The Jack in the Green

by Lee, Frazer

  Tom’s room was basic, air conditioned to a comfortable temperature, and clean. The carpet still had that new smell, like that of a showroom or his office when it had been given a refurb. Advertising standees, a huge card-backed menu and laminated instructions for the use of the TV, air-con and room service were dotted around the room in strategic places like clues to some obscure corporate treasure hunt. Tom gathered them up, one by one and deposited them in the slide-out drawer beneath the fitted wardrobe. The menu was the last to go. He gave it a cursory glance but decided he really was too tired to eat. He surveyed the room once more, now that he had made it feel even sparser. Truth was, Tom liked staying in hotel rooms like the one he was standing in. They were impersonal, unfussy and felt somehow anonymous. Though fewer and farther between than perhaps he might have liked, especially with his home life being so difficult, his business trips afforded him the opportunity to disappear for a while. Thankfully he could already feel himself slipping out of existence, somewhere on the horizon point between the mauve carpet and the beige skirting boards.

  He wandered over to the window and pulled back the double-glazing panel, then the gossamer-thin net curtain covering the outer window. He located both handles, either side of the window frame, yanked them down and pushed. The door swung open about two inches then stopped with a dull clunk. He glanced up and saw a thick coil of cable, bolted into place to prevent the window fully opening, along with a window sticker proudly proclaiming that the window device was there, For the safety and security of all our customers.

  Tom peered down at the parking lot six floors below and wondered how security might be an issue this far up. Safety perhaps, as one too many nights in a hotel like this could make even the most enthusiastic person lose the will to live. How would it feel, he mused, to drop suddenly from this anonymous room and hurtle anonymously to an insignificant death on the parking lot below?

  Don’t forget to hand your key back at Reception on check out.

  With a sudden sensation not unlike vertigo, he remembered his nightmare on the plane and those talon-like hands pulling him up, up and away through the choking soot of the chimney and out into the icy black of night. He shivered and rubbed at his wrists, drinking in a deep breath of air from the two-inch gap between the window and its frame. The air smelled as metallic as blood and as poisonous as air fuel. It was strangely delicious, and probably more nutritious than any hotel microwave pizza would prove to be. He breathed his fill of the toxic concoction, then stripped off his clothes and sloped over to the bathroom where a sign above the faucets warned him: Caution: Hot Water.

  Emerging bright pink from his bath a full forty minutes later, Tom wrapped a towel around himself, killed the lights and kicked back on the bed. The polyester curtains danced in the cool breeze from the window. A song of aircraft engines, traffic and distant sirens floated in on the back of the breeze. As he lay there listening to the machine cacophony, Tom fell suddenly and deeply asleep.

  Chapter Eight

  Jupiter Crash sat in the back of the camper van, smoking the joint down to the roach in brooding silence. Pinpricks of pain in his lips and fingertips shocked him back into the here and now as the last few millimeters of rolling paper burned away. He yanked the jay away from his lips and its hot-rock tip fell away and onto his lap. He hissed with pain as the ember, a little orange glowing demon, burned through the corduroy fabric of his trousers and into the tender flesh of his inner thigh. He scrambled to his feet; a maneuver made all the more difficult by the violent movement of the camper. The rickety old VW always rattled and groaned at speeds of above fifty miles an hour and at present it felt like it was doing fifty-five. Cursing, Jupiter tried to steady himself with his back to the blacked-out window of the van, brushing the vicious little hot rock from his leg.

  “All right back there, Jupes? Want me to pull over?”

  Kegger turned the steering wheel hard left and the camper veered onto the hard shoulder for a few seconds. In back, it felt like the vehicle had rolled off a cliff and Jupiter cursed louder and more descriptively than before as he fell on his ass—and his fellow travelers.

  “Whoops,” Kegger deadpanned. “Sorry, Jupes!”

  Jupes. Jupiter hated it when Kegger called him that, which was of course why the bastard did it.

  “Oh, I’m fine, Kevin, don’t you worry about me.”

  It was the perfect riposte. Jupiter could feel Kegger smoldering at him from the driver’s seat. He disliked his real name almost as much as Jupiter disliked the man himself. He’d only had Kegger come along because he had a clean driver’s license and enough cash to cover some petrol, unlike most of the losers on his team. Jupiter rubbed at the tender spot on his inner thigh where the joint had burned him. It smarted, but not as much as his arm. The medic at the protest had told him he was lucky it wasn’t dislocated when the car had dragged him along the asphalt.

  “Want me to kiss that better for you?”

  Denny was grinning beside him, relaxed in a heap of knitwear with Amber, who snickered at the joke.

  “What, my arm or my leg?” Jupiter scowled at Denny, not waiting for him to answer. “How about you just kiss my arse?”

  “The one you just fell on? Sure!” chuckled Denny, sharing the joke with Amber.

  Jupiter scowled as he watched them do that annoying nuzzling thing with their noses. They started to make out through their giggles and the frown on Jupiter’s face intensified, his pale features beginning to look like curdled milk.

  “Get a fucking room. Oh sorry, I forgot, you’re freeloaders who are living, eating, sleeping—and whatever fucking else—in my van.”

  Denny came up for air. “You invited us, bruv, I said we’d pay for some fuel when we get our cash…”

  Jupiter smacked his teeth, loud and clear. He’d heard Denny’s bullshit one too many times, especially the fantasy tale about how he and Amber were going to contribute to the group’s expenses. The pair of them never spent a bean because they didn’t have any beans. He glanced at their kitbags, filled to bursting with clothes and outdoor gear. Between them and their luggage they were adding a half-ton of dead weight to the camper’s payload and expending even more fuel in the process. They were a total waste of space.

  He turned away from them in disgust and his gaze fell on Charlotte’s sleeping form. A sticker on the side window opposite her had peeled away a little, allowing a tiny beam of daylight through. The golden light danced across her face, bringing out the fiery red of her long, thick hair. Reflected fires danced in Jupiter’s eyes as he gazed at her.

  Amber caught Jupiter looking at Charlotte and leaned across to him.

  “Relax, mate, she’ll be awake soon and you can ask her to kiss it better for you,” she teased.

  “Fuck off.”

  Jupiter struggled to his feet once more and went to sit up front with Kegger. Even his company would be welcome after tolerating the freeloading bastards in the back for what felt like an age on the road from the airport. They were, even now, chuckling maniacally behind his back.

  He clambered ungraciously into the passenger seat next to Kegger and sighed, looking out at the gray expanse of four-lane motorway stretching out ahead of them. Jupiter reached into the cluttered side pocket mounted on the passenger door. Navigating his fingers past layers of used napkins, tissues and junk food wrappers, he located a cassette tape and pulled it out, studying it. Megamixtape said the legend, scrawled in metallic gold Sharpie across the gray, smoked-plastic surface of the tape. He slid the tape into the cassette player and it lurched into life, midway through an old shoegaze track that sounded like it had been recorded through a wall—and a crumbling wall at that. The camper had come supplied with this anachronistic audio equipment and Jupiter hadn’t the cash or the desire to replace it. One time, Charlotte had offered to buy a little plastic gizmo from the petrol garage that would turn the old cassette player into an iPod interface. Jupiter had then allowed himself a little momentary glimpse of him and his camper jo
ining the twenty-first century, but when they’d realized none of them actually owned an iPod, iPhone, or anything current, it was back to the trusty tapes. Hearing more giggles from the lovebirds in the back, Jupiter cranked up the volume and the indie guitar track gave way to some machine-driven trance dance.

  “Remind me to kick those bastards out when we get to the next services,” Jupiter growled. “Bloody freeloaders.”

  “What’s got you so riled anyhow? Usually pretty chipper after you’ve had a smoke.”

  Jupiter blinked incredulously and held up his bandaged arm.

  “Were you actually conscious when I was dragged along the road by my arm by two fascist fucking American blokes?”

  “Still hurts then, does it? Least you got it looked at and that. Bandaged it up nice.”

  Kegger could be a total moron at times. This was proving to be one of them. Jupiter bit his lip and remained silent, barely able to suppress the torrent of abuse that was building up in retaliation for Kegger’s inane comments.

  “What did they say to you then, the coppers?”

  Jupiter narrowed his eyes and looked at Kegger. He was already beginning to regret his decision to sit up front. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw Denny and Amber making out under Denny’s big army surplus overcoat. Amber giggled shrilly as Denny groped and tickled her.

  “They asked a bunch of inane, pointless questions.”

  “Like what?”

  “Name, age, address—all that kind of crap—asked me if I’d been to any protests before…”

  “You tell ’em?”

  “Of course not.”

  “What about your name?”

  “What about it?”

  “Well, you couldn’t exactly tell them it was Jupiter Crash, could you?”

  “Why not?”

  “’Cos it’s a made-up name and…”

  “I gave them a made-up name, idiot.”

  “Really? Won’t they check?”

  “Check where? Gave them a false address too.”

  Kegger’s monobrow descended, casting a shadow over his nose and making him look even more Neanderthal than he usually did, if such a thing was possible.

  “What name did you give them, then?”

  “Kevin Payne.”

  “But that’s…”

  “Your name, I know.”

  Jupiter fixed Kegger with a cold stare, then cracked up laughing at his own joke.

  “I’m just pulling your leg! I made up a name on the spot, can’t even remember what it was.”

  Kegger thought for a moment, if such a creature was capable of thought.

  “What is your real name? You know mine. S’only fair I should know yours.”

  “Like I’m going to tell you that,” Jupiter laughed.

  Kegger looked crestfallen, so Jupiter decided to spin him a line.

  “Think of it as damage control, yeah? If we get into real trouble with the fuzz, we give them our nicknames; tell them we don’t know each others’ real names. If I don’t tell you mine in the first place, there’s nothing to worry about, is there?”

  “Did the pigs ask you for my name, then?”

  “No, of course they didn’t. Why should they? What did you do, wave a placard around then try not to fall over when they turned the water cannon on us, like everyone else? Don’t sweat it, man. No, once the cops asked me all their questions—I had a few of my own for them.”

  “What like?”

  “Well, where I could claim compensation for my injuries for a start. We live in a world of litigation now Kegger, every little incident has its price tag. Those bloody Yanks nearly ripped my arm out of its socket, that’s what the paramedic on the scene said, and he should know thing or two about injuries, don’t you think? Lucky I had the presence of mind to ask the medic for his details in case the police needed a statement. He was happy to oblige of course and told me if I wanted to press charges I should speak to the investigating officers on-site. Well, they were intent on questioning me anyhow, so I let them do their thing…”

  “Then what?”

  “I laid out the whole story. How the Americans deliberately drove into the crowd, how I got my arm caught when I tried to wave them down and stop them—and how the panic they’d caused started a riot.”

  “You told them all that?”

  “Yeah. Takes the heat off the protesters, doesn’t it? I mean, it was peaceful until those fuckers came along. The police seemed mightily interested in what I had to say about the driving into the crowd thing, especially. I mean, they hate it when protesters are clued-up like me, we’ve all seen how powerful it can be when we mobilize and consolidate our ideas. Whether they like it or not, they’ll have to look into it. That’s what they do; it’s in their job description. A complaint has been filed in the bureaucratic hive machine and the worker ants within that system have to now check all the variables. Compute/does not compute, Okay/Cancel—you get me?”

  Kegger clearly did not.

  “All I have to do meanwhile is call one of those ‘no win, no fee’ places to make my claim,” Jupiter concluded with relish.

  This, Kegger could actually understand. “So you really think you might get compensation?”

  “I know I will. Litigation my friend; an accident that was not my fault, blood spilled on England’s green and pleasant land. The hive mind will not allow that—it does not compute.”

  “But…how will they send you the money if you gave a false name and address?”

  Jupiter fell silent. He wished Kegger had done so too.

  A soft voice piped up from the back of the camper van. Charlotte had woken up.

  “His real name’s Brian,” she said.

  Chapter Nine

  He heard screams.

  The sound a child’s mind makes when it snaps, unable to endure the dreadful sights invading it. Pure unadulterated pain, torture and death unfolding like diseased flowers before him. Hatred and madness in full bloom. And those hideous eyes watching from the fireplace, glowing like hot coals. Taloned fingers reaching out and grabbing at the tender flesh of his wrists, holding him fast, just so. Making him look. Making him see. Then dragging him up, up into the trees.

  “He’s in the trees…” Monroe’s dying words, each one a death rattle as brittle as the frozen pine needles scratching him on his ascent. “He’s…”

  “…waiting.”

  Tom jolted awake from his dream on the sweat-drenched hotel bed.

  He gasped for air like a patient being resuscitated on a hospital gurney. Darkness enveloped him, save for two angry red eyes glaring down at him from the firmament. He blinked, his chest rising and falling with each frightened breath. The red glowing eyes were still there, glowering down at him, daring him to move. He had no choice. Reaching out to his side, he fumbled for the light switches built in to the night table next to the bed. He clicked the wrong switch and activated the main lights by mistake. The room was flooded with several hundred watts of cold wall and ceiling lighting, dazzling him. Tom squinted skyward and saw the angry eyes for what they were—two red LEDs blinking at him from the smoke alarm that was embedded in the smooth beige plaster of the ceiling. He breathed a sigh of embarrassed relief and flopped back down on the bed. His hair and skin were slicked with sweat. Pools of the stuff had drenched the polyester sheets and pillowcase beneath him. He felt clammy and unclean. Further cold wetness coated his crotch and thighs and he thought for a moment that he’d wet himself once again. Closer inspection revealed the source of the dampness to be the bath towel he’d fallen asleep in.

  Still dazzled from the sudden room lights, Tom fumbled for his smart phone on the nightstand and tapped it awake. Sitting up to avoid the clammy pool of sweat beneath him, he slid his index finger across the smooth screen of the device and entered his PIN number to unlock it. A facsimile of a ticking clock was revealed, complete with twitching needle beating out the seconds as they passed.

  Four a.m.

  His jetlagged brain struggled with
the math, but after a couple of tries he figured out it would be eight in the evening back home due to the time difference. He glanced around the bare room and thought of Julia sitting quietly on the sofa in the intense, ordered space they called home, just as she did night after night. Thumbing the shiny surface of his phone, Tom toyed with the idea of texting her again. Not calling, that would be pointless. After all, what on earth would they talk about, with him jetlagged beyond reason and her drugged up on meds? He wondered if Ellie was there, fussing over Julia and frustrating the hell out of herself in the process.

  “The trick with Julia right now is to keep her on an even keel,” her doctor had told him when she’d first been prescribed the tranquilizers. “No stress, no surprises, just routine.”

  He’d fought against the prognosis initially, disliking the zombie he found lying next to him each morning. But then, as with most of the disappointments in his life, he’d gotten used to it. Maybe he’d try texting her in the morning, when he’d thought of something to write. That way, if Ellie intercepted Julia’s phone (as she was bound to do) even she couldn’t deny he’d at least made an attempt to contact his self-medicated, fractured wife during his business trip.

  He yawned, shivered, and scooted over to the dry side of the bed. As soon as his head hit the pillow, he knew he wouldn’t be able to fall asleep again. What he wouldn’t have given for a couple of Julia’s pills. His stomach gurgled at the thought of swallowing them down and giving himself over to a few hours of prescription-induced oblivion.