Location, Location, Damnation

by Nick Moseley

  So he said ‘Are they? I might come along for a bit, then. Kolley’s usually pretty generous at these events, isn’t he?’

  ‘Always,’ replied Granddad. He looked at his watch. ‘We’d better get moving. I have to meet up with Paul the photographer.’

  They had both finished their meagre lunches. Trev looked sadly at his empty plate, wondering if it was normal to feel more hungry after a meal than before it. He sighed and reached into his jacket for his wallet. Granddad held up a hand.

  ‘I’m paying,’ he said in a tone that allowed no room for argument.

  ‘Cheers,’ said Trev. Having to pay the inflated prices demanded by Francesca’s for their microscopic meals really did add insult to injury. Trev felt he’d dodged a bullet.

  He put his hands in his pockets and idly stared out of the window as he waited for Granddad to settle the bill. The frontage of Francesca’s was almost entirely glass. In the warmer months the restaurant increased its business by putting tables and chairs outside in the continental style, but with a cold edge still in the air the pavement outside was currently empty. Trev watched the trickle of people passing by with no great interest, until one of them stopped to peer at the menu displayed in the window.

  He was a man Trev judged to be in his late twenties, wearing faded blue jeans and a bright green hooded top. The hood was pulled up over his head so that most of his face was shadowed as he leaned forward, apparently engrossed in his reading.

  He’ll keep right on walking when he clocks the prices, thought Trev. The man leaned in even closer to the menu, as if something had caught his eye. Then, slowly, he lifted his head until he was staring directly at Trev through the window. Trev’s jaw sagged and he made a feeble mewling noise somewhere in the back of his throat.

  The man had no eyes.

  No, that was wrong, Trev saw as he struggled to tear his gaze away. The man did have eyes, but they were completely black, like obsidian marbles. The calm, rational part of Trev’s brain – which had been forced into some quite serious overtime in the last day or so – pondered whether the man could be wearing some kind of coloured contact lenses, just to freak people out. Somewhere deep inside, though, Trev knew that wasn’t the case. Somehow he knew this frightening individual had sought him out, was here to taunt him.

  To tell him that The Shadow knew who he was.

  As if he’d plucked this none-too-comforting thought right out of Trev’s mind, the hooded man smiled. It wasn’t a nice smile. It was the kind of smile that would offer to help an old lady across the road, then push her under a bus when she accepted.

  The rational part of Trev’s brain stopped wondering about contact lenses and started (rather more urgently) wondering where the nearest toilets were.

  ‘Right then,’ said Granddad from behind him, clapping him on the shoulder. Trev started violently and almost screamed, converting it at the last moment into a high-pitched laugh that made half the restaurant’s clientele turn to look at him with alarmed expressions.

  ‘You startled me,’ he said, attempting to restore some self-control. He glanced back toward the window, expecting that, in the manner of time-honoured horror-film cliché, the hooded man would’ve mysteriously disappeared. Instead he was just in time to see a flash of green as the man walked off up the street.

  ‘You all right?’ asked Granddad.

  ‘Fine.’

  ‘Sure?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Let’s go, then.’

  They headed for the door. Trev let Granddad leave the restaurant first.

  Well, you know. Respect for your elders, and all that.

  Eleven

  They walked up Potters Road in silence. By now there was no sign of the hooded man. Trev walked slowly, his head twitching from side-to-side as he tried to look in every direction at once.

  Potters Road led into the oldest part of Brackenford’s town centre, which was famous for its half-timbered buildings and cobbled streets. Trev had always liked the area. It was kept pedestrianised in order to preserve the black-and white frontages of the old shops, which over the years had settled and shifted so that they leaned into, or away from, each other and overhung the cobbles. Some had windows at odd angles; others had wonky-looking balconies; a few had little covered walkways linking them to the buildings next door. There were also a number of alleyways that ran between the shops, some of them just wide enough for a single person to pass through.

  It was these alleyways that worried Trev. They were ideal for lurking in.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ asked Granddad, noticing Trev’s agitation.

  ‘Nothing,’ replied Trev. He’d considered telling Granddad about the black-eyed man but decided against it, for reasons he wasn’t all that sure about.

  ‘Well if you keep that “nothing” up for much longer, you’re going to do your neck some damage,’ Granddad remarked.

  Guiltily Trev stopped swivelling his head, but his eyes continued to dart around in the restless manner of a small rodent at a bird-of-prey convention.

  Where had the hooded man gone? Trev wondered if he'd been sent just to taunt him, or if he was even now lying in wait somewhere up ahead... perhaps with a big knife. Or maybe an iron bar. Or even a cricket bat - that seemed to be the murder weapon du jour, didn’t it?

  Shuffling these reassuring thoughts around his head, Trev was lagging somewhat behind as Granddad reached the crossroads at the end of Potters Road. Known as Threeways, the crossroads had always bottlenecked the traffic as it skirted the pedestrianised part of town. To the left was Flint Road, which linked back to the High Street. To the right was Bank Lane, which led away from the town centre and joined Boundary Road. Directly in front of where Trev and his Granddad now stood was Montgomery Road, which set off at an angle to Flint Road. The Brackenford branch of KolleyCo was located on Montgomery Road, and Trev could already hear heavily-amplified music from up ahead.

  ‘Paul’s getting some shots of the build-up for me,’ said Granddad, as he weaved nimbly through the stationary traffic that was clogging Threeways. The snarl-up was even worse than usual, as Montgomery Road was closed for the KolleyCo re-opening. A lone policeman stood alongside the temporary metal barriers that blocked the street, oblivious to the filthy looks he was getting from the gridlocked motorists.

  Trev followed Granddad, glancing at the cars as he passed between them; he half-expected to see his hoodie-wearing tormentor leering at him from behind the steering wheel of one of the vehicles, but mercifully he didn’t. The way the traffic was backed up, it wasn’t as if a homicidal motorist could’ve done much more than honk his horn in an intimidating fashion, anyway.

  They passed the policeman, who was busy perfecting his thousand-yard stare, and strolled up Montgomery Road. A sizeable crowd had already gathered, milling around the barriers that had been erected outside the supermarket. Beyond them was a brightly-painted dais, crowned with a bunting-swathed arch. A single microphone stand was the only thing occupying the stage.

  Trev’s attention switched to the front of the store itself, which was obscured by a large curtain emblazoned with KolleyCo’s new logo. The word was that the logo had been created by a top design agency at huge cost; Trev thought it looked like a five year-old had drawn it with a blunt crayon.

  ‘Trev, this way,’ called Granddad from Trev’s right. Trev turned and saw the old boy standing by the barrier with an enormously fat man in a black polo shirt who, judging by the expensive-looking camera he was wielding, had to be Paul the photographer. Trev dodged through the crowd to join them. Granddad introduced him to Paul, who shook hands as if he were trying pull Trev’s arm off.

  ‘We’re the press, so we can get inside the barrier,’ said Granddad, looking pleased with himself. ‘If anyone asks, you’re my junior reporter.’ He handed Trev a spare notebook from one of his pockets. ‘Wow, you really look the part.’

  Trev dredged up a weak smile. ‘I can’t stay too long, I have to get back to the office,’ he said.

/>   ‘It’s not going to last long, I don’t think,’ replied Granddad. ‘Kolley’ll come out, say his piece and then open the doors and let the public at it. You'll get your vouchers, don't worry.’

  He approached the barrier and identified himself to the nearest police officer, who seemed to recognise him. They were all duly waved through into the inner area near the stage. Paul herded a reluctant Trev ahead of him, snapping away at the crowd with his camera. There were a handful of other members of the written press loitering in front of the stage, as well as a camera crew from the local TV channel.

  Not wanting to stand out, Trev reached into his pocket for his pen and scrawled on his notepad for the look of it.

  The usual tacky load of bollocks, he wrote. Truly Alastair Kolley is the man who proves that money can’t buy good taste.

  He chuckled to himself, feeling a good deal less edgy now there was a police-patrolled barrier between him and the crowd. The black-eyed man would do well to get at him now.

  ‘Here he comes,’ said Granddad, tugging Trev’s sleeve. The background music had abruptly changed to a thunderous rendition of AC/DC’s Back In Black. A pair of women in KolleyCo uniforms appeared in front of the supermarket and waved at the crowd before pulling open a narrow flap in the curtain. Alastair Kolley sprang forth from the gap, resplendent in navy blue designer suit and pale pink tie. He jogged up onto the stage and seized the microphone from its stand as the crowd cheered enthusiastically.

  Kolley must be in his forties by now, but acts like a ten year-old with ADHD, Trev wrote in his notepad. What a cock the man is.

  ‘Hello, everyone!’ bawled Kolley, so loudly that Trev wondered why he bothered with the mic. The crowd roared a greeting back. ‘Great to see you all here!’ continued Kolley, unaware that Trev was busy libelling him in his notebook.

  Paul’s camera clicked away furiously to Trev’s left. ‘They bloody love this bloke, eh?’ said the photographer.

  ‘Don’t they just?’ replied Trev, adding under his breath ‘God knows why.’

  Kolley milked the applause as long as he could, flashing his expensive teeth and winking and pointing for all he was worth, then finally motioned for the crowd to calm down.

  ‘Wow, thank you so much,’ he said. ‘That’s why I love Brackenford so much, why our head office is here, and why I’m staging our grand re-launch here. I’m proud to call myself a local!’

  The crowd liked this, and broke into cheers, whoops and whistles again. Possible headline: KOLLEY WOWS SIMPLETONS, Trev wrote. Granddad was standing on the other side of Paul, making notes of his own. In the midst of his grandstanding, Kolley spotted the old man and favoured him with a nod of the head and a halogen smile. Granddad returned the nod and went back to his scribbling.

  Supermarket tycoon flirts with pensioner, Trev noted.

  ‘Thank you again, thank you,’ said Kolley, masterfully timing his intervention at the exact point the crowd’s enthusiasm for cheering began to wane. He smoothed back his wavy blond hair. ‘It’s a privilege to be standing here today, on the verge of a new era for Britain’s favourite supermarket chain!’

  ‘He clearly hasn’t looked at the KolleyCo share price lately,’ Trev muttered, scrawling ‘PRICK’ on his notepad.

  For all Trev’s bitterness, it was a fair point – KolleyCo had been in something of a decline for several years. It had reached the stage where the re-launch Kolley was busily extolling was very much make-or-break.

  ‘Over the years since my father founded KolleyCo, it has earned a reputation for quality products, great service and above all, low prices,’ Kolley bellowed.

  The crowd roared their whole-hearted approval for low prices.

  ‘And what are we promising you with this re-launch?’ asked Kolley rhetorically.

  ‘Do tell, I can’t stand the suspense,’ growled Trev.

  ‘I’ll tell you!’ said Kolley, as if he’d heard him. ‘With this re-launch KolleyCo promises you EVEN MORE quality products; EVEN BETTER service; and the one you’ll like the most...’ He grinned and took a deep breath, ready to deliver the coup de grace, ‘EVEN LOWER PRICES!’

  This got another huge round of applause and cheering, which was lapped up by Kolley. Trev shook his head and turned away from the stage in disgust, cringing at the tycoon’s antics. He looked in despair at the crowd, which he thought was getting far too wound up at the prospect of saving a few pence on their weekly shop.

  As he did so, he felt a sensation that was becoming all-too-familiar; the sensation that he was being watched. His eye was drawn to a flash of green in his peripheral vision, and he slowly rotated his head toward it.

  The black-eyed man stared back at him from the crowd, his terrifying smile as blank and insincere as Kolley’s. Trev flicked his eyes to the left, but Granddad was obscured by the bulk of Paul, who was still photographing the blue-suited buffoon on the stage. Inexorably, Trev’s gaze was dragged back to the hooded man behind the barrier.

  The gleaming black eyes stared back. From this closer viewpoint, the horrified Trev could see that the blackness of the man’s eyes appeared to be seeping out like a mist that dissipated on his cheekbones. It was as if there was more of the dark substance inside him than his body could contain. The people either side of this grinning apparition didn’t register him at all. They stayed out of the space he was occupying, but without actually seeing him.

  As Trev watched, the hooded man swivelled his head down and to the right. Following the direction of his gaze, Trev saw that the man was holding a long knife in his right hand. It had an unusual wavy blade and looked very, very sharp.

  Trev’s stomach felt as if it were making a bid for freedom from his body. His mouth was dry and his tongue had stuck to his lower lip, giving him a charming “village idiot” look. He didn’t care. All he could think about was how utterly, all-consumingly scared he was.

  The hooded man rotated his head away from the knife until he was looking at the stage, where Kolley was still prattling away on his microphone. His amplified voice washed over Trev without him hearing a single word. When the hooded man switched his empty stare back to the knife again, Trev suddenly understood what he was being told: the man wasn’t there to kill him at all.

  He was there for Kolley.

  Breaking through the leaden paralysis that had settled over him, Trev looked for the police. They were still there, but somehow they had all drifted away from the vicinity of the hooded man. In fact none of them were even facing him. Obviously the man’s eerie ability to be stood in plain sight while unnoticed by the people around him had a wide area of effect. Nobody seemed to want to even look in his direction.

  Trev opened his mouth to call out to the nearest policeman and everything happened at once.

  Before Trev could as much as croak the hooded man sprang into motion. Until then his every movement had been unhurried, deliberately slow. That changed as he vaulted the barrier with inhuman speed, landing lightly on the balls of his feet. He flashed Trev his homicidal smile and sprang toward the stage, the knife clenched in his fist.

  Without thinking Trev sprinted after him, the adrenaline in his system firing him into the fastest standing start of his life. In his peripheral vision he saw the policemen belatedly becoming aware of the hooded man, but he knew they’d never reach him before he got to the stage. The only person close enough to stop him was Trev, and he was lagging. He gritted his teeth and from somewhere he found some extra pace; it felt like he had maintained his current speed while the world slowed down around him.

  Suddenly the hooded man was almost within reach.

  What the hell are you doing? screamed the sensible part of his brain. There’s a supernatural maniac with a knife in front of you, and you’re running after him! Have you forgotten that you’re a pathological coward? RUN AWAY, YOU IDIOT!

  The hooded man had reached the stage. He leapt forward, the hand clutching the knife swinging back in preparation to stab Kolley. The supermarket owner had finally registere
d the commotion below him, and as the knife-man hurtled towards him his eyes bulged in a comical mask of shock and fear. The expression suggested that if the tycoon survived, he’d be making an urgent trip to his tailor to get his suit trousers replaced.

  Trev’s feet kicked off the pavement and he found himself diving after the hooded man, right hand stretching out for his leg. Kolley raised his own hands, one of them still clutching the microphone, as if he was going to try to defend himself, but it was unconvincing. His eyes vacantly watched the point of the knife as it sliced through the air.

  Move, you absolute tit! thought Trev. Kolley didn’t. He was going to die without even trying to dodge.

  Trev’s questing fingers touched the hooded man’s ankle, slipped, then suddenly they had a firm grip. Trev heaved as hard as he could.

  It wasn’t much, but it checked the hooded man’s momentum just enough that he couldn’t reach his intended victim with the knife. It carved through the air scant inches from Kolley’s face. The tycoon’s bulging eyes crossed as they followed it, then Trev felt his dive become a fall.

  The hooded man landed heavily, his head smacking into the stage with a bass thud. The knife went spinning away into the bunting.

  Trev threw his left arm in front of his face to protect himself. The impact was every bit as painful as he’d feared; his teeth split both his lips, and his nose crunched into his arm. As he skidded on the concrete he felt his clothes tear, followed by a not insignificant amount of skin. He slid to a halt with a wail, his head finishing up against the base of the stage with a gentle bonk.

  For a long moment he just lay there, mentally searching for a part of his body that wasn’t doing the agony cha-cha. Eventually he determined that the little toe on his left foot didn’t hurt too much, which was zero consolation.

  Dimly he heard some idiot say ‘Is he alright?’ then he felt hands on him, helping him up.