Silent Voices Read Online Free PDF Page B

right to left. It moved with a staggering gait, as if whoever it was had been drinking heavily.
    It’s a doper , he thought. He’s stoned and doesn’t know where he is.
    He relaxed slightly, more sure of himself now that he could put a name to his fear. Drug users had been known to break into the Needle to shoot up or smoke crack; kids sometimes came here to fuck; once or twice the most desperate transients had even popped in for a night’s sleep.
    “Show yourself. Come into the main space here, and I’ll escort you off the premises. If you do not comply, I will be forced to call for police back-up and you will be arrested.” He thought that he sounded like some sad old rent-a-cop: a pathetic character in a shitty movie. “This is private property. You are trespassing.”
    The figure stumbled back into view. It was thin, unsteady on its feet, and had now turned to face the doorway.
    “That’s right. Just come through here and we can sort this out the easy way.”
    Brendan flicked his wrist to bring the torch beam around, so that he might highlight the figure. The man stood framed in the doorway, his clothes dirty and ragged, his hands clutching the shattered wooden frame, and his face a white featureless mass hovering above his narrow shoulders.
    “Shit.” Brendan stepped backwards, almost tripping on a pile of something directly behind him. “What the fuck?” The torch beam danced across the walls, striping the figure as it advanced through the doorway and into what used to be the main entrance hall, but was now just a vast space filled with junk.
    The man moved slowly. His arms hung loosely at his sides. His bloated white head was rigid, locked facing forward. He had no eyes. No mouth. Just a tattered white mask, an image from a nightmare...
    ...and then Brendan realised that the man’s face was bandaged. He was limping; he wasn’t drunk or stoned, but injured. He dragged his feet across the filthy floor, twisting his hips awkwardly and moving towards the sound of Brendan’s voice.
    “Are you okay, mate?” Brendan no longer felt threatened. The man was unwell. He had clearly come here to hide his infirmities away from the world. Cursed with his own medical condition, this was a reaction Brendan could understand – he empathised with the man’s desire to hide, to lock himself away from a mocking world.
    He remembered the names he’d been called at school: Rashback, Beam-Me-Up-Spotty, Dot-to-Dot ... and a hundred more, each worse than the last. The skin across his shoulders and the top of his back cried out in sympathy; his pain reached out to this other man’s agonies, like a hand across a chasm.
    The man with the bandaged face made a low, soft sound, somewhere between a cry and a sigh.
    “It’s okay, mate. I won’t hurt you. Come on; let’s get you out of here. I have food and drink back at the cabin.”
    The man reached out a hand and it flailed in the air like a damaged bird.
    Brendan grabbed the hand and tugged, helping the man across the detritus-covered floor. Close up, the bandages were surprisingly clean. They looked fresh, as if they’d been recently applied. Somebody somewhere was looking after this man, and they were making sure he kept his dressings clean. That was something, at least; it meant that he wasn’t completely alone in the world. There was someone to tend to his most basic needs, to treat him like a human being.
    Brendan guided the man towards the door, feeling invisible eyes upon him as he turned his back on the interior of the Needle. He always felt this way, as if the building itself were watching him, waiting for him to slip up. He’d overcome his surface fears, but other terrors ran deeper, caught in the blood and the marrow. Some terrors could never be beaten, no matter how hard you fought against them.
    “Come on, mate,” he said, as they left the building and returned to the relative safety of the night. “I’ll put the kettle on and we can have a little chat.