by Stuart Keane
“You’re nothing but a patsy, Jessica. And this?” Greg gingerly lifted an arm, pointing to the coach and himself. “This is your downfall.”
“Shut up. Shut up!” Tears were rolling down her face, streaking white trails through the dark blood. “Shut the fuck up!”
Greg smiled. “You know it’s true, Jessica. Call him if you don’t believe me.”
Jessica hurriedly wiped her face, smearing blood across her cheeks. She slapped her skirt pockets, searching for her phone. Her wet eyes never left Greg. She fumbled it into her hands; her fingers danced across the screen and she placed the phone to her ear.
In the silence, Greg could hear the harsh whine of an error tone.
After a second, Jessica’s eyes narrowed. She lowered the phone. It trembled in her hand.
Greg said nothing. Simply watched her.
“His phone is no longer in service,” she muttered. She dropped the phone to the ground. It hit the grass with a rasping thud. “Why is his phone no longer in service?”
“My guess? He cut all ties. He’ll have an alibi, you won’t. Your name is on the ticket trail for the coach. All three coaches. A closed case before it’s even opened. Any detective could solve it in his sleep.”
Jessica said nothing.
“It’s over, Jessica.”
Her eyes shone in the dim light, the darkness enhancing their sadness. He saw her lips tremble, her blood-soaked hands working back and forth, closing and opening. The blood squelched as she did it. He recognised the symptoms, the emotions. Saw the tears streaming down her face.
Shock, confusion, anger.
Betrayal.
“It’s over, Jessica,” he said, hammering the point home.
Jessica nodded once. She lifted her left hand and reached into her other pocket. Withdrew the Stanley knife from it. Greg’s eyes widened. He recognised the green handle, the dried blood streaked along it, the murder weapon from earlier. Her slim hand wrapped around it, flexing, pulsing. He imagined the sinew flexing in the back of her palm. Her flesh squeaked as she tightened her grip.
“What are you doing?” he asked, tensing.
“You said it’s over. So, I’m making it so. If you die, Sean will take me back. Everything will return to normal. We can blame your death on the coach crash.”
She smiled and started to hobble forward, towards Greg.
Greg tried to back off and collapsed on the grass.
A movement that saved his life.
Seconds later, the engine exploded, engulfing Jessica in white-hot flames.
ELEVEN
The image would haunt him forever.
His dreams, mild awakenings of the mind that soon became vivid, unescapable nightmares, would never be the same again. Tainted for eternity. For months, the sheer horror of the nightmares affected his writing output, fatigued his creative mind, and nearly destroyed his blossoming career. Beyond that, he had the added complications of a book deal that was now invalid due to a criminal agent. A dream contract that launched his dream career, banished due to a nightmare scenario. An unprecedented one at that.
Dreams.
Nightmares.
Funny how they combine and mingle, merge into one another.
Quite literally, in this case.
Greg awoke once again, his sheets and pillow drenched in cold sweat, his erratic sleep shattered by another nightmare.
That nightmare.
Greg turned the pillow over, pushing his face into the fresh, cool side. He breathed out deeply.
Thought back to two months previously.
That night, or morning, as the time would soon come to declare.
The explosion of the coach, the non-National Express coach that was a mere afterthought, a simple mode of transportation, but was now a permanent fixture in his life for many wrong reasons, a dark memory in his mind’s eye, a sequence in an event that would eventually shape his life.
His hand wandered to the ragged scar on his waist, a pale scallop of skin that had healed weeks earlier. His fingertips brushed it tenderly. Greg remembered the rough plastic grinding against his bruised ribs, squeaking inside his battered torso. Every now and then, during a walk or general activity, he relived the uncomfortable noise in his subconscious, one that always made him flinch, left him gasping for breath. On numerous occasions, he found himself sitting down, reliving the horrid, tortuous memory.
But it was nothing compared to the flames, the silent fire.
He could still feel the primitive heat on his face, the scorching of his flesh.
The explosion that rocked the fuel tank and lifted the coach wreckage a few feet off the floor. The long seconds it was airborne, a smouldering yellow blur against the darkness of the night beyond. The deep tremors as the buckled shell crashed back to earth, jostling the double fuel tank, spilling its fiery contents all over his attacker.
The fuel was transparent. It shimmered in the air, gleamed brilliantly against the backlight of the flames, like distorted orange raindrops falling sideways, splattering onto Jessica, hitting her in the face and body and legs. Like someone had tossed a miniscule bucket of water in her direction. She flinched, jerking her head away instinctively, but by then it was too late.
In every dream, the outcome was always the same.
It was always too late.
There was a splash, like a child cautiously dropping into a swimming pool for the first time. Jessica waved her arms randomly, flapping at the hot, fiery fluid. Drops of the globular liquid dripped and danced on the air as she pirouetted. Greg noticed rainbows in them, beautiful natural colours, reds and greens and blues, an odd silver lining to the horror that was taking place. At that point, the strong chemical odour of petrol, one of the world’s finest smells, assaulted his nostrils. The stench seemed dominant, evil, not your average exhaust pipe inhalation on the street.
Something more sinister.
On this occasion, it made him gag. In hindsight, the oxygen in the air was burning away, consumed greedily by the licking flames, robbing his lungs of vital sustenance. Basic chemistry. He knew the petrol smell would never be the same. Never would he close his eyes and enjoy that scent again.
It was the least of his worries.
The flames followed.
The air was on fire, mere seconds after the tiny splash and the ragdoll ballet display from Jessica. The flames became sentient; they arced into the darkness like accusing fingers, reaching for Jessica, following the trail of the fuel. They expanded and blossomed, changed shape, growing before his very eyes. The flailing globs of fuel, the ones that broke from the fuel tank a few seconds later, straightened out like spears and exploded. Jessica screamed as she found herself bombarded by slivers of rotating fire, the yellow spray hit her and whooshed, a deep, inane sound.
The entire sequence was quiet, silent, like Greg’s internal audio had switched to mute. The whole event happened in glorious slow motion, like watching the best director in Hollywood craft the scene using CGI and master camerawork.
In reality, the initial explosion left him deaf for a moment, his ears ringing almost imperceptibly.
And the entire sequence lasted only four seconds.
Jessica screamed.
And time resumed normal speed and course.
The woman flailed and span and jerked convulsively, flapping in agony, the yellow-turned-blue flames engulfing her body hungrily, surrounding her in a cocoon of raging fire. Her arms made a roaring sound as she staggered pugnaciously, vainly attempting to wave the flames away. They crawled up her arms and down her legs, trickled along her fingertips, and curled around her torso. Her face blurred and waved behind the flames as they arced skywards. Her hair ignited with a small poof, the flames dancing high in the air.
Then the smell hit him.
The stench of burning flesh.
Greg would never forget the smell, and it would haunt him forever.
The sickly sweet stench was akin to fried beef and fatty pork, a combination of both, a pu
trid meaty fragrance that lingered in the back of your throat, made you gag, and singed your nostrils. He heard hot flesh pop and blister, saw the epidermis blacken in seconds. Jessica’s face darkened like a shadow, the cheeks burning away, followed by her fingertips. Her clothes began to flake, brittle black ash that peppered the ground around her. She dropped to her knees with a thud.
Then the essence elevated and evolved, into a smell like acrid charcoal, scorched and obliterated by immense, unfathomable heat. The smell became a lingering taste, an unwelcome flavour that made Greg’s tongue fold against the roof of his mouth as he gagged, an involuntary reflex of the body, a reaction to the horrid aroma that was currently smoking dark into the air around him. He coughed and stumbled backwards.
Looked Jessica in the face.
Saw her dead, stoic eyes.
Staring at him.
Watching him.
Did she smile? Or was that her jaw slipping a few inches downwards, the cheeks tearing effortlessly because the muscle had seared away?
He never would know. He blacked out from the trauma.
In the present day, he always woke up after blacking out.
Always at that point, never before, and never after.
Greg swung his legs off the bed, his bare feet plodding onto the floorboards below. He pushed aside the unfamiliar duvet and placed his head into his hands, elbows on knees, and groaned. Felt a painful numbing at the base of his skull. The side effect of insomnia. His eyes flicked to the clock on his mobile phone.
04:33.
Fuck, he thought. Four hours until Sheffield.
So far, the second attempt was going according to plan.
Greg stood up and walked to the hotel window. Gazed out into the darkness, a vast black scene pinpricked with orange and yellow dots, the dominant outline of the motorway and the industrial estate before him. He saw a triangular cinema shrouded in darkness, and a number of restaurants idling in the yellow hue of several nearby streetlights. A long stretch of worn asphalt, normally gridlocked with all manner of vehicles, stood silent and empty in the early morning chill. Humanity was resting; function was idle for a few more hours. He couldn’t hear it, but he could sense the infinite loneliness, the true sense of nothing happening, a common occurrence in the early hours.
It felt peaceful.
He located the venue for his first convention, his much-delayed first convention, in Sheffield. A grey box of a building, with air vents steaming on the roof, head-high windows on the upper floors and grey stucco in and around the design of its awning. A standard building, one in a million scattered around the country. A former warehouse turned lucrative location for all manner of huge events.
He thought back to two months previously and placed his fingers on the glass. A small squeak emitted from the window as he pushed, his jaw knotting. His hand covered the venue for a second, temporarily blocking it from his mind.
It’s only one day. You can do this.
You can do this.
TWELVE
“You want anything?”
Greg rubbed his eyes with his palms and sighed. The fluorescent lights hanging from the venue ceiling forced him to squint. He glanced down and watched the masses of people walking by. He saw several of his favourite comic book characters, larger than life, in the flesh; people dressed in meticulous replica cosplay outfits. Batman and Deadpool, Darth Vader and his loyal Stormtroopers. A trio of women dressed as Harley Quinn sauntered by, all brandishing a replica trademark hammer, all three a different shape and height. A tall man dressed as Pinhead stood stock still to the side, watching the organised chaos, twiddling a Lament Configuration in his left hand.
Just another standard comic convention.
“You want anything?” the voice repeated, finally registering.
Greg looked up and shook his head. “No thanks.”
The staff member smiled and walked off, heading for the next table in line. Greg gazed at his books, organised in neat, tidy piles on the table before him. He straightened them up, putting the novels together. He brushed some dust from the black tablecloth and sighed.
He checked his watch. 09:44.
Over seven hours left.
Great, he thought.
He took a large swig of Dr Pepper and shook his head, washing the sugary drink around his tongue, urging the headache to subside. He felt the bubbles tickling the inside of his cheeks, fizzing against his teeth.
That can’t be good.
Shit happens.
Greg watched the people pass in droves, mesmerised by the dedication and aplomb of the outfits, and equally disgusted at the feeble attempts too. A mask here, a signature weapon there, no real outfits, just props carried around in an attempt to mingle, to fit in. He saw a woman dressed as a ragged clown, a man dressed in sizable pyjamas. He didn’t get the cultural clues on those two. Maybe he’d missed something during the last two months.
A man ambled over to the table quickly, not making eye contact with Greg. He sidled off to the left, his hands pressed together, the fingertips drumming against one another silently. His orange jacket caressed every contour of his overweight body, his purple rucksack straps pulling it taut against his oversized chest. His eyes danced erratically in their sockets, looking at the books on display. After a second, he picked a copy up nervously and began flicking through it.
Greg smiled, preparing to stand up and greet the newcomer. The foreplay part of selling a book at a convention. He gave the customer a minute, leaving him some space to make a decision. The man’s eyes were jittery, following the words but not actually reading them, as if he was more concerned about the typesetting and formatting than a story, or the colour of the pages. For some people, presentation was everything.
“Is this your debut novel?”
The question took Greg by surprise. He smiled, addressing the customer. “Yes, it is.”
“I’ve already read it. It was okay.”
And with that, the man put the book down on the table and walked off, stepping through the thriving crowd. Greg watched him go, dumbfounded. He slumped back into his chair. He couldn’t help but laugh.
“What’s so funny?”
David took a seat beside him, placing a brown bag and a coffee on the table. His swept blond hair was ruffled, his cheeks red from exertion. The man leant back in his chair and sighed. “Fucking queues. I waited half an hour for a scummy sausage roll. The coffee tastes like arse too.”
“Convention food for you,” Greg said, his eyes roaming the hall. The bustle and noise of people was stronger now, more convincing. He expected thousands of people were inside the venue, walking and admiring and spending their hard-earned cash.
“You sell anything? No, scrap that, did we sell anything?”
“Not yet. Give it time.”
“Okay,” he said, and lapsed into silence. He removed the sausage roll from its bag, grease spots peppering the base. He bit into it; a loud crunch filled the void between them. His eyes lit up. “Not bad, actually.”
Greg smiled. Said nothing.
“You still worried?” David said, his mouth crunching on the brittle pastry and sausage.
“A little,” Greg uttered. He breathed out, the air hissing through his teeth. His eyes roamed the crowd, watching, perusing, a deep, dark worry gnawing at the back of his mind.
“He won’t be here. He’ll never come to a convention.”
“You don’t know that. He could be anywhere.”
“Just because they didn’t catch him, it doesn’t mean he’ll turn up in a place with security and a thousand eye witnesses. He’d be crazy to, having got away so easily.”
Greg nodded. “What he did in the first place was crazy. That sort of mind doesn’t belong to a rational person.”
David chewed his sausage roll. Both men sat in silence, observing the throng of costumed people before them. The sound of the crowd was heavy, melodic, and almost harmonic. Greg found himself at home with it, comfortable, particularly after the gr
im events on the coach. He’d never yearned for solitude again. Didn’t miss it. He looked at David, his ‘security’ for the weekend, and smiled.
David chuckled. “He won’t try anything. Trust me.”
Greg looked up, ready to reply to his colleague, but he became distracted. His eye caught something in the distance, something familiar. He saw a woman walking towards him. She wore a thigh-hugging short skirt; it didn’t leave a lot to the imagination. He could hear the material swishing on her smooth, pale skin. She wore a striped jumper with holes deliberately torn in it, the bottom was tied together in a taut bow, revealing a pale, muscular abdomen and a belly button pierced with a red jewel in the shape of a cross. It bounced and wobbled on her perfect, pale flesh.
But Greg’s eyes weren’t on the attractive woman or her lack of clothes; they were on her face.
He shuddered and nearly fell off his chair.
David frowned. “You alright?”
Greg was trying to scream, but he couldn’t. His throat was closing in absolute terror, the fear prickling every goose bump on his body. His mouth opened into an O, but no sound escaped from his constricted throat. He felt his neck seize, his sphincter clench, and his teeth grind.
The woman’s face consisted of lined skin, hard wrinkled scar tissue, pink and shiny, as if someone had removed the flesh from her face. Like a plastic model. Except the flesh had once been there, pale and attractive, probably prone to acne and dimples and normal facial contortions, like a smile or a frown. The woman had no eyelids, the flesh surrounding them was burned away. The orbs left her with a permanent wide-eyed gaze.
A burn victim.
Her eyes were stark, menacing. They stared a hole through Greg, watching him, observing him. A black tuft of hair poked from the top of her head, mangled into a red headband. She carried a battered brown fedora in her hand; it bounced off her shapely hip in a continuous fluid motion.
Greg licked his lips.
The woman leaned in close, her lips not moving as she uttered her sentence. “Are you Greg Irving?”