"Blakey on Tour - Part 16"

(An ongoing story. Part one here)

I reckon you sussed already that I were living in rented.

I says rented, I never paid it meself. Only a cunt would pay actual wedge for the kind of septic tank with windows I had to live in. The council paid it, or someone, which explains it all, don't it? I mean, them lot is all cunts, right? Have you ever had to deal with one of em? A shirt and tie and a fucking posh job title and they reckons they'm Lord Shit. Which they ain't, I can tell you, cos I went to school with one or two of em and it's more like Lord Wanker. Or I went to school with their dads, in one or two cases. But we'll come to him.

So aye, I were living in one of Kettle's houses out Muckfield way, although I only had a room in it. A bedsit, I'd heard someone calling it, but I didn't understand that meself. Personally I were able to stretch out to me full length on the bed I had, and not just sit on it. Mind you, could be cos I had a bigger room than your average. For all I knowed, the cunts in the other rooms had to kip on their arses, on little square beds or summat. Served em right, though, don't it? You makes your own way in this life and it's a dog eat dog world, although personally I hadn't ever seen one dog eating another one. But I did hear they puts it in tins of dog food, so that's like as not where the saying comes from. And them cunts in the other rooms was all foreign anyhow, so it didn't matter.

I don't want you reckoning I'd hit hard times, mind. You think that and I'll ping you, right? I'll ping you so hard you won't even know about it, cos you'll be backwise on the deck with teeth spread around you like confetti. Royston Blake don't take sympathy off no cunt, especially not one of your ilk. And he don't take charity neither.

I were thinking about that as I went in the kitchen, looking for some bread to tax so I could make a Pot Noodle sarnie. One of the foreigners was in there, chopping up some squid or summat on the way to making one of the fucking abortions they call food where they comes from, which I think were Egypt. One of em always had bandages on anyhow. 'Oi,' I says to him, leaning into his face. You had to be direct with em else they pretends like they can't understand you. 'Oi, fuckin' Tutankhamun, you got some bread for us, eh?'

He tried leaning away and continuing what he were doing, pretending like I weren't there. He weren't even making eye contact with us. And if you knows about Royston Blake, you knows this ain't the way to behave when he's asking you for bread. I shoved him.

Just a gentle one.

He went back on one leg a bit but not down, and didn't even break from what he were doing with the blade. I watched it, slicing through all that wossname and coming so close to his fingers yet not cutting them off. It were moving too fast, so fast it had to be magic or summat. Or martial arts. Either way, I didn't like it. I felt threatened by it and like I had to defend meself. And that got us pissed off, because I were fucking knackered and all I wanted to do were crash in me pit, like I says. And then summat were coming over us. I could feel it, a darkness wrapping around us like curtains being yanked down from overhead. It were an odd feeling and not that nice a one, and I'd felt it before and knowed it never led to much good. But I couldn't help but embrace it and let it take over, like when you're copping off with an ugly bird and you ain't even got a johnny on you.

Fuck knows how long it lasted. All I knows is I came to on the deck, a knee on each of the Egyptian's arms and my fist over his face, aching in a way that told us I'd been using it. The poor cunt's face also told us I'd been using it, judging by the blood and snot on it. And someone had a blade to me throat.

'You stand slow,' this one were saying, pressing it into my Adam's apple so hard I daren't swallow.

'He were gonna knife us,' I says, thinking back to the squid and the knife and the chopping. 'I only asked him for some bread and he—'

'Shut face, OK? You stand slow and not move hands. They move, I use knife. OK?'

Seeing as he'd asked it so polite, asking if it were OK and that, I thought I'd oblige him. I planted one foot followed by the other, then drove up from a crouching position, like I were doing squats in the gym. The blade stayed on my neck the whole while, easing up not a bit on the pressure and following my movements like it were strapped there, although I knowed it weren't. In the corner of me peeper I could see the hand that were holding it, brown and hairy and with a tattoo on it. Then I moved me arm.

Just a bit, trying to get me balance.

He pushed in with the knife, yanking me swede back at the same time.

I ain't ever had me throat slit before. Most live people haven't, there being such permanent after-effects including blood spraying everywhere and them carking it. But it weren't so bad as you'd expect, I gotta tell you. I could feel the blood coming down into me T-shirt and remember thinking how alright it felt, like getting in a nice hot shower. And I even felt the skin of my throat go, popping like when you put a fork in a hot sausage. But I didn't cark it. Far fucking from it, pal. I turned around to see who'd done this to me, dabbing my neck at the same time to see how much sap were out. Fucking loads.

'You move hand,' he says, holding out his knife that now had a little droplet of red on the end. My red. 'I did say not move hand, OK? But you—'

'Hold up a min,' I says, squinting at his face. There were only one bare light bulb in that kitchen and it were dingy as fuck, but there were no mistaking it. 'Ain't you...?'

But it couldn't be, could it?

I mean, how the fuck can a corpse get up and walk again? Not only a corpse but one that has been dead a good few days, going by how stiff and grey it were when it had been in the back of my hearse just now. And also considering how Jock had rammed a fucking wooden stake into his chest. But maybe that weren't enough? Maybe the stake had missed his ticker?

I looked at the blood on my hands and T-shirt and the end of his knife, and I thought of how hard it is for people like him to resist it when they sees it and smells it. Cos they can't help themselves, can they, vampires? One whiff of the red stuff and they're gagging for it. And I ain't talking about tommy ketchup. Mind you, I'm like that with tommy K meself.

I pegged it upstairs.


(Come back tomorrow for more...)