CHAPTER ONE
I have got used to them and can see them clearly. When they draw someone’s attention to themselves I look the other way. I don’t want to watch another victim suffer the daymarish life I lead. Their voice is a deafening cicada noise that the stricken with the ‘academia curse’ can hear.
Those not affected are oblivious of our torment; they are the spared ones who were lucky enough not to go to college or university. Many of our number have evaded capture. For those caught, a life without books or internet awaits them in a mental institution.
The world is changing as the population divides into two groups and governments crumble into chaotic administration. Whatever happens I must act normal as though not afflicted with this grotesque invasion if my group of like-minded ‘neurons’ are to help me fight this mysterious curse.
It seems an age since the nightmare, or should I say, daymare started.
***
I sat looking out at the passing pedestrians as they struggled against a strong wind. They hung on to plastic shopping bags, attaché cases or parcels held tightly under an arm as they leaned forward against the wind or fought to stay upright as they were blown along. Some hands held on to an upturned collar while others pressed firmly against the front of a coat, stopping it from flapping open. Rain fell but not directly down. It slashed and peppered the windows. The staccato beat of what sounded like a drummers brush on glass grew louder, drowning out hissing steam from the old coffee machine and the whispered argument going on between the only other two people in the small café.
“James, you wanna’ coffee or are you takin’ root there?”
Maisie was a no-nonsense black lady of considerable size with a baritone voice that boomed, especially when she got annoyed. She folded her fat arms and glared at me with big brown eyes.
“Yes, why not,” I answered. “I might as well wait until the rain gets lighter.”
She shuffled away as the other two people got up to leave. Seconds later, a gust of wind caught the door and slammed it against the dirty green wall. It remained open as the couple stepped off the pavement and ran toward a parked car. I got up and closed the door but not before napkins, and several paper table clothes had been scattered across the floor.
“Why, thank you,” said Maisie, her bright red fat lips forming an O as she finished speaking.
I sat with my coffee, cuffed the condensation from the window in front of me and looked at the world outside again. It was then I saw it – or rather it saw me. Everything except the street sign and buildings moved outside; a scene of turmoil as Mother Nature asserted her authority. But in the middle of it all – there it was, just sitting there in the gutter across the road. I shivered as a chill ran up my spine.
“Maisie, would you come and look at something for me. I think I’m going mad.” I beckoned her over and pointed across the street.
“What am I lookin’ at?” she said, bending and peering through the glass.
“Over there.” I pointed again. “In the gutter…see that brown paper bag or box…look, next to the drain.”
She looked and shrugged. “Okay, I see it but there ‘aint nothin’ unusual about no damn box.”
I said nothing as she shook her head and flip flopped back behind the counter in her carpet slippers. She had not seen what I had. I looked again and caught my breath. Was it my vivid imagination or was I going insane? The previous month had been hell with one exam after another. Now, six weeks on I was still mentally in the fast lane.
I looked again. The face was still there; the eyes moving.
When condensation covered the window again I let the blurred wet glass alone and sipped coffee, putting the weird occurrence down to my strained mental state. I smiled and wondered what my college friends would say if I told them.
“It’s stopped rainin,’ James. It’s time for me to close this café and for you to shift that little idle arse of yours.” Maisie’s head appeared through the kitchen serving hatch. “You sit there much longer and you’ll be seein’ all sorts of things out there.”
Still deep in thought, I nodded. The last term had ended just before my nineteenth birthday. I was looking for a place in university, although I was taking a year off first and looking for a job to fund my books.
I left the café a few minutes later and without looking across the road, I bowed my head into the wind and walked to the town centre. My flat was a short walk from a large shopping mall that took up the entire length of one side of a paved square lined on all sides with trees. In the middle of the square were some benches.
It was a place where many students and I congregated at lunchtime. I walked through the deserted square toward the mall’s entrance. The rain was light but the wind persisted in gusts that swirled paper and leaves across the concrete surface.
“James, how are you?”
A student I barely knew shouted from the other side of the concourse. He had been drinking and staggered along, propped up by a girl.
“Hi Lionel,” I shouted back. “Christmas is still a week away, you know.”
As I passed one of the trees I heard what I thought was a faint cry above the sound of the wind and rustling branches shedding the last few yellow leaves of autumn. I stopped and for some unexplainable reason I looked up into the tree. I froze - my mouth open. There high up on one of the boughs, barely visible, was an embedded mouth, or rather moving lips that looked as though they were speaking.
I felt scared and yet, rather stupid. There were no other people around; no-one I could call and have confirm that I was not being delusional. Lionel and the girl had gone. After taking a few steps away from the tree, I looked up and there it was, still talking. I dared not move and wished I had my camera with me.
A woman appeared, walking a dog. I was determined to attract her attention and ask her to look up into the tree. However, the dog did that for me. He strained at the lead and pulled her over to where I was standing. He immediately looked up into the tree and barked continually.
“I am sorry. I think he may have seen a squirrel. There are a few in the town centre and he loves chasing them.”
“Actually,” I said, he may have seen what I am looking at.” I pointed up at the bough. “There, do you see that. There’s some kind of movement up there.”
I had no intention of telling her I what I was looking at for it was plain to see.
‘I’m sorry, I don’t see anything,” she replied cautiously. She pulled the dog away and walked off. I stared after her and then back at the tree. The mouth was gone.
Again, I questioned my sanity. Maybe I was more exhausted after the exams than I thought. A friend had invited me back to his parents place for the Christmas holidays and I had refused. I changed my mind and decided to phone him and catch the first available train to Benton, a small village in the Peak District.
I pulled my cell phone out of my pocket and dialled him. “Charles, it’s me. I wonder if I can take you up on your offer. Something strange is happening and I need to talk to you. I’m sure it’s nothing serious but I’d rather be with company over the holiday. I’ll tell you all about it when I get there tomorrow.”
If I had known what terrible nightmares awaited me through that long night, I would never have gone home. It was to be the start of one of the darkest and most frightening periods of my life. It was also going to be the cause of my present condition, something others now have control over.
On reaching home after my strange experiences, I ate a TV dinner and then settled back to watch the news. After an hour I began to feel uncomfortable, not physically but mentally; a strange feeling of presence around me. I thought about the box in the road and the eyes. Stupid, I told myself. It was just a box.
The phone rang, making me jerk. I was relieved to hear Charles’ voice.
“I was a little worried about you James. Look, there’s a train 11.15 p.m. tonight. You’d be here in an hour. I could pick you up at the station.”
“No, that’s alright. I’m home now. I’ll get the first train in the morning.” That said, I ended the call.
I got up from the armchair and with mug in hand, stepped over to the fridge for some milk. It was hard to resist the temptation and so I found myself looking around the room like an idiot.
Satisfied I was on my own and feeling relieved that spending Christmas with company would make my demons disappear I opened the fridge and reached for the milk carton. There is a time lapse between what the eyes see and when the image seen registers on the brain. The carton was all I focused on. A second later I dropped the carton on the floor and fell backwards. With my mouth wide open a terrifying scream erupted from my lips. Traumatised, I lay stiff and shaking on the floor, unable to get up. My eyes were fixed on the inside of the fridge. I lay, breathing in shallow gasps, my heart thumping against my chest for several minutes; unable to comprehend what the grotesque apparition was that appeared before me.
My first thought was to close the door and shut the frightening sight from view.