by Tim O'Rourke
Looking at the Elders one last time, I said, “You could only truly understand what I have said, if you each had a heart.”
There was a sudden noise and it filled the tiny underground station. I looked up to see a train roar out of the tunnel. The gust of wind it brought with it blew the Elders into a swirling cloud of ash that flew away into the darkness of the tunnel. The train slowed to a halt next to the platform. It wasn’t a steam train like my friends had boarded. It looked modern, with shiny steel sides, and it ran on electric.
“Hurry,” Noah said, pressing a button on the side of the train. Two doors slid apart. “The last of the cracks is closing.”
“Where will I get pushed to now?” I asked him.
“Somewhere nice, I hope,” he smiled, kissing me gently on the cheek. “You deserve some happiness.”
I stepped onto the train, then looked back at him. “Do you think my friends will ever remember – remember me?”
Before Noah had a chance to answer, the door slid shut. I looked at him through the carriage window. There were so many more questions I wanted to ask him. Who was he? What really was the station, and would I ever see him again? I felt there was so much more to learn – so much more for me to see.
The horn blasted and the train carriage rocked from side to side as it rolled out of the station. I dropped down onto the nearest seat. I suddenly felt very tired…
Epilogue
…the sound of the horn came again. This time it sounded different. Not like a shrill whistle of a train warning of its approach. It was shorter, sharper. I opened my eyes and swerved my battered old Mini out of the path of the oncoming car. The driver blasted the horn again as he raced past, throwing me an angry stare as he sped away up the winding country road. Avoiding a nearby ditch, I yanked on the steering wheel, then stomped on the brake. My tiny car came to a bone–rattling stop on the edge of a grass verge. My heart skipped in my chest and I took a deep breath. Where was I? When was I? I peered through the mud-splattered windscreen of my car and my heart raced faster too. I looked out across the rugged coastline and the small town that lay in a horseshoe shape in the distance. I had been here before. This is where it had all started for me. I glanced up at the road sign sticking out of the ground just a few feet from the nose of my car. “Welcome to the Ragged Cove. Please drive carefully,” it read.
I sat in my car and looked out across the cove. The last time I’d been here, the rain and wind had been battering my car. And although so much had happened to me and I’d learnt so much, it only felt like moments ago I’d been bouncing over the uneven country roads as I’d made my way down into the Ragged Cove for the very first time. But this time the sky wasn’t battered and bruised-looking with rain-filled clouds. and there was no howling wind. I inched down the car window and let the warm evening breeze caress my face. I could smell the sweet scent of honeysuckle and lavender. I looked again into the distance and down at the small town nestled amongst the jagged cliffs. Just like before, waves crashed against the shoreline, but the waves didn’t look black like pools of tar; they were a clear blue and inviting.
With my hands still gripping the steering wheel, I looked down at myself. Was I returning to the Ragged Cove to take up my post as a new police recruit again? Was I getting another chance? Another shot? I didn’t think so. It wasn’t only the weather that was different this time – I was dressed different. I wasn’t wearing my shiny new police uniform. I was wearing a white blouse, smart suit jacket, and a hip-hugging black skirt that stopped just above my knees. Gone were my boots and trainers. On my feet I wore small black heels. I was dressed like some kind of legal secretary. I pulled down the vanity mirror and looked at myself. My hair was thick and jet black, and my eyes sparkled a bright hazel, just like they always did. I pushed the vanity mirror back into place and it was then I noticed a brown coloured envelope on the passenger seat. I picked it up, pulling out the piece of folded paper that was tucked inside. It was a letter from what I guessed was some kind of temping agency. The letter was addressed to me. It gave clear instructions to attend a company named The Creeping Men. Here I was to be interviewed for the role as a secretary for the next two weeks until the vacancy was filled permanently. The letter was simply signed by someone called Ms. Lois Li. I had no idea who that was, and knew I had never come across someone with that name before. Did this Lois Li know me? She must if she had sent me to attend an interview. Hang on! What was I doing enrolled in a temping agency? Wasn’t I a police officer in this where and when? Where had Noah pushed me? Was it his decision where I got pushed to, or was it a random act like a spin of the wheel? Or was it fate?
I looked at the address of The Creeping Men, a faint smile tugging at the corner of my lips. Then, folding up the letter again, I slid it back into its envelope, placing it onto the passenger seat. Starting the car, the engine of my beat up old Mini spluttered into life and I headed once again down into the small coastal town named The Ragged Cove.
The narrow cobbled streets were no longer desolate like they had been before. This time they bristled with life. The townsfolk passed along the high street going about their normal lives. Some stopped to chat and pass the time of day, while others sat in the shade outside café’s and drank iced tea and lemonade in the warm summer evening breeze. The shops were open, and each of them thrived with activity. None of them were boarded up and closed like they had been the first time I had arrived in The Ragged Cove. That place had reeked with fear and desolation, and the people who had once lived there kept themselves to themselves as if petrified of their friends and neighbours. Unlike before, I didn’t need directions to where I was heading. I knew where to go. I had been there many times before.
I turned off the main high street and into a cobbled side road. The police station was where it had always been. But as I pulled up outside, I could see that it looked different – it looked as if it had been pushed. I killed the engine and climbed out. With my hands on my hips and standing in my heels, I looked up at what was once the police station. The blue police lamp was missing, but the grey stone steps and wide wooden front door were both still there. Above the door hung a faded and weather-beaten sign that read The Creeping Men.
Straightening my skirt and smarting down the front of my neat black suit jacket, I made my way up the stone steps and toward the door. The heels of my shoes made a clicking sound with each step I climbed. Why had I been sent here again and what would I find inside? My heart fluttered in the back of my throat, and I took a deep breath. I reached for the brass door handle, but before I’d had the chance to curl my fingers around it, the door burst open, knocking me back down the front steps and into the street.
Teetering on my heels – why was I wearing them – I’d never worn heels in my life – I looked up at the person storming down the steps.
“Sophie Harrison?” I gasped under my breath. What was she doing here?
Sophie stopped on the bottom step, and looking back at the door she screamed, “Jerk!”
Her long, blonde hair blew about her shoulders, and even though she looked angry, she was as stunningly beautiful as I knew her to be. No wonder Potter had…
“Who are you calling a jerk?” I heard someone say.
I glanced up to see Potter standing in the open doorway, cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth, shirt sleeves rolled to the elbows, black eyes as piercing as ever. I staggered backwards and off the kerb at his sudden appearance.
He glanced down at me, then paying me no mind, he looked back at Sophie.
“Where are you going?” he asked, blowing smoke from the corner of his mouth.
“As far away from you as possible!” she screeched. “I’ve had enough this time, Potter.”
“You said that last week,” Potter smirked.
“I mean it this time!” she hollered. Then yanking a ring from one of her fingers, she threw it at Potter. The ring bounced off his chest and lay twinkling halfway up the steps in the fading sunlight. “The engag
ement is off!”
Engagement! Potter and Sophie were engaged to be married in this where and when. But before I’d had a chance to even process that thought and my feelings about it, Sophie had spun around in a spray of thick, blonde curls and was skulking away up the street.
“Hey, Sophie…!” Potter called after her. Then, as if noticing me for the very first time, he scowled and said, “Who are you?”
Nervously straightening my skirt again over my hips, I said, “The temping agency sent me. I’m your new secretary for the next two weeks, but if now isn’t a good time, I can always come…”
“No, it’s fine,” Potter cut in.
I headed back up the steps. Halfway up, I stopped, bent down, and plucked up the ring. I could see that it was expensive. The array of diamonds flashed brightly. I placed it in the palm of my hand and offered it to Potter. He was watching Sophie disappear around the corner of the street. He glanced back at me then down at the ring. Without saying anything, he took it, sliding the ring into the pocket of his jeans. Turning his back on me, he made his way into what I had once known to be a police station. I followed him.
Closing the door behind me, I looked around the station – the office. It was similar to how I remembered it to be. There were a couple of desks, and both were piled high with clutter. I watched Potter go to one of the desks. With one swipe of his strong hands, he heaved a pile of paperwork into a nearby waste bin.
“Never was very good at filing,” he said, glancing back at me. “But now you’re here. You can keep an eye on all of that.”
“Is it just you working here?” I said, spying an upturned pipe on the other desk.
“There were others,” Potter said, grinding out the butt of his cigarette into an overflowing astray. He lit another cigarette at once.
“Where are these others now?” I asked, wondering if I might find more of my friends in this new world I now found myself in. I felt a sudden spark of excitement at the thought.
“They’ve gone away…” he started.
“Away?” I cut in.
“Yeah, away,” Potter said, his dark eyes watching me through the smoke that curled up from the end of the cigarette. I sensed he didn’t want to elaborate on where away might be, but I had a good idea where the others had gone.
I looked past him and into the narrow corridor where the hatch had once been – the hatch my friends had used to disappear back into the Hollows. “What’s back there?” I asked him.
With his eyes still fixed on me, Potter said, “Cells.”
“Cells?”
“Years ago this place used to be a police station, but not anymore,” he explained. “The cells and some other stuff are still here.”
“Why keep the cells?” I asked him.
“Sometimes they come in handy to sleep in,” Potter said, taking another drag on his cigarette.
“Don’t you have your own home…?” I wanted to know as much as possible about the Potter from this world. Was he anything like the one I had lost – was he the same one – just in a different where and when? But I knew I couldn’t ask too many questions at once.
“Yeah, I have a home,” Potter said, coming around the edge of the desk. He propped his butt against it, arms folded across his taut chest. It was like he was watching me. Summing me up somehow. “I take it you saw what happened outside?”
“Yes,” I nodded, glancing down and breaking his stare. I felt kind of embarrassed for him.
“Me and Sophie have…how can I put it?” he said, trying to find the right words. “A love and hate relationship. When she hates me, I sleep in the cells.”
“Will you be in the cells tonight?” I asked, glancing back up at him.
“It looks that way,” he said thoughtfully. Then, stepping away from the desk and shaking his head as if waking from a dream, he growled, “I don’t know why I’m telling you this, it’s not as if I know you or anything.”
I stood silently and watched Potter bury the smouldering cigarette butt in the ashtray on his desk. The urge to reach for him – just to touch him was suddenly overwhelming. The atmosphere in the room suddenly felt thick and oppressive. As if feeling it too, Potter glanced up at me and said, “I haven’t got time to stand chatting-shit with you, I’ve got work to do.”
“What is it you actually do?” I asked, watching him pluck a jacket from the back of a chair and head for the door.
“Investigate,” he said. Potter opened the door. “Come back tomorrow morning and I’ll show you around – tell you your duties. But it won’t be much. Just some admin work and tea and coffee making.”
“Is that all?” I asked, feeling disappointed and slightly resentful that I had been pushed into a new where and when to be a general dog’s body.
With a cock of his eyebrow, and holding the door half open, Potter looked at me and said, “Why, do you have any previous investigating experience?”
“Some,” I shrugged, matching his stare.
“Oh yeah, like what, hot-lips?” he said, stepping away from the door and heading slowly toward me. He looked me up and down and I knew what he was thinking. How could I know anything about investigating crime?
“I guess it all depends what sort of things you investigate,” I shot back.
Standing just an inch apart and my heart starting to race again, Potter looked at me. Dropping his voice to just a whisper, he said, “I investigate the crimes the police don’t want – the crimes they can’t explain. The kinda crimes that are considered unnatural.”
“Like what?” I whispered back.
“Do you believe in vampires? Werewolves? The undead?” he asked, his eyes never leaving mine. “Ever investigated anything like that?”
“No,” I said, with a slow shake of my head. What else could I say?
“I thought not,” Potter said with a wry smile.
I watched him turn away and head back toward the door. With his hand on the door handle, he stopped and looked back at me. “Haven’t you got anywhere else to go? You can’t stay here all night. Not unless you want to share a cell with me for the night.”
“No thanks,” I said, although the idea sounded suddenly like heaven.
Potter followed me out onto the top step, locking the door behind us. “So where are you planning on staying for the next two weeks?”
“I don’t know,” I shrugged. I didn’t know very much about anything it seemed. Did I still have my rented rooms in Havensfield? Was that my home? Even if it was, Havensfield was miles away and the journey to and from the Ragged Cove each day for the next two weeks would be way too long.
“Didn’t the agency arrange a place for you to stay?” he asked, heading down the steps behind me.
That was something else I didn’t know. “I think they just find me jobs, not a place to stay,” I told him. “Do you know of any decent places in town?”
“There’s a place just outside of town,” Potter said, poking another cigarette into the corner of his mouth and lighting it. “It’s called the Crescent Moon Inn.”
Now how did I know he was going to say that? Smiling to myself, I said, “Never heard of it. You couldn’t show me where it is, could you?”
“Sorry, hot-lips, you’re gonna have to find your own way, I’m too busy. Got a job on tonight, and I got to be there before full dark.”
Without saying another word, he turned his back on me and headed down the street, a trail of smoke lingering behind him.
“If you’re running late, I could give you a lift to wherever you need to go in return for showing me where this Crescent Moon Inn is,” I said, although I knew exactly how to find it.
Potter stopped dead in his tracks, as if contemplating what I’d just said. Slowly he turned to look at me.
“You just want to get your nose stuck into one of my investigations,” he said, looking at me.
I shrugged. “Couldn’t I help out just a bit?”
Potter headed back up the street toward me, drawing level with my car. “Oka
y, but you don’t touch anything. Say anything. Or do anything. You just stand back and watch. You might learn something.”
Turning, desperate to hide the smile that was now crawling across my face, I went to the car door. “Whatever you say.”
I climbed inside, leant across the passenger seat, and popped the lock for Potter. He swung the door open and got in. “What a piece of junk. You really drive around in this?”
He saw me watch him flick ash from the end of his cigarette into the foot well of my car. “This car might look like a piece of junk, but I’d be grateful if you don’t flick ash all over it. It’s been with me for what seems like years. It’s the only thing I’ve truly come to rely on.”
“Christ, your love life sounds as fucked up as mine,” he remarked, taking another long drag on his cigarette then flicking the butt out of the window.
“Who says I was talking about my love life?” I said, starting the engine and steering away from the kerb.
“Weren’t you?” he said, throwing me one of his cocky smiles.
I didn’t say anything.
“So what was this guy like?” Potter pushed.
“Very much like you, I guess,” I said, looking straight ahead.
“You don’t know me.”
“I see a lot,” I said. Then changing the subject, I added, “So, where are we heading?”
“Just follow the coastal road to the outskirts of town,” he said. “There’s a remote little place.”
“And what’s there?” I asked him.
“Someone’s been infected,” he said, a grim look falling over his face like a shadow.
“Infected by what?” I asked, glancing sideways at him, that sense of excitement at the chance of another mystery to be solved.
“You’ll see,” he said, as if not quite ready to share the dark secret that only he knew about.
Marry You by Bruno Mars started to play on the radio. “I love this song,” Potter smiled, messing with the dial, cranking the volume up.
