28 HELL
28
HELL
We sit listening to the wind, rustling the discarded wrappers at our feet and the constant pinging of my phone. Message after message from Dad, Mum and Melinda. No Lucas, though.
We’re in the park
Where are you? Did you leave?
Get away from him, Eli. He’s dangerous
I turn off the torch and put the phone on to airplane mode. The sky is greyish blue now, still lit by the city glare. When the buzzing stops, we embrace the silence.
‘Why have your parents done this?’ Jack says after a while.
‘I don’t know.’
‘Did I…’ His voice breaks. As he turns to me, I can just make out his eyes glistening. ‘Did I do something to you?’
‘I don’t think so.’ I want to hug him, but it feels like I can’t. Even though I know we have before.
He shakes his head. ‘So, how do we find out what happened?’
I pause. ‘There’s a place I need to tell you about.’
‘There’s more?’ he says.
I look at the clock on my phone. 18:30. Just a few hours till it opens.
I take a deep breath and begin with the hell rabbit.
Jack pulls his jumper around himself to stop himself shivering. ‘I feel like I’m dreaming.’ He turns to me. ‘ Nisha? Christ, I haven’t heard from her in years.’
‘She remembers you.’
‘She was older when she came to the placement. I think seventeen? She didn’t speak much. We got told something awful had happened to her. She always kept herself to herself.’ He shakes his head slowly. ‘This is mad.’
‘I know.’
‘So, that’s just a coincidence? That she works there?’
There are no coincidences. ‘Yes, I think it actually might be.’
I want to rest my head on his shoulder to be closer to him. But that would be weird. Would it?
Yes. No. Yes.
My brain .
‘So, we need to go to TraumaLand tonight? To watch the end of the story?’
I clear my throat. ‘Yeah. Nisha’s going to help us get in.’
‘Right.’ As he exhales slowly, I see the plume of his breath twisting out in front of us. ‘When do we go?’
‘Soon.’
‘Soon. OK.’ He looks exhausted. His eyes wide, like he’s just returned from another planet. I think of the alien spray-painted on the back door of TraumaLand.
The truth is out there .
‘But before we go, I want to try something,’ I say.
He turns to me. ‘Please don’t give me another one of those head contraption things.’
For some reason, this makes me smile. Not his fear, more that he’s here. With me.
He raises his eyebrows. ‘What?’
‘Nothing. Don’t worry.’
‘A bit too late for that, Eli.’
I take out my phone and pull up the screenshot of the webpage I found earlier this afternoon before I got on the tube. He looks at it over my shoulder. As he does, the faint smell of – well, him – moves over me. For a split second, I can actually see us at the beach together in my mind.
Is the memory mine? Is it in there somewhere, locked away?
Or am I remembering the memory I watched?
Christ, my head .
‘Is that Cameron?’ he says, pointing at a photograph of a man.
The heading says:
CAMERON TURNER
PRIVATE ART THERAPIST
‘Yeah,’ I say.
Jack squints at it. ‘He’s working privately?’ He scans his eyes over the text beneath his headshot. ‘He’s in Wales now?’
‘Looks like it.’ I flick to the next photo – a screengrab of the CONTACT tab of Cameron’s website.
‘It’s a mobile number,’ Jack says.
‘He might know more.’ I shrug. ‘He might be able to help.’
Jack nods. ‘Worth a shot.’
I turn my phone off airplane mode, ignoring the barrage of messages. I then highlight the number from the screengrab and press call . I click the phone on to loudspeaker.
It rings. Once. Twice. Three times.
The phone clicks.
‘ Hello, Cameron Turner .’
His voice sounds far away, a bit muffled. I look at Jack. It ’ s him . ‘Hi, Cameron,’ I say. ‘It’s um… My name is Elias Pew.’
A pause. ‘ Sorry, what did you say your name was? ’
‘Elias Pew. Do you remember me?’
An even longer pause this time. Then, ‘ Sorry I don ’ t . How can I help you? ’
Jack narrows his eyes.
‘I was a patient on the ward you worked on last year,’ I say. ‘Sycamore Ward in Brighton?’
There’s shuffling down the receiver. ‘ I don ’ t work on that ward any more .’
‘No, I know. But you were there when I was a patient.’
‘There were lots of patients. And you shouldn’t really be contacting me if you were.’
He sounds different. Harder. Angrier. Less … kind.
Jack nudges me.
‘I was there with a patient called Jack Quinn?’ Silence. ‘We were both discharged into private healthcare on the same day in March. You took us to the beach a few days before it happened. I painted the pier.’
The pause that follows is so long I wonder if he has gone. But then, ‘ No . Sorry .’
I look at Jack. He doesn ’ t remember us?
Jack takes the phone out of my hand, and holds it up to his mouth. ‘Cameron?’
‘ Is that Jack? ’
‘Yes.’
‘ You ’ re together? ’ He suddenly sounds different. I hear more muffling like he’s moving quickly. A door slams.
‘Yeah, it’s Jack. Listen, something happened to us and we need to know what. We were on the ward together and then Eli’s parents—’ I nudge him. Maybe don ’ t tell him? But he lifts his shoulders , why not ? ‘Eli’s parents had a procedure performed on us both that wiped our memories.’
I can hear Cameron breathing. ‘ Boys, you need to …’ He stops. ‘ I can ’ t speak with you . You don ’ t understand …’
‘What don’t we understand?’ I say, leaning towards the phone.
‘ Eli, your parents are … I can ’ t …’ He stops again. ‘ Fuck . Listen, just – get away, both of you . Run . Hide . If you ’ ve found each other, they will do anything they can to stop you finding out the truth .’
‘What is the truth, Cameron?’ My voice is louder now, echoing through the clearing.
‘ Please … Don ’ t ever call me again . They can ’ t know we ’ ve been in touch . I can ’ t be involved . I made a promise . I have a family …’ His voice shudders. ‘ I can ’ t put them in danger .’
The phone clicks. The sound of the disconnect tone.
‘Jesus,’ Jack whispers as I hang up. ‘He was terrified.’
‘Of my parents.’
‘Do you think they paid him off?’ Jack says. ‘Bought his silence?’
‘I don’t…’ I hardly know them any more. ‘Maybe.’
Jack shakes his head. ‘What the hell did we do?’
I don’t know. I don’t.
I see the time on my phone screen.
19:42
‘We need to go,’ I say. I quickly message Nisha.
Nisha – we are on our way.
I have Jack.
Will be out back at 10.
I wait for it to send. Come on…
! MESSAGE NOT DELIVERED
Oh, Christ.
‘What?’ says Jack.
‘Just… The message won’t send.’ Like Lucas. ‘There probably isn’t any signal down in the vault. I guess she’ll be there now. She said to meet her out the back.’
Jack starts to stand. ‘Wait,’ I say. I lean down and unzip my bag, pulling out its contents. ‘We need to put these on.’ I hold up our costumes.
‘What the hell? What is this place you’re taking me to?’
You just said it.
Hell . I ’ m taking you to hell .