Free Green Grow the Rashes and Other Stories by William Meikle Page B

about as much heart as a
lump of wood. I left them to it and headed for the washroom. To do
so I had to pass by the shadowed corner.
    He was there again, a
darker blackness but recognisable as the same stout man from the
night before.
    "Hey!" I called out, and
headed in his direction. But as I closed on him, so he seemed to
slide away from me. I followed the shifting shadow, around the wall
of the bar and out, into a biting cold night.
     
    ~-o0O0o-~
     
    It had been snowing
again, only a light fall, but enough for me to see his footsteps,
leading away. They were strangely short and wide, and left what
looked like flecks of rotting vegetation in the prints, but I
didn’t have time to stop and look, for although he was stout he was
also fast, heading off at speed to the south away from the town
center.
    I followed as quickly as
I was able. The booze was taking its toll on me, and I could scarce
manage more than a stumbling waddle. The shadowy figure was soon
lost out of sight. I stumbled on for a while, following his
footprints in the snow, but soon even they became confused with the
prints of others that had passed this way. I slumped, exhausted
against a wall.
     
    ~-o0O0o-~
     
    Then I heard it, a high
clear tenor singing the
song .
    The worldly
race may riches chase,
    And riches
still may fly them, O,
    And tho' at
last they catch them fast,
    Their hearts
can ne'er enjoy them, O.
    I followed the
sound, and entered a cemetery, an old one
by the feel of it, with overgrown rose bushes and ivy encrusted
walls. The song stopped as soon as I stepped into the grounds.
There was a figure, a bent, hunched over, man in the left-hand
corner. I called out to him.
    "Hello?"
    There was no reply. I heard a noise,
crackling and a rustling, but there was no sign that I had been
heard. I moved closer, noticing that the figure was the one I had
been following. He was stocky, with a mass of bushy hair and even
bushier beard. In the light under the trees he looked almost
green.
    "Probably the gardener," I thought. As
I got within five yards I spoke again.
    "Hello?"
    But there was still no
reply. I went to the figure’s side and touched his shoulder, then
stood back as he turned round. He just didn’t look green. He was green, his skin more like the
bark of a tree than flesh, his beard bristling and firm like new
pine needles. Two deep black eyes were sunk into hollows but they
sparkled with life.
    The worst thing was the mouth - I
couldn’t take my eyes off it. The lips were thin, almost
non-existent and they were pulled back over red, feverish gums in
which three brown teeth sat, spaced at intervals in the rotting
tissue. The tongue that popped out when he looked up at me was also
green and somehow slimy.
    I looked down at the rest of him.
Suddenly I found it hard to breathe and the world swam mistily
around me. I had to shake my head, hard, and look again, just to
make sure.
    In his left hand the man had a pointed
stick of black, moss encrusted wood. He pointed at a leaf, a brown
leaf from last year’s fall. As I watched it started to go green,
from the edges first, a yellowing then a darkening spreading
inwards along the veins, crackling and rustling as the leaf
unfurled and stretched, before falling to the ground. I looked down
to see roots running in frenzy at my feet like a slithering nest of
snakes. All around us new growth rose up from the dead brown
soil.
    The stick pointed again, this time at
a rose bush. Leaves sprouted and opened. I didn’t know why, but I
found that I was crying. When I looked up again the squat figure
had wandered off, over into the center of the cemetery.
    I followed. As I got closer I saw that
the figure had bent over a pool. I heard cooing noises coming from
the festering hole which passed as a mouth. I saw a fish glide in
the water and the man point the stick.
    "No" I shouted, just before my world
changed.
    He looked round at me, and pointed at
my chest. I felt emotion well up inside me, and unbidden, the