Cracked Lenses

by L J McIntyre

  I sit on the floor and gather my thoughts, try to lower my thumping heart rate. Under the sofa, the woman is still there, her eyes are open. She’s looking at me. She’s smiling, I think, drool still oozing down and over the dried and hardened drool already at the side of her mouth.

  I expect her to bare her teeth at me like the rest of the town has done, but she reaches out to me, claws gently at my foot, mouths something.

  I can’t make out her words. She’s whispering, so I bend down. Her voice is weak and made entirely of forced air through a choked throat.

  “This isn’t real. You’re not real,” she manages.

  I mouth back, “I’m sorry. I can’t help.”

  She doesn’t seem to see me, she’s smiling beyond me, grasping at something not there. Her eyes roll back into her head, her arm goes limp and she starts breathing heavily.

  Damn it.

  I pull my phone out and look up the number of Nesgrove’s convenience store. I save it to my contacts. Crouching down, I start moving again, carefully dodging the discarded junk and running to a large bin with ‘General Waste’ written on it. From there I look at the next building along, the Devil’s Breath pub. It’s about twenty metres away. I scan around for any onlookers. Once I know the road is clear, I dart around the back of the pub and find myself once again crouching behind a bin.

  I bring up the convenience store number and call it. After a few rings, someone answers.

  “Hello, Ben Pearson speaking. How can I help?”

  I whisper, try to distort my voice, adopt a sort of French accent without meaning to, “Someone eez very eell in zee refooz area of your town.”

  “What? Who is this?”

  “Zey are behind zee garage. Under a sofa. Zey need medical attention.” I kill the call.

  From where I’m crouching, I can see the tops of the lampposts along the main road. White rags have been tied to them, beneath the lights. The rags wave gently in the breeze. They must be a decoration for the Rebirthing tonight: a reminder I didn’t need that time is running out.

  My mind goes back to the lamppost theory and what role the lights might play in all this. Is mass hypnosis, delivered by blinking lights, so unbelievable? More unbelievable than ghosts and demons? A whole town in the clutch of a deep trance and controlled by a crazed leader, Gerald maybe. He worked at a university. Was he a psychologist who knew hypnosis?

  There’s a window above me, slightly to the left. I don’t know what draws me to the window but I slowly rise to my feet, back firmly against the wall, and at a snail’s pace, I sneak my head around the window frame and look inside.

  I have a direct view of the main pub area but it looks different than it did the night I was here. That first night, there were people sitting at tables and chairs. This morning, though, there’s only one wooden table—long and sturdy enough to sacrifice an adult on—which is right in the centre of the room.

  I wish that were the only difference, though. The hairs on the back of my neck wouldn’t be standing on end if it were. Just like two nights ago, there are people in the pub, but these people look completely checked out, vacant.

  They’re sitting in chairs in a line, shoulder to shoulder, parallel with the length of the table; Maggie, Sergeant Davidson, the small man, and three others I don’t recognise. Their heads are lowered a little, hands on their knees. Their postures have taken on the look of apologetic children being scolded at school.

  To the left, at the far side of the table, is Gerald Lithglow, the wife killer, the hypnotist. His hands are clenched tightly by his side, his face a picture of rage, jaw clenched, eyebrows knotted.

  I can’t shake the feeling they’re being reprimanded for losing me, for letting me drop off the radar so easily.

  A door opens and slams shut and in walks Ben, flustered, out of breath. He says something to Davidson who looks up at him, sighs, and breaks the line. She walks out of the pub without so much as a glance from Gerald, whose raging eyes are piercing holes in Ben.

  Ben the mayor walks to the bar, out of view, and returns to the long table with a laptop in his hands. He gently places it in front of Gerald who, by my poor lip-reading skills, asks, “What’s this for?”

  Ben walks to the other end of the table. His face is now relaxed, the fluster of his arrival instantly vanishing, and in its place a smile that seems to say, “I’m sorry. Let’s fix this.”

  I can’t hear their dialogue but Gerald doesn’t calm down, doesn’t look at the laptop. His arms are animated as he points at Ben. He lifts his hand and begins listing things on his fingers. He points at the people still standing with their heads bowed. Ben never loses his calm and understanding smile.

  I see other differences in the pub, outside this weird interaction, like the main wall to the right. It’s literally covered in posters. The one nearest me is a gruesome black and white photo of a crime scene. A body is lying face down on the floor of the kitchen, blood coming out of the person’s back, and more blood has spattered across the kitchen cupboard.

  I recognise that kitchen. It’s Tragedy House only without the dust and decay. The body is a young boy, one of the children shot by their father. Other posters near this one have a similar theme, dead bodies all lying still in different rooms: the rest of the slaughtered family, I’m guessing.

  Another poster is an old newspaper headline with a picture below of a skinny man covering his face with his handcuffed hands. The headline reads, “Former Mayor Commits Suicide After Murder Conviction.”

  The only image that isn’t particularly sinister is a company slogan that says simply, “Your Coal: We’re here for you no matter what.”

  The whole wall is a collection of morbidity from the town, pictures of death and darkness, poverty and mine workers covered in black dust, graves, a colour picture of a smiling girl, Sally Adams. I recognise her from the image in the BigPixel.com article.

  I know the purpose of this wall and see the obvious evil behind it. They’re reminding themselves of how much the town has suffered, how many people have died, and why they are doing what they’re about to do. They’re justifying my captivity, my sacrifice.

  I slip back against the wall of the pub, away from the window, and hear quick footsteps. To my left, someone is running. I see her now, Davidson; she’s sprinting to the refuse area with a first aid bag under her arm. I duck back down behind the bin.

  I try to figure out the best way to the hunting shop and the shed behind it. Straight along the main road would be the quickest route, and the most obvious. The alternative way is to hop a few fences, peel across a few back gardens, and hope no one sees me.

  “Well, well, well,” says a voice I recognise. “I thought we’d lost you for a second there, Jack.”

  Chapter Forty Two

  Gerald is waiting for me to give up my hiding spot behind the bin, but first I take the crowbar and stash it under my belt—the cold and jagged metal bar presses against my waist—and I zip up my jacket to conceal it.

  Gerald is smiling at me as if I were a child, almost the same smile Ben offered him just moments before. But Gerald’s teeth are too white to be from Nesgrove, too perfect for a town without a dentist.

  I think about using the crowbar on him, how satisfying it would be to finally make a stand against one of my aggressors, against the main aggressor; the man who killed the woman he supposedly loved. But that thought brings with it the anxiety that I’m no better than my dad. A thug who enjoys hurting people. And hurting Gerald now might unleash Nesgrove’s fury on me long before the Rebirthing. Being a hunting town, that fury would inevitably involve guns. My crowbar and penknife can’t compete with that.

  He opens his arms as if to greet me, “Long time no see. What on Earth have you been up to?”

  “What sort of a question is that?” I feel my fists clenching.

  “Now, now, Jack, I’m just making small talk.” He crosses his arms.

  “Small talk? What the hell is wrong with you?”

 
“With me? Plenty of things. But I was asking about you.”

  “I’ve had enough of these sick games, Gerald.”

  “A game: is that what you think this is?”

  “I don’t care what this is. I just want to leave. And you should know, I’ve informed the press in the U.K. about this town, told them all about you. They’re publishing an article detailing everything you’ve done to me.”

  His smile gets wider. “And what have we done to you?”

  “Everything. Trapped me. Destroyed my career. Stolen my car. Framed me for murder. Threatened to stab me. The list goes on.”

  “Interesting claims. I hope you have the evidence to back it up.”

  “Just listen: if I go missing tonight, everyone will know exactly where I was when that happened. You lot will be the prime suspects.”

  He leans his shoulder against the red brick of the pub. “Oh, we’ve been the prime suspects before. Barely a year ago, in fact. This is old hat for we Nesgrovians.”

  “And for you,” I say accusingly.

  “Meaning?”

  “I know you killed your poor wife.”

  His face doesn’t flinch, not a twitch or change of eye movement. He stares into my eyes unblinkingly. “Cleared of any involvement, I think you’ll find.”

  “You’re a murderer, Gerald.”

  He straightens up, sweeps his hand down his shirt as if wiping away imaginary dirt, walks up to me, gets too close, touching distance.

  I reach into my pocket and grab the shaft of my knife, hold it there, concealed.

  “Murder: that’s an interesting term, isn’t it?” he whispers. “It implies someone was killed intentionally by another. But what if the victim were no longer a person?” He’s adopted a different persona than the one I met by the hanging tree. He’s no longer the helpful neighbour.

  I step back, grip the knife firmly, ready to flick the blade up. “You mean like the hypnotised zombies in this town?”

  “Come now; you must know that zombies can’t be hypnotised.” He winks at me and leans in. “No, I mean, if the person were no longer mentally sound.” He raises his clenched fist and looks at it, acts like there’s something hidden in the palm of his hand. “Their personality just a faint memory. Poof. Gone.” He opens his hand as if releasing the trapped object back into the universe, and blows on his palm. “Their bodies nothing more than living corpses. Would it be murder then, if there is no person left to murder?”

  “Dementia,” I say. “Your wife had dementia.”

  “Alzheimer’s, technically, but the result is just as awful.”

  For a moment his eyes break from mine, they move up and left. His mouth softens, his condescending smile morphs into something sadder, more human.

  He snaps out of it, grips me with his gaze once more, says, “Sometimes, Jack, we see monsters where monsters never were, while evil, real evil, is often the invisible force holding all the strings.”

  “And which are you?”

  “We are just as trapped as you are, my friend, just an innocent town trying to free itself of a curse that has taken too much.”

  He takes a few steps away from me. “Go to the cabin. See what’s inside. Then you’ll understand.”

  “Why don’t you just explain it to me, make me understand without going to the cabin.”

  “I’m curious; have you been wondering why your online life, your career, has been targeted?”

  “Sometimes mental illness doesn’t need a reason.”

  “Well,” he shakes his head, frustrated maybe. “It may be that, if you confront the thing within the cabin, your career will be returned to you, unharmed.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “The online damage can be undone. A simple apology from Nesgrove saying the whole thing was a mistake. Imagine the support you will receive. Imagine the story you can tell, the followers you’ll gain.”

  His talk of new followers turns my stomach. Mental images over the last two days flash into consciousness of my existing followers, people who’ve subscribed to my photography for years, turning on me like a pack of blood thirsty hounds.

  “So framing me for murder and ruining my online reputation, that was nothing more than—”

  “Leverage, Jack, leverage. But if you go out to the woods before midnight—”

  “What happens at midnight? What’s the Rebirthing?”

  He widens his smile and tilts his head slightly. “Think of it as a full moon party.”

  He lowers his eyes to the ground, turns and walks around the pub wall. I look to the window I was snooping through earlier. The curtains have been closed.

  I plan my next steps. They’ve seen me now, know where I am, but maybe they don’t know what my intentions are. Gerald said they’d thought they’d lost me for a moment, which means someone really is looking out for me, and that Gerald and his crew don’t know my plan.

  The hunting store is a few buildings down, about a hundred metres from here. I sprint back to the large field I snuck through earlier, climb over the wire boundary, sneak once more into the shrubbery and grass. Rather than cutting a path back to the factory, I aim for the houses which sit parallel to the field, and one house in particular where the fence is broken in parts.

  I squeeze through a gap in the fence and end up in a small back garden. Still crouching, I move quickly along the path that leads to the front of the house. Ducking below the patchy hedge surrounding the property, I wait until I’m certain the coast is clear before bolting through the gate and to the house across the street. This time I have to climb a tall fence in the back garden to get out.

  Houses on either side back onto the alley I’m now in. I hear voices and try to climb the next fence but it’s too high. I try the handle of the gate. It clicks open. I sprint through the property, almost break my leg on a child’s seesaw. I burst through the front gate and onto the small grassy area where the hanging tree stands.

  The back of the hunting shop is visible from there, just one more house blocking the way. I peel away from the grass, vault into the garden and to my relief, just a small hedge skirts around the back yard. I’m exhausted when I arrive at the rear of the hunting store where a tall wooden fence greets me.

  The skin on my waist feels tender and bruised as I pull the crowbar out. I hold it with both hands like I’m holding a baseball bat. I reach for the handle of the gate, twist it slowly. It clicks and inches open of its own will.

  I squeeze the crowbar once more, raise it higher—ready to smash whatever comes at me—and nudge the gate wide open with my foot.

  Chapter Forty Three

  I creep into a narrow yard with torn green fabric on the ground—cheap fake grass—and high brick walls left and right. At the other end is the back of the hunting shop, and more importantly, the red shed.

  There are a window and door at the back of the hunting shop. I put my back against the right hand wall and slide along it in the hopes of being spotted from neither. I lean against the side of the shed, crowbar in hand.

  A phone rings somewhere nearby.

  I hear the muffled voice of a woman saying, “What can I do you for?”

  The backdoor of the hunting store swings open, crashes against the wall.

  The woman speaks in a harsh tone, blunt and loud. “Nah, I’ve not seen him around here. Yep, yep, yep, will do.”

  I hug the crowbar to my chest. There’s a strong waft of cigarette smoke coming from the backdoor. The woman coughs, sounds like she’s got a thick pool of phlegm that’s refusing to budge, sloshing around the back of her throat. She heaves another cough, successfully hocks the phlegm into her mouth and spits it on the fake grass.

  “That’ll teach you,” she says, and by her laugh, I’m assuming she was talking to the phlegm.

  A cigarette butt, still smouldering red, lands on the ground in front of me and flicks out tiny embers as it bounces. It comes to rest among a peppering of older burn marks in the material. The door slams shut.


  I size up the shed. The good news is it’s wooden. The bad news is that I can’t make any noise, otherwise I’ll have an unpleasant visit from the hunting store lady.

  I stand facing the front of the shed and raise the crowbar, wedge it under the wood at the point where the door and top hinge meet. Seems like the best point of attack. I push forward. The wood creaks against the metal joint but doesn’t come loose. On my heels, I lean forward, put a bit of extra upper body strength into the task, and the wood groans louder. I glance over at the window which is still empty of any spectator.

  This time I lean my entire body weight into the handle of the crowbar, shove forward sharply with my arms. The wood crunches, the metal grinds. The crowbar loses its grip and comes free. The wooden door slams back into place.

  I jump to the side of the shed, hug the crowbar tightly, and hold my breath.

  I count to sixty.

  No one comes to check the sound out. No one is at the window.

  I face the shed again and curse myself for never learning DIY. A handy person would have this open in no time.

  I try for a second time, and force the crowbar below the wood, just left of the door handle. I Jimmy it in to make sure it won’t wriggle free this time. Before I try the brute-force method, I quickly grab the door handle, give it a jiggle, just in case. The door clicks open, but the crowbar slips loose and falls. I catch it with my foot just before it clangs on the ground.

  The bloody door was unlocked this whole time. Thanks, Tamati, for the useless detour.

  I bend down and recover the crowbar. The shed door eases open and inside are a collection of rusty tools resting on the ground, a wheelbarrow, a lot of junk, and hanging up on three hooks are three sets of keys. Not knowing which keys are for the factory, I gently steer each set off their hooks and pocket them.

  I close the shed door quietly and leave the back yard. It’s time for the other hip to feel the cold, sharp surface of the crowbar which I stash under my jacket.