Chase the Morning

With astonishing strength and urgency he seized my arms, lifted me bodily and slammed me on my feet as if I was a child. Then he more or less frogmarched me out into the murky road and up to where my car stood, its doors still wide, the courtesy lights glowing yellow into the haze.

‘Now go!’ he barked, and thrust me roughly into the driving seat. ‘Get lost! Beat it, y’hear! Come back in a week, maybe – no, a month, if you must! Better still, forget what you’ve seen – forget me – all of us – everything! Drive off in your fancy closed car – close your mind! Forget!’ And with that he slammed the door violently shut.

Unable to speak, I stared beyond him. Mall was barely visible, a pale face watching beneath the dim warehouse light. She stepped back, and blended with the dark. Jyp spun on his heel and went off down the cobbles at a fast trot, without a backward glance, till he too was one with the night.

Slowly, shakily, I started the engine, slipped into gear and turned the car out and away. I wasn’t sure I’d be able to drive, at first. But the way back seemed shorter somehow, the streets I knew eager to reclaim me. I turned out of Danube Street into the bright lights and hubbub of a cheerful city evening. But I couldn’t feel at ease there, not for now; I’d looked into the heart of another light, and it writhed still inside me. Something had been scorched out of me, new fires set alight. It occurred to me then, with a slight twinge of surprise, that I’d never been what you might call sensitive to other people, adept at reading their feelings, not normally. But something had given me that gift, however briefly. I’d read Jyp like a book. And so I wasn’t as bewildered as I might have been, nor any way offended by his sudden harshness. The man was terrified. It was as simple as that. Strange and formidable as this creature who’d befriended me seemed to be, he was almost out of his mind with fear. It was for my own good he’d tried to drive me away.

Chapter Four

Only the next morning brought the reality home to me. It struck as my eyes opened, a singing shock of memory that snapped me bolt upright and shaking in my bed before I was fully awake. That light!

My pyjama jacket clung clammily to my back. The air seemed close and stale with the stink of fear. I’d come face to face with … Something I’d never believed in, not even as a child. Something that seemed utterly impossible here, in my own bedroom, all smooth cool greys and hi-tech decor, with bright light only the touch of a switch away. And yet – What other word was there?

With a demon.

I’d seen it gulp a man down like a mayfly. I’d seen killing done. God, I’d killed a man myself! The awful thump of the cutlass blade, the sinking, jerking impact … Sickness bubbled up in my throat. What had I done? God, what had I done? I’d only wanted to help!

My hands were sticky. I stared down at them in horror, but of course it was only sweat, not blood. Had I really done anything? Or had it all been some kind of mad dream again? I’d had plenty of those. Awful figures had stalked through my sleep, stooping over me with leering faces; horrible images had haunted my dreams, half alluring, half menacing, visions of bizarre cruelties and lusts. Three times at least they’d woken me with titanic drumbeats roaring in my ears, shaken by gusts of fear and shame. But as my pulse subsided those nightmares had faded, leaving only shapeless shadows of fear. The wharf, the warehouse, the light – those things hadn’t faded. I wished to hell they would. I sank my head in my hands – and winced as I touched the raw patch left when I hit the cobbles. That kind of confirmation I didn’t need.

It proved nothing. There was no proof. I might be mad, or I might not; I couldn’t tell. And who else was there? I was alone. Very methodically, very neatly, I’d arranged my life that way. As deliberately as I’d styled my flat, cool, spacious, uncluttered, scrupulously tidy – empty. It could have been the set for an upmarket TV commercial, though I’d never thought of it that way before; and if I had, it would probably have pleased me. It didn’t, now. I was alone in a sterile melamine box, alone with my terrors and my delusions, and there was nobody to care. I ducked back under the bedclothes and buried my face in the pillow, I felt awful; I didn’t want to get up and go to work, I wanted to hide.