Dead Broken - Psychological Thriller / Horror

by Gerard Gray

  You’ve just described half the neds in Glasgow.

  I know, I know.

  What’re you gonae dae about it?

  I stared hard at the steering wheel of my car. I had to go. My mum needed me. I had to go home.

  Just what the fuck’re you gonae dae about it, aye?

  *

  They were standing at the bus stop like urban cattle, grazing on Glasgow’s finest junk food. I was sure it was them now, which was going to cause me no end of problems and I knew it. No way could I just walk away from this. So what was I going to do about it? It didn’t take a genius to realise that I was on my own here. The last organisation I could contact was the police. And God help me if I even uttered the word “youth” to Karen.

  My heart disappeared beneath another wave. Why now? Why not six months ago? This wasn’t fair.

  I returned my attention to the kids across the street. The girl was actually quite pretty. She had long, black shoulder length hair, pulled back from her forehead by a couple of clasps. A pair of tight leggings accentuated what looked like an athletic figure. At times she appeared to be over sixteen, but then she would change, a gesture, a pose, and it would betray her for what she probably was – not a day over 14.

  Him on the other hand, he could have been about 16. He was blonde, his hair short in the style of a shark’s fin. And of course he was ensconced from head to toe in the obligatory shell suit. The last time we had met he had been arguably fifteen, despite his manly stature. Did that mean he was now eligible for jail? If you commit the crime when you are fifteen and get sentenced at sixteen, do they take your present age into consideration or the age at the time of the crime?

  I cringed as the boy kissed the girl. Obviously a couple of sorts. She was sitting on his knee tilting her head back, straining her neck. In yoga it would have been known as the backwards snog.

  A bus came to a stop directly in front of them, blocking my view. A couple of seconds later they were getting on the bus, paying the driver.

  My entire body broke into a sweat, a sickening hue clinging to my skin like tightly bound cling film. What was I going to do? Even if I ran for the bus I would probably miss it. And besides, I had to go home to my mum. I needed my mum.

  The bus wasn’t moving. Nobody else was getting on, but still it was waiting.

  Before I knew what I was doing my jelly legs were running across the busy road. If I made it then it was meant to be: what’s for you won’t go by you, that’s what my mum always says. I hastily reached into my pocket, retrieving my bus pass. This was a stroke of luck as I wasn’t even going to wear a jacket today, and I didn’t have any money on me. I showed the pass to the driver, about turned, and walked into the lion’s den.

  *

  My gait staggered as the motor started. The bus was almost full, no window seats to spare. The two youths were sitting in aisle seats towards the back of the bus, the boy leaning forward, obtrusively clutching the girl’s hand. Neither of them appeared to be looking at me.

  Where to sit? Being a well seasoned commuter I knew only too well what was going through the minds of everybody on the bus: don’t you dare sit next to me. Here lay a paradox, a psychological phenomenon. Up until the point of sitting down, no one wants you to sit beside them. But once you do the person is almost glad. It’s as though the ordeal of having to go through the fear of someone choosing to sit next to you at every stop is over. And I suppose it’s a sort of compliment, in a way.

  I weighed up my options in the blink of an eye: the old woman, the young man, the scantily clad fifteen-year-old school girl with the unfeasibly short skirt. My eyes lingered a bit too long on the girl for my liking. Her face was stunning, though, regal and refined.

  Stop it.

  I averted my gaze. Pretty or not, she was probably fifteen, so eyes off. That one wouldn’t be legal for at least another three years.

  I grimaced on remembering something my gran had said to my mum once about men: beasts of the field, every last one of them.

  The bus slammed on its breaks, throwing me off balance. I had to sit down. I walked further up the bus, staggering towards the three empty seats. Who to sit next to? Well, for starters I wasn’t going to sit next to the young girl; I’m not a paedo.

  Are you sure?

  I banished the goading voice from my head. I wasn’t going to sit next to the girl, and that was the end of it.

  Instead I found myself sitting next to the young man. Usually it would have been the old woman due to the intimidating nature of the youth; but he had a serious positive going for him: he was sitting directly behind the couple I was following. I needed to be able to watch, perhaps even to listen without looking too conspicuous.

  The moment I had sat down I wished I had chosen the old woman. I instantly felt sorry for the young man. His dick and balls were so big that he couldn’t put his legs together; in fact, he had spread them as wide as he possibly could and had no intention of shifting them. That meant I had to sit right on the edge of the seat. Fortunately for me God had spared me this affliction, blessing me instead with small genitalia, so I could close my baby legs just fine.

  I returned my attention to the poisoned lovers in front of me, and as I did so my stomach disappeared over a cliff. I had made a terrible mistake. I was too close to them for a start. He could turn around and see me quite easily from where he was sitting. And he probably had a knife. Of course he had a knife.

  On thinking this my heart started to run, to sprint.

  Deep breaths. Deep breaths.

  The bus stopped.

  The old woman sitting directly behind me appeared by my side, tottering down the isle. I cursed myself for not having sat next to her in the first place. All was not lost, though; I could simply move seats, thus getting away from big balls, the poor man obviously needing all the space he could get.

  Just as I thought this, the boy I was following jumped up with his girlfriend and darted for the empty seats. I’m sure I could have beaten them to it but I didn’t even try. At first I was slightly angry at how rude they had been, but it only took me a couple of seconds to realise my new predicament.

  They were sitting directly behind me.

  My anger evaporated before my eyes, leaving behind a sheen of glistening fear.

  Knife.

  That’s all I could think of.

  Knife.

  I shifted uncomfortably in my seat, my heart pounding painfully. He had known who I was all along. Here I was thinking he was just another stupid ned, when he had been simply biding his time.

  Would a knife go through the seat?

  Was that possible?

  Just then big balls made a move to get off the bus. Oh dear God, not now, not now big balls. I need you to stay here and protect me. As long as my genitally afflicted companion was by my side the ned couldn’t do anything; but if I were on my own... Shit.

  I could move. I scoured the lay of the land. Fuck, all the seats were taken. I flinched. The ned had just put his arm onto the back of my seat, his hand almost touching my neck. I leaned forward in a bid to get away from him. What the hell was I doing here? I should be on my way home to my mum’s.

  In a flash it was over. The ned reached his druggy hand around my forehead, pulled my head back, and with a single fluid motion slit my throat from ear to ear. I quickly moved my hand to my neck.

  It could happen. It could happen.

  Fuck, don’t lose it. Breathing is the secret. Remember to breathe.

  I jumped with a start; the girl I had been following had just passed me by, closely followed by the boy.

  The bus came to a halt.

  Within seconds I spotted the couple just outside the window. I surreptitiously turned my head to catch them as they joined two other youths. I did this carefully; I didn’t want them to catch me looking. I pretended to stare into a shop window. The four of them headed for the doorway of a chip shop, and as they did so yet another boy appeared out of nowhere.

  A cold shiver
passed over my frame, a light sprinkling of sweat smattering my forehead.

  Fucking hell. If I’d had any doubts before, then I didn’t anymore. I was now one hundred and fifty percent convinced.

  He was the third man.

  He was Rambo.

  Chapter 3

  Bipolar

  I stayed on the bus for a couple of stops before getting off. I didn’t want to think anymore, but my mind wouldn’t leave me alone. What was I going to do about it, aye? The words made me feel sick to my stomach. I had to let go, that’s what I had to do. Things were bad enough without dragging these monsters back into my life.

  It took my head a couple of minutes to catch up with my feet. As I battled to forget, my subconscious decided to walk home – fine by me. It would give me time to think, time to forget.

  “What am I going to do, dad? There’s no one I can talk to about this. Who am I going to talk to?”

  No reply.

  I had spoken a lot to my dad over the last two years, but he was answering me less and less. I don’t think I spoke to him that much in life, to be honest. I never really had the time for him: he was just my dad, just part of the household. In later years I think I even patronised him, something that probably started in my mid to late teens. I remember how I would say something profound, as though I could possibly impart some great wealth of knowledge, when in fact he was a far more clever man than I would ever be; my dad went to University when people didn’t go to University, in the fifties.

  He rarely ever answered me back. He would just look at me and smile. It had taken me a long time to realise what that smile meant: it meant that he already knew what I was attempting to teach to him, that I was young and naive and still had a lot to learn before I realised the truth… that we know nothing.

  I can still remember marching into his nursing home and in later months the hospital, as though I had some sort of authority. I was the righter of wrongs. “Dad, what problems do you have today? Just tell me all your issues and I’ll sort them out for you. Don’t you worry my son, I’m the daddy now.” And again he would just look at me and smile. But now the smile had a tinge of bitterness to it.

  On one occasion I can remember him saying, manic anger rasping at his throat: “Pete, we live in very different worlds, you and I.” And we did. He was a mess, his kidneys and intestines failing, his legs having left him long ago. And what if he did recover from his latest urinary infection, what did he have to go back to? Nothing. A nursing home full of dribbling cretins, and a male nurse who supposedly beat you in places a man didn’t bruise.

  He was 65 when he died. His body had decayed, but his mind was as sharp as ice. Now that’s a prison for you.

  As I walked past a house I read the number on the door: 1956. How old was my dad in 1956? Memories of old cine film flickered in the darkness. I saw my dad climbing down a small mound, hidden between trees on some forgotten summer holiday. How old was he in 56? He was born in 1939 so he must have been… about 17. Now that’s a good age. My mum was six years older than my dad, so she would have been… 23. She would’ve been working in Boots The Chemist at the time.

  A couple of pedestrians strolled past in the opposite direction.

  I paused until they were gone.

  “I miss you, dad. I miss you so much.”

  Talk to your mum. She’s on your side.

  I smiled. He hadn’t left me after all, at least not yet.

  “Do you think so? Will she listen?”

  Of course she’ll listen. Why do you need to ask?

  In the past two years, since my dad had died, something had changed between my mum and me, something subtle. It was hard to explain. For one she moaned a lot. She moaned that she missed her departed friends and sisters, the same friends and sisters who got on her nerves in life. She would phone me up in the middle of the night in tears, moaning that she felt guilty about dad, which despite everything I could understand – I felt guilty too.

  But didn’t she moan when I was alive as well?

  I thought about this.

  “Yes, I think she did, dad. But that was understandable. I don’t mean to be nasty, but by the end of your life you were both a physical and a mental burden to her. Have you forgotten?”

  No reply.

  My dad was a mess in the end, grossly overweight, a bit like Pavarotti. I smiled at the thought. How my dad had loved Pavarotti. When he was ill he would sing like him as well. And when Pavarotti died, I think he died a little bit too. How the man had cried that day.

  Nessun Dorma… Nessun Dorma.

  My smile grew as my dad sang to me in his deep tenor voice, but the smile didn’t last. I suddenly felt sad. Sad and angry at the injustice of the world. I missed him so much. Where did he go? How could a personality like that just disappear?

  I stopped in the middle of the pavement, wincing at the travesty of it all. The human race had all but dismissed this clever man, this powerful personality; society has no time or respect for the mentally ill, and he had been ill almost all his adult life. Over the years the doctors had tried hard to help him, but they never did manage to cure the illness. The drugs he took to keep him at bay changed through the years, and I suppose so did the illness, but they never did manage to get rid of it entirely.

  I chuckled as I picked up pace. I could still remember some of the funnier things he used to say and do. He had a good sense of humour. I wouldn’t say that it was one that I always connected with, but still he was unintentionally funny and kept us all laughing. It wasn’t his fault he went ill from time to time.

  One particular memory sprang to mind. It was something he had said to my mum once, right out of the blue. We were all sitting watching television, when suddenly he turned to face her and said:

  My love for you will never fail.

  I carry it around in a wee tin pale.

  The whole room had burst out laughing, including him. It had been totally unexpected.

  The smile on my lips grew cold. That, if I remember correctly, was just before we put him in the home.

  I was only 65.

  “I know that. But we had no choice, dad. Mum couldn’t look after you anymore.”

  I cringed on remembering the stories about him falling in the middle of the night, of how my mum would drag herself out of bed and try to help him. She was seventy years old and he weighed almost 18 stone. The mission was impossible, so she would just end up screaming at him; she didn’t believe that he couldn’t help himself. The yelling didn’t work, though. There he would lie, beached on the floor, until the nurses came in the morning. Only then would she notice the cuts and bruises on his knees where he had tried his best to get himself back into bed in the night.

  They had struggled on like this for a long time before my mum finally admitted that she couldn’t look after him anymore. It was then that we decided that he had to go into a home. It was the second hardest decision I ever had to make.

  Do you want to know the hardest? Saying yes to my dad’s doctor. Yes, withdraw the dialysis, enough is enough. The poor man’s quality of life has gone. It’s time to let him go.

  Fourteen days, that’s what the doctor told us. He would be gone in fourteen days.

  The doctor had lied. It took nineteen.

  From time to time, usually in the middle of the night, I would get calls from my mum about the decision we had made. “I let him down, Pete. We shouldn’t have told them to stop the dialysis.”

  On hearing her say this I would take in a deep breath, sigh and then compose myself. Like a pair of old spectacles, I would carefully place my exasperation down onto the table, and then begin. “He was finished, mum. His body was irreparably damaged. Have you forgotten to take your anti depressants again?”

  At 3am in the morning it was impossible to convince her of anything, even when she had taken her pills. She had taken anti depressants all her adult life.

  In the light of day I could understand where she was coming from, though. The decision to end his
life had been the hardest we had ever made, but there had been no alternative.

  Are you sure there had been no alternative?

  I slowed in my step.

  “Did we take the easy way out, dad? Perhaps in the back of my mind I saw it as a chance for us all to escape.” All my life I knew that there was only one way to end my dad’s bouts of illness and my mother’s misery. Just like with the wolfman there was only one way to end the curse.

  Were you relieved, deep down inside, when it was finally over?

  “No, of course not,” I said out loud, stopping to think. “Maybe.” I imagined my dad as a fat cockroach, lying dying in his hospital bed – metamorphosis.

  “It was hard, dad. We loved you. You were a good man. I miss you. I miss your cheeky smile.”

  But would you have me back now, if the chance were offered?

  Yet again I saw that cockroach lying in its now useless bed. “I would if you had no manic depression and your physical health was good – no kidney failure.” Hopefully my dad would understand that. He had been a clever man in life, when he was well. Surely he wouldn’t want to come back like that. Not the way he was.

  I came to a full stop. Something had dawned on me. I had forgotten about the neds and the café. My dad had managed to take my problems away after all. I started to walk again. The café was behind me now, and that was good. My pace quickened. I no longer cared about the little bastards. What had I been thinking of, getting on the bus like that? They could have recognised me, and I knew only too well the likelihood of them having knives. Karen would kill me for being so stupid.

  I cringed on remembering my wife. You know, you would think the one person you could talk to in such moments would be your partner, wouldn’t you. Not anymore. I clutched my stomach as my pace quickened. I was beginning to panic again. This wasn’t good. What am I going to do?

  Talk to your mum.

  “OK, dad. I’ll talk to her. You’re right.” Despite the subtle changes in our relationship she was still my mum. Despite everything, she was still the one person who loved me unconditionally. She would listen. She always listened.