Silence.
Stillness.
Silence.
The rhythmic crunching of his running shoes on the loose gravel and the staccato exhalation of his breath did little to puncture the unseen bubble seemed to have formed around him. It was as though he were in a vacuum.
Just him.
Nothing else.
No-one else.
At first he ran to keep away the cold, to hope that his clothing would dry. Then he ran because he could not think of what else to do. He ran because when he stopped, the silence became almost too much to bear. The bubble would shrink, the unseen pushing in from all sides.
The fog pushing in from all sides.
He ran because if he kept moving then he would have to eventually get to a point where there were other people, where he would either find his friend or find someone to help him. He would find himself in familiar surroundings. He ran because he wanted all those things dearly.
He ran even though his lungs were burning in his chest and his staccato breathing was getting faster, and more coarse.
He ran even though every muscle in his legs was aching and his feet felt increasingly heavy.
Visibility was no better the longer he ran. He could still only see as much as fifty feet in front. Beyond that, that still white fog was too thick to make anything but the vaguest of detail. The fog was the physical manifestation of that still ness, he realised. It was that which was pushing down upon him, that stifled all the sound he made. Earlier, when he had called for Tom repeatedly before calling for anyone, it had been the fog that had caught his words before they could reach too far. The fog that took on an air of malevolence not long after he became separated from his friend of fifteen years.
Where had Tom gone?
He had called out. Tom had called his name.
“Jacob!”
One word. A cry of alarm. Shock. Jacob had slipped, that was all. A slight stumble on something wet underfoot, not surprising given the conditions. He had gone down on his hands and knees, the gravel digging in to his skin. Pain, but surmountable - it would pass. He rose to get up to continue his run. A moment of surprise that his friend did not help him up. It’s the sort of thing that Tom would have done.
“I’m fine,” Jacob had said, a grin already forming, ready to make a joke at his own expense. Something about being too old to be out running, that he no. longer had there balance of a young man. Tom would laugh - more to contribute to making Jacob feel less foolish about falling. He was two years Jacob’s senior at thirty four, and he would have made a remark along the lines that if Jacob was old, then Tom should be in a home instead of out running. The usual type of banter. Not funny, but amicable.
However when Jacob turned to face his friend, he found that he was no longer there. He stayed standing, looking behind and then ahead whilst absently wiping his hands on his dark blue running tee, not noticing or caring for the dull streaks of rust coloured red. The gravel had worked it’s way into his flesh at points and drawn blood, as it had on his knees. That was for later. For now, he wondered how Tom had managed to duck out of sight so quickly.
The towpath stretched off into mist on either side. If Tom had run off in either direction, he had done so at an incredible pace to have moved out of sight so soon.
“Tomy?” Jacob called, his voice travelling a short distance before being enveloped by the mist. “Where are you man?”
The canal water was still and dark, the mist hanging ominously overhead, slowly drifting across the surface, despite the relative lack of a breeze.
Not lack of. There was no breeze. The water was completely still. Black glass.
Except the mist drifted regardless.
Had he gone in to the water?
Jacob’s heart skipped.
It’s possible, he thought, if he stumbled because of me slipping. He could have gone in and I didn’t even notice.
Sure I would have noticed.
Surely he would have noticed.
Perhaps not.
He had gone over to the water, stepping over the few feet of grass that separated the gravel of the towpath and the still glass-like surface. Would Tom really have fallen this far? Without a sound.
It’s possible, he thought again, as his heart began to hammer in his chest. He had wasted so much time. His friend could be far below the surface by now.
And yet.
Not so much as a ripple. If he had gone in, there would be the aftermath of him hitting the water. Tom was also a pretty good swimmer from what Jacob could recall.
So basically, there was no way he went under even if he did go in.
Even knowing that, there was no dissuading the panic that had built up in Jacob’s chest. He had known Tom since high school. Second year. They had been, what, thirteen years old or so. Jacob had fallen afoul of two supposed friends that he had been through primary school with, and had been sitting by himself in English. He hadn’t even noticed Tom was at the same table as him, so consumed by hurt at the fact he had fallen out with who he thought he could call his friends. Later on, he wouldn’t even remember what the falling out was about. Something minor and completely inconsequential that occurs when you are are young teenager. Whatever it had been, it seemed to irreparably destroy the friendship he had had with the two boys, both of whom he had attended nursery school with. Jacob’s parents had known their parents. They were from the same part of the village. None of that mattered. Not then, and not after. He had blanked them and they had blanked him. Jacob had went on to form a new social circle, with Tom the chief amongst his new friends. From then on, they had done everything together, even both moving north after graduating University (Jacob with a first, Tom with a second - not that that mattered, as Tom had had no difficulty finding employment, with his natural charm and ease with people able to secure him work at a pay grade that it would take Jacob over five years to work up to). Tom had been best man at Jacob’s wedding and been with him when he renounced alcohol and swore to get fitter, swapping his irresponsible hedonistic lifestyle for one where he looked after his body and had both eyes on the future instead of on the present. Tom, who went running every single time with Jacob, who entered all the same events, and who motivated him when he felt like stopping, even if it meant physically (once or twice - and always with Chloe’s permission) dragging him out of bed and out the door.
That Tom.
The Tom.
The ever dependable Tom Marley. Who was, as it so happened, a bloody good swimmer. Not even worthy, but certainly enough to hold his own in a canal.
Unless there was a lot more going on below the surface of the water than Jacob could fathom of course. He had always had a fear of canals. Of all water. Not Tom though, but Jacob. Ever since Deal.
Ever since a day in July.
The panic didn’t subside and in the few moments Jacob dithered at the side of the canal, he could find not enough of a compelling reason to believe that his long-time friend hadn’t lost his balance and fallen in. What if, Jacob thought, I didn’t just slip? What if I fell and hit my head, knocking Tom into the water as I did so? What if I then blacked out as he struggled against the current until he went under? The water having time to settle before I regained consciousness?
What if?
An image of his friend’s arm, the hand open, palm out. Flailing, grasping. Thin green weeds wrapped between the fingers. Now sinking, submerging, another slight ripple. Gone.
That brief flash was enough for Jacob. It overrode the lingering malevolence that was the memory of Deal. Just briefly, but enough.
He leapt in.
The water was cold fire over his body. It took his breath away as he was plunged into darkness. Panicked thoughts flickered across his mind. He wasn’t a strong enough swimmer; he didn’t know for certain Tom had gone in; he didn’t know for certain Tom had gone in here. Nonetheless, he opened his eyes and stayed under for as long as he could, despite his body trying to force him to the surface.
It was dark. Abyssal black, even the few feet down that he was. The light should have penetrated at least here, and further down, but there was nothing. He swung his head around as his arms and legs flailed. He pushed himself down, forcing himself to exhale slowly despite the fact that his body just wanted to force all the air out at once.
Nothing. No one.
No Tom.
At least, not that he could see. He stayed under for as long as he could, until his lungs felt as though they would burst behind his ribcage. Kicking wildly, he forced himself upward, feeling something against his leg, wrapping itself around. He broke the surface, exhaled and swept his arms around, trying to get his bearings, to find the bank. He still felt it on his bare leg, water it was. Something that would love to hold him tighter perhaps. Some kind of thing that lurked in the deep dark water of the canal, waiting to pull those who had unwittingly fallen in down below the surface, down to the bottom where it would lie him down until his breath gave out.
Nonsense. He swam the few feet to the bank, feeling the thin weed - for that was what it surely was - loosen and fall away from his kicking leg. He leaned over the bank and took a few more breaths, keeping himself above water and leaning over the dew speckled grass - moisture from the ever-present fog.
Get back down there, he admonished himself.
It’s too late, another part of him said. The part that spoke the truth.
He ignored it and - thankful that he had high lightweight running clothes on (usual shorts, t-shirt and even his trainers didn’t seem to be impeding his ability to tread water - he was never one for over encumbering himself with gear, knowing how quickly he would over heat even in chilled climes such as this) - he swam back out a few feet and dived back below the surface.
Tom’s pale and dead face loomed up towards him, mouth a silent black O.
Jacob inhaled, taking in a mouthful of water and forcing him to surface where he once more swam to the side, this time retching and heaving great globules of black canal water onto that dew studded grass. He caught himself, turned and swam back to where he had dived as a piece of detritus floated to the surface. Filthy polythene, once white and now spotted with black. The motion of him diving below the surface must have dislodged it and caused it to drift up towards the surface. An illusion and nothing more.
He dived again, then again.
Nothing. Of course nothing. The canal was deep (just how deep he had no idea - never having been something on his list of things to find out) and wide. There was obviously a current down there below the surface and it could have pulled Tom away from him in no time at all.
That’s if he ever went in.
Get help.
Get help. Yes. He should have done that in the first place.
Climbing out, he tried to ignore the chill against his wet skin. The moisture resistant running gear wouldn’t hold the wetness for long if he began to move, but it was a cold morning, the fog no signs of moving - as still and as claustrophobic as when he (they) had begun the run. This part of the canal was a good five miles from the rest of the city, yet it was a very popular path for walkers, runners, cyclists. The water itself was normally populated by rowers, paddleborders, canoeists and larger barges and boats. He didn’t think he had seen it like this before. Was it the fog keeping everyone away? There had been no-one passing by either on land or by water. Not since. When? Not since he had fallen. Before? He thought back as he jogged on the spot beside the water, his eyes still frantically scanning the surface for any sign of his best friend. The slightest ripple. The most minute of movements. Already the water had returned to it’s previous stillness. How quickly it had returned. Almost as though there hadn’t been a person frantically thrashing about in there moments before.
They had passed a group of cyclists a mile or so back. Yes. He could distinctly recall. There had been four or five of them and had just appeared out of the fog only a few feet in front of Tom and Jacob. The runners had moved to the side instantly, stepping up on to the verge, as they cyclists had barrelled past them, making no attempt to give any way. Jacob recalled this because he distinctly recalled Tom’s words afterwards.
“Fucking hate cyclists,” he had said, panting heavily, bent over and Hans on his knees.
Jacob had clapped him playfully on the back. “You’re a cyclist mate.”
“Alright, then I hate every cyclist who isn’t me.”
Jacob found it hard to argue with that. He had never fancied owning a bike since he used to have one as a teen. Even then it had only been used to cycle around to various friends households, and he wasn’t convince that both wheels had ever been straight, not that he had been in possession of two fully inflated tyres at any one time. He had no wish to do what Tom had done recently, and buy a mountain bike - taking to the hills and trails with childlike abandon. Nor did he fancy - despite the forty five minute walk to work - investing in a road bike. He read enough about cyclists getting knocked over and killed, and he had no urge to add to that statistic. Especially not now. Now that Chloe was two months pregnant. He had suddenly began to get very conscious of his mortality, something that he had thought more and more about in the time between her running through from the bathroom in nothing but her panties to announce he was going to be a father, until now. His carefree youth had suddenly become a thing of the past, and a new era was no upon him. He hadn’t expected this to happen, this sudden switch. He presume the was far too selfish, that the announcement of a baby into his life would only affect him gradually, but he would still maintain his immature outlook. Not so it seemed. Almost immediately he had undergone a transition, and looked at his life through newly mature eyes. Most of this was a positive thing, an accepting of responsibility. He had begun to speak too Chloe a little better, knowing that he had been recently beginning to take her for granted. He was now there to help her whenever she hinted, be it taking in the shopping, or being more forthright in actually going and doing it instead. Yet it had manifested in other ways as well.
The dreams.
Now most days, he had a lingering sensation with him. A painful awareness of how he was. Of how Chloe and their unborn child was.
Of how everything was.
No one else around. Still-ness and fog. His skin was goosebumps and he rubbed at his arms frantically, jogging harder on the spot. He knew what he had to do and it would both benefit him in keeping warm and get him back to civilisation faster. He would run.
As he ran his clothes slowly began to dry, yet he passed no one else. He occasionally called out, his voice taken a short distance into the mist and cut off suddenly, as if nay an unseen force that caught his very words in the air, plucking them out of existence. He cursed himself. For not taking his phone, but then realised if he had brought his phone then this situation would not have occurred. He only took his phone out the few times he ran by himself, and during those times he would deal it inside the arm band and listen to audio books or podcasts. Going running with Tom however, there was no need to take his phone. In fact it would be rude to listen to something whilst out for a run with his friend. So he left it at home, where it was currently doing no good. He had his smart watch of course, but that was useless at actually communicating with anything and - whilst it could work both very well in conjunction to his phone - it really needed to be near the device to have it’s full range of functionality - including one of the features he had bought it for.
The watch had been a bit of a bone of contention between himself and Chloe when he had purchased it a few months earlier. Whilst he saw it as a way of cementing his dedication to getting fit, and a prime motivational tool, Chloe saw it differently.
“Why don’t you just get a cheaper one?” She had said when he had mooted the idea to her of nipping along to the running shop and picking up the latest model. He had been showing her the full range of features on his phone and she had noticed comparisons to other brands, even other models of the brand that Jacob was interested in.
“Because they don’t have all the same features as this one,” he replied, trying not to sound upset. He had already spent most of of the day convincing himself that he was wise to spend a portion of his savings on the watch, and he had only told her so she could share in his excitement before he purchased it. The fact that not only was she not sharing his excitement, but was actively questioning whether he should be getting it at all, was making him feel a little silly. When he felt a little silly, he became defensive. “Besides,” he added, “this is the best one for all that I want it for. Why? Don’t you want me to get it?”
“I do,” she said, obviously aware that she had struck a nerve and eager to avoid a confrontation. A little colour rose to her pale cheeks, her brown eyes widening slightly, the pupils shrinking. “It’s just that it seems quite a lot and I was wondering if one of those models here,” he pointed to an inferior model lower down on the screen that he had angled towards her, “could not just do the same thing?”
“Don’t touch the screen, you’ll lose my place!” He hadn’t meant to snap at her, but was feeling more selfish and foolish by the second. The thing was, he knew that she was completely correct, and that was what was making him feel that way. He regretted it as soon as he had said it. What a childish move. She visibly flinched and stepped back. They had been prepping that evenings dinner together, listening to music from their youth and having an altogether perfect afternoon. The late day sun was casting a warm blanket across the work surface and over her slender arms as she prepared vegetables. Then he had gone and ruined it by being a petulant child. He had stormed out of the room and purchased the damn watch anyway. Out of spite.. The watch that he had wanted because of it’s like tracking and communication features. It wasn’t just GPS, but multi-GPS. It was able to triangulate where he was to the Nth degree and - the icing on the cake and the thing that he had sold himself on - it was able to send an alert via his phone as soon as he pressed a button.
An alert via his phone. Except his phone had to be in range of the fucking watch didn’t it.
Piece of shit, he thought to himself, looking at it as he ran. Of course he should have listened to his wife. She was really pleased for him that he had taken so well to running. Had been nothing but supportive. Had even, just a few weeks prior to watch gate, bought him a new running top. Not a cheap one either. One to replace the cheap one that he wore.
“Now you don’t have to come home with aching nipples”, she had laughed after handing him the bag and seeing the expression on his face.
“Perhaps I like it when you make them feel better?” He had replied mischievously.
“As much as I love your nipples, rubbing vaseline into them to the soundtrack of your cries of pain isn’t the quickest way to get turned on.”
“Ouch,” he replied, pretending to look offended.
“Exactly. Ouch.”
So she would have supported him more openly if he had at least been reasonable about the damn watch.
Particularly considering the fact that the following week was when she told him she was pregnant.
“What a fucking asshole,” he breathed to himself as he ran, recalling the incident, one of many that raced through his mind as he ran.
He continued to pass no one.
The fog.
The stillness.
The nothing.
Nothing but his ragged breath and rhythmic crunch of his shoes on gravel.
crunch crunch crunch crunch
His mind raced most of all, of course, for Tom, who may or may not
but surely
not surely
be at the bottom of the canal, sightless eyes giving towards the surface of the water. His friend. Cold and alone in a black expanse.
He worried that even if he did get hold of the right authorities, he wouldn’t be able to recall where exactly the spot was that he (they) had both fallen.
“Five miles,” Tom said.
“Eh?”
“Five miles done, so that’ll be ten by the time we’re back. That’s a fair distance. What do you want to do?”
“One more,” Jacob had replied.
Then he had fallen.
Five miles. The five mile mark from his house. It wasn’t perfect, but it would do as an aide. He knew that the towpath began almost exactly one and a half miles from his house - where they had left from an hour or so ago. That meant that three and a half miles in, pretty much, was the spot. It would have to do.
His watch vibrated on his wrist, marking off a mile. He checked it.
6 miles
Two and a half miles. Then he would reach the bridge and from there he could take a right and keep going towards the city centre. He would find someone - anyone - before then. Of course he would. He would find someone before leaving the towpath, of that he was sure, but at the very least he would find someone once he left it. They would have a phone, because the glorious modern age he inhabited meant everyone from around five years old and up until infirmary had a mobile phone on them - hell, no one even called them mobile phones any more. That implied that there were other phones. These were just shoes now. Landlines were a thing of the past to most people
He could cover two and a half miles in twenty minutes at a good pace, even less if he went for it. Yet he was too far into his run, he had been in the water, he was exhausted. He hadn’t been running for that long. Not long enough so that he could just gobble up miles without breaking a sweat.
Had Tom just gone back? Is that what had happened?
Jacob tried to recall if Tom had brought his phone. No. He hadn’t because they had joked, as normal, before leaving that if anything happened to them they would “be completely screwed”. How long had he been out for? Had Tom tired to revive him, and - not being able to - ran off himself to get help? Jacob took some comfort in that. He would meet him then. Or meet him as he brought others to help. What time had he left the house? Didn’t know. Didn’t check the overly expensive damn watch had he. Just set the GPS and away he had gone. Didn’t even look at it whilst running either. What an investment. He couldn’t tell then, if he had been out for any length of time.
Goddamn it.
He ran.
He ran even though his lungs were burning in his chest and his staccato breathing was getting faster, and more coarse.
He ran even though every muscle in his legs was aching and his feet felt increasingly heavy.
His watch soon vibrated once more on his wrist, notifying him that he had done another mile.
7 miles
One and a half miles left and he should be at the bridge. Ten or eleven minutes. Still no one on the canal towpath. No one at all. No one on the path and no one on the still water.
Really? No one at all? He thought breathlessly. He kept expecting figures to loom out of the mist ahead of him at any moment. Running or cycling figures. Tom perhaps, leading someone in authority to look for him. Convinced that he had suffered some sort of heart or brain malfunction brought on by pushing himself a little too far.
He had been pushing it. He knew that. Particularly recently. Particularly since Chloe had made her announcement. He was getting himself in order. Getting his life in order. He was going to be a father at thirty two, and he was damn well going to be a good one. He even began to work harder in his work, a job that he had grown increasingly detached with. Working for the Forestry Commission had at first seemed like the perfect job. Both he and Tom had shown a keen interest in the outdoors and their environment since he could recall. It was a natural fit for them both, and even though Tom ended up being Jacob’s senior in the office, he hadn’t cared. He had been growing increasingly dissatisfied of late however. More and more of what he had to do seemed to be office based, and there was less and less time spent outdoors. The problem with being good at what he did. They both were working their way up the pay grade, and the more they did so, the more time was spent co-ordinating, managing and delegating. There had been a time where most of his working week was spent visiting woodland sites. Outside in the fresh and clean highland air. Not now. Office bound and in a marriage that had seemed increasingly restrictive, he would have been lying if he had said that his mental state had not been impacted.
Stifling. Claustrophobic.
Hard to breathe.
Can’t seem to catch a breath
Inhale
“I’m pregnant.”
Exhale
She had saved him. The life now growing inside her had saved him.
Pushing himself. To be a better man. Yet still motivation was an issue, but thank god for Tom. Jacob would talk himself out of the running, out of committing too much at work. He always had been like that. In the mornings he would be laden with ambition, with drive. Too much time inside his own head and by the afternoon he would have talked himself into a corner. Deciding that he had nothing worth offering so why should he try? He did the minimum at work. His minimum was still better than most of his co-workers average, but he had a complacent streak running through him a mile wide. Why should he bother.
Because he is going to be a father.
That is why he should bother.
Another vibration. He had been lost in thought and glanced at his watch.
8 miles
Another half a mile. Another few minutes, perhaps more. His jog had slowed to an almost sedentary pace. He had not choice due to the ache in his legs and in his chest. Even his throat was sore from the constant inhalation of cold air. He should have worn a buff around his neck to keep his throat warm, perhaps even taken out his lightweight running jacket. Yet the fog - when it was present of a morning - would normally burn off by noon. What time was it now? He actually realised that he had no idea so, whilst slowing down even further, to something more akin to a medium paced walk, he pressed a few buttons on his extravagantly priced watch.
That wasn’t right. Surely.
“Expensive cheap piece of shit,” he muttered, pressing a few more buttons until he arrived at the settings menu. Another few presses of the various buttons along the side and he forced it to sync with whatever satellite’s it relayed to to confirm the time and update the watch.
No signal
He frowned and slowed down until he had stopped, letting the silence fill the space vacated by the sound of his feet on loose stone chips. He went back to the main home screen, the one that was tracking his distance. It was set to pause automatically if it sensed that he had stopped and he was pleased to note that at least that function seemed to work. Navigating through the settings again, he tried to sync the time.
No signal
“Well that’s bollocks.”
Was this the right time or not then? Because he had left the house between half eight and nine in the morning. His watch was not informing him that it was 3 o’clock in the afternoon. That couldn’t be right. That couldn’t be right at all.
Unless he had fallen and been unconscious for that length of time.
No. That theory - whilst initially more viable when he had began to think about it - just wasn’t that likely. So his best friend left him lying on the path for hours? No one else had come along?
Bullshit, he thought. He had hit his watch when he had fallen. It wasn’t getting a proper signal so it had set itself to the wrong time. That was all it was. Simple. There was no way that was the time. He would sort it when home, or send the bloody thing back. It was still under warranty. Perhaps he should just send it back anyway and get a cheaper one. That was a few hundred pounds that could go towards things for the baby A far better solution.
That thought seemed to perk Jacob up, and he found that the short rest had enabled him to regain a bit of stamina, now able to set off at a decent pace for the last half a mile.
There was one small thing that seemed to niggle to him as he ran, but he put it down to being a little bit further along the towpath than he thought. That wasn’t good, as it put his estimation out for where Tom could have fallen in (although that theory seemed less likely the more he thought on it), yet it was the only way that could explain what he hadn’t started to pass some of the older stone houses that lined this side of the canal this close to the bridge. All there was to his side was the waist high hedge that lined the farmland that yawned out from where civilisation ended. He would come across the houses soon.
Any moment.
Just keep running.
He had never felt more disorientated or confused. But he ran on. He ran on and he thought of his unborn child. He thought of Chloe’s beaming face, her eyes bright and alive under her low fringe. He thought of how his heart had leapt as soon as she had said it. She had been nervous, he could tell. There had been slight tremor to her voice as she had spoken, and her hands had been wringing the bottom of her oversized t-shirt that she had been wearing. The t-shirt that she had managed to acquire from him under the excuse that she had worn it once to bed and it had “all gotten out of shape because I’ve got bits that stick out where you don’t”. He hadn’t minded. It had suited her much better than him anyway, although it always amused him to see her - dedicated listener and lover of chart music since he had known her - with a t-shirt emblazoned with the word SLAYER in blood red above a pentagram composed of bone. It couldn’t have been further from Ed Sheeran if she had tried. As he ran, Jacob imagined Ed Sheeran covering a song by Slayer in front of a mass of confused fans, and found himself smiling despite everything. Reign in Blood wouldn’t go down quite as well as Galway Girl, that’s for sure.
His watch vibrated again.
9 miles
Bullshit. Absolute bullshit. A mile from home he should be out of the canal by now. He should be off the bridge and halfway up the seemingly endless road lined with perfectly pleasant bungalows with their perfectly pleasant gardens. He should be a mile from home. Yet he was still on the towpath. Still enshrouded in mist. Still running beside a canal as smooth as black glass.
His piece of shit watch was wrong. Very wrong.
“Keep running Jay,” he said to himself. It wasn’t measuring the distance right. Something to do with the fact it couldn’t get a signal. It had lost track of the satellite or whatever the hell it synced with and because of that it’s judgement was all wrong. That’s all it was. “Keep running.”
At least my clothes are dry, he thought, and it was true. He wasn’t even perspiring much despite the exertion, an the constant movement had dried out the air wicking material quickly. Like I know what the hell air wicking actually means.
He ran, and as he ran, he thought of nothing. He emptied his mind, he looked nowhere but a few feet in front of him, eyes fixed to the ground. He didn’t want to look to his side, to take note of or focus on that hedge and the endless white sea of mist beyond. He looked down and in front, and he would do so until he reached the end of the gravel path and emerge onto a proper paved path. The one that would indicate that he was nearly home.
His watch vibrated again.
10 miles
He ignored it. It had not long let him know that he had passed the nine mile mark, and it was now more glaringly obvious than ever that the thing was playing up. He ran faster, harder. He tried to ignore the extremely uneasy feeling that had taken hold of him.
But he couldn’t shake it.
Something wasn’t right, hadn’t been right since he had fallen. If he had hit his head then the would explain it, but even as he ran he - for the umpteenth time - checked by running his fingers gently over his shaved scalp. No tenderness, no lumps or bumps. Besides, he reasoned, he would surely know if he had hit his head or not.
His legs started to ache again and he found that this time he had no choice but to slow down. He was at the very limits of his fitness and no matter how great the urgency was for him to reach civilisation, he found he could not continue at pace. He brought himself down to a walking pace and continued as well as he could, cursing his relative lack of fitness. He should have paid more attention to his body during his twenties. If he had, he wouldn’t be this out of breath. He had to concede however - credit where it was due and all that - that he was at least out here now. He thought back to high school and all the times he had dodged PE. He particularly recalled the cross country running, and how he would always be one of the last to come in. Funny that he should eventually show such an interest in his fitness and wellbeing, but then again, age did that to you didn’t it.
Getting older or, as he and Tom both used to joke, the process of being increasingly aware of your own mortality. IT was true that time seemed to speed up as the years advanced. Jacob had read something somewhere that he reckoned put a good enough spin on it, that the brain only really paid attention to - and therefore stored - new or notable experiences. As we get older, there are less new experiences for it to log. Therefore, looking back on five years as an adult, in the same job, same relationship, same house, doing the same things day in and day out, then there isn’t anything there that the brain needs to recall. There’s nothing there that will make it go “oh, I need to take note of this, it may come in handy in the future.”
Nothing.
So looking back on five years as a child, where everything is new, everything is changing, then there’s a lot there to take note of. Therefore, looking back, there’s more to sort through and that five years seems o have taken longer because there’s more memories to rifle through in the mental filing cabinet.
He used to muse on it often with Tom, normally when they had both had a few beers and began to become maudlin and ruminate on more existential matters. It all made sense though. Time doesn’t speed up as you become older. There’s just less things to remember. There’s just nothing worth of note that seems to happen any more.
That would change now. There would be lots of new memories to be made, that much Jacob knew. With a baby on the way, how could there not be? The thought of being a father still terrified him. He recalled all to vividly what he thought were his own parents failings, particularly one notable moment in his youth. The trauma still lay dormant within him. Now was not the time to think of that, now was the time to -
12 miles
He glanced at it and ignored it. He hadn’t even been running. How could he have covered two miles in such a short space of time?
Was there no end to this fucking towpath? How come he hadn’t even come back in to the row of houses that he knew must be just ahead? Those lovely old stone buildings, probably as old as the canal itself which - he had read - was apparently about to celebrate it’s two hundred year anniversary. He had always been a little jealous of the occupants of these old buildings - a far cry from his newly built semi-detached home with it’s cardboard walls and view of the industrial estate. He knew that they required a lot of upkeep however and it was something that - particularly now - he was glad that he didn’t have to consider. He and Chloe had purchased theirs just the previous year, making sure that it had at least two bedrooms as even then, just a year after their wedding, they had been trying.
It had only been a short while, yet it had felt like forever. Jacob had always had the (now completely misguided) notion that as soon as they both stopped using protection, it was only a matter of a short time before Chloe fell pregnant. He couldn’t fathom out a single logical reason for it not to happen. Yet happen immediately, it did not, and he then had to question his own abilities to produce sperm capable of fertilising an egg. He naturally presumed that the issue lay with him, and wouldn’t consider the notion forwarded by Chloe that it could have anything to do with her. Then - as these things always seem to happen like this - it had taken for them both to make an appointment respectively to be examined and try to figure out why there was still no hint of pregnancy, before Chloe had become pregnant. Just like that. It wasn’t even one of their “planned” sessions (something which Jacob would always find amusing, yet refrained from ever making so much as a light hearted comment in Chloe’s company, knowing how seriously she took it), and instead was the result of a brief dalliance in the kitchen after a few too many drinks. They had been out with friends of Chloe’s, who Jacob also happened to get along well with. Helen and Adrian were Chloe’s friends from nursing college and were always two people that you could happily while away an evening with. The evening had been heavy with alcohol, and it was on the taxi ride home where Chloe’s hand began to work it’s way up Jacob’s thigh. They had made it as far as the kitchen.
Funnily enough, Jacob thought as he continued to walk at pace, that was the last time either of them had touched a drop of alcohol. He couldn’t say he had had the urge since. Although he was developing the urge now.
Something caught his eye on the water.
He stopped and walked over to the bank, peering across the still black surface towards it. There it floated, a good four or five feet out from the bank.
This can’t be right, he thought, looking around him for something he could use. On the other side of the path - at the base of the hedge row - he found it. A long branch. How it had gotten there when there were no trees nearby, he didn’t know, but at that moment wasn’t interested. His mind was on the object that he instead fished out the water by gingerly going as far to the edge as he dared and reaching across with the branch until he had managed to hook it on. It had taken a few attempts until he got a secure enough hold of it. He took it up on to the bank and started at it.
Every canal had it’s fair share of detritus. It was the sad fact that wherever there were human beings there was their rubbish to be found. God knew that he had experienced it first half on numerous occasions. The worst being in the form of fly tipping in one of his woodland sites. Something that he had to deal with on a regular basis, arranging for the uplift and subsequent disposal of white goods, furniture, car and industrial vehicle parts and even drums of highly flammable and corrosive liquid. He constantly despaired yet it would never stop. More and more signs had to be erected warning about the consequences of fly tipping. More and more fences had to be erected to protect certain areas of woodland, particularly in areas where wildlife conservation was on going. Yet it never stopped. So it was therefore no surprise that there would be that same types of rubbish littering the waterways He had seen his fair share of it since he and Tom had begun using this route for their running.
Yet it wasn’t just that. It was the familiarity that this particular piece instilled upon him. The size of the piece of polythene, white and devoid of markings save for the blackened spots and blotches that served to show how long it had been in the water. This piece of polythene was identical to the piece that he had dislodged, that had floated up towards him out of the depths. Tom’s silent screaming face. Was he certain? Of course not, and logically it simply did not make sense. He had ran (and then walked) in a straight line along the path. There were only two directions to go. Both lead away from his starting point with no way of “accidentally” looping back around. It just wasn’t possible.
Was it?
“Of course not,” he muttered to himself as he continued to nudge the plastic with his foot. On a whim, he turned back to the gravel path and examined it. He didn’t expect to find anything, and what he did find he could quite easily have misinterpreted, based on how subtle it was. Not to mention the fact that his mind was now at the stage where it was leaping to conclusions a little too quickly. Nonetheless, it did look as though the gravel had been disturbed here more than usual. There was a large portion of it that had been pulled away from the black weed and grass proof webbing that lay under it, serving to protect the path from unwanted growth. Almost as though someone had fallen, their knees and / or hands and arms connecting with and subsequently pulling the gravel away. Could this be where he had fallen?
His breath fogged in front of him as he looked.
His watch vibrated.
20 myls
He entered the settings pin one more futile attempt to fix the connection. Yet for some reason the settings menus didn’t seem to be accessible, with the correct combination of buttons serving to do nothing other than take him back to the main tracking screen, where that same misspelled marker proudly displayed itself.
The feeling that had been squirming in his belly pushed itself up his windpipe and out his mouth.
“HELLO? ANYONE?” He didn’t care who heard him shout, or how panicked he sounded. He was now past the point of rational thought. HE didn’t care who answered, so long as someone did.
Yet no one did. His voice carried another few feet in front of him and was then cut off just as abruptly as before.
“Fuck this,” he breathed, and - now feeling strong enough once more - set off running in the same direction he had previously. What choice did he have?
Silence.
Stillness.
Silence.
The rhythmic crunching of his running shoes on the loose gravel and the staccato exhalation of his breath did little to puncture the unseen bubble seemed to have formed around him. It was as though he were in a vacuum.
That thought had occurred to him already. Or had it?
Forget the pain. Forget the resistance that he felt in his limbs. He focused instead on Chloe’s face, he beautiful elfin features. Her large eyes under that fringe of black hair. A rich and luxurious blackness. He imaged he felt it between his fingers, as he ran his hands up the back of her neck, pulling her slowly towards him, her lips parted a little, then a little more. Her tongue darting into his mouth, the feel of her against him.
He ran faster.
He grit his teeth at the agony in his limbs and ran faster. His arms pumping at his sides.
45 ml7s
His lungs were ablaze, his knees exploding in pain.
7x z7sd
His surroundings didn’t change. The hedge on his left, the black glass on his right, the fog all around him. The silence was cloying.
J8 c78
His watch began to vibrate constantly on his wrist.
Ja078
J2Cy8
JAC08
JACOB
JACOB
JACOB
JACOB
He turned it off.
His vision began to waiver and he began to stumble, catching himself once. Twice.
Falling.
Blackness.
Silence.
He came to. The pain in his legs dragging him back to consciousness. His breathing was ragged and his arms had joined his legs in pain. He rolled on to his back and brought his forearms into view, wincing at the sight of the blood flecked with dark granules. Some of the gravel had embedded itself into his flesh. Both forearms were covered. Sitting up, he looked at his legs and saw similar, his knees in particular seeming to have taken the worst of it. His right knee seemed to have taken the worst of it and when he tried to bend it, pain rocketed up his leg. It seems to have doubled in size already and was tender to touch. His other leg wasn’t as bad, so he presumed that he had gone down on the right knee and fallen forward, his forearms connecting next and at least saving his face. He looked around him and let out an involuntary cry. There on the grass verge between where he sat and the smooth water, was a sheet of polythene. White and flecked with black.
Rolling back until hi head reacted on the cold gravel, Jacob closed his eyes and let out an involuntary sob.
This wasn’t possible.
Am I dead?
A thought raced in from nowhere.
I could be. Am I in limbo?
Would I really feel pain if I was already dead?
He supposed not. He didn’t know how these things worked, never being a great believer in any form of religion - organised or not - and having no real concept of an afterlife. His parents had been atheists and, despite a brief dalliance in going to church in his late teens to see if he could make any sense of it after what had happened in Deal, Jacob had stayed a firm atheist as well. It’s not that he didn’t want to believe in the existence of a diety, or bask int he knowledge that there was something after death. Who wouldn’t want to believe that? He found that he couldn’t come to terms with the concept of it all. It was all too far fetched. Too alien. His father had once (after a few drams of the shaky that he had been gifted from a student and over indulged in one night) not shied away from informing a young and impressionable Jacob about how preposterous the whole idea of it was.
“It’s fair enough,” he would say, “when we were less enlightened than we are now. Back then they didn’t have science to explain most of what they saw and experienced, so blaming it on an unseen and ever present god was the easiest way to explain it all. We’ve got science now, proof, actual evidence. Garden of Eden? How can we believe that when we have bones in museums of creatures that used to roam this planet long before we evolved to the extent that we became the dominant species? We laugh at the Greeks, the Romans, the Vikings, the Egyptians. All with their pantheons of dieties from everything for the harvest to the direction of the wind, and yet we expect to prove that our one nameless dirty is the real one when our evidence these days more and more points to the fact that it’s all, for want of a better word, bullshit?”
Jacob had found it hard to disagree. His father didn’t drink often, and was normally incredibly conservative around his son. Little did Jacob know at the time, that this was the first and most minor incident related to his father’s consumption of alcohol. The swearing was new as well. In all his ten years, he didn’t think he’d heard his father utter a single curse word. Yet here he now was, one large and fleshy hand over his not inconsiderable belly, the other resting on the arm of his straining easy chair and gripping the now empty tumbler.
It wasn’t the first time his father had been given a bottle of malt as a gift at the end of term, yet it was the first time that Jacob had seen him come straight in the door and open it. At first he had just himself in the living room, and open crossword on his lap and the glass beside him, taking tentative sips from it. As the evening had worn on, the crossword had received less and less attention, and the tumble and bottle that stood with it more and more. Jacob’s mother had long gone to bed, the gulf between her and his father that night plain to see. Jacob was about to go to bed himself and had begun to tentatively walk pastas father’s chair to do so when he had been called over, the lecture soon beginning in earnest. He had never had a long conversation with him before, and certainly nothing about any heavy matters such as the very nature of human existence, but he could not find it in himself to move away from his father until he had been given express permission to do so.
The evening had needed soon after, his father doing the battle against the effects of the alcohol and falling asleep on the chair, that in itself an indication that Jacob could now safely go to his bed without any recrimination. The next morning, his father was up and out to work before Jacob was even out of bed, and nothing was said thereafter about it. However his father had gone on at length throughout the evening, and a lot of what he had spoken of had stuck with Jacob.
Even now, lying there, he could recall that night vividly. His father’s words echoing around his mind.
He was not dead. This was not limbo. What was happening however, he couldn’t not completely explain, but he was certain that it was the result of some kind of physical or pathological trauma. He still could not discount the fat that this was all some kind of incredibly vivid dream as a result of his earlier fall. He couldn’t completely rule out the fact that he was unconscious in a hospital bed, Chloe and Tom sitting either side of him, Chloe’s face an etching of concern. She would be sitting there, one of her hands tightly in his, the other one unconsciously over her belly, protecting and soothing the new life that had begun to bloom within her. She would be grateful to Tom for acting so quickly, for running until he found someone that could help him alert the authorities. She would be thanking Tom just for being there when it happened, and he would flash that smile of his, that grin that instantly put her at ease. He would tell her that it was the least he could have done, and reassure her that he, Jacob, as going ti be absolutely fine and there was nothing to worry about. Because Tom was his best friend, and that’s the kind of thing best friends did, and said. Jacob would lie there unconscious and then he would suddenly begin to wake, his consciousness yanked back into reality. Nothing to worry about.
Except this pain felt so real. So vivid.
But still. This wasn’t possible.
This.
The thing that he had awoken beside. The white sheet of polythene he had previously set aside on the verge. The large sheet that had emerged from the water when he had dived in. The same sheet he had fished out from the water and placed on the verge. The same piece. The same verge.
No. Possible.
Yet here he, and it, remained.
He stood, ignoring the pain, the feeling of the blood leaking down his limbs. He would see to it later.
Taking a firm hold of the plastic, he strode over to the bushes and shoved it roughly towards and into them.
Except what happened next was something he didn’t expect.
The line of bushes collapsed, revealing themselves to be nothing more than a cleverly constructed illusion. He had, of course, expected his arm to plunge inside with the plastic, only he instantly came in to contact with something flat and firm, as though the hedge row was part of a set. Painted plasterboard or plywood. Background dressing. Nothing more. It fell backwards, a section around six to eight feet in length. It landed with a soft whump an the grass beyond.
Not grass.
There should be fields there. Jacob stepped forward, dropping the polythene sheeting to his feet and gingerly placing a hand on the section of flat board the still stood beside him. It was cold and firm, and on closer examination as much as he thought. He could see the texture of the wood beneath the paint and when he angled himself around, he could see that the side and rear was unpainted, and was much as he now realised. Nothing but plywood, around two centimetres in thickness. Stepping over the collapsed section, he could see that in each direction the boards ran off into the the fog. There were what appeared to be supporting struts every few feet stretching in each direction out of sight.
Jacob stood for a few moments, trying to comprehend just what it was he was seeing, not able to quite believe it. He had been running. That morning he had left the house with his friend, that much he could recall clearly and vividly. The weather had been poor. Cold. Fog. Low visibility. That did not dissuade Tom, and therefore did not dissuade Jacob. Tom had called for him as normal, his black audi pulling outside Jacob and Chloe’s semi-detached right on schedule, the sound pf the car door. Footsteps on gravel. The door bell. Jacob had been sitting on the stairs lacing up his running shoes, cursing Tom for riding the door bell. He always rang it, despite Jacob trying to subtly deter him. Already he wanted to make sure Chloe got her sleep, and they hadn’t told anyone else about the pregnancy yet. Not even their parents - or rather Chloe’s parents, as Jacob could not recall the last time he had spoken to his.
“Perhaps this is the thing that will get you all taking again?” Chloe had proffered. “A new baby on the way. A new life. Their grandson or daughter. They would want to meet her or him wouldn’t they? They’d want to get in touch?”
“Maybe,” Jacob had replied noncommittally. He was keen not to talk about the subject too much. He knew that Chloe was still very close to her parents, and she couldn’t understand - or didn’t want to understand - that sometimes things just didn’t always work that way. On paper, there was no reason for Jacob not to be close to his parents. They had always done the right thing by him, always helped him with money when they could when he was studying, and beyond. Yet there was a rift there, a crack that had widened and widened until the was now a chasm. He was standing on one side and no matter how hard he looked, he could not find the other side. Even if he did, he couldn’t imagine that his parents would actually be standing there. She just wouldn’t understand.
Because he didn’t understand.
She hadn’t pushed it, bless her. She had read his face and let the matter drop. It hurt her that she didn’t really know her in-laws. They had been at the wedding but as normal guests, and hadn’t stayed for the evening celebrations. They had been like passing acquaintances, staying as long as some of the colleagues Jacob had invited from work to fill up the numbers. They had hired a large venue, and it made sense to fill it as much as possible.
He had laughed about it afterwards. To no one but himself. He had laughed about the fact that his own parents had been there to fill out the numbers.
Drifting off. He kept drifting off into moments of reverie.
Why is that, when everything here is demanding my immediate attention? Where everything here is completely screwed up?
He tried to recall what had prompted that chain of thought, as he stood there on the threshold between what he had thought was reality and what was, in fact, nothing more than a facade. He was remembering. He was remembering what brought him there. For some reason that was important. He didn’t know why, but felt the weight of it upon him. Stillness and silence. Each breath nothing more than a fleeting apparition. There and gone. Into the white beyond.
He thought again.
Am I dead?
He had laced up his shoes and grabbed his light jacket. He had followed Tom to his car and waited until he took his own jacket from the back seat and locked it, putting his keys into his jacket pocket. Small details. Necessary details. It was important to recall the order of things. The things that happened.
The things that happened vs the things that shouldn’t be happening.
They had ran and chatted about work mainly. Tom was feeling the strain from budget cuts and had to cascade them down to Jacob’s level. Jacob was then redistributing his team and cutting back on various tasks to keep within those constraints. They didn’t often talk about work, but it was Jacob that had broached it, seeing the stress lines etched into his friend’s smooth and handsome face.
They had ran, each mile vibrating unnoticed on Jacob’s wrist. They had ran until Jacob had stumbled.
That was still the key point.
Jacob still stood upon the threshold, a moment of indecision. Not a rare moment. He always suffered from a lack of decisiveness. After all, had it not been Chloe the one to propose to him? Months and years of dancing around each other, Jacob often paralysed at the thought, too busy thinking of the answer he feared he would receive as opposed to the one he wanted. She had decided on the house, the decor. Everything. She didn’t push it upon him, he couldn’t think of a person less willing to take responsibility away from him. It as just something that she did, for him.
Now here he was again.
Threshold.
He weighed up his options. The canal path was taking him nowhere. Literally nowhere. He had passed the same spot more than once, of this he was sure. Should he run the other direction? He already new the answer to that. Pointless. Absolutely pointless. So that left two options, one of which was to get wet again. As unappealing as that option was, a part of him thought that it could just be the right way forward. Swim across to the other bank. Get out from there. The far bank of the canal had more exists than this bank, with more than one path off shooting and leading a meandering way back towards civilisation via a few woodland walks. It would take him longer to get back that way, but he would get back. The other option was to cross this threshold, yet even the thought of that sent a coldness across the surface of his skin. A myriad tiny spiders dancing across the surface. All he could see was an expanse of grass, as though in a furloughed field. Tussocks and thin reed like stems. At least ankle height. It stretched onwards until it was swallowed by the silent white mass.
Not safe, his mind said. This way is not safe.
“What then,” he said aloud. Although the sound of his own flat voice being devoured so soon after leaving his lips unnerved him, he still needed to project himself outward, if only to remind himself that he existed at all.
You know what.
He sighed and turned back, walking across the gravel to the verge and stepping gingerly towards the water. He let out a laugh despite himself. An unnatural sound.
I can’t even see the other side, how am I meant to swim to it?
Yet it was there. Somewhere beyond the wall of fog. If he swam to it he would be able to join one of those paths he knew existed, and get back. He had to get back.
For whatever reason, the thought of this action - despite being the one that would plunge him back into the water - felt safer, and more viable than going in the other direction. Through the facade. Across the threshold. His skin didn’t suddenly feel too tight for his body at the thought. Ad so, despite his fear, nay, his phobia of swimming, he found himself contemplating entering the water for the second time that day.
He peered over and looked into the water. A white face peered back at him from below the surface. His own reflection, pale and ghost-like. He could see nothing else. Nothing below the surface.
Back when he had leaped in before, it was under the apprehension that his closest friend wa int he canal. He hadn’t second guessed himself. He hadn’t doubted. Now, having the time to think rationally, his old fears resurfaced. The bad old memories, floating gently towards the sunlight, breaking the surface like bloated corpses of the dead. The floated there, in his mind. Each and every one, so clear, so pale and rotten.
As an analogy, that’s not even that far from the truth, and he shivered at the recollection.
It had taken him a long time to get the images associated with that day from his head, and it had all been for nothing. For here they were, back with him once again.
He mentally and physically shook himself, jumping on the spot. He would need to take his trainers off this time. He hadn’t thought clearly before, but there was no way he would be able to comfortably swim across to the other bank with his trainers, no matter how lightweight they were. It would be difficult enough with his legs and arms still aching the way that he did, but he reckoned that it wouldn’t be too bad once he started moving his limbs in the water. He would take his trainers off and tie the laces together. He would hang them around his neck, and they would probably have the bonus of assisting with floatation.
“Right,” he said, feeling less uncomfortable now he actually began to action the thought.
He sat on the grass, unheeding of the dampness that soaked into his skin through the thin fabric. He removed his shoes and ties each lace together before hanging them off his shoulders. He shuffled forwards and, with one foot still glad in an ankle length running sock, he dipped it into the water.
The pain was extreme. He cried out and sharply brought his foot back up towards him, either noticing or imagining the steam that arose from it.
Acid.
It was as though he had dipped his foot in a fat of acid.
His sock - previously a light grey with orange flashes - had begun to blacken and he could see parts of his exposed flesh through the holes that formed. The flesh itself was an angry red, and began to blister even as he looked upon it. He frantically wiped it along the grass, unheeding of the cool dew as it began to dissipate whatever he had brought up from the canal water. He had to remove the sock next, to stop whatever was on that continuing to soak into his skin. He gingerly touched it and withdrew his fingers immediately as the tips got some of the substance on them. He looked around frantically, and noticed the branch
the same branch I’ll bet it’s the same fucking branch
that was lying just a few feet away.
He grabbed hold of it and shoved the narrower end towards his foot, using it to prise the sock off and toss it into the water. It emitted an audible hiss as it hit the surface, and quickly came apart before sinking below, into the black.
He lay on his back, and closed his eyes, attempting to remove himself from the pain.
Darkness took him.
Movement. He was being rocked back and forth violently.
Let me sleep it’s not time to get up yet, he moaned inwardly. Why couldn’t he just be left alone? Why was Chloe trying to wake him up so violently? He didn’t have to be in work until ten and -
“Jay? You alright?” A male’s voice.
Sleep dammit I just need sleep.
That was when he felt the small, cold chips of rock pushing into his spine. His back felt damp. What was wrong with his bed?
“Jay, open your eyes, please buddy, I need to know you’re okay.”
What is Tom doing in my bedroom?
“Sorry Jay,” the voice added.
Silence.
Then the hit came. An open palm slap to Jacob’s face. His eyes sprung open, his mouth opening wide. He sat up like a jack-in-the-box, his hand instinctively going to his face. At first there was nothing but light, and he squinted hard to see. All he could make out was a dark image against the white, a burnt charcoal etch on a crisp new sheet of paper.
“The hell?” He began.
“Sorry,” Tom said. Jacob could now see that he was kneeling beside him on the wet gravel. His face was a mask of concern. “I had to make sure that you were okay,” he added in a voice that oozed sympathy. “What happened?”
“Don’t know, honestly,” Jacob started to rise to his feet. Tom extended his arms, taking a firm hold and steadying Jacob as he rose. A twinge of pain in his leg prompted him to look down, wincing inadvertently at the sight of his poor limbs. His pale skin was spotted with dark flecks of gravel in amongst numerous cuts and grazes. It was his right knee that appeared to have taken the brunt of it, and it had already began to swell up worryingly.
“Shit,” Tom said, following Jacob’s eye down to the swollen joint. “Can you put weight on that?”
“I think so,” Jacob replied, gently doing that very thing. “Yeah, it’s not too bad.”
“Can you walk?”
Jacob nodded, and Tom stepped back slightly to let Jacob steady himself as he stood and to his bearings. Jacob glanced around him and saw that it wasn’t just Tom that was there. A couple of cyclists had also stopped, a similar look of concern on their own faces. An older couple, early fifties perhaps, all screaming fluorescent lycra and expensive clothing. Their similarly expensive looking bike were festooned with lights, and Jacob didn’t blame them. At least they had the good sense to make themselves visible. He knew he was guilty of cursing cyclists as much as Tom was sometimes. Particularly if he was walking or running in conditions much like these, getting a shock when a cyclists just suddenly rushed out towards him with no warning. He thought at first it was two of the group that had passed them earlier, but that couldn’t be right. They had passed by on the way back to the bridge. Yet there was something about them that looked familiar, although he couldn’t put his finger on it. He presumed he must had passed by them before on the towpath, both he and Tom. It was a popular place and it wasn’t unusual to pass by the same runners, wakers and cyclists over time.
“We saw you fall. We were behind you both as you ran. It looked like a good one,” the male cyclist said. Jacob recognised him the most. GHe had an almost familial look to him. The more Jacob thought about it, the more the man looked like a relation. Not even a distant one.
“Yes, quite a fall,” the female cyclist said, glancing at whom Jacob presumed to be her husband. She was familiar as well, but he had taken a bad fall and surely isn’t thinking straight.
“I’m okay, really, but thank you for your concern,” Jacob said, raising a hand palm out and attempting to smile. He suddenly began to feel a little bit uncomfortable with both his friend and this couple staring at him as though he was an old patient on a ward you had just tried to over reach himself going to the toilet and taken a tumble.
The couple both smiled identical smiles and nodded. “Well,” the man said, “we don’t look as though we are needed here, so we shall get on our way.” The woman just nodded, still smiling. “Look after yourself on the way back.”
“I will, thank you,” Jacob said, inwardly wincing as he put his let down. He had been unconsciously taking his weight off the limb as he stood, going so far as to lift it marginally off the ground. It wasn’t just his leg that was agony, but his foot as well. He glanced down as the cyclists both nodded once more - Tom returning their nod with a brief smile of his own - and silently pulled away to resume their morning cycle. His foot didn’t even seem to have anything wrong with it superficially. His running shoe was intact and he couldn’t work out why he was in such pain with it.
He waited until the cyclists were out of sight and turned to Tom, leaning into him slightly.
“Foot’s killing me,” he said by way of explanation as he began to undo the laces on the shoe.
“You hurt that too?”
“Yeah, must have.”
“Tell you what, leave the lacers loose and we can have a look in a bit. I want to start heading back to make sure we get you home in time before it’s dark.”
“Dark? What do you mean? It’s morning…”
“Yeah, sure,” Tom said, a smile curling on his lips. “Check your watch if you don’t believe me.”
Jacob did as his friend asked and frowned. It was blank. “Must have buggered it when I fell,” he said.
“Pity,” Tom said. “Never mind, I’m sure you’ll get it fixed. Let’s go, we’ve got a bit of distance to cover. If you’re ready?”
Jacob nodded. “Wish we’d brought our phones,” he sighed.
“What so I can call mountain rescue to take you back after your fall old man?” Tom laughed as they hobbled their way along the towpath.
He was right of course. Besides, Jacob thought, I’m sure a little bit of walking will do wonders anyway. I can already feel the pain in my knee abating.
The pain in his knee yes, however not his foot, which hurt like absolute hell. He didn’t want to mention it to Tom as they walked. It was only a joke about calling the mountain rescue and they had both laughed it off, a throwaway comment. Even so, there as a small part of his manhood - if he was being honest - that felt a little bit threatened at the thought of letting on too much about how much pain he was in.So he saids nothing more, and let Tom talk as they hobbled back.
The fog was still thick, but it hadn’t seemed to deter the other runners, walkers, cyclists and dog walkers, all of whom were out that morning. A steady stream passed them in both direction, Tom or Jacob giving a polite smile as they moved on to the verge to let them all past. Occasionally there would be. A question pointed at Jacob, asking if he was okay, and had he hurt himself badly. Each time he smiled a thin smile and replied that he was fine, thank you. The truth was that he was very much not fine, but that was between him and his foot. He glanced down, trying to see what he could have done to it. He knew that he should just ask Tom to stop, to help him get the trainer off so he could see.
No, he was stronger than that. He had more fortitude. At least, he liked to think that he did.
Another two cyclists were approaching, and himself and Tom once more stood to the side on to the verge as they loomed out of the fog towards them. As they neared, each one pulled over, bringing their bikes up to the verge. Jacob struggled to see their faces at first because of the helmets, and the fact his eyes seemed to be getting a little too sensitive to the light.
“You okay?” A female voice asked.
His foot throbbed, more than ever. He looked down and noticed he seemed to be standing on something. “Yeah fine, it’s just a -“
Wait. Wait a minute.
“Did we pass you earlier?” Jacob continued.
“Sorry?” The other cyclist replied. Male. Both looked to be in their fifties.
Jacob was certain it was the same cyclists that stopped earlier. Their faces were so familiar. Yet it could not be them. There was a way to cross over to the other side of canal and loop back around, heading up to the bridge on the other bank and looping back down on to the path on which they were currently on. Yet there was no way they could have done it in that time. No way at all.
His foot.
His fucking foot.
Why did it hurt so much?
“Excuse me,” he said, unable to keep himself from wincing. He grabbed hold of Tom’s shoulder, clutching tightly.
“You okay mate? You’re -“ Tom began before Jacob waved his concern away.
Just had to get this trainer off, and see what he had done to his foot. He could feet the eyes of the cyclists boring in to him. He could hear them whisper to themselves. He must have misheard, because he heard them call each other by their names. There was no way that was their actual names.
Do you think he’s okay Jacob?
He just had to get this bloody shoe off. He held on to Tom still and bent down.
A large piece of polythene lay underfoot. White but spotted in black.
Don’t know Chloe
He grabbed his shoe by the ankle and winced, then cried out involuntarily as he finally pulled it away, gripping Tom as tight as he could to avoid losing balance.
His sock was melted into his skin, which burned an angry red. Large yellow blisters covered it from the toes up to just below the ankle. It stank. A sharp acidic tang that he had long ago associated with chemistry experiments at school.
“You okay?” The male cyclists voice was different. Coarser. Gravelly.
Jacob looked dup, about to reply in the affirmative but ins head all that came out was an exclamation.
The man’s face was terribly grey, the eye sockets empty and shrivelled. It was the face of one long in his grave.
“You don’t look okay,” the woman said. Her face was nearly gone. Nothing but grey paper pushed back under her helmet. Something squirmed there.
Jacob staggered into Tom, gripping him tightly.
“No point in holding me,” Tom replied with a throat full of liquid. “I drowned ages ago mate.”
Something came away in Jacob’s arms, peeling away from his friend and he cried out as he fell backwards into the water.
He awoke with a start, disorientated and confused. The water, he was going to drown.
Land. Gravel underneath his back.
Jacob sat up, staring down the path towards the point where the fog consume it.
A dream, he realised. A dream. He had passed out due to the pain in his foot, the extreme pain that had launched him towards unconsciousness. He looked at his foot, wincing, despite the fact that the pain had subsided to nothing more than a dull ache.
It had felt so real. At first it was as though this was the dream, and he had awoken to find his friend waiting for him, supporting him as they walked slowly back home. Relief had flooded through him, and he still recalled the feeling. The security. Her had awoken away from this terrible limbo, and everything was fine. Everything was normal.
Only it hadn’t been.
Christ, those faces. He could still vividly recall them.
Back when he was twelve years old, he had snuck into a cinema to see a matinee showing of a new zombie film that had come out. Him and his friends had played truant from school and gone to the new cinema that had opened up in the next town over. There had been a shopping centre just built the previous year, and the cinema had opened up just beside, sharing the entrance to the centre, where there was also a McDonalds and a few other fast food outlets. This was pretty much the deal breaker in his deciding to stay off. The plan was to sneak into the cinema by waiting until a small queue had formed. One of Jacob’s friends at the time, Mark, had an older sister who worked at the confectionary counter, and she had already promised her younger brother that she would make a distraction at just the right moment, allowig them to slip by.
Jacob hadn’t believed it at first. This was Mark, who was a compulsive liar. Yet much to his and everyone’s surprise (barring Mark of course), she had been good on her word and - when the young boys were standing in the ticket queue - she had begun a loud and very vocal argument with an incredibly confused customer. The was all they needed and soon they were inside, sitting up towards the back, Jacob feeling that it was possibly the biggest rule he had ever broken.
It wasn’t long into the film that they had each realised their mistake. A particularly graphic rendering of the shambling undead, coupled with extreme violence and it was all Jacob could cope with. He and Mark and a couple of the others left shortly after, with only a couple of the more hard-core and more desensitised of the group staying. Jacob hadn’t slept well after that, yet couldn’t exactly tell his parents why. So he had to put up with the nightmares of dead withered faces looming towards him in the dark.
For a few months anyway. For it was that year that they went to Deal for the family holiday, and what happened there put all thoughts of cinematic tricky to render the undead far out of Jacob’s mind, and gave him something far worse to have nightmares about.
Yet it was that ill-fated cinema excursion that currently brought itself into focus when Jacob sat there alone in the fog and tried to unpack the fever dream he had just experienced.
He decided against focusing too much into it, and instead tentatively thought to explore his foot before trying to put any weight off it. It was still unshod and had been exposed to the elements for as long as he had been unconscious. Bending over he saw that there still seemed to be dark patches of what he assumed to be melted sock, fused to the gnarled and twisted flesh. The rest of his foot was an angry shade of red.
Acid, he thought, I’ve inadvertently dipped my foot in acid.
The canal wasn’t like that at first.
It changed.
He wasn’t to go that way.
That of course left only one way to go. Through the threshold. He would have to go that way. If he could walk.
Jacob stood and put his weight on his good foot. Thankfully the swelling in his knee had begun to subside slightly already, and it wasn’t as sore to touch as it had been when it had first happened. How long ago that was now he had no way of telling, seeing as how his expensive watch was now completely defunct. Perhaps. He looked at it’s blank face, and turned it back on, giving it a few moments to orient itself. First thing to appear was the battery icon, notifying him that it was a good three quarters full. Then the satellite icon appeared and began to flash, showing that it was looking for the satellite signals to triangulate itself and thus his position. He had a thought then. He recalled one other function of the watch . It had it’s own in-built set of safety features and could - if he so wished - notify the emergency services that there had been an accident. If that happened, then all he had to do was wait and the situation would be resolved. His foot was hopeless, his leg wasn’t in a good way, despite the fact that the swelling had abated. He had, in all honesty, seemed to have suffered from - or still be suffering from - some kind of head trauma. How else could he explain all this?
If it’s serious and your still lying prone on the towpath with a crown od onlookers, then your dream phone contacting the dream emergency services isn’t exactly going to be what gets you out of this.
Of course not, but he had to try and do something. What if this was some kind of psychological test by his subconscious? His brain was trying to find out if he was able to survive whatever trauma it was he had suffered. By contacting the emergency services, he was going to prove that he had the will to survive and he would eventually wake up, either on the wretched path, in the back of an ambulance, or secure and warm in a hospital bed.
Yes. This was the key and where it lay. This was what he had to do. He shifted from his good foot to his bad foot and back again. If there was any silver lining about the horrific dream foot injury, it was that it was so numb that he couldn’t feel the sharp gravel that he knew would be digging in to the sole of it.
Small mercies
He glanced at his watch once more, ready to press the button combination that made the SOS call to the main control centre.
No Sig
Of course. No signal.
He waited a moment longer, involuntarily shivering due to the fact that the adrenaline from the swim, the run and the injury had all subsided. He was starting to feel the cold.
He tapped the face of the watch with one impatient finger.
No Sig
“Fuck sake,” he hissed. “Please damn you, you cheap piece of shit.”
He tapped it again, and again.
No Sig
Perhaps it would do it’s thing anyway, he wondered. Maybe this was just the signal for accurate GPS positioning, but it still took enough of a signal to give this rough location out in case of injury. Perhaps it used a different satellite relay system?
He tried to recall the button combination. Was it the two left ones and the lower right one? He tried that. Nothing. The two right and lower left? Nothing. All of them? Nothing. More and more he tested, becoming increasingly irate until he managed to do it by accident. He wasn’t even sure what buttons he had pressed but all of a sudden it began to vibrate violently on his wrist, more violently than it would had it just been ticking off a mile or two.
CNTCT EMGY SRV
He let it vibrate as the message flashed up in unison. His heart was racing. If this worked, all he had to do was stay here and he would be found. He would be -
ERROR
It stopped vibrating.
ERROR
Perfect, he thought. Part of him had known it would come to this. He should have known better than to get his hopes up. He tried to press the button combination again but nothing happened. He tried every other combination.
Nothing.
No choice.
Either this was real or it wasn’t, but here was nothing else to do.
He walked as best he could over to the gap he had made in the “hedge”, once more stepping over the flattened pice of wood that lay atop the grass on the other side. The view as much as it had been. Grass, unkempt and yawning off ahead of him. The wood was cool and smooth under foot, but at least the grass would be passable with no shoe.
Jacob took one look behind him, towards that malevolent smooth black pane of water. Then he crossed the threshold.
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