Sleepwalkers

by Tom Grieves

  Moments later they were driving off. Ben waited to hear sirens, glanced around for cars that would suddenly intercept them, and checked his mirrors for the quiet vehicles that might follow from a suitable distance. But there were no interruptions to their journey. And there was no noise from the boot.

  Later they stopped in a lay-by. No one could see the car here and Ben opened the boot. He stripped a still-unconscious Henry of everything, throwing all of his belongings onto the roadside before they drove off again.

  They then made a long, meandering circle back towards the squat to flush out any followers. Neither spoke. Ben’s eyes scanned the road and junctions ahead while nagging thoughts pushed and prodded at him.

  ‘I thought I was going to recognise him,’ he said.

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  He heard surprise in her voice and turned to her. She was holding a knife in her hands, the one he’d put in the glove compartment. For emergencies. She was white as a sheet. She looked at him, then the knife, and then shoved it away again. She’s having second thoughts, he guessed.

  ‘Your father,’ he said, trying to distract her. ‘I thought he was going to be someone I’d met.’

  ‘But he wasn’t.’

  He shook his head. ‘I thought it would make sense, when I saw him.’ His fingers tapped on the wheel.

  ‘What are you thinking?’ she asked.

  ‘It’s been too easy.’

  ‘Yes,’ she nodded, fiddling with her fingers.

  ‘If they’re watching us, why let us get away? I don’t get it.’ He looked around, but the road was now completely clear. The calm silence seemed all the more sinister for it.

  ‘He’ll tell us,’ Anna said. ‘You’ll get him to, I know you will.’

  But Ben wasn’t so sure. He frowned, trying to see a pattern, some design in all of this. The car passed a big advertisement hoarding that promised bargains and happiness.

  ‘You’re one, I’m one,’ Ben said. ‘Toby’s one, Terry could be one, who knows? Is everyone—’ He stopped himself, unconvinced by his train of thought, then started again. ‘They must have put us together for a reason. We’re doing something, or we’re in place to do something …’ He let out a stressed sigh, cursing quietly at so many dead-ends.

  ‘You found us because they led you to Toby on the internet, is that right?’ Anna asked, and Ben nodded. ‘And what before that? If they led you there, they must have led you to whatever happened before.’

  ‘No, no, before I was just running. I was holed up with this strange old guy and …’

  Ben fell silent. He drove on, almost on autopilot, as his mind raced back to the B&B and the sound of lapping waves. The roads were busier now as they got closer to the squat, and the car slowed in the traffic. Ben glanced left and right. There was nothing particularly untoward. Two young men were pushing each other, swearing and scuffling over the contents of a plastic bag, but Ben wasn’t interested. His mind was busy with its own battles.

  ‘Anna. Describe the scientist to me. The one who led the experiments.’

  ‘I’ve never met him.’

  ‘I mean, from the way I’ve talked about him. And Toby. Tell me what we’ve said.’

  ‘Well, you said he was old. And kind. Or kindly. He had perfect manners, you both said. Something about classical music, and the nurses being intimidated by him. What else … Oh, he cared for you, and … I don’t know … What is it?’

  ‘Please. What else?’

  ‘I don’t know. Really. That’s all you said. Oh, Toby said he always fidgeted. No, not fidget, but he said he was always doing stuff with his fingers. And his hands.’

  Ahead was a bus stop. Ben’s hands felt light and shaky on the wheel and he had to stop the car and think. He pulled in and parked, then put his head in his hands, closing his eyes and picturing the musty old B&B where an old man, his only true friend in the world, would laugh and joke about the good old days, his fingers twitching excitedly in the air. Ben pictured his face: sweet, old doddery Edward. And as he did so, he remembered a different man with the exact same face staring down at him in a white coat, his hands waving in the air to the music, asking polite questions before indicating that it was time for his sedation.

  He knew that Anna would be staring at him, desperate to know what was going on, but he kept his eyes clenched shut, trying to pull answers from the darkness.

  ‘They needed me to be the muscle,’ he said, his nose squashed against the wheel. ‘They needed Terry to help you, give you the clues and make you believe that you were doing it for real. They needed Toby to make you care enough to do it. And they needed you, Anna, to kill your own father.’

  He opened his eyes and saw that her mouth twitched with a smile that died as the words hit her.

  ‘How can you be sure?’

  ‘I can’t. I don’t know anything except that all I’ve done, everything, has been planned by them. So, if we’re planning on hurting or even killing your dad, then that’s planned by them too.’

  ‘So is there nothing we can do?’

  He was silent at this.

  ‘Ben. If we’re already doing what they want … then what do we do?’

  Ben looked down at his battered fists. They seemed to be the only things he had left. He pushed against the car door and stumbled out, not bothering to shut it as he walked away. He heard Anna calling after him but he ignored her cries. If they wanted Lee back, then they were going to get him in spades.

  Inside the car, Anna called after Ben, watching him break into a run then disappear into the crowd. She sat limply in the passenger seat, alone and bewildered. She didn’t know what to do. If every movement, any action, was predetermined by others, then what could she possibly do that wouldn’t simply be following their wishes?

  A few minutes later, a car pulled in behind her. Three suited men strolled towards her with an easy purpose about them. The first was a good-looking man in his twenties. He opened the door as though he were a valet at an expensive hotel.

  ‘Miss Price? Are you alright?’

  She nodded, feeling stupid. She glanced behind her and saw the other two men were opening the boot of the car. She wondered how they had a key to do so.

  ‘Don’t worry, Miss Price. Would you like to come with me?’

  She got out because she didn’t know what else to do.

  ‘Is my father okay?’ she asked, rather pathetically. It struck her that she wasn’t scared. They’d caught her, finally, but she felt nothing. Numb.

  ‘Yes, Ma’am, everything is fine.’

  TWENTY-THREE

  Toby began to fidget roughly one minute after Anna and Ben had marched out of the room and left him and Terry behind in the squat. He sat down on the floor, got up, rolled up his sleeping bag, puffed up his pillow and then, fresh out of ideas, sat down again. Terry was hunched over his computer, obsessing about some new mind-altering chemical that ‘they’ were putting into children’s cereal, and didn’t want to be disturbed. Toby muttered to himself, ‘I’m nobody’s puppet, I’m nobody’s puppet.’ He muttered it over and over as he wandered along the corridors, looking for something to do or someone to talk to.

  He stared at the slogans on the walls.

  Our Principles Are Not Negotiable!

  Amandla!

  One Nation Under CCTV.

  The words seemed empty and smug. All these stupid words and catchphrases were just a substitute for action. Stupid, idiotic, clichéd hippies, he thought, just wasting their time in here with their clever, empty phrases. Too clever to do anything.

  He thought about his parents, and he imagined them laughing about him. Why didn’t we go for them? he wondered. They knew more than they said, he was sure of that. Why didn’t Ben and Anna listen to him? Why go without him?

  Toby created furious arguments and answers which defied logic, his anger focused on two people, fired by Anna’s words: ‘I’ll kill him.’ Her words pushed him along the corridors to the exit. He unscrewed the metal door to the
outside, unseen by anyone.

  Standing in front of the squat, a little dazed, a little scared at how he’d be able to travel alone, Toby nearly turned back. But then he felt the cash in his pocket and remembered the night before. Stung by shame and anger, he marched ahead.

  The night before had started badly and then got worse. After Anna and Ben had dropped them off, Terry had bumped into Daz who had invited them to a ‘session at his pad’. At first they were both excited, imagining naked chicks handing out spliffs and free love. And while their hopes were raised when Daz opened the door and they spied two women kissing behind him, they soon found themselves being berated by bearded men with pseudo-intellectual diarrhoea. Everyone seemed angry, no one seemed to like anyone else, and even the massive black dude who was smoking something fruity refused to share his junk with them, calling them ‘liggers’.

  It wasn’t long before Terry and Toby were standing alone, alienated, by the door, ignored by everyone. They did try to join in, but what they thought was a harmless conversation would suddenly split into raised voices. Phrases like, Could you be any more bourgeois? or You just can’t free yourself from your colonial instincts, can you, General? spilled out of any and every conversation. And when they tried to talk to the lesbians again, they were sent packing at the line, ‘Every man’s a potential rapist, accept it and stop apologising.’

  Soon, he and Terry slipped out and returned to their room, where they sat on their sleeping bags without much to say.

  ‘So much for the revolution,’ said Toby. Terry smiled, powering up his computer. Toby went over. ‘Got any games?’ he asked, crouching down next to him, but Terry pushed him away. His screen fizzed with data that Toby couldn’t understand.

  He lay back on the floor. Someone had painted various constellations against a dark-blue wash. It was a paltry substitute for the real thing. He sat up again and threw an empty can at Terry. It missed but Terry glanced up at him.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Let’s do something.’

  ‘Go hang out with the dykes if you’re bored.’

  ‘I dare you to go down there and call them that to their faces.’

  ‘No chance. They’d wear my nuts round their neck as a bloody trophy.’

  ‘Terry, this is shit. I’m so bored.’

  Terry shut the laptop. ‘So what do you want to do?’

  ‘Go out.’

  ‘No way.’

  ‘What, we’re just going to sit in this shit-house for the rest of our lives?’

  ‘Last time we went out, you pooped in your pants.’

  ‘I didn’t, and screw you very much, but that was different.’

  They were grinning now. ‘Come on, mate. Let’s go out, sink a few. Be normal. No one’s going to find us.’

  Toby jumped up and rushed over to Ben’s bed, pulling out a roll of notes from the bottom of his sleeping bag.

  ‘You know that guy kills people with his bare hands?’

  ‘Come on … please …’

  Terry eyed the money in his hands. Toby winked at him.

  ‘You know you want to.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Terry, ‘one pint. But if you ever tell Ben or Anna then I’ll cut your throat while you’re sleeping.’

  Tiffany’s was half dead when they trotted up to the door, and Toby could tell that the bouncer was giving serious consideration to barring them. But then he sighed and ushered them in, muttering something about Toby’s age. Once inside, they ordered the strongest lager available and sat excitedly at a table. It was the beginning of a great adventure. They were onto their third pretty soon, and if they had ever planned on leaving early those thoughts were long gone. Toby was so happy to be there, he even let Terry loose with his latest conspiracy theory about the way Hollywood deliberately posted 9/11 images into their movies, although it wasn’t exactly clear why.

  Toby was about to question him about this when Terry stiffened.

  ‘Bloody hell, matey. Bird o’clock.’

  Toby followed his gaze and saw two girls, late teens, who were watching them. As he caught the eye of one of them, she looked away but then glanced back at him a moment later. To Toby’s horror, Terry gave them a big grin and a wink.

  ‘That’s it, screw the New World Order, we’re in,’ he said. ‘Come on.’

  He got up and headed over towards them and Toby had no choice but to follow. The girls introduced themselves as Bea and Lara. Toby sat awkwardly at the table, but slowly relaxed when they laughed at his jokes and when he realised they weren’t nearly as old as they first appeared. When they went off together to the loo, Terry patted him warmly on the shoulder.

  ‘You’re in, nice one. I’ll have Lara, you can have the other one.’

  The other one. Bea. Straight dark hair, a small run of spots on her jaw line and breasts pushed forward by a low-cut top.

  ‘Terry, I’m not really that, um, you know … experienced, when it comes to birds.’

  Terry knocked down his beer. ‘Mate, relax, you’re the shy type, some girls dig that. Stop worrying. We’ll just get them a bit more oiled and then see where it takes us.’

  Toby did what he was told. He glanced nervously at Bea every now and then, especially when Terry suddenly leaned over the table and kissed Lara hard on the mouth and she responded enthusiastically.

  ‘For fuck’s sake,’ screamed Bea. ‘Get a room!’

  ‘That’s the plan!’ leered Terry, and all four of them laughed, Toby a little less enthusiastically than the others.

  More drink. Toby’s head started to spin as Lara told them all about her favourite characters in some American reality show and who was dating who (which Terry seemed to find fascinating). He didn’t understand a word of it. He looked around; everywhere people chatted and laughed animatedly. So this is what it’s like, he thought. And then he felt a hand on his leg, under the table. It was Bea. She looked at him with a smile so shy he almost didn’t recognise her. So he smiled back, squeezed her hand, and then suddenly she was laughing, pulling her hand away so she could wave her hands around, emphasising just how incredible some film was.

  Later, he went for a pee, and when he returned only Bea was at the table.

  ‘They left,’ she said with a coy smile, taking another sip from her glass, and Toby realised he was meant to take the lead here. His heart hit his boots. Clueless.

  ‘You, er, you want to go too?’

  ‘You got a place?’

  ‘Yeah but no.’

  ‘That’s just what your mate said.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘So what are we going to do?’

  Oh Christ, oh no, here comes the laughter, he thought, here comes the sickening moment. At least Terry’s not here to witness it. Just grab your coat and run.

  ‘If we go back to mine,’ Bea said, ‘you can’t speak. Mum’s home, but she’s always on the diazepam and if we’re quiet she’ll never know.’

  ‘Cool.’

  ‘You have to swear though.’

  ‘I swear. I swear!’

  ‘And you can’t stay the night.’

  ‘Er, alright.’

  If this was a trap, Toby’s drunken mind thought, then it was the sweetest and cruellest trap ever. She stood and put on her coat, pulling her hair free. When they got outside she nestled into him and pushed her lips to his, her tongue snaking into his mouth. It was his first kiss.

  Bea didn’t hold his hand as they took the bus back to her home. She chatted about school and how annoying her teachers were. He murmured the appropriate comments, but all he could think about was what she would look like naked and how her breasts would feel in his hands.

  Bea lived in a house not much different from his last one. They crept up the stairs and slipped into her bedroom. And as Bea slipped off her top and turned her back to him as she unclasped her bra, so his eyes were dragged away to the little-girl posters and the teddy bears on the bed. And then she was naked and to him she looked like a model in a magazine. His legs were shaking and he was p
raying the jeans were hiding this. Her hands went to his belt and undid it but then she turned and rushed across the bed to a drawer where she pulled out a condom.

  Toby could feel how hard his heart was pounding in his chest.

  ‘You’re beautiful,’ he said. She put a finger to her lips, irritated, and he gestured a ‘sorry’ back at her.

  ‘So …?’ she mouthed, and then whispered loud enough for him to hear, ‘Get your kit off.’

  But he couldn’t. There was a scar on his arm that was suddenly burning and he didn’t want to ruin this moment, didn’t want to see the disgust on her face when she saw what was underneath his clothes. But here was a naked bloody girl on the bed, holding a condom and wanting him to screw her brains out. He wanted to touch her so badly, wanted to kiss her again, put his tongue in her mouth, taste her. But still he didn’t move. He knew that this was as close as he’d ever get to being normal.

  Bea looked at him warily and pulled the sheets over her body.

  ‘What are you doing?’ she whispered harshly at him.

  Toby didn’t say anything for a while. He just stood there and began to cry. It was too late now to do anything else. Eventually he looked up and saw her staring at him with worried, hostile eyes. Yes, he thought, that’s more like it.

  ‘Normal service is resumed,’ he said. She didn’t understand and just glared at him, like the kids all did at school. He noticed his belt and flies were undone and wearily reorganised himself, then he turned and left, walking down the stairs and out into the darkness. As he went, he thought he heard her laugh.

  When he got back to the squat that night, he was all alone. Anna might have been next door but he didn’t want to disturb her and he was happier to be alone anyhow. Terry returned about an hour later and although Toby let him pretend that everything had been brilliant, inside he seethed.

  *

  Marching away from the squat the next day, he heard Bea’s laugh in his head. He saw the sneer on her face, the way she’d pulled the sheets over her to protect her from him. He was so angry and ashamed that he took two buses in the wrong direction before he realised his mistake. Eventually, however, Toby reached his parents’ house. It was getting dark and they hadn’t yet drawn the curtains. He could see his mother inside, folding one of his dad’s shirts. He watched her for a moment before going to the front door and ringing the bell. It struck him that most kids his age had their own key and he wondered why he didn’t, but then the door opened and his mother was there. She gasped, her hand fluttering to her mouth before grabbing him and holding him tight to her.