Go For Stories

He awoke, lunging for his taser. His confused fingers grabbed at thin air and he overbalanced, falling with a ‘thud’ to the floor. His head reeled and he shuffled back against the wall of the bedroom. Sinister laughter met his ears. His head flashed side to side, looking for the hellish beast that had him at such a disadvantage as he sat beside his own bed.

She stepped into view with a wide grin on her face.

“Reynolds?” He blinked as her face came into focus.

“How you doing?” she asked, that smug grin never leaving her face.

“What’s going on? Why am I here?” A thought struck him. “How’s Milly?”

Bec Reynolds sat at the foot of the bed and looked down at him. “In descending order: She’s fine, obviously; to keep you out of harm, unfortunately; and you’ve gone mad, hilariously.”

“What do you mean she’s fine? It was going to get her. It-”

“It,” said Bec, holding up a finger to silence him, “didn’t exist. You came down in the middle of the memorial, flashed your gun at an invisible monster, endangered people’s safety and bought a taser to the arse for your troubles. If it were up to me, you’d be in the hold.”

“I’m glad it wasn’t up to you, then. Why are you even here?”

She moved from the bed and leaned over him, pulling a small light from her pocket and flashing it in his eyes.

“I’m here,” she said, “because I asked to be. I wanted to see why you went insane. Call it professional curiosity. What’s going on in that brain of yours, Mr Astley?” She put the light away and reached out, prodding his forehead with her finger. “What makes your mind go awry? Is it drugs, or did Daddy never love you?” She cocked her head to the side. “Did he love you too much?”

Nigel stared at her, ignoring the finger planted on his face. She couldn’t goad him any more than he was already upsetting himself. If Milly was fine, then the creature wasn’t really there. If the creature wasn’t there, then he was probably insane after all. Maybe he would have been better off locked in the hold.

“What?” asked Bec, an unusually concerned expression on her face. “What is that? Why is your face like that?”

“Like what?”

“It’s … empty.” She withdrew her finger. “Are you okay, Nigel? As in, really?”

“I’m fine,” he said. He meant it too. If he was insane, then he didn’t have to worry about those weird fish-birds and spooky ghouls. If he was insane, they could just keep him away from the glassware, lock up the medicines in the high cabinets, and he would be fine. Everyone would be fine.

Bec moved away to grab a bag from a table in the corner. Nigel watched her, his head following her moves. When she came back with the bag, she rifled around in it and pulled out a thermometer.

“Open.”

She placed the tube in his mouth, under the tongue. “Hold that there while I test your blood pressure.”

She fussed around him for a good few minutes before packing everything away. She returned and sat on the floor with him.

“You are in perfect health. You obviously look after yourself, normally. In my opinion, you’ve got cabin fever.” She affected a sympathetic expression. “I know how hard it is down here, Nigel. We’ve all got family and friends out there, waiting for us to come home. It’s hard being so isolated from them.”

“Why are you being so nice?” he asked, more than a little uncomfortable. “This isn’t like you.”

“Isn’t it?” She looked genuinely offended. “Whatever, all I’m saying is that we are here, all of us, together. And we’re nearly finished. We can go home soon. Who’s waiting for you topside?”

“Nobody.”

“There’s got to be somebody.”

“Nobody.”

Nigel sat, staring ahead. Bec sat, silent.

There was nobody waiting for Nigel, and he was glad. His mind had slipped through the veil between reality and fantasy. He had begun to see and hear and feel things that weren’t there. He had endangered the lives of others with his lunacy and, if left unchecked, would surely end up destroying everything they had all worked for. While the sheer scale of his visions would have been enough to alert someone to their own failing mental health, he had entertained the idea of flying eels and spooky, black demons. Demons that claimed to know more about his motivations than he did himself.

He decided that he would wait out his time right here, in his room. People would come and go and he would smile and nod and allow them to prod him and scan his brain. Who knows? Maybe they would find the cause and be able to stop anybody else from making a fool of themselves. As far as plans go, he was satisfied with this one.

“Well,” Bec tucked her legs under herself and jumped to her feet, “this has been fun. Now that I know you’re not in any danger,” Nigel scoffed at this, “I have other work to do. I’ve left the remote beside your bed if you want to watch some tv. Maybe water your plants or something. We’ll come let you out in a few months.” She patted him on the shoulder. “Chin up, mate. You’ll feel better soon.”

She stepped to the door and opened it. Pausing long enough to throw a worried frown his way, she stepped out, leaving him to his own devices.

“Hey, Nigel,” She called through the almost closed door, breaking into his thoughts before they’d even formed. “Looks like you’ve got a visitor.”

He looked up as the door opened again and Milly stepped through.

“Hi,” she said with a small wave that never lifted above her hip.

“Hi,” he said, relieved. He wasn’t ready to be alone with himself just yet.

“How you going?”

“I’m crazy and a danger to myself and others. You?”

She gave a small laugh.

“I’m glad you’re okay.” She walked over and sat on the foot of the bed.

With an enormous effort of will, Nigel managed to get up and sit beside her.

“I’m sorry about the … you know,” he said. Of all the people he had endangered, Milly had been the one most in the line of fire. If he had misaimed or if Levi hadn’t stopped him, he could have severely wounded her. Or worse.

“It’s okay,” she said after an agonising pause.

“How is everyone?” Nigel asked. He wondered if she would hear the silent part of the question; what are they saying about me?

“They’re okay. We’ve been working a normal schedule, although there’s been a small amount of people that haven’t showed for a couple of days. We’ve let them go. Any death can be hard for people to handle, not to mention this being the first death down here.” She shrugged. “I’ve been working to forget, I guess.”

“It’s good that you can. Wait,” a thought struck him. “Did you say a couple of days?”

Milly’s eyes grew wide for a micro second before turning her head away. She was clearly not meant to say that.

“You’ve, you’ve been kept under sedation for a bit, while they made sure there was nothing serious happening in your brain. Like an aneurism or something.” She looked back at him. “You’re all clear, by the way. Once they knew that, they moved you here.”

Nigel couldn’t hold it against them. They did what they thought was best for him. With such a dramatic shift in behaviour so quickly, they must have been quite surprised when they found nothing wrong.

“Nigel?” Milly wrung her hands in her lap.

“Yeah?”

She sat in silence for a couple of minutes. There was something she needed to say, but didn’t know how. She opened her mouth a few times, then closed it again. Waiting to find the right words. Nigel let her have the time she needed. He sat and thought about nothing in particular. He was sick of thinking. Eventually she took a deep breath and turned to face him.

“I saw it,” she blurted out.

“What?”

“I saw the, the thing that you saw. At the last moment. It disappeared when Levi shot you, but I saw it.”

Nigel sat bolt upright and grabbed her by the shoulders. “You saw? You actually saw it?”

If she had seen it too, he couldn’t be crazy. It made it real. It made him whole.
Milly nodded, her head bobbing as he gave her a small, excited shake. Her eyes rattled in the sockets. Nigel released her and lowered his hands.

“Sorry,” he said, “I just, this changes everything. Have you told anyone else?”
Milly hung her head and shook it.

“That’s okay,” he practically shouted. His heart was pumping with excitement. “That’s okay, it’s best that you didn’t. We’ll have to wait until we have more evidence.”

“What evidence, Nigel? It was a ghost, a spirit, an unreal thing. What evidence can we find that proves something that doesn’t exist?”

“I don’t know … something will happen. We’ll have to wait until it appears again. We wait until someone else sees it and-”

A deafening siren cut him off. They clamped their hands over their ears and Nigel jumped to his feet. Even with his hands over his ears, the sound was clear. The siren repeated itself. Three whoops and a wail. Three whoops and a wail. Nigel turned to Milly, who stood beside him, uncertainty etched on her face.

“What is it?” she mouthed.

“Trouble,” he replied.