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  Once his feet were both on the ground, Gilly stepped back one or two paces.

  ‘You’re not the guy who bounced me on the noggin?’ Mary and Simon had no idea what Gilly had just said but Cameron seemed to have gotten the drift.

  ‘No mate, that wasn’t me.’ Cameron allowed his full Geordie to extend, hanging around with the uppercut had suppressed it a little.

  Gilly skinned at Cameron, or the person he thought was the bishop impersonator, he cooked his head like a dog would if you yelled its name. To the left and then the right as if to drink in every feature and contour of his face.

  ‘Bishop? That you?’ the Yorkshire man collapsed into his chair, the thought passed quickly through his head, he must have been wacked pretty hard to see dead men wandering around his pub.

  ‘It’s me Gill.’ Cameron gave a toothy smile, the type he hid when receiving awards.

  ‘I went to your funeral. I lay flowers at the old crem. You owe me one fuck of a bar bill.’ Gilly looked up with a Cheshire cat grin to match Cameron’s, this one not so award worthy, he had what you would class as summer teeth, some are here some are there. There was a breathy gap where Cameron couldn’t work out if he was joking or not, he looked for the dollar signs in his eyes like the old cartoons, none showed, then suddenly Cameron was three foot off the ground, Gilly had picked him up so high Cameron thought he’d fly over his head hitting the stage Gilly had built behind him.

  ‘I am not dead yet man but you’re going the right way to kill me.’ Cameron panted, his breath short and shallow, he had little room in his lungs with Gilly’s arms around him like a python.

  ‘You guys eaten, you looked starved, you always did look hungry though Cam, more so when you were on the skank.’ Gilly was a feeder, through thick and thin, good or bad, food was a constant answer to all questions to Gilly, which explained his size. Birthdays required birthday cakes, funerals, buffets, even Thursdays were chili night.

  Gilly scurried to the back room, probably to fill bowls which ever food he could rustle up.

  ‘What’s skank?’ asked Simon to Mary.

  ‘It’s heroine, it’s what you call heroine, it’s from poppy’s or something.’ Cameron tried to explain himself to people over a hundred years old. They stared blankly in reply, some banging came from the old kitchen, the tattered brown door had a light patch in the centre, where bums had rubbed it too many times, opening the door with arms filled with plates was hard.

  ‘Leave me alone woman, the bruising will be fine, it’s only a little swelling.’ The door yelled. A clatter of pots and pans and the door swung open.

  ‘Right, right, right, grubs up boys.’ Gilly pushed his rear put the door, almost as if it was his posterior which lead him. He turned with little effort, even though his arms were loaded with all manners of food.

  ‘And ladies of course. Sorry all I have is left overs, we serve a lot of food here now, now we’re an official establishment.’ He broke the word official into as many syllables as possible, there was at least three ows.

  Not to say he wasn’t official before, he had a license and even went to a special school which dealt in pulling pints and mediocre catering.

  There was a short pause once the food had been laid out for them, a pause to take it all in, they hadn’t eaten in twenty odd hours, the hunger hadn’t pulled them down too much, they were busy, but now, with food in front of them the hunger panned in their stomachs like an out of tune guitar.

  The pause broken, Mary dived face first into some very dry mash, so dry it was almost powder. Simon and Cameron looked at each in mild confusion, she always looked so tame, they thought to themselves.

  Chilli was eaten, chips were devoured, all of it gone, in less than an hour, look at that, poems too. The three of them, now stuffed wiped their mouth with the corner of a cloth.

  ‘You guys hungry ay?’ Gilly lay back in his chair he’d taken over, it creaked under his ever-increasing weight, proud of a job well done. There was another clatter from behind him, whoever was arguing with Gilly earlier had just dropped the pans they’d obviously been juggling.

  ‘Trousers.’ A feminine voice cried, the voice seeped through the door frame, it sounded familiar to the crew. The door opened and a girl holding a black steak of wood.

  ‘I told you that pan was a death trap, I’m just glad it broke when I was washing and you weren’t boiling water in it, just look at it.’ She waved the piece of handle around in the air.

  ‘Oh, hey guys,’ Steph said with little confrontation, she stepped back into the kitchen, the group sat in silence, mouths a gape.

  ‘I should probably go speak to her,’ Gilly stood up gently.

  ‘With the whole, children of Bishop thing still going on.’ He said beginning to leave, he stopped as somebody pulled him back using his apron as a winch.

  ‘She’s not my daughter, you know that right?’ Cameron was the one pinning him down.

  ‘I know buddy.’ And Gilly left to the kitchen, rubbing his head as he went, there was a lot of yelling, most of it inaudible, other than muffled yelling, a clatter of pans then the door swung open, out ran Steph, she was as red as a flame, hot headed as one too.

  With huge strides, much larger than her legs looked as if they could do, she walked over to Cameron, then there was a lot of pain in his eye before the bar went black for a second.

  The world came back to life, then the colour drained into it, followed by it catching up to speed like and old VHS tape. Cameron heard tittering, looking at a pebble, a small bit of rock, it lay on the ground, in the wrong place, rocks weren’t meant to be in the carpet of dirty pubs, but they were commonly found there. There was an odd similarity between him and this small stone.

  Cameron was brought back up to a sitting position, it felt like he floated, floated up like a feather in reverse, drawn up by hands he didn’t recall seeing. Tiny hands tapped away at his eyebrow, prodded at his jaw.

  ‘Gard derby,’ Cameron’s mind hadn’t caught up speed yet, the words and letters still in a jumble, he had been hit pretty hard.

  ‘You may be sick once or twice, you have mild concussion, I tried to aim for severe concussion, but I’m a girl.’ Steph tried to explain, dabbing a chilled damp cloth on a small abrasion on his head.

  ‘Not sick again, I can’t do sick.’ Bishop mumbled with what sounded like a mouth full of marbles, Mary harrumphed with her stiff upper lip, it was made louder using her Oxford education as a sort of echo chamber for dismay.

  ‘How do you know how to treat such a, mishap.’ There was a pause before the word mishap, the smallest one, but so well timed it stood out perfectly.

  ‘I’m a nurse, will be a nurse.’ Steph looked up to Mary, she dabbed Cameron’s eye doing so.

  ‘You’re a nurse! You work up at the t’other hospital, the big in with the nutter ward.’

  ‘Sir Steven Robertson general hospital he means. We just call it sir Robs. Bit of a mouth full.’ There was a glance at Simon as Steph talked, he still stood silent, silent as ever, Simon found it best to not speak when people spoke about things he knew nothing about.

  ‘Why’d you sock me?’ Bishop moved his jaw around as he spoke, it felt loose, there was a ringing in his ears he thought would never go away.

  ‘You’re my father, my father, and you didn’t think to tell me.’ This wasn’t a question, Mary, Gilly and Simon stepped back, no need or want to get involved with such a discussion.

  ‘I know what Vader said, but I am not your father.’ Replied Cameron, there was no gap between his words, no gap for thoughts.

  ‘You’re my father, you’re a Rockstar, groupies and stuff.’ She barked at him.

  ‘First and probably most importantly I’ve been frozen more than twenty years, the math doesn’t add up hunny.’

  ‘I’m twenty-two.’ Steph burst in.

  ‘Wow twenty-two, Two, secondly I mean, I didn’t really go through the whole groupie thing. Like, I did the flirting part but, the drugs, they stopped me. Getting
certain urges.’ Cameron explained and Stephanie looked confused.

  ‘I believe he’s referencing the opium effecting his sexual prowess.’ Mary explained, a hand the size of a dinner plate fell onto her shoulder.

  ‘I think she got that Honey bee.’ The hand belonged to Simon. Stephanie looked back at Cameron, there was an honesty in his eyes, not many women got to see his honesty. It was a part of his anatomy best buried. She stood, in a single movement she was back on her feet, the way only nurses could do.

  ‘Fucking nurses, you’ll be the death of me.’ Bishop said under his breath, everyone heard never the less.

  ‘Irony,’ Simon spoke out the corner of his mouth to Mary,

  ‘I think that’s somewhat the point.’ Half agreed Mary through the gaps in her teeth.

  ‘These children of Bishop, are there a lot of them?’ Mary stepped forward to ask, Cameron was in no fit state to be asking questions, and Simon, he was Simon.

  ‘There’s a few of us, not exactly a cult or anything, about fifteen maybe twenty.’ Steph explained, her eyes glazed over, there was an edge of Mary in her somewhere, must be the education Cameron thought.

  ‘Somebody was a busy boy.’ Simon said to Cameron, who just waved him away in reply holding his jaw which he was sure had turned to glass.

  The two doctors, if you’d like, stared at each other. Both seemed to care little for people, which was an odd quality to have as a doctor.

  ‘I think a more important question is how do you talk to them, holograms, video phones?’ Cameron hadn’t really thought about the future until now.

  ‘A forum on a blog post, online.’ Steph replied correcting herself as she went, not looking from Mary.

  ‘You said it would never last’ Cameron turned to Gilly, he seemed a little giddy, as if alight concussion was a slight understatement.

  ‘Could we perhaps use your computer?

  ‘Mary you’re a hundred and fifty, no way could you use a computer, I’ll do it.’ Cameron began to stand and failed to lift off. Mary looked confused, so did Gilly but he was somewhere in the background. Simon looked confused because he always did.

  ‘Oh yeah, introductions, probably about time for that, Steph,’ there was a pause for her surname.

  ‘Howden’ she replied as if getting married.

  ‘Gilly, this is Mary Robertson, a brilliant scientist, frozen in time, the inventor of a machine which with a lot of money I by chance had, could freeze you in suspended animation.’

  ‘It’s more like hibernation.’ Mary corrected.

  ‘Whatever. That’s Simon, a gay son of an oil tycoons, also ex icicle. Probably should have mentioned earlier would, have explained a few things.’ Cameron fell limp in his chair.

  ‘The computer?’ Mary asked without a thought to Cameron’s health.

  ‘It’s upstairs.’

  Chapter 13

  Steph’s bedroom was just as dark and dingy as Mary and Simon recalled, little bits of light escaped from the shades which looked perpetually closed. The light danced over dust that seemed to be spat from nowhere.

  Posters lined the walls as they did before, and the computer sat where it was earlier, this time a new image lay on it, as if it were a flickering, low quality photo frame.

  Two people were held in the image, one was Steph, although she wasn’t wearing a uniform. The other person was male, tall and had sad eyes.

  ‘Who’s that.’ Simon poked at the screen, it wobbled back and forth. The faces went blue for a second as if they were holding their breath.

  ‘That’s Benji, you’re looking for a guy, and you don’t know what he even looks like?’ Stephanie leant on the wooden table which held her computer and a coffee cup, this held a lump of green stuff which looked as if it was once coffee.

  ‘We knew we were looking for someone who looked like Cameron.’ Mary explained, analysing the photo.

  ‘Which he does do. Just, sad.’ She finished,

  ‘Is Cameron ever sad.’ Asked Steph, the curiosity about who the man was or wasn’t her father had set in, even if he wasn’t her father.

  ‘I seriously doubt he looks around anymore then what’s in front of his face, he has little to be sad about, he rarely let’s things from the outside world affect him, this is why he was able to be put in for the Somnus project, the project which put us under hibernation, how we were able to be frozen and unfrozen knowing everyone we knew would probably have gone by the time we wake. We were chosen because we don’t get sad, to be sad means you care and there’s little room to care in suspended animation.’ Mary explained, Steph had welled up a little inside, she felt comfort in Bishop being her father because the man who claimed to be her dad, didn’t care, now to find out Cameron Bishop cared less about anything other than himself was gut wrenching.

  ‘Oh.’ Steph opened a page on her computer, which had taken over the screen eclipsing the photo below. It was a blog about some insane theory.

  ‘Is this the page?’ Simon leant in, His eyes seemed to be failing him more and more, as he moved closer to the screen until he could see the pixels which made up the images.

  ‘Yeah, it’s some guy up in Durham, he says a bunch of celebs, people think are dead are actually alive, Elvis and stuff.’ She explained, as she spoke she felt more and more stupid, telling people who not only knew of something like that, but were in fact people who’d went through it.

  ‘Am I on the list of people.’ Simon asked allowing his vanity to show.

  ‘Sadly not, I don’t even know who you are.’ Steph smirked.

  ‘I said some gay oil guy.’ Cameron dragged his body upstairs, Steph ignored him and continued.

  ‘Bishops name was on there, he was a big deal around here. Mentioned his name to my mum when dad first left, for the first time. She tried to move the conversation on pretty quickly so I made a guess.’

  ‘Was you mum hot?’ Cameron asked as he finally made it to the room.

  ‘Cameron!’ Mary barked within seconds, she may have not be one hundred percent sure what he meant but the cut of his voice gave her a hint of what was meant in those four words.

  ‘It’s an honest question, was your mum hot? Is she hot? I know she’s had a kid and that loosens everything up but you can always still tell.’ Cameron obviously still was in the cloud of concussion. Or he was just being this way because he’d just been punch hard.

  ‘She was very pretty, back in the day, in school, boys called her a milf sometimes.’ There was a little shyness in her voice, she never had to tell somebody if her mum was attractive before, it was a difficult thing to do. Steph herself was incredibly pretty, but due to being teased after her own conclusion she was the daughter of a rock star. She begun to hide it away, her confidence knocked.

  ‘What’s a milf?’ Cameron asked, he was baffled to the world.

  ‘Mother I’d like to,’ Steph trailed off.

  ‘I’m sure she is, but, sad to say I most probably couldn’t, being this.’ He pointed to his crotch area.

  ‘Wasn’t listening to this.’ With the same hand, he pointed to his head.

  ‘I couldn’t see that as being possible. Unless I was part of the program at the time.’ Cameron lay his hand down on the wall to prop himself up.

  ‘She was a nurse, she worked the AA rooms as support.’ Stephanie drew a dot Cameron wished she’d drawn before.

  ‘Fuck’ the word fell out of his mouth like a loose piece of confetti when tidying weeks after a big party.

  ‘You’ve got a history of nurses Bishop.’ Simon’s grin matched Stephanie’s, there was an odd cruel streak in him, Simon only showed it when his guard had slipped, or when he was actually paying attention.

  The grin was pulled from his face when he started coughing, it came from his chest but when exiting Simon’s mouth, you could hear the spit try and escape with it. A fist caught the second, third and fourth cough, Simon opened his hand to look at what he’d brought up, his palms filled with a red liquid.

  ‘Are you okay.’
Mary asked flatly, her voice unfazed by the sight of blood.

  ‘Fine my dear.’ He wiped his hand along his blazer, the red blood mixed in with the scarlet smoking jacket he wore, although the dirt which had begun to cling to it didn’t.

  ‘Oh, my God!’ Steph spotted the whole thing through the corner of her eye, showing the difference between a nurse and a doctor, she rushed to Simon’s aid. Patting him down feeling his chest, she moved with such speed Cameron was unable to keep track of what the soon to be nurse was doing.

  ‘Please let’s focus.’ Simon lowered himself to the side of Steph’s bed, till he was close enough to drop knowing he’d land softly.

  ‘Right, Ben’s place is out of the question.’ Cameron commented, getting the ball rolling on what he considered important, his son.

  ‘I think we know he isn’t the gunman.’ Simon replied.

  ‘I wouldn’t be so sure.’ Corrected Mary, who still had her doubts.

  ‘It was Somnus.’ Simon replied.

  ‘Do you ever listen? The gunman at Somus was to random, the first gunman was refined.’ Mary explained again, there was a little annoyance in her voice.

  ‘The shooter doesn’t matter anymore, we have, like, a week and a bit to live.’ Cameron looked to his left as he spoke, where movement caught his eye. It was Steph, who gasped at the short time left.

  ‘Speak for yourself.’ Simon pointed at his face, with his other hand he held his rib cage and winced in pain.

  ‘So, you don’t want too find the gun man?’ Mary asked.

  ‘Finding the gunman will get us two things, Jack and shit, I want to stay alive or find my son. Preferably in that order.’ Cameron had the two fingers up he’d used to count, not by chance these were the two fingers people showed each other when someone had cut them off on the highway.

  There was a thudding up the stairs, it was heavy and had large breaks every few steps.

  ‘Alright muckers.’ Gilly had heard somebody ask this in his pub once and found it a charming term, even if it wasn’t meant to be. He panted a huge wheeze and pulled himself up with the banister.