The Bureau of Them

by Cate Gardner

  She should bolt the door, instead she asked, "Glynn?" Why would Glynn throw a Lego house into their yard? Why would anyone?

  The back street proved to be empty. Of course, someone could crouch behind a bin or maybe they'd scaled the railings and were hiding in the remnants of the old, abandoned school at the rear of her house. There was also the possibility they hid in a neighbour's yard. Yes, she should bolt the door and scurry back to their bedroom and to memory. The breeze tugged at her veil causing pink netting to drape over her face. Along the back street, an old metal bin fell and clattered into the gutter. Rotten vegetables spilled and rolled into the road. As Katy lifted her veil, someone or something threw a mouldy carrot. Someone or something she couldn't see. The carrot splattered against the school wall. Katy hesitated. She stared at the air between the carrot and the bin and tried to make out grey shadows.

  A potato cut across the air and slammed into her shoulder, its rotten juices dripping from the veil.

  "Glynn," she whispered.

  The air shimmered, offered indistinct outlines of things. She couldn't determine if Glynn stood amongst them. If he did, surely the potato was a warning and if he warned her to run, then he still cared. Another potato flew, spattered against her breast. Heart fluttered. Katy ran back to the house and slammed the backyard door and the kitchen door. It would be a warning, not hate. Glynn could never hate her. She could never hate him. Tearing off the ruined veil, Katy sat on the bed and drew her knees to her chest. Sobs shuddered through her body; tears soaked her face and hands. She'd thought nothing could be worse than losing Glynn, but then she'd never entertained the possibility he wouldn't want her anymore. It couldn't be true. Yet, the evidence proved otherwise. Outside her room, a stair creaked.

  "Just the house settling," she said.

  Perched on the edge of their bed, Katy waited for another stair to creak, for shadow to curve and slide into her room. The silence hurt. After a moment or two, she climbed from the bed, wincing as springs twanged and floorboards creaked. In three steps, she stood at the top of the landing and peered not at ghost or man but at the remains of the Lego house, which now balanced on the bottom stair. Paper poked from its doorway. She hesitated on the top step. The Lego house could be a mousetrap to lure her downstairs. Common sense insisted if they wanted to hurt her they could do so as easily if she was upstairs, they did not need to lure.

  Crouched on the second stair, she placed the Lego house on her knee and removed the note. Unravelling it, she noted Glynn's doodle of the little man, heart erupting from his chest, and underneath the sketch her declaration of love, but there was something else now, an extra written in pencil- sometimes they shouldn't come back.

  TEN

  Peter pitied Katy. With a scrap of paper clutched to her chest, she peered from her bedroom window and looked across an empty street, trying to see that which hid from her. Peter understood the torment of wanting to see and not see your dead. He decided-too late now-the note had been a mistake. That the Lego house with its symbolic 'your world comes tumbling down' could strike hope rather than fear.

  There was no hope amongst the dead. There was only the want to die, the want to forget who you were and whom you once loved. There was no space for love in death.

  The dead tugged at him, pulling him towards the abandoned cinema. Abandoned by the living not the dead. He understood a little of their hate now. Correction, he understood a lot of it. He had lost. Worse, he had lost and regained. Katy faded from his view, as if she were the ghost. There may still be a chance for her. Then again, there probably wasn't.

  Within the cinema, Peter clambered over broken seats and dislodged bricks; the soles of his feet ravaged by weeks of wearing no shoes and spending time in disused places. His ankles ached from holding up a body that would rather curl in a corner until breath expunged. He should have remained lying beneath Isobel. He shouldn't have pushed her immobile body off him. He did not say corpse. He did not think corpse. They were not corpses. He didn't know what they were, although sometimes he hoped they were not the dead, that they were illusions gathered together by grief.

  ELEVEN

  With the metallic owl in her pocket and the veil, now washed and dried, trailing from the waistband of her jeans, Katy left the house and set out to kidnap Glynn. She would use the veil to tie him to her so either she remained with the dead or he came back to the living. Either way, she would not lose him again; even if he didn't remember her.

  The metal shutters, which had covered the cinema door, lay scattered across the pavement. A broken cinema seat, its yellowed stuffing drifting along concrete, wobbled beside it. Sounds echoed from within the cinema-tinny laughter and things breaking, the inhuman cry of a building screaming against the dismantling of its insides. More unnerving, her name echoed within the cries. The dead were in the cinema. The dead waited for her.

  Katy climbed over debris. The dark inside the cinema was complete, offering no hint of shadow or outline of her hand. In the distance, the tobacco factory whistle blew. She hadn't heard its siren in years, not since the factory had closed. Laughter slid from the darkness. Katy turned to look out at the day and wondered why the sunlight didn't cross the threshold. The sharp light stung her eyes. The laughter fell back, replaced by her name whispered through familiar lips. Glynn.

  On turning, she found the darkness lessened, reduced to a washed-out image. Someone stood ahead. She could make out their outline but not their features. They faded in and out like a static picture struggling to tune in.

  "Hello," she said.

  Her fingers curled around the owl in her pocket. Its wings vibrated. Behind her, metal screeched. She spun on her heels. Pinpricks of light pushed through tin. Someone had replaced the shutter over the doorway, locking her in the cinema. Despite the reduced daylight, the inside of the cinema lightened albeit with a grey cast. Double doors, which hung off their hinges, led into the auditorium where the dead tore at rotten curtains, hurled broken cinema seats at the screen and hung from the crumbling balcony pulling at the frescos. The Overseer appeared on stage gathering the dead to him. He appeared a dark blot against the torn screen. None of these dead mattered for the figure standing against the wall, black stains fanning either side of him to form wings, was Glynn. He looked at her. She couldn't look away from him. The building could crumble about her and she wouldn't willingly move.

  Glynn stepped away from the wall and from the angel wing graffiti, which she'd mistaken for stains. The graffiti artist's tag cut down the spine-Glynn Cutler. As he moved away from the wall, she moved towards it. Instead of chasing him, she chased his art, tracing her fingers along each feather, along his name, along its/his spine. Had he drawn the wings before or after death? She hoped after. That way it confirmed something of her Glynn remained.

  . The Overseer's arm stretched out, fingers pointing towards Katy. The dead turned to her, Glynn amongst them. Their features erased. Grey canvases waiting for an artist to determine their degree of beauty. If they shuffled, she'd lose Glynn amongst the faceless dead. She shouldn't have followed them in.

  "No you shouldn't," Yarker said.

  Katy startled. She tried to empty her mind but the more she tried the more thought turned over. He couldn't have read her mind. Of course, none of this should be possible. Only rational explanation-she'd lost her mind. If so, let her mind weave this into a pleasanter tale.

  Yarker grinned and said, "Now I may not let you leave."

  Peter, the boy who walked with the dead, stepped from the crowd. He still wore his face unlike the featureless dead. Peter looked almost as grey as them but in a sick rather than a ghostly fashion. The only colour to his pallor was a scratch running down his cheek, burning red against dirt.

  "Peter, would you do anything to get your Isobel back?" Yarker asked.

  Peter began to nod and then hesitated. "That would depend."

  "Oh, don't worry. I'm not threatening your life, I am threatening dear Katy's."

  Katy stepped bac
k. The uneven floor caused her to lose her balance and she turned her ankle. She bit against the pain. She wouldn't run. Heck, she probably couldn't run now. Katy steadied herself against a pillar, paint peeling beneath the sweat of her palm. She'd never been good at running.

  "I'm not afraid of you. You're ghosts. You're forgotten things and far easier to bury than… me." This was probably not true.

  "That would be your cue to run," Yarker said.

  "I won't hurt you," Peter said. "At least, I'll try not to."

  Yarker clapped and jumped from the stage. "He'll try. Such a trooper. He'll try not to snap your neck or smash your skull against the wall. He'll probably fail but at least you'll know he tried not to murder you. Or… I could have Glynn do it instead. Sometimes it's harder to see the face you love just before you die, especially when it's snarling and rabid. How awful to be murdered by the man you trusted most of all."

  "Glynn would never hurt me."

  "You should never have faith in anyone but yourself. It's a lesson I learned while dangling from an open window."

  For all his monstrous words, this man once feared death. These were all people who had lived and loved and if she could find their living perhaps they would find peace. The blank visages of the dead shivered until their features returned. Glynn smirked.

  She stepped back, watching her footing. Falling over could murder her. She backed towards the tin door, hoped someone hadn't nailed it down or other ghosts didn't press against it. The dead clustered and moved into the foyer with Yarker at the head.

  "I won't hurt you," Peter repeated, but he didn't seem so sure.

  She would do dreadful things to win Glynn back. She must not contemplate the rewards either.

  "My, my, my," Yarker said, again as if he'd read her thoughts. "Perhaps we could reverse things and you could strangle Peter. I've been waiting weeks for him to lie in front of a car or jump from somewhere high and go splat. People so very rarely go splat these days."

  The gap between Katy and the dead lengthened. The door had to be close. She kept on retreating until her back hit the wall and light pushed through tin to her left.

  "No, don't escape," Yarker said, standing on tiptoes and leaning forward as though stretching to grab her wrist, but in reality making no effort at all. "We want you to stay. Glynn wants you to stay."

  Katy turned and pushed at tin. The sound of the factory clock's whistle blew through the door and echoed around the ruined cinema. With a thump, she pushed the tin shutter forward and fell with it into the street. Metal cut into her knee. The world blurred behind tears, breath hitched in her throat. She couldn't stay here, nor could she go home. Knowing Glynn existed in the world, she'd not settle to grieving, to moving on with her life. Whatever the consequences, she wouldn't let him go. If she could hold onto him in daylight, perhaps she could steal him home, perhaps the dead only held sway over him in the dark, in this grey light. Behind her, the dead began to file from the cinema.

  TWELVE

  "Grief tastes like salty butter," Yarker said. "Go bite the girl and let me know if that's true. The dead have no taste buds. "

  When Peter didn't answer, Yarker added, "Do I have to put on every goddamn show?"

  THIRTEEN

  Katy sat between worlds. Perched on a cinema chair on Boaler Street, Katy watched the dead file from the cinema while the living drove by-all spectres. If she moved, she would fall into one world or the other. She wasn't certain which she wanted more. Yellow foam (seat stuffing) drifted about her ankles, the only real thing in this insubstantial world. Yarker, Peter and Glynn were last to exit the cinema.

  If she had a smart phone she'd Google 'Yarker Ryland' to see if there were any articles about his death. Perhaps he would prove as mad in life as in death. Of course, if he proved real that meant Glynn wasn't a figment of her imagination. She would need someone else to verify the Google hits. Imagination was tricky like that.

  Peter approached with his hand outstretched. If she took it, would she fade against the backdrop of the cinema? Would she become a ghost? She looked over Peter's shoulder at Glynn. Glynn stared at her. She couldn't read the intent in his smile. He appeared a stranger. She stood and took Peter's hand.

  He felt warm.

  He felt alive.

  They joined the rank and file of the dead. So she'd made a choice. Glynn moved ahead of them, leading the pack along with Yarker. Her knee smarted where she'd scraped it against tin. As they passed The Flats, the shopping trolley continued its roll back and forth, but now Katy saw that a girl balancing a toddler on her hip pushed said trolley. Ghosts.

  "You're not dead either," Katy said to Peter, both of them watching the ghost girl and her child.

  Amongst the dead, Katy and Peter shivered by The Flats and the children's playground, reaching West Derby Road in what seemed only a couple of steps. Walking amongst the dead gave her giant steps, an ease to her stride, each footstep also left her feeling further from home. The usual busy intersection at West Derby Road was deserted. Yarker stood on the grass verge between lanes. He held out his arms, turned to the group and gave a sweeping bow. Colours warped-greens, blues and browns streaking as though the world was a watercolour painting and it had just begun to rain. The ground shifted. Katy's grip tightened within Peter's.

  When the world had ceased its blur, Katy found they'd transferred to some place other. They queued outside the office building on The Strand. Her limbs shook, wasted, as though she'd raced the distance between home and town.

  "How did we get here?" Katy asked.

  "They brought us with them."

  Of course they had. Amos sat to the right of the doorway. He didn't look at her and perhaps he couldn't see her amongst the dead. She examined her hand, relieved to find it wasn't grey. He pecked through the contents of the box-a pink cocktail umbrella, blocks and a cigarette case. The owl flapped in Katy's pocket, its metallic wings buzzing. Katy wanted to fly too; instead, she shuffled by Amos and his box of things and entered the building along with the dead. She didn't even have time to ask Amos his purpose in this. It took a moment for the dark to fade to grey; she found she saw well enough in it now.

  Peter stood before the reception desk. "We were to be married."

  He scratched at a tattoo inked on the inside of his wrist. Within the office, the dead wore grins the copy of Yarker's tight-lipped smile. They leaned forward in synch, losing themselves in the grainy city images that darted across their screens.

  "You shouldn't have followed us," Peter said, perhaps forgetting he had taken her hand and led her with them. "Although your return was inevitable. No one escapes them."

  "What are they?"

  Peter frowned.

  "I mean, are they our dead or some malevolent facsimile?"

  Mostly, Katy wanted to know why Glynn didn't recognise her. Perhaps he thought to drive her away, to save her. Peter shrugged.

  "Does it matter?" he asked.

  "Of course it matters. I have Glynn back or am this"-she pinched her fingers together-"close to having him back. How can you be so passive?"

  Peter snorted. "Give it time."

  He held out his arm to show the inside of his wrist. The skin was puckered, looking sore, around a rectangular tattoo that read 'Property of the Bureau of Them, Us and You.'

  "I don't get to escape them now. Why fight when there's no battle you can win?

  "They gave you that tattoo?"

  He nodded.

  "It doesn't look permanent. More something you could wash off. That doesn't tie you to them."

  Ridiculous idea.

  "Doesn't it? They're desperate to destroy the world brick by brick. When we're out, when I'm with them, their rage fills me. I'd pull the world apart if I could. Isobel is my anchor; the only thing keeping me alive."

  "How did you find her?"

  "How you found him."

  Isobel watched them from behind the reception desk. Plastic limbs forced into a sitting position, head and back bowed beneath the wei
ght of her bouffant. In recreating Peter's dead, they'd done a poor job. In the office, Yarker slid between aisles.

  "You say I'm passive, but at least I ran. Yarker dragged me from the train station, pulled me through abandoned tunnels and this"-Peter again showed his tattoo-"ensures I never escape. They find ways to bind us to them. Beyond those we love that is." He looked at Isobel. "Loved."

  Katy shuddered.

  Peter slammed his fist against the reception desk. Leaning across the desk, he grabbed Isobel's face. "Why don't you see me, Izzy? I saw you even when you weren't there."

  Katy could echo that sentiment. Yarker stood in the doorway, drawn by Peter's outburst.

  "They found her in the hotel bathtub," Peter said, wiping snot from beneath his nose. "She slipped; hit her head on the rim. She drowned the morning of our wedding in a hotel just up the road. Sometimes I think this can't be Isobel because when I found her in that tub, the back of her head had caved in. This girl… this girl is almost perfect."

  Peter tore the veil from Katy's pocket. Before she could steal it back, he placed it over Isobel's face.

  "I never got to see her in her wedding dress."

  "I did," Yarker said, winking. "I'd have topped myself too if I looked like she did."

  "She didn't kill herself."

  Katy looked into the office. All the dead, with the exception of Glynn, concentrated on their screens. Glynn looked across at Katy. Did he recognise her? Yarker shivered up to her, pushing between Katy and Peter.