The Make

That was when he saw Mona, who had just finished her shift, getting into her car. He took a pull from the butane can in his hand and went over there, reached in through the open window and turned off the ignition, grabbing the keys.

‘Hey!’ shouted Mona, looking up at him with wild eyes. Then she saw who it was. ‘Oh fuck,’ she groaned.

‘Take it up the alley there,’ said Lefty, slapping the keys back into her hand.

‘You what?’

Lefty reached in and grabbed her chin. He shook her head like a marionette’s. ‘Take the fucking car up the fucking alley, you got that, bitch? Then get the damned boot open and get back behind the wheel.’

‘Sure,’ said Mona hurriedly. She could see he was tanked and when he was like that he could do anything. As long as she lived, she would never forget the young cab driver’s face as Lefty slaughtered him. Lefty let her go and, trembling, she pulled in up the alley at the side of the club like he said. Then she got out and opened the boot and quickly got back behind the wheel.

Lefty had walked up alongside her car, and now in the headlights Mona could see him at the open side door of the club. For one crazy moment she thought of just locking her door, closing the window, throwing the car into reverse and getting out of that alley faster than a bat out of hell. But she was afraid. She knew what Lefty was capable of. She was paralysed with fear of what he’d do if she disobeyed him.

Now he was carrying something wrapped up in a tarpaulin. Maybe a roll of carpet, something bulky like that. He went round to the back of the car and Mona heard the solid thump of the thing being decanted into the boot, felt the suspension judder beneath the sudden impact, and she thought, That ain’t no carpet, that’s too heavy.

Into her mind sprang a vision of the cab driver, screaming his head off while Lefty killed him.

No she didn’t want to think about it. Whatever was in that tarp, she wasn’t going to concern herself with it, not at all. She closed her mind to all possibilities. It was just some . . . thing, that was all. Deano wanted something shifted, and they were going to shift it, right?

Right.

Again, she saw the cab driver. So young. Shrieking as his life splattered in dark red liquid gouts out of him, and all over the inside of his cab.

Stop it.

The side door of the club closed and now Lefty was coming round to the passenger side of the car. Again Mona felt it, that sudden urge to bolt, to flee. But too late. Now he was in there beside her. She glanced round at him. She could see sweat glistening on his skin. He looked sick, almost demented, his eyes dancing madly in his head.

‘Start this fucker up,’ he snapped at her. ‘Come on. Hurry it up.’

Mona started the car. All she wanted was to get home, bathe Josie, read her little girl a story. But she backed the car down the alley and then followed his directions until they drew up in a busy street lined with houses. Lefty got out, pulling the keys out of the ignition again. Then he slammed the passenger door shut and walked off up the drive of one of the houses, leaving Mona sitting there with her skin crawling with terror. Her ears were sharply attuned to the thing in the back. It was silent. It was

Dead

Oh shit, she wouldn’t think about it. She switched on the CD player; it was Sade singing a bluesy track. Anything to stop her hearing if that thing started to move.

And now Lefty was back, and he was carrying something. He opened the passenger door, threw a shovel in the back, and then said: ‘Come on then, let’s get the fuck on the road, what’s up with you?’ And he drew a deep breath of butane from the can.

Oh my God, thought Mona in a paroxysm of fear and dread.

It really was a body in there. And Lefty was going to bury it.

Following Lefty’s directions, Mona drove them out to Epping Forest and they found a deserted spot. She parked up, dry-mouthed with terror, and sat there in the sudden silence with her heart racketing around in her chest. She felt like she might die at any second, that her heart was just going to stop with the horror of it all.

Lefty was reaching back, grasping the shovel. He got out.

‘Come on then, I need a hand here,’ he said and, like someone walking in a dream, Mona got out, and locked the car door – although she had no idea why she did that, just habit; no one was out here in the arse end of nowhere, no one was going to want to pinch her ratty old car, who was she kidding?

She went round to the boot, opened it. In the faint moonlit darkness the tarp looked dark blue. It looked body-shaped, too. Mona couldn’t believe she was standing here getting ready to do this with this maniac. She had planned a deep bath, a pizza, something on the TV; what she had not planned was digging a grave.

Lefty, weighted down by the shovel, was awkwardly grabbing one end of the tarp.

‘Come on,’ he spat at her, wheezing hard. ‘Get a hold.’

Mona, shuddering with revulsion, did as she was told. She grabbed a hold of the other end of the

body

thing and between them they started crab-walking their burden into the woods. The thing was surprisingly heavy. Mona started wondering whether she had the feet here, or the shoulders. Felt – oh fuck – like the shoulders. God help her.

A surge of sickness swept up into her throat but she swallowed it. Just kept walking, carrying the thing, following Lefty’s directions, thinking, this is murder, isn’t it?

But no, she hadn’t murdered anyone. She wouldn’t. She was just doing what she was told. Hadn’t she read somewhere that that was what the SS said, the Nazis when they were gassing the Jews? It wasn’t our fault; we were just doing what we were told.

The thing was heavy. Her arms were aching, drooping under the weight of it when finally Lefty said: ‘Okay, this’ll do.’

He dropped his end and Mona, thinking oh fuck, the head, that’s the head I got here, put down her end more gently. Lefty found a spot, threw off his long leather coat and started to dig. Well, at least he didn’t expect her to help with that.

‘Fucking ground’s frozen. Like iron,’ he complained, sweating despite the cold, and cursing.

Mona looked around with a shiver. The breeze lifted, whispering through the denuded trees and probing her shuddering body. Lefty was digging like a man possessed, stabbing at the cold earth with extreme determination. Slowly the hole he was digging grew bigger and deeper. There were trees all around them, forming a thick intricate tracery of finger-like black outlines against the dark blue night sky. A person could easily get spooked in a place like this. An owl hooted in the distance. Somewhere, something shrieked. Probably a fox or some damned thing. She was shivering in earnest now.

The hole was getting pretty big. Lefty was down there, throwing out shovel-loads of dry black dirt. And then she heard it. Every hair on her body seemed to stand on end. Her stomach shrivelled into a hard, painful knot.

The thing inside the tarp had groaned.

Lefty heard it too.

He stopped digging and looked up at her.

They stood there in total silence.

Again, the thing in the tarp groaned. ‘Holy shit,’ said Lefty, and leapt up out of the hole. Before Mona could draw breath to protest, Lefty hit Mona’s end of the thing with the shovel.

Mona shrieked.

The thing inside the tarp shrieked too.

‘Sonofabitch . . .’ muttered Lefty. Wild-eyed and sweating and gasping, he swung the shovel again, again, again, until the thing made no more sound.

Mona was backing away, terrified, revolted, clutching at her mouth, oh shit, she was going to be sick, she couldn’t take any more of this . . .

Whatever was in there, it was dead. She hoped.