Kill Someone

by Luke Smitherd

  “You’ve made a success of yourself. You’ve overcome adversity, I’m sure. I just need, you know… some advice. From an older guy. A successful older guy.”

  In his total surprise, Harry feels his anger drain away, as if someone has pulled a plug somewhere in his brain. The effect is so relaxing, and the tension drains out of his shoulders as his mind fills with something else: his ego. Well, well, well. This is a turnup for the books. Maybe the kid can be kicked into line after all. Harry almost visibly swells, his stupidity rendering him utterly unable to see when he is being so obviously played.

  “You want to sort your shit out, do you?” Harry mutters, nodding and smirking. “I can’t say it’s not overdue, Chris.” A flash of what Harry believes to be compassion skims across his forebrain. “And look, if you have stuff going on that’s affecting your work, that’s my business too. If you want to tell me, I’m all ears.” He doesn’t actually give a shit, but it feels good to say that he does. He likes the idea of a mentor role.

  “Can we talk somewhere else?” Chris says. His voice is very flat and steady. “I’m due for a lunch break now anyway. I don’t want to talk here.”

  “Hmm, well I’m very busy, but I can spare five minutes,” Harry says, already regretting the offer as he says it. But it might get the little twat in line, so…

  “How about we go down to the smoking area?” Chris says quietly, very quietly. “I don’t smoke, but you know, the smoking area would be ideal. It would be perfect, in fact. Quiet. And I don’t want to talk about personal stuff in here, you know, in the workplace. Can we go now?” He pauses. “I want to… I want to get this done before I change my mind.”

  Harry looks at Chris for a moment, amused almost.

  “Sure,” he says, finally. “Let’s go.” He walks ahead of Chris, chuckling to himself and shaking his head a little. Somehow, this is actually making him feel a lot better.

  He doesn’t see Chris pause at his desk and pick up a pencil. Doesn’t see him roll it into his fist, three inches of pointed wood sticking out. Chris then hurries to catch up with the now-striding Harry. Harry likes to stride.

  They emerge into the slightly windy outdoors, protected from it by the bus shelter-like plastic windbreak that covers the front of the smoking area. It’s noisy out here; the call centre is the building furthest north in the industrial park. That means it’s closest to the motorway that buzzes constantly away to the left, hidden behind the high hedge that conceals it. There are two or three other people in the smoking area, a girl and two men, apparently relative strangers, a fact clarified by the distance between them all. Harry rubs at his exposed arms, his short-sleeved shirt—of course—adorned Sipowicz-style with a tie.

  “Bloody November,” he mutters. He’s right. The sun isn’t out, and the breeze is making the air chilled, if not outright cold. He looks at Chris, waiting, but Chris is looking at the other people in the smoking area. The kid then steps closer to Harry, leaning in conspiratorially. He’s back to not making eye contact.

  “Yeah…” he says, tutting in a way that Harry isn’t sure is exactly genuine, “I thought this might be the case. There are too many people here. I don’t really want this to be overheard. Can we go over behind the drum shed?” He gestures over his shoulder with his head. He doesn’t need to, Harry knows where it is; around the side of the building, a few feet shy of the hedge. It isn’t used anymore, apart from the few workers that ride to work who store their bikes in there. Many years ago, in the call centre’s previous life as a print works, the used industrial drums were stored in there until collection.

  Harry’s internal logic does a little dance, giving him an answer that he doesn’t fully believe. The makeup, going behind the drum shed… is the kid going to confess that he’s a faggot? He’s going to come out to Harry? Surely not. Not Harry of all people. The kid says he just wants advice. Harry doesn’t have a problem with faggots; he just doesn’t really know what to do around them (not that he’s ever really met many). No, that’s a silly thought, even though he always thought the kid could be a faggot. Either way, the reassurance that he’s given himself gives him a sense of relief, and all of a sudden he just wants this over with so he can get on with things again. What is he doing out here anyway? This was stupid. He needs to get back inside.

  “Yes, yes, whatever Chris, but the clock is ticking, I don’t have long.” They start to walk. “I want to help and everything, but, you know, we’re short-staffed, and I’ve got a lot to do.”

  “That’s fine, I understand,” says Chris, his voice flat and leaden again. Is it drugs, Harry wonders? That would explain a lot. He notices Chris looking up at the side of the building, high up into the very edges of the structure. There are no windows on this side, just a concrete wall. He absent-mindedly follows Chris’ gaze, not really noticing anything, especially not the cameras that only face away from them to cover the fire exit fifty feet away.

  They reach the far side of the drum shed and Chris turns to face Harry. Harry is a little taller, so Chris is looking up into his eyes slightly, and Harry wonders if it’s the light or the angle or the tiredness in them but geez, in that moment the kid barely looks human.

  “Spit it out then Chris, no one here,” Harry says, beginning to get annoyed again. How the hell was he down here? He’d let the kid appeal to his ego, he realizes. He let that happen sometimes. He’ll give Chris a minute. “What is it, bud?” Harry always uses ’bud’’ when he’s trying to come across as pally. “Job interview? Career choice? I just have to be quick.” Chris doesn’t say anything and continues to stare at Harry, and Harry notices how Chris is thumbing the sharpened tip of the pencil that he’s gripping in his right hand. It’s almost a nervous gesture.

  “Well?” Harry asks.

  “I’d like to quit this job, Harry,” Chris says eventually. His gaze is locked on once more, laser-focused on Harry’s eyes. “But I can’t. I have to live a normal life.”

  Harry snorts, shaking his head.

  “That’s the difference between you and me, Chris,” Harry says. “Between you and me and the rest of your lot. You see a job, and you just think about how you want to quit, but boo-hoo, you don’t have a choice. Now me, I see a job, and even if I don’t like it, I think, ‘where’s the opportunity? What good can I get out of this?’ If your lot spent as much time thinking about the positives as they do whining, you’d all do a lot better.” Harry shakes his head again. This was it? Pathetic. He doesn’t think about how much he complains to Ruth about getting constantly looked over for promotion, and certainly doesn’t think about how this may be due to him ignoring the many adjustments the higher-ups have asked him to make to his management style. After all, those idiots know nothing.

  “You’re absolutely right, Harry,” Chris says, his lips then pressing tightly together as he nods solemnly. Chris cocks his head to one side. “I think you’re absolutely right. I think I’ve thought about some good that can come out of this workplace right now.”

  “Well, good,” says Harry, looking at his watch. This was a total waste of time. Chris’ lot are all the same, he knows; good at saying they’ll make changes, but never doing it. “Then maybe you—”

  “Hold on one more minute please, Harry,” Chris says, holding up a finger, and to Harry’s mild surprise, Chris then walks around to Harry’s other side. He stands far enough away for Harry not to fully realize it, but Chris is now standing in Harry’s way, right between Harry and the path back to the smoking area. “I just want to… double check one more thing. Do you… do you have children?”

  “No,” Harry says immediately, so surprised by the question that he answers it without thinking. “Why?”

  Chris just stares at Harry in response, but he starts blinking very rapidly. Chris starts to breathe a bit more heavily too. Harry wonders if the kid is about to start crying, but no tears come. And then Chris’ jaw sets, and his head starts to tremble a bit, and Harry thinks that Chris is going to hit him. He’s suddenly sure of it
.

  The hairs go up on Harry’s neck, and he freezes. He’s never been in a fight in his life, and although Chris is shorter, he must weigh the same as Harry. Has Chris been in fights? Is he a fighter? Harry begins to panic on the inside, thinking about pulling rank, but to do that would be to acknowledge that he thinks Chris is going to hit him and if he does that and he’s wrong and Chris wasn’t going to then Chris would know that Harry thought it and then everyone in the office would know and then—

  Harry looks at the pencil in Chris’ hand. Chris’ thumb is pressed down so hard against the point now that blood is running down its shaft. Harry goes cold and just about pisses his pants.

  “Chris—”

  Chris then blinks again, and looks down at the pencil like he’d forgotten it was there. He stares at it for a moment.

  “Oh,” he says in a cracked voice, and now he does sound like he’s on the verge of tears. “Would you look at that?” He sounds like a robot, entirely devoid of emotion, yet his demeanor is as if he could shatter at any minute. “I sharpened it too much.” Suddenly, Chris spins on the spot, and in an incredibly violent movement he flings the pencil over the hedge, spittle flying from his lips as his head whips round with the throw. Harry flinches as this happens, but immediately composes himself afterwards before Chris can turn around.

  “Thanks for the advice, Harry,” Chris says in that same horrible robot voice, without turning around. “I really appreciate it. I’m gonna grab some food now. The stuff you saw today won’t happen again. I promise.”

  Then Chris walks away, back towards the call centre.

  Harry watches him go and realizes just how fast his breath is, how much he’s trembling. What the fuck was that? The kid is fucking crazy!

  Harry spends the next ten minutes behind the shed, rationalizing, and reassuring. Harry is very good at that. By the time he’s done, he’s not only convinced himself that he had the situation under control, but that he actually gave the kid some sound life advice.

  But somewhere in his subconscious, a mental note is made: cut the kid some slack.

  ***

  Christine hadn’t been what I’d expected.

  If I’m honest, I guess I’d imagined some evil but alluring femme fatale, all cheekbones and high heels and elbow gloves. But she wasn’t at all. She was wearing the obligatory sunglasses of course, along with a baseball cap, but she was about 5’2” and I’d guess her age as being around 50. She didn’t speak when she arrived— Klaus pointed to tell me to let her in, and he followed me to the door—except to say hello and instruct me to sit and turn my head at the relevant points. She didn’t even talk to Klaus. She said, ”please Chris” after every instruction—chin up please Chris, close your eyes please, Chris, close your mouth please, Chris—which I think might have been a way of appearing respectful, but I didn’t like it. I didn’t like her using my name.

  “Why are you working with these people?” I asked her at one point. “Are they making you do it? How long have you been doing this?”

  She stopped her rummaging in her bag of tricks and looked at me for a moment.

  “Do you want people to ask questions when you go to work?” she asked. Her voice was sweet, like a nice schoolteacher in a kid’s TV show. “You look like you’ve been beaten up, Chris. People don’t let other people brush that off. They might not ask questions, but they probably will. And you know what that could cause. However slim the chance, do you want to risk that?” Another bug-eyed face, staring straight at me. I wondered what Klaus would do if I slapped her. Maybe nothing. Maybe something. Maybe she knew a few Klaus-moves of her own.

  “No,” I said.

  “Then let me finish what I’m doing and I’ll be out of your hair.”

  Out of your hair. As if she were apologising for vacuuming around my feet or something.

  By the time she was finished, you would never be able to tell that anything had happened unless you were as familiar as I was with how my nose should look. She said that it would last until after work tomorrow as long as I didn’t wash it and that she’d be back the next night to do a touch-up.

  Then she left, and after I had called HR at the call centre—who were indeed delighted to hear that I could come and do an extra Sunday shift if I were needed, which of course I was—I looked at Klaus.

  “Now what?” I said, but there was no anger in it. I was empty. “We just… we wait?” Klaus nodded in response, then picked up the remote and turned on the TV. Some nondescript midday show was on, but Klaus began to turn the volume up as if he were interested. Then, as the volume began to reach earsplitting levels, I realized what he was doing. He handed the remote to me, gestured at the TV—watch what you want, the wave of the hand said—and sat down in the armchair opposite. His eyes were on me.

  “This isn’t necessary,” I yelled over the din of the TV. “I’m out of ideas. You don’t have to keep me distracted.” I didn’t know if that was true—I had no idea what my next move would be, and whether or not I was capable of coming up with something that I could live with—but I just wanted him to turn the damn thing down. I had no idea that our TV could even be that loud. Klaus shrugged in response, of course. “I can quit,” I shouted, but not in anger. “I can quit at any time and you’d have to leave.” Klaus nodded again. It’s all the same to me, the nod said. I just work here, kid.

  I looked back at the screen and knew there was no way I was going to quit. Because I knew in that moment, as I sat in my comfortable chair listening to the uncomfortable racket from the TV, that Olivia was having both of her arms amputated. You might think that would spur me into thought, a driving force to fire brain cells and neurons and whatever cunning I had left into a eureka moment … but it didn’t. It had the opposite effect. It paralysed me. Not to mention the questions that screamed and bellowed in my head even louder than the TV’s speakers.

  How will they do it? Will they use a chainsaw? Surely not, not even them. A circular surgeon’s saw maybe? Would they cauterize the wound? How do you cauterize a wound that big? It would have to come off at the shoulder; that’s a big hole. Would they cut below the shoulder? Halfway up the arm, or just below the shoulder, like a Greek statue?

  I bit down mentally, and decided that finding something to watch—for now at least—would be a good idea. Something to help me switch off. The ”time out” was on at least until Tuesday morning anyway, and so maybe getting my mind off it would actually help relieve some pressure and let me think clearly. Yeah, that’s it, I told myself, trying desperately to ignore the knowledge that I’d failed.

  Klaus followed me around the house, watching me make food that I ended up not even touching. He watched me sleep, or rather, watched me try to sleep that night. When I finally did—and extremely briefly at that—I had terrible dreams that I don’t want to revisit here. I watched the ceiling of my room turn from black to dark blue to grey to its actual white. By the time I made it into work the next morning, dropped off by Klaus who remained in the car with his surveillance gear—didn’t the man ever eat, I wondered, unless he has astronaut food or something inside those endless pockets of his—I was hobbling through the door like a corpse. I didn’t speak to anyone any more than to say ”hi” and kept my head down so as to avoid any dealings with Harry the Twat.

  I barely heard a word any of the customers said. Fortunately, so much of it was stuff that I could do on autopilot that I was able to blag my way through the day. Unfortunately, the Man in White and his friends were right; it was near impossible to keep my head on the real task at hand. Exhaustion, stress, constant distraction, and pain all combined to make planning next to impossible.

  To my disgust, dear unknown reader who will probably never fucking read this anyway, that was almost fine by me. I was running away from it.

  Then something happened, despite the best intentions of the Man in White. Or maybe this was what he wanted all along. I don’t know.

  Out of nowhere, I had an idea.

  A horrible, ho
rrible idea. A eureka moment in the darkness.

  It came with a creeping, dawning dread that began to work its way into my brain as the day wore on. I tried to ignore it—of course I did—but as the other options were looked at, examined, and dismissed, it became harder and harder to ignore. It couldn’t be true. It couldn’t.

  But it rang a bell, no, a fire station bell in a way that drug dealer or racist – the only targets I could actually find – hadn’t. It screamed truth.

  I got through the day and Klaus drove me home to await Christine. She actually said hiya when I opened the door, using the same sing-song tone a personal and familiar masseuse might use when she came around for the weekly back rub. I didn’t say anything and let her in.

  Halfway through the touch-up, it all became too much, and I ran to the toilet to throw up. Klaus ran after me, of course. When I came back, Christine tutted and reworked around my mouth.

  It can’t be true. I thought it over and over again, even though it made no difference.

  There was still a whole extra day left in the time-out. Inspiration would come, I knew. Another idea. Salvation, a way out. I hobbled up the stairs at 8 pm, Ibuprofen running through my veins. I desperately needed to sleep. Klaus followed me like an attentive lover hoping for action.

  Sleep didn’t come. The thoughts did. The knowledge did. I knew—but somehow wouldn’t accept—that I was merely prolonging the inevitable. It was like a boot made of lead repeatedly kicking me in the brain, a near-fact that smashed into my mind.

  It’ll be all right, I thought, desperate in the darkness. There’ll be another way. Something will happen tomorrow and you’ll know what it is.

  It was a pointless thought, a lit match trying to withstand a toxic dam that had burst its banks.

  The funny thing was that—now I was running freely from my thoughts rather than wrestling them into order—my mind was totally blank. I went into work, running not just my job but myself on autopilot too. Even so, as the hours went by, the truth became louder and louder and louder and louder and louder and louder and louder.