ABRACADAVER
by Melissa Mann
“It’s on, yeah?”
“Absolutely. We have ignition. Thunderbirds are totally go, bro.”
“So, like, the green light is definitely on this time, yeah?”
“Most definitely… oh wait… maybe… does that look on to you?”
“Jesus, Dylan, give it here.” Seb snatches the camcorder and presses a button. “Fuckin’ Scorsese doesn’t get this kind of shit from his cameraman.”
Dylan pushes up the sleeves of the black t-shirt he’s wearing under his school shirt, the cuffs of which he has rolled up to the elbow. “Well that’s because fuckin’ Scorsese doesn’t make his cameraman work on, like zero fuckin’ breakfast, Seb. I can’t work under these conditions, it’s inhuman.”
Seb looks at his brother standing there, hips struggling to hold up his trousers and a pair of Calvin Kleins. “Dyl, seriously, if you could see how fuckin’ pathetic you look right now you’d do the decent thing and kill yourself. And you just ate for fuck’s sake. You had a Big Mac and a Mars Bar ten minutes ago.” He thrusts the camcorder at Dylan’s hollow stomach. “You’re unbelievable. Look at you, you freak show.”
“Yeah well, read ‘em an’ weep fat boy,” says Dylan, squeezing Seb’s moobs.
“Oi, get the fuck off me, you bender!” Seb’s cheeks are splashed with red like a graffiti artist has taken liberties with his face while his back was turned. “Jesus, gay as well as fuckin’ useless.” He tightens the tie dawdling round his neck. “Are we done now? Can we get back to work here cos this assignment has to be handed in on Friday and so far we’ve done sweet fanny zilch.”
Dylan puts his hands in his pockets. “I know that Seb but I’m working to rule and the rule is, me no get breakfast, me no worky. Comprende?” he says, grinning.
“Okay okay, spare me the fuckin’ impressions. Christ. But we are not leaving the station, okay. Crap from the vending machine or nothing,” he says, lumbering off down the platform.
“Okay but no fuckin’ chewing gum,” Dylan shouts after him. “Makes me fart,” he mutters to himself, plucking at the sole of his black All-Stars with his heel. A cleaner shuffles past with a mop and bucket, wearing black fingerless driving gloves, leather, over a pair of yellow Marigolds. His cleaning equipment clattering to the floor is the sound of him dropping his boredom.
The thud of heavy feet detonating a path of landmines echoes along the platform. “Here, stuff these down your neck quick,” says Seb, handing his brother a packet of Softmints. “Just spotted our next victim and you’ll like this, bro. It’s a dusky maiden all on her lonesome. Come on, get your arse in gear or we’ll miss her.” Seb hangs the camcorder off Dylan’s shoulder. “Darling, what a divine little bag!” he says then minces off down the platform, giving Dylan the bird behind his back.
“Oi bastard… mwait fo’ mwe,” says Dylan through a mouthful of Softmints. He lurches after Seb, one hand holding up his trousers, the other gripping the straps of a large rucksack.
Ferne is folding her blazer in her lap when the two boys bowl up in front of her. She pulls at the front of her sweater, flushed cheeks threatening to steam up her eyes and pleat the air above her head.
“Hey there,” says Seb, pulling out a pack of cards from one of the six pockets of his combat trousers. “I’m Seb and this is Dylan.” Dylan flutters his fingers. “So, whaddit is, right, we’re doing this project for ‘A’ level, yeah and we need your help,” says Seb, shuffling the cards. “It won’t take long,” he adds, seeing a head-shake cock itself trigger-style on Ferne’s neck.
“Two minutes, that’s all,” Dylan says, nodding at Ferne then Seb.
“Two minutes? De-errrr!” says Seb, shaking his head at Dylan. “No bro, one minute. Less in fact – a nanominute. We just want to show you a card trick and film your reaction. Simple as that.”
“Yeah, that’s it. Ordeal over,” says Dylan, fiddling with the camcorder.
“No bro, no. Not an ordeal,” says Seb, pointedly. He rolls his eyes then turns to smile at Ferne. “This is your once-in-a-lifetime chance to be part of an important study on human behaviour. Right bro?” he says, fanning the cards round his hand. Ferne huddles round her blazer like a bag lady near a fire, heels of her trainers beating a retreat on the underside of the seat. “So, are you game?” Seb says.
“I… I don’t know. I shouldn’t even be here,” says Ferne, looking from Seb to the Way Out sign over his shoulder. “I think maybe I should…”
“Excellent, excellent. I think maybe you should too.” Seb takes Ferne’s blazer and puts it on the seat with her satchel. Then he pulls her to her feet and smiles a parade of yellow teeth.
“Okay Dylan, my man, we’re in business. Coast clear?” he says, looking up and down the platform. He turns to Ferne, noting for the first time her long black lashes and big green eyes. “We, errrm… strictly speaking we’re… I mean, you’re not supposed to film on the tube without, you know, permission and stuff, so…”
“You mean you shouldn’t really be doing this?” says Ferne, pulling away from him. “Is this, you know, ill… illegal or something?” Without waiting for a reply, Ferne picks up her satchel.
“Abso-fuckin’-lutely,” says Dylan, nodding his head enthusiastically.
“No Dyl, no. Illegal schmegal! Ha! Course it’s not illegal,” says Seb, pinching his bottom lip.
“But he just said it’s illegal.” She nods at Dylan accusingly. “‘Abso… lutely’, that’s… that’s what he said.”
“Well if you’d let me finish my fuckin’ sentence, both of you instead of interrupting me all the time,” says Dylan, tutting. “What I was trying to say before I was so rudely interrupted was ‘abso-fuckin’-lutely not. No way is it illegal’. Jeez, let a man get a word in edgewise why don’t you. Anyway, look, the coast is, like totally clear and we have ignition,” he says, pointing to the green light on the camcorder. “So, are we doing this or what?” He trains the lens on Ferne’s face.
“Umm, well, okay then,” Ferne says, putting her satchel back on the bench. “But only if you’re, you know, quick and everything.”
“Well if it’s quick the lady wants, then quick she shall have,” says Seb, holding out the cards to her. “So, pick a card, any card – don’t let me see it though obviously,” he says. “Good stuff. Now, memorise it and put it back in the pack. That’s it, anywhere you like. Excellent. Right, this is where it gets interesting,” says Seb, running a hand through his hair.
“Even more interesting,” adds Dylan, scratching his chest and nodding encouragingly at Seb.
“Bro, shut it, okay. You’re the cameraman, which, if I’m not mistaken is a non-speaking part.” Seb exhales sharply and taps the pack of cards. “So, what was your card?”
“Erm, the ten of diamonds,” Ferne says, brushing her lips with the end of her plait.
Seb touches his fly. “The ten of diamonds. Okay, good. Now, have a look in your blazer.”
Ferne feels around inside her jacket, eventually pulling a playing card from the breast pocket. Surprise lightening strikes her face as she turns it over. “Golly!” says Ferne, staring in awe at the ten of diamonds.
“Well is it golly or is it a miracle?” says Seb, putting a finger to his cheek and looking up in mock wonder.
Ferne folds her arms and grips her elbows, suddenly uncomfortable. The unexpected has happened so now anything could happen to her, anything at all. “But how…? That’s… that’s amazing. How did you do it?” she says, looking at the card.
“Magic, baby!” says Seb, raising one eyebrow.
“Can… I mean, please could you show me another one?” says Ferne, plucking the front of her sweater. “I’m not in a hurry or any… I mean, I can be a bit late.” She checks her watch.
“Well, you can have too much of a good thing, yer know,” says Dylan, parting the curtains of his fringe.
“No. No bro, that’s where you’re wrong. You can’t have too much of a good thing.” Seb turns to Ferne, licking his lips. “Actually there is another trick we could show you. But it’s top secret, very secret squirrel.” He taps a finger to his nose and looks over his shoulder conspiratorially. “It’s kind of unofficial. We haven’t even shown it to The Magic Circle yet. Wanna see it?”
Ferne pulls up her socks through her skirt and nods her head eagerly.
“Okay then.” Seb turns to catch Dylan’s eye, which is fixed on Ferne’s hem-line. “Bro. Hey, bro. So, I was thinking, the shoebox trick, yeah?” Seb nods his head, eyes wide then clicks his fingers and points to the rucksack at Dylan’s feet.
“Right right right, the shoebox trick. Yes indeedy,” Dylan says, rubbing his hands and doing a little jig.
“God, what’s he like, eh?” Seb ushers Ferne along the platform. “If it’s any consolation we’re having him sectioned tomorrow.”
Jogging along at his side, she says, “I’m… I’m Ferne by the way,” then chews the end of her plait. “So, are… are you two twins then cos well, you look like twins. Apart from, you know, you’re f-fatter, well bigger than he is obviously or… or whatever.” She blushes. “I wish I had a twin. I’ve always wondered what… I mean, if there was another me, which one would I like best. Sorry… bit weird… umm, so are you? Twins I mean?”
“Yeah, we are,” says Dylan, on her other side. “Amazing isn’t it, me coming from the same zygote as fatso here.”
“Ignore him Ferne, he’s just bitter and twisted cos he’s like the runt of the litter?” Seb reaches behind her and punches Dylan on the arm.
“Yeah, right, lard arse,” says Dylan, shoving the heel of his hand against Seb’s nose. “We’ll see who’s fuckin’ bitter and twisted a few years from now when I’ve shagged all the birds.”
“Yeah cos birds really go for dudes with their organs practically on show,” says Seb, swatting Dylan’s hand away. “Look, when the shit hits the fan and some psycho’s on the loose with a knife, I think we can safely say my organs’ll have a better chance of fuckin’ making it than yours.”
“Yeah, but in the meantime you’ll live a sad, lonely, shagless existence,” says Dylan, stabbing Seb’s arm with his finger. “Face it bro, no self-respecting bird’d be seen dead with a fat bastard like you. Right Ferne?”
“Ermmm, I don’t…I…” says Ferne, blushing. “So, which of you is like the evil twin? Cos there’s always a good twin and bad twin isn’t there? You know in fairy tales and stuff.”
“Ah, well, that would be me, I’m the evilest of them all,” says Dylan and gnashes his teeth.
“No no and thrice no, bro. Truth is, Ferne, we’re both bad. Two mean muthafuckin’ bad asses,” says Seb, steering her off the platform. “We put the ass into Christmas.”
“Yee-ha!” says Dylan, jogging backwards in front of them. He points with his thumb over his shoulder. “I’m gonna go on ahead and set things up, yeah,” then he runs off down the tunnel like a stick man in a flick book.
“So, errmm, where are we going exactly?” Ferne looks back in the direction they’ve just come.
“Very good question, Ferne, excellent. Smart girl, smart for your age. How old are you by the way? Fifteen, sixteen…? Twelve! Reeeaaally.” Seb looks at her ripening chest and wipes his mouth. “Yes, so, vis a vis your most excellent ‘where-are-we-going’-type question, Ferne. Whaddit is, right, given the secret nature of the shoebox trick, it has to be done in like, well, secret basically, so we have a special room to do it in?” He points to a door just ahead of them. “Et voila, as if by magic! Am I a fuckin’ great magician or what!”
“What?” says Dylan, appearing round a door marked ‘Cleaning Supplies.’ “Gimme a minute bro, yeah then I’m all yours,” he says. His eyes linger on Ferne then he disappears back inside the room.
Seb smiles reassuringly then looks up and down the tunnel. Ferne follows his gaze, noticing the drops of sweat pearlising his upper lip, his foot Fred Astairing on the concrete floor. He smiles weakly, swipes a hand across his mouth then pounds his fist on the metal door. “Coming ready or not, bro,” he shouts.
Inside, the room smells of ammonia and factory-made Nordic pine forests. Dylan is sitting on top of a large green bucket with a shoe box in his lap. Lining the walls, freestanding aluminium shelves packed with tins of polish, bleach and bloated containers full of fluorescent pink liquid. Ferne runs a hand along a shelf as she walks past, feeling the tins roll like wheels beneath her fingers.
Seb is shuffling the cards. “Shit,” he says as half a dozen flap to the floor at Ferne’s feet. She bends down to pick them up, showing the tops of her over-the-knee socks. “Okay Ferne, same deal as before, yeah” says Seb, wiping his forehead with the end of his school tie. “’cept this time my faithful assistant Miss Dyllie here will be helping me so no filming, okay?”
Ferne nods then sits down on the upturned bucket Dylan has placed in front of him.
“So Ferne, you okay babe, not too hot in that sweater? Don’t want to, like take it off or anything?” Seb runs a finger round the neck of his shirt. “No? Well, okey-dokey. Right, pick a card any card, you know the drill.” Ferne pulls one out, memorises it then puts it back in the pack.
“Okay so Ferne, what’s your card?” Seb asks. “Thank you, the jack of hearts. Right, now, wouldn’t it be amazing Ferne if the card you just picked out should, by some miracle of miracles, have found its way into the very shoe box that my able assistant Miss Dyllie here is holding?”
“Yes, it… it’d be astounding,” says Ferne, nodding her head enthusiastically.
“A-fuckin-stounding indeed!” says Seb, putting a hand on his brother’s shoulder. “Now, the more observant among you will’ve noticed the rather cunning hole here in the shoe box lid. So, Ferne, I want you to put your hand into the hole and feel around inside for your card.”
Ferne wipes her hand down her school skirt then reaches inside the box. After a while her face starts to line up the B-side of happy.
“That’s it babe, have a good old feel around,” says Seb. Dylan bites his lip. “Found it yet?”
“I can’t seem to…” Ferne says, frowning. “Are you sure the card’s…I mean…”
“It’s definitely in there, Ferne. This trick has never failed yet,” says Seb, squeezing his lips into a fleshy beak. “Keep trying, Ferne. Can you feel anything? Anything at all?”
“Well, there is something but… but it doesn’t feel like a card. It’s not very… It feels all funny,” says Ferne, wrinkling her nose.
“Well, maybe the card’s underneath it, babe,” says Seb, giving her arm a nudge. “Go on, have a feel underneath.” Dylan’s face is turned towards the shelves, eyes closed.
“Errgh, it’s… it’s all horrible; warm and squashy and everything,” says Ferne, pulling her hand out. “It’s not there, the card, really, I’m positive.”
“Oh dear, this is not good. Not good at all, is it bro?” says Seb, looking down at Dylan.
“Actually it’s fuckin’ awesome,” says Dylan and immediately feels Seb’s disapproval slap him across the face. “I mean… what I mean, of course is that it’s fuckin’ awesome if… if you’re like, David Blaine and want to see us fail, fail on the very first rung of the ladder of magical fame.”
“That… that’s right Dyl,” says Seb, rolling his eyes at his brother. “And do you want to see us fail, Ferne? Is that what you want, to see our dreams die right here in this dingy little fuckin’ room?” He goes behind her and rests his hands on her shoulders. “No. No, of course you don’t. So, we’re going to need your help with a very powerful piece of magic. Will you help us, Ferne? Will you?”
Ferne swallows then nods her head. “Okay, good. So, remember the fairy tale about the genie in the lamp? Yes? Well, I want you to take hold of whatever it is you found in the box and give it a really good rub,” he says, guiding her hand back through the hole. “Go on babe, like you’re polishing the lamp to get the genie out.” He demonstrates the movement with his hand. “That’s it. Now, just say the magic word ‘abracadabra.’”
Dylan’s knee is juddering feverishly, face flushed. “Abracadabra!” Ferne shouts. The tins on the shelf Dylan’s gripping start to rattle and complain like prisoners on death row banging cups against the bars. Dylan throws his head back and gasps. Jerking her hand out the box, Ferne looks in horror at the white slime stringing between her fingers. When she looks up, Seb is over by the door, laughing uncontrollably, Dylan leaning back against the shelves, a smile fighting with his breath for mouth-time. “Oh man,” he says, eventually, grinning at Ferne. “That was fuckin’ awesome.”
Ferne’s hands hang off her wrists like open scissors she’s just been caught running with by the teacher. She reaches a trembling hand towards the shoe box then flips the lid off. Her face turns grey. Ferne looks at her hand then back in the box. A scream starts to climb out her throat.
Dylan and Seb look at each other, suddenly uneasy. “Hey, Ferne, no big deal, yeah,” says Seb, holding up his hands. “It was a joke. Nothing to go all fuckin’…”
“…ape shit about,” Dylan finishes, pulling his cock out the hole in the end of the shoe box. Her legs now columns of wet sand, Ferne staggers back off the bucket, banging into the shelves. The scream is now ripping her lips apart. She grips the metal struts either side of her, gasping for breath. It’s like she’s trapped in an air pocket inside her own head.
Seb wipes his hands up and down his cheeks and watches as Dylan picks up the lid, fits it back on the box and shoves it in the rucksack.
“Oh come the fuck on Ferne, don’t be pathetic,” Dylan says, zipping up his fly. “Really, you’re making way too big a deal of this.”
“Yeah, come on Ferne, it was nothing,” says Seb, joining his brother.
“Actually, no dude, it wasn’t nothing,” says Dylan, grinning. He turns to Ferne. “Holy shit,” he cries, ducking as a container flies over his head. It hits the door behind him and dandruffs bleach on his shoulders.
Ferne turns to the shelf next to her and grabs another grenade of floor cleaner. “You… you bloody buggering bastards!” she shouts, lobbing it at the two boys, who are now falling over themselves to get out the door. Ferne slides to the floor and sits on her hands, tears and snot dripping down the front of her sweater. It’s like she’s seeing the room – the closed door, the spilled cleaning products, the two upturned buckets – through a smeared windscreen. “Abracadabra,” she whispers then rests her head back and waits for it all to disappear.