READY OR NOT

GARY MCMAHON

 

 

Hiding is the theme of Gary McMahon’s story of a twisted childhood and a traditional children’s game becoming something much darker. There’s a loss of innocence here, and a yearning for home that can never be satisfied. As always there’s a strange, dark poetry in Gary’s bleak prose that makes for compelling reading.

 

 

THE CAFÉ IS quiet when I walk in. A handful of customers sit drinking coffee, enjoying an early lunch, or waiting for something more interesting to happen. I haven’t been here in twenty years, but little has changed. The same scarred wooden floor, the same dirty-white walls, and the same sad, disinterested faces staring down at possibly the same cheap plates and coffee cups.

Sitting at a table by the window, I open the cheaply laminated menu. I haven’t even seen food since yesterday afternoon; my belly thinks my throat has been cut.

“What can I get you?” The waitress hovers at the side of the table, barely even noticing me. She absently scratches her left cheek. Her eyes are pale blue, rather beautiful, but she doesn’t look as if anyone has told her that for a long time.

“I’ll have a ham and cheese sandwich, wholemeal bread. Coffee. Black.” I put down the menu and look out of the window, averting my face in case she decides to study it too closely. A group of kids huddle at the corner. They look around nine or ten.

“Be back in a tick,” says the waitress as she moves slowly away across the room.

I think I might have recognised her. It’s the eyes. That colour. Her name is Martha or Mildred or Mary – it used to be, anyway. She wasn’t part of my childhood group, but I think we dated for a while when we were at school. I remember her lips tasted like bubble gum.

Outside, traffic is light. I can see the main street from where Iam sitting. The place is situated a few yards along a side street, just off the beaten track.

“There you go.” She sets down the plate with my sandwich, pours coffee from a glass pot. I glance up at her, nod; she notices me properly for the first time. “Do I know you?”

I shake my head. Give a standard answer. “I’m not from around here. Just passing through.”

She smiles sadly. Her eyes go vague and glassy again; she is tuning me out, dismissing me. “Enjoy your meal.” She walks away and I feel less tense. I sip my coffee, glance out of the window. The kids scatter like scared birds. But one of them remains there, on the corner, with her face turned to the wall of an old bank. She has her hands up covering her eyes. I know she is counting while the others run away to hide. It’s a game we played all the time when we were that age, one that never goes out of fashion. Hide and Seek. The same game we were playing when it happened.

I turn away, bite into my sandwich. It doesn’t taste of anything real, just dust and old memories. Deep down inside me, I feel something move, but I can’t put a label on what it is. Nor do I want to examine the feeling too closely, in case I recognise it. In case it recognises me.

The waitress – Martha? Mary? Fuck knows; it doesn’t matter anyway – is chatting with the cook, who’s come through from the kitchen while things are quiet. She keeps checking the room, seeing if anyone wants anything, but her posture is relaxed. When I’m done, I leave a five-pound note and some loose change on the table and walk out. It’s more than the order cost, but I don’t want to risk asking for the bill to give her another close look at me. Twenty-five years ago my photo was splashed all over the local paper because I was there when it happened. I look different now, but that doesn’t mean a thing. Some events mark you forever.

Walking towards the hotel, I tug my rucksack higher on my shoulder. I travel light. I always travel light. I cross the main road at the traffic lights and slip down another side street, where the budget hotel is located. My car is parked on a back street; I hope I can find it again when it’s time to leave. But I can worry about that later, once my business here is over.

The hotel is small and bright yet cheerless. There is no atmosphere, as if the place has been vacuum-packed. I walk across the small lobby and wait at the reception desk while a tall woman with jet black hair finishes sorting through some paperwork.

“Can I help you?” She looks up. Her eyes are small and bright. Her cheeks are ruddy.

“I have a reservation under the name of Elliot.” I haven’t used my real name. Twenty years is a long time to be away, but there might just be someone who still knows my surname. The past is never dead. It just lies down and takes a nap, waiting for something to wake it up.

The woman checks her computer monitor, tapping away at the keyboard. “Ah, yes. Mr Elliot. Welcome to the Humbird Inn. Just one night, isn’t it?”

“That’s correct.” I slide the rucksack off my shoulder and place it on the floor between my feet. Glancing around, I note the fire exit, the lifts, and the door leading to the stairs. There is a vending machine opposite the lifts, and an old man with a stooped back is examining the chocolate bars behind the glass.

“That’ll be room number 214,” says the receptionist. She hands me a key card, smiling. “It’s on the second floor.”

I head across to the lifts. The old man is still trying to decide which snack to purchase. Hitting the button to summon the lift, I start to relax.

The lift doors open and I step inside. I press the button for the second floor and wait. The lift smells stale, as if someone has left wet clothes in there to dry. When the doors open again, I step out and turn right, following the signs to my room.

The corridor is monotonous. Every door is identical, aside from the number. I find my room and use the key card to open the door. The room shares a template with every other one in the country: narrow wardrobe on the left and bathroom door on the right. I walk inside and throw my rucksack on the double bed. The room is bigger than I’d expected, and the large window lets in plenty of light. I’ve slept in worse places.

I don’t bother unpacking my bag. There isn’t enough in there to bother: a change of clothing, some toiletries, and a paperback book. On second thoughts, I take out the shower gel, toothbrush and toothpaste and carry them into the bathroom. When I switch on the light, the extractor fan starts to hum. I turn on the shower. The spray of water is impressively powerful. I remove my clothes and step under the jet of hot water, closing my eyes as I scrub away the grit of the road.

Fifteen minutes later I’m lying on the bed wrapped in a towel, watching a documentary about killer whales on television. There are no satellite channels; just the freebies. I watch as an orca swims gracefully up through the sea, heading towards the surface, where several seals are cavorting. I take no pleasure when the whale strikes, killing one of the seals.

As I watch, I feel my eyes closing. I haven’t slept well all week; my mind was too active making plans for this trip. Tiredness creeps up on me, taking me by surprise.

When I open my eyes again it’s dark. The curtains are closed. I know this is a dream because when I fell asleep the curtains were open. I’ve always been good at spotting the minor details. It’s how I manage to get through life, to blend into the background while making the most of situations.

Glancing over at the hotel room door, I see that it’s open. The corridor is dim, but not completely dark. Somewhere there is a light on. I get to my feet and cross the room, the towel slipping from around my waist. I pad naked out into the corridor. The lights above my head are off, but farther along a single bulb burns. Right at the end, where the corridor branches off to the left and the right, a short figure stands with its face turned to the wall. I begin to walk towards the figure, and see that it is holding its hands up over its eyes, like the girl I saw earlier that day.

It’s difficult to discern if the figure is male or female. It’s just a human shape, clad in shadows. As I draw closer, I can hear a whispery voice counting down from one hundred. Oddly, the counting seems to speed up as I approach, and just before I draw level with the figure, I hear the voice clearly, “Coming, ready or not.” The words are spoken in a whisper; low and breathy, almost a series of exhalations rather than proper words.

Slowly, the figure begins to turn around. I stop walking, my legs stiffening, my hands clenching into fists. The figure keeps turning; it seems to take ages, as if time has slowed down. Just before the figure’s face comes into view, I wake up on the bed in my hotel room, sweating and gasping for breath.

“No,” I whisper. Then, more loudly, “No!”

I sit up and stare at myself in the mirror on the wall. I look afraid, but I feel nothing, not even tired. I am in control. It was a dream, that’s all, a silly little nightmare. None of it was real. I glance at the door. It’s closed.

I go to the window and look out onto the street. The sky is darkening. Grey clouds hang heavy and sombre, promising rain. The street is busy with foot traffic, and, beyond it, the main road through the town is clogged with vehicles. I’ve slept longer than I expected.

I’m not sure what called me back here, other than the desire to mark this occasion in some way, but since arriving in town I’ve felt on edge. I’m successful. I’ve broken away from this shitty little town and made something of myself. Yet part of me was left behind. I can’t say what it is I lost here, but I know I either want to claim it back or bury it for good.

Unbelievably, I’m hungry again. The hotel is too small to have its own restaurant, but the receptionist recommends a Chinese place a few minutes’ walk away. I leave the hotel, her rapidly sketched map in hand, and head west. The streetlights have come on.

I walk through streets at once depressingly familiar and unutterably alien. Buildings I knew when I was younger have been demolished and replaced with others that are similar but not quite the same. Old shops have closed down and reopened as something else. The landscape has altered; a lot of essential markers have been shifted or removed entirely. The geography I remember is that of the heart, and those emotional roads and byways have fallen into disrepair. They are ragged and potholed; their boundaries have been erased and dirt has encroached, making them vague and unwelcoming.

I find the Chinese restaurant easily and slip inside. The waiters and waitresses are quick and polite; their smiles look painted on. I order a chicken chow mein and wait for it to arrive, sipping at a bottle of cold beer. Early diners speak in hushed tones. Light, vaguely ethnic music drifts through hidden speakers. The place is nice but unspectacular. I could be anywhere, at any time. I might even be in the past, but for the minor details.

 

 

I WAS FIFTEEN by the time I left town and headed for the bright lights of London, to make my fortune. This restaurant – like so many other establishments I’d seen today – was not here. I couldn’t recall what had once stood in its place.

But before that, as kids, we’d run wild through these streets. Not causing trouble, not breaking any laws, just playing the fool, being a child.

Even when the first of the children went missing, our parents never stopped us from playing outside unsupervised. They just gave us curfews and new rules to obey. Nothing was off limits; it was just that we had to be more careful, mindful of who might be around.

By the time the third, and then the fourth, child was taken, things had changed. We were no longer allowed out after school. People started to lock their doors when they were at home, even during daylight. Nobody found any bodies. Murder was never mentioned in public, but everyone knew it was there, beyond the veil, watching us with cold and seedy eyes.

Fear gripped the town. People waited to see who would be next. And then the disappearances stopped. Months went by without another disappearance. The rules were relaxed. The streets and parks once more rang with the sound of children playing.

Perhaps that was our mistake – thinking it was over, that something had run its natural course and everything had gone back to normal.

That was when Lucy was taken.

She was the last. No one else disappeared after that. Nobody was apprehended for the crimes. Finally, it was finished, and the rest of the parents could breathe a guilty sigh of relief. But it could never be over for the loved ones left behind. They continued to live with it, long after the darkness had passed on by. They were changed by what had come to pass, left with scars and contusions that were not visible to the naked eye. They turned their attention inward, trying to smother the pain.

And the biggest ache of all was caused by never knowing what had happened to their sons and daughters.

 

 

THE CHOW MEIN is good, but not great. Like everything else around here, it’s functional. It serves a purpose, and is then forgotten. I eat the food mechanically, wondering once again why I came here after all this time.

“Excuse me.”

I look up, startled. A man is standing at the side of my table, motionless, as if he is caught somewhere between fight and flight. I raise my eyebrows but do not speak.

“My God… it is. It’s you. Tony Fowler. I didn’t recognise you at first… you’ve changed so much.”

Contact lenses, a little botox, a good cosmetic surgeon who fixed a couple of scars from childhood mishaps. Nothing too drastic; just enough to help me blend in, be forgettable.

“How are you?”

I glance around. The restaurant has grown busier during the time it has taken me to get half way through my main course. I don’t want to make a scene. I consider simply denying who I am, playing dumb, but I can see by the man’s face that he will not take no for an answer.

“Hello, Ron.” His name comes to me easily, along with an image of who he once was: a shy, quiet young boy I’d allowed to be my friend. There is nothing special about him, never has been. He is just a walk-on character in the story of my life. “It’s been a while.”

“Mind if I sit down?” He grabs an empty seat from a nearby table and sits without waiting for me to respond. He has changed, too, overcompensating with this brash personality when he was once so introverted.

“Sure,” I say, setting down my chopsticks. “How’ve you been?”

“Oh, not bad. Nothing ever changes around here. I see you’re doing well for yourself.” He points at my suit, or the watch on my wrist. Neither of these is particularly expensive, but they aren’t cheap either.

“I have my own business. I’m a financial consultant. Things are okay.” I smile.

Ron’s face turns serious. He leans over the table. I can see his bad teeth; the way the parting in his hair barely conceals the onset of male pattern baldness. “It’s been twenty-five years, hasn’t it? Twenty-five years to the day.” He shakes his head slowly. “A quarter of a century. Some of us never forget.”

“Indeed,” I say, noncommittally.

“Is that why you’re here? To pay your respects?”

“In a manner of speaking,” I say. I see him as a small boy, one of the runners and hiders; never the one to count and then go looking for the rest. The games he played were simple because he wasn’t capable of much more. He tagged along, never outstaying his welcome, usually the first one to be found.

“I still think about them. I think about her – little Lucy.” His smile is sad now. “The rest of the town seems to have forgotten, but those of us who knew them keep the fires burning.”

“That’s good,” I say. “We should never forget.” But isn’t that why I’m here, to ensure that I do forget, to help put it all behind me and move on to the next phase of my life?

“I don’t even let my kids play Hide and Seek. I can’t bear it… don’t even like to see other kids playing that damned game.” He shrugs, and I feel sorry for him. Like so many others, he was imprisoned here by what happened all that time ago. Five kids were taken, their bodies never found, and the mystery bound an entire generation to this godforsaken town.

“You were so brave to move away. I wish I could have done the same.” He opens his hands, as if bearing gifts. I am disturbed because it seems as if he is reading my thoughts.

“I might have moved on, but she’s still here.” I leave it there, trying to be enigmatic. I don’t want to say much more to this tired-out little man. He is a reflection of what I might have been had I stayed behind, a memory that never happened. “Listen, I have to go…” I signal to a passing waiter, who nods and darts off to fetch my bill. “But it was nice seeing you like this.”

“Here… here’s my number. Give me a call. We could get together for a drink?” He looks desperate. I wonder if everyone else who was around at the time refuses to talk about what happened, and he just wants to relive old memories. Perhaps the pressure has been building up inside him for too long, and what he sees in me is an outlet for his own darkness.

I take the business card, slip it into my pocket, and nod. “I’m here for a few days,” I lie. “I’ll give you a call.”

When he shakes my hand, he grips it too tightly, as if he is afraid I might snatch it away. When he leans in close I realise he’s been drinking heavily. His breath smells of whisky. His skin is slick and shiny. He stands and walks off in the direction of the front door. I have no idea who he was with, but they seem to have left him behind. Perhaps they were glad to be rid of him. I know I am.

The waiter brings me the bill and I pay in cash. I don’t want to leave any trace of myself behind. The money has passed through so many hands, and will pass through so many more, that my scent will soon be washed away.

 

 

THE NIGHT IT happened there was a bunch of us playing out by the old railway station, the one that had never been in use, even during my childhood. We played chase and football, and then as the shadows lengthened someone – I think it might even have been that younger version of Ron – suggested we play Hide and Seek.

I have no idea how I ended up being ‘It’ – the one who hides his eyes with his hands, counts backwards from a hundred, and then goes off to find the rest, searching for their hiding places. There’s a good chance I volunteered. Even at that age, I enjoyed being the loner.

So I stood with my face to the wall, covered my eyes with the palms of my hands, and counted out loud. I heard scampering footsteps, rustling undergrowth, stones rattling across the ground. I smelled perfume as someone passed close by me. A few of the girls had started wearing their mothers’ perfume and makeup, but I couldn’t single out a particular scent. It was dull and floral; sat heavy in the nostrils.

After I’d finished my count, I uncovered my eyes and spun around. “Coming, ready or not!” It was the standard call, the words every school kid knows by heart. It meant that the hunter was ready, he was coming, and you’d better be well-hidden or you’d get caught out. Nobody wanted to be the first one found.

I’ve asked myself so many times if I saw anything: a quick darting movement, a thin dark figure moving with the grace and agility of an animal, a shadow slightly darker than the rest. The police and the newspaper reporters were keen for me to have seen something out of the ordinary, but I just couldn’t bring myself to say that I had.

The truth is, I still don’t know. I might have seen one of those things, or all of them. I might have glimpsed a blank white face with a gaping mouth that seemed more like an absence, or it might just have been my own twisted reflection seen in the shattered glass fragments stuck in a broken window frame in the station wall. Reality is a slippery beast. We try to catch hold of it, but it twists and turns like a snake, and slides out of our grip. It was no different for me. I was eleven years old, life still felt like one long game, and I wanted to be the winner.

“Coming, ready or not!” I shouted again, and my voice whipped back at me through the dimness, sounding deep and unfamiliar, as if it belonged to someone else. Perhaps it did. What if right then, in that moment, I became another person – the person whose potential had always been inside me, waiting to get out. In some ways, I’ve spent every waking moment of my life since trying to be that person again.

The air was sharp. I could smell every scent. The lingering odour of that floral perfume, the bitter sap from the trees, the dry, cloying stench of rotting vegetation, even a waft of excrement from a small hole in the wall where I assumed rats must nest.

The ground felt firm beneath my feet as I walked away from the old station building and into the trees. I pushed through, ripping out tall weeds and shielding my bare arms from stinging nettles as I went deeper. Up ahead, something shifted in the dense bushes. I didn’t have a torch but the ambient light from distant street lamps and the low, pale moon lit my way. I think even then, I was only looking for one person. Let the rest of them hide away where they couldn’t be seen – I only had eyes for her, for Lucy.

 

 

WHEN I LEAVE the Chinese restaurant I head immediately to the old train station, just outside the town boundary. I cannot think of a good excuse to delay it any longer. It’s a short walk, but it seemed much longer back in the day.

I’m pleased the building is still here, and nobody has tried to demolish it or use the land to build something that doesn’t belong. Then again, I’d probably have heard about it if they had done.

I walk to the wall where our childhood game began, and I turn to face the grimy stonework. Out of a sense of symmetry rather than sentimentality – to bring things round full circle – I close my eyes, cover my face with my hands, and count down from one hundred.

“Coming, ready or not,” I whisper as I turn to face the world I left behind.

I know the place. Memory has not dulled the route; the passage of time has erased no trails. I go straight there, without any problem. Even the weeping willow looks unchanged. To the right of the tree, not far from the rusted train tracks, there is a pile of building rubble that is so old it looks like a permanent structure: bricks, timber, beams and columns, old doors and window frames. It seems improbable, but nobody has disturbed the area for decades.

I walk over and start to pull away some of the ancient rubble, clearing a space. It’s difficult to believe that not a single soul has been here and tried to clean it up – but if this place was truly abandoned, they’d be more inclined to use their time and energy elsewhere. All that work at the centre of town, demolishing the old buildings and putting up new ones. People are too busy moving forward to look backwards.

Before long I’ve cleared enough away that I can see the timber door, the one laid across a shallow depression in the earth. It has been covered for so long that the wood is rotten. Black insects scurry away when I disturb their nest. I slide my fingers under the crumbling wood and start to shift it sideways, just enough to allow me to see inside the ditch that lies beneath.

 

 

LUCY WAS NEVER any good at hiding. I’d found her easily, when all was said and done.

She was cowering under the droopy remains of a weeping willow, her feet pulled up under her and her arms wrapped around her midriff. She was beautiful, but not in a conventional way. She had coke-bottle glasses and tousled hair. Her nose was too big for the rest of her face and there were braces on her teeth.

But she was my first, and firsts are always the best.

Lucy didn’t even speak when she realised I’d found her. She just blinked up at me through those thick lenses, shifting her weight, glad to be able to move without fear of discovery. A small, sad smile crossed her face.

I remembered the features I’d seen in the broken tooth-like fragments of glass on my way here: that yawning maw, the tiny, dark eyes, the white cheeks. It was me, and yet it wasn’t me. It was something that I could become. I’d been given a glimpse of the future, and it excited me.

I stepped forward, bent down under the willow’s dangling branches, and I went to her. She reached out, as if to embrace me, and I slipped my hands around her neck. I’d known this was coming – I’d felt it approaching like a distant train on rickety tracks, or a slow-advancing drumbeat – yet still its suddenness took me by surprise. There was no black-out, no blurred perception, but a moment of exquisite clarity as I began to squeeze her throat.

She struggled, but not as much as I’d expected. Still she didn’t cry out, or scream, or even try to speak. It took a long time and it took no time at all. Time had fractured, like that reflection in the glass. Everything bent and bowed before the glory of this moment.

 

 

I STARE DOWN into the hollow under the boards, feeling like I’ve truly found Lucy at last. She was the first. Even then, I knew she wouldn’t be the last. I’d taken advantage of some long-ago mystery abductor, using the smokescreen of his four victims to cover my own tracks. He stopped doing whatever it was he did, but for me it was just the beginning: the start of something that will never end.

I’ve killed nineteen women since then, but none of them has moved me even half as much as Lucy did that night. No matter how hard I try, I can never quite recapture the essence of that first perfect time.

The years have not been kind to her. I see a shocking glimpse of white bone, a pair of glasses with thick lenses, and something metallic that might once have been dental braces, and then I pause.

“Thank you,” I say, without a trace of irony. There isn’t much else to say. I’ve spent twenty years trying to find her in other people, and here she is, right here, in the same place she’s always been: waiting right where I’d hidden her. But she was never really hiding from me. Not hiding, but waiting.

Silence sits down beside me. Not even the breeze stirs.

When I turn around, there is no vengeful phantom awaiting me, nor is there a nightmare vision stepping clumsily out from under the willow tree. The air is cool. The smells are fresh. The night is limitless in its ability to obscure things from those of us who choose not to see. The glimpses I’ve had since arriving in town, the small shards of her, the tiny little visions, were not her ghost. They were the memory of what I did trying to get out.

I cover over the remains and walk away from the scene, experiencing nothing that can be described as a human emotion. Feeling is for other people. All that interests me is the game, and how long I can continue to play before I am caught.

Concentrating hard, I send my energy soaring towards all the others out there, the countless women in bars and late-night diners, the street-corner prostitutes and runaways who have long been my playmates… because I am coming.

Ready or not, I am coming to find you.