Eddie Parker stepped off the bus and saw the boy coming from the bushes on the other side of the pavement.

Saw the boy jumping free from the wet leaves.

And saw his fist.

It came from the boy’s side, the movement made clumsy by its speed. The air in front of Eddie’s face shoved against him and he jerked backwards before the boy’s fist could strike him. Behind Eddie, the bus had already moved into the traffic. He registered the sound as if came from much further away.

The boy let out a girlish wail and threw himself forward. He struck Eddie in the chest and both fell to the puddles on the pavement.

Eddie rolled, using his greater weight to bury the boy. He slammed his hands on the boy’s forearms and realised he was shouting.

“What the hell are you doing? What’s going on?”

The boy continued to make the same high-pitched screams and Eddie saw how young he was. Surely no older than thirteen. He was skinny, chin covered with faint hairs and acne. His jacket sleeves had ridden up in the struggle, exposing thin arms. The boy took advantage of Eddie’s lapse in concentration and lifted his foot fast. It struck Eddie in the knee. He groaned, rolled away and staggered to his feet. The boy rose into a crouch. Eddie saw flat hate in his gaze.

“What the hell is this?” he shouted.

The boy made no sound and their surroundings came back to Eddie. The bus was out of sight, morning traffic passed behind him on its way into the city centre. It was Tuesday morning, he was on his way to work and everything made sense.

Apart from the boy.

Eddie risked a look to the sides. Nobody else was in sight. A quick line of cars passed and hit puddles. Water splashed to the pavement and Eddie looked back to the boy.

“What’s your problem?” Eddie said and ignored the urge to place a hand on his knee.

The boy screamed. It stabbed into Eddie’s ears. There were no words in the scream; the sound was horrific. Sweat dribbled into his eyes, he rubbed it away and the boy threw himself forward.

Eddie swung around and reached for the boy at the same time. Their hands met, Eddie shoved as hard as he could and the boy shot backwards.

He left the pavement, hit the road and a car hit him.

Eddie tried to scream.

The boy’s head smacked on the car’s windscreen, glass shattered and the boy’s body bounced off the car to land in the middle of the road.

Again, Eddie tried to scream. He couldn’t make a sound. The car which had hit the boy hadn’t swerved. It sat a short distance further down the road. Cars were stopping on both sides. Nobody had emerged from the vehicles and all Eddie could hear was his gasping breath.

The boy’s body lay in a small heap. Blood ran from his head. Eddie watched it slide across the road towards a puddle.

He ran.

* * * * *

Eddie fell against the bench and managed to sit before his legs gave way. He leaned forward, rested his head on his hands and struggled not to vomit. He spat saliva onto the grass in front of him, squeezed his eyes shut and tried to think.

He’d run for a mile, no destination in mind, only the shriek of terror in his head pushing him forward. He’d left the scene of the accident behind, raced into the centre of town and shot down side streets to end up in Stanley Park. Here he was on a park bench, a quarter of a mile from the office, sitting on a bench usually reserved for drunks and trying not to be sick while a boy lay dead in the road a mile away.

“A boy I killed,” Eddie muttered and the vomit wouldn’t stay down.

He let it fall between his feet, not caring if he messed his shoes. When the last of it left his mouth, he sniffed hard, trying to clear his passages. The stink of the vomit made him feel worse. He lurched forward and staggered to another bench.

“Think,” he whispered as he sat.

Movement caught his eye. A man was crossing the grass to Eddie’s right, head down and walking fast towards the cut that lead to Long Gate. Eddie watched the man, bizarrely envious of him. He was OK, he wasn’t part of death.

“Think,” he whispered and closed his eyes again.

The boy had attacked him. No questions there. And he hadn’t meant to push the boy into the road. No questions there, either.

The question was, why had the boy come for him?

The question was, would anyone believe it had been an accident?

“I shouldn’t have run,” Eddie said.

Call Julie.

He couldn’t. Not yet. Eddie didn’t know why. He only knew he could not call his wife.

Something — later he told himself it was instinct — made him open his eyes. Shock exploded in his chest.

The man on the grass was no more than fifteen feet away. He held a kitchen knife in both hands as if it was a sword. His mouth was a tight slash in his face. It said he had grim, bloody work to do.

Eddie jumped upright and stood in a half crouch.

“Put it down,” he shouted.

The man laughed and ran at Eddie, closing the distance in seconds. Without thought, Eddie reached for the knife and felt something hot touch the back of his hand.

His blood fell from the yawning cut in his skin. He screamed, twisted his arm up and felt the knife slide across his flesh again. His movement knocked the other man to the side; he stumbled and the knife fell. Immediately, the man lunged for it and Eddie kicked out as hard he could.

The knife skittered over the ground and stopped beside Eddie’s vomit.

The man turned towards it and moved in a half run, half jump. Eddie grabbed it, swung him around and pushed him down. The man dropped and skinned his hands on the ground.

“Stay there,” Eddie shouted.

There wasn’t any panic, not yet. All he had was a sense that all that existed was the land a few feet around him, the man at his feet and the pain in his arm. Everything else wasn’t here.

The man grunted and pulled himself upright. Eddie backed up and brought his hands up in a fighting pose.

“Don’t try it,” he yelled and realised he was scared in a way he’d never known. Danger was here. Worse than that, danger that made no sense.

The man raced towards Eddie, smacked his hands aside and seized Eddie in a horribly tight grip. At once, all the air left Eddie’s lungs. He pushed back, trying to gasp for breath, and the man skidded on the wet ground. It was enough for Eddie to bring his arms back and loosen the man’s hold. He kicked at the man’s foot and caught his shin. The man wheezed a shout of pain into Eddie’s face and Eddie brought his left knee up fast.

It missed the man’s crotch and caught him in the upper thigh. The man let go, groaning and reaching for his leg. Eddie stepped away and realised the man was reaching for his stomach and his open jacket.

The second knife came out in an instant. Eddie saw it glint in the sunlight and smacked his hand down. It struck the blade as the man brought his hand up and the blade sank into the man’s wrist.

The man’s gushing blood splattered Eddie’s arm. Eddie pushed him away, horrified. Blood coated his hands and his jacket. The man dropped, cradling his wounded arm. Blood began to pool around him.

“I’m sorry,” Eddie whispered and heard how ridiculous the words were.

He tried to wipe the blood from his hands; it wouldn’t come off. He crouched a few feet from the man.

“I’ll call an ambulance. But you have to tell me why you...” Eddie stopped, again struck by a sense of the ridiculous. “Why you attacked me,” he said.

The man gazed at him. He smiled and Eddie felt a coldness fall over him that had nothing to do with the November air.

“Go home,” the man said. “If you can find it.”

He yanked the knife from his arm and blood splattered his jacket. Before Eddie could react, the man slammed the knife into his own throat.

“No,” Eddie screamed.

The man gurgled, his eyes rolled back and he collapsed into his own blood. From somewhere that felt miles away, Eddie noticed very little blood had come from the man’s neck. The knife had plugged the wound.

He stood and immediately felt dizziness spin through his head. He slammed his palm against his forehead and gazed in all directions.

Perhaps sixty feet behind him and the dead man, three middle aged men were staring at him. One was pointing to him.

“I didn’t kill him,” Eddie whispered.

The pointing man reached into his coat.

“What the fuck is this?” Eddie said to nobody.

The pointing man pulled a tree branch from his coat and held it over his head like a club. The other men were reaching for the insides of their coats.

Eddie’s feet took off from the body and the blood. He backed away, turned and began running.

Shouting from the men followed him.

And Eddie realised what they were shouting.

His name.

* * * * *

Eddie squeezed into the gap between the back of the garages and the high wall behind them. His coat rubbed against the brick and the sound made him cringe. Everything was too loud: his jacket against the wall, his panting breath, the thud of his heart in his ears. Each sound made him want to dig his fingers into his ears and block everything out.

He reached the end of the gap and turned as quietly as he could. His shoes crushed stones and he held his breath, as if that would make the sounds less. It was dark in the gap and that was fine. It meant he couldn’t be seen.

Eddie crouched and kept his eyes on the daylight at the end of the gap. He couldn’t see much beyond it and knew that didn’t make much difference. He’d paid very little attention to his surroundings as he’d run. Everything had blurred into streets, houses, pavements and the sound of his panting breath mixing with the smack of his shoes on the ground. The only positive he could think of for his location was his lack of knowledge about this part of town. He didn’t know it, which hopefully meant nobody would think to look for him here.

He’d run from the park, not looking back to the three men. He’d heard them chasing after him, their shouts following him until he’d reached a pathway off the grass that led to a cycle path. Now here he was, half a mile from the park, hiding from two dead bodies, hiding from everyone.

Go home. If you can find it.

The words came back to him without warning, the memory of the man’s mocking tone in the seconds before he’d killed himself.

“Why?” Eddie whispered.

To make it look like you killed him, Eddie, an interior voice told him.

“OK. Fine,” Eddie said. “He attacked me. I didn’t know him but he still attacked me. The police can’t accuse me of killing him if nobody saw me do it, so I’m OK there. They’ll want to know why he came for me, but I don’t know and I don’t know about the kid on the road—”

Eddie stopped.

He couldn’t fool himself. He’d been involved in two deaths and he’d run from both. The police would be looking for him right now.

Go home. If you can find it.

Eddie shivered.

What the hell had the man meant? Why would he not be able to find his home? Even here, in this strange area, he was surely no more than a few miles from his front door.

“Julie,” Eddie whispered.

He slid his mobile from his inside pocket and stared at the screen.

She hadn’t called him.

And that meant the police hadn’t spoken to her. Surely if they had, they would have asked her to call him.

Before doubt could stop him, Eddie dialled his home number. He listened to the other end ring and blew on his free hand to warm it. The sight of the dry blood on his fingernails made him feel ill, so he dropped his hand and whispered to the phone.

“Come on, Jules. Come on.”

It continued to ring.

Eddie closed his eyes and fought tears. His thumb rested over the cancel button and as his hope of Julie answering died, he heard her voice.

“Eddie.”

Eddie’s eyes opened wide. He stared at the back of the garages.

“Julie? How did you know it was me?” He didn’t give her time to answer. “Jules, listen. I’m in trouble. Something’s happened. It’s bad. It’s really fucking bad. I–” He had to stop and clear his throat. “I’m in trouble.”

There was a moment of silence that wasn’t full silence. Eddie heard what sounded like something moving on the line, something that didn’t want him to hear it. It made him think of secrets and pain.

“I know,” Julie said.

Eddie couldn’t speak. Below the screams locked inside his throat, something wanted to know what had shocked him more: Julie’s words or the sound of her voice, the sound that turned her soft, sweet voice into something mocking and bitter.

Eddie didn’t know the answer. He couldn’t think of anything other than his wife’s name.

“I know, Eddie,” Julie said. “We all know.”

“What?” Eddie whispered.

“You’re hiding, aren’t you?”

“What?” Eddie said and it was almost a silent breath.

“We’re looking for you, Eddie. We’ll find you.”

The secret sound came again. It whispered over the line, something made of too many legs skittering in the dark.

Julie laughed and Eddie knew he wasn’t talking to his wife. He was talking to a thing made of lies and pain.

The line went dead and Eddie slipped the mobile back in his pocket. His hand didn’t shake. Things had gone beyond that.

He took several deep breaths and closed his ears to everything but the interior voice.

Something’s gone very wrong. Something’s affected a lot of people, including Jules. But that’s OK. It isn’t necessarily permanent. All you need to need to do is find someone not affected.

Eddie stood, still breathing deeply, tasting the cold in the air. The sound of a car coming made him freeze. It was on the road around the corner from the garages and it was moving fast.

Eddie caught a burst of loud music from the car as it drew level with his position. Seconds later, the sounds of car and music had faded.

“They’re looking for me,” Eddie whispered and knew it was true despite the last little piece of denial dying as he stood against the wall.

A new emotion came: anger. He welcomed it. It was solid, something he could focus upon. He hadn’t done anything wrong and yet here he was, lost, hurt, terrified and hunted by God knew who. It wasn’t right. It wasn’t fair.

Eddie crunched over the stones, squeezed through the gap and stood in daylight. Windows looked at him and paranoia told him people were behind the glass all around him.

“Bollocks,” he said loudly and began walking.

His steps took him around the curving road to the street on the other side of the garages. Eddie stood still and attempted to place his location. He was on a narrow street full of Victorian houses. The street ran on to other roads at both ends and a cycleway was opposite him. Eddie glanced at the houses as if expecting someone to be standing in a doorway, someone asking what he was doing.

Eddie frowned. Something wasn’t right. The houses were too dark. He stared at them and it seemed with each blink, more of the decay and damage was visible.

Windows were broken in almost every house, several had been damaged by fire and a few were missing front doors.

Eddie crossed the road, loosely thinking he could follow the cycleway back to the centre of town and get away from this horrible part of the city. He reached the opposite pavement and froze. All the saliva dried in his mouth and his tongue hung out. Eddie tilted his head and stared at the paint sprayed on the ground where pavement met cycleway. Two words, lurid in purple spray paint, glared at him.

DEAD EDDIE

Eddie stepped backwards, hand covering his mouth, and told himself he was seeing something that wasn’t there. The words mocked that by remaining on the ground.

Eddie’s sight wavered. He turned from the words and caught sight of a street sign at the edge of the cycleway. According to the sign, he was on Winslow Road. The name of the path in front of him had been sprayed with the same purple paint on the ground.

KILL EDDIE

“This is bollocks,” Eddie whispered and heard a car coming fast. Music blasted from its stereo.

Eddie shoved his hands into his coat pockets and ran to the path. Behind him, the car drew level with the cycleway. Eddie heard someone shouting his name; he ran faster and didn’t look back. A car door slammed and running feet began to chase him. Someone laughed from a window and he heard breaking glass.

Eddie broke into a sprint, terror giving him strength. The cycleway reached a subway. He raced downwards into the shadows and saw one of those shadows move as he entered the subway.

The man against the wall jumped at him, swinging a knife around. Eddie screamed, threw himself backwards and bashed against the opposite wall. The man bellowed laughter and lunged with his knife.

An explosion came and the man with the knife collapsed, most of his head missing. Blood and brain matter lay around the body’s neck. Eddie realised with slow horror that someone had shot the man. He stared towards the path and saw a woman holding a shotgun. She grinned at him and raised the gun.

“Mine,” she said. “Mine, Eddie.”

“No, wait,” he whispered.

Running figures were coming behind the woman. From the little Eddie could see, they were all carrying bats or knives.

They’re all coming for you, Eddie.

Eddie launched himself off the wall as the woman fired. Brickwork shattered. He felt shards coat his head and neck. Weaving as fast as he could, Eddie ran further into the subway. Behind him, the woman screamed her rage. Eddie hit the path again and ran into the bushes. Thorns stabbed at him and brown leaves caught on his trousers.

He lurched through the bushes, came to another path and ran into a long curving road. All the houses had been damaged by fire much worse than the houses on Winslow Road. They looked as if something had exploded close by and scorched them.

Shouts were coming from not far behind. Desperately, Eddie turned in a circle, scanning the houses. A To Let sign stood on the grass outside the house furthest from him.

The shouts were growing louder.

Eddie ran to the house and stared through a window. There was no furniture inside. He sprinted to the side of the house and to the back garden. It was a small area with a rotting shed close to the house. Eddie crouched beside the house, breathing hard and unable to think of anything other than the shouting coming closer.

“I’m dead,” he whispered.

Anger rose inside again and made him stand.

They want to kill you. At least make it hard for them.

Eddie ran to the bathroom window, grabbed hold of the rotten frame and pulled himself up. With a little effort, he was able to slide most of his body into the hole. He took hold of the ledge, pulled and overbalanced.

He dropped to the floor and missed striking his head on the sink by centimetres. The stink of the house filled his nose. Eddie covered his mouth, stood and took slow steps to the bathroom door.

The house was empty. He was sure of it. The whole street was empty. Something awful had happened here and everyone had left a long time ago.

Eddie crept to the hallway and found the kitchen. Decayed food sat on the counter beside the oven. Flies crawled over the food; the stink was tremendous. Eddie swallowed repeatedly until his stomach settled and walked around the kitchen. His shoes stuck to the floor in several places. He didn’t look to see what they were sticking to.

“This isn’t real,” Eddie whispered.

He left the kitchen and entered the living room. Eddie’s breath stuck in his throat.

A man sat a few inches from a small portable TV, headphones on his head connected to the TV.

All of the man’s attention was on the little screen. He was masturbating.

Eddie stared at the man’s jerking movement and it seemed he registered everything else without moving his eyes.

The stink of dirt and rotten food.

The filth covering the carpet and few items of furniture.

The images on the TV.

Children on the TV.

Children crying.

The man rocked back and forth, arm moving faster.

Eddie ran forward, stomping over the dirty carpet and kicking aside lumps of food. He grabbed the man’s head, yanked it back and the headphone cord flew out of the TV. At once, the room was full of the sound of children crying and a man’s voice urging them to smile for the camera.

The man on the carpet tried to shout; Eddie punched him in the face as hard he could and pain exploded in his hand. He grabbed the headphone cord and wrapped it around the man’s neck.

“What the fuck are you doing, you fucking shit?” Eddie screamed and tightened the cord.

The man’s hands tried to pull the cord. Spit flew from his mouth. His foot jerked out, hit the TV and knocked it over. The sound went off but the images continued.

Eddie loosened his hold and immediately took hold of the man’s head. He slammed it against the TV table until the table collapsed. Blood coated the man’s face and his nose was almost flat against his face.

“What the fuck is going on?” Eddie shouted, not caring if his voice carried to the outside. “Tell me what’s happening. Why is everyone trying to kill me?”

The man grinned and his one open eye focused on Eddie.

“From there, aren’t you?” the man whispered and blood trickled from his mouth.

“What?” Eddie said.

“That place. Where the sun shines.”

Eddie gripped the man by the throat.

“They’ll find you,” the man hissed.

“If you don’t start making sense, I’ll kill you,” he said and the man wheezed laughter.

“Go home, Eddie. Go back.” He drew breath. Instantly, Eddie understood: the man was about to shout to the people outside.

His hands closed the man’s shout inside his throat. And in the murky light cast from the images of children on the little television, Eddie strangled the man to death.

* * * * *

Eddie crouched beside the living room window and held the cricket bat as tightly as he could. He’d found it in the cupboard under the stairs along with piles of video tapes. He hadn’t wanted to see what was written on the front of the tapes.

Dark had come. From outside, voices occasionally came. Sometimes, he heard laughter and breaking glass. He was reasonably sure they were searching the houses, which meant it was simply a matter of time before they came to this house. And when that happened, all he had to defend himself with was a cricket bat.

Doesn’t seem like a fair fight. Me with a bat against a world of people with knives and guns.

He tried to smile but couldn’t do it.

Go home, Eddie.

“I wish.”

His mind played back the seconds when the kid had come at him from the bushes. How far away that now seemed, how like something from a different life.

Go home, Eddie. Go back.

That place. Where the sun shines.

“What?” Eddie whispered as if someone had spoken to him.

Again, he heard the man’s words and in the quiet of the empty house, Eddie felt some of his fear give way. He picked over the words and a nauseating sense of vertigo encircled his head. He felt as if he was falling to earth, dropping from where sky met the top of the world.

“Jesus,” Eddie said in the dark. Was that it? Was he somewhere else? Somewhere the sun didn’t shine?

Somewhere everyone in the world wanted him dead?

He let his breath out and pulled his legs up to his chest. More laughter came from outside. It was closer than before. With the laughter, there was now music and many car engines. Outside was a party. Inside was Eddie, frightened for his life.

If that’s the case, how do I get back?

He played back the events of the mad, horrible day. He pictured the sprint here, the time spent hiding behind the garages, the call to Julie, the park before that, the boy in the bushes.

It started there. The kid was the first.

A tiny bubble of hope filled Eddie’s chest.

“It started there. That was a...” Eddie lunged for the right word. “That was a halfway point.” He nodded frantically and didn’t feel the sweat fall from his forehead. “Get back to the bus stop. Get back to that point. Get back to the road and go that way, go the same way the bus came.”

It felt utterly right. He knew it could be nothing more than desperate hope attempting to give him something to keep him going, and yet it felt like more than that.

Get the road, follow the bus route and find the place where he had left one world to end up in a nightmare.

From there, aren’t you?

“I am,” Eddie said. “And I’m going back.”

He stood and glanced at the dead man beside the TV.

“You’re a monster,” Eddie told the dead man.

He left the room and found the front door in the dark. It opened without a sound and Eddie listened to the music and laughter. He couldn’t be sure, but he had an idea the closest people were probably at the end of the street. From here, all he could see was a little of the pavement and road. Beyond was simple darkness.

No. Not just darkness. People, Eddie. People who want to kill you.

Eddie couldn’t argue with the calm voice. And that meant he had to run the other way, run in the dark to whatever was out there.

Eddie lifted his cricket bat and inhaled.

The night smelled of cold and he thought it might also smell of blood. He inhaled the scents as far he could and felt his earlier anger return. It was good. It was whole. He let it bury his fear and swung his bat. It whispered in the air. He liked the sound and swung it again.

“I’ll kill anyone who gets in my way,” he whispered.

Someone shrieked in the black.

They’d seen him.

Eddie heard running feet, shouts of his name, more feet.

“Come on,” Eddie bellowed. “Come and get me, you bastards.”

Swinging his bat, Eddie ran into the dark.

* * * * *

The man staggered out of the bus shelter and leaned against it. It was cold against his face; he pressed himself against it, not caring about the blood he was smearing on it, just as he didn’t care about the blood on his hands or the cricket bat.

“Home,” he croaked and dropped the ruined bat.

It clattered on the pavement. The wood split. Bits of hair and flesh fell from it. The man kicked it away. Around him, the morning light brightened with each passing moment. A few cars passed on the road; one slowed and he saw the driver gazing at him, mouth open. Once the car was out of his eyeline, it sped away as if wanting to be nowhere near him. Much farther down the road, a man was walking his dog. The dog stopped to urinate on a bush and the dog walker saw the man at the shelter. As soon as the dog had finished, its owner tugged on the lead and took the dog back the way they had come.

The man at the bus shelter breathed in and smelled the good scents of a November morning. And with the cool air and smell of melting frost, he breathed in the heavy aroma of blood coming from his skin and clothes.

“Julie,” the man whispered.

Yes. Julie. And home.

“Home,” he whispered.

Above, the sun slipped out from between the thinning clouds. Its light covered the pavement and road and damp bushes.

The man began to walk from the bus shelter and the darkness inside it.