Carl in the dark in the shadows.
It’s late. He doesn’t know how long he has been there.
Behind the gates at the end of the grey tongue of drive is a house, it is her house. There are no cars outside and no lights on but this is a trick because Carl saw a shape moving in the dark inside the window.
Above the gate, a little red dot of light that belongs to the security camera. That’s why Carl is standing here crushed up to the wall. The gates are locked and the walls are high with glass on top. The road is narrow and winding and quiet and dark, nothing is moving. Except inside close up everything is jumping! Everything is speeding and screaming at a million miles a second!
In his ear the phone buzzes and a voice tells him he has reached Lori’s number. It speaks the number all chopped up like a broken robot, it tells him to leave a message after the tone. The first times that’s what he did, he left messages, like WHY WEREN’T YOU AT THE HOP? WHERE ARE YOU NOW? WHY WON’T YOU ANSWER? But then he got bored and now instead he leaves silences. Hello, you have reached numbernumbernumbernumber, please leave a message after the tone –
Silence
until the network cuts him off. Then he hits the button and it all happens again. By now he has stopped expecting her to pick up or not pick up, it’s almost like it’s going on without him, buzz voice silence buzz voice silence. But in his head he can see it, the phone ringing in her bedroom, playing the BETHani song, Lori cross-legged on her bed in her pyjama bottoms, in the house all alone, watching it on her desk flashing,
<<CARL CALLING,>>
then it stops and the little envelope tumbles onto the screen,
YOU HAVE A NEW VOICE MESSAGE,
and she gets up and goes to hear it, and into her ear pours the scary sound of the silent outside going kchhhhhhhhhhhhhshhhhhhhhhhhh, piling up with all the other silences he has sent her, silences floating through the house like cold chunks cut out of the night, she is scared, she is crying, then suddenly she presses the button and this time it is him in her room, staticky, night-shaped, like a bad spirit in a fairy-tale, and with him the night, the cold, the trees, the dark, they’re all transported inside, packed into her bedroom, she is screaming What is happening???!!! then she is running –
Holding the phone between his chin and his shoulder he takes the tube of pills out of his pocket. He brought them for her but now they are mostly gone. He pours a little pyramid on his fingertip and lifts it up to his nose. It is a message he is sending to himself, he leans his head back and looks up at the cold stars and waits for it to arrive like a bolt of lightning –
Then there is a noise. A message on his phone! It’s her, she’s been watching him on the CCTV! And now she’s going to open the gates!
But it’s not from her, it’s from Barry.
WER R U U HV 2 CUM 2 EDS RIT NOW
Carl does not want to go to Ed’s. He writes back,
WOTS DA STORY?
The reply comes almost as soon as he’s sent it:
JUST FUKIN GET HEER NOW
Carl is pissed off, as soon as he goes he knows the gates will open, he sees her creeping on tiptoes over the gravel going, Carl, Carl. Fuck it! Fuck Barry!
But he gets on his bike and flies back towards Seabrook. The lights of the road swirl and beam extra-bright, he gets there in record time! When he goes behind the doughnut shop though, none of the faces that turn to look at him are Barry. First he thinks it’s a mistake, like he got the wrong message. Then he realizes he knows these faces. He turns to run but someone’s behind him and next thing he knows he’s on the ground.
It’s the knackers from the park, all four of them. One of them is pinning him down, another is crouched a little way away doing the same thing to Barry. From the ground between the arms and legs he stares across at Carl with eyes full of fear. What is going on?
‘Two posh cunts from Seabrook College,’ the knacker with the shaved head says in a loud voice, like he’s making a speech. ‘Two little faggots.’ He walks around in a small circle with a can in his hand. The knacker with greasy hair is kneeling on Carl’s chest. ‘Did you think you could just go on like this for ever? Did you fuckin think we’d just let you go on doin this and we wouldn’t mind? You fuckin queers?’
Is he asking Carl? Carl does not understand, he is still trying to understand when Shaved-Head’s face suddenly changes from a question to a snarling, like he’s taken off a mask and beneath it there’s a fire. Carl only catches a glimpse of this, then everything is spinning and stars. His head rings, he feels something wet running down his face.
‘What is it?’ Shaved-Head shouts. ‘Where’d you get it?’ His foot lands with a splat in Carl’s eye. Carl rolls his head, panting. From the dark the smashed lights of a burned car stare back at him like someone burned and lying on the ground in the weeds and garbage.
Greasy-Hair is searching through Carl’s clothes, into the pockets of his trousers and jacket. ‘We are going to kill you,’ he tells Carl, softly, like the doctor telling you the needle might sting a little bit. He finds Carl’s wallet and throws it to Shaved-Head.
‘That’s a fuckin start at least,’ Shaved-Head says.
‘Here we go.’ Greasy-Hair has found the tube.
Shaved-Head takes it and opens it. ‘This is what you’ve been selling? What is it? Speed?’
Barry tries to say something but his teeth are chattering too much. Shaved-Head opens the tube and pours a mound onto the back of his hand. He lowers his nose into it and then a moment later he folds his arms into himself in little jerks. ‘Whoa, I like that! Ah!’ He throws his shoulders back, twists his head. ‘Fuck, yeah! Where did youse shitheads get hold of this?’
In a little squeaky stammery voice Barry tells him about the pills. He tells him everything, about Morgan, about the girls on diets, about the little kids in junior school and the fireworks.
‘Sellin to all the rich bitches,’ Shaved-Head says. ‘Not a bad little plan. Unfortunately you fucked with the wrong people.’ His voice is bright with the drug, it makes you think you are on TV. ‘Get the rope,’ he says.
Now a knacker with bad teeth comes out of the trees at the edge of the waste ground. In his hand is a blue rope. When he sees it Barry starts shouting. The spotty guy on top of him slaps him, then when Barry doesn’t stop he grabs an old newspaper lying on the ground and stuffs Barry’s mouth full of it. ‘Better do this one first,’ he says, and pulls Barry to his feet. Through the newspaper, Barry’s still making a noise, a high-pitched gurgling squeal like a drowning pig. Tears are running down his face, and Carl can feel them too, burning in a lump in his throat.
Greasy-Hair hauls him to his feet as Spots drags Barry over to the burned-out car and pulls him up onto the bonnet. ‘Don’t worry, you’ll get your turn,’ he says in his doctor voice. ‘But first you have to watch your boyfriend die.’