Retreads

“How long was I dead for ?”, I asked Jason the male nurse as he checked the chart hanging at the end of my metal framed bed.  A minute, two minutes, I thought.  I couldn’t remember how many minutes you lasted after your heart stopped, but I guessed it couldn’t be long.

“Um”, he looked up and squinted thoughtfully, “three weeks I think”.

“I was on a life support machine for three weeks !”, I hadn’t thought of that.

“No, you were in a drawer at the hospital morgue for three weeks”.

“Oh come on”. I frowned, this didn’t make sense. 

He put the chart back and turned to leave, then swung back again.  “Some of the retreads were dead longer than that”.

“Jason, I told you not to use that word”.  A woman wearing a white coat and a frown walked up to the bed.  Mid to late fifties I guessed. Along with an authoritarian voice, she had short iron grey hair, and gold rimmed spectacles through which sharp blue eyes bored into my only friend – at least the only friend I remembered.

“Sorry Professor Wood”.  Jason did a neat pirouette, winked at me with his back to the professor and walked off.

My head was buzzing with so many questions, I didn’t know where to start.  I didn’t know who I was (there was a name on the chart but it meant nothing to me), where I was (a hospital ?  But it was suspiciously quiet), or even what had happened to me. 

“How many of us retreads are there ?”  Professor Wood sighed but didn’t correct me

“Three.  Well, there used to be two before, but there’s only one other left now”.

“Is he in this hospital too ?”

“It’s a she, and no, she’s living outside”.

“What happened to her ?”

“She was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and got caught up in a bank robbery.  Just as the Securicor men got to the door, leaving with the cash, she slipped in front of them.  It was five past two and she was late getting back to work.  As she ran out of the bank front door she was killed with a single shot from a house across the street”.

“Did they catch the guy that shot her ?”.

“No. The police searched the house and found a pistol, but that’s all”.

“What kind of pistol ?”  I had no idea why I asked that.

“Glock 17, I believe”.

“British Armed Services”.  I had no idea why I said that either, and said so.

 She put her head on one side, as if considering how much to say.

“Your memories are obviously still there somewhere.  Afghanistan, Iraq, you were there.”

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That night I dreamt of shooting.  A lot of shooting. 

Afghan farmers and their head-scarfed wives huddling in a ditch, caught in a gun battle.  Their donkey lying in the road, its hooves flailing uselessly, screaming in pain.  I didn’t know animals could scream.  I put a bullet between its eyes and got a bollocking for wasting ammo.

Bursting into a mud walled house in a desert village, twitchy finger hovering on the trigger, to see two small boys sitting on a rug on the floor, their huge black eyes fixed on us as the staccato sound of machine fire burst outside.

And a dark haired young woman running out of a bank door on a sunny day.  Looking up at me in the first floor window of the house opposite.  A long second as our eyes meet. Her pupils dilate slightly.  Fear ?  Recognition ?   Then, in the immortal words of Lorelei Lee, she became shot.

Dreams or memories ?  You tell me.

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It bugs me.  The prof told me the girl was collateral but my dream (memory ?) says not.  She looked at me and I looked at her - and then I pulled the trigger.  I wanted her dead all right, but why ? 

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“When I get out of here can I meet her ?”

“Absolutely not.  It’s much better for all concerned if you don’t meet”.

“But – “.

“I said no, Mr Preston.  We don’t give out your details, or hers.”

Mr Preston ?  I’m getting no vibes off that whatsoever.  I’d lay money that wasn’t my original name.  Never mind tracking down the girl, it doesn’t sound like it’s going to be an easy job tracking down me.  But I’m sure as hell going to try.  If I can find me then that should lead to her.  And for reasons I don’t understand I can’t help feeling it’s a matter of life or death (mine or hers ?) that I find her.  Because, somehow, I know that I don’t want her finding me first. For reasons I don’t understand.

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The time had finally come – I had to say it and I had to say it now. 

‘Catherine, there’s something I need to tell you’.

‘What ?’

I couldn’t look into those clear blue, innocent eyes, and say the awful thing.  I bent my head and shut my eyes.

‘I shot you.  It was me.  I murdered you’.

No sound for a few seconds and then – ‘I know’.

That opened my eyes – and the muzzle of a Glock 17 was the last thing they saw.