Resonance

by Chris Dolley

  He inched towards the window, fighting his fear. The curtain rippled slowly in the cool night air. His window was open. Just an inch, he liked the fresh air. Had that been a mistake? Should he have heeded the girl's warning and kept it locked? Maybe he should close it now, pull down the sash and lock it tight? Or would that draw the killer's attention?

  Calm down, Graham. Why does it have to be a killer? It could be a burglar, a twelve-year-old kid on a dare, a scavenging dog.

  He rose to a crouch and crept towards the window. Everything seemed lighter as his eyes gradually became accustomed to the dark. He moved to the side of the curtain and stretched up on tiptoe. Slowly he pulled the edge of the curtain back, an inch—no more—just enough to peer down at the garden.

  Nothing. The small back lawn, the flower beds—everything grey and empty.

  He eased the curtain wider and leaned further in. Still nothing. No movement, no noise. He could see all the back garden now, all except the area immediately below the window.

  He stepped gingerly across the room and out into the corridor, the carpet cold and soft against his bare feet. He'd check the front: the storeroom curtains were open; he'd have a good view from there.

  He tiptoed towards the window. The houses across the street stared back, grey and silent, not a single light in any window.

  He edged closer. He could see the street now, two lines of parked cars, his front wall . . .

  His gate! It was open. He never left it open. And no one had come to the house last night, no one had knocked at the door or pushed anything through the letter box. He'd have heard, he'd have seen.

  Someone had to be out there, now. They'd left the gate open for a quick getaway. They were around the back trying the windows. That's how they worked, wasn't it?

  He flew back to his bedroom. He had to find some clothes, he had to get dressed, he had to get out.

  People want you dead, her words wouldn't go away. He threw off his pajamas, searched the darkness for whatever clothes he could find.

  Click!

  He froze, one leg in a pair of trousers. The sound came from his back door, he was certain of it. The sound of a lock being turned. He had bolted the back door, hadn't he? Back door locked, Tuesday. The memory came flooding back. But what day was it now? Wednesday? Thursday?

  He hopped and pulled at his trousers, one leg was stuck and the other was cramping. Shit! Shit! Shit! He fell over, still pulling and stretching. He had to get out. He had to get out now!

  A low thud came from downstairs. Then another. Graham swept the floor with his hands, frantically searching for his shoes. He found them, struggled with the laces, grabbed his jacket, his keys, his wallet.

  He flew downstairs. People want you dead. He had to get out. It was his only hope. There was no telephone. He wouldn't have one in the house. He was alone, totally alone.

  His hands closed on the chain at the front door. He held his breath as he slipped the chain and slowly, noiselessly, opened the door.

  A window smashed behind him. The kitchen! He pulled the front door towards him and squeezed through, easing it closed behind him—no ritual, no counting, barely a breath.

  Had he been seen? He prayed not, he prayed that whoever was breaking in had been too busy working on the kitchen window to notice him slip out the front.

  He stepped lightly toward the open gate, slipped through, glanced back towards the house. A circle of light flitted alone in the darkness—a torchlight—ascending the stairs.

  He turned away, head down, walking fast, trying to suppress the noise of his feet on the paving stones. The night was so quiet. If he ran they'd hear him for miles.

  The moon shone through dappled clouds, its light haloed in a giant circle. In the distance, the orange glow from a line of streetlights bled into the sky. He walked on, stepping through the moonlight. Was the man alone, was there a lookout in a car?

  He felt like he was wading through treacle, would the corner never come? People want you dead. Was this what it was like to be at the epicenter of an unravelling? Had all the others he experienced been mere aftershocks? Was he about to disappear like his father?

  A noise from behind. A door closing—his door—running feet. He ran, no point being quiet now. A car door slammed, an engine started. Graham ducked around the corner, tires screeched behind him. He ran out between two parked cars, racing across the road in the darkness. More tire screeching, the car had reached the corner and was turning, its headlights swung round, light bouncing off the curving avenue of trees and parked cars. Graham ran ahead of the beam, keeping low, the path ahead alive with light and bouncing shadows. Trees loomed out of the night, twisted branches dancing between grey and black.

  The car was catching up. Seconds away. Graham ducked lower, keeping to the shadows, praying he was hidden by the line of parked cars. There was an alley up ahead, a footpath between the houses, too narrow for cars. If he reached it the car couldn't follow. By the time the car had driven around the block Graham would be gone.

  Unless the driver stopped.

  And followed on foot.

  Graham ducked into the alley, praying his exit had been obscured in the shadows, praying never to hear the squeal of brakes. The car flew past. Graham ran. A deep darkness descended as the alley curved between high wooden fences. It snaked left then right. Light appeared, the distant glow of shops from the High Street about two hundred yards up ahead.

  Still no sound of brakes.

  A moment's optimism soon smothered. People want you dead.

  He ran faster. The lights of the High Street drawing him onward. He'd be safe there. There'd be people: witnesses, passing traffic, police cars. The alley opened onto a cul-de-sac; more lines of cars and houses in darkness. He pounded along the pavement, the lights of the High Street bouncing closer, he could see them through the film of water that covered his eyes. Pain was everywhere: his lungs, his chest, his legs. His nose ran and his head hurt. But he kept running.

  People want you dead. The High Street grew ahead of him, the shops, the lights, the faint noise of traffic. He was nearly there. A girl sat in a shop doorway opposite, a girl with bright orange hair. He was running towards her. She stood up, waved. He was crossing the road, barely glancing right or left.

  "In here!"

  She pointed to a huge cardboard box at the back of the doorway. Her hands began to fold back the flaps at the mouth of the box.

  "Come on! Inside."

  He could see the darkness within, bright lights all around, safety beckoning; could he trust her, was it a trap? Before he could answer he was diving, full length, hitting the marble tiles of the doorway on his hands and knees and sliding, scurrying across the cardboard flaps and into the blackness beyond. The flaps closed behind him, darkness descended and all around was the lingering smell of stale sweat.

  Four

  Blackness, breaths coming fast, chest heaving, hands shaking, leg tapping. His world contracted into a few cubic meters, he sat, hunched over, knees drawn up, hands locked around them, head bowed, hair brushing against the roof of the box.

  Fear.

  Stark and raw.

  People want you dead.

  Words whispered in the black of night. People . . . Dead . . . Want you.

  The words wouldn't go away. He rocked back and forth, closed his ears, pulled his world in tighter and tighter. No one else existed. Just him, the box and the night.

  And the sound of a car coming closer and closer.

  No! He clamped his hands to his ears and rocked faster, his hair swishing against the cardboard roof.

  The car kept coming, its engine whining through the gears—first, second, third—louder and louder. A roar, a squeal of brakes, the car thrown into reverse, another squeal of brakes.

  "You see a man run this way?"

  "Yeah," said the girl. "He ran down there."

  The car pulled away, screeching, whining, roaring into the distance. Graham held his breath—three, four, five seconds—the car
kept going, quieter and quieter. Breathe and pray, count and hope. Six, seven, another squeal. Brakes? Panic welling. The car accelerating again, its sound muffling. It must have turned a corner, taken the left fork at the top of the High Street. Eleven, twelve . . .

  "He's gone," said the girl. "You're safe now."

  A scrabbling noise came from the far end of the box. Graham looked up and blinked at the sudden influx of light as the girl drew back the flaps. Her face appeared, tilted to one side, framed in light from the shops, her hair falling over one cheek. She smiled and held out a hand.

  "Hi, I'm Annalise, Annalise Mercado, and you'd better be Graham Smith."

  He took her hand nervously, forced a smile and nodded a thank you.

  "I know about the not-talking thing, that's cool."

  A car engine roared in the distance. She turned and listened. Graham rocked gently back and forth, praying for the car to go away, praying for the night to end and for everything to return to normal.

  The car was coming closer.

  Annalise ducked her head back in the box, "I'd better close this up. Can't be too careful."

  Darkness descended once more. The car, the night, the endless chase, the fear. He closed his eyes and swallowed hard. He couldn't handle this, he couldn't handle this at all. He rocked, he shook, he pulled his arms tighter around his knees. Make it go away, make it all go away.

  The car raced by closely followed by another. Time dragged, Graham counted, the sound of the two cars taking forever to die. The flaps opened on eleven.

  "All clear," she said, smiling. "Wasn't him."

  Graham tried to return the smile but couldn't.

  "You know, you're a difficult person to meet. You don't go out, your house is watched, people like follow you everywhere. I bet they even open your mail. And I've been like trying to get your attention for days without anyone noticing. You know, the walk and the eye contact thing? And now here you are. How'd you know I was gonna be here?"

  Graham shrugged, his shoulders still hunched from gripping his knees. He felt cold and his throat was dry.

  "Just lucky I guess," the girl continued. "I'm only here so that I could catch you on your way to work. I was going to slip this note into your pocket. Here." She dug into her jeans and pulled out a folded scrap of paper. "You might as well have it now. You're lucky I'm a light sleeper. Not that you were exactly quiet. You are no stealthy fugitive."

  He took the note, glancing at it briefly as it shook in his hand. What would it say? Even more people want you dead? He found his jacket pocket with difficulty and stuffed it inside.

  "Anyway," said the girl. "It's all in the note. What I've managed to figure out anyway. It's all linked to ParaDim. Don't know where you fit in but they are way interested in you. And me. Though no one wants to kill me. Which is a big plus. And they give me money—I'm a kinda consultant. Yeah, I know the kind that lives in a box but, hey, a box is bigger than a suitcase, right? Anyway, it saved your ass."

  Her words flowed right over him. It was like she was talking to him down a long dark tunnel. Her words echoed and ran into each other. He felt light-headed and tired and cold and wanted everything to stop. This wasn't happening. This couldn't be happening.

  He rocked back and forth, wringing his hands, repeating the same phrase over and over to himself. This can't be happening, this can't be happening.

  Arms enfolded him. Warmth pressed into his cold, dark world.

  "Everything'll be okay," whispered someone very close.

  And for a while he believed her.

  * * *

  He awoke with a start. The ground vibrating, the roar of an engine—a truck—passing within feet of his head.

  He panicked, thrashing in the dark, his feet hitting cardboard. He was . . .

  In a box?

  Fragments of the previous night drifted back into memory. The chase, the girl, the cardboard box.

  Where was she? He reached out, hesitantly, his hand ready to draw back the instant it encountered anything soft.

  It didn't.

  He was alone.

  He turned and pushed at the end flaps of the box. It was light outside, traffic was building up, a few pedestrians walked by on the other side of the road.

  He crawled out, feeling conspicuous, confused and dishevelled. He brushed himself off and stepped out onto the pavement.

  Where was she?

  He looked up and down the street. There were about a dozen people but no Annalise. Where had she gone? Had she stepped out for breakfast or a call of nature?

  He didn't know what to do. Was he still in danger? Should he look for her, hide, go home?

  His little voice told him to go home. Go home, keep out of other peoples' way and they'll keep out of yours.

  But he couldn't. She might be in trouble. She might need money for food. He couldn't abandon her. She'd helped him. He owed her.

  He ran along the High Street, first in one direction then the other, quartering the area, looking inside the handful of shops that were open—the sandwich bars, the newspaper shops. He couldn't find her anywhere. The girl had disappeared.

  He lingered in the last sandwich bar, overpowered by the smell of bacon. He glanced at the clock above the counter—six forty-five. He'd be having breakfast now. If he hadn't been chased from his home in the middle of the night.

  He ordered a bacon sandwich and wondered what he should do next. Could he go home? Should he contact the police? Would they believe him this time?

  He doubted it; there was probably a file on him several inches thick. Come to report another missing person have you, sir?

  He wasn't going through that again.

  He'd give the High Street one more go. Maybe the girl had returned, maybe she was back in the doorway wondering what had happened to him.

  She wasn't.

  And neither was the box.

  Five

  Had someone moved it?

  The shop owner? Road sweepers? The girl? Had she come back and taken it away, hidden it somewhere so she could use it again tonight?

  Or had it unravelled?

  He prayed for the unravelling. If ever there was a time for a thread of reality to be pulled, this was it. He'd welcome the uncertainty—anything—to have a line drawn under the last twenty-four hours.

  He felt for his note, pulled it out, unfolded it. Maybe he wouldn't have to go back to Wealdstone Lane after all.

  He read the note, nothing had changed. He was still living at Wealdstone Lane, still working at the DTI. He put the note back. And froze. Shouldn't there have been a second note? The note from the girl, the one that explained everything?

  He searched his pockets. Twice. The note had gone.

  Or had peeled away in the unravelling.

  A church bell tolled seven. Graham instinctively looked at his watch. It was a minute fast. He stopped dead. When had he put his watch on? Not last night. He'd had enough trouble finding his shoes let alone locating his watch. It shouldn't be here.

  And yet it was.

  Another thought; he felt his chin. It was smooth. He'd shaved. There had been an unravelling! There must have been.

  He grinned. He couldn't help it. Let the rest of the world think him strange, what did that matter? At least no one was trying to kill him any more.

  * * *

  For two days Graham Smith's life settled back into its normal routine. There were the usual aftershocks that followed an unravelling—a few more colleagues at work disappeared than was usual, a new road appeared where people's gardens used to be and two tube stations changed their names. But that was only to be expected. You can't remove a thread without affecting those close by.

  He tried to forget everything that had happened. It had unravelled, gone. All part of the flawed nature of existence. Threads worked loose and there was nothing anyone could do about it. You endured and it went away. End of story.

  And then came Friday.

  He was on the fifth floor counting ceiling tiles while
waiting for the lift. The lift arrived on the thirteenth tile. Any other day and he'd have swung his trolley into a quick one-eighty and tried the lifts on the far side of the building. But, today, he was in a hurry.

  So he took the lift, pressed the button for the ground floor and hoped no one else would get in. The lift stopped on the third floor. Two men strolled in. He vaguely recognized them, senior managers—assistant secretaries, under secretaries—something like that. Neither of them acknowledged Graham. The older of the two selected the first floor and turned to his companion.

  "Don't forget, Brian, I want those ParaDim tenders prioritized."

  Graham's ears pricked. Paradigm?

  "Ring round all the major software houses and impress upon them the importance of getting in on the ground floor. The universities too. I don't care how sceptical they pretend to be—ParaDim is going to be massive and no one can afford to miss out."

  The lift doors opened on the first floor and they left. Graham remained rooted to the back of the lift, he couldn't even reach out and close the lift doors. Annalise had talked about Paradigm. "It's all linked to Paradigm," she'd said. "People want you dead."

  It was starting again.

  * * *

  The rest of the morning and all through lunch he couldn't stop thinking about Paradigm and what it might mean. Was it coincidence or just the inevitable result of boarding a lift after a count of thirteen?

  He sat down at his terminal as soon as he returned from lunch. He logged in and navigated around the DTI site, trying to remember where the search page was located. Sharmila had shown him once but he hadn't been that interested. It wasn't something he'd thought he'd ever use.

  Until today.

  He found something called search, waited for the page to load, then typed in PARADIGM.

  No matches.

  Perhaps he'd spelt it wrong? He deleted the "g," it didn't look right anyway, and pressed send. He waited, wondering if the "m" was wrong too.

  The result came back. One hit. ParaDim: General project overview and tender information.

  He clicked on the entry and watched as a new screen appeared. It read: