Shift (37 page)

The train starts to slow and it makes all three of us tense up. I can feel the Ape sit a little taller in his seat as he drains the last of his lager. Johnson’s foot slips away from mine
as he moves towards the window, checking what’s out there when our town comes into view.

Everything looks familiar, just like it always did. It’s our world I think, and yet it’s a million miles away. The bridge that passes over the bottom of a posh road my mum always
dreamed of living in. The small park with the ultra-modern children’s play area – all safety first and soft landings.

The train passes a silent hill of coal, one that has grass and weeds growing out of it. I used to wonder if all hills were made of coal. Modern flats loom as close as they dare to the rail track
with satellite dishes attached and angled towards the sky.

‘
Ding ding
.’ GG’s voice comes over the tannoy. But it isn’t as high-pitched or thrilled as usual. ‘We’re home.’

The train glides slowly to a stop. Platform number one waits to welcome us.

We get up slowly as the doors open with a quiet hiss. Johnson steps onto the platform first, with me close behind.

But already there’s movement on the opposite platform. Johnson sees it first.

‘Whoa,’ he says.

I turn and look to where his eyes are trained.

I haven’t seen the man standing on the platform for twelve years and even though he looks older and has slightly receding hair it’s definitely him.

My father.

He’s wearing a dark, lightly pinstriped suit, like the one I saw in the window of the shop in the shopping arcade. He’s also wearing shiny brogues and an open-necked white shirt.
He’s more handsome than I remember, but then again I was only four back then and I’m not sure I could tell what handsome was.

‘He looks like you,’ says Johnson quietly, knowing exactly who the man is.

I don’t know what to say. Or do. I can only stare at the man.

He stares back at me and a smile breaks out along his lips.

‘Oh, God,’ I finally manage to squeeze out. ‘Oh, God.’

The Ape’s head leans past mine as he takes in my father. ‘Who’s the suit?’

‘Time for school, children,’ GG says as he walks down the platform towards us. He obviously hasn’t noticed my dad yet. But when no one responds he looks past us and sees the
man in the pinstripe suit. A sharp intake of breath follows.

‘They did it, they made your dad all better,’ says GG, scared. ‘I mean that is him, yeah?’

I nod, too dry-mouthed to find words.

‘So they’ll know. The other Billie and you. They’ll know where to go, where to be. That isn’t going to be good.’

‘Dad?’ I whisper. Suddenly an impulse takes over me and I break into a run.

‘Rev, no, wait!’ Johnson calls after me, but I sidestep GG and start running along the length of the train.

‘Rev!’ GG is coming after me. ‘Don’t do this.’

But I don’t care as I reach the end of the second carriage and then climb down onto the track. For some stupid, inbuilt reason I stop and make sure there isn’t another train coming
my way. Which of course there isn’t, because the whole world has disappeared. But it gives GG time to catch up to me.

‘You need to come with us. We’ve got to get to the classroom before the usses do,’ he pleads.

‘That’s my dad.’

‘You know it’s not,’ he tells me. ‘You absolutely know that.’

I look back down the track and see that my father has turned to me. He’s still smiling.

‘Rev, you can’t go to him.’

‘But why’s he there? Why’s he waiting for me? He knew I was coming.’ I look back to my dad who is now walking down the platform towards me. He’s not in any hurry
and the hard leather of his brogues echo around the station.

Johnson and the Ape catch up with us and Johnson offers me his hand. ‘C’mon, climb back up here.’

‘Smiley man’s coming,’ says the Ape.

‘It’s not your dad, Rev,’ Johnson echoes GG.

‘You don’t know that,’ I tell him.

I turn back and my handsome father is drawing level with us. The width of two railway lines is all that separates us. His smile remains fixed in place.

‘He’s one of them, not one of us,’ says Johnson.

‘Hey, smiley!’ the Ape calls out to my father. ‘Hey!’

But my dad doesn’t react. Just carries on smiling.

Johnson again offers me his hand. ‘C’mon, climb up.’

My father’s smile is etching itself into my brain, so much so that it’s all I can see. I know I should reach up for Johnson’s hand, but this is someone I haven’t seen in
years, someone I thought I hated, but now that he’s here, all I can do is go to him.
I love him
, I think. I love him like any daughter loves her dad. I don’t even care that my
shoulder is tingling, that my personal alarm bell is ringing. I have to go to him.

‘Rev!’ Johnson cries out.

I stumble and almost lose my footing but I reach the opposite platform and look up. ‘Dad?’

He squats down and I can smell aftershave on him. It’s the same brand he always wore and I can remember it so clearly. I used to love it when he’d come into my room and kiss me
goodnight just after he’d got in from work. I’d fall asleep with that same scent on my pyjamas. By morning it had always worn off but I knew it’d be back later.

I just didn’t think it would take over twelve years. But it’s back now.

‘It is you. Isn’t it?’ I say, almost afraid to ask.

My father reaches out and places a hand on my cheek. ‘You shouldn’t be here,’ he tells me. His voice is not quite how I remember it. ‘This isn’t a good
place.’

‘I know, I’m leaving,’ I tell him. ‘We’ve got a plan – we read your paper, I mean the Moth did.’

Johnson is already clambering over the track to be with me.

‘You need to be quick,’ my dad tells me.

‘I will.’

‘Rev . . .’ Johnson puts a protective hand on my shoulder.

‘I should’ve left well alone. The things I’ve opened up.’ My dad’s smile stops as he takes a moment to struggle with something that is trapped deep inside of
him.

‘Come with us,’ I say.

‘Rev!’ Johnson is starting to pull me away but I stand my ground.

‘Listen to me, Rev.’ My dad’s eyes find mine. ‘Listen carefully.’

I lean closer because my dad’s voice is soft and the approaching wind is whisking it away.

‘Run!’
he says.

I open my eyes with a start. I’m still on the train. I look out of the window to see the familiar town station coming into view. Dawn is well and truly here and I realise
that GG has driven very slowly, creeping along the track because the rising sun has probably revealed our progress. He wanted to make sure we weren’t heard. Despite the flaky pretence, GG
really does step up and get it together when he has to.

‘Did you see my dad?’ I ask Johnson feeling slightly dazed.

‘Your dad? No.’

I try to calm a little. ‘No?’

He tenses, checks around. ‘You see someone, Rev?’

‘I uh, I must’ve been dreaming.’

‘You didn’t look like you were asleep.’

‘Oh.’ I attempt to collect myself. The dream was so vivid that it has left me breathless. And I’m assuming it was a dream and not some sort of visitation from my dad, or
something that happened on another plane of existence perhaps. He came to find me, and as soon as he does he tells me to run. That just doesn’t seem to make sense. It had to be a dream. I sit
up straighter and look at Johnson and the Ape, fixing them with an earnest look.

‘Let’s get going.’

‘We’ll have to go through town to get to the school,’ says Johnson. He knows what this means.

‘OK,’ I say quietly. ‘I guess it’s game on.’ But my attempt at hero dialogue gets caught way back in my throat and my voice is barely a squeak.

The Ape gets to his feet and approaches the train doors, his great head scanning for danger as the train slows to a gentle stop. GG’s voice comes over the tannoy again.

‘This is it, the end of the line. Choo my choo.’

The alarm sounds and the doors open. The Ape looks out, scrutinising the area.

‘Anyone out there?’ Johnson asks him.

The Ape is about to shake his head when he stops. ‘Yeah. There is,’ he says.

‘Who?’ I clamber to my feet and quickly join him in the doorway. Maybe my dad is really here.

‘Dunno,’ says the Ape, ‘but they’re out there. Somewhere.’

I take in the world around us. A place I have never really bothered to pay too much attention to. It’s just another town. Streets, houses, cars, shops. I must have walked a million steps
east, west, north and south and not noticed any of it. Yet now it looks like a place I will never forget. There’s something in the air, something that’s got the Ape’s innate sense
for danger on high alert. My shoulders start tingling and I know that if we’re going to get to the school we’re going to have to fight our way there.

The other versions of myself and Billie are somewhere in the town, I know they are, I can feel it just like the Ape can feel it, and even though they don’t know what we’ve got
planned, when they see we made it this far, they’ll want to know where their friends are. They’ll demand answers, they’ll come to conclusions, and they’ll act.

I know Billie is a healer but Rev Two could be anything. She could be powerful beyond belief, and that power, whatever it is, will go into overdrive the second she realises that her beloved
Johnson, whether they’re on a break or not, is dead. She will come at us with all the blind rage and brokenhearted fury of any sixteen-year-old girl who has lost the boy of her dreams.
She’ll come at us exactly like I would, which could well make her the scariest of them all.

Johnson and the Ape step down onto the platform as GG joins us from the driver’s cabin. He has a look of apprehension but is trying to keep it light. ‘We’ve made it this
far,’ he says. But that’s also all he says.

I join them and the Ape steps closer, at my side again and ready for anything. He glances at me. ‘I’m still staying behind, Rev.’

‘Let’s just get there first,’ I tell him.

We start walking, leaving the station platform without saying a word to one another. Johnson looks as brave and determined as ever. He’s wearing the trilby and I’m relieved I can at
last look at him and not double over with pain.

We walk in silence and even the Ape doesn’t speak. He just grips his latest weapon a little tighter. It’s a four pointer now.

Before we know it we’re back in the town square. The last time we were here Another-Billie was trying to reanimate my – or is it Rev Two’s – dad. But right now it’s
silent and empty.

Johnson stops to scan the area.

‘Why are we stopping?’ asks GG.

‘I think this is as far as we go,’ Johnson replies.

The tingling in my shoulders is back. ‘They’re here,’ I say softly. ‘Aren’t they?’

‘I don’t see nothing,’ says the Ape but he re-grips his weapon.

‘Let’s keep moving,’ I tell them.

But Johnson is holding back as if he senses something we don’t. ‘Wait a sec.’

‘I like Rev’s plan better,’ says GG looking all around.

Johnson takes a long moment before turning to me. ‘We’re going to have to be so clever.’

I can sense GG and the Ape tensing up beside me as they scan the empty square.

‘Clever?’ I ask.

‘Just bear with me, OK? Whatever you do, don’t give anything away.’

‘Uh-oh.’ GG’s voice takes my attention as Rev Two and Another-Billie appear.

The Ape raises his weapon.

‘My dad’s not with them,’ I say, hope rising within me. ‘That must mean they didn’t manage to revive him. They won’t know about the classroom! We’ll
talk our way out of this, we will.’

‘I’ve got an idea,’ says Johnson to the Ape, eyeing Rev Two as she and Another-Billie stand silently waiting for us.

He waves, and I immediately understand what he’s doing. He’s trying to make them believe he’s the other Johnson. ‘Hey, Rev,’ he says.

‘Hey, Johnson,’ Rev Two answers. She seems very calm, almost unnaturally so. ‘Got yourself some new friends?’ She says this in a way that makes us all know we are
definitely not friends. ‘Where are the others?’ Rev Two asks as she and Another-Billie start towards us.

The Ape watches them warily.

‘Wish me luck,’ Johnson whispers to me as he goes to meet Rev Two and Another-Billie. ‘I found us a way home.’

‘I asked where the others were,’ Rev Two says, a little more sharply than I ever would.

‘They didn’t make it. There was an accident. A hotel fell on them.’

‘A hotel?’ Another-Billie is quietly stunned.

‘The Ape,’ explains Johnson, hoping they are going to buy every word.

‘So how come those three are still alive?’ Rev Two looks at us with a sneer on her face.

‘Forget them. We can go home,’ Johnson tells Rev Two.

GG steps alongside me. ‘What’s he
doing
?’ he hisses in my ear.

I can’t answer – I’m too scared that I already know, that he’s going to lead them away.

‘Rev?’ GG whispers louder. But I can’t find a way to respond.

‘Let’s go get them,’ says Another-Billie. ‘I can bring them back.’

‘The Moth read the pages,’ says Johnson. ‘We don’t have the time. We need to get moving. To the supermarket. To where your dad came through.’

‘He’s still burned,’ says Rev Two, who is openly staring at me now. It’s obvious she hates the sight of me. ‘Billie’s been trying her best but we need to take
him home.’

Even though he isn’t my real dad, that simple statement hits hard. I want to meet him, to see him and talk to him. I don’t care what we talk about, I just want to hear his voice
again.

Rev Two seems so much more matter-of-fact than I am. She isn’t choked any more, she isn’t standing there wondering what her dad will look like or what he’ll tell her. She cried
earlier, but now he’s lying somewhere else, on his own, abandoned, while she comes out to deal with us. I think I can see now why Other-Johnson likes –
liked
– me more. I
have a bigger heart.

‘It’s the way home,’ Johnson continues, his voice calm and with no hint of fear. ‘We can do it, but we have to be quick. As in, we have to go now. Go get your dad,
Rev.’