The Story Collection: Volume Two

by Matt Shaw

  “I can’t.”

  “You can. You’re already starting... just, you’re starting in the wrong places. Concentrate on last night.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Go back to the bar.”

  I’m in the bar. The pretty girl in the black dress is walking towards me, a smile on her face. I’d try to walk towards her but my legs still feel numb. I turned to Kayla who was stood next to me, “This is pointless.”

  “Where are your friends?” asked Kayla.

  I looked around - wasn’t long before I spotted them on the dance-floor, showing their appreciation for the tunes by throwing some weird ‘dance’ moves.

  “This is pointless,” I said again. “If you weren’t kidnapped...I wasn’t either... whoever put me in here...whoever it was...they don’t want me alive. I’m just a victim. Like you.”

  Kayla looked hurt by my words.

  “I wasn’t a victim,” she said. “I never gave them the satisfaction.”

  “Hi,” said the woman in black. “How’d you fancy buying me a drink?”

  “Excuse me a minute, would you...” I said to the figment of my memory.

  I took Kayla back into the darkness of the hot, sweaty box.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  “Why are you doing this?” I asked Kayla.

  “Doing what?”

  “Getting my hopes up. I’m dead already. My mind just hasn’t accepted it yet because you won’t let me.”

  “No, you’re not. And no, I won’t. I won’t let you give up.”

  “It’s prolonging the inevitable.”

  “You have to trust me. They’re coming.”

  “How are they? I might have believed that earlier - when I thought I was being held for ransom but...now... they probably don’t even know there’s a fucking problem...”

  I grabbed the night-club bar and steadied myself.

  “What’s wrong?” asked Kayla.

  “Dizzy.”

  “Time’s running out.”

  “Why am I back here? Just let me die...”

  “I won’t give up on you - even if you want to give up on yourself. I won’t let you.”

  “Are you okay?” came a voice from behind me.

  I span around and was confronted with the pretty girl in the black dress.

  “I think I might have drunk a bit too much,” I slurred.

  “I’ve got the perfect thing to help you,” she smiled. “Here....”

  She wrapped her dainty arm around my own arm and walked me across the crowded dance-floor towards the VIP area at the back of the club. It’s times like these I wish I were a pretty girl, who looked stunning in a black dress. She walked across the dance-floor and people seemed to clear a path for her. Even with me on her arm, these very same people seemed to enjoy shoulder barging me and getting in my way. One of the busiest night-clubs; not really a place to visit if you get claustrophobic easily.

  Better than a box, though. But only just.

  I turned around to see if Kayla was following but she was nowhere to be seen - neither were my dancing friends.

  I half-expected to be turned away at the VIP area, by the large burly bouncer, but he simply pulled the barrier across to grant us access.

  “Over here,” came a voice I recognised from the corner of the various booths.

  I turned in the voice’s direction and saw it belonged to my dad. He waved me over. As I approached the booth, he stood up to allow me the opportunity to sit down next to him - which I took. Wish I hadn’t. No sooner had I sat down, and he took his seat again, I felt trapped.

  “You’re worrying your mother,” he said.

  Stern voice.

  Great.

  Lecture time.

  “Your behaviour....”

  I feel drunk but am trying to act sober. The girl in the black dress has gone.

  “...you come home drunk most nights, if you come home at all. You’ve been getting more and more reckless since...”

  “Since you didn’t pick Kayla up,” I interrupted him.

  He didn’t say anything but I could tell my comment hit home. There was a slight pause before he pointed towards another booth. I followed his finger and saw my friends on the other table - with me sat between them... We were chopping up white powder into long, thin lines. My friend on the right of the table rolled up a bank note and snorted the first line up.

  I turned back to dad.

  “You’re killing your mother,” he said.

  I don’t need this. A lecture. Again.

  I turned away from my dad; back in my box.

  Alone.

  “Kayla?”

  She wasn’t there.

  I remember the talk now. Between my father and I. That memory, sadly unbroken. He sat with me, in my bedroom, telling me how I was upsetting my mum, and him, with my actions. Since Kayla had...gone...my behaviour had been getting more and more reckless. I wasn’t doing it on purpose, to upset them. I didn’t even realise that was what I was doing. Just...did it. Tried most alcoholic drinks...most...substances...to help me try and numb the pain of losing Kayla. I remember that talk, with dad, alright. Hurts me to think how much I’ve upset them. They had lost one child and felt as though they were losing another.

  And now look where I am.

  Stuck in a fucking hole.

  Jesus, how long have I been down here now? Can’t even taste the stale air anymore. I tried to turn onto my side. Not sure how long I’ve been here but... however long it is, my back feels numb. Can just about lay on my side. It’s not the most comfortable of positions but, even so, it’ll do for a bit - just until I get some feeling back into my back.

  “Was that your girlfriend?” asked mum.

  Didn’t realise she was in here with me now.

  “Who?” I asked - already feeling my cheeks start to flush. I hate these talks with my mum.

  “That pretty young girl you were with, in the night-club.”

  Not a real memory. I never told my mum about the girl I met in the night-club. I never had the chance. Mind you - had I made it back home... I probably still wouldn’t have mentioned her existence to my family. Maybe my sister...

  What am I talking about?

  She’s dead. My cruel imagination let me believe she were alive and well again. Stress of the situation, I guess.

  “What’s her name?” my mum asked for the dark shadows of my imagination.

  “I don’t know.”

  What was her name?

  I was sat opposite the pretty girl, back in the tight booths of the night-club’s VIP area. She was smiling at me, I was smiling back - have no idea why. Is this a real memory?

  “Well?” she asked.

  “Sure,” I said by reflex. I had no idea what she was referring to but my mind seemed happy enough to go along with it. Back in my box, I’m trying to remember if this actually happened or not. Was this a part of my birthday evening? The more I see the woman...the more familiar she’s becoming.

  She reached down between her cleavage and pulled a small clear bag from between her breasts. Two blue, round tablets. She opened the bag and tipped them into the palm of her hand.

  “One each,” she said, with a giggle.

  I took one of the pills from her open hand, leaving her to neck the one I left behind. We both swallowed at the same time. The first time I’ve tried Ecstasy; my friends and I normally choosing to go with cocaine, on a night out.... or marijuana if we were to be staying in.

  “Now what?” I slurred.

  “We wait....”

  “TODD! TODD!”

  Someone shouting my name. Loud music. Did I even hear them or did I sense them calling me?

  I turned in the direction of the voice.

  One of my friends, standing at the barrier which separated the VIP section from the rest of the club.

  “WHAT YOU DOING?!”

  Can barely hear him over the loud thumping bass of the music, even with his shouting. Regardless, I gestured over to the girl, I had
just met, who gave my friend a little wave. My friend gave me a thumbs up - I’m guessing for how pretty my new friend was - and disappeared back into the crowded dance-floor of the club’s main room.

  “Did you want to dance?” asked the girl.

  I nodded.

  “Your friends didn’t leave you,” said Kayla, back in the discomfort of my little box.

  “I wondered where you had gone,” I said to her after she pulled me from my memory.

  “Gave you the space you needed to help you remember.”

  Space.

  I need more than just metaphorical ‘space’.

  “You remember now? The girl...”

  “We were dancing.”

  “You were.”

  “My friends were with me.”

  Kayla nodded, “They never left you. Come on.... mum and dad are close.”

  “Why can’t you just tell me...”

  “I told you - you need to remember... you were dancing...”

  CHAPTER NINE

  I was dancing with the girl in the black dress. She certainly knew how to move. Tempted to ask if she dances professionally but I feared she’d take it the wrong way - probably end up worried that I’d think she’s a stripper, or something.

  My friend approached me and passed me a bottle of water. He shouted, “You need to keep hydrated!” I nodded and twisted the cap off the bottle before I took a sip from it.

  As soon as I put the lid back on the bottle, I stopped dancing; just froze to the spot. I wasn’t the only one to freeze either. Everyone in the club did - as though, for a second, time had stood still.

  “I remember,” I said. “I know who took me from the club....”

  “Who...”

  Back in the box.

  I remember the paramedics.

  The worried voices of my friends - calling out to me.

  I remember how desperate I was to answer them and yet I couldn’t respond.

  Couldn’t let them know I was okay.

  I remember the ambulance.

  Sirens wailing through the dead of the night.

  One of my best friends, sat in the back of the ambulance, frantically trying to make a call on his mobile; trying to call my mum. I wanted to tell him not to. I wanted to tell him everything was okay. I wanted to. But I couldn’t.

  Couldn’t answer anything.

  I even remember trying to sit up but, that too, proved impossible.

  After that - I remember waking up in this box...

  I turned to Kayla.

  “What happened?” I asked.

  I cast my mind back to being in the back of the ambulance again. One of the paramedics was fussing over me as the other drove the van back to the hospital, at some speed.

  Remembering more now...

  At the time, I was more concerned with trying to communicate with my friend - stop him from calling my mother and worrying her but I still managed to pick up bits and pieces of what the paramedic was saying; what he suspected had happened after my friends told him about the ecstasy I had taken...

  Hyponatremia.

  Something about drinking too much fluid. Not sure whether that was true or not - I was drinking anything and everything people passed to me. I remember him explaining, to my worried friend, that drinking too much fluid could cause the brain to swell and the person to slip in a coma....

  A coma...

  So that’s where I am now...

  The darkness.

  The box....

  My personal prison.

  My coma.

  “Mum and dad are waiting for you,” Kayla whispered from the darkness.

  If I’m in a coma then, I’m not in the box.

  I’m not here.

  I’m not trapped.

  I pushed, once more, on the lid and - this time - it lifted away from the box.

  Nothing on top.

  No dirt.

  No stones.

  No weight.

  Nothing.

  I sat up - grateful to be able to move freely again. The box had been dropped down a hole, which I still had to climb from, but I didn’t care. Looking up, I could see sky.

  Bright, blue sky.

  I could see....

  Mum and dad leaned into the hole.

  “Don’t you leave us,” my mum sobbed, “I can’t lose another....”

  My dad put his arm around her. He, too, was crying.

  “Mum? Dad?”

  Instantly I started to cry again; unable to control my emotions. I’m not free yet but it was so good to ‘see’ them.

  “Mum! Dad!” I reached up to them but they didn’t reach down for me. “Please - help me out of here! Please! I’m sorry! I’m sorry!”

  I pressed my hands against either side of the hole’s mud walls...

  “Please, wake up...please...” my mum wept.

  My left foot against the left hand wall....I lifted myself from the box by placing my right foot against the other side of the wall...

  “Don’t go anywhere! I’m coming! Please! I’m sorry! I love you!”

  One at a time, I carefully shifted my hands a little further up the wall.... when they felt secure, I move my feet up a little further too... Again, when I felt as though I was secure, and not about to fall back down into the box, I moved up the wall a little further - using the same method.

  Dad pulled mum away from the hole’s entrance so they were both out of sight. My heart sank but I was a little relieved I could hear my mum crying still. They were still there. They hadn’t gone anywhere.

  “I’m coming!” I shouted again - desperate for them to hear me.

  Finally at the top of the hole, I used my last bit of strength to pull myself clear from it - once and for all. Air had never tasted fresher. The sky had never seemed so clear and blue...so peaceful....so.....

  A gravestone - next to the hole where I was buried.

  Kayla

  In Loving Memory

  I shut my eyes.

  Don’t want to see it.

  Don’t want to acknowledge it.

  Why would my subconscious have put me there?

  Ignore it.

  I can’t ignore it.

  It happened.

  Need to deal with it.

  Need to learn to live with it.

  Accept it.

  “I’m sorry, Kayla,” I whispered as I desperately fought back yet more tears. “I’m sorry.”

  “Open your eyes,” she said. Her tone of voice was quiet... peaceful... Angelic, almost. “Open your eyes.”

  Slowly, I opened them.

  “Todd? Todd?” said mum. Her voice excited.

  “Son?” dad’s voice too. “Can you hear us?”

  Fuzzy outline of my parents and various pieces of hospital equipment. I tried to move but, so many cables...so many wires...I felt trapped. Tried to speak...tried to say sorry...but I couldn’t. Something in my mouth. A tube? My eye-sight cleared a little more - enough to see mum and dad smiling at me...enough to see, in the corner of the room and unseen by others, Kayla smiling at me.

  By the time a nurse rushed into the room, Kayla was gone.

  ~ FIN

  Author’s Notes

  Before I really get to the nitty-gritty of what these notes are going to be about - let me just start by discussing the length of the book for I know, already, there’ll be people out there wishing the story had been longer.

  When I decided to turn ‘Buried’ into the book it is today - my main intention was to make an extremely claustrophobic tale. I wanted the reader to be stuck in the box, along with the main character - Todd. I wanted them to feel what he felt. The feeling of helplessness, the feeling of being trapped, the stale air, the impending doom... If I made the book longer, I would have either had to introduce more characters - perhaps going more into the back story of Kayla and Todd - as well as extra scenes away from Todd being in the box.