Sleepless

by Louise Mumford

  Chapter 47

  … the sea. She was in a little boat on the sea. The waves were choppy, spitting at her as they slapped at the boat’s sides but then her mother was going too fast, wasn’t she?

  There she was, her mother, at the back of the boat, a firm grip on the tiller, her vagina-printed scarf fluttering out behind her, her grey hair slicked back against her skull by the force of the wind. Thea should tell her that she was going too fast. They couldn’t bounce and jar over these waves at this speed – they’d capsize and then what would happen to the owls?

  There were owls in the bottom of the boat.

  Baby owls, owlets, full of fluff with tiny sharp beaks pointing through. Their heart-shaped faces and worried-looking eyes made them seem like wizened, fluffy, old men. They hopped and jostled amongst each other and Thea tried not to step on them though they squeaked when, accidentally, she did. It was unnerving. All the owls had to make it to the other side. It was important. Some kept trying to hop over the side of the boat and Thea had to gently knock them back down. They nipped her fingers.

  ‘Do you think they’re in a cult?’ her mother yelled to her from behind.

  Were the owls in a cult? She wasn’t sure.

  ‘Because I want to try golf and they keep stealing the golf balls,’ her mother shouted.

  The owlet closest to her foot had a golf ball on its head, balancing it there like it was playing keepy-uppy.

  Thea decided to go and tell her mother to slow down. She tried to get up, but her feet were stuck amid the owlets.

  ‘You should kick them out of the way,’ Ethan said. He was sitting on the opposite bench to her, his arms folded. There was an owlet on each shoulder, their faces turned into the wind, fluff ruffling. He frowned.

  Once again, Thea tried to raise her foot but the owlets were too heavy. They screeched and pecked her ankles, nodding and bobbing to each other as if they were complaining amongst themselves.

  ‘Or kill ’em. Throw them overboard.’ Another two owlets hopped onto his knees, flaring stubby wings as they tried to find their balance.

  She couldn’t kill them!

  They all had to make it to the other side.

  ‘Mother!’ she yelled, her voice trembling.

  Her mother wasn’t listening. She had her hand on the tiller, but she was leaning over the engine talking to Rosie. They were laughing, slapping their knees and squeezing their eyes shut in merriment. Because of the salt and moisture in the air, Rosie’s hair was twice its normal size.

  Her mother should be concentrating. She was going too fast.

  Golf balls rolled around the bottom of the boat, which was becoming an owlet play-pit. They waddled through them, nudging them with their beaks, rolling over them by mistake and toppling, a heap of scraggly fuzz and feathers. When they toppled they looked at Thea like it was her fault, blinking at her, stunned and serious.

  ‘Would you like a mushroom?’ Ethan asked, holding out a punnet of them, raw, white little cushions. He had an owlet on his wrist. It cocked its head at her and pecked thoughtfully at his watch. ‘Mushrooms are full of sleep. They help you to date.’ He shook the box at her.

  She was too busy to have a mushroom. She wanted to move her feet but she couldn’t even see them properly beneath the owlets. Lifting a knee, she heaved. And again. Nothing. The golf balls rolled, the owlets fidgeted and shuffled and twittered, and she felt fear ball itself in her throat.

  They were going too fast. Her mother wasn’t paying attention. There were too many golf balls and she was stuck.

  The boat juddered over a set of waves, sending owls and golf balls sliding to the side. An owlet used the opportunity of finding itself on top of one of its siblings and hopped its way up Thea’s trouser leg to her knee.

  It put its head on one side and stared at her with little round wet eyes. She could feel its sharp claws digging into her jeans. Then it started to retch, a horrible choking sound that shook its entire body, its throat working manically, its stubby wings flapping to no avail. Was the owl going to die? None of the owls could die! She’d tried so hard!

  The owlet shook its head and made one final retching sound, spitting something up onto her knee. There were little bones and a kind of bracken-like material all balled up together around a tiny metal memory stick.

  Oh, so that’s where it was, Thea thought to herself as a massive wave crashed over the front of the boat and she was slammed down face first into owlet fluff and …

  Chapter 48

  … her elbow.

  She reared up with a gasp.

  She’d been asleep. She’d actually fallen asleep in the middle of the horror show.

  Not a hallucination, not a hallucination, not a hallucination.

  Morpheus had been tasked with doing something different to her sleep than the other clients, but it seemed the outcome was the same: the brain craving some REM relief. One minute, she’d been watching Moses cry over the dead body of Delores, the next she’d been in an owl-filled boat with her mother, Ethan and Rosie, a retching owlet on her knee coughing up …

  The memory stick!

  Thea got to her knees, black shapes floating in her vision, twisting and squirming like bacteria under a microscope. For the first time, she registered how quiet the room was. No wailing. Where was Moses?

  How long had she been asleep?

  Delores’s body was still on the floor, a waxwork of the woman she had once been, the red of her hair mingling with the obscenely glossy blood oozing from her head.

  Nearby, someone started speaking in a dead, monotonous tone.

  ‘Morpheus’ – it was Moses – ‘was the master of dreams. He ordered the dreams of heroes and kings. He influenced the dreams of the gods themselves …’

  On her hands and knees, Thea crawled around the edge of the desk and found Moses, huddled against the wall in a tight ball, his eyes a blank stare.

  Above Moses’s head, on Delores’s desk, was her laptop. A laptop that would definitely have internet connection. Thea instinctively checked that the memory stick was tucked safely in the waistband of her leggings.

  Moses sniffed. He’d smeared blood around his eyes trying to wipe them and now, with the markings on his head and the streaks on his face, he looked like one of those frightening tribal masks.

  ‘Moses?’

  ‘Thea, wasn’t it?’ he asked vaguely, never taking his eyes from Delores.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Look what she did. This place.’

  ‘You could help stop it.’ Thea hauled herself up, her arms wobbling.

  ‘Me? It’s done. There’s no coming back from this.’

  She looked at him, in his blood-spattered T-shirt and dirty pyjama bottoms, hunched and crying. Outside the office door, Thea didn’t know what was waiting for her, but it wasn’t a red carpet to freedom. She needed Moses, as help, leverage, or bait. She wasn’t yet sure which one.

  ‘Delores had a private boat waiting for her, in a cove,’ Thea told him. ‘No one knew about it. If we get off the island, if you open the door, you could tell people the truth. What they’re planning to do, how dangerous it is …’

  ‘She should never have sold the tech. How could she?’ His voice took on a child-like whine. ‘She took it away from me.’

  He stared at Delores’s body and then clutched at his face, rubbing his temples hard.

  ‘I’ve killed her,’ he moaned. ‘But it wasn’t my fault. You know that, don’t you? It wasn’t my fault.’

  He flicked his eyes up to her guiltily, then back over to the body.

  Thea steadied herself against the desk. It had all happened so quickly, but no, she didn’t think Moses had meant to kill Delores. She’d lunged for him and he’d swung out his arm in defence. But it was no matter. They had been two children in the playground, stamping their feet, crying ‘Give it here! It’s mine!’, while the school burned down around them.

  ‘Open the door, Moses.’

  Thea tapped at the laptop and then t
humped it angrily when a password box instantly appeared. Her only chance to get the video diary out lay behind a locked screen.

  ‘Pangolin,’ Moses muttered.

  ‘What?’ Thea tried a few of the drawers, looking for convenient Post-it Notes with secret passwords on them.

  ‘Pangolin.’ Moses looked at her from where he was sat on the floor. ‘It used to be her password. Little snouty creatures. They’re endangered. She liked them.’

  He covered his face with one hand and then started thumping at his forehead with the other.

  Thea gaped. But she typed it in and, when the welcome screen appeared, she took a deep breath. An internet connection may not have been provided for the clients, but Thea knew that the staff would have needed it and she was in the Staff Bubble.

  The internet connection icon showed three bars.

  She glanced towards the locked door, her hands shaking, expecting any second for Kyle to start pounding on it. Delores’s email account was already open and Thea shoved the memory stick into the laptop.

  From outside, there came shouting.

  Moses staggered to his feet, briefly looked at the screen and the title of the email she was frantically typing: ‘MUM, READ THIS. IT’S FROM THEA!!’ He stilled and she almost expected him to swipe the laptop away from her, perhaps get that ornament that now lay chipped on the floor and begin using it to break her own skull …

  He blinked and rubbed at his chin, smearing blood onto it from his hands.

  Then he nodded, just the once, his face serious, his eyes clear and focused. He turned to the door.

  On the screen the email was marked “pending” and the circle spun.

  ‘Moses!’ Kyle’s voice roared from outside.

  Thea nearly whimpered. The circle continued to spin. There was no way that Thea was going to leave the memory stick in the laptop – it was coming with her.

  Moses lay a hand on her arm. ‘It’s okay. I can’t undo any of this,’ he said quietly, picking up the tablet he had dropped earlier and getting Delores’s gun from his pocket. ‘But there is one thing I can still do.’

  He tapped on the screen.

  ‘I can give you a bit more time.’

  The office door opened and, before Thea could say anything, he left the room.

  Chapter 49

  The circle spun.

  Thea could feel the sweat making her thermal jumper stick to the skin under her arms. She looked away, hoping that when she looked back, the email would have sent.

  The circle spun.

  There was more shouting: Kyle again, then Moses and then … quiet.

  The circle spun.

  She couldn’t wait any longer. Yanking the memory stick out, she gave a quick prayer to any god listening in, hoping that the email would eventually send. Running to the door, she knew that if she let Kyle corner her in the office, there was a good chance she would never leave.

  Out on one of the suspended walkways leading to the shiny central lift, she saw Moses: he hadn’t run far. In fact, he wasn’t planning on running much at all by the look of him. He was balanced precariously on one of the flat-topped handrails, his feet purple with the cold, a demented eagle surveying his hunting ground.

  ‘Moses!’

  Thea wasn’t alone.

  Kyle was at the opposite end of the walkway. The lift was in the middle between them, but there was a narrow walkway around it to get from one side of the building to the other.

  ‘Moses!’ Thea came closer to where Moses was balanced.

  Kyle noticed Thea. She hadn’t seen him since he’d carried Moses into the building earlier that day, however many minutes, hours or millennia ago that had been. Thea had lost track. He looked as if he’d had a pretty rough time. There was blood on his face and his T-shirt was ripped. The Eighties tribute band wouldn’t be so keen to have him now, Thea thought. It had clearly been harder looking after Moses than he’d bargained for.

  For a second or so, Thea was back at the lighthouse. Kyle had done it so smoothly. He had taken charge of the headphones, said something light and reassuring in his refined, Eton-Old-Boys’-Club voice. He had placed them on Ethan’s head, knowing they would kill him.

  Delores might have ordered it.

  Kyle had done it.

  Thea realized why he was keeping his distance as she took a few steps to Moses’s side. Moses was holding the gun, and it was pointed at Kyle.

  Moses turned his head to throw her a beseeching look. ‘What am I meant to do now, Thea?’

  ‘You don’t have to do anything,’ she soothed. ‘Not anymore, Moses. It’s over. Please come down.’

  Her muscles trembled and even her bones ached; all she wanted to do was sink to the ground, close her eyes and let herself fall into the black.

  ‘I always knew what to do,’ Moses muttered. ‘I could always fix the problem.’

  Holding one arm out in front of him, Kyle tried to walk closer to Moses who wobbled dangerously as he turned his head to look at him, waving the gun.

  ‘Fuck off!’ Moses snarled.

  Kyle faltered and stopped.

  Thea held out her hand to Moses.

  She had spent so much time thinking and talking about this man in front of her, with his weird skull tattoo. Ever since she’d landed on the island, she had been dogged by his name and the rumours around it: inventor, genius, recluse, madman.

  The Great Moses Ing.

  ‘You don’t have to fix this problem, Moses,’ she said. ‘It’s over.’

  He swayed on his handrail perch, a living phrenology head. She didn’t know if they could get past Kyle, even if she got the gun from Moses and coaxed him down from the handrail, and she didn’t know if they’d find Delores’s boat. But she knew she couldn’t watch another person die.

  ‘Moses?’ She held his gaze as he turned his head back to her. ‘You don’t need to do this. Come down – you can help me. You’re Moses Ing, after all – you can tell people what happened here. They’d believe you. We can get out together.’

  He gazed at her sadly. ‘We’re not getting out.’

  Kyle smiled that smile, the one that hooked up the corners of his mouth. ‘He’s right, you know – you’re not getting out. Not that I care what happens to him – we can buy in another Moses if we need one. And you? Aspire have got plans for you but if you prove too difficult, well, they can find another you as well. Either way, this is the end. Jump, old man, or use the gun. I’m waiting.’

  ‘No! Stop!’ Thea turned to Kyle. ‘You need him! He could probably fix Morpheus – if you gave him a chance.’

  She wasn’t quite sure what she was saying. Her only thought was to keep the two men safely where they were: Moses on the walkway and Kyle at a distance.

  ‘They’re not my orders.’ Kyle shrugged and took another step nearer, Moses between them. ‘Aspire has world-class laboratories which I’m sure can do any fixing for themselves.’

  ‘The world-class labs don’t matter.’ Moses smiled grimly and tapped his head. ‘You need a world-class mind. I used to have that. Not anymore. I wouldn’t help them anyway. Look at it all,’ he said, his voice breaking and tears forming again. ‘Look at what I’ve lost: Morpheus, Max … all of it. Look at what you did with my beautiful ideas. I gave you the tools to make gods of us. Do you understand that? I gave you the chance to be more than human, to be better, and look what you did instead … instead you created monsters.’

  Thea didn’t have time to worry about being a god; she was too busy trying to stay alive. She tried to reach for his hand, but he refused to take it. Instead, he sniffed and wiped the tears away, smudging them into the blood and dirt on his face before squaring his shoulders, taking one last look at the ruins of the Centre from his vantage point.

  ‘What use am I without Morpheus? Without Max?’

  ‘No! Moses!’

  And she lunged for him, but it all happened too quickly. Moses shot at Kyle, squeezing his eyes shut as he did so and Thea could already see that the bullet
went wide, but Kyle staggered back anyway. Moses had twisted to fire the gun so when his body began to tip, his arms out as if he was going to float lazily down to the ground, he stared right into Thea’s eyes.

  She would never forget his expression at that moment. It snagged onto her so she couldn’t look away, and it seemed as if it took forever for him to fall, so long that she saw it all: the pain and sadness, the confusion and then … as he dropped further away, one hand stretched towards her: the fear.

  Thea felt the bar of the handrail press into her stomach as she rushed into it, leaning over, still trying to grab a hand that was plummeting to the ground below, out of reach.

  When his body smashed onto the tiles, she closed her eyes, almost feeling the floor below wanting to suck her into it as well. The backs of her legs tingled as if the muscles were preparing to jump and, gently, she tilted from her waist, just a touch too far forward. If she fell asleep, right now, she’d tip and then tumble after him …

  It would be easy to tilt a little more, and she was so very tired …

  She heard Kyle’s footsteps coming for her.

  Her body jerked at the same time her hand slipped and, with a sudden rush of adrenaline, she felt herself lurch forward in one sick, dizzy movement, until she planted her feet firmly and hauled herself back from the brink.

  Kyle moved fast, but Thea was closer to the lift. Head spinning, she wrenched herself away from the handrail and ran to it. The doors shut her in, and the polite female voice came too soon: ‘Ground floor’. When the doors opened once more, she nearly raced straight to the huge glass entrance doors.

  Stupid.

  Kyle was still up there on the walkway, mercifully without a gun as Moses had fallen still holding it. If she got out of the lift, however, he would simply call it up and follow her. She needed a head start. She needed to be smarter.