by Walker, Luke
So her defence was simplicity. It hadn’t happened. Nope. Not at all.
Kelly tried to relax, couldn’t quite manage it and settled for focusing on her breathing while another soft fart sounded from across the room. She tried to make out their precise shapes. Too little light from the moon broke through the blinds and there was definitely no illumination coming from any other building on Greenham Road or the streets snaking from it. Kelly refused to blink until her eyes adjusted to the gloom. Dao. That was Dao in the chair while Alex slept on the sofa on the other side of the little table they’d placed all their phones on. Were they sleeping? Or was Alex lying awake, thinking about the sight of her dad and the things he’d shouted? Did she worry about Charlotte and Louisa, the girls somewhere beyond Greenham Place? And what about Dao? How the hell did he sleep when he kept hearing and seeing his son being hurt? Kelly had rarely given any thought to the idea she might one day have kids; it seemed like an alien concept belonging to a future far removed from working in a library and living alone in a shitty bedsit. Even so, she found putting herself in Dao’s place to be easier than she might have imagined. The fact that the guy was still able to walk and talk when faced with this shit was pretty impressive. Not to mention what he’d said about his other son dying a few years back.
He said it was today. It’s his anniversary.
Disquiet pricked at her. An anniversary. Yeah. She could see that. Two years for Dao; a year for her. A few days before her nineteenth, and a year to the night she’d had a party for her eighteenth. A year to the night she’d got smashed and danced and drank more and taken a little coke—just a little, no need to overdo it—and felt herself letting go of giving a shit, aware of doing so, aware she could stop it and totally aware she was letting go willingly because it meant she’d have an excuse for what was coming. What she was about to do.
What she did.
And all at once, realisation fell on Kelly. A year for her; two for Dao and neither fact was a coincidence. Neither was an accident.
A second realisation crashed down.
The stink of the aftershave was back, cloying and too close, way too fucking close.
Kelly whipped her head around towards their barrier. At the same time, the darkness moved, a precise shape closing in on her mouth and bringing the reek of its aftershave and too many drinks into her nose as it brought a hot hand to her crotch.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Simon woke when Alex placed a gentle weight on his shoulder and shook him. He jerked forward, cramp biting into his back and neck. He’d slept in a sitting position, wedged against the wall with the only soft comfort coming from the carpet.
“What is it?” he said thickly, and turned his head back and forth. Tendons cracked and he winced.
“Morning.” Alex looked around as if to convince herself of the fact. “Just.”
Groaning gently, Simon tried to rise. His legs had yet to wake up. Alex took his hand and helped him. He kept hold of her for a moment, aware he should let go, welcoming the warmth of her skin in his. Alex raised an eyebrow. He lowered his hand.
“You didn’t wake me,” she said, and he blushed.
“Slept through my watch, too. Not a great lookout.”
The others stirred in the chairs; coats and jackets slid from them as they rose.
“I won’t tell them,” Alex whispered. “Just say we both kept watch and nothing happened.”
Simon nodded. “Thanks.”
“Did anything happen?”
“No. Not a thing. Kelly seemed… odd when she finished her watch, but I didn’t—”
“Odd?” Alex interrupted. “How?”
She glanced behind at her sister as the other woman sat and rubbed her palms against her eyes.
“Quiet. Wouldn’t say much. Just told me to keep a look out. Which I managed to cock up.”
“Yes, you did.” She gazed at him and he blushed again. At least ten years younger than him and she managed to make him feel like a geeky teenager. “But we’re still here and we get out of here this morning. Agreed?”
“Gets my vote.”
She left him to cross to Kelly, speaking in a low voice as the men dropped their coats. Rod stood, stretched and walked to the kitchen area. He opened a few cupboards and let them close with a soft thud.
“Not a lot for brekkie,” he said, filling a glass with water.
“We get out of here and breakfast is on me,” Alex said. Rod managed a smile, even though every muscle, even the ones in his face, ached.
Shaking off the last of the sleep in his limbs, Simon followed Dao over to the window. On the sofa, Kelly gazed up at her sister.
“You okay?” Alex asked, voice low.
Kelly nodded once.
“You sure?”
“Shit, get out of my face, will you?”
At Kelly’s yell, the men froze in their movements: Rod with a glass almost at his mouth, Dao and Simon not quite side by side as they approached the windows and the murky light of dawn. Seconds of nothing, not even breathing, or so it seemed, passed by. Kelly shook off her improvised blanket and stood. Alex had to step back to give Kelly room.
“Sorry.” Kelly knew the apology didn’t close to sounding genuine. Not that she had it in her to give a fuck. Giving a fuck had taken a nosedive out of the window in the middle of the night when the darkness moved—
“I didn’t sleep and I feel like shit. Sorry.”
Alex nodded as if she believed the story. “It’s okay. Just as long as you’re all right.”
She left her sister, heading towards the furniture they had moved the night before and doing all she could to focus on the idea of moving it and leaving because doing that meant she didn’t have to think about the hurting tears that wanted to fall, or the way she listened for the chill clang of a church bell that could not be in the building.
“Hey.”
Simon and Dao stood at the windows, side by side and both staring outside.
“It’s normal,” Dao said. “It’s all normal.”
The men pressed their faces against the glass (Dao dreading some hand filled with claws would grip his head and force it through the window) as Rod and Kelly rushed to join them, and Alex approached slowly.
Five floors below, an early Saturday morning in Willington began to play out. While there was little traffic and not a great number of pedestrians, the streets no longer resembled the first sketches of a drawing from an artist with little talent. Shadows moved as clouds came and went over the sun, and those shadows had life, rather than looking like stains on the ground. The wind had picked up since the day before; it took a discarded can of Coke from outside a takeaway to the gutter and rolled it down towards a drain. Outside Edwards, the breeze caught a few squashed burger containers and sent them skittering into a shop doorway. In the alleyway between the still-closed branch of Tesco and a bar converted from an old cinema, two porters for an old hotel five minutes’ walk away came into view, emerged on to Greenham Road and crossed for Banks Lane without needing to check for taxis or buses.
“Simon,” Dao said. “Keep looking. Don’t even blink, okay?”
Simon had to lick his lips a few times before speaking. “Okay.”
“On three, everyone but Simon look away.” Not giving them chance to ask why, Dao rapidly said: “One, two, three.”
He, Kelly and Rod turned, all focusing on the opposite wall. Not quite close to the windows to see below, Alex stared past the others to the fading grey of the sky and wondered if the kids were awake yet, awake and maybe looking out of their bedroom window and wanting to know why Mummy hadn’t come home last night.
“Is it the same?” Dao whispered.
“Yeah.” Simon pulled away from the glass a little as Dao, Rod and Kelly crowded round him. Below, the scenes of familiarity continued, unaffected by a nuclear attack or by the mad disappearance of everything that made sense.
“It’s playing with us,” Rod muttered. “That’s why everything’s fine one mi
nute and gone the next.”
“What’s playing with us?” Kelly said.
“I have no idea, love, but it explains a bit.” Rod pointed to the window. “Why we see nothing and then it’s all normal.”
“I don’t care about that.” Alex was already moving to the blockage they’d set up. “I’m out.”
“We going for the front door again?” Kelly asked, and Alex hesitated.
“There’ll be another door somewhere. Maybe through the cash office.” She glanced back at them. “At the other side of the ground floor. There must be one near there or at the back of it or somewhere.”
“Which means we still have to go down the stairs and to the ground floor,” Dao said.
Rod took charge. “Let’s just get this lot moved.” He joined Alex; both gripped one of the tables and started dismantling their barrier. It took several minutes. Grunting, aching, they carted the desks and chairs into the staff area and left them piled messily. Sweating freely and aware of how red his face had become, Rod leaned on the wall and took a few breaths.
“You okay?” Dao asked him.
Rod nodded. “Not as young as I used to be.”
Or thin or little or quick when you run, right?
Rod shivered. The thought was his own—he was sure of that—but it sounded as cold as a January day when the last of the day was fading into a biting sunset.
He pointed to the doors. “Out, down and then outside however we can. A window, a door. I don’t care. We’ll jump from the first floor if need be.”
The others nodded their eager agreement.
“Everyone got a weapon?” Rod asked.
Weapon was pushing the term, Simon thought as the others nodded. Between them, they held a few small kitchen knives, a letter opener stolen from one of the offices and the snapped handle and blade of a guillotine—the last, a replacement for Dao’s scissors. He supposed their makeshift defences were better than nothing, but not by much when put against whatever walked in Greenham Place.
“Quickly and quietly.” Rod took hold of one of the doors. Alex did the same, holding the cool handle with a keenness to get moving that frightened her. It was almost out of control. The only reason she wasn’t sprinting to the stairs and down was because nothing about this was right. While she knew she’d knock down any spectral visions or phantom horrors if they got in her way, she still didn’t want to encounter her dad, blood-soaked and crying out for death or he’d—
No. I won’t think about it. Dad’s not here. He never has been and he would never say those things.
In reply: Kill me Alex. I’m hurting. Kill me, baby.
Alex yanked on the door. Rod did the same. They parted without a sound. For what felt like a long time, a thick quiet lived on all sides. Then Rod’s single sob broke it.
They stared at the object sitting on the floor of the landing and nobody dared speak.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Alex found herself taking hesitant steps from the offices before she realised she was going to move. Each step brought the bench closer and gave her more detail of it.
While the sun shone less strongly than the day before, perhaps because it was still early, enough yellow warmth coated the wood for her to see how rotten it was. Brown flakes patterned the white floor. Crumbling splinters jutted from either end and in two dozen or more places on the main section. While the five or so feet of bench gave enough room for a few people to sit without being wedged together, it didn’t look as if it would support a child’s weight let, alone the weight of several adults. All too easy to see the middle snapping under any pressure, the supports and feet below the main section breaking in two and sending their broken fingers of wood scattering. And the smell. God. While Alex had little experience of woodlands, she knew the particular aroma of old trees soaking after a storm. Pleasant at first; natural and healthy and full of the outdoors which was always welcome when compared to being stuck in a city, even out in its suburbs. But still an aroma that didn’t take long to become cloying. It coated the tongue and clung to nostrils and it was all too easy to picture tiny spores of moss clinging to the fine hairs inside her nose. No, not a smell she liked to take in too deeply or too often. Problem was she couldn’t not smell it. The scent seemed to live in the walls as well as float upwards from the floor.
“What is it?” Kelly whispered. Surprising them all, Rod raced forward, one large foot rising as if he was about to kick a football. His trainer connected with the underside of the bench, launching it a little distance from the ground. It tipped over and clattered down with a mighty crash. One of the supports snapped free, sending more flakes pattering down. Panting hard, Rod turned away and strode to the other side of the landing. He rested on the railing beside the window, drawing breath while the others could only gather together, pressing their bodies to each other and all too scared to speak.
Abruptly, Rod let out a yell full of nothing but rage. “Fuck you, you bastard. You hear me? Fuck you.”
Howling like a wounded animal, he raced back to the overturned bench and grabbed it.
“Rod.” Desperate to make the other man stop, or at least calm down, Simon took a step forward. If there were any words to make it happen, he didn’t have them. All he could do was shout the Welshman’s name again. “Rod.”
While fat covered much of Rod’s body, muscle was hidden beneath the weight. He lifted the bench as if it weighed nothing and flung it through the air. The underside hit the railing and a small chunk broke free as the bench tipped and plummeted from sight.
Seconds later, they heard it explode into dozens of pieces, and with an inner vision that grew in strength, powered by their mostly unspoken fear, they saw the shards of the destroyed bench fly across the floor and slide through the early morning shadows where nothing they wanted to consider might be ready to pick up each piece and try to put the bench back together.
Rod collapsed, legs sprawled, his shadow pooling over the smooth white of the floor. There were no tears. He looked like he’d switched off, and Alex found that more frightening than any weeping or raging yells.
“Rod? You okay?”
He gave no reaction. She could have been addressing a lump of rock.
“Rod?”
Nothing.
Alex glanced around at the others, saw little help from them and took a few hesitant steps towards Rod. The smell that was closer to a stink of decaying wood remained, even though the bench was five floors below and in pieces.
Hopefully still in pieces.
Alex ignored the thought and moved closer to Rod, treading carefully. Simon nudged Dao’s elbow and caught his eye.
What do we do? Simon mouthed, and Dao shook his head. Not from a lack of ideas, Simon realised, but in negating any plan of moving from the entrance to the sixth floor offices. Between the two men, Kelly tried to keep as motionless as possible, despite the urge in his legs to sprint by her sister and Rod and get down to the ground floor fast. Something inside that was no more advanced in thinking than any cornered animal’s need to keep out of a predator’s reach ordered Kelly to remain with the others. Without thought, she obeyed the command and watched Alex approach Rod.
“You still with us, Rod?” Alex muttered, and he finally moved, shifting his head a fraction to stare up at her.
“Where else would I be, Alex?” he whispered
She crouched and took one of his hefty hands between both of her own. His skin, while obviously pale, struck her as a shade beyond white. It looked bleached, alabaster, the way she imagined a clean bone would appear. Shaking the image off—it came from the contrast of their skin colours—Alex said:
“What happened, Rod? Talk to us.”
Rod closed his eyes. When he began to speak in a low, struggling voice, Alex found that to be more than welcome.
It was a blessing.
Chapter Twenty-Five
“I was nine. Fifty years back now.” A flicker of a smile ghosted across Rod’s mouth. It held no happiness at all. “We li
ved in a village near Cardiff. My dad was a farmer. My mum and dad knew a bloke. Kind of a friend, but not really. He was a man everyone in the village knew, but nobody liked him the way you like a mate. A good man to know, my dad said, but that didn’t mean he liked him.” Still with his eyes closed, Rod dropped his kitchen knife beside his leg. His free hand swallowed both of Alex’s; they held each other, black and white fingers linked.
“Martin Williams. Rich man. He’d done well in property, I think. I always knew he had a lot of cash, but never knew why people didn’t like him.”
Stepping away from Dao and Kelly, Simon approached. Alex willed him to keep quiet. He sat on Rod’s other side, a good four or five feet away. Kelly remained on a sofa. The leather creaked under her slight weight. Not making a move from the double doors, Dao gazed at Rod, and in his calm eyes, Alex saw the faint light of understanding beginning to gleam. She had to look away because she knew the same was in her own eyes.
Tell me I’m wrong. Please, God. Tell me I’m wrong.
“Maybe he threw his money about too much. Maybe he was just one of those blokes people don’t like. I don’t know. He lived in a house down the road from our farm. I was out one morning. Cold that day.” Rod bowed his head and shook. “Didn’t really feel like winter but it wasn’t really autumn, either. Just cold and grey and bloody miserable. I’d been walking our dog in the woods at the edge of the farm in the morning and came back over the fields. I remember how grey the sky was and how big. It was always big out there, but this was huge. I felt like a dot. A fly. I walked over the field with my dog and my house. . .I could see it.”