City Stories
Edited By
Adele Cosgrove-Bray
City Stories, 1st Edition.
Copyright: Adele Cosgrove-Bray, 2013.
The right of Adele Cosgrove-Bray to be identified as the editor of this work has been asserted.
All characters and events in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real people, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published.
Cover photo © Richard Cosgrove-Bray
Graphics © Adele Cosgrove-Bray
The Room © Tim Hulme
Noisy Neighbours © William R Jones
My Liverpool Flat © Caroline Hubbard
Gladys © Caroline Hubbard
A Good Turn © Andy Siddle
Maybe She Could Rewrite It © Andy Siddle
Seventy-Two Years Ago © Jason Barney
Sitting in the Rooftop Garden © Jack Horne
Role Play © Adele Cosgrove-Bray
Other Titles by Adele Cosgrove-Bray
Artisan-Sorcerer Series:
Tamsin
Rowan
Bethany Rose
Intimations
*
Short Stories:
Seaside Stories (Editor & Contributor)
Dark Tales
Spanish Jones
The Karens
A Wirral Otherkin Trilogy
Quiet Lives
*
Poetry:
Entering the Grove
Threads
*
Children's Fiction:
The Grumpets
*********
City Stories
Edited by
Adele Cosgrove-Bray
Love, terror and 21st century life! From the heart of cosmopolitan Liverpool come nine thrilling views of modern living.
Blood-drinkers, killers and secrets. Old sorrows and new beginnings. The light and dark of human life set against the glittering backdrop of a reinvigorated city.
City Stories. Tales of life today.
Acknowledgements
Thanks are due to Andy Siddle and Tim Hulme, who helped with proofreading.
Contents:
The Room - by Tim Hulme
Noisy Neighbours - by William R Jones
My Liverpool Flat - by Caroline Hubbard
Gladys - by Caroline Hubbard
A Good Turn - by Andy Siddle
Maybe She Could Rewrite It - by Andy Siddle
Seventy-Two Years Ago - by Jason Barney
Sitting in the Rooftop Garden - by Jack Horne
Role Play - by Adele Cosgrove-Bray
About the Authors
About Riverside Writers
*******
The Room
By
Tim Hulme
He remembered this room. The walls were painted in great blocks of khaki and burnt orange, the floor tiled in oblong patterns of olive green, as if some depressed Mondrian had practised his art here and failed. He remembered when this room was full of the laughter of children learning history - real history; and he tried to remember that.
Now it was the Interrogation Room and he was in it alone. He saw no interrogator. There was just the voice through the red microphone high up on one wall. At first he had thought to wrench it from its fixing and smash it through the windows. He could easily reach it by standing on the one remaining plastic chair. But he realised that was what they wanted. It was his one remaining human contact, however vile - and he had tried breaking the glass and failed. That was no way out.
Of course they watched him. Somewhere in those sombre walls were hidden cameras; where, he could not tell. Probably there was one between the cupboards. But the wall felt just the same as all the other walls. He wondered about the cupboards. The food arrived through the right hand one. Normally it was open - empty - but when the food arrived it seemed to self-lock. He had tried to fool it by opening it just a moment before the food was placed in it from the other side. He was punished for that - there had been no food for three days.
He had turned his attention to the other cupboard - permanently locked with a padlock - on his side. He had wrenched a wire from an old fridge in the room to try to pick the padlock: but he had decided this was one of their tests. In any case, he could not be sure of what was on the other side, so he had left it alone.
Of course, it was all tests, to give him a glimpse of hope and then despair. The main door to the room was unlocked. They had told him that through the microphone. “You can open it any time you wish, but there is a guard outside with a gun aimed at the door. If the guard is awake, he will shoot you. Of course sometimes he may go to sleep. Are you a gambling man, Elgar?” Again and again he put his fingers on the handle, only to draw them away again in fear.
Elgar - that wasn’t his real name. It was the name given him by the Group, and they had found that out. How much more did they know of the Group, the elite assassination unit of the underground he had so recently joined? They wanted to know more. That was clearly why he was here. He had to escape before his mind gave way to despair.
There was of course the locked door by the window. That led in a different direction, probably to a fire escape. But through the window he could see guards outside, and on the circular flat roof there was a body - or the remains of it. Even if he did get away, how quickly would the phone masts pin-point him as a human without an ID card and fire remorselessly.
He unrolled a bit of the old carpet which he used as a bed and lay down to think. He did not like to unroll it too much because of the bloodstains. They had said, “All you need to do is tell us which of your friends are in the underground, and in particular, those in the Group, and you will walk free. We shall give you a new life somewhere else where there will be no reprisals. You will be safe.”
Of course he did not believe this. Whatever course he took, he would be dead. He was not going to betray friends especially since, as far he knew, none of them had actually joined the Group. Nevertheless, when he had secretly spoken to them, many had shown a wish to join. His jailers just wanted names, and if he convinced them over time that he was not going to give names, then he would be killed. He had to escape.
He stood up and looked again through the window. Two guards were talking just below in a niche of the building, sharing a cigarette. He envied them, outside in the fresh air, happy to be loyal to the regime because it meant they could go home at the end of the day to their quarters and their wives. He gazed down at them. Apart from the occasional flicker of their eyes around them, they chatted and laughed. He thought he had almost caught the eye of one of them, but perhaps the man was just checking in case they were discovered.
In case they were discovered! Not only were they smoking on duty, but cigarettes were illegal. The significance of what they were doing almost made him yell with excitement. To think they could smoke safely meant that they must be out of sight of the cameras and the phone masts. He watched until one of the guards departed. The other stayed finishing his fag. He was alone and, in the inside pocket of his uniform, there had to be his ID card! This was Elgar’s opportunity.
Pretending to be taking another gaze through the window, he twisted his piece of wire in the lock of the fire-escape door, while quickly reviewing his plan. Speed was vital. Already the camera watchers could be suspicious.
The lock clicked open.
In the observation room another uniformed man phoned the guard with the cigarette. “H
i, Tommy. He’s worked it out and he’ll be after your ID any minute. Try and string this one out a bit, eh. You know how the boss hates quick finishes.”
Tommy saw the fire-escape door flung open. A figure was poised for the jump, arms wide open. Tommy spat into the intercom: “Scramble. He’s on the move. With me any moment.”
His men would move fast. They knew the drill. He took a last drag on the cigarette and braced himself for the fight. He knew Elgar would fight hard. He needed that ID card – and today it was a real ID card.
In the observation room, the young duty guard sat peering at the screen showing Tommy. A thin man with grey lined cheeks and deep-set eyes stood leaning against the younger man’s chair, his gaze intent.
Elgar burst through the door from the Interrogation Room. The thin man began to turn, his hand reaching for his pistol holster.
Elgar knew the sound of a pistol shot, even if it missed him, would be the death of him. He slammed the edge his right hand against the young guard’s neck. The impact thrust the boy and chair against the standing man, pushing him off balance. The pistol fell to the floor. As the boy slumped, Elgar reached inside the uniform and palmed the ID card. The thin man was reaching down towards his boot. Elgar saw a knife slip into the other’s hand. Elgar ducked low behind the boy and chair. He heard the thin man’s breath as he threw the knife. It hit the boy in the shoulder, two inches from Elgar’s face. Elgar stood up. The thin man had turned side-on. He was reaching for the pistol. Elgar seized the knife from the boy’s shoulder, and flung himself to the left. The thin man’s hand closed round the pistol. Elgar launched himself straight at the man’s back. The man fell back. The knife was deep in his neck.
“Where the hell is he?” Elgar became aware of an anxious voice from the TV screens. On the main screen Tommy was looking up gesticulating. Elgar grabbed the microphone. He scanned the other screens. On one he recognised a distant bunch of trees in what was once a public park.
“Yellow zone,” he cried into the microphone. “He’s just disappeared into those trees,” and he saw Tommy running away from the building shouting orders though his intercom. Other men were streaming from the building.
Elgar retrieved the knife and the pistol, and found the same and a wallet on the inert boy. He also discovered the building was now empty, apart from a rosy cheeked cleaning lady, to whom he gave a broad smile and a wink, saying jauntily: “I’m afraid you’ve rather a messy job there!” She grinned back.
*******
Noisy Neighbours
By
William R Jones