by Luke Walker
‘Relax,’ Stu said. ‘Big Mickey’s here.’
Will didn’t smile; the words hurt too much. It must have been ten years since anyone had called Mick Big Mickey. Hearing it, even out here, made him feel young if only for a few seconds.
‘All right, Mick. What’s the plan?’
For the last time, Mick lifted his arm. He pointed to the water.
‘The river? What about it?’ Will said. A horrible fear crept into his head.
No way. No fucking way could Mick mean that.
‘Mick, dude. There’s something in the water. I heard it earlier. I was here; I told you about it, remember? Something’s in there.’
Mick hadn’t lowered his arm. He pointed to the water. The wind played over the surface of it.
‘We can’t do this,’ Will whispered.
‘I don’t think there’s much choice,’ Karen said and Will whirled to face her.
‘You’re suggesting we go swimming, here? After what I heard?’
‘Think about it. Why would Mick take us here if it wasn’t to help us?’ Stu said.
‘I don’t care,’ Will said and Karen grabbed both his arms and cried into his face.
‘You need to care. This isn’t just about us. Andy’s dead; Mick’s dead and he’s here. He came back to help us so you better fucking care.’
She let go of him and shook, her anger still palpable. Voice lower, she went on without lifting her head.
‘Geri’s dead and she’s in trouble. We’re in trouble, Will. And this might be the only way to help Geri and help ourselves. It might be the only thing left to do.’
She lifted her head. There were no tears and Will wondered if they were beyond tears now. The thought sent his fear away. Simple exhaustion filled his blood and muscles.
He took her hand.
‘Okay. If you say so, then okay.’
Mick faced the water again. He seemed to have turned without moving.
‘Lead on, Mick,’ Stu said.
Mick did so, his slow steps on the grass taking them to the water’s edge. Will stared at the surface just beyond the little slope and the rocks and the long grass.
‘I left my trunks at home,’ he muttered.
‘Have to do it in your vest and pants,’ Stu said and Will managed a giggle.
Stu moved a few steps closer to the water and squatted to touch the grass. He jerked his hand back a second later and shook it.
‘Cold. Too cold.’
‘Probably warmer than the water,’ Will said and studied the surface again. The moonlight did little to illuminate it or the opposite bank. The tall trees there and long bushes could be concealing anything.
‘Will,’ Karen whispered.
Turning, Will saw the expression on her face and whirled back to the water to see Stu rising, mouth open in horror. On the river’s surface, a great line had formed, cutting through the water from bank to bank as it split the surface in two.
Below the surface was nothing. It went on forever.
A nothing of darkness. A darkness of the end of all things.
Karen took Will’s hand. Then Stu was beside her, his hand in hers.
Will understood.
In those last few seconds, he had no hearing, no sense of smell and no awareness of the cold or the grass and trees around them. The darkness was all there was for them.
It spread on to the rocks and grass, creeping towards them, a hole coming for them.
Something lifted Will’s head and his eyes met Mick’s and Mick’s voice was in his head for one last time.
Do it, Elton, you bender. This is the way out. Just don’t let go.
Will stared down to the space where the water had been. It wasn’t a simple void now. Movement lived far below: streaking things made of lights, made of all the colours in the world, made of eyes and mouths. The eyes stared upwards to see him and only him, marking him and knowing his name.
They know my name. Oh my God. They know my name.
Mouths down there in the dark were smiling as they opened wider and wider, coming to eat this patch of stunted grass, coming for this world, and Will understood.
The hole before them wasn’t a door between worlds or a door from one to the other. It was the sleeping space of their past.
They stood on the gap between their lives now and the people they had been.
Karen took a step forward, Stu did the same and Will couldn’t help but to move with them. Every muscle in his body protested, every urge told him to run. Geri, Mick and Andy didn’t matter. Nothing mattered but the black below coming to eat him. He had to run, he had to go now, run away from Monk’s Cave and leg it back to the house.
Geri’s face came to him as clearly as if she was with them in the flesh. She was smiling and her hair shone.
Will clamped his hand down on Karen’s and jumped. Karen and Stu fell with him, the hole below the water swallowed them and Will spun around as they fell and the wide mouths of colour below opened for them. He stared back up to Mick’s fading shape and he didn’t let go.
Seventy Six
Miss you. Love you.
Bye.
Seventy Seven
The woman, Kirsty, was talking, asking him again where they were going. Phil let her speak. Her words weren’t important. Neither was the hate she felt for him. He listened to the other voice, the one he’d always loved, as it told him it would be okay if he kept to his plan, they’d be together again if he kept to the plan.
He asked her if she was sure and she said she was. He asked her where to go exactly and she told him. She’d be in the big room above the library, she said. Block. He remembered it, didn’t he? Of course he did. Never the Block. Always just Block. He’d been there a few years before her, making his mark on the school, leaving an impression that had stayed with people after all this time and why wouldn’t it? If he remembered that and stuck to the plan, everything would be fine. And they could have some fun again.
Her voice faded, Phil strained to catch the rest but it was gone. No matter. She often came and went. Always had.
He glanced out of the window beside him, then ahead. Everything had worked out perfectly so far. The old people hadn’t presented any problems; taking control of them and their house had been a piece of piss. Okay, having to wait a few hours for dark and spending all that time pretending to Kirsty that he was grief-stricken and panicked had been a pain in the arse. She’d helped him out of that, though, whether she knew it or not. Going for the blade in the kitchen, Christ, that had been obvious. It couldn’t have worked out better if he’d handed her the weapon himself. No need for that, though. She’d tried her luck just as he’d known she would and he’d been free to reveal himself, to stop pretending all that tiresome crap.
Since then, luck had still been on his side. Very little traffic on the roads, nobody to see him in the back seat, leaning into Kirsty’s neck. Things couldn’t have been going better.
Phil allowed himself a smile, fully aware he couldn’t get cocky or complacent. This wasn’t over yet. It wouldn’t be until they were together again just like the old days. And that would happen just as he’d planned unless this silly bitch tried anything.
‘Next left. Go to the end of the road and turn left again,’ he said and watched her stare at him in the mirror.
‘The school? We’re going to the school?’ she said.
‘What makes you say that?’
‘There’s nothing else there.’
‘True.’ He grinned again. ‘Yes, the school. Go to the car park and stop there.’
‘What happens then?’
‘Then it’s almost over.’
Kirsty indicated left and turned. They passed a few cars going the other way and she made no move to signal them. She’d been thinking about it, especially earlier. He liked knowing she’d given up on the idea. It made everything a little easier.
‘What does that mean?’ she whispered.
‘It means whatever the fuck I want it to,’ he screamed.
Christ, her constant questions were annoying. Couldn’t just drive and keep quiet, could she? Had to open her mouth all the fucking time.
Phil squeezed his long fingers into his thigh. The discomfort brought focus …and something else.
A memory.
Of course. She’d done the same. All those times before. All those wonderful times.
Kirsty was staring at him again, a few tears rolling down her cheeks. He quite liked that. It meant he was in control.
Phil shifted in his seat, Kirsty made the final turn and he pictured the car park as it’d be tonight. Empty, silent.
He had to shift in his seat again.
They drove down Cromwell Road, passing parked cars and houses full of bright windows, and reached the main entrance. A locked gate blocked it from the road.
‘Shit.’ Phil thought quickly. Sweat dripped into his eyes, stinging them. He blinked it away. ‘The other entrance. By the swimming pool.’
Kirsty drove to the end of the road, reached Bradwell Road and then the entrance which ran beside the swimming pool. Lights shone in the building and a few vehicles were parked around the car park. Not perfect, but close.
‘Park right at the end,’ Phil said and pointed straight ahead.
Kirsty drove slowly to the edge of the car park. Ahead of them, the school came into view. Phil stared at it, amazed to see how much it had changed since he’d left. Blocks had been developed, there was a large open area in the middle of the grounds and a load more greenery lined pathways.
‘They spent some money on this place,’ he said.
The block containing the main doors and reception area looked more or less the same which was a comfort. It helped to imagine going through those doors, seeing the same long sofas and photos of each Year on the wall, and the open plan reception off to his side.
The memory felt like the old days and that could only be a good thing.
Phil stared at the school and listened.
Go in, she said. Go through the little corridor that connects the cafeteria to the languages block.
Of course. The best place, wasn’t it? Go in there and there’d only be a little bit further to the doors, the steps, and there they’d be above the library. There she’d be in Block.
Waiting for him.
Doubt pressed in.
Are you sure? I mean, going in those doors. That’s going to make a lot of noise. No way can I get away from that.
Easy, she said. Hide. Hide on the second floor. I’ll show you where.
Phil considered it. Hiding. Then simply waiting until the police left. No problem. Waiting was fine. He’d waited for her already, hadn’t he? A long time.
‘Best part of fifteen years. Long time.’
‘What?’ Kirsty said and he didn’t care for her tone.
‘Nothing. Shut up.’
Phil listened.
It was all right, she said. Soon.
Phil listened.
Seventy Eight
With one blink, the black of the land around Monk’s Cave was replaced with a white void. Stu stared into it, attempting to focus on something, anything. The void ate into his eyes; he shut them, holding on to his scream, and heat ate his skin.
His eyes opened. The white void had gone. So had Monk’s Cave.
They were back at the school, back how things had been during that vision or whatever the hell it was.
It’s the last day.
The thought made it all solid. The grass he stood upon, the July light, the bricks and windows of the school were all utterly real.
A hand hit his shoulder and he whirled, fists up. Will backed away. Karen gazed at the blue sky as if she had never seen it before.
‘Easy, tiger,’ Will murmured and Stu felt a grin, too large and too out of control, split his face in half.
‘Just thrilled to be alive,’ he said.
‘We’re here, aren’t we?’ Karen said.
Stu gazed at the school. It held an indefinable something in its bricks and windows, something that said this was different to the vision Mick had taken them to. Compared to this, that had been like being inside a film or hearing a story told by someone who might have been making it all up.
‘Mick,’ he said and stared at the others. Will shook his head.
‘I saw him when we left the grass. He was fine.’ Will studied the grass and didn’t appear to be able to elaborate. Stu had to look away from him. Mick, gone. Andy, gone. With Mick, it was somehow worse if that was possible. He’d come back, he’d been with them and now he wasn’t.
What the hell do we tell Jodie? Mick, man. The babies. Bleeding Christ.
‘Shit,’ Stu whispered. ‘What now?’
It seemed horribly unfair to jettison all thoughts of Mick, but they couldn’t afford grief. Stu dug his nails into his palms and welcomed the sharp pain.
‘She’s here somewhere,’ Karen said.
‘Above the library,’ Will said.
‘Geri,’ Stu whispered and a shiver ran through him. It dropped out of his feet and spread through the grass. A moment later, the first high voice of a child came. Others followed it. A dozen children, twenty, more: all laughing, talking, shouting; all moving around them on the lush grass. The air remained perfectly still, the sun beat on them and it was a gorgeous school day in a way that hurt Stu. It was a day a million miles from all the grief and trouble of adulthood.
The school bell rang, a sudden burst of a shrill noise, and the children’s voices gained a focus, a direction.
‘What’s going on?’ Will said.
Stu listened. The children’s laughter and voices had definitely changed direction. They moved in one mass, heading across the grass to the school. It didn’t take much effort to picture all the children moving towards the doors of the different blocks.
‘Registration,’ Stu said and let out a big laugh. ‘Fuck me.’
He couldn’t have said why the idea of registration filled him with such delight, only that it brought up images of early mornings and seeing friends. He laughed again and the second bell rang.
‘The late bell,’ Karen said and let out a nervous giggle as if they were the ones who were late for school.
The sound of the children rapidly decreased. Despite the lack of movement anywhere, Stu saw them all with his mind’s eye. Dozens of kids were cramming in the doors, pushing, shoving, bags and jackets in their arms while they prepared for the last day of school.
Kids.
The last of Stu’s exhausted laughter dried up. They were in the school and so were a load of children. So, they hadn’t seen them; they’d heard them. They were here, and so was Geri with her gun.
‘We need to get them out of here,’ he said and tried to think of a plan that made sense.
‘She won’t shoot anyone. Come on. We’re talking about Geri, for fuck’s sake.’
Will did believe that, Stu knew. More than that, he wanted to believe that. He stayed silent although the urge to move was rapidly developing into panic.
‘You don’t think she would, do you?’ Will asked both of them.
Karen struggled with her words but eventually spoke.
‘A week ago, I’d have said no chance, but we’ve all seen it. And we’ve read her diary. You know what she said about here, about wanting to hurt other people. This is wrong, Will. I love Geri. Always did, but we have to stop her.’
‘Jesus,’ Will said and the corners of his mouth trembled. ‘All right. Christ. All right. We know where she’s going to be. I’ll go there and if she’s there, I’ll talk to her.’
‘No way are you going alone. Not when she’s got a gun,’ Karen shouted.
‘It’s Geri. She won’t shoot me.’
‘She shot at me,’ Stu muttered and Will’s anger faded from his face, leaving it sickly and frightened.
‘Either way, we need to get the kids out of here. I’ll go with you.’ Stu gazed at Karen. ‘You go to the reception and tell them what’s happening.’
‘You think they�
��ll believe me?’
‘Hit the fire alarm if you have to. Just get everyone out of here.’
Karen nodded. ‘As soon as I’m done there, I’ll come after you. If she’s there, just keep her talking.’
‘I can’t believe we’re doing this,’ Will whispered. He rubbed at his mouth and kissed Karen. He let her go unwillingly and Stu watched a silent conversation pass between them: Will, telling Karen he loved her; Karen, telling him to be careful and she loved him. The words weren’t there. Not aloud, anyway.
He and Will jogged across the field and aimed for the path that cut between the departments for science and maths. Stu glanced back after a moment; Karen was sprinting towards the car park which would take her to the main entrance. Ahead, windows bounced sunlight back at them and Stu wondered how long it would take before someone saw them and reported two men running into the school.
There was nothing left to do but hope they got to Geri before anyone could stop them, and hope Karen could get the kids out.
He and Will ran faster.
Seventy Nine
Kirsty couldn’t stop her eyes moving from the rear-view mirror to the silent school. Back and forth, trying to watch both at the same time, trying to watch Phil in the back of the car and look for an escape in the same shot of vision.
It couldn’t be done. There wasn’t an escape.
Her hope had died about ten minutes before. She’d felt it go. There’d been no one reason for it, no single thing Phil had said. It had just gone. With her in one breath, and dead with the next. No more real thoughts of escape, just the imagination of running, of her trainers on the pavement as she pounded through the streets away from the bastard behind her. No belief she’d see Stu or Lucy again, no hope of telling them what they meant to her. Just her, this car, and the man behind. Just nothing at all but wanting it to be quick when it came.
I’m sorry, Stu. I’m really sorry.
There were no tears. Not even when Phil breathed right beside her ear.
‘Drive up there. Right by the main entrance.’ He pointed. ‘Don’t worry. Your car will be fine. This is a nice neighbourhood.’
He hissed a little laugh like a little boy laughing at a dirty joke.