The Samsara Project - David Burgess (early reader books .txt) 📗

make a small picnic and then we could leave after breakfast. That’s if you’d like to stay the night?”
Tracy looked tense, waiting to see John’s reaction.
“I love the south coast.” replied John.
“One question,” asked Tracy.
“Sure.”
“Why did you park up for twenty minutes before you knocked on the door?”
John was lost for word, “You knew I was outside?”
She pointed. “I am on the second floor and have a large bay window overlooking the front. I can see everything.”
“And you left me there, alone and in the cold” replied John in a slightly hurt tone.
Tracy grinned, stood up, took hold of John’s hand and led him to her bedroom.

* * * *

Eighteen miles away in central London Pat was sat in the living room of his three bedroom terraced house. He checked the time on a carriage clock placed centrally on his mahogany fire surround. It was just before ten thirty PM. Pat wondered how John’s date with Tracy was going. He felt awkward that he was more interested in what information he would be able to get out of Tracy than how his friend was fairing on his first date. Pat had known John for a long time. He had also known Pamela, and as much as he knew how John had felt about her, and still did, he did not think that was a good enough reason for him to live the rest of his life as a monk. If there truly was a heaven and Pamela was looking out for John then she would not want him to be alone. Pat was certain that Pamela would be doing everything she could to find a new love for John. “If you’ve any time left when you’re done, try and find someone for me,” he said in mock prayer.
At ten thirty four there was a knock at Pat’s door. He was not expecting anyone, “Maybe it’s John,” he thought. The doorbell rang again. Pat got up from his chair and walked into the hallway. He switched on the light and could see two figures standing at the door. “Could be John and Tracy,” he again thought. Pat took the security chain off the door and opened it. Two uniformed police officers were standing on the step.
“Can I help you?” asked Pat.
“We’re sorry for calling so late sir but are you Mr Patrick Wallace?”
“Yes, is everything alright?”
“Yes Mr. Wallace, it is now.”
At that exact point the two HSS agents grabbed Pat and before he really had any idea of what was happening he found himself pinned down on the floor in his living room.
“Get off me, what do you think you’re doing?”
Agents three and four had been sent to get information from Pat, they needed to know what the group knew and what if anything they intended to do with that information. I short they were doing a risk assessment.
“Just so you understand the position you’re in,” said agent three to Pat, “we will ask the questions. You will answer them quickly and truthfully.” The agent stared menacingly into Pat’s eyes. “Don’t be under any illusion about not answering our questions or about lying to us. We’ll know if you do and that will make things a whole lot worse for you. If you never believe anything again then believe this. We will get the answers we want.” Pat was rolled over onto his stomach, his arms were pulled behind his back and duct tape wrapped around his wrists. Next his ankles were tapped together, he knees were bent up towards his hands and more tape fastened his wrists and ankles together. He was now trussed up. Apart from being able to wriggly slightly Pat found he was completely unable to move.
Agent four crouched down next to Pat, “tell me everything you know about Suzie Reeves.”
“I don’t know anybody called Suzie Reeves.”
“How about Gillian Burns”
“No, I’ve never heard of her.”
“I suppose you’ve never heard of Tracy Rae either.”
“You suppose right,” replied Pat.
Agent three butted in. “I have to admit I do admire your loyalty towards your friends. It is very commendable but we know you know whose those women are. We know you and your friends have been checking into their backgrounds. We know you have found our bugs and done everything you can to stop us from finding out the information we need to know.”
Pat glared at them. “You two bit bully boys, from whatever gang you’re from, don’t frighten me in the slightest. I was born, bred and raised in Glasgow and there tough men are tough. Not like the southern softies down here. So why don’t you crawl back to whatever dockland hole you crawled out from and tell what ever upstart boss sent you on this wild goose chase to go and shove himself somewhere the sun don’t shine. If you get my drift”
“What a pretty speech,” said agent three.
“Last chance old man,” said agent four, “easy way or hard way. We don’t care. In fact the hard way for you is the easy way for us. Take you pick.”
“Go to hell,” said Pat as he spat at agent three. He hit the agent squarely in his left eye. The agent grimaced and turned away, “You’ll pay for that,” he snarled at Pat as he wiped away the saliva from his eye.
“Do your worst”, said Pat in a surprisingly calm voice, “by the way, did I mention I’ve got AIDS. I’ve only got a few months left to live and the doctors tell me it not the most pleasant way to die.” He looked over at the agent still wiping his eye, “I’d get myself checked out first thing in the morning,” said Pat. “Chances are you’ve got it now. Welcome to the club.”
Pat was about to say something else when he felt a sharp pain in the top of his leg. He looked down just in time to see agent four push the plunger on a syringe.
Almost at once Pat felt his temperature start to rise, he started to sweat. He felt light headed, and then he started to float. He felt his body, no longer trussed up, leave the floor. It was only a few feet to start with, and then he started to spin, slowly at first then faster and faster. The spinning stopped, he could hear muted voices in the distance. Pat had no idea what they were saying. He started to move around the room, the walls were all different colours, shapes and sizes. It made no sense to him at all that the room was actually a room, it couldn’t be, and nothing fits. He looked towards the window; the more he looked towards it the further away he seemed to be. It was now as though he was looking down a brightly lit corridor, one that was lit up on all sides with bright white florescent lighting. His body then made a dash towards the corridor, he went faster and faster until he was travelling so fast everything around him was a blur. Nothing had any shape or form. The voices, at least he thought they were voices were coming at him from everywhere. Pat felt surrounded by voices, he tried to shout back but nothing came out of his mouth. The white fluorescent light then changed to blue, then green. The colours changed more quickly now, red to orange to white, to pink, to amber then all merging together into a brilliant intense white.
Pat stared at the light, he was surprised that it did not hurt his eyes, staring a little harder he could just make out a figure. Being dressed in white the figure was hard to focus on. He could tell though that it was waving at him, calling him over towards him. Pat, still floating moved towards the figure. As he got closer the figure opened a door. Pat floated through it. The door closed behind him. The room suddenly changed. The floor erupted into a sea of unimaginably hot molten lave. Lave was spitting up into the air, ten, twenty, thirty feet. Pat did not know. He tried to avoid it but that was impossible and parts of his skin became horribly burned. Looking at his right forearm all he could see was dark black, charred and smoking skin. The pain ripped through his body, he screamed, for the first time more in terror than pain. The lava was getting more intense, the heat even more unbearable, he could feel his blood start to boil. Over to his right Pat saw a ridge or rock, he tried to think himself towards it. Slowly he started to turn; he concentrated more and more on getting to the safety of the rock. He was turning quicker now. Focus, he thought focus. Pat reached the rock. He was now standing, no longer floating. The rock was not a rock at all. It was as though he was walking on marshmallow. The rock felt squishy under his feet. Pat though he was feeling tired; it was getting more and more difficult for him to walk. He started to hear all sorts of sounds, ringing, screaming, shouting, moaning, high pitched sounds, low pitched sounds, so much sound he felt as if his eardrums would burst. He looked down and realised he was sinking into the rock. This was not rock, it was quicksand. It was slowly devouring him and he could see no way out. Pat fought against the sand, forcing himself to make even the smallest amount of progress. He could hear voices, they were calling him again, “Over here,” they called, “over here, in here, quickly.” This was the first time that Pat had been able to understand what the voices had been saying. “Over where?” he shouted. “Where are you?”
“Pat, Pat, are you alright? What happened to you? It’s me, Andrew”
Pat opened his eyes and looked at Andrew. The eyes were dull and deep set, no sparkle, not Pat’s eyes at all. Pat tried to focus his vision but it was too hard for him. All he could make out were the blurred outline of a shapeless individual. He tried to speak but no words left his mouth. Pat felt hot; he was in fact cold. He couldn’t stop shaking. Despite not being able to see or recognise anything he kept looking around. The thoughts and images he experienced still fresh in his brain, for the first time Pat felt genuine terror.
Just then two paramedics entered the room. “What happened?” asked the first.
“I have no idea,” replied Andrew, “As soon as I found him I called you and the police”
As though on cue, DI Bales and DCS Hughes walked into the room. “We were in a car when we heard Pat’s name on a radio call so we drove straight over.” said DI Bales.
“Good lord, what happened here, Is Pat alright?” asked DCS Hughes.
“I have no idea,” replied Andrew, “the paramedics will know more about that than I do. I just found him like this about fifteen minutes ago. I haven’t touched him or moved anything, I’ve been as careful as I can.”
“You’ve done fine Andrew,” said DCS Hughes, “you know we will have to have a talk about this, take a statement, probably best done down at the station.”
“That’s OK. I’ll help anyway I can.”
DCS Hughes had been looking at Andrew since he and DI Bales arrived. He was clearly shaken up by what he had found; probably a little scared as well. This was real, whatever they were involved in, or however they were involved had been like a little boys club so far. Now things had moved up