by Jeff Povey
I try to sink back into the shadows, but the alleyway is so narrow that even if he can’t see me he’s bound to trip over me, and that’s even if I flatten myself right up against the dark wooden fence.
His footsteps are slow and heavy as they close on me.
Damn it, Rev. Damn it, damn it, damn it.
Even in the dark tree-cloaked alley I can feel Non-Ape’s shadow fall over me. His musty body odour is overpowering.
‘Gotcha.’ The words escape with his breath.
‘It doesn’t have to be this way,’ I tell him.
‘Does.’
‘Listen . . . You chased me for a reason.’ My thigh is pumping blood now. The throb is like a beacon to all the other blood in my body. Guys, this way, I’ve found an escape route. We’re free!
I try to blink away the nausea. ‘You chased me because . . .’ Think, Rev. ‘Because you want me as bait.’
‘What’s bait?’
‘You don’t know what bait is? They use it for fishing.’
‘Why would I want to go fishing?’
‘I don’t mean literally.’
‘Then why say it?’
I will bleed all eight pints of blood if I don’t get him to see the point I want to make.
‘Look. You want to get Johnson through me.’ Every word is laboured now. ‘By telling him you’ll hurt me or something. That’s why you chased me. To lure him.’
He stays silent.
‘I’m a worm!’ I shout. ‘OK? I’m a worm on a hook.’
Non-Ape bursts out laughing.
‘What’s so funny?’
He laughs again. ‘Worm.’
‘Not a real one.’
‘Worm,’ he repeats, finding it hysterical now.
‘You need me to get to Johnson. This is the deal. All right? Here’s what you want to do with me.’
I imagine for a second what it must be like being one of his teachers. They must teeter on the brink of a mental breakdown every time he lumbers into their classrooms.
‘Why can’t you understand?’
I wait for him to respond but he doesn’t. He just stands there.
‘Well?’ I ask.
‘Well what?’
‘The deal.’ For God’s sake, concentrate, you great oaf. ‘You want to hear it?’
‘Worm!’ He laughs again and even in the pitch-black I know he’s pointing a big stubby finger at me.
My thigh is pumping too much blood. I need to tear my top so I can wrap something round it as a tourniquet. But first I have to get him to understand.
‘OK,’ I pant. ‘OK. Here’s what we do.’
I press back into the fence and push upwards so I’m at least standing.
‘You want Johnson. And I’m going to take you right to him.’
The words take another minute to sink into his empty brain and I have no idea if he understands at all.
‘I know where he’s gone,’ I add. ‘You can find him and do whatever you like to him.’
I’m wondering if Other-Johnson is reading my mind. I hope he knows that I have no choice. I’m not going to die in this alleyway. I have to survive. There is too much at stake.
If he has heard me then he’ll keep running.
Not that it’ll matter.
Because in truth I’m taking Non-Ape to meet my Johnson.
I know how it sounds but I’ve got a plan. And it’s a good plan.
‘Where is he?’ Non-Ape asks.
This plan is so clever I am smiling inside. All I need to do is . . .
. . . is stay conscious for long enough to make the plan work.
That’s all I’ve got to do.
I’m going to save everyone.
Me.
Rev the hero.
Rev the . . .
Why is everything suddenly black?
Oh God I’m passing out.
White is the new black. When I open my eyes I am back in the snow-covered town square and all I can see is white. I can also smell someone’s rank armpit.
Non-Ape is holding me in the crook of one of his thick hairy arms. I’m slumped there like an unwanted jersey on a hot afternoon. He has one hand wedged into his oversized jeans pocket as he stands all too casually for a teenager on a murder rampage.
It takes a few seconds to work out how I came to be in this predicament. I think there was something about leading Non-Ape to Johnson but why would I do that? I mean, what on earth was I thinking? Even if he did choose Billie instead of me, I don’t want to hurt him. I don’t want to hurt any of them.
‘Don’t move.’ Other-Johnson’s voice is back in my head.
‘Not a problem,’ I whisper in my head, then remember that I don’t need to whisper.
‘JOHNSON!’ Non-Ape roars.
My eardrums shudder. If I hear that bellow one more time . . .
The faint sodium glow from the flickering lamp post in the square reveals snow that lies on the ground, lush and calming, completely at odds with the situation I’m in. Some of the snow is pink from my blood and looks like a strawberry slushie.
I try to wriggle free of Non-Ape’s arm but he feels me move and tightens the squeeze on my torso. ‘Quit that,’ he orders.
‘I’m freezing to death.’
‘JOHNSON!’ he bellows again.
‘Rev?’ Other-Johnson says.
I can hardly hear him over the bellow, even if his voice is in my head.
‘Yeah?’
‘I’m on my way.’
‘Rev?’
I manage to arc my neck and see my Johnson appear in the doorway to the snooker hall. Non-Ape’s bellowing has finally woken him.
Johnson is calm. And ready. ‘Put her down.’
This is the second time he’s told Non-Ape to let me go and I’m losing count of the number of times he comes to my rescue. I seriously need to stop being such a damsel in distress.
I feel Non-Ape tense at the sight of him.
Then he chuckles. ‘You want her back?’
‘That’s what I said.’
‘She’s all yours.’
Non-Ape unhooks his hand from his trousers, grabs me with his other hand and then hurls me straight at Johnson. I must be moving at a hundred miles an hour and the wall of a pub and nightclub situated next to the snooker hall rears up at me in a heartbeat. I’m going to be little more than a stain of bone and skin and blood laced with electric-pink hair.
I remember seeing pictures of men in white catsuits wedged into large painted cannons, crash helmets tied tight around their moustachioed faces. They were always smiling, or waving, just before a fuse was lit and they got fired towards a cushioned landing area. But if anyone asks, hurtling through the air is not as much fun as it looks.
The End.
But Johnson, in his souped-up body, leaps through the air to catch me. He curls himself round me and has just enough time to tell me to ‘Go limp,’ before he takes the brunt of the impact on his back.
It’s a shocking smack of a sound as his rubbery head and torso are driven back into the bricks and mortar. He wraps tight round me, shielding me as best he can, sponging my momentum, as we leave a human-sized impact crater in the wall, before toppling forward and falling down into the deep snow.
Snow that saves my life as Johnson lands on top of me. He is badly winded and who knows what the impact has done to him but he is still breathing. Just.
‘Ouch,’ he whispers gingerly, his hands and arms still wrapped round me.
‘Johnson,’ I splutter through a mouthful of snow.
‘Yeah?’
‘You’ve got to run.’
Non-Ape is already crunching towards us and I feel Johnson unpeel himself from me. But he doesn’t run.
‘Johnson, please.’ I get to my knees, worried.
Johnson steps in front of me as my Ape comes charging out of the snooker hall, his triple-cue gripped tight in his hands. GG is with him, a rock-hard snooker ball in each hand.
‘Hey!’ GG yells to Non-Ape. ‘Over here, you – you big
person you.’
The Ape doesn’t bother with words and is already moving straight for Non-Ape, ploughing through the thick snow with his triple-cue raised. ‘I got this!’
Non-Ape stops to watch his mini mirror-image lumbering towards him.
‘No, I got this,’ he replies and starts towards the Ape. The snow slows them down but it’s still like watching two testosterone-fuelled bulls on the charge.
‘You ain’t got nothing!’ the Ape yells at the Non-Ape.
‘Got more than you!’
Johnson pulls me to my feet. GG is trying to keep up with the Ape.
‘Duck, Dazza, I’m going throw my balls at him.’ GG realises what’s he just said and winces. ‘Yes, I really said that.’
The Apes are on a cataclysmic collision course as Johnson coils and takes off to intercept. ‘It’s me he wants!’ he calls to the Ape.
‘It’s me he’s getting,’ the Ape responds.
Non-Ape quickens his pace. ‘Come on then!’
‘I’m coming!’ The Ape quickens as they clump through the deep snow.
Johnson tries to cover the wet slippery distance. But he’s hurting from being slammed into a wall and his movement is pained and doesn’t come fluidly.
GG throws a snooker ball at Non-Ape and, if I’m honest, it’s a bit of a girlie throw. The ball doesn’t even reach Non-Ape and plugs in the snow. GG looks forlorn. ‘Why didn’t I pay attention in games? Why, why, why?’
He’s as scared as I am for the Ape but doesn’t know what else to do so he gets ready to throw the second snooker ball.
‘No one throws Rev at a wall.’ The Ape takes Non-Ape by surprise and leaps the last few paces towards him. I can see Non-Ape’s brow furrow in the split second that the Ape is flying towards him, his triple-cue driving straight for the throat.
And he’s going to do it. The Ape’s actually going to take Non-Ape down. He’s going to beat him, just like he beats everyone.
The triple-cue is centimetres from Non-Ape’s throat.
David is about to kill Goliath all over again.
Until Non-Ape bows his massive head and the triple-cue shatters and splinters against his great monolithic chin. The Ape’s momentum pitches him into Non-Ape and even as the triple-cue shatters he is already letting go of it and bunching his fist. But the punch never lands because the Ape crashes into Non-Ape and bounces straight back off him.
He is thrown backwards in a spine-jarring snap, before landing in the deep snow.
Non-Ape takes a mighty step towards the Ape and laughs. ‘I told you.’ He raises a mighty foot to stamp down on the Ape when a snooker ball hits him smack on the forehead. It doesn’t do any damage other than to Non-Ape’s vanity, but it makes him stop just as GG reaches the fallen Ape.
‘Get up, get up!’ GG helps the Ape to his feet and then turns and brazenly adopts a hands-on-hips teapot stance right under Non-Ape’s nose. ‘You have really ticked me off, buster!’
Non-Ape can’t fathom the sight of tiny, skinny GG standing before him with no sign of fear whatsoever.
‘You hear me, big man?’
I realise what GG is doing. He’s hoping Non-Ape is going to be as terrified of him as Not-Del was. He’s going all Evil-GG on him.
‘Well? I’m waiting.’
GG is channelling Evil-GG as best he can as the Ape gets ready to fight.
‘That the best you got?’ he asks Non-Ape.
‘I’m handling this if you don’t mind,’ GG admonishes the Ape, then gets his Evil-GG on. ‘Why don’t you dance for me?’
Non-Ape is still totally confused by GG.
‘As in dance your way down the high street.’
Johnson has joined GG and the Ape but doesn’t get GG’s totally bizarre behaviour either.
‘What are you doing?’ he whispers to him.
‘Johnson – didn’t you hear? I’m the worst of the worst,’ GG boasts as he turns to Non-Ape. ‘You still here? Thought I told you to do a little two-step. As in now!’
The three boys stand before the giant Non-Ape. He looms over them, a juggernaut of power and unrelenting stupidity.
‘What’s a two-step?’ he finally asks.
‘Duh! It’s one shy of a three-step.’
The Ape still has part of the triple-cue in his large paw. Because it’s shattered and broken it’s a lot shorter, but it’s also a lot sharper. He straightens and I can almost hear his brain whirring. Sharp point plus throat equals good.
I know he’s going to try for Non-Ape’s neck again.
I glance at the first-floor window to the snooker hall and the Moth’s face is pressed as close as possible to it. He looks horrified. There is no sign of Billie anywhere. But I’m sure in the fuzz of my blood-drained brain she was part of my plan. But I’m still struggling to remember what that was.
I know it had something to do with Billie going on a date but that doesn’t seem much of a plan in the face of a giant Ape.
Johnson weighs up Non-Ape. ‘What is your problem anyway?’
‘You,’ he replies.
‘Johnson, I’m handling this,’ GG says, admonishing him, before again focusing on Non-Ape. ‘Now run along, Dazza, before I get very cross. You won’t like me when I’m throwing a hissy.’
It’s one of the bravest bluffs of all time.
But it doesn’t work.
‘I don’t like you at any time,’ Non-Ape says and grabs GG and the Ape by their necks and hoists them into the air.
The movement is so sudden and swift that Johnson is caught off guard. He unsheathes his talons knowing that they’ll probably be useless but he has to try something.
‘Darren?’
Billie stands in the doorway to the snooker hall. She is doing her best to look natural and at ease.
‘Long time no see.’ She smiles at Non-Ape.
Non-Ape looks like he has been hit by a torpedo. Standing in the doorway is the love of his life. She has to be. No one would spend days punching the world to pieces if it wasn’t a matter of the heart.
I have no idea why Another-Billie didn’t try this herself. It looks like she could have stopped Non-Ape in his tracks back at the hospital, but then these creatures aren’t like us. They’re crueller and more vindictive. So maybe she was so badly hurt by Other-Johnson she felt he deserved whatever came his way. Hell hath no fury and all that.
‘What you doing?’ she calls out.
‘Fighting.’
‘You don’t need to.’
‘Yeah I do.’
‘I’m . . . I’m OK now.’
Non-Ape takes a moment to digest this.
‘You don’t need to be angry any more,’ she adds for good measure.
Non-Ape’s slow thought processes mean that time stops around us – GG and the Ape dangle in the air while Johnson stands momentarily frozen in front of the giant beast.
‘I’m good now,’ she tells Non-Ape
His brow furrows. ‘You sure?’
Billie smiles. ‘D’you see me crying?’
Non-Ape scrutinises Billie from across the square.
‘Let them go,’ she adds. ‘For me.’
Non-Ape looks at GG and the Ape gripped in his massive fists and then, after a moment, he sets them down.
Billie steps out into the snow. ‘Things are really good,’ she promises.
‘Come on then!’ The Ape completely destroys the moment by seizing his chance and stabbing the broken cue at Non-Ape but again it snaps. He is now left with a few inches of wood and an instantly furious Non-Ape.
There are moments in life when I truly wonder if some people should be allowed to share the planet with the rest of us.
Non-Ape’s rage billows through him and he is ready to land a death punch on the Ape when Billie calls to him.
‘Don’t!’
Non-Ape’s arm is drawn back and his massive fist is clenched tight.
‘You want to make me cry like Johnson did?’ she says, pleading with him. ‘Do you?’
Non-Ape h
as frozen, caught between his rage and his shame.
She keeps pressing. ‘That what you want?’
Non-Ape lowers his arm.
‘That’s it. Make me happy instead. I want to be happy.’
Non-Ape relaxes his fist as he gazes through the lamp’s glow at Billie. Her smile transfixes him.
The Ape still wants to attack but thank God Johnson has witnessed the change in the Non-Ape. He lays a hand on the Ape’s shoulder. ‘Chill, D-man.’
The Ape is confused, not meeting violence with violence goes against every instinct that he possesses, so GG wades in too. ‘You’re making everything worse, big D.’
‘I’m saving you,’ the Ape protests. ‘You’re just standing there doing nothing.’
Non-Ape stares at Billie like she’s the loveliest vision there ever was. All anger and rage has fled from him. But more than that he turns a bright crimson. He’s embarrassed and turns shy. His great head lowers and he looks at his snow-buried feet while he tries his hardest to think of something to say.
Billie keeps walking towards him. ‘I’ll never forget that you cared,’ she tells him, reinforcing how wonderful he is in case he didn’t get it the first two times.
Non-Ape manages to lift his head but he’s still red in the face, unable to meet her eye. He nervously licks his bottom lip. ‘Promise?’ he finally manages.
‘Yeah. And listen, it’s not been a good time, and I haven’t been a great friend to anyone.’ Billie glances at the Ape when she says this – and now he blushes and bows his great head. She looks back at Non-Ape. ‘But seeing how much you care, it makes everything so much better.’
Non-Ape doesn’t know whether to walk towards her or wait. He shuffles awkwardly on the spot.
‘Good is good.’ His voice is a low mumble and he dares to meet her eyes.
The midnight snow is beginning to melt. There’s a rising warmth in the air that proves the tail end of summer is still here after all.
Billie stops and holds out a hand, just the way I did, to Non-Ape. ‘We need you.’
His monolithic body rises into a near army-like stand to attention. I’m amazed he doesn’t salute. Whatever effect Another-Billie has on him is as powerful as he is.
‘Yeah?’ His eyes shine in the reflection from the street lamp.
‘We got some digging to do.’
And suddenly I get it. This isn’t Billie talking. It’s Other-Johnson. He’s inside her, making her walk and talk.