Beating the Meat

by Simon Whitechapel

Ring-a-ring o’ roses,
   A pocket full of posies,
A-tishoo! A-tishoo!
   We all fall down!

He frowned again, trying to remember a rumour he had heard recently, then shrugged again. His ears were still buzzing and when he hummed now they responded to it, still holding the shape of the rhythm the Vi’s had played, drawn down from the star-polluted heavens. He was tired and drunk and he wanted to go to bed. He’d ring Leon in the morning and ask about the rumour.

But somehow he wanted to hear what was on the tape first. His new stereo couldn’t play tapes that age but he still had one of his old ones at the back of a cupboard, with a carrier-bag of old pirated tapes. He turned off the light in the vestibule and walked into his darkened flat, the lights of the town shining out flat beyond the row of windows ahead of him, mirrored in the black water of the docks directly beneath. The lights were bright, staining the sky a faint orange, drowning the stars, letting enough light into the flat for him to see by as he opened the cupboard and dug out the old stereo. He reached in and lifted it out, its flex trailing behind it, the plug caught underneath the bag of old tapes that had sat beside it.

He lifted the carrier-bag out too, surprised at its weight, then put the stereo on the floor, plugged it in, and switched it on. Its lights glowed red and green, making the skin of his hand shift colour as he put the tape from his coat-pocket into it and pressed PLAY. The run-in hissed and the tape began to play. Distorted bass. A distorted bass rhythm. Chang-a-chang-CHANG. As though a too-small recorder had tried to capture the sound of too-powerful speakers. A Virus-K37 pirate? Recorded at one of their gigs? He was still trying to decide when the run-out hissed and the PLAY button clicked up.

What the hell... The tape had lasted only ten seconds or so. Hadn’t it? He pressed the reverse PLAY to hear what was on the other side and the same distorted bass started up. Chang-a-chang- — he pressed STOP and ejected the tape, holding it up to the light from the window, trying to see how much tape there was in it. He couldn’t see and he was still tired, still drunk, still wanting to go to sleep. He walked towards the row of windows and opened one, leant through it, staring down at the black water below him before he threw the tape out into the darkness, waiting the two or three seconds for it to fall to the water of the docks, releasing a tiny, distant splash. He lifted back from the window and was about to close it and turn away for bed when he paused, his eye caught by something in the sky, as though there had been a change there since he came in. But he couldn’t see anything, just the faint orange glow that dulled and softened even the brightest stars, that would later dull and soften the sharp white crescent of moon as she rose from the east. He closed the window and went to bed, not caring.

He might not have remembered anything the following morning, but for the old stereo still plugged in along one wall with the carrier-bag of old tapes sitting next to it as he came in from the bathroom, shaving, wondering what to have for breakfast. He walked over to the stereo and crouched beside it, running his electric razor over his chin as he ran his hand through the bag, lifting a handful of tapes to see what they were, turning his hand left and right to read the titles, dropping them to the floor when he had looked at them, putting his hand in the bag again for a new handful. He hadn’t listened to most of them for years.

One, scrawled “HO: UV Rebus”, brought back an old memory and he flicked the razor off, letting the other tapes in his hand slip to the floor as he put it into the stereo. He pressed PLAY and turned up the volume, thinking he’d listen to it as he had breakfast. But he stopped in the doorway to the kitchen. Distorted bass. A distorted bass rhythm. Chang-a-chang-CHANG. Chang-a-chang-CHANG. Tickling his feet through the floor. He turned, feeling suddenly dizzy for a moment, and walked back to the stereo, crouched in front of it, pressed STOP, ejected the tape.

It sat in his palm. An old-fashioned tape. Like the one he had found in his coat-pocket last night. But not the one that he had found in his coat-pocket last night. He had thrown that into the dock after listening to it for ten seconds or so. Because that had been all that had been on it. Ten seconds or so of this distorted bass rhythm. It sounded in his head as he remembered it. Chang-a-chang-CHANG.

But this tape had sat at the back of the cupboard for years. Ever since he had recorded a CD onto it. An old Haematick Ocean CD, UV Rebus. Which sounded nothing like that. He pressed PLAY again, listened for a second, then pressed STOP. Nothing at all like that. He ejected the tape, looked at the others scattered on the floor, picked one up and slipped it in the stereo. “GH (R3 live)”. A live recording of a Glamhoth gig off the old Radio Three. According to the label. He pressed PLAY. But the sound coming from the speakers was distorted bass. A distorted bass rhythm. Chang-a-chang-CHANG.

He tried another tape, then another, and another, and another, forgetting the time, trying to find somewhere a tape that played what the label said it would play, should play. But none of them did. He lifted his hand to wipe his forehead and the flash of his watchface brought him out of what he had been doing. He looked at the time. Shit. He picked up the electric razor from the carpet and switched it on, walking quickly towards the bathroom, running it over his chin. Too late for breakfast.

He rang Leon from his car on the way to work, a hastily bought pie sitting in the passenger seat beside him. The phone rang eight times, nine times, ten times and he was about to hang up when it was answered. Silence for a moment, then a tired, “Yeah?”

“Still suffering?”

“Yeah. A bit.”

“This will take your mind off it. What was that rumour about the Vi’s and tapes?”

“Rumour about the Vi’s and what?”

“Tapes. Old audio tapes.”

There was silence for a moment.

“Oh, that. Yeah, Christ, it’s all come back to me now. Do Balderstone and Hollyfield ring any bells?”

“Who?”

“Balderstone and Hollyfield. They were a couple last century. A sort of folie à deux serial-killer thing. Sometime round the Second World War, I think. Kidnapping kids, getting their jollies, burying them up on the Moors. Which is funny. Or maybe not.”

“Or maybe not what? And what have they got to do with tapes?”

“It’s funny, because, well, leave that for a bit. As for B’n’H and tapes, they recorded some of their victims. Being tortured. It was a big thing at the trial.”

“And?”

“New recordings have turned up. Or so the rumour ran. Even worse stuff. More killings. But they were both hanged after the trial, so nobody cares much, except for their cult following.”

“Their what?”

“Their cult following. Brother James and Sister Mary.”

“Who?”

“Balderstone’s name was James and Hollyfield’s name was Mary. So Brother James and Sister Mary, to their cult following. And since these new tapes turned up they’ve been after them. Their cult following, I mean, after the tapes.”

“What kind of tapes?”

“The old audio ones. The really old audio ones. You’ve probably never seen one. Come to think of it, I don’t think I have either. I don’t even know if they used tape, as such. Maybe it was wire.”

“Yeah? Hold on, I think — nah, carry on. What about the tapes? What would they do with them if they got hold of them? Their cult followers, I mean.”

“God knows. Something twisted. But it’s supposed to be that these tapes have proof of what Balderstone and Hollyfield were really up to, up on the Moors.”

“Which was what?”

He couldn’t resist the smell any longer and opened the paper bag the pie was sitting in. The paper crackled. Saliva filled his mouth and he sucked it back. Leon coughed, then said, “Something pagan. Very old. They’re supposed to have known about this old stone circle up there. Thousands of years old. Overgrown now, but the ground above it is still, I don’t know, powerful. At the right times of year. When the stars are right.”

“Yeah?” he said, his mouth full of pie.

“What are you eating?”

“ A pie,” he tried to say, but couldn’t. He swallowed.

“A pie. And God it’s delicious.”

“Don’t talk about food. And stop eating so noisily. That’s almost as bad.”

“Take your mind off it and tell me more about the stars being right, up on the Moors. Because Virus are playing up there in May.”

“I know. That’s what I meant about it being funny. Balderstone and Hollyfield, with the thing about the Moors, and Virus being due up there soon.”

“In three months.”

“That’s soon, by the standard of these things.”

“What things?”

“Things.”

Leon coughed again and he could tell he was getting bored.

“Fancy a drink tonight and telling me more?”

“I’m never touching another drop in my life. On my mother’s grave.”

“Would eight be okay?”

“Yeah. But at the Green Man, this time. Now fuck off and let me suffer in silence.”

He put the phone back into its rest, shaking his head, then wishing he hadn’t as his own hang-over reminded him it was still there. He put the pie back into its bag, three-quarters eaten, and left it on the passenger seat when he got out of the car in the underground car-park beneath the office.

It was still there at the end of the day, no longer warm, no longer smelling delicious, but he’d rushed lunch and his stomach rumbled as he poked the bag open and looked at it, starting the car and reversing out of his place in the car-park. He pulled the pie out and started to eat it, driving one-handed from the carpark, holding it up for a moment after the first few bites, looking at it. It looked like a crescent of moon. A crescent of cold, shrivelled moon.

He bit at it again, carefully, and looked at it again. A crescent of moon. His second bite had made the shape almost perfect and he was reluctant to bite at again, destroying what chance had created. He’d reached the exit and the yellow-lit booth of the security guard. The dark figure inside it didn’t seem to move but the gate of the car-park slid open, letting in a swirl of rain-drops that glittered in his headlights for a moment like metallic insects, patterning his windscreen as he drove through them and out.

Grey light replaced yellow inside the car as he drove up the short ramp and onto the street. Reluctance gone, he finished the pie in three bites and flicked on the heater. As he drove home, turning, driving, stopping, turning, the moon, hanging low to the west in a break in the clouds, played hide and seek with him between the offices, then the towerblocks, a white crescent that softened and dulled as the street lamps began to come on. A white crescent, or a white claw, tracking him as he drove. When he stopped the car in front of the gate of the communal garage of his flats and pressed the infra-red control on the dashboard the muscles in his neck and back tightened as though, in the last instant he was in the open, the blow would fall.

The gate slid open like a mouth, exhaling sour yellow light as he drove through it from the street. The doors closed behind him and he drove to his space, stopped, turned the engine off, and sat in his seat for a moment. Time. There wasn’t enough time. Wasn’t enough time. For what? He didn’t know. He opened the door and got out. The air of the garage was stale with exhaust but he could smell the cold wet air that had come through the doors with him. It was fading, an intruder being absorbed into the space beneath the flats.

He walked across the garage floor to the lift, dropping his keys into his coat-pocket with one hand as he pressed the lift-button with the other. The weight in the pocket reminded him of the tape he had found there the previous night. Why had he thrown it away? He didn’t know. Leon might have been able to recognize the music.

The lift doors slid open ahead of him and he stepped through them and pressed the number for his flat. The doors slid shut, cutting off the yellow-lit space of the garage, lifting him away from it, up towards his flat, towards the windows that would be staring out over the docks again and the wakening lights of the city. When he got in he showered and changed, then called Leon to check that the pub was still on. All he got was the answering service. Leon had probably recovered from his hangover and gone out to the city centre, on a tour of the new tsuuvo arcades, wasting more of his student loan.

He was about to check his email when he stopped, struck by an idea. He re-dialled Leon’s number and took the phone over to the old stereo and pressed PLAY, holding the receiver to the distorted bass rhythm from what should have been a OhrWurm CD. As he walked away towards the kitchen he punched up his e-mail on the phone and read a few messages, including one from Leon. The pub was still on. He put the phone back on its base, put a meal into the microwave, ate it quickly, then left the flat. He wouldn’t take the car in — the train would be quicker at this time of the evening.

The station was empty. He waited on the edge of the platform, watching the rain falling on the tracks, making them glisten in the station lights. The moon had set, shining beyond the rim of the world, playing hide and seek between the offices and towerblocks of other cities. He shivered and as though the concrete beneath his feet had shivered with him he felt the incoming rumble of the train.

It too was empty but someone had left an Evening News on one of the seats. He leaned forward over the back of the seat ahead of him and picked it up, wondering if there had been a review of the gig. There had been.

WHINE AND POSEURS

Jake O’Donnell

VIRUS K-37 AT THE STAFFORD ARENA

I was handed a leaflet as I came into this much-vaunted occulticcasion but I’d read all I wanted of the quasi-religious nonsense that comes with the stellarrhythmia scene when Kargokkult last blew through, so I discreetly crumpled it up and dropped it underfoot when no-one’s eyes were on me (not too difficult, given the swirling and unpleasantly scented smoke these bands like to sautée their fans in before they make their grand entrances). To recap for anyone who missed my review: all hail the micro-electronic revolution that’s put cutting-edge radio astronomy at last within reach of everyone’s pocket (though not mine, seeing as you ask: I’ve got better things to spend me pennies on). The latest fruit was this gig, when Virus were scheduled to unleash their latest discovery on an indifferent world: some rhythms in the ULW band picked up from the vicinity of the Horseshoe Nebula, no less.

Though when I say “indifferent world”, I don’t (of course) mean that section of it that worships at the Church of Stellarrhythmia. The local congregation was all in tonight, all ages, all styles, and all six or seven sexes. I’d got

He stopped reading and dropped the newspaper back on the seat. Wanker. He’d actually written to the paper after the Kargokkult review, complaining about the bias in it, and got a form letter back. Other dedicated fans, he knew, were in favour of more direct action, and though their plans had petered out it was going to happen one day, if the media continued to ridicule Karg’ and the Vi’s and Sel’ and the rest. That would make them sit up and take notice. It would be nice if it started here first, too. He looked out of the window, watching the yellow pools of light along the city’s roads slide past. His mobile buzzed in his pocket.

“Yeah?” he said, though he knew from the background noise who was calling and where he was.

“Where are you?”

“On the train. Be with you in five minutes.”

“Okay. Shall I get them in?”

“Yeah.”

He switched the mobile off and slipped it back into his pocket. Christ, what a night. He hoped it would be finer for the Vi’s’ gig up on the Moors, though he doubted the attendance would drop much if it wasn’t. The gig should be something special. Very special.

Leon had the beers in and as he sat down next to him he picked up his and noisily sucked an inch or so in, then put it down again, sighing with pleasure like an old man. The pub was half-full. No-one he knew, except for Estelle talking to one of the bar-staff. She’d be over later on to catch up on the gossip, exchange impressions of the gig. Leon picked up his pint, sucked noisily at it too, put it back sighing with pleasure like an old man. It was an old joke. Leon raised his eyebrows.

“So, good day?”

“Bad day. I’m going pack it in if it doesn’t get more interesting. You’ve been at the tsuuvo arcades, yeah?”

“Yeah. Self-indulging.”

“It’s your money.”

“It is.”

“Spoken to Estelle?”

“Briefly, when I came in.”

“Okay. So what the gig?”

“What about it? You were there too.”

“No. The one in December. Up on the Moors. You were saying something about it this morning.”

“I was?”

“You was.”

“Oh, yeah. Well, I reckon it’s something to do with Balderstone and Hollyfield. The stone circle. The Vi’s have always been into that side of it too. But we’ll see.”

They lifted their pints almost simultaneously and drank. Leon said, more quietly, almost to himself, “Yeah, we’ll see.”

“Or hear.”

“Hear?”

“Yeah. Something you don’t know about the gig. When I got home I found a tape in my pocket. An old one. Pre-CD, even.”

“Yeah?”

“I played it. On this old stereo I’ve still got. And... well, I don’t know what happened. I wanted to ask you, can a tape carry a virus?”

“Yeah, of course. A virus is just a program, and you can put a program onto a tape. Carve it on stone if want, for storage.”

“Okay. But can a virus be a sound?”

“If it’s on a tape, you can play it back as sound, if that’s what you mean. But you won’t like it unless you’re into one of those old noise bands.”

“No, I mean, can it be music? Proper music?”

“How’d you mean?”

“Well, when I played the tape, after that, every other tape I tried played the same thing. This snatch of distorted music. Not noise, music.”

“Not possible.”

“It happened. Every other tape played the same thing. I tried a Haematick Ocean pirate. It played the same thing. A-”

“Not possible. The old stereos didn’t work like that.”

“But what if the sound had got into the stereo somehow?”

“How’d you mean?”

“So that was all the stereo played, whatever you tried to play on it.”

“Bollocks. Not possible. Not with those old systems.”

“It happened.”

“Not possible. Where is this tape?”

“Well, I threw it away.”

“What?”

“I thought it was just a tape. I played it when I got in from the gig, threw it away, then when I tried other tapes in the morning, they all had this sound on them.”

“What sound?”

“Ah, I was hoping you’d ask that. Try your answering machine.”

“Yeah?”

Leon took out his mobile, punched in a number, held it to his ear. He listened, snorted, then held the phone out.

“Is that it?”

The distorted bass rhythm was coming out of the phone, sounding tinny and compressed. Chang-a-chang-CHANG. Someone drinking at a table nearby looked at them.

“Yep.”

“Ayyymazing. Let’s see what other gems I’ve been left.”

He listened to his other messages, slowly starting to frown.

“What the fuck?”

“What the fuck what?”

“What the fuck have you done to my answering service?”

“Nothing.”

“Then why” — he held the phone out and pressed a button on it — “do I get this here” — he pressed the button again — “and here” — he pressed it again — “and here.”

Each time it was the distorted bass rhythm. Chang-a-chang-CHANG.

“That’s what I recorded for you.”

“No, one of them is what you recorded for me. The other ones should be other messages. Recorded separately. But all they are is that fucking noise you put on.”

“Not possible.”

“Yeah.”

“But it happened.”

“No, you’re up to something. You’ve got together with Adam and this is one of his jokes. He’s hacked me.”

“No. I’m still pissed off with him over Fiona, remember?”

“You’ve still been up to something.”

A mobile phone started to ring at the nearby table.

“No. All I’ve done is record that thing on your answering-machine. And the same th-”

He stopped. The owner of the phone was holding it out to his mates. Chang-a-chang-CHANG. Tinny and compressed.

“What the fuck’s that?” one of them said. The guy who had glanced at them earlier on jerked his chin towards them.

“It’s them fucking students. Them ones, over there. I heard them playing it a minute ago.”

The owner of the phone pulled at his pint and started to rise from his seat.

“Oi, you two, are you fucking round with my mobile?”

“Ignore him,” Leon said.

“I’d be delighted to. But will he ignore us? Doesn’t look like it.”

He was on his feet now, walking over to them, putting his hands on their table, leaning down between them to look them in the eye one by one.

“Oi, dickheads, I was talking to you.”

His breath was thick and beery, exhaled deliberately in their faces.

“I know. We heard. And the answer’s no, we haven’t been fucking round with your mobile.”

“Daz over there says you have been. That fucking sound. He says he heard it on yours first. A minute ago.”

The pub manager was coming out from behind the bar, fast, but not hurrying. It’d be over in a minute. He picked up his pint and sat back, not watching. Another mobile phone was ringing and suddenly he knew what the owner would hear when he picked it up and answered. Chang-a-chang-CHANG. Tinny and compressed.

“Leon, c’mon, let’s go.”

“No, you stay until you fucking ans-”

The manager had arrived at their table now, slapping the drunk on the back, obviously knowing him, about to start calming him down.

Leon said, “It’s okay, leave it, we’re off.”

“What’s the complaint, gentlemen?”

“He thinks we’ve done something to his mobile.”

“Is that right, Mick?”

“Yeah. These wankers have fucked it up. Listen.”

Over in the corner the other mobile had been answered and the owner was listening to it with a frown on his face. He’d be over to join the merry throng in a moment, if he’d heard what was going on. They were on their feet, Leon draining his pint, putting it down on the table.

“Oi, don’t fucking-”

“Mick, forget it,” he heard the manager saying behind them as they walked to the door. “They ain’t done nothing. It’s a fault on the fucking network and it’ll be sorted out very quick. Just sit b-”

The pub door closed behind them, cutting off the words. They walked quickly down the street and turned the corner, not wanting to stay near the pub in case the guy was thrown out and came looking for them with his mates.

“Did you see Estelle killing herself over it?”

The air was cold and his breath plumed in front of him. Leon grunted.

“Yeah, I did an’ all. Cheeky cow. I’ll have words with her next time I see her.”

“And did you see what happened with that other mobile?”

“Yeah. What the fuck is it?”

“Like the guy said, it’s a fault on the network. It was infected with that sound, when you played it back off your answering machine.”

“It’s not possible.”

“It’s happened. I’ve infected the mobile network with that sound. Maybe the whole mobile network, all over the world.”

“No. You and Adam have cooked all this up.”

“Not just me and Adam. Me and Adam and Daz and Mick. And the other guy in the corner with the mobile.”

“Fuck off.”

“You never did like losing arguments.”

“I’ve not lost it. Where we going now?”

“I don’t know about you, but I’m on my way to the station.”

“What about our drink?”

“We’ve had it. Short but sweet. I’ll ring you in the morning about going out on Wednesday. We can have a word with Estelle too.”

“You won’t be able to ring me.”

“Why not?”

“You’ve infected the mobile network, remember? The landlines will be next.”

“Yeah. Well, I’ll send you a postcard then.”

They parted at the entrance to the station and he walked inside it, fumbling in his pocket for change. As he stood at the ticket machine feeding coins in his mobile started to buzz. He took it out, knowing that all he’d hear would be the distorted bass rhythm, tinny and compressed.

No. He could hear an expectant silence.

“Hello?”

His ticket slid out of the machine like a tongue and he picked it up.

“Beating the meat,” a skeletal voice said into his ear.

“What? Is that you, Leon? Leon? Stop fuck-”

“Nine nineteen,” said the voice.

“Leon? Is that you? Est-”

“A million thanks,” said the voice, then the line went dead. He punched the last-caller code and listened.

“You were called today at oh-twenty-one-nineteen. The caller withheld their number.”

He looked at his watch. It was 9:20. He went through onto the platform to wait for his train, feeling cold. He shivered on the edge of the platform, wondering if his mobile would buzz again, if he would pick it up and hear the skeletal voice again. He shivered harder for a moment, feeling as though he was coming down with 'flu.

There was a drunk on the train when he got on, slumped down in a seat, head against the back of the seat ahead of him, one arm thrown forward over it. He sat down across the aisle, waiting for the buzz in his pocket, trying to resist the growing impulse to switch the mobile off completely, so it couldn’t ring. The train began to move again and he jerked forward suddenly in his seat. Something had stung his back, leaving a singing patch of pain that hardened and sharpened even as turned round, trying to see what it was that had stung him. Christ, there was another drunk behind him, fallen forward against the back of his seat.

Rubbing at his back, he got out of his seat and stood in the aisle, looking at the drunk slumped forward against the back of what had been his seat. Only he wasn’t a drunk. Wasn’t a he, but a she, her long hair swaying to the rhythm of the train, veiling her face. Her mobile had fallen from her hand as she listened to it and was lying on the floor beside her feet. He poked at it with a foot, trying to nudge it properly out into the light. It didn’t move. Something was holding it to the floor. He bent and looked at it, eyes narrowing. It glittered with pale crystals, some almost as long as fingers now, but thin and sharp. Had she heard the voice too, telling her “Beating the meat” before it killed her?

The pain in his back was worsening, spreading out in a circle, aching in his flesh. In his meat. He kicked at the girl’s mobile again but it was too firmly fastened to the floor. By the crystals. He looked at the back of the seat where he had been sitting and saw the tips of other crystals growing through it now. That was what had stung him. They must be growing on her face too, growing fast, growing through the seat too. He turned away, looking for the other drunk, the one he had seen when he got on the train, his mouth starting to draw back as the pain in his back got worse.

The other drunk wasn’t a drunk either, though he was a he. He had slumped forward too as his mobile killed him, but he hadn’t dropped it. It was still clutched in the hand thrown forward over the seat and the crystals growing from it were fully through his flesh now. Through his meat. The face wasn’t screened by hair and he nearly threw up as he looked at it. It glittered as though it was covered in frost. Glittered. With the crystals.

He sat down, mouth gaping in a rictus of pain and horror. When the train stopped at his station he stood up and almost ran to the door, feet starting to drag. He opened the door and jumped out onto the platform, hearing screams and wailing sirens getting louder ahead of him as he walked as fast as he could toward the exit. Tears of pain were streaming down his face, as though he had readied himself for the gusts of smoke that greeted him as he got onto the street. Someone was lying on the pavement ahead of him, dead, with a elliptical patch of what looked like heaped frost lying near one outstretched hand.

As he got closer he saw it was the crystals again. There would be a mobile phone beneath them, but they had covered it already, growing fast. Faster all the time. His whole back ached now but he didn’t want to reach back and rub it, even touch it, for fear of what his fingers would find growing out of it.

He reached the flats and let himself in to the lobby, the key rattling in one unsteady hand. As he walked inside he saw across a bank of ferns that the door of one of the lifts was sliding shut, striking something, sliding open again, and when he got to the other side of the ferns he saw that a body was lying half-in, half-out of the lift, its outstretched arm disappearing into another patch of crystals.

He was stumbling now, legs almost giving way, his whole back shrieking with pain, white hot threads of it seeming to run from his spine across his ribs, down his legs and arms, and when he tried to lift an arm and press the button of another lift he could barely do it, could barely press the button, had to push his whole body forward so that its weight fed into the dead finger he held on the button.

The lift must have only been a floor or two above, because it arrived almost at once, its doors sliding open for him. It was empty and he stepped into it, almost tripping as one leg partly gave way.

“Christ,” he said. “Christ.”

He began to fall over, managed to grab at a wall with one nearly useless arm, holding himself up as he turned to the control panel and tried to press the 9 button. He couldn’t do it and it was as though his tears had been shed for the frustration that overwhelmed him. He allowed himself to fall back against the rear wall of the lift and heard a chiming, then a grating as his back touched the metal panel and slid downwards against it. He sat on the floor, back against the rear wall, watching the bright, empty lobby through the open door. The door started to slide shut automatically, but one of his feet was in the way, resting on the lobby floor. The closing door touched the obstruction and slid open again. His vision was going, the pain in his back still increasing.

“Christ,” he said. “No.”

The door tried to close again, touching his foot again, sliding open again. He could hear the door of the lift next to him doing the same, out of phase by a couple of seconds. Ten seconds passed and his door tried to close again, touched his foot, slid open again.

His mobile started to buzz and he sobbed with relief. Only one of his arms was still working, the fingers of the hand locked, and he struggled to get his mobile out and answer the longed-for call. It seemed to take for ever and when he held the mobile against his ear all he could do was whisper into it.

“I’m ready. Beat me. Please. Beat me.”

“Beat meat,” said the skeletal voice and his brain exploded with stars.