CCTV

Alex tapped a clear plastic pen off the side of his white plastic coffee cup to the rhythm of The William Tell overture. It caused circular ripples to spread across the surface of the brown liquid within that had long gone cold. Entertainment at work was scarce save for the screens that flickered occasionally in front of him and the waste paper basket in the corner, around which were littered objects he’d failed to throw into it. Alex’s pen was the next item to follow the discarded pieces of screwed up paper and office bric-a-brac onto the floor as it ricocheted off the rim of the basket, cannoning off the wall and embedding itself in half a ham sandwich he’d tossed there a few hours ago. Glancing at the weary-looking wall clock every few minutes while leaning on the back two legs of his chair made the day pass more slowly than if he did what he was paid to do.

The centre screen flickered for the fourth time in the past hour; Alex gave it a bash on the top, causing it to black out then relight with a zigzagging picture, which corrected itself after rolling from top to bottom a few times. He allowed himself a quietly disgruntled sigh and returned to leaning back on his chair, watching the red needle jerk tediously around the clock face. A few moments passed where Alex thought of nothing at all but that red pointer, wondering if it would ever get to wherever it was going. This led to a short period where his brain thought of nothing at all until a way of making his chair leaning more interesting occurred to him. He used his right hand to grab onto the edge of the table in front of him, letting go until it felt he would fall backwards, grabbing the edge of the table again to steady himself. The split second between beginning to fall and grabbing the table gave him more of an adrenaline rush than anything that ever happened in his cramped office. Granted, he’d only worked there for four days – replacing the last operative who was found at the bottom of a lift shaft with critical injuries, but it was the most exhilarating, albeit insipid experience he’d had in that office nonetheless.

Alex let go of the table once more, his chair falling back before grabbing the table with his right hand once more. It was time to up the ante, so to speak, attempting to save himself from the next fall with only his thumb and forefinger. It required a stronger grip but he again prevented himself from smashing his skull on the tiled floor beneath him. He fell, catching himself a few more times before this too became a dull activity. He felt confident that he could stop his next fall with just an index finger on the smooth-veneered chipboard table. He leaned until his stomach turned over, signalling his impending journey towards the cold floor. His index finger darted forward towards the table, his eyes fixed on the point where it would connect. The screen flickered again, pulling his eye towards it, his finger missing the table, the chair travelling backwards more and more rapidly. His heart rate increased and his pupils dilated as he fell, stopping only when his knee wedged itself under the desk allowing him the time to grab at the table and pull all four chair-legs onto the floor. Alex grabbed the table with both hands, breathing heavily, staring at the blank grey screen in the centre of the bank of monitors in front of him. The picture fizzed back into life, zigzagging across the screen before settling with a clear picture once more. ‘Maybe it’s not the bang that fixes it after all’, he thought to himself, still feeling a little high from the adrenaline.

‘Slow day?’

Alex turned his head, watching as Geoff threw a newspaper on the orange plastic chair in the corner; the one with the bent leg, caused when Alex stood on it to try and see out of the tiny narrow widow above the office door.

‘Nothing happening down there today. Kids are off aren’t they?’

‘Yeah. They’ve usually set fire to a bin at central by now.’

Alex pressed a green button, followed by two different red ones then pushed a joystick, ‘Look at those two’.

Geoff bent over Alex’s shoulder, nearing his face to the monitor, ‘Are they the ones you moved yesterday?’

Alex nodded, grabbed the silver microphone, which jutted from the desk and bent it towards his mouth, ‘Can the couple on platform 2 please stop that or security will be called, thank you.’ Alex wondered why he had to finish each announcement with ‘thank you’, even when he was reprimanding someone. Yesterday he had to say, ‘Could the two men fighting on platform one please be advised that the police have been called, thank you.’

Geoff ushered Alex out of his seat and took his place.

‘You don’t need to hit the big one – it comes back on by itself. I think you’ll have to get the engineer in; people look fuzzy sometimes, could be a problem if the tapes are needed for evidence, something like that?’ Geoff grunted, half listening to Alex, fiddling with the joystick while looking for something interesting happening in the underground station. ‘I’ll see you in an hour then?’ Geoff gave another indifferent grunt and pressed a few buttons on the control panel enthusiastically. Alex slipped his arms into his coat and pulled it tight around him before tugging the door of the control room open and walking through it.

Geoff seemed to find operating the closed circuit cameras enjoyable; whether he was looking for criminal activity, candid accidents or something a little more sinister, it didn’t interest Alex much. Geoff, whose normal job involved putting forms in envelopes among other menial administrative tasks, merely took over from Alex when he went for his lunch break. The hour Alex spent away from the monitors was best spent in the local shopping centre where he’d be able to choose from many different types of cuisine. To get there however, he had to ride the underground train from one of the platforms he stared at most of the day. It didn’t look as cold and bleak on the television screen as it felt when he stood alone near the base of the escalator. The way the bitter wind whistled out of the dark tunnel from which trains emerged every few minutes suggested something more menacing would come rushing out at any moment. The heavily-set box which hung from the ceiling, telling passengers when the next train would arrive seemed to exude more iniquity than something so innocent should.

Alex glanced up at two of the cameras through which he’d watch countless passengers get on and off the trains, unaware of the fact their every move was being recorded until they left the station. The squeak of a trainer on a tiled floor alerted Alex to some commotion at the top of the escalator. For reasons he attributed firstly to instinct, then to common sense, he stepped away from the bottom of the escalator and pressed himself against the wall to the side of the stairs. Within seconds, he felt the wall vibrate as heavy running footsteps rattled at the moving stairs. A young man holding a leather bag skidded round the corner, lost his footing and collapsed on the cold hard floor with a sickening thud. A pen-knife slipped from his grip and landed at Alex’s feet; a quick mind told him to kick it onto the train track, 3 feet below the level of the platform. The young man’s pursuant appeared red-faced and breathless from around the corner, clutching at his shoulder. Alex stood frozen; the youth’s black soulless eyes burning into him with hatred. He clambered to his feet, clutching at the bag he’d evidently stolen. Alex couldn’t help but think to himself as he stood with his back pressed to the wall, how he’d waited weeks for something of note to happen on-screen as he watched, and here he was in the middle of the action – a first hand account.

The pursuant took his hand from his shoulder, revealing a bloodstain that extended down his inky blue jacket from the cut above his armpit. Alex was sure he’d hear him yell, ‘Stop him’, but the moment seemed to deafen him in favour of his own survival. The bleeding man stumbled past, casting a disdainful gaze as he did so. Alex watched helplessly as the thief reached the stairwell at the other end of the platform and disappeared into the gloom.

He stepped forward, feeling his back must have broken such was the force with which he’d pressed himself against the wall. Glancing up at the blinking orange LED’s on the box that hung above his head, he noticed that hardly a minute had passed since he last looked up – the train was still due in one minute. It was true that this sign would often show ‘train due : one minute’ for over five minutes if the train was behind the scheduled time-table. This thought however did not occur to Alex, choosing instead to believe that the whole incident had taken place in a matter of seconds.

The square-faced sallow underground train rattled and clattered through the hole in the far wall, squealing to a halt before the doors jumped open with a hiss. The bleeding man had by this time disappeared up the stairs, causing Alex to wonder whether the incident had really happened at all. He boarded the train and clutched the metal pole near the sliding door, attempting to steady himself as the train hurtled along the dark tunnel. His mind was focussed firmly on the advert for debt advice stuck to the panel above the opposite door. Every seat on the train was full, as were the aisles with pushchairs and large sports bags.

The train slowed as it approached the main station in the city centre. Most of the dazed passengers milled in a stupor out of the doors as they slid open. Alex followed, catching his foot on a stray sports bag handle and lurching towards the platform face-first. It puzzled him why his head hadn’t already cannoned off the floor – feeling a hand clasped tightly around his arm he managed to lift his head and see the face of an old man, his white moustache bristling beneath his cobbled nose. Alex managed to get to his feet and express his gratitude as the old man waved and disappeared into the crowd.

‘What did you get?’ Geoff’s eyes remained glued to the screen as Alex entered the control room.

‘Sandwich’, Alex replied removing his coat and hanging it on the back of Geoff’s chair, ‘did you see – ’

‘Yeah’, Geoff couldn’t have sounded more bored, ‘two of the security guys upstairs chased him but he got away’.

‘Right’. Alex stood close to Geoff’s chair, hoping to elucidate his intention to sit down without verbalising it. He watched the main monitor as Geoff pressed various buttons, some of which he’d not noticed before.

‘Bloody thing – ’. Geoff scratched his head and slammed his hand down on the wooden tabletop.

‘What – ’, Alex replaced Geoff at the controls, steadying the chair which had spun wildly as Geoff disembarked.

‘Upstairs rang. They wanted the tape but I’ve lost part of it.’

‘Which part?’

‘You were standing there with that guy, the one who pushed you out of the way when that yob came round the corner.’

‘What guy?’

‘He kicked that knife onto the track’

‘I did that – ’

‘I got the tapes from the other cameras. I think I deleted – see if you can find it. Steve will be down in a hour to get them.’

Alex stood up, pushing the chair to one side on its castors, grabbed the wooden legged chair he always used and dragged it into position. By the time he’d positioned himself in front of the control desk, Geoff had left the office.

Various pictures flipped through Alex’s head as he stared at the various grey shapes that milled about the platforms on-screen. A push of a button and a flip of a switch distracted him sufficiently until the door to the office swung open once more.

‘Do you have the tapes? The police are up at the main control office – they might need a statement’. Steve grabbed two cassette tapes that sat on the counter next to Alex’s right elbow. ‘Alex?’

Alex certainly heard Steve’s voice, though his brain chose to ignore it, focused as it was on the small monitor at the bottom left of the video wall, the monitor used to replay anything that had been recorded that day.

‘Do you see that?’, Alex muttered, causing Steve to move his head closer to the screen.

‘What am I looking at?’

‘That’s me going down the escalator’, he hesitated, swallowing loudly before continuing, ‘Just a few minutes before the guy with the knife’.

‘Look, Alex, do you want to go home?’ Steve’s sympathetic gesture was skilfully ignored as Alex again drew Steve’s attention to the screen.

‘Do you see that?’

‘What?’, Steve asked again, unaware of anything other than the dark figure of Alex stepping onto the escalator, his head disappearing behind the moving steps.

Alex rewound the tape, setting it to play in slow-motion once he’d moved backwards out of shot, ‘There – ’, he said darkly, pointing to a dark blur that seemed to dart in front of him as he reached the top of the moving stairs.

‘No, I – ’

Alex rewound the tape again, playing it back several times, ‘There – ’.

‘Well, sort of – ’, Steven replied sceptically.

‘It’s here too’, Alex interrupted, showing Steven the recording from the camera pointed at the base of the escalator, ‘there – ’. Steven watched as a similar dark blur moved across the screen a few seconds before Alex appeared in shot. ‘Geoff lost the film from the camera at this end of the platform. You can’t see anything until the guy runs past. He’s already passed me by this point.’ Alex paused the tape as the assailant’s blurry face came into view, ‘I don’t remember his face – I don’t remember seeing it.’

Alex finished his shift at five o’clock that evening, leaving the building by the busy wide staircase that led onto the bus terminal concourse. He boarded the bus with the most passengers, chose the side of the street with the most pedestrians while ignoring his reflection in shop windows as best he could. He eventually reached the top of the bleak unremarkable road that led into the cul-de-sac where he lived. He mindful that it was the first time he’d been alone since he left the office. Twilight seemed to creep up on him as he stood stark still, gazing down at the grey-pebbled tarmac that sloped gently down to his back gate. ‘It’s all in your head, it’s all in your mind, Leave me alone!’. He could almost hear the trees that sprouted menacingly from his neighbour’s gardens as they watched him postpone the short trip to his house. An elderly gentleman in a thin beige raincoat shuffled past, doffing his cap as he made eye contact with Alex. His was not to wonder why Alex stood deathly still at the top of his road, merely to continue his journey home in the encroaching dark. Alex felt prickles creep up his neck, convincing himself he was not alone. The thought of entering his friendless house, trying to relax on his forlorn sofa in front of a desolate television didn’t appeal at all. Still he stood at the top of the road, each pebble coming into view then blurring again as his eyes travelled the short distance to the brown gate set between two large hedges that led into his back garden.

The few drops of rain that had hit him in the face finally led to his decent towards the house and a sleepless night. He woke at half past three feeling strangely insecure, oddly unconfident and anxious in fact. Strangely though, the feeling he’d had of being watched, since he’d been spooked by the anomaly he’d seen on the video screen, had gone. He woke several times from his part-slumber before having to climb out of bed at half past seven to go to work. He brushed his teeth gingerly, and while momentarily forgetting the fear of mirrors that had seized him since seeing the videotape, caught his reflection in the large square mirror set into the cabinet on the bathroom wall. Only his own eyes stared back surrounded by the darkest circles he’d ever seen. ‘Stop being stupid’, he told himself over and over in his head, fearing it would turn into some kind of obsessive disorder, ‘It’s all in your head, It’s all in your mind, Leave me alone!’. The weak light that filtered through the frosted bathroom window seemed to cancel any concern he had about meeting a ghost or a demon of some description, conjured by his own fear of seeing something. His lack of sleep also contributed towards the untroubled attitude he’d adopted since leaving his warm bed to scrub his teeth in the icy bathroom. After breakfast, he opened a drawer in the pine dresser by the dining table and removed last year’s diary. Alex glanced out of the window to find rain bouncing off the patio. He grabbed his raincoat from it’s home on the post at the base of the banister, shoved his arms into the sleeves and stuffed the diary into the pocket before unlocking the front door and shambling gingerly to work under his black umbrella.

Standing in the underground station, he felt a small piece of paper in his coat pocket. ‘Tuesday 13th September’, was blazoned on the face – a date passed when he’d ridden the train to town. Another tape to check, along with those he could identify using his diary. Before today, he’d always taken the bus into work; today however he wanted to catch himself on film once more to investigate the dark blurs and paranoia that followed him home last night. The feeling of a presence around him returned, stabbing at him not only through his subconscious but through every sense he was aware of. He thought the feeling not to be dissimilar to that felt by a Wildebeest, Lions crouching in wait between the long grasses at the edge of the watering hole. Alex didn’t believe in ghosts, spirits, poltergeists or angels though he the paranoia had returned as strong as it had been when he’d left work the previous day. The invisible, undetectable breath that followed his every step, prickled his skin with trepidation. ‘It’s all in your head, it’s all in your mind. Leave me alone.’

In an instant, he felt the pressure lift, the invisible eyes had closed and the fingers no longer scratched at his back. Alex turned his head, catching the eye of a young, rough-looking man chewing on a matchstick, his baseball cap pulled down over his eyes. He thought he would never recognise the man with the knife if he saw him again; he was wrong. It was certainly the same face he’d seen looking up at him as the knife had been kicked onto the train line. It was the same face he saw after the hand in his back shoved him onto the track in front of the oncoming train.