Undead at Heart (2 page)

“Damn signal.” Tony
cursed at his Blackberry and shook it, as though that would help. He held it up
and pressed the small black rectangle against the roof of his car, glancing
between the road and the screen, waiting for some indication that his
connection was being re-established.

His car, his pride and
joy, his metallic silver Audi TT RS Coupé started to drift out of its lane
towards the crash barrier. Tony corrected with a flick of his left hand, his
right still holding his phone up by his ear. The car started to swing too far,
crossing into the inside lane, and the car he was over-taking sounded its horn,
so he pulled back into his lane, gaze still flicking between windscreen and
widescreen. “Come on, come on!” he muttered.

Finally, the small
icon showing his internet connection popped back onto the screen, and his
emails continued to download. He slowly lowered the device, making sure it was
still connected, then slid it onto the ledge formed by the steering-wheel
housing, and placed both hands on the wheel.

He flicked the stalk
for the stereo and jumped forward through the tracks till he found one that he
wanted to listen to. He discarded
The Final Countdown
and
You Give
Love a Bad Name
in favour of Survivor’s
Eye of the Tiger
. His
friends laughed at his taste in music. They all listened to bands with little
or no musical ability, bands that came from X-Fuctor or Britain’s Got No
Talent, or bought songs by people they’ve never heard of ‘featuring’ other
people they’d never heard of. With that great wealth of musical talent on
offer, he didn’t see how they could scoff because he liked good old fashioned
eighties rock. He might only be twenty seven, but that still means he was born,
alive and aware in the eighties. Just. And the music of the year he was born
seemed perfectly good to him. 1985 had even been immortalised in a song by
Bowling for Soup.
Which reminded him, he’d listen to
Whitesnake next.
But first he would rise up to the challenge of his
rival.

Anyway, it wasn’t his
fault. Eighties rock was what his mother had listened to. He’d been weaned to
Huey Lewis and his
Power of Love
, taken his first steps to Run DMC’s
version of Aerosmith’s
Walk This Way.
Memories of his first day at
school came with a soundtrack of Tears for Fears telling him that
Everybody
Wants to Rule the World
. He’d never said it to anyone, and never would for
fear that they would laugh at him, but he felt that these songs from his
childhood, this body of work that his mother had passed on to him, were his
guide in the world. They taught him the life lessons about life that he needed
to make
himself
a success. She had left him a road-map
in the form of her music that he could follow once she was gone.

She’d died when he was
only fourteen.
Breast cancer.
A lump was found, but
too late. They took the whole thing away, and its partner, but it was too late,
it was already moving. From diagnosis to the end was just six weeks, and after
he felt like he had blinked and missed it. He had so many things left to say,
so many things to ask, but it was too late.
Always too late.

But he didn’t need
her, of course. She’d already passed on everything that she knew through the
songs that she left him. And so he listened, and he learned.

That just left his
dad, for what he was worth.

He didn’t like music.

A chime from his Blackberry
told Tony that his messages had finally finished downloading. He couldn’t
believe how bad the signal was out here in the country. He didn’t mind the long
drives that he needed to make for his job, but he did object to having to drive
on a road like this. Look at it: all trees and fields.
Nothing
at all as far as the horizon, when you could see that horizon that is; when it
wasn’t blocked by more bloody trees.
Even if there had been a phone mast
in every field, the trees with all their water and sap would suck the signal
from the air. He only had one hundred and two new messages, but it had taken
nearly ten minutes to download them.

He reached forward to
pick up the phone, and started flicking through the messages, scanning the
titles. Every so often he’d glance up, make sure he was not heading for
anything solid, and perform small course corrections.

Most of them were
work-related: adverts for MFD conferences, new products that he should really
think about telling his customers about, customers with queries, managers with
queries, colleagues with queries. Tony wished he wasn’t quite so good at his
job. Then he wouldn’t get all these bloody queries.

He
scrolled
past most of them, these weren’t the messages he was looking for. Finally, he
stopped. ‘Looking forward to tonight’ was the title. 
‘[email protected]’ was the name. It was from a red-headed woman called
Susanne Meddler and, he hoped, would tell him where he would be sleeping that
night.

He gave himself a
little ironic smile as he noticed that the mail immediately after Susanne’s was
from last night’s date, ‘gingerKim’. He would read that later, if he had time.
Hell, he might even reply. She’d been nice, and a lot of fun, she’d even cooked
a decent breakfast. He wouldn’t arrange to see her again, he didn’t think. If
he found himself back in Stoke he was sure there were plenty of other
red-headed women who might like a nice night out with a young man who looked as
good as he did.

He clicked open
Susanne’s message and started to read. Yes, she was okay to meet with him
tonight. She gave him a time and a place in Portsmouth where they were to meet.
She even mentioned that it was close to where she lived. Her final line was a
question. She just wanted to make sure that thirty-nine wasn’t too old for him.
He’d already told her that it wasn’t, that it didn’t matter what age she was,
she was still a beautiful young woman, but he guessed he would have to reassure
her. He pressed the button to reply and started tapping away, his thumb moving
from key to key, his eyes once more glancing between road and screen.

Of course
your
not to old.
Your
the perfect age. You would be
beautiful however old you were, but I’m glad
I’v
met
you now as I
cant
imagine
you ever being more beautiful than you are right now. I can’t wait to meet you,
its
going to be wonderful to see you. I just hope you
aren’t disappointed with me.

love
Tony xxx

He hit send and slid
the phone back onto his dashboard. For a moment he considered sending an email
to Kim. She’d actually been nice and he thought maybe, just maybe, she was
worth breaking his rule and seeing her a second time. Either way, she could
wait. If he did decide to give her another go then keeping her waiting was
definitely the right tactic. And if not, then letting it go cold was always the
easiest.

He wondered what all
these women thought about him. He knew it was probably cruel of him to woo them
so convincingly, work his way into their lives, and then into their beds, and
then to disappear. But, hell, that was what internet dating was all about,
wasn’t it? It was just about people looking to hook up and have a good time. No
way did he want to be tied down. He’d seen the effect it had had on his dad
when his mum died, and he never wanted to be in that position. And, anyway, he
was all over the country all the time, who would want to wait for that? He was
being kind really.

His thoughts drifted
back to his destination. Not Susanne, she was for later, first there was the client.
It was his first University job and he was quite excited and a little nervous.
He’d gone straight from school into work at the age of sixteen, so it felt a
long time since he’d been in any kind of educational establishment. He tried to
remember but didn’t think he’d ever actually been in a University. Now here he
was, entering like a conquering hero, bringing them the tool which would allow
them, yes, to copy, but so much more as well. What he sold weren’t
photocopiers, they were Multi-Functional Devices.
MFDs.
You could copy, scan, fax, print, scan to email, email to print, anything you
liked. About the only thing they wouldn’t do was make you a cup of coffee and
he had no doubt that the boffins were working on that. It was the easiest job
in the world. These things sold themselves.

He didn’t care how
educated the people at the University would be, or how many degrees or
doctorates they might hold, once they saw the demo machine he had in his back
seat they would be climbing over each other to get them installed in their
departments. He’d been tasked with getting at least five into the university,
but his personal target was twenty. Quietly confident was how he saw that
estimate.

His attention was
suddenly taken by two dark shapes in the distance. They were large military
helicopters, Chinooks, flying over the fields from his left, low over the road,
and off behind trees on his right. Just as they were about to disappear from
view he saw one of them veer suddenly downwards. There was a huge explosion which
made him jerk in his seat. His car was still speeding forward and Tony couldn’t
understand why his right foot wasn’t already on the brake. He shifted it from
the accelerator, time seeming to slow, his foot caught in treacle. He started
to press on the brake as he saw a truck rise up over the trees from where the
helicopter had gone down and his eye tracked it as it flew towards him. It was
going to hit him square on.

The sharp braking
caused his Blackberry to slide along the dashboard and he reached out to grab
it even as the shadow of the truck blotted out the sun.

Nicola opened her door
and vomited onto the road. In the distance she could hear the crunching of
metal on metal as the cars that were behind her pile-up in a screech of
braking. She heard, hell, felt the flames from the truck behind her. More
explosions and strange whizzing, cracking noises came from behind the trees,
and from the back seat she could hear Alyssa calling her name. None of this
seemed to matter. She wiped the back of her hand across her mouth and took the
moment to realise that she was still alive.

The trailer had
crashed to the road right in front of the car. Nicola had attempted her futile
gesture of shielding Alyssa, but had turned back just in time to see the trailer
roll onto its top. Both of the sides were aflame, but they were canvas and,
even as she looked, they peeled back from the frame. The car jolted as it
bumped up onto the upturned roof of the truck, drove through the smoke-filled
emptiness and thumped back down onto the road on the other side. She had
immediately turned back, pressed down on the brake pedal once more, and slewed
the car over to the hard shoulder.

She turned and looked
back at the truck. The wooden roof which had provided her with a driving
surface was now firmly ablaze and she could barely make out the cars which had
screeched to a halt on the other side.

She was alive. She
couldn’t believe it. She was alive.

‘They’, she reminded
herself. She should be thinking ‘they’ were alive. She looked back into the car
and saw Alyssa, tearful and scared, but whole, and she choked back a sob which
nearly turned back into vomiting. The girl saw her looking and held out her
arms, calling, “Mummy!
Mummy!”

Nicola tried to stand
and a wave of nausea and faintness sent her back into her seat. “Just a minute,
baby. Just one minute.” She lowered her head and took several deep breaths.

When she looked up
again she saw the silver car. The one that she had thought must be smashed by
the truck. It was
parked,
its side snuggled up against
the burning truck, intact. She could see a figure sitting behind the steering
wheel, not moving, and before she knew what she was doing she was sprinting
across the road and
hurdling
the crash barrier.

Tony woke up when she
slapped him across the face. He didn’t know who she was or what he’d done to
her. Hell, he thought, trying to control his confusion, she didn’t even have
red hair. He didn’t have time to work it out before she was grabbing his arm
and pulling him from the car. He didn’t get far. His seatbelt was still
fastened.

She didn’t wait for
him to come to his senses, but reached past him and hit the release. As she did
so her hair brushed against his face and he could smell her shampoo. That
worked to wake him as effectively as any smelling salts. He became aware of the
passenger side of the car being closer to him than it should be, and the huge
wall of metal that filled the window on that side. He remembered what had
happened and, even as she was pulling at his arm again, he was levering himself
from his seat and pushing up and out. The combined effort sent them both
sprawling to the tarmac. She scrambled to her feet, her hand still on his arm,
pulling him up and away from his vehicle and towards the relative safety of her
own car.

He took two steps with
her then stopped. He pulled his arm free and patted his pockets.