They hurt. They ached. They begged me with each step not to continue.
Everything slowed down. I experienced every sight and sound in slow motion. The grey pillars. The legs sprawled out.
I rounded the corner and the car in front of me bore a huge dent on the bonnet. To the side, trapped between the car and the brick wall laid his body; broken and slumped on his front.
I made my way around the car; my eyes blurred, my hands not my own.
His head was no human shape, and his blood, thick and black, oozed out of every orifice; his ears, his mouth, his nose, and each of his eyes. The concrete below his face turned crimson.
But his back rose and fell. He was breathing!
I scampered over to his head and fell to my knees, pulling my phone out of my pocket and dialling for the ambulance service. Maybe they could talk me through saving him I thought, or maybe just tell me that everything was going to be all right.
I remembered being taught never to move the injured as then the risk of damage to the spinal chord is greater. I also remembered to check that they are not swallowing their own tongue, and so I wiped away some of the black syrup that covered his lips and cheeks and attempted to part his teeth. They were clenched tight.
His whole body was limp and fragile, but his teeth were clamped hard and I couldn’t get my fingers into his mouth to pull his tongue free. Panicking, I told this to the operator, but she just kept repeating that the ambulance would be there very soon and to remain calm.
I looked up. I am not a religious man and I don’t believe I was searching for God at that moment, but my head tilted back and my eyes turned up. I caught other eyes.
An older lady peered out from behind her curtains.
A mother, holding her young daughter, crouched down and watched through the railings of their balcony.
My girlfriend, wiping the tears from her eyes with her sleeve, held the phone tight in her hands.
When the ambulance arrived, I fell back from the wave of activity. They turned him over and pumped his chest. They breathed deep into his mouth. One paramedic dropped to his knees by the broken man’s side and shouted over to me.
'How high? How high did he drop?'
'Seven floors,' I quickly replied.
'Seven? Jesus. Oh Jesus!'
The police arrived and others gravitated to nearby the scene dressed in pyjamas and long shirts. They all stood wrapping their arms around their chests, offering nothing useful to the police but magnetized by their own curiosity. The police themselves seemed nonplussed. But they all kept their distance from the body, wisely so.
My girlfriend appeared.
'Stay there. Wait! I’ll come to you,' I shouted.
I couldn’t bear the thought of her seeing what I had seen.
We stood in the foyer giving brief statements to a female police officer who scribbled our names and numbers down on a yellowed note pad. I hid my blood stained hands behind my back, but streaks from where I had touched my face still ran across my cheek.
The rest of the night involved comforting each other and then when my girlfriend went back to sleep, I stayed up to watch the sun rise. I wanted to cry, but I couldn’t.
The next day, I received a phone call from the police to inform me that the man had died on impact.
'But he was breathing, and the paramedics tried resuscitating him,' I replied.
'His heart had been crushed and his brain also destroyed since he fell headfirst sir. This is just one of those freak situations where the lungs, still filled with air, continued to function some time afterwards. The paramedics did their job because without a doctor announcing a time of death, they are trained to keep going no matter what. But I promise you, the casualty died on impact.'
There was a strange sense of relief in receiving that information. I wouldn’t have to feel guilty for not being able to save his life. Perhaps that was selfish of me, but it was a true reaction.
Still, I couldn’t cry.
Then the policeman told me the dead man’s name, and my brain blocked it out. It was like the battery was suddenly disconnected; a brush of nothingness painted over my hearing and my thoughts.
A few days later at the police station the same thing happened when I gave a full statement. The officer present spoke the man's name and my mind refused to hear it. I have often wondered if that was my self-preservation preventing me from allowing the dead man to become a real person. If he had a name, then that would make him all the more real. It was easier to deal with if he was just a body.
Later I learned that he was heavily intoxicated on alcohol and drugs, having gone on a self-destructive nosedive following a messy break-up with his ex-girlfriend. He died of a broken heart.
It has also since hit me that if I had stayed out there another minute in the cold, looking up at the rows and columns of apartment windows, where I saw him stand and walk away from the up-turned window reflection, I would have seen him climb out. I would have witnessed him squeeze his body through the open frame and then free-fall. I would have had the chance to shout Stop!
It might have made a difference. I’ll never know.
I saw his body everywhere I turned for months after, and sometimes even now, years later.
When filming on Night Junkies resumed just a day later, I was still traumatized by the event, prone to switching off when people spoke to me and in a constant fight to keep my sore eyes open.
I told Dean, my producer, on the phone beforehand about the suicide, but I wanted to try my best to keep it separate from the production.
The first half of the filming schedule that day was difficult. I had no patience for Sadik’s attitude, for the hassle of the rigging up of lights and cameras, for the repetition of take after take, and it showed in my demeanour and approach. In all fairness, I had lost control of the reins and was floundering. My directing was lost. My leadership was non-existent.
During lunch, I was asked to attend a meeting and I sat down to see Dean, looking sheepish, Richard, Sadik and Mark sat in a semi-circle. It was them against me, and the dividing line had been drawn.
Mark began speaking first.
'Twelve takes on one shot. This isn’t going right, we’re going to fall behind schedule,' he said.
'You just didn’t give us enough quality direction. Everyone’s feeling this is going nowhere,' Sadik piped up.
'I don’t want you to feel like we’re attacking you Lawrence, but it just needs to be said. You have to step it up otherwise it’s all going to be ruined,' Richard added.
I felt winded, unable to breathe.
I had written the script, I had raised all the money and I had just experienced one of the most traumatic events of my life, and here they were telling me I was damaging the film.
I wanted to scream at them, but instead I looked over to Dean for support. Dean looked down and said nothing.
'I’ll try to pick it up,' I said.
I then went somewhere private and finally cried.
Years later, after I finished writing the manuscript to The Haunted Hikikomori I was asked by the original publishers to fill in an Author Sheet. One of the questions asked what inspired me to write a book about broken-hearted ghosts, soul-destroying addictions and suicides.
I realized I had been inspired by that night. I owe The Haunted Hikikomori to the stranger whose name I will never know.
Lawrence Pearce
Reviews for The Haunted Hikikomori
‘I was absolutely blown away by this book, it is genuinely beautifully written and utterly nerve shredding.’
Damien Kelly
Author of ‘Season of the Macabre’
Published by Clarion Publishing
‘Strange, creepy, and heartfelt--this is a terrific book!’
Phillip Athans
New York Times best-selling author of ‘Annihilation’
Published by Wizards of the Coast
‘This is a chilling book, and one that you will think about long after fin
ishing. The best horror doesn't rely on quick scares and creepy imagery alone, it poses serious questions.’
B.B. Griffith
Griffith Publishing
To keep up with Lawrence’s news, read free short stories and buy other books, visit his website; lawrencepearce.com
To say hello, follow him on twitter; @lawrencepearce
The Haunted Hikikomori Page 11