by Cate Gardner
Still time for that.
"Roads sure are empty," the driver said. He removed one hand from the wheel and rubbed his chest. "Not normally like this even on a Sunday. Unless it is Sunday. You know, for the life of me, I can't remember what day it is or who I am. It keeps flitting in and out. I'm Jack and then… Do you know who I am?"
"Jack," Katy said, fingers biting into the seat.
"Yes, that's right. I think. Where did you want to go?"
"The Strand."
The lights ahead were red. Jack slammed his foot on the brakes.
"No," Peter groaned.
"Rules have changed Jack. We only stop at blue traffic lights."
"Sorry. My head is a wall of fog today. Blue, you say. By the way, do you recall my name?"
"Jack."
"Oh, I used to know a fellow named Jack."
Had this happened to Glynn? Jack looked into the mirror; appeared to be checking out his reflection rather than if there was any other traffic. Had Glynn faded until he couldn't remember himself let alone her? She didn't want to know this. She shouldn't know this until her time.
"I hope he doesn't empty before we get there," Peter said.
For a brief moment, real-life traffic echoed in the cab windows. It was as if they were in an alley nestled against their world and the alley was full of the dead. The other traffic faded, ghost images erased. The cab turned onto The Strand and when Katy instructed Jack to stop outside the building, both man and cab stopped together. His face emptied. The grey spread across his skin.
The building looked as abandoned as it should be. Peter pulled at the door. When it didn't open, he cupped his hands to the glass.
"Isobel."
"We should try the fire escape."
Assuming there was an actual fire escape door. This was a fool's errand and they were the fools. She pulled at Peter's arm. Jittery now. Afraid Amos would emerge and turn malevolent and monstrous. As they reached the rear of the building, they found the fire exit door ajar and Jack slipping through the gap. Katy placed her foot between the door and the frame before it closed. This was it then, back into the monster's den. In hindsight, their escape had been an illusion.
A hand grasped her wrist. A voice whispered from within the dark of the stairwell, "Are you sure you want to enter? You may be trapped here forever."
She pushed the door fully open, threw light into the dark.
"What is it?" Peter asked. "What's up?"
Amos stood just inside the door. The world tipped and something dragged Katy into the building. The door shut, locking Peter outside. He slammed against the door, trying to gain access.
"Oops," Amos said. "I'm guessing you or the boy didn't steal my receptionist. Then you should both beware of dark corners and pissed-off brides. I'd offer you a talisman from my box but…no."
Amos vanished-like the ghost he was, Katy supposed. She opened the fire exit door and found a frustrated Peter pacing up the alley. They should leave.
"I think Isobel is missing," she said.
Peter stepped back, foot falling off the pavement. "No, she isn't."
"No, she isn't," a woman said, echoing Peter's words. "Hello, Peter. I haven't missed you."
"Is…Isobel. Izzy."
The door slammed again. Outside the building, Peter screamed. Inside, Katy stood in the dark with a dead woman's breath at her neck.
"Katy, don't," Isobel said. "Katy, don't move."
Of course, at Isobel's words, Katy moved. The world shifted again, knocking her over. A shadow loomed over her, wavering as if still mid-shift.
"Well, I did warn you," Amos said, shaking his box of things above her head. "Don't worry; I've planted her back behind the reception desk. May have to use rope though to keep her in place. Remarkable."
Katy pressed her hands to the floor and stood.
"Careful you don't fall," Amos said.
Now Katy heeded Isobel's advice and didn't move. She'd assumed she still stood beside the fire exit door but, if so, why couldn't she hear Peter? To her left, Amos flicked a lighter. Its flame cast yellow light across the contents of his box, which had dwindled to a tarnished cigarette case and two plastic blocks. In the momentary light, Katy noted the long drop a centimetre or so from her feet; a drop onto The Strand from a door formed from pushed out bricks. With the click of Amos' fingers, a street light illuminated. Amos tipped his box of things, allowing the contents to drop onto the floor.
"And your world shall tumble down."
Katy stooped and picked up the cigarette case and blocks. A whoosh of lighter fluid and the street light extinguished.
"Who are you?"
"I'm the man who could trap you in this stairwell or behind a desk. I could push you over the edge and you'd fall forever. I am the eyes, the ears, the soul, the heart. I am this place. I am its bricks, its mortar, the dirt on its windows, the shadow caught in its glass."
"You're just one of them. I bet you don't even remember who you were. You think you're a god of sorts but you're just a man."
Amos laughed. She would not fear him.
"I don't require scales to measure you or an eye glass to examine your thoughts."
Katy held out the cigarette case and blocks. "What are these?"
"Objects."
Katy threw the items down the stairs. A moment later, she felt the weight of the cigarette case and the blocks in her pocket where they clunked against the owl.
"We are all objects in the end. Hollowed out pieces on this chessboard," Amos said, and then faded against the wall.
She waited for her eyes to accustom to the dark before she descended the stairs. In the foyer, the dead streamed out into the day. She hadn't even realised they'd returned. She joined their number; following behind Isobel who did not turn or show any recognition. Peter waited for them on The Strand. Of course, he'd realised the door would open at some point. The door always opened and the dead always spilled out.
"Isobel," Peter said, but didn't move towards the dead.
Katy grabbed Isobel's wrist. She didn't have to pull the woman from the group, she moved willingly, shook Katy off and headed towards Peter. Katy's heart leapt. She searched the crowd for Glynn. Found him. She jogged to his side and grabbed his hand. Glynn turned. For a moment, she thought he recognised her (and maybe he did but she hoped not) but then he swatted her off.
"Go away," he cried.
If only she could. The tide of dead carried her along to their destination, to the tower blocks near her home and around the corner from the cinema. They sure were keen to destroy her neighbourhood. Outside The Flats, the ghost girl, toddler balanced on her hip, continued to push the shopping trolley. Its wheels offered short, sharp cries. Isobel stood over the trolley, peering in as if she saw a baby there, hand pressed to her belly. Peter held Isobel's hand. Go away, Glynn had said. Go away. Ice formed around her heart.
The dead filed into The Flats. Surely, they didn't intend to rip the block apart. They couldn't. She looked up the length of The Flats. Although she could go home, or at least attempt to, Katy followed the dead into the block and Isobel and Peter followed her. There seemed an inevitability about it all.
Although The Flats were to be demolished in a couple of months, a few residents remained while awaiting transfer to different rented accommodation. The dead didn't use the lifts. They climbed the stairs until they reached the thirteenth floor. Katy's thigh muscles ached, breath tight in her chest. A stitch tugged at her side. She leant against the window, looked at her ant-sized neighbourhood. Her house looked normal from this vantage point, not destroyed. Hope surged.
"Are you okay?" Peter asked.
Katy looked at Isobel and Peter's hands, the interweaving of their fingers. She wrapped her arms about her belly. Once upon a time… This was the moment to run (or limp) down the stairs, to go home and rebury Glynn. Once upon a tomorrow. Peter pulled a butterfly pin from his pocket. Isobel traced her fingers over it.
"Amos gave me this. I've wondered if it
belonged to one of the dead or if it belonged to you," Peter said to Isobel.
She shook her head. Slow movements that dislodged dust from her bouffant. Katy pulled the owl, cigarette case and blocks from her pocket.
"The owl reminds me of Yarker. How he watches everyone. Its want of flight representing mine. If I could destroy it, melt it, then that may be the end of him. Perhaps that is Amos' plan."
Peter curled his hand around the butterfly pin and crushed it until its delicate pale-blue wings snapped. He threw its remains onto the concrete floor and slammed his heel onto it until the pin broke into several pieces. Isobel threw its remains down the stairwell.
"They all fall down," Isobel said, echoing what Amos had said to Katy in a different stairwell.
Isobel tugged Peter's hand and pulled him onto the landing. The dead swarmed into the flat. The stink of cat pee filled hall and flat. Katy held her breath. A mural decorated one wall of the flat-palm trees, blue skies and white sand-and someone had drawn their own images over it-tower blocks falling, wasteland, all in black ink; all in Glynn's hand.
TWENTY-ONE
It is impossible for me to love. Death has destroyed feeling along with body.
I want to love.
I no longer need to love.
What is love?
TWENTY-TWO
While the dead raged in other parts of the flat, Katy traced her fingers over Glynn's graffiti. Something of him remained, buried deep. The owl buzzed in her pocket, hyper, as if it and not she had discovered this truth. She wanted to point the mural out to Yarker, who stood whistling by the window admiring the view. Glynn isn't yours. A part of him exists and like Isobel, he will break through. One should always have hope, even when faced with death.
Isobel reached out, scratched her fingers down the mural and ripped a section of ink black palm tree. Peter grabbed Isobel's shoulders and pulled her to him. She smiled at him; her smile a copy of Yarker's. Glynn exited a bedroom and came to examine the destruction of his art. Isobel struggled within Peter's grip, dragging herself from him with a laugh. Free, she grabbed Glynn's hand, as if they were the lovers here, and together they began to tear the mural from the wall.
"Isobel."
Peter did not have Isobel back. Of course, he didn't. Beware of pissed-off brides. Peter slumped against the window. All fight ripped from him along with his heart. Having destroyed the mural, Isobel offered Peter her attention. She leaned in as if to kiss him but instead she placed kisses on the window behind him, a spattering of them. Then she pressed her hands to Peter's chest, offering a gentle touch; almost loving if you ignored the cracks spreading across the window, forming wings. Offering a final kiss, this time to Peter's lips, Isobel pushed her lover through the window.
Only Katy screamed.
The reverberation from Peter's fall from the thirteenth floor and his subsequent landing shivered through the flat. The dead turned to Katy. Or almost all of them did. Glynn kept his back to her. The draught from the broken window encircled her ankles, tugged at them as if desiring she follow Peter. Instead, Katy pushed through the dead and ran from the flat. The dead did not follow her.
Glynn did not follow her.
Thank god for that.
At the bottom of the stairs, the broken remains of the butterfly pin crunched beneath her shoe. Peter's ghost stood in the doorway dressed in grey suit and a tie illustrated with the rotting wings of butterflies, a permanent reminder of his folly.
"I'm sorry, Peter."
He flinched.
"Peter," she said, recalling the taxi driver had moments of lucidity at first.
He cupped his hand to his ear and squinted, as though she and her voice were distant things. She moved around him, disturbing air but not the ghost-man. A lump caught in her throat. Peter's body had landed in the ghost-girl's trolley. Blood dripped, making Spirograph patterns on concrete. She held onto her stomach. Just. She ran.
When she reached the old cinema, life resurged. Traffic offering exhaust fumes, beeps of horns, people chatting; normality.
"Katy."
Not Katy-Kate. It didn't sound like Glynn's voice.
"For god's sake, Katy, slow down."
Nathan pressed his hand to his chest and caught his breath. Katy stared at him, seemed to have left her voice amongst the dead.
"I've been trying to contact you for days. So has Steph. We've phoned, called round. Where've you been?"
"I… a friend wasn't well. He died."
"Who?"
"No one you know."
A scream cut across the street. Nathan turned towards The Flats. Someone had found Peter's corpse. In her pocket, the owl danced against her thigh. Considering what had happened to Peter after destroying the butterfly pin, she should keep it safe. She wanted to throw it though and forget everything that happened.
"Nathan to Katy," Nathan said, snapping his fingers.
"Sorry."
"Thought I'd lost you there."
Nathan always built his words so well.
"So you're coming to the pub?"
"What time?"
"Five minutes ago. It's after five."
"Of course it is. I'm just running behind."
Across the street, the metal shutter fell from the cinema doorway. A car swerved to avoid it. It would be safer for her to spend time with the living.
"Let's go," Katy said, linking arms with Nathan.
The Old School stood at the corner of Boaler Street and Sheil Road and across from The Flats. A fire engine chased by an ambulance sped around the corner, blue lights whirring in competition. A crowd had gathered around the shopping trolley, around Peter's corpse. Katy could no longer see the ghost-girl, her toddler or Peter's ghost. Her fingers dug into Nathan's arm.
"It's good to have you back. Hey," Nathan said, grabbing her wrist. "What's this?"
"Just some stamp from a nightclub. I need to wash it off."
"Is that the name of the club?"
"Can't remember. Must be. If you could see Glynn again, just for a moment, what would you say to him?"
Better things than she had said, she hoped.
"I don't know. Maybe if he wanted a pint. Yes, I'd like to have a pint with him one more time. Pretend it was old times. Of course, we'll never see him again so…"
"It was just a question. So who else will be here?"
"Steph and Dan. You don't mind Dan being there… here?"
Steph waved from a booth by the window.
"Makes no difference to me. Hardly a revolution though. Can four people save a pub? I suspect it'll still be torn down as the whole area is in flux."
There were reasons people had stopped drinking here, namely the rotting décor and the temperament of the manager. Daniel stood to let Katy into the booth.
"Right then," Nathan said, rubbing his hands together. "What's everyone having?"
When everyone had given their orders, Steph jumped up. "I'll help Nathan with the drinks." She winked at Daniel.
Suddenly, Katy would rather spend time with the dead.
"I think this is the first time we've been alone."
Shit.
"I've been meaning to…"
She stood, a little too fast and a little too hard-her knee cracked against the table.
"Are you okay?"
"I need the loo."
"Oh, of course," Daniel said, stepping from the booth.
The pub doors crashed open, slamming into beer-stained pillars at either side, and although the building shook, quaked within its foundations, only Katy noted the storm. The dead were here.
TWENTY-THREE
The living did not see the dead. Those who were his friends did not see Glynn. She should have thrown away the owl and risked the consequences. The dead swaggered and danced between the tables. Still the living took no note of them. Nathan and Steph carried four drinks between them. Marcie's elbow jostled Nathan's arm causing him to drop a glass. Whiskey sloshed over his shoes. Nathan looked about him, as if he'd felt Marci
e's knock, but there was no one (visible) close to him.
"They're here," Katy said.
"About time."
"Some fucker knocked a drink out my hand."
"I saw," Katy said.
"See I told you, it wasn't my clumsiness."
Behind them, Yarker climbed onto the bar. "Attention, breath bags. You're all going to get smashed into bite-sized pieces because she let us in. Take a bow, miss."
"What?" Katy asked.
"Katy, sit down," Steph said.
"Can't you hear him? Can't you see them?"
Of course they couldn't. The show was for her. Glynn moved behind the bar, performing a dance with the bartender who remained oblivious. Steph leaned across the table and pulled at Katy's jacket. The metallic owl and cigarette case fell out, both items proving phantoms to the living. Marcie snatched the cigarette case. She danced away with it. Marcie who was now fully dead after a house had fallen on her head. There was no sign of ghost-Peter.
"Keep it. I don't want it."
"Katy, who the fuck are you talking to?" Nathan asked.
"I know you can't see them. I know you think I'm mad." She made a half-strangled noise as pain stabbed her chest. "The dead are here, Glynn is here, and I think they intend to hurt us."
"Glynn isn't here," Nathan said, but he rubbed his elbow and considered the room.
"I should leave," Katy said.
They all should.
Steph said, "You're not going anywhere. We're going to talk about this until we've made you understand Glynn is dead."
"Don't patronise me. I never said he wasn't. Something is happening here. Heck, you don't even have to believe me, just trust we should leave. Is that so big a thing to ask?"
Isobel and two other dead encircled Katy. Glass smashed on the other side of the pub. The air stunk of liquor. Further glass smashed. A crescendo of destruction as bottles rained from the bar. People stood to check the chaos but no one fled and no one screamed. Katy's wrist burned, her fingers tore at the company stamp. Marcie pushed through the dead trio. She popped open the cigarette case allowing the hand-rolled cigarettes to drop to the floor. She kept the match. Marcie rested its combustible tip to the strike on the back of the case. All that liquor. All that ale. Katy awaited the whoosh. She could hardly breathe for the expectation of it.
