What You Make It: A Book of Short Stories Read online

  ‘Re: j-series’ it said. It was from [email protected].

  I opened it. ‘End of series,’ the message said. ‘Hope you all enjoyed it. Next time, something tasteless.’

  ‘And I hope,’ I shouted at the screen, ‘that you enjoy it when I ram your hard disk down your fucking throat.’

  Then suddenly my blood ran cold.

  Next time, something tasteless.

  I hurriedly closed the group, and opened up alt.binaries.pictures.tasteless. As I scrolled past the titles for roadkills and people crapping I felt the first heavy, cold tear roll out onto my cheek. My hand was shaking uncontrollably, my head full of some dark mist, and when I saw the last entry I knew suddenly and exactly what Jeanette had been looking at when j16 was taken.

  ‘j17.gif,’ it read, ‘{f} Pretty amputee’.

  EVERYBODY GOES

  I saw a man yesterday. I was coming back from the wasteground with Matt and Joey and we were calling Joey dumb because he'd seen this huge spider and he thought it was a Black Widow or something when it was just, like, a spider, and I saw the man.

  We were walking down the road towards the block and laughing and I just happened to look up and there was this guy down the end of the street, tall, walking up towards us. We turned off the road before he got to us, and I forgot about him.

  Anyway, Matt had to go home then because his family eats early and his mom raises hell if he isn't back in time to wash up and so I just hung out for a while with Joey and then he went home too. Nothing much happened in the evening.

  This morning I got up early because we were going down to the creek for the day and it's a long walk. I made some sandwiches and put them in a bag, and I grabbed an apple and put that in too. Then I went down to knock on Mart's door.

  His mom answered and let me in. She's okay really, and quite nice-looking for a mom, but she's kind of strict. She's the only person in the world who calls me Peter instead of Pete. Mart's room always looks like it's just been tidied, which is quite cool actually though it must be a real pain to keep up. At least you know where everything is.

  We went down and got Joey. Matt seemed kind of quiet on the way down as if there was something he wanted to tell me, but he didn't. I figured that if he wanted to, sooner or later he would. That's how it is with best friends. You don't have to be always talking. The point will come round soon enough.

  Joey wasn't ready so we had to hang round while he finished his breakfast. His dad's kind of weird. He sits and reads the paper at the table and just grunts at it every now and then. I don't think I could eat breakfast with someone who did that. I think I would find it disturbing. Must be something you get into when you grow up, I guess.

  Anyway, finally Joey was ready and we left the block. The sun was pretty hot already though it was only nine in the morning and I was glad I was only wearing a T-shirt. Matt's mom made him wear a sweatshirt in case there was a sudden blizzard or something and I knew he was going to be pretty baked by the end of the day but you can't tell moms anything.

  As we were walking away from the block towards the wasteground I looked back and I saw the man again, standing on the opposite side of the street, looking at the block. He was staring up at the top floor and then I thought he turned and looked at us, but it was difficult to tell because the sun was shining right in my eyes.

  We walked and ran through the wasteground, not hanging around much because we'd been there yesterday. We checked on the fort but it was still there. Sometimes other kids come and mess it up but it was okay today.

  Matt got Joey a good one with a scrunched-up leaf. He put it on the back of his hand when Joey was looking the other way and then he started staring at it and saying ‘Pete …’ in this really scared voice; and I saw what he was doing and pretended to be scared too and Joey bought it.

  ‘I told you,’ he says – and he's backing away – ‘I told you there was Black Widows,’ and we could have kept it going but I started laughing. Joey looked confused for a second and then he just grunted as if he was reading his dad's paper and so we jumped on him and called him Dad all afternoon.

  We didn't get to the creek till nearly lunchtime, and Matt took his sweatshirt off and tied it round his waist. It's a couple miles from the block, way past the wasteground and out into the bush. It's a good creek though. It's so good we don't go there too often, like we don't want to wear it out.

  You just walk along the bush, not seeing anything, and then suddenly there you are, and there's this baby canyon cut into the earth. It gets a little deeper every year, I think, except when there's no rain. Maybe it gets deeper then too, I don't know. The sides are about ten feet deep and this year there was rain so there's plenty of water at the bottom and you have to be careful climbing down because otherwise you can slip and end up in the mud. Matt went down first. He's best at climbing, and really quick. He went down first so that if Joey slipped he might not fall all the way in. For me, if Joey slips, he slips, but Matt's good like that. Probably comes from having such a tidy room.

  Joey made it down okay this time, hold the front page, and I went last. The best way to get down is to put your back to the creek, slide your feet down, and then let them go until you're hanging onto the edge of the canyon with your hands. Then you just have to scuttle. As I was lowering myself down I noticed how far you could see across the plain, looking right along about a foot up from the ground. You can't see anything for miles like that, nothing but bushes and dust. I think the man was there too, off in the distance, but it was difficult to be sure and then I slipped and nearly ended up in the creek myself, which would have been a real pain and Joey would have gone on about it for ever.

  We walked along the creek for a while and then came to the ocean. It's not really the ocean, it's just a bit where the canyon widens out into almost a circle that's about fifteen feet across. It's deeper than the rest of the creek, and the water isn't so clear, but it's really cool. When you're down there you can't see anything but this circle of sky, and you know there's nothing else for miles around. There's this old door there which we call our ship and we pull it to one side of the ocean and we all try to get on and float it to the middle. Usually it's kind of messy and I know Matt and Joey are thinking there's going to be trouble when their moms see their clothes, but today we somehow got it right and we floated right to the middle with only a little bit of water coming up.

  We played our game for a while and then we just sat there for a long time and talked and stuff. I was thinking how good it was to be there and there was a pause and then Joey tried to say something of his own like that. It didn't come out very well, but we knew what he meant so we told him to shut up and made as if we were going to push him in. Matt pretended he had a spider on his leg just by suddenly looking scared and staring and Joey laughed, and I realized that that's where jokes come from. It was our own joke, that no one else would ever understand and that we would never forget however old we got.

  Matt looked at me one time, as if he was about to say what was on his mind, but then Joey said something dumb and he didn't. We just sat there and kept talking about things and moving around so we didn't get burned too bad. Once when I looked up at the rim of the canyon I thought maybe there was a head peeking over the side but there probably wasn't.

  Joey has a watch and so we knew when it was four o'clock. Four o'clock is the latest we can leave so that Matt gets back for dinner in time. We walked back towards the wasteground, not running. The sun had tired us out and we weren't in any hurry to get back because it had been a good afternoon, and they always finish when you split up. You can't get back to them the next day, especially if you try to do the same thing again.

  When we got back to the street we were late and so Matt and Joey ran on ahead. I would have run with them but I saw that the man was standing down the other side of the block, and I wanted to watch him to see what he was going to do. Matt waited back a second after Joey had run and said he'd see me after dinner. Then he ran, and I just hung around
for a while.

  The man was looking back up at the block again, like he was looking for something. He knew I was hanging around, but he didn't come over right away, as if he was nervous. I went and sat on the wall and messed about with some stones. I wasn't in any hurry.

  ‘Excuse me,’ says this voice, and I looked up to see the man standing over me. The slanting sun was in his eyes and he was shading them with his hand. He had a nice suit on and he was younger than people's parents are, but not much. ‘You live here, don't you?’

  I nodded, and looked up at his face. He looked familiar.

  ‘I used to live here,’ he said, ‘when I was a kid. On the top floor.’ Then he laughed, and I recognized him from the sound. ‘A long time ago now. Came back after all these years to see if it had changed.’

  I didn't say anything.

  ‘Hasn't much, still looks the same.’ He turned and looked again at the block, then back past me towards the wasteground. ‘Guys still playing out there on the ’ground?’

  ‘Yeah,’ I said, ‘it's cool. We have a fort there.’

  ‘And the creek?’

  He knew I still played there: he'd been watching. I knew what he really wanted to ask, so I just nodded. The man nodded too, as if he didn't know what to say next. Or more like he knew what he wanted to say, but didn't know how to go about it.

  ‘My name's Tom Spivey,’ he said, and then stopped. I nodded again. The man laughed, embarrassed. ‘This is going to sound very weird, but… I've seen you around today, and yesterday.’ He laughed again, running his hand through his hair, and then finally asked what was on his mind. ‘Your name isn't Pete, by any chance?’

  I looked up into his eyes, then turned away.

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘It's Jim.’

  The man looked confused for a moment, then relieved. He said a couple more things about the block, and then he went away. Back to the city, or wherever.

  After dinner I saw Matt out in the back parking lot, behind the block. We talked about the afternoon some, so he could get warmed up, and then he told me what was on his mind.

  His family was moving on. His dad had got a better job somewhere else. They'd be going in a week.

  We talked a little more, and then he went back inside, looking different somehow, as if he'd already gone.

  I stayed out, sitting on the wall, thinking about missing people. I wasn't feeling sad, just tired. Sure, I was going to miss Matt. He was my best friend. I'd missed Tom for a while, but then someone else came along. And then someone else, and someone else. There's always new people. They come, and then they go. Maybe Matt would return some day, like Tom. Sometimes they do come back. But everybody goes.

  HELL HATH ENLARGED HERSELF

  I always assumed I was going to get old. That there would come a time when just getting dressed left me breathless, and I would count a day without a nap as a victory; when I would go into a barber's and some young girl would lift up the remaining grey stragglers on my pate and look dubious if I asked her for anything more than a trim. I would have tried to be charming, and she would have thought to herself how game the old bird was, while cutting off rather less than I'd asked her to. I thought all that was going to come, some day, and in a perverse sort of way I had even looked forward to it. A diminuendo, an ellipsis to some other place.

  But now I know it will not happen, that I will remain unresolved, like some fugue which didn't work out. Or perhaps more like a voice in an unfinished symphony, because I won't be the only one.

  I regret that. I'm going to miss having been old.

  I left the facility at 6.30 yesterday evening, on the dot, as had been my practice. I took care to do everything as I always had, carefully collating my notes, tidying my desk, and leaving upon it a list of things to do the next day. I hung my white coat on the back of my office door as always, and said goodbye to Johnny on the gate with a wink. For six months we have been engaged in a game which involves making some joint statement on the weather every time I enter or leave the facility, without either of us recoursing to speech. Yesterday, Johnny raised his eyebrows at the dark and heavy clouds overhead, and rolled his eyes – a standard gambit. I turned one corner of my mouth down and shrugged with the other shoulder, a more adventurous riposte, in recognition of the fact that this was the last time the game would ever be played. For a moment I wanted to do more, to say something, reach out and shake his hand; but that would have been too obvious a goodbye. Perhaps no one would have stopped me anyway, as it has become abundantly clear that I am as powerless as everyone else – but I didn't want to take the risk.

  Then I found my car among the diminishing number which still park there, and left the compound for good.

  The worst part, for me, is that I knew Philip Ely, and understand how it all started. I was sent to work at the facility because I am partly to blame for what has happened. The original work was done together, but I was the one who had always given credence to the paranormal. Philip had never paid much heed to such things, not until they became an obsession. There may have been some chance remark of mine which made him open to the idea. Just having known me for so long may have been enough. If it was, then I'm sorry. There's not a great deal more I can say.

  Philip and I met at the age of six, our fathers having taken up new positions at the same college – the University of Florida, in Gainesville. My father was in the Geography Faculty, his in Sociology, but at that time – the late ’80s – the departments were drawing closer together and the two men became friends. Our families mingled closely, in shared holidays on the coast and countless back-yard barbecues, and Philip and I grew up more like brothers than friends. We read the same clever books and hacked the same stupid computers, and even ended up losing our virginity on the same evening. One spring when we were both sixteen I borrowed my mother's car and the two of us loaded it up with books and a laptop and headed off to Sarasota in search of sun and beer. We found both, in quantity, and also two young English girls on holiday. We spent a week in courting spirals of increasing tightness, playing pool and talking fizzy nonsense over cheap and exotic pizzas, and on the last night two couples walked up the beach in different directions.

  Her name was Karen, and for a while I thought I was in love. I wrote a letter to her twice a week, and to this day she's probably received more mail from me than everyone else put together. Each morning I went running down to the mailbox, and ten years later the sight of an English postage stamp could still bring a faint rush of blood to my ears. But we were too far apart, and too young. Maybe she had to wait a day too long for a letter once, or perhaps it was me who without realizing it came back empty-handed from the mailbox one too many times. Either way the letters started to slacken in frequency after six months and then, without either of us ever saying anything, they simply stopped altogether.

  A little while later I was with Philip in a bar and, in between shots, he looked up at me.

  ‘You ever hear from Karen any more?’ he asked.

  I shook my head, only at that moment realizing that it had finally died. ‘Not in a while.’

  He nodded, and then took his shot, and missed, and as I lined up for the black I thought that he'd probably been through a similar thing. For the first time in our lives we'd lost something. It didn't break our hearts. It had only lasted a week, after all, and we were old enough to know that the world was full of girls, and that if we didn't hurry we'd hardly have got through any of them before it was time to get married.

  But does anyone ever replace that first person? That first kiss, first fierce hug hidden in dunes and darkness? Sometimes, I guess. I kept the letters from Karen for twenty years. Never read them, just kept them. Last week I threw them all away.

  What I'm saying is this. I knew Philip for a long, long time, and I understood what we were trying to do. He was just trying to salve his own pain, and I was trying to help him.

  What happened wasn't our fault.

  I spent the evening driving slowly down 75, letting
the freeway take me down towards the Gulf coast of the panhandle. There were a few patches of rain, but for the most part the clouds just scudded overhead, running to some other place. I didn't see many other cars. Either people have given up fleeing, or all those capable of it have already fled. I got off just after Jocca, and headed down minor roads, trying to cut round Tampa and St Petersburg. I managed it, but it wasn't easy, and I ended up getting lost more than a few times. I would have brought a map but I thought I could remember the way. I couldn't. It had been too long.

  We'd heard on the radio in the afternoon that things weren't going so hot around Tampa. It was the last thing we heard, just before the signal cut out. The six of us remaining in the facility just sat around for a while, as if we believed the radio would come back on again real soon now. When it didn't, we got up one by one and drifted back to work.

  As I passed the city I could see it burning in the distance, and I was glad I had gone the back way, no matter how long it took. If you've seen what it's like when a large number of people go together, you'll understand what I mean.

  Eventually I found 301 and headed down towards 41, and the old Coast Road.

  Summer of 2005. For Philip and I it was time to make a decision. There was no question but that we would go to college – both our families were book-bashers from way back. The money was already in place, some from our parents but most from holiday jobs we'd played at. The question was what we were going to study.

  I thought long and hard, but in the end still couldn't come to a decision. I postponed for a year, and decided to take off round the world. My parents shrugged, said ‘Okay, keep in touch, try not to get killed, and stop by your Aunt Kate's in Sydney.’ They were that kind of people. I remember my sister bringing a friend of hers back to the house one time; the girl called herself Yax and her hair had been carefully dyed and sculpted to resemble an orange explosion. My mother just asked her where she had it done, and kept looking at it in a thoughtful way. I guess my dad must have talked her out of it.