Authors: Lucas T. Harmond
‘Sweet fucking Jesus!’
The voice was like a gunshot between his ears, he didn’t bother to look ’round. He already knew no one had spoken the words he had just heard. He’d accepted that he was definitely hearing voices, there was no doubt anymore and it was getting worse,
more frequent
. In fact he had very little doubt that he was going completely out of his mind this time. What really scared him was that he knew his sanity was slipping again, but knowing that gave him no power to actually do anything about it. He kept trying to work out why it was happening but there was no reason. The words from an old Boom Town Rats song flashed through his mind. Time and time again he’d try to trace it back to its beginnings. He had been happy about everything. He’d moved away from home so all that shit was history, his courses had been going well, he’d actually sold a few paintings at an exhibition and he’d been having no problems with his friends. There was only one more thing that would have made his existence perfect and even Sarah’s complete lack of interest hadn’t concerned him greatly. Suddenly, bang, his head exploded and all he could trace it back to was that fucking painting. That fucking painting!!!
Rufus slumped down into the chair next to him, picked up Josh’s shake and took a long sip from the straw.
“Man I could have charged those little kids
anything
, man! I think I just took two months worth of candy money and they thanked me, man.
Actually thanked me
!”
Josh just fired it out. “Rufus, I need you to get me a gun!”
The smile died on his friend’s face and he just stared for a moment. Then a rare spark of anger shot into his eyes.
“
The fuck you just say
?”
“I said...”
“Oh, I
know
what you said. What the hell is wrong with you, Josh?”
Josh submitted under his friend’s glare and stared down at his feet, before speaking again.
“I just figured that you must know...”
Rufus laughed in disbelief. “Man
I could
get you a gun, I know people, not the sort of people I like knowing, but still—What I can’t believe is that you think I’m the kind of guy who’d do that shit and to my best fucking friend! My best friend, who I think may be going crazy.”
Josh looked round embarrassed, just wanting to shrink into nothing. No one was looking. Despite his rage, Rufus was reasonably quiet. It was more a harsh growl or whisper but the look in his eyes was intense.
Suddenly it died away. “Why man? Why the fuck do you want a gun?” His voice dropped down to a concerned whisper.
Josh blurted it out again. Certain safety blocks seemed to have been removed from his mind.
“I’m scared.” His voice sounded like a child. “I... I
don’t feel safe
. Like, er, like someone’s watching me. All the time, even now and...” He paused, deciding not to tell Rufus about the voices.
Rufus was silent but the troubled look in his eyes spoke volumes.
“I shouldn’t have said anything.” Josh looked around again, leaned forward and dropped his voice to a whisper. “Still,
about the gun
...”
His friend smiled and shook his head slowly. “No Josh. Christ, man, I deal in pills, uppers, downers, acid and the herb man, nothing fucking heavy. I don’t deal in pieces man and even if I did you’d never gonna’ get that shit from me.” He paused looked up, more serious now. “Fucking never!”
Josh looked over his shoulder, fidgeting nervously, up to the car park floors. Nothing.
“Listen, Rufus man, believe me man, I’m the last person to hurt anyone. I just don’t feel safe and,” he paused again. He was well aware the next part sounded both compulsive and deranged. Slowly he shook his head and laughed out loud at how ludicrous the words sounded, even to him.
“I don’t think Sarah’s safe! Sarah and shit-loads more man. Fucking shit-loads of people, I mean, Christ,
did you see about that girl that went missing
?”
Rufus looked unsettled. He spoke slowly and softly. Uncertain if his friend realised how truly erratic he sounded. “Yeah that girl, er, kelly. kelly, something.”
“No!” Josh said angrily. “Sarah!
Sarah, something
.”
“What about her?”
Josh smiled madly and punched the table. “Jesus no! Not
our
Sarah, this other girl,
Sarah
... oh I don’t know her fucking name! Okay, how about that car they found just next to the Uni’. Blood fucking everywhere. I mean...” His mind drifted off and locked onto something that had just been said. “Who’s kelly?” he asked, confused.
“Some girl who’s gone missing. It was on the news this morning. Listen Josh I don’t see where you’re going with this? you the one who’s gonna’ save them or something? Just charge in, Gat’ in one hand, dick in the other? I don’t see it man, do you? The fucking Goth Avenger. Man, don’t you spend half your life just telling me, fuck it all?”
Josh waved his finger at Rufus as a warning. He was surprised by his own anger. “Just shut up, man. Shut... the... fuck... up!” He spaced out the words, spat out from in between gritted teeth. Anger was seething through him.
He paused then continued the mad outburst. “Man, look at all this shit that’s going on! People going missing, cars just abandoned, covered in blood!”
“Man, what the fuck you on about?
What fucking car
??!”
“Man, they found some car by the university, all smashed up and just no one about.”
“Josh man, I don’t understand. What’s this got to do with missing people?”
“I don’t know man, I just know it’s connected somehow. Just know!”
Rufus shook his head looking troubled. “Josh man...”
“Rufus, this is just the tip man. I’ve been hearing stories man, about people seeing things.”
“ ‘
Things
??’ What
things
?”
Josh was indignant. “
Things man, things
!! Creatures man, I don’t know, fucking monsters or some shit!”
“
Monsters
? Josh man, are you listening to your self? Who’d you hear this from?”
“People man, people.”
Rufus shook his head now. “Look man, I can’t hear this!
What people
?”
Josh laughed, he was quickly becoming hysterical. “Okay man, I’ll admit it but look at this!”
He began searching through his pockets. “Man, I know it’s here somewhere.”
Rufus looked about embarrassed.
“Here!” Josh slapped down a crumpled piece of paper onto the table.
Rufus looked at him uncertainly and then unfolded what appeared to be an article ripped out of a newspaper. He read it out loud:
“Police were called out on a reporting of an intruder in the garden of senior citizen Helen Grieves. On arrival they found the elderly woman to be petrified and convinced that ‘something,’ ” he paused, looked up at his friend, shook his head again and then continued to read, “ ‘non-human’ had attempted to break into her house. Police found the back window of her home smashed and some evidence of a disturbance in her garden. When asked to describe the intruder Mrs Grieves was unable to describe with any clarity what she had seen other than to say, it had tentacles and spines...,
spines
?” Rufus broke off. “Josh what is this shit? Some old crazy bitch seeing things and you think it’s the end of the world?”
He sat back. “Josh
you are
scaring me. All of us. I really think you should maybe see a head doctor, man. Did something happen?”
Josh smiled. “A painting happened. One fucking painting too far and I became captain crazy fuck head. Listen Rufus I’m scared out of my fucking mind.”
“Look we’ve noticed man..., Karen!”
Josh followed his gaze.
Karen bounded up wearing baggy green jeans that were frayed to pieces at the bottom, a purple tie-dye t-shirt and with both straps of her ripped up backpack over her shoulders. She waved and smiled cheerfully, unaware of the discussion her friends were having.
“What ya’ doin’?” She asked jokingly.
“Discussing firearms and severe mental disorders and whether it’s a good idea to combine the two.” Josh said with a dark gleam in his eyes.
“Josh,” Rufus started looking up at Karen. “Thinks that it is.”
Karen shrugged, sat down, and started eating Josh’s long cold fries. “Nope, that all meant very little to me.”
“Josh wants me...” Rufus caught Josh’s dagger stare and head shake and stopped.
“ ‘
Josh wants you
??’ Well, well Joshy boy. All these years of moping after Sarah, ‘Queen of the ice vixens’ was just a cunning ruse, huh?”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah, I really want Rufus’ black ass. Can we drop it?”
A wave of nausea cut through Josh, violent fear and he stood up spinning, at the same time looking up. He’d known that He was up there somewhere, felt it in every particle of his being. There He was, a few stories up, dressed entirely in white, leaning casually over the balcony.
“Look!” He shouted. “You both see
that guy
, right?” “What guy?” Karen asked looking upwards. “The guy in white, up there, the guy who’s...
the guy who’s fucking waving at me now
!”
Karen waved back. “Yeah. So what? Who is it?”
“Right, fuck this!” Josh growled and started pacing away.
“
Who is it
?” Karen repeated, just beginning to become concerned.
“
You going up there
?” Rufus asked, almost as a command not to.
Josh nodded. “I need to know who that is.”
Karen caught him by the shoulder. “
You don’t know
? What’s going on?”
He ignored her and began moving towards the nearest escalator, Rufus walked along beside him.
“
No
,” Josh said spinning on him. He looked back at Karen who stood helplessly, then again to Rufus.
“
You both stay here!
”
Rufus went to grab Josh’s shoulder as he moved away but couldn’t bring himself to. He knew he should go after him but found himself unwilling to do so.
Something
in the way Josh had spoken had virtually paralysed him. The command had been said with such intensity, so seriously it seemed to have shut him down.
Behind him, Karen had sat firmly down the instant Josh had spoke and was now sitting, feeling angry with herself, wondering why the hell she had complied so willingly.
The two watched Josh scrambling the wrong way up a downwards moving escalator, feeling confused and completely unwilling to call out to him.
CARTHY
JOSH EXPLODED OFF the moving stairs, knocking back an elderly lady who stumbled against the glass partition. Her bag dropped from her hand and something shattered. “
Hey
!! Hey! Come back ya’ bastard!” Shouted her male companion, but Josh ignored the old man’s cry.
A young security guard on the next level down watched the tall, black clad form dart through the crowd and pretended not to have noticed, deciding it was far too much effort to start running up flight after flight of escalators this close to his lunch break.
Josh dodged carelessly, blindly colliding with anyone who didn’t move quick enough. He was oblivious to the scowls and startled looks and repeatedly shot glances up to where the white -clad guy had been. He had not reappeared since he had simply shrugged, shook his head and then stepped back out of Josh’s field of vision.
Josh’s mind was spinning, just hoping he could still catch him and not even considering what might happen if he did.
Another set of stairs, moving up the right way this time.
“Move!” was virtually screamed at a pair of giggling girls who were making no effort to let him pass.
“Fuck you!” snarled the braver of the two as he tore in between them.
Josh skidded to a halt, slipped, fell onto the tiled floor and then scrambled to his feet. He was on the first level of the car park now. The other man was not.
He span round on the spot, taking in the empty balcony circle. No one—just colour-coded doors, machines to pay for parking passes and a child’s play-car machine which occasionally sung the theme tune from Noddy. He stood bent over with scythes of acid-pain eating into his side and with his breath coming out in erratic little bursts. The last few bars of xylophone music from the toy car echoed and then died away into nothing.
The red door.
Just knew somehow
.
In seconds he was there, slammed through the heavy door and was standing in the dark concrete expanse of the car park. A light flickered above his head and a black BMW slowly rolled past in front of him. Above was a wet concrete roof and dim lights. Harsh white sky blasted into the darkness at the edges, silhouetting the safety barrier there. Row after row of cars sat dormant in the gloom between the square support pillars.
Josh was shaking violently, terror slowly crawling in, replacing adrenaline. No one was about, but he could sense something, felt wrong somehow. Felt violated.
He wanted to shout something, call out to Him. To It.
He slumped over, hands on his thighs trying to control his shallow breathing, letting his heart’s frantic beating slowly begin to even out. He swallowed in the silence, listened to the distant sounds of the city swept-in with the cold wind, listened to the dirty water drip, drip, dripping in every dank corner of the man-made tomb. He stood just waiting for something to happen, fully aware that he was being watched. Weighed up.
Then he saw him, knew where he was a second before he even had. The man was leaning casually against one of the posts, hands dug deep into the pockets of his white jacket. A cigarette’s hot glow burning from the gloom that painted out his face.
“You know you’re a pain in the ass kid?” His voice was weird, seemed to echo.
No, he actually seemed to speak with two voices
. Both harsh and ancient in a way that was hard to explain and the only difference seemed that one was very distant.
Josh just stared back, uncertain what to do. Just rooted to the spot. Suddenly questioning if he’d really done the right thing chasing after this... thing.