"What Happened To Paul Hale"- The first three chapters
This is my first attempt at writing anything, and I have no idea what genre this fits in. Don't be kind, and let me know what you think. I've written around six chapters so far. I know very little about creative writing, but here goes:
1.
Paul Hale was not a man who possessed a confident stride. The backs of his once expensive skate-shoes dragged along the wet cobblestone, making a slippery, thick sound with every hunched step. It was almost as if, after 20 odd years of practise, he had not quite mastered bipedal travel. His sloppy gate was emphasised by the fact he had to hold his budget blue-denims by the pocket to stop them from sliding below his waist. He was too busy re-running the interview that had just happened to worry about the way he was moving.
“Ok, Paul, so your last job was as a sales assistant in a convenience store, but that was four years ago, right?” chirped the slick Indian man before him. “No, there’s a job I just left that isn’t on there…it’s not completely up to date I mean. I was a till assistant in a service station until about 4 weeks ago.” While the interviewer paused to check something on his overly complicated phone, as if the current conversation was the least important thing in his quiffed (?), shiny-shoed universe, Paul surveyed his surroundings. He was sick of rooms like this. Rooms with grey walls, and hard-backed, blue plastic chairs. Rooms full of people who were either in the same position as him, or were smug as sh*t because they were in positions of power. As nice as they might appear, interviewers were all the same. They thrived off the knowledge that the people before them were all desperate for what they had to offer. “Ah, O.K., why did you leave exactly?” The pink shirted man snapped Paul out of his bitter trance.
“I left because it was too far from home, I was losing too much money from commuting.” He lied. He had left because they had told him they were increasing his hours above his contracted amount, and if he couldn’t work that much, he would have to go. Paul could have easily worked the hours requested of him, but it would have left him lifeless. Forty hours a week from 5 a.m. every day, stacking chocolate bars or barcode scanning his way to a slow death was not what he believed existence was about.
The interviewer pressed on. “Can you sell a phone?”
“I guess.” Paul’s response was default, and he didn’t feel especially comfortable giving it. “What about computer games? Do you know much about them, or own any consoles?”. He reeled off the list of electronic boxes that littered his house and sucked away his time, and mentioned some titles that he knew he would purchase upon their release. “Good, good…” purred the man, obviously more pleased with that response than the kind of answer he might have gotten from the elderly Polish lady who Paul had seen leave the room 5 minutes ago. Despite the fact that he probably knew just about enough about games, phones and cameras to work in an electronics exchange shop, Paul already knew he wouldn’t get the job. Even with his slightly above-average qualifications and soft well-spoken voice, he knew he would not get the job, because there was part of him that simply did not want it. Better put, there was a part of him that detested the idea of another stint of employment, and he knew that these slick, high-earning individuals could sense things like that, and knew that they only gave jobs to people who oozed enthusiasm. Paul was not that person today. In a few weeks, maybe, but not today. Ten or so minutes later, and after the obligatory - “Thank you for your time.” and “You’ll probably receive a call within the next 7 days.”- type spiel, Paul Hale slid out of the grey plastic room, and onto the damp streets.
After a short drive home, it was back to the familiar set-up of pointless social networking websites, films, magazines and caffeine fixes. Paul was so used to filling his time with activities reserved for leisure that he barely appreciated the artefacts he devoured daily. Box-sets were demolished in a matter of hours, high-scores were set, and e-numbers filled his stomach. His sedentary lifestyle resembled that of a doddering pensioner more than the life of someone not long out of university. He regularly examined himself in the bathroom, using the silver-framed mirror above the green, porcelain sink. At around five foot eight, and weighing in at just under twelve stone, Paul concluded that he was average. Painfully so, with his dark, matted hair, bland hazel eyes, and a slightly pronounced nose and jaw-line, which he got from his father. His facial hair was slightly unkempt, which probably didn’t help his chances of employment. Black hair bristled from his cheeks, emphasising his abnormally thick eyebrows, and taking attention away from the dark, heavy sacks around his eyes (or so he hoped).
These physical reflection sessions would often delve a little deeper than they would have done for a person who had less time on their hands. Paul would spend several minutes staring into his own eyes, as if he was trying to figure out exactly whom it was stood in front of him. His depressing conclusions about his physical appearance were easier to swallow than the thoughts about his personality. Based on only a few minutes in front of a reflective piece of glass, he was, in his own words, boring, socially awkward, conceited and snobbish. The more he stared, the more he berated himself. He was fully aware of the fact that he did not “love himself” in the way that so many airy-fairy self help books of the 21st century suggested he should. He didn’t even like himself. It had got to the point where he fully understood why no one in his group of friends from university had made any effort to keep in contact with him, and he acknowledged that he was very lucky to have any friends at all.
It was only around the presence of one particular person that he morphed from a bitter, lazy individual into someone remotely likable. Her name was Matilda, and she had been his girlfriend for almost a year and a half. After a string of brief relationships that felt as if they had served only to pass time, it was a deep, full breath of clear air for someone who felt their life was like a doggy paddle in the dead sea. Like every other day, she floated in through the door at around 8:00, and Paul greeted her like an enthusiastic puppy rather than the down-in-the-dumps sod he was for the nine or so hours she wasn’t around. The transformation was consistently remarkable, and one that can only be explained here by stating that he knew in no uncertain terms that he could not live without this person.
2. The two had met whilst Paul was on the job. Being “on the job” at that time actually consisted of attending weddings, and ensuring that a video camera (which broke weeks later, beginning one of the many bouts of unemployment) was pointed at something remotely interesting, cute, or potentially sentimental. This was not something that was difficult to do. There was always some home-video clip-show type moment going on, i.e. little boy dancing with little girl, drunk best mans speech etc., or there was the more serious parts of the ceremony, such as the Bride walking down the aisle or the exchanging of vows. As long as he got enough of both of those types of shots, it was pretty much a dead cert. that his customers would be happy with the gushy kind of edits he could throw together with appropriately sentimental soundtracks. It was an easy set-up, so, Paul usually “relaxed” somewhat as his working days wore on. People were always eager to avoid conversations with relatives, so much so that they were keen to buy the “Camera-guy” a drink and listen to him prattle on about the intricacies of video editing, and the importance of choosing the right music in order to bypass the rational part of the brain and stimulate the emotional core directly. It was mostly men, slightly older than himself, who had been to enough weddings for the novelty to have worn off, and found a conversation with a complete stranger more appealing than the third round of the Y.M.C.A.
On this occasion, somewhere in a slightly pokey village hall near Chislehurst, an unusually sobre Paul Hale set eyes upon one Matilda-Hayley- Beckett. As she approached, nothing seemed out of the ordinary. There was no denying that she was very attractive, with shoulder length mouse-blonde hair, bright blue eyes, and plenty of other things that a man would have to try hard not to look at, especially in a cream-white summer dress. Yes, she was good looking, but having spent his working hours surrounded by bridesmaids and attractive relatives, Paul was quite used to seeing a pretty girl at a wedding. There was no thunderbolt moment as their eyes met, and nobody walked in slow-motion towards anybody else. Instead, she pulled up a chair, ordered a drink (just for herself) and said, mid slurp; “Be honest… how many Coldplay songs have you defiled in this line of work?”. That was the point that each of the two really began to absorb what was in front of them, drinking in each other in far larger quantities than the beverages they each held, despite the gulping that occurred in that first poignant silence. Our man looked up from his pint of faux-Australian lager, knocked off guard by the funniest thing he’d heard in all twenty six of the weddings he’d attended in the last two months. When that was coupled with the fact that it had been spoken in a voice resembling the speaking clock in a cat-suit, the end result was a slightly flabbergasted, but smiley man, staring at a woman waiting patiently for some kind of witty response. “ Let me just say that if I have to cut a video to “Yellow” one more time, I’ll pass out from the blood pouring from my ears.” She smirked, not broadly, but enough to let him know that his response was at least adequate.
After a long and progressively more alcohol influenced conversation about all manner of topics, from his shamelessly emotional song choices, to her quick witted commentary on the attendee’s attire, it became apparent that things were drawing to a close around the couple. While they had taken what seemed like very little time to ascertain they were obviously attracted to each other, cocktail sausage reserves had run low, heads had become sore, and the Lord and Lady of the day had legged it. At this point, a tall, clean shaven man stumbled up behind Matilda and wrapped a huge, gym-frequenting arm around her neck, quite violently. It took no time at all for Paul to snap back to his more rigid, insular state. No, this was no awkward uncle or even overly affectionate cousin. This was a large, probably annoyingly sporty, fake-tanned behemoth of a boyfriend. “Alright BABE!” blurted the orange-tinted git. “YOU MISS ME?” The obviously intoxicated oaf planted an over the top kiss on Matilda’s cheek. This was the kind of situation that Paul would have left immediately under other circumstances, but seeing the way Matilda’s face had dropped upon the embrace had given the more bitter of the two men enough reason to stay.
3. Paul stood somewhere between the feelings of disbelief and annoyance, but literally speaking, at the dregs of a wedding reception party somewhere near Kent(?). The great buffoon that stood before him, and in the way of his future Mademoiselle, was blathering on about “The game” after both men scraped through Matilda’s polite introductions with the minimal necessary niceties. Something very uncomfortable happens when two men are in the presence of a woman they both want for themselves, and this situation was no different. It would be unreasonable to say that the tension was palpable, but it was obvious that this pathetic attempt at a conversation existed only to keep Matilda happy. Paul was not a sports-fan, and often found it easier to keep that a secret and just nod along in agreement when in the presence of people like “Dangerous Dave” (a nickname which the owner seemed unbelievably proud of). It was better for him to smile and grunt knowingly at the appropriate points, and allow “Double D” to continue showering a detailed but drunken tirade of footy knowledge, as the alternative was Paul casually dropping in the point that he cared as much about football as he did a bowl of all-bran, and thus bring the already awkward conversation to a tumbleweed style standstill.
After a few minutes of this, Matilda was understandably unconvinced, and keen to get her man home, as she kept mentioning the time, and how they both had work in the morning. Paul was accepting that his dreams of getting further acquainted with her were slipping from his grasp, but still could not shake the look he read from her face when she was reunited with her Gargantuan lover. After a few more minutes of Dave desperately trying to keep the train wreck of an exchange going (although for what reason, Paul was unsure) , he and Matilda swapped goodbyes with Paul, and were strolling out of the hall as his brain ran through every single thought possible at that point. What was she doing? This guy was clearly about as interesting as a pond-weed, and Paul could tell that he wasn’t the only one who enjoyed their afternoon of quips. He rationalised. He couldn’t expect her to break up with this poor bastard on the spot, he had been in the situation of meeting a far more appealing partner while his lady-friend at the time made a complete berk of herself, and that sort of “on a whim” break up never actually happened. What could he do? He couldn’t ask for her number, he couldn’t run up to her and tell her she was the most interesting member of the female race (a fact he already truly believed), and he certainly couldn’t take on the second coming of Sasquatch without a small army of ex-cons, or at the very least, a very big dog. Of all the options though, and for the first time in his life, the choice involving violence was becoming more and more appealing. As the seconds slipped by, and the beautiful creature got closer and closer to the flimsy wooden doors of the hall, the one thing that Paul wanted to do, more and more, was run up to that great big twat and punch him on behalf of all non-sports fans everywhere. But while most of his brain tripped the light fantastic on the after effects of lager and a testosterone rush, there was just enough grey matter not overcome with pathetic Hollywood macho-ism to see something small, sticky, and odd looking fall out of his brand new nemesis’s back pocket. He recognised it instantly, but was still shocked at how disgusting this man really was.
“DAAAAAAAAVE!” Paul had never shouted so loud in his life. So loud in fact, that both Dave and Matilda turned around looking like they had been warned of an oncoming dumper truck. And so elongated was the cry, that by the time it ended Paul had caught up with the couple, albeit slightly out of breath from his overly dramatic sprint. “You, uh… (pant)… you dropped something mate…” Paul held aloft a used prophylactic, and to be honest, the less descriptive language used about that, the better. Dave had transformed into a recoiling mythical beast, and Paul was the archetypal loin- cloth clad hero with a used Durex as his metaphorical blade of power. Could this really be happening? Was the hero actually going to separate the goon from the Goddess, or would she blindly hold faith in her man, and accuse Paul of some kind of scheming? Such speculations soon became unnecessary as Dave displayed a face with as much innocence as that of a child caught with their hand deep in the forbidden biscuit tin. “Sweetheart, that’s not mine!” is what Dave would have said, if Matilda hadn’t spotted, analysed, and confirmed the face of a complete liar milliseconds after it had appeared. Because she did all of those things, Dave never quite got that far, as his air-tight defence plea was cut short by a swift, sharp high heel to his left shin. Paul was finding it incredibly hard to keep his glee internalised, but for fear he too might receive damage from painful looking footwear due to blind rage, he managed to keep the world’s biggest grin bubbling just below the surface.
“You absolute bastard!.. I always knew!” Dave looked up from his bent-double, shin rubbing stance with a pathetically wounded gaze, but said nothing. “You know what? Just go… I’ll get Sandy to come round and get my stuff or something.” Matilda was fuming, so much so that Paul could have sworn he could see heat ripples like those over hot tarmac inches above her head. “Just walk away, and don’t ever let me see you again.”, she continued. She had calmed down now, and Paul felt twinges of discomfort as he could see her mood change from angry to upset. As Dave slinked out the door and into the night, Paul began to doubt his decisions. He was unsure if it was really the right thing to do, and began to realise the somewhat selfish nature of the things he had done. Once again though, Matilda’s actions reassured him instantaneously. She looked from under her hair, which appeared golden in the overly bright light by the door, and smiled knowingly. Maybe Paul was still suffering from his hormone and lager chemical cocktail, or maybe the faulty bulb caught her eyes and highlighted them enough for him to look into them deeply for the first time, but either way the warm feeling in his body meant he knew something brilliant was about to happen. Matilda blew her fringe out of the way with a puff, and uttered those three magical words that every man wants to hear from a damsel, distressed or otherwise; “Fancy a drink?”. Paul smiled like he had just learnt how to, and the two made their way back to the bar.
"What Happened to Paul Hale"- Chapters 4-6
4. And so, with the ease and predictability of a budget flashback effect used by stumped writers on clip-compilation episodes of worn out sitcoms, we return to where we were. I don’t mind using this cheap trick, and I’m sure you don’t need to me to tell you that Matilda and Paul spent the rest of that evening laughing, smiling and steadily moving towards being a strong couple. It wasn’t long before they saw each other daily, and before the year was out, they had moved into a small flat in Guildford together. Matilda was a nursery nurse there, and Paul managed to get a job in a cesspit of a bar in the area (although we know that didn’t last long). Matilda was the proverbial Poppins; she loved children, and took a genuine warmth to her work that few people are lucky enough to possess.
No surprise to Paul then, that on this particular day, she turned up two hours after she was meant to have finished work. He folded his arms around her as she shut the heavy, white wooden door of the flat behind her, and planted a long, soft kiss on his lips. “Danny’s mum again?” Paul enquired. Matilda responded with a not-too-heavy-from-the-weight-of-the world sigh; “Yep. Must suck to have a mum who’s so addicted to online poker not to notice the time.” Danny’s mum was usually late, but was a heavy tipper (none of the other parents of the nursery children ever had reason to tip). “I do feel sorry for him you know, he never even wants to leave when she turns up. Today, he actually held onto my leg with one arm, pointed at his wooden tower with the other, and just kept shouting: BICKS! BICKS!”.
Paul let out a soppy, but in no way false “Aww… “ type noise, and agreed that he felt bad for the little fella as well. The two were still holding each other, and stood for quite some time in the hall-way. It wasn’t one of those embraces where one person needs it more than the other, and someone tries to move away; they just stood there, holding each other, smiling from their eyebrows to their elbows. After a short sarcastic sparring session about why Paul was a useless boyfriend for not having prepared a loving dinner despite not knowing what time his girlfriend would return home, a quick microwave pasta meal was radiated to edibility, and the two settled on the tired cream sofa in the middle of the lounge.
Paul was happy. And he knew that Matilda was happy. It was that simple. These two people had accepted each other exactly as they were. The only thing that caused any negative feelings in Paul when ‘Tilda was around was his unemployment. He knew that she shouldn’t have to support both of them, and cursed the way he acted when she wasn’t around. She never went on at him, which was a constant surprise to Paul. All that was ever said on the matter was along the lines of “You’ll find something else soon”, accompanied with a warm bright smile, and a ruffle of his hair, or a playful scratch of his beard.
The two always spent their evenings in the same way, on the sofa, with each other. Occasionally, a Friday night would be spent with a small group of friends at the pub, or the odd night would occur when Paul would visit some friends in Buckinghamshire, but it was the norm for the two to sit and bask in their own warmth before retiring to bed fairly early (although, perhaps retire isn’t the right word). After a little tomfoolery, and schmaltz that never neared the boundary of sickening, Paul would sleep. He would sleep better than he had ever thought he would. All his life he had suffered restless nights, usually made worse by having someone else in the bed, but with Matilda he slept so very, very soundly.
Despite this, he was still a very early riser. He would be up and about before Matilda, even though she was the only one who needed to be awake before nine a.m. . He liked to help her in the mornings, and would sometimes prepare her the highly complicated breakfasts she enjoyed (Marmalade, toast, glass of orange juice) or perform other small gestures such as defrosting her car windows, or getting her uniform out of the tumble dryer. Matilda always left the house with a blizzard of “I love you’s”, smiles, and frantically fast reversing from tiny back-street parking spaces.
So, Paul was left once more to his own devices. Normally lonely and reaching for a remote at this point, he found himself occupied by an abnormal sense of resolve on this particular day. He was stood by the window of the flat, peering diagonally up the narrow street, and holding his brow with his thumb and index finger. He had to get work. With a little more money between them, maybe they could go on holiday together, or perhaps he could replace the beaten up, tin-pot car that Matilda had to put up with. He let out a short breath, and headed for the bedroom to grab a towel for a shower. He was quietly determined to move at least one step closer to employment on that day.
5.
The stride of this man did not resemble its’ previous form a day earlier. Paul’s head was held high as his belted up jeans decided to remain attached to their wearer. He had no idea why he hadn’t thought of this sooner. Job centre! Although he knew that these places were the realm of frustration and annoyance from his friend’s experiences, he was certain that the people there were meant to help you find work, and visiting one certainly wouldn’t harm his chances of amassing a bit more capital (or at least, putting a dent in his overdraft).
While it was a cold morning, the sun was breaking through the line of October clouds, and throngs of scarved and mittened pedestrians made their way around the town centre. People talked too loudly on mobile phones, drank coffee and reminded Paul that a bit more time in the outside world helped him keep mental balance more than another season of the latest U.S. thrill-o-drama.
He rounded a street corner, and was faced with a man in front of him, leaning against a lamp post. “Got a light?”, the man bellowed in a thick Aussie accent, demanding more than requesting. The man was a little shorter than Paul, and wore an old grey trench coat which overlapped a pair of tattered grey trousers. His shaved head made his beady eyes appear focused, and the permanent scowl he possessed sat a little too comfortably on his squat, round face. He may have been short, but the man that stood before Paul Hale had a build which had no doubt caused other people to halt unexpectedly. After a momentary halt in front of the figure, Paul replied in a polite, but very shaky tone. “Sorry mate,… I don’t smoke!”. Regaining his determined smile, and having found an opening to keep moving, Paul went to carry on past the disturbing figure. What transpired within the next second and a half was from a world that very few people have any idea of.
Leant on the lamppost no more, the man lunged forward with speed that would seem abnormal even in a boxing ring. He thrust his hand deep into his victim’s gut. Paul felt something miniscule yet sharp slide straight through his skin, and then a white hot burn had engulfed most of his body in no time at all. His facial muscles contracted of their own will, and he let out a cry that was quickly dampened by the mans’ bear- like, sweaty paw. Paul was being held up by the man’s other hand, and just as well, as as he had lost most of the feeling in his legs, as well as most of his vision. He stared, transfixed on the source of the pain, just in time to see the last ounce of clear liquid disappear from a syringe being pumped into him. The now visibly anxious attacker looked from left to right several times in rapid succession. As his vision and sight were failing him, Paul made out the noise of screeching tyres and a flurry of loud voices, and saw what looked like the bottom half of a rusty blue van. After that, his head lolloped onto his chest. The man held Paul up by the scruff of his shirt with one hand, and slid open the side door of the vehicle with the other, proceeding to throw him inside. There was a dull thud as Paul’s seemingly lifeless body hit the metallic floor of the van, the impact of which was enough to plunge him deep into unconsciousness. The door was slid shut calmly, and Paul’s captors demounted the kerb and drove slowly round the corner.
6.
Paul was no alien to the sensation of a hangover, like so many of his generation and nationality. On one occasion he fervently insisted he would never walk again, so his instant assumption in this situation was that the pulsing on his temples was related to alcohol. But, so very gradually, he began to remember what had happened to him in town, and Paul thought that for once, it didn’t involve snakebite or urinating against a bike-stand. The bald-headed man, the white-hot muscular failure, and the van came together in Paul’s mind, rubbing against his sense of reason like pieces of a cheap jigsaw puzzle. He opened his eyes, and his vision was still blurred and doubled. He could establish that there was a single light above him, but it was not strong enough for him to see any other details of his location. He was sat with his knees against his chest, and his naked back against something cold, hard and uneven. He was still wearing his 5 year old jeans, but the lack of pocket-bulges on either side meant that his phone, wallet and house keys were not on his person. The floor felt like unfinished concrete against his bare feet, and his stomach was still sore. The sensation caused Paul to replay the events with a touch more clarity, which brought back the most harrowing occurence. The needle. He clutched his bare stomach and furrowed his brow in a sweat of discomfort, realising that an unknown substance was now in his body.
“Relax!”. A loud, mocking suggestion rang out from somewhere nearby. Paul backpedalled several metres away from where the sound had come from, and he scraped along the floor while his left shoulder rubbed against the rough brickwork wall, scratching the skin on his arm. The voice was instantly recognisable as the trench-coated man on the street corner, and Paul’s vision began to clear enough for him to confirm who he had heard.
The man was stood behind a large dusty sheet of glass a few metres in front of Paul. The rest of the room was nothing but a rough concrete floor, three bare brickwork walls, and a single lightbulb swinging from the ceiling. “What… youuf… I…. …” Paul’s attempts to speak were thwarted by the returning burn in his stomach, and he clutched his sides with opposite hands as he bent double with pain. “The effects of that should wear off soon, it’s only a mild paralytic. Never seen anyone go down as easy as you though mate!” The man’s speech was half laughter, and made Paul feel like he was some kind of maimed woodland creature caught in a trap not intended for him. “Sorry about the whole… stomach..thing though, that wasn’t part of the plan! Usually get people in the arm. That must have ****in’ hurt! Haha! There you were, just off to get some over-the-top excuse for coffee as per, and then WHAM!” The man laughed manically for a second, and then stopped dead like he had been struck with a revelation of some kind, and stared straight into Paul’s eyes. “Or, maybe… you were havin another half-hearted stab at getting a job! I tell you what mate, you are one lazy sack of somethin’ or other. Your girlfriend slaves away with those little mites, and you just sit at home, playing video games like some kinda dweeb teenager.”
Paul had too much information for him to make any kind of sense out of it at first, and questioned his kidnapper with timidity. “Who are you? What..what’s going on?”. The man pulled a cigarette from the top pocket of his coat, and began to pat himself down, as if he was looking for something. After a few seconds of this, he laughed far too emphatically, and pulled a silver lighter from his trouser pocket. “To be perfectly honest mate, it doesn’t really matter if you know what’s going on. I’m not ruuude though! My name’s Thompson. ” the man crouched down, leaned close to the glass and lowered his voice to a whisper. “But listen…what’s more important is who, or rather, what you are right now.“ Thompson slapped his knees in time with the last two words, as if to try and reinforce some unknown importance upon the confused man in his presence.
It finally sunk in how much this man knew about Paul. He knew that he was unemployed, and that he drunk coffee with too much decorative nonsense on top, but all that was irrelevant. He didn’t care if this sick, bald bastard new what way his toilet paper hung. There was only one realisation that got Paul off his feet, and inches from Thompson’s face in no time at all. As condensation from furious breath saturated the thick glass between them, Paul’s neck muscles tensed up, so that the skin on his shoulder-line became taut. His captor was completely unphased by the sudden rush of movement, and remained perfectly still. “You stay away from her. I don’t know what the **** is going on here, or who you think I am, but you don’t go anywhere near her, you understand?” His voice was quiet, but seething, and his torso flowed up and down from his heavy breaths. Pauls’ glare burrowed towards Thompson’s smirking face. “Well, well. You have got some life in you, eh? Bit of spark for the misses!”. He cackled, and shook his head whilst bobbing up and down in his squatted position. “ She’s fine right now. But in a few hours she’ll be bawling her eyes out at the news that her man was knocked down, just toddling across the road.”. Thompson walked two of his fingers over the palm of his other hand, before making them fall on their side. “We’ve even gone the whole nine yards, and given her a very convincing corpse to identify.” Paul remained as close as he could be to the glass without touching it, his eyes fixed on Thompson, but his anger had subsided. Confusion replaced malice once more, as the Australian man’s grin widened to an almost impossible size, pointed at Paul, and whispered. “What you are, my friend, is the control… the constant… the non-variable. You’re here just to make sure everything’s done properly. You know, for the sake of sound, scientifically conclusive findings.” Before he could reply, Paul saw a door open behind Thompson, and a lean, skeleton-like figure entered the room.
“Everything’s ready.” The man checked his watch. “What the hell are you doing in here anyway?” About a foot taller than Thompson, speaking in an upper-class English accent, and dressed in a green-brown camouflage boiler suit, this newer, aloof figure did not acknowledge Paul’s presence as he addressed Thompson. “Oh..err.. sorry Jack.. just making sure he… the..was awake…” The cigarette fell from Thompson’s mouth and he scrabbled around while he made his sheepish response. “You weird little oik, you were getting your jollies again, weren’t you! You haven’t told him anything important, have you?” Thompson shook his head and said nothing. Having given up on finding his nicotine fix, he stood up, but his head hung like a schoolboy in the corner. “Right, come on then, I’m going up, so we can get started” Jack ordered. Desperation gripped Paul, and he flung himself at the glass, hammering with closed fists. “Wait! Hey! HEY! Look, I haven’t got any money! What do you want?! ” Neither of the men looked at Paul as they left abruptly, shutting the heavy steel door behind them. The light in the room went out, and Paul’s cries went unanswered, hanging in the thick, dark air.
