Chapter 25 - The Road is Long

When I wake it is dark, cramped and I have no idea where we are. Whatever drug it is that successfully paralyses me is at work. I find it oddly comforting, like stepping into a pair of well worn slippers.

There is a small moment of anxiety when, at first, I feel as if I am alone, and then I find can't get the lyrics to 'He ain't heavy, he's my brother' out of my head. I soon realise that this is mostly because I have a tone deaf scottish person who has no comprehension of the second verse, still rattling around inside me and she can't get the song out of her mind.

The road is looooooooooong, humm hm hm, hmmm hmmmm, hm hmmmm, something, something...He ain't heavy, he's myyyy brother...? No.

The road is looooooooooong, humm hm hm, hmmm hmmmm, hm hmmmm, dum dum, something, something...He ain't heavy, 'Cause, he's myyyy brotherrrrr...

Perhaps she has been going for hours, I wouldn't know. It's like having glaswegian tinnitus.

Oh. My. Good. God! Will you please stop! I beg her. I wonder if she slept too, perhaps she has been awake this whole time?

Hang on, I think I've got it... she hums the opening harmonica chords in a fashion that cuts right through me like nails on a black board.

So, here I am again, I joke to myself, 'tidied away'. Locked in my body, terrified, untrusting of everyone around me, and trying to best the agony of the hunger within. Except this time I'm not alone. This time, when she's not preoccupied with trying to remember the lyrics to 1960 pop ballads, or 'Mon the Hoops', or 'You'll never walk alone', or something obscene by Roy Chubby Brown, I have this to contend with too…

I can't believe it! I can't ACTUALLY believe it! These guys! THESE…ARSEHOLES TOOK MY BODY!

Yes, Alex. I know…You mentioned.

ARSEHOLES!

Look, this is sort of pointless, babes. Just keep calm.

ARSEHOLES!

I get it.

I'm going te kill them! I'm going te haunt them until they die, and then, THEN, I'm going te haunt them some more. It'll be intense, like Nightmare on Elm street, with head-butting! I'm going te go ask them where my body is. Don't stop me, I'm going.

Please, Alex, stay!

Let go! They'll soon give up where my body's at when I'm done with them.

Alex, I can't do this without you, please babes. You'll spoil everything just focus on the job at hand.

I'll come back, I just want te mess with them a little bit!

And so it goes on. I am not sure now how far from Cardiff we are, but the exhaustion that fighting to keep hold of Alex induces, convinces me that we have been commuting for more than a year. When she gets a head of steam on her, her reasoning is cyclical, immutable, like a worry that my subconscious mind cannot put to rest. It means every minute is painfully drawn out.

When the never-ending internal duologue about her damned corpse briefly settles she either panics…

I mean, what if they don't even take us te where Hal is?

They will, I'm certain

Aye, but what if they don't?

But they will.

Okaaaay, but what if they don't!

Or I have to deal with this…

Soooo…

Look, Alex, can we just be quiet for a moment? Please…I'm tired, I'm anxious and I need to concentrate.

You said I've got te keep you alert! That's what you said, she whines at me sarcastically, 'keep me sane, keep me alert, babes.' I'm only trying te be a help.

Yes, because the one thing I need right now is a snarky inner scot.

Your idea!

Okay, fine, but can we just give it a rest a minute. Just think of nothing, try and empty your thoughts, won't you? It's cramped enough without having to listen to you witter on.

…

...

Soooo... okay, there was this boy in his first sex ed class, right? And the teacher draws a cock on the board. She's like, "does anyone know what this is?" And the boy answers, "course I do, my da has two of them." "Two?" the teacher goes. "Yeah, a small one te pee with and big one te brush the baby sitter's teeth!"

Really? This is how you want to pass the time. We're being driven to the gates of Hell, unable to fight the terrors that await us, and you think that is appropriate?

Fine! Suit yerser'. Just trying te lighten the mood... There's no need te be such a bitch about everything.

Did you have many female friends, Alex?

The transport in which we have been moved mercifully comes to an eventual rest. I have started counting the moments until I can be separated from Alex, like they are precious diamonds. Admittedly that's getting on her nerves, but this just makes it more enjoyable. At least the voices in my head these days are normally my own, I tell her, they're often less high-maintenance too.

There is something both comforting and disturbing about having a distinctly different soul knocking about inside me, a duel set of memories, opinions and ideas. The singular mercy is that while I have Alex to contend with there is no room for anything else to take hold of me. I feel surprisingly zen. I am not panicking. I am not hallucinating. I am not afraid. I am calm as a hindu cow. I am being taken back to the hell I have lived in since I was turned and yet, I feel something almost like peace. Perhaps because I know I'm going to see Hal again. Is it pathetic?

Yes, Yes, Belinda it is.

Christ, can't I even inner monologue without you judging me?

No, and frankly it's totally freaking me out, I don't know whether I'm coming or going,Alex says, and there are somethings in your head I think I'd rather forget ever having in mine thank you very much. She's lying. I know as well as she does that there are some of my memories that we'll both enjoy.

Well I don't really want to know about you and your year eleven history teacher, but that's not an image which is going in a hurry. Don't you have any standards?

Wow, talk about violation of privacy.

Alex...you're a ghost, and you're presently possessing my body. I don't think you're the one who should be compaining about feeling violated right now.

Can we get off the subject of violation please, only...images. So much 'cannot unsee' going on right now it's obscene. Can't you just switch those thoughts off?

I did mention my mind isn't something I really have control over these days didn't 1?

Did I mention knowing you bonked Hal is something I'd rather forget? I don't need the close ups.

I laugh.

Actually, we both do.

I feel a strange affinity with Alex then, this is totally a moment.

Funny thing is, I tell Alex, I feel remarkably in control right now. I spent my entire human life fighting against any kind of control, that's why I ended up involved in this...this world. It made me feel rebellious, like some kind of agent of chaos, like I was breaking free. The thing is I think all the time I was just trying to control myself I think, just in a different way, you know? All these secrets, and schemes, and plans, and plots I had. At the end of it I guess I'm a bit of a control freak after all.

Deep, Belinda, deep. I'm fascinated. Ye should right a book or something.

I was trying to share, be nice, that's what girls do Alex. There's no need to be facetious!

There's no need te be all touchy-feely either. It's just plain weird.

Hal would understand.

Hal trumps your problems like times over, love. You think ye've control issues? Love, you should see his sock drawer! It's alphabetised! I mean...how's that even possible?

The van, I presume it's a van, stops. I hear a car door open, slam closed. A second follows suit. Footsteps now, slow, collected steps. An unlocking. The rattle of a van door and then light. Day light, gleaming warm and red through my eyelids.

Keep calm and carry on, Alex.

Who, you telling to keep calm? You keep calm!

Just, oh whatever, you get my point.

Two cold hands take hold of my ankles, another pair of arms hook under mine. We are lifted, a dead weight in strangers arms, and carried. Everything gets darker. No one speaks.

"Gentlemen," I hear a voice. "I hear you've found our fugitive?" Now I panic. Even with Alex filling my head my brain finds all those wasted synapses and spaces that aren't full of hunger and madness, and it recycles them into terror. A storm rages, now it is Alex's turn to hold on.

Holy Jaesus Linny, what the actual fuck?

I feel a warm hand upon my forehead. If at all possible, it turns me colder. I think my fear begins to permeate into Alex by osmosis, she too is getting restless within. I feel like a sewn-up coat full of rabid rats. Someone opens my eyes. I know who it is before I see him, The Collector smiles down with a forgiving smile. But this man does not forgive. His head so close to mine I want to scream. I can do nothing but feel my insides rot away as he looks into me.

"Hello there, my dear," he says, "So pleased to have you back." He moves away, I stare at the ceiling. The lump of dead heart in my chest is so hungry to beat it feels like a cancerous immovable lump of pain trying to eat me up.

Breathe, Belinda, Breathe, Alex reassures, as if I am in some kind of anti-natal class.

NOT HELPING! I tell her. DEAD, REMEMBER!

The Collector is suddenly in view again. He looks in at me curiously. It feels as if he looks right through me. I have never seen his eyes properly, squashed as they are into his features like droppings in dough, but I see them clearly now. So close, so dark, it is almost as if they go on forever. They flush red as his small mouth creases into an understanding smile. Then he is gone again. "Straight into storage if you will, Gentlemen, 4362."

Alex, he knows, I say. My mouth dries as I try to turn myself to ash by will alone.

Nah... she says. But she knows I'm right.