Monkey People - Early Share

 I'm finally getting my head down on Monkey People — a slightly different perspective on the story of Forever Completely. This is early drafting, but it's tickling me, so I thought I'd share a bit with you too. I offer no apologies in advance.

 F.F.S.

(Which is how these things generally start.)

 Fools:

Yaroslav Popov looked down at Astrakhan, the Caspian capital once moved seven kilometres after its capture by Ivan the Terrible some five hundred years ago. That mental old fuck had a lot in common with Putin, though Yarolsav would never have dared say so out loud for fear of a tumble down the stairs or out of a window. In fact, knowing his luck, he’d probably be sucked into the engines of his own PAK-FA, aided by some thugs who reeked of booze and unwashed sweat. They all seemed to carry the same stink and, being on a prestige base, it was common to see them bringing hookers to the COs, or dragging those same men out for a long walk off a short landing. Depended entirely on Putin’s mood, really. And Syria had seen his temper change like spring weather. Small blessings were that he hadn’t worked up the balls to attack Ukraine. Yet.

Yaroslav’s SU-57, his PAK-FA, his Gloria – like the song – was stable, carrying a full tank and a special gift bound for the Iranians. A taunt for the Yankees. He took a last lingering look at the city below, his home of the last decade, and throttled into history as the man who started a nuclear war by accidentally bombing Damascus.

The saving grace, for a very briefly red-faced Yarolsav, was that nobody would be around on that Saturday night in 2016 to write down exactly what happened.

Fanatics:

Thousands of years ago, humans began to jot things down. Instructions mainly, on how not to be a shit to everybody else. As time went on, it all got more surreal. The human language evolved, and certain types of people began the centuries long process of adapting and interpreting those original lessons to serve their own needs. Praise this on a Wednesday and pay two groats to secure entry to the promised land, that kind of thing.

By 2015, the competing noises had settled into a howling madness of factions within sects, each vying for attention and territory. And money, of course. Cash drove the cults, and cults drove the crazy. But crazy, sadly, isn’t just for the unintelligent. While some were starting to obsess over a new technology called blockchain, enslaved in a hacker’s pyramid scheme to lend increasing pre-quantum computing power to blindly cracking small pockets of encrypted data in exchange for imaginary coins, others focused on poisons. One cult successfully developed a water-borne toxin, tested it over two seasons in Polish rivers — killing millions of innocent fish and disappointing thousands of hungry locals – and decided it would make a good rainy-day policy.

As spring was fumbling its sprung in 2016 and Yaroslav Popov accidentally launched his Iran-destined warhead in Syria — sparking a global nuclear conflict — the Healers of Dawn mobilised on the word of a tweet from none other than the Chosen Leader of Reconciliation herself. They emptied their kitchen cupboards, freezers, and storage lockups of bottles, barrels, and jars, and walked or drove to their pre-ordained water courses. Britain was densely populated, as the old joke went, so it came as no surprise that the home of old King Arthur got The Tinkles worse than almost anywhere else. The crying shame was that nobody got to truly appreciate the silly little name the Mumsnet Mother’s of Dawn thread had given the effects of the toxin, because they were too busy killing their loved ones.

Supremacists:

Jimmy, pronounced Jim-meh, had done his time as a football hooligan. Only a younger, actually, but he’d steadily risen through the Stone Island clad ranks to become a general. A general pain in the arse for the counter-terrorism police, that was. The way it all turned was fast: one moment they were deprived kids knocking seven barrels out of each other on match days, and the next they were leading the White Right into the political mainstream. From invading northern towns to stir up racial tensions, to increasingly frequent appearances providing balance on the six o’clock news, it was suddenly time to make Nazis great again. So, they made hay and, while the sun was shining and religious nutters were topping fish in Poland, they made friends.

The international rise of white supremacy was well-funded and completely co-ordinated by nation states. What the latter wanted was hybrid war, disrupting old enemies, and what the former suddenly had access to was an international marketplace of exactly the kind of people to train and arm them. Which is how Jimmy eventually found himself in receipt of several trucks full of Russian made dirty bombs while surrounded by enough ex-squaddies — abandoned to untreated PTSD by an uncaring military grinder — to blow everything to shit in a protest about, well, fuck knows really.

When the nukes started going off in the Middle East and Europe started to lob missile strikes around like party favours, the White Right climbed into their equally white vans and drove their payloads into the city centres, where they perceived the most foreigners lived. There it all ended, for many at least, with a boom. The slow choking isotopes, which would have denied the areas for decades in any other circumstances, simply settled, looking around every now and then, harrumphing molecurally at how quiet high streets had gotten.

Jimmy was not, as you might expect, in a van. Jimmy was going nowhere near where any of those mental bastards he had sent on their way with a Telegram message. Instead, he was making his way across the paddock at the back of his house to the underground shelter he’d crowdfunded. His wife, Shirley, was inside the house, finishing a cup of tea and a fag before joining him.

Then Shirley was running across the paddock.

Then Shirley was eating his face. Because she had The Tinkles.

Which served Jimmy right.

East Anglia

(Which is a good place to escape from.)

One:

“Fuck me, mate. Ain’t you seen the news?”

“I’m not messing,” Will replied, straightening his bulk to its full height, an automatic reaction even though he was on the phone. There was a long pause followed by a dejected sigh.

“Alright, I’ll drop the lot round later.” The caller hung up.

Will had always prided himself on his firm but fair approach. And that applied equally to drug dealing as it did to his building work. He pulled the yellowing net curtain back, exhaled the stinking smoke of cannabis he’d drawn in, and pitched the nub of the spliff out of the window before closing it and dropping the latch into its locked position. Since he lived on the ground floor, he couldn’t chance a punter nipping in for his cash or his stash, even if he just left the room for a second.

In what poorly passed for his mind’s eye, he imagined where he was going to put the big screen TV and the Xbox he’d just scored as a debt settlement. He didn’t have a TV currently, not that he used it for much else than watching porn. Whatsapp beeped on his other phone, his personal rather than his burner, which had dropped off the other side of the bed. He couldn’t be arsed with that yet. He had a hangover and, though the smoke had taken the edge off a bit, he wasn’t sure a lean and reach would do anything but make him throw up. So he left it, threw the burner on the bed, grabbed a towel off the back of wooden chair in his bedsit room, and went upstairs to shower.

It has been a good night, at least from what he could remember. The last fuzzy memory being some pints in the Prettygate, shots in the Berechurch Arms, then last orders at The Leather Bottle. In his humble opinion they were the best pubs in Colchester, and only a stagger back to his lodging room on the Nip estate. You never did see them, the Gurkhas. They kept to themselves but didn’t half kick up stinks cooking whatever crap it was they ate, he’d always thought. Probably fucking cats and dogs, like all the forrins. Nothing wrong with a good Nandos, even a ruby, as long as you didn’t mind giving yourself a flaming ring, but that was about as exotic as Will liked to get. He’d tried tapas once, but that was just some dago ham and cheese, like a shit ploughmans, so these days he liked to stick to a full English in the morning, and a chip supper come home time. That was the food he’d be voting for in the next election, making his mark for that Jimmy – by all scores a bit of a boy.

He had the vaguest recollection of texting his ex as he stumbled home, either trying it on for a shag or threatening to pour petrol through her letterbox again – hence his room the bedsit. But that was alright, he’d brought all his punters with him and that meant the old bill weren’t knocking up his kids at all hours. His main problem with the place was the state of the bathroom. When Jock was back from the roads, there’d always be a puddle of piss all over the floor as he drank himself stupid and staggered around shouting at ghosts. The worst was big Dave, the geezer always left it smelling like he’d shat out a dead badger. Couldn’t be normal. The soft lad opposite Will seemed fairly clean, but he always kept to himself. Probably wanking himself silly in his room every night. Never did he see him in a boozer or with a bird. Might even be a chutney. Still, the puffs were alright as long as they kept clear of Will’s arse.

The bathroom was dry and didn’t smell like death, so he locked himself in, spun the rusty taps, and waited for the hot water to run through. Then, when it had started to steam up, he fidgeted his muscular frame out of last night’s clothes and stepped in, letting the water run over his face as he lathered in Jock’s Fruit Salad shower gel.

Will started to feel a bit weird after a minute. Probably the hangover, he thought. Then he thought nothing at all, aside from the colour red, and started to scream.

***

The Tinkles was fast, once it got in. An eyeball would do, a stomach was better.

It didn’t cause a transformation or metamorphosis in the physical sense but, even as a home-made neurotoxin, it was highly effective and mentally destructive. Regressive, not in years, but in evolution. A dose peeling away social norms and niceties, rules and restrictions, until all that was left was a mostly smooth primate. The simmering rage — caused by the shackled, grinding, futile life we live — was set free, becoming the only emotion, fuelled by the NeuroEndoMetabolic stress response dumping unlimited adrenaline into the host. Dysautonomia, is the fancy name for the effect.

The It which had previously been Will was, by no means, the first the fall foul of the water. Millions were only just waking up to a disastrous new reality, given the hour, but It was the first to be killed without inflicting harm on anyone.

As it changed, it fell out of the bath, tangled in a mouldy shower curtain, rail clattering into the tub. The thrashing was wild, intense, but after a few seconds it was free and leaping to its feet, nostrils flaring. There was another, It could smell them. It beat its chest, muscles rigid, veins bursting, Adrenaline charging through it, not that any of this mattered. The wall with the shiny circle half-way up was in the way. The wall with the shiny circle needed gone. It charged. The bathroom door flew from its hinges, bounced back and started to fall back towards It.

Caught and launched, the door sailed down the staircase and smashed into the rotten back door of the bedsits. That outer door, powered by momentum transfer, popped out of its frame and landed in the garden. The other that It could smell was in the hall, locking its own door with keys. The It which had been Will paused, breathing hard, limbs shivering and quaking as chemicals drowned them in readiness. The other moved, into the shadows. It gave chase, thundering carelessly down the stairs, naked body ignoring the chill as the water on It’s skin was blasted by the cold air coming in from outside. As it spun off the steps and into the dark hall, it tore the newel post in half and stumbled before regaining its balance.

Open door. Light through window. Food smell. Other. Chase. Kill.

A booted foot connected with, and pushed through, It’s knee. Bones snapped and crunched and then the knee was inverted. Horse-jointed. It was falling, hands clawing outwards for the other but not connecting. Couldn’t stay up.

Punch. Hard. Back of head. Pain. More fall.

Then there was something sharp. A broad bladed kitchen knife sliding upwards into its throat, pushing through the Adam’s apple. The fall continued. The hand released the knife as it met the floor, and gravity drove it home.

Wet. Warm. Sleep.

It lay in spasm on the floor, teeth gnashing gently at nothing as facial ticks eased and then stopped altogether. Then there was nothing. Nothing at all.

***

Tina wouldn’t stop yawping. “What d’ya mean he’s ‘aving the facking telly?” she screeched as Dave carried out to the car and slid it into the back seat of their battered Focus.

“I owe that cunt a monkey. Or would you rather I let him ‘ave another blast on ya?” He snapped at her. Finally, she stopped and her eyes dropped to the ground.

Six months ago, Dave had got a grand deep in tick with Will and couldn’t settle it, so he made a deal. And that deal was Tina. The bruises had stayed on her for weeks. Bites too. This time he could have the telly, the x-box, the car. Fucking anything. He softened and touched her lightly on the shoulder. She flinched. “I’m ‘aving a cuppa before I cart this shit round to him. Want one?” She nodded. They went inside.

The kettle was near fucked and only really made warm rather than hot drinks, but it was all they had and the pans were drying on crud around the sink, so Dave stirred extra hard to brown the water slightly before pouring in a splash of milk. Little globs of just off milk swirled on the surface of the drinks. He sloshed them through to the living room, where a clean square was visible on the filthy wall. His shoes stuck to the uncarpeted floor, then peeled, then stuck again as he walked. Tina was on the sofa, legs curled under her, tipping her cigarette into a stolen pub ashtray balanced on the arm.

He handed her the drink, she sipped, then gulped and fell silent, letting the lit fag fall into the ashtray.

“I’m sorry, alright,” he said. “It was wrong of me to say that. You knows I loves ya?”

Silence.

“Come on Tina. Look at me.”

Nothing.

“Fuck it,” he said, sipped his own drink, and turned to stare at the clean patch on the wall, sighing. Behind him he heard the shuffle as she slid off the sofa. Hands started to slide up his back to his shoulders. Dave smiled. It was all fine again. Then Dave went blank, just as Tina’s fingers plunged into his eyes.

Jim heard the screaming from next door. But old Jim did very little. Because that Sunday morning he was busy biting into Margaret’s neck while the phone rang and rang.

***

“Dad’s still not answering,” Sarah Jones said, ashen and now sick with worry.

“I’m sure they’re just having a lie in. It is Sunday,” Tom replied, trying to sound soothing. It was the wide-eyed look of horror set on his pallid face which undid any soothing effect. He had muted the TV, but it was still there. Not even real images now, just stock mushroom clouds against the background of the BBC studio and two stunned mullet presenters apparently bawling their eyes out. He supposed most staff had just left. He certainly would have. None of it seemed real. It couldn’t be. But the very unreality of it made him sure it was. No dream could do this.

“If I can’t get hold of them by lunchtime, we’re driving over there to pick them up,” Sarah said, cradling the house phone. That’s how you could tell it was serious, the landline, and she had used it a lot more than usual in the last two days.

On Friday, the water main which connected the hamlet of Kettlebaston to treated water had burst and the taps, after a spurt of brown gunk, had stopped working altogether. Essex and Suffolk water had, of course, been conciliatory but utterly useless and, by Saturday night, Sarah felt she was starting to hum. Tom was a bit wiffy too, but it seemed to bother him less. He just kept muttering about Syria and whatever news, if you could call it that, was coming from Telegram. He was obsessed with it and, just lately, had been coming out some peculiar views on the world. But he was middle-aged, so a lessening of common sense was not unexpected, much the same as the increasing drop-swing of his once perky balls. Starting to look like turkey neck, he would often say, cupping and releasing them in front of the full-length mirror in the bedroom of their cottage. She never commented, out of some deep fear that he might start a diatribe on her wilting boobs and end their twenty-five-year partnership in favour of a bimbo from the office.

One look and Tom knew she was thinking about the water. The bloody water. The rates were extortionate and they couldn’t even have any. But today that did seem like a first world problem, while clouds of radioactive dust drifted across Europe. That had brought him out of the red wine funk sharply, when they awoke at Ten and flicked on the news. It was quarter to Eleven now and it hadn’t gone away. He’d checked his phone a few times, but something was wrong with Telegram, it wouldn’t refresh, and there was no news on any of his usual channels. He couldn’t get back into the White Right groups to check the chatter, which he’d come to view as the most honest channel anywhere. That Jimmy chap certainly spoke a lot of sense. Something unusual was going on though, as even the webcam channels run by the kickboxer weren’t working. And that particular guilty pleasure had never stopped, not even for a second.

Sarah had filled the kettle with bottled water from the stack by the pantry and made a fresh pot of tea by the time he finished his futile scrolling. Together, they settled back into the Laura Ashley sofa and stared silently at the television. After a few moments of silence, Tom switched off mute and the distress of the presenters was audible again, against the backdrop of Manchester. Why they’d moved broadcasting to that shithole was beyond either of them.

“…we’re still trying to gather what updates we can, but we can’t contact any of our correspondents in Europe now,” Julie Fine was in the middle of saying, looking more bedraggled than she had even twenty minutes ago. “No other news agencies are responding and Downing Street can’t be reached at all anymore.” She put a finger against her earpiece and winced, concentrating. “We’re going live to Steve in Whitehall…Steve, can you hear us? What the hell is happening?”

The Camera’s cut from the studio to a deserted Downing Street gate. Not a police officer in sight. A crowd was milling listlessly around, as if they had flocked then realised there was nobody to shout at. “They’ve cleared out, fucking jokers,” Steve Henry, usually a weather man, said. “I raced down here like a twat and now look. They’ve just fucked off, Julie. They’ve fucked off and they’re going to leave us all to die.” The broadcast cut back to the studio and a sick looking Julie.

“Well, that was Steve in Whitehall and, frankly, I’m not surprised they’ve fucked off. I, mean, I’m stuck up here in Manchester. Fucking Manchester!” She turned to the giant picture window facing the city and waved her hands at it, not noticing a white van racing up the street. “So why don’t you fucking cut me off too?” She listened to her earpiece, then smiled a hard smile. “Oh do fuck off, Jason.” She tore the earpiece out. The van skidded to a halt in the middle of the deserted Manchester street and exploded in a blinding flash.

The television signal disintegrated into blocks, then solid blackness. A loud broadcast whine started to come from the speakers and Tom instinctively turned it off then, open-mouthed, turned to Sarah. She was also gaping, tea pouring from the tilted cup into her lap.

***

The problem with men like Tom Jones, the East Anglian accountant as opposed to the Welsh singer, was that they were absolutely useless at practical things. He’d once called an electrician to change a plug. Under normal circumstances, it wouldn’t be close to a life-threatening problem but, during what was clearly some kind of world ending war, he was a complete liability.

She’d quietly dressed in walking clothes and made her way out to the car, only his being there as hers was in the garage having its brakes done. She returned to the house sour faced.

“There’s no petrol in your car, Tom.” She exaggerated your and the T in Tom.

“There’s plenty to get to the garage,” he muttered, missing the cues in her tone.

“The garage, Tom,” she exaggerated the G and the T, “will be fucking shut, I’d imagine. On account of the NUCLEAR FUCKING APOCALYPSE!” she screamed at him, slamming the keys onto the worktop.

“We could get there and syphon some from the tanks,” he said, sounding briefly excited.

“Oh,” she said. “Oh.” He finally realised he’d made a terrible mistake, but it was too late. “You, Tom Jones, are going to drive us to a closed petrol station, break in, and syphon – FUCKING SYPHON – petrol. Aren’t you the same Tom Jones who rang a plumber replace a B&Q shower heard? The Tom Jones who pays a mechanic to inflate your tyres? That Tom Jones?”

“Calm down, Sarah, I don’t know where you are planning on going anyway.” Tom realised too late he’d completely lost his mind by saying it out loud.

“Oh, I’m calm. A silent pool of calm in a world that is LITERALLY ON FIRE!”

Tom raised his open hand to her. “I’m sorry. Okay.”

With that she slapped him so hard his head rocked back and to the side, leaving an unpleasant stinging. Her voice quietened. “You’re sorry now, are you?” She advanced. He retreated. “Are you as sorry as you were when I found you huddled over the damned phone watching those sex slave girls in Romania or wherever the fuck they are? Are you as sorry as the time you rang me up from the police station, to tell me your name would be in the paper because you’d been caught getting gnoshed off by a toothless prostitute in Ipswich?” She advanced, as angry about him pointing out there was nowhere to go as with all the years of pent up rage at his behaviour. He bumped against the kitchen worktop, trapped. Quieter still. “Are you as sorry as you will be when I tell you that I know about your little USB stick?”

He froze. She simply nodded and smiled.

“Wha…how? How much do you know?” He stuttered.

“I know how young they are.” Her stare was ice, falling from him, ever so slowly, to the knife block on the kitchen top to his left. He didn’t see, he was tumbling through a black hole into the void. In that moment he decided he would have to kill her. Still unnoticed, her eyes drifted to the hammer on the windowsill. She’d left it there after putting up a picture on Thursday afternoon. Deathly silence descended in the kitchen.

Because of the problem with men like Tom Jones, in that they are absolutely useless at practical things, he didn’t have the faintest idea of how to go about murdering his wife. Sarah Jones, however, was a very practical woman. She’d had to be, in order to compensate for her husband and all of his weaknesses. The phone rang shrilly, breaking whatever dark magic had been at work and Sarah ran for it, snatching up the receiver. “Dad!” she exclaimed, then fell silent and simply listened.

James