Box Set - Chapter Eighteen

            Elle stands, crosses the room in a single stride and grasps Teague by the scruff of his dirty old coat. He’s caught off balance and jerks to his feet to prevent himself from falling backwards.

            She drives him into the table in the middle of the room, rattling every instrument on it.

            ‘Alright Mr Melodramatic,’ she snarls. ‘You’re going to give us some answers. right now. What’s happened to Graham?’

            Teague overcomes his shock quickly. He adopts his default expression of quiet malcontent, twisting his nose and staring at a point about Elle’s shoulder.

            ‘Your friend has travelled as only a spirit should. I think it should be quite obvious that while a spirit is readily able to travel great distances in a fraction of a second, the human body is not.’

            ‘So what’s happened to him?’ I demand, joining Elle. ‘A straight answer, not a lecture.’

            ‘He is falling apart,’ Teague replies, as though he’s discussing the weather. ‘Every single atom will lose its bond. He’ll exist, but in what form I can’t be sure.’

            I stare at him and he meets my eye. Those dark green eyes that I can’t trust. But why would he lie now?

            ‘And what do we do to fix it?’ Elle shakes him to draw his attention back to her.

            ‘This isn’t how it works, kids,’ Teague says. ‘Do you think I’m going to  do everything you say just because you demand it? I have done everything you’ve asked of me so far. You set me free and I’ll save your friend’s life.’

            ‘Well that’s not going to happen,’ I state. ‘If we free you, you’ll be gone. You earn trust, Teague.’

            Elle nods her approval at my words.

            ‘Well then it’s fairly simple,’ Teague says. ‘You let your friend crumble into nothing. If I die as a result of this…predicament, then I’ll simply exist as a spirit. I can find my way back. If Graham dematerialises, then good luck finding him to do anything about it.’

            Graham groans loudly. I’m hoping he’s not listening too closely. I turn away from Teague, pressing my hands to my temples. How can I trust him? The man who isn’t afraid of murder. Who was willing to kill me good and proper and send me god knows where?

            ‘Time is ticking, Easton,’ he says. ‘I suspect that Graham has minutes in this current form.’

            I turn back to him. ‘How do we break the bond between us?’ I ask.

            ‘Easton…’ Yates says from the floor. He’s been doing his best to comfort our writhing friend but now he looks up.

            ‘We don’t have a choice Yates,’ I reply.

            ‘It’s quite simple,’ Teague says. ‘You’ll have to release me.’

            I look at Elle. Pink hair has fallen in front of her eyes. I can see the battle raging behind them.

            ‘One wrong move,’ she says, letting go and pointing her finger between his eyes.

            Teague rolls his eyes and turns to his laptop.

            ‘Easton,’ he says. ‘Give me your hand.’

            I almost make a quip but hold my tongue. I don’t want to give any indication that I’m alright with the situation.

            ‘So the process is simple,’ I say. ‘Was there any point at all in trying to kill me on that hill or was I just a fly in the way of your grand plan.’

            ‘You’re catching on,’ he says. ‘I never intended to return to this place.’

            ‘You make me sick,’ I say. ‘You know that?’

            He clips two bullclips with wires attached to a finger on each of my hands. I imagine viewing this from the outside. All the items in the room moving of their own accord with a dying boy on the floor.

            ‘Ok,’ he says. ‘Three, two, one…’

            There’s a build-up of energy from a box on the desk. A whirring and then a high pitched squeal as it’s released.

            I feel a wave of what feels like heat propel itself towards me and then break on the surface of my skin.

            ‘I felt that,’ says Elle. ‘You had better not have attached me to you,’ she looks at Teague. ‘I know I’m sexy but I’m not into moleskin.’

            Teague takes a breath. I close my eyes and see the lack of his thoughts, his solid body wrapping them up again.

            ‘That feels good,’ he says. ‘One day maybe we can share a breath of air again.’

            ‘It’s a comfort for me that we don’t,’ I reply. ‘Now save Graham.’

            Teague smiles. ‘There is one way to stop this,’ he says.

            ‘And what’s that?’ asks Yates. ‘Easton, I don’t like that smile.’

            ‘Me either,’ I say. He looks like a praying mantis about to devour its partner. He rubs his hands together as if they feel any different alive or dead.

‘What have you done?’ he asks.

            ‘Nothing,’ he says. ‘Only saved your friend.’

            I look to Graham. His face is screwed up, his teeth clenched. He holds his side like something is about to burst out of it.

            ‘Tell me the truth, Teague,’ I say. ‘For once in your miserable life.’

            ‘I’m so glad we met, Easton,’ he says. ‘I just know this is the start of a beautiful friendship.’

            ‘Your ideas on friendship are extremely twisted.’

            ‘Perspective,’ he says. ‘Your friend is saved, if you make a decision. The only way to hold his atoms together if is you cross him to your side.’ He swivels the laptop round. ‘The only way to do that is if you share your being with another.’

            A window on the laptop shows three lines of what looks like a computer code. HTML. Long lines of indecipherable letters, numbers, slashes and dots. It’s another language.

            ‘If you look closely, I’ve made it easy for you,’ he says.

            At the end of each code is a letter. E, Y and E again.

            ‘You’re at the top,’ he says to me. ‘Simply select a letter and Graham will be saved.’

            ‘But he’ll be dead!’ I exclaim. ‘How is that a solution?’

            ‘It’s the only solution,’ he replies. ‘A warning. You must never leave each other’s side. You will have him bound to him forever, otherwise he’ll befall the same fate as I was going to.’

            He smiles, like the worst fairy godmother in history. Offering a magic solution with the worst sting in the tail.

            ‘Farewell,’ he says.

            Without warning, he slips an item from the side of the laptop, a sort of memory stick I hadn’t paid attention to before. He flicks a switch on the top of it and is gone in the blink of an eye.

            Graham screams in pain. The sound comes from nowhere.

            He tries to talk but can only open his mouth to emit more cries.

            I run my hands through my hair, pulling on the ends to try and focus myself with the sharp sensation.

            ‘I’ll do it,’ I say. ‘It’s my fault.’

            I cross to the laptop.

            ‘No,’ Elle says. She bats my hand away from the enter key. ‘You ain’t the boss of me, we decide this together.’

            ‘We have no time, Elle!’ I cry. I raise my voice and she steps back.

            ‘Look, Easton,’ she says. ‘We have to decide this fairly, we draw straws.’

            Before I can reply, there’s the whirr of the building of energy, and then a squeal as it’s released.

            We both turn to the laptop and see Yates standing beside it.

            He looks like a child caught with his hand in the biscuit tin. ‘We had no time to argue,’ he says. ‘You wanted me to do things with my life.’

            I open and close my mouth like a fish. ‘But you didn’t know him!’ I say. I look between them. ‘Neither of you did.’

            ‘Friendship isn’t measured in degrees,’ Yates says. ‘I’ve had precious few in my life, and I wanted to do something for the people who have helped me.’

            Graham quietens down. He emits a final groan and passes into what appears to be unconsciousness.

            I spot a chair under the desk and collapse into it. ‘I don’t know what to say,’ I reply. ‘It won’t be forever, we can’t leave him dead anyway.’

            I close my eyes and reach out to my friends. Elle’s body looks like the surface of a stormy sea finding calm again. The anger that was pulsing through her fades to nothing in a second. I wish I could control my emotions so easily.

            Yates looks nervous. I see the black dot of his demons, shrinking to hide away, still not gone; always threatening to return. But there is a contentment there too, a slow, easy rhythm of happiness.

            And then Graham, and I can see he’s no longer alive. I think for a second and wonder how we can look more alive once we’ve passed to this side. When we live, we block everyone else from seeing deep into ourselves. When we die, we leave nothing secret. It calms me  as I sit in the madman’s lab with my friends. 

            I open my eyes again.

            ‘Where do you think Teague’s gone?’

            ‘God knows,’ Elle replies. ‘Yellowstone park to erupt the volcano? Or maybe his secret moon base. Something villainous.’

            ‘Maybe he’s gone to hold the UN to ransom?’ Yates suggests, sitting down beside his physical life partner on the floor.

            I laugh and feel a tight knot release in my chest. ‘Someone’s got to feed the flying monkeys I guess.’

            We sit there and laugh for a second, but none of us can ignore Graham on the floor. He stirs a little as we watch.

            ‘Yates,’ I say. ‘Something you should know about Graham is that sometimes he needs to be ignored. His mouth has no filter.’

            ‘I’ll be alright,’ Yates says. ‘I have no regrets.’

            ‘Do you feel any different?’ Elle asks.

            Yates shakes his head. ‘Nothing.’

            Elle turns to me. ‘What if it’s one big joke?’ she says. ‘Teague’s last trick.’

            I shake my head. ‘I don’t think so. Close your eyes, the evidence is clear enough.’

            ‘What will happen to us?’ Yates looks at his shoes. ‘If we don’t stay close?’

            ‘Yates seemed to think Graham would die,’ I reply. ‘And you would too. That’s what he implied about me and him.’

            ‘But how can we die? We’re already…’ Yates stops mid sentence. ‘Unless…the great beyond. It’s real isn’t it.’

            ‘I don’t know, Yates,’ I say slowly. I realise the believer is eternally attached to the pessimist.

            Graham stirs again.

            ‘We’ll find out, Yates,’ I say. I talk quickly. ‘Maybe try not to mention it for a…’

            Graham jerks to a sitting position. ‘Owww,’ he moans rubbing his head. ‘I feel like I’ve been beaten up.’

            ‘You kind of have,’ I reply. I pause, I sense people are waiting for me to speak. ‘How much do you remember?’

            Graham opens his eyes and looks to the side as though he’s recalling something. ‘Only this ridiculous pain as soon as I got near the table,’ he says. ‘After that it hurt too much to hear anything.’ He looks around. ‘Where’s Teague?’

            ‘Three guesses,’ I say.

            ‘Gone?’

            ‘Bingo,’ Elle replies.

            ‘What was wrong with me?’

            ‘You were…dying,’ Elle says, master of subtlety.

            ‘Dying how?’ Graham says, his voice going up at the end. ‘I didn’t do anything!’

            ‘It turns out that travelling doesn’t exactly suit the alive and well,’ I reply. ‘We’ve had to bring you back, but on our side.’

‘So…I’m dead,’ Graham says. His eyes light up. ‘You mean I can teleport anywhere on earth, just like that?’

            I think I must be viewing the world’s first example of a joyous death. ‘Yeah, you can but you won’t stay this way forever,’ I reply.

            ‘What if I want to?’ Graham says.

            ‘What, stay dead?’ Elle crinkles her eyebrows. ‘You’re a weird one, Graham.’

            ‘But I’m free,’ he says. ‘From college, from work, from everything.’

            ‘But you’re not free Graham,’ I say. ‘This is not a good thing. Being dead is dangerous. Remember what I said about the Edge? We could fall into it at any time. Any out of control emotion, any slip while we travel, we’ll be lost in our memories forever.’

            ‘But I had nothing back home.’

            ‘You had everything Graham!’ I’m shouting and I don’t quite know why.

            'All my parents ever did was buy my love,' he shouts back. 'I have no friends at school, I have nothing, no girlfriend. Who'd even notice if I died anyway?'

            'That's what I felt, Graham,' says Yates walking towards him, saving the day. 'We can help each other.'

            'Why would I want that?' Graham snaps. 'Who even are you anyway? I met you today.'

            'Don't say that, Graham,' Elle says, holding Yates's arm as his face drops.

            Graham's face twists into an ugly grimace. 'Whatever,' he says.

            'That's the other thing we have to tell you, Graham,' I say. I'm angry now, I don't care what Graham thinks anymore. He shouldn't react like he always does about something that doesn't deserve it. Yates is a good person and it's not even like it's permanent. 'We had to do something to bring you back.'

            'What?' asks Graham, like he's being told he has an illness.

            'We had to connect you to me,' Yates says, a sneer on his face now. 'Until we find out how, we can't leave each other's side. Or we die like you almost did.'

            Graham's mouth drops open, it looks gormless but I know it's shock. He looks like he's about to cry. 'I'm attached...to you?' he says.

            'And why's that so bad? Go on say it.'

            'We'll see how long it lasts,' Graham says. 'I'm smart, smarter than any of you think. I won't be attached to some freak for the rest of my life.'

            He snaps the laptop closed and knocks over the stool next to him. He doesn't look at any of us as he storms out of the room, leaving us all silent.