by Adam Lowe
“David?”
“My son, he’s been missing since a couple of days before the town went under. She said you saw him and some other boys in the town. You might be the last person to have seen him.”
I pushed my arm in front of her and grabbed a half a dozen cans of baked beans, the cheapest ones. Connor hated the cheap ones. “Mary said that? I don’t know what she could have been thinking, Mrs Robinson.”
Suddenly apologetic, she backed away.
Shopping for my eternally ungrateful father-in-law never sat easy with me. But his lists of fabricated errands or forgotten shopping served well as opportunities to get-a-way. This time it hadn’t worked out well. But I wasn’t ready to go back just yet. Mary’s betrayal sat like a stone in my throat. There was someone I wanted to see.
Outside of Trev’s tower-block I felt my drug saturation level must have dropped. As I approached the sewage-strewn entrance to the dingy flats the forlorn weight of the chore bit deeply. You can’t go back, nobody ever can. My life now revolved around a grey fudge of doubt and shit—a boy giggled.
A couple of kids, grey and grimy, their faces smudged and blurry, slung bits of trash at each other—or at me. I ignored it. They’re not there. Edgy from my exchange with Mrs Robinson, my knock on the door might have been a little heavy. No one answered. I banged my fist again. “You in there, Trev? It’s me, Jake.”
A crash followed by the bolt sliding back. Two bleary eyes framed by wisps of stringy hair that didn’t begin to cover his bald pate peered out at me. “Jake? What the fuck?” He swung the door open and shuffled back into the dark living room. I picked my way past empty pizza cartons and empty beer cans to the threadbare couch shoved against the wall. His collapse on one end was clearly a signal to welcome me into his home. I joined him by hugging the other end of the couch.
“You got anything to drink?” He peered at my empty hands as if I had flounced centuries of social tradition with insult. He stank. From what, I didn’t really want to know.
“Trev. Hey. What the hell happened to you? Last time I saw you, you were waiting tables at that bistro.”
He cackled and wiped his nose with the back of his hand. “Need a diving bell to do that now, eh mate?”
He pushed himself slowly to his feet and swished his arms through the debris on the floor until he found a half-full can of beer. He held it out to me, but I shook my head.
“What’s with you? Married that posh cow, didn’t you? Things work out?”
He eyed me greedily.
I refrained from shaking my head. What was I thinking? Why in hell did I come here. “Things? What kind of things?”
“You still gigging, man?”
I expelled a coarse laugh. “Right. Every night. Same as you.”
He laughed and took a swig, made a face. “Where’d it all go wrong, mate? We had everything. Blondes with tits this big, freaking audience what loved us, money to burn. What happened?”
My hand began to shake again. I pushed my answer inward. He’s worse off than me. No sense shoving him further down. I took a couple of tablets from my pocket, swallowed them fast.
“Saw that,” Trev looked to my pocket. “spare a couple?”
“No. Medication mate.”
“Fuck that. You’ve been splashing cash with those kids down at Barker’s Corner.”
Those kids . . . those other kids . . . whatever happened to them. I shoved ten quid at Trev. “The world forgot us, mate. That’s what happened. The Time Machine. We were, and then we weren’t, just like our name. Just like our town. Maybe there’s us, somewhere in the future, playing just like we used to.”
He stuffed the money in his shirt. “Yeah, that’s it all right. Catapulted into the fucking future. Why can’t things ever go backwards?”
Why can’t things ever go backwards? I reflected on the truth of Trev’s words as I let the engine idle outside of my father-in-law’s, knowing how much that would aggravate both Mary and her father. She slammed the front door in the same manner she had slammed the pickup door earlier. Screamed at me to get the shopping in and simpered while I unpacked in silence.
Mary continued to simper in the gloom on the way home, but as soon as we got into the kitchen, I saw the magma had boiled to the surface in Mary’s eyes. Once you would have welcomed that, mate. I reached into the fridge for a beer. Mary grimaced and poured herself a glass of gin, small dainty one. There’d be many of those before the night was out.
Backwards. Let’s do the Timewarp again—
“This just can’t go on any longer,” she said, pouring herself another. “Where were you?”
I shrugged. Took a long swallow. “Checked in on Trev. Hadn’t seen him around lately.”
“Lately? Try ten years.”
“So? You’re upset because I wanted to see how he’s doing? Not like we don’t have other things to pick on each other about.”
“No, and that’s not what I meant.” Her head jerked back with the second sip. “Aren’t you ever going to face up to it?”
I felt my hand jerking like a foreign object attached to my arm, the beer sloshed. My hand resided there at the end, as if it didn’t need to do anything I told it to. “Face up to what? Look, I tried everything to prevent them from submerging the town. Gave up giving music lessons. It wasn’t me who sold out, though. Enough people made money out of drowning the town. Like your old friend, Gerry. He did all right, didn’t he?”
“Oh, god.” She screamed and her hands flew towards the ceiling. Reminded me of a movie I’d seen once about an evangelical preacher, and the ones saved because of him. You can’t save her. You can’t save them either.
No. My arm jerked, beer shot onto the cream carpet: Who buys a cream carpet? Boys giggled.
Mary turned and slammed her gin down on the draining-board. “It’s always paranoia with you. Always other people. I’ve tried to talk to you about this, god knows, and all anybody ever tries to do is make the best of things, for themselves, and surprisingly for those around them.”
“Your father never liked me. If he could have substituted Gerald for me—”
“Look at you. It’s not about Dad or Gerald. It’s about what you did, what you became.” She moved to embrace me. “I do love you Jake. But this has got to stop. Now. It’s for the best.”
Backing away, I felt relieved when a knock came at the door. Mary appeared to relax, almost as if she’d expected the visitor.
“Put your beer away and I’ll see who’s at the door.”
As Mary plodded down the hall, I wondered where the woman I’d married had gone to. The over-caring do-gooder at the front door didn’t resemble her at all.
The beer bottle crashed into the bin as the front door opened. I stared out into the back garden and in the reflected kitchen a boy pointed at me. No. I, I—
“Jake this is Sally Robinson. She lived in the old town just like us.”
Politely, I nodded to her. “Hello, nice to see you again,” I said while quickly glancing about the Shaker cupboards and built-in appliances. Nothing out of order. No giggling children.
Mary sat her visitor at the table and moved to a chair nearby. “Sally’s the head of a local support group that help people traumatised by the flooding. She’s here to talk or listen. What do you say?”
Silence pushed into the room, crushed any doubt in my mind that things were about to change for the better. “Look, Sally is it? My wife is under the illusion that I need some kind of help and that the root cause of my issues lies with the flooding. And I can understand that. I’m on Valium and the GP’s can’t put a finger on it, so it’s only natural to try and figure things out. Two and two and so on. I think you’ve had a wasted journey. I’m just feeling my age and having a bit of mid-life crisis on the side, call it aging rocker syndrome.”
The women shifted in her seat. “Okay, that’s a start. Some of my group were reluctant to believe their symptoms—inadequacy and feelings of guilt—” Anger burned her cheeks, two dots of bri
ght red. “were linked to the flooding, but talking helped them realise how much they’d been affected.”
Was she fucking kidding. “Okay, fine. Let’s do it.”
Sitting hard, my chair screeched across the floor.
Mary appeared pleased; perhaps this tête-à-tête represented her master stroke in my ‘rehabilitation’. Sally said. “Can I relay my experience?”
“Sure, why not.”
Tipping back, I fetched another beer form the fridge. Holding it out I asked. “Want one?”
She shook her head. “Perhaps tea, coffee?”
Mary rose to see to it.
“The flooding created a major upheaval in my life Jake and to this day I’m not over it. David was only ten. He’d gone out early on the Sunday before the flooding. Met his friends. Scooters, skateboards, you know how they are, kids, race around town, promise to be home.” My beer tasted sour. “We waited up, phoned the police, waited and hoped. On the day of the flood, they dragged me from my home screaming.”
Mary, you fucking bitch. I spared her a single glance. The magma had lessened, cooled. But I didn’t understand what had replaced it. Triumph?
I stood. “Mrs Robinson please leave.” Basement, in the fucking basement. I only meant to . . . A boy giggled.
“Jake?” Mary loomed.
“Now, Mrs Robinson.” I moved around the table, lifted her by the arm and dragged her to the front door.
“What? Jake no, please, I can leave on my own.” She shrugged herself free, turned to Mary. “I can’t help you. I think it’s time we turned this over to the police.” She stiffened as she opened the door. “You should have come to me earlier.”
For quite a while I stared at the slammed front door. Much like a door I’d forgotten, locked and secure. Small frightened voices tapping away on the other side. Forgotten.
“I thought it would help. Thought talking about what you two had in common might help you.”
You can’t trust anyone in Mary’s little clique; not Gerald, not Connor and most of all not Mary. Had she fuckin’ told her? A crack frayed at the edge of my mind, a widening sliver of pent up rage set free. “You bitch, you knew all along: ‘this is Sally, she’s had a similar experience’,” my whiney imitation of her voice pathetic yet empowering.
Mary backed away. “I don’t understand, what?”
“The boys, the missing boys. It’s always about those fucking annoying little boys.” My arm shook; a spasm ran up to my shoulder. “Snarling and snapping, and stealing with their scooters and skateboards and their, oh-so-funny jibes about music.” Her eyes sparkled in the hall light.
She knew. Of course she knew. I had told her once. But she’d been all loving and understanding, all hugs and tears. That was then.
I knew. I’d done it. Not directly. But in effect. It had all happened so fast at the end. Last minute rallies around the clock, sitting in rows handcuffed to each other. They cut us loose, dragged us away. All I had to do was tell them about the school. Wouldn’t have been any worse than what actually happened. They deserved to die, just like Mary. Anger and desperation. Had they made me forget? Or had I wanted to forget? Just one problem less to deal with. Now I had another problem. But it was a thick rope with only one knot in it. Knots could be untied. She was standing in front of me.
“Leave me the fuck alone for once, will you?” I marched into the tiny conservatory, grabbed the guitar I had leant up against the wall, plugged it in, turned up the dial. No need to make it sound pretty. Not now.
When I had calmed enough to sit back and take my fingers from the strings—it never shook while playing, odd that—I heard the sound of breaking bottles. My last six pack. I didn’t have any money to buy more. I’d given my last ten quid to Trev. I got up, jerking the plug from the socket.
Her mascara ran, making her eyes look like dark holes with the fires of hate burning inside. How easily things changed, something once so good now bad, any chance gone now, like the town, the boys.
“What do you want from me?” I asked. “I can’t change it now.”
“You can’t keep a secret like that. It’s not right.” I opened my mouth, but she pointed at me, just like the grey child in the window. “I thought I knew you, loved you. But this, you’re a monster.”
“And me? You and Connor killed me long ago. You’re just as guilty as I am.”
She lashed out with the beer bottle, a jagged edge. She went straight for my neck. My hand stopped shaking, tightened around the neck of the guitar.
Strings vibrated as the guitar swung through a vicious arc. Mary’s stabbed glass bottle nicked the side of my neck as I dodged right. The strings held perfect pitch, a killing note. She had to die, be taught a lesson just like those kids. A small boy appeared, grey words from a grey mouth. “Kill the Rock-a-Billy bastard, kill him Missus.”
The guitar crashed into the linoleum floor, Mary somehow moving her bulk out of its path. She smashed into the work surface, spun around brandishing a carving knife. “When your back’s turned we’ll stick you like a pig.” The grey voice now held venom tinged with the urge for revenge. Maybe they’d have it now.
Mary advanced, eyes dark with blood-thirsty intent. She lunged, I jumped back. Her foot slipped, spilt beer maybe, and she fell headlong towards me, the calving knife waving in the air. I rammed the neck of the guitar forwards, forcing the headstock and tuning pegs deep into her mouth and throat. The guitar sung a gurgled note and the fire in her eyes grew. She pushed forward, slashing wildly, kept coming, step by step, her head slipping down the blood soaked neck, inch by squelching inch.
“Die you bitch, die.”
Slumping to the floor, I wedged the guitar body in the angle between the cupboard and the linoleum. She took a long time to die, her hot blood dripping on me, her eyes fading cinders.
The grey boy appeared disappointed.
I wouldn’t have thought a body held so much blood, the kitchen sloshed in the stuff; but the fucking guitar was still intact. I grabbed the bottle of pills and washed them all down with a straight shot of gin. Followed by another. Mary wouldn’t be needing it now.
The room went out of focus, the tape was winding . . .
My wife’s body felt lumpy against my right shoulder; pressure points struggling beneath her dead weight. Fat bitch. Firmer criticism of her eating habits may have helped, but the point was moot now.
Dropping her down onto the grassy bank, her body wheezed expelling a last remnant breath.
She’d liked it here between the sparse pine and the shore, something about the drowned buildings, the school’s boiler chimney, the church spire and the old ruined house still visible above the waves. Romantic she’d called it.
Bloody gloomy; the low overcast made everything grey, and wet: a dampener for my Valium buzz.
A grey boy pointed from the pine trees lining the horizon.
As a teen, Sharon Kae Reamer developed a deep love for speculative fiction including science fiction, horror, and fantasy of all sorts, and somewhere along the way acquired a close affinity to magical realism. Her written short fiction spans the entire speculative gamut. She has just completed the fourth novel of the Schattenreich fantasy series that includes Primary Fault, Shaky Ground, Double-Couple, and Shadow Zone. Her newest novel, Gravity’s Gift, a tale of deep space with a touch of romance, is in revision.
Robert D. Rowntree began writing in 1997 after attending a writing class run by Derek M Fox. His first story was accepted by Strix magazine and then several more magazines took stories in quick succession: Terror Tales, Dead Things and Sci Fright to name a few. He continued writing and had further acceptances in Unhinged and Hadrosaur Tales, and sold a micro story for anthology in the States. Along with Lisa Negus, he penned a play which narrowly missed short-listing for the East Midlands Playwriting Competition 2001. It was well received and Robert and Lisa have had discussions at The Leicester Haymarket with a view to expanding the play for a future reading. He now has a regular writing slot with Ideoman
cer, interviewing other writers. Currently he’s working on a novel, Destructive Tendencies; a film treatment; and several shorter pieces. He likes spicy food and has been known to enjoy a good night out. He lives with his wife Dawn and his two sons, Ethan and Aidan.
Angel Tracks
by Richard Farren Barber
The fat man stepped off the kerb belly first. If I hadn’t killed him I suppose he’d still be standing there, dead eyes staring into the distance.
The impact threw the man’s body up onto the bonnet of my car and rolled him across the windscreen. For a moment my vision filled with his faded red T-Shirt pressed up against the glass and then the screen shattered into a thousand fragments. I stood on the brakes and as the car stopped the fat man rolled off. As he fell to the ground I heard his head crack against the kerb.
It doesn’t matter how many times you’ve hit someone, you still can’t fully prepare yourself for the shock—the heavy thud that rattles through the body of the car. You feel it in your stomach first; like someone punching you hard in the guts; and then it rises up your throat to the back of your mouth.
The road was empty. I walked around to the front of the car. He didn’t look too bad; lying in a small bundle at the side of the road. There was a pool of blood blossoming at the back of his head, crimson against the grey pavement. Like a halo. I crouched down beside him.
“Don’t worry, it won’t be long now,” I tried to reassure him.
He opened his mouth to say something but all that came out was a wheezing breath.
“Don’t try to talk,” I told him. I watched the life slip from his eyes. His body hitched with the effort of one last, tremendous breath and once that had finished rattling through his body I knew he was gone.
I waited for the Angels to come.
When the call came I was out in the inspection pit, checking the joint on the downpipe of a Mondeo. The radio was blaring out Michael Jackson and my nose was filled with the familiar stink of oil and scorched air. The phone had been ringing for a minute before Tim hurried into the office to pick it up. Now he stood at the door, calling over to me.