by Tom Fletcher
I don’t let myself stop at the boxed sets of TV series which are on sale. Or the world-cinema section. Or the new releases. I need to restrict myself to the bare necessities. I start off in the horror section. And then move on to the feature films A–Z. I pick up Rocketship X-M. Creature From the Haunted Sea. Earth vs. the Spider. (Tag-line – ‘Bullets … won’t kill it! Flames … can’t burn it! Nothing … can stop it!’) The Brain That Wouldn’t Die. (Tag-line – ‘It’s madness, not science!’) I should have picked up a basket. I get The Crawling Eye. The She Beast. The Woman Eater. I look at War of the Colossal Beast, but it’s a sequel to The Amazing Colossal Man, which really was just shit, in a bad way, so I put that one back. I also find a few I’ve never heard of before: Dungeon of Harrow. Hercules Against the Moon Men. Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine. Featuring Vincent Price! So that’s ten. I should probably leave it at that. I carry them as a stack towards the counter.
Might have stopped raining too. If I’m lucky.
Back at the house, Graham, Taylor and Erin are playing Mario Kart. I sit down on the sofa and put the bag of DVDs on the floor next to me. The cartoony music and toy-like zooming sounds of the game make me feel kind of safe.
‘What you got, Francis?’ Graham says. Without taking his eyes off the screen. ‘More shit films?’
‘No,’ I say. ‘Well, yeah. But funny, probably. I don’t know, do I? Haven’t watched them yet. You should watch them with me, Graham. Could have a boys’ night in.’
‘I’ve made plans for tonight,’ he says. ‘Meeting someone later.’
‘Graham’s got a date,’ Erin says.
‘Online,’ Taylor says.
‘It’s still a date!’ Graham says. ‘Christ almighty. You’d think I was planning to murder some children.’
‘Who with?’ I ask. ‘I mean, who’s the date with?’
‘Some girl,’ Graham says.
‘Do you know her name?’ I say.
‘Yeah.’
‘What is it?’ I say.
‘I know her name,’ he says.
‘What is it?’ I say.
‘See, now you’re making me lose.’ He gestures angrily towards the screen.
‘You don’t know, do you?’ I say.
‘Alright!’ he says. ‘I don’t know her real name. Her avatar is called Miss Lynch, though, and no, before you ask, nothing kinky, she’s just a David Lynch fan. OK?’
‘Avatar?’ Erin says. ‘You mean, like, it’s an actual virtual date?’
‘Yes,’ he says. ‘Yes it is.’
‘You’re not going to be looking at porn while you’re on this date are you, Graham?’ Taylor asks.
‘You know, I don’t know why I even bother trying to be friends with all of you perverts,’ Graham says. ‘Erin and Taylor the Siamese twins and Francis the – the weirdo.’
‘You’re not supposed to say Siamese,’ I say. ‘You’re supposed to say conjoined.’
‘Fuck you,’ he says. He points at the screen again. ‘See! Straight into the fucking lava! I’m going to make a cup of tea – no, I’m going for a can – and you can all go piss up a rope if you think you’re getting any.’
He storms from the room.
‘What films did you get anyway, Francis?’ Erin asks.
‘Lots,’ I say. I hand her the bag. ‘Here. It’s a bit sad but I can’t even remember all of the titles.’
‘Wow,’ she says. She looks inside. ‘It’s a wonder you’ve got any money left for train tickets. “The Woman Eater.” “It devours only the most beautiful”, apparently. Hey, Francis, we should watch some of these tonight. You’re off tomorrow, aren’t you?’
‘What did you say?’
‘We should watch—’
‘No,’ I say. ‘No, sorry. I know what you said. I mean – train tickets?’
‘Yeah,’ she says. ‘You’re going home for the operation, aren’t you? On the train?’
‘Oh shit!’ I stand up. ‘Train tickets! Fuck! I completely forgot!’
‘Well, these have still got the cellophane on. You could take them back.’
‘No. Well, I could, I guess – but I could also ask Jack for a lift. What do you think? Then, afterwards, I could give him one of these as a thank-you present. Yes!’ I sit back down. ‘That’s what I’ll do.’
‘The abominable Francis Wood,’ Taylor says.
‘I’m not abominable,’ I say. ‘So. Which one shall we watch?’
JACK
The girl who had been found dead in the alley that night had worked at the call centre, on one of the lower floors, working on a different contract to us, and none of us had known her. The local media seemed to pick the story up again once Kenny jumped from that window, and the following couple of weeks were busy with news or, rather, speculation. Nothing definite was in the Manchester Evening News or on the TV, unless we’d missed it, but I doubted that because Francis watched as much news as he did Hammer Horror films, and I was trying to follow the story on the web.
As for Kenny, I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about him since it happened, and I hadn’t said anything to anybody, but I knew there was something deeply wrong with him, something to do with the dead girl. I felt like I should ring the police and tell them what I’d seen, but now I’d look suspicious because I’d left it so long and the whole thing was a bit of a mess.
I was lying on my bed. I could hear the others playing Mario Kart downstairs, but I couldn’t bring myself to go and join in.
If there was anybody in my entire life that I’d be surprised to see crying, it was Kenny. It was still possible that he’d died, although the general consensus was that he was still alive and he had walked out of the hospital himself.
I sat up.
The thoughts ran around inside my head like a toy train, as they’d been doing since it happened. He’d wanted to know where Jennifer had been in order to seduce her somehow, to ask her out, and found out that he was too late, and given his illness or whatever it was, this perceived rejection was too much to take and so he jumped … that was the only way I could see it. I wasn’t responsible, was I? Soon after it had happened, I had to make a statement to the police. One of the policemen had looked like Christopher Lee – tall, with hollow cheeks and deep eyes and a white beard – and he’d looked bored. The other had been fat, tremendously fat, with an oversized tooth jutting out from his lower jaw and protruding out above his lip. He’d worn small gold studs in his ears.
‘You were the last person to see him before he jumped,’ Christopher Lee said.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I think so.’
‘You didn’t like him much, did you?’ the fat one said.
‘Well,’ I replied. ‘No. Not really, no.’
Despite their best attempts to make out it was something more suspicious, Kenny’s jump had been a suicide and they all knew it. Apparently it hadn’t been the first time he’d tried to kill himself.
‘Do you know of any places or people that were special to him?’ Christopher Lee asked. ‘Did he ever talk about any family or loved ones?’
‘I don’t know anything about him,’ I’d said.
That had been before he’d woken up and left the hospital, otherwise I might have mentioned Jennifer. As it was, they had no reason to believe he was a danger to others … after all, I supposed, the police were just people like us. It was unreasonable to expect too much of them. Jennifer and I would just have to keep our eyes peeled.
I headed downstairs for some food, and as I passed through the downstairs hallway Francis stuck his head out of the living-room door.
‘Jack,’ he said.
‘Hello,’ I said. ‘You OK?’
‘Yes, thank you. I’m after a massive favour though. Like, really big.’
‘I’ll probably say yes.’
‘My dad’s going into hospital the day after tomorrow,’ he said, ‘and I was wondering if you could give me a lift up to Cumbria? I’m sorry to land it on you so short notice.’
‘Actually
, I’d like that. Yes. Definitely. I feel like I need to get away for a couple of days. I’ll ask Jennifer too. I mean, we won’t stay at yours, obviously – we’ll find a bed-and-breakfast or something.’
‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘Thank you very much.’
I would never have thought of it myself, but a couple of days away would be nice, as long as Jennifer could come too. I didn’t want to leave her on her own.
FRANCIS
When I wake up it is dark outside the car. Some old R.E.M. song – ‘I Remember California’ – is low on the radio. The car smells like apples and the night is full of red and white lights. Jennifer is asleep in the passenger seat, and I’m in the back.
‘I’ve been asleep,’ I say.
‘Yes,’ Jack says.
‘Are we on the motorway?’
‘Yes.’
‘That was quick.’
‘It’s not that far from where we live,’ he says. ‘Besides, you’ve been asleep. We might have been going for hours for all you know.’
‘Have we?’
‘No. Maybe an hour. Only another couple to go, if that.’
I look out of the window again. I see the orange lights of some distant town. But I don’t know which.
‘I appreciate this,’ I say.
‘Don’t mention it. I might head off the motorway soon, though. Go through the Dales. It’s nicer, less busy. Fewer cars. And doesn’t really take much longer, either.’
Dad tends to stick to the motorways this time of night. I listen to the faint music. The music makes me think of huge open spaces under a big, empty sky. I find myself thinking about UFOs. When I was a child, some nights I would go and sit on our neighbour’s garage roof, and look up at the sky for hours. I would look up at the stars and I would be convinced that somewhere up there was another, better planet that I could live on, that I would find, one day. When I grew up. I always wanted to be an astronaut, and when people asked me what I wanted to be, I would say so. ‘You’ll have to work hard at school,’ they would always say.
‘Yeah,’ I would say, smiling, ‘I will. I’ll work really, really hard.’
Some idiot on Radio 4 burbles on about nothing. We are crawling through a black valley somewhere in Yorkshire. I saw a sign saying something like Gardale or Garsdale or Graydale, but could not read it properly in the dark. The sky above us is thick with stars. Bare, crooked trees bend over the road from either side. Beyond them, hills rise up as solid silhouettes against the starscape. Every now and then we pass a farmhouse. The farmhouses have no lights on and have holes in their roofs. And sometimes the sooty signs of a fire around the windows. And sometimes a wall is missing.
‘Why are we listening to Radio 4?’ I say.
‘I like Radio 4,’ Jack says. ‘I like the voices on it. I don’t really know what they’re talking about, though.’
‘It’s not even loud enough to hear. Can we put something good on?’
He looks like he’s about to argue, but thinks better of it. ‘OK then. There’s some CDs in that wallet in the back.’
‘It’s OK. I’ve got some in my bag.’
‘You carry CDs around in your bag?’
‘Yeah. Why, don’t you?’
‘No.’
‘What have you got, then?’
‘Apart from my toothbrush and stuff, just a book. Have a look, if you like.’
I open up Jack’s backpack. Looking into it, I can see the top side of a very big, thick, hardback book. I pull it out and see that the cover is a reproduction of part of an old map. It’s heavy; it’s huge. It’s called The Lore of the Land.
‘Looks big,’ I say.
‘It is. It’s basically an encyclopaedia of folklore, myths and legends, from all around England.’
‘Not the United Kingdom?’
‘No,’ Jack says. Trying to keep the exasperation from his voice. ‘England. And it’s very, very good. I started just dipping into it, but in the end decided to read it cover to cover. It’s excellent.’
I put the book back. It looks like something my dad would like. He would read it. And believe half of it, if not more. Looking for signs of this other, better, more magical world. Well, there isn’t one, Dad. Unfortunately. I shake my head. They take the piss out of me for watching films about these things. But Jack seems to really believe.
‘I can’t believe you carry CDs around with you,’ Jack says.
‘Well, I do. Here. Put Patti Smith on, please.’
‘Good choice,’ Jennifer murmurs.
‘Thank you,’ I say. ‘Thought you were asleep?’
‘I am asleep,’ she says. ‘Travelling makes me tired.’
‘Here, Jack,’ I say. ‘Got a DVD or two in here as well. Look. Creature From the Haunted Sea. And The Crawling Eye. Oh, and Rocketship X-M.’
‘I don’t know how you sit through those films,’ he says.
‘The point is not how good something is,’ I say. ‘Or true, or honest, or believable. You know, like a lot of what’s in the papers or on the Internet just isn’t true, but it doesn’t matter – you can still read them as texts, as sources that tell you about a time, or place, or culture. You shouldn’t just dismiss these things out of hand as bollocks. These films work in the same way. You have to read them on a different level. That’s all.’ I look out of the window. ‘Besides, I don’t know how you can read a whole encyclopaedia of crap that’s supposed to be real. Guess we’re just different, hey?’
‘I won’t take offence,’ he says, ‘given everything.’
I don’t say anything. The weird dark valley rolls by.
‘Were we supposed to come this way?’ I ask, eventually.
‘Yes,’ Jack says. ‘I looked at a map before we set off. This is right.’
‘Where are we?’
He doesn’t reply. Just looks like he’s concentrating. And then slightly panicked as the car seems to slide a little towards the other side of the narrow road.
‘Black ice,’ he says. After regaining control.
‘Jack,’ I say.
‘Yeah?’
‘I’m not going to talk any more if that’s OK.’
‘Of course it’s OK. You don’t have to ask.’
More bare trees. Empty farmhouses. Broken walls along the tops of the hills that rise up on either side. Shreds and smears of cloud starting to obscure the stars. Sheep in the road, with small electric eyes. Shadows between the trees. Cattle grids. Huge, silent barns. Road signs shot at, dented. No more cars. No more people. Black ice. A world that was all like this would have less cancer in it. But we would have less choice in who we are. Maybe that is the exchange we made.
I have to go to sleep.
JACK
The spare room was decorated with lots of floral patterns that, although mismatched, made it feel warm and comfortable and homely. Francis’ parents obviously knew exactly what they were doing. Joan seemed like that kind of person, although of course it was hard to really be sure what someone was like when they were having such a horrible time. I sat on the deep, soft bed, and sank into it.
We’d arrived at Joan and Eric’s house after I had gotten us completely lost somewhere between Garsdale and Kendal, which made the journey about two hours longer than it should have been. Once we had finally arrived, Joan insisted that Jennifer and I stay the night, which I was very glad of because neither Jennifer nor I could be bothered to look for a b.&b. I looked over at Jennifer, and she was already flat out in bed.
At the same time, I really didn’t want to be there.
I could hear Francis and Joan talking in the room next door to ours – his old childhood room – and I could hear her crying. I didn’t want to just sit there and listen, so I got out my laptop. As I set it up, the sounds from the room next door continued – muffled weeping and low talk, sometimes a startled laugh, but uneasy, like a flock of birds rising up in shock at a sudden movement nearby.
I stared at the blank screen. I wanted to plan out an article on the myths that gather aroun
d empty buildings, after seeing all those abandoned farms on the way up, but could not. All I could think about were my parents. I supposed that once they died, it would be as if there was one less thing standing between me and my own death, one generation removed, as if they were in front of me on the conveyor belt. As long as they were there I would know I had some time left before I reached the end myself, but once they’d dropped off, I would know it was my turn next. The screen remained blank.
Somebody knocked at the bedroom door.
‘Come in,’ I said.
‘Hi,’ Francis said, sticking his head round the corner. His eyes darted towards Jennifer. ‘Can I just ask a quick question?’
‘Go ahead.’
‘Do you think I could talk to Jennifer? About, you know. About everything?’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Of course. Because her mum was ill?’
‘Yeah,’ he said, looking down.
‘Sorry. I didn’t mean it to come out like that. So bluntly.’
‘No, don’t worry.’ He paused. ‘I’m going to go to bed now.’
‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘Goodnight, Francis. Just give us a knock if you need anything.’
‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘Thank you.’ He closed the door. He must have been thinking about it. The cancer and everything. There must have been a lot happening beneath the surface.
I couldn’t be bothered trying to write anything after that, and even if I had been able to squeeze anything out, it wouldn’t have been worthwhile. I was about to turn the laptop off when I saw that they had a wireless Internet connection, and so I went to the Manchester news-sites to see if there was any information about Kenny’s whereabouts. There wasn’t.
FRANCIS
I close my old bedroom door. I lie down on the bed, fully clothed. The ceiling is covered in small glow-in-the-dark stars. They will spring out at me once I turn the light off. The room is full of my old stuff. Books and old console games and figurines of characters from films. Like the alien from Alien and Han Solo from Star Wars and Leatherface from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. I turn on the TV. It’s showing old footage from the train bombings in Madrid. I watch as a middle-aged man appears from the smoke and the rubble. He’s covered in dust that looks like flour. Mouth wide open. Trickles of blood cutting through the floury dust. Eyes shut, screaming. I imagine hearing somebody walking up the stairs. I see more people. Injured and confused and bereaved. Stumbling around on the screen. They are all imploring me to help them find their lost loves and dead children. I grit my teeth and dig my fingernails into my palms. I imagine the bedroom door opening. Jennifer steps through into the room. Her skin is white and her clothes are black. She is like frost on a dead tree; like a chessboard.