All Sorts of Possible (26 page)

They knew who it was before Frank appeared in the doorway, a black revolver in his hand.

He stared at them. Sunlight glancing off the muzzle of the gun.

‘Where is he? His car’s still here. What’s happened to him? Has he mugged me off? Has he?’

Sunlight mottled the floor.

Daniel heard a sound behind him.

The crick of joints.

The gasp of a breath.

And he looked back round at the body in the priest hole as it started clawing the webs from its dirty clothes, combing the grime and dirt from its hair. Its lungs like paper bags as they
crackled.

As the man opened his eyes, he smiled at Daniel. And then he looked beyond the boy and saw Frank moving towards him with the gun pointed, his mouth wide open.

‘What the hell are you doing here? You’re supposed to be dead!’ Frank’s tongue whipped round the outside of his mouth like a lizard licking its lips and he fired a
shot.

The man put his hands to his chest and suddenly they were leaking red. He tried to push the blood back in, but it was coming too fast and he looked up with bright blue eyes as he fell back into
the priest hole, the dust flying and the air fresheners scattering in his wake.

Rosie tried pushing the brick into the wall of the cellar again, but it wouldn’t budge.

‘Give her a hand,’ growled Frank, waggling the gun at Daniel.

But it was no use.

‘Harder or I’ll shoot the girl first.’

The two of them pushed with all their strength and the brick began to move. At first they heard the sound of something opening beneath the floor of the cellar and then water starting to rush
away. The trapdoor popped open as the water continued to run.

Wet steps below. Bright and grey.

The water was still going down and all three of them watched the slick walls grow taller, Frank flashing his phone as he told Daniel to wave his too.

At first a black heel, like a fin. And then a trouser leg, bedraggled, pasted to the leg of Jiff, his humped back emerging like a tiny island until the rest of him began to appear. When Mason
floated up against the bottom step, they heard the gentle
thock
of his bald head against the stone.

‘Go and get them,’ said Frank, as the last of the water gurgled away. ‘Now!’ he shouted and waggled the gun.

Rosie and Daniel struggled to drag Mason up the steps between them, treading carefully on the greasy stones, and laid him in the cellar. But Jiff had slid away from the steps and was lying in
the middle of the floor and the two of them were wary of fetching him out until Rosie noticed that the floor was lower than it had been before, because a border of red brickwork was showing all
around the wall.

They wondered why until Daniel worked it out. ‘I think it must have to be reset, otherwise whoever built this would have had the same trouble as us getting a body out.’

He stepped out on to the floor and walked towards Jiff, one foot in front of the other like a tightrope walker going carefully. Rosie followed him too. And they picked Jiff up and carried him
across the floor and up the steps. As they emerged into the cellar, they heard cogs grinding in the walls and the floor began to rise, finally locking back into place, the red section of brickwork
gone.

Frank motioned with the light from his phone at the steps out of the cellar. ‘Take them upstairs,’ he said.

The two wet bodies were laid in the living room across bars of sunshine on the floor. They steamed like they were gently cooking on a grill.

Frank took the flask from his pocket and threw it to Daniel.

‘Now do to them what you did to the other one.’

‘I don’t know how it wor—’

‘Yes you do. That man in the hole, that
body
. He was dead. I killed him first time around a couple of months ago and then he was suddenly getting up. So I know that something
happened. What he was doing here, you’ll tell me later. But first things first.’ He waved the black revolver at Daniel. ‘Bring them back like you did the first one.’

Daniel knelt in front of Jiff and tried not to look at his face or his eyes as he unscrewed the cap on the flask and tipped it up over the man’s head and allowed a few drops to escape. And
then he moved across to Mason and did the same, the droplets hitting his bald head with a smack before seeming to melt and disappear into the skin.

Nothing happened at first.

‘More,’ said Frank. ‘Pour on more.’

But, as Daniel started to unscrew the cap again, Jiff began to move, squirming like a big fish landed on the deck of a boat. He rolled over on to his side and threw up the water in his lungs,
rinsing the dust from the floorboards around him.

And then Mason began moving too, his body convulsing like he was being shocked, and when he threw up the water it came out green and dirty and Daniel stepped back from it until he butted up
against the wall.

Jiff stood up and blinked and then looked at Mason who was still sitting on the wet floor, staring at Daniel. When he pointed at the flask in the boy’s hands, Daniel just nodded and Mason
began to laugh. He slapped his wet thighs so hard he sent up a spray of water.

Rosie and Daniel were driven back to Lawson’s house in the blue BMW with Mason sitting between them in the rear seats. He smelt stale and wet. He was jabbering to Jiff
who was driving. He wouldn’t stop.

Frank drove behind them in his own car.

It was only when they got inside the house that Jiff noticed that something was different. He looked at himself in the mirror in the hall, his clothes half drying on him, and
stood sideways. And then he took off his jacket and his shirt and inspected his bare torso.

‘It’s gone!’ he shouted. ‘My hump’s disappeared.’

He turned to show Frank and Mason and they looked at his back, the spine straight and the shoulders back, the hump gone. Mason took off his jacket too and undid his shirt and checked his
stomach.

‘That scar, the one I got at Jimmy’s . . .’ He trailed off, his fingers feeling the skin for any blemish. He cricked his neck. Shook his shoulders. ‘How do you feel,
Jiff?’

‘Marvellous.’ Jiff grinned. ‘How about you?’

Mason struck a bodybuilder pose. ‘More than marvellous.’ And he slapped Daniel on the shoulder. ‘You little beauty,’ he said.

Mason and Jiff took showers, rubbing the dust and the grime from their bodies. Cleaning off what the dirty water had left on them. They put on dry clothes and toasted each
other with brandies and then Frank who had come to save them.

And, all the while, Rosie and Daniel sat on the sofa in the sitting room, as Frank kept an eye on them.

Eventually, Mason came and sat next to them, landing on the sofa with a thump. He toasted them too and drained his brandy and put the glass down on the table in front of him.

‘You know what you’ve done and I can’t put that behind me. I’m not a good man so I can’t forgive. It’s your fate to suffer for what you tried to do just as
it’s my fate to go on living. It’s an indisputable fact.’ He rapped on his chest. ‘Because here I am, better than ever. Just like Jiff there.’ He pointed at Jiff on
the opposite sofa who raised his glass.

‘And that’s given me an idea.’ He grinned at Daniel. ‘Go on, have a guess.’

Daniel shifted uneasily on the couch. Shook his head. But Mason kept staring. ‘I don’t know,’ he said.

Mason nodded, put his hands on top of his head and then went on. ‘Well, it’s a great idea. And it involves Rosie too. You see this collector is going to pay a lot more when he sees
what the flask can do. We can show him. I’ll name my price once I’ve killed Rosie and brought her back to life in front of his eyes.’ Mason beamed as Rosie’s mouth began to
open slowly, her face turning even whiter. ‘I’ll be gentle, I promise. Don’t you want to be cured, Rosie? Get rid of your tumour? There’ll be no more chemotherapy then.
You’ll come back even better, like Jiff and me.’

‘I’m a new man!’ shouted Jiff and downed his drink.

Mason poured another brandy and swilled it round the glass, making the early evening sunlight spin inside it. ‘And then you two’ll make the fit whenever I want you to for as long as
I want. You owe me that after your little scheme. You’re in my debt.’ He drank down the brandy in one and then stood up. ‘I’m going to give this collector a call.’

When Jiff held the brandy bottle upside down, a single golden drop landed on his tongue.

He set it down next to the first empty one and started opening a third bottle.

Sitting on the sofa, Daniel and Rosie could hear Mason upstairs, talking on the phone. He was laughing.

Frank sat back in his chair and raised his glass and then downed what was in it and cleared his throat. He licked the scar on his cleft lip. ‘Tell me what it’s like, Jiff.’

‘What?’

‘Feeling so great. Being reborn.’

‘What do you think?’ And Jiff started laughing as he tugged at the wrapping round the bottle. Then he stopped and looked round. ‘Why don’t you try it?’

‘Nah.’

‘Why not?’ Jiff raised his hands and pointed at himself and then nodded over at Daniel. ‘I could do him and show you how quick it is.’

‘Wasted on him,’ said Frank.

Jiff nodded. He fumbled at the cap on the bottle when he felt a throbbing in his head and cursed as his fingers slipped. ‘I need a drink.’

He poured another brandy for himself and then filled Frank’s glass, bending down to study the man’s cleft lip. ‘You shouldn’t be so chicken. I could make you handsome,
you know.’

Frank said nothing as he stared at the golden flask on the table in front of him. Then he took a sip from his glass and set it down. He took the black revolver out of his jacket pocket and
handed it to Jiff. ‘Make it quick,’ he said.

‘How quick do you wa—’ but before he could finish, Jiff raised the gun and fired point-blank at Frank’s forehead.

Frank slumped back in his chair, dead in an instant.

Jiff tossed the gun into Frank’s lap and finished his drink. Sniffed and admired his handiwork.

He smiled at Daniel and Rosie, and then turned round to pick up the flask from the table beside the empty brandy bottles. He missed it and grinned. ‘I’m so drunk,’ he said.
But, when he went to pick up the flask again, he missed a second time. He looked at his hand and then at the flask and reached slowly for it, watching his fingers slip through one side and out the
other.

When he tried the other hand, it wafted through the flask too. He turned to Daniel. ‘Get up! Get the flask open. Get it open!’ But Daniel just sat there, watching Jiff’s
panicked face. He managed to pick up the flask between his elbows and unscrew the cap with his teeth. But, as he spat out the cap, the flask fell straight through his elbows and landed on the
floor, spilling the contents into the carpet.

‘No,’ gasped Jiff, shaking his head ‘No!’ He kicked out, but his foot went straight through the flask. He bent down and tried to lick the wet carpet, but his tongue
touched nothing.

Quickly, he turned to look at Frank and screamed at the bloody mess in the chair as his whole body started to fade.

Mason had heard the gunshot. And he had heard the scream. He came down the stairs and strode into the living room and saw Frank in the chair, his brains sprayed on to the wall
behind him.

When he saw the flask on the floor, he picked it up and swilled it round next to his ear. He tipped it up and there was not a single drop left.

‘Where’s Jiff?’

‘Gone,’ replied Daniel.

‘Gone where?’

Mason bent down to pick up the gun from Frank’s lap, but his hand wafted through it. He tried again.

He looked up. ‘What do you mean gone?’

When Daniel and Rosie said nothing, Mason stood up and stepped back from them. ‘What do you mean gone?’ he said quietly, holding up his hands in front of his face and staring
straight through them at the two of them sitting there on the sofa, watching.

After Mason had vanished too, there was nothing but the sound of Frank’s chin dripping red spots on to his chest.

When Daniel sat down opposite his aunt, he felt something heavy lurch in his stomach. He just kept staring at his father lying there in the bed.

And then he heard the silence.

The room was much whiter without all the machines.

‘Daniel?’

‘I’m OK.’ He wiped his eyes and the wet tips of his fingers shone before he dried them on his jeans. But then something uncoiled in his throat and he started to cry without
being able to stop, losing sight of his dad as he put his hands to his face and stared into nothing.

When he realized his aunt was holding him, he tensed up, but she kept a tight grip on him until he fell deeper into her arms and sobbed until he was spent, his breath hiccuping in dry
bursts.

She stroked his hair. She whispered things to him. And eventually she held his hand and they sat together in silence, looking at the dead man in the bed.

‘I know the things I’m feeling can’t compare to what’s inside you,’ said his aunt. ‘But I do care, so much, Daniel. I want you to know that.’

Daniel nodded. ‘I know.’ He sniffed.

They sat there quietly, saying nothing for a while.

‘Can you tell me now?’

‘About what?’

‘Why you and Dad fell out.’

‘Why?’

‘Because I’m not sure I want to make the same mistake.’

His aunt smiled and then she shook her head and sighed. ‘I’m not sure I can even remember.’

But Daniel squeezed her hand. ‘It’s important. Because I don’t want the same thing to ever happen to us. Remember, we’re all we’ve got now.’

His aunt nodded. Something electric crimped her lips for a moment and she had to look away. And then she cleared her throat. ‘It was something to do with the funeral. I don’t
remember exactly. The flowers, the choice of hymns, something small.’ Daniel’s aunt stared at a spot on the floor. ‘It’s the little things that fester and grow, that can
break people apart if you don’t address them.’ She tapped her head. ‘They grow into bigger things up here.’