All The Lonely People

by David Owen

  When he entered the room Dave stopped pacing, but hardly looked at him.

  ‘What’s going on?’ So little sleep made it easy to affect grogginess, as if finding them like this was a surprise.

  ‘Some people will take advantage of anything you offer them,’ said Dave.

  ‘A car was stolen from the dealership last night,’ said Mum calmly. She was sitting in the armchair, half-dressed and pale.

  The best thing Wesley could do was say as little as possible, until he worked out exactly what they knew. ‘Somebody broke in?’

  Dave turned on him and smiled mirthlessly. ‘Oh, he tried to make it look that way. I went in early to finish that paperwork and found the window broken. He tried to make it look random, like I wouldn’t know he nicked my keys!’

  It felt like walking a tightrope, trying not to fall. Wesley arranged his face into as neutral an expression as he could, realising far too late who was missing from the room. ‘Who?’

  Mum exhaled. ‘It looks like Jordan did it.’

  Wesley swallowed, heart beating in his throat. ‘How do you know?’

  ‘As if that cack-handed attempt to disguise it wasn’t enough, he put the keys back in the wrong pocket!’ Dave lifted them out of his left jacket pocket. ‘I always keep them in the right.’

  The keys clattered together as he returned them to their correct place. Wesley dropped onto the sofa before his legs gave out. How could he have made such a stupid mistake? One lapse in concentration could have brought the whole thing down on his head.

  ‘His car’s still here too,’ said Dave, pointing out of the window, before finally looking meaningfully at Wesley. ‘He took the BMW.’

  The hurt on his face made Wesley want to cry. He almost confessed, before he saw Jordan’s bag still pushed into the corner and his clothes still drying on the radiator. He must have known he would take the fall. Wesley needed to speak to him as quickly as possible.

  ‘I can work it off,’ he blurted, looking between them.

  ‘No, you can’t,’ said Dave, and it was unclear if he meant because it was impossible or because Wesley would never be trusted to work there again.

  ‘Just don’t call the police,’ he said. ‘Please.’

  Dave ran a hand along his jaw, and then looked at Mum. ‘I should – but I won’t.’

  Wesley sagged with relief. Until just a few hours before, ousting Jordan would have been the icing on the cake. Wesley knew better now. He hadn’t fixed his family; he had only broken it further apart.

  Kat had fallen asleep, propped against the wall, and only woke when the door shut behind somebody heading inside. She had missed a chance. There were raised voices inside now, some drama that would surely lead to another opening. This time she would be ready.

  Nothing ached. No cold had found its way into her bones. Her body felt weightless, precarious, held together with little more than hope. She reached for her phone to take a final selfie, but couldn’t grip it. There was no way to get in touch with Safa to find out if she was still there.

  She looked at her hands. She had become Kat in draft form, a barebones briefing, the suggestion of a girl.

  Too much had been taken from her. There was no way she could save Tinker alone. She needed to get inside.

  As soon as he could get away, Wesley sent Evie to the kitchen for breakfast and grabbed his phone to send a message to Jordan. He couldn’t think what to say, so simply told him everything that had happened in the hours since they’d got home.

  The reply came almost instantly. Don’t tell them anything.

  But they’re blaming you, Wesley wrote back, as if his brother somehow wasn’t getting it.

  They already think I’m the bad one, Jordan replied. Let them.

  Beyond his room he heard Mum and Dave’s last whispered argument, and then the door opening as Dave left. He froze, waiting to see if Mum would come to question him. Every guilty beat of his heart seemed like a thunderclap that would betray him to the world. Instead he heard the familiar sound of morning cartoons coming on, cereal being poured.

  Wesley waited, his phone promising that Jordan was typing, pausing, typing again. Minutes passed before it arrived, but in the end it was only a few words long.

  Let me know when the coast is clear and I’ll pick up my stuff.

  The door creaked ajar, but nobody came through. Wesley rubbed his thumb across the screen, as if it might uncover all the words left unsaid, and then shoved the phone into his pocket.

  *

  Kat stood inside the bedroom door, watching Wesley watch his phone, apparently waiting for a message that didn’t come.

  Not even he would see her now. Wilful blindness had long since caved into genuine obliviousness. While before it had made her feel safe, now it would only make more difficult what she needed to do.

  ‘Wesley,’ she said.

  He put down his phone and leaned his head back against the wall, hearing nothing.

  ‘Wesley!’

  It was stupid to have hoped that out of anybody she might have been able to break through to him. She was still so angry with him, and always would be, but he hadn’t forgotten her. There had to be a way to turn it to her advantage, force him into genuine action to stop the attack instead of relying on her.

  ‘You remembered me enough to invade my room!’ she said, trying to slam the door, finding that even with all her weight she couldn’t push it hard enough to reach the frame. His laptop was closed, and she couldn’t get enough purchase to claw it open, let alone try typing him a message.

  ‘I can’t stop them by myself!’ she shouted, standing as close to him as she dared, hoping the words might somehow sink into his subconscious. ‘You’re the only other person who can help!’

  In front of her, Wesley took a deep breath and stood. They were face to face now. There was one more thing to try. A last resort. The substance of his body plucked at what remained of hers, urging her inside. The idea disgusted her, but if she couldn’t get his attention from out here, she would have to try another way.

  A single touch was all it took. She shrugged him on without a fight.

  31

  Kat’s Cradle

  A shudder wracked Wesley’s body as he moved towards the door. Somebody walking over his grave. Probably guilt trying to hold him back, knowing the truth might spill out when he faced Mum. She was in the kitchen, packing a bag for Evie and lunch for herself.

  ‘Can you take her to nursery today?’ said Mum. ‘I’m running late after all this.’

  ‘Sure.’ He was going to meet the Lonely People – his friends – to go and confront Aaron’s little brother, but he could take her on the way.

  ‘And can you come straight home, just in case Jordan comes back?’

  It was unclear if she wanted the chance to talk him into staying, or if she was scared he would loot the place in their absence.

  ‘I’m sorry, about your brother,’ Mum said, zipping up the Frozen rucksack. ‘I thought he’d . . .’ She trailed off into a sad smile.

  The guilt seemed to nag at the back of Wesley’s brain, like voices on a radio turned too low. He felt open, his defences lowered. If he explained everything, maybe she would understand.

  Except she was already gone, kissing him and Evie on the head on her way to the door.

  The wind buffeted Kat, threatening to tear her fingers from the grimy, algae slick metal. The ocean, hulking grey and whipped white swelled on all sides, spray stinging her face. There was no sign of land, only the buoy to which she clung, swaying wildly in the onslaught.

  The other part of her went with Wesley back into his bedroom, so calm on the surface, so different to the landscape she had discovered inside.

  Below her, wedged onto a flat platform just above the seething water, she saw the same black box she had discovered sealed inside everybody else.

  It was wide open.

  A torrent of fear, loneliness and guilt poured from it, a storm that darkened the sky and riled the ocean.
Every negative feeling that had been missing from her previous hosts took precedence here, swirling unchecked through Wesley’s being.

  No, it had all been inside those other people too. It had merely been suppressed. Kat had felt the same doubt and self-consciousness leaking from the boxes, pushed away and ignored but always threatening to escape. Those people, who seemed so confident, so normal, so capable of handling anything, felt all these things too. They just knew how to hide it. How to pretend.

  Here, it all threatened to drown him. The desolation was so strong Kat wanted to bail out. It was too familiar. If somebody inhabited her, stepped into her internal landscape, they might find exactly this.

  She understood him now, better than ever.

  ‘Wesley,’ she shouted into the wind, trying to project it into his brain. ‘You have to hear me.’

  Her other part watched him gather some of Evie’s toys into a Frozen rucksack, no sign at all that he’d heard her.

  ‘Help me! You’re the only person who can! There’s not enough of me left to stop them.’

  Through the storm, a light blinked on the impossibly distant, shifting horizon. Some fragment of him had heard, but she still wasn’t breaking through to his consciousness.

  Painstakingly, she climbed down the metal strut as it pitched side to side, until she reached the platform. The wind was growing stronger, and water sloshed around her feet, soaking her legs. She pushed her aching hands under the box and heaved it to the edge. Empty, it was surprisingly light, yet sank under the water with hardly a splash.

  It wouldn’t change anything here. The wind was battering her now, trying to throw her into the waves. Where the box had been was an area of metal encrusted with hard, pale scum. She used her nails to scrape letters into it, a message she could leave behind inside him that might make him remember.

  Kat was here.

  As she carved the final letter, a sharp gust of wind swept her off her feet. She screamed as the grey water loomed, but by the time she landed it had become Wesley’s bedroom carpet.

  Another involuntary shudder made Wesley drop his shoes. He turned, expecting to find somebody behind him – he could have sworn he’d heard somebody shout his name.

  ‘You all right in there, Eves?’ he called through to the front room.

  ‘Cartoons,’ she called back through a mouthful of cereal, half of which would no doubt now be down her front.

  The times he had been in Kat’s bedroom felt like this – as if he was forgetting something right in front of his eyes, unable to find the solution to a puzzle that should be plain.

  It was only his imagination, making up the world in a way he wanted to see. Nothing more.

  Kat paced in front of Wesley while he sniffed some socks to determine their cleanliness and began to put on his shoes.

  ‘Why won’t you hear me?’ she said.

  He couldn’t. He wouldn’t. Wesley shoved his feet into his trainers without untying the laces and checked his phone again.

  ‘You wanted to make a mark on the world at any cost, so you clung to the only community that would have you. Maybe you wouldn’t make real friends, but it was better than nothing, right?’ Kat said, anger overwhelming her. ‘Except it was all false. It’s nothing like real belonging. No community based on hatred or intolerance can offer that.’

  There were no messages, and Wesley stood, zipping up the rucksack.

  ‘You can’t leave it up to me to stop them! It isn’t fair. You have to take responsibility for what you’ve done.’ She moved as close to him as she could stomach. ‘If you don’t hear me now, it’s all over.’

  He walked past her, and out of the room.

  Wesley waited for his little sister to slurp the last of the sugary milk from the bottom of the bowl, and then he helped her with her shoes.

  ‘You like going to nursery, right?’

  She looked at him as if it was the stupidest question she had ever heard. ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’m just checking!’ He pushed the last Velcro strap closed. ‘I don’t want you to think we’re getting rid of you because you’re a nuisance.’

  ‘You’re a nuisance.’

  ‘Well you smell like a butt.’

  Evie cackled, and let him put the rucksack on her back. He opened the front door, let her skip out onto the walkway, and closed it behind them.

  Kat lay on the floor between the beds, wondering if she could stay there until it happened. Melt into the carpet like a stain. Maybe then Wesley would see her outline and remember everything that had happened.

  No, she couldn’t give up. She still had to find a way to stop the attack. There had to be a way to make him see.

  There were paints on the table at the end of his sister’s bed. What if it wasn’t her he needed to see? Maybe the only way to make Wesley remember her, to make him take responsibility, was to introduce him to himself.

  The paints were simple but plentiful, deployed mainly for the finger drawings that were scattered across the table surface and pinned to the wall, but they would do the job. Kat delved her hands into the colours, and although they dripped through her flesh and skin, enough clung on that she could make it work. Kat turned to the blank canvas of wall beside the bedroom door and began to paint.

  32

  The Girl Cut Out of the World

  After dropping Evie at nursery, Wesley made his way towards school where he had arranged to meet the others. More than anything he wanted to return home, tiredness weighing heavy, practically demanding he turn around.

  He checked the time. Only a few hours until the attack. If he went home he wouldn’t be able to think of anything else.

  It was a school day, so they had arranged to meet on the corner where they could intercept Joseph on his way there. Robbie was already waiting, inconspicuous in uniform as other students filed past.

  ‘It’s always a relief when I see any of you,’ said Wesley, leaning beside him on a garden wall. ‘I keep thinking one of you will disappear too and start this all over again.’

  ‘What if you didn’t even notice? There might have been more of us but we’ve already forgotten them for good.’

  Wesley shook his head. It was too awful to think about.

  ‘I never wanted to look for Aaron,’ said Robbie. ‘I thought finding the truth would scare us out of the idea. And I was right.’

  ‘Is that a bad thing?’

  Robbie hunched his shoulders, tucking his head down into the collar of his oversized school blazer. ‘Focusing on the fade meant I didn’t have to think about why I wanted it. That’s why I kept doing all those stupid prayers and stuff.’ He laughed. ‘I even started doing them at home by myself.’

  ‘What, all that make us lonely stuff?’

  ‘I always knew it was stupid, but it was better than talking about feeling so wrong that I actually wanted it to work.’

  They stood together in silence for a moment, watching the other students move past on their way to school, hurrying alone or dragging their feet in groups.

  ‘Do you still want it?’ asked Wesley.

  ‘Sometimes.’ Robbie swivelled his head to look up at him. ‘But I’m starting to see that maybe being me doesn’t have to be completely terrible.’

  ‘Hey!’

  They both turned to see Aoife and Jae hurrying towards them, glancing over their shoulders.

  ‘Joseph is right behind us.’

  Wesley lifted himself up from the wall. ‘Let’s find out how it ends.’

  Kat had no choice but to go ahead and try to stop the attack by herself. It was due to happen in a couple of hours, and she couldn’t wait around any longer for Wesley to come back. She couldn’t just do nothing.

  The people she had inhabited last night were waiting for her outside the flat. They didn’t frighten her any more; she was overwhelmingly grateful to see them. She walked between them as they talked to each other, glanced anxiously up at the flat or where she had just stood, and thanked each of them for remembering her. The boy wh
ose body she had borrowed for her first kiss was there, and she lingered beside him for a moment, resisting the pull that she thought might draw her inside for ever. She had sampled their lives, tried them on for size, if only for a moment. Every single one of them had been so tempting, was still so tempting. Except the world inside Wesley had shown her the truth. There was so much more beneath the surface than anybody could know.

  Kat no longer wished to be anybody but herself; she only wished she still had the power to save herself.

  It would take at least an hour to reach the convention centre. She ran, leaving the crowd behind, the lightness of her body making every step feel as if she was gliding. The morning was dull, a blanket of grey cloud seeming to mute the streets. The venue was beyond the other side of town. At least a lack of corporeal form seemed to mean she wouldn’t get out of breath.

  Still, as she skirted the town centre, a bus pulled up that she knew would take her close. While others tapped their cards, Kat jumped on through the middle doors and stayed close to the exit.

  A few passengers were heading to the convention. Cosplay was a dead giveaway. The local old ladies and grumpy middle-aged men side-eyed a man in full Dothraki costume, while near the front a little girl in a Pikachu onesie was chattering excitedly to a young woman dressed as a gender-swapped Goku from Dragon Ball Z.

  Kat loved nerds so much.

  The bus took a longer route, wending through a retail park before returning to the main road that all but passed the convention centre. Kat got off at the corner, carefully avoiding the cosplayers. Any contact might be enough to pull her inside, and her body might not survive any further dilution. She had to save it for Tinker.

  The centre was an unsightly grey building that stretched an entire block. WonderVerse Con flashed in pixellated letters from a scrolling sign, queues already formed at the doors. There were costumes everywhere, as well as geek-themed T-shirts and tote bags. How had she never had the confidence to attend something like this? Everybody was being utterly themselves, and it was celebrated. If she was going to fit in anywhere, surely it would be here.