Skip The Budgie

The boy lived with his mother and several arrogant cats in a small stone cottage, in an anonymous village, in the far north of England. An ancient aga spluttered and grumbled at them under a huge stone chimney in the center of the room, half-heartedly heating the cluttered room for a radius of about two feet. Thomas jumped up onto the hotplates and curled up contentedly.

Mother and son perched on rickety worm-eaten chairs around a small oak table, stoically munching through an uninspiring combination of shrivelled and insect-plagued garden vegetables and potatoes.

Conversation was scarce - the little boy's mother had long since given up asking him about his days at school. Either he would not reply at all, or would blurt out some fantastic story of his Latest Adventure, which just confused and upset her. His teachers always gave him glowing academic reports, but regularly told her he did not mix well with other children. The other children were afraid of his quietude, his knowledge. His aptitude for mathematics and science.

Once, his teacher, Miss Hollinshead had come round to the house, shown her a copy of what the little boy had written and asked her what it meant, as if she had been doing work for him. Unable to help, ashamed and frightened, she had accused the poor teacher of making it all up to embarrass her and sent her packing. Her son hadn't spoken to her for days afterwards, although she guessed he was as confused and worried as everybody else. Not to mention that the incident had made his life in the classroom just a little bit more difficult.

A tense, worried woman, she kept constant watch over her son lest he abandon her, following the example of his father. Every day she anxiously watched the boy return from school quiet and thoughtful. She would stand at the kitchen window and wonder at the transformation from aged philosopher into a typical 7 year-old, playing happily in an unfathomable world, bursting into life in their wild garden.

Later, while knitting absently by the fire and half listening to the boy chatter about his latest adventures, she would daydream of a time when life wasn't so secluded, when the world used to be safe.

The little boy knew nothing of his dear mother's dark moods, of course. His world was too full of wonder and excitement. Of course, the Shadow always lingered on the outside of his consciousness, but he was used to pushing it aside in favour of lighter pastimes. He did not know any other way to be.

Eventually the woman's weary head drooped onto her chest, pins and wool falling to the floor as she began to snore. The little boy gently covered her in a blanket then quietly slipped out into the dark. He blocked out the clawing, clutching Shadow and crawled through a well-worn hole in the overgrown hedge into next door's garden.

The old man was sitting on the front doorstep as usual, his hunched figure silhouetted against the open doorway, a thin wisp of white smoke swirling out of an ancient wooden pipe far up into the stillness of the November sky. They often met like this, the old man and the little boy, both appreciating the opportunity to share stories of the day's adventures.

'That foolish old man,' the little boy's mother would say, 'He has a worse imagination than you!' But the old man hardly looked up when his young friend settled down next to him and began to tell him about the pirates. The old man let him finish, then with a sigh began to speak softly, as if ending a conversation he had started in his head.

The little boy listened.

It was 1989.

The little boy stood before a full and silent classroom.

Everybody was staring at him open mouthed. He saw Bobby Gibson sitting at the back of the room, grinding his fist into his palm and cracking his knuckles. The Bully shook his head slowly. I'm gonna get you later. The little boy looked away, trying to blink away the embarrassment and stop thinking about those fearsome eyes, about the pain they promised.

Young Miss Hollinshead had her hand over her mouth, eyes wide. The air was heavy with unspoken questions, jealousy, amusement, embarrassment. The little boy turned back to the blackboard, which was covered in numbers and Greek letters and meaningless squiggles. A second ago it had all made sense. But while he was talking, an unbearable wave of emotions had come over him and now it meant as much to him as to anyone else in the room. He tried to read the numbers again, but with each snigger from behind him a jagged flash of light scythed across his vision, leaving traces across his eyelids and spearing painfully into his temples. His brain was overflowing with a terrible cocktail of derisive amusement and shame.

Leave, now. The voice cut through the mess, a stark white trail of words hanging in the air and the little boy ran out of the classroom, screaming his embarrassment to the empty corridors. A few curious faces appeared, poking out like gophers from the rooms along the hall, but they were quickly withdrawn when they realised who was causing the commotion.

The little boy cowered in a dusty old broom cupboard, hands clamped over his ears trying to shut out the laughter, which danced across his consciousness leaving rainbow spirals of neon light spinning deep into his brain. He remained like this for the rest of the afternoon, rocking and staring through tear-filled eyes at walls covered in the same strange markings.

This was a normal day.

'...our land, our country. We won't go into the night like slaves - no - we will fight our enemies like warriors! When they look back on today they will remember us; the few who died to save the lives of many.'

The Captain drew himself up before his loyal troops as he finished speaking. It had been a good speech, a glorious call to arms, rousing the rabble from their sadness and preparing them for the last big push. It was make or break time. The brave Captain surveyed the scene before him and slowly raised his right fist.

'Onwards men!' he shouted, punching the air in time with the words. 'On to VICTORY!'

Holding his arms outstretched, the little boy leapt off the old tree stump with a whoop and took off, now the world-renowned Fighter Ace; Red Leader, sprinting furiously around the small garden as fast as his legs would carry him. Charging through the apple trees, he swooped and climbed, narrowly avoiding a direct collision with a tree here, making a daring sideways dive over the pond there, and causing little flashes of gold to disappear into the pondweed.

'Red Leader to Red Five! Cover me! Bogies on your six!' he called, excitedly commanding his wingmen to follow and laughing with delight at the tiny people far, far below, like ants in a model village. Thomas, the fat tabby cat, barely escaped when the little boy descended upon him, guns blazing. He chased the cat, who retreated to a safe distance in the bushes with barely a backward glance, resuming his washing with a wary, suspicious eye on the hyperactive child. The boy laughed and taunted the animal. He never got tired of this game, no matter how disdainful the cat tried to be.

'Come on lads! Let's bag us a Big Cat!' The little boy pulled on his Big Boots and wedged The Exploring Hat onto his tousled light blonde hair. He ventured cautiously into the thorny hedgerow hunting for Monsters with only his trusty pocket knife for protection.

'Steady boys, steady,' he whispered, freezing and making a complicated gesture with his raised hand. There was a rustling in the bushes and a streak of orange-brown fur. He had been too slow, Thomas had spotted him well in advance and now sat well out of reach in the old cherry tree, staring back at the Great Adventurer with an air of detached interest. The little boy grinned up at him and scratched his head.

Moments later the Dreaded Pirate Blackbeard scuppered a hundred wealthy merchant ships, saving a grateful maiden or two on the way and showing a little mercy to his enemies, but not so much that he risked losing the respect of his men. The dreaded pirate cheerfully persuaded Thomas to come down from the tree once the world was safe again and they had both been called inside for supper.

In the house nearby, net curtains twitched and shuddered.

A powerful wave of nervous energy suddenly overcame the boy and he turned quickly, eyes wide and questioning, but saw nothing. The movement in the curtains was not unusual - he knew the old man often watched him playing - but the sensation of being watched was not normally so negative and overpowering as this. It felt different, more oppressive, like a thick blanket of darkness beginning to smother him. He called it 'The Shadow', an ever-present sense of impending doom he had known for as long as he could remember. As long as he kept playing make-believe, the Shadow remained on the edges, but in recent days the behaviour of the other people in the village had changed towards him and the little boy was beginning to suspect that they had noticed it too. As a result his play had become more intense, more desperately carefree.

While running errands for his mother, it was becoming increasing difficult to ignore the whispers that followed him; Oh the poor thing, what with his daddy gone and his mother struggling so... Yes - the Shadow was getting stronger, but only he saw it as a physical entity, a clawing darkness threatening to smother his very soul. The others reacted as if they saw something rotten in him, making him feel like a disease carrier, a devil child. He noted the fear in their eyes, the involuntary shudder, the way they clutched their own children close, shielding them from him as if he would kill them with a glance. He saw emotions laid bare on bitter faces, etching themselves on his mind's eye for night-time awakenings.

He was no longer allowed to play with any of the other children. Even at school they had begun to give him a wide birth, so on he played, his imagination keeping him free when the world was trying to imprison him.

Yes, his fancies are all well and good, but where does it lead, I ask you? The words haunted him daily. It was not his fault that The Shadow was here, but it was definitely here for him. He did not understand the hypocrisy of the adults, how they could make great claims to care about truth and honesty, pitying him one moment and avoiding him the next.

The old man knew about truth.

Even a truth observed from behind dusty net curtains by a grumpy old man who lived next door, a man who had not been allowed to do anything at all when he was a little boy. A man for whom 'Truth' was beyond imagining, but his help would come too late.

When the Truth came to visit this little boy there was nothing anybody could do to save him.

'Ah, but my boy, I know everything.' The stink of the man's breath was more effective than the Schumann at clearing the Hunter's head. He looked into the piercing blue eyes and thought about the bodies downstairs. The painful months of trailing this ruthless bastard across the country, unravelling his infernal deceptions and getting so close, so many times. The Hunter had always been convinced there was more going on here than pure sociopathy, but nobody believed him. 'He's just another killer', they had said, 'just a little bit cleverer than the others, that's all'.

'If I am so wrong, tell me! Maybe I can help you.' He struggled to put the words together. His cheek was swelling fast, but he somehow sensed that Balan wanted to talk, to teach him the error of his ways. The man was so full of his own cleverness. Perhaps that was the way to end this.

'I don't need you, I just wanted to see the look on your face when I bested you.' Balan put on a whispering, mocking voice, 'Let's finish this, it ends now, oh help!' He tugged the earpiece out of his ear and dangled it in front of the Hunter's face.

'How -?!'

'Shut up, child.' Balan hissed. 'There is more to this story than you and your little gang. The intrepid Adventurers, fighting crime without recourse to the Law! You would have realised this a long time ago if you could only stop playing games long enough to see beyond your own pathetic achievements. You and your little whore - '

The Hunter felt himself slipping over the edge. The man's voice became deeper, slowing down as if time itself had paused at the shock of his cold words, which sliced through the pain like knives. He flexed his fingers, welcoming the old familiar feeling that he was outside of reality, watching himself. The entire world seemed to compress, existence itself becoming just these two men, locked together, faces centimetres from each other. The Hunter could barely make out the words now.

'We... are... the same... You... ... ... and ... .. ...I...'

The Hunter held his breath and slammed his forehead into Balan's nose as hard as he could. He tried to ignore the sickening pain in his cheek and instead focused on the loud drawn-out crunch of tearing cartilage. Smiled as he watched the shocked eyes rolling and blood spraying in slow motion back into his face. It would be easy now. He was back in control. He spun the staggering figure around and with his good leg propelling him forwards, leapt onto the man's back. Balan lurched and swore, voice too deep and elongated to make any sense. He was too slow to escape when the Hunter locked his arm around the man's neck.

'She... was... innocent!' He shouted through his tears while the large man drove his elbows slowly into his ribs. At last Time glanced at the struggling figures and realised that one of them was out of place. The darkness lifted and the Hunter clung on through the familiar rush back to normality. The last blow was full speed and a rib cracked, but he pulled his arms tighter, hearing the uncertainty creep into Balan's voice.

'You don't understand... you fool...' Balan slammed himself backwards into the walls, but the young man held tight for this was his last chance, his life really did depend on it.

At last the big man collapsed on the floor. The Hunter fell beside the unconscious body and allowed the sobs to overcome him. Found his knife. Held it high over the murderer, but his shaking hands refused to make the strike. He tried to summon the anger again but everything seemed so wretched now. Always take them alive, the old man had told him, for they know not what they do. The faces of the dead processed before his eyes, so many lives, so much loss. He had had the whole thing sewn up, the future planned.

We are the same, you and I... Now it seemed like he did not know anything at all.

A hand fell upon his shoulder.

'Hello, William.'

A deep rasping voice. A voice he had not heard for twenty years. The Hunter almost choked.

Grabbing the stranger's arm with both hands the Hunter tried to maneuver himself onto his feet. His broken leg collapsed under him but he held on tight, right hand flying up to grip the man's throat. He used the momentum to spin them both round until he had this new opponent pinned to the wall.

The man had had the same reaction. A metal hand gripped the Hunter's throat like a vice and when he stared up into the glowing red mechanical eye, he could clearly see the tiny metal blades around the iris adjusting as it focused on him. What can you see? he thought vaguely as the man smiled, slowly. The pressure on his carotoid artery was tremendous. It would not be long before he passed out.

'YOU!' The Hunter gasped.

The Neuros sensed the Hunter's imminent mental collapse and responded quickly by feeding a gentle melody into the earbuds, Schumann's Traumerei played gently on a beautiful Bösendorfer to a hushed Festival Hall. Once it would have soothed him, helped him to focus his mind but tonight, it reverberated cruelly around his skull, mocking the dreaful seriousness of the situation. The Shadow was closer and more oppressive than it had ever been.

The Hunter grabbed the array and ripped the glasses off his head, screwing up his eyes with a sharp intake of breath at the shock of the sudden darkness. The painful disconnect when the contacts on his temples separated. The earbuds, connected to the glasses by a thin membrane of silica also popped out of his ears, tinny piano music fading as the apparatus fell. In the silence he was horrified at the clear sound of his own weeping.

The shooting downstairs stopped momentarily. He imagined she had felt the disconnect and was desperately trying to send him messages but they meant nothing to him anymore. He cradled the limp body in his arms, his face buried in sweet-smelling auburn hair. He did not even notice when the gunfire ceased for good.

'Hunter!'

When The Invisible Killer jumped him, it was more instinct than skill that caused the Hunter to drop forwards, rolling with the murderer's momentum and slamming him onto the hard floor. His riposte was only a glancing blow to the ribs as the man's fist met his chin. Balan was already on his feet. He was fast for his size, and strong. The Hunter allowed himself to fall back and roll sideways into a crouch. Drawing his knife, he waited warily in the darkness. Tried to slow his breathing down, to allow the usual connections to fire up and break the scene up into manageable chunks, but the emotional shock of seeing the twisted body had devastated his neural responses. Perhaps he had damaged himself further when he had unceremoniously ripped the AR system from his head. Have to do this the old fashioned way. He struggled to focus on Balan through the undulating mists of colours and lights.

The black-clad man danced around him. The Hunter watched and waited, noting his tight-fitting clothes, designed for stealth and swift combat. Invisible, indeed. There appeared to be extra padding around the chest, body armour of some description. Two fierce grey eyes were all that was visible of his face and they seemed to sparkle in the darkness, taunting the young man. Suddenly Balan lunged forwards, feinted high and landed a brutal uppercut that seemed to drill all the way up through the Hunter's skull. His mouth filled with the metallic taste of blood as he bit through the tip of his tongue. His teeth practically rattled. Balan easily caught his clumsy swipe with the knife and crunched the bones in his hand together painfully. To the Hunter's shame and horror, the knife tumbled to the floor. Balan yanked on his arm and planted several swift punches on his exposed kidney then shoved him back. The Hunter reeled away, doubling up, stumbling, but the old man's teachings kicked in and at the last possible moment he turned the movement into a sweeping kick at his assailant's legs.

The Hunter could not see a thing now, his world had become filled with flashing lights and neon swirls in the encroaching darkness. He barely heard the sound of the bones in his leg breaking and collapsed to the floor in agony, helpless to prevent the man striking him again and again. His cheekbone cracked and the pain exploded with bright yellow sparks, rendering him temporarily blind. Balan laughed and took a step back. Through the mists of pain and frustration the Hunter saw that he was panting with the exertion of their combat, drawing rasping, wheezing breaths.

'Finally we meet on my terms, Hunter' The voice was deep and gravelly, betraying a lifelong love of tobacco and liquor.

'Your terms?' The Hunter spat a long stream of blood onto the floor. He felt dizzy, the room was bathed in glorious spinning golden lights. Balan was a mere whisp of bluish motion in front of him. The world was shapeless. This is not how it is meant to be. He looked up. 'It ends here, Jackson.'

'For you, maybe.' Balan sighed. 'I have to admit though, I thought you were better than this.'

'Why? Why did you do it? Why her?' The Hunter started to pull himself to his feet, but Balan pushed him down, grinding a sharp heel into his injured knee. The Hunter nearly fainted with the pain. He tried to keep his breathing steady while his brain thought treacherous thoughts; YOU put yourself here, in this situation, YOU made them come with you, YOU killed them. No-one else, just you. He attempted to pull himself together, to shut out the words. There was no-one left. The feelings were so strong, he did not think that he could invoke the trance now, but he had to try, or he would fall too. It was time to show the old man his sacrifice had not been wasted. Balan was speaking again.

'Perhaps you should ask your precious Unicorn. Seems there's a lot they don't tell you.'

'Unic- How dare you pretend to know about us! Scum like you? You've killed fourteen people!'

'Oh, that many?' He seemed pleased. 'And none more deserving than our little friend there.'

'But - she did nothing! She was just -' the Hunter spluttered, 'you know nothing!' He added lamely, quietly, his hand on her hair.

Balan reached down and pulled the Hunter up by the lapels until their noses touched. He tried to resist but the man was inhumanly strong and he could not help crying out when the bones in his injured leg ground together.

Acrid breath overpowered the Hunter's senses and the man began to laugh.