Fast-Tracked And Other Stories

All About That Blade

Although George McMartin would not have upped sticks and moved from Port Dunnington for all the gold in Scrooge McDuck's money bin, he knew in his heart of hearts that all McDuck's Scotland had to do was sneeze for North Antrim to be hit with a red weather warning.

The washing machine was in the utility room, and after stepping out of his wellies and doffing his dripping duffel coat, he swung the machines round door open and reached in to snag a dank, waiting-to-be-cleaned towel to dry out his salt and pepper hair. He upended the wellies in the cluttered sink; he'd come back for them in the morning when he was warm and dry.

From the other side of the door, he thought he heard low-volume laughter from the TV. With painstaking care, he scrunched up the water-laden towel and dumped it back in the wash. After gently closing the washing machine door, he silently thumbed off the utility room light, and sure enough, the blue glare of the TV trickled in under the door.

Charlotte must have waited up for him. He'd told her not do, but she'd done it anyway. He paused, one hand hovering over the door handle, and listened. There it was—the barely perceptible sound of delicate snoring (she would never believe she snored even if you recorded it and played it back to her), and the laughter from whatever panel show she'd nodded off in front of.

The wetness dripping off his greying stubble now was not cloudburst but tears.

Make sure you never cry in front of her! He remembers the jagged voice of the blade commanded him so. Make sure you never do anything out of the ordinary in front of her, you fool!

The blade was right, of course—there were few matters where it was wrong—but sometimes when he thought of her and the coming bairn, the horrors of what he'd done for the blade from the Grim Reaper's belt crashed down on him like a ton of bricks, and it was near impossible to keep the tears in.

He loved her so much. Not once had George wept for those he'd been commanded to brutally disfigure and slowly bleed to death; his conscience only extended to Charlotte and their unborn child. If the blade commanded him to spill her blood... there would simply be no reason for him to go on once it was done and her bones were mixed in with the others under the topsoil in the borders of the back garden.

Without Charlotte life didn't bear thinking about.

He laboured hard during the day and toiled away at night to appease the knife. The hours he laboured were long and hard, but, when it came time for the yearly pay increase, old Bert Renford, his boss, told him in fake confidence that money was tight, and besides, George laboured no longer and no harder than any of the other cattlemen, so he shouldn't expect a big raise anyway.

George had taken his time getting to tonight's mark. When he returned home from work he went directly into the garage to check-in with the blade. A deluge was close, he'd smelled it since walking out of Bert's office with a five pounds a month pay rise, but nonetheless, he hoped the blade would be awake and thirsty. He knocked his pan in for Bert, season after changing season, and never heard a word of thanks for the long hours of manual labour, never got so much as a Christmas card, and never got rewarded with a decent pay rise.

Perhaps it sensed his bloodlust because the blade was already awake, thirsty and ready. George figured it was probably the electricity in the air from the gathering storm that was making it restless. Albert Renford, it demanded George's boss Bert Renford's blood. It was the first time the blade wanted someone George knew, the first time the marks death would have a direct impact on him.

'Bert,' he'd said aloud in the garage. 'Old Bertie.'

'Did ye say something, puppet?' The blade had demanded in its agitated and impatient voice.