by Luke Walker
Karen heard her next words as if they belonged to someone else. ‘That doesn’t seem to matter to her.’
Fourteen
Andy eased his way through the crowded bar, two pints held tight against his chest. Stu spoke behind him and the words were lost below the sound of the Friday night drinkers. He stepped nimbly to the side when two teenage girls walked towards him fast. One of them might have apologised; it was hard to tell in the noise. He pressed himself against the underside of the stairs in the centre of the pub floor and Stu joined him.
‘Okay?’ Stu said.
‘Yeah. Just trying not to get knocked over.’
A laugh bubbled up from somewhere far below and he wanted to ask Stu if the night seemed as insane to his friend as it did to him. To go from discussing their dead friend to fighting their way back to the table in a crowded pub was utterly surreal.
A gap opened in the crowd; Stu marched forward, holding three pints, and Andy followed. He sat close to Mick who pushed at him in mock disgust.
‘Queer. You trying to sit on my lap?’ Mick said.
‘Knobber,’ Andy said and managed a real laugh. It was wonderful to be able to do this, to laugh when nothing made sense, and to slip back into old habits that had died years before.
A scream rang out from somewhere above. Andy jerked his head up, stared at the steps and saw nothing unusual. Coldness crept up and down his body.
The scream had been the same as before. Exactly the same. He studied the others. None of them had reacted to the noise which made sense. It was his vision, after all. His share of Geri.
Relax. They’re all here. You’re all part of this.
‘One thing that occurred to me earlier,’ Karen said and looked at Stu. ‘Geri’s parents.’
‘Diane and Gary, wasn’t it?’ Andy said, still watching the stairs.
‘Yeah.’ Stu nodded. ‘They moved years ago. Got to be seven at least. Maybe eight.’
‘I thought it might be worth, you know, speaking to them.’
‘What? To ask them if their dead daughter has been in touch?’ Andy meant his words to come out light. Instead, they were waspish. He lowered his head. ‘Yes, I know I’m a twat.’
‘Yeah, we know.’ Mick shoved him. ‘Don’t change.’
Andy managed a little laugh. ‘What about her brother? What was that guy’s name?’ he asked.
‘Phil,’ Karen said. She glanced at Stu. ‘Any ideas?’
‘I think he moved, as well. Don’t know where to.’ He gripped his pint and spoke without meeting anybody’s eye. ‘One thing I thought of earlier. Maybe it’s worth going to Geri’s grave.’
He drank his beer as if embarrassed.
‘Why?’ Andy said and did his best not to sound peevish.
‘Why not?’ Mick said, shrugging.
‘No. I mean, it’s not like she’s going to be there, is it? We can’t talk to her there any more than we can talk to her here.’
‘Where else is there to go? Her house? Even if her parents still lived there, we could hardly knock on the door and ask to come in, could we?’ Stu spoke without anger and Andy wondered if anger might have been better than the tiredness in Stu’s voice.
‘When did you last go to her grave?’ Karen asked.
‘Last year. Went on her birthday. Felt like I should, you know.’
They drank for a moment. The doors opened and closed as a crowd left to be replaced by several women.
‘Is that the plan, then? Go to her grave?’ Mick said.
‘Now?’ Andy said, unable to hide his surprise.
‘Could be an idea,’ Will said and Andy knew his face showed his dislike of the idea. He couldn’t help it, though. Will spoke again.
‘I know it sounds nuts, but what else can we do? We’ve all had some kind of contact with Geri and it doesn’t matter that she’s dead. She’s still got in touch with us. She obviously wants something and it seems pretty clear it’s to do with this.’
Will tapped the sheet of paper.
‘But Geri with a gun, that’s just bollocks,’ Andy said. ‘Who the hell would she want to kill?’
‘Maybe we should ask her,’ Mick said.
Andy traced the tips of his fingers over Will’s paper.
‘Can I?’ he said.
Will nodded and Andy slid the paper over the table. Watched by the others, he opened it and studied the drawing again.
Despite knowing the situation was crazy, he couldn’t get away from the drawing. While he wasn’t an expert on Will’s style, he knew enough about his friend’s work to know this wasn’t Will’s. While this drawing definitely had the detail in Geri’s face and the building she was inside, it lacked Will’s attention to the rest of the scene. Whoever had drawn this was an expert at faces and identity and colour, but they weren’t too fussed about background.
It’s not about background. It’s about Geri with a gun.
Andy folded the paper in half and slid it back to Will.
‘Best put it away,’ Mick said. For once, he didn’t sound as if he was joking.
‘Yeah.’
Will pocketed the drawing and took Karen’s hand. Andy studied Will and Karen and the firmness with which Will held her hand. Briefly, Andy wondered if they had spoken about Geri and what the situation meant to Will in ways it didn’t to the rest of them.
‘So say we go to her grave. Then what?’ he said.
‘Bollocked if I know, but it has to be worth a go,’ Stu replied.
They talked for another few minutes. Andy listened to their conversation, wishing he was surprised that their words didn’t seem to mean anything. He finished his drink, watched Stu and Mick do the same, and pulled his coat on.
‘Okay. Let’s go and see our dead friend.’
He’d meant for his statement to be a joke, to be as light as something Mick would have said. Instead, it belonged to the voice of a bitter man, unable to believe what had happened.
‘Sorry. That sounded different in my head.’
‘Knob jockey,’ Mick said and gave him a loose hug. ‘We’ll let you off.’
Will and Karen pulled on their coats; Karen swallowed the last of her drink and nobody moved from the table. Stu glanced at the others and pointed towards the doors, now hidden by Friday night drinkers.
‘We go, we get a taxi, we see Geri’s grave and we go from there. If nothing happens, we come back here and get shit faced. How’s that sound?’
‘That’s a plan and a half,’ Mick said.
Stu led them towards the doors, sliding between people, conversation impossible in the noise. A few steps from the two bouncers, Stu pressed himself against the wall and faced them.
‘We’re all okay with this?’ he asked, voice raised over the mix of music and conversation. He looked at each of them in turn and Andy stuck his hands into his jeans pockets to stop them shaking. ‘We all know what we’re doing?’
‘Yeah. Sort of,’ Will said.
Stu scratched at his mouth. ‘We all believe this, don’t we?’
His mouth trembled and Andy couldn’t think of a time he’d seen Stu so miserably frightened.
‘Yes. I don’t think we have any choice,’ Karen said.
‘Yeah,’ Will murmured.
‘I’d rather eat my own leg than be here because of this,’ Mick said. ‘But doesn’t look like I have much choice.’
‘Is that a yes?’ Karen asked him.
He smiled, nodded and wiped at his damp eyes.
Will appraised Andy and the words were coming up, furious words at Will, telling him to fuck off, telling him this was all a load of shit.
‘Yeah,’ he said and his vision wavered with his tears. He inhaled sharply, held the breath and let it go.
The world changed.
Stu was walking to the doors, the bouncers were opening them and the cold of the night was coming to them.
The world changed.
Karen and Will were following Stu, hands linked. Mick was turning to him, hand reaching for
his shoulder and his mouth opening.
The world changed.
All the colour fell out of Mick’s face and out of Will and Karen’s coats, then out of the walls, then out of the floor. Everything around him became a dead grey. The steady beat of the music dropped into a tuneless drone; the men and women around him and crowding the long bar became transparent. Andy stared through them, tasting the cry in his mouth and wondering from far off if it would be as faded and ghostly as everything around when it finally arrived. The drinkers became shadows and the sounds of their voices and laughter were the distant rumble of thunder.
The grey of the floor vanished. The floor was gone. Andy stared at an endless black that dropped into nothing. He stood over it, a meaningless mote in the void.
His cry finally broke free and he fell into the nothing, Mick beside him, Stu, Karen and Will above, then below. Black swallowed him.
The world was darkness.
Darkness lit with little lights.
Fifteen
Mick threw himself upright, staggered a few steps forward and fell to his knees. Momentum carried him further and he dropped to the grass. His breath pounded in his chest; he coughed and tried to ignore the dizziness spinning in his head. He pushed himself upright and gazed at his surroundings. Dim moonlight shone on the grass for a circle of a few feet.
‘Grass,’ he said.
His mind made no attempt to explain the situation or to accept it. The small part of his consciousness that seemed to be outside this told him there was no way of explaining it. It just was and there was nothing more to it.
‘Right,’ he said and stood.
Pain rolled up his legs. He rubbed the fronts of his thighs. The pain must have come from a sharp impact. The ache suggested it had been a few minutes before.
‘Right,’ Mick said again and studied the area.
There was little to see. The moonlight didn’t stretch far; the grass was more or less featureless. Not wanting to take his eyes from the land, Mick pulled his mobile from his pocket and quickly checked the screen. No signal. He stared at it. No time, either. Knowing it was pointless, he selected Stu’s name. Nothing happened.
Mick pocketed his phone and hugged himself. Wherever the hell he was, the temperature had fallen a few degrees since he’d left the house. Earlier, it’d been maybe ten or eleven degrees. Not too bad for the third week of October, and he’d gone to the pub in a jacket over a chunky sweater. Now, his big coat, the one he’d bought for his and Jodie’s holiday to New York last Christmas, would have been handy.
Mick jammed his hands in his pockets. With little thought, he walked in the same direction he faced, taking slow steps over the grass. The plan, such as it was, meant walking to a recognisable landmark, see if he could find a phone or get a signal and call the others. Then get back to the pub or Stu’s house or somewhere that made sense and find out what the fuck had happened between standing beside the pub doors and finding himself here.
Geri. What the hell is all this?
His breath danced ahead of his mouth and tightness embraced his chest. It couldn’t be more than five or six degrees out here. More like late November than October.
He stumbled as the grass vanished and he stood on a path.
It ran to his left and right, curving away out of sight after a few steps. Mick squatted, placed his hand on the cold ground and traced a finger over the cracks that filled it.
A path goes somewhere.
True, but this path didn’t look particularly well-travelled. The moonlight shone on cracks and lines. Grass grew over its edges and tatty weeds jutted from many of the cracks. Mick stood again and gazed ahead. From the little he could see of the grass, it appeared to rise and dip a little just ahead. He stared straight in front and wondered if he could actually see a shape or if his mind was simply making shapes out of nothing because it desperately wanted to place his surroundings.
Only one way to find out.
He moved forward again, counting his steps. After fifteen, he stopped and gazed at the fence. Like the path, it was full of cracks and obviously old. Mick scratched at it. The night air filled the wood with its cold. Mick lowered his hand and stared at the houses on the other side of the fence. No lights shone in windows. No sounds came from them.
He knew where he was.
‘Atherstone Road,’ he whispered and the chill in the grass ate into his boots.
The grass of Atherstone Park.
Twenty-four years, a voice said to him and there was no need to argue or debate. The voice was right. Twenty-four years since he’d been here, standing on this field as a twelve-year-old boy, playing football with his mates while his home was visible on the other side of the fence.
Staring at his childhood home, Mick pictured the road, the houses and the small patches of grassland all a matter of feet away. He hadn’t walked on them in over half his life and that didn’t matter. They were here, right in front of him.
Mick’s fear had been with him since he’d begun walking. Now it spoke, asking where were the others and why were no lights on in any of the houses?
Everyone’s asleep.
Right. Because everybody went to bed at half nine, didn’t they?
You don’t know what time it is. Could be later than it was in the pub.
That didn’t help. If time he couldn’t account for had somehow passed between their last conversation in the pub and finding himself here, that changed things.
How come nothing’s changed here?
He stared at the fence, then the silent houses. The thought was right. Not only did the park appear exactly as it had when he was a kid, the houses also looked the same.
Mick jerked around at a sudden sound, saw nothing and strained to hear. It came again: a scraping. Something on wood. Something on the fence.
Mick backed away fast, attempting to look in all directions at once. Nothing moved in the dark. He clenched both hands into fists, stood still and listened. The scraping muttered again, a pause, then a thud.
Someone had just jumped over the fence.
Mick’s fear exploded into terror. Still straining to hear, he trotted back towards the path, stood on it and faced the fence. Something moved over the grass. A man dashed towards him, hunched and silent. Mick threw himself to the side as the man lunged at him and stumbled. The man dropped and swung his baseball bat. It hissed in the air, missing Mick’s stomach by an inch.
‘Christ.’ Mick kicked the man in the thigh. The movement was clumsy, the blow only a weak connection of boot to leg.
The man let out a hacking wheeze that descended into a laugh. A stink of dirt and waste hit Mick’s nostrils. He gagged. The man smelled as if he lived in his own shit. Mick jumped backward as the bat came close again.
‘Who the fuck are you?’ Mick shouted. ‘What the hell is going on?’
The man wheezed. His face wasn’t completely visible. He wore a scarf over his neck and mouth, leaving only pale cheeks and dark eyes exposed. Lank hair covered his forehead in dirty curls. With a fast, unthinking eye, Mick noted the man’s clothes of a long coat, torn in many places and stained, black jeans full of holes, and battered boots below his jeans. Options sped through Mick’s mind. The nutcase was drunk, stoned or just mental. None mattered as much as the bat.
‘Put it down.’ Mick’s voice shook. ‘The bat. Drop it.’
The guy wheezed another laugh. His hand shot around, bringing the bat towards Mick’s feet. Mick jerked back and the man leaped upright.
‘Kill,’ the man said. ‘You.’
‘Fucking drop it,’ Mick shouted.
The attacker jerked forward with a stabbing movement. Mick stepped back and sprinted across the grass. At once, the man ran after him and primitive survival kicked into Mick’s brain.
The fence to his right had been a hundred feet when he was a kid, then the slope, then trees, then the embankment down to the dual carriageway. He had to get to the trees.
Behind, the loon closed in; Mick streaked to
his left, then back right. Bitter air burned in this throat. He upped his speed to the maximum and felt the ground rise. He veered left again and the trees, all bare and dead, were right in front.
There’d be nowhere to hide in the little wood. Mick shot back to the right, then threw himself into the trees. He crashed against one, ducked, and the man with the bat raced towards him. Mick’s foot lunged, the man hit it and flew forward. Mick leaped, crashed into the cackling figure and they both dropped. Screaming, Mick pummelled at the man’s face, fists breaking skin, blood on his knuckles, skin split. Still screaming, Mick pounded at the man’s head until fire made his hands cook. Sobbing, he crawled backwards and leaned against a dead tree trunk. His hands burned with pain. He lifted them to his face; blood coated his fingers. Wincing, he flexed them. They moved but not without a deep, throbbing hurt.
Nothing broken. Nothing but that guy’s face.
Mick’s stomach rolled. Not looking to see if the man was conscious, he grabbed the baseball bat and gripped the cold handle. A splinter stabbed his thumb. He wiped a thin line of blood on his jeans and walked down the slope, breathing as quietly as his panting breath would allow, sobbing as quietly as he could.
Sixteen
Will’s first thought:
Karen. Where’s Karen?
The second:
Fire.
He rolled, hit a wall and groaned. He made it upright by holding on to the wall, and stared into nothing. Shapes surrounded him, all too indistinct to identify. None of them mattered, though. Something was burning. Something below.
Heat rose to his feet, then up. Will squatted, touched the ground and withdrew his hand quickly. The floor, wherever he was, was too hot to touch. Moving like a blind man, Will stretched his arms out, splayed his fingers and felt his way forward. Three steps took him to the edge of a piece of furniture. Metal. Cold. Low down.
‘It’s a bed,’ Will whispered, leaned forward and felt a soft mattress. He pressed and his fingers hit something damp, something he instinctively knew to be unpleasant. He wiped them on the frame and heard the crackle of the fire below. Smoke hadn’t reached the room yet. Even so, the sound was enough to push Will close to panic. He edged along the end of the bed and his feet hit a pile of soft things. He kicked them gently and some fell to the side. Steeling himself, Will bent and felt the soft objects. Wool, maybe. Something old. And was that denim?