Skin

by Liam Brown

  ‘Come on, Col. Hold it together. What happened this morning?’

  ‘So this morning I got a call from Xan.’ He took another deep breath. ‘As in Xan fucking Brinkley. My manager’s manager. The guy at the top of the food chain. And it seems that last night… Last night someone broke into our system and leaked footage of the tests online.’

  ‘You were hacked?’

  ‘Yes, we were hacked. And it’s bad Angela. Really bad.’

  ‘But why would someone do that? Surely no one’s going to be interested in a bunch of people sunbathing?’

  Colin let out a hollow cluck. ‘Sunbathing? You think that’s why people come to the island? The most immersive VR experience ever devised and you think people waste it lying around on a beach?’

  I paused, trying to digest what he was saying. ‘Okay, so there are a few images of people having a virtual bonk. That doesn’t sound that bad? Even if Charlie was somehow involved, I don’t think—’

  ‘If? Of course the little shit was involved! Who else?’

  ‘Hey, watch it. I know you’re upset, but that’s a pretty big accusation.’

  ‘Is it? I mean first Amber, and now me? You think that’s a coincidence?’

  ‘Now wait a minute. You were the one who said there was no evidence it was him who hacked Amber.’ I stumbled, finding myself in the novel position of trying to defend our son. I didn’t know what to think. Yes, I knew Charlie was troubled. And yes, it did seem like an unlikely coincidence. But even so, surely as his parents we had a duty to give him the benefit of the doubt?

  On the screen, Colin’s head was in his hands, tugging at the remaining hair on his scalp.

  ‘Well, have you at least tried talking to him about it?’ I asked.

  Colin sat up then, a crazed look in his eye. ‘Ha! Yeah. Right. I must have sent him a hundred messages this morning, but he’s not answering. He’s not even online. I’ve got a good mind to put my suit on and go and knock on his door. I mean, obviously I’m not going to do that. But I don’t know what to do, Angela. I feel like we’ve lost control. He won’t listen. He won’t talk. We have to do something. I mean, he needs professional help.’

  ‘Look, you need to calm down. You still don’t know for certain it was him who leaked your footage. So, why don’t we all just—’

  ‘Just what, Angela? This is the worst day of my entire life and you want me to calm down? Do you have any inkling of what’s at stake here? This could be the end of everything. My whole career down the drain. Which means no money. And then what? You think we’re going to be able to keep this place going on the peanuts you bring in each month?’

  ‘Hey! I know you’re upset right now, but there’s no need to—’

  ‘And you know what the worst thing is? It’s that you don’t even have the faintest idea what it is I do. Three years I’ve been working on this thing, and you treat it like it’s some kind of fancy 3D porno website I’m building. You don’t respect me.’

  ‘That’s not fair, Colin.’

  ‘Isn’t it? Because you clearly don’t understand how important this stuff is. This is life and death shit, Angela. Right now, there is compromising footage of A-list clients trending on every video site on the web. What, you think we’d let just anyone test this stuff? We’re talking CEOs. Film stars. Foreign heads of state. Powerful people facing public ridicule and ruin and who want nothing more than a punching bag. Well guess who they’re looking at, Ange? And that’s before they’ve put two and two together and worked out that it’s none other than my own son, the fucking deviant in the next room, who is the source of this whole nightmare.’

  ‘Colin. I know you’re under pressure now, but you need to—’

  ‘Don’t tell me what I need to do. You don’t know anything. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to go and attempt to extinguish the fucking forest fire that is my career right now.’

  ‘Colin, wait…’

  Before I could finish, though, the screen went black. He’d gone.

  I tried calling Charlie. Then Amber.

  There was no answer from either of them. Amber wasn’t even showing as online.

  I sat there for a while, motionless. It was past midday and I still hadn’t logged on for work. I couldn’t seem to make myself move. In the blank screen in front of me, I could make out my reflection. I looked like a ghost. Tired. Sick. Older than I’d ever looked before.

  And totally alone.

  DAYS PASSED. I spoke to no one. Colin wouldn’t answer my calls. Neither would the kids. I felt adrift in my room. In all the years I’d spent by myself, I’d still never been more than a text message or a phone call from my family. Now nobody was talking. I couldn’t even hear them through the walls. There was no Amber on her treadmill. No Charlie blasting away at his computer games. No Colin, yelling or gnashing or wailing. If I closed my eyes and listened, all I could hear was my own pulse. Blood in my ears, like the swell of a dark and endless ocean.

  In the evenings I ate my dinner alone in front of the computer. As much as I’d privately mocked Colin for his ‘family meals’, I nevertheless dutifully turned on my webcam at the usual time each day, hopeful that I might find another member of my family online. There was only ever my own face, though, the other three squares as black as bottomless pits. I sat and watched myself chewing away at whatever irradiated mush I happened to have defrosted that night. And after that, I sat there watching myself watching myself.

  For the first time in five years, I began to feel the crushing weight of claustrophobia. The walls were too close together. The ceiling bearing down on me, the floor pushing up. I was being squeezed. Squashed. Ground out of existence.

  It was the pills, I decided. I’d been a fool to throw them out. What had I been thinking? Of course I needed medication to keep me level. Who wouldn’t? Life was fucking intolerable without them. I craved booze. Dope. Anything to take me away from my thoughts. To numb me to the interminable present. But of course I had nothing. Nothing, that is, but the thought of Jazz fucking Freeman taunting me. This was all his fault. Everything had been fine until I’d first spotted his stupid orange T-shirt that early summer morning. Not perfect, but fine. We got by. And now? Now everything was ruined.

  In an attempt to escape my spiralling thoughts, I threw my attention into work, spending fourteen, sixteen hours at my desk. Whenever my attention wandered, I found my fingers moving on autopilot, opening new windows on my desktop. Gossip columns. Social media. Stupid pictures of animals. Empty-calorie ephemera. Or else I’d find myself hunched over a search engine, tapping in the same rhetorical questions over and over again. Why am I so sad? When will it be safe to go outside again? Is it too late to start again?

  At night, though, there were no such distractions. I lay there in bed, the darkness closing in on me, like a pillow over my face. In my desperation to escape my memories, I tried everything. Meditation. Counting sheep. I even tried masturbating, though of course I found it impossible. As much as I deride Colin for his use of pornography, perhaps part of me is simply jealous. Even before the outbreak, I’d never enjoyed the sight of strangers’ flesh smeared across the screen. It always reminded me of American wrestling. The impossible anatomy of porn stars. Their tits, teeth and tan as fake as their orgasms. The terrible acting. The brutish, pantomime patriarchy. It turned my stomach. Added to the fact that most of the people starring in these pre-virus clips were in all likelihood long dead, and I tended to view porn as the digital equivalent of a cold shower.

  That left me with only my fantasies for company. They were equally hopeless, though. My half-hearted attempts at constructing a vaguely plausible scenario were always sabotaged by the nagging reality that physical intimacy would inevitably result in sickness and death. Or else I’d be hijacked by memories from the past. Time and time again, I was visited by the image of the boy I’d threatened at knifepoint, the terror in his eyes, the dark trickle of blood on his pale neck. Or else I’d recall that dark day in the cottage when we dragg
ed the man into the garden. The damp crack of the bat opening up his skull. Not exactly the most erotic material.

  Giving up on the operation altogether, I’d eventually fall into a fitful sleep. But even then, I couldn’t escape the past. One of my recurring nightmares involved the boy at the shop again, only this time I didn’t stop when he dropped the bag. Instead, I kept hacking away at his neck in a frenzy, stabbing him over and over until his head tore away altogether, leaving nothing but the gristle of his windpipe and spine, a geyser of blood erupting from the stump of his neck.

  Other times, I’d see visions of Jazz standing topless on the deck of his boat, his muscles straining as he knelt to saw a length of wood. Or else I’d see him beneath the gaudy silk sheets in his cabin below deck, a look in his eyes that was equally terrifying and exciting. In a strange way, these dreams were even more disturbing than the ones about the boy. By the time dawn broke, I’d be wide awake, drenched in sweat, furious with him all over again.

  After three or four days and nights of this torture, I decided the only way I was ever going to regain my sanity was to visit the school again. I needed to confront Jazz and tell him exactly what I thought of him and his pathetic attempt to live outside of the system. Couldn’t he see how selfish he was being? This was a man who might very possibly hold the key to saving the human race, and yet there he was living on a diet of onion soup and building boats that would never sail. If only I could convince him to hand himself in, then they could use him to develop a vaccine and I could get out of this godforsaken room for good. Not that he’d ever go for it. Oh no. He was far too self-righteous for that.

  Thankfully, though, I had another plan.

  AND SO, ONCE again, I found myself climbing into my hazmat suit before sunrise. Without a camera, I decided to take my mobile phone instead. I wouldn’t be able to film him with it, but I hoped I could at least use it to record audio. There was a small Velcro flap on the front of my suit and I stuffed the phone inside. It wasn’t ideal, as the sound was likely to be muffled, but I figured that as long as I had some record of our conversations, at least my story would be believed.

  As I crept down the hallway, I stared at each of the three closed doors. Charlie’s, Colin’s and finally Amber’s. I pictured each member of my family, asleep in their individual beds in their individual rooms. It seemed impossible that I could be standing so close to each of them and yet be so far away. For a moment, I fought the urge to hurl myself at the doors. To kick them open. To let in the light. The air. To hell with the danger. Just so the four of us could be together one last time. So I could talk to Amber, to see if she was okay. To Charlie, too, and hear his side of the story. Instead, I continued down the hallway, being as quiet as possible as I set off into another forbidden morning.

  The walk was easier than it had been the last time. Or perhaps it was simply that I knew precisely where I was going. Though the day was bright, the sun was cooler, and I found myself shivering as I trudged down the centre of the deserted streets. As ever, there were no police. No soldiers. Maybe they didn’t bother with this part of the city? Or maybe there weren’t any to begin with? Maybe they were just invented by the government to keep people from doing something as stupid and reckless as the thing I was doing now. Either way, I reached the rusting school gates without incident. I paused for a moment to retrieve my phone, setting it to record before I stowed it away again in my secret pouch. Then I hopped over the railings and set off across the playground.

  As I approached the door, I felt a building sense of anticipation. At least I did until I noticed that Jazz’s bike was no longer leaning up against the wall outside. Was I too late? Had I missed him? I tried to stay calm. He’d probably just parked it round the back out of sight. There was nothing to worry about.

  When I reached the door, however, I was less sure.

  The door handle was smeared with something that wasn’t there before. Something dark and red.

  For a moment I scrambled for a reasonable explanation. Hadn’t Jazz talked about painting his boat?

  But then I opened the door.

  And saw the footprints leading down the hall.

  There was no mistaking it then.

  It was blood.

  And lots of it.

  PART FOUR

  TWENTY

  I KNEW RIGHT away that I should turn and run and not look back. That would be the sensible thing to do. Something terrible and violent had happened there, and the longer I stayed around, the more likely something terrible and violent would happen to me.

  Yet for all my survival instincts told me to get out, I kept going, following the trail of blood down the hall. It wasn’t hard. There was a lot of it. A footprint here. A smeared handprint there. I wondered whether Jazz might have injured himself while working on the boat. Hammers, saws, axes, nails. All it would take was a slip of the hand. As I edged closer to the hall though another, darker explanation occurred to me. That perhaps it was not Jazz’s blood at all. That maybe it belonged to someone else. Someone Jazz had hurt.

  Someone like me.

  I swallowed down my fear. Jazz might have been intolerably rude, but he didn’t seem violent. Even so, it took all of my courage to keep going once I reached the swing doors that led to the hall.

  ‘Hello?’ I whispered.

  There was no answer. I tried again, a little louder this time. ‘Is there anybody here?’

  The trail continued across the scratched wooden floor, leading off around the side of the boat. While I’ve never been especially squeamish, the sight of so much blood made me itch. Even with my suit and mask, I couldn’t help but think about the toxic cells lurking in each red streak. Enough to infect my entire family. To wipe out half the city. Again the urge to run was almost overwhelming.

  ‘Hello?’ I tried again.

  This time, I thought I heard a noise in response, though it was difficult to tell with the swish of my suit in my ears. I kept walking, preparing myself to sprint for cover at the first sign of danger.

  As I reached the edge of the boat, however, I was greeted not by the hostage situation that had been playing out in my mind, but by a pile of crumpled blankets. I was about to step over them and move on, when the blankets let out a groan. Then they sat up, and I saw that huddled under the layers of stained fabric was Jazz.

  He attempted a smile, but it came out as more of a grimace. ‘Okay, so don’t freak out, but I’ve had a bit of an accident.’

  He didn’t look well. His skin deathly pale. His forehead puckered with sweat. Very gently, he pulled back the sheet to reveal his leg.

  Or at least, what remained of his leg.

  IT WAS A dog that did it. Though he swore it looked more like a wolf. Or a mutant. Its face deformed. More teeth than he’d ever thought possible. He’d been out exploring again and found a hardware store a couple of miles from the school. The jackpot, he called it. Completely untouched. He was just finishing loading up his trailer with supplies, when out of nowhere he heard a snarling behind him. He turned in time to see a flash of black fur. And then it was on him. For a moment he thought it was all over. But then he’d grabbed a piece of wood from the trailer and somehow managed to fight the thing off, until eventually it scurried away, whimpering back to the shadows.

  For a while he hadn’t even realised he’d been bitten, the shock protecting him from any pain. It was only when he started pedalling that he looked down and saw his trousers were saturated with blood. After a few minutes he was forced to abandon the bike altogether and hobble back to the school. That was yesterday afternoon, and he’d been lying here ever since.

  Swallowing down my fear of contamination, I cleaned up his leg as best I could, while at the same time attempting to minimise my contact with the wound. ‘You need to get to a hospital,’ I said once I’d finished. ‘That dog could have had anything in his saliva.’

  Jazz laughed weakly. ‘Good point. I guess I’d better go to hospital. I’ll call an ambulance, shall I?’

&nbs
p; ‘You know what I mean. There’re still doctors you know. I could call one for you. You have to do something or you could lose your leg. Or worse.’

  I glanced down again at the wound. Jazz didn’t have a first aid kit, so I’d used water from the kitchen to clean it up, boiling it on the stove first and adding a few spoonfuls of salt for good measure. Once I’d washed the dried blood off, I saw the leg wasn’t as bad as I’d initially thought. That’s not to say it looked good. There were puncture marks all along his calf, running from his ankle to his knee from where the dog had attacked him. Some of them looked deep. More alarming than the cuts was the red line tracking up his thigh.

  ‘I mean it. You need to call someone. If you won’t, I will.’

  ‘No.’ For the first time I saw the fear in his eyes. ‘You know what will happen to me if you call for a doctor. If it’s a choice between that and dying, I’d rather just stay here.’

  I looked again at the red line. It seemed to be growing by the second. ‘Fine. But you can’t just leave it like that. I’m pretty sure I’ve got some antibiotics in my first aid kit at home. At the very least I’ve got some cream we can use to clean the cuts up properly. When’s the last time you had a tetanus shot?’

  Jazz shrugged. ‘Hey, there’s no need to make a big deal out of this thing. I’m just tired. I’ll get some sleep and I’ll be fine.

  ‘Don’t sleep.’ I stood up, getting ready to leave. ‘You need to try and stay awake if you can. I can be back here in…’ I paused. I’d forgotten about the time I needed to spend in decontamination. ‘I can be back here later today. This afternoon latest. Just stay here until then, okay?’

  ‘It’s not like I’m going to run off anywhere is it?’