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  LAMPLIGHT

  Benjamin Appleby-Dean

  A Wild Wolf Publication

  Published by Wild Wolf Publishing in 2017

  Copyright © 2017Benjamin Appleby-Dean

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publishers, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review to be printed by a newspaper, magazine or journal.

  First print

  All Characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  E-Book Edition

  www.wildwolfpublishing.com

  To Becky, my own beloved light

  One

  Hazel turned the light out and tried to make herself sleep. The bedside lamp was an old one she'd found in the flat when she first moved there, and the switch made a loud ping when pushed through the neck. She'd been worried at first that it would break, and that the landlord would deduct five times the value of the crappy thing from her deposit, but the lamp had defied her and outlived three mugs, two plates, most of a set of wineglasses, a dining chair and the laundry basket.

  Hazel always slept with her phone under her pillow, and it buzzed, startling her back from the edge of sleeping. Too tired to bother with her glasses, she squinted at the screen and saw a message from Jenny, saying:

  "hey have u seen this"

  Hazel scrolled down, and found a picture of Steven – Steven who she hadn't seen for a week, Steven with his arm around a girl with long hair and shiny teeth.

  With a groan, she stuffed the phone under the pillow and rolled over, trying to bury herself in the mattress, drown in it.

  There was a sharp ping, and the lamp came on.

  Hazel jerked awake with alarm, but there was no-one by the bedside table. Old wires, she told herself, old crap; and she pushed the switch off again. Purple afterimages were dancing in front of her eyes, and she burrowed under the covers, but quickly found that she was too warm. Prickles broke out along her arms and legs, and she could feel sweat pooling in the hollows of her skin. Hazel muttered under her breath – from habit, there'd been no-one else in her room for weeks – and stuck her feet out of the covers, trying to cool down.

  The lamp pinged.

  Eyes full of duvet, Hazel couldn't see a thing, and tore the covers off her face to find the lamp on again and bright as ever.

  The room looked even blurrier to her sleep-fogged eyes, but there was still no-one by the bedside table. Hazel pulled her feet back undercover, just in case, and fumbled behind the headboard with one cold arm until she found the power socket, where she turned the wretched thing off at the wall and unplugged it for good measure.

  Darkness stole back into the room, soft as cotton-wool. Hazel rolled onto her side and curled into a ball, wrapping the duvet around herself like a shell. She could feel sleep beginning to crawl back into her head, seeping gently across her thoughts and pulling her down into the bed, down into the darkness, down into –

  Ping.

  The lamp was back on, unplugged from the wall.

  It cast long shadows over the head of the bed and over Hazel, who stared at the bulb and the grimy brown shade with her heart trying to climb into her mouth. She could taste acid, and her vision was swimming. The shadows flickered, and even without her glasses Hazel could tell they didn't match the lampshade or herself or anything in the room.

  They weren't coming from her lamp at all, but from the other light at the foot of the bed.

  Hazel couldn't move. Couldn't breathe. She stared down the length of the bed, at the shape against the far wall, and as she squinted –

  – finally –

  – saw –

  Jenny leaned on the stairs with one hand –

  – bubbles rising in her stomach like fireworks –

  – and texted with the other.

  The music was pounding behind her – drub drub drub drub scratch scratch scratch – making it difficult to stay still.

  She shuffled her feet on the carpet and nearly fell over, but it was done – done – and she'd been right all along so there.

  She wandered back into the living room, wanting to dance, feeling like dancing, but the place had kind of chilled out and everyone was sat down. Steven and his new friend were curled up in the big armchair, making little kitten sounds that made her want to slap them. Tom was slouching in a pile of cushions by the radiator with the pipe dangling between his fingers, and Amy – Amy had put all the empty bottles in a circle on the table and was staring at them, tracing her finger round the rim of her glass.

  None of them even –

  – looked –

  – at her and she felt like screaming, but all Jenny did was turn off the music, 'cause what was the point if no-one was moving to it?

  Tom slurred "Oi," letting the pipe fall –

  – his hair was in his eyes and he couldn't see her –

  but Jenny ignored him and sat in the middle of the sofa and folded her arms. Amy broke away from her bottles and wandered over.

  "Where did you go?" she said, squeezing in beside Jenny without asking.

  "Nowhere," Jenny said, "out." She felt like going home, but her legs didn't want to move.

  "If you'd been nowhere you wouldn't have gone at all," said Amy, leaning in. Her necklace was in the shape of a star and Jenny had heard she was into that pagan stuff. Maybe she was gay like that girl in the old tv show. Jenny leaned away and something went blurry inside her head and made the room turn funny colours.

  The music was back on, scratchscratchscratch.

  "Wurg," she said. Steven's back was to her, but Jenny could see his hands moving on the girl she didn't know. It looked –

  – distant like watching a documentary looked –

  – and she tipped her head on one side.

  "Are you okay?" said Amy, her hand on Jenny's shoulder. Jenny had forgotten she was there.

  " 'm fine," she protested, getting up.

  Her phone chirped like a little bird. Made her jump. Jenny pulled it out, ready for her friend's shocks and protests and maybe even an apology, but the message was a blank grey square. Dimbo Hazel must've slept on her phone again.

  The music changed and it was better. Jenny started to dance by herself, not caring any more, seeing Tom kicking his heels in time with it, seeing Steven oblivious in that girl with teeth like an American all shiny plastic, seeing Amy get up and sway gently alongside her with her eyes half-shut and her pendant swaying and for a second the room was in –

  – tune.

  Feet. Hands. Lights out. Sounds of glass. Mist on the window.

  When Jenny could think again she was propped up against the radiator. Tom had vanished, and there was a blanket across her knees, but the metal against her back was ridged and cold and uncomfortable –

  but she was

  so

  sleepy.

  When Jenny woke up there was a crick in her spine, and her tongue had stuck to the roof of her mouth. The morning light was filtering through the curtains, and she could see shadows curled up on the sofa, Steven and his girl, Jessica –

  – Jenny could remember her name now –

  – lost to the world under a pile of coats. Jenny stared at them as her head cleared, then fumbled for her phone and took another picture. She had half-a-dozen messages, but none of them were Hazel – all were from some anonymous asking stupid questions.

  She peeled herself off the floor, heading through to the kitchen to find water. Every surface and countertop was piled high with old plates and glasses and cans, and the smell of it rose up and hit her like a cold shower. Jenny's toes curled up from the floor
, and she filled a glass from the tap and left as quickly as possible.

  It was too early to be late, and too late to be early.

  Steven was starting to wake up, and groaned "Morning," at her. Jenny looked at him, bleary-eyed and hairy, his skin flushed red in patches. One of the coats on the sofa was hers, and she rocked on the balls of her feet, torn between going for it or leaving without.

  Jessica mumbled something and curled up, pulling Jenny's jacket over her shoulder. Possessiveness flared in her, and Jenny grabbed the nearest corner of the coat and tugged. Jessica clung sleepily to it, and for a moment the two of them were caught in a ridiculous tug-of-war, Steven looking confused in the middle.

  The jacket flew into Jenny's hands, and she wrapped it triumphantly around her shoulders. The couple on the sofa were only half-covered now, arms and breasts spilling awkwardly across each other, and she turned away quickly and headed for the front door. She felt clammy and sweaty inside her clothes, and needed a shower and change before she tore her own skin off.

  Her phone chirped.

  Jenny pulled it out of her pocket as she went outside, expecting another anonymous question, but found a message from Amy:

  "Are you feeling ok? Was worried about you last night!"

  She sent a short, unencouraging reply on the way to the bus stop.

  Amy had taken herself home early. Her flat wasn't far from Tom's house, and she'd wanted the comfort of her own bed and her own silence.

  She always woke up early – a habit she hadn't managed to lose since she'd moved out, from when the family cat would beg for food in the small hours – and Amy showered with a throbbing head and heavy eyes. There was dry skin up and down one of her arms, and she scrubbed furiously at it, thinking of Jenny's skin which was the colour of rich caramel and always looked flawless. Amy didn't really like Jenny – she found her too snide, too self-absorbed – but the other girl had the kind of personality that grabbed people by the scruff of the neck and dragged them along with her.

  Amy was still thinking about her as she dressed, but grew more and more irritated with herself until she wound up throwing her hairbrush across the bedroom.

  She ate muesli for breakfast, but still felt down afterwards, so allowed herself a line of chocolate. Amy liked to try and buy the fairtrade stuff, but it was so expensive, and she often wound up with the cheap brands that came in wrappers without logos.

  No jewellery today. She had to go to work.

  It was still dark outside when she left the house, though there was a blue flush at the corner of the sky. Amy liked the early mornings, when there weren't many people about and the streetlights were still on – it was like being awake and asleep at the same time.

  The joints of her bike were getting loose, and it winced and creaked across the kerb and the uneven paving-stones. There were few cars on the town roads, and it seemed only minutes before she was at the shop on Gorse Road and opening the shutters. Mr Urbas wasn't in yet, and so it was left to Amy to turn the alarm off, open up the magazine racks and the freezer cabinet, and carry the cash-drawer through from the back office. She'd been having to do this more and more lately, and for all Amy prided herself on her honesty she couldn't help but daydream about how easy it'd be to lift a couple of twenties from the drawer, edit the receipts so the two matched up, and treat herself to some proper food for once – real fruit and real vegetables instead of the kind that'd been freeze-packed.

  The morning papers arrived while she was lost in thought, and Peter Urbas followed them, red-faced and out of breath. "Good morning, Miss Nash!" he wheezed. Peter never spoke if he could exclaim instead.

  Amy bid him good morning back, then surreptitiously checked her phone once he was in the office. Nothing from Jenny, who wouldn't be up yet, but Hazel wasn't saying anything either and that worried her.

  The first customers of the day arrived – bleary-eyed businesspeople and late-night drinkers. Amy leaned on the countertop and tried to keep herself awake. An hour went by, and her pocket buzzed. Amy waited until Peter's back was turned, and he was busy with his own copy of the paper, then snuck her phone out under the counter.

  Jenny had stuck a new picture up – Steven and Jessica dishevelled under covers and coats. Amy quickly exited it, but not before she'd seen the comment – Tom going "haha", with a little smiling face attached.

  "What's this we have here?" Peter bellowed, peering over her shoulder, and Amy nearly dropped the phone.

  Tom had the kind of headache that felt like he'd been in a car crash. It was quiet downstairs, and he hoped everyone'd left. When he finally got up, every door-creak and cupboard-bang only made his head all the worse, and he stumbled downstairs half-dressed and in a foul mood.

  The living room was a mess, and Steven was still half-dressed on the sofa, sitting up with coats bundled across his legs. "Jess–” he started, then broke off.

  "Couldn't hang onto your girl, then," said Tom, sitting down on the arm of the chair. His legs ached.

  "She's not my–" Tom looked skeptically at him, and Steven gave up. "She saw this and went off," he said, holding out his mobile with the picture on it. Tom tried not to laugh.

  "Don't see why," he said, getting up. His head still seared, but Tom was starting to feel better. "She looks alright there, could be much worse."

  Steven nodded, then looked like he regretted it. "She didn't think so," he said, digging through the piles of clothes for his jeans.

  "Happens to everyone," Tom said. There was a half-full can left on the table and he took it, feeling his head start to numb after a few flat mouthfuls. "She'll need to learn to take it if she's going to stick around."

  He paused, looking at Steven over the top of the can. "Do you want her to stick around?"

  "That's not right," Steven said, scratching himself as he pulled his shirt over his shoulders. "Hanging out with you lot isn't some kind of gauntlet, is it?"

  "To get past the semi-final," Tom boomed, making his voice artificially deep, "you must survive three leaked pictures and a rumour about your cousin."

  "Not funny, man," Steven groaned, getting to his feet.

  "Eh, who cares." Tom couldn't be bothered to pretend he did. "So where're you off to, man? Got work?"

  "Later," Steven said, and left with a scowl on his face.

  Tom shrugged for his own benefit, and flopped onto the sofa. It was still warm, and smelled like a party should. He relaxed against the sweaty leather, and brought out his phone to look at the picture Steven had been going on about. Jenny was always doing that to people, grabbing bits of them when they least expected and sharing it with the world. She didn't believe in privacy, even her own – Tom'd found her blog once, and spent an hour scrolling through the rambling text. She liked to post anonymous squares of flesh, pictures divorced from their owners and reduced to bum or boob or waist.

  Tom liked Jenny more than he let on – there was something kind of admirable in how she put herself so out there, so up front, that it made her impossible to criticise.

  His phone cried like a baby. New message. Some mystery person going "Where r you?"

  Tom deleted it, and texted Steven.

  "Good luck mate".

  Steven was thirsty, and he stank, but neither of these things had sunk in until he left the house. He thought about Jess, and winced – he'd been on her side at first, but then she'd started blaming him for the picture and his friends, going on and on until he'd wound up shouting back.

  It was probably too soon to go after her.

  He didn't know where to go instead, and walking was hard work this early in the morning. Steven ran through people nearby in his head – Jenny would still be asleep, Amy at work already, and Terry had been making a complete arse of himself lately, which was why he hadn't been invited last night. Hazel would be up by now, but she might not want to see him.

  Steven leaned on the garden wall. Home was just behind, and his feet hurt, but he needed somewhere to sit without Tom making jibes at him. Maybe
Hazel would be okay after all. She'd always been good at listening. They could still hang out together, be friends, move on from all the bad stuff.

  He sent her a message – trying to be casual, friendly, a little bit apologetic.

  There wasn't any answer. Steven started off down the street to kill time, walking with the slow wobble of a man who wants to be in bed, but he still didn't get any answer and that was odd. Hazel rose at the same time every morning and always replied to things as soon as they reached her, running her life like a clock. He'd always found it annoying, but it wasn't like her to ignore him, even now. Maybe she was sick. If she was too sick to check her phone, she'd be too sick to get out of bed or let anyone in the flat. He needed to see if anyone else had talked to her.

  His phone buzzed, but it was Jack, saying "Why'd my sis just show up crying? You BETTER have a good excuse."

  Steven didn't know what to say. Eventually he settled for "on my way." Better to explain himself face to face.

  Jack rammed his mobile back in his pocket and turned away from the window. Jess was sitting on the stairs, facing away from him, but he could see her shoulders shaking. "Hey," he said, patting her awkwardly on the shoulder, "hey," but Jess shook her head and wouldn't say anything, so he went to get her a glass of water.

  The kitchen light was still broken. When you pushed the switch it kept blinking on and off, strobing and pinging. By the time Jack got back with the water, he found his sister standing up and reaching for her coat.

  "Have to go," she said. "Don't want him thinking he's upset me."

  Jack hesitated. Jess narrowed her eyes, and spoke far too quietly.

  "Did you tell him?"

  "He's coming here," Jack said, holding the glass like a shield.

  "Well," Jess flung her coat across her shoulders, "he'll just have to be disappointed."

  "But he'll be – what do I say?" Jack asked. She didn't seem to want the water, and he didn't know where to put it.