Mind Secrets: A Science Fiction Telepathy Thriller (Perceivers Book 1) (3 page)

Over the days that passed, he came to realise Nurse Hobson was wrong. His memories didn’t come back. Each day he woke hoping that he would remember something of his former life, and each day he was disappointed. He wondered, if perceivers really could read minds, maybe they could see into the memories that he seemed to have forgotten.

~

IN THE EVENINGS
, Michael got into a habit of sitting on a wall opposite a chip shop. Even though the smell of batter frying in oil drifted across the road and clawed at his hungry stomach, the wall gave him a vantage point where he could watch the customers. Sometimes they stood outside and ate their chips before dropping the wrapper in the rubbish bin, from where Michael could retrieve it and eat the scraps of crispy bits left in the bottom. If he was lucky, they would leave whole pieces of fish in the wrapper. He tried to eat them slowly, to savour their taste, but usually he couldn’t stop himself and desperately gobbled them down.

It was early one evening as he sat with his bum soaking up the cold from the brickwork beneath him, that he saw Jack. He might not have noticed him if it wasn’t for the white of Jack’s plaster cast, caught in the light shining through the plate glass window of the chip shop. The boy didn’t go in for chips, he walked straight past, presumably on his way to somewhere else. In the moments that he watched him, there was no mistaking the straggly hair and pock-marked face of the boy from the hospital.

Suddenly excited, Michael hopped off the wall. He thought about shouting after Jack, but it was Jennifer he had a connection with, not him, so he decided to follow at a discreet distance.

It was a strategy that nearly caused him to lose sight of his target as, up ahead, Jack jogged over the road at a pedestrian crossing just as the lights were changing. The red man was already lit up by the time Michael got to the kerb and the traffic started up again. Frustrated, Michael saw Jack getting further away as cars sped past, making it impossible to cross. Eventually the green man appeared, cars obediently stopped and Michael dashed across the road.

Moving faster so as not to risk losing him, Michael saw Jack turn off the path towards a large red brick building. As solidly built as a house, but as large as a barn, it was enclosed in its grounds well away from other buildings. As Jack went inside, Michael wondered if he should follow him or wait for him to come back out again. It was then he saw the wooden noticeboard by the road which revealed the building to be a community hall. Pinned to it was a printed notice which advertised a drop-in centre for teenagers every evening of the week except Wednesday and Sunday. Michael assumed, whatever day of the week it was, it wasn’t Wednesday or Sunday. For the second time in ten minutes, he decided to follow.

The hall was dimly lit, full of music and teenage chatter echoing off the wooden floor and the high ceiling. It smelt of sweaty bodies and the musk of old buildings. All along the back wall were child-like paintings created with broad brush-strokes and bright, primary colours. Up one end was a more sober collection of notices with dates of choir rehearsals, a reminder of a price increase for Wednesday’s yoga class, and a thank you for those who helped to raise £104.26 for the local hospice on bingo night. The place didn’t belong to teenagers, they were merely guests five nights a week.

In the centre of the board, half-covering an old newspaper article about the community playgroup, was a hand-written notice:
Teenage drop-in centre closes at 10pm sharp! No hanging around outside after hours
.

At least, it used to say that, but someone had joined up the bottom of the ‘h’ in the word ‘hanging’ to turn it into ‘banging’, then in a different pen someone had crossed out ‘around’ and written ‘your girlfriend’. So it now read:
No banging your girlfriend outside after hours
. Stupid, but it made Michael smile.

He looked around in the semi-darkness. There were groups of teenagers huddled together, talking over the beat of the music from the sound system. Others sat at the side, staring at their phones and occasionally tapping the screen. None of them were Jack.

Something white caught the beam of a spotlight at the back of the hall. It was Jack’s plaster cast, emerging – attached to its owner – from the men’s toilets. Jack strode down the length of the hall and through a door at the other end.

Michael walked up to the door. It was closed. He didn’t know what was on the other side, it might be private. Michael decided he didn’t care, gripped the handle and turned.

A conversation stopped mid-sentence. Five teenagers sitting on chairs in a rough circle turned to look at him. One of the five was Jack, and next to him sat Jennifer.

The room was small and sparse. Plain, white-painted walls with desks of light beech around the edge. It had one very small window high up on the exterior wall.

“Oi!” yelled the teenager at the back. He was older than the others, large and muscular with a crop of shocking blond hair. “Ain’t you ever heard of knocking?”

Michael instantly felt he had made the wrong move.

“Hey, it’s that skank from the hospital,” said Jack.

“Oh yes,” said the girl, her face softening into a smile. “Hello Michael.”

“Uh … hello,” Michael managed.

“Still wearing that jumper, I see,” said Jennifer.

Michael looked down at the jumper he’d been wearing ever since she gave it to him, now a grubby version of its original light blue. “Yeah,” he said.

“Who gives a ferret’s nipples about his soddin’ jumper?” said Jack.

“Do you always have to be so polite?” said Jennifer.

“Not with norms,” said Jack.

Michael could almost taste the hostility in the air. “I’m sorry,” he said, turning away from the four pairs of unfriendly eyes staring at him, “I didn’t realise you were in here.”

He backed out, pulling the door shut behind him. But Jennifer stood and caught the door before it closed. “Ignore that lot,” she said. “What do you want?”

“It’s nothing,” said Michael.

“I can perceive it’s not nothing.” She looked deep into his eyes and Michael felt a connection between them. Simultaneously intrusive and caring.

“Jen, get out of his head and get back in the circle,” the blond one called over.

“He wants something pretty damn bad, Otis.”

“So?” said Otis. “Get rid of the skank and sit down.”

Otis’s tongue was not as sharp as Jack’s, but his large muscular frame and deep, fully broken voice commanded more authority.

Jennifer didn’t seem to care. “I won’t be long.” She hustled Michael out of the door. They were back in the main hall with its cliques of teenagers and loud music. A peel of giggles erupted from a group of girls standing little more than a metre away.

“Let’s go somewhere quieter,” said Jennifer.

She led Michael past the noticeboard, with its instruction about banging girlfriends, down the length of the hall and towards the toilets. Michael thought they were going to stop in the corner, but Jennifer headed straight for the women’s loos. She pushed open the door with a hard slap of her palm. Michael hesitated, knowing he shouldn’t go in there, then followed.

A short girl with hooped earrings who washing her hands at the sink, looked startled when she saw Michael. She stopped rubbing her hands under the tap and the stream of water ran uselessly past her fingers. Jennifer returned a smile as if everything was normal. The girl shook her hands dry, wiped them on the seat of her jeans and hurried out.

Jennifer checked the cubicles and confirmed that she and Michael were alone. She leant up against the main door with all her body weight so no one else could come in.

“What’s so important?” she asked.

Michael was suddenly embarrassed. Seeing Jack in the street and following him was a spur of the moment decision. He hadn’t thought of what he was going to say. A cascade of words rolled through his head, myriad possible explanations. All of them sounded lame. “I … this is so hard.” He took a breath and slowly, in a string of bumbling and confused sentences, told her about his amnesia. “I was wondering … could you look into my mind? Can you see – I mean,
perceive
– my memories? Who I am? My family? My home?”

Jennifer looked doubtful. Michael’s moment of hope slipped away. “Perceivers aren’t mind readers,” she said. “I know that that’s what people say, but it’s not entirely true. I perceive feelings and emotions, I pick up on thoughts occasionally – strong ones, especially. But to look into someone’s head and see memories they have forgotten …?” She finished off her sentence with a shake of her head.

Despair descended. His only idea in days of living on the streets – dismissed with one shake of her head.

Jennifer must have perceived what he was feeling because she responded with a sympathetic smile. “Well, maybe I could try,” she said. “I can’t promise … but it wouldn’t hurt to try.”

All went quiet apart from the steady beat of the music leaking through from the hall. The smile slipped from Jennifer’s lips. Michael waited. Nothing happened. “What do I do?”

“Do nothing.”

Her face became serious and still. She leant into him. So close that he could feel her soft breathing on his cheek. Almost as intimate as a kiss. Anticipation rose inside of him. His heart quickened. He caught a hint of the perfumed soap she used to wash with. Saw the neat black line of eye pencil under each lower lid and the way mascara elongated her black eyelashes. Desire tingled through his body. As soon as he felt it, he knew she would feel it too; perceive it in him. He had to force it away. He focussed on the dark area of his mind where he had no memories. He tried to think of the time before waking up in the corridor, before running, before meeting Jennifer.

Her stare was intense. She looked into his eyes. Deep. Penetrating. Probing. Through the cornea, past the iris and beyond the pupil. Until she was inside his mind. He couldn’t feel her, but he knew she had to be in there. The subtlety in her stare showed she was thinking about everything she perceived. Like a tiny flashing light on a computer, each byte of information sending a flicker across her eyes. Her breath shallow in concentration. Body absorbed in stillness. Her singular perception, sharp and focussed, stretching out the seconds into minutes.

Until her eyes softened and she withdrew. Back through the pupil, the iris, the cornea. Her breathing deepened. She blinked her mascaraed eyelashes and their connection was severed. She leant back against the door and her body relaxed.

A mixture of nerves and excitement trembled inside him. “Well?” he said.

“Strange,” said Jennifer. She seemed distracted, not quite there. Like a person emerging from a dream. “There’s so little of you, it’s like perceiving a baby.”

“But did you see my memories? Do you know who I am? Where I live?”

“No.”

Michael deflated. His legs hardly had the strength to keep him upright any more. He staggered backwards and felt his bum hit the rim of a sink. He perched on it. “God!” he cursed. He turned and kicked at the wall. Plaster came away from the brickwork and scattered to the floor in pieces. He kicked the bits to the other side of the room. “God! God! God!”

His face was hot with frustration. He turned on the cold tap with such force that it sent water spraying onto his trousers. He cupped his hands and splashed it onto his face until his skin, his hair and jumper were dripping wet.

“I’m sorry,” said Jennifer. “There’s a nothingness inside of you. Like someone sucked out your memories.”

“Am I brain damaged?” said Michael. The thought – suddenly in his head – scared him.

“I don’t know. I’ve never perceived anything like you.”

Jennifer flinched at a sound on the other side of the door. Michael heard it too. The smashing of glass.

Then another.

Screams erupted from behind the door. The frightened, high-pitched screams of teenage girls.

Jennifer’s eyes widened. She turned and dashed out the door.

Michael followed her into the screaming.

The door opened onto an orange glow. People were running. Shouting. Flames leapt from half a dozen places. A glass bottle sailed through an already-smashed window. The flaming rag in its neck arched across the hall and struck the back wall. Glass shattered. Liquid spurted in all directions and ignited with a
whompf
of flame.

Petrol bombs had exploded throughout the hall and they were still coming.

CHAPTER FOUR

FIRE CONSUMED
the hall. It feasted on its wooden floors. Devoured curtains at the window. Licked at paper pinned to the noticeboard. The children’s paintings blackened, their corners withered in the heat and started to burn.

The half-dozen seats of fire where petrol bombs had exploded were merging into one, carried by the accelerant which had burst from smashed glass bottles.

Michael ran. He dodged the flames which pawed at his trouser legs. Their heat was fierce and each breath sucked hot air into his lungs. But the fire hadn’t entirely taken hold of the building yet. His escape route was clear. He ran through the main door and out into the open.

He breathed deep and savoured the clean air. Around him, other teenagers were standing with shocked faces, staring back at the burning hall. A girl was crying and being comforted by a friend. Michael turned and saw what they saw. The fire flickered orange through four smashed windows and an open door. A boy ran out, screaming in terror, flames flapping around the sleeve of his sweatshirt. An adult ran past Michael and engulfed the boy with a jacket. Pushed him to the ground and smothered the flames.

“Are you all right?” said the adult.

The boy nodded, his face streaked with sooty tears.

The adult – a man with thinning hair – stood. “Everyone back from the building.” He waved his arms like he was shooing a herd of cattle. “Back!”

The teenagers moved a few steps away from the burning hall, Michael among them.

The man pulled a phone from his pocket and dialled. He put it to his ear and asked for the fire service.

“Oi!”