[Unch]

By the time that Mike had showered and had cleaned up the bed, it was time to go to work. Yet again, he’d been robbed of the rest his body was crying out for.

The veil of dread and paranoia that had shrouded him the night before was still covering Mike as he sat down to his desk. He felt as if he had been relentlessly watched all morning. He was sure he caught a glimpse of Steve’s daughter on the tube train and outside the coffee shop. He had to reassure himself that it was all his imagination so he headed back to Steve’s office.

Steve’s office had been disturbed since the day before, someone had started to clear it out. On top of the desk was a small cardboard box with Steve’s personal stuff. Mike picked up a framed photograph that was resting on top. The photo was of Steve, his wife and daughter sat at a bar on a white sandy beach. Steve’s daughter looked exactly as she had in Mike’s dreams, in particular she was wearing the same bikini and sarong as in his beach nightmare.
Mike picked up the next photo, it was Steve’s daughter standing with a young man in a tux, probably a prom photo. She was smiling happily, wearing a familiar blue strapless dress and her hair up. Mike started to freak out.

Breathing slowly, Mike tried to get a grip of reality. He’d been in Steve’s office a million times, he’d probably just subconsciously picked up Steve’s daughter’s image. Hell, Steve was always blabbering on about his daughter, and how proud he was of her. It was one of the things that irked Mike all the time. It all made logical sense. Mike felt slightly better.

Stepping out of Steve’s office, Mike noticed that most of his colleagues were gathered in the centre of the office. As he approached, he could see one woman was sobbing, being comforted by another.

“Oh Mike! Have you heard?” asked one man.

“Heard what?” queried Mike.

“About Steve?” the man responded

Mike gave a blank expression and shrugged his shoulders.

“Steve died last night.”

Mike didn’t know how to respond, this was very unexpected.

“Oh?” he said.

“Yeah, no-one knows how, or what happened, but we were told this morning.” the man continued.

“Jeez” Mike muttered, walking away before he could get drawn into a conversation.

He walked back to his office and stared out of the window. In the building opposite he could see Steve’s daughter pressed up against the window staring at him with those black eyes. A blink later and she was gone.

Mike was unable to function for the rest of the day. At every turn, she was there watching over him. He could see her reflection in his computer screen watching over his shoulder as he tried to work. When he went to the toilet, he could hear her bare feet slapping against the tiles of the restroom floor.

All day the question remained, gnawing away at the back of his mind. Who or what killed Chris?

*******************

It was very late when Mike got back to his apartment. He’d avoided going home for as long as he could, eating out, and then staying at a small wine bar. All the time, feeling watched, and catching fleeting glimpses of his female tormentor. He had considered booking into a hotel for the night, but he resolved that he would not be beaten by some petty weakness. His first action was to turn on every light and close every curtain. The seduction of sweet, sweet sleep was not enough for Mike to consider going to bed just yet. Some television to calm the nerves first seemed a good idea.

Mike flicked through dozens of channels before settling on a documentary about a man trekking in South America. The beautiful vistas and the symphony of the rainforest soothed Mike’s frail nerves. He decided that he would like to try such a trek for himself someday, it would be the adventure he’d longed for for some time. Perhaps one day, he could relent from his steadfast pursuit of his career long enough to actually enjoy life.

His train of thought was derailed by the commercial break, obnoxious car insurance adverts assaulted him. He flicked through the channels until he found something that wasn’t a commercial - one of those cheesy police camera shows. The greyscale image of the infra red camera showed an aerial shot of a Land Rover speeding along a long straight road. The narrator explained the situation:

“This driver, running from the scene of a supermarket robbery ‘gone wrong’, thinks that he can lose the police helicopter by turning off his lights. This not only proved to be a futile gesture, but also a fatal mistake.”

Mike watched the Land Rover attempt to dart across a crossroads only for it to be sent spinning through the air by a giant truck crossing its path. The scene on the screen changed to a medium sized living room.

“It’s not just on the roads where night-vision cameras can prove to be a valuable crime-fighting tool.” The narrator continued.

A greyscale man entered the frame, wearing a hoodie and baseball cap, his back to the camera. The man walked towards the back of the room.

“This career criminal had been terrorising homes in South Nottingham for over a year before this infra-red footage was used to identify and convict him.”

The man suddenly stopped in his tracks before slowly turning to face the camera. Mike stared at the screen in disbelief. The man was Chris, and he was staring directly at Mike with black eyes. Chris slowly accelerated forwards, approaching the camera, holding his gaze on Mike. When he was close enough to fill the screen, Chris reached out towards Mike, his hand exiting the screen and grasping the bottom bezel, he began to pull his head and shoulders out of the picture and into Mike’s living room. Mike cowered on the sofa and let out a scream of terror.

The scream woke Mike instantly. There was a car chase through a busy city street playing out on the TV screen. Mike was covered in sweat and his heart was threatening to explode in his chest. Without any thought he leapt off the sofa and ran down the corridor to the apartment entrance, scooping up his keys and wallet on the way. He frantically fumbled at the locks on the door and once free, swung the door open, slamming it against the wall. He raced outside towards the stairwell, without even thinking of shutting, let alone locking the door behind him.

After bolting down the stairwell, Mike burst into the underground parking garage. The lights flashed, and the locks clicked on a silver Audi. Mike ran across, jumped into the car and peeled out of the place as fast as he could. Emerging onto the streets of London. He had to get away.

*******************

Driving through the sleepy streets of suburbia eased Mike’s mind somewhat. The bright lights of the city had been overloading his fragile senses, but this place reminded him of his childhood, happy and safe. Mike could feel himself calming down. The late night DJ on the radio purred about lost love or other such nonsense. All these frightening dreams made no sense to Mike, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d had a nightmare. He certainly hadn’t had one since he was a kid. He placed a hand to his temple, in a feeble attempt to ease the pain in his head. He’d been under far more stress than this in the past and he’d never had such a terrible time of it. It made no sense.

One of those 1980’s power ballads that irritated Mike began to play, but strangely he found it quite relaxing. The thought disgusted him a little, but he’d take any comfort he could get, no matter how cheesy it was. His thoughts turned to his journey, he’d been driving for a little while now and would soon be driving out of Greater London, he didn’t particularly want to end up half way across the country. He resolved that a 24 hour service station where he could get some sleep, and, more importantly, that would have people around would be best.

The song started to break up, gradually torn apart by static. Mike fumbled with the stereo trying to change the station, but he’d never been able to work the thing, so he just switched it off.

“Don’t you like that song Mike?” asked an emotionless voice in the passenger seat.

“Shit!” screamed Mike, gripping the wheel unnaturally tightly.

Steve Davidson sat in the passenger seat, back straight, but arms limp, staring solemnly ahead. “You didn’t think that you could run away from your responsibility so easily did you?” he asked, his voice eerily hollow.

“What the fuck do you want from me?” shouted Mike, half angry, half terrified.

“Only what’s right.”

“What the fuck do you mean? I don’t understand! Tell me what the fuck you mean!” demanded Mike.

“What is right.”

“Stop fucking saying that! What do you mean?” Mikes voice was filled with desperation.

“You know Mike. You know.” the hollow voice continued.

“I don’t fucking know! Why are you doing this to me?”

Steve turned his head slowly towards Mike, his face still devoid of emotion “You did this. You did this to yourself, and you did this to them.” Steve’s glance moved toward the back of the car.

Mike glanced in his mirror, he could see that there was someone in the back. He turned his head to see. There, slumped across the back seat on either side were Steve’s wife and daughter, lifeless, decomposing. Dark, formless eyes stared into the nothingness. Mike was frozen for a moment, staring as the orange glow of the street lights glided over their lifeless bodies.

“No... No!” shouted Mike defiantly. He turned away, concentrating on the road ahead again. “This is not my problem, this is not my responsibility. You lost, I won. I won because I’m the best. It is not my fault that you lost. That is your responsibility, not mine”

“If you can’t accept your responsibilities Mike there is only one way to go.”

“Damn right Steve. There is only one place I’m going, straight to the top!” Mike said feeling his natural aggression and confidence return. He turned to Steve again to complete his battle cry “Straight to the fucking top, arsehole!”

“Unfortunately not, Mike.” came the ghostly reply.

Steve turned his vacant attention to something in front of him. Mike caught a glimmer of light in the corner of his eye and turned to the road again. In front of him a vast orange fireball slowly rolled up the street towards his car, engulfing the street signs, and telephone poles in it’s path. The flames were accompanied by the distant thunder of a hundred thousand angry hooves.

Mike’s foot hesitated on the gas peddle, but reasoning kicked in and he continued course and speed.

“I’m not scared!” Mike protested loudly. The sounds grew louder as the fireball continued it’s approach. “You’re not real. You’re just a figment of my imagination. A momentary weakness.”

The defiance aggravated the fireball. Its shifted dramatically in hue, becoming deepest red that Hell could offer. It was now a hundred times more angry and violent before. Mike paused his protest, gathering all the courage he could find.

“This is just a dream!” he continued.

The fireball let out a hideous roar, it sounded like Armageddon - the explosion of all the anger in the universe, and the desperate cries of a billion dying souls.

Mike tried to continue, shouting over the noise. “And dreams can’t hurt...”

The realisation hit him. He glanced at the passenger seat, but it was empty.

“...me.”

Instantly, the fireball retracted into the distance, becoming a small steady red light in the darkness. The cataclysmic roar continued to grow louder, but it’s pitch shifted, it lost it’s complexity, it lost it’s menace. A bright light suddenly flowed into the car from the driver side windows.

“Oh Shi-”

Mike violently awoke. His car was filled with the brilliant light of the approaching truck’s headlamps, the bellow of its horn, and the screech of its tires as its driver desperately tried to brake.

The fabric of time took on a syrupy consistency. The driver’s side of the Audi began to crumple and fold like aluminium foil. The side window shattered, hundreds of glass droplets rained horizontally in front of Mike’s vision and against his face. The airbag began to slowly bubble up from the steering wheel. He could feel his body weight shift, his limbs no longer under his influence.

Mike sat through the symphony of twisting metal and splintering glass. A new, different feeling welled up inside of him. He considered it intently, it was regret. There were so many things he’d done that he knew he shouldn’t have and there were so many things that he would never get to do.

He was sorry.

One final grinding crunch in his neck made all that irrelevant.