I roll onto my back and let out a shaking breath. Penny lies next to me face down, all sweat-glistening flesh and long auburn curls. With the dopiest of grins, I stare up at the glow of weak fairy lights. Concentrate on my breathing.
I force long slow breaths in and even longer ones out through lips parched by panting. With each breath my thundering heart slows. Soon it’s galloping. Eventually just a trot.
The beams from a car pass along the ceiling, blending with the diffused lances of repurposed Christmas lights.
I listen to the breathing, to the occasional moan of the woman of my dreams. The woman who spent the past year and change reminding me that life is for the living. Who jumped on the forklift at work and told me, not asked, told me, to take her for a ride. Two days into the job and she was making rule breaking demands of lifers. Demands that made me uneasy. Until I went along with them. She taught me hanging around waiting for something is death. Doing is life.
Deft fingers reach out in the near-dark, finding my thigh and squeezing for a second before falling to the mattress as sleep took hold. I try to turn to her, to envelop her perfect form in my passable one. But I can’t. There’s something in the light.
But there isn’t.
But there is.
The hundreds of tiny shards spreading out from the wall above my head are static. Truly immovable. Not even the earlier naked gymnastics could cause so much as a tremor.
But there’s something there that isn’t there, but I know it is. I can see something.
Another car passes on the street below; it’s lights mingling with mine and I see more. A movement in the shards, a message in the lances. A swirl amongst the straights.
What the hell is that?
Penny mumbles in her sleep and I no longer care. I roll over, swing a tired arm around her waist and pull her against me. Her skin radiates a crazy amount of heat but I’d happily burn wrapped around her.
I hear something coming down the road. Something big. Something with undoubtedly bright lights. I screw my eyes shut, bury my face in auburn curls scented with sweat and replay every second of the past hour.
Nant Newydd is a nowhere town in nowhere Wales. Drive in any direction from it and you’ll find another just like it. Sure, the layouts might differ slightly, but each serves the same purpose: to house enough people to staff the assembly lines, factories, lumber yards, quarries, or whatever else was once the local Big Thing.
Grey abounds.
The trick is to not pay attention. Focus on what’s right in front of you.
I’m focusing on the hefty portions of fish and chips I’ve procured from Bosely’s and merrily making my way home.
We had spent the hazy Sunday doing whatever came to mind. From too much cereal in weird combinations to aggravating an instructor in axe throwing who didn’t take kindly to my suggestion of playing at goalie, then getting so lost trying to find a beach we ended up fifty miles farther inland than where we’d started. None of it mattered and it all mattered so dearly.
But once home Penny said food was in order. Real food. The sort of food you know damn well you’ve eaten afterwards.
With a delicate pincer of finger and thumb I try to pick out one of the fatter, crunchier chips. The orange streetlighting makes it a tad difficult to differentiate one scalding potato chunk from another, but I wouldn’t have it any other way. Can’t stand those harsh modern lights. I shouldn’t need to squint at night.
‘Well pinch my nips, if ain’t Dai French!’ a voice cracked through the air.
Such a booming attack of words could only come from one person. Well, one person who would still call me that name. Growing up in the valleys as David Fournier it was a given some comment would be made about it. A nickname was also inevitable but considering I grew up with a friend dubbed Halfcock (circumcised) and one Shart (once put too much trust in a fart) it wasn’t that bad.
Bouncing the hard-won chip around my mouth until I could dare bite into it, I did my best to smile. ‘Deano! It’s been a minute.’
‘No shit but, the girls hadn’t even got to their first birthday.’ Dean approached, all sinewy rope limbs and coarse dark hair everywhere but his head. Two long steps and I was being crushed in a lifting hug. I laughed around the chip that could pop out any moment and worked at keeping the spoils of Bosely’s level.
‘How’s Pen-Pen?’ Dean spoke in a breathy expulsion. Either time had taken its toll, or I’d gotten heavier.
‘Stunning.’ I’m not thinking when I say such things. It’s an automatic response. A bit braggy but what’s wrong with that?
‘Of course, of course.’ He’s waiting for something I can tell. ‘Real glad you pair found each other.’
What’s he after? Eyebrows up, posture forward, serene but exhausted grin. Oh shit!
‘How’s the family?’ Penny would be laughing so hard if she was here.
Given the green light Dean exploded into an excited monologue about the trials and tribulations of raising twin girls and the constant effort to reign in his deafening voice. He spoke of Marion in tones of contentment, of deep love, of frustrations that weren’t really frustrations.
We laughed together as he told me stories of the hijinks his kids got up to. I had tears in my eyes when he talked about the three separate occasions he couldn’t figure out which child was which. Marion was unamused each time. Except the third when partway through her admonishment she stared at their cherubic faces and had a moment of doubt.
Standing in the street laughing and reminiscing is one of those joys I never considered before. In fact, I would’ve avoided it once upon a while, pointing to the cooling food as an excuse to run away. But that woman put real effort into making me be present. Concentrate on the now.
Up and beyond Deano’s shiny noggin the orange sodium-vapour streetlight moves. I keep my eyes on him because why wouldn’t I? Lights flicker. All of them do. And these ones are so old. Forgotten in the mad rush to modernity. So, I double down on listening about a disastrously funny Christmas meal where every child at the table had learned a swear word which may or may not have been Dean’s fault.
It’s not a flicker. Years of gaming have given me pretty good peripheral vision so no matter how hard I stay locked on the broad face of thick stubble I can see the movement even though there’s no movement.
But there is.
Something indefinable but real within the glass casing. Something that wants my attention. Something getting angry at being ignored.
Concentrate on the now. Concentrate on the now. It is now! Now is when this shit is happening.
Dean. Good old Deano. Concentrate on him. Manoeuvre around him, get the light out of your eyeline. Break the spell. Focus.
‘Christ on a cracker.’ Dean laughs. Shakes his head. ‘I’ve been here rabbiting on something fierce and here’s you just trying to get home with some scran.’
I feel my eyelids push open too far, eyes bulging. ‘No, it’s cool don’t worry about it. No, it’s all good, lots to catch up on.’
Thin fingers clap around my shoulder, steel cables squeezing hard and hearty. The warmth in the smile. Why did I stop seeing him? Can’t be the twins. I’m not that much of an asshole. Am I?
‘There’s better times and places but.’ He was already stepping away, off on his journey who knows where. ‘I’m messaging you tomorrow you hear? Come over the house. Both of you. No excuses. We’ll play which kid is which.’
I wave pathetically. I say goodbye. I wish him well with bedtime and assure him I’ll be there soon. “With bells on”. I can’t ask him to stay. I want him to walk me home. I want someone to keep me occupied. I want something to stop me noticing how agitated the orange glow is getting.
A convoy of idiots with no personality beyond their cars pass by all thumping music, piercing LED headlights, and the stink of weed. I turn from the assault, put my head down and continue of my way. A quick palm slide along the bottom of the bag tells me the meal is still at a serviceable temperature.
I flinch under the next lamp’s cone. I’ve felt eyes on me before. When you just knowsomeone’s looking at you. But this was magnified. I knew something was glaring. Glaring down, curling a non-existent lip, gritting imaginary teeth. There’s a slight reprieve as I exit the cone but the next is only two steps away.
Every cone glares harder. Every passage beneath demands I look. I switch the bag to my other hand, its weight increasing with each punishing glare, cutting into my fingers. I know if I can get home everything will be fine. Penny will be in the living room just in from the front door and stairs. She’ll see me looking however I look, awful I assume, and will take the bag from me. I’ll be told to sit down, chill out and find something to watch whilst she plates it up.
I’ve just got to get home.
That’s all.
I’ve just got to—
‘Fucking what?’ I stare up into the burning orange, more rage piling behind my teeth. ‘What do you want?’
I see a curtain twitch. Good old peripherals. Always there to let me know when I’m being judged.
The light moves and twists behind the glass.
‘Well?’ I’ve gone mad. ‘Speak or piss off.’
Orange turns red turns purple turns black. My heart skips a beat, a ball of ice fills my stomach, my breath is robbed from my lungs. I take a step back. The light that makes no sense becomes brilliant white and I swear I can hear something. Roiling. Roaring. At the edges of perception but it is there.
The glare pushes downward. My bag is lead, my body is stuck, my eyes are burning no matter how hard I screw them shut. There’s a message in the assault. Not a question. A command.
Move.
I tell the light to do one. To take a flying fuck at a rolling doughnut. Sit on it and squeal like pigs on their honeymoon.
It did not like that.
My brain is full of spikes, stabbing and jabbing and twisting before being viciously pulled out and rammed back in. My eyes burn and my ears ring.
Move.
I think about being strong. Of straightening my back and pretending the bag weighs nothing. I think about telling the evil photons just how much they can fuck off. But I don’t. Each second is agony I’ve never felt. My now is pain and forever stretches before me as an endless road of agony.
Move.
‘Where?’ I whisper.
The pain is gone. The bag of food is just a bag of food. My eyes can see. The light points the way, and I wonder why no one else can see it.
I walk to each roiling cone as the command is issued from one after one after one. I lose it at the T-junction to Meadow Brook. A part of me, well, all of me, thinks to run into the cul-de-sac, hop the fence into Jonesy’s garden and pray the hole in the hedge is still there. I think I can do it all in less than a minute.
Sodium-orange across the road starts to redden. I chew the inside of my cheek; jaw so tense I could rip a hole through it. I shift my foot to point down the road. I can make it. I can put distance between me and it. I can dash through gardens and slink up dark alleys until I’m home. Until I’m with her and she can make it all make sense.
The cone is purple and throbbing, each pulse widening its area, crossing the road. The noise in my head is louder now, cutting in from the edge, making headway to be a real sound.
Move.
Voiceless, faceless. Nothing there, but the command is thrust savagely into my mind all the same.
Move.
‘Shit, OK, calm down.’ I’m already trotting across the road as I mutter, not wanting anyone to hear me talking to streetlamps.
Across the park I walk, the cooling food knocking against my leg every few steps, its rustling cheap plastic bumps the backbeat to a growing something sound that’s either in my head or coming from the lights.
It’s in my head obviously. Light doesn’t make a sound.
Obviously.
Every change in direction makes me want to run. Every street crossed, every corner taken, every junction approached I think I could escape. But the glaring light stops travelling. Bores into me. Dares me to try.
When I get to a flicker at the entrance of Watkins Timber my feet throb and the fish is colder than when it was caught. That damn light doesn’t care. It’s already shining out of a yellow wall lamp a few metres inside. I spit swears but test the gate.
A camera blinks in my peripherals and I swear some more.
It’s not open because why would it be.
The clearance between the gate and the dusty ground is pretty high. God damn it.
I drop down, slide the meal for two through and get on my belly. I can see yellow becoming red, but what the fuck else does it want? I’m grinding my balls into the dust, inching my way through, and getting stones in my mouth.
Upright, filthy and aching where no man likes to ache, I fix a hateful scowl on the light. It glares back. Purples. I put my hands up and look away and it becomes yellow again before flitting to another lamp. I scoop up my food out of obligation and hobble onwards. I can’t favour one foot over the other as both are sore, prickly with new blisters. Each step is a pin under the skin.
But on I hobble because if I don’t it will redden. It will purple. It will blacken. The something in the light moves from lamp to bare bulb to security light and I follow, walking through what should be a bustling yard full of hollering men in hi-vis clothing but instead is deathly quiet save for the hum of traffic.
I’m being led past an office with the company name stuck to it in four different places. There’s a whole bunch of rooms in there. Like a weird amount. I never thought there would be so much talking in a lumber yard.
Past the office I freeze as I’m bathed in a giant halo of white. I fall to a crouch, cover my head with my arms and get slapped in the face by the dusty bag. ‘I’m going!’
I’m shouting and pleading and whimpering and thank the gods she can’t see me like this.
Nothing happens. The light is bright but it’s not knives in the brain bright. I dare to look up, or at least uppish. There’s a tall pylon with spotlights covering every angle of the yard. Only a third seem to be on. Well, a bit more than a third now.
The halo grows and I take the unsubtle hint. I walk past row after row of stacked planks of all lengths, thicknesses and shades of brown-yellow. Past hardy trailers with chipped paint and big dents they couldn’t care less about. Past a three walled warehouse looking thing that says TIMBER STORE across the top in bold blue letters. Then another that says WORKSHOP, then MOULDING SHED, then MILL.
One pained step into darkness and there’s a clunk overhead. My way is lit by a less bright spotlight. One that struggles to exist.
In an empty building that’s no more than a metal roof held up by girders sits a rusty forklift surely too weak to be of any use in this place, a small excavator dripping blood red hydraulic fluid, and one of those yellow trucks with the big carrying bucket on the front. As the spotlight gains more life I can see farther back. Still mostly hidden in shadow are two seriously big tractors. They must be the real movers and shakers ‘round here.
For the whole trudge down the gravel specked road a smell built up, infecting my nose, sticking to the hairs. Closest I can place is something industrial that’s been burnt mixed with old coffee and sealants I can’t name. I’ve got a faint memory of getting a whiff of it when driving past. Each time wondering where it was coming from.
When I limp beyond the latest halo, I can’t see anything. In the distance more pylons partially light the expansive yard, one shows the face of more open buildings, stacked to the rafters with planks. I take cautious steps, wincing at each one. My eyes start to acclimate to the gloom but I’m on edge for the eventual, inevitable light.
The smell continues to grow, continues to stick. It’s on all sides, even coming in from above. I stop to stare hard at the darkness to the right. Eyes stretched wide as if that will help. I stare until I can’t stare any longer but it’s still just darkness. With an exasperated huff I look to the sky.
The stars in the black cut off to either side of me. Without breaking eye contact with the far-off fusion explosions, I reach out closer to that smell only to pull my hand back lightning fast when I touch something spiky and tacky. Oh, the smell! It’s on my hand. I can feel something like school glue but thicker. The dumbest thing I could do is wipe it on my jacket so of course that’s what I do. I retch at the smell now fixed to my chest.
A spotlight no more than a couple of metres in front of me sputters and strobes to life. It stabilises enough to darken straight to a menacing purple.
I tell it I’m coming but I’m not. As the words leave my lungs the sight roots me to the spot. On either side, higher than my house, are piles of logs. Thousands of them. More. All are glistening with whatever the hell I’ve got on me.
Maybe it’s because I’m already primed for fear or maybe it’s because I’ve never been surrounded by tonnes of loosely stacked cylinders, but I felt on the verge of fleeing. More so than my inklings on the way here, this is a genuine fear, more understandable than the bastard light.
The bastard light turned black. I could still see the logs, sort of, but that black light moves something deep down. The primitive brain under the evolution. The piece you never ignore when it activates. That saves you from being brained by a cricket ball, that pulls you back on the pavement to stop being pasted by a speeding lorry.
My brain rings with memories of pain that fade as soon I’m walking towards the black light. At the edge I wait for it to move on, being under that once was enough for a lifetime. Seeming to understand my issue the circle disappeared, up ahead another clunk preceded a flickering red light. That’s an improvement, I guess.
Each movement of the thing grew lighter. My peripherals are pissing me off as I shuffle through the endless canyon of wood. I try hard to focus on the menacing light but at the edges I keep seeing the reeking cylinders primed to come rolling down in an avalanche of hopefully instant death.
When I finally approach the end of the road, feet on fire and nose stinging, I can’t tell where I’m meant to go. I’m stood in the middle of the latest halo, the one I saw from afar. The warehouse in front of me seems to be partly filled with irregular cuts of wood. Leftovers maybe?
The halo is constricting! What do I do? The halo is constricting! Smaller and smaller and brighter and brighter. Shit, do I run? Probably not. It won’t like that.
I can’t control my breathing. I can feel it getting faster. My nostrils are scoured from that horrible stuff. My lungs are wheezing. Am I going to pass out? Die?
The light moves. With the juddering of a laser pointer, it dashes in front of me. Quivers. It’s coming out of the ground. Holy shit, it’s rising up from the road. It’s a marble of white. It’s a tennis ball difficult to look at. It’s as tall as me and I’m shielding my eyes.
What’s that noise? The bigger it gets the more I can hear something. That distant noise that was never traffic. Roiling. Roaring. How I always imagined a dragon would sound. A bellowing furnace.
I take a step back. And another. And ano—
The light becomes unbearable, pulsing out at me, only stopping when I do. I look at it side on and wonder. What am I supposed to do?
I can see something in the light. But I can’t because there’s nothing there.
Except there is.
I think I stop shielding myself. I think I turn to face it.
My mind is filling. Sensations and knowledge but not comprehensible knowledge and not understandable sensations. There is a plan. An awful plan. And I’m integral to it. And always have been. I agreed long ago to wait for the day. To be called upon. But I didn’t. But I did. It’s something I would remember, and I don’t so I didn’t but deep down I feel it.
The light is right.
But I don’t want it to be.
I shout, ‘No!’ and it gets brighter. I shout again, ‘No!’ and it gets bigger. It demands a bargain be upheld but how can something unknown be upheld?
Every though that whips through my head infuriates it. Colours erupt across its surface, bleeding into each other like dye on water. Red mixes with blue mixes with yellow mixes with black mixes with. What is that? There’s colours I don’t have names for. Colours I don’t understand. It hurts to look at. It burns.
No. It’s getting closer. I was so mesmerised by the display I didn’t notice it floating my way.
Now or never. Do or die.
I throw my bag of cold cod at the light and bolt. The first step pops most of the blisters. The second finishes off the rest. No time to care about that, the burning is worse now. The back of my head, my torso, my legs and arms, they’re all so hot. Shit I feel like I’m being cooked as the furnace bellows.
My socks soak up pus and blood as I run through the canyon, but at least I cool with each step. I don’t know where to go. I don’t know what to do. I can’t help it. I have a life. I have meaning. I can’t do want it wants.
Daringly, stupidly I look over my shoulder. Its moving. Hard to tell how fast but it is moving. Pulsing, reaching shadows lurch across the road and along the logs. Spikes of lashing colour, scorching with a touch. And that sound. It’s behind me and all around me. Roiling. Roaring. Endless.
Keep going! Don’t let it catch you!
Feet thumping, jellyfish stings grinding into my soles. Oh god what do I do? Where do I go? Concentrate on the now.
Forklift!
I stop thinking and just do. I leap into the tiny cab, grimacing at sunburn sting of my limbs and hope—yes! Keys. Hanging halfway to the cab’s floor by a cable. That damn bag cut into my fingers. They’re so fucking stiff. I fumble about grabbing for the key and once I’ve got it fear shakes my hand, the key’s point stabbing everywhere but home.
Shadows reach the canyon’s edge as the lifter sputters to life.
I yank the control lever to get the forks rising. There’s a lot of complaints from the hydraulics but after a sphincter tightening squeal they do as they’re told. With a deft throw of the wrist the shifter moves forward, and I stamp on the accelerator. Grinding, revving, a bad smell all oily and filled with bad omens. What the hell’s wrong with it?
The shadows are reaching beyond the canyon, barbed whips foretelling nothing good.
Work for shit’s sake work. Please.
I see my error. I grit my teeth, wrench the emergency brake down and tear arse across the road. There is little I do beyond holding down the pedal. The steering column barely moves, rusted into place. Not that I’m trying much.
The forklift hits the wall of logs with more force than I was expecting. My nose connects with my grip-tight-white knuckles. The crunch is sickening; the blood and mucus shot into my throat worse. Christ it hurts. I can’t see properly. My vision’s all blurry.
Heat. Heat on the left side of my face and light bright enough to bore through all the pain.
With a grunt I pull the control lever upwards again and gracelessly tumble out of the cab. I scramble through the dust and gravel as the cacophony is joined by mechanical screams and natural creaks. Deep creaks. The sort you run from. I find my feet and take off as a series of colossal, wooden thumps behind me tell me I might have done it. But I’m not looking back. Never again.
Wiping my eyes, running faster than I’m meant to be able. Sliding under the gate so smoothly I could be in films. Running and running and running. My feet are cold. Cold and wet and on fire. With each stride gravel moves around inside my shoes until the fragments find the ruptures and dig in. Do I whimper or just think about it?
Unfamiliar streets fly by, eventually becoming known. Curtains twitch and necks twist. I race across roads without looking, narrowly avoiding being run over and getting cursed out for it. I have to keep going. I have to get home. I have to find her and tell her I did something stupid, but I don’t know what. I need her to tell me it’s OK. I need her to say there’s a solution. I need her.
Even otherworldly horror-fuelled adrenaline has its limits. I’m slowing down. It’s taking too much effort to pull in air. My lungs are ragged. Wrinkly plastic bags.
There’s a light up ahead. Bright and white. Just beyond the line of houses. I can’t. I just can’t. I think to turn away.
But that’s my street.
No. No, no, no!
Nothing matters anymore. My legs can shred; my lungs can explode. That’s my street.
I run and run and try not to cry. I tear through the alley between the Boyd’s and the newsagents. I’m shouting but I don’t know what. Penny?
The light is coming from my house. Bright as the sun and unnaturally white. From every window. Roaring. Roiling.
I’m screaming. I can feel it even if I can’t hear it. Shit how is light so loud? Cracked knuckles wrap around the door handle, my key materialises in the lock but whether or not I open the door I’m going through it. Going through with every fibre straining, every muscle giving it all it has. I can go through walls.
It’s a white abyss. An expanse of eye searing light, still with that booming cacophony. So bright I can’t see a hand in front of my face. I scream for Penny. Or I never stopped. I dodge around furniture I know is there, hoping against hope I can find her.
My hands clasp around something soft and fitful. I know every part of her. Even as she leaps away, I wrap an arm around her waist and pull her in, pull her tight against my chest. Cradling her head against me I can feel her heavy breath pattering my shoulder, the movement of her jaw. She’s shouting. She’s begging. She doesn’t understand what’s happening.
Dear God just let me comfort her. Just once let me be there for her.
The light gets brighter. Somehow. I hold her chin like when I’m trying to play at romance. I close my eyes and hope she’s closed hers. I kiss her. I wrap my body around her and burn.
Felt this story.