Funhouse (25 page)

“
Sick?” Ferguson repeated, enjoying the show. “I’ll show you sick.”

He stood and walked towards Charlie, then reached into his pocket, pulling out a bundle of photographs.

“What are those? What you got there?” Charlie said, straining to see.

“
You know Charlie, watching you live your pathetic little life was fun for a while. Then I even started to feel sorry for how much of a waster you were. The only thing you had going for you, was that wife of yours. Now she was smoking hot. Credit where it’s due, you did well there.”

“
I swear to you if you have hurt her...”

“
Relax, I didn’t hurt her. She never did anything to me, and so I have no reason to hurt her. See I am a pillar of this local community, I contribute. All of this may seem sick to you, but it’s what you deserve.”

Ferguson dropped the photos on the floor and spread them out with his foot so that Charlie could see them all, and when he did, his stomach rolled in disgust at what they contained.

They were of Ferguson and Sophia.

Charlie tried to tell himself as he looked at the photos that his wife had been forced into doing those things, but he could see by the look in her eyes and the way she was performing acts on Ferguson that she would never even dream of doing with him, that she was enjoying every moment of it.

“You son of a bitch, it was you.” Charlie said, glaring up at Ferguson. “You were the one who was screwing my wife!”

“
It was.” Ferguson said with a smile. “More times than I care to remember. It took a while to worm my way into her life and get her interested, but once I did, she couldn’t get enough Charlie. She used to tell me how she hated you. Hated that you were a fat, washed up loser. Did you know that towards the end, she hated the feel of your touch?  She said it used to make her feel sick. I used to make her call me your name while I did her in every single way you can imagine.”

“
I swear to god, I’ll kill you.” Charlie hissed.

“
Those threats won’t work on me anymore. I’m in control here.”

Charlie desperately wanted to take his eyes off the photographs, but couldn’t help but look, his emotions a bitter cocktail of jealousy, sorrow, and fury.

“Why are you doing this to me? You said so yourself, you have everything. A good job, a good life. Why bother with someone like me? Why screw my life up?”

Ferguson didn’t answer at first. He paced the container, hands clasped behind his back.

“Back when I was fourteen, I remember I was down by Goodson’s lake. Of course, we both know back then that I had no friends. You made sure of that. Remember Charlie? The way you made everyone afraid to be my friend in case you and your running buddies decided to turn on them. Do you remember that day?”

Charlie shook his head. “No man, I don’t remember anything.”

“Maybe it was lost somewhere in the shuffle. Easy to imagine when you made me miserable every damn day. Anyway, you remember how I had a thing for animals?”

Charlie didn’t answer. He was staring at Ferguson, trying to look unafraid, and failing miserably. Ferguson went on.

“Course you do, you used to ride me about it all the time. Fergie Faggot. Isn’t that what you used to call me? Anyway, I was minding my own business down by the lake. I remember I was collecting frogspawn. I always liked frogs you know Charlie. They were always my favourite. So I’m there with my bucket full of frogspawn, because I wanted to take some home and watch them hatch into tadpoles and grow. I was always going to put them back of course, I just wanted to see the process. But then you turned up, remember? You and those other two assholes who were never more than an arm’s length away.”

Ferguson smiled as he continued to pace.

“You have no idea how scared I was when I saw you. I mean really, really scared. I thought I was going to piss myself. And you of course made straight for me. You had this look in your eye, like all your Christmases had come at once. Do you remember what you did?”

Charlie still wasn’t speaking, and was now ignoring the photographs too. He was staring at the wall, his teeth clenched as he waited for what was coming.

“Of course you remember. I'll remind you anyway. Your buddies, Ringwood and Schofield held me down whilst you made me eat the frogspawn. Remember?  You made me eat it all then you took my clothes and threw me in the lake. I almost got pneumonia. I was sick for two damn weeks. But as if that wasn’t humiliation enough, you went and told everyone at school. Do you have any idea how it feels to be ridiculed by everyone? Hell, I even saw one of the teachers laughing at me. A damn teacher. You made my life hell Charlie. Every single day.”

“
I don’t know how many times I can tell you I’m sorry man. I was a dick at school I get it, but you have to admit you were weird. So damn quiet all the time.”

“
It’s called lack of self-confidence, brought on by assholes like you.”

“
Either way, don’t you think this is a bit of an overreaction?” Charlie bellowed. “I tried to make amends; I tried to make it right.”

“
Oh this isn’t right. Not by a long shot.”

The way Ferguson said it intensified the fear in Charlie, and he flicked his eyes towards the rolled carpets at the back of the container.

“So you are just going to kill me? Doesn’t that make you just as much of a bully as I was?”

“
I’m not going to do a thing to you. I already told you. I may be out for a little payback, but I’m not a killer.”

Charlie looked at the rolls for carpet again, and this time Ferguson joined him in looking, then grinned.

“Relax. It’s not what you think.” Ferguson said as he returned to his chair.

“
So if you aren’t going to kill me, what happens now?”

“
I want you to be sorry Charlie. For everything you did to me.”

“
I am sorry, I told you already, I don’t know how else to say it.”

“
I think you need to take some time to really think about what you have done to me. You need to really learn to be sorry.”

It was then that Charlie knew what Ferguson had in mind.

“You're framing me for killing them aren’t you?” He said, nodding towards the rotting corpses at the back of the container. “You're going to make sure I spend the rest of my life in prison.”

“
You aren’t as stupid as you look.” Ferguson said with a smile. “But I know you Charlie. You wouldn’t shut up until you convinced the police to investigate me. I just can’t risk that happening. No, I need you to learn true forgiveness. I need for you to really appreciate the isolation that I felt.”

Charlie looked around the container, and shook his head.

“Please no, not here. Not with them.” He said, his voice wavering.

“
Yes, here with them. You need time to come to terms with what you did was wrong. More importantly, I need you to be sorry so I can finally move on with my life.”

“
Please, don’t leave me here. It’s inhuman.”

“
No more than some of the things you did to me.”

Charlie was broken. His lip trembled as he looked for any shred of compassion within Ferguson, but his cold stare said there was none.

“Come on man, I’m claustrophobic, please, I’m begging you not to do this.”

“
Just like I begged you not to do all those things you did to me.”

“
That was just kids’ stuff. It didn’t mean anything. I’ll die in here!” He looked at the open door. “Somebody, please help me!” He screamed. Ferguson made no effort to stop him, and simply laughed.

“
You think I would be stupid enough to bring you to a populated area to conduct our business?” He asked, shaking his head.

“
You really are a stupid fuck, aren’t you Charlie?”

“
Charlie stopped screaming as Ferguson stood and walked to the doors.

“
I don’t suspect we will see each other again Charlie. But I want to give you every chance to extend your life as long as possible. This container is twenty feet long and nine feet tall. Once the doors are locked, you will have air enough for three days, maybe four if you really take shallow breaths. That could all go to hell though once the isolation gets you. Schofield lasted two days. He panicked and used up all his air. Ringwood made it to four and a half, but the dark and isolation combined sent him off the rails.”

“
You sick son of a bitch.” Charlie whispered.

“
I wouldn’t expect you to experience something I hadn’t myself. I spent the night in here just last week in preparation for this. The dark is total, and the silence is deafening. Worse is the smell. You think its bad now with the door open, just wait until the air is closed out. It gets really, really bad.”

“
If you want me dead just kill me. Shoot me, slit my throat with that damn knife of yours, anything but this. Please…”

“
I’m sorry Charlie; this is how it has to be. Once I’m gone, you can feel free to scream, shout, and bang on the walls as much as you like. You are far enough away from anyone to hear or even find you. Just remember that screaming uses up air, and air for you, is about to become pretty precious.”

“
What can I do to make you change your mind?”

Ferguson paused, and considered, and for a moment, there was absolute silence.

“Absolutely nothing.” Ferguson said, and then stepped outside. First swinging one door shut, and then partly closing the other.

“
Please!” Charlie said as he tried to push himself up the wall to his feet, then fell back down, his nose and face smashing into the floor. He looked up at the door, his last tantalising glimpse of the outside world beyond.

“
Ferguson... please…”

“
Goodbye Charlie.”

Ferguson closed and locked the door, then sat in the sun, resting his head against the container door and listening to Charlie’s muted screams. He took the knife out of his pocket and etched three words into the dirt, then stood and admired his
handiwork.

Long
Tall Coffin.

He put the knife back into his pocket, took a deep breath of good clean air, then without looking back, made his way through the maze of storage containers. He didn’t feel bad. The world was a better place without bullying assholes like Charlie Brooks in it. Ferguson got in his car, switched on the radio, and went home to his family.

H
e stood on the ledge at the top of the Seaburn Hotel, the toes of his shoes hanging over the edge of oblivion. Death used to scare him, but not anymore. Now he was relaxed, arms at his sides as the wind rocked him on his heels and threatened to displace him with each fierce gust.

He had been trying to kill himself for three years.

The first time he tried, he was nineteen. It wasn’t even because he was depressed, or mentally damaged or any of those other bullshit excuses. He had simply decided that he no longer wanted to live. He kept it to himself, a dirty secret which wasn’t exactly something to bring up in conversation, but from the moment he had decided he wanted to die, he knew what he had to do to make it easier on those around him. He distanced himself from his small circle of friends, to the point where they had started to ignore him as he passed in the street. He knew they pointed and laughed and called him a weirdo, and he was glad, as it was just another thing that would help to make it easier to go ahead with it.

He looked at the cars forty stories below, a stop start procession of people going home from work, or heading out to meet family or friends to eat dinner, people who were looking forward to futures filled with meaningless objects and jobs they hate. He wondered how could they be so stupid, how could they stomach living in such a shallow, pathetic way with bodies filled with parasites and bacteria, cancers and tumours. He wondered how they couldn’t see that humans as a species, like a plague of locusts were ravaging the planet and making it uninhabitable for future generations. He was angry, sad, and frustrated.

Back in the beginning, when he was certain that his friends were suitably alienated and he was completely alone, he put his plan into action and tried to hang himself.

He bought a good length of strong rope and taught himself how to make a noose, then tied the rope to the upstairs bannister rail of the house. The rope snapped the first time he tried, and he landed on the floor frustrated and angry with nothing more than a grazed knee and a sprained ankle.

Determined not to be denied, he tried again, this time he bought thicker, stronger rope and headed deep into the woods, looking for a strong tree from which to end his life.  Although the rope held, the death he craved still didn’t come. 

For twelve hours he hung there, waiting to die. There was no pain. No struggling for breath even though the rope was embedded deeply into his neck. Eventually a passer-by cut him down, and he managed to slink away before medical attention could arrive, or awkward questions from the authorities could be asked.

No matter what he tried, the results were the same. He slit his wrists, but where he knew there should be great gouts of blood, there was nothing but a small trickle which quickly stopped. He could feel the pain, and had certainly gone deep enough, but the precious red stuff was stubbornly staying in his veins.

He spent more and more time in the seedy, red light areas of town, the places where bad things happen to people. He did so without fear, for death was something he craved more than ever. Eventually, he was able to source some Grade A heroin. Although he had never done the drug before, he knew that any information was available on the internet, and after a little research, he cooked it up and filled the syringe with way more than he knew was survivable. He didn’t hesitate, or consider the consequences, and injected it into his arm.

He lapsed into a warm, hazy cocoon of pure joy, and was sure that he had at last succeeded, embracing the numb bliss of his high.

But as always, it didn’t work, and he had come round a few hours later, nauseous and frustrated.

The story was almost exactly the same with the sleeping pill overdose that he tried the next day, only this time he
was
sick, and when there was nothing left to throw up, he had wept, and wished that whatever was keeping him alive would just let him die in peace.

Again, he postponed his death, and did more research, hoping to find something he had missed, some reason for his continued existence. His depression grew deeper, and he started to hang around in the dangerous parts of town, provoking people into fights, trying to get himself stabbed or shot, anything to bring his life to an end. On two occasions he had been threatened with a knife, only for his attacker to lose his nerve and leave. Another time, a mugger shot at him, but something went wrong, and the bullet ricocheted off the lighter in his jacket pocket, embedding itself into the wall.

By then, he wasn’t even surprised anymore, and laughed as the mugger fled back under whichever rock he had crawled from. If anything, his failure to die had only served to increase his determination to succeed.

That was in the past though, and now he was determined to make this next attempt count.  He leaned forward to look over the edge of the roof, enjoying the dizzy, giddy rush of adrenaline which surged through him. The street resembled nothing more than a thin pencil line from all the way up here, and he wondered how long he would free-fall for before he hit the ground. He tried to ignore the possibility that he might still be alive when he hit the ground, but the idea was there all the same, lingering in his subconscious.

He sighed, licking his lips as the wind ruffled his hair. He had tried high impact death before, sure that it would work, but when a speeding car throwing him up into the air didn’t do the trick, he tried stepping in front of a train instead. Although he was tossed further and higher, his body spinning like a ragdoll before skidding across the ground, he was unhurt, and able to get up, dust himself off and walk away as the disbelieving onlookers pointed and stared as if he was some kind of freak, and he supposed, in some respects, he was.

The wind tugged at him on his perch, and although his instinct told him to grab for the edge of the roof, he forced himself to keep his hands at his sides, almost willing the elements to make the decision for him and drag him away to the death that he craved.

Here it comes.

He thought to himself as he felt his weight shifting, tipping over towards the dizzying fall, but like a door slamming in his face, a secondary gust which came completely against the direction of the wind, pushed him back to safety.

He felt a stab of fury at again being denied another chance to die, and then he calmed, and took a deep breath. He didn’t believe in god, but he prayed anyway, because on the slim chance that there was someone listening, he wanted to plead his case.

“
Please.” He said softly, his words snatched from his mouth almost immediately by the wind.

“
Please just let me die.”

He waited, breath held, staring at the rolling thunderheads above for some kind of response. Twenty seconds passed. Then a minute. He shook his head and smiled.

Of course there was no answer.

Nobody was listening, and the world ticked on as normal, and that in itself was the problem with the world as a whole. Everyone out for themselves, never looking at the bigger picture. Why could only he see it? Either way, it didn’t matter. It was time.

This was his last chance, his last attempt to leave this cruel, shithole world to its own devices. An idea popped into his head, a single thought appearing from nowhere.

If I survive, I’ll give life a try.

It certainly wasn’t something he had ever considered before, and he wondered if this was indeed an answer from whatever was manipulating him into continuing his life.

And what if you do?

He asked himself in his head.

What if you fall, and hit the ground then just appear back up here on the ledge, or at home in your bed, or worse, you hit the floor and break every bone in your body, and live on as a cripple?

He shrugged his shoulders. He didn’t think so. He was pretty sure by now it didn’t work that way. Whatever was pulling the strings wouldn’t have him suffer, it wasn’t its way. Whatever it was, wanted him to live, and not be a broken, brain damaged thing lying in a bed for the rest of his days. It was a flip of a coin, a 50/ 50 chance. It reminded him of the time he had tried to shoot himself and every bullet in the chamber had failed to fire. If whatever was responsible had meant for him to exist as a cripple, then one of the bullets would have done the job, or the asphyxia from the hanging attempt would have done just enough damage to his brain to leave him a drooling thing unable to communicate.

No.

Something wanted him mobile, active, able to do whatever it was that he was supposed to do.  Whatever it was, this was the best way to test the theory.

“
Okay.” He said, his voice barely audible against the fury of the wind. “It’s a deal.”

The wind roared and tugged at him, his coat flapping against his legs as he composed himself.

50/50. Live or die. Such a simple choice.

He smiled, hoping that the outcome would be the one he wanted, and also considering what the hell he would do with his life if it didn’t. It was an exciting proposition though, and that was something that he hadn’t experienced for some time.

He took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and stepped off the edge.

T
his is what happened. 

I
am an old man now, and although its true that I have forgotten some things, the events of that summer in '89 will stay with me until the day I take my final breath.

I fear death is close, closer than I would like at any rate, which is why I have decided to commit the events to paper. It will at least serve to dispel some of the speculation and myth that still surrounds the events of that summer.

It’s funny how your own mortality is something that you never really think of until that one day when you realise that you are getting old, and you start worrying about all the things you never did or will never get to do.  At my age (a healthy-ish eighty three if you're curious) you learn to accept that dying can’t be any worse than the  list of aches and pains which seems to grow longer every day, never mind the amount of pills that I have to throw down my neck just to keep the old engine ticking over. 

Yellow ones, blue ones, white ones. Even those horrible elongated pink ones that leave a thick, chalky taste in the throat. However, none of that matters. Not for this story anyway. The arthritis in my hands means that I can’t write for too long, and I want to be sure I have time to tell it all before I shuffle off to whatever comes after the lights go out.

I grew up as a city kid, surrounded by the drone of traffic, the hustle and bustle of the rat race. I was settled and happy, so when my father decided to move us out to the country, as you might imagine I wasn’t too impressed. But I was just a kid, and a kid’s opinion isn’t usually held in too high a regard by parents who think they know best.  As dismayed as I was when I first heard about the move, it was nothing compared to how completely devastated that I was when I actually
saw
the place.

To say it was in the middle of nowhere would be an understatement. The house sat on a rolling carpet of green farmland that to my eyes seemed to have no end. No shops, no roads, no familiar city blocks reaching into the heavens — just endless miles of grass and trees. 

As we pulled up in our old pickup, I looked for something — anything that might satisfy the need for excitement that lives within every twelve-year-old boy.

Grass.

Wheat.

More grass.

Trees.

The house itself was fine enough - a good-sized traditional farmhouse, the kind of place you could imagine on the side of a soup can or in one of those olde-worlde detective programs that my mother seemed to love so much. It was like a great brown smudge against a sea of green. Two stories, separate barn. The wood looked as tired and unhappy as I felt as I kicked my feet in the gravel and tried to ignore the drifting, country cow shit smell. Intuitive as always, my father was plenty aware of my unhappiness. He approached and stood beside me, and we both stared out at the acres of fields in stony silence. 

He was always a man of few words, and as we stood in the mid-morning sun, angry child or not, he was no different. He lit a cigarette, the acrid smoke dragged away by the breeze as he exhaled.

“
We will be ok here Jimmy.” He said to me, nudging my shoulder. “The fresh air will be good for us. Not like that city air.”

I was unimpressed and let it be known by keeping my mouth shut and my eyes on the tree line of the forest behind the house. It seemed to stretch forever.  I had already made my mind up that I would hate living there. I don’t know why, I just knew in the way that kids some
times, absolutely without question,
know
things.  I was going to tell my father this, but I had started with silence and decided to stick to my guns.  He finished his cigarette and dropped it to the ground.

“
Give it a chance at least. Okay, boy?”

He ruffled my hair, and I knew that no amount of skulking around would make him change his mind. This was a battle I wasn’t going to win. 

“Now come on up and take a look at the house,” He called over his shoulder.