Jameson’s eyes turned hard. Speaking with a slow, careful rhythm, as though to a small child, he changed the whole of Greg’s existence with cold candour. “Listen, and try to concentrate on what I say. I am Gregory Summers. I’ve lived in this house for three years. I met Jennifer when I was twenty-two, and she’s been my wife for six years.”
Greg’s face was an open display of raging incomprehension. The man claiming his name seemed to feel for him.
“Look, do you have a wallet?”
“In…in my car. The glove compartment.”
“I’ll be back in a minute. The Focus, yes?”
As Greg nodded, he teetered. Was this other man confused? Why was he trying to convince Greg that he was not Greg? Again and again the same repetitive, compelling question revolved through his mind. What the hell is going on?
The door clicked shut, telling him that Jameson had returned. In his hand was a wallet Greg recognised as his own. Picking through it, Jameson found the driving licence and read it aloud.
“Your name is Richard Jameson. You live in a flat at Manorfield Place. Recognise it?” Mute, Greg shook his head. It must be a trick.
“You still don’t…” Sighing, as though he was becoming bored destabilising Greg’s entire life, he went through to the front room.
When he returned he carried a framed picture that Greg knew very well. His wedding photograph. Jen loved that dress, and found an excuse to wear it each year on their anniversary. Even her smile was exactly as he remembered it.
Yet the photo was now fundamentally different. Standing in his place, in almost exactly the same pose Greg recalled assuming, was this other man. Jameson. Summers.
It was all true.
Greg screamed.
CHAPTER SEVEN
GRATIFICATION
Like a hot white light, the power flows through her. Though more than halfway through her meal, she knows she has left it almost too long since the last. But now it is done. Nerves that were dead flare back to life, drowning her in a tidal wave of sensation. Every cell in her body explodes with euphoria, pleasure clinging to her insides like sticky debris. Each touch of the breeze on her skin lends her a tremble of delight.
Through fluttering eyelids she watches the tank refill for Stage Three. In doing so she rejoices that her suspicions have proven correct. Her victim is not just potent, he is laden. She wonders faintly if he has family, if there are more like him to sup from, then remembers. No, there will be no more culling from that clan. But this one is proving ample to satisfy her appetites. She extends her tongue, licking her perfect lips in anticipation.
She is stronger than she has been for months. The hunt itself has been rewarding on many levels, for he ran far sooner than the others. Before him she had been unaware of the added trauma caused by prolonging the endgame. She will note it, and incorporate it in the future.
As the sensations fade she is almost too dazed to continue the delve. Knowing that she has missed a brief portion of the event disappoints her, but it is ultimately worthwhile. Allowing her orgasming senses to clear a little, she slips smoothly back into the specimen.
CHAPTER EIGHT
REBIRTH
“One a day, after a meal, and you’ll feel like a new man.”
A new man. The irony was not lost on him. Not Gregory Summers at all, but Richard Jameson.
After seeing the altered wedding photograph he had screamed for fully half an hour, had been screaming still when the ambulance arrived. Once at the hospital the staff had been forced to sedate him, dumping him into restless unconsciousness for the remainder of the day.
On awakening he had been subjected to over a dozen tests, all of which proved inconclusive. Nothing, as far as the medical staff could ascertain, was wrong with him. In the end they had kept him in a second night, he suspected because they could think of nothing else to do, then released him on Tuesday morning when further tests also failed to identify a problem. The pills they gave him were simple antidepressants, prescribed to do nothing more than prevent a level of excitement that could trigger another attack. Needing all of his faculties about him, Greg had no intention of taking them.
It was difficult to consider his potential illness with any sense of urgency. Next to everything else which was happening around him it was little more than an inconvenience, a problem for the long term which faded away beneath the din of the screaming short term. For example, he was now free to leave hospital and return to his life. Except that he had no idea which life he was supposed to be returning to. One thing was for certain - he could not go home. Whatever was happening, it had been made clear that he was unwelcome there. Which left him with nothing. No one.
Except Richard Jameson, the person he was supposed to be.
He pulled his phone from his pocket. Looking at it was pain, for it brought thoughts of Jennifer to the fore, but he swallowed angst and opened the cover to see the label on the reverse. Again he was struck by how similar the handwriting was to his own. Of course, he realised, it was meant to be his own. There was an address. Unfamiliar, yes, but somewhere to go, to start. It was time to take an active role in the weirdness surrounding him.
Hailing a taxi took almost ten minutes, but he was too preoccupied to notice the delay. As soon as one pulled up he jumped in.
“Seven Manorfield Place, please.”
As the journey progressed, anxiety started to well in him again. It was easier than last time though. At least this was a fear of the unknown. Never again would he have cause to fear the known, for he would never again be able to trust in it. As with all bad movies he expected, at any moment, to wake up from this bewildering nightmare. Of course you are Gregory Summers, he told himself. Who else could you be? From the back of his mind, subverting the confidence he was trying to establish, a voice gave him the answer. Richard Jameson.
“I don’t even know the man!” Greg only realised he had spoken aloud when the driver turned to glance at him.
“Sorry mate?”
“Nothing, sorry, thinking aloud.” The cabbie returned his attention to the radio.
Cursing under his breath, Greg realised he had not been watching the route they were taking. Being unfamiliar with Central London, he had wanted to keep an eye out for any landmarks he might recognise, for future reference. At present he was almost certain they were driving through the Docklands. Every now and again he thought he saw Canary Wharf towering over the district, and he kept getting flashes of the river between buildings.
Slowing to a halt, the driver checked the cost of the journey.
“Thirteen pounds sixty, mate.”
“We’re here?”
“Manorfield Place, innit?”
Greg was amazed. Somewhere at the back of his mind he had been supposing that he would end up in some dingy little flat hanging over a shop somewhere. It fitted with the erosion of his life that his fake address be a pale shadow of his real one.
But this…Christ, this was the Docklands! You couldn’t ask to live in a more exclusive area of London. The taxi was parked outside an extremely impressive set of riverside apartments. He checked his phone cover, confirming the address. It was correct.
“Look mate, you getting out, yeah?” The cabbie was losing patience with his confused passenger.
“Yes, of course.” He quickly counted out the money for the fare, added a tip, and climbed from the vehicle. As the taxi drove off, he sneaked another look into his wallet. For the first time, he realised how much money was he was carrying. Christ, there were hundred pound notes packed in there. He couldn’t remember the last time he had held a crisp new hundred.
Dazed, he walked up the path to the apartment block. It was a lovely area, landscaped trees, small lawns, and flower beds dividing Manorfield Place from similar high-rise blocks. Gulls flapped and whirled over the Thames, ducking and rising among the sleek modern buildings littering the Isle of Dogs. He felt humbled as he approached the glass doors. A uniformed doorman looked up as he entered, and Greg
felt radiant guilt flush across his face. After all, he was an intruder there. Before he could stammer out an apology, the doorman beamed at him.
“Mr Jameson! Haven’t seen you for a good few days sir.” It took a moment before Greg realised he was supposed to be Jameson. Then it took a moment more to suspend his disbelief that a stranger had recognised him as such.
“Yes, um, business I’m afraid.” Sceptical, the doorman eyed his crumpled suit.
“So I see sir.”
Greg smiled in a way he hoped would suggest that both he and the doorman were men of the world, then strolled towards the stairs. Praying that his flat was not on the ground floor, he started to climb.
“Feel like the exercise, is it sir? Floor six kills me every time.”
Again Greg grinned a tight grin, then continued his climb. At the first floor he stopped to wait for the elevator.
A strong, ersatz Victorian feel dominated the interior of the building, comforting and rich. Even the elevator doors were wood clad. Greg shook his head. Surely he would remember living somewhere like this. It merely confirmed his theory that it was the rest of the world, as opposed to himself, which had gone mad.
With a polite little chime the elevator doors opened. Greg stepped inside, relieved to find himself alone. Easy enough to bluff a bored doorman, but what if he bumped into a neighbour whom he was supposed to be good friends with? Sighing his confusion, he pushed the button for floor six.
As the doors slid back he found himself stepping into a corridor with only two doors. Wandering along the plush red carpet, he had no difficulty ascertaining which flat was his. A brass plaque bore Jameson’s name in large round letters.
A brief surge of fear zigzagged through him. In that moment of clarity he saw what he was doing, and it scared him. He was so close to accepting that he was Richard Jameson, not Greg Summers. Thinking of the flat as his own was easy, and he was very nearly succumbing to the temptation of claiming a life, any life, as his own. Everyone else was so sure that he was this man Jameson, so why not he? It was as though he were being guided into a new identity, the lure being a considerable one. In the past few days he had been relieved of his home, his wife, his very self. In truth, having somewhere else to go was as comforting as it was confusing. Jameson certainly appeared a promising identity to slip into, for anyone who could live somewhere like Manorfield Place had made an ostentatious success of life. Perhaps far more so than Greg Summers.
All that prevented him from leaping body and soul into the illusion was his own bafflement. The incredulous scenario could not be so easily accepted, his practical nature assured that. Greg Summers was not a man to be fooled around with.
But still, that subversive part of his mind insisted that Richard Jameson might be.
Pushing the fear to one side, he promised himself that acceptance would not happen. In entering this flat he was doing nothing more than exposing a piece of the puzzle that was this whole deception. Until he knew who was playing this game he would be unable to confront them. To find out who that might be he must accede to the rules for a little longer. All the rules indicated that he temporarily assume the identity of Richard Jameson.
More secure with this interpretation of his actions, he fished his keys from his pocket. Nervous, for if the keys did not fit here he would have no other plan of action to follow, he placed them in the lock. They turned. This is it, he thought. I am taking affirmative action.
With the trepidation palpable, he pushed open the door. His step, affirmative or otherwise, took him into a world he could only have imagined a week before. In his most arrogant moments he had fantasised about living this lifestyle. He was not walking into an apartment; this was a damned penthouse.
Open plan in design, the main living space was huge. Stumbling vaguely through the door, he was astounded by the luxury that surrounded him. Sparsely decorated, the room still shone decadence.
Against one wall was an enormous bookshelf, packed full of hardback works. Running his eyes across the spines, he was impressed by how well read Jameson was. Fiction and non-fiction, esoteric tomes sitting next to commercially successful works. Plays, novels, poetry, biographies, philosophy, science. Greg was not an unlearned man, but his reading tastes had never developed further than what the critics labelled sensationalist trash. Ranged in front of him was a literati's dream collection. Whether for show or pleasure, Jameson was a collector.
Turning away from the impressive ensemble of titles, Greg surveyed the rest of the room. A massive widescreen television and blu-ray, both top of the range models wired into a high-end surround sound set-up. More shelves, this time stacked with DVDs and Blu-ray discs as culturally diverse as the books. Next to the windows, which stretched from ceiling to floor across the entire outside wall, sat a desk which was obviously a workspace. On it sat an Apple laptop, various pieces of hardware and a printer. He could only assume that these were as expensive as the rest of the flat indicated.
Furniture was sparse, consisting only of a deep green futon next to the bookcase, with matching beanbags opposite the television. So deep was the pile carpet that he felt a childish urge to take off his shoes and socks so that he could walk barefoot through it.
Collapsing on the futon, he shook his head in astonishment. Why would anybody set up so elaborate a deception as had occupied him over the last few days, only to expect him to accept this as his own? According to his opponent, and this was how he had begun to think of the manipulator he assumed to be behind these events, he was loaded. A millionaire, to be living this lifestyle. There had to be a catch, something to make him despair as previous events had. Where the hell was it?
At least Jennifer was not the opponent he sought. While in hospital he had toyed with the idea that this could be a cruel revenge on her part, perhaps sparked off by her stumbling across some careless indication that he was having an affair. Though knowing this to be elaborate and unlikely, it still sounded better than the other fantastical ideas his head created in the search of illumination. In his heart though, he had known that Jennifer could never be so creative and vindictive. Now he had the additional satisfaction of knowing that her budget could not have stretched so far as to hire this place for even a day. Besides, what sense was there in punishing him by immersing him in luxury? Her involvement in all this must surely be that of a dupe, convinced to go along with whatever insane scheme had twisted his life apart.
Convinced by who? He had sufficient self-awareness to know that he was unlikely to have the proverbial ‘powerful enemies’. He and his life were too mundane to have attracted attention from any hostile quarter. Even in his humble insurance job he was well liked and respected.
Still wondering, he resolved to explore the rest of the apartment. Four doors led off from the room he was sitting in. The first he tried, set into the bookcase wall, was nothing more than an extended closet. Dozens of coats and suits, all of the finest quality, hung above rows of shoes. As large as his hallway back home, the space was carpeted with the same pile as the main room and was easily walked into. A large mirror was set into the far wall. Greg was relieved to find his own image staring back at him, for at least he still looked the same man he remembered from last week. Shaking his head again, he closed the door. Investigating a closet for clues seemed a little too ludicrous, even given his current circumstances.
The second door in what he thought of as the reading wall led into a kitchen. Fully fitted with what looked like a rich oak finish, the space was a model of culinary efficiency. Everything had a place, and was arranged with a utilitarian economy that Greg simply did not possess. Every modern appliance was available, and the corner of the room was fitted with a pull out table and stool. Jameson was obviously a solitary eater, although the nature of the room indicated that cookery was an act he enjoyed. Nothing appealed to Greg less, but he could appreciate the elegance of the idea.
This room was also quickly abandoned. He would have a closer look later, but was fairly certain that the a
nswer to his problems did not lurk amongst knife racks and espresso machines.
Also impressive, and just as unforthcoming, was the bathroom. Set into the floor was a tub almost large enough to qualify as a pool, with a toilet and bidet in the far corner of the room, and a walk in shower standing separate beside them. Shaving equipment and expensive toiletries were neatly arranged next to another huge mirror. Jameson was something of a narcissist.
Again this was given but a glance before his investigation moved on, leaving him just one door to open. It led into the bedroom. Here, at last, were the shocks Greg had been waiting for. Before he even noticed the four poster double bed, or the antique mirror, or the mahogany cupboards and drawers, his attention was drawn to the framed photographs which adorned the walls
Greg was depicted in each one, alongside an assortment of people he had never met. One showed him with his arm around the shoulder of an unfamiliar man, another was a school photograph full of faces he didn’t know. Scrutinising this closely, he tried to find himself in the crowd. Sure enough, his boyhood self stared back at him from the second row of the formal, uniformed line up. Yet another photograph, this one as old as the school picture, showed him aged about ten, with a younger boy and a woman. Jameson’s supposed mother and who?
After recent events Greg was becoming used to these little surprises, and the shock he felt vanished almost as swiftly as it arrived. Fakes of course, just as the wedding photograph had been faked, probably a simple Photoshop job. But still, they were extremely convincing, and he found it unnerving to see his image transposed onto these strange scenes. He assumed that was the point, and congratulated his opponent on the intricacy with which the fraud had been arranged.
Just as he was ready to praise himself for dealing so smoothly with this new turn of events, a telephone rang.