by Fred Crawley
She crossed the road just before the bridge and walked towards one of the new gyms that had been built there. It was a glass fronted building which meant he could see right inside where men and women were lifting weights and using the running machines. For a moment he thought she was going to go inside and he wondered what she could possibly want to show him there. Maybe she was trying to tell him that he needed to get in shape if he was going to take on the ghouls but that seemed unlikely.
The dark haired woman didn’t go into the gym. She stopped outside and lit another cigarette while a middle-aged couple in shorts and t-shirts frowned at her. Nathan considered telling them off, but he didn’t want to draw attention to either himself or her. She carried on walking and he followed.
There were two pubs at the bottom of the road, smokers standing outside both. The dark haired woman glanced into the first, but she didn’t slow down enough for Nathan to worry that she might go inside.
She turned right at the end of the road and up the hill, over another bridge and past the block of flats on the corner. For a moment Nathan thought that she was going to circle around and go back towards the town centre, but then she crossed the road and turned left, past the Lyndhurst pub and towards the college.
The dark haired woman raised an arm and reached back to rub her neck. She was wearing her hair tied up so he could see the soft white skin there. He wondered what it felt like, what her fingers felt like and then he shook the thought away. She was trying to help him, this wasn’t a romantic encounter.
She crossed the road again and Nathan followed. In the middle of the busy junction, there was a patch of wasteland beside the river and three benches, a dilapidated children’s playground and a brand new block of flats. The wasteland would, no doubt, be redeveloped soon and perhaps the children’s playground would be replaced.
Nathan stopped and watched her walk to the front door. This must have been where she lived but why was she showing it to him? It didn’t seem like the sort of place that suited her.
He couldn’t follow her inside so he stepped back. There was a loud beeping and yellow lights flashed on and off. He stepped forward out of the road, but he was far enough back that he could see the side of the building all the way to the top.
The woman with the dark hair went inside and the door closed behind her. For a moment, she was gone and he knew that there was a chance she might not reappear on this side of the white building. There were open walkways that led to the front doors on each level, but her door might be on the other side.
Nathan shook his head and sniffed. He waited, knowing that there was a reason she had walked home the way she had. She had wanted him to stand on this side of the building so that he could see which door she went into. He still could not understand why she had led him to her home, but he found it easy to trust her.
It took more than five minutes for her to reappear and then he only saw the top of her head. Her ponytail flapped up and down as she walked along a balcony about halfway up (he counted the fifth floor) the building. She walked to her front door (three along) and stopped. Nathan’s breath caught in his throat and then she was gone from sight.
He stood there for a while longer in case she came back out again but this appeared to be everything she intended to show him that evening. It was dark, but the steady rush of traffic made him feel safe. He needed time to recover his strength before he could turn around and walk back to the warehouse.
Eventually, the traffic began to thin and in the distance he heard a siren. He was quite close to the hospital so he assumed it was just an ambulance, but it was enough to remind him of the precarious position he was in, standing at the side of the road where anyone could drive past and see him. Nathan turned away from the block of flats and began to hobble home.
CHAPTER 23
NATHAN WOKE WITH A START. THE WAREHOUSE WAS filled with thin daylight. It was silent except for the collective breathing of a hundred people. He seemed to be the only one awake. His skin was slick with sweat, but it immediately began to cool. He had been dreaming about them again. Lately, he found that he couldn’t even close his eyes without seeing the dreadful, almost human faces of the ghouls looking back at him.
He stood up stiffly and stretched out his bad leg. He no longer had to wear a bandage, but it still hurt when it got too cold or too warm. He touched a finger to it outside his trousers and the pain shook the last of the sleepy feeling away.
The man sleeping to his right grunted but he didn’t wake up. He rolled onto his back and snored at the ceiling, an empty bottle of something stood beside his head.
Nathan stumbled away from his sleeping bag. While he waited for the blood to come back into his leg (he imagined it flowing down now that he was standing) he dragged it along behind him like a dead thing. It rubbed on the concrete floor but the people around him weren’t likely to woken by the noise.
He stopped at the door at the end of the warehouse. He could see the spiral staircase that would take him back up to the street. Nathan stretched and heard his bones and joints click. It felt as if he hadn’t slept in a bed for months, but his body still remembered and expected it.
When he reached the door to the warehouse, he expected to find them waiting for him. They would be in the long grass, watching him with their beady eyes. He stopped at the threshold and waited, but nothing happened.
The sky was already a very faint blue colour. There were no clouds, but the vapour trail from an airplane cut the world in two from horizon to horizon. He stood there for a moment enjoying the cool, windless air against his face. He shivered as the last of the night sweat dried and closed his eyes.
“Trouble sleeping?”
Nathan turned and saw Courtney standing behind him. He was leaning against the doorframe but seemed to be standing straight. For a moment, it looked as if the warehouse was leaning against him. His eyes were red.
“Yeah,” Nathan said. He had seen Courtney a few times since the night of his arrival in the warehouse, but they had rarely had a chance to talk.
“Garrett told me what happened to you,” Courtney said.
Nathan nodded. He hadn’t expected Garrett to keep it a secret.
“Sounds like a shit load of bad luck,” Courtney said.
“Yeah,” Nathan said.
“You want to tell me what really happened?” Courtney said.
“I didn’t do it,” Nathan said, his first and only thought was that Courtney didn’t believe he was innocent and he couldn’t stand anyone thinking that he was a murderer.
“I know you didn’t son, I’ve seen murderers and you ain’t one.”
“What do you--“
Courtney closed his eyes and cut Nathan off as well as speaking would have done. When he opened them again, the redness seemed to have faded and he looked almost sober. He had never sounded anything but. “Our friend Garrett seems to think that someone else killed your friends.”
“They did,” Nathan said.
Courtney moved his head a fraction of an inch, but the meaning of the subtle shake was clear. “Do you still see them?” he said.
“Who?” Nathan said.
“Them things,” Courtney said. His sandpaper tongue licked his lips. “Like people but with their faces all messed up.”
It took a long moment for the words he was hearing to reach his brain and penetrate far enough for him to accept what he was hearing. Courtney knew about the ghouls.
Courtney smiled. His teeth were little grey stones. “Don’t worry,” he said. “I ain’t gonna tell no one but take a word of advice from an old man. Your old life’s over now.” He shook his head. “You won’t prove shit to no one if that’s what you’ve got in your mind to do. You want to forget about what you had and think about what you’ve still got.”
Nathan nodded, but the words barely penetrated. He was still stuck on the idea that Courtney knew about the ghouls. After a few minutes, Courtney turned without a word and disappeared back into the darkness of the ware
house.
Nathan turned back to look at the long path that led back to the road. He looked up at the sky and saw the last fading clouds of vapour. It was early, but he didn’t think he would be able to sleep. Eventually, he turned away and followed Courtney inside.
Nathan lay on top of his sleeping bag and stared at the distant ceiling. He couldn’t get the conversation with Courtney out of his mind and every time he closed his eyes he saw them again. He thought about going to speak to Courtney, but something made him hold back. But the need to speak to someone persisted and by the time it finally got dark he had made up his mind that he needed to talk to Dr. Romero.
He stood up and left the warehouse. It seemed to be peak time for doing so because he blended into the back of another group as they climbed the spiral staircase. They weren’t talking much which suited him and they didn’t turn around and see him as they walked along the dusty path that led to the main road.
The group broke up when they reached the town centre. It was Friday night so they were taking up positions around the local clubs in the hope that people weighed down with pockets full of change would flip them a coin or two just for looking pathetic. Based on Nathan’s experience it was a plan that would pay off, but he had other things that he needed to do.
He crossed the road and walked past the Salvation Army. There was a group of men leaning against the wall, smoking and drinking from cans. They barely looked at him.
It was strange that the ghouls had been on his mind so much that day and yet he hadn’t really expected to encounter them. Even though he knew that they were real, it seemed, that a part of his mind was still treating them like a bad dream. But the ghoul’s were no dream.
Two of them were standing at the end of the underpass: a taller one and a shorter one. Perhaps the man and the woman that he had seen first on his way home on the night that he had stayed with Gwen. It seemed right that it would be them, a circle completing itself.
He stopped, but they didn’t come towards him. Nathan turned around and expected to see more on the other side of the underpass, but the coast was clear. He retraced his steps and felt no worse for avoiding an encounter with them.
Without going through the underpass, the journey would take longer but he didn’t want to deal with the ghouls tonight. He knew that they were watching him, but as long as they kept out of his way that was fine. He couldn’t stop them watching him, no matter how hard he tried.
They were standing in the shadows cast by the trees along Castle Street. They were hiding behind cars and vans on Enright Avenue. When he got to the park, he considered walking through it and cutting a few minutes off his journey but he knew that they would be waiting for him in there and, perhaps, away from the street, they would attack. His leg throbbed painfully at the mere thought that he might have to run. He didn’t think that he would be able to get away from them easily.
Nathan clutched the handle of the knife that had caused all of the pain in his leg. It was wrapped in a cloth, but he could get it out if he needed to. He didn’t want to fight but if the ghouls came for him again, it was the only option he had.
He avoided the park and crossed the road. Tall terrace houses stretched in either direction. The uniformly white fences and the expensive cars proved this was an expensive area.
He walked along the opposite side of the road with the park behind him. He could feel the beady little eyes watching him, but he resisted the temptation to turn around and see the ghouls for himself. He had seen them plenty of times, if it was up to him, he would never see them again.
Nathan stopped opposite number four, but the house was dark. He watched it for a moment as if hope could make the doctor be at home. Nothing changed, but there was something familiar about the stillness. Either side of number four he could see lights on. In one house, there was the flickering light of a television, in the other the steady rumble of music.
He wondered what time it was. He thought he had waited long enough, but there was a chance he had miscalculated and that Dr. Romero was still at work. It felt late though and the idea had more than a touch of desperation about it. Perhaps then Dr. Romero was away. If he could afford to live on this street, then he could afford to take a holiday.
Something moved in the bushes behind him and he knew what it was before he turned around. He thought that he should run but he never seriously considered the idea. His hand went to the knife as the leafy shrubs parted and the hard lumpy face looked out at him.
The creature was filthy. Its long hair was matted into dreadlocks. It looked at him with dark eyes, but it couldn’t get to him over the black, iron gate.
Nathan stepped back and felt the car beneath him. It wobbled and the alarm pierced the night with a high pitched squeal.
The creature was gone so quickly that he wondered whether he had actually seen it at all, but he knew that he had. Nathan stood up sharply and stepped away from the car. Further down the street a front door opened and a man dressed in an expensive purple tracksuit came jogging across the road towards him.
“Get away from that!” he shouted.
Nathan was nowhere near the car now, but he stepped back anyway.
“If you’ve scratched it I’ll have you,” the man said but he didn’t elaborate on what that actually meant. The man was old, fat and bald, he didn’t look like he would want to fight.
The man reached the car and bent over to examine it in the street light as if it was a baby. He rubbed the paintwork and smoothed out imaginary scratches. Suddenly an idea occurred to Nathan.
“I’m looking for Dr. Romero,” he said.
The man didn’t look at him. He didn’t show any signs of having heard Nathan speak.
Nathan stepped closer to him. “Do you know Dr. Romero?” he said. “He lives at number four.”
The man ignored him but stood up looking satisfied that there had been no damage done to his car. Then he turned away from Nathan as if he wasn’t there at all. For one dreadful moment Nathan wondered whether he was there, maybe he was the one who was a delusion.
His hand was on the knife before he realised what he was doing. He took it out and moved forwards without thinking. It was as if the months of frustration and fear had finally found an outlet.
He grabbed the man from behind and he stopped trying to walk away. Nathan pressed the blade of the knife against the man’s throat and then felt shocked at his own actions, unconscious though they had been.
The man raised his hands as if he had a gun aimed at his chest. “I don’t want any trouble,” he said.
“I’m looking for Dr. Romero,” Nathan said.
The man nodded, barely, the knife pressed into his throat and Nathan realised that he had no idea how sharp the blade was. It had been sharp enough to pierce the flesh and muscle of his leg but what would it do to a man’s neck?
“Do you know where he is?” Nathan said.
“No, no,” said the man. Nathan could feel his whole body shaking and wished that he would stop if his movements became too jerky it would be his own fault if the knife slit his throat. “I don’t know.”
“He lives at number four,” Nathan said, unwilling to believe that on a street such as this the neighbours didn’t know everything that happened to one another.
“I don’t know,” the man said. He was crying. “I only just moved here, I’m sorry.”
Nathan pressed the knife harder against the man’s throat. The man stiffened, his whole body seemed to become rigid. Evidently he thought that Nathan was about to kill him.
“Wait,” he said. “Please.”
Nathan reduced the pressure on his throat slightly.
The man was panting for breath. “You said he was a doctor?”
Nathan didn’t say anything, but he didn’t move the knife.
“M-maybe he’s still at work?” the man said. “Maybe you can find him there?”
Nathan shook his head, but he doubted the man noticed. A sudden realisation came to him. It couldn’t have
been a coincidence that the ghoul had been in the park behind him, opposite Dr. Romero’s house. It had been there for a reason.
“He’s dead...” Nathan said. The thought made it possible but the words on his cold lips seemed to make it true.
“What?” said the man. “I-- I don’t understand.”
Nathan took the knife away. He was no longer interested in the man with the expensive car.
The man stumbled forward, rubbing his neck but clearly worried that Nathan was going to do something else to him. He didn’t run back towards his house as might have been the sensible thing to do.
Nathan turned away and slipped the knife back into his pocket. It was difficult to believe that Dr. Romero was dead, but he did believe it. The ghouls must have found out that they were connected and come for him. It was the only thing that made sense. One by one it seemed as if they were killing off everyone in his life.
He limped along the street back the way he had come. The pain in his leg reasserted itself. He heard the man with the expensive car running across the road and back into his house where he would probably call the police. Nathan wondered if they would add Dr. Romero’s murder to his list of crimes.
He stopped at the corner. He didn’t feel like going back to the warehouse now. Something was watching him, but he didn’t need to turn around to know what it was. The ghouls were everywhere whether he could see them or not.
CHAPTER 24
NATHAN WAITED UNTIL EVERYONE ELSE WAS ASLEEP AND then he stood up. He didn’t know if he would be coming back, but he didn’t know where else he could go. There was something he needed to do before he decided, though.
He walked across the concrete floor. There was little enough light but during the weeks that he had called the warehouse home he had come to know it like one. He didn’t need to see to be able to navigate the sleeping bodies and pieces of heavy machinery that littered the floor.
