Chapter Fifteen: Aftermath
It took about half an hour for the emergency services to show up. Police, Ambulances, the Fire Brigade. All they were told was that there’d been a terrorist attack on a military base. Everything else was ‘a matter of national security.’
I was taken to the group of techies who were huddled away from the fire. They looked shell-shocked by the events of the night. Someone found a blanket and wrapped it around my shoulders. A couple of soldiers glanced at me with sympathy. I was the only civilian on-site at the time of the MLF’s attack. I was an oddity, a kid who shouldn’t even have been there.
Some people talked to me, but I was in a daze, only vaguely aware that preparations were being made to send me home. Two police officers were pointed in my direction. One of them asked if I needed anything. I tried to focus but my thoughts were scattered. I was going home was the main thing.
Home. Kate. Dee. Mum.
“My phone,” I mumbled, “My keys. My wallet.”
All three items had been taken from me back at the school. One of the police officers asked around but all my stuff had been in central command when it blew.
“Sorry, lad,” the police officer said, “I’m afraid you’re out of luck.”
I gave a short, humourless laugh. Of course my phone, wallet and keys had been blown up. Anything else would have been contrary to the way the rest of the night had gone.
“We’re ready to get you home,” the police officer said, “Do you want us to call anyone first?”
“My mum. Could you call my mum and tell her everything is okay?”
“I can do you one better than that,” the police officer said.
She tapped the number I gave her into her mobile phone. It rang once before Mum picked it up. She must have been clutching it in her hand all night, waiting for a call.
“Mrs Storm? This is Officer Lancaster. We have your son, and he’s perfectly safe. We’ll be driving him home shortly. No, I can assure you he’s fine and not in any trouble at all. Yes, Mrs Storm, I promise you. He’s right here. I’m passing the phone over to him now.”
Officer Lancaster handed me her phone.
“Mum?” I said.
“Jayce,” my mum’s voice came back, “Are you there?”
“Yes, Mum, it’s me. I’m here. I’m okay.”
I felt a knot in my throat. The sound of Mum’s voice caused tears to form at the edge of my eyes.
“I’m sorry Mum, I know you must have been worried.”
“Jason, I don’t care where you’ve been or what happened. I love you and I’m just glad you’re alright.”
“I love you too,” I said. The tears at the edge of my eyes weren’t going away.
“Kate and Dee have been here all night, love, do you want to talk to them?”
“No,” I said. I couldn’t handle the barrage of questions that my two best friends were likely to throw at me. Once they’d been sent on their way by Section 19, they’d gone straight to my house. They’d waited all night, keeping Mum company, trying to calm all of their fears.
“Tell them everything is okay,” I said.
Mum paused on the other end of the phone. She could hear the break in my voice. The sob I was desperately trying to hold back.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” Mum asked.
“I’m...” I started, but I couldn’t lie. I absolutely wasn’t okay by any definition.
“I’ll see you soon,” I choked.
I handed the phone back to the police officer and burst into tears. I couldn’t help it. Great, heaving sobs leapt from my throat and tears streamed down my face. I kept trying to wipe them away with my sleeve but they wouldn’t stop coming. Every time I had it under control, another image from that long, terrifying night came to mind and set me off again.
Officer Lancaster put her arm around me and guided me towards the squad car. Still sobbing, doing my best to hide it from the men and women all around me, I climbed into the back of the vehicle. I gave out my address through the sobs, furiously wiping away the tears.
“You’re okay, son,” the officer said, trying to soothe me.
Officer Lancaster turned the engine on, and we pulled away from the devastated military base.
I think something broke in me that night as those tears fell from my eyes. Something broke in me that never got fixed again.
Because, despite everything that happened afterwards, that was the last time I cried for a long time.
I didn’t even cry at the funeral.
I was just too numb by then, I guess.
*
I didn’t sleep on the three-hour drive back to Bridge End. As exhausted as I was, my mind and body were still too wired. After the tears had stopped, I sat in silence looking out of the window as dawn broke across the English countryside.
I tried to process everything that had happened, tried to make sense out of it, but I couldn’t. Everything that had occurred - the monster showing up out of nowhere to attack me, Victoria Pryce, Section 19, the attack on their base, my powers - it all looked like a disconnected series of events. None of it made any sense, and none of it had given me any answers about what I was.
As I said earlier, though, everything was connected. Every last detail. It would just be a while before I saw how all the pieces fitted together.
The further we got from Section 19’s burning base, the calmer I felt. It was eight in the morning by the time we pulled into the driveway of Mum’s semi-detached house. Mum opened the front door before we’d even parked, Dee and Kate right behind her. I felt like a war-weary soldier coming back from the front line after years of fighting.
Mum gave me a huge hug. I hugged her back.
“Hey, losers,” I smiled at Kate and Dee. It was a weak smile, but it was a smile nonetheless.
“Hey,” they said.
I held my hand up, “No questions. Not right now. I just want to sleep for a week.”
To everyone’s credit, they all nodded. I realised they must be wiped out too. Kate and Dee headed back to their respective homes, saying they’d come round tomorrow. Or today. We were all tired and confused by that point.
“Yeah, what day is it anyway?”
“Saturday,” Kate said, “I think.”
Something was niggling at the back of my head. Saturday. Not a school day, so that was a small mercy. Something else.
Dammit, I was supposed to be working at the garage today.
“Mum, can you call Rob and tell him I’m too sick to work or something?”
“Of course, love,” Mum said.
I headed up to my room and stumbled to the bed. I didn’t have enough energy to get undressed, just crawled under the duvet. As soon as my head hit the pillow I was out.
I slept for ten hours straight and if I had any dreams, I don’t recall them.
Chapter Sixteen: Home
I woke up at six in the evening on Saturday, my body clock out of sync and my head groggy. It took half an hour to get my thoughts together and shake off the heavy sleep. The memory of the previous night’s events floated around my mind like a bad dream.
I looked for my phone, expecting a ton of messages from Kate and Dee before I remembered that I’d lost it in the attack on Section 19. I had nothing backed up, so I’d have to start from scratch when I got a new phone.
Not the worst problem to face considering how close I’d been to death the previous night.
I logged onto Facebook, checked my messages. I wasn’t Mr Popular but despite that there were a few messages from people checking up on me. There were also a lot of conversations that started ‘Have you SEEN this???’ with the attachment mysteriously unavailable. Follow-ups revolved around people saying they couldn’t understand where the footage they’d shot on their phones had gone. Most of those threads quickly fell silent. Section 19, mopping up the squealers as Major Wilson had put it. Making sure they squashed all the rumours.
Flicking through the group conversations, I noticed a shift
in the tone. By midnight on Friday there were already multiple claims the whole thing was a hoax or a prank played by the sixth form. Where these theories originated was hard to pin down.
By one o’clock, according to the time stamps, all talk of missing footage had already stopped. There was a brief resurgence at two o’clock of theories and speculation, which coincided with the attack on the command centre. Section 19’s ability to control social media had been knocked out when the building went up in flames. Despite that, these threads also quickly stopped. By Saturday morning the ‘prank’ theory had taken hold.
If you didn’t know it was all a concerted exercise in social media manipulation, with Section 19 pulling the strings, you’d have been taken in by it. Knowing what it was made it laughably obvious.
I messaged a few people to let them know I was okay, feeling touched by the number who were concerned. Maybe I wasn’t quite the outsider I’d thought.
Forrest kept his message short.
Hey Jason, hope you are alright. Mad night. Message me.
Yeah, I’m fine. Thanks Forrest.
Ok, good, he replied and left it at that.
I guessed he was taking the Official Secrets Act thing seriously. It reminded me that in all the chaos I hadn’t signed the OSA. Technically I could say whatever I wanted to whoever I wanted.
I doubted Section 19 would see things that way though.
I messaged Kate, asking if she wanted to meet, she messaged back that she couldn’t, sorry. I added that I’d lost my phone, she messaged back ‘Ok, talk soon.’ Her dad had some big gig on at his club (called ‘Legends’ naturally) and he’d roped Kate into helping.
Still on Facebook, I messaged Dee. He said he’d be round soon. Mum had left some food and a note saying she’d be at the shop until eight. Rob had been fine with me taking the day off.
Dee arrived half an hour later.
We said nothing for a while. Just sat at the dining room table and drank cups of tea.
“Soooo,” Dee said eventually, “You want to talk about it?”
“Nope.”
It was the truth. I didn’t want to talk about it. One reason was that I was still trying to get it straight in my head. Another reason was I was simultaneously trying to forget about all of it.
“Do you?” I asked, “Want to talk about it?” The tone in my voice made it clear what I hoped the answer would be.
“Nah,” Dee said with a shrug, “PlayStation?”
“Yeah. Maybe less of the blowing things up and more of the football though.”
“Cool.”
We booted up the PlayStation and got into it. I tried to focus on the games but flashbacks to the previous night’s events kept hitting me, none of them happy memories. The monster. The attack. Major Wilson’s cold-blooded execution of one of his men. The explosions and the fire.
“Man, you are off your game tonight,” Dee said as I lost my third consecutive match.
“Yeah, I’m still tired. It was a long night.”
“Yeah,” Dee said.
We sat for three hours kicking virtual footballs around, not talking and drinking cups of tea. Dee left at ten. Sometimes you don’t need your best mates being concerned and asking you a ton of questions. You just need them to carry on as normal and give you time to process.
That night, unlike the first night, I slept poorly. My dreams were of blood, fire and smoke. I woke up three times in a panic, my heart beating so fast that I sat bolt upright and looked around wildly for an enemy that wasn’t there. Often the last image I saw before I opened my eyes was Major Wilson’s face covered in ash, his eyes blazing.
Each time I told myself it was over and I was safe.
I didn’t believe it though.
I spent Sunday at the garage, Rob noting that I was unusually quiet. He asked me if I’d heard anything about that escaped animal on Friday night. I said I knew nothing about it. Kate messaged me to say she couldn’t come round which annoyed me. I’d have thought saving her life and then going missing for the best part of ten hours would have meant, well, something.
Mum kept quiet about it all. It wasn’t until Sunday night that she broached the topic of my disappearance.
“Jason, can you tell me what happened, love?” she asked after we’d eaten.
“Mum, I can’t. It was all crazy, but I can’t talk about it. I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
“Okay,” she said.
I think she was just relieved to have me home safe and not in any trouble.
And then it was Monday morning and back to school as if nothing had happened. Everyone trundled to class as usual. Bells rang, lessons were attended, teachers droned, and my secrets were still safe
There were mutterings and rumours about the weird creature, but they died down soon enough. The local paper printed an article about an escaped lion from a private collection. The assembly held by Mr Andrews on Monday failed to mention the incident, and no-one dared to bring it up. All damage to the school had been plastered over or repaired.
Life was already returning to normal less than three days after the party.
It all felt totally surreal.
Chapter Seventeen: The Murder
It wasn’t until Wednesday that the code of silence in our group broke. Kate, Dee, Forrest and I had been hanging out but not saying much. Since the party, Forrest had unofficially joined our outsider club. I guess having a near-death experience together will do that to a group. Although the four of us didn’t talk much, there was a new bond between us. Dee was still my best friend and Kate was – well, whatever she was at that point – but Forrest was one of us now.
The other kids at the school noticed it too. We were just as much the outsiders as we’d always been, but our group had grown by one.
A few times someone started a tentative conversation about the party, but one or the other of us waved it off. Usually it was me. The other three respected that I didn’t want to talk about it. Even Forrest kept his mouth shut. Everyone knew I’d had it rougher than the rest. Of course, they didn’t know how rough. Whatever they’d been through that night was nothing compared to the ordeal that kept me waking up in a cold sweat.
I saw Kate talking to Clark - her supposedly dumped boyfriend - one break. A pang of jealousy hit me. I tried to tell myself that if they were getting back together then it was none on my business.
On Wednesday Kate, Dee and myself got a collective message from Forrest. I’d bought a replacement phone in the meantime, a crappy old handset compared to the sweet phone I’d had before.
The message read: School library, after lessons, all four of us. We need to talk.
I considered not going, but in the end turned up the same as Kate and Dee. I guessed that Forrest had decided enough time had passed, and we needed to get things out in the open. I braced myself for the upcoming cross-examination, glumly wondering how many lies and half-truths I would have to tell this time.
I’d become so used to hiding things from my friends it didn’t occur to me to be open and honest.
Plus, Major Wilson’s threats were still in my head.
*
“This is about the murder, isn’t it?” Kate asked.
Forrest, a copy of the local paper on the table in front of us, looked annoyed.
“Murder?” I said, looking at Dee for a clue. He gave me a palms-facing-outwards ‘don’t ask me, I just got here’ look.
“Yes,” Forrest said, barely hiding his exasperation at Kate having pre-empted him, “It’s about the murder.”
This wasn’t what I’d been expecting.
The four of us were sitting in the school library at the furthest table from anyone else, speaking in low whispers. Forrest unfolded the copy of the Bridge End News and Journal.
“Did you two seriously not notice this?” he said, looking at Dee and myself.
“Vaguely...maybe?”
Brutal Murder in Pagan Hill! Ran the headline.
The truth was I ha
dn’t paid attention to the newsstands dotted around town on my way into school, all of which had the same headline emblazoned across them. I’d been too wrapped up in my own thoughts to notice.
I skimmed through the article. Residents in the village of Pagan Hill, just outside Bridge End, were shocked by the discovery on Tuesday of a man who had been viciously stabbed to death in his home. Police were appealing for witnesses. The victim was a recluse, no known relatives. His body had only been found because a neighbour had noticed his television was on all night. Police believe the body had been there for four or five days. The victim had been a collector of esoteric and antique artefacts. A burglary gone wrong, the police thought.
“I don’t get it. What’s your point?”
“Good grief, can you even read?” Forrest said, “It’s pretty obvious, Jason.”
“He’ll get there eventually,” Kate chimed in, “Here’s a clue: The party.”
I frowned. Having smart-ass friends could be a real downer sometimes. Dee looked over my shoulder, equally puzzled.
I looked again, and then it hit me: Police believe the body had been there for four or five days.
“The same night. He could have been killed on the same night.”
“Exactly,” Forrest said, “I knew you could do it. Well done.”
“Very funny, Forrest. But so what? So this guy was killed the same night as the you-know-what. He was stabbed, according to the article. I mean, it’s sad and stuff, but it’s not connected, is it? It’s a coincidence.”
Forrest cut in.
“Firstly, Jason, how many murders happen in this area?”
“Yeah, okay, not a lot,” I agreed.
Bridge End and the environs weren’t exactly crime central, UK. Quite the opposite usually. Bridge End itself was a small town in the South West of England, nestled in the Cotswold Hills. It had an alternative, independent reputation - or ‘Bohemian’ as the estate agents tried to sell it. The most exciting thing in the local paper was usually about a pothole crisis on the roads, bus delays or the occasional pub fight.
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