Elephant Man - Christine Sparks [103]
Finally Bytes rose to his feet and stumbled clumsily over to the back of the wagon. He pulled aside the canvas.
“Another bleeding heart,” he mumbled.
Tony was crouched over Merrick, holding the plate out to him. The Elephant Man, to Bytes’ fury, looked little better than a corpse. Bytes pointed a menacing finger at him.
“You sly bastard. You’re doing this to spite me, aren’t you?”
“Aw Bytes,” said Tony, “he’s sick …”
“He’s doing it to spite me, I tell you. And it’s got to stop.”
“He’s sick, Bytes.” More and more often now Tony dropped the “Mr.” A rising contempt for Bytes was rapidly robbing him of his fear. “He’s going to die.”
“If he does, it’s his own fault,” said Bytes furiously. “But I’m not burying that swollen bag of flesh.”
His arm shot into the wagon, grasped Merrick’s arm, and hauled him out, whimpering, onto the grass.
“What are you going to do?” said Tony, scrambling out after them.
“I’ll show you! I’ll show you.”
He dragged Merrick across to a small monkey wagon. The monkeys began to scream at his approach, and screamed louder when the door was opened and Merrick thrust viciously inside.
“Don’t,” yelled Tony, in horror.
“Shut up,” Bytes told him.
He slammed the door and latched it, then wheeled back and started off for his own wagon. Tony tried to grab him.
“Bytes, please …” In another moment he was sprawling from a blow from the back of Bytes’ hand. He lay on the ground, watching Bytes stagger back to the wagon and fumble about inside. After some muffled sounds Merrick’s food bowl came flying out followed by the stick, cloak and hood.
“Out,” Bytes’ voice screamed from inside the wagon.
Tony picked himself up and turned to look at Merrick, who was cowering into a corner, trying to keep away from the monkeys who shrieked at him. But the wagon was too small for him to get far away, and they were soon swarming over him like ants. Tony shuddered, and made his way back to the camp fire. As he neared it he could hear Bytes muttering curses from inside the wagon. He wondered if Bytes would come out again, and stood, hesitant, ready to vanish if Bytes appeared. But nothing happened. The cursing sank to a rumble, and after a moment Tony sat by the camp fire and pulled a blanket round him.
He felt uneasy with the darkness, uneasy with what he could see was happening to the Elephant Man, and uneasy about the eyes he knew were on him. They were the eyes of the freaks, who always seemed to be close when this kind of thing happened (and it happened more and more often these days). Tony looked up suddenly, and caught sight of Marcus standing nearby. But Marcus was not looking at himself, he was relieved to notice. He was staring at the monkey wagon, and there was a frown on his face.
Merrick had pressed himself as far as possible into the corner of the cage, and for the moment the tumult seemed to have died down. But wherever he looked there were wizened monkey faces, eyes glinting at him out of the darkness, watching him, waiting…
Suddenly one of the monkeys darted forward with a scream, nipped him sharply on the arm, and darted quickly away. Merrick yelped with pain and struggled to move further back, but there was nowhere to go. By now the other monkeys had got the idea. Following the lead of the brave one, they began to move warily toward Merrick, screeching all the while in a threatening way. Another one shot forward and clung to his shoulder, biting and scratching in furious glee at having a victim to attack, and what was better, a victim that seemed incapable of fighting back. Merrick cried out, but his voice seemed to vanish into the darkness.
His heart was thundering violently in his breast, pumping so hard that he could feel the pain of it. He thought it would fail him—he hoped it would, for then he might die here and now and it would all be over. As he crouched there, cowering, he remembered incongruously, all the bright dreams