CAROLE JOHNSTONE

God of the Gaps

I’m expecting it – well, I’m expecting something – so when it actually comes I should be more prepared than I am. Instead, I almost scream out a lung and fling myself forwards, nearly knocking myself out against the lift’s closed doors. Brian is shrieking too, but this concern comes far down a lengthening list that ends with possible concussion and began with the back wall of the lift being blown apart. There is much confused jostling – there were five of us in here a few seconds ago – and copious amounts of green smoke. I can’t see very much (which, I’m guessing, is probably the point), but what I can see looks very much like a giant xenomorph: all crude spines and hissing teeth, rattling briefly around our tiny space before yanking up a screaming body and disappearing backwards into nothing.

There’s a clunk – a loud one – and then the lift resumes its descent. A new hissing begins; one that dissipates the green smoke in seconds. Someone is still coughing, and Brian is still shrieking. I’m unsurprised to see that the body who went screaming out of the lift was our guide; Suse is cowering, choking in a corner, Jeff behind her. I swallow hard. ‘Christ, that one was a bit much.’

Brian bounces over to me, mouth wide, fingers plucking at my clothes. He wasn’t shrieking after all, though his high-pitched yips of excitement sound exactly the same.

‘Get off! I bloody hurt myself, Brian.’

He lets go of me and shuts up, though it’s probably not out of obedience. I think he realises that excitable shrieks of glee probably won’t do much for his chances.

My head is killing me; if I press a tender point above my left eyebrow, I can see white sparks. I hope it looks as bad as it feels. I try to catch Suse’s eye, but she’s still flat out on the floor. Jeff’s helping her up, and probably copping a feel while he does it.

Our guide was a spotty sniffer called Vlado, and I’m not particularly sorry he’s gone. After the last incident: a frenzied sprint through smoking, bass-filled corridors, chased by masked, white-haired creatures who bore more than a passing resemblance to the Wraith warriors in Stargate, our first guide (‘Stuart, call me Stuey’) had died a grisly death in a stairwell. Vlado had appeared at just such an opportune moment, whisking us away down another corridor, and then into the lift. He was twitchy from the start, and like I said, I had an inkling something else was afoot.

I lean back against the lift’s doors as we go down, down. It’s getting hot. Now that most of the smoke has been sucked away, I can see the remnants of the fake wall. The lift has two doors. Ingenious. Certainly more ingenious than what has gone before. Endless screaming chases and funhouse-style BOO!!!s through hidden doorways and around corners.

Brian is doing a bad impression of someone who is not excited. His fingers move in and out of fists, his eyes are wide and shining. I’m feeling a bit bad about shouting at him. It’s not his fault that this is my idea of hell; that ever since the bus dumped us off outside the Arches under Station Bridge and its great big silver sign, I’d resigned myself to having a terrible time. This trip has by no means been the worst – there was the Underage Festival in Kelvingrove, and a trip to Digger World that was pure, unadulterated torture – but I’m pre-menstrual, so it feels like it is. And that’s not his fault either. The trip isn’t for me anyway. It’s for Brian and Jeff, and all the other twelve year-olds running and screaming somewhere else above us. We were first in the queue. Lucky us.

Suse finally manages to get back onto her feet. Jeff has definitely been trying to cop a feel, because her face is pucely furious, and Jeff’s hands are hiding behind his back. Suse has even less interest in sci-fi than I do, so perhaps for her, this really is the worst trip yet. I’m about to say something to her, when the lift shudders to a halt. Brian lets escape a yip of glee.

I watch the lift door rattle and then slide open onto (quelle surprise) yet another dark and smoky corridor. Cue appropriately booming drumbeats that sound a bit like the Blue Man Group with their batteries running down (yet another trip).

‘C’mon, c’mon!’

I let Brian grab my hand and haul me out. I’m trying to fake enthusiasm that was pretty lame in the first place, but the bass is hurting my sore head. The corridor stretches left and right into gloom. Without a guide, I’m not sure which way we’re supposed to go, but I’m guessing that it doesn’t really matter, otherwise there would be signs.

Jeff saunters out. He’s a weird one. Suse told me the only productive thing that he ever does in their weekly sessions is stare at her chest. I suppose I should be grateful that Brian does actually try to read, even if it’s only ever Motorcycle Monthly or SuperBIKES! Boring beyond belief, but at least he’s getting the hang of words like chassis, titanium, traction-control and gyroscope. And expectation – every second word is expectation. Brian is very big on expectation.

‘Which way, which way?’

I still have no idea, but he’s pulling on me like he’s a child. He is one, I suppose – a child I mean – but only just. Our English teacher, Mr Payne, couldn’t dish any real dirt on any of the kids we were mentoring, but I know enough to realise that Brian’s got it pretty rough at home. He’s from the Easthill Estate, which was probably all I really needed to know at all, but Mr Payne let it slip that Brian’s dad isn’t on the scene and his mum might as well not be. He’s on a bursary and free school dinners, wears NHS specs, looks like he and his clothes last had a clean around the turn of the century, and I’m guessing that he’s chronically bullied.

He’s twelve years old, and has a reading age of about eight if he’s lucky – maybe nine/ten if literacy was measured in ability to read aloud about superbikes. That’s why I keep on letting him read those old magazines. I feel sorry for him. I feel sorry for him because no one else does.

‘Which way, Miss Daisy?’

Mr Payne makes them call us that. Suse says that the way Jeff says Miss Susie makes her want to take a couple of hot showers. She doesn’t have it that bad though. The Miss Daisy jokes got very old very fast.

We pick a direction – left – and start walking. It’s like plunging into psychedelic fog. I haven’t seen daylight in over an hour, and am regretting the half joint Suse and I smoked in the coach toilet on the way here. There’s a sudden shrill scream, and half a dozen Greys slam up at us from behind a hidden Perspex window. Or they might be those things from that other Stargate – is it the Asgard? Something Lord of the Ringsey at any rate. One of them had a name that sounded like Haemorrhoids, I think. I only know this stuff because last year I went out with Gareth in the year above, and he’s a nerd with a capital L. Cute bum though. And he’s nearly eighteen.

Brian laughs like he’s going to collapse, while Suse screams and Holy Christs like she’s just been mugged. Even I’m beginning to get annoyed by her, although I should’ve expected it: she found Scary Movie 3 scary. We stopped having Saturday DVD nights, because her dad thought it would be healthier for her to stand on a street corner drinking BO and smoking whatever.

Behind us, the lift dings closed, presumably to go back up and have its fake wall fixed before picking up the next suspecting customers. We keep going, and the smoke gets thicker, though that doesn’t seem possible. I’m getting that inkling again, and so is Brian – he’s holding onto my arm like it’s Christmas.

Something bursts growling out of a fake wall dead ahead of us, sending us back the way we came. I can’t see anything, just a lumbering shadow in swirling smoke – presumably because this alien is as cheap and ripped off as all the rest we’ve been running away from.

Suse screams, shoves me from behind. Something skids out of a hidden corridor, collides with the wall (accidently, I think, because over the stoned Blue Man Group, I’m sure I hear it say fuck), and then starts barrelling towards us, while we’re still running towards it. Suse screams again, so does Brian, Jeff stays as creepily quiet as ever. This alien looks like a bigger version of the one in the lift. A Queen maybe, circa Aliens. It’s pretty massive actually.

I’m beginning to feel a bit unnerved – it’s dark, it’s loud, I can hardly breathe for green smoke, I’ve already whacked my head, so health and safety clearly isn’t big here, and there are two giant fake aliens charging towards us front and rear – when (quelle surprise again) a wide corridor opens up on our left.

Suse takes it first, dragging me behind her. I’m dragging Brian, but only because he hasn’t let me go. The aliens cross over at the corridor’s mouth, and then keep on charging in opposite directions. The music stops.

‘God, I hate this!’ Suse is crying, and Jeff is taking full advantage: he has one arm around her shoulder and the other around her neck in what is trying to be a headlock. He has to stand on his tiptoes to do it – and worse still, she’s letting him.

‘Suse, come on. The music’s stopped, we’re alright.’

I turn back at a low growl – a low something at any rate – and Suse squeaks. There’s a shadow standing at the smoky mouth of the corridor. Just standing there, looking at us. It’s not moving, and I can’t work out what it’s supposed to be (a big person is what it looks like – a big person with very long arms). Brian finally lets go of my arm.

‘Suse,’ I say. ‘They just have to get us to move before the next lot come down in the lift. Come on.’

We shuffle down the corridor, where the air gets easier again. I only realise that my heart has been beating very hard when it starts going back to normal. I wasn’t sure how much a tenner a head would buy us, but I’ve a feeling – a very glad one – that we’ve almost used it up. I finger the silver name badge at my breast. Its ALIEN ATTACK!!! hologram has been blinding me ever since I was made to put it on, and it’s probably left a bloody big hole in my shirt. Maybe I can take it off now.

At the end of the corridor, the lack of smoke reveals black-painted breezeblock walls. A giant green arrow has been felt-tipped onto lined A4, pointing left. There are bright overhead spotlights and what look like glass cases beyond it, and further than that I can make out another even bigger sign. SHOP.

‘Not another exhibition,’ Brian says. His hands are little fists. There have been a lot of exhibitions.

‘Thank fucking God,’ Suse mutters, and she’s halfway along this new corridor before anyone can say anything else, Jeff sliding on behind.

Brian gives me his best pained expression. ‘Daisy – Miss Daisy – please.’ He’s looking right instead of left, off into pretty much nothing as far as I can tell, but his eyes are shining.

‘Pleeaase?’

Suse and Jeff are long gone, and I think that I can hear new screams as the lift starts rolling and clunking far behind us.

‘Alright.’ Partly because I hate being told what to do and where to go. Mainly because I feel sorry enough for Brian to want to spare him a shop chock full of over-priced crap that he can’t buy, and a quicker return to a world that he probably hates. Or that hates him.

I still suspect that there’s nothing up here though. The walls are bare and strip-lighted; there are no hidden Perspex windows or doorways; no smoke; no growling shadows. We walk and walk. Turn once into another corridor just the same, and then walk some more. Just as I’m about to suggest turning back, we come to a room. I’m hoping it’s not a security guard’s hangout – or worse, a changing room full of spotty Australians surrounded by plastic alien suits. It’s neither. Instead, it’s a bright, white-painted room full of display cases and stands. On the door, someone’s written UFO MUSEUM in black marker pen.

‘Cool!’

I don’t see how a museum is any improvement on an exhibition, but Brian seems to think it is. He’s through the door and pressed up against the first display case before I’ve had a chance to check if the coast is clear. It isn’t.

‘Hello.’

‘Hi, sorry, I’m not sure we’re supposed to be here.’

The guy grins at me, and then cocks it towards Brian, who’s paying no attention whatsoever. The guy is tall, youngish, dressed in horrible brown trousers and a too-small white lab coat. A badge on his lapel says John. He has absolutely terrible teeth – grey, crooked tombstones.

‘It’s alright. Most folk don’t find us down here. Feel free to have a look around; there’s plenty stuff to see.’ He sees me checking out his horrible clothes, and shrugs with an embarrassed smile. ‘Just trying to look the part.’

I join Brian where he’s still pressed up against the first case. He’s looking down at what looks like a coil of black hose. I remember the sign on the door. ‘Please tell me that’s not what I think it is.’

John grins his tombstone grin again. He points to a small card at the front of the case. Rectal Probe: Peter Wilson; Jan 2009; Lanarkshire.

‘Cool!’ Brian’s fingers have left overawed little prints all over the glass.

‘Oh fuck off.’

‘What?’ John asks.

‘Well, it’s a bit big, don’t you think? I mean I’ve seen the ones they use in the hospital – endo-whatsits – and they’re about a quarter the size of that thing.’

John shrugs. ‘It’s a replica built to the specifications of Peter Wilson. He was abducted from Wishaw High Street one Christmas Eve, and didn’t return until after New Year.’

I scoff again, wondering if Peter Wilson’s wife bought that too. ‘So, he described to you some rectal probe he had shoved up his arse by aliens in a UFO above Wishaw High Street, and you made it?’

John nods. ‘To his exact specifications.’ He moves us along to the next case. It’s filled with all manner of what look like dildos: metal, matte and shiny; cylindrical, cone-shaped, pointed, bulb-ended. Every single one has a name, date and place carefully documented on little table cards like you get at a wedding.

‘Anal probes.’

I make a noise in the back of my throat that is as disgusted as it is incredulous. ‘As if they just stick it up there.’

John shrugs, unconcerned. ‘They might be conductors of some kind. Some of the abductees reported experiencing various types of stimuli.’

‘What the hell for? What does electrocuting someone’s arse prove? And why does everything have to be so bloody big all the time?’

John shrugs again. ‘Are chickens stuck with anaesthetic before their throats are slit?’

I’d certainly always hoped so, though I don’t see what that’s got to do with anything. I remember Brian only when his nose squeaks against the glass of this new case. ‘Right well, I don’t think any of this is entirely appropriate.’ I pluck Brian free, ignoring his protests. I’m aware that I’ve begun sounding a bit like my mum.

‘Okay,’ John says. He peers at Brian’s name badge. ‘Maybe Brian would like to see some real UFOs instead.’

‘Yeah!’

Seeing real UFOs involves moving on to some glass-topped tables filled with fuzzy photos of what might be sky and what might be spaceships – or grey shadowy blobs – interspersed with artist impressions of flying saucers sporting more underlighting than the average sixth-former’s Ford Fiesta. Brian oohs and ahhs a little less at these, and I can hardly blame him. Once again, each photo or drawing has a name, date and place attached.

‘Right, shall I tell you what I don’t get – one of the things I don’t get?’ I stab at the glass. ‘Why do they always have to be so obvious? Why does every alien buy their ride at the same showroom, and why do they always arrive lit up like a Christmas tree, only to abduct the local drunk or hillbilly, instead of, oh I dunno, the local chess champion or whatever? ‘Cause it’s crap, that’s why. Any alien worth their salt would at least try to disguise their arrival, and I dunno, come as a hot air balloon or something – you know, hide in plain bloody sight. Don’t they do recon? Don’t they ever debrief?’ I’m now aware that I’ve begun enjoying myself.

‘Look, I’m just the hired help, okay?’ John hides his horrible teeth long enough to point out a dejected looking Brian. ‘Maybe you want to tone down the scepticism a bit.’

I suddenly feel a bit guilty, and it makes me mad. ‘So is there anything here that isn’t replica?’

‘You mean besides the photos?’

‘Right, yeah, apart from them.’ I roll my eyes – but only so John can see.

‘Well, obviously there’s not much. I mean, it’s not as if you’re going to be allowed to beam back down while you have a rectal probe hidden up your jumper.’

I resist rolling my eyes again – but only just.

‘I’ve got a question!’ Brian shouts. It sounds very loud in the quiet. ‘Why do the aliens let them go at all?’

‘What are you on about, Brian?’ I think we should go now. I’m probably already in the shit.

‘Well, at school right, we chop up frogs to see what’s inside them, to see what’s going on, like in those animal experiment labs.’ There are bright red circles of excitement or embarrassment (I can guess at which) high on Brian’s cheeks. ‘And in Roswell, they cut the alien up, didn’t they? To find out what was what.’ Brian is sneaking past the table cabinets and further into the room as if he thinks I can’t see him do it. ‘So, my question is why? Why don’t the aliens just cut people up? Why do they let them go?’

‘That’s a good question, Brian. In fact, it’s a brilliant one.’ John beams. ‘You’re right. It stands to perfect reason that any race would seek to further their knowledge of another through a combination of dissection and controlled observation. And it leads me to what I was about to show you both. The only other non-replica display in the museum.’

I reluctantly follow an animated John and almost apoplectic with excitement Brian to the other side of the room. There is a vast glass cabinet, and behind it a tall gunmetal case, its doors shut. Next to this is a small coded lock. John produces a key from inside his shirt with much dramatic flourish. It’s very small, and attached to a piece of string around his neck.

‘There are two possible answers to your question, Brian. The first is that those abductees who get sent back are the lucky few. In other words, they, for whatever reason, are let go, while the rest are dissected or stuck inside the equivalent of rat cages. And the second, which could be just as true if not simultaneously true, is that those who are sent back have been dissected. Just in a way that they could never guess.’

He turns back and winks at me. ‘Too distracted by the memory of anal probes.’

John pushes the key into a tiny lock at the side of the cabinet. The glass door makes a nasty grinding sound as it’s slid back on runners. As he keys the code into the lock fixed to the gunmetal case he winks at Brian, who is now hopping from foot to foot as if he needs to pee. John pulls open the doors to reveal a dark interior lined with shelves. We peer in. Brian immediately stops hopping, and I can see why. There’s not much in there. Despite myself, even I’m a bit disappointed.

‘What’s that?’

‘It’s a specimen pot.’

‘What’s in it?’

John brings it very carefully out of the massive case. It looks like a tall jam jar with a plastic screw-top lid. There’s a small label running around its base. I imagine something like Strawberries; Back Garden; Jan ‘10.

‘Nothing,’ Brian says, sounding dejected rather than cheated. ‘It’s empty.’

John shakes his head, grins his tombstone teeth. ‘Not empty. Come closer, Brian. Look properly.’

Brian does as he’s told, eager to be proved wrong. He peers in at the empty jar, eyes screwed. They blink, big and distorted through the glass, finding me on the other side of it.

‘Right well, so the only non-replica thing you have in this entire museum – apart from the bloody photos – is a jam jar filled with what?’ I pretend to think, and then click my fingers. ‘Alien air from inside an alien spaceship? No, I know: an alien’s breath. Alien words!’

I’ve never seen such crap in my life. I’m aware that I’m spoiling things for Brian. I’m also aware that we’ve stumbled into a place that isn’t for kids, hence the green felt-tipped arrow. Maybe this is for the evening sessions, just like the bar upstairs. Or for keeping the madman in the basement. I really don’t want to get into shit (even though I think I definitely am now), because I really need the extra-curricular points that mentored reading gets me. John is beginning to look pissed off with me. But, I’m sorry, this is just ridiculous. Even Brian isn’t buying it, and he wants to.

‘Can you see anything, Brian?’ John asks. ‘Anything at all?’

‘No.’ Brian sounds morose. He starts fiddling with the jar’s lid.

‘Don’t open it!’ John bellows, practically snatching the jar out of Brian’s hands before recovering himself. He takes a deep breath; slides his palms down those horrible brown trousers.

‘Good grief,’ I mutter.

‘Look properly, Brian. Look closer, deeper. What can you see?’

‘I can see something! I can see something!’

‘No, you can’t, Bri.’ I’m no psychologist, but it doesn’t take a genius to work out what’s going on here.

‘I can see colours – it’s like a rainbow, a smoky rainbow!’

Despite myself, I look back at the jar. Nada.

‘Deeper, Brian, what’s behind the colours?’

Brian’s breath hitches, recovers, hitches again, longer this time – long enough for me to worry whether he’s suddenly forgotten how to breathe. He pushes the jam jar back towards John. His breath comes back in a fast rush. ‘It’s dark, I don’t like it.’ He shudders from head to toe, like a big spider’s just run across his face. ‘I don’t like it.’

John carefully places the jam jar back inside the gunmetal case. He looks pleased and concerned all at the same time – though significantly more pleased than concerned. ‘Yes, that’s not one of the better ones, sorry, Brian. We routinely alternate which one we have on display, and you got unlucky.’

‘How many empty jam jars do you have in your collection then?’

John cocks a mild eyebrow in my direction. ‘None. But we have one hundred and fifty two specimens.’

‘What are they?’ Most of Brian’s enthusiasm is back, but his face is still grey and I can see a few beads of clammy sweat on his forehead.

John beams. He takes his time closing the case and then the glass cabinet, dropping the key back inside his shirt before fixing us both with an earnestly sincere gaze. ‘Souls.’

‘Cooool.’

‘Oh please.’

‘Souls of people who have been sent back. Not their own souls obviously.’

‘Obviously.’

He’s ignoring me completely now, and addressing only Brian. ‘Other people’s.’

‘Aliens give the people who go back other people’s souls?’ Brian frowns, confused. ‘What, as presents?’

John shrugs. ‘Maybe, who knows? But I doubt it. More likely as an experiment.’ He sighs, purses his lips. ‘I’ve been studying the idea of the soul ever since we were given our first specimen – this was a few years back. A young Italian guy called Alfredo was abducted from his bedroom and gone for two months. When he came back, he had someone else’s soul.’

‘In a jam jar?’ I scowl.

‘In his hands,’ John scowls back. ‘And when he brought it to us, it was in a Tupperware.’

I try not to laugh, but I don’t try very hard.

‘He believed that the aliens had taken his soul and given him someone else’s to hold.’

‘How did he know?’

John smiles at Brian. ‘He saw it happen. Most people who come back remember little if anything of their experiences – and what they don’t remember their mind invents. I doubt any abductor needs to memory wipe or implant false ones, because the subconscious will wipe itself clean of any and all horrors, and then make up its own shortfall with little grey men, flashing lights, tractor beams and rectal probes.’ He winks at me. ‘And who believes that old crap? If you’re interested, Brian, there are some fantastic books of personal accounts in the shop.’

Brian dismisses this last suggestion out of habit. ‘Why did he give it to you?’

John shrugs. ‘He didn’t want it.’

‘Why not?’

‘It wasn’t his.’

Brian starts gingerly poking at his own chest. He leans conspiratorially towards John. ‘Where does it live?’

‘The soul is located behind the nose just beneath the eyes.’

‘God!’ I’m bored rigid now. ‘There is no such thing as a soul – same way there’s no such thing as a bloody alien! This is stupid.’

John turns to look at me, and there’s something in his eyes that suddenly makes me acutely aware of just how isolated we are here. No one knows where we’ve gone.

‘What is the soul? Esoterically, it’s always associated with life, and life with breath. The Latin spiritus, to mean breath; Greek psyche, to breathe or blow; the Sanskrit word prana, which is taken to mean the universal life force, literally means breath. If you’re dead, you don’t breathe. Spirit – respiratory, get it? It’s got bugger all to do with that at all.’

John is staring off into space now. Glancing at a still engrossed Brian, I decide it’s easier just to wait this freak ride out.

‘The Chinese qi has it, I think. Energy flow. In Islamic Sufism, there is a low, base soul and a higher soul, and humans spend their lives tempering that primitive soul, trying to achieve higher knowledge through the teachings of the Qur’an. But they too, buy into the energy idea. What happens to the soul at death? What did Sir Isaac Newton say?’

He’s looking at me. It’s probably quicker just to answer. ‘Energy doesn’t disappear, it only changes form.’

He grins those tombstone teeth. Seems I’m forgiven. ‘Exactly! Energy is transferred but never lost. Same theory applies to ghosts. Ghosts and souls. Like a magnet, right? A magnetic field can only be seen by its physical effects on other things. Otherwise it’s invisible; is seen to be doing nothing at all, not even existing. Do you understand?’

I think about shaking my head, but I can’t be bothered – it might invite an even longer-winded, more dizzying explanation of life, the universe and every bonkers theory in between. Brian, who I’d be willing to bet understood nothing after the behind the nose and beneath the eyes bit, is nodding furiously.

‘Radiation and microwave field theory, EMF, all of that. Auras, rays, vibrations. Even dark energy: the negative energy of empty space. All of it! The soul! And when the human body dies, the base Devil soul is cast off to be recycled and reused, while the Ruh ascends.’ He winks at me, very pleased with himself. ‘21 grams.’

I think about asking him if he’s ever weighed his collection of jam jars, but again, I can’t be arsed. What started out as a diversion and a good deed is now growing very old very fast.

‘So, to answer your long ago question, Brian, I don’t think that abductors need to dissect the physical much anymore. But the soul! That’s much more of a challenge. And you know, a lot of my specimens are like the one you touched, Brian. Dark, bad, not very nice. I think the abductors are dissecting the human soul. Separating good bits from bad. Getting rid of the bad souls entirely. Seeing what happens when the soul is separated from the host. Seeing what happens when that soul is sent back with someone else – someone whose own soul is no longer in residence. See? It’s fascinating.’

I think he’s barking mad.

‘God of the Gaps.’

My head is hurting again. ‘What?’

‘God is confined to the gaps in scientific knowledge and discovery. The abductors want to crush him completely. Want him gone.’

‘Right well, this is fascinating stuff.’ I grab hold of a reluctant Brian. ‘But we have to get going now. The bus’ll be waiting.’

John looks suddenly crestfallen. ‘Okay, sorry, I’ve gone on a bit, haven’t I? I tend to do that. Look, wait five minutes, I’ve got one last thing to show you – just one.’ He grins at Brian. ‘It’s another replica, but it’s a doozy. Wait ‘till you see.’

I take one look at Brian and know I can’t refuse. We start walking towards the back of the room, and when John turns back to me, he’s got his earnest face back on.

‘You know, the incidences of soul-stealing or soulectomies, as I like to call them, are very well documented. I know you think I’m barking mad, but they are.’ He shrugs. I hate that shrug.

We come to a door. Hilariously, it is accompanied by a very Star Trek panel of buttons, and when John presses one, the door slides inside the wall with an even more hilarious whoosh.

‘Cool!’

Inside is all white. After the dimmer fluorescents of the museum, it takes a while to adjust. The room’s dimensions are relatively small, and the walls look soft, like in a padded cell. I momentarily wonder whether we’ve stumbled into the local loony bin, can’t think why. There are no windows, and no other door that I can see, only low, white shelves and weird contraptions that look like familiar things and then don’t. At the room’s centre is a high, white bed. It looks like one of those toning tables you get in posh gyms.

John spreads his arms wide ahead of his masterpiece. ‘It’s a replica interior of an experimental lab on board a UFO. Obviously, it’s not quite to spec. It’s an approximation of dozens of accounts, though all remarkably similar.’ He pats the bed’s head end, where a pair of white, torsion-controlled manacles is dangling. ‘Want a go, Brian?’

‘Yeah!’

Up he scrambles, wriggling about, prodding this and that, eyes a-goggle before stretching out, slipping his hands inside the manacles, and mock-sobbing, ‘Don’t take my soul!’, while John indulgently chuckles and winks at me like we’re Brian’s mum and dad.

‘Right, come on now, you’ve had your fun.’ I’m not sure which of them I’m talking to, but Brian’s wrists are beginning to look pretty constricted the way he’s bouncing around.

To his credit, John immediately unfastens Brian and helps him down. ‘You want a go?’

‘No, I bloody don’t.’

‘Aw c’mon, Daisy,’ Brian wheedles.

‘Miss Daisy,’ I say. God, I can’t believe he made me say it.

John even takes my refusal in good humour. That shrug comes again. ‘Alright then, time to go.’

We start walking back to the door.

‘Do you want to write in the guest book?’

‘No!’

‘But everyone writes in the guest book,’ John frowns. ‘Just your name. You don’t need to write your full address if you don’t want to.’ He winks. ‘‘Case I’m a mad stalker.’ He rolls his eyes at Brian in what I’m guessing is his impression of a mad stalker. ‘And a few comments about what you liked and didn’t like et cetera.’

‘Who has a guest book for a bloody museum?’ But it’s already been thrust under my nose, and for the sake of peace, I do it. So does Brian, but his enthusiastic comments scribbling has me almost pulling my hair out in frustration. ‘Come on, Brian!’

John gives me one last, long and hopeful look. ‘Are you sure you don’t want a go?’

‘C’mon, Miss Daisy, do it! It’s fun!’

I can’t bear refusing any longer. Not because I care much anymore about making Brian happy, but because it seems like the path of least resistance, and I’m so worried about being in the shit now it’s not funny. ‘Fine, let’s get this over with.’

I stomp back to the bed, realising that my stomps make no echo. Maybe that’s to do with the loony bin walls.

‘D’you need a hand?’

I shake John off. His hands are cold and a bit clammy. I quickly realise that I do probably need a hand though, as the bed is ridiculously high. Halfway through an undignified clamber, I feel hands pushing at my arse. The boost gets me onto the bed, and when I turn back to have a go at John, I realise that it was Brian instead. Maybe he’s been taking tips from Jeff.

The bed feels weird – not in a bad way, in fact, in quite a good way. It’s soft enough to make me feel like I’m sinking, but when I look down I’ve barely made a dent in its surface. It’s incredibly comfy. Maybe John should get out of the basement museum game and design beds for a living instead. I also feel impossibly high, as if I’m twenty feet off the ground when I know that I’m only about three. I feel like the princess and the pea. Minus the pea, obviously.

‘Try the manacles, Miss Daisy!’

God. I dutifully slip my wrists through the plastic loops. Immediately they pull tight, startling me into a yelp. It doesn’t hurt though; doesn’t even pinch. Much.

John and Brian are looking at me like gleeful children.

‘D’you like it, d’you like it?’ Brian yips. ‘It’s amazing, isn’t it?’

‘Yes, very cool. Can I get off now?’

John’s still grinning, but it’s a bit calculating now – a bit too over-excitedly expectant. My older brother used to look at me like that, right before something landed on my head, or the other one jumped out of a cupboard at me, wearing a sheet. Oh yes, I definitely have another one of those inklings, just like in the lift and in the corridor after it. Something is about to happen. Another ALIEN ATTACK!! special. And I’ve volunteered to manacle myself to a replica alien bed, instead of bloody leaving while I had the chance.

‘Want to see something even cooler, Brian?’

‘Let me off, John. Get me out of these things!’ I hear another of those Star Trek whooshes, and then two white bands of what look like plastic poke up from the end of the bed and curl around my ankles. This time Brian doesn’t laugh – I think even for him, this is a step too far. Which scares me even more than suddenly finding myself shackled and spread-eagled in a fake experimental UFO lab, in a hidden away basement museum, in a fake alien ‘adventure experience’, in an old warehouse under the Station Bridge. I suddenly feel very, very claustrophobic.

John comes up alongside me. He grins his tombstone teeth. I absurdly notice that his eyes are strange. One is bright blue, the other almost black, its pupil dilated. Like David Bowie. ‘Not as bad as you expected, is it?’

‘No, it’s – it’s alright. Can you let me up now though, John? Please.’

He slowly, regretfully, shakes his head side to side. ‘Sorry, no, Miss Daisy. Soon, but not yet.’

He disappears from my side, and I crane my neck around to see where’s he’s gone. The manacles wind deeper into my wrists as I do it. Brian is looking at me: wide, white eyes in a whiter face. John is humming to himself, moving up and down the white shelving, looking for something. I think of all those horrible contraptions and consider screaming. For a moment, I actually think I have, until I realise that it came from far away. Maybe the lift again. Any one of a dozen corridors. I close my mouth. The back of my throat is stinging and my eyes are starting to blur.

‘John, what are you doing? What are you doing?’ My voice sounds like someone else’s; I don’t recognise it at all.

He comes back. In one hand is a white coil of tubing; in the other, a jam jar. He really is barking mad. He’s trying to copy the aliens. He thinks he can steal my soul. God, this is awful. And then I think of those eyes, those tombstone teeth. The ghastly brown trousers, the lab coat. His self-deprecating smile. ‘Just trying to look the part.’ I remember something else – something I said this time – about hiding in plain sight. And then I stop thinking altogether.

Brian is screaming. He sounds very far away. My ears are rushing with peculiar noise that I know is just inside my head (this must be what terror sounds like), and I don’t really care what Brian is or isn’t doing anyway. He can still run away.

John, still wearing that hideous apologetic half-smile, starts feeding the end of tubing inside my left nostril. He’s muttering under his breath: ‘Behind the nose and beneath the eyes.’

‘What are you doing?’ But of course, I know. The manacles have constricted my limbs so much now that all I can do is thrash my head from side to side. John taps the sore spot on my forehead with a long finger, and I momentarily see sparks of white light. He shrugs, shrugs, shrugs.

‘If you stay still, it won’t hurt so much.’

But it does. As I feel that tubing wind itself in further and further, deeper and deeper, it hurts like nothing on earth ever has. I can feel myself getting smaller and smaller – retreating inside another me, until all I can see is John’s tombstone teeth at the end of a very long, very dark tunnel. The pain and John’s tombstone teeth are the only two things left in the world. I remember asking John why everything had to be so barbarically big. That’s why.

 

The bus stinks of diesel. I guess that’s because it’s been idling for ‘fifty bloody minutes, Daisy Miller! I’ll be having words with your bloody mother and father this bloody time, mark my words.’ And then presumably, Mr Payne recognised that was one too many bloodys for a school bus filled with twelve year olds, and let me sit down.

Our arrival was greeted with much whistling. Brian got a few back slaps that he studiously ignored. He sat down next to Jeff, who studiously ignored him, arms folded in jealous fury.

Now, as we’re negotiating rush hour city traffic – also my fault – Suse risks Mr Payne’s wrath by leaning across the aisle to talk to me.

‘What the hell happened to you two?’

I shrug. Shiver, like someone’s walked over my grave.

She leans closer, dropping her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. ‘D’you want to finish the joint in the loo?’

‘No, I’m alright.’

Suse blinks, frowns. ‘Are you?’

‘Yeah. My head’s still sore from where I bumped it, that’s all.’ I look out the window at all the cars and vans and lights. It’s starting to rain; legs of moisture run down the window. It’s a lie about my head. My head feels just fine. I look down at my hands. Feel one with the other, smoothing fingers over the skin and between the joints like I’m searching for something. I’ve no idea why. There’s nothing there. Nothing different. Nothing new.

We stop, and the bus sighs and drops. Another set of traffic lights. I look out at nothing again. I feel indefinably empty, like I’m hungry, but I don’t know for what.

Brian gets up on his knees and turns around to face me over his headrest. He looks like he’s been crying. ‘Miss Daisy? My arse hurts.’

I look at him while the back of Jeff’s head chuckles. My lips feel numb, and for whatever reason, I’d really like to knock Brian’s block off. ‘I should be so lucky.’

Suse shoots me another of those bemused looks. And so she should. I look out at the rainy traffic. I have no idea what I mean. No idea at all.