Shades of Nothingness

by Gary Fry

  “Show us, ” she said, her voice firm and resolute. “Let me see him. ”

  As video footage crackled into life on the television, the inspector said, “We acquired these images from one of several CCTV cameras stationed outside your daughter’s school. After asking teachers and other parents about a guy standing among a crowd of people near the playground, we tracked this man back to his lair. And believe me, I do mean lair. He was living in a…well, a den, I guess you’d call it. In the heart of a nearby wood. And that was where he took Freda. It was where, we believe, he kept her for the two days and nights she was missing. ”

  The screen had been wiped clean of static and showed the school playground in which Tanya’s daughter and all her friends skipped and hopped daily. Just outside the grounds, behind a fence high enough to keep out all but the most determined of intruders, stood a gathering of people, each clearly awaiting either their own child or one they were paid to care for.

  And in the middle of this group was a man.

  At least, Tanya thought it was a man. In truth, he might be an illusion designed to play havoc with her memories. The guy’s face was half-hidden by a streaming mass of long, golden hair. His body was hunched, yet regal in appearance, so that he resembled a creature that had acquired just enough characteristics to pass itself off as human. His mouth was crinkled and knowing, revealing twin rows of longish teeth. His hands, which he kept lifting and pushing through all that facial hair, boasted nails that looked thick and sharp enough to rip large chunks out of enemies…or perhaps prey was a better term for his victims. Or even quarry.

  The terrible truth was that this man looked like a lion, and one firmly in control of adoptive new territory.

  “I know that’s him, ” said Tanya, and pointed at the screen, hysteria rising in her throat, sobs welling inside her like a forest flood.

  “Oh…no, darling, ” Oliver cut in, clearly also perceiving the likeness the figure on TV possessed to the one he’d seen the other night, in that cursed book. “Now, come on, Tan’. Please don’t start all that again. You know it’s not healthy. It’s just irritation…”

  But he got no further, because that was when the second policeman re-entered the room. He came directly across to his colleague to whisper in one ear.

  Tanya, rendered hypersensitive by rage and fear, threw off her husband’s feeble paws and heard every word.

  “The guy’s just spoken for the first time, ” the man said, keeping his voice cautiously low. “He’s given us a name. ”

  Patterson raised his eyebrows, prompting more.

  Tanya looked on, gasping for the information.

  And then the man added, “He says he’s called Leo Mains. ”

  ——

  Tanya burned The Monster Book for Girls in her back garden. It was now several months on from that terrible event. She’d thought—or rather, hoped—that this act might trigger a response from Freda, something other than the troubling silence with which she’d greeted the world after spending a few days in the woods with that dreadful creature.

  The police had still yet to learn anything more about the culprit. He remained locked in a cell, great hands rested in his lap and that mane of golden-brown hair swaying about his face with enigmatic grace.

  Whatever this guy had done to Freda after taking her away that day had not involved anything lewd, but had nonetheless changed the girl enough to prefer being outside, in nature’s arms, and never uttering as much as a single word.

  And when Oliver returned home from work later, their daughter would do what she always did now: lick his face with affection, until he smiled and licked her back.

  BEHIND THE SCREEN

  ———

  “Come on, just one quick look, ” Jake said, and kept his eyes firmly fixed on his laptop’s screen.

  The one thing he missed while spending nights away alone on fieldwork was physical intimacy. The wonders of the Internet had provided an alternative, however: the messenger program that allowed him to speak to his wife while also watching her. At thirty-six, Zoe was still worth looking at, and if Jake was less interested these days in what she had to say—it was usually repetitive stuff about the kids—he could at least console himself by thinking that, unlike the wives of many department colleagues, she was still interested in sexual fun and games.

  “Just slip the top down, show me your nipples, ” he said as Zoe gave him an intolerant glance. The digital screen, with its low frame-rate, rendered this expression piecemeal and jerky, yet perceptible all the same. Jake adjusted the zip of his trousers, as if in anticipation of pleasure. “I just need something to help me come off, you know. I’m…I’m lonely here. ”

  “You mean there’s not a bar downstairs, Jake? Don’t forget that I saw the photos of the hotel on the Internet. It looked like a swanky joint. ”

  “Yeah, but it’s also in the middle of nowhere, next to a bloody field near Ipswich. And it’s early February—hardly a busy period. In fact, the place is pretty much empty. Just a couple of saddos trying to chat up the barmaid. And believe me, they’ve no chance. ”

  “Tried and failed, have you?”

  “Don’t be silly. I’m faithful, me. I mean, why else would I be trying to get my excitement from you on a tiny bit of LCD?”

  “LCD? Now you sound like you’re on drugs, ” said Zoe, but then adjusted the laptop in front of her (one of four in the household; for a government-employed researcher, Jake’s wage was healthy enough), tugged up the folds of her sweater, lifted the material and revealed her breasts, large and round, with only the slightest trace of sagging.

  Jake took out his penis at once.

  “Keep them visible, darling. That’s the way, ” he said, and started masturbating. Strangely, despite his and his wife’s sexual openness, he’d always preferred not to let Zoe see his hand at work during this act. Minutes later, he ejaculated onto a tissue laid on the single bed in this single room, 200 miles south of his home in Leeds. Once the pulsing throes of what now felt like a furtive act had subsided, he checked the clock in the bottom-right corner of his laptop’s screen. It was only 9pm. He could go down to the bar, after all, and maybe have a few beers.

  After Zoe was fully clothed and they’d exchanged farewells (his less fond than the warmness he’d expressed after dialling into the conversation ten minutes ago) Jake disengaged his webcam, leaving only a grainy image of his wife seated in their lounge. Her own machine was placed on one arm of the couch to free her body for all that movement. But then she winked out with a hiss of static, and Jake was free.

  He loved Zoe, but had to admit that these half-week fieldwork trips were welcome. After interviewing clients in a variety of deprived conditions, he made use of his department’s expense account to visit the kind of restaurants he couldn’t afford to take the whole family to. He missed the kids, too, though only in principle; the truth was that a few days without their bickering were something close to bliss. He didn’t know how his wife coped with being just a housewife. Yes, working life had its stresses, but at least offered a little freedom.

  After exiting his room, pacing downstairs in the nigh on deserted hotel, and entering the bar, Jake saw another couple of guys much like himself, slumped over pints and reading newspapers: a pink, important broadsheet for the bald head in the corner; a cheap and cheerful tabloid for the laddish guy huddled beside the fruit machine. There was a third man in this small bar, though Jake hadn’t immediately noticed him. He seemed to have emerged from a trick of light and perspective, seated on a tall stool at the bar and nursing a short measure of something bronze. Beyond him, the barmaid—a pretty young thing with a nametag pinned to one eye-thrilling breast—appeared not to be taking much interest in her guests. Jake’s arrival looked unlikely to alter this attitude.

  When he reached the bar, the woman stepped forwards from behind it, her high heels making an echoic sound like audio effects on some tinny computer. Christ, thought Jake, shaking his head; I’ve been working far t
oo hard, typing up notes, scouring the Internet, Lord knows what else …

  “Can I ’elp you?” the barmaid asked, her tone professionally courteous yet lacking soul or conviction. Perhaps she was single and hated her job. It couldn’t be much fun being female as well as earning a living. Jake sometimes wondered whether his wife knew how lucky she was.

  “A scotch, please. Threaten it with ice, but don’t make it too submissive. ”

  “Ye what?”

  “He wants the same as me. ”

  This latest comment had come from the guy on the bar stool, the one Jake hadn’t spotted while entering. Now with a good look at him, he noticed he was as innocuous in appearance as originally suspected. He wore a grey suit, sported a grey moustache, and was balding with grey hair around his ears. He was, frankly, the greyest man Jake had ever seen. Even his flesh had a lifeless hue about it. And his smile when it came was as thin and unconvincing as the kind of night attire Jake had been trying to get his wife to wear during twelve years of marriage (and had succeeded on only two occasions: once on his thirtieth birthday, and the other after giving her £500 to go shopping…God bless Ladbrokes for that one).

  Jake glanced back at the barmaid and said, “Like the man says: same as him. ”Then, since the situation demanded such an offer and Jake was unable to find an honourable way of escaping the obligation, he sat on the next available stool before adding, “And put another in his glass, too. I’m sure he’ll reciprocate when the moment is right. ”

  The barmaid appeared not to even acknowledge the grey man’s presence, though moments later cut away, took two chunky glasses from a shelf above the bar, turned around and started to unleash the pure stuff from the most regal looking optic in a row. Chunks of ice followed with a sound like an old man’s bones breaking. And then the drinks were on the bar top, Jake was feeling for his wallet, the filthy transaction was completed, and the barmaid had performed her existential flit again. She simply stood in one corner, pretending the universe wasn’t happening, with a sullen, know-nothing-about-life expression on her face.

  “What game are you in, my friend?” Jake asked the man beside him, once the first of the fiery liquid had started feeling for his guts with hot fingers.

  “Insurance, ” replied the guy, and then responded to Jake’s slurp of scotch with an ill-timed sip of his own. Wasn’t the unspoken rule, now Jake reflected on the matter, to take a first drink with a companion simultaneously, to establish a bond? But the man had waited several seconds before setting about his own supply.

  And insurance, he’d said. Was that going to be his only reply? It appeared so; the man didn’t look likely to add more. But Jake had never been reticent about his own working life and then volunteered relevant information without being asked.

  “I’m in social research, ” he explained, considering it unlikely that, here in the bar, anybody other than Mr Grey would overhear. The music on the jukebox was playing softly and yet insistently—something melodramatic about true love and contentment. Jake went on, “I’m currently conducting a project about people who lack enough funds to get on in life, to influence their futures and steer their destinies. Do you know what I’m saying?”

  “Mentally ill people?” the man asked, and while doing so his face lost a little definition in the soft light of the room. Shadows clustered around each side of his head, as if the front was about to become detached. There was a vacant look in his grey, watchful eyes. For some reason, Jake was forced to think of maggots…But now he had the guy’s question to field.

  “The mentally ill? Well, yes, it could be them. Or migrants newly arrived in the country. Or substance abusers. ” Jake took another pull from his whisky glass: the fierce stuff was performing more of its magic inside, and yet, with the man’s eyes boring into him, Jake felt uppity…slightly nervous, even. But he transcended this uncertain period the only way he knew how: by babbling incessantly.

  About five minutes later, the grey guy knew as much about Jake as Jake thought he might know about himself. He didn’t consider himself a complex man, rather someone honest, flawed, humble, and even a modest hypocrite. He was aware of the friction between interviewing underprivileged people and exploiting his department’s expense system. He also recalled trying to dismiss his wife after she’d helped bring him to orgasm earlier. He was no fool, and understood that the persona he presented to the world was an amiable mask, designed to coax and coerce. But could he stop himself? The straightforward answer was that he had no desire to.

  In the final throes of Jake’s self-focused monologue, the grey man asked from within that pale disc of a face, “Where do you live?”

  Jake told him. He even gave the man his postcode. By now they were into their second scotches; the barmaid had come and gone again with remarkable indifference. And then Jake finished with the slurred words, “Don’t get me wrong, mate. I love my wife and kids, but sometimes I wish…it’s only sometimes, but sometimes all the same…I sometimes wish I’d remained single. Do you know what I’m saying here?”

  “I know it well, for that is my situation, ” replied the grey man, and this time those eyes—dark pupils twitching like ants drenched in a glutinous ointment—grew wide and cold and needy.

  Jake now felt even more uncomfortable, but nonetheless replied, “What, you mean you don’t have kids? Or a…a fucking wife?” The whisky was feeling for him with long limbs, holding him under its indomitable command. “Fuck me, you lucky bastard, ” he snarled, and then shook his head while adding, “Oh, you lucky, lucky bastard. ”

  In his peripheral vision, Jake noticed that the other two guys in the bar—bald-head and babe-magnet—were standing to leave. Maybe it was getting late. Surely their departure wasn’t in response to anything he’d said. While passing, they each fiddled with mobile phones, as if expecting communication at any moment. Rings of sliver twinkled amid their splayed left hands. Then they were gone, and there was only Jake, the grey guy and the barmaid (who had no choice but to remain).

  However, that was when the man—or insect-eyes, as Jake had begun to think of him—shifted from his stool, glanced at Jake, and said, “Thanks for the drink. Thanks also for downloading everything inside you and transferring it to me. ”Then he was also gone, marching for the doorway leading up to the hotel’s sparsely occupied rooms this evening, in this chill season, and in this unpopular part of the country.

  Something about the grey guy’s parting words lingered in Jake’s mind, and soon he turned his attentions to the barmaid. He pointed to his empty glass. “Another in here, sweetheart, ” he said, the way his father had always asked for things from young women in similar menial roles when Jake had been a child. His mother had never minded, and it was only later—several years later—that the old bastard had left her for a younger woman, leaving Jake with little choice but to support his mother, as well as a wife and two growing kids.

  When the fresh drink was clicked down in front of him, Jake started to soliloquise. “Man, life’s a bitch and then you marry…Oh, sorry, what was that? Three-twenty, is it? Same as last time, hee hee. Here’s a fiver. You keep the change, my love. Buy yourself something nice to wear for your boyfriend. You…you do have a boyfriend, don’t you?”

  It must have been an hour later when he finally climbed into bed, having made no progress with the spectacularly aloof barmaid. He slept with a thunderous disposition, his dreams portentous and laden with images any shrink worth his salt would consider ripe for interpretive analysis. After waking the following morning, however, all he could recall from these imaginings were two creeping-crawling eyes locked in a flimsy face…

  At work that day, he interviewed a family of travellers who lacked formal schooling and were trying to get by in life by selling handmade goods from one place to another. After acquiring this information, Jake went to a pub in nearby Colchester and ordered a cheapish meal of pie and chips. He’d been away from home for three days and had noticed in the past that by this stage he’d start missing a fe
w domestic comforts and not just the obvious ones. Frankly, he reflected as he got in his car and headed back for his hotel, he could use a hug right now. But he knew the Internet messenger program would serve almost as well.

  After parking in the building’s forecourt, he climbed out under a dimming late-winter sky. It was four o’clock. The kids were usually home from school on the bus at half-past and so with any luck, Jake would catch Zoe alone. He locked up his vehicle, stepped across for the hotel entrance, ignored the plump middle-aged woman smiling behind the reception desk, and went upstairs.

  Reaching his room, he hung the do not disturb sign on the outer door handle and then, after flinging himself onto the bed, switched on his laptop. In the late-afternoon his wife ordinarily caught up online with favourite TV shows, and so Jake was hopeful that Zoe would be available if he sent an email. He did so and then awaited a link being established between here and his gaff up north.

  Jake looked at his screen.

  And felt terror drop a beaker of cold water down his whole body. The room in the degraded digital window was certainly his lounge, but the figure seated at its centre wasn’t his wife. Zoe’s laptop was again perched on one couch arm, and this person—a man—was seated against the other. He remained as still as death and stared directly forwards, away from the on-looking webcam.

  It was the grey man Jake had met last night in the hotel’s bar.

  Even though a species of fear worked at his bowels with adroit fingertips, Jake could do nothing other than watch as the man started turning slowly the way of the webcam…the way of Jake. Looking quickly away, Jake noticed that although their lower halves were out of shot, the man’s legs were slightly elevated, as if his feet were rested on something. But Jake knew well there was nothing resembling a footstool in the lounge. He recalled his wife recently mentioning that she’d like to acquire something like this, perhaps after Jake had made her allowance available this month or next, but he was sure she hadn’t yet bought one. There were the kids and their everyday needs to prioritise first.