Felix Shill Deserves to Die

by Gareth Busson

  Debris was scattered all over what used to be a communal garden and in spite of the fire brigade’s best efforts, small fires still burned. I made my way over to the furthest edge of the enclosure where the remains of an overturned garbage bin lay. The blast had blown it against the railings and now it looked like a piece of giant liquorice that had been chewed up and spat out. Although the area around it had burnt out, one corner of the dumpster was still alight. It dripped liquefied plastic onto the black earth below.

  Kneeling down, I pretended to tie a shoelace. Then, after one last check over my shoulder, I pulled my passport out of my overnight bag and held it over the flame. The rest of my possessions I would ditch somewhere else, somewhere more conventional and a suitably safe distance away. The pages were quick to catch light and I watched as the visa stamps that I was once so proud to collect were steadily eaten away. Before the fire could reach my photograph, I dropped the little book and extinguished it with the toe of my boot. To anyone watching, I was simply putting out a cigarette, but to reinforce the illusion, I picked an imaginary piece of tobacco from my tongue.

  And there you have it. That’s how Felix Shill died in flight BH1612.

  It was the ultimate irony: I was officially dead to the world, yet I’d never felt more alive. Let the slavering masses have their water cooler anecdotes and low resolution, mobile phone bragging rites. The enlightenment surging within me was almost divine. Witnessing ground zero had stained the very grain of my soul. I felt unique. Chosen. What I wanted more than anything now was to acknowledge that. To give the euphoria I was feeling a form. Commemorate it. But how?

  I was so lost in thought that I forgot where I was for a second, and strolled straight up to a fireman seated in one of the engines and asked him for a cigarette. He leaned across the dashboard without hesitation and passed a pack down to me.

  It was the sweetest cigarette I ever tasted and I vowed to buy a pack at the earliest opportunity. Having wrestled with the habit for over ten years, it just seemed like a waste of energy to me now. To hell with the consequences, from here on in, my life was there to be enjoyed. Guilt free.

  After lighting one up himself, the fireman sat staring out of the cab. He looked shattered. White streaks on his face showed where tears had cleaned a path through the soot. The sight of him almost deflated my high.

  ‘That bad in there, is it?’ I asked.

  He nodded.

  ‘If it’s any consolation you should be proud of yourself, mate. I certainly wouldn’t have the balls to go in there.’

  With his eyes fixed dead ahead he exhaled a long breath. He mumbled something to himself.

  ‘What was that?’ I asked, looking up at him.

  ‘Hmm? Oh, nothing. You police?’

  I raised my eyebrows.

  ‘It’s all right,’ he said, ‘I’m just having one of those minutes, you know what I mean?’

  ‘Yeah, of course.’ I tried to look casual. Within the last five minutes I’d assaulted an innocent man and was now impersonating a police officer. Be very careful here, Felix.

  ‘I wasn’t expecting this one today,’ the fireman said, his voice sounding as broken as he looked. ‘The second you think you can handle this job, it gets you. You let your guard down for a second and it tears your fucking heart out.’

  ‘Did you manage to save many?’ I asked, innocently, attempting to bring the conversation around. I regretted the question instantly. It made me sound like some kid on a research assignment.

  ‘Some,’ the fireman replied, ‘but not enough. When the plane bottomed out, all the rooms on the first twelve floors of A-block were wiped out completely, so everything was ash by the time we got there. But you can deal with that – ashes don’t have expressions. It was the ones on the upper floors that did me. We had to climb over their bodies in the stairwells to get at the survivors.’

  ‘All those fucking kids,’ he mumbled.

  I heard the fireman’s voice fracture and he turned away. For a second I thought he was breaking down, but when he faced me again I saw he’d simply picked up his helmet and jacket. The next thing I knew his giant frame was standing next to me.

  ‘Well… you just go steady in there, right?’ I said, trying to sound brotherly.

  He held my look to show that he understood what I was trying to say. Then he slammed the door of the truck and was about to head off when I stopped him.

  ‘Listen, mate, before you crack on, can you do me a favour?’

  ‘If I can. What’s up?’

  I pointed to the cordon. ‘I need to get back to the station but I don’t want to go through that lot. Is there another way out of here?’

  ‘Yeah, there’s a side road over there called Ashby Street.’ He pointed away from the barricade. ‘It’s where the on-site ops centre is, so the access is pretty good. There’s still a crowd on the other side, but that road needs constant access so it’ll be a lot easier to move.’

  I said my thanks and as I watched him stride back into the building’s carcass I felt utterly humbled. Deep down I knew I’d never possessed the selflessness that was required to sacrifice myself for a complete stranger, and it embarrassed me.

  But surely this was the perfect opportunity to change. Wasn’t this a new start? A blank sheet of paper? A fresh chance do whatever I wanted? I could revisit all of those things that I’d missed out on and start a new life. A better life. I might be a doctor, a teacher or even something more creative. My options were limited only by my imagination and energy. It would be like being a teenager again, except this time I would have the confidence and maturity I lacked the first time around.

  I set off and mulled the possibilities over until I was distracted by the movement around Northampton Square, the small, but now hectic centrepiece of Ashby Street.

  The large brown building of the City University dominated the road. Queued outside were a row of unmarked and identical dark blue vans. One after the other they pulled up to the main entrance to be quickly loaded with a steady flow of different-sized brown boxes, carried by people dressed in disposable white overalls. No one spoke the whole time and as soon as one van was full, it drove around the square and disappeared, only to be replaced by the one behind. The process was frighteningly effective and seemed almost too efficient to have been improvised at such short notice.

  As I approached the front of the line, I heard the rasp of a handbrake. A man jumped out and right on cue, two men appeared carrying another large cardboard box.

  ‘What’s in there?’ I asked the driver as he held the rear doors open.

  ‘This one?’ He picked up his clipboard. ‘According to the paperwork, the remains of about thirty people – they think.’

  ‘Thirty? In there?’

  The driver nodded indifferently and then got back into the Transit. A second later the van looped around the top of the square and passed by the entrance I had just walked from.

  It was then that my eyes caught sight of a dark figure looking down from Goswell Road. I recognised him immediately: it was the policeman who had offered to help me earlier. So my little escape had not gone unnoticed after all. From the way that he was scanning the area, I knew he was searching for me.

  There was a split second before he panned in my direction, but by the time I grasped my predicament it was too late. I was rooted to the spot. He was just about to fix on my position when another van pulled up alongside, obscuring me from his view.

  I whined with relief.

  That’s it. Get the hell out of there.

  Continuing to use the vans as cover, I managed to make it to the end of Ashby Street before I heard raised voices behind me. I didn’t look back, and by the time any of the nearby policemen noticed, it was too late. I was already past them and submerged in the crowd of jackals that lingered on the other side of the street.

  Keeping low, I cut through the melee and attached myself to a small group that were walking away from the scene. They were an effective human shield, and for
a while it worked well. But when the group broke apart, a few hundred metres down the road, I was no longer able to remain inconspicuous.

  Feeling extremely vulnerable, I glanced around in an attempt to regain my bearings. It was then I spotted a little red shop across from where I was standing. A sign hung outside and as I read it, a grin crept over my face.

  Call off the search. The gesture, the one that I was so keen to make, that would commemorate this life changing experience forever, was found. A tattoo! I would stain my skin, irrevocably, in the same way that my soul had been. It was perfect.

  Twenty four hours ago I would’ve scoffed at the suggestion of committing myself to something as permanent. Now a tattoo felt like the most appropriate way of marking my newfound independence.

  According to the card in the window, the shop was not due to open for another couple of hours. I tried the door handle all the same. To my surprise, the door opened.

  What I stepped into felt more like a coven than a store, a dark scarlet haze covering everything. The only light in the room came from a corridor directly opposite. I craned my neck and saw that it ran through into a brightly lit area. Someone was home.

  ‘Hello?’ I called out hopefully.

  As I watched for movement in the distance, a girl leaned back on a chair in the nearby hallway and stared blankly back at me. Her heavily darkened eyes were wide open and a small red lamp lit up her crimson hair and pale face, making her look like some kind of succubus. The unexpected movement combined with her appearance made me physically jump.

  ‘Hello,’ she purred, and I could tell from the satisfied look on her face that she was pleased at having created such an impact.

  ‘Erm, hi. I was, ah, just wondering…’

  Just wondering what you were dissecting behind that wall.

  ‘Yes?’ she prompted.

  ‘Yeah, erm, I was wondering if you were open for business by any chance?’

  She stood up gracefully and glided into the store, flicking the lights on as she came. The halogen tubes sputtered on through their blood red casings, revealing Dracula’s bride in all her satanic majesty.

  Underneath her gothic makeup, I could see she was actually very pretty, though it was impossible to know if she had the figure to go with the looks, due to the many layers of black net and lace draped over her.

  ‘We don’t usually take sittings at this time of the day, sweetie,’ she said, ‘but with all this excitement on our own front doorstep the boys have come in early, so you might be in luck. Hold on here, I’ll go and ask them.’ Then she floated out towards the back room.

  Now the light was on I could see why the shop windows were painted out. I was in a veritable boutique of subversion. Dotted around the store were mannequins dressed in latex gimp suits and leather bridles, and the walls were lined with racks of shelves offering every type of fetish equipment imaginable (every type that I could imagine anyway).

  Now, I’m not au fait with this sort of thing. The closest I ever came was an ex-girlfriend who was into it - well, she was more of a one-night stand, if I’m honest. We met at a university party after she’d overheard I liked women that were into submission. What I’d meant was that I preferred girls who didn’t put up much of an objection, but she heard what she wanted to hear. It was only later, when she discovered I was still struggling to master the more traditional form of intercourse that it all went wrong. Still, in between her reassurances, we did have some interesting conversations, including one where she explained that fetishes usually stemmed from a person’s first ever sexual experience.

  I peeled a full-faced wrestling mask from one of the polystyrene heads and thought about what she had said. Perhaps I should be grateful that Bebe could never afford a television set for my bedroom when I was growing up. One ill-timed wank during Saturday afternoon’s World of Sport and I might’ve been a loyalty cardholder in a place like this.

  Nevertheless, I was determined there should be no boundaries in my new life. I would deny myself nothing. If I was curious to see what the view was like from inside the red and black mask, then why not go ahead and try it on?

  There was a mirror nearby and I was just admiring myself in it when Dracula’s bride appeared, making me jump yet again. I struggled for a few uncomfortable seconds before whipping the mask off.

  ‘Oh, don’t mind me, sweetie,’ she said, mischievously. ‘Have you experienced a Boston Crab in the bedroom before?’

  ‘No,’ I replied, fumbling to replace the mask, ‘the one’s I caught were from Nottingham.’

  She stifled a laugh and stood leaning against the doorway.

  ‘You’re in luck,’ she said. ‘Normally they wouldn’t touch someone this early in the day, but Nathaniel’s bored so he says that he’ll do you.’

  ‘Superb.’

  ‘Yeah, maybe. Let’s just hope his DT’s have settled down. Do you know what you want?’

  I nodded. ‘I think so.’

  ‘Good, then we won’t be needing these then, will we?’ She fondly patted two huge leather books that were lying closed on the counter. ‘Alright then, Hulk Hogan, follow me.’

  We walked through a corridor that doubled as a small waiting area and into the bright operation room. There were small needle-gun buckets scattered around the cluttered surfaces, but in spite of the disinfectant they contained, there was an underlying reek of stale sweat in the air. It was as though the white tiles on the wall had been grouted with Stilton.

  In each corner of the room there sat a smooth red surgical dentist chair, the arms of which had been converted to house ashtrays. Dracula’s bride pointed me in the direction of one.

  ‘Sit down a minute,’ she said. ‘He’s just finishing his fag.’

  ‘I’d rather stand if that’s alright.’

  ‘Fine, suit yourself.’ Then she walked over and pushed open a heavy fire door. I could hear people laughing outside, before she interrupted them.

  ‘Ready when you are, Nath,’ she said.

  The joking died down for a second and one of them growled back in acknowledgement.

  As she pushed the door to, some of the smoke drifted into the room. I recognised the sweet aroma immediately. It had been a long while since I’d smoked any grass and it smelt good. I made sure that I took in a lungful.

  ‘He’ll be with you in a second,’ she said, and walked out, presumably to continue with her dissection.

  The fire door was still slightly open and I could hear the conversation as it continued outside.

  ‘I tell you, I can spot ‘em a mile away,’ a man with a broad cockney accent was boasting. ‘I’ve been doing this so long it’s easy. It’s almost fucking boring.’

  I couldn’t tell what they were talking about, but from the reaction of the man’s peers, they were not convinced by his argument. I heard him fend off their scepticism, then the door opened and Nathaniel walked in.

  With his faded blue jeans, red vest and shaven head, his appearance might have been described as unimaginative had it not been for the multi-coloured skin that poured like lava from beneath his clothes.

  The moment he saw me he stopped. Then he began to smile and leaned back outside.

  ‘’Ere you go,’ he shouted out, pointing in my direction, ‘’ere’s a fucking case in point. If you don’t believe me, I’ll prove it to you.’

  Nathaniel had no piercings (that I could see anyway) but the same could not be said of his companions and, at his beckoning, two leather-clad pincushions sloped into the room. They propped themselves against a nearby work surface and all three looked at me as if I was a second-rate medical specimen. It was clear from their raised eyebrows and curled lips that they were not impressed with what they saw. After a few seconds Nathaniel moved forward and patted me on the shoulder.

  ‘Alright, my son,’ he said. ‘What you after?’

  ‘A tattoo,’ I replied.

  ‘Thought so, you don’t look like the Prince Albert type.’

  All three of them guffawed.


  ‘So you’re after some artwork, are ya?’ he said, ‘I tell you what, it just so ‘appens that today might be your lucky day.’

  ‘Oh, why’s that?’

  ‘I’ve been at this game for over thirty years, but these two,’ he waved a thumb at the pincushions, ‘these two are doubting my expertise. So I’m gonna prove it to them. I’ll do you a deal. You want some work doing, and as long as it ain’t too large you can ‘ave it for naffin’. ‘Ow’s that grab you?’

  ‘And the catch?’

  ‘No catch,’ Nathaniel replied, but then he stopped and thought about it. ‘Actually, you’re right, we’d better had make a catch, hadn’t we? Alright, the deal is this; I have one attempt and if I can’t guess what type of artwork you want – type, mind,’ and he waved a finger for emphasis, ‘then you can ‘ave it for free.’

  ‘But if you can guess what I want?’

  ‘Then you pay me twice the asking price.’ Nathaniel said, grinning like the owner of a circus sideshow.

  I thought about it for a few seconds and then shrugged off my jacket.

  ‘OK,’ I said, ‘you’re on. Now let’s hear it. What do you think I want doing then?’

  Their smirks broadened and Nathaniel began to pace the room in excitement. His audience watched as he moved from side to side, observing his subject from every angle. Only when the tension had built to a suitable level did he stop moving.

  ‘Right,’ he said, looking at me out of the corner of his eye, ‘it’s got to be…a name.’

  I smiled playfully. ‘Come on, that could mean anything. You’ve got to be a bit more specific if you want me to pay up.’

  ‘Alright, alright, I ‘aven’t finished yet, have I?’

  He stroked the silver stubble on his chin a little longer and then clapped his hands together triumphantly.

  ’Right, it’s either the name of your wife,’ he said, glancing down at my wedding ring, ‘or… your kids.’ Then he folded the masterpieces that were attached to his shoulders and looked confidently across at me.