35
She got off the bus at the corner of Mayfield Road then crossed over to the campus. She went in past the sign and the benches. She was old enough to remember when this was just overgrown hedge and staff parking. At some point someone had decided to actually make the sciences seem appealing to prospective students.
She walked past the biology building and into the Grant Institute, glancing at the masonry above the door like she always did. Some muscle-bound Greek guy in a wreath with ‘Geology 1934’ carved above. She wondered who he was, maybe Atlas.
How many students and academics had walked through these doors in the last nine decades? How many had gone on to become famous in their field, or dropped out completely, turned to something else in life? Hundreds of thousands of different paths, lives that weren’t hers, less complicated, less full of death.
She went up the stairs and along the corridor. The place was quiet but then it varied so much, postgrad hours weren’t reliable. You did the work when you could, when the notion took you, whenever you were awake and sober, if the weather was crap. Maybe that’s why it was less busy, students tended to take rare sunny days off, try to get as much vitamin D as possible before the darkness of winter.
She entered the office. She’d expected at least a couple of folk, but it was empty.
No Brendan, no Halima, no Rachel, no one else.
Maybe the Tom thing had hit everyone hard.
She walked over to Brendan’s desk. His jacket was on the back of the chair, screensaver on his computer. She moved the mouse and the swirls blinked away, replaced by his desktop. Nothing out of the ordinary. Folders, files, a couple of applications open, a browser. She clicked on that. An article from Earth magazine on the changes in groundwater chemistry in Iceland that preceded the recent activity of Katla.
She looked at his desk. Piles of printouts, a notebook, stationery. A picture of the two of them on Blackford Hill, smiling. Not that first time, they were too drunk and too early into the relationship to take pictures. But a later visit, a trek along the Hermitage, up over the hill and down to Blackford Pond then back along the road to the office. Easy to do on a lunch break. In the picture the sun was beaming on their faces and the criss-cross sprawl of suburban houses all the way to Arthur’s Seat and the castle in the distance. Trees everywhere, not just in the Meadows and Bruntsfield, but large oaks in the gardens nearby. Such a green city, so much space compared to other places. Lucky to live here.
She examined Brendan’s face in the picture. Long eyelashes, those green eyes, smooth skin. So young and pretty, so much kindness. Why had she looked elsewhere for love? Why had she fallen for the oldest bullshit in the world, the attention of an older man in a position of authority? She’d felt in control of both relationships at the time, but that was a lie she told herself. It turns out she wasn’t in control of anything. Just look at how quickly things fall apart.
She looked into her own eyes in the photo. Tried to see a hint of the chaos on the horizon, some foreshadowing of what was to come. But there was nothing, just happiness in the moment.
She put the picture back and wandered over to Halima’s desk. No sign of activity there, no jacket, no coffee mug, her computer off.
Surtsey pulled out her phone and checked. Nothing from anyone.
She dialled Brendan’s number. Maybe he’d nipped over to the union for something to eat. It took ages to connect, her signal struggling to escape the thick walls. The electronic puttering noise, interference as the call bounced around the planet.
She heard the ringtone in her ear, then a moment later the ring of Brendan’s phone. Her head jerked up and she looked around the office. No one. She angled her head to hear better. On the second ring she realised it was coming from the end of the office. She began walking. By the third ring she was back at Brendan’s desk, looking around. But it wasn’t there, the sound was further on. She walked. Fourth ring. Tom’s office was up ahead, the door ajar. She kept walking. By the fifth ring she’d run out of open-plan space. The ring was louder but she wasn’t at it yet. She could see into Tom’s office through the window, but didn’t see anyone.
‘Brendan?’
Another ring. She still had the phone to her ear for some reason, the tone like a ghost, echoed in the real world by the phone at the other end. She imagined a thin thread connecting the two, rocketing into the atmosphere then back down, tunnelling through the roof of the building to get back in.
She put a hand on the door. Another ring.
‘Brendan.’
She blinked then pushed.
Eighth ring, clear now.
Coming from Brendan’s body lying on the floor. His head was caved in on the left hand side, the scalp coming away from the bone underneath, blood streaked down his face and thicker in a pool under his neck.
Surtsey lowered the phone from her ear but she could still hear both rings, the signal and the reply. She took a step forward. Brendan’s eyes were open. His face wasn’t filled with shock or contorted in pain, just blank, like he was daydreaming.
Surtsey could see brain. Shit, that was his brain where his skull should’ve been. Blood had already coagulated around his hair on the side of his head. His ear was untouched and Surtsey focussed on that. How could someone’s head be destroyed, but their ear still intact? How was any of this real?
The phone finally stopped ringing in Brendan’s pocket. Surtsey looked at her own phone. She could hear that it