by Chris Mawbey
“So, where are we going now?” Elena asked.
“We need to get away from here as quickly as we can,” said Mickey. “Time’s running out and we don’t need the complication of me, either version of me, being picked up by the police.”
“Agreed,” said Pester. “And because time is growing short you need to know what I learned in the back room of the sandwich bar.”
Flashing lights appeared on the road they were on and the sound of sirens grew rapidly. The flashing lights painted the street blue as the ambulance sped past, the colours quickly fading to night shades as the vehicle drew away.
“What did you find out?” asked Mickey. He stopped walking and waited for the answers.
“Mr. Jolly had a hand in your friend’s predicament,” said Pester.
“Mr. Jolly? Why would he be involved with Jonno?” This was something he had neither considered nor expected. Mickey knew that both Pester and Mr. Jolly had been on the living side around the time of his death but why would Mr. Jolly go so deep into the living world?
“It just reinforces a thought that I’ve been having for a while,” said Pester.
Mickey was sure that he wouldn’t like what he was about to hear but he indicated that Pester should continue.
“Someone wanted you dead,” said Pester. “Not just dead, but removed from existence completely. Mr. Jolly was the person in the doorway behind your back in the sandwich bar.”
This just gets better, Mickey thought.
“His involvement began even earlier,” Pester continued. He decided not to pull his punches. “Mr. Jolly killed your father.” Seeing the shocked look on Mickey’s face, Pester paused while his young charge took in the news. Then he recounted what he and Elena had witnessed that night after Mickey had left Terry Raymond on the bridge.
Though he had no sympathy for his father the news of the violent nature of his demise shocked and angered Mickey.
“Why would Mr. Jolly do that?” Mickey asked.
“To me it looked like a plan to get you out of general circulation, one way or another,” Pester suggested. “Perhaps he hoped that the body would be found and you’d be arrested for the murder of your father.”
“But why?” said Mickey. “What have I done that would make Mr. Jolly so interested in me?”
“It’s not Mr. Jolly who wants you removed,” Pester replied. “The wish comes from a far higher authority and I don’t think it had anything to do with what you’ve done. I think this is about something that you would have done in the future.”
Mickey remembered how his head had spun when Pester had first explained his situation to him. He felt that way now. He struggled to understand what Pester had told him and what the potential consequences were.
“So someone or something thinks I was going to do something terrible in the future and wanted me stopped.”
“Not quite,” said Pester. “I think you’re right that someone wanted you stopped. But from what I’ve seen of you I think you were more likely to have done something incredible and good.”
Understanding remained out of Mickey’s reach, but grudging acceptance was beginning to settle on him.
“Why Jonno though? What did he have to do with it?”
Pester shook his head sadly and sighed. “He was just used as a tool for getting to you. Your loyalty to your friend left you vulnerable. Manipulating Jonno into the predicament he was in allowed Mr. Jolly to ensnare you and then work on getting you removed.”
“Why didn’t he take direct action against me?”
“He can’t, especially in the living world,” said Pester. “He had to use others to do his bidding.”
More blue lights and sirens interrupted the conversation and a police car shot past. Mickey could guess its destination.
“We need to get out of here,” he said. “Follow me.”
He limped across the road. Pester followed. Elena hesitated before falling into step. On the other side of the road a darkened footpath provided a short cut towards the city centre and would quickly have the three of them several streets away in a matter of minutes. The entrance to the footpath was guarded by a pair of steel posts, placed there to foil cyclists. Mickey stepped around the obstacle and walked into bright sunlight.
Chapter 26
The unexpected transition brought another cry of surprise from Mickey as well as Elena. These changes were happening too quickly. Mickey instantly knew where he was but it took him a few seconds to work out when he was. This only happened when he saw another version of himself with Jonno standing at a road junction.
Mickey and his companions had emerged from the late night suburban street to late morning on the pedestrianised St Peter’s Street in the city centre. They were standing outside one of the entrances to the Westfield shopping centre. Directly opposite the mall’s entrance a Norman church was an incongruous neighbour to the row of fast food outlets, clothes shops and banks.
“This is the day of the bank raid, isn’t it?” said Pester.
Mickey nodded. “Look over there.” He pointed to his left. “There I am with Jonno. We’re talking over what we’re going to do next.”
“Oh,” gasped Elena. “This is so strange; seeing you here and over there at the same time. You are even dressed the same.”
“These are the clothes I was wearing that day,” Mickey replied.
“You mean this is the day when you...”
“Died? Yes it is,” said Mickey. “And I don’t want to be here to see this. Pester, I want to go.”
“Wait. You’re here for a reason.”
Elena felt uncomfortable. She was struggling with conflicting feelings about her companion after seeing him trying to rob those old people. This was a moment personal to Mickey though. Elena had only known him for a few days and felt as though she was intruding on Mickey’s privacy. She didn’t feel she had the right to see this. Her train of thought was broken when a woman shopper walked straight at the three of them. She seemed to be looking straight at Elena and was on collision course. At the last moment, without any hint that she had seen the three strangers the woman subtly shifted direction and walked between Mickey and Elena.
“Could she see us?” Elena asked.
“No,” Pester replied. “We, or rather Mickey, is purely a spectator here. There’s something that Mickey needs to see.”
“Such as?” said Mickey.
“Watch and find out,” replied Pester in his best cryptic fashion.
Across the street Mickey’s earlier, living, self was deep in conversation with Jonno. The dialogue seemed to be tense, approaching heated judging by the body language. Jonno was try to press something into his friend’s hand but was being resisted. Persistence paid off though and Mickey took what was being offered.
“Drugs?” Pester raised his eyebrows.
Mickey nodded. “That’s what we were arguing about. I didn’t want anything to do with them. I mean, that’s what had landed us in such a fucking mess. Jonno said I was too wound up and he needed me to be calm. He was relying on me to look after him – as usual. He said the pill would settle my nerves. I trusted him. Fuck knows why. He was always a crafty little sod. I reckon that whatever it was gave me a massive high. I’d never done drugs before and didn’t know how to deal with it.”
“What kind of friend was he to lie to you and force the drugs on you?” said Elena. “He was no friend to you.”
Though Mickey smiled he was surprised by the anger in Elena’s voice.
“Don’t be too hard on him,” he said. “Jonno’s heart was always in the right place. He may have had some strange ideas but he never intended to hurt anyone. He made a lot of mistakes – especially near the end. Like getting mixed up about when the old people were going on holiday. I blame myself though. I had less and less to do with him when he started dealing, especially after I started at university. So I wasn’t there to help him out when he screwed up.”
“You were not his keeper,” said Elena, she went to sque
eze Mickey’s hand then thought better of it. “Your friend was responsible for his actions, not you; even though you went along with him.”
Mickey spotted movement across the street. Jonno and the living Mickey were walking towards the bank. Jonno began to walk ahead, opening up a gap between himself and his friend.
“Why did you do this?” Elena was beginning to get irate. “Why did you try to rob a bank?”
Mickey finally understood what was bothering Elena. He could tell from the look on her face that she had been thinking hard, trying to understand things. It seemed that her conclusion was setting her against Mickey. He sighed and rubbed the top of his thigh. He moved back and leant against a shop front trying to take some weight off his injured leg.
“Well, you saw that we came away from the old people’s house empty handed. Obviously, The Polite Man, wasn’t very happy about this. So he gave Jonno’s cousin the job of working out how to get the money – all within three days.”
“So you become a gangster?” Elena said, making no attempt to hide the disgust in her voice.
“There must have been less risky ways of doing that,” said Pester, ignoring Elena’s dig at Mickey. “I’m sure Mr. Jolly would have been very influential in the cousin’s decision.”
“Now you mention it, I think you’re right,” said Mickey. “Jonno said that his cousin talked about a man with sunglasses who had helped to set things up.
Pester was nodding. “You were set up all right.”
Jonno had entered the bank by now and Mickey, the accomplice, was pretending to browse a shop window.
Pester continued. “You were never going to get away with this.”
“And after I failed?” What Pester had said all seemed to fit in with what had happened. As his existence was rapidly drawing to a close, Mickey wanted to make sure that his ending really was an end and not just a transformation into something vile and corrupt via Mr. Jolly’s fiery cave entrances.
Pester was looking around him, searching for something. “You already know that. After you were removed Mr. Jolly had to get to you to persuade you to go with him.”
“To become one of those Wights?”
“No, I don’t think so,” said Pester. “They want you out of the way. You’d stay below forever.”
“I do not understand. What does all this mean?” said Elena.
“Mickey has to be persuaded that Mr. Jolly’s way is better for him than mine,” said Pester. He was still looking around. He finally stopped with grim satisfaction on his face.
“Ah, there he is,” he said, cutting off another question from Elena.
“Who?” said Mickey, looking around trying to spot whoever Pester had spotted.
“Our friend, Mr. Jolly,” Pester replied, pointing down the street and past the bank that the living Mickey had now entered.
A tram was running across the bottom of the street. When it had passed Mickey could clearly see a blonde haired man, wearing round sunglasses and an Afghan coat. Even from that distance there was no mistaking the identity of the man. Mickey laughed but the sound lacked any humour. He stared at where Mr. Jolly was watching the unfolding events. The buildings behind the man began to shimmer. They were becoming pale, colourless, fading from existence. Bare ground and dead stunted trees began to impose themselves on the scene. The city was beginning to disappear. As time drained away, reality, such as it was, was beginning to return.
A convoy of police vehicles and an ambulance made a hurried but silent entrance. Mickey vaguely remembered hearing sirens a few minutes ago before they had suddenly fallen silent. Police marksmen disembarked from one of the police vans and took up strategic positions in front of the bank.
“This can’t be right,” said Mickey. “We hung around inside the bank for ages before we did anything. The police have arrived almost as soon as we went inside.”
“Of course,” said Pester. “Mr. Jolly would have planned their arrival to make sure that you couldn’t possibly get away. He had to be certain that you would fail – fatally.”
Mickey seemed lost in thought. He looked at the bank, the policemen, the ambulance. He looked across at Mr. Jolly, then at Pester, then at the ambulance again.
“I still don’t get your part in all this, Pester.” Mickey stood square on to Pester, anger colouring his cheeks.
Pester seemed to know what Mickey was driving at. He sighed.
“We’ve already been through this. I was sent to make sure that you got across safely. The bad guys are always happier to break the rules that the good guys are. It had been decided that you couldn’t be kept alive over here. You had to die to stand a better chance of being saved.”
“Saved?” Mickey spat. “You call this being saved?”
“Haven’t you been listening to anything I’ve told you before?” There was the first hint of anger in Pester’s voice. “Without me you’d be fucked.”
I’m dead at twenty two, thought Mickey. How much more fucked can you get? He looked down the street. His anger shifted. Though he was still fuming at Pester the bulk of his ire had refocused on Mr. Jolly – not for the first time.
A crowd had formed to watch the entertainment. They were being pushed back by police officers to give the firing squad a clear field of fire. Above the heads of the crowd Mr. Jolly could still be seen. He seemed to be staring directly at where Mickey and his companions were standing. Mickey shuddered. Elena must have felt the same way because she shivered as well.
“He cannot see us can he?” she asked.
“No. You don’t need to worry,” Pester replied. “You’re just seeing him as he was a few days ago.”
The doors to the bank opened and two desperate young men emerged.
“I don’t need to see this part,” said Mickey. He quickly turned away and started to limp up the street. He could hear commands being shouted by the police. Then he heard the three gunshots. Though the physical link had been broken a couple of days ago, Mickey collapsed to the ground. The burning pain in his chest may well have been imagined but it was no less painful. Tears oozed through tightly clenched eyelids.
When he did open his eyes, Mickey saw that the bricks of the pedestrian street had disappeared. He was kneeling on bare ground, scattered with dry twigs and dead leaves. Mickey looked up. Pester and Elena were still there but his home city had completely disappeared.
The final stage of Mickey’s journey was about to begin.
Chapter 27
Mickey rolled off his knees and sat on the hard ground. He was trembling badly and didn’t trust his legs to hold him up. The phantom pain in his chest was waning, allowing the hot throbbing in his right thigh to re-assert itself.
“What happens now?” asked Mickey. His previous anger at Pester hadn’t entirely subsided. Mickey felt pretty pissed off that he was being used as a pawn in some kind of supernatural power game. He knew it wasn’t really Pester’s fault; he was only helping to move the pieces around, as instructed. But Pester was one of the visible faces of all this. So it was natural that Mickey should vent his anger on the one closest to him.
“We move on,” Pester replied. Seeing the annoyance on Mickey’s face he added, “I don’t know what lies ahead. The end of your journey could be over the next hill or it could still be a couple of days away. I doubt it’ll be much more than that. You’re up to date; you’ve had your last episode. Things feel as if they’re drawing to a close.”
Mickey accepted Pester’s answer without question. His guide hadn’t lied to him before, he’d just been evasive. Mickey had no reason to suspect that Pester was about to start lying now.
Mickey climbed to his feet. He looked around at where the city had been with a feeling that he’d seen the last of his old life. Everything now would be looking forward, not that there seemed to be a great deal to look forward to.
“Let’s get on with it then,” he said and started walking.
Keeping in step with Mickey’s slow pace, Pester and Elena followed.
; The clearing where Derby had stood was soon blocked from view by a forest of dead trees. Despite the lack of leaves, visibility was soon reduced to a hand full of yards in all directions. The going under foot became more difficult as the forest floor was littered with fallen twigs and branches. Each uneven step jarred on Mickey’s injury.
“What time is it?” Elena asked. They had been walking for about an hour.
“Judging by the sun I’d say it’s mid afternoon,” said Pester.
“No, I mean the real time,” Elena said. “We have gone from day time to night time and back again, just like that. I am confused. And I am hungry.”
“Well if you’re hungry, it must be lunchtime,” said Mickey, trying to lighten the tone. He limped to a fallen tree, happy for the chance to rest. Pester checked the contents of Elena’s bag.
“We’d need to light a fire for most of this food,” he said.
“Why can we not have a fire?” said Elena petulantly. “I want hot food.”
Mickey’s stomach rumbled in agreement.
“Aye, I’m sure you would – both of you,” Pester said. “But it’s too risky. This dead wood is tinder dry. It wouldn’t take much for all of this to go up in flames. Plus, even a small fire would create a lot of smoke and signal to Mr. Jolly where we are.”
“Ok. Cold food it is then,” said Mickey. He wanted to avoid the inevitable encounter with Mr. Jolly for as long as he could.
Lunch consisted of dry and leathery corned beef followed by peach slices with the worst of the rot cut off. Despite the poor quality of the food the three of them tucked in oblivious of the fact that this was the last food that any of them would eat.
When it was time to move on Mickey stood up but his leg gave way beneath him.
“Let me see your leg,” said Elena.
Mickey unwound the bandage. The fragrance of the poultice had done an excellent job. It had completely masked the necrosis that had set in around the wound.
Instead of looking concerned Elena seemed angry.
“Look at what has happened.”
