The Silence

by Luca Veste

  “Manchester accent?”

  Peter nodded earnestly. “You do know him then? I thought you might. Who is he? A rival or something? He seemed a bit scatty and nervous, so I’m sure you’re a few steps ahead of him when it comes to getting something down that people want to read.”

  I shook my head. “Sounds like someone I might know.”

  “He was talking about an anniversary approaching or something,” Peter said, frowning as he tilted his head, trying to catch my eye. “I didn’t know what he meant by that, but he seemed… Are you okay? You look pale all of sudden.”

  “Yeah, I’m fine,” I lied, feeling a sudden need to get out of there and away from the man.

  He had seen Stuart.

  In the days before he’d died, he’d met with Stuart and talked about the same things I was now. I wanted to ask a million and one more questions, but something stopped me.

  “Who was he?” Peter said, his voice turning a little now. More insistent. Something dark underneath. “I want to know who he was.”

  I swallowed and hoped I would sound relaxed when I answered. “It’s like you said, a rival journo. That’s all.”

  “Are you sure?” Peter said, leaning forward, grabbing hold of my wrist suddenly. The grip wasn’t tight but wasn’t exactly friendly either. “If I’m being conned here…”

  I shook my head and managed to extricate my hand. “No, it’s nothing like that. Listen, thanks for talking to me and answering my questions.”

  Peter seemed to blink and go back to the way he had been before Stuart had been mentioned. His tone changing in a heartbeat. “Course, no problem,” Peter said, standing up and offering his hand. “Anything I can do to help.”

  I shook it quickly and placed my notebook filled with gibberish in my jacket pocket and stepped away. “Appreciate it.”

  “Yeah, no worries. Listen, if you need anything else, just let me know. I’ll be there. Waiting for answers. That’s all I do now. So, get in touch soon, you hear me?”

  It sounded like more of a threat than I thought he would have intended. When I risked a look at his face though, I could see something in his eyes. A brief moment of black, before color returned. I needed to get away from him. “Of course, thanks again,” I replied, raising a hand toward him, moving away and toward the stairs that led down to the exit. I looked back as I was about to leave the restaurant area. Peter was still standing at the table, watching me leave. He raised a hand and waved it once. A smile on his face.

  I took the stairs two at a time, determined to get into my car before Peter had the chance to follow. The temperature had dropped in the time I’d been inside, and I pulled my coat tighter around me as I jogged across the parking lot. I was inside, with the engine turned on within seconds, pulling away as I was still putting my seat belt on. I pulled out of the space quickly and stalled the car as I shifted back into gear and tried to drive away. Swore under my breath, then stalled again.

  The entrance/exit to the truck stop was still empty, but I kept expecting to look over and see Peter standing there. There was something about him I couldn’t work out.

  Something about the way he spoke about the whole thing.

  On the third try, I managed to drive properly. I pulled over once I’d passed the gas station and before rejoining the motorway. Plugged my phone in and called Alexandra.

  She answered quickly but didn’t sound too welcoming. “What do you want?”

  “I’m sorry about before.”

  There was a sigh that surrounded me from the car speakers, as I indicated to come back onto the almost-empty highway. My heart rate began to slow a little as I finally put some distance between me and whoever that had been back at the truck stop.

  “Me too,” Alexandra said eventually, but it didn’t sound like she meant it all that much. “Are you in the car?”

  “Yeah, listen, I need to ask you something.”

  “What?”

  “I’ve just met some guy I found on one of those threads you talked about on Reddit, about the Candle Man…”

  “Really? I spoke to a couple on private message but never in person.”

  “Did you ever speak to a guy called Peter? I think his online name was something like MysteryBuster70.”

  I heard rustling in the background and then the sound of a keyboard tapping. I waited as she checked, looking in the rearview mirror for any cars following behind me. I bit down on my lower lip, trying to stop paranoia from taking over me entirely.

  “Yeah, I did,” Alexandra said, reading names under her breath, then finally finding the right one. “He just gave me a couple of bits of info. Mainly he just redirected me to his posts that were already up there. I don’t think I ever asked to talk to him on the phone or anything. Let me just read through our messages… No, I used a different story on him. Told him I was just interested in the case and had stumbled on the message boards. He’s one of the main posters on there, so that’ll be why I contacted him.”

  I didn’t know if I was relieved or annoyed. It would have been nice to see if he had made her as suspicious as I was now feeling. “Listen, he told me something that doesn’t make any sense…”

  “How did you get to meet him?”

  “I told him I was a journalist working on a story about the Candle Man. He was more than happy to meet quickly and give his take on it. But that’s not the point.”

  “Sorry, go on. What did he say?”

  I took a second to check behind me again, then continued. “I don’t know if this is right, but I needed to tell someone. He said I was the second person to meet up with him about it recently.”

  “Who was the other person? An actual journalist?”

  “No,” I said, taking a hand off the steering wheel to rub some life into my face. The road ahead was too dark, and I had a sudden fear I would drive off the road after falling asleep for a second. “It was Stuart.”

  “What? I don’t understand—”

  “Neither do I, but that’s who he described meeting. He had him down to a T, but Stuart had given him a false name. He even mentioned an approaching anniversary.”

  “Jesus,” I heard Alexandra whisper to herself, then silence. I lowered the window to let some fresh air into the car, but quickly closed it when the noise overwhelmed me.

  “What do you think he was doing?”

  “I don’t know,” I replied, seeing the exit up ahead. I didn’t need the GPS for this part of the journey, thankfully, but wanted to keep driving anyway. To continue north, until I was as far away as possible. I’d always wanted to visit the Highlands. I could picture me living in a tent, growing a long beard, and living off the land. For about a second, before I realized I wouldn’t last five minutes without walls around me.

  And the silence would be unbearable.

  “I wonder if Stuart was just doing what we are,” Alexandra said, her voice like a comforting embrace. Bringing me back to reality. “A year is significant, you know. That’s probably why it’s so strongly in all our minds. For Stuart, I guess…I guess it became too much.”

  I began to speak but stopped myself. I didn’t want to argue with her again—twice in the same day seemed excessive—but I didn’t believe Stuart had killed himself now. Instead, I forgot all about driving north and indicated to come off at the junction to turn around. “I’ll call you tomorrow. Michelle has gone to stay at her mum’s house. Just in case.”

  “I’m sure she’ll be fine,” Alexandra replied, but there was a hint of apprehension in her tone that hadn’t been there before. “I’ll speak to you soon.”

  She ended the call, as I rejoined the motorway and drove home.

  All the time thinking about the man I’d just met and the feeling of unease he had given me.

  I wondered why Stuart would meet him and not say anything to us. To not try to speak to a single person in the
group about what he was doing.

  I wondered why Stuart would hide that from us.

  Twenty-Nine

  An hour’s drive can be done in forty-five minutes at night. That’s like a law of the road or something that I’ve always believed. Still, it was almost midnight by the time I pulled up outside my house and let myself in.

  It was quiet, but I quickly remedied that. The radio was playing in my kitchen as I cooked some pasta and finally quelled the gnawing hunger that had plagued me on the drive home.

  I ate it in front of my computer, scrolling through the online posting history of the man I’d met that night. Peter had a long record of writing about unsolved crimes. I got back as far as six months, but that took me a couple of hours.

  I then used every bit of internet knowledge I had to try to find out who he really was but ran into brick wall after brick wall. That’s the thing about fictional representations of people who work with computers that they never show—it’s difficult to uncover anonymity if the person behind those accounts has even an ounce of computing savvy.

  With a little more time and resources, I could have probably discovered who he really was in a few hours. Once I’d eaten though, I knew I had to make the trudge upstairs to lie awake with my eyes closed until morning.

  There was a part of me that wanted to just sit there and forgo the uselessness of trying to sleep, but I was always optimistic before bed.

  Some nights, I would fall asleep quickly, exhausted after a few nights of broken, short bouts of sleep. Then, after around thirty minutes, I would wake up with a start and spend hours looking at the back of my eyelids. Counting down the hours I was losing.

  Fall asleep now, you’ll have five hours.

  Now, four.

  Three should be okay.

  It was an endless war of attrition with my own mind.

  I had messaged Michelle to check in with her when I got home, but she was probably asleep already. I didn’t blame her—I hoped she got some peace away from her house.

  After going through the routine, I lay in bed, my phone on the bedside table playing some American podcast I hoped would bore me to sleep. Closed my eyes and my thoughts immediately overran. The man I’d met, the red candle in Michelle’s house. The one I had found in Stuart’s house. The things Alexandra had shown me about the Candle Man, the mythological nature of his story.

  I tossed and turned, unable to get comfortable, as a droning voice emanated from my cell phone. Some political discourse show that thought it was funnier than it actually was.

  The last time I checked the time, it was 4:18 a.m., and I was thinking about a lad’s face in the woods.

  You never know when you’ve fallen asleep, but I knew I was dreaming instantly. That eerie quality when you know what is happening isn’t real, but you can’t do anything to stop it. Your understanding of the unreality of it all is forgotten. The broken images, the blurred scenery, the distorted and warped sounds.

  Not that it didn’t feel real though. I was aware of the dream, but I still reacted as if it were actually happening. The anxious, nauseated feeling in the pit of my dream stomach was impossible to ignore. The beating of my false heart, the sweat forming on my false skin, the false hair raising on my false neck.

  All of it felt as if it were genuinely existing in my world at that moment.

  I was walking through my house, the silence almost overpowering me as I moved. I could hear something over it though—a pulsing beat of bass. Not silence then, but that’s what it seemed to be. As if the silence somehow had a sound now.

  There was a different quality to the familiar—all color had been drained, and I was walking in monochrome. The kitchen was empty—all the appliances, the canisters, the bread bin, the full herb rack, all gone. Empty cupboards and bare walls.

  I turned back and into the hallway. Walked into my office and found nothing there. A shell. Dust on the floor where my desk should have been. Brick where plaster had once lived. Light streamed through the window from the yard and then blinked out into darkness. I backed out and into the hallway once more.

  Stood outside the living room, tried to push open the door. It wouldn’t move. I looked down at my hand but couldn’t see it. I tried to move it, but the door still wouldn’t budge. Jammed shut. I could feel my shoulder moving before I’d decided to do it. I used it to push against the door, but it refused to acquiesce. I tried again, using my weight to throw myself at the entrance.

  It was as if I were moving through water—my movements were all in slow motion and no give was forthcoming. I stepped back and examined the door again. Carefully this time, as the light blinked in and out in time with my heartbeat.

  It opened inward independently as I was standing there. The room revealed to me in small segments of space.

  I saw him as I always did. Lying on the empty floor where my coffee table was supposed to be sitting. His eyes were closed, his arms folded over his chest, palms flat. They made an X, as if it marked the spot where he had died. Only, it wasn’t here. It was in the woods, and with that, I’m there again.

  Daylight replaced by the black of night. Words scrawled on the trees surrounding me. White and stark against the black. Every synonym that could be used for the single signifier of what we had become.

  Killers.

  I know what is different now. The silence wasn’t the same. The bass beat was a warning—something my mind had concocted to show me that this wasn’t the usual nightmare.

  We’re usually alone. Just me and him in the woods. Him dead, me standing over his body.

  Only this time, someone else is there. I couldn’t see who it was yet, but I could feel the presence in the air. He was standing in the shadows, waiting for me to notice him. I could hear his breathing, soundless though it is.

  I didn’t want to look up. I was looking at the forest floor, at the ground, as it bobbled and modulated into a blurry mess.

  There was laughter. Cutting through the silence. The bass beat ended, and I could feel the mocking tone swirl around me and over my skin. My muscles tightened and my biceps seemed to grow until they were straining at my T-shirt.

  I shivered, I think. I felt cold, like someone had walked over my grave or I was standing outside in January. I wasn’t sure.

  I couldn’t think properly.

  There were words being spoken, but I couldn’t understand them. They’re being vocalized in a language I was unable to comprehend. I screw my eyes shut, but I can still see everything clearly.

  A mist appeared around my feet, clinging to my legs and knocking me off balance. The man is still on the ground, but he’s suddenly alive. Breathing heavily, as if tired from some unseen exertion.

  He has never been alive in my dreams before.

  I can feel the anger coursing through me now. The same as it had been when I’d been in those woods before. I want to cross the space that divided us in two long strides and pick up the man by his little bare neck. Watch the last flicker of life leave his eyes.

  I am my own dark side.

  Yet I can’t move, even as the mist that has crawled and entwined my legs brings me down to my knees. Still, there’s that laughter, mocking me from the darkness.

  Then, I’m not myself any longer. Not someone I recognize. I’m a child—shorter and thinner. A scrawny young teenager, who hasn’t lived yet. I turn my hands over, staring at the hairless, small things as if they’re someone else’s.

  But it is me, twenty years ago.

  Now, I didn’t feel anger anymore. I feel fear. I’m scared and I’m sweating and I’m shaking. I can’t move my legs and I can’t run away. I’m stuck in a quagmire of terror and dread. This is it.

  This is what it feels like to know you’re about to die.

  Someone emerges into the light, and I can do nothing but watch him. Stare with unblinking eyes as the figure goes about his wor
k, whistling to himself a joyful tune. The man is on the ground, still breathing, but the figure is happy about that.

  I can feel the life being sucked out of the man. The figure towering over him, enjoying his last gasps of breath.

  I can’t do anything but kneel there and watch, as my heart races and my skin tightens with cold. Shivering and shaking.

  The figure moves back and admires its creation.

  Then, the laughter returned. Quiet at first, then louder, until it builds into a crescendo. It stops and turns toward me.

  Whispered. The voice is slurred and almost drunken with glee.

  “You don’t know what’s coming. You can’t do anything about it.”

  I scream soundlessly as it comes toward me.

  A noise throws me into another place. The dream shifts, and I am standing in my kitchen again. The sound of birds singing, then shots being fired and then silenced.

  Bang.

  I turn as the laughter comes back, coming from an unseen place.

  Bang.

  I moved from the kitchen, looking down to see a knife dripping with red in my hand.

  Bang.

  Bang.

  Bang.

  I woke slowly from the nightmare as the visions I’d been dreaming followed me into full consciousness. The sound was there too, and it took me a few seconds to realize the noise wasn’t coming from inside my head. It was real. And it was coming from downstairs.

  I stepped out of bed quietly and found my trousers on the floor. I slipped into them and walked softly to my closed bedroom door. I placed an ear to it and tried to work out what it was I could hear.

  It was still dark outside, but I didn’t know what time it was. The calm part of me wondered if it was a milkman or the like, but I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen one of them. Wheelie bin collection was my next guess, but that was still days away.

  I moved back to my bed and knelt, feeling underneath with one hand. It finally gripped hold of the baseball bat I kept there and brought it out. I held it loosely in my right hand and moved back to the door.