Gary McMahon - Silent Voices

“Looks like Marty’s landed on his feet.” Brendan seemed calmer now, more focused, if exhausted. “I always knew he would, eventually.”

“He’s only flat-sitting. It isn’t his. None of this belongs to him.” Simon felt a pang of envy, or perhaps it was more like bitterness, swelling in his stomach. He didn’t want anybody thinking that one of his old gang members had been more successful than him. He’d spent a long time, and given up a lot of personal involvement, to get where he was today, and he needed everyone to know that he’d earned it and that he was the top man. He didn’t like feeling this way, but he did feel it. Simon guarded his success closely, like a private stash of wealth; he hated feeling inferior to anyone, especially the people he’d left behind.

They approached the main entrance and Simon examined the neatly hand-written name cards above the buzzers. He wasn’t sure why he was doing this, because he already knew that Marty was staying in flat seven, the penthouse. But he was nosey; he liked to know things, even if they weren’t important. Just the knowing itself represented some kind of control, and it made him feel good to gather details towards himself like a child collecting shells on a lonely beach. It was not so much that knowledge was power, but that it gave him an edge over other people when it came time to push.

He glanced at Brendan, who was looking around furtively, like a criminal keeping an eye out for trouble. He smiled. Then, turning away, he pressed the buzzer for flat number seven.

There was no audible sound from where they were standing when he buzzed, so the two men just stood on the step for a while, waiting for something to happen. When nothing did, Simon reached out and pressed the small metal button again, and then leant forward and peered through the thickened glass panel, trying to make out any kind of movement in the entryway. He saw closed doors on the ground floor level, and a concrete staircase leading up to the floors above. There was nobody there; the place seemed deserted. Potted plants stood at intervals around the ground floor, like sentinels guarding the doors of each flat. He guessed that everyone who lived there was probably out at work — all the office workers, the bankers and solicitors, who could afford these high-spec dwellings no doubt put in long hours to meet the mortgage payments. There was no evidence of any children — no bikes or buggies or mislaid toys. These places were designed for young, upwardly-mobile people: professional couples and post-graduate flat-sharers. They were empty, even when everyone was at home. He could see how easily Marty Rivers might fit in with a set-up like this, making no mark, casting no shadow; moving through the rooms and corridors like a ghost.

“Nobody home,” he said, redundantly.

“Well, that’s a bit fucking anticlimactic.” Brendan sounded angry. He turned around and walked a few steps away from the entrance, kicking at the concrete flagstones. “I left my sick child at home for this?”

“Hey, it’s fine. It’ll be okay. Let’s go for a drink somewhere and come back later. In fact, I’ll tell you what… let’s leave a note.” He took out a piece of paper from his jacket pocket and started to look for a pen.

“Here,” said Brendan, handing him a blue biro with a chewed end and no lid.

Simon flattened the paper against the glass of the door and scribbled out a quick note: We came to see you. We’ll be back. Then he folded the paper in half and in half again, before writing Marty’s name on the sheet and sliding the note under the door.

“Think it’ll do any good?” Brendan’s eyes were wide. He looked afraid. He must be more tired than Simon could even imagine.

Simon shrugged. “Fuck knows, but we have to try. What else can we do?”

They turned back to the apartment complex and stared up at the top floor. The windows were tinted; no interior light could be seen behind the dark glass. The sun, high above them, was more a promise of warmth that failed to deliver. Simon wondered if they were being watched. It certainly felt that way; as if Marty were up there, hiding, and examining their every move. Without even thinking about what he was doing, Simon raised his right hand, turned it so that the palm was directed towards the window, and opened the fingers. He made a slow fist, one finger at a time: the secret salute of the Three Amigos.

Come and see , he mouthed silently, his lips forming words that he held deep inside. Come and help us .

MARTY WATCHED THEM leave from the living room, standing before the large window in his old jeans and a torn T-shirt. He had not bathed this morning, and his mouth tasted stale. He idly rubbed the side of his stomach with the palm of his hand, feeling the lump there. It was like a growth, a tumour, and occasionally it moved — a slight twitching motion, like a dog makes while it is sleeping.

It was strange seeing his old friends again, especially together like that. They’d both changed quite a bit, but he would have recognised them anywhere. There was something about the way they moved, some trace of the children they’d been. Simon’s swagger, Brendan’s reticence… the boys had become men, and yet something vital had been left behind.

And there was the way that Simon had saluted him, just the way they used to when they were kids.

He knew why they were here. He’d picked up Simon’s messages on his voicemail. At the sound of his old friend’s voice, whatever was hiding within him — and he knew what it was; he just had trouble naming it now, because he suspected it could hear his thoughts — had turned right around inside him, hurting him. Doc had claimed that the wound was clean, that there was nothing inside, but Marty didn’t believe that. He could feel it, curling around his abdomen: a small, squat invader, using his body as a home. Part of him knew that none of this could possibly be real, but another part of him — the part that had been stunted as a child, not allowed to develop properly — knew that it was real, and he was being possessed, or haunted, or both, by something from a childhood nursery rhyme. The infant Marty Rivers’ deepest fears were manifesting inside the adult version; he was a cocoon, and soon that fear would hatch out, the egg within the egg, the horror coiled up within a nest of horrors. Soon it would return to the outside world, and Marty had no idea what might happen afterwards.

He turned away from the window and grabbed his drink. Whisky for breakfast again: this was becoming a habit. He took a sip and went through into the bedroom, where he stripped off his T-shirt and stood before the mirror. His body was smooth, the muscles visible beneath his skin. At first glance, it looked like he had a bit of a belly, like the unfit farts who hung around on the old estate. Then, upon further investigation, it was clear that the bulge in his abdomen was irregular; it wasn’t formed by layers of fat. There was something… unnatural, weird and disturbing about it.

He laid a hand on the bulge and felt it shiver. It was like being pregnant, he supposed, and the thought was almost amusing.

Almost.

He recalled a newspaper report from a few years ago about a man who’d gone through breast implant surgery after a drunken bet. There was full-spread story in one of the red-top newspapers, with photos showing the man proudly displaying his new breasts in a low-cut shirt, the top buttons undone to show off his cleavage. At the time the images had repelled Marty; they had made him afraid in a way that he didn’t understand, and this had quickly turned to disgust. Right now, standing before the mirror and examining his own altered form, he realised that it was the notion of invasion, of something foreign being present inside a person’s body that had caused him such grief. That was why he’d never liked women with fake breasts; the thought of something underneath their skin, nestling there, had always made him feel slightly afraid.