Chapter Eight

"Stay still."

I wasn't moving. I couldn't. Being face down with a knee in my back and handcuffs meant I could do little more than converse with the ants, one of which was running towards my face. Its haphazard path, winding past bumps on the ground I couldn't see. Did it think I was a gigantic sweet it could hike up onto its back to carry me back to its nest?

"Hey, Queenie!" it would say. "Look what I've brought you!"

And it would be rewarded, maybe get a plush suite-with-a-view in the up-market end of the nest. And the ants would dine on me till their great-great-great-grandkiddies were old and I was just an untidy mass of nibbled bones.

I was pulled, forcibly, to my feet, a whirlwind of faces making me giddy as I tried to steady myself. A hand in my back pushed me forwards. The crowd separated to let us through - the policeman a Moses amongst men without even realising. Probably, though, it was me that made the people part. Their vulturistic tendencies couldn't bring themselves to be too far away from this blood covered monster, but they were wary enough to not come too close.

I might bite.

"Come on," the officer said. "You're coming with me. We need to find out where all that blood came from and what happened to the other guy!"

My voice still seemed intent on hiding at the back of my throat, worried it, too, might be cuffed and dragged off to the station.

A woman squeezed through the sea of stares and stood in front of us, holding up her hands.

"Wait," she said. "You've got it wrong!"

"I'd move, lady," the officer ordered. He hadn't even taken the time to ask my name or find out what happened. The blood had been enough to convince him he needed to lock me up first, then find out all those boring details.

The woman stood her ground, her arms outstretched, palms forward. She wanted us to stop.

"Stop!" she insisted.

Told you so.

The officer, a man slightly above my height and weight, bulked up by his thick body armour vest and a utility belt which made him look like a Smart Price Batman, stopped. I was impressed by the woman. I imagined she would have made a great job in a female only version of Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy, playing Amelia Dent (rather than Arthur) and laying down in front of the oncoming bulldozers while the Vogon Construction Fleet prepared themselves up in space.

My arrestor, having been arrested, looked at a woman for a long moment. She, in turned, looked at him. Neither looked at me. All I needed was the superhuman power of invisibility and I'd be able to make my escape. I moved my foot to the side, wishing the desire for such an ability might make it so. The official hand on my arm squeezed, telling me I wouldn't be joining the X-Men in the near future.

"Yes?" asked the policeman. His left eyebrow raised followed by his right. Ignoring the Mexican wave spreading across his brow, the woman said:

"He's with me."

I would have to have tossed a coin to see who was the more surprised by this statement - myself or the policeman.

"Oh," he said.

Oh, I thought.

"Sorry," she continued. "He's with me. He's recovering from a head injury and was helping out on the hospital float."

"Oh," said the policeman again. I resisted the urge to tell him he'd already said that. "So the blood...?"

"Is fake. He's meant to be a zombie."

He looked at me, an irritated look on his face practically shouting out how stupid he felt.

"Sorry, sir," he said, unlocking the handcuffs. "Why didn't you say?"

"I hadn't really had chance," I said.

The irritation turned quickly to embarrassment, the red of anger in his cheeks deepening to the crimson of shame.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I was carried away. If you want to make a complaint, my number is PC8..."

"There's no need for that," I would have said if the woman hadn't just beaten me to it. "I'll take him."

She held my arm and led me away, nodding to the policeman.

"Come on, John. I told you not to wander off."

She led me up some steps, through the milling of hundreds of people who looked as if they'd left the cinema then realised they'd forgotten about the end of credits sequence on the Marvel film they'd just been watching. Sorry to disappoint, ladies and gentleman.

At the top of the steps was a path, lined by more pedestrians, each of whom was looking towards the road. Then I heard the blaring music. Then I saw the majorettes and the huge floats which made up the annual Cleethorpes Parade. I knew where I was - if not who I was. Looking to my left, I saw the Cleethorpes Leisure Centre, home to pool, squash and gym along with the Friday night Aqua disco, where hoards of pre-teen school children would meet up to swim, slide and gossip. A group of dancers from a local dance school passed, pushing themselves to continue the same routine to the same thumping music they'd had pounding through their bones since the parade started a couple of miles back.

"Come on," the woman hissed. "Follow me!"

I tried to utter some words of protest but, as was being the norm this day, my words didn't make it out of my mouth. My arm, the same the police officer had gripped, was pulled and I, being quite attached, followed. Any words I may have said where left behind on the pavement. The woman glanced back at the crowd and smiled a grim line of satisfaction. I looked back too and saw the officer talking to a group of the same sort of pre-teens who might frequent the Aqua disco. They were laughing and offering him their massive multi-coloured balls of candy-floss. He was smiling but trying to extricate himself from the gang. Everyone else had similarly forgotten the drama caused by a strange man appearing with blood on his hands.

The woman's hand slipped from my arm and she looked to see if I was still following. What choice did I have? I could wander, blood soaked, and try to convince people I was part of the parade. I figured the parade would be finished sometime, so the charade would be over around the same time. I was the sheep and she was my Bo-Peep. She'd rescued me. My head was whirling with thoughts of handcuffs and entrails. Even if it was only for a short time, I was her shadow. I supposed that would make me the shadow to her Peter Pan, but flying away from here with a shiver of fairy dust was out of the question. Either way, I followed.

A few odd looks were directed my way, wary as if I were an escaped lunatic on a killing spree, but there were so many costumed characters dancing and thrusting leaflets into hands, I didn't seem to particularly bother anyone. The whole world seemed to be becoming numb to atrocity. I was a man, staggering about, covered in what appeared to be blood. It didn't matter, not when dancing in the road were similarly blood soaked (though, I'd assume, the fake variety) zombies, lurching to Michael Jackson's Thriller. Children were dressed as vampires and a young boy was eating chips from a polystyrene tray on his lap whilst the other hand held a toy gun. Blood and death was normal and acceptable - in a fictionalised form at least. In reality, it wasn't, but what horrified cinema goers not too many years ago would be laughable now.

I decided to blend in a little more than my unkempt, terrified manner might allow. I extended my arms and began to stomp rather than stumble. The woman, looking back once more, smiled then hastened off to the right. I tottered after, throwing the occasional groan in for good measure. Onlookers laughed and copied before turning their attention back to the parade.

As I turned the corner, I saw a flash of brown, streaked hair disappear down a gap between two houses. I reverted from monster to man and hurried after, briefly thinking about carrying on and getting as far away as I could from whatever was happening to me. My feet were not swayed by my mental hesitance and I almost ran into her.

She had stopped a few feet into the alley. High fences with perfectly even wooden slats enclosed us and prevented us from seeing the gardens beyond - and from anyone seeing us.

"We need to get you out of those clothes. You look like a murderer dressed like that!"

I could have told her a murderer was exactly what I was. A killer. Barring celestial intervention, in the form of lightning or a comet, I had to be the reason I was covered in the remains the bullies. I didn't however. She was talking and moving too fast for me to take the situation in properly. Even her thoughts were obviously speeding through her mind, making me tired and dizzy. I kept the truth to myself - or, at least, a portion of myself I could do my best to ignore, even though it was insistently prodding the back of my mind with a sharp stick... or knife... All I could say, in a cracked voice the colour of dust, was:

"OK."