And yet, however logical the explanation felt to him, however comforting, he also knew it wasn’t true.
Shining had also stood up and was looking out of the window, his lined face barely lit by the insipid light that fell through it in this watery world.
‘We have to be quick,’ he said. ‘Time moves slower here and we don’t know what’s happened to him. He won’t have gone far – he’s no idiot – but something has derailed him.’
Outside the window, Toby could see the playground and the drug dealers that used it as their outdoor office. Everything looked just as it should, but, at the same time, wrong, as if seen through a refracting glass.
‘We need to go outside?’ he asked.
‘Yes,’ Shining replied.
They moved out of the lounge and Toby saw Alasdair, his back to them as he stood in front of the kitchen cupboards.
‘Alasdair?’ Toby asked, but Shining pulled him back.
‘No,’ he said, ‘not the Alasdair we know. A shadow of him, yes, but not someone you want to meet.’
As he talked the Shadow Alasdair extended a finger to the black board and Toby could see the glint of exposed finger bone as it began to write. No hope, it scribbled across the blurred remains of old shopping lists, Lost forever.
‘Come on,’ Shining insisted, taking hold of Toby with his free hand and guiding him to the front door and out onto the balcony.
Outside, the difference between the two worlds was even more pronounced. The silence had the close, dead feel of an empty room rather than the open air. Toby felt that if he were to drop a coin on the stone beneath his feet it would not rebound from the soft, lifeless ground.
Shining led them around to the stairs and they descended to ground level.
‘Ignore the kids,’ Shining said as they moved past the playground. ‘Don’t even look at them.’
Toby couldn’t help but do so. And as he looked at one boy, swinging slowly on his swing, the boy looked up at him and the face within the shadow of the hoodie he wore had the cold, wet look of dead skin. There were no features, just the smooth white, sagging flesh of a blister.
‘I told you not to look,’ said Shining. ‘It’s important.’
So Toby focused on his feet.
‘If you don’t see them,’ said Shining, ‘they don’t see you. Their attention is elsewhere; we’re the ghosts here and we can float by unnoticed as long as we don’t draw attention.’
‘And what happens if we do?’ asked Toby. ‘Draw attention, that is.’
‘You don’t want that,’ Shining replied, ‘the creatures you find here, the shadows; they can be dangerous. They will try to keep you here. However they can. Remember your training and go grey.’
‘Going grey’ in training had simply meant walking unnoticed in a crowd. Toby couldn’t help but feel this was a step further. Toby tried not to imagine the hooded youth rising from his swing and walking towards the wire mesh of his cage. Tried not to imagine that the two of them were now being watched by the whole group as they walked across the terrace towards the communal bins.
He could see a pair of stockinged feet sticking out as they passed. He tried not to look, but nevertheless glimpsed the red mess that was the old lady’s head thanks to the attentions of the tabby cat now busy feeding.
He looked at his shoes again. Felt a wave of nausea building. ‘How do we find him?’ he asked, focusing on the feel of the warm, invisible hand he held. ‘He could be anywhere.’
‘He’s close,’ Shining answered, ‘I know him well enough. I can feel him nearby. Once you get used to doing this you gain an instinct for it, a sixth sense that tells you when a living traveller is there.’
They found him by the gate. Sat on the ground, face pressed against the iron.
‘What are you doing stuck here?’ Shining asked, squatting down and turning Goss’ face towards his. ‘You need to come home.’
For a moment Toby thought this version of the dreamer was as vacant as the one whose hand he held, but then Jamie Goss’ face lit up and he began to speak.
‘I’d like to,’ he said, ‘but there’s something wrong here, something disturbed. I felt it when I first arrived. A contamination. It made me lose my way.’ The man’s eyes went past Shining and Toby, looking towards a darkness massing at the far side of the courtyard – an almost tangible blackness that curled and bubbled within the pale ivy leaves that lined the walls. ‘And now there’s that…’
‘I’ve never seen anything like it before,’ said Shining, turning to look. ‘Some kind of force…’ He looked to Jamie. ‘What is it?’
Jamie shook his head. ‘It appeared the same time you did. I can feel it. It’s powerful. Dangerous. It wants to swallow us whole.’
Shining shook his head and looked to Toby. ‘We’re going to have to do something risky,’ he said. ‘Are you up for it?’
Bizarrely, the old man smiled, as if with anticipation.
‘To hell with it,’ responded Toby. ‘I don’t believe a bit of this so I’m up for anything.’
Shining nodded. ‘Then take Jamie’s hand – this Jamie – in your spare hand and then, when I say run… we run back to the flat. Got it?’
‘And that’s risky, is it?’ said Toby. ‘Am I going to be somewhere else again when I touch him?’
‘No, but the more aggressive our actions here, the more we draw attention to ourselves.’
Toby glanced at the black mass that seemed to be deepening the more they talked. ‘That stuff seems aware enough as it is.’
Shining nodded. ‘You’re probably right, so the only thing we can do is hope we can outrun it. Got that?’
Toby nodded and took Goss’ hand. Oddly, it did not feel real. It had none of the solidity and warmth of the invisible hand he was already gripping. He stared at it and squeezed the fingers. ‘It’s as if there’s nothing there,’ he said.
‘There’s not much,’ Shining admitted. ‘We have the very least of him here until we can drag him back. But it’s enough. Ready?’
‘Ready.’
‘Then run!’
They sprinted back the way they had come and Toby was aware that the black mass was seething after them as they crossed the courtyard. There was a feline screech and the cat that had been dining on its owner jumped onto the lid of one of the bins and hissed at them as they raced by.
‘Keep going!’ Shining shouted. ‘Don’t let anything slow you down!’
Don’t worry, Toby thought, I don’t intend to.
But the sight of the drug dealers, hurling themselves at the chain-link mesh of the play area nearly made him falter. They were like wild animals in a cage, desperate to break free so they could rip and tear at the enemy that was passing by them.
Toby looked away. If he couldn’t see them, then they weren’t there, he decided. Hitting the stairway they began to climb upwards. None of this is real, Toby insisted to himself, even as the pale light began to darken around them. The black mass that wanted to swallow them whole, to turn them to ice in its cold, dark belly, reared up behind them, drawing closer and closer.
They reached the balcony and Toby nearly fell as his leather soles skidded on the smooth surface of the floor.
‘Careful!’ Shining shouted, ‘we’re almost there!’
They crashed into the flat and Shining slammed the front door behind them. The glass immediately became dark as the blackness struck. It was like sudden nightfall.