Shattered: A Shade novella (19 page)

‘Perfect.’
I take a longer gulp of my
Tennent’s
this time,
secure in the knowledge of plenty.

We
chat about the music blaring from the speaker, as well as bands we’ve seen
about town. She tells me of clubs I’ve never heard of, and to explain my
ignorance, I confess I’ve been away to England and America the last four years.

‘I’d
kill to live in the States,’ she says. ‘Is it true, how they fancy the way we
talk?’

‘The
girls love it.’

She
pouts. ‘Not the lads? I couldn’t get myself a suntanned California surfer boy
wi
my accent?’ Her sky-blue eyes reflect the recessed
ceiling light, twinkling as she raises her pint to her lips.

Why
don’t I do this more often, hang out in bars and wait for pretty lasses to chat
me up? Think of all the friends I’d have. Glaswegians are so aggressively
amiable, almost like Americans. It makes me want to hug the entire city all at
once. I should, before the end.

Wait,
where did that thought come from? From the rattle of pills in my pocket as I
set down my glass? Or from the thought of Americans, the worst of which damaged
me forever, and the best of which has betrayed me?

I
can’t imagine ever talking to Aura again, pretending all is fine, knowing what
she knows about me. She may have already left me in her mind and is only
staying out of pity and a desire to go to Ireland to solve the mystery of the
Shift. How can she still want me for me? How can she bear the burden of a
broken man? After what happened to Logan, she deserves someone uncomplicated.
Someone truly alive.

‘Zachary?
You seem a million miles away.’

I
drag myself out of the blackness to speak to Jen. ‘It’s hard to hear with all
the noise.’

She
steps closer, her right hip pressing my left. ‘Is this better?’

It’s louder.
Now my left arm
hangs awkwardly. If I use it to drink, I’ll elbow her in the face. Putting it
around her is not an option – some small part of me needs to remain
faithful to Aura, despite my rage – so I angle myself to face Jen
straighter on. But now her tits are taking up all the space between us, and
with the difference in our heights, it’s become impossible to look down at her
face without getting an eyeful of cleavage.

Jen
is dead cute, with lovely curves begging to be caressed. Any other lad would be
on full alert, trying to score. Yet I feel nothing but a vague gratitude, like
she’s a warm shelter in a blizzard.

‘Finally!
That queue was totally mental.’

I
turn to see a short girl and a tall lad, both of them dark-haired and roughly
my age. They’re each cradling three pints against their stomachs like I did.

The
guy sets his beers on the table. ‘
Hiya
, I’m Gordon.
This is Amy.’

‘This
is Zachary.’ Jen pushes two of the new pints towards me and takes one for
herself. ‘He’s from
Maryhill
, but tell them where you
lived before that.’

I’ve
had enough talk of the United States. I give Jen a pointed glance as I tell
them, ‘Three years’ boarding school in the south of England.’

‘Boarding
school?’ Amy gasps. ‘Was it like Hogwarts?’ There’s a teasing gleam in her eye.

I
return her smirk. ‘Aye, just like Hogwarts, minus the magic and the lasses.’

‘So
more like,
em
, what do they call it?’ Gordon says.
‘Prison?’

We
all laugh. ‘Exactly,’ I tell him. ‘Especially at first, when I’d the Scots
beaten out of me on a daily basis.’

‘Oh
no!’ Jen puts her hand on my arm. ‘The English lads did that to ye?’

‘Them,
and the boys from Edinburgh and Aberdeen, who said ma
Weegie
accent was an embarrassment tae aw Scotland.’

‘Fucking
hell,’ Gordon says.

‘Aye,
it was.’

‘But
ye don’t sound English now,’ Jen observes, ‘so it turned out well.’

Amy
jabs her boyfriend’s shoulder. ‘Gordon’s at
uni
down
at York. He fancies it, though.’

‘It’s
no
sae
bad.’ He drapes his arm around her. ‘But thank
God for weekends.’ They kiss with the confident sort of hunger that knows it’ll
soon be fed.

‘Cos
there’s
nae
place like home,’ Jen proclaims,
‘especially when
yer
home is
Glesga
.’

As we
all drink to that, I remember the last mention I heard of Yorkshire. Finn’s
hospital is there.

No,
I’m not to think of him tonight, I resolve as I reach for my third (fourth?)
pint. I’m not to think of how I put him in that place for children who grow up
worse instead of better.

A
waitress swoops by, the first I’ve seen tonight. ‘
Youse
doing
awright
or you ready for—’

‘Shots!’
Jen declares at the top of her lungs. My brain begs to differ, but it’s
outnumbered here.

The
shots come, I’m not sure how many, as after two I lose both the ability and the
desire to count. Over the next hour (only an hour?
Dunno
,
as I’ve not checked my phone for the time or messages since I walked in here.
An excellent sign. I don’t need anything or anyone but my new mates.), Jen,
Amy, Gordon, and I forge what feels like the deepest, most permanent bond ever.
We’ve so much in common, like … well, it
doesnae
matter, I love them all so much.

The
waitress strides in our direction carrying food on a tray, and I
realise
I can’t remember when I last ate. This morning?
Yesterday?

As
she passes, the scent hits me, burgers with chips and onions. I stagger with
the sudden need to either eat or
boak
.

‘You
awright
?’ Jen says. I can barely feel her hand on my arm.
It’s like my skin’s grown an extra ten layers. ‘Ye look ill.’

‘No,
I just—’ Suddenly I need to piss like a mad thing. ‘I’ll be right back.’

Inside
the gents’, my fingers are so numb and my head so swimmy, it takes all my focus
to hit the inside of the urinal. I can tell by the spray patterns that others
before me have had worse control.

On
the wall before my eyes is a sticker:
Problems
with alcohol? Get help here.
There’s a phone number beneath it, though I
don’t know how they think drunk people are supposed to remember it, or how
someone with prick in hand would be able to write it down.

‘My
problem with alcohol’, I tell the sticker, ‘is that I don’t have it more
often.’ I look at the nearest lad, two places over. ‘Right?’

He
studiously ignores me. I’ve broken the cardinal rule of the gents’: never talk
to strangers at the urinal.

But
he doesn’t look like a stranger. His ginger hair and pale, freckled skin remind
me of Martin. No, his hair’s much lighter than my best mate’s. It’s closer to
the
colour
of …

Finn’s.

When you saved him, mate, you destroyed
him.

I
shake my head at Martin’s words as I zip up and head for the sink. ‘What if I’d
not saved him?’ I murmur. ‘What if he’d died? He’d have stayed a shade forever.
That’d be worse, aye? There’s no coming back from—’

A
thought freezes me, my hands under the flowing tap. In the mirror, I stare into
my own horror-stricken, bloodshot eyes.

What
about
me
? What happens if I die
suddenly – in an accident or from a heart attack – and become a ghost?
I’ll never be able to get away from myself. I’ll become a shade, miserable and
angry forever.

My
only chance to avoid eternal misery is to die from a slow disease like Dad’s. Research
has sorted all this out in the eighteen years since the Shift: people who know
death is coming are prepared for it. They don’t
need
to be ghosts, even if they want to be. It’s not an existence
one can choose by—

Oh.

A
sudden calm washes over me. Disease is not my only
chance. There’s another way to make sure I’ll never be a ghost or
a shade. There’s one way to be sure my death won’t come as a surprise:

I
must cause it myself.

Chapter
Fifteen

The
one empty cubicle in the men’s toilet has a broken door that won’t lock. How
fitting. I lean back against the door to keep it shut, then slip my hand into
my pocket. The pills are still there.

Erasure.
The solution to every fear, every pain, everything that’s wrong with me. I’ll
never return in my mind to that place, never see another look of pity. I’ll
never hurt another living or dead human again.

My
numb fingers try to turn the pill bottle’s lid, but it’s one of those
childproof devices, so all my strength can’t open it. I bring it close to my
face, trying to read the instructions, though why I should need guidance for
something I’ve done a hundred times, I don’t know.

The
letters are white plastic on white plastic. My vision swims.

Brilliant.
I’m too drunk to kill myself. I have officially failed at everything.

‘Zach?
It’s Gordon. Jen sent me in to see if you’re okay.’

Startled,
I drop the pill bottle. It rolls under the door and out towards the sinks. ‘Ah,
naw
…’

There’s
a rattle, then a gasp.

‘Zach,
what the fuck are you doing?’

The
world around me narrows so fast, I’ve no time to breathe before I’m sucked back
There. I sink against the door, grasping for a handhold, but it’s smooth and
cold and—

They took my Q-Tips.

I tear off my pillowcase and turn it inside
out, then rip the sheets from the thin mattress, choking back a howl. How could
I fail to protect the one thing that let me mark time, the one thing that kept
me sane?

Behind me, the door of the loo clicks
shut. The cleaning woman
must be in
there now.

I lunge over and pound on the door. ‘Give
them back! The swabs, I need them. Just let me have a look at the rubbish
–
at the trash
–
for one minute.’ My voice pitches up like a
wean begging for sweets. ‘I promise I’ll be good. I promise!’

I slide down the smooth, cold door,
pressing my ear to it. Water runs, bristles scratch porcelain, a woman sighs
–
with fatigue or exasperation or perhaps even
compassion.

Finally her footsteps recede. A door
opens and shuts on the other side of the loo, the door to the outside corridor.

The lock on this door clicks, and I shove
it open. Beneath the sink I find a treasure of cotton balls, tissues, toilet
paper, soap
–
and Q-Tips.

I dump them on the floor and spread them
in front of me. ‘Two, four, six, eight, ten, twelve …’ and so on. ‘… Thirty,
thirty-two, thirty-f—’

Wait. Is that right? Is that too many?
How long …?

Oh.
Oh. No. No.

I’ve lost track of time.

Time’s lost track of me.

My breath comes in gasps. This is it.
This is forever. This tiny, undifferentiated universe of white is all that’s
ever existed or all that will ever exist.

I lift my eyes towards the camera in the
ceiling. For weeks I’ve pleaded and raged and wept in its direction. But it’s
as indifferent as God itself.

That’s when I see my salvation, sitting
on the sink: a bottle of drain cleaner.

A few swallows and they’d never save me
in time. It would be painful but quick. Not like the slow starvation I’ve been
at for … two weeks? Three weeks?

I grab the bottle and unscrew the cap.

‘Zach, what the fuck are you doing?’

I drop the bottle. Thick blue liquid
splashes across the scattered Q-Tips.

‘Who’s there?’ I shout at the ceiling
camera.

‘Dude, you know who this is, and don’t
bother looking for me. If I were really there, I couldn’t be there. Because of
your stupid redness, remember.’

I touch the side of my head. ‘Is
that—’

‘Logan, yeah. Now here’s what I want you
to do. Step out of the bathroom without putting poison in your body. In other
words, don’t be like me.’

I’ve gone completely mad. I bend over to
pick up the drain cleaner.

‘NO!’
 
His shout hurts my skull. I cover my
ears, but it doesn’t stop his voice: ‘Please. Don’t do this to her.’

There’s a
her
out there somewhere. I can barely remember
my own name, much less another’s.