cloudless blue sky. They took photographs of each other adorned in the bones.
"How the fuck would a cow get up here? Unless this is a mammoth's remains from caveman days."
"Stop being fucking stupid Liam, mammoths never lived in this country. And they were fucking elephants anyhow, not cows."
"Maybe their trunks didn't have bones running through them… although to give credit to you I'm at a loss as to where the horns sprang from. Do elephants have horns?"
"Maybe Pinky and Perky downstairs make sacrifices to the Kraken. Like on Skull Island in King Kong. There's gotta be some malevolent force that keeps them safe living like gulls perched on a cliff."
"The Kraken wasn't in King Kong you homo, the movie would have been called Kraken if it was. Anyway, bollocks to this, let's see what goes on in town here. You right? Grab my arm as I go back down will ya?"
It took them half the time coming down the hill as it did going up, and they slid down the final few meters like penguins down a floe. The momentum carried them jogging through a flower patch and straight back to the house.
When they got back to the house they eyed a note on the door left by Marcus and Ned saying that they'd gone to Sullivan's via the bookies if the boys fancied a drink. A rough map was scribbled underneath- two balls and a cock. An asterisk marked the bar halfway up the shaft. They scraped the thick mud off their shoes onto a flowerpot rim and set off up the road.
The air smelled like smoke and pine.
"It's getting dark already. Holy fuck, feels like Halloween doesn't it?" somebody said.
Sullivan's was a standard issue country pub; all oak beams, tin beer advertisements and populated by wheezy old men sucking on Woodbine stubs. A gaggle of over sized Americans in Stetsons jauntily jiggled to traditional music piped from speakers above the toilet door and were studiously scrutinized by boozy farmhands with eyebrows on their hands. Marcus and Ned were sat at the bar draining their drinks in silence.
"I don't suppose you fellas would know of more Saturday-night type bar around here?" one of the Americans directed towards Ned.
"Just that me, Tom and Chad here are kinda getting frisky and all of these here hicks just aren't gonna cut it for us."
He roved a chubby digit about the room and they all guffawed idiotically. Either Tom or Chad was smothered in angry ache and wore a bomber jacket with 'Redskins' embroidered on the breast.
"Well…" slurred Ned, "there's Shears place I suppose. Tonight's the monthly disco, everyone from town aged between seventeen and seventy go there. Bit of a meat market I guess, maybe that's your safest bet. Probably swing by ourselves later, impromptu wet tee-shirt competition failing. Eh, Sullivan?"
The barkeeper mumbled gruffly and pushed a dirty towel around a pint glass.
"Well thank you kind sir, you're one of the good fellas. Your friend too. Do you know we come here almost every year? Yep… never changes neither. Don't even consider ordering another drink Tom, we're off to the barn dance."
The exiting tourists stampeded through the door, almost dragging Liam and Lorcan with them in their slipstream. The locals suddenly became animated and sneered through the sides of their mouths to one another.
"Follow the cowboys lads, we're heading there too," instructed Ned as he pounded his tumbler down on the counter.
|
CLICK BELOW for the voting booth 
