Bermuda

by Robert Enright

  BERMUDA

  BY ROBERT ENRIGHT

  For you, Dad,

  The most creative person I know.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Epilogue

  CHAPTER ONE

  Each tick from the clock echoed against the bright, white walls which surrounded the metal table. As the seconds shouted out to him, Franklyn Jones sat, anxiously staring ahead at the door which was painted into the wall. The whole room stank of government, with his recent escape surely the reason for his incarceration.

  Just what the hell was going on?

  How did they find him? How was he free?

  For his entire life, Franklyn had seen them. The creatures that lurked in the shadows, their dark eyes following his every step. Since he was a child, curled up under his duvet, he’d known the moment he pulled it back, the creature that perched on the end of his bed would pull back its lips, revealing rows of razor-sharp teeth. He’d tried to tell his mother; her drunken dismissal was that all children saw monsters.

  His deadbeat dad wasn’t around to tell him otherwise.

  As life had continued on its mundane journey, he’d pushed it to the fringes of his mind, convinced that he was just like everyone else. Occasionally he would see a shadow move, a dark blur whip by at the end of a shopping aisle.

  Tricks of the mind.

  That was the healthy way to look at it.

  Throughout school he kept, like those creatures, to the corners and the edges of the world, avoiding the inevitable bullying, and shunning any notion of friendship. He was an outsider and felt it was easier to just run with that than reveal to them the truth.

  The truth that we were not alone.

  Now sat, encaged in this migraine inducing white room, he realised he truly wasn’t alone. Life had been hammering him from day one, making him tear at every fibre of his sanity and question everything. Throughout his early years he was ignored, dismissed as an odd child with an overactive imagination.

  They dealt with it by removing sugar from his diet and giving him a packet of crayons.

  As the years passed, he soon fended for himself, getting himself ready for, to, and from school while his mother lost herself to the bottle. The welcoming stench of cigarettes and wine greeted him every afternoon when he returned, the habit eventually catching up with him.

  What he wouldn’t give for a cigarette and a pint of Doom Bar right now.

  Mother would be so proud.

  Franklyn looked away from the clock and its mocking clicking and down at his wrists. There were no shackles binding him to the metal desk, just the blinding gleam of the halogen light on the smooth, metal surface. Opposite was an empty chair.

  A manila folder lay neatly in front of it.

  Who the fuck were these people?

  A draft filtered up the leg of his white, hospital issued trousers, the coldness snaking around his bare feet and causing his toes to ball. The ill-fitting white T-shirt hung from his body, the endless days locked in the cell had at least helped him build muscle.

  For a man who had a twenty cigarettes a day and four pints a night habit, he’d never done so many push ups.

  The door opened, a slender figure glided over the threshold and towards the table. Its skin was a pale grey, pulled tight across a skeleton which was certainly not human. The arms were slightly longer, the hands meeting under the large sleeves of its dark robe. Its skull protruded up, elongating its forehead, the skin pulled to almost translucent tightness. Its eyes were light, with no sign of a pupil.

  As Franklyn sank in his seat with fear, he noticed that it didn’t walk.

  It glided across towards him.

  The door closed slowly behind it and it approached the table calmly.

  ‘Do not be afraid.’ Its voice was calm, its eyes were caring.

  Franklyn leapt backwards, sending his metal chair clattering to the floor, the sound hammering off the walls like an upturned toolbox. He backed towards the wall, the creature before him cast a long shadow from the piercing light above.

  It wasn’t like the other creatures.

  This one was human-like. It spoke.

  But it wasn’t human.

  Without moving, the creature cleared its throat.

  ‘Is there anything I could retrieve for you while you wait?’ The creature tilted its head. ‘Perhaps some water? Or a coffee?’

  ‘Coffee?’ Franklyn scoffed, his back pressed against the unforgiven concrete wall. ‘You’re offering me coffee?’

  ‘Quite.’

  ‘This place doesn’t strike me as a Starbucks.’

  The creature showed zero reaction to Franklyn’s smart mouth. Its eyes searched Franklyn’s face, looking for anything other than fear. When he found none, his gaze ventured to the fallen chair.

  ‘This must be a very confusing time for you, Mr Jones.’ The creature glided gently around the table before extending a long hand towards the steel. Its fingers were stretched and thin, like pale Twiglets. ‘But I assure you, we wish to help.’

  Slightly edging around the wall, Franklyn looked to the door. It was shut, with no handle.

  He was locked in.

  With this creature.

  ‘Where am I?’ he eventually asked.

  ‘You are at our headquarters.’ The creature gently placed the chair back at the table, turning it slightly in offer. ‘You shall be processed soon enough.’

  ‘Processed?’ Franklyn asked, his voice shaking as his mind filled with anal probes.

  ‘It’s a nicer word than interview.’ With a noble elegance, the creature slid across the floor back towards the outline of the door. ‘You humans don’t seem to enjoy interviews.’

  ‘Interview? What the fuck?’ Franklyn’s face scrunched in confusion as he sat back down. A hiss shot from the sides of the door and it slid back, revealing the metallic corridor outside. ‘Hey wait?’

  The creature turned, its face was unsettlingly welcoming.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘What’s your name?’ Franklyn asked, a million questions fighting for prominence.

  ‘Vincent.’ The creature nodded. ‘It is a pleasure to meet you finally.’

  With that, Vincent disappeared, and before Franklyn could leap from his seat, the door closed, locking him in his bright white tomb. Memories came flooding back, the last few hours had been a blur. He looked at the clock, but the old, analogue hands couldn’t help him gage the time.

  Just that morning, he’d been sat in a room similar to this once, the walls a slightly softer, more terrifying padding. The doctors had stopped using the jacket on him, allowing him the freedom of his arms when they realised he wasn’t a danger to himself. They still thought he was to them.

  To his wife.

  To his daughter.

  His chest lurched forward, his heart jack-knifing with guilt. He’d met his wife Angela at the tail end of university, the three years spent in Derby were some of the best of Franklyn’s life. While doing his level best to set a new record for lack of attendance, he’d not only met his best friend, Brett, but he had fallen in love.

  He and Angela eventually became an item in their early twenties and suddenly, the haunting life of mysterious creatures and dangerous shadows didn’t matter.

  She was a striking woman, her face was a perfect, symmetrical collection of sharp cheek bones and piercing green eyes. After a whirlwind romance ended in a young marriage, the hour glass began to empty along with her patience.

  As the
darkness of the other world began to spread through Franklyn’s life, Angela began to push herself away.

  As their relationship strained, and he resigned himself to losing her, Franklyn was struck silent when she announced her pregnancy.

  He was going to be a father.

  When Angela gave birth to their daughter, it was the closest he’d ever felt to the world. The connection he felt with her was stronger than any magnetic pull. Determined to be the father he’d never had, Franklyn promised Angela he would do everything to shield her from the darkness.

  From the creatures that appeared to him and him alone.

  His Chloe.

  Just thinking of her beautiful face caused his throat to dry, regretting not taking the bizarre Vincent up on his offer of a drink. Chloe was rapidly approaching her third birthday, her angelic face lined with soft, blonde hair. Her blue eyes always radiated joy, her small, pearly white teeth stretched in a beaming smile.

  She was the greatest thing to happen to him.

  He closed his eyes, his body arching forward until his forehead pressed against the cold table surface. His brown hair flopped forward, a few strands swinging down and tickling the beard that lined his face. Franklyn didn’t know what the hell he was interviewing for as Vincent put it, but he would have murdered a shower and a shave.

  What would Chloe think if she saw him?

  Again, his heart twisted with sadness, the memory of saying goodbye to her in the reception of the hospital still as fresh as a morning frost. Refusing to beg, he turned away from Angela, instead kneeling in front of his daughter, her innocence lost in confusion. He was going to be taken any moment, but he told her to be brave. To not listen to what they said about her.

  He told her he loved her.

  He always would.

  As the two orderlies, at the order of the doctor and the heartbreak of Angela, wrestled him to his feet, Franklyn promised his daughter he would do whatever he had to, to keep her safe.

  She screamed for him, terrified as these medical men dragged her father through the doors, her mother holding her tightly, her face awash with tears.

  That was the last time he’d seen her.

  Franklyn Jones had been a patient at the high security hospital, locked away inside his padded cell for what was deemed his and other’s safety. For over four months he’d sat, day after day, the world convinced that he was crazy, that he spoke of monsters and moving shadows.

  They had decided he was unfit to be a husband.

  Too unstable to be a father.

  Back in the white room, he gently lifted his head and let it drop, gently colliding with the table. He knew no blow to the head would shake away what he could see, but his impatience was goading him to try. Each gentle tap on the table echoed around the room, the mysterious creature yet to return.

  What the hell did he mean by interview?

  Was it about what he could see?

  Or how he escaped?

  With his head pressed against the table, Franklyn took a deep breath, trying to figure out what the hell had happened earlier that day. It had started like any other, the days blending together to create one endless passage of time. The orderlies had politely brought him breakfast, their threats of the jacket never too far away when he offered them a smart comment.

  After the morning exercise, which consisted of an escorted walk around the grounds, he found himself back in his cell, with no possessions, or mementoes of a life that he’d been pulled from. No clues or links to his daughter.

  Nothing that attached him to anyone.

  The only positive of the whole experience had been that he’d not seen a single creature. He told that to the guards, trying to convince them that the mental home had been a miracle cure and he was ready to leave.

  They rewarded his mockery with two days strapped inside his straight jacket.

  But that morning, like all the others that had been before it, was coming to an end with him laid on his bed, staring up at the padded ceiling, wishing for a chance to see his daughter again. His arms ached from another set of push ups, the passing of time helped by the hourly intervals of strength training.

  Just another day.

  When suddenly a burning sound crackled to the side of the room and a black line slowly began to burn itself into the padding. Slowly, the hole grew, fanning out, and slowly dropping down like the glaze over a cake. Panicked, Franklyn had dashed to the door, banging as hard as he could as he screamed for help.

  With none coming, he’d turned, pressed against the wall with his heart leaping against his ribs. Shaking, he reached out to the wall to steady himself as the one before him burnt opened.

  A crude doorway had emerged, the edges sizzling, with grey smoke filtering up, the allure of the other world calling to him. After a few moments of silence, he pushed himself off the wall, the curiosity of this phenomena taking a stranglehold.

  Through the dark opening he could see the feint remnants of smoke, what looked like a thick fog that encased wherever he was seeing.

  A world encased in smoke.

  A world of ash.

  The rattle of metal behind him caused him to jolt, and the keys turned in the lock. The doctor, with his henchmen masquerading as orderlies, entered, furious with the commotion Franklyn had been making.

  The three men stood before Franklyn, their arms folded, and their eyes judging. He looked beyond them to the wall and when no words were forth coming, he realised it was just for him.

  The darkness had finally come to collect.

  As the doctor began running through a list of his indiscretions, Franklyn burst forward, pushing the men to the side, and darting towards the wall. To them, he must have looked insane.

  Moments later, he had vanished.

  As the clock in the room ticked mundanely in the back of his mind, he tried to remember what had happened when he’d passed through.

  The ground beneath his bare feet had been cold and hard, a thin layer of dust being swept along by a howling wind. All around him had been smoke, thick, and dark like he was encased in a rain cloud. Everything was slightly scattered, the edges of his vision blurring and refusing the idea of clarity.

  All he saw were eyes.

  Red, demonic eyes.

  As more pairs began to shine through the ethereal fog before him, he turned to run, his legs not budging. With his feet feeling like they were encased in quick sand, he resigned himself to a gruesome fate, the darkness of the world slowly overwhelming him, and he lost consciousness. As the final moments of his life ticked by and visions of his absent daughter danced through his mind, he suddenly felt himself moving.

  Not of his own volition but moving still.

  The world before him ripped open, he was launched through, his body colliding hard with the shoddy brickwork of the building.

  He was back on Earth.

  Back in his world.

  The sun was beaming down, the heat latching onto him, refusing to let go. As the beads of sweat ran down his face, he looked around in a frenzy, the narrow, stone streets were lined with merchants and traders, their goods displayed on rugs and tables. The street was alive with activity, the inhabitants scurrying over each other like an ant’s nest.

  Shaking with fear, he found a space on a wall on the outskirts of the city and waited, not knowing where he was, or the language being spoken.

  All he knew was that he was alive.

  That he had somehow made it back across.

  Only moments later, two men dressed in expensive suits approached, calling him by name, and informing him that he was in Taroudant, a small city in Morocco.

  Morocco.

  What the fuck was going on?

  With his thoughts lost to his bizarre escape from the mental home, Franklyn was reeled back into the room by a cough. He sat bolt upright, looking with surprise at the man that sat opposite him. He had been so consumed by his thoughts, he hadn’t heard the door open or this stranger enter and take his seat. The man was old
, his soft, white hair floated above a wrinkled forehead which, to Franklyn’s amusement, helped lodge a monocle in place.

  The expensive three-piece suit only added to the allure of the elderly gentleman who sat nonchalantly on his chair, the manila folder open before him and the few papers dotted before him.

  ‘Mr Jones.’ He didn’t look up, his words eloquent. ‘Can I get you anything before we begin?’

  ‘Begin?’

  The man looked up, his warm, friendly face bending into a welcoming smile. His eyes radiated warmth. His posture radiated authority.

  Was he in charge?

  A steaming mug sat to the side of the folders, and with a well-manicured, wrinkled hand, the man grasped it, and took a satisfying sip. With a deep sigh, he looked back at Franklyn, who sat in complete confusion.

  ‘Mr Jones, I’m Lord Felix Ottoway III, the chairman of the BTCO.’ The words were lost on Franklyn. ‘I bet you’re wondering what happens now?’

  It had been a long day.

  Franklyn had a feeling it was about to get longer.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Franklyn Jones sat anxiously, watching as Ottoway flicked through some of the pages. A few scoffs now and then, but he never looked up, devouring the information in mammoth portions. Franklyn was sure it was his medical records, and that Ottoway was going to arrest him for escaping his cell.

  Through the wall?

  As the memories of the morning began to overwhelm him once more, he was snapped back to the room by Ottoway closing the folder and slapping it hard against the table.

  ‘Well this is all nonsense.’

  To Franklyn’s shock, Ottoway pushed the folder off the table, the pages spraying out like a spilt tin of paint. He turned back, the senior smiling, his eye gleaming behind his monocle.

  ‘But ... isn’t that why I’m here?’

  ‘What? Because the world thinks you’re crazy and decided to lock you away?’ Ottoway chuckled heartily. ‘No, my dear boy. You are here because of how you got out.’

  His heart sank as he dropped his head into his arms, sprawling across the table and expecting to be sent back to the nuthouse, or worse, prison. With the idea of seeing his daughter again giving him a sudden cause for fight, he straightened up.