Where the Birds Hide at Night (5 page)

Several hours passed and Alex needed the toilet. He wanted to ask the man if he'd stop the car so that he could dive behind a bush and relieve himself, but he couldn't pluck up the courage. Then, they pulled into an underground car park and came to a halt. The elderly gent sat silently for a moment, gurning right at his young passenger, before checking his watch. ‘Goodbye,' he said to Alex, and looked past him through the window. Alex turned to look, seeing nothing but an empty car park.

‘What now?' he asked the gent nervously.

‘Cigar?' he asked back, taking one from his inside jacket pocket.

‘No, thanks.'

‘This is where we part company,' he carried on, putting the cigar back in his pocket with a look of mild sadness on his face. He again looked past Alex and out of the window. Alex slowly opened the door and stepped out, closing the door again just in time for the car to speed off.

He looked bemusedly around the empty space, wondering to himself if he looked suspicious. He now desperately needed the toilet, but couldn't very well relieve himself here. Looking around, he saw a bright green exit sign up ahead in the distance, even though it was in the opposite direction the car had just gone in. He started to walk towards it, hands deep in his pockets, as the sound of an engine came back into his ears. He turned to see the same car speeding towards him. The brakes slammed on and the rear window opened. Expecting the elderly man, Alex instead saw the PM sitting in the back. ‘Am I glad to see you!' he went, a look of dread on his face. Alex read his expression as relief, and felt instantly pleased and somehow important. The PM needed him! Oh, what splendour. ‘Get in, get in!' he went on. Alex did so, getting back in the car and speeding off with the main man.

‘What's this all about?' Alex asked him.

‘My friend, you and I are going to make history,' he beamed with joy, and a hint of horror, ‘we are going to change the world.'

‘How'?

‘You don't know who you are, do you?'

‘I'm Alex.'

The PM smiled then frowned, deep in thought as his stare loomed deep into Alex's mystified gaze. ‘I trust you've had words with Reaping Icon by now, in this current lifetime?'

‘How do you know about Reaping Icon, and what do you mean this lifetime?'

‘Alex!' the PM laughed, ‘Reaping Icon has been in touch with me as well. We are both one of The Great Collective. You and I, some of the last few immortals… plagued by these false memories and endless life after life. Reaping Icon has promised to change all that, if we assist him.'

‘Eh?' Alex was dumbfounded, barely able to form a glib response, let alone take any of the PM's words in. ‘I thought I'd made him up in my mind, like an invisible friend or something.'

‘An invisible friend?' the PM roared with laughter, clutching his stomach as the hilarity of such a thing stunned him with powerful physical guffaws. Suddenly, he was deadly still again with no trace of even a giggle as he turned to Alex with such pain and sorrow tearing at his self and whispered: ‘He is anything but our friend.'

Alex studied closely the PM's shiny face; he couldn't help it, it was so near to his own right now. It was so glossy, so over-produced just like it appeared on TV. This in itself felt strange to Alex as he'd always have expected it to be totally different to what the TV showed. Dry, grey and cracked would have been the reality Alex was expecting, but instead he got the moist smooth sheen as seen on the box. Not that it mattered, but there was something untoward about the PM's face – like it wasn't his actual face. Beneath the glitzy skin, worn soft and round like a pebble on the bed of a fast-flowing river, lay that dry, grey and cracked person Alex presumed he would physically see. He desperately needed the toilet.

‘We have much to achieve using our connection to The Space, my immortal companion,' the PM continued. ‘We will cure world hunger, end all wars… we will be supreme leaders of Earth!' He looked up to the heavens, obscured by the roof of the car, as Alex scratched his chin.

The two men made their way into the PM's office, where the main man closed and locked the door. Behind the vast oak desk, a green leather material covering its surface, stood a huge black upright box. It could have been a coffin stood on its end, but Alex couldn't see any removable lid. He did, however, feel keen about it in an uneasy way. It drew him in to have a look; kept wanting more and more attention as it just stood there.

‘What's that?' Alex asked.

‘That's my desk,' the PM replied in haste, smiling.

‘No, the big box behind it,' Alex clarified.

The PM crept over to Alex, turning his back to the box and whispered: ‘You've forgotten everything from your past existences, haven't you?'

‘What past existences?'

The PM went over to the box and touched it, sighing, before sitting down at his desk in front of it. ‘There are a small number of us left, Alex, who haven't been completely diluted by centuries of wiped memories. These few, we must trace; then, we start our work to bring the human race together as one force… an intergalactic force for good!'

‘And what does that entail?'

‘We must gather The Great Collective back together and ensure we remember from this life to the next. That way, we can sort this mess out on Earth and pool all our resources into heading for the stars.'

‘And what's out there?'

‘Humanity's future, of course. Listen, Alex, if we're going to be living forever then we must expand our horizons. Earth is tired, worn out. If we do not jump ship, head out and find new planets to live on, our subsequent lives will become increasingly horrific.' The PM held back tears as he saw in his spacely vision what lay in wait for the future of humanity – a future that was nearing at pace. ‘First, it'll be too hot here, then… oh, the horrors!' He sobbed, waving his fists about at unseen enemies. Then, he stood up straight and caught his reflection in a large mirror across the room. Pointing at his own face, he yelled: ‘I'm watching you, fucker!' Sitting back down with intent, he picked up two pencils off his desk and sharpened them furiously. ‘I don't know if I can go on, Alex, in this current life. Mark my words, though, I will be back and we will continue our plans.' So intense was his desire not to exist at this exact moment in time that he stuck the sharpened pencils up his nostrils and yelled, ‘Long live The Great Collective,' before bashing his head down on the desk, driving the pencils deep up his nose and into his brain and ending its ability to function. Blood oozed out of his face as he lifted it up off the desk and looked over at Alex looking back in terror. ‘It hurts,' he mumbled, before his face slammed back onto the desk. Bye, bye, PM. Alex looked over at the mirror, the paper hat sitting on his head like a vivid release of obnoxious innocence. Things felt very wet between his legs, and he looked down to see that he'd wet himself. There came a knock at the door. Alex froze, deadly silent, keeping his eyes on himself in the mirror. Just a couple of hours ago he'd been sitting with his wife and the in-laws having Christmas dinner; now he was locked in the PM's office with the dead body of the main man. His enjoyment of Christmas had been dwindling fairly steadily year after year since he'd left childhood, and this was now perhaps one of the worst. At least it was different, though. He imagined himself off somewhere else on an amazing adventure with thrills and spills hitherto unexperienced. He had hardly experienced anything yet in his short life, so these thrills and spills needn't have been too extravagant. His imagination was not the most waxing and he quickly found himself backed into a corner and confined to his present predicament. He wanted to do things in his life, yes, it's just that he hadn't really given much thought as to what things. He wanted to be with Emma, and yet he didn't. It was a muddle, a hotchpotch of gobbledygook mashing around his mush-brain. He'd continued with Katie just that little bit too long, and felt he couldn't come out of it now. Would he lose face? Would he regret leaving Katie?

The knock came again at the door, and to Alex it felt like a knock to the head. It shook him out of his daydream and the only thing for him to do was go to the door, unlock it and let the person in. He could have committed suicide instead, but it didn't cross his mind.

* * *

‘That's how I ended up in here,' Alex told Noose, staring at the metal struts holding the top bunk that housed his roommate.

‘Yes, it's awkward when something like that happens,' was Noose's lazy reply. He hadn't really been listening; he was still staring up at that face on the cell ceiling. It was now everything to him – his one big obsession. Focus on it could possibly see him occupied throughout his lengthy prison term, or it would drive him over the edge into nonreturnable madness. Perhaps it was already too late.

‘At least I know who set me up,' Alex carried on in spite of Noose's lack of interest. Noose did not respond. ‘Reaping Icon, that's who.'

Just now the cell door opened and three very large bald prisoners came in, followed by an extremely thin, pale young prisoner. Noose didn't acknowledge their arrival, but instinctively knew there was trouble ahead.

‘Get down,' the wispy man ordered Noose. He obliged, getting off the bunk and facing the four men. Alex was frozen in terror, selfishly hoping it was just Noose they had come for. Noose kind of knew what it was about, as he'd heard Wayne Richards had been transferred to this prison. He was the father of Beth Henderson; the man who had once presumably been romantically connected with Dani Henderson in order to father the poor child. Both were dead, and to all intents and purposes Noose was responsible. ‘You know who I am, don't you?' Richards spat at Noose. He nodded back.

‘For what it's worth, I was framed for their murders,' Noose uttered. For this, Richards head-butted him. Noose did not flinch, though he now had a bloodied nose.

‘You,' Richards addressed Alex, ‘strip.'

Two of the huge men now took hold of Noose as the third closed the cell door and grabbed hold of Alex. The young man, limp in the big man's grip, looked over at Noose.

‘Do it,' Noose sighed, looking away.

‘No, no, fuck you, fuck you all,' Alex cried. ‘Help, guards!' he yelled. The big man smacked him across the face and started tearing his clothes off.

Richards turned to Noose and smiled as he took his own clothes off. It was a struggle, but the big man managed to strip Alex, punching him numerous times in the face in order to succeed. Richards rubbed his own naked body up and down, his penis erecting as he knelt on the bed next to Alex. ‘Shush, my lover, it's futile to fight our burning attraction,' Richards cooed in his ear as the big man spun Alex onto his stomach. He sensually rubbed Alex's body up and down from on top of him, leaning over and kissing him on the neck. Alex sobbed and sobbed as he felt Richards' penis enter from behind. Deeper and deeper it went, in and out and in and out. Faster, harder, it got; the pain and indignity so overwhelming that he imagined himself deep underground, burning and suffocating to death. Finally, he passed out as the two men holding Noose forced him to his knees and Richards pulled out of Alex and turned to Noose with his penis in-hand, ejaculating over his face. ‘Give it a kiss,' Richards demanded, the two men pulling Noose's head back as the penis entered his mouth. Noose sucked the last of the sperm, blood and poo off the penis as Richards slowly pulled it out. Then, he nodded and all three men began thrashing the hell out of the poor bastard as he tried to protect his face. Richards sat back down on the bottom bunk with the unconscious Alex, running his fingers through the young man's hair.

* * *

Noose was sitting in the bright white waiting room, twiddling his thumbs. The magazines on the table in the centre of the room didn't really take his fancy. Instead, he thought about being dead and that this was his turn to find out where his leftover essence would end up. Then, the door opposite opened and Peter Smith strolled in. Wearing his father's lovingly tailored old brown suit, he sat down across from Noose and smiled.

‘Am I glad to see you,' Noose said calmly, and a little unsurprised. ‘So it's true, I
am
dead.' He sounded rather relieved.

‘Not quite, Noose,' Peter replied. ‘Well, at this exact moment in time you are dead, yes, but the doctors and nurses are trying their best on you and you should pull through. A bit of resuscitation and you'll be fine.'

‘Ah, I see.'

‘Yes. Marvellous really, isn't it?'

‘That they can bring people back from the dead?'

‘No – that doctors and nurses will tirelessly work their socks off to save a convicted child rapist and murderer.'

‘I didn't do it,' Noose shouted angrily, getting up from his chair. He paced up and down, livid with the turn of events in his life of late.

‘I know you didn't, but they don't.'

‘Then who did? Who set me up?' Noose demanded, grabbing Peter and pulling him to his feet. ‘If you're up here watching down on everything, you must have seen it happen.'

‘Up here? Must I be looking down… or even up? Noose,' Peter carried on, pulling himself gently away from the angry man. ‘I am right next to you at all times, right next to everyone. It only takes a mere step to the side to get here.'

‘What's it all about, anyway? I mean, you're long dead, how can I be talking to you right now? Is it really you?'

‘I have assumed this bodily form as it is the one you most readily associate with me.'

‘What do you mean by that?'

‘I am one of The Great Collective,' Peter explained with some sadness, ‘an Icon who has been scattered and fragmented across all of time.'

‘The Great Collective?'

‘We were the first people on Earth, hundreds of years ago, to discover and make contact with The Space – the summation of all that ever was, is or will be. We planned such greatness and good with our new aid. The Space granted us immortality for our efforts.'

‘Ah, I see,' Noose yawned, sitting back down and rubbing his chin.

‘However,' Peter continued, ‘it was a sick curse – immortality with the added kick of dying after each lifespan and being reborn as somebody else. Each time we were reborn we lost our memory, and would struggle to reform our connection to The Space. Our power to contact The Space ebbed. As we grew collectively weaker, so the evil within us separated and became its own entity – Reaping Icon.'

‘Reaping Icon?' Noose searched his mind for a fleeting memory of that name. He had certainly heard it before.

‘Reaping Icon was the first to harness The Space for ill. It was this revelation that brought about the sheer
need
to collectively remember. Reaping Icon
must
be stopped. The more we forget, the more powerful he grows.'

‘But your family, your life here on Earth? What about all that?' Noose asked, beginning to take this seriously.

‘I
am
Peter Smith, yes, and all of that has happened and will continue to happen. But, I have also been other people, other Peter Smith's, and led so many other lives. However, currently I am forever trapped in an unending cycle of this single lifespan, replaying it over and over again with slight alterations.'

‘You have been other people in the past?' Noose questioned, almost like he was asking himself. He couldn't get his head around it.

‘Countless others, throughout history.'

‘And you will go on being other people?'

‘I hope not. If The Space remains closed, then no. In my conscious ignorance my sub-conscious had closed The Space, but Reaping Icon has worked cracks open, intent on continuing this sickness for the hell of it. There are others, also, who wish for The Space to be fully open in order to grasp infinite knowledge and immortality.'

‘Why are you trapped as Peter Smith then?' Noose asked, trying to take it all in his stride. Part of him felt he was having a very bad dream, and he was willing to ride it out until he wakened.

‘The Space is the great balancer of things – if everything is not perfectly so, then it will not allow us to move on. That Lucy's death is still attached to Peter, to me, is the bind. I must discover her killer and put things right.'

‘Why won't The Space just tell you who murdered her if it is this all-powerful thing?' Noose reasoned.

‘If only it was that easy. Oh how I have begged The Space to tell me,' Peter cried.

‘Maybe Reaping Icon murdered her?'

‘No. I know all the evil Reaping Icon commits in my name – it is instantly etched in my own mind as though I have done it with my own hands. He is, after all, the darkness within all of The Great Collective. He is all of us, he is me.'

‘That's monstrous.'

‘I am the final link between The Great Collective and The Space, the last of us who can still actively harness The Space's power. There is too much dilution of memory between the others. It all rests on me, unless Reaping Icon has his way and succeeds with his current scheme.'

‘Well what can you do, if you're dead?' Noose questioned, confused.

‘There is very little I can do from here, trapped by the might of Reaping Icon. We must keep this current cycle flowing, try to fix things now and not let it undo itself and play over yet again.' Peter put his head in his hands. ‘I am so tired of re-living this life over and over again.' He walked away from Noose. ‘Yes, my suicide was a mistake, but I had become too encompassed and overwhelmed with this sordid life. My connection to The Space has truly been a sick curse. You see all of good, and also ultimately all of evil – it is too much to bear; it sickens you, warps your mind. I am forever tainted, my worldview stunted and twisted towards the cruel.' He turned back to Noose. ‘You yourself said that I was capable of such good, and yet I ended up doing such sick things again and again. Whilst I continue to live this immortal curse, I will continue to fall down like that.'

‘There
is
terrible cruelty and suffering in the world, yes,' Noose responded, ‘but there is also the possibly and the hope for amazing wonders.'

‘Nature is a wonder; a wonder of survival. All survival boils down to is killing something weaker than yourself. Life, hah! Life is but an opportunity to cause pain and death for others. What is the circle of life, but a sick joke on endless repeat?'

‘Then why bother at all, why do anything?'

‘Because there
is
that chance, that ever so slim chance, of putting things right at the very last moment and achieving something truly amazing.' Peter smiled, but it was a sad smile full of sorrow and regret. ‘You must seek out who murdered those poor people and framed you, it is your call and only yours. The truth is locked away deep in the mind of the true killer, and only you can find them.'

‘Why can't The Space help?'

‘The Space is the summation of everything that was, is, or will be; but it is for each of us to try to harness and gain access to this. It is not an open book or a big man in the sky waiting to answer our prayers.'

‘But how can I gain access to it?' Noose pleaded, seeing a chance to clear his name and trying desperately to seize it.

‘You cannot, you must fall back on your own humanity to solve it. And, I must ask you a favour: I implore you to seek out and make contact with the keepers of The Space. There is some good left in the ones who are not dead.'

‘The keepers of The Space? Where can I find them?'

‘They once masqueraded as the Museum Club – the secret gathering of minds that took me on and re-introduced me to The Space in this lifespan. They were unable to keep contact with The Space for long, so needed me. Reaping Icon was too strong, turning them into murderers and blocking my mind again and again.'

‘There were those murders by Barbara Davies at the museum: Louis Sellers and James Harrington, all those years ago,' Noose remembered, searching his mind. ‘And then there was the murder of those other three men afterwards, deep in the museum, like a sacrifice of some sort. We never did identify those men.'

‘They were some of the keepers of The Space, driven to madness and ultimately their own deaths.'

‘So some are still alive, and you want me to seek them out? It's crazy!' Noose laughed.

‘Yes, you must. It is the only way I can put things right and try to end Reaping Icon's reign of horror.'

‘Well what do I do when I find them?'

‘You will know what to do,' was Peter's simple reply. Noose wasn't so sure he
would
know what to do.

‘Yes, I remember the murder of those three men – you were so young and innocent, Peter,' Noose saw back in his mind. ‘Corrupted by these intrusions into your life, you didn't stand a chance did you? Then,' Noose welled-up, ‘then there was Lucy.'

‘The worst thing I could ever have done was forget her,' Peter lamented, trying to keep his demeanour balanced so as not to upset Noose further. ‘But, I did. My mind was quick to wipe itself away each time, egged-on by Reaping Icon's ceaseless shadow-attacks.'

‘Did the keepers of The Space murder her?' Noose wondered, clenching his fists and looking ready to murder someone himself.

‘They would never have done that to me, would they? Even so, they
did
know who Lauren really is and did not at all want my connection with Lucy.'

‘Lauren? What do you mean, who she really is?' But, Noose began to fade, feeling himself pulled away from this space. Strangely, he wanted to stay – he felt at home in Peter's company. If this
was
Peter.

‘There is very little time left,' Peter whispered, moving and sitting back next to Noose and leaning in close. ‘You, Noose, are not one of The Great Collective, but you can help set me free. All I want is to live and die like a normal man, like I should have done from the start. This current lifespan as Peter Smith is my last chance. For this, Reaping Icon must be stopped.'

‘What can I do?'

‘Alex; he is one, and Reaping Icon has made contact. You must do all you can to stop him from realising his full connection to The Space. If Reaping Icon can harness Alex's forgotten residual connection, I will no longer be the final link and there will be terrible suffering.'

Noose suddenly wakened in hospital, two armed police officers standing either side of his bed as Inspector Nicola Williams hovered over him.

‘Oh God, Henry,' she spoke lightly, holding his handcuffed hand, ‘what a mess we're in.'

‘Peter,' he coughed.

‘Peter? Peter Smith? He's dead, Henry, Peter Smith is dead.'

‘I saw him,' Noose went on, trying to sit up. His body, and the handcuffs keeping him attached to the bed, would not allow it.

‘Of course you did,' Williams comforted him, rolling her eyes. ‘Listen, you nearly died in prison. It's not safe for a child sex criminal in there, we're trying to get you put into maximum security solitary confinement.' She smiled encouragingly, squeezing his hand.

‘I'm innocent, for fuck sake,' he growled, digging his nails into her hand. She recoiled, the two officers on guard stepping forward.

‘I'm fine,' she said to them, grabbing hold of Noose's hand again. ‘Listen to me,' she said, pressing something into Noose's palm, ‘you were found guilty in a court of law, so that's that.' She stared intently into his eyes, he momentarily flicking his to the guards. ‘There is no escape, no re-trial; just a hard slog.' She leant in close, kissing him on the forehead. ‘I did have feelings for you, once,' she uttered, before kissing him again. Then, she let go and walked away, without turning to look back. Noose gripped his hand; he knew it was the key for the handcuffs. But why? Why would Williams want to help him escape? Did he even want to escape? That would make him a fugitive, a guilty murderer on the loose forever hunted down. Anything was better than going back to prison, he supposed. And, as his memory of talking to Peter just now quickly faded like a muddy dream, he kept thinking about the museum club. Suddenly he could remember nothing but the museum club, and thought perhaps it was a clue from either Peter or his sub-conscious about the one who had framed him. He clenched the key, looking up at the armed officers, and wondered what to do next. He felt as rough as toast right now; there wasn't a lot he could do.

* * *