Approaching Zero First chapter for you all to read.

Chapter 1

It was 3.00 p.m. exactly and as the afternoon sun cast its hazy glow down onto the sloping roofs of St Andrew’s Primary, reflecting lazily in all directions, it was easy to imagine the building itself throbbing and vibrating with the force of three hundred children bursting to spill out of the doors and begin their summer holidays. As Kathy looked on from the top of the hill, gripping the handlebars of her nan’s ancient bike, she remembered the feeling well; those six weeks went on forever and not a single day was rainy; she was sure that there wasn’t a child in the whole building who didn’t have a head full of rope swings and streams, mown grass and ice lollies, roller skates and butterflies; although she conceded that kids these days probably dreamt of filling their holiday with Big Macs and Grand Theft Auto.

She looked at her watch then back down the hill at the school – no movement yet – except that pregnant trembling of the building, but it wouldn’t be long. She had to move quickly, but she didn’t seem to be able to will her body into action. She had to move right now, but instead she looked down at her watch again. Why wasn’t she moving? They would be tidal-waving out of the door in seconds, spewing life into the silent, dusty playground and colouring-in the roads beyond the gates with the costumes they were allowed to wear for the last day of school. Why wasn’t she moving?

She gripped the handlebars tighter and fixed one foot on the pedal. The other remained firmly on the ground, taking her weight. The bike had come with her nan’s house and probably should have been buried along with the old woman, but it would do the job for one last mission and then it could be laid to rest. Its diseased body groaned as Kathy shifted her weight, as if it knew that this would be the ride of its life but all would be well after; it would be placed in an earthy bed for heroes, a place where the rot would be forgiven and forgotten.

Kathy looked down at her watch for the third time and then over to the school – still nothing – and then she finally looked down to him. Malcolm Scott was his name and she could smell him even at this distance, some 100 metres away. She couldn’t quite see the expression on his face, but she imagined his hungry eyes to be fixed on the school gates, his pupils dilated, intoxicated by the mere idea of three hundred children running towards him. His lips would be moist and he would be so fixated on what was to come that he hadn’t noticed the droplets of spit on his chin. They would stay there, dribbling downwards, a visible symbol of the vulgarity existing inside of this man. Sweaty palms, deep breaths, a cap to hide his features, a shoulder bag to hide his erection. Kathy was nearly sick as she considered it all and gripped the handle bars tighter still, pushing her feet hard against the pedal and the floor, ready to push off.

The smell was now unbearable – that was how she found them in the first place. It attacked her full in the face and lingered in her nostrils afterwards. The only way of describing it was to imagine an abandoned house, one that had once been lived in and full of love. Everything is left exactly where it was before whoever lived there disappeared. The beds are unmade and covered in dust, a child’s homework lays unfinished on the dining room table, the TV would be on if the electric supply hadn’t ended some time before; the family who lived there could almost be imagined, frozen amongst their possessions, silenced by the innumerable years that had passed. Now imagine that there’s a fridge in the corner of the kitchen that hasn’t been opened since everybody left years and years before. The food inside has rotted and festered with such commitment that when you open the door, the smell is a whole-body experience that attaches itself to your face and crawls in through the nose, trickling down the throat, choking, strangling the gag reflex and poisoning the body – rancid, thick, green milk and hairy fish. This was what Kathy smelt when she was near these men and it was the first indication that they belonged on her list.

She touched her backpack to make sure that it was there, the list. This had become her life’s work and she let out a sigh of relief to feel that it was still with her.

“Right!” she told herself, her voice full of determination, and pushed off, but before she had travelled a full metre, her phone rang and the handlebars wobbled in her hands as she made a poorly balanced emergency stop. “Son of a …” She let the words trail off. There was a time when she wouldn’t have dreamt of swearing, but now it seemed a small thing in the grand scheme of things. In fact, maybe a great big swearing session was exactly what she needed. Maybe she should just go home now, shut herself in her bedroom and paint the room blue with all of the Fs and Cs that she could think of. Maybe it would be just the release she needed and she wouldn’t have to be doing this. She would feel relaxed and restored and somehow the world would be a better place. That’s what other people did, wasn’t it? They got upset about something, had a swear or a cry, talked it over and went back to their lives. This was doubly true of the big problems in life – homelessness, poverty, organised crime, terrorism – the list was endless and anyone imagining that they could do anything to combat the big issues was deluding themselves. We are all powerless. Best to swear in a room and then go back to your little life and the little problems that are easily solvable by contrast. But not everyone could smell the smell and hear the thoughts – hear the disgusting, depraved, inhumane, monstrous thoughts of the evil people. It’s not quite as easy to ignore when it’s throbbing in your veins, oozing from your pores and marring you with its filth.

Kathy just about steadied herself and took the phone from her pocket. It was a phone that was too old not to be laughed at by the children who were about to break up for the summer holiday and too new to yet fall into the category of retro cool, but close. She flipped it open and the tinny ringtone ended. Her phone didn’t allow for photos or a designated tone for different callers, but the name flashed up as ‘Brady’. She quickly forced it to her ear and spoke. “Brady, I’m–”

But her friend interrupted with a pure mix of joy and excitement in her voice. “Have you done it yet?”

It was this contagious energy that had first attracted Kathy to Brady, although she was too young to articulate exactly why she liked being around her. At five years old, she just knew that Brady was the kid in the class that ran around with a huge smile on her face and although she didn’t do a single thing that the teachers asked her to do, she was so endearing that they could only laugh with her and let her get on with wreaking whatever havoc was on the menu for that day. By contrast, Kathy was a quiet girl who was fearful of doing anything to draw attention to herself or get into trouble. The thought of being told off by the teachers terrified her until she saw her young friend shake it off as if she were the mini queen of everything and the teachers could kiss it. They were now thirty-two (Kathy two months older) and had been inseparable ever since. The fact that Brady had been in active service on and off since they left school hadn’t damaged their relationship; it just meant that they saw each other less. This phone call was coming from Malaysia, at least that was where Brady had been posted six months ago – something to do with aiding the transition of peace post-Taliban. Kathy didn’t know any more than that and didn’t want to. Equally, she didn’t worry about her friend. She had been to Afghanistan and Iraq and come back without a single scratch. Kathy had a vision of her friend, strolling through no-man’s land in just jeans and a T-shirt, no weapons, helmet or protection, while bombs went off around her and bullets flew past her head. She just smiled and carried on walking. Sometimes she would catch a bullet and eat it, which is when Kathy would stop imagining because it had all gone a bit weird.

“Have you done it?” Brady repeated impatiently.

“I’m just about to, Brade, if I can just get off the phone. You’re okay aren’t you? You’re not hurt? I’m just about to do it.”

“Well, call me afterwards.”

“Are you okay?”

“Of course I’m okay, so stop chatting and get on with it. It must be kicking-out time your time by now.”

“It is. They’ll be out in a sec.”

“Why aren’t you doing it then?”

“Because I’m on the phone to you.”

“Hang up then.”

“But why are you calling?”

“For fucks sake, Kathy.” Brady liked a good swear, too.

“Okay, I’m doing it. Chat later,” Kathy told her friend and slammed her phone shut. “Right!” she repeated, with a heightened determination that Brady always brought out in her. She was actually going to do it; she had to do it – everything had changed. They couldn’t just threaten or report these men anymore; action needed to be taken and she pushed off again. Her body was immediately overtaken with the adrenaline that was so familiar from her childhood, when she had done all sorts of things that terrified her with Brady – from jumping out of trees, off shed roofs and in front of cars, to nicking sweets from the corner shop and camping in the park with the wild animals of their imaginations. There was not one of those things that Kathy regretted and she wasn’t going to start now, so as the bike hurtled down the hill and the wind thrashed her face and tooted in her ears, a massive smile spread out over her face. She stood up on the pedals and pedalled as hard as she could so that the handlebars were jarring quickly from left to right and the slightest bump on the pavement would send her flying. In fact, in that moment, she could have been a ten-year-old again, playing out with Brady, taking on a hill that even the boys her age feared, both girls screaming and giggling as their bikes propelled them ever on, out of control. What a rush! Brady would always be out in front, but Kathy eventually learnt to take the hills without pumping the brakes, without fear. And here she was again, thirty-two years old, no fear, no brakes. As she passed the school gates, she could hear the alarming shrill of the final bell and a dull rumbling of children’s feet and expectant chattering and laughter. She was supposed to have done it by now. They would be out in a few minutes, but there was no time to dwell on it. This was it and she was travelling at such a speed that the posts of the school fence were strobing, air popping in her ears between each one, making ‘whooping’ noises and almost forcing her off the bike. But no, there was no stopping or turning back now. This was it!  

She could see that Malcolm Scott had turned to acknowledge her fleetingly, but he hadn’t moved from the spot. The fact that the children had been unleashed from the school was clearly keeping him too busy to pay too much attention to the woman on the bike hurtling towards him. And now the smell was unbearable. The fridge door was wide open and there was rotten chicken crawling with maggots and bowls of unidentifiable, pus-filled fur. Just as Kathy was about to throw up, she took a deep breath, now just metres from the pervert, and shouted, “No brakes!” The fact that she was still pedalling hard would forever go unnoticed.

With no time to react, Malcolm could do nothing but throw his hands out in front of him, as if they were going to offer some kind of protection against the wild woman on the bike on course to hit him head on. An animal-like noise also burst out of him, which offered equally little protection, and then he was hit. The bike took his legs out from under him with such force that the sound of his head cracking on the pavement rang out over the din of the children. A thin trickle of blood crawled out of his ear, but this was the only movement left in him.

Kathy had imagined this moment for days, but it all happened too quickly for her to enjoy or see anything of the actual smash. In her mind, she had been an observer; up close, she was just as vulnerable as her prey and her grip was useless against the force of the collision. As the front wheel buckled under, her fingers slipped off the handlebars and she would swear that they came alive, rose up and smashed her in the face. It all happened too fast to know more than this. In reality, her body performed a manoeuvre that would have been a perfect gymnastic ten if not for the lack of finesse and the terrifying crack as the dismount was landed. And then everything went black.