Laughing and angry at the same time, the man with the hat cruelly prodded my screaming brother down the corridor until his legs splayed and he collapsed to the floor.
“Stop playing around and get him in here,” yelled the long-haired man. My brother called one last time and I cried out. I tried to run toward him. But the metal door slammed down, separating us for the final time. I stared at the dull, grey reflection and on the other side I could hear him trying to break free. Smashing against the walls. The two men yelled again.
And then that clang.
Silence.
Then I heard my brother kick again.
“Ah, can’t you do anything right?” a voice bellowed.
Then another clang.
Silence.
This time it remained so, then… the sound of the men laughing.
I was the only one left in the corridor. No one behind me.
The man with the cap walked along the gangplank. I wanted to run but had seen how pointless that was. He walked toward me with only a metal stick in his hand and indifference in his eyes. He raised the prod and brought it down on my left leg. A jolt surged through my body. My flesh pulsated with the electrical charge. The power forced me forward toward the metal door, which now opened again. My brother wasn’t in there. No one was in there. Just shadows.
The man with the cap smashed the prod into my back one last time. The agony was immense. My body smashed against the wall, like my brother before me, the shadows enveloped me and for the first time I was on the other side of the metal door when it slammed down.
I shivered.
Then the long-haired man’s large hand grabbed my ears and brought a pistol to meet my forehead.
He pulled the trigger.
The hiss roared in my ears as the bolt ripped through the pistol’s chamber and penetrated my skull, driving into my brain. I kicked, like my brother before me, and smashed against the walls.
“Jeez! Two in a row?” the man with the cap laughed. “You’re garbage at this!”
“Screw it. He’s dead enough.” Spat the long-haired man, now with a hook in his hand, and in one movement he brought the sharp end down into my ankle and clean through the other side. The blood was pouring out of my foot as he connected the hook to a conveyor rod attached to the ceiling.
Hanging upside down, the blood raced down my body to my head. The long-haired man now had a large knife in his hand. My pleading had ceased long ago.
“This is the last cow. You skin him after this, okay?” said the long-haired man.
“Sure. You’re doing a crap job of everything today anyway,” replied the man with the cap.
The knife came to my throat and sliced across it. My blood cascaded onto the floor.
The man with the cap brought his own knife and plunged it into my back, cutting across it. I felt the skin being ripped off my body and the cold on my internal organs. The blood continued to pour from my neck.
Before you die, it’s surprising how much you can remember.
The Biggest Fear
by Shirley Day
My biggest fear is death. I know – yawn yawn. But see, it’s not the point of death: the pain, or the surprise, or predictability of it all. No. It’s the possibility of some friggin great big family reunion, that’s what does my head in. The fear kicked in when we moved to Norfolk – the Broads. Eels, water and sky, that about sums it up.
Mum bought us these life jackets so’s if we fell in the vest would push us face up. The woman next door told her about them. For years I kept trying to remember her face, the woman next door. But even right after it all happened, after I was trying to piece it together, the woman next door never really seemed to have a face.
I do remember her voice though, cigarettes and gravel, that kind of voice. It was her that told us about the lake with the dead kids, and how way-back-when they used to throw stillborns in the broad by our house. Only sometimes it wasn’t just the dead ones. Sometimes it was the crippled kids, the ones who had something wrong. Stones in their pockets, hands and legs bound, and in they’d go.
I didn’t like the stories. Clarrie, my twin, she was the adventurous one. She was different than me. Not to look at, we were identical. But I think that identical bit’s only skin deep. She was more intelligent too. You have to remember we were only nine, so it’s difficult to know how it would have all panned out, and I’ve got a lot more savvy since then. But she could do her times tables any which way she liked. Me, I could only do five and ten, but I had that twiny thing. You know, the twin sense. I could get inside her head. So sometimes I’d kind of borrow information.
The disaster happened maybe a week after we moved in. That’s death for you. People like to think it gives three knocks, or waddles in and plays chess. People like the idea of getting some kind of warning. But death is like a massive industrial hoover. One minute you’re sitting down to breakfast with some woman from next door that no one can quite remember, next minute you’re out of the game.
It was the year of the eclipse; seems portentous writing it like that: the year of the eclipse. But I don’t think there was a direct link with the eclipse and our disaster. Dad made us these things to put over our eyes, like glasses. We weren’t supposed to look at the sun, not even when the moon was over it, unless we were wearing the glasses.
I have to say, it was odd. The birds, well they shut right up, and everything started to go grey. The old lady from next door came out. Dad took a photo of all of us standing there by the water, smiling. It was all happy holidays. Then suddenly it starts to go dark. Mum shouts, “Glasses on”, and we all obey. It gets darker and darker and darker, till it’s done – no more day. Only my glasses, they must have been nicked underneath – they kept pinching my nose.
Now one thing I hate is damaged stuff, so let’s just say the glasses, they kind of pissed me off. I had this niggling thought that maybe Dad, he’d known about it, and had given the good ones to Clarrie. Identical twins don’t get identical treatment. So I took the glasses off and tried to straighten them up, and as I did I looked around and there’s the old woman looking up straight into the sky, no glasses and smiling. So I look up too. No glasses. And in that instance out comes the bloody sun, straight down into my retinas. I can still smell my eyeballs burning.
I didn’t need my twin sense to tell me all the doctors thought one eye was fucked. They gave me an eye patch and promised specialists, but in the end it never came to that.
Initially, Mum was over-cautious. But there was stuff that needed doing. We were still unpacking, and the world of the living has a knack of wallpapering over catastrophe. So Clarrie and me, we put our life jackets on and went back down to the broad. Clarrie had this plan. She said how Jesus rose from the dead right after an eclipse, so what about those dead kids? Maybe they’d fancy a little outing.
So she stands there at the water’s edge, eyes shut and swaying, chanting some weirdo rubbish like, “Children of the dead, we are your friends, come out to play.” And me, I’m supposed to sprinkle rose petals over the surface. So I step forward slowly, because of the eels and the fact that I can’t really see the bank below me on account of my dodgy eye – which, remember, I’m really not happy about ‘cus I don’t like damaged stuff. I lean out over the water and drop the rose petals over the surface. It’s all done. No dead kids are rising, and the rose petals have been dispersed. Result, I’m thinking to myself as I straighten up.
I didn’t see the little stone step ‘cus of my eye, missed my footing and down into the water I went, way down despite the jacket. The whole damn vest thing got caught on some underwater root. So I’m struggling away, and it’s cold, and I can see Clarrie on the bank above me, and I’m down there with the dead kids and the mud and the eels and the cold and the one defunct retina, and suddenly it just stops. My little heart, it just gives out. I stop struggling.
Straight off, the life jacket comes unhooked, and my lifeless body goes floating back to the surface through a combination o
f laws of physics and state-of-the-art life vest technology. Not one ounce of personal volition in the mix. It only took a fraction of a second for me to realize I had no intention of staying down there with the eels, and the dark, and the dead kids. I knew how to get inside Clarrie’s head. You remember the times table? Only I must have done it with more force than usual ‘cus suddenly her little body falls to the floor. This is a whole different ball game now. I’m not looking for multiplication tables. I’m in her head one hundred per cent, and if you know anything about percentages, you know that’s not leaving her any room.
I stayed where I was for a year or so, but to be honest having to look at Clarrie’s face in the mirror every morning wasn’t a whole heap of laughs. I found a nice counsellor, ever so pretty. I body swapped her for a few months. “Swaps” a bit misleading I guess, because the people you jump, they don’t exactly have a say in the matter, and they kind of end up with the bum deal – well they’re kind of dead.
Anyway, the counsellor didn’t work out. Suddenly I’m a nine-year-old, living in the body of this hyper-efficient young woman. I mean I have all the information, the knowledge about her job and her family. All that crap, it’s all in there. But it takes bloody ages to pull it all out. I made some major cock ups before I vacated. I picked age appropriate hosts after that. Usually one a year, though sometimes I’d go for a winter and a summer body. The learning curve’s sharp, but I’ve grown to enjoy the challenge.
The transfer doesn’t always work. I’m not a fan of defibrillators. It can be bloody awkward when the vacated body gets brought back to life and you have to crawl back into your old husk, pretending like nothing happened.
Dad died about ten years after we did – me and Clarrie. Because of course once I was in that counsellor’s body, me and Clarrie, well, we were history. Mum struggled on. I didn’t keep in touch. She was eight-six when she finally pegged it. She’d been in a hospice for a few weeks and I did something I’ve never done before. I took an ugly body, some Moaning Martyr charity worker. My God you should have seen the shoes! Anyway, beggars can’t be choosers; no one else was exactly breaking down doors to visit Mum.
I got Mum talking about the Broads, and the lake with the dead children. She found the old photo: me and Clarrie, my dad and mum and the woman next door. Only you couldn’t really make out the woman’s face. You see, that’s what happens when you’re half dead. People never remember your face properly. Mum said Mrs Porter, our neighbour, would have understood the tragedy – she had a twin die too. Though no one in the village had been able to remember the twin, or Mrs Porter, or how long she’d been living on the Broad.
When Mum went, I dumped the charity worker without leaving the building. It was a relief to get out of those old tights and bunions. I found a lovely young journalist in the waiting room. She’s pretty, with thick blonde hair and a bit of an eBay habit. We all have our faults.
When we got to the Broads, Mrs Porter was still there. She remembered me straight off. It could have all gone differently; me and her, we were the only two of our kind, far as I know. Only, Mrs Porter, she wasn’t keen on my style. She said once is an accident, that’s excusable, but to use human beings as a life-style wardrobe…
I told her to call in the UN if she felt like it. I told her I never grieved for Clarrie. In a way it had all worked out well because, of course, my eye had been messed up and I don’t like a damaged body, never have. I think if she had more energy she would have tried to jump me. But she knew she didn’t stand a chance. I’d imagined there was gonna be tea and conversation, the swapping of personal anecdotes, but like I said, she wasn’t keen on my style, and I wasn’t a fan of her oh-so-superior attitude.
To be honest, I can’t even remember how many people I’ve jumped. I’m good. I’ve died most ways imaginable – hence my nonchalance about the actual “death event.” I tend to avoid drugs; they can cloud your judgment. There’s a strong chance you’ll pass out before you get to change. Most other methods are fair game. But you see there is always the possibility that death will creep up on me. Some great articulated lorry heading up the backside of my Fiat Panda. Even I wouldn’t be able to argue with that. Once I’m out of the game, I’m out. So yes, I fear death because if there is some great big “family” reunion malarkey, I’m not relishing the thought of all that explaining.
When I left that day, I put the old lady out of her misery; put bricks in her pockets and dumped her into the Broad. Like they did years ago. Only this time she’d be staying under. See, she was the only evidence, the only one who knew.
At the moment I’m happy, but no doubt my young journalist host had her mobile bleeping out satellite co-ordinates. They could easily have caught me wheeling old Mrs Porter across the grass in the wheelbarrow, and tipping the old goat feet first down to the bottom. No life vest. So if someone did see me, all I’m saying is… maybe I’ll be looking for a place to stay. Maybe I’ll come visit. I’m no real trouble. To be honest, you won’t even know I’m there.
The Cyclist
by Richie Brown
There is too much sky above the Lincolnshire Fens and the uninterrupted horizon sprawls without end. The dreary flatness of the treeless land is relieved but little by the roads, which run on banks higher than the black fields, sometimes alongside wide, deep drainage ditches, the lumbering clouds chasing their clumsy shadows across the empty distance.
Merle drives her little red car on such a Fenland road that seems to run forever, into nowhere, wishing the featureless miles away and the day gone. She loathes these duty visits to Uncle Stanley, shared out exactly and grudgingly between herself and her sisters. It is madness for him to be living out here alone, at such an age, but he will not move and from a vinegared sense of duty, the three sisters each make their reluctant and separate visits.
“The old bastard,” says Merle, but does not hear herself because Merle does not use such language.
When will she get there? The dashboard clock is broken, so Merle looks at her wristwatch, shaking it down her arm a little so she can see it beyond the cuff of her jacket. She still has an hour of driving she reckons, and looks up and there is a cyclist almost in front of her. Merle swerves but even so almost catches him with the passenger side of the car. She drives on, her heart beating furiously, glancing into the rear-view mirror. The cyclist has toppled onto the grass verge but is getting up and retrieving his bicycle.
“Prick,” says Merle, but again does not hear, as that word, in that sense, is not in Merle’s lexicon. She smiles vindictively; the smile fades: he might have scratched her little red car! Cyclists are so irresponsible, and a complete hazard to responsible and considerate road-users. Such as herself.
In the rear-view mirror, the cyclist is a dwindling patch of neon-yellow, tiny now. Good riddance, thinks Merle.
Merle forgets the incident, content to dwell upon her dull errand, the lack of gratitude the old man will show her, not that she does this for gratitude, and the emptiness of the scenery.
Some miles on, she stops at a level crossing, one of many on the roads of this flat landscape, as the warning lights flash and the barriers drop. A goods train approaches, immensely long, and Merle drums her fingers on the steering wheel as the train crawls towards the crossing and rattles by interminably.
In the rear-view mirror, something snags Merle’s eye. Way back, a long way back, a tiny flash of yellow. Merle peers and squints. Is that the same cyclist?
No, almost certainly not, as he must be far behind by now. It must be another cyclist, but has she passed another? No, she has not, because Merle is a very observant driver.
It is the same cyclist, she is sure.
Merle fidgets in her seat. Although it had been the cyclist’s fault she almost hit him, she doubts he will see it like that – they seldom do – so it is best to avoid any potential unpleasantness. How much longer will the train take to pass? She watches the mirror. The cyclist seems to be moving very fast, but it is so difficult to judge as the
flat landscape offers little perspective against which to judge speed or distance.
“Come on,” she mutters, unconsciously tapping the accelerator. The train passes by and slowly the barriers raise, and the road is open. Merle pulls away more sharply than she might, pleased to see that the cyclist is still some distance back.
Yet riding very fast, she thinks.
Merle drives on, flicking her eyes to the rear-view mirror more often now. The cyclist does not seem to be gaining on her, but is surely keeping pace. Is that possible? She is travelling at 45 miles per hour, which she deems safe for these Fenland roads. The roads are generally straight but sometimes have bends that take drivers by surprise, and the drainage channels alongside the roads are very deep. Yet, so she might get to dear Uncle Stanley in good time, she puts her foot down, just a little.
Merle concentrates hard upon the road and the driving, edging her speed to 55. She is uncomfortable at such a pace on these roads, leaning forward slightly, gripping the wheel tightly, unwilling to take her eyes from the road to check the rear-view mirror, but at last she does, she has to, and moans a little, for the cyclist is nearer, still a distance off but closer than he was just minutes ago.
Merle presses the accelerator and the little car picks up speed, rattling and shaking as it increases to 65. She never drives this fast, not even on a motorway, and is frightened at how unsteady the car is, how even the slightest movement of the steering wheel is exaggerated at this speed. She grips the wheel in her thin fingers, not daring to look at what is behind, concentrating upon the road as the little red car races on because it is dangerous to drive at this speed but she must look in the mirror, cannot help it, and he is closer again and before her eyes snap back to the road she sees that his legs are blurs, they move so fast, and how can that even be?
Twisted 50 Volume 1 Page 20
