All The Lonely People

by David Owen

  Kat swallowed hard, remembering she hardly knew this girl or what she was capable of. ‘What are you going to do?’

  ‘Something petty yet satisfying, of course.’

  She snatched up a thick set of keys from the desk and threw them to the floor beside Miss Jalloh’s chair. The teacher eyed them accusingly before she bent to retrieve them, coming back up just in time to watch her pen roll off the desk where Safa had batted it like an impish cat.

  ‘This whole damn place is haunted,’ Miss Jalloh murmured darkly, bowing to pick it up.

  That gave Safa the opportunity to scoop the paperwork from the desk, causing Miss Jalloh to cry out in alarm when she resurfaced and found it missing.

  Kat couldn’t help but smile. ‘You weren’t joking when you said petty.’

  ‘Now you know never to cross me,’ said Safa, riffling through the papers.

  ‘We could take her glasses.’ The way the teacher haughtily looked over them had always rubbed Kat the wrong way.

  ‘That’s the spirit! But actually, we can’t.’

  ‘Not petty enough?’

  ‘Oh, it’s totally petty,’ said Safa, then nodded her chin towards Miss Jalloh. ‘See if you can touch her.’

  Emboldened by watching Safa, Kat moved around the desk until she was beside the teacher. The glasses were loose on her nose, but secured by a metallic chain that hung behind her neck. Kat reached for it as gently as she could.

  Before her fingers could touch Miss Jalloh’s skin, there was a spark. A sharp burst of energy that made her hand bounce away. The teacher slapped her neck, like a mosquito had bitten her.

  Safa grinned at Kat’s outraged surprise. ‘Hate to say I told you so.’

  ‘What the hell was that?’ Kat rubbed her tingling fingers.

  ‘A symptom of the fade. There’s a sort of force field around us now. Means we can’t touch anybody who isn’t fading. So nobody, basically.’

  Years of being held at arm’s length from other people should have prepared her for this. Seeing it become real was different. It left no possibility to ever break that barrier down.

  ‘Don’t sweat it, we can still have fun.’ Safa threw the papers she was holding into the air, lifted her arms as they fluttered to the carpet. Miss Jalloh immediately went after them. There was inarguable satisfaction in messing with the teacher who prided herself on being all-seeing, but it lacked the gratification of a fair fight.

  ‘Now for the coup de grâce,’ said Safa, pronouncing it as literally as possible. She moved around the desk and behind the unattended computer, rapidly clicking the mouse. Kat joined her, but she didn’t recognise the program onscreen.

  ‘I saw her checking it once,’ said Safa. ‘It controls the bell. There’s ten minutes left of final period, right?’

  ‘You can’t mess with the bell, you’ll give her an aneurysm.’

  Safa clicked. The electronic pips started up. ‘Too late.’

  Miss Jalloh shot upright and cried out as if the world was ending, before rushing out into the hallway. They followed, and doubled over with laughter as the teacher went haring towards the main office.

  The end of the day always saw classroom doors thrown open immediately, the first wave of kids racing for the exits like rats from a fire, and the early reprieve only made them move faster. Miss Jalloh’s voice came over the loudspeakers, ordering everybody back to their rooms, but nobody was paying attention now.

  Despite everything Kat had learned about the fade, or maybe because of it, the rapidly filling corridor made the panic inside her rattle the bars of its cage.

  ‘Hey,’ said Safa, seeing the expression on her face and taking both her hands. ‘You know the words to “Mr Pretzel’s Patriotic Pastry”?’

  It was a song from the musical episode of Doctor Backwash, a rousing march renowned for its earworm chorus. Kat nodded as the crowd began to flow past them.

  Safa met her eyes and smiled. ‘Sing it with me.’

  ‘Wha—?’

  ‘The US Army loves his pretzels,’ Safa sang at the top of her voice.

  ‘The working man he loves his pretzels,’ Kat responded without quite the same gusto.

  ‘The Illuminati loves his pretzels.’

  They finished the verse together. ‘Now bow down and eat, eat, eat!’

  The corridor was packed, a murmuration of people opening and closing around their invisible force. Kat’s confidence was growing, and as they reached the chorus they sang it together as loudly as they could.

  ‘Mr Pretzel, he makes lots of nice pretzels,

  ‘Mr Pretzel, they’re delicious, yum, yum, yum.

  ‘Mr Pretzel, surrender to his pretzels,

  ‘Mr Pretzel, you’ll soon be under his thumb.’

  By the time the song was finished (neither quite feeling bold enough to a cappella the keyboard solo) the corridor was emptying out. They stood at its centre, clasping each other’s hands between them.

  ‘You didn’t tell me you were a Backwash fan,’ said Kat breathlessly.

  Safa shrugged like a movie mobster, lip curled and shoulders rising to her ears. ‘That song always helps me stay calm when I’m having a little panic.’

  More than that, it had been the first time since the fade took hold that Kat hadn’t been terrified of it, a perfect moment that couldn’t have happened without it.

  ‘Okay,’ said Safa, finally pulling her hands away. ‘So when I invited you to the Lonely People meeting today I kind of forgot they might not be able to see us any more. But we should totally go. There’s still loads you don’t know.’

  Kat nodded. Right then she probably would have followed Safa anywhere.

  8

  The Lonely People

  (Are Getting Lonelier)

  It was easy enough for Wesley to hang back in the classroom and wait for everybody else to leave before he made for the stairs that would take him into the bowels of the building. The door to the drama rehearsal room was ajar, and no sound came from inside. Wesley hesitated, unable to shake the feeling that he was an intruder about to stumble onto some secret world where he didn’t belong, and then pushed the door open.

  It was little more than a cellar, windowless and painted black, a rack of mostly burnt-out lights screwed into the ceiling. A half-moon of plastic chairs faced the door, occupied by three kids spaced apart from each other as if they were strangers. They watched him wide-eyed as if this was some kind of raid.

  ‘Hey,’ said Wesley. ‘Is this the, uh, Lonely People?’

  He felt so stupid using that name – it was like calling a group the Lone Wolves. Still, it seemed to make them all relax a little.

  ‘That’s us,’ said a frizzy-haired younger girl Wesley didn’t know.

  Two seats to her right was a Korean boy he recognised from the year below, wearing a black beanie hat with his school uniform, rashes of spots across his cheeks. To her left was a smaller boy, maybe year seven or eight, wearing an oversized blazer, milk-white skin now flushing red as he scowled at the floor.

  Wesley wondered if he should have stayed outside, tried to catch Kat before she made it into the room. Too late now. ‘I saw an email about your meeting . . .’

  ‘A new member,’ said the smaller boy. ‘Nice of Safa to let us know.’

  ‘Who’s Safa?’ Wesley said to the girl.

  She narrowed her eyes at that. ‘I’m Aoife.’

  The boy in the hat introduced himself as Jae, while the other refused to even look at him.

  ‘He’s Robbie,’ said Aoife, earning herself a scowl. ‘Safa’s sort of our leader, I guess.’

  ‘Leader in what?’

  Robbie glared at him like it was a stupid question. ‘In trying to achieve the fade.’ Then he turned to the others. ‘We should get started.’

  ‘Do we have to, if Safa’s not here?’ said Jae.

  Aoife glanced self-consciously at Wesley. ‘And with him here.’

  ‘If Safa has succeeded it shows we’re doing something right!’ Robbie wav
ed them to their feet, and then flashed challenging eyes at Wesley. ‘You’re here to learn, aren’t you?

  Wesley nodded, while making sure nothing was blocking his way to the door if they tried anything weird.

  ‘Stay there and watch.’

  They each moved into a separate corner of the room and pressed their faces to the wall, let their arms hang limp at their sides. ‘Repeat after me,’ said Robbie, voice shaking. Undoubtedly he was taking up the absent Safa’s usual role. ‘We do not belong.’

  From their separate corners, the others echoed, ‘We do not belong.’

  ‘We are not safe as we are.’

  ‘We are not safe.’

  Robbie was growing in confidence now, his voice bounding around the room. ‘We will walk in somebody else’s skin.’

  ‘We will walk in somebody else’s skin.’

  ‘We must escape ourselves.’

  ‘We must escape.’

  They chanted this line together three times over. Wesley had to fight his own urge to escape. They had crossed the line from weirdness into cult-like fervour.

  Robbie’s voice reached a crescendo. ‘We are nothing!’

  ‘WE ARE NOTHING.’

  There was a long silence, the atmosphere in the room growing thick, before they each turned away from the wall and took a breath.

  ‘Very good,’ said Aoife, smiling shyly. ‘Now we can have some snacks.’

  Kat had arrived in time to see the end of the ritual, and if Safa hadn’t been blocking the doorway she probably would have turned straight around and left.

  ‘The prayer was my idea,’ said Safa. ‘I thought it might get them in the right mindset.’

  ‘The mindset of deranged cultists?’

  ‘Would cultists put on such a marvellous spread?’

  The members of the Lonely People pulled half-packets of biscuits and flattened bags of crisps from their pockets. Jae even contributed some cold chicken nuggets.

  ‘They’ve been in my bag all day but they’re probably fine,’ he said.

  Occupying a seat at the centre of the feast was Wesley, and it had to be more than the prospect of food poisoning that made him so pale.

  ‘What’s he doing here?’ said Kat.

  Safa shrugged. ‘I didn’t invite him.’

  Yesterday, when he had come looking for her in the toilets, he had taken her laptop. He could only know about this meeting if he had read her email. When the whole school – when everybody – had forgotten her existence, he was suddenly interested when he had never been before. Something wasn’t right, and it was more than the invasion of her privacy.

  ‘I thought if anybody might be able to see us it would be these guys,’ said Safa, waving her arms in front of the group as they tucked in to the snacks. ‘But I guess not.’

  ‘They don’t seem to miss you.’

  ‘Yeah, I taught them well.’ Safa pinched a Bourbon biscuit and shoved the whole thing into her mouth, spraying crumbs when she spoke again. ‘In hindsight it’s a bit counter-intuitive to run a support group to help people disappear.’

  Kat moved to stand right in front of them, but the group just kept eating and talking about nothing in particular. Watching Wesley closely, she could see him growing tense with frustration, hands curling into fists pressed on top of his bouncing knees.

  Safa began jumping up and down on the spot. ‘If I could just show them it’s actually possible, it might be the push they need. Then we could have a whole crew of faders.’

  ‘Do you think Safa has actually done it?’ said Aoife, lowering her voice as if spilling the latest scandalous gossip.

  ‘MY DUDES, I HAVE DEFINITELY ACTUALLY DONE IT.’

  ‘She was always the most serious about it,’ said Jae.

  Robbie scowled at him. ‘I’m serious about it.’

  ‘You know what I mean though.’

  ‘At least they haven’t forgotten me yet.’ Safa gave up her jumping and grinned at Kat. ‘I’m a role model to these kids, like an athlete, or a YouTuber.’

  ‘What has she done?’ said Wesley, finally losing patience. ‘You said you want to achieve the fade – what does that mean?’

  They all looked to each other before fixing their eyes on him. It was Aoife who spoke. ‘Do you remember Aaron Musley?’

  Wesley shook his head.

  Reluctantly, as if she was revealing a government secret, Aoife said, ‘He was in the year above you, tall with . . . short hair, I think? Even we have to make a real effort to remember him sometimes.’

  There had never been anybody in the year above called Aaron, she was sure of it. Kat may not have been friends with anybody at school, but she paid enough attention to know most people from a distance. The look on his face suggested Wesley was drawing a similar blank.

  ‘Aaron used to be one of us, sort of our leader for a while,’ said Aoife. ‘He believed in the fade so much, but he couldn’t make it happen. Until one day he just stopped showing up to school, and he never came to a meeting again.’

  ‘So he might have just run away?’ said Wesley.

  Dread was walking its fingers across Kat’s chest, like she was listening to a horror story over a campfire. Aoife seemed exhausted by what she’d said, and Robbie was busy blowing up an empty crisp packet with his mouth, so Jae took over.

  ‘He was never declared missing, no police looking for him or anything. Almost nobody at school remembers him unless we really work hard to jog their memory, and even then they don’t think there’s anything strange about it. He’s just gone, and everybody accepts it. We even went to his house once, just to see . . .’

  Wesley was leaning forward in his chair. ‘And?’

  Smashing it between his hands, Robbie burst the crisp packet, making all of them jump. ‘His family didn’t care. We saw them just going about their day like Aaron never existed.’

  Kat kept her eyes fixed on Wesley’s face. Any normal person would refuse to believe them, call them freaks and storm off. Instead she saw his jaw squeeze, the colour drain from his skin. He believed every word of it was true.

  Somehow, he was tied up in everything that had happened. She just needed to work out how.

  It was his fault.

  Wesley really had seen through her after she’d deleted her website and rushed from the room. He hadn’t seen her since, despite finding her bag on the toilet floor. A shiver went down his spine; had she been there the whole time? It wasn’t possible – it couldn’t be.

  ‘Why do you remember Aaron if nobody else does?’

  ‘We think it’s because we knew what he was trying to do. We were too involved to forget him completely,’ said Aoife. ‘But we don’t remember him as well as we should. He’s slipping away from us too.’

  ‘And how long does it take to fade completely?’

  Aoife looked to the others for support. ‘We don’t know for sure. Maybe around a week? Anyway, it’s not like he’s completely gone.’

  ‘You just said—’

  ‘You think we’d all be here if it was as simple as disappearing?’ said Robbie. ‘If that was the case we could just kill ourselves.’

  Aoife put a hand on his leg to calm him down, but Robbie pushed it away

  ‘Before the end of the fade, it allows you to hitch a ride on somebody else’s life,’ she said. ‘Just before you disappear completely you can sort of transfer yourself to another person and become a part of them.’

  ‘You mean take over their body?’

  Aoife shook her head, struggling for the right words. ‘What would be the point of just being yourself in another body? No, the host would still be in control. We don’t even know if they’d be aware you’re inside. We call them a Cradle, and you’re hidden inside them like a passenger. It means you can experience everything they do – every emotion, every life moment – almost as if you were them. But you wouldn’t be responsible for making any of it happen.’

  Wesley’s mind seemed to reject the idea outright, a headache flaring up almost insta
ntly. It was wrong. Nobody could escape who they were, nobody could be forgotten just like that. He hadn’t forgotten Kat, and he promised he wouldn’t.

  Maybe that would give him the power to bring her back.

  ‘This can’t be real,’ said Kat, turning away from the group and pressing her fingers into her temples. If they had punctured her skin and sunk through her skull she wouldn’t have been surprised.

  ‘Twenty-four hours ago you would have thought this whole thing was a Backwash plotline,’ said Safa. ‘Imagine not having to be yourself any more. I haven’t been trying to make this happen for so long just so I can disappear – I want a second chance. I want to be somebody who fits.’

  ‘But becoming somebody else? That’s . . .’ Kat didn’t know what it was, only that it frightened her to her core. Not just because the idea was so alien. No . . . some part of her yearned for it to be true. ‘You can’t just give up on yourself.’

  ‘Why not? Imagine the pleasure of experiencing everything like somebody who actually knows how to get along in the world. A normal person.’

  ‘Why can’t you?’

  Safa tilted her head disparagingly. ‘Come on. Tell me you haven’t tried that already.’

  She had, and for a while she’d thought she had found a way to belong. The last month – even the last few days – had shown her otherwise.

  ‘Even if you inhabit another person, it’s not like they’ll be happy all the time.’

  ‘Obviously I’ve chosen carefully—’

  ‘You’ve already picked somebody?’

  Safa waved her away. ‘Even when they’re not happy, none of it will be your fault. You still get to feel it all, but you won’t hate yourself for it.’ Her lip curled into a cynical smile. ‘Don’t think of it like dying – it’s more like finding a way to live.’

  The dark walls of the room seemed to be closing in on Kat, edging tighter every time she blinked. It would be so much easier to become somebody else already adept at living. To shrug off the loneliness and doubt and assume a ready-made identity already accepted by the world. But it would also be acceptance that she herself was broken beyond repair.

  ‘You’ve been trying to fade for so long,’ said Kat, turning on Safa. ‘What happened to you to finally trigger it?’