When Jake swallowed, he tasted his own blood again. “Good luck, man. Sweet dreams and all that. I really hope it works out for you and you get everything you wish for.”
Tom smiled. “I will.” He then said, “Jake.”
Avoiding eye contact, Jake watched the hazy sun. “Yeah?”
“You’ve never told me about your life before New Reality. You’ve only ever talked about the future.”
Shrugging, Jake still didn’t look down at his friend. “There’s nothing to talk about.”
“I’d like to hear it anyway.”
Picking a rock up from the floor, Jake stared at it. “I had two parents that fully supported everything I did. For a while,” he added. “I was an only child.” Pausing, he cleared the hot lump of grief wedged in his throat. “Well, I ended up an only child.”
“Ended up?”
Jake tried to clear his throat again. “Louisa died when she was five. Leukemia. I was eight at the time.” Staring into the distance, he listened to the grit pattering against his glasses. “The hospital was such a positive place. It was full of bald children who all knew they’d get better.” After a sigh, he looked down at Tom. “Louisa was one of the few that didn’t. Positivity didn’t help her much and chemo stuck the boot in. She got progressively worse.”
When Tom’s grey eyes pinched, Jake laughed. “I bet you regret asking now, eh?”
Shaking his head, Tom spoke in a weak voice. “Not at all. The children’s ward was the worst in the entire hospital when I was working there. So bright and colorful. So many deaths. What about your parents? How did they cope?”
“Badly. They went to pieces. We all did. Once the death of a child enters your house, it never leaves. Mum did her best, but Dad was distant after that. He didn’t want to play football in the park anymore. He didn’t want to go on family outings. He didn’t want to leave his armchair. The TV was always on and Dad was always staring at it. He also drank a lot more. He was never a horrible drunk, just distant.”
When Tom winced sympathy at his friend, Jake pointed at him. “Don’t you fucking dare!”
Tom frowned.
“That face. That face that says ‘I know how you feel.’ Or ‘I’m sorry.’ Don’t, Tom, not you.”
Nodding, Tom raised his eyebrows. “So what about your parents? Did they put a headset on?”
“No. If Dad were still alive when New Reality came out, then he’d have been first in the queue. He wouldn’t have been able to resist the opportunity to get lost in the ultimate coping mechanism.”
Shaking his head, Jake drew a deep and stuttered breath. “We had a balcony in our house that Dad covered with teddies. It was mental. We had a lovely little house, and the balcony faced the road. Dad thought his shrine looked like something from a fairy tale. It didn’t. It was fucking weird. It looked like something from a horror movie. He’d buy new teddies for each season—Easter bunnies, bears dressed as Santa, stuffed witches. We had hundreds of them stored in Louisa’s old room. It was like he was expecting her to come back. Passers-by would ask what they were for, and we’d say it was a charity thing. People didn’t need our sadness.”
When Jake looked over to see Tom staring at him, he bit his bottom lip and his eyes burned with tears. “Mum died of cancer too. After that, Dad just stopped…” Pausing, he searched his mind for an appropriate word. “…working.” He tested the phrase. “He just stopped working. His batteries ran out. When I visited him, he’d just stare out of the window into the garden. The loud tick of his clock and the chink of the ice in his whisky glass were about the only sounds in his house from then on. When he died, he left everything to me. My parents had a lot of money, so I never had to work again.” Looking at the red glow on the horizon, Jake sneered. “I had a life of lazy luxury mapped out before Rixon fucked it all up.”
When he looked down at Tom, he was surprised to see him crying. The wind wobbled the tears on his face. “You’ve been a good friend, Jake.”
The words twisted Jake’s stomach.
“I’ll miss you.”
Jake’s throat tightened and his vision glazed. Clearing his throat again, he chewed the inside of his mouth.
“If you see Rory out there, tell him I love him.” Grabbing Jake’s good hand, Tom’s eyes held a sharp focus. “Tell him I tried.”
Unable to speak, Jake nodded and tears rolled down his cheeks.
“Thank you, Jake, you’re a good man. Your parents would be proud of you.”
While shaking uncontrollably, Jake stared at the floor. If only he knew.
Pulling his scarf away from his mouth, Tom said, “I love you, Jake. I’m sorry I’m leaving.” Lifting the headset, he paused. “And Jake.”
Jake looked up.
“Be careful of whatever’s been following us. They’re creatures of malicious intent. I saw nothing but hate in their dark eyes.”
Swallowing a dry gulp, Jake nodded.
Tom placed the headset over his head.
While sobbing, Jake held Tom’s hand.
The headset’s black straps came to life, wrapping around the back of Tom’s head like a spider entrapping its prey. Several twitches pulsed through Tom’s long frame before he fell limp like every muscle had failed simultaneously. His bowels relaxed, and he shit himself.
While pinching his nose, Jake stared at his friend. Tom’s long body had yielded to the uneven terrain. Joining the rest of the inanimate idiots, Tom was now no more than a corpse with a pulse.
“I’m sorry, Tom. I truly am.” Rubbing his face irritated the sores that had been burned into it from years of sandblasting. As long as he was here, they’d never heal. They’d putrefy like the guilt that darkened his soul and the gash on his infected hand.
Suddenly Tom’s chest jumped towards the sky as his back arced. Staring at him, Jake frowned. “Tom?”
After the tall man’s body fell limp again, Jake watched on. Then his headset fell away. The light had left Tom’s grey eyes and his face was slack.
Shaking his friend, Jake said, “Tom?”
When Jake saw a line of blood leaking from the corner of Tom’s mouth, he got to his feet and tried to sit him up. At first, he was hard to move, but then he came free and flipped over onto his front. Jake’s legs weakened when he looked down at the metal spike. The blood covering it. The hole in Tom’s back.
Suddenly the ground came to life and a line of raised rubble shot away from them, spraying Jake with stones and masonry. Within seconds it was out of view.
Staring at the bloody spike, Jake shook as if he was drawing his rage from the centre of the earth. Looking into the distance where the thing had disappeared, he looked down at the spike again.
Clenching his fists and gritting his teeth against the burn in his right hand, he screamed until his throat was sore. Pausing, he looked for signs of movement. When there were none, he lifted his face to the sky and screamed again.
Dropping to the floor, tears streaming from his sore eyes, Jake sat and stared at his dead friend.
With her hand on her pounding heart, she pulled deep breaths into her tight lungs. It was like she’d been stabbed herself. There was no doubt that Tom had to go. It was important that she reminded herself that. Tom had to go. To keep him alive would be to keep Jake in Birmingham. Her orders were clear. If Jake didn’t move on, she had to end him. If her superiors found how long she’d let Jake live for already, there’d be consequences.
Staring at Tom’s dead body, she then looked at his grieving friend. If Tom had drifted off into New Reality, there’d always be a reason for Jake to come back and check on him. It had to end this way for Tom. Although it didn’t make it any easier. Tom was a good friend to Jake, but he was in the way.
Looking at Jake’s hunched form, she felt every one of his tears. Watching the skinny and broken man, she drew a deep sigh and spoke under her breath. “He’s gone now, Jake. You need to move on for your own sake. You need to get out of the city. If you don’t, you’ll die.”