Cash
I ran away from home once.
I must have been around thirteen or fourteen. Packed my backpack, caught a bus into the city, mooched around for a bit, played the arcades, hung around the park till it got dark … and then I started getting hungry and cold.
I hadn’t packed any gloves or a warm jacket.
Shoulda run away in summer, I thought. Damn fool.
I realized I had nowhere to sleep, and I didn’t really fancy trying to get cosy under some cardboard at the bus shelter.
So, eventually, at almost midnight, I used my loose change to get the last bus home.
I guess I expected to walk into a scene. Police at the house, my dad angry and red-faced, but maybe just a tiny bit worried too. Neighbours out searching for me with flashlights.
Nothing, zilch; ‘sweet FA’, as my grandma used to say. I let myself in with my spare key to find the house in darkness and Dad asleep, passed out on the couch, a cigarette smouldering in the ashtray and a half-drunk glass of whiskey on the table beside him.
He’d never even noticed I was gone, or if he had, he hadn’t cared enough to do anything about it.
I’d stared at him, eyes full of hot tears.
I had a mind to storm out and run away again, for good this time, and I made it as far as the front porch when I realized I didn’t have any money left and the buses had stopped running anyway.
I stood for a moment, chest heaving, feeling angry and lost.
That’s when I heard the creak of a door and saw Mrs Quirk step outside next door. She was wrapped in a ratty-looking dressing gown and clutched a cigarette and a battered Zippo.
She stared at me and frowned. ‘Late for you to be up, Cash.’
I’d sniffed and rubbed at my nose. ‘Yeah.’
She noticed the rucksack by my feet. ‘Going somewhere?’
I gave a sort of snivelly laugh. ‘I was gonna run away. Fact I did, and then I came back and my dad didn’t even notice.’
Mrs Quirk had lit her cigarette and taken a drag. ‘And that’s upset you?’
‘Yeah.’
She nodded slowly. ‘You know, my husband left me. Just walked out one day. I noticed he was gone – house smelt better, for a start. Other people, it was weeks before anyone asked about Herb.’ She looked over at me.
‘People disappear. All the time. And we don’t notice.
Not unless they’re family or someone close.
And sometimes, when family are like your dad, not even then. ’
‘I’d notice if someone I knew disappeared,’ I blurted out.
Mrs Quirk had just laughed. ‘You think. You think you’d notice if I dropped down dead. Trust me, kiddo. You wouldn’t notice till the rats and flies made it impossible to ignore.’
I’d opened my mouth to disagree and then snapped it shut again, because she was right.
She shrugged. ‘We’re all the same. Too wrapped up in our own lives. Other people, they’re just scenery. We talk to them, but when they leave, we never think about them again; where they’ve gone, what they’re doing. As soon as they’re out of our lives, they might as well not exist.’
She picked up an old flowerpot already heaving with squashed butts and ground out her cigarette. ‘It’s the same for other people too.’ She chuckled, bitter and raspy. ‘We all disappear. Every day.’
I thought about that conversation – probably first time I had in thirty years – as I lay in bed the night after I went through Garth’s log. I couldn’t sleep. Thoughts kept jiggling about all over my mind. About the ghost houses. About people disappearing. He was careful, Chase. Always careful.
Mrs Quirk was right. We don’t notice people most of the time.
Sure, I spoke to plenty of folk on my rounds, people washing their cars or riding their bikes, walking their dogs or taking their kids to school.
But when I stopped seeing them around, did I notice?
Maybe it flickered across my mind for an instant.
But that was all. Then they were gone, and the fact they weren’t around became the new normal.
They disappeared from my mind and my routine.
It was only as I pored over the log that some of those names and faces started to come back to me.
And not just a few, dozens. People I used to see regularly who had just slipped from my mind.
The more I looked, the more I noticed just how many abandoned houses there were in Serenity Falls.
Houses where people had simply disappeared.
Now, most folks would be surprised by how many people die every year.
You notice that as a mailman. But usually, it’s old people.
People you kind of expect to pass away at some point.
You see it in their houses as you do the rounds.
Gradually the garden gets less well kept.
The car doesn’t make it out the garage and the blinds are drawn more often.
Then one day, you might spy a house-clearance van outside, or if you miss that, a ‘For Sale’ board goes up and a new family moves in.
But it struck me that I hadn’t seen those things. In fact, I didn’t think I’d ever seen a ‘For Sale’ board outside any house here. Houses just got struck off the route. People were here one day and gone the next.
I thought about asking Garth about the log, but I didn’t want to get myself into trouble. I was Cash. I didn’t rock the boat. Didn’t ask questions. I just did my job and was happy to do it. And all of that was still true.
But sometimes, some things just don’t sit right.
And this was making my brain ache. And until I took more of a look at it, I knew it would keep nagging away at me.
So, I came to a decision. I resolved to cycle round to all those addresses and see for myself.
Just take a look, check that there really was nothing strange or suspicious.
Just my imagination working overtime – which was kind of funny, as my dad always said my mind was ‘dull as a ditch of muddy water’.
Satisfied, I finally closed my eyes and drifted off to sleep. Happy that I had a plan. I would set my mind at rest and get on with my job as usual.
Of course, that’s not what happened at all.