By Cliff McNish

13

An ambulance turned up next to the kerb in a screech of brakes.

 ‘Want a lift?’ 

I was astonished by who was in the driver’s seat: Ward Nurse Hayley. 

And in the passenger seat next to her – 

‘Emma!’ 

‘Oui, c’est moi! Can’t get enough of me, huh?’ Emma’s eyebrows flew up cheerily. Then she looked serious again. ‘How are you, Carl? Staff noticed you wandering outside the hospital, seemingly lost. You were walking in circles.’ 

‘Really?’ I frowned. ‘Hold on. What are you doing in an ambulance?’ 

‘I’m on ER training for the next two weeks,’ Emma told me proudly. 

‘And I’m learning how to be an ambulance driver,’ Hayley said. She swished her hands back and forth like a kid across the steering wheel. ‘We’re always short of drivers at Guy’s.’ 

Emma nodded. ‘The guiding principle of Guy’s NHS Trust is to make sure patients get the attention they need at the time they need it, Carl. For instance, check the seat beside you. You’ll find all sorts of medical goodies. The full set of diagnostic cognitive tests you’ll need can only be completed at Guy’s, of course, but let’s say something nasty happens before then –’

‘Like a seizure,’ Hayley chimed in.

‘Exactly,’ Emma said. ‘Or even a full cardiac arrest. Well, no problemo. We have a defibrillator. ’ She snapped her fingers. ‘We could do a blood culture, too. Or, at a pinch, even a spinal tap. Obviously not while the vehicle is moving.’ 

Hayley giggled. 

‘But … but why would you need blood tests or a spinal tap?’ I asked, perplexed. ‘I have head trauma, don’t I?’

‘To see if bacteria are present, silly.’ 

‘Do you think I might have an infection then?’ 

‘Duh!’ Haley swung her head around from the front. Then in a Mickey Mouse voice: ‘Does he have a serious, life-threatening infection? What do you think, Goofy? Do he or don’t he?’ 

 Emma said back to her, ‘He won’t need a sinus scan. Unless you suspect bacterial meningitis?’

‘We can’t discount that,’ Hayley noted. ‘He’s showing signs of delirium.’

‘It’s a judgement call, I agree,’ Emma said, chewing her lip, ‘but come on, Hayley, he’d be vomiting all over the shop by now if he had that.’

‘Er … actually, I have been vomiting. Not much.’  The two nurses exchanged glances scary enough to make the hair rise on my neck. ‘What?’ I said.

‘Nothing,’ Emma replied tersely, reaching back to pat my knee. 

‘That’s right,’ Hayley followed up quickly. ‘Just relax, Carl. Sit back and enjoy the ride. We’ve got you covered.’ 

It was the only time Hayley had ever used my first name, and the way she turned back to the front of the van – and kept her head rigidly pointed that way – freaked me out a little. 

She drove on in silence. Emma also stayed quiet. Shops passed in blurred flurries of neon-lit brightness that hurt my eyes. When we hit a heavy traffic intersection, Hayley swore and gunned the accelerator. I heard the ambulance siren begin its whoop. 

“Nee-Naw, Nee-Naw,” Hayley sang, tilting her head left and right to the rhythm. ‘Stay with us, Carl.’ 

‘Yes, we’re nearly there,’ Emma said, her hand still on my knee. 

A few nifty manoeuvres later, Hayley turned back to her. ‘One thing’s for sure, babe.’ 

‘What’s that, then?’ Emma asked her.

‘If we wait for long enough something weird will happen.’

‘You can say that again.’ Emma rolled her eyes. ‘There’s never a dull moment with this guy.’ 

14

I must have blacked out again after that, because next I knew I was back in the reception of Guy’s hospital. But strangely I was about to be discharged, not admitted. 

Emma was giving me instructions. I tried to concentrate, but she was going through the list so quickly that I couldn’t properly follow her. Hayley stood with her back to me at the counter, talking to Ezekiel behind the desk. She kept leaning provocatively across it, flicking her left leg out as if she was flirting with him.

‘Wait,’ I said to Emma. ‘I’m ready to leave again? Really?’ I was so confused that I tried a joke on her. ‘You sick of me again already?’ 

‘What do you mean?’ she asked.

‘When we were in the ambulance, I thought you’d come especially for me.’

Hayley twisted around from the desk. ‘Emma was asked to do that as part of her job,’ she said sternly. ‘But look here, Mr Morgan, we do have something to give you before you go.’ She shoved a leaflet in my hand. ‘It contains emergency instructions. Read them. The main one is not to be alone for the next 36 hours and to act promptly if you have any further symptoms.’ 

I stuffed the instructions in my pocket. I was feeling a strange mixture of emotions. When I analysed them I realised that I mainly felt upset, and I said so to Hayley.

‘Ah, diddums,’ she responded. ‘Are you?’ 

I said stiffly, ‘To be honest, I feel like I’m being discharged before I’m ready.’ 

The room fell silent. 

‘Well, at least that waste-of-space Malc brought you in,’ Hayley said eventually. ‘Where’s that son of yours?’ 

When I blinked at her, Emma sighed and looked at me more sympathetically. 

‘Let’s check something,’ she said. ‘Did you pass those cognitive tests I said you should take before you leave?’

I drew a blank at that.

‘Carl,’ Emma said, ‘what do you remember about the last few hours? Anything at all?’ 

A simple enough question, only requiring me to bring up particular details. Unfortunately, I didn’t have any in my head. 

‘Did you check your temperature to rule out fever?’ Hayley demanded. ‘What about a rash? A small rash that won’t go away, even if you rub it?’

‘And lights,’ Emma said. ‘Have brighter ones been bothering you, Carl?’ 

When Hayley saw my brow pucker, she laughed. ‘Of course you don’t remember,’ she muttered. ‘You didn’t hang around long enough for us to perform a single one!’ 

‘I remember ….’ I said, trying to grasp onto just one solid thing here. ‘I remember there was a lad, maybe twenty years old. A lanky kid, in that bed opposite me. He was dying of meningitis. It was terrible. His father was crying. He wouldn’t stop crying.’ 

‘Can I be honest with you, Carl?’ Hayley said. ‘You talk an absolute load of rubbish sometimes, you really do.’ 

‘What?’ I spluttered. ‘That’s because I’m sick! Why are you talking to me like this? Why are you even allowing me to leave when I’m so ill? Isn’t that unethical?’ 

‘We’re not discharging you, you idiot,’ she answered. ‘You asked to be discharged. You didn’t want to wait.’ 

‘And we can’t stop you, Carl,’ Emma said, strumming her nails. ‘Just like we couldn’t stop you before. Neither of us could.’ 

I stared out of the reception window. It was twilight. At least I think it was. Dawn, maybe? I couldn’t work it out.

‘What would you like to do now?’ Emma asked, touching my wrist.

I considered my answer to that. It was not easy with the warmth of her fingers distracting me. Finally I said, ‘I think I’d like to speak to the police again, please.’ 

‘But what about between now and then, Carl?’ Emma said. ‘Between the time I make the call and the police’s arrival? What would you like to do with that time?’ 

Both Emma and Hayley stared at me expectantly, and I had a dreadful feeling that whatever decision I made next would have huge implications. 

There was a mirror across the room. I lifted my chin, saw myself in it. I was sitting with my head in my hands. It was me, but how could it be me when the man in the mirror was looking not at me but head down, his face buried in his hands? He also looked ridiculous, somehow. Like a character in a Harold Pinter drama who’d been waiting the entire play to – 

Whoa! 

Emma smiled sweetly at me. I could tell from the way she licked her lips that she was still waiting for a decision from me. 

‘Let’s just wait,’ I said. ‘Let’s just wait to see if I get any worse.’ 

Hayley sighed and shook her head disappointedly. So did Emma, and I realised that I must have made the wrong choice. 

All three of them stared at me, and I looked down at my fingernails in sudden shame. 

While we waited I intermittently stared at the man in the mirror, the one with his head in his hands. I also checked in with my symptoms. Were they worse? It was hard to tell. Hayley went back to flirting with Ezekiel at the desk. Emma texted someone. A lorry driver made a delivery of parcels. 

After a while, I had an irresistible desire to sleep, and mentioned that to Emma.

‘That’s fine, Carl,’ she said. ‘Make yourself comfortable.’ 

‘What, here in reception?’ I asked.

‘Sure.’ 

Shrugging, I took up a position across three seats and curled into a sort of foetal shape. Emma patted my right shoulder blade, the way the mother of a child might. Why did I have a memory of this happening before? 

‘Do you think I have bacterial meningitis?’ I asked. ‘Is that why you want to keep me here?’

‘What do you think?’ It was Ezekiel this time, clicking his pen. ‘Yes, or no? I love binary choices, don’t you?’ 

‘I’m feeling …’ I said, and Emma, Hayley and Ezekiel all took a keen breath. ‘I’m feeling rather dulled down in my sensations, I mean. I’m feeling rather dulled down compared to what I would expect to feel given the nature of this conversation.’

‘But are you feeling that things are about to change?’ Hayley asked. She flashed me a smile of encouragement. 

‘I do feel like that,’ I said, wanting her approval for once. ‘I feel …’ It came as a big relief to be able to define exactly how I felt. ‘I feel like a volcano that’s about to blow!’ 

‘That’s good, Mr Morgan!’ 

‘Yes, that’s better,’ Emma confirmed, clapping her hands. ‘That’s progress, Carl! Let it all out!’

Feeling a bit overwhelmed by their sudden alacrity, I said, ‘Can you try to get hold of my son Jack for me? I think he should be here with me now. I really feel that he should be.’ 

‘Yes, he should, shouldn’t he?’ said Hayley. ‘What a pity his phone is switched off.’ 

15

Next thing I knew I was in a different reception area. I was in the ER. It was a packed space, with crowded rows of seats and very noisy. Patients filled every chair. Some were even standing against the walls. A few were off-their-faces drunk. Staff all around me were incredibly busy. 

I recognised Ezekiel. He was talking on the phone behind the desk. Turning to my left, I noticed that Hayley was sitting next to me. She looked unusually sad. 

‘Where’s Emma?’ I asked her. 

‘She’s gone to be a witness for a death warrant. For that boy who died.’ 

‘Oh,’ I said. ‘Was she on shift when he came in?’ 

‘Yes. It was a night a lot like this really.’ She indicated the hectic room. ‘I was the triage nurse in ER that day. We take turns. A standard question to the patient when they exhibit confusion is to ask them if they’ve taken any drugs that might account for their symptoms. Which was sort of funny in this case.’

‘Why?’ 

‘Because the guy accompanying him, the man who’d brought him in, was the one who was high.’

‘He’d bitten off more than he could chew,’ I said. ‘Is that what you’re saying?’

Hayley smiled. ‘Exactly. The patient, the kid, was mice, though.’

‘Mice?’

‘Sorry, I meant nice. Between bouts of clumsiness he kept flirting with Emma. Nothing pushy. She’d come in from ICU to pick up supplies. She’d been in paediatrics before that, so she has a soft spot for youngsters. So even though he was, like, twenty, she treated him with a bit more care than the other patients that were waiting for clinical tests that night. It was busy, a long wait for everything, and I’ll admit I had very little patience when it came to the cranky man accompanying him. The boy himself, though – well, he couldn’t have been sweeter. He and Emma showed each other holiday beach snaps. Young people, you know. Bikinis and shorts. Then the strung-out guy he’d come in with began acting up. Created a fuss about the wait. Security had to ask him to leave. He took the boy with him. I thrust some basic care instructions into his hand as he left. I’ve no idea if he read them.’ 

Across the room, I watched Ezekiel playing Sudoku. He kept clicking his pen.

‘The boy did turn up again later,’ Hayley said. ‘On his own. Which astonished me. On foot. He’d somehow got himself out of bed and had enough sense to call 999. But in his confusion he gave the wrong address. The ambulance turned up at his address, not the father’s where he was staying. Anyway, he walked in. Five miles. Incredible. He was confused and rambling when he arrived—both symptoms most likely caused by damaged brain tissue. Fluid pressing against the skull due to the infection. He kept telling jokes about films and vampires, but the jokes didn’t make any sense. I prioritised a spinal tap. It confirmed bacterial meningitis. Too late by then to save him, though.’ 

Hayley looked at me. 

‘I really should go back to sleep now,’ I told her.

16

I did go back to sleep. When I woke again I was back in the hospital’s main reception area, but there had been another change. I was curled up across the three chairs, just like before, but everyone else was gone. There were no staff in sight. No nurses. No orderlies. No other patients. The only sounds were the hum of computer equipment and the whirr of aircon. 

When I gazed out of the window even the street outside was empty and silent. What was going on? Had there been some kind of hospital evacuation? 

‘Where the hell is everyone?’ I shouted. 

‘Hey, keep it down, this is a hospital!’ 

I swung back towards the front desk. Saw that – thank God! – Ezekiel was here after all. He’d been sitting low in his chair, below my eye-line. He twiddled a biro in his hand. 

‘Hey Carl, how’s your son doing?’ 

‘He’s fine,’ I told him, though a pool of fear erupted in my stomach. ‘Why shouldn’t he be? Hang on. Has my son been looking for me?’ When Ezekiel didn’t respond, I strode up to the counter and grasped his collar. ‘Where’s my son? And Emma? And Hayley? Where is everyone?’

He knocked my hand away. 

‘It gets like this towards the end,’ he said. ‘Strange vanishings.’ He offered the empty scene around us an expansive look. ‘Pretty soon I won’t even have a desk, I reckon. Maybe you won’t have any trousers.’ 

‘What are you talking about?’ 

Ezekiel leaned forward conspiratorially. ‘We’re the only ones left, Carl. Creepy, isn’t it? Doors opening and closing. Ambulances in the night. Crazy dreams. But who’s controlling it, eh?’ He tapped his skull. ‘It’s all up here, mate.’

17

Clearly the last thing I could expect was any sense out of Ezekiel. I needed to find some answers for myself. 

The street outside the hospital was dark. Night-time. When did that happen? Hadn’t it been light a moment ago? Or dusk? Or twilight? What was the difference between dusk and twilight? Why did twilight suddenly feel more real than daylight? 

I shook my head. I badly needed to get control of this situation. 

Leaving the hospital, I began walking up nearby Collingwood Street. It was utterly empty. Where were the weekend crowds? Shouldn’t there be people emptying out of clubs and other drinking holes at this time of night? There were certainly a lot of pubs round here. I had a very strong urge to go into one. The Bricklayers Arms, for instance. 

Was my son looking for me? I sensed he was. I had this palpable feeling that he was incredibly close, but where? 

I was aimlessly wandering around, hoping to bump into him, when a figure suddenly loomed in front of me. ‘Getting darker,’ the figure said.

That observation struck me as factually true. A few minutes ago there had been stars and moonlight in the sky. These had vanished. Even the streetlights were bizarrely dim. So much so that I had no idea who was standing in front of me. A big man, certainly. 

‘And a merry Christmas to you all.’ 

Higgins’s broad features swam out of the shadows as he stepped forward. 

‘Oh, it’s you!’ I said in relief.

‘Yes, it seems to be,’ he agreed. He extended his hand to steady me. I wondered why, then realised I’d been swaying. ‘Where are you off to, Mr Morgan?’ 

‘Hmm …’ 

‘No real idea, eh? Were you heading towards the subway, perhaps? The place where you were attacked?’ 

Until Higgins said that I had no idea where I’d been heading, but it was obvious now that I’d been travelling in that direction. Higgins parked his largeness directly in front of me. Was he blocking my way? 

‘Where’s Fleetwood?’ I asked. ‘Don’t you two always travel together?’ 

‘It’s his night off. But if I could just have a word …’ Higgins leaned forward and whispered, ‘Fleetwood may ill-advisedly attempt to communicate with you this evening. He’s taken more of an interest in your case than is healthy for him. It’s like that sometimes with young officers, you understand. They take matters too seriously. They decide the investigation is not being conducted, shall we say, correctly.’

‘And is it being conducted correctly?’ I demanded.

‘Oh yes, Mr Morgan.’ Higgins smiled broadly. ‘We know everything that happened on that night now.’

‘Such as?’ 

Higgins touched a finger to his nose. ‘All in good time, eh? Do you mind?’ he asked, fetching out a pack of cigarettes. ‘I’m off duty.’ He lit one extravagantly, blowing the first puff into my eyes. ‘You want to be careful, you know.’

‘About what?’

‘About what you find in the dingy depths of that mouse-ridden tube station. It might not be what you expect.’

 ‘What? I said, suddenly alarmed. ‘Do you think it might reignite my trauma? Is that what you’re worried about?’ 

He laughed, long and loudly. 

‘Christ, yes! In your case, definitely yes!’ He stepped back, appraised me thoughtfully. ‘On second thoughts, better get it over with, I suppose. Then you can start to recover. Isn’t that what the trauma manuals say? Face your fear. Or run from it. Which will it be?’

The street had been silent until now. Breaking through that silence came sudden cheering. Very loud cheering. 

To my astonishment, I turned around to find that the entire edifice of the Guy’s hospital block was incandescent. Every single floor was lit up like a Christmas tree. There were pink and orange fireworks shooting off behind it, too, as if a celebration was taking place. The hospital windows were blindingly bright, and behind each one was a patient. The patients were the ones cheering. Wearing regulation hospital blue gowns, every single one was waving at me. I realised that I was also wearing a hospital gown. 

‘When someone is about to go this is the royal send-off they get,’ Higgins said. ‘Magnificent, isn’t it? I see that you are not quite the hard-line atheist you profess to be, Mr Morgan. If you were, this scene would not be happening.’

Two female voices separated themselves from the rest of the hospital crowd. 

‘Carl! Carl! We’re up here!’ 

I looked up at the hospital’s flat roof to see Hayley and Emma. Emma wore a yellow beach bikini. She held up her phone. 

‘Come up!’ she shouted down. ‘We’ll have a threesome! Quick, there are lots of beds here!’ Beside her, Hayley tittered. 

Higgins took a thoughtful drag on his cigarette. 

‘You could join them up there if you want,’ he said. ‘Why not do so? You’ve built yourself a cosy little imaginative world up here now, haven’t you?’ He prodded my temple. ‘Choices! Wonderful things, aren’t they? You’re already half-way back to your son, Mr Morgan. A cliché, of course, picturing Emma as the sweet one just because she’s pretty. We older men know better, don’t we? We know life’s not really like that, but the young can’t help thinking that way. My advice is to carry on in this vein. Stack the scenes in your favour. Take charge while you still can. You have precious little control of your waking life left, but for now you still have control of your dreaming one.’ 

‘What are you talking about?’ I mumbled. 

Higgins blew more smoke in my face. 

‘Let’s put it like this, Mr Morgan. You can be having a bad day, but if something spectacularly good happens at the end of that day it changes everything, doesn’t it? All that pain can go away.’ He grinned, showing large regular teeth. ‘If I was you, that’s what I’d be doing. I’d be asking myself how I can give myself that nice ending. Before it’s too late.’ He inclined his head. ‘What I’m saying to you, Carl – may I call you that? – is that you should make these last moments as enjoyable as possible.’

‘These last moments?’

‘Listen,’ he said, and raised a finger. 

I closed my eyes. When I concentrated, I could hear faint noises. Familiar noises. The footfall and chaotic back and forth of nurses and patients. 

‘You’re not really listening,’ Higgins said. ‘Pay attention.’

I listened harder. And this time, almost imperceptibly, I could just about make out the steady, metronome-like in-out of machine breath. I heard hands moving around machine parts.

‘No response to verbal commands,’ Higgins said, flinging his cigarette away like a showman. ‘Do you think he’s going to come through, doctor? It’s touch and go with this one.’ 

I gazed back at the hospital building. The lights were out again. The patients were no longer at the windows. The bodies of Hayley and Emma dangled neck down over the edge of the roof, as if dead. 

Higgins whispered, ‘This is what it’s like when they pull the switch.’ 

18

I closed my eyes for a moment. When I opened them again Higgins was gone. In fact, almost everything was gone. The clouds were so matt black against the equally matt black buildings that it was as if the sky and streets had been hijacked and scrubbed out. The main hospital structure was reduced to a pixelated, fading outline. 

A thought now solidified in my mind, one I knew that I had been resisting until now. That I was not awake at all. That I was asleep. That I was still, in fact, in the ICU, in a coma. Of course I was. 

I tried to make it sunny again – to stack the odds in my favour, as Higgins has suggested; to create a new supra-reality, one where I had more scope and control. But it seemed to be beyond me. I was not sure if it was beyond me because I did not recall sunniness being a relevant part of any of this experience, or if I was just running out of synaptic juices to conjure it.

The entrances to the tube station were invitingly clear. Nothing to stop me going inside. A hole into the ground. It felt appropriate. 

Something bulky and long as a metal snake filled my throat. I took a dry breath or tried to. 

‘Mr Morgan? There you are!’ 

It was Fleetwood. His goatee shone with perspiration, just about the only thing still shining on the street. Running up to me, he struggled to stay on the darkening path. 

‘Thank Christ I caught you in time!’ He stopped to catch his breath. ‘Don’t go into the subway, whatever you do, Carl! I’ve been reading up on trauma, and I totally underestimated the impact it has in a case like yours. Detective Higgins thinks we should let you play it out, but there’s no time left for that anymore. ‘Here.’ He fetched out his mobile. ‘The footage belongs to London Transport. I’m not supposed to show you, but damn it, I wouldn’t want to be kept out in the cold. I think you deserve to know.’

‘But I already know what happened in the tube,’ I said. ‘I was attacked by two –’ 

‘Just watch,’ Fleetwood insisted. ‘There isn’t time. Stop talking and watch.’

The video footage Fleetwood showed me was from inside the tube station – a ceiling view onto the southbound platform. 

‘There are six cameras down there, they record everything,’ Fleetwood told me. ‘See him?’ 

Peering closely at the small recorded image on the screen, I could just about make out a man drunkenly walking parallel to the tracks. He was close to the edge. A train came in and he swayed. Then, once the platform was empty again, he walked back to the platform edge. The very edge this time. He stared down. 

‘Mice,’ Fleetwood said. ‘Everywhere down there, right? Give you the heebie-jeebies.’ 

‘Is that me?’ I asked, realising the man was familiar.

‘Yes,’ Fleetwood said. ‘I could tell you that your inability to immediately recognise yourself is caused by the head trauma, but in this case you’ve built quite a few walls yourself.’ 

A second later I saw another train arriving through the tube tunnel. While the train still had significant speed the man crouched, preparing to jump. This was immediately followed by a woman lunging across the platform. High heels. A beige woollen coat. 

‘I know her!’ I gasped.

 ‘She got to you in time,’ Fleetwood said. ‘Slow reflexes on your part, maybe. Blame the drink, I suppose. Or your lack of resolution.’ 

The woman rugby-tackled my legs, knocking me down. I stood up and shoved her away. Two young men arrived, saw that I was about to jump and … leapt on me. 

‘What the hell, man!’ I heard on the audio recording. ‘What are you doing?’

I saw the man – saw myself – get up and start shouting at the two of them. Calling them every name under the sun. Provoking them. The train had gone. I hit one of the men hard in the face. His companion pulled him off me – ‘Leave it man, he’s mental!’

I hit the first man again, and this time he retaliated. He hit me back. Not hard. A warning. I waded into him full force. The woman began screaming. 

‘You have an insane amount of energy, right?’ Fleetwood said, shaking his head with admiration. ‘You’ve surprised the guy, that’s for sure. You keep at it until eventually he loses his cool, they both do … and … eventually …’

I see myself fall down. See my head arch up, seeking out the important boot. 

‘There,’ Fleetwood says. 

But I’m not listening any longer. I’m looking down the platform. At the recess where I saw the third man that night. The lanky man who stared in that haunted way at me. He’s not there. The space is empty. ‘Oh, he’s there alright,’ Fleetwood says. ‘Camera can’t pick him up. Funny that.’ 

‘The two men didn’t bring charges.’ Fleetwood stopped the feed. ‘When Higgins explained the circumstances to them, that is. At least that’s how you imagine the situation would play out.’ 

‘My drunkenness,’ I said.

‘The reason for your drunkenness, sir.’

‘What was that reason?’ 

He laughed. ‘Truly amazing, this guy,’ he said, and suddenly he was not the only one laughing. They all were. Hayley. Emma, back in her hospital uniform. Higgins. Ezekiel, clicking and unclicking his pen. Hayley pressed the button to replay the subway film clip.

‘Great camera quality,’ she said. 

19

I stare around me. I realise that it is very dark. It was dark before, but this level of darkness is absurd, even by dream standards. The sky is so black that it feels like it’s expanding into my own head. The streetlights, already diffuse, are dissolving, reduced to sparks apologetically pricking the night. 

‘Why’s it getting darker?’ I ask Hayley. 

‘It’s the end, that’s all,’ she says. ‘Nothing to be afraid of.’ 

‘Come on!’ Emma says, grabbing my arm. She starts sprinting, pulling me along towards Guy’s hospital. With each footstep we take, the world behind us disappears and the streets fade until my feet are buried entirely inside a blanket of pure shadow. 

But I can still hear noises. A hospital trolley. Low, murmured voices. They sound close.

‘Come on!’ Emma shouts. 

She drags me towards the hospital entrance. The automatic doors swish wide. Ezekiel stands there, waving us urgently through the reception barrier with his pass. ‘You can do it!’ he cries, punching the air. ‘Hurry!’ 

Higgins stands at the lift, using his bulk to keep the door open.

Hayley, beside him, gestures madly for me and Emma to get inside. By the time the doors close on the two of us I can no longer see Emma’s hand. I just know it’s clutching mine. I hear a small sucking motion.

‘They’re removing the endotracheal tube,’ she says. 

‘My family would not give up on me like that.’

‘You have been in a coma for nine months.’ 

The lift rises around us, an ascending hum. ‘Are you trying to wake me up before it’s too late?’ I ask. 

‘Don’t be stupid, you are,’ Emma says. 

I stare into the lift’s internal darkness, going up, up, up. I can see a slot of light above me that must be the hospital ward. My eyes are heavy, but less so than they were. I could open them now. 

‘It’s up to you,’ Emma says, clutching my hand. 

Then I realise it is not her holding my hand. It’s my son. I’m in a finely-balanced place. I’m as much a part of his world now as he is mine. 

---

Cliff McNish’s middle-grade fantasy novel The Doomspell is translated into 26 languages, and his ghost novel Breathe was voted in May 2013 by The Schools Network of British Librarians as one of the top adult and children’s novels of all time.

Amongst other places, his adult stories and poetry have appeared in Nightjar Press, Stand, Confingo, Ink Sweat & Tears, The Literary Hatchet and The Interpreter’s House.
Facebook: cliff mcnish; Instagram: @cliffmcnish