Iain Reid: I'm Thinking of Ending Things

He’s still there, in the same spot. Standing, looking this way. Looking at me. I want to yell out, “What have you done with Jake?” But why would I? How do I know if he’s done anything to Jake? I need to keep still, quiet. I’m too scared. He’s a tall, skinny figure. I can’t see clearly enough. The hall is so long. He looks old, maybe stoop-shouldered. He’s wearing dark-blue pants, I think. A dark shirt, too: looks like work clothes.

What’s on his hands? Yellow gloves? Rubber gloves? The yellow extends halfway up his forearms. There’s something on his head. I can’t see his face. It’s a mask. I shouldn’t look. I should stay down, hidden. I should be looking for a way out of this. I’m sweating. I can feel it on my neck, my back.

He’s holding the mop. He might be moving it around the floor now. I’m squinting hard. He’s moving. Almost like he’s dancing with the mop.

I lean back against the wall, out of sight. When I look again, he’s gone. No, he’s there! He’s on the floor. He’s lying facedown on the floor. His arms are tucked along his sides. He’s just lying there. His head might be moving, from side to side. Up and down a bit, too, maybe. I don’t like this. Is he crawling? He is. He’s crawling, slithering down the hall, off to his right.

This isn’t good. I have to find Jake. We have to get out of here. We have to leave right now. This is seriously wrong.

I run to the side door. I have to go in.

I pull the handle. It’s open. I step through. The floor is tiled. The hall is very dimly lit and stretches out in front of me, endless.

“Jake?”

There’s a distinct smell in here, antiseptic, chemical, cleaning products. It won’t be good for my head. I’d forgotten about my headache but am reminded of it. A dull ache. Still there.

“Hello?”

I take a few steps. The door closes behind me with a heavy click.

“JAKE!”

There’s a wood-and-glass display case to my left. Trophies and plaques and banners. Farther ahead, on the right, must be the main office. I walk up to the office windows and look in. It looks old, the furniture, chairs, and carpet. There are several desks.

The rest of the hall ahead of me is all lockers. Dark ones, painted blue. As I move down the hall I pass doors in between the lockers. All the doors are closed. The lights are out. There’s another hall at the end of this one.

I go up to one of the doors and try it. It’s locked. There’s a single, vertical rectangular window. I look in. Desks and chairs. A typical classroom. The overhead lights in the hall seem to be on a dim setting. Maybe to conserve energy. They aren’t very bright in this hall.

My wet shoes squeak on the floor with each step. It would be hard to walk quietly. There’s a set of open double doors at the end of the hall. I get to those, look through, right, then left.

“Jake? Hello? Is anyone here? Hello?”

Nothing.

I walk through and turn left. More lockers. Except for the pattern on the floor, which is a different design and color, this hallway is identical to the other. Down the next hallway, I see an open door. It’s a wooden door, no window. But it’s wide-open. I walk down the hall and take a small step inside. I knock on the open door.

“Hello?”

The first thing I see is a silver bucket with grayish water in it. There’s something familiar about this room. I knew how it would look before I got here. The bucket’s the kind on four wheels. And there’s no mop. I think about calling for Jake again but don’t.

The room — it feels more like a large closet — is mostly empty, dingy. I take a couple of steps in and see there’s a calendar taped on the far wall. There’s a drain in the middle of the concrete floor. It looks wet.

At the back and left of the room, against the wall, is a wooden table. I don’t see a chair. Beside it is a closet. It’s not elaborate, just a tall closet. It looks like a coffin standing on its end.

I walk carefully, stepping over the drain, to the back. There are pictures on the wall, too. Photos. A dirty coffee cup on the table. One set of silverware. A plate. A white microwave on a desk. I lean in to look at the pictures. In one of the photos taped to the wall is a man and woman. A couple. Or maybe brother and sister; they look alike. The man is old. He’s tall, much taller than the woman. She has straight, gray hair. They both have long faces. Neither is smiling. Neither looks happy or sad. They’re stiff, expressionless. It’s an odd photo to display on a wall. Someone’s parents?

A few of the other photos are of a man. He doesn’t seem aware that his picture is being taken, or if he does, he’s reluctant. The top of his head isn’t in the photo; it’s cut out of the frame. In one, he’s sitting at a desk and it could be this desk. He’s leaning away and covering his face with his left hand. The quality isn’t very good. All the pictures are blotchy. Faded. This must be him, the man Jake saw, the one I saw in the hall.

I look closer, examining his face in the photos. His eyes are sad. They’re familiar. Something about his eyes.

My heartbeat has become noticeable, speeding up again. I can feel it. What was he doing before we arrived? There’s no way he could have known we, or anyone, would be here. I don’t know him.

In the middle of the desk, besides a few papers, is a piece of cloth, a rag, rumpled into a ball. I hadn’t noticed it at first. I pick it up. It’s clean and very soft, like it’s been washed hundreds, thousands of times.

But no. It’s not a rag at all. Once I unravel it, I see it’s a little shirt, for a child. It’s light blue with white polka dots. One of the sleeves is ripped. I turn it over. There’s a tiny paint stain in the middle of the spine. I drop it. I know this shirt. The polka dots, the paint stain. I recognize it. I had the same one.

This was my shirt. It couldn’t be my shirt. But it is. When I was a kid. I’m sure of it. How did it end up in here? On the other side of the desk is a small video camera. It’s attached to the back of a TV with two cables.

“Hello?” I say.

I pick up the camera. It’s old but still fairly light. I look at the TV and push the power button. It’s static. I want to leave. I don’t like this. I want to go home.

“Hey!” I yell. “Jake!”

I carefully put the camera back down on the desk. I try the play button. The screen flickers. It’s not just static anymore. I lean in toward the TV. The shot is of a room. A wall. I can hear something in the shot. I find the volume button on the TV and turn it up, loud. It’s like a humming or something. And breathing. Is it breathing? It’s this room. It’s the room I’m standing in. I recognize the wall, the photos, and the desk. The shot moves down now, lower, to the floor.

The image starts moving, leaves out the door, travels along the hall. I can hear slow steps of the person filming, steps like rubber boots on the tile floor. The pace is methodical, deliberate.

The camera enters a large room, what appears to be the school’s library. It moves purposefully, straight ahead, through rows of communal desks, stacks and shelves of books. There are windows at the back. It goes all the way to the windows. They are long, with floor-to-ceiling horizontal blinds. The camera stops, stays very still, and continues recording.

A hand or something, just out of the frame, moves one of the blinds slightly to the left. They jingle. The camera moves up and looks through a window. Outside is a truck. That’s the old pickup out back.

The shot zooms in on the truck. It draws in closer, shakier. The quality, zoomed in like this, isn’t great. There’s someone in the truck. Sitting in the driver’s seat. It almost looks like Jake. Is that Jake? No, it can’t be. But it really looks like…