The Devils Harvest: The End Of All Flesh Part 13

I knew it wouldn't be long before the owner realized his car had been stolen, so I wanted to simply get to somewhere where I could get on some other sort of transport, and continue on my way to London.

I wasn't a hundred percent sure exactly where I was, until I came across the first huge green signpost, stating in big white letters that Bristol was twenty-seven miles away. It was a large city, with plenty of hotels to accommodate any tired driver.

As I headed towards Bristol I saw another sign for a service station, which was only four miles away. I decided to pull into this service station, instead of continuing to drive along in the stolen car.

I wanted to sit and rest in case the shock of what happened started to kick in. But then again, I had been feeling strange, almost numb for almost a week now, and even though what I had just been through and seen was horrific, I didn't feel it stir my emotions the way it should have.

All service stations seem to be the same slightly different in design but all exactly the same with respects to what they provide. Large car parks with numerous hidden corners. A large complex filled with a large open eating area, with numerous establishments to choose from. Either McDonald's or Burger King or sometimes KFC, with the service stations own food serving area that provides dried up day old food, and grumpy attendants, who walk around wiping the tables with greasy cloths that simply smear dirty water over the Formica top. Also a small odds-and-ends shop and a small arcade and flower shop. All selling their products at ten times the price they would normally be. Because lets face it, who can complain? The next service station could be up to thirty miles away.

I pulled in.

The side road leading to the service station was so long I was starting to think I had missed the turning, or was going the wrong way. But suddenly a large gaudy sign advertised the entrance to the station. I turned in, continuing to drive down yet another long winding road. It eventually opened up into a mammoth car park.

The first section was for lorry drivers, which was starting to fill up. It then led down another smaller lane leading into another huge car park that the main complex seemed to be huddled in the middle of. I continued driving around, until I found a quiet out of the way location. It was around to one side.

Large blue bins the size of cars rested up against one long dark wall. Small lights units bought grainy light to the area, which was fine with me. It was also surrounded by tall-uncut bushes, which the leaves hadn't fallen from, but had simply turned brown.

I left the key in the ignition. Hopefully someone else would notice and steal the car, leading it far away from me.

Walking around the side, I pa.s.sed staff members having a quick smoke, before returning inside with dirty unwashed hands to serve the customers, with their nicotine covered fingers.

I seemed to have parked as far away from the entrance as physically possible. It took a good couple of minutes to reach the main door. While walking along I also noticed a Travel Lodge. I decided I would get something to eat before heading over to the hotel.

The inside of the service station was just as cold as outside. I walked past the small expensive shop, noticing tee-shirts, which I would look at on the way out. First I headed straight for the toilet.

Like all service stations the toilet was like a huge cattle market. Lorry drivers washing in the open sinks, shirtless, shaving or giving their armpits a quick splash. Even though there was sections put aside for lorry drivers, even showering facilities. But to use them they had to pay; where as the public toilets are free.

Numerous men stood staring at their own reflections. Brushing hair or trying to plaster an odd strand at the back down with handfuls of water. You had the children who seemed to be parentless, running around using the toilet as their private playground, screaming and calling out to friends or relatives. And not forgetting the cleaner who ignores everyone, walking around with his blackened mop, spilling far too much brown greasy water on the floor and seemingly missing half of it as he attempts to mop it back up.

I tried to ignore the mayhem and headed for the first available cubicle. The first was filled with the janitors cleaning equipment. Hasn't he got a cupboard for that? The next couple had OUT OF ORDER, written on sheets of paper then duck-taped to the door. The next few were busy. The next was covered in runny s.h.i.t, all over the seat and up the wall and filling the bowl. How do they do that? It looked like an elephant with the splats had reversed into the cubicle and repainted the toilet and sidewalls. Even stranger was there was no toilet paper anywhere in sight? How do they do all that, and not wipe?

The next cubicle was empty, but I wanted a few between the stink and me. Second from the end was empty and almost acceptably clean if you call someone wiping his backside then dropping the soiled paper beside the toilet, clean. Where did they think they were, Latin America? I kicked it into the next empty cubicle.

I shut the door, and had to pull the top with my hand to get the catch to slide into place. I dropped the seat and sat down, pulling my bag onto my lap. Then, with some tissue, I filled in the holes that the perverts had made. Glory holes I think they call them? Then I opened my bag.

The whole reason for having to go through all this was simply because all the money was piled in the backpack. I didn't want to simply open it in front of some cashier to grab a handful of money and slap it down on the counter. That would start alarm bells ringing inside someone's head, and the next thing I would know some old wrinkled security guard, who thinks himself to be one of the Keystone Cops that should be wrapped up tight against the cold and soaking his feet in hot water while drinking Ovaltine would be asking me to step to one side, thinking I had robbed a bank.

I pulled out what I thought would be enough and filled my wallet, before zipping the bag back up and hooking it over my shoulders.

I sat quietly for a few moments, resting my eyes and aching body, trying to get everything into perspective. But I needed food, my gastric juices were bubbling away. And then a wash and a good night's sleep. I wouldn't concentrate on what had happened. My mind had become adept at shutting things out. And I had to keep moving, if I sat too long after the pummelling my body have received, I would start ceasing up.

I reopened my eyes and was rewarded with a childish drawing of someone's erect over exaggerated genitals, along with an advertis.e.m.e.nt, with some closet gays phone number. It always made me wonder about their mentality, are they truly stupid enough to write down their own mobile or home phone numbers on latrine walls? And if so, then why don't the police do anything about it? Children sit in these cubicles, and have to look at this s.h.i.t. Surely they had websites or clubs they could meet at?

With seeing the telephone numbers it reminded me of my phone. I pulled it out of my trouser pocket, expecting it to be broken, or at least battered. The iPhone was fine. It was still off. I would leave it off until I needed to use it. For what, I had no idea.

Once again my stomach started grumbling. I needed food.

I needed normality.

I needed my f.u.c.king life back.

I pulled some paper from the roll, to make some noise to make whoever was listening think I was finishing up. I then tossed it down the toilet and gave it a flush. I composed myself for a few moments before unlatching the door, giving it a kick to get it to unwedge form the stall on either side. I then headed for the food serving area, after washing my hands, and checking my altered appearance was still looking good. Even after everything I had just been through I still didn't stand out. I looked plain and normal. Not like someone who had just survived a train crash. I simply had the start of a bruise on the side of my head where the wallet had hit me.

I dislike eating in service stations, mainly and simply for what I've already stated, about the overcooked food and the sloppy service. Once again I wasn't disappointed.

I ignored McDonald's and headed for the food serving area. Food already prepared and left sitting for hours while it dehydrates. Nothing looked moderately appetising. Cottage pie that had yellow shrivelled up mashed potato and tube filled meat. Rubbery chicken in some kind of red sauce, that looked at least a couple days old. Lasagna, which looked over baked, the sheets of pasta looking like brittle bones covered in congealed blood. All along with a collection of other unsavoury items that fared no better which I couldn't identify. I would have given up and eaten McDonald's, but I disliked the large burger chain even more than the service station.

I was debating having either some repacked salad or sandwich, but I decided I needed something hot, so I would take a chance with the mummified food. A couple of wrinkled sausages that looked like the drawing on the toilet wall, and skinny chips, French fries; they call them. Whatever happened to good old thick chips like your mom use to make? After you bite through the crunchy outer sh.e.l.l of these anorectic chips there seemed to be no potato left in the middle. And of course the ever-present baked beans that England seems to thrive on.

I poured myself some tea and picked up the sugar, salt and sauce sashays and then pushed my tray along to the cashier. The middle-aged woman gave me no greeting and didn't even look at me; she simply stared at my dinner as if she wanted to tip its contents on the floor, and started to punch away on the oversized keyboard. Several times she picked up a tacky piece of dirty paper to consider its contents, before returning to her keypunching. Once she had finished she spat the price as if I had in some way offended her for being there and then thrusting out her dirty fingered hand waiting for the money, she then stared at the twenty-pound note I had handed her, as if it was some form of foreign currency, before finally dropping the change in my hand, as if she loathed touching me.

After almost having a heart attack at the price of over nine pounds, I wandered off to find a moderately clean table, one where I wouldn't need to use all my napkins just to make it clean enough to put my tray on.

I consumed my lukewarm food while continually looking around the eating area. Even though it wasn't the best meal I had ever eaten, it did make me feel better; having something warm inside me. I struggled to remember the last time I had eaten something hot?

I hadn't heard anything yet about the train crash. No one was talking about it. And the service station had no radio playing, just piped droll instrumental music that sounded a little bit like the old song Tubular Bells which was used as the sound track to The Exorcist.

As I sat eating everyone ignored me, which was fine. I don't know what I was looking for, apart from the obvious policemen. But something didn't seem right. I suppose I was looking around to see if he was here somewhere. I had a creepy feeling that I would see him sat on the table facing me, not touching his food, and simply staring at me with his ever changing eyes, moving one moment, then dead the next. Cigarette hanging from his smiling mouth.

Thankfully the restaurant was uneventful.

It was now getting late and the place was starting to bustle with the evening drivers. I needed to get over to the Travel Lodge before they filled up all there rooms. And as an after though I realized I should of checked in and ordered food up to my room, it couldn't be that much more expensive than what I had just paid.

Just to be awkward, I left my tray and soiled plate on the table for someone else to clear away and headed for the small shop.

The shop was crammed full of sweets, crisp, drinks, ice creams and a large a.s.sortment of almost everything else, filling the shelves to bursting point. Also the collection of gaudy ornaments that everyone seems to buy in service stations; last minute presents for someone they forgot about. But it did have what I was looking for, underwear, even though it did have a comical image on. The soaks were just as bad. Also I picked up a bright tee-shirt that had Cheddar Gorge & Caves wrote across the front, whatever and wherever that is? I collected what I needed and paid. Once again surprised by its high cost.

At this rate I wasn't sure if I had put enough money in my wallet.

I headed out into the marginally colder evening, heading across the overflowing car park towards the Travel Lodge, its subdued lighting making it look like a welcoming break from the busy harsh concrete car park around it.

I found myself standing in front of a young female, who must of just left school, who was searching through the database looking for a room.

"I'm sorry, we don't have any single rooms available," she commented, looking at me with a sad face as if she actually cared.

"I will take a double if there's any left?" I said.

Her brow creased together and she returned to the screen, as if the though of me having a double room hadn't occurred to her.

After a few minutes of her smiling, looking at the same unchanged screen, she said, "We do have a double." She looked up at me. Then added, "All rooms are non-smoking."

"That will be fine."

She relaxed, as if happy I wasn't about to make some sort of outburst. After another couple minutes of her running her thin fingers over the keyboard and looking back up at me, as if expecting me to have disappeared, she said, "That will be forty-eight pounds please."

I tried not to look startled, as if using Travel Lodges all the time.

Swallowing some sort of remark about not wanting to buy shares in the company I simply wanted to use one room.

"If you had booked the room twenty-one days in advance, it would have only been twenty-nine pounds," she announced.

I said nothing. She seemed to like talking, so I let her.

I handed over the money.

"Cash!" she stated looking alarmed at the money I was holding out.

"Is cash still acceptable?" I couldn't resist asking.

She either didn't realize I was being rude, or simply didn't care. First she looked over her shoulder towards a door, obviously leading to some offices at the back, possibly waiting for the person who had been training her. But no one appeared. She reached for the money, and counted it slowly as if I was trying to trick her in someway. Finally she tore off a sheet of thin paper that had been spat out by the printer and handed it to me. She then turned to the small pigeonholes behind to look for the key. And considering there was only a few left remaining in their holes, she seemed a little confused as to which one was mine. After consulting the screen again she eventually did pa.s.s across the key. Then she seemed to ignore me as if I wasn't there.

Service accomplished. p.i.s.s-off.

"Um, sorry, but which room is it? And where is it?" I had the number on the fob, but she had annoyed me, so I was being a jerk.

She started laughing. "Sorry. It's my first night."

"Really? It doesn't show." She completely missed the irony in my voice, and returned to her computer screen.

"Ground floor. Through that door there," she said pointing to a doorway on the left. "And it's room number thirteen."

Strange, most hotels didn't use the number thirteen. Even going as far as having no thirteenth floor. You stand in the elevator looking at the b.u.t.tons and it has twelve then fourteen, but no thirteen.

For some reason my mind froze, thirteen. Just coincidence, I thought to myself.

"Thank you," I said lamely and headed to my room.

I always like staying in hotels. The way the room smells, the unfamiliarity of it. The small packets of toiletries on the long slab of marble that makes up the bathroom sink area. And of course the mini-bar and selection of television stations to choose from, and the pay-per-view films. And the fact that you didn't know who had stayed in it before you. A lunatic, a killer or even a one legged midget could have been lying on this very bed. A couple could have been at it like rabbits. Even an orgy of men, who had just met in the toilet in the service station. When was the last time the sheets were changed?

The room was similar to countless others I had frequented when going on a book signing tour. It had the large bed; with it's folded down sheets. A large out of proportion television cupboard, which looked like it holds a fifty inch television, but in reality is only a nineteen inch screen sat in a vastly empty cabinet. The long sideboard with mirror, and the curtains that no matter what way you try and pull them they don't seem to want to cover the whole window, always leaving that annoying little gap. And the bathroom. A bath that looks large and inviting, which in reality is an illusion and is quite small not too small but small enough to make it uncomfy. The toilet with its seat that doesn't go up properly with the cold lid that keeps falling down hitting you on the back.

But all things considered, I like hotels, even though I seemed to be envisioning the worst of everything. But considering my predicament I felt I had the right to whinge. There wasn't much else I could do.

Call me Mr. Negative.

I hid my bag in the wardrobe. Then I ripped open my new underwear and tee-shirt, ready for the morning. I didn't know how long I would be living like this, so I washed my dirty underwear out in the sink and left them hanging on the shower handles.

I then ran myself a hot steaming bath, having already emptied all of the complimentary shampoo and conditioner into the bath to make it bubbly. No matter how old you are you never out grow a good bubble bath, a feel good memory lapsed over from childhood. I didn't keep any shampoo back, because I didn't know if the dye in my hair would wash straight out, having never died my hair before and having not read the bottle when I did it; being a typical man and simply doing what I though was the right way of doing it.

I soaked in the bath for what felt like hours, and was. The bath was also a rarity and was the actual size it looked, allowing me to stretch right out. I kept my hair well away from the water, even thought the steam had it plastered to my head in minutes.

I ached from head to foot. My body had numerous bruises all over it but considering everything that had happened today it was understandable. But I was feeling a little better after the hot bath. I sat naked on the bed, resting up against all four cushions, having turned the heating right up to its highest level. I had made a cup of tea with the complimentary tea bags and small milk pots. The kettle seemed like it was boiling for hours, before it eventually click off, announcing it had boiled. I used all the small pots of milk there were, deciding to have one descent cup, rather than three of four weak ones.

I now turned the television on. It was coming up to ten o'clock.

But instead of the BBC, the television was still set to pay-per-view, and I had a close up view of a huge pair of t.i.ts wobbling on the screen. Nothing hardcore, this is England after all, and even though s.e.x is everywhere, the government feels the population needs protection. Funny enough, in England you can legally have s.e.xual intercourse from the age of sixteen, but can't rent a soft p.o.r.n movie until you're eighteen.

No loud moaning resounded from the set; obviously the last person in this room didn't want the neighbours knowing what they were watching.

The Italian Stallion, with the ridiculous spray tan lay on his back, the woman straddled across him, facing the wrong way reverse cowgirl they call it. His powerful hands squeezing and twisting her large rounded, swinging b.r.e.a.s.t.s, which hardly bounced due to the vast amount of silicon that was inside them. They looked unnaturally large, far larger and rounder than nature could create. He was squeezing them so hard; I was half expecting them to pop, or the silicon to start dribbling out her nipples. She is what is appropriately named a Snow White, a p.o.r.n star with pure white or blonde hair, slim body and ridiculously hefty fake b.r.e.a.s.t.s. The only difference between them is the location of their tattoo. One might have one on the shoulder, another on her ankle, sometimes even on the breast, making it look like a bruise on a humongous pear. This glamour model had a completely tattooed left arm sleeve, done in a j.a.panese style, in fiery red and sun yellow.

But this didn't interest me; I was more concerned about what the news had to say. I flicked the channel, just as the couple was changing positions.

The Ten o'clock News was just starting, with the ten bongs of Big-Ben announcing ten exactly. The screen zoomed into the newsreader face and shoulders.

"h.e.l.lo and good evening.

"Tonight on News at Ten we have three leading stories. First, a derailment of the London intercity 125 just outside of Bristol. Also the horrific death of a policeman, who was found savagely attacked on the outskirts of Dartmoor in South Devon. And lastly an all-out police hunt for a famous writer, now turned figurative, serial killer."

19.

Leading Stories I quickly sat up, knowing before I even turned the television on that this was what I was looking for. The good old news channels, always keeping the criminals well informed.

The presenter continued to read from the autocue that scrolled down the camera he was looking into. Trying in the process to look sad at the news he was departing.

"...So far it's undetermined just how many people have died, or been seriously hurt. The scene is that of total devastation. None of the carriages stayed on the track, all seemingly strewed about as if my giant hands."

The picture changed from that of the presenter to the site of the crash. All the carriages could be seen crumpled up against each other, and some laid out on their own. It then flicked to a view from a circling helicopter. The railway line could be seen winding off into the distance. But the train lay motionless, buckled and twisted beyond belief. Five carriages were piled into each other, with another two resting on top of each other, as if they were children's play blocks and had been knocked down by an angry child.

Rescue forces wandered about the carnage. Countless yellow tarpaulin sheets covered bodies that were sprawled about like confetti. Fires had been burning in one section; tall plumes of black greasy smoke still billowed high into the sky.

"...Accident investigators are still trying to fathom out exactly what happened. What actually caused the train to derail? Some on scene witnesses said it looked like the train had slammed into some sort of barrier or obstacle. But as off yet nothing has been determined..."

The image flicked back from the bird's-eye-view to ground level. The camera was panning around the front of the first pulverised section that held the engine car. It was a little difficult to pick out any detail because the reporters were being held well back behind taped police lines, and their powerful telephoto lenses were focused to there limits, while the rescue operation was still under way. No obvious object lay anywhere near the front of the train, but from the look of the front engine section, and that of those behind it, it was obvious that it had hit something, and hit it hard.

The on the scene reporter continued to parrot what the presenter had already mentioned, being that no one had yet determined what the cause of the crash was, and needing to fill some s.p.a.ce on what was obviously a major news item.

The report filled a good five minutes, with the middle-aged reporter standing with all the chaos in the background. The flashing lights bounced off the tall metal structure of a powerful crane that was lifting twisted carriages to one side.

It soon returned to the studio. The presenter was now conversing with experts on what they believed the cause of the crash could be.

I now sat on the edge of the double bed, knowing all too well what the cause of the crash had been me. All because I had angered him. But I wanted the story to end and go to the next, to talk about the policeman who had been attacked on Dartmoor. Exactly like my dream.

It sounded callus, not caring about the people who remained on the train and those that had died, but as I have repeatedly said, I wasn't feeling altogether like myself lately.

The saying: No news is good news, is so true.

Everyday the news is filled with wars, natural disasters, murders, aviation crashes, terrorist attacks and thousands dieing from lack of food or clean water. We become hardened to it; merely figures scrolling down the television screen, we didn't personally know them, what do we care; it's just an anonymous face on the news. Tomorrow will bring another list of casualties to things we can't control.

We watch a small starving child staring blankly at the camera, with his emanc.i.p.ated arms and legs, and out of proportion swollen stomach, as he holds up an empty plastic bowl, as flies buzz around his mouth and large sad eyes. We then simply flick over to our favourite soap opera, while taking another bite from our double cheeseburger, dripping sauce down our double chin. The image of the starving child already gone from our minds eye, already thinking about something else I wonder what's for desert?

You walk past a newsagent and the selection of newspaper headlines reads like a horror transcript: Four hundred die in Argentine mud slide. A man takes two handguns into a school, eighteen feared dead. Dozens killed in Pakistan suicide bombing. Tsunami hits j.a.panese coastline, thousands feared dead, tens of thousands homeless.