by G D Sheehen
Philip was immobilised with fear and the long-haired, black crystal eyed monster moved closer to him until they were face to face. The skin of his long pointed face drooped and a translucent slime layered its white skin.
“Here we are again, my boy. I knew you wouldn’t leave me for good. But you owe me.”
He looked down at the girl and Philip saw red and white maggots forage in his ears. His black hair also seemed to have a life of its own, it swayed and curled and reached out.
“What are you?”
He turned back, again eye to eye with Philip and hissed and wheezed. He blinked and his eyelids had sharp teeth. Blistered tongues licked the black crystals.
“You know who I am. We’ve always been together, you and I. You know what you need to do now.”
The creature released Philip from his grip.
The girl convulsed and white foam oozed from her mouth. Philip bent down to try to help her. He sat her up and attempted to snap her out of her high. But she remained limp in his arms. The seizure became violent and after half a minute, she froze and her eyes opened and glassed over.
He knew at once what had become of her and felt slightly envious. She wouldn’t have to suffer years of this affliction now, and if she was lucky was in a better place, a place they were brought up to believe existed whether they accepted such a fate or not.
He looked back and the monster was gone. There was nothing that could be done for the girl. Philip took the package and left as fast as he could.
13
Philip scrambled his way through alleys and lanes for as far as he thought it might be safe to be seen by people on the streets and not be remembered as being in the vicinity of the dead girl. He pinched a small face towel from a clothesline and wrapped his hand with it. He got back onto busy streets and tried to blend in, keeping his head down, making sure nobody saw his face. The effects of the heroin were fading quickly and he craved another shot. A startling realisation that he had a few ounces of gear in his pocket, enough to get put away for ten years, made him think fast about where to go.
He headed for the anonymity and crowds of O’Connell Street and wished that he’d stayed there another half hour last night as he’d initially planned. It was too late now and he had to stay focused on getting away with what he did. His first major regret was that he had no alibi for the time of the attack. The staff would have seen him leave McDonald’s at just the right time and Declan knew he didn’t come home for the night. He couldn’t possibly ask Sharon to cover for him.
As he approached the taxi rank near Cleary’s, another thought nearly knocked him over. Dessie. That loudmouth prick would tell everyone he’d seen me, just to get some attention for himself. I’m fucked.
If Dan survived, it didn’t make a difference. He would tell the gardaí and Razor Ray exactly what had happened. If he died they would look all over for witnesses and Dessie usually sticks out like a turd on a birthday cake. His only hope was that they knew Dan was with the girl and now she was nowhere to be found. She dropped the knife at the scene when she was taking the heroin, her fingerprints were all over it, and eventually, they would find her body in the shed. He contemplated making an anonymous call but then remembered he had no idea where the shed was. If they pinned it on her quickly they might not consider she had an accomplice. But what about my blood on the knife? Would they even do a forensic examination? Surely they would have to if it was a murder they were dealing with. Surely it was Razor Ray’s heroin, too. For a crook like him, it would probably be almost as important as his brother’s life.
Philip planned to hold onto it as insurance, just in case and resigned to the fact that it would get a little lighter by then. Razor Ray took great pride in his business affairs and had a notorious reputation for being able to get anyone hooked on smack, thus having a lifelong customer.
Philip got into a taxi and asked the driver to take him to Drumcondra Railway Station. He didn’t want to go straight to the halfway house in case the law was already there asking questions. After he got dropped off he took the long route to get there in an attempt to avoid any patrol cars. When he reached the far end of his street he could make out two men standing outside the door talking to Declan. They weren’t uniformed guards so his first thought was they were special branch.
He circled the block behind his street to bring him out to a corner nearer the house. On closer inspection, he concluded they weren’t guards but looked more like hired thugs. Ray’s men. Now he knew it was all over. Ray would never stop until he found him. The two men looked to be getting verbally aggressive with Declan, but true to his nature, he was having none of it.
One of them broke off and made a call. He returned a minute later and pulled the other one away. Declan disappeared back inside. They headed in the opposite direction then suddenly turned and caught sight of Philip sticking his head around the corner. The heroin had delayed his reaction time and now the chase was on.
He ran back the way he’d come and zig-zagged the short network of streets in the area. After a few minutes, he thought he’d lost them and felt safe enough to come out onto Drumcondra Road near Carlingford Road and wait for a bus to take him back into the city. The two men were on the corner of Dargle Road, one of them on his phone, no doubt updating Ray and receiving instructions.
They didn’t see him and he stepped back out of view deciding to find a pub where he could hide out for a couple of hours. He walked towards the Botanic Gardens and found a restaurant bar on the way called Finnegan’s. He went in and ordered a pint. The barman looked hesitant and when he saw the blood-soaked towel wrapped around his hand said he was sorry but he couldn’t serve him today. Philip knew there was no point arguing with him and the last thing he wanted was to create a scene.
He went back out and scanned the area. There was no sign of the men. He found a public toilet a few minutes later and put in the fifty-cents to open the door and was relieved to be locked inside, safe for now. A sign said the door would open automatically in fifteen minutes which gave him breathing room.
He looked in the mirror and was horrified the see what stared back at him. An image of the black-eyed monster flashed before him until he focused and saw a different man to the one who was kissing Sharon under a street light the night before. This man appeared dishevelled and gaunt, a street junkie clinging to the edge of existence. The thought of her made him wince with sorrow. He could never have her now. Of that, he knew.
The face towel stuck to his hand with dried blood and he barely held in the scream when pulling it off. A little blood flowed but not much. He cleaned the wound as best as he could and washed his face. But nothing could get that look away. He was a man defeated, yet again, for the final time. A child could read that in him. The package in his pocket called to him but he resisted for now. He would need to keep his composure to get away from the area and plan what to do next.
Resting his hands on the sink he bowed his head and tried to take stock of the situation. A dizziness came over him as he heard the dripping tap like a jackhammer. A cool breeze swept up from beneath and he felt like he had company. He raised his head, looked in the mirror and saw him standing behind him, white-faced and gargling on blood. Philip closed his eyes and wished him away but when he opened them again his companion was closer, right behind his shoulder, close enough to whisper in his ear.
“Go back. Find the answers and set me free or many more souls will perish.”
His voice was neither human nor animal-like in nature, but rather emanated from deep within a dark chasm in Philip’s own consciousness. He turned around to face him and plead with the monster to end it all now, offer himself as a sacrifice. Only a fading black cloud floated where his salvation stood a moment before. Philip fell to his knees and cried.
He eventually got on a bus and headed for the south side of the city where he was less likely to bump into any of Ray’s crew. He found a quiet old pub on Baggot Street and ordered a pint and sat in the corner. A million th
oughts crowded his mind but one was gaining traction and squashing all others. Shoot up.
After another pint, which he drank in three gulps, he headed for Merrion Square. He remembered a spot near the war memorial where he could cook up undetected by passersby. He gave himself an extra generous dose and again his worries evaporated, replaced by a feeling of reticent calm. He took a walk past the Oscar Wilde statue which brought a smile to his face and wondered what it would be like to have a statue of himself as a famous writer. Maybe lying on the cliff edge in Dunmahon dreaming up a new story for his next masterpiece. All his family would come to the unveiling, Julie, Rodge, his mother and father, Sharon and their kids, content and proud as a close and private family. The kind of dreams he once thought possible. Before everything changed before he became dark and cynical and depressed. What could kill such hopeful childhood imagination, replace it with horrific visions and voices, visions and voices premeditated by dark secrets buried deep in the bottomless well of lost youth?
The blissfulness of the high was beginning to thin out so he decided to find a payphone and make some last calls to the few people he loved. Finding one these days was no easy task and after walking for a while he found himself on the grounds of Trinity College. Awed by the splendour and antiquity of the surroundings, he walked around its squares and finally found a payphone near the Berkley Library. Dusk was breaking the daylight and no one was around the side of the library where the phone was. He could make some calls in peace.
He slotted in a one euro coin and dialled his old home number in Dunmahon. Julie’s voice came down the line and all but knocked him off his feet. The numbness he felt made it impossible to hold in the whimper he let out.
“Philip, is that you?”
He bit his knuckles and words eluded him. Her sweet comforting voice came again.
“Philip, if that’s you, it’s okay. Please talk to me. I have so much I want to talk to you about.”
Tears streamed down both sides of his face and he hung up. Her voice brought back all the pain he had caused her and their family over the years and a sharp spear of guilt penetrated his heart. She didn’t deserve any more of his bullshit.
He put in another coin and dialled Sharon’s number.
“Hello?” came her voice, friendly and soft as he had grown to love in such a short time of knowing her.
He cleared his throat in an attempt to be able to speak in a normal way.
“Hi, Sharon. It’s me”
“Hey. How are you? I really enjoyed last night.”
“Me too.” More than you could possibly know. “I can’t see you again.”
“What? Why are you saying that? Things have just started between us. I thought it was going well.”
“It is- it was. But I’m no good Sharon. I’ve destroyed everyone I’ve ever known and I don’t want to do it to you. You’re too good.”
“Philip?” she said in a voice so soothing and sweet he could hardly take it. “I know the anxiety you’re feeling. It’s natural after everything you’ve been through but-”
“You don’t understand. I have to go away again.”
“What have you done? Has something happened? You didn’t take anything, did you?”
“You’re one of the best things to ever happen to me. I mean that. Bye, Sharon.”
“Philip, n-”
The phone swallowed his money as he hung up the receiver, he wiped his eyes and headed for the College Green entrance to Trinity.
14
The city became a hostile land full of bad memories and demons. Every face he saw, one he wronged in the past, every street a vein into which he injected the misery of his life. Buses and cars came hurtling by on Westmoreland Street and he considered throwing himself in front of one of them. But that might not do the job and only leave him maimed, an invalid target for Ray to do as he pleased. Walking down Burgh Quay he watched the river glimmer with a thousand fractured lights from either side, and the gentle ripples of the River Liffey called to him and offered him escape from it all.
A thought that had crossed his mind a hundred times whilst living on the streets was now the only choice he felt did any justice to the world of pain and regret he occupied. He passed City Quay, then crossed back over to the north side on Samuel Beckett Bridge. Soon he found himself standing next to a nineteenth-century tall ship with three masts towering into the air, tangled with lines and knots. A ship which people used to flee a poverty-stricken land of misfortune, conflict and hunger.
He wished he’d had the chance to leave when so many others seemed to make that choice but the thought quickly left him. A fuck up all his life, he could barely hold down a job for more than six months at a time, always getting sacked for turning up high or not turning up at all. How could he have ever kept it together long enough to emigrate and start a new life elsewhere?
He proceeded along North Wall Quay and his legs began to fail him. The area was quiet with just the occasional car and pedestrian passing by. Philip sat on the river wall and noticed how the walls were high for hundreds of metres on either side. Once in, there was no option to reconsider and climb out. To further numb the pain before plunging to his resting place, he took out the package and cooked up the largest dose he had ever seen. An amount so dangerous even the most ravaged junkies would turn it down for fear of it being his last. He looked around and discovered it was obvious what he was doing to some passersby, but it didn’t matter. It would all be over soon. His veins were already bulging from the workout his arms had been having laying brick recently so there was no need for wrapping something around to stop the blood flow.
The heroin felt like burning ice rushing into his system, hunting down every living cell it could find. He laid back on the quay wall and the stars whirled around, forming into roaming animals, wild and carefree. Shadows crossed over him as two figures appeared and looked down on him. It was the Banished King and the Dearg Due. Both had blood dripping from their mouths, just after a fresh feed on the cities forgotten souls. They helped him up to a sitting position and vanished once more.
A dozen crows landed beside him and appraised him with their red eyes. Images of Julie, Rodge and Sharon flashed in his mind but were being pushed out by serene manifestations of the shadow world he would soon belong to. He reached down the wall and shoved the package into a crack where it likely would never be found. The last thing he wanted was to be fished out with a package of heroin on him. For reasons that baffled him, a powerful image of Eve Richards entered his mind. What had become of her? Another blank spot in his memory that would never be filled with the truth. He staggered to his feet and plunged into the freezing water below.
The murkiness of the water swirled and the freezing water slit through his skin like sharp razor blades. It didn’t take much to fight the bodily instinct to struggle and float to the top. Besides, the last shot of heroin robbed him of his faculties. Resistance would merely be a battle of the mind, one which he was unwilling to fight at this stage. He felt himself get dragged down into the pitch unyielding black. His arms floated upwards but were no match for the weight of his heavily burdened mind. Any light that was piercing in from the street above was now a faint flicker of a world he was glad to leave behind.
The coldness changed to a protective shell encapsulating him from any discomfort. The bleakness gradually became infused with a hue of green and he felt the end was but moments away. Swirls of white shadows raced back and forth, shadows that soon took sinister forms. Faces fashioned themselves into the whiteness and in one of his last conscious thoughts he believed in a world beyond.
But that calmness was instantly shattered by what he saw emerge. The black-eyed monster smiled disapprovingly, the white-skinned girl bore her famished fangs and shot him a stabbing gaze. Then Eve, a look of horror and sorrow seemed to plead with him to set her free.
Rodge was next. His eyes bulging out of his head, tongue hanging loosely from his open mouth, yet he appeared to shape out the word ‘please�
��. His mother weeping at the loss of her son, his father solemn and regretful. The white form of tortured souls twisted around him and grabbed hold as he passed out and pulled him down to depths of no return.
15
The morning was unusually warm for early April. A massive oak tree towered overhead and the smell of fresh-cut grass brought memories of childhood summer days rushing back. The sky was still and of the deepest blue. A pond blanketed with lily pads and blooming daffodils glistened in the early morning light. A forest trail carved into the earth channelled into a crowd of gently swaying sycamore trees. The breeze was like a celestial gift sent to the afterlife to welcome him home.
Philip took his time to sit up in the long grass. He swayed his head from side to side and gradually came around. A family of swans floated across the pond, their beaks pointed down in casual repose. A rustling sound made him turn to see what was there. A fallow deer, golden-brown coat and bright white spots, was munching on some grass behind him, not a care in the world. Philip thought he had found a place of absolute serenity. He got to his feet and walked to the pond with a slight wobble in his step.
A small brass plaque attached to a wooden stand was in the ground near the pond. It said ‘Glen Pond’ and Philip soon realised where he was. Phoenix Park? How the fuck did I get here? Not only had his suicide attempt failed to work but he ended up miles away from where he plunged into the Liffey.
Baffled and furious all at once his legs suddenly felt heavy and painful and he crashed down to a sitting position. Could he have pulled himself out of the river and made his way across the city and fell asleep in Phoenix Park without being able to remember a thing? His life was full of strange happenings but this was a new contender for the strangest thing ever.
He patted himself down and still felt some dampness, so he knew he hadn’t imagined jumping into the river. He closed his eyes and thought back to his final memories. The white cloud, faces of people from his past. What did it all mean? It wasn’t his time to go, with so many unresolved issues about his past and his family and friends. It must be a sign, a last chance to set things straight or he would never be free to leave this world. This was his punishment. Cursed to eternal wandering, ripped from the depths of nothingness by a twisted spirit that wasn’t finished with him just yet.