by Jason Arnopp
In the furthest corner of my eye, I catch a glimpse of something and stop dead.
Over in the archway, there’s a fierce, pale blue flicker. Quite a big one.
Could this be an ambulance light? Surely not, because I’m on the fifth floor. So what the fuck is it?
Why don’t you roll over and take a proper look?
The metallic taste spreads through the soft palate of my mouth, and my dumb heart acts like someone just fired a starting pistol. Flying in the face of rational thought, animal instinct tells me to flee this thing and run out into the fresh air of the balcony, where sanity will prevail.
Fuck that. Sanity dictates that I stay put. This weird shimmer must be reflecting in from somewhere.
Then why is it moving towards you from out of the archway?
Somewhere inside me, a panic attack wants out, but I refuse to entertain it.
Sure enough, the flickering blue thing fades away to nothing. Because, of course, there never was any flickering. The metal taste has subsided, too.
Clearly, I’ve just had a textbook episode of psychosomatic stress. Seen so much of that in my time, and now it’s my turn. Stress makes people hallucinate, vomit and, in extreme cases, even go blind, so I’m getting off easy with a little flickering in my peripheral vision. The ambulance-style light even ties in with my job, so it makes perfect sense.
Don’t fool yourself. That was no hallucination. This thing came right out of the archway and was an actual entity.
Irritated by myself and my stupid imagination, I go back to counting down from three hundred, determined to ignore this copper aftertaste.
CHAPTER THIRTY
5 October
“Go easy, mate. You’re this close to clipping a parked vehicle.”
“Tyler, I was driving ambulances when you were watching Teletubbies.”
“Yeah, but this might be a wider truck than you’re used to.”
“You wanna walk? If so, keep yapping.”
Tyler stuffs crisps into his face as I take us north up Queen’s Road, an uphill ride from the clock tower to the train station. We are heading for a job in Seven Dials, where our next patient is in some form of panic. “I never, ever watched the fuckin’ Teletubbies,” he mumbles.
How I wish I could still feel the rush that hit me when I first drove one of these beasts. That scary sense of power, when you first actually get to trigger the flashing lights. When all the excitement dies down, being the driver is fifty per cent about taking a break from having to talk to patients when you’re too tired to be upbeat and strong for them. The remaining fifty per cent lies in making a lot of noise and waiting for other vehicles to get out of your way.
Here’s one positive thing about Tyler: he makes me focus on the road more, because I’m determined to drive so flawlessly that I’m above his criticism. This distracts me from dwelling too much on why the hell I found fresh wood chips on the post-mat this morning thanks to a new set of gouge marks on the inside of the door.
Something inflicted those marks during the night, while you slept, and the culprit may have been the Flickering Thing In The Corner Of Your Eye. You’re welcome.
Yes, what I need to do is forget about that…
… inexplicable entity…
… psychosomatic trick of the retina and concentrate on the road. I need to pat myself on the back, too, for having somehow followed through on my pledge not to bring Scott’s phone out on this shift. While I’m at it, I’ll remind myself of this morning’s three gratitudes: my health, my job and my sanity. Even if the third one might be debatable.
Tyler gabbles about the steering, and I tell him to pipe down because I’ve zeroed in on a mad news story on the radio. In Japan, a select group of rich people have become early adopters of a brand-new smartphone called the Plasma 5000, which doesn’t need any kind of electrical power source.
“This controversial handset can be powered solely by the user’s own blood,” says the newsreader. “One owner was hospitalised last week in Osaka, leading to widespread calls for a ban. It is understood that the hospitalised man used his phone continuously for thirty-eight hours before his reported collapse.”
Tyler says, “What a wanker.” He tips his crisp packet up, so he can suck down all the tiny salty bits. Then he slings the empty packet onto the dashboard and grabs his phone to check what’s happened during the three minutes he’s been away.
“That story has to be bollocks,” I mutter, while thinking how cool it would be to have a phone you could power with your own body.
The lunchtime traffic’s bad. Of course, Tyler has already suggested alternative roads we could take. I should consider those ideas and stop being stubborn.
When I make the magic siren wail, the sea of metal and rubber slowly begins to part. For some reason, my attention gets sharply drawn to the pavement on Tyler’s side. My unconscious mind understands why before I do.
Tyler’s saying something vapid when I spot the deathly pale woman with bright red dreadlocks.
Holy Hell, she’s Action Girl, from one of those pictures on Scott’s phone. Her distinctive, hard features are the same ones that had stared out of the phone screen at me. And there’s the tattoo sleeve on her arm.
For one insane heartbeat, I want to roll down the window and call her over. I won’t, though, obviously. And now I can’t, because she’s walked into a pub.
Tyler is saying something else. Much louder now.
“… Kate? What are you waiting for, mate?”
Shit. The road ahead lays so open before us that it might as well be empty. A whole line of obediently shifted cars is waiting for me to fucking step on it. Behind us, someone finally summons the courage to honk their horn, thereby giving others the go-ahead to raise a chorus.
I stomp the accelerator. As we move, I duck my head down, trying to see the name of the pub, but it’s already too far behind us.
I spray Tyler with Gatling-gun words. “What’s that pub we just passed? Back there on the left. Quick, look now, right now.”
The wipe-clean plastic of Tyler’s seat squawks as he twists around to look. “The Hope and Ruin. Fucking vegan place. Delete.”
I have no idea what the hell I would ask Action Girl, this complete stranger, if I had the chance. All I know is that her picture is on Scott’s phone and I won’t be able to come back to this pub until our shift ends in two hours.
The Hope and Ruin, eh? Ain’t that just me and Scott in a nutshell.
This man foaming at the mouth has to be in his sixties. He has long, grey hair and a neatly trimmed white beard. He is also stark bollock naked.
His hairy belly mercifully hangs down over his groin as he runs into view from around the side of the house. I was about to push the doorbell, but it seems that won’t be necessary.
The next thing I notice, after all the nakedness and the running, is the fact that this man is pushing an empty wheelbarrow. When he reaches the garden path that crosses the front of this house – his house, presumably, unless he happens to be the gardener, gone fucking loco – he stops dead, maybe ten paces away, and fixes us with comically wide eyes.
My guess is that Tyler’s jaw hangs similarly slack, because Tyler is silent and I already know him well enough to grasp that this is unusual.
Deranged Naked Guy’s eyes flick from me to Tyler, then back to me. One moment, frozen in time. I picture myself telling this story across a pub table someday, and decide that this will end in victory. I’m a professional. All I need to do is calm this guy down.
As I open my mouth to speak, the man arches his back and unleashes a howl that sounds like his insides are being shredded.
“Shit,” says Tyler.
“Please stay calm, sir,” I say as Deranged Naked Guy shoves the wheelbarrow aside. This feels unnervingly like he’s discarded a toy and we’re about to become its replacements.
When DNG shifts posture, I can tell he’s about to charge us like a rhino.
“Back to the ambulance,”
I tell Tyler, leading the way back along the path.
Tyler stays put. “Let me handle this,” he says.
“With me, now,” I tell him, loading the words with all the authority I can muster, “or this won’t end well.”
Sure enough, DNG launches into the best impression of a sprint that his obese, goose-pimpled body can muster. Heading straight for Tyler.
Either Tyler has decided to trust my instinct, or it’s self-preservation that propels him towards me and the ambulance.
Oh, thank God, I left the back door unlocked. Once we’re both inside, I slide the clunky latch across.
Tyler calls the police, then falls silent beside me.
During what might be one full minute, we each only utter two words.
Tyler says, “Zombie apocalypse?”
I say, “Shut up.”
The whole ambulance shudders, then rocks. I’ve experienced this sensation twice before, during small riots on the streets of Leeds. This kind of movement signals that someone is climbing on top of the vehicle.
Moving as one, Tyler and I tip back our heads to examine the ceiling.
The ambulance rocks some more. Big naked footsteps thump louder and louder, until they’re right above our heads, then they stop.
“The roof’s strong, right?” Tyler breathes.
“Not really,” I tell him. I’m about to add that ambulance roofs are only fibreglass shells, when I notice he has his phone in his hand like a camera. He’s filming.
“Tyler, what are you doing?”
“Evidence,” he says. “In case he bloody tries to kill—’
There’s a godawful crack and the ceiling gives way. Full-on collapses.
Having fallen through the gaping hole he made, DNG somehow lands on both feet, facing away from us. The ambulance sways to absorb the trauma, as blood dribbles from tiny new cuts all over his back.
Panic makes me clumsy as I unlatch the door and bodily shove Tyler back outside.
I’m about to follow him out, when DNG grabs my shoulder.
His hand is slick with blood and mouth-foam, which makes it easier to slip free of his grasp. In a flash, I’m beside Tyler. Lucky I didn’t need his help to escape, because he gave me none. Together, we slam the doors shut in our patient’s face, then lock them tight.
We stand and watch as the sounds of pure insanity issue from within. The doors shudder and shake, as DNG gives them everything he’s got. I’m guessing he’s gone insane on a classic like PCP or some wacky new drug with an equally wacky name, like Dogface or something.
Having caught a glint in Tyler’s eye, I decide to cut him off at the pass.
“Don’t say it,” I tell him. “Don’t you fucking dare say it.”
Tyler frowns. A picture of pure innocence. “Don’t say what?”
“You’re itching to say ‘Welcome to Brighton’, aren’t you? Like you’re in an action movie.”
Tyler shrugs. Then he meets my gaze. We hold for a long moment, then burst out laughing. A whole load of tension rolls out on a wave of pure hysteria.
For the first time, I feel as though Tyler might become tolerable.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
5 October
Right away, the Hope and Ruin impresses the tits off me by being one hundred per cent vegan. Interesting retro-tech stuff clings to the walls, interlaced with fairy lights and artfully loose wires. No two lamps match in the whole place. There’s a full-sized caravan wedged into one side of the room, inside which a tiny kitchen bustles with activity. The crowd are young, or at least younger than me. In contrast to Loading on the seafront, many of them are reassuringly preoccupied with their phones.
Action Girl isn’t among them. As I’d feared, she must have left. I consider leaving too, until the stoner-rock barman asks if I’d like a drink. And now, like a proper old woman, I realise I really could do with a nice sit-down. Some ale too, please. I’ll just have to exercise moderation.
Having placed an order for a vegan kebab, I take my pint over to a table that boasts an embedded retro video game screen. While four ghosts chase Ms Pac-Man around an electronic maze, I make my second attempt to infiltrate Scott’s TrooSelf diary app.
I try a few of Scott’s favourite words – bamboozle, for instance – but it’s hopeless. Each password is bound to be a combination of letters and numbers anyway. Symbols, too. Pissed off, I impulsively return to the Videos folder on Scott’s phone. The time feels right to try again.
What a dick I am. Once again, I’m allowed only the briefest look at those video thumbnail images – a few faces, a few flashes of pink skin – before the phone crashes. I try to take a screen grab before it dies, but there’s nowhere near enough time. Seems pretty obvious, then, that this lame device specifically cannot handle even showing me video thumbnails, let alone the clips themselves. The phone may have been damaged when Scott dropped it on his balcony decking, or it’s nearing the end of its lifespan.
Frustrating. This phone is a treasure trove of information and yet I’m stuck out here in the stupid real world. I attack my ale, drum my fingers on the table and try the power button every ten seconds. Nothing. This handset feels as dead as…
… that thing in the corner of your eye last night…
… a dodo skewered on a doornail.
All the chatter in the room blurs into background noise. I morosely fixate on Ms Pac-Man as she chomps her way through endless pills, pursuing a quest for a satisfaction she can never find. The ghosts who chase her so relentlessly, on the other hand? They will always win.
Unlike Ms Pac-Man, I’m not trapped in this maze. I can stop whenever I like.
I really should stop. And yet, even as I consider this, my finger is locked in auto-pilot, poised to try the phone’s power button again.
A plastic basket containing my awesome-looking Beelzebab is placed on the table before me. As I thank the server, a passing flash of red draws my eye. By Christ, here’s Action Girl with her unmistakable dreads. She’s ferrying her pint from the bar towards the front door. Where’s she going: outside for a smoke? No. I watch as she hurries out of the small entrance hall, through a door I’d never noticed before. Typical for me and my Grade-Z observation skills.
After a couple of abortive attempts to hear my question over the music, the barman reveals that this door leads up to “the gig venue”. Quickly absorbing this new info, I take myself, my Beelzebab and my pint upstairs, then pay five pounds to see The Shit Monkeys.
“What the fuck?” spits Action Girl, doing her best to outpace me on the pavement. Her accent is proper Yorkshire, right down to the fook instead of fuck. “Are you seriously gonna follow me all the way home?”
“Yes,” I say, feeling more than a little bit crazed.
“I wouldn’t advise it, nobber.”
Action Girl had refused to speak to me while The Shit Monkeys were purveying their foolishly loud industrial-punk racket. I was, after all, a wild-eyed stranger clutching a pint and a kebab. So I waited patiently, only for her to refuse to speak to me afterwards too. And here we are.
“Look,” I tell her. “All I want is to ask you something.”
“Yes, and I have asked you, several times, to get fucked. I go to gigs to chill out, not to be given a fuckin’ asthma attack by someone tapping on me shoulder.”
“That’s not unreasonable,” I say, falling into step beside her. “Although The Shit Monkeys aren’t exactly my idea of a chill-out band.”
“Who cares what your idea of owt is?”
“I’m honestly not a crazy person or anything.” Could anything sound much more ominous than those opening words? “It’s just… my ex has a picture of you on his phone. And I wonder if you know him.”
Action Girl’s glance could freeze the sun. “What type of fuckin’ photo?”
“Oh, no, don’t worry! Not that type. You’re fully clothed.”
“Why don’t you ask him if he knows me? What’s all this shit about?”
Do I open my heart to t
his woman who might be involved with Scott? For all I know, if he’s moved elsewhere in Brighton, she could be heading to his new place right now.
I hold up Scott’s phone. “Please, take a look at the picture.”
When Action Girl sees Scott’s photo of her on that mountain peak, her derisory glance becomes the classic double-take, and now she’s interested.
“Where’d you get that?”
“Well,” I say. “That’s the thing. I’m assuming you know a guy called Scott? Scott Palmer?”
She doesn’t reply verbally, but her face tells me she doesn’t. There isn’t even a flash of recognition that she quickly conceals. Okay, but who took the picture, if not Scott? Just in case she knows Scott by an alias, I show her his Tinder pic.
“For fuck’s sake,” Action Girl says, but now she’s less vehement. Spittle no longer flies out of her mouth when she talks at me. “I don’t know the guy from Adam. Is that okay? Can I go now?”
We’re halfway up a hill, outside a pub called The Battle of Trafalgar. A gust of stale ale drifts out of the front as someone leaves.
“Look,” I tell her, nodding towards this door of opportunity. “Five minutes of your time gets a drink on me. Okay, two drinks.”
Turns out Action Girl isn’t her real name. Who knew?
Ali downs one of her two vodka shots, then slams the glass on the ancient wooden surface between us, like we’re in some Wild West saloon. The surrounding landscape of vacant tables and chairs is interrupted only by the odd group of drinkers.
I’d feared she might neck both drinks, give me the finger and leave, but there’s intrigue in these dark brown eyes. “Maybe this Scott bloke was shagging Gwyneth, then? Or still is, for all I know?” Seeing my face tighten, she adds, “Sorry, mate… was this a recent split?”
This photo of Ali on top of the County Down mountain Slieve Donard was actually taken by her half-sister Gwyneth two-and-a-half years back, shortly after the two women reached the peak together.
Ali has shown me a picture she took of Gwyneth that day, up on the peak. Her sister has a face so distinctive that I’m convinced I’ve yet to see her on Scott’s phone. Her harsh, bony face is dominated by a fiercely pointed nose and framed by dark curls.