The Descent to Madness (2 page)

Small mercies.

              He settled on the settee, took a gulp of the ice-cold beer and let out a sigh. It was 2pm – plenty of time to think of what to say before she came home at 6. He put the TV on and flicked through the channels. All the usual mid-afternoon rubbish. He settle on a program about dodgy builders, Dominic Littlewood charging about the country like a little Staffordshire bull terrier with a bee up its arse. The beer ran out. He got another. His eyes felt heavy. Might as well lie down while watching this. He checked his phone again. Plenty of time to think of how to phrase things.

Plenty of
time…

***

The slap of leather bag on leather couch shocked him awake with a start. He forced himself upright and rubbed the moist sleep from his eyes, almost spilling the half-full bottle of stale beer that lay against his chest. The sound of thrashing rain against glass drew his attention to the window. It was dark outside. Tearing his attention from the storm without, a tornado of blonde hair and designer clothes erupted from the bedroom, clutching a suitcase.

             
“…Anthea?”

The blur of motion slowed almost imperceptibly, but didn’t stop to look at him, instead dropping the suitcase to the floor and filling
the leather bag with things from the side table. He couldn’t fail to notice the hamster treats going in there too.

“Anthea? What…?”

“I can’t do it anymore, Graeme.” She carried on her determined bustling as he sat in confused silence. “You’ve not grown up. You’re the same boy you were at school, driving the same car, playing the same stupid computer games,” she gestured at his Xbox, snuggled guilty under the TV. “I don’t want a boy anymore.”

Stone’s mouth opened and closed like a fish, no sound coming out. Then finally:

“…where are you going?”

A car horn beeped outside and Anthea picked up the suitcase before looking at him
for one last time, her blues eyes revealing no glimmer of remorse, no hint of pity.

“
Mark’s letting me stay at his. I’ll be back for Sid and the rest of my things in the morning.”

He opened his mouth to reply, but couldn’t think what to say. His heart hammered in his chest as she swept past him to the door, down the stairs and out into the pouring rain.
He sprang up from where he’d sat frozen on the couch, spilling lukewarm Coors over his sock and cursing.

“Wait!”

He half-sprinted across the room, bashing his knee on the edge of the sofa, and hobbled down the stairs, sock squelching beer with every step. Out the door and into the storm he ran, before slowing to a halt halfway up the path. The boot of the Porsche Cayman slammed shut and a tall, suited man with an umbrella and immaculately gelled hair gave him a cheery salute before climbing into the driver’s seat. The engine fired up with a growl and the vehicle, and his girlfriend, disappeared into the storm.

Stone stood
in silence, staring after the receding red-lights, his tears invisible in the downpour. Orange sparks on the floor made him turn. Maciej stood in his doorway, exhaling a cloud of blue smoke from his freshly finished cigarette.

“Chesh
.”

The door closed and Graeme Stone was left outside in the worsening storm
, alone with his thoughts and his beer soaked sock. Lightning flashed and for an instant the windows of the factory opposite looked like a leering grin. A second later, the thunder rumbled, sounding for all the world like the mocking laughter of a spiteful god.

***

The face that stared back at him in the weak, fluorescent light of the bathroom looked double its twenty-five years. His sunken cheeks and poor complexion reflected his diet of Doritos and coffee. The dark circles under his eyes, the two years of early starts and late nights. His hair dusty and dry from working the press. The only thing missing was the thumbprint on his forehead. Or perhaps the word ‘Mug’ scrawled in permanent marker. Seven years, he’d been with her.

Seven
years.

Granted, they’d been living at each other’s parents for the most part. Things had been great then
, straight out of A-levels with hardly a care in the world. Trouble had only started when they’d got this place. Two years of soul-crushing boredom, giving up the writing he enjoyed for the factory floor - and for what? To be sat at home alone each night in the ridiculously cramped living room, his only friend the flashing green circle of his Xbox? And all the while she was off gallivanting of a night, with her friends from work. With Mark.

A flash of anger surged through him
at the thought and, in a moment of fury, he lashed out at his reflection, driving his fist hard into the mirror above the sink, which splintered into a spider’s web of fragments. With instant regret, he recoiled, clutching his mangled hand.

“Fuck!”

He looked down and blood was already welling up from a dozen cuts on his knuckles. He turned the cold tap on full blast and stuck his wounded hand into the flow, hissing through gritted teeth. His reflection in the cracked mirror looked pale, the blood drained from his features. He looked back down to check on his hand, the skin going numb from the intense cold.

His reflection did not.

Grabbing a flannel, he began to rub gently at the knuckles, making sure no glass fragments remained, as a prickling cold began to work its way up his spine, a cold that had nothing to do with the water and everything to do with creeping realisation. He slowly stopped scrubbing and simply stood, his mind unable to process what it thought it had witnessed.

He quashed his ridiculous fear and looked up.
His cracked reflection was staring back at him, same worn out face as ever; brown hair, green eyes, faint stubble. He looked left, then right. His reflection did the same. He let out with a great sigh the breath he hadn’t even realised he was holding – smiling with relief that it was only his tired mind playing tricks on him. His reflection gave him a reassuring wink as though in agreement with his thoughts.

All in your head, Graeme. All in your head.

Stone screamed.

***

He ran, the deluge plastering his t-shirt to his bony torso, the thin, blue, Tesco own-brand jacket he was wearing no protection against the elements. His asthmatic chest heaved with exertion, his legs burned and his feet were sodden from pounding through the puddles of standing water on the pavement, but no matter how far he ran he couldn’t get away.

The laughter;
it followed him.

             
He’d finally cracked. Finally gone mad. He’d put a brave face on everything that he’d gone through over the years; the emigration of his parents, the neglectful missus, the soul-sucking grind. But finally he’d snapped. But the doctors could help; they could give him something. He stopped for a second, bent double, fighting for breath, then the mocking whispers began again. With a desperate groan, he forced himself onwards and they receded behind him once more. He turned the corner and hope blazed through the rain in the form of a white and blue neon sign; NHS Walk In Centre.

             
He laughed manically and powered towards the glass double-doors. He slammed into them hard, yanking on the handle, pushing, then pulling, but they wouldn’t open. The lights were on, the rows of chairs, the desk, the obligatory yucca, all seemed in order. He rattled the doors again, same result – locked! Searching around desperately he noticed an A4 sheet of paper blue-tacked to the inside of the door: CLOSED FOR STAFF TRAINNG.

             
Tears began to sting his eyes as his desperation grew. The taunting voices all about him now, mocking this latest in a twenty-five year string of failures; insidious, relentless whispering that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere at once. Banging his fists in futile frustration at the reinforced glass, Stone let out a scream of rage and impotence. Gathering himself as best he could, he span and looked about like a wild animal, trying to think where to go next for help. The voices were getting loud, less whispers now and more like a conversation from across a room. They made it so hard to think. Then the sound of sirens howling in the night snapped him to attention.

He set off at a run, in the direction of the police station.

***

“We look like twats”
commented PC Steve Webb, for the third time that evening.

His traditional bobby’s helmet funnelled the rain water perfectly into his eyes, no matte
r what angle he tilted his head and the plastic of the rain-mac he wore on top of his uniform was that of the thinnest, cheapest bin-bag; the kind that tears to ribbons as you try to pull it out of your bin at anything over half full.

             
“Cheer up, Steve!” grinned PC Rob Yearsley, walking the beat at his side. “If it’s pissing it down hard enough to wear these,” he gestured at his own mac, “then no-one’s gonna be out and about to see us!”

             
Typical Rob, thought PC Webb, looking over at the tall, gangly youth. Give him a few more years on the beat, that’ll drum the misery into him. To be truthful, the grumpy Northerner was grateful for PC Yearsley’s incessant optimism, not that he’d ever admit it. The Leicestershire Constabulary was hardly the most exciting gig. As the name suggested, ‘The Heart of Rural England’ was not exactly crime capital of the world. Twenty years on the beat and now PC Webb’s every day blurred into one, each day as boring as the last. At least having a fresh face around livened things up.

             
The rain intensified for a minute, driving the two officers into a shop doorway. The shelter was welcome and PC Webb pulled his helmet off for a moment, running his hand through his damp, greying hair, a look of absolute exasperation etched on his lined features.

             
“Here,” he said, passing his helmet to PC Yearsley to hold. “Give us a minute.” He fumbled in his pocket and pulled out a pack of Benson and Hedges, before sticking one in his mouth and lighting up. Yearsley knew better than to argue about the legality of sparking up on duty, but his eyes said everything Webb needed to hear.

             
“Oh, give over, Rob. I look like a drowned rat, I deserve this.”

             
The other bobby looked unconvinced. Webb sighed and took a deep drag.

             
“We’re walking past the chippy in a minute – give me five minutes out of this damned rain and there’s a chip cob in it for you.”

             
That got a grin, as he knew it would; the younger officer’s appetite was legendary. How he stayed so thin was a miracle, thought Webb, one hand unconsciously patting the middle-aged spread beneath his uniform.

             
His train of thought was broken at the sound of splashing footsteps running down the street towards their position. With a curse, Webb flicked his half-finished cigarette to the floor, grinding it underfoot, just as a bedraggled youth came haring past. The two officers put their helmets back on and ventured out again into the downpour, rain-macs flapping at their sides in the stiff wind. Yearsley cupped his hands.

             
“Oi! You alright, mate?”

             
The runner slowed to a halt and turned as the PCs walked up to him. His face flushed with exertion, his clothes plastered to his spare frame.

             
“Bloody hellfire,” Webb remarked. “Y’alright lad? You’re running like all the hounds of hell are after you!”

             
The youth looked at them with a curious mixture of relief and desperation, then opened his mouth to speak. He stood there for a second, not saying anything, confusion playing over his features. Yearsley took a step forward.

             
“What’s up, mate? Spit it out, it’s pissing it down out here and none of us are getting drier!”

             
The youth’s look of confusion began to morph, first to fear, then to abject wide-eyed terror.

             
“W…what are you? Why won’t you leave me alone?” he cried out, taking a step back. Yearsley took another step forward, but the youth pushed him away, sending him sprawling on the ground, before sprinting off into the storm in the direction of the industrial estate on the edge of town.

             
“Oh for pity’s sake” chuntered Webb under his breath as he hauled his companion to his feet. “We’ve got ourselves a druggy. Gonna have to wait for that butty. Get back here!”

             
The PCs gave chase.

***

Stone ran and ran, lungs screaming for air, but he couldn’t evade the - the
things
that were chasing him. At first he’d thought them coppers, thought himself safe, but that was just a lie. They were in league with the voices. He knew it; the tall, freakish heads, the wings. They were monsters.

             
And they were only a hundred yards behind him!