by Casey, Ryan
It was always freezing in this staff room. Didn’t matter what time of day it was, what time of year it was. There were no windows in here, so no light shone in. It was supposed to be the room where staff members had their lunch, away from the general public. But honestly, a solitary confinement cell was preferable to this dump. One sole computer chair sat at a cluttered desk, creaky, the back of it broken. Old coffee cups covered the desk, questionable smelly green substances growing at the bottom of some. And there was always a ghastly stench in the air. The smell of cheap deodorant, reminding Noah of his old school changing room. Still did nothing to mask Gavin’s body odour. So damned strong, it clung to the walls.
Gavin wasn’t here yet. Which was something. It gave Noah a little hope, at least. If his boss was late, he couldn’t exactly fire Noah for being late. Right?
But then this was Gavin. Better not to question his logic, the way his mind worked. He was a strange character. Had a way of making you feel like you were his best friend when he first hired you, before slowly getting bored of you, bullying you, finding any reason he could to let you go when your six month pre-pay rise contract was up.
Noah should’ve seen the signs. Alison was fired for spilling coffee over herself after six months. Vlad lost his job for sneezing near a customer’s mac and cheese. “Near” being the other side of the store.
Truth was, Gavin had far many more reasons to cut Noah loose than those other poor souls. So Noah had a damned fight on his hands.
He clutched his side. Stung like mad, but not as bad as earlier. He knew he should get himself down to the hospital. It hurt to breathe. He could have a cracked rib or something.
But he didn’t like hospitals.
He didn’t like the memories.
The memory of his little brother, Kyle.
Lying there in that bed.
Staring up at him with those hollow eyes.
That deathly pale expression.
And the—
The door creaked open. Made Noah jump.
He didn’t even have to turn around to know it was Gavin. Not with that cheesy smell.
He looked around, though, jumping up from the creaky seat right away, knocking the back from it, sending it tumbling to the floor.
Gavin stood there. Papers in hand. Frowning at him.
Gavin was a loser. Make no mistake about it. He was short, scrawny, and he just had that vibe of a child trapped in an adult’s body. As much as running this cafe gave him an ego boost, everyone knew damned well that it was just a pet project funded by his parents, who he still lived with even though he was in his forties. It was his playground, until he ran it into the ground and his parents gave him a new toy to satisfy himself with right up until their miserable death and his tremendously fortunate inheritance.
But right now, Gavin was the man with the power. And Noah really wanted to keep this job. He didn’t want to have to search for another. Not while he was already struggling to keep up with rent payments.
He didn’t want to be forced back to living with his parents. Because he feared if he did, he’d never get out.
“Noah,” he said, his voice squeaky and too high-pitched. “I would say take a seat. Looks like you’ve already seen to that!”
He always spoke with this little laugh at the end of his sentences, especially when he was in one of his bullying moods. It’s like he didn’t have the full confidence to be a total dipshit. Just tested you to see how far he could push you—to see just how much power he really had. And sometimes, he surprised himself.
“Yeah,” Noah said. “I’m sorry about that. I just—”
“I’m going to cut to the chase, Noah. Your performance these last few weeks has been slipping, and it wasn’t exactly flying in the first place.”
“Gavin, I serve coffee, and I smile at people. I make small talk with them. How else am I supposed to fly?”
Gavin ignored him. “You seem to struggle waking up on time for these early shifts. So much so that I’m starting to think you’ve got something wrong with you, matey. Like, a sleep problem or something. Or maybe—maybe you’re a vampire! But uh… well. Just thinking about your best interests, you know?”
Noah rubbed the side of his face. “It’s happened three times. And I told you. It’s something I’m working on. And even when I have been a little late, it’s only been a few minutes.”
Gavin made that little chuckle. “The early bird wouldn’t catch the worm if he slept through his alarm, would he? Or was it a she? I can’t remember.”
Noah just sat there, shaking his head. This guy didn’t live in the real world. He didn’t understand the consequences his actions had on the lives of others. “I’m just asking for another chance, Gavin. I’m begging. Please. I’ve got bills to pay. I’m behind as it is. And my friend. My flat mate. If I leave the flat, he’ll struggle too. I just need another month. A month on the same damned wage, without a pay rise, just to prove to you this won’t happen again. To prove I’ve changed.”
Gavin sighed, leaning awkwardly against his messy desk. He fidgeted with the papers in his hand. “I’ve already given you chances.”
“I’m asking you for one more.”
Gavin opened his mouth. Looked like he was going to say something.
And then he closed it, and he sighed.
“I like you, Noah. You’re a good kid. Your coffee’s alright, and the customers here think you’re okay, too. The girls kind of like you as well. And the more pretty faces we bring into this store, the better, right?”
Noah flushed a little. He didn’t like Gavin bringing attention to his looks. Apparently, he was decent looking. He was tall. Dark-haired. Bearded. He wasn’t particularly muscular, but he was lean. He’d never thought of himself as good looking. His ears stuck out too much for that, and his nose curved at the tip. But people said he was, more and more these days. He didn’t believe it—he thought the more they saw him the more they’d realised how flawed he was—but he couldn’t deny the slight confidence boost it gave him to find a customer flirting with him.
Gavin walked up to him. Crouched right in front of him. Noah tried to hold his breath. Gavin’s breath smelled like a bottle of milk Noah once forgot about when he was at university and left on the side for a few months. A smell he was still trying to banish from his mind to this day.
“You’re a good lad. And I want to give you a chance.”
Two things happened at that moment.
First, the elation. The relief. Because against all damned odds, it looked like Noah’s pledging to work another month on the same pitiful rate was actually working in his favour.
And then something else.
Noah’s phone buzzed on the desk.
Fell to the floor.
“Shit,” Noah said.
Gavin tutted. Rolled his eyes. Picked Noah’s phone up, went to hand it to him. “You kids and your technology,” he said. Like he was a pensioner, and Noah was a ten-year-old.
But then he saw something else.
Gavin looked at Noah’s screen.
And the smile on his face just moments earlier dropped completely as he sat there and stared at the phone. Pale-faced. Stunned.
“Gavin?” Noah said.
Gavin looked up at Noah. Then back down at the phone. His cheeks went red. His eyes, bloodshot. There was no doubting he’d seen something on that screen. And Noah had no idea what it was.
Gavin tossed Noah’s phone at him like it was a hot potato.
Then he stood up, barely even looking into Noah’s face. “Leave your uniform on the desk.”
“Gavin?”
“Drop your store key off in the box.”
“But I—”
“You’re fired, Noah. It’s over. And don’t you dare even think about coming to me for a reference.”
He walked out of the staff room, slammed the door, leaving Noah sitting there, confused, in the sickening silence.
He looked down at his phone screen.
Looke
d at the notification.
His stomach sank.
He understood.
A message. A photo attached.
The message was from his flat mate, Eddie. It read: Has Freaky McFreakoid finished with you yet? Make sure he doesn’t abduct you. I hear his mother likes two victims suckling her pointy alien nips at night.
And then a photograph of the alien from Men in Black. The one who gets its head blasted away, only for it to grow back seconds later.
An uncanny resemblance to Gavin.
Noah stared at that message, and he couldn’t even laugh.
Because he was fucked, and he knew it.
He got up, tossed his uniform onto the desk, and pulled his store key out of his pocket.
He didn’t see the rolling news on the television in the corner of the staff room about a mysterious incident breaking out on a Manchester bound plane...
Chapter Six
It was three days after he got home from Berlin that James Rickard started feeling desperately unwell.
He sat in his office at work and tried to focus on the spreadsheet in front of him. He worked on software at a tech startup called TruCorps in Manhattan. He’d moved up this way from Louisiana five years ago. Came from modest, humble beginnings, and was always determined to make something of his life. His dad was disappointed he didn’t want to run the farm, but that life wasn’t for James. He’d always been more tech-minded. Always preferred the city to the rural whenever he got the opportunity to visit.
So he’d flown over here five years ago, aged eighteen, and worked his way up the ladder.
He started low down, making coffee for journalists, none of which appreciated him or even noticed he was there. Then an opportunity opened up before him. A mass systems outage, and a collapse of the website. He’d put his love and knowledge of technology to good use, restored all the data, streamlined a bloated system, and even set up a few little pieces of software to prevent that kind of event happening again, or at least alert the idiots that something was about to go down.
Just so happened that Andy Vaught, the founder of TruCorps, was in for an interview with the newspaper James worked on that day. He spotted his talent, had an opening to fill, and the rest was history.
TruCorps specialised in health apps. Pedometers, sleep trackers, that kind of thing. But they had bolder ideas for the future. They were small, but Vaught had visions of something far greater. His passion was memory. Time. Reversing dementia. Ending the disappearance of consciousness that came with death.
And he was an intelligent bloke. He was a convincing dude. So as much as his grand claims and ambitions could easily be dismissed, it took a brave guy to doubt him.
James stared at the screen in front of him. All energy had drifted from his body in an instant. His mind had stopped dead, totally blanked to the point he didn’t even know what he was supposed to be doing.
And then a crippling migraine surged right across his head, and he tasted blood.
He grabbed the sides of his head. Everything sounded distant, muffled. Nausea hit him like a hammer blow. His insides felt like they were burning.
And there was this sense.
A sense that he wanted to share his pain.
A sense that someone else could help him.
Someone else just had to understand what he was feeling...
“James?”
James spun around. His vision blurry. He saw a man standing there. Bearded. Silver hair, even though he wasn’t old. Wore a striped Breton T-shirt with a blazer on top of it and black skinny jeans, Adidas Stan Smiths trainers underneath.
“James?” the man said. “Are you okay? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
For a strange moment, James got the sense that he knew who this guy was, but he couldn’t name him. He couldn’t remember who he was. He was in his mind somewhere, locked away in memory. Like when you see someone from your past, many years in the future, and even though they have aged and changed, there is still something familiar about them. But something that takes a few moments to recognise, to identify. Like a consciousness lag.
“James?” the man said. “I think you need to take a breather, man. You don’t look well.”
And then it clicked.
Vaught.
Andy Vaught. His boss. Founder of TruCorps. Of course it was him. Why had he even doubted that for a moment?
James felt his teeth chattering against one another. He rubbed his hands through his hair, which was doused with sweat. Around the office, as clarity returned to his vision, he saw the looks he got from his colleagues. Suspicion. Concern. There’d been a nasty bug going round lately, and everyone was on high alert. Nobody wanted their summer ruining with a damned sickness bug.
But there was no denying the way he felt. He felt shit. Totally shit.
And as much as he wanted to stay here and work through his problems, he knew the rest of his team weren’t ever gonna forgive him if he did.
“Can I just take an hour?” James asked. “I just... I think I just need a breather. A walk around the block. Would that be cool?”
Andy reached over. Put a hand on his shoulder. Smiled. “Take as long as you need. And sorry, man. It’s a lousy bug. Had me stuck in the bathroom for a week. Just take it easy.”
James nodded and stood. His legs felt weak. His body ached in places he didn’t even think could ache.
But as he walked across the office, looked out of the window of this thirtieth storey, out at the surrounding buildings and Central Park in the distance, glowing in the sun, there was something about the way he felt that just seemed... unfamiliar.
That was the only way he could describe the way he felt.
There was something about it that didn’t feel like a normal bug.
There was something...
A crippling, splitting headache.
And a flash in his mind.
A flash of his mother burning.
Screaming out at him.
Gouging her own eyes out as the flames charred her flesh even more, and there was nothing he could do for her, nothing he could do to help her, nothing he could—
“James?”
James jumped. Crawled over to the side of the window. Looked up at the man standing over him,
Greying. Bearded. Not old. Wearing a Breton striped shirt. A blazer. Adidas Stan Smith trainers, bright white, like a new pair. And this look of concern on his face.
“James, I think you need an ambulance.”
He heard this voice, saw this man, and something struck him. Something terrifying.
He didn’t know who this man was.
He didn’t know where he was.
And other than that name—James—he didn’t know who he was.
He realised then that he was crying.
“I—I need help,” he said. “Please. I just need...”
The man took a step towards him. Lifted his phone out, dialled 911. “It’s okay, man. We’ve got this. We’re—we’re gonna get you seen to. Okay? Just...”
And then something came over James.
Fear.
Total fear.
Of this man.
Of the world around him.
Of everything.
“Don’t come any closer,” James said.
The man frowned. “But I—”
“Don’t!”
But it was too late.
The man took a step towards him.
Said these calm words. These soothing words. These words that were supposed to comfort him. Make him feel better.
But all he could hear was his mother’s screams. Her cries.
And all he could feel was the sense that this man was responsible.
He’d done this.
“James,” the man said. Other people were gathered around, that same look of fear on their faces, that same look of confusion and concern.
And all James wanted to do was end his mother’s screaming.
End her pain.
End this. All
of this.
The man took a step towards him.
The burning sensation covered his body.
The anger.
The rage.
The sadness.
The sickness.
And he looked at this man, and he felt total hate.
He looked at this man, and there was only one thing he could do.
He charged towards him.
Flew into his waist.
Slammed him against the glass window.
Cracked his head against it, again and again, desperate for the pain to stop, the screaming to stop, all of it to stop.
He felt hands on his body. Felt people trying to drag him away. Heard people shouting. Screaming.
And then the window.
It smashed.
He held this man in his hands as a gust of wind blasted into him, as warm air filled his lungs. He looked at the blood trailing down his face, his gray beard sprayed with his own blood.
And his begging eyes, one of them sunken and swollen.
“Don’t do this, James. Please don’t do this.”
James felt a tear roll down his cheek, and he shook his head.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m—I’m so sorry.”
And then he let go of the man and let him drop through the air, down towards the road below, screaming.
It was only when he hit the road that James remembered exactly who the man was—and who he was.
And that’s when he spurted thick red blood all over the hands of his desperate colleagues.
Chapter Seven
Jasmine sat in her quiet, empty flat and stared at the Netflix homepage wondering what to watch.
It was evening. She knew she should probably make use one of the many cookbooks she had in her kitchen, but she couldn’t be bothered. She knew she’d just default to ordering in pizza like she always did. She was pretty healthy otherwise. She jogged three times a week, did yoga the other three days, pretty intensive, too. She meditated. Tried to keep her stress levels down. She got a good eight hours shuteye at night, and her dental hygiene was top notch.
But looking after your diet when you were alone wasn’t something that came easy to her.