Visitation - Reality (book 1 of 2)

Two days previously . . . .

  The mists cleared slightly. It had been a Friday and I had phoned in to the office with an excuse about illness.

That had not been like me, I rarely missed a day from work, even after the incident, the previous year, when I broke a bone in my right foot in a ‘skiing accident’ and had to take a couple of days off. The ‘skiing accident’ had been my joke to tell the guys at the office, after really missing my footing and clearing the last three steps coming downstairs. I had landed sufficiently heavy on my right foot to break a bone; age was catching up on me, I guess, and in a painful way. The joke had gone down well, even with my Director.

I was now working part time on contract; I did not have any meetings planned or any site visits, so my boss, Dave, had no problems with me taking the day off because he knew I could easily catch up when I came in. I could not explain to him what I was really up to especially since the office was sited only a short walking distance from the TV studios.

I had received a telephone call at home the night previous from the local TV station at the BBC offices of the Media City complex in Manchester. I had been requested to pay them a visit for the purpose of having a chat with a local news reporter but I could not remember who had been mentioned. My first thoughts were that it had to be Annabel, or perhaps, there again, it might be a guy called Dave? Those two names seemed to pop straight into my head, maybe because I saw them regularly on the local TV news. Whoever it was, it didn't seem to matter because the rest of the event was still not there.

“Why had I received a telephone call at home from this lady or that man? I’m not making sense?”

Then it came to me.

“My book, the one I had written. My short story had caused a stir.”

I had written a book, me, a book; that was it, I was an author. It had become a big hit on the internet I remembered, and the local TV people wanted to talk to me about it.

“What on earth was the book about, what story had I written that had led me to this, an interview at the local TV station?”

There seemed to be a block there and the harder I tried to recall, the worse the fog.

“Relax Ian,” I thought to myself, “and it might come to you.”

I had a feeling that the topic of my writing had been something very significant, something strong, but I still couldn’t pin down what it was. The phone call had come from a junior at the TV station but I was to meet one of the senior journalist-presenters for an informal chat to see if there was any mileage in an on-screen interview. I had been given a date and time.

Yes, that was it, the day before yesterday. Turn up at the station at two in the afternoon for an informal chat with Dave or was it Annabel? I still had those two names cropping up but anything else about them was a mystery. Why I couldn't distinguish between a female and a male interviewer didn't make any sense either.

I had driven in, in plenty of time, parked up in the local multi-storey and strolled to the building. It had been a fine summer’s day and I spent the time admiring the view of the old commercial wharfs that had now been developed beyond all recognition. I had felt the warmth of the sun on my back and now I was feeling the warmth of the returning memories.

Through the rotating door, into Reception and up to the desk to announce that I was expected for interview, which I was. I had been directed to some plush seating in the expansive foyer and had been offered a coffee because the person I was going to see, whoever it had been, was unavoidably delayed; that bit I did remember. I recalled just sitting back and trying to relax as much as I could amid the excitement of being invited to a TV studio.

I recalled drinking the coffee that was clearly from some automatic machine; no aroma and not a great taste. Then thumbing mindlessly through some articles in the magazines strewn about the tables, but I still could not bring to mind who I had been there to see, nor the book that, apparently, I had written and was worthy of a news interview. I could not force the memories and they would not come willingly.

The scene changed in my minds eye view; more of the events I was trying to recall were coming into view. I had been shown to a small interview room off the foyer. Two easy chairs, a small coffee table and some more coffee to drink. How long had I been sat in the foyer before being called forward, I couldn’t tell, I just knew that the old grey cells had taken this leap forward in time.

The person sat opposite me I couldn’t see in my mind's eye, not their face anyway and their body shape didn't register at all. This was strange. Something that had happened only two days ago, apparently, but there seemed to be some sort of distorting glass through which I tried to visualise my memories.

If I turned slightly this way or that, metaphorically, a clearer view appeared, to be then lost or blurred. Perhaps this was some sort of protective mind shut-down in response to whatever had occurred.

The overall impressions did not include much detail and I was becoming frustrated; I tried to relax more.

“You were asked about the book’s theme and premises,” the thought came to me.

The questions were now just blurred speech, with the odd clear word or sentence, and they would not come complete to the fore. I was experiencing a dream of separated parts.

“Do you think the content of this book has implications or a message for the human race?” I recalled being asked.

What on earth had I written for such a question as that? Was I in some sort of genuine dream, it certainly felt like that? I was dreaming about dreaming and that in itself was becoming disturbing. Had today’s memory loss somehow affected everything before it? That may be the answer. Perhaps if I could recall more of two days ago, I might remember more of this day. I realised I could not remember the previous day either, except what Hazel had told me and the text message she had shown me. There was a feeling of great importance about the last two days events, but that feeling could not be justified, it was simply there. I tried to focus on the interview again.

More coffee in a plastic cup and more questions. I had the impression that I had been answering them but what words had I been speaking, what collection of words had formed the questions? Then my phone had rung, the old phone, the one with which I was familiar and with a recognisable theme tune. While this may have been in my mind, it brought certain clarity to my thoughts, pretty much as a real phone ring may have done.

I had apologised for not turning my phone off before the interview had started; this was bad manners and I had known it. Whoever it had been conducting the interview and asking the questions, they had suggested kindly that I take the call before we moved on; so I did. The words I heard almost leapt out of my mind’s eye in front of me; this was almost really happening before me now, not just a vivid memory.

“Ian, do not be afraid of what I say. Do not put the phone down. Listen to what I say and act upon it straight away. This is not a hoax.”

Where had I heard those last words before? Why did I recognise the voice? It was clear in my head and the fear I had felt then came back to me. The small hairs on the back of my neck started their inexorable twitching. This was unpleasant but I had to go on; I needed to recall everything.

I had not responded quickly to the call so it had continued in its quick fire style. The nature of the delivery was clear in my mind and brought the words to the forefront of my memory.

“The person interviewing you will be called away in a moment.”

“You will leave the interview room at the same time on the pretext of a natural break; you will go immediately to the toilet.”

“Most importantly of all, you will leave your phone behind on the table. I stress the importance of that; leave your mobile phone behind.”

“You must do as I say or you will not see another day.”

“Your life is in the gravest danger because of what you have written; certain people are after you. I am trying to ensure that they do not achieve their intent. I have become aware of what is about to happen.”

“Do exactly as I have just said.”

The voice had paused.

“Who is this,” I remembered saying, only to be told simply,

“A friend, who you will meet shortly, if you are still alive. You will be if you do as I am telling you, time is now short. Do not delay, act on what I have told you NOW.”

The voice had been firm, strong and commanding but not threatening. I had served in the forces during the troubles in Northern Ireland and I had recognised then both the type of information and the manner in which it was being presented. I had received a couple of calls like this during my time in the province, once or twice on phones in public houses, also telling me to get out of the place.

Acting upon them did not take much thinking about then or, indeed, where I had found myself afterwards. The feeling I must have felt then and subsequently in this interview room came back to me; calm agitation and nervous anticipation reinforced by an adrenalin rush.

Some words of instruction from many years previous came back to me, “Be calm, and don’t make rash decisions. Analyse quickly then take action; panic is a killer.”

The handset phone in the interview room had also rung and my interviewer taking the call, had apologised and then said something about an event that had come up unexpectedly and they had to leave immediately to attend to it. The interviewer had said that they would be back in a few minutes, offered apologies and suggested I help myself to some more coffee until their return. The call I had received anticipated this, but how? Nerves had been straining as I had felt the hairs on the back of my neck really stand up. They were standing up even now as I recalled events.

“Panic is a killer,” had echoed again in my thoughts but I had needed to decide upon a course of action and quickly.

The suggestion to go to the toilet might have been a good one. My phone call telling me to leave the room and the other requiring the interviewer to leave the room had rung all the warning bells. I decided to leave the room with the interviewer, whoever they were, saying that I would visit the toilet, and also be back very shortly.

I had remembered to leave my phone behind as I had been told; it had been placed on the small coffee table in front of me and I just abandoned it. Whatever the reason was for all the information conveyed, I had not been about to query it to understand its meaning. I had just followed given instructions from a well learnt habit for such times; something well ingrained from a past military career.

As the interviewer had left the room and walked, rather hurriedly towards the rear of the foyer, I had turned to look back at my mobile sat on the glass topped coffee table and it had been clearly starting to vibrate, not an option I had ever selected on it. I remembered that I stood there in amazement as it had started to play my call tune. That had suddenly stopped with the vibration returning but at a much increased rate; so much that the whole glass top had acted as a sounding board producing a strange hum that was increasing in pitch and volume.

Then it had struck me; why was I stood waiting to see what might ensue with a mobile phone that appeared to have a life of its own. This had reminded me, for some odd reason, of being one of the last out of a Woolworth’s store in NI when a bomb alert had been announced, to find a crowd stood only a few metres away waiting to see the device explode. I had not hung around then and cleared away from the area pretty sharply. This memory had prompted me to do the same here. If my phone was being employed to cause me harm, or worse, then I had realised that I should not be hanging around to watch the fireworks, whatever they might be.

I had left the door to swing closed and deliberately moved away in the opposite direction to the toilets, to approach the receptionist. This was, ostensibly, to ask her where the toilets were although they were clearly signed. But I had really taken this direction as an additional precaution with the intention to get myself outside the building quickly and put some distance between myself and whatever was going to occur; not as I had just intimated to the interviewer.

I had conversely advised the receptionist that I would be just taking a breath of fresh air before visiting the toilets should the interviewer return and had wondered where I had gone to. I had felt assured that I could leave that false message with her; receptionists usually conveyed exactly what you told them. If all went pear shaped I would have been outside the building and could disappear quickly if I had to.

I had walked as nonchalantly as possible through the rotating doors, and took some sharpish steps away from the building in the general direction of the waterfront. The sensation of the difficulty in trying to control my breathing, while my legs had functioned in an unsure unsteady manner, yet with tense muscles, had brought back sensations from many years ago.

Pretending to be something I was not, appearing calm outwardly while inside was performing somersaults, had been a sensation I did not think I would ever experience again. My heart had been racing, but I was much older now than the days of my peak fitness, and the thumping in my chest from the immediate exertion had caused me to slow down almost immediately.

Having covered maybe no more than ten yards in a straight line, directly away from the front doors, I had glanced back. A rapidly growing, brilliant white light, with the intensity of a thousand simultaneous flash bulbs, lit up the foyer from the direction of the interview room. There had been no sound, no explosion, and no flying glass. My eyes shut automatically at the intensity of the light but the patches of shimmering yellow exploding in my closed tight eyes had persisted as soon as they re-opened. I had stood for a few moments gathering myself to the reality and waiting for my vision to clear sufficiently to see where I stood.

I had seen a few bomb blasts in my time but nothing as strange as this. Had my mind recalled the blast as if in a silent movie, had the sound been too great for my ears? Something was telling me that my recall was exactly what had happened. I had stopped myself walking further away and had returned back to the building on wobbly legs to where I had abandoned the receptionist to her fate. This large silent explosion of sorts I had not anticipated, how could I have done, as I had been warned about my phone, nothing else?

Old habits, it must have been; immediate danger over, go back and help the wounded, too late to run away now. Why had I left the poor receptionist to her fate? This was not something I should have done. Perhaps the manner in which I had been told to go quickly had instigated a response of simple self-survival; others must take care of themselves. The strangeness of the situation, my chest that had been heaving but was now eased and the sense of release that the unknown had passed, the fear avoided, had brought me back to some sense of normality. I had no choice; I had now to see where I could possibly help.

The foyer had been filled with a greyish, talcum-like smoke, the smell of which I had not recognised. Black powder had been easy to identify as was also cordite; plastic explosive would leave a distinctive odour as would a fertiliser device but it had been none of these. What’s more they would also have made a lot of sound when detonating, debris would still be flying through the air and I would have felt the blast wave.

Even outside of the building where I had been stood, a blast from any sort of conventional bomb would have blown me off my feet if not severely injured me. And what had caused the none-blast? I had not seen any sort of device but, there again, anyone leaving one of these would have planted it not to have been seen. I had been confused as to what may have occurred but let the confusion and fear stand aside. I was unharmed and only shocked. The adrenalin was going and I experienced the instant response reaction to provide help to others.

I had found the receptionist alive, unharmed but clearly in a state of some shock, trying hard to clear her sight, knuckles rubbing her eyes furiously. She had appeared not to have been injured in any significant way. There had not even been any signs of blood trickling from her ears as would be expected with a nearby bomb blast. She had, however, become a very pale shade of grey which I had noticed increasing even more so as the strange tasting, dusty smoke started to settle upon her. I had seen wet streaks develop through the dust on her cheeks as she sat motionless and had started to cry silently. She had been upset, understandably, but otherwise had appeared unharmed, so I had left her alone.

I had turned my attention to the interview room to see that the door was now missing completely. The smoke had cleared inside the room but had remained within the foyer which it filled; I recalled this also as being most strange seeing the walls that had, somehow, not been blasted away as would be expected, but the appearance of having been melted in places and could still be seen dripping away. Plastered walls had been dripping; weird or what?

The room had become empty, absent of any furniture but with piles of ash on the floor which had to be their remains. The melting walls were covered in the same fine ash. The ceiling was completely gone, the concrete soffit with broken wires hanging from it clearly in view; the fine grey ash had coated everything up there also. I could not see my mobile, but why had I even considered seeking it out amongst the mess? It had to have been destroyed along with everything else in there. Where the coffee table had once stood, had been the smallest of the piles of fine ash but there should not have been anything to see if an explosive device had been detonated anywhere near it.

Where my phone had once been placed, possibly, I had seen a hollow, not only in the ash but also into the concrete of the floor. Some sort of low explosive but extremely high incendiary device had to have been ignited, none that I had ever been aware of, and it had seemed to have been centred on my phone. That had not made any sense, mobile phones are not incendiary devices but it seemed that mine may have been.

It still didn’t make sense. I knew the effect of explosive detonations; I had played with many types during my service in uniform – not in civvies.

The receptionist’s phone had rung again behind me; this had now become surreal. Were my memories inventing what I could not make sense of or had all this been a genuine reality? The foyer, now filled with the settling fine grey misty ash from some sort of rapid incendiary explosion, was eerily silent and smelt rather odd.

The mistiness had concealed the ringing land-line phone in the direction of the receptionist. I had heard her pick it up, as she might normally, and ask of whom it was calling. Unharmed as she had seemed to be, but in some state of shock, she had been acting from instinctive reaction. The call had been for me as my name was called out in her now clearly feeble, faltering voice; this was even more surreal.

The more I recalled of events the more this reinforced the sensation that these recollections were genuine, not from some sense of over-active imagination.

I had hurried away from the remains of the interview room, through the grey settling pall, in the right direction to stop short, in a slide, on the gathering dust before impacting with the desk. The receptionist had been sat motionless with the dusty receiver held out in a grey trembling hand.

I had snatched it from her, put the earpiece in place and then my thoughts filled with the words from the clear, steady voice that I had heard before.

“So glad you heeded some of my instructions, Ian, you are clearly still alive; this is more than can be said for your phone? Those who would kill you, got hold of your phone number and your arrangements for today. They used your phone to cause the damage; I’ll explain how later, don't concern yourself about that right now.”

“I’m surprised that you actually answered this call, you really should not have been in a position to do so. I was only checking to see if you really had left as I told you to.”

“Leave the building now, quickly. Go to your car and drive straight home.”

“I will contact you on your new mobile phone tomorrow when you receive your replacement. As soon as you are on-line you will receive another message.”

“Go now and please be quick about it. I can hear the fire alarms ringing and soon there will be those seeking news of your demise. Do not be seen near the building, do not talk to anybody and go straight home, driving as normally as you can.”

I had realised that the alarms were indeed ringing and that this brought me back to certain clarity as might a cold shower.

The caller had rung off and I had done as instructed, I hadn’t needed telling twice, but I just had; this was bad and dangerous practice.

I had dropped the receiver carelessly, ignoring the shocked receptionist's outstretched hand, and hurried in the direction of the front door. My legs had been working better but my pounding chest and laboured breathing belied my age yet again and had slowed me down. I had reached the opposite side of the canal bridge, stopped for air as my lungs heaved in pain and turned round for another look back.

The sound of the attending fire brigade had indeed been coming closer through the maze of buildings, off which their flashing blue lights were reflecting from the many facets of the numerous glass facings. For a few moments I had been rooted to the spot where I stood as I continued to watch, for some reason of insane curiosity, while my laboured breathing eased. A black saloon had pulled up outside of the entrance from where wisps of a light grey, swirling, smoke continued to curl upwards. Two figures had exited the car and walked directly into the entrance; two tall figures in long black coats and matching trilbies.

They had strolled easily into the wispy smoke that would have dissuaded any other. Everything about them had seemed to be black, matching the shades they were hiding behind. That had sent a shiver down my back and I felt the hackles rising yet again; I had not been sure why but something about them had disturbed me. They had seemed completely out of place.

Who walked round dressed like that? Who entered a building of such obvious danger that the occupants I had seen and with a practised discipline, streaming out of the side emergency exits. I had not believed they belonged to the emergency services from their strange appearance. Whatever had taken place, which passed my understanding, the appearance of these two had only added to the strangeness and anxiety that I had felt.

I had not waited to see the emergency services arrive nor what had become of the two frightening, black figures but hurried away as fast as my aching lungs would take me. I found my way to the pay station, then to my car in the park where I had left it and had managed to drive it home although I was still not sure how I had managed to achieve that.

I had abridged the story for Hazel at first, simply telling her of a fire and that my phone had been lost in the flames. The evening television news had changed all that however when the story in local headlines broke, telling of a fire in the TV channel's building and the sole casualty, a person that had attended for an interview and was somehow lost; clearly meant to be me.

The story had gone along the lines of, “One person, who may have sustained injuries, is unaccounted for and may be in need of urgent medical attention. If that person is watching this news bulletin, please ring in to the station or use the 999 service as there is a belief that he may still be alive and well.”

My name had not been mentioned; why not, who was covering for me, or more likely who had wanted me to reveal myself?

I had known much better than to phone in. Simple security practices of old told me what I should and should not do. I had hoped that my friends and neighbours, knowing that I was going to the studios that day, had not seen me arrive home and had decided to make that requested phone call themselves.

Hazel had become frightened but I was alive and well. She didn’t know what was going on, neither did I, but living with danger had been a familiar friend for me one time and maintaining a degree of calmness outwardly in such circumstances helped. I had phoned to those of the family who knew where I had been and advised them that all was well, that the news channel had not caught up with the full extent of the day's events and that phone calls were unnecessary.

We had visited our friends and neighbours, and over a couple of beers delivered a similar false story. I had not liked telling lies to people so close to us but hoped that this would suffice and no-one would come looking for me.

The following afternoon we had gone into town and purchased, on contract, a new replacement mobile for me. No sooner had it been energised than that first message had been received; how was this possible? Why we had not acted upon the message straight away, I could not recall.

We had been in town, the travel agents were not far away but I had made a decision not to go there immediately. I had some sort of intuitive feeling that if a newly energised phone can be contacted like this then perhaps others could be intercepting its use with the same ease and in a similar manner.

“Don’t act straight away, put a wobble in procedures, don’t do the expected, not yet, not for the moment. Watch and see what transpires.”

I had repeated thoughts from those times past of service but not in uniform, reaffirming my past procedures from a force of habit that still lived somewhere in my memory.

The rest of that day had been a bit of a blur. I remembered having come home, eating what we could manage of our evening meal but the rest of the day's events would not come to mind.

The threat of danger in the phone message had been clear. The silent explosion at the news building was more than a clear message. I was on someone's target list but why? Did they know that the target was still alive? It didn’t really matter why or if; this had been very real and so had the warnings from an unknown friend.

Who had been my unknown friend and saviour? Why a holiday; to disappear fast?

That sounded like a good idea but was that double bluff, was I being set up?

If anybody was tapping in to these messages, I understood it was not that hard, putting a wobble into affairs was a good idea.