Chapter 1A

Chapter 1: Sex and Death

Zoë, Friday 5th March, 8:07 a.m.
Maybe it's the faintest of premonitions, this little tingle of superstitious guilt as I say to myself I feel immortal. I don't know why my subconscious chooses that word in particular – I could just as well have picked on top of the world, invincible, superhuman even, but for some reason my over-excited brain goes for immortal and it feels a rather risqué thing to say even in my private thoughts. At this point, of course, I have no inkling of what's in store for me or of how sickening the word will come to seem, and it's soon forgotten as I skip up the steps bursting with suppressed giggles.
It's not so much the prospect of getting laid (although that's a definite bonus) as the sheer audacity of my little project – I'm the great seductress, the naughtiest girl in town, the femme fatale Dr. Richard Mortimer's mother should have warned him about. I've been feeling supercharged like this ever since that hilariously awful gig on Tuesday and I haven't yet seen what a dizzy moo I'm being.
I skip on into the building, light as a helium balloon, and into the posh-smelling carpeted corridor with the endless series of heavy grey fire doors, grinning to myself as I fling them open one after another and listen to them clacking shut behind me. I'm going to slink into Richard's room and do my best to put him off the lecture he's about to give; I feel irresistible and dangerous and fantastically good about it, and I find it hard not to burst out laughing at the whole thing.
There's still half an hour to go and the building looks almost empty and echoes emptily to the clacking of the fire doors, but I know where to find Richard and in a moment I'm outside the door of his jumbled little office or study or whatever he calls it. For a second I hesitate, suddenly and unaccountably reluctant to open it.
When I do, several boxes of documents get in the way and I'm forced to give up on the idea of slipping quietly into the room, and shove hard to get it open a crack. There is an unbelievable mess inside – the room's always a tip, but this morning something about it feels indefinably wrong and ominous.
There's a tangle of experimental apparatus of some kind on the table, held together by those macabre claw-like clamps on stands, the stick-insecty-lobstery metal constructions that seem to be involved in everything these guys do. No doubt he has some of his scientific conjuring tricks planned for this morning – always the showman, I smile nervously to myself.
The light is almost too bright in the little room and for a moment it looks as if Richard isn't there – but no, there's his foot in a faintly ridiculous dark green argyle-pattern sock, sticking up over some kind of cylindrical metal object. Has he fallen asleep at his desk?
Something isn't right at all. I'm beginning to feel more and more uneasy, my mind full of nasty images. I call out and shoulder-barge the door and it moves another foot or so. The complete silence from inside the room is unnatural – I'm making enough racket to wake the dead, aren't I? And now I've unintentionally given a name to my premonitions.

Richard, Friday 5th March, 8:07 a.m.
I'm in a strange state of nervous excitement – quite apart from the business with the gun (however hard you prepare yourself, the prospect of getting your brains blown out is terrifying), I'm somewhat overwhelmed at the thought that I might genuinely be immortal, which I think has never really sunk in until now – it was a kind of macabre game to keep my mind off the other thing.
I hear someone who can only be Zoë skipping up the steps and running lightly down the corridor as the fire doors clack shut behind her. I'm not quite sure I can cope with meeting her at this time in the morning in the normal course of events, let alone in my present state of mind.
I probably shouldn't have snogged her at that hilariously awful gig on Tuesday. She seemed supercharged, bursting with suppressed excitement and sexual tension, and the temptation was a little too much to resist.
Womanising would of course be an ideal new way to keep my mind off the other thing, which is still there in spite of everything. And I haven't had a shag since Emily finally gave me the boot, and I fancy Zoë almost to the point of obsession. But I need a little time to get used to the new situation and I am mildly terrified when I hear her at the door and I know I will have to cope with her larger-than-life presence any second.
After a few attempts she shoves the door open despite the boxes of papers I've used to barricade myself in – the lock doesn't work and getting it mended has been complicated by some kind of administrative error. I suddenly realise that the apparatus is still in full view, and hastily throw its olive-green dust sheet back over it. She sticks her head round the door and gives me an odd, suspicious kind of glance – I must look guilty as hell. If only I could explain what I was up to without sounding mad.

Zoë, Friday 5th March, 8:08 a.m.
I shove again, panting with the effort, and the door opens enough for me to push my head through the gap and see what the little spotlights hanging from the ceiling are illuminating. A vivid splash of scarlet is sprayed on the white wall behind Richard's slumped-back body, awkwardly half-lying on a chair and staring wide-eyed in the air, quite clearly dead, and there's a gun, and all of a sudden I can't work out what's happened to my ears, there's this wailing noise...
...then I'm running down the corridor but the noise keeps following me even though there's nobody there, through the fire doors that clack as I run back hoping there will be someone to turn to because I'm not sure I can handle this, but there's nobody there and I run around, a bit frenzied now and not really looking where I'm going... stairs...
...upstairs it looks strange and scary, an alien world of unidentifiable stuff on stick-insecty-lobstery clamp stands and the noise that just keeps following me around, down the stairs again, this was where I started, the place is like a bloody maze... there's that long corridor again... I don't think I'm coping with this very well... that noise is still there...
...the fire doors keep on clacking... what is this fucking place... nobody anywhere, only this fucking noise... there's the door leading to Richard's room but there's nobody there nobody there NOBODY FUCKING THERE!
...and then Jasmine and Charlie are there gently telling me to calm down and a lot of other people are there too, and they lead me out, arms around my shoulders, and I forgive Jasmine for all the times she's annoyed the hell out of me... and Charlie's shouting at some people, one of them's that obnoxious boy from the rubbish student mag and there's a policewoman there too, and Charlie yells what kind of bastards are you, can't you leave her the fuck alone? The noise still seems to be following me around, intermittent now and lower, more of a moan than a wail, and then I realise it's coming from me and I can stop it...
...Someone said something about sweet tea, and there seems to be some in front of me in a brown and white paper cup with the word TEA printed on it in big letters. I'm not too sure how it got there but I take a sip. We're in the coffee bar in the Students' Union, and I'm not too sure how we got here either, as if I'd gradually materialised in a video-style dissolve from the scene before. In fact the outside world now seems more like a film than reality, and I feel oddly dissociated. I'm probably losing the plot, I say to myself quite calmly.
No, come on, get a grip. I take another sip of the tea. It tastes good. The thing somebody said about sweet tea was that it's good for shock. I vaguely remember someone was trying to persuade me to get into an ambulance, and I said no, I'm going to the coffee bar, and Charlie said that about sweet tea. That it's good for shock. Shit.