The Hit

by Melvin Burgess

  Hang on. Seeing double. Feeling sick. Feeling very sick. Walk. Door. Get up.

  He took two steps to the door and fell over. He tried to get up and failed.

  “Too drun to fucki stanup,” he announced to no one. Then he was lavishly sick on the floor. Success!

  And he passed out.

  * * *

  Adam awoke lying on the floor in a pool of cold puke. Lizzie was sitting at the kitchen table glaring at him.

  “What happened?” he asked.

  “You drank it all. You greedy bastard.”

  “Sorry.” He picked himself up and tried to grin at her, but it was difficult when you had cold puke all down your front. “You were asleep,” he mumbled. “I didn’t have time. At least that’s one thing out the way.”

  “‘Out the way’?” she demanded. “Six hundred pounds’ worth of champagne ‘out the way’? Thanks, Adam. Any more things you want to get ‘out the way’ for me? My money, what’s left of it?”

  “You were ill,” he reminded her. “And this is about me, isn’t it? One week,” he reminded her. “I’ll pay you back, don’t worry.” She was making a fuss — spoiling it for him. “I’m going upstairs to shower. Hey — I’m going to need some more clothes, these stink,” he added, and ducked upstairs before she could answer.

  * * *

  In the bathroom, Adam sat on the edge of the tub for a moment. He felt sick and incredibly anxious. The hangover, it must be. He found some painkillers and whacked them down. Then he got undressed and climbed into the shower.

  Don’t think don’t think don’t think. Thinking about what he’d done with a hangover was dreadful; it made his stomach lurch. Don’t go there. What next? Sex, sex was next. He should have done that by now. He had to get on — he had so much to do and so little time to do it …

  The water flooded over him, taking the sweat and stink off him and washing it away down the plughole.

  Don’t think — but you can’t help thinking because that’s what your brain does, thinking all the time, it won’t stop. Don’t think of the future because the future is disappearing before your eyes. Don’t think of the past because that’s going, too …

  All your memories, gone, all your hopes and regrets, gone. Wherever you look, death is everywhere; past, present, and future, all gone, like water down the drain …

  From the floor came a rattle of music. His phone in his jeans pocket. Leaning out of the shower, Adam picked it up and opened it up. A number he didn’t know. He pressed answer and held it to his ear.

  “Hi, Adam,” said a voice.

  It came as such a shock, he reeled back and banged into the wall behind him.

  “Who is it?” he whispered.

  “Don’t you know me?”

  Adam didn’t answer, not daring. It must be some kind of mistake.

  “It’s Jess,” said the voice. “We need to meet up.”

  * * *

  Lizzie was drinking coffee in the kitchen when Adam burst in with the news. Jess was alive!

  She goggled at him. She couldn’t keep up with this. First Jess was dead — now he was alive. Ten minutes ago Adam had been lying unconscious in a pool of vomit. Now he was rushing round the room babbling like a lunatic.

  “Adam, stop it!” He was practically bouncing off the walls. “Slow down. Jess is alive? Is he OK?”

  “Yes! I don’t know. He sounded fine. He wants the drugs back.”

  “What, the Death? How does he know about that?”

  “Garry must have told him.” Adam paced up and down, trying to work it out. “They said on the news that it was the Zealots handing out the free Death on Friday night.”

  “Jess was a chemist, wasn’t he?” Lizzie thought about it. “This is deep, Adam. Jess must be wrapped up in it somehow.”

  Adam shook his head. “Why would the Zealots sell Death? Jess wouldn’t do that.” Or would he? Adam was finding out how very little he knew his own brother.

  “When are you meeting him?”

  “In a couple of hours, in Platt Fields Park.”

  “Ask him about the antidote,” said Lizzie suddenly.

  Adam swung around to face her, shocked … horrified … hopeful. “There is no antidote! You know that.”

  “That’s what we’re told. But he’ll know for sure …”

  “There is no antidote,” he hissed furiously. “That’s the point, isn’t it? I’m going to die. Just get used to it. It’s a good thing,” he added.

  Yes, he wanted it! Yes, he welcomed it! But the words choked in his throat and to his shame, emotion hijacked him, and he burst into tears.

  “Hey. Hey, hey — come on.” Lizzie jumped up, and he let her fold him in her arms.

  “I can’t,” he told her weakly. “I just can’t …”

  “Can’t what?”

  “I can’t think like that. Hoping. What’s the point when there isn’t any hope?”

  “But what if there is?”

  “No!” He pushed her away. “You don’t get it, do you? I’m going to die. I’ve got my week, that’s all I’ve got. That has to be enough. It HAS to be enough. Don’t you see?” He wept and raged at her.

  “Look, Adam. No!” she cut in when he was about to launch at her. “Let’s have this conversation now — just once. OK? Just once. Because, Adam, we do have to have it. I have to have it. I have to know. It’s … it’s part of the ride, OK?”

  Part of the ride. Adam stared at her.

  “If there was an antidote. What then? Would you take it?”

  There was a pause. “I can’t think like that. I can’t do that, Lizzie …” He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to squash the tears right down inside himself, where they didn’t matter.

  The tears were answer enough. “So look. Ask Jess. OK? Just ask him. He’s involved in this somehow or other. The Zealots, Death, everything that’s going on. If he says no, fine. We get on with your week. But if there is, we — I — am going to try and get it. Not for your sake,” she insisted before he interrupted her. “For me. Because I don’t want just one week with you. I want more. OK, Adam? It’s not just about you. It never was, it never will be. It’s about me, too. And it’s about Jess, and your mum and your dad. All of us. We’ve got to stand here and watch you go. I’ll do it for you, if I have to. But if I don’t, well then, we’re going to try and save your life whether you want it or not. OK? Deal?”

  Adam felt like she was breaking him in half. But — OK. For her. For Lizzie. Not for him.

  He nodded.

  “Good.” Lizzie smiled, and looked pleased. But what she was really thinking was if Jess was alive, Adam had taken Death for no reason at all. And how was he going to react when he realized that?

  ADAM BEGGED HER TO COME WITH HIM TO MEET JESS, BUT Lizzie steeled herself to say no. This was between him and Jess, she told him. But it wasn’t that, really.

  The fact was, she didn’t believe in an antidote, either. You never knew, you heard the odd story, you had to hope — but the evidence was all the other way. No. Adam was going to die. He was dying now, even while he walked next to her along the road, fizzing with life like no one she’d ever known. She’d promised to spend the last week with him and she intended to keep that promise, but it wasn’t going to be easy. Nothing else she was ever going to go through — love, sex, childbirth, her own death — was going to come even close to this in sheer intensity. It was going to be heaven and hell rolled up into one big, angsty ball.

  She wanted a few hours on her own just to get her head around it. They would probably be the last few hours she’d have to herself before he died.

  Adam got on the bus, turned his tragic white face to look at her, and grinned as if to say, Yeah, this is what it’s all about. She stood and waved good-bye, then went back home to tidy up and pack a bag. There was no way she could stay at home. Her mum and dad could not be allowed to even guess what was going on.

  Where they were going to hide out, she had no idea. This was going to require some careful pl
anning. Once she got the place tidy, Lizzie sat down and turned on her laptop. The Internet was awash with Death.

  It was amazing. Kids all over Manchester were following Jimmy Earle into the night, and with them was coming the biggest crime wave in history. Robbery, rape, murder. Suddenly there were thousands of people roaming the streets with nothing to lose and nothing to win but one week of fun. The police were desperately trying to track down the source of the drug, but meanwhile, it was flooding the streets.

  She found a comment about a Deather who had committed murder online. Wow. She found the video of it easily enough — it had three million hits already, and it had only been up for two hours.

  It started off straight enough — a well-known female reporter talking to some kid on Death. She was asking him why he’d thrown his life away like that.

  He grinned. “How do you like it?” he asked the reporter.

  “What do you mean?” the woman asked. In answer, the kid lunged forward and stabbed her in the stomach, hard. Lizzie jumped to her feet in shock. Murder — right there in her face. The reporter made a strange noise, half groan, half gasp of surprise. The kid shook the blade right in the camera — in her face, it felt like — splashing the lens with blood. The crew tried to grab him, but he was off, sprinting away, pushing them all back, and escaping easily.

  Why had he done it? But she knew the answer, sort of. This was a poor kid who’d had nothing all his life. Now at least he had as much as that reporter — more, in fact, because she was dead and he had a few more days to live.

  And because he could.

  Her thoughts were interrupted by a call on her cell phone. It was Julie.

  “Darling,” said Julie. “How are you?”

  “I’m fine,” said Lizzie absently, still shocked from the images on the screen.

  “No, you’re not fine. You’re in the deepest shit you can think of.”

  “What?”

  For a moment she thought Julie had somehow found out about Adam. But it wasn’t that. That guy at the party that Adam had punched? Christian? He was interested in her.

  “So what?” asked Lizzie.

  So what? Julie was furious. Did she have any idea who Christian was? Only the son of the biggest gangster in the north of England, which without doubt meant the whole country, since Manchester gangs were the worst of the lot anyway. Not only that, he was a dirty, sick pervert as well. These were the people flooding the country with cheap Death. Julie had already had a visit from his bodyguard, the big guy in the suit, wanting to know where Lizzie lived. This was very bad news indeed. Very bad. How had she been so stupid as to get talking to him at the party?

  “How was I supposed to know? You invite me to a party with a gangster and then it’s my fault?”

  “I didn’t invite him, he just came.”

  “Why didn’t you warn me?”

  “Because any idiot can tell at a glance he’s not all there!”

  “Did you tell him where I was?” demanded Lizzie.

  “No, of course not. Well, not everything. I gave him your e-mail.”

  “My e-mail? You cow, Julie. Why did you do that?”

  “Jesus. Lizzie! Why do you think? So I wouldn’t get beaten up, for fuck’s sake. God, Lizzie, you are being so selfish about this!”

  Lizzie groaned. “So now I’m going to get bombarded by pervy e-mails from that freak. Great. Did you give him my Facebook as well?”

  “Lizzie, Christian is not interested in sending you pervy e-mails. He’s not that sort of a pervert. He’s more the hands-on kind. I doubt that you’ll get any e-mails. What you will get is a personal visit as soon as he’s worked out where you live.”

  “Can he do that?”

  “Oh yes.”

  “Shit. But what does he want me for? What does he want to do?”

  “What do you think he wants to do? He wants to perv all over you, and don’t ask me what that means because I don’t even know.”

  “Well … what do I do, then? Call the police?”

  “You do not call the police on these people! These people practically ARE the police. No way. What you do is, you go into hiding. Give it a few weeks, he’ll probably get over it and move on to someone else.”

  “Go into hiding?”

  “Yes. That’s what I’m going to do and I’m not even the one he wants. Don’t argue, Lizzie,” warned Julie. “You don’t have any choice. And your parents will have to hide as well. I’m ringing them next.”

  “No!”

  “Yes! You want them beaten up and set on fire, too?”

  Lizzie thought about it. There didn’t seem to be much choice — and anyway, it might play into her hands. “OK,” she said, “but I’m not going into hiding with them. It’d drive me mad. I need a place of my own, for a while anyway.”

  They argued about it for a bit, but in the end, Lizzie got her own way.

  “But where?” she asked.

  Julie had just the place.

  * * *

  While Julie was explaining things to Lizzie, Adam was on the bus to the park, allowing himself to think about his mum and dad for the first time since he’d taken Death.

  Speaking to Jess had sobered him right up.

  Lizzie was right; it never was just all about him. In effect, Adam had committed suicide. He was in freefall to the rope’s end. It was a long rope, but it was going to end all too soon and he wasn’t going to be the only victim. As sure as a soldier firing a gun, he had executed the hopes and dreams of his mother and father as well. He’d ruined their lives by ending his own.

  But! Maybe not. They still had Jess, back from the dead. As ever, Jess was the one who was going to go back and pick up the pieces. Once he knew what Adam had done, he’d have no choice. Everything would be back to normal. On Jess’s shoulders would be heaped all his parents’ dreams and hopes. Jess would provide them with grandchildren, help and support them in their old age, and give them the joy of watching their offspring growing old and wise.

  Except it wasn’t all back to normal, of course. There was one person for whom nothing could ever be changed again: Adam. By coming back from the dead, Jess had removed any meaning at all from his own death. Jess, the faker, had made even Adam’s despair meaningless.

  Unless … could it be true, as Lizzie had suggested, that there might be an antidote? Everyone said it didn’t exist, but there were some stories going around — that the manufacturers only said there was no way out because the antidote cost even more than Death itself, or that the government suppressed the truth because, face it, without the death at the end, this was just one really good drug. Everyone would want it.

  Hope. That’s what Adam was feeling as he rode the bus across town. Hope. And hope, he was discovering, was the most terrifying thing of all.

  * * *

  They’d arranged to meet by a boarded-up shed that had been a ticket office for the boating lake years ago. When Adam saw his brother, he went running toward him — he’d never felt so glad in all his life. But when he got close, he felt angry again. He’d forgotten for a few seconds how Jess had betrayed him — betrayed the whole family. You could almost say that Jess had killed him.

  They stood there looking at each other, not touching. Jess looked flushed, his eyes bright. His brown hair had been cut short and he was wearing unfamiliar clothes. A new Jess.

  “You’re alive,” said Adam. He didn’t know whether to hug him or hit him.

  Jess nodded. “Have you got them?” he asked.

  Adam was offended. This was his greeting, then. He took the pills from where he’d hidden them down his pants and handed them over. Jess snatched the bag and looked into it.

  “Are they all here?” he asked.

  “One short.”

  Jess shot him a sharp look. “You didn’t take it, did you?”

  “Do I look stupid?” Adam said it before he could think. He knew at once that the lie wasn’t going to be as easy to take back as it was to give.

  “You sol
d it?”

  “Yeah.”

  For the first time, Jess looked Adam full in the face. He raised his eyebrows slightly. “Someone’s going to die, then.”

  “What are you doing with this stuff?” said Adam. He wasn’t going to take any stick from Jess. “Did you help make them?”

  Jess ignored the question. “That was a stupid thing to do. You could have got Garry killed, do you know that?” he asked, stuffing the bag into his pants.

  Adam stared resentfully at him. “So it’s all my fault, is it?” he asked. Jess didn’t meet his eye. “What’s going on?” he demanded. “Why did the Zealots say you were dead?” He paused a moment. “Have you told Mum and Dad you’re all right?”

  Jess looked away, then back. “I’m not going to tell them, Adam,” he said. “And neither are you.”

  “Are you joking?” Now he was getting angry. “Of course they have to know. What are you playing at, Jess?”

  Jess took a couple of steps back, out of sight of the path nearby. “Keep your voice down. I’m carrying, remember?” He waited for Adam to step into the shadows before he went on. “I wanted you all to think I was dead,” he said. “It would have been easier that way.”

  “Easier than what?” demanded Adam. How could anything be harder?

  Jess grimaced and shook his head. He looked furious himself. “It’s not about you or me or Mum or Dad,” he said. “It’s about everyone. The human race.”

  “We are the human race, in case you hadn’t noticed. Your bit of it,” said Adam bitterly.

  “Do you think I don’t love them? Or you?” Adam looked away. Him and his brother had never talked about love before. Jess reached out and grabbed hold of his arm. “You think it didn’t break my heart to do what I did?”

  “I know you broke their hearts, all right. Mum’s and Dad’s.”

  Jess looked appalled. “I’m sorry, Adam,” he said. “I really am, but you can’t tell them. It’d only break their hearts again. I’m going to die. I said what I did to get it over with.”

  Adam was horrified. “What do you mean? You haven’t taken Death, have you?” he demanded.

  “No. Of course not. I volunteered.”

  “What, to die?”