Witnesses

by Anthony Watson

  He’d had a growing sense of dread since Mickey had left this afternoon. Nothing tangible or real, nothing he could put his finger on, but something. He felt it was linked to the black he’d seen swirling around in Mickey’s aura. He’d almost called him back, but realised he’d have been unable to find the words to explain his fears to his friend. Shit, he wasn’t entirely sure why he felt so uneasy.

  Because the last time you saw the black, it was around Gary Wallace, and look what happened to him…

  Mickey’s not answering the phone did little to assuage Dave’s fears. “Come on, come on… Pick up!”

  Mickey didn’t, and Dave slammed the phone down into its cradle. He’d have to go over, see him in person, otherwise he’d never settle, never get rid of this sick feeling in his stomach.

  He pulled his jacket off the hook and quickly pulled it on. His hat lay on the staircase and he yanked it up, jamming it onto his head. Grabbing his keys, he strode to the front door and pulled it open.

  A man stood in the doorway. The man. His stalker.

  The man with no aura.

  “Dave Charlton?” he asked.

  “Yeah, that’s me,” Dave replied, still reeling somewhat from the shock of seeing the man stood there. “Who’s asking?”

  The man reached out a hand. It hung there for what seemed an eternity before Dave took it, felt the other man squeezing tight. Too tight.

  “Colin Dark,” the man replied. “Can I come in? We have a lot to talk about.”

  PART TWO

  ENDGAMES

  “Sorry, can’t stop right now,” Dave said, pushing past the man on his doorstep. “I’ve got to go and see someone.”

  The stranger placed a hand on Dave’s shoulder as he tried to push past. “Would that be Mickey?” he said.

  Dave stopped in his tracks. He stared at the man with a puzzled look on his face. “Yes, that would be Mickey. Do I know you?”

  The man smiled, released his grip from Dave’s shoulder, and extended his hands once more. “Colin Dark,” he repeated, “and no, you don’t know me. Yet.”

  Dave shook his head in frustration. “Look, Colin, it’s lovely to meet you and everything, but I really need to go out.”

  “Mickey’s dead.” The words were snapped out like a command, entirely without feeling or any trace of sympathy. Matter-of-fact. To the point.

  Confusion passed across Dave’s face, quickly to be replaced by anger. “You what? What the fuck are you on about?” He pushed the man hard in the shoulder, saw him take a step back under the impact. Dark held up his hands in a defensive gesture to placate Dave. “Whoa there! Don’t kill the messenger!”

  “What the…” Dave lunged at the man, arms outstretched, hands grasping for his throat. A quick movement brought Dark’s own hands up to ward off the blow; another resulted in a table-turning manoeuvre, spinning Dave around and pinning his arm up against his back, a tight grip on his wrist.

  “Let’s go inside, shall we?” Dark hissed into Dave’s ear, and so doing pushed him forwards so that he stumbled across the doorstep back into the house.

  He continued to push Dave through into the sitting room, pausing only momentarily to kick the door shut behind him. The small pane of glass at the top of the door rattled as the door crashed in its frame. Once inside the lounge, he released his grip, but momentum kept Dave tottering into the middle of the room. Regaining his balance, Dave swung round to confront his assailant. “What. The. Fuck?”

  Dark raised his hands once again in a calming gesture. “I’m sorry, Dave,” he said, with a smile that somehow failed to make its way to his eyes. “I didn’t mean to be so rough, but I really need to talk to you. Can we sit down?”

  “No, we can’t fucking sit down,” Dave shouted. “Not until you tell me what this is all about! And what’s this about Mickey? He’s dead? How the fuck do you know that?”

  Dark slowly lowered his hands, all the time maintaining eye contact with Dave, staring into his soul. “You know it too,” he said, calm, measured. “And I don’t just mean that sick feeling you have in your stomach, the worry that’s gnawing away at you. I’m not talking about intuition or anything like that.”

  “What are you talking about then? I don’t know that Mickey’s dead… shit, I don’t know that Mickey’s dead! Just because you say he is, and who the hell are you anyway, and what are you doing in my house?” Dave took a stride forwards, anxious to end this bizarre conversation.

  “You saw his aura, didn’t you?” Dark said, in that same calm voice, “the black one?”

  The words halted Dave in his tracks. The mixture of anxiety and anger he was feeling was immediately displaced by unease and apprehension. A nervous smile flitted across his mouth. “You what?”

  It was Dark’s turn to smile, this a more permanent version. “Yes, Dave, I know all about you, about how you see the auras. Tell you what, I bet you don’t see one around me, do you?”

  Dave suddenly felt faint. The blood seemed to be draining from his head, flowing down his body and filling up his legs, making them so heavy he couldn’t move them.

  “We’re special, Dave, you and me, very special.” Dark’s smile widened to a grin.

  Dave managed to get his legs moving and stumbled backwards, collapsed onto the sofa. His mind raced, trying to cope with what he’d just heard, trying to make sense of it, searching for something rational, profound even, to say.

  “Shit,” he said.

  “You must have known it, Dave. You must have felt it. Always an outsider, never really part of anything. No real relationships to speak of…”

  Dave bridled at the words but said nothing in reply.

  “That’s because you are different, Dave. You and me both.”

  “You can see the auras, too?” Despite everything, he felt a sense of excitement at the prospect that he wasn’t alone, in this regard at least.

  Dark shook his head slowly, the smile fading from his lips. “I’m afraid not, Dave. That particular… gift wasn’t bestowed on me. I do, however, have other talents.” Dark continued smiling as he made his way to the easy chair and sat down in it. “But enough about me!” He winked. He actually winked. “For now, anyway…”

  “Yeah, enough about you! Enough about all of this, this… whatever it is! I’m going to wake up in a minute, I know I am. I can’t believe that this is happening. I haven’t the slightest idea who you are – Colin – but right now I’m going to see my mate!”

  “Mickey’s dead. I’ve already told you.”

  Dave leapt to his feet. “Fuck you! I swear to God if you try and stop me I’m phoning the police. In fact, I’m gonna phone them anyway, barging in here like this, manhandling me!” He rubbed his arm to emphasise his words. “Now, get out!” he shouted, though the waver in his voice lessened the impact somewhat.

  Dark sighed, steepled his fingers, and leant forward to rest his chin on their tips. “Okay, Dave,” he said. “I’ll go now, let you find out for yourself what I’ve said is true. Maybe, just maybe, that will convince you that we really do need to talk.” He got to his feet. “Don’t worry, I’ll see myself out.” He turned to go. “Oh, and I’m sorry for your loss.”

  Dave watched the man leave, glaring at his back, anger still coursing through him. He heard the front door close and slumped back down onto the sofa. His mind whirled, trying in vain to comprehend what had just happened.

  He knows about the auras…

  Dave shook the thought from his head. Right now, Mickey was the priority. Hearing Dark confirm his worst suspicions had been disconcerting, to say the least. To hear him say that Mickey was actually dead, and to sound so confident about it, was disturbing in the extreme. He had to see his friend. As he left the house, he tried Mickey’s number again, listened as the phone rang, and rang, and rang…

  * * *

  Chris drove through the night. Beside him, Dilly slept, occasionally murmuring words slurred by the medication filling her body. He drove fast, to put as much distance be
tween themselves and the Colony, but also because of the anger he felt towards Dr Ball and Dilly’s mother for creating this situation, for potentially destroying everything.

  The late Dr Ball and the late Mrs Chambers, he reminded himself, taking some small consolation from the thought.

  He’d taken decisive action to repair the damage. Hopefully everything was back on track. In doing so, he’d taken risks, though. That butcher Ball had carried out the operation on Dilly, taken away her womb, and when he’d found her she’d been on the recovery ward, hooked up to bottles of drugs that fed into her veins. He remembered the spray of red as he’d pulled the needles from the backs of her hands, remembered too the awful moan that had come from her as he’d done so, that horrible sound repeated when he’d lifted her from her bed and carried her out of the building to place her in the car.

  Dilly groaned again. Her head thrashed from side to side, but she did not awaken. He reached across to her and placed his palm against her forehead, winced as he felt the combination of sweat and high temperature. “Don’t die on me, Dilly” he said, a note of pleading in his voice. “Not now…”

  Headlights approached on the opposite side of the road, their glare momentarily blinding him. He slumped down slightly behind the wheel, already paranoid, even though the murder and abduction he’d carried out at the Colony would surely still be undiscovered. The car passed by and Chris heaved a sigh of relief as he watched the tail-lights slowly diminish in his rear-view mirror, the spots of red finally winking out as the car followed the long bend in the road he himself had just traversed.

  The endgame was approaching. It had always been the case that he and Dilly would pass along this road, but the circumstances that had determined the journey would be undertaken in the dark of night, fleeing as criminals, had never been a part of the original plan. Everything was so much more complicated now, but there had been no other way around it.

  Needs must when the devil drives…

  Chris smiled at the idiom. What was done was done. What were two deaths in the grand scheme of things? Time was pressing, of that there was no doubt, but it could actually be advantageous to him. The less time the police had to track them down the better. They would be at their destination tomorrow, still in good time. It would be easy enough to get rid of the car and to hole up there.

  He checked the fuel gauge, saw the needle nudging the red band at the bottom left of the dial. He would need to get gas soon, a risky business, he knew, but risks would have to be taken. There was nowhere near enough fuel in the car to get to them to where they needed to be.

  Dilly groaned again beside him, and he smacked the steering wheel with the palm of his hand in frustration.

  * * *

  An unseasonal fog covered the ground, hiding the landscape through which the car passed. The headlights did little to penetrate the white cloud, provided no advance warning of the multitude of potholes over which the car juddered. Occasionally, they would pass through small villages, their streets deserted, not, Church knew, as a result of the inclement weather, but because this was occupied territory. He was far behind enemy lines now, many miles from his own troops, far from any hope of rescue.

  He shifted position in his seat to ease the pain that was developing in his back, heard the jangle of the chain on the handcuffs that bound his wrists as he moved. Beside him, Dreschler drove, the manic grin that he’d worn on his face since the massacre still present. The effusiveness he’d shown at that time was gone, however. Church’s attempts to garner any information about where they were going, any information at all, were proving fruitless. His captor was giving nothing away, would discuss nothing with him. “All in good time,” had been the man’s stock response to any enquiries. There had been the speech about fate and destiny, none of which had registered at all given the circumstances in which it was delivered. The arrogance of the man was incredible. To stand calmly amidst such carnage and destruction, to dismiss the deaths – such terrible deaths – of so many as merely stepping stones on the way to fulfilling some kind of destiny was abhorrent. To imply that he, Church, was somehow a part of that destiny was a terrible thing to even contemplate. The Hauptmann was an enigma, but his arrogance and superior attitude fuelled Church’s anger, increased his determination to find a way to escape from the madman as soon as an opportunity presented itself.

  Madman.

  Church smiled humourlessly at the word, the thought. Dreschler was deranged, that much was undeniable, but that description could be applied just as easily to himself. The disappearance of the world outside the car served only to reinforce the feeling that he was slowly going mad. Twice now, in moments of the most extreme stress, he had seen hordes of demons, like a picture from a medieval bible, creatures from Hell, monsters from the darkest recesses of his imagination right there in front of him. An impossibility. Perhaps the illness that was causing him to see auras was becoming progressively worse, creating waking hallucinations.

  Perhaps we madmen attract each other, he mused, maybe this really is my destiny.

  The car slowed as figures slowly emerged from the fog. Soldiers. This was obviously some kind of checkpoint. Dreschler brought the car to a stop and wound down the window. A crow was perched on a fencepost behind the soldier, pulling at the body of a mouse with its beak. As Church watched, it pulled a red string of intestines from the mouse’s abdomen, and with three quick jerks of its head swallowed them. It then resumed pecking at its food. Dreschler exchanged a few words with the young soldier, who peered at Church suspiciously, but the conversation was brief and the car was soon moving again. Church watched the soldier salute as he disappeared into the grey shroud that enveloped him.

  “We will soon be there” Dreschler said, smiling at Church. “Our journey will soon be over.”

  Church gave no reply, simply continued to stare at the rear-view mirror. At the cold, grey world in which he was trapped.

  * * *

  It was usually a ten-minute walk to Mickey’s house, but it took Dave less than five, jogging for much of the distance in an effort to get there as quickly as possible. His attempts to convince himself that this was all just a massive over-reaction were failing. They actually served only to increase his concerns about his friend.

  He knocked – hammered - on the white PVC front door, called out Mickey’s name. No response. He hammered again. And again. “Open up, Mickey! It’s Dave!” He felt panicked now, heard its influence in his wavering voice. “Ah shit…” He pounded his fist on the door one more time – and heard the small click as it slipped off the snick. The door was unlocked, open.

  “Okaaay…” Dave slowly pushed the door open and stepped into the house. The staircase was directly in front of him, the door to the living room immediately to his right. This door stood slightly ajar. Dave could see dim light through the opaque glass panels in it. “Mickey?” he called again, this time much more quietly than when he’d been stood outside, and pushed the door open.

  Still no response came from his friend. “Come on, mate, where are you?”

  He stepped into the living room, noticed that the curtains around the large front window weren’t drawn, despite the darkness outside. It was a large living room; the house seemed much bigger on the inside than it appeared from the outside. Mickey had called it his Tardis for that very reason. He was faced by the back of the sofa, a huge, cushioned monstrosity in a hideous floral print that was so big it was virtually as long as the room was deep, pretty much covering the entire distance between the window and the door through to the kitchen at the back of the room. As such, it was an obstacle you had to manoeuvre to get into the room itself.

  Dave did so, sidestepping the end of the sofa, squeezing through the gap between it and the window. The sight of his friend sprawled on the cushions stopped him in his tracks.

  “Mickey?”

  Dave shuffled the last few steps and crossed the floor quickly to kneel down next to the prone figure of his friend. In so doing, he clattered
against the small table which stood alongside the sofa, toppling the bottle that stood on it. The bottle clattered onto the wooden table-top, disgorging the small amount of whisky that still remained in it. The liquid pooled on the surface, soaked into the empty cardboard box that lay there, the box that had contained Paracetamol.

  “Oh shit, Mickey!” Dave grabbed his friend by the shoulders, shook him vigorously, but could not wake him. A dark brown smudge of vomit ran from one corner of his mouth across his chin. Dave stopped shaking and pressed his fingers to Mickey’s neck, just below the jawline, searching for a pulse.

  Nothing. Not even faint.

  “Oh God, no…” He continued to shake Mickey, as if he might bring him back to life by sheer physical effort. Tears sprang up in his eyes, spilled over and ran down his cheeks. “Come on, Mickey, come on!” Panic seized him. What could he do? There must be something, why didn’t he know this stuff? CPR? The initials were familiar to him, but what did they mean? What do you do? You hammer really hard on the chest, don’t you? And blow air into the lungs?

  Why didn’t he know? Why was he upset that he didn’t know what the fucking initials stood for?

  He released his grip on his (dead) friend and slumped back onto the floor, his legs folding beneath him. The tears were flowing freely now, and his shoulders hitched as he lowered his head into his hands. Tears mingled with the snot dripping from his nose, and he sniffed noisily but ineffectually. “Why’d you do it?” he asked, but of course Mickey gave no response. Simply lay there, dead as all shit.

  His sobbing gradually diminished as a mixture of pragmatism and embarrassment set in. He wiped his eyes with the ball of his thumb, the latest bit of snot from his nose with the back of his hand. “Ah, fuckit…”

  Slowly, not least because of the sharp pain shooting through his legs as he shuffled them out from under him, he stood up. He didn’t want to look at Mickey’s body, but found he was unable to drag his eyes from it. Eyes shut, a slight smile playing on his lips, his friend could be contentedly dozing on the settee, for all the outward appearances suggested. Appearances could be deceptive, though, no more so than in this instance. Thank God his eyes were already shut. The thought added to the guilt and self-loathing he already felt, but Dave felt relieved that he wouldn’t have to touch the cold skin of his friend, to have to close those eyes for him.