The Man Who Vanishes Read online

  The Man Who Vanishes

  J M Gonzalez Riley

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  To be continued…

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  1

  Present Day

  AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!’

  Doctor Simmons cowered in the small reception area, his back pressed hard against the peeling wall. He was scared shitless. The man in his office was screaming and banging like a crazy, as if he were on fire.

  The door was all that stood between them. It shuddered with every thunderous blow, ready to shatter into a thousand splinters at any moment.

  The doctor’s bulging eyes searched frantically for something that might offer him some protection against the madman when he finally broke through and came for him. But he found no such item in the sparsely furnished reception. He gaped in dismay at the old filing cabinet, the makeshift desk, the useless, tilting office chair, and cursed the lot under his breath. Of them all, he might have used the chair as a shield, but his legs were weak with fear and he felt himself sliding down the wall until he was sitting on the threadbare carpet, wincing at the door every time the lunatic on the other side pounded it with his fists.

  ‘AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!’

  The freak screamed. Simmons shook uncontrollably. Were he able to stand, he would flee the building through the front door. Right now. But his limbs failed him now, when he most needed them, and even his will to live seemed powerless to overcome the terror that gripped his mind and body. He wondered fleetingly if it would cost him his life and began to weep hopelessly.

  ‘AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!’

  As a child, Simmons’ father had told him all about doors: the door to money, the door to success, the door to better things. In sleep, Simmons conjured up doors everywhere, faceless doors shut tight, doors that made him feel alone and fearful. Even now, ten years after his father’s death, the doors came back to haunt him in his sleep when life was difficult.

  Yesterday a man - or something like a man – had burst into his office, screaming: HELP ME, HELP ME, HELP ME.

  And then he had disappeared. Gone. Vanished into nothingness.

  And now, the vanishing man was back, crazier than ever, and Simmons was once again fearful of the door.

  ‘AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!’

  Simmons needed Frank. Desperately. Now. Frank always knew what to do. But where was he? Simmons had not seen the man in at least half a year. They had been good friends once upon a time, back in university where they studied together, but they barely kept in touch with each other these days. Frank seemed to always be busy. Too busy to even send a Happy Birthday text. Simmons had stopped trying to reach him after a while, humiliated at having his calls and his emails ignored repeatedly.

  But today he had caved in. He’d called Frank twice already in the past fifteen minutes. Screw his pride. Simmons needed help and he needed it now.

  ‘AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!’

  The room grew claustrophobic, stealing the air from Simmons’ lungs, weighing down on his chest like a vice. He looked up from his foetal crouch on the floor, desperately scanning the white wall for the ticking of the steel-rimmed clock. He found time, up on the wall, but the hands spun along the clock face in a blur.

  There is nobody else I can call, he thought. What happened to all my friends?

  The screaming stopped. The echoes ran in the room like wild children.

  Simmons felt utterly alone.

  ‘Pete, you look like shit! Haven’t you heard of razor blades?’

  Simmons jumped up in surprise.

  Dr Frank Dohlme stood at the entrance, silhouetted against the dull September day, peering in through the door into the reception area like somebody who knew there was a surprise party waiting for him on the other side. He wore an expensive gabardine, unbuttoned, standing rigid-tall and broad-shouldered, distinctive in his sharp-cut suit. He stood inside pointy black shoes that looked like dangerous scissors, an air of immense confidence exuding from him. The man waited, like a vampire, to be invited in beyond the threshold.

  ‘Frank! You’re here!’ Simmons dragged himself up, rushed to him like a child, gripping his arm tightly. ‘Come in, quick. Come in.’

  Frank let himself be led inside the poky room. He eyed the mismatching furniture and the affronting ugliness of the ageing decor with barely concealed disdain. As far as both taste and Feng-Shue were concerned, Simmons had committed a crime punishable by death.

  Frank remembered the last time he and Simmons had met. The man had been going through a bad patch in life, talking about separation and closing down his small practice in the city to find somewhere cheaper in order to make ends meet.

  Frank was a man of many acquaintances, but few real friends. He preferred his own company rather than endure the social sham that most people, including his wife, loved to immerse themselves in. He had little time for sagas and even less for other people’s misfortunes, and so he had quickly made his excuses and put some distance between himself and Simmons’ radius of need, all those months ago. And now he found himself once again summoned by the man, like some kind of genie, to this dismal place.

  He had been surprised, after all this time, to hear Simmons’ voice on the other end of the phone after answering a number he didn’t recognise. But there had been no awkward greetings, none of the trifling social rituals he despised so vehemently. Instead, Simmons had launched into a flurry of quasi-incoherent pleads, almost demanding that he come at once. Hearing the man’s strained voice, Frank had grown reluctant almost immediately. However, he had been caught unprepared, and no credible excuse had sprung to mind. And so, he had bleakly agreed to come and see him, stressing that time was very much of the essence for him.

  Now that he was here, he could see that Simmons was in no better fix than he had been on their last meeting. If this joint was anything to go by, then he had hit rock bottom and started to dig. He was too far away from the central ring of business in the city, and too lacking in reputation to draw the crowd this far.

  Suddenly, the screams and the banging started anew, filling the small room.

  Frank reeled back in shock.

  ‘What the…?’

  ‘Frank!’ Simmons tightened his grip on him. ‘The man behind the door… he…’ he seemed unsure of what he wanted to say. Then: ‘Shit, Frank! He’s fucking disappearing!’

  Frank looked toward the door, the banging, and then back at Simmons, confused. Simmons was making his arm numb, gripping him like a vice.

  ‘AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!’

  The piercing scream sent shivers down their spines. They stared at each other for a long moment, frozen. Then, all of a sudden, Simmons was pushing Frank toward the door, and Frank at once became alarmed: at the noise, at Simmons pushing him toward the noise, at Simmons’ eyes…

  ‘What the fuck is going on here, Pete?’ he
spat, pushing back against the smaller man, breaking away from him as if he were a virus; from the door as if it were the edge of a cliff. He rubbed at his arm, glaring at Simmons, angry.

  Simmons stared at him. His eyes darted back toward the door.

  ‘The man in there…’ he pointed a thin, shaky finger. ‘He… popped out of the room,’ he said. The words sounded stupid. ‘He went… somewhere. Just… gone. Like that. Gone, Frank.’

  His voice bordered on hysteria, breaking. There were tears in his bloodshot eyes, clinging on to the rims like soap bubbles waiting to fall through a ring. But when they finally fell, there was no sorrow in them. They were the tears of a tearing mind, of a breaking point.

  Frank’s face softened somewhat. He looked at Simmons with deep concern. The man did not look well. He seemed like a porcelain vase on the edge of a table, about to fall and crack up into a million pieces. His scrawny frame sag like a Bonsai tree.

  ‘Pete,’ he said, slowly, ignoring the frantic banging in the adjacent room as best he could. Simmons had obviously become irrational, possibly through lack of sleep and depression, and forcefully locked up one of his patients in the office. The thing to do then was to calm him down, enough at least to release the prisoner. After that, he would deal with him personally.

  ‘Why is the door locked, Pete?’ Frank asked him. ‘Who’s in there?’

  Simmons saw through Frank’s ploy right away. Without warning, he dashed toward the door, fumbling with the lock, jaw tight, eyes popping, shouting against the screams. He turned the key once, twice, and yanked the door wide open for Frank to see.

  The office was a mess. Simmons’ couch had been upturned in the middle of the tiny room. His filing cabinet lay on its back, all the drawers ripped out of it, documents scattered all over the floor. A cloud of plaster danced in the air, as if trying to conceal the mess. A wooden chair lay battered, missing a leg, in a corner of the room.

  Frank took in the scene, aghast. Before he could register what was happening, the man emerged from the dust, rushing at him, screaming, grabbing hold of him, his fingers digging through his thick gabardine, toppling with him, on top of him.

  ‘HELP ME…’ he screamed into Frank’s face.

  And then he was gone.

  2

  Present Day

  The light was blinding, beautifully cool and blue. He surfed the light, revelling in it, hurtling along to infinity. He felt himself coming undone, in pieces, rushing along the cool blue in a million fragments. He tried to pull himself together, felt the rush slowing down. The fragments orbited around his consciousness, like debris around a planet, then fell together to form a whole, the blue light turning white, ending the rush.

  He found himself in the cold light of day, under a sky brimming with pregnant clouds. Somebody screamed: a woman, falling away from him, on the ground. People were running to the woman, gathering around her, stooping down toward her like dry weeds in the wind. The woman screamed and pointed at him, her finger cutting through the weeds.

  ‘That bastard!’ shouted a tall youth with a shaven head, pointing with the woman. ‘It was him! He pushed her!’

  The crowd fell away from the woman, moving as one toward him, a collage of angry faces. Somebody reached out from the faces, a spark of colour, a rush of pain.

  He fell back, his face stinging.

  ‘Push me over!’ spat the tall youth, coming closer, the crowd gathering behind him like an army.

  He felt the emptiness then, filling him, and he started screaming.

  ‘AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!’

  The crowd fell back, shocked, suddenly scared, faced with this madness. But a heartbeat later they came, encouraged by numbers. He turned and ran, the crowd running behind him, led by the tall youth. They screamed with him, scared, angry, all adrenaline running down the street.

  The street was a maze. Disjointed turnings and stray litter conspired to attack the senses. Houses with oddly painted windows and door frames rushed by, the scent of overgrown front gardens and rusty gates wafting in the air. Disorder flanked the road on both sides, conflicting colours and styles running dismally into each other all the way down the street.

  He ran along, through the colours, away from the shouts and the anger, no longer screaming, but heaving and panting. The dark was still inside him, engulfing him, suffocating him. He ran from the dark inside him and from the crowd behind him, a turning here and a turning there, along the narrowing street. Paper bags flew in his face. The wind too tried to stop him. It stopped the crowd. Only the youth remained in pursuit, his face twisted with hatred and determination.

  He glanced over his shoulder. The youth smiled his pointy teeth at him, his eyes gleaming with victory as his pace brought him within reach.

  ‘Come here you bastard!’ the youth panted, thrusting his fists forward. But the dark was deeper and more threatening than the youth, and so he ran on, trying to outdo it, to come undone from it.

  And then the end of the street rushed up. A narrow path to the left caught his eye. When he glanced back, the youth had gone.

  He ran down the path, and that too came to and end.

  A dead end.

  There was a sound of rushing air, the earth rumbling beneath his feet.

  A wall stretched the path. He peered over it. Beyond it, the ground sloped toward the rail track down below. Far away, a train issued a warning whistle as it approached.

  ‘There you are, fucker!’

  He turned toward the voice, startled. The youth was coming straight at him, fists flailing in the air like pistons out of control.

  He ducked out of the way of the punches and leaped over the wall, down the embankment. The youth cursed and jumped over the wall, coming after him.

  The sound of rushing air grew near, the train approaching fast. He looked toward the blur of metal and hurried down the slope, toward the track, intending to cross over to the other side before the train reached him. But he was too late. The train was upon him, cutting across him an instant before he reached the track.

  His escape route blocked, he turned to face the tall youth. He could feel the carriages speeding by behind him, the warm rushing air on his back, almost tearing his shirt off him, trying to lift him off his feet.

  The youth laughed out loud, victorious, lunging for him.

  He stepped back, away from the youth, too close to the rushing carriages, and felt himself pulled up, right over the train, toward the overhead power cables.

  And then he was inside the cable, breaking up into a million fragments, rushing down the wire in a world of calm, cool blue.

  The train passed. The youth whimpered by the track, on his knees, cold and wet in his own piss.

  3

  Present Day

  Frank shot out of Simmons’ practice like a stray bullet. He stood outside in the cold, raindrops beginning to fall, fumbling in his pocket for the keys to his Jag. He vented a stream of obscenities when his rubbery fingers would not latch on to the keyring.

  Behind him, Simmons emerged from the dismal building, visibly shaken. He stood under the curled paint peelings of his doorway, away from the rain, focusing his eyes on the empty road as if he was trying hard to remember where he was. After a moment, he looked up across the street, finding Frank, and stepped on to the road.

  He didn’t see the tiny Honda van with the window-cleaning motto zooming toward him at speed. The driver slammed on the brake pedal, bringing the vehicle to a screeching halt. The front bumper nudged Simmons hard enough to topple him back on to the pavement.

  The driver of the Honda fell back against his seat, a stunned expression on his face. Then, after a moment, he leaned forward and began screaming furiously at Simmons behind his glass shield, shaking his fist at him with each obscenity.

  Faces peered out of wire-meshed shop entrances, under windows slid halfway up aged and rotted wooden frames, watching Simmons as he scrambled unsteadily back on to his feet. The Honda driver screamed one last insult at him,
then threw his vehicle into gear and spun the wheels in anger, spraying a fine mist behind him before driving off down the road, away from the scene.

  Frank, oblivious to all this, finally managed to retrieve the elusive keys from his coat pocket.

  Simmons ran unsteadily across the street, without looking, almost slipping on a wet patch.

  ‘Please, Frank,’ he begged, running toward him. ‘Don’t leave me on my own.’

  Frank thumbed the remote hard. The Jag’s sidelights winked on and off and the central locking released with an efficient pop.

  ‘Please Frank,’ Simmons pleaded, his voice breaking, his hands in front of him, reaching for Frank.

  The rain fell harder, as if siding with Simmons.

  Frank clambered into the car interior, shaking off Simmons’ hands where they struggled to hold on to his arm. He slammed the door shut, drowning out the noise of the world and all its problems. Simmons’ face appeared at the window almost immediately, begging him to stay.

  Frank gripped the driving wheel, heaving, teeth grinding, trying hard to shut out Simmons’ pathetic cries whilst he caught his breath. He noticed for the first time the raindrops cascading over his Roman nose, like cold tears.

  What the fuck just happened, he thought.

  Frank’s hand was shaking, making it impossible to slide the key into the ignition barrel. He cursed, trying to keep his mind clear, but Simmons’ muffled whining was quickly adding to the cacophony in his mind. The man was crying like a baby, without shame, pleading like a beggar against the car window, his grease and tears mixing with the rain to leave an oily mess on the window pane. Frank felt sick at the sight.