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Alex was more than concerned; the first waves of paranoia were creeping in.
For one thing, he couldn’t move. Every time his brain sent a signal to either his arms or his legs, nothing happened. Equally frightening was that he had tried several times to shift his position, even in the slightest way, without success. He couldn’t even feel his arms or legs, or in fact his entire body.
Did he still have it?
Don’t be fucking stupid, Alex! You must at least still have your body. Otherwise, how would you be able to think things out? The blood must be circulating towards your brain and at least allowing some rational thought.
Unless, of course, his head been removed from his body and he was wired up to machinery which produced thoughts for him.
Alex decided he wasn’t going there. That was irrational!
He tried to work out whether he was horizontal or vertical, but even that seemed impossible.
Maybe that bastard, Lance Hobson, was testing out a new drug, something that wasn’t street legal, to see what kind of effect it would have.
That would obviously take time, which was another puzzle. How long had he been in his current situation? He had no way of working it out. Even if he could move his arm and check his watch, he wouldn’t be able to see it because of how dark it was.
As his thoughts were becoming clearer, he tried as hard as he could to remember the last conscious thing he’d done. He conjured up a picture of meeting Lance Hobson in the car park in Bramfield, outside the public toilets adjacent to the church. But he had no idea when that was.
He suddenly had a vision of his flat. He was in the kitchen, heating up a pan of soup. He had no recollection however of eating it.
Alex sighed. It was bloody hopeless.
Chapter Three
“It’s okay, lad. I can dispatch a car if you like.”
“Where are the others?”
“Further north, at Rudson, investigating an attempted break-in.”
“You could give them a call and see how they’re doing. If they’re nearly finished, let ’em know I’m going, and maybe they can meet me there later. After all, we don’t know what this is yet, and it’ll only take me a few minutes to walk round.”
“If you’re sure,” said Cragg.
“Course I am. Anyway, the doc said I needed the exercise for the leg.”
Gary put his helmet on and stepped out the station front door. The sky was still dark with little cloud and no breeze. The road was quiet: no traffic, no people, not even a brave fox.
The station was situated on Old Bramfield Road, to the north of the town, going towards Bursley Bridge and eventually Harrogate. Armitage’s place was in Carpenter’s Alley, behind the Market Square, at the foot of The Shambles. He estimated it would only take about ten minutes to walk, despite his leg.
It took less than a minute for the bloody thing to start aching – an annoying pulsing sensation.
The accident was still very clear in his mind. They were playing a team from Ilkley. One of their defenders was known locally – and nationally, he shouldn’t wonder – as ‘The Monster’. He’d been sent off more times than any other player in the league, and that was probably the sole reason why Ilkley Town hadn’t been promoted. Maybe their manager would see that one day.
The Bramfield defender, Steve Preece, had supplied the perfect cross for Gary. The goalkeeper was the only man to beat, and Gary reckoned it wasn’t much of a problem. Where The Monster had come from was anyone’s guess.
Gary went down like a sack of spuds, even heard the break. He hadn’t felt any pain at first. He couldn’t remember the exact point at which he had felt pain, but it had more than made up for his initial lack of it.
Gary approached the crossroads in the town centre and turned right on to Wheelgate, passing the shops. He hadn’t seen any people on his walk, and passed only a couple of vehicles approaching from the south side; one of them was a bus with no passengers.
He turned left on to Finkle Street, and his thoughts were once again with his mother.
She had a type of brain cancer called glioma. He remembered the day when she had suddenly started having epileptic fits, right out of the blue. With progression, she’d had more, and had then grown forgetful.
She was so frightened. So was he, come to mention it. He’d lost his father; he wanted to hang on to his mother.
Gary approached the old library, which led to The Shambles. As Armitage’s hardware shop came into view, he could indeed see the light burning in the window, and the front door open.
