The Last Day of My Life

The Last Day of My Life

Chapter Two

i

I staggered towards home, as best I could with five pints of Scrumpy Jack in my belly. Old Shaun hadn’t been that much help really: “Oh Aye, lights. Lights lad.”; not much you could do with advice like that. It’s only about fifteen minutes’ walk from The Stag to our house and, despite my other-worldly experience, my bladder seemed to be functioning in exactly the same way that it always had: once I start, I can’t stop. I’d been to the toilet before I left but now, less than five minutes down the road, I was busting again. I could have just got a move on, tried to make it home, but I was enjoying the cold air (now that the alcohol had lowered my own body temperature to somewhere nearer to where it becomes bearable) and I wasn’t ready for the TV or bed. I’d been staring up at the stars: Ursa’s Major and Minor, Cassiopeia and Orion with Betelgeuse at the top left, the star from where that mad, lunatic in the film supposedly came from. Anyway, you’ve heard of defining moments, well, here’s one:

I decided to cut across the school fields. 

Doesn’t sound that dramatic does it? Believe me, it was. Anyway, my plan was to simply take a quick piss in the bushes and enjoy the night sky some more. I ducked under the fence, with the relaxed indifference that only a drunk could possess, and set off across the damp grass. The school, a three storey, flat-roofed, sixties building, rose up on my right and blocked the moon’s light. This gave me a much darker night sky to my left and thereby enabled me to see far more stars than I could have from the road. I tipped my head back and wondered (remember I’d had five pints of cider here) if perhaps I’d been on one of them. The fact that the nearest is four light years away and that they are all suns, burning at billions of degrees centigrade, momentarily escaped me. I made my annual promise to learn more constellations and even to buy a telescope.

 It was while I was staggering across the grass, with my head held unnaturally far back, that I heard the commotion. I was confused at first, thinking that there must be trouble back at The Stag, but it was coming from the wrong direction: it was down to my right; towards the school. Plus, it wasn’t the usual raucous bawling of obscenities and belly laughs normally associated with pub throwing out time: this was, mainly, one man’s deep, resonant voice, interspersed with that of a girl trying to argue back. He sounded like a overbearing parent or head teacher, and there was a distinct threat it his tone. I couldn’t make out the words but the sound was being repeated. The girl’s voice, sad and pleading, was trying to interrupt him. It had a persistent, high-pitched quality but she also sounded scared. 

Even after the cider I still felt so well, so physically fit, so… so invincible, and I know how that sounds, that I decided to go and sort things out. The pressure in my bladder was temporarily forgotten.

I have to say here that this is not the sort of thing I would normally do. I would help a drowning man, I would help a crying girl with a baby, I would pick someone up from the floor if they had fallen, but, to interfere with people who are arguing? especially drunken people who are arguing – no, it’s too risky. It’s not cowardly either, it’s just so unpredictable. I remember being in a town pub, maybe ten years ago. I was standing with Kate and there was this couple sitting in the corner. They were going at it like only couples can. The man stood suddenly, pushed the table towards the girl, spilling the drinks and smashing glasses and shouted:

“And if you don’t like it, then I’m going to smash your fuckin’ face with my fuckin’ fist ‘til you fuckin’ do.”

There were a few of us on the way over, I just happened to get there first. 

“Oi!” I said, rather unimpressively. “There’s no need for that.” The guy looked at me as though he’d been caught with his hand in the blind box, but the girl suddenly pushed herself up and forwards and threw what was left of her lager into my face. 

“FUCK OFF!” she shouted. “Or he’ll fuckin’ DO you. Won’t you Gareth?”

“What?” he said, then looked at me. He stiffened his features into a grimace. “Oh, yeah, fuck off – poof!” 

I went back to Kate, my days of being the hero begun and over in that one episode. My conclusion was: trash ain’t worth it. Not nice, I know, but true. 

When reached the concrete steps that led to the back of the school gymnasium, I never gave that earlier incident a thought. What I saw there took me a second or two to figure out. There was a girl, stretched over a wheelie bin, face down, and a man standing behind her. He was the one shouting, but she didn’t look right at all. I could hear her now. 

“Don’t, Keith. Please don’t.” 

“You’ve been a bad girl and you have to pay.”

That’s when I saw another man holding her wrists on the other side of the bin, and then a third man, crouched down on the floor, holding her ankles. I recognised the man who was shouting: Spencer, Keith Spencer. I also recognised what he was holding in his hand.

“STOP IT!” I shouted from the top of the steps. 

Keith Spencer looked up at me. “Fuck off, if you know what’s good for you.” The girl looked up at me too. I could see the pink of her face, but not her features; it was too dark. 

“You let go of her now and maybe I will,” I said. To be honest, even sober I don’t think I could have left then. 

“This is family business,” the man said. “Now be about yours.” He turned away from me, put his hand in the middle of the girl’s back and hiked up her skirt. 

“NO!” I yelled. “I know who you are: Keith Spencer. You’re not going to do that.” I was walking down the steps now. I still felt a marvellous sense of immortality. My head was clear and these were pieces of human scum. I was not going to allow them to do this thing. That was when the girl spoke. 

“You should do wh-what he s-says.” I couldn’t believe my ears. 

“You heard her. So fuck off!”

It was the way the girl let her head flop down over the edge of the bin that did it. Maybe I would have just stood there shouting as loud as I could until they decided the place they’d chosen just wasn’t private enough anymore, but when I saw that action of complete resignation, I don’t know, I guess the red mist descended. 

I stamped down the steps and got a kick into the guy lying on the floor as I pushed hard against Keith. I moved him a little but he was big, heavy. He pushed himself back into his trousers and the girl slid from the top of the bin. 

“You’ve made a big mistake,” he said, pointing at me and glaring. 

“No, I don’t think so. I think I’ve just stopped you from making a big mistake.” He stood exactly where he was. The guy I’d kicked had dragged himself up onto his knees and the girl was standing there shaking her head at me. “It’s okay,” I said to her. “They won’t be hurting you now.” She was still shaking her head when I realised the third guy, the one holding her wrists, wasn’t anywhere in sight. There was this tiny amount of time, barely a microsecond, in which I experienced the beginnings of panic, and then the bottom of my back exploded in heat and pain. My legs crumpled instantly as I struggled to get hold of whatever was hurting me so much. 

The man who had moved around to the back of me now grabbed the girl’s wrists again and pulled her back over the bin. The guy I’d kicked slithered across the concrete and held her ankles. Keith Spencer looked at me and shook his head. My hand found what I knew to be the shaft of a knife as I heard his fly unzip. 

“You should have fucked off when you had a chance,” he said and started to laugh.

That was when I heard the police siren coming towards us. 

ii

The next few minutes were pretty hazy. I’d been stabbed, I knew that right enough, but the pain was fading. If I’d thought hard about that I might have put two and two together and realised that my life was slipping away. As it was, even in my extremity, I was still damned angry. I lay on my side on the floor gurgling with my hand wrapped tight around my back, trying to drag the blade out of my flesh. 

“Gggerrrogghhh,” is the nearest I can get to the spluttering sound I was making. I remember swinging my legs around and getting another good kick into the guy on the floor, making him let go of the girl’s legs again. 

I don’t know if Keith Spencer actually managed to rape the girl or not. He got about as close as you can I guess even if he didn’t. Legally I suppose, whether he physically did or not stands for a great deal; morally, in my book, it stands for fuck-all. 

There’s guys who are found guilty of rape through being too stupid to understand what’s being said to them, or just being too damn dim to know they’re going too far; and then there are guys who get off with rape simply because they didn’t manage to carry it through. And Keith Spencer was definitely trying to rape that girl – violently. If my actions did anything to prevent that, then it didn’t make a rat’s crap amount of difference whether he managed to complete the act or not. 

The sirens took forever to get there. The three guys had time to throw the girl across my body and run away before the red and blue lights reflected back off the school windows. “You – alright?” I managed to say. 

“Sh-sh-shouldn’t h-have done th-th-that. Be b-b-back.” 

I managed to get a good grip on the slimy shaft of the knife and pulled with all my strength. I know you shouldn’t, and even lying there, bleeding all over the infant playground, I knew I should have left it where it was, but the damn thing had started to itch. 

Believe me, that’s what it was doing. 

Itching like a bitch. 

As the blade slid free I felt this incredible, freezing cold sensation around my guts. It was pain, I’m sure of that, but I’ve read a bit about endorphins and stuff and that they kick-in big time when there’s serious injury. That’s what I put it down to. I lay there with the knife in my hand and my body’s own heroin flooding through my system as heavy footsteps approached down the concrete steps towards us. Bright light flooded the area. I kept my eyes closed. 

“Here you go, miss,” a voice said. I sensed the girl being helped to her feet and walked away. I heard a female voice then, soothing, calming. Probably what used to be called a WPC, I thought. 

Hands grabbed me and pulled me upright. The knife was snatched out of my bloody fingers. I started to say something about the injury to my back but was immediately silenced as a fist slammed into the side of my head. 

“You filthy BASTARD!” a voice roared. And then, a little quieter, “Drag him up the fucking steps where it’s darker and kick the shit out of him.”

My head was vibrating like a Quartz crystal. 

“NO! NO!” the girl’s voice shouted. “It wasn’t him.” 

“What?” someone said. 

I heard her steps, coming towards us. “It wasn’t him. He didn’t attack me. He tried to stop them!” Then, much quieter, she said: “He’s been stabbed.” 

The arms that were holding me relaxed to the point where I thought they would let me fall to the floor again. I heard the same man’s voice, only this time devoid of any anger, almost a whisper, “Fuck,” he said. I agreed. I was eased down onto the steps. Feet crunched towards me. I got my eyes open and working. The school windows threw back the red and blue police lights and there was some kind of portable floodlight on a tripod. I could hear a small generator chugging somewhere. The girl I’d saved (even then I was feeling pretty pleased with myself) was sitting on the wall with blanket around her shoulders, and a lady policeman, or whatever they’re called now, sitting by her side with her arm across her shoulders. A large policeman came into my field of vision and sat down beside me. “Did you see who they were, sir?”

I turned my head painfully towards him. “Was it you who hit me in the face?”

“Er, well, we were trying to restrain you, sir. I, er, I admit that we thought you were the attacker and that we thought you were trying to resist arrest.”

“I was lying on the floor.”

“You had a knife.”

“I did, yes.” 

“Did you take it from the attacker?”

“No, I took it from my back. The attacker, or at least, one of the attacker’s friends, put it there.”

“You’re STABBED!” 

“I think the young lady mentioned it.” 

I know this is all sounding a bit flippant for someone who had just pulled a knife from his back, but, it’s really how it all went down. I was feeling pretty good – still putting it down to endorphins – but I now knew somehow that I was going to be alright. I thought the knife must not have gone in as far as it felt.

“Could you, er, could you identify the attackers?”

“Yes,” I said. I could do more than that, I could name them. Keith Spencer was the eldest of the Spencer brothers. They were one-of-those-families. You know the sort I mean, don’t you? Every area has one: a family that no-one ever screws around with. A family that not only inspire fantastic stories about their individual behaviour but actively encourage them. As well as Keith there had been Alan Spencer on lower bin and ankle duty and Paul Spencer on upper bin, wrists and stabbing. I’d been in the same class as Paul for awhile, at least for the three months that he’d actually spent at our school. As well as those three there was also David, Wayne and John. John was the youngest, not yet thirty and he was backward, retarded, special needs, whatever you’re supposed to call someone who can’t keep up nowadays. Old man and Old lady Spencer must have been knocking on a bit when John was born and I believe that can contribute to the chances of mental problems. Ironically (although I don’t suppose the family have that much to do with irony really) John was the least trouble of all the boys. He’d worked for Sam Sheppard, the grocer up at the shops, for a good five years now, delivering vegetables and tea and sugar to the older people who lived around the village. John got on with everyone and it always made me sad when I heard young mothers saying: 

“Should keep the likes of him away from playgrounds and kids. They should be tagged, his sort. Never can trust them.”

I sympathised with their fears and I can’t honestly say that I would trust the lad to babysit, but that’s only because I wouldn’t trust him in the house alone. He’d set it on fire, or fuse all the electrics, or leave the gas on unlit. I don’t think for a minute he’d hurt a kid – he’s too much of one himself. 

“Yes,” I repeated. “I can identify them all. They were the Spencers.”

That was when I realised who the girl was: when she called across: “I said you should have let them alone.” And that thing Keith had said about “family business”. 

She was Sharon. 

Sharon Spencer. 

Yes, their little sister. She was born five years before John. 

iii

So, what’s this got to do with aliens? I hear you asking. Well, directly, not a lot, but indirectly – these are the events which followed the afternoon that I was currently unavailable for work on planet terra-firma. And the intense itching where the blade went in – that had something to do with all this too. 

Once the police realised they had beaten up an injured man, they radioed for an ambulance and it arrived a lot slower than they had. 

I suppose it might have had farther to come, I don’t know, but I have this theory: how many fire-stations and police-stations are there out in the sticks? Quite a few, aren’t there? Now, how many ambulance stations are there? Not as many? Why do you think that is then? Could it be something to do with material possessions being more valued in our society than human life? 

Anyway, the ambulance did arrive and both myself and Sharon were taken to the hospital. It didn’t surprise me that we didn’t exchange a word for the entire journey. It was only as we stepped out of the back that she spoke again. 

“I said you should have left them alone.” Exactly the same statement as earlier and then she was gone: slipped into a cubicle with a young nurse while I was escorted down the ward by a male nurse. 

“Heard you caught a stabbing,” he said. It seemed a funny way to bring up the subject of my condition. 

“In the back, at the bottom; where my kidneys are, I think.”

“You don’t seem to be having much trouble walking, for someone who’s been stabbed.” The doubt in his tone was not lost on me.

“It did happen,” I said. “I’ve the bloodstains to prove it.” I pulled the stiffened material of my sweatshirt around for him to feel. That was when I suddenly felt terribly relieved that I’d changed out of the Peter Green shirt. The night had turned bad, no doubt about that, but it would have been far worse if that shirt had been torn and bloodied.

“I don’t doubt you,” he said. “We’ll have a look, whatever.” He steered me into a curtained off area, helped me to undress and had me lie face down on the bed. “You sure that’s comfy?” 

I have to be honest, I did feel a bit uncomfortable, though not because of my back, that had almost stopped hurting entirely; it was more to do with lying on my front, naked, except for a thin, cotton nightdress that was open at the back, while a strange man examined my behind (I know, it was my lower back, but it was close enough for discomfort).

“That’s really quite surprising,” he said.

“I told you I’d been stabbed.” 

“Yes, I don’t dispute the fact. I can see quite clearly where the blade entered. It’s just that…” 

“Just that what?”

“Well, it seems to be healing rather rapidly.”

“That’s not against National Health rules, is it?”

He laughed. I wouldn’t expect anyone in a hospital to laugh at a National Health joke, even a bad one. “It’s not a problem. Obviously, it’s good that it’s healing but… I’m just going to get someone to look. Will you be alright for a couple of minutes?” 

“Yes,” I said. “I’ll be fine – as long as it’s stopped bleeding.”

“Oh, it’s stopped bleeding alright.” He laughed again as he slipped between the curtains and then I heard his feet slapping up the ward. I was left to my own thoughts. 

I tried to figure out exactly how I felt about what I’d done tonight. The fact that I’d stopped the Spencers from raping their little sister could only be a good thing – that’s pretty definite. The fact that everyone would now know that the Spencers were trying to rape their sister was probably a good thing too: whatever was going wrong there could now be dealt with by the proper authorities, and the girl (well, woman I suppose, she was thirty five) could be given whatever protection she required. The fact that all this was known and all this would now happen was due entirely to me – that might not be such a good thing. I was definitely the hero of the moment; the man that everyone would be talking about, saying how brave I was to take on three known thugs to save the honour of a young woman (though, at the risk of being charged with cynicism, I’m not sure that Sharon’s honour was that much at stake). I would probably get my name in the papers too. In fact, I would probably get my name in the papers twice: once for saving Sharon and then again when her brothers made a more effective job of stabbing me to death. 

“Mr Lord!” a voice shouted, as the curtains were thrown back. There were five nurses walking past at the time and they all got a good look at my bare arse. I don’t suppose it meant much to them, but it did to me. “I hear you’ve been stabbed.”

“Yes,” I said, feebly. 

He was a very tall man with a crazy tangle of orange hair and Buddy Holly glasses. “I’m Dr Alan Gerard. I’m a consultant surgeon.”

He looked more like someone who’d gone to a fancy dress as a mad doctor to me. He bent down and examined my behind (I suppose). 

“When did this happen, Mr Lord?” 

“Call me Steve,” I said. I don’t know, it seemed unreasonable to insist on formality with a man who has his nose only four inches away from your bum. “At around eleven thirty, just after the pubs shut.” I heard the nurse murmur something to him.

“Today!” he exclaimed. “Eleven thirty today!”

“Yes,” I said, “well, actually, I suppose it’s yesterday now. I take it it’s after midnight?”

“Yes, it almost one thirty now.”

“That’ll be two hours ago then,” I said. 

Dr Gerard whistled shrilly between his teeth. “Well, I’ll be buggered,” he said. I felt even more self-conscious about my apron. 

“Steve? Would you mind if we took an X-ray?”

“Why should I mind? Am I going to be alright?”

“I think you’re going to be absolutely fine. It’s just that… well, I’ll be completely frank with you, Steve. Your wound has almost healed.”

“That’s good isn’t it?”

“Yes, that’s very good. It’s also very unusual. So unusual that I find it quite difficult to believe what I’m seeing. I’ve come across accelerated healing before, often in times of intense stress, but I’ve never seen anything happen this fast. I want to get a look at the soft tissue just beneath the surface.”

“You’re not talking about the possibility of surgery, are you?” I tried to screw my head around to see his reaction. Instead, he squatted down, face to face with me.

“I’ll be quite honest, Steve, if I had my way, I’d have you down to the operating theatre right now and I’d have every research assistant dragged from their beds and kept here until we found exactly what was causing this. Thing is, we’re not allowed to experiment on live patients – not yet anyway. So, how about this Xray?”

“Do I have a choice?”

“Of course you have a choice. But there’s something very strange going on here and I think we ought to get to the bottom of it.”

I’d heard enough arse references for one night and besides, who can resist an ‘ought’? “Okay,” I said, “an X-ray it is, as long as you don’t start carving me up. Can’t stand the thought of having bits of metal put in me.”

A tiny scalpel was nothing compared to what I was going to have to get used to in the next few days.

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