‘earthmover’

2770 words

They'd closed the highway and the car sat idling before a bored young woman in a hard-hat leaning on a stop-sign. Beyond her, heavy machines lumbered back and forth, kicking up a cloud of dust. Simon wondered when did all the stop-go men become young women? And why were they were only allowed to do traffic control and not drive the bulldozer or let rip on a jackhammer?

The radio was on and people were calling in to talk about their dogs. He couldn't understand why seemingly intelligent people went nuts over dogs; why anyone would want to complicate their life more than necessary? It was hard enough looking after yourself, let alone some other dumb animal. Unless you enjoyed chasing after them and picking up lumps of shit. And going by the radio show, clearly a lot of people did. It was another one of life's many mysteries. He'd add it to the list.

He looked across at his sister Deborah, arms draped over the steering wheel, squinting into the sun through her knock-off Ray Bans. It annoyed him that she hadn't done the obvious thing and flipped down her visor.

'Are you listening to this?' he said.

She shook her head and he switched off the radio. Behind them a road-train revved its engine and Deborah put the car into park.

'Do you remember when mum locked Alice in the cupboard under the stairs?' she said.

Simon remembered the cupboard - a triangular wooden door, chipped white paint, a small copper latch held fast by a bent nail.

'That was me,' he said.

'What?'

'That was me. Mum locked me under the stairs.'

'No. It was Alice.'

Deborah had developed a habit of misremembering the family history.

'Mum locked Alice in there because she broke one her porcelain figurines,' she said. 'Left her there for hours.'

'No, Deb. That was me.'

She made a sucking sound and drummed her fingers on the wheel.

'Well... maybe that was another time.'

But there was no other time. It had happened only once - and to him, not to Alice.

'Trust me,' he said. 'You don't forget a thing like that.'

But just as soon as he'd said it, he was no longer certain. Had he mistaken Alice's experience for his own? It was possible. Christ, these days he couldn't be sure of anything.

Another growl from the road-train.

Deborah glared into the rear-view mirror. 'I mean, what's he trying to achieve?'

Simon glanced again at her visor.

He reached across. 'Hey, why don't you just…?'

'No, don't it's…'

He flicked the visor and it fell, bounced off the steering wheel and slid under her feet.

'… broken,' she said.

'Shit. Sorry.'

Deborah sighed, reached down and picked it up just as the young woman flipped her sign. The road-train blasted its horn.

'Asshole.'

'Sorry,' he said again.

'Not you. The truck.'

'I know.'

She tossed the visor into Simon's lap then put the car into drive.

*

Alice had that ghost-like feeling again, as if she could walk through walls or might just sink into the floor. She was outside of herself, drifting away, cut loose from whatever it was that moored her to her body. She could see herself standing at the bedroom window in her dressing gown, looking out into the yard. There was the rusted swing-set, bent over like an arthritic spider, and the collapsed pile of wooden forklift-crates Brett had bought home from work - for firewood, he'd said (once he'd unblocked the fireplace). There was the large twisted sheet of black plastic ground into the dirt, caked in dried mud (the lining for the fish pond that never materialised), and the abandoned car-parts and plastic toys and plastic bags and Patti's bike with the pink basket that she never rode, lying on its side in a bed of weeds (Brett said the front wheel needed a new inner-tube). The five cardboard boxes of old magazines reduced to an amorphous pulp by rain, spread across the ground like giant blobs of bird-shit. The two-meter long concrete cylinder - the kennel for the dog they didn't have but the kids so badly wanted.

And now the small, yellow earthmover - a mechanised sentinel set down in the middle of the yard - bucket raised to the sky, as if offering up a prayer, or waiting for a divine command to bring it to life. It turned up a week ago on the back of a flatbed truck driven by Brett's mate Curl. They'd borrowed it from work to clean up the yard, something Brett said he'd been meaning to do for ages.

*

'Why'd you park here?' said Simon.

'Why not?'

'There are spaces right out front.'

'Does it matter?'

'... I guess not.'

Simon followed Deborah across the empty car park towards a squat building of red brick and steel. He wondered at the effort that must have gone into designing a building so uncompromising in its ugliness. He glanced at the wilting bunch of flowers in his hand.

'Freshly cut, my ass.'

'What?'

'These flowers. They're not freshly cut.'

'They just need some water,' she said.

'The sign said freshly cut.'

'They're just flowers.'

'Dead flowers, that's what the sign should say.'

'Simon, please. We need to be positive.'

'What? I am positive.'

They reached the building and the automatic doors hissed open.

*

Alice was in the kitchen staring at the piles of unwashed dishes and the table laden with empty beer bottles. There were muddy boot-prints on the floor, a box of Rice Bubbles tipped on its side spilling out across the counter and shredded pizza boxes balanced on top of an over-flowing garbage bin. Then she was in the doorway of the boy's room, watching Jordan and Cooper as they lay on the stained carpet in their pyjamas watching YouTube on a laptop, taking turns on a two-litre bottle of Sprite, dipping wet yellow-stained fingers into a jumbo bag of Cheezels that lay split open beside them like burst roadkill. Everywhere, piles of clothes and scattered toys and rubbish. Jordan's large head turned uncomfortably on his shoulders and he beaded a mean eye on his mother. He rolled onto his back and aimed a lazy kick at the door. It slammed in her face and she heard them laughing.

Then she was in the hallway staring at a painting hanging lopsidedly on the wall that Brett had bought from his dope-dealer. In it was a row of grey buildings under an empty off-white sky. On the sidewalk, a tiny figure no bigger than a thumb - a dancing man in a clown-mask wielding a bloodied knife, the only dash of colour. The figure seemed to float before her eyes, shimmering, and her ears filled with the sound of rushing blood.

*

A petal came loose from the flowers, did a suicidal spin towards the floor, landed on the tip of Simon's boot. He kicked it away and scanned the waiting-room. A young man with bulging tattooed arms sat in a plastic chair, hunched over, head in his hands, weeping, as a woman with an orange tan rubbed his back with one hand and texted with the other. A stick-thin old man, barely even there, pushed a bovine woman in a wheel chair nervously clasping a fake Louis Vuitton handbag to her breast. A man Simon's age wearing a black T-shirt printed with a howling wolf sat alone in the corner directly underneath a wall-mounted TV - head back, mouth agape, staring unblinking at a football game. Simon watched him for at least a minute and a half and still he hadn't moved.

'Jesus Christ,' he thought, 'He's dead...'

Then the man coughed and shifted in his seat and a piss-stain spread out across the crotch of his tracksuit pants, and it struck Simon how easily life could come apart at the seams.

'Room 405.' Deborah was behind him. 'Are you okay?' she asked.

'Yeah. I'm just... yeah.'

'Positive, remember.'

'Sure. Positive.'

'You made it!' Simon's eldest sister Laurie strode towards them, wearing activewear as always. It was though she'd given up on normal clothes entirely, and life was just something that got in the way between workouts, which in her case probably wasn't far from the truth.

Her tubby husband Andrew trailed behind her, chuckling into his phone. He pulled up a few feet away and did his best to ignore them.

'What took you so long?' she said.

'We got stuck in traffic. Road works,' said Deborah.

'On the coast road?'

'Um, no. Inland.'

'I did say take the coast road, didn't I?'

'You did,' said Deborah, 'but we thought we'd risk it.'

Laurie gave her best long-suffering smile. 'Well. That's what happens.'

Andrew snorted loudly into his phone. 'You are joking!'

Simon felt a sharp percussive throb behind his eyes. A jolt of anxiety shot through his chest, easing a split-second later as he remembered the prescription painkillers in his pocket.

'How is she?' said Deborah.

'How do you think?'

'I don't know, Laurie. That's why I'm asking.'

'She's the same. A mess.'

'Did she say why she did it?'

'I didn't ask.'

'Why not?'

Laurie shrugged. 'Who knows what goes through her mind?'

Simon took out his pills and rattled a couple into his hand. 'You might. If you'd asked.'

Another snort from Andrew. 'You are joking!'

Laurie threw him an annoyed look, then glanced at Simon's flowers and made a face.

'Your flowers. They're dead.'

Simon sniffed them. 'Really? But the sign said freshly cut.'

'Where's Nicole?'

Simon recoiled as if ambushed by a bad smell. 'Are you serious?'

'What?' she said.

'We're separated. Almost six months.'

'How would I know?'

'You're right. You're only my sister.'

'Nobody told me, okay? But then nobody tells me anything.'

'I thought I told you,' said Deborah.

'No, Deb, you didn't.'

Simon threw back the pills, shook his head. 'You're unbelievable.'

'So it's my fault you never call, never email, never post anything on Facebook?'

Simon laughed and almost choked. 'Facebook. Yeah, right. "Hey, everyone! My wife just left me! For my best friend!"'

'That's right, I forgot,' said Laurie. 'You're too cool for Facebook.'

'Yes, Laurie. I am too cool for Facebook. Unlike you I don't want the entire world knowing every time I eat a gluten-free muffin or one of my kids takes a dump. Or when my stupid little dog is undergoing chemotherapy.'

'You don't even have a dog.'

Deborah held up her hands - eyes shut, fingers splayed. 'Guys. Please don't do this.'

Simon ignored her. 'How is your dog, by the way? If he's not going to pull through, maybe you could take him on a farewell trip to Disney Land.'

Andrew snorted again. 'You are joking!' Laurie spun around. 'Andrew! For Christ's sake! Take it outside!'

Andrew's eyebrows performed a pathetic little dance and he scurried away.

'Can we please not do this now?' said Deborah, 'Both of you.'

Laurie turned back and held up a shaking finger millimetres from Simon's nose, 'You. Are. Poisonous.' She turned and power-walked to the exit.

Deborah followed after her. 'Do you think maybe you could stop by Alice's on your way home? Check on the kids?'

'I have a life, Deb. I don't have time for this shit.'

Simon willed her to slam into the glass doors but at the last moment they slid open and she was gone.

*

'Mum, are you all right?'

Patti was in bed with a book in her lap looking at Alice in that way she couldn't stand; a look that was equal parts pity and disgust. Who was this young woman who lived in her house? Alice no longer knew.

Alice was Patti's age when she became obsessed with Patti Smith. She listened to her music constantly, dressed like her, wore her hair like her. Read Rimbaud and filled dozens of note-books (all of them now lost) with earnest poetry and detailed plans for moving to New York, starting a band, making art, travelling the world.

'Mum. What do you want?'

Alice had wanted more than anything to fall in love with a beautiful sensitive boy who'd worship her as his muse, and take a lifetime of photos of her in a window-lit loft apartment as she leant against a whitewashed wall projecting strength, sex and defiance.

'Mum. You're weirding me out.'

So when Alice had her first child - a girl - it only followed she'd name her Patti; and now here she was fourteen years later, a sullen reminder of all those unfulfilled hopes and dreams. Not that she could be held to blame for Alice's many regrets.

'Mum. Please. Leave me alone.'

Then Alice was in the living room watching Brett who was on the couch grinding his teeth as he lifted a bong to his lips. Curl sat next to him playing Grand Theft Auto, his mouth hanging open, tongue flapping about like a freshly landed fish. Some other man Alice had never seen before watched the game, spittle foaming at the sides of his mouth, his left knee pumping up and down like a spring-loaded toy. The curtains were drawn and the only light came from the shimmering TV screen. Brett exhaled a cloud of sweet, blue smoke and fixed Alice with his hooded eyes.

'Hey,' he said.

*

Simon had to hurry to keep up with Deborah as they walked down the corridor searching for room 405. 'I don't know why you and Laurie have to be so nasty to each other,' she said.

'Because she's a bitch.'

'You didn't have to say that about her dog. You know how she is.'

'She spent six-thousand dollars on cancer treatment for it,' he said. 'A thirteen-year old dog. A family in the third world could live for years on that.'

He dodged around a man with a drip in his arm standing in the middle of the corridor staring at the floor. Simon glanced at the walls and wondered if it was true they were painted this sickly green colour because it was calming; maybe they were doing too good a job.

He looked to Deborah but she wasn't there. She was behind him, staring out a window. He followed her gaze out into an enclosed concrete courtyard. There was a large, faded mural on the facing wall - an underwater tableau with a blue whale, a pod of dolphins and a badly drawn mermaid in a bikini. And beneath it was Alice, sitting alone on a bench in a purple dressing gown, staring at the ground. Simon couldn't be certain, but it looked to him as if she was smiling.

*

Alice stood in the yard before the earthmover. It began to rain. She got into the driver's seat and locked the cab door. Soon waves of water were rolling down the windscreen and for a brief moment everything outside was a molten blur of shifting shapes of blue and brown and grey, the white noise of the rain drumming on the roof. It was comforting.

She ran her hands over the dashboard, tried pressing a few buttons, then flicked a switch and the engine sprang to life. She pressed the pedals on the floor, but nothing happened until she pulled a lever and the raised bucket shuddered and dropped. She pulled another lever and the earthmover surged forward.

When the earthmover hit the tin fence it crumpled like paper, and moments later, when she reversed across the yard, flattening the swing-set and knocking over the forklift crates, the other fence did the same. She could see movement at the back of the house and suddenly Brett was bashing on the cab door, screaming. She couldn't make him out over the sound of the rain and the engine, but she could tell he was upset about something. She put a hand up to the glass as if to say, 'everything is all right.' The kids behind him - the boys wide-eyed and slack jawed, and Patti staring in amazement. Patti dropped her book and covered her mouth with her hands, and for a moment it looked as if she was crying until Alice realised she was laughing. Then Patti held up her hands and cheered, and in that instant Alice's heart burst with love and she knew what she had to do.

She pressed the pedals and the earthmover spun towards the house. Brett stood on the bucket and slammed a fist into the windscreen - once, twice - on the third time his face twisted in pain and slid sideways into the mud.

Alice was back inside herself - she felt whole again, alive. She bore down on the house.

‘Design for Life’

999 words

He had a sense that something needed doing but couldn’t think what that something might be. He had the day off from work and woke up full of purpose, armed with a fully formed and actionable plan, but by the time he'd had his breakfast of porridge and toast, showered, shaved and dressed, the plan had evaporated, leaving behind only a vague sense of something missing.

He stood with an empty cup in his hand staring at the coffee machine, hoping whatever it was that had inspired him the night before to close his laptop, switch off the TV, and go to bed a full hour and a half earlier than usual, would reveal itself to him. But there was nothing.

He shut his eyes and tried to clear his mind of the thoughts that were perhaps crowding out his plan. He concentrated on his breathing, allowing the sound of the traffic outside to wash over him and cleanse him of thought, but as his mind slowed down and the thoughts cleared, all that was left behind was a nebulous shadow, floating in the periphery of his consciousness, shifting and imperceptible.

He placed the cup in the machine and watched the coffee pour out; perhaps caffeine was what he needed to flush the plan from its hiding place. But as he finished his second cup, it became clear he would need more than just coffee; he would need to make a list.

He opened the note-making app on his phone and checked that he hadn't written the plan down the night before, when it had first revealed itself to him. There was a list, but everything was checked off: find new gym, do tax, update passwords, print photos. He congratulated himself on his efficiency, and with a few deft clicks deleted the list and created a new one, hoping this act alone would rattle the plan loose from his mind, send it flowing through his arms, into his thumbs and onto the screen of his phone. But his thumbs simply hovered in the air above the tiny animated keyboard, shaking almost imperceptibly.

He was wasting time. Soon the day would get ahead of him and precious minutes and hours would be lost. He had to make a move, set things in motion. But how?

What he needed was a plan; a new one. Then he looked at the phone in his hands. It was an old phone, at least a year old; hadn't a newer model just come out? Maybe it was time to trade in this old phone for a new one. Maybe he would drive to the shopping mall, walk into his network provider store, and demand a new phone! Yes, he thought, that could be the plan.

At the store he gave the young man with the notebook his mobile number and was told they would call him as soon as a representative was available. He could expect a wait of around twenty minutes. As he walked out he felt a deep sense of dissatisfaction, not because he had to wait, but because he knew he had a much better plan in mind only the night before; a plan of real consequence, if only he could remember it what it was.

He turned left, then froze. He stepped backwards, turned right, then froze again. Where should he go to kill the next twenty minutes? He didn't want another coffee; two a day was his limit, and anymore than that and he'd risk sending his heart into an anxiety inducing arrhythmia. He tried to think if there was anything he needed. His groceries had been delivered the day before and he no longer saw the point in browsing DVD's or books (he preferred to do that online). There was the camera store on the next level, or the giant electronics warehouse with the sea of laptops and the world's largest LCD. Or maybe the boutique sound system store with the deluxe headsets displayed on specially lit glass plinths; he couldn't decide. He was paralysed by choice.

Moments later, as he gripped the rail of a glass barrier and stared at the people gliding up and down on the escalators below, he was seized by the sudden realisation that his forgotten plan had been more than just a simple errand; it had been a manifesto, a blueprint, a design for life. It was an idea of such beauty and significance that it would have changed everything. It would have wiped clean the past and made him whole again. And now it was gone, submerged far below the surface, irretrievably lost in the midnight-zone of his sub-conscious. He began to shake and felt the blood rush to his cheeks as his vision clouded over with tears.

He walked quickly to the men’s room, a hand clasped over his mouth to muffle the rising sobs. Once there, he locked himself in a stall, sat on the toilet lid, and howled into his hands. After a few moments the grief subsided; he was overcome with exhaustion. He got down on the floor, curled his body around the cold, white base of the toilet, and fell asleep.

A security guard woke him up and told him to leave. It was ten o'clock at night and the shopping centre was closing. It took him another half an hour to find his car, having forgotten where he parked it. He usually avoided this by taking a photo of the location numbers on the wall, but not this time.

After paying the fifty-dollar parking fee at the gate, he drove home, and only after sitting down at the table by the window did he realise he'd forgotten to collect his new phone. Ah well, he thought, the old one would do for now.

Tomorrow is another day, he thought, as he switched off the bedside lamp. Then he closed his eyes and soon he fell asleep.

‘The Beast on P3’

7597 words

My wife woke me as she readied herself for her Pilates class and reminded me we had people coming over and we were short on supplies. I was hungover and she made a fuss of not being happy about it, slamming the wardrobe doors, roughly tugging the bedclothes into place, kicking my clothes that lay crumpled on the floor into a corner.

I’d spent the latter part of last night in my office on my laptop, headphones in, drinking scotch, one window open on European football as I lay bets on my phone, another window open on porn. Around two a.m. the scotch ran out and I took a Xanax and fell asleep in my reclining chair, the sound of a Russian gang-bang in my ears. Then at some point my wife came in and shook me awake and ordered me to bed.

I waited until she left, then got out of bed, washed down a couple of painkillers, pulled on shorts and a T-shirt, slipped into my Crocs and left the house. Both the girls were still in their rooms. They wouldn’t emerge until at least sometime after midday.

It’s a ten-minute drive from our house to the shopping centre. I went the back way to avoid the traffic - right at the first set of lights, under the overpass, then down the ramp into the underground carpark. At the bottom of the ramp I turned left, as I always did, then took the second ramp down to P2. It was barely ten-thirty and the carpark was already nearly full.

I followed the lane, scanning either side for a space. Another car approached, a large black four-wheel drive taking up the whole lane, heading straight for me. I tapped my horn but they ignored it, and I yanked down on the steering wheel, only just avoiding a collision. The four-wheel drive slid past, oblivious. I yelled an expletive, reached the end of the lane, turned left onto another slip ramp which corkscrewed down to the level below.

I slowed to a crawl and checked the fisheye mirror on the wall, then pulled out and went down a lane until finally an empty space opened up on the left. Just as I bent the car towards it, another car swept around the corner and cut me off and slid into the space. I leaned on the horn, then wound down the window and shouted at the driver, a young woman in activewear. She got out of her car without even looking at me, locked it with a beep, then disappeared behind a pylon.

Rage tore through me. I was vibrating like a ringing bell, every cell exploding. All-consuming, total, and absolute. My jaw clamped down so hard I thought my teeth would crack, my fists wringing the steering wheel like a wet rag. I was just present enough to close my eyes and start the breathing exercise my wife had told me to do when this kind of thing happened. Box breathing. Five seconds in, hold for five seconds, five seconds out. Repeat. It was something Marines did to calm their nerves before going into battle. She’d seen it on Instagram.

It worked. Slowly, I dropped back into myself. I opened my eyes and drove to the next level down.

It was darker here. Some of the fluorescent lights were out or misfiring, and at first glance, it also appeared to be full, but eventually, I found an empty spot. Usually, I take a photo, making sure to include the level and space number (my phone was full of them), but this time I didn’t. I was too distracted, too busy thinking about what had happened the previous afternoon. A Zoom meeting with my boss and the new head of Human Resources. There had been a consolidation. A realignment. Efficiencies had been made. The outcome of which, I was out of a job.

I got out of the car and walked to the central escalator lobby, my boss’s face playing on a loop in my mind. Her simpering expression, one eyebrow half-cocked as she offered her bullshit condolences. I was furious with myself for not seeing it coming. I knew she hated me. I once overheard her describe me to a co-worker as a ‘big swinging dick’. I decided to take it as a compliment. At least I wasn’t a post-menopausal mediocrity with a laugh like a tubercular hyena. No wonder her husband left her.

I could have made a complaint, caused a fuss, got her fired, reprimanded at the very least. I should have. God knows she would have. But now it was too late. Now I was an unemployed middle-aged white man, the bottom of the barrel. An untouchable.

All I’d needed was ten more years. Ten more years to pay down the mortgage, get the kids through school, build up enough money to retire on. All of that was impossible now. My wife didn’t earn enough. She hadn’t had a proper job since the kids were born. Who was going to pay for the private schools, the yearly overseas holidays, the ski trips?

And the debt. We had so much debt. And now we had no way to service it. We’d have to sell the house. Downsize a full decade earlier than planned. But downsize to what? And to where? This city was impossible, unlivable, out of reach except for the top ten percent. Once we sold the house and paid off all the debt, we’d hardly have enough for a studio. And the shoddy off-plan one-bedroom investment unit we bought in the suburbs five years ago had so many faults it had gone backwards in value. We were screwed.

How the hell was I going to tell my wife?

I was so lost in thought I didn’t notice the escalator end beneath my feet. I stumbled forward and found myself on the first floor landing of the shopping centre, staring at the morning crowd, everyone on a mission, everyone single-mindedly pursuing their shopping centre goals. My mind went blank. Why had I come here? Then I remembered. People coming over. More supplies. I took a moment to think it over. We had steaks marinating in the fridge and she’d thrown together a couple of salads, but we could probably do with more cheese, dips, biscuits, maybe those little fruit crackers with some jammy quince paste. And booze. We could always do with more booze. You could never have too much.

I wound my way up to the expensive boutique grocers on the third floor we could no longer afford, and an hour and two hundred bucks later, I was headed back down with a bag of groceries cutting into each hand.

I got off on P2. It was dark. I stared into the gloom. Rows of cars alongside concrete pillars. I started walking, felt a drip on my shoulder, glanced up at the mess of sweating pipes fixed to the low concrete slab just above my head. I followed the yellow markings on the floor that hugged the wall. Everything looked the same.

I had a growing feeling that maybe I hadn’t parked on this level after all. I stopped at row D, put down my groceries and took out my phone and checked the map to see if it had made note of where the car was but it wouldn’t load. There was no reception. I picked up the bags and kept moving. I turned onto a walkway that ran through the middle of the parking bays. I shifted the shopping to one hand and dug out my keys. I pressed the lock button and listened. Nothing.

I reached the end of the walkway. I was only at row E. I looked back towards the escalator lobby, but all I could see were cars spread out amongst the forest of concrete pylons, stretching away into shadow. I had a strange tingling sensation in the back of my skull. My arm holding the shopping bags ached. It struck me that I had absolutely no idea where my car was.

I set the groceries down and studied my keys. The horn button. I’d never pressed it before, never had any reason to. I pressed it. A faint sound echoed in reply. My shoulders dropped an inch, and my body eased back into shape. I’d been clenched up tighter than a fist. I pressed the button again. The horn was coming from a tunnel just to my left. I picked up the shopping and followed it down, keeping close to the wall in case a car came up behind me.

This level was even darker than the one above. I pressed the horn button again, and it reverberated back from somewhere deep inside, but the echo made it hard to pinpoint the exact direction, so I decided to follow the first lane I came across. I walked about a minute or so, then stopped and pressed the button again.

I heard the horn, but it sounded no closer.

I kept walking. The cars looked abandoned. Some had clearly been broken into. Windscreens smashed, headlights shattered, rear mirrors snapped off. It looked more like a junkyard than a car park. I had an image of a gang of delinquent youth racing around the car park, throwing bricks, swinging rusty pipes. I stopped, peered into the gloom ahead, but the lane just melted away into darkness. I couldn’t see the end. I took out my keys and pressed the horn button again. This time, only silence. I stabbed the button repeatedly with my thumb, but still nothing happened.

I turned around and hurried back to the tunnel. But when I got to where it should have been, it was gone. In its place was a solid concrete wall with four large words spray-painted in red:

DEATH TO THE BEAST.

What the hell was it supposed to mean? And where the fuck had the tunnel gone?

It was a joke. It had to be. Someone was playing some kind of elaborate practical joke on me. How else could the tunnel have just disappeared? I heard footsteps, someone running. I spun around.

Nothing.

‘Hello? Is somebody there?’

Silence.

Then a low, drawn-out growl echoed from somewhere close by. Too close. I dropped the groceries and ran.

I angled behind a pylon, pressed my back against it. My head throbbed, an unlucky combination of hangover and adrenaline. My heart fluttered like a frog on a hotplate.

I peered around the side. There was nothing, no one.

I saw a flash of movement out of the corner of my eye and looked around to see a figure running between two cars about twenty metres away.

‘Hey!’

The figure disappeared behind a pylon. I ran after them, calling out. I came around the pylon just in time to see them disappear through another access tunnel. I followed.

I emerged from the tunnel. Torn wires and cables hung from the ceiling, the floor was covered in shattered glass and debris. I heard a growl echo down the tunnel behind me, low and deep, and the concrete beneath my feet shook. Whatever it was, it was coming.

I sprinted down the nearest lane then caught sight of a concrete escalator lobby; blue cinder-block walls, large yellow letters stencilled on the side: SHOPS. I slid through a narrow gap between two wrecks and ran for it. Glancing over my shoulder, my foot clipped a shredded tyre on the ground and I went down hard, the breath knocked out of me.

I lay there gulping for air. Then the ground shook again, and another growl echoed through the car park. I forced myself up onto my hands and knees, crawled behind a beaten-up Volkswagen, and looked back the way I’d come. Through a narrow gap between the car and a pylon, I saw a huge man standing at the end of the lane, just beyond the reach of a flickering fluorescent light. He was naked, a mass of bulging, sinewy muscle, his entire body slick, wet, and painted white. He was wearing an enormous wooden mask that looked like a bull’s head, the eyes pitch black, two giant horns protruding from its forehead.

The man stepped into the light, then the jaws beneath the mask opened up, revealing a gaping maw of jagged teeth, and he let loose a deafening roar. That’s when I realised it wasn’t a mask…

I got to my feet and ran as fast as I could towards the escalator lobby. There was a metallic crunch, and I looked back to see the creature crouched on top of a car, the roof buckling under its weight, its black eyes fixed upon me. It roared, then sprang from the car. I reached the sliding doors of the lobby. The safety glass was shattered. I ducked through the frame and ran straight into an upturned soda machine.

‘Up here!’

I looked up the stalled escalator to see a young woman standing near the top.

‘Move!’

I ran up the escalator towards her as she turned and disappeared. A split second later, I heard the screech of metal on concrete and turned to see the soda machine tumbling like a dice. It exploded against the wall in a shower of glass and twisted metal. The creature looked at me and raced up the escalator, and I knew in that moment there was no escaping it. It leapt over my head and landed in front of me, then turned.

I couldn’t move. I was standing outside of myself, looking in, a total out-of-body experience— and not in a good way. The creature was at least eight feet tall. Its glistening white skin was slick and almost translucent. Patches of bloodied hide hung from its limbs like it had been half-skinned with a blunt knife. Its head was a rotting bull’s skull, dead except for the black eyes which were alive with menace. It reached out a massive hand and took hold of my throat, lifting me off my feet. Its jaws opened wide, its teeth green and diseased. It drew me closer, and the stink of its hot breath wrapped around my head. I gagged and threw up. A wet purple tongue flopped out and licked the sick from my face. I closed my eyes. I was going to die.

Just then, a song started playing over the public address system. I recognised it instantly. It was the 2000 cover version of ‘Dancing in the Moonlight’ by Toploader.

I hated it. As much as it was possible to hate anything, I hated that song.

The year it came out, it was inescapable. Every bar you walked into, every shop, every café, every cab, it would be playing. I was travelling solo around Europe at the time and had eaten the four-cheese pasta at Palermo airport before a three-hour flight to London. An hour into the flight, I was struck down with food poisoning so severe that we were met at the terminal by an ambulance. I was hospitalised for three days, roiling in a sweat-soaked delirium. I threw up and shat so much that I lost ten kilos. And the whole time, ‘Dancing in the Moonlight’ played on a loop in my head. To this day, I can’t hear that song without wanting to be sick. And now it was going to be the theme song of my death. It made perfect sense.

I landed painfully on the escalator. The creature had let me go. It moved its head from side to side as if listening to the music, then jumped over me, down the escalator, and out the door of the lobby.

I lay there catching my breath. The song— that fucking song— was still playing. What the hell had just happened? What was that thing? Why was it trying to kill me? Why hadn’t it killed me?

Then the song finished.

I stood up. My legs were shaking. I was halfway up the escalator between two floors. I decided to go up, away from where that thing had disappeared.

I walked as fast as I could up the escalator and came out into the next lobby. It looked exactly the same as the lobby below. Same blue-coloured walls, same drink machine lying smashed against the wall. I entered the carpark through the broken sliding doors and it also looked the same— dark and claustrophobic, broken lights flickering in the ceiling, the cars all wrecked. I saw the smashed-up Volkswagen I’d hidden behind. Until I realised it couldn’t be the same Volkswagen because that Volkswagen was on the level below. I went back into the lobby and up to the next level. Again, it looked exactly the same. Same blue walls, same crumpled drink machine. I stepped into the carpark. And there was the exact same Volkswagen. I checked the licence plate— EYD625. I hurried back down a level, out into the carpark, located the Volkswagen, checked the plate— EYD625. What was going on?! I must be crazy. I must be losing my mind.

‘You’re not crazy,’ a voice said.

I spun around. The young woman I’d seen before at the top of the escalator was standing behind me. ‘Every level is the same.’

She looked to be in her twenties, small and thin, a stud in her nose, hair pulled back in a bun, wearing grey sweatpants and a red hoodie, carrying a plastic bag of shopping.

‘What are you talking about?’ I said.

‘Every level. Is the same,’ she said.

I stared at her, unsure of what to do. Then I walked past her back into the lobby. She followed after me.

‘Where are you going?’ she said.

‘Out,’ I said, and started up the escalator.

‘There is no out. It’s the same all the way up. It doesn’t end.’

‘What do you mean, it doesn’t end?’

‘I mean it goes on forever.’

‘That’s crazy.’

‘That’s crazy? What about the monster that was about to eat your face?’

I stopped walking, looked at her.

‘You’re wasting your time,’ she said. ‘That thing will be back soon.’

‘Then all the more reason to get the fuck out of here.’

I ran up the escalator.

‘Have it your way,’ she called out after me.

I reached the top of the escalator and stepped into the lobby. And there she was.

It took me a moment to register what I was seeing. ‘How did you do that?’ I said.

‘I told you. It’s the same. All the way up.’

I turned and ran down the escalator. She was waiting for me at the bottom.

‘And all the way down.’

I pushed past her and ran down the escalator to the next level.

She was sitting on the battered drink machine, arms crossed. ‘You’re wasting your time!’

‘What is happening?!’

‘You’re trapped! We all are!’

‘We?’

I followed her through the carpark as she weaved between the vehicles.

‘What about that thing?’

‘We haven’t got long,’ she said. ‘When the song starts playing, that’s when it’s time to hide.’

‘What the hell is it?’

‘I don’t know.’

She reached a small parking bay tucked into a space where the ceiling slanted down at a sharp angle into the wall. It was taken up by a white delivery van. Hidden behind the van was a door. She knocked, and seconds later a small man peered out. He looked to be in his early thirties, dark skin, long black hair pulled back into a ponytail, and a thin, scruffy beard. He was wearing a crumpled grey uniform that looked two sizes too big and a high-vis vest.

He held the door wider and we entered. We were in some kind of maintenance room. The wall to the left was fitted out floor to ceiling with various control panels and switchboards, and the far end was lined with shelves stacked with boxes of different sizes, cans of paint, and cleaning equipment. The room was lit by a work light on a stand in the corner, aimed at the ceiling, casting weird shadows across our faces.

‘This is Kiran. He works here. And my name’s Celeste.’

I told them mine.

She turned to Kiran. ‘Where are the others?’

‘Looking for food,’ he said.

‘There are others?’ I said. ‘How many of us are there?’

‘Including you? Five. That we know of.’

Then she told me how she ended up trapped.

When she pulled into the car park, she’d been fighting with her mother on the phone and, like me, hadn’t taken note of where she’d parked. She wandered the mall mindlessly for an hour or so before getting her nails done, then she went back to the car park.

‘I’d been looking for my car for ages. I tried going back up to the shopping centre but it just kept going up and up. Then I tried all the emergency intercoms around the place but none of them worked. They just rang out. I was losing my mind. I was just walking around the car park, screaming for help. If Kiran hadn’t found me, I don’t know what would have happened.’

Kiran had been working at the centre for three days. He’d been sent down to collect stray shopping trolleys and had wandered onto the level through the same access tunnel I had. Then the song started playing and the creature appeared.

‘It chased me. Like it was playing with me. I’ve never run so hard in my life. But then I think it found someone else.’

‘You think?’ I said.

Kiran nodded. ‘A woman. I could hear her screaming. It was the worst thing I’ve ever heard.’

He hid inside a dumpster - and that’s when the creature found him.

‘I was sure I was going to die. It ripped the lid off like it was made of cardboard. And then the song started playing again and it ran away.’

Soon after that, he heard Celeste calling for help. They went back to the escalator lobby and Kiran tried going down to see if he could reach the car wash and that’s when they discovered the levels were exactly the same. ‘We just kept passing each other, over and over…’

Soon after that, the song started playing again and they escaped to the maintenance room.

There was a knock at the door. Kiran opened it, and a tall young man and a middle-aged woman stepped in, pushing a shopping trolley half-filled with groceries. Celeste introduced them as Martin and Yael. Martin was wearing a tight-fitting green tee-shirt that hugged his muscles and a number three buzzcut. Yael was like so many mums I see at the school gates— yoga-thin with a silky forehead. She was wearing jeans and an oversized button-up blue shirt. They were both flushed and sweating.

‘This is all the food we could find,’ Yael said. ‘We didn’t want to stay out there any longer than we had to.’

‘And I found this,’ said Martin. He reached into the trolley and pulled out a baseball bat.

‘Seriously, what are you going to do with that?’ said Yael.

‘I’m going to bash its fucking brains in.’

‘That thing will snap it like a matchstick, then tear you to pieces,’ said Kiran. ‘You need a bazooka, not a baseball bat.’

‘We can’t fight it,’ said Yael. ‘We just have to stay hidden until help arrives.’

‘If help was coming, it would have turned up by now,’ said Celeste. ‘We’re on our own.’

Yael turned on her. ‘Stop saying that! You don’t know that!’

Everyone began yelling over the top of each other.

Just then, the gentle, opening Wurlitzer keyboard chords of ‘Dancing in the Moonlight’ echoed around the car park outside. Everyone went quiet. My stomach churned.

‘I hate this song,’ I said.

‘Same,’ said everyone else.

We stood there in silence as the song played, listening for any sign of the creature. It faded out.

‘Did anyone hear it?’ said Martin.

Everyone shook their heads.

‘Maybe it’s not coming. Maybe it’s gone,’ said Yael.

‘Anyone want to go and find out?’ I said.

No one did.

Then a voice rang out. ‘Hello! Anyone there?!’

‘There’s someone outside,’ said Celeste.

Gripping the baseball bat, Martin pushed past me and opened the door.

‘Don’t go out there!’ said Yael.

He ignored her and stepped into the parking bay, and I followed after him.

He crept along between the wall and the van and peered around the corner.

‘What is it? What do you see?’

He didn’t answer, just stepped out into the lane and waved.

‘Over here!’

I looked around the corner. In the dim light, I could make out a man in a blue Hawaiian shirt about fifty metres away pushing a trolley down the middle of the lane.

Yael stuck her head out the door and hissed, ‘Stop shouting! It’ll hear you!’

‘Thank god!’ the man said. ‘I’m completely lost. I can’t find my car anywhere. Do you know how to get out of here?’

Martin walked towards him. ‘You need to leave the trolley and come with me.’

The man stopped. ‘What?’

‘Leave the trolley and run!’

I heard movement and turned. Celeste and Kiran were behind me, watching over my shoulder.

‘I just want to get outta here,’ said the man.

Celeste pushed past me and stepped out beside Martin. ‘Listen to us. You’re in danger. You need to come with us and hide.’

The man stared at the sweaty, muscle-bound man with the baseball bat and the woman with the nose ring in sweatpants.

‘You know what? I’m good,’ he said. ‘I’m actually fine. But thank you!’

He began turning his trolley around. Then the ground shook.

Kiran gripped my shoulder. ‘Over there!’

I looked to where he was pointing and saw the unmistakable silhouette of the creature stalking down a lane deep within the car park. It was moving parallel to us, but it wouldn’t be long until it saw us.

I turned to Martin and Celeste. ‘It’s coming! Get inside!’

Kiran ran out, grabbed Celeste by the arm, and dragged her back into the parking bay.

Martin stepped towards the man who was cowering behind his trolley.

‘I’m trying to save your life!’

‘Stay the fuck away from me! I know muay-Thai, motherfucker!’

He scissor-kicked the air, then pushed the trolley at Martin, who swiped it away, tipping it over with a loud clatter. The creature spun around, zeroed in on the noise. It leapt on top of a car and leapfrogged from one to the other on all fours, straight towards them.

Martin watched it coming. He took a wide stance and held up the baseball bat, ready to strike. The man’s body went slack. ‘What the fuck is that?!’

The creature leapt from a car and landed in front of Martin, stood to its full height, and roared. He swung the bat and connected with its head with a sharp crack. It didn’t even flinch.

Martin swung again. The creature caught the bat in its hand and tore it from his grip. It fell uselessly to the ground. Martin turned to run, but it caught him by the shoulder and dragged him back, then with its other hand took him by the leg and lifted him over its head. Then it arched its back and speared him headfirst into the concrete floor. A loud, sickening crunch. Then it took hold of his ankles and hammered him into the wall. It sounded like a walnut being crushed under a brick. He slid down the wall and hit the floor with a wet slap, a loose skin bag of shattered bones.

The man in the Hawaiian shirt screamed and ran down the lane, and the creature lumbered after him just as Kiran hauled me back into the maintenance room.

We crouched on the floor, listening to the man’s screams.

Then silence.

Yael sobbed. Celeste placed a hand on her arm. Kiran hissed at her to keep quiet. She curled into a ball on her side, buried her face in her knees.

Outside, we could hear the creature stalking about the car park, growling, the thud of footsteps. The van by the door shook, once, twice. We held our breath. Then the song started playing, and it moved on. After the song finished, we sat in silence. No one moved.

Yael sat up, wiped her eyes. ‘What are we going to do?’

‘There has to be a way out of here,’ said Celeste. ‘We have to keep looking.’

Kiran took a vape from his pocket. ‘We’ve looked everywhere. There is no way out.’ He sucked deeply, but it was empty. He threw it into the corner in disgust.

‘There has to be,’ said Yael. ‘There has to be something we can do.’

And then it came to me.

‘The writing on the wall,’ I said.

‘What writing?’ said Kiran.

‘Death to the beast.’

‘What about it?’

‘It’s not a declaration,’ I said. ‘It’s an instruction. We have to kill it.’

Kiran laughed. ‘And how the fuck are we supposed to do that? You saw what it did to Martin.’

‘He’s right,’ said Celeste. ‘We need to find weapons. Search all of the cars.’

‘How long will that take?’ said Kiran. ‘We’ve already been through dozens of them.’

‘There are hundreds of cars out there. There’s got to be a gun in one of them.’

‘Martin had the same idea,’ said Yael. ‘All he found was a baseball bat. And some use that was.’

I stood up. ‘The cars are our weapons.’

The three of them stared at me.

‘We drive into it. Run it over. Crush it.’

Celeste got to her feet.

‘That’s a good idea,’ she said, ‘but we don’t have the keys. How do we start them? Unless you know how to hot-wire a car…’

I shook my head.

‘The valet parking,’ said Kiran. ‘At the end of row F. There are keys behind the desk on the wall.’

‘Then what are we waiting for?’ said Celeste. ‘Let’s go get them and kill this fucking thing.’

‘Even if we do kill it,’ said Yael, ‘we still don’t know if that means we get out of here. I mean, what if we’re still trapped and then another one comes along?’

Celeste shrugged. ‘There’s only one way to find out.’ She moved towards the door.

Kiran went to the back wall and started rifling through the boxes on the shelves. He picked one up and tipped it onto the floor, and out fell a couple of rolls of plastic tubing.

‘What are you doing?’ I said.

‘We can siphon petrol.’

’What for?’ said Yael.

‘Good idea,’ I said. ‘You and Yael do that. Me and Celeste will get the keys. Let’s go.’

We ran out the door. Kiran yelled after us. ‘The biggest ones you can! No bullshit sports cars!’

We found the valet parking lobby at the end of row F and followed the red carpet inside. Leather couches, mirrored walls, marble flooring, a two-metre-high dried-out water feature. Celeste scanned the two dozen or so keys hanging from the board behind the desk. ’How do we know which ones are which?’

‘Easy,’ I said, ‘The numbers on the tags will match the plates. Let’s take a look at the cars.’

We hurried back out and began inspecting the vehicles parked in the valet spaces. BMWs, Porsches, Mercedes, a couple of Bentleys, more than a few Teslas. A black Range Rover caught my eye, large enough to cause some serious damage— to a human being at least. I made a note of the plate, then turned to go back inside when Celeste called out.

‘What about this one?’

I looked across to see her leaning against a vehicle parked at the end of the row in a charging bay. ‘Big enough for ya?’

It was a Hummer EV. Decked out with a bull bar.

Perfect. As long as it had enough charge.

I checked the plates again, then ran back inside to find the matching keys. I found the key to the Range Rover easily enough but couldn’t find the key to the Hummer. I searched through the drawers in the desk, found a pack of cigarettes and a lighter, but no key. We’d have to pick a different vehicle. I pocketed the lighter, then I stepped out the doors just as the Hummer pulled up at speed right in front of me. I hadn’t even heard it coming.

Celeste leaned out the window, dangled the key with a smile.

It took a few tries to start the Range Rover, but I eventually got it going. Then we drove back to the maintenance room.

I parked the Range Rover in the middle of the lane just down from the escalator lobby, killed the engine, and waited. I leaned the seat back and, out of curiosity, turned on the ignition and switched on the radio. I scanned the band. Static, as expected, until I reached the end. Here, the static shifted. It pulsed, slowly, rhythmically, like breathing. I listened for a moment, then reached to switch it off, but my finger hovered over the button. It was hypnotic. Calming. My eyes grew heavy, and I felt myself drifting off to sleep. Then a voice faded in. Low, barely audible. Repeating the same phrase over and over in a strange, archaic-sounding language I couldn’t understand.

The opening chords of ‘Dancing in the Moonlight’ cut in from the PA outside like a shot of electricity. I stabbed the radio off, slammed the seat forward, and scanned the car park, looking for any sign of the creature.

I felt it before I heard it. The car trembled. Then a growl from the darkness deep at the end of the lane. I saw the creature emerge into a cold pool of flickering fluorescent light. Stooped over, stalking down the lane, its horned head moving from side to side, searching.

I hit the start button. Nothing. I tried again. Still nothing. The creature drew closer. I looked down, saw the shifter was in neutral. I jammed it into park and hit the button again. The engine came to life. I found the accelerator and revved the engine. The creature looked up and froze. I switched on the lights to high beam. It reared away, blinded, then stood to its full height and roared. Everything shook. I slammed the car into drive and drove straight for it. The creature stood still, arms outstretched, jaws open wide, rushing towards me. And then it was gone and I was still hurtling down the lane.

The windscreen exploded and I was showered in glass. It was on the roof. Its massive head appeared in front of me upside down, its horns gouging the bonnet. It reached out a clawed hand, took hold of my head and squeezed. Hot light exploded behind my eyes. My ears filled with the sound of my skull plates grinding together. I pulled down hard on the steering wheel. The car swerved left, tyres squealing, leaning so hard I thought it would tip over. I heard a loud crack, the car bucked like a horse, and I was peppered with chunks of concrete. My vision cleared. I’d turned into an adjoining lane and was headed straight for a pylon. I spun the wheel right and the pylon tore along the side of the car. Screeching metal, ripping the passenger door off in a shower of sparks. I was heading straight for the wall. I slammed the brakes and the car shuddered to a stop, inches from impact.

I looked around for the creature. It was behind me, splayed on its back in the middle of the lane, bathed in the red glow of the brake lights. A few metres behind was a shattered concrete support beam running along the ceiling, a ragged hole in the middle where its body had punched through, knocking it from the car.

Then it sat up, shook its head, and roared. I slid into reverse, backed up from the wall, then bent the car straight down the lane. The front suspension howled, the steering wheel shook in my hands. Something under the car was grinding itself to pieces.

My head was pounding. I felt wet on the side of my head and touched it. There was blood coming out of my ears. I glanced into the rear vision mirror. The creature was back on its feet, running full pelt after me. It dropped to all fours, began bounding, metres at a time. It would be on top of me in seconds. I was racing towards an intersection. Just ahead to my left, an open lane lined with cars. To my right, an empty recessed turning bay. I leaned on the horn and pushed the accelerator to the floor, the car vibrating so hard my vision blurred, shaking itself to pieces. The creature roared. Its hulking form filled the entire back windscreen. I reached the intersection, glanced left — the Hummer, headed straight for me. It passed right behind me and t-boned into the creature, driving it straight into the turning bay. I hit the brakes, the car fishtailed wildly, then ground to a halt.

I opened the door, looked back to see the Hummer reverse out of the bay at speed. Celeste was driving. Kiran tore open the passenger door and leapt out, rag in one hand, lighter in the other. He ran around to the front of the Hummer, lit the rag, and lobbed it into the mouth of the turning bay. Instantly, the ground erupted in flames, and a ball of fire belched from the bay.

The force of the explosion lifted the Hummer off its front tires. Kiran burst alight and flew backwards through the air like a pinecone exploding from a bonfire. I don’t know how much petrol he’d poured on the ground, but it was too much. Then a wall of thick, black smoke burst forth and rolled down the lane towards me. I took a deep breath, slammed the door shut, and everything went dark. With the passenger door gone, the car instantly filled with hot smoke. Then everything was heat and noise, screaming metal, exploding glass, flashes of orange hellfire as more cars went up in flames. The car park was exploding and burning around me.

I felt for where the ignition button should be and stabbed it. The engine started. My hand found the shifter and dragged it into drive. I hit the gas. The car lurched forward. I was completely blind. There was a thud, the car bounced, then smashed into something, and the airbags deployed, pinning me to my seat.

I tore at the bag, opened the door, and fell out, got to my feet, and ran straight into the wall. Still holding my breath, I stumbled along the wall, hoping to reach the parking bay where the maintenance room was.. My lungs felt like they were going to explode. My legs turned to jelly. Every step felt like my last. And then the wall disappeared, and I fell to the ground. I was lying beside the van parked in front of the maintenance room. The smoke on the ground was thinner, and I gulped a pocket of air and crawled to the back of the van. I got back to my feet, felt for the door, my ears were ringing, screaming like a dentist’s drill, my heart pounding, every beat sending a shockwave of pain through my brain. Then I found the door handle, wrenched it down, and fell into the maintenance room. I kicked the door shut and passed out.

I woke up lying on my back, soaking wet, a chemical taste in my mouth, a siren echoing in my head. I had no idea where I was. It was pitch dark like a coffin. I sat up— too quickly— my brain slammed against the inside of my skull. I was going to be sick. I took a moment to ride the nausea, then I held a hand in front of my face. I couldn’t see it. I couldn’t see anything.

I was blind.

Panic shot through me. I felt around on the floor. I was sitting in a pool of water inches deep. I got to my hands and knees and began to crawl, and my head rattled into something hard and metallic. I took hold of it and it rolled away from me, then clanged to a stop. A shopping trolley. I braced myself against it and got to my feet, then reached out and felt a cold metal plate, raised buttons, switches.

A control panel. Then I remembered I was in the maintenance room.

Below the siren in my head, I could hear a soft trickle of water coming from somewhere nearby. I focused on its direction, then splashed towards it, arms outstretched in front of me. I found the door and jammed it open. Red light washed over me as a surge of water rushed around my feet. The siren grew louder. It wasn’t in my head after all.

I stepped out from behind the van into the carpark. It was like stepping out from a bunker after a nuclear strike. The ground was flooded, water spraying from sprinkler heads jutting from the pipes that snaked along the ceiling, everything bathed in a deep red light, the wailing siren echoing from every direction. Every car a burnt and blackened frame. Melted tires like pools of lava under charred and twisted wrecks. The air heavy with dirty clouds of steam and gas and burnt plastic fumes, everything awash with water that in the red light looked like blood.

I walked along the lane back towards the escalator lobby, soaked to the skin. I passed the burnt-out shell of the Range Rover resting against the wreck of another car. Further along, I saw a figure lying on the ground in the shallow water, as if curled up asleep. As I drew closer, I saw it was Yael. Covered in wet black soot, eyes open, tongue hanging out. Her clothes shredded, limbs torn and mangled. Maybe that was the thud I’d heard just before I crashed the Range Rover.

Then I came upon the shell of the Hummer sitting before the mouth of the turning bay. Celeste was still in the driver’s seat. Her flesh incinerated. A charred skeleton, hands fused into the melted figure-eight of the steering wheel. She looked like she was one with the skeletal frame of the Hummer. There was no sign of Kiran. I guess he was nothing more than ash.

I looked into the cave-like mouth of the turning bay. I thought I could see a black mound of some kind just within the entrance, but I didn’t dare go any closer to investigate. I could only hope that we’d killed it. But I had no way of knowing for sure.

I turned up the lane that led to the escalator lobby. Halfway along, I saw the silhouette of a hulking figure moving slowly through a billowing cloud of steam, its large head moving from side to side, searching. I froze. There was no escaping it. There was nowhere left to run.

Then the cloud parted, and a firefighter emerged, and I could see his eyes behind the mask staring at me in amazement.

HORROR AT HIGHGATE

‘People were screaming, running… like a scene from a horror movie.’

What we know so far:

At least six people are dead, and a car park is gutted by fire with police declaring the entire Highgate shopping centre a crime scene. A forty-eight-year-old man has been taken into police custody on suspicion of multiple counts of murder. Authorities say the suspect is not known to police, and it’s too early to speculate on a motive, but it appears he was acting alone.

Police were called to the Highgate Shopping Centre following reports of a man deliberately targeting pedestrians with a four-wheel drive in an underground car park. One eyewitness, who asked for his name to be withheld, described what he saw.

‘I heard an engine rev and then a bang, and I looked over and I saw this woman just lying in the middle of the lane, and the car just sitting there. She looked like she’d been run over. And then the car just backed over her. I couldn’t believe it. I yelled at him, but then he drove straight at me. I ran into where the escalators are, and he smashed right through the doors and knocked the vending machine over. He only barely missed me. Then he was just sitting in the car screaming. He looked insane, like he was possessed or something. The window of the car was open, and there was really loud music playing. Then he backed out, and I saw him run another man over. People were screaming, running. It was like a scene from a horror movie. Then I just ran up the escalators.’

Asked to describe the music, the eyewitness said it was, ‘that song Dancing in the Moonlight. It’s a banger.’

It’s understood moments after police arrived on the scene, a massive explosion tore through the car park. At this time, police are uncertain of the source of the explosion but have not ruled out a possible terrorist attack.

More to come.