All The Lonely People

by David Owen

  She stayed across the road to get clear of the crowds and walked the length of the street. There was no sign of any suspicious car. If their plan was to snatch Tinker as she made her way inside, they had to be close by.

  At the next corner was another bus stop, more colourful visitors spilling out onto the pavement and streaming across the main road. What looked like a back entrance was just opposite, but it was too busy for any car to stop. Kat looked further, across the junction to a row of shops and takeaway restaurants. There was a delivery track between them, and there, poking out as far as it could without conspicuously blocking the pavement, was the front of a silver BMW.

  They spread across the pavement to cut Joseph off before he could pretend not to see them and keep walking. He stopped in front of them and sighed.

  ‘All right, but not here.’

  Away from the school, back towards Wesley’s house, they followed him in silence.

  Finally, he said, ‘So you’ve figured it out.’

  ‘You should have just told us.’

  Joseph kept walking, but more slowly now, as if he needed the steps to keep his brain working. ‘How could I tell anybody? The whole thing is so strange, and there was no way I could know for sure. All I have is the feeling that he’s here.’

  The group gathered closer to him, almost tripping over each other’s feet, as if they might somehow sense Aaron there. Maybe they needed to see – really see – this thing they had all thought they desperately wanted.

  ‘Everyone else has forgotten him, or come as close to it as possible. But I can’t forget him.’ Joseph lifted a hand to his chest. ‘At first I did whatever I could to keep his memory alive, but whenever I made Mum remember she got so upset. It’s better if everybody else forgets. It’s not like he’s ever coming back. I just have to miss him by myself.’

  ‘We remember,’ said Aoife.

  ‘Soon you won’t, not now you don’t need him any more.’

  They were still walking, drawing closer to Wesley’s home, but the strange tugging on his body had shifted away from there, felt as if it was trying to lead him somewhere else. He did his best to ignore it.

  ‘Here,’ he said, handing back the family portrait he had taken from their house. ‘I’m sorry I took it.’

  Joseph looked at the photograph, rested his fingers against his brother’s smiling face.

  ‘Can you speak to him?’ Wesley asked.

  ‘It’s not like he’s inside my head pulling levers and pressing buttons to move me around,’ said Joseph. ‘I just know he’s there, resting, not really a part of the world any more. He regretted letting this happen to him, so he went for the person that was most like him. And all I’m doing is letting him down. I mean, I’m glad he’s not totally gone, but it’s not fair either. I couldn’t save him, and now I’m supposed to give him the kind of life he thought he was missing. I have to carry that burden because Aaron couldn’t.’

  Wesley thought of Kat, even now going alone to stop the attack. He had left her with that responsibility, but it was for her own sake. It was the only way to save her, to give her what Aaron couldn’t find.

  They stopped just short of the railway bridge that ran beside Wesley’s block of flats. ‘He appeared to me, at the end,’ said Joseph.

  Everybody gathered close. ‘He did?’

  ‘I think when he chose me, it meant I could see him. There was hardly anything left. He was . . . less than a ghost. Almost completely invisible. He tried to take my hand, but I just passed right through him. He didn’t even have physical form any more.’

  The tug on Wesley’s body grew stronger, as if somebody was calling him from afar. He thought of the message Aaron had left for Selena, written in messily spilled food instead of with the pens that were right beside it. If the fade gradually took away their physical form, it would mean they were no longer able to hold anything, able to assert any will on the world. That’s why he would have been unable to grip a pen, take his brother’s hand one last time.

  It would mean Kat would have no way to save Tinker.

  Although the sight of the car made the beast in her chest thrash weakly – perhaps it too was fading out – it also made her angry. Their plan was so basic. They were nobodies, pathetic little boys playing vigilante for an empty cause propagated by more pathetic little boys behind their keyboards.

  And it would work, if she couldn’t do something to stop it.

  Kat looked across the road again, and saw another car pulling up as close to the back entrance as it could manage. Tinker wouldn’t have any entourage or security – she was famous, but still just a young woman who lived with her mum.

  That oh-so-familiar pink hair emerged from the front passenger seat, and she waved goodbye to whoever had driven her before looking around for the right way to go. A couple of people spotted and immediately delayed her, asking for selfies.

  Across the junction, the BMW began to move.

  The gravity of it all left Kat’s feet rooted to the spot for a moment. There was nothing she could do to stop it. She was powerless.

  Passing Tinker and her small gathering of fans was a girl wearing a costume Kat recognised. A flowing white high-necked dress, almost like a Victorian nightie, worn with black biker boots, spiked gauntlets, and a perm that would make the ’90s blush. Esme from Doctor Backwash, the girl cut out of the world.

  Kat wouldn’t let it happen to her. One way or another she would fight for this life that used to be hers.

  The BMW joined the traffic heading towards the convention centre. There wasn’t any time to think – Kat leaped into the road and ran.

  The drivers couldn’t see her, wouldn’t do anything to avoid her. She gritted her teeth as she darted out of the path of one car, only to jump back as an overtaking moped almost mowed her down. Would it pass right through her if she was hit? It wasn’t the time to find out.

  Timing a gap between two cars coming the other way, she spotted the BMW cross the junction. It slowed down to draw up beside Tinker and the fans around her.

  ‘Look out!’ Kat screamed.

  Nobody heard her – nobody could fucking hear her – and she sprinted for Tinker as the BMW stopped, back doors throwing open.

  It happened in seconds. Two boys with their faces covered – Luke and Justin, it had to be – grabbed Tinker from behind and covered her mouth to keep her from screaming. Everybody around them stood frozen as she was dragged to the back door of the car.

  Only Kat moved, flinging herself headlong and landing inside the other girl’s body as the door slammed shut.

  33

  And My Axe!

  Wesley ran away from the others without saying a word, under the railway bridge and towards home. It hadn’t been tiredness calling him back; it had been Kat. She must have been at the flat, must have inhabited him, and she wouldn’t do that unless it was urgent.

  There was nobody outside the flats, only Jordan’s car still parked by the entrance. Wesley ran upstairs and found that the front door was already open.

  ‘Hello?’

  Inside, Jordan had packed all of his still-damp clothes into carrier bags. He was leaning over the coffee table, and jumped at the sound, relaxing when he saw who it was. In one hand he held a pen for the note he’d been writing, in the other a small stack of bank notes.

  ‘What’s that for?’ said Wesley.

  ‘It’s everything I saved when I was working in Australia. It won’t cover the BMW, but . . .’ He put the money neatly on the table. ‘At least I won’t leave you empty-handed this time.’

  ‘You can’t just go,’ said Wesley. ‘You wanted to come home.’

  ‘I did.’ Jordan signed off the note with an illegible squiggle. ‘But maybe this is the best thing I can do for you. To make up for everything.’

  For years, Wesley had wanted his brother to show him kindness. Now he was, Wesley wanted him to take it back.

  There wasn’t time for this. He pushed deeper into the flat. ‘Was anybody else here
?’

  ‘You mean Mum or Dave? No, I made sure.’

  Wesley rushed through to his bedroom. This was where he had felt light-headed. It had to have been where she had stepped inside his body. What had she been trying to tell him? He looked around the room but there was no sign, no telltale clue. It was only when he turned back towards the door that he saw it.

  The mural covered the entire wall beside the door, an ocean of blues and greys and blacks, whipped into a storm by hurried, impatient finger strokes. Rising from the water was a narrow frame, tapering to a point where the shadow of a person clung to it for dear life.

  Wesley recognised it . . . no, the painting recognised him.

  Underneath the mural, scrawled in block capitals, were two words that unlocked everything.

  SAVE YOURSELF.

  His knees threatened to buckle, and he caught himself to sit on the edge of the bed. All at once he saw how much had been hidden from him: Kat standing in the school toilet as he searched for her on that first day; Kat watching him sit on her bed, talking back to him, telling him truths he would never have been willing to admit; Kat screaming at him, desperate for his help.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ said Jordan, appearing in the doorway.

  ‘Do you see that?’ Wesley pointed to the mural.

  Jordan moved inside the door. ‘The wall?’

  Nobody would see this message but him. Nobody else would understand it.

  The attack might already have happened, and he knew Kat would not have given up trying to stop it. If she had gone with Tinker, she would be powerless to prevent whatever TrumourPixel had planned for her. Wesley had told himself the attack needed to happen so that Kat could intervene. A way to save herself. If she succeeded, she would save him too. What a burden he had put on her shoulders.

  It was time for him to face up to everything he had done.

  Somehow he knew exactly where Kat would be. It was as if a tiny piece of her was lodged inside him, and it would guide him back to her. This is what Lukundo and Selena must have felt when they went searching for Aaron.

  ‘You have to drive me somewhere.’

  Wesley ran for the stairs, and he heard his brother follow without question.

  34

  A Livestream

  The storage unit’s concrete walls reverberated with Tinker’s rasping screams as she was dragged from the back of the car. One of her attackers clamped her legs, while another struggled to hook her flailing arms. A thick metal door had been closed behind them, and the unit was essentially a concrete box, so no sound would escape. They wrestled her to a metal-framed chair at the back of the space, where a couple of cardboard boxes were stacked. It took two of them to pin her down long enough to get handcuffs onto her wrists and wrap bike chains around her arms and legs.

  Kat crouched behind the chair and tried to work out what to do next. The journey here had drained her to almost nothing. It had been so easy to stay inside Tinker and her internal landscape of a lush oasis at the heart of a sprawling desert. Even as terror whipped up stinging gusts of sand and jostled the box sunk deep in the clear water of the spring, shadows bubbling from under its lid, Kat had considered making the girl her Cradle. If she couldn’t stop what was going to happen to Tinker, she could at least endure it with her.

  There had to be a way. She couldn’t give up.

  ‘Gag her, for Christ’s sake,’ said TrumourPixel, approaching calmly like a factory supervisor.

  One of them found a leather strap and levered it between her teeth, pulling it tight behind her head and tying it off.

  ‘News is already spreading,’ said Tru. In the car, they had taken Tinker’s phone, and he was using it now to check her social media feeds. ‘Told you we’d get an audience.’

  The other two took off their masks. Luke and Justin, both smiling, sweating, jittering with nervous energy.

  ‘Get them ready to tune in,’ said Luke.

  ‘I’m doing it,’ said Tru through gritted teeth. ‘She’s logged in to every social media account, I can send a message from all of them.’ He wagged a finger at Tinker. ‘You should really do something about your security.’

  While they were distracted, Kat crept behind the chair and reached for the keys that had been left on a shelf. Her fingers passed right through without even making them move. In the gloom of the unit, she could barely see her own hand.

  ‘It’s okay,’ she whispered in Tinker’s ear. The lie didn’t matter if it couldn’t be heard.

  The three attackers moved clear of the area around Tinker, leaving her to tug at her bonds. Tears ran in dark tracks down her face and her pink hair stuck to the wet. Luke took her phone and pointed it at the scene.

  ‘Ready?’

  Tru, face still covered, nodded.

  They were going to stream it all, Kat realised in horror. It would be broadcast to all of Tinker’s subscribers and anybody else who visited her channel.

  The livestream began, the phone aimed close at Tinker as she cried for help around her gag. Tru moved to stand over her, Luke stepping back to get them both in the frame.

  ‘Welcome,’ he said. For some reason it made Luke laugh. ‘We promised we would retaliate if you continued to attack us. You didn’t take us seriously.’

  What enemy was he speaking to? Whatever enemy he had invented in his mind to justify his hatred, to turn it back on the world.

  ‘You bitches, who spout your anti-male propaganda, need to learn that there are consequences,’ he said, walking around the back of the chair, within inches of where Kat was helplessly crouched.

  Tinker was trying to talk through the gag, a single repeated word that sounded like please.

  ‘You try to emasculate us. You want to tear us down from our rightful place in the world and make us your slaves. Most of the world might be fooled, and that is why we who see the truth must fight back to realise our potential. We’re going to send a message. And you can help us decide what it’ll be.’

  Again, Kat reached for the keys, willing her fingers to find a grip on reality. She managed to knock them to the floor, but from there no amount of concentration allowed her to pick them up. The chains, holding Tinker tight even as she struggled, passed clean through Kat’s hands. She began to cry, roaring in frustration at her futility.

  ‘There’s a lot of people threatening us or telling us to stop,’ said Justin, reading the livestream chat on his own phone. ‘But there’s a few actual ideas coming in.’

  Holding the screen for Tru to see, Justin looked so relieved that it was working, that he had something to contribute.

  ‘These are all great suggestions,’ Tru said.

  Kat fought the urge to be sick. People watching this live were actually egging them on. They had to think it was all a joke, a publicity stunt. Surely those people didn’t believe it was real, didn’t want to play any part in causing pain.

  ‘Let’s start with something simple.’ Tru walked across to the cardboard boxes, and he leaned down to tear the tape from the top box. From inside he produced a pair of hair clippers. ‘We’ll get rid of this slut’s pretty hair.’

  He wielded the clippers like a pistol, laughing as he set them buzzing. Behind the camera Luke laughed too, wide-eyed as if he had never been so entertained, while Justin wiped sweat from his forehead. Tinker whined and gnashed, thrashing her shoulders uselessly against the chains.

  From the floor, Kat watched in despair. She had let fear of being alive get the better of her, let herself fade away almost to nothing, and now it had stopped her from saving Tinker, of doing any good in the world. Kat squeezed her eyes shut in revulsion and shame.

  A metallic bang rattled around the unit. The clippers ceased buzzing as they all turned to see the shutter behind them ripple slightly.

  ‘It’s nothing,’ said Luke, but the shake in his voice betrayed him.

  Another blow against the shutter, harder this time, followed by another and another. The plates of the metal clanked and roiled in angry waves.
<
br />   ‘What the hell is that?’ said Tru, pulling away from his captive.

  Kat stood, a smile of hope breaking across her face at the sight of the bucking shutter. Somebody had come to help.

  35

  Life Buoy

  They drove as fast as Jordan dared, the old car juddering and swaying as Wesley called directions and they swerved through traffic.

  ‘How do you know where we’re going?’

  ‘I just do!’

  Kat’s presence was calling to him, a ship’s light on his horizon, but there was no way he could pinpoint it yet. As they drove he had started to call the police, before realising he wouldn’t know where to send them. All he could do was feel her presence growing closer and guide them towards it. Find Kat, and he would find the attackers.

  ‘I should never have left,’ said Jordan.

  ‘At least you’re here now.’

  They ran through a red light, narrowly avoiding being side-swiped by a van. Its angry beeping fell quickly behind them.

  ‘It was hard, being around after what Dad said.’ Jordan gripped the wheel hard. ‘I hated you for it. And if Dad thought I was the bad one, I was going to live up to it. I should have shown you a better way, but I didn’t know it myself.’

  ‘Did Dad show you how to drive like this?’ said Wesley, pinned back in his seat.

  ‘No, this was all me.’

  Another corner, and Wesley shouted ‘Here!’ pointing to the fast-approaching entrance of a storage warehouse.

  The car tremored as Jordan slammed the brakes, turning them onto the track between a long boulevard of outdoor units like oversized garages. Someone emerged from the office to yell at them, but they were past him in seconds.

  ‘Which one is it?’ said Jordan.

  ‘Keep going.’

  Wesley could feel her strongly now, close enough that he could run aground. Every unit looked the same, but he knew it was further down the track. Wesley braced himself to fight. They would be outnumbered, and people like Tru would fight back with everything they had. It didn’t matter – he would do whatever it took.