“Are you ready?” The Man asked.
He wasn’t, no way was he ready, but he dared not say otherwise. He nodded and took a peek up at The Man, who glared at him with that gleam in his eyes, the one he got when he was about to do something horrible.
Bracing himself for nothing being in the hand box except for a slap or two, he lowered his gaze back to the hairy knuckles, the letters that were an odd shade of turquoise, and blurred, as though the edges were bleeding.
“One, two…three!” The Man lifted the top hand.
Something flew out. It smacked into his ten-year-old face, batting at him, as if it were confused as to why its flight had been halted. Wings, there were brownish-grey wings that flapped, the sound they created burrowing into his ears, growing in volume, similar to the noise of a helicopter’s rotors.
Thwap-thwap-thwap.
He didn’t scream—must stay quiet, must stay quiet—and held his arms by his sides, curling his hands into fists while the thing continued its maddening attack on his cheeks, his nose, his lips.
A scream brewed inside him, and he wanted to let it out, he really did, but it had to remain hidden. Tears burned, his stomach knotted, and he needed to pee. He couldn’t do that either—no way.
The Man laughed and laughed. Threw his head back and showed the fillings in his top back teeth. Better to concentrate on those filthy things than what was directly in front of his face. Better to stand and take it.
The thing slapped into him again, and perhaps the momentum of hitting his cheek propelled it off and away—away from him, thank God—where it flew past The Man towards the light coming through the glass in the top of the kitchen door and carried on its mad dance there instead.
“Did you like that?” The Man asked.
He nodded. “Yes. Thank you for my present.”
“More than welcome. Now piss off out of my sight.” The Man wiped tears of laughter from his cheeks and said something like, “Oh, so fucking funny!” then walked to the kettle to switch it on.
Turning away from The Man, he walked slowly up the stairs, still feeling the terrifying flutter of those wings and that fat, hairy body touching his skin. He shuddered; The Man had chosen that gift to scare him. Those things frightened him, same as spiders did. But not the ones on his quilt.
They hugged him now, whispering that The Man was cruel and one day something would happen to him, something that meant he couldn’t hurt anyone ever again. Taking comfort from that was the only option. The only thing that could keep him going through this waking nightmare that was called his life.
He opened his eyes. The Man Point Two was now just like The Man, the same straggly hair, similar shaped eyes, and once, when they’d met up, The Man Point Two had laughed, revealing almost identical fillings.
It was time.
He approached the four men, who by now had finished their pizza and were clearly preparing for sleep, one of them passing blankets along until they all had one. How could they sleep beneath the dampness? How did they manage to get any sleep at all?
Don’t think about that.
He didn’t. Instead, he approached them and stared down at The Man Point Two.
“Oh, hello, mate,” The Man Point Two said. “I thought it was you over there but I didn’t like to bother you.
Kind of him. “I’m here to make that promise a reality. You know, give you the things I said I would.”
“What, the bed? The shower?”
“Yes. Ready for it?” He smiled.
“Fuck, yes.” The Man Point Two got up, gave his blanket to one of the others, and grinned.
The front teeth weren’t quite the same as The Man’s, but that was all right. They would have to do. This was as close to the real thing as he was going to get, and he should know, he’d searched for a replica for long enough.
He led the way, The Man Point Two shuffling by his side—annoying because the original The Man had walked with cocky assurance that told the world that no one could best him. Maybe he could tell himself that The Man Point Two was tired and that was why he scurried along in that way. Yes, that was what the problem was. He was tired. Maybe he’d fucked her for too long and his legs were sore from standing behind her in the kitchen, pumping into her again and again until she’d called him a brutal bastard and that she loved him so much. Loved his cock so much.
That had been a Movie Night. That was what The Man had called it. ‘You sit there and watch the real-life movie. Shame you don’t have any popcorn.’
Out of the tunnel now, he guided The Man Point Two down a track that led to the canal. He’d do it there, where he’d done it before. In the exact same spot. Otherwise, the wellbeing he’d get afterwards might not be the same. Anita Jane Curtis had been put in the same place as her—or as identical as he’d been able to get it anyway.
He wondered, when The Man Point Two was discovered, how long it would take the police to put two and two together. To sift through the past and realise that another woman had died in that alley years before and another bloke had died by the canal.
It wasn’t his concern.
What is?
The Tupperware box and the syringe in his inside coat pocket.
And sending The Man to Hell again.
Chapter Ten
Turned out the local Indian had been shut for whatever reason, a
