by Tabatha Wood
She reached absentmindedly for her coffee and brought the cup to her lips, before placing it back on the table, untouched.
Later that day, on her bus ride home, she thought about everything Rawson had said. Three days without coffee to find out the ‘truth’. She could do that. Not because she believed him, no, she would rather she prove him wrong, but it could be good for her regardless, to cut down. Maybe all these strange visions she was having were due to her drinking too much of the stuff anyway.
The days without caffeine were akin to being in some kind of personal Hell. She felt like everywhere she went she was being offered it, or could smell it, or she saw someone walking in the city with a takeout cup. She avoided all her usual haunts, choosing instead to try out a juice bar not far from where she worked. It wasn’t the same, and she hated it. Rather than decreasing, the strange, disjointed feelings came several times throughout the day, and were much more intense. Often it was sudden and unexpected and took her completely by surprise. Other times she felt it creep up on her, saw things she couldn’t explain. People who wore the skins of her friends and co-workers, but were not people she recognised.
She walked to the Beehive one lunchtime quite by accident. The pains in her head were so strong they almost crippled her, and she had spent the morning hardly able to work. Her supervisor had dropped by her office, brought with him an armful of files. She had looked up and almost screamed. His head was large and swollen, rippling and pulsating as if a thousand insects were crawling underneath his skin. His giant eyes like ink-black pools, mirrored everything around him.
Three days without coffee and the hallucinations were worse.
She waited until he’d left the room and burst into tears. She knew she had to get out of the office.
She had sat outside the Parliament buildings, the whole area abuzz with people. Employees; tourists; children on school field trips.
Until she looked a little harder and saw what was really there.
She was shaking as she entered the coffee shop that Friday, not just from nerves, but from withdrawal. She had taken a day off work citing sickness, saying it was probably the ‘flu, but truthfully it was because she could not stop herself from twitching. Her head hurt the worst it ever had. A crippling pain far stronger than anything she had endured before. She was seeing strange and inexplicable things almost everywhere she looked.
Rawson sat at the back of the café, a glass of water on the table in front of him. He seemed even more dishevelled and filthy than before.
She pulled out a chair, sat opposite him.
He smiled at her. A wide grin full of teeth that were stained and crooked.
“Julie! I’m so glad you came back,” he began. “You stopped drinking it then?”
She nodded slowly, every movement made her head pound. She tried to stay focused, to stop the involuntary tics which kept taking over her face.
“Do you see them now? What they really are?”
She nodded again.
“I think so. It’s… fuzzy.”
“They’ll get clearer. But you need to keep pretending you can’t see. If they know, they’ll take you away. I don’t know where to, I just know that they do.”
“Who? Who do you keep talking about?”
“The things you see. We don’t know exactly what they are. Or even why they’re here. As far as we know it’s a national thing, and they’re all over the country, but we’re pretty sure it’s confined to the islands. We don’t think they’re overseas. Yet.”
“This is crazy. This is… no… it can’t be true.”
“You’ve seen it for yourself. You know it is. I don’t know what else to tell you.”
She swallowed slowly, tasting acid. Heartburn seared her throat and chest. She felt so dreadfully ill. Her voice sounded hoarse when she spoke again.
“How many are there?”
“They’re all over, especially in the city. Less so out and over the hills.”
“Are they dangerous?”
“We don’t know. They’re organised and efficient, and they seem to have got pretty much all the population under their control. But other than that, they don’t seem to do anything immediately threatening. We know they are changing the workforce. They are working us harder and longer, keeping us tired and subservient. Making sure we can’t fight back. People drink the coffee to keep awake, but they don’t realise it’s keeping them drugged.”
“Who else knows? You keep talking about ‘we’?”
“There is a group of us. A splinter society. People who have woken up. They’ve stopped drinking the coffee and can see what’s really going on. It’s difficult and it’s slow, but we can push back in small ways. There are people helping to make a treatment, maybe something we can administer airborne, to get rid of them, or just take back control. It’s similar to what is already used to control pests in the bush. We don’t know for sure if it will work, if it’s a poison or a cure.”
He was animated and excitable; he made wide gestures with his hands as he talked.
“Look, you’ve seen them for what they really are now, you know you can’t just go back to normal. These things are living amongst us, watching us and controlling us. They are clearly using us for their own gains, whatever the hell they might be.
“We can stop them. We can destroy them. We can take back our country if we band together. I need to know; are you with us?”
He stopped and stared at her expectantly, eager for her answer. She paused, watching him, thinking carefully about everything he had said. The nausea and constant sense of motion in her head was making it so much harder to think. She inhaled deeply. The aroma of fresh coffee hanging in the air was both powerful and strangely devastating to her. She hadn’t realised just how much she had missed the familiar taste and smell, the comfort it brought her.
She didn’t feel ready for what Rawson was offering her, some place in a war she didn’t know was being fought. Perhaps he was merely using her, manipulating her for his own gain. Did she look vulnerable, she wondered, easy to exploit? How long before this ‘fight’ became financial? How long before he asked her for her credit card number, for funds to aid the cause?
She felt so stupid. She had been completely sucked in by what Rawson had told her, but maybe it was all just a giant lie. Maybe she was sick and needed help. The hallucinations could be a sign of something seriously wrong with her. She should have gone straight to her doctor. Rawson was hardly a vision of good health himself. Perhaps, and this was likely, he was even more sick than her.
Those things, those creatures, what did they really do anyway? Were they even really real? Her life had been good before this weirdness began. She relished being a part of a whole. A small cog in a greater machine. An insect in a hive.
No. This story, this whole charade, it was ridiculous. There was no such thing as monsters. Not monsters like the ones he described. Maybe, she wondered, as paranoia struck her, and a chill spread through her body, there really were drugs in her coffee. Maybe he knew all about them because he had put them there himself.
She forced herself to stand and flashed him a tight smile before heading towards the counter. She waved at the barista to get his attention. To alert him to Rawson’s presence. It was part of his job to clear the tables, wasn’t it? To get rid of the rubbish that had blown inside.
“I’m sorry, Mister Rawson,” she said quietly. “I can’t help you. The coffee here is just too good.
Last Chapter
He was created completely by accident. A stooge who was never meant to live beyond two chapters. Maurice had originally intended to use him only as a bait and switch; a mere footnote in the tale of another, better man. It soon became clear that such a character was much too big to stay small.
Jebediah Cole came mostly from a place of fiction; imagination touched by the hand of experience, and peppered with a dash of wistful desire. A pastiche of the many strange and dodgy people Maurice once had the misfortune to know. An ex-a
rmed-forces, ex-law-enforcement, leather-faced, battle-worn bounty hunter; he was a solid, deliberate, hulk of a man. Despite his rough edges, arrogance, and sexist attitude — and the fact that he was really little more than a walking cliché —his readers seemed to find the bloke endearing. His fans clamoured to hear more.
His story began in the winter of ‘87. By ‘95, he had the first of his own novels. The star of a fast-paced thriller, he journeyed across three continents, followed faithfully by one staunch side-kick, and four foxy women. He drank, smoked, screwed, and punched bad guys as each chapter progressed. The ending saw him get the money, the girl, and a macho badge of honour: a ragged scar that travelled from his chin down to his neck. He plowed through his make-believe life like a juggernaut and his readers loved him for it.
Maurice hated the bastard.
“You can’t deny you’ve made good money off of him,” Katarina remarked that morning, when they met for a coffee on Cuba Street. A flat white for her and a long black for him. Katarina, was his editor, his direct line to publishing and thus his livelihood, but also one of his most oldest and treasured friends. Always honest, often blunt, but mostly locked in a state of being permanently over-caffeinated and suffering from verbal diarrhoea.
Maurice shifted slightly in his seat and took a sip of his now tepid coffee before answering slowly, knowing that whatever answer he gave she would pounce on.
“He’s not the only character to make me money, Kat. The Terrace Crew books have been just as successful, if not more, and I actually enjoy writing those stories. Cole is boring me now, it’s time to let him rest.”
Katarina snorted derisively. Her heavy, silver earrings tinkled loudly as she moved her head.
“Those books don’t have the fan-base, mate, and you know it. They’re an afterthought. People only read them when they’ve run out of Cole to devour. If you want to know what I think — and yes, I can see that you don’t, but I’m going to tell you anyway — if you kill off Cole, your readership will riot. There will be an uproar and they will hate you. Sure, that last book will get some good sales, but then you’ll fall and you’ll shrink, and unless you have some huge and amazing plan to reinvent yourself, your writing career could well be over. You saw what happened to Robbins when he killed off you-know-who.”
“Oh come on, Kat. It’s hardly the same. I’m pretty sure my readers aren’t hormonal teenagers any more.”
“No, but they are passionate, and a lot of them have followed Cole since the start. They’ve more than paid your paycheck, Maurice, they’ve kept the guy alive. Plus, some of them are hormonal housewives. Do you really want them on your tail? Don’t forget the fan-fic contingent, eh?” She picked up her cup and cackled gleefully, winking mock-salaciously across the table.
Maurice sighed, folded his arms across his chest and leaned back into his chair. He let her laugh for a while, enjoy the mirth at his expense, before shaking his head in denial.
“He’s just a character, Kat. Made up and purely fictional. I’m not going to start thinking of him as a real person or something, despite what some of those weird women think. Anyway, I’ve been doing this gig for over thirty years now. Time to put the old dog down and move on.”
Katarina stopped smiling and leaned in close. She pointed directly at his chest; her long nails flashed with vivid purple.
“I’m telling you, mate, putting down this particular dog will be a huge mistake.”
Maurice shrugged and drained his cup.
“You have no faith, Katarina. No faith at all.”
Six weeks later Maurice had already decided and planned out Jebediah’s fate: a fatal and surprise encounter with a stray bullet, straight to the brain, just when the reader least expected it. It would end Cole’s story resolutely, with no opportunity for a comeback or reprieve. Maurice planned to introduce a whole new character, perhaps a young woman, spunky and fresh. He could inject some new life into his writing, show his readers his delicate, more empathetic side. Although none of that would extend to Cole, there would be no empathy there. He wanted him dead and gone.
Maurice sat in his usual spot in the Central Library, a desk by the south-east window facing out towards the grass on the Civic Square. An open flask of coffee, brewed freshly that morning, lent a pleasant aroma to the otherwise stale air. His MacBook was switched on, a Pages project open, but he had typed nothing in the hour he’d been sitting there. His thoughts were slow and sticky like the heavy summer heat. He had scribbled a few ideas in his notepad, but they were messy and fragmented. Nothing of substance.
During his train journey into Wellington that morning, he had been overflowing with ideas, but since reaching the library he had spent more time people-watching than committing to his work. It was as if the heat was disconnecting him from his usual self, stealing his inspiration.
He put his chin on his palm and rested on his elbow for a moment. He watched as a figure strode across the Civic Square, a cigarette clamped between his lips, a scowl on his sun-worn leathered face. The man crossed the square of grass and headed towards the steps leading towards the waterfront. He wore a battered leather jacket, far too cumbersome and impractical for the heat; black jeans faded and too tight on his thighs; and scuffed combat boots, worn yet clearly sturdy. His dark blonde hair was two months past a decent haircut and a week’s worth of stubble crawled across his face and neck. He was a tall, broad, imposing man, made entirely of ego and muscle.
There was something about his walk, his swagger, the way he moved with such determination and yet was infinitely, almost delicately, polite. Maurice was fascinated. He could easily have used his bulk to intimidate, to cut a path through the gathered throng of people; City Council workers taking lunch or smoke breaks, a group of teenagers playing football on the grass. Instead, he swayed ballerina-like, weaving his way through the knitted crowd, never once touching another body. That walk, Maurice knew, was the practiced walk of an urban hunter. The walk of a man such as Jebediah Cole.
Maurice watched as the man reached the steps. He paused and removed the cigarette from his mouth and blew a plume of blue-grey smoke into the air. His eyes were downcast; Maurice couldn’t properly see his face.
Look up, Maurice willed. Let me see you.
As if he had heard his thoughts, the man lifted his head, turned slightly and looked directly at him. Their eyes locked.
“Oh my God…”
Maurice felt the blood drain from his cheeks. A roaring noise filled his ears. A pop. A click. His head was too pressured and too full. He felt his chin slip from his palm, and his neck jarred. The man continued to stare in his direction, his eyes powerful and piercing. They delved deep down inside his skin, devouring his soul.
There was no way the man could see him properly from down there. The distance, the glass and the angle would make it impossible. It was surely just some strange coincidence. Yet the stranger held his gaze; five seconds, ten. Maurice felt time stretch and slow down. He could not break the gaze any easier than he could bend a metal bar. His wooden brain, so recently full and muddled, shifted suddenly and swayed into sharp focus.
The man smiled, a shark-like grin, all teeth and no humour, and took another long drag from his cigarette.
Maurice couldn’t bear it, couldn’t bear the pressured feeling a moment longer. He used all the mental strength that he could muster to force himself to drop his eyes. A breath he hadn’t realised he’d been holding came rushing out of him. His pulse thumped in his head, a rhythmic bass drum pulsing and pounding. He felt tired and weak and yet also electrified all at once, like a sudden hit of caffeine had shaken his brain.
Slowly, almost tearfully, although he could not have fully explained why he felt that way, he looked out of the window again towards the steps. The man was gone, no trace of him on the green or on the bridge. Maurice scoped the small crowd of people. Some were sitting and standing, some talking and eating their lunches, a couple were embracing by the gallery. There was no trace of him.
&n
bsp; Idiot, Maurice chided himself. Getting all worked up over nothing at all.
So the man had looked a little like Jebediah, or how Maurice always thought Jeb might look. There were probably a hundred people in Wellington alone who looked just like him. He was a character, a stereotype; one of the many reasons people liked him was because they identified with his everyman persona. A real Kiwi bloke. Down-to-earth, no-nonsense, and all that.
Maurice knew this, knew it clearly and without question, and yet he couldn’t quite shake the feeling that maybe, just maybe, he was wrong.
He picked up his pen and started doodling, tried to get back into the frame of mind to begin writing. He still felt slow, and strangely suffocated. He recognised that horrible, familiar ‘wading through treacle’ feeling most often experienced when he was suffering from a cold or other similar malaise. It felt like the library had become even hotter. His skin felt tight and prickly. The air was tinged with the smell of stale sweat, warm plastic, and — somewhat inexplicably — burning hair.
He took another sip of his coffee and almost spat it out in horror as his eyes settled on his laptop screen.
Where there had been no words earlier, now there were many strings of them. They marched like black ants across the page, backlit by the white screen. Maurice felt the discomforting thump of his heartbeat in his head once more, as he tried to stay calm and process what he was seeing. Perhaps he had suffered a seizure of some sort, a brief mental blackout or an intense daydream?
He scanned the words, feeling his unease grow as he absorbed each sentence.
I paused at the bottom of the steps, took the cigarette from my lips and exhaled the smoke. I could feel his eyes on me, watching my every move. Maybe he thought I hadn’t clocked him, that I hadn’t felt his stare on my back as soon as I’d walked across the quad. I stood for a moment. Let the bastard think I hadn’t realised. Then I lifted my head, looked up right at the window, and locked my eyes with his.
