The Water Girl

By Alex McLoughlin

It starts with a letter from the dead...

Confined to a wheelchair since childhood, Ursula is independent and successful. A letter from her supposedly dead mother, draws her into a series of strange and frightening events that challenge everything she knows. 

Adam is seriously il

• Language: English
• Publisher: Chronos Publishing
• Release date: Oct 28, 2021
• ISBN: 9781914529092

Book preview

Dedication

For Maggie,

for letting me live

ONE

Not all ghost stories are told by the living. Ursula’s mother had been dead more than two years when she provided hers. She had told some of it before then of course, but Ursula hadn’t paid much attention back when she was very young. Possibly, she wasn’t supposed to have understood exactly what she was hearing at such a tender age, but the sad truth was that she’d never found anything her mother said especially convincing. That changed irrevocably one autumn morning as she waited for a taxi to bring her home from the hospital. Her secure, if routine, existence was brutally interrupted when she found herself compelled to watch a man pull out two of his own teeth and she learned there was more to her mother than she’d realised.   

It was that same morning the letter had arrived. Handwritten on pale blue paper with a proper watermark, in a matching envelope, it was the first and only personal letter Ursula had ever received. Nobody writes a letter these days, she’d certainly never done so herself, yet there it was when she went to answer the doorbell. Seeing it was her mother’s handwriting, she was initially reluctant even to touch it. Lying there on the hall floor, where it had less right to be than a bluebottle on a wedding cake, it had no stamp or postmark so must have been hand delivered; a letter from her dead mother. She opened the door, still staring stupidly at her own name and address.

‘Ready Love?’ The voice was harsh, but familiar. Slowly, Ursula lifted her gaze from the impossible letter to this new intrusion. ‘The traffic’s bloody dreadful again, so we’d better shift if you want to make it for ten-thirty.’ This was one of the more impatient drivers the taxi firm sent. 

‘It’s from my mother,’ Ursula said quietly, as much to herself as by way of a response.

‘You ready then?’

Shaking her head, Ursula grabbed up her bag, stuffed the letter down at the bottom, and promptly wheeled herself out to the car. She was always a bit stiff in the mornings, but her left shoulder was aching that day and it took her a little longer than usual to swing herself into the back seat. She could sense the driver’s irritation behind her as she was putting on her seatbelt. He shoved the door closed hurriedly, swearing under his breath as he struggled to fold her chair and stow it in the boot. He must have done it a hundred times but he always muttered and grumbled, as though he wanted the world to know it really wasn’t his job and how unfair it was he had to do it.

He got behind the wheel and turned up the radio. Ursula was fairly sure he knew it irritated her. She stretched and again felt the familiar ache in her shoulder; wincing at the thought of impending physio, she forgot about the letter. When the pain was bad she always found it more difficult to concentrate on anything that required serious thought, so she’d become adept at focussing on trivia and using that as a distraction from her discomfort.   

Ignoring her shoulder, she mentally listed the contents of the fridge, trying to remember whether she had anything nice she could eat later, or would have to go to the shops. She decided it was probably the latter, remembering that most of the salad was gone and all of the wine. She could probably make do with pasta, rather than struggle round the supermarket, but she was going to need a drink by the end of the day. She could get something delivered of course, but that always felt a bit sad. She hated loading up on fruit, bread and anything that would go in the freezer, just so it would feel like a normal weekly shop, when all she really wanted were a couple of bottles of pinot grigio and a pack of breadsticks. It wasn’t that she cared what anybody thought, or so she told herself. At any rate, she forgot about her shoulder and managed to block out the mindless radio phone-in. That was until she fell out of the car. 

They’d reached the hospital in better time than her recalcitrant driver had predicted. What was his name? He’d picked her up so many times, but she was sure he’d never told her his name. With a show of dejection, he took out the chair and unfolded it, before putting the brakes on. There were people milling around at the main entrance as always and now that there was an audience, Ursula’s nameless friend made slightly more of his performance as put-upon slave. Despite that, he positioned the chair where she needed it with well-practised efficiency. It was her that screwed up. Somehow her purse fell out of her bag as she opened the car door, causing her cheerful helper to sigh wearily as he moved to retrieve it for her.

‘It’s OK,’ Ursula said quickly. ‘I can manage.’

Usually, she could. She certainly didn’t want to give this miserable bastard the satisfaction of having to do her yet another favour. Holding the front seat tightly she leaned down to recover the purse, but her fingertips had barely brushed it when her right shoulder, which hadn’t given her any trouble in ages, suddenly sent a spasm of pain down her arm that almost made her eyes water. Losing her grip on the seat, she fell sideways onto gritty tarmac.   

It was a bright October morning, but she managed to find a sizeable puddle with her left buttock. She knew she must have looked ridiculous, staring about, wiping gravel from her hands and wondering what the hell had happened. She was only stunned for a second, before the taxi driver’s face forced her to regain some composure; his initial expression of shock rapidly giving way to self-concern as he glanced about, as though checking that nobody was going to blame him. As he reached down towards her though, there was a glint in his eye; it was only there for a second, but he was definitely enjoying himself. 

‘I’m all right,’ Ursula snapped. ‘It’s fine.’

She grabbed the side of the chair and pulled herself into it before he could touch her. He’d seen the paralysed girl fall down and get wet; she was damned if she was going to let him maul at her as well. The thought of him getting his grubby paws on her was sickening. Smiling sweetly, she turned away, but as she did so he picked up the forgotten purse and held it out to her.

‘Thanks,’ Ursula hissed at him, almost snatching the purse from his hand. Annoyed at having to show even this much gratitude, she made her way inside as quickly as she could, with her grazed elbow and her damp arse. 

The physio was brutal. It was always worse when they thought it was doing her some good or they saw signs of improvement. Clearly impressed with something they found that morning, two of them worked on her harder than usual. Every muscle was aching, including the ones that didn’t work, but she tried to be compliant and let them do their job. Ursula tensed and stretched on command, while they twisted her uncooperative limbs as though they were trying to remove them. If they could just have fitted her with new ones, she wouldn’t have minded.

It did help though, up to a point. Ursula could see her tormentors judging her progress, as they began debating with each other about orthotics and nerve stimulation. She knew very well what that sort of conversation implied; it meant they had some new toys, or they’d read about some novel treatment. Basically, it meant they were going to try to get her to walk. ‘Shit’, she thought, just managing not to say it out loud. She knew she didn’t want that again; it was always painful and invariably futile. Every failed attempt was another disappointment, but she still let them talk her into it time and again, as she had since she was a little girl. She could still just about remember being that determined child, every time she allowed herself an instant of hope. That little girl, so confident she could master it, only to split her lip against the doctor’s office floor when she refused to be supported. Her mother’s apologetic expression that day was one of her earliest memories. That and the taste of hand cream and piss she got from the lino.

Thinking about her mother, Ursula’s expression must have given away something of how she was feeling and when she remembered the letter, still at the bottom of her bag, the physios apparently decided she’d suffered enough. Once she agreed to let them try to get her walking the following week, they let her go. Finally released, she went to the coffee shop near the front entrance where she often sat while waiting for her taxi, looking at sick people. She’d hone in on the ones who were clearly worse off than her and if she spotted four or five before the car arrived, it was a good day. This time she hadn’t called the cab yet. She still ached, but curiosity was now pricking her more than her inept nerves so she bought a latte, found a quiet corner table and opened the letter.

Ursula, I’m so sorry. I know this is going to be difficult for you, but there really is no other way. There are things you need to know.

It wasn’t a promising start, but the tone was unmistakable. From the very beginning, her mother had always been sorry for things that weren’t her fault.

I can’t tell you very much, so I’ll start with the obvious: I’ve been gone for quite a while, probably a year or two. If I’ve got it right, you should be reading this on a Wednesday, somewhere around midday. You’re at the hospital and they want you to start a new course of treatment. I think you fell and cut yourself somehow, on the way in. How am I doing so far?

What the hell was this? Ursula looked at her watch and saw it was nearly ten past twelve. Staring about, half expecting somebody to pop out and explain the trick, she had to take a deep breath and think for a minute before she could be certain what day it was. Remembering it was the twelfth, and therefore a Wednesday, she read the opening of the letter again.

Do I have your attention? If not, wait for the yellow shirt, then come back to me. You won’t see it until it starts raining, so just try to relax. Drink your coffee and take a look outside.

This didn’t sound right at all. Her mother had come out with some fairly odd remarks, but they were usually vague, she was rarely direct and certainly never this precise. Without meaning to, Ursula did as she was told, turning towards the windows as she sipped at the latte. It was gloomier than it had been earlier, but it wasn’t raining and there were still people standing around at the front of the building smoking, chatting, or just waiting. A young guy in a white T-shirt stood off to one side, on a patch of grass with his back to her, apparently looking down at something.

It won’t be much longer now, just another minute or two. I’m sorry it won’t be pleasant, but it will hopefully convince you I’m telling the truth. Try not to feel too bad for the depressive, he’ll probably be better off. Do you see him yet? Oh and keep your eye on that young chap on the grass. Most people would need a good reason to stand around in the rain, wouldn’t they?

Ursula had always thought of her mother as a slightly anxious person, worrying over nothing; she was insipid really, if that could be said of a human being. Looking around again, Ursula saw only the kind of people she would have expected to find, with those nearest to her merely drinking coffee. A young girl attached to a drip stand walked past in a dressing gown, making her way towards the front entrance; wheeling the bag of clear fluid she was connected to, she went by clutching a cigarette and a lighter in her other hand. Old people shuffled about like lazy houseflies, moving slowly in seemingly random directions to no purpose, while occasional hospital staff, in various oddly coloured uniforms, strode deliberately through the crowd, even if they were clearly doing nothing more important than buying a sandwich. Nothing was out of the ordinary, apart from the live commentary of a dead woman. Then it started. 

The girl on the IV paused at the door and made a face, shivering as she hesitated, looking upward. A few splashes on the windows seemed to prompt a rush inside as cigarettes were stubbed out and phones tucked into pockets when the shower, sudden and heavy, forced people to move. In less than a minute, a steaming herd was dripping and complaining all around main reception and there was nobody left outside, except for one isolated individual.

Through the now rain-smeared glass, Ursula could see a single figure standing away from the building, on his scrubby patch of grass. She couldn’t make out very much with the rain falling more heavily by the second and he still had his back to her, but she could see the white T-shirt which must have been soaked through already. Then, much closer, a chair scraped noisily across the floor to her left.

There was an odd character two tables away, staring at her as he sat down, smiling as if he’d just found money in the street. Middle-aged, unshaven and thin, he removed his grubby brown raincoat to reveal a short-sleeved pale yellow shirt. Keeping his eyes on her the whole time, he sat down, planted his elbows on the table and brought his fingertips together as if he was about to pray. Although she was now ill at ease to say the least, Ursula read on.

He’s not insane. You need to remember that. He was ill for a long time, it’s true. So ill, that they didn’t even have a name for the kind of psychosis he suffered from, but he’s not like that any more.

Every time Ursula looked up, he met her gaze but just sat there unmoving, with his excited stare and peculiar smile. It was almost as though he was waiting for something. 

He’s quite rational now, that’s the important point. He was difficult to treat because none of their drugs worked on him. He could be extremely violent, but whatever sedatives they tried, he was immune. Do you realise that you’re looking at probably the last person the medical profession ever put in a straitjacket? It was all they could come up with.

He was still looking at her, but one hand was now reaching towards the pocket of his coat where it hung untidily over a chair and trailed on the floor.

Anyway, what you are about to see is not what it appears to be. You’re not going to remember that in five minutes’ time, but you will later. I’m sorry, but you have to listen to him now. You can read the rest of this afterwards.

‘I have to give you something, so you’ll remember.’ His voice was oddly soft, but insistent. ‘He wants you to see. He knows where you are.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Ursula stuttered. ‘I don’t…’

‘He knows you’re alone.’

He stood up, dragging his coat along the floor behind him as he came over and sat across the table from her. Nobody seemed to pay him any attention while he tilted his head slightly and licked his lips. Then, as if reaching a decision, he forcefully moved his seat around the table until their knees were almost touching and put his hand on her wrist. Ursula instinctively sat back, moving away, but he just leant in closer, dishevelled but smelling faintly of soap.

‘You will meet him soon.’ Gripping her wrist a little tighter as he spoke, he took what looked like a pair of scissors from his coat pocket causing Ursula to wince slightly, though more at the flash of bright steel than the physical contact. 

‘He knows she’s gone now and I think he wants a new friend. He needs…’ The soft voice paused in mid-flow and he glanced up to the ceiling, to his left, then down at the floor before looking her in the eye again, appearing more desperate than before.

‘No, I can’t tell you! He won’t let me say, but you can see though. Here!’ As though it were vital she saw clearly, he brandished, an inch from her startled face, not scissors but pliers of some sort. To her rapidly widening eyes they looked midway between dental forceps and something an electrician might use. She felt their weight, hotter and heavier than they looked, as he dropped them into her lap.

‘Are you ready?’ he asked, still quiet, but almost pleading now. Ursula opened her mouth to speak but couldn’t think of a response before he stood up swiftly, stepped behind her and she immediately felt his hands on her chair. He abruptly spun her around and a second later was pushing her across the floor towards the main entrance.

Ursula didn’t speak. She assumed later she’d simply been too surprised to react, feeling more disoriented and confused than physically shocked. As they approached the glass doors and she noticed that it was still raining, it wasn’t fear that she felt, not at first. If anything, she experienced a mild curiosity about what was happening, at the same time remembering, for some reason, what her mother would have said when it was pouring that hard outside. ‘Cats and dogs’ was the expression the mother she remembered would have used; what the one who sent the letter would say, she had no clue. Her abductor appeared to be affected by the weather too, sounding suddenly distracted as he turned away from her to peer through the glass.     

‘Rain. Heavy rain, but no thunder,’ he seemed to be talking to himself now. ‘Thunder disturbs him, makes it hard to concentrate.’ He moved around to face her once more and gently retrieved the pliers from her lap. ‘Remember, it will be soon now. He’s coming.’ He made an odd face and his grizzled top lip rolled back to reveal surprisingly clean, white teeth. His eyes were focussed, but grim somehow as if anticipating something unpleasant; even so, for a moment Ursula thought he was trying to smile at her. Then, finally, fear began to take hold of her as he raised the pliers to his mouth and she realised what he was going to do. 

She stared helplessly as he took hold of an incisor, overcome with a numbing, crippling impotence way beyond anything she’d ever suffered on account of her useless legs. In total silence he adjusted his grip and then paused for a second, before pulling downwards, sharply. Somebody else noticed what he was doing, but the strangled gurgle that Ursula at first assumed was his muffled cry of pain, actually came from her. She wanted to scream, but somehow her poor stunned mind wouldn’t let her and all she articulated was a half-choked, feeble cough. From him, there was just the merest soft, sucking noise, as the tooth came away, although from somewhere over to the right came the sound of a woman retching loudly.

‘See!’ Whispering through his broken mouth, he bent close to her ear, dribbling spittle and blood across her thighs and down her left side.

Petrified and transfixed as she had never been by her disability, Ursula nevertheless managed to stem the rising panic and became aware of people around them beginning to realise what was going on. Again, he took her wrist in one hand, pressing something into her open palm with the other, before backing away and raising the pliers once more. This time there was a distinct cracking sound, like somebody biting down hard on a stick of rock on Brighton beach on a frozen winter morning, as his remaining front tooth snapped in half.

Ursula heard the sound of heels clicking noisily across the hospital floor suddenly as someone approached them, but she didn’t see whoever was coming. Only vaguely aware there might be a security guard or a doctor nearby, she was unable to look away from her placid companion and his dripping chin. He gazed at her one last time, nodding seriously as he dropped the pliers, splashing more blood against her shoes and the wheels of her chair, before walking calmly to the doors.

She was briefly surrounded by people asking if she was OK, but still she couldn’t move, much less think of anything to say. Then he was back, outside this time, pointing at her though the glass window. He jabbed a finger downwards so that she looked, as though on command, to where he was indicating. In her still open palm, encased in a rapidly congealing mass of blood and mucous, was the tooth he’d set there.

She looked back at him, but he turned away. This time he ran, sprinting through the rain across the car park, towards the main road at the front of the hospital. A few seconds later and he was gone. Some of the people around Ursula stared after him, but nobody followed. A smudge of bloody fingerprints, smeared on the glass, showed where he’d been. Those three fingerprints seared themselves into her memory, while behind them, outside in the teeming rain on a patch of wet grass, stood a figure in a white T-shirt.

Ursula didn’t notice anything else for a while. Nothing registered apart from those fingerprints, the white T-shirt and the tooth she still held in her hand.

TWO

Adam had contracted a brand new disease. The doctors were seemingly clueless as to the appropriate treatment, never mind an actual diagnosis. Apparently, he had too many symptoms and they didn’t go together, although none of them had been helpful enough to present themselves while he was being examined of course, which was just his luck. If he hadn’t verifiably passed out in front of witnesses, he was pretty sure they’d be thinking he was making it all up. Feeling mostly annoyed, he wondered if they really did believe he was some lying fantasist, as he left the consulting room where the gastroenterologist had dismissively suggested an antacid for heartburn. Before he could get out of the building, he knew he was going to throw up.

He’d been asked about pain and nausea and had tried to explain that it was more than that. It came on as suddenly as if he’d been punched, but like no sensation he’d ever heard of, let alone experienced. It felt as though someone had reached into his abdomen and crushed some organ he didn’t know he had, something that didn’t belong there and wasn’t to be found in any other human being. He practically sprinted to the gents, locked himself in the nearest empty cubicle and dropped to his knees. Before his hands could grasp the rim of the toilet bowl, he was splashing dark vomit over the shit stains left by the previous occupant.

Forty minutes earlier he’d been happily watching some blonde in a blue physiotherapist’s uniform, over by the lifts pushing someone in a wheelchair. As the first spasm subsided, he felt moisture soaking through his jeans; the floor was wet and God alone knew what he was kneeling in. There was another suffocating wave and a taste of bile, as something twice the size of his fist forced its way up his throat. 

He could hear himself wretch and wondered vaguely whether there was anyone else in the toilets listening. If there was, he doubted they would stay there for very long. His strangled coughing was followed by a loud splash, as he expelled something with the consistency of soft cheese, but strangely heavy. Utterly black, most of it fell noisily into the toilet, while some dropped onto the floor at the edge of the puddle he was occupying. It formed three small, but perfect, spheres which rolled to the back of the cubicle, like mercury from a glass thermometer smashed against a tiled floor. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and spat.

‘Fuck this’, he thought. There’d been pins and needles, a burning sensation, then rashes that came and went, itching so badly he wanted to peel his skin off whole. Then the headaches had started. Christ, the headaches! He imagined a pair of inch-thick white-hot steel rods, being hammered through his temples until they met in the middle; that was how it had felt. Now he had this.

He wretched again as another black lump tore and ripped its way out. There was an unpleasant smell, or perhaps a taste, that reminded him of someone striking matches. He tried to stand up, thinking he was beginning to feel a little better now the crushing stomach pain wasn’t as bad; at least, that’s what he told himself. He was certainly becoming aware enough of his surroundings to want to move his face away from the foul heap that was blocking the toilet and get out of the lake of piss. Getting slowly to his feet, he caught his reflection in the mirror above the wash basin and it wasn’t a pretty sight.

He turned on a tap and began splashing himself with cold water. He tried to wash away the taste, but the stuff was cloying and difficult to spit out, sticking to the roof of his mouth as if it was glued there and caught between his teeth like some revolting chewing gum made out of rotting meat. He rinsed again, keenly aware that he was drinking from a tap in a hospital public toilet. The thought alone would normally have been enough to make him heave, but as he tried not to think about who might have used it last, or what they were doing and what kind of germs they might have, he saw himself in the mirror again and almost laughed. He had to be a more unpleasant nightmare than anybody else that might have strayed in and he’d probably left enough poison behind to kill an entire town. Briefly, he wondered if he was contagious and whether it would be better if the whole place was burned down. 

For about a second he considered collecting a sample and going straight back to the consultant with it, imagining himself banging it down on the desk and telling the man to douse it quickly in antacid. The idea was simply too disgusting, besides which he had nothing to collect it in, even if he could have brought himself to try. Desperate to get away from the smell, he made a token effort at flushing it away but knew it was useless, watching sadly as the bowl filled rapidly with water, while the black stuff he’d vomited up, held stubbornly to the bottom. He headed for the exit craving fresh air, hoping that nobody would find the mess he’d left behind until he was long gone.

He bought a bottle of water from a vending machine and went outside, walking around towards the back of the building, looking for a quiet spot away from people. It was colder than it had been earlier and the sky seemed darker as he sipped from the bottle and thought about calling Sal.

He took his phone out of his pocket, before changing his mind. She was usually full of advice and he knew most of it was good, even if he rarely followed it. This was a difficult day and sometimes he just needed to hear a rational voice, before deciding for himself and as often as not doing something stupid regardless. He did enjoy antagonising his sister once in a while but knew this wasn’t the right moment. What could she say about this? See a doctor? He’d tried that already, two of them. In any case, she had her own problems to deal with, so he quietly drank some more water and looked around.

He was near the bins; big, heavy things on wheels, lined up like a train waiting for an engine. A couple of porters came around a corner, carrying seven or eight yellow plastic bags which they tossed casually into the nearest wheelie bin. One of them lit a cigarette, while the other gestured towards a nearby red brick building covered in odd chrome pipework that looked as though it should have been on the inside. Adam glanced up at the tall chimney to one side which he assumed connected to the incinerator where they disposed of the clinical waste, congratulating himself that he was really seeing all of the most delightful places today.

Before he could leave, the porter who wasn’t smoking opened a bag of crisps. It was an odd spot for a picnic but he didn’t eat himself, instead throwing handfuls of crisps onto the ground, near the last bin in the line. There was something moving down there, but Adam couldn’t see what it was from where he stood and decided he didn’t want to know. He started walking away but as he reached the corner of the building curiosity got the better of him and he glanced back, just in time to see a scrawny young fox running away from the bin store and disappearing behind a couple of trees on the far side of the road.

He was close to the main entrance when it started raining. He remembered that much later, together with the first few, strangely warm, stinging drops. After that, it was all a bit hazy. There was definitely a face; he could feel somebody was staring at him with clear, piercing grey eyes, just as his throat became suddenly dry and he tasted vomit again. There might have been a voice saying something, although he couldn’t be sure; there was a sound of some sort but all he could see was grass and a couple of daisies. He tried to spit but couldn’t, suddenly cold but with a compelling sense that he had to wait for something, although he wasn’t quite sure what it might be.

Rooted to the spot, he knew it was raining without actually feeling it touch his skin. Afterwards, he wasn’t certain what he’d known at the time, aware simply that he needed to wait. At some point he must have started walking towards the road but he didn’t remember that either, noting only vaguely as grass gave way to tarmac and his spittle became two daisies in the rain. Then there was a dead man pointing at him.

Adam didn’t see him die and never heard the truck that hit him, although it must have been pretty close when the guy stepped out in front of it. Adam only realised what had happened when people ran up and their voices started to filter through. At first, all he saw was a man lying on the wet road, with rain splashing heavily and bouncing from the surface around him like little fountains surrounding a reclining statue. Supine, but with oddly bent legs and an outstretched arm, his index finger was crooked in Adam’s direction. His eyes were open and he seemed to be staring intently at something, which gave Adam an oddly reassuring sense that there was somebody else standing nearby, behind him or slightly to one side. He knew the man was dead, but that made no more impression on him than the weather. Two drops of thick, dark blood fell from a twisted bottom lip to the ground and the rain seemed to leap more brightly from the road in response.

People gathered with garbled shouting, crying and swearing. A couple of medical students ran up and knelt beside the casualty to see if there was anything they could do, but it was obvious there wasn’t. Cold and soaked to his skin Adam stood there, shivering self-consciously as the voices around him filled in some of the gaps. There were many conversations, exclamations and questions, as people were describing what they’d seen:

‘The guy was running; he wasn’t looking where he was going.’

‘The traffic wasn’t moving that fast. He must have been trying to get out of the rain.’

‘The lorry was speeding; he stopped though.’

‘He didn’t run into the road.’

‘He wasn’t wearing a coat.’

‘He was talking to someone.’

‘He was talking to himself.’

‘He was waving at something, he looked agitated.’

‘He looked perfectly normal.’

‘It wasn’t the driver’s fault.’

‘He stood waiting to cross; the driver must be blind.’

‘He turned around and went backwards.’

‘Yes, backwards.’

‘He looked over his shoulder.’

‘He never looked.’

‘He stepped into the road backwards.’

‘Backwards.’ 

Every comment seemed to jog a memory and for Adam it seemed they were all true, except obviously they couldn’t be. Then there was that final assertion that seemed to settle all debate, as every voice agreed on the one single point, that the victim had walked out into the road backwards.

Adam couldn’t picture it. He had no memory and so assumed he must not have seen it happen, even though he was right there. There was rain and grass, then a dead man in the road. He knew he’d been waiting for something though as he struggled to pull himself together and collect his thoughts. He realised he didn’t know what he was doing and wondered if it was all just a part of this strange illness that he’d picked up. Why would you try to cross a road backwards? It was too cold and he wanted to get inside.

The crowd moved and people shuffled around. The rain eased slightly as an ambulance belatedly drew up near the body where somebody had already covered the dead face with a jacket. The hand still gestured as Adam was walking away, pointing now towards a tall figure in a smart grey suit with a yellow tie, standing with his hands held oddly together in front of him, as if he was in church. Shivering again, Adam began moving more quickly, crossing the car park and heading back to the hospital.

The entrance was packed with people and they weren’t just sheltering from the rain. They were pointing and talking excitedly, so Adam realised they must have heard something. As he came in, a woman put her hand on his arm and asked urgently if he’d seen him.

‘Seen who?’ He wondered how they knew it was a man.

‘He ran out that way.’

‘Sorry.’ He shook his head and moved past her, not wanting to be another voice or a witness, needing only to get dry.

He found a seat and sat down near a window. The sun was trying to come out now, but rain still ran down the outside of the glass as Adam began to feel another headache coming on and swore to himself, thinking it was the very last thing he needed. He sat with his head in his hands and wondered what the hell was wrong with him, detecting the odour of coffee and the sound of a mop being slapped against the wet floor.

Adam closed his eyes, took a deep breath and tried to relax. Sometimes that helped, but this time the throbbing behind his eyes began to build up anyway. Then came the burning sensation. He needed a distraction, but couldn’t think beyond the past few hours, unpleasant though they’d been. He saw the dead face again, but now there was something strange about the expression and the way the lips curled outwards made him wonder whether the man was trying to smile. If he was, it was clearly something he hadn’t done in a long time.

Remembering didn’t help the situation as the throbbing and burning only intensified and the dead face began snarling like an animal, a dog or a fox perhaps. A fox running off with whatever scraps it could thieve from the bins, after rooting through the clinical waste sacks it had been trained to associate with food. Adam wanted to yell and shout at the top of his lungs with the pain; he’d done that at home the last time and it had helped, for about a second. He could happily have cut his own head off when it got really bad, or have somebody throw it into a yellow sack for the foxes. Foxes he pictured running away through the