by L J McIntyre
“Is everything okay?” I ask as I go back to the room.
“It landed on my foot but I’ll be fine.”
She pushes the wheel out to Betsy.
I drag the third wheel off the bottom one and sit it up, ready to wheel it out just as Annie comes into the room.
“Just one more to go,” I whisper.
I hear a soft noise, like a gentle clang of metal. “You hear that?”
“What?”
“Shhh.”
We both listen for any break in the overwhelming silence of our chamber.
“Maybe I was hearing things,” I say.
I wheel out the final tyre as quickly as possible and start fixing them back onto the car. Starting with the back, I lift the wheel and press it into place. From the floor I take one of the greasy nuts piled up. I screw the nut on with my fingers, then grab another nut and do the same.
Annie comes next to me and watches. There must be a more efficient way of doing this.
“Annie, follow me.”
We go to the next wheel, which I pick up and push into place.
“Now you take some nuts and twist them on loosely,” I instruct Annie. “I’ll go around and put each wheel in place, and you just screw all the nuts in, then I’ll tighten them.”
“Okay.”
I run around the car, pick up the wheel, slide it into place. I repeat the same process with the final wheel, before returning to the first wheel I started with.
My sweaty, shaking fingers make it hard to screw the nuts. I have to keep wiping my fingertips on my jacket. When all the nuts are in place, I put the wrench into use, tightening each nut, but I’m working so quickly I have little confidence in the nuts being fixed as tightly as possible. As long as they get us out of here, I don’t care.
I sprint to the next wheel, start tightening the nuts Annie has put in place. Every time the wrench slips, I feel fury and frustration build up inside of me. This is taking too long. Soon the town will be onto us if they’re not already.
I run around the car, Annie joins me, says she’s finished. Then we hear it, a massive bang that announces their arrival, and we both jump as a bolt of shock pulls us from the bubble of darkness we’ve been in and places us firmly in the middle of a metal prison from which there is little escape.
I swing my torch around to the front door but there’s no one there. Bit by bit, I light up the factory but see no Nesgrovians, no one creeping up on us. That doesn’t mean they’re far away, and by far away I mean hiding in one of the many rooms that sit off the main space.
“Faster, faster,” I say to myself more than Annie.
The noises become real now. No obscure bang, no distant clang of metal, but instead the shuffling of feet on concrete, many feet, on the same concrete we’re on. They’re surrounding us.
“Annie, don’t point your torch up,” I say as I hastily tighten the first bolt on the final wheel.
“They’re coming, Jack.”
“Fuck you, Nesgrove,” I shout out loud and stand up, face the shadows but keep my torch pointing down. For some reason it’s easier to be defiant when you can’t see them looking back at you, their evil, empty faces hidden in the shadows.
Their feet scrape on the ground more than they should, like gimp zombies or psychopaths who want to draw this out for as long as they get pleasure from it. Or ghosts, maybe they’re ghosts, the barefoot woman covered in blood, Arthur Dunlovin with the rope in his hands, the man in black, the boy in the house with his mother, murderous father, siblings—they could all be staring at me from the nothing, centimetres away.
“Annie, fuck the rest of the nuts. Get in the car.”
She opens the door and jumps in. I bolt around the front of the car next to the wheel, bend down and thrust the wrench at the bottom brick of the stack that is keeping Betsy suspended. If I don’t knock these down, we’ll be suspended forever, trapped. I bash it again and again and the brick gives a little. One more knock and the left side of the car comes crunching down.
Then the yeeping starts. Yeep, yeep, yeep from every direction but so close I can hear the individual timbre of each voice near me, right in front of me.
I run to the wheel on the opposite side of the car, my torch accidentally swinging toward the main chamber, dozens of pale and empty faces creeping slowly forward, eyes as wide as evil, mouths opening and closing with every yeep, and I feel a terror that I never knew existed.
But that fear sends strength to my muscles, my body wills me to stay alive, and I smash the bottom of the brick out of place with one hit. The back of the car is still suspended but that won’t stop us driving off the bricks.
I don’t even get to my feet, I just lunge at the driver’s door, scratch at the handle until it opens.
Annie shouts, “Get in.”
I throw myself into the car, slam the door behind me and lock it.
Chapter Fifty
Annie flashes her torch through the windscreen at the dozens of ghouls shuffling toward us.
“Key, Annie, I need the key,” I scream.
She hands it over to me and I fit it into the ignition, turn it left. Nothing happens. Nothing. No engine firing into life. No coughing motor. Not even that clicking sound a dying battery makes. Nothing.
I scream, “Fuck off!” at the faces dancing, flickering in the light, and I punch the centre of the steering wheel. The car horn wails at our captors.
“What do we do?” Annie asks in a panic. “We’re fucked.”
I put my head in my hands, knowing that the glass windows of the car offer us the same protection as the window of the motel room: precisely zilch.
“The crowbar’s by the door out there, and I dropped the wrench. I’m an idiot.”
I remember something, something I dismissed as bullshit at first hand, but now it seems like our only hope. I fish around my jacket pockets. It’s not there. I rummage through my pants and find it: the small walkie talkie the man in the forest gave us.
I show it to Annie. I speak quickly, breathlessly. “They said they’d help. Maybe they can do that thing again.”
“What thing?” Annie says with a voice every bit as frightened as mine.
“In the forest, when they became mesmerised.”
“What are you waiting for?” She shouts. “Call them.”
I press my finger against the button on the top of the device and speak into it. “Hello, is anyone there? This is Jack. We’re trapped in the factory. Please help us.”
I release the button, wait a few seconds, and refuse to look up at the faces staring in.
“Do you hear me,” I start again. “We need your help. Please.”
This time we wait a few minutes, wait for them to make that high-pitched sound again.
“Get ready to run out of the car,” I tell Annie. “This time we’ll just keep running. Doesn’t matter where, okay?”
“Okay.”
Seconds dressed like hours pass by in absolute silence. I finally persuade my eyes away from the walkie talkie and look up, shine my torch forward. They’re all there, staring in. They’re not snarling though, and no longer yeeping. They’re waiting but for what I don’t know. The ones by my window, they’re so close I can see the pores of their pale and sweating skin.
“Please help,” I plead once more into the walkie talkie.
Our ring of captors moves, there’s some activity right in front of the car, and a man emerges: Gerald. He stands at the head of the car, eyes us both, reaches into his pocket and pulls something out, places it on the bonnet of the car.
It’s the other walkie talkie.
“Jack, what do we do?”
My mind is running blank.
“Jack.” She grabs me by the T-shirt.
“What’s the point? They’ve thought of everything.”
“If not for you, then for me.” She places the palm of her hand on my cheek and nudges my face toward the window. “Look at them. Look at their faces. They can’t win. Write something on Fac
ebook now. They can’t win.”
Faces. Facebook.
Those two words lure something back. Resentment.
“Their faces, Annie.”
“Yes.”
“We can see their faces. Record them. Put them online. It’s evidence. Even if we don’t make it, surely that’ll be enough to implicate some of them, bring them down with us.” I start searching my jacket pocket for my phone but I can’t find it. I’m sure I put it in there before we left the room.
“I’ve got your phone.” Annie lifts the shoulder bag from the floor onto her lap.
“Why do you have my phone?”
“You told me to hold it for you back in the motel.”
“No I didn’t.” On the face of it, this looks like a petty argument couples have, but it feels more important than that somehow. Relevant. I can’t let it go.
“I put it in my jacket pocket before I went into the bathroom.”
“Jack, please, now isn’t the time. You have to write something.” She looks into the bag.
“You’re one of them,” I whisper to Annie. “You’re a Nesgrovian.”
“What are you talking about?” She looks up at me.
“Don’t lie to me Annie. You took the phone so I couldn’t delete my social media. You’ve been directing me this whole time.”
Annie looks like she’s at the point of crying, her eyes pleading with me, then she leans back in her seat, takes her hand out of her bag and opens the car door to the marauding maniacs outside.
It feels like someone opening an external door of a submarine while submerged in the black and icy sea. The atmosphere shifts into a crackling static of nearness and I can feel the curse gush into the car, swirl around and invade me.
She gets out casually, leaves the door open and looks back at me. “I’m sorry, Jack. Please go to the cabin.” She walks backwards and disappears into the mob.
I stretch over and slam her door closed, lock it, put my hands on the steering wheel, staring straight ahead.
They all turn their backs on me and retreat slowly, rhythmically, into the void.
Chapter Fifty One
The interior of Betsy, her smell, in particular, is like a capsule of forgotten comfort. Those first days I spent driving around New Zealand in this car, they seem so far away, but the memories of it all are now tinted, made more colourful and cosy by three days of a fractured existence that has forced me onto a tightrope of insanity.
I want to be back in Betsy, wheels moving, countryside passing by my window. I didn’t know how good I had it. Christ, I’ve been an ungrateful prick. A scared little arsehole who was frightened of his own shadow. Frightened by his dad’s shadow.
And now here I am frightened still, but finally I have a reason to be, and a reason to feel truly lonely. I knew Annie was a Nesgrovian. I fucking knew it. I should never have trusted her. I should have known. And I did nothing about it apart from avoid the truth, run away from it like I always do.
I should have acted on that first suspicion, or at the very least formulated some sort of plan to deal with her, even use her as a hostage. I mean, for fuck’s sake, every aspect of her told me she couldn’t be real. A beautiful girl arriving the same time as me in this town, making the first move in the café, on the bed. She directed me at every turn and I let her.
That’s why I wasn’t afraid before we left the room tonight when we lay in bed and relaxed. It was because of her. She wasn’t scared. Why would she be? And that lack of fear—because I’m such a desperate loser—I latched onto it and pushed my own dread away.
I accepted that photo of her and her friend as real, but it could have been taken with a sister she didn’t tell me about. Her name probably isn’t even Annie.
I deserve to be right where I am.
Where is that, exactly?
The cabin or the Rebirthing.
I start searching my pockets but I’m not sure what for. I empty everything from my trousers onto the passenger seat, the torch shining from my mouth. I do the same with my jacket pocket and take inventory. I pocket the penknife and motel keys.
My pills. What would happen if I took all of them? I could chew every last one and end this nightmare, beat them to the punch.
See, I’m looking for a way out again. Running away once more.
I scream at myself in the rear-view mirror, “Fuck you Jack, you piece of shit”. I punch the car horn over and over and work up a fury aimed in one direction: Me.
When I tire, I sit back against the car seat, breathe, then shine my torch down onto the passenger seat again, see what else I’ve gathered over the last few days.
There’s something I don’t recognise: a little book, crumpled and torn. On the front it says ‘Diary’.
I remember it now. I picked it up in the mineshaft at the base of the ladders and completely forgot about it.
I flip the pages, most of them torn and filthy, until I arrive at a small pocket of more intact, legible entries. I pull the diary closer to my face, torch now in one hand, illuminating the hand written text.
Entry One:
Since Neil died, it’s been the worst. Really awful. Everyone’s just given up. School is really depressing. Zombies everywhere. Dad keeps telling me if I take a single drug, he’ll kill me before the drug does. Okay, dad, chill out. I get it.
Entry Two:
The police have been around interviewing everyone about the two guys who went missing. Who cares? They were total scumbags. Even interviewed me. I was like, come on, I’m a kid. I didn’t say that obviously.
Entry Three:
I’m sick of school. Honestly, what’s the point? I won’t use any of this stuff.
Entry Four:
Wow that was strange. These freaks came to town, the Marksons, totally no one expected them, and everyone was like, what the F? Dad if you’re reading this, I never use the ‘F’ word. They were dressed funny, the freaks, and they spoke strangely, like old school English you hear on T.V. They never broke character as my old and annoying drama teacher said. But he says a lot of useless things.
Entry Five:
Sorry, it’s been a while. Don’t know who I’m saying sorry to. My future self. Cringe. Things are different now. Like, really different. Grown-ups talking to each other about stuff. They’re like different people now. I don’t know. Like possessed with some idea or something. They’re having more town meetings. We’re not allowed to know anything.
I flip through the diary to try to find more entries, but it dies there at that last sentence. While I was reading, something sparked a memory, or a sensation of a memory, something important. It’s there, not quite on the tip of the tongue, but it’s there.
Marksons: that name. It’s ringing around my brain. It’s important. But why?
I sit in silence and let my brain search itself for answer.
Marksons
Marksons
This diary, the sprinkling thoughts of a teenager, is probably fake, like the rest of this town. They put it at the bottom of those ladders, hoped I’d pick it up and read it. What are they telling me?
Should I care?
I feel exhausted.
I gather everything back into my pockets, flash the torch at the empty space outside Betsy, but the space is no longer empty. I’m no longer alone.
Chapter Fifty Two
At the end of the factory, surrounded by darkness that my torch can’t reach, is the man in the black pinstripe suit and fedora. He tilts his head to one side. My left hand holds the torch and shakes, and that makes the image of him jitter up and down. He raises his hand and waves at me. I grip the torch more tightly, hold the steering wheel with the other hand.
A loud engine roars from outside the factory. I look toward the Entrance and then back to the man in black. He’s gone. The engine roars again.
I shake my head, clench my jaw and look down at my hand on the wheel. My fingers loosen their grip, let go, and I click the car door open and step out. The crowbar feels icy cold in
my sweaty palm as I pick it up from the floor.
I walk to the entrance, pause for a breath to calm my thoughts, and leave the factory. My heart thumps louder and louder, my chest expands and contracts with every violent breath. I walk out of the factory grounds, through the streets and onto the main street of Nesgrove. My eyes scan the empty road. The engine roars again.
Where are you, you prick?
It’s coming from near the Hanging Tree. I walk slowly to the refuse area, to the sofa where the drug-addled lady once lay, and pull out the watering can of petrol. I walk back along the main street, left at the convenience store and up to the field where the Hanging Tree sits. Right of that field is the shiny silver Mustang that has terrorised me since I’ve been here.
Watering can in one hand, crowbar in the other, I approach the car and look around. It’s empty. The guy is probably in the house across from the car. I place the can on the ground and raise the crowbar over my head. I swing down against the driver’s window which explodes with a loud crash. Small shards of glass shatter into the car and to the ground.
My whole body trembles, my mouth feels cracked dry. I lift the can and pour its contents onto the driver’s seat. The smell of petrol invades everything and stings my eyes. I fumble around my jacket pocket for the box of matches, pull them out, take one and try to light it. Its snaps in half.
“Come on, come on,” I say as I look around the empty street.
I try another one. It snaps again. I’m too nervous, putting too much pressure on the match. I eye the match in my fingers, breathe in and out deeply, try to steady my hand. I strike the head against its grainy counterpart and a flame ignites. I reach into the car, the flame dancing left and right, threatening to die, and then whoosh. The seat blazes into a ball of blue and orange and I snap my hand away from the car before the flame catches me, too. My eyelashes curl at a wave of blistering heat, and I take a few steps back, recovering the crowbar from the floor as I do so.
I pull Sally’s bra from inside my jacket and throw it through the fiery window. I watch the flames engulf the bra, bend up and back against the roof, and jump to the passenger seat. Before long the fire begins to the lick the rear seats which catch alight so quickly that the heat of everything doubles instantly and I take another step back.
