The Sleeping Dead

by Richard Farren Barber

  “Can…”

  Something large and black cut through the air. Jackson saw it at the last possible moment, just before it slammed into the door.

  “What? Did you…” But before he made any accusation, another missile followed the first. Smaller, but more accurate this time. A blue stapler clanged against the frame of the doorway. Another couple of inches and it would have connected with Jackson’s head.

  “Go away.” The voice was low and harsh. Jackson thought it was probably the man he had heard sobbing a few minutes earlier.

  “What’s wrong? I can help.”

  “No you can’t. No one can help.”

  Jackson leaned on the door, his shoulder against the wood. It creaked, nothing more. There was no chance he could open it without the help of the man on the other side.

  Another missile smashed against the wall—a little farther away this time. At least the aim of whoever was throwing wasn’t improving. Jackson thought it might have been a glass bottle. It exploded into thousands of fragments.

  “You can’t stay,” Jackson urged. “Let me in and I can help.”

  The slice of a face appeared through the crack of the door. An eye, blind with blood, peered out.

  “Just go!” the man said. His teeth were stained red, as if he had been chewing raw meat. He blinked and his eye filled with fresh blood.

  Jackson realized the man was forcing the door closed.

  “Are you sure?”

  The man nodded. He opened his mouth and Jackson thought he was going to say something else, maybe an explanation of what was happening behind the door, but then he started to cry once more, a low, ragged sobbing. And when he wept, the first tear that ran down his cheek was bright red.

  Jackson stepped back into the corridor and as soon as he left the offices of Creative Partners he felt relieved. Out in the corridor it was almost possible to believe that there was nothing wrong, that ad agency staff weren’t torturing each other behind makeshift barricades and chief executives weren’t hacking at their own necks with blunt scissors. For a moment it was possible to forget that the world had simply tipped on its side and gone mad.

  He trudged back to MedWay’s offices, already knowing what he was going to find behind the door to John Fairls’s office, but needing to be sure.

  John Fairls lay across his desk. The improvised bandage was still fixed to his neck, but the tissue was thick with blood. Jackson touched Fairls’s hand—it was cool. Not cold, not yet, but cooler than it had been. Cooler than it ought to be. He searched for a pulse on the man’s wrist, but he knew that the effort was halfhearted. He just had to look at the man, at the pool of blood and the way his lips had taken on a blue tinge, to know it was too late for John Fairls.

  “I’m sorry,” Jackson whispered.

  You should have done more.

  Jackson stared at the corpse. For a moment he thought the voice had come from John Fairls’s mouth. He nodded in agreement; he should have done more. He should have moved faster. He should have found help—if not at Creative Partners, then at the next office, and if that wasn’t possible, then at the next office after that. Or after that. Or… He should not have given up. He should have screamed down the corridors and carried on searching until he found someone who could…

  Could what?

  Find someone who could help. Someone who could take control.

  He had to get out of here. Get out of The Pinnacle.

  He closed the door to John Fairls’s office and walked back through the reception area.

  6

  In the corridor he pulled his phone from his pocket and dialled 999. This time instead of a busy signal he received a recorded message stating, The network is currently experiencing excessive traffic, please try later. He tried Donna’s number and got the same message. He typed a brief text: WHERE ARE YOU? But when he pressed send, the circle on the screen rotated feebly for a minute before finally flashing MESSAGE NOT SENT across the screen.

  Eight floors down to the ground. It would take less than a minute in the elevator, but Jackson couldn’t face the thought of walking into that enclosed space.

  On the other side of the door, the pastel-shaded walls were replaced with severely whitewashed breeze blocks, as if the architect had assumed anyone needing to use the stairs would be too focused on getting out to care about their environment.

  Concrete steps ran down in blocks, corkscrewing to a vanishing point. Jackson leaned over the red railing and looked down, but the view churned his stomach. The way the steps marched down and down reminded him of an Escher print.

  Jump.

  He stumbled back from the edge, because for a moment it seemed the most reasonable suggestion he’d ever heard. It seemed like the only possible response to the situation. He could imagine climbing over the security railing and then simply letting his body drop. It was the right thing to do. It was the only thing to do. He wouldn’t have to deal with the image of Malcolm Laine battering his brains out against the glass window or John Fairls driving the scissors into his neck. It took courage, he understood that. The idea of standing there and simply allowing gravity to sweep away all his problems took a certain steely pragmaticism. He thought that he was strong enough to—

  “Shit.”

  Jackson stared down into the abyss, his ankle already wrapped around the railing even though he had no memory of returning to the edge of the stairs. For a moment he was frozen—trapped between a fear of falling and a fear of not falling. He wondered if it would hurt. He wondered how long it would hurt. Not long. Not if he did it right. There was a perfect drop down to the bottom of the stairwell and he thought that if he hit the ground fast enough and hard enough, he wouldn’t feel anything.

  He bit the webbing between his thumb and forefinger. The pain was bright and perfect.

  For an instant the world was still. No more voices. No more screaming from behind closed doors. No more images of bloody smears upon clear glass. Stillness. Silence. Sanctuary.

  Jackson wanted to exist only in that moment. To remain caught in the one perfect second when he didn’t have to worry about what had happened or what was going to happen next. When all he had was a single, perfect now.

  He heard his own ragged breathing reflected off the breeze block walls. He felt the thump of his heart and the thrum of his pulse in his throat, feathering like a tiny bird. He could taste the sharp tang of fresh copper at the back of his throat.

  He backed away from the railing, unwinding his fingers from the tight grip they had on the metal. He shuffled until he had his back to the walls, shoulders pushed tight to the hard surface, as if he was afraid a gust of wind might pick him up and carry him over the edge.

  He crouched down and covered his ears with his hands. The voices whispered to him and he concentrated on ignoring them.

  He began to walk down the stairs, trailing his fingers along the wall, as if he needed the physical contact to reassure him that he was safe. He understood that he needed to stay away from that dull red railing and the gap on the other side that spiraled down to the bottom of the building.

  Jackson found himself standing with his thighs pressed up against the railing, staring down into the abyss once more. He wasn’t sure if he could hear an actual voice telling him to climb over the railing, or if it was more subtle than that—a sensation. An urge. But he could feel it thrumming through his nerves.

  He ran to the wall before the lure of the drop became impossible to resist.

  “What’s happening?” he whispered. The stairwell picked up his words and echoed them back to him. Twisted them. Mocked him. Now he was hearing voices. He smiled at the observation. And then laughed—a hard bark: “Ha! Ha!” with no humor in it. The stairwell returned the sound.

  He ran down the next flight of stairs, almost tripping over his own feet. His hands slapped against the wall and he bent his head for a moment to catch his breath before throwing himself down the next flight. He needed to get to the ground quickly, to escape the te
mptation of the long drop from the stairwell.

  At the bottom of the next flight of stairs he came across a door similar to the one through which he had entered. Black paint showed the number seven.

  Just one floor. He’d only traveled one floor.

  He wanted to cry. He wanted to lie down on the floor and scream. I can’t do any more. This is too hard.

  He paused with his fingers wrapped around the door handle, not even sure why he was thinking of leaving the stairwell—the world was no safer outside. In fact, compared to the disjointed madness of Creative Partners and the empty offices of MedWay Associates, the stairwell was safe.

  Jackson carried on walking down, throwing himself at each flight of steps, focusing only on reaching the next landing and not being lured away from the side of the wall by that aching gap in the heart of the stairwell. The gap that burrowed down through the center of the building. The gap…

  He tore his fingers off the red railing once more and ran back to the wall, hitting the breeze blocks so hard he felt the impact judder through his shoulder. Again he had woken from the trance just in time. The idea that he could continue to be so lucky was absurd. Would it be the next time? The time after that? When would he only come to his senses after he had climbed over the railing and felt the wind rushing against his face.

  He took his phone from his pocket and tried Donna’s number again. “Please,” he begged. The phone shivered in his hands. He put the handset to his ear and heard currently experiencing difficulties.

  He sat in the corner of the stairwell, the phone clutched in his hands, and tried to allow the thick lump of emotion that had settled in his chest to pass.

  He took the next flight of stairs sitting down, shuffling down one step to the next like a toddler.

  He sat on the cement staircase and sobbed in perfect silence.

  A few minutes later the silence was broken by the slam of a door. Jackson jerked his head up—someone had come to rescue him. There was an end to this hell.

  And then the voices started shouting, drifting up through the center of the stairwell from somewhere below him.

  7

  Three voices. All female. They twisted together and at first Jackson couldn’t hear any of the words, but as he sat there and listened he began to pick apart the individuals.

  Two of them sounded rational. They spoke in calm, measured sentences explaining to the third why it was important that they do this together. That it would be easier for her, for all three of them, if they just did it now.

  The third woman was beyond hysterical. Her voice was ragged. Most of the time she didn’t scream or shout, but made a sound that bore no resemblance to language. When she was articulate, her words were simple and definite: No. Never. I won’t.

  Jackson listened. Not just to the words, but to the shuffle of their feet on the concrete steps. He imagined the three of them wrapped in a cocoon of violence and he knew, even without setting eyes upon any of the trio, that the two rational women were trying to persuade the third woman to join them as they climbed over the railings. He wondered when the reasonable, measured discussions would cease and the two would simply grab their friend and drag her over with them.

  He locked his arms around his knees and sat in the corner. If the women knew he was there, they would try and persuade him to join their pack, and maybe he wouldn’t be as difficult to convince as their friend was proving to be.

  Just do it and have done, he thought. It was inevitable. The crazy woman couldn’t resist forever. They would wear her down. Just jump, Jackson urged. Jump and leave me alone.

  The madwoman was screaming. And crying. Not much longer now, he thought. It would be over soon and then he could continue his own private battle.

  He put his hands over his ears to block out the worst of the screaming and crying. It was like swimming underwater. He heard the distorted voices of the three women. He heard the dull rhythm of his own heartbeat. He shut his eyes. Clamped them tightly shut.

  See no evil. Hear no evil.

  When he took his hands away from his ears, the women were still arguing.

  He felt pain in his chest. It was not something physical. It was guilt. The guilt of leaving the woman down there while he hid above her and urged her to kill herself.

  There was a smooth rustling in the stairwell around him, soft and rhythmic, and Jackson realized that he was rocking back and forth.

  He shot to his feet, moving before his sensible mind had the opportunity to convince him that he was mad. If he wanted to survive, he had to look after himself and not get involved in anyone else’s problems.

  He started to run down the stairs. Somewhere around the second flight of stairs he began to scream. Maybe they would think he was a madman. Maybe that wasn’t so far from the truth.

  His shoes slapped on the concrete steps. The noise spiraled up through the stairwell like pigeons exploding from a town square. He raced down one flight of steps and then a second. By the time he reached the landing of the fifth floor, he felt each jarring impact from the steps rising up through his knees.

  The three women stood in the doorway to the fifth floor of Pinnacle Tower. Jackson didn’t think any of them had noticed his arrival.

  8

  It was immediately obvious to Jackson. The woman in the blue suit was the screamer; the reluctant suicide. Her two friends surrounded her, their hands on her shoulders as they tried to drag her across the stairwell.

  The screamer was clinging onto the door with both hands. Veins stood out along her arms. Her hair was bleached blonde—the sort of bottle-fed color Donna would hate.

  “Come on, Susan,” the woman on the right said. She was in her early sixties with a gaunt face and a wiry frame that suggested permanent hunger.

  Susan shook her head. Jackson could see scratches along her bare arms and he wasn’t sure if they were self-inflicted or the result of the scrabble at the door.

  None of them had seen him yet. That was good. He pushed back up the stairwell. With the stark lighting there were no shadows to hide in, but he thought that if he was above them, they might never look up, and he could wait until this particular drama had played out before continuing down to the ground floor.

  “I don’t want to,” Susan whimpered.

  “Why not?” the gaunt woman said.

  “Don’t be a mardy-ass, Susan. You’re slowing us down.”

  “I didn’t ask you to wait for me.”

  “We can’t go without you.” Jackson heard the shocked tone filter up the stairs to where he hid. “It wouldn’t be right.”

  “Please, Helen.”

  The gaunt woman shook her head. She reached out and took Susan’s smallest finger and bent it back.

  “Helen, don’t. That hurts.”

  Jackson heard the snap of the broken finger; it came a split second before Susan’s wail slashed across the stairwell. As he watched, she pulled her injured hand away from the door to nurse it. Her voice echoed in spirals around the confined space.

  She was still holding on to her hand and crying when the gaunt woman stood behind her and pushed. The second woman joined in, the pair of them pushing and pulling at Susan’s clothes until her back was pressed against the railing.

  “You broke it!” Susan shouted. “You broke my finger.”

  The women ignored her. They were occupied with the mechanics of how to lift a woman who was taller than them over the four-foot-high safety railing. Helen bent down and started to lift Susan from her legs. There was something farcical about the action except the wizened old woman was deadly serious about what she was trying to do. Jackson noticed that even in the midst of her work, she muttered to herself.

  Susan began to batter down upon Helen’s back with her good hand; the ineffectual blows glanced off Helen’s spine.

  “Let me go! Let me go!”

  “You have to come,” the other woman said to her. “We all have to go. It’s better this way.”

  “You’re mad! You know that
?” Susan screamed into her face. Jackson watched as she wrapped the elbow of her injured arm around the railing like a peace protester. With her free hand, she lashed out at the two women.

  Helen straightened up and freed Susan’s arm from the railing.

  “We don’t want to hurt you.”

  “No?” Susan shouted. “Then what are you trying to do?”

  “We can’t go without you. It wouldn’t be fair to leave you behind.”

  Helen stopped fighting. For a moment the three stood in an uneasy peace; Susan with her arm still hooked around the railing, Helen and the other woman panting with the effort of trying to pull her free.

  “This can’t go on,” Helen said. “We’re late.” She spoke in a casual, almost conversational tone. As if she was discussing the problem of a faulty photocopier. And then she hooked a leg over the railing and climbed over.

  Susan reacted. “Don’t, Helen.” She started to pull at the older woman’s arm. “Come back. You might fall.”

  Helen laughed. “But that’s the whole point.”

  She leaned back, her feet anchored on the small ledge on the outside of the railing. Her body bowed outward.

  “Helen, please…”

  “It’s for your own good.”

  The second woman started to climb over the railing. Susan was panicking; Jackson could hear it in her voice: the stop-start pleadings she made with both of them to let her go. They clamped tightly to her, one on each arm.

  Jackson pressed his hands over his ears once more but that wasn’t enough to block out the sound of Susan’s desperate pleas. He pushed himself close to the wall and squeezed his eyes shut. Please let it be over soon. Please let it be over. He wasn’t sure how much longer he could sit there. He felt the urge to rush forward and push Susan over the edge himself. And then throw himself after her.

  Helen leaned out over the empty center of the stairwell.

  The other woman joined her on the ledge. She approached the matter in a more severe, organized manner. She didn’t speak—Jackson didn’t think he’d heard her utter a word in all the time he had been watching them—but she carefully took up her position on the outside of the railing. Her lips were moving silently, as if she were praying. She leaned back, parallel with Helen so that the two of them were hanging off Susan.