Darkest Thoughts

by Gordon Brown

  A few innings in I can feel some of the mist beginning to clear but, on cue, another dose is administered. There are worse ways to watch baseball.

  Two more shots and the Rays are Happy Larrys. Three – one. Top of the pile now. The stadium should empty but they’re gearing up for the concert.

  Lendl leans forward. ‘Time to go.’

  A couple of suits are making their way down the stairs. They don’t look happy. I wish I could make their day a bad one but the drugs are an anchor on my abilities. They remove Charlie from my shoulder and lift me from the chair.

  ‘A touch too much drink, I fear.’ Lendl is talking to those around me. Another shot and I’m close to passing out.

  Soon we are wandering through the maze that makes up the innards of the stadium. I’m bundled into a closet. The smell suggests it was recently used to store cleaning equipment.

  Lights out. Another cell.

  I hear a door close nearby and wonder if Charlie has just been dumped in his own cell.

  I fall to the floor as the light fairies play with my eyesight. The feeling of helplessness is not quashed by the narcotics. I know I need to act. There will be no second chances. Lendl knows what I can do. The drugs running around my system are designed to keep me under control. They can’t know that it will work but they are smart enough to keep me awake. I suspect – and I think they suspect – that the two incidents in Iraq were down to me – even if I was lost to the world. An afterburner of my ability.

  Limbo is the best way to describe my situation. I feel for the knife but at some point in the journey it has been removed. I roll onto my front. This alone takes an unbearable amount of effort. I flop around with one hand, hearing the distant beat of music and a cheer as the band start up.

  The floor is smooth. Masonry paint smooth. I shuffle my knees to make some headway but they slip around and I go nowhere.

  Time is not a friend. The suits will be back. For some reason I’ve been dumped here but once I’m away from the stadium I’m finished. I reach down to the blood-soaked pennant and work it loose. I push my finger into the hole in my trousers and find the wound. I clench my teeth and push my finger into the cut. The pain is there but still too far away. I curl up the finger, rolling onto my side – forcing the digit deep into the muscle.

  The pain grows nearer. My hip rises. All my effort into raising it. A few inches, then back to the ground. I ram my finger home.

  The pain is suddenly very real. I gasp. The kernel in my head flashes. The headache rises and falls and the blue world appears. The drugs seem to fly from my body and the stop/start blue planet engulfs me.

  I stand. My finger looks bent. It might be broken.

  In the night vision I take in the closet. There’s a single door and three walls of shelves. I try the door handle. I’m not surprised to find it locked. I give it a tug but it stays firm.

  Then the handle turns of its own accord under my hand. I step back, flattening myself against the wall.

  The door opens. The corridor is dark but it makes little odds to me. A hand holding a flashlight appears and, when the body follows, I chop down on the wrist. The flashlight goes flying. I grab the arm and pull. Caught off guard, the man flies into the closet. I push him to the floor and I’m out the door.

  A second man is standing in the corridor beyond. I launch myself at him. No time for subtlety. My head connects with his and he starts to fall. I keep the momentum up, crashing him to the ground beneath me. I slam my fist into his face. He grabs at my head. With my new bald look his hand slides off. I bounce another fist into his face.

  I stand, leaving him on the ground.

  The corridor is narrow and bends in a curve. I follow it and reach a junction. It looks like a main serviceway. To my left is clear but to my right a clutch of suits are in conversation.

  ‘Look!’ The shout comes from the nearest suit. I try to break into a run but even with the blue world at my disposal I’m short on stamina. I stop, turn, place my finger into my wound and push.

  ‘Fuck!’ I shout as the pain bursts inside me.

  The blue world vanishes. The headache is back. I lose the night vision. The first man is almost on me before he stops, turns and catches the man behind him in the groin with a foot. I don’t wait to see how it pans out, instead I hobble along the corridor.

  The sound of a fight fills the space behind, as the suits start to tear each other apart.

  The corridor stretches out before me. I’m not sure I have the energy to make it far. Without the blue world my leg is screaming at me to stop – blood is running like a small river.

  I stop to draw breath and realize that the music is a lot louder. I pick my way along the wall to find a door. The crowd is cheering as I open it. A set of stairs lie ahead.

  Up.

  So many stairs.

  Up.

  At the top another door. This one swings open to reveal the stadium. I am at the extreme end of the seats – up in the gods. The band members have their backs to me. The stadium is rocking. The group are singing about having a million dollars.

  I start down towards the pitch, using the wall as a support as I drop. I am maybe ten rows from the outfield when a security guard spots me. I change tack and thread my way along a row of empty seats. A few blocks along the crowd are dotting the edges. The security guard is watching me, keeping parallel on the bottom row.

  My footsteps are slowing. I want to sit but I need to keep going. I reach the first of the crowd and I’m forced up to the next passageway. Flicking my head back I see the security guard starting up the stairs. I cut along, trying to put some distance between us.

  Shuffling along the back of a row, I’m being sucked into the crowd. The band is doing well and people are bouncing around me. I’m just a view-blocker to those on the row next to me.

  Head down. I’m starting to run on empty. There is no escape plan in my actions. Just movement. The exits will be sealed by now. I’m also expecting a bullet. Valuable as I am, they won’t risk me staying free. Maybe not a bullet. Maybe a tranquilizer dart. A man in a safari suit sitting high up. Taking a bead on me now. Waiting for the kill shot. Finger pressure light on the trigger. Tracking me. Breathing controlled. Waiting to exhale. Settle the sight. Squeeze. And, like a hunted animal, I’m on the floor.

  I look up. There are two suits at the bottom of the next set of stairs. The passageway I am on runs out. More suits are emerging from doors right across the arena. Behind me the security guard is on my level but he’s on his walkie-talkie and not moving in. Under orders from the suits. Dangerous. Don’t touch.

  The blood flow down my leg is increasing and my head is feeling light. I have nothing to stem the flood. My headache vanishes. A woman is shouting at me to get out of her line of vision. She’s waving a Devil Rays flag. I grab it from her – wrapping it around my leg as she goes off on one. I ignore her. She steps forward. I turn and look her in the eye. She stops and backs off. The man next to her doesn’t even move.

  I change direction, doubling back towards the security guard. My vision is going and my legs have the strength of fire-damaged twigs. Each step is becoming an effort. I stagger against the handrail. A woman in the row below turns round to see what I’m doing.

  Lorraine?

  I freeze.

  Lorraine?

  I mouth the words. She stares at me.

  ‘Lorraine?’ I say.

  Quiet. Too quiet for the noise around me.

  She shakes her head, turning away. I reach out and tap her on the shoulder. She turns back round.

  It’s no longer Lorraine but some woman wondering who I am. I start moving again. It’s taking everything I have left to stay upright. I reach the stairs I climbed and, with the security guard a few yards away, I start down.

  My eyes focus. Just for a second. Lendl is at the bottom of the stairs. He’s on his cell. I close my eyes and open them again in case it too is an illusion; but, unlike the woman, Lendl stays as Lendl. Next to him is Tampol
ine. They’re now both on their cell phones. Lendl is pointing at me.

  A hundred stairs between me and my targets. A hundred steps that I don’t have in me. And yet Lendl and Tampoline are there. Together. The reason my wife is dead. The reason my life has imploded. A man with no conscience and a man with blood on his hands.

  A hundred steps.

  The image of the young girl in the club floats up – blood gushing from her mouth. She morphs into Taylor and his girlfriend in Iraq. The two bodies rising from the dusty road. Both pointing at me. The air stewardess and her boss appear. Fighting each other.

  My hand slips on the rail.

  Then I’m back in Iraq. Only now I’m way back. My first patrol. Clegg and Johnston on point. Arguing. When they aren’t having a pop at each other they’re having one at me. I’m tired. The heat and fear are eating me alive. I want to stop but we have our orders. Then there’s an explosion and something hits me in the head. I go down. Something opens inside me. I feel it crack wide and spill its guts. Something alive crawls around inside my skull. Exploring. Then it settles at the back. Curls up and wraps a hard shell round itself.

  I scream and keep screaming.

  When I awaken, Clegg and Johnston are dead.

  Then I’m back in the stadium.

  I tip my head to one side. I can feel the hard thing rolling around. Inside. The crowd around me go wild as the group winds up for a finish. Lendl is still at the bottom of the stairs. Tampoline is walking away. Around me I can sense the suits closing in.

  I push upright and make a decision.

  Breath.

  Step.

  Breath.

  Double step.

  Breath.

  Triple step.

  Down.

  Out of control.

  Feet trying to find steps.

  Feet failing.

  And I’m falling.

  I bounce off the handrail and I’m down. I hit the concrete stairs, tumbling forward. I push with one foot and I’m out and into the arena air.

  I arc and come crashing back. My shoulder taking the hit. Up again. I veer to the left, clipping someone. They give under my weight and I fly into someone else. My stomach crashes into the back of a man’s head. We both fall forward.

  I can feel myself coming to a halt. I push out with my leg, catching some thigh, and I launch myself forward, over the crowd. There are no empty seats. On my return to earth I take to violent crowd-surfing.

  Logic suggests that I should stop soon. Fall to the floor in a bundle of limbs. But I don’t. Instead I flip onto my back. I see Lendl looking up. Tampoline has stopped in his tracks. He’s watching me fall.

  I smash into another body and I’m thrown up. Each time I touch down I feel a lift as the people shove me back into the air. Hands, elbows, heads – it makes no odds.

  I’m sliding down the seating – closing the gap to Lendl. No deviation from the path. A straight line. As if everyone in the crowd has agreed in advance that I have somewhere to be and it’s their job to help me get there.

  I can still feel blood leaking. If I had a giant bottle of Luminol and sprayed it behind me, you could track my progress through the spatter. Two old women shove my legs. A young man pushes at my head. I flip over and a large fat man, stuffing a hot dog into his mouth, reaches up to thrust me forward.

  Pain has now passed me by. Left somewhere in the bleachers. The hands and the heads should hurt but they don’t. The people should be complaining but they aren’t. I feel my weight drop away. Ounce by ounce. Each drop of blood taking ten times its weight with it.

  Halfway to Lendl a pretty girl looks up at me. She smiles as her hand flicks me onwards. I smile back. Her push lifts me twenty feet into the air. I reach the apex of the climb and look down on a thousand eyes. A spray of blood follows me like a contrail. I return to the crowd and the next heave lifts me to a new height.

  The stadium is now spread out beneath me. The band is finishing its set – oblivious to my acrobatics. Lendl has his mouth open as I rise once more. Tampoline is edging back to Lendl. I can see the questions beginning to build on his lips.

  I turn my head. Suits are lining the passageways. All eyes are on me as I return to earth. The next shove takes me in an arc that will cover the remaining distance to the stadium floor. I curl up to brace for the impact.

  I land with the lightest of bumps, open my eyes. Lendl is above me. I have no energy left to stand. I can’t even lift my head from the floor. I feel the rough texture of the artificial surface against my cheek. I dig for the kernel. For the headache. For the blue world.

  In vain.

  Suits begin to arrive. Lendl is shouting. I know he wants someone to pump me full as soon as possible. Tampoline is also looking down at me.

  A flicker. A small cranial ember begins to burn. I watch a suit unzip a bag and pull out a syringe. The ember is dull but the living thing in my head blows on it. The man breaks the seal of the small vial he’s holding – piercing the rubber and plunging the needle into the liquid.

  The breath in my head is oxygen-rich. The ember starts to glow. The man with the syringe tips the needle to the roof and shifts the plunger, pushing out a few drops. They sparkle in the stage lights. One lands on my face as the air in my head rises from a breeze to a hurricane. The headache builds. I open my arms to welcome it in. I realize that my arms have responded to the mental image. The man with the needle is caught off balance and slips.

  The headache arrives with the force of a diesel locomotive. I look up at Lendl but he has nothing on his face other than contempt. The man with the needle regains his balance and reaches for my arm. I try to pull away but the last of my energy is spent.

  The band finishes. The music stops. The crowd go into overdrive. The roar of approval is a wave around my head. A chant goes up. They want more.

  The note of the crowd changes. A subtle change. From adoration to something different. The cheer from the front is being modulated. Adjusted.

  I flop my head to one side to look. The man with the needle also turns to look. Something is making its way towards us. A Mexican wave of sound and action. Screams are audible as the atmosphere phases from good to bad.

  Then the wave hits me and the people nearest turn to their neighbors and lash out. One man takes his index finger, plunging it into the eyeball of the person next to him. An older lady lifts her purse high and tries to drive it into the skull of a girl in the front row. Hate washes over me. A giant ball of hot revulsion spreading across the floor.

  Thirty thousand people are responding to my signal. Each individual finding a vent for a long-pent-up fury. A moment of hurt, shame, selfishness, fear, recklessness – a moment of payback.

  I can’t see past the front row but I know what’s unwinding. This is the theater on a grand scale and there is nothing I can do to stop it. I’m no longer the conductor.

  A girl – hardly out of her gym slip – leaps the barrier to the outfield. She’s being chased by a young lad. Probably her boyfriend. He’s missing an arm and a gusher of blood is running him dry. She has his arm in her hand – waving it high, taunting him with it. He slows, stumbles. The arm is placed in her mouth and she bites – taking a chunk of forearm in her mouth, ripping at it until the flesh comes free. The boy collapses to the floor. Not understanding what is happening. Dying.

  A pair of men tumble over the barrier. Locked tight. Each trying to deliver a blow. One lands on top and the other’s grip is lost. The victor takes his enemy’s head and smashes it into the ground. Behind him a girl is cheering him on.

  I want to turn to look at Lendl but my muscles no longer respond. A screech rises from the direction of the stage. The band are joining in the fun. A guitar being used as a weapon.

  Around me the sound is guttural – base human noise – attack and defense. Life and death. It spins around me. A cacophony. Wet mist is dropping on me. I can recognize the smell of copper as the blood-letting creates a cloud. Plasma rains down.

  Somebody kic
ks me in the back. Air rushes from my lungs. Then a foot in front of my face. A patent leather shoe, its shine spotted with blood. I lift my eyes. Tampoline is standing above me. His face is one of calm. He’s not part of what’s going on. The look of someone who considers himself superior in more ways than make sense. His hair is perfect, tie superbly knotted – double Windsor of course. The suit jacket cut low to give him the impression of height.

  He bends down and is joined by Lendl – now a man in a blood-created, leopard-spot coat. Lendl talks but in the din the words are lost.

  Lendl has the syringe in his hand. He doesn’t need it. I’m no threat. I can’t move. Whatever lives in my head is out on its own. He drops to the floor and places the syringe in front my face. The fluid is darker than earlier.

  He leans into my ear. ‘This will hurt.’

  My resistance is spent.

  Tampoline joins him.

  ‘What a waste,’ he shouts. ‘Just look at what you can do. Think what we could have done with you when it came to America’s enemies.’

  Lendl’s face is inches from mine. The heavy scent of drink mixed with the sour smell of garlic. His eyes are red and sweat peppers his brow.

  ‘Time to die, Mr McIntyre. Time to die.’

  Chapter 40

  I close my eyes. My last act of defiance. I’m not giving him the satisfaction of seeing my fear. I may not even feel the prick of the needle. Sensation is fading. The world collapsing around me. I am the calm eye at the centre of my own hurricane.

  Nothing.

  Not quite.

  Almost nothing.

  Background sound. A distant portable radio trying too hard with small speakers. A faded reproduction of what had been going on before. I force my eyes open and Lendl is still there, his head cocked to one side. The syringe is an inch from my neck – frozen in his hand.

  He rises up, the needle recedes, he lets it go. It tumbles to the ground. Tampoline is walking away and, with movement that comes of training, Lendl closes the gap and wraps his arm around the senator’s throat and drops to his knees.

  Lendl propels himself forward to land square on Tampoline’s back. He reaches for Tampoline’s head. His hands start to explore the senator’s face. Searching for softness. The senator squirms but years of inaction and overindulgence weigh against his chances. Lendl knows what he’s doing. This is not about killing. This is about pain.