Where Andy and Jude carry Jesus' body through the celebrating millennium crowds and dump it on the high-street...

So, as if he were drunk, were suffering from the bends, Jude and Andy carried Jesus from the Blackhouse, along the balcony, down the two flights of stairs and out into the frosty morning of the new millennium. Once outside the shock of what they were doing hit them. They felt like everyone  would spot the corpse immediately, would know that they had killed the man and were now getting rid of his body.

"Where the fuck we gonna put him?"  asked Jude.

"Fuck knows, but as far away from the flat as possible."

"Why?  What does it matter? Let's just dump him in the bin outhouse... Junkies always die in places like that. It'll be  too hot walking a corpse through the fucking crowds!"

"The bins? Get a grip.  The first place anyone will knock is the flat. Fuck,  just the stench would lead the pigs up there an' I don't trust that stringy violent black cunt to keep his lips sucked shut when they do. Out  on  a three year suspended sentence??? He'd have no fucking scruples... 'specially concerning the likes-a-us. Just hold him up and curse him or talk to him like he's a fucking baby...  There'll be others in a far worse state than him tonight! "

And so they carried Jesus on, off the quiet residential road where they passed not a soul and up to the high-street where people celebrated and every other bar was packed out, charging triple prices for drinks and making sure they got the most out of their extended late hour licences.

The first small crowd the men came upon were a group of posh drunken faces with plump lips standing outside one of the many wine bars, smoking.  They looked at the three  men strangely,  raising an eyebrow and turning to each other playfully aghast.  Jude felt his stomach loosen, felt a blanket of guilt descend over him. For a second he lost hold of his portion of Jesus.  Jesus collapsed down to the side, trailing along like an orang-utan.  His head flopped back, and in a weird second, just before Jude caught freshly ahold of him, Jesus's eyes went askew and whatever forces of gravity played upon him it looked as if he flashed a disastrously drunken smile at the gathering. The group looked at each other in mock horror and then burst out in raucous laughter as Jude salvaged his portion of the corpse and tripped on forward with Andy staring at him furiously.

"You doing OK, mate?  Not far now ya daft sod,"  said Andy to the corpse, heaving it up a few inches so as the legs gave a slight impression of  trying to walk.

"No, ya gotta be joking," shouted Jude, feeding of Andy's initiative, "there's no more for you tonight...  You've 'had enough to see ya thru to 3000!  Oh, you'll  live to regret this one!"

Up in the sky and out across the distance fireworks and cheers rang out.  People were singing and shouting. Young men staggered forward into nowhere, celebrating about a new millennium but seeming angry, like they wanted to vandalize something, vandalize themselves. Other groups ran down the street screaming and smashing bottles.  One man, podgy, mid-thirties, was in the middle off the road with his trousers and pants lowered, bending over with the number 2000 daubed in thick red lipstick across his buttocks. He was screaming something about the new century and a little group of friends were over on the pavement, pointing and laughing and taking photos.  What little traffic there was joined in the mooner's fun, flashing their headlights and letting out a series of horn blasts.  Up above scores of people hung out of windows smoking and shrieking, letting out whoops of joy as each new firework fizzed through the night and exploded in bursts of great colour in the sky. Apart from the few stationary folk they passed, no one seemed pay any mind to the two junkies supporting the dead, half naked and bleeding Jesus.

"We could carry this cunt around forever and no-one would be any the fucking wiser," said Andy, a little out of breath. Jude didn't reply. He felt nauseous with guilt carrying the body of his old friend around like this, the whole world celebrating and Jesus dead for the sake of ten quid - five pounds a-piece. Jude cast a look at Andy. He already knew that this night would separate them forever, that such events do not bind men but push them far apart. Heroic acts bind people. A cowardly act like this invariably leads to people being unable to face the other, forever seeing their own shame in the features of the other. Andy now took on a vile, criminal appearance, like he took pleasure from the darkness of the deed they were carrying out. Even in the way he would occasionally snap at Jude, snarl at him to keep his portion of the body up, like Jude had some major weakness of character in finding the chore nauseous. As Jude watched Andy, caught the  slumped head of Jesus out the corner of his eye, he decided to be  more courageous and insist on quitting the body if Andy was intent on walking the corpse much further on.  Having plucked up the courage, the words he would say already a shape in his mouth, Andy suddenly said; "Over there, look... in that fucking doorway."

Jude looked over to where Andy had pointed with his free arm. It was a dark doorway of good depth streaming with an evening's worth of urine which had couled back and was run across the pavement and down into the gutter. Jude looked at the dark, damp hole and a great melancholy pierced him, being able to visualise the final resting place of Jesus before he had ever been lain there. Andy seemed quite delighted with the grotto. "No one will find him there for a while... they'll think it's some old dosser camped down in his own piss!" he laughed. "The police will hook him out at a distance and slap him in the morgue without even a post-mortem. They'll not waste any fucking time on some half naked junkie gone over in his own filth. Come on, lets unload the fucker in his tomb."

The two men had a quick look around to make sure no-one was watching them or coming from behind or on their way down. The coast was clear. They walked Jesus to the doorway, turned so as facing the adjacent side of the road, and on Andy's count of three dumped Jesus in the doorway like he was a great sack of spuds. As Jesus fell into the doorway there was an almighty clack like two stones kissing one another. Jude grimaced. It was the sound of Jesus's head snapping back against the cheque tiled ground. The head aside, the way Jesus landed was not ideal. His body had collapsed  half in and out the doorway, the lower legs and bare feet stretched out into the street.

"Help me get him inside and outta sight," said Andy. Jude didn't want to. He was overcome with nerves and horror and now just wanted to be gone, as far away as possible. But he knew Andy was right. He'd be discovered within minutes left like that, and with so little time having elapsed since they had walked him down the high-street it was very probable that some of the revellers would recall having seen him with them. Andy leapt in the doorway and took ahold of Jesus' torso and dragged him in and up. As he did Jude pushed his legs in so as his final resting place was sitting up against the back of the doorway with his head slouched and his legs bent at the knees and collapsed to one side.

"You still got his spike?" asked Andy.
"Yeah," said Jude, with a quizzical look.
"Stick it in his foot, where he took his shot," said Andy.
"You're fuckin' kiddin' me int ya?" said Jude.
"Do I sound like I'm fucking kiddin'? Is there time to be kidding? Now fucking stick it in, we want this to be dismissed as an overdose immediately."

Jude took the needle out his pocket, uncapped the spike and looked at Jesus' foot. It was swollen with dried blood down the fore-step and running between his dirty toes. "I can't," he suddenly said, "I can't do that... no way."

Andy flew out the doorway in a rage. He whipped the needle out of Jude's hand and with some kind of sadistic delight bent down and rammed it deep into the fore-step of Jesus' left foot. Immediately the plate of the foot swelled up, the needle implanted firmly, right down into the tender, maybe even into one of the bones. Jude turned and vomited and as he vomited he cried and as he cried he saw Andy marching off in front of him, back down the high-street from the direction they had come. Not wanting to be left near the corpse alone Jude spat out the thick clear viscous fluid that had come up after the vomit and then hurried on to catch up with Andy.

"Man, I need a fix," he said, having caught up with his fellow culprit, "I need to blank this fucking night out."

"Well that's what it's fucking for,' said Andy, "That's when it works its magic best."

"Magic" thought Jude, and in the sky a family of rockets zoomed up and exploded one after the other, shattering across the night to renewed whoops of joy, albeit  a little fainter and a little less jubilant than before...


Word count; 1589.
Notes: add in one or two other mentions of how they are holding Jesus and what he looks like, etc. Prolong the walk. Work on the individual dialogues and personalities of the two men. really distinguish them through their dialogue. think. Rework the scene where Andy shoves the needle in his foot. We want a very visceral scene, that makes people cringe to read it, the brutality and sadism of Andy.