Feeding Time by Adam Biles

Author:Adam Biles [Adam Biles]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781910296738
Publisher: Galley Beggar Press
Published: 2016-03-15T16:00:00+00:00

‘But there’s the rub…’ he said, as he and his doppelgänger gestured anxiously at each other through the glass. ‘She’s coming in – what? – three and three quarter hours. And even with the window open… the pong… ach! ach!’ and he rasped his throat to clear the itch.

It wasn’t going anywhere, he knew that now. Not unless he tracked down the source and excised it. He closed the window and waited. It didn’t take long for the miasma to settle, for his eyes to prick and dampen, for his gag reflex to start its warm-up stretches. Worse and worse!

Crouching, the intensity increased. He manoeuvred himself onto all-fours, doggy-style. Jutting his nose out, he sniffed for the spoor.

‘Not built for this, are we?’ he said, disappointed to discover his nose was incapable of dowsing any particular direction of travel. He shuffled a couple of feet backwards, then forwards again, then rotated his head first left, then right. No good.

This must have been the first time in almost twenty years that he had crawled about in his office. There was no reason for him to have done so, and yet… The carpet caught his interest first. He was so accustomed to the pattern – rust-red fleurs-de-lys on a scarlet background – that he was almost blind to it. But the weft – the woof? the weave? – how it followed a separate pattern, an independent design, serving not the motif of the carpet but its internal workings; that was something he had never noticed before. Likewise how chipped the legs of his desk were, after years of being rammed by the splayed limbs of his office chair. Likewise the old-fashioned plug socket in the skirting board, with its three rounded pins, obviously overlooked during one of the periodic re-wirings of the old building. Likewise the slim air vent, almost invisible in the condemned fireplace…

Cornish scooted across the room on his knees. There! Under layers of matte black paint, the relief of a metal vent was still visible. Some of the diamond holes were even unblocked. And the smell… yes, the smell was stronger here than by the window. Gripping the fireguard he leaned deep into the chimney, his body straining as he edged as close as possible to the vent. He held his breath, a part of him determined, if this was the source of the smell, for his discovery to be incontestable from the very first inhalation. With his nose almost touching the vent, Cornish closed his eyes and inhaled.

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