Being

by Kevin Brooks

  She was really playing the part now – lips quivering, eyes wide open, scared to death. I bundled her into the back of the car, threw my bag in, got in after her and slammed the door shut.

  ‘Get going,’ I told the man in the suit. ‘Turn the car round and get us out of here.’

  He glanced at me in the rear-view mirror. ‘Let the girl go, Robert,’ he started to say. ‘You don’t need –’

  ‘Just shut up and drive.’

  ∗

  As he turned the car round and drove back along the hospital driveway, I found myself thinking of Kamal. I remembered sitting in his white Fiesta, driving along this driveway, not knowing where to go or what to do…

  Nothing had changed. The hospital grounds, the rolling lawns, the bushes and shrubs… all of it veiled behind a silver-black mist of rain. The gun in my lap. The sound of the engine, the sound of the rain on the roof of the car.

  It was all the same.

  Except Kamal wasn’t here any more.

  He was dead.

  And I was a thousand years older.

  ‘Which way?’ the man in the suit asked me.

  I looked at the clock on the dashboard. It was eight fifteen in the morning.

  Different time.

  Different people.

  Kamal was dead.

  They’d killed him.

  ‘Which way, Robert?’

  The man in the suit was looking at me in the rear-view mirror. I looked back at him, wondering if he’d killed Kamal. His eyes looked perfectly capable.

  ‘Turn left,’ I told him.

  He turned left out of the hospital gates, and for the next ten minutes I just concentrated on telling him where to go.

  Right at the roundabout.

  Left at the junction.

  Straight on.

  Left again.

  Right, left, right…

  At one point I heard the sound of police sirens in the distance, but they were a long way off and they were moving away from us. The man in the suit heard them too, but he didn’t say anything. I guessed he was thinking, trying to work out what to do.

  Just like me.

  I looked out of the window. We were approaching a junction at the end of a long straight road. There was a woodland park to our left, houses to the right. I didn’t know exactly where we were, but I knew enough to know where to go.

  ‘Turn left at the junction,’ I said.

  The man in the suit slowed the car, checked for traffic, then pulled out to the left. We were moving away from Stoneham now. Heading into the countryside.

  I wanted to look at Eddi, to let her know that everything was going to be all right. But I couldn’t. I just had to sit there, cradling the pistol in my hand, trying to work out what to do.

  I wondered briefly if it was all worth it. All this running around, all this hiding, all this lying… what was the point? Why not just give up? I asked myself. Give up. Give in. Just give the pistol to the man in the suit and tell him to do what he wants.

  Why not?

  I looked up and saw the man in the suit watching me in the rear-view mirror. His face was anonymous. Nothing. Forgettable. Just a face.

  ‘What’s your name?’ I asked him.

  ‘My name?’

  ‘Yeah, your name.’

  ‘Paul Morris,’ he said.

  ‘Morris? You’re Morris?’

  He nodded.

  I said, ‘You were there when it happened, weren’t you?’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘You were there, at the hospital on Monday. With Ryan and Hayes.’

  He didn’t answer me, but he didn’t have to. I knew he’d been there. I remembered Hayes talking to Professor Casing. Tell Ryan that Morris is with Peter Young, she’d said. Tell him it’s under control.

  I stared at Morris’s eyes in the mirror. He’d been with Pete. He’d talked to him. And I knew now that I had to talk to Morris. On his own. I had to ask him some questions.

  I looked out of the window again.

  ‘Turn right,’ I told him.

  He turned right and we headed off down a narrow country lane. The rain was still falling, silver and black, and the clouds were getting darker all the time. In the stormy half-light, the country lane was quiet and empty. Farmland stretched out on either side of us – barren fields, ragged hedges, miles of nothingness – and up ahead, in the distance, the dark skies glowed dully in the light of a hidden sun.

  ‘Pull in over there,’ I told Morris.

  He slowed the car and pulled up beside a rickety wooden gate at the side of the lane. On the other side of the gate, a muddy track led across to a derelict barn – rusty girders, walls of corrugated iron, gaping holes in the roof. I couldn’t see any other buildings. No farmhouses, no animal sheds, no lights, no nothing. It was just a derelict barn, alone in a derelict yard.

  It wasn’t ideal, but it would have to do.

  ‘Open the gate,’ I told Morris.

  I wound down the window and kept the gun on him as he got out of the car and walked over to the gate. The air smelled cold and shitty.

  ‘Are you all right?’ I whispered to Eddi.

  ‘What the hell are you doing?’ she hissed back. ‘Who’s that guy? What does he want? What is all this?’

  ‘I’ll tell you later. I promise. Just keep doing what you’re doing, and everything will be all right.’

  Morris had opened the gate now. I leaned out of the window and told him to get back in the car. As he got back in, I told him to drive over to the barn. He drove.

  The rain was getting heavier now. The wheels of the car slipped and slid in the mud.

  ‘Stop here,’ I said.

  Morris stopped the car beside the barn.

  ‘Turn off the engine.’

  He turned off the engine.

  ‘Give me the keys.’

  He passed me the car keys.

  ‘And your phone.’

  He reached into his pocket and passed me his mobile. I check it was switched off, then put it in my pocket and turned to Eddi.

  ‘Have you got a phone?’ I asked her.

  She nodded her head.

  ‘Give it to me.’

  She took a mobile out of her pocket and handed it over. I put it in my pocket and glanced at Morris.

  ‘Stay there,’ I told him.

  I opened the door, stepped out into the rain, then leaned back into the car.

  ‘Get out,’ I told Eddi.

  She stared at me.

  ‘Please,’ I said. ‘Just get out of the car. I’m not going to hurt you.’

  She looked at Morris, her eyes pleading for help, but he didn’t want to know. He didn’t care about her. He looked like he did – the caring face, the caring eyes – but it was all just a show. All he cared about was me.

  ‘It’s all right, Miss,’ he said calmly to Eddi. ‘Just do as he says. You’ll be all right.’

  I stepped away from the door, giving her room to get out. She clambered cautiously from the car. I stepped further back. She was shivering – cold and wet – and she looked tired and scared. I nodded my head at the barn behind her.

  ‘Wait in there,’ I said.

  She looked over her shoulder, then turned back.

  ‘Why?’ she muttered. ‘Why do you want me to go in there? What are you going to do?’

  I glanced inside the car at Morris. He was watching us, listening to us.

  ‘I’m not going to do anything,’ I told Eddi. ‘I promise. I just want you to go inside the barn and stay there. Nothing’s going to happen.’ I looked at her, not sure if she was still just playing along or if she was genuinely frightened. ‘Listen,’ I said, ‘I’m sorry. This is just… it’s not…’ I shook my head. It was too hard. I didn’t know what I was trying to say. ‘I’m sorry. Please, just get in the barn and stay there.’

  She gazed at me for a moment or two, then turned round and walked over to the barn. It didn’t have a door, just a hole in the wall. I waited until she’d disappeared through
the hole, then I turned back to the car. Morris was staring at me through the rain.

  Staring at the beast.

  I opened the car door and got in the back.

  14

  Morris didn’t react when I leaned forward and pressed the gun to the back of his head. He didn’t move, didn’t flinch, didn’t even blink. He just sat there, perfectly still, watching me silently in the rear-view mirror. His eyes were cool and steady.

  ‘What happened to Kamal?’ I asked him.

  He smiled at me. ‘Who?’

  I rapped the gun barrel against his head. Not too hard, but hard enough to hurt him.

  ‘Shit!’ he said, jerking forward. ‘What the fu-?’

  ‘Shut up.’

  He glared at me. His eyes weren’t cool and steady any more.

  ‘Sit up straight,’ I told him.

  He rubbed the back of his head, glared at me again, then slowly sat up straight.

  I rested the pistol against his neck. ‘What happened to Kamal?’

  ‘He died.’

  ‘I know that. How did it happen?’

  ‘Road accident.’

  ‘Don’t lie to me.’

  ‘I’m not. It was an accident.’ Morris looked at me. ‘He was driving too fast, simple as that.’

  ‘I don’t believe you.’

  He shrugged.

  ‘I think you killed him,’ I said.

  ‘You can think what you like.’

  ‘You killed him because he knew too much. You don’t want anyone to know the truth about me, do you?’

  Morris said nothing, just stared at me.

  ‘What have you done with Bridget and Pete?’ I asked him.

  He shrugged again. ‘We haven’t done anything with them. As far as I know, they’re still at home, waiting for you to get in touch. They’re worried about you, Robert. We all are.’

  ‘Yeah, right. You’re so worried about me that you killed Kamal –’

  ‘We didn’t kill anyone –’

  ‘What about Casing?’

  ‘What about him?’

  ‘Has he been killed too? Stabbed to death in a frenzied attack…?’

  Morris shook his head, like he was listening to a raving madman, and I knew I was wasting my time. He was never going to tell me anything. And I didn’t have time to waste.

  But still…

  He was here.

  Morris.

  He was right here in front of me. And he knew. He had to know something about me. And I wanted to know. I had to know. I had to know what was happening to me. I had to know what I was, what I wasn’t, what I was…

  I had to know.

  ‘Tell me why I shouldn’t kill you,’ I said.

  Morris frowned at me. ‘What?’

  ‘You heard.’

  His mouth moved, looking for an answer, but nothing came out.

  ‘I don’t have anything to lose,’ I explained to him. ‘I’m either human or I’m not. If I am, then I’m already wanted for Casing’s murder, so another one isn’t going to make any difference. And if I’m not… well, if I’m not human, it doesn’t really matter, does it? A machine can’t be guilty of murder.’

  Morris just stared at me.

  ‘Do you see what I’m saying?’ I said.

  He nodded slowly.

  ‘So,’ I continued, ‘what’s it going to be? Are you going to tell me what I want to know, or do I have to kill you?’

  We stared at each other in silence for a while. Morris’s eyes were blank. Empty and emotionless… almost unhuman… and I wondered for a moment what I looked like to him. Did he know what I was? Did he see me as something else? And then it suddenly occurred to me that maybe he didn’t see me as something else, because maybe I wasn’t something else to him. I was the same as him. He was the same as me. We were both something else – unhuman, unreal. And if Morris was the same as me, then the others had to be the same too – Ryan, Hayes, Cooper… all of them. Maybe Bridget and Pete were the same. Maybe there were hundreds of us, thousands… maybe everyone was the same as me.

  I looked at Morris in the mirror, trying to see myself in his eyes.

  ‘All right, Robert,’ he said quietly. ‘What do you want to know?’

  He sounded genuine, pained and resigned, and for a moment I was convinced he was telling the truth. He really was going to tell me what I wanted to know. But then his eyes flicked suddenly to the right, as if he’d just seen something outside, and even as I turned to see what he was looking at, I realized I’d been tricked.

  But it was already too late.

  The instant I took my eyes off him, Morris released the seat handle and thrust out his legs, shoving himself backwards with all his weight. His seat slammed into my chest, emptying my lungs and throwing me across the car, and as I thudded against the back of the rear seats, the pistol flew out of my hand. I was too shocked to move for a moment. I couldn’t breathe. I just sat there, slumped in the seat, dazed and breathless, vaguely aware that Morris was already clambering over the seat, his killing eyes fixed on me. I saw him draw back his arm, and I tried to get out of the way, but I was too slow. He smashed his fist into my head, then almost immediately rammed his arm against my neck, shoving me up against the back seat. He had me pinned down now. My head was whirling, filled with blackness, and his arm was crushing the life out of me. I struggled, trying to kick him, but he just leaned in harder and hit me again, cracking his left hand into my jaw. It didn’t hurt – none of it seemed to hurt. I was insensible, painless. Switched off. Numb. I was just a thing. But I couldn’t function any more. There was too much blackness inside my head, the air was too thick. I couldn’t do anything.

  With his body jammed between the two front seats and his right arm rammed up against my neck, Morris started scrabbling around with his other hand, looking for the pistol. I knew where it was. It was on the floor, under my right foot. I could feel it through the sole of my shoe – the hard steel, the trigger guard, the barrel. I forced myself to move my foot, trying to slide the pistol out of Morris’s reach, but he’d seen it now. I could feel him grabbing hold of the barrel, wrenching the gun from under my foot. I tried to stop him, kicking his hand away with my left foot, but it didn’t have much effect. He was too big, too strong. He just shouldered my leg to one side and grabbed hold of the pistol again. I was too weak to do anything about it. I could feel the gun slipping out from under my foot…

  Then the car door opened.

  It’s hard to remember exactly what happened next. My head was still reeling, and Morris still had me jammed up against the seat, so I could barely see anything at all. I heard the door beside us opening, and I felt the sudden rush of cold rainy air, and I knew that someone was there, but I couldn’t see who it was. All I could see was a shape in the rain, standing beside the open door.

  Everything froze for a fraction of a second – the figure just stood there, Morris stopped moving – and then suddenly they both made a lunge for the pistol. I still couldn’t see what was happening, but I felt the figure stooping down and diving into the car, and I felt another hand making a grab for the pistol, and then Morris was chopping at the hand, smashing it into the floor, and I heard the figure crying out in pain. Then almost immediately I felt another lunge, and Morris suddenly jerked and gasped – ‘Shit, you bitch!’ – and I felt his hand whipping back… and I knew then that the figure was Eddi. She’d just bitten Morris’s hand. And now she had the pistol. But as she started to get up off the floor, Morris suddenly let go of my neck and clubbed his fist into the back of her head. She grunted, and I felt her crash back down to the floor. Morris raised his arm again, aiming to finish her off, but he’d forgotten about me. I wasn’t pinned down any more. I could move. I sprang forward and hammered my head into Morris’s skull. The impact rocked through my head, spinning me round in a sickening swirl of blackness, but it didn’t matter. Through the blackness I could see Morris slumped against the back of the front seat, his head hanging down, his eyes closed. I’d hit him ha
rd enough to momentarily knock him out, and that was enough to let Eddi get hold of the pistol again and struggle up off the floor.

  The next few seconds are the hardest to recall. I was still dazed, my head was still spinning, and whenever I think about it, everything seems to start whirling again. But this is how I remember it.

  Eddi had just about got to her feet again and was leaning into the car, kind of half-in and half-out of it, steadying herself against the back of the seat. Her face was very pale, her eyes unfocused. The gun was in her left hand. She was aiming it at Morris, but I don’t think she was going to shoot him. She was just covering him, waiting for him to wake up. But when he did wake up, opening his eyes quite suddenly, Eddi had briefly turned away from him to look at me, and before I could warn her, he’d reached out and grabbed her left hand, fighting to get hold of the pistol. She reacted quickly, tightening her grip on the pistol and clutching at his wrist with her other hand, and then he got both hands on the gun, and they were both pulling and twisting, fighting over the pistol, and then… I don’t know. I just don’t know how it happened. One moment they were struggling, both of them grunting and gasping, and then – BANG! - the gun went off, loud as hell, and a shower of wet stuff sprayed into my face.

  I didn’t realize what had happened for a moment. Everything was silent and still. The wet stuff on my face was warm, then suddenly cold. Nothing was happening. I closed my eyes, wiped my face, then opened my eyes again. Morris had fallen between the two front seats. One of his legs was twisted up under him, the other one was sticking out between the gap in the seats. From the neck down, he still looked like Morris – dark suit, white shirt, shiny black shoes – but he wasn’t Morris any more. He was just a thing: a thing with half its head blown off.

  I sat there for a while, just watching stuff ooze from Morris’s head. I didn’t want to keep looking at it, but I couldn’t seem to stop. His blood was thick and slow-moving, like tar. Black, crimson, pink. There were bits of bone in it. Flecks of white. There were globs of grey stuff on the seat, like lumps of thick grey snot.

  They were human things.

  No metal, no silver, no plastic.

  Morris had definitely been human.

  But now he was nothing.

  I looked at Eddi. She was just sitting there staring at Morris too. Her face was shocked white, her eyes glazed with horror. She still had the gun in her hand.